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In the news

Jimbo Wales interviewed and parodied; Wikipedia in politics

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By Strange Passerby and Tilman Bayer

Jimbo Wales on Wikipedia and WikiLeaks (again)

BBC News weekly technology programme Click interviewed Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales this week on a variety of topics, including Wikipedia's early days, Wikipedia and censorship, and WikiLeaks (earlier coverage). Wales also spoke about the possible future of the project.

In the interview, Wales recalled the strategy Wikipedia could have taken in its early days, in the wake of the dot-com bubble burst, "had we had $10 million in funding". Wales said that there were suggestions at the time that Wikipedia could have "ended up with a system that requires 500 paid moderators monitoring everything", and reflected on how Wikipedia adopted the current system of having administrators and community-based rules.

On being filtered, Wales stated that "we will never compromise on or participate in censorship ... we've faced a lot of problems in China, for example" (Signpost coverage from 2006). However, on the existence of WikiLeaks, Wales repeated his previously reported comments that WikiLeaks could "put innocent lives at risk". Telling the BBC he favoured a concept that there should be "avenues in society for whistleblowing", he warned WikiLeaks that "there is no reason to dump everything on the Internet all the time".

Wales made similar remarks in a separate interview this week on Charlie Rose, summarised here by TechCrunch. Wales said he was "a little" acquainted with WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, having previously corresponded via email, mostly about domain names relating to WikiLeaks that are currently still registered to Wikia (an issue that he clarified at WP:WIKILEAKS last month). However, when asked if he therefore had the power to stop WikiLeaks, Wales pointed out that the word "wiki" was a generic term, and that he "wouldn't necessarily want to stop" Assange.

Earlier in that interview, Wales spoke about the upcoming 10th anniversary of the foundation of Wikipedia, the upcoming opening of a Wikimedia Foundation office in India (earlier coverage), and Wikipedia's relationship with museums (earlier coverage).

Fundraising banners mocked

After the official start of the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraiser on November 15 (see last week's News and notes), the near-ubiquitous presence of photos of Jimmy Wales on Wikimedia sites, accompanying his personal appeal to donors (the ad form which had proven by far the most effective in testing) continued to provoke amused and annoyed reactions, including numerous parodies. The Wikimedia Foundation reacted in good humor, collecting a "list of the best, or rather the most amusing, tidbits" from news and social media in a November 16 blog post (some of them already mentioned in last week's "In the news"). A few days later, William Beutler (User:WWB) also collected some media coverage on his "The Wikipedian" blog.

Other reactions included the release of a helpful browser extension for Google Chrome, enabling the surfer to see a banner with Jimmy Wales on every website instead of only those of the Wikimedia Foundation, a visual comparison of Wales' gaze with that of puppies, and a Faking News report that "the begging mafia in Delhi" was exploiting the success of the fundraiser for their advantage: "After using pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses to extract money from the believers, beggars are now using pictures of Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and swindling money from internet savvy residents". Bill Forman, writing in a blog for the Colorado Springs Independent ("The Seven Faces of Wikipedia"), joked about the different pictures of Jimmy Wales featured across the seven versions of the fundraising banner.

However, a more serious article on Philantrophy.com ("Wikipedia Puts New Fund-Raising Model to the Test") quoted Philippe Beaudette, the head of the fundraising team, as saying that "we tested another banner from a young woman in Jakarta, Indonesia, and her banner did almost as well [as those featuring Jimmy Wales]. She had one memorable line, 'If you have knowledge, you must share it' ". According to the banner history page on Meta, such banners featuring Wikipedian Kartika (example: [1][2]) were tested on some projects on November 15, but otherwise, the Jimmy Wales banners appear to have been used almost exclusively.

Briefly

  • Speed of light hinders participation in India: Adding to media coverage of Jimmy Wales' visit to a Wikipedian meetup in Mumbai last month (see November 1 "In the news"), technology blog OnlyGizmos last week published a summary of his talk at the meetup, combined with an interview. Wales explained a technical problem that he said is "part of what we need to solve in order to increase participation" in India, namely that while reading Wikipedia is fast for Indian Internet users, editing it is slow. According to Wales, the reason is that "when you are reading you are actually pulling a page typically from our [caching] servers in Amsterdam, which is closer. When you are editing you have to change the core databases in Florida, so you have to go all the way to Florida ... the speed of light actually matters, it's a small piece of the overall puzzle, but it is a piece of the puzzle." For solving this issue, Wales said that "one of the simplest things to do, potentially, is to move the Indian languages database, as a separate database, into servers that are closer [to India]". Responding to another interview question, Wales explained how Wikipedia is dealing with racism and bias in its community.
  • Wikipedia censoring truth about Obama?: American conservative commentator Diana West, writing in The Washington Examiner ("Obama's paltry paper trail raises serious questions"), questioned the decision taken on Wikipedia to redirect Terrence L. Lakin (and earlier Terry Lakin) to the article on Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Both articles were redirected after being nominated for deletion (first AFD; second AFD).
    West charged that "unknown, unknowable site authorities" removed the article through a memory hole; which she quoted from the Wikipedia article on the subject as being a "mechanism for the alteration or disappearance of inconvenient or embarrassing documents, photographs, transcripts, or other records ... particularly as part of an attempt to give the impression that something never happened", and said the decision to remove the article reflected Wikipedia's point of view that Obama was born in the United States (and is therefore eligible for president). For the record, the first AFD was closed and the original article redirected by User:Courcelles in September, with the second closed and the subsequent article redirected by User:NawlinWiki on November 12.
  • Michael Moore asks readers to edit PR firm's Wikipedia article: In a Huffington Post article titled "How Corporate America Is Pushing Us All Off a Cliff", US filmmaker Michael Moore discussed the recent revelation that in 2007, the health insurance industry's PR firm APCO Worldwide had internally described possible efforts to counter the impact of his film Sicko as "Pushing Michael Moore off a cliff". In a PS to the article, he asked his readers to add that fact to the Wikipedia article about the company: "I'm asking everyone interested to write something up that meets Wikipedia's guidelines and help bring the APCO Worldwide entry up to date."
  • Gawker defends itself with Wikipedia article: Gawker, which this week published excerpts from Sarah Palin's new book America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag, defended itself against accusations made by Palin and the book's publisher HarperCollins that they had breached copyright by linking to the Wikipedia article on fair use.
  • BLP cited in Philippine House debate: According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer ("Citing Wikipedia, Google, Golez says visiting US doctor an ‘abortionist’"), Roilo Golez, a Philippine Representative from Parañaque, cited his research from Wikipedia and Google regarding Malcolm Potts, a visiting American doctor, to say that Potts "should be deported outright" from the Philippines for being an "abortionist".
  • Advice for parents: Responding to a concerned parent whose "son got a D on a paper because he used only Wikipedia as a source", the Detroit Free Press relayed advice of the founder of the "Internet librarian" site findingDulcinea, who said that "while Wikipedia can be useful for pre-research, Wikipedia itself says it should not be relied upon for a school paper."
  • Student vandalism failed: In a light-hearted article for student newspaper University Observer ("Notes on a Vandal") Irish economics student Cormac Duffy described his attempt "to bring [Wikipedia] down with vandalism", including joining a friend in "a game of my recent invention: Forrest Gump. The rules are simple – insert yourself into as many historical situations as possible before they block your account". However, each of his vandalism edits was reverted, although for some it took "several hours". Nevertheless, Duffy concluded that "it struck me as weird how quickly people respond and repair the damage you’ve done. ... My crusade against Wikipedia has failed."
  • TEDx talk by Sue Gardner: It has been announced that the Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner will give a presentation titled "The People’s Encyclopedia" at a TEDx event in Dubai on December 4th.
  • Trip to "culture of sharing": Irina Gendelman, an Assistant Professor at Saint Martin's University tasked with advising other staff members about teaching tools, wrote a blog post ("Trip to Wikimedia - the culture of sharing") about attending a meeting at the Foundation's offices "to discuss ways that wiki-folks might support professors and students in creating public projects to be shared through the Wikimedia platform", such as those currently being explored in the Public Policy Initiative.
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I'm thinking maybe we should remove the bit on the Irish student prank per WP:DENY. Powers T 18:42, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I might be bold and redact it a little--the specifics of the game described are almost tempting. Then again, who reads Signpost but the loyalists anywho? Ocaasi (talk) 04:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please avoid making significant alterations to Signpost stories that long after publication (see also Wikipedia:Signpost/About), unless there is a pressing need to do so (and as you said yourself, this detail is "not a big deal").
However, you are both very welcome to become involved in the pre-publications process that is coordinated in the Signpost Newsroom, and suggest edits to stories before they become published.
In addition, the remark about WP:DENY somehow misses the point of the Signpost's "In the news" section - one of its main tasks is to inform the community of what parts of Wikipedia have received media attention recently. In other words, it is too late to deny attention to this particular vandal, he has already received plenty (from an audience that he probably cares much more about than about Signpost readers) by writing about it in the University Observer, which can't be undone by excluding the story from the Signpost. And WP:BEANS doesn't quite apply here either - the few potential vandals who are Wikipedia-savvy enough to read the Signpost but still haven't thought of such mischief yet are far outweighed by the many good-willed Wikipedians whom the Signpost coverage might make more alert about unsourced additions of names to articles about historical events.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:17, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't we just change the speed of light? We could probably get consensus for 500,000 km/s initially, as a pilot project. Lampman (talk) 14:19, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo's dangerous incursions into international politics

Am I the only one who is distinctly uncomfortable at Jimmy Wales's sounding his mouth off repeatedly about the release of war documents by WikiLeaks?


At this point, I want to urge caution on the part of both Jimmy and The Signpost. First, when you watch the BBC vid linked to above, he's a good deal more measured than the coverage here implies: "slow down, be careful", seems to be the thrust of his advice to WikiLeaks (which he appears to comment on solely because of the commonality of the word "wiki" in the names of both organisations—a slender reason indeed). Crucially, in this interview he does not repeat what many people regard as his unwise comments that WikiLeaks could "put innocent lives at risk". Memo to The Signpost: much as I admire its coverage generally, that seems like a slip-up.

If our own in-house publication gives the wrong impression by partial and inaccurate quoting, it shows just how dangerous it is for Jimmy to be making any political comments about WikiLeaks; it is just too easy to interpret such contributions to the debate as POV. We should not wander down this path at all; among other reasons, we leave ourselves open to future claims of hypocrisy WRT neutrality and censorship. For example, during the same BBC interview, Jimmy says, "many countries around the world very inappropriately filter political information they don't like ... we've take a very strong stand in that we will never compromise on [or] participate in censorship".

The release of "confidential" documents by WikiLeaks raises complex questions about the role of the anglophones in Iraq, state secrecy and the possibility of cover-ups of wrongdoing by troops, and the balance that needs to be struck among the stakeholders. Let us not forget that as well as > 3,000 deaths among Western troops, more than 25,000 Iraqis have died. The argument previously put by Jimmy that lives could be endangered by the release of WL documents sounded perilously close to what is being pumped out of the Pentagon right now, in advance of the next release of documents. A cynic would ask whether Jimmy is being paid by the Pentagon. We know better than this, but outsiders may be inclined to use his remarks to attack WP.

Let us avoid putting out confusing signals about censorship. Tony (talk) 02:37, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree perhaps it was a poor choice of wording on my part to suggest he "repeated" the same comments. That was not my intention. However as you rightly point out, the impression I took away from the interview was that he was of the same opinion as before, and that was what I had intended to bring across. Strange Passerby (talk • contribs) 02:45, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. And not only was the choice of wording not your intention, it was actually somebody else's choice - see below. Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just because Jimbo has a deeply held belief that goings-on at Wikipedia should be decided by community consensus—and abides by that worldview by taking a very minimalist, hands-off approach to governance on Wikipedia—is no reason that he cannot, should not, or may not express his personal views about other goings-on in the world. Because of the “wiki” that begins the name “WikiLeaks,” it is not surprising that many people would assume there is a connection between WikiLeaks and Wikipedia—and Jimbo by connection. His voice on this matter carries weight in the court of public opinion. Jimbo is understandably anxious to remind the press and the rest of the world that he and Wikipedia are in no way, shape, or form associated with WikiLeaks.

But he didn’t stop at the simple point about how Wikipedia has zero relationship to WikiLeaks, did he? He went on to say that WikiLeaks’ disclosures could “put innocent lives at risk.” Bravo to Jimbo for going the extra mile and reminding the world that what Julian Assange is doing is dangerous stuff that can cost lives. Were it me, I would share my personal opinion that Julian Assange is pure pond scum who simply basks in his 15 minutes in the limelight while putting the lives of dedicated military personnel at risk. In short, I can affirm that I am ‘distinctly comfortable’ with whatever Jimbo opines about Mr. Assange and his efforts to criticize the U.S. military.

Nation-building is tough business. It’s double-tough when one must do so while routing Taliban in order that the country might no longer give safe harbor to the world’s most dangerous terrorists and so the Afghani people can chose to send their girls to school without fear that the Taliban will burn down the girls’ school and shoot their teachers. And the way the Taliban religious police club women in the street for showing too much ankle under that burka is a splendid exhibit of “reinforcing a proper religious etiquette.” Check out the photo to which I linked. I wonder what that child at the far right is thinking. Indeed, nation building is tough business and I don’t think it can work in the long run. But military personnel are there doing their best to carry out their mission as directed by their civilian leadership. Jimbo is spot-on correct, in my opinion, that it is very, very wrong to further endanger lives for the mere pleasure of 15 minutes of fame. Greg L (talk) 03:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talk about missing the point. His utterances have been way out of line. Tony (talk) 06:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The point I took was that Jimbo was out of line for stating his opinion in public. I am merely pointing out that I don’t see that his day job requires that he keep his trap shut about WikiLeaks’ conduct. Of course, I could be biased on that point since I agree with his sentiment. But even if I disagreed with his sentiment, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t shortchange him on one of the core foundations of my worldview: he has a right to think as he does as well as the right to state what he thinks. Disagreeing with him is an altogether different matter though; bring it on if you feel he is incorrect. I’ve long held the view that “The proper response to bad speech is better speech.” Greg L (talk) 06:51, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There is a journalistic problem here, but it is both less serious and has a different culprit than stated above.
The full quote of Jimmy Wales' comments about Wikileaks in the BBC interview is as follows:
So contrary to what Tony implies, Jimmy Wales did actually make a remark similar to his comments in September that AP had summarized as saying that a Wikileaks decision "was irresponsible and could put innocent lives at risk." Tony also seems to have overlooked the Charlie Rose interview reported in the next paragraph, where Jimmy Wales formulated the same concern as "you may get good people killed".
That being said, I agree with Tony that the Signpost article should not have stated that Wales "repeated his previously reported comments that WikiLeaks could 'put innocent lives at risk'", because this implies that he repeated that exact wording in the BBC interview, whereas he chose a different wording there ("some of the information that they could be releasing could be dangerous to good people").
However, this was not Strange Passerby's fault. The problem was introduced in a subsequent edit by Ohconfucius that was labeled as "ce, trimmed" ("ce" = "copyedit"):
Strange Passerby's version:
Ohconfucius' version:
One can see that Strange Passerby's version had made it clear that Wales had chosen a different wording of what Strange Passerby (IMO reasonably) interpreted as the same opinion. By quoting Wales' statement that he was a "fan of the concept" directly, it also did more to convey what Tony calls the "measured" content of Wales' comments. In Ohconfucius' edit, this was weakened to "favoured a concept".
Another problem introduced in Ohconfucius "copyedit" is the "However", which constructs a contradiction between Wales' opinions about Internet filtering on the one hand and about Wikileaks' editorial policy on the other hand. This reflects the opinion put forth by Tony above, but I think it is misguided. There is no contradiction between opposing censorship of the net by third parties such as governments, and advocating that a certain site should not publish certain content. Otherwise any Wikipedian who ever voted "delete" in an AfD could be accused of hypocrisy when speaking out against the Great Chinese Firewall.
The basic problem here, regarding the Signpost, is sloppy copyedits which change the meaning of the text instead of just its style (and are apparently done without checking the source that is being reported on). This has been a serious concern in Signpost articles for many months now, and although I would say it has improved recently, just this week there was another misquote in "News and notes" (wrongly reporting that an interviewee had accused the German Federal Archives of frequent copyright violations), which had been introduced in a copyedit and was unfortunately only corrected after publication.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:18, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't that your fault? You launched in there as soon as I had done the first run-through (it had been rather messy, structurally), despite my protestations that I hadn't finished. I had to twiddle my thumbs looking at the unfinished version. It was almost 3am and I had to got to bed. Are you yourself taking the blame for errors that were not picked up until after publication? Tony (talk) 08:37, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, your errors are not my fault. Every Signpost writer is responsible for his own edits. It's true that I (not you) had pointed out the error earlier on IRC and it unfortunately somehow slipped through the cracks while I was fixing several other issues that had been introduced with your edit, but that only highlights the need to be more careful when making such changes in the busy phase right before publication - not throwing out something and expecting others to do the hard work of fact-checkingg. In any case, I have now started a general discussion about the issue at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost#Misquotes and other errors introduced in copyediting, which you are welcom to join.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:48, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The lessons to be learned is that we should all be more careful when copyediting, and never do so 'blindly' without reference to the source text. We should constantly cross-check each others' work to prevent such changes in nuances and other errors from creeping in. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]


About the other questions raised above: I don't think it is our job as Signpost writers to judge the wisdom of particular comments or views by Jimmy Wales when reporting on them. For example, I am not sure if his explanations of the connectivity issues holding back participation in India are entirely accurate, but at least they seemed to be notable, and an interesting new aspect to the much-discussed question on increasing participation in the "Global South", which is why I chose to report them in the "Briefly" section. Lacking newsworthiness would have been a more pertinent reason not to report about on the "dangerous to good people" comment, as I indicated here.
About "which he appears to comment on solely because of the commonality of the word "wiki" in the names of both organisations—a slender reason indeed" - that's not correct. First, this is an interview, so one would assume it was an answer to the interviewer's question. And if you watch the video in full, the BBC commenter states a solid reason for such a question: that Wikileaks is "often confused with Wikipedia". Or read the earlier Signpost coverage (e.g. this article), which reported that both Wales and Sue Gardner frequently had to deal with people contacting them based on assumption that they were involved with Wikileaks. Or see m:Wikimedia_Forum#Wikileaks_2.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:42, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(1) I made my original criticisms as a WPian, not as a Signpost journalist. (2) If you launch into the edit mode just after I've done a major edit, you need to take responsibility yourself. Tony (talk) 13:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is likely going to be useful to run the final wording of this by me before publication; email will be best.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's too late for that, isn't it. I got the Signpost with that article on my talk page on 23 November, and so presumably did everybody else. --JN466 21:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, unfortunately. Just in general, I would say that Signpost shouldn't post anything that might be controversial in some way, or represent my views on anything that might be controversial, whether in the news generally or just of internal community interest, without asking me to help with the drafting to ensure perfect accuracy. In this way, the Signpost can clarify rather than merely adding to the noise in the world. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:50, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, Jimbo, I can't go along with that view; I don't think the Managing Editor would either (contacting him now for an opinion). The Signpost needs to be independent. Sometimes well-meaning glitches occur, and we learn from them. But the idea of first passing by you reports of what you have said publicly for vetting would not go down well among the readership. Tony (talk) 10:05, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, it wouldn't, though the more cynical among them might enjoy the irony of seeing on one and the same page—this one—reference to Jimbo's disapproval of all censorship ("filtering"), and to his feeling that it would be "useful to run the final wording of this by me before publication." I'm sorry, but "Signpost shouldn't post anything that might be controversial in some way, or represent my views on anything that might be controversial ... without asking me to help with the drafting to ensure perfect accuracy" is a very naive statement. You do not possess a "perfect accuracy" wand, Mr Wales, and, emphatically, rewording by you does not always "clarify". Sometimes it clarifies, sometimes it befogs. Bishonen | talk 20:20, 29 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
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