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Question for Jimbo re paid editing and WMF redux

repost, now that you are back, from this.

Hi Jimbo

I am interested to learn if the WMF board has discussed taking legal action against companies that offer services to edit Wikipedia and that have no on-Wiki presence disclosing their edits here, per the Terms of Use. We all know the companies and their websites, where they use the Wikipedia name, etc. I have looked and never found disclosure by any of those companies in WP. I have looked and found no public evidence of WMF legal engaging with these companies, other than Wiki-PR.

Two questions:

Has this been discussed, and if so, what has/have the outcomes been?

Also, is there budget for WMF legal to take action against such companies?

What can you tell me? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 00:45, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know what cause of action there might be. Trademark misuse? Guy (Help!) 01:10, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
No, violation of the Terms of Use, surely. Looie496 (talk) 14:22, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Most don't use trademarks, but WMF legal are very good at getting those who do to stop. SmartSE (talk) 14:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
I am not sure what action you can take in law for violation of terms of use. That was my point. And the name Wikipedia is also a trademark sis it not? So saying you can get content on Wikipedia may be abuse of trademark. I don't know. I was tempted to ask Mike or Brad but I expect Jimmy has had advice on this form current counsel. Guy (Help!) 22:22, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Jytdog, when you say "We all know..." perhaps we don't all know. I'm personally unsure to exactly what you are referring to. If you are worried about "outing" then please do drop me a private email as I'm very interested in this topic.
In terms of the board discussions - yes, it has been a topic of discussion at various times. The legal issues are subtle and complex. Trademark violations, as others have noted, are easier to deal with than TOS violations.
Here's the thing - the standard of proof needed for us, the community, to block people for bad faith action is much lower than the standard of proof needed for a victory in court. And the costs to everyone are much lower as well. So the first line of defense, in my personal opinion, has to be us. If it really is true that "we all know the companies and their websites" and if it is also true that we know (or even have solid evidence) that particular accounts are paid advocates for those companies, then we should be blocking them quite quickly and eagerly and vigorously.
My own view is that our policy on WP:OUTING is not well written, and prevents open discussion of the problems. In too many cases, speculating that an editor is a paid advocate is a mild example of failing to assume good faith (a real concern, of course) whereas proving it could be treated as a case of outing. That's not good policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:44, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
User:Doc_James is most up to speed regarding who might be who. For example cases see ANI for Earflaps and for FoCuSandLeArN. They'd both edited for since 2012 and between them had 120k edits (not all bad). I suspect Jytdog might just not want to link to the sites, which I kind of agree with, so I will send you an email with the ones I know about. SmartSE (talk) 17:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
One change that would help is a greater ability / willingness for CUs to run checks on these accounts. Many of the companies of course hide the connections between their accounts well.
We should also take a hardly line on deleting paid work IMO. I have received details from some of their clients that their contracts stipulate that the company must keep the article up for a year before they are paid in full. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:34, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
+1 to all of that. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:10, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, we're not going to be getting a speedy criterion, people have said No at WT:CSD to deleting articles created in violation of the terms of use. Guy (Help!) 22:24, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
ToS violations are "against" the WMF. They are not necessarily against the policies on individual projects. The community may choose to vigorously defend the latter and not the former. Of course there is a large overlap.
The deeper problem we should be addressing is one of work-flow. When the wiki was smaller, there was less chance of COI edits going unspotted, or so it seems. How do we go about spotting this with a larger article base, and the same, or a smaller number of editors? (One recent piece remarked that "very active Wikipedia editors are scarcer than paid Chess professionals".)
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC).
Jimbo thanks for your reply. When I said "we all know" i mean the ones we all know, like MyWikiBiz, Legal Morning, WikiExperts, Wikipedia Writers, etc etc etc. They are easy to find on the internet and have been discussed around the community many times.
The community is already doing everything we can here at the bottom, but what WMF can do, that we cannot, is cut this off at the top. The WMF can prevent these companies from advertising using the WP name/trademark and should do, when it is clear that a company is not following the ToU. As I noted above, I have looked and have not found on-wiki disclosures from editors working for or affiliated with any of those companies. (I invite everybody to look for themselves and if you find such disclosures, to cite them here). These companies are not following the ToU and they are advertising using the WP name/trademark. And as you know, they flaunt that.
It is not hard to a) find a company that advertises WP editing services using the WP name/trademark; b) search for the required disclosure in WP; c) if no disclosures are found, send the company a cease and desist letter. There are editors in the community who would be happy to help with steps a) and b) but WMF paid staff could do this just as easily. The WMF could also establish a "black hat" list of companies that advertise paid editing and have no evidence of disclosures on Wikipedia, which people who want to hire paid editors could consult. That list could also include companies formed by people we know have been community banned or indefinitely blocked, like Mike Wood and Legal Morning.
One reason these companies can keep doing what they do, is that the WMF does nothing. And I know that WMF legal would not do this kind of thing without authorization from the board or ED. That is why my question is directed to the board and management.
As far as I can see (and maybe things are going on that I am unaware of) one of our best tools to prevent paid editing is sitting there unused. Is that true? -- this is my question. And if nothing is being done, of course I am urging that real consideration be given to doing something along these lines. Jytdog (talk) 03:06, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, taking your bait against my better judgment, I followed one of your links to WikiExperts.us. And then I just watched THIS VIDEO. What, pray tell, are your objections to any tiny snippet of what they are saying here? If anything, their interpretation of notability is substantially more conservative than prevailing consensus at AfD. As long as subjects are notable and as long as NPOV is adhered to — as the site implicitly claims to do — whether they hang out the KICK ME sign for anti-paid editing warriors is not my circus, not my monkeys... Carrite (talk) 03:21, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Where are there any on-wiki disclosures by that company, per the ToU, and which would allow us to actually verify that they edit as well as they claim to? Jytdog (talk) 03:22, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
What, you mean they don't openly acknowledge that they spam Wikipedia and violate the Terms of Use? I'm shocked. Guy (Help!) 09:36, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
(EC)
Rich, We have to get rid of that idea that the change to the ToU was not the wish of the Wikipedia community. As far as I can tell, the RfC was the largest in history [1], 1389 people recorded !votes (excluding the 42 abstentions), only 286 opposed the change (20.6%), and 1103 supported it (79.4%). I suppose somebody could try to invent some technicality to try to obscure the obvious - let's say somebody claims "It wasn't just en:Wikipedians voting!" It wasn't, but it's clear that the large majority of !voters were native speakers of English, and that the non-native English speakers probably had slightly more opposes. Any claimed technicalities just don't pass muster.
One thing that is not a technicality - the Terms of Use (and the change) are policies on Wikipedia. The change could be thrown out by an RfC on en:Wikipedia, but nobody here has even seriously tried to do that. Presumably because they know what the result would be. So the ToU change is en:Wikipedia policy and it is supported by the large majority of Wikipedians. End of story.
Jimmy, there are lots of things that the WMF can do short of going to court. Let me just mention a few:
  • Let companies and businesses know that we do not accept advertisements, paid advocacy, or undisclosed paid editing.
Fairly often there are newspaper articles that claim they know how to "get your article on Wikipedia" Let the entire world know that they are wrong. Just have a standard article available and submit it whenever people make that mistake. It would save a lot of hassle for everybody.
  • Use office actions to ban some entire companies from editing here. The most obvious cases would be the dozen or so companies that openly advertise that they write and place articles on Wikipedia while following our rules, but have never disclosed themselves on Wiki (or been disclosed by an employee of being employers of paid editors). They are committing fraud on somebody, either on us or their customers, actually both. That is against the ToU. Just ban them.
  • Let the customers of this type of firms know that the WMF accepts complaints against the above type of firm. e.g. "If you or your business are ripped off by a business that claims it can place articles for a fee on Wikipedia, let us know. We can use the information, help protect other people from this type of scam, and in some cases can pass it along to the authorities."
  • There are websites that run ads for free lance writers as their main business. A small part of this is for writers of Wikipedia articles. The WMF could simply ask the websites not to accept this type of ad. The WMF can do this, but an individual editor cannot. Legitimate websites would probably go along - they'd rather not have the hassle for the small amount of money these ads bring in. Can't hurt to ask.
Just to make sure that everybody knows what I'm talking about see this
I'm sure there are lots of editors who can let you know of "little things" that can make a big difference in fighting against paid advocates. Please take their requests seriously. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:24, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
I'll add that there are 33 suggestions for actions that can be taken by the community or by the WMF at User:Doc James/Paid editing which was written right after the OrangeMoody scandal. I've reviewed these just now and it looks like one major theme is that Arbs do not wish to be involved in paid editing cases, saying they don't want to or are unable to do anything with these cases. If ArbCom won't deal with paid editing, then WMF has to step up to the plate. Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:05, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, we won the popular vote, but paid editing won the RfC college 304-227... Guy (Help!) 09:33, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • so one vague and mostly unhelpful response that mostly turned the issue back to the community (which is way off topic from what more the WMF can do but rather a distraction from that issue), along with a huge self-contradiction (you cannot on the one hand write NYT editorials proclaiming how important privacy is on the one hand, and then turn around say it is not important... and no, there is no way in the real world that we can partially lower the bar), and that is it. And again to proclaim how opposed you are to paid editing but not be working your ass off to bring the resources of the WMF to bear on the problem is difficult to understand. This turned out, again, to be a waste of my time to try to engage in an actual dialogue here. I'll go back to not watching this page. Jytdog (talk) 00:21, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

What more the community can do

  • All this "we have done everything we can" nonsense is just that, nonsense. Where's the RFC on increasing notability standards for organizations? Where is the RFC on automatic deletion of advertorial or promotional articles, especially those created by SPAs and obviously undisclosed COI editors? (I note that one of the articles we deleted during the Orangemoody case was just recreated, by someone whose username is identical to the name of the company's advocate - we'll have to take it to AfD now, and it will be kept because it meets GNG even though it's entirely promotional.) We haven't even tried, we've just wrung our hands. Risker (talk) 13:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
@Risker: Can you write up the RfC for changing notability standards for organizations (I might even prefer a narrow "notability for businesses")? I know you've suggested this as a way forward many times. A couple of problems I foresee: a) WP:Notability is just a guideline - but the paid editor problem is best dealt with via policy. Paid editors seem to think they have complete freedom to ignore guidelines, without even a mention of it. B) the guideline is currently interpreted as "satisfy WP:GNG or satisfy the individual sub-guidelines (e.g. organizations)" This makes it quite difficult to make any change in either of them. You have the experience to draft the proposed changes.
BTW nobody before has ever accused me of giving up on this issue. There are many ways forward, but I promise you, I will never give up on this issue. Sincerely, Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:57, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
You mean have a rough consensus that is "regularly" enforced (as "regularly" enforced as any rough consensus on Wikipedia?) Paid editors, and their lobby, have sufficient !votes to ensure 'not do anything' systematic, leaving it only case by case that are dealt with by the principled and brave rest (so 'all we can do'). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:34, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Really? That implies there are more paid editors on Wikipedia than unpaid editors, and I'm not buying that. What we have are lots of people who think that the GNG was as much of a concession as they were willing to make on the topic of notability. What we have are lots of people who regularly participate at AfD who regularly make the claim that the current content of the article isn't what's relevant when it comes to deletion, it's whether or not the topic meets the GNG. The result is that we have all kinds of spammy articles kept at AfD because a couple of people believe there is some level of notability of the subject. These aren't arguments from paid editors, they are arguments from editors who genuinely believe these positions to be true. It is up to this community to either change their minds, or to voice different opinions with a sufficient level of consensus to result in changes to the interpretation of the overall community consensus. There are many, many things that we could do; a bunch of them are enumerated on User:Doc James/Paid editing. But that's just a user's subpage and nobody is taking the bull by the horns and actively trying to put some of those proposals into place. Start there. Risker (talk) 14:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Risker, I think you are on to something very important here. There are many issues, not just this one, where I think we have or could get to a consensus for change, but "nobody is taking the bull by the horns". This is an area where I think the Foundation could meaningfully make our lives easier as editors, and make the encyclopedia better, by hiring longstanding trusted community members to shepherd things like this through the process. The Foundation shouldn't take an approach of "community managers and moderators" who make up the rules for us - that's not really going to generate the best decisions. But I do think there is room for people to be paid to take on the relatively unpleasant task of running an RfC, promoting it to the community broadly, working towards building consensus, etc.
Another example where I think we have nearly universal agreement that there is a problem, but no one takes on the heavy lifting to change things, is the process of creating admins. The issue here is that although most people agree there is a problem, we differ as to what should be done about it, and we are lacking in systematic data and systems to evaluate it. Imagine the Foundation running a process to help us find a generally agreed upon experiment with generally agreed upon parameters for how to evaluate the experiment when it is finished, including agreement on what happens at the end of the experiment while the data is being reviewed and evaluated in the community (some will remember an absurd end to an experiment where that last bit was not quite clear to everyone).
Anyone of us could do this - if we had the time, the patience, the intestinal fortitude to put up with the difficulty of it. Anyone of us could do this - but none of us has.
Traditionally a rule of thumb that we used for what should be done by volunteers versus staff was precisely this: things that are too hard or too unpleasant to do by a volunteer sitting at home should be taken up by staff.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Really. Your claim that it means more paid editors is just not reality based - it just takes sufficient minority of the committed in the issue, and paid and their lobby of defenders have reason to be committed in the issue. Huge scandals can move the needle some and then you get the rearguard action from the paid editors and their lobby. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:01, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Risker, I don't think that's what Alan is saying. The issue is that there is a vocal minority who support paid editing, and we all know the history of why they do this. G11 was inserted following a mandate posted by Brad Patrick as WMF General Counsel. I don't think we'll get a decisive policy allowing rapid removal of paid content without equivalent Foundation action. Guy (Help!) 18:59, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Risker no one here wrote "we have done everything we can" Jytdog (talk) 15:43, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
I dispute the assertion that those opposed to new notability standards and draconian action against perceived paid editors are either a "lobby" or are a "minority." Rather, the vocal minority are those who are shrilly and repetitively screaming for new measures to curb what they (probably wrongly) portray as an expanding menace — whereas the majority accepts that paid editing has always existed, exists, and will always exist and that the important thing is not who is editing but what is being contributed. Those who violate NPOV are dealt with in various ways already on the books every single day. Carrite (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
"Vocal Minority?" BTW, see vote #302. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:57, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, vocal minority. Many of us remember what sparked this. Guy (Help!) 11:08, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Come on. This 'NPOV takes care of it' is fantasy, and you probably know it, or you would if you thought about it (but of course it is a lobbying tactic to appeal to fantasy). NPOV is decided by a group of editors, generally a tiny group, which you just said, practically always includes paid editors. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:19, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
In my view the community consensus (the bulk of the bell curve) is as follows: I think most of the community doesn't like paid editing, believes that most of it is low quality spamming, feels there is something ugly about it, and is happy (!) to take action against undisclosed paid editors when they behave in a disruptive manner (there is extra swiftness and sureness in ANIs I have seen where paid editing is involved and there is disruptive behavior ....and the recent ANI on Focusandlearn was remarkable in that there was no evidence of disruptive behavior at all and a swift consensus was reached there to ban them. Remarkable). At the same time most of the community holds the value of privacy very high, and is aware that this places limits on our ability to address paid editing. There is also the entirely separate split in the community between inclusionists and deletionists that complicates discussions about Notability and has nothing to do with paid editing. In my view the hardcore "i hate paid editing" crowd and the hardcore "paid editing is absolutely irrelevant, all that matters is content" crowd, are each minority views, on either side of the vast bulk of community sentiment, which wants to see things done, within the limits of the values that community holds. Jytdog (talk) 21:12, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
The idea of making harsh notability requirements plays directly into the hands of the paid editors! Read Orangemoody - the real racket was in deleting articles to extort businesses, not so much in creating them.
When Square Enix continues to be entitled to one Main Page product plug every 180 days without fail from 2007 on, submitted by its own company specific WikiProject, and practically no one ever has a critical word where that is concerned except for myself for bringing it up, I cannot seriously believe there is any real resistance to paid editing, nor ever will be. Wnt (talk) 00:34, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Meh. Those are fanbois, I don't see any evidence of paid editing. Guy (Help!) 11:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Has anyone ever considered the, admittedly bizarre, possibility of maybe creating an independent group of editors paid by someone other than the companies themselves to develop and maintain a group of articles relating to active companies? If the pay isn't from the companies themselves in any way, that might be one of the better alternatives. John Carter (talk) 00:40, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

There are Category:Business and economics WikiProjects.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Glancing through, I didn't actually notice anything company-specific there but Wikipedia:WikiProject Consumer Reports, and that's a nonprofit ... though in the U.S. "nonprofit" justifiably evokes a surge of skepticism in the reader nowadays; there's always some suit making the big bucks, always. Wnt (talk) 00:57, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Glancing thru the Consumers Union 2013 IRS 990 [2], I may have found another good Wiki-comparison. About $270 million in revenue, total executive compensation about $6 million (for 16 employees?), ranging from about $250k-$600k, plus the recently retired COO $776k. Total employees, about 750; total earning above $100k, 276. (should be checked) Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:26, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
John, there are already several dozen editors who work fairly regularly in trying to write neutral articles on companies. I've worked on some myself, and am very willing in principle to help as I can for any companies that are actually clearly notable and large enough to be worth the effort. I'm even willing to cooperate with representatives of those companies in obtaining factual information, proper references, and especially freely licensed illustrations. I would be very glad to be able to participate in a project such as you describe.
However, I am not willing to do so in the current environment, dominated by articles and attempted articles for companies which are barely notable by the current absurdly low standards being used at many AfDs, which require only a few PR-inspired articles as proof of what is supposed to be "substantial" and "independent" coverage, and where the debates are dominated by efforts to use the tricks of argument to try to prove or disprove such material sufficient or insufficient. (as there are no objective standards for either of the key adjectives, for many articles any experienced WPedian could perfectly well argue either side, depending on what result they wanted to support). Until there are actually standard that make sense for an encyclopedia , my effort is better spent in removing the junk. Once we can keep out the junk, we can work on proper articles. There's no point writing them if they're submerged by imitation of corporate web pages. We cannot and should not compete with Google. Those interested in finding the basic facts and names of executives of smallish and new companies can do so readily enough outside of WP, for Google is an adequate web directory.
Of those writing on subjects too unimportant to be suitable for an encyclopedia, the most difficult are the paid editors. Volunteers will listen to reason and not waste their efforts of useless material. Paid editors who are compensated only if their material remains in WP will do anything required to keep the work in, honestly in a few cases, deceptively in most. The preliminary step in improving standards is absolutely removing not just deceptive paid editors, but all work that they have contributed. It should be treated as copyvio: if it reasonably seems to be copyvio, we remove it and start over with someone who knows not to write in that manner. If work seems to reasonably be PR, especially undeclared PR, it should similarly be removed, no matter how long it has been here. No responsible WPedian defends the inclusion of copyvio, and anyone who wishes to be considered a responsible volunteer should feel similarly about such material.
Low importance and paid editing are inter-related problems; raising required importance will discourage those editing for subjects that nobody but a paid editor would bother with; removing paid editors would remove most unencyclopedic articles. Conversely, those who support permitting paid editing must share responsibility for the quality that results, and those accepting articles of unencyclopedic subjects share responsibility for encouraging unethical editors. DGG ( talk ) 05:51, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
a lot of that makes sense, but you can't make something a copyright violation by calling it one. What do you mean, really? Jytdog (talk) 06:46, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
@DGG: can you think of any specific changes to the standards for company/corporate notability that might help reduce the appearance of really minor articles? I assume the 100 volume or so encyclopedia of company histories is probably sufficient to establish notability for the companies it covers. One however possible downside might be the various travel guides out there, which regularly include as separate topics even such things as private houses and/or their owners which are available for lodging in some areas. Might we be talking about perhaps multiple guidelines here, with perhaps a much more restrictive notability guideline for truly commonplace businesses like hotels, restaurants, cab companies, and the like? John Carter (talk) 15:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
Hell yes. One of my biggest bugbears is the inability to distinguish between churnalism and substantive coverage. It takes very little practice to spot recycled press release copy, and the more people learn how to do this the better. Guy (Help!) 17:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
With wikivoyage now up and running to a degree, maybe we can move a lot of the short listings on local businesses in works like the Lonely Planet guides (widely regarded as good reference works of a sort), which tend to be extremely short, and just have one or a group of lists here, like, for instance for me locally, List of hospitals in St. Louis, all of which might be sort of spun out from a main List of local businesses in St. Louis or similar page? John Carter (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

There certainly are copyright issues related to paid editing, and a "joe job" issue as well. Much of this could be addressed, if not completely solved, by requiring an OTRS ticket for paid editors regarding who owns the copyright of the inserted text. Consider a situation that is probably fairly common among paid editors: the actual editor is given copy to insert by the PR firm he is being paid by. The copy may be previously published on the client's website or press releases. It may be written by the PR firm or by a fourth party, or it sometimes may even be written or re-written by the Wikipedia editor. It may or may not have been a work-for-hire in the technical legal sense, but is almost certainly a work for hire in the common usage. It may even have been written by a competitor of the firm supposedly paying to insert it, to make the apparent firm/inserter to look bad. But in almost all cases, nobody is asserting authorship or taking responsibility for the actual text.

Consider Firm X that pays to insert the text "Firm X took the following actions in 2017: ...." Suppose that it turns out that the actions, while not illegal in themselves, were part of a broad pattern of illegal behavior, or perhaps just turned into a PR embarrassment for them. They would likely deny that they paid to insert the quote. They might even sue Wikipedia for saying via a paid editor declaration that they inserted the quote. Having an OTRS ticket would prevent that type of thing. It would certainly limit the temptation of competitors to insert joe jobs. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:54, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Upworks/Fivver the largest of the on line workplaces is interested in working with us more. If we have a policy that requires the on WP account to link to the Upworks account and the Upworks account to link to the WP account, they will than deleted automatically all accounts their that do WP work that do not comply with this requirement. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:46, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
With respect to copyright violations and paid editing, yes a large portion of the low quality paid editing contains copyright issues. We now have a bot that picks up lots of it.[3]
Blocking users based on copyright issues is also much much easier than based on undisclosed paid editing as no private evidence is required.
Admins generally need the ability to block users based on "off WP evidence" (known as "private evidence" by some). With that evidence than shared with other admins who ask. Some functionaries appear to want to keep this ability to themselves. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:06, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Can you go thru the steps in using that bot Most folks are probably better at figuring these things out than me, but there are probably a few others who could use some help on this. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:14, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
There's a somewhat brief help page at m:CopyPatrol. MER-C 09:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

The CSD proposal was closed as rejected. In that discussion there was a proposal that seems to have been forgotten: to add a clause to the deletion policy that adds "material created in violation of the Terms of Use" as a reason for deletion. MER-C 06:38, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Issues regarding paid editing & the insidious influence it has brought to Wikipedia have gone on for years but nothing will be done unless WMF acts, as all that time has allowed for a slew of compromised/pro-biz votes whenever there's a possibility to wind things back. To go to an earlier topic - why isn't there more honest coverage of the (so-called) Church of Scientology? Because they've got enough well connected 'numbers' here to make sure nothing happens. (Anyone tries, they'll be shot down for 1000 other reasons). Wikipedia is now representative of the worst of the worst. Only a full scale reboot - WMF cancelling all admins, IPs & registrations, very new rules for ALL volunteers - will Wikipedia survive other than as an alt-right, post-fact, bully-boy haven where only vague, non-political topics - some geography, some art, are left alone. AnonNep (talk) 16:45, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

help!

I'm trying to change my username plz help

ty m8 — Preceding unsigned comment added by XXx MinecraftMaster69 xXx (talk • contribs) 20:31, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Changing username is just down the hall, first room on the left. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:59, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the user who wants to be "xXx_MinecraftMaster69_xXx" has hit upon two Wikipedia oddities;
1. "_" is used to represent spaces in URLs, and if you put one in a username/page title, it displays as a space, ie User:Jimbo_Wales == User:Jimbo Wales,
2. The first letter of a page title (and thus, username) is automatically capitalized, unless forced not to. ie, if you call yourself jimbo Wales, it'll still be shown as a capital J unless you mess with the displaytitle. That's causing his issue with the "XXx...".
I tried to explain this on his talk page too, but it is a bit of a weird thing to get across...and I think the best answer is not to call yourself "xXx_Something_xXx", but to choose pretty much any other name, which will avoid lots of hassle. Bit of a pain if you use that name elsewhere, as I suspect this user does. 86.20.193.222 (talk) 15:40, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 January 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:39, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The Real Name Fallacy

In view of the argument advanced by some (particularly off-wiki trolls) that editors here should be forced to use their real names, this post by the Coral Project's J. Nathan Matias is a must-read. Key takeaway point: "Not only would removing anonymity fail to consistently improve online community behavior – forcing real names in online communities could also increase discrimination and worsen harassment" (bolding as per original). To be honest, this should surprise nobody. Prioryman (talk) 11:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Comment: Don't we have WP:REALNAME for this too? MM ('"HURRRR?) (Hmmmmm.) 12:44, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
Just so, but Mathias's blog post provides some hard evidence for the issues raised in WP:REALNAME. Prioryman (talk) 13:20, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Strawman argument. What we "off-wiki trolls" seek is some sort of coherent registration policy that makes duplicitous use of multiple accounts difficult or impossible. Whether you want to call yourself "Chris O" or "Prioryman" or use your real name after proper verified registration is pretty much irrelevant, although you might find disclosure to be liberating. —Tim Davenport, Corvallis, OR USA /// Carrite (talk) 02:09, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
    I don't know about you, but I've had a number of whole websites set up dedicated to calling me all sorts of libellous insults, in addition to those made on ordinary websites. I've had numerous death/rape threats, which have been extended to family and I've no doubt would have reached them. I've no doubt that people would have sought to contact my employer, or they would have noticed the websites. I've seen my mother blocked more than once. And of course I've seen much of that applied to other people. All that for helping an encyclopaedia. Sod that, you can consider me a verified 'zzuuzz' whatever that is. Unfortunately, there's no way you're going to verify that, because it's something I made up. -- zzuuzz (talk) 02:38, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Here is the way I have talked about this over the years. We can think of a spectrum from "raw anonymity" to "pseudonymity" to "real names". All online communities have, whether they like it or not, a mix of all three, but the software and social norms can push people in one direction or another. True "raw anonymity" has traditionally been pretty much a disaster - but let me define it. Pure raw anonymity would be a place where not only are you not required to have a stable identity over time, you can't even reliably create one. Most people don't know this but Wikipedia had that in the early days - you could set up a username in the original Usemod software, but there were no passwords, so anyone could pretend to be anyone. That wasn't a deliberate design decision on my part, it was just a limitation of the software we were using.
A less extreme version of raw anonymity exists at places like reddit where you can have a stable identity, but there is virtually no cost to creating a throwaway account if you want to say something and remain anonymous for either good or bad reasons.
For us, "pseudonymity" does most of the heavy lifting that people think you need real names for. Carrite just signed up above "Tim Davenport, Corvalis, OR USA" but that's not actually how I think of him or what I need to know. I just know Carrite is Carrite. He's an active Wikipedian with particular views on various matters, etc. The stability of that identity over time means he's got a reputation with value - he'll not want to wreck that unless he really wants to lose standing in the community.
But why does "pseudonymity" work for us? It's because we really are a community talking to each other and getting to know each other over time. Other spaces online aren't really communities but rather more like "atomistic" places for posting. Newspaper comments are a good example. And in those contexts, pushing people towards real names tends to be an improvement over what would otherwise be raw anonymity. But this is because of the nature of the space which is such that genuine community (people who know each other and work together over time under a set of principles) isn't really there, so pseudonymity doesn't really come about.
In short, it doesn't surprise me that in contexts where there is pseudonymity and people working together who get to know each other by pseudonyms that this works. At the same time, I don't think it's good to be too dismissive of real identities in some other contexts.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
An online community where people feel free to use their real names is the healthiest. Yet forcing people to use real names is very counterproductive. This is for the same reason that pushing the needle on a pressure gauge down by hand is not a bright idea. At the same time, it is unrealistic to imagine that Wikipedia pseudonyms are all that anonymous, and we ought to prepare a fallback defense for when they are shown not to be. Because who imagines that there are not machines out there even in the private domain correlating every pattern of speech from platform to platform, collecting every stray third party cookie and slipped piece of data? And who does not know how more invasive the government surveillance is? Eventually all that is one. There is something very Revelations about it all; either people will choose to embrace beneficient principles like forgiveness, tolerance, and also, I hate to say, poverty, looking for the best that people offer rather than the worst; or else they will find a fixed place in a corporate hierarchy of trivial bullying turned into economic law, from which any stray word carries the weight of social and financial damnation. We all have a place to be when the trumpet sounds, and we have to decide whether that is on the cross or dutifully driving the nails. Wnt (talk) 14:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
And if that default to "pseudonymity" works best for Wikipedia then Wikipedia needs to get its finger out of its proverbial & start dealing with the fact people are harassed off-wiki for sometimes on-wiki reasons (& visa versa). I've watched a good editor be banned for understandably fighting back while the bullies continue to reign free. It used to be that we had some toxic editors... now there's a toxic, systemic, problem. I'd love to think 'community' could solve it but 'community' created it. And I can see nothing less than WMF intervention with a cascade of Admin rules that see "pseudonymity" volunteer rights protected. Just my two cents. AnonNep (talk) 17:07, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Internet law in the United States

I propose that these external web pages (related to Category:Internet law in the United States) be on the daily checklist of each employee of the legal department of the Wikimedia Foundation. (My position is politically neutral.)

—Wavelength (talk) 05:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC) and 06:24, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Indeed -- consider this alert about Saeed Malekpour, which concerns a Canadian permanent resident facing death in Iran for writing open source image software. You might want to consider, for example, whether Iranians (and others) should be warned against participating in MediaWiki development, or whether MediaWiki developers should be warned against travel to such countries. Wnt (talk) 14:51, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Watching America (website)

The website Watching America publishes foreign articles translated from foreign languages into English. It provides to its readers information about America from the perspectives of writers in other countries. (My position is politically neutral.)
—Wavelength (talk) 05:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Ironically, the article here needs translation into English. FloridaArmy (talk) 06:08, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Americans should certainly be better informed about what the rest of the world thinks of them. We get quite a bit of this on Wikipedia already. Views expressed here, or on other talk pages, are not just from Americans, but may come from Brits, Aussies, Kiwis, Indians, Canadians, Germans, Dutch, Norwegians, etc. That's all for the good. This is not to say that what people in other countries think about the US is necessarily correct, but Watching America performs a service in gathering together views from many countries.
Some of the translation might be rethought however. I've very glad that they translate from the Australian :-b but don't really see the need to translate from Canadian. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:57, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
According to http://watchingamerica.com/WA/about-us/, "WatchingAmerica makes available in English articles written about the U.S. by foreigners, often for foreign audiences, and often in other languages."
—Wavelength (talk) 21:15, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Articles where the community rejects BLP policy

A few years ago, I wrote a post at Wikipediocracy about Wikipedia articles about living people where the community isn't willing to follow BLP policy. I wanted to ask your opinion about it, but wasn't able to because I was banned at the time. But now that I'm not banned anymore, I'd like to raise this issue with you.

I'm not talking about articles with accidental violations, but articles where edits removing unreliable sources are always reverted, and/or where some editors have stated outright that following the policy isn't important. ("principles are all fine and good, but some people and some actions aren't worth defending.") These are articles that have been reported at the BLP noticeboard multiple times, only for editors there to express the same opinions. When the community comes to this sort of consensus to not follow BLP policy, do you think it's necessary to accept that the policy is unenforceable in those cases, or is there some other recourse for editors who want it to be followed? --Captain Occam (talk) 16:57, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Forgive me for doubting the accuracy of your report. You put forward a quote: "principles are all fine and good, but some people and some actions aren't worth defending". But I am pretty sure you made that up out of thin air. Not an auspicious start to a discussion of quality reference work.
I find that arguments like this with vague unsupported assertions - or assertions supported only by a made up quote, aren't really worth a lot of energy discussing.
But let me say this: BLP is a valid and enforceable core policy of Wikipedia in all cases, even for people who are unpopular. It will be helpful to your case, therefore, to be specific with your examples. I'm about to step away from my computer now, and I see there is further discussion below. I'll review that when I can, likely tomorrow morning.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:17, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
WP:BLP is a hugely important policy on Wikipedia, but can we first agree that it does not say "nothing negative can be included in BLPs"?
You seem to be concerned with the articles Adnan Oktar, Giovanni Di Stefano (fraudster), and Richard Lynn. I haven't read these, but you describe an overwhelming consensus to include negative information about them.
WP:BLP still needs to be followed, broken links need to be fixed, etc. If you are prevented from doing this work, please report it at WP:BLPN. If they don't agree with you, you might consider whether you are interpreting WP:BLP correctly. But if you believe you are, then the final step is to take the problem to ArbCom. If you can't get "justice" there, I'm not sure we can do anything about it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:32, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, I'd rather discuss the general principle than discuss specific examples. But based on your summary of what I'm describing, I'm not sure you understand what it is I'm objecting to, so I'll include a specific example from the Adnan Oktar article:
In November 2010, it was determined on the article's talk page that one of the article's sources violated BLP policy, and that it should immediately be removed. However, the only result was to remove three words cited to the source, which was already cited multiple times in other parts of the article.
In December 2010, several more paragraphs cited to this source were added, making it the second-most-cited source in the article. At present the article cites this source six times, which is more than all but two other sources used there. Note that no one has actually disputed the conclusion that using this source is a BLP violation; the fact that it's a violation just has never been considered important enough for anyone to do anything about it for the past six years.
Although I haven't attempted to fix that particular violation, I've made several other attempts to remove self-published sources from the article (blogs and personal web pages), and all of them were added back within a few months. Even though policy is fairly clear that self-published sources shouldn't be cited in a BLP, I also recognize that this is a dispute where I won't be able to get my way. And in any case, I'm more concerned about the general principle than I am about any specific example of it.
What I'm trying to get across here is that every option for dealing with this problem seems to have already been tried. All of the articles I'm discussing in that post have been reported at the BLP noticeboard multiple times, and ArbCom also has already authorized discretionary sanctions on all BLP articles. None of these things have been enough to address the general problem with the community's attitude towards sourcing on this article and others like it. What I'm asking is whether it's necessary to accept that in cases like these, making articles comply with BLP policy isn't really possible. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm probably more interested in specific articles than general principles here. But maybe you can outline specifics of what you'd like done, e.g. maybe you'd like to make changes to WP:BLP (fine. start on the talk page there). If you could outline your proposed changes here first, it might help. But I think you really do need to outline some specifics about something you want us to do. Just asking Jimmy "are you for or against WP:BLP?" is not likely to help. I'm sorry, but for a few days, I won't be able to answer back here. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:18, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Before I make any specific proposal, first I'd like to find out whether Jimbo agrees with me that on articles like these, Wikipedia's existing processes to uphold BLP policy aren't working. If you've read the comments in response to my post at Wikipediocracy, you'll see not everyone there agreed with me that he'd be persuaded there's a problem in this area. I think making sure we're on the same page about the nature of the problem needs to be the first step before doing anything to address it. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Having constantly reviewed hundreds of BLPs over a long number of years, I find your claim that "Wikipedia's existing processes to uphold BLP policy aren't working" a very strong stretch. That doesn't mean that mistakes aren't made from time to time particularly in obscure corners. I am reviewing the specific case you are talking about, but I would really appreciate a lot more links, particularly to anything even remotely resembling the rather astonishing claim that a consensus of editors at BLPN would agree with any sentiment similar to "principles are all fine and good, but some people and some actions aren't worth defending". I think starting with that premise poisons the whole discussion and you should retract it and get real about a collaborative approach to identifying real problems and solving them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:50, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Here's the diff of that quote (it was from a comment in your user talk): [4] The discussion there concerned whether an exception should be made to policy when the subject of an article has made threats against Wikipedia editors. Although the specific policies being discussed there were WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA, this discussion concerned article content (rather than talk pages), so WP:BLP seems the more relevant one.
I find it worrisome that consensus in that discussion appeared to favor making an exception to policy for any individual, no matter how bad their behavior is. We already have a no legal threats policy, so any individual who makes legal threats against editors will inevitably get blocked very quickly. Isn't that enough, so there's no need for a person's on-wiki behavior to result in their article losing BLP protection?
If you'd like more details and links, I recommend reading the Wikipediocracy post that I linked to in my original post here. Bringing your attention to that post was my original goal here, and I can't summarize everything I said there on your talk page. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:12, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Wow, I was about to apologize for saying you made the quote up out of thin air, but then I see you did something even worse: you used the quote to mean exactly the opposite of what the person who wrote it meant. Fram was arguing in favor of BLP policy and was sarcastically (and arguably unfairly) summarizing the other discussant's position.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:26, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Are you completely sure that quote was intended as sarcasm? Ordinary I'd say maybe there's something wrong with my sarcasm detector, but in this case that Wikipediocracy post has been read by at least 40 different people, several of whom have pointed out minor mistakes I'd made in it and helped me to correct them. But you're the first person who's ever suggested that comment from Fram was something other than sincere. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:59, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Fram was responding to me. I called Di Stefano a thug. I stand by that. Do read what the press said about him when he was no longer able to suppress stories. He stole compensation from people maimed in accidents, he stood up for some of the worst people in history, he lied in order to distance himself from previous convictions. Read these and see if you can come up with any alternative construction: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/unqualified-lawyer-whose-clients-included-saddam-hussein-jailed-for-fraud/2013/03/28/6915543a-97ae-11e2-b5b4-b63027b499de_story.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2300544/Giovanni-di-Stefano-jailed-14-years-The-conman-just-stop-pretending-hes-lawyer.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/devils-advocate-who-pretended-to-be-a-lawyer-is-found-guilty-of-fraud-8551921.html http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/crime/former-dundee-football-club-director-1788161 http://news.sky.com/story/1070544/devils-advocate-di-stefano-guilty-of-fraud http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9835433/Giovanni-di-Stefano-the-Devils-advocate-1m-conman.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bogus-lawyer-giovanni-di-stefano-jailed-for-14-years-8553223.html http://www.lccsa.org.uk/news.asp?ItemID=47635&rcid=15&pcid=2&cid=15 http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/387561/Devil-s-advocate-Giovanni-Di-Stefano-facing-jail http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/28/unqualified-lawyer-whose-clients-included-saddam-hussein-jailed-for-fraud/ http://www.news.com.au/world-news/europe/fake-devils-advocate-lawyer-found-guilty-of-passing-as-real-lawyer/story-fnh81p7g-1226608122022 http://blog.cps.gov.uk/2013/03/bogus-lawyer-giovanni-di-stefano-convicted-.html http://bbb-news.com/blog/tag/giovanni-di-stefano/
And even then, I argue for full compliance with BLP. Di Stefano is a horrible person, but we don't need to add {{horrible person}} to the article, all we have to do is describe what he has done and report what others say about him.
To state on a Talk page that his thuggish behaviour makes his conviction and imprisonment a welcome outcome, is not a problem per BLP, I think. I mention in that comment that I had spoken to some of his victims. He preyed on desperate people and stole the money that might have enabled them to get out of dreadful situations. All that is in the sources. Feel free to check for yourself. Guy (Help!) 09:52, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Guy, do you agree with my reading of Fram's remark? The way I read that thread is this - he thinks you aren't taking BLP seriously enough, and is sarcastically saying that your position amounts to saying that we should abandon BLP principles. I think that's unfair to your position, of course, but I think that's what he meant. I find it hard to imagine Fram actually claiming that we should abandon NPOV/BLP polices just because the subject of an article attacks Wikipedia editors. Doesn't sound like Fram to me.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:30, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I disagree with your Captain Occam's representation of the entire issue, including your his use of out of context comments. I remember the agitations of a few misguided individuals over Di Stefano, but that was a long time ago and the matter is entirely settled now. Guy (Help!) 15:41, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales:, So, I had to go back and read it all again and try to remember the conversation as it happened, and how I read it then. I read it as Fram saying that BLP applies to comments and that I should not describe Di Stefano as a thug. I defended my position because, as you know, he's a thug, and the sources make that pretty clear. I did not know how to read Fram's second comment at the time, and I still don't. It could be read as not being bothered to take up cudgels over a very minor comment in respect of an objectively terrible person, or it may have been sarcasm. And it would be defensible as either, since the comment was minor and Di Stefano did make threats against individual Wikipedians in order to try to maintain a hagiography instead of a neutral article that noted the convictions he already had at the time of the original dispute. I didn't know then, I don't know now, and thought the latter would bother me more than the former, I think the context makes it a "fight not worth having in this case" type of comment rather than a blanket statement that Fram would not bother to defend a BLP where the subject attacked Wikipedians. In fact that would be pretty mch the least likely construction to put on it, from what I know of Fram. Guy (Help!) 21:28, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
For the most part, the policies are working just fine. The specific example you give, you portray as a very minor change but in fact it is very significant. There is a big difference between reporting that someone is a crank and calling them a racist crank. You also seem unwilling to accept that for many biographies the tone absolutely should be overwhelmingly negative. What nice things are we supposed to say about Di Stefano? He's a fraudster who was an apologist for some of the worst people in the latter half of the 20th century, and he did this for personal glory and money. You kind of run out of ways to excuse that, especially when he spent decades using legal thuggery to silence entirely legitimate criticism. Note that most of his chilling efforts would fail under the current Defamation Act, which changed in 2013 to provide defences including truth.
If Wikipedia were to present Alex Jones as a philosopher, and fail to mention that virtually everything he says is batshit insane, or if we were to describe Andrew Wakefield as a physician and vaccine researcher instead of quite possibly the most notorious scientific fraudster currently drawing breath, then we would not be doing our job. We should be careful, we absolutely must be scrupulously honest and fair, but we should not pretend that conspiracist nonsense is anything other than what it is, and we should not legitimise those who promote it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JzG (talk • contribs) 23:39, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm not disputing that the tone of some BLPs should be overwhelmingly negative. I already explained this once in response to Smallbones. This is also why I made the comparison to Hermann Göring and Rudolph Hess, because obviously the articles about Hitler's two top ministers should also be primarily negative, but those articles don't have the specific problems with sourcing and wording that exist on some BLPs. Please try harder to understand the actual nature of my complaint--I don't think I'm being unclear about it. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:01, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Hess and Göring are not BLPs. The examples you gave which are, I fail to see any failure of BLP. Feel free to cite actual examples where people have argued that BLP should not apply due to WP:HORRIBLEPERSON. Guy (Help!) 09:24, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Discussion of Captain Occam's previous ban is irrelevant here, so I am hatting it. One of the examples he gave is a BLP in the area of his topic ban, and so I request that we avoid discussing that BLP in this particular section, and that Captain Occam refrain from saying anything further about that one. We are really discussing examples only in the context of exploring the general principle and overall status of BLP policy compliance. The question that I'm interested in is simply this: are we failing to enforce BLP policy on certain people who are particularly unpleasant? That could happen for any number of reasons and is worth considering in depth from time to time.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I would like to insert here a reminder to Captain Occam that when he was un-site-banned 10 days ago by ArbCom, two of the restrictions he remained under are:
  • The scope of his 2010 topic ban is modified from "race and intelligence related articles, broadly construed" to "the race and intelligence topic area, broadly construed"; and
  • If he behaves disruptively in any discussion, any uninvolved administrator may ban him from further participation in that discussion. Any such restriction must be logged on the R&I case page. [5]
Given this, Captain Occam must take pains to be scrupulously civil and non-disruptive, and to avoid even the slightest implication that his complaint regarding BLP has any connection whatsoever with articles about any person connected to the topic area of "race and intelligence, broadly construed". Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:06, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I've previously asked a member of ArbCom about what is or isn't a topic ban violation with respect to discussing an article that's covered by the R&I case. As I understand it, it isn't a violation to discuss this sort of general principle that applies to many different articles, as long as all of the specific examples I'm discussing on-wiki are from articles that don't relate to the area of my topic ban. I know several members of ArbCom watch this page, so if any of them think I'm misunderstanding what I was told, I'll follow their advice. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:44, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I would imagine that whether the "general principle" you want to discuss is a means on your part to comment on articles in that topic area without actually coming out and saying so would be pertinent to any decision about whether you were violating your sanctions or not. Also, you should recognize that "disruption" is a rather subjective standard and, in the case of your second sanction quoted above, any uninvolved admin, not just an Arbitrator, can block you if, in their evaluation, you are being disruptive.
Personally, I have to wonder whether coming to Jimbo's talk page to make broad unsubstantiated generalizations about BLP policy is what ArbCom had in mind for you when they removed your site ban. I rather think it more likely that they expected you to improve the encyclopedia by editing articles outside of your topic ban, or something helpful like that, but in the 12 days since you've been allowed to edit again, you have yet to make a mainspace edit. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
If you must know, the reason I'm asking about this here is because I'm trying to decide whether it's worth making a second attempt to remove the BLP violations from the Adnan Oktar article. I told ArbCom in my ban appeal that one of the topic areas I'd like to resume editing is religion articles, and that's one of the specific articles I had in mind. But if any violation I remove will be added back within a few months, then making a second attempt on that article isn't worth the effort. So before I resume editing in earnest, I'd like to know whether there's anything that can be done about the general problem that caused that outcome last time.
You've already said here that you think unbanning me was the wrong decision, and I don't expect to change your mind. But why don't you wait and see whether I actually create problems on my own, instead of trying to prove yourself right by picking a fight with me here? I don't think I'll have trouble avoiding disruption as long as I'm not baited into it by editors who still have grudges against me from five years ago. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:57, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, I did voice an objection when ArbCom released you from your site ban, not the least because they did so without any explanation or transparency. I certainly accept Drmies' response that sometimes the committee, for reasons that can't be publicly explained, has to do things in private, but that doesn't mean that I'm any less concerned about your proven potential for disruption, which you seemed to have confirmed by using your supposed concern about the application of BLP policy as a screen for your actual purpose, which only now have you divulged.
Let's answer your dilemma about what to do this way: if the consensus of the community is that the parts of the article you are concerned about are not BLP violations, then by removing them, you would knowingly be editing against established consensus. Now, certainly, consensus can change, but since you already know that the community disagrees with your interpretation of BLP in this instance, the proper thing for you to do is to discuss your proposed edits on the article talk page, or later on BLPN, if necessary, before making the edit. Making an edit that you know is opposed to established consensus under the guise of there being some kind of systemic flaw in the application of BLP policy would be, if I may say so, disruptive and tendentious behavior.
As for my trying to "pick a fight" with you, well, all I can say is that as a result of my comments, you finally said what was actually on your mind, something you should have done in the first place, instead of wrapping yourself in the cloak of an editor worried about badly enforced policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Have you actually looked at the specifics of the situation I've described on the Oktar article? This is an article where the community came to the consensus that using a particular source was a BLP violation, but additional material cited to that source was subsequently added to the article anyway, and has remained mostly unaltered ever since then. I provided links/diffs of both of those things in my reply to Smallbones.
Since community consensus was that using this source is a BLP violation, the community does not appear to disagree with my interpretation of BLP policy in this case. The disagreement is over whether a source should be used in the article after it's been determined to violate the BLP policy, when no one is disputing the fact that it's a violation. The fact that it's even possible to have a disagreement over the second thing is what I'm trying to figure out how to deal with. Your desire to pick apart everything I say is forcing me to be a little more specific than I would've been otherwise, but I haven't misrepresented anything by saying my concern is about BLP policy not being followed. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:17, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
It matters not a whit how you analyze the community's consensus opinion about the use of the source, what matters is that the community has arrived at a consensus, and if you remove it you will be, by definition, deliberately editing against consensus. What you've never understood is that Wikipedia is not the place to right great wrongs, but assuming there is any value in your analysis, your task is to change the community's consensus about the use of the source before you make any move to remove it. Anything else will be, as I said above, deliberately disruptive and definitely tendentious. No matter how you justify it to yourself, do you really think you're going survive doing that when you're still under sanction? Or are you just toying with us? Beyond My Ken (talk) 09:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
You know, I find your attitude here quite fascinating. You'd think it would be a completely banal matter that when a discussion on the article's talk page has already determined that a source violates BLP policy, and that conclusion has never been challenged, the source therefore shouldn't be used. If you suspect I've misinterpreted the community's conclusion, you can read the discussion for yourself here. (I'm definitely not misinterpreting it.) But at this stage, I think I believe you that no matter how clear their conclusion was that using this source is a BLP violation, the community also won't allow me to remove it.
I actually suspected from the start that this would be the answer I'd get, but I want to be a reformer and not just a muckraker, so after making that post at Wikipediocracy I had an obligation to make a sincere effort at actually doing something about the problem I described there. Well, at least now nobody can say that I didn't try. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:53, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Is Oktar tied to R&I in any way? If so, this discussion is probably a violation of the topic ban. Guy (Help!) 10:00, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
No, he isn't. And I don't appreciate your assumption that I'm unable to comply with the restrictions I'm under. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:06, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Interesting that you take a question as embodying an assumption. No such assumption exists. Still, lookign through this, it's clear why you mention Lynn, equally clear why you're steering conversation away form Lynn here, and entirely unclear why you would go to bat for Di Stefano or Oktar, both of whose articles appear to em to be neutral presentations of the real-world view of the subjects. Guy (Help!) 15:44, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Is it so difficult to believe that I'm doing it because I actually believe those articles to be violating the BLP policy? Even if my conclusion is incorrect, your assumption that I have some sort of ulterior motive amounts to an assumption of bad faith. And on the Oktar article at least, everyone who's expressed an opinion on the talk page about whether the 19.org source is acceptable for a BLP has come to the same conclusion about it. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:44, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
"Is it so difficult to believe that I'm doing it because I actually believe those articles to be violating the BLP policy?" Given that the majority of your mainspace editing in the past was serving the agenda of your own particular POV, yes, it is almost impossible to believe. You used up your stock of AGF a long, long time ago. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:35, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
The majority of my mainspace editing before my ban was for the purpose of turning the William Beebe article from start-class into a GA in 2011. I had (and still have) more edits to that article than all of my other mainspace edits put together. Can you explain how my rewriting that article was an example of "serving the agenda of my own particular POV"? If you can't support that assertion about me, saying it is a personal attack and I expect you to retract it. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:18, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Captain Occam, you were site banned from Wikipedia as a result of your editing in the topic of race and intelligence, so that Arbitration Case is more than sufficient to support my point. But let's go farther: your mainspace edits (article & talk) on race and intelligence totaled 1210 edits, while your mainspace edits (article & talk) on William Beebe totaled only 576 edits,[6] so, no, you did not spend most of your time in mainspace on William Beebe, you spent most of your time there being disruptive on Race and intelligence, History of the race and intelligence controversy, Race and genetics, Race and crime in the United States, Race (human categorization), The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy, Race, Evolution and Behavior and numerous other articles and their talk pages and subsequently being site banned for it. You're not going to get a retraction from me about a fact so blatantly obvious as that, so if you think that was a personal attack, as opposed to a factual description of your editing, I suggest you start shopping for an admin to bust me. Beyond My Ken (talk) 04:06, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Please stop moving the goalposts. WP:MAINSPACE means article space, not talk pages. My mainspace edits to the William Beebe article (and the related article Bathysphere) total 673. That's about twice the total number of mainspace edits I've made to articles related to race and intelligence. (Including talk pages skews the numbers because when an article goes through mediation, as the R&I articles did, a lot of discussion is required and expected from the mediation's parties.)
What you said about my mainspace editing was factually false. Please just admit it, and stop trying to change the meaning of what you said. It's also false to suggest that my mistakes on R&I articles when I was an ignorant newbie are the reason I was site-banned in 2012. On every one of the articles you just listed, I haven't made any edits or participated in the talk pages since August 2010.
Now, here's the point that really matters: before my ban, there were several editors who had grudges against me left over from the R&I arbitration case and who followed me from one discussion to another assuming bad faith about everything I did and said. In the six and a half years since that arbitration case closed, most of those editors have moved on from that conflict, but you evidently haven't. Are you intending to keep this up? If so, that would be good to know, because it might mean that I'll eventually have to ask ArbCom for another interaction ban. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:25, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Including your talk page edits is essential to understand your history, because that is where you were most disruptive. Now, the point that really matters is that ArbCom, for whatever reason, gave you another chance, and instead of simply editing and improving the encyclopedia, as thousands of other editors do without muss or fuss (and as I believe Feragho the Assassin did), you came here under false pretenses with a bogus "quote" and a spurious complaint about the application of BLP, all to cover your intention of editing against established community consensus. Of course, you can ask for an interaction ban, but I'll doubt it would be granted, considering that I don't believe we've had substantial interactions before. (I certainly don't remember any.) More likely, I would think, ArbCom would realize that you have absolutely no intention of integrating yourself peacefully into the community and would reinstate your site ban. You wanna try? Your choice. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:37, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
No, talk page edits were not where I caused the most problems on those articles. You're just making up stuff about me now. The vast majority of my finding of fact in the original case concerns edits in article space, particularly tag teaming and edit warring. (Incidentally, I haven't done either of those things since June 2010.)
You've dodged both of the two questions I asked you, so let me ask them again as clearly as possible:
1: Are you going to take back what you said about my mainspace editing? It would be to your credit if you could demonstrate some bare minimal ability to assume good faith about me, when your argument that you should never have do that was based on a premise that you know is false.
2: Do you intend to continue following me to new discussions assuming bad faith about everything I do and say, as you've done here?
Whether or not I think I should request an interaction ban from ArbCom depends on your answers to those questions. Although even if you answer no to the first one and yes to the second, I'll probably want to wait and see whether you actually do keep doing this before I make the request. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:46, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
What I do is totally dependent on what you do. If you settle down to improving the encyclopedia without violating POV, then you'll have no problem with me, but if you keep coming up with bullshit like this thread, that's an entirely different matter. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:19, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Captain Occam, if you want an interaction ban in this context you should seek one via ANI, not Arbcom. In passing there seems absolutely no utility in continuing your back-and-forth arguing here - your topic is too general and the debate too personalised to be going anywhere. If there's an article you'd like to edit, and you are otherwise permitted to do so, I suggest you simply go and edit it in accordance with the usual en-WP policies. If other editors disagree with the interpretation of those policies, seek consensus either way on that articles talkpage-- Euryalus (talk) 07:07, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Best of luck in getting Jimbo to see that BLP policy is ineffective. I'm still banned since November 2012 because I objected to Jimbo's disgraceful edit of a BLP.MOMENTO (talk) 02:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Actually, you were indef topic banned from the "Prem Rawat" for violating discretionary sanctions. [7] That was after being article topic banned for a year as the result of an Arbitration Case,[8] and then, once discretionary sanctions were imposed, being blocked a number of times for disruption, then having a discussion ban tacked on to your article ban, then another 1 year ban, followed by a block for violating it. After all that, the indef ban was laid on you, and you were blocked once for violating, and your appeal to have it removed was turned down. I count at least 13 admins who were involved in those various decisions. Are they all Jimbo's henchmen, doing his bidding because you dared to criticize him, or is it just possible that you behaved very badly and have been rewarded for it with appropriate sanctions? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:21, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
No. They were all WillBeback and his henchmen as your research clearly showed you.MOMENTO (talk) 08:47, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
So, the Arbitrators who article-banned you, the admins at various AE threads, those who blocked and banned you for violating Discretionary Sanctions were all WillBeBack's henchmen? What a very powerful person he must be. Beyond My Ken (talk) 08:58, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
He had a lot of followers including Jimbo. When a dishonest policeman is discovered it is usual to look at all their cases in light of the new evidence. WillBeback was banned for his disgraceful attacks on members of New Religious Movements. He banning case mentioned the Prem Rawat articles but no one bothered to look and see the war he waged on me.MOMENTO (talk) 09:50, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Did some research for you. PatW complains to Jimbo on his talk page Nov 14, 2012. Jimbo replies "I wish I had the time to weigh in there myself. I hope others will. I'll try to take a look soon. It would be helpful for me if you can indicate one single starting point. For example, one clear obvious and easy example of a reliable source that has been excluded unfairly. Or of something that is being "spun" falsely.--Jimbo Wales Nov 15, 2012. Two hours later BOTNL with no prior warning and no evidence announces "Today I've banned a couple people from the article and warned another one...." The Blade of the Northern Lights, November 15, 2012. As easy as that.MOMENTO (talk) 10:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
It owuld be lovely if at least one sanctioned cultist acknowledged the validity of the restrictions placed upon them. Seems today is not that day. Guy (Help!) 15:46, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Thank you Guy for demonstrating so clearly the bias that has motivated your involvement with the Prem Rawat articles.MOMENTO (talk) 22:43, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
What involvement? I just went through the entire edit history of bot the article and its talk page, and as far as I can see I have never edited either.
And why would any bias of mine be a problem on a par with your bias and strong motivation to promote that bias? Guy (Help!) 23:37, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I can't speak for the other two articles you've highlighted, but I can say with certainty that your views on the titling of Giovanni Di Stefano (fraudster) are bizarre and wrong. It's been discussed before on the article talk page, but briefly: GDS' appellation is needed to disambiguate him from others of the same name; he is not a "businessman" or a "lawyer" as his business - scamming millions from clients by posing as a lawyer - was fraudulent; he's currently serving a 10 year sentence for his 4th conviction for fraud and will soon have spent a third of his life behind bars for fraud offences; and the title is consistent with multiple other articles whose subjects have the appellation "(fraudster)".
Where you have gone off the rails, I think, is that you seem to think that Wikipedia should not be including any negative information in an individual's biography, no matter how well sourced. We have a responsibility to present a balanced view of a person's life. That means fair but not undue coverage of both positive and negative aspects. In the case of GDS, it's not credible to argue that he shouldn't be termed a fraudster when he has accumulated 22 years of imprisonment in 2 countries for 4 convictions for that offence - literally the definition of a career criminal. To argue otherwise is to argue for whitewashing. Prioryman (talk) 08:52, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I am familiar with much of the history of the Giovanni De Stefano case, having corresponded with him to try to help deal with his complaints about the article. It is abundantly clear from reliable sources that he is accurately described as a fraudster. I will look at the others when I get the chance but it is already clear to me that Captain Occam's original claim (in the title of this section) that there are "Articles where the community rejects BLP policy" is false.
But we should all keep in mind that he's making a different, milder, claim as well - but one which is also important and should be addressed. Are there articles where there are BLP violations which are brought to the attention of the community and yet persist for years? That is possible even though the community is passionate about BLP policy and uniformly supportive of it. There are many ways that things might be slipping through the cracks (though I'm not impressed with the evidence so far) that are not the same thing as people rejecting BLP policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:59, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
That's entirely possible for certain public figures, such as entertainers. For example, it bothers me a lot that references to the "Golden Raspberry Awards," a spoof "award" that is not an award at all but a sarcastic attack, is continually listed in the "awards" sections of articles on performers, and in stand-alone articles such as List of awards and nominations received by Adam Sandler. I've raised the issue a bunch of times. Look at the talk page of that article; I've raised BLP concerns there and elsewhere about other actors. But you get shouted down and after a while you just get worn out. They're not "awards," goddamn it! Now, I'm not saying that they shouldn't be mentioned. Of course, if they're mentioned in reliable sources in an appropriate manner, by all means. But just throwing them into articles is contrary to my reading of BLP, for the simple reason that we are mischaracterizing a spoof as an award. The problem is that other people disagree, so that's that. Our mechanisms fall down in such situations, because there are a lot of people out there who want it there. Coretheapple (talk) 15:30, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, Razzies should be in critical reception, not awards. Guy (Help!) 15:39, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
That was my position too. Note that it was three years ago that I raised this point there and elsewhere. I don't recall how far I pushed it. I definitely went to the wikiproject and possibly BLP/N too. The latter is by no means guaranteed to get results. The problem in such situations is that editors have only limited time on Wikipedia and must prioritize their efforts. At the time I was probably focused on other things, like writing an article on so-and-so, so I just stopped pushing it. I think that happens a lot in these kinds of situations. Coretheapple (talk) 15:56, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I wouldn't file that under evil, mind you, just people Not Getting It. Guy (Help!) 16:00, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
For sure, but I assume that's what we're talking about here. I just removed the Razzies from that article, so let's see if it stays that way. Coretheapple (talk) 16:02, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
There actually is a physical award though. Much like the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award. There are nominees, there are votes, there is a ceremony where people may (or may not) turn up to collect their award. Its an award by any reasonable interpretation of it. It may be an award celebrating a negative aspect, but its still a competition in which they have by skill, luck or supreme effort, beaten their opponents. It usually makes the news like any other award. Sometimes its even interesting. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree, and I love spoof awards (my favourite being the igNobel Prize of course), but they really do belong in discussion of critical reception rather than awards received. Guy (Help!) 16:16, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Well IgNobel's are slightly different in that no one who is up for one is under any illusions they are not doing something 'different' to be nominated. Also they often highlight highly useful but 'odd' research - the limburger cheese/mosquito attactant being possibly one that could save millions of lives. I would have thought you were more into the Pigasus Award. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm sure that if you were "awarded" a "prize" for being incompetent in your chosen profession that you would view it as not a bona fide award. In any event, this discussion illustrates the general point made by Captain Occam, though I do not concur with his examples, which I agree are poorly selected. Coretheapple (talk) 17:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Pigasus and also the Bent Spoon Award. Guy (Help!) 17:57, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Indeed. The important takeaway here, which you have mentioned, is the need to not conflate a mock "award" with a real one. True, Sandra Bullock took her "razzie" like a good sport, but that's immaterial to the fact that it should be lumped in with whatever Golden Globes etc. she's gotten. Coretheapple (talk) 23:58, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Well the basic problem with that of course is that IP's are allowed to edit BLP's. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:38, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: Of course. Although I am sure you're not suggesting that IP's should be restricted from doing so? I mentioned this specific conflict as a number of the main actors are still alive. As a case-study it would present a useful survey of the issues the OP indicated, in the context of Jimbo's comment in the hat note. Hence the widow of Arkan example, who is still alive and associated with the war. There are plenty of sources on this specific war to ensure that the BLP articles associated with it adhere to the required policies. Karst (talk) 22:29, 13 January 2017 (UTC)


  • Fascinating stuff. Can I ask you all (you participants in the discussion) to be more explicit when you say "you"? I can't tell who is attacking/praising/defaming who. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 19:06, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I think that the case of "Giovanni Di Stefano (fraudster)" illustrates a very specific problem that doesn't really pertain to BLPs in general. That article says that Wikipedia editors were sued, and while it's good that people are broadly united and vociferously stand up for their rights, it's not so good that Wikipedia can appear clannish and vindictive whenever there is a perceived offense against it. I won't claim not to be part of the phenomenon myself though, because I'll admit that I'm not going to rack my brains for less-offensive article titles given that historical background - I'm prone to feel like it's better to stay out of editing something like that unless I've girded myself for war, I'm afraid, in which case I might not be a very neutral editor. But there are times -- as with "Qworty", to give an example -- where Wikipedia comes off as not merely biased, but practically foaming at the mouth, where half the article is dedicated to some obscure controversy about some COI editing on Wikipedia but the list of the books written by an author was deemed unacceptable to be included in an article about the author! (I mean, why have an article at all if...) Wnt (talk) 22:32, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Wow, that "qworty" bit seems over-the-top, and veritably screams "undue." Coretheapple (talk) 00:00, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
@Wnt: I edited Robert Clark Young‎ ("Qworty") to address the "foaming at the mouth" aspect that you mention. That article is a BLP disgrace and I think serious consideration needs to be given to its deletion as an attack page. I think this article is a much better example of a longstanding BLP problem than the ones cited by Col. Occam, though I do appreciate his raising the issue, which is a valid one. I'm against COI editing as much as or more than any editor here, but there is absolutely no excuse for an article that pillories an obscure individual caught doing so. Why even have such an article? Coretheapple (talk) 16:40, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Well done that Cadre ensuring that the historical record correctly is maintained. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.231.145.253 (talk) 12:11, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
I just removed that. It adds nothing to the article, and the sourcing is paper thin - a passing mention and a piece in an obscure journal.
However, the issue is not that he tried to sue Wikipedians. That only happened after we tried to add some material to an effective hagiography, which mentioned his legal history. His response was threats and denial, explicitly denying that he was the same person who was convicted of fraud previously. That turns out to have been a lie. The article had many WP:SPA editors, check the history. Guy (Help!) 23:57, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I didn't mean to imply he sued, only that when Wikipedians get mad about something en masse, even if it's pretty minor, it really does seem to taint the article. It's not even that I think you can't mention it; you can, but ... is going down to the level of citing "Sockpuppet investigation into Qworty" or "indefinite block notice" really called for? Even if a Salon author cites them for the specific purpose of making them more citable in the Wikipedia article? Hmmm. I have to admit, I could go that inclusionist, though it's been a while since I've been hopeful of getting the data in there in more typical BLP situations, but I certainly can't see accepting that while also accepting this edit. If we're here to tell the truth and the whole truth then including the list of books by someone notable (however barely) as an author is one of those little details an editor should never have to apologize for. Wnt (talk) 00:53, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
Oh I agree. WIJAGH. Readers care about the content, I do not think they give a flying fuck about most of the Wikipedia "controversies" we document. Guy (Help!) 00:57, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

An example

Paul Frampton is a good example of a BLP failure in my opinion. An esteemed physics professor was convicted of drug smuggling in Argentina, but an American appeals court ruled that he should be treated as a honeypot drug mule scam victim for the purposes of reinstating his back pay while he was jailed in Argentina. He has repeatedly appeared on the talk page, BLPN, and through intermediaries asking for either a more balanced treatment or article deletion. An RFC on the question was closed as "malformed," although the questions seem perfectly clear to me. And guess who shows up on his talk page arguing against presenting the controversy "conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy" per WP:BLP? A faculty member from his alma matter physics department with whom he had an off-wiki dispute decades ago! 174.16.120.55 (talk) 02:24, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I really don't see what the complaint is about Paul Frampton. The article seems very well balanced, dealing with the drug situation in one line in the lede and one medium-sized section, which is well-sourced and neutrally written. The article overall deals more with his professional career then with the drug charge. If it's a whitewashing he's looking for, a completely removal of the drug section, that simply isn't going to happen. It's very unfortunate if the professor was scammed (and one should note that two different courts came to two different conclusions about that claim), but we don't remove articles because someone was (possibly) the victim of a scam, or, (possibly) a drug smuggler. The article was kept at AfD, and has been discussed at least twice at BLPN. That you did not get the result you want from those discussions does not mean that they weren't properly thoughtful applications of BLP policy. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:53, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
I fail to see any problem with that article. The drugs issue is robustly sourced. It's obvious that the subject wants the article deleted, but Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Frampton was unambiguous. I hold no brief at all for the directory-based criteria of WP:PROF but this one clearly passes WP:GNG as well, so there is very little chance of getting it deleted. Guy (Help!) 12:01, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
The article actually seems rather sympathetic. For example, it says that "Frampton's statements that the prosecutor's evidence was laughable,[7] were translated in court as suggesting that the messages themselves had been intended as jokes.[8]" [7] is a book by Framption; [8] says that "In emails Frampton wrote to another friend in Canada, he made similar comments about the dogs. However he claimed he was joking in both instances." Now I'm not saying we should put a muzzle on the subject and ignore his defense - we must never do that! - but to say in neutral voice that the defendant was right and the national judicial process was wrong, however likely that may be in drug cases, is a sort of cultural imperialism. Especially that is when this is because it is a foreign defendant and a similar level of skepticism is rarely offered in our articles about U.S. judicial proceedings.
It doesn't make sense that societies are organized all over the entire world to pick people out and ruin their lives over an utterly ineffective and counterproductive drug war, which we know from Colorado has absolutely no benefit and is conducted solely for the reason we know it is done by common sense, which is to make people miserable for the sake of making them miserable, to get everybody bullying them before they can start bullying us instead. (Well, now it is mostly to keep the cartels in clover, but I don't think the reason for starting the prohibition in the first place since the market was so small then) But it also doesn't make sense for this to be a special exemption from this universal common cause of mankind solely when it comes to documenting Wikipedia BLPs. Everyone else wants defendants to be miserable - the courts, the employers who do background checks, the pundits/gossips, and above all, the newspapers we use for sources. Wnt (talk) 12:33, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
I think your view of the "war on drugs" is unnecessarily cynical, I believe that the majority of those driving the policy do so out of sincere belief that recreational drug use, especially hard drugs, is inherently harmful. Nonetheless, the policy is rife with examples of entrapment and the law of unintended consequences. Guy (Help!) 13:55, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
@JzG: We're digressing, but I can't help it. What you say sounds like a good alternate hypothesis, but then there's this: people can be jailed for selling fake drugs just as if they were real. Yes, one post hoc excuse is that the state doesn't want to pay for lab tests or is afraid of toxic fakes, but that doesn't explain why the defendant can't mount at least an affirmative defense showing what the drug simulant was and that it is harmless, or preferably, get a license in advance. The only explanation I see that covers this is that those behind the law are afraid that people selling fake drugs would discourage users and tamp down the total value of the market, and hence the tribute paid by traffickers with official favor. The same explanation accounts for why narcotics enforcement measures success as an increase in the price of drugs, usually avoiding measures like reverse stings against users and looking always for specific highest level producers. It also accounts for why things like pseudoephedrine are restricted in the U.S. even though authorities realize this contributes to the profits of the Mexican cartels producing abroad, and why drug treatment is always neglected. How many implausible things does a theory have to explain before it counts as confirmed? Wnt (talk) 00:37, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

If you think the article is just fine, what do you think about the RFC being closed as "malformed," and what do you think the answers to the questions in the RFC should be? Do you think an ordinary person would consider the article's account written "conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy" as WP:BLP requires? Would Britannica in its heyday ever let a former colleague who readily admits his conflict of interest participate in editorial decisions about the subject and edit the article to restore details with which the subject and an appeals court do not agree? 174.16.120.55 (talk) 02:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

The North Carolina Court of Appeal did not determine that Frampton was an innocent victim. Neither the secondary sources or the court decision say that, although they mention that was what he claimed.[9] The issue that was decided was whether the University violated the employment contract by suspending him while he awaited trial in Argentina. TFD (talk) 03:50, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
They didn't rule on whether Frampton was a victim, they ruled on whether he was entitled to his back pay after being fired for having been arrested, and later convicted, in Argentina. But that's not what I asked. Here are the RFC questions:
  1. Are there any reasons to include a summary of the mule honeypot ruse conviction in the article's introduction?
  2. Are there any reasons that the header of the section describing it should be called "Drug smuggling conviction" instead of "Personal life"?
  3. Are there any reasons that the Argentine court's ruling should be given greater weight than the US appeals court's or Frampton's point of view?
Those are no more "malformed" than the article is written "conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy," or that allowing Frampton's alma matter detractor to fight to keep his most public biography as embarrassing as possible is good editorial practice in any way. Maybe someday we will see some indication of basic human decency from wikipedians on the subject, but nobody has any reason to hold their breath. 174.16.120.55 (talk) 04:54, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
The RfC was a good example of begging the question so was indeed malformed. We don't hold RfCs on rhetorical questions. Guy (Help!) 09:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
In order: 1. The lead of an article summarises the content. Frampton is unfortunate that his criminal activities constitute a substantial portion of his notability. Which he capitalised on by writing a book about his experiences. So yes, it is destined to be summarised even briefly in the intro/lead. 2. A 'Personal life' consisting mainly of his drug smuggling would generally indicate his personal life was smuggling drugs, so no, its not really a better title. 3. The Argentine courts ruling is not given greater 'weight' as it is not in opposition to his civil case against his university for back pay, a case I might add that despite the fudging above, had no bearing on his criminal conviction, it did not in any way reduce it, mitigate it, refute it or nullify it. It was entirely about his dispute over salary. And no, a US civil case where someone is suing for with-held salary does not in any way supersede or even contradict a drugs smuggling conviction. Ultimately I personally would not care if the biography existed or not. However like many notable people who do bad things and get caught, Frampton would like the good to be remembered and not the bad. Since an AFD has not gone anywhere (and AFD in which I voted delete due to the above issues) there is little that can be done other than watching it. Maybe at some point Wikipedia will stop filling its biographies with tattle-tale about barely notable people who like a bit of recreational drugs. Then it might get deleted. Alternatively they can contact the WMF directly and threaten them. There is a reason Daniel Brandt is a red-link. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:06, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Sure, which is why I think we should have a high bar to inclusion of BLP articles and a low bar to deletion of marginally-notable bios where the subject expresses a clear preference for deletion. Guy (Help!) 10:44, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Deleting marginally-notable biographies might slightly lower the profile of those individuals, perhaps providing some infinitesimal reduction of their humiliation. But it might mean that others fail to think twice before they carry a famous model's suitcase over the border for her ... or wonder if being clever people they might try smuggling drugs just once for the thrill, whichever. I'm sorry, but this is a free knowledge project, taking information responsibly from reputable sources, and I don't think we should get into a mindset that the knowledge is useless and we should be ashamed for trying to assemble it.
The world is full of absolute bastards with privacy-invasive resources that surpass ours, that are to our databases "as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes..." Bastards who will tell lies about the global economy and about the validity of investments so serious they bring down the economy, bastards for example who collect any allegation made against you and threaten that the whole world will hear what they say unless you get a free credit monitoring subscription, for which they then charge you, which actually, despite what they would have told you, is delivering something different to those other customers that you still don't have access to. Bastards in secret agencies with more disk space than is known to man, arranging so many spy devices to be built into every consumer product they have phones literally exploding in people's pockets from the load of the iris scanners they shoehorned in on top of all the other spook features.
So we have this stark choice, this absolute distinction between the GODS, who own more among eight of them than half the world, who have the right to know every time you fart in your sleep, and us, who are told that it would be unethical to repeat what a reporter said, presumably since he drew a paycheck for it which by some tenuous route traces back to Ultimate Corporate Authority, whereas we are but random bozos on the web, therefore suitable only for sacrifice on the altars of Huitlzopochtli. But in a world where they control everything else, do you have to give them this, to say that OK, we're sorry we even tried to keep track of what the news said, we should leave that to people who subscribe to stuff? Or do you try to recover and treasure your few meager belongings like a shopping cart lady whose cart has been turned over by tough guys for a laugh? Wnt (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
On a project which is currently amassing the largest directory of live Jews (no reason why that could possibly go wrong) - I'm generally of the opinion that yes some information is entirely useless. There is 'knowledge' and there is having access to the fact that Person A was once arrested for paying for sex/taking drugs etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:56, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
That straw man you're describing is clearly beyond Wikipedia's scope, but I'll take the bait anyway. The first and most important safeguard against abuse is the volunteer - how does he want to spend his time? Compiling a list of all the Jews is not very interesting to the vast majority of people, so we don't have to worry much about it. And if some guys take time out from their goose-stepping to make lists of Jews ... well, I can think of some worse things they might have done with that time. Now beyond that, we start getting into what privacy is. Is making a database of all the rabbis you can find in the phone book useful? Apparently, if you're making a phone book. Or perhaps if you're a rabbi. Direct marketers, though perhaps only slightly more welcome than Nazis, doubtless would love to know who to mail dreidel catalogues to. The thing is, well, you start at the top of the list with the guy running the synagogue and by the time you're two-thirds down you get to the guy who has a Jewish parent but doesn't really go to services and calls himself an atheist ... it would be no trivial list to complete. So at the top, you're just citing sources, same as Wikipedia does and should, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. By the time you get to the bottom, you're coming to somebody with a conspiracy theory about how his great-grandmother might have had an affair and you just want to run a few DNA markers to check... and obviously he would say whatever the Yiddish equivalent of "get bent" is, if he knew Yiddish. Invading privacy by actively spying on people I'm not proposing. But carrying data that any number of commercial companies assemble and sell for a few dollars or in a free trial subscription? Wikipedia need not be ashamed of that, if it were within our scope. (But again, as I said at the outset, this case isn't; I just want to dispatch the ethics stuff) Wnt (talk) 18:12, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Thats a great wall of waffle there Wnt, let me boil it down for people who are less willing to read it. "Other people do it, its easy to do, its unlikely to be done for a bad reason". All of which are ethically bad arguments for why we should do something. And history shows that databases compiled for good and reasonable reasons can still be misused. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:29, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
Mate, if it comes to a toss up between rubbing some poor sod's nose in his own shit and providing a cautionary tale against doing something as self-evidently stupid as letting your cock overrule every piece of advice ever given about not carrying stuff over borders for people, I'm for deletion. Guy (Help!) 20:15, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not going to go anywhere near as far as WNT - in fact I think he was making some very spectacularly overstated arguments above just to try to make a point. OTOH, I'm generally against deleting stuff just because things turn out negative for some person or company. If we consciously delete all the negative articles, we end up with all BLPs and companies where nobody has ever committed a crime, or made a mistake, and the whole world is covered in sunshine all the time, and everybody is happy. That would be a very biased encyclopedia with a very biased view of the world.

I'd be happy with a policy where we never start articles about small-fry if all we can say is negative things, but after that let the reliably sourced chips fall where they may. Yes, we'd have a slightly "sunny bias", but probably less so than most media outlets. Why is it important to show the bad with the good much of the time? I'll just give an example of a BBC? tv program where they focused on people caught on drug smuggling charges in 3rd world countries. I'll bet that program dissuaded a lot of naive potential drug smugglers. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:11, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

That's pretty much how it is now. Guy (Help!) 21:39, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Look, whether you believe Frampton actually intended to smuggle drugs or was scammed by a common ruse, or anywhere in between, is there any question that an article written "conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy," per WP:BLP, would err on the side of the subject far more than than it does today? 174.16.120.55 (talk) 00:30, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

The article already strays into WP:SYN territory in its attempts to be fair to you. We're not deleting it and we're not removing this material. Guy (Help!) 09:08, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm not Frampton, just a former editor who no longer wants to be associated with people who think that scam victims shouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt. 174.16.120.55 (talk) 17:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
That *is* written conservatively and with regard for their privacy. One might suggest that if one cared about their privacy they wouldnt write and publish a book about their experience. It makes the whole 'privacy' argument extremely weak. As it stands its extremely fair given the circumstances. The alternative option is 'no biography' which has been rejected by the community and will only come to pass if the WMF decide to take a staff action. Jimbo is unlikely to unilaterally take such an action. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
But instead of summarizing the account in the book, the article accepts the Argentine drug court conviction at face value in the intro and headers. I wonder if Jimbo shares your opinion that doing so is "extremely fair." If there is anything extreme here, it's the lack of human decency among editors. 174.16.120.55 (talk) 17:47, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
No, we report what reliable sources have reported. That he was tried and convicted. There is zero ambiguity about this. As it stands the article also includes his (rejected) defense. One does not negate the other. But before going on about human decency, perhaps some people should think about the effects of drugs on society before smuggling them. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:09, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Can you imagine any situation where a previously notable subject caught in a drug mule scam should not have their conviction announced in the introduction to their article? 174.16.120.55 (talk) 22:25, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Can you think of an example where someone convicted of drug trafficking would not have it mentioned? Guy (Help!) 23:26, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Tim Allen and Cameron Douglas, for example, have both been convicted of drug trafficking under circumstances where there is no doubt at all that they were intending to do so instead of obviously being the victim of a honeypot mule scam, but neither have any mention of drugs in their articles' introductions. Similarly Cadillac Anderson, Gary Balough, The Notorious B.I.G., John Forté, Travis Henry, Sam Jones III, Adam Jasinski, Lil' Troy, Rommie Loudd, and Bam Morris, just from the first half of the alphabet. 174.16.120.55 (talk) 00:12, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
By 'obviously a victim' you of course mean 'totally not credible drug smuggler'. Here is a hint, when smuggling drugs, do not send texts or emails the day before while in possession of a suitcase of drugs, talking about drugs, suitcases and sniffer dogs - any claim to lack of knowledge about said drugs in said suitcase have zero credibility. 'I was joking' - yes well joking about smuggling drugs while carrying a bag full of drugs is likely to get you convicted of smuggling drugs. Just to take the first one, Tim Allen's conviction was in the 70's before he was well-known. It is mentioned in his article in detail but would be unlikely to make it into the lead due its minor relevance to his notability given his long, successful and highly visible career as comedian in TV and Film. Frampton *absent* his drugs conviction would just about scrape past the notability criteria. And even then it would be arguable. Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:30, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
As here, WP:BLP is very often interpreted by editors who prefer ridiculing a BLP's subject instead of reexamining their practices in light of evidence that they are acting outside of acceptable norms. Here's Frampton's article prior to news of his arrest, easily passing WP:PROF, as the majority at AfD indicated. The gallows humor once he realized that the supposed supermodel he had only known previously by email had likely turned him out into a drug mule is a credible explanation. But why should Wikipedians give BLP subjects the benefit of the doubt in matters of their own privacy? Maybe you can join your colleagues in making fun of his vulnerability to the scam in an attempt to drive your argument home. Or join JzG in claiming that asking why his article doesn't meet the same standard of conservatism in respect for the subject's privacy as dozens of other articles about people with drug convictions who were famous for other achievements is "begging the question." 174.16.120.55 (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
Finding some articles where it isn't mentioned in the introduction doesn't guarantee they're right. The case of Tim Allen in particular is interesting - that was no small quantity the article is talking about, and now I wonder whether we would have ever heard his name if it hadn't been for the resources such an operation might have brought. The article doesn't contextualize this information well, so it's hard to make a big deal out of for the intro, but I'm guessing this can be done. Now as for the professor, sure, what happened is pretty sad. Our article can communicate that. One day the entire War on Drugs will be recognized as a crime against humanity, full stop. But what it shouldn't do is rewrite history. You can't have an article about a professor under WP:PROF for notability and then not explain why he was fired as a professor! And I would go so far as to say that if your lead explains where/how/why he became a professor, it should explain the same for how he came not to be. Wnt (talk) 20:22, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Why do you think it is right to give scam victims less respect for their privacy than dozens of BLPs where there was no question that the convicts fully intended to traffick drugs? 97.118.189.201 (talk) 20:45, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Question for Jimbo

Jimbo, do the attitudes and editing behaviors exhibited in the previous section tend to stimulate support for the "right to be forgotten" and rulings such as Glassdoor v. eGumball and Magyar Jeti Zrt v. Hungary? 174.16.120.55 (talk) 02:28, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame

meaningless subheading, pretty meaningless comment - I'm just loving that popping in here yielded such a lovely thread - featuring three of my favourites! - Jimbo, Guy and Giovanni di Stefano - happy new year to not just these lovely three, but all of the wonderful wikiholics! Privatemusings (talk) 05:56, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

I had not forgotten that you were one of his targets. It was a very frustrating period, knowing that there was verifiable fact but that a litigious thug was preventing its addition using information to which we were not privy (and which turned out to be false). Guy (Help!) 17:08, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
The frustration rooted in attempts of habitual criminals to try to cover up their shame should not be taken out on one-off scam victims by treating them even worse because their vulnerability was exposed. Just like the Argentine courts and police would rather hang Frampton out to try than go after the people who were actually profiting from the smuggling. 97.118.189.201 (talk) 19:03, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Do you have any idea how bored we are with your shit by now? Guy (Help!) 22:24, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm not trying to entertain you, I'm trying to demonstrate how failures to uphold BLP damage everyone's privacy. I certainly understand your frustration. 97.118.189.201 (talk) 22:59, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
No, you're trying to use whatever arguments you can to whitewash verifiable facts out of an article. You've said your piece, and failed to convince. Repeatedly. Guy (Help!) 23:36, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
I have never once tried to remove accounts of any the events from the article; only from its introduction and its section headings, as is the case for dozens of other BLPs about famous people with drug trafficking convictions, and to give Frampton the benefit of the doubt as a victim who had no way of profiting from the smuggling with as much weight as is given the Argentine court who preferred prosecuting him to the people who were using him to smuggle. I maintain that editors not persuaded to respect BLP subjects' privacy are part of the reason that courts have recently increased the potential liability of anonymous content contributors in the U.S. and Europe. 97.118.189.201 (talk) 20:37, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
And at what point will you recognise that the unambiguous consensus against you, represents convincing evidence that your reading of policy and guidance is simply wrong? Guy (Help!) 01:25, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
If consensus was superior to reason there would be no need to protect the minority with rights. WP:CCC exists to support the few who see past the errors of groupthink. 97.118.189.201 (talk) 01:57, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Irony

Why is it that people can make incivil comments for years with relative impunity, but if you collect those comments for a future administrative action, then you are the one in violation of the rules of incivility for creating an WP:Attack page. See now deleted: User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/This is a subpage, apparently there is a 24 hour rule for collecting evidence, then it must be deleted unless it has become evidence in an ANI. You must recognize the irony. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:58, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Easy solution - collect the diffs or page addresses on a notebook or word processing program off-line and offwiki. Sometimes Wikipedia's silly rules only affect folks who don't think things thru Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:45, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Mildly, most of the material on that subpage was put there in September last year. Per WP:POLEMIC:
  • "The compilation of factual evidence (diffs) in user subpages, for purposes such as preparing for a dispute resolution process, is permitted provided it will be used in a timely manner. Negative evidence, laundry lists of wrongs, collations of diffs and criticisms related to problems, etc., should be removed, blanked, or kept privately (i.e., not on the wiki) if they will not be imminently used, and the same once no longer needed."
Keeping this subpage of negative diffs for four months is not a timely period. As Smallbones says, if you do intend to use this material for a dispute resolution proceeding you would be better off (and more within policy) to maintain it somewhere offwiki until it is actually required. -- Euryalus (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
It sounds like it was written by a lobbyist for the uncivil industry. Amazingly the uncivil person deleted their userpage and withdrew from Wikipedia when facing sanctions, and the momentum for an ANI action dissipated, and now amazingly the editor is back, being uncivil, and of course the evidence has been erased. That way we can pretend the past does not exist. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:36, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
If you'd like to lodge an ANI or other noticeboard complaint against that editor, but didn't keep a copy of the subpage before it was deleted, then please let me know and I will undelete it so you can imminently use it for this purpose. What is not permitted is to simply continue to host a subpage of negative diffs about another editor without actually using them in dispute resolution. -- Euryalus (talk) 06:45, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I am just pointing out the irony, that them saying those things, we are ok with. But if you collect them on a page, then you are guilty of attacking the other editor. It is the most Kafkaesque and Orwellian rule I have yet come across. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
This marks my quadrennial agreeing with something that Smallbones says... Keep that stuff off wiki. Just paste the wikitext and diffs and what have you into an ordinary word processor file on your laptop. Preserved and ready to roll, QED. Carrite (talk) 23:53, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

End of Term Web Archive

See also User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 215#Archiving threatened information (December 2016).

This is to remind readers of this talk page that the End of Term Web Archive "captures and saves U.S. Government websites at the end of presidential administrations".

—Wavelength (talk) 05:46, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

DuckDuckGo has search results for end of term web archive.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:36, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

One of those search results is http://www.archivesocial.net, which has a list of 10 web pages.
—Wavelength (talk) 23:09, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

YouTube has search results for "end of term web archive".

—Wavelength (talk) 22:08, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

The official name is without hyphens ("End of Term Web Archive"), but we can still hyphenate the generic phrase ("end-of-term web archive").
—Wavelength (talk) 21:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

The anticipated removal of content from the White House website has already happened.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:23, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

A related discussion is in progress at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 54#Whitehouse.gov changes have broken many URLs used on Wikipedia (version of 00:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)).
—Wavelength (talk) 00:43, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:58, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Undisclosed paid promotional editing

A note that we have a new statement from WMF Legal on undisclosed paid "promotional" editing Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:10, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

At first glance it looks very encouraging. I think this should help stop a lot of undisclosed paid editing. There are, of course, additional steps we can take. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Hopefully we can develop some consensus around it here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:37, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
This is great for those who are against paid editing & meh on outing & harassment for other reasons. For those of us against paid editing AND against outing & harassment for other reasons I'd refer to the quote by GorillaWarfare in that (latter) link:

"I can only give you my personal take at the moment: I'm horrified at the statement, as it condones (even endorses) posting personal information of editors if there's even the slightest concern of wrongdoing, with the only "requirement" being some plausible deniability that it was good faith. I think it completely undermines the harassment policy and the WMF's November commitment towards working to end harassment."

There are ways to deal with BOTH issues, ways that WMF could - if it did so chose - be central to. This is bloody stupid. Cutting off their nose to spite their face, or, far more cynically, that WMF doesn't want the burden of possible legal issues of pseudonymity (recently discussed on this page) and is using paid editing as a 'backdoor' to force a 'real name' policy on Wikipedia. AnonNep (talk) 08:30, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't read it like that at all. The above WMF essay is presented as guidance and I find it reassuring that they take this type of opportunism seriously. I also find it reassuring that WMF legal has our backs, so to speak. Karst (talk) 11:58, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
But the 'reassuring' legal advice is a double edged sword. I care about more than one Wikipedia governance issue, as do many. The implication of this is that the brightline rule on paid editing has been replaced by a green light for abusive trolls everywhere. Given the effect of #Gamergate, here, at Wikipedia, I don't see how giving abusive trolls the possibility of increased opportunities for harassment can ever be a positive move. Quite the opposite. AnonNep (talk) 12:53, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
?"Abusive trolls everywhere" don't need a green light - they are full speed ahead regardless, and can publish anywhere at anytime on the internet. It hardly gives them "more opportunity". Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:10, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
ec I think I understand your concern, and it would obviously be better if any allegations of links were first handled by email to the checkusers list. But that essay does leave the door open to the community limiting this to allegations of paid editing and "other situations such as in combating vandalism " though I think the other situations needs careful definition. ϢereSpielChequers 13:11, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
They could say what they like elsewhere but not here. Now its all 'Oh! Ooopsy! Just published details of paid editor aka harassment target on Wikipedia!'. That is a significant new low with a raft of implications regarding protecting privacy, volunteer harassment & any attempt at shuttering Wikipedia against aggressive, lobby-focused, trolls. AnonNep (talk) 13:28, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
There is not 'oh oopsey' about it, most anyone can post anything on Wikipedia now - handling it (determining whether it is abusive) has always been left to the examination of the words used, and the users who show up, and if we are honest, the serendipity of the moment. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

break 1

This discussion all seems quite theoretical. The concrete issue at hand, as far as I can tell, is whether Wikipedians can link to well-known public websites where companies advertise for paid editors, and where prospective paid editors (PPEs) answer these ads or post their own ads. All this is done very publicly. While the companies often identify themselves, the PPEs generally don't, not even their Wiki user names. Even if PPEs do identify themselves, they are choosing to do so in public. It should be noted that these folks never disclose their paid status on Wiki, often use multiple socks to edit, so are in open violation of the Terms of Use and WP:Paid

The folks who watch out for paid editing just want to link to these publicly available websites, perhaps to say to others who watch "look out for a new article on LMNOP Corp" or perhaps in egregious cases politely ask a new editor who is writing an article on LMNOP Corp "do you know anything about this ad?" Some admins or even arbs currently seem to think that including such links onWiki is a violation of WP:Outing. I never understood that logic and I believe that allowing such links would greatly cut down on undisclosed paid editing, without outing anybody who didn't publicly post his or her name and prospective employer themselves.

Is there really anybody who is opposed to using such links to fight against undisclosed paid editors? Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:22, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

No. What I'm looking at is abusive trolls being given a new loop-hole to harass editors they want to target. Previously they organised & harassed offwiki (astoundingly, ARBCOM banned victims who responded, not aggressors who initiated) now they can harass onwiki as long as they claim *aw shucks* 'is this kinda maybe about paid editing'. AnonNep (talk) 16:35, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't see such a loop-hole in Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing at all. Could you be more specific on where it is? If we agree on the links to the advertising sites for paid-editing, then perhaps we could add limited language at WP:Outing or WP:Paid. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:46, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
If you're confused, I'd suggest a good start would be reading GorillaWarfare's response to the en.wiki changes required by this statement at the above linked and, to quote, again from there "...how changes might affect the anti-harassment policy being simultaneously developed by the WMF :- essentially whether or not enacting the paid editing statement increases the risk of harassment of individual editors; and if so, whether this is or is not worth it to reduce the prevalence of paid editing on Wikipedia".
Hope that assists with your comprehension struggle of how one WMF legal statement can simultaneously effect more than one en.wiki policy. AnonNep (talk) 17:27, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Let me assist your comprehension struggle. I politely asked a direct question "I don't see such a loop-hole in Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing at all. Could you be more specific on where it is?" Could you answer the question, please. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:47, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
And I linked/referred, more than once, to a Talk page that answers that as part of an ongoing discussion. Which bit do you find most difficult? Clicking or reading? AnonNep (talk) 18:37, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Please see WP:Don't be a jerk. I'll spell this out in detail. Which part of Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing do you think supports "abusive trolls being given a new loop-hole to harass editors?" (your words). I don't see it in there. I've asked twice now and haven't gotten a straight answer. If you don't want to answer, fine, but I won't continue this conversation with you. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:19, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
If this advice is incorporated into policy, all a harasser would need to do is claim that they believe their target is engaging in undisclosed paid editing (or even just sockpuppetry, as the statement says at the very end) and they have free reign to post personal information about their target so long as they can get some people to give them the benefit of the doubt that they truly believe this person is a paid editor and are not just posting the information maliciously.
If I was a harasser and wanted to out me, it would be trivial to do this. Create a new account, editing through proxies, and start fixing up the page about my company. Maybe add some promotional bits, cut out some criticism, whatever. Then the harasser can just post somewhere that hey, this account looks to be an undisclosed paid editing sock of User:GorillaWarfare! After all, she works at [company], she lives in Boston (which is relevant because this fake account was editing during the EST workday), and hey she's a computer scientist, so she has the technical smarts to use a proxy. So long as this fake account is not conclusively linked to the person making the claims about me, we have to assume this person genuinely believed it to be an undisclosed paid editing sock of mine. This information about me is all readily available onwiki (or found from links I've made myself), hence why I used myself as the example, but that is not the case for many editors. Furthermore, even though it is public information, the accusation that an employee is making promotional edits or hiding criticism on my company's Wikipedia page would be embarrassing to both myself and my company. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Per what I have suggested, for any of this to apply you would need to work for a Wikipedia editing for pay company. Since you do not, it does not.
Both your account and the new un associated accounts would also need to be indefinitely banned.
And not only that a large proportion of your edits would need to be obvious spam.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:41, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
I think that it would be a good start to limit to this to folks who work for companies that make their business about writing articles for pay. However, I'm objecting to the statement itself, not to your interpretation of it or how you see it being incorporated into policy. The statement does not define "company" at all when it discusses paid editing. It also does not suggest any requirements on what kinds of accounts can be investigated, or what behavior these accounts have (for example, the proportion of obvious spam you suggest above). Can you clarify what you mean about "Both your account and the new un associated accounts would also need to be indefinitely banned."? I'm not sure what this refers to. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:24, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Only accounts that are indefinately banned get listed[10]
Thus in your theoretical case, before someone would list your account as being associated with one of these editing companies your account would need to be banned first.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:58, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Ah, well once again, I will point out that I'm objecting to the statement itself, not to your interpretation of it or how you see it being incorporated into policy. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:05, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
1st, I'll say the language below this response isn't the type of language I'd use. 2nd I just don't see anything that answers my question about linking to advertising sites used by paid editors. Linking to these sites might cause some embarrassment to companies who are soliciting paid editors to put up advertising on Wikipedia, but I'm not against that and it is not outing. If prospective paid editors don't put up their names in public, it is not outing, and if they do it's them that make that decision to put their name in front of the public breaking the ToU (if they don't disclose their paid editing onWiki). So we would simply not be releasing Wikipedia editors names.
I've asked several times where in there is anything that would encourage outing and nobody has answered. Very well - I'll guess what section you mean "Posting and discussing information such as links to an editor’s job posting, company profile, or other information connecting that editor to editing an article subject for pay can be an effective way to identify and stop undisclosed paid editing." The "job-posting" part I covered above. "Company profile" I'm not so sure about, perhaps it means that if Jason J. Jason is listed by the company as advertising director, somebody could post that link on UserJasonJJason's talk page and ask him if his edits to the company's article are being paid for. In that particular case I'd think that would be reasonable. Are we supposed to intentionally hide our heads in the sand to protect people who are violating the Terms of Use? But I'll emphasize that the essay by WMF legal emphasizes using good judgement. The situation you described above has nothing to do with good judgement, and I trust that Wikipedia editors can see the difference. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:56, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm specifically discussing the statement released by the WMF, not the point about whether people can link to websites where Wikipedia editing services are offered. This type of site is not specifically mentioned in the statement; the statement seems to me to focus on linking Wikipedia accounts to individuals, vs. linking articles to advertisements.
My concerns around this statement revolve mostly around how it can (and IMO will) be weaponized if incorporated into policy. The problem with saying that people may link to public information is that "public" varies widely. Your example is just one type of posting public information. When I was outed years ago, people were posting "public" information about me: someone found my Facebook username (despite very strict privacy settings, so I suspect it was someone who knew me or was at least an acquaintance) on 4chan. From there people found less-strictly-protected Facebook accounts of my family and friends, and were able to publish a good deal of information about me and my family. Technically this was all public information, but this is absolutely the type of outing and harassment we want to avoid. The WMF statement does not specify anything about what kinds of information may be posted other offering a few examples, and it does not make any such distinction regarding "public" information.
This statement would be much less concerning to me if I was not worried about editors who were not using the good judgment the WMF has urged. In my work on Wikipedia I've seen countless instances of policies twisted to try to justify terrible behavior, gaming loopholes in policies to allow misbehavior, and instances in which even a smidgen of plausible deniability made sanctions and other ways to end misbehavior (including harassment) impossible. We need to focus on eliminating the opportunities for people to take advantage of policies and practices to harm our community members, not provide more.
You say above, "The situation you described above has nothing to do with good judgement, and I trust that Wikipedia editors can see the difference." Pretend this statement became part of policy. How would other Wikipedia editors see that this person was weaponizing this policy in the hypothetical scenario I provided? GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
The WMF statement is quite clearly related to paid editing job sites, starting with the 1st 2 sentences "Investigation of undisclosed paid editing on Wikipedia often requires a search for information about an editor outside-Wikipedia. Information such as listings on job sites," and then, repeating from my post above "Posting and discussing information such as links to an editor’s job posting, company profile, or other information connecting that editor to editing an article subject for pay can be an effective way to identify and stop undisclosed paid editing." This is the main concrete issue that I see in it. I frankly don't see how linking to public paid editing job sites hurts anybody except paid editors. You do know that the largest RfC in history approved the requirement that paid editors disclose their employers, clients, and affiliations. Why can't Arbcom see its way to allowing links to sites where people flout that requirement? What you seem to be trying to do is disallow any enforcement of the rule that actually provides publicly available evidence. Surely somebody at Arbcom is smart enough to come up with a solution that allows enforcement of the Terms of Use, and still protects non-paid editors. We need to work on a solution, but just denying the enforceability of the ToU isn't it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:16, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Where does the statement limit what personal information can be posted? And my question about the hypothetical scenario remains. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:32, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Sorry you lost me. So we must keep our OUTING policy at incredible strictness to protect someone you likely know from finding your "Facebook username (despite very strict privacy settings)" and posting it "on 4chan". Gah. Our OUTING policy no matter how strict you try to make it cannot protect you from "4chan". Sorry. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm making an example of a situation in which information is "public" (that is, my family members' Facebook accounts), but where it is inappropriate to use this information onwiki. I think you know quite well that I'm not saying what you claim. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
While let me quote what you wrote "When I was outed years ago, people were posting "public" information about me: someone found my Facebook username (despite very strict privacy settings, so I suspect it was someone who knew me or was at least an acquaintance) on 4chan." You appear to be concerns about your facebook details ending up on "4chan".
This is of course completely off topic because you were not an undisclosed paid editor working for a Wikipedia editing company. And I do not see how your facebook details on 4 chan pertain to any of this. But whatever. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:45, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
As I said above, I am concerned that the statement appears to attempt to limit what kind of information may be posted to "public" information. I am making the point that there is a huge range of information that could all be considered public, and some of it should not be allowed to be posted onwiki and connected to an editor under any circumstances. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:03, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
But the information you are talking about does not relate even tangential to undisclosed paid promotional editing. Yes there is lots of links to public information that does not belong on Wikipedia. And this includes public information not related to the enforcement of the TOUs / undisclosed paid promotional editing. No one here is disputing that. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Plenty of information that could be argued to be related to paid editing could be gleaned from this. In my example above I gave company, area of expertise, and location (to be used for time zone comparison) as examples of identifying info that people could argue would be relevant to identifying a paid editor, under the current draft of the WMF statement. All of this could easily be gleaned from Facebook pages of relatives with poor privacy settings. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:15, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes we appear to be talking about different things. Some are trying to interpret the legal advice as applying as broadly as possible so that they can made it look like this is a catastrophic change. The result of doing this unfortunately may be simply the protection of undisclosed paid editing and the perpetuation of harm.
Other are interpreting legals statement narrowly such that a specific and serious issue, PR companies which more or less exclusively edit Wikipedia for pay using armies of sockpuppets can be slowed. And doing this without altering the protection provided to good faith editors. In fact likely improving protection for good faith editors. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:20, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Quoting from the statement "it is never appropriate to hound a person, frequently post their personal information, or even post the personal information of an innocent person once in order to maliciously draw attention to them. But we think it is appropriate, as described above, to post some already public personal information as part of a good faith investigation." I'll paraphrase this as "if there is good public information available, you can use it in an appropriate investigation. But if you're doing anything else or your information is not very good, that's never appropriate." Just a bit below this is a more detailed list:

"Some factors that could help in distinguishing between good faith investigation and harassment include:

  • The type of information being posted and whether it’s more than necessary for the investigation
  • The source of the information (for instance, whether the source is reliable and publicly accessible)
  • How public the individual being identified, or the information being posted, is already
  • Where and how much the individual posting the information on wiki is doing so (i.e. is someone spamming someone else’s personal info around?)
  • Why the information was posted"

Regarding the specific case you asked about:

  • there was no solid public info - just somebody's opinion about information they planted
  • in particular, there was no information about your company offering to pay someone to edit the company article, nor was there any information of anybody accepting an offer to edit the article. If we were talking about evidence from a job posting site, there would often be both types of evidence.

The statement isn't about "let's let everybody report anything they want about anybody." It's actually quite limited, as it should be.

I think your objections have been answered. Now, what are we going to do about enforcing the rules on undisclosed paid editing? Surely you can come up with something that doesn offend you. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:52, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

And if they had created a job posting on a freelancing site offering the services of the fake account and claiming it was operated by GorillaWarfare (which, by the way, has happened)?
I disagree that the statement limits what people can post. It all boils down to "use good judgment" and "don't be malicious," and as I've pointed out already, those are easy things to game and difficult things to enforce.
I am not objecting to this statement because I'm "offended". I'm objecting because the Arbitration Committee and functionaries are the ones people turn to when they're being outed and harassed. There have been instances since I've been a member of these groups where we've done a terrible job of protecting or helping these people. Some of this is because of mistakes on our part; some of it is because of people who are able to game policy or present enough plausible deniability that our hands are tied. I am objecting to the statement because I want to see the protections that can be offered to people suffering harassment because of this site, whether they be from the functionaries, the ArbCom, or the WMF, strengthened and not slashed entirely. GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:30, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
You know, I think we're getting somewhere. I don't see any reason that a policy can't be written that takes into account what both of us are saying.
Re: the joe job done on you. Joe jobs can be done in many places on Wikipedia and I think that reasonably transparent investigations are one of the best defenses against them. The notice you placed was the perfect solution for your case IMHO. In fact, I suggested that other editors do the same thing (this was at WP:COIN just before the OrangeMoody case)
I had a much less serious case a few years ago. The usual banned editor posted on my talk page that I was being paid to take pictures for a named real estate company and putting them in articles here. Some zealous oversighter removed it, but I would have enjoyed defending myself. My first thought was how do I defend myself? How do I prove a negative, that I didn't take photos for money? Actually it would have been rather easy. I would have simply asked if my accuser had any evidence that I worked for the firm (which I had never even heard of). There would have been no W-2 form, no employment contract, no picture of me as employee of the month, nothing since I never worked for the firm. There likely would have been evidence that I took and posted photos of buildings owned by the real estate firm, but that would be really easy to explain - I've taken several hundred photos of buildings in Philly, most of them in a series like the NRHP. In short the accuser would only be making his own life miserable if there was a reasonable investigation.
It's getting a bit late for me, but I'll be back here tomorrow night. I'll try to show you a proposed policy on how links to paid editing job posting sites could be used without causing any of the problems you fear. Could you try to do the same thing? Please don't say it's impossible.
I'll end by pointing out the paid editors also cause a lot of harm on Wikipedia, especially to our readers .
  • if a paid editor inserts incorrect information into a medical article, it could cost people money, or their health, or even their lives.
  • If a paid editor inserts incorrect information into an article on educational institutions (say in India) it could cost students lots of money, but also some of the most important years of their lives, or even the chance to get a good education rather than a worthless degree.
  • If .. on a financial product or investment, it could cost somebody their life savings.
  • If .. on a household product or a car, it can cost lots of money
Let's please understand that there are 2 sides to this and we can probably satisfy both sides if we try. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:38, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
I'm also about to sign off for the night. I'll be marching and with family and friends tomorrow, but will try to respond ASAP. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
👍 Like. America is in a terrifying place right now, and it's already clear that the people who thought Trump's policies would be milder than his rhetoric were simply deluding themselves. It is going to be ugly. Guy (Help!) 11:09, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, thank you for both participating in the march and agreeing to hear out this issue. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:40, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Our users are not the only ones we need to protect. We also need to protect our readers from being mislead by malicious content within our articles. And we need to protect those who might hire and be mislead by these companies involved in undisclosed paid editing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:57, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Small note: Smallbones, I think you need to edit your posts above to say "incorrect" (or "misleading") instead of "bad". "Bad" usually means negative, which is not what I think you mean; in fact you appear to mean the reverse. Softlavender (talk) 03:01, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Not entirely sure what you mean but I've replaced "bad" with "incorrect". i certainly did meant "bad" to be negative, tho. BTW I am working on the proposed policy now. Maybe posted in 15 minutes. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:31, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Proposed policy (exercise for now) Goal: How to allow folks to investigate paid editors and give evidence that is fully available on public sites, while not allowing the information to be used to harass editors.

  • Paid editors must declare their employers, clients, and affiliations. Editors who appear to promote or advertise a business, product, or person on Wikipedia but do not declare a paid editing relation may be investigated by other Wikipedians, who may link to publicly available sites on the web that give information about their paid editing employers, clients and affiliations, provided that:
    • The paid editors’ name, his employers which don’t pay for editing services on Wikipedia, and personal details such as home address and phone number, are not revealed onWiki.
    • The links are only posted on relevant noticeboards such as WP:COI, WP:ANI, or at ArbCom as part of a serious discussion.
    • Only the minimum amount of linked information is posted that is needed to confirm that the editor is being paid.
    • Investigating editors who use this process to harass other editors may be banned.
    • Information about possible sockpuppets should be reported to, and investigated at WP:SPI
  • Information that may not be posted on Wikipedia which shows that a paid editor has not made the required disclosures may be reported by email to an admin. If an editor is banned for paid editing on the basis of the emailed information, he may request a public discussion on the ban, with the understanding that some private information may be revealed during that discussion.

Well the wording here is certainly clunky. But the idea is straightforward - just state what you want people to be able to do, as well as what you don’t want them to do. GorillaWarfare is there anything else you don’t want the investigating editors to do?

Smallbones I still have grave concerns with people posting onwiki to connect suspected paid editors to offwiki information. Even saying that "I think User:JD2017 is John Doe working for company XYZ" can sometimes be enough to dig up a ton of information on people that they do not necessarily want made public. I continue to believe that even if people are violating the Terms of Use and/or the paid editing policies, they do not deserve to be doxxed. I also believe that a lot of ToU/paid editing violations are quite a lot smaller than those that a dramatic policy change like this is seeking to avoid. Large rings of sockpuppets creating promotional articles about non-notable companies is very different from someone making a correction on the page of the company they work for, or even writing an article for a few bucks for their friend's company.
In order for a change like this to be made in policy in a responsible way, these things need to be clarified. However, even if they are clarified, I am concerned with the risk of joe-jobbing and mistaken identification. Since your question last night I have tried to think of a way to word policy so that such investigations could happen onwiki without this risk, and I simply do not believe it's possible.
Our best bet for compromise here maybe some sort of strict reporting system, though that is not without its own flaws. GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:33, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Undisclosed paid promotional editors do not want their details on Wikipedia. They want to be able to hide behind the outing policy while using our trademarks to advertise themselves.
This clarification of the TOU will help us deal with the large rings of socpuppets. We will be able to create documents that will hopefully convince many not to hire them in the first place.
I agree that we will likely never find a policy that will make all Wikipedians happy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:41, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Please explain "strict reporting system". As far as reporting onWiki "I think User:JD2017 is John Doe working for company XYZ" that wouldn't be allowed under the above policy proposal. No real world names. No company names unless there is very good info that they are paying for edits on Wikpedia. Just a link, maybe 2, to a publicly posted ad for a Wikipedia writer. For example XYZ corp advertises that they need a writer to perform certain tasks and the job is filled the next day. Somebody looks at the XYZ article, suspects that the recent changes are paid-for promotion. Just a link is put on a Wiki noticeboard. It is very good info about paid editing going on and depending on the edits and the content of the link could be enough to declare the editor as an undisclosed paid editor. Of course a request would be made to the paid editor to declare all the relevant info before banning. Anything else looks like we are intentionally turning a blind eye to somebody publicly stating that they are breaking our rules, our basic terms of service. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:55, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
This policy suggestion seems quite a bit more reasonable than the statement provided by WMF Legal. I think we are approaching this differently—me from the angle of someone seeing someone onwiki they suspect to be a paid editor, and digging for details (which I believe is also the perspective reflected in the statement), and you from the angle of someone seeing an ad and looking to see if there is evidence someone has answered it and introduced content onwiki as a result. I think your case allows for more leniency, and could be handled onwiki; I think my case (where someone is suspected of paid editing but when there is not a definitive advertisement to point to) cannot be handled onwiki. By "strict reporting system" I meant a system in which this behavior could be reported privately, with the expectation that only very strong evidence can be acted upon. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:10, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
User:Smallbones proposal was this RfC here which did get a slight majority supporting. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
I think we have the "strict reporting system" now. Users can report evidence on ToU violations by email to admins. I'd think it better though if these matters were not decided entirely in secret. The two perspective GW describes above are fairly closely linked. People look at these ads in order to catch undisclosed paid-editors, but if there isn't an article with promotion in it, there is nothing to report. So can we make it clear (to Arbs and others) what you think is allowable. A policy would make it clear. Doc's policy could be rerun, say next time there is a paid editing scandal (there always will be a next one until we get a way to enforce policy). Time for bed. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:35, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

break 2

Well frankly you caused this mess so cry me a river. If it wasnt for your completely bullshit block of Jytdog for a non-existant outing offense when the harrassment/outing policy clearly stated what Jytdog did (which was and is common practice in COIN investigations) allowed, we wouldnt be in the position of having a 6 month long argument at WP:Harrassment that is *NEVER* going to remove the wording regarding linking to publicly disclosed identities due to the conflict between paid editing and some peoples (yourself included) desire to protect anonymity at all costs. And because we have had this fucking six month long never-going-gain-consensus argument WMF Legal were forced into the position of having to respond to community demands that they clarify what is and is not compliant with the TOU. So you caused this situation in the first place, this statement is the end result. Well done you. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:23, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
If the behavior was so clearly allowed by the policy as you claim here, you'd think the block would have been overturned during review and the policy wouldn't need clarification at all. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:34, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
User:GorillaWarfare there were comments that the community was not allowed to discuss your block. Even though arbcom / functionaries are not supposed to create policy they tried to in this situation.
Everyone can "out" someone right now, especially if you have no attachment to a particular account. You simple create a bunch of socks (the undisclosed paid editors create dozens of them all the time) and you simple go for it.
This statement from legal does not change that. What would, would be better means of detecting and preventing sock puppets of which I am strongly supportive. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:30, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
If incorporated into policy, it would allow people to out people without consequence, and without that information being redacted. I do agree with you on the means to detect/prevent sockpuppetry, though. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:00, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
If narrowly interpreted, people will not be outed without consequence any more than they are right now. It will not change our ability to redact stuff that needs redacted. What it does do is remove all the layers of protection we have in place for those acting in good faith from those who are attempting to take advantage of our assumption of good faith.
It will allow us to protect a larger group of individuals from being harmed without changing the risk of harm for our editing community. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:13, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
I do sincerely hope that is the case. I would have liked to see a statement from the WMF that would not require narrow interpretation in order to not open community members up to serious harassment, beyond what they already face. GorillaWarfare (talk) 05:17, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
We are already fully open to serious harassment unfortunately. Anyone can create a sock and begin. People can attack us elsewhere on the Internet and they do at a fairly frequent rate. People can sue use anytime they wish and because of international agreements they can do so easily across border. We will never eliminate undisclosed paid editing just as we will never eliminate harassment. But we can do more to lesson both. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:31, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
Well since WMF legal have agreed and the harrassment policy is looking like its going to be even more leniant in the direction of paid editors/COI editors, I guess you will have to live with knowing your actions have increased the chances of outing for everyone. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't see where that conclusion comes from. The WMF Legal statement was general legal advice; they had no problem with the Wiki doing more than the minimum to 'protect privacy'. I mean honestly, I find it reassuring that the Legal Department isn't telling us that the law prohibits us from saying anything about any editor, even though I recognize it is a huge social problem, because censorship isn't the way to fix that social problem, solidarity, tolerance, and nondiscrimination are the way. Wnt (talk) 22:04, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
Whoa. That is nasty, my friend. The issue is not what GorillaWarfare did, but that the policy had not kept up with events. It was a righteous block, and a righteous appeal. Both revealed issues in policies and guidance which need to be discussed in a mature and thoughtful manner. I don't think GW likes me much, and I count Jytdog as a friend and ally, but I still think this was well within the bounds of Wikipedia norms. We are very conservative about identities, for good reason. Yes, there should definitely be a process and a tolerance for investigating COI editing, but the resistance of the community to witch-hunts is clear and absolutely valid. Please dial the rhetoric down, remember that "hard cases make bad law" and focus on a collegial resolution. Guy (Help!) 01:07, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Jytdog and OID need to accept that they are on the wrong side of this issue. The community, and especially Arbcom, have come to an informal consensus that if we suspect undisclosed paid editing / COI all we can do is ask the editor in a very oblique way whether they have any relation to the subject. If they refuse to answer, or answer falsely, we have no recourse. One can argue over the wisdom of that. But it's what the community and Arbcom have decided, so we all need to act in accordance with that consensus. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:41, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
[[User:Shock Brigade Harvester Boris do NOT put words in my mouth about this - you are misrepresenting my position and drastically. GW's block was a fully supportable block and I never said it wasn't. Please strike your misrepresentation. Jytdog (talk) 02:03, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
I didn't say anything at all about the block; what I was referring to as "the wrong side of this issue" was general perspectives on undisclosed COI. Apologies for any ambiguity. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:05, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
User:Shock Brigade Harvester Boris. Your statement is not ambiguous. Do not confuse me and what I think from what other people think about what happened. I know that what I did was wrong and blockable. You leave your statement unstruck, then that speaks about who you are, not about who I am. Jytdog (talk) 02:16, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
What we've got here is failure to communicate. Obviously I screwed up. Again, I didn't say anything at all about the block or your reaction to it. But somehow I'm giving the impression that I did, so I'm striking the comment. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:38, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks!! Jytdog (talk) 03:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
The Wikipedia community has been trying to square the circle of "policing conflicts of interest" vs. "no outing ever!" for many years, and it has been the subject of multiple WikiWars with many casualties. I don't see it ending any time soon. *Dan T.* (talk) 01:57, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • User:Only in death I've been mindful of various folks' positions on what happened after I made my mistake, and was blocked for it. I have appreciated your support for the COI work I used to do, and I have listened to your position on the surrounding issues.
But about what you wrote above, here's the thing. The diff i generated that got me blocked, was stupid. I was rushing and sloppy and didn't follow my own normal dialogue-based process, and the actual diff i generated was too aggressive and it crossed the OUTING line. Really in spirit and letter. What I wrote wasn't respectful of the person to whom I was writing. I have felt very bad that my stupid action was the start (and it was the start -- if i hadn't done that, the IP could not have called attention to it at ANI, and GW would not have been made aware of it and been presented with the situation in which they then made their decision) of a bunch of drama.
I believe that arbcom reviewed the block and found it upholdable. That is the really key thing here. It was upholdable. There is some ambiguity in the OUTING policy and those who have argued from day 1 that I should not have been blocked have had a leg to stand on. But the thing is, that this is all those folks had. A leg. The block was grounded, and strongly grounded, in policy. It wasn't overturnable.
When I did my COI work, I was always mindful of the OUTING line, and of the very strong position that a good chunk of the community has on privacy issues. And I was and am mindful of the respect for privacy that is deep in the guts of WP. I wrote about that on my userpage, here, if you haven't seen that already.
There is also a perspective that is growing in strength, that COI/paid editing needs to be addressed better and that it would be useful to amend OUTING in some way to facilitate that, and that trend has been part of the drama that has unfolded. That is an entirely separate and difficult issue, and one that it is hard for the community to work through without constantly getting side-tracked. But my diff and the following block are bad "test cases" for thinking about all that, since my diff was a mistake.
Bottom line, please don't attack GorillaWarfare blocking me. This whole drama is not their fault. It is more mine, for making the mistake I did. Please consider striking what you wrote, blaming them.
You are of course your own person and have your own stance, which of course can be very different from mine. But thanks for your time. Jytdog (talk) 03:14, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Sorry, I am confused. Would you have made the same mistake again after it had been (or would've been, I dunno if it was) politely pointed out/explained to you? If not, then the block was bad per WP:PUNITIVE. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 12:23, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
Indefinite blocks are par for the course for OUTING violations. So is unblocking with conditions if the person is amenable. The community takes OUTING very, very seriously. Jytdog (talk) 18:28, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
True, but I imagine there could theoretically be situations where an indef block isn't the ideal response. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 21:20, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Democratic Party

I can't find coverage of slavery in the Wikipedia article on the Democratic Party and its history. Do you think this is an example of censorship in Wikipedia? FloridaArmy (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2017 (UTC) FloridaArmy (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I think it is an example of your not reading very carefully. The subject is covered extensively in Democratic_Party_(United_States), for example: "From the end of the Civil War, African Americans primarily favored the Republican Party due to its overwhelming political and more tangible efforts in achieving the abolition of slavery, particularly through President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.[199] The south had long been a Democratic stronghold, favoring a state's right to legal slavery. In addition, the ranks of the fledgling Ku Klux Klan were composed almost entirely of white Democrats who were angry over the poor treatment they had received at the hands of northerners and who were also bent on reversing the policies of Reconstruction."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:07, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
You'd find more coverage if you read the right article: Democratic Party (United States), which mentions the range of positions on this issue, or the specific article about Southern Democrats. It is also important to bear in mind the inversion of positions of the two parties, especially after Richard Nixon of HUAC and Joe McCarthy of the Senate set the mold for the modern Republicans. 70.44.216.241 (talk) 21:05, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Fascinating. I finally found those bit Jimbo. They were located in the "Voter base" section. You see I had been looking in the history section. My mistake to think slavery would be discussed in the history section of the Democratic Party article. I tried to edit my post but I can't figure out how on a cell phone. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC) FloridaArmy (talk) 21:42, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the article could be improved by adding more about the predominant positions on a range of issues, including slaver, of the Democratic Party at various points in time. I see no reason to talk about "censorship" here and if you think that's what might have happened, then I suggest you rethink how Wikipedia works. We aren't fond of battleground mentalities and particularly about the positions of a political party 150 years ago, I see no reason why any serious Wikipedian would have an emotional or otherwise unfactual approach here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
You may be interested in the first entry of this oft-cited list of observations on Wikipedia behavior. Admittedly the point may be somewhat overstated there. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:39, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I did find "The Democrats' dominant worldview was once classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, populism was its leading characteristic." And point of view and, "Since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, it has promoted asocial-liberal platform,[1] supporting social justice.[7]" do you think these statements are accurate and NPOV? ~~ FloridaArmy (talk) 21:44, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

On the first one, I'm not really sure as I don't know personally enough about the history of the Democratic party pre-Roosevelt and the New Deal to have an instant answer. I would personally prefer that statements of that type be more precise regarding the time. What I mean is "was once" could be just before the New Deal coalition, or decades before. It's really quite vague. As to the second one, it seems about right to me, but if you think it could be improved, go for it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
  • The Democratic Party was traditionally the "states rights" party, meaning, in practical terms, the pro-slavery party. It flipped from being the conservative party to the liberal party during the half century from Bryan to Roosevelt although the right wing southern Democratic Party remained in place more or less until the coming of Reagan. Now things are fully realigned. I doubt that this is a matter of censorship so much as it is a product of bad writing about big subjects, which is fairly typical at WP. Carrite (talk) 00:02, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

My point that the articles fail to address core issues of the times remains. Slavery was a paramount issue for many years. Segregation and voting rights issues were vitally important for decades. Women's suffrage. Certainly realignments have taken place. But these major articles on our political parties are severely lacking. It's easy to say go and fix them, but my changes just get reverted and I get warned. I think it goes to a more fundamental issue here and violations of the pillars that Wikipedia is supposed to be based on. Short Brigade Harvester implies that I am up to no good. And for pointing out that an article on one of our two major political parties doesn't do much to address the core issues I'm told yes it does, and shown some bits buried where no one would think to look for them, and that if I suggest Wikipedia is censored, as it clearly is on a great many subjects, that I have a battleground mentality. So be it. I appreciate you taking a look Jimbo. Your and other responses are instructive. FloridaArmy (talk) 02:49, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

What seems censorship is often misunderstanding

Years ago, I also though Wikipedia was being purposely censored by groups of people, but I found the reality is a handful of people think they are improving the encyclopedia by diverting or delaying information. WP did not link the "Slavery amendment" until I created the redirect today, but the underlying article, "Corwin Amendment" was created 13 years ago (in 2004!) to note the U.S. Congress in 1861 did vote to retain (or ignore) slavery or servitude, ratified by 2 states then and still awaiting 3/4 U.S. ratification to this day. They allowed slavery in an effort to avoid Civil War. Here was no conspiracy to stop coverage of the Slavery amendment. Likewise Wikipedia did not intend to bad-mouth U.S. Secretary/Senator Clinton with the slanted page "Hillary Clinton email controversy" but the editors of that page kept accumulating fake news or slanted news, without balance against the stated handling of classified documents as read in hardcopy form, until it just took a few keystrokes for the outrageous claim she had "thousands" of classified documents exposed to enemy view, rather than 2,100 emails up-classified, some from ordinary call notes or only the sender's username was classified, etc. When I discovered the slant, there was no time left to reverse the damage among readers. WP in 2016 did not even have the page "ClassNet" about the DoS classified comms network. So, we just could not make that page state:

"Clinton was suspected of leaking crucial secret documents on her private email server, but all proposed charges were dropped by FBI and DoJ after months of investigation concluded the deletions were routine purging and not coverup, and few secret documents were passed, because she actually read classified pages in-office as hardcopy form, but persistent rumors kept implying criminal activity to recklessly reveal secret documents, which was totally refuted. Meanwhile, the press or political opponents kept repeating the rumors as a controversy, not full, clear exoneration".

Instead the page about the email controversy kept repeating fake/negative innuendos about suspected problems, rather than explain the procedure where U.S. State Department phone callnotes are often begun as classified, then unclassified later when no secret data will be discussed in contact with foreign diplomats, but some callnote copies still appear classified when not any longer. Anyway, I don't think Wikipedia intended to spread Russian or other propaganda by writing so many negative innuendos in the email-controversy page.

Likewise, the page about the severe ongoing criminal "Trump Foundation controversy" (or major scandal) should emphasize no criminal charges have been substantiated (yet) as the prosecutor is still investigating suspected fraud or taking money from students under false pretenses, and the judge denied attempts to dissolve the Trump Foundation as a case of concealing evidence or attempt to evade prosecution, while Trump's attorneys stated the intent of the rapid shutdown was to remove any potential "conflict-of-interest" ties between the U.S. Presidency and Trump Foundation, not hide fraud. Overall these are complex issues, as too difficult to explain quickly without advanced writing techniques.

WP needs more clever essays to help reduce slanted text: "wp:Avoiding fake news" or "wp:Refuting continual innuendos in sources". We want to avoid WP acting as a mouthpiece for more Russian or other propaganda, which will require careful anti-propaganda tactics in phrasing or page structure. Wikipedia might not be under direct attack, but our sources are. So, a next major step in Wikipedia maturity will be with overcoming systemic bias in sources and news reporting. Meanwhile, remember Wikipedia is still in its infancy, with few standards about page contents, and the appearance of censorship will be difficult to deny. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:46, 22 January 2017, clarified Wikid77 (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

TLDR: Hanlon's razor (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:34, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
"Hanlon's razor" is surely the dumbest would-be rule of thumb ever. Our society is full of people whose jobs are to make malice happen by accident. We're supposed to believe that every tech toy has spyware built in by accident, that every drug and immigration policy decision maximally enriches the cartels by pure incompetence, that every leak and fake news story and Wikipedia whitewash crusade happen randomly. People who believe in these sorts of coincidences are probably hit by several asteroids a day! (This is not to say that this particular case is definitely deliberate, only that there is no way to guess without actually looking. And any essay impugning the motives of people concerned about censorship is definitely no good) Wnt (talk) 00:04, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

In fact, one of the benefits of Eric Snowden interviews was to repeat how spooks can remotely turn on a mobile phone, copy saved data/photos history, and turn off (if phone still has battery power, and not wrapped in aluminum foil!). -Wikid77 (talk) 14:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Eric Snowden is not Edward Snowden. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:20, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. Been too busy to check. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:28, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Yellowstone National Park

Dear Jimbo
We have now "DEFense readiness CONdition" (DEFCON) (2) on Yellowstone National Park and Pacific Ring of Fire, so to speak. Wikipedia should not have an office on the US Coast, on the Rio Grande rift or on counties on the Lake Superior, Missouri River, New Madrid Seismic Zone, Mississippi River line.
Quote (a geologist, location: Yellowstone National Park): "I would begin to worry, if you see a swarm of earthquakes above 2.0." [11]
Some parts of San Francisco on the sea are landfill, they would liquefy under a earthquake. It is sad that there are buildings on the San Andreas Fault and the Hayward faults ([12], [13], [14]).
By the way. Today, I reached 250k edits on Wikipedia Projects. Regards --Chris.urs-o (talk) 11:22, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
P.S.: In the end, the ice caps could melt down and build up on another location. [15] --Chris.urs-o (talk) 13:09, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

A tip about Google Books

You might bump into cases in which Google Books has a seemingly copyright-clear book or magazine volume locked up in "Snippet View" instead of "Full View," thereby making it difficult or impossible to use properly as a Wikipedia source. I have on multiple occasions now simply scrolled to the bottom of their Snippet View page and located the "Contact Us" email address, outlined the case for public domain/full view status, and in a fairly short period of time (less than 48 hours), received an email message that the status has been changed with a link to the opened file. File this info in the back of your brain for future reference — while Google certainly is long past the days of "Don't Be Evil," one evil they do not perpetrate is needlessly locking up public domain titles. If they have something miscategorized as "Snippet View," just bring it to their attention, they have people on staff to take care of such requests. —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 20:54, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

User:Carrite that is super cool. Basically we have ~100,000 books by these folks[16] based on Wikipedia and made by machine algorithm. Would be cool to see the whole lot fully avaliable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:46, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee response to the Wikimedia Foundation statement on paid editing and outing

As there was discussion on this page about the Wikimedia Foundation's statement about paid editing and outing, I'm noting here that the Arbitration Committee has just published our response. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:58, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Censorship of environmental information

"U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has moved in the past week to curb the flow of information from several government agencies involved in environmental issues in actions that may have been designed to discourage dissenting views." (My position is politically neutral.)

—Wavelength (talk) 00:03, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia knows everything: Presidency of Donald Trump#Environment. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:50, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

A similar situation in Canada was discussed in a section now archived at Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Archive 20#Closure of Canadian science libraries (January 2014).
—Wavelength (talk) 21:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of COI follow up

See Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest#Investigating_COI_policy Further opinions from those here appreciated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:10, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting: articles about fake news

The search engine of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (http://fair.org) reports 1,220 search results for fake news.
—Wavelength (talk) 22:06, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Can't find it on their page. Can you link to the result? -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 11:47, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
I can not link to the list of search results, because using the on-site search engine does not change the web address. Can you not find the search engine (at the right-hand side of the main page), and input the search terms fake news? (The empty search box displays, in faint text, the phrase Google™ Custom Search, so maybe it is incorrect to refer to the search engine of FAIR.)
—Wavelength (talk) 15:17, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Here is a link to a list of DuckDuckGo search results for site:http://fair.org fake news.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:29, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

All public-domain videos of speakers at public events are being deleted from the Commons

It seems that we need a new rule for the Commons. It is common sense that speakers at public events want as many people as possible to see and hear their speeches. Whether or not their speeches end up being copyrighted. As long as the recorder puts the video in the public domain we should be able to host it on the Commons.

We are in the process of deleting all public-domain videos of speakers at public events. Videos produced by federal government agencies for example. Voice of America, NASA, Library of Congress. All are in the public domain.

See for example:

Like photos of public events, there are many videos of public events. The Commons has many photos of public events.

I suggest a new rule allowing the Commons to host videos of public events. We don't initially put a license on the content though since we can't always know what parts are impromptu speeches, and which speeches were written out ahead of time. That seems to be the current status of copyright law.

Few people exercise that copyright in a restrictive sense because the whole point of a public event is to reach as many people as possible.

I suggest you, Jimbo, and the Wikimedia Foundation do something about this. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:24, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

If Wikimedia servers are not up to the task of handling many more videos, then I suggest a new rule allowing the embedding of Youtube videos. Most of this stuff is on Youtube. Allow the embedding of Youtube videos that open into a new tab. That way Wikimedia's virgin pages are unsullied by the ads that show up once Youtube videos begin playing. Let Youtube fight the copyright battles for us, and pay the massive costs that hosting many videos can incur. Youtube deletes videos for which they can not solve copyright problems.
Reference links connect to pages that often contain ads. And we don't have a problem with that since the ads do not show up on Wikimedia pages. So why not Youtube. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:04, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
I don't think hosting costs are an issue here at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Jimbo: Apologies for this section; it appears to be a reaction from responses I gave Timeshifter elsewhere. All the above links are about one single deletion discussion about a set of 3 speeches by private citizens. In this section title "All public-domain videos of speakers at public events are being deleted", the "all" and the "are being" are both false. No Library of Congress or NASA videos are presently up for deletion in the discussion. Even if spread to more files, only speeches/works of private citizens would be affected. Timeshifter seems to have raised the alarm on your talk page because he doesn't like the response he got at Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Activist Gloria Steinem Tells Women's March Protesters 'Put Our Bodies Where Our Beliefs Are'.webm — which you can judge for yourself — and then added it to two different sections of Talk:2017 Women's March. Sorry again for any problems; you must get this sort of thing a lot. --Closeapple (talk) 11:36, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Ok. Just for reference for those who don't want to follow the link for time reasons, can you explain in a few words what the main reason for these 3 deletions is?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:50, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
In the videos people are reading from prepared text. So, basically because, although unprepared speech is not usually subject to copyright, a prepared speech is, see [17]. For example, there are already reports that Madonna complains part of her speech is taken out of context [18] and this type of thing is one reason why speakers of prepared text claim copyright. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:49, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Did you even read the link you provided? The files should not be deleted at all. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:29, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Of course, I read it apparently you did not, copyright according to the link centers on "fixation" of the words, such as when people write and deliver a speech. Alanscottwalker (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:33, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
For starters, an interview is much different than someone giving a speech in front of millions of people, in public. Your link was to an interview, which is quite different. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:35, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Of course, an interview is different, and that link shows why, and it makes the point that prepared remarks and written answers in an interview are subject to copyright. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:37, 25 January 2017 (UTC) As for public speeches to millions of people being subject to copyright, see the section on copyright in I have a dream, which also involves a protest march in Washington DC. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:48, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Which would be SYNTH and a stretch to apply it to a public speech. There is also a difference between owning the copyright on the speech and owning the copyright on the performance recorded. While the text of the speech may be under copyright, the performance of the speech is under the copyright of the person doing the recording.Sir Joseph (talk) 14:54, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
It is well established at Commons and in law, that the rights to the video, and the rights to the speech are two different right holders, and two different rights, and two different releases (in 'I have a dream' CBS owned the video of the speech delivered to millions, but was not the copyright holder of the speech, so was successfully sued). Your claim of synth is entirely bogus: "fixation" of words applies across the law. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:59, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales: The deletion is for copyvio, in that the speeches themselves are copyrighted works of private-sector citizens (3 famous women on stage at the Women's March) and the Voice of America video (though possibly shot by U.S. government employees) is a Commons:Derivative work of the speeches, and therefore is subject to the copyright of the creators (writer/lector). A couple of other people (Timeshifter, etc.) disagree on the basis of various theories, all of which I argued against:
  1. One claim is that a recording by the U.S. government is scrubbed of copyrights regardless of the underlying work's copyright status; or that placing {{PD-USGov-VOA}} on a file affirms its public domain. (My response: Federal output doesn't create new copyright, but does pass private copyright through, into federal output.)
  2. Another claim is that unwritten speeches provide no copyright to the creator-performer no matter how long they are, and that there's no evidence that the women were speaking from written notes. (My response: Once in physical form, all works are copyrighted by the person expressing an intellectual effort beyond the Commons:Threshold of originality, regardless of how the work comes into physical form or whether it was written on paper or recorded as audio.)
  3. Another claim is that people who give a speech where there is an audience, or cameras, or potentially U.S. government cameras, are allowing their works to be spread and want their works to be spread, and only have copyright if they assert it, or don't have it at all because a performance of ones own work in public somehow indicates public domain. (My response: Commons:Precautionary principle specifically points this reasoning as wrong. Works are copyright at the moment they come into physical form, without any further claim, regardless of whether or not "published" at the time created.)
Hope this helps. --Closeapple (talk) 04:01, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Why isn't there a sister project to Commons where fair use cross-project content can be hosted? 184.96.140.48 (talk) 16:25, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

'cause you can't just host "Fair use" content without it actually meeting "fair use criteria". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk) 21:34, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
External audio
audio icon I Have a Dream, 8/28/1963, Educational Radio Network[1]

This is a good time to listen to the entire I have a dream speech, all 18:52 of it. About 15 hours hours of radio broadcast from that day's events are available from the same source (Open Vault at WGBH). The external media template is one way of addressing some of the problems mentioned above. This one took some work to get in the article. The audio is either public domain, or owned by the folks who donated it to WGBH, so we are not violating their copyright. The copyright on the speech was a bit more difficult to deal with, but there is a page on the estate's website that encourages people to listen to the audio recording of the speech. Thus everybody who might have copyright on this agrees that we can listen to it. "Let freedom ring".

Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "Special Collections, March on Washington, Part 17". Open Vault. at WGBH. August 28, 1963. Retrieved September 15, 2016.

Summary. It looks like current law says that the speechmaker has a copyright the moment the speech is fixed. Whether in written, audio, or video form. So the notes are not needed.

This means most contemporary recorded speeches (those not made by federal employees on the job) are copyrighted, and will be deleted from the Commons. Because almost nobody thinks to put their public speeches at public events under a free license. They don't even know they need to do so. Why would they? Youtube does not delete their public speeches until someone complains. If the recorder of the video is an individual or a federal government agency, then the only person who would complain would be the speechmaker. And most want their speeches distributed as widely as possible. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:33, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

More sources:
How to Copyright Something: An Overview of the Copyright Process. From SpeechMastery.com - "Any original speech or recording of a speech is automatically copyrighted to the original author or speaker."
Copyright in Campaigns | Copyright Corner. Ohio State University libraries. - "the author of the speech may exercise control over the reproduction, adaptation, distribution, and performance or display of the speech." Exception for federal employees on the job. Which includes federal politicians and the President. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:48, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
It would be better to make it easier to link to Youtube from Wikipedia. Better yet in many cases would be to embed Youtube (opening only in a new tab off of Wikimedia servers), so that there is an initial image before clicking. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:34, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Can English Wikipedia host the Women's March videos?

I am talking about the Voice of America videos, for example. They are a federal government agency. We could probably host the videos here on Wikipedia. Speakers at public events usually want their speeches heard by as many people as possible. Until the speaker exercises their copyright, and limits distribution there is no problem in my opinion. We are not violating the letter, nor the spirit of copyright law by doing so. That way the Commons maintains its ideological purity, kind of like how Trump insists there were millions of illegal votes. :) I mean if the videos are legal enough to be on the Voice of America, then logically ... --Timeshifter (talk) 11:07, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

You are not listening are you? Without explicit release into the public domain by all parties including the speakers, we cannot host these. It violates copyright. A full speech cannot be defended as fair use, which is the only substantive difference between en-wp and Commons. Guy (Help!) 11:31, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
You obviously did not read (or maybe extrapolate from) the first sentence in my original post: "It seems that we need a new rule for the Commons." We need a new rule for videos of public speakers. Whether it be here on English Wikipedia or on the Commons. They do not violate copyright. Otherwise, Voice of America could not post them on their websites, as they do now. Put your thinking cap on, not your Wikimedia blinders. And I am not talking about Fair Use. Wikipedia could host them, and allow people to stream them directly from within Wikipedia articles as is happening now. Except currently, they are hosted on the Commons. I am suggesting we loosen the rules for English Wikipedia. That way we don't mess with the rules on the Commons for now. We see how it works on English Wikipedia, and when we see that there are little to no problems, we might think of hosting some of these videos of public speakers on the Commons under some expanded rules. Of course the videos have to come from sources such as Voice of America, NASA, etc.. Cause we don't need their permission to host their videos. Everything the federal government produces is in the public domain. The rest of the discussion is about the copyrights of the speakers. Which we are not violating. Just like VOA is not violating their copyrights. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:17, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Oddly, the opinion of people who do copyright law for a living, is the opposite of what you assert, but regardless, you missed my point
If it's public domain it can go on Commons. If it's not public domain it can't go on Wikipedia because it's not fair use (though an excerpt or screen grab could be be).
The only substantive difference between Commons and en-wp in this case, is that en-wp can host fair-use. Guy (Help!) 14:42, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
The people who worry about copyright law at the Voice of America, a news agency, is that their hosting of the videos does not violate copyright law. I got your point, but you don't get my point. Go back and read it. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:00, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
"However, voanews.com content may also contain text, video, audio, images, graphics, and other copyrighted material" is what VOA says. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:18, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
We say the same thing here on Wikipedia. Concerning Fair Use. VOA also has public speeches. I doubt many public speakers want their speeches not to be covered by the media. No victim, no crime. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:48, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
You really do get the Wikipedia Prize for Simply Not Getting It. The only substantive difference between Commons and the English Wikipedia is that Commons host only public domain material, while Wikipedia will host limited copyright material under fair use. Hosting the whole video is not fair use. Period. Doesn't matter how much we might think the subjects would like it. It's copyright, the answer is, no, per policy. Guy (Help!) 16:58, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Wow. And I repeat, I am not talking about Fair Use. Please see previous replies. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:19, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
You're not making much sense, then, you just admitted that VOA is asserting "fair use". See, WP:NFCC for how Wikipedia must deal with claims of "fair use", it is rather strict - and the VOA does not make any determination about our NFCC policy. Also, any claim of fair use bars that media entirely from Commoms. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:40, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
As above. It is non-free. Fair use or GTFO. Guy (Help!) 18:51, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

A new rule for videos of public speeches hosted on English Wikipedia

(unindent). Let me spell it out concerning a new rule. I know what the existing rules are on Wikipedia and the Commons. I have around 50,000 edits on Wikipedia and the Commons. I may be talking in shorthand, though, and assuming too much in how you are understanding my comments.

All news media assert Fair Use. They have to. They are constantly quoting people, reporting on the newsmakers, etc.. When some average person sends them video of speeches, all they usually ask is whether the recorder is giving them permission to post their video of the speech. Some news sites pay people for those videos. But the speaker, not the recorder, still owns the copyright, and could, if they wanted, restrict the use of the speech as much as they wanted.

They also cover public events and public speakers. When they cover a full speech at a public event, it is too much material for Fair Use. Public speakers want the video to go out. So VOA and other news media go ahead and post the video on their websites.

If you think about it, all of the billions of videos made by people of other people are copyrighted according to the law. The speaker in the video owns the copyright. They don't own the video itself. But they could, if they wanted to, restrict its use. Few people want to do that, or are savvy enough to do that. And most public speakers do not want to do that.

Concerning videos on Wikimedia I am talking about public speakers at public events. If Wikipedia changed its rules it could post those videos. Same as VOA posts the videos. VOA could not claim copyright. And I doubt that very many of the public speakers would restrict their use. If they do, then we take down the video. See: Notice and take down. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:28, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

I've started to think there is no use arguing over these things. The more you argue, the more that the most eager-to-please peasants will figure out how to censor themselves, and then it will become mandatory for all. It is coached in words as if it has something to do with logic, yet it is purely a matter of naked force compelling ignorance. It has no meaning. If you want to make a valid counter-argument, you can go to one of the enforcers and plunge a knife into its guts. For those confused, note this was reductio ad absurdum, not a call to shiv the admins. For the sort who prosecuted Aaron Swartz, I'll say use your best judgment on a case by case basis :) Do it enough, in the right setting, and you can compose an argument with a caterwauling counterpoint more compelling and nuanced and beautiful than any speech, any movie, any book, any work of any man, perhaps even more beautiful than the choirs of angels in the presence of the Lord. Such is a pure argument, of the same nature as those used to rule men; read the rules of just war theory and accept no shame in it.
But do not argue with this twaddle. You can waste days trying to get one bit of obvious Fair Use on Wikipedia and still have it shot down because someone thinks its message is politically inconvenient. Put it where you can put it and move on. Maybe the readers will pay you to watch it. Wnt (talk) 02:26, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
One of Wikipedia's original sins is that it limited itself to Free As In Free Range Chickens rather than taking an aggressive posture making use of America's fulsome fair use law. We pay the price for this wrong decision every single day. This video purge is just the latest chapter. Meanwhile, take a look at YouTube to see what does actually fly in the real world. Compare and contrast. Carrite (talk) 16:50, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
  • News media are not Wikipedia. Wikipedia's mission includes the ability to reuse content. A news organisation owns its content and can control the onward use to which it is put, we don't. So a news organisation can be more flexible about fair use. A news organisation also has a mechanism to license content, freely or in return for payment, and it's very often impossible to know whether specific media on a news site is licensed or fair use.
Wikipedia's copyright policy comes in the end from the license.
Have you looked at what happens when people try to release content with permission for Wikipedia only? We do not accept such releases, because we can't. We have no way of ensuring that reuse will exclude that content.
Your proposed new "rule" can't happen without a fundamental change to policy, and that would be a change where WMF legal would probably have a strong view.
In the end, the success rate of people who try to change the rules so that they can do the thing they really want to do but which is forbidden by long-standing policy, is pretty low. Yes, we understand: you really really want to do this thing that is forbidden by policy. You got that point over. I personally feel we're now heading into WP:STICK territory here. Guy (Help!) 08:01, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Guy. Thanks for your thoughtful answer. You seem to understand my point of view. I understand your point of view better too. I fully realize the difficulty of changing Wikimedia rules. You made this point: "A news organisation owns its content and can control the onward use to which it is put." That is why I want this new rule to initially apply only to videos made by organizations such as VOA, NASA, Library of Congress where the videos themselves would be in the public domain. VOA would have zero control over what happens to the video. Since they are a federal government agency.
That leaves only the copyright held by the speakers. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:24, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
It can't happen because Wikipedia content can be reused without notice or permission, so any non-free content has to be 100% clean on a fair use rationale. The videos are not PD, they can't be PD, if they were PD we would not even be having this discussion, so that is a red herring. PD videos are not a problem now, so there is nothig to fix; non-PD videos are a problem that cannot be resolved without changing our license, as far as I can see. Guy (Help!) 13:34, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Several of your assumptions in your OP are wrong, but no need to belabor them, here, I will note 2 things briefly: 1) Wikipedia relies on people freely donating their own work - the ethics of that means we do not take others' work, without permission. 2) You already have means of use unfree media under WP:NFCC (remember that "fair use" in addition to being fair is centrally about exactly how something is used) so there is no need for this hosting service you are proposing (in addition to it upending years of policy making). Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:50, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Fair Use, as it is used on Wikipedia, does not allow posting video of a whole speech on Wikipedia. Only shorter clips of a few sentences. Just like short Fair Use audio clips for songs on Wikipedia. The Women's March videos of the public speakers that I linked to in my original post (OP) would probably be too long for Fair Use on Wikipedia. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:03, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Sure, the length issue generally goes to support the value of "fair[ness]" in our NFCC. If something is too long, cut it down. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:14, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Youtube CC-BY license and federal government public domain license

We are talking about 2 different copyrights. The copyright of the video, and the copyright of the speaker. This is what confuses many people. Videos produced by the federal government are in the public domain. Just the videos.

I will give another example. Youtube makes it easy for uploaders to put their videos under a CC-BY license. See:

So people can upload Youtube videos right now to the Commons if the only person speaking is themselves. If they put the video under Youtube's CC-BY. But if there are others speaking in the video, then they also need to get the speakers to grant a free license acceptable to the Commons.

There are many CC-BY videos on Youtube. Some of the Women's March too. Right now we can't upload them to the Commons if they cover some of the speakers. --Timeshifter (talk) 14:17, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Possible solution. Short Fair Use video linked to full video off of Wikimedia

Correct me if I am wrong. This possible solution would not require any changes in Wikipedia guidelines. It would require some education and lots of encouragement. Currently I see only around 60 Fair Use videos on Wikipedia. Out of almost 600,000 Fair Use items:

From looking at the length of existing Fair Use videos it looks like the 2 Women's March videos linked in my original post may be short enough for Fair Use. Not sure.

I see Fair Use videos so rarely on Wikipedia that to get this to work would require getting the word out. So people don't mistakenly upload the wrong videos to the Commons. And instead realize that videos of public speeches can only normally be used for Fair Use. And only a small part of the video of the public speech can be uploaded. And only to Wikipedia, not to the Commons. --Timeshifter (talk) 16:55, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Any non-free excerpt on wikipedia would need to fulfil all the criteria at WP:NFCCP. So unless a video is used in an article, it would fail. The criteria are intentionally strict for a reason. Commons wont host non-free content regardless. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
It looks like around 9000 music audio samples are being used in Wikipedia articles via Fair Use:
Category:Wikipedia non-free audio samples
--Timeshifter (talk) 00:22, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
You'd have to fulfill all the nonfree content guidelines, including #1. That means if the video could be adequately described by text, it is replaceable by that freely licensed text and unneeded. If the contents of the video are primarily the speech in it, it's very unlikely that the video itself would meet NFCC #1. If the video itself is iconic for reasons that can't be described in text, as verified by reliable sources, that might render it acceptable. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:31, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
I think that the impact of public speakers, just like music, can not be duplicated by text. Which is why we use audio samples in music-related articles. --Timeshifter (talk) 03:49, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Samples, yes. Because samples are fine under fair use. In a way that the entire copyright work emphatically is not. Guy (Help!) 12:32, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
I would emphasize again (it's not just the form - eg. samples, low resolution, etc.) it is the actual in article use (which cannot be analyzed in the abstract), as it is a very particularized editorial/quasi legal/definitely-NFCC prescribed judgement. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:47, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Examples of discussions of Fake News?

I know that Wikipedia has almost been completely unaffected by the "fake news" websites like the Denver Guardian. The reason should be obvious: it's very hard to fool very many experienced Wikipedians into thinking that a site like that is real. I'm wondering if anyone is aware, though, of an example of someone trying to post information from or a link to a site of that nature, and being rebuffed, and a discussion on a talk page about it? Or, of course, any examples where something managed to slip through the cracks for longer than we would have liked. (I.E. for more than a few minutes.)

I'm not asking generally about hoaxes in Wikipedia, but about the fake news phenomenon that has been in the press recently.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:14, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Search WP:RSN for 'Daily Mail'. I am only half-joking at this point given we are currently winding down an RFC where one of the main reasons to forbid them from being used at all as a source is 'they make stuff up' (which is sourceable). Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:51, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
See wp:RS/N debate at section #Daily_Mail_RfC from 7 January 2017. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:29, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Compare wikisearch counts: For months, I have been troubled how wp:wikisearch of "twitter" matched ~60,000 pages, as likely far too many pages using Twitter as a primary source (for album releases or celebrity news). Recently, counts have been:
Although many people cite newspapers but omit URL (with "nytimes.com"), there are still thousands of likely cites, as primary sources, to Twitter or Facebook (etc.) as if confirmed news reports rather than gossip or speculation or deliberately faked news. Users too easily cite Facebook or Twitter, Instagram, etc. I think such wikisearches are a good technique to estimate the extent of potential problems, but does not mean no secondary sources were also cited to confirm news from Twitter or The Daily Mail, etc. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:23, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
This a dangerous kind of rationale. CNN, NBC, CBS are corporate sponsored networks and Breitbart, The Alex Jones Channel, Mark Dice, The Next News Network, Fox News are not fake news. Of course, I am alive so my blessing is worthless. People always search for reliable information. Corporate sponsored news networks will possibly die. This kind of prempty argument is a cancer nowadays. Some examples: German Democratic Republic (DDR), Friends of Syria Coalition, enhanced interrogation techniques (torture), main stream media (corporate sponsored networks), neoconservatism (predatory capitalism), corporated sponsored democratic party, Wall Street is no industry, privately owned Federal Reserve Bank System, fiat money US$, tolerant liberals, Patriotic Act and so on. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 17:01, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
That list, of 12 more fake newspapers, also explained the use of fake sources to boost notability of topics for paid-editing. Note how the news stories could even be true, just not a prominent topic for mainstream news, only ranked high in fake newspapers. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:23, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
People seem to think fake news is a new thing. It's not. Natural news has been doing it for years, whale.to for decades, and the world of woo is absolutely stuffed with fake news websites and even dead tree fake news publications (e.g. What Doctors Don't Tell You). Guy (Help!) 10:32, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps the current emphasis on fake news is because of the recent problems in Facebook (etc.), where fake-news reports were shared numerous times which caused them to soar in trending-lists and displaced real events by hyped gossip or trumped-up falsehoods, especially with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, where many people believed Hillary Clinton was not trustworthy because exaggerated claims about 22 "secret" emails were exaggerated to claim "thousands" of her emails leaked valuable secrets to enemies when there was no proof her private email server had even been hacked by anyone, while the actual truth was some emails were up-classified because the sender's username was a secret id, not because the email contained any secret data. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:59, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
"The fake news phenomenon that has been in the press recently" has been hijacked by interested parties to smear news organizations that report news they do not want the public to hear. They build a list of fake news sites and add on a few sites that align with their opposition, then they have their PR people plant news articles about how great their list is and how those journalists they don't like are fake news. The fake news problem is real, but the loudest complainers are equally guilty.
On Wikipedia the problem is editors rejecting a niche news source for dissenting from the mainstream, and then declaring that the niche source is fake because it dissents. Popular opinion is not worth much to an encyclopedia when the big PR companies like Edelman and Ogilvy can plant a falsehood in twenty different newspapers in different languages and no one will ever be fired for it. Look out for cases where the editors say "consensus" is a reason to reject a minority POV. 198.189.140.17 (talk) 00:44, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Good point: wp:fake consensus about fake news. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:59, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
There's a short talk-page discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#Fake_News. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:16, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Clean coal

Since August; compare to the 3rd place Google hit from National Geographic (Wikipedia's article appears in 1st and 2nd places.) 184.96.140.48 (talk) 02:54, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, clean coal is an oxymoron. {{sofixit}}. Any decently written suggested change on Talk, I will happily review and make the edit. Guy (Help!) 10:28, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
Talk:Clean coal#None of the US-funded projects are operating; are any? 184.96.140.48 (talk) 16:22, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
And... someone has edited it to say that one of the projects is operating because it's scheduled to go into operation in two days, violating WP:CRYSTAL. The vast majority of the 22 U.S. projects missed their deadlines far more often than they made them, but I guess it won't be long until we see. 184.96.140.48 (talk) 19:31, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Also beware freak news

Beyond the potential large impact of fake-news websites which could flood readers with false news or unbacked gossip, pushing real news to minimal coverage, there is also a problem with "freak news" (fringe news?) which can promote peculiar angles on a topic into mainstream news, to further eclipse major issues, by grandstanding on some peculiar, freakish notion.

For example during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, on the same day that an Access Hollywood video overheard a presidential candidate bragging about grabbing women, the WikiLeaks website began releasing ~20,000 stolen emails of Dem. campaign's John Podesta, as if shocking secrets were being revealed to inform the U.S. public about the real thoughts inside the Democrats campaign. Well, many emails did reveal internal secrets, as a potential newsflash that recent issues about the economy, jobs and working-class problems had been solved, in extreme detail, by plans made by Hillary Clinton over 2 years prior. Yes, newsflash: the secret Podesta email documents proved Clinton did have plans to solve working-class problems as 2 years ahead of her opponents, in their recent speeches about American workers. But instead of the major focus, that Clinton was already 2 years ahead of her opponent's plans, the actual chosen "newsflash" was that Podesta had disagreements with other campaign workers about how to handle issues. Well, imagine that: campaign workers months earlier had some disagreements; wow, who could have expected that? STOP the presses, and be sure to report Wikileaks documents revealed Podesta disagreed with other campaign workers. Wow, who knew people could disagree with coworkers, and that was so obviously the crucial "breaking news" (actually peculiar freak news) which the world needed to understand within those ~20,000 Podesta emails. Never mind all the emails where Hillary Clinton talked of families, jobs, and fears of working-class people who felt left-behind in the global economy. So, Wikipedia must expect yet another distraction, when trying to write an encyclopedic coverage of a topic: beware "bicker bias" where news reporters want to search 20,000 emails to hunt for cat-fights, squabbles, or bickering in messages about trying to solve major problems for millions of U.S. citizens. Never mind the detailed emails of how Clinton was over 2 years ahead in addressing real concerns of American workers; no, the big news story (for reporters) was Podesta had disagreements with coworkers, as so cleverly found by reporters who took time to scan 20,000 emails which the public had no time to check. Hence, the danger of freak news, to distract from major issues, and dwell on some petty crap which made the campaign look unstable and teetering. So, the U.S. news media is also the U.S. news muddiers, less focused on important issues, and more on mudslinging. It is important to beware this bias when propaganda is released for news. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:29, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Google Books again

After a further round of correspondence with Google Books, I was pointed towards THIS PAGE as their preferred in-link for status reviews of miscategorized public domain books. Perhaps worth bookmarking. I tried to get a company policy statement about the mass of post-1922 "No copyright notice in first publication" and "Copyright not renewed" titles and was told, more or less, that everything is on a case-by-case basis. They have been very good about freeing up pre-1923 books that were locked down, as I noted before. —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 23:10, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks!! Jytdog (talk) 06:42, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
I have requested release of this book.[19] Will see what happens. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:31, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
Method is not useful for getting release of books that are copied and pasted from Wikipedia unfortunately. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:16, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
They assert copyright. O RLY? Guy (Help!) 23:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Environmental data being saved

The work of saving environmental data continues. One initiative is the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI).

—Wavelength (talk) 00:56, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

There is sometimes a bit of negativity on here, so I just thought I would drop by and gift you a kitten to break up the back and forth text that usually fills the page, always good to see your supporters (myself included) handle the bulk of the issues without taking away much of your time. Have a great day Jimbo :) Cheer

ZooPro 02:40, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Administrators' newsletter - February 2017

News and updates for administrators from the past month (January 2017). This first issue is being sent out to all administrators, if you wish to keep receiving it please subscribe. Your feedback is welcomed.

Administrator changes

NinjaRobotPirate • Schwede66 • K6ka • Ealdgyth • Ferret • Cyberpower678 • Mz7 • Primefac • Dodger67
Briangotts • JeremyA • BU Rob13

Guideline and policy news

Technical news

  • When performing some administrative actions the reason field briefly gave suggestions as text was typed. This change has since been reverted so that issues with the implementation can be addressed. (T34950)
  • Following the latest RfC concluding that Pending Changes 2 should not be used on the English Wikipedia, an RfC closed with consensus to remove the options for using it from the page protection interface, a change which has now been made. (T156448)
  • The Foundation has announced a new community health initiative to combat harassment. This should bring numerous improvements to tools for admins and CheckUsers in 2017.

Arbitration

Obituaries

  • JohnCD (John Cameron Deas) passed away on 30 December 2016. John began editing Wikipedia seriously during 2007 and became an administrator in November 2009.
Discuss this newsletter • Subscribe • Archive

13:38, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia's predictive power

It seems Wikipedia is pretty good at predicting political decisions (at least here in the US). As Vocativ reports, "A pretty good predictor of future news events, it turns out, is Wikipedia. As we found back in July when Hillary Clinton announced her running mate, Tim Kaine — thanks to a little trick uncovered by the Washington Post found back in 2008 — edit histories on the encyclopedia site can be a propitious tell. The theory here is that Washington insiders working for sources in the know double down on any Wikipedia cleanup or additions necessary before a relatively unknown name splashed across the headlines sends the public looking for more information.

If that method proves to work once again in the case of the next SCOTUS nomination, it would seem that Neil Gorsuch, a 49-year-old judge out of Colorado, is your next nominee." And guess what, it worked--again! Not sure if this is really a plus in terms of how well WP works, though. Everymorning (talk) 01:07, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

That's super interesting, although "insiders" might not be the best explanation - Gorsuch was a prominent speculated name. Further study is warranted.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:46, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Interesting, though it could be by chance. Looking at their graph for the two hopefuls, apart from people who perhaps got the word the day before who I am not looking at now, the big difference is on the 27th and 28th. The IP from the 27th edited both Gorsuch and Hardiman and is now currently blocked as an alleged member of "the Arte Group", which the blockers say is a "marketing and PR company" though they dispute that on their talk page. User_talk:50.195.72.217 The other edited only Gorsuch from User talk:205.251.68.124 - there is someone accusing them on that talk page of being a sock puppet for the first but only based on 'similar contributions', which is about as good as astrology. That IP geolocates to Chantilly, Virginia though. Anyway, from this I don't think "Wikipedia insiders" are cleaning up the mess in advance -- this is as far outside as it gets. And it's possible it is correlation rather than causation - if a candidate's backers can afford a little PR on their Wikipedia edits, they might afford some PR getting their candidate selected in other ways, without the Wikipedia edits representing any foreknowledge at all. Wnt (talk) 12:33, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Um, the OP said "Washington insiders", not "Wikipedia insiders". Looie496 (talk) 15:16, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
D'oh!... so he did. Wnt (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:33, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

You can't make money by predicting Supreme Court nominations or the apocalypse. Playing the stock market using article pageviews is where the big bucks are at. Those of us with financial savvy and acumen are planning to retire to New Zealand an underground bunker thanks to all you wonderful encyclopedia editors! 75.171.227.23 (talk) 23:23, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

"Lead, Follow or Get out of the way!" a great 60s expression may be back?

Hi Jimbo, I hope you are doing well. The election of Donald Trump has gotten the interest of a lot of Canadians. I was surprised to see a shallow and trite speech given by Theresa May in Washington. Complete with a silly mistake "Republicans won in the Senate and in Congress"...apparently not knowing the Senate is one of the 2 components of Congress, and about 8 pandering references to the "special" relationship. Our Parliament, led by Justin Trudeau, has a lot of critical and well educated thinkers. Is the U.K. parliament also well endowed? Also, I am wondering whether old folks like me should stay out of the political fights to make room for younger souls. What do you think? Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:27, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think you need to be Jimbo to answer those questions
1: Unfortunately there are quite a few idiots in the U.K. Parliament. Some of them are more or less sane. Maybe the article United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal is interesting to you.
2: All ages should be represented in political debates, and none should join the political fights. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:53, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
I think this really is sort of important to Wikipedia. Right now, a lot of liberals are feeling justifiable despair in the state of the world. But there are still things that people can do when they know they have no voice in government -- they can join big protest marches, or the ACLU, or... they can collaborate in international projects to collect and share knowledge! So Wikipedia is in a way an alternative to partisan boosterism, just as it is an alternative to fake news. It would be nice if the strategists at WMF can find ways to tap into that reservoir of talent and energy. Wnt (talk) 02:35, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Trump might awaken a sleeping giant: All the talk of immigration bans, and deter Mexican relatives from sending money to families in Mexico, could backfire, by inspiring Hispanics to register to vote in even greater numbers. The talk is that President Obama had been deporting many Hispanics, but spouses were not worried about getting their citizenship as married to U.S. citizens, but now under threat, there might be a surge of new citizens by marriage and also registering to vote. And voting in the 2018 mid-term U.S. Congressional elections, to shift Congress back to Democrat control, and perhaps start impeachment proceedings against Trump, as Republicans did against President Clinton in the 1990s. If Trump thinks he lost the U.S. popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes, just wait until Americans really start voting. Overall, there are many issues to write articles about in the upcoming year. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:42, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Much of this discussion isn't really Wikipedia-related, but I do have a thought which I think most members of the community would endorse. I am happy enough with the outcome of elections in which my favored candidate didn't win, so long as I feel like the voting population thoughtfully considered factual information and came to a decision based on that. I mean, I might sometimes disagree with the choice the public makes (as any of us might), but I respect it. But when I feel the population has been tricked and misled with not just the usual level of political "spin" but actually overtly false information, I'm much less happy. We are Wikipedians, and I think that therefore one of the core values that we all share is a love for... facts. Facts matter.
Similarly, there are a wide range of policies which I might agree or disagree with, but for most of them, I don't really feel fear for the future. But one policy that does make me fear for the future is a policy (held either explicitly or implicitly) of the destruction of the rule of law, because once we head down that path, almost anything can result. I'm very upset therefore and strongly disagree with the direction that immigration policy is taking in the US. But if it were the result of an open public debate in Congress accompanied by new legislation which attempted to maintain a stable (albeit changed for the worse) framework, I'd be in the position of "I disagree". That it has been pursued in such a fashion that involves (as of today) top down decrees and the Executive branch defying Federal court orders... this makes me fear for the future.
As to other questions - I think that old folks (like me) should attempt to lend a long term perspective and whatever limited wisdom we may have accumulated over the years to political debates. I think the UK parliament has some great people, and some bad ones. I like the fact that some amazing people who are not professional politicians, such as Lord Rees, are a part of the UK system.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:27, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
I would like to see some qualified people get together and figure out a way to give countries a "credibility rating". After all, there are well-known rackets for "credit rating" countries based on whether the bonds they issue mean anything -- why shouldn't there be a rating to tell prospective immigrants whether the piece of paper they are holding will be made invalid while they are in mid-flight, so that they can be charged with illegal entry and banned from the country for five years when they arrive on the ground? Or, more importantly, to tell people thinking about putting up application fees and tuition for colleges how likely it is that they will never be allowed to fly with the student visa they are holding.
I feel like it's one thing to limit immigration from countries with dissimilar culture - something else again to go back on promises and leave people in the lurch. Whether the 'credibility rating' is written down and graphed or not, it must exist in the minds of people worldwide. I imagine there must be convention centers that were making record profits last year that are already mulling over whether they can lay off enough people to make it through this one. I think colleges already reeling from falling enrollment as the economy improved are thinking about desperate measures as they lose foreign students. Wnt (talk) 00:57, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Wnt, your comments about Wikipedia being an alternative to partisan boosterism and fake news is right on and encouraging. .--Jimbo Wales, to your points about false information and the ignoring of the rule of law, perhaps these issues have become more important to more people. I support, of course, the concept "of the people" and hope the commotion in the U.K. and the U.S.A. will energize more citizens to spend more time on political activity, and maybe, as Wnt suggests indirectly, more of these interested people will find their way to edit Wikipedia. I see what you mean about Lord Rees; impressive. Here, Chrystia Freeland and François-Philippe Champagne are great relative newbies. Wnt is right....Wikipedia has much more potential. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:04, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Jimbo Wales, Wnt, Guy, Ironically, in the context of this discussion, last night I came upon a shocking( to me ) segment of CNN's Nancy Pelosi Town Hall broadcast of 2 days ago.[20]. To me, the content of the first 2 questions in this segment and Pelosi's responses, may explain why so many Americans were desperate to kick out the existing political establishment. I am thinking that this can be added, as an external link, to our article on Illegal immigration to the United States. Do you three feel that would be within our rules? Also, in a more general way, would adding more of such broadcast videos as external links make the encyclopedia more or less useful to our readers? Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:37, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia's biggest problem here is actually not new: there has always been a tension between editors desperate to add blow-by-blow coverage of breaking news, with Wikipedia first to press with analysis, and our core policies which are designed about a reflective long-term view. We probably all agree that the Muslim ban, for example, is an unprecedented and almost certianly unconstitutional act, but it will take a long time before the courts weigh it up and identify whether statements such as those by Giuliani are sufficient to establish that this is a policy based on religious tests, rather than just being arbitrary and stunningly badly designed. Guy (Help!) 12:41, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Guy, great point..the reflective long term view is the most valuable view and it is scarce. Recorded, factual history, itself, is becoming more and more under attack. Wikipedia could be(come) the primary unbiased source of historical records of people and events. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:02, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia coverage of current topics

The recent political events might seem demoralizing, such as to Spanish Wikipedia where editors might feel like "second-class citizens" among world politics, but other Wikipedians with some Spanish-language skill could help reduce any potential isolation there. In general, I have seen limited help in many languages, even in German WP, as coverage of current topics lags behind recent events. It's not just in enwiki, where redlink "ClassNet" showed WP incapable of describing the basics of how the U.S. State Department handles classified email, but also other-culture topics not being covered in many other-language wikipedias. In fact, even Google Search has major gaps on topics, such as the "build-a-wall fallacy" where every American child learned the Great Wall of China was an expensive doomed policy, and the French Maginot Line was discarded by Nazi invasion bypassing the wall via the Belgium border. Building a Wall is often a colossal waste of money (whether $15 billion, whether Mexico pays for it or not), compared to the cost of rope ladders or people drones lifting people across. The older generation fails if Google Search fails to find Wikipedia explaining the "build-a-wall fallacy" to younger generations. We will also need an article about "Trump's Folly", not sure yet which one(s), plus various links for the "Mexico Wall" and "Anti-Trump protests" and finally begin coverage about "Anti-propaganda" techniques to counteract fake news or "lock-her-up" false claims, along with current topics about other nations.
Indeed the 1960s were a time of amazing progress in the U.S. with the computer revolution of rapid auto-correcting compilers, compact cars, 45 rpm records, and the Kennedy/Johnson years of social revolutions. People who know about the 1960s should continue to write and expand articles, as we do not even have a full article yet about "FORTRAN IV" as the heart of scientific computing with hidden figures for over 20 years (where "hidden figures" are the trailing decimal digits which affect precise calculations when digits are rounded or lost to truncation error, before double precision floating-point instructions). In fact, I am worried that Wikipedia coverage of the 1960s might be limited, perhaps because many sources from the 1960s are not online. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:37, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't see why the Spanish Wikipedians would or should feel like "second class citizens". On the rest, I can just say: yes, there's still plenty of interesting work to be done!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:18, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Yes there is plenty of interesting work to be done. Us "aliens" from the '60s probably do need to go back and consult some books (remember them?) and write some more articles. Not at all as easy as paraphrasing from the net. I'm very surprised that we don't have an article already on the Mexican wall - perhaps under a different title?
But I came here to post something different and didn't know a similar topic was being discussed. This is from a WaPo article on Trump (which I haven't even read yet, the quote is so good). But it's not about Trump in particular.

(No man has the) right to mislead others, who have less access to history, and less leisure to study it. . . . Thus substituting falsehood and deception for truthful evidence and fair argument.”— Abraham Lincoln, “Cooper Union Address,” 1860

We all need to remember that, especially Wikipedians. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I have linked "Mexico Wall" to the likely page "Mexico–United States barrier" about the border wall/fences status. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:39, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
The article is pretty good too. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:21, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Black History Month

February is Black History Month as even that great ambassador for peace, love, and understanding Donald Trump seems momentarily aware. We at Wikipedia have become cognizant of the likelihood of systematic content bias associated with gender-related content owing to the male skew of the editing corps. This is being addressed most impressively by the Women In Red project — a good start is made. There is probably an even more severe problem of systematic bias associated with matters of race and geolocation, owing to an even-heavier white and global north skew of editors. In any event, this is an excellent time to take baby steps forward helping to redress such matters. I'm challenging all content writers to contribute three new or substantially improved articles on Africa or African-diaspora-related themes during the month of February.

For myself, I'm going to work on some topic related to black participation in the American army in World War I, some figure other than Randolph involved in the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and something relating to the education industry in Mississippi. Go get 'em, tigers... Hike! Carrite (talk) 07:04, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Milton P. Webster (1887-1965) looks like my guy... Carrite (talk) 07:08, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Morgan Freeman on Black History Month (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 10:16, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Just to clarify, this is in relation to the United States. Here in the UK (and Canada, I believe) it is in October. Karst (talk) 10:55, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
The existence of a "black" or "white" history month is racist by definition, so I think we should be minimizing input into these racially categorizing articles, not maximizing the input. I think there was some sort of bullying of redheads a few years back, its sort of like feeding trolls to give oxygen to racial differentials, even with good intentions. It has not worked very well over the past 20 years. Nocturnalnow (talk) 05:07, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
No it's not racist. You seem to forget that every month is white history month. Guy (Help!) 10:31, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
It's not strictly "racist" in the sense that studying the history of some particular people, whether as an individual or in groups, is not racism but scholarship. But of course on Wikipedia every month is not only white history month, but also black history month and Asian history month and so on, because people never stop editing. The point of trying to synchronize black history activities in some particular month is not very obvious - many sites of interest like Underground Railroad stations might be nicer to visit and photograph in the summer. Wnt (talk) 12:43, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Autocracy in the United States

David Frum is the author of an article about the potential for an autocracy in the United States.

(In times of political oppression, what can a politically neutral person do? Such a person can pray for knowledge and wisdom and understanding and discernment.—Proverbs chapter 2)
—Wavelength (talk) 16:09, 3 February 2017 (UTC) and 21:55, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade do not need any promotional page at eng.Wikipedia.

Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade do not need any promotional page at eng.Wikipedia. Please, remove all content, including title. 178.222.91.140 (talk) 18:53, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

It has been removed already. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 19:22, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
There is text below the title:

Look for Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade on one of Wikipedia's sister projects:

Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings. Log in or create an account to start the Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade article, alternatively use the Article Wizard, or add a request for it. Search for "Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade" in existing articles. Look for pages within Wikipedia that link to this title.

Other reasons this message may be displayed: If a page was recently created here, it may not be visible yet because of a delay in updating the database; wait a few minutes or try the purge function. Titles on Wikipedia are case sensitive except for the first character; please check alternative capitalizations and consider adding a redirect here to the correct title. If the page has been deleted, check the deletion log, and see Why was the page I created deleted?.

Please, remove all content. 178.222.91.140 (talk) 19:47, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

That's what the MediaWiki software shows for a deleted article. Guy (Help!) 20:00, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
So the answer is: NO ! 178.222.91.140 (talk) 20:08, 2 February 2017 (UTC)20:08, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Correct. There is nothing to remove. Guy (Help!) 20:11, 2 February 2017 (UTC)


Sorry, but this looks very strange to me. I understand the article's creator (on Simple English anyway) was banned for sockpuppetting. The article itself at Simple English looks pretty tame. Without my doing any research on the Institute, it looks like a real educational institution with a real history. The Simple page looks good enough that there is a chance of a copyright violation. It looks very much better than paid editors would do. But there is a small chance of either of these.

I also understand that this part of the world has had a difficult past, say for the last 30 years. I'd hate to see this article deleted as part of a campaign of censorship. Could somebody check it out? Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:33, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

It was an advertisement. Feel free to write a real article if you can source it. Guy (Help!) 10:38, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade do not need and want any page at your Eng. Wikipedia. Eng. Wikipedia has a Zero relevance in Serbia! And Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade do not want to be in any possible way connected with Eng. Wikipedia! Thank you very much!79.101.174.121 (talk) 17:29, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
the "wants/needs" of any organization external to Wikipedia are pretty irrelevant. If third parties have found the organization worthy of discussing, English Wikipedia will likely (eventually) have an article about it. There appear to be a few references in English works about the studies from the institute, [21] and those studies seem to be lumped together with works from other major sources. [22] and [23] as per the footnote in[24] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk) 18:25, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
We, the Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade do not want to have article here!! And We, the Institute of Political Studies-Belgrade do not want to have any possible relation to Eng. Wikipedia, not now, not ever. Keep your values for yourself!79.101.174.121 (talk) 19:55, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
You do not get a say in the matter; if a subject passes notability guides, then it gets an article. I have copied the article from the simple.wiki to here, with attribution. Hopefully that is sufficient. TheValeyard (talk) 03:05, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Unofficially speaking, USA get lost from Serbia! Do what you want with article. We are not interested in your articles, rules, principles and values at all. Wikipedia do not have any value or relevance here and we do not care about it. It simply do not exist! Get lost with your propaganda and your way of life!79.101.174.121 (talk) 03:43, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Why so salty? The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was over 20 years ago y'know, haven't we gotten over that yet? TheValeyard (talk) 03:59, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
We will not have further communication. And, officially, I will personally make sure that all scientific cooperation of the Institute of Political Studies with USA be shut down. Sell your US values to someone else.79.101.174.121 (talk) 04:12, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Extremely peculiar behavior on Snopes

I am pasting this from another source. Has anyone else noticed this happening?

Have others noticed another - censorship related - thing about Snopes.com: While the rumor debunking stories themselves on Snopes seem valid, there are often alternative fake stories to similar real stories, as if the alternative story was created to bury the real story.
For example, CNN reported a 5 year old having been separated from his mother at Dulles airport:
http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2017/01/29/mom-reunion-son-dulles-airport.cnn
Soon after there was a similar (but not the same) story debunked by Snopes, of a 5 year old girl detained at Dulles airport:
http://www.snopes.com/syrian-girl-handcuffed-airport/
Now, if you search for 5-year old detained at Dulles, you will find the debunked Snopes story, burying the CNN story.
Earlier, there was a similar occurrence of Snopes debunking a story of voting machines with seals broken in Detroit, when several news sources reported 87 voting machines having broken in Detroit.
http://www.snopes.com/wisconsin-recount-observers-find-voting-machines-broken-seals/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/05/us-election-recount-michigan-donald-trump-hillary-clinton
Note that the debunked story is not the same as the real story, even if both are about broken voting machines in Detroit.
So, when they can't debunk the real story, there will be similar fake stories to bury the real news, and fact checking sites to debunk the fake news without mentioning the real news. The result is that the real news get buried and people who search for them think they may have been fake.

If this is happening in a systematic fashion, what is the appropriate response? 75.171.227.23 (talk) 18:38, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

There are certainly SEO folks who do that general type of thing. And there are trolls who spread false rumors, or try to quash real news, one way or another - heaven knows we get enough of them on this page. But if you have real info on Snopes, maybe a better way to spread it would be to not quote an anonymous source asking a question and then not sign it as an anon. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:33, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
I've asked Sakari Maaranen, who brought the information above to my attention, to comment here after he asked whether he should do so; along with someone else who said they have noticed similar issues with Snopes. 97.118.119.152 (talk) 20:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Go ask Snopes. We Wikipedia editors don't speak for them. Jehochman Talk 21:03, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
I suggest this is a source reliability issue which may impact a variety of Wikipedia policies, some of which refer to Snopes by name, but for which there is no appropriate noticeboard. What is the closest noticeboard for when a source referred to as reliable by name in policy or guidelines shows evidence of corruption? 97.118.119.152 (talk) 21:10, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
I am Sakari Maaranen. I don't really have anything to add — it's already in my text quoted above. I am the source of that observation, and it already contains links to the sources where I noticed it. Sakaal (talk) 21:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I've sent feedback on Snopes's "Contact Us" form asking them to comment here. 97.118.119.152 (talk) 21:20, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Quoting the OP: "a source referred to as reliable by name in policy or guidelines shows evidence of corruption?"
I am glad to see that Snopes has been removed from where I remember it among references to other specific source examples, and this was done months ago apparently because of a completely unrelated issue. I don't want to draw attention to the specific location, but a wide search on "Snopes" in the Wikipedia namespace will show dozens of RSN hits, and as a whole they may or may not show a pattern. I do not know the answers to your other three questions. 184.96.140.165 (talk) 00:21, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
This article uses the noun phrase "wilderness of mirrors".
—Wavelength (talk) 00:30, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Remember in the movie All the President's Men Woodward and Bernstein kept getting "non-denial denials" from Nixon's folks, and that's how they knew they were on the right track? What I'm seeing here, in the overall attacks on Snopes, is a) somebody dug up a divorce case and is taking all the accusations made there literally as fact, and b) non-accusation accusations. If you want to make actual accusations, I think you should come forward with some facts, and let others state their facts and arguments and let the public decide who is right. Most of what's said above is mere innuendo, e.g. an anon quotes an anon asking a question that puts an organization in a false light.

I understand some people and organizations don't like the idea that Facebook is employing fact-checkers. If they want to accuse the fact checkers of something, they should be honest in how they do it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:24, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

First, Sakari has a lengthy contribution history, and has stated verifiable facts in the exerpt at the top of the thread, so I don't think you can call him anonymous or the presentation innuendo in the usual sense of the word. Are you suggesting that there might be ulterior motives involved?
I will go ahead and say outright, that we have two examples of Snopes running denials on stories which do not seem to have been very widespread, but are both very similar in details -- and keywords of expected searches -- to confirmed stories which are embarrasing to monied interests. Is there any reason that statement might not be true? Do you think that I should go further than that in making an explicit accusation that the behavior is intentional, even before we hear from Snopes?
I have seen some pretty poor performance from PolitiFact in the past year, too. I am glad to see that RSN has treated Snopes with greater skepticism than they treat professional journalists. 184.96.140.165 (talk) 04:16, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Clean coal slips again

I hope Trump can call bullshit on all those Republican yes men he's surrounded himself with. Still hoping he finds some way to pull 1999's candidate Trump out of a hat. Anyway, here is a thrilling clean coal update for you. The part where they say the companies instead of their customers are paying for the new cost overruns is especially heartwarming. 184.96.140.165 (talk) 04:47, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you mean 1999's Bill Clinton? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 06:19, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Ah, no, the halcyon days of 1999 were a simpler, more innocent time but with the Ryan-McConnell Congress, deficits still matter for the people but not the military, because the Murcun Taliban is still trying to drown the baby in the bathtub, as they say. How long until the fight for creationism returns here -- remember the Intelligent Design controversies of 2005? 184.96.140.165 (talk) 07:40, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
That clean coal announcement is a lovely example of corporospeak. I mean, "extending the expected in-service date of" is priceless. So it's easy to miss the golden egg: "as a result of a revised estimate of ongoing operating costs for the project and a decrease in the most recent forecasting of long-term projected natural gas costs, the company is updating its economic viability analysis..." I suspect this means that drilling everywhere and abandoning any tax income on trillions of dollars of natural gas brings an efficient capitalist society the natural reward of being unable to run a coal plant without polluting heavily, but I don't know that for sure. Wnt (talk) 12:24, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Community Health Initiative and off-wiki harassment

It's very welcome news that the WMF has received $500,000 from the Craig Newmark Foundation and craigslist Charitable Fund to support a community health initiative tackling harassment and toxic behavior on Wikipedia. As I'm sure you're aware, in addition to harassment on Wikipedia, there is a significant issue with harassment coming from off-wiki sources - the 2015 harassment survey found a significant number of editors who had experienced off-wiki harassment. While it's a good thing that action is apparently going to be taken to reduce on-wiki harassment, there is a risk that editors carrying out harassment could simply circumvent Wikipedia's user conduct policies by using off-wiki venues as platforms for harassment campaigns. And there is a long-running issue with a number of off-wiki individuals and websites who have carried out or enabled harassment and doxxing campaigns.

Exactly this issue came up in an arbitration case a few years ago which addressed participation in non-Wikipedia websites and the off-wiki doxxing of an administrator and harassment of him off-wiki. It was notable in that case that while doxxing would certainly have resulted in a site ban if it had happened on Wikipedia, it attracted only a "severe admonishment" in this case (although another editor was banned for off-wiki harassment).

It's notable that the editor who was "severely admonished" carried out another doxxing a year later but no action was taken by the Arbitration Committee despite its previous "admonishment". A comment by David Fuchs highlights the key problem: "we don't sanction Wikipedia users for off-wiki activity without evidence of a problem with their direct activity on-wiki. It means, taking a recent example, that ones' comments on off-wiki forums are irrelevant if their behavior onwiki is not an issue" (my bolding). This amounts to turning a blind eye to editors who harass Wikipedians as long as they don't use Wikipedia to carry out the harassment and they don't misbehave in other ways here.

Considering those issues, a few questions immediately come to mind:

  1. Will the WMF be giving guidance to the Arbitration Committee on how cases of harassment should be dealt with? The Arbcom is potentially a weak link if it doesn't take harassment as seriously as it should. Harassment is such a critical issue that I'd argue that it can't be left solely to the community to deal with. At the very least, I think that arbitration cases dealing with this issue need to be given heightened scrutiny to ensure that outcomes are consistent with the goals of the community health initiative. While there is obviously a need for flexibility, there needs to be some consistent standard, comparable to the sentencing guidelines issued to courts for dealing with particular types of offences.
  2. Jimbo, would you personally agree with the view that where the harassment occurs should not be relevant to how it is treated? If an editor can sidestep Wikipedia's conduct policies by going off-wiki to avoid consequences, it would seem to make our policies toothless. In my own view, harassment by editors should be treated in the same way whether it happens on- or off-wiki. It's unwise to have a situation where actions by an editor that would attract a site ban if they happened on Wikipedia result in only a slap on the wrist or no action at all if they happened off-wiki (which is exactly what happened in the two cases I highlighted above). We should be telling editors who engage in harassment of fellow editors that they are not welcome here, regardless of the venue they use to carry out the harassment.
  3. Will consideration be given to potentially taking action against off-wiki harassers and the websites that enable them? Currently the community can only take action against editors. If harassment is being carried out by people who don't have Wikipedia accounts, the harassed editors are essentially on their own. The WMF could potentially be an effective force for helping to defend editors by tackling persistent harassers and their enablers off-wiki. Prioryman (talk) 13:26, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Woah, the WMF isn't in the position to give guidance to ArbCom (or anyone else) on the subject of harassment, right? The other way around makes more sense to me. The WMF is a diverse group of people (developers, legal department etc) but I would be very very surprised if they are (claiming to be) experts on the topic of harassment and how to deal with it. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:10, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
With all due respect I don't think this objection is very persuasive. The whole point is that the WMF has gotten a $500k grant to help deal with harassment, and so presumably experts on harassment can be convened (both external to our community and internal to our community) to work on recommendations for better processes going forward.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:19, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, that is what I was trying to say, we need some experts (who may or may not be hired by or via the WMF), not current WMF members (who have different roles and tasks). (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 04:29, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Well, I have been personally attacked off-wiki (including doxxing) for things I have done here in defence of the project. WMF offered some legal advice (this was back in the Mike Godwin days) and Jimmy was personally very supportive. The attackers were banned. But you have to draw a distinction like the one in defamation law between actionable defamation and "mere vulgar abuse". In many disputes, both sides become heated, and slapping the first one to cross an arbitrary line is not actually a good result for the project (though slapping both might well be). In most cases the best result is achieved when neutral third parties either mediate, or describe the dispute objectively on the admin boards so that the situation can be dealt with.
It's my impression that most civility and harassment cases brought to the admin boards turn out to be one side trying to gain advantage over the other in a content dispute. A clerking system for such cases with urgent escalation for real pressing problems would I think represent an improvement, in that it would focus attention on the serious cases rather than encouraging dogpiles on top of people who have done stupid things and probably know it. We are not very good at distinguishing between malice and clueless zealotry, IMO. Guy (Help!) 20:10, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
The internal process is as good as possible and off wiki stuff should rest with the courts. There is nothing else constructive to do about this, imo.Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:57, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
I don't think the internal process is as good as it could be - even though I think it is very good. Prioryman has done a good job of laying out some of the reasons why. Nor do I think that referring people to "the courts" is very realistic. A great deal of harassment that we should not put up with falls well short of legally actionable - and that's even if we ignore the problem that harassment can take place across geographic borders and can and does happen to people for whom the resources to fight an international court battle are prohibitive. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:19, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Ok, it will be interesting to see what the experts on harassment can come up with. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:08, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
I've been reluctant to mention User:Fæ's mistreatment out of confidence Wikipedia would not do the right thing, but since it has been brought up I should say I see no reason to change my opinion from the time: he was being abused and misrepresented in a concerted off-line campaign, and ArbCom's response was to subject him to extraordinarily harsh punishment for ridiculous technical infractions. I am glad to see that some progress is being made toward forgiving him for being bullied five years ago. But to win against harassment Wikipedia must "WP:DENY" harassers the golden ring that all their efforts reach toward -- bans on the victims for some momentary flash of anger or based on some speck of "evidence" their persecutors have dug up with weeks of effort. If the administrators refuse to join the attack on someone, the harassers will have little reason to bother doing it at all. Wnt (talk) 12:53, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Nice piece

"With the power of online transparency, together we can beat fake news." (Not to mention fake history.) Sca (talk) 23:15, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Jimbo Media Inc. Presents.....

With the power of online transparency, together we can beat fake news

.*applause* Guy (Help!) 23:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you... but I should acknowledge the help that I had from WMF on this one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:40, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The Signpost: 6 February 2017

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Vipul sponsors Wikipedia editing

Please see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#User:Vipul_sponsors_Wikipedia_editing -- a very interesting experiment!

(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Fake news about Santa Claus

Many entities (including individuals and organizations) have been involved in a very elaborate scheme to deceive young children into believing in the existence of Santa Claus. Cities have hosted Santa Claus parades, department stores ([25]) and shopping malls ([26]) have hosted opportunities for children to line up for a face-to-face visit with Santa Claus, and broadcasters ([27]) have hosted opportunities for children to telephone for a chat with Santa Claus. Newspapers have supported the myth, individuals have pretended to be Santa Claus in replying to letters to Santa Claus, and parents have told the lie to their own children. NORAD pretends to track Santa Claus, and there are Santa Claus schools.

I am very interested in seeing a database of newspapers and broadcasters that have participated in this scheme, with specific years and months; and those that have never done so; and those that have publicized the truth about Santa Claus, with specific years and months. If an entity repents of the lie and behaves in a way that shows genuine repentance, then it has a right to be forgiven, which can be more important than a right to be forgotten. This can revolutionize the policy Wikipedia:Reliable sources.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
[Clarification: A "right to be forgiven by other humans" should not be confused with "a privilege to be forgiven by God". (Romans 6: 14; 14)
—Wavelength (talk) 04:58, 5 February 2017 (UTC)]
[Clarification #2: If an entity participates in the scheme in a specific month of a specific year, then it can be regarded as untrustworthy from that time forward. If the same entity shows repentance in another specific month of a specific year, then it can be regarded as trustworthy from that time forward.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:51, 6 February 2017 (UTC)]

Nice one - I think it makes a point very well. DrChrissy (talk) 21:10, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Think psychologically, such a wide spread tradition ends up protecting children. By the time they are old enough, not to be constantly be under their parents watchfulness, they have become aware, not to automatically trust everything an 'adult' tells them. So, if a stranger says "Jump into my car and I'll drive you home and I'll buy you a soda on the way back”.... They know the world is full of trickery. --Aspro (talk) 22:14, 4 February 2017 (UTC)
Kids are far more complex than that. My kids believed in Santa Claus until they were 9 or 10 years old, but if a stranger had said that to them even at that age, they'd have punched him in the face and phoned the police with his car registration number. Black Kite (talk) 00:31, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
The scheme does not teach children whom to believe or when to believe them. It undermines trust, which is essential for a well-functioning society. DuckDuckGo has search results for santa claus trust.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:35, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
Santa Claus and god(s) are quite similar. Greydon Square described Christianity as belief in Santa Claus for adults. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 03:04, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

It would take whatever god that you believe in to damn me
"It can't be Christianity that damages families"
Oh it is, look how they indoctrinatin' these kids
Belief in Santa Claus for adults, thats what it is

— Greydon Square, Say (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 03:23, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
Jesus said, in prayer to his Father, "Your word is truth." (John 17: verse 17 in context, World English Bible)
—Wavelength (talk) 00:45, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Jesus was Jewish, not Christian, and his father was not a god (nor Santa Claus) so that is rather irrelevant. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
Without settling down for a full-on religious argument here, let's just say that the best way to deal with fake news is with real news. Wikipedia's coverage of Saint Nicholas can surely be improved - there is a brief description of how he paid dowries for three girls to keep them from being put into prostitution which is intriguing and must have a more detailed explanation. If we can expand public knowledge of a good man whom we may not venerate but surely should admire, then 19th-century stories of low-paid laborers of strange ethnicities in far-off lands making children's toys to be shipped by air, however prophetic, will seem too sleazy to market under his name. Wnt (talk) 15:13, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
It comes by ship actually. I saw this arrive. Still filled with goods made by low-paid laborers in shoddy working conditions in a far off country however... Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:18, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

جیمبودونال والس

وی فه همراه پاملاگرین.کتی کوروی.لاری سنجر.دیویدویلی۱۹۸۶ درموضوع معمرقذافی.بن لادن.صدام.حسنی مبارک.عیدی امین.خلیفاهافنر.عمرمختار.زیوهت جان زور.محمدبن فرهات بیردان.درلفافه قف تاج.دئوویقت.نامشان بود.ازچگونگی مطلع هستند.لطفااعلام کنند. Zemstan95 (talk) 23:18, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Local Embassy has editors who can understand these languages.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
@Wavelength: I'm not sure what he means, I see names of terrorists with a title mentioning Jimbo, if he really means something he better try again someday,  Not done looks offend. MohammadtheEditor (talk) 02:08, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
It's a non sense mentioning names of former dictators such as Muammar Gaddafi, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and terrorists/rebels such as Osama bin Laden, Omar Mukhtar and Khalifa Haftar. I didn't understand other names mentioned in the original text. Also the title says "JIMBODONAL WALTZ"! --Gnosis (talk) 08:23, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Ref desk

I don't post here or watchlist, and don't intend to, but people seem to listen to and value your opinion, and we seem to have reached a point on Wikipedia talk:Reference desk, where the fact that the ref desk is so blatantly out of line with PG, that it has become de facto immune from PG. That's probably a problem. TimothyJosephWood 00:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? I assume by 'PG' you mean WP:PG?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:38, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Extremely peculiar behavior on Snopes (continued)

Recently User:75.171.227.23 posted a thread about a fake "debunking" on Snopes. I should followup that today we see this idea cashed in by the New York Times: "Although the boy was detained ... he was apparently not handcuffed."[28]

For that ... fact... it cites a different "debunking" featuring a different photo at [29]. The Snopes article is not cited, but the photo it cites - of a little girl - is here. Now to be clear, I am aware of no real photo of the actual kid who was handcuffed, but sources like The Independent said he had "reportedly" been handcuffed, and the Trump administration never indignantly replied they had not while defended his detention. The Independent also mentions what none of the "debunkings" do -- the child detained was an American citizen (but also a citizen of Iran).

So we have not merely one but two separate misinformative "debunkings", pitted against one another in a relentless process of competition to see which is worthy to make the pages of the New York Times. Who appear to be in on the act, because despite the textual misinformation, they did not yet repress their old-fashioned tendency to cite the source, which is the ayatollah's web page, which directly quotes the man as saying "Now, with everything he is doing—handcuffing a child as young as 5 at an airport—he is showing the reality of American human rights." The source they cite for their "debunking" similarly acknowledges, near the end, that a child was detained at Dulles though not the one in the picture.

The net effect: The New York Times just said Ayatollah Khamenei was spreading misinformation, without having any real evidence at all to support that allegation. And some anon saw someone setting up for this days before Khamenei spoke. Wnt (talk) 15:16, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Harassment and trolling

You may not have spotted this: [30] Guy (Help!) 18:47, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

That article directly links to User:Keilana's contributions page. I don't really understand why there are so many idiots who make a point specifically of harassing women - there's no benefit to be had from it. Wnt (talk) 01:12, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
DuckDuckGo has search results for why harass women.
—Wavelength (talk) 02:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Google Scholar has search results for why harass women.
—Wavelength (talk) 04:32, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
Why harass women? I already know. Because the atackers are charmless twats whose self-image cannot tolerate the fact that they got out-competed by someone. Guy (Help!) 23:21, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

PLEASE DO NOT KILL ANIMALS!

now https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact means negative impact as Solar Concentrators and Wind Power - KILL BIRDS AND BATS! (Idot (talk) 18:29, 7 February 2017 (UTC))

It has been noted that insects can be attracted to the bright light caused by concentrated solar technology, and as a result birds that hunt them can be killed (burned) if the birds fly near the point where light is being focused. This can also affect raptors who hunt the birds.[1][2][3][4] Federal wildlife officials have begun calling these power towers "mega traps" for wildlife.[5][6][7]

Bats may be injured by direct impact with turbine blades, towers, or transmission lines. Recent research shows that bats may also be killed when suddenly passing through a low air pressure region surrounding the turbine blade tips.[8] The numbers of bats killed by existing onshore and near-shore facilities have troubled bat enthusiasts.[9]

and the {u|Gnome}} do not accept any votes at signing page against such anti-environmental project (Idot (talk) 18:10, 7 February 2017 (UTC))

I am talking about voting at Meta of Wikipedia that suggest that Wikipedia should use reneweable power sources such as solar and wind plants (Idot (talk) 18:56, 7 February 2017 (UTC))

FAKE NEWS!
"But even if nearly 30,000 birds a year are getting sent to their fiery doom, that’s a mere fraction compared to other U.S. energy sources" - U.S. News and World Report
"Wind turbines kill fewer birds than do cats, cell towers" - USA Today
184.96.135.200 (talk) 20:48, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I think that we should just do nothing and let unaddressed climate change kill all of the birds and bats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk) 21:37, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
climate change do not kill instantly, however some renewable energy such as solar concentrators kill INSTANTLY!
even more it is a lie to say that "climate change kill all of the birds and bats", it is threat for some birds and buts, not for all, even more they have time and chance to evaluate. however some renewable energy such as solar concentrators kill all birds and bats that are near, including migrating animals.
Not really, no. The damage to bird populations form wind turbines, for example, is relentlessly talked by by anti wind farm activists, but is tiny by any properly objective measure and vastly less than the impact of an equivalent wattage of coal fired generation. Guy (Help!) 08:41, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
How about solar concentrators? Wind power kill accidentally and near by, but solar concentrators attract animals from many miles.
Solar concentrators are less efficient than photovoltaic panels (thank goodness, IMHO) so they are much rarer. 184.96.135.200 (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Hydroelectric plants in Malawi kill hippopotamuses. The deadliest power generation disaster in history was the Banqiao Dam collapse. Nobody denies these things. People do deny global warming. Guy (Help!) 08:41, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Hydroelectric plants is renewable energy too, same as wind power - no principal difference.
We should kill some animals, right? Guinea worm 'almost eradicated'. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 09:09, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
and what? do you dream of killing all birds and bats? (Idot (talk) 14:55, 8 February 2017 (UTC))
No, potatoes do not dream. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 17:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Supporters of renewable power are proud that their preference leads to killing fewer animals than fossil fuel power does.[10] 184.96.135.200 (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
The third item in this list is a link to a video describing various aspects of eco-friendly building design.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:34, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ John Roach. "Burned Birds Become New Environmental Victims of the Energy Quest". NBC News.
  2. ^ Michael Howard (20 August 2014). "Solar Thermal Plants Have a PR Problem, And That PR Problem Is Dead Birds Catching on Fire". Esquire.
  3. ^ "Emerging solar plants scorch birds in mid-air". Fox News.
  4. ^ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/emerging-solar-plants-scorch-birds-mid-air
  5. ^ "How a Solar Farm Set Hundreds of Birds Ablaze". Nature World News.
  6. ^ "Ivanpah Solar Power Tower Is Burning Birds".
  7. ^ http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewire/Avian-mortality%20Report%20FINALclean.pdf
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Baerwald et al. was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference vawind was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/08/22/pecking-order-energys-toll-on-birds

"Collection of 13,500 Nastygrams Could Advance War on Trolls"

I'd guess you are aware of the subject of the article from MIT Technology Review [31]. I'd just like to ask that the WMF pursue this avenue enthusiastically, and also work on a similar AI strategy regarding paid editing.

BTW, may I ask you to read my article in the current Signpost about paid editing? It's easy enough to identify paid editing in this egregious case. Having a bit of AI help could work wonders with other cases as well. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:18, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

How can this gimmickry be of any use? If this Judge Of Us All be an open-source program, the spam shops will copy it, and run it on their posts in advance, and with a little machine content generation and regeneration to help them out, shall become the finest paragons of virtue on Wikipedia. And should this JOUA be a secret, proprietary program, then we know not who calibrates it for we know not what ends, whether it discriminates by political viewpoint, race, or associations, and it is a technology that cannot be duplicated by any would-be mirror of Wikipedia, meaning that to make the project portable people would have to go back and figure out how to do things the right way.
If the gimmick were useful, it would only prove that our site's trolls and harassers were useful to the cause of Science and the profits of Google Jigsaw, and therefore were positive contributors to the project all along. Wnt (talk) 19:42, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
@Wnt: Have you ever noticed the fact that there is free opensource spam-checking software that manages to block shitloads of spam? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 19:55, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
I haven't been using it, because who wants to risk losing something important? There doesn't seem to be that much spam email nowadays anyway, because who buys what they're selling? (the article agrees - says it has been going down since 2011) Wnt (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
@Wnt: A company I visited today generates hundreds of thousands euros per month in sales by sending spam email for various companies. People have opted-in for those emails, but I still consider them to be spam (and so does, for example, gmail). Legally they aren't unsolicited though. I think the real reason the amount of spam is decreasing probably has something to do with the fact that software has become more sophisticated. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:25, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
@Wnt: Seriously? Last time I was in charge of mail servers for a company, we were receiving upwards of ten million spam emails some days, in excess of 99% of all email received. You can read them all if you'd prefer not to miss something "important", or you could read RFC2821 and realise that email is not a great tool for urgent or important correspondence. Guy (Help!) 23:19, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
@JzG:We're straying from the topic, but I'll say in my far more limited experience, two different email addresses between them don't generate even one spam most days. I actually "ballast" the main one with some stuff like Daily Kos updates just so I can see it is operational. The ISP junk folder doesn't have anything and my client has one rule set that has caught 20 messages in roughly a year. The only major spam burst I got lately was somebody sending email faked to be *from* the less-used address via some open mail port giving me something like 30 bounce messages from some servers in Russia. I don't know why your situation is different.
You might want to ask your email provider about that. Virtually every email service in the world has spam filters. The time between registering a domain with an MX record and spam arriving is normally measured in hours at most. Guy (Help!) 08:34, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
In any case, there is a huge difference between discarding unsolicited mail from unknown senders you view as non-critical based on some AI's opinion and discarding Wikipedia contributions or contributors. Wnt (talk) 02:41, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Those who like to use words like "fuck" once in a while (like myself) will be treated as evil, while passive aggressive semitrolls who are far from polite but manage to avoid using four letter words while being total dicks will be treated like valued contributors. So, ehm, not much will change. It will takes hundreds of years until software understands that I am using the wordcombination "fuck Jimbo" to illustrate a point, not to insult anyone. Randy in Boise can annoy a valued contributor for weeks, and if he tells Randy to fuck off then the software will not be able to understand the context. Even humans have trouble understanding stuff like that. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Of course it's not about having a perfect harassment finder or a perfect paid editing finder. It's about having a tool that will help find harassment or paid editing, with review by actual humans.

Let me give an example of a very simple tool, not AI, that could help find articles affected by paid editing. Can a bot find the number of permanently banned or indefinitely blocked editors who have edited an article? The articles that place high on such a list would be the first places I'd look for solid confirmation of paid editing. Perhaps the bot could also list the banned or blocked editors and compare the overlap with known paid editors (e.g. Morning277) or other editors on known paid-for articles. Would anybody other than a paid editor object to that? Wouldn't that be useful, with human review, in finding paid-for articles and new paid editors? Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:36, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I just wanted to tell you that I enjoyed very much your Signpost piece and laud you for doing the research and writing it. I support your fight. As a side note, I either never knew or forgot that you have a PhD in finance. Very cool.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:40, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Bully veteran editors prevent me from creating a new article

I want to create the article Joseph 'Mad Dog' Sullivan, the only person to ever escape from Attica Prison. But, like so many other readers, I don't dare try to create a new article because of the editor bullies here on wikipedia. I think I speak for hundreds of editors, that also have had so many horrendously bad experiences with bully veteran editors here. It is a real shame there is not a viable alternative to wikipedia. Jim, you have directly help create such a negative environment for editors. 2601:680:8100:2508:48F7:6B92:B6DC:AA7D (talk) 14:27, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Can you specify what response you have gotten in your attempts to create this article? This would help others here give you some feedback on what happened. Deli nk (talk) 14:36, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Hi IP, have you tried to create the above article before? I cannot see that you have, certainly not under that name as the link leads to nothing. If you haven't, I would suggest that you read our notability guidelines. Providing this person meets that criteria, you should be able to create the article without any problems.--5 albert square (talk) 14:52, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
WP:FIND is a good place to start. There is a fair amount about him on the web, and a biography was published in 2006.[32] However, he is best known for his escape from Attica Correctional Facility in 1971, so there is a need to avoid WP:BLP1E. The June 1962 Alcatraz escape has its own article and a Clint Eastwood film, but the Attica escape is not so well known.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:11, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
I just wanted to point out that non-registered users cannot create articles. J947 04:29, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
They can, just not in mainspace. An IP can create a draft and have it created via AfC. Seraphimblade Talk to me 11:40, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Please use the term "Persian language" (English) instead of "Farsi"

Hello dear wiki fellow, As I know my native language called "Persian language" in Oxford Dictionary and its not "Farsi". Please try to say Persian instead. I remember there was a statement from the Academy of Persian Language and Literature that mentioned the foreign governments and organizations to consider using the term "Persian language" refer to this language's heritage and historical rights and not to try to change, especially in this encyclopedic atmosphere. It is important, and for example, we don't call "German language" as "Deutsch", "Arabic" as "Al-Arabi" and/or the country name "Germany" as "Deutschland", we say in English because its English Encyclopedia. do the right thing please. Thank you so much. The Stray Dog Talk Page 19:50, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Why would using endonyms be bad? I live in the Netherlands, if English-speaking people would use the endonym Nederlands instead of the word Dutch then that would be far less confusing for them. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:29, 8 February 2017 (UTC)


It should be called: "فارسی". Count Iblis (talk) 22:19, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia is the last instance you need to convince of this. We simply follow the naming conventions of the majority of reliable sources. Get everyone else to do this first, and we will follow suit without having to be told. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 22:24, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Your request is evidently in response to my post now archived at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 216#جیمبودونال والس. Google reports "[a]bout 562,000 results" for "persian language", and "[a]bout 284,000 results" for "farsi language".
I found these webpages in support of your request.
At this moment, I am inclined to honor your request, and I am anticipating opportunities to refer to the "Persian language".
—Wavelength (talk) 23:03, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
Me too. I try to learn about these things so that I can use the most accurate term, and I'm always happy to learn.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Mmmm; I think Agatha Christie called it farsi in Murder in Mesopotamia too, in 193X. O Fortuna!...Imperatrix mundi. 11:45, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Healthy Domains Initiative

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published an article about the Healthy Domains Initiative (HDI).

—Wavelength (talk) 22:14, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

The most important parts of the article appear to be in these two paragraphs (italics in original).

The HDI recommends the construction of "a voluntary framework for copyright infringement disputes, so copyright holders could use a more efficient and cost-effective system for clear cases of copyright abuse other than going to court." This would involve forcing everyone who registers a domain name to consent to an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process for any copyright claim that is made against their website. This process, labelled ADRP, would be modeled after the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), an ADR process for disputes between domain name owners and trademark holders, in which the latter can claim that a domain name infringes its trademark rights and have the domain transferred to their control.

This is a terrible proposal, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, a domain name owner who contracts with a registrar is doing so only for the domain name of their website or Internet service. The content that happens to be posted within that website or service has nothing to do with the domain name registrar, and frankly, is none of its business. If a website is hosting unlawful content, then it is the website host, not the domain registrar, who needs to take responsibility for that, and only to the extent of fulfilling its obligations under the DMCA or its foreign equivalents.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:47, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

The article mentions Donuts (company) and new gTLDs (generic top-level domains), many of which are listed at List of Internet top-level domains#ICANN-era generic top-level domains.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:09, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't really understand this -- what if the company has a domain, but holds specific postings at an IP or some cloud server registered in a way that avoids this imposed "agreement"? Is the company going to claim that for the great service of putting your domain numbers in an index file, you sign over your right to defend yourself in court on any site you link, maybe any site you own or anything you write in any medium? Why don't they just ask for a formal indenture while they're at it? Yet if they don't, then this should not affect those who can split a site on more than one machine, right?
When domain names came out, I really did think that it was a gimmick that would never catch on. Accessing sites by number is faster and more reliable, and any decently programmed web browser ought to keep track of the numbers in a cache so it doesn't space out on DNS outages later, right? Even if the site needs to move between machines, there could be places to look them up that are local to one or a few companies. The idea of paying to be listed was a racket that seemed antithetical to the whole spirit of the internet. Since that time, my opinion hasn't actually changed.
Certainly it is well past time for someone to challenge the racket. Mozilla Foundation runs a free, trustworthy browser and Wikipedia has a huge database of canonical names for things with websites. Just arrange to have the browser impose its own TLD, like .wikipedia ... you look up, say, mozilla.wikipedia, it goes to a Wikidata entry for Mozilla (the article) that holds the IP address of the site or of a machine controlled by the organization that runs a simple protocol to tell you where it is. Everything free, no name server consulted, the company just has to maintain a small text page at a known location if it wants to dynamic redirect, right? Wnt (talk) 00:33, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
I have studied the article by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I have studied your comments and your six questions. I have searched on the World Wide Web for a simpler version of the things mentioned in the article. It appears to me that my understanding of the Healthy Domains Initiative is not clearer than yours, so I am not in a position to provide useful answers.
—Wavelength (talk) 03:12, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

The Mason-Dixon dash

Just another status-2017, this time about expanded overuse of dashes. The article about the boundary between Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware has become "Mason–Dixon Line" after 300 hundred years as the hyphenated Mason-Dixon Line. Years ago, people tried to dash-shove "McGraw–Hill" (the publishing company), but it was corrected back to corporate name "McGraw-Hill". I've also seen several "anti–useful" or similar excessive dashes. For some reason, our users can understand a hyphenated married name ("Meredith Baxter-Birney"), but fail to see a partnership as a similar pairing of two names: the "Michelson-Morley Experiment" became "Michelson–Morley experiment". However, even the Elizabeth Taylor-Burton marriage was ignored to dash the "Taylor–Burton Diamond". Meanwhile, technology has progressed from not having the endash on laptop QWERTY keyboards to not having the endash on mobile-phone keyboards. That's the status in 2017. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:22, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Having carefully avoided the dash-wars and dash–wars for several years now, I think I'll decline to get involved. For relaxation on the topic of pushing things together and creating combined words, I recommend PPAP. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:08, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
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