![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 195 | Archive 196 | Archive 197 | Archive 198 | Archive 199 | Archive 200 | → | Archive 205 |
Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current
Arbitration Committee election. The
Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia
arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose
site bans,
topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The
arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to
review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on
the voting page. For the Election committee,
MediaWiki message delivery (
talk)
08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
You could just plop the template right here, you know:
![]() | These guides represent the thoughts of their authors. All individually written voter guides are eligible for inclusion.
|
HTH -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 21:38, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
HTH.-- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 00:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if the developers of wikipedia would consider a turn book page option for articles instead of just the standard one page scrolling downwards. Like this at archive.org I actually find it easier to read and browse with a simple click between pages horizontally without having to keep scrolling downwards, especially for big articles. If we had a "Reader" function on wikipedia which converts articles to a book format, perhaps with two columns on each page I think I'd find it much more reader friendly and usable.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
I apologise if someone has thought of this before me1, but as you were directly responsible for the very first Wikimedia meetup and are at least somewhat responsible for Wikipedia (and hence there being editors of Wikipedia who can meet each other) I thought it appropriate to extend to you a formal invitation to the 100th London Wikimeet on Sunday 13 December (full details at the link).
Everyone is welcome, so if you are reading this, want to come along and are or will be in or near London on that date then it will be great to see you. If you know of someone who may be interested but who isn't reading this, please spread the word. There is also a Facebook event (not set-up by me) for those who like that sort of thing (the meta page is the primary location for expressions of interest though). Signing up in advance is optional - feel free to pop along.
The London meetups now happen regularly on the second Sunday of the month, so if you can't make this one you'll be more than welcome at subsequent events. There are also events in other parts of the UK and the wider world listed at m:Meetup if London isn't near where you are.
1: the archive search suggests they haven't, but I find that difficult to believe. Thryduulf ( talk) 15:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Talking about anniversaries, can anybody count the nearest total round number for ALL meetups, not just London or Hong Kong, but plus Andorra as well? Staszek Lem ( talk) 02:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm posting here to raise awareness amongst English and other Wikipedians about the plight of Wikipedian Bassel Khartabil. Amnesty International is reporting that he may be facing a death sentence. I'm preparing an editorial about this, but that seems woefully inadequate to help him. Arguably, there is nothing we can do to help him, but I hope we can try. I appeal to you for ideas.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 18:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Please be aware that we have now started a straw poll trying to establish whether the global Wikimedia community supports running a banner campaign on Wikipedia to raise awareness of Bassel's situation and asking its readers to take action. Please also see Free Bassell and Free Bassel/Banner for details on the proposed action. Everyone is welcome to participate; please kindly do so. odder ( talk) 21:57, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
There appear to several images of Khartabil available from Wikimedia Commons. Some of those appear to be rephotographed family pictures showing Khartabil as an infant. Many similar images from the same uploader ( User:Jon Phillips) were deleted in March. Perhaps someone should delete these images before the press decides to use them. Protopone primigena ( talk) 02:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, I thought I'd make you aware of an RfD for Donal Wales ( link). No one calls you that, right? -- BDD ( talk) 17:13, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
The strong positive trend in the count of Very Active Editors (100+ edits/month) at English Wikipedia has continued in October. Per THE OFFICIAL STATS, there were 3,374 Very Active Editors at En-WP in October, a massive 13.2% increase over the previous year figure. In fact the October 2015 count topped the figures for the same month in 2011, 2012, and 2013, as well — more evidence that Sue Gardner's "Oh, Shit..." graph intimating mortal decline has been well stabilized.
Overall for all language Wikipedias (excluding Commons), the count of Very Active Editors is up by nearly 950 people (almost 10.5%). The 7 biggest Wikipedias (English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and Italian) all showed growth over previous year figures, with French Wikipedia setting an all time record for October and Spanish WP coming within one person of its all time October mark.
The COUNT OF NEW ARTICLES PER DAY at En-WP continues to slide, as might be expected with a maturing project going over the 5 million mark, sitting at 801 per day. This figure was approached by the booming French WP, which was cranking out new material at the rate of 699 articles a day — far bigger than that encyclopedia's previous October peak, back in 2006. This may be skewed by a project mass creating stubs or some such, we've seen such spikes on some projects like the Vietnamese WP before. Hard to say without further investigation, but on the face of it it looks like Fr-WP is booming.
Reports of WP's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Carrite ( talk) 03:02, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Best wishes for the holiday!
Smallbones( smalltalk) 14:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Happy Thanksgiving, Jimbo and all. If you have a few minutes, you might enjoy this video that was recently published on Youtube. -- Pine ✉ 19:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
I was wondering if this was your idea? If not, I am wondering what your views on it are. I'm not being judgmental Jimbo, I'm just curious. — Ched : ? 03:35, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
This story looks worthy of a discussion. I have long advocated that we should deal much more quickly and much more severely with COI editors. The usual objections (from some quarters - I think most people agree with me) have to do with it being hard to detect them, but in this case, the COI was called out, warnings were issued, and nothing was done. Now the editor has been called out by the media embarrassing him (he deserves it), his employer (who may not), and Wikipedia.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 17:08, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Some logical thoughts to consider so we don't look like a kangaroo court or lynching:
So go through those steps and don't jump immediately to blocks and topic bans unless necessary. We do need topic experts, and even a topic ban should be limited to the article itself, not the talk page, unless dealing with a really hardcore a##hole. Then just indef them. So carry on and good luck with this. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 05:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Jimmy, having just posted a case summary draft of the Alva cases on ANI, I have one recommendation re COI: No Conflict of Interest Edits. All the drama, the anger, the wasted time, the misdirected energy. What for? If I truly believed that I'd earned myself a Wikipedia entry, I could just search a bit for 3-5 credible editors who're into what I'm into, ping them into a draft on my user space, and see if they'd discuss/edit/copy/paste. Done, and it's all legit. Why we gotta go and make things so complicated? You play COI, you're exiled to MySpace. - Thanks; LeoRomero ( talk) 09:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Yawl: I had a cozy and educational conversation at COI Talk yesterday, with two highly-regarded COI experts ( Sarah & Risker). My conclusion (as of this moment) is this: COI is just one of the many consequences of more a fundamental problem at Wikipedia: We have lost our way. The counter-culture movement that was Wikipedia has been corrupted and co-opted by the cultures of our extra-wiki lives. It has become a bureaucracy, governed by rules. Worse, too many of these rules are vague, confusing - even contradictory - and therefore subject to endless interpretation and debate - much of it angry and hateful, and directed at the very volunteers who have invested in Wikipedia the most.
A small problem with rules: With each rule, another rule to break. Another heated debate. Another hundred pages of dissonant documents to read, interpret, and confuse. Another group of interpreters. Another group of cops. Some of them bad cops, who push away the very people we need to make us better.
A bigger problem: Our obsession with rules is distracting us, as a Community, from doing our job. Wikimedia Foundation describes that job well enough. Our "Mission" (another tell that we've been co-opted) is explicit. It's jargony - dominated by buzzwords (another co-optation tell) like "empower", "engage", "disseminate", and "effectively", so I'll try to put it plainly: Our job is to bring together people, from all over the world, to work as one, toward a common goal: to help each other gather knowledge, and keep it free, for everyone. I'll narrow that down further to just two words: Knowledge and Community.
COI -- like all those other failed and failing attempts to impose rule-based ethics on our anarchic community -- is preventing us from doing our job.
Radical solutions:
I have shortened my recommendations below from two to one: Get rid of COI.
LeoRomero ( talk) 18:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
I proposed a major revision of WP:COI at COI Talk, here. LeoRomero ( talk) 02:42, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
@ KirkCliff2: Two warnings, and if the editor continues with the COI, it's a topic ban at the minimum. If coupled with other severe violations, which would show a complete disregard for Wikipedia policies, a total block outright ... the lack of instruction on how to best go about handling COI matters might be the reason for this confusion. A good place start is by going to the COI talk page, and seeking answers on banning policy as it relates to such matters there.
Discuss:
@ BullRangifer: Checklist: Did User declare COI? Did s/he [ BR used "he" bec he was referring to Edward; s/he and h/er are Leo's gender-neutral revisions, pronounced "she" and "her", since these recommendations are meant to apply to all ] use the talk page? If edits were questioned, did s/he edit war over them? If so, a short block might be in order if s/he persists. If h/er editing was questioned, was s/he willing to stick to using the talk page and cease editing the article(s) in question? Are we assuming good faith? ... COI does not absolutely forbid editing, but rather it's an admonishment to be careful ... A topic ban might be wise, if such infractions are clearly proven to be more than just differences of opinions.
Discuss:
@ Nagle: On COI problems in general, I've written some notes at Wikipedia:Hints on dealing with conflict of interest problems, based on experience at WP:COIN. This is not policy, just condensed experience from seeing similar problems over time.
Discuss:
@ LeoRomero: The best way to get rid of the COI problem is to get rid of COI. No Conflict of Interest Edits. You get one warning. Ignore that, and you're done. Proposed major revision of WP:COI at COI Talk, here.
Discuss:
LeoRomero ( talk) 19:01, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Mister Jimbo, they called me a Troll on Dutch wikipedia. They blocked me twice, indefinitely , ok, the first time they were right because I had over 15 sockpuppets, and the other blocks were only a for shorter time. A TROLL ,THEY CALLED ME! DO YO HERE ME? A TROLL!!! What kind of organisation is this? They also blocked me on Wikimedia_Be because I called someone a Monkey. Only once. And on Dutch Wikimedia because I asked a few questions. YOU ARE A TROLL!!!! Graaf Statler ( talk) 09:59, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Noticed 'The Game about Wikipedia', complete with familiar font and logo, has been released. The makers state 'This game is not sold or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation' but it certainly looks the part. AnonNep ( talk) 21:54, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Greetings Mr. Wales: Check out the new
Liquor portal I created today. Pitch in to improve it if you'd like. Cheers,
North America
1000
12:51, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
In cases other than "slavish copying" (per the Corel case exception), ought museums be allowed to use their own copyrighted photographs to get monies for operations through royalties? See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-11-25/Blog where I suggest the issue is clearly made out. Thanks to any who opine. Collect ( talk) 01:27, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, I saw your post at ANI and thought that I'd let you know that a very similar proposal is in the works at meta with good support. I have
commented there concerning your request. It is very encouraging that so many good ideas have been brought forward for the
2015 Community Wishlist Survey. Well worth looking over if you happen to have the time. Cheers,
—
Berean Hunter
(talk)
13:01, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Mr. Wales, I've been a fan of wikipedia for a long timenad recently decided to start editing Wikipedia! Felt i need to come by and pay my respects to the legend (you)! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Winterysteppe ( talk • contribs) 03:34, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Forbes links to Lundquist which links to this study on Wikipedia articles of 100 European companies. I've only skimmed this study (maybe I should say it's a "PR study", but it looks like a cut above the usual). I'm interested in just about any research on company articles in Wikipedia and plan to contact Lundquist, e.g. to get their studies from the 7 previous years.
In the meantime, if anybody has comments to send along to them, ideas that you think should be adressed, etc. please place those here and I'll send them along. Eventually, I plan to re-do their study from a Wikipedian's POV.
BTW, with a quick skimming, I don't see the usual glaring mistakes in the report. The worst that I can see is that there is a small bit of confusion of WikiMedia Italia with the WMF. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:57, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
For anyone who wishes there is an RFC for one of the paragraphs in the Muhammad article. I am currently working on the article to bring it to FA status so if anyone wants to participate here is the link: /info/en/?search=Talk:Muhammad#rfc_06D1994 Tivanir2 ( talk) 23:08, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Jimmy, since you reverted another discussion as "trolling", how about a simple question that any open and transparent organization should not cower from? The Wikimedia Foundation at one time listed a contribution from the Qatar Foundation in the amount of "$100,000 to $999,999". While you may not know the answer off the top of your head, could you please find out exactly how much money the Wikimedia Foundation has accepted to date from the Qatar Foundation, then share it with us here? - Checking the checkers ( talk) 12:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Why does it matter? What does it have to do with building an encyclopedia? Who we get donations from shouldn't matter. The important thing is that we stay running and be more open to how to improve the site for the better to promote content in the long term.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:09, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
The more money Qatar Foundation donates to Wikimedia, the less money they have left to donate to Hamas (which they allegedly do, I don't know if it's true). So it's a good thing when Wikimedia continues to accept donations from Qatar Foundation. -- Distelfinck ( talk) 12:53, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Dr. Blofeld, I don't know anything about the Qatar Foundation, but I find this chilling: "Why does it matter? What does it have to do with building an encyclopedia? Who we get donations from shouldn't matter. The important thing is that we stay running and be more open to how to improve the site for the better to promote content in the long term."
It matters because 1) if an organization receives funding from a suspicious group (not saying that about QF, but I think Checkers is), that suspicion transfers to the recipient (what if we received funds from organized crime?), 2) an organization whose very function is to provide neutral, reliable information can suffer from perceptions of non-neutrality if the organization receives funds from a group with an agenda (such as the NRA - again, not referring to QF), and 3) "We are getting enough funding to stay afloat, and that's all you need to know" (an over-simplification of the above quote, but the logic applies) is in itself a flagrant evasion of the truth, an excuse for concealing the truth, in an organization that has nothing else to offer but the truth. Our only product is truth. If the request comes from a troll, remember the troll is not the only one reading the reply. I think the two appropriate responses are "don't feed the trolls" or a truthful answer. I understand there is a long history here, and if that's the case, I think you took the bait.
This is my first visit to this page Hi everybody! Hi Jimbo! Dcs002 ( talk) 02:30, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimmy - In response to your call for discussion, and since my vision (among other things) is unstable, I went (1) farsighted (read the Wikipedia Community's WP:COI rule (and many of its very many related rules), and (2) nearsighted (read - and tried to calm and clarify - the typically-warlike§ discussion in one of our many Arbitration coliseums (colisea?) on the specific case you cited, involving Edwardpatrickalva. My notes below. - Thanks; LeoRomero ( talk) 08:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Upon seeing your note, I started a discussion on the COI Talk page. After trying to fix just the main page of our COI rulebook (esp its useless "How to handle" section), and reading pages and pages of COI fix-it proposals, I propose this: instead of trying to amend this rulebook, burn it and start over. Show and tell: scroll through the Community's current COI rule (N!: this 6+page guideline is just the main page of the rulebook, and already it includes ~41 links and ~16 shortcuts ( irony) to other rules). Now compare that to my slightly shorter proposed COI page, Draft#2, which simply defines the "conflict" in terms of "Interests of Wikipedia Editor" vs "Interests of Wikipedia's Readers", tells you to put their interests over your own, and also what will happen if you don't. That's my burnt version of the law of the land. We can reweed it with more rules, if we must. No offense to weed.
Applying a " game-theoretic" approach (and Wikipedia is the best game ever!) to forming social contracts within the Wikipedia Community, I propose that for every rule that we already have, and for each rule that we are probably drafting right now, we oughta first ask (1) What problem are we trying to solve?, then (2) What social contract (rule) would solve that specific problem in the simplest, most elegant way possible? All the while keeping at the front of our face the people who matter most: Wikipedia's readers.
Hope to see your own views at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest. If our COI rules and procedures weren't such a mess, then we wouldn't even have to deal with a mess like this one:
I should immediately disclose that I have no personal interest in this case, the participants, or the topics involved. Since this case has also been taken up by "The Left", on the one hand, and "The Right", on the other hand, I should probably also declare that I am ambidextrous. I am interested in conflict resolution, and also confess that I wondered what it would be like for a powerless inmate to run around The Asylum with sharp razors.
Summary of facts I prepared for the group, as of 11/30:
Arbitrator Drmies closed the case yesterday with this note: "The COI is not in question, and plausible evidence is provided for the involved editor having played by the rules ... A COI itself is not a reason to block or ban ... this discussion provides no consensus to block or ban the editor, and the editor's defenders present very strong evidence that the system worked, so to speak, pace a news article."
Oh snap! (#thingsmykidsmademepromisetoneversayagain) The object of the Administrator's Latin was the same story that prompted your call for a discussion, and which prompted KirkCliff2 to bring Edward to Arbitration. Subsequent coverage mainly riffed on this Examiner theme: "I have long advocated that we should deal much more quickly and much more severely with [Conflict of Interest] editors," Wales wrote after citing the Examiner. "The usual objections (from some quarters — I think most people agree with me) have to do with it being hard to detect them, but in this case, the COI was called out, warnings were issued, and nothing was done. Now the editor has been called out by the media embarrassing him (he deserves it), his employer (who may not), and Wikipedia."
Problem is, after all this time, no one presented the Wikipedia Community with any evidence to support their charges against Edward. There was no case. You and "The Medias" may have found him guilty. The Wikipedia Community has not.
The enemy is not one rogue editor, or any number of them, Jimmy. The enemy is us.
Was it you who started this whole Wikipedia is War metaphor thing? All the violence and deaths (I assume there is a body count) that our Community continues to suffer in The Never-ending Edit Wars and all our other wars? I blame them all ( overgeneralization) on this warped way of wrapping Wikipedia. We celebrate Edit Wars. We honor Veterans of Edit Wars. We even hand out medals for valor in Edit Wars (see image on right). I promised my kids never to use these Wiktionary entries ever again, but, as a vegan and father of Veterans OMG LOL WT-?!
We keep whining about Gender bias on Wikipedia. Maybe it's this simple: girls don't like to play with boys because we're so violent. Also, stinky.
Cantcha just say Wikipedia is an Asylum or Wikipedia is a Playground or Wikipedia is Play or Wikipedia is Serious Play instead? [ For expert information on the benefits of play and the benefits of war, please see this Wikipedia entry
Benefits of Play, and Wikipedia Search results
for "benefits of play"
for "benefits of war" and
for "war with benefits" For the benefits of insanity to Wikipedia,
read the bio of the First Inmate of the Asylum.
LeoRomero (
talk)
08:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
My $0.02 - I agree with the edit warrior metaphor, and the idea of a badge of honor for being an edit warrior seriously bothers me. I suspect it usually means someone has done meritorious service to END an edit war, but it looks a though they have simply fought like hell, which s not what I like. We should be using dispute resolution strategies instead of fighting more. An alternative is to create a peace prize instead of an edit warrior prize. To me, being an edit warrior is not something to be proud of, but bringing peace, compromise, and a sense of cooperative investment in our encyclopedia definitely deserves recognition. Dcs002 ( talk) 19:01, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo,
I just wanted to make sure you were aware of this situation. On IRC, admin Anna Frodesiak and a few other editors have said that they cannot access any WMF sites. According to this Reddit post, China has blocked Wikipedia completely. It looks like they are completely censoring all of Wikipedia now. -- Stabila711 ( talk) 23:03, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
I'm sure they do since so many corporations fund research these days. I was curious if there has ever been a breakdown in studying exactly how many dollars are donated by such companies and, perhaps, who donates the most? I know that when I have donated to Wikipedia I put my name on there and I'm sure you all keep that sort of thing on file, so I was just curious if someone has ever sorted through those donations to compile lists of groups like that? LesVegas ( talk) 15:18, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
Sorry I tried to find a better place where to report this but didn't. Pls fwd to so taking care: The page "lol.lynx.net.ru" hosts a full copy of commons.wikimedia.org without proper attribution or licensing, even scamming the links looking like our original site: [http:/lol.lynx.net.ru/index.php?q=uggcf%3A%2F%2Fpbzzbaf.jvxvzrqvn.bet%2Fjvxv%2FPbzzbaf%3AQryrgvba_erdhrfgf%2F2015%2F11%2F15] + [2] for example... they are even faking the login page: http:/lol.lynx.net.ru/index.php?q=uggcf%3A%2F%2Fpbzzbaf.jvxvzrqvn.bet%2Fj%2Fvaqrk.cuc%3Fgvgyr%3DFcrpvny%3AHfreYbtva%26nzc%3Bergheagb%3DZnva%2BCntr ! -- .js ((( ☎))) 03:43, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
You may recall that about a year ago I brought up a discussion about WP's fundraising campaigns here after Andrew Orlowski wrote an article about them in the Register. Now the Washington Post's Caitlin Dewey (who has written about WP before [4]) has taken a similar approach, asking, "Wikipedia has a ton of money. So why is it begging you to donate yours?" [5] She states that although people who read the ads that are apparently up now (at least to non registered users) you "may well assume that the world’s seventh-largest site risks going dark if you don’t donate," but "In reality, that couldn’t be further from the case." Do you think it's misleading to run these ads when Wikipedia really is, in the words of Andrew Lih, "making more money than ever before and is at no risk of going away"? I think it's important to listen to what critics of our site are saying. Everymorning (talk) 03:34, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
NDTV published this article about Wikipedia, but all the people in the comments section came out in support of Wikipedia. -- The Avengers 14:54, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo. As you certainly know, you made a statement in 2003 which said that becoming an admin was "not a big deal." This statement has since been widely quoted by those who believe in less strict standards at RfA. However, others contend that the statement is outdated and is no longer relevant today, because now Wikipedia is much more popular than it was at the time. In light of this, I wanted to know if you still stand by that statement, and if you have the time to explain, why you still do. Thank you. Biblio worm 22:05, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
As I've opined before, at this point adminship is a medium-sized deal. Obtaining it, or losing it, should be neither too easy nor too hard. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 17:37, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Jimmy on this. Admin-for-life appointments are not the best way to go. Sole Flounder ( talk) 20:00, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
There are a number of unhelpful memes associated with adminship, that taken together seriously risk the project.
--Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:08, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
... with Russia in mind :-) It is well known and much quoted your opinion on the matter, see for instance Russian Wikinews " ru:Джимми Уэйлс: Подчиняться давлению слабых и трусливых политиков — это не путь Википедии" (= "Catering to the demands of weak and cowardly politicians — is not the Wikipedia way"). It is said back in 2013 and I quote again:
For me, being blocked is always preferable to collaborating with censors. It’s important to understand that the fear of site-wide blocking is based in concerns that some (smaller, presumably) ISPs may lack sufficient technical resources to block individual pages, forcing them to block the entire site to comply with the law. Believe me, if those ISPs block the entire site, while other ISPs only block specific pages, the ones which block all of Wikipedia will lose customers very very quickly. We are not weak, we are very powerful. Catering to the demands of weak and cowardly politicians — the kind who fear the spread of knowledge — is not the Wikipedia way.
Nevertheless I see two significant changes ever since:
The last change especially makes the rationale of your comment of 2013 rather obsolete, as properly pointed (not by me) at the talk page of the list of pages, included to the Common register of prohibited websites.
So I was wondering if you have a comment, correction or a more strong word formulation to your position of 2013 reflecting the changes listed above?
Respectfully, -- Neolexx ( talk) 11:20, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Great, thanks for asking. The first sentence still stands, as ever: "For me, being blocked is always preferable to collaborating with censors. " And the last two sentences still stand, "We are not weak, we are very powerful. Catering to the demands of weak and cowardly politicians — the kind who fear the spread of knowledge — is not the Wikipedia way." As this situation slowly unfolds, I am so far very proud of the Russian Wikipedia community and their agreement with this. (They banned a rogue admin who is pro-censorship and visited the regulator and apparently "agreed" to censorship demands.)
One of the techniques that the Russian Wikipedians have used to deal with the situation is one that I approve of heartily. For pages that the government complains about, they focus a lot of attention on the articles to improve them, to make them more scholarly, and more in line with what an ideal Wikipedia entry should be. This has resulted in the removal of demands which could have potentially led to blocking. However, press rhetoric is ramping up, and the future is difficult to predict. But Wikipedia is popular in Russia, Wikipedia is useful in Russia, and although the government there isn't the most responsive to popular demands, they really have no good reason to do something really unpopular over something so trivial in the grand scheme of things.
We can usefully compare the situation in Russia to the situation in China. In China, the sensitive topics are mainly those which might appear to some to directly threaten the authority of the Chinese government. In Russia, the sensitive topics to date have mainly been about drug use and homosexuality. One of the ones currently under dispute is Cocaine/ ru:Cocaine. The Russian government's clear intention in passing a law regulating speech about illegal recreational drugs was to target those who are advocating the use of them - pro-drug 'propaganda'. It is not likely that they had any real intention of banning a serious encyclopedia article on the topic. This page, as one example, is on the Russian government's own website.
In the long run I am hopeful that we can resolve this issue, possibly by working to see a clarification in the law so that it clearly only targets "advocacy".
I should hasten to add: I do not support legal bans on the advocacy of drug use. My point is merely that I think that what is happening to us in Russia is an unfortunate side-effect.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 20:05, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi, Jimbo! The situation around the Russian Wikipedia continues to evolve, and there are a large number of problems. I would like to discuss this issue with you.
After a brief blocking of Wikipedia in Russia in August 2015, it became clear to me that there are big challenges. We create a free and open encyclopedia for humanity. We're arguing about opinions concerning sports, science, art, even politics. But there are also important social topics, and here comes the problem: how do we here to strike a balance of freedom of information in discussing "sensitive topics"? There are not plenty of these topics. Even there is a little of them, I can say. But objectively they exist. One of these topics is governed by our rule WP:ALIVE: "any Wikipedia page must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality, and avoidance of original research", "the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment". Our rules balance between freedom and responsibility.
Obviously we cannot conceal any information; we should discuss these "problematic" topics. You're absolutely right, when you tell us about freedom of information, freedom is our highest value. But we should write on some topics responsibly, with careful approach to the selection of information (I mean WP:RS – Identifying reliable sources), paying some attention to the form and style of presenting information. For example, as described in the rule WP:ALIVE about biographies of living persons. This will allow maintaining a balance of openness and responsibility. And make the encyclopedia better, more “high-quality”. I'm sure of it. It is very important for me.
I want to say a little about interaction with Russian government. The government does not want conflict, and for many years only invites us to the discussion: "Roskomnadzor is actually interested in cooperation with the resource and expects to solve all the problems without resorting to blocking." [6]
One of the participants wrote: "If the Russian Wikipedia will be blocked due to badly written articles about drugs, it will be bad, very bad. It is fine if we were blocked for politics (political convictions), we should be proud of it. But poor articles on drugs are a shame". And I fully agree with him. If the Russian Wikipedia will be blocked, both authors and readers will suffer. Even if will be introduced methods to bypass the blocking, the development of the Russian WP will greatly slow down. In addition it will affect the reputation: there is not any good in headlines in media "Wikipedia is blocked for drugs".
Recently, the situation worsened again. I had a feeling that some of the participants even wish for blocking Wikipedia in Russia. Some of them provoked the authorities; they made very categorical statements in the media, and sometimes even distorted some facts it heighten this confrontation. The others prevented to make any amendments or insisted on amendments that violate our rules. There were not actual steps to resolve the situation. I even wrote about it on the forum of our project Social Responsibility: [7].
And after this post by Ghuron I decided to contact the authorities to understand their attitude and motives:
And I have little faith in the dialogue between the community and officials of Roscomnadzor or Federal Drug Control Service of Russia (I personally, would not resist in a civilised framework). Overall, if the regulator is interested in normalizing relations, they could be asked to get examples: how can you write about drugs from their point of view. That means what level of detail they believe it's appropriate in a conversation about the synthesis, consumption, etc. Not the fact that will help, but at least we can speculate about the boundaries. -- Ghuron 09:07, November 24, 2015 (UTC) [8]
So I had a meeting with representatives of the Roscomnadzor, and the experts have indicated their willingness to a constructive dialogue. I managed to figure out how examination is conducted and how they make a decision on recognition of information is prohibited, and was surprised: their rules are very similar to the rules of the Wikipedia. For example, they say, in the preamble of article about the drug should be written, that it is a drug; and that part of article, which describes addiction and dependence (psychological and/or physiological) is important, etc.
As you can see, these requirements are not contrary to the rules of Wikipedia. They will make the article better, fuller, more scientific (you told us, that these definitions are the best attributes of the "ideal" encyclopedia. It is a good idea and actually we'll look crazy if we abandon it just because of the fact that it was expressed by the representatives of the state. Some participants of the Russian WP reacted well to the proposals. Others even wrote that "if it is from the state, we appeal specifically to do the opposite." To do specifically the contrary is, as we say in Russia, "to freeze my ears to spite my grandmother ". This leads to the deterioration of the content of the encyclopedia.
Also we have an unresolved problem of articles-instructions. For example, here: [9]
This article has the statement that violates the rule about unacceptability of instructions in encyclopedic articles. In addition, these data may be not sufficiently objective and reliable (especially in terms of efficiency and safety of the medicine).
It's for medicine.
For drugs rules are the same or not? If not, this is real hypocrisy. We care about our users, we write carefully about the medication, we tell them, that they should take a professional consultation, visit a doctor. Then why some representatives of Wikipedia called the article about drugs (narcotics) and especially information about methods of application and doses "important (or even the most important) encyclopedic information"? And the section about the consequences they call "not so important". It is necessary to solve this problem. But obviously, direct confrontation and the "language of ultimatums" are unlikely to lead to constructive.
Many people asked me why I reduced my activity in Wikipedia. The reason for this is the condition of the Russian Wikipedia. Part of this process you can see on the example of the claim w:ru:АК:967 (Arbitration Committee) and on TP of this. Some participants violate the principle of civility, I constantly see different curses, political slogans – and all these causes are completely unacceptable, they violate and destroy the very essence of Wikipedia. Our ethics is the greatest basis of Wikipedia that makes Wikipedia truly free and democratic. When I saw this failure to comply with main principles, at first I was surprised, and then offended: I couldn't be more an administrator in the community that violates the principles of its existence.
My negotiations with the authorities were understood and accepted by one part of the community. The other part had not understood and not accepted them. I was accused that I didn't make and attributed what was not said. But I still hope to help: Russian Wikipedia actually stands on the verge of blocking, as long as the blocking is only postponed. Now these articles are on re-examination, and we have very little time to solve this problem; and representatives of Wikimedia in Russia do not make any steps to prevent possible blocking. Some participants rejected any discussion. These words are not the words of the supporters of freedom of information. I want Wikipedia to be continued and developed. And I want it to be available in Russia. The issues are complicated. But I'm sure we need to take constructive steps to resolve the situation. Samal ( talk) 23:40, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo (and watchers),
Just a note to say the ArbCom election have now concluded, and results have been posted. 9 Arbs have been elected in total, 8 on two-year terms and 1 on a one-year term. You can review the results in full here.
For the Election Commission, Mdann52 ( talk) 19:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Congrats to all. The voters have spoken and we've got a good group. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:02, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Actually, I'd say that the election of three women to arbcom, along with others who refuse to accept harassment of women - those that Carrite calls "safe spacers" - is an indication that there has been some gender bias in arbcom decisions (as perceived by the voters) and the voters said "we're not going to put up with this any longer." Smallbones( smalltalk) 19:16, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Seems like Kevin Gorman's Gender Gap mailing list voting bloc plan [10] worked pretty well, except for himself, but atleast all the female candidates got in. Perhaps they should re-do the GamerGate ArbCom case, now with an orthodox feminist approach. -- Pudeo ' 03:26, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
What you all may have missed, is that many of us were not aware of the gender of the candidates when we voted. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:17, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo and others who read this page,
I know that you are interested in the mobile phone marketplace. I was a bit surprised to learn that in the past two years, several billion sophisticated Android and iOS smartphones have been sold worldwide, with average screen sizes significantly larger on average than a few years ago. These phones are perfectly capable of being used for editing Wikipedia.
I have been editing Wikipedia heavily by smartphone since 2011, and have written a personal essay, User:Cullen328/Smartphone editing. I would appreciate feedback, either here, or on the essay's talk page. Thank you. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:09, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Why are you personally attacking me? All I did was add on to a page about Edward Larabee Barnes. Seriously.
AMC — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acronson ( talk • contribs) 01:37, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
That's what I thought. Thanks for clearing that up. The troll should probably be banned in all honesty. I didn't do anything wrong whatsoever.
AMC
Acronson ( talk) 01:41, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello! I just felt I had to go to the top with this one, so to speak. Someone has written a WP:TVINTL section, and this has suddenly been interpreted as all international broadcast of English speaking TV-series must not be mentioned. (Never mind that most countries uses underlining, not language dubbing..) But is it really of more encyclopedic value, if for instance a British TV-series has been aired in New Zeeland than in the Netherlands ? And what about our global point of view policy ? Thanks ! Boeing720 ( talk) 05:26, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo,
As you may be aware, a while back we had an incident wherein a few admin accounts were compromised due to weak passwords and/or using passwords that they used on other websites that were subject to security breaches. This resulted in the Wikipedia:Security review RfC, which came to a conclusion that certain user groups (admins, crats, etc) should be required to have strong passwords. There was also a sort of advisory vote that global policy be changed to make the same or similar requirements be binding on the steward and founder user groups. The new policy on this is still a draft, but you can see it at Wikipedia:Password strength requirements
So, my point is, as you are the sole member of the "Founder" group, and presumabaly always will be, instead of bundling you up with the stewards you could just indicate your voluntary comliance with these new requirements, which you are probably (hopefully) already meeting or exceeding. When the global discussion is had at meta, it would be a simple matter to link to whatever statement you may care to make here on the subject. Beeblebrox ( talk) 20:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo, you know I've admired you a long time. I even donated money to Wikipedia one time, and you sent me an email the other day thanking me for it (and asking for more--but on my salary that's not going to be possible this year). Plus, I wrote you some articles and all that, and I haven't TOTALLY embarrassed our beautiful project. So, having said all that, do you think I can come with you to the Cotton Bowl? I KNOW you're going; I am sure someone gave you an envelope full of tickets. And can Tide rolls, an admin of impeccable behavior, come too? Please take me if only to stick it to Auburn fans like Volunteer Marek. Roll Tide! Drmies ( talk) 01:22, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
"impeccable", Professor? I'll settle for "adequate". RMFT Tide rolls 07:41, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimmy, greetings from India. At the outset, congratulations on the 15th birthday of Wikipedia and a fantastic job done by you in creating Wikipedia. Jimmy, I am a huge fan of your work, of Wikipedia and am an active user myself. I started a small discussion here about the 15th anniversary and am taking the liberty of bringing the discussion to your notice. See if that makes sense. Wish you a Merry Christmas, a very Happy new year and all the best for your future endeavors. Cheers, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:05, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
It has been widely reported recently (e.g. here) that Justise Winslow has donated to Wikipedia because he "attributed a large part of his academic successes in both high school and his lone year at Duke to the online encyclopedia". This is good news for us, so I was wondering what you thought about Wikipedia hiring celebrity spokespeople to do this sort of thing (ie donate to us and encourage people to do the same), since it doesn't happen very often that a famous person donates to us. We'd still be relying on donations (and we already ask people to donate when they see this website) so I don't think this would qualify as advertising. Everymorning (talk) 19:17, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo Wales: Enjoy the holiday season and upcoming winter solstice, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, North America 1000 18:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
![]() |
|
Thanks for all your help on the 'pedia!
|
Everyone appears to agree that my question has been addressed more than adequately and that further conversation serves no useful purpose Figureofnine ( talk • contribs) 17:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
A related question: Do we disregard only the “foes” part of the COI guideline "You should not create or edit articles about yourself, your family, friends or foes”? If the guideline applies to Alison, then it must apply equally to Coretheapple, who makes no bones about regarding WO as a foe, yet fights tooth and nail against being held accountable to the guideline, and refuses to share a Connected Contributor template, which he wishes to keep in situ at the WO article talk page, with Alison. Note: There is a Connected Contributor template /COI discussion at Talk:Wikipediocracy, including a common-sense solution in the form of a notice suggested by N Ent, which Coretheapple rejected as a substitute for the Connected Contributor template; and Smallbones opened another discussion on the same topic at COIN. Writegeist ( talk) 22:17, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Tell you what, I'm going to make a proposal. Alison and Coretheapple, leave each other alone and leave the article alone as well. Clearly, there are issues being caused, so remove yourselves from it and hopefully the drama will die down. This sort of thread is what is making Wikipedia look more and more silly to those who browse past the articles.....
Mdann52 (
talk)
08:34, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Ignoring the personalities (please), it is pretty simple, really. COI disclosure belongs on an article talk page, where the COI editor has participated, this is true even if they are an admin. Disclosing COI is what we want on our talk pages. -- Alanscottwalker ( talk) 17:45, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
@ Alanscottwalker: Since you are already participating in the COIN discussion on this article you may already have a sense of the kind of unreasonableness prevalent among the editors there . As you know, one can tell COI editors about the guideline until one is blue in the face and it doesn't matter if they are intent on disregarding it. In this instance, the majority of the editors are so wrapped up in the subject that they have declared their COI. Their position is that their COI should not be disclosed, however, they're against that. Figureofnine ( talk • contribs) 13:21, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
I am tempted to request this article be placed under discretionary sanctions. There's no way neutral editors are going to contribute to this war zone. Gamaliel ( talk) 20:37, 11 December 2015 (UTC) Well have at it. Give in to your temptation. There seems to be quite an anti-Wikipediocracy animus going on, although from what I can see the article seems OK and in fact would benefit embiggening from the multiple s0urces covering the subject. pablo 21:01, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
I am puzzled as to why this is on Jimbo's talk page. Does he have special powers? What is he supposed to do about it? Just open an RfC or something. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:22, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Likewise, I'm puzzled about this being on Wales's talk. But while it is: @ Figureofnine: Somewhere above you said of the Coretheapple COI issue that it had been “thoroughly hashed out at COIN”, where it had been "determined" that “Core does not go in the template”. [12]. I’m sorry, I missed that determination at COIN, and I can’t find it though I’ve tried. Would you be so kind as to supply the diff, to show the rationale for the determination? You also said his “placement there [i.e. on the template] was removed by administrator action”—as indeed it was. IMO the action was erroneous, as at that time the administrator clearly didn’t grasp why Coretheapple should be included, and apparently thought it depended on whether or not he had self-declared a COI. The administrator’s erroneous action was soon reverted by a non-admin, thereby restoring Coretheapple to the template. After that, AFAICT no action was taken to remove him again by the administrator who'd been reverted, or by any other administrator. Without that context—and if my understanding of it is correct—the inference to be drawn from your narrative of events might be rather misleading, which of course I doubt was your intention. Apologies in advance if I’ve misread the COIN discussion or the WO article history. It’s easy to miss even quite significant stuff now and then, as surely you'll agree. Writegeist ( talk) 09:06, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
A questionI have a Facebook account - should I avoid editing articles on Facebook, Mark Cheeseburger etc?
To cut through the B/S, this is like the problem over at the 'Landmark' related articles, where someone who states they have paid for 'Landmark' courses (& thinks that training is tripple rainbow, dude) patrols the article. Same old. Same old. A Conflict of Interest is a Conflict of Interest. No matter how you wikilawyer it. (I keep away from certain articles for that very reason.) AnonNep ( talk) 14:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I think the take-home message from all of this is simple; "Never disclose a potential conflict of interests on Wikipedia. Doing so will result in your being hounded to the ends of hell and back, including four separate major fora, and will likely have you walking around with a bell tied around your neck to warn the populace of your shame and sin." In short, how is it possible to allow individuals to disclose any COI in a manner that will ensure it will not be used as a stick to beat them? It's perfectly okay within policy to edit pages in which you have a declared COI, but WP:NPOV must be paramount. So ... carrot or stick? The reason I'm not wading into the muck here is because it's largely pointless, IMO, is ostensibly a witch hunt and a forum-shopping exercise. Also, my other conflict of interests is sucking away all my free time. Fortunately, I get paid for that, so it gets priority :) - Alison ❤ 19:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Evidently that personal attack bears repeating a multiple of times, from multiple tag-teaming editors. I am coming to see that given Jimbo's failure to offer an opinion as I requested, all this discussion has done is to serve as a forum for personal hostility and disdain for the COI guideline on the part of Wikipediocracy advocates, some of whom are administrators. Agree with
User:AnonNep's comment above about well-connected editors being able to act as they please and without fear of consequences.
Figureofnine (
talk •
contribs)
13:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
@Carrite: Uh no, just don't much care for the COI editor tactics in that article, here, everywhere. Said that a bunch of times, and you guys just keep lying. Keep on keeping on. I have to admit that given the WP:OWN situation in that article, its control by COI editors, the line between the article and the subject has been blurred to such an extent that yes, perhaps "hating" the way that article is WP:OWNed and the tactics utilized to keep that control can be construed by the COI editors/fanboys as hating the subject. Coretheapple ( talk) 17:17, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Since the very act of discussing her COI purportedly inflicts distress on Alison ("hounding") then let's hat this conversation and I am doing so. But if Alison or her supporters prolong this further they have no reason to complain that there is further fruitless discussion. Figureofnine ( talk • contribs) 17:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC) |
WSJ blog about China.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 20:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
"We will see, not perfect, but very much improved machine translation, which will very much enhance person-to-person communication worldwide. This will be a very powerful thing. I believe as a result of this, the idea that any one government can control the flow of information of what people know in their territory will become completely antiquated and no longer possible". You tell em'! The idea of censoring widespread information in this day and age is unbelievable. Think how big Chinese wikipedia could be by now if they stopped messing about... It must be awful to live in a place where the government keep blocking and unblocking wikipedia.♦ Dr. Blofeld 23:04, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
“The thousand foreign guests who have agreed to attend the conference should be ashamed of themselves,” GreatFire co-founder Charlie Smith told RSF. “Lu Wei has at least been consistent with his messaging and his conditions for doing business in China. If foreign guests think that by attending the conference they can help to free China’s Internet then they are deluded. I would even go so far as to say that they are complicit actors in the Chinese censorship regime and are lending legitimacy to Lu Wei, CAC and their heavy-handed approach to Internet governance. They are, in effect, helping to put all Chinese who stand for their constitutional right to free speech behind bars.” Full article at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) here. Related GreatFire article, focused on LinkedIn in China, here. Writegeist ( talk) 17:20, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I would just like to say, having studied Chinese for ten years and previously worked as a professional Chinese translator, I find it highly unlikely that this was the result of a machine translation error or anything else innocent. The Chinese is too smooth and native-like overall to be a machine translation, and there are definitely ways of coming close to your meaning in Chinese, despite the somewhat complex phrasing you used. As it stands, the meaning of the first part of your comment is translated quite well in the transcript, while the second part in the transcript is basically a completely different meaning from what you actually said, which doesn't make any sense. Also, while I won't echo Charlie Smith's overheated rhetoric, I do think that the Chinese government commonly exploits foreigners to create the appearance of Western support for its policies, and I fear that your presence at the conference has been used in exactly this way. The most your engagement will accomplish is to get Wikipedia unblocked in China, while simultaneously providing cover for the Chinese government to continue its overall "management" of the internet (to borrow Lu Wei's euphemism). Not a good tradeoff in my mind.-- Danaman5 ( talk) 20:22, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
I read this this morning. Author seems to make a good point in comment area: "My concern isn’t that no debate occurs, it’s that the government can use these events to make it look like debate is occurring, to make it look like these figures endorse China’s internet system, and to generally give the impression that China’s internet is just like everyone else’s." Mr Wales, I would be interested to know, were any of the prominent attendees who spoke to the assembly paid for their time or their costs to visit? Were you offered any compensation, and if so, was it by the conference itself, and did you accept the payment. I think if you traveled to China voluntarily to speak out your opinion about censorship in China, that is a good thing. If they paid you to talk, and then modified your transcript, it undermines the integrity of your ideas. Whole milch ( talk) 14:07, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, I believe I am allowed to appeal an ArbCom decision on your Talk page. I have actually e-mailed ArbCom today regarding this matter (please see below), however, I note that appeals here must be made within 7 days of the Arbcom decision. I am posting this to adhere to that 7-day time-limit, but I am happy for you not to consider this request until ArbCom make their decision on amending my topic ban.
Email to ArbCom
I would like to request an amendment to my recently imposed topic ban. [19] I am requesting the amendment deletes the inclusion of "genetically modified plants and". I am requesting this amendment because there is a total absence of evidence that I have been disruptive in this topic area. I respectfully quote the WP:banning policy as "The purpose of a topic ban is to forbid an editor from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive, but to allow them to edit the rest of Wikipedia." (my highlighting). Below, I provide evidence that I have not been disruptive in this topic area, in fact, I have not made a single content edit about GM-plants in my history of editing WP.
I have reviewed all the submissions relating to myself presented during the evidence phase of the GMO case. There was not a single diff provided by any party which related to me editing or discussing GM-plants.
I have also reviewed all my edits for the year of 2015. This review showed that I have not made a single edit of article content relating to GM-plants. In the last 12 months, I have edited only two articles about GMOs which contain sections on GM-plants, i.e. Genetically modified food and Genetically modified organism.
I made a handful of edits (6) on the Genetically modified food article ( [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]) but these were all unrelated to GM-plants.
I made 13 edits to Genetically modified organism. The vast majority of these related to animals and were often simple editorial changes such as typos, links, redundant words. I made one edit potentially tangentially related to GM-plants - I reformatted a reference title to be lowercase rather than uppercase. [26] I reverted only a single edit here [27] and although my revert was itself reverted, I did not engage in any behaviour that might be considered disruptive.
Prior to the GMO case, I was heavily involved in editing Glyphosate and I accept the ArbCom's decision to topic ban me from the area of agricultural chemicals as a remedy. However, I think there has been an inadvertent "topic-creep" which has led to the unnecessary inclusion of GM-plants in my ban. I have not been disruptive in the slightest in the topic area of GM-plants. My overall concern here is that some editors believe that because my topic ban includes plants, general GMO articles such as Genetically modified organism are included in my ban. I would be very grateful for a clarification by ArbCom that if this amendment is approved, my topic ban does not include these general GMO articles. I respectfully await your decision on my request for an amendment.
Thank you for considering this. DrChrissy (talk) 03:14, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
"Lest anyone think that there is a coverup here or that I said or did anything inappropriate requiring a "wikileaks" expose, here is the full text of what I wrote in that email: "I've let the ArbCom know I want them to look more closely at this. I believe, and this is just a personal opinion from watching all this from a bit of a distance, that David Tombe's rather vigorous and wordy advocacy on your behalf has done a great deal more harm than good, actually." I stand by that fully, and it isn't even remotely scandalous in any way. To claim that it is evidence of me instructing the ArbCom to do anything is ludicrous. I asked them to take a closer look. This is not unusual, and it is a role that I take that I am proud of - encouraging and coaching the ArbCom to be cautious and thoughtful. (Not that they need me to do it, as they are cautious and thoughtful by nature. Yet, I think it is good for me to advise, and particularly when difficult matters are brought to my attention, I hope that my advice sometimes is useful in helping to bring about a reflective moment of consideration. Our work is important.) That David Tombe's vigorous and wordy advocacy was counter-productive is, as I said, a personal opinion, and one that I would not have made public. It was a private remark intended to be helpful to Brews Ohare. I don't have my archives handy, but I'm pretty sure that I said to David Tombe's face that his many voluminous and lengthy emails to me (filled with strong accusations and anger) and others were not helping anything. I don't think either Brews or David were in any way scandalized or offended by this email, and so I can't conceive of why it should have been made public as if it were some kind of expose of something. Count Iblis, I think you owe me an apology, not so much for posting the email (though that was wrong) but for implying that it was some kind of "wikileak" of any importance.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)"
So, I guess Jimbo's POV would be that he can take a look at things and advice the ArbCom to take a fresh look based on what he has seen. It's not an appeal in the sense that Jimbo is going to dictate to ArbCom to impose a different measure or Jiobo himself overruling an ArbCom decision and imposing some alternative remedy himself. Count Iblis ( talk) 13:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Count Iblis ( talk) 13:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
It is my interpretation that, regardless of whether the policies or guidelines provide that ArbCom decisions may be appealed to the WMF, ArbCom decisions may be appealed to the WMF, because the WMF owns the servers and has ultimate authority. Since User:Jimbo Wales does not use the right to review or overturn decisions of the ArbCom (that right being similar to the right of the monarchs of the United Kingdom to veto Acts of Parliament), my questions are: first, is this talk page a reasonable place to file an appeal to the WMF of an ArbCom decision; second, does the filing party wish to appeal to the WMF? Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
I will personally comment that, although I think the decision of the ArbCom was suboptimal, the real problem is that the issue so deeply divides and polarizes the community that there was no resolution by the ArbCom that would leave editors happy. I would ask the filing party whether they really just want a reputation as a "sore loser", which could lead to further consequences down the road. In other words, I suggest that, right or wrong, they withdraw this request, but they probably know beyond knowledge that they are right, which is unfortunate. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, current policy specifies you as person to whom Arbcom decisions can be appealed. Now some people have suggested reviewing that policy, but I believe that it would help to clarify current situation if you presented your own view on this. Reviewing an Arbcom decision, especially as a single person, is inevitably going to be a very time consuming process. Do you actually have time and interest to perform such duty, and continue doing so in future? Having an option of appeal is only meaningful if receiver of the appeal can review it in detail.-- Staberinde ( talk) 16:13, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
I would note that my question is not really about current specific request, but in general. It is not hard to imagine that we could end up with extremely divisive Arbcom decision. Probably not "scientologist takeover" mentioned earlier, but more like Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement 3 becoming a blue link, assuming that eventually manage to finish the current one. If appeal to Jimbo only works then he has time, and he generally doesn't, then that part of policy is just a hot air and should be revised/deleted.-- Staberinde ( talk) 20:57, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 195 | Archive 196 | Archive 197 | Archive 198 | Archive 199 | Archive 200 | → | Archive 205 |
Hi,
You appear to be eligible to vote in the current
Arbitration Committee election. The
Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia
arbitration process. It has the authority to enact binding solutions for disputes between editors, primarily related to serious behavioural issues that the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the ability to impose
site bans,
topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The
arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail. If you wish to participate, you are welcome to
review the candidates' statements and submit your choices on
the voting page. For the Election committee,
MediaWiki message delivery (
talk)
08:51, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
You could just plop the template right here, you know:
![]() | These guides represent the thoughts of their authors. All individually written voter guides are eligible for inclusion.
|
HTH -- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 21:38, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
HTH.-- SB_Johnny | talk✌ 00:47, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
I wonder if the developers of wikipedia would consider a turn book page option for articles instead of just the standard one page scrolling downwards. Like this at archive.org I actually find it easier to read and browse with a simple click between pages horizontally without having to keep scrolling downwards, especially for big articles. If we had a "Reader" function on wikipedia which converts articles to a book format, perhaps with two columns on each page I think I'd find it much more reader friendly and usable.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:36, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
I apologise if someone has thought of this before me1, but as you were directly responsible for the very first Wikimedia meetup and are at least somewhat responsible for Wikipedia (and hence there being editors of Wikipedia who can meet each other) I thought it appropriate to extend to you a formal invitation to the 100th London Wikimeet on Sunday 13 December (full details at the link).
Everyone is welcome, so if you are reading this, want to come along and are or will be in or near London on that date then it will be great to see you. If you know of someone who may be interested but who isn't reading this, please spread the word. There is also a Facebook event (not set-up by me) for those who like that sort of thing (the meta page is the primary location for expressions of interest though). Signing up in advance is optional - feel free to pop along.
The London meetups now happen regularly on the second Sunday of the month, so if you can't make this one you'll be more than welcome at subsequent events. There are also events in other parts of the UK and the wider world listed at m:Meetup if London isn't near where you are.
1: the archive search suggests they haven't, but I find that difficult to believe. Thryduulf ( talk) 15:31, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Talking about anniversaries, can anybody count the nearest total round number for ALL meetups, not just London or Hong Kong, but plus Andorra as well? Staszek Lem ( talk) 02:41, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
I'm posting here to raise awareness amongst English and other Wikipedians about the plight of Wikipedian Bassel Khartabil. Amnesty International is reporting that he may be facing a death sentence. I'm preparing an editorial about this, but that seems woefully inadequate to help him. Arguably, there is nothing we can do to help him, but I hope we can try. I appeal to you for ideas.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 18:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
Please be aware that we have now started a straw poll trying to establish whether the global Wikimedia community supports running a banner campaign on Wikipedia to raise awareness of Bassel's situation and asking its readers to take action. Please also see Free Bassell and Free Bassel/Banner for details on the proposed action. Everyone is welcome to participate; please kindly do so. odder ( talk) 21:57, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
There appear to several images of Khartabil available from Wikimedia Commons. Some of those appear to be rephotographed family pictures showing Khartabil as an infant. Many similar images from the same uploader ( User:Jon Phillips) were deleted in March. Perhaps someone should delete these images before the press decides to use them. Protopone primigena ( talk) 02:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, I thought I'd make you aware of an RfD for Donal Wales ( link). No one calls you that, right? -- BDD ( talk) 17:13, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
The strong positive trend in the count of Very Active Editors (100+ edits/month) at English Wikipedia has continued in October. Per THE OFFICIAL STATS, there were 3,374 Very Active Editors at En-WP in October, a massive 13.2% increase over the previous year figure. In fact the October 2015 count topped the figures for the same month in 2011, 2012, and 2013, as well — more evidence that Sue Gardner's "Oh, Shit..." graph intimating mortal decline has been well stabilized.
Overall for all language Wikipedias (excluding Commons), the count of Very Active Editors is up by nearly 950 people (almost 10.5%). The 7 biggest Wikipedias (English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and Italian) all showed growth over previous year figures, with French Wikipedia setting an all time record for October and Spanish WP coming within one person of its all time October mark.
The COUNT OF NEW ARTICLES PER DAY at En-WP continues to slide, as might be expected with a maturing project going over the 5 million mark, sitting at 801 per day. This figure was approached by the booming French WP, which was cranking out new material at the rate of 699 articles a day — far bigger than that encyclopedia's previous October peak, back in 2006. This may be skewed by a project mass creating stubs or some such, we've seen such spikes on some projects like the Vietnamese WP before. Hard to say without further investigation, but on the face of it it looks like Fr-WP is booming.
Reports of WP's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Carrite ( talk) 03:02, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Best wishes for the holiday!
Smallbones( smalltalk) 14:40, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Happy Thanksgiving, Jimbo and all. If you have a few minutes, you might enjoy this video that was recently published on Youtube. -- Pine ✉ 19:49, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
I was wondering if this was your idea? If not, I am wondering what your views on it are. I'm not being judgmental Jimbo, I'm just curious. — Ched : ? 03:35, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
This story looks worthy of a discussion. I have long advocated that we should deal much more quickly and much more severely with COI editors. The usual objections (from some quarters - I think most people agree with me) have to do with it being hard to detect them, but in this case, the COI was called out, warnings were issued, and nothing was done. Now the editor has been called out by the media embarrassing him (he deserves it), his employer (who may not), and Wikipedia.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 17:08, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
Some logical thoughts to consider so we don't look like a kangaroo court or lynching:
So go through those steps and don't jump immediately to blocks and topic bans unless necessary. We do need topic experts, and even a topic ban should be limited to the article itself, not the talk page, unless dealing with a really hardcore a##hole. Then just indef them. So carry on and good luck with this. -- BullRangifer ( talk) 05:12, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
Jimmy, having just posted a case summary draft of the Alva cases on ANI, I have one recommendation re COI: No Conflict of Interest Edits. All the drama, the anger, the wasted time, the misdirected energy. What for? If I truly believed that I'd earned myself a Wikipedia entry, I could just search a bit for 3-5 credible editors who're into what I'm into, ping them into a draft on my user space, and see if they'd discuss/edit/copy/paste. Done, and it's all legit. Why we gotta go and make things so complicated? You play COI, you're exiled to MySpace. - Thanks; LeoRomero ( talk) 09:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Yawl: I had a cozy and educational conversation at COI Talk yesterday, with two highly-regarded COI experts ( Sarah & Risker). My conclusion (as of this moment) is this: COI is just one of the many consequences of more a fundamental problem at Wikipedia: We have lost our way. The counter-culture movement that was Wikipedia has been corrupted and co-opted by the cultures of our extra-wiki lives. It has become a bureaucracy, governed by rules. Worse, too many of these rules are vague, confusing - even contradictory - and therefore subject to endless interpretation and debate - much of it angry and hateful, and directed at the very volunteers who have invested in Wikipedia the most.
A small problem with rules: With each rule, another rule to break. Another heated debate. Another hundred pages of dissonant documents to read, interpret, and confuse. Another group of interpreters. Another group of cops. Some of them bad cops, who push away the very people we need to make us better.
A bigger problem: Our obsession with rules is distracting us, as a Community, from doing our job. Wikimedia Foundation describes that job well enough. Our "Mission" (another tell that we've been co-opted) is explicit. It's jargony - dominated by buzzwords (another co-optation tell) like "empower", "engage", "disseminate", and "effectively", so I'll try to put it plainly: Our job is to bring together people, from all over the world, to work as one, toward a common goal: to help each other gather knowledge, and keep it free, for everyone. I'll narrow that down further to just two words: Knowledge and Community.
COI -- like all those other failed and failing attempts to impose rule-based ethics on our anarchic community -- is preventing us from doing our job.
Radical solutions:
I have shortened my recommendations below from two to one: Get rid of COI.
LeoRomero ( talk) 18:53, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
I proposed a major revision of WP:COI at COI Talk, here. LeoRomero ( talk) 02:42, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
@ KirkCliff2: Two warnings, and if the editor continues with the COI, it's a topic ban at the minimum. If coupled with other severe violations, which would show a complete disregard for Wikipedia policies, a total block outright ... the lack of instruction on how to best go about handling COI matters might be the reason for this confusion. A good place start is by going to the COI talk page, and seeking answers on banning policy as it relates to such matters there.
Discuss:
@ BullRangifer: Checklist: Did User declare COI? Did s/he [ BR used "he" bec he was referring to Edward; s/he and h/er are Leo's gender-neutral revisions, pronounced "she" and "her", since these recommendations are meant to apply to all ] use the talk page? If edits were questioned, did s/he edit war over them? If so, a short block might be in order if s/he persists. If h/er editing was questioned, was s/he willing to stick to using the talk page and cease editing the article(s) in question? Are we assuming good faith? ... COI does not absolutely forbid editing, but rather it's an admonishment to be careful ... A topic ban might be wise, if such infractions are clearly proven to be more than just differences of opinions.
Discuss:
@ Nagle: On COI problems in general, I've written some notes at Wikipedia:Hints on dealing with conflict of interest problems, based on experience at WP:COIN. This is not policy, just condensed experience from seeing similar problems over time.
Discuss:
@ LeoRomero: The best way to get rid of the COI problem is to get rid of COI. No Conflict of Interest Edits. You get one warning. Ignore that, and you're done. Proposed major revision of WP:COI at COI Talk, here.
Discuss:
LeoRomero ( talk) 19:01, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
Mister Jimbo, they called me a Troll on Dutch wikipedia. They blocked me twice, indefinitely , ok, the first time they were right because I had over 15 sockpuppets, and the other blocks were only a for shorter time. A TROLL ,THEY CALLED ME! DO YO HERE ME? A TROLL!!! What kind of organisation is this? They also blocked me on Wikimedia_Be because I called someone a Monkey. Only once. And on Dutch Wikimedia because I asked a few questions. YOU ARE A TROLL!!!! Graaf Statler ( talk) 09:59, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Noticed 'The Game about Wikipedia', complete with familiar font and logo, has been released. The makers state 'This game is not sold or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation' but it certainly looks the part. AnonNep ( talk) 21:54, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
Greetings Mr. Wales: Check out the new
Liquor portal I created today. Pitch in to improve it if you'd like. Cheers,
North America
1000
12:51, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
In cases other than "slavish copying" (per the Corel case exception), ought museums be allowed to use their own copyrighted photographs to get monies for operations through royalties? See the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-11-25/Blog where I suggest the issue is clearly made out. Thanks to any who opine. Collect ( talk) 01:27, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, I saw your post at ANI and thought that I'd let you know that a very similar proposal is in the works at meta with good support. I have
commented there concerning your request. It is very encouraging that so many good ideas have been brought forward for the
2015 Community Wishlist Survey. Well worth looking over if you happen to have the time. Cheers,
—
Berean Hunter
(talk)
13:01, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Mr. Wales, I've been a fan of wikipedia for a long timenad recently decided to start editing Wikipedia! Felt i need to come by and pay my respects to the legend (you)! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Winterysteppe ( talk • contribs) 03:34, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Forbes links to Lundquist which links to this study on Wikipedia articles of 100 European companies. I've only skimmed this study (maybe I should say it's a "PR study", but it looks like a cut above the usual). I'm interested in just about any research on company articles in Wikipedia and plan to contact Lundquist, e.g. to get their studies from the 7 previous years.
In the meantime, if anybody has comments to send along to them, ideas that you think should be adressed, etc. please place those here and I'll send them along. Eventually, I plan to re-do their study from a Wikipedian's POV.
BTW, with a quick skimming, I don't see the usual glaring mistakes in the report. The worst that I can see is that there is a small bit of confusion of WikiMedia Italia with the WMF. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:57, 2 December 2015 (UTC)
For anyone who wishes there is an RFC for one of the paragraphs in the Muhammad article. I am currently working on the article to bring it to FA status so if anyone wants to participate here is the link: /info/en/?search=Talk:Muhammad#rfc_06D1994 Tivanir2 ( talk) 23:08, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Jimmy, since you reverted another discussion as "trolling", how about a simple question that any open and transparent organization should not cower from? The Wikimedia Foundation at one time listed a contribution from the Qatar Foundation in the amount of "$100,000 to $999,999". While you may not know the answer off the top of your head, could you please find out exactly how much money the Wikimedia Foundation has accepted to date from the Qatar Foundation, then share it with us here? - Checking the checkers ( talk) 12:15, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Why does it matter? What does it have to do with building an encyclopedia? Who we get donations from shouldn't matter. The important thing is that we stay running and be more open to how to improve the site for the better to promote content in the long term.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:09, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
The more money Qatar Foundation donates to Wikimedia, the less money they have left to donate to Hamas (which they allegedly do, I don't know if it's true). So it's a good thing when Wikimedia continues to accept donations from Qatar Foundation. -- Distelfinck ( talk) 12:53, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
Dr. Blofeld, I don't know anything about the Qatar Foundation, but I find this chilling: "Why does it matter? What does it have to do with building an encyclopedia? Who we get donations from shouldn't matter. The important thing is that we stay running and be more open to how to improve the site for the better to promote content in the long term."
It matters because 1) if an organization receives funding from a suspicious group (not saying that about QF, but I think Checkers is), that suspicion transfers to the recipient (what if we received funds from organized crime?), 2) an organization whose very function is to provide neutral, reliable information can suffer from perceptions of non-neutrality if the organization receives funds from a group with an agenda (such as the NRA - again, not referring to QF), and 3) "We are getting enough funding to stay afloat, and that's all you need to know" (an over-simplification of the above quote, but the logic applies) is in itself a flagrant evasion of the truth, an excuse for concealing the truth, in an organization that has nothing else to offer but the truth. Our only product is truth. If the request comes from a troll, remember the troll is not the only one reading the reply. I think the two appropriate responses are "don't feed the trolls" or a truthful answer. I understand there is a long history here, and if that's the case, I think you took the bait.
This is my first visit to this page Hi everybody! Hi Jimbo! Dcs002 ( talk) 02:30, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimmy - In response to your call for discussion, and since my vision (among other things) is unstable, I went (1) farsighted (read the Wikipedia Community's WP:COI rule (and many of its very many related rules), and (2) nearsighted (read - and tried to calm and clarify - the typically-warlike§ discussion in one of our many Arbitration coliseums (colisea?) on the specific case you cited, involving Edwardpatrickalva. My notes below. - Thanks; LeoRomero ( talk) 08:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Upon seeing your note, I started a discussion on the COI Talk page. After trying to fix just the main page of our COI rulebook (esp its useless "How to handle" section), and reading pages and pages of COI fix-it proposals, I propose this: instead of trying to amend this rulebook, burn it and start over. Show and tell: scroll through the Community's current COI rule (N!: this 6+page guideline is just the main page of the rulebook, and already it includes ~41 links and ~16 shortcuts ( irony) to other rules). Now compare that to my slightly shorter proposed COI page, Draft#2, which simply defines the "conflict" in terms of "Interests of Wikipedia Editor" vs "Interests of Wikipedia's Readers", tells you to put their interests over your own, and also what will happen if you don't. That's my burnt version of the law of the land. We can reweed it with more rules, if we must. No offense to weed.
Applying a " game-theoretic" approach (and Wikipedia is the best game ever!) to forming social contracts within the Wikipedia Community, I propose that for every rule that we already have, and for each rule that we are probably drafting right now, we oughta first ask (1) What problem are we trying to solve?, then (2) What social contract (rule) would solve that specific problem in the simplest, most elegant way possible? All the while keeping at the front of our face the people who matter most: Wikipedia's readers.
Hope to see your own views at Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest. If our COI rules and procedures weren't such a mess, then we wouldn't even have to deal with a mess like this one:
I should immediately disclose that I have no personal interest in this case, the participants, or the topics involved. Since this case has also been taken up by "The Left", on the one hand, and "The Right", on the other hand, I should probably also declare that I am ambidextrous. I am interested in conflict resolution, and also confess that I wondered what it would be like for a powerless inmate to run around The Asylum with sharp razors.
Summary of facts I prepared for the group, as of 11/30:
Arbitrator Drmies closed the case yesterday with this note: "The COI is not in question, and plausible evidence is provided for the involved editor having played by the rules ... A COI itself is not a reason to block or ban ... this discussion provides no consensus to block or ban the editor, and the editor's defenders present very strong evidence that the system worked, so to speak, pace a news article."
Oh snap! (#thingsmykidsmademepromisetoneversayagain) The object of the Administrator's Latin was the same story that prompted your call for a discussion, and which prompted KirkCliff2 to bring Edward to Arbitration. Subsequent coverage mainly riffed on this Examiner theme: "I have long advocated that we should deal much more quickly and much more severely with [Conflict of Interest] editors," Wales wrote after citing the Examiner. "The usual objections (from some quarters — I think most people agree with me) have to do with it being hard to detect them, but in this case, the COI was called out, warnings were issued, and nothing was done. Now the editor has been called out by the media embarrassing him (he deserves it), his employer (who may not), and Wikipedia."
Problem is, after all this time, no one presented the Wikipedia Community with any evidence to support their charges against Edward. There was no case. You and "The Medias" may have found him guilty. The Wikipedia Community has not.
The enemy is not one rogue editor, or any number of them, Jimmy. The enemy is us.
Was it you who started this whole Wikipedia is War metaphor thing? All the violence and deaths (I assume there is a body count) that our Community continues to suffer in The Never-ending Edit Wars and all our other wars? I blame them all ( overgeneralization) on this warped way of wrapping Wikipedia. We celebrate Edit Wars. We honor Veterans of Edit Wars. We even hand out medals for valor in Edit Wars (see image on right). I promised my kids never to use these Wiktionary entries ever again, but, as a vegan and father of Veterans OMG LOL WT-?!
We keep whining about Gender bias on Wikipedia. Maybe it's this simple: girls don't like to play with boys because we're so violent. Also, stinky.
Cantcha just say Wikipedia is an Asylum or Wikipedia is a Playground or Wikipedia is Play or Wikipedia is Serious Play instead? [ For expert information on the benefits of play and the benefits of war, please see this Wikipedia entry
Benefits of Play, and Wikipedia Search results
for "benefits of play"
for "benefits of war" and
for "war with benefits" For the benefits of insanity to Wikipedia,
read the bio of the First Inmate of the Asylum.
LeoRomero (
talk)
08:57, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
My $0.02 - I agree with the edit warrior metaphor, and the idea of a badge of honor for being an edit warrior seriously bothers me. I suspect it usually means someone has done meritorious service to END an edit war, but it looks a though they have simply fought like hell, which s not what I like. We should be using dispute resolution strategies instead of fighting more. An alternative is to create a peace prize instead of an edit warrior prize. To me, being an edit warrior is not something to be proud of, but bringing peace, compromise, and a sense of cooperative investment in our encyclopedia definitely deserves recognition. Dcs002 ( talk) 19:01, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo,
I just wanted to make sure you were aware of this situation. On IRC, admin Anna Frodesiak and a few other editors have said that they cannot access any WMF sites. According to this Reddit post, China has blocked Wikipedia completely. It looks like they are completely censoring all of Wikipedia now. -- Stabila711 ( talk) 23:03, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
I'm sure they do since so many corporations fund research these days. I was curious if there has ever been a breakdown in studying exactly how many dollars are donated by such companies and, perhaps, who donates the most? I know that when I have donated to Wikipedia I put my name on there and I'm sure you all keep that sort of thing on file, so I was just curious if someone has ever sorted through those donations to compile lists of groups like that? LesVegas ( talk) 15:18, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
Sorry I tried to find a better place where to report this but didn't. Pls fwd to so taking care: The page "lol.lynx.net.ru" hosts a full copy of commons.wikimedia.org without proper attribution or licensing, even scamming the links looking like our original site: [http:/lol.lynx.net.ru/index.php?q=uggcf%3A%2F%2Fpbzzbaf.jvxvzrqvn.bet%2Fjvxv%2FPbzzbaf%3AQryrgvba_erdhrfgf%2F2015%2F11%2F15] + [2] for example... they are even faking the login page: http:/lol.lynx.net.ru/index.php?q=uggcf%3A%2F%2Fpbzzbaf.jvxvzrqvn.bet%2Fj%2Fvaqrk.cuc%3Fgvgyr%3DFcrpvny%3AHfreYbtva%26nzc%3Bergheagb%3DZnva%2BCntr ! -- .js ((( ☎))) 03:43, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
You may recall that about a year ago I brought up a discussion about WP's fundraising campaigns here after Andrew Orlowski wrote an article about them in the Register. Now the Washington Post's Caitlin Dewey (who has written about WP before [4]) has taken a similar approach, asking, "Wikipedia has a ton of money. So why is it begging you to donate yours?" [5] She states that although people who read the ads that are apparently up now (at least to non registered users) you "may well assume that the world’s seventh-largest site risks going dark if you don’t donate," but "In reality, that couldn’t be further from the case." Do you think it's misleading to run these ads when Wikipedia really is, in the words of Andrew Lih, "making more money than ever before and is at no risk of going away"? I think it's important to listen to what critics of our site are saying. Everymorning (talk) 03:34, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
NDTV published this article about Wikipedia, but all the people in the comments section came out in support of Wikipedia. -- The Avengers 14:54, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo. As you certainly know, you made a statement in 2003 which said that becoming an admin was "not a big deal." This statement has since been widely quoted by those who believe in less strict standards at RfA. However, others contend that the statement is outdated and is no longer relevant today, because now Wikipedia is much more popular than it was at the time. In light of this, I wanted to know if you still stand by that statement, and if you have the time to explain, why you still do. Thank you. Biblio worm 22:05, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
As I've opined before, at this point adminship is a medium-sized deal. Obtaining it, or losing it, should be neither too easy nor too hard. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 17:37, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Jimmy on this. Admin-for-life appointments are not the best way to go. Sole Flounder ( talk) 20:00, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
There are a number of unhelpful memes associated with adminship, that taken together seriously risk the project.
--Jules (Mrjulesd) 18:08, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
... with Russia in mind :-) It is well known and much quoted your opinion on the matter, see for instance Russian Wikinews " ru:Джимми Уэйлс: Подчиняться давлению слабых и трусливых политиков — это не путь Википедии" (= "Catering to the demands of weak and cowardly politicians — is not the Wikipedia way"). It is said back in 2013 and I quote again:
For me, being blocked is always preferable to collaborating with censors. It’s important to understand that the fear of site-wide blocking is based in concerns that some (smaller, presumably) ISPs may lack sufficient technical resources to block individual pages, forcing them to block the entire site to comply with the law. Believe me, if those ISPs block the entire site, while other ISPs only block specific pages, the ones which block all of Wikipedia will lose customers very very quickly. We are not weak, we are very powerful. Catering to the demands of weak and cowardly politicians — the kind who fear the spread of knowledge — is not the Wikipedia way.
Nevertheless I see two significant changes ever since:
The last change especially makes the rationale of your comment of 2013 rather obsolete, as properly pointed (not by me) at the talk page of the list of pages, included to the Common register of prohibited websites.
So I was wondering if you have a comment, correction or a more strong word formulation to your position of 2013 reflecting the changes listed above?
Respectfully, -- Neolexx ( talk) 11:20, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
Great, thanks for asking. The first sentence still stands, as ever: "For me, being blocked is always preferable to collaborating with censors. " And the last two sentences still stand, "We are not weak, we are very powerful. Catering to the demands of weak and cowardly politicians — the kind who fear the spread of knowledge — is not the Wikipedia way." As this situation slowly unfolds, I am so far very proud of the Russian Wikipedia community and their agreement with this. (They banned a rogue admin who is pro-censorship and visited the regulator and apparently "agreed" to censorship demands.)
One of the techniques that the Russian Wikipedians have used to deal with the situation is one that I approve of heartily. For pages that the government complains about, they focus a lot of attention on the articles to improve them, to make them more scholarly, and more in line with what an ideal Wikipedia entry should be. This has resulted in the removal of demands which could have potentially led to blocking. However, press rhetoric is ramping up, and the future is difficult to predict. But Wikipedia is popular in Russia, Wikipedia is useful in Russia, and although the government there isn't the most responsive to popular demands, they really have no good reason to do something really unpopular over something so trivial in the grand scheme of things.
We can usefully compare the situation in Russia to the situation in China. In China, the sensitive topics are mainly those which might appear to some to directly threaten the authority of the Chinese government. In Russia, the sensitive topics to date have mainly been about drug use and homosexuality. One of the ones currently under dispute is Cocaine/ ru:Cocaine. The Russian government's clear intention in passing a law regulating speech about illegal recreational drugs was to target those who are advocating the use of them - pro-drug 'propaganda'. It is not likely that they had any real intention of banning a serious encyclopedia article on the topic. This page, as one example, is on the Russian government's own website.
In the long run I am hopeful that we can resolve this issue, possibly by working to see a clarification in the law so that it clearly only targets "advocacy".
I should hasten to add: I do not support legal bans on the advocacy of drug use. My point is merely that I think that what is happening to us in Russia is an unfortunate side-effect.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 20:05, 5 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi, Jimbo! The situation around the Russian Wikipedia continues to evolve, and there are a large number of problems. I would like to discuss this issue with you.
After a brief blocking of Wikipedia in Russia in August 2015, it became clear to me that there are big challenges. We create a free and open encyclopedia for humanity. We're arguing about opinions concerning sports, science, art, even politics. But there are also important social topics, and here comes the problem: how do we here to strike a balance of freedom of information in discussing "sensitive topics"? There are not plenty of these topics. Even there is a little of them, I can say. But objectively they exist. One of these topics is governed by our rule WP:ALIVE: "any Wikipedia page must be written with the greatest care and attention to verifiability, neutrality, and avoidance of original research", "the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment". Our rules balance between freedom and responsibility.
Obviously we cannot conceal any information; we should discuss these "problematic" topics. You're absolutely right, when you tell us about freedom of information, freedom is our highest value. But we should write on some topics responsibly, with careful approach to the selection of information (I mean WP:RS – Identifying reliable sources), paying some attention to the form and style of presenting information. For example, as described in the rule WP:ALIVE about biographies of living persons. This will allow maintaining a balance of openness and responsibility. And make the encyclopedia better, more “high-quality”. I'm sure of it. It is very important for me.
I want to say a little about interaction with Russian government. The government does not want conflict, and for many years only invites us to the discussion: "Roskomnadzor is actually interested in cooperation with the resource and expects to solve all the problems without resorting to blocking." [6]
One of the participants wrote: "If the Russian Wikipedia will be blocked due to badly written articles about drugs, it will be bad, very bad. It is fine if we were blocked for politics (political convictions), we should be proud of it. But poor articles on drugs are a shame". And I fully agree with him. If the Russian Wikipedia will be blocked, both authors and readers will suffer. Even if will be introduced methods to bypass the blocking, the development of the Russian WP will greatly slow down. In addition it will affect the reputation: there is not any good in headlines in media "Wikipedia is blocked for drugs".
Recently, the situation worsened again. I had a feeling that some of the participants even wish for blocking Wikipedia in Russia. Some of them provoked the authorities; they made very categorical statements in the media, and sometimes even distorted some facts it heighten this confrontation. The others prevented to make any amendments or insisted on amendments that violate our rules. There were not actual steps to resolve the situation. I even wrote about it on the forum of our project Social Responsibility: [7].
And after this post by Ghuron I decided to contact the authorities to understand their attitude and motives:
And I have little faith in the dialogue between the community and officials of Roscomnadzor or Federal Drug Control Service of Russia (I personally, would not resist in a civilised framework). Overall, if the regulator is interested in normalizing relations, they could be asked to get examples: how can you write about drugs from their point of view. That means what level of detail they believe it's appropriate in a conversation about the synthesis, consumption, etc. Not the fact that will help, but at least we can speculate about the boundaries. -- Ghuron 09:07, November 24, 2015 (UTC) [8]
So I had a meeting with representatives of the Roscomnadzor, and the experts have indicated their willingness to a constructive dialogue. I managed to figure out how examination is conducted and how they make a decision on recognition of information is prohibited, and was surprised: their rules are very similar to the rules of the Wikipedia. For example, they say, in the preamble of article about the drug should be written, that it is a drug; and that part of article, which describes addiction and dependence (psychological and/or physiological) is important, etc.
As you can see, these requirements are not contrary to the rules of Wikipedia. They will make the article better, fuller, more scientific (you told us, that these definitions are the best attributes of the "ideal" encyclopedia. It is a good idea and actually we'll look crazy if we abandon it just because of the fact that it was expressed by the representatives of the state. Some participants of the Russian WP reacted well to the proposals. Others even wrote that "if it is from the state, we appeal specifically to do the opposite." To do specifically the contrary is, as we say in Russia, "to freeze my ears to spite my grandmother ". This leads to the deterioration of the content of the encyclopedia.
Also we have an unresolved problem of articles-instructions. For example, here: [9]
This article has the statement that violates the rule about unacceptability of instructions in encyclopedic articles. In addition, these data may be not sufficiently objective and reliable (especially in terms of efficiency and safety of the medicine).
It's for medicine.
For drugs rules are the same or not? If not, this is real hypocrisy. We care about our users, we write carefully about the medication, we tell them, that they should take a professional consultation, visit a doctor. Then why some representatives of Wikipedia called the article about drugs (narcotics) and especially information about methods of application and doses "important (or even the most important) encyclopedic information"? And the section about the consequences they call "not so important". It is necessary to solve this problem. But obviously, direct confrontation and the "language of ultimatums" are unlikely to lead to constructive.
Many people asked me why I reduced my activity in Wikipedia. The reason for this is the condition of the Russian Wikipedia. Part of this process you can see on the example of the claim w:ru:АК:967 (Arbitration Committee) and on TP of this. Some participants violate the principle of civility, I constantly see different curses, political slogans – and all these causes are completely unacceptable, they violate and destroy the very essence of Wikipedia. Our ethics is the greatest basis of Wikipedia that makes Wikipedia truly free and democratic. When I saw this failure to comply with main principles, at first I was surprised, and then offended: I couldn't be more an administrator in the community that violates the principles of its existence.
My negotiations with the authorities were understood and accepted by one part of the community. The other part had not understood and not accepted them. I was accused that I didn't make and attributed what was not said. But I still hope to help: Russian Wikipedia actually stands on the verge of blocking, as long as the blocking is only postponed. Now these articles are on re-examination, and we have very little time to solve this problem; and representatives of Wikimedia in Russia do not make any steps to prevent possible blocking. Some participants rejected any discussion. These words are not the words of the supporters of freedom of information. I want Wikipedia to be continued and developed. And I want it to be available in Russia. The issues are complicated. But I'm sure we need to take constructive steps to resolve the situation. Samal ( talk) 23:40, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo (and watchers),
Just a note to say the ArbCom election have now concluded, and results have been posted. 9 Arbs have been elected in total, 8 on two-year terms and 1 on a one-year term. You can review the results in full here.
For the Election Commission, Mdann52 ( talk) 19:20, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Congrats to all. The voters have spoken and we've got a good group. Smallbones( smalltalk) 21:02, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Actually, I'd say that the election of three women to arbcom, along with others who refuse to accept harassment of women - those that Carrite calls "safe spacers" - is an indication that there has been some gender bias in arbcom decisions (as perceived by the voters) and the voters said "we're not going to put up with this any longer." Smallbones( smalltalk) 19:16, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Seems like Kevin Gorman's Gender Gap mailing list voting bloc plan [10] worked pretty well, except for himself, but atleast all the female candidates got in. Perhaps they should re-do the GamerGate ArbCom case, now with an orthodox feminist approach. -- Pudeo ' 03:26, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
What you all may have missed, is that many of us were not aware of the gender of the candidates when we voted. - Cwobeel (talk) 20:17, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo and others who read this page,
I know that you are interested in the mobile phone marketplace. I was a bit surprised to learn that in the past two years, several billion sophisticated Android and iOS smartphones have been sold worldwide, with average screen sizes significantly larger on average than a few years ago. These phones are perfectly capable of being used for editing Wikipedia.
I have been editing Wikipedia heavily by smartphone since 2011, and have written a personal essay, User:Cullen328/Smartphone editing. I would appreciate feedback, either here, or on the essay's talk page. Thank you. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:09, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Why are you personally attacking me? All I did was add on to a page about Edward Larabee Barnes. Seriously.
AMC — Preceding unsigned comment added by Acronson ( talk • contribs) 01:37, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
That's what I thought. Thanks for clearing that up. The troll should probably be banned in all honesty. I didn't do anything wrong whatsoever.
AMC
Acronson ( talk) 01:41, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello! I just felt I had to go to the top with this one, so to speak. Someone has written a WP:TVINTL section, and this has suddenly been interpreted as all international broadcast of English speaking TV-series must not be mentioned. (Never mind that most countries uses underlining, not language dubbing..) But is it really of more encyclopedic value, if for instance a British TV-series has been aired in New Zeeland than in the Netherlands ? And what about our global point of view policy ? Thanks ! Boeing720 ( talk) 05:26, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo,
As you may be aware, a while back we had an incident wherein a few admin accounts were compromised due to weak passwords and/or using passwords that they used on other websites that were subject to security breaches. This resulted in the Wikipedia:Security review RfC, which came to a conclusion that certain user groups (admins, crats, etc) should be required to have strong passwords. There was also a sort of advisory vote that global policy be changed to make the same or similar requirements be binding on the steward and founder user groups. The new policy on this is still a draft, but you can see it at Wikipedia:Password strength requirements
So, my point is, as you are the sole member of the "Founder" group, and presumabaly always will be, instead of bundling you up with the stewards you could just indicate your voluntary comliance with these new requirements, which you are probably (hopefully) already meeting or exceeding. When the global discussion is had at meta, it would be a simple matter to link to whatever statement you may care to make here on the subject. Beeblebrox ( talk) 20:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo, you know I've admired you a long time. I even donated money to Wikipedia one time, and you sent me an email the other day thanking me for it (and asking for more--but on my salary that's not going to be possible this year). Plus, I wrote you some articles and all that, and I haven't TOTALLY embarrassed our beautiful project. So, having said all that, do you think I can come with you to the Cotton Bowl? I KNOW you're going; I am sure someone gave you an envelope full of tickets. And can Tide rolls, an admin of impeccable behavior, come too? Please take me if only to stick it to Auburn fans like Volunteer Marek. Roll Tide! Drmies ( talk) 01:22, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
"impeccable", Professor? I'll settle for "adequate". RMFT Tide rolls 07:41, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimmy, greetings from India. At the outset, congratulations on the 15th birthday of Wikipedia and a fantastic job done by you in creating Wikipedia. Jimmy, I am a huge fan of your work, of Wikipedia and am an active user myself. I started a small discussion here about the 15th anniversary and am taking the liberty of bringing the discussion to your notice. See if that makes sense. Wish you a Merry Christmas, a very Happy new year and all the best for your future endeavors. Cheers, Arun Kumar SINGH (Talk) 18:05, 15 December 2015 (UTC)
It has been widely reported recently (e.g. here) that Justise Winslow has donated to Wikipedia because he "attributed a large part of his academic successes in both high school and his lone year at Duke to the online encyclopedia". This is good news for us, so I was wondering what you thought about Wikipedia hiring celebrity spokespeople to do this sort of thing (ie donate to us and encourage people to do the same), since it doesn't happen very often that a famous person donates to us. We'd still be relying on donations (and we already ask people to donate when they see this website) so I don't think this would qualify as advertising. Everymorning (talk) 19:17, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo Wales: Enjoy the holiday season and upcoming winter solstice, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, North America 1000 18:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
![]() |
|
Thanks for all your help on the 'pedia!
|
Everyone appears to agree that my question has been addressed more than adequately and that further conversation serves no useful purpose Figureofnine ( talk • contribs) 17:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
A related question: Do we disregard only the “foes” part of the COI guideline "You should not create or edit articles about yourself, your family, friends or foes”? If the guideline applies to Alison, then it must apply equally to Coretheapple, who makes no bones about regarding WO as a foe, yet fights tooth and nail against being held accountable to the guideline, and refuses to share a Connected Contributor template, which he wishes to keep in situ at the WO article talk page, with Alison. Note: There is a Connected Contributor template /COI discussion at Talk:Wikipediocracy, including a common-sense solution in the form of a notice suggested by N Ent, which Coretheapple rejected as a substitute for the Connected Contributor template; and Smallbones opened another discussion on the same topic at COIN. Writegeist ( talk) 22:17, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Tell you what, I'm going to make a proposal. Alison and Coretheapple, leave each other alone and leave the article alone as well. Clearly, there are issues being caused, so remove yourselves from it and hopefully the drama will die down. This sort of thread is what is making Wikipedia look more and more silly to those who browse past the articles.....
Mdann52 (
talk)
08:34, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Ignoring the personalities (please), it is pretty simple, really. COI disclosure belongs on an article talk page, where the COI editor has participated, this is true even if they are an admin. Disclosing COI is what we want on our talk pages. -- Alanscottwalker ( talk) 17:45, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
@ Alanscottwalker: Since you are already participating in the COIN discussion on this article you may already have a sense of the kind of unreasonableness prevalent among the editors there . As you know, one can tell COI editors about the guideline until one is blue in the face and it doesn't matter if they are intent on disregarding it. In this instance, the majority of the editors are so wrapped up in the subject that they have declared their COI. Their position is that their COI should not be disclosed, however, they're against that. Figureofnine ( talk • contribs) 13:21, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
I am tempted to request this article be placed under discretionary sanctions. There's no way neutral editors are going to contribute to this war zone. Gamaliel ( talk) 20:37, 11 December 2015 (UTC) Well have at it. Give in to your temptation. There seems to be quite an anti-Wikipediocracy animus going on, although from what I can see the article seems OK and in fact would benefit embiggening from the multiple s0urces covering the subject. pablo 21:01, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
I am puzzled as to why this is on Jimbo's talk page. Does he have special powers? What is he supposed to do about it? Just open an RfC or something. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:22, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Likewise, I'm puzzled about this being on Wales's talk. But while it is: @ Figureofnine: Somewhere above you said of the Coretheapple COI issue that it had been “thoroughly hashed out at COIN”, where it had been "determined" that “Core does not go in the template”. [12]. I’m sorry, I missed that determination at COIN, and I can’t find it though I’ve tried. Would you be so kind as to supply the diff, to show the rationale for the determination? You also said his “placement there [i.e. on the template] was removed by administrator action”—as indeed it was. IMO the action was erroneous, as at that time the administrator clearly didn’t grasp why Coretheapple should be included, and apparently thought it depended on whether or not he had self-declared a COI. The administrator’s erroneous action was soon reverted by a non-admin, thereby restoring Coretheapple to the template. After that, AFAICT no action was taken to remove him again by the administrator who'd been reverted, or by any other administrator. Without that context—and if my understanding of it is correct—the inference to be drawn from your narrative of events might be rather misleading, which of course I doubt was your intention. Apologies in advance if I’ve misread the COIN discussion or the WO article history. It’s easy to miss even quite significant stuff now and then, as surely you'll agree. Writegeist ( talk) 09:06, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
A questionI have a Facebook account - should I avoid editing articles on Facebook, Mark Cheeseburger etc?
To cut through the B/S, this is like the problem over at the 'Landmark' related articles, where someone who states they have paid for 'Landmark' courses (& thinks that training is tripple rainbow, dude) patrols the article. Same old. Same old. A Conflict of Interest is a Conflict of Interest. No matter how you wikilawyer it. (I keep away from certain articles for that very reason.) AnonNep ( talk) 14:15, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I think the take-home message from all of this is simple; "Never disclose a potential conflict of interests on Wikipedia. Doing so will result in your being hounded to the ends of hell and back, including four separate major fora, and will likely have you walking around with a bell tied around your neck to warn the populace of your shame and sin." In short, how is it possible to allow individuals to disclose any COI in a manner that will ensure it will not be used as a stick to beat them? It's perfectly okay within policy to edit pages in which you have a declared COI, but WP:NPOV must be paramount. So ... carrot or stick? The reason I'm not wading into the muck here is because it's largely pointless, IMO, is ostensibly a witch hunt and a forum-shopping exercise. Also, my other conflict of interests is sucking away all my free time. Fortunately, I get paid for that, so it gets priority :) - Alison ❤ 19:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Evidently that personal attack bears repeating a multiple of times, from multiple tag-teaming editors. I am coming to see that given Jimbo's failure to offer an opinion as I requested, all this discussion has done is to serve as a forum for personal hostility and disdain for the COI guideline on the part of Wikipediocracy advocates, some of whom are administrators. Agree with
User:AnonNep's comment above about well-connected editors being able to act as they please and without fear of consequences.
Figureofnine (
talk •
contribs)
13:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
@Carrite: Uh no, just don't much care for the COI editor tactics in that article, here, everywhere. Said that a bunch of times, and you guys just keep lying. Keep on keeping on. I have to admit that given the WP:OWN situation in that article, its control by COI editors, the line between the article and the subject has been blurred to such an extent that yes, perhaps "hating" the way that article is WP:OWNed and the tactics utilized to keep that control can be construed by the COI editors/fanboys as hating the subject. Coretheapple ( talk) 17:17, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
Since the very act of discussing her COI purportedly inflicts distress on Alison ("hounding") then let's hat this conversation and I am doing so. But if Alison or her supporters prolong this further they have no reason to complain that there is further fruitless discussion. Figureofnine ( talk • contribs) 17:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC) |
WSJ blog about China.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 20:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
"We will see, not perfect, but very much improved machine translation, which will very much enhance person-to-person communication worldwide. This will be a very powerful thing. I believe as a result of this, the idea that any one government can control the flow of information of what people know in their territory will become completely antiquated and no longer possible". You tell em'! The idea of censoring widespread information in this day and age is unbelievable. Think how big Chinese wikipedia could be by now if they stopped messing about... It must be awful to live in a place where the government keep blocking and unblocking wikipedia.♦ Dr. Blofeld 23:04, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
“The thousand foreign guests who have agreed to attend the conference should be ashamed of themselves,” GreatFire co-founder Charlie Smith told RSF. “Lu Wei has at least been consistent with his messaging and his conditions for doing business in China. If foreign guests think that by attending the conference they can help to free China’s Internet then they are deluded. I would even go so far as to say that they are complicit actors in the Chinese censorship regime and are lending legitimacy to Lu Wei, CAC and their heavy-handed approach to Internet governance. They are, in effect, helping to put all Chinese who stand for their constitutional right to free speech behind bars.” Full article at Reporters Without Borders (RSF) here. Related GreatFire article, focused on LinkedIn in China, here. Writegeist ( talk) 17:20, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I would just like to say, having studied Chinese for ten years and previously worked as a professional Chinese translator, I find it highly unlikely that this was the result of a machine translation error or anything else innocent. The Chinese is too smooth and native-like overall to be a machine translation, and there are definitely ways of coming close to your meaning in Chinese, despite the somewhat complex phrasing you used. As it stands, the meaning of the first part of your comment is translated quite well in the transcript, while the second part in the transcript is basically a completely different meaning from what you actually said, which doesn't make any sense. Also, while I won't echo Charlie Smith's overheated rhetoric, I do think that the Chinese government commonly exploits foreigners to create the appearance of Western support for its policies, and I fear that your presence at the conference has been used in exactly this way. The most your engagement will accomplish is to get Wikipedia unblocked in China, while simultaneously providing cover for the Chinese government to continue its overall "management" of the internet (to borrow Lu Wei's euphemism). Not a good tradeoff in my mind.-- Danaman5 ( talk) 20:22, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
I read this this morning. Author seems to make a good point in comment area: "My concern isn’t that no debate occurs, it’s that the government can use these events to make it look like debate is occurring, to make it look like these figures endorse China’s internet system, and to generally give the impression that China’s internet is just like everyone else’s." Mr Wales, I would be interested to know, were any of the prominent attendees who spoke to the assembly paid for their time or their costs to visit? Were you offered any compensation, and if so, was it by the conference itself, and did you accept the payment. I think if you traveled to China voluntarily to speak out your opinion about censorship in China, that is a good thing. If they paid you to talk, and then modified your transcript, it undermines the integrity of your ideas. Whole milch ( talk) 14:07, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, I believe I am allowed to appeal an ArbCom decision on your Talk page. I have actually e-mailed ArbCom today regarding this matter (please see below), however, I note that appeals here must be made within 7 days of the Arbcom decision. I am posting this to adhere to that 7-day time-limit, but I am happy for you not to consider this request until ArbCom make their decision on amending my topic ban.
Email to ArbCom
I would like to request an amendment to my recently imposed topic ban. [19] I am requesting the amendment deletes the inclusion of "genetically modified plants and". I am requesting this amendment because there is a total absence of evidence that I have been disruptive in this topic area. I respectfully quote the WP:banning policy as "The purpose of a topic ban is to forbid an editor from making edits related to a certain topic area where their contributions have been disruptive, but to allow them to edit the rest of Wikipedia." (my highlighting). Below, I provide evidence that I have not been disruptive in this topic area, in fact, I have not made a single content edit about GM-plants in my history of editing WP.
I have reviewed all the submissions relating to myself presented during the evidence phase of the GMO case. There was not a single diff provided by any party which related to me editing or discussing GM-plants.
I have also reviewed all my edits for the year of 2015. This review showed that I have not made a single edit of article content relating to GM-plants. In the last 12 months, I have edited only two articles about GMOs which contain sections on GM-plants, i.e. Genetically modified food and Genetically modified organism.
I made a handful of edits (6) on the Genetically modified food article ( [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]) but these were all unrelated to GM-plants.
I made 13 edits to Genetically modified organism. The vast majority of these related to animals and were often simple editorial changes such as typos, links, redundant words. I made one edit potentially tangentially related to GM-plants - I reformatted a reference title to be lowercase rather than uppercase. [26] I reverted only a single edit here [27] and although my revert was itself reverted, I did not engage in any behaviour that might be considered disruptive.
Prior to the GMO case, I was heavily involved in editing Glyphosate and I accept the ArbCom's decision to topic ban me from the area of agricultural chemicals as a remedy. However, I think there has been an inadvertent "topic-creep" which has led to the unnecessary inclusion of GM-plants in my ban. I have not been disruptive in the slightest in the topic area of GM-plants. My overall concern here is that some editors believe that because my topic ban includes plants, general GMO articles such as Genetically modified organism are included in my ban. I would be very grateful for a clarification by ArbCom that if this amendment is approved, my topic ban does not include these general GMO articles. I respectfully await your decision on my request for an amendment.
Thank you for considering this. DrChrissy (talk) 03:14, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
"Lest anyone think that there is a coverup here or that I said or did anything inappropriate requiring a "wikileaks" expose, here is the full text of what I wrote in that email: "I've let the ArbCom know I want them to look more closely at this. I believe, and this is just a personal opinion from watching all this from a bit of a distance, that David Tombe's rather vigorous and wordy advocacy on your behalf has done a great deal more harm than good, actually." I stand by that fully, and it isn't even remotely scandalous in any way. To claim that it is evidence of me instructing the ArbCom to do anything is ludicrous. I asked them to take a closer look. This is not unusual, and it is a role that I take that I am proud of - encouraging and coaching the ArbCom to be cautious and thoughtful. (Not that they need me to do it, as they are cautious and thoughtful by nature. Yet, I think it is good for me to advise, and particularly when difficult matters are brought to my attention, I hope that my advice sometimes is useful in helping to bring about a reflective moment of consideration. Our work is important.) That David Tombe's vigorous and wordy advocacy was counter-productive is, as I said, a personal opinion, and one that I would not have made public. It was a private remark intended to be helpful to Brews Ohare. I don't have my archives handy, but I'm pretty sure that I said to David Tombe's face that his many voluminous and lengthy emails to me (filled with strong accusations and anger) and others were not helping anything. I don't think either Brews or David were in any way scandalized or offended by this email, and so I can't conceive of why it should have been made public as if it were some kind of expose of something. Count Iblis, I think you owe me an apology, not so much for posting the email (though that was wrong) but for implying that it was some kind of "wikileak" of any importance.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)"
So, I guess Jimbo's POV would be that he can take a look at things and advice the ArbCom to take a fresh look based on what he has seen. It's not an appeal in the sense that Jimbo is going to dictate to ArbCom to impose a different measure or Jiobo himself overruling an ArbCom decision and imposing some alternative remedy himself. Count Iblis ( talk) 13:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Count Iblis ( talk) 13:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
It is my interpretation that, regardless of whether the policies or guidelines provide that ArbCom decisions may be appealed to the WMF, ArbCom decisions may be appealed to the WMF, because the WMF owns the servers and has ultimate authority. Since User:Jimbo Wales does not use the right to review or overturn decisions of the ArbCom (that right being similar to the right of the monarchs of the United Kingdom to veto Acts of Parliament), my questions are: first, is this talk page a reasonable place to file an appeal to the WMF of an ArbCom decision; second, does the filing party wish to appeal to the WMF? Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
I will personally comment that, although I think the decision of the ArbCom was suboptimal, the real problem is that the issue so deeply divides and polarizes the community that there was no resolution by the ArbCom that would leave editors happy. I would ask the filing party whether they really just want a reputation as a "sore loser", which could lead to further consequences down the road. In other words, I suggest that, right or wrong, they withdraw this request, but they probably know beyond knowledge that they are right, which is unfortunate. Robert McClenon ( talk) 04:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, current policy specifies you as person to whom Arbcom decisions can be appealed. Now some people have suggested reviewing that policy, but I believe that it would help to clarify current situation if you presented your own view on this. Reviewing an Arbcom decision, especially as a single person, is inevitably going to be a very time consuming process. Do you actually have time and interest to perform such duty, and continue doing so in future? Having an option of appeal is only meaningful if receiver of the appeal can review it in detail.-- Staberinde ( talk) 16:13, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
I would note that my question is not really about current specific request, but in general. It is not hard to imagine that we could end up with extremely divisive Arbcom decision. Probably not "scientologist takeover" mentioned earlier, but more like Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Arbitration enforcement 3 becoming a blue link, assuming that eventually manage to finish the current one. If appeal to Jimbo only works then he has time, and he generally doesn't, then that part of policy is just a hot air and should be revised/deleted.-- Staberinde ( talk) 20:57, 21 December 2015 (UTC)