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Editing news 2021 #1

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Reply tool

Graph of Reply tool and full-page wikitext edit completion rates
Completion rates for comments made with the Reply tool and full-page wikitext editing. Details and limitations are in this report.

The Reply tool is available at most other Wikipedias.

  • The Reply tool has been deployed as an opt-out preference to all editors at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.
  • It is also available as a Beta Feature at almost all Wikipedias except for the English, Russian, and German-language Wikipedias. If it is not available at your wiki, you can request it by following these simple instructions.

Research notes:

  • As of January 2021, more than 3,500 editors have used the Reply tool to post about 70,000 comments.
  • There is preliminary data from the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedia on the Reply tool. Junior Contributors who use the Reply tool are more likely to publish the comments that they start writing than those who use full-page wikitext editing.[1]
  • The Editing and Parsing teams have significantly reduced the number of edits that affect other parts of the page. About 0.3% of edits did this during the last month.[2] Some of the remaining changes are automatic corrections for Special:LintErrors.
  • A large A/B test will start soon.[3] This is part of the process to offer the Reply tool to everyone. During this test, half of all editors at 24 Wikipedias (not including the English Wikipedia) will have the Reply tool automatically enabled, and half will not. Editors at those Wikipeedias can still turn it on or off for their own accounts in Special:Preferences.

New discussion tool

Screenshot of version 1.0 of the New Discussion Tool prototype.

The new tool for starting new discussions (new sections) will join the Discussion tools in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures at the end of January. You can try the tool for yourself.[4] You can leave feedback in this thread or on the talk page.

Next: Notifications

During Talk pages consultation 2019, editors said that it should be easier to know about new activity in conversations they are interested in. The Notifications project is just beginning. What would help you become aware of new comments? What's working with the current system? Which pages at your wiki should the team look at? Please post your advice at mw:Talk:Talk pages project/Notifications.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Possible solutions of preventing disinformation on non-English Wikipedia with better efficiency

As the 2020 US election voter frauds have gained substantial traction in both the US and beyond, Wikipedia inevitably becomes an obvious target of spreading the disinformation. While I am by no mean claiming the English Wikipedia is perfect, deprecating the news outlet which spread the conspiracy theories duly slows down the disinformation campaign. A new problem arises when multilingual editors spread the disinformation on non-English Wikipedias when no consensus has been reached against controversial sources such as OAN which have already been deemed unreliable on English WP. Initiating another round of RfC of reliable source on non-English Wikipedia would be incredibly counterproductive, because many foreign Wikipedians are not knowledgeable enough about the English sources thus the discussion will suffer information asymmetry. When attempting to cite the consensus from English WP, we always meet with the most convenient argument possible "foreign WP editorial policies does not affect local WP."

Spreading disinformation via non-English platforms has become a growing problem as it would receive less scrutiny for a variety of reasons. This issue is obviously not new to Wikipedia projects, but as the disinformation campaign of US politics has intensified since the 2020 US elections and is not going to go away even after Biden has taken office, some kind of blanket action should be taken by the WMF against blatantly unreliable sources across all sister projects. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 14:24, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Board of Trustees terms

Dear Jimbo,

Please fight the disrupute into which the current questionably legitimately constituted Board of Trustees is plunging the Foundation by your continued failure to elect an entirely democratic, fully community-elected Board of Trustees. If the elected Board feels that they must appoint unelected members, certainly you can appoint such to committees or subcommittees. Are you afraid that your own seat would not be safe if subject to the scrutiny of the traditional community election process? Poppycock! 50.242.125.195 (talk) 02:53, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Making Earth better

Our tiny blue marble
thank you for the work you have done and continue to do, which helps make this planet a better place to live in :) Yitz (talk) 05:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Draft:2019–20 Coppa Italia Serie C

Good evening Jimbo. I ask you to delete the page Draft: 2019-20 Coppa Italia Serie C. This is an article that I created in the form of a draft which I then moved to the mainspace as soon as it was completed Dr Salvus (talk) 19:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)Dr SalvusDr Salvus (talk) 19:28, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I deleted it for you. You can delete your own pages by adding {{db-author}} to it. This isn't something Jimbo needs to address. -- Gogo Dodo (talk) 20:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 January 2021

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Re: Board of Trustees terms

Dear Jimbo,

I am returning this request from the archives because you did not acknowledge it:

Please fight the disrepute into which the current questionably legitimately constituted Board of Trustees is plunging the Foundation by your continued failure to elect an entirely democratic, fully community-elected Board of Trustees. If the elected Board feels that they must appoint unelected members, certainly you can appoint such to committees or subcommittees. Are you afraid that your own seat would not be safe if subject to the scrutiny of the traditional community election process? Poppycock! 107.242.121.52 (talk) 01:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. I am in favor of more community control over the board, but I do not think that a fully elected board is desirable for a number of reasons. Are you participating in the process to rethink how the board is constituted? This would probably be of interest to you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
On the off-chance that you get this quickly: In the currently ongoing office hour on that, none of the trustees have shown up. Perhaps you might attend for some of the remaining time? --Yair rand (talk) 23:38, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
I was there the entire time! Sorry you didn't see me. I am very much in listen and learn mode - I'm a strong advocate of more community control over the board, and in light of that, I think the community should speak first and I should not have too strong a voice in the discussion other than continuing to emphasize my basic philosophical stance here. UPDATE: looking at the timestamps I see my error - I was at the first one, but couldn't attend the one Yair is talking about (sorry for my confusion Yair!) as that was quite late at night for me.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Help needed

Hello Jimbo,

I want to kindly ask, if you want, to read this too, if you don't mind.

Thank you for your time. Lukan27 (talk) 18:07, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

As I understand Jimbos stance he does not interfere with Admin decisions, he does not act as a final right of appeal.Slatersteven (talk) 19:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Hey Jimbo!! My milkman delivered three pints this morning, instead of my normal two. Could you fix this with some urgency please? Thanks. -Roxy the happy dog . wooF 16:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Glug, glug! I drank that for you!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:55, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Allowing game strategy guides on Wikibooks

(Your Wikibooks talk page asked me to come here)

We're currently discussing on lifting the long-standing policy that prohibited video game strategy-based guides on Wikibooks. For some reason, it appears that you were a major reason for this ban, as pointed out by several users. It would be very nice if you could clarify/comment on your thoughts on this matter, given that you had a role in the formation of original ban.

The discussion is going on here. Many thanks in advance, and please ping me in your reply. Leaderboard (talk) 12:21, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

At the time, the concept for Wikibooks was largely framed in terms of "textbooks" and so there was a view that unless an actual course is taught somewhere on the subject, it wouldn't be appropriate for Wikibooks. I believe it is up to the Wikibooks community to decide the issue in a manner consistent with the broad goals of the project, and of the Wikimedia movement more generally.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Jimbo that's appreciated. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 21:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Glad

So glad you didn't turn into a cat like Mr Rod Ponton during your recent online interview with BBC's Lara Lewington. All in all, it looked very appealing: [5]. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:46, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
e Sushi.money (talk) 02:29, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

The future of Wikipedia A free encyclopedia. --Inspiration provided by Wikipedia's 20 anniversary, an occasion worth celebrating.

The whole world really appreciates your creation of Wikipedia that have had positively impacted everyone on the planet. But please give up your utmost authority to ban editor as well as your power of veto over any bill that comes across your desk. It's about time we democratize the organization that will hand a fair digital world to our offspring who's grown with the vibrant 3C technologies nowadays.

Stepping down as the king[1] of Wikipedia will bring the virtual world into a new era like what you have done by creating Wikipedia in early 2000s, and definitely will once again impress the real world!

You will be remembered as not only a tech genius but a moral giant and be written down into the textbook as an example across the world.

Thank you!

References

  1. ^ "KING". meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary. Retrieved 2020-09-04. King \ a person, company, or organization that is thought to be the best or most successful

Also, thanks to every Wikipedian for paving the way for a better future!

Life is short so let us live it to the fullest! (talk) 03:41, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Jimbo has used his rightful power well, and of course should keep it. There are times when such a veto is needed. Hopefully he will hold it for at least another 20 years. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
The request also fails to take into account that, for example, even though I am an admin, I have voluntarily committed not to use the block power. I do not believe that I have the power to unilaterally ban any editor against the wishes of the community. There is a clearly delineated set of reserved powers which I do hold in theory (foremost among them, the right to call for an election of the English language arbitration committee) which I would never use except with a clear mandate of the community. There are a great many areas where we don't have written-out policy, and where simple good sense is needed. We have never had a constitutional crisis of that magnitude (in which ArbCom goes rogue) and we are not likely to - but it seems wise to have some mechanism for dealing with it.
If it isn't me, then it's the WMF. And there is a very real difference in that. If I were to act in a way that didn't have the support of the vast majority of active editors, then it's pretty clear that there would be an RfC to remove me from any traditional role at all, and that would be the end of that. If the WMF were to act in a way that didn't have the support of the vast majority of active editors, then you've got a very very real and very different situation where nothing short of a general strike of editors would be likely to change things. This is one of the reasons I am advocating for increased community control (in various ways) over the composition of the board of directors - to make that issue less likely to arise over time.
I take very seriously my role here and I believe that any attempt by me to do anything bad would fail. But it will be very useful in case the community needs strength and support, whether against a rogue Arbcom or a rogue WMF, that I have some mostly theoretical, and mostly historical function that can be utilized - on the advice of the community - when we need it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:37, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for being candid although I am not sure if you were replying to me; I assume your response as an indirect reply. Please let me know if I am wrong. Alright, back to the topic of the discussion. Because you said I have some mostly theoretical, and mostly historical function that can be utilized - on the advice of the community - when we need it., could you please let us know what general advices have you ever given to the WMF and ArbCom over the past one year (for the convenience of your memory)? It's important to know that Dominance is seen through manifest behaviors as indicated through the nonverbal and verbal indicators-Expression of dominance. Thus, I still suggest that Jimmy step down as the king because you value your role here and the future of Wikipedia. I am afraid that your status of being a king speaks louder than your advice to the advisee. Thanks again for your time. Life is short so let us live it to the fullest! (talk) 18:34, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Jimbo is the main safety net; without him Wikipedia has the most undemocratic ivory tower structure possible. Not only is WMF largely self-appointed, they can even remove the few elected board members, and they also get to change the constitution/ by laws. I would trust making Jimbo an absolute dictator more than I would trust what we would have without him. North8000 (talk) 19:04, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Attest

In a previous section you wrote "I'm sure there will be sources to attest to that if true."[6] See How the U.S. Could Double Vaccination Pace With Existing Supply, New York Times, Jan 22, "President Biden’s promise to administer 100 million vaccines by his 100th day in office is no longer a lofty goal; it is attainable at the current pace at which shots are going into arms."

Although the above article says one thing, some other reliable sources give a different impression. Regardless of what the news media says, I think the bottom line when it comes to administering doses is the data, and that can be found in the source that I mentioned in that previous talk section [7]. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:07, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I have seen today a headline that the goal may be raised to 1.5 million per day. [8].--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
The number of doses administered per day can be viewed at [9]. Above the plot there are several choices. Under "count", deselect "per 100 people". Under "interval", select "new per day". The numbers for a data point can be seen by hovering the cursor over it. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:13, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Another choice under "interval" is "7-day rolling average", which takes the average daily number of doses for the previous 7 days and thus smooths the data. The 7 day rolling average has been over 1 million doses per day every day since Jan 23 (which uses data since Jan 17). Bob K31416 (talk) 15:33, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
Yesterday Feb 10, the 7-day rolling average surpassed 1.5 million doses administered per day. Bob K31416 (talk) 12:36, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Some news from the homeland: Israel has now administered almost 4 million 1st dose and over 2.5 million 2nd dose vaccines. Also noting a potentially revolutionary new therapeutic developed by Prof. Nadir of Ichilov Hospital, with outstanding 1st phase clinical trial outcomes on COVID patients. I made note of this at: Talk:COVID-19 drug development#Promising new Israeli therapeutic. El_C 18:32, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Appeal request

Dear Mr. Wales, would you please advise on the following situation:

WP:UNBAN states three times that in case of “… serious questions about the validity of the ban discussion or its closure”, a community imposed ban may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee. Unfortunately, the reply to my appeal request made clear that Arbcom is/was unaware of this provision. The reply suggested that I familiarize myself with the various possiblities of appealing a block, even though I’m not blocked but topic banned. This left me with the impression that my request was not read carefully. [10] As a consequence the Committee referred me back to the community.

However, the principle behind the provision to request a neutral review of the procedure, if I understand it correctly, is to establish whether some aspect of the community discussion was procedurally unfair, and the sanction imposed appears to be significantly excessive or overbroad.[11] The details listed below show that no fair discussion took place and that the sanction is excessive.

Details of the topic ban :

  1. Admin Rosguill, who decided to ban me [12], tells me that they deliberately ignored my rebuttals to the allegations filed against me at ANI.[13]
  2. The ban decision was based mainly on a reading error by Rosguill. I supposedly deflected a request to supply sources, but I did actually answer that request in detail.[14] To stress the extent of the miscommunication: I had already explained this in my rebuttals, the ones Rosguill ignored, see:[15].
  3. When their mistake came to light, Rosguill did not revert their ban decision but quickly came up with another reason to uphold it.[16] However, this new reason is not valid either. Rosguill argues about the right interpretation of a source. Aside from the fact that they're not an expert on the subject, a difference of opinions about subject matter content is not evidence of serious disruptive behavior.
  4. Additional reasons which Rosguill provided to justify the ban turned out to be an old issue and two innocent remarks. See the discussion: [17].

While I've been trying to adapt after my block in December, it might be helpful if editors and admins who scrutinize my behavior ask me questions and consider my explanations. As the reading error and content dispute demonstrates, the subject matter and the Talk page discussions are more complex than people realize. My aim, still, is to improve the content of Wikipedia articles in the areas I'm knowledgeable about. NB: I have sent this information also in an email. Saflieni (talk) 12:08, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

As I understand Jimbos stance he does not interfere with Admin decisions, he does not act as a final right of appeal.Slatersteven (talk) 19:23, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Thank you Slatersteven. The policy pages on Banning policy ("Any arbitration decision may be appealed to Jimbo Wales.") and: Appeal of decisions suggest differently. On a sidenote: This Saturday I watched Mr. Wales speaking to the BBC about the difference between Wikipedia and other internet sources where the accuracy of information is concerned. I thought he might want to check if that assumption still holds true, taking the subject behind this case as an example.Saflieni (talk) 22:56, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Ok then. May I suggest that Wikipedia removes all apparently redundant information from the policy pages? It creates a false sense of protection against the hostile actions of others. I've even been warned recently to stop complaining about behaviors which are listed as forms of Wiki-bullying but are selectively condoned by admins during Talk page-, ANI-, and Arbcom discussions. I'm not sure what happened to the principles of respect for thoughtful intellectual discourse that Wikipedia represents. I can't say that I'm seeing much evidence of those principles.Saflieni (talk) 08:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
I suppose that ultimately the Foundation, or Jimbo personally, can and will intervene should it need to. For example, imagine a scenario where a cadre of admins decided to progress the deliberate introduction of bias in violation of either the Use or founding principles and took to blocking editors who tried to fix their desired bias. Theoretically, you can imagine they would act in response to an "appeal" from one of those blocked editors. However, this is just a theoretical example - in practice I can't see it happening. QuiteUnusual (talk) 09:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Gosh, if only you had been warned that your behavior was problematic, so that you could adjust course -- too bad that never happened! --JBL (talk) 17:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Starting a post with a condescending "Gosh" and adding random diffs from a lengthy discussion showing arguments not used for my ban is not only tendentious and off-topic, it also illustrates my point very well: People jumping to conclusions before getting all the facts, then doggedly sticking to their initial impressions when they're confronted with counterevidence. User JBL said during the ANI discussion: I sometimes browse ANI for amusement, and sometimes comment if I feel there is a simple, clear point to be made. Likewise, user Rosguill said: I was looking for ANI cases that needed additional input from an uninvolved admin. They're passers-by who don't fully comprehend what is being discussed or in which context remarks should be understood, but they are quick to judge anyway. There were three or four others with similar attitudes in this case, showing their confusion by posting outlandish responses to simple factual explanations, who hound me all over Wikipedia. They're so convinced of their own infallibility that none of them realizes the detrimental effect of their activities to the quality of Wikipedia articles.Saflieni (talk) 07:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
Now do yourself! --JBL (talk) 19:49, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
Saflieni, FWIW I have the impression that you are making a good case. Bob K31416 (talk) 20:56, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

It seems to me unfair to have Rosguill misrepresented here. Saflieni, not Rosguill, misread the talk-page discussion concerning "What RS say is the topic of [a nonfiction book]." Although Saflieni protests here that he is improperly banned over just a few edits, Rosguill clearly explained, I also reviewed the discussion at that talk page in its entirety, and affirm the assessment of other editors that Saflieni has improperly and repeatedly construed disagreements over content as either incompetence or conspiracy on the part of other editors. (emphasis mine.) Saflieni's topic ban for disruptive editing was the result of a long ANI discussion, where a wide range of problem edits and edit summaries were cited. HouseOfChange (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Another deceptive red herring accompanied by the usual bad faith accusations. Such accusations require accurate information otherwise they're just personal attacks. Case in point: the Talk page discussion linked by HouseOfChange includes my post which was overlooked by Rosguill. It also includes HouseOfChange's reply to that post which shows that they know it's there and that they're fully aware of the fact that Rosguill overlooked it. HoC's other point is equally misleading. The diff they produce shows that Rosguill changed their mind - from wanting to close the ANI without sanctions to an indefinite topic ban - because of their mistake. Rosguill's other assumptions are testimony to their lack of understanding but unfortunately I can't address that in more detail because the topic ban prohibits it. Saflieni (talk) 10:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
It looks like Roseguill tried to courteously respond in good faith, point by point to your many points until it became too time consuming. Bob K31416 (talk) 10:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Not exactly. To get an idea of how these discussions work, just take a look at the time stamp of the banning decision. Rosguill decided on the ban at 21:46, 15 January 2021 (UTC). I posted the counterevidence at 23:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC). Then at 00:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC), Rosguill quickly came up with the new reason for "pulling the trigger" - that in their opinion I had deliberately misrepresented a source (remember that Rosguill is not familiar with the subject matter). By posting that new reason they acknowledged that their initial justification for the ban was an error. In their "courteous" Talk page responses, Rosguill stuck to the new story, which was actually a new mistake, and presented it as an example of my alleged "failing to cooperate appropriately". So, with all due respect, I don't believe that falsely accusing someone of misconduct to cover up their own mistakes is a great example of responding in good faith. Saflieni (talk) 15:47, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't see a recantation by Rosguill in the statement being misrepresented above: Saflieni, Your insistence that the diff you shared in your response to me[18] was an adequate example of evidence in response HoC's question[19] is the reason that I decided to pull the trigger on this. The article cited in the diff does not say that IPOB is a book about double genocide (the claim HoC was asking you to support), but rather alleges that the book has repopularized claims that a double genocide occurred in Rwanda. On its own, this could be taken as a forgivable mistake. Coming after 2 ANI threads and thousands of words of discussion, and coupled with insults at HoC, it crosses the line. signed, Rosguill talk 00:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[20] (two links to diffs cited by me, but I can't figure out how to link to the Rosguill diff itself in the archived ANI.) HouseOfChange (talk) 16:49, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Saflieni, If your topic ban was lifted, how would you and HouseOfChange be able to work together on the article In Praise of Blood? Bob K31416 (talk) 22:48, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
I can't give a detailed answer to that question without violating the topic ban. However, in general I can say that it would take a neutral referee who's able to judge the quality of our argumentation and sources rather than simply counting votes.Saflieni (talk) 00:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
What would you do if the referee ruled against you? Bob K31416 (talk) 01:13, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
No problem. As long as the spirit of Wikipedia policies is respected and the result is factually accurate, it's not that difficult to convince me.Saflieni (talk) 07:56, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
What would you do if you thought that the referee's ruling didn't respect the spirit of Wikipedia policies or if you thought that the result of the referee's ruling was not factually accurate? Bob K31416 (talk) 12:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
I guess anything is possible. What would you suggest if such an unfortunate situation occurred, Bob K31416? Btw, have you considered that my contributions might not be the biggest challenge in the discussion? Saflieni (talk) 15:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
HouseOfChange, If you agreed to having a referee and the referee ruled against you, what would you do? Bob K31416 (talk) 16:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
@Bob K31416: Here is a recent debate where consensus was against my strongly-held opinion. I respected that consensus was against me. I tried to make sure the wording of the disputed material reflected RS and NPOV. The wording I introduced has been essentially stable since December 9, because I tried to understand and reflect the talk page consensus. Admins are a bit like referees; they deserve respect IMO. HouseOfChange (talk) 17:42, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks but could you respond directly to my previous question? Bob K31416 (talk) 20:00, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
@Bob K31416: Your question is wWhat would you do if you thought that the referee's ruling was wrong? I would try first to understand why the referee's ruling was what it was, trying to think of it as an opportunity to learn something I hadn't known. If I was still not convinced, I would think about the dollar auction and consider if it was worth my time to dispute. If it was, I would look for related RS and respectfully cite them, to the referee or to something like RfC or DRN. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:02, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Looks like a referee wouldn't work because neither side would accept the referee's ruling if they thought it went against them.
I think there are two positive behaviors to be considered in conflicts like these. One is standing up for what you believe. The other is cooperation. They can be in conflict. In Wikipedia discussions they need to be balanced against one another. If that doesn't happen, then administrators take action to get an article back on track. Bob K31416 (talk) 22:03, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
Bob K31416, how did my "no problem" got translated into: "neither side would accept the referee's ruling if they thought it went against them"?[21] I'm the one who suggested a referee. Saflieni (talk) 23:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Saflieni: But wasn't Rosguill acting as a "neutral referee" when she told you that a quote saying "this book makes a case for xx" is not equivalent to saying "xx is the main topic of this book." Instead, you accused her of having ignored or misread your quote, of being ignorant of xx, and of doubling down on her error -- providing as proof an example of another author saying "this book makes a case for xx." In topic-ban respecting terms, picture a book whose subtitle is "a slice of raisin bread", and I give you six examples of RS that say "this is a book about a slice of raisin bread" and say, "can you show some RS examples who agree with you that this is a book about raisins"? So you reply with a few insults, including that two of my six RS examples are not raisin-experts, and then give one example of a raisin-expert saying "This book makes a case for a fringe theory about raisins!" You did not treat Rosguill's verdict with respect. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:18, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm asking HouseOfChange to stop trying to lure me into a content discussion, knowing that it would violate my topic ban. I've already flagged their argument as a red herring. The current topic is whether Rosguill's reasons for banning me are valid. A difference of opinions about content isn't, regardless of whose interpretation is the correct one. Saflieni (talk) 01:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Saflieni It will be great if you stop psychoanalyzing other people aka if you start just WP:AGF. I am not trying to play any tricks on you. I am just explaining my own point of view, which is that Rosguill did not ban you over a content dispute, she banned you for your bad behavior in many different disputes, while pointing particularly to your rude and unhelpful behavior in our content dispute regarding the book's main topic. Rosguill never said, as you have repeatedly claimed, that she deliberately ignored your rebuttals at ANI. She said Rebuttals were unnecessary, because her decision was based on the article talk page and on the ArbCom case, rather than on your or my advocacy for our own interpretations of those discussions. HouseOfChange (talk) 05:16, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Now you're just gaslighting, trying to disorient the readers of this Talk page. One more time:
a) This was Rosguill's explanation, which is just an opinion that's different from mine: The article cited in the diff does not say that IPOB is a book about double genocide (the claim HoC was asking you to support), but rather alleges that the book has repopularized claims that a double genocide occurred in Rwanda. Rosguill didn't respond to the quote from that article which I used to support my interpretation.[22]
b) When Rosguill said: "Rebuttals were unnecessary", it was in response to my question: Please explain why my rebuttals were not taken into consideration? See point two of the discussion you refer to.[23] You're taking Rosguill's response out of context to pretend it means something else.
c) The suggestion that Rosguill based their decision on Talk page incidents and the Arbcom case was discussed under point three of that same discussion.[24]
d) Rosguill's original reason for the topic ban was: Saflieni has continued to deflect appropriate requests for sources. That statement was an error, as I've explained with evidence. I'm not going to repeat this again.Saflieni (talk) 09:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
@Saflieni: I disagree, but I don't want to add to this pointless wall of text. I invite curious readers to consult the "what do RS say is the book's main topic?" talk-page discussion for themselves. HouseOfChange (talk) 16:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I think you both are very articulate and familiar with the topic so it's a shame that you can't work together. When there is a difference of opinion as to what should be put in the article, one could put in the main text one side and the other side might be put in as a footnote with appropriate qualifying remarks. In the current situation, Saflieni is topic banned so HouseOfChange might consider doing that with regard to double genocide. Bob K31416 (talk) 17:10, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Why am I still topic banned, Bob K31416? That's the question. HouseOfChange is not familiar with the topic, btw. They're just very good at playing the Wikipedia game. Not sure how this benefits the encyclopedia, though. Saflieni (talk) 19:30, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
[25] Bob K31416 (talk) 19:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Meaning?Saflieni (talk) 22:58, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I think the topic ban was correct. Bob K31416 (talk) 02:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
Based on ... what exactly? I don't understand how people read these debates. I present a very simple, easy to verify case. Then HoC comes around to derail the discussion, claiming that the opposite is true by introducing red herrings and straw man arguments, by quoting out of context, by peppering their story with false accusations, and meanwhile using the opportuntiy as a soapbox to campaign for their opinions, knowing full well that I can't respond to their assertions. Then when they feel they've sowed enough confusion they drop out, dismissing the debate they started as a wall of text. It's the same way they conduct Talk page- and ANI discussions. Through this method they were able to get full control of the article, to remove most of my contributions, to reduce the weight of RS, and finally to insert a large number of fake facts, dubious sources, biased opinions, and so on, getting me - the only critical voice - banned in the process. No wonder there are no subject matter experts working on this topic anymore. The facts of the case remain unchanged, however, so it's still possible to approach them in a rational manner. Saflieni (talk) 07:38, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
What do you think are the chances of getting your topic ban lifted? I ask because there comes a time when one considers whether it's worth more effort or whether it's better to move on to something more productive. That time has come for me. Goodbye. I hope in some way your situation will improve. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:26, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
Incredible. If that's the attitude, Wikipedia's alleged war against disinformation [26] is lost before it starts. Saflieni (talk) 16:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia should hire professional factcheckers to weed out the potentially dangerous mis- and disinformation, especially in cases like these where fringe theories and political propaganda are major concerns. The editors and admins who've involved themselves so far have shown that their competencies do not include reading comprehension and critical thinking. These shortcomings make them (and Wikipedia) susceptible to all kinds of falsehoods and manipulations. Saflieni (talk) 08:49, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Curious readers: all this BLUDGEONing is for one disputed article In Praise of Blood. Test your own reading comprehension: is it a Wikipedia article citing RS to describe a controversial book or is it a potentially dangerous conspiracy by two incompetent editors to promote FRINGE theories about genocide? HouseOfChange (talk) 16:30, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Afraid somebody might actually check what you write? Don't worry, people don't like to face the fact they're manipulable, so nobody will run the risk of finding out that they've bought into hundreds of falsehoods over the past few months. It's like Rosguill said: "rebuttals were unnecessary". They might disturb the illusion. Nice touch, btw: suggesting it's about just one article. Saflieni (talk) 23:32, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
  • That's a good question you ask here, Bob K31416: [27]. I could answer such questions and substantiate my criticism with verifiable facts if someone lifts the ban (and the smokescreen). When HouseOfChange started editing that article two months ago, they explained that they came "to this article only because [they] needed a QPQ at DYK." They didn't have any relevant knowledge about the subject and there's no indication they were ever even interested in the genocide, the country, or even Africa in general prior to this. Yet they've been acting as though they're in possession of superior knowledge, have attacked and "corrected" senior scholars and other subject matter experts, and have posted politically polarized remarks. What's going on, indeed.Saflieni (talk) 00:52, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
PS: How many falsehoods and polarizing remarks do you count in the reply to your question, Bob K31416? [28]. Or in the other responses? The advocacy continues unchecked, courtesy of "Jimbo"'s and Arbcom's indifference. If anyone is still interested in the truth here, they're welcome to ask me for the evidence. Saflieni (talk) 08:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Just noting for Jimbo's own reference that, after talk page and email abuse that followed my original one-month block of Saflieni, I have indefinitely blocked them, with everything disabled. This was converted to an Arbitration Committee block soon thereafter. El_C 18:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia survey

I hope this is an appropriate place to mention this for wider attention. A new editor posted at the Teahouse a survey they're conducting for a school project about people's experience and thoughts about Wikipedia as a project to contribute to as an editor. I enjoyed thinking through them and responding myself, and anyone else who might be interested can do so here › Mortee talk 17:56, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Boundary between BDS advocacy and anti-Semitism?

Hi Jimbo. As I understand you have been involved in the pertinent Labour Party disputes, would you please say whether or not we can have a robust, full-throated debate on the pro and con merits of boycott, divestiture, and sanctions against Israeli-Palestinian apartheid without accusations of anti-Semitism? 107.242.121.1 (talk) 02:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

See the discussion above. We cannot even manage that with blacklist/whitelist vs block list/allow list. PackMecEng (talk) 02:49, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Anti-Semitism in the US has a different meaning than in the rest of the World, it's much more about whether or not you support Israel unconditionally. Netanyahu can do nothing wrong and the Palestinians are by and large supporters of terrorism. Left-wing movements who are critical of Israel are at heart anti-Semitic, Israel-haters. So, the traditional definition of anti-Semitism has gone out of the window. The US pro-Netanyahu hawks agree 100% with this statement by Netanyahu:
"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked public uproar when on Tuesday he claimed that the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was the one who planted the idea of the extermination of European Jewry in Adolf Hitler's mind. The Nazi ruler, Netanyahu said, had no intention of killing the Jews, but only to expel them."
and with this statement by Netanyahu Jr.:
"The son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed President Trump by suggesting that far-left thugs are just as dangerous as neo-Nazis — or maybe even worse.
Yair Netanyahu was commenting on events Saturday in which a white supremacist rammed his car into counterprotesters of a far-right rally, killing one and injuring some 20 others. Many clashes between activists for the two groups were recorded. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that both sides share the blame for the violence.""
Count Iblis (talk) 05:16, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
I have several thoughts here. First, Wikipedia is not and never will be the place to "have a robust, full-throated debate on the pro and con merits of boycott, divestiture, and sanctions" for the same reason that it is not the place to have that sort of debate about any controversy out in the world. What we do is write an encyclopedia in an NPOV manner, which means that we cite reliable sources who, I'm quite sure, are having a robust, full-throated debate on the pro and con merits of everything.
Second, I disagree strongly with Count Iblis's view of the meaning of anti-semitism in the US. I am unaware of anyone serious, and even very very few (who would be regarded mostly as cranks) who would endorse the view that "Netanyahu can do nothing wrong and the Palestinians are by and large supporters of terrorism." I am not saying that no-one holds views like he describes, but mainly because it's of course possible to dig up someone somewhere who believes just about anything we might think up.
It is entirely possible (although, see above for why Wikipedia isn't the place for any of this first-party debate) to support or oppose Netanyahu without being anti-semitic. And it is also possible - and sadly extremely common - for people to oppose various actions and policies of the state of Israel while simultaneously being viciously anti-semitic.
There are anti-semitic people on the left, and on the right, in the US and the UK and everywhere I suppose, but the mainstream view of antisemitism very much understands and endorses the key distinction between opposition to various things, and anti-semitism.
Finally, as a minor side point, I don't think it particularly accurate to say that I was in any way "involved" in pertinent Labour Party disputes in the UK. I am not a member of the Labour Party and I am not, and have not been, involved in any of these matters in any formal capacity. I have expressed opinions about things on twitter, and while some might disagree with some of my opinions - this is of course natural and fine - not many would find my opinions on these matters particularly unusual or shocking.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:53, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, Nicely said, thank-you. S Philbrick(Talk) 19:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Mobile app and mobile web notification issues

Could you take a look at this and perhaps escalate these issues internally? IP editors on mobile web and all editors on the iOS app do not receive notifications at all, including talk page messages or see the block message. Some editors have been blocked for WP:Communication is required when the issue is actually the (official) app they're using. I think it's quite urgent to fix; essential that editors can communicate easily, or at all, with mobile editors. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:47, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Jimbo, especially since the advent of WP:PB, I've felt compelled to add/pipe a link to a respective article (or user) talk page in the block log of many users, because those simply are not linked anywhere in some mobile devices. El_C 18:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia redesign

Just reading this in PC Mag on the planned redesign and a demo at Hathor. Makes sense for smaller devices but on a widescreen PC the white background is excessive. If we allowed for some colour customization, like a black/navy background at the sides or white on dark etc like they have on twitter that would be useful. I do find the current default design rather bland but I know a lot of editors prefer that than something bolder. I always liked the colours and design of Encyclopedia Iranica. Some dark shading around the edges make the articles stand out more I think.† Encyclopædius 20:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

7:45 That kid came up with some designs. The black and grey is too dark but he's on the right track I think.† Encyclopædius 20:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Code of conduct

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T254649

It's interesting that we have a new Wikimedia Code of Conduct. Maybe we should start rooting out some of our own embedded racism that tends to insult editors who might be members of historically oppressed groups? A small initial step would be to rename Wikipedia:Spam blacklist and MediaWiki:Spam-whitelist. Take a look at the discussions at Wikipedia talk:Spam blacklist. The problem was explained in June 2020, and there's been no motion yet.

In more civilized places that have a block list and a safe list. My preferred nomenclature when I'm speaking about computer security is naughty list and nice list. I am sure we can come up with something that does not have racial overtones and is also self-explanatory (which whitelist and blacklist are not). Jehochman Talk 23:51, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I support this 100%. What is necessary to make it happen?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:16, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, I have been asking for years to rename the spam blacklist to something like external link blocklist. The word "spam" invites endless arguments with people whose sites we have blocked for excellent reasons although they did not themselves add them as spam (e.g. petition sites, crowdfunders).
I don't think there are any good-faith arguments for not doing this. The fact that an individual editor might not consider "blacklist" to have any racist overtones is irrelevant: some people do see it, and are offended, and blocklist is a perfect synonym with none of the baggage. Wikipedia is not the kind of place where belligerent anti-wokeism drives policy. There's no reason not to do this. Guy (help! - typo?) 14:54, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Ha PackMecEng (talk) 23:57, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Not that I think the nomenclature issue is unimportant, but expecting this community to take it seriously is naive. PackMecEng's dismissive mockery is, sadly, par for the course here. I mean, this is a place where established editors advocate for welcoming neo-Nazis into our ranks (as long as they make "good edits"); where they insist that there's nothing racist about mocking Black people as "monkeys", where they see nothing "racially charged" about the term "lynching"... and again, these aren't random passing trolls. These are established editors. This is our community. MastCell Talk 02:21, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
It is some people in our community, not our community. Without commenting on the specific people in the diffs you've linked, because I haven't done them the justice of really looking into it, I would say - as I have always said - that there are definitely people who should be escorted from the project for abusive/insulting behavior, even if they "make good edits". That's always been a very weak argument, because we know with certainty that we have had editors in the past (and of course, still today) who arguably made good edits, while simultaneously behaved in ways that were incredibly destructive, thus costing us far more good edits than a lifetime of their work could make up.
To be clear, I'm not disagreeing or minimizing the issue - I'm encouraging you to reformulate just one aspect of your thinking here: people who make extremely bad (racist, misogynist etc.) arguments in the area of diversity and racism, are not members of the community in good standing - they are people who are on the way out, and we can and should actively work to remove them permanently.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, what MastCell just did is not fixable and it's a blatant violation of Section 3.1 in the Code of Conduct. He has repeatedly insulted & harassed me, and does the same thing at every opportunity that comes his way. Forgive me for being a bit disconcerted over his allegations, which he presented quite deceitfullly by not pinging me to this discussion. I'm sure one of his reasons for not wanting me here was that I would defuse his distorted, out-of-context allegations by presenting the simple facts; thereby, drawing closer scrutiny to his behavior and contributions as an admin and editor, who is clearly not here to help build the encyclopedia based on his McCarthy-style witch hunt. I have multiple diffs that support what I'm saying, and truly believe that you should investigate his actions more thoroughly, if no other reason than to clear those of us whose reputations he has wrongfully smeared. I welcome a closer investigation into my contributions and participation on WP. In fact, Jimbo, I just sent you an email. MastCell has lost trust among many members in the community because of his odd behavior and irratic contributions. He cannot be entrusted with the tools considering the above, and his approach to hunting down racism and ridding the project of racists, which just happen to include editors who simply disagree with his beliefs and political POV, none of which in most cases has anything to do with racism. Some people simply cannot process information correctly as evidenced by MastCell's comments throughout this and previous discussions on your TP, especially when the discussions involve such a sensitive topic that requires critical thinking skills, empathy and understanding. What he is doing is crying wolf and by doing so, he is distracting from the real issues and causing an even bigger problem. There is a longtime pattern of MastCell's behavior that demonstrates his repeated misrepresentations and hounding behavior. And Jimbo, please be aware that my RL identity on WP is known because I was doxxed in 2015 by Jytdog; therefore, MastCell's false allegations and misinterpretations of things I've said could cause me great harm. I am surprised that he hasn't already been desysopped in light of WMF's new Code of Conduct, which now begs the question, who enforces the Code? Atsme 💬 📧 15:12, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, Re "Without commenting on the specific people in the diffs you've linked..." — One of those diffs was mine. How about commenting on me? Bob K31416 (talk) 13:08, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, an admin has accused me of being racist on your talk page and it's not even the first time. I don't think that meets the Universal Code of Conduct and it would be nice if you said something about that. Levivich harass/hound 22:51, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
No one accused you of being racist. You refused to acknowledge that "lynching" is a racially-charged term; I quoted your denial as an illustration of the difficulty in having a serious conversation about race-related issues in this community. By misrepresenting what happened, lashing out, and casting yourself as a victim, you're sort of underlining my point. MastCell Talk 10:06, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
@MastCell:, in a response to one editor saying "Ha" you bring up three other editors' diffs who are not even engaged in this discussion. While the "Ha" comment may have been the tiniest of deviations from the OPs discussion, you went out on a whole new tangent, sidetracking this in a way that was not helpful at all. If you had wished to address the "ha" comment it would have been more appropriate to do so directly and not bring in diffs of comments by others who were not even engaged. Lastly, if you're going to do this sort of thing, how about you go and let them know?--MONGO (talk) 17:21, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
First of all, if I present an earnest idea that I feel strongly about, and you dismiss it with the single word "Ha", then that's not "the tiniest of deviations". It's a complete invalidation of the idea itself, a refusal to even treat it as worthy of engagement. As for my commentary, I don't view it as a tangent. I thought I was very clear: PackMecEng's dismissive mockery of Jehochman's proposal wasn't an isolated reflex, but rather part of a broader culture here. I provided some additional examples of that culture, drawn from my own recent experience. We can't expect a serious discussion of a subtle renaming proposal in a culture where editors excuse the use of obvious racial slurs, or welcome Nazis into our ranks (but only well-behaved Nazis, of course!). It's like expecting people to solve a complex linear-algebra problem when they won't even acknowledge that 2 + 2 = 4.

Now, if the thrust of your participation here is aimed at proving that I'm a terrible person/editor/admin, then let's continue the discussion at my talkpage, or wherever else you'd like. I don't see the continued personalization as helpful here; it's another distraction to avoid grappling with the actual cultural issue that these sorts of comments illustrate. MastCell Talk 20:36, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

It is the tiniest of deviations...and getting all butt hurt over something like that is absurd. They wrote "ha" and you used that as an excuse to go full volley fire and bring up diffs others had made then try and paint a broad brush not only against them, but the "culture" of the site, widely construed. Expect many to not have a serious discussion with you if your retorts are to be ones where you use this very public page to malign others you apparently feel should face sanctions. You feel that strongly about it go file a case at AE or arbcom or at least have the decency to act like an admin and ping or notify them that you have brought up their infractions in such a public place.--MONGO (talk) 21:26, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
It's not about 'butt-hurt'. It's not about maligning others. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:31, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
No, it's about self-righteousness and condescension. I will say what I said before again, there is no way to have a serious discussion if you have to capitulate to one parties moral framework from the start. --Kyohyi (talk) 21:34, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Nah. ---Sluzzelin talk 21:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Kyohi, if I'm like, "Hey, I don't think we should welcome neo-Nazis here", and you respond by insisting: "I won't capitulate to your moral framework!", then maybe you're right that no further illustration of the problem was necessary. MastCell Talk 23:27, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
And here's the self-righteousness again. Let me make it pointedly clear, dehumanizing people is absolutely wrong, and your framing of "Hey, I don't think we should welcome neo-Nazis here" presumes that the person you are ejecting is a neo-nazi. This is dehumanization, it is denying people positive human traits and labeling them as monsters. And this is the push back you're getting from people, this is the well poisoning that people don't like. Stop labeling people. It's that simple. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:04, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
It's really unfortunate the way that you are amplifying the neo-Nazi comment as if that is the main point here, and I'm astounded by the fact that you don't realize what a blatant strawman that is. No, we should not welcome neo-Nazi's. Also, admins such as you and the OP should be way more careful not to create a chilling effect by presuming the moral high ground on the whitelist/blacklist issue and trying to publicly shame those who question the totality of your argument. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 17:18, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
I suppose the term racist was not used, but your framing of the subject gives a strong implication that rejecting "lynching" as a racially-charged term is a substantial moral failing with regards to race. There is no way to have a serious discussion if you have to capitulate to one parties moral framework from the start. --Kyohyi (talk) 10:33, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Yeah it's basically the "I'm not touching you" kind of argument. Who me? I would neeevvveerr call you racist... I'm just trying to have a serious conversation! Though that conversation never comes nor was it meant to. PackMecEng (talk) 14:19, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
For the record here is what I wrote in the diff that MastCell linked to: I disagree with MastCell's characterization of "lynching" as a "racially charged" word. Lynching doesn't just refer to lynchings of blacks in the US. Accusing someone of lynching doesn't mean you're accusing them of being racist, but rather of "mob justice". It's not a nice thing to accuse your colleagues of, but it's not an accusation of racism. Everyone can decide for themselves whether MastCell is being accurate in describing that as saying "nothing 'racially charged' about the term 'lynching'". Of course lynching can be (and in the US often is) a racially charged word, just not the particular use of "lynching" that MastCell called "racially charged" in that particular discussion. MastCell was arguing that the use of the word lynching meant the editor was calling other editors racist. I was saying that this particular use of the word lynching was a reference to mob justice not racism. Now MastCell is using my comment to suggest editors on Wikipedia are racist. Kind of ironic, that twist. Levivich harass/hound 15:25, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Nomenclature is exceedingly important because it pervades all our thinking. I don't mind an uphill trek. That's what this will be, but we should try to make Wikipedia more welcoming. Jehochman Talk 02:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I mean maybe just stop asserting everyone you disagree with is racist? But that is getting off topic for this discussions. PackMecEng (talk) 02:58, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
PackMecEng, this attitude is not welcome at all here on my talk page. I am unaware of anyone who has taken the position that "everyone I disagree with is racist". Some people are racist, of that there is no doubt. Other people don't take the issue of racism seriously enough. And still other people are getting on with the business of positive change. You should support that, and not pick petty fights for no reason.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Accusations of racism against editors in good standing for no other reason than disagreeing with them on political issues is never acceptable and to downplay it as petty is downright disturbing and dismissive of a serious problem we face here. No that is not okay and never okay. Yes we should call out racism, but we should also not allow it to be thrown around carelessly as he has done so many times. It cheapens it and does harm to actual minorities that could be affected by actual racism. PackMecEng (talk) 14:54, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
While of course I agree in a formal sense, I also think that isn't really a thing, empirically speaking, that is a major problem here. Insensitivity to the issue as exhibited by pointless comments like "ha" in response to an uncontroversial suggestion? Yeah, I see that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:04, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
By not responding to my previous message, and looking at your response to PackMecEng's (quite good) comment, I have to say that in this section I don't have a very good impression of you. Perhaps you'd like to explain what you meant by "While of course I agree in a formal sense...". It looks like you know she was right in that last message but you can't simply say so and instead have to add the cryptic hedging phrase, "in a formal sense". Bob K31416 (talk) 17:50, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Ok, Bob, I can see why someone who wrote quite clearly "If an editor is a Nazi and makes useful contributions, that's a good thing" would not have a good impression of me. My view is that your position is so incredibly laughably wrong that isn't even worthy of serious engagement. Go away. Wikipedia is better than that. In the old days I would have blocked you permanently on sight of a comment like that - and I believe that's what should happen to you and will if you persist.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:54, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
This looks like the kind of thing that is done in dirty politics, where a person's statement is mischaracterized, taken out of context, and a false insinuation is made. BTW your threat of blocking is of no significance for me. In any case, good bye. Bob K31416 (talk) 01:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
You should take a look at the discussion this came from. The community seems to hold a different view on if it is uncontroversial. While ha might not be the best response, I truly thought they were joking, it does not seem to be a serious question. PackMecEng (talk) 17:24, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
One can ask if someone like Uncle Chuck described in this article would be allowed to edit here. I remember that User:Wikid77 got blocked because due to a similar background he believed in certain wrong ideas about slavery in the US. The problem is then that we end up banning people based on feeling offended by their views, but in the end we end up having to tolerate people who hold far more relevant mistaken views, e.g. Trump supporters who believe that there was massive election fraud. A decade ago we had to deal with editors who strongly believed that global warming was a hoax.
The paradox is that the more relevant the issues are, the less offensive the mistaken views are. It's far more offensive to us if someone is homophobic today than 40 years ago when in many countries people started to debate gay rights. Count Iblis (talk) 15:44, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
The actual paradox is that sometimes the behaviour a total racist and and abslute non-racist may look totally identically. If you are living in Louisiana and you treat a black person with a fried chicken, most likely that is a blatant racist gesture. However, if you grown up in, e.g. Greenland, you meet some tourist, and you tell them "try this fried chicken, I am sure you will like it" - you do not care if that person is black, white or yellow. That is not a racism at all. It would be a nightmare if US local racial stereotypes will be applied to the rest of the world, but that is exactly what Jehochman proposes.
In addition, your article tells about the Bell curve in regard to races. To me, to discuss any difference between a black and white races would be a nonsence because no black race exist (black population is many times more diverse that all other races, and it would be ridiculous to speak about any common traits of "black people" except their skin colour (btw, we also were black when we came to Europe)). However, we at least should be allowed to discuss the actual or perceived differences between races to come to establish truth. How can that be possible if each our statement will be analyzed under a microscope for compliance with some "code of conduct", which (as I anticipate) will be developed primarily based on US realities, and which implicitly or even explicitly assumes we all are racists, and if we disagree with that, then we are vehement racists?--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:29, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Briefly discussed previously: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 240#Blacklists. Stephen 00:26, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Let me add my humble 2 cents to this discussion. I do not consider myself a representative of "formerly oppressed population", but I don't think it would be correct to speak about my "embedded racism" either. I grown up far from the epicenter of the "black and white" conflict, neither I nor my ancestors ever had any relation to that, we never benefited from slave labour (more likely, my ancestors themselves were "white slaves"), and I simply do not understand lion's share of local (US/Western Europe) racist stereotypes. To me, "black" means just "black", and a black man is just a man who happened to have a black skin (nothing else). I am writing about that because you seem to forget one simple thing: people like me represent not a minority, but a majority of the international Wikipedia community: a humble accountant from Rio de Janeiro, a software engineer from New Delhi, a historian from Kiev, a mechanical engineer from Seoul - all of them do not consider themselves as "formerly oppressed population", but I cannot say they would agree they have to do something with their "embedded racism". To them, all those games around "blacklists" are just an awkward joke, and that is not a surprise that "Ha" comes from a user who displayed a Korean flag on their user page.

Whereas a battle against embedded racism is highly commendable, it would be not modest to impose one's own vision of what racism is on others. Remember, all those dances around "blacklists" is an attempt to resolve a local conflict between a fraction of population in some Western countries. It is by no means a really global problem. And that is why "Ha" is not an awkward reaction of one impolite Wikipedian. I would say the opposite: it may be a voice of a majority of the Wikipedia community. The very idea to separate people on "formerly oppressed groups" and "those who must fight against own embedded racism" is very destructive, partially because it polarises a society, partially because the very term "formerly oppressed groups" is intrinsically vague. That approach may be valid for some separate country like the US, where there is some consensus in a society on who is "formerly oppressed" and who has "embedded racism", but why do you think the rest 95% of the world population sees that problem at the same angle?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:44, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

This is the longest version of "I don't see color" that I've ever seen; well done (?). --JBL (talk) 22:33, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm near the front of the line of people who think the US has had a troubled history (which we have not really begun to admit to ourselves yet), and still has serious problems, and is not a shining city on a hill for other countries to emulate. But at the same time, I'm always amazed how frequently I hear people from other places claim that *their* countries don't have the racism problem that the US has. It may manifest differently from place to place, but the number of countries that have not created some kind of caste system based on skin color and/or physical appearance and/or heredity is zero. And claims that pointing this fact out is the real problem because it is "polarizing" is also nearly universal. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:57, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
It looks like "I don't see color" is supposed to be a reference to some popular meme, but I have no idea on what you are talking about. I DO see colours, but colours mean only colours for me. And I believe I am speaking on behalf of majority of human population: please, do not universalise your local social conflicts! I realise Wikipedia started in North America, and you guys have done an excellent job. However, English Wikipedia has become a global resource now, don't forget about that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:11, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
Floquenbeam: I did not mean other countries are better than the US (most of them are worse), I meant their racial/ethnic problems are totally different. As I already said, the very idea to fight against racism is absolutely correct, but they way it is being done is hardly correct. In most cases, it is more an imitation. The US and Western Europe are still a role model for many less advanced countries, and if their "fight against racism" becomes a cargo cult style profanation, they discredit the very idea of the fight for social justice. I always respected Wikipedia for being free from redundant politecorrectness, and I will be seriously disappointed if that situation will change.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:20, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
Can I suggest that, rather than rant about "cargo cult style profanation" (!!) just because someone is proposing to change "blacklist" to "blocklist", you spend a few minutes figuring out what it is about this change that upsets you so much? I'm guessing it would be slightly less silly to you if a list of spammers, conmen, evildoers, etc was widely called a "Paul Siebert list". I'm guessing you'd want to see that changed, even though it wouldn't bother 99.99% of the world's population. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:39, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
I see absolutely no problem with renaming "blacklist" to "blocklist", except the latter, in contrast to the former does not seem to be an English word. I am against the idea that we ALL must "start rooting out some of our own embedded racism". Why you decided all people are by default either "oppressed" or "racist"? Why you decided that "black" always refers to "black people"?
I believe you yourself realise your argument about "Paul Siebert's" list is not serious: it directly refers to my username, whereas "blacklist" is even not a "blackpeoplelist". Let's try it in another way. I have no idea who you are, but, let's imagine you are a white Caucasian male. Will you feel offended if the list of spammers, evildoers, etc was widely called a "whitelist"? I am a white man, and I can assure you I wouldn't see any racist connotations in that. Then why do you think an average black person sees any racism in the word "blacklist"? Do you really assume black people are less intellectual or they have a poorer sense of humour? If I were a black person, I would feel deeply offended by the attempts to weed out such a "racism". It is that patronising which is really offending. Unfortunately, I had no opportunity to discuss that with black people, it would be interesting to know what do they think about that. --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:50, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I guess that's the fundamental disagreement; that you don't think it's fair that you should have to do anything to root out your own embedded racism - indeed, that you think you don't have any embedded racism - and I think we should, and I know I have some, and I know you do too.
All the rest - whether you're pretending not to understand that "Paul Seibert list" was an analogy; or whether your only concern is honestly that blocklist isn't a "real" English word; or whether you understand the difference between the aggregate damage of a lifetime of microaggressions compared to the harm that one of those same microaggressions might cause one of us (and whether you're familar with the phrase "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"); or whether it's amazing that a person who actually says he doesn't know any black people still has enough misplaced self confidence to just assume his gut instinct on what all black people must think is probably right - all the rest of that is unimportant compared to the fact that we're going to have a hard time communicating when you're convinced you don't have a racist bone in your body. I honestly wish I knew how to talk to people who think that. I used to be such a person. But I just don't know how. Two different planets. --Floquenbeam (talk) 02:38, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Let me tell you one story. That story was told to me by one physicist from one US national laboratory, who was born in Europe and arrived to the US when he was 26. The story is as follows:
"Some people here are crazy, and the legislation is totally incomprehensible. One colleague of mine, a physicist from Israel was a US permanent resident, and during one trip he met some woman in a motel, and he treated her with a slice of melon. She was deeply offended and called police. They took him to a court, and a judge concluded he was guilty of harassment. As a result, he was deported".
That story sounded weird both to me and to my friend. Only after I discussed it with Nadine Strossen, she explained to me that the melon was probably a water melon, and a woman was probably a black woman (which, as I was explained, changed everything). Retrospectively, I understand that the incident looked as a purely racist harassment. However, do you sincerely believe each of us (that poor Jewish physicist, my friend who told me that story or I) are racists? I would say the opposite: we all were like time travelers, who arrived from a beautiful future where there are no racial prejudices, a water melon is just a water melon, and a black woman are just a woman with a black skin. And we must learn how to be racists to survive in a society fighting with racism. That is the most terrible thing in the US society: it will force you to become a racist, and after that it demands you to weed out your racism The idea that people from different parts of the world may have no racial stereotypes (or to have different stereotypes) is totally incopmrehencible to you.
America is a great country (probably, the best country in the world), however, its terrible egocentrism is something that I cannot accept.
And that is why a universal code of conduct would be a disaster for Wikipedia, because many good faith users will be expelled from the project just because they do not understand some nuances of local tensions between some racial groups in some US states.--Paul Siebert (talk) 06:06, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
@Paul Siebert: I realize this is somewhat stale, and no one is reading this portion of the thread anymore, but I can't let this pass into the talk page archive without response. The story you are telling is not true. No one got deported, by a judge, after a trial, for offering to "treat a woman to a melon", whether she is black or not, whether it was a watermelon or not. It didn't happen, I guarantee. I don't know if you made it up, or your friend made it up, or their friend made it up, or if it has been percolating in urban mythology for years, but I can guarantee there is no documentation for that, and I'll bet a sizeable sum of money that whatever tiny kernel of truth it might be based on, it did not happen anywhere close to the way you're describing. You can't just tell fake stories and claim that they justify a point you're making.
Everything else you're saying is pretty much bullshit too, but I'm not capable of spending further time beating my head against a brick wall. I'll settle for pointing out for posterity that your premise is built on a completely made-up story, and you either know it's made up, or should have known. Shame on you. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:17, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Floquenbeam, you literally called me a liar without providing any arguments. Do you think such behaviour is appropriate, especially for an admin? Noblesse oblige
Do you know that the All immigrants, including those with green cards, can be deported if they violate U.S. immigration laws. The most common reason for people to be placed into removal proceedings is because there is evidence that they have been convicted of a crime. Specifically, immigrants are at risk of being deported if they are convicted of either what is called a "crime of moral turpitude" or an "aggravated felony”? The list of CMTs is not well defined, so the situation described by me is not unrealistic. I can give some additional details: a lawyer of that Israel physicist advised him to agree on plea bargain instead of pleaing non-guilty, which, as he explained would have minimised negative consequences. And that would have worked well for a US citizen, but not for a permanent resident.
I named a real life person whom I spoke with about that story, and she sees it quite realistic. I also can give a name of another person, who told me that story, but that would require me to disclose my identity. I do not think this discussion deserves these efforts keeping in mind a quality of the arguments (actually the lack thereof) presented by you. To demonstrate that you are a mature person and deservedly have admin's privileges, it would be better if you apologized. You also may just remove your post, along with mine, and after that we will forget about that incident.
With regard to a "brick wall", a real brick wall is in the heads of some Americans who cannot believe majority of other nations know nothing about "negro and fried chicken", do not play baseball, and use the word "footfall" for what you call "soccer".--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:44, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Please pay closer attention. I did not literally call you a liar, I was careful to note that you being a liar was one of three possibilities. --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:58, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
I did not call you a liar, I said it was one of three possibilities is rhetorical gold. Levivich harass/hound 18:03, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Almost as golden as framing one's view of US culture around a transparently phony fourth-hand anecdote and, in the same breath, condemning Americans for their ignorance of other countries. :P MastCell Talk 19:38, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
I see absolutely no problem in being ignorant of other countries. That is especially forgivable for America, which is a great and self-sufficient in many aspects country. I see a problem with refusal to recognize that the world is much more complex, and acting in accordance with your narrow vision.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:47, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Paul Siebert hit the nail on the head. It's not about renaming some obscure page that 99.9 percent of visitors to Wikipedia never see and the faction that do largely do not care as shown by the RM. I think it's silly but will not lose any sleep over it no matter which way it goes. What it is, is virtue signalling. It's a cop out to say hey look I'm helping while doing little to nothing of actual value. It's like saying I support diversity while hiring almost exclusively people from one group. Which hey, that's fine, you do you. But you don't get to have your cake and eat it to. Heck you want an easy example? Take a look at a recent RFC at the COVID-19 pandemic article where it looks like it's about to snow close to remove any mention of the racism associated with the pandemic from the lead. Because, even though attacks on minorities are still happening because of the pandemic, it is apparently just recentism and not important. But no, lets everyone get uppity and indignant about old tech jargon. PackMecEng (talk) 02:24, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
It's commendable to want to prioritize more systemic, deep rooted issues, but they're not unrelated. When we stop using a particular word, stop laughing at a particular kind of joke, change the name of a popular product, etc. it may seem trivial or annoying, especially to those scolded for just rolling with the culture they've been given, but it can have far reaching affects. There's no flip to switch when it comes to culture. The reason civil rights groups come together to campaign against certain language use isn't just because "it offends us" but because changing language changes how we think about things and how we associate concepts. The word "blacklist" isn't all that big of an issue, no, but it's a relatively easy thing to change that may help a bit. Even if that change is unmeasurable, what's the argument against it, if all the primary technical stakeholders are on board? If it addresses something that bothers some people, is distantly related to larger systemic issues, and is easy to change, that sounds like a change worth making, no? Note: a previous version of this post invoked poststructuralism and cultural studies, but I like you all too much to do that. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:26, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
I suppose my frustration was not at the request itself. While I voted to oppose the change I would not be upset either way it goes. My issue comes in more at the over reaction to opposition. Which lead me to the virtue signaling comment. While fighting even slight racism on sight is a good thing, I wish people would be more consistent with it and be willing to take on the larger and more meaningful fights as quickly as they take on the small ones. But your point is well taken. PackMecEng (talk) 19:33, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
In my country there was a time when some innocent words were "blacklisted". Sure, there was no de-jure censorship after 1970, but everybody knew what to expect in case of violation of unwritten rules. Losing a good work would be a likely outcome. Self-censorship is so mighty tool in the hands of oppressors. An example of then "unword"? A "market" (in sense of market economy). Not because it was a "capitalist" word, but because it was associated with reforms of the late 60s (note there were exceptions to this rule, eg. publishing in economy journal with next to no circulation, but only few were so brave to even think about it). When I spoke to my older relatives about discussions like this one, their reply is usually along the lines of "Hey, that is like in our communist regime!". Every society has its own phantoms: be it westiges of racial oppression, or fear of losing hard gained liberty. Don´t be surprised if I hold my phantoms above yours. Pavlor (talk) 08:18, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I hope everyone notices the intensity, persistence, and quantity words written by the opposition that is totally disproportionate to what should be a minor, uncontroversial change. Why are people so vested in the status quo? Jehochman Talk 19:04, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
I hope everyone notices how this discussion was started out with a highly prejudicial and well poisoned proposition, and how absolutely oblivious the proponents appear to be as to that being the large reason people are pushing back against it. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Good question. Have you proposed just to replace "blacklist" with "stoplist" because there is some category of people in the US who may feel offended by usage of the words "black...", that would cause no objection from my side: such a change would not harm to anybody, so if some people will feel better, why cannot we do that? However, if that minor change (which is really minor) is just a start of the campaign of "rooting out some of our own embedded racism that tends to insult editors who might be members of historically oppressed groups", that is really frightening. As I already explained, your proposal contains several questioinable assumptions:
  • that we all have our own embedded racism (the very idea to divide the humankind on racists and "previously oppressed groups" is highly questionable);
  • that the process of rooting out of "our" racism has just started (in reality, it started decades ago, and since then the humankind made an enormous progress);
  • that we know what exactly tends to insult members of historically oppressed groups (do you believe you are in position to speak on behalf of "historically oppressed groups" in general?);
  • that we have a clear understanding of who exactly should be considered as "historically oppressed groups" (in reality, to make a global definition of "historically oppressed groups", it is necessary at least to know history, but history is traditionally a neglected science in the US society, where it is being taught as a set of poorly connected fables).
Regarding that, I have two general comments. First, the "theoretical foundation" of Stalinist repressions was Stalin's concept of "permanent exacerbation of class struggle during the movement of a Socialist society to Communism". Keeping in mind that Communism was seen as a classless society where no class struggle would be possible, it was natural to expect that the class struggle was supposed to reach some maximum at some point, and then to start declining until it reaches a complete zero. Therefore, Stalin's concept was a total bullshit, but it cost millions of lives of "enemies of people". I am not going to draw a direct analogy between Stalinism and modern trends in the Western society, but when I look at the rhetorics of modern liberals I cannot see any formal milestone in a foreseeable future that would allow us to say: "Ok, now the battle for racial equality has been essentially won. It is a time to relax a little bit". In contrast, I anticipate that after "blacklists" is blacklisted, the fighters for racial equality will turn their attention to "greyzones", "Dark Ages" etc, and I see no end to this "permanently exacerbating struggle against racism".
The second comment is an adaptation of one Hodja Nasreddin's story (that type stories are very popular in some cultures, if you don't know them, here is an original version). The new version is as follows:
"One day Emir, who was a very progressive and tolerant ruler, called Nasreddin Hodja and asked him, "“Can you initiate my beloved ass into liberal values and multiculturalism, so that he knows as much as I do, and can you teach him to talk?" Hodja answered, "I know your ass, I have tested his capabilities and now I am convinced that this remarkable ass is not behind your ministers in intelligence. I will initiate him to liberal values and multiculturalism and in twenty days he will be capable of speaking like the ancient wise man Cicero." Emir ordered to give Hodja five thousand golden tangas from the treasury and said, “Take this ass and teach him, but, by Allas, if he doesn't know liberalism and multiculturalism in twenty days and can't explain them to me, I will decapitate you!” (Sic!).
In 20 days, Hoja brought the ass back to Emir. "Have you done what I requested" - Emir asked. Hodja replied humbly: "Yes, my lord, you may ask your ass and see it by yourself". Emir started to talk with the ass, but the ass didn't say a word. "You are trying to fool me! The ass definitely cannot talk" - Emir exclaimed. "I respectfully disagree, my lord" - Hodja replied humbly. "Your wise ass learned all nuances of liberalism and multiculturalism, and he told me he refuses to say anything that may potentially insult at least one member of at least one formerly oppressed group. Maybe, that a reason he is silent.".
--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:43, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

What's necessary to make this happen?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Break it up before we summon MGodwin. Jehochman Talk 04:09, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Other enlightened organizations have decided to update nomenclature:

  • There are many ways to respond to injustice, both large and small, but each response is important. While we acknowledge it is a small change, Cisco Talos is moving to replace our use of the terms "blacklist" and "whitelist" with "block list" and "allow list.” [29]
  • [Google] Chrome and Chromium developers are to avoid the words “blacklist” and “whitelist” in favor of the neutral terms “blocklist” and “allowlist.” [30]

This is a good read:

  • Next, somebody got up a blacklist on which you get if you don't vote right. Then when lodges come into being, the folks they didn't want in them got blackballed. If you kept a skeleton in your closet, you might get blackmailed. And everything bad was black. - Langston Hughes [31]

The implicit argument, "It's no problem because it doesn't affect me," seems to have taken root at the page move discussion I started at Wikipedia talk:Spam blacklist#Requested_move_10_February_2021. That discussion is not going well because the self-selected group of people watching that page are vested in the legacy terminology. I think we will need a broader community discussion at WP:CENT to replace all of our official uses of "blacklist" and "whitelist" with language that is self-explanatory and free of racial connotations (e.g., black is bad, white is good). We can adopt "block list" and "safe list" (or "allow list") as examples or other names that are neutral, concise, and clear. Because I obviously have a strong opinion about this, it might be better for somebody perceived as neutral to kick off that discussion. Jehochman Talk 15:22, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, when I said "What's necessary to make this happen?" I wasn't talking about what's necessary to bring about cultural change in the community and the organization. I meant it in a much more nuts-and-bolts way. I assume that the name of the page is relevant to the mediawiki software and I'm unclear on whether it can be changed by the community or whether it's a thing for the foundation. I think it is obvious that the change will happen: there are zero valid arguments against it. "block list" and "safe list" are excellent alternatives. I'm just unclear on exactly where the change needs to happen so that I can put whatever weight I can behind making that change happen.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:51, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
  • This is not an accurate summary at all. While the change wouldn't be harmful per se, the fundamental argue that "blacklist" and "whitelist" are harmful/racist is incredibly patronising, and woldn't be proposed or endorsed by anyone thinking of black people as (fellow) people. It can be a well intentioned suggestion in a White Man's Burden kind of way; but that's still of course incredibly patronising/racist/whatnot. You can't expect or demand people takeup that attitude. WilyD 17:18, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Whether you agree with the summary or not, that's not a positive argument for refusing to do it. Let me tell you a story that may help illustrate the issue. My grandmother, when I was growing up in Alabama in the 1970s, used the term 'negroes'. She did it because, to her, it was an uncontroversial term, indeed it was the polite term. The battle against the term was led by people she didn't think highly of, like Malcolm X. She felt that it would be ridiculous to change, but guess what: the English language changes, terminology changes, and what once was intended to be the polite term because an offensive term. Wikipedia says: "However, during the 1950s and 1960s, some black American leaders, notably Malcolm X, objected to the word Negro because they associated it with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination that treated African Americans as second class citizens, or worse.[10] Malcolm X preferred Black to Negro, but also started using the term Afro-American after leaving the Nation of Islam.[11]" Negro#United_States.
Was it fair that as she grew older in °the 1980s, people would hear her say "Negro" and think of her as racist? Well, I'll leave that decision up to you. But they did, and even if she wasn't racist (I'm not saying she was or wasn't as it isn't relevant to what I'm explaining to you) she increasingly sounded racist and in particular her insistence on using a term that by then had clearly come to be understood as racist was especially problematic.
Guess what - the language is on the move again. Fortunately, newer terms like "block list" and "safe list" eliminate the problem completely and we can move on to other more important and fundamental issues of inclusion. Meanwhile, the people who fight against it increasingly sound like my out of touch grandmother in the 1980s.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:51, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
There's a difference between conforming to the current cultural norms and being part of a movement to create them. If the change from blacklist and words like it, becomes a cultural norm or is seen to be becoming a cultural norm, then Wikipedia should adopt that change. However I don't see that as the current situation. For Wikipedia to change it now would be participating and encouraging the change. I think Wikipedia should focus on what it is, an encyclopedia, not an instrument for cultural change. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:19, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
I would tend to agree with that (with some caveats and explanations of what I mean and don't mean) with respect the content of encyclopedia articles. But this is not about that, this is about the naming convention for a technical page.
You're conflating editorial policy, i.e. "The Wikipedia reflects coverage in reliable sources; it follows, not leads" with internal project policy. Apples and oranges. ValarianB (talk) 18:28, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, the example with "negro" is good, but I am not sure the conclusion is correct. Malcolm X objected to usage of "negro" because it referred to centuries of slavery, but what about the word "slave" itself? This word comes from Medieval Latin "slavus", which meant "Slav", because most slaves in Medieval Europe were Slavs. However, I am 100% sure even modern Slavs do not know about that fact, and no Russian, Serb or Czech in clear mind would demand to ban the word "slave", and that is because this word in its modern meaning has no relation to any present days social conflict. In contrast, the attempts to ban the word "negro" without resolving the roots of the conflict are more like a modern "cargo cult". I would say, that they are even more harmful than useful, because persistent attempts to weed out any "negroes", "black-..." etc just draw more attention to that issue, thereby promoting these words to the rank of "the one who shall not be named".
It will never be possible to wipe out any mention of black slavery, or such epithets as "negro" etc from human memory, and the goal is to create a society where all those historical words would be seen as non-related to present days interracial relationships (similarly to the word "slave", which lost its original meaning). Obviously, the approach proposed in that section by no means serves to that goal.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:15, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
Langston Hughes does not agree with you, WilyD. If you can find a source for some scholar endorsing your view, I will consider it. Jehochman Talk 17:42, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Re "nuts and bolts", similar discussions I've seen elsewhere chose "blocklist" and "allowlist". Changes in MediaWiki would be required and, in 2017, phab:T173080 discussed using "Denylist" and "Allowlist". That discussion went nowhere with comments similar to some seen here. Johnuniq (talk) 22:52, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

If mediawiki changes, does the name of the page change automatically? That is to say, it's not going to break anything that the community is doing? If that's right, then I will see what I can do on that side of things.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:46, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't know the details but renaming would require significant effort on the technical side and here. The pages which control the blacklist are MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist and meta:Spam blacklist (and corresponding whitelist pages) which are used by mw:Extension:SpamBlacklist. Pages here that would need reworking include Wikipedia:Spam blacklist. According to a comment here, the changes could be achieved reasonably but should occur as a rewrite of the underlying software to be a more scalable external links filter. Apparently very little if any work on that has occurred in recent years. Johnuniq (talk) 22:46, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
Jehochman, Johnuniq, et al. This task is being used to track the existing work to change the language across MediaWiki. phab:T254646 Ckoerner (talk) 16:50, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I think this a no-lose change. (1) It's logically and societally aware (2) it's more obvious what these pages are for editors who don't have English as their first language (3) it irritates racists. Black Kite (talk) 11:56, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
(1) I am not sure; (2) In my mother tongue, we use the equivalent of English "blacklist", and I am sure the situation is the same in most Indo-European languages (don't know about others); and that has no (and never had any) racist connotations; (3) I always thought that goal is not to irritate racists, but to convert racists into non-racists. An irritated racist becomes more devoted racist, isn't it?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:49, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
Language that equates black with bad and white with good does harm to people who are also identified as "Black". It's not that the language is racist, it's that it's one more place where you get the message that there's something wrong with you. As far as the claim that we should not irritate racists because it will make them more racist - facts and reality irritates racists, my very existent irritates them. We can't craft an encyclopaedia or live our lives not doing what's right because it might irritate racists. We'd be making their ideal world for them. Guettarda (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree it's a no-lose change. Something like "block list" and "allow list" or similar has the advantage of not using colors as metaphors for good and bad, while having zero disadvantages. Levivich harass/hound 22:50, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
@Paul Siebert: I disagree with most if not all of what you are saying. I strongly object to your claim that "blocklist" is not an English word because you couldn't find it in an American dictionary. It was easy enough to find it in the British Collins dictionary.[32] A Google search turns up many uses of the term - how can it not be an English word when it's used so much? I agree that it's a no-lose change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 10:36, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Dear Black Kite, Jehochman, Doug Weller, Guettarda, all what you say may be right if that does not contradict to the main Wikopedia's goal, namely, to the creation of a good quality content. I have serious reasons to believe it does. I am ready to explain my point of view, but before I will do that I would like to know if Jimbo Wales have some objections to the usage of his personal talk page for that discussion. If no objections will follow from him in next few days, I will give a detailed responce.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:14, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Jimbo Wales I looked at the phabricator ticket phab:T173080, helpfully pointed out by Johnuniq. You could help by suggesting to the Board that they prioritize equity issues that are pending in the development queue. This task has been pending since August 2017, three and a half years. That phabricator ticket was eventually closed as a duplicate, with the currently active ticket being phab:T254646. Jehochman Talk 15:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    Thanks for those phabs links. It is depressing to learn that this has been in the phab queue for the entire time this board of trustees has been in office. +1 to prioritizing equity and also clearing the phab queue. With a $100 million budget, there has to be enough money for enough developers to not have a multi-year trouble ticket backlog. Levivich harass/hound 19:56, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, I think it's important I point out that I find MastCell continuing to misconstrue the comments of and cast aspersions on his ideological opponents (conservatives) to be extremely disconcerting (note that the political views of these editors are also in diametric opposition to my own). In fact, a month ago, I even warned him of an imminent block if he were to continue doing so (diff) — yes, an admin-on-admin block. Needless to say, this wasn't well received by the other admins who participated in that discussion. El_C 19:09, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, I thought I'd also touch on the over-racializing of the word Lynching in an American-centric way as was invoked by MastCell further up the thread. The way I see it, I agree with Levivich that when SR used the word "lynching" (which, sure, was inflammatory and inappropriate), there was no reason to place it within any sort of racial connotations. The aforementioned article on the subject covers many countries (though naturally mainly the US), most notably India. I know that back in the homeland, that's also what we call it (domestic incidents therein). In fact, there's a paragraph in he:לינץ' that I found really poignant to my point, so I have translated it in full:

While the concept has developed in the context of violence against blacks and other minorities in the US, it has become common in other languages as well (including Hebrew, Spanish and Russian, for example) and in other settings. The expansion of the term outside of its American context allows for the treatment of lynching as a social phenomenon encompassing societies and cultures which preceded American history and which perhaps had existed since the dawn of human civilization. The usage of the term in the press and in public discourse does not necessarily address this or that definition of the concept. In most instances, the term is used when a mob of people kills or injures as a form of punishment or retribution against the victim, or out of hatred for the identity, values, or the group that the victim represents to the assailants, or by aiming to further the group to which the assailants belong. In many cases, events defined as lynching are characterized as a public display of brutal violence.

Anyway, even though the English Wikipedia may be physically hosted in the US and, as such, subject to US law, it is expressly an international project in scope. Just among English speaking countries alone, we have the UK, India, Canada, Australia, and so on. I believe in social justice (in the true sense of the word, not necessarily the PC one), but this sort of would-be social justice, I think misses the mark, and as such, does the project a disservice. Sorry for the inordinate length of this treatise! El_C 22:51, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
You're doing a lot of work to avoid acknowledging some obvious realities. An American discussing the term "lynching" (in the midst of the George Floyd protests, no less) should be expected to be aware of the racially charged nature of the term—or at least not to actively deny it. You, and Levivich, and others keep arguing that lynching is not a racially charged term because Black people are not the only victims of lynching. That is an obtuse argument; after all, Jews were not the only victims of the Holocaust, but the Holocaust is nonetheless understood as a symbol of violent anti-Semitism.

As for your threat to block me for complaining about people using Wikipedia to cheer on the attack on the Capitol and to spread QAnon-adjacent conspiracism, I think it reflects more poorly on you than on me, but we can agree to disagree there. MastCell Talk 23:40, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I mostly agree, though I don't wish to make this about editors. El C, seriously, do you really think only American readers think of Jim Crow type lynching when they see that phrase abused in a completely inappropriate context? ---Sluzzelin talk 23:47, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
I'm not American , and it's the first thing I think of. This is a UK school history revision guide for 11-14 year olds which talks about the KKK and lynching. To be precise, it's the image I recall when the word is being used in a literal rather than a figurative sense. Black Kite (talk) 00:22, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
Again, MastCell, you distort and misconstrue, which is to your discredit. What "Americans discussing the term" is it you speak of? Regardless, SR had used the term many months prior to the George Floyd protests, many months prior to COVID, etc. And I did not read Atsme's comment as cheering the US Capital Insurrection or QAnon (or QAnon-adjacent or whatever). I agree with MONGO, who said: my reading of her comments and links provided do not to me indicate an effort to be an apologist for the actions of those lunatics that stormed the US Capitol last week.
Granted, her comment came across as muddled and unfocused to me (not to mention, mostly just plain wrong as well as being laughably partisan), and yes, as such, quite tone deaf, but my sense was that it gave you an opening to engage in a vicious personal attack, and so you pounced, culminating in you saying: One good thing about this period is that it's allowed us to see who people really are, with their masks off. No one has an excuse anymore for not knowing what you stand for. Needless to say, I found that highly inappropriate.
Sluzzelin, obviously, it is predominantly associated with the American South, I'm not disputing that. But when someone in acute distress says that they feel like they're being "lynched," it can also mean that they feel like they are not just being simply mobbed, but that they are being assailed by said mob "with brutal violence." Not that I advocate its usage (I don't), but I, for one, do not know another word for that. So, I stand by what I said, in so far that it needn't be about race necessarily. El_C 00:44, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
There is no brutal violence on Wikipedia. "mobbed" will have to do, in extreme cases. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:50, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
@El C: Levivich is the person I quoted. Levivich is US-based, according to his userpage. Hence, an American discussing the term. He made the comment in July 2020, which was during the George Floyd protests. The "distortion" is where, exactly? And yes, of course—people may intend various meanings when they use the term, but it remains a racially charged term nonetheless, in American (and arguably wider English-speaking) usage. Is this truly as incomprehensible to you as you're making out? I'm not going to revisit the insurrection-related commentary here; suffice to say our opinions differ and I stand by what I said as well. MastCell Talk 00:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
I learned about lynching from The Headless Horseman. Since the person who was being lynched in that novel was a white man, I always thought lynching had no specific racist connotations. And for that reason I was recently accused of being a racist during one talk page discussion.
MastCell correctly notes that an average American discussing the term "lynching" is supposed to understand some racist connotations of that term. However, many (if not a majority) of Wikpedians are not Americans, and only some of them are a part of Anglo-Saxon culture. Other people do not understand many of your stereotypes (although they definitely have their own stereotypes, which you don't understand). If you decided to fight against your racism, maybe, the first thing your should start with is to become more modest and to stop imposing your vision of racism on other people. Or you want to create separate rules for the users from different countries and belonging to different races?
I also strongly disagree with El_C's description of MastCell's ideological opponents as "conservatives". People thinking differently are not always conservative. I would say quite the opposite: to me, MastCell's approach is too primitive, it does not take into account many important aspects and overemphasizes others, and it is more an imitation of a fight against xenophobia and inequality.
Finally, I think the fight against racism is highly commendable if it does not prevent us from doing our main job: to produce a good quality content. You must agree that one of the most serious problem of "formerly oppressed groups" is not a usage of some potentially racially charged terms, but a lack of access to good education, because even America is still a dramatically segregated society, and its education system is funded by local communities (which are strictly divided onto rich/white and poor/black). In that sense, Wikipedia can become a very important resource if nothing will distract us from creation of a good quality content.
I think one important step would be to keep Wikipedia non-censored, which includes avoidance of redundant "codes of conduct" etc. To resolve content disputes, it is sometimes important to openly name a problem, even if it sounds not politecorrectly, and if we will be limited with the modern politecorrect newspeak, that ties our hands significantly. Moreover, many POV pushers are masterfully gaming a system, because admins pays too much attention to behavioural issues. I already discussed that during the Antisemitism in Poland Arbitration case. After that, I was contacted by a professional historian, who agreed that the topic is in a terrible shape. In my opinion, the primary reason is that admins want to make editing an emotionally comfortable process, and Wikipedia is becoming a kind of a social network with user-friendly environment and numerous rules. In my opinion, that is acceptable only if that does not harm to the our main goal, but currently is does harm.
If you really care about "formerly oppressed social groups", do what you are expected to do: create an environment where productive, intellectual and neutral users will be working on a good quality content without a risk to unintentionally violate some poorly defined "rules of conduct".
That is also a responce to Black Kite, Jehochman, Doug Weller, Guettarda. --Paul Siebert (talk) 02:45, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
MastCell, naturally, above all else, the word conjures the racial (which is to say, racist) imagery of the American South (and it does so in Hebrew too), but, as mentioned, there simply is no other word that I know of which serves to describe the act (though I suppose pogrom comes close).
And I'm far from being in complete agreement with Levivich. When, for example, he says that the word "in the US often is" racially-charged — I'd say, in the US it always is. So, to clarify, I'm not arguing of there being some lofty, detached unreality where the word is stripped of its linguistic-historic meaning, as some here seem to think I am.
But, you also seem to be hinting on there being latent racism at play here, which is what I take exception to. I mean, I admit to being a bit at awe at how you're able to navigate the tarnishing other editors —Bob K31416's bizarre notion about welcoming 'well-behaved' Nazi editors excepted— without making it appearing as if you're actually doing so. Honestly, I just don't think I'm really a match against your formidable rhetorical prowess. Certainly, Paul is better at it than I am, and his argument above fills me with some confidence that there is hope yet. Paul, thank you, as always, for your insights and eloquence. That is something I am happily in awe of.
Also, just noting that most historians define The Holocaust as being about the destruction of the European Jews, thereby distinguishing it from other genocidal acts perpetrated by the Nazis, like the Romani genocide, for example. Sluzzelin, no disagreement there. It is without a doubt highly inappropriate, but it isn't like using the n-word. It's all about degrees. For example, I blocked someone yesterday when she derided her opponent as being an Incel. Which is really bad. But last week, I blocked someone for accusing an opponent of "grooming children," which is as bad as it gets. I'd make a plea, then, for proportion and perspective, by not lumping disparate things unduly. El_C 03:51, 16 February 2021 (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.

Looking at the issue from an editor point-of-view, rather than Foundation POV

The article on blacklisting does't mention "race" or "racism", not even once. It does talk about blacklisting communists, what are y'all saying here, that communists are all black? It talks about the Hollywood blacklist; are you saying that Hollywood is racist? There is no mention of controversy in the main article; only in the sub-article Blacklist (computing) do we find a controversy over use of the term section, and the controversies there all seem recent, dating only from 2018. Looking at the redirects to blacklisting, I don't see any obvious common synonyms. Block list is still a red link. Anyone active at WP:Requested moves knows that Wikipedia doesn't lead in such matters. A sports arena will change its name, usually after selling naming rights to a private corporation for promotional purposes, and many editors will be reluctant to move the page off the common, generic name before seeing strong evidence that reliable sources have begun to refer to the arena by its new commercial name. This is a matter where the Foundation, which wears their political agendas on their sleeves, is constantly running in front of the more conservative editors.

What about (please don't call "whataboutism" on me) "gaslighting"? Isn't that term disparaging to the fossil fuel industry? Shouldn't we stop using it so as to stop being insensitive towards the people responsible for keeping us warm this winter? wbm1058 (talk) 23:23, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

The fossil fuel industry wasn't enslaved for centuries, whereas black people were. That's the difference there. And, yeah, the move away from "blacklist" and "whitelist" is recent. The reason for that is before recently, we had Jim Crow in the US, and before that, slavery. Anyway, Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so the fact that our article on blacklisting doesn't mention race is evidence of Wikipedia's poor average article quality, not evidence that blacklist has no racial connotations. It's kind of impossible to ignore that "blacklist" and "whitelist" use "black" to mean "bad" and "white" to mean "good", and the reason that's a problem is because white people used to enslave black people. It really all comes back to that. That's why we shouldn't use colors as metaphors for good and bad: because we used to enslave people based on the color of their skin. And because we still discriminate against people based on the color of their skin. Cops don't shoot fossil fuel workers at a higher rate than other workers, for example. If the WMF is ahead of more conservative editors on this, so am I, and I think that's OK. Our internal culture does not need to match the lowest common denominator, and we certainly don't need to carry on tradition. Levivich harass/hound 23:28, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Levivich, what I'm hearing from the last part of your post is that you're comfortable discarding our consensus-based system in this instance because you've decided that your position is the one with the moral high ground. This is a common theme that I've observed both here and at the RM in question. The RM has been even worse, and it's because those who support the move believe speak as though they have the monopoly on truth, which leaves them free to simply browbeat those who disagree with them. Those of us who oppose the move have been lectured and dismissed, with some going so far as to tell us to 'shut up'. You're certainly entitled to your view that the terms in question are offensive/subpar/inappropriate, but that doesn't make it okay to steamroll the community. I believe the arguments that the terms are offensive are specious at best, and we don't need to bow to specious arguments. However, I'm willing to be persuaded that I'm wrong through reasonable, rational conversation. The problem is that reasonable, rational conversation is an unrealistic goal when one side of the dispute would rather force their viewpoint through with or without consensus. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:45, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Lep I honestly have no idea what RM you're referring to? My comments are about "blacklist" and "whitelist" in general, and mostly in response to wbm's comment (wherein I disagree with the analogy to fossil fuel industry that they draw). While I support the change, I don't support anyone lecturing or dismissing anyone else. Although, I would say that from where I'm sitting, when folks draw obviously-false analogies for rhetorical affect (like "blacklist" and "gaslight"), that has the same off-putting effect as lecturing or dismissiveness. I think where you and I would agree is that neither side of this debate should take the position that their side is the only side that is rational or just. Levivich harass/hound 20:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Levivich, see Wikipedia talk:Spam blacklist § Requested move 10 February 2021. You might just skip to the bottom of that to see where I think this is going. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:42, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Thanks wbm. I'm gonna go drive my steamroller over there. Levivich harass/hound 20:47, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Heh. I probably shouldn't be canvassing, but while you're at it Levivich you might want to help break the 2–2 tie here. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:14, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
You're right about the canvassing concern. I'd better !vote with one of my socks. Levivich harass/hound 22:10, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
You seem to not be speaking on behalf of editors, but on behalf of editors with a POV, which you call "conservative". So, perhaps come out of your POV and imagine you are not whatever you are referring to as "conservative" but are instead a "neutral" editor. Would anything happen to the act of editing, itself, if it's called a "blocklist", instead of a "blacklist"? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:05, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Levivich, actually, some white people used to enslave some black people, and that changes everything. I looked Blacklist's sister articles in other Wikipedias, and I found that an overwhelming majority of them use the the word "black". These articles include Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, German, etc. I am pretty sure many nations, including Ukrainians or Russians, were slaves themselves until 1860s, so in their languages that has no racial connotations. I took Russian as an example of a language that both has a big corpus and has no linkage to racism, and it seems "blacklist" was introduced in 1860 and became popular during Stalin's purges. Clearly, "blacklist" never had any racial connotations in Russian, especially keeping in mind that Pushkin, who plays the same role for Russian literature as Shakespeare, Dickens and Byron taken together, had African ancestry and proudly declared that. It seems association of "black" with bad is common for many nations and languages, including those that have no relation to black slave trade/black slavery.
Furthermore, it seems a causal linkage is broken here. I looked at the usage of the words "blacklist, black person, nigger, blackmail, black people", and it is easy to see that "black person/man" is a neologism, which replaced the word "nigger/negro". The word "blacklist" is even older than the word "nigger" (first usage in mid 1600s). Therefore, it is quite clear that the word "blacklist" never had relation to black people originally. The problem is, maybe, in the fact that many (but not all) nations associate the black colour with death and various bad things. If that is the case, replacement of certain words will not help, because it would require a global change of mentality (just imagine a film where Gandalf is black: do you sincerely believe it will be understood correctly? .
As I already told, I see no problem in changing some terms if that has no negative consequences and makes a life of some people better. However, we have to check is that is the case. First, are we really sure "blacklist" etc really annoy an average black person? Frankly, I am not sure, but if somebody knows a good sociological study of that issue, it would interesting to read it. However, if majority of black people see no problem with "blacklist", it makes no sense to waste our time. Remember, that problem could be important during Malcolm X's times, but the situation significantly changed since then: Jim Craw's laws are cancelled, there is no racial segregation (at least de jure), affirmative action policy is widespread. Another important sign is that I know some cases when non-black people pretended to be black to get some benefits (which would be unbelievable in Malcolm X's times). Therefore, maybe it makes sense to check if the "blacklist" issue really deserves our attention, or that is just "virtue signalling"?--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:28, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
From a pragmatist POV - I think perhaps it has more to do with the process of redaction - blacking something out on paper - readacted - common usage in government. That's how I see it - all it has ever meant. Do you think governments will change their method of redaction to red, and stop using white paper? Think about a list created in the McCarthy era - a full list of names on white paper, and the people who were not under investigation were redacted, the others remained visible - that's a black list - drive them out; see the etymology of redacted. Now look at any government document that was proofed prior to public distribution. There are statements that are blacked-out, redacted, because of national security interests. Bottomline, I don't care what we do relative to changing the name of a list - I am always happy to know that I've made someone feel better or made them smile - it makes my life better. When we start creating problems that don't exist and that's attributable to white guilt, that's a sign of trouble and quite frankly, why we have psychiatrists. Don't feel guilty, feel sad, a bit angry, but be inspired to fix it so that it never happens again, but don't cut-off your nose to spite your face, or sweep facts under the carpet or censor all the wrongs that were committed throughout human history. Conquerors burned books, censored language, and eliminated dissidants. This witch hunt has to stop. I understand where Jimmy and the WMF are coming from - zero tolerance. But beware - for some people zero is negative 10. It leads to injustices and the hounding of innocent people as we've seen right here on Jimbo's page. Editors who write prose, or who edit encyclopedias are wordsmiths so to speak, or at least have some command of the language, which is English in our case. We use words in context to mean certain things, to engage our readers. Stop taking away our freedom to express what needs to be expressed by injecting guilt for something we didn't do, or implying that certain words might be misconstrued as racism - based on what, a POV - when the words aren't even close to a racist agenda? I can assure you, it doesn't take much to find real racists - they quickly make themselves known - some even project their racism onto others. We don't have to dig so deep that we are censoring and reducing our pool of resources, and the English language itself.

Some of the people who haven't lived outside the US or UK may not be considering how this plays out globally. What does science tell us, re: mitochondrial mother? My extended family on this island do not consider themselves black and will correct you very quickly. When they go to the US, they resent being called African Americans because they are not from Africa - they were born either here on Bonaire, in Aruba or South America. They do not relate to slavery, even though the island has a memorial with the original slave huts on one end of the island. Most relate to slave traders (some of whom were black) as people who kidnapped all colors of people and sold them into slavery, and that included children and adults of South American, African, and Asian ancestry, with some Europeans mixed in. Know the history, teach it - that's why we are here helping to build this encyclopedia. Our readers need to know what happened, and we need to be able to write about it so history doesn't repeat itself, and when doing so, we should not be subjected to ignorant name calling and accusations. Isn't it rather shallow for us to focus only on the US & UK when we are a global encyclopedia? Slavery was a horrible, horrible era in our history - I was not part of that history and I look back on it with horror and pain in my heart - it brings me to tears - but it also inspires me to keep working to solve the problems, not create them. What we're not focusing enough of our energy on is the fact that there are still women of all colors who live as slaves today. There are still areas in the world where genocide continues. That's where we, as a global encyclopedia, should be focusing a significant portion of our efforts, rather than worrying about how we should title a redacted or cancelled list of names. Atsme 💬 📧 14:34, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Excellent post! Did you know ... that those slaves were mining salt from evaporated seawater on the Bonaire salt flats. Fossil-fuel powered machines do all the heavy lifting for that work now. I bet business is booming there now, with all the road salt being applied up north this winter! wbm1058 (talk) 15:54, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
See salt works – wbm1058 (talk) 16:01, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Thank you, Wbm1058. Being pressed for time because of my work on WP, I didn't get an opportunity to thoroughly research the etymology, or some of the more recent academic opinions relative to the origins of blacklist & whitelist. In my efforts to achieve accuracy, I found the following article in the Journal of the Medical Library Assoc. which shed more light on this topic - and there are others written by academics. I do believe it is something we should take into serious consideration, and will support whatever decision is made. There's a quote in that article by a woman I've admired for a long time: The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams. ~ Maya Angelou It is good to keep these things in mind, and as I said above, I'm ok with making the change. It was the approach to this discussion that threw so many of us off-balance, and that is what concerns me. I am a team player - always have been - but I don't function well when there's a target on my back by those who have demonstrated ill-will towards me. I've slept on it, thought about this discussion, reread it, thought a bit more for the better part of this morning. I can say in clear conscience that I have moved past it, and that's where I prefer to keep it; i.e., in the past. Happy editing!! Atsme 💬 📧 16:16, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
A near-direct comparable consideration is the Master/slave (technology) concern. Technology initially used the slavery-related terms because they were "accurate" descriptors - one device managed other devices, which had no decision-making factors in that, they were slaves to the master. However in that situation, there was clearly a larger movement in society that led tech groups to push away from that terminology due to the implications to not only the problems with slaves in the US but other parts of the world where slavery is still used, and as such, technology moved on. Similar phases that use "master" like "master bedroom" can be found with similar origins tied to slavery and thus are reasonably being pushed out of mainstream use.
As being pointed out above, "blacklist"/"whitelist" do not have similar origins tied to race or similar mistreatment of minority groups, but there's a poor assumption made that the "black" of "blacklist" is due to a racial factor (there has never been any). As such , there hasn't been a move at a large scale to push away from this language, at least in the computing area (where WP should be looking, since that's how we implement lists like these), because they simply aren't racially charged terms at all, only perceived incorrectly as such. --Masem (t) 15:08, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
US real estate industry already stopped calling it "master" bedroom. [33] I support that change, too. And none of this is about etymology. It's about modern-day implications. One can never "prove" to anyone else that their perceptions are wrong by giving them a history lesson. By doing that one only proves that one is missing the point. We need not look anywhere else to determine whether to change our blacklist to a deny list. We're not talking about a change to an article here. This is purely an internal Wikipedia change. We can decide to do it even if no one else is doing it. (Of course in reality we would not be the first or only to make this change.) Levivich harass/hound 16:30, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
That article also says that John Legend argued that the "real problem" with real estate has nothing to do with semantics. Instead, he said brokers should work to end housing discrimination in the United States by showing all Black people fair and equal treatment throughout the buying and selling process. I.e., stop redlining. Just because it isn't called blacklining doesn't make it OK. Primary bedroom is still a red link, and what does that imply, that your children are "secondary"? wbm1058 (talk) 16:59, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
My point is that there was a clear drive to deprecate the "Master/slave" terminology in computer circles, and as such it has happened, while other uses of "master" deriving from the slavery implication are also under similar review. If WP used those terms in any of its behind-the-scenes policies, we'd have full reason to make the change too. But in the "blacklist/whitelist" area, there is not a similar push that I can see (but I may be missing it). Computer people seem to recognize that "black" here is not tied to the racial implications at all from the word's origins. If there was a clear sign that computer people were looking to move away from "blacklist/whitelist" to other terms, then I'd fully agree we should follow, but I'm just not seeing that, and WP should not be leading this type of change if that's not out there; we're not meant to be this proactive. --Masem (t) 17:19, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Is this a clear enough sign, that Twitter, Google, and Microsoft are making the changes? "Master/slave" is discussed in that article as well as "blacklist/whitelist". 2605:8D80:623:7890:93E2:F068:8474:5B72 (talk) 18:11, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
That's one person/company, and while it covers master/slave, that had been happening before BLM last year. Perhaps there is more post-BLM with "blacklist"/"whitelist" but its hard to come across immediate hits for that compared to the master/slave transition. --Masem (t) 18:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
It's an article about one company, Twitter. Other tech companies are doing the same thing. Whether it happens before or after recent BLM protests wasn't your objection; you'd said that you wanted a clear sign that computer people are making these changes. Articles saying that major tech companies are making these changes (either in isolation or as part of a larger change) would seem to be that clear sign. 2605:8D80:623:7890:93E2:F068:8474:5B72 (talk) 18:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Then its a fair argument to have here if that has taken off like that. I just haven't seen mas muhc compared ot master/slave. --Masem (t) 19:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
WP should follow and not lead when it comes to article content. But WP should be a leader when it comes to being citizens of planet Earth, because WP has become an important human institution. We shouldn't lag behind for-profit corporations like Google and Microsoft when it comes to good corporate citizenship. Levivich harass/hound 20:15, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Given WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS and how many complaints when WP engages in any type of politicking, we should not actually be leaders in this area, but should only when follow when there's reasonable impedus and change in society to do so - both in mainspace and behind the scenes, unless the WMF says this should be a priority. We want to avoid a situation where a problem that doesn't exist outside Wikipedia is seen as a problem inside Wikipedia and we're reacting to a small minority of editors that push this, and that lead to a lot of potential abuse. But as the IP above as shown, there is some reasonable backing to push for a change to "blacklist/whitelist" that would make sense for WP to thus explore this. --Masem (t) 20:25, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
To add, I consider two recent large scale discussions in similar areas as relevant: how we have chosen to handle the naming of transgender individuals in their prior works based on how we know current societal norms refer to them (the RFC concluding to use their post-transition name in older articles), and the rejection of avoiding "committed suicide" where appropriate despite some concern from mental health experts about its connotation. The former case, there is clearly a lead out there we could follow, the latter, there isn't the lead that we should be following. --Masem (t) 20:48, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I just changed it to primary/replica architecture. I got there through a link on kubernetes, and they are considered an industry standard. I left the disambiguation from master, because you can still arrive there from a redirect.
Most technology standard companies have asked that this be changed. There is no reason to leave the page where it is, the language has changed on this. Mechachleopteryx (talk) 16:37, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
I mean the page kubernetes Mechachleopteryx (talk) 16:38, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

For your enjoyment I present this Ngram. "Black list" (two words) has been fairly constant over time. Something happened around 1880 to make the compound "blacklist" take off – my guess is it has something to do with all the socialist rabble-rousers who thought that working people should get a more fair slice of the capitalist's pie. Whatever efforts Google and Co. have made to right great wrongs has yet to show up in the Ngram, but I note that the two-word "block list" has the edge over the compound. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:31, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I could construct a cogent argument that what the CoC should do is to protect members of the community from implicit racism. And I could construct an equally cogent argument that what it should do is to protect members of the community from being implicitly accused of racism. And I can predict that both "sides" in the discussion here will want the WMF to use the CoC to protect them and to punish the other "side". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I totally see your point. I view it less about protection via "code of conduct" and more about actually listening to each other (which, of course, belongs to conduct but is hard to codify.) ---Sluzzelin talk 23:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Yes, listening to one another with a reasonable[vague] amount of respect is really the key, and more so than anything that can readily be codified. But the reality is that, sooner or later, people will try to weaponize whatever has been codified. And that can, as here, lead to "We need to be more attuned to the feelings of disadvantaged members of the community." "Stop calling me racist." "We need to be more attuned to the feelings of disadvantaged members of the community." "Stop calling me racist." Rinse and repeat. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:28, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
That would (or will) be an unfortunate intensification indeed. I hope we're not there yet. (Also, both 'sides' appear to feel being labeled, whether as racists or as social justice warriors, whether as ignorant or as condescending, etc. I agree that labelling editors is no way forward) ---Sluzzelin talk 00:05, 20 February 2021 (UTC)23:54, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I Wikipedia afraid or=f Gender honest books ??...Its been four books and 5 years

I would like to know why you do not have information on John R. Gregg, Scholar and Professor. I know materials requesting a page on him have been submitted several times. He has been recommended by the Futurist Ray Kurzweil several times JOHN RANDALL GREGG WAS BORN IN 1945 IN CAMP BLANDING FLORIDA .HE WAS EDUCATED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA AND RECEIVED ADVANCED DEGREES AT FLORID ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY IN HISTORY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

HE IS BEST KNOW FOR WRITING THE VAST EPIC: SEX, THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY THROUGH TIME, RELIGION AND CULTURE. CONSISTING OF THREE VOLUMES . WITH MODERN HONESTY IT EXAMINES HUMAN SEXUALITY THROUGH ALL AVAILABLE CULTURES FROM PREHISTORY AND THE ANCIENT WORLD MOVING INTO THE MODERN ERA IN ALL CULTURES. THE VOLUMES EXAMINE CLOSELY, AND CONTROVERSIALLY THE ROLES OF RELIGION IN ITS CONTROL OF SEX AND THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND BOYS THROUGHOUT MOST CULTURES. THIS WORK HAS BEEN HAILED BY THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY AS THE FIRST GENDER HONEST HISTORY OF SEX. 

He is the author of 4 modern volumes which have caused great controversy because of their direct honesty and revolutionary gender approach

1. Sex, The Illustrated History: Through Time, Religion, and Culture, Volume I, Sex in the Ancient World, Early Europe Through the Renaissance and Islam. 339 pages

2. Sex, The illustrated History :Through Time, Religion, and Culture, Volume II Sex in Asia, Australia, Africa, The South Pacific and The Indigenous Americas. 274 pages 3. Sex, The Illustrated History: Through Time. Religion,. And Culture, Volume IIL Sex in The Modern World: 17th to The 21st Century, Europe and Colonial North and South America. (World Slavery, Trafficking, Church Abuse, LGBTQ History). 267 pages

4. Sex The World History; Through Time, Religion and Culture. 471 pages.


Are the works to controversial for Wikipedia, because they give ample evidence that Most human cultures have been bisexual ?Inline image Inline image

Inline image


Inline image — Preceding unsigned comment added by John R. Gregg (talk • contribs) 00:27, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

No, the works are not too controversial for Wikipedia. The answers you were given at the help desk here and here, about two months ago, still are valid. So are the answers you received here yesterday. This draft needs a lot of work before submitting. And please stop posting in capital letters. It makes you look like someone who's screaming. ---Sluzzelin talk 00:39, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

nice

It's Preordained. talk 21:11, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Snitch line

Please comment at m:Talk:Requests for comment/Foundation bans for Holocaust denialists. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:24, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid you'll need to ask me a more specific question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:02, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
Well, 3.3 of Universal Code of Conduct bans hate speech. Will you provide a WMF e-mail address for reporting Neo-fascists, Neo-nazis and Holocaust denialists? Because sometimes local admins do not fulfill their obligation in respect to banning hate speech. And also for reporting admin actions based upon fake claims of hate speech. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:53, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
I find your language "snitch line" very off putting and I don't really know what you are driving at. But in any event, the process for reporting abuse has not changed. You may find the section of this page titled "Evaluation and reporting" informative?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:27, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
So, those e-mails will remain. The words "snitch line" are not demeaning, it is the official term for e.g. Canadians. https://www.thefreedictionary.com/snitch+line Tgeorgescu (talk) 17:40, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Speaking as a Canadian, it's not an official term whatsoever; it is a colloquial and demeaning term meant to shame the potential "snitch" from using the reporting system. Risker (talk) 20:16, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
Did not know that. Judging by Googling "snitch line Canada" (without the quote-marks) I could not tell that.
In the Netherlands we have nl:Meld Misdaad Anoniem (besides other options) and a weekly show encourages us to snitch upon felons anonymously if we don't want getting into trouble.
The show is https://www.youtube.com/user/OpsporingVerzocht . There is nothing wrong with snitching upon burglars and murderers. Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:38, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
Ok, well this was an interesting side discussion. In English (American and British English, and apparently Canadian too) the word "snitch" has negative connotations. This confused me in terms of answering your question. But I hope that my actual answer was useful to you. The starting point for dealing with abuse is of course as always the local admins of any particular wiki. In most wikis, the next step will be to deal with the arbitration committee. If the matter is one of editorial discretion, that's also where it ends, as the WMF is extremely unlikely to intervene. If the matter involves a terms of service violation (in this case, of the Universal Code of Conduct) particularly if being perpetrated by admins and sanctioned by a local ArbCom, then it is likely to be of interest to Trust&Safety. The important thing to understand is that it would not be feasible or practical (we see this in other Internet communities) if very many decisions were made by staff. At twitter (to give one example) abuse of all kinds is rampant, and the only avenue to deal with it for users is to report it to the company, a system which has not scaled and which performs very poorly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:24, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia’s Sprawling, Awe-Inspiring Coverage of the Pandemic

Good article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:11, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2021

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Wikipedia & your bio

It was really interesting to have read your bio. Girlfromhaiti (talk) 23:38, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

Worshiping the founder

Just thought I'd drop by and worship the founder a little. Love you Jimbo! Joe (talk) 22:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

That's very kind but really it's the community who matter. I'm only here to remind us all what we are here for.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Notice of noticeboard discussion

Information icon There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. The thread is Should User:Jimbo Wales be unprotected?. Thank you. The main issue is that the user page has been indefinitely semi-protected, but it still says "You can edit this page!" Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:08, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Catalan Wikipedia 20th Anniversary

I am currently secretary of Amical and we want to thank you once more for the support you gave to the Catalan community. The Catalan Wikipedia is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary and we would really appreciate having a short video from you (10 to 15 seconds) telling something about the Catalan wikipedia(ns) and ending with "bon aniversari" and/or "per molts anys (Viquipèdia), filmed horizontally and sent to viquipedia@wikimedia.cat before next Wednesday. Thanks a lot in advance. We wish you all the best! Best regards.--Sorenike (talk) 19:13, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Hello Jimmy, I hope you and your people are doing fine in these troubled times. There is still a short window of time to send your video; you probably did not notice the previous message, we would be pleased and honored to have you among the people who wish a great anniversary to our wikipedia and our community. Thank you! Have a great Sunday! Claudi/Capsot (talk) 14:25, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Jimbo, let's talk about equality.

  1. Wikipedia:Blocking IP addresses:Sensitive due to public relations implications
    If you block an IP address in any of the following ranges, you are required to immediately notify the Wikimedia Foundation Communications Committee. These ranges are allocated to major governmental organizations and blocks of these organizations have political and public relations implications that must be managed by the Foundation's press relations team.
  2. Wikipedia:Equality:Treatment of an editor must be based on the behavior of the editor, without any regard to the editor's status. On the English Wikipedia project, all users, from the IP user to admins and others with advanced tools are afforded the benefit and respect of our fundamental policies of governance. All users should be accountable to these policies and guidelines, and no users should ever be exempt from them. Policies apply equally to registered or non-registered users, regular or occasional editors, administrators and bureaucrats regardless of tenure, and regardless of 'rank'. Should a situation ever arise where the question comes up: "Is this user exempt from the community-established and accepted policy in question?" the answer will be simply "No."

What is your take on such conflicting information? Thanks. Life is short so let us live it to the fullest! (talk) 19:51, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Honestly there is no conflict. The top one isn't a get out of jail free card. It just says the those ip's must be dealt with by a specific department and not that they are exempt from sanctions.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 21:13, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Two separate issues. The first one just stops admins from issuing blocks and defers it to the foundation. AntoineHound (talk) 03:56, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
It doesn't prevent any admin from blocking those ranges if appropriate. It just says you should give a heads up to the comms team if you do, as there may well be press interest that they have to deal with. the wub "?!" 11:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Unrelated to the question that was asked (perhaps), but that's a very narrow list of "major governmental organizations", it's not a policy page and I don't recall seeing any other Wikimedia projects with a similar statement. Are we sure it is actually a requirement from the WMF and not just a request?QuiteUnusual (talk) 09:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
I think this is just common sense. If one of these ip's is misbehaving, block them exactly as usual, but then immediately notify the WMF because such blocks often result in press attention (most of which is usually confused about what is going on). I don't know if this is a requirement from the WMF (unlikely) or something put into place wisely by the community (very likely).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
Thank you for sharing your view! I think that before I post my reply, I would like to ask first Can I share my dissent here in response to this is just common sense.? Jimbo, can we have a free and open debate on this issue? Thanks. --Life is short so let us live it to the fullest! (talk) 17:20, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, I have felt so inspired by the remark I support freedom of expression. A lot of people I disagree with also support freedom of expression. If that's controversial, then someone will have to explain to me why.. In addition, I have found that we are of the same mind on the ultimate goal that every Wikipedian strives to achieve when I saw Wikipedia is first and foremost an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language. Asking whether the community comes before or after this goal is really asking the wrong question: the entire purpose of the community is precisely this goal. as well as The primary issue is how seriously we take our chosen obligations to people in the developing world...Wikipedia as a readable product is not for us. It's for them. It's for that girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her, but only if she's empowered with the knowledge to do so.... It is these beautiful dreams that we as Wikipedian all share that makes me feel that there is nothing we cannot do and there is no mountain we cannot move. So please? Life is short so let us live it to the fullest! (talk) 16:07, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
I have to confess that I'm unclear what you are asking me now? You would like to tell me your reasons for disagreeing with the custom of notifying the WMF Communications Committee in case of a block which might have PR implications? Please do, but as it is obviously the right thing to do with no major downsides, you'll have a hard time convincing me - or anyone - I imagine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:02, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

How resilient is Wikipedia to paradigm shifts on policy questions?

Hi Jimbo! I hope you agree the 2003 version of Wikipedia was more malleable in at least some respects on policy questions and related topics than the more developed (and improved in essentially every other way) Wikipedia of today. I would like to understand the difficulty of correcting flaws associated with relatively infrequent paradigm shifts. Can you entertain the possibility that [34], [35], and [36], for example, have caused or may soon cause something of a paradigm shift in economic policy, shifting strict austerity (and related ideals with which your pre-Wikipedia career may have overlapped, by the way) from the mainstream towards the fringe? Whether you agree that is the case or not, how equipped is Wikipedia to address the plethora of economics articles, and economics sections and topics in vital and popular articles, which treat the idea of strict austerity as a top-one or -two mainstream idea, as opposed to more of the fringe it may soon become if it isn't already? 2601:647:4D00:2C40:D527:C9CE:C43A:A41A (talk) 18:57, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:RELIABLE sources. Wikipedia will reflect what the reliable academic sources say. Heiro 22:16, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes, that is the ideal for which I hope all editors strive. But as a practical matter, if the academic literature shifted from pro- to anti-austerity, how long would the English Wikipedia take to catch up? 2601:647:4D00:2C40:B4BE:6882:BEC6:3E57 (talk) 22:00, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
That is almost impossible to assess in advance; and the how-long-until question not only varies among, but also within topics. How long does it take for a paradigm shift to be recognized as such within the academic literature, broadly speaking? And when has that point been reached? ---Sluzzelin talk 22:12, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
There are inertia effects, but I do not understand them. 2601:647:4D00:2C40:B4BE:6882:BEC6:3E57 (talk) 22:39, 13 March 2021 (UTC)
Quick clarification question, is "strict austerity" different in any important ways from the general economic concept of austerity (which I agree is obsolete and a challenge for economics article editors)? 107.242.121.53 (talk) 02:51, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Does "strict" mean a balanced budget amendment as in, for example, https://sites.google.com/site/amendmentact/ section 8? 2601:647:4D00:2C40:15DB:6094:61B5:CB40 (talk) 07:09, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
I see it a little differently. I don't know WP in 2003, but WP in 2006 when I joined was astonishingly naïve about reliable sourcing, and would often accept anything that sounded good even from a poor quality academic source quoted out of context. It has the amateur traditional worship of Those who Ought to Know, despite being officially hostile to experts. Part of what I and other librarians have tried to do since then is to raise awareness of the variations that need to be taken into consideration. We've improved to the extent that sometimes people will actually analyze carefully. But very often people generally use whatever sources they can quickly find on the that seem to support their positions. (I can't discuss the economics issues per se--there seem to be reputable academic publications in support of almost any position) ) . The first instance of true censorship in WP was the scientology case in 2008/9 , and it was affected by the general distaste most of the community felt towards Scientology--as well as their proponent's transparent attempts at forcing content and their reputation for ongoing attempts to control what was published about them. However justified here, it has proven an unfortunate precedent. DGG ( talk ) 07:58, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Maybe not as dramatic as a paradigm shift, but we have something maybe somewhat comparable with name changes. Meaning, a Wikipedia article on a certain subject exists (the article title being the name of the subject), and, so to say, "overnight" the name of the subject changes – how long does it then take the Wikipedia article to change to the new name? There's some guidance about this at the WP:NAMECHANGES policy, but I'd like to cite here two examples given at the WP:NCP guideline (copied here as currently written):
  • Although several decades have passed by since his adoption and consistent use of a new name, Cat Stevens has not been moved to Yusuf Islam, as it seems impossible to predict whether his new name will ever become as popular as his former stage name.
  • Minutes after the announcement of his new name, the biography of Jorge Bergoglio was renamed to Pope Francis, as it seemed unavoidable that the former cardinal would immediately become primarily known by his papal name.
So, speaking in general for paradigm shifts, which also come in different shapes for different domains, it is fair to say that a preliminary assessment (without particulars about the one we're talking about) is that such a shift will be implemented in Wikipedia in a period that varies between a few minutes and never.
Having said nothing about the economic theory, I think what you present as a (new) paradigm shift in that domain, is, in fact, a pendulum movement that's been going on for at least a century, compare e.g. Keynesianism, which was the pendulum's farthest point away from "strict austerity" in recent history, afaik. So, as they say, nothing new under the sun. What you're talking about is not so much a paradigm shift, as the continuing battle between several visions on economics, now one coming out somewhat more on top, and then another (other ones having lost nothing of their vigor, and ready to take over the next minute ...or decade ...or century). For clarity, I don't think what you talk about is all that ready to come out on top in the near future, and even if it does, all Wikipedia economics related articles still have to report about the "austerity" period before it: nothing of that is up for removal, as if Wikipedia would blot out history. You present it as if Wikipedia would delete a WP:BLP when the subject of an article dies: we don't, we change "is" to "was" (and similar for other verbs) and that's about it. It's not because in the current world planned economy is not a leading paradigm in English-language societies that English Wikipedia would not have an article about it, explaining its pros and cons. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:09, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the battle metaphor, but the rest of your argument seems sound. 107.242.121.23 (talk) 10:27, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
Inasmuch as the Cold War was a "war", the strife over economic models was surely one of its "battle"grounds. Less metaphorically, and in a less distant past: a few days ago, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 came into effect (which is a step towards what in the OP is indicated as "paradigm shift"). Some two months earlier a real battle, with casualties and all, tried to prevent such step – or did you think the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol had nothing to do with disagreement over economical models? --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
I strongly suspect the original questioner is a banned user who deceived many people for a long period of time through sock puppeting. I'd suggest that the question is not necessarily a question about paradigm shifts in general, but that's just a coatrack to advance certain economic pet theories.
So rather than address the economics question, which is outside my expertise and not something I'm interested in, I think it is safe to say that Wikipedia will deal with paradigm shifts about as well as quality sources do, which is to say: pretty well, eventually, but obviously there is often a situation in the advance of human knowledge where a major shift in thinking begins and is met with strong skepticism from established authorities which is gradually lessened as further evidence comes to light, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:56, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
What would drive someone to do that, to willingly destroy their reputation among you and your peers, to ask about pet economic theories? 107.209.157.145 (talk) 04:41, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't know. I was shocked and disappointed to learn of the sockpuppeting case that I'm referencing, in which the person had clearly presented themselves to me as two different persons for a long period of time. Why would someone do that? I don't really understand it, but there it is.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:37, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
Jimmy, I'm not familiar with the SPI case to which you refer, but creating socks and meat puppets appears to be, well...in vogue on WP. At WikiCon Boston, we were entertained by a very creative sockpuppet show. I think it's safe to say in general that established editors are well aware that socks can and do alter the landscape at RfCs, and edit war without detection, and also create battlegrounds on article talk pages. Socks have an advantage, not only in their anonymity but in their sheer numbers, and can easily WP:POV railroad other established editors with whom they disagree or bait their opposition into making behavioral missteps. In this section of my UTP, I cited two articles that have surely raised some brows; one of which is titled The Limits of Volunteerism and the Gatekeepers of Team Encarta published by MIT Press, wherein author Robert Fernandez speaks to our consensus building process: It's more serious when you realize this is the basic dynamic for Wikipedia decision making and control. The logical, sane response to disagreeing with Giraffedata is to shrug and move on. Since decisions are by those who participate in a localized discussion, leaving cedes the decision-making power to those willing to engage in the least logical and sane response. This incentivizes not just obsessive but also belligerent behavior and even harassment, and empowers those privileged with the time and resources to engage in this behavior. Minor quibbles about grammar is one thing, but these techniques are frequently used by political ideologues, ethnic nationalists, and conspiracy theorists. Professor Bryce Peake called this the “hegemony of the asshole consensus.” I understand the emphasis on privacy, but I sometimes wonder if it is worth the cost paid by honest editors, or perhaps even more importantly, fracturing the very backbone of the project; i.e., NPOV? Worse yet, when we seek resolution to help eliminate some of the 🧦🧦🧦 issues, we are again dealing with consensus, and in all likelihood, are overwhelmed by the very issue we are trying to resolve; ouroboros comes to mind. Atsme 💬 📧 12:08, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Enterprise timeline

--Guy Macon (talk) 12:57, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

WMF's response to media paywalls? Atsme 💬 📧 15:08, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think this has anything to do with media paywalls.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:07, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
So, on a scale from "Money is shiny, let's run and grab it!" to "We are handling the equivalent of a live bomb, and must take extreme care to avoid risks coming from those absurdly powerful groups with dangerous financial incentives which we're now establishing as a formal part of our income stream", how seriously do you think the relevant people in the WMF board and staff are looking at the possible dangers in this? I haven't been very impressed so far what with the development outsourcing, AWS use, resource decisions, and opaque process, though the principles list looks decent, assuming they intend to follow it. --Yair rand (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
I don't think "Money is shiny, let's run and grab it!" is an accurate description of anyone or any discussion that's happened. In terms of the paranoia of the alleged other option on some mysterious scale of your own devising, I don't even know where to begin. Assume good faith, and we can perhaps have a more productive discussion.
"Giant companies are benefitting to the tune of unknown hundreds of millions to billions from our charitable work as volunteers, is there a way that's consistent with our values and principles to extract some reasonable revenue from them" is an accurate way to look at this. If you start from that point, then reasonably testing questions about potential risks is totally valid. Using absurd and inflammatory language is - not helpful, and just as importantly - not interesting.
To answer your specific question: How seriously do I think board and staff are thinking about the risks? More seriously than you, to be honest.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:39, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Good, good. Overboard paranoia would have been my preferred option, but serious consideration works well too. :) --Yair rand (talk) 22:11, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
Great! :-) Thanks for this, I am happy to read it. Please, though, don't take this as discouragement for specific suggestions and questioning (in good faith of course) because I think there are is a real eagerness from the team to have more minds thinking about how to optimize and be careful! Here's an example that I think is borderline and worth some discussion: suppose a small commercial competitor that is privacy-focussed or whatever (I'm at this moment thinking hypothetically of duckduckgo search engine) wanted access to the commercial feed: should the WMF consider the values of a competitive marketplace as a part of the pricing decision? I don't have a really strong view but I think it's a powerfully interesting question and potential point of beneficial leverage for the open internet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:43, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
I'm confused as to what question you're asking - are you saying that you'd consider giving them cheaper or free access given their goals, then you would to Google or Amazon? Elli (talk | contribs) 22:56, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
None of this is a decision that's in any way up to me, so what I want isn't really important. But yes, that's what I'm asking - just curious as to what people think. What I wonder is whether it would make sense to have some kind of beneficial "small business pricing" so that smaller competitors in the for-profit tech space could also benefit from the upgrade if they have a use case for it. I think there are some benefits to that, but I can see some potential downsides as well. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:14, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I see "'roundtable' conversations with the community" in Oct-Dec 2020 in the timeline above. Can anyone tell me if those happened and where I can see summaries of those community consultations? Thanks. Mo Billings (talk) 23:13, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Anyone? Mo Billings (talk) 03:53, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Jimbo, I personally like the idea as a former business woman and NPO founder who understands taking proper measures to ensure the future. I don't see an issue with branching out as long as it doesn't negatively interfere with established operations. Perhaps the concern among some editors is that the technical advancements that we need to help reduce our work load as volunteer editors may be put on a back-burner. For example, as an Otrs volunteer, I presented a proposal at Commons that will substantially reduce the work load at Otrs permissions but it has not been addressed. No one seems to know how to get these changes made, or even discussed. Concern over other aspects of our projects being moved to a back-burner is a legitimate concern, perhaps, in the end, not justified because if successful, the new project will be able to fund itself with their own staff, and free-up more technical staff to work on our projects...or maybe even become financial contributors to the encyclopedia. Atsme 💬 📧 14:59, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I totally hear you and agree completely. I'd love to see community-tech stuff ramped up substantially. Everywhere things are hard for humans, and a tech solution could do it better (i.e. not involving editorial judgment, just technical work) it is a shame that people have to waste time doing those things.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:21, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
I dont know if I agree with an "all tech" option. I have been reading Hacking Diversity, which points to the fact that OSS communities are ladden with the urge to find DIY tech solutions and not questioning the utility and general vision behind "technology", with a very poor diversity outcome (in fact private companies do better than Open Source which is disturbing). see 1. It seems that our projects, by driving out the economy of emotions are obliterating what can be the main inclusivity factor. Also the wikipedia projects, with virtually non existing moderation of micro aggressions have been modelled in a liberal (in the economic sense) world of competion : let everybody fight and the best solution will arrise with minimal intervention for the whole society (ie community). This being an application, so it is said in "Hacking diversity" of Ayn Rand's philosophy. But it lacks a crucial component : the recognition that not all actors have the same starting privileges, and that when you kick out the weakest by lettin them be aggressed in a world of competition by the strongest, you put aside their potential for future growth, therefore you cut out future potential for the whole system. So I am not sure bringing "ramping up" of community tech stuff will help unless the economy of emotions, the regulation of micro agressions leading to what you have termed "incivilities" and that I as a feminist LGBTIQ person term as "harrassement" would be solved unless it is carefully assessed and brought up as a priority before growing the projects in a kind of "expansionist" imperialism. With the proliferation of unmoderated pages, grows the potential for spaces of unchecked "incivilities". Should we not question the tech drive first? Nattes à chat (talk) 10:31, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Sorry I have not presented myself: I am mostly active on the francophone wikipedia, founder of les sans pagEsNattes à chat (talk) 10:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
Intersting-looking book, wiyj a free download! Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:52, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

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The Signpost: 28 March 2021

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Mobile app and mobile web notification issues

Hi again. Various groups of mobile and app editors do not receive notifications at all, including talk page or block messages and other communication bugs. I left you a message about this last month. Some editors have been blocked for WP:Communication is required when the issue is actually the official WMF app they're using. It's quite urgent to fix this: it's essential that editors can communicate with mobile editors. All the relevant phab tickets and issues are well summarised up at User:Suffusion of Yellow/Mobile communication bugs. There's also this thread at VPWMF: [37]. Could you perhaps escalate these issues internally for prompt resolution, and have a WMF staffer update at VPWMF? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:54, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

It is both shocking and sad that the various WMF mobile sites and apps impede collaborative editing after many years of coding and who knows how many dollars spent. Adding insult to injury is that the "desktop" site works just fine on contemporary smartphones and mobile devices. Here's the irony: The "desktop" site works much better on current mobile devices than any of the WMF mobile apps or sites do. We are actively harming mobile editors by encouraging them to use mediocre and poorly functioning sites and apps that do not allow effective guidance and friendly instruction to new editors making commonplace newbie mistakes. How can a new editor develop if they cannot easily interact with their colleagues on talk pages, help desks and noticeboards? Sometimes, they get blocked for failure to communicate when the fault is with the WMF. I speak as an active editor and administrator who has done 99% of my editing on Android smart phones for quite a few yesrs. I know what works and what doesn't. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:26, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
So if I ping or write on the talkpage of "these people", they don't get a notification? That's not good. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:56, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, the WMF has acted, but not in the manner I'd hoped. The priority of some of the relevant phab tasks has been lowered? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:59, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
Speaking purely in my personal capacity as an, ahem, long-time Wikipedian, I believe that the issue of logged-in editors who are editing on mobile apps (or through any means really, including mobile web, desktop, etc.) not receiving notifications of messages is an extremely high priority. Wikipedia is a fundamentally social, community-oriented project, and we have demonstrable evidence of this bug creating social conflict. Everything about Wikipedia depends on good-faith communication between users - if someone does not receive a notification that something they are doing isn't quite right, and they persist in the behavior until they are blocked, this is a dramatic break with all our values.
The question of notifications for logged-out users on mobile, given the transitory nature of ip addresses, is also important, but I acknowledge that this problem has an extra dimension to it - if people who have never edited before are given stale notifications and warnings that have nothing to do with them, this is also problematic. So at the present time I'm not commenting on that one, except to say that it should be resolved in the best possible way by balancing competing concerns. Empirical data as to how rare or common this might be would be necessary for us to come to a reasonable view on what the right answer is - perhaps that data exists, but I don't know, so I'm simply acknowledging it as an open question.
But for logged-in users, there's simply no excuse for them to not receive timely notifications of messages. While keeping in mind the usual cautions about Wikipedia:Argumentum_ad_Jimbonem I don't mind being quoted on this. I hope that my arguments stand on their own merits, but if me adding my name to this concern helps it get a higher degree of attention, even if that attention is in the form of an explanation of what on earth could be a reasonable counter-argument, I think that's fine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:29, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
For logged-out users, the solution might be more complicated. For example, only messages from the last few days would trigger an alert, or (if the privacy policy permits) a short-expiring cookie could be set anytime the user edits, and the alert never shown to non-editors. The chance of an IP being reassigned to some hapless reader is high; the chance of it being assigned to another recent editor is likely quite low.
But the bigger problem is that the WMF thinks that talking to people is a "low-priority" issue not even worth discussing. We haven't even gotten to the "hmmm this is tricky; what if we do X, no maybe Y..." stage, because the WMF has just totally dismissed this.
If the WMF just wants to totally disable the User_talk: namespace for IP editors, they should say so. The current situation, where people think they are communicating with IP editors and being "ignored" cannot continue. We have one shot to turn the good-faith drive-by editor into a long-time contributor. If their first experienced is being blocked for "ignoring" messages they didn't see, we've lost that opportunity. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:53, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Plus it is incredibly irritating for established editors who go to the trouble of leaving messages (not just a script-enabled templated warning) only to later be told that they wasted their time because the editor will never know about the messages or even the fact that there is such a thing as messages. Johnuniq (talk) 01:43, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
I fairly often write original messages to new users to explain their mistakes. (though I stopped bothering doing this for IP-editors quite some time ago) I've been told that it's generally a waste of time, and indeed, in the vast majority of cases I unfortunately never hear back. But sometimes, I do, and it tends to help to retain new editors. I have no idea for how long this has been going on, but to find out that these hand-written messages may have never been delivered due to shoddy software is extremely disheartening. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:23, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
This situation is especially poor as the android app specifically prompts users to make edits, via Wikidata:Wikidata:Suggestededit-add 1.0. If a user runs into issues doing edits which Wikipedia is apparently telling them to do, there is no way to communicate with them. If they get reverted, they might never know why. CMD (talk) 14:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
Is it possible for you to drop a note to a relevant engineering lead directly? I don't know how well you know them, or if that's something you can do, but I imagine it would move the needle more than something I can do. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:52, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

I would like to send you this kitten as appreciation for this glorious project.

Suspicioussandwich (talk) 15:15, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

How much is Jimbo's first edit worth?

Jimbo's Hello, World! edit should surely be worth more than Jack Dorsey's first tweet! Count Iblis (talk) 19:30, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Lol. We believe it to be lost forever because in the early days of UseMod wiki, the only way to delete things was to go onto the server and actually delete a file. Additionally, Usemod wiki had a setting as to how many past revisions to keep, and I only set it to infinite after... well, some time, I don't remember exactly - it was early on but probably not day 1.
I do know that some old edit history was found and restored, but I can't right now remember that full story - does anyone know where that's talked about/archived?
The whole thing, in my view, is just lol. What does it even mean to "buy a tweet" or "buy a first edit" - it's an NFT signed by a person certifying "ownership" but since the tweet is still on twitter and the edit would be in the archives, it's just not at all a serious "thing". But hey, if I could find that first edit and sell it, that'd be pretty sweet I reckon.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:06, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
There is a fad for this sort of thing at the moment. A GIF of the original Nyan Cat was sold for 300 ether ($587 000 USD) in February 2021.[38] This is called Crypto art. I'm not sure how anything that can be reproduced digitally with great ease can be so valuable, but that's just me.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:21, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
"CryptoKitties: Collect and breed digital cats!" Yeah, just because you don't have a Pop-Tart for a torso, fly through space and leave a rainbow trail behind you. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:31, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
As I understand it, these are just Veblen goods. The proof of ownership is based on blockchain because it's a digital asset, but at most that just indicates the culture among which it's a Veblen good (people who like to think they're technically minded and have too much money) rather than the way it actually has value. — Bilorv (talk) 13:44, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
"I do know that some old edit history was found and restored, but I can't right now remember that full story" – are you talking about Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles § Earliest surviving edits and other data? "In December 2010, Wikipedia backups containing all edits from Wikipedia's inception to 17 August 2001 were discovered by Tim Starling, although many of these edits are not present in the current database. The earliest edit found was made to HomePage on 15 January 2001, reading 'This is the new WikiPedia!'" Kleinpecan (talk) 17:23, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Per the logs the edits to HomePage (not sure if they were restored to other pages) were manually imported in 2019. Anyway, hopping on the NFT bandwagon could be a good way to raise some funds for the WMF. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 17:16, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I have a genuine printout of Jimbo's first edit on high-quality A4 paper if anyone's interested. Bidding can start as low as £100 +p&p. And if needs be I can supply more copies. nagualdesign 16:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
There is no technical evidence that Jimbo made the edit he stated. The recorded logs indicate the first edit was "This is the new WikiPedia!". --Heymid (contribs) 16:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Well I genuinely printed it out, and I'm willing to provide video evidence to the buyer(s). nagualdesign 19:45, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Well, of course. In the beginning was the edit. He only got to dividing the light and the darkness later on. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
NFTs are suddenly everywhere, but they have some big problems is a good CNN article. Non-fungible tokens have hit the jackpot recently.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 02:27, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Is a public apology due?

Jimbo, in light of this [39] recent decision by ArbCom, do you think it would be appropriate for Wikipedia to issue a public apology to those contributors who have previously been sanctioned and/or banned for drawing attention to the persistent violations of Wikipedia policy which led to ArbCom's decision? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:45, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not in a position to thoughtfully comment on details of that case at the present time (it would be irresponsible for me to do so without a deep understanding of the entire history), but in general, it isn't clear to me what it would mean for "Wikipedia" to issue a public apology. The WMF? ArbCom? The wiki itself? A vote of the community endorsing a common statement?
Again without any comment on this details of this case, I think the best form of apology, when something has gone wrong, is a real reform of some kind. Just apologizing, without preventing a reoccurrence of a problem, is a politician's gambit, but we should be better than that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:11, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
If the appropriate response is reform, rather than apology, as you suggest, then I have to say that nothing I've seen so far where this has been discussed looks much like a real acknowledgement that such reform is actually necessary. Instead, it appears that the stock response is going to be that since ArbCom has finally dealt with the matter, everything is fine. Despite the fact that what appears to have been common knowledge for many years (I could quote an ArbCom member saying as much, off-Wikipedia) had apparently only been previously 'dealt with' by sanctioning or blocking anyone who brought it up, for 'outing'. Note that it took the publication of an external 'reliable source' documenting the problem for it to even be possible to discuss the issue on Wikipedia at all - and note that even then, one regular contributor got summarily blocked, with talk page access removed , for having the temerity to link the external article doing so. Reform is certainly necessary, but it isn't going to happen as long as the knee-jerk response to anyone stating the obvious is blocking and redaction. The system is broken. It is rigged (intentionally or otherwise) to protect the 'regulars' from anyone less familiar with Wikipedia's Byzantine ways. It doesn't just encourage double standards (non-regulars with apparent 'CoI' issues get summarily 'outed' and blocked as a matter of routine), it enforces them. It won't be fixed by platitudes, or by pretending that everything is working properly now. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:53, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
May we please see a list of "contributors who have previously been sanctioned and/or banned for drawing attention to the persistent violations of Wikipedia policy which led to ArbCom's decision"? I strongly suspect that AndyTheGrump isn't giving us the whole story and that the actual reasons given for any blocks will not be "blocked for drawing attention to the persistent violations of Wikipedia policy." I also suspect that when we look at the actual reasons given for the blocks those reasons will turn out to be legitimate. CypherPunkyBrewster (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
I am not in any position to give the 'whole story' here. Much of the relevant material has been redacted. You might however wish to take a look at the recent block of User:Hemiauchenia, and subsequent removal of talk page access, and then ask yourself whether you really consider it 'legitimate'. But whatever, I'm not going to go through a long-winded debate here. I asked Jimbo a specific question, to which he has replied. Discussions regarding the contributor in question (which now include a proposal for a community ban) are taking place elsewhere on Wikipedia, and there is no reason to duplicate them on Jimbo's talk page. That isn't what it is supposed to be for. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:34, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
You asked for an apology for "contributors who have previously been sanctioned and/or banned for drawing attention to persistent violations of Wikipedia policy" You refused to provide a shred of evidence that this ever happened. I say that they were banned because they violated our outing policy just like Hemiauchenia did and that THEY owe US an apology. If Jimbo's talk page is not the right place, post your evidence at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Proposed community ban for User:Tenebrae. Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Tenebrae/Archive and Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Tenebrae also have good reasons why you should not get any apology. CypherPunkyBrewster (talk) 17:06, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
Nobody owes you (whoever you are, 'legitimate alternative account') an apology for drawing attention to a systematic abuse of Wikipedia for promotional purposes which appears to have been going on for well over a decade. Abuse which has been hidden by exploitation of Wikipedia 'outing' policies for purposes to which they were never intended. Abuse which would never have been dealt with at all if external sources hadn't been able to state the blindingly-obvious without having zealots hiding behind anonymous account names write it out of history in order to protect such anonymity even at the expense of significant damage to Wikipedia's credibility. And that is all I am going to say here, since I see no reason to argue with someone hiding behind an 'alternative account' unused for five years. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:06, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
For me, the conflict between an extreme interpretation of WP:OUTING by those whose actual interest is not the very real human moral issues around "outing" but instead the preservation of an environment where shilling is easier than it should be, is the root of the problem. How to change/soften/fix the outing policy (which is important, as the last thing we want is people going on wild witch hunts to figure out people's real identity) so that some common sense things like "This person is clearly in violation of COI policies for the following obvious publicly available reasons".
Let me put forward a hypothetical just to kickstart people's thinking here. Someone posts on their JohnDoeWikipediaFixer.com website a brag that they can edit Wikipedia successfully to read like an advert for people, with a specialization in politicians. The website says that they are based in Peoria, Illinois and have successfully added many local businesses to Wikipedia. Someone finds that an editor is writing puff pieces and engaging in exhausting battles to not only keep articles on businesses that are borderline, but also quibbling over every detail to make sure the profiles are glowing advertisements. The editors name on-side is JDWF (i.e. John Doe Wikipedia Fixer). Advertisements are also found on Fiverr and similar websites which are clearly from the same person.
Here's my hypothetical question: should it be allowed for someone to point out these obvious public facts for community consideration in the event that someone wants to call out the problematic editing?
I think the answer is obviously yes, while at the same time noting that randomly outing people's real names for no reason or no good reason can remain quite properly banned. How do we know which cases are which? It's a very human judgment call and we can write increasingly good guidance on it, but the idea that editorial judgment is required is hardly an obstacle to making policy clearer.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
There really isn't any need to deal in hypotheticals though. It is absolutely clear that the recent ArbCom decision and subsequent community ban of User:Tenebrae only came about due to the matter being discussed off-Wikipedia, in a publication that wasn't bound by rules on 'outing' that had kept the matter from being discussed on Wikipedia for approaching a decade, if not longer. There had been multiple attempts to raise the matter, each of which having much the same outcome - the person doing so getting blocked or banned, and the relevant material hidden from view. Hidden, I would note, from the history of this talk page, amongst other places. Some of it is still hidden. Despite the fact that the evidence presented has been subsequently shown to be correct. The failure of any on-Wikipedia action to deal with this issue, and the way that 'outing' policies were abused to stifle discussion regarding this specific case, are what needs to be discussed. Not hypotheticals. What actually happened. And why it was enabled by people who were in some instances well aware what was occurring. This wasn't just a problem with Tenebrae, it was a systematic failure, due to multiple actions by multiple people who put the narrow interests of the editing 'community' (or a small well-connected part of it) above those of the readers Wikipedia is supposed to be serving.
Jimbo, if your position on this matter is that all Wikipedia needs to do is discuss 'hypotheticals', rather than actually enquire into what went wrong, then I can only say that I think that entirely inadequate to address the underlying, deep-seated, problems. And that, as I have suggested off-Wikipedia, I can only conclude that the only way to deal with self-evident and systematic violations of Wikipedia CoI policy (and the subsequent betrayal of trust of Wikipedia readers) by well-connected regulars is to gather the evidence, and raise it elsewhere, where it won't be swept under the carpet. And where, hopefully, the matter can then be raised by the 'reliable sources' evidently necessary to get anything done at all. This is unfortunate, but if that is what has to be done, it will be. Because I'm quite sure that there will at some point be further non-hypothetical examples arising, as long as the underlying causes remain undiscussed. The system is broken. It needs fixing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:08, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, spot on. Shilling is shilling. We don't need to speculate on the identity of the shill, only to identify that they are one, and restrict accordingly. We do not need to draw a distinction between someone boosting themselves on Wikipedia, or someone boosting a friend or employer. The problem is non-neutral, promotional editing. When it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, we can call it a duck and move on. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:30, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The only thing that keeps Wikipedia from being the most invasive, privacy-destroying and possibly life-destroying career-destroying website on the planet earth (including a publicly accessible and easily searchable database of every edit a person ever made and at exactly what time and date they made the edit done under the expectation of anonymity) is the anonymity of editors. In any deliberations, it needs to extremely error on the side of caution regarding privacy and outing. I would imagine that trying to stay legally safe would also dictate doing that. North8000 (talk) 17:38, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

The same for limitation on access to IP addresses of those with user names, and auditing, monitoring and controlling the use of such access. One check-user breaking bad or getting priorities mixed up could do a heck of a lot of damage to people and Wikipedia.North8000 (talk) 17:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
So what specific proposals are you making to deal with the specific issue being discussed here? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:03, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Massively repair the COI policy which basically defines all editors as COI (thus losing creditability and impact), and massively penalizes those who disclose, which means it says "don't disclose". Narrow it to genuine paid editing, continue to require disclosure, lighten up on those who disclose. That fix would make 1/2 of all of the problems disappear. North8000 (talk) 19:51, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I've seen no evidence that Tenebrae was actually paid to make any of the blatantly-WP:COI-violating self-promotional edits that led to his community block. You seem to be proposing a solution to another problem entirely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Yes, my mention here had three purposes. One is to get people to realize how horrendous Wikipedia is from a privacy standpoint, with anonymity being the only saving grace. Second to emphasize higher priorities which loosening up on outing could damage, and third is to drain the swamp by fixing the big problems with the wp:coi guideline. North8000 (talk) 20:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
North8000 you can't be serious. Some of the worst COI situations involves unpaid relatives and disclosed paid editors. Coretheapple (talk) 21:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
@Coretheapple:IMO a disclosed paid editor should be much more manageable. Just for me to understand, how can a problem not be solvable if they are disclosed? North8000 (talk) 21:35, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
@Coretheapple:BTW I consider undisclosed paid editing an immense problem. IMO fixing the the unfocused and counter-productive wp:coi is the best place to start to fix that big problem. North8000 (talk) 02:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
The idea that the anonymity of editors is what prevents even further damage to BLPs is absurd. This anonymity has been used to shield and hide abuse for years, as there can be no real-life repercussions when bad editors like this Tenebrae run amok - the only reason this abuse stopped is that his actual, personal reputation is now in tatters. If he had been required to verify an identity upon creating a Wikipedia account, he likely would not have done what he did. This project needs real identification of users. It requires it for the Arbitration Committee, why not the rest of us? ValarianB (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Egg

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Serial Number 54129 (talk • contribs) 15:32, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
Just want to say that you are a really good person and a general thank-you for the founding of Wikipedia! I love the quote "We make the internet not suck" and I have it on my talk page. Hope you appreciate this! SneakingPastInfinity (talk) 23:38, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Fandom in Wikimedia

"In 2004, Angela Beesley and I established Wikia (now Fandom), a completely separate organization unrelated to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation". I wonder, can we incorporate Fandom into the Wikimedia Foundation, and make it a project (such as Wikipedia or Wikivoyage). I mean, Fandom is the same style as these projects, so I wonder if we could include it there. Fandom is basically a more detailed Wikipedia about certain topics, like say Harry Potter or Star Wars, so I think it's a valid inclusion in Wikimedia.Crocusfleur (talk) 09:48, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Fandom is for profit, Wikipedia is not. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 17:12, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
@Crocusfleur: Miraheze is basically "Fandom run like WMF" (though will obviously not be integrated, mainly because it is run by a WMF-banned user). Something similar would be cool, though, not likely to happen. Elli (talk | contribs) 10:14, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
Who is the "WMF-banned user"? Crocusfleur (talk) 18:45, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
@Crocusfleur: User:John F. Lewis. ("Miraheze celebrates three years!" says "John and Southparkfan have created a really good wiki hoster!"; Miraheze Volunteers says his IRC username is JohnLewis, which is also his Wikipedia username.) Kleinpecan (talk) 19:55, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

WMF Resolutions/Images of identifiable people

Mr Wales, someone over on Commons referenced this 2011 WMF board resolution about images of identifiable people. I was a bit surprised to read it, since it suggests that Wikimedia Commons had some process for declaring that identifiable people in images had given their consent for the images to be taken and shared. Commons does have a policy discussing consent, but I haven't encountered even a question about consent when uploading photos, let alone some way to affirm that consent has been granted. Has anything changed since this resolution was passed almost 9 years ago now? Mo Billings (talk) 17:04, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I can't speak with any authority as to the current situation on commons, but to my knowledge, that is still Wikimedia policy. Notice that the policy is construed fairly narrowly - it is about "identifiable living persons in a private place or situation". It also mentions that "evidence of consent would usually consist of an affirmation from the uploader of the media".
Heart shaped Pancakes
Heart shaped Pancakes
The resolution also references this page which appears at first glance to appropriately implement the recommendation. To find out if anything has changed since 9 years ago, I suppose you could look at a diff of that page back to whatever date you might be interested in?
I have just uploaded a file to commons (not of a person, I was just looking for where I might volunteer that the pancakes had given consent haha) and I think there should be a radio button added at a minimum. "If this is a picture of a living person in a private setting, do you have consent?" and YES or NO options. I'm obviously not able to do that myself, nor do I have a clue who to ask, but it is my opinion that it would be a good thing. I could have made a note about consent in a general information field that I saw, but nothing prompted me to do so and I would imagine most uploaders wouldn't have a clue that they should volunteer that information.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:47, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales: The policy on Commons now includes the idea of consent, but as you saw yourself, this is not mentioned when someone is uploading an image. I don't know how many people who upload images are going to take it upon themselves to seek out this policy and read it. I understand that we don;t want to discourage people from uploading freely licensed images, but if we really, truly, actually cared about consent issues why don't we even ask the question? I don't mean to be glib, but it looks like you and the board wrote up this resolution and then no one followed through on actually making it happen. Commons policy got a lot of words added to it, but even the simplest technical change (asking the question) was never done. Mo Billings (talk) 02:40, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
I have made a section at the Commons Village Pump (proposal) about the lack of a consent check field, pointing to this discussion and the resolution. There may be practical or technical limitations of this. --Masem (t) 19:25, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
Thank you. I would think that as a part of the already quite good wizard, it can't be too hard technically to include an appropriate checkbox or radio button of the type that I mentioned. My guess (without going off to research the history) is that the upload wizard is newer than the policy, but that whoever made the upload wizard didn't think to include it, and the issue was also overlooked by the community. I assume the main result of this is not tons of images uploaded and kept contrary to the policy. The main result is probably newbie editors violating the policy and having their images deleted or being challenged for not affirming consent, which is also a bad thing of course.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:52, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, I can say from long personal experience that Commons routinely refused to delete images of identifiable people, even when they wrote to OTRS saying that they really disliked the image, even when they supplied a preferred alternative.
But the fact that Commons doesn't get the whole "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should" thing is no surprise, right? Guy (help! - typo?) 14:51, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales I haven't been around Commons for very long, but my impression is that images are not generally deleted due to consent issues. This deletion discussion may prove to be interesting reading. MGA73 is a Commons admin, by the way. Mo Billings (talk) 17:12, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
One thing is that compared to the 2008 resolution on non-free media which seemingly was both well announced and required concerted effort on en.wiki to become compliant with, this 2011 resolution seemed to be quietly passed. While it aligned with existing policy on both en.wiki and Commons for the most part, that also meant there was no need to review all NFCs in the same manner as the 2008, nor determine what to do in the future. That could be why this really hasn't been an issue in the last several years. --Masem (t) 17:49, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
Mo Billings, yes, this is true. They are not deleted due to anything other than copyright, normally. Commons gives a great impression of being run by a bunch of berts - and not in a good way. There are good people there, but there are also assholes who refuse to delete anything unless it's illegal for us to host it. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:32, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
If something is legal and useful - why delete it? Elli (talk | contribs) 10:15, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
ElliThere's an aspect of legal that is embodied in the concept of consent. The image example I gave earlier has already been deleted, but let me offer up another, similar example for you and MGA73 to consider. Is File:IMG-20171115-WA0166.jpg (NSFW) legal if the person didn't give consent for their image to be posted on the internet? I don't know the answer to that, but it's really a moot point. We shouldn't even be hosting images like this if we don't know that the person in the picture gave their consent. And why whould we assume that an editor who has done nothing but upload 3 images to Commons is aware of Commons rules? Mo Billings (talk) 15:47, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
@Mo Billings: we assume good faith, both here and on Commons. the photo in that case is claimed as own work. there is no good evidence to the contrary. they were obviously posing for a photo. I see no reason to assume that there wasn't consent (though, ugh, that file should be renamed, which I will probably do shortly). Elli (talk | contribs) 15:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
@Elli: You need to read WP:AGFC. Assuming good faith doesn't mean we ignore copyright concerns and it doesn't mean we should ignore consent concerns. Let's look at what we know about whether the subject of the image (the identifiable person) consented to posting that image on the internet for anyone to see and use. Nothing. We know absolutely nothing. Is it revenge porn? We don't know. You may not think that's a problem. but I do. Mo Billings (talk) 23:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)
@Mo Billings: I've read AGFC, it does not contradict my position here. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:04, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Editors have a proactive obligation to document image uploads, etc. and material may be deleted if the documentation is incorrect or inadequate. Complete lack of any evidence of consent is inadequate, just as it would be for copyright. Mo Billings (talk) 14:40, 7 April 2021 (UTC)
Elli, "because the subject hates it and has given us a better one" would seem like a great reason, but apparently not. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:41, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Since I was mentioned I would like to comment that in my opinion photos can be deleted if there is reason to think that the subject did not give consent and the photo is taken in a private place. Especially if the subject send a request to OTRS. The reason I commented as I did in the DR is because subject posed for the camera at File:Marcia Imperator 2.jpg earlier (I would take that as concent to take photos) and she is a pornographic actress so I do not think that it is unlikely that she would allow someone to take a photo of her in what could be seen as a naughty pose. The only way to be sure if we make a rule/policy that we always require that a formal permission is send to OTRS. If not it is always a matter if we think the person consented or not. --MGA73 (talk) 10:12, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
    Requiring formal permission sent to OTRS would be a ridiculous standard. We wouldn't be able to illustrate 99% of BLPs. Elli (talk | contribs) 10:21, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
    Only if the picture looks like it was taken in a private place. Many of the good BLP picks we have are clearly public locations; for example, most of the photos that we have from Gage Skidmore (whose works are frequently used here) are taken at conventions like San Diego Comic Con - a public event and thus there's no expectation of privacy. --Masem (t) 16:34, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
MGA73 It's really unfair of me to cherrypick one picture and ask you about it, but take a look at File:Ijii.jpg (NSFW). It's in use on two projects. I assume it isn't a selfie, since it says it is a crop of another user's upload. You say images can be deleted "if there is reason to think that the subject did not give consent". I think this is completely backwards. Unless there is a reason to think that the subject did give consent, images like this should be deleted. I believe that is what the board intended (at least I hope it is) but maybe Jimbo Wales will correct me. We don't presume that people hold the copyright for images, we ask them to assert that they do. I'm not saying that this should necessarily be the case for every image, but I think we should be more careful with images like this, that are usually taken to be shared privately. Should this image be deleted due to lack of consent? Mo Billings (talk) 16:07, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
Based on the commons deletion discussion for the original (non-cropped) photo, I believe that Ijii photo should also be deleted (the original had questionable free-ness, so the crop will be too), and nominated it there. --Masem (t) 16:34, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
  • As I wrote replied here, I would think that we should be focusing on consent on images (of a person in a private location) that are either the own work of a WPian/Commons user, or if from a prior published source, there is clear concern that the image did not have consent. That is, say I found a free picture on flickr, from a photographer with a high reputation, of a person in their home setting; this is not the photographers only such "in private" photo, and they have not had any issues with consent that we know about from other people they took photos of. It should be taken of in this case that the photographer had worked out consent and thus should not be an onus on the uploader. On the other hand, if I am grabbing a "in private" photo from a flickr account with no established history and perhaps sketchy images, that's where I'd probably need to make sure that there was consent there. And obviously for our own works, we absolutely need to be able to supply that consent if its an "in private" image. --Masem (t) 16:34, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
  • @Mo Billings: If you have suggestions or think some files should be deleted I think there are better places than to list all the files here on Jimbo's talk page. Also you do not need to ping me every time. Just comment in the DR and someone will have a look and either delete or keep the file. --MGA73 (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
It's not a list, just a single example for discussion purposes. It's not even a very good example, because it should have been deleted when the source was deleted. I think what you are saying above is that an image like this requires some assertion of consent from the photographer/uploader. It that right? Mo Billings (talk) 17:02, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
MGA73 I guess I need to ping you if I want an answer? Mo Billings (talk) 21:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Some comments: Firstly, Commons has a policy regarding photographs of identifiable people, see c:COM:PEOPLE. Uploads in violation of this policy are frequently deleted at Commons. Please note that country-specific consent requirements are considered per c:COM:CSCR. There is also some leeway to consider the deletion of a photo out of courtesy if the depicted person objects, the photographer agrees with the deletion, and if we have or get an alternative photo. It is not uncommon that such negotiations take place through the support team. Secondly, we have also a template that allows to indicate consent: c:Template:Consent. It is a valid point to ask for the inclusion of this within the upload form. However, the upload process is already quite complex to sort out the copyright status and to direct to the proper license tags. Many newbies are already struggling with this or simply skipping the relevant questions and prefer to claim the uploads to be their own work even if it is not. --AFBorchert (talk) 20:19, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@AFBorchert:When you say uploads are "frequently deleted" if in violation of COM:PEOPLE, do you mean that images of identifiable people in private settings are deleted because there is no evidence of consent? Or do you mean that images are deleted if they are in violation of teh country specific rules? Those are very different things. Mo Billings (talk) 21:50, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: I hope the discussion here been helpful. Will you ask the board to revisit the 2011 resolution and consider if enough has been done? Thank you. Mo Billings (talk) 14:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

  • Masem - if you get a chance, will you look at my proposal and resulting discussion for the Release Generator? Maybe if we combine efforts, we can recruit a tech to fix some of the worst issues. I've been trying to get modifications made in an effort to reduce some of the Otrs backlogs and repetitive time sinks but quite frankly, a root canal is a breeze in comparison. Atsme 💬 📧 18:26, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
om nom nom

Thanks for the pancakes Jimbo. I rotated the image for the Pancakes gallery. I've actually dealt with a few cases of personality rights on Commons before. From the top of my head:

The comment from Guy Macon is quoted almost verbatim on The growing problem of obesity except that discussion is from 2018 and the comment by Guy Macon is 2021 so maybe it's the other way around or just coincidence. I have written c:Commons:Upload Wizard proposals back in 2018 and informing the user of personality rights was included (3.1.6) but the whole thing ended up indefinitely shelved for multiple reasons. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 10:55, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I cannot find anything in any of the linked discussions written by me. Are you sure you have the right Guy? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:45, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: Woops, I meant JzG who said But the fact that Commons doesn't get the whole "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should" thing is no surprise, right? and the closing admin in the obesity discussion saying Anarachyte hit the nail on the head: "The point of Commons isn't to host something because we can." We can, but we shouldn't. Anyway, you guys (plural!) are confusing. I see "Guy" I assume it's you. Can one of you change color or something, or JzG use "JzG" in their signature instead of "Guy"? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
I believe that we both have the name "Guy" in real life (as does Wikipedia editor Guy Harris). You can tell "The other Guy" from me because the sig is in bold and lacks a last name. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:08, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: You might be interested in this recent discussion. One of the participants is Commons admin and OTRS volunteer. The other is a banned user. I will let you guess which one said
So if a woman is raped on the street and someone take photos of it we would require concent even if it is a public place.
and
About the rape example I doubt we would ever get permission for a photo like that but IF we did then I would say that it is in scope.
Ok, just kidding - obviously it was the Commons admin ([40] & [41]). Jorge Cisne (talk) 17:20, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@Jorge Cisne: You seem to hint at thinking these comments are outrageous, but I think MGA73 is right. It could be unethical for a stranger to take such a picture (unless it's a surveillance camera or someone who records it merely to ensure the victim will have proof), but if the subjects (yes, the rapist as well) both give permission it would be acceptable from a personality rights perspective. We'd also have to be convinced that neither was forced to give permission and obviously both would have to be adults. OTRS may not be up to the task either, assuming the subjects are nobodies who can't be verified by their famousartist.com mail address and such a sensitive case shouldn't rely on just assuming good faith as is normal for nobodies who contact OTRS. It would be an interesting case anyway because depictions of real rape are illegal in at least some countries I think. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Comment related to edit by Jorge Cisne (now blocked and comment removed). It is not about what I think or what I like. It is about what is in scope. I do personally not like to see photos like File:Buddhist monk burning.jpg (Warning! It IS a picture of someone on fire!!!). If admins just delete whatever they do not like then I think we have a problem. IF we ever get a case like the rape photos them I'm pretty sure that any OTRS volunteer would not close the ticket without asking at least 1 other volunteer and probably also legal team. --MGA73 (talk) 19:15, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
At least in the US, the lack of need to get consent only covers the cases where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. This is not only just being in public, but also includes a second test if a reasonable person would consider the case to have no expectation [42] and here, if we're talking about someone that is involved in a violent/sexual crime like rape that is happening in public, I would argue that we on Wikipedia/commons can claim at that point, there's reasonable expectation that person would expect privacy (eg in alignment with BLPCRIME either as the suspect or victim) and we would not host such images --Masem (t) 19:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Frankly, anyone who thought it would be a good idea to keep such a rape image should be drummed out of all Wikimedia projects on the spot. Why does Commons have such a problem with this? Your first thought as human beings shouldn't be "is this in scope", it should bloody obviously be "is this possibly harmful to anyone in the image"? To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, Commons is often "so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they don't stop to think if they should". Black Kite (talk) 19:28, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
It is a multifaceted question. Have the subjects given permission? Can we verify that properly? Are we convinced that the subjects were making a rational decision when they gave permission? Are we convinced they are unlikely to regret this in the future? Is it legal to host in the US? In how many countries would possession of such material be illegal? Is it in scope? (I personally think technically yes) And finally the question would arise Does Commons/Wikimedia want to host this? and the answer to that may be unrelated to all legal and permission questions. If possession of such media would be illegal in two dozen countries that would be a very good reason not to host it. But regarding scope, if there's a recording of people being executed by some fascist government, that would clearly be in scope. I'm not saying Commons/Wikimedia should host rape and snuff films (I have no reason to think about what my opinion on that is, so I don't have one), but they would probably be in scope. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@Masem and Black Kite: Of course my first thought IS that it could harm someone and that is why I said that of course it would require consent! I was trying to explain a now blocked user that concent is used for private places AND public places if it shows persons in a harmfull situation and I picked a situation where I was thought all could agree that we would need a permission. That is all! The only reason I'm here to Comment is because I picked the bate when the now blocked user fished for attention. We are discussing something that have not happend and will probably never happen. --MGA73 (talk) 20:36, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
I certainly wasn't at all attempting to belittle you, only the argument that "if its in public, there is no need for consent" that you and I and others appear to agree is flawed. There's bounds to "no expectations of privacy" in legal practice and that we should easily apply to Commons as well. --Masem (t) 21:07, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@Masem: English is not my first language so something may be lost in translation somewhere. Per c:Commons:Photographs_of_identifiable_people#Country_specific the requirements for consent is different for photos taken in public places compared to photos taken in a private place. And as I was trying to say sometimes consent is required even if it is taken a public place. Then there is the question how consent should be documented. Is it enought that the person pose for the photographer? Is a statement written by the uploader that "the person gave consent"? Or should we always require a formal permission send to OTRS? As I understand it the current state is that "it depends". --MGA73 (talk) 22:11, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
We are on the same page, no worries. As to what we require, that's still a point of discussion but I would agree that unless it is clearly obvious that the photo is in a public location and where consent is clearly not required (based by country), then we should be considering if consent should be sought for photos created by wikipedia editors. --Masem (t) 22:35, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, I am not in the least bit surprised. Short of the Foundation mandating standards that override consensus there, Commons is unreformable. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:06, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Of possible interest to readers of this thread, Bluerasberry has been collecting examples of consent issues on this page: commons:Commons:Model_license/Case_studies (the title implies models, but it seems more about consent in general). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:37, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

As a photographer who reads several photography-related forums, what strikes me is the huge variation in personal ethical attitude towards photographing strangers. The Street photography article lists some of the issues and range of opinions. There will be people who wouldn't dream of photographing a stranger without obtaining permission and there are others who think that asking obliterates any chance to document life as it is. One example where the subject often doesn't want to be photographed, but is nevertheless, is outside a courtroom. These appear on our TV news. The range of attitudes towards this is reflected in the lack of consistency in law from country-to-country and the existence of laws that are widely ignored.

In professional photography, such as a stock photo website, a distinction is made between "commercial use" and "editorial use". By "commercial", this means promoting something such as in an advert, and not for example a photo in an educational book or a newspaper that is for sale. The editorial use would include news and current affairs media and also most images on Wikipedia. For images taken in a public place, there is no requirement in professional photography to obtain written consent for editorial use of a photo. In contrast, commercial use requires a model release, which is not just giving permission but really quite an extensive waiver of rights, for which the subject reasonably expects to be paid. Commons does not concern itself with how the image is going to be used. It isn't set up as a stock photo repository of images for this kind of "commercial" use, so has no mechanism to record a model release.

While it is easy to throw stones at Commons for some of the attitudes displayed there, remember that these images only really become visible to any degree when a Wikipedian decides to add it to a page. So the "just because you can doesn't mean you should" charge applies to Wikipedians as well. It is much much harder to delete a photo on Commons if it is "in use" on a sister project. -- Colin°Talk 09:39, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Only about half of the photos on Commons are uploaded with the "own work" template, suggesting a Wikipedian or Commoner took it. The rest are Flickr transfers and other bulk uploads, for which the Upload Wizard doesn't get involved. I use a plug-in for Lightroom, so don't use the Upload Wizard unless participating at WLM. It was mentioned above that the wizard could ask "If this is a picture of a living person in a private setting, do you have consent?". For a start, "private setting" needs some explaining. As the Commons guideline says, "A private place is somewhere the subject has a reasonable expectation of privacy while a public place is somewhere where the subject has no such expectation – the terms are unrelated to whether the land is privately or publicly owned." It is further complicated if the uploader resides in a country with stricter rules about photographing strangers. So it starts becoming quite a complicated question, and unnecessary for so many photographs on Commons where people don't even feature (to any degree). Commons is actually quite a weird photo repository: nearly all photographs taken today are of people, except on Commons. I think such an additional question would need analysis and experimentation to discover if it just gets clicked on like Europeans click on the annoying website cookie messages, and whether the sort of people who think of uploading questionable material are also the sort of people would would honestly answer the question. -- Colin°Talk 09:39, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

The Upload Wizard can also be used for Flickr import: [43]. But there are various other methods to import photos from Flickr as well. Some users also upload their own work to Flickr first and import to Commons afterwards, presumably because the other way around is not so easy. I agree that adding any questions/options to the Upload Wizard will take quite some thought to get it right. Looking back, I think I was on the right track with c:Commons:Upload Wizard proposals (though I've learned quite a bit since 2018) but a ton of work would still be needed. I doubt anyone is going to work on anything like that. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 13:22, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
The point is that a large proportion of images don't go via the upload wizard nor were they taken by the uploader. So asking "did you get consent?" is going to get a shrug. There may be value in having some really "for dummies" style wizard for newbies that take them through all the basics. But regulars are going to bypass that. Of the images listed in this discussion, that aren't already deleted, they were uploaded some other way. I recall a DVD box-set I bought years ago, and at the start of each episode, we had to sit through a minute of scrolling text about how terrible it was to pirate stuff, which you couldn't skip. I don't know what they were thinking. I bought the DVD. I didn't download it off some bad bit of the web. And yet, I'm lectured about piracy before I can watch every single episode. I think there's a danger here that because one or two people have low standards that the entire user-base has to click or read an extra warning. -- Colin°Talk 13:49, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
You reminded me of The Matrix DVD piracy vs paying customer. The regulars would/could bypass such a wizard, but for new users it could be easier as new users don't know about personality rights, FoP, trademarks, categories, various PD tags etc. Surely it would be better than crosswiki uploads which are the polar opposite by asking absolutely nothing. That's still the source of a cesspool of copyvios. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:18, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
  • As a related matter, there is a new thread at WP:BLP/N#Birth certificate related to images of birth certificates that may be the matter of public record and free-as-in-speech to use, but lacking clear consent from the person identified or their parents, is flagged as a major issue at least on en.wiki. its in this same venue, that unless it is something where there is no expectation of privacy - and I'd argue that openly searchable public records are still assumed to have some privacy - we should affirm or seek consent before posting. --Masem (t) 21:38, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Why is Commons archiving the Internet Archive?

Jimmy, I love the Internet Archive and make good use of it. I'm very glad that a place like that exists. I kinda wish the WMF would fund it, since we make a lot of use of it here, too, for archiving reference sources. Have you tried to search for a picture of something over on Commons lately? It's really frustrating because every search result seems to be full of PDF files uploaded from the Internet Archive. Try searching for "physics" over there - it's like two pages of nothing but PDF files! I know I can go into the advanced search parameters and select only image files, but that only hides the problem. Why are we copying all of these PDFs from the Internet Archive in the first place? Jorge Cisne (talk) 20:56, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't know. I would imagine that it is someone (or a group of people) on commons, as opposed to anything that the WMF has anything to do with?
I think it's good to have multiple backups of important things, so from that perspective I kind of like it. Making search less useful on commons is bad, of course, but the answer might not be to stop saving things from IA, but to improve the search? I don't really know.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:13, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I understand that point of view. It's good to have copies of things in more than one place. Thanks. Jorge Cisne (talk) 21:44, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
The good news is that Commons search is improving: the new Special:MediaSearch has separate tabs for images and other media (including PDFs). the wub "?!" 23:13, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
@The wub: Thank you for the link. I was just over there searching for something and the only way I could work out how to exclude PDFs was to append my search query with "-pdf" (and also "-djvu"). I'll bookmark this for future use. It's still pretty annoying that they're all lumped together as File: though. nagualdesign 02:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
You can use "advanced search" and select the file type (eg "image"). It doesn't remember the choice like it does for namespaces, though. Jorge Cisne (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Tip: If you go to Commons:Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-searchoptions, untick Show search results in the Special:Search interface then click Save, you can just use the standard search bar and get useful results (ie, images, audio, video, etc.) without having to use the link provided above. nagualdesign 02:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps obvious, but this would happen because those pdf and djvu files have their text contents indexed as well. So they contain many words, while picture descriptions typically contain less many words. Since you search using keywords, pages or files with many words are more likely to match. Special:MediaSearch has some advantages here but is also missing some options it seems, so it isn't a full substitute for the regular search. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:31, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Ha ha ha ha! No, the contents of PDF and DjVU files are not indexed. Where on earth did you get that idea from? Jorge Cisne (talk) 15:23, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Oh my! They are indexed! No wonder search is so messed up. You can find PDF files with the search text, but it doesn't tell you what page it's on, so you have to go through the file yourself. Jorge Cisne (talk) 15:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks for all the helpful comments here, everyone. Special:MediaSearch is useful, but I generally need to see the metadata (file name, description) so it won't replace the regular search for me yet. I will just add " -pdf" to my searches. Jorge Cisne (talk) 16:02, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
@Jorge Cisne: As to the original question, why there has been a determined effort to starting archiving the Internet Archive library, you should ask the people doing it; but I suspect it started when the IA was facing some major lawsuits over its in-copyright book-lending scheme, and there may have been a fear that the whole site might be lost, or at represented a potentially vulnerable possible single point of failure. Jheald (talk) 20:09, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The tragic case of User:CejeroC

Jimbo, please look at the sad story of CejeroC. This editor has made 8750 edits since January, 2019. All their edits are to film or TV articles, many of them about old, historic films. All their edits are are to articles or drafts. They have never made a talk page edit. They appear not to know that talk pages exist. Significantly, all their edits are with the Android app. Most of their edits appear productive. However (and this is a bit obscure), they have been "inserting the parameter color_process into the infobox for multiple live-action film articles" , and that parameters is "for animated films only." Repeated efforts to communicate with the editor have failed because they are using the horrible Android app which is an impediment to collaboration and communication among editors. Now, the editor has been blocked indefinitely because no one has been able to explain the technical problem to them. How sad to lose a mostly productive editor over this!

I do 99% of my editing on Android smart phones without problems because I managed to figure out that the desktop site works fine on smartphones. I write good articles. I help at the Teahouse and the help desk. I am an active administrator and do all that with the desktop site on a smart phone.

Why, after all these years, is the WMF still offering the Android app which simply does not work properly? Why not just shut it down and rename the desktop site something like the "fully functional site" or the "one and only site"? Why is this rolling disaster allowed to continue? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 17:35, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

+1 Atsme 💬 📧 18:13, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Totally agreed. The mobile app is, to put it kindly, awful for editing. As an experienced user I know what I'm missing out on, but most new users wouldn't. Why even allow edits if you can't do simple things without leaving the app? Elli (talk | contribs) 18:50, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
+1 I had that app installed for at least fifteen minutes, before thinking "sod this for a game of soldiers!". William Avery (talk) 18:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Messed up but true, and needs to be addressed. Here is the noticeboard discussion: a freaking travesty that didn't need to happen! jp×g 18:59, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
As the person who initiated that discussion, I don't think any of us wanted it to go the way it did. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there's no way to get the attention of an editor who cannot or will not interact with their Talk page or predictably with other pages short of blocking them and hoping that gets their attention to the point that they'll try to figure out what's wrong. It sucks that a block was the "best" option available to stop their disruptive behavior. DonIago (talk) 20:32, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
And CejeroC won't even have been able to read the ANI discussion, as the Android app currently displays to the user a version of ANI from September 2020... Black Kite (talk) 00:19, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Would it be possible to permalink them to the discussion? DonIago (talk) 05:40, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
It would be possible, though if they were reading their talkpage, they'd have almost certainly have responded in some way already. Black Kite (talk) 08:38, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Sorry for the lack of clarity; I mean that if I was in Cejero's position, I'd like to think I'd eventually try logging in on a desktop, and at that point being able to see the conversation I missed out on might be helpful. If we can't help them in the present, we can at least give them a link to what they missed. Just a thought. DonIago (talk) 19:49, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, as a frequent mobile editor (albeit one who uses the "true" mobile site), my esteemed colleague is right. I have tried to use the Android app, but it is simply not built with editors in mind; rather, it is built for readers. Attempts to peruse the noticeboards (such as ANI) return cached versions from months and months ago. Attempts to communicate with editors are incredibly laborious. As Cullen has pointed out, the app is causing otherwise-productive editors to be blocked: not because they don't want to communicate with others, but because they cannot.
At this point, the app is more trouble than it's worth and is in serious need of an overhaul. Action is needed, Mr. Wales. Sdrqaz (talk) 19:14, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree fully - there are multiple issues with the mobile apps (e.g. this one recently about ridiculous suggested edits) that the WMF appear to not feel are worth prioritising. I am acutely aware that developer time is a finite, scarce resource, but surely an issue that is leading to otherwise productive editors being blocked because we cannot communicate with them deserves immediate attention? There are large parts of the world where mobile devices are people’s only way of accessing the Internet - we risk excluding a whole tranche of people from becoming Wikipedians if these issues aren’t resolved. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 20:31, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
If this isn't something to spend developer time on, frankly, what is? Elli (talk | contribs) 01:46, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
@Firefly Are you sure the content of the edits is actually suggested? We had a similar discussion on Commons, where c:Commons:Suggested Edits was created to clarify that the feature only suggests the pages to edit, not the edits themselves. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 23:08, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
+1 to the concerns, the status quo is not acceptable. I think we need to seriously consider a community ban on editing from the Android app if it makes it impossible for editors to receive feedback. That would hopefully force the WMF's hand, and if not, will fix the disruption. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 21:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
According to WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU, the iOS app is equally flawed. Black Kite (talk) 21:48, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
Black Kite, equally? From what I've seen, the iOS app doesn't even give editors notice of the reason if they're blocked - it's much worse than the android app in that situation. It's a failure on the WMF part to corral the developers of the apps to ensure they have basic functionality. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:32, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Fixing the problem will take a long time so the correct procedure now would be for the WMF to remove the apps (Android + Apple) from distribution and to work out a way (with an update?) to disable the apps that are currently used. Johnuniq (talk) 23:44, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
That seems a little far. If the issue with the app is the editing aspect why not just disable that while keeping the viewing? PackMecEng (talk) PackMecEng (talk) 23:55, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
If the WMF is capable of such a change, that would be better. Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
I disagree, PackMecEng and Johnuniq. I believe that it is very wrong for the WMF to offer any app, site, portal, tool or anything else that does not offer a fully functional editing experience. Especially because the desktop site works perfectly well on modern smartphones, and it has for quite a few years, for both reading and editing. The Android mobile app is a terrible solution to a problem that does not exist in 2021, although it may possibly have been a problem in 2010. So, we have good faith editors being encouraged to use an official Android app that is an impediment to collaborative editing and also does not improve the reading experience. How can that possibly be a good idea? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:33, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
It would actually be very trivial to disable mobile app editing through the edit filter. If you could use the edit-filter "warn" system to notify app users to check their talk pages that would be even better, but that's broken in the app as well. Black Kite (talk) 00:38, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
True, but the apps are so flawed that they don't even display custom filter messages. On iOS it's possible to to send a short plaintext message with no links, by creating a page like MediaWiki:Mobile editing from the app has been disabled. Please use the website. and using that as the filter message. But all Android users will just see An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive, or potential vandalism. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and only neutral, notable content belongs here. and that's that. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:46, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I edited my comment just before you posted to mention that we couldn't use the warn system, but of course I didn't consider they wouldn't know why their edit was blocked either. Doh. Black Kite (talk) 00:48, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
@Black Kite: I can't find a way to filter edits by tag in mw:Extension:AbuseFilter/Rules format. How would you filter them? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps this is a dumb suggestion, but seeing that User:CejeroC is redlinked, would it help to edit the user page with '''Important notice:''' Please read [[User talk:Jimbo Wales#The tragic case of [[User:CejeroC]]]] ASAP! or similar? nagualdesign 00:09, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
..I made the edit. nagualdesign 00:16, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Can't do any harm, athough they've almost certainly got push notifications turned off or else they'd have at least known that their previous messages existed. Black Kite (talk) 00:19, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Good idea and very helpful, thank you //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 11:25, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Ah, Appgate. I'm honestly starting to think we should go for the nuclear option and indef every app user on sight (or edit-filter disallow, which is slightly less attention-grabbing a proposal but in practice more useful), because I don't think anything short of it will get the WMF's attention. This has been extensively discussed on plenty of places the WMF very well sees, and there's no possibility at this point that the silence is overlooking it -- it's an intentional "this is a low-priority issue". (Nine hundred million readers, 5,000 editors.) Vaticidalprophet 10:40, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be something if the WMF (which the public erroneously "sees" as a name for Wikipedia, especially when it's fundraising) had more actual Wikipedia editors in their top administrative positions. Editors who officially would be encouraged to edit articles and interact on talk-pages for two or three hours every workday. Then these type of problems could be discussed by several WMF higher-ups in real time. As it is now, they don't even seem to read or want to join discussions such as these on Jimbo's talk page. With the type of cash WMF has flowing to it they should even consider hiring half-a-dozen or so regular editors, in addition to their current staff, to be open to editor input. Wonderful people like Katherine Maher uplift WMF, and it will miss her greatly. But even she wasn't a regular editor, and thus missed the opportunity of really merging Wikipedia culture and concerns with WMF. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:08, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
This is very much the case. I guess the problem is that the WMF isn't really chosen by us, so we don't get a voice there. If a member of the board came from enwiki (ideally, previously an admin at least) then I think we'd see a lot more of our issues addressed. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:49, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that over half of the board is community members. From enwiki in particular, you have both me and User:Doc_James.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:35, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
I guess this is going off on a tangent a bit, but I just don't feel as much of a connection to them as I do to say, our admins, arbs, or stewards. Are my feelings wrong? I don't know, but a lot of Wikipedians feel similarly. Obviously WMF has a tough task here, since there are many global interests, and enwiki is only a portion of that. Elli (talk | contribs) 09:37, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
I'd nominate Jim in a heartbeat. nagualdesign 19:12, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
I posted the above almost 16 hours ago, and as of now nobody from WMF has responded to the common sense concerns and solutions being discussed and proposed on this thread. They either want to stay out of the discussion and just observe and discuss in-house for now, which I hope is the case, or nobody there has even read this discussion (If someone is reading it, can you maybe pass the core of it along to the obvious people who probably haven't read it. Being upended with an indef coming out of the blue screen for what they probably perceive as no apparent reason seems a true Wikipedia insult to a good editor who trusted an untrustworthy app., and joined the chorus in the sky through no fault of their own. Thanks.). Randy Kryn (talk) 03:03, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
@Randy Kryn: you don't consider Jimbo WMF? Elli (talk | contribs) 19:13, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
@Elli: See the timestamps of Randy's comment and when Jimbo replied; it was accurate at the time. Sdrqaz (talk) 19:19, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
I wasn't thinking of Jimbo or Doc James or any board members, but of the many people working at the WMF offices. Wasn't advocating more Wikipedians as board members but suggesting that several long time users could be invited to work at WMF on a workday basis, sort of editor ombudsmen who would be accessible to other editors on issues which interface, in real time, with WMF personnel and decision makers. A continual presence in-office. My assumption is that some people employed to oversee Wikipedia would have personal experience with editing and Wikipedia culture, and would advocate for editor's concerns. An ombudsman or four would, a matter of course, read Jimbo's talk page and a few other pages which would contain Wikipedia current events and issues. I know Jimbo would eventually read his talk page, that's a given. A few others at WMF should be doing the same. Randy Kryn (talk) 19:51, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
User:Randy Kryn the office is mostly empty from what I understand, as people are working remote due to COVID (and also as this works fine for a global distributed movement). I; however, agree with the sentiment of having more long term active Wikipedians integrated into the software development processes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:50, 24 April 2021 (UTC)h
Doc James, a paid-position Wikipedia ombudsman in the WMF office (virtual or physical) seems a logical interface for Wikipedian concerns or beneficial suggestions. An ombudsman (or two or three, one per shift) could monitor a few talk or admin pages for real-time developing situations, such as the inadequacy of this app. and its effect of banning a good faith established editor, and put an office discussion into motion soon after the problem emerges. The ombudsman would eventually become a normal ping option in talk page discussions, and could have a group of editors ready to work with them in serious situations. That pretty much summarizes what I tried to communicate in my posts above. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:46, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
@Sdrqaz: weird, I remember seeing Jimbo's comment before Randy's. Oh well. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:21, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
I say we go with the other nuclear option and rip, shred, and burn the Wikipedia apps. h 13:10, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

As one of the editors who had to deal with this particular mobile editor, I can attest that the Mobile Apps have to go. It was a shame to see such a dedicated user get indeffed just because they were editing on a platform that rendered it nearly impossible to communicate. Wikipedia is a collaborative space, and the mobile apps fly in the face of that. Padgriffin (talk) 14:22, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

  • The apps are bust, and the current situation with the mobile apps isn't acceptable. WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU should be picked up by a WMF engineering team and a clear plan laid out to fixing the issues and with (ideally) a timeline. Can you imagine spending years contributing to a site, for free, and in your opinion doing everything correctly with no objections you're aware of to believe otherwise, and then waking up one morning and being indeffed, without even a rationale (via block message) given? Just a message saying "You have been blocked from editing."? You'd not only be pissed off, you'd probably never contribute to this site again. The iOS app is a great reading experience actually, but the editing experience is unbelievably problematic. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:21, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
    I have never used a mobile app for Wikipedia to my knowledge. But that said, if the above is true, then that sounds like the simplest solution - unless/until all the features someone who edits should be able to use/experience are fixed/resolved on the app, just remove the ability to edit from the app(s). Sounds like the best of all worlds. Readers still get to use an app that apparently works for them, but editors will need to edit in other ways unless/until a decent editing interface is presented. - jc37 19:26, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Why can't Template:Infobox film be coded to ignore (and not display) {{{color_process}}} unless the template is transcluded on a page which is in a subcategory of Category:Animated films? wbm1058 (talk) 23:10, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

So, a question - where would the inevitable RfC need to be located? Black Kite (talk) 23:12, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the mobile app? WP:TECHPUMP seems appropriate to me. Sdrqaz (talk) 23:31, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
No—WP:VPT is the wrong place for an RfC. Put it in an RfC subpage such as in this example. However, it must be drafted for at least a week before allowing any votes. If it is not properly drafted, the proposal will fail and the problem will never be fixed. Johnuniq (talk) 23:43, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
But does the community have the capability to implement the consensus without the cooperation of the Foundation? Sdrqaz (talk) 23:49, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
That depends on the question. We can't do anything about the app except hold an RfC demanding/requesting/pleading for action. We could indef all app editors. We could possibly make an edit filter that disallowed edits from app editors. You might ask at WP:VPT about the technical possibilities, but hold an RfC elsewhere, particularly if it would need to be a central RfC that was widely publicized. Johnuniq (talk) 23:59, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes. See Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC or disabling the Content Translation tool. However, I think the main purpose of an RfC at this point is to raise a very visible "look, can we have an actual timeline when is this going to be fixed - it's simply not viable for it to continue like this" and only if there is a negative response from that will we get to a point at which the community needs to consider any action. Black Kite (talk) 00:04, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Thank you both for your replies; definitely intriguing. Sdrqaz (talk) 00:37, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
I agree that this is a serious problem. I'm just trying to get my head around not just the right ultimate answer (which is surely to offer a full high quality editing experience in the app), but the right path to get there.
I see up above (may have missed something) a few proposals:
  1. Remove the app(s) from the app store until they offer a full editing experience
  2. Disable editing in the app for now, until it is sufficiently improved
  3. Or my own thought for a temporary solution - push a version of the app that - upon editing - displays a strong warning that is not the best way to edit on an Android phone, and a pointer to where they can learn (from experienced community members like Cullen) what they could do for now
I'm raising this issue with the WMF board Community Affairs Committee, which was recently formed to deal with just this kind of situation.
For me, the most important issue here is not the app, but the state of affairs and the process that got us to this point. I am an advocate for strengthening the representation of the editing community on the Board of Directors.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:30, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
I think that's a fair summary of the situation. Personally I think stronger action than a warning is necessary, but that's only my opinion
Can you or someone else keep the community appraised of what the WMF is doing on this issue? The best way to go about that would be for you to decide of course, but I think this issue has been going on long enough that regular updates will be required for the community to have confidence that something is being done, rather than the issue merely being "discussed in a committee", to badly paraphrase Queen Amidala. Thanks for picking this up, Jimbo. ƒirefly ( t · c ) 08:07, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo, I think the first question ought to be: "Do we really need an Android app when the desktop site works just fine on Android devices?" Cullen328 Let's discuss it 16:24, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
Thanks User:Cullen328 for raising this. Agree we need a solution to this issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:48, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
stop making your own experience the only one that counts please. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:46, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Can't tell about the Android app, but the iOS app (which is even worse regarding this issue) is in my opinion the superior way to read (not edit) articles. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 15:29, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Hey all, I'm responding for WMF Product. I'm glad you're raising these questions; I think they're important, and it helps to focus some of the conversations we've been having lately. The question of communicating with IP editors on mobile & apps came up last week on the WMF village pump page as well.

The good news: talk pages are now available on the Android app, as of a February release that we have not talked about as widely as we should. The description of the new feature is on the mediawiki.org Android team updates page, and I'll post the relevant section here:

Article talk pages and User talk pages are now presented natively. When reading an article, the corresponding talk page is accessible by scrolling to the bottom and selecting "View talk page." User talk pages can be accessed from various places where user interactions might occur, including your watchlist, various push notifications (e.g. messages left by other users on your talk page), and other users' and article talk pages.

I've posted screenshots of the existing feature at the Android communication project page, so you can see what it looks like. That feature is still somewhat limited compared to the full desktop talk page experience, especially regarding notifications, to help app editors discover their page and be able to reply to incoming messages. We're talking with the app teams about the issues that folks have raised here, and I'll be able to give you a more complete response to the thread soon. For now, I just want to let you know that yes, WMF is listening, and we'll be talking with you more. — DannyH (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Scroll all the way to the bottom of an article in order to find the talk page? Wow. I guess that's.... better? - jc37 23:50, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
@DannyH (WMF): Thanks for the update. I tried out editing a talk page with the app, and discovered a new bug! You might want to point WMF-legal to this. That's not really the sort of thing I can get all worked up over, but I suspect they'll think it's urgent. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:51, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
DannyH (WMF), please explain why the Android app is needed, when the desktop site is fully functional on modern Android devices without using any app? That's the way I have been editing almost every day for many years. I certainly don't have to scroll to the bottom of an article (really?) to find the talk page. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:00, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I also edit a lot on mobile, including right now, and I've never used any application because the mobile site alone is vastly inferior; in addition to the lack of ability to zoom, the ridiculously annoying jitter when you scroll down to the bottom to get the desktop site, only to have to wait for the "related articles" so you can scroll down again (I know I'm not the only one who's complained about this, I'm fine with having related articles but have them there already), made me frightened to see what any other view would be. Also, even in 2011 I preferred the desktop site for both reading and editing. Not that the WMF ever cared about what I had to say, but I sure ended up on the right side of history last time. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:24, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
@The Blade of the Northern Lights: Oddly enough, some time in the last few days (I think) the mobile version of the website has gained the capability to zoom! nagualdesign 23:12, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
If done correctly it has the potential to give a better experience than half ass desktop mode on a smart phone. While desktop mode works, it is basically by definition a compromise. PackMecEng (talk) 00:46, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
What you describe as "half ass", I describe as fully functional and almost problem free. I have been editing with the desktop site on Android smartphones almost every day for ten years. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 15:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
For reading. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 15:33, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
@DannyH (WMF): I am going to echo Cullen328's question - why are these half-baked apps required when you could focus all development attention on the mobile site and have it work cross-platform? What problems are the apps trying to solve? Is it merely a "look we have an app!" thing, or are you trying to do things you cannot do in the browser? ƒirefly ( t · c ) 06:16, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Apologies, forgot to ask this as well. You've not yet mentioned the iOS app, which is in an even worse state than Android. What are the plans to improve it, if it is indeed required? ƒirefly ( t · c ) 06:20, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
User:Cullen328 keeps saying "Do we really need an Android app when the desktop site works just fine on Android devices?". Can you explain how I get the desktop site on my mobile? I tried changing the address and it keeps going back to the mobile site. If I can't figure it out, I suspect few others will. I use the Android app, but only for reading. I like it, and prefer it to the browser (Chrome) on my mobile, which I hate. I've never used the app for editing. -- Colin°Talk 13:38, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
Excellent question, Colin. When you are on the mobile site, scroll to the very bottom, and you will see a link to connect to the desktop site, which works just fine on mobile devices. I agree that it is hard for people to figure out, but the WMF does not seem to listen to input from people like me. For more of my thoughts on mobile editing, please read User:Cullen328/Smartphone editing, which I wrote five years ago. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 15:31, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
It is frustrating to see that this is still causing problems, because this is certainly not a new issue. I raised the question on this page a few years ago, where Cullen328 had another astute comment. Why do we keep going in circles on this? It would be interesting to see a breakdown of money spent on development of the mobile apps over the past many years and the state they are currently in, to see how effective the money was, compared to simply removing any mobile app or website and forcing everyone to the main desktop page. I'm still mainly using a smartphone browser to access Wikipedia, and the first thing I do every time is scroll to the bottom, start to click desktop browser, then wait for the annoying related articles to load and displace the desktop view, scroll a little farther down, and click the desktop button. Just an aside, but I was also frequently browsing the German wiki, and when you scroll to the bottom of that to click "Klassiche Ansicht" (Classic View), there is no loading of related articles to displace the buttons you are about to click. Mr Ernie (talk) 17:36, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
On my Samsung Galaxy J3 Eclipse, using the Google Chrome app as my browser, there is a stack of 3 dots at the top of the page. If I click on this, a list pops up. Towards the bottom of that list is "Desktop site". If I click this, I am switched to using the desktop site. And it stays on the desktop site as long as I stay on Wikipedia. Clicking on links from outside sites may force me to the mobile site, but repeating the procedure quickly clears that up.--Khajidha (talk) 13:15, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
Apps are generally better than responsive/mobile-optimised sites, which are better than desktop sites on mobiles. Both in terms of functionality/usability, and I suspect in some cases have higher usage rates too. Additionally, I use the mobile web skin (mw:Skin:Minerva Neue) most of the time on mobile and it's just fine; sometimes I switch temporarily for a certain feature that is only on desktop. The apps are great for reading, too. Better than Minerva and IMO better than the desktop site too, in that regard. The problem with the apps really is that they appear to be built for readers, not editors. But it's not a good idea to scrap them entirely (though disabling editing on them might not be the worst idea). Technically, I suppose the split codebases cause a maintenance problem; using something like React Native or Flutter might've helped share code between platforms, but has downsides (like increased file size). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:47, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi all, I've got some more information about the existing and planned work on talk pages for app users.

First, I'd like to respond to the general question that's asked in several places in this discussion: Why do we offer editing on the apps, when the app editing experience is not as good as the desktop editing experience? I think that, ironically, the tragic case of User:CejeroC is a good example of why we offer editing on the apps. As Cullen238 said at the top of the thread, CejeroC made 8,750 edits over a period of more than two years, entirely through the Android app. From what I can tell, these were all good-faith and mostly productive edits.

CejeroC was not a mobile web editor or desktop editor that was seduced by the WMF into a life of crime with our sinister Android app. CejeroC was an Android app user, who discovered wiki editing because it's supported by the app. That's an extra 8,750 edits that wouldn't have happened, if CejeroC hadn't been using the app. Both the Android and iOS apps are downloaded and used by people who love Wikipedia, often people who are frequent readers, and discover editing through both the regular editing process and the "structured tasks" feature that the Android app offers. However, I agree that the end of CejeroC's story is tragic, and that the work that's currently being done to improve the talk page experience on the Android app is very important.

As I said above, in February, the Android team released both the talk page and watchlist features in the app. In the February release, article talk pages were accessible through the bottom of the page. That was updated in a March 30th release, which moved the talk page link up to the dropdown menu at the top right of every page. You can see how this works in this walkthrough gif. Echo notifications do currently exist in the Android app, and user talk pages are also discoverable through the watchlist. There are some further improvements planned, including enabling in-line replies, and building onboarding features to help people discover both the watchlist and talk pages. You can learn more, and ask the team questions, on their Android communication project page.

The iOS team is also looking at improving the talk experience on their app. They're currently in the initial design and technical planning phase for enabling Echo notifications on iOS. Later this year, they're planning to fill in some of the missing collaboration features on the app, including making editing tools and talk pages more prominent.

I think we'd like to see more communication on the apps, as well as better communication between the apps teams and editors like the folks who are commenting here. I'm happy to keep talking here, or we could move the conversation to the Android project page to have more detailed discussions. — DannyH (WMF) (talk) 04:54, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the update but the benefits of having this user edit in a closed-off bubble have to be balanced against the pain and wasted time of other editors who have tried to discuss problems with CejeroC (see their old talk page) before it was cleared during the recent ANI discussion). Established editors also need to be supported and people burn-out and retire when faced with too much silliness such as being told that their efforts to communicate were a waste of time. An app to edit Wikipedia should not emulate the subtle notifications provided by apps for non-Wikipedia projects where messages are usually junk and ignorable. Johnuniq (talk) 05:26, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
DannyH (WMF), the problem with your analysis is that you are assuming without evidence that CejeroC was drawn to editing by the existence of the Android app, as opposed to the existence of Wikipedia itself, which is a monumentally successful collaborative project built by volunteers. Let's imagine instead that the Android app consisted of a basic little interactive introduction to mobile editing including how to collaborate and communicate with other editors, and then a doorway to the "desktop" site. Nothing more. Then, CejeroC would now be communicating with other productive encyclopedia editors, better understanding the relatively minor technical issue, and continuing to edit instead of being blocked. I have been editing by smartphone for about a decade, commenting on these problems for about the same time, and still many of these problems persist, and nobody at the WMF tries to communicate with me. It is really frustrating that these problems still exist when the desktop site works just fine on the vast majority of the world's smartphones. Why not just change the name of the desktop site to the "fully functional site" and shut down the inferior alternatives? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:29, 19 April 2021 (UTC)
Wait, so you're telling me that even though the vast majority of smart phones can handle the actual Wikipedia site, we have a horribly clunky "mobile site" AND an even worse app?!?!?! Seems like somebody decided "hey, all the kewl kids are using these newfangled app thingies, we should have one" without thinking about whether it was needed or how it would work. Nuke it from orbit and salt the ground where it stood.--Khajidha (talk) 11:51, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
Khajidha, well, yes. Cullen328 is - I hope he will forgive me - a gentleman of significant life experience (is that the PC term for old farts like us, Jim?) and this is actually a non-trivial issue. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:27, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
@DannyH (WMF): Some replies:
That's an extra 8,750 edits that wouldn't have happened, if CejeroC hadn't been using the app. Editors aren't fungible robots! We're human beings, and it's really shitty to tell a human being to piss off (and not even tell them why!!!) after they've invested this much time and energy into this site. Does the WMF management not get this? Or are they so focused on stats that they don't care?
Echo notifications do currently exist in the Android app Half-true. By default, there are push notifications, and that's good. But many spam-weary users turn block push notifications as a matter of habit, and there is no in-app alert. Once push notifications are blocked, the user is in the same "bubble" as iOS users.
They're currently in the initial design and technical planning phase for enabling Echo notifications on iOS. Why was the app foisted on unsuspecting users before this was finished? Can editing be disabled, please, until this work is done?
I'm happy to keep talking here, or we could move the conversation to the Android project page to have more detailed discussions If it's the same to you, I'd prefer the thread WP:VPWMF. This is a much bigger issue than just the Android app. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 19:55, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

In the Hungarian Wikipedia there is a cool feature known as Green_links, where redirects are shown in green, and not blue like the rest of the pages. This is a feature unique to the Hungarian Wikipedia, and it would be cool to have this in other languages. Crocusfleur (talk) 09:23, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

@Crocusfleur: You can enable this for yourself by adding the following to your common.css:
.mw-redirect, .mw-redirect:visited {
  color: green;
}
– Rummskartoffel (talk • contribs) 13:01, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
This is super interesting - it seems more useful for active editors than for readers I suppose, but it's a neat idea. I can imagine (but this would take some coding effort and some thought) it being a neat feature for editors that brings added attention to pages that need some love. For example, imagine if a page with a neutrality dispute or request for more sources or similar showed up differently (to editors who choose to enable it). The idea is that if I'm reading a page that I'm interested in for whatever reason, I get a visual indicator that something similar needs some help. I don't think this is a super great idea, but I think it's not a terrible idea. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:00, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Making a gadget for "green redirects" would be peanuts. Showing links to pages with problem tags differently requires changes to MediaWiki. Links to pages with problem tags will have to be assigned a different CSS class. A field probably needs to be added to metadata to record it. The presence of problem tags has to be detected after every edit, but problem tags aren't really standardized afaik, even less so across different projects. I don't think a gadget could realistically do this with acceptable performance. (nothing is impossible, but this would be certified hell I believe) Integration in MediaWiki core makes no sense unless problem tags are standardized so they can be detected. This may be achievable. Creation of an enwiki-specific extension for MediaWiki is possible, but other projects could benefit from this equally so I wouldn't recommend that. My thought is that the first step could be introducing a magic word similar to __NOINDEX__, __HIDDENCAT__, etc and add it to all problem tag templates. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:44, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Your solution sounds very clever! But as I say, I'm not sure that this is a super great idea in the first place.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:48, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
It would take quite some effort (I'm not actually a developer but I sometimes create tickets on Phabricator, I have some idea of what's going on) so the first step would actually be to find out if there is a demand. How would you visually differentiate such links? I'm asking so I can make a mockup screenshot of what it would look like. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:56, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
Sounds interesting, but blue vs. green might run afoul of MOS:COLOR. That said, redirects show as italicized in categories. I would suppose that that could be implemented elsewhere, but unsure if doing that universally would be a good idea. - jc37 07:42, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
Jc37, the MOS doesn't apply here. Links to articles with problem tags would only appear differently to users who enable that in their preferences. Wikitext in articles wouldn't change. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:50, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2021

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:32, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

BitClout

Jimbo, BitClout is a scam for users. (for reference: [44]). Would you encourage others to join, when they can't convert their BTCLT back into Bitcoin and will get stuck with the bag? They're also profiting off of persons' likeness without their consent. Therapyisgood (talk) 01:01, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

[45] and [46]. Therapyisgood (talk) 01:29, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Therapyisgood, Wikipedia does not condone every organization or practice it has an article for. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:02, 22 April 2021 (UTC)
Just FYI, I wouldn't encourage (or discourage) anyone from joining.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:42, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Strange. Your account there says it's verified and has posted messages. I don't trust them for one bit seeing as they already scraped 15000 accounts from Twitter without knowledge or consent of the account owners. Unless you can confirm here that you created an account there, it would seem they have taken it one step further and are impersonating you. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 10:58, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Oh, I guess it is real. Impersonation seemed more likely. Oh well. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:04, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
No, it's real. I heard they received quite a lot of mainstream investment and thought I would check it out. I'm generally skeptical of crypto. The number of people who have said to me we should put Wikipedia on the blockchain so people could bid money to control the content of articles (the absolute worst idea ever) makes me dizzy. At the same time, I find blockchain technology interesting and in particular I'm interested in thinking about how to move from advertising models to other models and I think deeply understanding what's bad (and good) about new things is worth my time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:51, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
Jimbo Wales, these crypto companies are generating value out of thin air. Which isn't a problem in and of itself. Or maybe it is, but we left the gold standard behind us a long time ago so if it is we have bigger problems. The problem is with all these dubious companies creating money that has no more value than V-Bucks is that trust will be lost. And paper money without trust equals toilet paper. For advertising models a major issue, I think, is transaction cost. A YouTube ad view pays between $0.01 and $0.03 or most channels get paid 0.5 USD per 1000 views. (I don't claim either of these sources is a valid RS, but you get the ballpark) I'd prefer paying 1 cent over wasting half a minute watching crap. (ads can be skipped, but the creator doesn't get paid if you do) But if I want to get rid of the ads in a legitimate way, my only option is getting YouTube Premium for €11.99/month. (not even sure if creators would get paid if I did as I wouldn't see ads) One cent multiplied by, say, a few dozen videos, is not €11.99/month. Where did the difference go? Why is ad revenue so much lower than the price to not see ads? Figure that out and you may be on your way to finding an alternative model. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
I'm not a customer of YouTube Premium, but I'm vaguely under the impression that it is more than just eliminating ads on youtube videos, but also similar to NetFlix or Amazon Prime in that it gives access to various additional content? That might explain the price premium.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:36, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
Yes, that's actually still true. MatPat's Game Lab for example is (beyond the first episode) only accessible for Premium users. But if you look at the YouTube Premium landing page, it doesn't even mention the premium content anymore. Even if the difference results from the option to download videos (which presumably increases music licensing cost), it raises the question: why isn't there a YT Premium option for, say, €2.99/month that just removes ads while still paying content creators? I'd pay for that, but no such option exists. And that's YouTube, where such a model would at least in theory be viable. It's not viable for a news website where you read 3 articles each month. It's fairly simple: Paypal, Credit card companies and payment processors make tiny transactions unprofitable. You can't donate less than €0.83144322027478 to Wikimedia (I'm not making that up, somebody forgot to truncate something) and I understand why. Things like Flattr exist but haven't really taken off. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
Therapyisgood, here's how you can tell when any cryptocurrency or NFT is a scam:
  1. It's a cryptocurrency or NFT
  2. Er...
  3. That's it.
Hope this helps. Guy (help! - typo?) 07:56, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
JzG, not every cryptocurrency is a scam. Fool's gold, perhaps. Bad for the environment, certainly. But the main difference with government-backed money is that it isn't government-backed which has various implications. Buying cryptocurrency to get rich is foolish as it's pure speculation. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 10:57, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
Alexis Jazz, there is no cryptocurrency that is not a bubble. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:43, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

A thank you for 20 years of Wikipedia!

Although I've only been here, on and off for 17 of those 20 years... mid-2004, this site has been great, and let's hope that it continues on for another 2 decades!

A celebratory cake.

This is a celebratory post... thank you for your hard work creating this site and the Wikimedia Foundation!

~~--Chelston-temp-1 (talk) 13:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)~~

--Chelston-temp-1 (talk) 13:26, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Sushant Singh Rajput

Thanks for the link to discuss about Sushant Singh Rajput page.

Jimmy, sometimes ago the cause of death was mentioned as "Under Investigation" but changed to "Suicide by hanging" since the case is still under investigation so request you to change the cause of death to "Under Investigation". Ashish Bohra SSRian (talk) 19:53, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

For those who didn't know

User:Sarah/Slimvirgin has passed away. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:16, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Wales acting as an independent country

Hi Jimbo - sorry, no idea if you can deal with this. There is a photo competiton called Wiki Loves Earth. Some users from Wales, a part of the UK, have taken it on themselves to enter Wales as a country. I don't think this should be allowed. Best wishes Charlesjsharp (talk) 17:37, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

This is a WP:UKNATIONALS issue and could no doubt lead to heated discussions. It isn't absolutely wrong to describe the Home Nations as countries and they are allowed to enter sporting events separately, although when it comes to citizenship, all of the people involved have a UK passport. You can't have English, Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish citizenship, although this may change in the future.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:03, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Charlesjsharp, Wales is a principality, strictly speaking, but it is generally recognised as a country, just not one with independent sovereignty. It has its own language, parliament and flag. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:08, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
There's an internet encyclopaedia that says "Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom." Perhaps there is some confusion between country and sovereign state. The idea that "Wales is a principality, strictly speaking" is, to quote Ruth Davidson recently, "complete bollocks". Again, that pesky encyclopaedia says that for the last ~500 years "there has been no geographical or constitutional basis for describing any of Wales as a principality". It is up to Wiki Loves Earth to define the rules about how they want to group entries. Since the English border with Wales is not disputed, I don't anticipate any disputes arising over whether a photograph is in Wales or in some other country. I know Jimbo is best palls with some powerful people, but I don't think even he has the power to demote Wales to be merely "a part of the UK". -- Colin°Talk 20:39, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
I'm not sure how trustworthy our articles are on this fact. The relevant second paragraph of Country appears largely unsourced. Wales sources the statement to a statistics.gov.uk page describing how they treat information for the purposes of the statistics they display. Similarly, Scotland sources the statement to: statistics.gov.uk, a blog post on 10 Downing Street, (independence aside, blog posts/press releases on UK government websites are notoriously inconsistent), and ISO which ironically, reading the document, says "WLS Wales [Cymru GB-CYM] principality". Our articles don't have good sources for the statements they make. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:00, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
ProcrastinatingReader, the lead of an article doesn't always provide citations for facts that are well cited in the body. For example Principality of Wales#After 1542: union with England goes into more detail. Your ISO source from 2007 is out-of-date, as the wiki article notes, ISO fixed their documentation after 2011. There's more on that here and here, which should give a flavour of the reaction that follows if one wrongly defines Wales. Which leads me to ask, leaving sources aside, why you think the many many Welsh Wikipedians would permit the world's biggest encyclopaedia to define their country wrongly? Surely even an un- or weakly-sourced lead sentence in a country-of-the-world article is likely to be correct, vs some random guy on Jimbo's talk page! -- Colin°Talk 21:45, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
It's not my source, it's the source in the Scotland article. I'm just saying the sources, at least in the lead, aren't great IMO for the statement made. And although it doesn't relate to how we decide content here, Brittanica uses "consistent unit". afaics these issues were mainly discussed in 2007. But is "is Wales/Scotland/etc a country" really something one wants to debate? Even if I had sources to unambiguously claim otherwise, and I haven't really checked if they exist or not, that's not a hill I would want to die on. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:12, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Colin, it's not complete bollocks, just ask Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. But, you know, language, flag, Senedd, country. Admittedly I'm not Welsh. Only my Mum, sister and five neicephews are Welsh. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:53, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
If it isn't complete bollocks, is it just a left bollock? Or perhaps a right bollock? :-) Sometimes it is important to know what kind of wrong something is. Since this conversation is about Wiki Loves Earth, I assume we are all discussing Wales as it is in 2021, with the internet and digital cameras, not a millennium ago, with tapestries and swords. The Welsh Government's website at Wales.com has this as the #1 entry of their FAQS page. -- Colin°Talk 22:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
Just to give my two cents, since the History of England and the English language are a huge interest of mine, maybe an analogy would help, especially for all us Americans who are a bit removed from all of this. Since the Welsh were the Britonnic natives of Britain, I tend to view them as being in a similar situation as the Native Americans. They were essentially driven from their homelands by invading armies, and pushed onto a land one could equate with a reservation. One can equate it the Native American reservations, which in the US (and even Alaska, although we don't have reservations in the Lower 48 sense) are treated as sovereign states, or even independent countries (to such a degree) in that they have their own laws and tribal court-systems, etc. But, ultimately, they are still a part of the US as an overall nation, and I wouldn't count them separately for a contest like this. Zaereth (talk) 18:45, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
I don't see the point in an analogy that bears absolutely no resemblance to Wales or the Welsh. We are having this conversation inside an encyclopaedia, which presents the reader and other editors with as many actual facts about the History of Wales, etc, as they might wish to learn. There's no need for untruths passed down from one's mum or made up analogies. Wales competes independently in several sporting events, where there is no British or UK team (e.g., rugby, football), but does compete as part of the UK in others (e.g., Olympics). That is a better analogy for the photo competition: there is no one correct answer. I note that WLM has the UK competing as a whole, though there are sub-prizes for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There was a dispute a while back where some users in Wales wanted to compete at international level (possibly in addition to within the UK), but that was decided against. I forget the links. IIRC about 95% of the photos entered for WLM in Wales came from one guy, who was proposing this, so... For WLE, the WMUK is not organising it, I don't know why. Users in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland cannot enter, because their WM body/community hasn't got volunteers to run it. But I guess some users in Wales have volunteered to run it for Wales. That seems an entirely positive thing. If in future WMUK decide to enter the competition, it is I guess up to the organisers to decide how to split or not split things. -- Colin°Talk 07:55, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Yeah. Just, yeah. No. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:30, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Re:The future of Wikipedia A free encyclopedia. --Inspiration provided by Wikipedia's 20 anniversary, an occasion worth celebrating

I am returning this thread since it has been almost 3 months. Wikipedians would like to know if you have changed your mind. Thanks. Life is short so let us live it to the fullest! (talk) 16:18, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

No, I haven't. I view my core role here as being to defend and strengthen the community against rogue powers of any form. This role requires me to do nothing stupid, in order to maintain the moral authority to do something when it is needed. It is a good system that works well to prevent a number of things that might happen otherwise. If a problem were ever to arise that made the good of the community require me to step aside, then I would do so. But in the meantime, I'm here to be a rather boring bit of traditional strength for the community.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:33, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
Hear hear. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:29, 5 May 2021 (UTC)
@Life is short so let us live it to the fullest!: Jimbo is the king of Wikipedia, and that's how it should be kept. StarshipSLS (Talk), (My Contributions) 17:35, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Life is short so let us live it to the fullest!, I echo North8000 from the original thread. I'd trust Jimbo as an absolute dictator over the largely self-appointed WMF. Which, mind you, tried to kick Jimbo off the board because he wasn't doing what they wanted. In a just world we could kick everyone who supported those planned bylaw changes off the board instead. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 22:32, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
Fine by me as long as it isn't made hereditary ;-) Daß Wölf 23:14, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

Former WMF employee Harej feels like shit. Why do I not feel surprised by anything he said?

I'm quoting Harej's message in full. Just read it, it's worth it. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 04:25, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

James was Chair of Wikimania 2012

I met James at the 2018 North America conference in Columbus, and proudly display his banner on my bots' home pages. He's a sort of founding father of our Requested moves bot-assisted process.

Surely the Friendly space policies for in-person and virtual Wikimedia community gatherings also apply to internal Wikimedia Foundation employee interactions? – wbm1058 (talk) 02:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, wbm1058 for the link to the 2012 intro by Harej. Just from that I feel I can support what he says here because the tone and respect with which he did that intro could not have been presented by a phony or vindictive personality, imo. Also, bullies are often people who are status freaks such as one of the Wikimedia leaders awhile back who published a sad and silly episode wherein she almost passed out with adoration when members of "State" flew on the same plane as her. CONTEXTKID (talk) 22:06, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I.e, People who apply lots of respect for people of a high status (e.g."State") not surprisingly often project disrespect to those who they see as being of lower status and of no impact upon their own status improvement path, which appears to me to be the case here. CONTEXTKID (talk) 22:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
After sleeping on it, I think I have a solution. James should, asap, be rehired at WMF at the direction of the Community, the Trustees, and/or Jimbo. After rehiring, James could ( if he is willing) have an ongoing weekly reporting/status update with a Trustee as to how he is being treated at WMF. I think that if feasible someone or some Community group other than Jimbo could pick up the ball on this matter since I imagine Jimbo's time availability may be nil. But I do not know who would be the best choice for getting James rehired? Does anyone have any suggestion as to who outside of WMF can get him rehired there (assuming James is willing to go back there under a dramatically improved atmosphere for him)? CONTEXTKID (talk) 13:42, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Jimbo, are you able to offer assurances that this will be properly investigated (i.e. independently of WMF, as the allegation concern senior executive(s)) and appropriate disciplinary action taken against anyone found at fault? WMF needs to get its own house in order before taking it upon itself to regulate projects through UCoC etc... WJBscribe (talk) 12:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

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