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Defining moment in USA discussion/debate

A young gay mayor is running for President and was on CNN today. He was challenged about the fact the green new deal is being framed by Republicans as being "socialism". His response was that his generation and younger are only interested in the content and results of a proposal, and can not, will not, be distracted by terminology which he referred to as a "kill switch" e.g. "socialism" in this case. These "kill switches" have been around in USA discussion maybe forever but long ago a kill switch was "that's communism", then there is "UnAmerican" and nowadays "conspiracy theory" and "socialism".

If kill switches don't work anymore, the productivity of discussion and debate will soar, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:49, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, what makes them work then? Ambiguity. Imagine that. ~ R.T.G 20:27, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I hadn't followed this, but searched [1] to find Pete Buttigieg. I found a quote:

But you can no longer simply kill off a line of discussion about a policy by saying that it's socialist. If someone my age or younger is weighing a policy idea and somebody comes along and says you can't do that, it's socialist, I think our answer will be, is it a good idea or is it not? That idea has lost its power when you think about the way it was applied to characterize the ACA... Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, invented by a conservative think tank, relying on market principles, implemented first by a Republican governor. And they said that was socialist. So I think the word has mostly lost its meaning. It's certainly lost its ability to be used as a kill switch on debate.

Wnt (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The so-called people with conservative viewpoints (like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson) despise "identity politics" (which itself is an unestablished term) and the media's portrayal of them as the right wing. Yet, the irony is they use the "radical left" as the scapegoat for every possible argument. This, I think is the kill switch present today, mostly on the internet. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 01:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

There exists a fake news, real news cycle. It starts with people accepting fake news even when they think it's not 100% accurate as to them it's a banner for the party they support. Any discussion on dealing with real problems is then impossible due to kill switches. E.g. in case of climate change, even if you could get some conservative leaning people to acknowledge that there could be a real issue, they would end up saying something like "perhaps there are some issues we need to look into it, but largely it's all about Al Gore pushing his socialist agenda". But then, on the long term by ignoring the real news in favor of fake news, reality will eventually start to bite and then the kill switch will be put aside. Another example is criminal justice reform in the US. After years of propaganda from right wing talk radio leading to ever longer prison sentences, the problems become ever more visible and then one needs to reform the system. Unfortunately, in case of climate change, the use of the kill switch may have gone on for too long:

"The history of the Earth system is a story of change. Some changes are gradual and benign, but others, especially those associated with catastrophic mass extinction, are relatively abrupt and destructive. What sets one group apart from the other? Here, I hypothesize that perturbations of Earth’s carbon cycle lead to mass extinction if they exceed either a critical rate at long time scales or a critical size at short time scales. By analyzing 31 carbon isotopic events during the past 542 million years, I identify the critical rate with a limit imposed by mass conservation. Identification of the crossover time scale separating fast from slow events then yields the critical size. The modern critical size for the marine carbon cycle is roughly similar to the mass of carbon that human activities will likely have added to the oceans by the year 2100." Count Iblis (talk) 20:52, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Why is this discussion happening on this talk page? What has this got to do with Jimbo? 65.152.229.94 (talk) 15:13, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@65.152.229.94: lol IDK. It just happened. I think it's important for this community to understand media and politics. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 15:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd like to mildly discourage general political discussions here if it doesn't relate to Wikipedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:53, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Did Ilhan Omar's twitter thoughts get hit with a "kill switch"?

This one is really out to lunch. If someone suggests, or asserts, as Trump did, that US foreign policy re: Saudi Arabia is influenced by how much American stuff Saudi Arabia buys, is that suggestion Islamophobia? According to the info here, her opinion was based on a practical deduction, not anti-Semitism, as far as I can see Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:39, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: great observation. That's clearly not antisemitism. Unfortunately, the media and critics from both sides (Republicans and Democrats) have "alleged" her of that. It seems somewhat unbiased, unless there's any kind soul who publicly defended her for this wrong and twisted allegation. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 23:52, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

It was clearly antisemitic, and she rightly apologized for it. But this has nothing to do with Wikipedia, so I suggest we move on from it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:46, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia discussion/talk pages are substantially less prone to lead to optimum valuable consensus, imo, when a "kill switch" cuts off discussion, and that does happen sometimes.

So that's the Wikipedia connection; maybe I should've mentioned that connection at the outset. Sorry. Nocturnalnow (talk) 05:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

As the Young Turks illustrate, if Omar's comments were anti-Semitic, so were Trump's. That is, if people believed in objective standards. But come on, a Somali-American congressman? She could have asked for a drink of water and been branded an anti-Semite! After some of the stunts like with Steven Salaita, I don't know if there's a Palestinian professor left in the U.S.... if there is, the department better have somebody available to continue his classes next week. There is a 1984 level of doublethink among those who know that groups like AIPAC and (in Salaita's case) large university donors exercise financial influence, purportedly to help Israel (though their policies often endanger it), yet any mention of what is routinely published and known is supposed to be problematic ... depending on who says it. All because "we do not tolerate racism"! Wnt (talk) 13:59, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

That Trump says racist things is not surprising. That lobbyists lobby is also not surprising. Here is a (flawed I think) list of some of the biggest ones. Here is the entry on AIPAC.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:27, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Eye opening stats, so AIPAC spends less than 1% as much as Big Pharma on lobbying. Pelosi should've shot her down with that fact rather than ordering her to apologise. Btw, when did an apology ordered by a boss become worth anything? That is a much bigger issue... promoting or accepting forced apologies is bullying by the enforcer, insulting for the apologee, and contributes to societal indoctrination of insincerity. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:27, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Fascinating. According to this number, AIPAC spends $3 million, as contrasted with the $90 million attributed to Bloomberg L.P., which tops the list of organization donations. [2] (That is linked to Michael Bloomberg, who also founded Bloomberg News) But there is a catch here, which is that apparently AIPAC is not a PAC! They claim "force multiplier" effects, and have claimed to have fabulous powers of persuasion. (“You see this napkin?” he said. “In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin.”) Now to be sure, Kevin McCarthy, who criticized Omar, was lambasted for his own message - "We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election! Get out and vote Republican November 6th. #MAGA" - because George Soros, Tom Steyer, and Michael Bloomberg are Jewish. [3] (It didn't help that some idiot sent Soros a pipe bomb that arrived the day after that)

Now, the obvious problem here is that we have good reason to mistrust our numbers and better reason to distrust our news. Politicians are supported by "small donors" nowadays, and so a politician may be offered an envelope full of 20 credit cards good for $1000 each. [4] As the Atlantic Council reported, I think here, the modern "small donor" claims are essentially meaningless, though I don't endorse their proposed solutions. In this context, lobbyists for Israel stick out like a sore thumb because their interests and backgrounds are both pretty obvious, plus there is a certain degree of rote anti-Semitism in play, plus a probably larger degree of entirely legitimate anti-Likud/Netanyahu policy sentiment. It is true, of course, that there are many other rich people backing spectacularly awful ideas, who are noticed less. The question then is how do people collect a MEANINGFUL set of data on who is REALLY influencing public opinion with money and how much each ... and, of course, how do we put it on Wikipedia! Wnt (talk) 15:49, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Wnt (talk), lots of very interesting, to me at least, info, especially in the New Yorker article, that I had no idea of.

I suppose one problem with having an article about the relative effect/success of the lobbying by different entities might be that the entire article might be seen as O.R. or synthesis. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:10, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Mark Dice

I have to say I am utterly disgusted by Mr Dice's behavior now (and far more disgusted by the actions of his supporters), and can now see why some criticized your decision to try and accommodate him.Slatersteven (talk) 15:51, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

NPOV is fundamental. Viewing things through the lens of "accommodation" is mistaken. My argument remains completely 100% valid: not liking someone or their political positions is not a valid reason to ignore their concerns about their biography in Wikipedia. I will continue to advise Mr Dice that confrontational behavior is not helpful to his cause, but at the same time, it shouldn't really matter - Wikipedia is about the facts of reality, and that is the only thing that should guide us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:21, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Dice has nothing to bitch about now. We (well, not me, some you lot) have just given him a ton of free publicity. He shouldn't have any trouble getting YouTube 'views' and selling a few more books, at least for the next short while. - wolf 08:34, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is fundamental yes, however so is WP:CIVILITY. Not only is Mr Dice being confrontational to other users, some of those that he recruited have developed this attitude. It's really not helpful at all to the encyclopedia. They need to learn to drop it.-- 5 albert square (talk) 09:17, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Certainly. Civility matters.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:14, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Utter fucking bullshit; remember those days or they seem a bit hazy? ∯WBG^converse 15:35, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Result of Trollmeter measurement:

                      Trollometer 
   
   0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10
   ___________________________________________________
   |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
   ---------------------------------------------------
         ^
         |
   
   Only a 1.2? Sorry, try a little harder next time.  Thanks for playing!

--Guy Macon (talk) 07:33, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree, and even supported your view on it over there. The problem is that it is now clear to me (you no doubt disagree) that Mr Dice was in fact just as much pushing a POV, one aimed at promoting his work. The actions of his fans were far worse (and was vandalism in some cases, acts I am yet to see him condemn).Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Why would I disagree? And I thank you for that support! The point is: I don't care about him or his motives, I care whenever any article needs improving. I advise people regularly that being spectacularly aggressive with Wikipedians is super duper counter productive, and of course it is. But I think we are at our best when we make as sure as we can that our dislike of someone or their behavior is kept strictly separate from our mission of NPOV.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:14, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree that some of the tone of the counter arguments was POV pushing. I think the fact we cannot call him a media analyst is just bizarre. But the subsequent actions convinced me that Mr Dice was not being wholly honest about his intentions. After all after two days of digging we have found precious little to indicate he in fact really is notable anymore. I fell now that his aim was yo use Wikipedia to boost his ego and promote his work, as no one else seems to really care anymore about him.

But as I said the other side has not overly impressed me either, but then I have encountered this attitude before (mostly not about politics, but mostly the same users). As I have said elsewhere there is now I think a serious issue with civility and a band of elilte editors who seem to be able to flout it.

But I can also see why (now, after the Dice incident) they can sometimes forget themselves. It does not excuse it (as I have also said before, we do not convince anyone by these tactics), just makes it more understandable.Slatersteven (talk) 13:32, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

The core of the problem is your's ventures out of your t/p. You have questionable editing competency (esp. in these areas) and it might be better; if you choose to voluntarily refrain from your adventurism(s) in light of the destructive trail, left by them. ∯WBG^converse 15:38, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

You are free to believe that a person who is one of the most obnoxious (and mostly incompetent) character in the 'pedia can preach others about civility; I do not. ∯WBG^converse 07:45, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

FYI I nominated the article for deletion as I am convinced Mr Dice is not a notable personality: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Dice (2nd nomination). funplussmart (talk) 01:56, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Speedy kept. ∯WBG^converse 06:31, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

You might want to mention that you are the person who closed the AfD with a speedy keep (and a rather dubious "Invalid nomination" claim in the closing summary).[5] --Guy Macon (talk) 07:30, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Guy Macon, feel free to dispute that in a DRV. ∯WBG^converse 07:39, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, 3 users supported a SKRIT on grounds of invalid nomination. ∯WBG^converse 07:41, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

You are the only person in that discussion who used the word "invalid". WP:SKCRIT#2d simply gives a reason for a speedy keep (You were correct in speedy keeping the article) but nowhere says that the nomination is invalid. You added the "invalid" language as an editorial comment about funplussmart's nomination. Also, you aren't supposed to speedy keep an AfD if you think it in invalid. You are supposed to do a procedural close with an explanation so that the nominator can create a valid AfD. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:22, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

As I said I am not impressed with either side of this debate. Mr Dice should be treated by the same set of standards as anyone else, and should be treated with the same level of respect we would expect to receive. Just as I lost sympathy with Mr Dice over this I have also lost any sympathy or tolerance for the other side. To paraphrase a man who is civil to those he does not strongly disagree with but is uncivil to those he does is not civil.Slatersteven (talk) 11:06, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

OHWILLYOUJUSTCHAMPION THEPRINCIPLESOFTHESITEANDSTOPFIGHTINGOVERTARGETSBECAUSEyour backsides are much larger looking when they are stuck together, hung out over the one edge you think is separate. None of you really seem to think much of Dice. The truth will out for you. The war will end. Keep saying there is magic in racism and when it engulfs you, you'll wish you had kept the novelty boys closer. God I'm gonna sleep, maybe tomorrow, but frick the lot of yis. (generalised term of endearment)[6] ~ R.T.G 04:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

You are right I do not. Slatersteven (talk) 10:52, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

      Responding just 
      encourages them! 
           \ 
            >') 
            ( \ 
             ^^` 

--Guy Macon (talk) 14:46, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

And ignoring them legitimizes them. If people see one side of an argument, that is the only side they see.Slatersteven (talk) 14:57, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

"If you want sense, you'll have to make it yourself." ~ R.T.G 21:48, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

BBC Question Time

Hey Jimbo, seen ya on BBC Question Time's 14 February 2019 episode. GoodDay (talk) 16:01, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Gotta tell ya though, I disagree with your calls for another Brexit referendum :) GoodDay (talk) 16:17, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

It's not necessarily a terrible idea to have more than one referendum before making a major decision. Nevada makes voters approve a constitutional amendment in two successive elections before it is enacted, for instance. It helps prevent making a hasty decision based on whatever hysteria, panic, outrage, etc. is in the news cycle at a given point in time. 2600:1003:B11B:35C7:0:26:D0C8:1101 (talk) 19:45, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Considering the fact that this very project is based on the idea that any mistake can easily be undone and consensus can change, it would be weird if Jimbo did not believe in re-asking people if circumstances had changed. Regards SoWhy 19:53, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Goodness me. Asking folks to vote on a deal that, after 2 years, is still not totally agreed, but the consequences of which they at least now partially understand? A flagrant abuse of democracy if ever I saw one. Except that it's not even an !vote, it's an actual real legally-binding actualvote. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:59, 16 February 2019 (UTC) ....and yes Jimbo, jumping out of an aircraft without a parachute is almost as exciting as Jacob Rees-Mogg's bright shining unregulated tax-free Britain...

The continuing push toward EU-wide censorship under "Article 13" seems far more than what is necessary to flip someone's position on Brexit, even a 'hard Brexit', to full support. One might hope that as various European parliaments are directed to start writing censorship laws, they might put in a phone call to the British and start talking about how to file Article 50s and join a new trading community. Wnt (talk) 22:30, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

"Jacob thanks you for your investment and assures you that your dividend cheque is in the post." Martinevans123 (talk) 11:53, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I have a hard time believing that the UK parliament will be immune to such measures after Brexit. After all, the majority of UK MEPs also supported Article 13, so it's likely that they will make similar laws sooner or later, Brexit or no Brexit. Regards SoWhy 12:18, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

If the EU has a court that can stop censorship laws at the national level, it is worth having. And if it has a legislature that can start those attempts, whether or not they might have occurred anyway, but in any case overriding the national decision should it happen to be sane in the end, then it is not worth having. Wnt (talk) 23:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Are questions about your political opinions pertinent to Wikipedia?

Jimbo, given the influence you wield in your Founder's Seat on the WMF Board, and now on its Advocacy Working Group, are there any reasons that questions about your political opinions, goals, and affinities aren't pertinent to Wikipedia? I recently asked you, "where you would be on the tycoon spectrum. Do you feel closer to Dell or Hanauer?", a question I am returning here from the archives since a related opinion was recently expressed by Bill Gates, a well-respected luminary who has had something of a rough-and-tumble relationship with the free culture movement. Do volunteer editors have a right to know where you stand on issues affecting them? EllenCT (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Unless an issue has some direct bearing on Wikipedia/Wikimedia or the free culture movement, I don't think there's any good reason to have a political discussion on my Wikipedia talk page. You want me to offer a general opinion about wealth inequality and mention my role on the WMF Board but I see zero relevance. The WMF is not going to take any position on what the appropriate level of taxation is, obviously.

On certain other matters where I am involved in diplomacy or negotiations, I must deliberately sometimes hold my tongue if speaking is not in the best interests of the movement. I defer to the WMF on such things.

A good place to ask me about random political issues would be twitter or quora. But as I am not a political candidate running for election, and have no intention to ever be one, I do reserve the absolute right to speak or not speak on various political issues as my personal mood strikes me. So no, I don't think volunteer editors - or anyone else - has a "right to know where I stand" on such things as marginal tax rates.

On the other hand I'm a friendly and open person and I might answer just about anything that I'm asked - in the appropriate venue!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:05, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Do you like Japanese all-payer better than Canadian single-payer? They live longer and pay their doctors more. How about billionaires in general? EllenCT (talk) 08:14, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I have no opinion about the Japanese health care system. I have no opinion about the Canadian health care system. I have very little time or interest in learning more about either of them. As for billionaires, I have two responses: I don't know what you are asking me exactly, and I have made it very clear that this isn't the correct venue for such questions. In the context of Wikipedia, what do I think of billionaires? I think they should give more money to the Wikimedia Endowment.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:23, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I do, too. But suppose we live in a simulated universe where free will is a conserved quantity, say, available only to people in proportion to their resources and personal freedoms. What is the optimal distribution of free will required in order to maximize the rate at which the encyclopedia improves? Or the rate at which humans successfully produce independent space colonies? Is the optimal distribution the same for both cases? EllenCT (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Eh, I strongly suspect you're very biased on that subject. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:13, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Still, it would be interesting to hear an Objectivist's PoV on a "free culture tax" on billionaires, media corporations and lobbies. SashiRolls ^{t · c} 09:34, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Jimbo is still an Objectivist, although I believe he still holds reason, purpose, and self esteem as ideals for which we should strive. I ask him these questions because I have reason to believe from first principles that an Objectivist who has a hand in the creation of large successful public goods projects could be the "social antidote" to the problem of billionaires secretly lobbying harder than anything else to merely further enrich themselves, which is a human analog of the "paperclip generator problem" in artificial intelligence, a doomsday scenario caused by misalignment of coalition goals. EllenCT (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd thought about writing "recovering objectivist" since I don't know either. Really, though, I thought he'd be well positioned to comment about the advantages a tax might have over a voluntary zakat system like the one we have today (with all the customer service obligations one imagines that engenders, in terms of protecting the donors' wiki-keepers). Neutrality has said his copyvio of the five pillars of Islam for WP:5P was done in complete ignorance of the fact that Islam was governed by five pillars, including zakat. Longtime Clinton Foundation donor and contractor Craig Minassian would be interesting to hear in this regard, too, of course.

The solution is to create a JimboWiki and have each talk page (e.g. Talk:Brexit, Talk:Macedonia, Talk:Ilhan Omar, etc.) be devoted to inquiries concerning Jimbo's views on different matters. Then there would be an excuse to bother Jimbo with these questions, viz., that it is all in the interests of creating the most complete encyclopedic resource on all matters Jimbo-related. 2600:1003:B11B:35C7:0:26:D0C8:1101 (talk) 20:20, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

User talk:Jimbo Wales/FAQ? EllenCT (talk) 15:57, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

@2600:1003:B11B:35C7:0:26:D0C8:1101:Jimbo also has a real job... Jimbo is a website owner in his spare time. He provides a space where you can wiki up anything you want. If you want to learn Klingon or start a fan club, or simply figure out how to escape off the Star Trek Enterprise (), or just stop vandalising Wikipedia because your sandbox wasn't big enough, , there is a place (wikia). ~ R.T.G 11:48, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I think its bad all the way around when anybody expects to know what anybody else's opinion is on anything unless its a politician running for election. It is SOOOOOO stupid to see an actor or musician or any other celebrity on TV talking about politics....or so called "reporters" spouting off their opinions and interpretations. The only way democracy works well is for each and every voter to form their own opinions, based upon their own philosophical outlook and unbiased information that they are able to dig up, and share those opinions with whoever they feel like at any particular time. I don't give a rat's ass what Jimbo's or George Clooney's or my dentist's opinion is on anything political. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:27, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

What's happening on the other side of the US/Mexico border wall

WikiTribune could be more successful by covering the important stories that corporate mainstream media virtually ignores, while they give us daily national weather reports.

This is where I get more and more of my news: 70,000-worker strike brings auto production to a standstill – wbm1058 (talk) 00:26, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

The worker strikes are in Matamoros, Tamaulipas maquiladora factories. See Maquiladora § Unionization. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:08, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Quick question for Jimbo and all Talk Page Stalkers.

What's your favorite species of bird? Mine's the cockatiel. A Dolphin (squeek?) 15:27, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Does it have to be biological? I like little owls and chicken, but for different reasons, and the BNL Axiom from WALL-E. EllenCT (talk) 16:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Toco toucan. Really nice photo of one on Commons here. This should be nominated as a Featured picture candidate.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:23, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

A cockatiel/cockatoo? Oh dear! And by the way "I hate you", "you fucker", because "you always screw it up". [7] Gandydancer (talk) 17:53, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Mine has to be a Lorikeet. I remember befriending a few when I was on holiday in Australia a few years ago. Absolutely gorgeous birds - I remember one of them sitting on my hand and eating out of it one day!-- 5 albert square (talk) 23:47, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

• 
  The Big Duck

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:12, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The hen. --Malerooster (talk) 04:23, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Rubber chicken. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:36, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

A photograph of Sesame Street's Big Bird character

Leviv ich 06:45, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Quetzalcoatlus Count Iblis (talk) 06:45, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

"The text of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive has just been finalised"

Quoting MEP Julia Reda:

Moments ago, negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council concluded the trilogue negotiations with a final text for the new EU Copyright Directive.

For two years we've debated different drafts and versions of the controversial Articles 11 and 13. Now, there is no more ambiguity: This law will fundamentally change the internet as we know it – if it is adopted in the upcoming final vote. [8]

XOR'easter (talk) 19:57, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Any idea on how this will impact Wikipedia? THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 00:56, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

@ImmortalWizard: See this blog posting by Eileen Hershenov (former General Counsel of the WMF) for a brief summary. The main threats remain, i.e. the mandatory introduction of upload filters and the restrictions regarding news snippets. It all depends now on the final Parliamentary vote short before the EU elections. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:12, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

@ImmortalWizard: Cory Doctorow has also outlined it in June 2018 at EFF.org as well, especially how bad it will be for Wikipedia. Regards SoWhy 08:38, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Now can we have that blackout? This makes SOPA look pretty damn tame by comparison! Concerning Jimbo: we should get some expert opinion on whether any of the proposed Brexit deals would encourage or mandate this sickness to spread out of the EU into Britain. Wnt (talk) 13:44, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is Julia Reda's explanation of what has been agreed. The text of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive has just been finalised. The WMF has asked me not to speak to the blackout question just yet. I am seeking permission to do that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:48, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I am very glad to see you stand up for freedom of expression ... but not glad to see you having to ask 'permission' to do so, without immediate result. I don't know how things came to such a pass. Wnt (talk) 22:23, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

They are probably hoping to coordinate announcements for maximum impact. Anyway, the link you want to point people to is https://saveyourinternet.eu/act/ EllenCT (talk) 03:56, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I can't imagine for one moment that the whole of the UK's Brexit "negotiating team" have the slightest idea how any of "the proposed Brexit deals" would be affected by this new EU Copyright Directive. As you know, thanks to Theresa May and Donald Tusk, with six weeks to go, we currently have a grand total of two possible deals: (a) take it, or (b) leave it. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:34, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The alternative BBC Jimbo show has been cancelled. If you do not want to watch one of these, there is something wrong and it's not just me! Not everything stupid is, you know, stupid is it.., ~ R.T.G 23:52, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

The law started to get serious on copyright after the sixties. When Rock and Roll was out a singer could write and publish a song and be knocked off the top ten by four other artists performing their song. And, that had to be stopped. With that in mind, read the universitys story-->[9] our whole culture has been renewed in the last fifty years on the back of a free culture! The amount of music and television you need to sample to garner a true appreciation of contemporary culture is vast and could only be afforded by the rich no matter what. No matter what. They are murdering the richness of our children and nobody can stop them because in the midst of Occupy, SJWARRIORS, and when you think you are with the warriors ANTI/FA. And when you think the world is about cycling through to the right targets HILLARY/TRUMP/MEDIASCREAMING(hitler). And when we don't learn from that, we all eat cake on the back of telling each other we are avoiding that situation.[10] ~ R.T.G 03:39, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The more you take away from a pit, ...when they read that they don't say, what is the nature of a pit, they say, OHPITTHATSUS thats, that'll be our weapon... And that's no way to run a people unless something is very wrong, that I may not have the ability to run a people, but of that much I am sure. It's a lot of history repeating going on.. [11] ~ R.T.G 03:41, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

I am sad on Wikipedia at this very moment someone said once. ~ R.T.G 03:52, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

• "The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.
• The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.
• The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
• The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.
• That is no vision of a distant millennium.
• It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
• That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt, excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress, January 6, 1941"

I think it might be illegal for me to post a copy of this information in Europe. I'd better stop living in the past. I just can't seem to afford the future though. ~ R.T.G 00:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Fear of debate is a powerful kicker. You need to appeal to sympathy. The seventies was so much about the glam. In the 80s that translated to - what are you looking at. The 90s and 2000 was so much about the ability to speak. Now it's - don't even speak. (isnt it?) Freedom of speech. Freedom of panorama. There is no more past or future any more than there is a minute or a second. You only have one thing in this world for sure. If you are not looking into yourself when you mean to move forward, it is as if there is a curtain pulled before the window. Article 13 is an act of power and fear, as are all absolutes. None of your gods said they will save you before you are dead. They told you, that on the occasions when they did save you, you are to treat it as a miracle. Religion is not about waiting for miracles, but believing that they have already happened. You are given heaven, not to wait for death, but to live on this world with heaven in mind, so that you will not have slaves. So that you will not kill each other. It's not the copyright that is the problem. It's the absolutism and suppression twisting it. We get the right ideas, blame our superiors, then we allow them to remove all the examples. ~ R.T.G 17:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I am not in Europe, but God, who knows what will happen next in Europe? Will a lot of people protest? (Yes) Will all of the countries of the EU leave? They have no right for this to happen. They should have access to the Internet! And remember the SOPA & PIPA protests? Look at how many companies/websites participated! 4chan, Cheezburger, Craigslist, Creative Commons, Boing Boing, A Softer World, Cake Wrecks, Cyanide & Happiness, Demand Progress, Destructoid, Entertainment Consumers Association. Free Press, Failblog, Newgrounds, Good.is, GOG.com, Google, Gamesradar, Internet Archive, Marxists Internet Archive, Jay is Games, Mojang, MoveOn.org, Mozilla, MS Paint Adventures, Rate Your Music, Reddit, Roblox, Oh No They Didn't, Tucows, blip.tv, Tumblr, TwitPic, Twitter, The Oatmeal, VGMusic, Wikia, Wikipedia, WordPress, thr Free Software Foundation, the webcomic xkcd as well as the corporate site of the Linux distribution openSUSE and the congressional websites of Silicon Valley representatives Anna Eshoo and Zoe Lofgren. As well as widespread coverage by ABC Australia, CBC, BBC, der Spiegel, Le Figaro, Le Monde, Libération, Fox News, The Guardian, Menafn, News Limited, Sky News, The Age, The Hindu, The New York Times, Taipei Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Times of India. (From Protests against SOPA and PIPA) All we can do is protest and boycott. Now I wonder how much websites and companies and news companies will do against Article 13! I don't know what will happen to Europe now... From America, TheSmartPersonUS1 ^(TSPUS1) (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Encyclopedias for Deletion banner campaign

RFC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Encyclopedias for Deletion banner campaign for EU Copyright/Article 13. EllenCT (talk) 05:17, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Ugggh. This is bad enough to count as sabotage. We don't need inaccurate in-joke memes aimed at Wikipedia editors, we need solid factual and arguably impartial-ish information aimed at the far broader number of people who read Wikipedia but have never edited it. Wnt (talk) 14:09, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

How about this alternative?

EllenCT (talk) 16:42, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

"Don't let Europe take your freedom"? How is that neutral, accurate, or fact-based? The issue as I understand it isn't whether Wikipedia can provide free content, but whether our content can be freely reused. I'm not convinced that a banner should be placed but I do think the ones you've proposed are to close to being sensationalistic for me to be comfortable supporting them or anything like them. Ca2james (talk) 18:10, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ca2james: You mean free as in beer while I mean free as in both beer and freedom. How is it not neutral? Would you prefer "freely-licensed content" to "free content"? EllenCT (talk) 21:34, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT: I mean the phrase "Don't let Europe take your freedom" is not neutral, accurate, or fact-based, and is sensationalistic in tone. Are people about to be locked up en masse, or their civil liberties taken away if Article 13 is passed? No. They're not. But the use of "freedom" implies all that and so reads to me as sensationalistic propaganda. Also yes I do prefer "freely-licensed content" over "free content". Ca2james (talk) 14:46, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ca2james: we disagree. Do you deny that reasonable people may reasonably differ on such questions? EllenCT (talk) 06:28, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Where have I suggested that reasonable people may not reasonably differ on this or any other question? Why are you asking this question? Ca2james (talk) 16:54, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I just want to make it clear that our difference is one of opinion. EllenCT (talk) 17:50, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

What else would the difference be? I'm baffled by your last two comments in this particular thread because they make no sense to me. It almost seems like you're trying to imply that something nefarious is going on, but that makes no sense either. Ca2james (talk) 05:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

@Wnt: should I withdraw all my proposals and ask the Foundation to institute a copyright royalty distribution program to compensate editors in proportion to their needs times their likely future contributions? EllenCT (talk) 05:19, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

You should withdraw all of your proposals and do nothing'. There is zero chance of anything that you have proposed or will propose actually happening, and frankly, your ideas aren't very good. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:45, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

There is no such thing as appealing to emotion blindly, except when targeting those obviously experiencing emotions. Then it is the source of emotion. And other stories... ~ R.T.G 18:24, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Guy, I trust Wnt more than you on existential threats. Where are you on PolitiScales? I'm a Human Justice Ecologist. EllenCT (talk) 07:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

So far, unfortunately, I haven't found a definitive statement on this from the American Library Association, which is unfortunate. The ALA is a trustworthy organization widely associated with library professionals, so would seem more authoritative than a "savetheinternet" link. Additionally, to feature the ALA would not so subtly remind people that Wikipedia is fundamentally an American national organization expressing American national values, in which, if this passes, Europeans may be largely marginalized. It is possible that their Office for Intellectual Freedom would respond to WMF to help work out a campaign, if some people at WMF asked.

An approximation to what I have in mind might be something like

Proposed EU legislation would damage the ability of Wikipedians to research and generate content that is freely reusable. Current and historical news coverage would be severely impacted. See EFF's analysis for further information.

Wnt (talk) 14:31, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

@Wnt: I wasn't trying to get you in trouble, but now we have to come up with a meta:CentralNotice/Request which is serious, non-satirical in any possible context, generally unfunny, and against the playful spirit of comraderie and collaboration that exists at our very core, because this is for the rights re-users who slap ads on our content and try to make a buck from search engine hits, apparently.

How is that? EllenCT (talk) 06:21, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

That's not better: it's misleading. "Current and historical news coverage is at risk" is about Article 11 (which doesn't affect Wikipedia), but "The European Union has proposed legislation which will inhibit the ability of volunteer encyclopedia editors to develop and disseminate educational content under a free license" is about Article 13. Putting them together the way they are is misleading, not factual, and not neutral. Ca2james (talk) 16:54, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

@Ca2james: how would you put it? EllenCT (talk) 17:48, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT: I want to wait for the WMF to come out with something before proposing specific banner text. I expect the proposed text of the banner will end up being similar to the [banners] that received consensus the last time around. Ca2james (talk) 05:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

No argument there! Let's hope Jimbo gets permission before it's too late. I wish you had told me about those proposals earlier (nice!) EllenCT (talk) 19:57, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:47, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

That is all odd -- I had believed Wikipedia honored intellectual property laws, and to denounce the new EU copyright rules would appear to be a step in precisely the wrong direction. The idea that Wikipedia should be "immune to copyright claims" is truly weird. Collect (talk) 20:21, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Encyclopedias try to explain what the sources say. But this legislation makes it a "theft" to explain what a news story says. So there is an exemption for an encyclopedia ... but not for the place the encyclopedia author goes to find out about the source, nor the commercial redistributors who use the encyclopedia to find out what to tell their customers. Wnt (talk) 22:45, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

P.S. @SoWhy: (from the Brexit thread): That didn't take long. Same agenda, totally different excuse. Legislation like this makes Ted Kaczinsky look like the foremost thinker of our era. Wnt (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Suspicions on the safety of Wikiversity projects

Jimbo, I found this picture. It looks dangerous. So I followed it to a Wikiversity page from 2012. It said something to the effect of, repairing a desktop power module. He seems to have finished the work, he kept calling it the work, and then disappeared. Following the links connects the page to something called Howard_Community_College. Howard College seems to have disappeared at roughly the same time. I just woke my neighbour trying not to laugh. Maybe I'm wrong. The last entry from the page, "Finally, I made 3 small holes each sides of the power supply to help it to cool down. It does not a fan, so without holes it would get to hot." ~ R.T.G 07:10, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Seriously though, I thought the name was like Indian or African, and this guy was up a mountain somewhere with nothing but a spaghetti carton ("I found a spaghetti carton". he says). Howard College is in Columbia, Maryland. I feel like I am ratting somebody out for smoking weeds or something. But this was a different kind of smoking. Can I put a warning on that page or? ~ R.T.G 07:32, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Please don't post false information about electronics and safety on prominent Wikipedia pages. That's an ATX power supply, and the ATX standard supplies three positive rails: +3.3 V, +5 V, and +12 V. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:42, 20 February 2019 (UTC) _{(<-- an actual electrical engineer)}

Guy Macon, I mean, it does take 110VAC input..._{(<-- hardly "high voltage")} I didn't see him say anything about connecting that outer layer of foil to ground. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 14:33, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Okay look, it's not the volts. It's the wattage. 500 watts is standard pressure from a desktop PSU. 800 for a gaming system. All the voltage in the world isn't going to help you if that thing has a problem that makes it overheat without a cooling fan. It's the transfer rate. It could be battery operated voltage. You don't sleep with your smart phone under a pillow. There is a reason for that. A 12 volt battery starts a car engine. Very funny haha. It's dangerous and he knows it if he is indeed and electrical engineer. Without a fan... I don't even want to give an example. ~ R.T.G 14:52, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

examples ~ R.T.G 14:53, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Where I am from its not 110. It's 240, and that goes for a lot of places, including the UK. ~ R.T.G 14:56, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

But that's the propensity for electrocution. The problem with cardboard is overheating. The wattage. You know a 100 watt light bulb is a fire hazard. This thing is like 8 of them strapped together, wrapped up in cardboard, wrapped up in tin foil, without its standard safety protocols. It can't be truly safe. That's why the dust on your cooling fans goes a funny colour. It burns. And your CPU might only run 2 volts. It still burns. Very funny Guy you should give courses up in Howard College. ~ R.T.G 14:59, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

RTG, I mean, I'm from the UK, bit I was going by the target system. Heating is a good point. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 14:59, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Hmm. Might want to check that there in case there was a problem or something. ~ R.T.G 15:00, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

SHOCK! HORROR! Death. Destruction... You decide. ~ R.T.G 15:04, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Response to User:Bellezzasolo: (I have seen RTGs "inchoherent replying to himself" act before and am not impressed.)

I have looked at the notes that the student made. It is clearly an attempt by someone with very little knowledge (like I said,` a student) to hack some PC power supplies for more general use. While he would have benefited greatly from some advice from someone who knows what he is doing, hardware hacking by newbies is a Good Thing and should be encouraged. The student certainly shouldn't be criticized by the likes of RTG, who knows far less than the student and who focused in on one of the things the student did right, incorrectly calling it "dangerous".

What the student did right:

He had a plan.

He kept records.

He openly shared his plans and results with the world.

(All of https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Kmashaye5220/enes100 is worth looking at, Notice how much better he did on his third try vs. his first try).

His choice of a Pizza box was a good choice.

He didn't change the 120V connections. That switch connects the low voltage green power on wire to the black ground wire

What he could have done better on the Pizza box power supply:

Power supplies are cheap. He should have started with a PS that already has a fuze and power switch on the back.

The aluminum foil was just for show, and he should have cut it so that there was clearance around the output terminals. Or better yet, used paint.

He should have investigated why is is that the voltage / current / resistance numbers he posted don't follow Ohms law.

He should have calculated the power going into that resistor to see if he was overloading it.

The "ventilation holes" are too small and to few to do anything. Fortunately, most ATX power supplies run cool if you don't give them a maximum load.

All in all, a good job considering that he obviously had never done anything like this before. I hope he got a good grade. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:21, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Even if it works, it looks a bit amateurish and not ideal. In the UK and Europe with 230 Volt AC mains, there needs to be considerable care with anything connected to the mains supply.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:33, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

True, but doing things that look a bit amateurish and not ideal is what amateurs do. If we discourage the person who is just starting out, eventually we will have no experts. Every engineer started out as someone with zero knowledge and zero experience. In this particular case, the amateur made no changes to the 115V circuit (he isn't in the UK. but that matters little. a 230V main gives you a 115V shock if you are grounded, and 115V is plenty enough to kill you) and only hacked the low voltage side. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:06, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Plans are way more crap than preparations ~ R.T.G 18:27, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think anyone would dispute that if this was going to be used for a long period of time, it should have a proper power supply case. Cardboard box ≠ mains power supply case.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:07, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. One can only hope that they discarded the first power supply they built at [13] and instead used the metal cased ones they built at [14] and [15]. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:25, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

Guy Macon is right on the money here. This is the kind of thing we like to see. To be clear, of course working with electricity is dangerous. But there is no argument to make in this case that would not include banning every picture of an amateur electronic project sight unseen, not to mention hikes over dangerous rocks and visits to tourist attractions in dangerous countries. I mean, you woldn't want to encourage some poor fool to take his life in his hands visiting the Pyramids just so he can post to Wikipedia! You're not a Wikipedian's parent and it's not your place to order him not to climb a tree to get a picture of the top of it. Wnt (talk) 15:36, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Except breadboard, but that's probably just an argument against progress. ~ R.T.G 16:07, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Thank You

Jimbo,Thank You for creating Wikipedia and make it possible to know almost everything about world.I am glad to have it on my phone but there is one issue,I can't able to move page due to lack of facilities provided by Wikipedia on mobile phone.I am so poor to purchase computer,please help me by providing move facility on mobile phone too.Reply me as soon as possible,Thanks a lot once again.Bhanwar singh vaish (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:50, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Hi, Bhanwar singh vaish! There is a mobile version of Wikipedia, Just scroll down to the bottom of this page, and click "Mobile View". --Thegooduser Life Begins With a Smile :) 🍁 00:58, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Mobile devices usually select the mobile version of Wikipedia automatically. The problem is that the mobile interface is somewhat lacking in features compared to the desktop interface. The way round this is to open the desktop version of the site in a browser (click on "Desktop" at the bottom of the page in Mobile view). This makes the text very small on a handheld device, but at least you get access to all of the desktop features, such as moving pages. You can pinch zoom to make the text larger. OP is correct that you cannot move pages on the mobile interface.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:30, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

The inadequate failed mobile interface should be deprecated and shut down, since years of effort and massive spending of donor dollars have not been successful in creating a fully functional mobile site. Programmers working on this failed effort should be reassigned or laid off. This is not cruel or unfair since there are plenty of jobs out there for competent programmers. The current site called the "desktop site" should be renamed the "fully functional site" because it works just fine on a wide variety of mobile and desktop devices, including the billions of Android smartphones that allow billions of people worldwide to easily access the internet and other interactive websites. We are directing many many millions of potential productive editors to an inadequate clunky mobile site that makes it almost impossible to carry out basic editing functions like moving pages. In my opinion, this is a hidden scandal. I use the fully functional but misnamed "desktop site" on my Android smartphone almost every single day, expanding articles, writing Good Articles, answering Teahouse questions, and carrying out the full range of my administrative duties, all without being impeded by the failed mobile sites and the failed mobile apps. Save WMF money which comes from good faith donors. Shut them all down now. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:52, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

How about an opinion on Flow which will not die, see mw:Talk pages consultation 2019 and its talk. Johnuniq (talk) 06:57, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

The first mobile version of Wikipedia was launched in December 2008.[16] The problem is that apart from basic text editing, all of the other features have been removed. This limits it usefulness, although it is OK for reading Wikipedia on a mobile device.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:04, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

The Wikipedia model that Jimbo helped create absolutely depends on the ability of readers to click "edit" at any time, and have access to the full range of editing options. The Wikipedia model rejects the notion of passive readers and must always constantly invite readers to become editors. If there was some insurmountable obstacle that prevented mobile uses from editing fully and normally, then we could debate that. But that notion is a complete and utter falsehood. The only obstacle to mobile editing that exists is the stubborn refusal of WMF leaders to recognize that the so-called "desktop site" works perfectly fine on the vast majority of contemporary mobile devices. Denying reality, the WMF leadership directs countless millions of mobile users to inferior mobile sites and inferior mobile apps that impede easy editing of the encyclopedia. And the reading experience is inferior on these mobile sites and apps as well. What a sad catastrophe! Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:47, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

While I neither agree with nor condone Cullen328's harsh tone here, I too find the mobile interface frustrating.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:57, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

The larger picture is (trying hard not to be harsh) that we are unbelievably excellent at creating encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. but not so good at creating software. As far as I can tell this lack of ability to create good software persists as individuals come and go, and thus is most likely cultural. In my expert opinion the three main cultural issues that stop of from being a source of excellent software are: [1] The average editor being willing to accept substandard software instead of insisting that it be made right. [2] A fear (rightly or wrongly) among Wikimedia employees that if they engage in informal conversation with Wikipedia editors about their needs they will be punished, forcing them into overly formal interactions instead of just talking things over, and [3] Management priorities that reward bold new ideas that shoot for the moon while discouraging boring maintenance work like fixing bugs or improving help pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:37, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I for one appreciate the decluttered mobile apps of Wikipedia. A few years ago, third-party apps were better than the foundation's own app, but now this has been reversed, so I applaud the effort. Surely more features can be added, for example "move page" is a good idea, but replicating the full desktop experience should not be a goal. — JFG ^talk 15:36, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree that replicating the full desktop experience should not be a goal. I'd like to be able to easily get to talk pages, though - I think this is important for readers and editors alike. The ability to move a page is a fairly obscure thing to be doing and seems lower priority to me, but then again, I can't think of any reason not to include it (perhaps under a menu with several similar things, obviously, since it is relatively rare).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:19, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Misconceptions

https://i.redd.it/btu0nk335hi21.png

There seems to be some common misconceptions about Wikimedia.

It seems like people 1) think WMF can barely afford the servers, and 2) want their donations to go to pay the editors.

Benjamin (talk) 08:25, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

For those who want to see the entire Reddit conversation instead of 5 comments out of the 3,000 comments posted, see

Reddit Ask Me Anything: I am Steven Pruitt, the Wikipedian with over 3 million edits. Ask me anything!]

The very next Reddit post after the ones Benjaminikuta showed you[17] was:

that's a common misconception. The server costs are a fraction of wikimedia's (the people who run wikipedia's) budget. Most of the money now goes towards subsidizing projects that aren't nearly as high visibility as the english wikipedia. For example, foreign language wikis, projects to support taking pictures, hiring legal counsel, etc.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Browse_applications

Here's a lot of interesting grant projects that your money would go to as examples.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Outreach_in_Northern_Nigeria

Random specific one that was approved last year is trying to do outreach to get more people in Northern Nigeria to edit the Hausa Wikipedia, a language with 20 million speakers but only 15 active editors.

There's a lot of cool stuff the WMF does but they're a bit misleading in how they use your donations for it. On the plus side, they're probably the biggest non profit for fighting for free and open information today.[18]

--Guy Macon (talk) 12:12, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia

Hi Jimbo Wales. Just want to ask you if there's anything you can do to make it visible in mainlan China again? James Booker fan (talk) 02:35, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia is blocked in China by authorities due to political reasons. Internet censorship in China is probably the most extensive in the world. You have to persuade the Beijing Government to unblock it although it's very tough to do so, otherwise it's not possible. ―Abelmoschus Esculentus (talk • contribs) 04:11, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Despite reports that the whole of the Chinese Wikipedia at https://zh.wikipedia.org is blocked in China, GreatFire says that it is not.[19] However, GreatFire does report that numerous individual pages are blocked [20], including the usual suspects such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests from the English language Wikipedia.[21]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:19, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

@User:ianmacm @User:Abelmoschus Esculentus Well, I can see the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests page, but I can't see the en.greatfire.org link. They appear to be blocked as well. Thank you both anyway. James Booker fan (talk) 11:47, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Curious -- I have seen repeated statements that it is impossible to block individual pages of Wikipedia on account of https. Do the Chinese have a copy of the key now? Wnt (talk) 15:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

The received wisdom is that it is impossible to block individual pages on HTTPS. It is either the entire site or nothing at all (in theory, at least). There are also tools like HTTPS Everywhere which force browsers to use HTTPS when available. There is a "Test URL" feature on GreatFire, so I tested Wikipedia and it says "Blocked: 0% (in the last 90 days). "[22] There is also an online test here which says "en.wikipedia.org Not Working in China" and a similar result with the different test here. However, it would be useful to have results from someone actually in China.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, that was stupid of me - the link says right there that the pages are only blocked in the http form not https. But the mystery of their statement is that they show the pages blocked "since 2014" yet now they all automatically redirect to the https form. So I mean, you would have to intentionally type in something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_Protests in China in order that you get blocked instead of being sent to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_Protests - that's that only way, AFAIK. If you just went to http://en.wikipedia.org/ you should end up with a non-censored page, according to them, that immediately puts you into the https system for further browsing. Unless there's some caveat built into the redirection I don't know about. Wnt (talk) 23:28, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

China was building three crowdsourced encyclopedias over most of the lifetime of Wikipedia, but I don't know which have survived or will continue to survive. All of them were associated with for-profit corporations, but all of those corporations were either state owned or have since become state-controlled under subsequent datacenter access legislation. What I believe is the largest, while nominally owned and attributed to search engine giant Baidu, is not afforded any special protections, and is treated as a public utility. I am not able to read Chinese, so it might as well be Vulcan to me. None of the encyclopedias allowed, licensed, or otherwise controlled by the Chinese government are going to defy specific censorship requests. However, the law in the West is substantially different, being based on civil institutions such as a free, unencumbered press, just rewards for those who attempt to encumber the press, and a variety of other factors, some of which are often associated with "free culture" movement. Anyway, when VPNs are available trying to get the Chinese Wikipedia from China is easy. But VPNs are not always available, and some heavy fines have been imposed on those who provide them to others. Modern VPNs are difficult to detect, e.g., IP-over-HTTPS, with or without steganography, for that matter, but China has shown a willingness to deny aircraft permission to land when their corporate materials include "Taiwan" used to refer to a nation, so who knows what they really want. The use of intermediary authorities is an alternative for the Chinese government when simply offering cash doesn't work. Reliable sources abound. Solutions exist and are plentiful. EllenCT (talk) 03:39, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@EllenCT Yeah, that's why it bothers us a lot. Sometimes VPN is not that convenient to use, and after a while people just stop trying to visit these websites. (Even saying that feels a bit...censored) Btw, BAIDU IS RUBBISH. James Booker fan (talk) 12:46, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Soon VPNs will be repackaged as things you can paste into your profile for unfiltered access, and a dozen other such, all free and who knows which are tracked. EllenCT (talk) 16:58, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

I think encrypted SNI may be the game changer from a technical perspective. As it is implemented by major browsers and then major hosting platforms, the calculus starts to change. Right now, it is possible to block/ban a single domain name hosted by Cloudflare or AWS or any other major provider. After encrypted SNI rolls out, the choice will be the much more difficult choice to block all of Cloudflare or all of AWS, which even the Chinese would struggle to do, as these and other major providers carry a huge chunk of Internet traffic.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:22, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

If they actually care, isn't it more likely that China will simply mandate browsers are open to MITM attacks, and block access to sites when they can't MITM? I thought computers and phones intended for the Chinese market were already like that but it sounds like they aren't since the only discussion I can found relates to some historic problems with China Internet Network Information Center roots. Frankly I'm surprised they would be so silly, since I presume convincing people to trust those in the first place wasn't easy. I guess it does demonstrate that they don't care that much about the harm it causes to their own companies when it comes to getting their way with the GFW. Anyway whatever, easily fixed in the future if they feel the need. Start a GFW root completely separate from anything else. Mandate that by 2022 or something all computers and phones sold in China have this root, and likewise all browsers used in China have this root. Come time, start to block requests from then which can't be MITMed. For people still using old phones or computers post whatever, or who import their stuff, simple solution. Go to gov.cn and download the 火狐中国 or 铬中国 (okay I don't know if Mozilla and Google have trademarks on these, if they do, new names could easily be found). On Android phones, go to your Baidu app store and do the same. For iOS, well either Apple will have to allow these browsers to be on their official App store in China or bye bye Apple. Security risks for Chinese users? Sure, but if they care enough that won't be a barrier. Smaller governments without that level of pervasive control may be discouraged [23] [24], but the Chinese, probably not so much if they actually feel the need. P.S. Remember that HTTP Public Key Pinning is basically dead, so not something they need to worry about. Of course when you're making the browser that can trivially be disabled anyway. P.P.S. More technically inclined users can install the roots themselves and at least use normal browsers or computers/phones from outside China if they desire. Nil Einne (talk) 17:51, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

@Nil Einne I think they are already doing this in a way. Some of my friends cannot even get out of GFW when are abroad, because they use some app to help them go online without having to get a local phone number. James Booker fan (talk) 14:15, 20 February 2019 (UTC)

I am in a situation where I occasionally have to go the China and fix a production problem. This is in the toy industry so there is a big concern with industrial espionage as well as government censorship. My connection is through a corporate LAN or through the network at my hotel, and I assume that they eavesdrop on everything. I typically buy a computer with a CD locally, boot Tails (operating system) from a CD-ROM, and make my connection to the outside world through Tor (anonymity network). I have WP:IPBE, which allows me to edit Wikipedia.

I do not believe that it is possible for them to selectively block or eavesdrop on my Internet connection (ask me if you want to learn about defeating cameras in the room). Of course I am in a privileged position, because hundreds of workers are sitting idle waiting for me to fix the production issue. A Chinese national might very well get a visit from the authorities asking about his encrypted connection. And I don't do anything that the authorities would object to, like editing our Falun Gong or 1989 Tiananmen Square protests pages or anything political. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:40, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm surprised Tor isn't blocked. Benjamin (talk) 08:55, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

It's a bit of a crap shoot. It looks like an arms race between the censors and the evaders. For some reason I usually have more trouble getting a Tor circuit from my Hotel than I do from the corporate LAN. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:40, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Guy Macon What do mean by "our Falun Gong"? James Booker fan (talk) 13:19, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

The entire phrase was "...like editing our Falun Gong or 1989 Tiananmen Square protest pages". We, collectively, are Wikipedia. We have pages. One of those pages is about Falun Gong. This is often referred to as "Our Falun Gong page". Thus the sentence "And I don't do anything that the authorities would object to, like editing our Falun Gong or 1989 Tiananmen Square protests pages or anything political." --Guy Macon (talk) 14:23, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Guy Macon Sorry about that. Don't know what I was thinking. James Booker fan (talk) 15:27, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@Guy Macon OMG. I've read the page now. So Falun Gong is not that evil. All the time I was blind to it. I'm truly sorry. James Booker fan (talk) 15:45, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

@James Booker fan: So far as I know the group does preach faith healing and is centered on a 'charismatic founder' -- the Chinese-supported position at [25] seems to make a lot of sense. In recent years one often ends up in the position of having to oppose both a religious practice and the government crackdown against it, particularly if there is anything at all to the more remarkable assertions regarding members being executed for their organs. Wnt (talk) 17:30, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

In my experience and to my knowledge, the Chinese enforcement of the censorship regime is relatively "light touch". It is as much or more about creating a chilling effect on the domestic conversation there as it is about keeping information from people in some absolute sense. Ordinary people who have access to a VPN for work purposes will not generally get into trouble for reading Wikipedia or even for editing Wikipedia. It's not really a priority for the government there to do anything about that.

I have heard stories of people setting up mirror servers inside China, and the interesting thing is what happens to people who do that sort of thing. They get "tea'd" - invited to tea by the police, who basically say to knock it off. China is smart - arresting and brutally punishing some random Internet geek for providing access to Wikipedia would raise the profile of the issue, create a martyr for international organizations, etc.

What they are doing sadly works perfectly well because the vast majority of people just use their computers out of the box and if they stumble on a blocked website they stop and do something else. The control over information doesn't have to be perfect in order to be quite powerful.

The reason I think (hope) that encrypted SNI as the default in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and IE (if we get there which it looks like we will) is that it would be quite hard for China to insist that only MITM-enabled or insecure web browsers be used... their current Internet regime is generally "light touch" enough that they aren't really likely to be able to enforce it. And it is a legitimate security update with other positive effects having nothing to do with making censorship harder. I think the more likely scenario is that China's ability to filter/censor the Internet will dramatically diminish - and they will still do things to "take to tea" people who aren't behaving in a way they find harmonious. I think it's a game changer, but I don't think it's game over.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:33, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I keep reading that things have gotten worse and worse. [26][27][28][29][30] Meanwhile, Google has planned a censored search engine in China -- with hits to Wikipedia removed [31] -- so it doesn't seem like much of a stretch for them to put out a trick version of Chrome. In any case, there are lots of tricks out there for China to compromise certificates that I don't necessarily understand. [32][33][34][35] Now according to that it sounds like CNNIC and WoSign are out of the picture, which only makes me wonder who took their place. The attestations of the believers in liberty are so hollow, so uninformed, so temporary, so quickly forgotten, they can scarcely reassure nowadays even the first time they touch the ear. Wnt (talk) 21:23, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

With the block of zhwiki, some Chinese choose to read and edit enwiki instead. But because of the difference of languages, some people who don’t know rules/how to edit very well, are blocked. And more people just don’t want to edit because of the language.

About VPN: Before few years it was easy to buy a server out of China on Chinese server provider Aliyun or others and build VPN/Shadowsocket. But now, if you build the above services and use it, you’ll get a warn note to stop you from “linking to foreign networks illegally”. ——Tiger3018_🗫 17:27, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

Not "linking to illegal foreign networks" though. LOL. James Booker fan (talk) 11:36, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

luna.wikipeda.org?

Link: [36]

"When SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off on Thursday night, it carried humanity’s entire backup plan with it. It was headed to the moon, the world’s ultimate cold-storage unit. The Arch Mission Foundation (AMF) created the Lunar Library, a 30-million-page long compendium of humanity’s greatest cultural offerings, encoded it on a specially designed disc meant to last a billion years, and sent it to the moon to keep it safe. The Lunar Library contains a vast archive of human history and civilization, covering all subjects, cultures, nations, languages, genres, and time periods. Everything from the contents of Wikipedia, to a compilation of human languages, the Rosetta Project, books selected by Project Gutenberg, as well as genome maps, 60,000 analog images of pages of books, photographs, illustrations, and documents, and much of the world’s greatest art, music, literature, and scientific knowledge. It’s all encoded on a disc that is composed of 25 nickel discs, each only 40 microns thick."

--Guy Macon (talk) 18:34, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Invitation to User surevey 1

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

---

Hello! There is an ongoing survey going on at User:ImmortalWizard/User survey 1. As a fellow Wikipedian ImmortalWizard would like you to answer some questions. It wouldn't take too long, and your participation will be appreciated. Thanks, THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 16:59, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

ImmortalWizard, I know you are offering this in good faith but I would suggest you drop it. There doesn't seem to be any point to the "survey" except your own curiosity. And I see that you have been threatened with a block for spamming this announcement onto multiple user talk pages. In the future, if you want to do something like this I would suggest you check with an experienced user or two, to see if it is a good idea. -- MelanieN (talk) 17:11, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

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

Solicitations

I agree with the many others that WMF is deceptive in its donation solicitations.

I wonder how widespread this view is among the editing community?

Benjamin (talk) 08:18, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

It might be better to discuss a specific example or specific examples.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:50, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Video tutorial regarding Wikipedia referencing with VisualEditor

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Hi, I have received a grant from WMF to support production of a video tutorial regarding creating references with VisualEditor. I anticipate that the video will be published in March 2019. Depending on funding considerations, this tutorial might be published in both English and Spanish. If this tutorial is well received then I may produce additional tutorials in the future. If you would like to receive notifications on your talk page when drafts and finished products from this project are ready for review, then please sign up for the project newsletter.
Regards, --Pine^✉ 06:08, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Pine, do we have any statistics on what percentage of editors are currently using Visual Editor and/or MediaWiki edit toolbar? One would hope that a video tutorial increases the numbers, but what is our starting point? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:57, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

Hi Guy Macon, thanks for your question. I think that instead of looking at a change in the percentage of people who use VE as a measure of success for this project, I would prefer to look statistics such as (1) the persistence of new editors, with the hope that increasing their success with editing Wikipedia will increase the average number of edits and/or number of text characters that they edit before they stop editing, and (2) whether people who help new editors think that the video is a good resource that makes helping easier for them. My guess is that in the short term there will not be large variances with (1) as a result of this single pilot video, but over time and if more video tutorials are produced then I would hope that it will be possible to show statistically significant improvements in editor retention.

User:MMiller (WMF)'s team is also working on improving the usability of Wikipedia's interfaces.

It might be possible to use analytics to determine whether new editors who watch this individual video have higher persistance than editors who do not watch the video, but my guess is that WMF would not want to spend the time to do that type of research for a single video. However, I am very interested in getting feedback regarding both the draft video script and the finished video from people who help new editors, and I included that type of feedback in the measures of impact when I proposed this project for funding.

Thanks again for your question. If you have additional questions I would like to request (emphasis: this is not a requirement) that you place them on the project's talk page so that other people who are interested in the project can also see your question and participate in the discussion if they would like to do so. I will copy this discussion to that page. Thanks again, --Pine^✉ 23:19, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 February 2019

• From the editors: Help wanted (still)

• News and notes: Front-page issues for the community

• In focus: Wikimedia affiliate organizations seek community participation in 2019 board election

• Discussion report: Talking about talk pages

• Featured content: Conquest, War, Famine, Death, and more!

• Arbitration report: A quiet month for Arbitration Committee

• Traffic report: Binge-watching

• Technology report: Tool labs casters-up

• Gallery: Signed with pride

• Recent research: Research finds signs of cultural diversity and recreational habits of readers

• Essay: Optimist's guide to Wikipedia

• From the archives: New group aims to promote Wiki-Love

• Humour: Pesky Pronouns

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:16, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Oldest active editor

Hello! I've recently been editing pages about the early days of Wikipedia, including Wikipedia:2001 and Wikipedia:Wikipedia records, which document some of our "firsts". We already have things like the oldest surviving edit and the first user, so I thought it would be interesting to include the oldest editor who is still active in the project as well. You were the first candidate that came to my mind, but when I checked your edit history on XTools, I noticed that there have been some periods in which you didn't edit with this account at all. With a bit more research, it seemed to me that User:Rmhermen is the oldest continuously active editor, as their account made at least 1 edit per month since May 2001, except for 3 specific months.

You certainly know about the project's beginnings more than anyone of us, so if you are aware of any info that could be of help, I appreciate. Also, I've started a discussion here and someone pointed out that you and other early users edited with different accounts, which could compromise the total sum. You are invited to state on your opinion there. Thanks! - Alumnum (talk) 07:11, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm curious to know in what periods you found me to be inactive on this account, that's interesting. Is that in article space only? I can't imagine there being any substantive period when I didn't even talk on the talk page. I've certainly never taken a 'wikibreak' or left the project.

But of course there are very good reasons not to include me in such calculations at all - my role is my role, and so that's obviously different.

It isn't clear to me what it means to say that I edited with different accounts - this has always been my account. Perhaps this refers to the technical distinction of accounts pre-MediaWiki (the Usemod wiki days...)?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:36, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

According to these statistics, you were inactive from June to October 2002, for example. User:Graham87 said that problems with the software at that time were the reason users didn't edit, but the statistics for User:Rmhermen, another early user, show that they were substantially active in all months of 2002 except for February and July.

Also, like you observed, distinguishing between mainspace and other edits is important, and I've considered that. The page Wikipedia:Wikipedia records separates its records according to some categories; for example, it lists the "longest article", but also the "longest article that is not a list", since the longest mainspace page is a list. So it could be interesting to make this distinction among early users too, listing editors concentrated on mainspace, editors active chiefly on talk pages and perhaps project-related users like you and Larry Sanger as well.

Was JimboWales a different account or just a Usemod naming convention for this same account? Even if they're the same account, do the statistics cover your edits on those days as well? - Alumnum (talk) 21:11, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I said that in February and July 2002 there were several software upheavals. People of course edited then but recording of edits can be a bit spotty. See Wikipedia:Special pages bug reports and User:0, for example. Also, Jimmy, now that I remember, I think Jwales (talk · contribs) was also you; I'm assuming you created that account because of the brand new Phase III software/MediaWiki. this edit, where you said "This is the first time we've had a pure simple vandal use login", is rather amusing in hindsight. :-) As for 2001 accounts, JimboWales was a separate account name ... but the idea of logging in was different then (see the bit about logging in at the Wikipedia FAQ on the Nostalgia Wikipedia). Graham87 10:22, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Announce: For the first time ever, there is a proposal to delete an article published in The Signpost.

The MfD is at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-02-28/Humour. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:31, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm...is that an indication of {{{{{censorship}}}}}? ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 16:55, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is (censored) editorial. Advertisements. Copyvio. Gross language. Blatantly abusive language. It all gets deleted. Signpost humour has no meaningful mission statement. It is relying on slapstick and sarcasm. The skit uses such funny gestures as piped links, trans, for a Wikipedia welcome mat to upcoming language caused by protecting transgender. Any concerns have been tsunamied with personality and perception attacks. A good response would be to write a mission statement for Signpost Humour, ~ R.T.G 01:02, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

In my view, the term 'censorship' is only applicable when we are discussing governmental actions or actions resulting from some threat of the use of physical force. In terms of discussing matters of our own community's editorial judgment we should use the term 'editorial judgment'. It is my firm belief that Signpost is a community effort that should serve our community's values and needs, and that there is zero reason for it ever to be 'edgy' with humor or to in any way offend anyway. I haven't read the piece in question, but in general I would say that if something is published there which is later regretted, it is worthwhile to delete it. This is a wiki, after all, and the most fundamental fact about a wiki is that it can be edited and changed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:25, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

EU Copyright Directive

I have just been told that the vote will most likely take place on March 26th.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Is the Foundation planning an informational CentralNotice campaign? I'd like to withdraw my proposals if there are internal plans. EllenCT (talk) 20:06, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

I have seen only one of your proposals, and I found it less than completely factual and not helpful. Can you contact me privately for a discussion? I don't think what you are doing is the right approach and will result of the opposite result from what you are seeking.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:46, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

Jimbo, did the WMF ever get back to you about permission to speak on the issue? Benjamin (talk) 01:38, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:46, 1 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear you guys are working on this. Hopefully enwiki will call more attention to this than the last time. Daß Wölf 22:37, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm a little worried that when I try to access Wikipedia in the future I will be met by something like this:

"451: Unavailable due to legal reasons

We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact news@tctimes.com or call 810-629-8282."

This is what I get from for example Tri-County Times. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:45, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Billionaires funding the news anchor millionaires to keep the population in check

See here. Count Iblis (talk) 19:23, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

I speak a lot these days about possible solutions to the financial troubles of the profession of journalism. One of the things I like to empahsize to people, especially those who are comforted by the patronage of billionaires, is that this is not a desirable or sustainable model. There are cases where I think it's a good thing - billionaires of some conscience who are concerned about the future of stable societies should be funding (in a very neutral and hands off way) journalism, and should be thoughtful about doing so in ways that don't simply kill off innovation.

Interestingly, I don't think that Fox News is technically speaking a good example of "billionaires funding the news anchor millionaires" since, as far as I am aware, Fox News is quite profitable. So it isn't as if Murdoch is spending his money to push his ideas. I'm not defending it, of course, I'm just saying that it actually looks like a different kind of problem than billionaire patronage.

A better example might be (I don't know enough about it to say as it appears to be an emerging story) the Saudi ownership of a 25% stake in the Evening Standard. I find it hard to imagine that the ES (which I enjoy, as it is a decent free commuter newspaper here in London) is likely to be a particularly brilliant investment, and so I have to wonder (as many are wondering) whether the point of the investment has more to do with (improper) influence than about simple business.

To tie this back to Wikipedia - we depend on high quality third-party reliable sources. We need serious journalism to exist. We can manage if there is a certain amount of bias due to papers being left-leaning or right-leaning, as long as they are basically honest. It will get very tricky for us - and for the humans species - if the very notion of quality goes out the window.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:32, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

Thankyou for defending/helping Mark Dice. I just finished reading his book and encourage others, especially those who think he's some sort of bad guy, to read it with an open mind. This review is fair, and as someone in the "Bernie Sanders–Elizabeth Warren–Tulsi Gabbard–Andrew Yang wing" of the Democratic party, I found myself agreeing with most of this book. There's a chapter about Wikipedia in it, where he mentions your April 2017 edit to frame him primarily as a "media analyst and critic" rather than a "conspiracy theorist". On whether we can still count on the media to be "basically honest", Dice wrote chapters on CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, and MSNBC's failings in this regard. He should have included a chapter on Fox too, but his failure to include them doesn't negate his legitimate criticism of the so-called "left-leaning" media. There's too much pointless framing of people as left- or right- rather than simple discussion of issues. Here's my example for today of where the left and right share common ground... I feel like this Jimmy Dore video could have been made by Dice – actually, I think Dice's presentation style would be more different than the substance of his arguments if Dice were to make a video on this topic (maybe he already has). wbm1058 (talk) 16:32, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Roger McNamee has a new book out: Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe. I'm reading it now. wbm1058 (talk) 20:42, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Poverty isn't a lack of character; it's a lack of cash - Rutger Bregman THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 20:48, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Universal Basic Income is the core of Andrew Yang's presidential campaign platform. He also has the best rationale I've heard for why Trump won (it wasn't because of Russian bots on Facebook). UBI would likely bring Wikipedia boatloads of new volunteers. wbm1058 (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, the problem isn't Tucker Carlson (Fox News) but the CIA's Operation Mockingbird, manipulating news media for propaganda purposes and cognitive infiltration of chat rooms and Wikipedia by the CIA. Not to mention Jeff Bezo's ownership of the failing Washington Post, which is a known CIA accessory. Raquel Baranow (talk) 21:19, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

More debunking of conspiracy theories by a "channel that peddles conspiracy theories". I suppose as long as MSNBC is a "reliable source" we can't say that Rachael Maddow is a conspiracy theorist. wbm1058 (talk) 14:24, 28 February 2019 (UTC)

Count Iblis, thanks for that link. As a thank you I offer you this. Your link shows a really interesting discussion, imo, culminating with how the mainstream simply censor out information, aka knowledge, they don't like. Of course such censorship, including the "Classified Secret" epidemic which my offering from Peter Galison exposes, has an obvious crippling effect upon the comprehensiveness of Wikipedia or any other source of knowledge.

What is more disturbing to me is the acceptance, and/or chosen ignorance, of the reality of the extreme censorship, thus propaganda (by allowing only select narratives and knowledge to be widely disseminated we are constantly being indoctrinated with propaganda by default) by the vast majority of editors here who are quite capable intellectually to see what's going on.

Most of us have chosen to simply cope and make the best of the situation, but while we muddle along as best we can with the scraps of knowledge which are allowed through the reliable sources, I think, no, I know, the general population of Canada, the USA, and the U.K. are slowly being dumb downed and becoming more and more intellectually malleable. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:26, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Harvard Study - available for free download - "Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics", and BBC article, and NYTimes editor Jill Abramson tells all in her book, "Merchants of Truth: The Business of News and the Fight for Facts". It certainly justifies a bit of caution on what some once took blindly as "trusted" RS, and the need for corroboration and common sense. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 18:49, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Deletion of translation drafts

It seems like Wikimedia has begun to delete translation drafts after a year. As reported here.

How this is done hasn't been properly thought out from what I can gather:

• The system simply deletes a translation draft after a year, then after the deletion shows a notificaton to the user. No warning beforehand.

So there's no way for the user to save the translation. The system could at least email the user the draft when it deletes it.

I'm not even sure the deletion is necessary. I don't know the numbers, but storage space seems like a poor argument in the year 2019. I could probably store millions of translation drafts on a simple hard drive, and the translation feature isn't used that much, so probably all translation drafts could be stored on one or a couple hard drives.

--Distelfinck (talk) 19:35, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

A couple of my favorite distelfinks

I too am a bit confused about this, but in a different way. Please see my comments at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Content_translation (search for Smallbones). I had checked out what the content translation did to see whether it was any better than just using Google translate directly. I think it might be slightly better, but I didn't do anything with the translations and thought they were temporary in any case. A few weeks ago I was told that they had been deleted and couldn't even remember what they were and where they came from. In any case, it might be a good idea for whoever is running that to tell people what to expect and what the translations are good for.

My question for @Distelfinck: is what you were using them for that they had to be stored for more than a year? Were you reviewing the translation for later posting as an article? If not, why not just have the article translated anew? Hopefully nobody is just leaving an automated translation, stored off-Wiki, as a substitute for an article. More questions here than answers, I know. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:03, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi, the content translation feature is a split screen which shows you the original Wikipedia article on the left side, and you can type in a translation of it on the right side. I think they also offer prefilling it with an automated translation, as you mentioned. I am using the feature to translate articles from the English Wikipedia into German (not automated, but by hand), and had simply not gotten around finishing the translation --Distelfinck (talk) 15:42, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. That just underlines my thought above. That the folks in charge of this should let folks know what the content translation does, and what should be expected from the program. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:04, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

epistemology

I've been told "you are conflating good policy for wikipedia with good epistemology in general".

How are they different?

Benjamin (talk) 04:32, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Keep an eye on developments of your delegated reserve powers to delete content

Is deletion of a page an enforcement action that is authorised under discretionary sanctions?
Can AE admins delete pages under "other reasonable measures" as part of the enforcement process?.

In the beginning, Jimbo was God.

The principles were glorious, everyone was welcome and equal, the ruling principle was "consensus".

A little bit later, Jimbo created admins. He said: please don't delete recklessly.

A little more later Jimbo withdrew a little from his creation. He delegated admin selection to a community process, and reserve powers of editor judgement to ArbCom.

ArbCom was supposed to deal with protracted or difficult editor issues. Not content.

ArbCom is now divided on whether it is to self-authorize content control through the authorization of deletion as a reasonable measure enabled as "discretionary sanctions". cf.

Where is this going. Is ArbCom not constrained by community consensus, as documented with policy (eg WP:DEL; WP:CSD)?

Is ArbCom policy to be subject to ArbCom electioneering? Policy writing by election campaign? Is Wikipedia governance rooted in consensus, or in the decisions of elected ArbCom individuals?

Jimbo wrote: Final policy decisions are up to me, as always. ...<or you can fork and leave>... I must listen carefully to all elements of the community, and make decisions that are satisfactory to the best interests of the encyclopedia as a whole.

The authority of ArbCom to write their own policy that includes delegation to "AE admins" to delete content, per their own "policy", subject to review only by them, is a pretty big policy development.

A comment at WP:ARCA would be nice.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:55, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

For anyone who wants to give serious thought about how much power Jimbo has in theory for dealing with exceptional challenges vs. how much power he actually exercises on a regular basis, I would highly recommend this video: What Powers Does the Queen of England Actually Have? --Guy Macon (talk) 08:28, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

The Internet’s Dizzying Citogenesis Problem

Interesting article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:56, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia Cards on YouTube

Hey Jimbo, I was just coming to ask what is your opinion on Wikipedia cards being used on YouTube to dispel misinformation or to give more context. Around a month ago YouTube started to put info cards underneath certain videos with topics that were prone to misinformation with links to Wikipedia articles. after seeing a video about these cards I wanted to ask how you feel about how YouTube is using these topic cards to give more context and prevent misinformation.

Thanks, BMO4744 (talk) 01:28, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

@BMO4744: could you give a link to one of these "cards"? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Here's a random example: "RT is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government Wikipedia" –dlthewave ☎ 02:40, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

That YouTube video didn't mention the biggest tools for Russian propaganda - FB & Twitter. Jimbo...we are waiting in anxious anticipation for your feedback. 😊 ^Atsme 📣 📧 02:58, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I think this is great is what I think. We work very hard to be as good as we possibly can be, and we are and should be at the forefront of fighting against misinformation of all kinds.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:29, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

@Smallbones: here is a  ::link if that video is not sufficient BMO4744 (talk) 12:34, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I was just checking to see whether these "cards" were something new. The ones linked to have been around for awhile (6 months?). They look straight, short, and factual. Nothing controversial that I can see. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:44, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Jimbo - is there a way educational institutions/large & small nonprofits, etc. can create/add Wikipedia cards as an accompaniment to their YouTube public outreach/educational videos? For example, an environmental organization with a video about an endangered species has a link from their organization's website to a Wikipedia article and also have a WP card on their YouTube video to the article in Wikipedia? Those organizations are probably already cited in the WP article or they have an EL there so it's just more links in the chain. How do we get that done? ^Atsme 📣 📧 21:15, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Mostly great, but we have to watch out for companies making things everybody else's fault. (Like the way banks have made it so when they accept phony information that means that you "had your identity stolen") Suppose some wag adds a line to the MTV article falsely claiming it is owned by the Ethiopian government. If YouTube has an AI set up that automatically processes that into a warning that gets tagged on the bottom of all MTV News articles, and the music network is appalled by an authoritative-sounding claim on YouTube (sans the usual Wikipedia disclaimers) that they are foreign agents, then we have to make sure that the responsibility for that stays entirely with YouTube. Wikipedia is a resource, an encyclopedia built for long term accumulation of knowledge, not a real-time "reputation service". Wnt (talk) 12:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

The links are run by YouTube and wikipediaizing them would do more harm than good, the current system of disclaimers and wikipedia cards is pretty efficent and should not be a public device. BMO4744 (talk) 13:27, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia on Social Media

Hey Jimbo. I want to ask you this. Wikipedia has always been very social on their Twitter profile. The person/people running it have a very specific type of humor often being "relatable" when responding to people. Do you appreciate this? Or is it immature with Wikipedia's style. It appears in the end that they are usually just encouraging users to join Wikipedia for the greater good. I personally appreciate the effort given but that's just my opinion. AdrianWikiEditor (talk) 02:13, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Who does run that account? I would like to know because that account looks like nothing that comes from the site with the most depressing definition of fun.BMO4744 (talk) 13:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I enjoy it. I have no idea who runs it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:37, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

There is a Facebook page called "Wikimedia Foundation social media hub" where all the social media outreach work is discussed and coordinated. I just joined it. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:52, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

German Wikipedia to shut down for 24 hours to protest proposed copyright reform in the EU

Also interesting: Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours in Protest Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:49, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

This sounds like good news. Does anybody have links to the German Wikipedia discussions on this, or mainline news coverage? The link above to the Wilson Leader seems a bit mysterious. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:47, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

de:Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Protest gegen EU-Urheberrechtsreform. – Teratix ₵ 08:16, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Noses and faces come to mind. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 08:19, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

What can we do to stop this? Only 139 users voted for this shutdown of 2.28 million articles and rushed this in one week. It is clearly against wikipedia's principle of neutrality. I have this account for more than 10 year, am active even longer and contributed more than 500 articles and now they are abused for the political agenda of a small group. The wikimedia foundation should establish some regulations that oppose communities who make decisions against the neutrality principle for setting up political activism. The articles I wrote are not even political, there is no reason for them to be blocked for a day. This is the most demotivating act I ever experienced on the German wikipedia. --Christian140 (talk) 19:03, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia was right to protest something that effects them negatively.

"Under the final text, any online community, platform or service that has existed for three or more years, or is making €10,000,001/year or more, is responsible for ensuring that no user ever posts anything that infringes copyright, even momentarily. This is impossible, and the closest any service can come to it is spending hundreds of millions of euros to develop automated copyright filters. Those filters will subject all communications of every European to interception and arbitrary censorship if a black-box algorithm decides their text, pictures, sounds or videos are a match for a known copyrighted work. They are a gift to fraudsters and criminals, to say nothing of censors, both government and private. These filters are unaffordable by all but the largest tech companies, all based in the USA, and the only way Europe's homegrown tech sector can avoid the obligation to deploy them is to stay under ten million euros per year in revenue, and also shut down after three years."[37]

--Guy Macon (talk) 19:41, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

All of this was performed by 139 users in one week. Usually, the survey take much longer like a month. I want that the 500+ articles, I wrote under the banner of neutrality and free knowledge, are available on March 21. Guy, did you even say the site banner for that day? That's not just some half-way neutral statement about the copyright reform. It's an appeal to engage in large protests on the street, write their representatives in the EU parliament, go voting and even call this planned filter "error-prune and technically immature". How do they even know this. But what is worst, is that it states, the "authors of the German wikipedia protest". However, I couldn't even vote and many users are now protesting this planned shutdown since it looks like a small group of political activists is using the wikipedia for their course on the shoulders of active writers. --Christian140 (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Could you link to the discussion and indicate for those of us who don't understand German how many editors supported and how many opposed? Also, how was the discussion publicized? What I am looking for is evidence that those 139 editors were or were not a representative sample. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:48, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: Here is the result of the voting. My main point regarding the vote is that it is against the neutrality principle of wikipedia and that it was performed in the short term of only one week, which is unusually short. So, that makes it seem to me like a group of political activists hijacked wikipedia for their agenda and pushed the whole idea. I also asked to reopen the survey since there is no rule against it. The discussion was not widely publicized. There was an note in the Kurier (German version of Signpost), which I didn't see cause I rather look at the large articles and not the small notes. On the sites of Wikipedia Redaktion (maybe comparable to WikiProject Groups), there was no note left. Some users even noted that the survey might could not be accepted if only ~200 people participate, but in the end, nothing was done to get more accpeptance. And now, our only possibility to stop this, it seems, is to make an equally unfair survey that lasts for only one week. According to this, there were more than 5000 active users in the German wikipedia within the last 30 days. I want that at least the articles I started are available on March 21, editing and reading. There is no reason for them to be blocked. --Christian140 (talk) 08:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I do agree that a shutdown is extreme when a pagewide banner would be sufficient but this is the system that was created, each project makes its own decisions. So regardless of whether this decision was correct or not, this seems to be a prime example of appealing to Jimbo in hope of overturning a community consensus you disagree with. Since the WMF runs Wikipedia and not Jimbo Wales, he is the wrong person to complain to anyway. Regards SoWhy 08:57, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I already contacted Wikimedia Germany who replied that they are not in charge and it is rather the main Wikimedia Foundation. I just want to know what I can do now. For me, the survey itself was an attack on the neutrality of wikipedia. Wikipedia is funded by donations instead of advertisements to keep neutrality. But how can anyone now expect that the EU copyright law article can be neutral if the wikipedia takes a political action against it? I just want to know everything I can do, if all aricles I am the main author of can be editable on March 21, the articles started from my account, I there can be a note like "the wikipedia protests... excepts Christian140" or if the survey can be started again so that I can be on the opposing site. Anything. After 14 years, I have never been so fed up. The articles are write are regarding economics, culture, movies, biographies. There is no reason for them to be blocked. I do not want to participate in a project with clear political agenda that organizes protests and stuff. --Christian140 (talk) 09:13, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

All this information is in German, but I translate the result table here: --Christian140 (talk) 08:32, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Formal validity of the survey
I accept the survey	143 votes	76.1%
I oppose this survey	45 votes	23.9%
Sum of counted votes	188 votes	100.0%
neutral	3 votes

Vote about the content Should we protest against the EU copyright reform?
I support the protest	146 votes	67.9 %
I am against the protest	69 votes	32.1 %
Sum of counted votes	215 votes	100.0%
neutral	7 votes

Vote about the content How should we perform this protest?
Wikipedia should shutdown completely	139 votes	83.2%
There should be a banner while wikipedia is still available	28 votes	16.8%
Sum of counted votes	167 votes	100.0 %

I am happy to see the results of the German vote discussed here. I also like the mechanics of how they did the vote. I would like to see votes like this take place with a longer lead time and larger participation, but there is not a lot of time left. I'd like to see more community votes like this across all the languages affected. These decisions are up to the community, not up to me (obviously) or the WMF (perhaps not as obviously to many people, but that is our tradition and I see no reason to want to change it). In this case, at WMF request, I am not taking a public stand on whether or not Wikipedia languages should protest, nor in what manner (banners, blackouts), other than this: communities should decide with a thoughtful process consistent with their local traditions as well as the wider traditions of our movement, and all protests/banners should be scrupulously factual. A very bad proposal was posted a while back on English Wikipedia with a slogan something like "encyclopedia for deletion" - this banner would have given readers the false impression that Wikipedia might be deleted if the law passes, which is not truthful. I would not like to see banners like that.

Here are two broad principles that are core to everything that Wikipedia stands for: I think it important that voters everywhere be informed of what their legislators are doing and how it will affect them. And I think that Wikipedia plays a crucial (even pivotal) role in making sure that happens. The exact details in exact situations: these are for you to decide.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:35, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Christian140's concerns about participation, With a sample size of 215 out of roughly 5000 users, and 67.9% supported the action, If they had asked all 5000 active users the chances of the result dropping below 50% are really quite small. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:29, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

That's true only if the sample is random (or a close enough approximiation). If there's a huge self-selection bias, it could make a difference.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:46, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

I think we have to assume the sample is random, and if so, Guy is correct. I'd like to see a similar voting process here. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:19, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

According to what I gathered from de-wiki when I followed Christian's link, the vote was announced in their version of the Signpost twice as well as their community portal and their RFC portal which is sent to interested users via bot (de:Benutzer:GiftBot/Ausrufer) Judging from de:Spezial:Linkliste/Wikipedia:Meinungsbilder/Protest_gegen_EU-Urheberrechtsreform, I don't see any obvious canvassing in favor of a certain outcome and the list of notified users (via the bot) contains people on both sides but I'm not really familiar with de-wiki processes to detect any less than obvious pattern. Regards SoWhy 20:35, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

The sample is certainly not random with respect to 5000 frequent editors. On any topic like this there's bound to be a significant self-selection. However, even assuming we could somehow get a vote from a significant fraction of the 5000 users, we have to deal with the question of whether we should force a vote from people who chose not to participate in the survey. Also, what's the value of a vote from people who would weigh in without thinking about this carefully, or even with a completely prefabricated political opinion, as people usually do in such mass referendums?

What we can compare this with is a hypothetical vote of the same type that would've lasted several weeks or months, long enough to attract all occasional or temporarily vacationing editors like Christian140. Out of that selection, the sample of 215 really is random and statistically significant. Besides, 215 would be a fairly strong turnout even for en.wiki. Whether to think of such a process as experts self-selecting themselves, or a bunch of demagogues lording it over the silent majority is anyone's pick, but this is probably the best we can do (so far) when it comes to decision making. Daß Wölf 22:11, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

User:Daß Wölf: Well, maybe I am a vacationing editor for you. At least, I decided to leave the wikipedia now since I do not want to participate in political activist groups. However, I created over 500 articles in more than 10 years and one of my articles was just recently featured as article of the day. I was always encouraged to improve articles and often left out the politics inside the wikipedia since it costs so much time. But apparently, that makes me a temporarily editor. Well, now I am a former editor.

User:SoWhy: Me and many other users who focus on articles rather than meta discussion do not subscribe to Ausrufer since it's annoying. Until now, there never has been made such a decision against the principles of wikipedia. --Christian140 (talk) 05:23, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Possibly but I have not seen any indication that "you and many other users who focus on articles rather than meta discussion" are a homogeneous group that would have overwhelmingly voted against such measures if informed directly, so the problem of "self-selection bias" that Jimbo mentioned seems not to exist. Regards SoWhy 08:04, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you read this as some sort of derision, that was not my intent. Most (semi)active editors (definitely including me) miss days and even weeks on Wikipedia, and things happen in the meanwhile. My point was what SoWhy put eloquently above me: I see no reason to believe that people who missed that particular week would've voted differently than the people who only missed some other week(s) and happened be there and vote. Daß Wölf 02:24, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

@Daß Wölf: I'm also sorry. It seems it comes of like I firmly believe the vote would turn out completely differently if more users would have participated. I also know why. When it comes stating a complex opinion issue in English, I become lazy easily and am often misunderstood if I do not put much effort in my words. Although, I really believe the vote could have turn out differently, my issue is much deeper about the process and wikipedia.

I participated in wikipedia for 14 years since I always could identify with free software and free software. Writing is relaxing for me, so is reading. Already in university, I liked writing papers. I like order and thus the German category system of wikipedia. Moreover, I enjoyed the freedom of wikipedia and its neutrality. I am not really a political person. When I was really young in school, I was though, and I think I can make my own decisions in regarding politics if I need to. But now, the beliefs of few are forced upon me.

In my opinion, the whole idea is against the core of wikipedia. There are no ads on wikipedia to be neutral. But now, wikipedia positions itself politically. How can be secured that the article de:Urheberrechtsreform der Europäischen Union is neutral after this? The whole survey shows that it only takes 139 people to overturn every principle of wikipedia. There is even more to it. Of the 17 initiators, there are several members and former members of the board of Wikimedia Deutschland and admins as well as former admins.

Who protects wikipedia now if those 139 people turn wikipedia in a political party and close the encyclopedic project? This is what the process signals. This survey lasted one week. What if the next is only one day? So far, only one of the people who voted "pro" admitted that the survey has a legitimation problem and that "we" could only hope that the press (or anyone else) doesn't come to know what really happened. And this only happened after one of the initiators said that the vote is unnecessary since the rules are not changed and wonders if they couldn't just shutdown wikipedia without voting. A very provocative statement, leaving unclear if admins or the Wikimedia Foundation should have the power to shutdown wikipedia everytime they want for political actions.

Of course, by the people who voted "contra" and user who came too late to participate are discussing the lack of legitimation even more. With several users now talking about the "1%" (less than 1%) since according to this statistics tool, there were more than 20,000 active users in the past 30 days (The 5,000+ number is probably active users who have "Sichterrechte", but too lazy to look into it now since I am not at home). Compared to "administrator elections", the participation was quite low.

Other than me thinking wikipedia shouldn't be used as a tool to get their political will, my problem with the whole process is the behaviour of the initiators and some supporters. No one even knows how Wikipedia will shutdown and who will does it and apparently, only one user receives information about it. When I send a request to Wikimedia Deutschland, they just replied that they don't know. Moreover, despite there was a lack of information before, the initiators strictly go against the critics of the process, always claiming that we really don't have any right to complain with some "pro" voters even telling people to leave wikipedia ([38], [39]) instead of criticizing a long existing feature of wikipedia. They call themselves "heroes" for joining the protest against the copyright reform and claim that wikipedia's image will improve. However, this unnecessary action already cause long-term users like me leaving the project. I really do not want to be part of a political activist group.

Well, next week, we will see what the outcome is. If the press will speak positively or negatively about the shutdown. Last week, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported negatively about Wikimedia Deutschland. How will the news articles look like from March 20 to March 22?

I feel disappointed and sad about the behaviour of Wikimedia and the initiators. --Christian140 (talk) 11:37, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

While I agree strongly that Wikipedia should not take sides in political debates, this is an issue that affects Wikipedia directly. If an anonymous editor posts a copyright violation, then Wikipedia will be held responsible. A better approach would be to punish publishers for consistent and intentional copyright violations, and provide penalties for sites that refuse to remove copyrighted material when requested. TFD (talk) 05:42, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Citation needed. Actually, that is highly disputed. Since Wikipedia is not considered as a "Online Content Sharing Service Provider" by definition, the law reform has no effects on wikipedia. Several statements have been made, explicitly refering to wikipedia, that nothing will change for this platform. See this German release (by the Pirate Party Germany btw). Also, the protest banner of the German wikipedia says nothing about this. Instead, it states, that "the European Parliament decides about a law that could restrict the freedom of speech and freedom of press." Nothing about the wikipedia is stated there because it seems that it is unaffected. --Christian140 (talk) 05:59, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

"Article 13 gets Wikipedia coming and going: not only does it create opportunities for unscrupulous or incompetent people to block the sharing of Wikipedia's content beyond its bounds, it could also require Wikipedia to filter submissions to the encyclopedia and its surrounding projects, like Wikimedia Commons. The drafters of Article 13 have tried to carve Wikipedia out of the rule, but thanks to sloppy drafting, they have failed: the exemption is limited to 'noncommercial activity'. Every file on Wikipedia is licensed for commercial use." Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation, The EU's Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia --Guy Macon (talk) 06:33, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Let's be clear. Wikipedia must not "filter" to the tastes of all the totalitarians that have no power over it. To the contrary, it may be time for Wikipedia to recognize and return to the reality that it is a strictly American project that has allowed some foreigners to come in as guests. Wikipedia has never seriously tried to defy U.S. law anyway, and it may be time to explore, not further censoring Commons, but rather to drop the "courtesies" Commons has shown to foreign countries in not hosting certain content published in those locations even though it is legally public domain in the United States. If there are some parallel effects that come with this, like dropping the quixotic attempts to translate conversations into six different languages for "centralized" discussions, which are always months out of date anyway, that would not be much regretted either. Wnt (talk) 23:39, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Claiming that the German Wikipedia is a strictly American project or that they are foreigners we (the real Wikipedia) allow to come in as guests is a hard sell. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:07, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

What do you think about the situation?

• Note: although Wikipedia does not normally do content warnings, the link to "photo" below may upset some readers.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:41, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Hello, Jimbo. What do you think about deletion of the photo from article Murder of Anastasiya Meshcheryakova? Recently Elcobbola kept the photo on Commons. Кадош (talk) 21:09, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Warning readers that the photo in question is a woman holding aloft the head of a 4-year-old girl that she murdered. Stephen 21:58, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't really want to see that photo. In general, I don't see any reason for the article per WP:NOTNEWS. There are lots of stories about mothers killing their children - probably dozens or hundreds each year throughout the world. I'd put this in essentially the same category. It would seem like almost all these cases must be related to some type of mental illness. There's a hint of Islamophobia in the article. If anybody can stand wading through all the Russian sources in the article (no western ones that I saw), I'll suggest looking to see if there is any reason to believe that this case is notable, and then consider deleting the article. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:19, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

I just checked our article on infanticide to get a better handle on the numbers. It says "In the U.S. over 600 children were killed by their parents in 1983." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:27, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Quite notable - international coverage. Someone probably translated the piece from Russian and copied the sources from there - this could be written off English sources - they are available.Icewhiz (talk) 22:29, 3 March 2019 (UTC)

Smallbones, you said that "There's a hint of Islamophobia in the article" - I disagree with this assertion, because the article just represents facts. And the photo do the same - it just shows the fact. And each person perceives this fact differently, since we are all different. Кадош (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:14, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

As I was mentioned, I will offer a single comment, but will participate no further: This is a disgusting image; I find it to be in extremely poor taste, disrespectful to all parties involved, and a poor reflection on the judgment of those who would see it included in article space. That said, it was nominated for deletion for an COM:NCR reason, which, as I noted in my closure, is explicitly disallowed as a basis for deletion on the Commons. As an admin, I am to follow community policy rather than my personal belief when the two are at odds. The Commons is a media repository and does not editorialise what images its sister projects choose to use or abstain from using. Accordingly, the use or non-use of this image on en.wiki has absolutely nothing to do with the DR on Commons; its unfortunate retention there is in no way an endorsement of its use elsewhere and the implication otherwise of Кадош's comment is nonsense. Эlcobbola _talk 02:47, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I have long been an advocate of some sort of 'NSFW' image-hiding using javascript for precisely this kind of example. The image is arguably of historical importance, to be sure. It is also not strictly speaking necessary for an understanding of the incident, and it is upsetting enough that people should not be subjected to it in order to read the entry. Many otherwise intractable debates about this and similar matters could be made easier if we found a middle ground.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:21, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

On FB, I've seen such images/video hidden behind a warning - graphic images type notice. It's up to you to click on it if you have the stomach to see it. ^{Atsme✍🏻📧} 12:21, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

This is also the case on Twitter and Reddit for NSFW images, Reddit heavily blurs the image before the click and Twitter hides it behind a gray box. Both functions, I believe, are toggleable by users, and so should be the Wiki version. Pinguinn 🐧 15:05, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Related task: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T198550 24.182.243.114 (talk) 17:16, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED, but would normally need a very good reason for showing an image like this uncensored. Wikipedia is not LiveLeak, Bestgore etc. The whole article Murder of Anastasiya Meshcheryakova has WP:NOTNEWS issues and needs a good cleanup. The image in question has also been used on many websites to say "Aaand it was a Muslim." While this may be true, there have been reports that the woman was mentally ill.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:34, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

The woman was mentally ill - it's true. And the woman was a muslim - it's true too. Each reader pays his (her) attention to that part that he (she) wants to. Кадош (talk) 19:33, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I did not realise you were interested in historical significance, Jimbo! (new article) ~ R.T.G 11:16, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Jimbo, I have created template {{NSFW}} and used it to hide the picture in the article. Is that exactly you wanted? Кадош (talk) 19:48, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but hold on, your edit summary says "In accordance with Jimbo Wales' decision" and I don't make "decisions" of that sort. I merely offered an opinion about a constructive way forward. It's probably going to be better to discuss it on the talk page first.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:07, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

UPDATE I reverted the edit and left a note on the talk page. I agree with the edit, by the way, but I didn't want a constructive discussion about the concept to be sidelined by a wildly unproductive conversation about my role in the process!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:11, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

I suppose, that it would be better not to revert my edit in the article, but to hide my edit summary only. Кадош (talk) 20:26, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

It would be absolutely fine for you to restore the edit now. It was a harmless error to be sure. I'm sorry I had to act quickly, but trust me, keeping that sort of extra drama out of the discussion is a good thing. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:33, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Ironically, the image seems to be available on Commons and Wikipedia mainly because under Russian law, it is not copyrighted as it is CCTV material. Some incidents become famous because they are captured on film, and the Execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém is a good example. If this had happened away from the cameras, we probably wouldn't be talking about it today. The Murder of Anastasiya Meshcheryakova falls into the same category, because without the CCTV material we probably wouldn't be talking about it now. There is a case here in Britain where a woman killed her three children in 2014 due to mental illness, but it doesn't have its own Wikipedia article. No graphic CCTV material, perhaps?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:14, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

It might be good to have an article or category for "violent crimes by the mentally ill"? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:18, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

An article about the entire topic - certainly - but not if it focuses too much on one individual. I suppose that a few articles on the acts of mentally ill individuals are inevitable. The Assassination of James A. Garfield comes to mind, probably the University of Texas tower shootings, maybe even a long section on the murder of Stanford White (it was in a very good book and a well-known movie). But in general sensationalizing the acts of sick people is not in line with WP:NPV and WP:BLP1E. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:29, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, the broad topic coverage may be useful as a learning tool that includes numerous examples and how professionals of different types, (police, psychiatrists, relatives) interacted with the mentally ill before, during and after the acts of violence, e.g. here the police officer performed an incredibly cool-headed capture. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:40, 7 March 2019 (UTC)

There was nothing wrong with the image in the article as it was. How can an American majority that supports a death penalty where people are slowly and excruciatingly tortured in their name, who show endless tolerance to pointless wars run by god-robots who blast and burn innocent people from the skies based on "behavioral characteristics", possibly object to a colorful little image of a lady with a head in her hand? Walk down the street in D.C. in 2033 and you'll smell fifteen of these before you get to the Zeta Emperor's palace. This whole murder-the-world-and-faint-at-the-sight-of-blood shtick is ridiculous, and the whole world will laugh when they see the punch line. (No, they're not laughing with you, they're laughing at you) Wnt (talk) 14:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't find this rant in the least bit compelling, not about the image in question, and not about anything really.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:17, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

I find Wnt's observation hard to dispute intellectually, timely and not long enough to be a rant (albeit too verbose, political and inflammatory for many). I don't attend church but I did read Matthew 23 4 weeks ago and was amazed that in 6 different verses hypocrisy "hypocrites" was called out as being a terrible, stupid, and common trait among the leaders of society at that time. It might be interesting and thought provoking to do a thought experiment on whether, or to what extent, illogical hypocrisy (I might argue that all hypocrisy is illogical) grinds itself into the content and/or protocols of the encyclopedia. I'm not saying hypocrisy is obvious within any of our content or protocols, I have not thought about it, but it might be worth thinking about/examining. How this photo is dealt with may become a part of such an examination. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:06, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

You may have heard that Chelsea Manning is being sent back to jail again for leaking those videos and diplomatic cables. Without 'ranting' about the whole sorry charade, I should note that if Wikipedia were what it ought to be, she need never have dealt with Wikileaks. She could have simply set up an account here and uploaded her PD files to the world, and there would be no alleged conversations with Assange for her to not testify about. But Wikipedia is not what it is meant to be -- it has been hard enough for people even to cite the diplomatic cables, and it would have been hard to imagine the files not getting erased by some bogus argument. Wikipedia is full of people who actually want freedom and equality, but the structure of modern technology is one of dictatorship and centralized control, and that wins out every time. It may be that we should review the philosophical position of Ted Kaczinsky, one of the very few who would have warned us of this, but we certainly won't find his work on Wikisource due to unusually bogus arguments even for Wikipedia (a WP:OR claim that a sheriff's sale at a shack retroactively takes stuff out of the public domain), but nonetheless, certainly illustrative of why Manning had to find some radical Australian to help her get the truth out. But if we were what we should be -- if we stood on principle to oppose censorship -- she would be free right now. Is there not one person anywhere who will stand up to the Balrog, say 'this far but no further'? Must they all be Sarumons, each bowing to the 'inevitable'? Wnt (talk) 05:01, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

After sleeping on it, I decided that out of respect for the girl and also her relatives, I'm against showing the photo in question. I thought about it in connection with other death photos, but in the end, her innocent age and her direct personal identification/connection with the photo pushed me to the opinion that it would not be nice to show it at all. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:44, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, if you decide not to publish this photo out of respect for the relatives of the murdered girl, then it is quite logical to remove the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from article Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy out of respect for Muslims. Кадош (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:43, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Then why you have not deleted cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from article Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy? Кадош (talk) 04:20, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

Talk about the loss of all reason, upon a first step, is an attempt to free ones self from reason in the course of further debate. ~ R.T.G 11:16, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure the structure of modern technology is one of dictatorship and centralized control, it may be seen that way by some but I think the consumers and tech geniuses have the ultimate authority, whether they know it or not. Also, the whole internet scene is so dynamic and wild west, e.g. 5g, its impossible to see where it'll be in 5 years. One reasonable theory is that the top .1 % of programmers and/or hackers will be able to name their price and work on an hourly basis for whoever bids the most. Censorship is likely to die a fast death, imo, as people don't generally want it and its not as easy to do in secret as it used to be, simply because of numerous people like Assange, Chelsey and Snowden. Hypocrisy is also much more obvious these days to anyone paying attention and most people don't like hypocrisy anymore than they like censorship, so I expect hypocrisy, like the shtick you mention, will also fade away, at least among educated people. I was greatly impressed with the Town Hall Q&As on CNN last night with 2 young American politicians, one a very smart guy in a gay marriage and one a very smart female Hindu military veteran who's main theme is being ANTI "regime change wars", both of whom made the status quo American politicians look out-dated, phony, and inept. And with the woman, the CNN moderator was just in a state of shock at how she could not put the candidate into one of the standard category boxes. It was funny to watch.

My point is I think that nothing in humanity's future is inevitable. The buck stops with each and every one of us, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:32, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Haven't there been a hundred threads about this? It's long solved: Help:Options to hide an image EllenCT (talk) 00:21, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

There have been a hundred threads (and will be a hundred more) but that page isn't any kind of solution. The user is advised to "create a fork" (which is pretty offensive thing to say) or simply "stay away" ("It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor, won't you please, won't you please, please won't you **** off and die?"). But if that's not sufficient, the reader is advised to get her computer science degree and edit her CSS to do certain things which will be annoying or won't work, or both. That page is fine and has surely helped some non-zero number of readers, but its a long way from being a comprehensive solution on a practical level. Herostratus (talk) 00:27, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Following the instructions at Talk:Muhammad/images/example css, the original urgent motivation for all this, doesn't require a computer science degree. EllenCT (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Right, I didn't mean an actual literal college degree, that was hyperbole. My point was that for a lot of us, the VCR is still blinking "12:00" and will forever. And that's for us that are Western middle class people with high school degrees or whatever. Just looking at code like that is scary for most people, let alone imagining messing with it, not to mention the other practical difficulties of finding and blocking out each individual picture that you don't want to see. That's if you somehow become aware of the page's existence, which obviously requires drilling down into our arcane procedures.

It's fine. I'm not saying the page is useless or should be deleted. I'm just saying "long solved" doesn't really characterize that page correctly, so I wish people would stop saying that it does, because that contributes to discourse about as much as saying "Poverty is long solved, people just need to get motivated and learn some skills" or whatever. I don't have an opinion on the image in question, I'm just saying we can't say "Well we don't need to discuss these things and make moral/practical/political judgements, because there's a page that absolves us from having to do that annoyingly difficult and stressful thing". Herostratus (talk) 13:54, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

I went to the Mohammed page and read how that works. I thought, a really good idea would be to start Wikipedia:WikiProject Selective Content based on that information, instruct users how to create this css page and start a bunch of subpages where interested users could assemble categorical lists based on sex, violence, Mohammed, etc as well as content type, image, video, etc, etc. I've always wanted the ability to temporarily censor violence without censoring sex, and sex without censoring violence when searching for things on the internet. But it occurs to me the lists would grow very cumbersome for manually swapping in and out? ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 17:36, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Request!

Sir,I am the uncle of Bhanwar singh vaish who is blocked now. Please unblock him last time and I guarantee that he will not voilate Wikipedia any more. It's my humble request to you. Reply me as soon as possible. Thank You! Have a nice day. Jay prakash bais (talk) 09:32, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Appealing a block#Requesting to be unblocked. --Christian140 (talk) 10:11, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Selective censorship in general (e.g. New Zealand massacre)

I am defining selective censorship as photos, videos, manifestos etc. which are seen and watched by some news media people, some government leaders, any interested internet savvy people who dig a little bit (I assume), and, I assume, any special interest groups who wish to pass the info amoung themselves, but not readily available to the general public. Herostratus's comments in the section above led me to suggest this topic, although I am definitely not saying that Herostratus in any way suggested that we discuss this specific topic. Its just that I thought about putting this as a sub-topic to that pre-existing section but ultimately decided this topic should stand alone.

I obviously made the decision already that I support selective censorship in some cases, e.g. the photo referred to above. And the only thing I can say about this evil attack in N.Z. is that a discussion about the selective censorship of the video and manifesto may be worth having. I did spend about 10 minutes searching for the manifesto as I was particularly curious as to in what way, if any, it differs from the pre-existing The Great Replacement conspiracy theory. However, after a few dead links I sort of lost interest, as maybe most other people would, which may indicate its no big deal whether or not the general public has easy access to such material.

Obviously, regarding this particular event, a discussion about finding and including external links to the video and manifesto should be at the talk page for the event, but I'm just wondering whether selective censorship in general is on some sort of trend line which makes it more important as a general discussion topic within Wikipedia and, if so, where that discussion should take place? Perhaps just having such a discussion is inappropriate anywhere on Wikipedia? I'd like to hear Jimbo's thoughts about that aspect, if you have any and wish to express them. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:11, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Iterating my positions on deliberate violations of laws applicable to other nations, and therefore to their citizens who access Wikipedia … First, copyright law is not "optional" - the video copyright is not validly "creative commons" under NZ law - which is where the video was made. Nor is "copyright" a meaningless issue. In addition, we have the deliberate naming of suspects on an instantaneous basis - even where such naming is banned in the locale involved -- the Richard Jewell case is pertinent. Wikimedia has to be cognizant of the EU laws concerning "right to be forgotten", Right_to_be_forgotten. Unless and until Wikipedia completely rewrites policies and guidelines, including the explicit desire to not deliberately damage any person, these issues do not disappear. And none of this is "selective censorship" in the first place. Collect (talk) 15:22, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

That's cogent, and a lot of it is true, but FWIW I think that when push comes to shove, only Commons cares about copyright status where the work was created, the Wikipedia cares about what the status in the United States. Also, free use of 20 seconds or whatever would be allowed under our rules if all free-use criteria are met.

However, there's also WP:BLP considerations in cases like this. BLP is specifically empowered to extend to the families and friends of the recently deceased. I think it'd be reasonable to argue that families of people killed in the incident might not want the video to be published by us.

If I may, I wish people did not use the term "censorship" to apply to "editorial judgement". They're two different things, and using the same term for both makes my head hurt. Censorship applies to strictures imposed on an entity by an outside force (typically a government). The Encyclopedia Britannica would not publish a picture of *** **** ****ing a ***. That's not censorship, that's their judgement, and it's not optimal to end up where you're saying "The Chinese Baidu Encyclopedia is censored, and the Britannica is censored, and these two cases are similar enough that the same word can be used for both", because that doesn't improve clarity. ("Censored" is useful for polemical purposes or confusing the issue and that's understandable. But not helpful here.)

For this particular video, there're some sound editorial-judgement reasons to not publish. There're reasonable arguments on both side, but some arguments against are:

1) If it's harmful to the world (by, say, increasing the chance of a copycat killer, making the families of the victims sadder, degrading the social environment making the world feel an unhelpful toxic helpless anger, or what have you) then of course we shouldn't do it. "You never cease being a moral player on this planet. Never, not for one instant. Sitting down at a keyboard does not remove you from the moral universe." Wikipedia is fucken website, a hobby, fer chrissakes. You weren't put on the earth to do fucked up things, so get your priorities straight. It truly gobsmacks me that people don't get this. "My dog just got run over, but Wikipedia rules require me to remove these unsourced BLP statements at once, and Wikipedia rules come first, so Fido can wait" is how some people roll here (or say they do), I guess. Other organizations mostly do not work that way, and to the extent they do, it's almost entirely due to profit motive. Which we don't have.

2) Images can actually impede learning. Technical fact-type knowledge, which is what we're about, is usually best gained when one is able to assimilate information on an intellectual level without being buffeted by strong emotions. Disturbing images and videos don't help this process; rather the opposite. If we were a TV news show or a documentary film studio, it'd be different. Those entities want to make people cry, cringe, yelp, laugh, get angry, hug their child, and so forth. If an article of ours makes you want to hug your child rather than be like "OK, now I intellectually understand more about why [horrible people] did [horrible thing], what the background conditions were, how it came about, why events unfolded as they did, and so forth", then we're not really doing our job right.

3) Videos suck. I mean, at imparting information. This is why the Wikipedia is text-based and not a bunch of videos. Our primary entry for the reader into understanding the video would be text: "A video [showing such-and-such horrific things] was livestreamed. Some important things you should know about this video is that it showed [thing] and [thing] and at one point even [thing]. Also, [more details about the video as necessary or helpful for the reader to suss the important things about it, how it was made and streamed, where it fits in the larger event, why the reaction was what it was, and so on]." Having to sit and watch a 20 minute video to get this same info is not optimal. (The video could also be included, as a secondary extra-info thing, but we don't make readers watch long videos for key info. Since it's extra-info, arguments to include it would have to be that much stronger.) Herostratus (talk) 19:45, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

^{( Buttinsky)} slightly off topic response to "videos suck at imparting information": Suggested viewing, suggested viewing The opposite is true such that they could compliment standard Wikipedia, rather than seek to replace it, is worth pointing out. ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 12:14, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

You suggest the edited "short Sandmann video" would compliment(?) Wikipedia? Collect (talk) 13:07, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Collect, this might be a semantics thing, I am pretty sure r is using the word "compliment" in the sense of "add something to" (Wikipedia), e.g. "gravy compliments mashed potatoes". Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:43, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Compliment: a polite expression of praise or admiration.. I, personally, have never, ever heard gravy "compliment" anything at all. Complement is a thing that completes or brings to perfection.. My point, moreover, was that unless a site has a full unedited "video" of something - that the edits may well affect the utility of such a video as a source in the first place. Collect (talk) 14:46, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

There is no reason not to consider accompanying outlines based in video, but quality guidelines would be more difficult than text not to mention bandwidth and infrastructure costs if they were popular. ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 17:23, 17 March 2019 (UTC) shorter nuclear timelapse, and I didn't find the examples of what is called "whiteboard animation", but it's a good style of informational short. That's my lot about it ty ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 17:32, 17 March 2019 (UTC) Not this but like that, a single huge image of small parts, very effective. ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 17:42, 17 March 2019 (UTC) "Compliment" was my spelling mistake. In fact "complement" is correct.

Right, the wisdom of its exclusion seems so obvious now, after you explained it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:32, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

The New Zealand shooting is a rerun of the Murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward, where the killer chose a live outside broadcast and uploaded a first person video of the shooting, knowing full well that it would lead to massive media coverage. The mainstream media is wary of playing along with this type of game, because it is giving the shooter the publicity they wanted, and may encourage other people to do similar things. As previously discussed, Wikipedia does not need to show a video of a beheading to say "this is what a beheading looks like". Another problem is that if Wikipedia did show material like this, it would probably get blocked in schools, libraries etc, regardless of the merits of the material.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:29, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

When has the mass media ever refrained from broadcasting a juicy story just because it gave some idiot the publicity they wanted and encouraged other people to do similar things? The only time they refrain from paying attention to a crime is when Missing white woman syndrome[40] kicks in. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:33, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

There was rarely a better example of an idiot wanting publicity than Vester Flanagan, in the Murders of Alison Parker and Adam Ward. There is a discussion in the article about whether the media played along with what he wanted. With GoPro cameras and live streaming now everyday technology, it was inevitable that sooner or later a mass shooting would be broadcast in this way.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 16:39, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

There is definite merit to having awful imagery available, but it is defeatist in the day and age of emerging functionality to use that imagery in a take-it-or-leave-it way in conjunction with a story... The story is of primary importance to all. Give words to all, and the horror to only to those who feel prepared and willing to view, across the board. ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 18:45, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

"15 minutes of fame" is just a stupid invention by media personality control freaks who want to control the news rather than reporting it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:40, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

To be quite honest I would rather that video be shown in full at the top of every pertinent article than have impressionable readers see the current one-sided introduction to White genocide conspiracy theory. EllenCT (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, I understand that you're really upset, I am too. Still... we have to step back from that, your suggestion is just not the way we roll.

@RTG:, Right, I mean videos can be a useful way to impart information.They can be useful for teaching. But we are not a teaching entity. We are a reference work, and any learning here is self-learning, which is way different. (We also provide material that is good for being made into teaching, which again is way different from ourselves teaching.) The Japan video you point to is good, but it's nine minutes long. I'm reluctant to commit nine minutes to something when I don't know if it will have the info I want. It's good teaching, to the extent that a non-interactive didactic presentation can be good teaching. It doesn't help me if I want to know when the capital was moved from Edo. It's not good if I want to browse the info, skip some and drill down deeper on other. It doesn't let me search on the term "Shogun" or whatever. It doesn't have any sources -- most videos don't, and when they do you can't cut and paste them. And so on. Videos are fine as external links tho (not the one in question here, obviously).

Oh and I forgot an important fourth reason not to include this video: politics (this is separate from the moral question). Anything that will bring disrepute on the project, cause us PR difficulties, give reasonable people reasonable grounds to dislike or reject us... this is a consideration IMO. A lot of people here don't agree, and are of the mind "Damn the torpedoes, principle can't be compromised, we'll go down flying our flag if need be!" -- which is also reasonable, compelling, and maybe right (altho not a reason for going out of our way to offend The Squares, which I think sometimes you do see). But IMO functional organizations consider the effects to the organization of actions by the organization, as a data point. Not the deciding point, maybe not a major point, but still a point. Herostratus (talk) 10:45, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I struck that video, @Herostratus: and added after, "shorter nuclear timelapse" the originally intended 3-ish mins version which makes it more interesting. For the relevant issue here, it is not right to attempt to delete such imagery from history, however we should purposely fear such imageries normalisation, should we not? ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 13:33, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm the one who added the link to a news article featuring the manifesto, which remains in the article. I did not add the video link on account of the copyright claim, however ludicrous it may be, because I knew it would get taken out on that formal basis. However, the video remains available to this moment in Bestgore's collection for the Ides of March, and I would encourage you to look at it.

The censors seeking to exploit this tragedy to put New Zealand under the arbitrary rule of internet monopolists [41] are relying on squeamishness and fear to persuade people that they should give up their most cherished liberty in exchange for a protection they don't need. It is not merely that the video is less horrible than I expected -- because I had looked at it with the expectation that there would be people running around blind with their faces blown off and trying to stand on the stumps of bullet-fractured legs, and in reality it looks not much more graphic than an FPS game. It is not merely that it fails to deliver on any stereotypes that racists might expect when censors make a show of blocking their communications (there are no men swinging scimitars yelling allahu akbar, just a bunch of totally ordinary people going about a totally ordinary gathering). No, the reality is that the video is inspiring and it is not about the killer at all.

Oh sure, if you watch the censored LiveLeak version, it looks like the killer is the protagonist of his story, playing his merry jingle as he goes out to star in his own personal fantasy. But the moment the bullets start flying, that changes. Tarrant is no longer even a major character -- it becomes an epic about an unnatural disaster where the people of the town play out their own individual stories. The brave tackler who spurns what looks like an opportunity to escape to the right and instead tackles Tarrant, nearly getting the gun and saving the wounded and the people at the next mosque. The wife terrified for her husband who throws caution to the wind for love, and pays a terrible price.

What we see are not people shown in a bad light, defamed, disgraced -- we see human beings as recognizable as any we know who have suffered and died, with human feelings as strong as those we have seen in our own families, people with nothing to be ashamed of. The wicked urge to censor the video is a denial of that -- the same as the sick trollish comments you see on Bestgore; they are two ways of not facing the truth. But if Nazi trolls are ever the only people who will stand up for my freedom, then by God I will stand even with Nazis before I stand with censors, monopolists, and dupes! Wnt (talk) 00:12, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

All righty-roo then. Herostratus (talk) 22:42, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Wnt, because I like to know what's going on. And your comment above led me to the killer's manifesto which has a link to one of our articles, based on U.N. data, which has been around since 2011, and which now is up for deletion, with the largest portion of the wording re: the reason for deletion devoted to the fact a link to the article was included in the killer's manifesto. The article deletion aspect is thought provoking, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:48, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi there!

Hello Jimbo! I joined Wikipedia 5 days ago, but yesterday, I got promoted to autoconfirmed user(Yay!) I joined Wikipedia because I want to add some of my knowledge to the rest of the world. Now that I am an autoconfirmed user, I can talk to you on this page! Just dropped by to say hi to the co founder of Wikipedia! ;) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thatphatguy (talk • contribs) 13:15, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Welcome! --Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:50, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Double standard

I am extremely upset about what is happening at Talk:White genocide conspiracy theory#Renamed Critics section to Criticism and I ask that the RFC and discussions there have the benefit of review by additional editors. EllenCT (talk) 19:19, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I am an independent editor and as requested I just reviewed your recent edits and the reversions of them. You are wrong. You keep insisting that the white genocide conspiracy theory contains the idea that low birthrates are bad. Your basic error is firmly based on your original research and not on what any reliable source says about the WGCT. The actual WGCT consists of the belief that low white birthrates combined with high non-white birthrates are bad, and the belief that this is a a deliberate conspiracy. Neo-nazis who hold this theory would be quite happy if the birthrate of whites went down while the birthrate of non-whites went down farther and faster.

The WGCT is still an incredibly stupid and racist conspiracy theory, and there are may excellent sources that say so, but you are not helping things bu attempting to misrepresent what the white genocide conspiracy theorists actually believe. You are setting up a straw man of your own creation, then knocking it down. Please stop. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:26, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Guy, if you are independent, can you point to any single time where you've interacted with me without complaining about me or opposing my work or suggestions? There are no sources in the article or that I can find saying that the conspiracy theory involves high non-white birth rates; all of the sources, including those in the article, only discuss low white birthrates.

The discussion going on there is surreal. Several senior editors are citing WP:OR to mean something other than inclusions unsupported by reliable sources. Several senior editors are claiming that WP:NPOV says that sources balancing an error must refer to the error instead of merely contradicting it. A senior editor has claimed WP:FALSEBALANCE means exactly the opposite of what it says. EllenCT (talk) 01:38, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

My interactions with you have been based on your bad edits. It may be that you have made good edits elsewhere, but I haven't seen them. See Talk:White genocide conspiracy theory, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#White genocide conspiracy theory is unbalanced and Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#Are these edits to White genocide conspiracy theory original research? where many experienced editors have told you that you are wrong and nobody has supported your proposed changes. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:55, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Re "The discussion going on there is surreal. Several senior editors are...", can you think of any possible reason -- any reason at all -- for everybody telling you that you are wrong? Any reason other than "everybody else is wrong and I am right"?

There once was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway. Upon hearing on the radio (over the honking horns) that there was a drunk driver who was driving the wrong way on the freeway, he peered through his windshield, noticed all of the headlights heading toward him, and exclaimed "My God! There are DOZENS of them!!" --Guy Macon (talk) 05:16, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Anecdotes are fun but in this case no one here is driving on the correct side of the road. Collect (talk) 12:53, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Only commenting here after seeing this raised on a bunch of noticeboards (which is what led me to the RfC). This seems really really simple. these sources do not mention the white genocide conspiracy theory, and yet you are arguing to include them not in an article about birth rates, but in the article about that conspiracy theory. Most of those sources don't even get into "white". This would be like going to the Pizzagate conspiracy theory page and adding scientific papers showing that pedophilia is bad. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:09, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

It's more like going to Black helicopters and debunking the conspiracy theory with sources that don't refer to it, which is exactly what it used to do before I pointed that out. It's a brand new requirement of WP:OR which has nothing to do with anything WP:OR says. EllenCT (talk) 15:26, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Use of bad sources in one article is not justification for using bad sources in another. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Guy, are the several paragraphs you wrote claiming that The Turner Diaries doesn't mention the white genocide conspiracy theory representative of the usual amount of care you take while editing, or do you reserve that level of effort for responses to me alone? How often do you avoid taking the effort to learn what you are talking about when you're complaining about me? EllenCT (talk) 07:48, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

The way to proceed is not always to finish the fight. Compromise says, "Further information about the implications and causes of fertility rates can be found here/example, and for reproduction scandals try example/here" or similar. ^{~^\}\_\.rT'{~ g 11:32, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

...which would be fine if EllenCT was trying to get material about fertility rates in general into multiple articles. In fact. it looks like EllenCT might be correct about fertility rates in general. The problem is that EllenCT is trying to get multiple articles to say that white supremacists are some sort of eco-warriors, concerned about fertility rates in general. All of the sources on white supremacists say that they want more white people (example: the repeated calls to make contraceptives illegal for white women) while at the same time wanting fewer black people (examples; the repeated calls for sterilization of blacks, the fantasies about race wars where the whites kill all of the blacks, jews, and liberals).

I don't understand why EllenCT is so committed to redefining what white supremacists believe. At first I thought we might be dealing with someone who wants to portray neo-nazis in a more positive light, but recent edits such as claiming "per talk" in an edit summary when 100% of the editors who bothered to respond on the talk page opposed the edit makes me lean more towards a WP:CIR issue. Alas, I think that this is going to end up an ANI or Arbcom. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:04, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Guy, your statement that my inclusions portray white supremacists as "eco-warriors" is preposterous. They want more white fertility and I've never said they don't. The "100% of the editors who bothered to respond on the talk page" you refer to in your objection to my "per talk" edit is one editor other than you, who said the material should be included in the body of the article, which is the only place I've ever included it. I agree there are serious competence issues here. EllenCT (talk) 18:57, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, assuming that a supremacist argument is 'low birth rate for whites is bad for whites, so we must have whites produce more', it would naturally follow that a counter would be low birthrates are a positive, but it seems that Ellen CT needs directly on point reliable sourcing: 'white supremacist argue low birthrate for whites is bad for whites and whites need to produce more, and this argument is directly countered by these scholars with the positives of low birth-rate, so this white supremacist argument makes little sense.' All of which the RS has to directly connect and say.

Why "developed-world" societies seem to foster low birth-rate is a complicated topic, but and so, EllenCT, Wikipedia cannot connect things that the sources don't themselves directly connect. And the complications are manifest and fraught, is low birthrate than good for all, according to sources, and is that a criticism of peoples with high birth-rates (ie. a criticism of non-whites)? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:47, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I agree that the matter is best served with benefit of review by additional editors. I was just thinking earlier, while wasting time on a facebook discussion, that Wikipedia discussions are the most constructive and least pre-determined of any that I personally have access to online. However, there may be an unavoidable conflict between the editorial judgment aspect (that I have been convinced is what comes into play here as opposed to censorship) and a truly objective analysis of article content. Editorial judgment, imo, is almost certainly impacted by current norms and mores, including cultural punching bags and taboos. I may be the only one here who personally experienced a time and place when so called "n____lovers" and "outside agitators" were viewed by the society I lived in and 90% of the people therein, exactly, and I will say exactly, as white nationalists are viewed today.

And just to show you how terrible it was, I remember so well how downtown Tallahassee erupted in so much celebration, whooping and a hollering, including celebratory gunshots, that I thought something truly wonderful must have happened....but to my shock and angry dismay, it was celebration that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered.

The point being, most everybody believes they are on the "right" side of controversial issues, but only time will tell, if then. In the meantime, EllenCT, I think you're just way too far outnumbered in terms of what the editorial judgment is and is going to be, regarding any article that touches on white nationalists, white supremacists, me-too, mass migration etc., because, as I say, editorial judgment is influenced by current public opinions. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:56, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't believe the editors opposing me actually want what they say they want. I don't believe they want to forbid citing sources about declining elephant populations in an article about an elephant population increase conspiracy theory, which do not refer to the conspiracy theory. If a celebrity commits a notorious crime, it is absurd to exclude sources about the celebrity written before the crime occurred from the article about that crime. I have an offer from a neutral third party to help with RFCs and I intend to take some time to get this right. EllenCT (talk) 19:22, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I mean, here are some facts on the ground:

We're in trouble, bad trouble. That's my opinion but I'm not the only one. All this reminds me of the 1930s, worse in some ways, one (but not the only one) being that the United States may not be a bulwark of democracy and liberal society as it was then. Anybody who's not upset, angry and scared is either half dead, on the wrongs side, or not paying attention when they should be.

That has nothing to do with the Wikipedia exactly (except that one might to recommend more people stop editing it and go do something which, under the current pressing circumstances, might be more socially useful. It is not 2005 anymore.) And even though it doesn't have anything to do with the Wikipedia, it's not *nothing* either. People are in pain, and they should be. And the Wikipedia is made of people. Templating, insulting, and taking a battlefield mentality with them might not be the best way to reach amicable agreement.

But just within the context of the Wikipedia, here are some things that are true (and can be sourced to reliable sources as needed):

1. The White genocide conspiracy theory people are concerned with birthrates. This is actually true. They are concerned with the *relative* birthrates between... people like them and people not like them, worldwide and/or in their particular country. I mean, why would they not be? (Not that White genocide conspiracy theory is only about relative birthrates, of course not. But it is part of the equation.)
2. One way to "solve" this is people like them having more children. Right? That is why people write stuff like "I encourage all white people to flood this land with white babies." Why would White genocide conspiracy theory people not write that? Of course they would. (See also Quiverfull, which is a lily-white movement, altho the article doesn't really tell you that.)
3. But "flooding this land" with any kind of babies, for the sake of it, has significant downsides. It does! This is not really arguable. It's pretty fringe to say that what the world needs now is a significantly higher overall birthrate. (And of course increasing the white birthrate, on purpose, is going to increase the overall birthrate, since they can't really prevent non-white people from having babies at their accustomed pace. I mean, sure, the white genocide conspiracy theory people can't really affect the birthrate -- but they want to, and that's what matters here.)
4. It's reasonable to tell people, in this context, the fact that there would be some downsides to an increased worldwide birthrate. This publication -- the Wikipedia -- doesn't roll that way, for various mostly good reasons. But it's not horrible. If another publication, let's say Time magazine, were to say "White genocide conspiracy theory people want to raise the white birthrate but there are downsides to this", I wouldn't fling the magazine to the floor and yelp "HOW DARE THEY? Are they insane, or just idiots, to put these two facts together in the same article? Cancel my subscription!"

Sure, we're not Time. But we're a respectable and benign information publication too, so it's not we hate them either. But sure, we have a different remit, and we don't publish stuff like that -- it's original research. So yeah, let's not. But I mean a lot of us don't care all that much about original research that is incontrovertibly and self-evidently true, and also helpful to the reader. We don't do it, and fine, but it's not something to lose one's mind over. (And in fact there is a great deal of original research in the Wikipedia that is incontrovertibly and self-evidently true, and also helpful to the reader, and the world hasn't ended yet.) Herostratus (talk) 23:56, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I hope I am nowhere near losing my mind. I took three days off from editing during which time I watched 1990s movies, sci-fi TV, and more recent shorts instead, and I'm dropping the whole birthrate everything until there's more feedback on my non-birthrate-related edits, if any, so the neutral third party help upon which I hope to avail myself can do all of the controversies at once. EllenCT (talk) 00:19, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

It sounds like editors are saying a lot of nasty things about each other when what they should be saying nasty things about is the philosophical and encyclopedic weakness of the article. I have seen many mainstream news stories in the U.S. about whites becoming a minority by date X, and elite opinion does favor the process by which that will happen. The issue is that whites can become a minority - indeed, whites could technically cease to exist - by means that most of us would not call "genocide" ... yet that word can and is applied extraordinarily widely in some contexts. Read through the table of quotes in genocide definitions and you'll see what I mean. The specific instrument of the "genocide" in this case is, ironically enough, the very one-drop rule invented by the racists themselves. So long as marriage or other reproduction ("miscegenation") between races is able to occur, it is inevitable that white will be wiped out, because it is the legal recessive of all races -- nay, less than that, because recessive genes combine and come back again when you least expect it, but one black ancestor in a population of a million whites ensures that every single offspring will be counted as black eventually by current U.S. definitions of the concept. Now yes, I know ... I'm proposing original research, which is why this lovely paragraph isn't in the article now. The sources don't understand what they're saying, the editors are calling things "conspiracy theories" that are real and inevitable yet frivolous concerns based on unnecessary social distinctions. So don't savage each other; when you play with broken toys hurt feelings just happen. Wnt (talk) 11:06, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Whether or not there are legitimate concerns held by some people, the conspiracy theory definitely exists. The white nationalists are not just saying that they are concerned about (what they define as) the white race disappearing. They are claiming that there is a deliberate conspiracy by blacks, jews, and liberals the create a word where (what they define as) the white race does not exist. That's a conspiracy theory. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:01, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

They are claiming they would give a worse life to "non-white people". What they are not claiming, and is nevertheless perceived as such by part of the targeted people is that they would give a better life to the "white people". Let us read how this "better life" is described in the Turner's Diary: half of white people purposedly killed by supremacists, and the other half transformed into cattle by political terror. What a better life ! Pldx1 (talk) 14:34, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

That's why I was focusing on the birth rates issue. Whether or not you believe human existence is zero-sum, there are still scarce resources and there will still be scarce vital resources for at least another half decade. The idea that more people, or more of any subset of people, does people or the subset any favors is in error. EllenCT (talk) 19:40, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Tying the two unrelated concepts of world population/carrying capacity and the white genocide conspiracy theory is originial research. You really need to drop the stick. You need to edit the white genocide conspiracy theory page without inserting any WP:OR claims regarding world population or global carrying capacity, and you need to edit pages about world population and/or global carrying capacity pages without inserting any WP:OR claims regarding the white genocide conspiracy theory. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:49, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Sure, Guy. EllenCT (talk) 21:53, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia used to label YouTube videos

I noticed that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUbxVfSqtt8 has text from Wikipedia at the bottom (with a link to our article).

I had heard about this but this is the first time I have actually ran into it (they don't appear to be putting the Wikipedia info on cat videos (cough)...I mean engineering videos. Yes, I am definitely watching EEVBlog and not Simon's Cat. That's my story and I am sticking to it.

I would be nice if the Wikipedia pages they use were listed somewhere so we can give them extra attention. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:11, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey, Guy - see Jimbo's archives where it was recently discussed. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:34, 24 March 2019 (UTC)

You got mail

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

(re:The Signpost)

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:21, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Copyright protest blackout in Czech, Danish, German, and Slovak Wikipedias

The copyright protest blackouts have started in the Czech, Danish, German, and Slovak encyclopedias to last for 24 hours (as far as I can tell, I can't read any of those languages). The Signpost would like to cover this event in some detail. Anybody who is fluent in any of these languages and would like to contribute is invited to contact the Signpost at our newsroom talk page. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:50, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Congratulations on your new role as Head Signposter, Smallbones! In related news (blacking out protests) I just saw that the 21st century protests template is up for deletion. (It's true, I read it on en.wp!) Something about too much noise & too many events / guys / etc. ... :P SashiRolls ^{t · c} 01:15, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. As far as the template goes, it's only tangentially related to the copyright protest blackouts. The odd thing about the template is that the title of it that shows up in the articles is just "Protests in the 21st century", which I'm fine with except perhaps it's too big a topic for one template. But the official name of the template is Template:Anti-government_protests_in_the_21st_century which is a whole nother kettle of fish. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:57, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Once it gets renamed "political protests in the 21st century," that template will be dandy for all kinds of first-world problems!

In the meantime, the petition to save Europe from the Directive—already the largest in EU history—keeps racking up more signatures, and is on track to be the largest petition in the history of the world. Cory Doctorow 18 Feb.

On Sunday, the streets of Europe will be flooded with demonstrators marching against the Directive. Cory Doctorow 22 March 2019

🐜 SashiRolls ^{t · c} 23:59, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I beg of you, Jimbo, please issue a decree to place a banner or do a blackout on English Wikipedia. The future of the internet depends on it. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 12:59, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

"The future of the Internet" is not at risk here, and this sort of "protest" does not advance Wikipedia's stated purposes at all. The idea that nations must make their laws conform to Wikipedia "consensus" does not fly at all. Collect (talk) 13:40, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

I don't agree with this perspective at all. This legislation is wrong-headed for Internet users and is a very real threat to the openness of the Internet. It will also entrench the power of the Internet giants and make things very difficult for smaller sites. To explain that last people - there is a "SME" exception which only applies to websites - of any size, no matter how small - which are younger than 3 years old. There are a great many wonderful communities which are not part of the Google/Facebook/Microsoft/Apple/Twitter empires which will now be forced to proactively monitor everything their users do with no safe harbor at all. It's devastating.

I don't know of anyone who claims that nations "must make their laws confirm to Wikipedia 'consensus'" - you may want to read up on the Straw man fallacy. The reason isn't just for the purposes of being more effective in debate - if you think my position is that, then you aren't really hearing what I'm saying.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:43, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I disagree, in that both the Article 11 and 13 17 proposals would change the availability of information editors use so drastically that it would be difficult, from a Wikipedia editor's perspective, to characterize "the internet" as essentially the same before and after either change. I hope Jimbo won't let whomever is telling him to be quiet about this keep him from joining the call for a CentralNotice banner campaign in all of Europe. P.S. Article 13 has been renumbered to Article 17. EllenCT (talk) 20:05, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

Nobody "tells Jimbo to be quiet". From what I can tell, the WMF and the board work together rather well, and there are times when they agree that it is better to present a unified view rather than having individual board members offer their opinions. This is a Good Thing. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:21, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, now what? Among other things, Wikimedia needs to ensure that Wikipedia is purely, exclusively, unrepentantly American, and that any foreign affiliates, I mean like-minded foreign organizations (whether in or out of Europe, because we see how things are going), are independent entities sharing nothing but the general public's access to CC-licensed material. The U.S. is where the internet started and it is where it will end. Wnt (talk) 12:51, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

Remix culture (Chilling effect). This has been going on for decades like enclosure. ^{~^\}\_\.rTG'{~ 07:23, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

• If you like rap music, here is the Robocopyright - Article 13 Rap.
• Prefer cartoons? The EU Just Destroyed The Internet.
• Our you can have a FPS talking heads mashup: Article 13 Has Passed

--Guy Macon (talk) 19:49, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 March 2019

• From the editors: Getting serious about humor

• News and notes: Blackouts fail to stop EU Copyright Directive

• In the media: Women's history month

• Discussion report: Portal debates continue, Prespa agreement aftermath, WMF seeks a rebranding

• Featured content: Out of this world

• Arbitration report: The Tides of March at ARBCOM

• Traffic report: Exultations and tribulations

• Technology report: New section suggestions and sitewide styles

• News from the WMF: The WMF's take on the new EU Copyright Directive

• Recent research: Barnstar-like awards increase new editor retention

• From the archives: Esperanza organization disbanded after deletion discussion

• Humour: The Epistolary of Arthur 37

• Op-Ed: Pro and Con: Has gun violence been improperly excluded from gun articles?

• In focus: The Wikipedia SourceWatch

• Special report: Wiki Loves (50 Years of) Pride

• Community view: Wikipedia's response to the New Zealand mosque shootings

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:03, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Jimmy,

Please note that the long quote you provided for News and notes could not be included in The Signpost because it was too controversial.

Happy April 1st.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:44, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

What quote was that, Smallbones? Benjamin (talk) 05:03, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Something about a tarantula, the English Channel, and John Stuart Mill. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 08:23, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

- _ - Benjamin (talk) 10:48, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Have you noticed what is in the news at the moment?

Have you seen what is In The News recently? I am referring to WP:ITN, and it is an ongoing procession of power and sadness for some time, regardless of available variety.

• News about power and death seem a dime a dozen today, in this real world. Worshipping that feeling is a shame.

• These are all dead end stories recently. Just now on the nominations page is a story about North Dakota, that actual remains of creatures which died in the dinosaur extinction event have been found. The nomination has been snowballed out with comments including, "non-sequitur pseudo-support for a thoroughly questionable scientific orthodoxy". The referred article, a featured article, is "Better suited to DYK", etc.

• Needless to say, there are no guides to prevent undue narrowing of scope. The full content of the criteria sums up: That the relevant article has to be updated with the news item. That the news sources believe it is a significant current event. That the referred article is more than a stub, preferably a "minimally comprehensive overview of the subject". Tell me something. Why does it have to be minimally comprehensive? ^{~^\}\_\.rTG'{~ 20:54, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I tried at one point prior to Bouteflika's decision not to run for a 5th term to get the ITN folks to put the 2019 Algerian protests (the "smile revolution") into "ongoing", figuring that could lighten the mood a bit. No luck: the tactic used was to say there hadn't been an update, then not to notice when significant updates were made minutes later. Last Friday there were millions in the street, making it by far the largest popular uprising on the planet in years. The Sudanese protests (2018-19) did make it to the mainpage for a brief time, but nothing to compare with the long period the Yellow vests movement spent there. Anyone wanting to help with improving the 2019 Algerian protests page is welcome to do so. It could be a nice break from Brexit... and some new perspective/energy would be good. SashiRolls ^{t · c} 13:26, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:AFD

An article you created or have contributed to has been nominated for deletion
Click the image for an important message. Like, it's April Fools' Day today, you know? So...   Keep   on   keepin'   on!    North America1000 12:39, 1 April 2019 (UTC) Support EllenCT (talk) 21:08, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation?

While I encourage a general discussion of legal matters and how the WMF ought to operate in a complex global legal environment, too much of this particular discussion doesn't strike me as helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:36, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
According to [42] and [43] a lawsuit has been filed against the WMF, but the actual court documents listed on those pages are behind a paywall. This page[44] allows you to download some of the documents as PDFs[45][46][47] but others are listed as "Buy on Pacer". Does anyone know where we can access those paywalled court documents? Here is the Wikipedia username listed in the lawsuit: Abd (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Related: ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive163#Abd blocked ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive188#Abd ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive211#Abd - Community sanction proposal ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive217#Reinstatement of topic ban ANI: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive224#Abd Arbcom: Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cold fusion 2 Arbcom: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Cold fusion 2 I am going to assume that, being part of the WMF, Jimbo cannot comment on any ongoing legal actions. I am under no such restriction, so I will be posting a copy of this at User talk:Guy Macon#Lawsuit against the Wikimedia Foundation? if anyone wishes to discuss this case with me. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:14, 4 April 2019 (UTC) If you have any good secondary sources, put it on Litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation. Was Abd the cold fusion editor? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:02, 5 April 2019 (UTC) He was one of the cold fusion editors.[48] --Guy Macon (talk) 08:07, 5 April 2019 (UTC) Cold fusion editing continued at en-wv after the actions at en-wp. The topic, broadly construted, is now subject to sanctions covered by a topic ban. --mikeu talk 17:20, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Is Rationalwiki owned by the WMF? -Roxy, the dog. wooF 08:18, 5 April 2019 (UTC) no, it's an entirely unrelated nonprofit of its own - David Gerard (talk) 00:36, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Guy Macon, I have a PACER account. What documents do you want copies of? Kb03 (talk) 13:27, 5 April 2019 (UTC) Just look them over and confirm that the ones I can't see are the usual boring secondary documents. I would like to know if the WMF has been served, though. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:28, 5 April 2019 (UTC) No, Rationalwiki is independent, that's just weird. They know about this though as I told User:David Gerard. This is a lolsuit (I stole that from the discussion at Wikipediocracy). A sock of the racist Mikemikev told me about it (claiming that I and User:Maunus were responsible for the demise of Rightedia, which sadly neither of us were a party to, and saying he's back at Metapedia (en.metapedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Lamprecht) where he will write an article about me. I told the WMF - I don't think they've actually been served but that's just a guess. Abd is trying to find out if the ban was the result of private communications from people who he claims were harassing him. This doesn't seem to have been his first lawsuit. Abd_Ul-Rahman Lomax has an Encyclopedia Dramatica article but you'll have to search for it as the link is blacklisted. Doug Weller talk 13:35, 5 April 2019 (UTC) Try this (encyclopediadramatica.rs/Abd_Ul-Rahman_Lomax} - the software seems to allow that. Doug Weller talk 13:36, 5 April 2019 (UTC) I should have added a caveat. Don't trust Encyclopedia Dramatic to be accurate, it's named Dramtica for a reason. Trolling seems welcome there. Doug Weller talk 16:43, 6 April 2019 (UTC) I passed it to the RW board, though we have no idea what, in any coherent sense, to make of it. All involved parties are banned as anything from RW and are still sockpuppeting furiously and getting banned instantly - David Gerard (talk) 00:36, 6 April 2019 (UTC) If Jimbo doesn't protest I think it can be discussed here in a general context because I think there is likely to be lots and lots of lawsuits going forward as American courts, imo, in general, are becoming less and less competent, thus, less predictable in terms of what suits they will or will not entertain, therefore (not talking about this specific case) creating a lottery mentality among potential plaintiffs. So, for example, I definitely think WMF should have a "no settlements" policy and that type of thing might be discussable here, maybe. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:57, 5 April 2019 (UTC) Lomax complains that his published SanFranBan was negative publicity that hurt his writing career, but it really depends on who his audience was and what he was trying to accomplish. If he was looking for street cred as a wiki-dissident, the ban may have actually helped him, by showing the WMF establishment was against him. 174.204.18.89 (talk) 02:38, 6 April 2019 (UTC) I am a member of the Wikipediocracy forum and I have been following this case and I know about the details of how all this started, I encountered Abd's trolling about ten years ago, the guy has not changed. Abd has opened himself up to countersuit and discovery. As one of our other members put it "The WMF can conclusively show that he's a net.kook with no reputation to harm. And the WMF can bury him in lawyers." As for the real reasons Abd was globally banned, it was for harassment and this can be seen publicly from his edits on Wikiversity. Abd was doxxing Wikipedia users (real names, photographs, addresses, work details, families) etc on his personal cold fusion blog to attack users that he blamed for getting his cold fusion project deleted on Wikiversity. You are dealing with a very vicious internet harasser. If Abd falls out with someone on the internet, he takes it personally and will stalk and libel that person, writing thousands if not millions of words about them on his blog. There are many victims of his. I would say his RationalWiki article is actually accurate in that description. Abd also sent Wikipedia users he blamed for his Wikiversity project being deleted "harassing emails". This user, complained about it here. That same user was also doxed on a public internet forum by Abd and on Abd's blog ( I will not link to that) but it can be found. If you check the rules "Inappropriate or unwanted public or private communication, following, or any form of stalking, when directed at another editor, violates the harassment policy." [49]. Abd's global ban was therefore justified. He was putting users real life safety at risk. You can also check Abd's block log on Wikiversity. He was blocked many times for his online vendettas against other users. The blocking admin wrote to Abd [50] "Your long term activity at Wikiversity shows a persistent pattern of long term disruption that has been going on for the past SEVEN YEARS! This activity has also drawn a great deal of unwelcome contentious activity to our site that distracts the community from developing learning resources." Since being banned from Wikipedia, Abd has been doxxing RationalWiki users on his blog and impersonating them. He has an obsessive habit of impersonating users he does not like and blaming his impersonations onto others. I have counted 102 banned sock-puppets that Abd has created on RationalWiki in the last 8 months. As for his next move, he wrote recently he is hiring a lawyer from money he will obtain from CrowdFundMe campaign he is starting. His only supporter on the internet is Mikemikev a neo-nazi he has defended. Apparently if someone gets banned from Wikipedia Abd will become friendly with (even if they are a nazi). I personally do not see his lawsuit going anywhere. This is an lolsuit. The man needs to get off the internet for a few days and get a reality check. No doubt he is following this discussion and will write 10, million words about it all and how he is being "harassed". Anon63622 (talk) 04:25, 6 April 2019 (UTC) I notice that absent from your narrative are any mention of list of names redacted etc. who figure prominently in Abd's version of events. Anyway, people were saying James Damore's litigation against Google was an lolsuit too, and you saw how that went. 174.204.18.89 (talk) 04:50, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Note: I redacted the list of names above. Please do not enable his problematic behavior by repeating it on-wiki. This results in a great deal of cross-wiki disruption. A checkuser discovered that the account that left a notification of the lawsuit on my talk page had numerous sleeper sockpuppet accounts.[51] We caught this before they could act. Not only do these actions have real world consquences but they also are a drain on the energy of the community. The more people who amplify his actions, and those of his friends, the more work for our staff to followup. I'd rather spend my time creating content instead of cleaning up a mess. Disclosure: my name was in that list but my identity is hardly a secret. I don't much care if anyone reverts my edit but I am very sympathetic to the harassed contributors who have reached out to me requesting help. The volunteers who improve our projects are our most vital asset and deserve to be treated with respect. signed John Doe #N --mikeu talk 01:22, 7 April 2019 (UTC) Is it possible that one of Abd's enemies tried to manipulate you into having this very reaction by placing that notification, as a joe job move? That was what Abd claimed in his 18 March blog post was likely going on. 174.204.18.89 (talk) 01:54, 7 April 2019 (UTC) 174.204.18.89, you should not be mentioning real life names taken from Abd's blog. This is one of the reasons Abd has been banned all over the internet. He tries to connect peoples real life identities with anonymous online accounts, he then claims he knows "100%" who the accounts belong to and digs up where these people work, but offers nothing more than his opinion. It is very dangerous business because he has no proof, only his speculations. In many cases he has turned out to be wrong (he claims RationalWiki users John66, Bongolian and David Gerard are all the same person - entirely wrong and he was forced to later admit that) but his leaking of real life names can effect people and their businesses. As for JzG, he is an admin here. Abd has impersonated him on several blogs, as he has impersonated Roxy the dog. I do not trust Abd at all, he has recently been attacking @Alexbrn: on his blog. When you spend your life online attacking people like Abd it discredits his version of events which appear to be fictional. His entire lawsuit is basically about a grudge he holds because a group of "skeptical" editors submitted his cold fusion material for deletion. Perhaps @Roxy the dog: or @ජපස: or @Mu301: can weigh in on this because they have been attacked by Abd. 2607:F710:60:0:0:BA:0:2 (talk) 11:42, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Cos I was asked, I believe abd's attacks on me are as effective in making a difference as a sparrow's fart. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 12:17, 6 April 2019 (UTC) It doesn't surprise me if Abd made some false sockpuppetry allegations based on a dubious interpretation of evidence. I doubt he did it maliciously, though. He's not the only Wikipedian to make that mistake; it happens all the time that SPIs are closed as "unrelated" because someone's suspicions turned out to be unfounded. That's just kind of a routine occurrence. I think it is debatable how much good can come from banning people for outing users off-wiki. It obviously hasn't stopped Abd from continuing to do it, because his SanFranBan doesn't affect what he does on non-Wikimedia platforms. And if Abd had anonymously outed people, maybe it would not have even been possible to hold him accountable. Because of this type of situation, users who want to keep their IRL identities secret should practice due diligence in not making it easy for people to out them, since the admins and Wikimedia have limited power to control the spread of information that a user has put out there about himself. I don't think impersonation is part of Abd's playbook; he is not known for being a manipulative guy. Some of his adversaries do have that reputation, though, and therefore it wouldn't surprise me if an impersonator framed Abd for impersonation. 174.204.18.89 (talk) 12:52, 6 April 2019 (UTC) I am one of the anonymous John Doe's listed in Abd's filing. Thankfully he does not have my real name and I only ever used an IP to edit Wikipedia. Abd wrote some negative things about my IP on his blog and some deliberately false claims about me claiming I was someone else and posting someones business details. I sent a complaint to the Wikimedia Health and Safety about his revealing of private information. You say above "and if Abd had anonymously outed people, maybe it would not have even been possible to hold him accountable," this is wrong, he is entirely accountable. He has no reason for doing it, other than harassment. It is not acceptable to be posting where anonymous online users live or work or trying to make those connections. Max Redhill (talk) 20:06, 6 April 2019 (UTC) What I was getting at was, the people who have been banned for off-wiki harassment, outing, etc. have been those who linked those activities to their own Wikipedia account. Another example would be michaeldsuarez, who made it known that he edited Dramatica as JuniusThaddeus. But not every harasser or outer does that, so not all are held accountable. 174.204.18.89 (talk) 20:21, 6 April 2019 (UTC) I don't know who this guy is - his dramas seem to have happened over the many years time I wasn't actively editing Wikipedia. But seeing this name, I notice a twitter user named @abdlomax has been favourite-ing tweets where I've been under attack over Wikipedia (for background see here). Also during all the low-carbohydrate diet drama centred on Skeptic from Britain I (and presumably a number of other WP editors) were being impersonated on one of the blogs covering the drama, in what looked like shit-stirring (for background see here). What can it all mean? Alexbrn (talk) 16:50, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Might want to ask the man himself at abdlomax@yahoo.com, which is the email address he has been at for years, and which is listed in the complaint. In anything Abd-related, I would caution against making assumptions about authorship, given the amount of impersonation that has been alleged. 174.204.18.89 (talk) 19:15, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Abd has recently attacked Alexbrn on his website [52], in relation to the Sarah Wilson drama. Recently Abd was also socking to remove Quackwatch as a source on an IP [53]. Abd usually refers to himself in third-person. As for the impersonations, a friend of Abd Mikemikev is likely doing those. Mikemikev is an admin on the white supremacist Metapedia and has targeted Doug Weller [54], looks like he has also been trolling on a bunch of accounts to promote Abd's lawsuit, example [55], [56]. Abd Lomax is a fake name, so this lawsuit will probably be thrown out. There has been no damage to his reputation. [elided comments] Regards. Max Redhill (talk) 20:06, 6 April 2019 (UTC) Re "Abd Lomax is a fake name, so this lawsuit will probably be thrown out", he didn't file under that name, he filed under "Dennis G. Lomax". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 22:47, 7 April 2019 (UTC) Oliver D. Smith aka. Anglo Pyramidologist is known to impersonate people then blame this on Mikemikev. Samantha Priss (talk) 08:03, 9 April 2019 (UTC) I am aware of the lawsuit. I personally consider it frivolous and an attempt to harass and intimidate. My block of Abd was justified and long overdue.[57] Ping me if you have a specific question regarding his activity at en-wv and/or the actions that I/we have taken to prevent disruption of our project. I can neither confirm nor deny that I am a "John Doe" in this case as I have not received any official notification off-wiki. I am not at liberty to comment further on ongoing litigation nor can I comment on some of the specifics of this block due to WMF confidentiality requirements. (My block was primarily based on on-wiki activity, however the duration of the block was significantly adjusted to take into account privately expressed concerns which would be inappropriate to share publicly.) --mikeu talk 16:58, 6 April 2019 (UTC) So I know there are a bunch of links here, and the gist I got is that this is a person who has banned for OUTing users, but who exactly is Abd and what is he trying to get out of this lawsuit? By who, I mean as a Wikipedia user and other known off-wiki accounts of his.—CYBERPOWER (Chat) 17:03, 7 April 2019 (UTC) As suggested by others, I can't really comment on ongoing legal matters. I should also add that in general, for routine legal matters, they are handled by our very competent legal staff and don't necessarily rise to the level requiring board attention.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:11, 8 April 2019 (UTC) Jimbo, even if Abd's Rationalwiki article is perfectly accurate, I am certain you don't want unsourced, unsubstantiated, derogatory comments about the health of any living person. If this was anyone other than your page, I would get on IRC and ask for oversight, but I ask that you ask or ask others to instead. EllenCT (talk) 03:52, 9 April 2019 (UTC) Abd posted to his cold fusion blog about the diagnosis in question, to make a point about how medical practices deemed "quackery" can often be effective. 174.204.18.89 (talk) 08:40, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

A goat for you!

This goat hopes the previous section gets archived sooner than it would othaaaaaaarwise.

EllenCT (talk) 03:56, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Lock

Could an administrator please add the Fully Protected lock topicon to the User:Jimmy Wales and User Talk:Jimmy Wales pages? Thanks Goveganfortheanimals (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

• @Goveganplease:Is it an joke on April Fools' Day?--CopperSulfate (talk) 13:43, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

No, you are misunderstanding me. I don't want his actual userpage protected. Both the redirects User:Jimmy Wales and User talk:Jimmy Wales are fully protected so only admins can edit them. I want the lock added to those redirects please. Thanks :) :) Goveganfortheanimals (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Let me quote: "On redirect pages, use the Redirect category shell template, which automatically categorizes by protection level, below the redirect line. A protection template may also be added below the redirect line, but it will only serve to categorize the page, as it will not be visible on the page, and it will have to be manually removed when protection is removed. Lectonar (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the response user:Lectonar but why is it that I am able to see the gold-colored lock up in the top corner of fully-protected pages and redirects that I am not able to edit? Goveganfortheanimals (talk) 15:43, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

Goveganplease, This is a hard redirect, the padlock would serve no purpose because nobody would be around to see it unless they explicitly went back to view the actual text of the redirect. Kb03 (talk) 16:30, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

• @Kb03:I know, but many fully protected redirects do have the padlock added to them. I just felt it would be a nice touch is all. Goveganfortheanimals (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done I have added {{redirect category shell}} to both these pages — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:02, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

An accretion disk glare for you!

Thank you from the flat accretion disk society

Dear Mr. Wales, from time immemorial, we have been chastised, bullied, scorned, shunned, excised, enjoined, discombobulated, sanctioned, alleged, and misconducted because of our beliefs about the duo-dimensionality of ordinary accretion disks into which three dimensional gravitational vortices fall. We understand that you have been having difficulty with "flat Earthers" and ask that you please send them our way. EllenCT (talk) 12:16, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Deep Fakes

As one of the largest sources of free images, should we be concerned by this?

The Newest AI-Enabled Weapon: ‘Deep-Faking’ Photos of the Earth

It would be interesting to see if our developers could come up with a countermeasure. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:12, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I've been looking into DeepFakes recently as part of my ongoing concern about the quality of information we are being given. As an example of a case where I had initial concern (but I think confirmation has been gotten via traditional means) there was a viral video circulating this morning in the UK of soldiers doing target practice... the camera pans around to show that they are shooting at a photo of the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn. People were quite rightly upset about it but when I watched the video it looked to me like something quite easy to fake without even using the super advanced deepfake techniques.

Here's what I have learned. The most advanced researchers are still able to quite easily identify fakes. There's a bit of an arms race between deep fakers and researchers detecting them. I don't know of any principled reason to think that the researchers will always be one step ahead. It may be possible to create deep fakes that are virtually impossible to detect.

I doubt very much that our developers can help with that - it's a super advanced / specialized and rapidly moving field.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:30, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

There's an ongoing war between critical thinking and trickery. "Consider the source" is getting even more important at the same time as truly, consistently reliable sources appear to be shrinking in number. But there is an increase in political energy over the past decade which may contribute to more cerebral discourse among friends, family and colleagues which might exercise our minds enough for them to be more discerning and aware of the tidal wave of trickery washing over us of the type Jimbo mentions, or worse. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:46, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I think its a good idea and soon. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:48, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

We wouldn't have to worry about deep fakes if Wikipedia acquired good quality satellite imagery now or sooner from a trusted source with a digitally signed secure link to their satellites, then uploaded a few checksums for all the free satellite images here to the blockchain. (I mean, a checksum of checksums would be just a few bytes) That wouldn't help against video fakery in the larger sense (shooting at Corbin, though that doesn't sound faked) but it would certainly help to hinder the jackals of the post-truth generation from unwriting the Map of the World. Wnt (talk) 16:08, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

By the time you are down to a few bytes Collision attacks become viable and in any case there are no benefits to getting a block-chain involved. If you want to publish a hash of the worldwind stuff no one is going to stop you.©Geni (talk) 16:48, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

People making deep fakes don't care about copyright so will just use google images. In any case the only things or people we have enough photos of to make a deep fake viable are either things or people with large numbers of photos elsewhere (eiffel tower, US presidents) or people with longstanding involvement with the project who the people making deep fakes are unlikely to be interested in. If you mean people making deep fakes targeting us then good old fashioned Photoshop does the job just fine.©Geni (talk) 16:58, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

This thread was specifically about fakes of satellite photos of Earth. This is a very narrow topic and we can help put a solid historical record on file right now that will severely limit any future legerdemain. Obviously militaries can and have disrupted commercial databases for tactical purposes, and they certainly can pull a "nope, no new torture camp here, same woods as always" after our map is published and signed (for which they would need no new AI programs!) but we can make it impractical for them to mess with the map itself. Wnt (talk) 17:39, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

I think its a good idea and that it should be done soon. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:49, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe its a good thing because people in general might become more skeptical of all information and less likely to accept government propaganda, other fake news, and commercial marketing claims as being true. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:35, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Compromised account missing information

Hello. on the Wikipedia:Compromised accounts page, there is a sentence saying "In late 2016 this became a particular concern, with many accounts being compromised by a hacker group." However, I haven't found any information anywhere elaborating on this incident. Where is more info on this, and can this be explained or linked to on that page? Thank you. DrewieStewie (talk) 23:50, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The best place to ask questions like the above is WP:HELPDESK. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:23, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I don't know exactly what is being referred to there.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:24, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

2016, oh that was when 'you' blocked me, Jimbo.[58] The relevant article is at OurMine, though I see no reason to link to it in the information page. I believe there were also other perps in 2016. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 09:53, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah, yes!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:58, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

zzuuzz - your block log is scary!! 😂 ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:48, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

A simple favor

Good morning, Mr. Jimbo Wales. I would like to know something: users of Wikipedia in Spanish are deleting my edits in the Wikipedia portal: El Noticiero, equivalent to Wikipedia: The Signpost, what happens is that El Noticiero is inactive and I want to reactivate it, but only two users support me, and there are about 7 users who are against. I want you to go to Wikipedia: Café and tell them that you support the reactivation of El Noticiero. Please.

Attentively....

--Villalaso (talk) 14:59, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Mr. Jimbo Wales, ¿would you like to talk to me on my discussion page about the Wikipedia: El Noticiero portal, in a section where you talk about Wikipedia and the latest Wikipedia news?, please answer me.

Attentively....

--Villalaso (talk) 02:01, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

El Noticiero is here and says "El Noticiero necesita más colaboradores para funcionar, por el momento, la publicación está pausada" (El Noticiero needs more collaborators in order to work, at the moment, the publication is paused"). The rest of the page is a Lorem ipsum text. Jimbo has been asked before to comment on issues related to the non-English Wikipedia versions, and it is difficult because of the language barrier and lack of knowledge of the dispute.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:52, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Antisemitism in the UK Labour Party and Jackie Walker (activist) covered by WP:ARBPIA?

Why are domestic internal UK politics articles [59][60] concerning potentially unlawful discrimination based on race or religion (under the UK Equality Act 2010) covered by WP:ARBPIA, I don't understand here?! This is an unreasonably board definition of Palestine/Israel, and smacks of one of the examples given of one of the (possible and non-UK-legally-binding (of course) [61]) definitions of Antisemitism ("Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel." [62]) -- 194.207.146.167 (talk) 07:30, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Without knowing any of the specifics, I'm not well-placed to comment on the particulars. I would say that hyper-technical definitions are typical of 'wikilawyering' and not usually the most fruitful way to look at a situation. For at least some people, the issue of Israel/Palestine is sufficiently upsetting that their behavior around those entries have caused problems in the past, and it is not hard to imagine equally high emotions spilling over for at least some of those same people into areas such as the controversies surrounding antisemitism in the Labour party. The important thing for Wikipedia is always to assume good faith and try to work together in a collegial and supportive way to achieve NPOV, even while accepting that not everyone can agree on all details. That's hard to do in areas where emotions are running high.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:45, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Both articles contain multiple, significant mentions of Palestine and Israel. For example, Corbyn has been assailed for participating in an event "Deir Yassin Remembered"; apparently it would have been more prudent to leave it forgotten. ArbCom does indeed have a tendency to create very expansive open-ended categories of articles under 'arbitration enforcement' that gradually move the entire encyclopedia under its authority. But this scarcely seems to be holding "Jews" collectively responsible for anything: sanctions against editors should never be racially targeted in any case, and here because of political exploitation of the issue it is presumably a broad cross-section of all British editors at risk of being affected. Wnt (talk) 09:56, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Google DoubleClick history

I posted my essay/overview to Wikiversity: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Yuhong/Google_DoubleClick_Mozilla_Overview Would you like to have it on Wikipedia as an article for creation? It still needs work. For example, it is easy to find when they bought Urchin. It is hard to find when they merged the data with other ad tracking data. I may need to submit an OTRS request for it as this is copied from my blog. - Yuhong (talk) 19:11, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Thinking about it, the relationship with EU GDPR would be fun too. - Yuhong (talk) 19:27, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Wiki3DModels, anyone?

"We have exquisite 3D laser maps of every detail of Notre Dame, thanks to the incredible work of Vassar art historian Andrew Tallon. Prof Tallon passed away last November, but his work will be absolutely crucial"[63][64]

--Guy Macon (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

CyArk already does what you're proposing, but they have Google's servers behind them and don't have the same restrictions we work under; at the architectural detail level you're talking about, all the software packages are proprietary so would be incompatible with Commons. Plus, VR at this level of detail is incredibly server-intensive and would probably bring eqiad screeching to a halt. Some things are better left done by other people, since this is an instance where anything the WMF do is never going to be done as well as what's already being done by someone else. ‑ Iridescent 08:53, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

We wouldn't have to render the 3D models. We can simply store the data, and there is no reason why the data comprising a 3D model cannot be released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 License. We currently store many 2D JPEG images, but that doesn't imply that any Wikimedia server actually runs the code to decode the PPEG and display those images. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:42, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Sure, but you're talking files multiple orders of magnitude larger than anything the WMF is equipped to handle (Tallon's Notre Dame map has over a billion data points). The Googles and Microsofts of the world with their distributed servers can cope with serving up data at that kind of scale, but you're talking about a project with a single choke point at eqiad that overloads and crashes if we try to rename an editor with more than 100,000 edits. If we're going to go into this kind of megafile, it would mean having to partner with someone like Amazon Web Services, which would likely have severe knock-on effects (at least some donors aren't going to be overjoyed at the prospect of their money going into Jeff Bezos's pockets). Just because something is possible, doesn't mean the WMF necessarily has to be the one to do it. ‑ Iridescent 10:04, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Help desk#Wikipedia and large data files. :)   --Guy Macon (talk) 16:02, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

"...anything the WMF do is never going to be done as well as what's already being done by someone else." I suspect when Wikipedia was started, most people would have said it was never going to be done as well as what was already being done by someone else (Encyclopedia Britannica, etc.) Peacock (talk) 17:04, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Iridescent 100%. I, as a donor, would not want WMF funds used for this purpose. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:40, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Unreliable sources

Hi Jimbo, this is to let you know that the two citations your recently added to Waqar Zaka are unreliable. --Saqib (talk) 14:22, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

That's fine. Best form is to discuss on the talk page.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Request for a draft page review

Hi, am new to wikipedia and i created a draft page and its waiting for review. it would be great if someone would review my draft page. The page is "Draft:Kavin Raj" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kavinrj (talk • contribs) 05:29, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

According to the "Review waiting" template at the top of the page Draft:Kavin Raj "This may take more than two months, since drafts are reviewed in no specific order. There are 2899 pending submissions waiting for review". On the basis of this evidence, the system for reviewing draft articles is flawed because there is a very long backlog. Although a person does not have to submit a draft article for review before creating it, it is useful to get feedback from other users.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:41, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I've responded to their request - the page has already been deleted twice. Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 05:43, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

There is a possible COI here. On a more general note, the backlog for the review of draft pages is considerable.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:50, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Calling all copy editors and content creators

The 2019 redefinition of SI base units is scheduled to happen on 20 May 2019. Can we get it into shape to be featured on the front page by then? Any help would be appreciated. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:40, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

List of music considered the worst

Hello! Can you explain why the original Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is in the List of music considered the worst? Thanks. 2600:8800:5A80:1394:78FF:1C1D:ACE1:877A (talk) 20:30, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

[65]. Count Iblis (talk) 21:03, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Wish I could have that sentiment. But seriously, the people behind this list have been extremely obtuse towards anyone requesting its removal. 2600:8800:5A80:1394:78FF:1C1D:ACE1:877A (talk) 21:15, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

...Because it’s actively being discussed at an RFC. (90% sure this is the editor who was just blocked for removing it five times in a row while being told not to do that during RFCs too.) Sergecross73 msg me 03:43, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

So when the RFC going to end? 2600:8800:5A80:1394:78FF:1C1D:ACE1:877A (talk) 04:07, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

It appeared to be vandalism, reverting it due to anonymous concerns. --182.239.160.245 (talk) 10:12, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Can you believe our article includes Sgt Peppers, but not THIS fine old song? Wnt (talk) 12:33, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

So... are you actually going to do something? Rjrya395 (talk) 19:52, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Cutting to the Chase

Jimmy - you've been named by an anon as a future TV personality [66]. Any comment? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:25, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Good revert. I've definitely not been asked to do that. It sounds more fun than most, I'll admit.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:27, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I predict someone will make an asynchronous web version. EllenCT (talk) 05:29, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

User:JimmyWales

I made a mistake trying to manually access your userpage on the URL by forgetting to add the _. Since I might not be the only one to do accidently do this, should User:JimmyWales redirect to your userpage? Clovermoss (talk) 02:24, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Probably?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

 Done Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 01:33, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Dusti, I agree with doing that but shouldn't the Account probably be registered to prevent abuse & impersonation. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 09:55, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

@RhinosF1: That would be up to Jimbo to do, IMO Dusti^{*Let's talk!*} 16:39, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Dusti, Probably is. @Jimbo Wales: do you intend to? RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 16:53, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, I know you're probably busy and this page gets tons of edits, must be easy to loose track but any update on registering that account under WP:SOCKLEGIT to prevent impersonation. RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 21:29, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Please note there is already someone else called JimmyWales so it would require an account takeover first. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:05, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Xaosflux, Interesting, I never saw that RhinosF1^(chat)_{(status)(contribs)} 05:31, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Could you help me help Assange?

Jimbo, could you please try to get this info to Assange's lawyer?

In the CNN interview linked to here, at the 1 minute 8 second mark, Senator Hatch says;

"you can make anything a crime under the current laws, if you want to, you can blow it out of proportion, you can do a lot of things."

A Canadian lawyer told me that Magna Carta rights and British law should prevent Britain, in keeping with her commitment to the principles of fundamental justice, from extraditing anyone to any country where "you can make anything a crime". It would be no different from extraditing someone to North Korea.

I tried unsuccessfully to reach Jennifer Robinson, his lawyer, so I'm hoping you have some contacts who could get this video in her hands. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:44, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

"Magna Carta rights" - good grief. Anyway, the relevant law here is of course the European Convention on Human Rights. However, what Orrin Hatch thinks is irrelevant, because as long as the basic tenets of the American judicial system meet the requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, then lawfully there's no issue with Assange being extradited. And the UK has extradited people to the US before. Black Kite (talk) 00:05, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

That's very interesting about Article 6 because it says there must be a presumption of innocence, which there surely is not. As far as others being extradited, perhaps they had a chance at a presumption of innocence, but not so with Assange, if we're honest we all know that, I think. Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:14, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Orinn Hatch is neither sitting on any jury, nor is he the presiding judge, over any case involving Mr. Assange. What he says means diddly squat. Politicians stay stupid stuff all the time. It means nothing in this regard. Pay it no mind. --Jayron32 14:59, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

ok, but the "presumption of innocence" that Article 6, above, mandates (in order to be extradited), is certainly not present in the USA regarding Assange. You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind to think he's presumed innocent there. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, Jimbo is not a fan of Assange. In any case I doubt if he has any contacts with Assange's lawyer. Have you tried the Yellow Pages under "L"? :-) Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:02, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I do not think that it is appropriate for Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation or Jimbo acting in his official capacity to get involved with political issues that do not threaten the existence or functioning of Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:22, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

He's a criminal whose organization colluded with the Russian government to influence the U.S. election. Let him make his defense in court instead of finding a closet to hide in. It's not Wikimedia's role to get involved with international espionage. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:24, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

@Liz: How is he a criminal? He hasn't been convicted of any crimes so your assertion is clearly false, and worse, attacking a living person with false statements, see WP:BLP. I'm sure you wouldn't wasnt to be called a criminal without having been convicted of anything. Show some respect for living people. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 11:03, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I just read the indictment and he is only accused of trying to figure out a password which he never did figure out. Wow, what a huge crime...trying to figure out someone's password. Its shameful how our main stream media is misleading most of us into thinking he's accused of actually having "hacked" into secret computers....its the difference between wanting to commit a crime and actually doing it, but like Senator Hatch said; ""you can make anything a crime under the current(USA) laws, if you want to, you can blow it out of proportion".

Actually this indictment is a perfect example of the habitual fraud perpetuated by the USA justice(lol) system that Hatch exposes.

You'd think after the "Iraq has WMDs" scam they would not get such almost universal acceptance of their lying accusations and conspiracy theories; but then, as I learned in business school (paraphrasing) "Its all about the branding, baby"....or as P.T. Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute", and one thing American big business/federal government is good at, its branding aka bullshit. Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:07, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

WikiMedia should speak out against the serious human rights violations against Assange for his role in disclosing the truth the US and other governments wanted to hide. Statement by Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, Agnes Callamard: "in “expelling Assange from the Embassy” and allowing his arrest, it had taken Mr. Assange “one step closer to extradition”. She added that the UK had now arbitrarily-detained the controversial anti-secrecy journalist and campaigner, “possibly endangering his life”." We can also read there: "In a statement last Friday, Special Rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, said he was alarmed by reports that an arrest was imminent, and that if extradited, Mr. Assange could be exposed to “a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial, and the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Late last year UN experts urged the UK to honour rights obligations and let Mr. Julian Assange leave Ecuador embassy in London freely "“The United Kingdom has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and has a responsibility to honour its commitment, by respecting its provisions in all cases,” the experts said.

“As the High Commissioner for human rights said several years ago, human rights treaty law is binding law, it is not discretionary law. It is not some passing fancy that a state can apply sometimes and not in the other,” the experts recalled.

“In addition, the recommendations of the WGAD Opinions are expected to be implemented by all States, including those which have not been a party in the case concerning Mr. Assange,” said the experts." Count Iblis (talk) 01:48, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

No. It isn't the job of an encyclopedia to speak out against human rights violations. Pick an organization that is working towards your political goals and support that organization. Wikipedia is not a political advocacy group. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:56, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Assange is being targeted because of WikiLeaks disclosures, this is something that should make WikiMedia concerned. If a WikiMedia site were to publish information that the US doesn't want to be disclosed, WikiMedia may also be targeted. Nebulous charges like "conspiracy to engage in computer hacking", or if that doesn't work it may be "conspiracy to engage in a conspiracy to engage in computer hacking" will be issued. Count Iblis (talk) 06:09, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Slippery slope arguments aren't always invalid. but the are not sufficient reason to change Wikipedia into a political advocacy group. The reason they are not sufficient is that pretty much any political POV pusher can put together a slippery slope argument. Be careful what you wish for; in your imagination if you were to actually succeed at turning Wikipedia into a political advocacy group the WMF would only advocate for the same things you advocate for. In reality if we make Wikipedia into a political advocacy group it may very well end up advocating things you despise. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:49, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Count Iblis' point is profound, imo. Here we see that publishing the Pentagon Papers or any of the Snowden info is already a crime. Our U.S. Justice masters just haven't felt like charging us yet. "18 U.S. Code § 798.Disclosure of classified information: (a)Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—..(3)concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government;...Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." Heads in the sand never helps. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:50, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Assange's lawyers would find a quote from a Senator particularly relevant or meaningful in this context. I further think that what Senator Hatch was saying is in one sense not accurate at all but in another sense true of pretty much every country. There are enough complex and ambiguous laws everywhere to mean that a sufficiently motivated bad faith prosecutor can cause a lot of headache for someone. But I agree with Black Kite - it is unlikely that me contacting someone with this quote would be helpful. I am sure his lawyers will be making a variety of arguments as to why the UK shouldn't extradite him.

I also don't have any real contact with anyone in Assange's organization. I know some people who know him or knew him - he has a consistent pattern of falling out with people - but I can't think at the moment of any direct way of getting in touch.

I am a big supporter of freedom of expression, and that support doesn't hinge on whether or not I like the person, so I'm not sure why that's even being raised as a question here. I think that the core of what Assange has done (publishing documents) is fully protected by the First Amendment and there is basically zero chance that any direct attack on that would get anywhere with the US Federal court system. What he is being accused of is a different matter, and I have no opinion whatsoever about whether his is innocent or guilty of those charges. But I am quite sure that the relevant court will stick straight to that - remember that whatever faults the US has (and of course there are many), it does have a very independent Federal judiciary (despite Trump's occasional ranting).

Just for completeness, I don't completely agree with Guy Macon's view on what the WMF or I should speak about, although my view is not far from his. I think it a mistake to define the parameters so narrowly as "the existence or functioning of Wikipedia" - such a remit would, for example, require the WMF to act far too timidly and "corporate" in the sense of looking after it's own narrow interests even when at the expense of the broader movement and the ecosystem that we are trying to achieve. Article 13 of the new European Copyright Directive has an explicit exemption for Wikipedia, so Guy's view as stated here is that we should stay silent (giving therefore our implicit consent) to something that is bad for a free and open Internet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:24, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Your support of freedom of expression is precious, and I have confidence that you will find ways to make some difference against the injustices some desire to commit against Assange and independent journalism. What is happening here is that the original sin of the internet has come home to roost. Prohibiting "hacking" was always a violation of freedom of expression, and many of us knew it. At first, the prohibition only meant that teenage hackers were hit with threats of jail instead of good paying jobs securing computers. Then we lost Aaron Swartz. North Korea and China (oh, and Russia also) became Internet superpowers, using their right to do to our computers what our kids and activists did not dare to. Now we see an Australian working in Europe who dared publish something supposedly he had a right to, being prosecuted for it based on United States "law", using the argument that saying you tried to understand a math problem constitutes conspiracy. Predicate logic tells us that "false proves anything", but it was hard to believe we'd see it done in practice. Everything built on the rotten foundations of copyright and legal privilege for at least the past half century may collapse into nothing.

We should begin to contemplate how to make Wikipedia relevant to a post-computing era where delvers of forbidden knowledge need to work in conditions of absolute secrecy. Wnt (talk) 19:19, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

The Federal judiciary are not independent and they are stupid as well.Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:22, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Exactly, Wikipedia is not an impediment to freedom of expression and shouldn't be. WMF complies only when there's an absolute basis to do so and the community has taken up matters when necessary (SOPA/PIPA), so I do not suspect we will when it's needed. Unfortunately, there's not much us yelling can do in court for Assange. --qedk (t 桜 c) 20:39, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

None of us know for sure the impact of our actions before we take them. All any of us can do is what we think we should be doing. In this case, its highly unlikely that WMF sticking up for Assange in court ( I don't think anybody is suggesting "yelling") can do Assange any harm, and it might, just might, do Assange some good.

Now I can't say that sticking up for Assange (not to be extradited to the USA) won't put WMF, or Jimbo, on some kind of USA list or watch list, but I do not think that is anything they are concerned about. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:21, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Defining moment of non-reaction

Here, with Wikipedia's (and others') help, Assange and Chelsea Manning showed the free world how reporters were gunned down while their killers laughed: "Collateral Murder, showed that the crew encountered a firefight and laughed at some of the casualties, some of which were civilians and reporters." The world would not even know about this horrific exposure of evil were it not for Assange's activities.

I heard several commentators on main stream media yesterday, including the CBC, take the position that Assange did some good deeds in the past and then they pivoted to an assumption of guilt of a "shame"ful crime re: the current indictment..it was if they were all reading the same script, e.g. one American commentator on CBC said exactly "Shame on him for doing this (attempt to figure out a password)".

We Wikipedians all know that "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing" So, I still think...no, I know...Jimbo, you can do something to help Assange. Heck, you are even in the neighbourhood where he's jailed. Maybe some of us think its ok if we do not have access to knowing about war crimes perpetuated by the USA as shown in "Collateral Murder"...its certainly easier to just become "yes" men for the obvious bullies of this world, or at least not get in their way; they always provide some kind of twisted justification for the masses of people to go along with their twisted rationales. Jimbo, if you are feeling impotent about this because, as you say, "he has a consistent pattern of falling out with people", I'd suggest just standing out side his jail with a sign giving the URL to July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike and thanking Assange for releasing that shocking bit of truth for the whole world to see and read about on Wikipedia....and I'm not suggesting you do anything more risky or time consuming than things I've done myself to fight the tendency to look on and do nothing. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:58, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Re: "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing", Are you saying that the WMF should speak out on the topics of prison rape, the war on drugs, asset forfeiture, the US government budget, the UK government budget, nuclear proliferation, climate change, gay marriage, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the India-Pakistan conflict, free trade, farm subsidies, drug prices, labor conditions at Apple, gun control, abortion, student loans, smoking, inflation in Venezuela, and the baggage retrieval system at heathrow? There are already hundreds of political advocacy websites, but only one viable online encyclopedia. Aren't those hundreds of political advocacy websites enough? Do you have to try to make Wikipedia into one as well? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:22, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Guy, what I am saying is Assange caused important information to become part of the encyclopedia and available to the world's people and that its a threat to freedom of the press the way he has been demonized by the USA government. Ron Paul spoke into the Congressional Record some 8 years ago about the stupidity of Assange being "an enemy of the state". Paul backed up his opinion by explaining the extreme importance of a Wikileaks leak of a diplomatic cable showing that the Gulf War was caused by a trap that GHW Bush set for Saddam, and that trick led to, according to Paul, 9/11 and everything since then....and most relevantly, Paul says;

"Julian Assange, the publisher of the WikiLeaks memo, is now considered an enemy of the state. Politicians are calling for drastic punishment and even assassination; and, sadly, the majority of the American people seem to support such moves. But why should we so fear the truth? Why should our government's lies and mistakes be hidden from the American people in the name of patriotism? Once it becomes acceptable to equate truth with treason, we can no longer call ourselves a free society." Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:26, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia can't right every wrong, but we surely could do more to defend "WP:BLP" in regard to the article on Jeremy Corbyn, who has expressed some opposition to the notion of an extraordinary rendition to the United States [67] and represents a hope for a political solution to stop Assange's persecution. I don't know a lot of British politics, but the article has long showcased, for example, allegations by the impeccable Daily Mail that focus on the fact that Corbyn attended a conference event that was held at a pavilion in a cemetery that happened to be close to some terrorists' graves. In section after section the article keelhauls him for make-believe offenses like being reluctant to censor a mural or to deport someone for pro-Palestinian activism. Surely there is some way Wikipedia could do better there. Wnt (talk) 04:10, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it accurate to characterize Corbyn's position as mere "opposition to the notion of an extraordinary rendition". He opposes any extradition to the United States. There has been no suggestion and there is no genuine possibility of Assange being transferred to the US without a legal process, so it would be odd for Corbyn to be opposed to that. Please stay clearly factual, as hysteria doesn't help fight injustice.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:20, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

I apologize for my lack of clarity and perhaps hyperbole. What I meant was that Corbyn does not oppose proper extradition of Assange to Sweden, the country which originally made the request for extradition. However, according to the letter signed by over 70 Labour MPs ([68]) the U.S. Department of Justice had been tipped off that asylum would be revoked, and was ready with a case, while Sweden has had to scramble to get ready, and now it is by no means clear that Britain will send Assange to Sweden at all, let alone with any precondition against his extradition to the U.S. Simply put, the ordinary process of extradition appears at risk of being defeated, while the extraordinary process of extraditing Assange to face a political charge, in contradiction to the extradition treaty, appears to take priority. In my mind, I did not think that 'extraordinary rendition' was inappropriate to use for such a back-room maneuver, even if Assange is not actually bundled onto a plane in secret. Wnt (talk) 23:18, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the use of the phrase "'extraordinary rendition" to mean something other than extraordinary rendition, it hinders communication when you redefine words or phrases like that. Yes, you can decide to use non-standard fleemishes and the reader can still gloork the meaning from the context, but there ix a limit; If too many ot the vleeps are changed, it becomes harder and qixer to fllf what the wethcz is blorping, and evenually izs is bkb longer possible to ghilred frok at wifx. Dnighth? Ngfipht yk ur! Uvq the hhvd or hnnngh. Blorgk? Blorgk! Blorgkity-blorgk!!!! --Guy Macon (talk) 23:34, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

To me it seems the criteria have at least technically been met. Assange, an Ecuadorian citizen, was dragged from the country's territory in a way that was not supposed to happen, no matter what connivance was procured from a dishonest official, for purposes of an illegitimate extradition for political ends, and to our great shame we cannot even say that torture is an unlikely outcome at this point. Wnt (talk) 07:15, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Please use the same meanings for words and phrases that other people use. "The Ecuadorean government suspended the citizenship it had granted Mr. Assange and evicted him on Thursday, clearing the way for his arrest."[69] "[British] police said they arrested Assange, 47, after being invited into the embassy following Ecuador’s withdrawal of asylum."[70] Nothing illegal happened, and thus it was not an extraordinary rendition. Blorgkity-blorgk. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:12, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Have you ever heard of citizenship being "suspended" before??? What does it mean to have citizenship "suspended"? A right to citizenship is one of the more fundamental bureaucratic principles of international law, and this 'suspension' came in the form, as far as I can tell, of an announcement by the Foreign Minister. [71] There was no due process involved there.

Let's take a parallel example and see what you say about it. Suppose Erdogan visits Washington and his security guards start another fracas with demonstrators, like last time. This time, instead of merely pardoning all the attackers, suppose the U.S. government decides to send a message and tells Erdogan's thugs "OK boys, go ahead and grab half a dozen of those troublemakers and take them on the plane back to Istanbul to talk about FETO conspiracies." And they go on and explain themselves "look, they abused their welcome here, they were on visas, some of them were skateboarding on our sidewalks!" The demonstrators protest that at least they ought to get deported back to Canada or Iran or wherever they came from instead, but instead they get 'deported' to Turkey. Would you call that extraordinary rendition? Wnt (talk) 12:23, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

List of denaturalized former citizens of the United States Bitter Oil (talk) 15:36, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Note the references in that article to U.S. District Court, even the Supreme Court, or agreements made, or deportations never performed. Revoking citizenship in the U.S. (not 'suspending' it, whatever that means!) is a big deal, and even the Trump administration is stopped in many cases by "a very high bar" which may not be met even by outright lies during the application itself. [72] Now any defender of Assange should say that Ecuador does not have to slavishly copy U.S. law in every niggling detail ... that is, after all, a major point of objecting to his prosecution ... but the right to citizenship in international law would not appear to condone random revocations without any legal process at all. Wnt (talk) 02:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Felony disenfranchisement Bitter Oil (talk) 03:16, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

FWIW Vijay Prashad (in an editorial about Ola Bini) called Assange's arrest "an act of extraordinary rendition in plain sight". [73] Wnt (talk) 10:12, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

(Topic) bans and Jimbo's talk page

• I'm new here, so perhaps it isn't my place to say anything, but it looks like User:Nocturnalnow is banned from discussing American politics (since 1932) "on all pages of Wikipedia". Of course, the ramblings here hardly amount to a discussion, but the subject does seem to relate to American politics. Bitter Oil (talk) 21:24, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I also have topic bans, including for economics, because my opinions about productivity and growth were considered unacceptable by the community. I occasionally disregard that ban here on Jimbo's talk page as a limited act of civil disobedience, under the implied permission of Jimbo's statement that he wants open communications from banned editors, presumably so that his nominal right to grant appeals from ArbCom decisions (which he apparently never uses) is not foreclosed. Note that Jimbo occasionally rescinds such permission on a case-by-case basis, and in any case I would not presume to speak for him. I would, however, like to provide another data point in Nocturnalnow's defense. I was also topic banned three years ago from discussing the activities of organizations associated with insecticides, and abided my that restriction absolutely, without any civil disobedience here or elsewhere, until very recently, when I had so completely forgotten about that topic ban I made some comments I was forced to strike after I earnestly brought them directly to the attention of ArbCom in a clarification request. I honestly had completely forgotten I was under that restriction. Anyway, I know that reasonable people have reasonable differences of opinion about whether Jimbo has discretion to allow the banned to speak here, but I'm glad he does. I intend to appeal both of my topic bans and I think Nocturnalnow should appeal his, too.

As for my opinion of Assange, it is very similar to that of The Intercept, both very strongly in his favor and very strongly opposed. And while former Wikimedia Foundation spokesman User:David Gerard has closer ties to Assange than Jimbo ever had or ever will, and the chance that Jimbo wants to get involved is minuscule, I would more prefer these discussions occurring than not. I am sure that reasonable people can and do reasonably disagree.

@Bitter Oil: you say you are "new here" and your contribution history stretches back a whole week. I would like to know more about the circumstances under which you learned about Nocturnalnow's topic ban, although if you want to keep that to yourself, that is fine with me, too. EllenCT (talk) 21:57, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't think your opinion of Assange is relevant to a discussion of someone's (topic) ban, but thanks for letting us know. If Jimbo considers this page to be a special case, then I suppose Nocturnalnow's comments here aren't a violation. But how about this edit to QAnon. It specifically mentions politicians in regard to a crackpot theory about pedophiles. Or this edit to Illegal immigration to the United States where Nocturnalnow adds a link to a CNN townhall featuring Nancy Pelosi? Bitter Oil (talk) 22:35, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, you're quite welcome, and let's get back on topic. For what reason are you asking that Nocturnalnow's topic ban be observed? EllenCT (talk) 00:01, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

If you tell some ill-informed conspiracy nut with poor reasoning skills and no understanding of legal systems to stay away from politics because they've spent months injecting nonsense into articles about living people, I would think you'd want to "observe" that topic ban. Just as a hypothetical example. Bitter Oil (talk) 15:30, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

One of the great things about getting old is mosquitoes don't bother me anymore...its nice to still be of some use. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:39, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

What? "If Jimbo considers this page to be a special case, then I suppose Nocturnalnow's comments here aren't a violation"? Wrong. Nobody, and this includes Jimbo, is allowed to say that their talk page is a place where one can freely violate Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. There is a good argument that this isn't post-1932 US politics, but if it is, the topic ban applies to all pages on Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:30, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Basically it is Wikipedia:Banning_policy#Appeal_to_Jimbo_Wales. Specifically A topic banned editor cannot discuss the topic ban or topic on Jimbo's talk page, but is allowed to appeal the topic ban to Jimbo Wales. PackMecEng (talk) 14:54, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Julian Assange is an Australian, in Britain, fighting extradition to Sweden. Meanwhile, neither American party (including the chief beneficiaries of the information he helped to report to the public) is speaking up on his behalf. If this is American politics, it is the kind that has no political issue conceivably coming up for vote in the U.S. and which is being applied entirely outside its borders ... at least for now. If a topic ban on "American politics" affects that, what doesn't it affect? I should add that I just recently got a boilerplate notice on my talk page about "American politics" over a browser plug-in that lets people post to a would-be social media competitor. My feeling is that this "post-1932" decision has become an interstate commerce clause allowing AE authority over anything and everything on Wikipedia. I imagine if you post about a species of frog, it might be evaluated by the EPA or its import regulated by Customs, so it's post-1932 American politics! Wnt (talk) 23:13, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

😂 how true!! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:44, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow is talking about extradition to the US and specifically references both the "USA (sic) justice system" and US laws. Bitter Oil (talk) 23:32, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia ----> Real World

Nocturnalnow ----> Assange

Topic ban violations ------> WikiLeaks' activities that the US objects to

ArbCom ------> Court

Count Iblis (talk) 10:29, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Did you know about this? Re: Assange's future contributions to Wikipedia content

Prevented by treaty from invading the Holy See's embassy, U.S. soldiers from Delta Force erected a perimeter around the Nunciature. Psychological warfare specialists were brought in to attempt to dislodge him, including blaring rock music, and turning a nearby field into a helicopter landing zone. After ten days, Noriega surrendered on January 3, 1990.[2][130] He was detained as a prisoner of war, and later taken to the United States.[1][22]''

Jimbo, did you know that this actually happened?

I did not. Only by hearing something yesterday on CNN about Barr having redacted important info for congress in 1989 and then looking at links in the William Barr article did I come upon this.

The sources for that content are 2012 and 2017. My point is, if Assange had been around in 1989/1990 more of the world's peoples, and politicians, would have likely known about this psychological attack upon an embassy of the Pope way back then and been able to incorporate that knowledge over the past 30 years.

For me, this proves the worth of Assange to Wikipedia going forward as well as his use to all of the reliable media of the world....and more relevantly, it proves to me that Assange is an ALLY of Wikipedia's mission statement, and that WMF should treat him as an important ally in any way we can. What do you think? Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:24, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Operation Nifty Package was an article created in 2005. Nocturnalnow for your reading pleasure. Not sure Assange contributed to it. 2600:8800:1300:A2E:0:0:0:1000 (talk) 04:39, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Everyone in the entire world knew about that—it was the lead news story worldwide for a week, and there were camera crews camped out outside the embassy for the duration. You've not stumbled across some kind of conspiracy. ‑ Iridescent 14:05, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I have to agree. Nonetheless, the way that the public swallowed the idea of invading a country and deposing its dictator based on some allegations of involvement with drugs was somewhat remarkable. That is more about media bias and control than secrecy. On the other hand, the lack of protest also had something to do with that it was the 1990s, End of History, when dictators seemed like they were on the way out and people actually believed they could be replaced by democracy. As it happens, Panama, whatever its crooked or even colonialist politics may be, still counts now as a country with transitions of power, and few in the rest of the world actually know who Juan Carlos Varela is because (unusually for leaders nowadays) he doesn't brag about torture or death squads or rounding up political prisoners.

The problem we have going forward is that constant pressure to censor 'mainstream' sites like Facebook and even Wikipedia of unpopular opinions (like racism) is dumping all of that opinion into a shrinking pool of free-thinking sites, which are being degraded by all the ideological waste. The next step of course is to declare those to be "toxic cesspools" where bad ideas could turn violent, and act to censor them and give an oligarchy of corporations a government mandated monopoly. And the invasions they will have people not thinking about will be nothing so kind as the disposal of Noriega. Wnt (talk) 14:25, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Iridescent, you are 100 % wrong about this. If "the entire world knew about this", why was the US Military Operation Just Cause: Panama Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff our only source regarding the capture as late as 2011. Also, just to be clear, are you saying there was news coverage in the USA showing the psychological warfare/blasting noise aimed at the Holy See's embassy? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:18, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

No, it was all over the place when it happened. Late-night talk shows were suggesting songs that should be played. This really was all over the place back then. That may be the only source used in the article, but assuming that means it's the only source available is pretty sad. Ravensfire (talk) 23:29, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Even by the standards of this talk page, this is weapons-grade, molecularly distilled ignorance. Yes, of course there was contemporaneous US news coverage of the use of loud music as a psychological weapon against Noriega. For instance, Tom Friedman wrote in the New York Times on December 28, 1989: "For now the only assault on the Nunciature appears by in the form of rock music being blasted at the Vatican Embassy at a very loud volume over speakers by United States Army troops ringing the building in the seaside Paitilla district of Panama City." On the following day (December 30, 1989), the Times noted complaints from the Vatican on its front page: "When Mr. Navarro (a Vatican spokesman) was asked about the blockade of the Papal Nunciature in Panama City by American troops and their practice of blasting the building with rock music, he said it was 'a very serious matter,' unacceptable under international law because it interfered with diplomatic activity." The Times reiterated the issue several days later, on January 5, 1990: "(A Vatican spokesman) also criticized Washington's decision to install a powerful sound system outside the Vatican embassy and blast loud rock music at the building in an apparent attempt to exasperate General Noriega. The music was suspended 24 hours later." Hey, if only Julian Assange had been around in the 1970's, then the public would have heard about the Watergate break-in! My unsolicited advice to you (Nocturnalnow) is that 10 seconds of critical thinking and assumption-checking can spare you a lifetime of looking like a fool. MastCell ^Talk 00:01, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

ok, but I am not assuming that was the only source but that there wasn't any more unbiased source, because if there was a less biased source than the US military, why would that unbiased alternative not have been used? I guess I was wrong, obviously, about the level of media exposure of the event; I was working pretty hard in 1990. But I still have to wonder whether Assange's Wikileaks, had they existed, might have received some evidence as to exactly what the rationale for this invasion was, especially given all the history of cooperation between Noriega and Bush. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:52, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

God only knows what I was doing in 1990. The point is that I'm capable of spending 30 seconds on Google right now to check my assumptions. As are you, in theory. MastCell ^Talk 00:03, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

You're right; absolutely; I should have done that. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:29, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

But good grief, can't we all agree that the Pentagon Papers and Snowden and Assange have been allies of Wikipedia's level of comprehensiveness? And if so, then shouldn't WMF do what it can to fight against such aggressive demonization of these sources? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:59, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, it was everywhere at the time. I remember suggesting really twee pop music rather than heavy metal, but whatever. Anyway, here's [the BBC, and the BBC again, Telegraph, NPR, Guardian, etc. There's even a playlist on YouTube of what they used ... Black Kite (talk) 00:06, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I had new found respect for "Welcome to the Jungle" after watching it live from speaker trucks. Would have been funny as hell to watch the Brits SAS Squads play Monty Python or Benny Hill themes while driving around the Ecuadoran embassy for 10 years. Sad they let a rape accusation go unanswered for that long. 2600:8800:1300:A2E:0:0:0:1000 (talk) 04:30, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

I guess this would be my song suggestion. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:29, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Assange is being demonized by some and abandoned by others, I just think WMF should support him. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:30, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

WMF can and must support Assange, but this has been a very long term battle and will remain so. Assange may be taking a detour to Sweden where WMF can't support him, because rape is an extremely serious allegation and WMF can't be dismissive of the complainants. The way in which they have been dismissed in the press is essentially a conspiracy theory -- even if conspiracies are extraordinarily likely where international spy powers are concerned. If he ends up in the United States, the question then is what charges exist and how unconstitutional they are. WMF will absolutely need to monitor and respond to that as part of its core mission because there is no obvious ideological boundary between Assange publishing a document he reads after a leaker sends it to him and a Wikipedian summarizing it after Wikileaks publishes it or even after the New York Times writes about it.

In the meanwhile, Wikipedians can do a lot. There is a strong odor of rank bullshit about such movement for freedom, transparency, democracy, privacy etc. where a person would doubt it exists at all, and it would be pleasant if someone could start to make the case. I mean, if Assange were from a real movement like ISIS or Al Qaida they would have dug a tunnel and fetched him out of that embassy in a year if they had to use a spoon, or had half a dozen people blow themselves up and stormed it with machine guns. By contrast.... well, many of the newspaper articles have attributed Assange's arrest to Lenin Moreno's angry response to the INA Papers, even if Wikileaks didn't publish them, and the present investigation into the INA Papers offers a chance that the Ecuadorians will be able to push him out of office, which could be good for Ola Bini. But that is a red link, just like INA Investment Corporation. So I mean the difference between a real movement and our movement is the difference between a movement with large numbers of people willing to blow themselves up or dig a tunnel for half a mile to break someone out of jail, versus having literally not one person in the entire world who can be bothered to write up half a page about one of the major background stories that might help to 'punish' Assange's persecutor or free his ally. Also notice that the above-mentioned commitment of ISIS members still was not enough to save their movement from defeat. Basically, you look up bullshit in the dictionary and that's us, right next to the idea of computer libertarianism to uphold our right to freedom and privacy while in reality they are all conniving to sell data to the NSA and hide wearable cameras in your underwear. But if you want, please, by all means, let's get started on the INA Papers. It's the least we can do... literally. Wnt (talk) 07:07, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Nope. In fact for Wikipedia to become embroiled in defending an admitted "computer hacker" who sought to violate both US and International Law, would ill-suit Wikipedia as a completely neutral recorder of facts, and present Wikipedia as an active participant in such issues. Court matters should be left to those who properly are before the courts. Collect (talk) 13:34, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

WMF has made many amicus curiae ("friend of the court") representations [74][75] and has even been a plaintiff in similar cases [76][77]. (These are not a complete list) It should most certainly continue to do so. When you pay for a commercial product, any commercial product, a significant fraction of the money you pay goes for the company's efforts to lobby, sue, threaten, and bribe officials in order to oppose the many usually nefarious forces that would ban or severely restrict their operations. Otherwise anything from natural gas to diet soda would end up illegal, because in this sorry world you only have the rights you pay for. Wikimedia may not have all the options of a private company (I don't see them out with bags full of $1000 single-use credit cards from a thousand small money donors), but they most certainly should not hesitate to use the tools they have to defend our right to use the information we can find in our research. Wnt (talk) 14:09, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry That WMF has filed court briefs in other cases does not mean that it should do so here. And I note that hyperbole from others rarely makes me change my opinion. My opinion remains as written. Collect (talk) 16:52, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

It is hard to say conclusively that the WMF should file a brief in a case for which the charges have not been filed, and hopefully never will be, and the lower court has not made the wrong decision, and hopefully never will. But it should be just as hard to say conclusively that it should not. If the push for an unconstitutional interpretation of the Espionage Act moves toward the point where the Pentagon Papers would have been illegal, where Nixon would have started his third term in office triumphally recounting the hundred-year sentences of Deep Throat (Watergate) and the reporters who collaborated with him, then certainly anyone who does not stand up that day will not matter afterward. Wnt (talk) 23:13, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

You appear to have a strongly political point of view. My opinion is that "strong political views" make ofttimes for very poor judgement. Sorry, but that is where we appear to differ. Wikipedia as a political entity would be short-lived. Collect (talk) 00:10, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah, so I have a strongly political point of view, whereas you express only the neutral point of view embedded in the natural fabric of the universe as You created it. WMF's propensity to file court briefs on behalf of the right of people to compile online encyclopedias was clearly an aberration from their True Future Policy, for which Your revelations are the needed corrective measure. Yeah, right. I may be guilty of a bit of the same thinking myself, but at least I wasn't personally the one who first said that men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, or put freedom of expression first on the (more specific) list. Wnt (talk) 11:03, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

?. I have no "revelations". All I am going by is the stated policies of Wikipedia. I do not who came up with them, but I didn't. Collect (talk) 12:19, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

If hacking, violations of US laws etc. was necessary to get to what is now considered to be reliable information on certain topics that would never have been uncovered in a legal way, then that implies that news from conventional sources about such topics is in general not all that reliable. Therefore Wikipedia should take note of such potential unreliability. Count Iblis (talk) 18:36, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia & Assange vs. Propaganda & Brainwashing

Daniel Ellsberg sees Assange arrest as the beginning of the end for press freedom. Jimbo, as we look at the wide assortment of whistleblowing facts provided by Assange we must admit that he has helped provide a lot of good content for Wikipedia. However, in his role as whistleblowing facilitator, I think he has provided the much more important function of thrusting reality into mainstream discussion within societies where continual governmental propaganda, to the point of brainwashing, is prevalent. This congressional entry is one example of Assange releasing historically defining information (according to the Congressman) which main stream media never had access to and which directly contradicts all of the propaganda which provided justification for American intervention in the Gulf War. In addition, many reliable media have been able to report events, such as July 12, 2007, Baghdad airstrike, which led to important Wikipedia articles. That particular event was shocking to many who had been brainwashed into believing that only our enemies, and not ourselves, are out there committing war crimes with abandon. I believe that brainwashing is the ultimate enemy of unbiased knowledge and education, both of which I think are integral objectives of Wikipedia's mission, and that all brainwashing, whether it be from N.Korea or wherever, can be so pervasive that its victims do not even know they have been/are brainwashed and that it takes a shocking revelation, such as the Pentagon Papers, to get some people to wake up to reality. I myself grew up in a totally brainwashed society and did not realize it. I proudly recited every day in school from age 5 the Pledge of Allegiance which ends with "liberty and justice for all". This was in 1951, in Georgia, where half my city's population were segregated from many liberties and much justice. Many adult black men referred to me as "master", when I was still a young boy, but I was so brainwashed, I still believed the words of my daily pledge. Then one day I saw another Julian Assange type rabble rouser on T.V.. A man who also had been thrown in jail for arcane crimes like "inciting a riot" and "disobeying a police officer", in his case, arrested 39 times. Back then, just like today, most people accepted the government propaganda that the target was just a low life criminal with sexual perversions. But when I heard King speak, I realized that when I had been saying "liberty and justice for all", I had, myself, become a part of the ongoing propaganda machine. I say ongoing because in 2019 a poor man in America can stay in jail waiting for a trial (or for the Prosecutor to decide not to prosecute) years longer than a rich man, just because he can't come up with the bail money. And the kids are still saying "liberty and justice for all". So, maybe one day there will be an international holiday for Assange, just as there is a national holiday for MLK, when the government's spin is in line with reality. But the important support for a good cause or movement doesn't come 30 years after its needed, the important support comes at the time its needed, when the opposition is a big fat government with lots of money and even more power. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:28, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: how do you feel about [78] and [79]? EllenCT (talk) 04:54, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I haven't read the Mueller report. The widely reported portion "While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him," Mueller wrote in his report causes me to be pessimistic as I see that portion as providing zero information and being either a sophomoric pretence at saying something important while not saying anything at all, or worse, knowingly ginning up more confusion. Either way, that portion, at least for me, is like a trailer for a teenage scream movie, which is something I am not interested in.

As far as those two articles, I just glanced at them and see in the Daily Beast that Mueller's report references media reports that originated with Breitbart, which is so unreliable we have it on a linkage blacklist:"According to media reports, Assange told a U.S. congressman that the DNC hack was an ‘inside job,’ and purported to have ‘physical proof’ that Russians did not give materials to Assange.” and in The Guardian; "It also says Mueller’s office 'cannot rule out that stolen documents were transferred to WikiLeaks'", which also portrays a useless report; e.g. I can not rule out that there was a zebra on the Brooklyn Bridge sometime last week.

Just to stick with my analogy, I see that in 1966 a Gallup poll showed 63% of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of MLK with only 33% favorable, whereas by 2011 it was 94% favorable. Nocturnalnow (talk) 05:35, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

'Propaganda' applies here at a very individual level. Basically, the report said that Trump would have obstructed justice if he could obstruct justice but according to the DOJ he can't by definition so he didn't. Barr put a lovely spin in that in an announcement in advance of the report's release, and now that's the only "truth" people know. See [80]. Wnt (talk) 09:25, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

How about this, then, Nocturalnow? Straight from the horse's mouth. Bitter Oil (talk) 16:36, 25 April 2019 (UTC)