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When does crowdsourcing work and when doesn't it?

It is clear that crowdsourcing works when people are contributing content to Wikipedia articles. It works when people are contributing questions and answers to stackexchange.

When people are performing regulatory functions it does not work. I originally saw how the process works by looking at how it works on stackexchange, and that enabled me to recognize it when I saw it in action on Wikipedia. Things like the Administrators' Noticeboards attract people who want to push others around under pretense of performing a useful function. One sign that that's what you're seeing is that people issue rulings while refusing to argue or discuss, on a topic that they don't care about, and expect and demand obedience to their rulings. There is a collegiality among these people: they see when one of their own is behaving like this and gang up on anyone who is being unruly by actually wanting to discuss a matter rather than obeying rulings issued by people who won't discuss it and who demand obedience.

Some honest discussion is tolerated on the Administrators' Noticeboards and similar venues, and some escapes notice and survives. But corruption is dominant in those venues. Michael Hardy (talk) 05:05, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

To avoid gangs, Jimbo has advocated using a "random-jury" tool to contact numerous other editors and request their opinions when reviewing a matter. Perhaps ask more at wp:TECHPUMP, to see if such a tool is in-work, to function similar to the wp:RfC wp:Feedback request service (wp:FRS) bot to notify a random group of users. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:43, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm glad to hear that. I had proposed the idea of using a jury two years ago when I opened up this discussion here on Jimbo's talk page. Wikid77 picked up the ball with this and Create tool for random-jury selection tool. I spent a substantial amount of time brainstorming on systems that would be fair, effective, and workable, and discussed those ideas Wikid77. I'm really glad to hear it's taken seriously by Jimbo.
I think it would be far more effective than ArbCom. In so many of the current forums, the self-selected involved parties dominate the discussion and post so much text--often with long irrelevant diversions that make it confusing as to what is going on--that neutral uninvolved editors feel so overwhelmed and don't want to jump into the "drama" and be seen as taking a side in an argument they don't care about. The discussion should be controlled by neutral parties who can ask important pointed questions to help them figure out what is really going on and seek resolution and not get bullied by involved parties for commenting. I believe a random jury selection method would accomplish this. I believe Jimbo had said it would not be necessary for all disputes to be handled this way. I agree--it could be a "right" of any involved party to appeal a decision to a jury administered forum, functioning somewhat like the court of appeals process in the U.S. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
There are two separate questions here. The first is whether Ancestral health meets WP:GNG, which in my two cents' worth of opinion it probably doesn't. If you had accepted this, all of the subsequent shin kicking and recriminations would have been avoided. The second question is whether some people have managed to turn this into a full blown drama festival. Wikipedia can get heated sometimes, and it is important to take the dog for a walk when this happens.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:14, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@Ianmacm: The question about the "Ancestral health" article has no relevance here. I never failed to accept the decision about it. I recognize that it needs more tertiary sources before it can be an article. That's no excuse for libeling professors who founded it. I do not consider that article improtant. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:33, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@Ianmacm: The main problem is that regulatory pages like A.N. are dominated by people who refuse to engage in discussion or argument but demand obedience on matters they don't care about, in order to establish themselves as people who should be obeyed. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:40, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
It sounds strange to me that the ancestral health article could not be better sourced. We have an article on Staffan Lindeberg who is well known for the the Kitava Study. Also, there exists lots of other research results that corroborate the results from that study, see e.g. here and here. So, here you have 3 independent studies into 3 different indigenous populations who eat a similar diet, with fat intake at 20% or less of total calorie intake, who are virtually free of cardiovascular disease. Now a lot of the medical research that makes it into the tertiary review articles where the guidelines for healthy diet are formulated, don't have this focus. The focus there is to study small changes in diet and lifestyle relative to the unhealthy Western lifestyle. The problem may then be that our WP:MEDRS standards that mandate us to consider tertiary review reports for medical articles. Many researchers in the field actually defend this non-scientific attitude by saying that what matters is to get to an effective message about a healthy diet. E.g we can read here: ""Whilst consuming more than five portions of fruit and vegetables a day may be desirable... adding pressure to consume more fruit and vegetables creates an unrealistic expectation."". Count Iblis (talk) 19:16, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
What's even stranger is that two years on Michael Hardy is still behaving as if deletion of the article on this fad diet is the end of Wikipedia as we know it. I cannot understand why. Guy (Help!) 20:03, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: As I said, I don't consider that article important. I objected to libelous attacks on professors who founded the organization, not to deletion of the article. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:35, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia should be the last of our concerns. What we put in your mouth affects our health, so it's our own end we should have in mind here. Also, we should consider the massive healthcare costs, more than 80% of this is ultimately due to lifestyle factors. If somehow we could get all young people to exercise and eat healthier, health insurance premiums would eventually go down by a factor of 5 or more. Also we could save lot on pension premiums. As pointed out here: "There is no word for “retirement” in the Okinawan language; the locals, many of whom grew up as farmers and fisherpeople, may carry on working until they die. Elderly residents live by the principle of “ikigai”, which is loosely translated as “having a reason to get up in the morning”."
And all of this will also be good for Wikipedia, because with a much lower healthcare and pension burden to society, people will have more free time, therefore more time available to edit Wikipedia! Count Iblis (talk) 21:08, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
There ya go. Let's euthanize en.wiki and all move to Japan. Problem solved. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:19, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
WP:GETOVERIT. Guy (Help!) 20:02, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Personally, I'd never advocate pressure to consume more fruit and vegetables as a reliable route to euthanasia. [5] Martinevans123 (talk) 20:58, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Well...that would depend on how many prunes one consumes daily. Atsme📞📧 21:03, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Ancestral health: Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL doesn't produce anything of great note that would meet WP:GNG. The article Paleolithic lifestyle just about meets WP:GNG, but there is nothing wrong with eating fresh food, not being overweight and doing plenty of exercise. This isn't a fad or crank diet, it is common sense.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 03:25, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Ian - take a look at this link. I just posted a comment about it on Michael's TP page. Apparently, it's a movement with an international reach, and they host symposiums, a podcast, retreats, etc. I think it does pass GNG. Atsme📞📧 04:08, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Adding PubMed link. 04:13, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Most of the sourcing leads back to people who are linked to the Ancestral Health Society. This isn't secondary sourcing, which is why the article was nominated for deletion in August 2016.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 04:16, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@Atsme:, you've been here before with laetrile. You are not very good at spotting quacks who are looking to build a false impression of legitimacy. I suggest you leave this one to people who have more experience with the borderline between legitimate medical inquiry and bullshit. The "Journal of Evolution and Health" is run by True Believers in the field, it published one issue in 2013 and three in 2017 mainly containing stuff from a symposium the society ran. Every article I checked has at least one member of the society and editorial board as a co-author. These are massive red flags, in an area that is an absolute magnet for woo. I googled the subject and waded through dozens of links, most of which were basically David Avocado Wolfe wannabes (and bear in mind that Wolfe himself is just copying the FUD Babe). Everything about this screams "bullshit". Guy (Help!) 08:05, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Jiminy Cricket, Guy - really??? Please stop taking things out of context to further your goals while trying to portray me to be something I'm not - you are casting aspersions. You just posted something similar on my TP, so I'll direct readers to this diff, and add that it demonstrates what I actually wrote in that BLP [6] you just misrepresented. Editors can read the diffs and judge for themselves. I will also add that a similar discussion (different topic but a controversial BLP nonetheless) at BLP/N was explained quite well here and Jimbo agreed. There is more at the top of my TP in the sections titled "To say it in WikiVoice, or not??" and "To include it in a BLP, or not??" Atsme📞📧 18:01, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
These are exactly the kind of damaging accusations against medical professionals and PhDs associated with the "Ancestral Health movement" that Michael Hardy calls "libelous." Where is your WP:RS (or better your WP:MEDRS) for these defamatory comments that they are "quacks"? According to our article, "Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a 'fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill' or 'a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, qualification or credentials they do not possess; a charlatan or snake oil salesman.'" That's a very serious allegation to people holding medical licenses and PhD's in medicine without strong evidence. You also compare these medical professionals to David_Wolfe_(entrepreneur), a man who has no professional medical training, again without any evidence. Aren't you an admin?
@Michael Hardy: Isn't this exactly the behavior that concerns you? --David Tornheim (talk) 14:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
If I've learnt one thing after being here for over eleven years it's that Guy is pretty good at spotting medical nonsense. Please note, however, that he is not suggesting these people are "quacks" per se, just that everything related to the "Journal of Evolution and Health" is quackery. See also Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans. Black Kite (talk) 14:59, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@Black Kite: "JzG" did not say that, and I honestly wonder why you would think it's true. "JzG" is plainly inexperienced in some aspects of the behavior of professors. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
"Guy is pretty good at spotting medical nonsense." Is Guy (JzG) a medical doctor? Does he have a PhD in medicine? If Guy is using this encyclopedia and his adminship to "spot medical nonsense" [and eliminate it] without basing it on WP:RS, isn't that Original Research? Aren't we required to use the rules of WP:RS and WP:MEDRS to decide what is or is not "medical nonsense"? Or is this a case of "break any rule you want"? --David Tornheim (talk) 04:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
One does not have to be an MD or PhD to spot medical nonsense. One just has to know what RS say and have critical thinking skills, which JzG has in abundance. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:34, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@David Tornheim: Every time you write "medical professional" try substituting "former medical student". Every time you write "PhDs" substitute "people who never left college". Now, I have a lot of respect for academic medical researchers, but being an MD is not the same thing and neither confers any gift of inerrancy.
I did not say any specific individual is a quack or a charlatan. I did say that this has massive red flags for quackery and there are fellow-travellers who follow and promote it who absolutely are quacks in the Wolfe mould. The journal has massive red flags for woo, that is an objective fact. I have no opinion on the specific doctors involved in promoting "ancestral health" other than that if they want to be taken seriously they need to start publishing in mainstream journals instead of their own, not least because their journal isn't indexed and has no impact factor. Whether or not they are legitimate, their journal looks very suspicious indeed. That is not our problem to fix. Guy (Help!) 17:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: Obviously they do publish in mainstream journals. Just look at their web pages and at web pages that list their publications. And "obviously" is an appropriate word; if it's not obvious to you then you haven't looked. The assertion that they don't publish in mainstream journals is one of the things I called libelous. I am aware that in this field there are many scams, but those are found among people who are selling things, not among people who are organizing meetings of their fellow researchers. It is perfectly standard for professors interested in some research topic that only a few professors are interested in to organize conferences for interested researchers to meet and present their findings. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:28, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, I have a little bit of experience with quackery, and what I see is:
  • Exactly one article in PubMed with an exact text match to ancestral health, and that from the one issue of J Evol Health form 2013.
  • Exactly one article in PubMed from J Evol Health, being the same article.
  • Publications by several of the "ancestral health" proponents in PubMed on entirely unrelated topics (e.g. animal psychology).
Now look at Benveniste. He has a fucking Nobel prize but he still got reamed for publishing his pet crank theory in hi own journal.
Not saying that's what's going on here, but it is a fact that their core arguments are primarily presented in a journal they edit and publish. And that is a terrible sign. Guy (Help!) 18:12, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Demands for obedience

Once again: I do not consider the ancestral health article important, but I object to libelously calling professors at respected universities charlatans.

However, that's not what I was addressing here. The problem is that on regulatory pages like A.N., people who refuse to engage in discussion or argument but who demand obedience have become dominant. They just want to establish themselves as persons to whom obedience is due.

There's such a thing as collegiality. These people grant collegiality to similarly situated persons, but not to those who contribute to Wikipedia articles. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:47, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

It's not libel. There's pretty robust consensus on that. Not even a BLP violation.
I looked into the journal. It has pretty much all the hallmarks of a pseudoscience journal. Sporadically published, all articles I checked were authored or co-authored by someone on the editorial board, and the mission of the journal and its editors appears to be to produce evidence to support their pre-existing beliefs. It is entirely reasonable to call this out as a likely scam.
What I can't understand is: why now? This is two years stale and your main opponent there has barely edited since. Has someone contacted you off-wiki about it? Guy (Help!) 07:54, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: "Consensus" is not to be accorded the respect you suggest it should get, unless every lynch mob is to be honored. Especially when it's among plainly uninformed people.
The problems with the journal are that it's weak because there wasn't enough interest. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:40, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@JzG: The answer to "why now?" is only that I've been busy with other things. No one connected with it has talked to me about it. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:44, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Michael Hardy, please don't throw terms like "lynch mob" around just like that. Drmies (talk) 03:41, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Drmies: I'm not suggesting there's a lynch mob; I'm saying the epistemological principle is the same. Consensus means certain things will be done on Wikipedia, but consensus does not help indicate what is true or false. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:46, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't care what it was in reference to--it's in very poor taste. Drmies (talk) 03:53, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
There's also the problem of using one of the many fallacies to which homeopathists are prey, namely, that all critics are by definition ill-informed, because all informed people are not critics. I'm not an expert on ancestral health, but I know quite a lot about diet woo (I have coeliac and am bombarded by it) and I also know a fair bit about crappy journals (see user:JzG/Predatory). The presence of multiple red flags does not necessarily mean quackery and fraud, but it is fair to note the presence of those red flags and the very striking parallels between this and some well documented bullshit. Guy (Help!) 18:54, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
At worst, ancestral health qualifies for the Ig Nobel Prize. It is stating the blindingly obvious that a stone age man who ate fresh food and exercised regularly was healthier than a modern person who eats junk food and sits in front of the television all day long. As for the deletion debate, maybe some people were a bit rude, but if Wikipedia was euthanized every time someone was a bit rude, the project would have died long ago.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
It's not about someone being a bit rude; it's about a general pattern. People post on regulatory pages and issue rulings and refuse to discuss or argue and just demand obedience, and when they see someone failing to bow down to one of their fellow dominators, several of them rush in to express agreement with something they don't care about. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:33, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • How many threads are we going to allow Michael Hardy to start before we declare his behavior to be disruptive and start nuking new threads on the same old hobbyhorse he creates on sight? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:52, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
There is a consensus that this debate reached the WP:GETOVERIT stage some time ago. I'm not going to comment on it any more.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 11:46, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@Michael Hardy: Let's review, shall we?

  • Starting multiple threads didn't work.
  • Saying that Wikipedia will be a thing of the past very soon didn't work.
  • Calling something "identified as libelous" after there was an overwhelming consensus that it was not didn't work.
  • Calling the editors who were part of that consensus deeply dishonest didn't work (and got you blocked with talk page access removed).
  • Saying that they bullied you didn't work.
  • Predicting that Wikipedia will be sued didn't work.
  • Saying that at AN/ANI corruption is dominant didn't work.
  • Saying that at AN/ANI is dominated by people who demand obedience in order to establish themselves as people who should be obeyed didn't work.
  • Saying that the foxes are guarding the chicken coop didn't work.
  • Comparing multiple editors disagreeing with you a lynch mob didn't work.

As far as I can tell, Michael Hardy has used everything in the Internet Troll's Playbook except comparing disagreeing with him to Hitler/The Holocaust and calling those who disagree with him pedophiles.

It is my considered opinion that Michael Hardy should be desysopped for conduct unbecoming an administrator.

Our Administrator policy states: "Administrators are expected to lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others... consistently or egregiously poor judgment may result in the removal of administrator status. Administrators should strive to model appropriate standards of courtesy and civility to other editors and to one another." --Guy Macon (talk) 04:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I did not compare anyone with a lynch mob. As I said, I was saying the epistemological principle is the same, and that is that although consensus may be a means of deciding what to do, it doesn't help decide what is true or false. How would you know any of these things didn't work? They failed to convince people who didn't want to consider them because they're here to pursue their agendas? There were things I didn't know about the people who engage in these kinds of exchanges that I found out by posting here, so that _did_ work. As far as respectfulness and civility go, I have been respectful and civil. I have argued and discussed; I have not given orders. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:55, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
If then, as you claim, you have been respectful and civil, how do you explain this? And you clearly did compare multiple editors disagreeing with you with a lynch mob.[7] Yes, I am aware that later you claimed that you didn't do it, but nothing in your original comment -- the one where you compared multiple editors disagreeing with you with a lynch mob -- mentions any epistemological principle.
You have made it crystal clear that you no longer trust the consensus of your fellow editors or your fellow administrators, and that your judgement about what is and is not "behaving in a respectful, civil manner" and "modeling appropriate standards of courtesy and civility" is seriously at odds with the the judgement of the community that you no longer trust. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: I wrote: "'Consensus' is not to be accorded the respect you suggest it should get, unless every lynch mob is to be honored." I did not compare them with a lynch mob; rather I said the epistemological principle is the same, namely: consensus of this sort does not help discover what is true or false. Michael Hardy (talk) 12:35, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
You still don't get it, Michael Hardy, despite this fancy yacking about "epistemological principle". What you miss completely is that maybe some sort of mob mentality comparison is acceptable, but the "lynch" part is not. Commemorated here are some 4400 lynchings categorized as racial terrorism. That does not seem to jive with whatever epistemological principle you are pointing at. FFS, stop digging, and stop repeating that offensive language. That you fail to see this makes me have serious doubts about your ability to judge the kinds of things we want admins to judge. Drmies (talk) 15:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Aren't you liberals the ones who compare everyone you don't like to Nazis. Nazi is fine but lynch mob is offensive? Or maybe you think getting offended is a display of virtue (it's not.) The word is jibe BTW not jive. 2A02:6080:0:0:0:1:1081:A2D5 (talk) 18:57, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Actually, in this context, according to Merriam, "jive" has been used as a synonym for "jibe" since at least the 1940s. Damn liberals with their new-fangled language. Black Kite (talk) 19:02, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Why would you say that when anyone can look it up and see what you said isn't true? Weird. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jive 2A02:6080:0:0:0:1:1081:A2D5 (talk) 19:07, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Looks like us darned liberals are better at searching dat ole Internet as well. Like this. Try again? Black Kite (talk) 22:30, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: You say certain things "didn't work". What do you have in mind as the purpose for which I intended things to "work"? The fact is, I simply did not suspect before posting here that there are some people who think in some of the ways I've seen here. As for no longer trusting consensus: I have never had any "trust for consensus" of the kind you suggest, and neither should anyone else. In a wiki, one may "trust" that people working together will make valuable contributions, but to think "consensus" helps you ascertain what is true of false is clearly wrong. Michael Hardy (talk) 12:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: As for "How do you explain this?", there's nothing to explain. Nothing in what you linked to is evidence of disrespect. In fact, I made some accusations. Making accusations against people in certain social positions is considered "disrespect"; making accusations against some people is not, as we see when you accuse me of things. Michael Hardy (talk) 12:47, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: You wrote: "It's not libel. There's pretty robust consensus on that." Obviously the existence of that sort of "consensus" under those circumstances is not relevant to any judgment of whether it's libel. Michael Hardy (talk) 12:49, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: You wrote: "It's not libel. There's pretty robust consensus on that." Why didn't you write "It's not libel, because [etc. etc. etc.]" and say something that would be a _reason_ to think it's not libel? Do you really think people ought to put _that_ kind of trust in consensus? Michael Hardy (talk) 12:54, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
The reasons you are asking for having already been given to you repeatedly, most notable in the thread that produced said consensus. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:40, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Based on my reading of the AfD the material you are so concerned about is prima facie not libelous because it is either opinion or arguably true within the context of the discussion. For instance the comment of not collaborating outside that closed group or publishing in 'legitimate' ie indexed journals is seemingly true for work on the topic of Ancestral Health. There is also zero chance of comments by an anonymous user on Wikipedia doing any harm to the reputation of the researchers involved.
Your reaction here is quite frankly unseemly and over the top. I understand that you hold your opinions on this dear and advocate them with passion but no one else does. I have found in similar positions that the first thing to do is consider that one may have lost perspective. Based on your behavior here and elsewhere on this topic I firmly believe this to be the case here -- an objective reading of the AfD simply does not support or justify... well... any of this.
If you are fed up with Wikipedia work to fix it or leave. If you choose to leave I hope you will be back once you have recharged and regained your composure. You have done great work but all you are doing now is causing scenes that neither help fix things nor reflect well on your current tenure. You are expending the capital and reputation you spent years acquiring here through diligent work and contribution for no good purpose. Jbh Talk 15:23, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: You wrote: "the comment of not collaborating outside that closed group or publishing in 'legitimate' ie indexed journals is seemingly true for work on the topic of Ancestral Health." Where is there any reason to think that? It seems highly improbable and yet you and at least one other have asserted it. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Because that was the topic of discussion. There is no need in common usage to continually qualify the scope of a conversation. In some cases it may be optimal to avoid confusion or misinterpretation. In this case, since there were no claims that these people were not legitimate academics and academics are presumed to do academic things like publish as a matter of course, it requires a pretty bad faith reading to expand the context of the commentary beyond the scope of the current discussion – ancestral health. If fact, assuming this is one of the comments you are disturbed by, the subject "their" is actually wikilinked to the Ancestral Health site!. Jbh Talk 16:37, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Jbhunley: I wonder if you have any idea what I asked you. My question was: What reason do you have to think that the professors who started the organzation that runs the conferences do not publish in mainstream journals on the subject of ancestral health? That's a very strange assertion, given that it's a major topic of their professional interests. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Admittedly I made an presumption but it is based on the the simple fact that if there were any "good" articles on that topic they would have been presented at the AfD. Have any of them published articles in a reputable, refereed journal? Had they at the time of the AfD? From a quick GScholar search I do not see much of anything on the topic of "Ancestral Health" outside of Journal of Evolution and Health and their symposiums. The two words are used together in other papers but everything looks to be focused on 'Paleo-diet' not whatever "Ancestral Health" is as a putative field of study.
It seems that "Ancestral Health", as a field of study, is an attempt to present an evo-bio justification for the paleo-diet. Also, based on this paper, it seems to me to be dipping its toes into a bit of scientific racism. I also note that one of the authors of that paper is an historian and the other a sociologist. Neither of whom seem to have academic qualifications in evolution, nutrition or health nor do I see that they have any publications on those topics. The historian says in his bio that he "sits on the Evolutionary Studies (EvoS) Board" but a web search only turns up that term in his various bios, so what that means is up in the air. He university bio also says he "is an associate editor at the Journal of Evolution and Health". The editor of JEVOAH is a behavioral psychologist and his publication record is most definitely not focused on "Ancestral Health". Based on all of that I am pretty confident in my earlier presumption. Jbh Talk 19:29, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, Guy Macon said no such thing. And using the word "libel" on Wikipedia strays into WP:NLT territory. You are much safer stating that in your opinion it is a BLP violation. You have a right to that opinion. I don't think many others agree with you. We're all capable of stating opinion as fact but when one is making making the hyperbolic claims that you are making here, it's as well to show people that you actually do know the difference between your opinion and objective fact. Guy (Help!) 18:49, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I agree that "libel" should be and is a hot button word on Wikipedia that is better not used, but I do not think Michael Hardy is/was using it as a personal attack word...I think he was just using it as a way to show how strong his feelings are about this issue. I think Hardy is in an extremely defensive mindset right now and is simply seeing some stuff he thinks is important and needs fixing. This is definitely a time to forgive and forget...if not now, when? Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:47, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
He does seem to eel ridiculously strongly about evidence critique of a fringe topic two years ago by an editor who has barely edited since. His explanations of why he is so overworght about it are not in any way compelling. Guy (Help!) 20:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Maybe, but feelings are the thing which all people, in any kind of connection to other people, often can not explain in a way that makes sense to the other people. We all have feelings born of idiosyncrasies which others can not relate to at all, much less be compelled to understand.
So, imo, when any of us are the "other people" in these situations, if we have respect and/or caring for the person with the strong feelings, our best option is to just accept that so and so has very strong feelings about such and such, and not bug them about it. Then, I think, everything will usually settle down and work out just fine. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:22, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Umm...why on this page?

@Guy Macon: why are you proposing Michael Hardy is unfit to be an admin on this page? What do you think will happen here? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:37, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Very little. Likewise at arbcom. So I have proposed a topic ban here. Time to put this to sleep. The only thing extra arbcom can do is remove tools, which unless coupled with bans from the subjects above, wouldnt actually solve anything. A complete block/ban from editing outright would, but I dont think anyone genuinely wants that. The point of dispute resolution is to resolve the dispute. Editing restrictions would seem the next step before more permanent measures need to be taken. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:33, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Well, I read Guy Macon's points and posts as a word to the wise. Michael Hardy hasn't been able to take a hint, even from sympathetic fellow admins, since this whole thing started. If he can't take a hint, this will likely continue to escalate until he does in fact lose his mop. So there's actually good reason to point out to him the ways he has been digging his own grave, metaphorically speaking, on the chance he will desist before the mop gets revoked. Softlavender (talk) 15:14, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Softlavender: By taking the hint, do you mean starting an arbcom case? Michael Hardy (talk) 18:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Softlavender: You recommend Guy Macon's "points". One of his points seems to be that "consensus" is not simply a way of doing things on Wikipedia, but is an indication of whether something is true or false. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:43, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
You are correct. That is one of my points. Made up example: you claim that the moon is made of green cheese. A bunch of editors respond and say that the moon is made of rocks. The consensus is an indication (please note the word I just used: I wrote "indication", not "evidence" or "proof") that you are wrong. Of course in the case of moon rocks, one citation to a reliable secondary source trumps any consensus, but what about things that aren't in any sources? Not so made up example: You say that page X is a BLP violation. A bunch of editors respond and say that they have examined page X and see no BLP violation. Once again the consensus is an indication that you are wrong. Now "the way we do things on Wikipedia" kicks in. The page does not get deleted as a BLP violation. You are allowed to make a reasonable effort to change the consensus, but once it becomes clear that you are not going to do that, you are required the drop the stick. If you refuse to drop the stick, then the usual remedy is a community-imposed topic ban. I am prepared to make the topic ban request and see what the community decides, but I am holding back in the hope that you will "get it" and drop the stick voluntarily. Might I make a suggestion? Take a two week break away from Wikipedia. Because right now you are being a poster child for the Law of holes. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:13, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Michael Hardy is the German prisoner and Guy Macon is the Belgian prisoner. Count Iblis (talk) 14:03, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Excessive pinging

@Michael Hardy: Michael @Michael Hardy: Hardy, @Michael Hardy: please @Michael Hardy: don't @Michael Hardy: ping @Michael Hardy: me @Michael Hardy: multiple @Michael Hardy: times @Michael Hardy: in @Michael Hardy: one @Michael Hardy: comment. @Michael Hardy: It's @Michael Hardy: really @Michael Hardy: annoying. @Michael Hardy: I have set my preferences to not display any further pings by Michael Hardy. @Michael Hardy: --Guy Macon (talk) 18:43, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not aware that I've ever pinged you or anyone else multiple times in one comment. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:44, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
You still don't get it, do you? hitting "publish changes" at the end of every sentence so that your multiple pings have time stamps of 12:42, 12:47, 12:49, and 12:54 does not change the fact that I just saw a long string of pings, all from you. You just did the same thing to Softlavender in the section above this one. Stop this behavior now. Do it again and we will be discussing this at ANI. And yes, that was a "demand for obedience", just like every other time someone has "demanded" that you follow Wikipedia' policies and guidelines. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:58, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Linking the timestamps above. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:21, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I haven't pinged anyone more than once in one comment. Michael Hardy (talk) 01:05, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
WP:IDHT. Ping the same person again and again in multiple comments posted within minutes of each other again and we will be discussing your behavior at ANI. You have exhausted my supply of good faith. I am now convinced that you are engaging in disruptive behavior on purpose.
There once was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway. Upon hearing on the radio (over the honking horns) that there was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway, he peered through his windshield, noticed all of the headlights heading toward him, and exclaimed "My God! There are DOZENS of them!!" --Guy Macon (talk) 04:14, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
My first reaction to comments like the one above this is now to think that it's public sanctimony from someone who wants to scare me. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
This is so weird -- why don't you just acknowledge that you mis-spoke, perhaps apologize, and then politely restate the request that you meant to make? That's what a normally socialized person would do in this situation. --JBL (talk) 23:01, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Question

Hello Jimmy and other users on this page! I want to ask your help, by asking question. Have users of Wikipedia right to use political engagement, making edits to articles? If not, users who made rollback of my edits here, reducing the importance of the authoritative historian, must stop doing so, the information must be restored. They protect their idol and the organization that is associated with him. Rollback of the historical and scientific information, is about my opponents.User talk:Dlohcierekim knows that need to do, when you will give answer on my question. The same action can do any administrator from your page. - 2.94.135.159 (talk) 18:09, 3 September 2018 (UTC).

I suspect that your use of Konrad Heiden, as your authoritative biographical source, may not prove popular. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Consider discussing this at Talk:Leon Trotsky. And getting a username. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:17, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Five different experienced editors have reverted this trivia. I was the first, and asked the IP to take the matter to the article talk page for discussion, but they have not done so. Instead, they continue trying to edit against consensus. I do not know about the other editors, but Trotsky is certainly not my "idol". However, he is an important historical figure, and we should not load up his biography with trivia such as this factoid mentioned by only one historian who died in 1966. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 20:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes. The talk page, and a user account, would both be positive steps.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:27, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Thank you for reply Jimmy! But the question was another.

I suspect that some of my opponents hide their real relation to Leon T and his organization. RonaldR does not hide (for example). His actions are clear totally. Iron guard of its idol. Why I suspect other opponents? They use wrong arguments, they play with the rules (consent ...). Reply on the most wrong argument: This can not be trivia! Influence of Trotsky on the main criminal in the history can not be trivia (it is the axiom). Such material is also relevant for the article about Adolf H. By the way. In addition: my opponents can have solidarity vs simple user (they are admins and patrollers). I not see any possibility become winner in the dispute, when such situation exists. I already looked for consent, when user gave advice replace material (but directly in the article, to show how this looks better). I was agree even make this controversial (section). Anyone can play with the rule: I think my opponent not will be glad, if I will rollback his edits using fake reasons, speaking about need of consent in the same time. And I wish made reminder that Leon T with colleguas stood at the origins of this hell. Adold H could respect such man very easy. Abnormal cruelity of Leon T is legendary. Mass shootings and concentration camps is about him. Bolshevik crimes could be example for the main criminal in the history. Leon T wrote this terrible book ("arguments" for any crimes in interests of revolution). Sin to defend such monster. This topic can be closed if you wish. My opponents do it. - 128.73.235.42 (talk) 19:00, 4 September 2018 (UTC).

People who disagree with an action you have done are not your opponents. They aren't particularly concerned with defeating you. They, collectively agree that your attempted changes are not an improvement to the article in question, and have laid out some very good reasons why not. It's just not in the cards for you this day, friend. I suggest you let the matter drop. --Jayron32 20:16, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I disagree: someone's whim without grounds (or fake grounds) does not create the right to demand consensus from me. Political engagement is also whim. My edits must be restore. It is right deal in our case. - 128.69.66.113 (talk) 13:13, 6 September 2018 (UTC).
    Except that it isn't "without grounds". The people in question have given sound rationales. You can't just dismiss their rationales because you don't like their conclusions. That's not how it works. --Jayron32 16:06, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I want repeat else time. When someone use such philosophy, exists right make rollback of any edit: simply I do not want to see your edit in a article (guy, we will seek consent, I do not like your contribs). And you not will be glad. Do not play with the rules (such philosophy must be used). Not fake grounds to remove relevant material. And political engagment is one of the most dirt "grounds" (forbidden according to the rules of Wikipedia). Your post here is post of admin (solidarity, I already wrote about such trouble). And even now I hope get help from Jimmy. Without using talk page of the article, where I will a loser in any case. Admins and agents of the Fourth International will destroy any my arguments, using fake arguments. Fourth International dreams about world revolution (Red terror vs contrevolution around the world: methods of Leon T). But I use neutrality in Wikipedia (my wish to place info from Heiden has another nature). By the way, in other book Heiden writes that nazis had learned much at marxists. I read this in RU version (История германского фашизма). - 2.94.186.173 (talk) 18:07, 6 September 2018 (UTC).

Wikipedia Zero

Jimbo, what is your opinion re: the cancellation of Wikipedia Zero and how is the cancellation squared with the ability of Facebook Zero to continue? The potential beneficiaries, 800 million people, of Wikipedia Zero must be considered, and reconsidered, ad infinitum, imo. I also see a whole bunch of faulty logic and trite, perfectionist mentality B.S. in this 2014 disparaging article about W.Z., which is referenced in our W.Z. article. However, what is your opinion about W.Z.? Would you like to see it resurrected? Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Leave it to the Net Neutrality lobby to claim that giving away access to Wikipedia for free is a bad thing. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:53, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Guy, I assume, re: context, you meant "good" thing? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:02, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
The reference you cited above says
"As the Wikimedia Foundation claims to know, the diversity and plurality of knowledge the internet can deliver is, in essence, what makes net neutrality so important; equal treatment of data results in equal access to all. It’s hard to see how zero-rated services can comport with this principle. In addition, suggesting that free access to Wikipedia or Facebook is the solution to limited internet access in the developing world is like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It leaves the underlying, complex causes of the digital divide untreated."
That sounds like a claim that giving away free access to Wikipedia is a bad thing to me.
According to this academic paper
"In single-site or service zero-rating, one of the earliest adopted forms of zero-rating, a content provider contracts with one or more telecoms to provide users with free access to a version of its particular site or service free of charge. Generally, the zero-rated content can either be exempted from a customer’s data plan “cap” or accessed wholly apart from any data plan. Unlike sponsored data plans (discussed below), single-site or single-service plans may not involve the content providers paying the telecom for the customer’s zero-rated data usage, though they can. Such sites can be offered as a non-profit public interest service, e.g. Wikipedia Zero..."
and
"But what could be wrong with offering limited but free access to the Internet to sectors of a population that would most likely not enjoy such connectivity or services otherwise? Quite a bit, it turns out. Primarily, this is because zero-rating acts as a constraint on net neutrality, the principle that network providers—including mobile operators—must treat all data and content online equally to guarantee the free flow of information and unfettered access to it. From this perspective,
'[z]ero rating’ is [a] discriminatory technique where telecom operators allow customers access to select online content or services at no additional cost through a prior arrangement with content providers. The selected sites are rated at zero cost to the customers, violating the essence of net neutrality, which requires non-discrimination between different content and applications.' (The author is quoting Vipal Kiran Singh of The Financial Express. See footnotes in the ref.)
Simply put, given that zero-rating violates net neutrality by definition, the controversy is over whether zero-rating should ever be allowed, and if so, when."
So, in my opinion, my comment "Leave it to the Net Neutrality lobby to claim that giving away access to Wikipedia for free is a bad thing" is correct. The proponents of Net Neutrality insist that all data be treated equally, and thus oppose unequal treatment such as giving Wikipedia away for free (unless, of course, the internet providers are willing to give everything else on the Internet away for free...) --Guy Macon (talk) 00:54, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, Guy, I agree 100% with your comment, I misread your comment the 1st. time I read it and then when I re-read it, I saw that it was/is correct so I struck out my original faulty response. I am glad you see this as such an important event. I am a bit concerned that our WMF leader used to work at Accessnow, although I see she left there before the article I criticized was written....but I have to wonder if the opinion expressed in the article was brought over to the WMF from Accessnow.....just wondering, no accusation. And even if that's the case, it was the WMF Foundation as a whole unit which made the decision. I'm wondering if Jimbo has any thoughts about having a community discussion about resurrecting Wikipedia Zero. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:33, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Re: a net neutrality lobby, I'm surprised such a thing exists in the context of the internet, because any sort of lobby, by definition, represents some sort of static entity whereas the internet itself, exactly like Wikipedia, is a "live collaboration"...and since it is a "live"/alive, it can not be static. I'd say any such lobby or other efforts to control the internet or the participants thereof is not nice or elevating, and certainly not freeing. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:00, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

In a hysterical world, Wikipedia is a ray of light – and that’s the truth

Nice of him to say so. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:56, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Well worth reading, if only for illuminating the importance of talk page discussions. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:04, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Written by John Naughton who knows a bit about the internet and its place in society. I do have to say that I mostly agree. Wikipedia is a ray of light in the world. This might seem a bit strange as I've previously said things like "Wikipedia's governance system looks like it was designed by the 'Anarchists of Byzantium'." Both might be true of course, but I do think we can keep on improving. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
What a cool guy. Yes, that's an encouraging article. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
Absolutely, Smallbones - as the article stated: Like every other human-made thing, it’s imperfect. I kept the following question on my user page as a reminder:

Your quote- "I may not be perfect, but I can certainly strive to be." If there is absolutely no chance of being perfect, why try to be. Just a random question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.99.140.221 (talk) 4:39 pm, 17 February 2015, Tuesday (3 years, 6 months, 16 days ago) (UTC−6)
Because as long as you are striving to be perfect you keep getting better. Grasping that concept may be difficult for those who set limits on themselves or lack self-confidence. Atsme📞📧

At first I took that as 'hysterical' as in very, very funny (maybe that's an engvar thing). At any rate, happy editing :) Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:54, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
"44 And all that believed were together, and had all things common;" maybe related?? Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:37, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikistan

Prefix (Wiki), Meaning all things wiki, e.g quick, convenient simplified - Suffix (-stān), a Persian word meaning the place of
I've always thought that Wikipedia and some of its more affluent sympathetic supporters should buy up a few square miles, stick up some sign posts and use the wiki platform as a basis for building the laws of governance for a wiki-country. the idea being that its entire government is voluntary and works on open consensus based policies that anyone can edit. Thoughts? Edaham (talk) 04:56, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Travis McHenry could be the Benevolent Dictator. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Well you can put his name forward using a RfT (request for Tyrant) template, but it will be subject to a community discussion. Edaham (talk) 08:30, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
To be honest, we probably need a different planet for this. The naysayers went at us pretty hard when all we were supplanting were a bunch of dusty unread compendiums in the corners of a few libraries. You can imagine the kick back we're going to get if we try to usurp world governance. Does Elon Musk have an account? I couldn't find him here Edaham (talk) 08:34, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
I think its a great idea, and I don't think its even necessary to have any affluent supporters. I have been thinking a lot about cooperative farms as a way for young people (without a million dollars and who would like to own a business) to get into farming and that would work, imo, as a way for the Wiki residents to support themselves. Sharing farm equipment, which is a major cost, is a huge financial advantage for a co-op. They could start off living in trailors or tiny pre-fabs and slowly build individual houses for each family. Of course cooperative farming is not necessary to implement Edaham's idea, but it would provide enough work and income for the residents so that Wikistan would not have to be on expensive land near a city, and those who preferred could still get jobs in whatever small towns that are close by.
If Wikistan is set up as a corporation it could definitely have access to 50% + in mortgage financing with the land and equipment as collateral, and interest rates are still low enough where the timing might be perfect. Having owned and operated a 99 acre farm for 6 years, which was profitable from day one, I am 100% sure a co-op farm will succeed financially, as long as the shareholders have a "cooperative" (pun intended) mentality. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:49, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Somehow this reminds me of Cold Spring Township, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.

"Almost all of the township is part of the Pennsylvania State Game Lands Number 211. There are about twelve houses near Second Mountain. The single road - Gold Mine Road - is state maintained. There are no local municipal taxes, no water, sewage, or road departments, no municipal building, and no public officials. There is nobody "to tell you when you can't build a shed."[5]
"There has apparently been no local government "since 1961, according to newspaper records, when folks just stopped running for office."

Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:31, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

I’m going to see my sister in Nashville Tn soon. There’s a farming commune near her I intend to visit. I’ll take notes Edaham (talk) 15:03, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


I saw something recently I wish I had bookmarked so I could give proper attributionoops, that was easy, Micheal Hardy upthread) — the key concept was that the consensus model of Wikipedia is a great way to create content but not so good when it comes to creating our internal regulations.

I look at our sprawling ever-growing content with awe and wonder; I look at our ever-growing guidelines and policies with dismay.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:46, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Sophistry! Our core editorial guidelines and policies are light reading compared with editorial organizations a fraction of our size. A former wife of mine used to work for Shanghai television and had to wade through a veritable mire of regulations on a daily basis. One of the reasons I like Wikipedia is the fact that despite obvious contentions, existing on multiple fronts, a set of relatively benevolent policies has emerged. That’s actually why I think a wiki-government would work quite nicely. While people squabble on discussion pages, the corners of the policies on the project pages get gradually rounded off until something beneficial is left. Wikipedia’s strength is to be able to filter out the inanity of churning internet discussions and concentrate whatever gems consensus lets slip through the grate. In short, bickering is not wikipedia’s fault. Humans bicker about policies just as Ants are compelled by Ophiocordyceps unilateralis* to clamber onto leaves while stuff shoots out of their heads. Were we a sanguine Vulcan like race, we’d probably have to find some other way to create the biggest encyclopedia on our planet. *thanks again Wikipedia Edaham (talk) 01:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
While I generally agree with your remarks, I have to say that I did chuckle at the notion that perhaps we are slightly less bureaucratic than Chinese television. I suppose we probably should aim a bit higher than that. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:42, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Federal Republic of Wikistan

Federation, as in one central government (the Wikimedia Foundation) and multiple lower level governments (Wikiprojects).

Republic, as in Wikipedia being a public matter and not limited to a privileged group of people.

Just something to add to the above. CommanderOzEvolved (talk) (contribs) 02:04, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

People's Democratic Republic of Wikistan

Why not. Guy (Help!) 13:20, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Soviet Socialist Republic of Wikistan

Best. Simonm223 (talk) 13:22, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Da. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:22, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

United Federation of Wikistan

Come on, we're all nerds here. Let's just own it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

the Commonwealth of Wikistan

This one is pretty obvious folks.

We work together to create a common good - a wealth of reliable information that we share with the entire world. We live in the information age, where ultimately the only wealth is information. By giving it away we increase the wealth of the entire world.

The term commonwealth might seem a bit old fashioned to some, but is the official title of 3 nations, including Australia, 4 US states, and 2 US territories, including Puerto Rico.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:01, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Sovereign Wikipedian Territories

More forceful, and implying each Wikipedian is to be allocated a territory. A chicken in every pot, an article on every watchlist.--SamHolt6 (talk) 00:19, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Sealand

It would only take a crack team from the SAS (Special Arbcom Services) led by Jimbo and issued with eye patches and cutlasses and a rowboat. Ready made country for the taking. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 09:07, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Reichstagistan

People's democratic socialist independent micro-republic of Reichstagistan. Guy (Help!) 13:28, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Rachael Bland

Jimbo, I realise you probably have about eight gazillion pings, but I just wondered if you could provide any input as to us locating a free image for this person, as discussed at Talk:Rachael Bland#Image issues. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:44, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure this will be deleted with some standard excuse by dismissive editors and admins (socking, vandal, trolling, etc.) but I'm curious why people continually come to this page looking for guidance from Jimbo when he is largely disengaged and out of touch with the community and has been for years. When's the last time he used his admin tools to block a vandal or unblock an editor who shouldn't have been? He is supposed to be a point of contact for editors (you know, the who'll go talk to Jimbo bit) to ask for review of their case but when was the last time he even responded to one? Comments to this page are deleted all the time yet Jimbo doesn't do anything. So I'm curious why people would ask him questions about things largely unrelated to Wikipedia yet have no interest when he doesn't do the things he is supposed to that does pertain to here. 2601:5CC:101:5DEB:600E:F0BF:1344:7B8A (talk) 10:56, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
As far as I can see, this request has nothing to so with admin issues, nor even really editing as such. As User:Ritchie333 pointed out at Talk:Rachael Bland, Jimbo was involved in the sourcing of an image for Jo Cox shortly after she died. I think it was a question of "status". But you're probably best getting a response from Ritchie himself. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:13, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
I realise that this page is normally used as a de facto Speaker's Corner where anyone can say anything ad nauseum, rather than a place where I would actually want Jimbo's assistance directly. However, in this case I wanted Jimbo's specific help on improving an article, as I thought he would be in a good position to do so, given previous discussions. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:01, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
  • This page is Jimbo+helpers: We know Jimbo is mega-busy, plus has a complex family in RL, so when an issue arises, his helpers analyze background aspects to help Jimbo respond sooner. Someone asks, in Bosnian, "Molim vas pomozite s mojim problemom" and a helper translates, "Please help me with my problem..." and then Jimbo replies like, "I'll be in Bosnia next week and we can discuss then...". If users didn't analyze 999 issues here, then it would take Jimbo even more time to get broader community feedback, so Jimbo knows how to "speed-read" and has noted he checks for archived topics when he is away for days. The hope is someone connects on a photo, and then perhaps Jimbo can respond accordingly. Fortunately in WP "there is no wp:Deadline" and that still allows Jimbo to come here, calmly, with no stress to fix something ASAP. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:21, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
    @Wikid77: Jimbo has noted he checks for archived topics when he is away for days. Just out of curiosity, can you show an example? (I'm not criticizing you in any way, I'm just curious) SemiHypercube ✎ 19:21, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
It could be scanning a whole recent archive, such as /Archive_230 to see the bottom topics, or noticing an overlooked thread which archived within 2 days, such as "/Archive_229#Some Colleges Cautiously Embrace Wikipedia" and then noting had not read about "Embrace Wikipedia". Because Jimbo has been scanning Jimbo-talk for over 17 years, he has found ways to pinpoint various archived topics. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:34, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Did Wikimedia have a chance to save Brazil's National Museum?

The National Museum of Brazil fire was a disgrace, and the loss cannot be undone now. But what strikes me is that apparently the museum was receiving less than 60% of a $132,000 annual budget. This is, notably, much smaller than Wikimedia's budget, which implies a quid pro quo would be possible: hire the museum employees to photograph and upload everything to Wikipedia, in exchange for enough extra "indirect costs" budget that they could have kept the building secured against disaster.

With the ever-increasing popularity of Extreme Austerity among the ten people in the world whose opinions matter, there are probably pages and pages of equally endangered museums out there waiting their turn to burn down or be looted by thugs with a small fleet of commercial trucks some night. Probably most of them still have some policy against photography and claim copyright over their public domain materials right to the bitter end, but can WMF find a way to break the deadlock on a few and slurp up some data? Was there a way WMF could have saved the National Museum of Brazil entirely? Wnt (talk) 21:39, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

First, let's check the facts. There might be some confusion about folks using figures like R$520,000 (in our article) which seems to refer to Brazilian reals, and equals something like 140,000 USD. But in any case the numbers you give are simply unbelievable. At least we better check them. If it is the case that a major nation in the world is financing its premier institution of cultural heritage with that sum annually, how much is there that we really can do?
Just to try to get a handle on things, we can probably:
  • take lots of photos - or better yet fund local professionals to take lots of photos, and upload those to Commons as well as the museum's video and audio archives
  • Digitize text materials and upload it.
But that's really only scratching the surface of the value of the items in a museum. How do you even judge "the amount of heritage" that you've saved by taking a series of good photos of, say, an Egyptian sarcophagus? I don't know how to do that - but I'd still guess that the value saved is less than 1% of the value of the original.
If we were satisfied with that kind of "backup material", how much could we hope to accomplish (warning - back-of-the-envelope-calculations ahead). If we were to concentrate on the 100 poorest nations and a single museum in each country we might be able to, say, provide $100,000 to each for photo, scanning and computer equipment. Maybe an equal amount for one year of local professional's time, plus we'd need something for training and legal work - that's roughly $250,000 for one year in one museum in one country. Times 100 countries gives $25 million. If that's spread over 10 years, I'd think the WMF could handle it (Here I go again, spending other people's money)
But that's a very limited program, and I think you can see that photos and scans have a very limited ability to "save the world's cultural heritage."
If you do think that this is worthwhile, why not develop real plans, check them out with other editors, especially GLAM editors, and present something to the WMF? Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:16, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Because I haven't done any GLAM stuff and am not a great organizer. My tendency is to toss out ideas and see what happens ... high r, low K. Wnt (talk) 02:50, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Donors to the Wikimedia Foundation expect their money will be used for "developing and maintaining open content, wiki-based projects." It would be wrong to divert these funds to something else, no matter what the cause. People who donate to the Foundation can contribute to other causes if they choose. And it is up to the Brazilian people to organize their own efforts to help the museum without foreign direction. TFD (talk) 04:16, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Very true, but WMF is allowed to pay people or institutions to develop open content. Normally they should not do so because very well-heeled museums would try to put them over a barrel and demand lots of money up front for every piece of 300-year-old art they deign to allow some Wikipedians to photograph. But if a museum is truly at death's door, like in the Brazilian case, and hence will presumably do big things for small money, it might be worth contemplating an exception. Wnt (talk) 15:15, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
One of the notable items at Wikimedia Montréal was a 3-D printed version of Palmyra's Tetrapylon File:Tetrapylon-3D-Print.jpg
While I'm fully in support of initiatives to take photographs and videos of museum items, let's think big and push for 3-D versions of all artifacts.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:54, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

@Sphilbrick: you've been elected to do the write-up and organizing.

The article NEWPALMYRA has a good 3D pic, uploaded by User:Victorgrigas, File:Arch-of-triumph-3D-print.stl. The article also mentions something about "cheap 3D cameras". I'm skeptical.

I've gone over my back-of-the envelope calculations above and added a few things I missed: administrative costs (including the application process for museums), detailed training costs (e.g. for cheap 3D cameras), what most cultural professionals really want - a digital inventory with full meta-data of the museum's entire collection (just to know what they are looking at in all those photos) and let a few of the really big low-income countries (e.g. Ukraine, Indonesia, India) have more than one big museum funded.

Make the total cost $100 million spread out over 20 years. We'd need to fund raise specifically for this project, but I would think the money is there.

Jimmy, I'd think that if we had some type of leader within the WMF - somebody with a history of aiming high and achieving his or her goals, we'd have a good chance of getting this project off the ground. Any ideas?

Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:48, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree the cost is significant, but I think a case could be made to manufacturers of 3-D printers that they could donate them for the PR value which would be considerable. The materials costs might not carry a strong a PR value if they are donated but a case could be made. This should be right up the alley of some major donors. I'm not unaware that the cost of the materials and the 3-D printers, while far from nontrivial, might be dwarfed by the administrative and logistics costs but that's where charitable donations can meet the needs.--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:20, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

There's an article in WaPo We’re all in danger of watching our history go up in flames saying that the fire and flood problem applies everywhere, including the US. I'm quite serious in saying that we could do a limited project (inventory, photos, videos, audio, maybe even 3D files) along these lines, but it would need to be limited (e.g. no need to print out the 3D models - let others do that if they want to.) .

It would also need major support from Wikipedians. Having a big volunteer base and chapters around the world is one thing, but getting people to participate is something else. Having a big project with big aims does not have to be a negative:

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and our grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us.

— Daniel Burnham[8]

Pinging @John Cummings and Wittylama: just to see if they'd think there is any chance the GLAM community would get behind this. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:26, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Rebuild collections to avoid fire or mildew

The world's military challenge should be to stop fires, that have destroyed millions of written records, or tropical mildew (rotting paper documents or wooden items) by better air conditioning, waterproof canisters, etc. Mankind needs better fire prevention, when "The only thing that will stop a Santa Ana wind fire... is the Pacific Ocean".

Meanwhile as a partial remedy, perhaps crowd-sourcing of artifacts could be used. Numerous antiquities have been sold as "reproductions" got for cheap by digging near archaeological sites. With today's technology, people could donate their "fake" artefacts and let scientists confirm which souvenirs are real, then store them in remote vaults as "rotated collections" on display in the major museums. Of course the original site provenance would likely be lost, but a physical relic is still 100x better, than a photo, for museum analysis. Heck, some Wikipedians could upload photos of their "reproductions" to show the world what exists outside of public museums (in private collections).

In 2014, people were asked to crowd-source 50 years of memories from the immense 1964/1965 New York World's Fair (built on the shoulders of giants from the 1939 Fair), and that began to recapture the sense of "Disneyland for adults times 10" with the early use of color TV cameras, computers which could weave fabric patterns from a CRT lightpen, animatronics, international food courts, world market shops, water sports, polite stewardesses, and the cleanest buildings since Cincinnati. Even though much of the 1965 Fair had been lost, or rusted away, there was a sense it could be simulated from the photos or films or souvenirs of others.

Of course human knowledge includes cultural artifacts and relics, beyond text or photos or videos or audio clips. Hence, a set of Wikimedia museums with donated relics, plus rotation of collections from typical museums to raise funding, could also help prevent a fire from destroying the bulk of a nation's central museum. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:06, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

New phrase

Sorry for my bad English, I am Italian. You found humoristic the phrase “Really, you can! If you would like to, please feel free to do so. I will not send the Police to your home! Make an edit – or even several! After all, that's what Wikipedia is all about!” on “You can edit this page!” section? Can Jimbo Wales found funny that phrase? --151.49.71.91 (talk) 07:46, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Translating humor across languages can be very difficult. I'd guess the part about "I will not send the Police to your home!" is the part he found humorous - likely because if we took it at all seriously it would be horrific. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:36, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Page after page of websites that look a lot like our current main page

https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/

I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:50, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

It's great. A classic design that looks good and works. And has big brand value. No wonder it's worthy of a museum. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:05, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
(Sung to the tune of Prince's 1999) "Our main page looks just like it did in 1999!" --Guy Macon (talk) 20:37, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
If it ain't broke... Note that the basic axe or spade or frying pan or alphabet has also been stable for a long time. You Can't Always Get What You Want ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:00, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Consider the format of a printed book: it has remained remarkably stable over the last few hundred years. Were a literate person from the 16th century transported to our time, & were the person familiar with the modern forms of language, if handed a book published this year this traveler would immediately know how to access the information in this information storage container. (There are times I can find what I'm looking for in a printed book much more quickly & easily than in an electronic document.) Lexemes divided into words, sentences & paragraphs, all set apart with spaces & punctuation; the body of the work divided into sections, chapters, books & other units; the conventions of footnotes, marginal notes, head & end notes; & embedded search tools such as tables of contents & indices -- all of these conventions have existed practically unchanged for centuries. As well as oversized illustrated initial letters, inline illustrations, & rubricated text. There have been only minor modifications to all of these, & these modifications vary more between individual printings of books in a given year than between the centuries. Not that people haven't tried to "update" the format of a book; the late 19th & 20th centuries witnessed numerous instances of intelligent & creative people attempting to reinvent all or some part of the format of a book, only to fail at finding a better version.

I'm not saying that the layout of Wikipedia is perfect. There are parts of it I think need improving on. If anyone has specific ideas on how to improve the interface, please suggest them. However, complaining that Wikipedia looks "dated" or "too 1990-ish" is a non-starter. If you're paying more attention to the layout of Wikipedia than its content, maybe the problem is with the article you're reading, & maybe you should think about improving that article -- or any of the millions of Wikipedia stubs -- rather than complaining that interface looks "dated". -- llywrch (talk) 21:08, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

I might have missed it but I don't see anything like our current mainpage on the list. (I checked 15 of their pages). There are about 10-20% of the illustrations that look something like our current mainpage, the closest example is The White House 2004. The 2005 page listing all the different language versions is shown [9]. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:17, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
That's because they archived www.wikipedia.org, not wiki.riteme.site.
My complaint isn't that our main page is dated. It's that it ignores decades of usability research that clearly shows that a busy landing page with many images and walls of text is inferior to something simple like the Google main page. Our main page should have a simple layout with links to separate pages for today's featured article, in the news, on this day, etc.
Sometimes old and busy is inferior to new and streamlined.[10] --Guy Macon (talk) 03:37, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
Google and Wikipedia aren't the same thing. Google has one purpose when you come to its site: You want to run a web search. Wikipedia isn't Google, it's the type of site Google is searching for in the first place. I have heard many, many gripes about Wikipedia, from the common to the highly unusual, and "The main page is difficult to navigate" is one I've literally never heard once. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:37, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
That's because "difficult to navigate" isn't the problem. New users click away from websites they have never seen before, not because of difficult navigation, but rather because of too many words, too many images, and too many unrelated sections. This happens in the fist few seconds, long before they try to navigate.
BTW, your claim that "Google has one purpose when you come to its site" is completely wrong. Google offeres more things that Wikipedia. They just choose not to clutter up the main page with them (because, unlike us, they paid attention when the researchers started studying what makes a person click away from a website in he first few seconds).
Google could put all of the following on their main page...
  • Android Auto
  • Android Messages
  • Android OS
  • Gboard
  • Gmail
  • Google Alerts
  • Google Allo
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Cardboard
  • Google Cast
  • Google Chrome
  • Google Chromebook
  • Google Classroom
  • Google Cloud App Engine
  • Google Cloud AutoML
  • Google Cloud BigQuery
  • Google Cloud Bigtable
  • Google Cloud Compute Engine
  • Google Cloud Datastore
  • Google Cloud Functions
  • Google Cloud Kubernetes Engine
  • Google Cloud Machine Learning Engine
  • Google Cloud Pub/Sub
  • Google Cloud Storage
  • Google Cloud Vision
  • Google Chromecast
  • Google Contacts
  • Google Daydream View
  • Google Docs
  • Google Drive
  • Google Duo
  • Google Earth
  • Google Expeditions
  • Google Express
  • Google Finance
  • Google for Education
  • Google Forms
  • Google Fit
  • Google Flights
  • Google Fonts
  • Google Genomics
  • Google Groups
  • Google Hangouts
  • Google Home
  • Google One
  • Google Pay
  • Google Play Books
  • Google Play Games
  • Google Play Movies & TV
  • Google Play Music
  • Google Project Fi
  • Google Scholar
  • Google Search
  • Google Sheets
  • Google Sites
  • Google Slides
  • Google Store
  • Google Street View
  • Google Tilt Brush
  • Google Translate
  • Google Trips
  • Google Video Intelligence
  • Google Voice
  • Google Wifi
  • Inbox by Gmail
  • Waze
  • Wear OS by Google
  • YouTube
  • YouTube Gaming
  • YouTube Kids
  • YouTube Music
  • YouTube TV
...but they don't, because someone doing a web search on Pokémon is unlikely to be interested in Google Fonts. We aren't that smart. We don't quite get that someone looking up Pokémon in an encyclopedia is unlikely to be interested in what happened on this date in history. --Guy Macon (talk)
On a tangentially related note, I strongly recommend Mark Z. Danielewski's works, especially House of Leaves, as examplary of unconventional book formatting being used as both art and message. They are also very interesting literary works of their own, especially for anyone interested in postmodernism and—if Slocombe's 2005 analysis (doi:10.1353/mfs.2005.0015) of House of Leaves is any indication—nihilism. None of it was an attempt at starting a new standard in literary formatting, but it at least demonstrates some recent experimentation therewith. Another would be David Foster Wallace's works, especially Infinite Jest. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 07:24, 7 September 2018 (UTC); added final sentence at 07:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

I guess I don't know what this section is all about, but I did find a timeline of Wikipedia front pages [11] with versions from 2001, 2003, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016. Everything after 2003 is just the globe with different language versions linked. The 2001 and 2003 versions only look vaguely like the current main page.

So @Guy Macon: what was your point? - that the current main page is good or that it is bad? I kinda like it, but think it could use a few improvements. BTW most of the pages shown on www.webdesignmuseum.org look like garbage to me. Surely there are better examples of webpages than the ones they show. Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:11, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Wrong page. WWW.wikipedia.org (which is controlled by the WMF) is fine. EN.wikipedia.org (which we control) is the one that is cluttered with too much stuff that should be on separate pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:03, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the Main Page has a history of being designed more for editors than visitors. And that's fine, IMHO. It's a way of showcasing content and we have a lot of that. :) Most of our traffic comes from search engines. Meaning while ~14 million views sounds like a lot, it's a small percentage of overall visits. Most people plop a keyword into a box and end up on a specific article (hopefully the right one!). That said, there have been attempts to improve the main page in fits and starts. Unfortunately like many things there seems to lack a sustained initiative to continue the difficult work on what is arguably a politically complicated and emotionally important page.
I sent a note to the folks running the Web Design Museum asking that they consider having a better representation of English Wikipedia's Main_Page in their archive (instead of the .org portal). Here's hoping they consider the request. Ckoerner (talk) 19:26, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
In other words, the layout of the front page is as relevant to Wikipedia as the title page of a reference work to the larger composition? As a thought experiment, ask yourself when was the last time you looked at the title page of your most used reference work -- such as a dictionary, general or specialized encyclopedia. (In my case, since I bought the latest edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary a year ago, I can only remember looking at the title page once & shortly after I bought it.) -- llywrch (talk) 00:47, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
The main page of a website is a lot more like the printing on the spine of a book than it is like the title page: everyone who accesses the book/website sees it, but you shouldn't put too much information there if you want to maximize the number of people opening the book/going deeper on the webpage. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:37, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
"[E]veryone who accesses [Wikipedia] sees [the front page]" is obviously completely wrong. --JBL (talk) 19:12, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC (publicizing)

Please see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RfC:Genetics_references Jytdog (talk) 17:05, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Is this related to the Michael Hardy discussions? Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:20, 9 September 2018 (UTC)

Vital article lists

The vital articles project originated out of the various efforts to generate CD versions of Wikipedia in the early 2000s (decade). A recent development was the creation of a new, 50000 article list (construction still very much in progress), intending to contain those articles which are "most vital". While the proliferation of broadband internet and the existence of projects such as Kiwix and high-capacity USB sticks make this less necessary than it seemed a decade ago, I still feel there is value in having subsets of Wikipedia that are small enough to be accessible in a non-digital format.

Of course, the word "vital" is exceptionally poorly defined. Discussions at the main project talk page or the talk page specifically related to the 50000 article list may be of interest to denizens of this page. It's entirely unclear whether it is defined by page views or historical importance or recent importance or what would be included in a paper encyclopedia. In many respects Wikipedia doesn't function like World Book or Britannica anymore anyhow. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:10, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

  • Also rank by language count: Another possible means to rank major pages, as being wp:vital articles, would be to favor pages which have more other-language links, as a higher-ranking page. Consider a page with perhaps more than 40 languages, or 20 languages in a relatively rare subject. That could indicate broader, worldwide interest for a page. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:17, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Storm Gordon along west Florida

As Hurricane Florence now is coming ashore overnight on 13 September 2018, I have hatted this thread to reduce distractions for coverage of this hurricane and several other tropical cyclones in progress this week. Feel free to open another thread, later, as events warrant. For more discussions, see: "Talk:Hurricane Florence" or related pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:09, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Closed as Hurricane Florence comes ashore
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The current small Tropical Storm Gordon (2018), already past Florida Keys is predicted to turn away, more northwest, headed toward Mississippi or Alabama coast (farther west of Pensacola). See NOAA NHC webpage: live advisory status.

For Wikipedia, this is another storm giving NHC storm surge predictions as height above land, recently 1–2 ft (0.30–0.61 m) above ground (whatever that means locally). Recall 2012 Super Storm Sandy, where many residents seemed surprised how the storm surge, reported as water above average tide levels, in a channel bay became a shocking 14 ft (4.3 m) above the waterfront and overtopped entrances to flood some of the underground New York subway train tunnels.

At 2:00 pm EDT, the T.S. Gordon status noted:

...Gordon still producing tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rains across south Florida and the upper keys...
...Storm surge warning and hurricane watch in effect for portions of the central gulf coast...
The expected top windspeed, leaving Florida in 2 days, was predicted around 60 knots (~70 mph; 110 km/h), but could change much lower/higher due to warm Gulf of Mexico, with record heat in recent U.S. weather reports. As a small storm, this is unlikely unrelated to WP page "Eyewall replacement cycle" which was perhaps a major issue for 2017 Hurricane Maria at Puerto Rico. Again, see live T.S. Gordon webpage: live NHC advisory. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:18, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Two days later, as U.S. NWS predicted, Tropical Storm Gordon reached 60 knots (~70 mph; 110 km/h) and made landfall near the Alabama-Mississippi state line. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:40, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
I understand that Jimbo accepts, even encourages this talk page to be used for a wide variety of subjects relevant to Wikipedia. However, I think the recent penchant to use it as a place to post weather reports is a bit too much. I'm very interested in tropical storms but this is not my go to site for such discussions.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:35, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Haha, but the joke was funnier 6 years ago. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:40, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
See this for past history. It's about how we report the storm surge and how some idiot person determined to stay in their home despite warnings and evacuation orders could get in trouble if they rely only on Wikipedia. Ravensfire (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I think Sphilbrick is well aware how he replied on a similar weather report 6 years ago, and then the U.S. NWS, FEMA, and USACE changed how they explain storm surge to show water levels on area maps in 2014, adding Puerto Rico maps in SLOSH Version 2 (see: NHC report), after predicting in 1995 how NYC subway trains could flood in minor storms (Superstorm Sandy landed as only a tropical storm in Oct 2012). So who knew discussing "weather reports" on Jimbo-talk could change the world.... -Wikid77 (talk) 06:40, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
Another one on its way. Count Iblis (talk) 18:39, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Yikes, I've added subtopic below: "#Hurricane Florence expected along U.S. east coast" for a possible risk to millions of WP users. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Hurricane Florence expected along U.S. east coast

The U.S. NWS is predicting Atlantic Hurricane Florence (2018) to regain strength tomorrow Sunday, ~08:00 pm, 9 Sep 2018 (see: live NHC Florence status), and grow even larger near Bermuda, heading toward the U.S. Eastern Seaboard perhaps by Thursday, 13 Sep 2018, but the forecast could shift by Monday. That hurricane could severely impact millions of Wikipedia users, who might take photos, soon, of area landmarks before and after hurricane damage. If electric power fails before landfall, then mobile phones can be recharged in a parked automobile (with compatible travel chargers). Also consider surge maps, below: "#Reading SLOSH storm-surge maps". -Wikid77 (talk) 06:36, updated 17:21, 7 September 2018, updated time Wikid77 (talk) 06:43, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Forecast Cone map: See: *live* NHC forecast map, for the updated 5-day prediction path of Hurricane Florence (2018). -Wikid77 (talk) 12:14, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
The path of the storm has been due west for days, but Hurricane Florence is expected to turn more WNW after Monday, 10 Sep 2018. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:22, 9 September 2018 (UTC)
I don't think taxpayers/governments should be expected to give up our money to aid anybody who lives in a known flood zone; especially the "ride it out" crowd. Yes, we have to rescue them, but any taxpayers' money spent on these floods and hurricane winds should be reimbursed with special assessment taxes for all the people who live in such dangerous locations, imo. Same thing with forest fires and mud slides. Believe it or not, most people in the world today place zero value on a water view...e.g. ocean view, and going back in history, only the poorest of the poor lived next to water, oceans or lakes or rivers. The desirability of that entire "feature" (ocean view/water view) is nothing but marketing/branding. So fine, if that's where someone wants to live...in a flood zone or hurricane zone or in the middle of a forest...go for it, but I don't want my taxes spent to help them "recover" and "rebuild" every 10 years or so. Yes, rescue them, but then send them a reimbursement bill. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, WP page "Geography of North Carolina" says the state is all mountains, hills, valleys, streams, lakes, 17 rivers, and sea coastal plain down to the Outer Banks. So I think that's everyone. Building homes on hills tends to require expensive plumbing or hilltop jet pumps with $deep wells, and hence most people live in valleys or level plains along rivers. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:56, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
I've heard of towns prohibiting similar beach-front construction. Does WP have pages about these flood-zone restrictions, or the roof-strap regulations in residential building codes? -Wikid77 (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Hurricane Florence might park 2 days on coast

As if to get even worse, the NHC forecast-cone map of 2pm EDT shows a 2-day hurricane crawl along the Carolinas coast (see NHC: live Florence forecast-cone, until 17 Sep 2018). That event might lead to new storm regulations. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Here's the biggest threat. "On the coastal plain of eastern North Carolina, ... nearby industrial hog farms." this article, and especially this map showing all the hog farms close to where Florence is supposed to hit landfall and dump a lot of rain. A potentially huge problem is most of these factory farms have open "lagoons" where all the liquified pig shit sits with not high or strong dirt "dams" being all that keeps the shit from flooding out into the populated areas and polluting the groundwater; you get the picture. Just look at how big these liquid pig shit storage lagoons are, these are not your old family farms, they are factory hog farms with literally thousands of pigs in just 1 factory farm. Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:08, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
So the prior Carolina storms (Matthew) led to "algal blooms" which killed nearby fish. Otherwise, pigs are "clean animals" and if fed pigfeed, there would be preventative medicines in the food to deter pig diseases, unlike human sewer lines. In heavy storms at Houston, the extra runoff water pushed up manhole covers around the Astrodome area, to flood streets by fountains from below. Before the Seawall Boulevard was elevated, the Galveston storms would push waterfront houses further inland, as battering rams, due to strong storm tide+waves, which is a danger in a hurricane which "parks" and continues to shove storm surge inland toward north+west sides. North Carolina landscape has those major rivers which flow east into ocean bays, and those rivers could reverse flow as channel bays where a surge might increase from 13 to 20 ft (4.0 to 6.1 m) flowing upriver. There's still hope Hurricane Florence will weaken more during Thursday before landfall, as not a Katrina with 27 ft (8.2 m) surge in Mississippi. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:14, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
I sure hope you're right, but e-coli will be the big issue if the worst happens. These numbers from "9 million pigs being raised on some 2,300 farms. That equals a lot of manure—about 10 billion pounds of wet animal waste" and the map showS how most of those pig lagoons are within 50 miles of the coast. I am actually shocked that open , dirt dammed, pig shit lagoons are allowed so close to the ocean. Liquifying pig manure has been banned entirely in some European countries. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:12, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Reading SLOSH storm-surge maps

For a large, flooding U.S. hurricane, the U.S. NWS, FEMA and USACE, since 2014, have developed SLOSH maps to graph the expected storm-surge levels along each seashore or bay shoreline. I guess WP pages could be expanded more to explain details of SLOSH map layouts. For example, NHC has drawn a retro map for old 2008 Hurricane Ike (see: Ike SLOSH map) near Galveston, Texas, where surge was stronger northeast along Crystal Beach, TX. The Texas beach houses there, although elevated one storey higher on pilings (stilts), were feared to have rolled off their bases by large waves, hitting a house sideways, atop the storm tide near 17 ft high (5.2 m), waves even higher. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Photograph landmarks before hurricane hits

As predicted, Hurricane Florence (2018) regained strength from 60–85 mph (97–137 km/h) over the past weekend, and is expected to hit the central U.S. east coast on 13 Sep 2018, with center winds of 130 to 160 kn gusts (150 to 180 mph; 240 to 300 km/h) , in the north-east quadrant. Hence, many people will be re-photographing their cars and homes today, to prove insurance claims were not for "pre-existing" damage (as in, "Obviously that wall fell off last month, before the hurricane arrived"). However, Wikipedians also have a few more days to photograph the area landmarks with timestamps, before damaged or destroyed, to show the before/after impacts and record the historical landmarks before it is too late. The hurricane path is also matching the predicted movement, as jogging slightly towards WNW, from compass 270° to 280° on Sunday evening, 9 Sep 2018. Note how such strong winds can damage buildings, such as bending the rooftop crosses on a Greek Orthodox church, or flattening some billboard signs along the roads, or pushing boats up along the waterfront streets. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:59, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Hurricane Isaac passing south of Florida/Cuba

The current Hurricane Isaac (2018) (NHC Forecast cone map) is expected to continue westward, passing south of Puerto Rico and Florida and Cuba, toward Honduras, with perhaps minimal injuries or damage, as a weak storm. We need a general WP page: "Impact of hurricanes" or "Damage of hurricanes" as an overview of related topics. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:04, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

For years, English WP has omitted links to the live U.S. NWS NHC forecast-cone maps, even though those ocean maps change every few hours, as updating the recent storm location, windspeed, and forward motion. The various link URLs for each NHC storm forecast-cone map differ by just 1 digit:

Those links might only be active until a storm dissipates, but they should be mentioned in storm pages, with a note about updates. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:32, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

DONE. I have added the typical NHC URL-links for forecast-cone maps to Hurricane Florence, Isaac and Helene. So far, no complaints about those links yet. There are some wp:edit-conflicts when updating storm-status numbers in the pages, but I think people tend to delay status updates to avoid edit-war collisions. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:14, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Wikid77, why the fuck are you posting these updates over here? Has Jimbo appointed you to be his weather-man or do you assume that anybody who wants to be aware of the subject would choose to visit Jimbo's t/p? ∯WBGconverse 09:18, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Double standard?

According to this article both Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger are co-founders of Wikipedia, however when I look at the page information for "User:Jimmy Wales" I see that this page allows it to be indexed by robots, while "User:Larry Sanger" doesn't. As far as I can tell in the source code there is no {{NOINDEX}} template added manually to the latter page nor does it seem to turn up in any external search results. Is this deliberate? --Donald Trung (talk) 19:28, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

User pages are generally not indexed except when the __INDEX__ magic word is placed. Jimbo's page has it. Anyone can place it on their userpage if they want, so what's your point? Regards SoWhy 19:37, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
His point is that having come off his indefblock for long-term disruption, he's banned from all talkspaces except Article, Talk, User, and User talk (and blocked completely from Meta), so if he wants to posture in front of as large an audience as possible this page is the best one on which to do it. Donald, this is the point where I remind you that any more screwing around or boundary-testing—as defined by me, not you—means you're gone for good is also in your unblock conditions, and that we can all see that you're still playing around with templates in breach of your ban; don't push it. ‑ Iridescent 20:43, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Because cookies are great. Hdjensofjfnen (If you want to trout me, go ahead!) 00:18, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Article 13

Passed. :-( [12] wumbolo ^^^ 15:07, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

So now what? Carry on as usual for a bit and see how things shake out in initial court cases? Herostratus (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
@Herostratus Since the European Parliament isn't a legislative body and whether they do or don't pass this law makes not the slightest difference, you don't even need to do that. (In theory, it could push the 27 EU countries to each introduce domestic legislation along these lines, but that's a process that would take years.) Don't believe everything the anti-EU libertarian lunatic fringe tell you. ‑ Iridescent 16:47, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is hardly an "anti-EU libertarian lunatic fringe".
Today, Europe Lost The Internet. Now, We Fight Back.
And neither is Creative Commons.
With the European Parliament vote on the copyright directive, the internet lost – for now
I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:07, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Keep speaking out whenever we can. And once people recover a bit from this defeat, it's time to start building the next campaign to fight this. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:13, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
The first step is resolve. We need to be unequivocal that there is no way in hell that Wikipedia ever gives in to the censorware writers and lets them start controlling what users say. If we have to close every European chapter of Wikimedia, if we have to ban every Wikipedia user from Europe, even if we have to block all access from Europe, we should be ready and willing to do it in an hour if and when the need arises, but never is there a "need" to turn Wikipedia into some censorship company's pet. The next step is information. We need to have expert legal opinion whether there is any real exemption for encyclopedias and what loopholes they might use to attack users and organizations. I'd assume the point of the EU policy is to let national censors start sending lawsuits on the road, so we have to know how wide an area they will be touring. Once we have such data, people can figure out what WMF has to do to protect itself and users.
On the "plus" side, the EU is looking even less viable than it did even in the spring when this was first introduced. I'm no expert but as I understand it, Nazis are running rampant in Germany, Poland and Hungary are poised to put down any EU criticism of undemocratic forms of government, Britain is about ready for a hard Brexit and the Greeks are still furious at their bankers-in-drag government and the inequities of having domestic monetary policy designed to help foreigners. If they are going to become a crazy quilt of extra-lunatic "copyright" policies banning two words together and pushers of censorware on forums that will probably be extended to political censorship before they are finished with installation, then what is there to justify the EU's wretched existence? The European countries should take Trump's advice and make that military spending ... not to bolster NATO, but to build Maginot Lines against each other. Wnt (talk) 02:04, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
I agree that resolve is #1. "Keep speaking out whenever we can" is #2. Lots of people feel unempowered these days so they don't pay attention to what the censorship control freaks are doing, but many people do get interested and energized about something like this when somebody lets them know what's going on. But the EU is going nowhere. Their top dogs do have lots and lots of resolve and money for making their arguments. Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:37, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Living in Central Europe, I don't see this as a plus side at all :( Government censorship is very bad, but ending up on the frontlines of Cold War II would be unimaginably worse. Since we are already in a state of apparent worldwide cold war, perhaps this is why politicians have let this issue go to the sidelines. It is a real shame that this has happened, as I think EU is right now sadly probably the closest thing to a fair democracy we have on this planet -- coming off the win of GPDR, Article 13 is a very painful punch to take.
The big issue here is that we're stuck in the middle between two extremists. Between Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Amazon, a few US companies are monopolising growing portions of the also growing European IT sector, and there's no hope of pushing back in a free market. Google is indeed taking over the online news sector [13][14], and I don't blame the news media for trying to regulate to preserve their own existence and independence. And I can't wholly condemn the media for being greedy and essentially trying to kill a mosquito with an airstrike, when the other side isn't known for their love of freedom and human rights either [15][16].
Our values of freedom of speech and access to unbiased news and information lie only in the middle of this battleground -- this is what we need to make people realise. With the tech and the media having between them a near-monopoly on news, that won't be an easy job. Daß Wölf 23:04, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

BLP survey question results

Jimbo, one of the questions on the just-released Community Engagement Insights 2018 survey results was particularly surprising to me:

Wikipedia articles sometimes have information about living persons that is legally allowed on Wikipedia, but that would be considered private information where the article subject lives. Wikipedia editors were asked whether private information should be removed when this situation happens. The results are mixed. From 516 editors, about a third agree, a third disagree, and a third selected "I don't know."

What is your opinion on this question? Should the projects host information on living people which would be considered private where they live? 162.17.80.65 (talk) 11:30, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

The question strikes me as very vague, i.e. "would be considered private information where the article subject lives". Specifics would clear up the confusion, but might make it difficult to get survey results.
One quick observation
The feedback for the question about paid editing looks pretty clear - 52% want stronger enforcement against paid editing, 16% are against that - a 3 to 1 result. But this was labelled in the report as a mixed result. Why? Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:31, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
I presume because of the 32% that don't fall into either category? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:32, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
A majority is still a majority, and 3-to-1 is still 3-to-1. The question of what to do with the opinions of people who don't wish to express an opinion is always problematic. There are a couple of different general methods that come to mind. In RfC's people get to !vote neutral and express their mixed ideas, which might affect somebody else's !vote. But usually the neutrals don't much affect RfCs. Election polls (say a month before the election) always give the number of undecideds, but in most cases most people pretty much ignore this. Perhaps the reasoning is that undecided voters will likely fall into one of the two camps in the same proportion as those who have already expressed an opinion. Maybe we should just have a reasonable discussion and then see if they want to express an opinion. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:37, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Wikimedia Commons has a long history of insisting that anything that is not illegal, is permitted. This includes hosting pictures of living individuals where the individuals did not give consent to release, and where they ask very nicely for removal. Wikipedia has typically adopted a different policy, roughly: don't be a dick. Including personal information about subjects against their wishes is a dick move, especially where the interest is prurient. We have over time shifted our position on biographies in a good way: the bar is now higher to including faux-biographies of minor criminals, for example. I think it is a good idea to exclude personal information about living people unless it is part of the wider public record. Mining local papers to add dates of birth where people normally don't publicise them, for example, is a terrible idea. Guy (Help!) 10:26, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Asymmetric financial benefits of Wikipedia

Jimbo, here's another question: Have you seen this article (non-paywalled version)? It states:

Wikipedia provides substantial value to [Reddit and Stack Overflow], with Wikipedia content increasing visitation, engagement, and revenue, but we find little evidence that these websites contribute to Wikipedia in return.

Do you think that the Foundation should pressure those for-profit communities for reasonably commensurate donations? By the way, this paper was brought to my attention by this Reddit /r/science post. 162.17.80.65 (talk) 22:59, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm of two minds: On one hand, this is clearly lopsided and if Wikipedia, like reddit and StackOverflow, were making their money on ads there would be a clear reason to be upset and do something about it. Even though Wikipedia doesn't make ad money, we still run fundraising drives and the like and more visibility of those efforts are always welcome. On the other hand though, this is fulfilling the primary purpose of Wikipedia, to educate. It fundamentally shouldn't matter, in terms of Wikipedia's ideology, if that education is done on Wikipedia itself or on another site using Wikipedia as a basis for explanations. Pinguinn 🐧 23:41, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
The paper deserves a better review than my quick once-over, but there doesn't seem to be many financial benefits to Reddit and StackOverflow. Something like $100,000 - $200,000 per year each (somebody should check). The main point of the paper seems to be with text/idea contributions across sites. We contribute more this way to them than they do to us. Of course, our policy of WP:RS probably has something to do with this (again, somebody should check - maybe I'm just missing something in their work).
But the big idea that the commenters here seem to be missing is that we have a policy, and always have, that our work can be used by anybody (with very few limitations) for-profit or otherwise. We benefit by giving our work away - the whole world benefits - and thus the overall level of education, discussion and even quality of life increases for everybody (including us). Trying to squeeze a few $100,000 from Reddit and SO for our own use would destroy to whole idea. The idea of giving away knowledge for everybody's benefit is counter-intuitive (thanks Jimmy), but it seems to have worked pretty well so far. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:19, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Whatever benefit Reddit and Stack Overflow get pales in comparison to the benefit that Google and Amazon get. The world benefits when it gets good quality information from Wikipedia, but is harmed when Wikipedia spreads misinformation. Err, "fake knowledge". There still aren't adequate controls in place to minimize the occurrences of that. wbm1058 (talk) 01:45, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
There are several ways to fight fake news. One involves having a cabal of newspapers designate official authorized news aggregators and have censorware bots automatically banning every user who dare discuss his point of view about it on a forum (see above). Another involves dragging a bunch of Silicon Valley executives in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee, or whatever they call it nowadays, and intimidating them into letting right wing ideologues censor distribution of news they don't like. Or ... you can have editors working together, trying to develop neutral summaries, which are given free to forum readers so that they can make rational arguments with one another. I don't know about you, but I think only this last option actually works, let alone is desirable. Wnt (talk) 03:38, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
HUAC is now called Fox & Friends. Guy (Help!) 10:29, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Actually it was the House Energy and Commerce Committee [17], Senate Commerce Committee, and Senate Judiciary Committee. [18] I should concede that HUAC's functions were transferred to the House Judiciary Committee in 1975, so it would appear that my comment was a miss, unless there were other rearrangements, and Joe McCarthy's committee is now actually the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, another apparent miss. As a systemic phenomenon there is still not so much difference. Wnt (talk) 22:01, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

On the state of Croatian Wikipedia

Hello Jimbo!

I'm writing this because I feel there are important things you, the WMF, and everyone else concerned, need to know about Croatian Wikipedia.

You probably remember the 2013 affair, when the media reported extensively about Croatian Wikipedia's far-right bias and historical revisionism. Back then, you said: "The things that I'm most interested in are allegations of extreme bias and rewriting of history, and of people being blocked for holding opinions different from administrators."[19] Five years later, I have the answers you were asking for, along with the evidence. What follows below is only a 15-minute read, and I'm sure you'll find it interesting. :-)

In the last 6 months or so, there was this sort of media coverage of Croatian Wikipedia:

  • On 23 March, Balkan Insight article titled "How Croatian Wikipedia Made a Concentration Camp Disappear said that "with its nationalist sentiments, factual mistakes, lack of academic references and omitted facts about World War II history, Croatian Wikipedia is not a reliable source".
  • On 27 March, Croatian writer and columnist for Jutarnji list daily, Miljenko Jergović, wrote about the Croatian Wikipedia entry on Gdansk, which used to state that "genocide and acts of terror against the [ethnic] German population committed by Poland and its allies" were "the real reason for Hitler's invasion of Poland". Apart from his dismay over the Gdansk entry, Jergović stated the following: "Since quite a long time ago, one could describe Croatian Wikipedia, without being unjust or exaggerating, as an Ustasha Wikipedia".[20] (in Croatian) Two days later, the story was picked up by Balkan Insight.[21]
  • Croatian writer and columnist Jurica Pavičić, in a 31 March Jutarnji list article about the current state of Croatian society, notes that the "local [i.e. Croatian-language] Wikipedia is an organ of the Neo-Nazis".[22] (in Croatian)
  • Finally, on 28 May, a comprehensive article in Novosti titled "Endehapedia" (in Croatian) ("NDH-pedia") states that, under the leadership of right-wing administrators, Croatian Wikipedia has become "a major source of revisionist mythomania". The article accuses the administrators of using doubtful sources, falsified quotes, and heavy-handed tactics against editors who try to correct the bias.

Let's go back to the 2013 affair for a moment. Back then, the media provided a number of concrete examples of far-right content, but I believe the best illustration is what happened with the Croatian Wikipedia's entry on Anti-fascism. On 27 August, an IP editor inserted a sentence in the article's intro which translates to English as follows:

The modern-day Croatian word "anti-fascism", in the former Yugo-communist meaning, and in the modern meaning of the Croatian new ideological neo-communist groupthink, actually represents several notions: struggle for communism and Marxism, struggle against capitalism, Titoism with Yugo-Bolshevik genocide against the opponents, development genocide of profitable knowledge, culturocide, genetic, spiritual, moral, and creative disorder, curtailment of all basic human freedoms.

An inline reference was provided to hkv.hr, a far-right website. (Moreover, the entire sentence was actually copied verbatim from there, including typos.) An edit war ensued, in which one editor (let's call him "D") repeatedly removed the above content, while the other (let's call him "C") kept inserting it back. The article was soon fully protected by an admin - let's call him "Z". However, "Z" left the problematic content in.

"D" complained about the above in the article's talk. He received a snide, single-sentence response from another admin (let's name him "Q"): "Workers of the world, unite!". During the time the article was locked for editing, at least one more admin - apart from "Q" and "Z" - knew about the disputed content, but none of them did anything about it. In fact, "Z" continued editing the then-fully-protected article, even correcting a typo in the above-quoted contentious sentence. That sentence was ultimately removed only 19 days later, on 15 September - five days after Jutarnji list published the article that exposed the entire affair and thus initiated the nationwide media controversy.

Background of the dramatis personæ in the above story, for full understanding of how things work:

  • "Z"'s on-wiki quotes include "Ante Pavelić was not a fascist", "Independent State of Croatia was not a fascist state. Don't make things up." (in response to editors who apparently thought otherwise), "There is no tangible evidence of mass executions [taking place in the Jasenovac concentration camp]. Andrija Artuković said his army [i.e. Ustashe Militia] was buried there, but now they won't allow the bones to be dug up, let's have them dug up so that the truth may come to light.", and "[Slovenian writer] Roman Leljak announces the publication of documents [...] about the real number of victims in Jasenovac [concentration camp]. According to him, that number is 1,654, natural deaths included. So much for the accusations by the so-called anti-fascists, the Serbian side, and some random historians who want to smear Croatia and hold it hostage with their lies.".
  • "Q" happens to be a contributor to the above-mentioned hkv.hr website, according to Novosti. When I asked him later what he thought about the insertion of the "genetic disorder" sentence, his response was that "there was no reason to hide the true state of affairs".
  • "C" later received a 2-year block for using 10 or so sockpuppet accounts to cast RfA votes. Nevertheless, he received a warm welcome upon his return, got nominated in a RfA himself, where he even received a vote of support from an admin whom we shall name "K", whereas...
  • "D" ended up getting indefinitely blocked. Removal of the "genetic disorder" paragraph was explicitly listed by "K", the blocking admin, as one of the reasons.

Fast forward to 2018 and entries on Josip Broz Tito and Ante Pavelić, which is an example analyzed by the above-mentioned article in Novosti:

  • While Broz is described in his article's intro as "Croatian and Yugoslav politician, revolutionary, statesman and communist leader and dictator [...] 13th in the list of greatest criminals of the 20th century", Pavelić is described merely as "Croatian politician and lawyer, leader and founder of Ustasha movement and poglavnik of the Independent State of Croatia".
  • In the intro on Pavelić, multiple unsuccessful attempts were made to describe him as "fascist" or "war criminal" (reverted by "Z" and "M" multiple times).
  • An attempt has been made to mention that Pavelić is 21st in the same (rather dubious) list of criminals in which Broz is ranked 13th. Reverted by "M" twice, before "Z" fully protected the article. "Z" was explicitly against mentioning Pavelić's "21st place" in the intro, despite the fact that - as one editor duly noted - it was "Z" himself who inserted the mention of the "13th place" in the article on Broz, using the exact same source. "Z"'s explanation for his apparent inconsistency: "Regarding sources on Pavelić, they are all based (both foreign and domestic) on communist propaganda".
  • In the intro of the Pavelić article, "M" called him "one of the greats of Croatian history", and, after being confronted about it, said "I don't think this fact needs a source". Coincidentally, "M" was also involved in the Gdansk article, where he attempted to prevent the removal of revisionist content about the genocide against the Germans being the "real reason" for the invasion of Poland; to him, removing this was "vandalism". Nevertheless, he has since been given autopatrolled status, and almost became a patroller, having received a vote of support from "Z". "Z" was fully aware of edits made by "M" listed here (because other editors brought them up during the discussion), but maintained his support nevertheless.
  • Meanwhile, in the entry on Tito, an editor tried to change "dictator" to "autocrat", with an inline source provided. For this, he was given a 30-day block by "Q", with the following explanation: "Something can be factually true, but where there is a number of facts, choosing the less important ones and omitting the more important ones tends to lead to wrong conclusions. According to sources, Tito was both an autocrat and a dictator, and stating only the milder qualification is an unacceptable act, an act of vandalism". In the block log, the reason given was "vandalism".

Comparing these two examples, it's not hard to see that the modus operandi has largely stayed unchanged:

  • Admins - typically the "usual suspects" among them - facilitate the right-wing POV by either directly contributing biased content, reverting changes, or applying full protection when the content gets seriously challenged, which further frustrates attempts to remove bias.
  • Editors with extreme views and history of far-right POV editing largely have free rein, and even seem to advance through the ranks, being endorsed by the admins.
  • Editors who try to remove or merely tone down POV content face swift punitive blocks.

Some more examples:

  • When the claim of 1,654 victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp ended up in the article itself, an editor expressed his disagreement with it in "Z"'s talk page. For this, "Z" gave him a 30-day block.
  • In the "History" section of the entry on Glina, an IP editor added a mention of the Glina massacres, with an inline source. "Q" removed it, then immediately protected the article. The reason he gave was "frequent vandalism" - once again, a blatantly false statement.

One more example of right-wing POV, a fairly extreme one. "K" added the following into the Croatian Wikipedia entry on Milan Tepić:

"This entire case could be seen only through the prism of fanaticism and infatuation, if the same major were not perceived today in Serbia as a national hero. Namely, soon after this lunatic act, Tepić was awarded with the Order of the People's Hero by the Presidency of SFRY. [...] They did not consider the fact that he took to the grave with him Yugoslav People's Army conscripts, whom he did not ask if they wanted to die, nor did he look into the eyes of parents, friends and family of these conscripts, whom he took to the grave with this terrorist, lunatic act."

No, this is not a joke. There have been multiple attempts to remove this stuff, but they have all been reverted - at least once by "K" himself - so the above text is still present in the article. What actually is kind of funny in a wonderfully ironic way is that, shortly after Croatian Wikipedia's WikiProject Neutrality was created, "K" came to the project's talk page to tell us that "we [editors of Croatian Wikipedia] have solved all these things long ago and our project [Croatian Wikipedia] is functioning just fine", so "[creating WikiProject Neutrality] is an unnecessary step". Incidentally, WikiProject Neutrality is now defunct because all of its members have left Croatian Wikipedia and now edit elsewhere.

Two more illustrative examples of admin conduct:

  • An editor was blocked for 3 days for edit warring. When his block expired, he filed a bona fide formal complaint against several editors, including two admins, "Z" and "K". "K" immediately responded to the complaint by deleting it and giving the editor an indefinite block.
  • An editor posted in the Village pump, objecting that certain articles on Christianity were written from the Christian perspective. Her opening sentences were: "Hello everyone! It is my first time here, so perhaps I did not understand correctly whether this topic is appropriate for the Village pump or not. If it isn't, the admin is free to delete my words and leave me a notice in my talk page." "Q" directly replied to these two sentences in her talk page: "One may discuss anything in the Village pump, but discussing for the sake of discussing is pissing in the wind, it is not just time spent in vain, it is a waste of time that could have been used in a smarter way." and asked: "And from which perspective should these articles be written?". She responded: "Please, if you continue addressing me, don't leave vulgarities in my talk page". "Q" replied: "There were no vulgarities in my words, I kindly directed you how to be a constructive editor [...] To misinterpret my or anyone else's kind instructions as vulgarities - that, I must warn, we cannot tolerate, hence the yellow card [i.e. a block warning issued in the top of his post]."

Some of my personal experiences:

  • In the Croatian Wikipedia entry on Wikipedia, there was (in fact, still is) a sentence that read "On Wikipedia, automatic translation of articles is strictly forbidden". I tagged this rather strange claim with a {{citation needed}}. It was, however, removed by an admin, with an edit summary that read "Stop fooling around". I added it back and explained in the article's talk that it's WP:V, not "fooling around". A bizarre discussion ensued, in which some admins apparently thought that, by questioning the claim with {{cn}}, I was trying to make a some sort of argument in favor of using automatic translation on Wikipedia so, rather than providing a source, they actually tried to "convince" me that it produces poor results (?). "Q" conceded Croatian Wikipedia has no written policy which would forbid it, but argued it is a common, well-known fact (?), so {{cn}} cannot be used. In the end, for reinserting {{cn}}, I received a 14-day block.
  • In the entry on the Bosnian War, there was an unsourced claim that the war started on 1 October 1991. Again, I tagged this with {{cn}}, but it was removed by an admin without explanation. I reinserted it and got blocked for it by the same admin for 30 days. After the block expired, I asked for a source which supports this claim in the article's talk. For this, "K" gave me a 6-month block, after delivering a page-long political rant. Right now, there are 58 other Wikipedia entries on the topic (59, if Wikidata is included), and all of them - including the Bosnian wiki itself - state Bosnian War started in 1992 (except for Bengali Wikipedia, which appears to be silent on this issue). In Croatian Wikipedia, even the basic verifiability is broken; I may be the only editor in the history of Wikipedia who was blocked twice for using the {{citation needed}} template.

This concludes what I had to say with regard to evidence. I fully stand behind what I've written, as diffs will easily prove everything. (I left them out on purpose, as well as actual usernames.)

How is all this possible? It is merely an end result of a decade-long process in which a group of administrators effectively hijacked the Croatian Wikipedia, driving out or silencing all dissenters, either by blocks or attrition. (It's no wonder there is an entire contingent of Croatian editors at the Serbo-Croatian wiki - they all found contributing to Croatian wiki impossible.) To illustrate this, consider only the fact that "K" survived an adminship no-confidence vote in 2013 by a narrow margin of 46-40, whereas in 2017 he was elected bureaucrat unanimously, with a tally of 21-0. (Incidentally, the other two admins who narrowly survived the same 2013 vote were "Q" and "Z".) From this it should be clear that Croatian Wikipedia does no longer have a functional community, and therefore has no chance to remedy any of its problems without outside help.

Let me also be clear about the role of other currently active admins, the ones not mentioned in this exposé. In a wiki of this size, there can be absolutely no doubt that other admins - if they do not contribute directly to the problem - must be at least aware of what's going on. Since there seems to be zero opposition - they all either agree or acquiesce - we can only talk about degrees of complicity.

With all that in mind, let me propose a course of action:

  1. Strip admin rights from "K", "Q" and "Z". Had the above-described stuff happened in English Wikipedia, it would have been impossible for any of them to remain admins.
  2. Appoint editors who clearly distance themselves from what has been going on as members of a new Croatian Wikipedia ArbCom. Since the three admins in question have plenty of supporters, without this step the business will inevitably proceed as usual, only with different protagonists.
  3. Get involved. I wish there was a "Croatian Wikipedia Advisory Board" active at Meta, with stewards as members. Fixing everything that is wrong and rebuilding the encyclopedia and its community will be a long and difficult process, and the WMF needs to step in with authority.

One final note: I used to donate in the past, so a while ago I received an email from you, asking for more donations. Its subject was "This is embarrassing". Jimbo, let me tell you: it's not. Wikipedia needs money. But - as much as I hate to say it, because I'm passionate about Wikipedia - what I've described in this message is something I don't want to abet in any way. Nobody should, in fact. And, if anything is actually embarrassing, it's allowing this to go on one day longer. Decisive action is needed.

Best regards, GregorB (talk) 20:18, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

So it appears that it has continued to be a very toxic place, devoid of some of the basic encyclopedic qualities. Sadly, I have no particular hope that it won't remain so, because if the disgrace publicized in 2013 wasn't enough for anyone to bother lifting a finger, I'm not holding my breath now. There was no particular lack of clarity about that situation back then, or now. I commend you for tilting at the windmills. *sigh* --Joy [shallot] (talk) 19:25, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I remember a Russian woman activist years ago who wrote me that her activist friends did not use Russian wikipedia because it was biased. I don't know whether that is still true for Russian wikipedia. She helped organized Russian cannabis marches until the government cracked down on rallies in general.
Nearly all attempts at cannabis rallies in Moscow have been crushed since 2006. See:
http://cannabis.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Moscow,_Russia
A Russian cannabis website, legaliz.info, was chased off a Russian server, and then chased off a Ukrainian server (while Ukraine was still under Russia's thumb). I directed them to an international web host, where they remain. So their website remains:
http://legaliz.info
If what GregorB is saying is true, I will not donate money to Wikipedia. I will not support the propaganda of authoritarians. Why is this allowed? A mechanism for WMF oversight concerning WP:NPOV needs to be set up. Until then I will direct people to this archived thread, and tell them not to donate to Wikipedia. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:34, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
I was so misstreted at Croatian Wikipedia that I left disgusted swering never to contribute there anymore. I wrote the episode at my userpage, at bottom of User:FkpCascais#WP_episodes collapsed saying "My hr.wiki experience". FkpCascais (talk) 23:05, 11 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Other wikipedias also have groups: It's not just Croatian Wikipedia, but the other-language wikipedias have had many groups who deny updates. Users on German WP told me that although my fully illustrated pages on German WP were worded 98% correctly, unfortunately my 2 years of college German were insufficient, and my contributions were really not welcome on dewiki, because fixing 10 idiom errors per page was just too much work for them, and isn't that so special of them. Similarly, some Swedish Wikipedians don't want an article on a major topic if the Swedish text is only 99% pleasant, so please understand that is why the page was insta-deleted before the "ink was dry". On English Wikipedia, I tried to update the page "Hurricane Katrina" to mention the storm travelled up the entire state of Mississippi after early landfall there, but changes were continually reverted, and finally someone admitted, "No one cares about Mississippi" and that explained the problem there. It only takes 2 or 3 such difficult users, at any page, to shutdown improvements or retain false text, so that has been a severe problem for years. On Spanish Wikipedia, I tried to update a template, but the improvements were reverted, and the page protected against updates. Hence, German WP or Swedish WP have been falling even further behind in coverage of current topics this decade, and English WP continues to insist false information is somehow valid, despite numerous new sources echoing the corrections attempted years ago. However, there are many other pages where those difficult users have not removed the crucial details to slant the pages, so there is hope that the wide variety of pages out-paces the attempts to suppress the facts found in better wp:RS sources. For the older re-distorted pages, there is still a chance where a 100-user wp:RfC would clearly favor restoring the sourced facts into a page, even though that could be extremely tedious. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:49, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not going to go into the groupthink accusations above (which I sympathize with), but I want to say that hr.wiki persistently violates the Foundation's Terms of Use, and that GregorB was indeffed for pointing it out. wumbolo ^^^ 16:35, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Indeed: while I'm sure that many wikis have their own problems, ranging from social engineering to arbitrariness with policies and guidelines, Croatian Wikipedia is the only wiki I know of that tramples WP:5P in such a wanton and systematic way that it would be fair to say it is Wikipedia in name only.
    • Wikid77, I sympathize with your remarks on de and se wikis. Indeed, Croatian Wikipedia is also highly intolerant towards less-than-brilliant prose, which arguably goes against the essence of Wikipedia (collaborative, anyone-can-edit encyclopedic project with no deadline). GregorB (talk) 17:06, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
I saw this and checked one of the pages in question to see it did indeed contain this text: "Nisu uzeli u činjenicu da je odnio u smrt i ročnike JNA, koje nije pitao za žele li u smrt, niti je pogledao u lica roditelja, prijatelja i drugih bližnjih tih ročnika koje je terorističkim luđačkim činom odnio u smrt" ("They did not take into account the fact that he also took Yugoslav army conscripts to their graves, without asking whether they wanted to die or without looking into the faces of parents, friends, and other close associates who had been killed by terrorist mischief".) The latter sentence, whether sourced or unsourced, (it's unsourced in this case) is as blatant a violation of NPOV as you are ever likely to see. So I simply removed it only to be reverted by a user called Zeljko with an edit summary accusing me of being a "collaborator". I had a look at a couple of other pages and it's blatantly clear in this case that the WP:5P are being wilfully ignored there and that action is therefore certainly needed. Valenciano (talk) 21:11, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
Valenciano, the user you're referring to is actually an admin. Not just any admin - lupus in fabula is all I'm saying right now.
In en wiki, this incident alone (which you managed to reproduce in an almost routine fashion) would easily be career-ending for any admin, as not knowing what encyclopedia is and working contrary to its basic principles - in a manner as gross as the one displayed here - is incompatible with the position. GregorB (talk) 11:23, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
This investigation done by GregorB is also so much better and useful than the Breitbart-esque fear-mongering by left-wing media figures, including but not limited to calling hr.wiki "an organ of the Neo-Nazis", which is just as partisan and reminds me e.g. of this. wumbolo ^^^ 10:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm not fond of sweeping generalizations either; on top of that, these kinds of statements are worthless as arguments. Still, one cannot expect of newspaper-reading public to understand the nuances of wiki policies, so they are largely given various rather crude assessments.
It doesn't help either to say "most articles are fine" (yeah, as if ideological bias is to be expected in articles on plant species and the like). And, finally, saying that there is a conflict and that "both sides are passionate" (and I have heard this before) is also something I resent. Passionate? No contest there, but the real question is: passionate about what? GregorB (talk) 11:34, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Definitely not passionate about building an encyclopedia. wumbolo ^^^ 11:45, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Caveat: I avoid politics, and I consider taking a position in the whole ex-Yugoslav area mess a frivolous waste of time. There are too many sides in this battle to keep track of, and arguably POV pushers exist that have been rightly banned from hr.WP. Hence, when I come across those articles, no matter which WP it is, I close my eyes and move on, and expect a bit of local nationalist bias to be par for course for small language Wikipedias.
Still, even ignoring politics, hr.WP has little hospitality for new editors. I've only edited a few times there as an IP in the past years, but it seems that unless you're writing about something local you won't get a cheerful welcome. I translated a few articles from en.WP, mostly about Western art, science and classical antiquity. In a memorable occasion years ago, after translating a scientific article of 500-1000 words in 4-5 edits I was accused by an admin of flooding recent changes and told to take it to Notepad. When I complained that this was a ridiculous request and that this was never a problem in other Wikipedias I've edited, another admin deleted the complaint and blocked my IP. On another occasion, I complained on their village pump about not being able to fix a formatting issue due to an edit filter, and I was told off by 2-3 non-admin users to stop wasting their time. I've written six GAs and a number of DYKs on en.WP, so I'd say lack of WP:CLUE on my part is not likely.
Having a look around, it doesn't seem the place has changed at all. The articles are still mostly unsourced (and the sourced ones are often complete trash). Wikipedia's Terms of Use are openly flaunted: hr.WP allows including copyrighted text and pictures in articles so long as the copyright owner gives permission to the Croatian Wikipedia. Therefore, translating a good deal of articles on hr.WP to other WPs would actually be a copyvio (if it's worth translating at all). Incidentally, a couple of days ago I looked up a local talk show there and found in the article history a brand new example of IP biting -- admin reverts IP user and protects the page with edit summary "had to protect because user doesn't know how to add links" in illiterate Croatian, apparently because the IP added a number of wiki and interwiki links to sh & en.WP using external link formatting. To top it all off, the main page (archived) has had a call for a far-right rally during the past week on the top of the In The News section.
I'd like to write articles in Croatian, but the idea of donating my time and labour to such a hostile and lawless environment is a little offensive to me. Skipping sh.WP (as, while I appreciate sh.WP's viability as a refuge for Croatian editors, I consider the Serbo-Croatian language something best left in the 20th century), I ended up here. I would love to end on a note recommending some idea or course of action that could get us out of this unholy mess, but I've got nothing. The only thing I end up recommending to other people in Croatia wanting to read and learn on Wikipedia is to learn a foreign language first. Thumbs down. Daß Wölf 02:21, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Karate and English, just like the old days.[23] :-) GregorB (talk) 10:21, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Or German, if your plane ticket is in that direction ;) Daß Wölf 22:54, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
It might be time for some more explanation of the relation of Serbo-Croatian to "Croatian" and "Serbian" languages. Our article makes it sound like a vast region presently speaks Serbo-Croatian as the majority language. I would wonder whether having a separate "Serbo-Croatian", "Serbian", and "Croatian" set of wikis sets up a WP:POV fork where moderates and partisans each have their own version, and whether this is part of the problem. (Imagine if we had separate projects for "British English", "American English", "South African English", "Nigerian English", "Australian English"...) At this point I would not suggest to terminate anything, but is it feasible to recruit more editors to the less nationalist setting? Wnt (talk) 13:43, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
@Wnt: actually, each article on en.wiki is written in one specific variety of English, and that has very often been contentious here. sh.wiki is even worse as the languages have a lot of tiny differences, even though almost all articles have no valid reason to prefer one language over the other. British and American English at least cover entirely different parts of the Earth. I also don't like the idea of recruiting partisan people to a neutral wiki. wumbolo ^^^ 10:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Actually I think en.wikipedia gives far too much deference to "regional English". Colored and coloured are both correct English words, and I see no problem with allowing both in the same article or the same sentence. Microsoft doesn't like it but why should we kneel beside the others and worship their grammar checker as the ruler of the earth? Yes, there are some terms like "public school" that can cause confusion in generic English, but these should simply be replaced with clearer terms. (Occasionally we could take a stand on a term like the American version of "tabled", which I think not one American in five knows the "American" definition of, but even there it would probably be easier to say "terminated discussion of" or something, with the precise term of art given in quotes with a link) Anyway, none of this changes whether we can make do with one English article for a topic. Wnt (talk) 22:42, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
Differences in written English are pretty rare, so much that many smaller articles on Wikipedia end up without any. On the contrary, the differences here are so numerous that they appear in most sentences, and more contentious too. To my knowledge, at least in recent times, nobody has been killed over -or/-our and -ise/-ize :) To make matters worse, the consensus of local people and local linguists re: Serbo-Croatian goes in the completely opposite direction from our page. Foreign linguists may agree that it's all one language, but tell that to someone over here, and you'll be as popular as an atheist in West Texas. Daß Wölf 22:54, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - Wikipedia is a mainstream encyclopedia. Mainstream is current thought that is widespread. It includes all popular culture and media culture, typically disseminated by mass media. Wikipedia on Croatian language presents the mainstream in sources on Croatian language. If and when mainstream changes, wikipedia will follow. It simply does not work the other way around. I propose to leave the cro wiki as it is, to evolve according to changes in the mainstream.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 10:50, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
No. Just no. These egregious abuses of an encyclopedia are not mainstream in Croatia. And even if they were, it would still be ridiculous for the Wikimedia Foundation to violate its principles by condoning it. Why am I not surprised that people with a history of abusing the English Wikipedia on related topics would promote such ridiculous claims... --Joy [shallot] (talk) 14:51, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo, you recently stressed that articles should be "accurate and authoritative" [24]. Monday's Daily Telegraph carried a report about artist biographies on the gallery's website being replaced by content imported from Wikipedia. Answering complaints the gallery said that Wikipedia was "frequently the most up-to-date source of information." Art historian Dr Bendor Grosvenor added:

As the nation's pre-eminent gallery of British art, it has a responsibility to present accurate, authoritative facts about the artists responsible for the greatest works of art.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.69.5.58 (talk) 08:43, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

There is a piece about this here. Wikipedia cannot stop people from doing this because the material is Creative Commons licensed, but all articles are covered by the General Disclaimer at the foot of every page.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:17, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
"A Tate spokesperson says that it is "working on a partnership with Wikipedia to ensure the biographies for artists in our collection are as accurate as possible". How does this partnership work exactly? Sounds like a vacuous corporate soundbite to me. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:26, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
The quote from Bendor Grosvenor appears to come from an article titled Tate's pen portraits taken from Wikipedia which I can't find in full. It would be interesting to know if the Tate has contacted Wikipedia, and if they did, they would be shown the General Disclaimer. J. M. W. Turner is not a Chinese goalkeeper, and John Constable does not eat pet hamsters in pubs.[25]--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:51, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Yes, he also said: "I think it’s a rather pathetic reflection of the way the Tate values its position as an authoritative voice on British art." And I must admit, I tend to agree with him. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:28, 15 September 2018 (UTC) p.s. I think that hamster thing was only a rumour.

First we should recognize the Tate's compliment to Wikipedia and say "thank you". Does the Tate consider Wikipedia's artists' bios to be reliable? Enough so that they link to them on their website instead of writing their own. See [26]

But I'd be much happier if our artists' bios were taken (with appropriate rewriting to avoid copyright violations and plagiarism) from museum websites than having museum websites copy our bios.

There is perhaps a solution to the perceived problem that could be implemented at a very low cost. I'm using this to illustrate some possible solutions to some problems in sections above, e.g. how to allow appropriate paid editing on Wikipedia.

  • 1st set up a Wiki - probably off of WMF sites - exclusively for artists' bios
  • Invite museums and perhaps a few well known academic critics to contribute artist bios, with real names and/or museum "corporate accounts" known.
    • CC-by-4.0 licensed
      • Wikipedia could then use all or part of these bios
    • In general the policies and guidelines would not have to be the same as on Wikipedia, e.g. original research and academic opinion would be allowed.
    • Some Wikipedians could be invited to help get the project started and perhaps continue on.
  • Some of our best artist bios could be added to the new wiki to help get it started, but of course the invited museums could change them (on the new wiki or off) to suit their needs
  • Tate would be invited to contribute their non-Wikipedia bios

We probably have more than 100,000 artist bios on wikipedia (anybody know for sure?). So perhaps we (the new wiki) could invite the top 1,000 museums in the world to contribute 100 bios each. Chances are most of these bios have already been written by museums.

Just an outline of what could be done to satisfy a lot of the needs expressed. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:12, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

A good and interesting idea. Probably better than us just burning the place down, I guess. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:26, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Sigh! The "John Constable does not eat pet hamsters in pubs" bit comes from an newspaper piece in 2006! The Tate stopped doing its own artist bios & giving ours in 2016. The Bendor Grosvenor article (not entirely accurate) is here. There is a good rebuttal to Grosvenor by a curator (formerly Getty etc) here - "The Tate Uses Wikipedia for Artist Biographies, and I’m OK With It", which explains why the work of writing short biogs is not really something museum curators should be doing. The matter has been the subject of recent discussions you clearly haven't seen at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Visual_arts#Tate_outsources_artist_biographies_on_its_website_to_Wikipedia and Talk:Anthony van Dyck. It would be nice if we could pursuade art historians in museums or elsewhere to check and improve our bios, but otherwise I see no prospect of this scheme happening, unless a big museum wants to release its bios freely. Museums generally have a specific length of bio they want for their pages (generally very short) while the length, like the quality, of our pages varies wildly. Wikimedia UK has had contacts over the years but the quote rather vaguely attributed to the Tate that they were "working on a partnership with Wikipedia to ensure the biographies for artists in our collection are as accurate as possible" seems, ahem, a little exaggerated (unless anyone knows differently}. They have had a couple of editathons in 2016, concentrating on "Queer" and women British artists respectively. It's nice, but sadly not accurate, of them to say Wikipedia was "frequently the most up-to-date source of information". Unfortunately numbers of our bios of older British artists are taken from open sources over 150 years old. I hope they don't link to those. Johnbod (talk) 17:46, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
(EC - i think we're closer than this might suggest)
Thanks for providing the links to current discussions on other talk pages, I would have missed them. And for the link to Matthew Lincoln's (ML) post.
I've got mixed feelings on ML opinions. He's just saying that grad students at some prestigious museums find it annoying that they have to do grunt work like writing and updating 3 paragraph bios for the website. Ok - that's between the grad students and the museums, I suppose - and likely the sponsors (or government as is the case with the Tate) and the target audience (e.g. the British public at large) might have something to say about it. But I don't suppose that many museums in the world take the attitude that this work is beneath them. Perhaps somewhere between 10 and 100 might object to this work. It also seems that it really isn't a great deal of work. Museums can use sites like the Union List of Artist Names or the paywalled Benezit Dictionary of Artists. And if the Tate has to add a couple of dozen new entries each year and update a couple of hundred old ones (Rembrandt shouldn't take too long) - it just doesn't seem like a huge investment of time.
So I suspect that at least 900 of the top 1000 museums in the world would at least consider joining a project such as I proposed. Or they might suggest other areas where they might like a similar project, e.g. describing individual art objects. And this would benefit Wikipedia and many museums, just by having a more authoritative source with a CC-by-4.0 license.
As I said in my 1st post - I hope this can serve as a model for how others who want more paid editing can structure a project to do that without breaking Wikipedia's rules. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:41, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Much the best source for artist biographies is what was the Grove Dictionary of Art, now Oxford Art Online from the OUP (who also have the English Benezit, but I'm not sure this gets updated now). This will be the first stop for museums & those with university access (and everybody in Britain who knows and can be bothered to arrange free access through their public library). This is kept updated though there may well be a lag of some years, and I would think it is slow to add contemporary artists. But it does a very good job, and is the wheel that doesn't need reinventing for this area. The museums' motivation comes down purely to time, which = money, as we know. Museums have "invested" vast sums in their online presence, but in recent years, after it has been all up a while, they are looking harder at what they need to keep and update. Especially for new artist entries I'm sure the costs are higher than you suggest, if the work is done properly. Johnbod (talk) 21:16, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Unless I am misunderstanding you, that payment scheme favors some of the wealthier parts of society, who do not need the money and who have the time to spend volunteering if they want, such as museum directors, curators, graduate students working at prestigious organizations, and so on. Just as I do not think nonprofits funded by the poor should be what funds the poor, I definitely do not think they should fund those who are not. If that were the choice, I would rather us set up editor welfare for those struggling to afford basic necessities. Anyway, the Wired piece was primarily suggesting that the Foundation fund editors in Africa and other globally disadvantaged regions to counter systemic bias within the projects, not to provide financial support for low-income editors or pay professionals to have their own wiki.
I do not think the implementation of your suggestions will address anything that those asking for more paid editor options are seeking, since their goals are overwhelmingly not about establishing a separate side venture outsourcing encyclopedic curation to professional curators. Your suggestions may be worthwhile to consider; however, I think that if museums want to benefit from our funds and our labors, then they should either use the work we wrote or work with us within our own wikis. Otherwise, they should be funding the Foundation for any such venture as part of their missions, especially since I'm not sure how microbiographies specifically created for GLAM web pages will be of much use to the project and I doubt they will create much more than that. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 11:13, 16 September 2018 (UTC); slightly edited last at 18:45, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

I was exploring how people who want to pay editors or help put paid content into Wikipedia can do it within our rules. I haven't suggested using WMF funds, but I might suggest some minor grant amount in the future, perhaps $5,000, if that's what it takes to get this off the ground. In general the paid editors would be paid by their home institutions to write CC-BY-SA licensed content that volunteer Wikipedia editors could put into WP - using their own judgement about the value of the content, of course. Any Wikipedia volunteers working on the new wiki would be strictly volunteers.

Your "I would rather us set up editor welfare for those struggling to afford basic necessities" would seem to require $ billions that the WMF does not have. After all anybody with access to a computer can become an editor, so we'd be funding anybody who is struggling to afford basic necessities.

It would be great if somebody could fund editors in Africa to close geographic gaps in our content. I don't think Wikipedia would be doing the funding however (again a small grant might help to get something started). I don't think the new programs would be putting major income, from a country-wide point of view, into the area. Rather a few dozen, hundred, or thousand folks might get paid at fair local wages.

To invent a possible example. Say the XXXX Foundations want to increase museum articles in Africa. They could set up their own program to pay folks to write CC-BY-SA articles on their own wiki, which our editors could then bring over to Wikipedia, if according to their own judgement, the articles are good enough. I would certainly help (for $0) organize the new wiki and other editors here might as well.

There's really nothing new in my proposals other than to point out that we already have ways that ethical paid content can be added to Wikipedia and give some examples where this may be useful.

Is this what "paid-editors-in-general" want? It's always dangerous to generalize, but I'd guess that some folks who campaign for more paid editing just want an easy job with no supervision of what they write. I'm not in favor of that. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:14, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

I apologize if I misunderstood you or presumed more about your suggestions than you stated, Smallbones, both of which it seems I may have done. If your proposal is to initiate a separate side venture to attract professionals and experts to create freely licensed content on their own wiki, but who are then compensated by their institutions similar to how Wikipedians in residence are, then that is something for which I can have much more sympathy. It may be especially worthwhile when it comes to expanding coverage of artistic works and other non-biographic content, including notable archaeologic items, even if it's just the equivalent of stubs or Start-class articles. Perhaps consider a grant proposal?
To avoid fragmenting discussion on the paid editing topic from above to here, I would rather discuss that there. Feel free to refactor this tangent up if you want, especially since this is veering off the section topic. I can even segment this message with separate signatures if necessary. Nonetheless, to clarify what I had in mind: I doubt a Wikipedian-localized basic income from the Foundation is feasible even if that isn't the non-starter it almost certainly is. If any "editor welfare" were set up, I assume it would be opt-in, limited only to the neediest applicants, and capped by a certain predefined amount of the Foundation's budget. It doesn't even have to be much, either. An annual payment of US$1,200 ($100 a month) to the 1,000 neediest would be $1.2 million, just under 1% of the Foundation's total assets last year (PDF) of $120,524,697 (2017); a ~1.73% increase in its total expenses of $69,136,758 (2017); and ~5.43% of its increase in unrestricted net assets of $22,105,660 (2017). Even if we assume just as much an increase in overhead (which is ridiculous, but let's be ridiculous), given these numbers, the amount of applicants and the size of their stipends can be increased many times over. The point would be to provide supplemental financial aid (hopefully in a way that doesn't jeopardize government welfare eligibility), not to effectively employ low-income editors and pay them above the poverty line.
Due to what a change it would be, however, it may increase the Foundation's funding from donations since the appeals would no longer (just) be about Jimbo's great big and beautiful face providing the personal plea to generally fund operations. Instead, it can be about how "you ensure low-income editors like Smiling Wikipedian X are financially supported to maintain this project". Even if not, it's not like the Foundation is strapped for cash; as has been noted and recently reported by others, its annual change in assets remain in a significant incline with expenses struggling to keep up and no clear slowdown in this trend. Whether the Foundation should—or even would—do anything of the sort is another matter entirely; however, whether the Foundation can is something I think is borne out by its own annual financial statements and a bit of arithmetic. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 18:45, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Check, please!

"To reduce inequality, Wikipedia should consider paying editors", reads the title of a recent Wired opinion piece. I'm sure most of the people reading this would appreciate it if Wikipedia did so. I myself have made money editing here before but always from people who paid me to create articles about certain people/topics. It seems like those who create content that is both high-quality and widely read should be incentivized to do so beyond some sort of symbolic recognition (like the gold star of a FA). Of course I know this idea has been proposed many times in the past, and as the Wired article notes, it would require Wikipedia ditching its not-for-profit model. Yet it might be an effective way to encourage creation of high-quality content and the retention of editors who create such content, at least if it's done right (e.g. being careful not to pay for the creation of vandalism/spam articles). IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 17:35, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

We'd also lose those who value the fact that we are all volunteers here. --GRuban (talk) 19:46, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Rewards can promote mass distortions: You've likely heard stories of clinics prescribing unneeded expensive medicines or medical procedures to get money from insurance companies or government programs like U.S. Medicare payments. Almost 30 years ago, a company praised energetic employees as "Employee of the Month" while unaware of people addicted to praise. Eventually a star employee, who had helped numerous employees fix mysterious computer problems or office equipment, was found to be staying late to sabotage the workstations of his coworkers, and it was amazing how well he could fix the most bizarre office problems, as a repeat favorite for Employee of the Month. Eventually the company learned how "Team of the Month" was safer and less addictive for individuals with histrionic personality disorder. The term "planned obsolescence" explains how some groups have purposely delayed enhancements, and crucial annoying bug fixes (for computer viruses for years), to sustain a system of continual payments until years when a real improvement could be invented as truly "value added" to the organization. The Ancient Greek philosopher Plato advised to be governed by people who were a "philosopher king" where their passion was "love of knowledge" (Greek: Αγάπη της γνώσης), seeking to be "agathos kai sophos" (good and wise), and not wealthy or famous, as even recommending celibate people with no need for family rewards. However, theoretical physicist Albert Einstein indicated how reality is best understood by mathematical models to handle the complex interactions of multiple variables affecting real-world events, and hence forth the field of Philosophy faced the issue that reality could only be better understood by mathematicians. The brainchild was to seek cooperative groups with a passion for knowledge and math. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:14, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
  • We already have a system for paying editors - if an organization, including the WMF(!), wants to pay editors to edit Wikipedia it's really easy. All they have to do is get the editor to declare that they are a paid editor and who is paying him or her. The problem is that paid editors don't declare very often and that not many admins or arbs enforce our rules. We even have something like a system in operation for paid Wikimedians-in-Residence.
I should mention that the Wired article was essentially about getting a non-profit to pay editors, e.g. in Africa, where there are not so many editors. Actually the authors suggested that the WMF do it. I doubt the WMF really wants to do it outside the grants system now running, but any non-profit should be able to do it no problem. So if anybody wants to start a non-profit or otherwise find the cash from an ethical sponsor - please just go ahead and just do it. But the usual paid editor stuff - somebody trying to slip in some PR stuff about the company where they work in the PR department - that's not going to work in any situation ever. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:24, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia does not need to ditch its not-for-profit model to start paying editors! Can you imagine public television not paying its content producers? Or the Washington Post writers working for free? I'm sure Bezos would love to do that if he could. This is an excellent idea... offering a modest quarterly "coffee stipend" to editors meeting specified criteria that can be algorithmically quantified (minimum number of edits, clean or relatively clean block log, low edit-reversion percentage) would disproportionally motivate editors from less wealthy countries. Edit-warring would be discouraged by such a system. Editors would be more careful not to make bold, controversial edits that could be reverted and hurt their chances of earning their stipend. Editors paid by third parties with an agenda to promote wouldn't be motivated by this, as the third parties will be paying more than a simple stipend, but at least this will level the field a bit as we currently have an imbalance between COI editors and non-COI editors. Offering non-COI editors a stipend will help move towards balance. The current system isn't very good. The editors-in-residence have a COI with regard to the editing that the institution paying them wants to promote. Our crack sock puppet patrol should be able to snare the rogues who vandalize with one account only to revert for coffee stipends from another account. The current system of not paying editors is producing mass distortions – see the overwhelmed and underpaid Articles for Creation and New Page Patrol. It would be more ethical if the WMF assumed that its donors wanted to give financial support for content creation and maintenance, and not just servers, software and full-time around-the-world travel! Not to mention political lobbying for causes. I think it's rather unethical that they find money to do that. wbm1058 (talk) 00:03, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, perhaps create WMF "fellowships" for wp:NPP New Page Patrol (etc.), but computerized systems are notorious for million fake accounts "get $2 payout" each: somebody just got $2 million dollars. The U.S. election Russia investigations found thousands of fake-ad accounts, enough to sway election where candidates differ by only 80,000 votes in key precincts. It had been possible to run thousands of WP sockpuppet accounts through IP ranges, but would require expertise as cohorts. Who knew licensed MD doctors could prescribe fake-cancer chemo to get $millions even though chemo could create immune diseases, by warning employees to keep quiet. Giving away vast small money could cost $millions in management, accounting and audits to deter scams. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:32, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
I'd start small by setting the bar pretty high for the first round; maybe limit to a specified number of recipients (as the number of scholarships awarded are limited). Ramp up slowly, and ensure that adequate controls are in place to limit "gaming the system" before giving away vast small money. wbm1058 (talk) 13:04, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

I did a quick back of the envelope calculation of the value of donated editor time per year. It came out to about $2 Billion dollars per year. Any proposal for starting to pay for that should include a realistic idea to obtain the money. North8000 (talk) 00:33, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

But, I only want 0.05% of that! :b) . Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:45, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
There is a relatively small group of core editors administrating the content infrastructure, and I'm not suggesting they should be paid six-figure salaries. The majority of content contributors drive by and only briefly contribute to one or two articles. These editors, whose IDs often bear close resemblance to the subject of the articles they're contributing to, don't need to be paid. Maybe they should pay me for cleaning up after them, like when they try to change the name of their nonprofit charitable organization by editing the {{DISPLAYTITLE}}, since they're using VisualEditor and that's the only way that VE tells them how to do it. wbm1058 (talk) 02:53, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
The idea of "intellectual property" is inherently false; it is an extension of the peculiar institution of slavery. Saying that Wikipedia editors "ought to be paid for what they do" does have a basis, but that basis is not in any kind of bean counting of who reads what, even if no toll were charged anyway. The true basis is that all people are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ... which is to say, the economic system should reward remunerative work, but not require it for survival. Hence arises the concept of basic income. If all people are paid a basic wage to ensure they can live reasonably, then they are free, if they desire, to live simply and edit Wikipedia all day, or to follow any other innocent pursuit that is not resource intensive. Something like this was possible even in medieval times in the age of the great monasteries and nunneries, so certainly we should accept no propaganda that would claim we can't do it in an age of machine labor and persistent underemployment. (Not even if Obamacare managed to get the rate low by rationing out a lot of 28-to-29-hour-a-week jobs) It should be possible to fix a large portion of society's ills at once. Wnt (talk) 03:32, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
  • As many of us are probably painfully aware, especially the addicted among us, some of our most prolific editors are also some of our poorest. The reality of many editors being unemployed welfare recipients who have enough time to work full-time on Wikipedia (and do!) is so well-understood that we joke about it. Although there is a long list of problems with any such editorial compensation concept, not least that the most disadvantaged globally won't be in Appalachia or any of the growing number of undeveloping regions of abject poverty in the United States and Western Europe anyway, I have little doubt that this will be appealing to many. Any editor reading this thread who has to rely on SNAP (or their localized equivalent) just to afford groceries probably fantasizes about such a concept with regularity, alongside basic income and perhaps changes beyond that.
    I have no faith that it will ever become a reality, and probably shouldn't since nonprofits funded by the poor shouldn't be used to fund the poor. Nonetheless, I think the fact that this idea might be appealing at all to any reflects more poorly on the society that permits such conditions to produce such an idea than on those clamoring for it. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 15:01, 15 September 2018 (UTC); edited at 15:08, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
RE: "nonprofits funded by the poor" LOL just like Corporate Dems are funded by $27 donations from the poor. Doesn't the WMF get money from Google and other corporations? Those "donations" might be given (wink, wink) to make sure that their Wikipedia profiles are kept relatively free of negative information, like their record on environmental protection. And, if it's OK for Amazon's warehouse workers to collect SNAP, why not Wikipedia editors as well?
"the most disadvantaged globally won't be in Appalachia" Right, that's the point... to make "affirmative action payments" to Global South editors... a lot of the edits I make aren't rocket science. I could train these new editors on how to make the type of gnome-edits I make to clear maintenance queues, which would free me up to work on more higher-level stuff that I keep putting off, because I'm not getting much of any help to clear the more routine work queues. These are the type of edits that any for-profit corporation would outsource to the third world for sure. wbm1058 (talk) 23:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Paid editing is one of my hobbyhorses. I'm all for some form of it because of one issue, but I can understand why people would be against it because of a second:
    • Pro paid editing One overlooked issue is that to produce useful content, one must spend time doing research. Once upon a time, a Wikipedia article could be produced by taking an easily-accessible source & paraphrasing it. That's why a lot of older Wikipedia articles are heavily based on public domain sources like the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. However, all of the low-hanging fruit has been picked, & getting to the next batch requires serious & dedicated research. I had to give up writing articles on Ethiopian topics (which I did for reasons such as there are more articles on Antarctica than any African country) because I found it frustratingly difficult to obtain information about Ethiopia. For example, I spent about $500 on books about that country to produce the articles I did write. (FWIW, I may have more books about that country than my local public library.) And with a mortgage & family I couldn't justify buying any more books about that country that I needed to write more & better articles. Right now I'm working on articles on Roman history, for which the information is more easily available -- yet I need to translate important articles into English to use. (I can muddle thru German language sources, but rely on Google & Bing to translate articles in French & Italian.) I not only end up donating time to Wikipedia -- which I expect to do -- but money to buy specialized works because it takes longer than a few months to extract their content.
    • Contra paid editing The major reason I feel people are against it -- & I fully sympathize & understand this reason -- is that if it is permitted $BOOGEYMAN will pay people to rewrite articles to whitewash/slant articles to favor his agenda. It is hard to argue with the person cutting your paychecks. And this is currently a chronic problem; when people mention "paid editing", the first thing that comes to mind is, indeed, $BOOGEYMAN hiring a hack to write or rewrite an article about a given corporation or political ideology. Everyone here can find lot of examples of this abuse. This toxic abuse makes it hard for any one person to make a persuasive case that if they received some kind of honorarium it would result in one or more good articles that might not otherwise be written.
Even if this problem could not be resolved, it would be nice to provide some kind of token support & enable active Wikipedians who meet some level of qualification to have their research subsidized. Even were it something as minimal as a 10% discount for purchases at Amazon. But IMHO the Foundation is so opposed to providing any financial help to Wikipedians (or members of other Wikimedia projects) they wouldn't bother with even a figleaf such as a discount for very active Wikimedians. -- llywrch (talk) 08:00, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
The distinction should be made between "paid by the WMF" and "paid by third parties". By only allowing "paid by third parties" the door is opened for "$BOOGEYMAN". In theory "paid by the WMF" could provide a check-and-balance against COI editing, if the incentives were well-designed. These editors would be paid for content protection and administration; content creation could be paid algorithmically based on number of added bytes that aren't reverted, or subjectively based on editor's assessments of content quality and value (like how votes are taken to determine the best photographs that have been uploaded). – wbm1058 (talk) 14:29, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

disclaimer reminder message

Dear Sir


Wikipedia present unconfirmed information to the audience. The validity of this information is mixed: Some are valid and some are invalid. invalid information is Scattered across the articles, like minefield; and Detection of false information is sometimes impossible. Especially for readers who Unaware of the disclaimers. This issue is Very dangerous In medical articles.

Disclaimers must be Perfectly in sight and first thing that the audience sees. A Sentence like “The content of this article is editable and Not guaranteed.” In persian “محتوای این مقاله قابل ویرایش و اعتبار آن تضمین‌نشده است.”. This action may increase the number of contributors and Take away the risk.

what is your opinion? I give you a clear suggestion and Please give me a clear answer.


Sincerely, Mousavi


  • this letter also has been mailed.

Seyyedalith (talk) 12:03, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles on teen suicides

Talk:Suicide_of_Katelyn_Davis#If_a_deliberate_self-destructive_act_is_made_for_notability_and_others_emulate_the_act_-_is_there_a_danger_to_Wikipedia I think poses an interesting issue.


Newspapers now generally do not give publicity to "publicity suicides" in many places, as the number of "copycat suicides" is sufficiently high, that the initial coverage may be seen as causative of other suicides.

[27] from the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin presents several views. The case at hand is about a suicide who sought publicity and the likelihood of "copycat suicides" possibly as a result of the Wikipedia article itself.


[28] A Scientific American article points out : In Vienna of the 1980’s, a spate of subway suicides was combatted by the city’s main newspapers’ decision to substantially curtail the publicity surrounding these deaths. After a certain date, these suicides were no longer mentioned. This coincided with a progressive fall in the number of subway suicides illustrating the power for good of the media.

See also [29]


Teen suicide is at a very regrettable level in the US. [30] up 70% from 2006 to 2016.


The question remaining is: "Should Wikipedia give publicity to suicides of otherwise non-notable persons, where such suicides may reasonably cause 'copycat suicides' of other non-notable persons?"


Obviously a suicide of a notable (not counting the suicide) person would still be mentioned in their biography, but the case at hand is one where the desire of the person was for publicity, and the person otherwise is decidedly not "notable" under Wikipedia guidelines. Collect (talk) 14:27, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

The question is not whether we should have these types of articles but what constraints such articles should conform to. In a nutshell they should be stub articles without images. Bus stop (talk) 15:07, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
The case is clearly notable. The free speech angle alone makes it worth covering -- As recently as January 2017, Facebook held out and kept the video up for two weeks before giving into the censorship warriors ... something they wouldn't do now for anything at all. There were several articles about how the video "couldn't be removed from the Internet" simply because it wasn't illegal, an idea which post-Charlottesville seems laughable. True, I did eventually find it ([31], cited at [32]), but these are far more remote locations than what I am accustomed to.
As for the article, I would utterly reject any notion of "permanent stubs", which is an oxymoron, real light on the oxy. There are all kinds of noble causes a person can put their hand to, like trying to get Sanders elected, or trying to stop suicide, but our noble cause involves collecting and sharing what we know so that we can find out what happened. I am highly doubtful that learning causes suicide, but if it does, that's not my department. I'm not censoring this suicide any more than I'm censoring articles about Camus or Nietschze based on what reading them might do to somebody.
I should add that the purveyors of laws and prosecutions about cyberbullying never seem to be bothered by the fact that their efforts have led to dozens of highly publicized world news articles that, again and again, have showed kids that suicide really is the golden road to show them all, get them all sent to jail for saying nasty things. I should also add that the coverage here has suggested a scenario of severe psychological or sexual abuse might have been involved, though I don't know what the police investigation came up with if anything. On the scheme of things, Wikipedia has very little influence on these things, if any, and its role isn't to try to use that influence for the "best" result, but to do what it is for - share the data. Wnt (talk) 21:35, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
Where publicity is withheld, teen copycat suicides do not occur. Where teen suicides are publicized, copycat suicides occur. The influence of such publications as Wikipedia (and Wikipedia is indeed a "publication" in this sense) is that they end up promoting copycat suicides. This has now been pretty well established in a number of studies. As for Share the Data -- that path leads to an interesting point including EU laws concerning privacy and copyright. Wikipedia should not be used as a tool to disregard "wrong laws" and to obey "right laws" only. Collect (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
I looked at your sources. Your top source from ethics.wisc.edu doesn't talk about Wikipedia; what it does give is an editorial I could agree with:

The pain of publicity is real. But it would be a mistake to conclude that journalists should not cover these personal tragedies. To be blunt, suicides are frequently newsworthy – a public official in trouble commits suicide, a distraught military hero takes his life, a hockey player dies after battling depression. These cases are frequently more than newsworthy. They challenge journalists to explore the economic and social factors that may help to induce suicidal behavior. When we witness a string of suicides among any group – among students at a school or among young people in an aboriginal community — suicide is no longer personal but social. It is the responsibility of journalists to explore the reasons for these disturbing patterns in the fabric of society. Suicide is often a taboo subject in society. Journalists need to break down our inclination not to discuss such painful events.

For your second source, I should note that by its own description the "Werther effect" was not held up in further experiments. Even if a wave of subway suicides progressively slowed after a media pact to reduce publicity -- what was the null hypothesis? That subway suicides had suddenly gone up one day and would remain common forever afterward??? No, I think not; I think any reaction was bound to be followed by a drop in numbers in that case, so it proves nothing. Some people cited in the Wikipedia article seem to give it credit, but the effect seems pretty nebulous for something we're supposed to backtrack from core values about. The "journalistic codes" (I am not condoning these) it mentions regard sensationalization or multiple articles, something Wikipedia doesn't do anyway. And even if there turned out to be something to the claim, I am still inclined to think that shaking the tree doesn't mean it will produce more apples, no matter how many thumps you hear at the time. And beyond all that, there is still the issue of whether it's really any of my business to override most people's decision to kill themselves - if they don't value their own lives, why should I make a crusade out of it? How about we instead fight the ever-increasing financial inequality in the world, the loss of human rights, the rise of gangs and war criminals, the reduction of culture to abject mindless materialism, any of the things that drive people to despair? Oh, I'm not saying it isn't good to talk somebody off the ledge, but not at the cost of accepting censorship or other things I know to be terribly wrong. Wnt (talk) 12:36, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
The "editorial" is not the entire article, as one might infer from your post. "Some people argue that journalists should follow the guidelines on reporting suicide provided by organizations such as the Canadian Psychiatric Association. This association advises journalists to avoid putting the word “suicide” in the headline, and to avoid giving details of the method used. It also says that media should avoid photos of the deceased, avoid admiration of the deceased, avoid front page coverage, and avoid repetitive and excessive coverage." seems also rather important. Wikipedia should responsibly ask two questions:
Do copycat suicides occur?
If so, ought Wikipedia use guidelines and policies to reduce their occurrence?
The latter is the question I pose here. [33] from Psychology Today: "Ultimately, the responsibility is on all of us to recognize how far-reaching suicidal behavior can be, especially when the contagion is spread by word of mouth or sensational media stories. " We cannot hide suicides of actually notable persons, but where the person is intrinsically non-notable, ought we make them famous through Wikipedia which is not supposed to be a newspaper? WP:NOTNEWS Collect (talk) 13:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
"Sensational media stories" is the key phrase here. Wikipedia articles are factual and non-sensational. The nature of "copycat suicides" is debatable. Even if suicides do increase after an event, that doesn't necessarily mean the total number of suicides taking place is any higher, because those taking their own lives may have still done the act at a different time. Even if coverage of an event does cause additional suicides, we shouldn't ignore the fact that coverage can also significantly reduce suicides, because it can cause people to take suicide seriously and get themselves or others help in time, or attract awareness to the issue and generate additional funding for suicide research and prevention. Also, the "copycat suicide" phenomenon seems to be related to initial media coverage, and not older events. The event Suicide of Katelyn Davis took place nearly two years ago, and its page is nearly as old. Thanks, Cruiser1 (talk) 01:12, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

If "publicity suicides" or "internet suicides" is a thing discussed, perhaps explore merging them - Teens and older - as a section in Suicide that discusses that concept. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:46, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Comment. There is a middle ground between not having articles on teen suicides and having articles on teen suicides. In my opinion that is simply to not have images in these articles. The images are invariably incongruous with the sad nature of the articles. Young, smiling, and attractive images as found in the articles in Category:Bullycide (example: Suicide of Katelyn Davis) are unnecessary. The reader can find these and a lot of other images of the subjects of those articles elsewhere. Our choice of image is always arbitrary. By way of comparison we have articles on porn actors. But we don't illustrate those articles with pornographic images. We are not censored but we try not to be a shock site. I would contend that the contrast between smiling, young, and attractive people and the fact of their having committed suicide is "shocking". We can simply act with sensitivity and not include images in these articles. Bus stop (talk) 13:47, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
Is that comment in response to mine? A problem with a stand-alone article on an individual suicide is "one event". If we merge/redirect to articles under Suicide or its daughter articles, we are not removing from the pedia entirely, we are rearranging in context. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:58, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
No, Alanscottwalker, it is not a response to your comment. I just wanted to get that view into this discussion. Bus stop (talk) 15:18, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
I am curious - at what point is a suicide of a non-notable person sufficient to be notable in and of itself? In the case at hand, the person deliberately sought publicity, for example. Ought we give publicity to each such suicide where the person seeks publicity? Collect (talk) 14:26, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
At what point? The practical answer is at the point you have enough people voting 'keep' (enough to at least get to no consensus) with some-kind of rationale within our squishy N "guidelines" ('lots of news') - so my suggestion is seek to modify to focus on the prominent location (social media) - apparently we have a daughter article on suicide location - and/or on the prominent phenomena "publicity suicide", assuming that is discussed by RS, as a thing. Or if something is an example of prominently 'youth suicide' redirect to that. (see also WP:NOTCASE - not case study, and WP:NOTMEMORIAL). Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:55, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
It would seem far more useful to show sensitivity by having the images -- by which I mean, the most relevant images, showing how a little girl gradually sets up to turn herself into a swinging chunk of meat. There is a strange forward-and-reverse here. On one hand, a video seems to make a suicide notable, because people apparently lack the imagination to understand what happened otherwise; yet they would imagine that without the video, it didn't happen. For example, the first source Collect cited talking about how to cover "suicide" was written in the week after the September 11th attacks, when some uninspired journalists claimed that people had committed "suicide" after jumping off the building, and blathered on about the horror of it. What they don't seem to have in their minds is the probable occurrence of a larger number of people who didn't jump out the window, but took their chances in the roaring flames instead. (Which one, exactly, was a suicide?)
The problem with those looking to cover up such articles is that they extend the same kind of thinking to the speculated outcome of media actions. Can news coverage of a suicide inspire a suicide right after? Maybe. But what if it also inspires people to take suicide seriously and get their kids help in time? What if it improves the funding for new research? What if it makes people ask why people want to kill themselves anyway, and how to make a society better than that? We aren't meant to be animals capable of reacting only to what we physically see with our eyes at the moment we see it; we're meant to be able to imagine a wide range of possibilities. And we're also meant to be able to see that certain concepts like free expression and free inquiry and free thought are good things generally, and to be able to have faith in that as we think through our options. Wnt (talk) 21:06, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
  • This strikes me as a topic for discussion for the movers and shakers of Facebook but a topic that really doesn't directly relate to WP too much. Suicides of non-notable people are not notable and are not the topics of articles. Killing oneself does not make one WP:NOTABLE. Carrite (talk) 06:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
The case at hand is one where the only "notability" is the suicide itself - and what if someone else now "broadcasts" their own suicide expecting to be just as notable as the case at hand and perpetual memorialization on Wikipedia? Collect (talk) 14:15, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Nobody's trying to say that every single suicide (whether recorded or not) is a notable enough event for a Wikipedia article. However, some suicides are clearly notable, due to their high media coverage, or their effect on things such as new bullying legislation or social media policies and reporting tools. It's similar to school shootings such as the Columbine High School Massacre: Not every person who fires a gun in a school setting gets covered an article, however some school shootings are notable enough for various reasons to be covered. Should school shooting event articles be censored, to avoid people potentially wanting to commit their own school shootings in order to be "memorialized" in articles? Thanks, Cruiser1 (talk) 17:16, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia isn't about memorials, but it's not about non-memorialization either. Ideally, everything covered by multiple independent reliable sources will be covered. If we aren't there yet, it is up to any individual editor to establish our priorities by writing an article. We can say that a suicide "shouldn't" be notable, but I would say the same thing about Kardashians and pro wrestling. But you don't make a better map by erasing the countries you don't like! As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is the map, not the territory. Wnt (talk) 13:30, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
What about Tyler Clementi, Amanda Todd and so forth? Our position is that a non-notable person doesn't get a full biography, but that they can be involved in a notable event (see also Tank Man, though the official story is not that he died, he just disappeared) Wnt (talk) 13:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
Just proves the point that they are written as crap. They all have the same pulp: grizzly/tragic event; shock/horror; promise to do better - they should not be events (which try to be bios) - they should be in articles where they provide context. State Laws on Bullying, say, but the present treatment is crap. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:36, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Also explain hopeless despair

There is a myth that all suicides are due to financial problems or family quarrels or peer pressure bullying to feel worthless. Instead, we also need pages to actually explain, not redirect, "Hopelessness" or "Despair" or "hopeless despair" as a bewildering state of mind, not just clinical depression. I was imagining a page where various iconic or famous people are quoted about feeling hopeless and how they rebounded. The key issue seems to be the common warning, "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" (or feeling). Explain how even wealthy people, even with friends who could help them rebound or renew their lives, might still give up due to mental fog which sees no hope, only endless despair. It is a feeling completely removed from the reality of having money, success and friends. Also expand on "morbid curiosity" as when swimming too far into deeper water, would anyone come to help. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:02, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

One solution

Back in 2016 we had a suicide crisis within one of our native communities. The situation was so extreme, e.g. here is a suicide note left by one of the victims, a 13 year old girl: “She said ‘I am being bullied. I’m tired. I’m tired of being sick’ and she said ‘I’m sorry I love you please don’t blame yourselves,’” Jimbo, to his credit, was even willing to fly in (that ended up not being necessary) to help out. I got involved via the Attawapiskat facebook group, Attawapiskat suicide awareness which now has 3,616 members. I now have 53 facebook friends who live "on the res". My plan was to help them become Wikipedia editors as a way to broaden their interests and stimulate healthy thinking and communication. The crisis ended and now there are virtually no suicides there, afaik, so what stopped the suicides? Btw, I got zero interest from anyone in editing Wikipedia, but I was struck by how many Attawapiskats appreciated my effort and wanted to be facebook friends with me. Here is what actually did happen: -Our federal government responded aggressively in person. Our Prime Minister and a team of politicians and mental health professionals flew in and stayed for quite a while, maybe a week, to find out what the community needed and wanted. -Then they poured in a lot of money for a new community centre and sports facility that the young people wanted as well as mental health services. -The over the top attention to the issue made it virtually impossible for any potential suicide person to feel alone or to lack attention.

So, notwithstanding all the different individual clinical causes of suicides, the facts in this instance show that ongoing community caring and outreach to each individual person...for example an elder started teaching young boys the traditional native ways to fish successfully...will stop a lot of suicides. That African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child", is right on, I think.

So, my personal involvement yielded no quantifiable results. But I learned a hell of a lot. I learned how truly gentle in spirit the Attawapiskats are, how hungry they are for societal contacts and communication...every single day I get a facebook notice about some birthday or just "what I'm doing today" kind of thing. But the main thing is, they had all of the tools for communication before and during the suicide crisis in 2016. The tools did not stop the suicides, but the very tangible and even extreme attention from the leaders of the country and the rest of the country and the reassurance/assurance that each individual is cared for by our entire country and population seems to have done the trick. I know how humbled and good I felt with the open arms welcoming and attention I got/get from my 53 Attawapiskat facebook friends and within the 3,616 member strong facebook "Attawapiskat suicide awareness" group.

I still think that Wikipedia editing might be useful for the Attawapiskat community; maybe I'll give that another try as a result of this discussion. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:19, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

On second thought

"It takes a country to raise a child" is what the Attawapiskat experience shows. Starting at the top, maybe. Perhaps because our/Attiwapiskat exposure ( via internet, which they had in 2016 and still have) to so much stuff of a national or international nature means that the attention and caring which we/they crave needs to be shown by our national leaders and institutions? Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Response from Jimbo

I've been traveling and I'm just now catching up. First, I think the article in question is a very very clear case of a WP:BLP1E. It should be deleted. Simply renaming the article to "Suicide of..." while it is still clearly a (very weak) biography is not enough. To the extent the case itself is notable (it isn't particularly) it can be legitimately covered in whatever article is relevant (and if you can't think of one, that further proves the point that it isn't particularly notable).

Remember the point of BLP1E, and indeed the BLP policy in general, is human dignity. Wikipedia is not a tabloid. Notice that most of the sources for this article are the worst sort of tabloid and clickbait pseudojournalistic websites, youtube videos, etc. It's a bad article and we should not have it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:34, 18 September 2018 (UTC)


Thank you. It has also come to my attention that information regarding children under the age of 13 may well be covered under COPPA rules as well. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. Newspapers may not be directly affected, but the death was "online" which should have been noted with regard to their liability. Wikipedia, moreover, should be extremely protective of material about children. Collect (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Avast lists Wikipedia under "unreputable browser search settings"

File:Avast disses wikipedia 1.png
As I proceeded to login I got this "alert"
File:Avast disses wikipedia 2.png
The fix is to agree to Yahoo terms and conditions...

I just encountered the curious warning from Avast! software. My feeling is they deserve a nastygram, if not a full fledged help file on virus protection for Wikipedia volunteers that might identify some programs at more of a boost than a cash-in phase of their reputation cycle. Wnt (talk) 12:48, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

How odd. Telling me may not be the most effective way to get this to the attention of someone who can do something about it, as a side note!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:25, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
The proper place to report this is at [ https://www.avast.com/en-us/false-positive-file-form.php ]. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Ironically, Avast! puts your privacy at risk. [34][35] (subsidiaries: [36][37]) Daß Wölf 21:31, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Paywall: The Movie

Paywall: The Business of Scholarship

License: CC BY 4.0

--Guy Macon (talk) 16:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Huh. Actually looks interesting. Adds to watchlist--intelatitalk 17:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Certainly worth the time to discuss, even if there isn't much we can do about it. The only thing I can think of to do about it is to update List of open-access journals, which is not very long. It would also help to list the journals in a table rather than just a list of journal titles, and include a quality rating (there must be some) and founding date, country, publishing schedule, etc. It would be tempting to use Impact factor as the quality rating, but the Movie does point out a few problems with this. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:14, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Don't you think that the kinds of things that the Foundation says in official communications -- not to mention Jimbo's media interviews -- spur policies like the EU's Coalition S (see also Nature and Science)?
Sometimes people think that we have to moderate our politics so as to not offend, but the mean reality is that the center only moves when people are pulling at the ends. The paradox of tolerance shows that nice guys finish last, unless they learn how to temper their niceness.
Now the goal is to make sure that funding agencies will pay enough to cover the publication fees of unfunded researchers. 73.222.1.26 (talk) 20:33, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Suicide

See also: Talk:Suicide/Archive_7 § Hatnote_on_mental_health_resources

Wales, if you google "suicide", the first hit is Wikipedia.

I wonder if it could offer an immediate help service, such as phone numbers to prevention help lines. I am fully aware of the global nature of Wikipedia, and the considerable difficulties in maintaining an unbiased viewpoint.

Yet I feel that a simple short box heading that directed the majority of readers to appropriate organisations - such as the US National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or the UK Samaritans (charity) (for example) is likely to save lives.

I realise this is outside the remit of regular Wikipedian norms, hence the appeal to Jimbo.

[123.456.789...seriously does anyone care who is asking?] [aside: - Two people tried to reinstate that sig. [38] [39] I had many problems trying to undo that bot sig, I got "An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive"... etc. I've attempted to discuss it. [40]. Wow. I cannot question "Bonadea" because their talk is semi protected. I can't even ask about that, because when I try, I get that same message about "An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive".

Wikipedia is an extremely public-facing website. It's foolish to assume that the only people who will call a phone number on a Wikipedia article are those with a legitimate reason to do so, or that the phone number is to the organisation/person in question. Not to mention, we generally treat phone numbers as personally-identifying information to be suppressed. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 18:36, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Furry dude, what the fuck has this got to do with supression? I'm talking about giving phone numbers to call, not the number of someone who is suicidal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.173.193 (talk • contribs)
And that is precisely what I am addressing. The ad hominem isn't helping your case. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 18:40, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Jez, explain why you apparently think that Wikipedia:Oversight has any relevance to my point, or STFU and eat kibbles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.173.193 (talk) 18:43, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
@82.4.173.193: If you'd bothered to read what I wrote instead of just staking out a position in order to troll people you'd have your answer. But you're evidently not interested in hearing why we do not include phone numbers in articles under any circumstances, so debating you is a waste of time. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 18:45, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
"why we do not include phone numbers in articles under any circumstances" - wanna bet me on that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.173.193 (talk) 18:47, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Pingage @GorillaWarfare: @Keegan: @Newyorkbrad: @Risker: @Sphilbrick: @Timotheus Canens: @Worm That Turned:. I know you care about this issue. 82.4.173.193 (talk) 18:56, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Responding to ping. In general, I think it's a good idea, however I also think this should be done by the WMF if by anyone - perhaps through some sort of geolocating script. But, it's all based on the premise that those people who are considering suicide are searching "suicide" - and the best people to ask are the charities that you mention. If they were to confirm that it would be helpful, I'd certainly be behind it. WormTT(talk) 19:32, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation does indeed have a list of mental health resources, which you can find here. It should use geolookup to showcase resources relevant to a user's location. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Worm, thanks. Of course this is a statistical thing, but I see a net benefit, and it is outside of the normal Wikipedian law so I can't "just edit it". I agree that WMF is well placed to formulate some appropriate text.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.173.193 (talk • contribs)

@JSutherland (WMF): According to your statistics, that page on meta is viewed around 100 times per year.[41] According to your statistics, the Wikipedia article about suicide is viewed over a million times per year.[42] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.173.193 (talk • contribs)

Agreed with Worm and Joe that this sounds like a good idea, and would probably need to be implemented more carefully than just editing the page so that we don't direct users to a helpline for the wrong region. Where would be the best place to discuss it? One of the village pumps, maybe? Definitely not Jimbotalk. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:23, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

I just now googled "suicide" and got one of those ad boxes on top (but not labeled as an ad) saying
"National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Call 1-800-273-8255
Available 24 hours everyday
Online Chat"
So it seems at least something is covered in the usual google => wikipedia search. The google box on the right links to Wikipedia, as does the 1st regular listing.
That said, I think the anon and Worm have good ideas. I'll expand a bit
  • put a prominent link to the meta page near the top of the suicide article.
  • the WMF (Community health?) should check with the agencies named and see if they believe that this is an effective method
  • rewrite the meta page taking into account the agencies' feedback. (Dare I say that many Wiki pages are a bit long and complex at times?)
There is a possibility of a "slippery slope" here. After the suicide help notice there may be a request for a sexual harassment help notice (which could be handled in much the same way). I'd think 2 or 3 such requests for other problems would be inevitable. Before we start this we should make sure that the number of help notices we can put up is very limited, and where the cutoff point should be. Also we should make clear that the WMF is doing this on their own authority, or do an RfC for enWiki (perhaps after a short trial) with the clear understanding that the WMF will handle the specific implementation. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:44, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia can't actually control what comes up at the top of a Google search. Even if our article had a bunch of disclaimers and help numbers, Google could just present their own extract of the article at the top of their page. Alternatively, if Google wants to warn readers, it can. That said, I can see a plausible case that the suicide prevention image from the Golden Gate Bridge, with accompanying link to crisis hotline, could be moved to the top of the article due to its immediate relevance, to replace the painting which is arguably a less-significant "cultural references" kind of link. There may be more room for similar connivance, provided our principles aren't compromised. Though I should note our article lead says "Even though crisis hotlines are common, there is little evidence for their effectiveness..." I doubt it is so easy to persuade someone about a major "life" decision. Wnt (talk) 23:47, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the point is more that the article tends to show up towards the top, and gets high page views so people presumably click through. We can't control what Google includes, but we can add something to our article, which appears to be high-traffic. Your point about the effectiveness of suicide hotlines might be fair, though, I haven't looked into that very much. But regardless if it is easy to persuade someone or not, if people are searching to try to get help, it'd be good to give them what we can. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:35, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
It is not easy, but it is achievable with enough commitment, effort, and time—far more than any stranger from a hotline will ever provide. I have accomplished just that many times before. It is part of what it means to be the help, like I said below. As for the effectiveness of crisis hotlines and notices about them, the research seems to approach them with the assumption that they are at worst ineffective; the possibility that they are counterproductive is beyond consideration. Regardless, it is not surprising. After all, when one thinks nobody cares—or, even if others do, one does not deserve it—of what worth will a thirty-minute call with a stranger be? Convincing someone of considering other options takes far more time than that. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 14:36, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I concur with the general direction of this discussion. I suggest that we move this discussion to the article's talk page. I'm going to boldly change the lede image and start a section on the talk page about adding a notice to the top of the page. --Pine✉ 04:45, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, I commented there. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
I frankly doubt any such notice will help much if at all. Such empty recommendations are found all over the place for anyone looking up suicide and depression topics. Their routine plastering at the tops and bottoms of articles are commonplace these days. While some may call, I suspect most find them to be insulting and dissuasive proofs of how uncaring the world is, since they read as generic and superficial as they are and as is the "care" those on the receiving end of those calls provide. While I have no particular objection to such notices, I do not think that they are effective and persuasive to those who need them. If anything, they amount to compassion theater: the point is to give us the sense of having done all we can, not to actually help.
If you want to help those who are suicidal and depressed, being the help will be more effective than simply telling them to "seek help", which often has a good chance of just making things worse. If you do not know how to be the help, then that is a good reason to learn. This is only relevant at a personal level, though; for impersonal banners like this, referring people to those who have monopolized care at a societal scale is all we can do—that is, discounting nothing at all. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 14:17, 20 September 2018 (UTC); slightly edited last at 14:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
For me Wikipedia is actually the second result if you Google suicide (and then scroll down past the NSPL phone number and news story results, of course; this also doesn't count the sidebar that shows the first few sentences of the Wikipedia page). I feel like it wouldn't be a bad idea if we did the same sort of thing Google does when you search for suicide on their website, as discussed above. Certainly even if such a message doesn't work very well, it wouldn't do any harm. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 03:48, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself. Count Iblis (talk) 18:58, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Ketamine?

This and this look promising, albeit, strange, imo. I see this is referenced in Ketamine sources but not in the Ketamine article itself, nor in our suicide article. I'll try to add something in both. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:28, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

The latest crypto BS

The article Wikipedia To Test Web Monetization Using Coil And XRP might seem to suggest that some new company/app is about to start donating to Wikipedia based on how much time its customers spend on Wikipedia. I guess that's what they'd like people to believe, but there isn't actually any text about Wikipedia until way down in the article

"Wikipedia, Coil and XRP
"In a recent tweet, the now CTO at Ripple, David Schwartz, explained that Coil was now available on Wikipedia. What this means is that, as users who are using Coil browse the site, Coil makes a donation to Wikipedia in the form of XRP."

Then there is something a bit later "even without a partnership".

It looks to me like they are just using our good name to promote their cryptocurrency. I doubt whether any editors or the WMF will ever get a cent out of this. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:30, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the founder of Coil. I agree that the article is misleading and likely designed to pump up the price of XRP, however we can't do much about it. Sites like "Ethereumworldnews" are not affiliated with us, we haven't made any announcement or press release involving Wikipedia except to clarify that we don't have any relationship with WMF. What I can say is that the service is real, we launched a couple of days ago, have a few dozen users and our users have accumulated a few dollars towards supporting Wikipedia so far. Obviously, that's not much but we hope to grow the service to more users in the future. We will pay any money collected to WMF monthly and if the amounts get big enough to be worth their time, we would like to partner officially.
What we are trying to do is make it easier for website owners to make money without resorting to ads. The reason we chose sites like Wikipedia for our beta test is because we think technology is going to be most beneficial for websites with a large amount of traffic and no ads. We built Coil on open protocols (Web Monetization and Interledger), which are both designed to work with any currency or payment system. It's not tied to XRP other than that XRP happens to work well for this use case.
I left the blockchain space to start Coil because I was tired of exactly this kind of drama. We want to make a subscription where you pay us $5 a month and we pay out to websites and creators, nothing more, nothing less. We have no token or crypto ledger or ICO/whatever. We use crypto when it's useful and we don't when it's not. StefanThomas (talk) 03:34, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm not feeling convinced. It sounds like you want people to pay you to track their web browsing. Your privacy policy talks about tracking pixels, device fingerprinting, and use of location data that can be used for various purposes such as "Develop and display content and features tailored to your interests on our Service as well as on other platforms and services." (that one is "with your consent"; not being a user I don't know if signing up is consent or if there's a checkbox to hunt for) To my ears, this sounds like a new boss the same as the old boss, but with the wrinkle of paying, which (a) costs money and (b) makes the tracking harder to defeat.
If your model works, the end result is a Web you have to pay to browse. It reminds me of Hulu, which started offering a premium tier and the next thing you knew they were just some other pay site on the internet. The problem is, the advertisers still have ads to sell ... so I'm guessing if your business model succeeded worldwide, you'd have to pay money and be tracked in order to browse the web, but still have at least as many ads as before (cf. cable TV). To be fair, I don't think Hulu started doing that yet.
There actually is a sensible advertising alternative; naturally, it's the one that has never been tried, because it's the most obvious. Just do the ads the same freaking way they did them in the 1950s. The editor should make the ad a part of his publication, on the same page as the rest of the content, using the exact same scripts. Nobody can adblock that; and since it doesn't expose you to 5000 different sources of viruses and slowdowns, people won't even really want to so badly. Yeah, it means he can't sell your private information -- unless he can talk you into voluntarily signing up on some kind of list of people interested in hobby drones with chainsaws or whatever. But why can't he do that? If you could get people to pay $5 to have their browsing tracked, surely anything is possible. Wnt (talk) 16:37, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
@StefanThomas: thanks for tracking down my post ((!) seriously - thanks for getting back to me) and explaining. I do get tired of the cryptopress making all sorts of claims about all sorts of things - with the same "moral of the story" usually coming in at the end of the article: "crypto is going up!" If that's the drama you've moved away from (on blockchain), you have my support and I hope you have a quick recovery.
@Wnt: gets carried away sometimes, but I agree with him more or less on this one. Why do people want to pay to have their "viewing habits" tracked? What are they really getting out of it that a few checks and postage stamps per year wouldn't accomplish? Best of luck on the new venture. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:00, 22 September 2018 (UTC)
Another annoyance; people who use the phrase "crypto" for cryptocurrencies, when it is already an established abbreviation for cryptography. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:38, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Sue Gardner's new job

"...are starting The Markup, a news site dedicated to investigating technology and its effect on society. Sue Gardner, former head of the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia, will be The Markup’s executive director."[43] --Guy Macon (talk) 06:16, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Good luck to her! It looks like an interesting project. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:51, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Sue Gardner is a fine person. Expect good work from her and her new team. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:20, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Paywall (the movie), Open Access, Elsevier, and Aaron Swartz

Jimbo, I just watched Paywall, The Business Of Scholarship about Open Access and Elsevier and I realized for the first time how heroic Aaron Swartz was and how entrenched and dominating the root of all evil's paywalls have become; in effect castrating our public access to a lot of educational information. I, in my naivete, had no idea this was going on in academia. I am also shocked and beyond disappointed that you and the rest of the guys and gals here have allowed this current situation to develop and continue. There is an absolute good versus evil war going on re: these paywalls, and Swartz and Sci-Hub are good examples of how to fight this evil love of money. I am really surprised that with all of the great computer talent and skills within the people of good will in this community, and others, that you have not shut down profiteers and price gougers like Elsevier. Why not ? Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:38, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 231#Paywall: The Movie. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm embarrassed; I could not remember where I heard about it, it must have been right here. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:16, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
What, exactly , would you suggest that Jimbo do? Authorize a drone strike on Elsevier by The Wikipedia Air Force? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:36, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Well, we could always start our own version. It may lack the technology, efficiency, and fiery devotion to freedom of speech you expect from a more advanced country like Kazakhstan, but we can rest assured that if Elsevier ever manages to take out Sci-Hub, they'll be back here to mop ours up also. Wnt (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Wnt, that: "It may lack the technology, efficiency, and fiery devotion to freedom of speech you expect from a more advanced country like Kazakhstan" was a good one:) You make me smile often, thanks for that. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:04, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
To Guy, I was very angry at the selective ( prosecutorial discretion ) targeting of Swartz by the "justice" goons when it happened and now I am even more angry after I can see the enormous and insidious evil he was fighting against. What, exactly, I'd like to see is some anonymous or not anonymous hackers shut down these profiteers and control freaks of knowledge...that is what I'd like to see. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:16, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Alas, Jimbo isn't a "hacker" with the ability to "shut down these profiteers and control freaks of knowledge". We could, of course, host any scientific papers that are released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 License, but scientific papers that are released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 License aren't the problem. I agree that the situation is infuriating. I just don't see how Wikipedia can solve it. The most effective thing that you personally could do to address this is to make a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:22, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Guy, I am making that donation today. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:00, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
I am planning soon to watch The Internet's Own Boy which is about Aaron.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:18, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
Jimbo do you see any useful correspondences between academic journals relying on unpaid peer reviewers and Wikipedia's unpaid volunteers? Do you think you have any useful guidance for the open access journals who need to obtain funding for their operations while managing the collaboration of unpaid reviewers? 73.222.1.26 (talk) 16:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
  • This morning I noticed a striking similarity, imo, between AAron's mentality and that of Martin Luther King Jr.. I am likely one of the few in this community who was a young adult at the time of MLK's movement and also living in the Deep, fully segregated, South. The similarity I find is that they both simply ran over laws which were obviously unjust.
At the beginning of the film there is a quote from Henry David Thoreau:
Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or
shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them til we have succeeded,
or shall we transgress them at once?
Aaron and MLK chose the later.
From MLK's bio we see:
"King's intent was to provoke mass arrests" and
"King was arrested and jailed early in the campaign—his 13th arrest out of 29 "
What I saw in both Aaron, in the movie, and MLK, as eye witness, was extreme passion for actualizing "good" over "evil" (my framing). During Aaron's film I saw zero passion among most of Aaron's supporters, understandable as most are very, very cerebral which often subdues passion, imo. Jimbo showed the most passion, in the movie, other than Aaron, and Jimbo's little speech is actually pointed to in the film as the turning point in the anti-SOPA excitement.
In seeing the collective and massive anti-SOPA passion, its obvious that the broader Open Access promoters have some passion down inside us. But, in order to win this "war" (my framing)...and you're not going to want to hear this...we all, or at least a lot of us, are going to have to be willing to be arrested just like Aaron and MLK were, and maybe even 29 times. That's my own personal conclusion after watching this film. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:43, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
What made Martin Luther King, Jr. special wasn't his arrest record, but his faith. He was, first and foremost, a Christian leader. If you trace Christianity all the way back, there have always been people who sought arrest and those who sought to avoid it. Some chose to be thrown to lions rather than pray to the idols, some would make a pretense knowing it was false, and then there was Saint Marinus, who was called one fine day to avoid the lions and go up into the hills over Rome to found a place of refuge, which has remained independent for 1700 years and is now the world's oldest democracy. I think if you want to look at how to make this work, you have to take the divine origin of morality into consideration. I think that, logically, there is no way the good guys ever won at any time in history - you need something else. Wnt (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikiquote

I had occasion to look at Wikiquote. There is some next level bad going on there. Obviously it is just a random collection of quotes that any passing user thought they would add, but the Obama entry, for example, was full of hysterical rants from Limbaugh and other such cranks. It does seem to me as if there should be some tightening of standards there, because a lot of the entries fall a long way short of the Foundation's mandated standards for biographical content. Guy (Help!) 09:12, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 October 2018

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:44, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Just a redirect

Hello, I’m a user account operated by someone named Lewis. I would just like to tell you kindly that I have added a redirect to your userpage. Is that Ok? If so no need for action. If not just delete Draft:WP:JIMBOW. 183.192.56.30 (talk) 10:12, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Female Nobel prize winner deemed not important enough for Wikipedia entry

The Guardian. Volunteer Marek 18:55, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Does any AfC get accepted...? Also, why is all the history before the recreation of the article crossed out? Wnt (talk) 01:33, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
An earlier version was a copyvio apparently. Long discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Women_in_Red#Donna_Strickland, and shorter one at the bottom of this long-running section at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(academics). Johnbod (talk) 03:40, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
It's worth noting that we didn't have an article for George Smith either, until he won his Chemistry Nobel yesterday. Stephen 02:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
It certainly is, but you can be sure nobody will, least of all the Guardian! Johnbod (talk) 03:40, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
This is another example of the media failing to understand Wikipedia policy. If Donna Strickland had been turned down for a Wikipedia article because she was a woman, this would obviously have been wrong. When it comes to creating new articles, they have to be properly written and sourced. It's on days like this that I am glad not to be an administrator, because if I had turned down Donna Strickland for an article on the grounds that it wasn't properly written or sourced, I would have been hung out to dry in the media by now.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:26, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
So, we have stuff like women in red and editors like Jessica Wade + of course the rest of us. And this happened anyway, like with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. "It" can happen again. We can close down WP or keep editing. I'm curious if that computer program missed her too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:46, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
We performed a small analysis of Wikipedia pages of Nobel winners, to check whether there was a bias against women. In summary, there was a higher proportion of women than men who didn't have a Wikipedia page upon winning the Nobel, but it's not significant. Numbers are too small to get any significance by classical testing. The results are presented in this Twitter thread. Marcrr (talk) 06:57, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Eventually, I recalled that the Guardian has a reader's editor dealing with corrections and clarifications, so have now emailed him an outline of what I see as the main problems with their article (contact details shown on the linked page). Others may wish to put in their views, and more importantly try contacting the other news outlets that have misrepresented what happened with this BLP article. . . . `dave souza, talk
You might be able to present the basic Wikipedian position above to Guardian readers, but there a several dozen other articles in other newspapers, and you're not going to convince most people. Reasonably or not, people expect new Nobel prize winners to have an article on Wikipedia. We can say "this is just too hard for us to do" or we can try to meet our readers' expectations. How? I'll sketch some ideas:
  • Contact various academic societies and ask them for help. Perhaps there are 30-40 relevant academic societies and we could ask each of them to list the top 30 Nobel contenders in their fields. Making sure to ask for reliable sources, main academic papers, and ask them to post simple bios on the society webpages.
  • For women, there are likely well known organized women scientist societies in several fields. Ask them as in the above point.
  • For areas that don't have recognized women scientist societies, there are likely several leading women in the field. Ask them to help.
  • Once we get suggestions (with sources) we can post them to a project page (WP:Nobel contenders?), find the red links and have our editors write the articles.
  • Invite scientists to join us as editors, with perhaps some introduction to how to edit and avoid certain problems.
I'm sure there's more, and invite others to give ideas.
At that point we can write to all the newspapers and say "sorry that our volunteers can't by ourselves predict and document all future Nobel Prize winners. But you and academic societies can help - here's how ..."
Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:15, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Late Night with Steve Colbert Wikipedia skit

Starts at 7:00 minutes; pretty funny, imo. More importantly, it shows how wonderfully Wikipedia has been embraced into American culture as a fixture of daily life. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:27, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Here is a news source describing the anonymous Congressional edit in question. But much more serious is the other big Wikipedia-and-Kavanaugh story in the news lately: the doxxing of 3 Republican senators. [44] IntoThinAir (talk) 00:59, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
It's big news that someone added a phone number to Lindsey Graham's article that was not actually his phone number, that essentially no one seems to have called, and that seems to have been reverted more or less immediately? --JBL (talk) 14:48, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
Right, because writing or calling your Senator is not a thing that any American is allowed to do at all, is it? Guy (Help!) 15:31, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
It wasn't just phone numbers (nor was it just Graham), it was also home addresses (which apparently, unlike the phone numbers, were actually accurate). IntoThinAir (talk) 18:26, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Politico reports an arrest and says that the suspect "has been charged with making public restricted personal information, witness tampering, threats in interstate communications, unauthorized access of a government computer, identity theft, second-degree burglary and unlawful entry." Everything is still alleged of course. There must be more behind these charges than simply putting names, addresses, and telephone numbers on Wikipedia.

With those kind of possible legal consequences, I ain't gonna come close to doxing anybody - not even an undisclosed paid administrator.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:33, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Since when did a phone book become a federal offense??? To me it looks like the situation is that Wikipedia is not embarrassed to go for ten years without articles on Nobel Prize winning researchers, but proud to have someone undo edits within a single minute if they provide even the tiniest piece of general biographical information that might be used by an evil prole in some inconvenient way. How can a site that literally prioritizes the suppression of information 5,259,600 times more highly than the transmission of information plausibly develop a free educational resource? Wnt (talk) 07:17, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Smallbones, no matter what we do or do not do, any one of us, just like Brandon Mayfield, can be arrested, convicted, and jailed for life if we are targeted. Mayfield's fingerprints had been "100% verified" by the FBI. The only reason he got released and an apology and millions in settlement money is because he was lucky enough to have the Spanish police looking into the case. The bigger issue, imo, is that most of us are willing to completely ignore all of the wrongful convictions, even though a small % have been publicized, and continue to expect that USA "justice" people are almost always looking for truth and that juries are some sort of check on bad evidence. When you watch 48 Hours (TV program) you see that most convictions are based on the skimpiest of circumstantial evidence, and since the juries are getting ever more stupid and easily manipulated, many so called "cold cases" are being prosecuted now with the exact same, no more, circumstantial B.S. as they contained 20 years ago...its just that the prosecutors in 2018 can get convictions with crappy evidence that could not be gotten 20-50 years ago. Also, there are so many arcane and unknown laws in the USA, plus an abundance of jailhouse snitches/liars that virtually every person in the USA is a technical criminal, most have just not been targeted or set up yet. Americans need to wake the ____ up., imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:22, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
@Nocturnalnow: Thanks for mentioning Brandon Mayfield. I searched http://newslookup.com (nowhere else as of yet) and checked the past few years of news, and made some updates to his article - notably, that he successfully petitioned the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the right of Yonas Fikre (people, we need an article...) to challenge the unconstitutional no-fly list. This could be the guy who finally tamps down the tombstone on that monstrosity once and for all. Wnt (talk) 16:55, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

"bot that tracks Wikipedia edits"

From the Politico article Smallbones found: "A bot that tracks edits to Wikipedia pages found that the changes were made from a computer on Capitol Hill on the House side." Is this one of our bots? Did they use one of our CheckUsers? Just wondering if its a government bot or what. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:51, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

See CongressEdits. -- zzuuzz (talk) 16:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
  • There are similar bots for other places, e.g. the UK Parliament, that monitor their IP addresses on Wikipedia for edits and then tweet the edits. They are programmed and maintained by private persons. CongressEdits has been suspended by Twitter for repeating the doxing edits from Wikipedia on Twitter. I suppose that's understandable in a mechanical sort of way, but it also might be interpreted as saying "You can use a bot to monitor congressional edits as long as they don't say anything controversial."
It's a bit clearer now why there are so many charges against the anon editor/former congressional staffer. This is all still alleged of course. Supposedly he entered the Senate Office building and stayed inside for 11 minutes. He was allegedly caught in the office of his former employer (he might have had an old key or just broke in), typing at a computer. When he was allegedly caught he typed a few more keystrokes grabbed something and left. Allegedly he soon sent an email making a threat to dox the Senator if he was reported. I don't want to link to these allegations - Would that put me in the position of doxing the doxer?
Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:14, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
It's probably worth the hunt. You go to 8chan and get the name, you take the name and search and you find the email on Voat, you get one congressional staff email address and now ay caramba, you can web search and find the emails and phone numbers of every staffer in congress. I mean, in well under five minutes you can find stuff so hair-raisingly potentially useful for some kind of political action that the admins would permadelete every page in Wikipedia if they even thought somebody might post a link to it otherwise. Proles are not meant to be able to imagine that they could possess such awesome power. Wnt (talk) 22:42, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

President of Macedonia called in UN for recognition of Macedonian constitutional Name in UNGA, and call all citizens of Republic of Macedonia to Boycott referendum on Name Change

Only for your inf. President of Macedonia called in UN for recognition of Macedonian constitutional Name in UNGA, and call all citizens of Republic of Macedonia to Boycott referendum on Name Change in Macedonia on 30. sep. 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou4ULfKO_0c — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.200.204.44 (talk) 20:20, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

For those who take an interest in these matters, Macedonia naming dispute#2017-2018 developments provides a useful summary. In short, the Prime Minister and Parliament have agreed to rename the country Republic of North Macedonia. The Greek PM and Parliament have agreed. The international community welcomed the end of this decades-old dispute. However, the President Gjorge Ivanov has refused to sign this into law. A non-binding referendum will be held on September 30th, and now Ivanov is calling for a boycott of that referendum. Opinion polls show agreement with a strong lead over disagreement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:41, 27 September 2018 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo! Thank you for your interest in Macedonia. For your information a necessary cenzus for the referendum on 30. sep. 2018. is 903 169 votes, half of the citizens with voting right. This condition, as you will see on 1. of October, a day after referendum, will not be met, and according to relevant estimations number of voters casting votes will be less than 800 000 (more than 100 000 below the cenzus of 903 169 votes). It seams that referendum on Name change will fail. In approximately six months from now the current government in Macedonia will fall. As for a speech of the Macedonian president in the UN General assembly, its sounds so familiar that looks to me it was written by the known person/advisor whose name is forbidden and filtered on the English Wikipedia. Greetings!178.222.119.65 (talk) 06:25, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
Today, at 9:00 turnout was only 2.5 %, of 1.806.336 (people with voting rights, invited to vote), and the cenzus in order referendum to be successful is 903 169, according to the official State Electoral Commission [45]. With that statistical trend at the and of the day turnout would be less than the 33% or in numbers less than 600 000 people casting their vote. So if that statistical estimate is correct, number of voters casting votes today will be less than necessary 903 169 (50%+1) or more that the more than 300 000 below the cenzus of 903 169 votes.79.101.164.231 (talk) 09:47, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
New update, at 11:00 local time again a low turnout of only 8.3 % (of 1.806.336), far from the necessary 50% cenzus condition (50%+1) [46].79.101.164.231 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:18, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
What does turnout matter for a non-binding referendum? 96.90.213.161 (talk) 17:15, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
It matter: 1. Referendum in Macedonia have failed, 2. New early elections, 3. President will not sign Amendments, 4. most important that Prespa agreement is now death, and finally 5. Next VMRO gov. will reject any possible agreement with Greece, and if West push for any such solution Macedonia will develop stronger relations with Russia and Turkey, but also with group of Non-aligned states in the UN. Now Greece people feel more patriotic to reject Prespa or any similar agreement, and as one can observe Russia is a winner in the outcome of the Referendum in Macedonia. And security aspects do not end here, NATO and Western FIS will have to spend billions to restore previous positions, and more....109.93.1.77 (talk) 00:13, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Final results, as we learned just minutes ago is that only around 35% was the turnout, far below the Constitutional condition of minimum 50%+1 i.e. 903 169 votes. In conclusion Referendum in Macedonia have failed. As for the above mentioned speech of the Macedonian President in the UN General Assembly, that speech had major crucial impact on the boycotting of referendum, and one should also notice that many people were under influence of his advisor (here on Wiki banned filtered name I.J.) who convinced many people and media in Macedonia before referendum (even 24 hours ago on 29. sep.) that there is solution for the Name issue without the Name Change or any agreement with Greece on Constitutional Name.[47].79.101.164.231 (talk) 17:37, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
"What does turnout matter for a non-binding referendum?" Well if what you're trying to do is to cast doubt on the activity while preserving the appearance of neutrality, that's the kind of think you'd bang on about. --JBL (talk) 19:56, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
In Macedonian Parliament there are 120 MPs, and any amendment to the Constitution of Macedonia needs 81 vote, and currently ruling coalition is controlling only 70 MPs votes, 10 votes less than the condition to pass necessary amendments that are condition according Agreement (Agreement between Macedonia and Greece), that it have a legal effect and enter into force. In Macedonian Parliament opposition to the Agreement between Macedonia and Greece consist of 46 MPs that declared to be against the amendments to the Constitution of Macedonia (prerequisite condition for Agreement to enter into force). 42 MPs of them are from nationalist VMRO-DPMNE party (major opposition party and the organizer of the Boycott), and that could only mean that necessary decisions and amendments to the Constitution will not pass in the Parliament (Amendments will fail, as well). At lest 4 MPs will not vote for that Agreement amendments, or to predict at the end 75 MPs will support the Amendments, below the condition of 81 (two-thirds Constitutional condition to pass Amendments) . And Agreement will not enter into force. And, not to forget, that Agreement has to pass in the Greek Parliament too. And there, in the Greek Parliament situations is even worse than in the Macedonian one. I wouldn't bet on the Agreement on Name Change.

Besides all that I learned that two hours ago Lider of the major opposition party VMRO Mickoski call all MPs in Macedonian Parliament to vote NO in the Macedonian Parliament for the agreement. He controls 42 MPs. Furthermore, as for the structure of voters in the Macedonian referendum, from about 600 000 voters casting vote today, ethnic Albanians were 200 000, and only around 400 000 Macedonians have voted. In my opinion Referendum was disaster.79.101.164.231 (talk) 23:03, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

According to Infomax only 250 000 ethnic have Macedonians voted in referendum! [48]. I believe its exaggeration, and its fair to say that number of ethnic Macedonians voted was aprox. 350 000. As for President call to boycott, I think that his voice had impact on more than the 500 000 people not to vote. Similar to the number people voted for him to become the President 4 years ago (540 000).93.86.84.30 (talk) 23:53, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
In addition, all that mess was apparently created by the Macedonian president (who influenced more than 250 000 not to vote) and by the most hated person on Wikipedia who is known here and labeled User:Operahome. Now in this moment and probably previous few days that person is in Macedonia (so I am not him, as you can see from my IP that is in Belgrade, Serbia).79.101.164.231 (talk) 23:33, 30 September 2018 (UTC)
By insulting that particular person, i.e. not allowing BLP, Wikipedia created damage to the Western security and overthrow government in Macedonia leaded by Zoran Zaev. Don't forget the fact that any Amendment to the Macedonian Constitution has to be signed by the Macedonian President to have an efect, and he will never sign it.91.150.97.61 (talk) 08:16, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
All that story about "He is angry at Wikipedia" are not true! I called him and spoke with him shortly today, and he told by that he is sorry for all that mess on Wikipedia and that he is not behind any such ugly things. In addition he likes Wikipedia, and use it for information, and never had bad feelings about this Encyclopedia. So no one is going to start Third World War for BLP at Wikipedia or anything like this.178.222.113.138 (talk) 20:50, 1 October 2018 (UTC)
It looks to me Wikipedia was far more efficient than the KGB in the mission of overthrowing Macedonian government. In the 48 hours from now ruling party SDSM and the Prime-minister Zoran Zaev will inform media that they are preparing for the new early elections in Macedonia. Elections will be held on 25. of November 2018. As a result of the elections they will won three seats more in the Macedonian Parliament, and that still would not be enough to pass Constitutional amendments. Cheers!93.86.85.165 (talk) 07:15, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Indeed, correct information! According to the pro-government “INFO” (“ИНФО“) [49] it seams that there will be a new elections for the new Parliament, since lieder of the opposition Hristijan Mickoski do not want to speak and meet with the Prime-minister Zoran Zaev. Title: “ЕКСКЛУЗИВНО Нема средба Заев – Мицкоски, власта оди на избори” (There Will be no meeteng Mickovski-Zaev) and later in the text “ Премиерот Зоран Заев најверојатно нема да се сретне со опозицискиот лидер Христијан Мицкоски во врска со уставните измени за Договорот од Преспа, со што речиси е извесно дека излез од постреферендумската криза ќе се бара во предвремени парламентарни избори, брифира за Плусинфо висок владин функционер.“ In translation shrotly „possible new elections, according to high gov. official“.109.93.3.232 (talk) 19:51, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
  • In adition PM mentioned 25 of Nov: „Премиерот Заев вечерта по соопштувањето на резултатите од цензусот на референдумот најави дека доколку деновиве не успеат со ВМРО-ДПМНЕ да се договорат за поддршка на уставните амандмани, ќе се оди на избори и тоа на 25 ноември.“, shortly Prime-minister mentioned elections on 25. of Nov, as user (extremly well informed) predicted above. See last sentence of the same source text in INFO.109.93.3.232 (talk) 20:07, 2 October 2018 (UTC):
It seams to me that it was smarter thing to allow the requested BLP for that person, than bullying and harassing his name for years on English Wikipedia[50].178.222.123.199 (talk) 10:20, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
As Jimbo ones said about that "controversial person", personal behavior should not affect relevance of particular person. Or to put it in other words, even Adolf Hitler deserve a page here.109.93.1.77 (talk) 19:27, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
In conclusion, it was ones said that the task of Wikipedia is not to create History, or change the course of Political History. In the case of I.J., Wiki admins. indeed finally had important contribution in creating new Political History simply by being stubborn and ignorant.109.93.1.77 (talk) 00:35, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
Exactly, and President Ivanov will not give a mandate to a new SDSM government after early elections! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.245.36.166 (talk) 13:53, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
VMRO may accept to have an early elections under conditions of 100 days expert gov. before the elections, plus resignation of Zaev, otherwise boycott of early elections itself. [51][52]93.86.84.30 (talk) 23:18, 4 October 2018 (UTC). Macedonian Gov. is already crashed.93.86.84.30 (talk) 00:06, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Zoran Zaev and Alexis Tsipras have been nominated for Nobel prize for peace, but at the end of story Zaev will finish together with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikola Dimitrov and Defence minister Radmila Sekerinska in Macedonian jail for High Treason. And just in case for those who have plan for a civil war, President Ivanov is the Commander in chief and he controls Foreign Intelligence service[53][54].77.46.164.68 (talk) 09:50, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately Wikipedia cannot repair any damage now, even if its unwillingly creates BLP to anyone, including to him. In exactly 5 days prime minister Zaev will have to make a choice whether to go for a new elections or listen advices from EU and USA to try a luck in the Parliament, where ruling coalition is short of 7 Members of Parliament to change the Constitution. Albanian ethnic party is against new early elections because they will loose more Members of Parliament. Right in this moment Zaev trying to buy a votes of Members of Parliament from VMRO, and that is strictly forbidden in Macedonia under Criminal Law. SDSM, before referendum also paid 50 fake polls and based on the hoaxes and lies to Western leaders they naively visited Macedonia, from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU Federica Mogherini and many EU Sebastian Kurz, NATO Jens Stoltenberg and even US lieders including US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. Donald Trump also called voters to go and vote YES on the referendum. Now, Zaev will try bribing Members of Parliament for a change of National Identity that could result in the charges for High Treason. In the previous 3 days he didn't succeed in that illegal operation of bribing. Chances to succeed in next 6 days are very low or ZERO, but Zaev don't realize it and he always listen his surprisingly low informed Western Statesmen, leaders and diplomats. At Thursday he will finally decide to go for a new elections, but that will be to late to change the Constitution before 1. of January (deadline is 15. of December, under Prespa agreement). Finally, Albanian ethnic party will restart violence and terrorism because they will feel that Zaev double-crossed them too. And if that happens, the war show reality starts or a sort of entertainment for everyone who enjoy to watch movie-wars, except entertainment for those people who live in Macedonia. All in all Zaev is finished.93.86.28.166 (talk) 02:06, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Wikinews is a sad failure and doomed. Major changes needed!

The headline captures my mood after trying to “recycle“ Wikipedia content at Wikinews. Despite that site desperately needing more editors, and relevant content, a crazy license incompatibility and policy differences discourage editors from crossing over and using Wikipedia content there. Read about my frustrating experience here: https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User_talk:Gray62#Cern_scientist_suspended_after_controversial_presentation What madness, to expect users to learn different rules and rewrite all texts! Jimbo, pls weigh in and restart Wikinews, on a sound basis. Or else WMF should shut that failure down so that the efforts wasted there may go into Wikipedia. One way or the other, hard changes are necessary. The sad status quo there is embarassing and unacceptable, imho. Gray62 (talk) 19:44, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Due to my efforts to do something new at WikiTribune I try to stay out of discussions about WikiNews. There are some really great people there as well, and I support them in what they want to do. In these difficult times, I think everyone should try what they can to try to innovate in this space.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:05, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
I didn't know about Wikitribune, that's an interesting new project thank you for that info. But won't it make Wikinews redundant? Also, with honest respect for the “really great people“ at Wikinews, but their lack of success is obvious on the mainpage. Who's gonna visit that site to read the pathetic five articles of questionable interest displayed there, really? Whatever the “really great people“ are doing, it ain't working, sorry. And without the Foundation weighing in and ordering changes, nothing will change for the better, I'm afraid. Gray62 (talk) 20:35, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
When I spoke to them a few years ago, they were not so interested in becoming a popular news site. So while I agree with you in part, I also think people should do what they enjoy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:53, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
I guess I dig your view. Thx for taking the time to listen to a frustrated Wikinews user, Jimbo! Have a relaxed evening. Gray62 (talk) 20:59, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
The best thing we could do to make both Wikinews and Wikitribune thrive would be to make Wikipedia an encyclopedia instead of a news site that is also an encyclopedia. Simply disallow any content newer than 48 hours, and announce this on the main page. The benefits to Wikipedia would be huge; our content would be far better and roughly 80% of our conflicts between editors would never happen. Alas, too many here are addicted to breaking news for this to ever happen. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:05, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
While this idea is interesting, imho, as someone who is much more a user of wikipedia than an editor, it's an important feature of this encyclopedia that it provides up-to-date facts. I don't think the majority of users would appreciate it if articles don't reflect the present situation, like the death of guys covered here. The solution for editor disputes (afaics mostly based on pov fights) can't/won't be a 48 hours delay, imho. Gray62 (talk) 21:35, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Gray62, I like Wikinews, a lot, and you, as an individual, can be really productive at Wikinews, I think. Just get in there and work. Just do it! (where have I heard that before?) Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:49, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
Re: "it's an important feature of this encyclopedia", [Citation Needed]. Other encyclopedias seem to get along just fine without also being sources of breaking news. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:11, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, there is no logical reason to have breaking news here. Furthermore, I think the whole breaking news addiction/fad is dying as everyone can see how phony, false, exaggerated, biased, badly written and completely unreliable its all become; which is why there is such a hunger and need for something like, or exactly like, Wikitribune, and perhaps, Wikinews as well. Mainstream media's "breaking news" has become little more than a bit of excitement in the baboon pen at the zoo, and almost everybody is sick and tired of it. Wikinews might actually be at the right time and place right now, just like Wikitribune, and Wikipedia maybe will end up just getting out of their way. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:14, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

The benefits to Wikipedia would be huge; our content would be far better and roughly 80% of our conflicts between editors would never happen. [citation needed] The Rambling Man (talk) 22:52, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

It is clear enough to me that the editor, for brevity, omitted the words "In my considered opinion, based upon my admittedly incomplete experience...". I suspect they knew that reasonable editors would unconsciously fill in those words, and aren't accustomed to being challenged when they omit them. I'm asserting the preceding without evidence, as this is not a courtroom; accept or reject as you will. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:24, 2 October 2018 (UTC)
...simply disallow any content newer than 48 hours, and announce this on the main page. In my considered opinion, based upon my twelve years editing Wikipedia -- and noting that my experience (and the experience of everyone who reads this) only encompasses a small fraction of our 1,260,323,877 edits, 62,117,730 pages of all kinds, and 6,929,529 articles -- the benefits to Wikipedia would be huge; our content would be far better, and by my estimate roughly 80% of our conflicts between editors would never happen. Alas, too many here are addicted to breaking news for this to ever happen. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:52, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
... and definitely it is not possible for there to be arguments about what "48 hours" means, how to determine when the 48 hour countdown begins, whether 47 hours 53 minutes is close enough, ......... The principle that we are not and should not be news is unobjectionable, but the proposed solution is not one; as long as you're wishing for it, you might as well wish for a pony, too. --JBL (talk) 14:42, 3 October 2018 (UTC)
Facts are facts. According to Alexa, Wikipedia is the #5 website in the world and Wikinews is #61,982. Wikinews is irrelevant. Our Wikipedia main page always features about half a dozen major news stories and a similar number of recent deaths. Of course, we should not be doing original news reporting. But in case after countless case, for nearly 18 years, our articles about breaking news events have evolved into enduring articles worthy of study by researchers in history for centuries to come. Very early in the history of this project, we dealt with the events of September 11, 2001, and many of those articles were highly contentious for years. But they gradually matured, settled down, and are now outstanding educational resources free to humanity. If we prevent adding reports of the deaths of highly famous people for 48 hours, we make ourselves look ridiculous to our readers. If we prevent adding content about the deaths of less famous people for 48 hours, interest in updating may well fade, and the quality of content will suffer. The burst of editing enthusiasm in the hours and days after a major news event can be problematic, but it can also be enormously useful if properly channeled. High quality articles develop and improve over time, and 48 hours limits and NOTNEWS dogmatism are counterproductive. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:50, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
The news on Wikipedia really isn't very good either. I mean, for days we ran a Main Page link to Sinking of the MV Nyerere in which we claimed that "eyewitnesses" had said that passengers surging to one side managed to sink the ferry; but from the first reports the local press and government had been saying it capsized because an untrained person was in control of the ship who was on a cell phone and made a sudden turn. (my edits) In truth it was one unidentified person on shore talking to an AFP reporter who claimed he saw the other version of events, who turned into "eyewitnesses" by editor error.
I should emphasize though that the early edits are of tremendous importance, because too many Wikipedia editors fail to realize that the first news story is generally the best news story. I skipped back through 80 pages of faint echoes on newslookup.com to reach the first report (which had been updated) from local press that gave thorough coverage. The longer you wait to write, the harder it is to find the couple of real reporters who actually were on the scene talking to people rather than all the noise of me-too hangers-on looking for a slice of eyeballs. The sooner people edit, the more of the good sources will end up in the references section. Wnt (talk) 07:07, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Gray62, you're disappointed your story was deleted and is no longer publishable. Yes this is sad... I am making several recommendations about this at your user talk page at Wikinews about this which I think is the best place to discuss this. I would not recommend being bitter in a manner that brainwashes others at 2-3 different places, this is not ethical and I do not think people at whom you're bitter would show signs of being offended. --Gryllida (talk) 12:48, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Actually, you read me wrong, Gryllida, my wasted effort at Wikinews, small as it was, is just a minor annoyance. The bigger concern is the sad state of English Wikinews. Imho the license incompatibility has to be solved and the rules reformed, to encourage participation there. I don't think any serious person can see the news output there, less than one story published on the mainpage every day, as even remotely satisfactory. Somethings gotta change, and the right place to discuss this in detail is at Wikinews talk pages, of course. And that's where I recently posted some suggestions. Gray62 (talk) 13:01, 5 October 2018 (UTC)
Mainstream media both make assumptions. In some instances Wikipedians assume good faith from them instead of fact check. This may result in misrepresented misleading output ... for example a research study can be written as 'Sugar causes diabetes [1]' expecting the reader to follow, instead of 'according to a study by University of Bath in UK in 2015, based on analysis on 150 patients over 5 years, sugar has a 95% correlation with diabetes'. In my opinion this makes the usefullness of the content of Wikipedia questionable as far as bias-free news production is concerned. (See n:WN:Never assume.)
As a result, I recommend anyone interested to take the list of sources from Wikipedia, and write news based on that while discarding the content itself. The licensing incompatibility does not prevent that as far as I am aware. --Gryllida (talk) 03:34, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Collaboration

Hello! My name is Laura and i am a student of psychology at the Universitat de Barcelona. Im coursing now the last year and from a subject named entrepreneurship and social innovation they asked us to think about a changemaker who actually handles with a social bussiness and try to contact and talk a little bit about what was the spark that started the idea of it.

I fastly thought about wikipedia, or either the whole wikimedia foundation. Ive been donating for two years now and ive never known nobody who did, like i feel like im involved now... the thing is that I think this foundation is the perfect example of a social innovation and i would only need a few minutes to have a small conversation with any of the founders or cofounders to know how they felt starting this thing or either to know a little bit more about them. It would only take a few minutes and it woul be lovely if we could contact maybe via skype or any typo of videocall.

Ambarish Banerjee responded to my email saying that I could contact Jimbo Wales through this link and maybe chat about what i have in mind.

Im asking about thoughts, motivation or even the spark that started this idea in terms of creating a social "bussiness".

Im also corious about if this Wikipedia could be called a social bussines in terms of being an economic viable project. Like is there people actually "living" from the work in the foundation? Or does the project just live from donations that really maintain the bussines?

I hope we could contact in a more closer way, maybe email or even a real time talk? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.78.18.88 (talk) 10:53, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Laura, I'll leave space for Jimbo to answer above; however, Wikipedia and the WMF are very complex subjects, spanning almost 20 years of major changes. Please carefully read the page "Wikimedia Foundation" (or Spanish "es:Fundación Wikimedia"), which links to over 180 source citations. An indepth conversation about the WMF could easily last for hours, and hence an extensive review of the sources would be the most effective means to answer all your various questions and any related concerns. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
External videos
video icon Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia, TED, 2005[1]
video icon Q&A with Jimmy Wales, C-SPAN, 2005
video icon Lecture Jimmy Wales: Understanding failure as a route to success, Maastricht University, 2015[2]
  • Laura, of course nobody here can speak for Jimmy, but thanks for the questions and for the donations! I doubt Jimmy can give you too much time, but somehow I guess that he can slip in a 15 minute Skype call. You should also try the WMF Executive Director, Katherine Maher @Katherine (WMF):.
There are lots of videos of Jimmy speaking. I've included some of my favorites from the article Jimmy Wales, but there are lots of others, e.g. there must be ten from various Wikimanias, so you might get a sense from them how things have and haven't changed.
As far as your questions. Jimmy is definitely an entrepreneur and social innovator. Wikipedia is not the usual type of business since it is a not-for-profit organization. But in a bigger sense, it is a business since it is an economic as well as social organization and it produces a great amount of value. Value is not just measured in dollars, it is the benefit that people get from the "product" produced. Quick question - who do you think produces more value to the most people - Wikipedia or Volkswagen? Well, half a billion people would likely say that they individually get more value from Wikipedia, so Volkswagen is at a great disadvantage in this contest.
Some quick answers: 200-300 people work for the Wikimedia Foundation and I believe that they make a reasonable living from doing an interesting job. This is funded by donations, but don't think that this means everybody is worried about where the next paycheck will come from. The WMF brings in about $70 million each year and has reserves of about the same amount. Expenses are about the same or somewhat less. And a longterm endowment fund is being gathered. So purely from a financial viewpoint, the WMF is a "business success". The real success, of course, is how the encyclopedia affect the lives of its readers (this means you!). Thanks again. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:08, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
...about $100M ... Carrite (talk) 12:28, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
I'd love to chat by email - I recommend to email my assistant at jwalesassist@gmail.com and she'll make sure I see it - she'll be back to work on Monday (on holiday this week).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:39, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Wales, Jimmy (July 2005). "Jimmy Wales: The birth of Wikipedia". TED (conference). Retrieved December 26, 2017.
  2. ^ "Lecture Jimmy Wales: Understanding failure as a route to success". Maastricht University on YouTube. January 2015. Retrieved December 26, 2017.

Is Commons putting Wikipedia at risk – what can we do?

I don't know much about Commons but I've noticed that it's taking longer and longer to get files deleted and I'm concerned that dereliction backlogs over there could adversely affect Wikipedia. Three and a half months ago I tagged a file on Commons as a copyright violation; I am fairly certain that it is an erroneous upload of a non-free image. The file was tagged shortly after it was uploaded and the image was removed from the Wikipedia article where it was being used. To date, nothing whatsoever has happened on Commons and the file is being used on the English Wikipedia again and also on two other languages as well. What, if anything, can or should we do in cases like this? By the way, I asked this question at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions and though the page was active and well attended, my question was archived without a reply. I am curious, Mr. Wales, to know your thoughts in this regard.--John Cline (talk) 07:23, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Perhaps replace images before deletion: Everyone is overworked, stressed to the gills. After consensus to delete an image (or text), then replace the contents (or redact text) to allow web search-engines to also replace and re-cache their non-free copies or unsourced text. We had a worse problem, after death of famous pop icon, singer-songwriter Michael Jackson, where deleted privacy-vio pages "went viral" inside Google cache areas for nearly a month, and we could no longer blank the "hidden" text which kept appearing in search-results from Google, although clicking the link would indicate no page to see (due to WP deletion). Hence, after updating the pre-deleted pages, then the copyvio risk (or privacy risk) is greatly reduced. Perhaps even redact contents 2x times, so a simple diff of the top revision would not show any of the troublesome contents buried in older revisions. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:10, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes, for obvious unquestionably copyvio images, removing it prior to deletion can be helpful. It's important to just make sure it's really obvious and unquestionable before doing so. I really wish, though, we had some kind of log that would note past image usage. That way if it turns out not to be a copyright violation (say, the copyright holder sends in a statement of permission at OTRS), we know where it was in use before. --B (talk) 11:32, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
  • @John Cline: When it is an obvious copyright violation, you can tag it with Commons:Template:copyvio. (I have done so.) Another option, if you think that the uploader might actually be the copyright holder, is to use {{npd}} instead. That way, it will have a countdown and give them an opportunity to submit permission. There is a huge backlog of deletion requests at Commons and it seems like basically anything that can't be handled with a quick drive by and a cursory glance sits there for a long time. --B (talk) 11:25, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
  • That said, files tagged with copyvio-template are usually removed pretty quickly. I tagged one on Tuesday and it was gone within 45 minutes which aligns with my experiences in other cases. I think John Cline's problem was that they used the normal deletion progress and not speedy deletion. It's unfortunate that C:DR is backlogged as it is but as long as copyvios are handled quickly, that's acceptable. Regards SoWhy 11:48, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
500px x 500px version of standard SMPTE Color Bars with no EXIF data. At 724 bytes, it can be used as a test image that uses a minimum of memory / bandwidth.
Only 724 bytes!
  • Before I reply, I want to apologize for characterizing the situation on Commons as dereliction; it is clearly a backlog and I had no cause to cast such a vile aspersion. I appreciate the insight shared in each of your replies. Like I did say: "I don't know much about Commons". I had difficulty navigating the deletion options available and ended up using the tool linked in their right margin labeled nominate for deletion. I'd be more comfortable making such nominations on Wikipedia with the software transferring it to the best place on Commons; a deletion wizard of sorts. I agree with B that a log of these nominations would be useful and such a deletion wizard could certainly log the nomination as well.--John Cline (talk) 12:30, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
    @John Cline: In Commons, if you go to Preferences -> Gadgets, under "Maintenance tools", there are several tools for turning on various buttons. One of them is "Gallery details", which gives you buttons to make an image as having no source, no license, lacking permission, etc. "No permission" is the button to click to tag something that you think might have been uploaded by the copyright holder and "Report copyright violation" is the button for flagrant/obvious copyvios (press photo, someone who is clearly not the copyright holder claiming to own the photo, etc). --B (talk) 12:42, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Without commenting on whether image replacement is desirable, this replacement image is CC0 licensed and only takes up 724 bytes on the server. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:36, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to close the Mediation Committee

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RFC:Close MedCom? on whether we should close MedCom. I feel it would be appropriate to post this here as it is a widely viewed page, and also Jimbo (if he sees this) established it along with the Arbitration Committee. SemiHypercube ✎ 19:23, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

On the Lithuanian Wikipedia

It's okay to BITE :D ——SerialNumber54129 13:09, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid you'll have to explain. I can't read Lithuanian, obviously, but Google translate suggests that it's a totally pleasant welcome message.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:02, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Jimbo, I think it might be a joke/pun from the use of the word "bitte" in the template? I'm not sure if it means the same thing in Lithuanian, but in German I think it means "welcome". --B (talk) 18:53, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
It means please.--John Cline (talk) 18:59, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Ugh, sorry for the obscurantisms...play between bite and please; congrats to users B and C for solving today's puzzler :) ——SerialNumber54129 08:22, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

"Can Wikipedia be trusted?"

An article published 9 hours ago by Forbes India [55], republished, with permission, from Kellogg Insight, the faculty research & ideas magazine of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Apologies if you have seen it before. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:39, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Can the world be trusted? Wikipedia's bias is tiny compared to the world at large. The entire world has many biased reports or events. The U.S. Federal Government confirmed a Supreme Court nominee because there was "insufficent" evidence (for some politicians) that he had lied under oath to Congress or had other serious misconduct problems (see: Clarence Thomas, 1991). Detailed research about the U.S. Civil War has revealed that many freed slaves went back home to their owner families (because they couldn't own land), and eventually the Union enslaved the freed slaves as "contraband property" to work hard for the Union because cooperative slave labor was a major reason the Confederacy held off the massive Union states of 24 million people, where Southern feudal elitism was actually a major cause of the Civil War. Hence, the world has major bias problems in misrepresenting the reality of events as they happened. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:41, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
  • NO place believe in WIKI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.30.74.180 (talk) 12:46, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Personally I believe that Wiki is real as rocks. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:32, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Why don't we have a photo for it? I'd even put it on my user page. Has anybody ever climbed it? Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:11, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
I'd get one, but it isn't quite within my easy walking distance. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:53, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
looks nice. Wikimania? Camp out? Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:13, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
One question: is "cowdsourcing" as mentioned in that article done with cow tools? --118.148.102.92 (talk) 10:17, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Yes, as used by Desperate Dan for his famous cow pie. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:30, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Its a work in progress, but at this moment, it can absolutely be trusted because its been shown to be the most accurate encyclopedia on the planet by objective researchers. It has a science based protocol to it that can not be understood by most of us, like me, I don't really understand it, but it works just like some of Einstein's theories work, or the dropping of 2 identical objects of different mass. So, I think, Wikipedia is a discovery, maybe even a hugely important accidental discovery, like these. It is certainly kicking the shit out of the for profit/propaganda/corporate education/information competition, which is why they will likely keep trying, in ever more creative ways, to shut it/us down (paranoid?/not sure). Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:55, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Hurricane Michael path north to Florida panhandle

Just FYI as 3-day alert. The predicted Hurricane Michael, or Tropical Storm Michael (2018), is expected by NHC to travel north between Cozumel and Cuba, and intensify along western Florida before landfall in the Florida panhandle, between Pensacola and Tallahassee Perry (entire panhandle now), perhaps late Wednesday, 10 October 2018. The live map:

The 5-day forecast path also heads quickly through Alabama and Georgia. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:55, 7 October, updated 10:52, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Extended to Tampa: The coastal warning had been extended down along Tampa Bay, as the storm passes nearer, as of 10 p.m. Monday, October 8, 2018. The storm surge warnings are likely to warn height of flooding above the coastline levels. The turns are expected to steer slightly away north-northwest then slightly northeast back to Florida peninsula. The hurricane is faster than predicted yesterday, with Category 3 landfall perhaps early Wednesday morning, October 10, 2018. See WP coverage in: "Hurricane Michael (2018)". -Wikid77 (talk) 05:49, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Hurricane Michael Intermediate Advisory Number 15A

...POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC HURRICANE MICHAEL HEADING TOWARD THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE...

...LIFE-THREATENING STORM SURGE...HURRICANE FORCE WINDS...AND HEAVY RAINFALL IMMINENT...


SUMMARY OF 700 AM CDT...1200 UTC...INFORMATION

LOCATION...29.0N 86.3W ABOUT 90 MI...145 KM SW OF PANAMA CITY FLORIDA

ABOUT 90 MI...145 KM WSW OF APALACHICOLA FLORIDA

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...145 MPH...230 KM/H

PRESENT MOVEMENT...N OR 10 DEGREES AT 13 MPH...20 KM/H

MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...933 MB...27.55 INCHES

Count Iblis (talk) 15:24, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Comparisons to Puerto Rico hurricane: Although last year Hurricane Maria on September 20, 2017, had been more intense before landfall at Puerto Rico, the reported windspeeds have been similar. With Hurricane Michael, the search and rescue efforts began immediately in areas already hit where people among the 400,000 travelers had failed to evacuate during the quick 3-day alert. Convoys of electric utility repair trucks, for thousands of electrical workers, had been stationed near Pensacola, to the west, because the hurricane was moving north-northeast before landfall. Unfortunately, fallen trees already have blocked hundreds of roads (as in Puerto Rico), but workers can use gas-powered chainsaws and backhoes to remove tree logs or boats or houses swept across the roads. Although the coastal evening temperture held a sweltering 80 °F (27 °C), a cold front is expected nearby within a few days to bring fresh air and reduce heat exhaustion of rescue or repair workers. See the related text at "Hurricane Michael" or "Hurricane Maria" or 1969 "Hurricane Camille". -Wikid77 (talk) 11:28, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
    Wikid77, how much does Jimbo pay you to be his weatherman? And, can't you shift this insane-business, recurring with every major weather-event, to some private medium? ∯WBGconverse 13:17, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
    Well these major weather-events in Florida severely affect some people called... Wikipedians. Over the years, the actual weathermen have learned to compare storms, not by Category 3-5 or storm surge, but by storm-size diameters and storm tide with higher waves on top. The storm articles on enwiki seem to lag behind the issues noted by current forecasters these days. -Wikid77 (talk)
  • I've felt the same way as WBG at times. But this hurricane seems to be a record setter going very near to places where Jimmy has lived, so I'd guess Jimmy doesn't mind the info. Jimmy does have the ability to ask Wikid77 not to post so much information, so in general we can leave it up to Jimmy. But, FWIW, I'll ask Wikid77 not to post so much about other hurricanes. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:57, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
Jimmy comes from Huntsville, lives in London, and works for an organization headquartered in California whose servers are in Virginia and Texas. These regular Florida weather reports have no relevance whatsoever to him. ‑ Iridescent 03:19, 12 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, Hurricane Michael couldn't find Jimmy in Florida or Huntsville or Virginia, so it has travelled along the trans-Atlantic path, as Post-Tropical Cyclone Michael, to find him in Europe, perhaps in London, now that you mention. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:28, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
Iridescent, I come from Georgia, live in Toronto, sell digital books globally on Kindle and Ebay (few if any in the panhandle or Georgia) and I like Wikid77's weather reports, especially this one as I was worried about a childhood friend in harm's way in Georgia, especially when I could not get him on the phone. I don't know if Jimbo is like me, in this respect, but he might be. Plus, don't ignore Count Iblis's contribution, please. One of the educational aspects of this storm is the television coverage revealing some of the sociological/economic aspects of small towns in the panhandle, and, our article on Mexico Beach, Florida might be improved as a result of the attention, especially the attention being given here, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:33, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Barnstar Addition

Hey.I think we can add a new barnstar.I call it the “Flamestar”.It will be rewarded to newcomers that have been helpful in constructing Wikipedia.Can you think about adding this award to Wikipedia?ColeCole714 (talk) 01:29, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

I have to commend the idea of a flamestar ... if granted more in consideration of the Google-search definition for "flaming", i.e. direct a vitriolic or abusive message at (someone) by posting on the Internet or sending an email. We have some fair mastery of that on Wikipedia. ;) But for what you suggested, note Template:The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar Wnt (talk) 13:48, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
How about the Nova Nova? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:48, 14 October 2018 (UTC)

"Muslim Engagement and Development" (MEND)

Should 'MEND', (a group known for hosting and are associated with political Islamists holding extremist Islamist views, and are widely considered, by direct association, extreme, if not extremist, themselves) really be allowed to effectively write their own CV (résumé) directly on this site?! [56][57][58][59][60][61][62] (PS: The Jewish Chronicle has been in print and circulation since 1841... and I am not Jewish by the way! ... and John Ware [63] is a perfectly-respectable established (and probably also non-Jewish) British investigative journalist here in the UK.) -- 194.207.146.167 (talk) 14:02, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

The way to address this is to open a discussion at either the article's talk page or the Conflict of Interest noticeboard. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:34, 13 October 2018 (UTC)
Your first Twitter message (an image of Corbyn addressing the group) is actually a good argument why we should have an article on it - it's notable and a part of politics. Wikipedia should not destroy articles about organizations people dislike for the same reason you don't erase countries you don't like from your wall map. That said, I encourage you to collect sources to support the allegations that you make against this organization (if true) and to add them to the article. If you can document COI that is also a valid approach, though given the nature of the ideological conflict here it is not hard to imagine that some sympathetic editors could have worked on this article without being paid. There is indeed some bias imposed on the article, such as the use of a "controversy" section. (Nearly every political article on Wikipedia has one, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a bad design, often intentionally so, which relegates one point of view to a ghetto within the article) There is also some rather verbose description sourced directly to the site which might be desirable to summarize more effectively or back with secondary sourcing, not to mention to provide with links so people can understand the rather obscure British politics involved. Wnt (talk) 14:04, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
This is generally good advice.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:02, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Teamwork Barnstar
I just think you deserve a Teamwork Barnstar, nothing else. Calin LCC (talk) 19:14, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Comparison of storm sizes

Hurricane Ike (2008) hurricane-force core,[1] at Galveston landfall, 13 Sep 2008
Hurricane Maria (2017) core,[2] Puerto Rico, 20 Sep 2017
Hurricane Michael (2018) core,[3] Florida
Hurricane Irma (2017) core,[4] offshore Naples, Florida, 10 Sep 2017

Jimbo, in the U.S. some news reporters now are comparing storm strength by hurricane-force area, rather than by windspeed of Category 1-5. In future Wikipedia coverage of storms, perhaps a page could show size diagrams, such as the rough circle diagrams shown at right (+sources). Another issue, when comparing storm severity, could be the population density, where the risk could be compared by impact on urban centers, such as the power failures where more buildings were connected to the regional power grid. Because 2018 Hurricane Michael made the Florida landfall west of the large wooded Apalachicola National Forest (see: roadmap), there were fewer homes in the region, although the broken tree limbs blocked hundreds of streets for a few days. In fact, within 5 days, most of the electric service was restored among about one million power outages, leaving "only" 180,000 without power on Monday night (15 Oct 2018) in the U.S. states of Florida and Georgia. See the live power-failure maps:

Meanwhile, WP storm pages continue to compare storms by Category level, as if 15 years ago, such as calling the small Hurricane Michael as more "intense" than the gigantic Hurricane Ike (2008) in Texas, which is a sharp reversal of the reality of Ike covering 31 million acres (πr2 × 640 acres per sqmi) as it moved north across Galveston and Houston in 2008, with a storm surge of almost 25 feet (7.6 m).

Another risk of large hurricanes is time to evacuate the region, as extra hours to travel farther beyond the hurricane-force area. People who are unaware how they could out-run a small hurricane, within an extra hour, might be doomed to remain behind as deceived to stay for fear of no time to run from a "more intense" storm, which was actually 8x more tiny than feared (1252÷452). Hence, evacuees could drive either west or east to escape. Put this in a math class, as how simple arithmetic could save a life. Anyway, the good news is more reporters are comparing storms by size, to publish as wp:RS reliable sources. We are able now to tell readers tactics to survive hurricanes. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:35, fix typo 04:52, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the details. Wikipedia has a great opportunity to provide interesting and useful historical details about the storms which TV watchers never get. There's an expression, "the devil's in the details" but I'd say, "the most important/useful facts/information are in the details." Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:08, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
WP also revises storm pages to match the post Tropical Cyclone Report of each hurricane, in case there were any mistaken numbers in the daily advisory messages. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:12, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Graphed Hurricane Irma: Among the hurricane circle-graphs (above), I have added 2017 Hurricane Irma as it passed near Naples, Florida, last year, on September 10, 2017 at 110 mph (180 km/h) (+NHC source). The larger core size of Irma, as compared to the half-size smaller Hurricane Michael, could help explain why some people imagined there was no time to evacuate from the smaller storm, while remembering larger recent hurricanes such as Irma. Incidentally, 2005 Hurricane Katrina at Mississippi landfall would graph similar to 2008 Hurricane Ike (large orange circle above). More later. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:12, 17 October 2018 (UTC)
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