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Create a silver lining

I know I'm taking advantage of spending more time at home by ramping up my editing of Wikipedia articles. I suspect this will be a natural inclination of some experienced editors, but perhaps we should push out some advertising to encourage casual editors or non editors to spend some time editing.

There's literally millions of person hours for people stuck at home struggling to find something to do. Let's give them an option they may not have considered.S Philbrick(Talk) 15:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

This is a very good idea. Is there anybody who could do a quick budget approval and just get $50,000 worth of internet ads out there? Better yet, get some press releases or have a big shot or two (nudge, Jimmy and Katherine) give an interview. It doesn't have to be a big blitz effort - that might even backfire - but let people know we'd love to have a few more newbies. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
I support this idea. Millions of very intelligent people are suddenly looking for new indoor solo hobbies. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:45, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
We are that. Jimbo, send a mail to Tom Hanks or something. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:08, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
I love this idea. It might be fun if we (I don't mean the WMF, more casual than that, I mean "we" - whoever joins this discussion) plan a "virtual edit-a-thon"? How many people could we get to an online event? What platform might we use? I heard yesterday that Google hangouts are better for up to 8 people, and zoom is better for a ton of people. I've never used zoom. I'd want something that's free of charge obviously!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:20, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
It would be good to think about gently nudging any such editing in a useful way. For example we don't need 10,000 people hitting the Covid-19 articles. All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 11:14, 19 March 2020 (UTC).
I’m not sure that encouraging millions of ip Ed’s with time on their hands is a good idea. I just stopped the camel urine article from telling readers it may treat coronablah. Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 12:13, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
You say that but I have most of the 200+ coronavirus articles watchlisted and we are getting a lot of new editors and returning editors working on them plus IPs. We need them all, especially for the 150+ country articles which receive updates throughout the day. We need their access to local newspapers and government publications since they are in their native languages. They are contributing a lot and these pages get a lot of views.
Of course, it would help to recruit new editors to work on any number of subjects but we are really benefiting from new & returning editors working on coronavirus articles. Liz Read! Talk! 03:02, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
It's the six million other articles that I worry about, rather than the heavily watchlisted coronavirus articles. -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 08:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Maybe you've heard it said that "it pays to advertise"; however, we might not need to pay out a lot of money for it. Everytime I Google something, almost anything, Wikipedia comes up in the first few results, often the very first. IPs with time on their hands will probably search a lot – and there Wikipedia will be! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 14:14, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Paine Ellsworth, Absolutely, but based on my experience talking to quite a few people, many think that Wikipedia “ just exists” and think about how Wikipedia is created about as often as they think about how packaged goods in grocery stores are created i. e. almost never, so the nudge may be helpful.S Philbrick(Talk) 14:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, and there's a special incentive out there. I edited Wikipedia for years before I finally registered. It took me awhile because I didn't have a lot of time on my hands nor the drive to find something to do. I wonder if anyone's keeping track of recent IP edit numbers to find out if there has already been an increase in their edits? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 14:30, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
This number, 48,457,166 registered users ({{NUMBEROFUSERS}}), has probably begun to increase. Perhaps we need a magic word like {{NUMBEROFIPUSERS}}, oslt? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 14:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
"Magic word" already is the term for a group of variables in MediaWiki software. Magic words is already taken. In the noughties we'd have said, "There should be an app for this..." ~ R.T.G 07:39, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
The variation in numbers of active IP editors and active registered accounts is already public information. Thus far there's no obvious rise or dip other than the usual sawtooth weekday/weekend cycle (although the figures for the last 10 days aren't up yet). ‑ Iridescent 08:56, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

The WMF is planning a fuzzy-feelings banner mentioned at WP:MISC and at meta. To preview the banner, they gave this link. Johnuniq (talk) 22:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Interesting how The WMF are claiming credit for editors work there. Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 07:53, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, that is an interesting habit of theirs. -- llywrch (talk) 22:16, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
If my words were proclaimed worldwide in the name of the WMF, I would feel proud and there would be no need to mention my name in order to feel proud. Wikipedia is the product of collective work and often readers have no idea about which person wrote what. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:18, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I am sure if someone from the WMF office accidently wrote, "I made this" when they didn't, they'll be only too happy when you point out the mistake... ~ R.T.G 09:11, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Not sure Roxypooch is reading the same notice I read. I see our volunteers are working to bring you a trusted source of unbiased information and I want to acknowledge the invaluable work of all the contributors on Wikipedia. and Our coronavirus articles have received tens of thousands of edits by thousands of editors, unless Roxy's referring to We will keep working around the clock to bring you reliable and neutral information. Maybe that's what they meant by "claiming credit"? Sounds like an all-encompassing "we" to me, and who knows how many WMF people actually do edit Wikipedia whenever they get a chance? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 13:14, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm a bit worried about millions (billions?) of bored people with Android smartphones deciding to have a go at WP editing. 220 of Borg 09:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
See also: Eternal September. Guy (help!) 17:13, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, if even a few of them turn out to like editing and stick around, is that so bad? — 🦊 06:35, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Wish I could recruit everybody to participate in my contests! What if I organized a Wikipedia:The Great Wikipedia Source-athon in May or something and all editors have to do is add sources to unsourced claims in articles. Whoever adds the most sources to articles for the most countries is the winner? Aim for say 10,000 new sources added to Wikipedia covering all 200 odd countries? We could have a page instructing newbies how to add a citation to articles. Something like that would be doable as a big virtual editathon, so newbies would only have to learn how to add a citation not how to write articles.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:37, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Produce something for FB's "go live" feature, or create an entertaining YouTube presentation - something that's short, fun and fast-paced - then alert the media so they can write about it. It's free. Perhaps we could even recruit some of WP's humorists to write scripts, like EEng, Levivich, Martinevans123 and Creffett. Atsme Talk 📧 13:36, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 March 2020

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:42, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
The Esptein meme didn't make sense by itself. So it's s***e, and merely serves to warn paedophiles to be more secretive. Epstein couldn't keep his mouth shut, is about the most significant message from that meme. He wasn't well in the flipping head. He could have paid for any sort of relationship circumstance he could conceive. He didn't choose his desires, but he nurtured them according to his reasonings. He could have seen these things and questioned his reasonings any way he liked. He didn't and became a sad tale. The "meme" doesn't say any of that. Don't create memes in your desire to instigate viral wonder, as it can be so superficial. The person who created the smiley is not even recognised in the modern world, though the symbol crosses all boundaries. Create, or identify, cliches, thus continuing to try and promote viral wonderment in others, but maintaining it in the self at the same time, thereby validating that wonder. ~ R.T.G 16:39, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm quite confused by the comment above about the "Epstein meme" and why it was put under "The Signpost" section. But since it is just 2 lines below a link to my Signpost article "I have been asked by Jeffrey Epstein …", I'll respond about the Signpost article.
It's about how a convicted sex offender can edit (or have edited for him) the Wikipedia article about himself. I hope I'll convince people of that simple proposition even before they get to the first word of the body of the text. The body of the text just gives the context of the Epstein case in case people don't remember it, gives the history of our article about him, and shows how the article was interfered with by editors who appeared to be very biased in his favor. Then I present the evidence that those editors were paid or otherwise associated with Epstein. But does it matter? The next section gives one example where our article helped alert a university that they should not allow Epstein to whitewash his reputation through them, but the warning from Wikipedia was not quite enough. Thus he was allowed to continue his sexual predations for another few years.
In truth, it's hard to blame the Wikipedia community for this. We did a pretty good job. But the pro-Epstein editors were just successful enough.
Does it really matter? Damn right it does. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
No it's great, Smallbones, thanks. You're right I made very little sense at all and was pretty rude. I was trying to reason with something that I don't truly understand. Sorry Jimbo, and Smallbones, ~ R.T.G 08:28, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
@RTG: I'm sorry if it looked like I was complaining about your post. I think this page is a good place to put up some exploratory thought-provoking stuff. I was just a bit nervous about the article and probably thought - "somebody must be attacking it". But on a rereading it's not at all that way. My bad. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:40, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Smallbones, no not at all with the article but there was a dumbass meme going around I just could not find a way of injecting concern into. P.I.Ellsworth, Trump deflects deeper public criticism onto his social escapades as easily as a puff of air deflects a snowflake. Trump has paid a lot of money to be associated and compared to Epstein and Weinstein, but I cannot see it as fair to assume that alone as evidence of complicity in any crimes let alone equation to the leaders. In fact, checking just now out of interest, the cop in charge of Epsteins criminal case in 2009 apparently was very careful to deflect suspicion from Trump in particular.[1] At the end of the day we don't know what people get up to and we don't know if there was some big conspiracy against Epstein either, but if I was getting repeated trouble for socialising with underage girls I just happened to meet, particularly if I was so rich I could pour money on any girl I wanted... I'd be inclined to avoid them altogether for the time being, unless I did indeed have some sort of problem or business concern. I've had various associations with young girls, and boys myself, and rightly considered some of them my very good friends, but I would not take them out drinking and drugging with elites for instance, or anything untoward, and it's usually a rare occasion that you become a close friend of someone with little kids, while it is always a rare occasion when you become friends with a kid off the street without their parents around, particularly if it isn't your street where you live at. What can I say in this situation... Little kids know they are little kids. Behaving like an adult is attractive to them, but they do not expect you to try and provide that, so if you do try to provide that, it's on you. If a child tries to push you into that situation, there's a serious problem with the child, and it is also on you to recognise that and be firmly against it, so there isn't any true excuses. Apologies to my internet provider for being a day late! ~ R.T.G 13:07, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
To editor RTG: Don Trump does have some good qualities... he's decisive, he has a keen instinct for defense, which can be seen by the way he defends us against our enemies abroad. That also translates to the way he defends himself. He'll stop at nothing to defend his every action. His qualifications for the office of POTUS are reminiscent of those of generals. They are usually great generals in the military; however, they haven't a clue when it comes to leading an entire country. Trump is a great businessman; however, that qualification only gets you so far, and usually not far enough, when it comes to running a government the size of the United States's. I don't think he is aware of his limitations, which is his greatest weakness. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 15:15, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I see him as a business and hospitality personality, PI, which is what he is professionally. I think it is a mistake to prefer the professional senses of a general as the ideal for the top level leader. In America the speaker of the house is generally your prime minister, but in many systems, the speaker is a neutral position to serve administration of the proceeding debate. Though I am not sure if it can fit in with requirements of the day, I believe that neutral administrative position, a sort of chair of the proceeding, should be the expected role of the leader of the country. The article Speaker of the United States House of Representatives describes the speaker of Westminster as "scrupulously non-partisan". Such a speaker simply calls the order of debate, calls time on speeches and questions, calls to order and contempt, and is basically the magistrate of the house, the sovereign of the court itself, though not of the law itself. Admittedly it is difficult to demand an utter pacifism from an America in the targets of a disarrayed Arab world, but your demand for an end to such hostility and responses to threats can only be more fully validated with a view on a more pleasant landing. If you lay down the dream while you respond to those who have challenged it, you may win the war, but they'll have tainted the dream you have cultured into your world for almost a hundred years now. ~ R.T.G 17:19, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
A tangent, but no I don't see Trump as a general, and nor would I like to, as little as it can mean from a foreigner. ~ R.T.G 17:24, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
S'all good. My only little problem is why do it to Epstein and others, and then let Trump get away with it? He's gotten away with so much, and many of us just look the other way. Whassup wi' dat? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 15:47, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't think you realize what a sacrifice that would be. Just in time spent it would be a huge challenge. And to be fair a similar investigation would have to be done for the articles on Biden. So let's say somebody came to me with "proof" that one of the above was messing with their articles to the same extent the Epstein appears to have done. I just don't think that Wikipedia or The Signpost would be ready for that. So what I'd likely do is is check out the story and double the investigation, double the "proof". Then I'd chicken out and just send it to another journalist who would do their own investigation and print it if it fully checks out. There are places that would print that. So everybody has limits on what they can accomplish - go check out your own. Happy April Fools Day! Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:31, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
That's not funny, Smallbones! It's not the least bit humorous nor tactful, nor is it remotely helpful. And Happy April Fools Day to you, too! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 15:23, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the truth is much more important than Verifiability.

I think the truth is much more important than Verifiability because even if it is a lie, it will be posted just because it exists as a sentence. I think the truth is more important than Verifiability, because the content of the encyclopedia must not be a lie. 126.140.167.213 (talk) 16:13, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

But how can we assure that the truth is correct? The fact we cannot always verify the truth is why we aim for Verifiability over Truth. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 16:20, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Verifiability is how we determine the difference between facts and Truth™. If you want to see an encyclopaedia based on Truth™, see Conservapedia. Guy (help!) 16:24, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
I think Truth™ is overrated.-Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 16:28, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
"Truth" is a straw-man word because of it's multiple meanings, some of them being the opposite of evidence-based accuracy. A much better word is "accuracy" and in cases where objective WP:Accuracy exists, it should be a primary goal and WP:Verifiability a means to that end.North8000 (talk) 16:54, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
North8000, we still have the problem that in some people's minds accuracy is the opposite of what verifiability says. Homeopaths, for example. Guy (help!) 17:12, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
That's why wp:verifiability is so important. And it works 99% of the time and backfires 1% of the time. A few tweaks would reduce that 1% North8000 (talk) 17:24, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Truth is not always so simple, 126+. I walk outside and there's not a cloud in the sky, so my Truth is "the sky is blue"; you live somewhere else, and you walk outside and all you see are clouds, so your Truth is "the sky is gray"; someone on the other side of the world walks outside and all they see are stars and planets, so their Truth is "the sky is black". Truth can be complicated sometimes, and that's why Wikipedia does not try to discern the Truth. Instead, Wikipedia relies on editors who support their Truth with reliable, independent, secondary sources. That is encyclopedic while Truth can sometimes be less than encyclopedic. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 17:07, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Truth is subjective, as the truth of one entity is often different from that of another. That which is verifiable is far more important - many different cultures hold different truths, for example, and yet all are bound to recognize more verifiable facts (such as geology and mathematics). SamHolt6 (talk) 17:09, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, cannibals think other people taste good! How 'bout ya'll? (could you put in a little chocolate sauce?) P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 17:24, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Those are subjective areas. There are also objective areas. BTW, by precise terminology, "the sky is blue" is ambiguous. "To a person with standard vision, standing on the ground during full daylight, when the air is clear and cloudless, the sky appears to be blue" is not ambiguous and objectively accurate. Or, if you accept "the sky is blue" in commonspeak to mean all of that, then so is "the sky is blue" . North8000 (talk) 17:28, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
People don't taste people, people taste meat. Just like chicken, dinner can go terrible in the wrong hands. I know of at least two cannibals who told police their victim's remains were too unpalatable to finish more than a mouthful. Not fair to paint the whole bunch as happy about it. If you believe in wendigo, hating the flavour like nothing else is the whole point of the curse. Famine survivors historically leave "mixed-to-poor" reviews. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:52, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Eating meat is precisely why most people don't taste good. That's why we prefer cow, chicken and pig meat instead of wolf, eagle and the meat of other meat eaters. It's the vegetarians and vegans that taste best! ...apparently. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 12:07, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Quite so...apparently! InedibleHulk (talk) 12:34, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Sorry Paine Ellsworth ... Wikipedia don't want editors with good taste, Wikipedia wants editors that taste good! EEng 15:22, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
heh – you really should be tuna'd for that one! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 18:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Truth tends to have little or no value without verification. To gain value without verification, truth requires faith, belief, or understanding. As essential as they are to humanity, these subjects are all generally rejected and/or relegated by society. ~ R.T.G 14:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
We are not born with a taste for solid food. It is forced (forced is too strong a word, but solid food is gently pressed on us until we realise we like it, whereas with true force, it is more about the success of the force than the acceptance of the food, apologies, 23:30 30/03/2020) upon us. We usually accept it quickly, and therefore understate its origin, but taste is acquired. Further, we acquire taste through the mouth, but hunger and desire are controlled by the gut, the second brain. The gut expresses deficiency, and that which experiences taste wishes for whatever it previously associates with satiating the deficiency in the gut. However, we can only desire the tastes we have already experienced. If you've never tasted an apple, you cannot hunger for one and will be prone to reject its taste. Further, we distance ourselves socially from one another from an early age. This behaviour is instituted in certain forms to promote behaviour, but it becomes a selective attitude as we seek to thrive socially. When we get older and reject things like defining the truth, it is not truth itself which we reject, but the associations we have made as we struggle to cope and thrive in the world around us. If the truth is not at first tasty, try garnishing it with some sugar. Tomato sauces are excellent for giving us sugar without realisation. Douse your sprouts with pasta sauce. Gradually your gut will come to realise that the sprouts are equally as sweet, and will not reject the pasta sauce, but will learn to crave the fuller nutrition. Identify what the prevailing tastes are, and slip some of the truth in where it may seem relevant and interesting. The taste becomes familiar and is craved... It's an age old story, and this much does not even constitute a preface. :)~ ~ R.T.G 16:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I just wanted to let everybody know that there is Truth out there and it's published every day, so we can can just quote it for all topics that it covers. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:19, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

We should not even be discussing "truth". That word has so many different meanings that it is ambiguous at best. The word has also done a lot of damage to Wikipedia. It has been a straw-man substitute for the word "accuracy" in order to mis-state the goals of those who say that we should strive for accuracy, with wp:verifiability being a way to help achieve that. North8000 (talk) 19:14, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

"Truth is dead! We have killed it." Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:36, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Truth! Truth? You can't handle the truth!" Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
"Trust the Midas touch!" InedibleHulk (talk) 01:13, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Truth isn’t truth. Count Iblis (talk) 18:20, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Anyway... while on the one hand "verifyibility not truth" is (properly) the operative paradim, you can run things into the ground the other way and go down some dark paths... paths that lead to "well, I know its not true, but its verified by this reliable source, so we can use it". Actually, its more likely to be "I neither know nor care if its true. I don't have to worry about that: it's from a reliable source, so it stays in, end of discussion."

Problem with that is, one, sources are mostly a good deal less reliable than you think, and two, "Well it says it in this reliable source" is understandable cos we're busy, but if someone is able and willing to vet more thoroughly, it shouldn't trump "Well but I did such-and-such investigation, here's my sources and methods and results, and it turns out it's not actually true".

But it does, sometimes. =/ Herostratus (talk) 01:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Truth is overrated. Modern man: "Our planet's regular rotation while orbiting the sun causes the cycle of night and day." Primitive man: "The Great Ball of Fire rises in the morning, and sets in the evening, with darkness in between." Both statements are "true" relative to understanding at the time. Future Man:  ? (Who knows...but it will probably be more informed than our current understanding). So I think the conveyance of our current (objective) understanding of a subject, based on the (verifiable) information available to us currently, should be the goal (with a sprinkling of scepticism on top). Ditch ∝ 05:22, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia should give a summary of what reliable sources say, but reliable sources are not infallible. I've come across various situations where a "reliable" source said something that clearly wasn't correct, but WP:NOTTRUTH applies here.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:30, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Interesting. "...where a "reliable" source said something that clearly wasn't correct..." So when does a reliable source become unreliable? Ditch ∝ 05:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
One of the most common reasons for "reliable" sources getting it wrong is churnalism. In the age of the Internet, many news organizations have actual news gathering staff far smaller than you might think. In many cases they are using agency material taken from elsewhere. This means that it is published without any further fact checking. You cannot assume that anything in the modern news media has been personally checked by the journalist whose name is given at the top of the story.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 05:55, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
There's an interesting anecdote at Talk:Battle of Adwa#Casualties about "truth" & "verification". Sometimes when a reliable source claims something that just feels wrong, it requires further & careful investigation & not simply accepting it because of Wikipedia rules or experts have forgotten more on the subject than you will ever learn. -- llywrch (talk) 17:45, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
No source is reliable for all facts. Even Der Spiegel, which has a whole floor of people doing nothing but checking facts, has made errors. Each statement of fact is, acttually, subject to individual vetting: "The Los Angeles Times is a generally reliable source, and I have no cause to dispute any of the other statements in the article, but I checked out this one statement and it turns out there's a fair chance its not true" is a perfectly valid and useful thing to say. (Of course you want to show your work.) "So what" is a less valid and useful thing to say, if in reply.
Fun fact: trade books are not better sources than blogs, usually. Neither are independently fact checked (usually), and in both you are entirely dependent on your confidence in the author (which is determined by various means, none perfect). A statement of fact in a personal blog by a Comic Book Guy is usually as likely to be true -- more likely, really -- than a statement of fact in a bestselling popular history book by a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Any given statement in either is very very likely to be true, but the first guy is an absolute fanatic about getting stuff like which issue Wonder Man debuted in, and the second guy is eager to get the book off to the publisher and isn't obsessed with double-checking to get the precise number of aircraft embarked on the Zuikako on May 12 1943 correct -- he's more focused on describing the general tenor of naval operations at that time and where the Zuikako fit in.
And that's only one of things about reliable sources that you all are wrong about. There're lots more! Herostratus (talk) 02:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Fun story

Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia. There's also a WP-article: Wikimedia Foundation v. WordLogic Corporation et al. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:59, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Question I have for you

I don't know if you know this, but for a while on April Fools, The 2020 AF page was continuously vandalized by having multiple sections from articles integrated into the page, with your user page included. [Here is an example]. What do you think of this? OcelotCreeper (talk) 01:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #1 – Discussion tools

Read this in another language • Subscription list

Screenshot showing what the Reply tool looks like
This early version of the Reply tool automatically signs and indents comments.

The Editing team has been working on the talk pages project. The goal of the talk pages project is to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. This project is the result of the Talk pages consultation 2019.

Reply tool improved with edit tool buttons
In a future update, the team plans to test a tool for easily linking to another user's name, a rich-text editing option, and other tools.

The team is building a new tool for replying to comments now. This early version can sign and indent comments automatically. Please test the new Reply tool.

  • On 31 March 2020, the new reply tool was offered as a Beta Feature editors at four Wikipedias: Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian. If your community also wants early access to the new tool, contact User:Whatamidoing (WMF).
  • The team is planning some upcoming changes. Please review the proposed design and share your thoughts on the talk page. The team will test features such as:
    • an easy way to mention another editor ("pinging"),
    • a rich-text visual editing option, and
    • other features identified through user testing or recommended by editors.

To hear more about Editing Team updates, please add your name to the "Get involved" section of the project page. You can also watch these pages: the main project page, Updates, Replying, and User testing.

– PPelberg (WMF) (talk) & Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 15:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

≥ Wikimedia Foundation's data center in Asia ≤

Sockpuppet trolling, now blocked
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

I just saw Wikimedia Foundation's data centers and I have been wondering about if Wikimedia Foundation selected Singapore to build its data center, why it didn't choose Taiwan where the plain land supply is abundant in the nation's south?

Thanks for having me here! --Reciprocater (talk) 21:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question. However, I will say that we don't really "build data centers" if you are imagining that we have our own building there. We are a customer of Equinix and have some servers in their facility. Normally the criteria for choosing where to locate servers has to do with pricing, capacity, the speed of light (it matters, which is why it's good to have geographically close by 'edge caches', which is what the page you linked says that the Singapore servers are).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:24, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
speed of light – What nonsense! The speed of light is the same everywhere on earth. EEng 06:05, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
So is the pull of gravity, but it's still quicker and easier to fall off a horse than it is to get back on a condor (something about distancing). InedibleHulk (talk) 14:33, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply! Hopefully, we could see more presence and investment of the WMF, who runs the freest and progressive online encyclopedia on the planet, in the nation's south where the nation on the move has once again been ranked as the second-freest country across Asia.[1][2][3][4][5] :) --Reciprocater (talk) 16:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
Here is some background about how Singapore was chosen. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you not only for the reply but also for the detailed information. Thank you very much. Together and united, freedom and progressive values will prevail in the end. :) --Reciprocater (talk) 15:17, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Continued the thread above: Paid-version of Wikipedia that permits paid-contribution that is meant to support a more efficient and higher-quality debate among democratic processes around the world!

By seeing Given the aim of the project and our current network structure, only a select few cities within SE/E Asia are viable candidates in terms of network topology at all. On this front, we're looking at how the cities fare on being well-connected to a large number of submarine cables, hosting open and widely-used peering exchanges, having multiple carrier-neutral datacenter vendor options, and overall latency to populations across the region. Basic infrastructure issues like utility reliability are a concern here as well. On these fronts alone, the top two ideal locations were Singapore and Hong Kong. Tokyo was a third-place option with some caveats. Taipei and Seoul were possible last-resort backup choices if all else failed, but significantly less ideal than even Tokyo (to the point that we might have to rationally re-evaluate many aspects of the project). from Decision making of choosing Singapore to host Wikipedia, it strikes me that just being free and democratic is not enough 😥, executive power is another key factor to guarantee a country's future prosperity. (ﾟヮﾟ)ヾ(•ω•`) Perhaps democracy and freedom don't prevail over authoritarian leadership because the democratic process is often time-consuming and therefore lacks executive power. User:Jimbo Wales, how do you think about this? Maybe Wikipedia can consider opening another Wikipedia that permits paid-contribution, which, I expect, will provide incentives to people all around the world to argue about the local issues they care for based on Wikipedia's Five Pillars, leading to a faster and higher-quality democratic process all around the world! People will then study reliable sources before they argue and governments' public projects will no longer be postponed anymore by any low-quality quarrels between citizens who don't study reliable sources. Of course, I anticipate the Wikimedia Foundation to hire people to fulfill the obligation of administrator that tirelessly enforces Wikipedia's Five Pillars in the paid-version of Wikipedia in order to demonstrate what is called the executive power. We can really make good use of Capitalism which is a friend of Democracy. It's impossible to talk about Democracy alone without saying Capitalism; they're bound together as everyone on the planet requires to earn money for the sake of survival and at the same time everyone also deserves freedom which is not identical to non-government state, which is also why I believe strong civilian society requires its citizens to study WP:reliable sources prior to they argue.

Please feel free to let me know you think! 🙂

--Reciprocater (talk) 18:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Reciprocater, For one, not sure what this has to do with the above thread. For second, I read your statement as asking for Wikipedia to pay people for their edits: where praytell would such money come from? Wikipedia has thrived where others have failed because it is free, works on the efforts of dedicated volunteers, and can be edited by anyone. Wikipedia seems to be doing pretty well without having to pay contributors, we remain the world's foremost encyclopedia and among its best knowledge sources. I fail to see the need to pay folks, and can see lots of problems if we did. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
@CaptainEek: I meant that Wikipedia Beta (The version of Wikipedia that permits WP:COI) pays for its administrator who serve as a neutral judge on the Wikipedia Beta version to resolve the dispute over specific local issues between two parties who're paid by their investors behind to edit on Wikipedia Beta to express their parties' views to the public. Wikimedia Foundation only needs to pay Wikipedia Beta's administrators. Editors on Wikipedia Beta are going to be supported by the local environment protection organizations or oil refinery factory that wants to expand its scale that may increase plumes of smoke billowed from the chimney. The two parties in question can be government and NGO who opposes the government's construction plan. --Reciprocater (talk) 07:15, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
For one, not sure what this has to do with the above thread. Look, Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia chose some partly free, non-democratic countries to host their website due to the reasons that those countries have better infrastructures or kinds of stuff like that.[3][5][6] This reminds me that just being free and democratic is insufficient. In democratic country, we probably have seen too much populism that in turn delays their countries' future growth. Populism has no place in Wikipedia because Wikipedia is rule-based with excellent rules.--Reciprocater (talk) 07:31, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
According to WP:DEM Wikipedia isn't an experiment in any political system. About Taiwan: China could invade it at any moment, you never know when they decide to practice what they preach. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
It's not really politics. It's more of people's welfare and the aspiration to seek the truth. I can say the reason for Taiwan fails to deliver a better infrastructure than Singapore and Hong Kong is because Taiwan is the second-freest country in Asia. Because in those non-democracies, any major investment rolled out by the government doesn't involve citizens' participation; but in Taiwan, if the government plans to build a sewage sewer, it could then encounter a great deal of diverse WP:OR that end up delay the progress of the modernization of Taiwan. The root cause for the trend that democracy is losing competitiveness to authoritarian leadership is because citizens in a democracy tend to do WP:OR rather than read WP:RS before they argue. If this habit continues, democracy will keep losing ground.
As Jimbo tends to talk about broader values that include freedom of speech and other universal values we all share, I would like to suggest that the Wikimedia Foundation might have such responsibility to make our future world towards democracy by creating a new platform called Wikipedia Beta to provide incentives to civilians in the democracy to read before they argue. As I said, Wikipedia Beta only needs to pay its administrators; general editors on Wikipedia Beta are supposed to be funded by the interest groups behind such as government who wants to complete sewage sewer construction and those civilians who don't want sewage sewer to pass by their home and show objections to the construction. --Reciprocater (talk) 08:14, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
This is especially true when you learn China's third-line, fourth-line cities are now enjoying LRT while some second-line cities in Taiwan are still stuck in the so-called democratic processes that involve citizens' participation in which two sides are debating based on their self-invented concepts. If this tendency keeps going forward, Taiwan will collapse itself and beg for China's care. What a shame for democracy. As far as I know, such nonsense also happens across other non-English-speaking democracies. Can you imagine one day that those English-speaking nations are surrounded by authoritarian states? --Reciprocater (talk) 08:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Since Export makes up a nation's GDP, native English speakers' way of life will sooner or later be squeezed to the extent that we will feel so sorry for our offsprings that we can't do something bold and correct right now. QQ--Reciprocater (talk) 09:20, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Politicians don't dare to request their citizens to read WP:RS because it can risk their own political careers. Wikipedia Beta can be like Wikipedia that features anonymity and thus allows editors to do the right thing without distraction. (Look! This is why high-quality journals feature anonymous peer review. ) --Reciprocater (talk) 09:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Look, this move would not provide Wikimedia with executive power, but remove it from them and offer it outwardly, in return for extra finance. This is called political spin. ~ R.T.G 14:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    • Hmm...Thank you for sharing your opinion. But is that so? Is Capitalism really that bad? Is it a zero-sum game, in which Capitalism gains what Democracy loses? But when we look at the jurisdiction system, judges are paid by the government but remain independent from the government. Furthermore, the decision-making process of Wikipedia is open to the public. Therefore, I feel Wikipedia Beta is worth a try. :) --Reciprocater (Talk) 16:07, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
      Reciprocater, Wikipedia is not a critique on capitalism, nor is it an experiment in democracy. It is a collaborative encyclopedia. It has worked very well by using only volunteers for 20 years, and I think that is exactly the reason its worked so well. Realistically, I see essentially zero chance that we would ever have a version of Wikipedia that paid its administrators. There are so many barriers to establishing such a system (How much? Who? How would you stop a flood of people applying for adminship just because they want a paycheck and don't give a damn about Wikipedia?) and rather little reason to do so. If you're suggesting Wikipedia Beta be a separate entity where all the WP:PAID editors go, I can't imagine paid editors listening to us and not using regular Wikipedia. Regardless, I don't think the problem of paid and COI editing is going to be fixed by adding more money into the process. Smooth sailing, CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:46, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I would have to respectfully disagree with you on the point regarding your concerns, perhaps reconsider my replies beneath would be a better idea? I do appreciate your effort in editing the article and taking the time to discuss this topic here.

  • Reply to CaptainEek: It has worked very well by using only volunteers for 20 years, and I think that is exactly the reason its worked so well. But how to explain the quality of chronic lung disease that is a comorbidity that has been associated with severe illness and mortality in those contracting SARS-CoV2? Furthermore, editors at WP:MED generally believe that there's still a long way to go. So I am sorry, but I am skeptical about your optimism. In addition, we can't just only focus on English Wikipedia while many other languages of Wikipedia are served as de facto online free disinformation repositories, which is the best demonstration of lacking executive power. Not to mention, some other language Wikipedia articles are written by automated bots.
  • Reply to CaptainEeK:Realistically, I see essentially zero chance that we would ever have a version of Wikipedia that paid its administrators. There are so many barriers to establishing such a system (How much? Who? How would you stop a flood of people applying for adminship just because they want a paycheck and don't give a damn about Wikipedia?) and rather little reason to do so. If you're suggesting Wikipedia Beta be a separate entity where all the WP:PAID editors go, I can't imagine paid editors listening to us and not using regular Wikipedia. Well, I am talking about spirits composed of Democracy and Capitalism with Jimbo. Concerning how to achieve these spirits, I believe Jimbo has a strong team behind to provide assistance. Again, before we push back any constructive advice at this moment in time, we need to ask ourselves i.e., what if we're ending up surrounded by authoritarian nations?
  • Reply to CaptainEeK: Perhaps my wording was not precise, you may want to think of democracy I mentioned above as Wikipedia's WP:5P.
  • Reply to CaptainEeK: If you're suggesting Wikipedia Beta be a separate entity where all the WP:PAID editors go, I can't imagine paid editors listening to us and not using regular Wikipedia. "Pessimists (or realists) may get things right more often than optimists because they see the world in its current form, but the optimists see the world as it could be and sculpt their experiences to mirror their imagination. Only the optimists can change the world." [7] I somehow believe Jimbo must have been an optimist because this is how Wikipedia was born when there would have (been) too much to worry.
  • Reply to CaptainEeK: The every rationale behind the suggestion of introduction of Capitalism into Wikipedia is to support Wikipedians to ensure the quality of articles in their circles. I just think that We should not end up doing nothing after all the incredible loss and pain such as refuge crisis, the downing of jets out of human conflicts, pandemic, declining Democracy, etc. we have witnessed or undergone.

I have been incubating a plan and will show here when it is almost done. I am open to people's feedback or criticism.

I really appreciate all of your kindness!

Best wishes --Reciprocater (Talk) 18:13, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Taiwan ranked Asia's 2nd freest country on Freedom House index; World has seen 14-year decline in global freedom: report". Taiwan News. 2020-03-05. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  2. ^ Affairs, Ministry of Foreign; Taiwan (2018-12-12). "Human Freedom Index ranks Taiwan 2nd in Asia, 10th globally". Taiwan Today. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  3. ^ a b "Freedom House rates 210 countries and territories in Freedom in the World, and 65 countries in Freedom on the Net". Freedom House. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
  4. ^ "Internet Freedom Scores". Freedom House. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
  5. ^ a b "A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy". Freedom House. Retrieved 2020-03-18.
  6. ^ Decision making of choosing Singapore to host Wikipedia
  7. ^ Cawthorn, Sam (2020). How to bounce forward : Change the Way You Deal with Adversity. New York: Wiley. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-7303-8205-8. OCLC 1138708683.

Space for improvement

Hi Jimbo, congratulation for the project, I was optimist, but we really made it work !

Recently people have been asking in talk pages a lot of questions about COVID-19 (obviously). I know we are not a medical forum of any sort, but seeing with how much carelessness those people are put in a box or just reverted citing WP:FORUM, I can't help but to notice how simple some of those questions are and how it could really be a question of life and death for someone. Wouldn't be better to refer them to a source or an article we have instead of basically muting them ?

I feel we can do better. Much better on that front. Iluvalar (talk) 02:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

WP-wear

I like the Illusion page shirt, but I won't pay €300 for it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:33, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

These are kind of cool but outrageously expensive. What is the thinking behind directing WikiMedia staff to spend time on fashion branding? Is there really a market for Wikipedia emblazoned shirts for hundreds of pounds? I mean, if readers have that kind of money to spend, it's better that they contribute directly than give it to a fashion merchandiser who gives "a part of the profit" to the Foundation. JMHO. Liz Read! Talk! 15:15, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Even the models seem to have a problem with wearing them. They have, "Why the hell did they make me wear this thing?" looks on their faces. Whatever happened to selling things with a smile? Can make all the difference. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 15:32, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
It would be a little cool if they made those shirts on the article of your choice. The market among various geeks and fans could be considerable. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
That's typical model face. They don't really smile any more. Liz Read! Talk! 23:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I've seen happier expressions in police booking photos for felony crimes. -- llywrch (talk) 17:50, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I mean, peruse the ads in the New Yorker or whatever. If you're not conveying the impression that you're a spoiled douchebag who is bitter about being exceptionally attractive and well paid to stand around and be fussed over, you're doing it wrong, apparently.
The point of charging €300 is wealth signalling for the buyer, of course. Herostratus (talk) 02:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Or it's an extreme reaction to the American smile, because the style-setters have decided it's no longer kewl. -- llywrch (talk) 05:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
"This guy must be rich, he's wearing WP-printed stuff." Well, perhaps they'll get there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:41, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
And do they sell this shirt? SemiHypercube 🎂 20:11, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Granting WMF trademark licenses for the purpose of selling Wikipedia-branded clothes at prohibitive prices is, to put it mildly, questionable. It seems to go against the spirit of the Wikimedia 2030 strategy too. --MarioGom (talk) 13:49, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
If you don't approve of using our name for the purpose of hawking overpriced goods, you're possibly on the wrong talkpage. ‑ Iridescent 14:20, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, at least the merchandise is getting better. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 04:19, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Hello. :)

Cmrn96 (talk) 17:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

To Jimmy Wales.

I confess that I am very impressed with your project.

When I first heard about the idea of an encyclopedia, that anyone could edit, it seemed absurd to me. I am, as a 'senior citizen' more used to getting my information from books.

But this experiment seems to have worked out very well. I congratulate you for your idea and I congratulate you and your staff on the work that you do to disseminate human knowledge. This should NOT be a commodity and your organisation is working to ensure that it does not become such.

Today I have been impressed by your coverage of Covid-19 and coronavirus. I have found information, for which I have searched on Public Health England and the Centers For Disease Control, concerning the lifetime of the virus and the means of eradicating it. I have found that information right here - on Wikipedia.

I have been impressed in the past by the depth of information available. I never expected to find pages on every actor/actress, director, film or TV program which you could possibly think of and, when I found a page on 'Mafia speak', I was quite stunned.

Congratulations to you all. Keep up the good work. It's for all mankind.

Anonymous.

83.216.145.199 (talk) 13:28, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Time Capsule

Hi Jimbo, I have a suggestion:

a Wikipedia Time Capsule for Wikipedia's 20th anniversary. SpinnerLaserz (talk) 03:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd donate the hoodie Sue Gardner gave me. EllenCT (talk) 23:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm quite interested in people's ideas on this. We've got until January to organizing something amazing. But what can we do in that time to properly reflect how amazing 20 years of Wikipedia has been? Warning: I may borrow some of your ideas for the next issue of The Signpost. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:01, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe one of the shirts could go in the time capsule.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:20, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The 50,000 Destubbing Challenge

If anybody is interested I've created a 50,000 article long term challenge. It's gradually gaining momentum but needs more contributors long term if we are to achieve it by 2030. To get 50,000 stubs improved I think would be a great achievement! † Encyclopædius 20:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Minutes of the November 9, 2018 Board of Trustees meeting

Please see David Gerard's wikimedia-l message pointing out the proposal with its concordant pre-determined decisions advanced in the foundation:Minutes/2018-11-9,10,11#Branding Board meeting. Is that why no Board meeting minutes have been published for over a year on the eve of a new Board election? EllenCT (talk) 21:01, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

There is no relation between the two at all. I don't agree with David's interpretation of the situation at all. There were no pre-determined outcomes in the 2018-11 board meeting, nor do the minutes say that there were. The idea that this was or is being imposed by fiat from the top is simply a distracting and manifestly false narrative.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Well what is the hold up with publishing the minutes? By the way, did you watch the "Concept Presentation"? "Comments are turned off" and the live chat transcript -- which had several hundred comments from dozens of decades-long community members including high-level functionaries during the presentation -- has been removed from the video. [Update: the chat transcript is back.] On Zoom, the managers involved, including a C-suite Officer, were present and had their cameras on, but never spoke, letting their line workers be the only public faces recorded on the published video. The selected "unifying concept," "interconnection," was not one of the 23 concepts on which the community had been asked to comment and "like." Could anything be more top-down and willfully ignorant of community input? I note that the next stage, developing a naming convention, has been removed from the community involvement checklist after I, as had been requested previously, provided an actual naming convention from a peer reviewed literature review in informatics. Since then, the community involvement checklist has been removed from the project timeline. Do you believe that the project management is actually desirous of any further community involvement; if so, what evidence do you see? EllenCT (talk) 17:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Labor unionization

Jimbo, it has recently come to my attention that many Foundation employees already enjoy the advantages of membership in a labor union. However, none of the employees who have been asked to be the public face of unpopular decisions from the c-suite (including falsification of statistics for which such officers have been forced to apologize after a lengthy period of requiring their rank-and-file to attempt to justify them) enjoy the same advantages. Would you have any objections to union stewards of Foundation employee unions organizing the remaining line workers? EllenCT (talk) 01:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo, consider this: "RebrandingWikimedia.org would have been provocative." To whom? Not the community. Not the board. Not to you or me. It's a completely milquetoast name for what would have been, under that name, a completely uncontroversial project (beyond the question of why money is being spent on it when the legal department hasn't addressed the continuing blatant paid editing from Status Labs for the better part of a decade.) Not to any Foundation employees other than one: the same c-suite manager who asked Zack and his colleagues to misrepresent their own survey statistics until she was forced to apologize. How else could it possibly appear provocative from Zack's perspective? EllenCT (talk) 21:00, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

How do you make your money?

RESOLVED
Astoundingly*, the OP turns out to be a sockpuppet.
  • Not astoundingly at all.

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


Note: This message is for Jimbo and Jimbo ONLY. It should be answered by Jimbo or not answered at all.

I am seriously confused. You run a 'free encyclopedia', yet numerous sources have stated your net worth is about $1 million US dollars. In an interview with The Guardian, you stated was salary "isn't Silicon Valley money. It's not even London money." You have made numerous attempts to downplay your wealth.

Moreover, you have hundreds of thousands of editors slaving away for free. You are not paying them, yet time and time again I see begging messages from you on this website trying to ask users for money. What the hell are you doing with money that is donated? Where are you getting your money from? --Stringency Auditicale (talk) 06:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Stringency Auditicale, It is unlikely you'll get Jimbo's response, but I've been wrong before :) Jimbo is not paid by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation [2], whom oversees Wikipedia. Jimbo gets his money from speaking engagements and Wikia, which is seperate from Wikipedia and its sister projects [3]. He's certainly not poor, but he's no Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, not even close.
The money that Wikipedia asks folks for, raised by donation, goes to keep the servers running and the Wikimedia Foundation employees paid. As one of the world's largest and most visited websites, Wikipedia maintains large server farms to host all of its data. Those need to be built, maintained, and kept on. The Foundation also uses the money on its several hundred employees. They are not doing the day-to-day editing, but rather keeping Wikipedia as an organization alive. That includes lawyers (Wikipedia gets sued several times everyday, though no-ones been successful yet), coders and computer scientists to build the back-end, public relations folks, and a bevy of other individuals required to operate projects in hundreds languages that sees billions of views each month. The Wikimedia foundation is funded entirely by donation, which ensures that it is not beholden to corporate interests or its subjects. It is beholden only to its readers. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 07:06, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Stringency Auditicale, I suggest you try to read the Jimmy Wales article (e.g. its Jimmy Wales#Wikimedia Foundation section, containing e.g. "[Wales's] work for the foundation, including his appearances to promote it at computer and educational conferences, has always been unpaid.[1]"), which may already answer part of your question, before coming here and trying to alter the rules on whoever can answer questions posted on this talk page.

References

  1. ^ Brennen, Jensen (June 26, 2006). "Access for All". The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Vol. 18, no. 18.
--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for this excellent answer. You have eased all of our collective worries. Often, over-hyped Wikipedia admins immediately shut down anything considered to be critical of Jimbo on here, but you didn't do that. --Stringency Auditicale (talk) 07:28, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
It looks like this has been answered already but I wanted to add some details myself. First, "you stated was salary 'isn't Silicon Valley money. It's not even London money.'". There's clearly a typo in there but for clarity that is not a quote of me, as I've never said that.
Second, as noted, I have never taken a salary from the Wikimedia Foundation. Further, I generally don't take expense reimbursements for my work as a board member - I typically pay for my own flights. There are exceptions: when I've been asked by the Foundation to specifically go on a diplomatic mission to meet officials on a trip that I wouldn't have taken otherwise, I do let the Foundation cover my travel expenses (hotel+flight). Sometimes when we have a board retreat, the Foundation bulk books rooms in a hotel and I take one of the rooms. There are also some meals covered. I may have forgotten some other minor specifics but the overall point is that I don't have an "expense account" in the normal sense.
Third, the main way that I make money on a day to day basis is through giving speeches - typically at tech conferences, corporate events, and universities. As you can well imagine, my income for the coming here has been put entirely on hold as conferences and events of all kinds globally have been cancelled or postponed.
Fourth, I don't think it's generally true at all that admins typically shut down anything considered to be critical of me. In this particular case, there's no reason to shut anything down because as far as I know, there isn't really any substantial criticism of how I earn money. Certainly, I find it very helpful in terms of my work fundraising (for the endowment fund, for example) that I can say: I'm a volunteer, I'm not asking for money for me, but for the project.
Finally, the press loves to make a big deal out of me not being a billionaire, but I think that's rather stupid. I don't think I've made "numerous attempts to downplay my wealth" unless that means that I don't find it a particularly interesting topic. I have a lovely house outside London and I'm here with my family on lockdown. My main hobby is cooking (you could check out my Instagram for food pictures!) and I'm doing a lot of that these days. I'm not poor, and I don't make any apologies for the money that I do have. For me, though, the primary reward is not money but a very interesting life.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
CaptainEek also suggested Wikia in their reply above: afaik Wikia has been renamed and/or split, traded, etc. Are internet-related sources of revenue (like former Bomis etc) completely out of the picture by now? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Wikia has been rebranded to Fandom, to more accurately reflect the communities there. I'm still a board member and shareholder. I don't take a salary there. The company is doing spectacularly well lately (though the current economic situation is hurting, as it is hurting everywhere) and I expect that in the future, I will make money from it in some liquidity event or another. But it isn't really how I make money right now in a day to day sense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
Fandom.com claims "over 200 million monthly uniques" which is about 22% of the English Wikipedia. According to what looks like a reasonable answer on Quora (in which you also hold stock, if I remember right) that works out to a gross income of about a billion dollars or more annually. Assuming you ended up with a typical proportion of founders stock, I agree wholeheartedly that press saying you aren't a billionaire is stupid. EllenCT (talk) 21:30, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
While that would be lovely, the numbers aren't remotely similar to that. I'm not at liberty to discuss revenue figures, but you're off by an order of magnitude. Also, remember that the company has had several rounds of major investment, and I've had a divorce, so my ownership percentage is a lot lower than what you might imagine. :) I'm very far from being a billionaire, even with optimistic speculation on the numbers. Still, I'm fine, and as I said up above, my reward is really more about having a very interesting life.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit suggestion: clickable Email

I thought about making the press@wikimedia.org (in the contact me section) into a clickable link using mailto: press at wikimedia.org. I am a very new wikipedian so I can't edit directly, so if someone thinks this is a good idea he/she can make the aproppriate changes. Happy Editing --TheFibonacciEffect (talk) 19:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@TheFibonacciEffect: Clickable links or links that contain the email address in clear text are a magnet for spammers automatically harvesting emails from webpages. That is why on Wikipedia such addresses are encoded by replacing the "@" with an image. See the {{no spam}} template for details. Regards SoWhy 07:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
@SoWhy: Oh, okay, good to know, very considerate. --TheFibonacciEffect (talk) 07:33, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, mailto: links on a website are a huge magnet for spambots, so Jimbo's page avoids them.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:15, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

WMF relationship with USAGov re: coronavirus testing

Jimbo, in light of WMF's networking/good relationship with USAGov., I am wondering whether it would be helpful for WMF to contact the USA Coronavirus taskforce and encourage them to be more transparent with the American people concerning coronavirus locations that the people or their doctors may be able to access testing.

As you will see at the US Task Force Briefing yesterday starting at 1:10:55, reporters ask Trump if the task force could release to the media the maps that they showed at the previous day's briefing showing 5,000 locations of testing facilities.

You will see how Dr. Brix of the task force, after a lot of distractive jibberish, says that "it's like coke and pepsi" in terms of those locations being "proprietary information" among the competitive businesses in the coronavirus testing business and so she/they can not release that info to the public at this time.

I find this holding back from the general population of such "life and death" information disgusting and exceptionally mean spirited toward average Americans, as I am pretty sure the wealthy and the expensive top level doctors will be able to quickly find out and access those locations.

Regardless of my own opinion about this, could you please ask WMF to weigh in on this matter. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what relationship you envision here. I suppose the WMF may have some connections to some people in some government departments, but I don't think there's anything particularly high level (especially with the current administration). If this were a UK issue, it would be a different matter, since I do have a lot of friendships here and could reach the right people pretty easily.
Now, on the substantive issue, I do agree with you that it's completely bizarre to not share the locations of testing centers (i.e. places one might go in order to have a test) but I believe that conversation, if I understand it, was about the location of laboratories, which isn't really the same thing and not really all that important for individuals to know. Still bizarre to keep the data secret - if I understood the motivation of the reporters question is that they would like to check the information to see if it is valid, i.e. is Trump lying about the testing capacity by showing a fake map? Not that a President would ever do such a thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 April 2020

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
thanks you have made homework so much easier Williamburkett (talk) 19:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

MfD Wikipedia:Poles are evil

Please see the deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Poles are evil. There is some confusion over whether the discussion should be at WP:RFD so it might move. Johnuniq (talk) 09:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like it's headed for deletion. I think that's right. It might have been a funny inside joke 10 years ago (but probably not) but now it just seems lame - at best!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:04, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Withholding Funds from WMF until article is modified

Hi Jimbo, I was wondering if you saw this article, [4] where Edward Kosner writes that he threatened to withhold funding from the WMF until his Wiki article was changed? Because now, I tried changing the article, based on impeccable sources, and his very own Streisand effect article, but the OTRS admins are reverting me telling me that because the subject raised concerns, I can't put it in. While beforehand it may not have been notable, once he writes about it in a national magazine, that and the other impeccable source, makes it notable. That, and I also note how he tried going after Patapsco in the real world to find out who he is. All in all, many points to this story and I wonder if you have any comments on any part of it, because it was a very interesting read. Thanks. Sir Joseph (talk) 00:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I would question this edit [5] on WP:DUE grounds, just because the subject writes it doesn't mean we should include it. But it was an interesting article. You could add it as a WP:EL. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:52, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Richard Feynman would blow his top if he was referred to as Jewish. He wasn't a fan of the Jewish religion (or any religion for that matter). Nevertheless, he was of Jewish ancestry and the Wikipedia article notes this. Who is a Jew? looks at this question. This type of debate has occurred before on Wikipedia, and has led to long running arguments on the talk page of Jeffrey Epstein. Some people were very keen to point out that Epstein was A Jew™ but this type of language runs into problems. This is an area where care is needed and it has to be notable to say that someone is Jewish.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Fairly long related discussion at WP:AN from dec-jan. It's not an easy topic. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:38, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Ianmacm, it wasn't included in the article until he wrote about it in a national magazine and mentioned Wikipedia and called himself a proud Jew, ala Streisand effect. Sir Joseph (talk) 13:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, but does WP-editors noticing the article he wrote count as Streisand effect? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I only have a general comment as I can't really speak to the specifics of this example, not knowing anything about Edward Kosner, who I believe I only ever heard of just now. In the past when I have done a quick spot check, I believe that for many prominent people (Nobel Prize winners and business people come to mind immediately) we are more likely to mention Jewish heritage than we are to mention other heritages. This is only my impression, but it should be noted that many other prominent people have commented to me that they have the same impression. I think the reasons are two-fold and contradictory. First, there may be a problem with anti-semites wanting to make sure that everyone associates people like Jeffrey Epstein and Bernie Madoff with being Jewish. Second, there may be a problem with pro-Jewish people feeling a certain amount of pride in Nobel Prize winners or successful people generally and wanting to include their Jewishness. Neither of those is good, although obviously the former is more problematic from a BLP point of view.
There is also a further complication in that Jewishness is both an ethnic identity and a religion in a way that, say, Roman Catholicism isn't. I full agree with ianmacm up above: "This is an area where care is needed and it has to be notable to say that someone is Jewish."
What I'd love to see is some (casual, doesn't have to be super formal, but should follow a reasonable methodology) basic research into the question: are we more likely to over-emphasize Jewishness than other religions/ethnicities?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, some good points, but my comments were specific to this example. In this case, even with impeccable sourcing, the religion was not included because the subject did not want it on his page. He then wrote about it in a national magazine, where he said he threatened to withhold WMF funding unless it was removed. He also said that he was a proud Jew. And he also said, he investigated one of the editors of his article and tried to find out the identity of that person. I was more interested in the WMF/withholding funds and threatening editors aspects. I know once he writes about his religion and that he's a proud Jew, he tripped the Streisand effect and ironically it's now notable for inclusion. I was though wondering if while OTRS was deleting all these tags, should they also have mentioned that the WMF was threatened with funds withholding (even if it would never happen or if it was minor), and I was also wondering if you've ever seen or dealt with someone threatening an editor of an article, as Kosner did. Since people might now be a bit more hesitant to edit BLP's if powerful people can track them down. Sir Joseph (talk) 13:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I very much don't agree with you. WP:NAVEL almost certainly applies here. This absolutely does not rise to the level that makes the fact relevant to his biography. Remember, we are writing a biography of him which means that it should contain the most important facts about him. If anything, he's established in a RS that being Jewish is not an important fact about him. The bit about withholding funds - I think you putting it that way is plainly ridiculous. He says that he answered a fund raising email saying that he'd be more inclined to give if he saw a better way to solve what he regarded (quite rightly) as a BLP issue. That hardly amounts to a "threat to withhold funds". Such an approach makes me feel inclined to review your edit history - others are likely to - just to be sure you aren't some kind of POV pusher on this topic.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I'll just leave this here. ‑ Iridescent 14:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Iridescent, thanks for highlighting this. It shows the discrepancies in blocking. After all, my last block was for telling someone, on my own page, that I don't want to engage with them anymore and I want them to stop talking to me. Swarm then came and decided that was disruptive and not only reset my prior block, he took away talk page access. But hey, I'm sure you had a point in bringing my block log, or was it to show all the Coffee blocks? Sir Joseph (talk) 15:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, I haven't edited his article until a week or so ago. As for the threat, I suggest you read his article. He emailed the WMF and told them he won't donate until his article is fixed. He then went on a hunt to find out who Patapsco is. Again, I didn't touch his article until after he wrote about this episode in Commentary magazine, so I'm not sure how you get calling me a POV pusher. You might also want to read the AN thread linked above. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:56, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
On the general point that Jimmy has discussed, I've been more active than most admins in working with editors who insist on highlighting Jewish ethnicity/religion as, or in place of nationality. As Jimmy notes, this takes two forms. Some editors want to mention Jewish affiliation as an expression of pride in accomplishments. Others follow a watered-down version of the anti-Semitic triple parentheses or echo meme, to tag individual in an expression of otherness. This has been an increasing problem, and it was seen prominently with single-issue editors with Jeffrey Epstein. There is general consensus on how this should be handled in the lead paragraph, but not so much elsewhere. We don't for instance, highlight that someone's a Presbyterian or descended from Presbyterians unless they are clergy or religious scholars. Acroterion (talk) 13:59, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I would definitely agree there is a trend for some editors to be vested in going to what lengths they can to identify those of the Jewish faith (not those of Jewish decent), more as because they are proud of the Jewish faith and want those that are also Jewish to be known, but this can led to poor sources or inference (such as mixing up faith vs decent); plenty of AN and related discussions on this. It goes back to the fact that for any single BLP, the BLP's religion (not just Jewish) should be something that is sourced to a self-statement made in a interview w/ a reliable source, or from a self-published work, so that there is no question of the BLP's intent of there religious stance. This was not the case with the sources that were in Kosner's original article, it appears, so the OTRS pull was appropriate. Ideally, unless someone's religion is centeral to their line of work, we as editors should not be trying to chase it down if it is not clear from top-level skimming of sources. --Masem (t) 14:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
@Masem: Correction: it was the case that Kosner self-identified, even originally. It's in his autobiography (he spends pages talking about his Jewish identity and upbringing). The autobiography wasn't cited in-line to the "Jewish" statement, but it was always cited in our article.
The sources supporting "Jewish", which are on the article talk page, include the New York Times, Wall St Journal, his own autobiography, three books about prominent Jews which include him. Now, we also have his own piece in Commentary (the one that prompted this thread).
To me, this isn't at all about Jewish identity–there's way more than enough sourcing to establish that this is reliable and due. This controversy is, instead, about a BLP subject emailing OTRS and saying they won't donate until their biography is changed, and then OTRS members changing the biography, and asserting to other editors that they can't change it back because it's an OTRS thing, and then the BLP subject writing an op-ed to brag about it.. This is corruption of our processes. Jimbo, I think you should say publicly that no, articles won't be changed just because the article subject emails us and threatens to withhold donations. Kosner wrote in the piece that this is what happened, and that this approach is the "key" to getting one's article changed. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 17:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
But to go to Jimbo's point above: how essential is his Jewish heritage to his career today? I mean, in general for BLPs, there's details that I feel we don't need to rush to include, like faith, unless they are a core element of the person's notability or importance. I don't see that with Kosner here with the rest of what's documented in his article. The latter issue of using WMF/OTRS to force a chance to remove content they may not like but can't be document, however, is a separate and disconcerting manner, one that, when brought up at BLP/N outside OTRS, we generally do not remove if the proper sourcing is there. (That is: If Kosner brought up that he didn't really want his Jewish background to be on his wiki page as a discussion on the talk page, and consensus agreed it wasn't needed as not being DUE to his notability/importance, this could have been solved easily.)--Masem (t) 17:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
It doesn't have to be "essential" to be included, it has to be "significant", per RS. When the NYT or WSJ writes a 500 word blurb about him, "Jewish" is one of those words. Three books about "prominent Jews in the media" list him. His own autobiography spends 10+ pages – so maybe 3-5% of the total or so – on his Jewish upbringing. Every RS agrees this is significant enough to include. Why should we exclude it?
In any event, whether it's WP:DUE is a classic content issue, and reasonable people can disagree about that, for sure. It should be handled with talk page discussion and consensus, and an RFC if necessary. (The discussion is ongoing on the talk page.) Personally, I don't think he's notable enough for a stand-alone article at all, and I don't have super strong feelings about DUE, but I do think it's covered enough by RSes that we should cover it, too, so I support inclusion.
The OTRS bit, yes, is the more disconcerting part.
The other part that really bothered me was where he accused one of our editors (with damn near 100k edits) of being a stealth anti-Semite, and then published an OTRS email in which the OTRS member appears to confirm that and to state that the editor's contributions were being reviewed as a result. I find that to be defamatory, and I think someone on behalf of Wikipedia/OTRS should say "no, there was no consensus or finding that this editor was acting in anything other than good faith", or some such. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 17:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
The basic gist of Kosner's article is that there was a Jew-tagging anti-Semite running around Wikipedia and nobody noticed or cared despite Kosner and his son's prior efforts (which consist, BTW, of one reversion one time from an IP with no edit summary), until Kosner threatened to withhold donations (or, if you prefer, told us he'd be "more inclined" to donate if we address his issue), at which point the Jew-tagger was caught and stopped by OTRS. This narrative is bunk and ought to be straightened out in the media. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 17:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Slightly off-topic, but this WaPo article [6] comments on readers looking for "are they Jewish" in BLP:s. Apparently it's not the first thing they are looking for, but still. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:59, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Another slightly off-topic thing: In lockdown I am doing P.E. with Joe Wicks every day with my children (not personally, it's live on youtube every weekday morning), and this morning I remembered that I used to do "Body by Jake" and wondered what Jake is up to, so of course I ended up here: Jake Steinfeld. Under "Personal Life" I see: "He is of Jewish descent.". No source, but judging by his name, it's almost certainly true. I googled it and yeah, it's mentioned sometimes.
Now, in fairness, the biography of Joe Wicks has a "Personal Life" section with exactly two sentences. One about his wife and children, which is quite standard. And the other: "His maternal grandparents were from the Isle of Man." So, the truth is, we often have a rather random collection of information in there. (I would argue, by the way, that neither of these facts really belongs in a biography given the general irrelevance to their lives.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
More coverage, but paywalled: The Mystery of the Wikipedia Editor Who Obsessively Keeps Track of Jews Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
You can read this article for free by creating an account, which I just did (I never pay). It doesn't say much that we don't know already, which is that Kosner objected to being described as "born to a Jewish family". He singles out (but does not name) the editor who did this, claiming that he/she has some sort of fixation on the issue, having added similar wording to a range of articles.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
That ultimately doesn’t change the reality of the situation, or how reliable sources describe his background. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 17:58, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Arguably it adds to the case for inclusion. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:01, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
The reality of the situation is that certain editors are hellbent on making sure Wikipedia has as many people labelled Jewish, living and dead, regardless of the consequences. It doesnt really matter if their motivation is that they are an anti-semite and want to signpost Jews to others, or they are a Jew who wants to say 'LOOK AT THE SUCCESSFUL JEW!' (and these are pretty much the only reasons why editors consistantly Jew-tag). The end result is the same, living (and dead) people are labelled Jewish, of Jewish descent, religion=Jew, their mother was a Jew, their great-grandfather once ate a Challah... The BLP noticeboard and people who watch biographies try their best, but when you have persistant editors who cant even grasp the basic difference between religion and ethnicity, its tiresome. The biggest success against such of course was when religion was removed from infobox person. It did mean instead of drive-by-tagging, an addition needs to be properly referenced and covered in the body of the article. It did technically before, but it was easier to just go through editing infoboxs at a high rate. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
... regardless of the consequences. What consequences?
... or they are a Jew who wants to say 'LOOK AT THE SUCCESSFUL JEW!' What's wrong with that? I'm a Jew like that. Something wrong with the encyclopedia documenting Jewish accomplishments? Or accomplishments by women? Or black people? Or disabled people? Or anyone else?
... but when you have persistant editors who cant even grasp the basic difference between religion and ethnicity, its tiresome. To whom are you referring? How does grasping "the basic difference between religion and ethnicity" relate to this dispute? Levivich [dubious – discuss] 18:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Only in death not only anti-semites, not only "Look at the successful Jew", but also the intention to make Wikipedia the sum total of human knowledge, that amazing human accomplishment (thanks, Jimbo..for the gazillionth time:-) StonyBrook (talk) 21:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
I have to agree with Levivich here. POV editing is discouraged, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case here. At least, not beyond the normal identification that’s the norm on Wikipedia. In arguing against inclusion, we really only have the subject’s preference that they not be identified as a Jew, and a preference to obscure any background regarding their ethnicity. Levivich makes salient points throughout. And regardless, the Jewish people are regarded as one of a handful in the modern world to be a bonafide ethno-religious group (as in such identities being inseparable), with a fair amount of ambiguity. But there are clearly defined standards of identification. And they don’t include “once eating a challah”. I honestly don’t get the last statement by you which was quoted by Levivich, or some of the statements you made that are clearly hyperbolic. I respect you as an editor, OiD, and I get the frustration with those whose sole purpose is to highlight Judaic ancestry here (I’ve seen it many times), but I think this is a relatively normal edit. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 19:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
For the interested spectator, this is now going on at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Edward_Kosner. Kosner himself has commented in that thread. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Ukrainian Wikimedia's chapter is going to fill all Wikipedias with Ukrainian government's point of view

Hello, Jimbo. What do you think about it: MFA Launches Mega Campaign To Saturate Wikipedia With Unbiased Information On Ukraine and the World? Раммон (talk) 18:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Anything to counter with facts the Russian bot farms and disinformation campaigns is a great idea. Zaathras (talk) 18:36, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Раммон, Good news, well-informed Ukraininans to counter the GRU disinformation campaign. Guy (help!) 18:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
JzG, do you think that all other Wikimedia's chapters should do the same? That is Wikimedia Russia should announce cooperation with MFA of Russian Federation, WMF should announce cooperation with US State Department and so on? Раммон (talk) 06:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
  • JzG, you can't seriously think that a government ministry of foreign affairs actively skewing content in a language encyclopedia is "good news," can you? How about the US State Department, would they therefore by extension be OK to coordinate editing on matters of concern to the Trump regime? This is a terrible thing, not a good thing. Hopefully there are enough speakers of Ukrainian to fend off the assault on NPOV. Carrite (talk) 18:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
    @Carrite: According to the page linked above, the effort will not be limited to the Ukrainian Wikipedia, and will include "various languages". This is being done "in cooperation with Wikimedia Ukraine". I can't tell from the page whether this will actually involve edits from Ukrainian government employees. --Yair rand (talk) 23:38, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
    Carrite, I am assuming that a WikiMedia chapter is unlikely to be a wholly owned subsidiary of a foreign government, but I could of course be wrong in the current political climate. Guy (help!) 23:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Interesting. It's concievable that parts of what they want to add is decent content. More work for the Wikipedians. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Gråbergs Gråa Sång, as long as they steer clear of the many crappy sources that plague those articles, we'll be better off for their input. Guy (help!) 23:56, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Time will tell. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 04:13, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
Via google translate: "Launching the "Virtual Front", the organizers had a superficial idea of ​​Wikipedia. During the action, they had to understand Wikipedia’s device in parallel with organizational tasks. If before the start of the action they independently mastered the work on Wikipedia and consulted with experienced Wikipedists, they could have developed a more effective strategy." ... "True, the teacher himself must understand the Wikipedia device in order to pre-advise his students." We'll see if the Ukrainians manage to take that onboard. Another takeaway is FOR ----'S SAKE, STOP COPYPASTING!!!! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
It was done by some obscure patriotic organization, not Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Wikisaurus (talk) 00:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
By State Duma. --ssr (talk) 03:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
By Youth Parliament of State Duma (Молодёжный парламент Государственной думы); despite the name, it looks like Nashi and other semi-official pro-Putin organizations, no? Wikisaurus (talk) 09:19, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
Nevermind, it was a state-driven initiative to activate state-driven resources, no matter which, to edit Wikipedia, and it epically failed because editing Wikipedia is not that easy as they thought, and yes of course, abovementioned copypaste problem. Wikimedia RU issued a dedicated press release priorly, where they tried to explain how to do it better (didn't help). Russian wikimedians in regions, like m:Wikimedians of Bashkortostan User Group, held seminars for them to try to help—didn't help as well. --ssr (talk) 12:02, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
That press release was also interesting reading. Google translate does a very decent job on russian these days. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:18, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Good to hear, maybe now is time to use Russian texts in such talks widely as people like you say they understand it normally. The Signpost people seem to read and use Russian content properly. I find this hopeful. Because there are many international wikimedia-community issues to solve, like this "czar problem". --ssr (talk) 07:17, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • As a board member of the Ukrainian chapter, I need to clarify a few things.
    • Firstly, this initiative is coming from the Ministry. Wikimedia Ukraine is in no way a government subsidiary, but we believe that this project will be much better with Wikimedians involved than without.
    • Secondly, we intend to be there to explain how Wikipedia works, what are the relevant policies, including copyright and NPOV. We are not sure the authors of the press release have a full unterstanding of Wikipedia at the moment, this will be an opportunity for us to train them (and we start tomorrow).
    • Thirdly, for us the main goal is getting more content about Ukraine in foreign languages and about Ukrainian diasporas in Ukrainian Wikipedias. While English Wikipedia which has a healthy amount and a reasonable quality of Ukrainian content, many languages have next to nothing. While Ukrainian Americans or Ukraine–US relations are well-documented, this is not the case for many other countries. This is the thing Wikimedia Ukraine wants to change, and MFA is a good partner for it.
    Vice-chair of Board of Wikimedia Ukraine, NickK (talk) 11:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
    @NickK: it sounds like you've got some interesting perspective to share. The way you phrase that makes it sound like there hasn't been much discussion before the press release was issued - how long has this been in the works, if you don't mind me asking? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:12, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
    @Naypta: The new Minister of Foreign Affairs took office on 4 March 2020. There were some discussions before his appointment in late autumn 2019 but for a different project which did not materialise as the team changed. This collaboration really accelerated with the appointment of the new minister and, strangely, due to Covid-19 as contributing online became quite a norm. Thus a bit more than a month I would say. All discussion were non-public before this official release — NickK (talk) 22:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
    @NickK: That all seems reasonable. I'll admit I have my doubts as to whether this will be effective and positive, but I do genuinely hope it is, and I certainly don't doubt your good intentions. Best of luck with it! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
    @NickK: Will Wikimedia Ukraine consider organising a main page for this effort, and encouraging all foreign ministry officials that participate to list their usernames there and declare on their userpages that they are members of this effort, similar to when university professors assign their students a Wikipedia project and set up a page for their class? This would build trust and allow the rest of the community to monitor the editing and give real-time feedback to all of the participants in a centralised location, so they can see what counts as a positive contribution and what doesn't. -Indy beetle (talk) 09:29, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

You're the GOAT!

Thank you for creating Wikipedia. You are the Greatest of All Time (GOAT)!

Momo824 (talk) 11:33, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

A goat for you!

Hello! This is amusing and the first time I've used this functionality.

I just got on the wiki editing bandwagon in earnest yesterday. I really appreciate the opportunity. Cheers!

Segenay (talk) 21:27, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

A goat for you!

Thank you for creating this awesome knowledge base, Wikipedia!

Commuter3 (talk) 23:26, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Where political bias is taking us

Obviously not where we want to go, or should go but the very things that made the project remarkable are failing us now on so many levels. Ouroboros comes to mind. We need stronger enforcement of our core content policies and less POV pushing, inadvertent or otherwise. We have become a reflection of the political division we see globally (where people are allowed to vote) during an important election year, and because we are reliant upon mainstream media news, we have become mirrors of it. Hopefully, you can help pull the snake's head out of its ... ahem. It is only going to get worse if something isn't done. The warning signs came early but little was done in the way of prevention beyond attempts to silence one side in order to give the other a stronger voice, or so it seems based on the results. I'm of the mind that ArbCom's decision to grant admins the authority to take unilateral action at their own discretion has not helped; rather, it has opened the door to POV creep, and I'm not alone in that thinking. Several arbs have recognized the problems but nothing is being done. We have fallen ill to the numbers game at AE, and the protection of alliances is stronger than ever, particularly those whose POV aligns with our own - it's human nature - and not necessarily good for maintaining NPOV or the well-being of the project. Of course, we have exceptional admins and most of their actions have been justified but something isn't quite right, or we wouldn't be seeing a growing number of articles in media criticizing WP like the ones I just posted. Jimmy, you said something a while back that made perfect sense. I'm of the mind that what's happening now is important enough to at least be considered, and hopefully, motivate you to provide some input. What will happen in the long term if we don't enforce NPOV, RECENTISM, and NEWSORG now, as it was meant to be enforced without POV creep, especially when some of the most aggressive individuals cannot or will not recognize their own biases? Atsme Talk 📧 13:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Holy smokes, are you still at it?? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I'll just quote the relevant passage in the link above: "We have chosen a very tough job: NPOV. Dislike for the President, fear about things that are happening in the world, may make it emotionally harder to remain neutral, but remain neutral we must. I happen to personally think that given the decline in quality of the media across the board (there are still fantastic journalists out there, but overall the landscape isn't great) the best way for us to help the world heal is neutrality." I'm glad that those words were noticed.
Having said that, I think that many (not all) cases of apparent political bias in Wikipedia are better understood against the backdrop of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. That is to say, the media outlet above made a direct comparison between our articles on Brett Kavanaugh and Joe Biden. I suspect no one has really made that direct comparison before. Kavanaugh was relatively unknown (not totally unknown, as he was already an Appeals Court judge) when he burst onto the scene with his nomination to the Supreme Court and the subsequent media circus ensued around various allegations. Biden, on the other hand, has been very famous for a very long time, with multiple runs at the Presidency, 2 terms as Vice President, etc. And so it is easy for me to see and understand how the imbalance in how the allegations have been handled in Wikipedia, as we tend to mirror the media. However, as an encyclopedia, it's quite important that we step back from time to time and reflect - as was noted above, WP:RECENTISM and WP:NEWSORG are important here. I'd also add what may have been intended: WP:NOTNEWS.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
It’s like, how can you be objective about Holocaust denial without quoting Holocaust deniers? When you try to do that, it’s called “Original Research,” “Unreliable Source,” “Fringe Theory”, others call it “Bias,” “Censorship” and disrespect Wikipedia. Raquel Baranow (talk) 13:59, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't really understand what you are trying to say. It is entirely possible to be objective about Holocaust denial without quoting Holocaust deniers, although I do think it would be hard to write about them in a neutral way without quoting what they have said. But I don't think "Holocaust denial" is the sort of thing that we are discussing here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:11, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this was the point Raquel was getting at, but it does get at the fact that far too often editors involved at the hot political current events insist that we stick to RSes - not only for sourcing (which is absolutely correct) but in terms of any type of discussion of article improvement. That is, locking the views behind the scenes to the "ivory tower" of RSes. Yes, it seems counterintuitive that if we can't use non-RSes at all to ask why even consider them, but those non-RSes provide a 60,000-ft view that sometimes the tight-circle of RSes with their bias may be missing or over-emphasizing, that in 5-10-20 years, academics may have a more impartial, off-handed manner. It's the rush to push in the opinions and commentary is where this comes up, but that's all stuff that between NPOV, RECENTISM, NOTNEWS, and NEWSORG currently caution against, but many editors, particularly experienced editors , seem to ignore, and because its more suggestions rather than required guidelines, its hard to do anything to even touch on enforcement here, except when the situations results in editing warring and an Arbcom case, much of the time. --Masem (t) 20:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
In short, relying on wp:RS's for verifiability works and relying on it for NPOV doesn't. One more issue. Normally we'd hope to look to Wikipedia policies for guidance to solve such issues, in this case wp:npov. Policies usually have portions that state what the goals should be and they have other parts that are "operative mechanics". When editors real world objectives conflict (e.g. trying to sway an upcoming election) and there is a battle, the "goal" is toothless and has no effect no effect and only the "operative mechanics" has effect. The bias referred to in the OP is one of wp:weight. The only operative mechanics in wp:weight (which says follow the proportion of coverage in RS's) is absolutely impossible to use, and would give a bad result if it were possible to use it. North8000 (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
In this thread: "Look, here's an article about how allegation X got tons more coverage than the 'near-total silence' about allegation Y. Wikipedia is biased because we, too, cover allegation X more than allegation Y." Where political bias is taking us -- here, at least -- is just a case study in false balance arguments. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
Atsme, Here's an NPR article that covers the political pressure Democrats are in now, if people might find RealClearPolitics biased [7], so slowly the issue is getting press in the US, but it is clear that the coverage has not been the same as with those on the other side of the aisle. So it does leak into Wikipedia. Sir Joseph (talk) 04:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Obviously the coverage is not the same. The world is dealing with a pandemic and the US, by and large, is in denial about science and 20+ % of them are jobless because of it. Ppl are a bit tied up with their attention at the moment.
Also, much as I hate to say it, Clinton, Trump, Kavanaugh.. every case reduces the newsworthiness of the next case. With a lifetime appointment that is arguably more long lasting and powerful than the presidency, there isn't much further new ground to cover anymore in the 'you should be outraged by this'-path... Apparently this is the new normal for Americans.
This is not to say that I don't expect this to completely blow up in the face of the Democrats in the next couple of months. This is still relatively early in the news coverage cycle, coverage will grow and hypocritical republicans will cry wolf about how democrats are supporting someone for something that is the same as that republicans endorsed and got away with. Honestly, best case for the Democrats is, the old guy gets a heart attack in the run up to the election.. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
TheDJ, ", is in denial about science and 20+ % of them are jobless because of it." That sentence kind of proves my point. Also, who is the governor of Virgina, still and the Lt. Governor of Virgina? That was quite a bit before the pandemic. The meetoo and SJW movement kind of fizzles out when the target suddenly becomes a Democrat, especially if the resulting person to be in power would become a Republican, as would have happened in Virgina, had the Governor and Lt. Governor been forced to resign in the face of the scandals. Further, the fact that you can compare what Kavanaugh went through with what Biden is going through is laughable. As they say, show me the evidence. This is just further proving Atsme's point. Sir Joseph (talk) 15:04, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Articles that are based on NEWS lack the general peer review of one from say a scientific journal where a board or panel scrutinize the details, exhaustively. Rush to judgement to get copy printed, make headines and keep advertisment up are the goals, hence we have such things as the January 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation where even generally well regarded NEWS reported initial events before they were scrutized and jumped to conclusions because the white kid had a MAGA hat and the initial statements by the Native American fit the preconceived narrative. Journalism is a liberal art, it attracts those of a liberal persuasion and it tends to bias left. So its no surprise to me that this form of information is not going to go out on a limb to crucify their sacred lamb and their only hope of removing their arch rival.--MONGO (talk) 18:55, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
The question we should be thinking about it is there a way to make Wikipedia work better in those areas? WP:RS has no criteria for objectivity which is OK for where it started and works which is wp:Verifiability. We need some kind of initiative to improve WP:NPOV so that it works better on these types of articles. North8000 (talk) 19:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Until we can eliminate the apparent need by some to demand the newest and latest NEWS be posted before it has had a chance to be better scrutinized then many articles about recent events, BLPs and politics in general will be nothing more than regurgitations of our least encyclopedic sources. I have seen some argue for a 48 hour waiting period in some cases where solid arguments against such details exist, but also seen strong opposition to that. Its one thing to report on a major event like a volcanic eruption in a real-time manner but a whole other issue to post a potentially BLP violating issue with less than due diligence and a lack of effort to approach such subjects with a "do no harm" mantra in mind.--MONGO (talk) 22:35, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
MONGO, THIS. Very much this. Guy (help!) 22:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
I concur entirely with this train of thought. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Maybe a next step is a brainstorming activity: a list of things that are appropriate to post as "breaking news" as long as it backed by appropriate sources (as we can be up-to-date), and then things that absolutely need a wait-and-see to judge. I could see a guideline around this or to add to recentism as where the balance is on keeping WP up to date again avoiding the NOTNEWS/NPOV problem we're discussing here. --Masem (t) 00:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Probably not the whole fix but we gotta start somewhere. I support and would help.North8000 (talk) 12:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

We live in strange times. In general NPOV and RS aren't particularly in tension, because quality newspapers are careful, even when they have a particular editorial outlook (or 'slant', if you prefer). You could say that the New York Times leans left, and the Wall Street Journal leans right, but that both are quality newspapers and if you triangulate thoughtfully, you pretty much end up in a good place. But we now live in a world where some significant portion of the public doesn't believe that at all. They do have some good reasons for concern, of course, with the rise of clickbait business models driving increasing polarization. But they are also being misled - seriously and badly misled - by people who claim completely bizarre things like "WSJ is fake news!"--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:15, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, Mike Godwin recommended an absolutely excellent book called Network Propaganda, by Yochai Benkler. This describes in some detail the system of incentives that has led to the asymmetric polarisation you allude to above.
We now have a regrettable situation where there is a widespread perception that mainstream is the opposite of conservative, and that the truth is therefore the average between the two, with conservative and mainstream sources being equally valid and equally biased. In fact, of course, mainstream is the opposite of fringe, and the descent of a large proportion of the conservative media bubble into the fringe is profoundly worrying for anyone who cares about America. Guy (help!) 22:47, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Meh, disagree with that assessement, JzG. There are equally far left and far right sources that are useless. A glance at Reddit, FB and other social media platforms there are a plethora of fake to near-fake news available from each end of the spectrum. Mainstram NEWS does not have a monopology on truth and while some do a far better job than others reporting things in a factual manner, they usually add their own hyperbole and tone and preconceived opinions in the mix to render them less than authoritative or neutral. Also think we have a lot of folks that confuse the mission here with Twitter or similar media, misusing our talkpages to post wild notions they read or to loudspeak their own opinions making those pages less than cordial for anyone who disagrees with them. There can be no doubt that such behavior is a form of bullying.--MONGO (talk) 23:06, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
The difference is, I rarely, if ever see anyone seriously attempt to use, say, The Palmer Report or Daily Kos as a reliable source. Whereas the use or attempted use of fringe right-wing outlets such as American Thinker and Project Veritas is fairly common. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
MONGO, yes, there are far-left and far-tight sources that are useless. There are, however, almost no remaining conservative sources that are not useless. And that's very worrying.
Hyper-partisan media audiences reward ideological purity over factual accuracy. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that virtually all conservative sources have now moved into this reward feedback model. Fox News was losing clicks and ad revenue to Breitbart, so it switched from partisan (like CNN) to hyper-partisan (like Breitbart). There is now no conservative source with bias and accuracy parity with CNN: Fox is now substantially more biased and less reliable.
This chart[ is not the ultimate neutral arbiter but it's pretty accurate and shows its working. Importantly, you can see how Fox has moved down and right even in the short time this chart has been going.
Bear in mind that I am pretty fundamentalist about sources: I have had several partisan left sources deprecated, I am arguing for The Canary to go the same way. I don't cite CNN, though I enjoy Maddow's style of polemic. I don't use HuffPo. I have deleted articles that could not be sourced to sites more reliable than that.
It is a huge concern to me that we struggle to reflect conservative views from mainstream sources - because by now there are pretty much no conservative sources left in the mainstream. Does it not worry you that on the left/right spectrum there's no conservative equivalent to the New York Times or NPR? You can get fact-based reporting from WaPo with a leftward editorial spin, fact-based reporting from the WSJ with a rightward editorial spin, and the next thing you hit as you slide right is somethign like the Washington Examiner, which is unusable. There's no conservative equivalent to The Atlantic or the New Yorker, as far as I can see. Axios and Reason seem roughly equivalent but Reason is substantially less accurate according tot he metrics I have checked. Guy (help!) 15:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
What worries me is that the New York Times took editing advice from the Biden campaign,* stealth-edited the summary of their conclusion regarding Biden's behaviour per that advice, and knowing this, Wikipedia editors still chose to use the edited sentence in Biden's BLP sans caveat. petrarchan47คุก 15:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
JzG, you told me that the election of Trump was the worst thing to happen to the world since the Hitler. Cannot read such extremist views and take your opinion about American conservative leaning media to heart. With respect, FoxNews is no more to the right than the WaPo is to the left when we are discussing where our cited sources would come from, namely, online web based information as shown here. Of course we avoid the rebel rousing talk show hosts that we find on those media, both left and right as well as opinion pieces when possible. They are merely pundits, paid to entertain their audiences. When I see anyone complaining very aggressively against Foxnews or the WaPo as sources, I just tune them out. There is nothing wrong with bringing attention to oversights, falsehoods etc. from all sources and what not when we develop content, but efforts to eliminate voices we disagree with that are generally considered to not be far left or far right, unless we qualify that is where those sources lie based on neutral analysis, then we cannot find middle ground. But mainly, we are dealing with politics, not science, and when doing so especially for current events that lack the time span needed for relaxed reflection, we are forced to consume NEWS, of which there is actually very few generally regarded neutral sources.--MONGO (talk) 17:13, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
The definition of wp:RS comes from wp:ver and is simple, simplistic and binary, and applies monolithically to the whole source organization. ....fine for wp:ver. IMO using only that that same term and meaning for for wp:NPOV is a recipe for trouble. No distinction for objectivity and expertise with respect to the topic at hand is called for or even allowed. Plus wp:weight has no usable operative clause. The better question than "what went wrong?" is "how could that possibly work on political articles?"North8000 (talk) 20:10, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
MONGO, and looking at it now, do you dispute it?
What was needed over the last four years was a robust response to Russian neo-imperialism, especially the invasion of Ukraine, and leadership on climate change. What we got was... the exact opposite. A presiodent who actively encourages armed extremists to demonstrate in the streets because governors place human lives over the Dow, when the Dow is the thing on which he is measured.
Benkler's analysis is not unique. There are a number of similarly academic sources that show asummateric polarisation bwteen left wing and right wing media in the US. This sdoes not exist to anything like the same degree in the UK, where the law mandates that broadcasters maintain political balance. Guy (help!) 21:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
I'd say Political bias is not the disease, it's a symptom. The disease is the (intentional or organic) dumbing down of Western civilisations over the past 100 years, at least. It's that simple. If one starts with that as a premise, then following along paths, i.e. thought experiments, addressing each of western society's screw ups and shortfalls, including those of Wikipedia, answers and understanding become quite obvious and easy.
One example I'd use to make this argument is the fact that Jimbo's (your) idea for a new/different type of news publication ( Wikitribune) did not succeed. In any society of not dumb downed people, it would have worked.
I am confident in this reality. About 10 years ago PBS revealed that in L.A. almost half the adults were functionally illiterate; in ANY language. Before WW2 in America illiteracy had fallen to less than 10%. So, of course, MSM will dumb down their content and various biases are part of such content, so if we are to reflect MSM content then this issue is not solvable.
Ironically a young European woman who is far away from being conspiratorial made the suggestion that the managerial entities which are "saving " us from coronavirus-19 are instilling data and location devices which will make it much easier for populations and individuals to be controlled.
I have not been thinking along those lines at all, but after reading that woman's hypothesis I realized that the coronavirus-19 event came along in the midst of the Hong Kong citizens' commotion.
Even if this "dumbing down" has been intentional to make most of us better non-designated slaves, I do not believe there is enough passion left within western societies to do much about it. I saw Bill Gates yesterday on CNN give the most logical and informative view on this pandemic and how some countries have done a lot better than others in dealing with it, but what really surprised me is how much passion Gates displayed, imo, in a quiet way.
That is not a great thing, after thinking about it, that Bill Gates is showing the more passion about this crisis than anybody else, I've seen, because I do not think of him as being an example of an exceptionally passionate person...so I'm saying that if he's the guy who stands out as passionate, then the rest of the people don't have very much. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, if we say that the only way to fix Wikipedia is to first fix the world, that's tantamount to saying let's do nothing. Or we can start by fixing Wikipedia which is doable. North8000 (talk) 23:44, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

But when it comes to this specific topic of relatively current political biases, Wikipedia.en is a reflection of the western world because that is where our sources are. A reflection as it is, not as it might be. I think Wikipedia is performing its purpose exactly as it should and does not need to be fixed. If one looks in a mirror and doesn't like what is seen, it's not the mirror that needs fixing. And if it's the western MSM that needs fixing, Wikipedia is not the place for trying to do that. But I contend that with for-profit media, they are compelled by their profit purposing to tailor their content to fit their audience's mentality, so if their audience is at a 3rd. grade level of understanding and emotional bias...e.g. "Build That Wall!"..then MSM is compelled to have content that appeals to that low level.
It's so obvious. The 45/45 red/blue split who mostly remain completely stuck in following the same managers they followed 3.5 years ago, with no thinking or analyzing or reevaluating at all as to whether they should stick with the same team....they, and I don't enjoy saying it...but they really are just like dumb sheep, following the same leader of the same team, regardless of how good a job that team does for them. If they were red 4 years ago, they'll be red today, if they were blue 4 years ago, they'll be blue today.
When and if the audience becomes less dumb, then the political biases will go away. Any kind of bias is the fruit of dumbness, I'd say. And then MSM will cater less to dumb audiences, their content will be without bias (nobody who thinks much even wants to read or watch somebody spout a predetermined point of view), and then Wikipedia will not be in a position where all the stupid MSM bias (either red or blue) leaks into the articles. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:20, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I supposed EN Wikipedia has all kinds of biases (e.g. earth-centric  :-)) but the one that is most often raised is a left-bias with respect to US politics. I.E that it is not mirroring the 45/45 split that you describe.North8000 (talk) 11:29, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
That is unsurprising. When a large part of the US conservative movement is a priori committed to such patent absurdities as "climate change is a hoax" which are in direct conflict with observed scientific reality, Wikipedia's policy-based descriptions of those absurdities will necessarily be defined as "bias" by people ideologically committed to them. This is a feature, not a bug.
And it is not truly a "45/45 split." For essentially the entire Trump presidency, significantly more Americans have disapproved of him than approved. (This is to say nothing of global opinion, which is even more lopsidedly negative.) He lost the popular vote badly. Trumpism is not a majoritarian position. It should not be surprising that a minority-rule government largely backed by an older and less-diverse voting base who roundly and regularly declare mainstream reliable sources as "fake news" has problems competing in the "marketplace of ideas" on a diverse Internet-based encyclopedia-editing community built around writing articles based on reliable sources. The result is what we see here, and it's not really something which can be - or needs to be - "fixed." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 14:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
NorthBySouthBaranof, exactly. As Benkler says, “the consistent pattern that emerges from our data is that, both during the highly divisive election campaign and even more so during the first year of the Trump presidency, there is no left-right division, but rather a division between the right and the rest of the media ecosystem. The right wing of the media ecosystem behaves precisely as the echo-chamber models predict—exhibiting high insularity, susceptibility to information cascades, rumor and conspiracy theory, and drift toward more extreme versions of itself. The rest of the media ecosystem, however, operates as an interconnected network anchored by organizations, both for profit and nonprofit, that adhere to professional journalistic norms.” Guy (help!) 15:21, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

IMO the main question of bias isn't a matter of unfairness, it's that biased coverage is poorer coverage. We're here to build an encyclopedia, and when things are distorted, left out, over covered or under covered, we are being less informative and less useful. North8000 (talk) 16:09, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Which is a good reminder that 24/7 news coverage is both of benefit and the antithesis to the encyclopedia. The benefit as we often get more coverage of "second tier" topics that would otherwise be relegated to, say, the Sunday paper, weekly or monthly magazines, or just to academic interest, allowing us to build out articles on these topics sooner, but the bane of the encyclopedia that we get excessive coverage of hot political topics and thus throws off any type of fair analysis of how to approach topics with UNDUE in mind. Goes back that we need more editors to recognize what information from short-term coverage of a topic is really appropriate to include and what should be kept far far away. Most of the bias in the press (that is not news itself such as Trump's own conflict with the "fake news!") is the stuff that would be kept far far away if we were doing things right. --Masem (t) 16:21, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
True. News and knowledge are pretty close to mutually exclusive. As our articles age they should shed any and all stupid biases as they become more obviously stupid and trite as time goes by, I think, usually at least. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

After reading that Bloomberg article Atsme linked, in particular the part about Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi getting marked for speedy deletion despite having Nigerian newspaper sources, I suddenly wonder about the scope of Wikipedia. Should Wikipedia be seen like English Wiktionary? Where words regardless of language are in scope and can be described in English? Or is the scope of Wikipedia limited to what is typically relevant for English speakers? Say there is some German actress with an article on dewiki. Played in a German soap, did some German commercials, gave some interviews and played a minor role in a reasonably successful German movie. Let's just say she's in scope for dewiki, but not by a whole lot. (I don't actually know the exact scope requirements for dewiki) She is completely unknown outside Germany. So now I wonder: if someone were to translate the dewiki article for enwiki, would it be in scope? - Alexis Jazz 18:58, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

  • @Alexis Jazz: I think it's quite clear that the notability criteria is not prejudicial to a language or the concern's of a particular language or national group. If we limited Wikipedia's scope to "what is typically relevant for English speakers" than we'd have to delete half of the encyclopedia. But we shouldn't translate material willy nilly from other language Wikipedia's without first making sure that the subject would meet our local criteria for inclusion. -Indy beetle (talk) 19:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
    • Both our (en.wiki) notability guidelines and our basis for reliable sources, importantly. Not to assume bad faith of other language wikis but those in countries with state-run media may presume those are fine as RSes, where we in Western states w/o state media would be wary of those. We can use other language wikis to see if we can pull info into, but it has to be human evaluation of what can be done, not automatic assumptions. --Masem (t) 20:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
    • @Indy beetle: That goes without saying. But subconsciously I always felt like this would be an unwritten rule when I considered translating an article. Like the bar would be just a bit higher if the subject is irrelevant to most English speakers. - Alexis Jazz 20:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Gday jim

Pretty mad website if you ask me, keep up the top job

101.161.2.198 (talk) 06:48, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Using your influence

Hi Jimmy. I hope you survived your monster cookie without cholesterol poisoning.

I think it would be great if you could make strategic use of your profile as "Mr. Wikipedia" to engage corporations like Amazon to work on a long-standing issue that I think you care about. Consider, for example, this AIDS denialist bullshit or the promotion of bleach as a miracle cure (cf. Miracle Mineral Solution). I know you look to apply your reputation carefully and where it will effect change. None of us has the weight to get Amazon or EBay to listen. I think you do. Guy (help!) 22:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: That first book costs $912.89. Who pays that? But pretty much anyone can sell anything on Amazon, provided you cough up the $39.99 a month + selling fees. I don't know how you even could moderate that effectively and where to draw the line. Books that deny climate change? Books that claim the earth is flat? Books that detail our reptilian overlords? Books that promote the ingestion of neurotoxins? While I agree it's all crap, I doubt Amazon could do much about it. And even if they did, that would only confirm the conspiracy theorists' belief that the government or big pharma doesn't want them to know. - Alexis Jazz 21:09, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, eBay has removed a very large number of fraudulent listings of chlorine dioxide that were clearly selling to the bleach cult, but they get added as fast as they are reported. Ditto the fraudulent HCG diet, primarily listings for homeopathic HCG (which, if the claims of either HCG hucksters or homeopaths were anything other than complete bollocks, would actually make you fatter). Kevin Trudeau is in jail because of his fraudulent books, but Amazon still sells them and as far as I can tell he gets the money. There is obviously a line somewhere, but legally proven fraud is not over it and neither is shoving industrial bleach up your child's asshole, it seems. Guy (help!) 13:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

requesting your comment on unref'd material

Please see - https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:Republic_of_Serbian_Krajina#requesting_Administrator_help

Thank you. 50.111.24.147 (talk) 17:48, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

No admin or Jimbo help needed, IP getting reverted for removing material in an unconstructive manner. I've left them a note. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 22:12, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
And your reasoning is rejected utterly, Captain - if you are a seasoned editor, you should know better. We need Administrator action or preferably a statement by you, James - as you've posted on many TP's before about unreferenced material. Thanks. HammerFilmFan 50.111.36.101 (talk) 23:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
While Wikipedia:Verifiability indicates that unreferenced article content should be removed, it does not precisely define the timing and appropriate steps for removal in all instance. This essay provides additional guidance on whether, when, and how to delete material that lacks a cited source. - we typcially wait a couple of days - this was flagged FIVE YEARS AGO and no one has taken a single step. Captain, maybe you should be downgraded to Ensign? Verifiability is POLICY. 50.111.36.101 (talk) 00:04, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand how day-to-day editing works. We get a lot of people who add unreferenced stuff, and we try to prevent that. But we also have lots of unreferenced stuff from the early days of Wikipedia, back before we required sourcing. Much of it is demonstrably true, and sources do exist. Its just that the sources weren't added inline. If the material is likely suspect, yes we do remove it. But if it seems likely to be true, and could be supported by a reliable source, there is no reason to undo the work that went into it. Now, should a source be found at the earliest convenience? Yes. But that requires editors, like you or I, to find said sources. So again, I suggest that instead of trying to tear an article down, why not help build it up and find a reliable source? You seem to care about the subject, I imagine you might find it quite interesting to research the subject. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 00:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
I've been editing since 2005. I was an Admin when I was living in Australia 8 years ago. Apparently YOU do not understand. POLICY is unref'd material may be challenged and removed IMMEDIATELY. No ifs/ands/buts. Period. The responsibility of the editor(s) who added the material is that they find the sources. This is not my SME area - and I don't have access to that material.50.111.36.101 (talk) 19:23, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
May be, yes, it's not always a good idea. Per WP:PRESERVE there are ifs/ands/buts. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
If you've been editing since 2005, and were an admin, then why aren't you logged in? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
There are MANY reasons for a reg. user not be logged in (and that acct was retired/disappeared when I relocated) - come on!!! As for WP:PRESERVE - what does it state? - " Likewise, as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they should be retained if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability and No original research. " Unreferenced material is not verifiable. Look - this section was tagged Five (5) years ago - editors involved should have addressed this issue a long time ago. 104.169.17.116 (talk) 13:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Censorship

Jimbo, encouraging you to have a look at Talk:COVID-19_pandemic#RfC_on_censorship_section which covers censorship of censorship, an interesting broad topic in itself. As the media and governments seemingly seek to censor more these days (broadly construed beyond the pandemic) where does wikipedia stand in this debate? Shall urgency trump, or shall wikipedia principles trump? Jtbobwaysf (talk) 08:13, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Fun fact: 95.3% of discussions about censorship involve a total misunderstanding of the topic. Johnuniq (talk) 09:16, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
I am against censorship. I am in favor of editorial judgment. And I am in favor of recognizing the difference between the two. I haven't read the linked discussion but that's usually what I end up saying on these matters--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Blacklists

The National Cyber Security Centre has announced that it will no longer use the terms blacklist and whitelist. We have also had complaints via OTRS that presence on a "spam blacklist" is pejorative. I have seen cases where a site owner accepts the fact of us enforcing no links to their site, but is very concerned about being on a "spam blacklist" when they themselves may have done nothing wrong (assuming good faith: it's also common for site owners to bitch and moan when their SEO operators cause blacklisting).

I have opened a discussion at m:Talk:Spam blacklist about renaming the feature to something like "external link deny list" to remove the black/white terminology and reflect the fact that not only are site operators not always to blame for the spamming, but that (e.g.) URL shorteners are blacklisted preemptively and may not be spam. Guy (help!) 13:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with this but I also wish we had multiple lists, or the ability to comment more easily, so that the list could have more nuance. For example, "\bgoatse\.info\b" is not allowed a link for a very different reason than what most people think of as "spam". I don't know the history on "\bbible\-history\.com\b" but given that it looks like a fairly innocuous (but probably not WP:RS) site I wonder if someone was being a jerk and going around actually 'spamming' by adding too links over and over.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Accident blackspot has also set off this criticism, but it survives (at the moment).--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:49, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, there's no reason we could not include a reason code. But we really should rename the list to just "link" rather than "spam" to avoid exactly this kind of question. Guy (help!) 07:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Free magazine

Hello Jimbo (I feel I should say Dear Mr Wales!) With a bit more spare time these days, I decided to launch a new free magazine. It offers photography tips, but its prime objective is to encourage more photographers worldwide to contribute to Wikipedia and Commons. The link is on my home page User:Charlesjsharp. I hope some of the captions match your sense of humour! Best wishes, Charlesjsharp (talk) 14:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

That looks really nice! Like everyone, I'm stuck at home with my family but this has the positive side effect that my children and I have been more interested in the plants and animals around us - including taking pictures and using Google Lens to identify things. I'm going to print out your magazine and look at it with my daughters. Thank you! direct link to pdf for the convenience of others reading this--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, why don't you have a custom signature like me? (I'm not bragging, ok?) 3125ATalk!Contributions! 14:34, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Or like me? (Bishzilla is definitely bragging.) bishzilla ROARR!! pocket 12:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC).
@3125A and Bishzilla: all show and no go? ;) - Alexis Jazz 19:52, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

wikipediq.org

The WMF should purchase wikipediq.org and have it redirect to Wikipedia. Benjamin (talk) 08:41, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The site is showing a placeholder page at the moment (screenshot) and it is for sale (for $688 to be exact).[8]. It could be seen as a form of cybersquatting because the name is quite similar to Wikipedia. However, the use of the word wiki + something else is now so commonplace that it might not achieve much of value. It is also worth pointing out that the letter q is above a on a QWERTY keyboard, so somebody may be hoping that mistyping will drive traffic to this site.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
See Typosquatting#WIPO_resolution_procedure. 24.151.50.175 (talk) 15:56, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Sounds like making wealthy lawyers with no guarantee of winning. Mis-spellings of one letter in a domain name are very common; gogle.com redirects to google.com, so they must have purchased it in 1998 to prevent this from happening.[9] The question is whether Wikipedia should buy up all of the possible mis-typings to prevent this sort of thing.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:04, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
If the WMF had to hire outside counsel for the WIPO process, I would agree it might not be worthwhile. However, the WMF has IP counsel on staff who I imagine are more than capable of using the procedure rather than rewarding typosquatters and incentivizing further such activity against the WMF or other trademark holders. 24.151.50.175 (talk) 17:56, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
The domain name alone borders on a trademark violation. It may be for sale for $688, but if I were the WMF I'd make them a better offer: $100 and the priceless promise not to sue them over it. - Alexis Jazz 17:47, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, I like that option. S Philbrick(Talk) 19:20, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

notice

It's happening to me now.

I am a longterm highly productive editor, being wiped out. The quick read of what's going on at wp:ANI won't make it clear, but in bigger context, I am being humiliated and destroyed, in terms of my ever getting out of the hole I am in.

It's all about bullying, that's my interpretation now and always.

  • I should have run for, gotten admin bit back in 2008 or so, which might have protected me. A lot that followed was enabled by others being admins and me not having that.
  • Fellow editor in conflict with me got it instead, and pursued harrassing.
  • I was here at User talk:Jimbo Wales once back in 2011 or 2012 or so, when beleaguered; I appreciated response here, but that harrassment continued.
  • I was served poorly in 2012 arbitration case against me.
  • I never explained to anyone what that permanently ruined, the types of contributions I would have been able to make, with others in and out of Wikipedia. I didn't want to give satisfaction to others for that.
  • I got back up eventually.
  • I hoped to go to RFA sometime, but got dragged down, blocked in conflict with a difficult (not just my opinion) editor.
  • Got into contention later with another difficult editor, got blocked.
  • Been dragged to ANI a few times.
  • Recently, I found my way to developing out a topic area that superficially seems problematic, but is solid.
  • Just now, basically, another difficult editor (this time User:Fram) confronted me, and in my experience has been cold and deeply incivil, and they opened ANI, and I am going down.

It seems crazy to me how Wikipedia eco-system works. Including giving over tremendous power to tremendously destructive actors, bending backwards to hold to other ideals (e.g. that anyone should be able to open ANIs, to pursue harrassment campaigns just below radar, that no one should be above being dragged down). Including ideals that i really like, but there have to be limits. Crazy to crush high number of incoming parties, by dropping default acceptance of high school articles. Amazingly crazy that historic places topic area, which should be free from controversy, and is very natural intro point for many, potentially, has in fact been horrible. There is no general understanding, say, of paradox of tolerance. I was encouraged briefly by WMF seeming to take action on Fram case. But very little is different in 2020 vs. 2012.

I have been thinking, trying, for long time to see how, and to do some part in addressing bullying. I found my way to deciding that writing an essay or two might be helpful, not too confrontational. Writing wp:TNTTNT, and associated discussion, has seemed to help in decreasing bullying going on in AFD arena. I found out recently that a separate action, taking out a difficult editor in that area, at about the same time, was likely of equivalent importance. I have been building a theory of how Wikipedia community could proceed, through systematic naming and then reducing of bullying-type stuff that goes on in each of many arenas for bullying (AFD, CFD, ANI, 3RR, and especially new editor entry points: new page patrol, two-item dabs, high school articles). And in complementary fashion, defining what constitutes bullying-harrassment. With essays towards emerging guidelines. With very gradual ratcheting up of definitions of unacceptable behavior. Broad and gradual enough to subsume simpler one-factor-at-a-time programs that would not work.

For me, I would prefer to do content, but see that being a good citizen requires more. I have long enjoyed being able to create content, as an escape partly. I haven't minded being drawn away to deal with emergencies sometimes. I have long enjoyed reaching out to new editors, or editors new to my areas, and supporting them. I have enjoyed many big collaborative projects. If I am humiliated as seems to be happening now, and blocked from proceeding with content unreasonably, as seems to be happening now, then I predict for myself that I cannot much enjoy just participating in non-content, and I will fade away or quit completely.

This is depressing, crushing, awful for me. I think it is a loss for Wikipedia, actually what I think I can contribute in anti-bullying, as well as in productive collaboration in content being stopped.

Here, I am not asking for intervention by Jimbo Wales. I don't see how any intervention now is possible by anyone. I just recall this was one safe haven, where once previously I could express what was going on, and not be jeered and dismissed. And as I thought about options last night, like if there was any way i could seek a coalition of help, or I didn't see any. --Doncram (talk) 17:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@Doncram: summaries are not your strong suit, are they? (hint, hint) And now I wonder if there is some connection between this and WP:FRAMBAN. I didn't keep up with that soap. I think in the last episode they invoked StatusQuoIsGod. But in general, without siding with or against you, I feel you. Sometimes it can feel as if the world is against you. Maybe you're just imagining it, or maybe it really is. But it sucks either way. - Alexis Jazz 22:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
The implication given here that Doncram's current problems stem in some way from "bullying" is totally absurd, a complete red herring. The problem is his editing behavior, his failure to believe that basic policies apply to him, and his unwillingness to admit mistakes and fix them when they are pointed out to him. The complaint against him is perfectly reasonable, as the evidence in the AN/I report shows, and the sanctions proposed are justified - at least in the view of the majority of editors responding. Instead of shouldering the burden of fixing the problem he created, he's dug his feet into the ground and cried "bully!"
Doncram's current behavior is almost precisely the same as that which provoked [an arbitration case] which resulted in Doncram being prevented from creating new articles for 3 years and 8 months, so he can hardly claim ignorance of what he did wrong in the past as an excuse for what he's doing wrong now. He seems to feel that if he throws walls of text at the problem, it will go away, but that seems unlikely. He should engage with his critics and pledge to fix the problems they've reported, not attempt another end-run around the problem with his "bullying" complaint. (His first end-run was an attempt to quash the AN/I report with a post on AN that asked for "summary judgment" and sanctions against Fram for filing the AN/I report.
Doncram has had several opportunities to head off sanctions with positive responses, but has refused to do so. The comment he posted here is simply another attempt to deflect the criticism of his behavior without ever dealing with it. In my view, many other editors would already have been indef blocked if they behaved as he has, it's only Doncram's long service time and the volume of articles he's created (many of them sub-stubs) that has kept him from that fate, but eventually, if he doesn't change his ways, I think it will catch up with him. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:53, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Doncram, you created a whole bunch of articles based on a trade directory and companies' own websites. Amazingly, you got pushback, just like you did when it happened before. Rather than simply banning you, we're looking at a minimal restriction that curbs your obvious enthusiasm without creating huge numbers of directory entries. Are you planning on learning from this at some point? Guy (help!) 09:39, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
Doncram, I can totally relate to where you are coming from. I was recently caught up in a bit of a contentious dispute. however, I reached out to two of the main initiators, and two of them ended up being highly helpful, supportive, and became my go-to guys when I wanted to implement some ideas for posting information on new editing events and activities here. and let me also add, when another editor recently raised some issues, I was able to reach out to them, and reach a new positive accord. it did require some highly stressful and intense communications, before I could get to that point. but fortunately, in the end, the community helped me, was cooperative, and I was able to move on, and get back to editing the areas that most drew my interest.
with that said, I totally hear you and get where you're coming from, when it comes to the emotional stress and strain. guys, we all need to hear Doncram when they speak about this. it is vitally important to hear someone out, whenever someone approaches us sincerely like this, with genuine emotional stress. especially here, at Jimbo's page. clearly, they genuinely would like some real help and input.
Doncram, I can offer the following suggestions, if this helps.
1) arrange to get yourself a mentor. I have one now, and they have been extremely helpful. If they are available, you are welcome to contact my own current mentor, and see whether they are available or not. I would suggest you review the list off available adopters beforehand, in case another adopter might perhaps be more suitable. however, again, you are welcome to contact me on my talk page, if you wish to find out who is my current mentor. I don't know if they are fully available now or not, though.
2) contact the editors who initiated whatever proceeding you are now part of. inform them how you are willing to change or amend your behavior for the future, going forward. also, let them know that you can take a hiatus of some duration, from whatever area was causing the problems. that would most likely allow everyone to take a step back and to get some valuable breathing space.
3) most importantly, just take on a different activity for the next few weeks. it doesn't have to be anything especially important. some people will tell you to "just get back to content editing." that is fine, if that is indeed what you want to do. however, if you do not, there are plenty of other activities here that you can choose to focus upon. if you want, you can do somethjing as simple as welcoming new editors. or answer questions at any forum that you might choose. but regardless of what you choose, I highly HIGHLY recommend that you choose a new area of activity. taking a break from Wikipedia completely is almost never a worthwhile option; the better route is to to pick of different activities, regardless of their level of importance, and take that on as a new pursuit.
Well, I hope my ideas above are of some help. I am going to continue to watch this discussion, so I will see any further replies that are posted here. Also, you are welcome to send any messages to my talk page. I look forward to seeing this discussion develop towards some positive resolution. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 02:23, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
I've mentioned a decade ago that Wikipedia should reform the Administrative sector. Personal behavioral issues often escalate in these processes when the goal should be to move away from such issues. Count Iblis (talk) 21:11, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
@Count Iblis: I agree with you on that. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 11:05, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Important: Paywalls have multiplied at an accelerated rate

Jimmy - I brought this up on your UTP in 2017: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 222#Increasing trend of paywalls and again in 2018: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 226#Paywall creep. The NYTimes, WaPo, WSJ, and a growing number of other RS are now behind paywalls. They are also learning how to combat incognito browsers. The costs to subscribe to these sources is unaffordable for the average editor here. It creates a major problem in our most controversial topic areas, such as AP, CC, medicine, etc. If the goal is to force editors to abide by WP:RECENTISM, NOTNEWS, and NEWSORG then do nothing because few will be able to access RS. Surely there is something the WMF can do to help. I visited WP:TWL and added WSJ to the long list of requests which also includes NYTimes and WaPo. If editors cannot access quality news sources, how will that affect our future? Atsme Talk 📧 16:23, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: On the other hand, someone has to pay the journalists. Ideally they wouldn't serve search engine spiders anything different than what they serve normal visitors. That would be in the interest of the search engines, because whenever a search engine returns a paywalled result you're probably unhappy. Perhaps news sites could serve the first few lines of the article (as they usually do) plus a list of the main raw facts from the article and make the visitor pay for the properly written out version. But as long as search engines allow websites to serve something completely different to regular visitors and search engine spiders, there is no incentive. - Alexis Jazz 17:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your input, Alexis. I understand overhead, but I also understand clickbait and how advertising works without forcing WP volunteers to pay when we are over here trying to build an encyclopedia for free. Our efforts in citing them is a positive not a negative for their bottom line; therefore, they should be a bit more sympathetic to the needs of our volunteers who may be tasked with having to subscribe to 10 or more RS. At $40 to $150/year, that equates into a lot of money for even 5 paid subscriptions. Atsme Talk 📧 17:24, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
@Atsme: I've wondered about that too. In particular because there is a Dutch newspaper I used to cite often for Wiktionary. I don't understand what clickbait has to do with this. Anyway, if you really wanted to, I bet you could get several newspapers for next to nothing. On paper, a few days old. People typically throw that away. Difficult to search though, and where do you put all of it.. - Alexis Jazz 19:13, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
It has a lot to do with it - the more traffic they get to their site, the more revenue they can make - ads pay by the click - it's a numbers game. Regardless, TWL offers some free access but it's really time for the WMF to step up to the plate before we see a sharp decline in article creation and editing in the areas that drive most of the traffic to WP. When RS become scarce, things are going to get pretty western. Atsme Talk 📧 21:58, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
Atsme, Are you suggesting WMF try to negotiate an institutional subscription for its editors, as say a major University might for its students? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 22:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
I'll bet that the people that make these decisions aren't working here for free like I am. I am retired and I need to watch my budget carefully to make ends meet and yet I need to buy subscriptions to do my work here. It's really not fair and I feel that it shows a lack of respect and appreciation for the hard-working editors here. Gandydancer (talk) 00:11, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Since both private mode and the New York Times and the Washington Post and The Wall Street journal were mentioned and all of these have free articles and none of these actually have enforced paywalls, I'm unconvinced there is a big issue. Rather than wasting time fooling around with private mode, just install "Bypass Paywalls" or some similar plugin and be done with it. Okay these occasionally break and you still sometimes have to close some please subscribe popups, but that's surely a minor issue. I guess for those who absolutely refuse to use a different browser and are currently using Chrome, you get the "developer mode" issue due to their refusal to allow it in the store, but ultimately I'm unconvinced this is a big deal for those who were willing to use private mode in the first place. Note I make no comment on the morality of using the plugin other than that I personally do not see see any good argument that using it to bypass free article limits vs using private mode with the explicit same intention, is sufficiently different to make one okay but the other not okay. (Using the plugin for other purposes e.g. paywalls without a free article limit like NZ Herald, I can see valid arguments. Although again, this assumes you aren't bypassing it via other means. If you are using "reader" mode and similar tricks to bypass such limited paywalls and think it's okay to do so, than the same issue comes into play i.e. using plugin to do so is morally similar enough that we should accept both as similarly morally right/wrong.) Nil Einne (talk) 04:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
It is not that easy, Nil. Mozilla has blocked the plugin, and the paywalls are already wise to incognito. NYTimes is the only one that allows 1x free access, but the steps we have to take to keep it free are annoying. I don't agree that editors should resort to unethical means of bypassing paywalls for the privilege of volunteering here, much less pay for a subscription to access sources while also contributing money to WMF and making other valuable contributions. Surely the WMF has the money to invest in its own future - or better yet, utilize a bit of salesmanship to convince the bean-counters at the respective sources that when WP cites them in an article, it drives potential new subscribers to their site. CaptainEek, my suggestion is more along the line of how WP:TWL operates now via its Library Card. I'm pinging Ocaasi and Samwalton9 for input. Good salesmanship when approaching mainstream sources to cooperate may be all we need to acquire xxx number of cards for free access, or better yet, get those sources to pay WMF a percentage for every new subscriber originating from WP. If none of the aforementioned works, WMF could offer each of the major mainstream sources a token annual access fee to allow free access to card-carrying WP editors, which actually provides those sources access to more subscribers they can utilize for polling and the like. Jimbo Wales, aren't some of the major news sources already contributors to WMF? Atsme Talk 📧 11:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
@Atsme: I feel like Wikipedia's primary goal is not to bring the latest news. (Wikinews on the other hand..) Wikipedia primarily aims to create a reference work. Perhaps some news outlets would be more willing to consider giving some Wikipedians access to all articles that are at least x days old. Such access wouldn't quite compete with their regular offering. It might make it easier to convince them. - Alexis Jazz 13:18, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I quite agree with Atsme, I think having more access to reliable sources would be excellent. Now, I admittedly already pay for subscriptions to several sources solely because I use them on Wikipedia, but I know that most folks don't have that kind of money. And money should not be a barrier to entry for the editing the free encyclopedia. Especially for sources like the NYTimes and WSJ, which are gold standards here on Wiki, and are often used to determine notability. I think the foundation spending money on these kinds of sources, even for a limited number of subscriptions or whatever deals could be worked out would be a very, very good use of funds. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:49, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
@CaptainEek and JzG: Can you and others who have subscriptions set up a pool so other editors can ask you to look up or verify stuff? I thought such a thing already existed, but I can't remember where. - Alexis Jazz 09:44, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, no, that is illegal.
True fact: if you Google the title of a paywalled article, you can often access the full text via the Google cache dropdown. Guy (help!) 13:17, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
@JzG: I can't imagine that being illegal. If I know you have a subscription to a print newspaper, and I call you to ask you if the newspaper reported on xyz or what the outcome of some local election is according to the newspaper, and you tell me.. why would that be illegal? Obviously you're not allowed to send me copies of the articles, but you can relay the facts. You might violate some ToS from the newspaper if you have a subscription (though that would be severely silly), but you're not going to jail. As for Google cache, I thought some sites disabled that through robots.txt? So don't count on that loophole working forever. - Alexis Jazz 14:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, sorry, I misread your comment as asking about pooling WaPo accounts. Guy (help!) 16:44, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I know it doesn't solve the problem, but can I just recommend The Guardian, which is free in its entirety for everybody. They do ask for contributions, but why shouldn't they. Bishonen | tålk 12:37, 3 May 2020 (UTC).

Bishonen, Indeed. And I subscribe to the Washington Post and New York Times, primarily to facilitate fact-checking here. Also some publications like the Financial Times make some important stories free. In the end, someone has to pay the journalists, or you end up with somethihng like the Mail Online, where much of the content is supplied pre-written by PR firms. Guy (help!) 15:24, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, even if one does not use WashPo and NYT for edits one still needs them for fact checking. And I do a lot of that. Re The Guardian, I do send them small amounts from time to time because I am so grateful that they have not gone the "pay to read" route. Gandydancer (talk) 00:16, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
The fact the Guardian manages very well without paywalls proves, imo, that the paywall crowd are not necessary nor even the better sources. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:35, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Nocturnalnow, I don't think anybody is arguing that any specific model is inherently superior. Different outlets will decide what to do based on their own individual circumstances. Ironically, fundamentalist libertarians have enormous amounts of money from think tanks funded through dark money, so they publish mountains of content with no paywall at all - this is a major outlet for far right economic theories and climate change denial, for example. Guy (help!) 13:12, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Guy, so they use the lack of paywalls as a lure? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Nocturnalnow, you'd have to ask them why they do it. But yes. Guy (help!) 09:45, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

And then there is the issue that not all information is yet online: one must consult printed books to get one's facts correct from time to time. While public libraries do help meet this need, I for one find that I need to consult some specialized monographs that are either out of print (& thus expensive), or were expensive to begin with. (Why does Brill consistently price their titles at least twice or three times what I would be willing to pay for them? Last time I considered buying one of their books new, it retailed at $160.--, when US$1 was roughly equal to 1 Euro.) It would be helpful if the Foundation either had a grant program for buying books -- or even a purchase program with Amazon where qualified Wikipedians could buy books at a discount -- but when it comes to obtaining access for information, the Foundation seems to have entirely missed the message. -- llywrch (talk) 05:34, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Llywrch, FUTON bias is definitely a thing. Guy (help!) 13:13, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but I'm seeking help for Wikipedians to fight it. Extortionate prices on print sources only make the problem worse. -- llywrch (talk) 14:00, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I think I suggested this the last time Atsme brought this up, but since WMF has some money, they could start a pilot-project on giving editors who apply and fulfill some criteria one-year subscriptions to WaPo, NYT, Haaretz, The Times and/or whatever. If they tell WaPo "Hey, we'd like 10 000 subscriptions!" they may be able to negotiate a discount. Current asking price is $29 for the first year. One can of course always ask at WP:WRE. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:23, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah, and in the 2017 discussion JW stated "First, I think it's a really interesting idea to think about how the WMF might negotiate for bulk discounts for access for individual Wikipedians to the archives of newspapers (to be paid for by the WMF)" Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:02, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, there are mechanisms already in place for access to paywalled content - I have JSTOR, for example, through WMF. Guy (help!) 13:15, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
JSTOR I knew about. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:17, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Guy, why are you against this proposal? It's a net positive, and will be a vast improvement toward encouraging the use of quality sources, not to mention a vast improvement on our time here. It will save you money in subscription fees that you could donate to WMF instead. All these suggested workarounds are a pita, and can be extremely time-consuming for those of us working NPP/AfC or reviewing FACs or verifying that material in controversial articles align with the sources, etc. I try not to stick [citation needed] tags on articles - I go hunt down the RS and fix the issues. WMF can afford to do this, and it should be done because the paywalls are only going to get worse which will have a negative effect on the pedia. WP editors aren't the only ones trying to cheat the paywalls so you can expect them to tighten up. Why wait until the fit hits the shan? Jimbo, what more can I do to help further this proposal? Atsme Talk 📧 15:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
Atsme, proposal? I don't see a proposal in there. Or at least not one that has any hope of success. TWL hands out subscriptions that are given to us by the publishers. If NYT, WaPo and WSJ choose not to offer, then there's not a whole lot we can do. Guy (help!) 09:45, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy...I provided links when I first posted but since this is a worthy endeavor, I'll add a few more links and cut to the chase by providing Jimbo's responses here and here at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 226#Paywall creep. I hold in high regard much of the information he provides, and there are times when that information may not seem like a lot, at least not until his words are fully digested, but along that same line, there are times when digesting his words have the same effect as eating a spicy burrito. ^_^

Jimbo said: If this is a good idea (and I generally think it is, although I can think of some reservations) then I can imagine a really neat technical solution. Much like 'Facebook connect', a 'Wikipedia connect' could allow anyone with a Wikipedia account to login to any resource that allows it. Just as "Facebook connect" is very easy for websites to implement, so could be "Wikipedia connect". In order for this to not simply become a popular way for people to evade paywalls (which would obviously make it highly undesirable for the publishers), the api could also hand back an edit count, so that publishers could use the mechanism to say "If you are a legitimate Wikipedian with 250 or more edits, then you can have free access". I made the number 250 up out of thin air as being a number that seems high enough to prevent annoying people from bothering to pop by to make a handful of relatively useless edits, but low enough that all serious Wikipedians would get it.

Reservations that come to mind: there is an argument that as a service to our readers, we should prefer sources, other things being equal, that are freely licensed, and if not freely licensed, at least free to read. A free pass for Wikipedians makes it easier for us to link to closed sources. There is a counter-argument that such an approach feeds right into a lot of the advertising-only business model problems of encouraging clickbait business models rather than reader-supported business models. I'm not taking a stand on that, but rather noting that our impact on the ecosystem of the web is substantial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimbo Wales (talk • contribs) 6:32 am, 25 January 2018, Thursday (2 years, 3 months, 15 days ago) (UTC−4) (reply)

And his final response: I agree with this, for the most part, but I also think that offering payment is probably unnecessary. The mere argument "if you do this, you will get more links from Wikipedia" is probably incentive enough.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 6:33 am, 25 January 2018, Thursday (2 years, 3 months, 15 days ago) (UTC−4)

As you can see after reviewing prior discussions and Jimbo's response, proposals have already been put forward, and now they just need to be acted upon. The paywalls are increasing, and the areas suffering most from paywall syndrome are WP:NPP, WP:AFC and WP:AFD, all of which are crucial to maintaining the growth and quality of the encyclopedia. Volunteers need tools to work with, and if Jimbo wants to hire me to help get the job done, I'm available. ;-) Atsme Talk 📧 12:50, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

The premise that quality news sources have paywalls which information/knowledge seekers or compilers need to deal with is not a premise I accept. Quality information/knowledge is free and always has been. Over rated and trite (non-quality) information/knowledge has to be sold in order to create a perceived value where there is none. It's similar to the love of money being the root of evil whereas money itself is not. It's also similar to paying for sex instead of having sex without payment. The most valuable thing about the internet is its free access to information/knowledge, although, just as with sex, there will always be pimps and other marketing types who trick people into monetizing something that should be free as a bird. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:15, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with loving money, it's when you commit crimes and hurt others to acquire it that makes it bad - and that typically happens because of greed, not money. To say otherwise is like telling someone to go to hell and then blaming your keyboard for being rude. And please, your sex analogy is not a good one. Let's keep things on topic - editors should not have to pay $1/day +/- per publication to subscribe to quality sources in order to improve or verify information in our articles. There are RS available to us now....at least until they figure out subscriptions not only help pay the bills, they provide assurances to advertisers, but I'm not here to teach marketing. There are some quality sources that are still free to us now but for how much longer? If WMF doesn't want to get behind this, then be prepared for unexpected consequences, and next year we'll see how it pans out. BTW - there is no such thing as a free lunch. Atsme Talk 📧 00:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
"For the love of money is the root of all of evil." Well, money's just a tool, I suppose. Loving a shovel could easily result in some evil, digging up a garden in the Spring OTOH, shouldn't cause any problems. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:28, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Atsme:, I have an issue with calling any publication that promoted the "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction" bullshit "quality"; those 2 things are mutually exclusive, imo.
Re: loving money, even disregarding any spiritual aspect, i.e. aspects relating to human spirits/souls, ironically loving money is kinda like loving the shovel Smallbones references, which would be odd to say the least. It's probably just semantics, I'm using "love" in an emotional sense and perhaps there are other ways, like I "love" vanilla ice cream.....but still, I doubt money is of any more, likely less, non-trade use than a shovel or a wheel. It's like an IOU on a piece of paper. Useful but not, in a natural way, loveable, imo.
In essence I'm saying that, sure, the "love of money" is a real thing, but only because of brainwashing, i.e. marketing, i.e. value created out of thin air. Cabbage patch dolls, cigarettes spring to mind. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi all - I'm the Product Manager for The Wikipedia Library at the WMF and I just wanted to share some thoughts on this as it relates to our program. We have partnerships with more than 60 organisations, who now provide the community with free access to their resources without us having to pay them anything (please sign up!).
The library doesn't contain everything, and there are a number of sources listed above that we haven't been able to get access to yet. While we've been focusing on some technical improvements over the past couple of years we haven't spent as much energy on new partner outreach. That's something we're going to scale back up in the coming fiscal year with more support from the WMF Partnerships team.
In terms of the financials, the library's holdings would cost many millions of dollars per year to maintain if we were subscribing directly. Publisher subscription fees are becoming prohibitive even for well-funded libraries and universities, and the library would quickly become one of the most expensive programs at the WMF if we instead paid directly for everything. Not to mention that we'd have all the same staffing costs anyway!
In short, I don't see a need for the WMF to subscribe to these sources because our arguments for entering a free-access arrangement seem to be working well - we just need to continue scaling up that effort so that we can fill in our gaps, both in terms of missing the big publishers and newspapers, but also in terms of diversifying our content to include more global sources. As always, if you have requests for new partnerships please leave them here or at the requests page. These directly inform our prioritisation. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you so much. Outstanding! Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
@Samwalton9 (WMF): word of warning: if you go to that page to request new partnerships, make sure you are logged in first or your input will be lost. Also, realize that that page is not a wiki. I just added a suggestion for NRC Handelsblad, but I can't edit it anymore it seems. I avoid NRC nowadays so I don't waste the few free articles one can read, even though it's a great source. (the free article counter resets every month or so I think) Because I avoid them to avoid tripping the free article limit, I can't verify this is still the limit today. I added a note about that, but that seems out of place in hindsight. But I can't edit it. - Alexis Jazz 18:23, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up, I seem to recall that form previously saved your data when logging in. I've filed T251991. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:18, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Hi Samwalton9 (WMF), so do I understand you correctly, you have looked into helping Wikipedia editors to assess certain news sites such as NYT and WashPo but have decided it would be too expensive? Gandydancer (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
@Gandydancer: That's mostly true, yes. We've decided that continuing to work on encouraging them to provide access for free is the better bet. While it may take longer to get there, the costs would quickly add up if we started subscribing to these publications. We've shown that these organisations can be convinced to enter a partnership with us, we just have to find the right people to speak to and make the right arguments. Oh and by the way, we're making ProQuest available soon, which will contain historical NYT articles (up to, I think, 2015). Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:47, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm trying to assume good faith but it is difficult. It seems to me that you said you were working on it when Atsme brought this up quite some time ago. If you have been waiting all this time to find the right people to speak to and also have not yet been able to come up with the right arguments I have to wonder how competent you are. It is not my intention to speak harshly, but I do have to wonder. Have you tried to work with the NYT and WashPo on a sort of deal wherein you would pay a reduced group price that would be offered to only trusted editors that have made a specified number of edits and have been WP members for a specified amount of time? If not this, have you made any other suggestions to these two top news outlets? Gandydancer (talk) 14:38, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
" Do. Or do not. There is no try." Assuming good faith and trying to assume good faith is classic Doublethink.
Samwalton9 (WMF), it's wonderful that you joined this discussion and brought such usefull and welcome information. Your reasoning is both practical and profound and I believe most of our donors support your approach to how their dollars are being spent. I agree that any media worth being considered a RS will agree to provide access for free to the library. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:29, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Nocturnalnow when you say that Wikipedia's "reasoning is both practical and profound" and you agree with them when they say "any media worth being considered a RS will agree to provide access for free to the library" I think that it's fair for me to question your logic and your position while I don't for a moment question that you are speaking in good faith. But I do think it's fair for me to question both the logic and the sincerity of those statements when they are made by a Wikipedia paid employee. When months and years go by and the staff rep says they are still waiting for the "right argument" and the "right people", how can I believe they are even working on the problem? I think that it would have been fair to have this discussion with the foundation rep but I see they they are no longer responding to me, I suppose because I questioned their comments. Staff should always stay open to criticism, and though now retired, at least that's the way it was in my long working career. Nocturnalnow, please look for example at the Bernie Sanders article where we list 439 references. At least 60 of them use pay-walled sources. I am a major editor of that and several similar articles. As you know, we are especially concerned that we get our facts right when it comes to BLPs. How can I fact check them without paying what would, for me, amount to a substantial amount of money? How can we continue to call Wikipedia open to anyone to edit when seasoned, trusted, and productive editors like me need to be able to "afford" to edit here? Gandydancer (talk) 16:21, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I was recently working on creating some new articles for Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red and found one just-barely-notable person was the subject of a significant articles in the LA Times. Paywalled, and I ended up paying for a subscription, but I live on the east coast, and have no particular interest in reading the LA Times on a regular basis, except that it may occasionally be a good source for an article. I suggest I am a good example of someone who ought to have a discounted subscription, not for free, but for some modest amount.

I am strongly supportive of an initiative to get WMF muscle behind a discount model for a large list of paywalled sources.

The benefits to the sources are enormous. Yes, they want eyeballs, or at least the ability to demonstrate to their advertisers that they have paid subscribers, but editors provide so much more. We are including links in one of the most trafficked sites on the interest, far more trafficked than any of the individual sources, so our very actions are going to encourage more people to want to subscribe. My guess is that this is very crudely the argument that @Samwalton9 (WMF): would use to push for free access, but unless that initiative is close to fruition, I’m unclear why the sources would be more apt to do a free subscription than one in which they get some revenue. I think (but am not sure) that when they report subscribers to advertisers, paid are worth more than free.

I’m thinking though a mechanism where the WMF kicks in some money, and editors get to sign up for access to all these sources for a modest amount, which scales down to zero depending on how many edits or references created in one year. Prolific editors could get access for free, more modest users of such sources (myself) would pay some modest amount, and others who create almost no content would also be able to sign up, but for a higher amount. The devil is in the details, but I think a plan could be created that generates thousands of subscriptions for these sites, and revenue that is meaningful to the sources.S Philbrick(Talk) 18:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the top four: LA Times, NYT, WashPo, and The Wall Street Journal - all pay-walls. Why does the Foundation just brush this off and say Oh, we're working on it (but don't hold your breath)? Gandydancer (talk) 19:17, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
Gandydancer, because it's not the Foundation's problem. It's a problem for us, as Wikipedians, but it's no more their problem than the fact that most books and scientific papers are not freely downloadable. Guy (help!) 09:43, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
@Gandydancer: Apologies for not getting back to you sooner - there's a lot going on right now so it's not always possible for me to respond quickly. To reiterate my comment above, we deprioritised pursuing new partnerships over the past year or two while we focused on making technical improvements to our access workflows. We're a small team (now growing, I'm happy to say), and it just wasn't feasible for us to do both at full capacity. That said, we are soon launching access to Springer Nature, ProQuest, and 4 other publishers that we've been able to obtain partnerships with recently. Also as above, we're renewing our efforts this year to get access to these high demand resources, so hopefully you'll be seeing progress before long. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:52, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
When you say you are working "to get access to these high demand resources" do you mean the top four news outlets that I mentioned? If that is correct, is there any reason that you could not regularly share your progress with the editors? In my experience it improves morale when management shares that sort of information with those who are out in the field doing the work. Especially in this case where the workers are not getting the proper tools they need to put out the best product possible. Remember that editors take pride in helping to put together and keep up this project. Note that a while back Atsme asked "What more can I do to help?". That really touched me and I hope that it had the same effect on you and others in management. Gandydancer (talk) 16:18, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
That's a great idea and I'll have a think about how we might make that process more open so folks can follow our progress. Perhaps a Phabricator board could work? Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 18:05, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
@Atsme and Gandydancer: Just a quick update that this morning I pulled together the start of a partnerships Phabricator board for the project, which you can now find at The-Wikipedia-Library-Partnerships. I haven't got to importing everything yet, but I think I've covered most of the high priority or actively under discussion publishers. Also of interest, while I was pulling this together, is that I discovered our impending ProQuest partnership contains the US Newsstream collection via ProQuest Central, in which it looks like you'll be able to find The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and more current newspapers! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:13, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, Samwalton9 (WMF) - it's good to know they are on the list. I cannot imagine why any of those news sources would reject an opportunity to be cited in Wikipedia. confused face icon Just curious...is there a way we can utilize link tracking for the links we include in our citations and possibly use those numbers to help convince the respective sources to grant us access? Atsme Talk 📧 12:27, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
@Atsme: Yes! We have a tool that can do this link tracking for us. It has some issues we need to work on over the coming year, before we can roll it out to publishers in a meaningful way. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:30, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Hopefully we have been successful in letting management understand how difficult it is to do factual, up-to-date edits be they about the environment, politics, or everything in between without access to high quality up-to-date information. Jimbo dreamed the impossible dream and everyday people have helped him to make it come true. The world is not the same as it was when Jimbo first started our online encyclopedia and it's important that we adjust to changing times. Hopefully now management will work on making the needed changes that will insure a continuance of the high quality information that we all hope to provide. Gandydancer (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
Samwalton9 (WMF), I expressed support for free or reduced price access for certain editors who add a lot of links to paywalled sources upthread, but I’ll add another category, which are not likely to get tracked by a link tracking tool. I do a lot of copyvio work, and that often includes removal of material plagiarized from paywalled sources. I trust the sources will agree that this is a valuable service to them, and isn’t going to result in a new link to their site, it may even result in the removal of a link. However, I can’t verify the problem without reviewing the source, and sometimes I have to skip over one, leaving for overworked other volunteers, because I cannot view it. I presently have a paid subscription to LA Times, but I obtained it to work on a basketball article, and can’t justify paying for a subscription for a once in a year positive edit to an article, and an occasional copyvio check.
Presumably it would not be hard to scrape the CopyPatrol archives to find links to paywalled sources, and thereby demonstrate the value that CopyPatrol editor add by removing copyright violations. I would suggest that active contributors to CopyPatrol should have free access to paywalled sources to continue this work. S Philbrick(Talk) 19:35, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick: If access to the sources is useful for you on Wikipedia, regardless of what activities they're useful for, then you're more than welcome to get access! Link additions via that tool are just one way we can evaluate the program, so don't worry about using the library for other activities, including but not limited to copyright patrolling :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:46, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

now I'D pay for this

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2020/may/06/trump-live-and-let-die-video

Talk about guerilla marketing; somebody deserves one of those advertising prizes. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:05, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Google News is also facilitating this. They have changed their old policy of not listing news stories behind a paywall.I guess the fake news problem has prompted Google to make this change. Count Iblis (talk) 13:20, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Purpose of the 'Founder' group?

I just stumbled upon Wikipedia:User access levels#Founder, a user group I wasn't aware of before now which has exactly one member.

It makes sense to me that the founder would have access to basically whatever the founder wants access to. But looking at the rights that the group grants, I wonder why you're not a (local) steward instead. Or alternatively: why the local "stewards" group exists, considering it has 0 members. Founder grants userrights and oathauth-enable, steward grants userrights and noratelimit. oathauth-enable and noratelimit are also included in the administrator group, so founder/steward only adds userrights. Am I missing something? - Alexis Jazz 20:26, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: He was a steward until 2009 --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 21:56, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
Ask at WP:VPT if you're really interested. I think it's got something to do with the worst-case scenario whereby someone might block everyone possibly using a software vulnerability, and then there would be no fast recovery mechanism. I think founder has some advantage in that situation but if you want more than guesses I would try VPT. At any rate, the technical merits aside, it's now a social question and there simply is no reason to change long-standing procedure. Johnuniq (talk) 00:18, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
@Johnuniq: I'm not saying it should be changed, though perhaps the local "stewards" group could be retired as it has no members anyway and Jimbo has his own group. I don't know about hearing more guesses at VPT. The 'Founder' group has 1 member, who better to ask? Your theory is interesting, but from a technical point of view it seems to make limited sense. If someone were to block everyone, would there really be much of a difference between waiting for Jimbo or waiting for someone with direct database access? (or more likely, a global steward if only enwiki is affected) Besides.. Jimbo probably couldn't do much. The attacker would have either somehow changed the rights each group holds (really hard) which absolutely nobody on-wiki could do anything about or the attacker is blocking accounts at a rate of thousands per second - no offense, but even Jimbo won't be able to unblock that fast. On m:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions/founder I see only one right that might help in such an event: siteadmin. (lock and unlock the database) But Founder doesn't have that. According to m:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions, no global group does. I'm not sure anyone does. - Alexis Jazz 06:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

It is a traditional and largely honorary thing. The flag gives me the ability to look at anything such as oversighted revisions, deleted revisions, and so on, across the entire project (all languages), which has in the past sometimes been useful as I seek to advise people in various languages. It was created by Tim Starling (if I remember correctly) and not something that I asked for. It has been a long time since I reviewed the details of what rights it grants, but the intention is that it largely is about seeing, not about doing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:36, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I think you're actually confusing the global 'founder' group and the local 'founder' group. The global group gives you the ability to look at oversighted revisions and the like. The local group gives you the abilities of a steward, but where stewards on Wikimedia are global, the local 'founder' group on English Wikipedia makes you, for all intents and purposes, a local steward. - Alexis Jazz 18:42, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Neat, thanks. Anyway, as I say, traditional and largely honorary. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:21, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
That does make sense. :) I've asked the alternative question from my initial message on VPT: Unused local "stewards" group. - Alexis Jazz 19:06, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
I kind of feel like the local flag should also be given to Denny and Magnus at Wikidata and Mediawiki, respectively, though probably without the extra rights attached. There's value in marking that kind of thing, sometimes. --Yair rand (talk) 06:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
@Yair rand: enwiki is the only wiki with a local "Founder" group. (I checked) - Alexis Jazz 08:28, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

gg

ForTheLorax (talk) 15:54, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Why

During the FRAM crisis, you expressed that the issue was not about one editor, but about Wikipedia's constitutional order. You expressed support for community self-governance. When it looked as though the WMF was prepared to burn Wikipedia to the ground over the issue, you and rest of the Board intervened, and prevented the WMF from involvement in areas of conduct enforcement other than those legitimately delegated to it. Now, the Board has rescinded this, establishing that "the role of staff may extend beyond the “most severe cases”, as expressed in a July 2019 Board statement". There are no stipulations for community oversight or control over WMF staff intervention in regular conduct cases. The Board statement specifically requests that the WMF write policies that would apply to the communities, and implement them. Despite the resolution including statements repeatedly expressing support for self-governance, as of now there are no longer any obstacles preventing the WMF from interfering in regular conduct enforcement.

I don't understand. :-( --Yair rand (talk) 15:29, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

WMF sets new rules for Wikipedia

Wikipedia sets new rule to combat “toxic behaviour” "The Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation that runs the site, voted on new measures that will be finalised by the end of the year.... The development of a new code of conduct will take place in two phases. The first will include setting policies for in-person and virtual events as well as policies for technical spaces including chat rooms and other Wikimedia projects. It is set to be ratified by the board by 30 August. A second phase outlining enforcement when the rules are broken will be approved by the end of the year, according to the board's plan." Count Iblis (talk) 13:43, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Popcorn, anybody? -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 13:56, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
"This has led to a form of harassment where, after one volunteer adds to a page, another volunteer will remove or change that work moments later, forcing the first editor to redo their work and leading to editing battles."
So WP:BRD is "harassment," and the WMF intends to intervene directly in edit wars? 71.234.210.113 (talk) 18:49, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I think the BBC oversimplified the issue. Harassment is a legit concern on and off-wiki, and there has long been a sense that not enough was being done to stop harassment. It can take the form of stalking editors, and reverting or watching their edits unduly, as I think the BBC is getting at. But it is clearly more complex than that. I'm glad to see the WMF doing more, I don't think we should poopah the effort simply because the WMF is behind it. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:03, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
During the Fram fiasco, I predicted that the WMF would make another power grab. Based on the link I posted below, the WMF intends to decide whose guilty of what, ignore community input (as they usually do), and block/ban as they see fit. This is exactly what I meant by "judge, jury, and executioner." There are several references to "community functionaries," but as usual, no real plan for getting (or intention to get) input from the general editing community on these matters. I agree that harassment is a real and present issue, but maintain that the WMF is incapable of providing solutions to these problems without massive collateral damage to the project. Any real solutions will have to come from the community, with the WMF playing (at most) a purely support role, taking directives from the community, not the other way around. 71.234.210.113 (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

WMF Community Culture Statement 71.234.210.113 (talk) 18:55, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Non-issue because of Ignore all rules, or, as somebody once said, you've got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. What is an issue is that Wikipedia is one of the few places left in America with any semblance of free speech at all, but the control freaks just keep on pushing their dumbing down plutocratic B.S. because that's just what control freaks have to do to have any sense of self-importance. I mean, the pushiest social justice warriors are also the least productive people on the planet. It's so damn obvious. Where are the climate change warriors? Should not they be celebrating or at least pointing to a silver lining? Now that's something to think about. Where are they today? Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
Just imagine a world in which WikiLambda will have learned enough to generate algorithms permitting the WMF to deploy plush and cuddly multi-lingual peacebots on its various and sundry projects to keep users from bickering about politics, and to keep property creators from sitting on their hats. ^^ -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 18:59, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WMF Board Authorises Universal Code of Conduct and non-local sanctions of those who breach them. 71.234.210.113 (talk) 17:10, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

The WMF moves to declare Wikipedia RFC's to be illegitimate decision making

Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)#The WMF moves to declare Wikipedia RFC's to be illegitimate decision making

Notifying those here because Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF) is new and doesn't get much traffic. 71.234.210.113 (talk) 17:48, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

The key here is that someone has taken a statement which is not about RfC's at all, and written "This basically means that they consider RfC's to lack legitimacy." Well, no. That isn't what the strategy document says and isn't what that section is about.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:20, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikis with shared namespaces

Wikipedias that use Wikidata for infoboxes in green

When wikis with shared namespaces were created (currently Wikidata and Commons), the advantages were obvious. But what about the downsides? The risk of those projects influencing other projects, the risk of policy or administrator actions local to Wikidata and Commons having an influence on other projects? Have there been considerations on how to mitigate that risk? And have efforts been made to improve collaboration both ways? Consider the infobox on es:Jimmy Wales and Jimmy Wales. The former has only 4 parameters and gets the rest from Wikidata, the latter has 19 parameters. Afaik this is because enwiki doesn't trust Wikidata to keep vandalism under control. On another project, an influential administrator prefers not to trust Commons with things that influence many pages. Frankly I can't blame them. Coming up with solutions is easy, but it's not my place. - Alexis Jazz 17:46, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I think cross-wiki decision making will always be disjointed and hard, particularly around editorial judgments. Smaller wikis (I wouldn't count Spanish in that group, I hasten to add) may make the choice to lean heavily on wikidata in all cases, because they don't have a big enough community to do all that for themselves. Larger communities may make different choices. And they may make different choices due to locally important factors - maybe minor soap stars are a target of vandalism in one country but not another, etc. I couldn't even begin to think through all the specific factors that might lead to different decisions in different places.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:28, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
The question is why "bigger" wikis even bother to do it all themselves. The same information is being maintained in English, German, Portuguese, etc, etc, just a waste of time. I gather from your response that not too much is being done to determine what the bottlenecks are. I personally know (the worst kind of research) there is at least one technical bottleneck, that being that edits on Wikidata that affect a local article don't show on the local watchlist. But besides that I think it's mostly about trust. Maybe Wikidata and Commons shouldn't have their own administrators, instead having representatives from all the other projects. I don't really know, but I do know that several communities experience at least Commons (which is harder to ignore than Wikidata for the average user) as a forced marriage. Also, please take a look at the map. You'd expect a checkerboard pattern of green and red, but that's not what you'll find at all. - Alexis Jazz 03:49, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

A more evolved Editor Behaviour Dispute Resolution System for Wikipedia is needed

Hey Jimbo, what do you think of this? [10]

I apologise for the arrogance of pointing this out directly to you. I am a long time contributor of this project but only an occasional one. I have only recently discovered the "dark side" of AN/I and have been shocked by what I saw. So... here is my attempt at WP:BOLD.

I think this is a major existential problem for this wonderful project. If fairness is not guaranteed by solid processes abuses will always be rampant and in smaller communities this could be disastrous. We really need to make a huge evolutionary jump here and I think your participation would mean a lot.

There has been a survey in 2017 regarding AN/I's current handling of complex interpersonal disputes and the conclusions were damning [11]. When asked if they were satisfied with the way that AN/I cases are handled: only 27% of respondents indicated they were satisfied. With an average vote of 2,6. 24.63% gave a vote of 1. 5.22% gave a vote of 5. Unfortunately the community didn't follow up the report. Maybe it wasn't publicised enough.

Most agree AN/I is a big time waste and results in a lot of grief for all parties involved. We should be talking about editing not fighting over editors!

Unfortunately though, disputes will always happen. I think anyone with a little "real world" experience in judiciary matters would agree that those AN/I reports are not fair processes and that they are subject to huge biases.

Wikipedia is too important today to leave such decisions to a quick 72h discussion on a talk page where everybody just casts their stone and piles on. Some structure must be given to resolve unavoidable biases and problems in those matters.

The current system might work for obvious vandalism. Not so much for complex problems involving long time contributors and intricate rules. The project has grown. The rules are more complex. We need some kind of system that can ensure a fair process in those matters. Right to a fair trial is a crucial pillar of civility.

Users with 15 years of editing history should not be "rage quitting" every time AN/I is involved. And new editors should not be left with a feeling of being squashed by a bureaucracy of powerful admins. We can do much better than this. All it takes is a little more structure and a clear process in those matters.

Thank you for your time. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  talk 08:37, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

p.s. Looks like the Wikimedia Foundation Board is stepping in [12]. There seems to be some wariness that they might try to "supersede" the community. I think it should push us to try and fix this ourselves even more. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  talk 18:03, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The Wikipedist Editor

You got the Wikipedist Editor badgel because for 19 years you was there for Wikipedia! Thank you!

Best regards, Pirócai (talk) 12:57, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 May 2020

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:06, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Your edit to Robin Stevens (author)

I've just fixed it up completely by reverting to the version before this weird edit. Yay for article histories! Graham87 06:02, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Hey how's it going

Hi Jimbo, hope things are going well in London. Will you please sponsor my dual UK citizenship? Honestly, if you could, and I'm being completely sincere here, if you had the choice would you support my bid for Australian citizenship? How about New Zealand? Well, in any case, I have to ask you about this: [13] Are you in favor of making the American Civil War losers take their pageantry down? EllenCT (talk) 06:34, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm not really in a position to help people I don't know personally with citizenship applications. (I must confess I don't even know where you live or anything like that.) So I'm sorry to have to decline that.
I think you may be misreading that document about the Confederate flag. I absolutely agree that it is wildly inappropriate for any current unit of the US Military to fly or display the Confederate battle flag in any public spaces or work areas, which is that that memo is about. The only limited exception I can think of is if there is some kind of historical exhibit about the US Civil War in a military museum or something like that. But for normal day to day spaces and events, no, the US military should not fly that flag, and it is right of their commanding officers to make sure it doesn't happen.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:11, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, hear hear. 150 years too damn late. "I think it wiser [...] not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the example of those nations who endeavored to obliterate the marks of civil strife, and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered." -- Robert E. Lee. Guy (help!) 15:09, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Blacking out Wikipedia in Support of Black Lives Matter

We should do it. It is the right thing to do.--Jorm (talk) 06:14, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

We are a force for good. We should do good things. We have, at our disposal, the largest information platform in the world. We should use it.
There is an idea that we are "neutral." We are not. The simple idea of "free knowledge" is, in and of itself, the most radically progressive idea that has ever existed in the minds of humankind. We are not neutral. We will never be. We are always, forever, a force of progress and progress is only ever good'.
 We should act like it. We should do good things.
I am not the smartest person in the world so I don't have all the ideas. We can black out the site in solidarity with the lives lost over time to police brutality. We can use our vast money collection engine to pay bail or medical expenses for those injured by the police state. We can use our money to buy legal advice. We can provide direct, powerful fact-checking for free to millions of people.
Let's do some good.

--Jorm (talk) 06:36, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Jorm, Jorm is correct to state that we are not neutral. On that, I'm in agreement. Let's work on becoming more neutral, not less. S Philbrick(Talk) 17:22, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick: The platonic idealized Wikipedia is completely neutral, has no rules, lets literally every person edit, and builds a endless free reliable encyclopedia with a welcoming community where everyone contributes in good faith and always assumes good faith of others. Everyone is bold in making edits, and collective decisions are made by complete consensus. Ever notice how many of Wikipedia's policies and principles are unusually aspirational? --Yair rand (talk) 17:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
@Yair rand The platonic idealized Wikipedia doesn't exist. I've nailed myself to the cross and shouted for everybody to listen but nobody cares. Jimbo knows what I'm saying, he remembers me as user:Stillwaterising trying to organically change the cp thing on commons on coincidentally the same week the co-founder Larry Sanger went public with " the wikiporn scandal". My heart was sincere but was just dismissed as a concern troll. Technophant (talk) 20:32, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Technophant, commons is a cesspit. At least on Wikipedia we generally recognise that just because you can do something, that doesn't mean you should, let alone must. Guy (help!) 10:56, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
JzG agreed. good advice!! Technophant (talk) 16:13, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Comment JzG, this is exactly the idea I had when this was first proposed. I knew that given the political diversity in editors a blackout wouldn’t happen, and I understand the sentiment of wanting to provide information about these events. But I think whatever our political stripe (with certain outliers), we can all agree this is an issue the global majority of Wikipedia can get behind, and even more so, raise money to support. A banner with a request for donations to well-vetted organizations that support racial equality, police reform, and equal justice would be ideal. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 11:06, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Yair rand, Yes our goals are typically aspirational. For example, I spend a lot of time working on copyright issues, but I would never say that Wikipedia history of copyright violations; I might say that we strive to keep it as free of copyright problems as possible but it is a never-ending task. If some editor attempted to add copyrighted information and argued that it was so important that the copyright violation ought to be overlooked because after all we do have some copyright violations I wouldn't buy that argument. Similarly, the fact that we do not reach our aspirational goal of being neutral doesn't justify supporting a very non-neutral action. I say this is someone who supported our prior blackout on the basis that the issue involved was truly an existential threat. However, I've noticed that every few months someone proposes a new blackout noting that we've done it before and this issue, too is very important. there are a lot of important issues we should not be planning a blackout every time something is important. S Philbrick(Talk) 19:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick: Well said. --Yair rand (talk) 19:03, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Now at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Blacking out Wikipedia in Support of Black Lives Matter. 71.234.210.113 (talk) 06:50, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I think that'd be great! Any suggestions on folks to get it put together? CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 18:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

--More--
I've spent the last 2 weeks geeking out to retro 80/90's computer video, Facts of Life, and classic Fish era Marillion aka the best album in the world and my first CD ever purchased Misplaced Childhood 1983. Yeah, I'm an early 80's kid but there's a lot of loose ties and a lot of work to do. I've done a major revision [14] on the worst virus of 2009, Clampi and working out exactly what my auto-immune challenged cat will or won't eat (Farmers Market dry and premium canned salmon). So supposedly theres wp:norules and I've taken some liberty in userspace here XOR elsewhere? You really need to draw a FIRM LINE between what's Namespace Zero and "everything else". The Wikipedia project is a code base for presenting wiki type material aka Wikimedia. The finished public product worht billionw of dollars are the result of everybody's blood sweat, tears, and uncompensated time. Technophant (talk) 20:52, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

The only time I recall Wikipedia blacking out was due to SOPA/PIPA, and that was because the law was an existential threat to Wikipedia and its mission. This isn't. The only time we as a community should be inserting ourselves into politics is if not doing so would damn Wikipedia. —A little blue Bori v^_^v 2020's a bust; thanks SARS-CoV-2 20:58, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

¬ this Technophant (talk) 05:45, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Well but the current situation absolutely an existential threat to Wikipedia. Not racism so much, but fascism (or an authoritarian regime, whatever you want to call it). I think there's two things are are clearly true, if you don't have your head in the sand: 1) there's a real good chance of a fascist regime in America in the near future, and 2) this would be a really serious problem for the English Wikipedia and, to some extent, the entire Wikipedia movement.
The current protests aren't really just just about police racism. There's also a lot of pent-up opposition to the current American administration generally. Of course, the regime's encouragement and unleashing of police riots goes hand-in-hand with establishing a police state. So it's hard to sort it out.
The current American administration holds the whip hand. My reading of events is that it's more likely than not that a fascist regime will be established in America (altho you never know). If and when that happens, we can assume heavy censorship of the English Wikipedia in America. Wikipedia could decamp its assets overseas, but the loss of America would be a very heavy blow to the movement, I would think.
So... if there's anything the English Wikipedia can do to prevent its own looming destruction -- even if we were only acting for self-interested preservation -- we ought to do it. Even if we can't, a symbolic stand would at least be something. Herostratus (talk) 17:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
This is exactly the argument many are using against a blackout. We help no one by taking any overt political stand. Blacking out Wikipedia, or similar actions, won't convince anyone who isn't already in agreement with us. All it would do is make us even bigger targets for those who would silence us.
The best thing we can do right now is what we've always done: provide as much information to as many people as we can. Accurately report current events and their effects to inform people of what's going on. Provide in-depth history articles to give people the necessary background to realize the problems. This in line with the original goals of Wikipedia and would far more to help than any "symbolic stand" would. 71.234.210.113 (talk) 17:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
I mean, right, that's the other point: our best bet might be to bend with the winds and start thinking about accomodations with the coming regime -- to avoid "mak[ing] even bigger targets for those who would silence us", as you say. It's too early to tell, and it might to early to matter, but no point in starting off on the wrong foot... it might be that some sort of compromise can be reached that will allow the Wikipedia to continue to function in America, provided we censor only certain parts (political and history articles, say, which after all are only a small sector of our material). If that's to be our strategy, then we should probably start practicing the talents of laying low, looking the other way, and sticking to our knitting right now. Practice makes perfect.
I'm not recommending or supporting this, just pointing that to some degree it's rational. Herostratus (talk) 22:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@Herostratus: I didn't suggest we kowtow to this supposed dictatorship. Wikipedia is already an effective tool for fighting authoritarian regimes. A grandiose gesture like what's being proposed here might be satisfying, but other than the brief endorphin rush, how would it actually help? Issuing a direct challenge to whatever authority, especially at this early stage, could only work out poorly for us. Until and unless Wikipedia is targeted, it's better we work in the shadows and chip away at these wannabe autocrats by spreading knowledge in our usual way. Even if Wikipedia was to be targeted, a blackout or similar protest does nothing to further our goals. It would be far more productive to develop ways to circumvent blocks and ensure continued access to Wikipedia if any or all of our major hubs were disrupted. Remember that Wikipedia has already been blocked in several countries. A quick scan of that article suggests that neither informal protests nor formal consultations with government leaders have been very effective in restoring access. We might be able to devise more effective means of thwarting this hypothetical censorship by studying the real-world examples we already have. 71.234.210.113 (talk) 04:29, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Herostratus. I also, just yesterday, came to the observation/opinion that our Plutocracy and China's oligarchical communism are perfect bedfellows for installing global fascism. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:37, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
There's a lot of things with the current US administration, or even in the EU, or China, or elsewhere, that can be seen as, after several steps, threats to Wikipedia's existence. But you have to go through through several "if this happens" to get there. Yes, there would be concern that sometimes these things move so fast that we'd be too late to react but that would be extraordinary to get there, and we'd be crying wolf the bulk of the time. When there is a more direct threat, principle related to free speech, like COPA/SOPA was, or if there was a revoking of Section 230 , then we should be on board for action. Ideally, we'd not be standing alone if that was the case (we weren't during COPA/SOPA) and we'd be an important voice there. --Masem (t) 19:01, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

From some of the opinions expressed in this talk section, one might think that the biggest threat to Wikipedia is editors letting their own political or social bias significantly influence their editing, and turn Wikipedia into a propaganda platform. But I don't think so. Bob K31416 (talk) 13:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

This is not too hard to believe. Arbcom discretionary topic areas in AP2, IP, and several other areas are in part from the fact editors want to push a personal bias - even if it is one backed by one set of sources - into these topic areas. Our current problem is this idea of making articles on BLP of those that are disliked by the media generally (and by the public in general) for having aspects of far-right/alt-right aspects to make their articles a laundry list of every little slight that they can document from RSes about the person, and editors think it is fine, because they need show this is what the person is known for. This is an internal threat, related to the previous discussion on the liberal bias and RECENTISM related to Larry's post, but far less threatening than anything external might cause because we are fully in control of fixing it. --Masem (t) 13:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

== Interesting book re: threats to Wikipedia's existance ==

Jimbo, yesterday I read this free book which makes, imo, a strong, historical, fact based case as to the direction in which most of the world is being led into; a world with no place for Wikipedia or anything like it. Please have a look and see if you agree. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, I'm not sure that spamming self-published rants is going to help much. Guy (help!) 11:32, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
JzG It's relevant, useful. You shamed them into striking it. wp:user says talk pages have traditionally been given wide berth. Technophant (talk) 16:19, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Wide berth Bob K31416 (talk) 17:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
Technophant, I think you mean wide latitude. It's self-published books that should be given a wide berth. Guy (help!) 18:12, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Just a comment to share https://slate.com/technology/2020/06/wikipedia-george-floyd-neutrality.html, which mentions this discussion. ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:40, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

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