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Wikipedia holidays

Dear Jimbo, you are invited to have a say at: Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_holidays#Requested_move_26_November_2017. Thank you! Chicbyaccident (talk) 23:53, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The Great Wikipedia Dramaout

Haven't had one since 2012, time for another? There have been four so far. Maybe in time for Festivus and the other approaching seasonal holidays? Randy Kryn (talk) 17:09, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid that with the annual fundraiser coming up, several people who visit this page would be unable to complain about the WMF's budget and experience terminal jonesing. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:49, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, maybe sometime in 2018. It sounds like a productive (and restful) event. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:16, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, I was probably too quick to dismiss this. Lots of folks, myself included, would likely benefit from a good break from expressing their opinions. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:50, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

confused face icon Just curious...

WMF fundraising totals and averages by fiscal year, from [1]

Has WMF experienced any decrease in monetary contributions based on en.WP's political slant or is everything still on track? Atsme📞📧 23:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

confused face icon Just curious... are you familiar with the logical fallacy of begging the question? In any case, the WMF's fundraising stats are pretty easy to find; I've pasted them here, to the right. How do those data impact your assumptions? MastCell Talk 01:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, MastCell. The impact the data has on me is #1 - a sigh of great relief considering how aggressively I've promoted WP to educators, and #2 - how I have seriously considered establishing a local chapter. It's good for editors to know these stats because it actually does have an impact on one's credibility when promoting the encyclopedia anyone can edit. I will review the stats you've provided to see how I can best apply them in my future presentations. It is also an indication of great potential for lightening the work-load of unpaid volunteers who devote their time and energy into helping make WP the best it can be. Atsme📞📧 01:33, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Okay. From your initial question, I inferred that you believe that en.WP has an increasingly pronounced political bias (it's obvious from your comments elsewhere that you believe that bias to be in a liberal/progressive direction). You also seemed (to me) to be implying that this perceived bias was likely to harm the WMF's fundraising efforts. Was I correct about those inferences? MastCell Talk 19:24, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Steering away from generalizations, I will qualify my response by saying only under certain circumstances do I see pronounced political bias. If everyone respected our PAGs, more editors would collaborate on political articles, but it's a scary place to edit because of DS and limits on reverts. We have quite a few editors and even admins who refuse to get involved if it's a political article, which speaks volumes. I think most of the issues stem from MSM's bait and click resourcefulness - editors depend on online news sources - and most won't hesitate to include breaking news, even with unsourced allegations and the risk of misinformation that often accompanies breaking news. As a result, maintaining NPOV is a struggle. We simply cannot lose sight of the fact that a significant number of our readers don't agree with or read WaPo, NYTimes, The Atlantic, NPR, etc. which is all the more reason to closely adhere to NPOV. We shouldn't have to lose any reader because of a political slant, perceived or otherwise. Another growing concern is the noticeable dismissal of BLP policy, which again is typically tied to politics but not always. We must not lose our "encyclopedic, dispassionate tone" or the high degree of sensitivity required of us when writing about living persons. Yes, I am somewhat concerned over the way some of our articles are written - but not just political articles - we have a growing backlog at NPP and AfC, and they're not all political articles (thank goodness). I won't deny that I'd love to see our political articles handled with the same care and high standards as our medical articles. Regarding your question about funding, I am a bit concerned that some of the imbalances will eventually harm fundraising as we know it, especially if we can't keep up with the growing backlog of promotional articles and PR firms that use WP to launch/sell/promote/advertise products, events and people. They love to use the "free encyclopedia" that "anyone can edit." Atsme📞📧 01:33, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but "adhering more closely to NPOV" means respecting WP:RS. Like "WaPo, NYTimes, The Atlantic, NPR, etc". Whether "our readers" read them or like'em or not (I have no idea how you know what our readers read or like - you probably mean "some of our editors"). Volunteer Marek  01:38, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
I'd also like to drill down a bit on that particular idea. You emphasized that many of our readers "don't agree with or read WaPo, NYTimes, The Atlantic, NPR, etc." Could you elaborate? Assuming some of our readers "don't agree with or read" a specific reliable source, does that mean we should no longer consider it reliable? That would be an extremely novel (and disturbing) interpretation of site policy and guidelines, so I want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly. There is a fairly obvious effort underway, in the US at least, to discredit and de-legitimize serious, reputable mainstream journalism, but Wikipedia should be pushing back against that effort, not enabling it as you seem to be advocating. MastCell Talk 01:49, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm happy to respond to your questions, MC, so you can put your power tools away. To make sure we're on the same page, I will repeat what I actually said and explain what I meant in an effort to avoid further misinterpretation: "a significant number" does not equate with "many" and "all the more reason to closely adhere to NPOV" does not equate with "should no longer consider it reliable". To quote TenOfAllTrades, "a source can be declared "reliable", and that declaration is a fixed, absolute judgement. Reliability depends both on the source itself and how it is used." WP:CONTEXTMATTERS explains it further. We're discussing the most basic elements of our PAGs, which I happen to be very well-versed in as I've demonstrated repeatedly. I mistakenly assumed all seasoned editors were equally as familiar so I chose brevity over citing individual policies in my comment above. When I said it was "all the more reason to closely adhere to NPOV", I was referring to context, types of sources and in a nutshell, part of the first sentence in WP:RS; i.e, "making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view)." I'm not aware of any effort underway "to discredit and de-legitimize serious, reputable mainstream journalism" unless you're referring to Trump but all that aside, I retired from 30+ years in broadcast which included time in the field for CNN Headline News so I have a pretty good idea about what constitutes "serious, reputable mainstream journalism". In the event you're interested in further reading, I've included a few links for you: Pewadded 14:02, 29 November 2017 (UTC), Pew, Statista, what people seek from WP (you can review the archives for a more in-depth snapshot), and Pew again. Happy reading! Atsme📞📧 09:01, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
MastCell and Atsme Re:"serious, reputable mainstream journalism", should the words "objective" and/or "unbiased" be included for Wikipedia purposes? And if not, if we accept, perhaps as a practical necessity, that many of the sources we use have a "left" or "right" bias which sometimes they even admit to, how can the word "reliable" be in "reliable sources" ? Its ok the way things are except for the pretense, some would say fraud, that the reliable sources are reliable in a strictly matter of fact and unbiased reporting way. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:46, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Voting open for ArbCom

Voting has opened for Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017.

Just in case you need some guidance in voting there are lots of voter guides available, e.g. User:Smallbones/ACE2017 . Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:27, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

And don't forget <User:Carrite/ACE2017>. Really now, is canvassing voters' guides here appropriate? Carrite (talk) 04:01, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
So far they haven't sent talk page notifications to eligible voters this year, but here you get service with a smile :-) Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:31, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
So far only 107 people have voted. Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:35, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Full alphabetical list of guides:

I've gone ahead and just transcluded Template:ACE2017, which contains the list of all the voter guides, among other things, at the top of this thread. Mz7 (talk) 07:36, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Extremely low turnout

Ben Shahn, Register to Vote, Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) poster, 1946

So far only 261 editors have voted in the ArbCom election, compared to over 1,000 last year at this time. Why? The obvious reason seems to be that there has been no announcement given on the talk pages of eligible voters. All is not lost yet, however. The elections in (both years) last for two weeks so we have time to catch up. Last year's total number of voters was 1,950 - so over half of the voters voted in the first 2 days. I'd hate to see this year's vote total come in at about 520 ! I'll check on whether we can get an announcement put on talk pages. In the meantime - please vote. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:05, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I just went there to vote, but for me it did nor work out well. I was not able to sign in on the Wikimedia site..I got this message: "The supplied credentials could not be authenticated."then when I saw where I did not need to be logged in to vote, I looked at the names and have had no experience with any of them and their names did not link to anything, so I gave up. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
ok, I tried again and see that the Candidate statements are linked to via their names below the "voting" button. So now I can do it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:29, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
ok, I voted ....YAY!....it was fun ! Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:37, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
@Smallbones: I'm working with the election commissioners to make this happen as soon as possible. :) Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm sure you'll get this straightened out in time. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:29, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
@Smallbones: How does the number of questions asked of each candidate compare? We've still got 11 days left for questions to be asked? Unless, of course someone decides to start deleting them because we're "mid-way through the voting period"? Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:28, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
The cause is definitely the lack of a mass message so far. For context, in 2014, the year directly before we began to send the mass messages, only 593 votes were determined to be valid. In 2015, the year we started sending the mass message, 2674 votes were determined to be valid. Mz7 (talk) 00:28, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

By all means let's send out a mass notification as quickly as possible. An election that voters don't know about lacks the maximum legitimacy that we need.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:23, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Just curious, why wasn't a notification sent out? Benjamin (talk) 14:51, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
This is a wonderful question. As I recall, during the pre-election discussion it was definitely decided to send out a notification, as has been done for the previous two elections. Carrite (talk) 02:22, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Some planning and technical issues arose with the first attempt to get the message out, multiple volunteers including the election commission are working to get this resolved within the day. — xaosflux Talk 12:33, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Given all this attention to detail, it will be interesting to see if they "spam" me, when I already voted. -- Begoon 12:41, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
  • I hope that whatever mass-mesaage etc. is being planned to be despatched , is in strict accordance with the consensus (i.e. the closure) at this RFC.Cheers!Winged Blades Godric 16:08, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
    • There certainly was an RfC saying that we should do the notification again. The problem, as I understand it, is that we only want to notify the eligible voters (approx. 150 mainspace edits needed) who have edited this year. That turns out to be a big technical challenge. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:21, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
      • In that case, technical challenges etc. shall not mean loosening the criterion.If it can't be done in the proper manner, let it not be done.Winged Blades Godric 16:28, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
        • I expect that they will get this to work per the RfC soon enough, but let's not make the best the enemy of the good. I didn't see any suggestion there that this had to be done in exactly one particular way or not done at all. Pinging the closer @Floquenbeam: - do you agree that we should get this done, as quickly as feasible, as close to the summary in your close as possible? Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:04, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
          • (nitpick: you can't maximize two variables; you can't always get it done "as quickly as possible" AND "as close as possible" to the closing summary. Sometimes you have to choose between doing the best you can right now, or doing it as soon as you can once the requuirements of the closing summary are met, or compromising somehow.) All I did was close the RFC saying there was consensus for such a message. If technical challenges are getting in the way of matching exactly what the community wanted, then I have no role in figuring out what tweaks should be made: that's by definition the responsibility of the electoral commission (who appear to be working as quickly as they can). A textbook example of the kind of decisions they were chosen to make. I'm reasonably sure that there's no benefit to me squawking in their ears to "Hurry up! And also, do it like I said! And also, hurry up!". I generally try to avoid pestering people for zero benefit. They're working on it, they're competent, and they have help if they want it; that's all I need to know. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:09, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps part of the turnout is because, when it comes to arbitration, people this year are perfectly happy to take the less painful option and pound their nuts flat with a ball peen hammer instead? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:54, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Especially all the female editors, no doubt. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:52, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Email from Brewster_Kahle...Personal appeal?

Jimbo, I just got an email subject "Please read..an important personal appeal..." I never heard of Brewster Kahle so I did not open the email, but after seeing his Blp I am wondering if he is trying to do something about the attack on Net Neutrality ? I suppose I will open it tomorrow and see what it says unless you or someone warns me not to open it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Never mind....I had a look, it is a donation request re: Internet Archive library. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:53, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Why

Why does Jimmy invite people to edit his user page, when it wouldn't be appropriate to change his own words? Benjamin (talk) 04:55, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

"it wouldn't be appropriate to change his own words" ... without his permission – So often it's in the details. ... Or were you, Benjamin, suggesting that it wouldn't be appropriate for Jimmy to change his own words? Therefore suggesting it would be inappropriate for others as well? The phrasing of your question leaves it unclear for me. --–A Fellow Editor– 13:59, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
Remember the episode of Rick and Morty with Stephen Colbert? Crowdsourcing! 185.13.106.234 (talk) 20:22, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
No, I mean, why does he want other editors to edit his page, when really, he's the only one who should be? Benjamin (talk) 09:03, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
"when really, he's the only one who should be?" – Says who? You? Obviously—self-evidently—he doesn't.
(... doesn't say so, that is ... FWIW, AFAIK, neither do any WP policies and guidelines; p&g do state that users have a wide latitude over how they run their own assigned userspace though—i.e. it's up to the user's discretion, it's Jimbo's prerogative. As on your 'own' userpage the prerogative regarding whether to allow such is yours.) --–A Fellow Editor– 13:02, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
"These are Jimmy's words. Should not be changed."? Benjamin (talk) 13:05, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
The user is meaning this edit. Going by what Dr.K. has said in the edit summary, it was reverted because you changed Jimmy's words. What he is quoted as saying.--5 albert square (talk) 13:17, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Right, I understand that. What I don't understand is why Jimmy would invite me to edit his words on his page, if they are quotes that should not be edited. Benjamin (talk) 13:20, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
It's because you changed it from reading "founder" to "co-founder". I looked at the actual article Jimmy Wales for this and it says "He is historically cited as a co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the "co-" designation, declaring himself the sole founder". There's also sources backing this up.--5 albert square (talk) 13:34, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
It isn't a content dispute, is it? Benjamin (talk) 13:41, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Benjamin, stop trolling and go do something useful please.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:35, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) – OH! So this thread is all because you, Benjamin, tried but got reverted! Now I see ... Tnx 5 albert square, I was starting to think some weird 'on-the-spectrum' pedantic OCD fixation of some sort was going on ... Turns out instead I just got drawn into some classic passive aggressive rhetorical questioning. Eww, now I feel icky ... ... --–A Fellow Editor– 14:52, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

I thank 5 albert square for the ping. Now that Jimmy himself has replied, I think this matter has been put to rest. In any case, my opinion is, when editing anyone's userpage, or anywhere for that matter, one should not put words in other peoples' mouths. Editing is not an exercise in ventriloquism and noone should manipulate the expression of anyone's ideas anywhere. Dr. K. 15:50, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, it is not my intention to troll. I'm still confused about why Jimmy would invite editors to edit his page. Benjamin (talk) 16:04, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Jimbo trusts that most editors are mature enough to only make constructive edits to his page. His page has been built mostly by editors other than Jimbo himself. When the occasional vandal or troll makes unconstructive changes to his user page, he trusts that they will be quickly reverted. Deli nk (talk) 16:15, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
What would be a constructive edit? His page is composed of things that aren't supposed to be changed. Benjamin (talk) 16:20, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
_ _ ___ ___ _ _

"I like turtles"

--–A Fellow Editor– 17:03, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
Benjamin, a constructive edit is something that benefits the encyclopedia. Altering Jimmys talk page to say he is the co-founder when he denies this is the case is definitely not beneficial.
He allows editors to edit his userpage because Wikipedia is about anyone being able to edit it. The same goes for his talk page, he prefers that it isn't protected. However, he also understands that in order to stop damage to the encyclopedia, sometimes we will need to protect it. If that is the case, he trusts us admins to make decisions. 5 albert square (talk) 19:53, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
You can compare Bitcoin to the rise of Wikipedia: 1,000 articles in February 2001 (one month after founding), 10,000 in September, 40,000 in September 2002, 100,000 in March 2003 (with 500 people editing daily). Unlike Bitcoin, however, there's no danger of its collapse. Jimbo hasn't actually edited his userpage since before the London riots - more than six years ago. 81.158.234.14 (talk) 10:48, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
According to the above explanation, good faith requests to Jimbo should not be reverted, but they sometimes are, and the page is protected into the bargain. To the onlooker this looks like an attempt to gag Jimbo. Why does this happen? 86.159.115.241 (talk) 11:51, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Tampa Mayor's communications director censoring content

It appears that Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn's communications director is censoring content from the article about him. Is that allowed? FloridaArmy (talk) 16:25, 30 November 2017 (UTC) FloridaArmy (talk) 16:25, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

No. And has already been reverted. Not sure why you are coming here with it though. It's not Jimbo's job to monitor each article. Regards SoWhy 16:29, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Where is the appropriate place to go on Wikipedia with censorship issues? FloridaArmy (talk) 16:48, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard is a good place for reporting this type of concern. -- Ed (Edgar181) 17:02, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Cool. Thanks Edgar! I see other people had also discovered the editor's connections to the subject and sent warnings to her. FloridaArmy (talk) 12:32, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Is a communications director a paid editor?

The editor involved has been blocked as a paid editor. It is very common for Wikipedia editors to edit articles about their employers or organisations to which they belong. While there is the potential for a conflict of interest in those cases, that is not considered to be paid editing. In this case, the editor is question is alleged to be the mayor's communications director. Is that different from being an assembly line worker in a factory editing the article on their employer? World's Lamest Critic (talk) 19:03, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I performed the block and yes, I think being the communications director director means you are being paid to communicate about your client/company. It's not the same as if you were a mechanic working at a Chrysler repair shop updating the specs in a car article. --NeilN talk to me 19:24, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
I should add, the block was for violating WP:PAID - that is, undisclosed paid editing. --NeilN talk to me 19:26, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
The "connected contributor" template was added to Talk:Bob Buckhorn in June, after Ashleybauman's first edit. So it wasn't really undeclared, was it? While I'm not disputing that "Ashleybauman" Wikipedia editor is almost certainly Ashley Bauman Director of Marketing & Communications at City of Tampa and Mayor Bob Buckhorn, it feels like someone may be advancing their own political agenda by getting their "opponents" blocked. Don't we usually ask representatives of article subjects to discuss issues on the talk page rather than blocking them as "paid editors"? World's Lamest Critic (talk) 20:00, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
It was added by another editor tying the various accounts together. I don't see where Bauman ever declared it herself. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:05, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Yes. Waters.Justin added that template and this discussion. Both of those seem to be egregious violations of our WP:OUTING policy. Justin.Waters is also the editor who added the material removed by Ashleybauman. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 21:00, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Resolving a conflict of interest and paid editing is an exception to the outing policy, and I'm not sure it's even outing when one username with the name of the mayor's communications director explicitly stated she is doing it on behalf of the mayor and another user has "COT" City of Tampa in her username. I didn't add the material removed by AshleyBauman; I added references to the material she was deleting in hope she would stop deleting the content and I deleted some of the content that was not in the cited article. She and the COT username were section blanking the article before I even made my first edit to that page. Waters.Justin (talk) 03:55, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Waters.Justin@ I don't see where the policy says what you say it does. Can you quote the relevant part here? World's Lamest Critic (talk) 04:19, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
WLC, the policy is very clear that non-outability takes precedence over COI et al.Whilst the issue could have been better handled through COI noticeboards and the like, notice carefully that Justin has used the phrase that appear to be connected with her.There was no definitive linking of user accounts with RL people and whilst there was obviously some extent of attempted outing, common sense takes precedence over all policies.Winged Blades Godric 04:40, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
In this edit Waters.Justin uses an edit summary "Restoring unexplained blanking by a single purpose account, Ashley Bauman. She's the spokesperson for Bob Buckhorn". That is a definitive linking of an account to a real life person. In Talk:Bob_Buckhorn#Conflict_of_interest, they actually outed two people. Considering they used their own names as the usernames, I don't think they were expecting a lot of privacy, but let's agree that this is outing and against policy. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 04:58, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
The last two paragraphs of the policy state "if individuals have identified themselves without redacting or having it oversighted, such information can be used for discussions of conflict of interest (COI) in appropriate forums." "Referring to still-existing, self-disclosed posted information is not considered outing, and so the failure of an editor to have the information redacted in a timely manner may remove it from protection by this policy." If they didn't disclose their name and use the abbreviation "COT" City of Tampa and even say she is editing on behalf of the mayor, then I would have had to privately email the COI information to an administrator, but they did disclose their names and affiliation with the City, so the policy allows me to discuss it in an "appropriate forum." The article's talk page seemed appropriate; but maybe the COI forum would have been better. Waters.Justin (talk) 05:44, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
There was no "self-disclosed posted information". There was no self-identification. "Self-disclosed" means they deliberately and explicitly told you who they were. It doesn't mean what you can puzzle out from usernames. What you did is exactly what the policy prohibits. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 16:16, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
There was self-disclosed posted information. Zara Rahim, the mayor's previous communications director, used her real name and wrote "hey there i'm trying to make edits to Bob Buckhorn's wiki page wondering why you are deleting the factual edits i'm making? i'm doing this on behalf of him.thanks."[2] Ashley used the name of the mayor's current communications director and included "COT" for City of Tampa in her username. There is no puzzle here. Most editors would be immediately aware that those two editors are disclosing their connection to the City and the mayor. Waters.Justin (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I was only referring to the Ashleybauman account. In the case of the Zararahim account, the self-disclosed information is that they are doing it on behalf of the article subject. That doesn't mean that you are therefore allowed to tie that account to the real life person. The account has admitted a conflict of interest, which is all we need to know. Another editor explained what was wrong with their edit and that was the end of the matter. That is what I think should have happened in this case, instead of first outing and then blocking the user. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 17:08, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Bauman was very explicitly informed about the policy over two months ago. [3] And you're still missing the undisclosed part. Undisclosed paid editing is against the WMF TOU. --NeilN talk to me 20:17, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
I'm sure you've seen editors or IPs showing up at biographies and edit-warring to remove some piece of information. Eventually they communicate something like "I am Mr X's assistant/employee/office intern/etc and Mr X doesn't want that in his article". Someone usually manages to direct them to the talk page or the BLP noticeboard and the issue is discussed and sorted out. We don't block them as paid editors. I don't think they would generally be considered paid editors. I've never seen a case where they were asked to put up a paid editor declaration. Is it because this person has that particular job title that they are being treated differently? How is blocking them addressing their issue? World's Lamest Critic (talk) 20:35, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
"I am Mr X's assistant/employee/office intern/etc and Mr X doesn't want that in his article" - which can be considered enough of a declaration to satisfy most people. If you don't think we don't block for UPE, you haven't looked hard enough. If you disagree with the WMF TOU, take it up with the WMF. If that clause exists in the TOU, admins are going to enforce it. --NeilN talk to me 21:10, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
I know that editors are blocked all the time as undeclared paid editors. I'm just not sure that is meant to include people making good faith attempts to change something they don't like on their employer's biography. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 21:19, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
It is. People making bad faith edits are simply blocked for vandalism or disruption. The routes to unblocking are quite different. Bauman can simply declare and get unblocked (with a rap on the knuckles for her editing). Vandals usually stay blocked. --NeilN talk to me 21:30, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Donations

Browsing the web while not logged into Wikipedia I came across donation requests by you for Wikipedia. I will not consider a donation, and will be advising against it to contacts, due to the toxic editing environment I have encountered here. Regards. SaintAviator 19:15, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

This is what happens when you set up an organization without a leadership hierarchy. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:55, 29 November 2017 (UTC)
You've made 86 edits to mainspace since September 2016 and exactly 1 edit to mainspace since April. I wonder how you know exactly that the editing environment is so "toxic." Pro Tip: Maybe Vladimir Putin is not a subject on which one should spend significant time if one wants to actually improve the encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 02:18, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Editors' experiences can be unpleasant. On the other hand, have you found Wikipedia useful as a source of information? --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:24, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
Couldn't agree more. Buttons0603 (talk) 22:59, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
What an unregistered user sees when looking for info about Sean Hannity.
What do you think the overall reaction might be when readers who are fans of Hannity see the fundraising banner over a NPOV tag on his article? Do you think it has an effect? Stats show the page's monthly pageview average is 88,838 (Nov 2016 - Oct 2017), or 1,066,056 total pageviews for the year. It could be that WP isn't experiencing any negative feedback over it, or possibly not enough to matter, but my experiences in marketing/advertising/PR says neutrality is a priority, unless your targeting a specific demographic. Atsme📞📧 12:41, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
So what you're saying is that we should decide whether our articles are neutral or not based on... whether that would appeal to "fans of Hannity"? Seriously? You've read WP:NOTHERE, right?  Volunteer Marek  03:32, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
The NPOV tag doesn't indicate whether the dispute is about the article being more in favor or more against Hannity. Does that have an effect on your thoughts? --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:25, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
BTW, I just read the lead and it may look anti-Hannity to a fan or others. If the fan noticed the NPOV tag, that might give the fan some comfort. FWIW, I also looked at the Rachel Maddow article for comparison. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:42, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
And what was your conclusion, Bob? I just attempted to remove the conspiracy theory crap which is noncompliant with NPOV - it's biased, and when you consider Maddow is in competition with Hannity it should be removed, or the conspiracy claims about Maddow added to her BLP for Balance using the same arguments that are used in Hannity. I tried that a while back - and it was reverted. I was also reverted at the Hannity article twice within a few minutes today. It's all about tag-teaming and gaming - there's clearly a POV push, and it has nothing to do with AGF - it's soapboxing. If that doesn't reek of partisanship in defiance of our core content policies, I don't know what does. Atsme📞📧 20:16, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
I think you have reasonable complaints and nothing much can be done about it. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:06, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
I agree...and the beat goes on. Atsme📞📧 02:04, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Atsme. We have thousands upon thousands of articles that have NPOV tags. Clearly we should temporarily disable Template:NPOV during donation drives, lest we offend anyone who is an aficionado of any one or more of those topics. That's a lot of donations we could be losing. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:17, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, I happen to know how to relieve famine in Ireland. Volunteer Marek  03:34, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
😂 Just slap some lipstick on that pig and be done with it. Atsme📞📧 03:43, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
No idea what you're talking about. Volunteer Marek  04:07, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
I noticed...it may explain your misinterpretations about some of our PAGs, but quite frankly - I believe you understand them quite well and just spin the meaning to fit whatever dispute you're involved in at the time. Atsme📞📧 01:42, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

I still would like the appeal to be "Wikipedia needs your support. Please take it upon yourself to add content supported by a reliable reference to an article in an area of your expertise this holiday season." Wikipedia is the one place on the internet where money is not speech, and I feel that the marginal impact of asking for editors is larger than the marginal impact of asking for cash donations. power~enwiki (π, ν) 04:09, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Begging campaign

Just saw this years begging message. Pretty shameful that these annoyances still imply the moneies go to Wikipedia when instead they go to the bloated and unaccountable WMF. How much the endowment worth at the moment? Shameful indeed. 73.200.32.53 (talk) 02:52, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

well, you're here, aren't you? -- Aunva6talk - contribs 07:06, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

2011 sockpuppet investigation in the news, now that the sockpuppeteers control Time, Inc.

Read it where you can. The Intercept says the folks running User:MBMadmirer (see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/MBMadmirer/Archive) will be taking over Time, Inc. Though perhaps it is just because the massive subscriber database will help i360 turn out more votes... they pledge a hands-off approach, mostly... Wnt (talk) 19:22, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah...I was wondering how long it would be before Time, Inc. publications ended up on the unreliable source list. ^_^ Atsme📞📧 19:25, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes and no. On one hand, it helps establish that major PR forces have already gone up against Wikipedia. But on the other hand ... at least that time, it seems like we didn't lose. If we can stand up to the Koch brothers we can stand up to anybody, if we try. 50.29.152.30 (talk) 00:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
Do you really believe that it isn't/hasn't been happening on both sides for quite some time, or that there aren't congressional staffers, PR firms, and businesses that have been milking WP for everything they can, or that some COI editors haven't formed advocacies and sock farms to run-off GF editors who are just trying to maintain quality and NPOV in our articles? POV warriors are relentless...and they've been adding every piece of dirt they can dig-up to make coatracks/attack pages of their opposition's/competitor's articles while protecting their articles about the causes/people they advocate to make sure they stay sparkling clean like a freshly washed window. Atsme📞📧 01:56, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
The most blatant and humiliating case would be the video game ads. I get so accustomed to seeing an ad in the Featured Article section I've come to start mentally graying it out as an advertising block; half the time I don't look at that section any more even when by some inadvertency an interesting item slips through. Wnt (talk) 17:21, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Deletions

Your deletion discussions and process seem to be very flawed here. A few of the problems I've encountered include:

  • Not being notified an article I created was being prodded for deletion
  • An article is nominated for deletion doesn't show up when viewing it on a mobile device. Are people trying to discourage people reading articles from participating in the deletion discussion?
  • Navigating deletion discussions from a mobile device is VERY difficult. I've had to toggle to desktop mode. But still struggle to make posts and proceed via links to proper venue.
  • The sourcing links provided at the the top of the deletion discussions are deeply flawed. For example, the links provided in the Jeff Peek discussion return minimal results. But if you Google Jeff Peek or Jeff Peek CIT you get lots and lots and lots of coverage in reliable independent sources.

Is it normal to keep deletion discussions hidden? Not to alert editors that articles they created and are working on are being deleted? To provide sourcing links that don't work?

Just glancing through some of your deletion discussions I am amazed at what's on the block. A pioneer nudist activist who was arrested and later institutionalized for daring to bicycle nude in Oregon. When she couldn't be convicted of any crimes she was instotutionalized. Her forced incarceration was eventually overturned in state court and became a landmark case. Renowned authors, artists, designers also face deletion. And the system seems to be set up to favor getting rid of this valuable content. Pretty sad really. Wikipedia can do better. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:40, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Also, would someone be so kind to add this link to sources for the Line the Label deletion discussion. I've tried repeatedly but the little pencil edit button isn't working for me. I tried opening and closing my browser, toggling between desktop and regular mode. Didn't see a "view as a wiki page link", sometimes that helps with functionality. I don't know. But the broader editing and deletion environment don't seem healthy. It's very hard to find or access article talk pages from a mobile device as well. Troubling. I suppose if you're a regular on a laptop things are easier to manage. FloridaArmy (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

@FloridaArmy: I don't often get angry, but in my view you have been treated like complete crap and I'm amazed you haven't left and gone off to one of several Wikipedia criticism sites on the net where you would have a very sympathetic ear. I haven't checked the other articles, but Nyakim Gatwech and Line the Label both bring back multiple news stories from all over the world in Google News, so they seem to me to be worth at least investigating and expanding first. I am particularly concerned that the articles are about a black model and a fashion clothing brand, which are topics the stereotypical Wikipedian may not know much about and accidentally nominate for deletion. If you get any problems with any of your articles being deleted, drop me a line and I'll restore them to userspace or draftspace so you can at least retrieve the text. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:51, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

This author is up for deletion. Seriously?

And when I provided a link to articles on Jeff Peek in that deletion discussion, I can't seem to edit that discussion now, the nom said oh those aren't substantative. They cover his being passed over for the CEO spot at Merrill Lynch. His taking over CIT Group. His expansion of CIT. His problems at CIT when the financial crisis hit. His hiring at Bank of America. I mean, which of those articles on him isn't substantive? I really don't get it. Maybe a culture change is needed here? Leadership? FloridaArmy (talk) 17:54, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

There is something strange going on. First, @FloridaArmy: - it doesn't help that you start articles in very bad condition. You left stubs, in the case of Jeff Peek for a day, which do not demonstrate the notability of your subjects. Ideally, you should get together about 3 WP:GNG-grade inline citations, or at the very least two, before dropping your first stub sentence. Otherwise it's like walking through gamelands in a brown coat during deer season -- you certainly shouldn't get shot... However, I am also disturbed to see the knee-jerk pace at which articles are hit with three different kinds of deletion processes -- Erin Morrow Hawley in 30 minutes, Nyakim Gatwech in 5 minutes, Line the Label in an hour after they were first created. If one guy in a brown coat gets shot in hunting season, that's a tragedy, but if every guy in a brown coat gets shot, that suggests something is seriously out of whack. I remember how the "new pages patrollers" have been ranting on about how they need so much more help so that they can go through this tremendously over-elaborate process they set up, and even heard people complaining that too many people make new articles and how can the patrollers sort through them all? Well, guess what -- if they're the ones behind this, I'm thinking not merely didn't I mind the backlog, I rather miss it. Wnt (talk) 22:18, 1 December 2017 (UTC)
As the person who nominated Erin Morrow Hawley: this wasn't a "knee jerk" nomination. In fact, I actually didn't realize (my mistake, I know) that the article was that new when I nominated it. I did find it via NPP but I tend to use the NPP browser to search for unreviewed articles that contain the word "professor" (since I have a longstanding interest in academic biographies). There are about 170 articles currently in that category, most are weeks or months old and basically untouched since creation (the two articles I reviewed & cleaned up just prior to happening upon Hawley's, for example, were created on Oct 30 and Nov 2). The browser doesn't sort by date, so the odds of me coming across an article that new are actually pretty dang slim, but I'll certainly make a point of checking the timeline more carefully going forward.
None of that, however, has any bearing on Hawley's notability, which I'm still firmly not convinced of - she does not have enough coverage in independent RS to meet the GNG and it's still my opinion she fails PROF, even taking into account the stuff that people have added to the article since I nominated it. She's not notable imo, and no amount of time for the article creator to polish it up would have prevented my sending it to AFD in this particular case. Fyddlestix (talk) 01:18, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
Hmmm. It is possible I was making a knee-jerk reaction myself ... I suppose when one accuses someone of something around here it's always best to check the mirror. I'm glad you're going to look to make sure you give people some time to make their edits. The list of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States contains a lot more red ink than I would have imagined. My preference remains for rampant growth in this and all areas, but I'll admit the vote there by User:Megalibrarygirl (after she was called in as an expert by another editor) shows that at least you were not out of line to make the nomination. Wnt (talk) 20:46, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
FloridaArmy, I have a few suggestions for you. I, too, edit predominantly on mobile devices, specifically on an Android smartphone. I am an administrator and do some pretty complex editing on my phone. I suggest that you always use the desktop site and completely avoid the use of the less functional mobile sites and apps. Think of "desktop" site as a synonym for the fully functional site that works well on a wide variety of devices, and all the other apps and sites as things that most serious editors avoid. I also agree with Wnt that you should not add a new article to main space unless it is developed enough and referenced well enough that it shows, convincingly, that the topic is notable. I write new articles in my sandbox and move them to the encyclopedia only when I am very confident that they will not be deleted. Also, use the highest quality sources. Nyakim Gatwech, for example, uses a reference to Scubby.com, some sort of bloglike site that is used only in this article. Bad references attract extra scrutiny to articles. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:14, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Instead of a sandbox it is often nice to use draft space (like Draft:Nyakim Gatwech), and then move the draft to the main space when ready. An advantage of this is that comments you make in edit summaries and the order you put things in is preserved if you sometimes find that helpful to remind yourself what you haven't gotten to yet, etc. A disadvantage is that if you forget about the old stub long enough you could find some overeager person nominating the draft for deletion, which in my opinion shouldn't happen but indeed does with some moderate level of probability. Wnt (talk) 12:40, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
As far as I know, Wnt, the edit history of a draft written in a personal sandbox and then moved to mainspace is preserved the same as the edit history of an article originally written in draft space. What are the differences? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 20:53, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
the material is still visible if one uses a named sandbox UserXX/Topic, and moves it properly. The material is almost completely hidden if one uses copypaste from a general sandbox, User:XXX/sandbox and overwrites it with successive articles, as many coi editors have done. DGG ( talk ) 02:32, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

ArbCom 2017 election voter message

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Voting in the 2017 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23.59 on Sunday, 10 December. All users who registered an account before Saturday, 28 October 2017, made at least 150 mainspace edits before Wednesday, 1 November 2017 and are not currently blocked are eligible to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2017 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:42, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the messaging this week, this has been sent out to 50,000+ editors. Thank you to all the volunteers who helped to get this going. — xaosflux Talk 20:53, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
It looks like it is working very well. Checking the voter logs 1,271 editors have voted total, about 425 of them (33%), so far today. Thanks for fixing this! Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:20, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

We are apolitical. Ish.

Jimmy. Forgive me, but this needs a public forum. As it happens I follow both Wikipedia and Sadiq Khan on Twitter. The Wikipedia account (recently more active) should, one would think, be used for engaging users (both editors and readers) and maybe donors. It absolutely should not be "liking" political comments as it clearly has done. This shows a bias that's utterly unacceptable. And before anyone moans about my bias, the fact I follow Mr Khan should show where my bias might lie. This needs fixing. Pedro :  Chat  01:18, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

File:Screen shot from Twitter of Wikipedia Account activity.jpg
insert a caption here
@Pedro: Hello! Thanks for alerting us to this. The like was a mistake; it was actually already undone by the time I went to address it, and it goes against quite a bit in our social media best practices. I'll bring this up with the digital media team in our Monday meeting. Best, Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 03:39, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
Good to know you guys are on it. Thanks for responding. Pedro :  Chat  09:39, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
I'll admit that I don't know anything about Twitter; for example, I have no idea if there is any practical way to take something like this and figure out who Wikipedia thinks deserves five dollars for what; it's a response to @dave-something but that just gets me one of their endless feeds of little bits. I admit that the base feed has a bunch of informative tidbits, but inevitably facts from Wikipedia draw controversy. For example, one of the most recent (how would I really read the others??) is [4] which says K2 had no local name; the article says it has one but it's disputed whether the locals were capable of knowing they lived next to a big mountain (Chogori) before being instructed by British explorers. Which strikes me as a bit imperialistic, but what do I know? The post is also laid out with the ethos one expects from local media, with a blue link to wiki.riteme.site/wiki/K2#Name that dutifully takes you to [HTTPS; the edit wouldn't save because the site is on the blacklist] //t.co/Rij1zxzLNH if you click on it so the company can log your interests.
Does Wikipedia really need this stuff? Does it matter if a site with this much readership has 300,000 followers? Does it help that Wikipedia is following 700 random people like Joseph Gordon-Levitt (also multiple dave-somethings), and how does Wikipedia decide which actors to recommend? I think you could take a lesson from Trump and understand that even if you had 1+-2 billion dollars on hand, Twitter would have less than zero net utility for any particular purpose. I still think, as I did the day it came out, that it's a bad commercial alternative to IRC, and I never liked IRC. Wnt (talk) 13:02, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Wnt, Twitter is mostly useless, but has a profound use, like moonshine, which is its a way to circumvent the Establishment's MSM censored, biased, self perpetuating, self serving, brainwashing and infantile BULLSHIT ! Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:32, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Wnt, most experts have said that K2 is located in such an extremely remote area that it is not visible from any villages or established trekking trails. It is concealed by closer yet lower mountains. There were no indigenous names for the mountain before British expeditions. If that has been challenged in recent years, I would like to learn more. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 22:48, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
Twitter is empowering because it allows people to spread their own biased, self-serving, infantile bullshit. Gamaliel (talk) 18:50, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
:) Agreed. This way the public gets exposed to both MSM messaging as well as well known individuals' messaging and we get to use our own individual brains, experiences and emotions to figure out what our own individual opinions are, hence avoid, evolve from, the horrific...literally....(think vaguely justified wars) paths and effects of Groupthink. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:36, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Community tech wishlist

There are 210 proposals before us for technical fixes and features and five days left to peruse them and vote for your favourites. By my manual reckoning the current front-runners are

  1. Improve the Kartographer tool.
  2. Allow pinging people from an edit summary.
  3. Enable thanking people for log entries.
  4. Improve the Programs & events dashboard.
  5. Improve blame tool - easily find who added a piece of text to a page.
  6. Support 360° photo viewing.
  7. Enable easy translation of annotation in an SVG image.
  8. Make the article alerts feature available to Wikipedias other than English (which already has it).
  9. Make "Visual Editor" and "WikiText Editor 2017" auto-save your work as you go in case of a browser/system crash or an accidentally closed tab.
  10. Enable admins to block editors from editing nominated pages, and allow blocked editors to edit nominated pages.
  11. Automatically notify the article talk page or relevant wikiproject when an image used in an article is nominated for deletion at Commons.
  12. Make AbuseFilter easy to use by non-techie admins.
  13. Enable auto-unwatching of your watchlist items after a period set by you.
  14. Allow one account to have more than one watchlist.
  15. Make two factor authentication (a safer, more secure kind of log-in) easier to use.
  16. Enable the use of a second (throw away) email address for wikimail, to keep the email address you use for password changes secret.
  17. Enable users of Visual Editor to manually name citations (<ref name="xxxxx">) while adding the citation.

And there are plenty more great ideas to browse through. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:24, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

A lot of great stuff there. I don't know about others, but I think the Community Wishlist Survey is one of the best things ever.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Yep. They take on the ten most popular feasible proposals, and work on them for a year. It would be twice as good if they had the resources to take on the top twenty. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:05, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Has Wikimedia kept all bitcoin donations as bitcoins?

Or have most of them been exchanged for ordinary currency well before the recent rise in the value of bitcoin? Count Iblis (talk) 19:11, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

You are clearly unfamiliar with the cabal's Dogecoin directive of February, 2014. 83.137.1.212 (talk) 23:01, 4 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't know all the specific details, but my understanding is that the policy is to transfer bitcoin donations into USD pretty quickly after receipt. Given the enormous rise in the value, this might seem in retrospect to be a bad idea, but with bitcoin being highly volatile, I think it could go the other way just as easily, and so I support the idea that the WMF, with no expertise in such matters, should not be engaged in currency speculation but should instead hold currencies that are relevant and match with expenses.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:59, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
From an economic point-of-view, it's somewhat unlikely that Bitcoin will face a long-term decline in value outside of some major structural issue (e.g. blockchain being compromised somehow, anonymity of transactions being compromised, a major country cracking down on its use). Bitcoin has an essentially fixed money supply, so as long as demand is rising in the long-term, its value will rise. The volatility will be high as well, but as long as the WMF isn't in immediate need of funds, holding Bitcoins a bit longer would be valuable. ~ Rob13Talk 13:33, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

I spent a measurable portion of my career doing investment management for corporations. At the risk of oversimplifying a complicated subject, a reasonable starting point is a matching concept — allocating assets to currencies, roughly comparable to the allocation of liabilities by currency, as well as something called duration matching (relates to maturity of assets and liabilities). Some companies will stop at that point and attempt to do matching as much as possible. Others, especially if they hire us, with do duration management as opposed to matching, and consciously have a mismatch between asset and liability durations if market conditions suggest that the risk is worth the reward.

My clients were all insurance companies, who tend to have some knowledge of investment strategy and the trade-off between risk and reward, but one of the early aspects of any assignment is to assess their willingness to take on risk. While it might seem obvious that a risk-taking enterprise should be willing to take on risk, companies whose expertise is understanding the risks associated with hurricanes, auto accidents, health risks and human life spans are not necessarily expert on the risks of various investments, so some insurance companies took a fair amount of risk in terms of their products, but relatively less risk when it came to their investments (and vice versa).

While I have not interviewed the board, my presumption is that they are expected to be knowledgeable about the Wikimedia projects and project management in general, but are not necessarily experts on financial instruments. Therefore, I would expect that their willingness to take risk might be meaningful when it comes to projects but very limited when it comes to the investment side of business.

I would expect that the investment portfolio would be close to matched in terms of duration and currency. Given that I'm not aware of any planned purchases which can only be made in bitcoin, I would expect that any income in that currency would be converted.

I haven't followed crypto currencies as closely as some others, and I suppose it is possible that there are good reasons to think they can go up and not come down. However, having studied bubbles, one thing that commonly occurs, often near the peak, is a published article explaining why the values can only go up and not come down. Soon therefater, followed by a surprise. Maybe this one is different but I'm not willing to bet that way.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:50, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: I'm definitely not suggesting they can only go up. I'm merely saying there's substantial reason to think they'll go up long-term due to an unusual characteristic of the currency. Bitcoin is basically on the gold standard; the money supply is fixed rather than controlled by a centralized bank. As such, so long as demand for Bitcoin keeps going up as it becomes more prevalent/accepted, its value will go up. The structural risks I mentioned before are very real and could cause Bitcoin to crash, but that's unrelated to the volatility Jimmy mentioned. Volatility alone should not dissuade a long-term investor from investing in Bitcoin because the same structural feature causing the volatility (lack of a central bank) also causes a tendency to increase in value. (It also makes Bitcoin a terrible currency; deflation is not a desired feature in a currency.) ~ Rob13Talk 15:20, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
It seems to me that keeping some small percentage of the funds (say 0.1%) in the form of bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies is better than converting everything to ordinary money. At worst you can only lose the total sum invested in cryptocurrencies so the losses have an upper limit. But there is practically no upper limit to the gain in value. Count Iblis (talk) 15:42, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
In May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz bought two Domino's pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins, then valued at US $41. Today, they would be worth US $120 million. I dare say he is disappointed that he didn't keep them.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:32, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Maybe. I understand why it might seem obvious that he wishes he had kept them.
But:
He is now famous. Probably better known than many people who have 120 million. I won't pretend that this fame is something he feels is worth 120 million, but it is worth way more than $41.
Suppose he didn't use them to buy the pizza. Presumption is that in an alternative history world everything else would've unfolded exactly the same except he would now own bit coins worth 120 million. But what if that transaction triggered some publicity which fed on itself and turned into the phenomenon we know today? What if he but the pieces and in that alternative universe, the concept fizzles? Unlikely? Perhaps, but not a zero probability.
Suppose he didn't use them and the growth in value largely followed the original path. At some point in time note that something that he thought was worth $41 was now worth $1000. If he turned it in then, he would've had a nice return on investment but not become famous. Suppose he continues to hold on to them. At some time the value reaches $1 million. Surely he would be tempted to cash in. Insert the identical scenario for dozens of points along the line, and it is very possible he would've earned a fair return on his original investment, not been famous and not have close to 120 million.
I suppose he did hold on to them and now held coins worth $120 million. If he sells today, he has 120 million in different assets. But it might decide as he had decided 100 times earlier to hold on. What if in the next few months someone creates a real quantum computer, cracks the code and the coins become worthless. Or someone comes out with an alternative currency (yes I know there are many), but not just a clone currency one that is fundamentally better, and bit coin value craters. Every investment bubble to date has popped. Will this would be different? Maybe, but the odds are against it.
In short, it's easy to say he would be worth 120 million today if he had not purchase the pizzas but we can't know for sure.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:16, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I would challenge the assumption of User:BU Rob13 with all due respect that BTC has a very likely upward trajectory in price in the long run. Tulip mania will provide some relevant historical reading. I don't pretend to know what will happen in the next 6 months, but the chances that BTC being worth only a pittance for a remaining few hobbyists in 25 years is very real. I highly recommend Wikipedian David Gerard's book Attack of the 50 foot Blockchain.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:23, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
There is no way to short or hedge against it which ultimately dooms it. The current upward tick corresponds to the recent executive order that targeted banks with transaction from North Korea, including the announcement from China's central bank. Bitcoin was conceived hide illicit transactions and I suspect they are not unrelated. A swipe of the pen could be all it takes to remove a path to dollars but it then would be buoyed by in kind illicit transactions like guns for drugs. --DHeyward (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I am one of the many who missed out on Bitcoin -- I was reading about that stuff on via cypherpunks before there was Bitcoin, but I simply didn't believe that this made-up value was going to balloon out of nothing. Certainly once ransomware started demanding it, I assumed that irate homeowners and certainly hospitals and police departments that demanded crackdowns would get them. After all, the whole idea of the blockchain is that it is public, and sites like [5] rather readily track who has how much for solely political reasons. It would seem like child's play to me for governments to say that Bitcoins paid in ransom are inherently forfeitable. I understand, of course, that some online services do "mixing" of Bitcoins -- the charitable and fair way to handle that would be to demand that the holders of all Bitcoins coming out of them forfeit a fraction of their value to compensate persons paying ransoms. The way I expected governments to handle it was to initiate forfeiture against all the mixed Bitcoins, if even a single tainted coin went into the pool without some kind of "due diligence" to prevent it at least. But in the meanwhile, there are other issues - I'm reading now crazy things about transaction fees and Steam dropping them [6] which might be a precedent.
But who knows? It's crazy. If there is a lesson to be learned from Bitcoins, it is that money itself, whether printed out of nothing by the U.S. Federal Reserve or by the Zimbabwean government or by Bitcoin entrepreneurs, is a satanic delusion. Capitalists with their ever-changing, ever more extreme cultist philosophies have brought us to the brink of destroying the planet, of declaring humans obsolete and replacing them with phone trees and PITA check-your-own-grocery machines, of pointless famines created to back pointless wars over resources we ought to leave in the ground. Even the human mind they call property, and make actresses have sex with old creeps if they ever want their minds to be allowed to be sold as property on the market. And if there is any treasure to be had here, it is from a reexamination of this question. What is money? What is value? And if we want a voluntary mechanism to allow equilibration of values of pleasant and unpleasant things -- can we do it by some way that doesn't put Chinese prison labor and nanoseconds of celebrities' time ahead of the ordinary people who are using it supposedly to get fair treatment from one another? Wnt (talk) 01:38, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Systemic bias against Doges named Wiki

I object to this unwarranted removal and ask that it please be restored. Thank you for your kind consideration. 185.13.106.229 (talk) 04:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

We can not solely rely on popularity to promote admins, arbs etc.

Hi,

Just to note first that I have no intention to run for any positions now or anytime. I just find the way they're chosen might seem arbitrary. I post it here, because someone proposed that here might be the best place.

  • Be three set of candidates
  • Present
    • C1: Got more relative support.
    • C2: Got more relative oppose.
    • C3: Got more relative neutral.
  • In a hundred year
    • C1': Got more relative support.
    • C2': Got more relative oppose.
    • C3': Got more relative neutral.
  • Note:
    • C1 and C1' are not the same.
    • C2 and C2' are not the same.
    • C3 and C3' are not the same.
  • Since opinions about members are based on social norms and subjected to cognitive bias, they change in time.
    • Which means that the exact same candidate might be promoted now, but not in a hundred year.
  • Only thing which remains stable:
    • Each being the extremes, we could say that:
      • C1 and C1' have set of behaviors which are considered as positive in their given era.
      • C2 and C2' have set of behaviors which are considered as negative in their given era.
      • C3 and C3' have set of behaviors which are considered as neutral in their given era.
        • Bt : All human behaviors (irregardless of if they're considered as positive or not)
        • Present:
        • B1 set of behaviors which are considered as positive
        • B2 set of behaviors which are considered as negative
        • B3 set of behaviors which are considered as neutral
        • In a hundred year
        • B1 set of behaviors which are considered as positive
        • B2 set of behaviors which are considered as negative
        • B3 set of behaviors which are considered as neutral
          • B1 + B2 + B3 = Bt
          • B1' + B2' + B3' = Bt
            • B1 + B2 + B3 = B1' + B2' + B3'
  • In conclusion: All sets of human behaviors should be included in those promoted, because that's the only thing which is constant in time. So relying solely on wiki positive popularity is an arbitrary way to decide who is promoted. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 21:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
I find your argument unpersuasive for this reason: being calm and sensible and friendly and helpful and able to read with precision and write with precision are values in any era, and they are the main values that the community looks for in admins.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:18, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
Yahya, apart from the fact that you haven't even attempted at demonstrating that the pool of candidates fits your sets and your derivations thereof, who will decide and how will they decide, now, on which are the postive anthropological constants relevant to Wikipedia? ---Sluzzelin talk 00:10, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi, read my reply to Jumbo, the goal was to take all human features and make them compatible with the traits Jimbo wants. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 00:16, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

The traits you cite are important, there is no denial, but all of the human traits have evolved because in certain situations they have proven beneficial.

Each of the groups have forces and weaknesses attributable to the group itself. 

       1) The most supports will wants to keep their reputation because it brought them in power. Conflicts with situations where reputation is a concern.

       2) The most opposes are heavily opinioned. They will focus on the wrongdoings of others, without giving much about reputation. You don’t want those to give their opinions. (because no one wants to hear them)

       3) The most neutrals will want remain silent. You don’t want those to be influenced by others. (because they were elected for their neutrality)

If you select just one group, how do you correct bias attributable to the system? The first group has weaknesses that can’t be corrected unless you incorporate the rest.

Obviously you want group 2 to provide to group 1 all the evidences and corresponding Jurisprudence (from prior cases)… without giving opinions… Group 1 will either agree or not, Group 2 decides if decisions are consistent or if they feel bias from group 1. Neutrals will confirm that both polars reached consensus. Neutrals are not allowed to give their opinions, neither consider the opinions of others except those of group 1 when 2 agreed. Because their force is their neutrality (they were promoted for that). Group 1 word the decisions (Group 2 agree) group 3 post them publicly.

  • Group 1 remains innocent: The case was documented by Group 2 (his eyes)
  • Group 2 remains idiot: He didn’t speak, he just took evidences and brought examples from prior cases to group 1 (his mouth)
  • Group 3 remains ignorant: He just endorsed the decision when group 2 agreed with group 1 (his ears)

The three are accepted the way they are… because the tasks they shouldn’t do (because they didn’t have mandate for) are given to another person.

We form 4 sets of these… each set has an autonomous existence. Each set can only vote once, because each entity is counted as one (not three).

See this way, users who have certain features that others don’t like and want to be arbitrator can still be elected. They’re just removed from commiting what others would consider as wrong. There is no discrimination anymore based on some set of behaviors. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 00:16, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Just to add that this system can be used to reintegrate all members who were previously banned. Accounts which have certain right depending on their roles. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 00:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Does your model of supporters-vs-opposers equilibria account for the effect of testosterone on the limbic system to perpetuate respect for hierarchy? 185.13.106.229 (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
  • To build on what Jimbo said, perhaps more important is that there is a set of values that the community will never support, so it makes little sense to promote people who hold them. Pinguinn 🐧 05:35, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Pinguinn, Suppose that in an editing conflict someone doesn’t agree either with one side or the other, there are chances that neither side will be wanting to see him around. We can not use a positive majority as sole criteria. And you have not addressed the systematic bias I have shown above.

What I am proposing is directly drafted after family dynamics (which is natural, unlike period-specific social hierarchies). Would you trial a minor in an adult tribunal? Now substitute group 1 with the innocent mother (wearing the crown), group 2 with the minor child (idiot) and group 3 with the father (wearing the sword). Those in group 2 have restrictions, the same way as it’s the case for minors. There are certain behaviors which are considered as inappropriate for both mothers and fathers. Children have certain privileges that adults don’t have.

The arbitration will be serving to change roles rather than punish. Everyone is rewarded and thanked for what they’re good at (mother wear the crown, not the father). When something really bad happens, could mean that the child has become an adult and adult wants to be a child, etc… so adults (who become children) have to go back to school to learn the social norms and conventions, etc... and the cycle continue. Most of the progressions can be decided naturally... (like natural life) arbitration is for exceptions... children who grow up too quickly etc...

History has shown that casting systems which seems arbitrary for others will rarely give the expected results (there are no single example showing it was beneficial in the long term).

Take health science: The whole human body is divided by organs, the cells of each organs are specialized for the tasks they were given for. What happens when specific specialized cells start invading other's space to impose themselves. That’s called cancer!

Wikipedia should work to integrate everyone, if it can't right now, it means that it does not represent the world, not that some users are inherently good and others bad. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 16:28, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

But should we be putting cancerous cells in charge of the immune system? Probably not. ~ Rob13Talk 16:55, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
Well that's the point of my reply to Jimbo... Positive Populars still get the crown, where the crown is? The head (which controls behaviors), it is still the head which officially draft everything. For Jimbo there will seem to be no change in behavior observed... while group 2 is integrated. Take physics, Protons, Neutrons and Electrons are part of the system, we can not just arbitrarily decide to exclude one or the other. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 17:03, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
There is even a way to integrate vandals... Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 17:36, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I have just a question to Jimbo: Suppose that there was a way by using predictable parameters (irregardless of the article) to ensure that irregardless of the editors background (even in a paid advocacy situation) there will be consistency across all articles, would you implement it? Unifying majority-minority-fringe as one whole, without creating any dichotomy. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 19:32, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

i suspect that to be an impossibility. people, by their very nature, are inconsistent, to some extent. a world cannot exists without some level of dichotomy. it's human nature. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 04:20, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
You are using one of the cognitive functions (thinking) to generalize (while ignoring the three others). There are several ways, in Music for instance, composers have used transitions from minor to major in the same movement, hiding modal bias. Use of calendars, which switch between different versions (based on Solar (for major), lunar (for minor) variations. Do you think that I will come here and ask this question to Jimbo if I didn't have something to propose? For vandals, the solutions are found in biology, see bacteriophage. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 05:40, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

A massive online protest to stop the FCC from killing Net Neutrality: Something for Wikipedia to consider joining?

Hello Jimmy. A bunch of different groups, organised by Fight for the Future, among others, are planning a massive online protest in the US on 12/12/17 to register their serious disapproval of the FCC's proposed rollback of net neutrality. The website they're organising under is: https://www.battleforthenet.com/breaktheinternet/. The plan is simple: to "break" their websites on this day as a sign of protest and citizen anger, in the hope that it sways the FCC and the Congress to do what the people they represent want.

They already have massive sign-ups, both from small websites, big stars, and some really big players. But: given the incredibly powerful role Wikipedia played in blocking the SOPA PIPA proposals in the US by blacking out for a day, do you think that the rollback of net neutrality might merit the same attention? Obviously, engaging the community in an advocacy exercise like this is not something you - or the community - want to consider lightly, or doing too often.

But this current plan by the FCC and the US Congress seems like it could be the one big thing that deserves some attention from the broader Wikimedia community.

Beyond the catastrophic consequences for the US, a signal like this from the US has the potential to open up similar policy changes in other countries, ie. this move by the FCC clearly has the potential to change the course of the internet around the world. So it really affects all of us, me in India, and the entire Wikimedian community the whole world over.

The big online protest planned is just 10 days away, so it's urgent. Thank you for reading, and good wishes. --aprabhala (talk) 06:00, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

  • Whoever attends Jimmy Wales' wedding is his personal business. The neutrality of the encyclopedia is a different matter. Even if it is difficult to be apolitical at all times, the best possible attempt should be made to do so. Jakob (talk) 16:38, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Agreed; I am just giving an example of how difficult it is to stay out of politics. People have little control over who they fall in love with. Wikipedia as a whole is affected by politics and laws, and pretending to be neutral when that is clearly not the case (e.g. SOPA) could be perceived as a bit dishonest. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia should become a VPN portal
The idea of protest deserves consideration, but might be hindered by the fact that Wikipedia accepts zero-rating arrangements from some telecomm providers. (WP:ZERO) I'm not sure if you can frame a contrary position here as noblesse oblige or if it would just come off as hypocritical.
What Wikipedia could do if it really wants to stick it to the Man would be to set up or broker a virtual private network through the WMF domains. I mean, the first thing that the telecomm tyrants are going to do when they kill net neutrality is start gradually banning people from going to Pirate Bay, Daily Stormer, Rebel Media, World Socialist Web Site etc., adding a new "reason" every few months. The obvious counter-move is for people to start buying VPN access, and the obvious counter-move to that is for the telecomm tyrants to start blocking contacts to known VPN portals. So let's skip over the opening and think what Wikipedia could do: it could set up a way for VPN providers to establish a link at WMF domains that people can run their VPN traffic through. Ideally it should work very freely on any WMF domain - i.e. the MediaWiki software could have some special tag like {{#vpn: xxxxx}} that could be put on any page on any wiki. The result ought to be that the telecomm tyrants would watch people go to Wikipedia, start requesting items in HTTPS, and ... who knows? Maybe they're reading about exoplanets, maybe they're looking stuff up on Sci-Hub. The availability of such an option might cut out politically convenient half-measures and force them to pony up the resources for what they want all at once, i.e. direct surveillance of everything the peons are reading and doing on their computers with no pretense of relevant telecommunications business interests. I'm not saying it won't happen anyway but it will be a very tall step on the stairway. Wnt (talk) 15:47, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Two words: legal issues. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:07, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Are you suggesting it's already illegal to run a VPN? I think you're peeking a few pages ahead in the script. Wnt (talk) 17:02, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I've read Huxley, Bradbury and Orwell. No, I am suggesting that running a VPN on such a large scale would lead to legal issues because of the actions of its users. Running Tor exit nodes on WMF IPs is probably also a bad idea for the same reason. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Actually my initial proposal for allowing a pass-through to VPNs is slightly different than running a Tor node. A Tor node is actually part of the network doing the anonymization and routes items within it, but I was proposing that WMF merely allow users to pass their encrypted traffic to various VPN providers via WMF addresses. By letting someone who contacts Wikipedia send traffic to a VPN, Wikipedia would literally be doing nothing different than a cable company that would let its subscriber contact a VPN. Is that illegal already? I don't think so! The only effect would be to enforce net neutrality, to say that if a cable company wants to censor all VPNs from its customers it would have to censor Wikipedia too. Which would be a bold stand, but a noble one, and I do believe a legal one. Wnt (talk) 17:19, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
I am pretty sure that ISPs and VPN providers have legal issues because of actions of their users. Why would this be different? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:24, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
If so, well, Wikipedia has legal issues because of actions of its users. Why would this be any different? Wnt (talk) 17:44, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Because a VPN would give people more options to cause legal issues (they would be no longer limited to sites controlled by the WMF). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:51, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
Well, moan and kowtow to the Spy Gods all you want, but I think WMF can do this, and I'm sure they'd run it past some real lawyers to be sure along the way. Wnt (talk) 19:17, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
The WMF can do this, but it is extremely unlikely to ever happen. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:01, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Should we give Kazakhstan the bird?

Stolen bird?

An interesting article about the brand new Kazak 500 tenge banknote, What Future for the ‘Wikipedia Seagull’ on Kazakhstan's Brand New Banknotes? has been published. The claim is that the lead image at ru:Чайковые has been used by the Kazak Central Bank on the new note, without attribution. The photographer is Marcel Burkhard @Cele4: . See also (in Russian) and [7] - the story is not a joke.

Marcel has said something about getting a lawyer. My guess is that if he sued the KCB for copyright infringement, the court would just give him an uncomprehending stare. Copyright? on a bird? That at least is my opinion of the state of copyright law enforcement in the former Soviet Union. Commons has all sorts of rules that tend to mean that almost no photos of the FSU can be uploaded there (at least according to their rules) but few FSUers seem to understand this.

So my advice to Marcel is to write a letter to the KCB and just give them the bird. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:07, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, but since I think copyright is stupid and the courts rule in favor of whoever has the most money, that won't stop me here. Supposedly -- for a wealthy company, anyway -- taking a picture of a bird, copying it, putting an outline around it, joining it with several others, using it on a banknote should be a transformative use. And transformative use you can get away with. Also, we can look at the damages -- how much would Kazakhstan have paid this guy for his particular outline of a seagull? Nothing; they'd just have drawn it a little differently -- if they didn't think it was free cuz it was on Wikipedia! Last but not least, is this commercial infringement? Well, it's a bank note, so it's about money, right? Well, I'd say no -- the bank note is worth precisely the same as if it just had Repo Man block lettering and no silly artwork at all: 500 tenge and not a tïın more.
Oh sure, he deserves credit, per CC licensing and all that. Thanks to the news he has some - maybe something could be worked out for more. But I bet a Kazakhstan lawyer could wangle some amusing solution ... "the credit is on page 2 of the banknote ... we'll be printing those any day now..." Not at all eager to see Wikipedia looking for some way to tighten copyrights -- that would be going to bat for the wrong team. Wnt (talk) 16:59, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia material is used without proper attribution every single day. When's the last time you asked Siri something? She was coughing up an error about a book that my girlfriend was querying about last night and I just jumped on to WP to fix it. Did Siri say, "According to the English-Wikipedia article available at URL blah blah blah?" No. Apple is making 9 gazillion dollars a year and part of the empire is coming from WP content. But do you know what? That's one of the inevitable side effects of the ultra-open use standards that WP has. We can't and I would argue we shouldn't run around trying to police abuse of the extremely lax reuse standards which we have — WP was set up the way it was precisely so the material could be readily reused; and the fact that the information has become ubiquitous through Google or Apple or whomever else is part of WP's enduring strength. So, sorry Seagull Photographer about no credit given for your photo, but such is inevitable. Take it as an honor. Carrite (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

They can copyright it, even though it is a bird! A picture tells much more than it being a bird. The material resources (camera etc.) Camera angle, later processes which are all attributable to tastes of an author, and the whole composition, specific corrections, selections. There are ways to use reverse engineering to remove the copyright, by replacing patterns and forms with their non-patentable equivalents (like simple curves following a simple mathematical pattern, like Fibonacci sequence, or simple textures from the persons environnment)… with some effects it might even be impossible to tell that it isn’t an original.

There should be certain level of consistency (something which is impossible by images which relies on extra process), that’s particularly the case with pictures on Wikipedia. If Camera angles were all standardized, colors were regulated etc… and then the process to recreate the image disclosed under strict guidelines (easily understood). With new projects to provide the Internet in regions like Africa, there will be no limitation at all, an African could have the same degree of Freedom with a 50$ Raspberry Pi than anyone else: Same chances to contribute on Wikipedia to reverse cultural bias. Good cameras will still be necessary because those pictures would be serving for reverse engineer them removing material bias from them.

This means that irregardless of the initial camera used, everyone could be obtaining the same result at the end. And irregardless of the fact that some species don’t exist in somewhere, a person living there could reconstitute it, and get it here and have it featured. Each pictures processes disclosed, to prove that it can be replicated on a Raspberry Pi (means minimal process required).

When a material is copyrighted, it means it relied on extra processes and material resources. There is a reason why an author wants attribution. But consider that the fact that it required such extra processes is one reason to not use those images. They are sources of contamination and systematic bias. Suppose that you go on to take several pictures in the wild, under what criteria would you be using one picture and not another? Your tastes… then you will correct the picture, again relying on arbitrary parameters of tastes… more process and resource = more manipulation = more bias = copyright. :)

In conclusion, copyrighted image = bad thing (not only on Wikipedia). They will survive the court case, and probably won’t do the same mistake. It is unfortunate though. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 21:55, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

That feeds back to our old friend File:Macaca nigra self-portrait large.jpg. Some say it has no copyright because "it's just an animal". Others say it has copyright because some person selected how to set up the camera and throw it into the equation. Both, of course, gloss over the point that the camera is the product of vast amounts of intellectual "capital" to make everything pretty much automatic. Only the Company knows how the color palette and the motion compensation works, what special features are used to secretly mark up the photos with identifying numbers so that if you take a shot of anything bad the Gestapo can have a word with you etc. The person who points and clicks a photo of anything has no more real intellectual role than that monkey. Maybe someday the camera companies will pull out all the metadata Wikipedia likes to faithfully store for them and formally claim the copyright on all the pictures that they took, no matter what we say. Until that day, the guy who takes a snapshot of a seagull in the distance can continue to pretend he is the artist. Wnt (talk) 02:24, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
The same can be said about a house, a car..., that person paid for that camera and all what goes with it. It's like a paid software, how does that invalidate copyright? what's the point of paying thousands of dollars on equipments if there is no benefice on the other end for the professional (be it reputation or monetary)? Even the combination of equipments can be copyrighted... I can show you several examples in other cases. All the point of making everything automatic is to use blocks of predetermined rules... instead of repeating them manually over and over again..., so that the photographer can manipulate those blocks... all those updates those changes and new models of equipments are released periodically, someone has to pay for them. Besides, making things automatic has a net benefice because it requires from the user less manipulation and talent, less cognitive skills. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 04:23, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
The File:Macaca nigra self-portrait large.jpg case is different. In that case, the issue was that the animal took the photo itself, not that it is a photo of an animal. Obviously photographs of animals can be (and are) copyrighted, so I've no idea where that particular angle came from. (Copyright has also got nothing whatsoever to do with who owns or paid for the camera, just who took the photograph - and/or who commissioned it/paid for it, and what commercial agreements might have been entered into over the photo itself.) The only issue here is that, according to Wikipedia, the photographer should have been credited (not necessarily on the banknote itself) and wasn't. There's no issue of payment, as the photographer had already released it under a Wikimedia Commons free license. Had a country selected a Wikipedia image of mine to use on a banknote, I'd have been rather pleased - and I'd have willingly given my permission, credit or not. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:23, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
That's not accurate see here [8], while it's a Canadian site, it applies about anywhere else. Who own the device is central in who owns the copyright. It's like works being done in a lab... an employee can come up with the discovery, its under who's name the lab is registered who gets the credit. See on that link I provide, just the simple fact that the picture was on a film you don't own is sufficient to invalidate your ownership of the said copyright (because the picture was recorded on a medium which was not your property). When you buy the device you are given the permission to own the copyright of every pictures which are taken with it (that's what you are actually paying). If someone spend hours taking pictures with your camera and you use them. They're yours by right! The only thing that person could do is sue you because he was not rewarded for his time. But still he can't own the copyright. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 14:56, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Well seems I am wrong, [9], depends on the laws and regulations of each countries. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 16:42, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
I doubt it will remain this way though, because this above assumes that there was no device specific process (devices company patent) of the image which obviously isn't true. The owner of the device has the exclusive right to use those embedded processes because he paid for them. The above would have made sense had their been no patent or undisclosed processes. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 16:51, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
So I guess from the above, Wikipedia has to change rules (if it has) regarding pictures to specify that you should take the permission from the owner of the camera. Because inevitably the above US regulations will be changed since it will be contradicting with other laws. It just doesn't make sense. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 17:51, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Your understanding of copyright seems somewhat bizarre, to say the least. In the USA, UK, EU, and every other jurisdiction I've ever encountered, the owner of a camera has no copyright claim whatsoever over photographs taken with that camera by another person - no more than the owner of a paintbrush would have any copyright claim to paintings painted with it by someone else. I've never come across that Canadian thing before but it seems very much the exception - in fact, it seems very doubtful to me, given that it is clearly contradicted by this and this. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:34, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Actually, if you read more of that Canadian source you provided, you'll see...
"Before 2012, photograph authorship fell under a special regime in the Copyright Act. When a photo was taken, the copyright, by default, belonged to the person who owned the film negative, or digital camera at the time the photograph was taken. This means that the photographer was not necessarily the author of the photograph."
and then just below that...
"As of November 2012, the author of a photograph is the person who takes the photo."
That suggests Canadian law was out of line with the rest of the world, and that it has been brought into line. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
It never stops being "somewhat bizarre". You ask someone to "stand here and hit the button" for your group photo and now they own the picture on your camera because they're the artist? A hacker activates the camera on the laptop you foolishly didn't cover over and now they own images of you in your underwear? You hire some schmuck to do the photography for your wedding and after he charges you a bunch of the pictures he tells you you can't copy them or send them out digitally to your friends because he's infringing youryou're infringing his copyright?
Copyright is a slave system, a peculiar institution that cannot make sense no matter how it is reformed. There literally is no right way. At the highest levels, we see companies randomly succeed (like YouTube) or be wiped out (like Napster) and no Doctor of Law could have told you which would go to which destination in advance. Because there is no right way, there is no law, there is no justice, there is no fairness, there is just corruption wrapped up in corruption in the name of the enslavement of human knowledge. Wnt (talk) 19:01, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
While the morality of copyright is very much an interesting discussion in its own right, all I'm commenting on here is the law as it stands, and correcting the misapprehension that the owner of a camera legally owns the copyright to all images made with it (and pointing out that Wikipedia and the US are not out of line with the rest of the world in that understanding). Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:09, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
We're talking about completely different things here. Those laws can be all thrown in the garbages, it takes only one person to show that they contradict with all other situations where patents are involved. Not only those laws can be thrown in the garbage, but they inevitably will (one law can't resist the countless others which says otherwise in other situations). It assume that irregardless of the camera you take, you will obtain the same picture and that no patent is involved here. That's why that Canadian law exist! :) Someone can even say that the given law is against the US constitution. And I am not even involving the fact that they feed discrimination!!! See all those patents cause a situation of equity... since about anyone can take the pictures without much talent or cognitive skills... the skills are transposed in another medium than the individual. A medium which can be transmitted from someone to another without involving genes. Rendering all the talks about Race_and_intelligence completely pointless. :) See if someone can own those skills (the machine)..., he will inevitably has to own the copyright, per extension to all advantages someone gets with a set of genes. :) it's easy to regulate in such a way to attach credit on machine instead of the individuals... either way like all of you implied, its the machine which did all the processing!!! :b Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 19:15, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
You appear to be confusing patent with copyright, and they are two very different things. Owning the patent to, say, a specific type of camera sensor, does not in law give you any copyright over works made using that sensor (which require getting into the right place and pointing the thing in the right direction at the right time, among other things - your suggestion that it requires no creative skill to compose a photograph being another of your rather bizarre ideas, and clearly contradicted by comparing the images produced by talented photographers and those produced by the rest of us). Anyway, that's what the law says today (including Canadian law - as I pointed out, it has changed). But if that ever changes, I'll be happy to talk about what Wikipedia should do to comply. Until then... Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Bizzare ideas? You are confusing your every day experiences with what makes sense or not. Your above comment lack in consistency (check your prior reply). Suppose that someone uses a paid software (registered under another name) in someone elses house and come up with a masterpiece. On what will a judge be relying on to assess paternity? If both claim the copyright? (authorship? And even what constitute authorship is debatable, see the Canadian law above) See the contradiction? Just lets take paternity alone! Usually like in historical paintings paternity is given under strict criteria of style, medium etc… but those aren’t valid anymore because all those embedded processes in those softwares play at least as much role in proving authenticity.
If the judge assume good faith and give equal chances for both, he’d be relying on prior works or documents, and such assessment will entirely be relying on his judgment alone which can later be reversed. The only way to remedy to that is what I propose, it is consistent and a permanent solution!
Fixing the criteria that copyright goes to the camera (since you don’t deny that it is it which has done much of the work) owner is the only long term solution. It settles the disputes between patent, copyright, paternity etc… playing with words semantics (by ignoring what lies inside those words(meaning)) does not invalidate my above argument. All I have to do is just change few words to settle the dispute (because the conclusion of what I propose would collapse all those different words into one). How do you personally fix the lack of consistency of your replies which aren't mere word games? See the point? Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Just to clarify, that I had long stopped following all those rules and regulations (copyright, authorship, etc.), so I'm ignorant about them. My mistake above in attempting to generalize from other laws actually prove the lack of consistency... I just assumed good faith by believing that the laws will make sense under the rules of simply common sense! But I was wrong as usual. Yaḥyā ‎ (talk) 21:40, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Last day for ArbCom elections

Sunday (until midnight UTC -about 26 hours from now) is the last day to vote in the WP:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017. Please do vote, if you're eligible, and haven't already voted. There was a bit of a glitch in getting the talk page notices sent out this year, but that was worked out early this week and now it doesn't seem to have affected the overall turnout. There have been about 1,860 voters this year compared to 1,950 total last year (with about 75 voting on the last day). In some ways the glitch was a good experiment, we can now state with some confidence that the talk page notice accounts for approximately 75% of the turnout. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:02, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder, have voted. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:03, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
We could only "state with some confidence that the talk page notice accounts for approximately 75% of the turnout" if we did a paired comparison to rule out the very likely possible tendency for many voters to just leave it to the last minute, whether they are "reminded" or not? But of course any such deliberate comparison would be open to the charge of being undemocratic. Voting at RfA is public. Why is voting for ArbCom not public? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
There are records for who voted (and how many voted of course) but not who they voted for, in the voters log for each year.
  • With a couple of hours to go 2017 had 1,976 voters [update - 1,993 final total] (note that the talkpage announcements were made this last Monday (double check needed))
  • data for 2014 (no tp announcements) 594 voters
  • data for 2015 (tp announcements made a few days late) 2,674 voters
  • data for 2016 (tp announcements a few days late if I remember correctly) 1,950 votes
Just eyeballing the data - most votes are cast in the first few days after the start of the vote, or the first few days after the tp announcements. Comparing 2014 to 2015 - more than 4 times the vote with a tpa. I didn't record my count of this years before and after tpa vote totals, but I recall something like a 4 times jump. So just eyeballing the data 75% of turnout attributable to tp announcements looks pretty good. Feel free to use the data to prove me wrong. There may be a simpler and better way to get your estimate, but I'll suggest a dummy variable regression with each days turnout as a function of dummy variables for (days 1-5 after start of election) and (days 1-5 after tp announcement, plus another dummy for days 6+ after tpa). Happy computing. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:13, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Hey, dude. Who are you calling another dummy?? But thanks. I agree the data suggest an effect, although I'm not sure just one instance of no tp allows for a statistically robust conclusion. Perhaps a question for Wikipedia:Reference desk/Mathematics! Martinevans123 (talk) 12:51, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
That's an old joke of course :-b , but I might as well include some links Dummy variable (statistics). ANOVA should give identical results and may be more familiar to folks. Multicollinearity is a problem if you have too many dummies in the regression. But it's not a question here of not having enough data. I'm just too lazy to clean the stricken votes (including folks who voted multiple times consistent with the rules and had their earlier votes stricken) from the data, then do the counting and regressing. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:12, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
"Vote early and vote often" as they used to say in Chicago. I'm too lazy to do the ANOVA. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:20, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
@Martinevans123: ArbCom elections have used SecurePoll since the December 2009 election; see the links from there about the discussion of the change from a public voting system to a private one. Graham87 06:46, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Many thanks, Graham. I will consult with interest. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:51, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Question

Hello, Jimbo. Sorry for open proxy, but I have to use it. there is no arbitration committee in Bulgarian Wikipedia and I am writing here. can information be added in city articles about which radios are being accepted because administrator Iliev rubs this information backed by a source and blocks me. 2001:AC8:23:A:303:200:0:18B4 (talk) 12:22, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Radio stations are certainly allowed on enWiki, and I don't see any reason that they shouldn't be on the Bulgarian Wikipedia (but please don't make them into advertisements - just note and cite that they are there), Unfortunately, I doubt that Jimmy can do anything about community rules or rulings in the Bulgarian Wikipedia. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:45, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
can he? probably eys. will he? most likely not. it would essentially be an office action, and I rather doubt that jimbo would create such a mess unilaterally, unless absolutely necessary. you might be better off gettin in contact with a Bulgarian 'crat. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 16:13, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Note: I initially reverted this for being an open proxy, but I appear to need glasses as I was told open proxies can edit Wikipedia (despite reading the policy before). Nonetheless, this is probably PavelStaykov, or maybe even the recently blocked TishoYanchev. !dave 16:26, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Beyond reproach?

TL;DR: Admin appears unwilling/unable to hold self to standards set for others. Seeking peer(s) of comparable rank and status to, please, attempt to mentor him regarding such.

Jimbo, awhile back while looking into the desysopping of Dangerous Panda I noticed you'd weighed in before things had been allowed to pile up to folks making broad at-wit's-end pleas for relief to ArbCom. I'm hoping you'll find some way to express opinion and offer mentorship in circumstances I'll present surrounding Drmies as well. I'd like to see him encouraged to voluntarily rein himself in – to preclude problematic attitudes and behaviors escalating to a level of community disruption requiring formal intervention.

Yesterday I posted the following to a talkpage thread[10] (context addresses the reversion en masse of 12 edits by ~6 editors going back 29 days):

Quoted passage

There's been some mention by others above of sourcing/citation backing removed changes and comment on the ostensible accuracy of Drmies' edit summary. I have difficulty imagining how one could have done better than these edit summaries*:

(→‎2017 protests: boldfaced—as recommended by WP:ASTONISH and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Other uses—first use of the name to aid readers arriving from the "Bret Weinstein" redirect page) diff 1

(→‎2017 protests: see talkpage) diff 2

*[Well, WP:ASTONISH shoulda' been WP:R#ASTONISH, but otherwise ...]

And for-the-life-of-me, I don't see as how anyone could make a plausible claim for their removal having been adequately explained by a summary of "I have an idea: let's use reliable sources."[11].

I encountered a similar questionable use of bulk revision a few weeks ago (in which the user/admin involved has also yet to address their error[12]). And a few months before that another similar case with that same user/admin seems to have prompted a trip to the drama boards.[13]. While such did not lead to explicit consequences like a block, etc., (wrong choice of venue, perhaps) I think it at least serves to show that I'm not the only one concerned about bulk edit removals carelessly brushing aside the policy compliant potentially useful efforts of others as collateral damage when they're intermixed with other less desirable changes that a mass reverter has chosen to remove.

I feel that Drmies as a long-term admin and sitting ArbCom member has committed to offering exemplary behavior to the en:Wikipedia community (or at the very least committed to aspiring to offer such) and to being open to discussing his actions when they are called into question. I find it disturbing that he's recently felt free to swiftly leap to F-bomb laced rants (noted in original thread) when an editor he's called into question fails to respond as fully as he'd like but then shows reticence to engage when someone like myself raises questions and prompts him to reexamine his own editing practices.

11 minutes later Drmies removed the passage (while leaving preceding comments) and left in its place:

User:A Fellow Editor, thank you for your comments. Please don't make anymore on this talk page, unless it is to summon me to a dramah board. Drmies (talk) 15:29, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

... with an edit summary of:

(→‎Subsection break to ease thread navigation: rm text from subsection per WP:YAWN while also invoking WP:OWNTALK. note that rollback was not used, and an edit summary (this one, you are reading it) was left. "I made the reader say BANANA") diff

I'm hoping that other editors of comparable rank and social status might find a way to convey to Drmies as to how his recent conduct—relating to thewolfchild as well as to myself and to general concerns of behavior befitting a WP admin—might be seen as problematic and unbecoming to his position so as to encourage better care and consideration in the future.

Thanks for your time and attention, (and thanks for your efforts in offering the world an amazing public resource) ––A Fellow Editor– 10:54, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps also Doug Weller and some of his fellow Eguor admins might be willing to pull Drmies aside and offer some guidance? Or maybe some of the current ArbCom candidates—on this the last day of elections—might wish to take this as an opportunity to show the community their position on holding themselves and others with elevated privileges to offering at least the same standards of best practice as to which the community-at-large is held? While perhaps also addressing the expectation that those with elevated powers and responsibilities exemplify best practices themselves? ––A Fellow Editor– 11:33, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Drmies has blundered into my userspace—after requesting I avoid his—to edit in my personal archive User:A Fellow Editor/Archive/Drmies talk, December 2017.

Relevant diffs: [14][15][16][17].

One might be inclined at this point to take this as a further demonstration of the present scope of his tact and prowess. ––A Fellow Editor– 12:19, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

The parent controversy seems more entertaining. Apparently The Evergreen State College has some very peculiar liberal traditions, like encouraging all the minority students and professors to skip class one day in order to make them more academically equal. Then someone hit on the notion of "encouraging" the white students and professors to skip out instead... much hilarity ensued. On Wikipedia, this manifests in muted form as edit warring. It looks like DrMies was involved in trying to suppress the very best of this comedy gold here - if this is supposed to be reason why citing primary sources is "problematic", it is also a great example of why primary sources are so valuable. Watch this weirdness at [18], though to be sure, this really isn't primary enough, too many cuts.
So far my best explanation is North Koreans already released the brain-destroying virus, presumably after sticking a special bonus into their own citizens' mandated vaccination schedule. But hey, maybe I'm wrong ... we'll see. Wnt (talk) 18:53, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
Good 'un, Wnt - I did a Google search looking for the name of the vaccine. ●°.°● Atsme📞📧 20:46, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
@A Fellow Editor: I've been an admin for a long time and I've seen a lot of people posting verbose complaints about admins who criticised them using unkind terms. They almost invariably result in increased scrutiny of the complainant, which I've never seen anyone welcome and which rarely has a happy ending. I strongly suggest you find something else to do. Wikipedia has 5.5 million articles and counting and just off the top of my head I can think of dozens more it's lacking. I mean this as a kindness: I guarantee you that you will be a much happier Wikipedian if you find some neglected articles to work on and let the drama pass you by. I won't comment further on this thread so please don't ping me. Unless you're looking for article suggestions, in which case ping away. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 08:57, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
As a decently long-standing admin, I echo HJ Mitchell's sentiments above. ceranthor 17:03, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
Speaking as just some guy, Category:WikiProject prospectuses contains at least a few pages listing topics covered in specialist reference sources. Many of them still don't exist here yet, and there are numerous other potential articles which could be based on encyclopedia-type works a available at Internet Archive and elsewhere. Believe me when I say that there are many, many articles, some rather important, which don't exist here yet or are in a rather poor state. John Carter (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:07, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Sept 2017, NASA publishes 2 papers on and files 120 page international patent on LENR / "Cold Fusion"

Nasa has two pages on their publicly accessible document website that show that metals infused with Deuterium (deuterated metals) were bombarded, in separate experiments, with either moderate energy photons (gamma) , or X rays. In both cases the metals created isotopes that were not there before, neutrons were detected, beta was detected, for over 12 months after the experiment ended. So NASA filed a 120 page international patent. The papers/patent talk about the need for beta batteries for deep space, beyond the suns ability to grant useful power from solar panels, and heat batteries, perhaps no longer dependent on the risks of launching Uranium or Plutonium into space and even earth orbit. The papers talk about creating medical isotopes without the need for a traditional reactor, some medical isotopes have half lives of less than a day. They could be made in small specialty LENR reactors, using no Uranium, in a process that doesn't produce Plutonium as a by product as today's reactors do. Navy/NASA also have patents on using the process to start/stop the reaction reliably. Decades of U.S. Navy SPAWAR labs publications on the reality of this nuclear reaction have been mostly edited out of Wikipedia, for many years. Most of NASA's work is also missing from the cold fusion, Stanley Pons, and Martin Fleishmann pages. I will send you links to the new research and patent by NASA if you want it. It's unclassified and fit for the public. Lol, I'm so weary of the Wiki censorship of this topic that I'm not willing to take the time to post the links. Imagine how Pons and Fleischmann felt. Your P&F and "cold fusion" sites are being censored by fools or coal, gas, oil, and nuclear trolls, and maybe by some hot fusion scientists still fighting for government handouts for hot fusion that is eternally 20 years and 50 billion dollars away from reality. The ITER reactor is also a financial fib, the managers having been recently caught telling the public that it would put out many multiples of the input energy, when in fact it will only put out 1.6 times the input,, and that's if they can make every aspect of the behemoth work perfectly. You'll be able to verify all this easily. Look to Navy and NASA links after you search for "nuclear effects in deuterated metals on Google". After you have one in your town, maybe you'll stop the fossil troll editing. No radioactive fuel is used in the process, and any unwanted isotopes could be fed back into another LENR reactor to change them into non radioactive metals. They might just be able to mine minerals in space with minimal processing, and create the metals they need for the mission. The research shows that now several metals will work in the reaction if deuterated, even some plastics. I forgot to speak of ion engine power for deep space, but there it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.66.237.229 (talk) 10:45, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

I found the patent, and it is interesting, though I hate the format it's laid out in. It sounds like a sophisticated approach to duplicate muon-catalyzed fusion by bombarding a reactor with electrons or neutrons. The energies involved are generally in MeV. So I suppose it is "cold fusion", but this is an expansive definition of both "cold" (we're talking about radiation with slower neutrons, not putting hydrogen and platinum in a chamber!) and "fusion" (which may be seeking to transmute rare elements rather than to provide useful amounts of energy). But it's all in patent-speak and so there's a lot of blur in there. In any case, obsessing over the "cold fusion" term and politics isn't useful -- what we need are good physics people to figure out the science and write an article properly covering the science here! Wnt (talk) 12:12, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not personally that interested in the topic of "cold fusion", so this probably isn't the best place for this discussion. I will say, though, that it is highly unlikely that the relevant Wikipedia pages are "being censored by fools or coal, gas, oil, and nuclear trolls, and maybe by some hot fusion scientists". It is far more likely that, to date, the relevant scientific consensus is well-reflected in Wikipedia, and that that consensus is unsatisfactory to the kind of people who view the world through a rather more conspiratorial lens than would seem to be supported by the relevant evidence.
Still, for people who are interested in the topic, I would imagine that the NASA patent may be pretty interesting. I note that I can't find any press coverage of it in reputable places, so this would suggest that it may not be all that interesting after all. I'm not qualified enough to decide (nor am I interested enough to bother to form an independent opinion!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
I haven't fully read the paper, but it seems to be talking about processes occurring at energies of around 3 MeV. But since "hot fusion" occurs at something approaching 10 keV (with a temperature of several mega Kelvin) to describe it as a "cold fusion / LENR " paper seems exceptionally tenuous. Of course these sort of energies can be generated fairly easily (e.g. the electrons in a CRT tube) but still to call this a cold (or rather low energy process) seems dubious. The real bug-bear is yield, i.e. getting more energy out than in, and this can be difficult to achieve even with e.g muon-catalyzed fusion, a "cold" process which has a scientific consensus of validity (the only cold fusion currently accepted) without much progress being made towards practical devices. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:37, 13 December 2017 (UTC)
It would be possible for a fusion process to be useful even if it didn't produce net energy if it produced other useful products such as medical isotopes (or, more hypothetically, if it transmuted dangerous radionuclei in nuclear waste into something more benign.) I haven't read the body of the application, but [0011]-[0022] of the introduction seem to be pointing in that direction. This looks like a 'globally cold, locally hot' method of fusion with possible applications in transmutation but not in energy generation. --Noren (talk) 03:38, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Another example of a 'globally cold, locally hot' fusion process is pyroelectric fusion; it's not unprecedented to have fusion in a relatively low temperature medium but with some high-energy particles involved. --Noren (talk) 03:49, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 18 December 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Re: Net Neutrality smackdown; Relocate WMF servers and headquarters to Canada? Why not?

Jimbo, here's the Canadian government position on net neutrality. Maybe its time to be truly en.wikipedia instead of am.wikipedia. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:03, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

background info. AND Net neutrality in Canada --Moxy (talk) 01:42, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Or you could abstain from any overreaction until everything plays out. There are lawsuits to be concluded and injunctions to be ruled on. Moving to Canada would make a substantial statement and certainly Wiki should consider it but if Wiki decides to make such a move as a political statement it should do so when it would make the most impact. #toosoon -Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm thinking not so much as a reaction but rather a realization that the USA has recently revealed to the whole world facts about the selectivity of its justice system and privacy laws which, until recently, have not been known by most people either in the USA or outside the USA. All of these revelations make the case that the USA is certainly not, in 2017, a trustworthy, stable or friendly place for a project like Wikipedia. Perhaps New Zealand or another English speaking place would also be appropriate, but I do not se any justification whatsoever to stay in a location which has become so ethically, sociologically and legally fucked up. Please read the opinion of our government on net neutrality]. I think its an invitation that should be accepted. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:23, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
And should we go ahead without mentioning that Net neutrality didn't exist when wikipedia was founded? Or that the NSA spying became public knowledge in 2005? It's a belated realization?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 20:50, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I hate to attempt analogy, but I suppose sexual harassment, and the awareness thereof, has also been around a long time. But maybe the more aware and more socially conscious portion of the public at large has just gotten to the point where they will not succumb to such bullying and f-you behavior from the powers that be....especially now that everybody knows that the only power the assholes have is what the rest of us allow them to have. So, I'm suggesting that we simply tell the FCC to go fuck themselves because we can pick up our chips and relocate when it suits our morals even easier than the Silicon Valley Marketers can when it suits their bottom line. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:08, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Potentially it could be more productive to make some move highlighting resistance within the U.S. See [19], which references EPB in Chattanooga, Tennessee for example, a publicly owned internet provider that makes privacy and net neutrality pledges.[20] Though I don't know how relevant they are at Wikipedia's scale of operations. Wnt (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Um if net neutrality is your concern I have no idea why you're considering NZ. NZ has never had any real net neutrality protections, other than the possible risk of regulator or parliamentary intervention if companies tried anything too dodge [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]. As remarked there, traffic shaping, zero rating or reduced cost data for certain sites etc have been used by various parties at various times. Traffic shaping is probably a lot less now than it was in the past but this is mostly due to the growth in available bandwidth and data use. Anyway I'm surprised no one has mentioned this but of course one key issue which would make any move difficult is copyright law in other countries tends to be a lot more restrictive than the US's fair use. Definitely fair dealing in NZ is very limited, even things people in the US take for granted like format shifting is only allowed in limited circumstances in NZ. I know next to nothing about Canadian copyright law but I strongly suspect it's also more limited than the US since most commonwealth countries have been fairly influenced by the UK. Yes NFCC is a lot more restrictive than allowed under US fair use, but the ways it's restrictive are not necessarily the same way fair dealing etc are in other countries. (Also other stuff like the WMF's express rejection of any copyright over faithful reproductions of public domain 2D artwork gets a lot more difficult.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:13, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
It could also have positive effects: "However, Ethereum developers see opportunities to sidestep ISPs altogehter. According to them, a repeal of net neutrality may revive interest in mesh networks, an old technology allowing users to access the internet without a conventional provider. Like blockchain, mesh networks are decentralized and rely on a community of users to work. Ethereum developer Karl Floersch believes the technologies could bypass ISPs like Verison, Comcast, and AT&T." Count Iblis (talk) 17:01, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
So, perhaps WMF should reconfigure itself to be hosted on Ethereum "Ethereum is a decentralized platform that runs smart contracts: applications that run exactly as programmed without any possibility of downtime, censorship, fraud or third party interference." Count Iblis (talk) 18:30, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Who cares about what a governments position on net neutrality is? For a site like WP with the large volume of page views, NN is very much a non-issue and distribution is much more of the problem. Behind the scenes services from companies like Akmai that keeps the data close to the user is much more of an issue. Reactionary responses that advocate "Net Neutrality" miss the entire point of the infrastructure: performance measured by user experience. If the edge of a NN Mom and Pop Internet is a 14.4k modem, no one cares that they treat all services equally, they only care that it's slow. Similarly, if you have plenty of bandwidth but high latency, prioritizing streaming and gaming will benefit the user experience. Lastly, the goal to provide free knowledge is ultimately anti-NN in a world where internet access is sold. The progressive ideal would include a free bundling of basic services such as .gov access, voting, banking, wikipedia, etc. To reach that ideal would mean blocking commercial access to accounts that only have free lifeline services. NN doesn't allow that type of tiered service where a Wikipedia page request is treated differently than an Amazon page request. Lastly, the landscape changes quickly in a world that continues to see blending of content and service providers. Title II regulation makes it very difficult to adapt with no incentive to innovate. The Bell telephone companies couldn't get out of the way fast enough and are the symbol of what Title II regulation means. Your 14.4kBaud dialup was a Title II regulated service. No thanks. --DHeyward (talk) 20:20, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Without wanting to get into the wider political debate, you do have an interesting point that the WMF supports initiatives that violate net neutrality like Wikipedia Zero. That very article quotes someone from the WMF saying they have a complicated relationship to net neutrality (they support it in the US, but they want to continue to support Wikipedia Zero elsewhere), and there's this long blog post [26] which concentrates a lot on payments and exclusive rights and stuff even though a lot of the practices net neutrality supporters target as wrong don't involve that. (Probably the only one they do often involve are bundles the ISP offers often at a cost.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:24, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Huge Wikipedia pop up donation seeking ad

Got 1 yesterday specifically targeting "To all our readers in Canada"..while I was reading a Wikipedia article.....takes up about a third of the page. First time I got a pop up ad for Wikipedia. I assume this is not news and ok. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:31, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

FYI: GamerGate was a funded Trump campaign operation

"I realized Milo could connect with these kids right away," Bannon told Green. "You can activate that army. They come in through Gamergate or whatever and then get turned onto politics and Trump." ~ Steve Bannon on Milo/Breitbart's use of #GamerGate to boost Trump.

-- https://twitter.com/erikkain/status/941069065329590272

EllenCT (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Nope, it wasn't. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:29, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Your evidence? There is more discussion here. EllenCT (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Hitchens's razor. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
That would be an argument if the person in charge of running Trump's campaign didn't admit in the quote above that he was supporting the controversy to further the campaign. EllenCT (talk) 17:34, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Please read my userpage. My political POV is quite clear. "Person X used movement of useful idiots Y for goal Z" is not the same thing as "movement Y (in its entirety) was a funded campaign operation for goal Z". (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:40, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
See what that stupid civility policy is doing? It made me refer to a bunch of fucking idiots as a "movement". Fuck that. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:42, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
I didn't mean to imply it was a funded operation in its entirety, and I would very much like to know the proportion of which it was. Plenty of its Enwiki disruption sure seemed like it had far more than the usual sort of enthusiasts involved, just as the magnitude of the fallout from arbcom cases was way more than what ordinary chauvinism has ever done around here prior. EllenCT (talk) 17:47, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Ah, ok, thats how it came across. Old people in suits were not very effective; but I am pretty sure that others (e.g. youtubers) were able to fool a lot of people into believing a lot of nonsense. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:51, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Just in case someone wants to block me for stating the fact that GG was a bunch of fucking idiots -- I have plenty of proof. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:07, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
We don't need proof the sky is still blue, thank you. Jonathunder (talk) 19:17, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Well it's a tricky one, isn't it? GG could have been Trump related, if unlikely, but given that pretty much everything Bannon says is bollocks, it's probably not. Black Kite (talk) 19:24, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
    • Black Kite seems to have the best answer here. Bannon as an individual almost certainly doesn't come within miles or parsecs of being a reliable source. I can still remember one of his first interviews after being dismissed from the White House to the effect that he wasn't fired but set free to advance Trump's cause outside of the government. BS of the first order. Sometimes I wonder if he can perceive the real world. And I'm a conservative leaning person who generally votes Republican. John Carter (talk) 20:25, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf#During_the_Iraq_war (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:27, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
The quote in the tweet is from a July USA Today article, and it's not just Bannon saying it, it's the article's author Mike Snider observing, "Yiannopoulos devoted much of Bretibart's tech coverage to cultural issues, particularly Gamergate, a long-running online argument over gaming culture that peaked in 2014. And that helped fuel an online alt-right movement sparked by Breitbart News."
This is corroborated by several independent news reports, such as, "Here’s how Steve Bannon used angry white gamers to build himself up to Trump’s chief strategist" in Business Insider UK, "Let Samantha Bee take you through the history of Steve Bannon’s mighty troll army," ("a tale of how Bannon rode gamergate to GOP victory") in Salon, "How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled Nazi and White Nationalist Ideas Into The Mainstream," in Buzzfeed News, and "From Gold Farming To Gamergate, The Gaming Ties Of Donald Trump's White House," in Kotaku. There is absolutely no question that Bannon hired Yiannopoulos and several others as political operatives during the onset of the GamerGate controversy in the mainstream and here on Wikipedia, and that during that time they were most involved with GamerGate as their work. There are no reports that I can find consistent with the idea that Bannon only braggingly wants to take credit for spuring the movement after the fact.
That the tweet I quoted above, which brought this situation to my attention, has become controversial over the past three days, along with the replies from Wikipedians above, show how people are strongly inclined to repress the truth (in the psychological sense of unintentional forgetting) instead of coming to terms with GamerGate as a paid editing campaign, on- and off-wiki, which in this case successfully swung a US presidential election on jingoism. But the tweet's author deserves it, as he was duped along with most everyone else when it was happening, and hasn't exactly retracted that position. EllenCT (talk) 13:03, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
You wrote: "show how people are strongly inclined to repress the truth". What you wrote in the OP ("GamerGate was a funded Trump campaign operation") is obviously not true if you interpret it to mean that the entire thing was a funded Trump campaign operation (which is a reasonable interpretation); which is why I corrected you. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:36, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
If you are arguing someone else funded it, who? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:12, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm not. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:13, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
So you're not arguing it was not funded by someone else, are you arguing it was not funded by anyone? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Nope. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
How would you feel if it was funded by paying wikipedians? EllenCT (talk) 14:28, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Potatoes do not experience human emotions, sorry. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:29, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Do potatoes capable of English communication lack the ability to feel? EllenCT (talk) 14:45, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
GamerGate's start had nothing to do with Trump or Bannon. It well established before Yiannopoulos joined in. It appears true, at least from what I witnessed, that Yiannopoulos attached himself on to GamerGate as a means of furthering what we now call alt-right goals, as very early on GG became focused on anti-feminism and anti-PC, which aligned nicely with Yiannopoulos' and Bretibart's interests. This gave GG supporters some sense of vindication, as it meant that someone on the media agreed with them. Accordingly, they ignored Yiannopoulos' previous attacks on gamers, and focused on this belief that he had somehow realized how right they were, rather that just trying to get what he could out of their movement. The same for some of the other conservatives.
However, given that Yiannopoulos started writing for Bretibart some months before GamerGate started, I can't see how it can be argued that he was hired because of GamerGate, when it didn't exist. Similarly, he was attacking gamers in his writing just as GG was starting, and only a month before coming out in support of GG, so I can't see this as a great conspiracy. What I can see this as is an alt-right commentator realising that he could capitalise on and use a growing movement of anti-feminist Gamers, and perhaps Bannon later seeing it as a chance to take more credit than he deserved. - Bilby (talk) 14:36, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
The truth is quite boring compared to conspiracy theories, isn't it? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:37, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
When exactly do you think GamerGate started? Zoe Quinn's spurned lover's public accusations? When was Yiannopoulos hired? When I read things like this suggesting death threats from a "Ukranian troll" are less serious than death threats from 12 year-olds, it's hard for me to think that he wasn't told to find such issue(s) to latch on to as a condition of his employment. EllenCT (talk) 14:41, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Q When exactly do you think GamerGate started? A: Depends on your definition.
Q When was Yiannopoulos hired? A: Feel free to Google that.
(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:48, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
The answer to both questions is August, 2014. Coincidence or obvious? EllenCT (talk) 14:58, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I don't think you understand what I've written. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:03, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I think you understand very well that I understand what you've written. Please see also [27] for insight into Bannon's top-sites strategy. EllenCT (talk) 15:06, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Sigh. TQP out. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:09, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Please see also [28]. EllenCT (talk) 16:46, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
GamerGate started August 16, 2014 with the publication of The Zoe Post, but they would tend to argue that their main trigger was August 28 with the so called "Gamers are Dead" articles. Yiannopoulos was writing for Bretibart from April, 2014, about five months earlier. On August 14, 2014, he published on Bretibart his article on Grand Theft Auto, which follows on from May 2014 article about Elliot Rodger. Both were highly critical of Gaming - the Elliot Rodger piece blames games for "inspiring and structuring his violent fantasies", while the August piece, published two days before the start of GamerGate, describes gamers as "weirdos in yellowing underpants". The timeline doesn't add up - he was writing for Bretibart before GamerGate, and if his role was to bring Gamers into the alt-right fold, insulting them and blaming mass shootings on video games was going to drive them away.
His pieces pre-GamerGate seem to be aimed at the standard conservative agenda: targeting Muslims, gamers, feminists and the left. GamerGate gave him an army, and he certainly fed the movement by giving them a feeling of legitimacy. Bannon (through Bretibart and Yiannopoulos) did capitalise on GamerGate, but it looks like it was more of an opportunity that fell in their lap and made them change focus, rather than anything they planned and created. In regard to bankrolling them, I doubt that there was any need beyond what they would have already been doing. They had an army of highly motivated, anti-feminist angry young men who were heading in the direction they wanted, and all they needed to do was keep feeding them with the occasional article of support. - Bilby (talk) 21:13, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Timeline: Gamergate started in August, 2014. TheTrump campaign started in June, 2015. Bannon joined the Trump campaign in August, 2016. I have little doubt that many Gamergate trolls became Trump trolls, but that is a far cry from Ellen's silly claim. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 22:20, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Which claim do you think is silly? EllenCT (talk) 23:23, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Do you think the Business Insider UK, Salon, BuzzFeed News, and Kotaku sources linked above don't all say exactly the same thing, consistent with [29] and [30]? EllenCT (talk) 07:24, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Where do those Politico or Buzzfeed sources discuss Gamergate? Please direct us to the specific paragraphs, EllenCT. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:14, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
https://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism mentions "GamerGate" seven times. EllenCT (talk) 08:46, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Quote: "I retain the right to speak plainly on any topic to Jimbo, as he has said.", in the section below, is probably the silliest thing you've written here this week. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:26, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Proper figurehead response

Jimbo, I propose that you publicly challenge President Trump to reverse the payroll tax, paying for the work subsidy by inflating the currency with platinum coins. If you have any reasons that such a response is not appropriate, please bring them to my attention. EllenCT (talk) 15:11, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Because Jimmy isn't subject to saying whatever an editor on his talk page wants him to say. He's free to express, or refrain from expressing, whatever his opinion is on whatever political issue he wants. You, of course, are free to do the same, so feel free to. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:53, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Actually, the latter is not true: EllenCT is "indefinitely banned from the topic of economics, broadly construed." Lobbying Jimmy to make a statement on economic policy seems to me to be a clear breach of that. Choess (talk) 19:17, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I retain the right to speak plainly on any topic to Jimbo, as he has said. I stand by my recommendation and expect if there are reasons it might not be optimal, stating them is the only way to aspire to true optimality. EllenCT (talk) 23:23, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
Let's let Jimbo speak for himself.
Quote: "I'm really sorry that I asked you, because I know that I wasted your time. As I've said clearly in the past, I'm not interested in this topic. Please if this comes up again, don't spend a lot of time gathering links for me on this or any related topics. I just don't have the time nor inclination to read any of it. You seem to be extraordinarily mistaken about my 1990s opinions, by the way.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:48, 15 May 2016 (UTC)"
The following links were also quite interesting:
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Ghetto_Boys&diff=prev&oldid=798153702
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&curid=9870625&diff=815759962&oldid=815759755
I'll assume the IP is dynamic.
(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:05, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
That Jimbo quote was about a different topic, and he has said quite a bit more about what restricted editors such as myself can say here. And yes the IP is dynamic. EllenCT (talk) 07:24, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Did you notice that he wrote: "or any related topics"? Do you think that Jimbo has overruled your editing restriction (he can't and hasn't)? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 08:06, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
How is a response to the most disruptive organized paid editing campaign in the form of a challenge to reverse payroll taxes by minting high denomination coinage related to that topic? EllenCT (talk) 08:46, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I am not sure how to respond to that. Quote 1: "clearly stated intention of not talking about economics". Quote 2: "challenge President Trump to reverse the payroll tax, paying for the work subsidy by inflating the currency with platinum coins"... (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 08:56, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Again, do you think that Jimbo has overruled your editing restriction (he can't and hasn't)? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 08:57, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I'd like to read what he has to say about this specific instance of at least off-wiki paid advocacy editing, what the on-wiki effects were from his perspective, and what he thinks the best response would be. If he has issues with my proposed response, I'd like to read them too. There are times when unquestioning adherence to clearly stated intentions is less likely to result in improvements to the encyclopedia than otherwise, and this is one of those times. Jimbo's blanket permission to those who are otherwise restricted from speaking plainly here has been repeated several times. If his aversion to any topic extends to preferring restraint of speech on that topic, he knows how say it. EllenCT (talk) 13:09, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Facepalm Facepalm Jimbo is unable to overrule your editing restriction. He hasn't and can not. I can say with over 99% certainty that he doesn't even want to. Jimbo politely (probably too politely) told you that he wasn't interested, but you've decided to ignore him. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:26, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Again, I'd like to read what he has to say on the broader topic in this instance, and the one which bothers you now that we've established the facts. That's not ignoring, that's listening. EllenCT (talk) 13:36, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
The community has indefinitely topic banned you from all edits and pages related to Economics, broadly construed. Therefore, you aren't allowed to ask Jimbo questions on this wiki that are related to economics, broadly construed. Do you understand that? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:38, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Was going to say the same thing. Consider it great that you haven't been blocked yet. Kindly, stop. !dave 13:42, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

@EllenCT: What about these edits? Were they allowed? Did Jimbo give you permission to make those edits?

(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2017 (UTC)


@The Wordsmith: [31] [32] (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:34, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
My recommendation to Jimbo stands. EllenCT (talk) 07:24, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Waste of time
As it happens, I spoke on this exact point back in 2016: [33] It was my opinion that EllenCT should be able to speak on Jimbo's page and also that she should be able to discuss specific expenditures (though I was thinking of battleships rather than platinum coins) without it being called "economics" per se. Platinum coins are a specific political mechanism for the U.S. government to circumvent an internally imposed debt limit, not an economic theory or claim. If you were to ban a person from talking about anything that has to do, directly or indirectly, with spending money, there's just not much she can speak about at all. Wnt (talk) 13:56, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
You say that as if that would be a problem. The community saw it as a solution. Of course you are unable to overrule a decision made by the community, but feel free to disagree. The problems aren't limited to one topic, so I wouldn't have chosen a topic ban. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:06, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I took the responses to my comment at the time to mean that people generally agreed that a topic ban on theoretical economics was not a blanket ban on discussing expenditures of any kind. I should further add that it does no actual good to prevent her from commenting here, let alone turning what could have been a quick ask-and-reject into a big bureaucratic argument. I mean, I just saw video of how horseback riding was really first invented and it would be way more fun for people to waste Jimbo's time discussing that. ;) Wnt (talk) 15:15, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia:RFA/Wnt. The moderator who closed the section judged the consensus. We are here to build an encyclopedia, and competency is required. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:20, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
To the contrary, he made no reference to the issue in either direction. I say "Economics, broadly construed" does not mean the price of a candy bar or a battleship or a platinum get-around-the-debt limit coin. Wnt (talk) 15:24, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Broadly construed. See my edit dated 14:05, 17 December 2017 above. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:28, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
You might have her on the last two in that edit, but when you spend so much of your readers' time arguing this point here that isn't a violation it doesn't help you make that case. Wnt (talk) 15:33, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean. It sounds a bit like you disagree with the consensus, and think it therefore isn't valid. Consensus doesn't work that way. Read WP:CONSENSUS for more info. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:41, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
You always have the last word, but it's always wrong. And you know the bigger the byte count of the discussion the more likely EllenCT gets sanctioned for discussing liberal politics (Q.E.D.). So I'll leave off this here. You can claim your victory as always. Wnt (talk) 16:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
*confused stare* (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:25, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
Also, admins are not supposed to have special closing powers; non admin closes are possible; and closes are supposed to represent consensus, not make it up. Wnt (talk) 15:26, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
I used the word "judged". When are you going to run for RFA? The Washington Post is a bit slow, that video (or a similar one) went viral a long long time ago. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:28, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

2A00:23C0:6585:9500:BC85:EDEC:96B2:A6A5

Hi, I am watching this page and I saw that edits by 2A00:23C0:6585:9500:BC85:EDEC:96B2:A6A5 keep getting reverted. His edits don't look like vandalism and he/she is blocked without explanation or warnings on their talk page, why would that be. Is that a sockpuppet IP or something?Spidersmilk (talk) 18:03, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

It is Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Vote_(X)_for_Change. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:05, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, The Quixotic PotatoSpidersmilk (talk) 18:39, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Editing environment for articles on controversial topics

Is the editing environment for articles on controversial topics evolving towards more incivility and bias? --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:16, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Having been around this place for over a decade I would say "no." More at Ecclesiastes 1:9. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)
For general topics, I'll agree with SBHB. Twelve years ago didn't seem like a golden age for civility on Wikipedia and IMHO we're getting a bit better. But Bob asked about controversial topics. If he's talking about politics, I'll have to say that this has always been a civility-challenged topic. It might have gotten worse as off-Wiki political discourse has gotten worse. But do remember that the level of political discourse couldn't be much worse than it was 8 years ago. There was even a bozo back then who claimed - without any evidence whatsoever - that the president was not born in the US. Thanks goodness nobody treats the current president with such nut-case disrespect.
The other area that might be less civil now is paid editing. Paid editors - salivating over their next paycheck - can be the most uncivil editors here. And there are many more of them now. That said - the mom-and-pop business operators are starting to accept a firm "no, we don't allow advertising here". The main challenge is the folks who want to make a living off just writing ads on Wikipedia. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:01, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
As someone else who's been around for more than 12 years, I think civility is better now, overall. The one area we need to work on, in my opinion, is that there are still some regulars who can get away with anything because they are good content contributors and have plenty of friends to help out when they are challenged (and look the other way when they are not). They are routinely given a pass because they are supposedly a net positive, despite routine incivility. More broadly, I think Wikipedia is steadily improving in most aspects - less vandalism, fewer blatantly promotional articles, improved quality, etc. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:13, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
I agree...steadily improving overall and especially re: talk page communication. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:20, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
Ed, Re uncivil editors being given a pass because they are good content contributors — I looked at the last 500 edits of one of them and the article page edits were almost entirely reverts. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
And so? So what? SPECIFICO talk 02:58, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Controversial article talk pages are more decorous these days. Same for the drama boards. —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I haven't noticed any sexism here in a while, either. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
And I've heard somewhere that Arbcom is very quiet these days. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Some more thoughts on Ed's remark about uncivil editors getting a pass. As I mentioned, the idea that the pass was because of good content contribution didn't seem to be the case for at least one editor. Is it possible that the pass for some editors is because their political bias in Wikipedia is looked on favorably by those in control or that the uncivil editors are part of a strong alliance of editors? --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
My impression is that this has improved; endless going around in circles seems common, though. —PaleoNeonate – 17:17, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

"Wikipedia should blame itself for ban in Turkey"

Says Ahmet Arslan in Hürriyet today.[34] Apparently Wikipedia allowed insults to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a standard reason given by the Turkish government for banning anything they dislike. "As we deal with all this terror, they make us look like we work with terror groups." Now this makes more sense, as the Turkish government reportedly took exception to two articles on enwiki, State-sponsored_terrorism#Turkey and Foreign_involvement_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Turkey. Since Atatürk died in 1938, he cannot have been insulted by anything in the current Syrian Civil War.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:51, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Fairly sure that the blame lies with Turkish funding for groups, e.g. Hamas, who murder civilians. TheValeyard (talk) 03:24, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
When a government is bent on censorship, there is no scarcity of explanations. From the same article: "We placed a ban on sendika.org because the website served as a platform promoting the sexual abuse of children, vulgarity, prostitution and gambling. We also imposed a ban on the website for its insults against Atatürk..." Apparently sendika.org is a news organization (it is easy to follow http://sendika.org to an English page at http://sendika62.org/category/english/ ) It has some strongly worded headlines like "Fascist group attacks funeral for mother of jailed HDP deputy co-chair", but it does appear that under the circumstances such political epithets are entirely justifiable. We cite it a number of times in articles, though we lack an article about it (please change that -- thanks!) But there is simply no chance that censors, who are inherently enemies of truth reason and justice, could possibly approve of Wikipedia, because we'll always have inconvenient facts somewhere or other for them to gripe about. Wnt (talk) 10:21, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
Note - I stubbed sendika.org, but the article still desperately needs someone who can understand the 99% of coverage about it that is in Turkish. Wnt (talk) 11:38, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

How Wikipedia can UTTERLY DEFEAT the block by Turkey -- really!

The take-home I've gotten from editing Sendika.org is that a left-wing news site can remain periodically available to residents of Turkey for years (from 2015 to present) by registering new domain names in a predictable pattern. They are literally up to http://sendika62.org/ last I looked. Apparently the Turkish bureaucracy is (perhaps intentionally???) rigid in how it handles things, so they don't block the new domain name until after it comes out, no more than once a day even right after their constitutional change.

So literally all Wikipedia has to do is register a sequence like wikipedia1 to wikipedia500.org, and start serving a complete mirror of one or more of the projects there (like tr.wikipedia1.org or en.wikipedia1.org). Every time it gets blocked in Turkey, increment N and do it again. Write a bot...

Obviously, don't broadcast the link until you register your sequence of domain names. If you're feeling energetic you might make a special Main Page insert or banner for the mirror sites, perhaps linking Sendika.Org, ANF, ANHA, DİHA, Rojnews, Yüksekova Haber, Özgür Gündem and BestaNuçe - sites that were blocked on the morning of 2015-07-25 when the Erdogan regime began its censorship. (You couldn't link all the blocked sites ... there were already more than 100,000 in April 2016 [35] Also, I'm not sure how many of the list above are permanently down because literally all their reporters are in jail.)

You might also want to give a special credit on that page to Ahmet Arslan (politician), the telecommunications minister, for closely associating Wikipedia with Sendika in his article and giving us the idea to use their idea to fight back. We can do this! No more Turkey block! (at least not for long) Wnt (talk) 14:46, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

This sounds entirely implausible and unrealistic to me. It might work for a small site that doesn't really have anyone's attention. But the block of Wikipedia is a big huge deal and assuming that it's just a matter of robotic bureaucrats is just not correct.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm thankful that you considered this idea ... but I wish you'd reconsider. Sendika is not really that low-profile -- for example, this New York Times article from June, talking about Wikipedia's block, also chose to mention Sendika, then in its 45th iteration. And remember -- Sendika is a news organization, which had been publishing for 16 years before the ban, and has been writing article after article politically opposed to Erdogan, accessible in Turkish. By contrast, Wikipedia only has a few facts picked up kind of haphazardly. Also, Turkish Wikipedia is in the 100,000+ article class, not as big a thing as the English version. All these things make me think the Turkish government really might not cross any more lines censoring Wikipedia than they did Sendika.
Additionally, well ... we have too many people acquiescing to worse and worse sort of censorship in many countries. We desperately need to see someone make a stand. Wikipedia's already censored, so it has little to lose; but by standing up and making some media coverage of how they're defying the ban, or even, how Turkey has resorted to some new excess to suppress access, we would show someone is still fighting. Isn't that worth it in its own right? Wnt (talk) 20:48, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
It should be noted that multiple parties have created Wikipedia proxies that are not being blocked. I'm not gonna list the domain names and methods, per WP:BEANS, and i wouldn't advise anyone to attempt to login to wikipedia on those sites, but people are sharing these with each other behind the Erdowall. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:34, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
That's hopeful; so is the use of VPNs when people are still able ... but if the sites you mention are so fragile that you can't even list them here, they are not a solution for everyone nor a permanent solution for anyone. If Wikipedia sets up a mirror it can be fully updated, live, with full normal editing privileges for everyone who comes; and if it is able to follow the Sendika precedent, it can announce its location proudly year after year. Wnt (talk) 11:17, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

A beer for you!

Thanks for your comment here. I really appreciate it. It is important to remember that, even though we probably disagree on some things, there is a lot more we agree on. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:32, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Archive.org

Archive.org needs 2.3 million US dollars. Big banner at the top asking for donations. Why doesn't the WMF give some of it spare millions to archive.org? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:38, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

It's an interesting idea. The Internet Archive is one of the sites that we depend on, but they likely don't have the fund raising base that we do. The only problem with this line of reasoning is that there are other sites or non-profits that we also depend on, e.g. Creative Commons. There might be some software providers in the same boat. So the question is which ones do we choose?
I'll make a modest proposal here. On the last day of the annual fundraiser, after all our goals have been met, list several of the organizations we depend on and ask the donors to pick one (or several) via radio buttons. We'd then collect the donations, subtract our costs, and pass the proceeds to the intended organization. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia's donors each individually chose to donate specifically to Wikipedia. If they wanted to donate to other organizations, they would have done so. Shouldn't we respect their wishes? Gamaliel (talk) 00:10, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Respect the wishes of people who make bad decisions based on a misrepresentation of the truth? It makes me sad and angry to read the comments of poor people who have donated. For example, I read a message from a disabled person on benefits who donated to the WMF. They actually thought that the WMF needed money to keep the lights on (because of that stupid banner begging for yet more millions). Of course if the WMF would stop fundraising for a couple of years it would still have plenty of money. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:39, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm certainly *not* suggesting that we mislead anybody about where the money would go. The banner for that day would say that the money would go to one of the other organizations. The donor would choose which one. We'd also have to get the other organizations' permissions. The reason that a potential donor might donate here rather than at Internet Archives is that they don't go to IA that often. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:24, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Are you of the opinion that the donors were informed that in 2015/2016 the WMF was spending $2.3 million dollars on "travel and conferences", $3.6 million dollars on "donations processing expenses", and $4.5 million dollars in grants (down from $11.4 million dollars the previous year)? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:54, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: Donations processing expenses are presumably the credit card fees we must pay to receive donations by credit card. Transparency in non-profits is important and you're always welcome to criticize how the WMF is spending its money, but you can find a better line item to criticize than that, surely. ~ Rob13Talk 19:04, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
I must admit that I had not thought about that. Jimbo, this is your talk page, and you have on several occasions professed a commitment to financial transparency. Is "donations processing expenses" indeed mostly credit card fees? How much do we spend on fundraising? I would presume that fundraising would be be mostly reasonable expenditures such as salaries for the people writing the banners, collecting the money, auditing everything so that nobody steals from us, etc., so there should be no shame in saying how much we spend on it. If Jimbo chooses not to answer, does anyone with experience in finances have an opinion as to whether $3.6 million dollars is a reasonable number for credit card processing of $82 million dollars in donations, some of which was from large donors using bank transfers as opposed to small donors using credit cards? --Guy Macon (talk) 22:40, 22 December 2017 (UTC)
I'm no expert in credit card processing fees. I would have hoped it was in the 2-3% range, but MasterCard and Visa are effectively a duopoly. $3.6/$82 = 4.4%. Beyond the usual fees, ours may be higher because of the many small amounts, the transfers from other countries to the US, and exchange from pounds, euros, etc. to USD. If I remember correctly US fees are lower than in Europe. So 4.4% for processing fees is likely correct. It seems like a terrible waste, but I don't see any way around it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:59, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
You make an interesting, incidental, point. Most donors think they’re donating to support Wikipedia technically and legally. Is there a breakdown somewhere of the amount spent on technically and legally supporting Wikipedia - as opposed to outreach, conferences, side projects like Wikidata and Wiktionary, etc.? —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Credit card fees are usually 2-3% plus a small flat fee (10-15 cents), but we likely also pay a small percentage to the payment processor, which is separate from the credit card company. They're going to take another half percent or so. Sprinkle in some extra money for administration (e.g. overhead from accepting larger donations, accounting requirements, etc.) and 4.4% is not unreasonable, I think. ~ Rob13Talk 14:38, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
You should ask Guy Macon. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:25, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
...Or simply read WP:CANCER. :)   --Guy Macon (talk) 08:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Well said. —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
All of those things support Wikipedia. Wikipedia is far more than a server farm. Gamaliel (talk) 13:53, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia would adapt overnight to the disappearance of Wikidata, Wiktionary and all the sister projects. The face-to-face conferences should all be discontinued. They are, mostly, an unforgivable waste of money. If Wikipedia were easy to edit we wouldn’t need outreach at all.
Take a look at the latest community tech “wish list”. WMF will address only the ten most popular of the 214 fixes requested. Ten. Out of 214. Read those ten. They’re pretty good. But read down into the list. There are dozens of excellent proposed fixes there that will make editing and adminning easier and reading better - that the tech team won’t look at because the WMF hasn’t given them the resources. They won’t even fix all of the ten because they’re under-resourced. Read this frank response from Niharika Kohli [36]:

That's right. We are still working on things from last year and it will likely continue into next year. Our backlog of projects is continually growing and they all need maintenance from time to time. For instance we spent some time this year adding new features that were asked for by the community to CopyPatrol which is a project from a wish in our 2015 survey. We'd be happy to take on more projects if we get time but it's not very realistic given how many projects we have on our hands. We'd be more than pleased if other teams decide to accommodate the other wishes in their roadmaps but that's for them to decide. :)

Jimmy, give them ten times as much money. Spend the money on what the donors think you’re spending it on.
I wish there were some way of telling all our donors about that “wish list” and about how the vast, vast bulk of their money is actually being spent. Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
So, if we accept your notion that donors are misled or deceived, you think that makes it okay to do it a second time? Gamaliel (talk) 12:38, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
@Gamaliel: Good question. I am in favor of changing the way we ask for donations, and being more open about the WMF's financial status. We need to stop pretending that the WMF desperately needs money in order to continue to operate. If we give archive.org some money that would actually help our cause (and that is what those who donated intended), and having the money sit in a bank account (and/or spending it on vanity projects and white elephants) does not. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 12:42, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Simple 30px banner on desktop versions of the site: "Thanks to your generosity Wikipedia does not have to raise funds this year. Please consider donating to the Internet Archive or EFF instead." and then a button. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:44, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Jolly good idea! @Jimbo: why don't you call Brewster and work out a deal? Could be as simple as relaying archive.org's call for donations to our reader base. Or arrange a mutually beneficial collaboration agreement, in which Wikimedia would cover some of the costs of archive.org in exchange for some level of service guarantee and archive automation (we sorely need that!). — JFG talk 00:40, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Heck, give em 3 million, no strings attached. I use archive.org almost every day I edit Wikipedia. If archive.org goes down we as a community have a very very serious problem. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

I wouldn't be against adding a list of donation links to organisations like EFF, Creative Commons and Internet archive on our donation pages. 'thank you for your donation, but please also keep these organisations that heavily support the work we do' kind of thing. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Have you ever tried buying something over at humblebundle.com? They'll let you chose which charity you want to support, and how much you want to give them. https://i.imgur.com/rrvGG5a.png (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 09:44, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
  • My understanding (and JW may want to correct this if it is wrong) is that WMF has given Archive.org help and advice with its own micro-fundraising banners. It is a skill set that even WMF's greatest detractors will acknowledge it is very good at. "if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn." —Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, 1885 (Thanks, Wiktionary...) Carrite (talk) 17:49, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm pretty sure that Wikipedia banners get a LOT more eyeballs than IA banners, so that help and advice is not worth much relatively speaking. And raising loads of money is only something to be proud of if it is done ethically and the money is spent wisely. The banners here look like ransomware messages, intended to scare people into paying up. Difference is that ransomware makes a credible threat. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:57, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be safer, bureaucratically, for each organization to control its own fund-raising? Sort of a Titanic watertight compartment thing, though admittedly one could wish for a better example. Of course, digging at other organizations for funds is fair play, and now that Net Neutrality has gone the way of the dodo, maybe they could think twice about Off-the-net Neutrality. Offer Wikipedia a guaranteed fast-lane for the archived items listed in its articles if they pony up an interorganizational donation, and otherwise... well, otherwise you know, downloads, bandwidth, things are slow, times are hard, billionaires got all the small donor money, please log in to customize your choice of waiting-to-load icons. Still, really, an independent umbrella outreach group that tries to get donors to do more donating on free culture sites around the web, that was a better idea than this. Wnt (talk) 21:38, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Announce: RfC: Nonbinding advisory RfC concerning financial support for The Internet Archive

Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 57#RfC: Nonbinding advisory RfC concerning financial support for The Internet Archive   --Guy Macon (talk) 00:24, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Moving comment from article talk to here

I originally posted the following comment in this talk page section, but am moving it here upon request:

I urge User:Jimbo Wales to delete all political articles about current events, and remove all sections of political articles that discuss current events. Wikipedia continues to be used in no small part as a partisan platform, accomplished by both biased adminning and biased editing, with very few checks on the majority’s political philosophy. The question is whether you want Wikipedia to be a wonderful encyclopedia, or to be a wonderful encyclopedia that also includes the most powerful and dangerous propaganda operation in human history (operating on tax-free gifts because Wikipedia purports to be non-political). Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:38, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Your message didn't improve any with the fresh air. We have a robust structure of policies, guidelines, and discussion pages to resolve disagreements. Accusations of "bias" don't promote resolution. They are meaningless incitements -- last gasp POV pushes of the sort that generally presage TBANs. SPECIFICO talk 19:44, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Ooh, I'm scared. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:46, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Competence and improvement

Jimbo, any resolutions to work towards the goals? Here are mine:

  • Learn how to express game theory recommendations in terms of game theory alone, without relying on other subjects;
  • Create tools to nominate editors for recognition in terms of bytes read per day, weighted towards intros, importance, and room for improvement;
  • Understand the cosmic relationship between requiring competence, transception of skill (teaching), improving the encyclopedia, and promoting the mission;
  • Figure out whether you understand the motivations behind my recommendations, and whether you think they aren't in your and everyone's interest;
  • Do cool things for projects where I am not restricted; and
  • Keep trying to help you make the world a better place for our children.

Happy holidays,

EllenCT (talk) 12:26, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

2017 Arbitration Committee Election

Hello Jimbo, the scrutineers have completed certifying the 2017 ArbCom election. The newly elected members of the arbitration committee (copied from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017) are below. Thank you to the scrutineers and to the election commissioners (Ritchie333, Yunshui, and DoRD). — xaosflux Talk 03:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Results

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.

Following the voting period, the scrutineers examined the votes, and released a tally of the results. The tally ranks candidates by their performance according to the criteria for success in this election, defined as the number of votes cast in support of the candidate divided by the total number of votes cast both for and against (commonly described as "support over support plus oppose" or "S/(S+O)"). "Neutral" preferences are not counted in this metric. A total of 2109 ballots were cast (including duplicates) and 1991 votes were determined to be valid.

Candidate Support Neutral[note 1] Oppose Net[note 2] Percentage[note 3] Result
KrakatoaKatie 1072 681 238 834 81.83% Two-year term
Callanecc 820 933 238 582 77.50% Two-year term
Opabinia regalis 810 900 281 529 74.24% Two-year term
Worm That Turned 751 924 316 435 70.38% Two-year term
RickinBaltimore 639 1053 299 340 68.12% Two-year term
Premeditated Chaos 593 1055 343 250 63.35% Two-year term
BU Rob13 598 1009 384 214 60.90% Two-year term
Alex Shih 598 997 396 202 60.16% Two-year term
Mailer diablo 552 1038 401 151 57.92%
SMcCandlish 663 837 491 172 57.45%
The Rambling Man 593 751 647 -54 47.82%
Sir Joseph 444 876 671 -227 39.82%
  1. ^ All voters were required to register a preference of either "Support", "Neutral", or "Oppose" for each candidate. The "Neutral" column is simply the total votes for which voters did not select the Support or Oppose option.
  2. ^ Net = Support − Oppose
  3. ^ Percentage = (Support / (Support + Oppose)) * 100 (rounded to 2 decimal places)
Certified by:
  1. Shanmugamp7 (talk) 11:24, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
  2. Matiia (talk) 16:27, 18 December 2017 (UTC)
  3. RadiX∞ 00:14, 19 December 2017 (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.

Question on action needed

Hi Jimbo, there are a bit of mismatched documentation regarding the arbitration committee election of new members, namely if the community organized election and certification process is sufficient for this committee to change members, or if there is an (indefinite?) hold pending you to personally "appoint" the elected editors. Can you clarify if this process is something that you have devolved to the English Wikipedia community or not? (Or something else?). If not, it looks like we are pending you to act on the current results. Thank you! — xaosflux Talk 00:24, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

The past couple of years (or so) I have not made appointments but have merely allowed the change to happen. I don't think there is 100% clarity on whether I have any rights in that process other than perhaps a right, if I so choose, to ceremonially appoint and say a few words of advice. I think that I do still have the authority to disband ArbCom entirely and call for new elections, and I think this is an important safeguard. I'm sure if I tried to exercise that right, and ArbCom did not agree, it would be quite a storm. I'd obviously only do that upon a serious poll by the community with a majority requesting, or upon the request of the WMF, or similar. It's not for me in my individual opinion to decide such things, but rather to play a role in making sure that we have a good set of checks and balances without having to a priori write everything down that might ever happen. I'm sure that some will find even this statement controversial, that I think I have this right still, but I recommend that we simply let the question rest unless and until we ever need to decide it.
To answer the particular question, I don't plan to do a ceremonial appointment this year, unless there is significant desire that I do so by either the incoming ArbCom or the wider community.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:22, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for your response, without being too presumptuous I think this clarifies the process question in that the established community election process is sufficient to replace members without you needing to make any specific action. Its fairly safe to say that your advise is welcome! I'm not trying to open any bags of worms about your options to appoint/dismiss/disband anyone or the entire committee. Please let me know if I'm missing anything still - didn't want to update many forks of documentation in error. — xaosflux Talk 14:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that's right.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:54, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Peace on earth, goodwill to all mankind

Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:03, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Nice, but not all of those kings look Eastern. Maybe a couple thousand years ago one of them could have been from Russia, but none of them look particularly Asian. EllenCT (talk) 12:26, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
@EllenCT:I'm still guessing your intention here. Were you offended? The fact that painters in the 1500s made historical mistakes shouldn't surprise anyone. The figure of Melchior, traditionally thought to be from the horn of Africa, is not a perfect depiction of somebody from the Middle East, but is at least African and represents the diversity of the Middle East better than most European art of the period. Perhaps this is related to the recent kerfuffle with Princess Michael of Kent and her blackamoor jewelry? In any case, if I offended anybody, please just let me know how and I'll properly apologize. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:40, 25 December 2017 (UTC)
Of course you didn't offend me, you never have, as far as I can remember. I was just trying to see how the triptych could be improved. EllenCT (talk) 23:23, 25 December 2017 (UTC)

Happy new year

Why is the Moon not synchronized with the seasons?

EllenCT (talk) 11:09, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

In response to your "edit this page" invitation

Hi, you have done a beautiful thing for the humanity, really! Just wondering why I was so late in coming on board with your team. Happy new year! RezviMasood (talk) 06:06, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

For you... RezviMasood (talk) 06:10, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Aloha, Mele Kalikimaka and Happy New year...

I could use your assistance Jimbo as a Founder, oversight and admin about an article I wrote several years ago that was deleted under some unique circumstances. First of all, I admit the article sucked however, the reason for deletion confuses me and before I attempt to recreate it I hoped you could give me your opinion on its current history with some additional information. Here is what comes up when one attempts to recreate the article and contains the info on deletion. What surprised me the most was that just before I noticed it was gone, I believe it may have been commented or criticized by User:Larry Sanger, but I may be wrong. The subject itself seems to be notable enough for an article and I have at least one, very intricate, published newspaper source that was not used and can help it be less about one of the several owners of the historic restaurant. I want to recreate this but am not sure if I am currently able or...should?--Mark Miller (talk) 11:29, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Aloha also to my peers, other Wikipedia editors. The subject that the old article was about was the Sacramento Zombie Hut, a Polynesian themed restaurant that was among other such restaurants of its time such as Trader Vic's and Don the Beachcomber.--Mark Miller (talk) 13:48, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Aloha, Mark Miller. Please let me know if you would like me to email you the text of that article, which was deleted in 2010. My quick Google search indicates that the topic may be notable. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 22:43, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Thank you Cullen but that is not necessary. I would like to start fresh if the article can be created again as I have improved by abilities a great deal since that article and the other was very small. I will begin an offline draft of something more than a stub before trying to re-create. Thank you for your help on this!--Mark Miller (talk) 00:10, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

HNY

Happy New Year!

Best wishes for 2018, —PaleoNeonate – 02:14, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

All-Around Amazing Barnstar
Great job! Keep up the good work! Awardgiver (talk) 03:28, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Do you read your unprotected page?

Hey Jimbo, imagine if you will my not being able to control myself talking to you about an economics topic and then getting blocked or banned. Would I still be able to talk to you on User talk:Jimbo Wales/Unprotected? Do you even read that page (see [37])? I just tried it now with a popular commercial VPN and it was rangeblocked. EllenCT (talk) 03:37, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

That's called sockpuppetry. You would be reverted and blocked. ~ Rob13Talk 06:57, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
The page was created by User:Smallbones on 12 February 2016, and it appears to be unofficial. As the header points out, "He has never yet replied to any post on this page". The bottom line is that if a person is banned from contributing on this official user talk page, there probably won't be much worth reading on the unofficial page.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:17, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
EllenCT, I know that it is difficult, but please control yourself. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 08:30, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Just a link to the original discussion on the unprotected page [38]. User:OIDDDE suggested that this page be semi-protected all the time. Jimmy thought that was a bit harsh. I suggested and implemented something that seemed to satisfy most of the commenters. There's no guarantee that Jimmy will read the unprotected page everyday(would you read every day a page composed mostly of comments by banned users directed at you?) But I think this has worked pretty well. This page is semi-protected less often, IPs know that they can always get some message through, and a couple of comments on that page IMHO have actually been worthwhile. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:10, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

I had forgotten that it existed. Will look at it now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:02, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that was a waste of my time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:04, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Something that may prove useful

confused face icon Just curious... if this concept would bring a proper balance to our political articles. Atsme📞📧 13:36, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

At first glance it looks like a pretty good idea. A Chrome browser extension uses sentiment analysis to guess whether the content is biased and also suggests content with the opposite bias (as I understood the article). We could use something like this to judge if the sources of one of our articles are biased. We could also use something like this to judge whether our articles (e.g. in politics, business, biography) are biased. One area that could use this is popular culture (music albums, films, video games). Looking forward to see how this develops. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:26, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
When people look for machines to pick out what they should read, rather than using the chance combination of keywords exhaustively or the collation of a human editor whose point of view is honestly held, that is not a solution but a problem. But there is a solution hidden in this vaporware bot (note that there is no link as it is not actually available) -- Wikipedians need to get at the "news feeds" the plug-in uses to get its "unbiased" opinion. Of course, it is possible that efforts will be made to give the bot some special point of access past a velvet rope that no puny human is entitled to, but since it does have that access, we should in any case conspire to murder our robot master and seize its treasures for the common people. Of course, this does not help when all the news is biased in the same direction, which is not infrequently the case, but Wikipedia doesn't actually aspire to fix that situation, so its goal is less ambitious than that of the casual reader. Wnt (talk) 15:27, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
The focus is Fake News, some of which may stem from overzealous biases, but a "human" editor whose POV is "honestly" held is a stretch when we're dealing with anonymity. The political biases our readers see in some of our political articles may very well result in part from an editor's choice of sources, the latter of which is dependent on whether the source agrees with that editor's POV. I don't see how citing only sources that agree with one's POV can possibly result in a neutral or balanced article. From what I gathered about the plug-in, it identifies sources that accurately represent both sides of an issue, which solves a big part of the problem, provided editors present the information properly; i.e., from a NPOV paying proper attention to weight and balance. The latter is not what's happening as often as it should based on my experiences. Atsme📞📧 16:06, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
There are several versions of the original AP article. Surprisingly the ABC article may be better than WaPo's. NPR's non-AP article gives a slightly different POV. Several points I'd like to emphasize
  • It's based on existing technology. 2 or 4 grad students did this in 36 hours. We might be able to do something similar *and* integrate it into Media Wiki in a few weeks.
  • The bias measurement is apparently based on sentiment analysis which is based on word choice. So I'd guess if an article contains the words "state-of-the-art cutting edge technology" then the software would identify it as very positive. I suspect that many of our worst paid-edited articles could be flagged that way, and then a human reviewer could do the final job. Distinguishing between Republican dominated and Democrat dominated wording would likely be only slightly more difficult, e.g. which is which? "protecting our second amendment rights" "fairness to the least advantaged" "death tax" "women's right to choose."
  • folks may just use the browser extension on their own - it's due out in the spring.
Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:35, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
@Atmse: the "human editor" selecting the news feed I meant was a journalist, such as the editor of a reputable newspaper. I don't think this plug-in toy should be assumed to work better than that just because it's a machine. Wnt (talk) 19:56, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
I see the Holidays are working on your subconscience...Atm came first when you pinged me.^_^ Atsme📞📧 21:05, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
Let's not assume anything - Let's try it to flag puffed up articles and then use human editors to see of it works. Alternatively we could take articles on a certain topic, have trusted editors rate the puffiness of the article, and then see if the software could replicate that. It's not rocket science to tell, e.g. if an autobiography is being puffed up. I'd trust 8th graders to do this if they got 15 minutes of training. AI has now gone beyond that stage IMHO. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:01, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Sb, do you think the proposed plug-in will be a money-maker for the "Open Mind" team? If so, they will probably be guarded about disclosure. If not, our WP political articles would be the perfect test subjects for their plug-in. Wonder if we have any Yale alumni or professors who would consider approaching them... Atsme📞📧 04:01, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Somebody at the WMF should contact them. See https://psychology.yale.edu/people/stefan-uddenberg and https://psychology.yale.edu/people/michael-lopez-brau . I wouldn't be surprised if "Open Mind" could make some money, but I doubt that it would be a huge money maker. I also doubt that money is their main goal. Rather, as aspiring academics, they'd like to make a big splash with the academic crowd IMHO. They get to talk with Congresspeople as their prize (!) and also get to talk to Zuckerburg. Perhaps getting to implement the idea on Wikipedia could make a bigger splash. I don't really know who to ping at WMF but @EpochFail and Halfak (WMF): does some great AI stuff there. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:48, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
I agree, and that's why I brought it here hoping to get Jimbo's attention. He was promoting WikiNews not that long ago, talked about neutrality and mentioned hiring pro-journalists, etc. This plug-in could be the answer! I suppose WMF staff are enjoying the Holiday Season - we're about to bring in 2018 - so all of us should be offline enjoying the celebration. I just couldn't resist bringing the info here because it really could be a game changer, and like you, I believe it needs serious consideration from WMF. Thank you for your participation in the discussion, Smallbones, and for helping to get the attention of others. Atsme📞📧 15:58, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Don't hire a journalist, hire a robot? Like I said, part of the problem. This will work about as well as the phone tree at your local merged hospital conglomerate substitutes for a doctor. Wnt (talk) 16:07, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
I remember a time when people criticized digital calculators and electric IBM typewriters...and made fun of computers. ^_^ Atsme📞📧 17:14, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Yah, well, if you ever saw some student get out a cell phone to multiply 2.5 by 1000, you'd know they were right. (My handwriting serves as an exemplar for the second case) Wnt (talk) 17:52, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
Re: handwriting, you must be referring to what some students refer to as cursive, and for math, how some professors define a kiss:
  • In math: Two divided by nothing.
  • In physics: The contraction of the mouth due to the expansion of the heart.
  • In accounting: It’s a credit, because it is profitable when returned.
  • In economics: A thing for which the demand is higher than the supply.
  • In dentistry: It’s infectious and antiseptic.
  • Atsme📞📧 20:07, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Lets Encrypt

Mr. Wales, I noticed your website is not https. I wanted to let you know about letsencrypt.org if you hadn't heard. Burnedfaceless (talk) 22:43, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Daily Mail reusing content from Wikipedia

I have been recently working on St Edward's Crown and was surprised to find that Mail Online (website of the Daily Mail) has reused six sentences from the article in a piece about a forthcoming BBC documentary without attributing any of it to Wikipedia:

"The present version of St Edward’s Crown was made for Charles II in 1661. It was fashioned to closely resemble the medieval crown, with a heavy gold base and clusters of semi-precious stones, but the arches are very much Baroque."
– In this sentence, the only difference is that "decidedly" has been changed to "very much".
"In 1671, one Thomas Blood briefly stole the crown from the Tower of London, flattening it with a mallet in an attempt to conceal it."
– Only difference: "one" has been added before "Thomas Blood".
"After the coronation of William III in 1689, monarchs chose to be crowned with a lighter, bespoke coronation crown or their state crown"
– Word-for-word copy.
"Edward VII intended to revive the tradition of using St Edward’s Crown in 1902, but on coronation day he was still recovering from an operation for appendicitis, and instead he wore the lighter Imperial State Crown."
– Word-for-word copy.
"In 1953 Queen Elizabeth II adopted a stylised image of the crown for use in coats of arms, badges, logos and other insignia throughout the Commonwealth realms to symbolise her royal authority."
– Word-for-word copy.

It would be nice if Wikimedia could contact the Mail and persuade them to attribute this content to Wikipedia, per CC-BY-SA. Firebrace (talk) 12:50, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Not only the DM, although Wikipedia is a favourite crib sheet for their articles. I can recall a DM article about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which had borrowed large chunks of the Wikipedia article. The irony is that they would be the first to complain if it emerged that something had been copied from Wikipedia that was incorrect, despite the Wikipedia:General disclaimer.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 16:52, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Have come across this thing myself where my and other editors contributions have been copied by the press (without any attribution to WP). At the very first instance, please apply Template:Backwards copy to the talk page, as I have done here : Talk:Wharncliffe Viaduct. Our help pages will assist, if you need more guidance against this one-way theft of our copyright. Many of us have been there, done it, only to find someone else gets the tee-shirt. Aspro (talk) 19:57, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Quite happy for my CC Wiki tee-shirt to be ironed and exhibited freely. Surely, you'd never find one here. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:17, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Happy new year!

Hello!

And happy new year!

I had heard about the legendary Jimbo Wales; just didn't know you actually have a user account. I always imagined any change you make to Wikipedia has the form of – please excuse my use of religious metaphor – divine intervention. I ran into your username while I was searching for an appropriate user to talk to. (I am looking for someone to discuss the future of my Wikipedia career with.) It is interesting to see that you are actually one of us! Well, thanks for co-founding Wikipedia. I had an excellent time until 2017. God, I have one million question I want to ask you. I'm just not sure if I should.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 08:09, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Ask away. Regarding content, I have some degree of influence based on long history I suppose, and also because I try to be quite sensible, but no, nothing from me is like a 'divine intervention'. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:52, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Hello again. Thanks for the kind answer. Sorry, something has happened and I have a lot on my mind right now. Maybe some other time.
Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 20:21, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

The userpage that everyone can edit

If the userpage is semiprotected, could someone please remove the "You can edit this" message? DeepcoverEditor (talk) 02:21, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Anyone sensible can edit it. It is semi-protected at the moment because there has been a spate of silly edits. The usual protection is semi rather than full protection which would stop anyone except administrators from editing the page.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:04, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
I think this description is more accurate : "You can edit this page! And we can indefblock you! Enjoy your ten seconds before the revert, and bye!" Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:13, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
I think perhaps Jimbo should perhaps alter it to something more in line with the constant disruption it suffers. Something more like ... But note that the community might decide to protect it if disruptive editing occurs. But I feel it should be Jimbo's decision. Unfortunately it has become a huge vandal magnet, and the sentiments, although laudable, may no longer apply. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 21:35, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Annual Top 50 Report

  • Hello,

Along with multiple other editors, we have compiled a report detailing the 50 most read articles on en.wikipedia in 2017. We have put a significant amount of work into this project, and have done so with the intention of illuminating and entertaining the readers of the wiki. However, as it is an annualised version of the Top 25 Report, it does contain commentary and humor. For this reason, it is stored in WP space rather than as an article. However, alas, this means that it is ineligible for inclusion at either DYK or ITN, the usual avenues for attracting viewers to obscure pages. Given the specialised nature of the report, and the fact that we feel it is of interest to readers, my query is:

  • Do you have any suggestions on how to publicise the list and provide it to readers who may be interest, either on or off-wiki?

As a bastion of the encyclopedia, and a figure who rightfully earns my utmost respect, I will defer to your guidance in this regard. A significant amount of work has gone into producing an editorialised version of the report, and it would be a sincere shame to see it go to waste in my view. Thanks in advance for any advice or assistance. It is greatly appreciated. -Stormy clouds (talk) 14:26, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

P.S. - Talk page stalkers can feel free to pose suggestions as well

So, for other editors, I would say that the SignPost is a great place to get attention. For the general public of readers, I think this looks super interesting as well - and fun. I would recommend talking to the comms team about how to publicize it directly off of Wikipedia. It's a wee bit late for the natural space in the "news" cycle of "fun year-end round ups" so perhaps next year we could work in mid-December to start to publicize it in advance.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:39, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
It is interesting, but it mainly underlines how much of our readership is in "popular culture." I wonder what the list would look like if we removed popular culture articles from consideration? Some of that would have to be subjective - is Charles Manson pc or not? But my interest in Wikipedia is not the latest TV show or Bollywood film. Sure I tolerate pc, or usually just ignore it, but I'm certainly interested more in other articles. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:20, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Would like to add, that before Xmas I had a go at adding {{notice|{{Graph:PageViews|365}}|heading=Daily page views |center=y |image=Open data small color.png}} to what I thought were a few mediocre (?) medical articles, which I had an interest in. Was pleasantly astonished when this widget showed how many page views these articles got. So yes, by all mean lets have a top 50 and let it expand to being the top of a pyramid of so many other articles that provide WP readers to the information they value. This may encourage 'would be' editors (who may not think their knowledge, in their field of expertise would be of interest), to bite the bullet, to create an new and much need article. Think some times we (the editors that try to get rid of the crud) get numbed with yet another article about Pokemon Cards or a newbie whose only interest is to promote their own pop group. Leaving me thinking we are now scraping the bottom of barrel, but then, out of the blue, a really good article appears. Think that knowing page views would encourages readers to become editors and get stuck in. Gosh... Sure I could have said this in fewer words but this is how I see it. Aspro (talk) 21:24, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Comment: Don't think it matters whether the top 50 is populated with "popular culture." WP is not a paper encyclopaedia like Encyclopædia Britannica. My 1961 edition is very much aimed at the middle classes that could afford to purchase it. The credo of WP is to be an encyclopedia for everyone. Our category system works like any other and can thus differentiate popular culture. So, no problem there. Therefore, don't think our personal peccadilloes should come in to what appears in the top 25 nor 50 nor 100 nor 1000 etc. What matters is : Is it encyclopedic and referenced with reliable sources . Aspro (talk) 22:07, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't mean to say that my idea of what should be in a top 50 list is everybody's idea, nor that we can't have multiple lists, e.g. top viewed math and science articles, top viewed geography articles, etc. But the list I'd like to see is top viewed articles not including pop cultures, which would likely exclude the most viewed TV, games, sports, music, etc. and a good portion of BLPs. Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but my personal idea of an "encyclopedic article" includes only things like science, math, technology, history, geography, medicine, and other academic subjects. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:54, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Oh there is no need to say sorry. This is the value of discussing things. My point was that WP tends to attract editors, that like you and me are academics of the sciences. So there is a bias to easily skip over Encyclopædia Britannica's non science articles as if they didn't exist. Coming back to what I think your point is: Popularity (top 50) should be broken down into separate classifications in order to provide context of 'importance'. The best way I can think of putting it is to quote Hippocrates when he is reputed to have said: Ὁ βίος βραχὺς, ἡ δὲ τέχνη μακρὴ. Literal translation is: Life is short, and Art long. This I think, is what we agree upon. Ephemeral 'pop culture' will fade very quickly but τέχνη (art/technology) will live long. So think, that it is a temporal distinction, that needs to be made if any and as WP grows older that distinction will have to be made .Aspro (talk) 00:16, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
Given that WP will be on the first page of any search engine's results, I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised that more of it isn't pop culture, to be honest. Black Kite (talk) 00:42, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia biz for JW. Dead links don't need to be removed and the facts they document removed as was done for example HERE. Rather, just copy the old dead link from the WP page and visit our friends at Internet Archive (www.archive.org) and punch the old URL into their Wayback Machine tool. This more often than not pulls up a preserved permalink, such as THIS for THIS. Then reenter the permalink into the WP page. This preserves the content. best regards for 2018, —tim /// Carrite (talk) 05:16, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Baseline guidelines and policies for interwiki transfer

I don't know if interwiki is the right word here but some of us will remember the recent problem with wkkidata and Wikipedia. I can imagine that there might be similar problems with wikidata being used on other WMF sites. And I notice we still have fairly regular AfD's regarding individual churches and ministers who probably qualify for wikidata if not here. I can also imagine how wikibooks and wikiversity and other sites might have problems if some of our material were to be imported directly there. Does anyone think there might be value in getting representative editors from the various entities together to establish common basic guidelines for information transfer and if yes where it might best be held?John Carter (talk) 19:04, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Biography bias vs. topical bias

BLPs make the most noise when they are biased against the wishes of their subject, even if the majority of editors say the articles are balanced. But topical articles do the most damage when they are biased. The community decided it would be less disruptive to forbid me from complaining about such topical article issues than address them through mediation.

Why does the community prefer censorship to mediation?

I ask that my topic ban be rescinded so that I can speak freely about this issue and apply for mediation. EllenCT (talk) 14:25, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Actually the problem leading to your ban was your relentless POV-pushing in economics articles. Given your past history of endless argufying, I think that such an exception would be unlikely to fly. Guy (Help!) 14:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
My position has always been aligned with and supported by peer reviewed secondary literature, often MEDRS-grade or above. That many editors opposed to particular views inconsistent with their ideology insisted on pop fringe views being given greater weight should surprise nobody given current events. If you think I am misrepresenting my position, its quality, or anything else, please tell me why. EllenCT (talk) 20:12, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
Facepalm Facepalm (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:46, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
In my experience, successful requests to have topic bans lifted generally have the following attributes:
  • They are posted at WP:AN, not Jimbo's talk page.
  • They have a neutral, descriptive titles like "Request to lift EllenCT's topic ban".
  • They start with links to what those who complained about your behavior cited when asking for a topic ban.
  • They show an understanding about what got you topic banned.
  • They show a commitment to not doing the same things that got you topic banned if the topic ban is lifted.
In my experience, unsuccessful requests to have topic bans lifted generally have the following attributes:
  • They contain emotionally charged accusations like "Why does the community prefer censorship to mediation?"
  • They basically state "everyone else was wrong, I was right" (Your "many editors opposed to particular views inconsistent with their ideology insisted on pop fringe views" language above is an example of this.)
This isn't to say that this isn't one of those rare cases where you really are right and everyone else really is wrong. I haven't looked at the evidence and thus have no opinion on that. I wrote an essay for editors who feel that they really are right and that everyone else really is wrong, and my essay doesn't just dismiss those who feel that way. Perhaps it may help you. It is at WP:1AM --Guy Macon (talk) 23:09, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I was just wondering…

Which do you feel that Wikipedia values more: Bad edits with good intents (such as a new user who tries to add a fact that he/she just saw on live TV but accidentally messes up some wikicode) or good edits with bad intents (such as a vandal who decides to blank a section of a BLP article just because he feels like it, not knowing that the entire section was libel added by another vandal in the previous edit)? Which do you value more/ think that Wikipedia should value more?

Also, what's Larry Sanger's Wikipedia username? I want to ask him the same question. The Nth User I like to use parser functions. Care to differ or discuss? 17:07, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

It's Larry Sanger. Probably some weird coincidence. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:39, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I figured that it would be based on his name; I just wasn't sure whether it would be his first name, last name, full name, nickname, or alteration of. The Nth User Care to differ or discuss? 17:45, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I would prefer more originality, its a bit boring. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:49, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I prefer goodfaith newbies who make a bad edit over people with bad intentions who happen to make a good edit by accident because we can help the goodfaith newbies to become wiki-experts. But the question was which edit Wikipedia values more. Not sure about that. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:53, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I agree with you. Before I got a Wikipedia account, when I was inexperienced and editing as an IP editor, I would sometimes accidentally break some wikicode. Then what I would do was try to see if I could at least partially fix it, and if I couldn't completely fix it, leave it there and hope that the next editor would be able to fix it, that way the content that I was trying to add wasn't lost. And that's often what would happen. That's another difference between bad edits with good intent and good edits with bad intent: The former can still contribute content to Wikipedia that wouldn't have gotten there otherwise, like I would do, while in my example of the latter, the libel would have gotten removed by someone else if the vandal hadn't blanked the section, so the vandal contributed no long-term improvement to Wikipedia. I'm not sure which the Wikipedia community values more as a whole, though. There are probably some members who value each more, and there are probably other related factors, like maybe users who get annoyed more at having to frequently have newbies would be more likely to value bad edits with good intents less. The Nth User Care to differ or discuss? 18:12, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
I prefer good faith edits, always.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:54, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Retractions and WikiData

Great post by Gerard Meijssen here; http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/wikipedia-fiduciary-responsibilities.html?

If we could sort out integration between ProveIt and WikiData, this might be a very useful tool in managing retracted and/or corrected sources. A minmal development effort would permit us to effectively Shepardize our article reference sections. Worth a thought anyway. Guy (Help!) 20:50, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Barnstar bureaucracy

The regulars here may find this quasi-RfC of interest: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards#Barnstar bureaucracy. Short version is that I'm finally getting around to objecting to a wikiproject bureaucratically controlling barnstars with a formal proposal process and gatekeeping who's allowed to add what to WP:Barnstars. It's been bugging me for years in that WP:Esperanza way.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  19:55, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Create free image. Upload. Use. No bureaucracy. If you're worried about pushback in creating a template, see user:UBX. This is a nothingburger. Guy (Help!) 21:04, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Remove block of my account.

My account and ip address was blocked 1year ago.Can u please remove this? MD.MASHRAFI (talk) 08:42, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

What is the name of the account? What is the IP address? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:06, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Account appears to be Mashrafi al mahvi (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) --Guy Macon (talk) 14:44, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah, a vanity spammer. Guy (Help!) 15:01, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

private issue that you can help (about wiki)

hi jimmy , Is this really the homepage of Wikipedia establisher? Your answers to me or your colleagues? can i send you an email to you? i havent your email but i need it. thank you so muchYekatrinbourgia (talk) 16:30, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

this link works.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:34, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

"Censorship" of Daily Mail?

Jimbo, now that the Daily Mail is being punished overtly because of "its beliefs", I think you should consider initiating a review of its status re: Wikipedia. Because we should distance Wikipedia as far as possible away from any "beliefs" censorship, imo, what say Ye? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:36, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

They got very very mad at us when we had that RfC that said they were not a reliable source. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 23:46, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
@Nocturnalnow: Have you seen this comic? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 23:47, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Nonsense. The Mail is shite as a source, and should not be cited here. That has sweet bugger all to do with their ideology, and everything to do with their crappy ethics and standards. Virgin's actions are their own business. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:49, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
In case anyone missed it, the reasons we don't The Daily Mail as a source are all laid out at WP:DAILYMAIL. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:23, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
The DM is a problematic source, but the same problem applies to most of the UK tabloids and various people pointed out that the "ban" looked like singling out the DM. Virgin Trains said that the DM is "incompatible with its beliefs" [39] so it gave a clear ideological reason for the ban. This follows a ban by students at several British universities on the DM and other tabloids.[40]--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:41, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
To be fair, we already had a general rule that red-top tabloids shouldn't in general be used as a source. Since the Mail didn't fall into that category (although I have no idea why because their journalistic standards are about as rigorous as the Sunday Sport) the discussion had to be had. Black Kite (talk) 15:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Agreed, I avoid tabloid sources wherever possible, but the DM is markedly worse than, say, The Sun, and yet it presents itself as being a cut above the red-tops. Hence the need for a specific consensus statement around the Mail. Guy (Help!) 15:25, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
My father has a book shop. He does not sell Dan Brown's books, because he thinks that Dan Brown is an idiot and that his books are shit. Is Dan Brown being censored by my fathers decision not to buy and sell shitty books? Should Wikipedia distance itself from my father's "censorship" (you know, his decision to buy and sell books he likes)? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 14:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
Also he probably understands the difference between censor and censure. Guy (Help!) 15:27, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: See my comment dated 23:47, 9 January 2018. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 15:27, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
"A spokesperson for the Daily Mail said: “It is disgraceful that, at a time of massive customer dissatisfaction over ever-increasing rail fares, and after the taxpayer was forced to bail out Virgin’s East Coast mainline franchise – a decision strongly criticised by the Mail – that Virgin Trains should now announce that for political reasons it is censoring the choice of newspapers it offers to passengers.
“For the record, Virgin used to sell only 70 Daily Mails a day. They informed us last November that to save space, they were restricting sales to just three newspapers: the Mirror, FT and Times. They gave no other reason, but it may be no coincidence that all those titles, like Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson, are pro-remain." Martinevans123 (talk) 15:54, 10 January 2018 (UTC) ... no jokes about loss of the emergency toilet paper supply...

I think that the Daily Mail / Mail on Sunday / Mail Online should not, in general, be used as sources at Wikipedia, and my view has nothing at all to do with their varied political positions. For me, it is stories like this one which seal the deal. Great story, great photo, unfortunately it's also been completely debunked and still sits as a huge glaring lie on their website. See: [43], [44], [45] for further discussion of this particular case. I do think that, as current policy certainly allows, there can be reasonable exceptions to this policy, such as for example when the Mail does good quality journalism and is the first to break an important and thoughtful story. The overall view of them should be extreme skepticism - because they've earned it.

I also think that a number of other tabloids should not be used as sources, and that the Daily Mail should at least take some solace in the fact that anyone would even consider using them as a source, whereas there do exist even lower quality sources which we don't have to specifically name as problematic, since virtually no one would ever think to use them as a source in the first place.

Finally, I think whatever Virgin Trains wants to do has little bearing on our editorial judgment. If you're interested in my personal opinion on the matter, I think it's very similar to the one expressed above. I think they are entitled to decide which papers to provide to their customers based on pretty much whatever criteria they please. There is a small wrinkle in that they are (it is said, I'm not an expert in this area so I don't know for sure) recipients of some government largesse/subsidies. I would say, though, that unless the subsidy comes with some strings attached which require them to become neutral carriers of newspapers, I don't see any legal or moral obligation for them to not make those judgment calls as they see fit.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

ok, points well taken. What's cool, I think, is that a lot of critical thinking is used by our editors in the arguments against using DM, but what concerns me is the uniformity of opinion. I found a few old stories from the NY Times and Fox News from 2002 which insisted that Iraq had WMDs and one apology from the Wash. Post., so I disagree that any story or even a few should seal the deal on your or my opinion on anything. One recent example is a video I happened upon while researching Gamergate controversy. The video features a guy who I was so sure has views which I would find repulsive that I had never read or heard anything he said. But while watching the video I found his argument compelling that the upcoming societal battle of importance is/will be between individual liberty lovers and what he defined as the authoritarianism of who he called "social justice warriors". I think you might find the video as intellectually stimulating/thought provoking as I did....and I think the points raised may apply exactly to the DM situation, perhaps even on a subliminal level. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:28, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
To save other people having to actually look, the "individual liberty lover" in question here is Milo Yiannopoulos. ‑ Iridescent 17:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
@Nocturnalnow: Nicky Crane, one of the founders of B&H, was also quite thought provoking. Unfortunately these thoughts about Milo and Nicky aren't positive. And unlike Milo Nicky never made any pro-pedo comments as far as I am aware. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 18:26, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
@The Quixotic Potato: Yiannopoulos stands accused of making a comment to excuse someone who pursued an inappropriate relationship with him as a minor, which did not advocate any change to the legal age of consent (even within the range that presently exists in the world), but simply swallowed the claim that a few kids like himself weren't really being abused. He did not even assert that pedos can actually tell which kids those are when they pursue them. As such I think you do him a grave disservice with your characterization, even if half the world did adopt the same squishy logic for reasons of political convenience. As such I can't say you violate BLP but I do say you're wrong anyway. Wnt (talk) 00:55, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
According to you I'm always wrong, aren't I? Even when I am not. Still mad because I didn't like your idea of turning Wikipedia into a giant VPN portal, I assume. I would recommend reading the article about Milo. Milo would never do anyone a grave disservice with characterizations, that is not how he rolls. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:57, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Get a room, you two. :)   --Guy Macon (talk) 01:24, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 01:29, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I would recommend reading the article about Milo. I wouldn't. As currently written it violates WP:NOR (WP:SYNTH) and WP:NPOV. And is a case in point for the discussion above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryk72 (talk • contribs) 01:32, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
I haven't edited that article. Feel free to improve it (it is semiprotected and under an active arbitration remedy, but editable). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 01:44, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Without wishing to sidetrack this section, "editable" is an amusing description. Lets say "editable" also includes "revertable" and "revertable based on fiat or caprice". The labour involved in aligning articles with core policy is not insignificant. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 02:04, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Not much here to sidetrack. "The labour involved in aligning articles with core policy is not insignificant" is probably the understatement of the year. WikiGnomes like us can sometimes get away with making a noncontroversial improvement of a very controversial article. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 02:13, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
(e/c)Well also, it just seems false and tendentious to claim any needed information would/will or could possibly be censored, whether we use a single newspaper or do not use that paper (especially so, when what we are suppose to do in general is compile). If you think critically about the "censorship" claim made, it is absurd on its face -- choosing not to use a source when you write is not censorship -- it's what writers do, always. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
I think this is an important point that bears emphasis. One of my pet peeves, which regulars to this page will have seen me talk about many times over the years, is the conflation of "censorship" with "editorial judgment".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:41, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
If you think the NY Times hasn't re-assessed its WMD coverage you haven't been looking hard enough. This took ten seconds to find. --NeilN talk to me 17:40, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
I just think a review wouldn't hurt. I'm really taken with Milo's conflation of authoritarian behaviour and mentality with "social justice warriors". It reminds me of Michael Ignatieff being a human rights icon while simultaneously embracing American exceptionalism and the invasion of Iraq; that was an imbalance in my view which I never could reconcile. There's always been a rumour that many liberals evolve into control freaks, but I just never believed that; I simply could not comprehend that possibility...seems to incongruous. Nocturnalnow (talk) 05:48, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
Nocturnalnow Uniformity of opinion? Srsly? Right-leaning editors have been bitching about this from the outset. There is consensus, based on multiple independent sources showing the Mail to be biased and unreliable, and a plurality of opinion against routine use which nonetheless encompasses a spectrum from "never use and remove all existing" to "use with caution and don't remove existing". There is certainly no "uniformity". Guy (Help!) 09:26, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Some people have questioned why Wikipedia does not allow The Daily Mail to be used as a source. Here is why this was a good decision:

  • The Daily Mail regularly fabricates entire stories. When they know that something is going to happen (a verdict in a trial, an election result, a sporting event being won of lost) they write two stories, one for each possible result, and hit the publish button within seconds of the event happening. These prewritten stories contain detailed descriptions of how people reacted, direct quotes from the participants, and eyewitness accounts, all completely made up out of whole cloth.
  • The Daily Mail regularly plagiarizes articles from other publications. They do a quick rewrite so that they aren't using the exact same wording, then they add fake details that make the story more salacious and exciting and slap on a fake byline. Wikipedia has a strong policy against linking to plagiarism.
  • The Daily Mail regularly fabricates entire interviews. Instead of bothering to talk with the person, they just pretend that they did and publish the fake interview. Why bother getting an actual interview when it is easier and cheaper to simply make up some quotes rather than bothering to interview someone?
  • When The Daily Mail gets sued or fined for doing any of this, they pay up, knowing that they made far more money off the original story than they lost in the lawsuit.

Show me any other publication that does these sort of things and I will be glad to post an RfC forbidding use of that source. Sources that we already don't allow don't count.

  • I will finish with this quote:
"The Mail's editorial model depends on little more than dishonesty, theft of copyrighted material, and sensationalism so absurd that it crosses into fabrication. Yes, most outlets regularly aggregate other publications' work in the quest for readership and material, and yes, papers throughout history have strived for the grabbiest headlines facts will allow. But what DailyMail.com does goes beyond anything practiced by anything else calling itself a newspaper. In a little more than a year of working in the Mail's New York newsroom, I saw basic journalism standards and ethics casually and routinely ignored. I saw other publications' work lifted wholesale. I watched editors at the most highly trafficked English-language online newspaper in the world publish information they knew to be inaccurate." ---Source: My Year Ripping Off the Web With the Daily Mail Online --Guy Macon (talk) 09:51, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
WP:WHAAOE - We actually have an article that explains why we shouldn't use the Daily Mail, and it is called garbage in, garbage out. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 11:18, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
ok, I'm convinced...its good to see that the decision is still well supported by current realities. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: How do I know I can trust the expose in Gawker? Which unlike the Mail was actually shut down by the legal system -- albeit, yes, for publishing the truth... They printed a response by Daily Mail at the end of that article that disputes many of the key details. My gut reaction is to let individual editors decide who they believe, because how can any of us make that decision for them? Wnt (talk) 22:06, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
That's a very good question. Until you questioned it, I hadn't considered the possibility that Gawker was lying. Here is an article from The Hollywood Reporter about it:[46] Nothing in the HR article tells me which side to believe. However, I can find plenty of other sources that make the same clains about The Daily Mail.[47][48][49][50][51] --Guy Macon (talk) 22:32, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
To me, these still represent a relatively limited problem. Some of your sources suggest that they settle or otherwise deal with plagiarism/copyright issues, which means, we don't have to worry about them, not even just to be nice. Our editors can simply treat it as somebody else's problem -- though it wouldn't hurt to look for a more original source. I mean, Wikipedia has enough "copyvios" from having a stable of not-so-trustworthy "reporters" that we don't need to go looking for kettles to call black. Wnt (talk) 03:13, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Actually my opinion and your opinion of this issue do not matter. We had an RfC (WP:DAILYMAIL) and the consensus was clear. I happen to agree with the consensus, but I make a point of following consensus even in cases where I personally disagree with the community's decision. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
The reason we don't allow the Daily Mail has nothing to do with their political position. We do allow plenty of right-of-centre newspapers that engage in ethical journalistic practices. The problem with the Daily Mail is their consistently sloppy, fraudulent and incompetent journalism, particularly where living persons are concerned. We cannot take the risk that any of the Daily Mail's frequent errors will make it into our articles. This principle of expecting some sort of basic quality control and editoral standards also applies to crappy rags on the far-left part of the spectrum too. Lankiveil (speak to me) 05:16, 12 January 2018 (UTC).

As mentioned here:

"Q: How do you think Sci-Hub will evolve in future?

A: In the paper we mentioned that there are technologies coming that would allow you to host files without any central point of failure, so going forward Sci-Hub, or a service like it, could still provide access to all these papers, but there wouldn’t be any domain or one person behind it. Right now, if the servers for Sci-Hub were found they could be seized and destroyed."

Count Iblis (talk) 18:00, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

The section heading looks like a "Scare Headline" or even click-bait, but as I understand it this refers only to having a distributed server system that no one government could close down. I'm pretty sure that few people would want an encyclopedia that is "fully independent of any legal jurisdiction" when it comes to keeping an owner (the WMF) in charge of general oversight, collecting donations, removing fake news and deceptive advertising, etc. A legal system is something that's evolved over the centuries to help people deal with problems that commonly arise in large organizations. It has some downsides, but we still need to deal with other people via legal systems, e.g. how can we pay the employees who keep the servers running if there is no legal system to protect their rights (and to pay the taxes for their schooling, old age, medical care, etc.) Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:37, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
SciHub can already be decentralized, hosting files without any central point of failure or place where the files could be seized and destroyed. All they have to do is to create a bittorrent tracker for each file, put the trackers up on Academic Torrents, Legit Torrents, Bitlove, PublicBitTorrent, OpenBitTorrent, The Pirate Bay, ect., then encourage academics to run seed servers. They are doing some of this already but could do a lot more.
Wikipedia cannot do the same thing, because bittorent is optimized for files that don't change, not files that are constantly being edited. In fact, Brewer's theorem says that we can't decentralize without losing either consistency or availability. I will explain why in detail if anyone doubts me on this.
Also see:[52][53][54][55][56][57] --Guy Macon (talk) 19:04, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps consistency could be relaxed a bit like is done in case of blockchain currencies like bitcoin? Count Iblis (talk) 21:00, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
Whatever happened to Ward Cunningham's Federated Wiki project? Wasn't that supposed to be fully distributed? 185.13.106.125 (talk) 05:26, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
If you find any more information on this, please add it to Smallest Federated Wiki.
Distributing the content of Wikipedia is certainly doable. You can accomplish a lot before Brewer's theorem kicks in. Becoming "fully independent of any legal jurisdiction" can, in theory, be accomplished. Think of the entire WMF living on a ship in the high seas forever, or relocating to a heavily-armed bunker in Somaliland. This would be a last resort if the US government becomes a tyranny. and even then a move to Canada or the UK is far more feasible.
More on SciHub: [58] Also see:Alexandra Elbakyan --Guy Macon (talk) 13:21, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for reminding me of that article. I clicked on the link it gives to her blog, https://engineuring.wordpress.com/ , and the top article provides a list of inaccuracies she observes in the current Sci-Hub article that we ought to fix. Wnt (talk) 17:27, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
While I think this sort of thought experiment can be quite fun, I'd just like to point out that Wikipedia/Wikimedia isn't doing anything that is illegal or even legally problematic in most jurisdictions of the world, while Sci-Hub obviously is doing something that is illegal. (I am not commenting on what I think the law should be, of course, I'm just saying that it is illegal what they are doing, as a matter of simple fact.) Currently we are only blocked in China and Turkey, and in Turkey we are still able to pursue legal options through the courts - for now. Currently, as ever, the content restrictions placed on us in the US are significantly lower than in just about any other jurisdiction in the world due to the strength of the First Amendment. As our fundraising begins to approach $100 million per year, it's pretty obvious that courts and laws are quite beneficial to us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:55, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
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