User talk:Philippe (WMF)/Archive 3

I dunno, Philippe

I'm getting weary of drinking from the Eternal Firehose of Sewage: the spammers, the POV pushers, the infantile "I know what I know and mere facts shouldn't get in my way" pseudo-vandals, the "I've got to tell everybody about my YouTube vids/blog/band/game mod/gossip and Wikipedia isn't letting me play", the "Wikipedia is mean to me when I try to sell my overpriced vitamins" whiners. My paying jobs are all endangered, and the only "thanks" I get is the occasional trouting when I step over the line (and yes, I occasionally do, I confess it). I just read a blog where the whiner said we should have 50 million articles here, and notability was an evil plot to inconvenience him!!!! I've trimmed back my watchlist to a mere 9,946 articles.

Know what I mean? I'm not complaining about you, really, just to you. I'm a historian by training; what I'd really like to do is get a grant to sit in a research library (like the American Geographical Society map collection here in Milwaukee, or the Wisconsin Historical Society's in Madison) and use their resources to expand and create articles on their subject matters. Instead, I watch for the "Reagan was a Nazi spy" graffitists and the Username:BuyMyPenisEnhancer idiots. The gray t-shirt I got that one time is beginning to look like pretty paltry reward. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:07, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I get it. Really, I do. Maybe it's time to put down the tools for a while and write some articles? Something to reinvigorate you? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:13, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm working on some legislators; for me, that's fun - what a wonk! --Orange Mike | Talk 01:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Invitation to take part in a pilot study

I am a Wikipedian, who is studying the phenomenon on Wikipedia. I need your help to conduct my research on about understanding "Motivation of Wikipedia contributors." I would like to invite you to a short survey. Please give me your valuable time, which estimates only 5 minutes. cooldenny (talk) 19:12, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

Choose Your Own Adventure

Hi,

Could you clarify the status of Choose Your Own Adventure? From reading through the talk-page, I can't tell whether it is still under WP:Office protection or if it is permitted to request unprotection.

It is not listed on Wikipedia:Office_actions#Currently_under_scrutiny, but that could be a mistake.

Thanks, Rasmus (talk) 06:29, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Choose Your Own Adventure is no longer under office protection. Standard editing rules apply, but we're asking people to make conscious and deliberate choices. - Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 07:22, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the fast response! Rasmus (talk) 07:27, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Rescue of Bat 21 and callous admins

Thanks for the taking the time to both notice and comment on my contribution of Rescue of Bat 21 Bravo. Sincerely appreciated. Even if I didn't get the T-shirt.

Since you are with the Wikimedia Fdn, and you say you want to help represent the vast majority of WP editors who only rarely contribute, I thought I'd bring something to your attention. This is about why editors don't contribute or quit. As an editor, I am someplace in the middle: a regular contributor (10K+ edits over 4+ years) but not obsessed by it. I have recently been taken with Wyatt Earp, the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and related events and characters. Both of these articles were full of WP:POV and WP:OR and completely lacking WP:RS a couple of months ago. Articles about Wyatt Earp are present on many language versions of WP. I could not believe that the article about such a key figure in American pioneer history was so bad. I've worked diligently to become familiar with the many, complex sides of this historical figure, not a trivial task. I finally thought it was ready for GA, and to my surprise Wyatt Earp was readily approved by one editor, and them almost immediately delisted by an admin, TonyTheTiger. He also quickfailed Gunfight at the O.K. Corral because it was missing citations.

I confess I was discouraged by the delisting and quickfail without the opportunity to immediately fix the article. TonyTheTiger (ranked #51) and other experienced admins get articles into GA with one hand tied behind their back. It's an everyday thing. Even for someone like me it's a bit of a tendentious process I engage in with some trepidation. TonyTheTiger's actions were callous and ungracious, bordering on lacking good faith IMO. I hope I'm not whining.

I don't know what you can do to educate admins but I know WP has suffered from a loss of editors. I personally know two experienced Admins who have retired due to abuse by other admins. I would like to suggest that the standard of don't bite the newcomer ought to include extending a more generous dose of good faith to those who've been around a bit longer. — btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:16, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Manway's Barnstar

Many thanks. It means a lot. All best! --Manway 19:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Re Barnstar

Thanks a lot, though I really haven't done anything worthy. AshLin (talk) 02:33, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

User talk:Jalexander#Anne Aghion

As an OTRS admin and colleague of Jalexander (talk · contribs), would you be able to help me at User talk:Jalexander#Anne Aghion? If File:Anne Aghion- Photo.jpg has an acceptable license, I believe it should be undeleted. Jalexander has been unresponsive to my queries for over a month. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 18:55, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Also, would you apply to MSGJ (talk · contribs)'s question at Talk:Choose Your Own Adventure#Office rotection lifted? Cunard (talk) 18:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

I have responded on Choose Your Own Adventure.

As to Jalexander, I am his supervisor for work done within the role that he exercises for WMF, but not for work done as an individual, and I tend to keep a very strict separation between the two. So, no, I will not get involved, I'm sorry. This is to avoid the appearance of responsibility by the Wikimedia Foundation for work done by him as an administrator and a volunteer. That could be perceived as making him an agent of the Wikimedia Foundation while acting as a volunteer, which would place our legal status in some jeopardy. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:56, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification at Choose Your Own Adventure. I did not know that you were Jalexander's supervisor. I asked you to get involved solely to restore the image if it had the correct licensing. Cunard (talk) 17:39, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

JustGideon

Dear Philippe, thanks for your kindness and encouragement. I'm not well educated nor speak english well. I really like the spirit of wikipedia, but so many articles really harassing human intelligent . If you want to know , my nationality called Humanity , My people are honorable, decent, compassionate , respectable, graceful, in short ,what human should be. Blaming a nation or claiming glory of humanity by some people who invented "nation" is beyond my understanding. Philippe, if you don't mind to guide me i'll really appreciate. Thanks again Philippe now i wil put 4 tilde , i hope it's working  :) JustGideon (talk) 12:33, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

		The Modest Barnstar
		Thanks for your recent contributions! -129.49.72.78 (talk) 19:12, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Texas Instruments signing key controversy

I'm not sure if I have standing, legal or otherwise, to challenge the office action in question since I haven't edited the article in question, but I am appealing it in the interests of openness.

I would like a DMCA counter notice to be sent to Texas Instruments. The EFF helped other recipients of DMCA notices by TI do so, and TI has not followed through in prosecuting anyone who has filed a counter notice.

I therefore consider it of low risk to challenge this notice.

Shentino (talk) 09:41, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation is a "safe harbour" entity, which does not give us the standing to send a DMCA counter-notice. Any such notice would need to be sent by someone with standing. So, I'm sorry, but we can't particularly help with that. Until we receive a counter-notice, we're bound to comply with the notice as received. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so someone needs to send WMF itself a notice, rather than send one itself. Next question is, who would have standing to send WMF such a notice? One of the editors who put the signing keys into the article in the first place? Any editor?

If it has to be an involved editor then there's nothing I can do, but if any editor will qualify I'll be sending a counter notice soon. Shentino (talk) 12:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

You're correct that one would need to be sent to the WMF itself, as the content host. As to whether or not you'd have standing to send one, I'm afraid I can't give you legal advice. The best I can do is point you to this page. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:58, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Philippe (WMF). You have new messages at Sumsum2010's talk page.
Message added 01:48, 17 May 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

User:Philippe (WMF)/top

Phillippe, two links in your User:Philippe (WMF)/top are broken - namely the "About me" and the "My test area" links. Both use Special:MyPage as part of the link location. But that resolves to a page relating to the user who is viewing your page, not to you. So when I click on your "About me", I get taken to my user page, not whichever page you thought I would end up at. So, you need to replace the two links with something a bit more hard-coded ... which I'll do in a second or so, pointing them at User:Philippe and User:Philippe/Sandbox, respectively. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:34, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that's suboptimal. I grabbed that straight from a template for new users, so I'll give that feedback back to the designer too. Thanks.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:36, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

If you're talking to the designer, suggest that s/he drops the Category:Wikimedia Foundation staff line at the bottom of the template. If the template is used on, for instance, a talk page (as it is on Maggie Dennis' talk page), the talk page is listed in Category:Wikimedia Foundation staff; again, suboptimal ;) --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:19, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

That one would be my fault.  :-) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:26, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

... and that Special:MyPage design flaw would be me trying to make a user page when watching television :P. Good thing someone noticed this before the template was activated for all new users! I've fixed the base design here. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 01:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Frederic Alfred d'Erlanger

Hi Philippe, a few hours ago you deleted Frederic Alfred d'Erlanger as A7. Anyway, it has been recreated (presumably by the article creator, but I can't know for sure) and the subject seemed notable enough to me so I added a few references to the article. On your userpage it says that "my work on this username is typically in my capacity as an employee", so I just wanted to check that your deletion wasn't an office action and it was simply you acting as an ordinary admin. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 10:00, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Quite right, I was just logged into the wrong account. Thank you for asking. The article looks a ton better now. - Philippe 16:42, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you, Philippe, for this comment (diff) — I agree with you that it is best to utilize ongoing processes to assess the consensus of the community about this issue at this point in time. Most appreciated. ;) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 08:43, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

office log page

Just curious, did you consider my edit inappropriate?

Having a sudden message on my talk page from a foundation member gave me a bit of a spook.

Shentino (talk) 00:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. I just wish there was a more straightforward way of publicly logging this sorta stuff. It just looked funny. Shentino (talk) 00:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much Philippe for giving me The Original Barnstar

Thank you, very much, Philippe - for giving me The Original Barnstar, echoing what Ched said. I really appreciate that. Very much. Especially after all that has gone on recently and the tone in which some of it has been said. Indeed, Ched's words moved me very much, especially the degree of good faith imparted, and your follow-up to that, especially coming from you, Philippe, means a great deal to me. :) Thanks again, -- Cirt (talk) 02:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

email

I did not know that I need to enable email. I have done so. I am in the process of filing a complaint with the arbitration committee. I hope they will not act like lawyers using a loophole and try to deny it based on it on being in the correct format. I think they have helpers, like clerks, whom I hope can help format it. Parentsp (talk) 23:50, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I can assure you that I have the highest respect for the good faith of the people on the committee. They're good people who give a substantial portion of their free time, voluntarily, to the Wikipedia community and have a very high regard for the community. If there's something going on that's inappropriate (and I'm not in any position to know one way or the other, having not seen any evidence), they are well-positioned to deal with it. I don't know of any circumstance where the Committee has rejected a valid complaint based on formatting. The clerks will help with that, as you suggest. The important thing is to make sure that all the pertinent facts are in there. If you need to submit the statement confidentially, please contact me or any of the committee's clerks and we can show you how to do that.

If my office at the Foundation needs to get involved, we have a close relationship with the Committee and they have never been shy about letting me know if there's something I can do to assist them. You're doing the right thing by connecting with the committee. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:02, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Available Titles?

If I can't be Minister of Special Projects and Second Liege of the Wikipedia Shadow Council, is there perhaps an opening for Viceroy, or maybe Archduke? (looks hopeful) Cheers! Doniago (talk) 19:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

<grin> I better ask the Duke and the Overlord... - Philippe 20:59, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I have time. (smile) Doniago (talk) 13:54, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

2 files

Hey Philippe. I just removed an entry from WP:OFFICE, not realizing that it was you initially who added the entry. I have self-reverted myself for now, but I'm not really seeing why that entry should remain there. NW (Talk) 16:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

copy

I wrote to you as a concerned parent. My child has been harrassed by a user who has done this to others for several years. My child warned me that I would run up against deaf ears.

Sure enough, your administrator show that they lack the ethics to be an admministrator. They wipe out the complaint and ban me. They even remove my messages to a Wikimedia employee. This is the incivility that you wrote about in the Wall Street Journal several months ago.

cc: Philippe. Parentsp3 (talk) 01:02, 14 June 2011 (UTC) http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AArbitration%2FRequests%2FCase&action=historysubmit&diff=432600224&oldid=432464753 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Parentsp3 (talk • contribs) 01:04, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom leaks

Hi Philippe, I was concerned to read your remark here about the leak, where you implied that these were simply private comments, and would have to be dealt with at the next election. I ask that you take this more seriously. The archives in question contain very damaging material, including actionable material. They should never have been retained in the first place. The Foundation should not have allowed new ArbCom members to gain access to them every year. And—given they did unfortunately exist—proper security measures should have been put in place to safeguard them. The situation now is that an unknown number of Wikipedians have been damaged in unknown ways, and that's not simply a matter for a future ArbCom election. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 15:34, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

If that's the implication you got, then I didn't come across clearly. I can't begin to tell you the number of hours I've put in on this issue - we are taking it very seriously. For you to suggest otherwise is disappointing. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 15:47, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Philippe's remarks, to me, have nothing to do with the security situation per se. It seems fairly clear that he just meant that, if indiviudals have concerns about what arbitrators have been saying about them in private, they should deal with them at the ballot box when the election comes around. Right now, the priority has to be security, not applying WP:NPA to mailing lists. Ironholds (talk) 15:51, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Philippe, I understand that you're taking the security concerns seriously. But my point is that there are other issues that have to be taken seriously too, namely that Arbs have been writing about people in such damaging ways, and retaining those archives on a Foundation list. Even ignoring the unauthorized access, the continuing authorized access of new members each year was damaging in itself. So I ask that both issues be taken equally seriously by the Foundation. I began a discussion with Mike Godwin about this some time ago, with the hope of having these archives deleted, or at least having access curtailed with each new intake of members, but unfortunately nothing came of it. I don't want to see another opportunity to fix this be wasted, because it does need to be fixed. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 16:02, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Then let me assure you that the whole situation is being exhaustively looked at by various people from various perspectives. We are looking into more than simply the security, but a host of things, from legal to ethical to practical. - Philippe 16:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for that assurance. I've been worried by the comments of one Arb in particular who has implied the situation is normal and will continue. So I shuddered to see the (I accept now, inadvertent) implication from you that this is just a question of some ill-advised private comments that can be sorted out by an election. That misses the important point that editors who would make very good Arbs don't want to stand because membership would mean getting involved in these kinds of exchanges, and this has become an increasing problem over the years. So it's a problem that has many, many tentacles, to do with trustworthy individuals not being so good together in a group, because no one is monitoring the group interactions; and people elected to be arbiters almost forced to become something else instead.

Solving this is going to require a lot of honesty about how it happened, and a willingness to listen and understand the consequences. I won't say more about it for now. I just wanted to let you have this feedback. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 16:57, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

NPP

Hi Philippe. As you probably know, Snottywong and I have been doing some serious research into NPP over the last 8 months and come up with a lot of important stats. I noticed your comment "We ran an interesting experiment over the weekend where we asked people (non-Wikimedians) to identify whether a message was left by a bot or a human, and you'd be shocked (or, at least, I was) by the number of them that though the templates were human-written." This is an excellent result, can you give me a link to the research please? I'm currently in the process of shortening some of the templates messages we use for wrong tagging, and making them more friendly. Cheers, --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:04, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks...

... for being swift and effective! Asav (talk) 03:27, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Happy to help. Thanks for calling it to my attention. We can't always help out, but were able to in this case! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 03:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Censorship

Stop censoring articles. By supporting the DMCA you're as guilty as the corporate pigs and their lackeys in Washington. --134.10.114.238 (talk) 01:27, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Not my call. As the DMCA is the law of the land, we're obligated to follow it. Until or unless I'm directed otherwise, I'll follow the law. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 03:06, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't care about the "law of the land"; no matter how much legitimacy those pigs in Washington claim, they're nothing more than inhuman monsters. --134.10.113.198 (talk) 15:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Moonriddengirl

Actually, if you had checked her talk page, and that of my mentor, you would've known that I had withdrawn the accusation as being on a vent, and apologized.Jasper Deng (talk) 16:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

hello

Hello, Philippe (WMF). You have new messages at Since 10.28.2010's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

You're absolutely welcome. Hey, a note: the sections on this page don't have “[edit]” links; I thought I was blocked for a second (again). Just a suggestion that you should look into. Also, Section:Censorship: User 134.10.113.198 has been temporarily blocked, if you didn't know already. Again, the sections on this page don't have the [edit] links, just a good-natured suggestion. Thanks again, A user who has been editing Wikipedia since Thursday, October 28, 2010. 22:03, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I removed the section edit links purposely... it was interfering with the display in the header template.  :) Thanks for pointing out the block. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you A user who has been editing Wikipedia since Thursday, October 28, 2010. 22:33, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Questtion

Hi, it is my understanding that you deleted my exchange with Gwen, and later added back my apology.If my understanding is correct, and you were the one who did it, may I please ask you in accordance with what wikipedia policy you deleted the posts made by at least 4 editors? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 19:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The posts in question were deleted based upon the staff's recommendation to avoid exposure to legal issues. We're entitled to do that under the revdel guidelines. "Removal of potentially libelous information, either: a) on the advice of Wikimedia Foundation counsel; or b) when the case is clear, and there is no editorial reason to keep the revision." Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Phill, and what exactly was the "libelous information" you are talking about? All the links I provided are available on wikipedia. For example, user:Wyss redirects to User:Gwen Gale. Of course this voting is also available on wikipedia.It is interesting to follow a few links from there.Or maybe this link (Gwen Gale own words)"Too many active Wikipedians are wankers, fiddlers, fools and trolls which includes several members of arbcomm who are more interested in publishing unsupported gay celebrity gossip than they are in writing an encyclopedia to academic standards" was a libelous information? BTW it is mentioned here. Should this too be deleted because it is a "libelous information"? English is not my first language, but I just went to Defamation and read: "It is usually a requirement that this claim be false" What "false claim" I made, Phil? Thanks.--Mbz1 (talk) 19:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Question for You

In the last couple of days, I've been involved in a potentially flameful (is that a word?) situation at Talk:Harold Covington where an IP editor claiming to be the article's subject has been repeatedly removing what he considers libelous information from the article's talk page (ironically having little involvement in the article except under User:Haroldcovington four days after creation in 2006). I have since posted at WP:BLPN to discuss where to go on this article while the talk page is locked down from this constant attempt to remove the same material, which I am now thinking about archiving as I type this, and requesting indef. semi (at a minimum) on the archive page so Harold can't touch it as an IP (I'll need to clean up the topic headers, he clearly doesn't know what equal signs are used for here).

The reason I'm posting to you here is primarily because of this section requesting to delete his article. Because of this and the recent block of Andrew Stewart Jamieson on July 14 (for which you are listed as the contact), I am curious as to how Andrew Stewart Jamieson came about to be protected via WMF directly so that I have an understanding about the procedure. He is requesting his page be deleted, but an AfD would find him notable and it would be kept if attempted. He even e-mailed to the info-en-q queue generating this ticket (which I obviously cannot see and I hope you can), and User:SlapChopVincent showed up afterwards, making me think he was the one addressing the ticket (though I'm not asking for a confirmation either).

I hope this is not too much to ask about, and if there is information you'd rather not post on your talk page in an answer, you can of course e-mail me via my userpage. While I'm not asking your advice at WP:BLPN, I just think knowing whether this is an option he can pursue would be beneficial, or whether there is another channel he should go through instead. I do have fears he may try to sue WMF over this...but given he didn't five years ago, it's quite possibly bluster. CycloneGU (talk) 00:06, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi CycloneGU,

Looks like you've got an interesting one, no question about it. On the surface, however, it doesn't appear that this would qualify for an OFFICE action. Jamieson was deleted for a number of reasons, but principal among them was that he went through an AfD and was non-notable, the article was deleted, and then recreated. Those circumstances don't exist here.

It looks to me like this is one where standard community processes will need to take their path. I'd remind the subject of the standard of verifiability, not truth, and encourage them to find other sources or get the allegedly incorrect sources to withdraw their claims.

So, in this case, I'm afraid we can't do a great deal to help. Sorry! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 00:56, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Three things to note. First, there's overwhelming evidence that User:SlapChopVincent is not the person dealing with the OTRS ticket. (In fact, that account was very recently created, and appears thus far, only to edit about Covington). Second, I don't think we should necessarily be too quick to assume that an AfD would definitely fail. Third, I think lengthy semi-protection for the article is just as important as lengthy semi-protection for the talk page archive; an attack site got put into External Links by an IP address, and was there for several weeks, so we're obviously not doing a good job of upholding WP:BLP with it unprotected. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Phillippe, thank you for that reply on the course that led to the office action on that article. I agree with you that it's clear that the situation for that one does not exist for this one, so that background helps me a little bit.

Demiurge, as a late-comer to the situation at the article, I completely agree that the attack site should never have made its way in there. For that reason, I can certainly understand Covington's reaction to it, even if what he did violated policy (and that link is now gone). It is an embarrassing situation that such a link was able to sit there for weeks unchecked. It seems that the page was not being watched by anyone who is currently active, and that could very well be why the link never got noticed; the main thing is it's gone now, but damage might already be done. Back to the first point: I have no way to know if SCV was from OTRS or not, I just know he came after the ticket was made (I don't think I saw him before that) and didn't check his userpage. Since I can't see the ticket myself (and don't really need to), I am not too concerned about it and don't need to know who handles it unless that person says so at the talk page or something in that section. Regarding the AfD point, however, I would still propose - if Covington is all right with it - that we try to fix the article first and, if he still wants it deleted, go from there. I think he was placated when we pointed out we're not his enemies and we wouldn't send cops after him or anything; he said that was a welcome change.

Thanks to both of you, I'll head back and see what's transpired recently. CycloneGU (talk) 01:25, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Your Final Warning and Speedy Deletion Notice (Before I even responded)

Your Final Warning is outrageous, considering I never had a first warning from you; there was only ever one incident, so you can't warn against something twice.

Your Speedy Deletion Notice is outrageous too: I never responded once between your edits and deletion requests.

Lastly, all the Bad Faith I have been shown has been completely ignored, as has Due Process. Congratulations. PeterHarlington (talk) 15:50, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation on Administrator and Senior Editor Accountability

I would like to know if WMF is going to do anything about the tight cabal of administrators and middle-senior editors who are way too comfortable with each other and conspire about regular editors with each other. You were fed false information from the WN/I page (and I can prove it with a citation from it) by one of these admins. Nearly ALL of the editors involved all the way to WN/I acted in BAD FAITH.PeterHarlington (talk) 16:41, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Can you provide some context? I'm not sure what you're talking about. Email is fine. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 16:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Ah, I realized what you meant. No, I stand by that warning. There's no excuse for what you did. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:06, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

And there's no excuse for what the admins and editors inbetween have done for which they remain unpunished. PeterHarlington (talk) 17:18, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

If you have proof of admin or editor abuse, submit it to the Arbcom. I dealt with that specific situation, that's all I'm empowered to do. I'm sorry that youfind it unacceptable. If there's something the foundation needs to see, you can send it to me by email - but we don't typically involve ourselves in issues such as that. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Libya

I never had interactions with User:Rancalred before and I am not sure what image I am locking from uploading (unless he talked about putting an image on that article). I only locked the article because there was just back and for edit warring for days and just put a stop to it. It appears he is very involved with the articles on Libya. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 19:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Help with implementing a trial

• Philippe, I've been having some trouble getting developers to implement some changes and I'm wondering if you could help me from the WMF side. Let me give you a brief history of the situation. In April of this year, a proposal was put forth to require users to be autoconfirmed in order to create new articles. The proposal (quite long, see here) ran for two months and received wide support from hundreds of editors. It eventually closed successfully, with a consensus that the change first be implemented on a trial basis. Another smaller proposal then ensued to decide the length of the trial and other minor details (see here). There was strong support and a consensus to allow the trial to run for 6 months, and then to reverse the changes for 30 days while it is discussed whether it should be made permanent.

Having gotten support for the idea and support for the smaller details of the trial implementation, the only thing left to do was to ask the devs to implement the change. Working with User:Kudpung, I made the request this morning at bugzilla:30208. Over the course of the day, several developers (I assume they're developers anyway) expressed their opinion that they generally didn't think it was a good idea, or they thought it should be done differently, etc. Their complaints focused on the political nature of the request, not any technical hurdles that needed to be overcome. I found this to be quite an inappropriate response. We had gone through the process of organizing a proposal and getting the support of at least 300-400 editors, just to be derailed by three developers who hadn't seen the widely advertised proposal while it was active. My feeling is that their opinions should not override the consensus of hundreds of experienced editors.

I was directed to you by some very experienced editors as the best WMF contact to handle this particular problem. I'm continuing to discuss the issue with the developers on the bugzilla page, but I'm getting frustrated and I'm unsure if they will ever agree to implement the trial changes. Is there anything you can do to help ensure that the will of the enwiki community gets implemented? I'll watch this page for any response, or feel free to email me if you prefer. Thanks for your time. —SW— ^speak 22:50, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, first, I'll say that expecting immediate action to a bugzilla ticket is simply not realistic. We have bugzilla tickets that have been open for months - even years - you can't get frustrated because you don't get action in hours. Second, it's important to remember that our developers represent some of the very smartest people around - unlike stewards, who execute exactly what they're told, developers have responsibility for a full ecosystem, and they have an extremely limited number of hours with which to address a monster group of problems. They don't simply take orders - they have to work prioritize and decide what gets handled when, using limited resources.

Another major thing to point out: this isn't just a switch to be made. It's a core change to underlying systems. It requires re-coding. It requires adapting and testing code, and making sure it doesn't break anything else. This change is not as simple as you make it sound.

So be patient - and don't lose your cool - and I'm sure things will resolve themselves. But you simply can't expect developers with limited resources to jump immediately at any single community's beck and call. There are a massive number of problems to be dealt with, and their time is enormously limited. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:31, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi Philippe. Several other editors, including Snottywong and I, have been working on the problem of inappropriate new pages, including the existing controls, for over 10 months, together with necessary gathering of stats and in-depth empirical study. I have to agree with SN that the devs appear to be posing political rather than technical hurdles to a new policy (or at least its trial) that has been agreed by due process. The actual technical change is one of modifying a user right and is not complicated to effect. Most of the more complex agreed changes (three other options for new users to get their articles published without having to wait 4 days/10 edits to become autoconfirmed) are to the Wiki interface templates which I can do myself through my admin access. If the trial delivers the expected results, it will solve a far greater number of perennial problems than simply that of over 1,000 pages per day (80% of all newpages) that have to be deleted through one process or another, and which are patrolled by a loose group of extremely inexperienced, and partly very young and/or non native speakers of English. NPP is already largely recognised as a broken process. I believe there is every urgent reason to implement this trial now without further delay. The consensus was reached by a debate involving around 500 users and a clear majority in favour, and based on examination of of the problem rather than subjective 'support' or 'oppose' !voting. . A further centrally publicised RfC on the actual terms of the trial has also received practically unanimous support. I realise by now that the WMF may not in favour of this new user right change, but they should accept a decision arrived at by the very kind of consensus that they insist is the way to get things done at Wikipedia. By questioning the authority of the 'self governed' Wikipedia community, the devs, IMHO, are rocking the very foundation of a pillar of Wikipedia policy. Your help in this matter would be very much appreciated. Regards, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:25, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it's not simply a matter of changing a user right. The userright change that I believe you suggest is the ability to create a new page. What, then, of a new user's ability to create a user talk page (for instance, to ask for help). There must be segmentation by namespace, which requires a core functionality change, to my understanding. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 11:32, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Philippe, thanks for the quick response. A few additional comments: I agree with you about being patient and I understand that this change will not happen overnight. I don't expect it to. I didn't contact you because I was frustrated that the devs hadn't implemented my request within 24 hours, I contacted you because my request seems to be going down a very inappropriate path and I wanted to open the lines of communication before it gets too far down that path. As Kudpung explains above, Wikipedia editors have clearly expressed via consensus that they want to see this trial happen. For the devs to be discussing the political aspect of the change at this point of the process (and essentially implying that they're not ever going to implement this change) is worrying to me. This is why I contacted you.

Regarding the technical work required to implement the change, I can't be 100% sure but I don't think it requires as much work as you think. The only namespaces that non-autoconfirmed users will be able to create new pages in is the User and User talk namespaces. This is the way that the interface currently behaves for anonymous editors. I just did a test by logging out and successfully creating a new user talk page as an IP. So, the mature, tested code that we need already exists, we just need to apply it to registered users who are not in the autoconfirmed user group.

In closing, my motivation for contacting you was not out of impatience, and I don't expect the trial to be implemented in a matter of a few days. However, I see the request for implementation heading down the wrong path and I would appreciate it if there's anything you can do to steer it back onto the right path. If there is nothing you can realistically do, then I would appreciate if you could simply keep an eye on the bugzilla page and perhaps comment there. We're just looking for someone from the WMF to help ensure that this proposed trial (which has been done by the books, completely in accordance with Wikipedia policies) eventually gets the fair shake it deserves. Thanks. —SW— ^speak 13:51, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Please note that the latest comment on bugzilla (comment 15) no longer implies that the devs aren't going to implement this trial, it comes right out and plainly says it. A user named Brandon Harris is instructing other devs to not implement this change as it is controversial. We urgently need support from WMF in this matter. —SW— ^speak 13:57, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

I had a meeting about this today; further will happen tomorrow, I have no doubt. It's not being ignored on the WMF level, I assure you. I hope that we can come to some resolution shortly. It's a delicate issue... one that is a balancing act. Many at the WMF believe (and frankly, I'm one of them) that this is in direct conflict to the mandate we have from the Board of Trustees to focus energy on editor retention, and that we're in a terrible position of being asked to implement a trial that is in direct conflict to that directive from the Board, which is the legitimately elected voice of the community. So we have a poll that purports to be the will of the community, and a Board that is elected from the community, and the two are directly in conflict with each other. Until that rather constitutional question is resolved, I think the question of implementation is secondary.

From the perspective of staff, we're in a terrible spot. We take our direction from and serve at the pleasure of the Board and the Executive Director. To receive an instruction from the community that is in conflict with that is not something that we relish.

Please, stick with us - and do everything you can to help keep things de-escalated - while we figure out the constitutional issue here. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:48, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

The community already has rules similar to this in that one must be (auto)confirmed to upload files, or be a logged in registered user to even submit a page in the mainspace. There are already (small) hurdles to contributing. I would have hoped that you or someone from the WMF would have cleared up this "constitutional question" while the RFC was in progress or shortly thereafter, not when the community files a bugzilla request. Killiondude (talk) 20:47, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

One would think that would be the case, yes, but understand that without unlimited resources, sometimes things don't happen as quickly as we'd like. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't recall asking you to have unlimited resources or be in more than one place at one moment. Killiondude (talk) 22:17, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

• I know Philippe has said this once but just so that people realize this isn't a "easy flip of a switch" that some people have been talking about. The proposal is to turn off ARTICLE SPACE ONLY page creation. Currently this right does not exist and you can only control "talk page creation" and "every other page creation". While I have my own serious concerns over the trial there is no doubt that it assumes new users will be able to create non article space pages such as User pages and so this can NOT be implemented (from a technical stand point) until a core mediawiki change is made to allow this right. Jalexander--WMF 06:07, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

• See comment 26 on the bugzilla page where one of the devs shows all of the code that would need to be added to implement this change. It is not a technically difficult change whatsoever. —SW— ^talk 21:52, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• Hello Mr. Beaudette. I would like to thank you and Mr. Alexander for looking in to this restriction with a cautious eye. I was one of the thosands of people that watched the discussions unfold at strategy:Talk:March 2011 Update and strategy:Talk:May 2011 Update. I share many of the same concerns as those raised in the discussions there—more specifically the declining userbase and how that impacts the future of Wikipedia. I appreciate the WMF moving cautiously with the implementation of this trial so it causes as little damage as possible to the future userbase of our project here. Thank you for your time and support. Cogitating (talk) 07:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I've started a discussion around the next steps at Wikipedia_talk:Village_pump_(proposals)/Proposal_to_require_autoconfirmed_status_in_order_to_create_articles#bugzilla_30208, including some questions on how the community may be able to help the WMF. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 06:22, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

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Ding!

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Responded :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:24, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 70#Changing the article creation requirements

Hi Philippe. You moved discussion about the article creation requirements to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Allow new editors to create articles (see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 70#Changing the article creation requirements). Should Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#OTRS member group be similarly subpaged "so that it would get more broad discussion than on a narrowly focused project page"? Cunard (talk) 22:47, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't think so. My thinking is this: the article creation requirements potentially impacted a huge number of people. This one truly probably doesn't. But I honestly don't have much of a strong feeling about it either way - certainly not enough to raise a stink if anyone did (or didn't) or to do it myself. Sorry, but I'm a big ol "meh" on this one. I know that's not much help! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 23:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't have strong feelings about subpaging it either so will follow your opinion not to subpage it. Cunard (talk) 23:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Shiloh (novel)

I have sent you an email regarding Shiloh (novel). Cunard (talk) 06:13, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Responded.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:39, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Warren Weinstein

Why have you deleted the article Kidnapping of Warren Weinstein? In case you haven't checked, it was quite a major incident and has recieved extensive coverage in many newspapers and media, including in the United States. Thus, your claim of the event only being "locally" significant is discredited. Please restore the article in its form before it was deleted. If you have any objections to the article or its content, you are welcome to take it to the AfD, which is the procedural method, rather than outright deleting it. Mar4d (talk) 10:04, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• Philippe, just to butt in; please don't restore that article. I'm currently looking through Mar4d's contributions for copyright violations, and it has them; regardless of why you deleted it, it's not coming back, and you shouldn't let it. Ironholds (talk) 09:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm, copyvios? I didn't look closely at the article, but that would certainly be prohibitive when it came to restoring. Mar4d, if there are copyvios, the article certainly won't be back. Assuming good faith, whether it's close paraphrasing or actual copyvio, that's not a good thing. Ironholds, I trust you'll be following up with Mar4d on these issues? Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 09:43, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

I have already done so; to be honest, I'm still going through his contributions checking, but I've identified quite a few problems I'll be working with him to resolve. Ironholds (talk) 09:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Excellent. Mar4d, I encourage you to work with Ironholds on this. Copyright violations are one of the most significant infractions of our rules because of the implications legally. You absolutely must get those resolved. I'd encourage a full and total review of your contribution history. If you'd like some help with that, let me know and I'll see if User:Moonriddengirl has any suggestions for people that could join in cleaning this up. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 09:47, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

• If MRG could drop in, that'd be awesome; she's great at copyright-related work. Ironholds (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

MRG, if you're stalking here, can you help out with this? :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Of course. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:13, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

is there a reason not to write this article? or bio article? it has coverage in jerusalem post, telegraph, continuing npr. Slowking4⇔ †@1₭ 15:07, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

being bold i have started a new bio article Warren Weinstein, based on reports. i trust we can discuss notnews; 1event on talk. Slowking4⇔ †@1₭ 23:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Check Your Twitter

I believe a spammer has found his way into your account. They snuck into mine once too, and after changing my password and cleaning up they stopped. CycloneGU (talk) 17:58, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:RFA2011

Thank you Philippe and welcome on board. It's very important - and encouraging - to know that the WMF is aware of major developments of this nature, and the project looks forward to any support and new ideas that you, and your colleagues, can provide. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:00, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Phillippe, it's great to have a staff member on board. Welcome, and thanks for signing up! Swarm 18:20, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, folks. It's clear to me that the current process is broken and unsustainable. I'm interested in what alternatives gain traction. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:22, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Nominations have now reached an all-time low and a logarithmic chart would show that they will soon tail off completely. The reasons for this are clear. It may now be appropriate to take an earnest look at the possible introduction of some control over voters, such as is done on many other Wikis. A lot of background research has already been done. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:34, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Philippe, again, thank you so much for your offer of support. Most of us in the project agree that the current process is broken and unsustainable. However, due to the routine failure of virtually every major "RfA reform" proposal, we've mainly focused on minor, easy to swallow proposals to improve the current process; we've been doubtful that we can provide a major "fix" (such as an alternative process) without WMF support. So, Philippe, there's a key question here: does this mean the Foundation is (even possibly) willing to implement an alternative (or any modifications whatsoever) to RfA? Swarm 01:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, let's be clear about what the role of the Foundation is in this. We're not going to impose a change from above that's resisted by the community. However, we WILL be interested in helping with research, stats, and building the case for a sensible alternative, most likely. I'd like to think that the Foundation endorsing an alternative could help us get over the hump that we've had in the past. So the answer to your question is, rather unhelpfully, "yes and no". Yes, we are willing to support the community in the implementation of an alternative but only if it's developed and supported by the local community. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 01:22, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick reply! That's exactly what I expected to hear. This newfound support from WMF changes things for the project, and we're still discussing what direction to take now, and how we can best utilize your offer of help, but in any case, I look forward to working with you in the future. Regards, Swarm 01:59, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

RfA chart

I made this today. Do you know anyone who can plot and superpose a logarithmic line across this, extended to show the prognosis? I'd send them the XL data. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, let me check with our research team.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 06:36, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

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WMF veto on geonotices

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Deryck C. 14:16, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

India Education Program

Your comment at Wikipedia talk:India Education Program on 10th says the problems were being taken seriously and there was going to be a meeting about it. IEP edits with big copyvio/quality problems are still being made in article space (albeit at a lower rate than before) (e.g. see [1]). Please can we have an update from WMF on the situation ? - is there a plan to stop inappropriate IEP edits ? is there a plan to (help us) clear things up ? DexDor (talk)

I'm actually not the best person to ask... people who would know better are User:Frank Schulenburg and User:Hmundol. Sorry! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 07:44, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!

	DeltaQuad's Interwikipedian Dedication Award
	Given to members of the community who help uphold and support other editors in harder times by most of all being a good friend. -- DQ (t) (e) 00:29, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

How kind! Thank you. I'm going to copy it to my userpage. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback: IEP

At User talk:Kudpung#CopyVio and other: This is a message to Mihir, but I think it concerns everyone. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:38, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks!

Hi Philippe,

Thanks for the award! I never had an award before so I feel downright encouraged!! Or should that be upright encouraged? Either way, it's a good feeling. Whiteghost.ink 07:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

he article that won't die

Back in July you were involved in a discussion about a problem with the toolserver here concerning an article Aaron Sanders that still shows up as an article in toolserver searches. Can you please follow up again and see if anyone can fix the problem. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 15:53, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

IEP

Hi Philippe. Stalking Voceditenori's talk page, because she and I have worked very closely on this problem, I could not help but notice your kind words. She has shown great dedication to our encyclopedia, not only with this, but gnoming away on quality articles such as opera, and clearing up some monumental sockpuppets cases on them. I rather hope that one day we will see her among our admins, but of course that's up to her. I'm now back to concentrating my efforts on the improvement of NPP, and will also be shortly providing some more screencasts. I am of course still available for any help I can provide in any way on the IEP issues. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:45, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you!

Thank you for you kind comments regarding my editing milestone. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:30, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

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Message

Hello. You have a new message at Anna Frodesiak's talk page. 07:42, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

FYI

blocked, not banned, no notice saying so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.26.131.88 (talk) 22:41, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're trying to tell me. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 22:43, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Damon Dash

Hello Philippe. I just blocked someone, and when I looked in their contributions I noticed this. I know nothing about the back story of that page, but from your edits there I assumed you would want to be aware of this. Cheers. 28bytes (talk) 02:40, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, yes. :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 08:39, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Tim Kash

I've fully protected Tim Kash per your request at WP:RFPP. I'll also be continuing to monitor, as there are clearly both WP:BLP issues, and obvious socking (I'll have to look into an SPI later). However, the IP editor reverting to keep the info is alleging the remover(s) is the subject. I just wanted to check--did you stumble upon this article over the course of normal editing, or is there a WMF/OTRS issue that I should be aware of? Qwyrxian (talk) 06:29, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:UWTEST update

Hi Philippe,

Just giving you a heads-up about the latest update on our template testing. Please peruse when you have a minute. Thanks! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 05:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)