User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 171

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Some falafel for you!

thank you for founding wikipedia :)

╦ᔕGᕼᗩIEᖇ ᗰOᕼᗩᗰEᗪ╦ 19:05, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

On behalf of Mr. Wales, for whom I think I can speak on this occasion, thank you. As a reminder to our audience, falafel is fried and delicious and requires no dead animals. Drmies (talk) 21:26, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

WMF plans for mathematics III

I wanted to thank you for your interest in and support for the proposals that some mathematics editors put to you as a result of your challenge to us. Indeed, you were kind enough to "personally recommend that we allocate resources to this". Unfortunately, Lila tells me that, to her regret, she is unable to do that [1], and indeed it seems that mathematics is not "on the roadmap for the foreseeable future" [2]. Of course I find that hugely disappointing, not to say incomprehensible, and indeed personally I think it's quite offensive, but that's no longer the point. The decision is made, and we must work through the consequences.

Given that mathematics is not on the roadmap, there must be a significant risk that mathematics rendering and editing will not be sustained: that changes made elsewhere in the software to support the changes towards the more modern user experience desired by the Board will degrade or just break mathematics editing or rendering unexpectedly and that resources will not be available to fix it. Of course, I don;t know that's going to happen, I just see no reason for it not to, so there's no way you or I can affect that at present.

Here is one question which you might be able to help with. An academic body is currently in preliminary discussions over whether to institute a Wikimedian-in-Residence programme, which would involve mathematics content. Before committing resources, a question is bound to be asked, and quite properly so, by a sceptical member of their board about the sustainability of Wikipedia in general and mathematics on Wikipedia in particular: in essence, will Wikipedia still "doing maths" in five years time? I don't see how I could honestly encourage them to allocate resources to a project requiring mathematics editing and rendering when there is no commitment to support for those on the part of WMF. What answer would you give to that board member if you were asked?

I'm trying to find the way forwards here, but allow me to express my personal view to you for the moment. Mathematics is one of the oldest continuing human intellectual traditions, with a connected history of over two thousand years. It is fundamental to the sciences in general: no technological endeavour could succeed without it. It is an indispensible part of the sum of human knowledge. It also happens to be the subject I have spent almost all of my career so far advancing in one way or another, including writing dozens of Wikipedia articles. To suggest that it isn't important enough to allocate resources to, when WMF has over 200 staff and tens of millions of dollars at its disposal, is a decision I find both incomprehensible and, personally, indigestible. It seems that WMF would rather allocate its resources to make it easier for readers to view the pornography on Commons than the formulae on Wikipedia. It certainly tells me that the views and values of WMF and myself are now radically divergent. I thought it was about the sum of human knowledge. Apparently that sum does not involve mathematics. Deltahedron (talk) 19:29, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the WMF take on this is basically that Math doesn't generate enough page views (and thus potential donations) to be worthwhile investing in more than they are already doing. I'm not sure if WMF-paid devs or other contributors are behind mw:Extension:Math. Suffice to say that most of the heavy-duty infrastructure under that like MathJax, dvipng, or Mathoid does not appear to be WMF-sponsored at all. The only thing that was Mediawiki-specific was texvc, a sanitization/adapter program basically; and I think even that was written by someone not paid by the WMF. Someone from the WMF will surely correct me if I missed giving them some due credit on some Math-related infrastructure. JMP EAX (talk) 21:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Ok, Mathoid was forked/written by a WMF employee [3]. JMP EAX (talk) 21:30, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Also this is of some relevance: Math typesetting over the web is still sucky in general. According to [4] none of the browsers makers actually paid their devs for any MathML-related work. So it's not only the WMF which doesn't find it worthwhile much... JMP EAX (talk) 21:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe people would find this more worth their while if any of our mathematics articles were even remotely comprehensible, but I don't see that happening anytime soon either. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

That would be an old chestnut even if it were true. Some of the articles are specialised and some are not. Like all topics of any intellectual depth, some of the articles are hard for non-specialists to read, and that is the way it should be. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics/FAQ for the standard answer. Deltahedron (talk) 08:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Take our article on Graham's number. There are explanations for its use that are much more approachable, and are quite readily available (check YouTube for a video explaining the concept). Why it needs to be written in impenetrable language exclusively using esoteric examples eludes me. I'm currently working on an article which contains some fairly dense linguistics, and it's certainly not the easiest thing to read, but it doesn't take an M.A. in linguistics to at least get a basic understanding of things. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:22, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The current article seems to me to be well within the range of an intelligent 18 year old mathematics A-level student. Deltahedron (talk) 15:29, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually significantly better than many Wikipedia articles (which is not a really ringing endorsement). Collect (talk) 15:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Umm. Thirty-odd years ago, I would have been the equivalent of "an intelligent 18 year old mathematics A-level student", and I can't understand much of this article. Its most pressing weakness is an explanation that is understandable by a more general readership; I don't have much of a problem with the more sophisticated information being included, but there's nothing there that helps someone with limited mathematical skilo understand the concept. Risker (talk) 15:40, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Then we must agree to disagree as far as that goes. Neither of us seems to have a view of this article consistent with the suggestion that none of our mathematics articles is even remotely comprehensible, or that the language of the article is impenetrable exclusively using esoteric examples. Indeed the first sentence begins "Graham's number, named after Ronald Graham, is a large number" and I think that's fairly clear. If you or Blade wishes to improve this article, then this is the encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Deltahedron (talk) 15:50, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

If linguistics is under discussion, let me take a look at Antisymmetry which I came across by chance today in the course of a discussion at WT:WPM. It begins "In linguistics, antisymmetry is a theory of syntactic linearization". How many non-experts have the faintest idea what syntactic linearisation is? Curiously, syntactic linearization is a red link, and linearization is a mathematics article. The only two occurences of the phase "syntactic linearization" are in this article, and in Dynamic antisymmetry which also uses it without further explanation. It appears to be connected with "surface linearization", also not explained. So which of these is "impenetrable language exclusively using esoteric examples", "syntactic linearization" or "a large number"? But I don't follow people writing articles on linguistics around complaing about how hard it is. Deltahedron (talk) 16:00, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, our linguistics articles are far from ideal as well; I'm not trying to dispute that. But I hardly go around complaining about how hard math is; search my contributions for the last year and a half, it should be obvious where I spend my time. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Two points: I myself find linguistics articles to be worse written (more impenetrable) than math ones too (how much do you understand from dependency grammar for instance?), but it may be a case of expertise as well. As for the Graham number example: c'mon a lot of graduate students in computer science (a sufficiently connected field) have trouble grokking Ramsey theory (just ask anyone teaching TCS classes.) So I don't see why you expect that article to be easily digestible. I'm more curious how far into composition of functions the average reader can get. (That's a "level-4 vital article", for what that's worth.) I'm curious if you'd rather read abstract machine (also a "level-4 vital article"), which is a very bad article from a specialist perspective actually, but it may be easily understandable as is it's mostly a copy of the FOLDOC material. JMP EAX (talk) 22:44, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The article on Graham's number is badly written, but for a different reason: it waffles too much in the lead (which almost entirely a history section) and fails to state the problem there, which is amusingly relegated to a sections called "context" that actually doesn't provide anymore context but just blurts out the problem statement. JMP EAX (talk) 23:06, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way, this has everything to do with who watches/maintains such articles, a major issue that's being discussed elsewhere eon this page. See Talk:Graham's_number#.22all_sorts_of_poorly_chosen_words.22 for the concrete disputes. JMP EAX (talk) 23:40, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, it's not practical in an Wikipedia article to repeat the definitions from Knuth's up-arrow notation everywhere they are used, but that's clearly a prerequisite to read/grok Graham's number, even if you don't care about the Ramsey theory problem that led to it. And most people probably aren't familiar with Knuth's notation either. I should note that in this respect the Graham number article is compliant with Wikipedia:Make_technical_articles_understandable#Write_one_level_down. JMP EAX (talk) 23:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

What the WMF needs (for this to happen) is a Murray Sargent [5] or an Eliyezer Kohen [6]. JMP EAX (talk) 04:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

A lot of our math pages are actually very useful. One should not compare page views of math pages to page views of other pages. Rather one should look at links to our math pages from websites known for high quality academic content. Our math and physics pages are very often used as a de-facto reliable reference by stackexchange. Articles like Gaussian quadrature may look like one giant mess to people who are not into math, but they are very useful to people who need to look up something about the topic. Count Iblis (talk) 16:15, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I would not take the use on stackexchange as much of an endorsement. The unwritten but well known rule there is that whoever posts something first wins the most points. As such pasting stuff directly from Wikipedia is often practiced, even when it's not really (the most) appropriate answer to a particular question. JMP EAX (talk) 01:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

The trustworthiness of Wikipedia

Hi Jmmy.

The Wikimedia Foundation envisions a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. [7] But "knowledge" of something implies well-founded confidence in its accuracy. While Wikipedia is untrustworthy, it is sharing something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision, but also for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust.

At Wikimania 2014 you said, "We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... We all know it's flawed. We all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted Encyclopedia Britannica - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. ... I'm not going to rest until people trust us more than they ever trusted Encyclopedia Britannica in the past." [8]

Are you doing anything at the moment aimed at either improving the public's understanding of Wikipedia's reliability or improving its actual reliability? If so, would you like to share those initiatives here? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:14, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Everything I do related to Wikipedia is aimed at those things, so I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question. I think one of the biggest changes is the hiring of Lila as CEO coupled with her intention to radically increase investment in software development to help make it easier for us to get our jobs done. There are many ideas that have been floating around for years but we haven't had sufficient developer resources to do them. (It is my view that in the past 5 years we have significantly underinvested in engineering.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you please elaborate on how technological fixes will solve the unreliability problem? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:03, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I think there are many ways but let's just talk about one example. Watchlists are a very primitive way to surface new edits to experienced users. A more sophisticated "news feed" style watchlist could take into account a variety of factors to do a better job of showing us edits that need to be scrutinized and as well as new users who are writing in areas that we care about so that we can evaluate them, greet them, welcome them, coach them. Imagine if edits to articles that you personally care a lot about (medical articles say) were scanned and highlighted to people who are part of the relevant Wikiproject if they contain certain "likely problems" (for example, a link to a tabloid newspaper is probably not the best link in a serious medical article, but that's an editorial judgment that could, in some cases, make sense).

That's just one example and a random brainstorm by just one person (me) on some ideas that people have proposed over the years. But I hope it is indicative of the kinds of things that I have in mind.

Here's another one: I set up a link in my browser to go to a random female British author whenever I click it. I click it and see if there is some small thing I can improve. But this is very very primitive. What if, instead, the system could take me to an article which based on several factors is likely to need attention. (For example, if readers have expressed displeasure, or if someone recently posted on the talk page, or if an ip address recently edited it, or...)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It is worth noting that Wikipedia:Verifiability policy rates as "questionable" any sources that "lack meaningful editorial oversight", and that this class includes Wikipedia itself. Deltahedron (talk) 13:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. How do you feel about scholars reviewing our medical content for accuracy, and us putting a prominent badge at the top of those articles, linking the reader to the fact-checked version? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Reliability of the information found here has to hinge on the verifiability of that information. Reliable sources...references...all of that tedious, unexciting stuff. It's quite frustrating when you know that something is true - to be unable to say it here because you need to reference reliable sources. But that's the only way we've ever found to increase both our reliability - and the perception of our reliability. When people tell me that Wikipedia can't possibly be reliable because any idiot can come by and put falsehoods here - I always tell them that if some fact really matters to you, then don't believe what Wikipedia says, click on the little blue number and read the original source of where we got that fact from. If there isn't a blue number - then forget that we ever said that. HOWEVER, if you just need to know something trivial, for idle curiosity - then Wikipedia is pretty darned reliable (and we have studies that show that we're at least as reliable as Encyclopedia Brittannica.

The problem is not our actual reliability (which seems to be pretty amazingly good) - but the perception of our reliability (which is kinda terrible). The bizarre part about that is that while our editor community is shrinking - our readership is climbing. That's odd...you'd think that if this perception of unreliability was prevalent, that fewer people would be reading Wikipedia. I suspect (without evidence) that convenience trumps perceived reliability for most people. If I want to know "Will there be another series of Crossbones (TV series)?" (darn...no!) then being able to tap the "W" icon on my phone and type one word into the interface to get the answer is ASTOUNDING. The fact that the answer might be wrong...0.1% of the time...is actually less critical. If I were instead researching how people used dockyard cranes in Medieval Europe (which I was actually doing last week) - then I still use Wikipedia - but not for the answers it contains, rather for the curated links it gives me to the source documents. In that regard, Wikipedia is more like a highly effective version of Google-search than it is an encyclopedia. It gives me the links to the source material, and functions kinda like the Brittannica "propedia" that summarizes and organizes the knowledge that can be found elsewhere.

The general public are also unaware of the fact that for any common question you're likely to be searching for the answer to, there are likely to be dozens of reliable editors watching articles and deleting incorrect information added by random idiots within a very short span of time...and those same random idiots don't get much fun from putting garbage into very obscure subject matter where it might linger for a while before being removed. Even when you point out this undoubted truth to people, we're faced with the problem that people are not good at estimating probabilities and risk. If a junk edit happens in (say) Theory of relativity - then it's going to be fixed in a matter of minutes. Since those changes happen maybe weekly - the probability of you landing on that page while the information is incorrect - multiplied by the probability that the change actually affects you - is a very, very small number. But people are bad at estimating risk...so that's a hard line to sell to people.

I'm not sure we need technological changes, or even changes to editing rules or habits to make us more reliable (although greater reliability is obviously desirable). Mostly we need public awareness of how reliable we already are - combined with education in how to use Wikipedia when the answer really matters...and when it doesn't.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

So your argument would be that we are right and everyone else, including all the people who use the encyclopaedia, are wrong? Deltahedron (talk) 14:05, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

More seriously, any useful risk assessment should include an estimate of the impact as well as the probability. While the probability of being misinformed about medical information may be low (I couldn't say), the impact of that misinformation may be very high. We regard that as an acceptable risk simply because we don't have to take it. Deltahedron (talk) 14:08, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Sadly, Deltahedron, no one knows the probability of being misinformed about medical information. No one has done a rigorous systematic review of the various small studies into the reliability of our medical offering. I've looked at all of those studies, I think, and in my opinion, a rigorous systematic review is likely to conclude nothing can be inferred from them about the reliability of our medical content. Most have fatal design flaws including tiny sample size, dubious measure of reliability and opaque selection criteria. What's really needed is a large enough, well-enough designed study. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:21, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

But that's my point. For something as important as medical advice, you really shouldn't trust Wikipedia - you should use it as a curated set of links to documents that are presumed trustworthy (or at least more trustworthy than Wikipedia). It's very easy for some random idiot to change the name of a drug as treatment for some condition - but much MUCH harder for them to point the references that back this up. We need to educate people that they really shouldn't take our information as "The Truth" in any situation where it deeply matters. So I'm quite prepared to take the risk that there really is a second season of Crossbones (TV show) in the pipeline (despite Wikipedia saying that there isn't) - because it's just not that important to me. In that situation, convenience trumps absolute reliability. But in deciding whether the drug my doctor just prescribed my kid has side-effects that might concern me, then I'm still going to go to Wikipedia - but I'll pretty much ignore what it says and follow the little blue numbers to the actual medical journals that report the studies done on the drug. SteveBaker (talk) 23:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm asking you to imagine a Wikipedia you can trust. Actually, I'm asking Jimmy to imagine a Wikipedia we can trust. I'd really like to know where he stands on the question of a prominent link on our medical articles to versions of those articles that meet WP:MEDRS. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:02, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

While I want Wikipedia to be as accurate as we can manage, I hope we never ask people to trust us. People shouldn't ever trust Wikipedia. They shouldn't ever trust Britannica, or the New York Times either; hopefully we can push that into the public consciousness as we try to make a point about how trustworthy (or not) we are. A stable version, which represents our best work? Perhaps a good idea. A version of Wikipedia we tell people they can trust? A truly awful idea. Wily D 13:19, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Are you against the concept of people trusting all possible sources of information? Or are there some you think people should trust? Deltahedron (talk) 14:16, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, okay we can have a long discussion of how we're talking about trust like it's a boolean quantity when it ain't. There are no sources of information people should trust completely, or distrust completely. But "Oh, you can trust this" reeks of "Oh, you can trust this completely", which is awful, yes. Of course, one could be using "trust/not trust" differently. Wily D 15:30, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The foundation is the one talking about sharing knowledge. And, yes, I agree, trust should not be blind. And it is a thing of degrees. But there are some sources about which it is possible to say "I trust this". We can and should be one of those. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:49, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right. However, even with the most perfect information about the risk, it would remain true that while we lay that risk off onto other people, it will give us little incentive to get things right. Deltahedron (talk) 14:25, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I think we agree, we have a moral responsibility to minimise that risk as much and as quickly as possible. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think I was too compressed about risk. I'm not suggesting that WP or WMF accept legal responsibility for medical or other information in the same way as a doctor or othe rprofessional. What I am suggesting that that WP/WMF aspire to get things right and be reliable, say so in public and accept the reputational damage if we are not. If I publish an academic paper and it proves to be wrong, my reputation suffers, and I may fail to get a job or promotion. Fortunately in my area of mathematics, people will not be killed in the ruins of a collapsing theorem, but it could happen to others. If we absolve ourselves from all blame in advance by saying "you should have known how to use our encyclopaedia", then we insulate ourselves from all those real-world consequences. I would argue that WP's position should be: yes, we are an encyclopaedia, we aim and claim to be the best, most accurate and most reliable there is, and if we screw up then tell us so and shame on us. That way we take a risk and have an incentive to Get It Right. Technological tools are part of that; so are processes and culture. Have we got any of those right at the moment? Deltahedron (talk) 14:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

In his state of the wiki address this year, Jimmy said with regard to our biographical assertions, we need to do more than the minimum required by law in portraying our subjects. I think that applies to the reliability question, too. The trustworthiness of Wikipedia is a moral vision thing, not a legalistic ass-covering maneuver.

I'm working on a strategy for this, and I'm in email discussion with another user devising another strategy. Both of our strategies involve the "current" or "dynamic" Wikipedia article sporting a prominent badge, linking the reader to the reliable version. So, I'd like to know where Jimmy stands on that. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree on the moral point as well: we have an obligation to get things right. Deltahedron (talk) 15:16, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

A system like Watson (computer) could perhaps be trusted to not just highlight problems but also correct them. We would then only need to check if the correction made are appropriate. Count Iblis (talk) 14:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Think software is the least important factor in improving reliability. I would venture that reliability is a function of the degree of expertise of editors in the topic they are editing. There is no bot that can recognize an article that makes wrong or otherwise problematic statements, or uses bad sources. There is also no bot that point out missing content and add it. That makes the key problem finding out how to attract and retain expert editors in different topic areas. I personally think that the biggest obstacle to retaining expert editors is that they are not generally willing to monitor what they write indefinitely nor to defend it in endlessly recurring discussions with laypeople with all kinds of different personal or partial perspectives. The idea of identifying certain revisions as reliable would certainly be one way of making it easier for expert editors to justify spending their time on writing for wikipedia. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:12, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
I think that's absolutely right. What expert in their right mind would choose to spend the rest of their life riding shotgun? Eric Corbett 20:19, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I endorse this view. Partially-informed enthusiasts will generally outlast more broadly informed laymen or experts in most topics, with the result that there's widespread content which sounds plausible and may appear to be properly-sourced but in fact reflects oversimplified, biased, or misinformed views of highly motivated but unqualified editors. This appears to occur irrespective of the underlying topics or categories. SPECIFICO talk 20:43, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

A good example would be the the article Mass–energy equivalence. Which tells us in no uncertain terms that "mass cannot be converted to energy,[citation needed]". (I added the tag.) Of course the matter is actually of some fairly deep physical and philosophical debate as the SEP entry on the topic will show. JMP EAX (talk) 22:17, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Another example is Quantum teleportation which assures us that quantum computers are useless basically as " For example, a qubit cannot be used to encode a classical bit (this is the content of the no-communication theorem).[citation needed]" (I have added the tag.) As to the persistence of some: that text was added by an editor who is blocked indefinitely, after the block... JMP EAX (talk) 07:18, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Another example is just about any humanities article.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:21, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Place a prominent link on an article to the version that has passed rigorous independent expert review?

In my opinion, it all hangs on the quality of the reviewers and their rigor. If this goes ahead, we need to have the highest standards; higher than any existing encyclopedia, journal or textbook review process. We should be the benchmark against which those are measured.

I think we should reverse the usual process, and have anonymous writers and named reviewers. We have to have anonymous writers - it's the way of this wiki and that's not going to change. Naming the reviewers would offer the readers transparency, and (if our reviewed versions become the gold standard of reliability) offer the reviewers prominent kudos. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:24, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm curious how many experts you think it'll take to review 4.6 million articles, and how all those experts will be recruited and paid for. How strict would this review be? Would it be like GA? FA? Higher? And how would this system be integrated with the actual wiki? What happens to articles that don't pass this (presumably extremely stringent) review? --Jakob (talk) 13:04, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Jakob, I shall ask the relevant scholarly societies, ones with decades (some with centuries) of experience in peer review, to manage this independent external review process. And I'll ask medical charities with public education as part of their mission to fund it. The Wikimedia Foundation should not fund it, to avoid any semblance of undue influence over the process. Critical review of all our current best medical articles, and rigorous fact-checking of all our other medical articles should cost less (probably a lot less) than $10 million.

I'm personally only interested in making our medical content reliable. The idea is scalable, though, to any field well-covered by serious scholarship.

This won't affect any of our existing practice, but we will need to agree whose reviewed versions we should link to. That will require discussion (not here please) and a new policy or guideline governing that decision-making process.

Articles that don't pass fact-check won't get a badge with a link to the fact-checked version, and errors will be listed on their talk pages. Class As and FAs that fail critical scholarly review won't get the badge linking to the critically-reviewed version until they pass a critical scholarly review. The societies managing the review process should have most say in how the review and fact-checking processes work. Wikipedia's role here is to put a prominent badge at the top of articles, linking the readers to the most recent rigorously fact-checked or critically reviewed versions.

I'm curious to know Jimmy's position on that proposed practice. Obviously, it will affect my confidence going forward with this if Wikipedia's most prominent evangelist is enthusiastically supportive, indifferent or actively opposed to the proposal. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:18, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I would be interested in helping you discuss proposals with learned bodies in Mathematics. Perhaps you could email me? Deltahedron (talk) 10:30, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The "most read" ten thousand articles account for a huge percentage of usage, and we can remove "popular culture" as being intrinsically non-reviewable, alas. The 2010 list of "most read" pages shows the ones at the 10,000 level has only 2% of the readership of the top actual articles (about 90K down to under 2K views per day). I suspect that, barring web-crawlers, the top 10,000 actual articles account for well over 95% (possibly quite a bit more) of total page views. [9] confirms this a bit. Collect (talk) 13:36, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree, it would be easy to identify specific fields of knowledge that require expert level knowledge of somekind to assure reliability. And starting with the 10,000 most vital would be obvious.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:21, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

The key to recruit expert editors would be to find some way to make it relevant for them as a career move, for example by having their name officially attached to specific articles so that they could put it on their CVs as a public outreach kind of thing.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:21, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
- I disagree. I think the key to recruiting expert editors is to ensure that they don't spend all of their time locked in circular arguments with ill-informed obsessives. (I know you've had this experience, on the race & intelligence articles). The Randy-from-Boise essay nailed it. Unfortunately, the problem has gotten worse over time, as we've steadily lost non-insane editors and maintained a constant number (and thus an increasing proportion) of obsessives and cranks. It's really dispiriting, and I'm speaking as someone who (let's say, for the sake of argument) has some real-life expertise but no longer writes much, if any, content. I don't know that c.v. credit will help; most of the people who'd be in a position to review my c.v. would laugh at me if I included my Wikipedia work on it. MastCell ^Talk 04:12, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
  - MastCell, I don't see any way for Wikipedia writers to get public credit under the current editing model - and that model is unlikely to change. But if our reviewed versions were the gold standard of trustworthiness, public credit for reviewing a reliable version would be worth something to your academic reputation. If we begin by selecting only the masters/mistresses of their fields, then being chosen to review an article will be seen as a significant accolade. I should repeat: an essential element of this strategy is the cast-iron rigor of its review process. You and I are painfully aware of the curate's egg that passes for peer-review in the journals right now. Wikipedia's reviewed versions can be the standard against which the journals and textbooks are measured, absurd as that sounds in today's context.

I'm imagining the next wave of innovation in the free distribution of knowledge, at least as important as the first, with Wikipedia and the academic communities driving it in concert.

This may not be the final solution to the Randy problem, but knowing their work won't be washed away by some POV-pusher, troll or well-meaning amateur once it's passed expert review may encourage more experts to edit. I'm confident it will, actually, if, once the process is in place, we can get the word out loud and clear to the scholarly community through their journals and the public through public evangelism. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:38, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

With regard to medical content, are the people commenting here aware of meta:Wiki Project Med and its project Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Translation Task Force? But there are also several expertly edited free online sources, including the US National Institutes of Health's MedlinePlus, the Mayo Clinic's site,]the Professional and home editions of Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, and WebMD, -- all of which usually rank higher in a Google search than Wikipedia. They too have their limitations, but everything is not up to us alone.

with respect to expert editing in general, in my opinion one of the many reasons for the relative failure of Citizendium was the difficulty in getting changes approved. The "expert" editors there (of which I was one) were much more interested in writing and approving new articles than the routine work of incorporating and improving changes. I put "expert" in quotes to indicate my opinion that another cause of failure was the difficulty (and sometimes errors) in actually selecting the volunteer experts. DGG ( talk ) 15:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

A lot of it is up to us. Many of the obvious, broad topics are covered to some degree by sites such as those you mention, but most topics are not. We have more than 30,000 medical articles so far. I would estimate no more than 5,000 of those topics are covered by Mayo, NIH, etc. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:49, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Although this documentary suggests that false medical information can be useful :) . Count Iblis (talk) 18:56, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:MEDICAL. Now, please don't perform 5th grade surgery with an iPad next to you showing a Wikipedia article about how to cut your ~~victim~~ patient open and find the bullet that's somewhere in him. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 21:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

The issue that is that the so-called reviews in Wikipedia which lead to GA/FA status are often conducted by people whose main qualification is that they know a lot of wikirules. The content is seldom actually reviewed. A good example is the extremely sophomoric Commutative property article. The reviwerer was of course extremely excited he could understand all of it: Talk:Commutative_property#GA_Review (unlike other math articles being discussed above...) JMP EAX (talk) 00:38, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Since someone mentioned stackoverflow above, let me quote from a somewhat well known critique of that [10] a portion that applies to Wikipedia as well, in my opinion:

“

Here is the recipe that all such "community-driven" approaches almost, but not quite, invariably follow:

A wide-open community based on "merit" is built.
The community gets a kernel of users who build up "merit" by virtue of, basically, being obsessive twerps.
As this kernel of "serious" users builds up its influence, they start to modify what the standards of the community are to match their own desires.
These standards get enforced on other members of the community who lack sufficient "merit" (read: who have a life outside the site) to fight back.
The tenor of the community changes to match the notions of the obsessive, but "meritous" minority.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

This happened at Wikipedia and it's happened at StackOverflow.

”

It surely applies to the so-called reviews (GA/FA) in Wikipedia. JMP EAX (talk) 01:25, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Reviewing articles and forking Wikipedia are two commonly proposed solutions that are actually the same thing, or should be. As I started to suggest in m:Usenetpedia (I wasn't even the first to think of that, it turns out) if we have freely distributed versions under no central control, from which multiple authorities can choose "the latest version" independently of one another, we could abolish the authority games that go on here. True, that is in favor of authority games at the authorities, but if they have to compete for readers they will be subject to limitations. Wnt (talk) 11:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

One reliable Wikipedia and one unreliable but possibly more up-to-date Wikipedia. I suppose you could call that "forking" but it's not forking. They'll both be Wikipedia. If Wikipedia refused to allow a badge at the top of the dynamic version linking to the reliable version, then we'd need to arrange a fork, but I'm hoping that won't be the case. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I fear I won't have time to engage in a very long discussion of this, at least not this week, but I wanted to make two quick points. First, I'm interested and generally positively inclined to agree that if we had a serious peer review process to run medical articles (or others, but medical is a good place to start) through some recognized expert process, then we should link prominently to that reviewed version. But second, and this is a matter for empirical study in the long haul, I think that within a very short period of time (shortness depending on the topic) the peer reviewed article will NOT be the better article because it will be out of date. The truth is, the majority of edits to most articles (particularly on serious topics) are improvements over what was there before, particularly if the edit isn't vandalism. What I'm saying is "the most recent version edited by Anthonyhcole (or some other trustworthy editor)" is likely to be better than a 3 month old peer reviewed version. That doesn't make peer review a useless exercise, though, not by a long shot! The point of the peer review is to bring in someone with specific expertise in some specific sub-topic to look for errors or subtle problems that even a highly experienced Wikipedia editor in the general field of medicine might miss.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I think both versions - current and last reviewed - will be valuable to the reader. I hope readers will get into the habit of reading the reviewed version and viewing the diff to see what's new. Just for the record, good Wikipedia medical articles are very stable, and one review a year would be more than adequate for most. But frequency is probably best determined by the societies running the review process, and will vary from topic to topic. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:49, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

But by "good medical articles" you mean articles that don't discuss recent primary research results, even in top-notch journals, nor link to lists of ongoing clinical studies. Correct? Wnt (talk) 16:11, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Here, by "good" I mean WP:GA and WP:FA. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 23:47, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that's a great idea, Anthony. Too often I find myself having to go to the talk page, pulling down a menu or two, looking for the "milestones", before I can get the "official" FA version. Drmies (talk) 04:41, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I've long thought there should be a prominent link on our GA/FAs to the version that passed GA/FA. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:20, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Medical warning

Hi Jimmy. At WikiProject Medicine we're trying to find a form of words for a prominent warning on our medical articles ... something that conveys that anyone can edit but that also conveys the inherent effect on trustworthiness, without scaring the readers unduly. The discussion has just started - but any suggestions you may have for concise, elegant language to that effect would be very welcome. This pertains to your comment quoted in the opening post, above, where you acknowledge our readership may have a poor understanding of our reliability. It is an attempt to plainly, straightforwardly appraise the readers of the inherent risk in the anyone-can-edit-live model. I think, if we acknowledge our UK readers have an inflated perception of our reliability, we have a duty to clearly, plainly inform them. I think you've spoken in favor of a prominent disclaimer on our medical content. Possibly on this page - I can't remember. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:55, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The founder's opinions on Superprotect and MediaViewer

Dear Jimmy, since days now there are big discussions and huge irritations following the rollout of Superprotect and Media Viewer against the communities' will. I am interested in what your personal views of these happenings are. In my eyes they are clearly against your own original project principles (esp. #4). Did you change them, without publishing it? I didn't find any statemets by you on these issues yet. --Trofobi (talk) 07:02, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I share the concern about MV and SP, and I think this is a SNAFU where input from Jimbo might be one of the few things that can have a positive influence on a very divisive issue. A significant part of this happens on the German Wikipedia, where there is serious talk about strikes, passive resistance, and even forks. I think the WMF has made a big mistake here, in trying to force issues via decrees and technical means that should have been addressed via communication and dialogue. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:26, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, it's here on en:wp for long, too:

... --Trofobi (talk) 07:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I never knew the MV caused such serious conflict between the community and the WMF until I read those archived discussions. I don't have any statistics to prove my point, but as a long term Wikimedian, I can sincerely say that the MV is just a waste of time, money and user's computer power. It is not useful to either the editor or reader. It's so silly (yet funny) to see how much WMF staffers try to sugarcoat this gadget). IMHO WMF/MediaWiki should instead improve the media description page to satisfy both the reader and editor. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 23:36, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I think Lila Tretikov has posted some conciliatory steps/moves on her meta-wmf talk page: [11] (although some have described them as "California-speak" IIRC.) JMP EAX (talk) 04:04, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Honestly I'm still a bit sore about the patronizing non-action on the solution we fucked-up en-wiki crackheads (don't you just love that?) came up with, and since then I've seen absolutely no change in attitude. It's somewhat tempting to spaz out (in the American English sense, I'm aware it carries a very different meaning in the UK) and unleash a torrent of profanity here, but instead I'll put it this way. Since the rollout of these two changes, I've noticed essentially no difference in my editing experience. If these were changes that were essential to keeping all WMF projects online, or something of equivalent importance, I could see why the WMF would push them this hard. Since they're not, though I'm failing to see how these changes were worth the amount of rancor they've generated. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:51, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

As a small side note, it is unclear to me why a comment from someone who doesn't work at the WMF is something you are taking as a matter of attitude from the WMF. In terms of thinking about this issue and trying to understand and feel everyone's perspective clearly, understand that there are those who are just as bewildered that such a minor software change ("essentially no difference in my editing experience") is causing so many people to man their battle stations. It is my considered opinion that this fight (in the German Wikipedia and elsewhere) isn't really about the MediaViewer at all, except in the most superficial ways.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:00, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Partially because I'm a bit bitter about it, but mostly because their comments were, while not as explicit, along similar lines (I don't have it in me to track all the discussions down blow-by-blow, but they're there). I also see where you're coming from, in my view the reaction does seem to me to be at least a bit excessive. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:31, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The "excessive reaction" has been accumulated since the implementation of VisualEditor and Typography Refresh. MV itself isn't a deal breaker (if it came before VE), but Superprotect only worsens the mistrust between WMF and experienced Wikimedians. All in all, WMF should instantly retract the implementation of SP and politely dissuade German admins from reverting any change imposed by WMF. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 03:11, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm preparing a comment on this to be posted tomorrow at the earliest. I'm reading and studying all that I can in preparation for that, and I have a call scheduled with Lila this afternoon.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:56, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

REVIEW BY EXPERT MEMBERS OF THE PRE-RAPHAELITE BROTHERHOOD SOCIETY

This article and those of all the personalities mentioned are going to be checked for errors and omissions by the expert members of the Pre-Raphaelites Society, hopefully without editor interference. In the unlikely event of 'editorial interference', Jimmy Wales will be advised. This Article and several others look as though they need to be comprehensively checked.

2.30.208.46 (talk) 21:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Goodness me, Jimbo. What a dark horse! Who knew?? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:09, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Before they start complaining of "editorial interference", the members of the Pre-Raphaelites Society are respectfully requested to read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles. JohnCD (talk) 21:52, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

According to one Martin Packer here, "Wikipedia has just been advised that all 66 articles are to be reviewed; I suggest that you post your additions/deletions/corrections here too? Wikipedia is easy to edit, you will soon get the hang of it, or post to me!". He seems to be quite a quirky character who enjoys writing in CAPITALS TO GET HIS MESSAGE ACROSS. I'm sure he'll soon learn our little ways. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

... some more Pre-Raphaelite CAPITALS for you to enjoy ... Martinevans123 (talk) 22:21, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Status of Flagged Revisions in German Wikipedia?

Can someone tell me how flagged revisions is used in German Wikipedia?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:01, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

According to de:Hilfe:Gesichtete und geprüfte Versionen and other relevant guidelines:

General features

is used to indicate that a revision is neither a sighted nor quality version.

is used to indicate that a revision has been sighted by a regular editor and does not contain obvious vandalism

might be used to indicate that a revision has been checked by a qualified technical expert and contains no factual errors or misleading omissions. However, this feature is currently not in use yet.

Trusted editors are grouped into two types of reviewers: Passive and Active sighters. The latter are allowed to review the edits of other users, while the former have their edits automatically marked as sighted but they do not have the right to review the work of others.

Requirements

To automatically attain the status of a passive sighter, a user account must be at least 30 days old and contain at least 150 unsighted edits or 50 sighted edits. Deleted edits and all edits made in the last two days are not taken into account. In addition, the user must not be blocked for any offense, he must make at least 7 edits over a period of at least three days, and he must edit at least 8 different articles. The edit summary must be used for at least 20 edits.

To automatically attain the status of an active sighter, a user account must be at least 60 days old and contain at least 300 unsighted edits or 200 sighted edits. Deleted edits and all edits made in the last two days are not taken into account. In addition, the user must not be blocked for any offense, he must make at least 15 edits over a period of at least three days, and he must edit at least 14 different articles. The edit summary must be used for at least 30 edits. The proportion of reverted edits must not exceed 3% of the user's total edits.

Alternatively, there is a noticeboard for users to manually apply for the right to sight articles. Passive sighting rights are granted to users who can demonstrate that they are willing to work constructively, while active sighting rights are generally, but not always, granted to users with Stimmberechtigung - which could be loosely translated into English as the right to participate in voting processes, such as WP:RFA and consensus discussions.

All admins have the right to remove sighting rights, especially to prevent abuses.

General sighting of articles

The manual sighting of articles is similar to the reviewing of pending changes on semi-protected pages of the English Wikipedia. This can only be done by active sighters.

The automatic sighting of articles takes place when an already sighted article is edited by a passive or active sighter. If a passive sighter edits an article with unsighted edits (e.g. from an IP address), the article will be marked with unsighted revisions until it is manually reviewed by an active sighter.

The sighted revisions of an article can only be reverted by active sighters.

Current discussion

There is no consensus yet on how to implement the quality reviewing of articles by technically competent editors.

It seems that they are still discussing how to certify a user as technically competent.

According to de:Hilfe:Gesichtete_und_geprüfte_Versionen#Pr.C3.BCfen, the technical reviewing of articles by qualified editors may not be implemented after all. The page claims that the Wikimedia Foundation is refusing to allow the implemention of the sighting system for other Wikipedias (???)

Disclosure: I have active sighting rights on the German Wikipedia, so I may be able to answer related questions from other editors, but I don't work behind the scenes and I can only translate what their guidelines say. I hope this was helpful.

-A1candidate (talk) 16:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

There are no current discussions on flagged revisions in German wikipedia.

Sighted versions have been widely accepted and even appreciated for years.

And for years, no one has been trying to launch

Quality versions.

Any further questions? --Niki.L (talk) 19:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

And maybe it should be added that it is a widely accepted tool for the quality management and that a removal like indicated by the acting against the community consensus pro flagged revisions in the Norwegian Wikipedia would cause the next big disturbance between the WMF and the German Wikipedia. Sorry if it sounds like i assume bad faith, but honestly i have no reason anymore to assume good faith on the foundation's side. --Julius1990 (talk) 20:10, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

For some discussion about not turning on flagged revisions in Norwegian see bugzilla:64726. (Personally I am opposed to flagged revisions of any kind based on wiki-ideological reasons, but do not have any data that supports either side in this argument). —Kusma (t·c) 07:36, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I think each Wikipedia/wikipedia community needs in doubt to determine on its own, whether flagged revisions suit its needs or not. A centrally imposed decision for or against flagged revisions be it for ideological or other reasons other than a technical necessity is bound to create firther estrangement between the affected community and the WMF. The WMF should provide software features to the communities and support them technically, but imho it up to the community to deterime what it wants to use and what not.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:38, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

There is some analysis, stats, comparison and recommendations for flagged revisions at meta:Talk:Flagged Revisions#Comparison of some Wikipedias. See also de:user:Atlasowa/gesichtete Versionen. I think it's a successful feature on deWP (and plWP, fiWP), very very effective against vandalism, spam and the degradation of articles over time on a large scale. The careless attitude of WMF [12][13] is making me mad. --Atlasowa (talk) 09:29, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe you are more interested in the cultural issues. Edits by anons and new users to deWP don't go live until an experienced editor looked at them and approved them as "not vandalism". Of course often the "sighter" can determine more about the quality of an edit than just "vandalism"/"non vandalism", but officially this is the primary purpose of the feature and anyone can and should "sight" every article, no matter if he or she is an expert on the topic. So we use it as first line of defense in our quality control, the second line would be the watchlist used by editors who see themselves as responsible for a given topic. deWP does not use bots to determine the quality of recent changes - or at least by far not to the degree of enWP. We use this feature a lot in explaining about quality in Wikipedia, and we get universal approval for it in the public. No one I ever talked to complained that he or she feels excluded because his or her edits do not go live immediately. --h-stt !? 12:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually the flagged revisions have at least two points of benefits: First: If vandalism happens the read-only user does not see it. Second: Theoretically every edit is seen by at least one "sighter" so it is unlikely that vandalism is more unlikely missed at all. The feature helped to improve and the archieved quality level of our articles. What now was told to NO:WP is just again ridiculous. --Matthiasb (talk) 13:43, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

A few follow-up questions, if I may: (1) what percentage of articles fall into the sighted category? (2) Is it usually the case that sighted/accepted edits are acceptable, or do some unacceptable ones get overlooked? (3) What is the usual backlog? Do different types of articles have different rates of backlog? (4) Are there issues with edit conflicts, where a second editor edits text that has already been edited in a not-yet-accepted change, and how are those handled? Thanks, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:11, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

all - Flagged revisions are implemented as mandatory for the article _edit>and category^/edit space at deWP.
Plain vandalism is reverted to 100%. Really bad edits that are not vandalism are detected almost all of the time, say 98%
median or max? median a few hours, max 14 days.
sure. all of the time. Experienced editors look for newish, not yet "sighted" revisions and flag them before they edit an article themselves. If several new editors edited "on top of" each other, I do a diff over all versions since my last time at the article and evaluate the diff. If there are valid and unwanted edits mixed together, I have to look for the one version that inserted the unwanted information (or deleted the good one) and revert just this edit. Or I edit the page manually neutralizing the offending edit without reverting it with the software feature. hth --h-stt !? 14:48, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Have added and category to your edit. --Matthiasb (talk) 16:58, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Additional answer at @Newyorkbrad: (and Jimbo, off course): It is not clear what are the goals the WMF has set. Maybe they hope that Wikipedia draws more editors, which add information like that. However deciding wether this edit is helpful or not is a bit more complicated than recognizing vandalism in which the F-word is added or parts of the text are removed, and obviously the additional workload for regular users to verify such modification seems to be of no concern in the WMF strategy. --Matthiasb (talk) 18:01, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Matthiasb:, you are completely mistaken about the concerns and strategy of the Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation seeks to make the editing process easier for everyone - this is not trivial to do obviously and it is not helpful when people take a combative attitude when one is not warranted.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:43, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

There is no "everyone" in Wikipedia. There are one one side a bunch of people with very different level of education and/or interests (from high school pupils to professors emeritus), which share one thing: they want to improve the Wikipedia and do this by different means. There are people who fix spelling errors, such who contribute contents or images, other care on categorizing, repairing rotten links and there are people patrolling articles and remove vandalism or clear up POV edits. And then there is the second group who adds vandalism and POV edits. For a big part in the English Wikipedia the fight against vandals is done by bots; in other language versions such bots are not available (wether there are no skillful bot users or language specific factors make this impossible is another question). The linked example is probably an edit which is strategically welcome but we must be aware that there is a price to pay for such edits. Likely the info was added by a user on-site so certainly that was no vandalism, yet another editor has to verify it and, since no source was given, first has to find such a source. It is nice that the editing process vor mobile device users was made easier, but on the other hand there are other users who get more workload by making editing process easier for some users. And obviously citing the entrance fee table at the box office isn't feasable unless the users uploads a photo of it ;-).

Considering Mr. Forresters decision not to implement the FR in NO:WP I see a bunch of wrong prejudices on the FR. That starts with the statement that there a big costs zu implement it (and this is stated with the EN:WP) what is not a case study at all as we know that the English community rejected the first version of the feature (as it was implemented in DE:WP) and asked for other specifications. This was redone twice, if I remember correctly, causing also the need to modify in parts the feature software which already was implemented in DE:WP. I don't see that the Norwegian community asked for some exotic or intricated configuration of the feature so I think such considerations are unsubstantiated.

The other point risen up above and elsewhere is wether FR makes Wikipedia harder to edit. It makes not. The normal user edits the article the same way wether FR is turned on or turned off. But it is harder to bring and keep in vandalism into Wikipedia since the FR make sure that every potential harmful edit gets seen by an experienced user. And that makes it easier for those vandalism fighters. As I understood it in bugzilla:64726 the Norwegian community suffers in the way that the number of editors patrolling potential vandal edits is dwindling quickly while the number of such edits stays constant. If the community won't be able to deal with vandalism anymore quality goes down and editor numbers are dwindling yet more faster. And it seems unrealistic in a country of 5 millions to find new users easily. If the Norwegian community think it needs FR to deal with vandalism IMHO it is not the task of Mr. Forrester to deny this request but to fulfill it to the fastest.

One might argue that FR turns away users but that is not proven, even if we look on statistics of the DE:WP, where IP edits significantly dropped in early 2007 already, more than a year before FR started. To my knowledge there was no study for the reason but (since I came in summer 2006 and was still kind of newbie in that time) there was a climate within some prominent users of that time in the German WP in which IP edits have been considered malicious per se. Some reverted their edits only because of they came from IP. It took some time to sort this out, and FR helped on the way.

I don't know what exactly Mr. Forrester and Eric Moeller are up to with the FR, but I am almost sure, they are wrong. They simply could have asked the German WP community – even if they must have the impression that the Germans are completely a ship of fools ;-). So if I could give some advice it would be to reopen Bug 64726 and fix it ASAP. Simply believe the Norwegians that they need it.

BTW, Mr. Wales, there is no need to accuse me of a combative attitude where none is present. Though English is not my native language I am sure that a combattive attitude would appear totally different. Have a nice day --Matthiasb (talk) 21:02, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Matthiasb, please see bugzilla:64726#c25. There are very significant differences in how successfully FlaggedRevs has been implemented in different projects, if one of the measures of success is that readers get up-to-date information. More than 180,000 articles in Russian Wikipedia are currently out-of-date due to unreviewed revisions. WMF is not vetoing FlaggedRevs deployments (and I have reopened the bug), we are asking for due diligence so that indeed such far-reaching changes are well-understood and well-prepared. The German Wikipedia originated much of the concept of Flagged Revisions and many of its most active community members at the time were involved in the rollout, which helps explain the great success in keeping up with edits compared with the Russian Wikipedia.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 16:45, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I should clarify that Russian Wikipedia does not use the $wgFlaggedRevsOverride setting, so while these changes are indeed pending, readers will see a notice pointing them to the stable version, but will see the most recent one by default. It's a bit unclear that FlaggedRevs adds much value in these circumstances other than accumulating a backlog, but it also doesn't lead to a massively outdated experience.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 19:21, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. – I don't speak Russian, and I do not have much insight into the Russion WP, but I remember a short discussion I saw a couple of years ago between some Russian speaking users in the German WP (both sysops then) in which the question was raised wether the backlog of unreviewed edits and a significantly high quota of bans and blocks are due to politics and a sign of a deep POV conflict within the RU community. But I did not follow what happened further. I don't expect such a situation in NO:WP anyways. I also want to point out that in PL:WP the backlog is plus/minus similar to DE:WP even when they were not involved in the initial roll out. User:Atlasowa maintains a page somewhere containg data on the FR. --Matthiasb (talk) 17:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I see this opening of the Bugzilla a good sign. Of course the Norwegian community must be sure about the consequences of their wish. Flagged Revision have advantages, but put extra load on the patrols. But I was a little shocked, when I first read, how they had to wait for months for an answer and then it was a very brusque refusal. I hope, there will be better communication channels in the future than Bugzilla. Especially, if the strategic focus of the WMF stands against the concrete wish of a local community, this must be discussed on a platform, that can easily entered by anyone involved (and I personal would like such a platform to be in the local wiki). --Magiers (talk) 09:56, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Flagged revisions as gamification

In short, the current setup of flagged revisions in German Wikipedia is quite simple and explained in a few words: Edits by anonymous and new editors have to be "sighted" by more experienced editors for vandalism before they go live (i.e. are shown in the default article view). You get the "sighter" right automatically after a few hundred edits and if some other simple conditions (described in more detail above) are met. The only official use of flagged revisions is to fight vandalism (it's not meant for sighting the edits for correctness etc.), though some users apply their higher individual standards for sighting. But the fact that the rights are assigned automatically and that "sighting" doesn't mean a lot of checking (just "is it vandalism?") means that there is no big backlog and the sighting process works quite efficiently. It has taken a lot of stress away from the community, as I wrote on Meta. Also, new users experience it even as motivating - it could be seen as a bit of gamification of Wikipedia, which is a good thing: In computer games, you gather experience points ("XP") to reach a next level, to get more abilities. The automatically gained sighter right works a bit the same way: People are motivated to get the right, to gather edits (= XP), and more quickly drawn into editing Wikipedia. - There are currently no ongoing discussions about flagged revisions in German WP (that is, until now when we heard of the Norwegian WP getting denied their use) because they're successful. The original plan of using them also for "quality versions" ("geprüfte Versionen") can be seen as shelved - German WP is happy with the feature just used in its current form as the most basic, simple quality check. Gestumblindi (talk) 12:45, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

What Wikipedia is in the Eyes of the World

This comment is the epitome of Wikipedia's philosophy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard&curid=12106325&diff=622984669&oldid=622971221

what Wikipedia has become in the eyes of the world, is the place on the internet where the people who express opinions like the above about the "other guy's" religious beliefs, are encouraged to label all the practitioners whom they are persecuting as "cultic types, not very wikifriendly" etc in his appeal for like-minded souls. The whole world by now knows this is the kind of place wikipedia "Fringe Theory Noticeboard" openly is and that these are the very same editors who typically get backslapped, rewarded and promoted, because the range of permissible world views tolerated among wikipedia editors seems to be getting more and more restricted to only those who see the world your way. 71.246.152.192 (talk) 11:33, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it unfortunate to refer to other editors in that way, but it sounds like he's legitimately asking for help in improving some decidedly poor articles. If Wikipedia has a reputation for taking a pretty hard nosed approach to cults and fringe theories, then I am proud.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:56, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Most people see their beliefs as something very personal and private, nobody wants to see their own firm beliefs or religion wind up on the wikipedia official "fringe theory" list, and the origin of the term is from "lunatic fringe", is inherently pejorative, and should never have been embraced by a "neutral" or professional project. If editors want a blog where they can plot and scheme whom they are going to anathematize next, at least it should not be on-wiki with wiki endorsement. 71.246.152.192 (talk) 12:00, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

You are mistaken. The term 'lunatic fringe' would be pejorative, of course. But 'fringe' is not inherently pejorative and conveys information that the reader needs. Do you have a specific page that you think has been categorized unfairly or incorrectly?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

In fact the phrase "lunatic fringe" is far earlier, and the use of "fringe" in that sense is derived as an abbreviation of that expression. 71.246.152.192 (talk) 12:10, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionaries: "The outer, marginal, or extreme part of an area, group, or sphere of activity:" [14]. Not necessarily pejorative in any way. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:23, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, when I said "in that sense" I meant in the sense of the phrase "fringe theory". The phrase "fringe theory" and "lunatic fringe theory" was unheard of before the 70s at the earliest and was slang avoided by balanced works; the earlier phrase it is derived from, "lunatic fringe", dates to Theodore Roosevelt. 71.246.152.192 (talk) 12:41, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Language evolves? We're not all stuck in the 1970s? Personally, I think Roosevelt was perfectly sane. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:44, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Pretending that a pejorative or disparaging term is not, isn't the same as language evolving. 71.246.152.192 (talk) 12:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

You're quite right, it's not. But why should I pretend? Is this all full rubbish or lunatics too? Or is it just not on the main stage? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:23, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Our real problem here is that there any mild epithet like "fringe" or "lunatic" ought to pale in comparison to our epithet for people who take reliable, relevant sources out of Wikipedia articles. We try calling them deletionists, vandals, POV warriors, censors... it's all somewhat accurate but there's always some defect in the word that they use to say "oh, no, that's not us, and there really isn't such a thing!" We need to craft a decently offensive epithet that can lock onto that particular behavior like a missile. Wnt (talk) 13:50, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Luckily I am not Subud myself, or I would be much more incensed to see them brought up as "fringe", and I know little about them other than that the few Subud colleagues and friends I have ever known, never did me any wrong that I can recall. I hardly know what their beliefs are, but I doubt fringe theory is appropriate to characterize many things like this that it gets thrown around on too much. I took a look at the article and talkpage for talk:Subud now and see a low amount of discussion including about some critical source, but I am too uninformed on that one to have an opinion. 71.246.152.192 (talk) 15:15, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Edinburgh is definitely full of lunatics and rubbish. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:01, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I trust Alistair can count on your vote. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:12, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

IMO WP:FRINGE is rather misused. I think it is used a lot to stifle other opinions and viewpoints by dismissing them as "fringe theories". Remember, there are real people out here who wholly believe in these beliefs. To them, they are not fringe theories. To them, other theories are fringe theories. "Fringe" and "Psuedoscience" are very nice buzzwords, but they are subjective and Wikipedia should not be the final arbiter of what is "normal" and what is not. KonveyorBelt 16:06, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Fringe to anything only means on the edge of the mainstream which in itself is not pejorative. As well, today's fringe may be tomorrow's Nobel Prize so we don't need to psychologically turn our noses up at fringe topics.(not referring to anyone in particular here.... just a general comment for all of us) However, fringe should not be used as a sledge hammer to exclude that which is notable enough for Wikipedia or content that is significant per sources for Wikipedia. Unfortunately fringe is used as an excuse to exclude legitimate content, and often hides bias.

Cult is a word that pigeon holes often based on subjective interpretation. We might do well to follow the academics who are more likely to define aspects which contribute to something being non acceptable to majorities rather than use a word that has become a cliché driven word for orgs we don't understand or perhaps like. In an encyclopedia the academic route might be more dignified and well ... academic.(Littleolive oil (talk) 17:45, 27 August 2014 (UTC))

Hear! Hear! Fringe noticeboard seems to be home to a light of t%*$-^ss academics who are terrified some brilliant new minds will unseat their carefully constructed nest. Or people who just don't like competition of ideas. And occasionally editors who see sheer nonsense being pushed by single issue meat puppets. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:42, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Sexism in drug testing and begging for your support dealing with Arbcom in another 6 months.

To the best of my knowledge and evidently Wikipedia's as well, sexism in drug testing isn't noted by any secondary medical studies, just the head of the NIH repeatedly and in recently passed legislation. However Binksternet is just deleting this every time I add it to any relevant article, even non medical ones. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Wikipedia trying to get more women to edit, talking about this might help a bit. Rationalwiki let me stay a systems operator, and several people there would vouch I'm more help than harm on their wiki, please let me return to editing the CensoredScribe accoun, I believe I've proven I can avoid mass categorizations and make rather unique edits to topics like Buddha and Plastic that may be of use to society. My problem area is fiction not non fiction. Exiled Encyclopedist (talk) 06:15, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, there is no law and it doesn't effect pharma companies. The editorial you keep citing is by Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which funds basic research in universities. The NIH is saying it is going to require scientists that get funding from the NIH (which is basically every biomedical researcher that is not working in pharma in the US) to do experiments on male and female cells, animals, and to the extent they are working with human subjects (which is more rare for NIH-funded research), humans. Pharma doesn't use NIH funding - they use their own money. The NIH is entirely separate from the FDA, which is the agency that approves drugs and has leverage over pharma - in other words, could (within the law) require pharma to submit data from testing drug candidates on male and female cells, animals, and humans. There is no mention of new law in the editorial - the NIH will implement these changes in the contracts through which it funds research. The FDA is not affected by this, nor is pharma. Jytdog (talk) 10:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

A Google Scholar search will find lots of secondary medical literature relating to the issue of sexism in drug testing, going back decades -- for example http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199307223290429 in the New England Journal of Medicine (open access). The basic policy point is that you shouldn't make universal generalizations unless you have sources that directly support those universal generalizations. You can't assert that something doesn't exist simply because you don't know of any examples of it. Looie496 (talk) 14:26, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

It is an important issue so people should just find lots of refs and understand them and the whole subject before entering them. Really could be a whole article, if done right. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 21:45, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Levitin's statements about Wikipedia and expertise

I happened to catch the tail end of this WBEZ radio interview with neuroscientist Dan Levitin in a discussion related to overcoming information overload that I wanted folks to give a listen to. Here's an excerpt, but please check out the last 5-6 minutes of the interview for a little context:

...the problem is that the Wikipedia model, as it was stated by its founders, is that they don't consider that expertise exists, effectively. Anybody can edit. And an expert has no greater standing than a non-expert. So, the problem is that for any given entry, an 11-year-old can go in and change it. And it could be about something really important...

...now, Wikipedia says, "sooner or later, someone will set it right," but that's not always true. The idea is that the 11-year old [who has an imperfect understanding of the topic] may change the article to reflect their non-expert understanding. Eventually, an expert might come along and fix it, but if the 11-year-old is relentless enough with the edit key, the 11-year-old is going to win the battle of attrition because the expert will just give up...so, the problem is that information can be quite unreliable, and there's no way for the average user to know.

(I'm sure a lot of editors have heard concerns like this from somebody at one point or another. I don't know that it's a very common story here, but there it is nonetheless.)

Levitin goes on to explain that because unreliable information is so easy to access, it's important that as a society, we should reinforce ideas that "expertise exists," and that "we don't all have an equal voice in things like the truth and facts," because some folks have better access to information (like journalists), and that such expertise should be "spoken about" and "promoted."

There's a lot to talk about here, so I'll just say my piece. I don't actually believe that every expert feels this way about Wikipedia in terms of reliability, but I think experts do not contribute to Wikipedia for reasons not unlike what Levitin spoke about. I do wonder what we can do to make sure people with domain-specific expertise can be made more easily aware of guidelines like writing one level down and systems we have to tackle things like disruptive editing, so they can start editing with the right expectations about the project. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 07:19, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I will try to contact Prof. Levitin to correct his misunderstanding. It is simply not true that I believe that expertise does not exist. And it is obvious that in Wikipedia that the model he describes of the editing process is wrong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

He's wrong to some degree, but not entirely. When we have a group of competent editors maintaining an article and watching it closely, then an "11 year old" won't be able to corrupt it. The problem comes in for articles that draw only limited interest from maintainers. In neuroscience (Levitin's area and also mine), we have articles such as brain fitness, brainwave entrainment, and binaural beats that contain content I don't think is justifiable, but when I have tried to clean them up, I ran into resistance from, um, enthusiasts, and was unable to recruit enough support to overcome it. (I'm not willing to take on 1-vs-1 contests, because in that situation a person who is willing to revert-war will always overcome a person who refuses to.) Bottom line: this problem is not as pervasive as the passage above makes it seem, but it does exist. Looie496 (talk) 13:39, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. Sometime one can even a consensus of such users. Look at Talk:Commutative_property#Requested_move_2011. JMP EAX (talk) 04:20, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem raised by JethroBT should concern us all and the somehow caricatural editing model described by Prof. Levitin has a lot of truth in it. I have a couple of expertise fields myself. However very seldom I take the initiative of editing the articles on those fileds. The reason is I don't want to subject myself to any kind of edit war or negotiation with some very active editors who have distorted or popular ideas about the subjects. Yes, it is possible to circumvent these difficulties if you are patient enough, persistent enough and can get the support of other editors. However many of us (including me) can't spare the time and the effort to fight that kind of war. Just my 2 cents. Alvesgaspar (talk) 13:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

In the more political areas persistent editors putting in garbage and removing RS -- including in BLPs -- is a constant struggle. It would be so nice to edit in areas 15 year olds don't care about and 35 year olds were editing collaboratively in. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

He is largely correct, but he does miss that experts have considerable leeway to publish. For example, the experts can create an accessible, approachable web site for the public that clearly states the principles and bears the imprimatur of their department or scientific organization, then cite it in the article. So while I sympathize with his perspective very much, I think the best place for him to fight for his POV is by creating an off-wiki resource. In general, where you don't want crowdsourcing, where you want one or a few named authors to have the final say, that's an off-wiki project. Wnt (talk) 14:16, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed if the expert really is one, he/she will, almost unavoidably, have access to entire libraries of the highest quality independent reliable sources, thus "squashing" the hypothetical 11-year-old edit warrior's nonsense should be trivially easy. The problem with some experts that I've come across while working at AfC is that they simply don't grok that "because I say so" is not a valid reference. If experts would simply learn to cite instead of assert they'd have a far easier time here. "Citation, not assertion" could be a variant of VNT for experts. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:36, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The counter-argument to this is laid out with terrifying plausibility at User:Jnc/Astronomer vs Amateur. Deltahedron (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

That "joke" would fall flat the moment the astronomer would demand a source for the amateur's claim. That's how it should work - the sources cited by either side of a disagreement are evaluated and the "winner" (if there is one) is kept. If both sides present strong arguments backed by reliable sources both arguments are included in the article. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Did you realise that the "joke" is based on a real discussion? Deltahedron (talk) 17:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

When working with experts in their respective fields the only real problem I've encountered has been when their own unpublished research contradicts something or other in the article attributed to other experts. There isn't just one expert in other words. Eric Corbett 18:31, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

That is exactly what I was referring to when I said experts should assert less and cite more. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 13:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

That can be a problem too. There are indeed some [controversial] areas in which some experts have used Wikipedia to further their own viewpoint, typically related to their own research/publications. I seem to recall that some such experts were even banned by ArbCom. As with everything else, whenever a topic is controversial it will attract the more extremist editors, including experts who think elbowing out competing viewpoints, including from Wikipedia, is the way to further their viewpoint and their career. This is unfortunately one of the few incentives that the Wikipedia editing model does offer to experts... JMP EAX (talk) 04:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Speaking to that point about access to sources, at the end of that interview, Prof. Levitin mentions the need to educate people on the difference between "valid and invalid sources," which is definitely important whether you are an editor or a reader. I'd also argue that the average Wikipedian who has made some nontrivial amount of contributions probably knows more about how to distinguish sources that than the average adult. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 18:13, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales:: I am not sure if Mr. Levitin discriminates between the WMF board and you, and recent developments support very indeed that the Board of Trustees really believes in what Mr. Levitin is critizising. It seems that the whole strategy of the WMF is based on quantity instead of quality. It might be necessary to forward the statement It is simply not true that I believe that expertise does not exist. And it is obvious that in Wikipedia that the model he describes of the editing process is wrong. above to the board members. Maybe they should write it down 100 times – by hand of course, not by copy and paste ;-) --Matthiasb (talk) 18:11, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, I too am looking forward to hearing more from the WMF Board chair on his opinion that Our entire approach on knowledge dissemination is based on the western idea of an encylopedia and referencing other written sources in order to back up articles. Yet a lot of cultures around the world have a different way of disseminating (and consuming) knowledge. We should be able to get adapt our model to these cultures as well (celebrating the diversity and seeing new opportunities) [15]. Deltahedron (talk) 18:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The Stalinian saying is worth repeating here: Quantity has a quality of its own. It's how you get google juice and thus money. (And a monopoly too.) This is the model on which Wikipedia and Stackoverflow (and its network) is based. Ironically, this is also how you get impenetrable articles (impenetrable for the general public). Once you attract enough attention as a content platform, the long tail will contain articles written by the experts who only address experts. Again ironically, these "fringe" (from an audience viewpoint) articles are usually more factually/technically correct than the ones of more general interest. JMP EAX (talk) 04:26, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Real Life Barnstar
	Good Job for making wikipedia. Bobherry talk 13:41, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Interview Comment

Hi Jimmy, I was wanting to know whether I could interview you for a school project. If your interest please let me know either here or on my talk page. Thanks, Mirror Freak 17:33, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Biographies of politicians created as part of election campaigns

In the course of working at AfC I quite frequently see attempts to create advertorial biographies of politicians who are busy campaigning for election. Sometimes the article authors are quite blatant about their intentions to use WP as a campaign vehicle while others seem to try to do it "under the radar". Now AfC has the ability to filter out blatantly promotional articles but I presume many such articles may be created directly in mainspace too. So I'm thinking maybe we could institute a prohibition against the creation of new biographies of politicians while they are busy campaigning. Though some of the subjects might already be notable, such as a former large city mayor running for a state or national level office or their notability is for something else prior to their political career, some are first time candidates who would actually only become notable if they were to win the election, except that the media attention generated by the campaign itself sometimes does push them over the GNG threshold. If an prohibition against such article creation for the duration of electioneering is not acceptable to the community, perhaps we could devise a variant of the "COI editor" tag that says something like "This article may have been created in furtherance of the subject's election campaign" which stays on the page until the election is over. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:09, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd go for the flip-side solution (although both options will require policy change) that a candidate running in an election that is considered notable get a page (at least a stub) and, while still requiring that sources meet RS for that area, and BLP, etc, have a tag placed on them that allows deletion discussion after the declaration of official results. After that 'election period', the 'candidate' notability ends and normal rules apply. Some unsuccessful candidates may have pages avoid deletition because they're engaged in the community, state/province etc, while 'winners' may still be deleted. But, for the election period, they should get a pass. Just my two cents... AnonNep (talk) 15:45, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I would vigorously oppose that, as the Wikipedia would get drawn in to debates on just what candidates would be eligible for this. Many U.S. political races have a dozen or more candidates from the legitimate parties all the way down to the...to be frank...kooks, who run on bizarre one-issue platforms. If we're going to say "no kooks", then we get into drawing an arbitrary "X is worthy and Y is worthy but Z isn't", just like the debate committee gets into with its "you must be above 20% (or whatever) in the opinion polls in order to be included" thing. I'd rather just use the existing notability rules on the books rather than create a new system for the campaign season. Tarc (talk) 16:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Democracy can be scary but the way I see it working, the constituency is Federal, state/province/council and local (for which we usually have pages), in English language countries, as represented by EN:WP (we don't have to host an English version of every possible candidate page for non-eng-wikis, or a contentious Puddley-on-Marshes Women's Institute AGM). All candidate pages (if anyone bothers creating them) get a banner with 'no delete' from start to end of polling period as agreed at a constituency level. They meet a 'local' RS level (shire/county newspapers etc without fear of delete because there's no 'Google Books' ref) but only for the voting period). Then the tag goes and they can be ProD'd like any page. As it is, existing notability policy has bias for any 'new' candidate who has a media record nationally - I suggest, given them all equal footing for the election period (which they've agreed to by becoming candidates). AnonNep (talk) 17:42, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

If you're wanting an encyclopedia to be an up-to-the-minute source for elections, then you're really in the wrong business here. Steer people interested in this to Ballotpedia, where even the 5th-tier candidate for sewer commissioner in East Toad Strangle, Nevada gets a page. Tarc (talk) 17:53, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

For US politics, nice aside ... but not for the world of en:WP in many other countries. As I said at the start, I responded to 'stop candidate pages' with an 'allow candidate pages' on en-wiki, by adopting a defined constituency base (which we have, pretty much, page/category wise) with an election period timeframe tag and more localised RS (all of which would need consensus, just like 'No candidate evaaa!!!'). We do have candidate pages for local elections if someone is wealthy enough/media savvy enough, so let's allow at least a time-limited stub for all, with usual rules applying to all (including the winner) at the end. No requirement for 'up-to-the-mintute', it is, what it is. AnonNep (talk) 18:08, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

If a person cannot satisfy the general notability guideline, then they should not have an article. Period. This suggestion that a stub of an article should be allowed to remain in the project in contravention to existing notability policy, even on a limited-time basis) is not something I would ever be in favor of. Tarc (talk) 18:51, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Nice try but no Straw man, dude. I'm not suggesting 'a stub of an article should be allowed to remain in the project in contravention to existing notability policy' but that, given the reported infux of candidate articles during elections they should be allowed, during the election period, suitably templated, with local issues/sources prioritised. At the end of the election period delete as per standard policy - the result makes no difference. AnonNep (talk) 19:09, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

There's no strawman here, I can't help it if you're tripping over your own back-pedalling words. It's very simple; create an article on a candidate; if it passes WP:GNG, WP:NPOL and the like, then it stays. If it doesn't, then it gets deleted or redirected to the article on the race. No grace period, no waiting til the election is over, no special protection. Clear? Tarc (talk) 19:25, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

You're repeating the Straw man. All reasonable qualifications given above. AnonNep (talk) 19:37, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec) I'm pretty sure that's quite incorrect. Any article that passes GNG should be kept, but the bazillion special notability guidelines all set up "alternate criteria" for articles that fail GNG. I assume for example that we would want a candidate to have a page if his opponent has a page, even if only one passes GNG. Personally I think we should trash all the novelty notability guidelines and make a short paragraph in GNG about rounding out a complete set of individuals when most are notable and they are all most notable for the same reason. I realize that the novelty guidelines are frequently abused to claim an article fails even though it passes GNG but every time I've looked the guideline itself hasn't been what's to blame, it's the user misapplying it. But because they're more confusing than useful, we'd be better off without them. Wnt (talk) 19:40, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Something of substance to discuss, finally. There has been confusion for years as to exactly what the purpose and function of the "sub notability guides" actually is. At one time I did think that it was like a safety net that could "save" articles that failed the GNG, but as time has gone on I think they serve more as a complement. A subject still has to meet some form of general notability, the subs just provide a fine-tuned, subject-specific way to get there. Like the infamous WP:PORNBIO that provides passage for a person who wins a noted adult film award; that can get them in, but some reliable source somewhere still has to take note of the person for his/her article to bew truly safe. Tarc (talk) 20:15, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Funnily enough, a similar discussion arose out of WP:NJournals just now. I would put it this way. We are writing en encyclopaedia, and so to write an article on a subject it is necessary to have independent reliable sources. Verifiability tells us we cannot write an article any other way. However, there are a few things we can say without independent sources, although without those sources the article would be little more than an entry in some kind of directory. The supplementary guidelines are there to record decisions about what kind of directories we are willing to tolerate even when the entries are not truly be encyclopaedic. Some of those supplementary guidelines are, in my personal view, far too liberal/lax, and almost all of them seem subject to intense wikilayering even when they are self-proclaimed as supplementary guidelines, as essays or whatever. Perhaps the time has come to review and harmonise some of those supplements? Deltahedron (talk) 20:31, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd love to see most SNGs diluted or deprecated , but it'd be an uphill battle. It was tortuous enough to strip WP:Pornbio of wording that granted an article to anyone thjat was just nominated for an award, or won a group award. Tarc (talk) 23:31, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Campaign bios are an absolutely inevitable part of WP's future. Articles For Deletion actually treats politician biographies more harshly than any other category, I think; simple GNG sometimes doesn't cut it there for low level elected politicians covered in the media for their campaigns and ordinary job activities. That stuff just doesn't "count" towards GNG. High level elected politicians are auto-Kept, as they should be; unelected politicians are either deleted if not part of a major ongoing campaign, or redirected/merged to coverage of that campaign. In short, there are already tools to use to weed out much of the politicized POV campaign dreck... The idea of a new flag for campaign bios isn't a bad one. Maybe something more neutral, like "The subject of this article is currently participating in a political campaign" would be sufficient warning of possible (probable?!?!) content shenanigans. Carrite (talk) 16:29, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite I like the idea of the "currently campaigning" tag. It would be relevant to new as well as even long established articles of undoubtedly notable politicians which may be prone to shenanigans by supporters or opposers. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

anent this topic: Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Categories.2C_lists_and_navigation_templates and Wikipedia:An#RfC for discussions concerning political issues, claims, BLPs and the like during "silly season". Collect (talk) 17:01, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

If we can get a small percentage of the $6 billion, then we'll do all the necessary work to make room for such wiki pages, making sure these pages are consistent with all of our policies. Count Iblis (talk) 17:09, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Carrite that we handle politician biographies quite well at AfD, and have a pretty well established consensus of which biographies we keep, delete or merge. Bios of high ranking elected officials are kept, bios of unelected candidates for high office are redirected to articles about the campaign, which are easier to keep neutral, and bios of small town mayors and council members are usually deleted. By the way, many political biographies get very little disruptive editing. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:44, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

At AfC we sometimes get campaign staff moaning at us for declining their advertorials because "it's really important that this article is accepted because my boss is standing for election / because his opponent has an article so he must have one too / because the voters need to know about her...blah blah blah. The standard reply is of course "try again after he's won". My concern is about articles that are not actually deletable - but are abused for campaign purposes by supporters as well as opposers. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 21:44, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that creating a new warning flag as you suggest could be done BOLDly, could it not? Carrite (talk) 22:16, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm toying with a RfC regarding what we do with bio articles that fail both GNG and the narrower NPOL. I was astonished recently to see that one AfD for a general election candidate had resulted in a redirect when, at least in my limited experience of the things at AfD, they are usually deleted. I got nowhere at WP:RFD because of issues of what might be called policy compartmentalism - people dealing with narrow scopes instead of big pictures. To give an extreme example of the problem, in 1996 one constituency in India had over 1000 candidates. That's not a typo. - Sitush (talk) 13:36, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like WP:GNG now makes really low-key reference to the subject-specific guidelines; it seems like maybe they are becoming deprecated. I think what we need to phase them out entirely is that in the GNG, we should say that if an article topic is

part of a well-defined, objective set of topics (all Indian regional candidates, all British hereditary peers, all asteroids, all Irish soccer teams)
in which most of the members pass GNG requirements (the Indian candidates might fail this from what you say)
in which there is merit to complete and equitable coverage of the category (to have a complete catalogue of extrasolar planets, to ensure all candidates in a general election are treated equally)

Then we should have an article on it. After that, we should treat the special notability guidelines like the archives of a noticeboard, as past decisions about how to implement specific distinctions. Maybe a new noticeboard should take over to replace their continued development and refinement. Wnt (talk) 15:38, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I think we're just leaving ourselves wide open to some serious BLP problems: politics is a rough-house environment at the best of times but the idea of monitoring thousands of additional, often transient, BLP subjects during an election campaign is pretty scary. There is a conflict between being neutral and being notable, sure, but Wikipedia is not a democracy and we do not have to follow democratic principles. In fact, I'm not convinced that a lot of so-called democracies follow democratic principles: for example, broadcast air-time given to politicians on public service radio and television varies widely. - Sitush (talk) 17:54, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Have in mind that an article of a certain politician, written during the elections, may not always be the result of someone trying to promote the candidate. It can also be written the usual way: someone noticed a topic (that man) with coverage in the press, and which is not included yet in Wikipedia, and so starts an article about him, reporting what do the newspapers say about him. It can also be a page written from the other side of things, a page written by the opposing party that tries to highlight the negative info about the candidate. Cambalachero (talk) 19:26, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose any suggestion that candidates should get an article during the duration of their campaign, or should have an article because their opponent has one. GNG is our rule because we are an encyclopedia; we are not VoteSmart or Ballotpedia. To get an article here, a person must have received significant coverage from independent reliable sources - and that is usually interpreted at AfD to mean significant coverage APART from the election they are running in. If they weren't notable before running for office, then running for office doesn't make them notable, and they don't get an article. They can have a redirect to the relevant election. --MelanieN (talk) 18:01, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

What the future of the WMF will look like

More and more like this. Tools that are actually useful to editors go the way of the dodo. Instead we get crap some WMF higher-up concocted after gawking at his Facebook page on an iPhone. JMP EAX (talk) 12:33, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

You are wrong. I don't think you are listening to what everyone is saying. We have a new CEO and a new direction, adding a huge amount of emphasis on collaboration with the community to build software features that are needed. The snarky comment about Facebook on an iPhone is just absolutely pointless.

I am asking you: please join in productive conversation or please go away from my talk page. This is not helpful to you or anyone else.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:16, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it would help when the Foundation staff would together read The Emperor's New Clothes. And to push away the voices that you don't like to hear, won't solve anything. And furthermore it is no sign of aplomb and character to do so. --Julius1990 (talk) 13:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

In general of course I agree and quite famously I'm very tolerant and open of people coming here to express dissent. But spreading falsehoods and snark is not expressing dissent, it's just being nasty with no purpose, and I'm going to call that out. I'm asking him to upgrade his performance here, because just making stuff up to be nasty isn't helping. If he doesn't want to do that, that's fine with me too - but he can do it elsewhere and stop wasting the time of people who are trying to have a productive conversation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:47, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I miss the reflinks tool, but as far as I can tell it was shut down because it was closed source and hence impossible for anyone else to pick up and fix problems with it. If the developer wants to take his bat home, well that's a real shame. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:31, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Where might I read a reasonable NPOV discussion of the tool and why it went away?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:47, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Is this an [i]f you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever thing? -mattbuck (Talk) 13:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

No. Did you have something substantive to contribute here?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:48, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually my comment was directed at JMPEAX, I failed to indent it correctly. But otherwise, no, not really. -mattbuck (Talk) 13:51, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Closed-source software is the very antithesis of the Wikipedia open model, and Wikipedia should not be hamstrung by individual volunteer coders who won't release their code to be ported to an open-source model. Losing good tools is a pain, but it's a lesser overall pain facing the issue sooner than becoming ever more reliant on such an ultimately unsupportable model. Neatsfoot (talk) 13:52, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Jimbo, JMP EAX has a fair point. With all the new garbage the foundation is introducing (each new "feature" is worse than the last), this site is going to look more and more like Wikia. It's not a look we want for a serious site. I have no issues with Echo. It's nice and actually useful. VE was terrible at first, and was forced on the community. But then the foundation backed down and actually fixed the issues. The result is half-decent. I've used it a handful of times. Now there's this MediaViewer. Unlike VE, the whole premise is flawed. This isn't an image-sharing site; it's an encyclopedia, so browsing a bunch of context-less (even more so with no descriptions and whatnot) images is distracting. Before MV, if you clicked on an image, you got a larger view and the file information page. Now you just get the larger view. Even worse than the software is the foundation's reaction. Instead of removing it when people complained, they created new powers to keep it in and threatened admins who dissented. The foundation only gets more abusive as their software gets worse.

Even worse, the threat of Flow looms on the horizon. I've seen it in action, and it is truly terrible. It will ruin the entire talk page system that many (including me) undoubtedly find simple and intuitive. There will not be an opt-out either, and I don't doubt that superportect will be used to keep Flow on the site. If Flow arrives, droves of serious encyclopedia builders will fork off or just leave and you won't have an encyclopedia anymore, just a Facebook-like mess.

Wikipedia is largely a 2000s-ish site, and now you want to make it a 2010s-like site. In doing so, you might attract huge groups of social networkers, but serious encyclopedia builders, many of whom are accustomed to websites as they were in the 2000s will be chased off. You may end up with more contributors, but are they really the sort of contributors you want? Like it or not, you've got a community of encyclopedia builders right now. We're the ones who can do heavy-duty research and write up a coherent summary of it. The Facebook people, the Twitter people, the Flickr people, they aren't going to do that. Being social networkers, they'll write social network type content, sending the wiki's credibility into a nosedive. The very opposite of what you're trying to accomplish.

I apologize if this comes across an incoherent rant. If anything is unclear, feel free to ask me. --Jakob (talk) 14:06, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The problems with Flow that people don't seem to have caught on to yet are the various ways in which the WMF has unilaterally decided that the discussion dynamic of Wikipedia must change. For example, no custom sigs, maximum level 3 indent, no refactoring of problematic edits (except, I think, by admins)... They fail to appreciate the roles these things play here which are not applicable to other, trendy, venues. BethNaught (talk) 14:12, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

BethNaught: What role do those play? Customizable sigs? So what? Indents, sure its a somewhat opaque way of indicating what you're responding to, and there are and could be less opaque ways (see eg this comment); refractoring is mostly discouraged, yes it's helpful sometimes but the practices of refractoring are often controversial, so it's not like it's a system that could not do with change. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The point is that it is not for the WMF to decide how we conduct our discussions. I haven't seen any appetite from the community for a prohibition on any of these things yet the WMF has decided there must be one. As for indenting: yes, you can ping a person to reply to them, but a third party can more easily follow one thread, as it were, when the comments in it are grouped and indented together. I don't understand how you think that's opaque. BethNaught (talk) 14:28, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think there's a massive problem with a Flow-style talk system per se, what everyone is concerned about is that it'll be implemented in the same incompetent way as VE - i.e. with half the functionality of the existing system missing and swimming in critical bugs. I would hope that the development team will learn from that particular shambles, and indeed it does look from the extended timescales on the Flow page that they are at least trying to ensure that the full functionality is covered. We shall see, however. Black Kite (talk) 14:32, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The thing that I'm trying to say is that things have changed decisively under Lila and going forward the process of interaction between editors and product/engineering at the Foundation is something that is going to be invested in in a major way. Flow is very very far from being implemented and so now is the time to work with the Foundation (and for the Foundation to work with us) to make sure that by the time it is (incrementally, carefully) released it is quite clearly an improvement in very place where it is used. With regard to the particulars mentioned: "no custom sigs, maximum level 3 indent, no refactoring of problematic edits (except, I think, by admins)". I think that all of those things are bad ideas. "No custom sigs" is probably the least interesting but unless there is some evidence that they are causing harm, I see no reason for them to go away. Maximum level 3 indent - I'd like to see and understand what justification there could be for that because threaded conversations just about everywhere end up indented more than that. And finally "no refactoring of problematic edits (except, I think, by admins)" is just a bad idea for a lot of very deep wiki reasons. If the Foundation *invests resources* in talking to users (as opposed to the developers being mostly on their own) then all of this should be apparent and the right things done many months before rollout. We no longer have to go down the unhealthy and suicidal path of software not fit for purpose being rolled out en masse. That's the good news in all this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:42, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, I posted on WT:Flow about those three issues (sorry for the name drop, but your words were apt). I'm still skeptical, but since there's still time we might as well test out how receptive the WMF is becoming to community input. The only problem is that since Flow was conceived before this change in direction, it still suffers from issues as a result of the old model, and it reflects badly on the new model. I think that was also the case with MediaViewer. I hope to soon see the results of Lila's efforts. BethNaught (talk) 22:02, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

What the hell am I saying? I still don't want Flow, but since the WMF will implement it anyway call my attempt at goodwill damage control. BethNaught (talk) 22:08, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

It would help if those pages were actually updated so the community knew what is going on. BethNaught (talk) 14:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Beth your 14:28 comment is odd. You seem to be saying the WMF is forcing us to conduct this discussion right here right now in this way. No one is forcing you to do anything, and they won't be forcing you in the future. As for third party's following a discussion, they are suppose to be focusing on the content of the comment, not on who said what. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Is there truth to these design goals by WMF? Because all they had to do was ask! I myself have suggested on multiple occasions that admins/other advanced permission holders should be required to sign their posts with their plain username, to make it easier for newcomers to understand what's going on. And we could have a talk page MOS that says don't indent more than N levels, though three would be excessively small. And we almost do ban refactoring of comments by non-admins -- we could have an edit tag (like references removed, a tag I love in article space) to indicate when someone else's comment has been refactored in a discussion. None of these things require intensive micro-management of every aspect of the talk page format by developers with all the perhaps-unintended consequences that creates. In particular, Flow's main failure is an unthinking notion to bring the most recently edited comments to the top. That will tend to inflame all attention on the bitterest arguments, while consigning any difficult request to an unnumbered, inaccessible "archive" (we've all seen the effect of "infinite scrolling" in action on these 'web 2.0' sites; they love to play games like 'click here for the next 20' to make it absolutely, positively clear that they are not going to let you see old unread comments without prohibitive amounts of effort, just in order to make the people who aren't trying to do their own PR and keep a crowd increasing the hits on their comments will realize that they are unwanted and hopefully go away).

If any serious heavy-duty WMF person comes to the community here, starts an RFC, tells us "these things turn off new users or interfere with the popularity of the site", I think they have a good chance of getting some or all of changes like that passed. Legitimately. Wnt (talk) 14:53, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

No, they would have to cite reliable sources, off course. (Off course their own studies are not reliable but are original research.) However that all misses the point: IMO new users are be turned off from using talk pages by the excessive use of portal and wikiproject templates in every article which hinders users to use talk pages. Actually most talk takes place on portal and wikiproject talk pages and this is good so because of there is the action. Nothing is more turning users off using talk pages like talk pages on which noone answers for months or years since noone is watching those pages. Discussions should take place at portals and wikiprojects where the experts are present. Again this is a misconception originating in the lack of knowledge how the Wikipedia works resp. how Wikipedians work together.

And again that is an attempt to make decisions which are part of the editing process which does not belong in the hand of the foundation but in the hands of the specific community only. Besides: There is absolutely no way the foundation has to enforce the communities to use Flow. Eventually much more discussions will be done on non-talk-space pages, like deletion pages or many Wikiproject pages. Every dollar spent into flow is a dollar thrown out of the window. --Matthiasb (talk) 15:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, Flow can be enabled in any namespace and the foundation intends to roll it out eventually to the village pumps etc... BethNaught (talk) 15:08, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Having questions unanswered for months may turn people off, but, it probably helps make up for it when someone eventually does act on the suggestion. With a Feature Article a good editor should go through every archive all the way back to the first and make sure that every issue is given a fair consideration. And with pings (an example of a really good new feature) we can now conveniently let those editors know that we've done so. Wnt (talk) 15:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh did not know that it makes sense to ping editors who edited once or twice ten years ago. @BethNaught: It will be very impressive to see main space articles in Flow style ;-) --Matthiasb (talk) 16:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Ten years ago, maybe not. But two years ago, even five years ago... more plausible. Imagine an editor came on and edited for a little while, making comments about this and that article, then left. And he comes back to find notifications that people have answered his questions and implemented his suggestions. That could be the difference between keeping and losing that editor. But if he never logs back in... we still have improved the article anyway. Wnt (talk) 20:18, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

@Wnt: Fair enough. However, featured artiles only make for a minute fraction of all articles. Literally millions of articles cannot reasonably be patrolled by thousends of authors.-----<)kmk(>--- (talk) 16:32, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Alan, what I meant is that once Flow is implemented, we will be forced, technically, to conform to those new rules which I mentioned. No, we're not force to discuss, but if we do, they mean to make us do so in a certain way. Is that more clear? BethNaught (talk) 15:06, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Right, so we are forced in your view to do it this way now, so as far as that is concerned, there will be no change. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:15, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I ever said that we are currently made to do those three things. Please correct me if I am wrong and I will clarify my posts. BethNaught (talk) 15:17, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

You are saying that the software forces us to do things -- so, whatever force there is is present now. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:23, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

So: right now, Flow is only in use in test cases. The three rules I mentioned are in Flow now, yes; but since Flow is not the current primary talk system, we are not forced to do those things. When the WMF makes Flow the default system, it will thereby enforce those rules, and we will be made to do those things. This will change the dynamic of discussions in a way we have not asked for. As of now, since Flow is not widely rolled out, we are not forced to do those things routinely, at least not on enwiki. BethNaught (talk) 15:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, so? We are, according to your view forced to do other things, right now, whether you or I asked for it or not. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

If you're talking about limitations of wikitext talk pages, I apologise, I did not realise you were trying to bring up that topic. To be utterly clear, I was expressing my opposition to the WMF's actions to force unwanted changes upon us. BethNaught (talk) 15:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I think this is now the third time I've brought this up in the last couple months. Why is the WMF pouring resources into software changes that are fraught with controversy and not doing anything to ensure the continued functionality and stability of this popular tool? It may be closed source but that doesn't mean the WMF can't code another tool to replicate its features. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:03, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

One previous discussion. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:09, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks is a very cool tool, and it's unfortunate that this escalated over a ToU issue (but we do need to remain firm on the free software policy for Labs). We are actually working on a web service (that can be used by VisualEditor and wikitext editors) which extracts full citation metadata from arbitrary URLs, using Zotero's library of scrapers. It's already in Labs and usable with a VE userscript, see mw:Citoid and my common.js if you want to play with the current version.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 17:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

What does this mean for the 95% of us who won't be using VE for the foreseeable future? Reflinks is broken now. Does WMF have a target date when a replacement will be available for non-VE users? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:14, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Erik, We are actually working on a web service (that can be used by VisualEditor and wikitext editors) which extracts full citation metadata from arbitrary URLs, using Zotero's library of scrapers. is good news. Put this together with a better referencing system (I talked about elsewhere on this page) and store those data on Wikidata so that those data can be maintained centrally (e.g.: changed URLs) and you would create something the communities would appreciate. Off course you'll have to try harder and make it work when it starts and not after several dozens of bugs are filed ;-) --Matthiasb (talk) 17:22, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

@NeilN: In case you didn't get the message: wikitext is obsolete and not supported by the WMF. JMP EAX (talk) 17:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Put your snark aside, please. I'm trying to get a concrete answer here. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 18:09, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems that Wikidata is "insufficient" [16]. Deltahedron (talk) 19:35, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

@Deltahedron: Wikidata is insufficient. Whatever you think you can do with or store at Wikidata... you can't. Not unless they think of it themselves and decide to allow it to happen. You know the software is still designed so you can't display a "property" (one of the very restricted list of specific bits of data you're allowed to keep about a page there) except on the specific Wikipedia page they've authorized to hold it? Try "" - that was in the documentation all along (meta:Wikidata/Notes/Inclusion syntax) and still won't work. I came up with a method to do it in Lua so they took features out of Lua so you couldn't do it anymore. I decided some time back the best thing to do with it is try to forget Wikidata exists, period, and I wouldn't work on anything that uses it. Wnt (talk) 20:29, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I see, thanks -- I've never tried to use it myself. Interesting to find WMF staff agreeing with that assessment, though. Deltahedron (talk) 20:34, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

@WMF: I see the dev of Citoid, Marielle Volz (User:Mvolz), is listed as an intern over here. Since she appears to be the only person in charge of this, it kinda suggests the importance the WMF attaches to this project. I'm curious if she's getting paid anything for Citoid. I guess I could go and ask her, but I'll try to crowdsource the answer on this page. JMP EAX (talk) 17:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi JMP, Marielle is an intern in the Outreach Program for Women. These interns are indeed paid a stipend by sponsoring organizations (in this case, us); payment is administered by the GNOME Foundation. Citoid will become a production service supported by the Services Engineering group, led by Gabriel Wicke.--Erik Moeller (WMF) (talk) 17:51, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I raised the question before [17] (but apparently didn't ask nicely enough [18], [19] to get an answer). What arrangements are in place to ensure long-term large-scale access to the various bibliographic databases? It seems to me that it might be possible to cross-license with a data provider, for example, by allowing them to place on their index pages something like "This item is referred to by XX Wikipedia articles" with link. What data sources are WMF talking to -- surely it can't be left to an intern to make formal agreements between WMF and a commercial provider. Does WMF want suggestions for more, or for specialist data sources? Would WMF like those of us with potential connections to providers to assist? The technical issues are being discussed at mw:Talk:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog where there are currently a number of unanswered questions and suggestions. Deltahedron (talk) 18:25, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Note that there exists the proposal meta:Wikicite. --Matthiasb (talk) 22:42, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

In my mind is a slightly diffrenet approach than in the proposal the idea that every source is an item (like they exist on Wikidata) with a set of propertys like URL, title, author, co-authors, publisher, more or less the crap covered in Template:Citation. I don't expect that references itself should be directly part of Wikidata (while parts of it, like the correlation of ISBN and book titles, authors, publisher and the like might!) but Wikidata wold be the infrastructure used. There should be a button "insert reference" and if I enter f.ex. an URL the system should show any information already stored so that it is not necessary yet to copypaste title, author(s), publisher, date and so on but still one should have the possibility to change or amend the data already stored. The point on the I would be that internetpages would be archived (like by Webcite) and (since copyright certainly won't allow it) to keep public a special group of users (similar to OTRS) could verify content of pages which are not online anymore. (Note that the tag noarchive acts reactively; it removes even pages from the Internet Archive archived years before, so Internet Archive is not 100 percent reliable!) --Matthiasb (talk) 22:42, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Request to stop action vs conclusions of the main scientist of USA

Hello Jimbo! Several of users from English Wikipedia does not wish respect scientific conclusions of the president Barack Obama. As president, he has the access to a large number of information, who is related to the state issues (almost unlimited access). Obama is Professor of constitutional law, not only (a lawyer on the highest level and president in the same time). He knows and understand the situation around the gun violence in the US very good (he is super expert). Obama also has the Nobel Peace Prize. When he says something important, this must be respected in relevant articles. Gun laws even (science and law in the same time). And he is the president of the US (he is main person in the US). Even respected users of English Wikipedia can be members of the National Rifle Association (trouble, when they make roll back). Nobody knows that such admins can be member of the NRA for the good of the NRA. Because Wikipedia - is not domain of the NRA, I ask ban actions of any user, which acts vs Obama and dead children (everyday in the US - rivers of blood, because noble Obama can not find needed support in the Congress). Stop them, please (Wikipedia not for the NRA). Wikipedia for facts and for the good of people. Note: I am not sock (earlier was the discussion: but without scientific substantiation). And I am not provocateur (Russia and the USA are almost enemies temporarily, at the present time). I respect position of Obama in the other context - he wishes stop death in the US. If something looks as propaganda here (need use common sense: help for the US president, find attention of the US society to stop mass shootings of children, as may sooner). These facts in the same time (which are related to the science position of the US president). A large number of independent sources gives almost the same info about the NRA and about mass murders without gun control: the NRA does not wish stop murders). What means ban rollbacks of users (they not must support the NRA, rollbacks vs relevant information must be stoped). Thank you! - 95.27.120.41 (talk) 12:25, 30 August 2014 (UTC).

Let's hope that despite time served in Britain Jimbo knows better. :) We have so few rights so sparingly applied, it's amazing that the corporate news can find one or the other to blame for every heinous crime, no matter what it is. But truly there is little political variation on the matter: in every country of the world it is legal for the wealthy and powerful to fire 50-caliber machine guns and set off explosives to make reality TV about themselves, and in every country of the world the poor and homeless can be thrown in jail for having a knife or mace to defend themselves. Even the NRA markets to the wealthy white suburban gun nut at the sporting goods store, and couldn't care less about whether folks in the ghetto can defend themselves from gangs on the street corners. Wnt (talk) 14:17, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

What about the other way round - gangs in the ghetto defending themselves from folks on the street corners? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, many gangs did start out from the need for self-defense in neighborhoods that receive little service from police with more important customers. Many of them went on to become infamous criminals themselves; I don't know how many actually drove out the crooks, put their guns in the attic and fell out of view. Wnt (talk) 17:26, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

... "despite time served in Britain"?! Ah, so we have a use after all. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:40, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Greetings

Howdy Jimbo. Just wanted to thank you for Wikipedia :) GoodDay (talk) 16:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

A Werldwayd proposal: Ice Bucket Challenge Video Contest

This post is regarding our Ice Bucket Challenge page. I find the specific choice of the videos of certain individuals very promotional to the individuals performing the Ice Bucket Challenge. As a neutral medium, we should avoid such preferential treatment. Wikipedia can illustrate the "Ice Bucket Challenge" best by displaying a completely unknown non-famous individual's 30-second video footage. The individual would identify himself/herself by first name only on the video and then nominate three other equally non-famous individuals (again only first name basis). Of course details of full name and contact would be included by sender, but such detail or location would not be used on the page. Note: This is just a suggestion by one single Wikipedia editor (User:werldwayd) on his personal initiative and presently does not have a go-ahead from Wikipedia / Wikimedia. The original post appeared on the talk page of the article itself. A copy of this is being posted on Jimmy Wales talk page for speeding up the process of approval and conditions.

With a Wikipedia directly commissioned contest, hopefully with immediate effect, of course the terms would include a Commons-compatible license for using the winning footage on our page. This will create great momentum for Wikipedia / Wikimedia's direct involvement and commitment in aid of a great cause. It is also a great incentive for our readers to be more involved in Wikipedia.werldwayd (talk) 16:50, 31 August 2014 (UTC) werldwayd (talk) 00:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

University of Washington: Editing beyond articles

I received this in my notifications and thought it might interest you. [20]--Mark Miller (talk) 19:35, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

You are on the clock! See here. We know you have been challenged, but no video has been produced. You have now been rechallenged.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 23:38, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course, but it should be noted that Jimbo is usually pretty busy...but if he can do it, I'd love to see our ol' Jimbo get doused with ice water for a good cause! Tutelary (talk) 01:11, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

The rules are you have 24 hours to respond, but I am not sure if the weekend time counts the same. Maybe he should have 72 hours to respond (and if he is in the United States this weekend he could have an extra 24 additional hours because we have a long weekend for Labor Day). However, he was first challenged 4 days ago according to his twitter feed.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:06, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo has no valid excuse, he was notified ten days ago by me to get prepared see here. Count Iblis (talk) 02:57, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Precisely why do the ALS folks need orders of magnitudes more cash than they have ever had before, just because of a fad, or to use the newer new lingo, a "viral meme"? How will ALS researchers productively spend vastly more cash than they've ever before imagined? ~~Perhaps brand new BMWs for everyone, and frequent "medical" conferences at the world's most luxurious resorts?~~ Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:40, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

@Cullen328: Can you imagine that anyone would accept this comment of yours in a bad light? Anyone? Here's hoping you never need to reap the benefits of scientific research... Fylbecatulous talk 17:16, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Fylbecatulous, I have withdrawn part of my remark, as I now see that my cynicism was excessive. I happen to be the father of a wonderful young man disabled for life by a very rare genetic condition that receives little attention by medical researchers. I have donated a lot of my money to medical research steadily for many years, and am personally skeptical of fads. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:40, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

For those watching here, Mr. Wales has claimed to have posted a private video on Facebook. Unable to varify. How about a screenshot or two from his Facebook friends. Hit my talk.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 06:54, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I did it but decided not to be all that public about it. For me the wonderful thing about the whole thing is that it seems to be genuinely grassroots and has spread through families and friends networks as much as through famous people. (Although of course a few famous people really got it rolling - but famous people taking part in a publicity stunt isn't all that interesting, as compared to a viral spread of a fun and socially benevolent concept.) I was nominated by private people and named private friends/family. And decided to just share it with friends on Facebook. Also, because once Patrick Stewart won the Internet with his version, there was little hope of doing something particularly clever to top that, I just did it straight so the video isn't actually all tha t thrilling. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:09, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Unable to varify.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 19:05, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

No need to verify as we can take his word for it. Chillum 19:09, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

It can be verified indirectly, the persons Jimbo challenged will challenge other people etc., some of them may go public. You can then verify the existence of the missing links. Count Iblis (talk) 19:14, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Too right. I hear he's challenged Phil Spector, Axl Rose and David Bowie. Maybe they'll do a three-some?! Martinevans123 (talk) 19:31, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo said he "named private friends/family". I don't think he is related to Spector, Rose and Bowie (although he may be private friends with them).--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:55, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Too late, Jimbo, Susan Sarandon beat you to it: [21] And Shaun White has nominated Axl (allegedly). But there's still Phil?? Martinevans123 (talk) 17:36, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Note that multiple people may challenge a person and it is only too late after they have accepted the challenge. Many people who perform the challenge note that several people have challenged them.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 10:53, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Shucks. But no worries - there's still Prince Philip, Pope Francis and Kim Jong-un. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:56, 1 September 2014 (UTC) p.s. great video Tony, you are a very good sport!

Regarding User:Cullen328's point. Our Wikipedia article on Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis says it effects 30,000 Americans. It would take copious amounts of funding to make a substantial difference in their lives. Meanwhile, Starvation effects 842 million people and a very small amount of money can make a big difference in their suffering. Other causes have a much better cost-to-suffering reduction ratio and the fad may lead to an inflated sense of importance compared to other causes of suffering. However, I do not think there is necessarily competition between causes; rather the people donating money to ALS are the ones that would otherwise be spending it on their BMW, not a different cause. CorporateM (Talk) 14:40, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

The challenge has been useful in raising awareness of cuts to basic biomedical research. [22][23] A few million dollars are not going to put it back on track. But maybe the publicity involved can make people ask again why we can't raise the needed billions to really get everyone who has the skill to do research researching, but have spent trillions on our White Man's Burden of bringing civilization to the Middle East, a.k.a. paying to precision-bomb hundreds of thousands of civilians to death, paying to rebuild the infrastructure, paying to arm them, so that our new friends can turn against us or run away and leave it all to ISIS so we can go back, ally with Assad or Iran or Hezbollah or whoever this time, rinse and repeat. Meanwhile, believe it or not, "leaving it to private enterprise", a.k.a. taxing the sick to pay patent royalties to fund (mostly) pharmaceutical marketing and a few last-step refinements to claim patent ownership over the public-funded discoveries, is not a satisfactory way to fund biomedical research. Wnt (talk) 15:51, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

The bar has been raised "A 29-year old man from Stjørdal, central Norway, raised the bar for ice bucket challengers everywhere when he had 7,000 litres of freezing water poured over him from his cement mixer truck on Saturday." Count Iblis (talk) 01:02, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Interesting new paper on Wikipedia communication styles

There's a new study of Wikipedia out that I think might be interesting to people who follow this page, as well as to Jimbo: "Emotions under Discussion: Gender, Status and Communication in Online Collaboration". PLOS One. 9. 2014. {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |authors= (help). The method was to analyze the words used by a large group of contributors. Here are the principal findings, quoted from the abstract:

“

We find that administrators maintain a rather neutral, impersonal tone, while regular editors are more emotional and relationship-oriented, that is, they use language to form and maintain connections to other editors. A persistent gender difference is that female contributors communicate in a manner that promotes social affiliation and emotional connection more than male editors, irrespective of their status in the community. Female regular editors are the most relationship-oriented, whereas male administrators are the least relationship-focused. Finally, emotional and linguistic homophily is prevalent: editors tend to interact with other editors having similar emotional styles (e.g., editors expressing more anger connect more with one another).

”

And the conclusions drawn by the authors:

“

Emotional expression and linguistic style in online collaboration differ substantially depending on the contributors' gender and status, and on the communication network. This should be taken into account when analyzing collaborative success, and may prove insightful to communities facing gender gap and stagnation in contributor acquisition and participation levels.

”

My personal view is that attributing the formal language used by admins to a difference in status is a misunderstanding. Having served as an admin myself, I found that when it was necessary to give warnings to editors or to explain sanctions, it was much better to do it in a formal tone -- an explanation given in a friendly or informal tone would often be perceived as condescending, and an explanation given in an angry tone would always be perceived as abusive. But other than that, I think this is pretty interesting.

Looie496 (talk) 13:02, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

What we need, of course, is Ironic serif. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:20, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

And sarcastises, maybe. [24]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:03, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Case Opened: Banning Policy

You were recently listed as a party to a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Evidence. Please add your evidence by September 16, 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Banning Policy/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Seddon ^talk 12:19, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

note

Hi, Jimmy!

Two weeks ago, on 17 Aug, I wrote you here, which got archived in the early hours of 22 Aug.

I now see that you were away between 10–21 Aug. Maybe you couldn’t reply, or maybe you didn't want to. I just wanted to make sure you’ve read my comment.

I've never written you before, and I was hoping for at least a one-liner from you. I would still appreciate that. If you choose not to, that’s fine, I won't bother you again. BigSteve (talk) 08:23, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to have lost you but before you go I'd like to invite you to post a diff of a good contribution of yours being removed without explanation. I think it would be helpful to have an example for further discussion.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi, Jimmy!

Thanks for the reply.

Like I said in my original post, I'd be happy to continue with the project, but it's pointless under current conditions. I'm sure that thousands of people around the world feel the same way (I don't have a reliable source for that, sorry!).

One example would not be enough. I know you're busy, but if you're interested in hearing me out, I'd like to give you five examples from the past couple of years. They show the various aspects of the problem, as it is multi-layered, and gravitates around a preference for a narrowly literal reading of the rules over understanding the essence of what the encyclopaedia aims to achieve. I've thought about the problem over the years and I've come up with one suggestion towards a possible improvement. (If you end up agreeing with me, obviously!)

I'd prefer to write to you personally, as I have no intention of getting into a multiple debate with all of your talkpage stalkers. Can I write you on your wikia email (the one you give on your userpage), perhaps? If you don't want that, I'll discuss the issue here, but I'll ignore anything that anyone else says. I think I'd be justified in doing that, as this isn't an article talk page, nor the village pump, but your own personal talk page.

Thanks in advance! BigSteve (talk) 08:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes writing to me privately is fine. You should also ping my assistant, as things can get lost in my rather absurd inbox!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:35, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks needs to be fixed or replaced right now!

Not next month, not next week, not even on Monday - fix it now. The failure of Reflinks is by a very large margin the single most important and urgent issue facing WP right now. All the discussion about Flow, VE, etc is mere waffle about stuff that is coming up someday - the lack of Reflinks is breaking the 'pedia right now. The only thing that could possibly be worse is if a deathstar suddenly arrives and blasts the entire server farm away. If you have to throw some money at it, do it. If it takes a lot of money, so what, the WMF isn't exactly poor. If you need to buy the rights to the "non free" software or code or whatever it is - just do it. If you need to take legal action, do it. If you need to wake people somewhere where it's 2 am, so be it. Whatever it takes, just Get It Done! Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:01, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

It's about 2am in California right now, if that's relevant. I don't think I have ever used Reflinks. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 08:13, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Hmm.. I did not knew "Reflinks" is that much important. Even I did not use it ever. Anupmehra -Let's talk! 09:19, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

That you have not used it is your loss. The tool is important. It solves, at a stroke, WP:LINKROT. Fiddle Faddle 09:22, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, just order people to to it Roger - you're sure to be successful with that approach! Neatsfoot (talk) 09:56, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Sort of like superprotection from the bottom up, eh? That kind of successful approach? Viriditas (talk) 10:09, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

You have a point there - ordering things to be done is a poor approach, whoever does it. Neatsfoot (talk) 10:51, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

One would hope that Jimbo does have at least some influence... Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:09, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Works fine in the army. JMP EAX (talk) 11:01, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

A better example of a non sequitur might be hard to find. Neatsfoot (talk) 11:44, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 129#Dispenser's tools are down again for the background. One of User:Dispenser's tool used the non-free pngout program[25] and that clearly against the Labs Terms of use. So while he keeps the non-free code on Labs he will remain blocked. There ball seems to rest in Dispenser's court at the moment. He could remove the dependancy on pngout, or more drastically just drop the warez finding tool. Reflinks itself does not seem to depend on the non-free program. More drastic solutions would involve forking the reflinks code.--Salix alba (talk): 10:06, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, I have to ask, why do we have tools we don't want (media viewer, visual editors) but still can't get the tools we need? Viriditas (talk) 10:10, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Because they are not the desired Bling-Thing to brag about, but some dull, useful stuff. The WMF doesn't care about usefulness, but about flippant surfaces. --Sänger S.G (talk) 10:15, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, the first thing they need to do is update the main page design. It's like traveling in a time machine back to the past every time I visit it. It's 2014 going on 2015, the web has moved on. Viriditas (talk) 10:22, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

The appearance of the main page is not the business of the foundation, it is a question of how and which content is presented and therefor a question which is handled by the communities, and most language version communities have different approaches how to present the content on its main page. You might start a discussion but I don't think that a significant number of users is unhappy with the appearance of the main page (or, if they are, they not necessarily have a better idea). --Matthiasb (talk) 11:45, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

The appearance of the main page should be their business, as it presents the face of the site, a face which has aged well past its due date. The "better idea" is giving it a refresh based on current web design going into 2015. Virtually every major website has done this within the last several years -- except Wikipedia. Viriditas (talk) 12:01, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Forgive me if I misunderstand, but it sounds to me like you're saying that in things where you personally disagree with the community then the foundation should take charge, but in things where you personally disagree with the foundation then the community should take charge? So, basically, everything should be done your way? I'm sure that can't be what you mean, and I'd be happy to hear why I'm wrong in my interpretation. Neatsfoot (talk) 12:24, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Considering that you created your account only to construct and tear down straw men, you won't be hearing anything from me in response to you in the future. Viriditas (talk) 12:36, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Considering that you have no idea why I chose to register an account here, I'll forgive your presumption and will ignore your personal attack on me - and if you thought I was attacking or misrepresenting you then I apologise and would welcome an explanation of what you actually mean. But you really do appear to be simultaneously presenting two opposing views - that the Community should be in charge and that the Foundation should be in charge. And you can surely understand why that is confusing, can't you? Neatsfoot (talk) 12:57, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Again, all you do is construct straw men and knock them down. You're the self-appointed distractor-in-chief. And if you weren't so caught up in your narrow, binary thinking, you would clearly see that the community and the foundation are both in charge, not either or. There's nothing confusing about it at all. Reality isn't black and white. Please don't address any more comments to me as I won't be reading them. You're not here to address problems or provide solutions, only to attack the messenger. Viriditas (talk) 13:03, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

I've not intended to attack you in the slightest (yet you appear to attack me quite openly), so I can only apologise if it seems that way. I'm merely asking for further explanation of your ideas (which do seem to me to be somewhat contradictory). Are you saying that the Foundation should be in charge of the front page, but that the Community should be in charge of software development and rollout? Or some combination of the two? If the latter, how do we decide - do we just follow your personal assertion as to what "we" think is right? Neatsfoot (talk) 13:14, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

And again, who is this "we" of which you speak, Viriditas? You said earlier that you'll settle for "I" as a definition - so why should the foundation and the community do what you want? Neatsfoot (talk) 12:12, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Another distraction. Viriditas (talk) 12:36, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

@Viriditas: Compare for example EN with fr:Main Page or de:Main Page or als:Main Page or maybe take some Wikinews main pages in consideration, like en:n:Main Page vs. de:n:Main page vs. fr:n:Main Page and tell me, how the appearance of the main page should be business of the foundation if the main page must fulfill a bunch of different needs of different communities? They reflect also different cultures. An unified main page is not possible, each of them has to be unique. --Matthiasb (talk) 12:22, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, we see things completely differently and there's nowhere in the middle we're going to meet. Internet brands use universal, unified interfaces regardless of culture, and the trend is towards unity and transparency, not towards fragmentation. Viriditas (talk) 12:36, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Concerning "Another distraction": It's not a distraction at all - you keep claiming to speak for "we", so it seems perfectly reasonable to me to ask who this "we" is and under what authority you speak on their behalf - or do you really not think those are reasonable questions? Neatsfoot (talk) 13:02, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

There's no reasonable questions from you here. All you do is distract and deflect. This is PR 101. Viriditas (talk) 13:06, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, when you claim to speak on behalf of "we" I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask who "we" is and upon what authority you speak on "we"'s behalf? And I really don't understand why you're getting so defensive when I ask you to clarify what you mean Neatsfoot (talk) 13:20, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Tend to agree, Roger (Dodger67), an extremely useful tool. One is now left wondering whether to - 1. manually add refs; 2. add raw links in the hope it's fixed soon or 3. not bother. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:29, 30 August 2014 (UTC) (p.s. 4. sign a petition.)

They aren't going to fix it and they don't care what editors want. Read everything you can from "Neatsfoot", the self-appointed distractor-in-chief. Viriditas (talk) 12:36, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Sounds familiar. Um, already read enough, thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:47, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks was already not on labs, because it wasn't Open Source. What was shut down is a blind redirect to a third party website where it did run because doing so without the appropriate disclaimer that a user following those links would be disclosing their IP and browser information to unspecified third parties is also against the Terms of Use (in effect, giving whoever owned the server the ability to perform "poor man's checkusers" on anyone using Reflinks).
As to what the Foundation is doing about it; we don't have the resources to simply rewrite every bit of proprietary software that happens to be in use by users of projects. This is part of why we made Open Source a non-negotiable requirement of Labs: to ensure nobody can take a tool hostage from the community in the future (or that tools are lost because their maintainer lost interest and abandoned them). Now, for Reflinks specifically, we do have a work-in-progress webservice that could form a solid basis for a new tool, Citoid, and Erik has already called for volunteers to help make a usable interface for it[26] and we'll be glad to give them any support and help they need. — MPelletier (WMF)^(talk) 13:13, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Isn't Citoid going to be reliant on people using VE? If so, that looks like a hostage situation. - Sitush (talk) 13:28, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
- No, VE uses Citoid for its reference function, but Citoid itself is just a webservice providing an API to gather reference metadata. A tool can use it without going anywhere near VE (though it will have the positive side effect that any such tool would then have access to the same metadata VE does so references can even be made consistent). — MPelletier (WMF)^(talk) 13:33, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the information, and I fully support your position on not allowing non-open software on the new labs servers (especially not software that appears to be so staggeringly inefficient with disk space as Reflinks). Neatsfoot (talk) 13:31, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, go ahead, "poor-mans-check-user" away, as far as I'm concerned. Can that "work-in-progress webservice" do my links for me? One day there, next day gone. Helpful explanation for people who use it? None. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:32, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
- You remain, always, welcome to go to Dispenser's website. — MPelletier (WMF)^(talk) 13:46, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
  - Via a handy link from the reflinks page? Gee, thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:52, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
    - Sure. It appears, all you have to do is make the link with the proper disclaimer. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:59, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
      - Meanwhile I found a very easy to use external site that constructs properly formatted book references in a variety of formats including {{cite book}}, if you feed it an ISBN - http://www.ottobib.com/ -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:27, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
        Now that is useful. Many thanks, Roger! (And, dare I say it, about 10 times faster than reflinks used to be?) Martinevans123 (talk) 14:43, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to make sure that data providers will be happy to serve up their data on a large scale and in the long term before building too much on access to these resources. Deltahedron (talk) 16:09, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

- I suppose if I adopted a privacy policy similar to WMF's it would be unrecognized because it not subservient to the foundation? In any case I'm not collecting IP address (access.log is also turned off). The real concern is actually somebody at the foundation leaking or going rouge with the actual checkuser information. We've already had to reset password once because of a labs fuck ups.
  The $20 million in the bank suggests otherwise. I was willing to rewrite the tools in exchange for storage space for improving Reflinks. However, its become clear the foundation does not value the community and is simply looking to maximize donations. In fact they seem to hold the dysfunctional Mozilla Cooperation (Does anyone see $300 million/year of development from them? Also selling bits in the right-click menu and start screen) as a model to be emulated. — Dispenser 16:17, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
@MPelletier (WMF): We don't need a "work in progress webservice", we need a fully functioning replacement, and the quality of our wiki depends on it. The deadline is now. KonveyorBelt 15:39, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

MPelletier (WMF) wrote "we don't have the resources to simply rewrite every bit of proprietary software that happens to be in use by users of projects" — no, I don't suppose you do, and since nobody asked you to do that, it doesn't really matter. What the community and WMF need is a means whereby the things they want and need to build the encyclopaedia and the other projects, can be captured, discussed, prioritised and resourced. Do you have the resources to achieve that? Deltahedron (talk) 16:28, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

For a limited number of such things, of course. In the cases where we won't be able to do those things ourselves, we can at the very least make resources and help available so that volunteers can do so (as is the case, for instance, for literally hundreds of community-provided tools).

That Dispenser has chosen to keep the source to his tools private despite being well aware of the harm that their loss would inflict on its many users is, of course, regrettable; but it's not like we can force him to hand them over. In the meantime, others below have pointed out alternatives and we'd be glad to help anyone trying to replace the tool in any way we can. The best venue for coordinating this would be the Labs mailing list; where not only the Labs admins are but also the vast majority of community developers who could help. — MPelletier (WMF)^(talk) 19:26, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for that pointer, which will be of use to Labs developers. My question was more general, since of course not everything that readers, writers and editor want or need is based on a Labs tool. So I'll repeat my question in the more general context. I'll note that a multiplicity of venues is ultimately confusing and counter-productive: users can be expected neither to know nor care how the work is organised between WMF, Labs and other projects. What they need is a one-stop shop for their requests, comments and engagement. Where would they go for that? Deltahedron (talk) 19:32, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

@MPelletier (WMF): Here's a suggestion: Put paid staff on a replacement for Reflinks and "call for volunteers" to work on Flow. Pretty sure the community would agree with this priority. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 22:39, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Like. JMP EAX (talk) 23:55, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

As for "poor man's checkuser", http://reftag.appspot.com checkusers me 25 times a day. Until the WMF is actually going to provide all the common citation tools an editors needs so there won't be any reliance on any external software, that's always going to be the case. JMP EAX (talk) 01:39, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm afraid I do not set the Engineering department's priorities; and I'm pretty sure that Flow already has quite some bit of volunteer involvement. — MPelletier (WMF)^(talk) 04:25, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

You see, that at the core is the problem. The board doesn't set the priorities. Jimbo doesn't set the priorities. You don't set the priorities. I don't know who sets the priorities. From looking at T64266, it appears to me that Gilles Dubuc is the developer of that feature, and Gilles Dubuc is setting their own priority for how that feature is supposed to work. Is that correct? Anyone care to step forward and take ownership of the priorities? Anyone? Wbm1058 (talk) 00:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Technically, the Board does set priorities, but at a very broad level. (In non-profit speak, they prefer that you use the jargon "direction" instead.) The Executive Director sets priorities, and then (for the things we care about in this discussion) then down to Vice President of Product and Engineering, and then down to the Director of Product Development, and from there to the product manager and the teams doing the actual work. So, for example, the Board may say that a priority for the organization is to increase readership in the Global South. The Executive Director will say, "We want to increase readership in the Global South. Our top priority for this will be the Wikipedia Zero project, although we will also have some other initiatives related to this." The next level says, "We are supporting Wikipedia Zero. Our first and most important task will be expanding in these three countries..." – and so forth, until you get down to someone who is actually getting something done, and who is saying things like "My priority for today is to reply to this proposal from this cell phone company". All of these people are setting priorities, but many of them are not setting priorities at the level of detail that you want.

For this level of product development detail—for "please don't make me clean up this linkrot by hand any longer"—you probably need to be talking to the mw:Editing team directly, or maybe to the director of product development, not to the people at the top of the chain. And, candidly, you probably don't even need to be talking to them, since it's already in the goals for this quarter, so it will presumably happen even if nobody mentioned it and even if reflinks were still up and running. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: So, bluntly, for now and in the future, who does the community talk to if they feel development priorities and processes are being set incorrectly? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:12, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Short answer for priorities: Everyone. Long answer: You need to figure out which priority you disagree with, and talk to the person or team that was setting that priority. To continue my example, if you think that Global South should not be a priority, then you should talk to the board. If you think that this particular cell phone company in this particular country should not be a priority, then you should talk to someone on the Wikipedia Zero team.

Fortunately, everything is documented in public. See strategy: wiki for the five-year plan, created by about 1,000 members of the Wikimedia movement and adopted by the board (active until 2015). See Meta for grants and Global South work. See MediaWiki for engineering and product work. And in particular, see mw:Wikimedia Engineering/2014-15 Goals for annual product goals.

On the question of process, it's being revamped from the ground up. See m:Community Engagement (Product)/Process ideas for the main place to talk about what would or wouldn't work for you. For example, do you want spam on every person's talk page for every user-facing change? People have historically said no thanks to spam, but if you think it would be an effective and proportionate way of making sure people find out what's going on, then say so. Would you like to elect a committee of users to evaluate software changes, and you're willing to go along with whatever they say, even when you think they made the wrong decision? Please say so. Everything is up for grabs there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:52, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Short version: if you don't like what the WMF is doing, you're on your own, confronted with a bewildering variety of wikis, documents, pages, mailing lists, IRC chats and so forth. On a good day, sympathetic staff like WAID will explain to you just why they have no time or resources or power to help you with what you want: though they may give the first clue into the labyrinth; on a bad day, unsympathetic staff will patronise and sneer and jeer at you for asking questions in the wrong place or not already knowing the things you're still trying to find out. The underlying message will always be that if you want something done, you should do it yourself. On a really bad day, staff will take time off from ignoring you to defame you and lie to you. If this sounds rude, all of these things have happened to me trying to do exactly the same sort of thing within the last year. Oh, and the WMF board chair will explain that if you don't like it, you're free to leave. Is it any wonder that people like you and me are getting just the tiniest bit fed up? Deltahedron (talk) 16:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Serious suggestion. Start at the top. Make a cogent case to the ED at m:User talk:LilaTretikov (WMF)‎ or via her email. She will know where to delegate it. If it's high-level strategy, talk to Board members either on this page or at m:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard. Never try to guess which staff member at working level to talk to. Ask Lila to pass it on to someone and ask her to task that person to deal with it. Always make your case as clear, polite, cogent, well-argued, evidence-based and above all concise as you can. Help Lila to help you. Oh, and decide which ditch you want to die in, and be ready to die there. Deltahedron (talk) 16:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Reflinks is a disaster anyway. People need to use citation templates. I hate having to go back and fill out references with citation templates after someone's used Reflinks. Reflinks only encourages lazy behaviour. If there was a script that would fill out citation templates automatically (not manually like ProveIt), that'd be a useful tool. Reflinks is not. RGloucester — ☎ 02:59, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
- Incremental improvements. The output produced by Reflinks is significantly better than the bare URLs new editors frequently insert. And there's no way we should be discouraging new editors from providing any kind of reference format. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:52, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
- That's the Tool I want to build, but Wikimedia refuses to allocate resources for. And I've jumped over every hurtle they put up. Its become obvious they are pursuing an "appification" strategy and disregarding the community that made them. — Dispenser 05:01, 31 August 2014 (UTC)
  - That's the danger of all businesses and bureaucracies. They evolve and reproduce into totally new organisms, often times with no relationship to their core values or the people who built them and made them successful. The history of business is littered with examples. The very often alienate their customers and employees in the process. Look at the current versions of Sears, McDonald's, and Wal-Mart as only three examples. They bear little resemblance to what they once were. And of course there's Microsoft, which is probably the best example of a company that alienates everyone, from their employees to their customers. What Wikipedia is doing is part of an evolutionary business practice that has taken on a life of its own. Just look at the United States government. I'm no teahadist, but if you could bring back the signers and the framers (the so-called "Founding Fathers"), they wouldn't recognize the country they helped form. When you're so far removed from the ideals and values that made you great, it's time to reevaluate and reconnect. Viriditas (talk) 05:34, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure they'd be surprised by the lack of slaves to serve them their tea, biscuits and sponge. RGloucester — ☎ 05:37, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

It's a matter of degree. Several experts have made the oft-repeated argument that feudal serfs of old had more rights and freedom than modern low wage labourers, which forms the backbone of many economies. Viriditas (talk) 05:44, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

As a Marxist, I can sympathise with those arguments. Alienation of labour is the critical destructor of the soul of the worker, and is the scourge of post-industrial society. RGloucester — ☎ 05:55, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of -isms or -ologies, but I like this quote from Hélder Câmara: "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist." Viriditas (talk) 11:08, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

As a Marxist myself, I am here reminded of his inspiring words: "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made." Martinevans123 (talk) 11:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/groucho_marx.html#CwO2Z5RA8t3o1B8c.99 Just spotted this thread, and wanted to let you know that Vada can do this, while also performing various other fixes at the same time. Please see User:Mdann52/vada for instructions how to set it up to provide reflinks-like abilities! --Mdann52talk to me! 15:21, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Besides the fact that it is marked as alpha-quality software, does this framework have a user interface for this alleged URL/ref function? Or am I suppose to program one myself to use it? (And I don't mean an API for programmers.) The documentation doesn't have single screenshot for the supposed citation/URL formatting, so I would guess the answer is that it's not for directly usable by run-of-the-mill editors but only by programers. The sole screenshot on its page looks even more miffing than the MV, by the way. I'm sure it has its logic (which appears to include the word p3nis). JMP EAX (talk) 10:30, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't mean to be critical, but this tool is simply not ready. Besides having a poor interface, it actually breaks some things. In a test, it removed http: from several URLs in web citation templates and changed the case of a word in URL. The tool may have a lot of potential, but it still needs work.- Mr X 16:53, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

@JMP EAX and MrX: Sorry guys, user interface is not my forte. (Any JS/CSS people want to help?) Also important to point out that Vada is a framework, and that Mdann52's instructions provide a shortcut to installing my cleaner app. The screenshot there is quite old, but will look familiar to many an editor, because it demonstrates the anti vandal app, with an interface similar to Huggle. The removal of http: is actually a feature, not a bug. The modification of the URL is a bug, but not from the reflinks part; rather the spellchecker has not had context built into it yet. It was a work in progress, but I can remove the spellchecker and anything else buggy, if people want to use it. 930913 {{ping}} 22:50, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Please add links to other ways on WP:Citing sources

Can those of you who know of other ways than reflinks, list and describe them in the Citation templates and tools section. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

I add them manually with ProveIt. It works quite well, and makes certain that we have nice filled out references, not just little bare machine-made nonsense. RGloucester — ☎ 05:57, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Except it does nothing for bare URLs. Try running it over Nielsen Norman Group for example. All "Prove It" manages to prove is how useless it is by saying "Unknown format" for every link. JMP EAX (talk) 10:19, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

All one has to do is take the URL, put it in one's browser, copy-past the title, URL, and various other information into ProveIt, and then one has filled a reference properly. It makes using citation templates easy. RGloucester — ☎ 15:01, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

I've used both extensively. Reflinks is an excellent tool for adding refs quickly. ProveIt is good, but a little clunky. For example, it adds quotes marks around ref names that don't need them; the interface doesn't always match the standard templates; there's a scroll bar; it can't be detached, etc.- Mr X 15:41, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible to safely CC-license software?

Given that Reflinks is being discontinued over copyright (free-licensing) issues, it's worth asking whether it is possible under current law to have what we want without putting the developer at risk. Specifically, I just looked up the new alternative "Vada" being discussed above, and find that User:A930913/vada/diffview.js starts up with this long custom licensing claim in the comments. The requirements aren't exceptionally onerous, but, they are not CC-licensing, and so sooner or later someone will have some flavor of "Discussion" and perhaps we are wasting our time thinking about it. So I have to ask: if you write up a free software program and CC-license it to Wikipedia, is it automatic that anybody in the world who ever finds some variant on the program that has been changed by someone else can sue you because you didn't demand that the person modifying it include a disclaimer with a WHOLE BUNCH OF SHOUTING IN CAPITAL LETTERS. (For that matter, does it not count if the text is in lower case?) I mean, either this is all a bunch of bull that we should take action to educate the people of the world to know that it is bull, or else it is a very real form of censorship that is actively preventing us from generating better editing utilities, in which case we need to mobilize against it and take what action is necessary to stop it.

Meanwhile, I am thinking about setting up a mirror/sandbox on my page so I can mess with the utility. If I neglect copying that stuff, what will happen? Wnt (talk) 15:09, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Should have pinged @Mdann52:, @A930913:. Wnt (talk) 16:43, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

@Wnt: By putting the code onto Wikipedia, you release it under the terms of CC-BY-SA-3.0/GDFL, therefore you have to follow those licensing terms. The user that created the content can specify additional terms, but if they are incompatible with the dual licensing used by Wikipedia, you don't actually have to comply by them. --Mdann52talk to me! 17:44, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

@Wnt: You can remove/replace the side-by-side diffview with the WikEdDiff plugin. I should probably do this too, but some prefer side-by-side to inline diffs. 930913 {{ping}} 22:50, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Citoid client

I've just hacked together a non-VE client to the Citoid server which hopefully does a similar job to reflink. Just add importScript('User:Salix alba/Citoid.js'); to your Special:MyPage/skin.js. It uses mw:citoid service and borrows heavily from the VE interface User:Mvolz/veCiteFromURL. It works by adding a toolbox link, click on this and you get a dialog popup where you can enter a url, submit it to the server and get a citation template as a result. See User:Salix alba/Citoid for details.

Its very much an pre-alpha release, virtually untested but worked for the first two urls I tried. Very much open source, people are encouraged to clone adapt to their own needs.--Salix alba (talk): 16:41, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Salix alba. If you ever need any help of support from Engineering, or run into bug with Citoid, we'll be glad to help. — MPelletier (WMF)^(talk) 22:21, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

(Also, once you feel this is ready for prime time, this seems to me to be an ideal candidate to be made into a gadget). — MPelletier (WMF)^(talk) 22:55, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

@Salix alba: Just to jump in here, I want to echo Marc-André's support but caution that the labs-hosted test install of citoid has (amongst other things) no special API keys for some of the services we're using, so it's really not ready for wider use yet. Mvolz and I are working on it! Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Sidebar metrics

One of my great annoyances with English WP as someone primarily concerned with content and layout is the proliferation of layout-clogging sidebars stuffed with article links of vaguely-related topics. Has WMF ever put a counter on these things to determine whether readers are actually using these monstrosities? I presume they are not. Carrite (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I sometimes click on them, although perhaps that's because most of my reading time is spent on military topics (and military technology topics) where they are widespread and somewhat useful; and also maybe reined in by a number of very active and organised WikiProjects. Possibly in political topics they become more cruft-like?

The horizontal equivalent of a vertical sidebar is of course a footer... I find these immensely useful sometimes, in a typical situation like "OK it's not this German first world war artillery piece, it's that other one" or "the headmaster after the one I'm looking at is..." or "the member of parliament for Footown before the one I'm looking at was..."

Surely the most widespread sidebar is the dreaded infobox, which sometimes become very very large. I guess you didn't mean those? I believe there has been an arbcom case about them. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:40, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Take a look at Function composition to see mildly baffling sidebar, which isn't exactly an infobox. JMP EAX (talk) 18:33, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Examples of various kinds would be useful. I really like Infoboxes in most cases. But yes, per JMP EAX, the one on Function composition isn't exactly enlightening.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:52, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

If I were to theorize a bit... One potential critique of navigation sidebars (compared to footer-located navigation templates) is that they mostly contain see-alsos. And you wouldn't normally compose an infobox mostly of links to related material rather than (a summary of) material that is central to the topic. Nor would you usually place see-alsos near the top of the article. So unlike the footer-located navigational templates, the sidebar ones tend to be a little too distracting, even more so when you have to figure out if it's an infobox or a sidebar. ¶ On the other hand, navigation sidebars act more like a meta-table of contents, across several articles, so in that respect it makes a bit of sense to place them near the top. (Speaking of TOCs, I really don't like the giant whitespace they generate in Wikipedia. It would be much nicer if they could be located as sidebars, possibly/optionally as floating ones. There is a fair bit of controversy over floating sidebars. Some find them helpful [27] others find them quite distracting [28]. So the floating bit should probably not be on by default...) JMP EAX (talk) 20:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

All navboxes are fundamentally ==See also== links. I believe that navboxes (footers and sidebars) are omitted on Mobile. There is no evidence that readers use them. It seems unlikely that they would be used much when they're collapsed at the bottom of the page, although some experienced people (including a few editors with specialized workflows) might use them regularly. Sidebars probably get more use, because they aren't collapsed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

They are also often largely or entirely duplicative of categories. I don't mind them too much as collapsed footers, but at the side, and especially at the top of articles, they should often just be removed. You never see people asking for them to be created; they are pretty simple to make, and a way to make a mark on WP without the effort of writing anything. But I think the heyday of creating them has rather past. Johnbod (talk) 01:14, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I think they are highly functional and used by millions and millions of happy people every day, including me. In addition to providing a handy quick reference for certain standard facts, they also serve to improve the readability of the articles by narrowing the text (our lines of text are known to be generally too long for optimal reading).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:17, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm not talking about info boxes, which I have more or less grown accustomed to, but See Also sidebars. See, for example Charles Fourier. My specific question: has anyone ever put a counter on those things to measure how often those links are actually used? Carrite (talk) 08:27, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, love those too.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I've seen as many as 4 of those in a single article, crushing the layout out of existence. Those are tangental "See Also" links and to my mind those sidebars are suitable only for articles for which there are no graphics. As for info boxes, they have proven very, very useful to our corporate partner Google and I suspect they are singlehandedly responsible for the loss of every bit and more of the recent decline in WP readership that the WMF metrics people are having nightmares over... But in general I think those are useful, although sometimes absurdly oversized. Carrite (talk) 14:23, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy - do you have any evidence for that statement (besides the fact that you use them)? I happen think you're correct, but I've seen nothing that says anyone's ever checked how much infoboxes (or any other links) are used. See next section for more Worm^TT(talk) 09:53, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I very strongly agree with you on the need for metrics. Joining your new conversation, below.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm very concerned at the very significant effect on load time that is caused by some of these navboxes, sidebar boxes ("Part of a series on...") and succession boxes, many of which have little value and are better handled through categories. When I can demonstrate a 200-500% increase in load time with and without navboxes/succession boxes on large articles, I dread what the effects are on those folks without good internet connections. Anyone can do the experiment with, for example, any US presidential article. Risker (talk) 20:00, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Would be good to test page load times as one of the metrics in an A/B or multivariate test... Worm^TT(talk) 07:27, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

More metrics

On metrics in general, I mentioned A/B testing recently with regard to new features, but there's a lot more that can be done to get decent metrics. Click-thrus on which links are being used would be useful, as Carrite mentions, but also doing other user testing would be good. Why not do actual testing on how people use the site? Get, say, 100 members of the public in and given them tasks to do on Wikipedia. See how they're using it - don't go by "anecdotal" evidence from the community, but actually by proper metrics. Evidence why changes are being done - it seems simple to me. Worm^TT(talk) 09:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. To be fair, in the past (and I do not know current practice at any level of detail) the Foundation has done focus group studies of user behavior. But there are other tools that can be used as well, including click-throughs, although for the current question, I don't see those as being particularly helpful, since the point of the infoboxes is not to garner clickthroughs but to have a clear and consistent way to present certain community-selected basic facts about a topic. Another interesting approach is heatmap testing - tracking where the mouse moves around the page as a (rough) proxy for eye tracking. Here's a good read about mouse tracking: "Mouse Tracking is better than Eye Tracking".

This is why I'm so strongly supportive of increased investment in product and engineering. There are questions where one might think that the community is eternally conflicted about some philosophical issue, when in fact there's just a disagreement about some empirical matter that can be tested.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:54, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I've recently been working with eye tracking in my workplace and find it fascinating. Mouse tracking has the benefit of being checkable remotely - but then that has the disadvantage of getting towards privacy invasion. My largest concern is that the products that the Foundation are pushing forward are driven by individual opinions, rather than empirical evidence. Worm^TT(talk) 11:20, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

As I understand it templates are pages-within-a-page in MediaWiki (I am not a techie), so logically there should be some way for one of our multitude of tech gurus to put a counter on there, yes? Then it would be a simple matter of dividing counter hits by main page hits to determine a usage rate... Carrite (talk) 14:28, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps someone from the Foundation can point us in the right direction of how we might get something like that. I think that at the moment, the Foundation's infrastructure for data collection and testing is pretty limited. And I also warn again that for SOME features "click rate" is relevant, but almost certainly not for infoboxes. A proper A/B test for the "This is part of a series" would likely be to run it at the side 50% of the time and at the bottom 50% of the time to see the relative click rates. And that infrastructure doesn't really exist right now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:53, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I suppose the solution to that is the usual one, to hire more people? Eric Corbett 17:06, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Moan, bloody moan. AnonNep (talk) 17:20, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Have you ever seen any of the WMF's many problems solved by spending more money? Eric Corbett 17:24, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Ooooh, and its not just me, our Nigel said... AnonNep (talk) 17:28, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

How childish. Or should I say toxic? Eric Corbett 21:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Now you know how useless comments like that are, eh? Lesson learned I hope, love. AnonNep (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Your love is something I'd rather be as far away from as possible. Lesson learned? Eric Corbett 21:30, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I should note that Google doesn't test on anything like 50% of its users, but only on a much smaller percentage. And the test can be n-way. Meyers was very fond of these. Probably the most famous one was the color of the paid ads. I can't find a story about the original test right now, but for the one in Gmail see [29]. JMP EAX (talk) 22:19, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
An A/B test on 50% doesn't mean on 50% of the whole user set - but rather 50% of the group selected for A/B testing. The other 50% being a control group. I'd be surprised if Google is not doing something similar. Nothing wrong with n-way tests, especially when looking at design or any other look and feel options, but for whether a feature is used a simple 2-way A/B test should be what we look at. Worm^TT(talk) 07:23, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Petition to get attention of the US government and Obama

This has descended into pointlessness, and has nothing to do with me in any event.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:29, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hi Jimbo! In the address of Barack Obama will be sent petition to respect 1st Amendment on Wikipedia (Florida). The US Constitution. Will be sent message via e-mail also. All of this for different websites of the US government. Not only for Barack Obama. Because your admins does not wish respect Obama and dead children in the same time. Admins have respect to the corruption inside of the US Congress - via the NRA (they vs Knowledge + vs facts also). Vandals again work for the good of "The most crazy man on Earth" and for his organization (mass shootings to be with power and money). Obama suggests good measures in the same time (Australia and so on). Lovers of the NRA works again: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence_in_the_United_States&action=history Thank you. 95.29.148.139 (talk) 10:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC) First please understand that the First Amendment has nothing to do with this situation. The First Amendment forbids the US Congress from passing laws restricting freedom of expression, and this has nothing to do with the editorial judgments of private editors of this website. Second please understand that your edit is not being reverted by "Lovers of the NRA" nor for political reasons, but primarily because it is an ungrammatical rant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:47, 2 September 2014 (UTC) As Jimbo says, the First Amendment, which has to do with governmental agencies, is not applicable. (Have the frequency of misused references to the First Amendment increased recently, or are they just annoying me more?) According to A. J. Liebling, freedom of the press applies to those who own one. The original poster doesn't own a web server. Jimbo and the WMF do own the web servers. The First Amendment gives them the right to make the rules for their web servers without interference by Congress or any state. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC) @Jimbo Wales: please be giving the Russian of break. His rant may be of ungrammatical, but not everyone can into English as of good as you, or me. 46.118.182.243 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC) They can correct grammatical mistakes. I said about other (freedom of speech in wide sense). I said about discrimination (I am Russian). 95.29.75.131 (talk) 11:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC). Gun ownership rights are a basic aspect of American life; neither anonymous internet petitions nor rambling personal opinions will change that. Tarc (talk) 15:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Having said that, I do think it worthwhile to look at whether that article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC) If edits deem something he says as relevant, sure. We know that everything the president says winds up in the news, but in reality, the office of the president itself does very little that is directly impactful on gun legislation. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Tarc. Gun rights must have limitation in accordance with the reform of the US president (facts and not only). "Anonymous internet petitions" It was bad joke probably. (Administration of Obama not will respect Wikipedia after any "internet petition" on this issue + discrimination). Such petition is directed for respecting many things. Stop mass killings of children - including (admins of Wikipedia do not wish publish aspects of the reform and related facts). The NRA has power not only in the Congress, we see (Wikipedia is afraid the NRA - everyone understands this sad fact currently). Tarc, Jimmy Wales said that need display "article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue." Please, take action Tarc (Jimbo said). In this case, all people will understand: Wikipedia is stronger of the NRA. Wikipedia respects own rules, the US president + life of children. - 95.29.141.223 (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC). Please register an account, but also please stop using this talk page for soapboxing about issues not related to Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:57, 2 September 2014 (UTC) We do not force ip editors to register. KonveyorBelt 19:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Can we force them go go back to ru.wiki? Seriously, this is about as bad as the Russian IP user that was obsessed with the Beatles and a claim their music was fee of copyright over there, or something. The wall of bad text after wall of bad text just makes everyone revert-block, and ignore. Tarc (talk) 20:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Several years ago I said with man from this website: http://www.usa.gov/ (chat in derict meaning). 95.29.129.125 (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Are we sure that this is not Crazy 1980 (aka the Russian Beatles spammer) with a new hobby? The ISP is the same, Corbina, and the writing style is similar, complete with references to the law of Florida, as happened before.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:44, 2 September 2014 (UTC) @Ianmacm: Vimpelcom is the 6th largest mobile communications company in the world with over 200 million subscribers. The person could almost anyone in Russia. 46.118.182.243 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC) Facts: Obama said about all of this: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/10/obama-says-america-should-be-ashamed-its-gun-laws/ (president said about this, when he said - these are facts). Reform in the same time. Obama said that the Congress is afraid the NRA (speech of Obama - facts). Any clever human understands this simple thing. - 95.29.152.251 (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC). That's nice, but the President does not enact or initiate legislation. Unlike Russia, we are not a de facto dictatorship. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC) You do not wish understand me. Speech of Obama - facts independently of anything (it is part of his biography). If you do not wish put this speech in articles, related to gun laws, need put the speech of Obama in the article about Obama. If Julia Roberts will say something - also facts (example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama I ask you put the speech of Obama in his biography. I can not do it self (the article has lock). Or you can put his speech in the article about the NRA or about the Congress. Or in related to gun laws articles. Big selection. - 95.29.157.37 (talk) 21:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

This has descended into pointlessness, and has nothing to do with me in any event.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:29, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Hi Jimbo! In the address of Barack Obama will be sent petition to respect 1st Amendment on Wikipedia (Florida). The US Constitution. Will be sent message via e-mail also. All of this for different websites of the US government. Not only for Barack Obama. Because your admins does not wish respect Obama and dead children in the same time. Admins have respect to the corruption inside of the US Congress - via the NRA (they vs Knowledge + vs facts also). Vandals again work for the good of "The most crazy man on Earth" and for his organization (mass shootings to be with power and money). Obama suggests good measures in the same time (Australia and so on). Lovers of the NRA works again: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence_in_the_United_States&action=history Thank you. 95.29.148.139 (talk) 10:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

First please understand that the First Amendment has nothing to do with this situation. The First Amendment forbids the US Congress from passing laws restricting freedom of expression, and this has nothing to do with the editorial judgments of private editors of this website. Second please understand that your edit is not being reverted by "Lovers of the NRA" nor for political reasons, but primarily because it is an ungrammatical rant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:47, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

As Jimbo says, the First Amendment, which has to do with governmental agencies, is not applicable. (Have the frequency of misused references to the First Amendment increased recently, or are they just annoying me more?) According to A. J. Liebling, freedom of the press applies to those who own one. The original poster doesn't own a web server. Jimbo and the WMF do own the web servers. The First Amendment gives them the right to make the rules for their web servers without interference by Congress or any state. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: please be giving the Russian of break. His rant may be of ungrammatical, but not everyone can into English as of good as you, or me. 46.118.182.243 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

They can correct grammatical mistakes. I said about other (freedom of speech in wide sense). I said about discrimination (I am Russian). 95.29.75.131 (talk) 11:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

Gun ownership rights are a basic aspect of American life; neither anonymous internet petitions nor rambling personal opinions will change that. Tarc (talk) 15:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Having said that, I do think it worthwhile to look at whether that article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

If edits deem something he says as relevant, sure. We know that everything the president says winds up in the news, but in reality, the office of the president itself does very little that is directly impactful on gun legislation. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Tarc. Gun rights must have limitation in accordance with the reform of the US president (facts and not only). "Anonymous internet petitions" It was bad joke probably. (Administration of Obama not will respect Wikipedia after any "internet petition" on this issue + discrimination). Such petition is directed for respecting many things. Stop mass killings of children - including (admins of Wikipedia do not wish publish aspects of the reform and related facts). The NRA has power not only in the Congress, we see (Wikipedia is afraid the NRA - everyone understands this sad fact currently). Tarc, Jimmy Wales said that need display "article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue." Please, take action Tarc (Jimbo said). In this case, all people will understand: Wikipedia is stronger of the NRA. Wikipedia respects own rules, the US president + life of children. - 95.29.141.223 (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

Please register an account, but also please stop using this talk page for soapboxing about issues not related to Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:57, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

We do not force ip editors to register. KonveyorBelt 19:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Can we force them go go back to ru.wiki? Seriously, this is about as bad as the Russian IP user that was obsessed with the Beatles and a claim their music was fee of copyright over there, or something. The wall of bad text after wall of bad text just makes everyone revert-block, and ignore. Tarc (talk) 20:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Several years ago I said with man from this website: http://www.usa.gov/ (chat in derict meaning). 95.29.129.125 (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Are we sure that this is not Crazy 1980 (aka the Russian Beatles spammer) with a new hobby? The ISP is the same, Corbina, and the writing style is similar, complete with references to the law of Florida, as happened before.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:44, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

@Ianmacm: Vimpelcom is the 6th largest mobile communications company in the world with over 200 million subscribers. The person could almost anyone in Russia. 46.118.182.243 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Facts: Obama said about all of this: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/10/obama-says-america-should-be-ashamed-its-gun-laws/ (president said about this, when he said - these are facts). Reform in the same time. Obama said that the Congress is afraid the NRA (speech of Obama - facts). Any clever human understands this simple thing. - 95.29.152.251 (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC).
- That's nice, but the President does not enact or initiate legislation. Unlike Russia, we are not a de facto dictatorship. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

You do not wish understand me. Speech of Obama - facts independently of anything (it is part of his biography). If you do not wish put this speech in articles, related to gun laws, need put the speech of Obama in the article about Obama. If Julia Roberts will say something - also facts (example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama I ask you put the speech of Obama in his biography. I can not do it self (the article has lock). Or you can put his speech in the article about the NRA or about the Congress. Or in related to gun laws articles. Big selection. - 95.29.157.37 (talk) 21:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

Sidebar metrics

Take a look at Function composition to see mildly baffling sidebar, which isn't exactly an infobox. JMP EAX (talk) 18:33, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

If I were to theorize a bit... One potential critique of navigation sidebars (compared to footer-located navigation templates) is that they mostly contain see-alsos. And you wouldn't normally compose an infobox mostly of links to related material rather than (a summary of) material that is central to the topic. Nor would you usually place see-alsos near the top of the article. So unlike the footer-located navigational templates, the sidebar ones tend to be a little too distracting, even more so when you have to figure out if it's an infobox or a sidebar. ¶ On the other hand, navigation sidebars act more like a meta-table of contents, across several articles, so in that respect it makes a bit of sense to place them near the top. (Speaking of TOCs, I really don't like the giant whitespace they generate in Wikipedia. It would be much nicer if they could be located as sidebars, possibly/optionally as floating ones. There is a fair bit of controversy over floating sidebars. Some find them helpful [30] others find them quite distracting [31]. So the floating bit should probably not be on by default...) JMP EAX (talk) 20:37, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, love those too.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I very strongly agree with you on the need for metrics. Joining your new conversation, below.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Would be good to test page load times as one of the metrics in an A/B or multivariate test... Worm^TT(talk) 07:27, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

More metrics

I suppose the solution to that is the usual one, to hire more people? Eric Corbett 17:06, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Moan, bloody moan. AnonNep (talk) 17:20, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Have you ever seen any of the WMF's many problems solved by spending more money? Eric Corbett 17:24, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Ooooh, and its not just me, our Nigel said... AnonNep (talk) 17:28, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

How childish. Or should I say toxic? Eric Corbett 21:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Now you know how useless comments like that are, eh? Lesson learned I hope, love. AnonNep (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Your love is something I'd rather be as far away from as possible. Lesson learned? Eric Corbett 21:30, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

I should note that Google doesn't test on anything like 50% of its users, but only on a much smaller percentage. And the test can be n-way. Meyers was very fond of these. Probably the most famous one was the color of the paid ads. I can't find a story about the original test right now, but for the one in Gmail see [32]. JMP EAX (talk) 22:19, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
An A/B test on 50% doesn't mean on 50% of the whole user set - but rather 50% of the group selected for A/B testing. The other 50% being a control group. I'd be surprised if Google is not doing something similar. Nothing wrong with n-way tests, especially when looking at design or any other look and feel options, but for whether a feature is used a simple 2-way A/B test should be what we look at. Worm^TT(talk) 07:23, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Petition to get attention of the US government and Obama

This has descended into pointlessness, and has nothing to do with me in any event.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:29, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hi Jimbo! In the address of Barack Obama will be sent petition to respect 1st Amendment on Wikipedia (Florida). The US Constitution. Will be sent message via e-mail also. All of this for different websites of the US government. Not only for Barack Obama. Because your admins does not wish respect Obama and dead children in the same time. Admins have respect to the corruption inside of the US Congress - via the NRA (they vs Knowledge + vs facts also). Vandals again work for the good of "The most crazy man on Earth" and for his organization (mass shootings to be with power and money). Obama suggests good measures in the same time (Australia and so on). Lovers of the NRA works again: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence_in_the_United_States&action=history Thank you. 95.29.148.139 (talk) 10:29, 2 September 2014 (UTC) First please understand that the First Amendment has nothing to do with this situation. The First Amendment forbids the US Congress from passing laws restricting freedom of expression, and this has nothing to do with the editorial judgments of private editors of this website. Second please understand that your edit is not being reverted by "Lovers of the NRA" nor for political reasons, but primarily because it is an ungrammatical rant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:47, 2 September 2014 (UTC) As Jimbo says, the First Amendment, which has to do with governmental agencies, is not applicable. (Have the frequency of misused references to the First Amendment increased recently, or are they just annoying me more?) According to A. J. Liebling, freedom of the press applies to those who own one. The original poster doesn't own a web server. Jimbo and the WMF do own the web servers. The First Amendment gives them the right to make the rules for their web servers without interference by Congress or any state. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC) @Jimbo Wales: please be giving the Russian of break. His rant may be of ungrammatical, but not everyone can into English as of good as you, or me. 46.118.182.243 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC) They can correct grammatical mistakes. I said about other (freedom of speech in wide sense). I said about discrimination (I am Russian). 95.29.75.131 (talk) 11:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC). Gun ownership rights are a basic aspect of American life; neither anonymous internet petitions nor rambling personal opinions will change that. Tarc (talk) 15:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Having said that, I do think it worthwhile to look at whether that article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC) If edits deem something he says as relevant, sure. We know that everything the president says winds up in the news, but in reality, the office of the president itself does very little that is directly impactful on gun legislation. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Tarc. Gun rights must have limitation in accordance with the reform of the US president (facts and not only). "Anonymous internet petitions" It was bad joke probably. (Administration of Obama not will respect Wikipedia after any "internet petition" on this issue + discrimination). Such petition is directed for respecting many things. Stop mass killings of children - including (admins of Wikipedia do not wish publish aspects of the reform and related facts). The NRA has power not only in the Congress, we see (Wikipedia is afraid the NRA - everyone understands this sad fact currently). Tarc, Jimmy Wales said that need display "article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue." Please, take action Tarc (Jimbo said). In this case, all people will understand: Wikipedia is stronger of the NRA. Wikipedia respects own rules, the US president + life of children. - 95.29.141.223 (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC). Please register an account, but also please stop using this talk page for soapboxing about issues not related to Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:57, 2 September 2014 (UTC) We do not force ip editors to register. KonveyorBelt 19:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Can we force them go go back to ru.wiki? Seriously, this is about as bad as the Russian IP user that was obsessed with the Beatles and a claim their music was fee of copyright over there, or something. The wall of bad text after wall of bad text just makes everyone revert-block, and ignore. Tarc (talk) 20:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Several years ago I said with man from this website: http://www.usa.gov/ (chat in derict meaning). 95.29.129.125 (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC) Are we sure that this is not Crazy 1980 (aka the Russian Beatles spammer) with a new hobby? The ISP is the same, Corbina, and the writing style is similar, complete with references to the law of Florida, as happened before.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:44, 2 September 2014 (UTC) @Ianmacm: Vimpelcom is the 6th largest mobile communications company in the world with over 200 million subscribers. The person could almost anyone in Russia. 46.118.182.243 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC) Facts: Obama said about all of this: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/10/obama-says-america-should-be-ashamed-its-gun-laws/ (president said about this, when he said - these are facts). Reform in the same time. Obama said that the Congress is afraid the NRA (speech of Obama - facts). Any clever human understands this simple thing. - 95.29.152.251 (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC). That's nice, but the President does not enact or initiate legislation. Unlike Russia, we are not a de facto dictatorship. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC) You do not wish understand me. Speech of Obama - facts independently of anything (it is part of his biography). If you do not wish put this speech in articles, related to gun laws, need put the speech of Obama in the article about Obama. If Julia Roberts will say something - also facts (example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama I ask you put the speech of Obama in his biography. I can not do it self (the article has lock). Or you can put his speech in the article about the NRA or about the Congress. Or in related to gun laws articles. Big selection. - 95.29.157.37 (talk) 21:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

This has descended into pointlessness, and has nothing to do with me in any event.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:29, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

@Jimbo Wales: please be giving the Russian of break. His rant may be of ungrammatical, but not everyone can into English as of good as you, or me. 46.118.182.243 (talk) 01:07, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

They can correct grammatical mistakes. I said about other (freedom of speech in wide sense). I said about discrimination (I am Russian). 95.29.75.131 (talk) 11:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

Gun ownership rights are a basic aspect of American life; neither anonymous internet petitions nor rambling personal opinions will change that. Tarc (talk) 15:11, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Having said that, I do think it worthwhile to look at whether that article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:18, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Tarc. Gun rights must have limitation in accordance with the reform of the US president (facts and not only). "Anonymous internet petitions" It was bad joke probably. (Administration of Obama not will respect Wikipedia after any "internet petition" on this issue + discrimination). Such petition is directed for respecting many things. Stop mass killings of children - including (admins of Wikipedia do not wish publish aspects of the reform and related facts). The NRA has power not only in the Congress, we see (Wikipedia is afraid the NRA - everyone understands this sad fact currently). Tarc, Jimmy Wales said that need display "article should include some of Obama's recent remarks on the issue." Please, take action Tarc (Jimbo said). In this case, all people will understand: Wikipedia is stronger of the NRA. Wikipedia respects own rules, the US president + life of children. - 95.29.141.223 (talk) 18:43, 2 September 2014 (UTC).

Please register an account, but also please stop using this talk page for soapboxing about issues not related to Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:57, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

We do not force ip editors to register. KonveyorBelt 19:38, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Several years ago I said with man from this website: http://www.usa.gov/ (chat in derict meaning). 95.29.129.125 (talk) 20:21, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Facts: Obama said about all of this: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/10/obama-says-america-should-be-ashamed-its-gun-laws/ (president said about this, when he said - these are facts). Reform in the same time. Obama said that the Congress is afraid the NRA (speech of Obama - facts). Any clever human understands this simple thing. - 95.29.152.251 (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2014 (UTC).
- That's nice, but the President does not enact or initiate legislation. Unlike Russia, we are not a de facto dictatorship. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

You do not wish understand me. Speech of Obama - facts independently of anything (it is part of his biography). If you do not wish put this speech in articles, related to gun laws, need put the speech of Obama in the article about Obama. If Julia Roberts will say something - also facts (example). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama I ask you put the speech of Obama in his biography. I can not do it self (the article has lock). Or you can put his speech in the article about the NRA or about the Congress. Or in related to gun laws articles. Big selection. - 95.29.157.37 (talk) 21:40, 2 September 2014 (UTC).