User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 249

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"User:Jumbo Wales~enwiki" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect User:Jumbo Wales~enwiki and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 30#User:Jumbo Wales~enwiki until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. FAdesdae378 17:50, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 August 2022

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:38, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

List of serial rapists

Mr Wales, I came across a page here last week called List of serial rapists. The first thing that I noticed about it was that lists the "serial rapists" by the number of victims (generally women, of course). It looks like a scoreboard. That didn't set well with me at all, so I went back a few days later and removed the column called "proven victims". I left a note on the talk page explaining what I had done and why, but my removal was reverted. As you can see on the talk page, the people that edit this page want to keep the "proven cases" column for various reasons including, to quote one editor "it would be far too complicated to rearrange the entire list to be in alphabetical order".

Let me briefly outline some of the many problems with this page:

  • If it is sorted by number of victims, it automatically looks like a scoreboard, whether that is the intention or not
  • "Proven cases" is not defined and it is easy to see that the numbers listed are anything but "proven"
  • "Rape" is a very loose word. Does rape mean sexual assault of any kind? Does it only mean penetrative sexual assault?
  • The definitions for sexual assault charges differ between countries and even between jurisdictions within countries
  • The list contains people who have been charged with sexual assault but not convicted

Right now, the list includes actor Danny Masterson. He is listed as having four "proven cases". Based on his Wikipedia page, Danny Masterson has been charged, but not convicted. I don't know how long he has been listed or who added him, but something seems terribly wrong here. I'm sure there are other cases like him on the list.

The page was up for deletion before, but it was kept. As a result of the discussion it was renamed from "List of serial rapists by number of victims". Yesterday on the talk page, one of the frequent editors suggested "renaming the article to 'List of serial rapists by number of victims' or something to that extent". I don't think that they see the problem with this and outside of a small group of likeminded editors, no one seems to be paying attention to this page.

Mr Wales, I don't expect you to do anything about this personally, but I find this page absolutely disgusting and I needed to say *something* even if it has no result. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 18:15, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

While I think documenting the number of victims is hard to avoid (there are those that may have had 2 or 3, and then those with dozens, in the same manner as serial murders) it is definitely a problem to default sort that list by the victim count. Alphabetical or chronological is far better, even though a reader may end up sorting on victims. Masem (t) 19:25, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
I might agree with that if the "proven cases" column were defined as the number of victims and that number was documented. Clearly, if there are people in this list who have not been convicted, then the "proven" in "proven cases" means absolutely nothing. It is an undefined field that each editor interprets on their own. How can you vote to keep something that has no definition? Polycarpa aurata (talk) 20:32, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for bringing this up, and if someone has been charged but not yet convicted then of course they should not be listed under such a directly defining title. I've never seen the page but, if this concern about people being listed without conviction is accurate, hopefully others more familiar with it can correct this literal biographical injustice. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:36, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes, we absolutely cannot include those (living or dead) not convicted of rape. And it would be ;est for those that have been victim to only include the number of cases they were charged with, not estimates of other unnamed victims. Masem (t) 21:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
I've deleted Masterton from the list which, yes, showed that he hasn't been convicted (his page states that his trial date is August 29, 2022). Randy Kryn (talk) 00:21, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
Only 2 thoughts. First, obviously no one should be listed on such a page unless there is a conviction unless there are very strongly compelling reasons. Second the default sort should absolutely not be on number of victims as a matter of human dignity for those victims. Chronological seems most useful to me since alphabetical ordering isn't really that useful when pele can just "find in page" when looking for a particular name.
I am tempted to say don't even make the numbers column sortable but I can imagine some legitimate research uses such as finding cases of a similar magnitude etc. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:31, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for that. I was beginning to wonder if it was just me. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 03:02, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
I have linked to this discussion in a Signpost comment, so it would be nice to have it here for a little longer. Polycarpa aurata (talk) 04:17, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

FYI

testwikidata:User talk:Prince ovy § Jimbo's adminship/'cratship -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 02:59, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Update: Well, many have tried and failed, but I can now say I've successfully gotten Jimbo Wales desysopped.
... on testwikidata.
-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 09:27, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Huntsville history

Greetings Jimbo. I hope all is well with you and your people. I found this image of Huntsville City Hall in 1882. It doesn't seem to appear on any Wikipedia pages.. at least until now. Cheers. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:54, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

As it turns out they are building a new one in 2022. $90 million. I started a draft on it but accidentally put it in mainspace so I got blocked. Oops. Anyway, I found some other photos and put them there. I think it's interesting to see the evolution of architectural styles. The way the city evolved. And the people involved. One building in one city, or one historic figure, the pieces that make up part of the puzzle we're trying to put together. Take care. The draft is at Draft:Huntsville City Hall. A better photo of the 1960s city hall being replaced would be wonderful. The draft is at Draft:Huntsville City Hall. (I put some other stuff there too for when I can again edit in mainspace). FloridaArmy (talk) 14:42, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
It's interesting. I wrote a long comment here and realized I had something all wrong. I was thinking of the Madison County Courthouse, which has a similar history of an old historical building being replaced in the 1960s with a modern one. That story--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:01, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!

Moving uncited material to talk pages after a month

@Jimbo Wales, Unomi, TheDJ, and Looie496:

Hi, Jimmy. Back in May 2009, I asked you here about my practice of removing material lacking citations. You gave a nuanced and qualified answer (see the link), one that placed some emphasis on negative material, and material that fell into "France is a country in Europe" territory.

This was useful, but I also needed guidance on articles with material that is neither in the negative or "France" category, especially articles with large swaths of uncited material. Other editors joined that discussion and suggested using "unreferenced" and "refimprove" tags, and/or moving the material to the talk page. Since them, I've made a practice of fact-tagging such articles, putting the refimprove atop articles with large amounts of uncited info, and then moving that material to the talk page after a month. I've also worked to find citations for this material as time permits, as with this section in Phonograph record, which I rewrote and included 12 citations of reliable sources.

However, another editor is challenging this practice, calling it "bullying". I've mentioned the May 2009 discussion I had here, althought it was Unomi, and not you, who gave me this advice, so I wanted to know, do you support this practice? Do you regard it as in line with WP:V, WP:CS, et al.? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nightscream (talk • contribs) 18:33, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Are you systematically removing potentially good material from articles? If so, that would be very unhelpful. While working on a particular article, it might be necessary to remove some text because, after an effort, verification seems unlikely. However, that should not be a habit as it is a very destructive procedure. Of course, removing text which is probably WP:UNDUE or otherwise misleading is fine. But possibly correct encyclopedic text should be left for someone with the necessary skills and source access to fix. Johnuniq (talk) 02:13, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
While I appreciate Jimbo's sage input, I'm not sure taking something he said 13 years ago as carte blanche is advisable. Wikipedia has changed deeply since then. As to your tactic of removing uncited material to a talk page, I'm generally opposed to that. The secret of most uncited content is that it is sourced, but either the citation got lost, the article never had inline sources, or the author had no idea how to cite. I'd wager that as much as 95% of uncited material is factually correct. I'd much rather see editors working on finding sources than removing likely truthful content. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 08:18, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
And how does one objectively determine if material, including entire multiple sections and paragraphs of uncited material, is "potentially good" or "possibly correct" if it's completely lacking in citations? As to your question, my question is to fact-tag uncited material, wait a month, try to find sources and copyedit it in some cases, and then move it to the talk page, complete with a diff that shows where it was in the article.
CaptainEek, what is your basis for your assessment of the cause of uncited material, your 95% figure, or that it is "likely truthful"? Is it something objectively measurable, or completely subjective and made-up?
If material is uncited, then it is not "sourced", since "sourced" means that the source is cited in the article. Nightscream (talk) 12:54, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
My number is a subjective guess, it would be interesting to do a scientific study of that though. But to your approach: I don't know of anyone else doing it that way en masse. I think it's not a good tactic. Wikipedia should be an additive process, not a subtractive process, whenever possible. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:48, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Again, it is the practice that was reached here as a compromise with the other editor who advised it.
The administrator Johnuniq is now threatening to block me if I ever move uncited material from an article to the talk page, and even seems to be indicating that removing uncited passages about living people recently added by anonymous IP editors is "disruptive" too, and that I'm obligated to clean up that editor's mess when this happens. Do you think such a block threat is appropriate? Nightscream (talk • contribs) 00:08, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
I assume you are asking Jimbo, but I think the block warning is appropriate as your editing practices are, at times, not conducive to the goal of creating a high quality encyclopedia. The removal of, for example, "A tape would be inserted into the rewinder and pushed down so the rewinding mechanism would start." is one of many examples of something that is more appropriately tagged. While the citation doesn't support it, and it doesn't quite fit the definition of common knowledge, it is very close to common knowledge and clearly could be cited if effort was put into looking. MarcGarver (talk) 12:08, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
There are many problems that can lead to citations being lost, or content appearing to be cited when it actually isn't (so two sides of the same problem). For example, someone may add two sentences, adding the citation at the end of the second sentence. If that second sentence is deleted for some reason, or moved to another place in the article, the link between the citation and the first sentence "disappears". The opposite problem is when people add a clause to a sentence that was cited, where the addition isn't in the citation. E.g., they change "He was born in 1928.[citation]" to "He was born in the US in 1928.[citation]". Maybe one day the software will allow the citation to be attached to specific text - e.g., like the citation is in the edit summary and can be directly linked to the text it supported. Anyway, this general problem - which in 17 years of editing I've seen a lot of - means that we need to be cautious in just dumping text that is uncited. If it is credible and not controversial a refimprove or citation needed tag is a better approach. Ultimately though you need to not follow a strict rule. Rather you need to use your judgement and determine if what you are proposing makes the article better. MarcGarver (talk) 11:58, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm going to carefully avoid commenting here on any particular editors past actions or practices, simply because there is so much potential for me to get it wrong unless I do my homework, and there are many many elements of this sort of thing that require nuanced analysis. In general, I would say that if people are working to make the encyclopedia better, but having a disagreement of some sort about how to do that, it's really important to follow best practices like assuming good faith and being kind to each other in the discussion.
The interesting hard question here is around unsourced information in articles which meets a few criteria such as: (1) isn't negative claims about a living person (or groups of people etc) as BLP policy strongly implies that immediate removal is the right thing to do (2) has been flagged in the article for substantial time (a month is the time raised in this question) (3) one that I'll add is "doesn't sound ridiculous" - since if it sounds ridiculous (i.e. likely to be false) then surely it should come out right away. So when we have a case like this, what should a good editor do?
I'd say the first thing is probably: quickly look for a source. Because if it can be sourced quite easily, then that surely seems like the best way to improve the encyclopedia without a lot of effort.
Then I'd say post to the talk page: "Hey, this section has been tagged for over a month that it is unsourced, and I've personally looked for a source and can't find one. Here's a quote of what the article says today: <block quote of it>. If no one comes up with a source in the next few days, I'm planning to just delete it. If it sounded ridiculous, I'd delete it right now, but it certainly sounds plausible and I'm holding out hope that someone can find a source."
I'd also throw in that a review of the article history to find out who added might turn up a good person to ask for a source, and a look at who has edited the article quite a lot (and my have specialist knowledge that's relevant) could also turn up good people to ask. And finally a great many articles will likely fall into the area of interest of a WikiProject and obviously those would be good people to notify.
Now, I do concede that this is all a lot of work, and not every step of this is going to be necessary in every case. But surely we shouldn't keep stuff permanently in the encyclopedia if no one is willing or able to find a source for it, even if it sounds plausible.
All of this is a matter of degrees, I'd say. The more high profile the topic, the more urgent it will be to fix it. The closer to biography of a living person, the more urgent it will be to fix it. I've used the term "seems ridiculous" and "seems plausible" but surely that's a matter of degree as well.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:53, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales and MarcGarver: Jimbo, thank you for agreeing to participate: I think three points of clarification are needed:
To make it very clear, the material was not removed outright (that is, not "deleted"), but moved to the talk page, complete with a diff that showed precisely where which piece of information had been in the article.
You say "quickly look for a source." When you say this, do you mean I should have to find the numerous sources needed for the entire swaths of information — often times the a large portion or even a majorty of an an entire article, and that I need to do this with every article I so find, and every time someone comes by and adds it? I just want to be clear that I'm understanding you.
Do you support the block threat that has been leveled against me, as described above? Yes or no? I would genuinely appreciat it if you and others were to answer this. Nightscream (talk) 17:45, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
I'll start with the last question first - I haven't look at your past editing history at all and so I know nothing that would give me insight into that. I'd say when possible, yes, it's a lot better to source as much as you can than to simply remove to the talk page as a first move. I suppose again it really does depend on the context. If we have a huge long article (or section of an article) with no source, then it can be a lot of work to go through and specifically source every sentence. But it'll often be possible with just one or two sources. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:42, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales: I didn't ask you if it's better to source material. I asked you if moving large swaths/entire sections of uncited material in article, after it's been fact-tagged for a month (and often times for years prior to my coming across it) to the talk page, with a diff showing where it was in the article so that it can be moved back after being sourced.
Yes, we are talking about huge swaths of uncited material comprising entire sections, sometimes the majority of an article. I mentioned this above. As for my edit history, you can glean much of it from my edit count, the articles I've edited, overhauled, or created that are listed on my user page (including four articles that I single-handedly got to Good Article status), as well as the numerous accolades from others who left barnstars on my page (which are at the top of my user page). Would you support a block for this?

Nightscream (talk) 22:44, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

The situation is explained in my four brief comments at User talk:Nightscream#Tagging uncited material (permalink). In particular, "systematic removal of probably good content in anything other than the significant development of a particular article" would be a problem. I gave a trivial example (diff2) and have had no response other than Why in the world would I go to Project Baseball when I have no interest in that topic?. Johnuniq (talk) 23:45, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Tagging and subsequently removing uncited material is not a problem. Any block you placed (as you threatened Nightscream with) on that rationale would almost certainly be overturned and result in you being asked to justify yourself in front of ARBCOM for abuse of admin tools. Systematic removal of uncited content is both encouraged and policy compliant with WP:V. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:23, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Disclaimer: I am not a Wikilawyer and I don't think arguing nuances of policy is a useful way to spend time. However, I think you have an over literal interpretation of WP:V which does not say uncited content should be "systematically removed". The policy itself is more nuanced. In the policy summary it reads "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." The question being asked here is, loosely paraphrased: for something that is very likely to be true, and commonly held to be true, should it be deleted or tagged? The policy appears to require a subjective decision based on the first clause. That is, is the material's verifiability likely to be challenged? If so, it needs sourcing or removing, if not, then it could be tagged and left in the article. This is made clear by other clauses of the policy - e.g., "If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it". This would not be included if tagging and leaving it in the article was unacceptable. The fact that the policy only requires the deletion of material that is in violation of the BLP policy also makes it clear that deletion is not a foregone conclusion for anything uncited. Turning to the specific examples given above, these are all things that some editors judge to be likely true and commonly held to be true, and therefore the verifiability is not likely to be challenged and therefore it is not unreasonable for someone to dispute the need to remove the content. I think what we have here is debate about how to apply the subjective test of when to tag and when to remove - Nightscream has one view, others may or may not share it. MarcGarver (talk) 09:43, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
"I am not a wikilawyer" and yet you cherry pick the summary of the policy rather than the actual text at WP:BURDEN which is quite clear. If uncited material is challenged, it can be removed at any point. When and how long before removal is appropriate depends on the material. A month of being tagged is sufficient time for most articles to be updated. The burden then rests on people who wish to restore the material to provide a citation. BURDEN is very very clear on whose responsibility this is. At no point does WP:V say anything to support keeping uncited material present in an article once it has been challenged. There is no 'subjective test' applicable here, as WP:SKYISBLUE is only an essay and 'not likely to be challenged' is irrelevant if someone has already challenged it. If an article is tagged with a citation needed, the response required by WP:V is to provide a citation. Not argue that people do not need to cite it. If you or anyone else has a problem with that, you are free to open a discussion to amend the wording of WP:V, or attempt to promote SKYISBLUE to more than an essay, but until that point happens tagging and subsequent removal is policy compliant. Keeping uncited material in an article is not. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:44, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
Your apparent anger isn't required (you sound angry, apologies if you are not). I did not "cherry pick" to try and "win" an argument. My intent in referencing only the summary was to establish that a casual reader of the policy would not automatically infer "systematic deletion" was required by the policy because that isn't the plain meaning of the words. I am just trying to have a civil conversation about a problem and how there might be reasons why people would disagree with each other in the spirit of hoping to find some ground slightly nearer the middle. I have no skin in this game, nor interest in who "wins". MarcGarver (talk) 17:52, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Johnuniq: "In particular, 'systematic removal of probably good content in anything other than the significant development of a particular article' would be a problem." And I asked you, point blank, how you make a determination that material is "probably good". You persistenly chickened out of responding to this question, because you realized that you had been painted into a corner. The truth is, you don't know if material is "probably good", or "potentially good", these phrase denote subjective impressions, which means that they cannot be used as criteria for determining whether removal adheres to or violates policy.

This is in line with the tendency on the part of the less fastidious members of our community with adding or accepting material based on assumptions rather than on the very sources that WP:V requires, and this is the not the first time that I've run into editors fighting to keep large amounts of uncited material in an article on this type of weak premise. Back 2009, I got into a conflict other editors who opposed my position that every entry in the List of suicides article needed to have an explicit citation of a secondary source. The notion that he put forward was that this was not required for list-type articles. At one point one editor argued that one merely had to add inline citations from the parent article of each individual, telling me, "On the other hand, if it's just a lack of inline citations in the main article, the fix is to add them. You didn't mention which articles you checked, so I don't know which applies here. However, I've checked the sourcing on most of these before, so I suspect it's the latter." Well, I decided to do a deep dive into those in one section: Those with surnames listed under "A". Guess what I found? I found ten whose parents articles did not source the suicide. Can you imagine how many are in the entire article? The same editor said that if I wanted to require this work to be done, that I had to be willing to do it myself. Wrong. The person who adds the material, or favors its inclusion, has to be the one willing to do this. My position, which was to move all the uncited entries (which was most of the article) to the talk page pending sourcing, was upheld. Since then, we've gradually added back those entries (plus new ones, of source), all with inline citations. And that article is entirely supported by cites. There's not a single entry in it without one. And that's the way it should be. Granted, the List of suicides article concerns a more contentious topic, but the problem is the same: Articles comprised of large numbers of entire pargraphs and sections of uncited material should not be allowed to remain that way, solely on the basis of an "assumption" that the material is "probably true" or "potentially good", which entirely one of supposition that can't be substantiated with any line evidence or reasoning.

You knew that you couldn't definite what constitutes "probably good" or whatever, Johnuniq, and knew that you had no counterargument for it, and that's why you went silent --- while simultaneously complaining that I wouldn't responded to one minor point you brought up.

The truth, which anyone can see from reading that exchange on our talk page that you linked to, was that I missed that minor point with the diff, but did respond, in general, to each of your arguments, and in detail, explaining why I overall did not agree with you. Yet you continue to bitch and moan about one point about diffs, which you even admit here was a "trivial" one, as if I'm required to respond to each and every offhand comment or remark in a discussion. By contrast, the one question I keep asking that you keep evading is central to your position, and would expose that position for the house of cards that it is if answered.

Johnuniq: "...and have had no response other than Why in the world would I go to Project Baseball when I have no interest in that topic?" A lie. Anyone who reads our discussion can see that A. that comment by me was in response to a different statement by you, and not the diff in question, and B. that I gave substantial answers to each of your points, which reveals the picture you've attempted to paint of my supposedly not being transparent and straightforward to be one of deliberate mendacity on your part.

Bottom line: You have zero authority to block me for my practices. Your views on moving material to the talk page after a month are at best, one administrator's personal opinion, one that does not reflect a consensus of the administrator community here, as at least two people have disagreed with it: One of them here, and another one, an admin, on my talk page, who stated that he did not see grounds for such a block. In light of this, as well as the undisgusied hypocrisy and willfull mendacity that you've exhibited during this, which paints a picture of a rather obsessive and fanatical individual who may not be appropriate to wield the mop. I urge you reevaluate your stance here. Should you ignore this, and continue on this course, you risk being de-sysopped. I suggest that you not take that course. Nightscream (talk) 15:54, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Text in fundraising banners

This is the text in a fundraising banner run this August for Norwegian readers:

Til alle våre lesere i Norge, Ikke bla forbi dette. Denne onsdagen ber vi deg om å støtte Wikipedia. 98 % av leserne våre gir dessverre ikke, de ser bare en annen vei. Hvis du er en eksepsjonell leser som allerede har donert, vil vi oppriktig takke deg. Hvis du donerer kun 20 kr, eller det du har råd til denne onsdagen, kan Wikipedia fortsette å vokse i flere år. Vi ber deg ydmykt: ikke bla videre. Hvis Wikipedia har vært nyttig for deg, ber vi om at du donerer 20 kr til oss. Vis verden at Tilgang til pålitelig og objektiv informasjon betyr noe for deg. Tusen takk.

It can crudely be translated as follows (I have done it, and I am not an expert in English, anyone may improve it):

To all our readers in Norway, Do not browse past this. This Wednesday we ask you to support Wikipedia. 98 % of our readers do unfortunately not donate, the only look the other way. If you are an exceptional reader that already have donated, we will sincerely thank you. If you donate only 20 kr, or what you can afford this Wednesday, Wikipedia can continue to grow in several years. We ask you humbly: do not browse on. If Wikipedia has been useful for you, we ask that you donate 20 kr to us. Show the world that Access to trustworthy and objective information means something to you. Thank you.

I have put one sentence in bold, which content I find strange. It seems to tell that if no one gives money this year, there will be no growth of Wikipedia. But who write and grow Wikipedia? Voluntary contributors, like myself. Do I get paid, or need payment to contribute and to help Wikipedia grow? To be very clear, no. I have contributed since 2004, and I will contribute for years to come, and neither do I get any money or I need it - on the contrary it is money out, for books and other things needed to expand various articles. For me, this statements seems to be a clear lie, and I can not understand how it can be defended to run it. To make myself clear: I am not against fundraising, and I think creating a buffer of money makes sense, for a number of reasons, but it should be done in line with what Wikipedia stands for.

So isn't this just a small matter, everyone knows that ads and commercials are not keeping to facts? My opinion, and I do only speak for myself, is that Wikipedia is a special case. We don't run ads, we work on building an encyclopedia, and the way we do fundraising should reflect our mission. Besides, there is always the "cry wolf" effect. If Wikipedia one day really needs money urgently, how can I trust that? The banner I have quoted is not the only example, there are several others, from various language versions of Wikipedia, more examples can be seen at Talk:Fundraising.

I know that it is not up to you to decide, but all the same I think that you are maybe the one that best can influence Wikimedia Foundation in this matter. Last, but not least, I want to state clearly that I will continue to contribute to Wikipedia, regardless of the outcome of this plea. Its fun, rewarding, and I can only regret that I can not use more time for it as I am fully employed. Regards Ulflarsen (talk) 17:55, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

It is clear to me that solid, steady funding of WMF is important for the growth of Wikipedia over the next several years. In particular, I believe that we should engage in a rather large increasing in spending to boost the community in the parts of the world where Wikipedia is still small (largely poorer regions of the world). So I don't think there is anything wrong with a banner that links the future growth of Wikipedia to fundraising.
Like you, I have not always been comfortable with every fundraising message that we've had, but this particular one I don't have a problem with. I do agree with you that our fundraising banners should be honest, always. I just don't see any problem with letting people know that money is necessary if we are to achieve our goal of a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:50, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
Hi Jimmy, thanks for your response above. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts on some of the concerns raised at the village pump discussion on fundraising language here on the English Wikipedia. For example, is it OK to imply that Wikipedia urgently needs donations to, say, avoid the risk of being forced to run ads? I agree that stable WMF funding is important for inclusive growth, but I worry about misleading potential donors about the health/sustainability of the current situation. Jr8825 • Talk 17:57, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm eligible for the Wikipedia library?

amazing? What the hell is a wikipedia library!? -- L10nM4st3r (talk) 08:25, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) The WP:Library is, basically, a way to get access to paywalled articles on websites like ScienceDirect, archives and databases like JSTOR and things like that. It helps editors to get sources without selling their kidneys to pay greedy capitalists. Most editors are just too shy law-abiding to use a certain website. Arado Ar 196 (C✙T) 09:10, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks! Although I don't think I will be using it any time soon. :!D -- L10nM4st3r (talk) 11:07, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Do you find that a lying admin is a norm?

Just a simple question. Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 12:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

It's difficult for users of the English language Wikipedia to comment on issues relating to the versions of Wikipedia in other languages.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:11, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

The reconstruction of the accident by Ерден Карсыбеков:

  1. On 12/25/2020 I added to kk-article about "Oliver Twist" the category "novels" (Санат:Романдар). Also I added the infobox, which already contain another category (Санат:Алфавит бойынша әдеби шығармалар).
  2. On 12/27/2020 Kasymov reverted my edition, which means that he deleted two categories in the article.
  3. On 1/6/2021 I wrote him that his action is unproductive. He reverted his own action, but in his answer to me at 19:23 mentioned that the article was bad and it was without categories (санат жоқ).
  4. On 1/14/2021 (22:46) he recognized that I had added the category "novels" (Сіз тек бір ғана романдар деген санат қостыңыз).
  5. On 1/15/2021 I explained him that the second category always goes with infobox automatically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ерден Карсыбеков (talk • contribs) 15:35, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Do you find that discussing other editor without notifying them is a norm? Arado Ar 196 (C✙T) 15:51, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

This lying admin blocked my ability to notify him on any issue. But he was notified by some other user. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 15:56, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Request for unlock

Hello! Today I was blocked in kk-wiki by this person without any reason. This is very straange situation. Where/Whom can I ask to unlock me? Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 16:27, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

This person deleted many useful pages in kk-wiki, and tried to delete even Richard Branson and Ian Nepomniachtchi. Just now he made even more strange thing: he deleted my contribution to this article by deleting the article and rewriting it on former redirect (so that contribution is made by him). And unfortunately he did this acrobatic scene many times in past. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 17:58, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

He makes very much mistakes. And probably it is intentionally. In this page he wrote: Мақалаларға мән-мағынасыз сөздерді қосуыңызды сұраймын (Ask you to include meaningless words to articles). And when I write him about his misacceptable mistakes, he thinks that I humiliate him. Unbelievable. '(-_Q)' --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 18:59, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

A few years ago he used to delete written and relevant categories in articles and to change them to unwritten categories, until I said him that it is not smart. Now he switched his activity on other directions. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 07:19, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

And he argues now that: If you notice then half of my discussion is written by him. But if you look at my talk page, you'll find that the half of it is polluted by him. So this argument is a little bit loony. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 07:23, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Here is an example when a user asks Kasymov not to disturb him, but he continues. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 12:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

When I said him that an attempt to delete the article about cinematography (just because it was sound like mathematical term) may be considered as a childish action; he neither answered me, nor deleted wrong template (about quick deletion of the article). I think that it is misacceptable action for an admin. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 07:35, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Or may be you find it acceptable? --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 12:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Do you find acceptable, when admin lies? Here he lied that there were no categories in one article (санат жоқ), but there were two categories and they were gone only after his edition. He tried to accuse me that I was not able to include categories to an article, where they were included. Unbelievable. '(-_Q)' --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 12:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I was unlocked. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 10:19, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Editing news 2022 #2

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And by the way, welcome for all newcomers who are visiting the man, the myth, the legend, JIMBO WALES! Waylon111 (talk) 15:10, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
@Waylon111 Thanks Jimbo Wales for founding Wikipedia. Yadhu Krishna BP (talk) 15:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Three cheers for Jimbo! MarioFyreFlower (talk) 19:02, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia may not be my home wiki, but helped me find one, which is a big part of my life right now. Who made Wikibooks? -- L10nM4st3r (talk) 15:06, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Seeking a contact point

Jimbo, do you know a WMF account on English Wikipedia that serves as a contact point for people involved in WMF grant administration? There's a small kerfuffle over at the Admin Noticeboard about a sitebanned user being entrusted with thousands of dollars in a WMF grant to help run a global contest. Obviously, this creates trust issues. I'd like to start a discussion at the village pump or elsewhere on site about maybe petitioning to have something added to the UCOC or a policy created regarding how grants are administered to people who've been banned from editing on a Wikimedia project (unless there is already explicit guidance for this). I'm not asking for your personal opinion here (unless you want to share), I just want to know what the most relevant WMF en.wiki account would be to ping for a discussion. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:59, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that User:I JethroBT (WMF) is on the relevant team. There's probably a way to reach the whole team over at Meta-Wiki. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Those do sound like good starting points.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:42, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 August 2022

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Request for unlock

Hello! Is it possible to unlock me in kk-wiki? An illiterate admin blocked me, because I asked him frequently not to input intentionally mistakes in articles and not to be jealous to other users' contribution. Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 17:03, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that this user is grossly abusing admin rights, when he deletes my comments on his talk page and bans me when I try to recover them. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 19:13, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

When I said him that using nonexistent words was illiteracy by itself (here, 38); he used in his answer very inadequate phrase: Еріккен сарт енегін уқалайды, which had no correlation to anything, and may be considered racist and sexist as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ерден Карсыбеков (talk • contribs) 21:52, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia support such illiterate and inadequate users? --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 10:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Ерден Карсыбеков! I won't be able to help you, but you might get someone to help you if you ask at the Teahouse or the Help Desk. I hope your conflict gets solved! 𝙷𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚘𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚝 👋❤️ (𝚃𝚊𝚕𝚔🤔) 03:53, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
Oh, thank you. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 08:46, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

I think also that it would be good if such inadequate admins would be informed (regularly) about their rights and obligations. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 13:52, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

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Doug Weller talk 09:24, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: Jimmy Wales is getting a warning? That's very funny to me for some reason. -- Python Drink (talk) 21:18, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Articles cited to non-English sources

Jimmy, first of all on a positive note, WP:TWL has been absolutely incredible and the best thing that happened since sliced bread!! The TWL team deserves special recognition for what they have accomplished! Now on to the problems we are facing at NPP and non-English sources. English WP has been getting a steady, rather significant stream of poorly translated, poorly cited articles from other language WPs, which leaves NPP burdened with the task of trying to verify and confirm RS, GNG, N, V, NOR, and NPOV based only on published sources in foreign languages. It is also difficult to ascertain the reliability of non-English online websites that may be cited, and while Google translate helps, it doesn't tell us if the source is a RS which is a bit more difficult to ascertain for reasons beyond language barriers. We already know from the get-go there will be losses in translation, and it is a growing problem, not an occasional one as it was a decade ago. The success of en.WP is probably a big reason for what is happening, but we also need to consider the reasons for its success; that being our ability to maintain quality & neutrality. Unfortunately, we are seeing increased losses of both, along with a steady increase in tagged articles in addition to the numerous decade-old +/- tagged articles, unsourced stubs, and a lowering of the bar for notability, due in part to the inclusionist vs deletionist battleground which recently made its way to ArbCom. However, of even greater concern is the substantial loss of quality and neutrality in some of our contentious topic areas. Foresight tells me that this situation is unsustainable, especially when considering the burn-out rate of experienced volunteers, especially at NPP which is pretty much the last line of defense in keeping non-notable, unverifiable, poorly sourced material out of WP. Was it always the intention of the project to allow foreign language citations/sources for en.WP despite the fact that the very premise of WP:V states: In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source? Expecting English speaking people to check non-English sources to verify material is a stretch. If the topic is notable on a global scale, then English sources will be available, and if not, the article belongs in the respective language WP where users/readers are able to properly verify the material, yes or no? Atsme 💬 📧 12:16, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

A foreign language source is just as accessible as a source behind a paywall - you need some resource (either a language skill or money) to access from a WP:V standpoint, but we definitely don't block paywall sources. We definitely don't want to block foreign sources, though what you describe points to perhaps a article creation pipeline issues, that articles that are simply translations from other wikipedias should possible start in drafts first until they can be reviewed more thoroughly. Masem (t) 12:21, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
Masem, there is a big difference between a few paywalled sources being cited (which TWL & incognito have pretty much remedied) vs the entire article being cited to foreign language sources. Our job at NPP is to make sure the sources support the material and comply with N. At least paywalled sources are an indication that they are a likely RS, but a list of cited Chinese sources (or whatever other country) that include newspapers like the Beijing Youth Daily (in Chinese), the official newspaper of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League of China doesn't sound like a RS for verifying a TV series that has not yet been televised or streamed. I may be wrong, so be my guest and read the archived review from the original and see what you think about the process of actually getting to read the source. It may help explain why we have a 10k to 18k article backlog, and a dwindling number of reviewers. Consider me the canary in the coal mine. I started flapping my wings pretty hard several years ago right here on Jimmy's TP about the coming of paywalls, and started some discussions with Samwalton9 – the doer of all doers – and he is still doing!! Kudos again to TWL for stepping up to the plate, and getting it done! But in this situation, I'm at a loss for what direction we should take because we are not talking about one or two sources. It involves bigger numbers, and those numbers are growing. Atsme 💬 📧 23:45, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
I understand the NPP problem (NPP should be a quick review if there are good sources, and foreign language ones are near impossible to quick check), but we really cannot discriminate on foreign language sources like that as a global encyclopedia - a perfectly valid topic in English can clearly be made from only foreign-language sources. That's why I think that if you do run into a case of a foreign-language only source at NPP, the better aspect is to draftify and request trying to improve sourcing, or explain why the sources given are good. You're cutting off too much if you purposely disallow foreign language sources just to make NPP easier. Masem (t) 00:27, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
If the handful of New Page Reviewers who are still active finally give up out of frustration, what will happen to Wikipedia's claims of accuracy and neutralty that are so dear to its Founder? NPP is now forced to be done quickly, but it must nevertheless be more than cursory if the process is to have any sense. Atsme makes some compelling suggestions but foreign language sources are acceptable - but with utmost caution. A increase in the new articles arriving in the NewPagesFeed from non-English L1 regions is forcing NPP to meet new challenges; far too few reviewers are active to review all new pages within the current time limit and very few have the language skills for verifying foreign sources. Machine translations from articles in other Wikipedias are often not more than unintelligible gibberish. Foreign Wikipedias, even the major ones, do not apply the same strict rules of sourcing and notability as en.Wiki. The antiquated but obvious WMF policy/philosophy that 'quantity of articles rather than quality' is preventing the upgrade of tools.
I concur with Masem's "...the better aspect is to draftify and request trying to improve sourcing, or explain why the sources given are good." Drafts are not released for indexing and there are no time limits. Rather than constantly devising new software to attract and mentor new users, there has been a steadfast refusal to provide new registrants immediately with concise information of What Wikipedia is not. Expecting the volunteer content providers to do the WMF's work for free (as recently insisted by a BoT member in a public stream) is not acceptable and the WMF's claims that that money is too short are risible.
Among the regular volunteers there are dozens who are vastly more qualified and experienced at software development and UX. Either give them a crack at the whip with a more streamlined process of providing grants, or increase the pool of devs and ensure that those who are hired have the relevant experience, understand the principles of effective UX. and are not simply more contenders for the Foundation's celebrity salaries. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:38, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Drafts are not released for indexing and there are no time limits. But there is the 6 month time limit of WP:G13. TryKid [dubious – discuss] 10:14, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
There's this idea that I (and perhaps others) have toyed with for a while, which would require considerable WMF resources and have an impact far beyond the Wikimedia movement: a joint widescale survey and analysis of sources around the world. First we would need a thorough survey of how different Wikipedias evaluate sources, working to understand the different dimensions and considerations regarding "reliability", highlighting points of difference and similarity. Then we could use those findings to guide descriptions/analyses in a massive country-by-country (and/or language-by-language) source analysis involving a large, geographically distributed research team working with local Wikipedians, journalists, scholars, etc. The goal would be, in the end, both to better understand knowledge production on Wikipedia and to produce a resource, widely translated, which would empower communities to apply their own guidelines effectively as well as to understand other perspectives on how knowledge is documented and disseminated. I know there have been many similar, smaller-scale projects, not to mention various compilations of newspapers/magazines/journals from around the world, but we need shared methodology, consistent criteria/considerations, cross-coordination, and broad applicability to Wikimedia projects. It's too sprawling-yet-specific to be something academia or any one non-profit/NGO to handle... except maybe the Wikimedia Foundation. Something like this would find interest far beyond Wikipedia, even if our own self-interest were at its center, and in fact it's could likely attract funding. Maybe a[n ambitious] pilot version of this would carry out the survey and select a set of three countries identified for their differences in their publics' consumption of media, or even a set of languages identified for their proportional underrepresentation across Wikipedias. I'm rambling a bit (it's late)... TL;DR: identifying reliable sources in other languages is going to be really hard for any Wikipedia; the WMF can probably help with this more than it is. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:38, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
I will never support a blanket ban on referencing foreign language sources. As I have frequently said, this is the English language encyclopedia of the entire world, not the encyclopedia of the English speaking world. The only way to adequately cover notable topics in non-English speaking countries is to allow references to sources in other languages. That being said, we do have a growing problem with new articles that rely solely or heavily on sources in other languages. Google Translate should never be used to crank out new articles, although it can be useful for reviewers to spot check claims. But I have difficulty evaluating the reliability of sources in languages like Spanish and German, let alone the flood of content from Africa and the Indian subcontinent, where millions of people with marginal English language skills think that it is a great idea to try to get an article into the English Wikipedia with its prestige and worldwide reach. Quality is far more important than quantity if this encyclopedia is going to maintain its reputation. The WMF, quite frankly, is rolling in excess cash. Why not spend truly significant amounts of that money to support the hardworking unpaid volunteers, instead of lavishing money on career staffers including software developers who fail to solve the signigicant problems that the volunteers experience? It is the volunteers, after all, who wrote the 6.5 million articles here and many millions more on the other projects that are the foundation of the financial success of the WMF. Why can't the WMF create a multilingual version of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources? Why can't state of the art software tools be created for AFC reviewers and new page patrollers? Why can't there be an increased emphasis at the highest levels of the WMF on the importance of quality over quantity? Cullen328 (talk) 03:54, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
The community is full of multilingual contributors who can help with foreign sources. It would be nice to have better ways to connect NPP reviewers and people with language skills (or other subject matter experts). Narrowing our scope by insisting on English language sources is a terrible idea. —Kusma (talk) 05:30, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
I agree...we have Wikipedia:Translators available, and perhaps tweaking that page a bit to include info if someone is also a new page patroller, or (generally) coax some translators over to NPP should be doable. Lectonar (talk) 09:38, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
I no longer do any article translations, as I prefer to rewrite the article from scratch using the available sources (otherwise I'm never sure that what I write is as accurate as I can manage) so I am not listed on that page. I am very happy to help with source checks in the languages I can read, but I don't know where to advertise that.
Perhaps we could try to re-purpose WP:PNT? It no longer works for its original main task "translate foreign language articles accidentally posted to the English Wikipedia" (articles are usually quickly deleted instead), and the "clean up terrible machine translations" part has a many-year backlog (so I'd argue it doesn't work either). What we might need instead is a page where people can say "does this statement appear reliably sourced to these Chinese sources" or "hey, I need someone who reads Russian to check this statement for source to text integrity and close paraphrasing". I wouldn't want to tell multilinguals (or other subject-matter experts, for that matter) that the only way to apply their knowledge to new pages is to become a new page patroller. —Kusma (talk) 11:26, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
We could try this, but not via repurposing PNT...as I do not see that more people would take part in the source checking than do now in pages needing translation. In both cases, the "devil lies in the details". Even to be able to say "it appears to be reliably sourced" would require a skill set not every multilingual user might have. Digressing a bit, I really would like to see that machine-translated articles could be subject to speedy deletion either by expanding A2, or have a new criterion altogether...being aware that this probably will never happen. Lectonar (talk) 12:07, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, @Lectonar and Kusma: and try herding cats! I'm perfectly trilingual in the languages of three major Wikipedia languages and proficient in many others but I have my work cut out writing my own articles from scratch after seeing the rubbish versions on one or two other Wikipedias, and nursemaiding an NPP system that is facing bankruptcy and desertion, let alone do something about sordid machine translations.
Cullen328 is largely reiterating on all counts, exactly what I stated above. However, his mentions of ...the flood of content from Africa and the Indian subcontinent, where millions of people with marginal English language skills... are precisely what got the drafters of NPP's appeal to the WMF accused of 'xenophobia and racism' (in those words and diffs exist) to the extent of veiled PA. Today's content of the NewPagesFeed nevertheless undeniably reflects these new challenges which the New Page Reviewers are no longer able to cope with - go on y'all non-patrollers, go take a look, I dare ya, and don't forget to wear your knee high boots and a face mask ;)
However, to answer Cullen's closing questions, and to also digress a bit: The WMF has slowly but surely mutated into a socio-political 'movement' rather than the collection of encyclopedias most of us signed up to help 16 years ago (the WMF had 7 employees). Most of the money goes on the salaries of a bloated pool of 500+ employees among whom some enjoy junkets and celebrity salaries, and large grants to affiliates of dubious activity and outsourced services. Between the WMF and its BoT I sometimes wonder which tail is wagging which dog, while all the time the community's dedicated volunteers whose work produces the donations get no thanks or compensation, and are allowed little or no say in how things are run, and don't get the software they need either. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:15, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
@Kusma : the idea of a multilingual "Verifiability Hub" is very interesting. Not only would the language verifications of NPPs be crowdsourced, but the hub could be used by any editor to check for new citations and sources added to any existing article.
When I check for the verifiability of a claim supported by a non-English source, searching (and finding) English sources comes naturally, sometimes serendipitously. The "hub" could also help identify and suggest English sources to add to the non-English ones, improving verifiability not only for the minority of readers who understand the foreign language, but also for the majority of readers of English Wikipedia.
I don't believe that the relatively low number of translators available at WP:TRLA is a good indicator of the amount of people who might be interested in contributing to the "hub". The checks would be organized as a collection/list of micro-tasks, which would take less time than translating entire texts. This factor could attract more volunteers.
I don't have an opinion on proposals that would require a lot of time or funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to become reality, not because I don't think the proposals are worthy, but because I am more interested in practical solutions that the community could implement more independently. I invite other editors to consider your idea carefully and hope that it doesn't remain just a clever thought hidden in a discussion. :-) ► LowLevel73 (talk) 15:52, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
See my proposal/suggestions here. Atsme 💬 📧 13:28, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

IMO the root cause of this problem is WP:Before....in essence an overloaded NPP'er is in essence required to "prove a negative" (GNG non-compliance) at least to themselves, in essence requiring a full understanding of a large amount of non-english sources.North8000 (talk) 14:06, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

BEFORE is not the issue. Valid sources are essential but Reviewers are not obliged to do it, after all, the onus is on the creator to submit an article that while possibly having taggable issues, is policy compliant. Nor is it strictly a string of sources in some unreadable non-Latin script; there's usually something else with the article that raises valid concerns. So, to digress once more, as long as the WMF continues to refuse to address the PageTriage bugs and feature requests, and as long as most of the reviewing of the 100s of daily new articles is done by a tiny handful of the 750+ rights holders who are constantly suffering from burnout, there is little incentive for anyone to do much more despite a couple of new grantings of the NPP right each week, and the backlog continues to grow.
The time will come when the overspill of non reviewed trash escapes into Google's clutches and some wise individuals from the established mainstream press get wind of it. Bang goes Wikipedia's credibility and people will start using Britannica again instead and maybe even Encarta will rise from the ashes - after all, MS has got lots more dosh than the WMF and they are not afraid of selling ad space. Maybe the next thing on the horizon will even be Applepedia, they have already diversified well beyond making computers and smart phones, they've got the dosh too. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:24, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
Lot's there in your post, of course. Your second sentence describes how it should be and mostly is except for wp:before. Your argument seems to be that because wp:before conflicts with the norm and conflicts with good practice it does not exist. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:55, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
My 'argument' means nothing of the sort. Far from it in fact. Best to not try to second guess what I am thinking ;) NPP is NPP and with or without English or foreign RS, 'if a topic can't be reliably referenced, there shouldn't be an article about it'. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe words to that effect came from Mr Wales himself. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:12, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
You are absolutely right. And I agreed with 99% of your previous post. But I don't think that you understood my post. IMO wp:before is one of the main things that turns non-english sourced articles into problems. North8000 (talk) 20:30, 13 September 2022 (UTC)
This is a great discussion about a genuinely difficult issue. I have formed no strong opinion on this myself - I lack a lot of important information that I'd want to get very familiar with before coming to any judgment. I'd initially agree with "a blank ban on foreign language sources is a bad idea" and "an article sourced to foreign language sources provides a really difficult set of issues around our usual standards of neutrality, verifiability, and so on." Now, what to do about it? That's the hard part!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:05, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
Yes, it's a difficult issue Jimbo. I know you are aware of the importance of NPP because you and I have discussed it a couple of times during various Wikimanias, albeit briefly. The problem is the growing number of articles now cited to non English sources or to foreign sources in English whose reliability and relevancy cannot be easily established. The actual number of active New Page Reviewers are no longer able to cope - stopping to do BEFORE would slow the workflow almost to a stop. We're all thinking out of the box for solutions but it would help first and foremost if the WMF would agree to upgrade the features and address the bugs in the PageTriage software. That would help the reviewers meet the new challenges and might attract more editors to do some reviewing. We need reviewers who are not only competent in other languages but who are also familiar with the sources used in those countries. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:00, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
It would be good to know for which languages we are having trouble finding NPPers. I would expect us to have reasonably many editors who read some Spanish, French, German or Dutch, so these should be not too hard to deal with. —Kusma (talk) 18:42, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm of the mind that my concerns are warranted in that we are going beyond the scope of English Wikipedia considering we have various language Wikipedias which sends the message that the information readers will find will be in the respective languages and that includes the sources. Perhaps we need to separate en.WP and create the "all-language Wikipedia". I may very well be off-base in my thinking, but my experiences in the trenches are what guide me. We are pushing the limits of volunteerism, as Kudz has pointed out, and while globalization is really cool and it IS happening, we still have major obstacles that editors are not fully equipped to handle in a timely manner. Surely there is a reason en.WP has become a major attraction to all the other language Wikis, so maybe we should focus more on the reasons the English WP has excelled. Atsme 💬 📧 12:42, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
A central reason is that the English Wikipedia is written in the current global lingua franca, by people from all over the world, a huge number of them multilingual. —Kusma (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
True, but we must keep readers in mind, not just editors. Another problem that is introduced when citing to other language resources is being able to detect COPYVIO...and that can become a major and very serious issue. We have Earwig, and I believe one other copyvio detector but I don't think they do on-the-fly translations. Even if they did, they cannot access a book that is not online, so how are we supposed to gain access to those cited books in order to check for copyvio? Atsme 💬 📧 00:09, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Like we do now for English sources - assumptions of good faith that editors are looking up sources and paraphrasing their content, not assume the negative from the start. Only when its demostrated that an editor has been acting in bad faith do we take action. Masem (t) 01:04, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I wish it was that easy, Masem – at NPP we check for copyvios. Are you not familiar with the tedious process that NPP is responsible for doing every day with over 16,000+/- articles at any given time in the NPP queue? Can you imagine how many lawsuits WMF would have against them if we did not check for copyvios? We get articles all the time that are riddled with copy/paste and sometimes the whole article is a copyvio. Atsme 💬 📧 01:09, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I assume you're checking with Earwig which is fine - but I would not expect an NPP to have to chance down an English-language source not in Earwig's range to verify there isn't a copyvio - nor do we do that for experienced editors (which btw we have had at least one notable case of an experienced editor doing copyvios for years), nor should we expect that for foreign language articles. And yes, the copyvio aspect that makes it a legal problem is something serious, but you really have to ask how many copyvios likely already exist on WP's pages already? We are not perfect here, and while any automated efforts to find copyvios should be used, I never think there is an expectation that we have to actively seek these out as part of an NPP action. Until WMF Legal tells us "the amount of copyvios are too high!" we shouldn't be reactive to that, but keep it in mind without tripping over ourselves to resolve at the cost of both NPP patrollers and new editors trying to act in good faith. Masem (t) 01:14, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
It is more use friendly to use English language sources because anyone who can read English Wikipedia articles can read those sources. It's also easier for editors to check that the sources support the text.
In many cases, foreign language sources are used because the information is not available in English. Hence they are useful for topics that receive little attention in English language sources, such as places and people in non-English speaking countries. But where a topic is well coverage in English language sources, such as the war in Ukraine, using foreign language sources can create a weight issue. I came across this recently where a suspected war criminal was named in Ukrainian media, but among English language media, was only named in sources Wikipedia deems unreliable, such as the Daily Mail.
TFD (talk) 14:23, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
One thing to be careful is that there are quality foreign sources that offer other angles and insights onto major topics, and as long as we have good translations we shouldn't necessarily ignore them just because nearly all other parts of a topic are in English-language sources. A few topics that I've done that touch on South America (mostly tidying up Recent Deaths for ITN) require using major newspapers from Brazil, Chili, etc. which do not have English translations but which are providing details skipped over by English sources, for instance. Hence why I'm not thrilled with the concept presented here that foreign sources are bad. They are just as good, just require a bit more planning and effort to use. Masem (t) 14:33, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I did say that foreign language sources are useful for topics that receive little attention in English language sources. But for major topics, such as Bolsonaro or Chavez, the Honduran coup or the attempted one in Venezuela, It's hard to argue for the inclusion of information that English speaking media decided not to cover. There might be a place for them in sub-articles however that go into greater detail. Bear in mind that local news sources will provide more information about local news. But editors must then decide which stories have weight for inclusion in articles. Would there be anything in a Spanish Wikipedia article, that relied mostly on Spanish-speaking sources, that would not be included in English speaking sources, at least for major topics? TFD (talk) 15:50, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
I can envision a situation (but can't point to an exact one) where the local perspective reported by reliable, non-state local sources, may be far different from the western perspective. (Generally, our western sources usually discuss this, hence why its hard to point to a situation). Masem (t) 16:11, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
Any time English speaking countries intervene in non-English speaking countries, such as in the Honduran coup or the attempted one in Venezuela which I mentioned above, or in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, the local perspective is usually different. But quality English speaking media, especially left-wing media or foreign media that translates articles into English, will report that perspective. The only problem we face is what weight to provide it. TFD (talk) 00:19, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

IMO the mathematical train wreck is confined to NPP wp:notability related issues. One can easily fix that by getting rid of wp:before. Then everything wp:notability issue would come down to what it needs to be....the advocate for the article needing to establish notability. Then, with all of that fixed, what's left is wp:verifiability issues. This is mathematically / time-wise much narrower more focused. If the verifiability / sourcing, it's a manageable job to translate the provided reference. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:38, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Copyright status

I saw that you added File:Chris Hansen 2022.jpg to Chris Hansen. The file is currently up for deletion on Commons; do you have any information about the license or a way to contact the uploader? Thanks! Elli (talk | contribs) 01:13, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

God dang it i really want to vandalize this page

why am I typing this General Bottom Text (talk) 00:25, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Sandbox is the place to experiment. Tropicalkitty (talk) 00:27, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
this was a joke about the content in this article stating anyone can edit it General Bottom Text (talk) 16:46, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
@General Bottom Text: "...the content in this article stating anyone can edit it" just as the vast majority of pages on here; doesn't mean it should vandalized lol. I'm not being serious though; I know you're joking — Python Drink (talk) 18:23, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

favourite article

what's your favourite wikimedia page 2006toyotacorrola (talk) 09:56, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 30 September 2022

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Here's a sad one, and a life celebration

His family has announced on his page that User:BeenAroundAWhile has died. What a symbol of editing Wikipedia in older age (something which tens of thousands of retirement home residents could happily be doing - maybe funding a paid Wikipedian in residence for a couple of months at something like that gigantic elder community in Florida would be a beautiful tribute from the Foundation), and a major loss for the project. He loved the encyclopedia, and will be missed. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:26, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

For those who may not know, BeenAroundAWhile started editing Wikipedia when he was 73 and lived to 90. He had well over 100,000 edits, and is number 712 on the English Wikipedia most edits list. There exists so much knowledge and a basic human urge to expand and share knowledge in the older population, both professional and nonprofessional. Outreach to those communities and individuals seems one of the greatest yet to be fully-tapped pools of potential Wikipedia editors - the healthy and smart elderly. Like BeenAroundAWhile, editing would provide them easy access to continue sharing interests that they have focused on, taught, and explored for decades. The benefits of neuroplasticity would also come into play. Randy Kryn (talk) 18:52, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Thank you, @Randy. I wouldn't have seen this otherwise. A great loss for the future of the encyclopedia for sure but what an amazing contribution he made during his life. I am mesmerized by the Song's of so many but truly those that have lived such a long life always seem to be so full of color and character. I am moved. --ARoseWolf 19:51, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
What a sweet tribute, Randy, and a great idea. Atsme 💬 📧 23:40, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

WP - the encyclopedia about everything and anything

WP:GNG and N no longer matters. The internet has changed everything. Here is the overwhelming evidence that has caused me to change my perspective in how WP views WP:N and what constitutes a RS. Why do we even need WP:NPP? I think it's pretty interesting because it will open the doors to all kinds of articles about everything, and all you need is an online source for verification of notability. Isn't that what you intended from the beginning, Jimmy? The internet dumped it right in your lap. WP is about to be the repository for everything ever created. I hope you have enough room on your servers. Anyone can register a domain, get website host, and start publishing whatever is trending – I could create 10 such websites, and cover GNG. Are you getting my point? Atsme 💬 📧 00:16, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

Well, I think we need NPP to check whether new pages meet any of the Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. But you already know what I think about the reviewer checklists that tell NPPers things like "Does the article have grammar or spelling mistakes? If so, either fix the mistakes or add {{Copyedit}}." You don't need to have the new page reviewer user right to fix spelling mistakes. This IMO should not be any part of NPP's work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
I think from that AFD, the issue may be that there are different sets of RSes that fall into place when dealing with topics within a specific realm. That album has coverage in well-recognized music sources, just maybe not mainstream news sources, but consensus at the music project has determined those to be good. I think that project has been around long enough to know to know what are bad sources covering music, but I would trust their members to say when a topic is likely notable and the sourcing is good. (We have the same thing we do as the video games project, with our list of good sources, given the tendancy of a lot of bad sources to be used too often.
I do think we tend to have editors wanting an article on a single topic, rather than finding a broader coverage article that could cover multiple topics in a more comprehensive form and that likely lends better to notability. EG: try to suggest that a band with barely enough notability alone but have 2-3 albums with basic reviews should have those albums merged into the band (as to make a much more notable article), and you'll find resistance that the albums need their own page. We need to work editors over to show that merging is absolutely not a bad thing with the use of redirects to help with searching. But editors like the little fiefdoms that their own separate articles tend to give them. Masem (t) 05:11, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Unrelated, but 250th archive of this page woo Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) Please ping me when replying. 21:46, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
Today I learned Günther Porod and Lyman G. Parratt have somewhat similar names. That's the sort of half-baked grassroots outside-the-box educatory meatball you'll just never get from an RS, especially MEDRS. Yes, we've got the homegrown inside scoop here, for better and worse. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:19, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Masem, I think the point being missed is the simple fact that all but a few online music websites (including the truly notable sites like Billboard, Rolling Stone, etc.) will accept any and every single or album that is being submitted to them by a seemingly infinite number of unknowns. Those sites are so inundated, they use volunteers who work from home, freelancers and anonymous reviewers. How does that define a RS? Those sites also solicit reviews, so if you submit a really good review they will accept it (they probably accept 99% of them), and will publish your name Mr or Ms unknown elementary school teacher. Best of all. they will promote and market any artist's new album/song (for a fee) - and will guarantee that you will get good reviews on their website (and partner sites), plus you will get promo/marketing (depending on the pricing package you choose). This is the era of everybody who shows up gets a blue ribbon...as long as they pay the entry fee. And that is what we consider today's RS?
WP is the perfect venue to perpetuate "the year" a starving artist made a run for the gold & tried to become notable based on reviews of their submissions. Nobody reads their article but them, their friends & family, a few cult followers and our bots. We have become the graveyard of NN albums, musicians, games and movies (without mentioning sports). We are now an internet time capsule. The worst part of all is how it negatively affects WP's volunteers at AFC/NPP. And that doesn't get into the time sinks, redirects, draftifies, AfDs, rejected CSD and PRODs. Maybe you can tell me how being reviewed by online sites that will accept anything/everything actually makes a song/artist/album notable for inclusion in WP? Are you saying that all WP requires today for a standalone is 3 or 4 reviews from 3 or 4 online sites where there is a grab bag of unknown reviewers publishing their thoughts in a few paragraphs. ??? Atsme 💬 📧 00:32, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Well... that's the truth about music journalism. It's in the pit. Nobody's reading, therefore music critics rely on the artists they're criticizing for income. Insulting Harry Styles or Miley Cyrus in a review is a surefire way to get your publication ignored by Columbia Records (important label) for a time-frame of infinity. That means losing every possible connection here (no interviews, exclusives, early reviews, promo). You see what I'm saying? The Telegraph published an article about it, very good read. —VersaceSpace 🌃 03:23, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
VersaceSpace, that is not unique to the entertainment industry. It can be seen in politics, medicine and science. Being able to distinguish between the COI stemming from financial interests and true concern for the benefit of mankind is not easy. Decentralization is a buzzword now, and we have to exercise caution so that every fly-by-night, dime a dozen websites don't get the better of us. Even Tim Berners Lee is involved in the decentralization movement – see this NYTimes article. Atsme 💬 📧 12:23, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
On games and movies at least, maybe it is not such a bad thing. I came across Oriental Hero, a little known game for the ZX Spectrum somedays ago through the "Did you know" section. The article mainly cites five reviews with significant coverage, three of them from specialised magazines for the ZX Spectrum. But it's a pretty great article, I don't think Wikipedia is harmed by inclusion of subjects which are usually only covered in specialised publications. I have created a few stubs about Indian animated television series, sourced mostly to news articles, some from specialised sites covering Indian television, that cropped up around their release likely based on press releases. I still think they hold some value. They are popular shows, watched by millions. A film article sourced to three reviews is worth covering. Certainly more notable than whatever... that "stallion" article is. I think if I were a NPPer, I would be more annoyed seeing that in the NPP queue than some game or movie article.. TryKid [dubious – discuss] 03:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
There definitely are far more sources we consider reliable nowadays, and that is a seemingly makes a lot more things that are now reliable that may have been suspect 25 years ago. But I doubt we can reverse that trend, as long as the same notion is applied to older topics, such as persons from under-represented groups (women, minorities, non-English people) in the ability to use not-as-perfect RSes as we have typically expected of older topics.
But I think again, the other way to look at this is that we should be looking at 10+ yr-type content. If all an album gets is a few reviews, and there's a reasonable merge target like the band article, we make better articles covering the band and its albums in one shot than lots of separate articles. But that is something that can only be resolved in time, and not at a NPP point. Masem (t) 12:25, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Bitterness about a failing deletion nomination appealed to the Court of Public Hysteria is a bad look. Move along. Carrite (talk) 02:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
    Like Atsme, I too have my doubts about how consistently Wikipedia applies WP:N. [1] AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:58, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
  • There's literally nothing wrong with the sources used in this AFD, OP just doesn't understand how digital journalism works. Arguing that pseudonyms somehow reduce reliability from outlets with established editorial standards, or that a page that calls for freelance pitches makes a site "user generated content" are never going to fly. Parabolist (talk) 09:12, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm not a PE or a UPE, so I have no interest beyond the good of this project. When an AfD fails for good reason, I'm fine with that, but show me good reason. Is that too much to ask? Don't show me websites with fake graphics such as this one which shows the album cover with added text that claims The Orchard released the album in 2013 with Rad Cult. Verify that information beyond the add-on text, and I will reconsider. As it stands right now, that information is what was used to include uncorroborated material in the lead of that article, despite my attempts to remove it - and was reverted. I'm not going to edit war over it - I just want verifiable evidence because I was unable to corroborate and further verify that claim. The editor argued that FB proved it. smh I also don't consider solicitation of reviews or volunteer reviews from home as reliable, which is what we are dealing with, not saying there is anything wrong with working from home, provided you are qualified for the job you are doing. You might want to spend a little time investigating those online websites as I did – and maybe look a little closer at how those sources are being used to establish notability of a NN album by a label that barely lasted a year. I'm far from being a deletionist as Wikipedia:Deletion review#9 September 2022 demonstrated here. My concern is why WP would accept those online reviews to satisfy GNG/N. Not only are the sources questionable as to "independent", those sites review albums by anybody (garage bands, solo releases from unknowns, etc.). Why on earth would those types of reviews satisfy GNG/N? That opens the door to ALL produced albums/songs/videos being notable for a stand alone article – in fact, I composed my own music video on my own label, so I'll submit it for review to 3 or 4 online review sites, and make it worthy of a stand alone article on WP.[stretch] Oh, and I actually do understand how "digital journalism" works, and have understood it since inception from the time we went from analog to digital, and I've been understanding it and on the cutting edge of it for nearly half a century, including a long time career in field production, once for CNN Headline News, and as a television producer/creator of weekly series, and various specials for different networks, including PBS, cable sports, and commercial television, some of which I've digitized and upload online. I also understand online websites, PR wires, PSAs, marketing and promotion. Imagine that! I did not fall off a pumpkin truck yesterday, and suddenly know everything. My neighbor for years beginning in 2003 on Bonaire was the late Charles M. Herzfeld, and he helped me understand what the internet is all about. Bring an argument to me that is credible, not just PAs and attempts at character assassination like what Carrite and Parabolist just attempted to do. Atsme 💬 📧 12:11, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
  • This is Wikipedia. Where 'notability', along with what constitutes a 'reliable source' ultimately comes down to opinion. Because, ultimately, they are. And if you edit here long enough, you are sometimes going to be on the losing side. If you can't work with that, you don't have to... AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:26, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
FWIW, it took a little digging to recognize The Orchard is only the digital distributor of the album (its what they specialize in)_, Rad Cult remains the physical distributor (This is not the only album or band with this arrangement) Unless the digital distribution is the only method of release, music articles rarely include the digital distributor, so the Orchard should simply be dropped. Masem (t) 12:34, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
Masem, I would appreciate it very much if you will share the link where you found The Orchard as the "digital distributor" because if my memory serves, YouTube even rejected it, and I could not find anything from The Orchard except a FB shout out by The Daily Rind blog. I did not waste any further time on it. Atsme 💬 📧 15:04, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
  • The web and fandom go together like peas and carrots bacteria and moisture. For better or worse, there are a ton of meh-to-decent sites with paid staff, experts, and/or a review process. That means it'll be awfully common for albums, bands, tv shows, video games, movies, comic books, [some] books, etc. to be considered notable. Even if we remove all the announcements and short bits from the sourcing, there are full reviews at Tiny Mix Tapes, PopMatters, and a short review on AllMusic. That's not the slam dunk that the wave of keep !votes in that AfD suggest, but it meets our relatively low bar for albums. That low bar hasn't changed all that much since Wikipedia started, except for the proliferation of music-related websites. It might take attention away from other subjects and exacerbates existing gaps in attention between popular culture and everything else, but I don't think we should expect it to be any other way. Is it such a bad thing having an article on something if there's enough information and commentary about it to write a solid article? If there's reason not to consider those sources reliable, RSN and edits to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/Sources are possible. As for Anyone can register a domain, get website host, and start publishing whatever is trending – I could create 10 such websites, and cover GNG. - If it's that easy, I look forward to your publications producing notability for all of the currently underrepresented subjects. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:23, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Thank you for your insight, Rhodo. Well said!! Atsme 💬 📧 15:04, 29 September 2022 (UTC)
  • Funny story, I don't think we agree on too much Atsme, and this is no exception, since I think this album side project by notable band Black Moth Super Rainbow is clearly demonstrating notability in its existing sourcing, despite being essentially self-released (other bands that have self-released notable albums: In Rainbows by Radiohead, Little by Little... by Harvey Danger). But, funnily enough, I was feeling a bit similarly to you about notability and sources' reliability, a few years ago when the WP:CVG sourcing guidelines, by community consensus, relaxed enough to let in a bunch of blog and essentially self-published fansites that now today are considered reliable for video games, like Destructoid, Kotaku, Adventure Gamers, Nintendo Life, Giant Bomb, etc. I remember saying to someone, roughly, that I didn't agree with the guidance that sourcing guidelines should be so context dependent based on topic area, because even gaming blog sites needed to be essentially as reliable as a major publication, book, journal, etc. I felt that, as blog sites went, unless it was being covered in the authoritative print publications for gaming, like Electronic Gaming Monthly, or gaming media sites like IGN, etc., it shouldn't be usable for notability. This would lead to a lot of fan-games being deleted for lack of sourcing. The community decided to let those in and today we have articles like Mari0, Full Screen Mario, etc. At the time I was frustrated because I thought this was going to open the floodgates for unlicensed, fan-created content to promote themselves on Wikipedia. I remember saying that I just wasn't going to edit in the topic area for a while because it was upsetting me. So, my advice would be to consider that community consensus is very much against the view that I held then, and you have now. We live in kind of a golden age because of the amazing proliferation of media whether it be online music, indie games, or what have you. The community clearly considers self-published work by notable artists notable if sufficiently sourced. There is still value in NPP, something that didn't exist years ago, in helping new editors and keeping out promotional stuff. Nobody is right all the time. Andre🚐 02:52, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Thank you for such a thoughtful response, Andre. I think perhaps FB, WordPress, blogs and YouTube have arrived, although it is still rather subjective, depending on how many socks, block evaders and real editors show up to vote at an AfD with the ultimate decision left to the closer. Of course, we AGF that all who show up at the AfD or RfC have a sincere interest in helping to build the encyclopedia. We are living in a changing world, and WP is developing, or conforming, into something more like a fast paced drive-thru rather than a sustainable encyclopedic reference that documents history, the liberal arts, the sciences, medicine and health, and so many other truly notable topics that we once perceived to be encyclopedic. The WMF and apparently a majority of editors have a much different perspective from the latter; thus, the approval of PE and IP editing, and protecting anonymity, although I do understand the need for the latter. I am just one editor out of thousands who have expressed an opinion, nothing more. Perhaps the day will come when WP:NOT, OR and GNG/N are no longer needed, and we can simply focus on verifiability in its simplest form. It appears we have already started to do so, and if we get right down to it, why not as long as we have plenty of server space? We should probably forget about WP:10YT, and not be concerned about NN cult albums that don't go beyond paid reviews or volunteer reviews, and simply ignore the fact they have been censored and/or banned by other reputable online sources because they are as socially unacceptable as racism, and encourage unacceptable behavior. WP uses consensus to pick and choose what is included, and that result is contingent upon who actually shows up at AfD, a system brilliantly described in this article by one of our own admins. I totally get it. Happy editing! Atsme 💬 📧 15:01, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Keep in mind that we have constricted back from the way WP originally was, the prime example that we had articles on every Pokemon before 2006, but now only those with clear notability. I've seen a similar concept tossed around at the TV project to remove non-notable episodes, even when there is routine ratings and reviews covering them. Perhaps we will have a similar contraction related to musical albums. Masem (t) 15:04, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    To add, NSPORTS recently got adjusted to remove the largest boondongle on its inclusion allowances, which was "athletes that played one professional game", instead pushing on these editors to seek inclusion via the GNG. Masem (t) 15:10, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Excellent point, Masem. What I would really appreciate seeing is more voluntary training of editors to help them grasp the concept of what makes a topic truly notable or note worthy for inclusion, more along the line of this banner at the top of my NPP training page. I'm of the mind that determining notability requires some level of critical thinking and at least an average level of comprehension, if that makes any sense to you in its intended context. I think discussions like what we are having now has been quite helpful, at least it has to me. I think it would be even more helpful if the WMF sponsored the type of training I just mentioned. Just a thought. Atsme 💬 📧 15:19, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Adding – and here you go...Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2022-09-30/In focus...maybe Jimmy will take the time to read it, too. Atsme 💬 📧 15:39, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    But Atsme, let's just take a quick gander at Exorcise Tape. You said, depending on how many socks, block evaders..... WP uses consensus to pick and choose what is included, and that result is contingent upon who actually shows up at AfD. I know you weren't casting aspersions per se, and am WP:AGF that you have spent a lot of effort and time improving the encyclopedia, but this reminds me of another comment you made to me once about the asshole consensus. While I agree with fundamentally a critique of Wikipedia that it is occasionally too lenient or not quick enough on how to address certain kinds of problematic behavior, like civil POV pushing and recurring sockpuppetry, that can screw up the consensus mechanism and drive away good-faith editors, I don't see how that's germane to the question at hand currently. If anything, the most problematic thing here is per the statement made by Carrite, appealing a clear AFD to Jimbo's talk page by a prominent NPP school instructor and reviewer/patroller. How do you think a new editor, trying to learn the ropes of notability, might interpret this?
    The roughly unanimous keep AFD, and the fact that many of the contributors have been around for years, and at least one is a prolific admin with 80k+ edits, while another user had over 800k edits since 2007; I, as a paltry former bureaucrat/admin with 20k edits, really don't figure into the outcome, and I could have not participated and this article would have still been kept. The reason is simple: the sources are not, FB, WordPress, blogs and YouTube, they were in fact, the likes of reliable music media like Spin, Pitchfork, Hypebeast, Vice, AllMusic. Spin is an established music magazine that I had physical copies of not too long ago, and Pitchfork is basically a definitive authority on indie music for years so much that it became a stereotype. It is now operated by Conde Nast. One source that was quibbled about in the AFD was PopMatters, which has had syndicated columns by McClatchy.
    It's true that many of the reliable sources in 2022 were just the equivalent of a wordpress blog back in 2006, but that is no longer the case - we haven't, without qualification, let in all user-submitted and self-published sites to be considered reliable, but in several instances a self-published source has become a reliable outlet with time and money. Wikipedians in topic areas have decided that nouveau blogmedia outlets are indeed RS for their topic area. A few years ago, blog sites were scrappy startup blog sites, but over time they have basically turned into media outlets. Vice is a great example. Do a little research on the trajectory of these new media sites and you'll see a pretty meteoric rise and a blending into the traditional hierarchy. The consensus of editors has consistently been that sites like this can and do become reliable. Regardless, it's a misleading claim or at least lacks research to hand-wave the sources for this article as equivalent to user-submitted material on social media.
    As to Masem's points, I am reminded by WhatamIdoing's argument that NPP reviewers need to be familiar with a topic area and how notability requirements might be different in different areas. I know the Pokemon through the original 151, and a handful of the next batch, but I wouldn't be able to tell you if a given Pokemon in 2022 is notable without doing some research. I would not, for example, claim to know what makes a notable dog or cat breed or dog or cat breeder - veterinary matters are well outside of my expertise. I do think though that Exorcise Tape is should be notable writ large under a guiding principle of significant musical work, even without doing the digging, based on my familiarity with the area. It is a side project but if it were released under Tobacco or Black Moth Super Rainbow, we probably wouldn't bat an eye at its inclusion. Yes, notability is not inherited, but by virtue of being a side project of a notable artist, a lot of media are going to cover it. This is a quirk that you would know about in the indie music world. For example, Apples in Stereo frontman Robert Schneider, is a prolific collaborator who has also released work under Thee American Revolution, Marbles, and various other weird names. Guided by Voices frontman Robert Pollard is famous for releasing so many different side project collaborations that it's hard to keep track, such as Circus Devils, Boston Spaceships, Airport 5, and various solo albums and collabs. These works will generally be covered in the music media so they will end up on Wikipedia, even though in the end, they are just facets of the original artist/band with different names. Andre🚐 18:20, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think we would benefit from a definition of our WikiJargon term, reliable sources. As far as I can make out, a reliable source is one that experienced editors would accept, or "rely on", for a given statement.
    There are objective qualities that suggest that editors are likely to be willing to rely on a given source (e.g., reputation for fact checking), but that's not the definition, and for every quality you can name, there is an exception. We love peer-reviewed academic journals ...except when we don't (WP:CRAPWATCH, the MMR autism fraud in The Lancet, etc.). We hate self-published sources ...except for 30K instances of {{cite tweet}}, 5K of {{cite patent}}, 15K of {{cite conference}}, 25K of {{cite thesis}}, 5K of preprints at {{cite arXiv}}, etc. We love "serious" sources, and we cite gossip rags and works of fiction. We hate self-promotional sources, and {{cite press release}} is used in almost 1% of articles.
    I think the same kind of thing happens with the WikiJargon notability. We confuse "worthy of note" (according to me, in my culture) with "able to write an article that complies with core content policies". We start believing that if I've WP:NEVERHEARDOFIT, then it's not worthy of anybody's notice.
    These two problems intersect when people encounter unfamiliar subjects. For example, I recognize three of the names @Andrevan linked in the message above: two publishers and Pokemon. I don't know enough about any of those three to write a coherent paragraph about them. But I've NEVERHEARDOFIT, so it's automatically not worthy of note, and when I see so many sources in the articles – well, I've never heard of them, either, so they must be unreliable. But probably I'm wrong on both counts. Probably those are sources that experienced editors who are familiar with the subject actually would consider reliable. Probably if you want to know what's reliable and notable for pop culture, you shouldn't be asking someone who stopped watching television while Johnny Carson was still the king of the late night shows. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
    Well stated, WAID. I think you hit the mark. The key point is whether or not something is worthy of being noted, and verifiably so. I am hard pressed to consider 4 reviews of a debut album that was self-submitted and self-released with 2,000 copies are all that we need to establish notability, especially when those same sources are willing to review anything – some use volunteers to do the reviews. The AfD result was keep, so it's a done deal. And Andre, we had a fun sock puppet show at the Boston WikiCon a few years ago – it's no secret that WP is a magnet for socks, which is why we have WP:SPI. My comment was about consensus in general. As for my linking to the article about the hegemony of the asshole consensus, it is described in an excellent article, so if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. The actual title is The Limits of Volunteerism and the Gatekeepers of Team Encarta, published by MIT Press. Happy editing! Atsme 💬 📧 02:21, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    We have had situations of Wikiprojects using their preferred sourcing and creating "walled gardens" of content sourced only to their works that had few touchpoints from mainstream RSes - notably the MMA situation from several years ago; this could be seen as the same issue around getting NSPORT changed though certainly that was nowhere close to being as "bad". Perhaps the music project hasn't not assessed the aspects of self-publishing and how sources work around that, and that needs to be re-reviewed within the project. I know at the video games project, we have to worry about this all the time, and do try to fight the inclusion of self-published games with a brief mention in some sources.
    It bears repeating: When Atsme mentions "some use volunteers to do the reviews" she is still referring to a site having a page outlining its process for accepting freelancer pitches. It would be like, to use video games as an example, trying to claim that Vice Games' review of Immortality was somehow user-generated content because the writer was a freelancer reviewer. Parabolist (talk) 07:43, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    It does not bear repeating, and I am politely asking you to stop spreading misinformation about me as you have done repeatedly. Make note of the following so you can get your facts straight once and for all:
    • note: (my bold) For this reason, we can offer you an excellent publishing platform for your quality work and our social media efforts – but for now, we are unable to pay you for your articles. Even the editors are currently volunteering their time. We are presently a 100% volunteer organization with all advertising revenue supporting our basic expenses. Writers retain ownership of their copyright on articles, so they can use them for books and other projects. Their essays are indexed in ProQuest, as PopMatters is educational in our mission.
    • Tiny Mix Tapes: Operated completely on a volunteer-basis, TMT became an important incubator for various experimental scenes, including vaporwave, noise and deconstructed club. <––no longer in business (on hiatus?)
    • Pitchfork is blog – How to submit: according to their contact page, you can send press releases to news@pitchfork.com.
    And those are the top cited sources for notability. You might try reading what I wrote so that you can correctly quote me. Atsme 💬 📧 16:47, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    You are dead wrong on Pitchfork. Pitchfork is definitive, and is one of the more authoritative music publications. You are completely wrong if you think that because Pitchfork has a page where they have an email to accept press releases and tips, that they are somehow not a reliable source for music. [2]Andre🚐 16:50, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    I simply quoted musicianonamission.com and if you believe they are "dead wrong", then take your argument to them, don't criticize me. Now it is becoming clear why those sources were cited and considered RS. Wow. How about a little WP:CIR?? Atsme 💬 📧 17:00, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    And what is musicianonamission.com, how is that an RS? It appears to be a significantly less notable and less reliable source than Pitchfork Media. You are demonstrating your utter lack of information on this topic area. Here's some better info. [3] In the record-review formula used by the aggregator site Metacritic.com, which calculates a weighted score drawn from nearly 50 different publications, a review from Pitchfork is given as much weight as a review from Rolling Stone...It's also possible to see Pitchfork's influence reflected in the ambitions of larger media companies [4] Look at Pitchfork: It’s been years since the site had the kind of cultural cachet on which it built its empire. But music fans of a certain age can still rattle off the acts that landed notorious reviews and landmark 0.0 ratings—Travis Morrison! Robert Pollard!! Liz Phair!!! I’m a music fan of that age: When I first started paying attention to Pitchfork, in the early 2000s, it was at its tastemaking peak. And when it panned you, it stung. [5] Pitchfork Media — the music Website that enjoys total niche dominance and kingmaking clout in indie worldAndre🚐 17:30, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    Oh, oh...I see - I submit my debut album to Pitchfork, and they review it and publish a review – and that is what tells WP editors that the album is notable? Are you kidding me? So what you're saying is that if I go to the trouble of creating an album of loud music (whatever) than that makes me notable? smh m( Atsme 💬 📧 23:37, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    Is that really any different from how we handle books? Books are submitted to book review publications – EB White was complaining almost a century ago about tripping over the glut of unsolicited books mailed to him in the hope of a review – and they review it and publish a review, and this is what tells Wikipedia editors that the book is notable.
    Why should it be any different for music albums? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    Pitchfork doesn't just review whatever you send them. That's like saying The New Yorker publishes every cartoon that someone sends them, or the New York Review of Books and Publishers' Weekly review every manuscript they are sent over the transom. It also ignores everything about this particular situation, such as how the artist was already notable from their prior work, they just chose to use a different name for their side project, which is why the album is notable and the artist is a redirect. This happens in music all the time, such as a supergroup, for example Broken Bells or The Raconteurs. That's why the album was covered by several legitimate music publications. It's really just quite unfortunate that you have chosen to boil my argument down to a straw man that all albums are therefore inherently notable. Andre🚐 23:53, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    Also, any AFD can be redone in the future, though it is expected new arguments are used; if the music project tightens its belt on sourcing aspects, then that's fair game for a new AFD. Masem (t) 03:11, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    @Atsme, I don't think that the point of WP:N is to have articles about subjects that Wikipedia editors think are "worthy". I think the point is to have articles about subjects that independent publishers thought were "worthy" as demonstrated by their decision to publish something about them. And I think the best arbiters of whether the sources are reliable are the editors who normally work in that area (any/all of them, not just those who participate in a group that wants to work together to improve Wikipedia).
    If you go back to the early versions of WP:N, there used to be a section titled something like "Notability is not subjective". While I think the statement is a bit strong, we might benefit from a little more of that principle. An oversimplified version of this would be: if enough independent sources exist (in the real world, even if they're not all cited in the article yet) that a slightly-bigger-than-stub article could be written, and the resulting article doesn't violate NOT or qualify for CSD, then patrollers should quit worrying about it. The main job of a patroller is to get rid of abusive content (copyvios, attack pages, hoaxes, etc.), not to protect Wikipedia's purity against an assault of pop culture articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:49, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    Perhaps you misunderstood, WAID. I'm saying worthy of being noted, aka noteworthy, both of which are defined as "notable". I am not saying the article itself has to be worthy in a specified way. Atsme 💬 📧 17:00, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    I'm saying that even if I, or all editors, believe in our hearts that the subject is "unworthy", but some independent sources decided that it was worth them noting in some depth, then the subject is notable even if Wikipedia editors think it's the most boring, pointless, "unworthy" subject they've ever run across. The measure of whether something is "worthy of note" is whether independent sources decided the subject was worth barrels of printer's ink and tons of paper (or the digital equivalent), not whether I think the subject is worthy of Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    Using worthy and unworthy by itself has a different meaning from something being noteworthy or worthy of being noted. The definitions are different. And we actually do use editorial judgment so that we are not treading in NOT territory, such as WP:INDISCRIMINATE. And not everything that is verifiable and covered by RS is an auto include standalone. But you already know that, and I'm pretty sure that we are on the same page, excluding the use of worthy/unworthy per your application. I will make it a point to see how my trainees interpret noteworthy and worthy of being noted, but so far I have not had any issues. Atsme 💬 📧 23:56, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
    I think the point is that while it's good to rely on one's intuition and one's ability to extrapolate from limited information, one cannot expect to be right 100% of the time. 80% is a good aspiration. One must recognize when one is in the 20% of the time when one is incorrect and change one's view when everyone seems to be telling them that they are wrong, and their thinking is clouded by irrationality or emotion for some reason. One can think something is a certain way, and make a good faith attempt to hear it out, and then eventually one needs to face up to the facts. That is not an "asshole consensus," that is how the project functions. It's dreadfully disheartening right now, but take some time to cool off and see how it feels in a few weeks. Andre🚐 00:11, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
    Atsme, I am not convinced that we agree. I am concerned that we might differ significantly on who is supposed to decide whether a subject is "noteworthy" or "worthy of note". I say it's the independent publishers and not the Wikipedia editors. You seem to be suggesting that Wikipedia editors should be the primary arbiters of what's "noteworthy" or "worthy of note" – that even when many independent sources found a subject worth noting, Wikipedia editors can claim that we know better, and the sources were wrong to bother noting something we think was so unworthy of noting.
    (We do agree that some things that are "noteworthy" or "worthy of note" do not need to have separate articles. I'm a dyed in the wool m:mergist.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Quick request

I'm trying to sort out a possible bug, and I wonder if I could enlist some help from a handful of editors here. Could several of you please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-gadgets and tell me whether you have the "GoogleTrans" gadget enabled? (It's the third checkbox on the page.) Then please go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures and tell me whether you have "Content Translation" enabled (third from the bottom).

We're trying to figure out how an editor ended up with both enabled, when only the second was wanted. In particular, I'd love to know if anyone has the Beta Feature enabled but the gadget is not (and not just because you turned it off recently ;-) ).

(No need to ping me; I'll [subscribe] to this section.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

  • No, and no. I suspect that particular case isn't useful to you, so if I'm right, you might want to tell people for whom this is true they don't need to reply here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:14, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
    Yes, you're right. If they're both off, I learn nothing. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:18, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
  • I have Content Translation but not GoogleTrans. I can't remember ever having GoogleTrans enabled, and I just tried turning Content Translation off and on again, which did not affect the GoogleTrans setting. Madeline (part of me) 09:46, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
    Thanks. I really appreciate you testing this for me.
    I think that's all I need to know today, so this can be archived whenever anyone wants. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Your opinion

Hi Jimbo Wales, I have and issue about an article, I have legit information from a database of horse racing that proves an injury from 1992 didn’t happen to Kent Desormeaux. It’s a source used in the article and it is reliable. I think info regarding the accident needs to be removed, there’s news paper sources as as well as other sources as a source but several of them contain incorrect info and have my suspicion that they were written for a feel good story. I think Wikipedia needs to have a policy were fact checking from primary sources can have info that’s in certain articles such as newspapers or magazines removed. Original research is probably best if put in own words. thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joytotherainbow (talk • contribs) 20:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

What sources are we going to use to fact check "well sourced info"? I can see an infinite loop coming... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:16, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
https://www.equibase.com/profiles/allStartsPeople.cfm?eID=502&typeSource=JE&rbt=TB&year=1992 Here’s the link. What I mean is newspaper articles are the source and many of them have incorrect info. Joytotherainbow (talk) 22:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Kent was not injured, this the official racing record source database these are written down. Joytotherainbow (talk) 22:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
So, how was this source fact checked? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:47, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
See Talk:Kent Desormeaux; this is a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARYOU carried over from there. Joytotherainbow seems to believe that Sports Illustrated, The LA Times and the UPI are making up stories. OhNoitsJamie Talk 22:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
This is the official database of horse racing records. Joytotherainbow (talk) 23:07, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
There is record of desormeaux riding after fall. Definitely not injured like the claims. Joytotherainbow (talk) 23:08, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
So yes, there seems to be a discrepancy between sources. Having looked at Talk:Kent Desormeaux though, I'd have to suggest that if you are trying to point this out, the way you have gone about it is about the least effective I could imagine. Read Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, and then try to present a case that doesn't include accusing anyone who disagrees with you of lying. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:33, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
How was I lying? Joytotherainbow (talk) 23:40, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Read what I wrote again. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:48, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
Joytotherainbow has been  Confirmed and blocked as a sock by me. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 23:58, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

I ask you to block pseudo-admin with the same reason that he blocked me

Good day! On august 29 kk-admin Kasymov wrote on my page that I used to change his talking page, therefore he had blocked me (he mentioned that it was HIS talking page, not mine). Today I made some changes to MY talking page, but he deleted them without asking me. So as you can see this person has some mental disorder and freely makes things that he condemns. I ask you to block him. Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 16:51, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

@Ерден Карсыбеков – Please refrain from casting aspersions on other editors. You have called the administrator "illiterate" and now you are referring to them as "mentally ill". From what I can tell, you created another sockpuppet account, Mr. Karsybekov, just recently, and edited your talk page using that account. Please do not create sockpuppet accounts. I do not know what the Kazakh Wikipedia's policy on sockpuppetry is, but nevertheless it is generally globally considered bad creating sockpuppet accounts.
Here are some pieces of advice: edit productively on another Wikimedia wiki (such as the Russian or English Wikipedia). Do not mention your block on the Kazakh Wikipedia. Eventually, after a prolonged period of time (say about 6 months) you can go back to the Kazakh Wikipedia and request an unblock. And please, do not use that sockpuppet account you created. It will only make it harder to be unblocked.
Overall, it seems like you are spiraling down pretty badly, and I would advise not mentioning your block for now. — 3PPYB6 (T / C / L) — 23:51, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
@3PPYB6: I can't verify anything since I don't understand kk but this person seems to have genuine concerns and as far as I know, nothing is done. It seems understandable that they'd react so defensively — Python Drink (talk) 23:11, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
I guess you (3PPYB6) are not in the subject. Here was proved that he is a liar; here he uses nonexistent words; here you can see that he even don't open pages and read them when suggesting to delete (he says that mathematical term is the same with cinematography); here is an example when a user asks Kasymov not to disturb him, but he continues. And there are many other examples of inadequacy of this person. So it is not a slander. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 05:59, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
My position is that concealment of mental illnes of interlocutor may bring harm to both (all) sides, and we should talk about it openly. So here you can see that my interlocutor unexpectedly deleted our conversstion when I asked him to make useful contributions; here he made an act of vandalism by deleting reference that I added. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 10:22, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
And it is straange that despite being admin this person prefers to delete articles rather than improve them. So here you can see how he tried do delete a useful article which volume is about 20kb; and here he suggested to delete info about the pretender to world crown (Have you also get scared about his viewpoint on notability?). --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 06:42, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
I hope that some day OP will understand that neither Jimbo nor anyone else want to take part in their attempt at cross-wiki Wikipedia:FORUMSHOPping. a!rado (C✙T) 16:55, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
I thought that it is a very simple situation, that when you have a lying destructive admin you block him. Now it doesn't seem to me that way. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 09:09, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 October 2022

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:43, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Good

I want to tell you a good news，some wiki projects can be visited in China, including Wikisource、Wikitravel and Wikibooks.This is the joint effort of editors in China.

Of course, I want to share my thoughts with you.In Chinese Wikipedia, administrators have power, but most of these people don't make much contribution to the entries after they have power, just indulge in management.

I think administrators should focus on writing articles, and they should be the "banner" for ordinary users to write articles. However, many administrators haven't written excellent articles since they took office. I think this is the biggest problem that the whole Wikipedia (not limited to Chinese Wikipedia) is facing. Assifbus (talk) 00:15, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

How are you?

Hi! How are you? I just wanna take the moment to say thanks for all you have done and I know the probability of you seeing this is almost zero. While looking at your edit count I realised that you don't edit main page as much,do you miss editing articles and not having to read hundreds of discussions. Anyways off to fight vandals and stalk talk pages ;). Wikiwow*_* (talk) 11:46, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

It's nice you fight vandals, I want to, but haven't seen any vandals. Waylon111 (talk) 20:34, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
Waylon111, if you would like to revert vandalism, I would suggest taking a peek at Special:AbuseLog. Sarrail (talk) 17:29, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Really? I come across a LOT of them. Unfortunately there still no repellent for vandals yet,best we have is blocks and bans and warnings. Not gonna lie if I had a time machine I would like to meet the first person ever to vandalize Wikipedia so we can... Talk :). Wikiwow is just W0W!! (talk) 08:27, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Infobox formatting question

Is there a way to make it so that the userbox at the bottom of the infobox on this page (100 Centijimbos userbox) is centered within the infobox? I don't like it a little bit to the left... BhamBoi (talk) 07:44, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The G.O.A.T.

Thank you for co-founding a site like no other.
Wikipedia is an awesome site. Without you, Wikipedia would never exist. I know it's not this site's anniversary but thank you for everything. With millions of articles, what you co-founded has turned into one of the world's most popular sites of all time. You made the world's FREE encyclopedia. Really. You're the G.O.A.T of the Internet. PS, I know it's not Wikipedia's birthday Super yoshi013021 (talk) 19:25, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 28 November 2022

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 15:41, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

ArbCom 2022 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2022 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 12 December 2022. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2022 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:24, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Multilingual Request

Hi Jimmy! I was thinking, wouldn't it be a good thing if you had the time to perfect (even just add a few nice looking user boxes) user pages in other languages? ----Sincerely ZhaoFJx（T•E） 14:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZhaoFJx (talk • contribs)

By the way, I think I signed this commment...----Sincerely ZhaoFJx（T•E） 16:20, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, I wouldn't be the person to do that! I only speak English and a tiny smattering of phrases in a few other languages, nothing practical. But if you have a language that you know and have in mind, you could do it! I don't know you so I apologize if I'm getting this all wrong, but if you need help figuring out how to copy a userbox, I'm sure someone friendly can help here?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:45, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
I mean, you probably know that your user page has a page for almost every language under the Wikimedia Project (and if it doesn't, I'm sure it's WP:SALT to avoid casually editing), but did you know that in some languages, your user page will only be one short sentence (like "I am here to help with the vandalbot, if I can.")? Trust me, that's not exquisiteness. By the way, do you mean to allow Wikipedians to assist in translating your user page to each language project?----Sincerely ZhaoFJx（T•E） 02:41, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Oh I now understand what you mean - my user page, I thought we were speaking generally about sprinkling around userboxes for people to use in other languages. Ah, I'm very happy for people to translate my userpage elsewhere, why not?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:02, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Note, if someone looks at a project where the userpage doesn't exist (e.g. w:bs:Korisnik:Jimbo_Wales), Jimbo's Global Userpage will be shown: (meta:User:Jimbo Wales), not sure how fancy Jimbo wants that page to be, but if there is anything inaccurate/outdated on it, it would be a good place to start. — xaosflux Talk 15:25, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm not much for fancy but that page is quite old! I should take a crack at it sometime soon!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:06, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

WMF

I have been active on the wikimedia projects since 2006, and generally encountered people who make good decisions and make the projects pleasant places to contribute to. In 2022 I feel something has changed. Suddenly there are people who cannot understand what you say, force their poor, infantile choices on you, and cannot communicate. All executed like a trickster that employs loaded statistics to get their foot in the door, then bulldoze their way in, and don't flinch when asked to explain themselves. Something has changed. JMK (talk) 16:33, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I haven't seen that. I think there is still a wide majority of kind and thoughtful people and, yes, a few jerks. It's always been that way, I'm afraid. I've just checked your edit history (though not closely!) and you edit in areas that I would have thought would be cheerful and not particularly controversial or stressful! Plants and animals! What do people have to get annoyed about?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:43, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Having mostly good people does not preclude WMF from going off course and having culture/systemic problems which can lead to what was described. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:48, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
JMK didn't mention the Wikimedia Foundation, so I don't think that's what was being talked about, but perhaps I misunderstood. And yes of course, any organization could go off course in that way but it is pretty damned clear that the WMF has not.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:04, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the response! Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:21, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
Your reply is greatly appreciated Jimbo Wales. It is greatly appreciated that you stay personally involved and concerned with day to day matters affecting the great wikimedia project. The problem mainly concerns SGrabarczuk (WMF) who is repeatedly asked not to proceed with actions on the Afrikaans wikipedia. I suspect it affects many others based on the comments I read. Concerning the 2022 skin (for instance), all but one active user, who seems to be in close association with SG, asked him not to proceed before we had further discussions. There are several aspects concerning the 2022 skin which I think are making a poor impression. And its implementation was based on statistics which are greatly skewed towards users who made the fewest contributions (there are simply more of them), and based on the fact that those did not revert to the 2010 skin. Why would they? They were hardly active.
SG implemented it nonetheless and said afterwards that it was an oversight. I'm not alone there in my view that he is running roughshod over us. I contribute to a great extent to botanical articles, or nature articles. Those are often illustrated with a series of pictures in a gallery, side by side, which illustrate features of that taxon. And wikipedia has some excellent software to manipulate those images, which fits them into square arrays or equally sized pictures despite the size or dimensions of the original. With the 2022 skin that software has become close to useless. I could upload screen grabs to show how useless. SG, based on his flawed statistics, seems hell bent on the idea that limiting the lateral space of the article width is essential. The studies that are cited do not all agree on this. Some say ease of reading was hardly affected. In articles with infoboxes, pictures, or multiple pictures, the text width will vary anyway as the text weaves between illustrations. So which with is optimal?
Our active users have indicated on the community page that they use the old skin. This means that what they see and the public sees are not the same – a problem. The public cannot revert to the old skin, as it is too taxing on the servers. Communication with SG is not meaningful, and never results in a reversal or rectification. A problem with missing commons descriptions on media viewer is reported to him – he pretends not to see it – he cannot "replicate" it. Notes on images disappear from media viewer. I suspect it is another result of the SG era. Inline templates don't display right. Etc. We cannot talk to a person who exhibits no grasp of a problem, any problem. The 2022 skin makes a BAD impression, and is unworkable.
Even on this very discussion page, we now have a "subscribe / unsubscribe" function which replaces the edit function. What happened to the edit function? Does it make any sense? JMK (talk) 19:40, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Article on WP and fundraising

For the interested. The Huge Fight Behind Those Pop-Up Fundraising Banners on Wikipedia Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:05, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Jimbo on BBC television

He was live on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this morning, discussing the Online Safety Bill (screenshot). You can watch this in the UK on BBC iPlayer here. ♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 10:07, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

A Guff Brick!?

Thanks for making Wikipedia and Fandom exist. This is yours. Drjump! (talk) 00:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Drjump! (talk) 00:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Hi Jimbo

Dsobol0513 (talk) 02:30, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Meow! Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:20, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Last day to vote in the Arbcom election tomorrow

More at WP:ACE2022/C. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:03, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

meow

Endated (talk) 14:46, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Hello! Here's a gift :)

I hope you like puppies! :D Dreww4761 (talk) 14:32, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022 results

Hello Jimbo, the 2022 ArbCom election has completed; 8 editors have been appointed for two year terms, keeping the committee at 15 members. The certified results may be seen here. Best regards, — xaosflux Talk 11:05, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Another kitten for you!

For being the creator of my favorite time sink this last year... here's a kitten.

LilianaUwU (talk / contribs) 06:57, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Edited while logged out

Hello, and happy holidays to you and yours. I just accidentally logged out while looking at a page and yikes, your huge donation request message blocked much of the page and then, double yikes, an actual donation pop-up sprang into view. Have you looked at the pages while logged out [Edit: without a good ad blocker]? I was wondering why many Christmas pages that shouldn't had less views than last year. Maybe next year, a little less conspicuous? I never thought Wikipedia would rival the advertising heavy pop-up experience of Britannica, please, don't take that heavily traveled route. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:18, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Strange activity of Kasymov

Good day! In past hour pseudo-admin Kasymov deleted all my questions and comments on his talk page, most of them living without answer. Could you please evaluate this activity? Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 18:59, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

I think my clocks must be acting up. It looks to me like the hour after you posted this, Kasymov removed all of your extensive posts on his talk page [6] Since I don't read Kazakh it's hard for me to say anything else, but I'll hazard a guess that he'd just rather not answer all your posts. On enWiki, that would be the end of it - if you post on a user's talk page and he'd rather not answer - he doesn't have to.
I'll hazard another guess - Jimbo doesn't usually get involved in minor disputes like this. Merry Christmas! Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:34, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
Merry Christmas :) (That inadequate admin used to disturb me, and now with no any adequate answer tries to forget his stupidity)) May be this anecdotic story would be useful to some users of the site. Anyway thank you. --Ерден Карсыбеков (talk) 01:38, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Merry Christmas!

~~~ Merry Christmas! ~~~
Joyeux Noël! ~ Buon Natale! ~ Vrolijk Kerstfeest! ~ Frohe Weihnachten!
¡Feliz Navidad! ~ Feliz Natal! ~ Καλά Χριστούγεννα! ~ Hyvää Joulua!
God Jul! ~ Glædelig Jul! ~ Linksmų Kalėdų! ~ Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus!
Häid Jõule! ~ Wesołych Świąt! ~ Boldog Karácsonyt! ~ Veselé Vánoce!
Veselé Vianoce! ~ Crăciun Fericit! ~ Sretan Božić! ~ С Рождеством!
শুভ বড়দিন! ~ 圣诞节快乐！~ メリークリスマス！~ 메리 크리스마스!
สุขสันต์วันคริสต์มาส! ~ Selamat Hari Natal! ~ Giáng sinh an lành!
Весела Коледа!

Hello, Jimbo Wales! Thank you for your work to maintain and improve Wikipedia! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 19:15, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Spread the WikiLove and leave other users this message by adding {{subst:Multi-language Season's Greetings}}

CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 19:15, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

New Year wishes

Since December ends soon, have moved my comment to the archives. Thought you may enjoy this, for sometimes a Wikipedian deserves an air medal and the fellow who created this thing should be further aware of what he's inspired since 2001. When user Dimadick, who already had made many U.S. presidential navboxes, saw that 17 presidents had none - they did them all. All 17! A few months ago. There are thousands of these kind of people editing here, and together they create intelligent fireworks (which unsmoothly brings me to...Happiest of New Years). Randy Kryn (talk) 00:50, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy New Year!

Jimbo Wales,
Thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia, and a Happy New Year to you and yours! CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 22:13, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
– Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year}} to user talk pages.
CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 22:13, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost: 1 January 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 03:45, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Barnstar of Diligence
Hi, Jimbo, Happy New Year. Lemonaka (talk) 07:30, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Clifton Conference

I would be happy to have help with this subject if you or any of your page watchers are up to it. Happy New Year. FloridaArmy (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

If you check the talk page of the article, I think you will find what I found to be very interesting and useful. Let me ask you - do you have access to an online resource similar to what I used? I find it very powerful at researching articles about this kind of topic which is in the modern world quite obscure. Much of the pushback you get from people can be easily defeated, I think and hope, if you are able to produce citations and quotes from a large number of newspapers.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:08, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
(talk page watcher) @FloridaArmy: Huh, weird, my hometown(ish) on Jimbotalk. I have no idea when I'll next be in Swampscott (sometime between April and never), but if you'd like me to check the library and/or a giant book of old newspapers my mom has, I'm happy to next time I'm in town. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 20:22, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks User:Tamzin! Jimbo dug up quite a bit and posted to the entry's talkpage. My broader concern is that subjects like this which are so important and so often missing from Wikipedia are often rejected even when submitted through a broken Draft process. Subjects like this one and the one noted below are essential. Why are they being rejected and deleted? I accept my share of responsibility but I try to do what I can. There is a WP:Before process for Aritcles for Deletion, but for draft submissions (that would never even be taken there) common sense and basic core values and guidelines go out the window. It's a travesty really. So much is missing and we're not making it easy to fill in the gaps. I will add some additional examples from my experience if anyone wants to comment or make a suggestion. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I am only one person so I don't think it's okay to put all the onus on me. I acknowledge my many flaws as an editor. Still, I think we as a community should ask why we omit these subjects and reject them as drafts and how we can do better. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:34, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Sprague, Alabama (Draft:Sprague, Alabama) is another example. I came across Sprague working on another subject. It is noted as a place where numerous enslaved people labored. It turns out it where one of the largest cotton ginning operations in Montgomery County, Alabama. The area, outside the state capitol, later used convict labor. We've documented it had a post office, telegram station, railroad station, and was home to many African Americans but still it gets rejected. Okay, sourcing is a little thin, but I add an extensive article from a historical society discussing Sprague and the corton ginning business, one part of a theee part series. But still it's rejected. So Wikipedia doesn't cover this community or any of the people who were enslaved there. And we know the schools are also difficult to include. So all of those people and their history is excluded from Wikipedia. I hope you can see how Wikipedia's policies and procedures work to exclude and discriminate against African American subjects: politicians, schools, cultural institutions, artists and musicians, and even their communities. It's a shame really. Again I know my failings as an editor are many, but even when these subjects clearly meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria, subjects about African Americans, as well as Africans and other minorities, are deemed "not notable". It's a big problem we need to work on. FloridaArmy (talk) 10:28, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

And as each one of these subjects is rejected it makes it that much harder to include the rest of them. If we included Sprague then it would be easier to include its schools, its political leaders, its cultural institutions, people who are from there. So it's a mass exclusion, a historical ethnic cleansing. And it's a wiping out of much of an entire peoples' history. And it doesn't help that related subjects like Nathan Turner Sprague (Draft:Nathan Turner Sprague), a businessman and state senator, also languish in draftspace (in this case since November 2022) so they show up as redlinks. So we can't learn about the people who lived in these communities or any of their history because our policies and procedures make it easy to omit them, block them from being added, and for our administrators to excuse doing so. We must do better. There's no excuse. FloridaArmy (talk) 10:48, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

John Wayne Niles (Draft:John Wayne Niles) another important historical figure who just can't quite seem to get over the bar for notability on Wikipedia. Sad but true. FloridaArmy (talk) 12:15, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Clinton J. Calloway (Draft:Clinton J. Calloway) also deemed not notable. For some reason his entry in an encyclopedia on prominent African Americans and the other sources aren't enough. FloridaArmy (talk) 12:29, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Waters Turpin (Draft:Waters Turpin) writer who has extensive coverage in Oxford Reference that is cited along with other sources, but still he is rejected from Wikipedia. Not suitable. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:02, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Schools for African Americans not welcome

At the risk of beating a dead horse I will give another example. Since 2015 we've had an entry on Newbold School, a small Adventist school in England with some history and significance although it appears it has had absolutely no independent sourcing until today. And then we have Newbold High School a redlink. I've created a draft for it Draft:Newbold High School, I believe it would survive a deletion discussion, but it's not even worth submitting to Article for Creation because it will be rejected. Newbold High School was the ONLY public high school in the entire county available to African Americans for more more than 15 years. Its students came from all over the county and some volunteered to drive younger elementary students to school before making it to the high school themselves. It was underfunded. It was built with no gym or auditorium. But is has active alumni. It produced local political leaders and educators. But again, this high school which was closed with desegregation and made into an elementary school will be rejected by our reviewers. The only only high school for African Americans in an entire county isn't considered worth including on Wikipedia. This is what institutional racism looks like and I hope we improve and change our ways. It's sad and disheartening that this is how we treat these subjects and their history. There is coverage and the entry can be expanded, but instead it and others like it get rejected and deleted. Not welcome here. No Irish need apply. Wikipedia's waterfountains are for whites only. FloridaArmy (talk) 20:55, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

If Newbold School went through AfC today, it would absolutely be rejected. The distinction is in when it was created and at the level of the user, not the subject.
At the level of the user: because of your restriction requiring that you go through AfC, you, and not these subjects, are held to a higher standard than others (this is meant as a discussion, not to be critical of you/your work, by the way). Whatever subject you choose to work on would thus be held to that higher standard. The way around that is to appeal the restriction.
As to when it was created: There are absolutely race-based systemic biases at work here, and this touches on the intersection of systemic biases in participation on English Wikipedia (which were perhaps most acute in its early days), and our policies that have evolved to be harder on new content than old content. The various topics that weren't covered back when Wikipedia was more lax about quality will see more impediments to creation/expansion than the material that was "grandfathered in" from the early days, so any biases that existed then will carry forward for some time. Not sure what the best thing to do about that is. Creating articles, to be sure; some people argue for more weeding out of old articles that no longer meet our standards; maybe a wikiproject/task force with an emphasis on lists of topics a la Women in Red? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:18, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
What needs to be done is to make it our policy to include high schools that served African Americans. They are notable. It was a struggle to get them established. Their construction and opening was always significant and important for the communities they served. Their operation and type of instruction was always controversial. High schools weren't even allowed for African American students in much of the U.S. for decades. This isn't complicated. These are notable subjects. State-wide officeholders are included, everyone who plays on a pro team, lots of subjects far less notable are welcomed on Wikipedia. Not every one needs its own entry but certainly ones like this one that served entire counties and were landmarks in progress and also monuments to the limitations African Americans faced in the United States are worth including. These schools ARE NOTABLE. Period. We need to welcome them, expand on them, and include more of them. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:34, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
High schools in general are no longer auto-notable. They used to be in practice, but a series of very long RfCs has added schools to the ever-growing list of things that are not notable-by-fact but rather based on WP:SIGCOV, etc. There are so many that were created in the days when just existing as a high school meant people would !vote keep, however, that it's another example of whatever was created years ago carrying forward while whatever wasn't covered years ago having a higher bar to creation (including African American school, most likely). The trend is to regard fewer and fewer things as automatically notable because of a particular fact. Even "everyone who plays on a pro team", long a standard source of systemic bias, has been eroded over the past couple years. One could get the impression it's still true by looking at the articles that exist, but there, too, is a higher bar for new articles. I dare say we have seen the end of anything being added as "inherently notable", regardless of whether it helps or hurts our bias. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:16, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
The other solution with high schools is that they can be discussed as part of the town/city/county seat that they are in, as part of a "Educational System" and then use redirects to these sections so that that schools are searchable or appear on appropriate disambiguation pages. There is a general tendency that editors think that not having a standalone article means we can't cover a topic, but when you have a situation where it makes sense to cover one topic within another (a high school within a school system), then why not use that and not worry about fighting article creation? (I know FArmy has a few unique cases of towns that no longer exist that make this a more difficult prospect but those are exceptional cases). In reality, we *should* be reviewing our existing high school articles to this standard and doing merging as appropriate. Masem (t) 15:49, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
FloridaArmy, as a British person I have no background or knowlege on African-American high schools, but if what you say is correct - that "African-American High Schools" are inherently and generically notable - then, if there is supporting WP:RS to that effect, that is something that could be brought up at somewhere like Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies) with a view to amending notability guidelines. But you need to produce good reliably sourced analysis that reflects WP:DUE, rather than just asserting your own opinion, to make that claim. DeCausa (talk) 22:52, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
Here's Wikipedia's coverage for Adkin High School in Kinston, North Carolina, the county seat and a 2/3 African American community. FloridaArmy (talk) 09:10, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
A simple Gsearch for the subject '"Adkin high school" kinston' brings up 6500 sources, many in books and several directly detailing more than just the walk-out. Tons of RS. I'm not seeing the problem with this particular example. So write the article.
This is unfortunately a pattern with User:FloridaArmy. We write articles based on reliable secondary sources. We decide on notability based on those sources. That the sources themselves may not as of this datestamp collectively reach GNG for a particular subject, well, that's a function of our limited access to sourcing which clearly exists, but might require a secondary work for us to eventually utilize. And so FloridaArmy gets upset that the secondary sources aren't sufficient in case by case tests. And they come to Jimmy's page to complain that our requirements for notability are too stringent. Again.
This is a righting great wrongs issue, and I'm sympathetic to User:FloridaArmy's plight. And judging from past responses, I believe Jimbo is somewhat in your camp as well. We all are. Nobody wants FloridaArmy to stop makinfg the effort. I can see it's frustrating for FloridaArmy.
Rhododendrites's suggestion above for "a wikiproject/task force with an emphasis on lists of topics a la Women in Red" is an excellent one and I'd join such a group to help. I'm sure others would as well. In a strange way, all wikipedians are trying to right a great wrong (supplying access to somewhat obscure information). BusterD (talk) 15:36, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
FloridaArmy seems to be quite good at identifying notable topics that are missing an article. Unfortunately, many of the drafts mentioned above do not show the notability of their subjects, so they are correctly rejected. Perhaps making lists of red links would be a better way to utilise FA's talents than attempting to write the articles. —Kusma (talk) 15:57, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. There's another factor which FloridaArmy's last example raises: self-selection. Most of us tend to build pagespace (and here I confess I'm in a real slump recently) from an intrinsic interest in subject matter. I tend towards biographies and when I write I tend to choose subjects about which I'm already engaging. The historic community surrounding an influential local high school sounds a subject likely to be found notable, but not really in my wheelhouse or even on my radar until this morning. I'm happy to give an attaboy to the page creator; I never fail to credit FloridaArmy's good faith and impressive number of page creations. We share an equal desire in creating the world's best online encyclopedia. I just wish the user would spend more energy on the somewhat spare quality of the pages they do create. Advice I could give myself, I suppose. The wikiproject/task force is something I could get behind and would support with membership and activity. I do not even follow Jimbo's talk page that much and rarely comment here, but even I can see how often FloridaArmy makes this exact case on this exact talkspace. BusterD (talk) 18:03, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
An enthusiastic YES! to the creating some kind of task force. As an AfC reviewer who has become familiar with FloridaArmy's work, I have often thought @FloridaArmy needs an army. :) Granted the issue as far as Wikipedia's coverage of these topics is not owned by FA, they one of the more prolific editors trying to cover them but their ideas are generally better than their execution (no offense, FA....we all have our different talents). S0091 (talk) 17:37, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm glad we all agree these subjects are notable and important. Our focus should be on getting them included and rooting out the issues causing them to be rejected and deleted. Waters Edward Turpin (Draft:Waters Turpin) has several sources including extensive coverage in an Oxford reference work on African American authors. Is there a reason authors covered extensively in other reference works and encyclopedias shouldn't be included here? And for many of the other subjects, you can't understand American history if we keep finding ways to censor, exclude, and obstruct additions on notable minority contributions and history. FloridaArmy (talk) 19:31, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

  • I suspect that if you had expanded Draft:Waters Turpin to actually include the material in Oxford Reference (which is actually reprinted from the Afro-American Newspaper) and from the CLA Journal, it would have stood a far better chance of being accepted. At the moment, apart from some basic biographical information, it simply says "Waters Turpin was a professor and writer. He wrote some novels and plays". Black Kite (talk) 19:40, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
    I was going to say the same thing - yes, there are sources to document this person existed, but none of the present ones tell us why they are notable - we're looking for content that goes beyond the basics of a bio, but explains their relative importance to the world as a whole. (Yes, there are lots of white/Caucasian people bios on WP that are similarly poor, often stemming from poor SNG, and I would recommend their deletion too). WP is not a Who's Who, which is one thing that I see FArmy often lament but not really understanding and calling that as bias. Masem (t) 22:12, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
The article is poorly written and doesn't show the subject's notability. This is not a systemic issue. —Kusma (talk) 19:43, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
It seems, FloridaArmy, the reason why your drafts are rejected isn't to do with a problem in the way Wikipedia regards the notability of these subjects - it's just the way you've written them. Maybe you need to think about Kusma's earlier suggestion that you should focus on identifying redlinks and look to others to create the article. DeCausa (talk) 20:04, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


Excuse me for saying BULLSHIT. If I used the Oxford source extensively I could be accused of overusing it as another editor was for John Wayne Niles (Draft:John Wayne Niles). And I believe a newspaper may be quoted in the Oxford reference but that the entry is from their reference book on African American authors. And now we're again getting these excuses one after another. Sources are used too much, too little, never quite good enough. Which is why we have shit coverage of these subjects. We have Columbia University's entry noting how fond students are of Nutella but nothing about the Dunning School (or Dunning's mentor there) spreading more than a generation worth of distorted white supremacist propaganda passed off as American history. Again and again there's always some issue for exclusion. Does extensive coverage in an Oxford reference work make a subject notable or not? The author is notable. It shouldn't require peacock language or leaning more heavily on any of the sources to establish he's notable. If he's notable he should be included. If you want to expand the entry go for it!!! Right now we have nothing on him or thousands of other notable minorities, their schools, their history, or their leaders because this is what editors who try to add them in face. I'm experienced I know our criteria and STILL there are excuses why in THIs case the coverage or my citing of it and the content I wrote up somehow doesn't pass muster. You want to say more about him have at it. But that's not a policy. What I wrote up is properly sourced, identifies him with the most significant aspects of his career and lists his works. And again, we have another example in the very same list of examples where a notable subject was rejected in part because a good source was used too much!!! So which is it? Too much, too little. Too this. Subjects loke these used to notable now they're not even though they are but the way their written up isn't good enough. Let's just be honest. We aren't going to include these subjects. We don't care about them. We haven't written about them for the 20 or so years Wikipedia has been around and we're not satisfied with how other editors write about them. They have to meet totally different standards than the rest of our content. Good luck. Back of the bus. No one has a problem with the unsourced Adventist elementary school but schools that African Americans had to protest for, march for, get jailed for, struggle to get funded, those we have no room for unless they have 50 sources and are finished when submitted. None of this is in policy it's bullshit propping up white supremacism. FloridaArmy (talk) 20:07, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I actually think that the source in Draft:John Wayne Niles is not overused, though more sources would be welcome. But I'd strongly suggest you don't insinuate that other editors are displaying "white supremacism" again (in fact, I'd very strongly suggest that you redact that), as that may not end well. Black Kite (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
I didn't suggest anyone is white supremacist. I stated that our actions prop up our white supremacist encyclopedia and a distorted and exclusionary version of facts and history, which is true. I'm certainly not the first to note we don't include African or African American subjects. But if you want to punish me for dropping truth bombs have at it. You don't think Columbia University providing generations with the intellectual underpinning for Jim Crow is worth noting? Nutella fetishes and fireplace rituals are more notable? We cover Adventist elementary schools but not historic schools for African Americans. We cover obscure physics theorems (lightly sourced) but Oberlin College's school that was open to Black students took a tooth and nail fight to grt included. A culturally significant region in Africa isn't worthy of inclusion, nor the lawyers who challenged white supremacy in state supreme courts, but our pageless encyclopedia has plenty of room for gamer trivia. This is a white supremacist institution. We have no problem identifying people as African artists or African American authors but try putting im Jimbo's entry that he's the white founder of Wikipedia. I've included it where relevant and people go nuts. I understand facing our institutional bigotry is upsetting and disconcerting. If I didn't think it was important for us to cover factual and inclusive history I wouldn't make a fuss. But it is. It's obscene that we censor Biden's African travel ban and other examples of racial prejudice he and his family have shown over his long career, but when our editors don't like something we keep it out. It's salted. Never to be spoken of again. No one should question why our policies make it so difficult to cover Black lives the way we do white ones. FloridaArmy (talk) 22:14, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
You really want to avoid claiming anything here being "white supremacist", as that is on the road to potentially being blocked, since that's a label you are applying to all WPians.
We do know that sourcing for most of history absolutely biases against minorities, women, etc, and that our early days of developing WP, we didn't really think about that too much. We do now recognize that we need to better include the underrepresented groups in history in addition to scaling back on how many white male people have been documented even as trivially as possible. It's why notability is used heavily to deem what's good for inclusion since that normalizes the systematic biases across the board. But we do have a lot of work to do to still remedy underrepresention, both on looking for volunteers to seek out more topics for inclusion and figuring out what to do with the cruft that was generated when WP was first started. This is us trying to fix the systematic bias of reliable sources, not in any way shape or form to maintain a "white supremacist" view. Masem (t) 22:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Masem every time I've posted here about this issue you've attacked me and defended the status quo. We all know the spiel about "the sources are biased so it's not our failt!" It's rote here. Same old schtick.
No one has yet answered me if substantial coverage in an Oxford reference work, as well as some coverage in other sources, establishes notability? I know the answer. I've added lots of entries supported by well established reference works. But this case is different. And it's always different. This was our coverage of school segregation in the U.S. It was totally dishonest. Propagandistic. Dunningesque. School segregation was only in the South and started with Jim Crow laws. Our editors have biases. Our personal biases support our institutional racism and a white supremacist narrative. We crush anyone who speaks of the problem or challenges it. I hear you loud and clear. I get threatened here a lot. It's not going to stop me from pointing out our discrimination, exclusion, and other abuses that go on here. FloridaArmy (talk) 22:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
No one has attacked you, but you are close to attacking others. You must assume good faith that those replying are trying to help you solve the problem.
I will caution you that we have to cover topics as reliable sources cover them. You may believe that the current situation around school segregation is not covered the way you think it should be, but to present this view, you need to show that it is covered in reliable sources, and that view has to be in proportion to what sources are out there (per WP:UNDUE). It's why our articles that involve far right conspiracy theories like Pizzagate conspiracy theory give almost no coverage nor give any validity to those that want to push the theory. Same with the Hunter Biden laptop conspiracy. In the same way, while I respect that you want to include sourced commentary that the common standing views of issues dealing with race and minority, we can't take the opposite extreme of viewpoints that lack credible sourcing (like the police are by code and default hostile to minorities, though we should include studies and analysis that do point out that police officers due tend to distrust minorities more than others in appropriate articles).
We are trying to work with you, but if you are going to see us as hostile towards you, you will likely find yourself blocked or the like. You're doing good work in finding sources, but there's a next step that we've tried to guide you towards over several months that hasn't really happened yet. Masem (t) 23:54, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
I just want to be ABSOLUTELY clear User:Masem that now you are attacking me for correcting our entry on school segregation in the U.S. that stated "The formal segregation of blacks and whites in the United States began with the passage of Jim Crow laws following the end of the Reconstruction Era in 1877." You think I made up Prince Hall's efforts against school segregation in Massachusetts in 1787? You think that the mob that attacked Noyes Academy in 1835 was a hoax? You think I made up Roberts v. City of Boston (a case cited in Plessy v. Ferguson Dred Scott v. Sandford) and these aren't factual events but hoaxes akin to pizzagate? And I'm not sure what your redlink about Hunter Biden's laptop is all about, but that has been big news and involves issues of censorship and media bias that have been widely covered. We don't have an entry on it? I'm not surprised. FloridaArmy (talk) 02:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Please read what personal attacks are and are not. I am not attacking you in any way, only cautioning that the methods you use to argue your point are problematic. I never said those edits are bad, just that how you are discussing modern-day issues of racism from the media seem to align with extreme theories that we don't cover without reliable sources. Masem (t) 02:59, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
We need to be careful to differentiate between saying someone in particular is a racist or white supremacist, which is a personal attack - and saying there is systematic racism or white supremacy in WP, which is demonstrably true, as it is for nearly every other institution. FA has not accused anyone in particular of being a racist in years; we need to be careful to not threaten them for criticizing the institution of WP as racist. I don't agree with FA about everything they're saying, but they should not be getting into trouble for criticizing WP in general. Floquenbeam (talk) 23:47, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Langston High School (Arkansas) (Draft:Langston High School (Arkansas)) is another subject not notable enough for Wikipedia. Established in 1913 in Hot Springs, Arkansas, the first high school open to African Americans there, a school with numerous famed alumni, whole articles about different aspects of its history and the new school opening to continie it's legacy, but nope. Maybe we can mention it somewhere else and redirect. FloridaArmy (talk) 02:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
    • I just moved that into main space also. It was notable from the first version--though that may not have been clear to the reviewer, for various reasons (and I'll leave it at that). Drmies (talk) 03:10, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I have a ton of problems with FloridaArmy's editing (the writing style, the sloppiness, the inconsistencies) and with their personality (the aggression, the accusations, etc.), but their selection of topics is always right on. I just moved three four declined article drafts into article space; I don't know what kind of standards User:Mattdaviesfsic and User:TheChunky were upholding, but they aren't my standards. Quality matters too, of course, and I hope other editors will pick up on their articles and help them onto the front page and into GA/FA territory. Drmies (talk) 02:47, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
    There have been a couple very prolific new AfC reviewers, including Mattdavies, who have been applying somewhat more stringent criteria than usual. I've pointed out some of these issue to Mattdavies and they seem pretty receptive, so I'm hopeful in this particular case. Rusalkii (talk) 07:19, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks, @Rusalkii: - I've accepted that originally I held somewhat higher standards than most other AfC reviewers! Unfortunately (as someone put on my talk, I think), we're far from the sort of quality standards that I originally held! Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Robert H. Wood (Draft:Robert H. Wood) is an interesting subject. One of the first African American mayors in the South. Appointed by a Reconstruction era Republican governor and then won re-election. Held numerous other offices. The next African American mayor of Natchez, Mississippi, the county seat, didn't follow for many many many decades and paid tribute to him. Lots of sources. I'm sure lots more out there. But rejected. Not notable enough for Wikipedia. FloridaArmy (talk) 03:42, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
    Again, going off advice from these drafts and above, look through the sources you have to find out why Wood was significantly notable, besides just being an African-American mayor. For one , it may be that he was the first African-American to be elected mayor and the only one during the Reconstruction era. You also may need to explain about Alcorn's role here (who after becoming governor tried to work to improve conditions for African-Americans and quell KKK violence). There's clearly something more to be written about Wood, but you need to think more than just that he was African-American - you want to explain why he held a special place in history due to being African-American. Stating bland facts is why these articles are failing notability. Masem (t) 03:57, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
He's Wikipedia notable because he received substantial coverage in reliable independent sources, and he's important because of what I noted above. One of his parents was African American and still he was able to become a mayor in an important city in Mississippi in the 1870s and had other leadership roles. FloridaArmy (talk) 11:38, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
This ties into Jimmy's comment below (that you are currently tied by the AFC requirement) - those reviewers at AFC are backed up and they are not going to be able to trace into sources if your written draft doesn't show why the person is notable, which is probably why some of your drafts that have been identified above have been accepted when more time can be given to the review.
You can help yourself by making sure it is clear of the importance of the person or place or institution is clearly stated in the article, backed with sources. For Wood, you simply say he was mayor of that town, when the importance is that he was first installed as mayor by Alcorn as part of the Reconstruction post-Civil war, and then appears to have been the first African-American mayor elected (in the next election). You say elements of these, but nothing that gets to the powerful reasons why Wood should be remembered. The more you include on facts or third-party analysis that emphasizes why these are importance African-American people/places from that time period, the more likely you'll get AFC drafts accepted. To wit, a lot of your school articles seem to try to rely on "so-and-so graduated from there" statements that you may think deem importance, but which really doesn't establish importance to those that are not as familiar with the topic, and those unfortunately are the ones you want to impress with the topic. Masem (t) 13:35, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

I would argue that we need to think clearly about two different problems here. The first is the information ecosystem which already exists in the world and is the historical artifact left to us by previous generations. The second is our own policies and processes, which inherently have to grapple with that body of records that went before us. I am supportive of FloridaArmy's campaign to get more coverage of notable topics in the area of African American schools, and much more broadly than that, African American leaders.

The first problem that I have run into when I have tried to help is that for at least some topics, there really simply are not enough sources at all. They don't exist. In some cases, the history is probably lost forever. A big event of historical importance at a traditionally black high school in 1920s Alabama may have received almost no press coverage, while goings on impacting a traditionally white high school might be very well documented.

But in other cases, and Draft:Clifton Conference is a good example, there are sources, loads of them. But in part because FA is under restrictions requiring a trip through AfC, the article was rejected as a draft even though it only took a couple of minutes for me to ascertain that there are plenty of sources and that the topic is notable. It took longer for me to read through the sources, and would taken even longer - time that I won't likely have - to read through the sources and write them into the article. This is a problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:03, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

Against my better judgment I am going to get onto a slightly tangential hobbyhorse of mine: the word notable is an absolutely awful choice of word for "has enough coverage to make a reasonably unbiased, well-rounded article". In my opinion that should be the standard, and is what our guidelines are trying to approximate, and instead we have a word which implies a value judgment about whether the subject is important enough to have a Wikipedia article. Certainly these high schools are more notable, as in important, influential, valuable, than many subjects we have articles about. It does not necessarily follow, as Jimbo said above, that we have the ability to write the article on them that they deserve. Rusalkii (talk) 07:16, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Encyclopedic would be my preferred alternative except that it is such a long ass word. Random Youtube was not deemed encyclopedic enough for Wikipedia has a different ring to it. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 16:15, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
@Shushugah, see Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Just unencyclopedic/doesn't belong for problems with "encylcopedic". — Qwerfjkltalk 22:14, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Middlefork Savanna

Greetings Jimbo, it's me again. Do you think subjects like this one are notable? A 687 acre preserve of endangered habitat. I don't understand why we would want to exclude subjects like this. Seems insane. FloridaArmy (talk) 18:39, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Jimbo has no special powers to declare things notable. No one does, actually. Notability is not decided by what people think or feel about a subject, it is determined by whether or not people have written substantial text about the subject outside of Wikipedia and itself. The article in question does not show any independent writing about the Middlefork Savannah; most of the references in the article are written by the organizations that manage the park. What we need are in depth sources that are independent of the park or the organizations associated with it. As soon as you find those, you're good to go. --Jayron32 18:43, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
One thing I will add; while the Middlefork Savanna itself may not be notable enough to support a stand-alone article, that doesn't mean that Wikipedia doesn't contain information about it. A good solution is to add the information about the Savanna to another article. --Jayron32 18:45, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Jayron32, I am afraid I'd like to ask you to not be so confrontational. FloridaArmy asked me my opinion, not for some kind of royal ruling. I'm perfectly allowed to give my opinions and people are perfectly allowed to ask for them. You are also allowed to give your opinion, which you have, but as I say, in an unnecessarily confrontational way. FloridaArmy has been around for many years, as I think you know (but if you didn't know, well, a newbie is also worthy of kindness).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
I apologize, Jimbo. It was not my intent to be confrontational. I was trying to provide some advice to them with regards to what sorts of things are likely to help with the notability concerns they had. I withdraw my advice, and apologize both to yourself and to FloridaArmy for the trouble I have caused. I will try to do better. --Jayron32 19:22, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
WOW. That's really awesome. Totally accepted. *hugs*--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:09, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
From a five second Google Books search, the place looks notable. If you spend half an hour on Google Scholar and at WP:TWL you should have no problems replacing the current citations in the article by reasonably high quality independent sources. —Kusma (talk) 19:57, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, official nature reserves (as long they're not tiny) tend to have sources. I've written a couple about UK ones myself, though I did need dead-tree sources for them as well. The problem is often sifting through to find the sources, as Googling the place tends to throw out lots of list-type results, such as "X, Y and Z are some of the places you can visit in ABC county". Black Kite (talk) 11:49, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I've added some sources to the draft which I think should be sufficient.
It does seem odd that articles created though AfC are required to meet a much higher standard than those published directly to mainspace. This article is an interesting case study. It was moved to draftspace by MB 30 minutes after its creation, because at the time it looked like this – fair enough. But 20 minutes later, it looked like this – not perfect by any means, but the article in this state would have been unanimously kept if it had been sent to AfD. However, the article had now entered into a complex bureaucratic space where many more demands were being made of it. A few minutes after completing their improvements, the article creator, OhanaSurf, requested information on how to submit the page for review, and received no response. They have not edited since. If the draft had not been taken up by FloridaArmy, it would by now have been deleted as stale under G13. So the outcome of this process is that we may have driven away a good content creator, and we almost lost an article on a notable subject. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 13:49, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
It is not just odd, it is very bad. There are two major problems: (1) the bar to pass AfC is higher than that for surviving in mainspace for a new article and (2) new articles are generally held to a higher standard than existing pages. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of good faith newbies leave after their first attempt at creating an article. Unfortunately Wikipedia is far too successful and popular to allow for easy solutions. —Kusma (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

[This is a reply to the above section, too]. There are the standards for what topics we should cover, and the messy, inconsistently applied, more subjective minimum standards articles about those subjects must meet in order to exist in mainspace. The thing is, the community increasingly wants some kind of quality-based standard for having an article, but is ever-reluctant to codify any such requirements (or otherwise can't find agreement on what those requirements should be) beyond the core content policies because of the nature of this project. So we wind up with processes like NPP and AfC which function most of the time to move/keep spam and very low quality content out of mainspace. Contrary to some of the claims above, Wikipedia has not decided that these subjects aren't notable. An individual AfC reviewer has decided that the article about that potentially notable subject just isn't good enough. Whether the standards imposed by reviewers is too strict or too inconsistently applied is a very valid conversation, but it's not the same as saying it's not notable.

Experienced users, in addition to being on the whole competent at starting decent quality articles, know NPP/AfC are largely toothless because you can just opt not to use AfC or move an article back to mainspace if an NPPer moves it to draft. Anyone doing so should anticipate it being nominated for deletion, but as Sojourner points out, that's a different debate. AfD typically evaluates the subject; AfC/NPP typically evaluate the article. That does mean we impose a higher bar for content on brand new users, users who think they're binding/mandatory (an impression many seem to want to cultivate), and users whose history led to them being required to go through AfC.

I suspect that over time, we'll continue to see a slow move from an emphasis on quantity to an emphasis on quality, and standards for mainspace will generally continue to increase (unofficially, if not officially). That doesn't seem like a bad thing, even if it's occasionally frustrating. For now, it can seem unfair, but it's worth remembering that the difference between "showing that an article is notable at AfD" and "showing an article is notable through citations that demonstrate notability" isn't actually a huge difference in labor, and the latter is more helpful to readers. YMMV. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

What isn't good enough is our coverage of these subjects. Making a quality argument for subjects we omit is a bit off the wall. Sorry, you draft isn't good enough so we won't say anything about these subjects. That's what our institutional racism has determined. We choose to tell our audience and editors we will continue to exclude these communities, these people, these institutions, and these leaders. We have a massive bureaucracy of rules and regulations that we can choose to apply on such a way that African Americans and other minority groups are excluded. It's grotesque. The quality of our coverage of these subjects is absent. It's shit. We have NOTHING about them. Zero. Failure. They are redlinks. All the excuses and explanations in the world don't make that okay and we shouldn't support obstructing those working to add coverage of important subjects we've neglected and worked at omitting. We are violating NPOV by excluding these subjects. We are supporting bigotry and fostering ignorance by excluding these subjects and pretending they aren't notable. We are discriminating against these subjects. It's not okay. Black Lives Matter. We need leadership from Jimbo and others, and indeed he helped on one of the entries above. We need our admins to step up on these issues and to stop making excuses, engaging in obfuscation, and obstructing. The status quo is not acceptable. FloridaArmy (talk) 20:37, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
A Google Scholar search shows that at least seven academic papers have been published about the Middlefork Savanna. I do not see what this topic has to do with institutional racism or exclusion of African-Americans or anyone else. When I contribute well-referenced content about African-Americans, there is never a problem, because it is well-referenced. Cullen328 (talk) 20:43, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
We're discussing our processes Cullen not just an individual subject and another editor broadened the discussion started above in this section. Have you used your abundant editing skills to help include these subjects Cullen? FloridaArmy (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I am discussing the topic in the section header. I am not discussing other sections on this talk page, which I did not even read. I do my very best to contribute well written and well referenced content about notable topics, including quite a few African American related topics. Cullen328 (talk) 21:32, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

AFC is inherently and inadvertently a higher standard than survival of an article moved directly into mainspace / NPP and is probably too high of a standard. The defacto standard at AFC is "is the reviewer willing to certify/ put their neck on the line that this article is overall OK?" The defacto standard for article survival in main space / NPP approval is "would the article survive AFD?" which 99% of the time is simply "does the topic of this article comply with wp:notability?" North8000 (talk) 04:06, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

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About our process for approving at AfC

From the discussion above, it seems pretty clear that any editor who is placed under a restriction requiring them to go through AfC is required to write and submit a much better and more complete article than someone who can simply create a new article and tag it as a stub.

I am not here commenting on what the right level of quality should be for a stub to continue existing - that's of course an interesting and important topic. What I'm noting is a strong disparity between two paths for a new article to be created.

Would it be sensible to say that the correct standard at AfC should be more or less the same standard as for the creation of a new stub article? And separately, do I have it wrong, and stubs are nowadays also treated to such exacting standards? Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:43, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

There are several inconsistencies like this, which come about through tensions in the community's priorities. The big one in this case is the tension between increased concern for article quality (rather than quantity) and preservation of The Wiki Way. Most people would agree that a new article should have at least two decent sources, for example, but we're not going to find consensus to make that a hard rule so those kinds of standards become part of our processes rather than our policies. Specifically, they become part of processes where other tensions are in play, e.g. the desire to ensure Wikipedia is not misused by people more interested in promotion vs. the ability for everyone to edit easily, and the large amount of content created every day vs. the small community of volunteers reviewing that content. One of the big unofficial roles of AfC is a bad content trap. We bank on people not realizing (until they're experienced/competent) that it's not mandatory, but as soon as people realize that, they just create articles directly. The reason it's a big topic of conversation here is because FA is experienced enough to know that AfC is a higher standard but for them it's not optional. In other words, if we lower the bar at AfC, it's not just FA's articles about African American schools we're letting in. There's a lot wrong with AfC (and we haven't even gotten into the backlog), but it's one of the few quality controls we have, and I don't think there would be much appetite for allowing e.g. a single-line, single-source stub even if someone who doesn't go through AfC can get away with it by creating it directly. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
We could try to emphasise the "bad content trap" more by applying the strict rules only to companies, bands and their albums and self-promotional BLPs. A random YouTuber with only two clearly independent sources and some promotional links shouldn't be let through, but an article about some 19th century person or building can be perfectly fine with one book source, one other source and a link to a non-spammy website. —Kusma (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I think this is really the key. If you look at the Draft:Clifton Conference article as it existed at the start of this conversation (I haven't checked to see if it has changed), it seemed completely fine to me as it was - at least, if it were tagged as a stub. It was 100% factual, didn't contain any over the top claims, doesn't seem the sort of thing that would attract spam or trolling, no BLP issues possible as it is an event from 114 years ago, etc. Because there do exist additional sources, there is a chance that someday someone would improve it. If we make rules based on "companies, bands and their albums, and self-promotional BLPs" and the incentive problems that occur there, we will do serious damage to parts of knowledge that are less privileged, such as an educational conference of some apparently real importance.
I think it is false and not helpful to throw around the term "white supremacist" here - but Florida Army is upset and I can understand why. For a variety of "good" reasons taken at various places, the system as a whole has a major flaw in this area and I believe we need to make some policy changes to address it. One place I would start is some changes to AfC's standards to take into account that things that are low risk and not attempts to spam should be accepted more easily, and I would also take a look at notability requirements in some cases to begin to acknowledge more clearly than we already do that not all topics are going to have the same number and quality of sources for historical reasons that are ugly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:36, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Hard cases make bad law. Rhododendrites hits the nail on head. AfC is an (unofficial/unstated) attempt at raising new article quality by "encouraging" newish editors down that route rather than just creating the article so that they strive for the higher threshold. In typical WP fashion it leaves an inconsistency with the actual threshold that exists for non-AfC article creators. Normally, FloridaArmy wouldn't have been troubled by this if they hadn't lost the confidence/trust of the community for article creation and have been forced, unusually for a non-new editor, into the AfC route. It's an idiosyncratic situation. I doubt the usefulness of drawing very broad conclusions from this situation other than WP is good at creating unforeseen and unfortunate inconsistencies. DeCausa (talk) 19:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
At AfD, our requirements for WP:BLPs and for companies (WP:CORPDEPTH) are more stringent than for random historical topics, so I don't really see why they shouldn't be treated differently at AfC. —Kusma (talk) 19:22, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
@Kusma one problem I see is WP:CORPDEPTH merely annotates, but doesn't explicitly override more generic WP:BASIC and WP:GNG guidelines, but if it fails WP:NCORP it is often less likely to pass the other guidelines. So having a bunch of random, independent links (whatever that means when it comes to puff news industrial complex) still can make a case for notability, even if we don't have to have an article for it. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 16:14, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
In my experience it absolutely varies by subject area. A new stub on an up-and-coming musician, a new company, or a businessperson will be held to much higher scrutiny (and for good reason) than a new stub on, for instance, a bird species or a long defunct railroad company (my specialty), because the latter are more likely to be good-faith contributions (if you find a UPE promoting the Wood River Branch Railroad, defunct in 1947, I'd be pretty surprised) and are simply less controversial as far as notability is concerned. We have some subject areas (such as, again, bird species and railroads) where we generally assume most if not all examples are notable. This may not be a majority view, but I would rather the standards for new articles increase (though to be fair, they have already come a very long way since 2001, when I was still a toddler) rather than the AfC standards drop, though I'm not unsympathetic to the argument they might be too strict in some regards.
In theory, we should be accepting an AfC submission if sources that demonstrate notability can be shown to exist, even if they aren't in the article. In practice, many a submission has been declined while actually meeting GNG simply because the relevant sources weren't included in the article at the time. Some of this is reviewers trying to cut the backlog not having time to spend 10 or more minutes doing a thorough search for sources for each and every submission. If someone makes a new stub in mainspace with one source, but other sources exist that show a GNG pass, when someone takes it to AfD those sources should (in theory) be found. There's no similar check when an AfC submission is declined as not showing it meets GNG; it's on the submitter to show GNG is met. I'm not suggesting an appeals court or something, but this does make me wonder if there's something to be changed here (and why I dropped by this conversation). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree with your point regarding AfC and GNG, esp. given that Wikipedia is effectively an amalgamation of many forms of external coverage; an up-and-coming musician won't be immediately as notable as an important railway that collapsed following post-war development trends. Perhaps WP:BEFORE should be adapted to cover AfC and AfD, as both processes overlap in several areas. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 04:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Speaking as a reader who became an editor/AfC Reviewe and is not a content creator. There are stubs and permastubs. One is useful to editors to expand, the other is useless for readers. As to AfC, alot of spam is dealt with there. Our standard is does this have a better than 50% chance of surviving AfD. That standard has changed dramatically in 20 years as the community is no longer interested in every athlete, road, random gps coordinate. Could we do better? Of course, but that would require the community to adopt clearer standards of notability. By the same token, should we be involved in covering breaking news? It brings views, excites editors but ultimately is a re-hash of news articles. So yeah theres room for improvement, but is AfC fundamentally bad? Hell no. The encyclopedia would be in a far worse place without AfC and NPP providing limited control over publishing. Slywriter (talk) 02:23, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
What is fundamentally bad is not so much the high standards, but the adversarial and unwiki structure of AfC. In mainspace, issues tend to eventually get collaboratively fixed by other editors; at AfC, it is one submitter against one reviewer. Even AfD is more collaborative than that. —Kusma (talk) 07:46, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
The main difference between NPP and AFC is that AFC requires sources conferring notability to be in the draft. There is no WP:BEFORE at AFC. Other than that, from what I've seen, the standards are nearly identical to NPP. Whether this is good or bad for the encyclopedia is an interesting question. I personally think the status quo is working OK, and as a reviewer I appreciate this little quirk of AFC that makes drafts easier to review. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Of course, my interactions with AfC have almost always been negative, usually resulting in me just moving the articles to mainspace myself. I still submit to AfC occasionally anyways, if just to confirm to myself that it's a waste of time to do so. The perfect example of that for me was Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, where this version was rejected because there wasn't a reference for the sentence on education or the birthdate. As far as I'm aware, that claimed requirement should have nothing to do with AfC passing or not. SilverserenC 04:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
    If AfC doesn't have a requirement that blatant BLP violations are not allowed on main space until fixed then it needs to be more stringent not less. Any editor who thinks it's acceptable to allow a blatant BLP violation onto mainspace also shouldn't be editing BLPs period. Nil Einne (talk) 10:26, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
    To be clear, editors thinking unsourced or insufficiently sourced DOBs are okay is a very common problem at BLPN and not something to encourage. I mean we have enough problems with DoBs sourced to sources which do not establish they are widely published or demonstrate sufficient connection to the subject we can be confident they don't mind. We don't need editors tolerating completely unsourced DOBs. Nil Einne (talk) 10:55, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
    Note that I have not looked in sufficient depth in the article to be able to say whether there were other reasons why it should have failed at AfC, other than the fact it should never be allowed on main space with an uncited DoB and probably not with the other stuff lacking inline cites too. But speaking more generally, as for whether a reviewer should have simply removed details lacking inline cites or added cites where possible, well I have no problem with a reviewer doing that if they feel like it. But AFAIK AfC reviewers are primarily supposed to confirm that articles meet our core content policies like BLP before allowing them on main space rather than getting them there if they don't, given both the expected time editors will dedicate to individual reviews but also their possible interest in any particular article they are reviewing as sort of mentioned in earlier posts. The creator and other editors are free to fix any problems and in the example cited, the reviewer was clear enough on what they were. More importantly, it's well recognised that people tend to learn a lot better by doing rather than watching, so forcing an editor to themselves fix such blatant BLP violations rather than letting a reviewer do it is likely to be a net positive. The only counter is in that case since it was completely uncited, I'd be tempted to say perhaps a reviewer should have removed the DoB without passing it after.. Because even not on main space, it's serious enough that it's something we need to deal with pronto. And I said without passing since more importantly, if an editor makes such a basic BLP mistake, I'd be very concerned about their BLP editing in general as in indicated in my first post. So frankly, I'm not sure if such an article should be allowed onto main space until someone has made a very careful check that every detail is sufficiently supported by cited sources. While most of the stuff is relatively uncontentious or positive as BLP itself says, this doesn't mean it's okay. In fact plenty of people dislike falsehoods or misleading claims about them even if uncontentious or positive. Nil Einne (talk) 11:32, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
    Triple reply, nice. If you're seriously going to go the line that every BLP with a single unsourced (non-controversial even) statement should be deleted, feel free to go that route. But that doesn't explain claims of non-notability for subjects such as a barrister with a number of references specifically about the subject already in the draft or a film director with significant coverage of their filmmaking process on multiple successful films and how they came up with and made their films. Heck, I had one that was declined because I used sources from ProQuest and the reviewer didn't think non-URL'ed links should be allowed. SilverserenC 14:00, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
On the question of quality, framing this specifically as an AfC problem misses the wider picture. All en.wiki processes are trending towards wanting higher quality articles. This happens in policy: older FA and GA articles simply don't meet current standards. It also happens through practice: WP:GAN (and WP:GAR) reviewers often bring up issues outside the scope of the WP:GACR, WP:DYK reviewers sometimes often ask for improvements above what is needed. This seems to be what is happening at AfC too. Beyond these processes, low quality stub creation has become more contested. Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale is a recent example, although the lack of consensus for changes shows the community remains divided on solutions, and indeed whether there is an original issue that needs solving.
On the question of the different standards regarding existing stubs, this is a property of wider Wikipedia processes, not AfC. The wider processes are a mixture of en.wiki policy being slanted towards keeping existing articles, and there simply being far more variation in individual decisions than community ones. If an article is created, it can't be reverted by an individual like a normal edit; the policies of WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS do not apply to the existence of pages. The only way to 'revert' a page creation is WP:AfD. AfD is always a community process, and can stall out into no consensus results which maintain the status quo, which for article existence is a de facto keep result. AfC, and similar processes like GAN and DYK, are not only individual processes which therefore don't have a no consensus outcome, they are also processes where the status quo result is rejection. CMD (talk) 10:36, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
It is still crazy that our quality expectations for new articles (that we expect to be written by a single author to our ever evolving standards) are higher than for existing articles (that get collaboratively improved by the community). —Kusma (talk) 15:00, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
And there is systemic bias in it. Lots of American and British topics have been added when expectations were low. Those adding similar topics about India or Nigeria now face a much more difficult process. While I see no evidence that this is a result of any deliberate racism (quite the opposite, really), it must look to others like we have pulled up the drawbridge after adding our pet topics. —Kusma (talk) 15:48, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
There are plenty of bad new articles, Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale didn't come out of AfC. The difference in standards is more specifically between deletion approval and creation approval, which run through two separate processes. The historic systematic bias is a function of that area between creation approval and deletion approval thresholds. (There is likely even be a systematic bias in the creation of poor new articles, reflecting the demographics of autoconfirmed editors, which self-perpetuates as any editor can create a page unilaterally but unilateral deletion is very tightly restricted.) The community has not been able to reconcile this (does it want to?). Perhaps the only way is to make it the same process, somehow combining AfC/NPP and AfD. CMD (talk) 17:01, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Along with the "bad content trap" de facto purpose of AfC, the stated purpose of AfC is, I believe, to create articles of start-quality by the time they hit mainspace. The acceptance process involves review and feedback from at least one experienced and generally clueful editor, and it would be a shame to have that cycle of feedback not result in some improvement to the article beyond what typically hits NPP. VQuakr (talk) 17:22, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
The stated purpose of AfC is to prevent completely new or biased (paid/COI) editors from creating articles that we will then need to clean up at AfD. The way it was always presented to me is that we accept any draft that would be kept at AfD on the basis of the sources that exist in the draft. Personally I will, if there are issues unrelated to notability or clear NPOV issues, leave a comment rather than declining the draft. Rusalkii (talk) 05:28, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo has put his finger on the problem – that AfC has standards which are too high and risk-averse. It harks back to Nupedia which Jimbo will recall failed because it likewise had an elaborate review process which made it difficult to get anything published. That process was so intimidating even Jimbo himself was reluctant to write about topics in which he had expertise, right? Wikipedia was the successful alternative and its essential feature is in the name – it's quick. AfC is not a quick process as it often takes months for a submission to get any attention. It is therefore not appropriate for Wikipedia and should be shut down as a disruptive failure.
Myself, I routinely start articles as short stubs with just a few sentences. I like to do it this way because it gets the topic started without excessive effort. That's a key way to get work done – to get it started and so avoid procrastination, distraction and analysis paralysis.
Andrew🐉(talk) 11:13, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree with you and several other editors that AFC is risk-averse, but IMO they're only risk-averse because the rest of us incentivize them to behave that way. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
There is basically nothing in policy that warrants deletion of stubs on the basis that they are short; WP:DEL-CONTENT is explicit that [i]f editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page and WP:NEXIST notes that Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article. That being said, if an article comes to AfC and has no (reliable) sources, it's my understanding that the articles should be declined at AfC. So, yes, there's a higher standard applied at AfC than there is at NPP, as NPP reviewers and AfD !voters are generally required to actually look for sources before seeking to delete something on the basis of WP:DEL-REASON#8. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 22:44, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Worth mentioning here that these sections have led to Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Florida_army_accusations_on_Jimbo_Wales_Talk. Jimbo, as a topic ban from this page has been proposed, you may want to weigh in. I'm not sure what the precedent is there, but I presume a support/oppose from the person whose page it is would end the discussion. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:34, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Seems to me that there are two solutions to the problem: 1.) Make the AfC process more newbie-friendly and 2) Standardize quality control. The New Article Wizard, for example, could be made better by actually walking through the user on what makes a good article, and providing a few checkpoints to make sure they meet the bare minimum (do they think their article is notable enough, do they have sources to back it up). It doesn't have to be stringent, but adding a few more gates lets us filter the chaff (and is better from a UX perspective than having a bunch of tutorial articles). On the other hand, the fact that AfC has harsher standards than normal means that existing standards aren't being interpreted/enforced equally. This, to me sounds like the harder fix. Maybe requirements to be an AfC reviewer need to be more exclusive. Maybe we need a audit/performance evaluation system. I understand we can't also be mechanical in applying quality standards, because it'll most definitely be on an article-to-article basis (different types of articles have different requirements). As for lowering AfC standards/raising mainline standards, while I'm not totally for changing them, if I had to choose, I'd rather have a lower bar to participate than a higher one. Making (reasonably) good articles should be an easy process to encourage more editors, and AfC should be a way to guide new/inexperienced editors or help those who need it. We should approach AfC articles as making a passable first draft: the edit button's there for a reason. NyanThousand (talk) 16:09, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Merge NPP and AfC

Whatever the policies of reviewing are, it seems NPP and AfC could benefit from same pool of reviewers, tooling support and policy changes. There are technical reasons why this isn't immediately feasible. And Draft submissions have a place here to stay, whether it's because IP users/non-autoconfirmed cannot create articles directly and or because they are mandated, but as far as reviews go once nominated for review, they're the same as non-patrolled mainspace articles. There are some other nuanced differences of course, like drafts cannot have categories/fair-use images embedded, but that's not a major hurdle for a New Page Patroller. And considering that NPP is going through tooling changes now, it might be the tome to make some bold changes. And aggregate a declining pool of reviewers to be even stronger together. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 16:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

If you want to know why this is a bad idea (and forgive me for the train example), read up about the merger that formed Penn Central Transportation Company. Two railroads with totally different corporate cultures and operating philosophies tried to merge, resulting in the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at that time. Trying to merge NPP and AfC would have similar results. Two projects with quite different philosophies and methods of operation, who often don't get along. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, but I am pretty sure this analysis is accurate. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 17:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Oppose: Merging NPP and AFC is not the answer. I think the groups being separate is fine, as the small amount of users interested in participating in both already do so. I also have concerns that this would hurt recruitment for the "new" group, as the competency expectations would rise and discourage some users from getting involved. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:21, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Comment. @Shushugah: A similar purposal was kind of raised at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_permissions/Archive_10#Relationship of Articles for Creation and New Page Reviewer. One of the options, Merge these two rights - the work is similar and share an interface, so editors should have similar experience and capabilities. Someone with one right should be fully capable of performing the tasks of the other right. The details of how this merge would happen should be worked out in subsequent discussion, got a minority, but most of the community preferred to keep separate. Granted this is a 2019 RfC and things can change, but this proposal probably has some opposition. VickKiang (talk) 21:32, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Comment They are two different things in nearly every respect. And the fact that they both involve giving an article some type of a review does not negate that statement. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:54, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
no Disagree-Although the reviewing criteria of AfC and NPP are quite similar, IMO they aren't the same, so merging them together is not a solution.question mark Suggestion-However, we could reduce the bar for joining NPP for AfC reviewers so that people who are already familiar with the reviewing policies and are member of AfC can request and join NPP more easily. Furthermore, there are a lot of editors who are inactive in both NPP and AfC project, including those editors who might be hat collecting, so removing them would be a good Kickstart. We could also implement a bot that could automatically review a new article which is accepted through AfC (much like the autopatrolled right) but without needing the submitter or the reviewer to have the right. This way, a NPP reviewer won't have to re-review an article already accepted by an AfC reviewer. ❯❯❯ Raydann(Talk) 09:05, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
@Raydann: There is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for permissions#Bar for joining the NPP team regarding your first suggestion. I personally don't think lowering the bar is necessary now, but you might be interested in the discussion there. Many thanks. VickKiang (talk) 21:26, 14 January 2023 (UTC)
NPP and AFC are essentially WP:WikiProjects – which are (social) groups of people, not subject areas. My impression is that these two groups have some overlap but would prefer to be separate and to work in their own preferred ways. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Towards a grand unifying theory

I think that both WP:NPP and WP:AFC have suffered from scope creep during the last 10 to 15 years. Here's what I think should be done:

  • NPP: Decide if Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion applies. If so, tag for CSD. If not, NPP is done. You might be nice and help out a little, but all other problems are Somebody else's problem. I believe that my view aligns closely with what User:Scottywong, who was heavily involved in NPP work, recommended back in 2013.
  • AFC: Decide if the article would survive a nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. If not, decline the draft. (They make a fine distinction between "declining" and "rejecting".) If yes, then move the page to the mainspace for further development. Anybody who doesn't like it is welcome to test your judgment by sending it to AFD. You might be nice and help out a little, but that's not the key point.

Here's what actually happens:

  • NPP: Between 20 and 50 people look at the article (typical example: Shower thought was recently created, and saw 17 page views in the first six hours and 19 in the following 24 hours[7]. In my experience, the number of page views drops substantially after a couple of days). Some of editors tag it with various maintenance tags, such as {{nocat}} (which removes it from the automated Special:UncategorizedPages). Most of them take no action. Many are unable to mark it as either being patrolled or reviewed; others just don't want to sign their name on the dotted line, as it were. Nobody knows if you silently left it in the queue, but everyone will know if you're the one that said this internet meme could be safely indexed by Google. No good editor would want to pollute Google's search results with a lousy stub about an unimportant pop culture subject. So we pass it from hand to hand to hand, until someone either says it's okay for Google to take notice of this stub, or unilaterally dumps it in the Draft: namespace. (See longer rant here.)
  • AFC: Page is submitted and then waits for a volunteer who is willing to review that subject. That volunteer expects to be yelled at if the article (NB: not the subject) is not measurably above the median Wikipedia article, and to be yelled at even more if some jerk decides that it's "promotional". Consequently, upon reading any even slightly plausible article, volunteers who don't want to be drummed out of the project for being too lax will decline the article, usually for not having enough sources. Sometimes this is true. Sometimes, however, very generic boilerplate messages have been posted when the message should have been things like "Nobody ever told me that WP:NONENG is a policy, so I refuse to accept this article until you add sources in English" or "I'm not from the fourth-largest English-speaking country in the world, so I don't recognize the names of the daily newspapers there" or even "This page needs to be listed at Wikipedia:Requested moves#Requesting technical moves". What won't happen is just as important: the editor may be told to do things, but the reviewer will rarely actually fix things, including things that are easy for an experienced editor to do. It's easier to decline a draft with a pointer to WP:REFB than to fix the citation formatting yourself. There is far less collaboration in the Draft: space than in the mainspace. The draftspace is where articles go to die.

What I think we could usefully do:

  1. Make those "silent acceptances" in NPP visible. How many editors do we need to check for CSD before we can be pretty sure that a page doesn't qualify for CSD? I don't know, but the WMF could test that (I'd bet that the Growth team would know who's well suited for that work), and I'll bet that it's a lot fewer than are currently, unknowingly duplicating each other's work.
  2. Reconsider whether NPP should be trying to do anything beyond screening out the CSD candidates. Maybe they would be more efficient and effective if we encouraged them to do one thing well, instead of trying to be all things for all people.
  3. Publish some basic descriptive statistics on existing articles. For example: What is the median number of inline citations in existing articles? What is the median number of sentences? This requires only a person who knows how to handle the database dumps (previous discussions: [8][9]). With that information, it should be easier to identify articles in the Draft: space that are above average. It should also be possible to compare the accepted articles against the actual standard for articles in the mainspace, and encourage AFCers to find articles that meet the standard, rather than ones that significantly exceed it. I think AFCers, in particular, would find it helpful to have these statistics as a reality check they can share with the m:immediatists who complain at them for accepting articles that are "only" twice as long and have three times as many sources as the typical Wikipedia article.
  4. (the difficult one) Stop yelling at NPPers and AFCers, especially for being "too lax". Also stop yelling at them for not doing everything themselves. IMO we should never expect NPP to add WikiProject tags. Can someone else do that? If NPP can't flag it for CSD, and AFC believes that it has a ≥50% chance of surviving AFD, and you don't like it, then either WP:SOFIXIT yourself or send it to AFD and see if you can get it deleted. If 99% of AFC's accepted articles survive AFD, then AFC is being too stringent, by their own rules, so don't ever yell at them for passing something that they think "only" has a 60% chance of surviving AFD. Just send it to AFD and find out.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the post.
A) #2 seems like a pretty radical and dangerous idea. The idea of having NPP do zero screening for notability would definitely change the composition of the encyclopedia in a big way over time, probably not for the better. We all have an idea of what our notability guidelines are. If I'm reading it right, your idea #2 is to weaken the enforcement of them, by allowing lots of articles to slip through without being checked.
B) IMO we should never expect NPP to add WikiProject tags. NPP made all the gnoming steps of the flowchart optional about a year ago, to help reduce our workload. So now the bulk of our checks are CSD and notability.
C) Maybe they would be more efficient and effective if we encouraged them to do one thing well, instead of trying to be all things for all people. Our efficiency and effectiveness is currently in a good place. Due to the efforts of many folks, the backlog is now under control, holding steady at under 2000, with a review time of around 2 weeks (current back of queue is around Jan 3). If the backlog gets out of control again, we can certainly look into ideas to reduce the backlog, but for now everything is running smoothly. A lot has happened since Kudpung made his "NPP is on its last legs" post on Jimbotalk in April 2022. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:04, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

WhatAmIdoing made a lot of good observations. Especially that AFC is too tough and how it inadvertently gets that way. And also that NPP tries to do too many things. But, reinforcing what Novem Linuae said, wp:notability is the main big essential task for both of them. CSD is also essential but a much smaller job. North8000 (talk) 04:22, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

You've got mail!

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail!
Message added 04:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC). It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

Topic is about a user cross-wiki socking in and out English Wikipedia but WMF cannot take action. Public information can be found on this link and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/PlanespotterA320. WMF tickets numbers are 53482 and 49383 Lemonaka (talk) 04:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Should non-free images be allowed in search results?

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content § Non-free images in search results (redux). {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:32, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

NFL Thoughts

Wsg, I'm a lifelong Bills fan, it's nice to be writing a message on your talk page. I'm just writing to express my extreme disappointment in what happened yesterday, we blew a big game. As a reaction, I wrote some rather crude stuff on my sandbox, I suggest you avoid it, unless you don't like the Chiefs, Pats/Bucs or Bengals. Anyways, I just want to know your personal input on the NFL, what I could do to forget about yesterday, your personal favorite teams, players, etc. I'm writing to you because, when we're talking Wikipedia, you're pretty much the Almighty. I use Wikipedia a lot, and I could really use some advice on how to cope with a stressful thing like this. While you're at it, I found this: https://img.delicious.com.au/WqbvXLhs/del/2016/06/more-the-merrier-31380-2.jpg Enjoy.

- B D A *Whopper, whopper, whopper, whopper. Junior, double, triple whopper. Flame-grilled taste with perfect toppers. I rule this day. Lettuce, mayo, pickle, ketchup. It's okay if I don't want that. Impossible whole bacon whopper. Any whopper my way.* -Joseph Mama (∞-∞) BubbaDaAmogus (talk) 14:35, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Interestingly, because I grew up in Alabama, which doesn't have an NFL team, I never became a fan or all that interested in it. With my family, even if I have to stay up very late because I live in the UK, I do tend to watch the Alabama/Auburn game every year, and a few games on top of that if Alabama is playing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:43, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Thoughts on Alabama's next-door neighbor, Georgia? Tails Wx 13:52, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
An important rival and a well-earned win in the 2023 National Championship. I do think that the 65-7 outcome was so lopsided as to call into question something about the way the whole process works, but I suppose almost any system can result in an underdog having a great day in the semifinals only to find themselves hopelessly outmatched in the final. I'm glad you didn't ask about Georgia Tech, as I'm still unhappy about that incident that happened 3 years before I was even born. But I assume since you asked that you are a Bulldogs fan and will understand about Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate haha!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:36, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Not a Bulldogs fan, but a Hoosier. I hope you remember Bryce Young from 2021. Great Alabama quarterback! Tails Wx 14:58, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
Man, the Crimson Tide will be really proud of Tua this year, I think either them or Mr. Relevant will win Super Bowl LVII. Avoid picking Kermit or Joebunny at all times. But I'm over the loss now, still bitter about the last two I mentioned. We should be allowed to win the next Super Bowl though. I don't follow college football much, but I did track the Championship Game by chance and I saw the unpredictable. I can only imagine teams other than the ones in the SEC going big every year, so unfair.
- B D A *Person A: You know Joe? Person B: Lemme guess, Joe Mama? A: No, stupid! Joe Schmoe!* BubbaDaAmogus (talk) 20:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
I mean Jalen Hurts, not Tua Turndaballova, Mr. Softskull can be forgotten about, I bet he'll NEVER win a ring. BubbaDaAmogus (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT and large languages models

Hey Jimbo,

There's need for the WMF input on WP:VPP#Wikipedia response to chatbot-generated content. Specifically, what is the WMF's position on:

  1. The constructive role LLMs could have in the development of Wiki content over the short and medium term.
  2. Mitigation of risks stemming from the use of LLMs by vandals, criminals, "sock farmers", and other bad-faithed individuals.
  3. The availability of technical tools that address both of the above.

Best regards,

François Robere (talk) 14:45, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Great - I can't speak for the Foundation at all but I think it's safe to say that in many ways the WMF staff and board are just like everyone else in this community - very interested in the possibilities of constructive roles here, and worried about the risks as well. I suppose what I am saying is that I don't think the WMF *has* a full position yet, nor would I expect them to!
It looks like the conversation there is a good one and people are learning.
Now, I can't speak for the Foundation but I can speak for myself. I'll only speak at the moment about a few positive ideas that I have rather than go into details about the negatives which are huge and which can be summed up prettye easily with "ChatGPT and similar models make stuff up out of thin air which is horrible".
If you go back in the archives here on my talk page (don't bother, as I'll explain enough) there was a discussion about a proposed article that hadn't made it through a new page review. In response to an inquiry about it, I opened up a newspaper archive website (that I pay for personally) and quickly found 10-15 decent sources which could have been used to improve the article. I skimmed each of them just to figure out if I thought the subject was notable or not. I passed along the sources (but they aren't that useful to anyone who doesn't subscribe to a newspaper archive website) because I didn't have time to actually read them carefully enough to improve the original stub article.
Now, ChatGPT does not have the ability to follow a URL. Also, the archives are in jpeg format, so ChatGPT would not be able to read a download of it, and I don't have any easy way to do image-to-text. (It would be faster to just read and write the articles in this case). But imagine that those minor technical limitations were removed in some way. Suppose I could say: "Hey, ChatGPT, here's a Wikipedia stub. And here are 15 links to sources that I, an experienced Wikipedian, judge to be relevant. Please read these articles and add facts from them to the article, adhering to Wikipedia policies and writing in a typical Wikipedia style. Don't make anything up that isn't clearly in the articles."
That doesn't strike me as a super far-fetched use of this technology. It would then require me to read the output, check that nothing was made up out of thin air, and to make sure it wasn't getting it wrong in some other way. But I suspect this would be a productivity boost for us. And if not today, then in 3 years? 5 years?
I can think of similar use cases. "Here's a Wikipedia entry. Follow all the links to sources and read them. Find sentences in this entry which are in disagreement with what the sources say, if any." "Here's a paragraph from Wikipedia. Someone has complained that the article introduces a subtle bias not found in the original sources. Check the sources and rewrite the article to more closely comply with NPOV policies."
In each case don't imagine some automatic result, just think about whether this might be useful to good editors in at least some cases. It's hard to see that it wouldn't be.

--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:45, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I think the last line here is indicitave of the biggest problem with any ChatGPT defense - just think about whether this might be useful to good editors in at least some cases. It's hard to see that it wouldn't be. At the point where any result from this is still reliant on a human editor reading it, checking to make sure everything is correct and nothing has been fabricated or plagiarized, and checking that any rewrite for neutrality hasn't removed important information, what is the benefit to "good editors"? If anything, I think it would be more difficult to fact check AI-generated text against the sources + previous versions than it would be to simply do the editing on your own - At least it would be for me. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 16:26, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
I agree with your point regarding fact checking; it'd be much easier to cut out the AI completely. From my experiences with AI, it's significantly easier to manually verify and fact check sources than it would be to do so for AI-generated text. Who's to know where the AI got that information from? Who's to know if those sources follow Wikipedia's guidelines? Many questions AI could pose here. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 23:18, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
I think a core problem is that most generative AI's don't actually reference sources, they make them up. There's a really good Twitter thread on how and why that happens, but the tech needs a serious overhaul before it could be relied on. There is an exception - Perplexity.ai describes itself as a "conversational search engine" and I went ahead and plugged Train's question below about "compact fluorescent lamp technology" into it. You can see that generated result here, but this still has serious issues - The sources are an affiliate blog, an electrical company website, Wikipedia, a lightbulb store's blog, and an academic article, so there's only one actually usable source there. A long way to go! ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 23:35, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
I am intrigued by the possibility of using technologies like ChatGPT to find references. If I could tell it, for example, "Find, list, and briefly summarize all newspaper sources available online between 1980 and 1990 that discuss advances in compact fluorescent lamp technology", that would save a huge amount of time in doing research for articles. At least for me, the most time-consuming thing during the editing process isn't composing an article, it's reading through sources online and figuring out what is useful versus what is a false positive. For my featured articles, each one represents at least 10 hours of dedicated researching on my part. And I often have to try a number of different search terms to find what I'm looking for. If we could get an AI to complete that in a manner of seconds, it would be a huge time-saver. Another example, if I could give ChatGPT an article and an infobox to use, and then have ChatGPT create the infobox for me, that would also speed up editing. I think there are a great deal of positive uses for ChatGPT and similar technology for editors, but this also comes with the potential to rapidly cause serious damage if misused.
ChatGPT is imperfect now, but I suspect it won't be long before we will be nigh-unable to tell if something was created by a human or by ChatGPT. We just recently had a huge scandal with an editor who did shoddy work filled with instances of failed verification on over 200 GAs, and he was working manually... what happens if we discover someone was mass-producing articles with ChatGPT without properly verifying outputs first? Perhaps we can use ChatGPT to check an article for instances of failed verification? Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:48, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
The references usecase is interesting and actually already exists for some fields! I used Elicit a lot during grad school and found it surprisingly helpful, even in my niche field of philosophy. It doesn't 100% fit your usecase as it only searches academic articles, but you should check it out :) ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 20:17, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Why are there zero Stewards?

I was looking at the statistics page and realized the group of steward was empty

why is that? Soulware2 (talk) 19:22, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

@Soulware2 while the software supports it, we only use "global" stewards, you can see the list here: meta:Special:Globalusers/steward. — xaosflux Talk 19:27, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
wow that was fast Soulware2 (talk) 19:30, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Admin's Barnstar
thank you That Prussian1872 (talk) 19:00, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Black History Month

February is Black History Month in the United States. I find the history of places like Sprague, Alabama (Draft:Sprague, Alabama) interesting. You suggested a task force, but it appears nothing developed?

I listed some of these subjects as well as other missing pieces at Draft:Missing Pieces which I was forced to move to my userspace (User:FloridaArmy/Missing Pieces). I think Colored School and Colored High School should at least be disambig pages or maybe list entries. So much of this history is missing from Wikipedia. FloridaArmy (talk) 08:45, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 February 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 21:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

yippie

Soulware2 (talk) 18:04, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

What happened to Wikipedia?

When I logged into Wikipedia this morning, strange things happened. All the links to my watchlist, preferences, contributions, etc., have simply vanished. There isn't even a search box so I can search for stuff. I can go to the main page and my own user page, and that is it. (Just to get here I had to do a google search.) The link to my talk page was there momentarily, but as soon as I replied to a message that link disappeared as well. All the useful links on the side are gone. Tables of content are missing. I don't know if this is some glitch or there was a major change to the website, but as of today it seems to be practically unusable. I don't know where else to bring this up, except that I know a lot of people watch this page who may know what the heck happened, so I'm just letting people know that there seems to be a big problem. No need to reply to this message. I don't seem to have access to my watchlist anymore, so I would never see the replies even if I was watching. Just FYI, because as of today the site has gotten impossible to use. Zaereth (talk) 21:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

It is the new Vector skin. Most of those links are found under the top right profile icon. I assume you can switch back to other skins. Masem (t) 22:29, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
@Zaereth see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Vector 2022 deployment update. There was also a previous RfC. S0091 (talk) 22:34, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
No clue what any of that means. Skin? Vector? No freakin' clue. I don't speak computerese nor read hieroglyphics. That's what I liked most about Wikipedia, is that everything was in plain English --right there in front of you. Took me 12 years (I think) to figure out what little I do know, and it's not much when it comes to computers or the internet. Just enough to get me by. What I do know is I'd rather shove drywall screws into my eyeballs than learn a new operating system or relearn how to use Wikipedia all over from scratch. (There isn't even a search box so I can look around. What are people supposed to do? Search from google?) When most websites do this, that's the day I suddenly lose interest in those sites, so it's been fun, but unless things go back to normal I'm out. I got better things to do that try to figure out this mess. Zaereth (talk) 02:49, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Hello, Zaereth. Go to your "Preferences" and then "Appearance ", and then select "Vector (2010)" and save your change. Problem solved quite quickly. Cullen328 (talk) 03:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Multiply Zaereth by X, way to fix what wasn't broken. Is this our New Coke moment? Luckily I use Monobook so nothing has changed. [Next day EDIT: Okay, maybe I was being too dramatic, there doesn't seem to be too many complaints and the skin is wider than I thought it was, and there is the easily found option to 'Change back to the old skin'. But still thank the gods for Monobook] Randy Kryn (talk) 03:38, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Whose brilliant idea was this anyway? Can anyone tell me exactly what was broken that needed fixing? How are WP visitors to know how to look something up? Thanks Cullen for telling how to fix it. Sectionworker (talk) 04:13, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Instead of solving genuine software problems that impede the work of productive Wikipedia editors, which would be the logical and rational thing to do, the WMF spends massive amounts of money on busywork upgrades to fully functional "skins" to appease the developers who want to work on something "new and shiny". The Android app to upload smartphone photos to Wikimedia Commons is just one of many examples of things that should have been priorized but haven't been. That app has sucked for years, is bug ridden, crashes and fails frequently, and needs to be uninstalled and reinstalled repeatedly just to upload a few photos. I would love to donate my photos about notable topics, but that app is an active impediment to my efforts. Cullen328 (talk) 04:57, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Another example is the massive amount of money and staff time spent over many years on the failed efforts to develop a functional mobile site and associated mobile apps. For at least ten years, the fully functional but misnamed "desktop site" has worked just fine on modern smartphones and other mobile devices. And still today, smartphone editors are automatically directed to a crappy site that impedes collaborative editing, and are denied easy access to a fully funtional site that allows them to flourish as collaborative editors. It's a tragedy but very few top level Wikipedians care about it at all. And paid developers have built their lucrative careers on failure to achieve their simple goal, year after year after year. Cullen328 (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Actually, as one that has used the desktop mode on a mobile phone (rather than the mobile version) the old skin was widely inconsistent in how things were displayed and made it very difficult to use. The updated skin works very much consistently on mobile display, so that's a clear improvement I see. Masem (t) 13:15, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Someone obviously went "why can't the site look the same on desktop and mobile devices" and this travesty is the result. To quote Maddox, "I didn't buy a 19" monitor to have 50% of its screen realestate pissed away on firing white pixels, {{rpa}}".[10] – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 13:31, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
The new skin was not at all considered for mobile devices, and the full width mode can be disabled by clicking the button in the bottom right(though why is it in the dead bottom right???) Aaron Liu (talk) 13:33, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
What Cullen328 and filelakeshoe said... Ugh. Give up. DeCausa (talk) 20:51, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
I just realized that this may not be about the limited width issue but about the all the other whitespace. That is a problem I agree. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:16, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
@Zaereth By the way, the skin doesn't actually do that, the site was momentarily half-broken while the skin was being deployed. Usually all these features are there. Most of the buttons you mentioned are in the top right dropdown. Aaron Liu (talk) 13:14, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Just so it's clear, the search bar is at the top center of the page, as seen in this screenshot of Wikipedia:Today's featured article:
If you're not seeing the search bar, or (on much narrower screens) a magnifying glass search icon, please report a bug (a note at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) is good enough – I know the devs are watching that page).
Built-in opt-out button
If you decide that it's just not for you, that's fine. I remember when we switched from MonoBook to Vector 2010, and about 20% of us opted out. So far, fewer people seem to be opting out this round, but I wanted to point out the built-in button for switching back to the old look (or any style you prefer).
If the sidebar's collapsed, then click the Hamburger button by the logo to open it. Click "Switch to old look", which will take you to the exact section of Special:Preferences that you need to be in. The "preview" option for each item will let you find the style that you like best (MonoBook if you prefer information density; Vector 2010 if you like last month's style; Minerva if you want it to match the mobile site; Timeless if you need lots of room for gadgets; Vector 2022 if you want to see what most readers are seeing these days). After you've made your choice, remember to click the big blue button at the bottom of the page to save your prefs. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm finding it extremely hard to believe you can't find the search bar, unless there is something else technically going on that is suppressing it. Schierbecker (talk) 12:10, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that may have been a temporary glitch at the time of deployment, rather than a long-term situation. Everyone should be seeing the search bar now (but if you're not, then do please say something!). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:09, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
I have a rather narrow screen. It's practically square. If I were at home I'd have it up on my 60" plasma TV, but I don't work on Wikipedia at home so I use what they give me. All I saw was a little square with the letter "Q", but no place to type in a search. And who would ever guess in a million years that to log in I would have to look for a link disguised as an ellipsis. Who in their right mind makes a link out of nothing but punctuation? If I wanted to look for hidden links I would break out the old Nintendo and play The Legend of Zelda. But I don't want to. I simply have better things to do with my time.
Now, I'm not being angry or anything. Maybe a little sarcastic, because when I first came here I thought something had gone majorly wrong with the system? Who would've guessed it was intentional? But it's not my website, so it doesn't really matter to me. Wikipedia is not a major part of my life. It's just something to do when I'm listening to that little voice in my ear saying, "Thank you for holding. We appreciate your call. Please stay on the line and the next representative with be with you shortly." I can just as easily be doodling or twiddling my thumbs during that time. I choose to spend it helping to improve Wikipedia because I already know how to use it and where everything I need is located, there are not a lot of ads and graphics and moving images to clutter up the screen just to slow everything down (like every other site), and, foremost, --everything is written in plain English! (I can't stress that last part enough.)
It's no skin off my nose, but what does irk me a little is that the least y'all could have done, Whatamidoing (WMF), was warn people beforehand. Now, I'm going to do a little mind reading and predict that your response to that is that you probably did post some ambiguous note among those messages at the top of our watchlists that nobody reads, but if all it said was something about a "vector" or a "skin" (whatever the hell that is in this context; reads like patent nonsense), then all you posted was meaningless jargon. It may have made sense to you, but to those of us who don't speak computer jargon it may as well have been invisible, because the human mind has a funny way of relentlessly glossing over those things we don't comprehend.
That's my main reason for contributing here, that is, to take highly technical subjects and make them comprehensible to the masses, and my biggest pet peeve is the use of jargon and techno-speak to explain what should be written in plain English. Physics articles. Scientific articles. Technical articles. Math articles. Wikipedia is full of articles written only for people who already understand the info, and the worst are computer articles. That's the main thing I hate about computers, and why I rarely use them. My first experience in computers was setting up my own flight sim, which was an exercise in beating my head against the wallfor two long years. (You'd think it would be plug and play, but noooo. I eventually had to call a major aircraft manufacturer and ask them to put their flight-sim guy on the phone so he could walk me through it in English.) As an encyclopedia, we should be writing for people who have no background knowledge on these subjects, not just for the people who already know them inside and out. The same should apply to the people who do all the programming and behind the scenes work as well. Zaereth (talk) 02:15, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
If it helps, the log-in button is being restored. CMD (talk) 02:32, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Well, that's nice. Still, I hate the techno-speak and jargon, and hieroglyphics. It's like running into a crowded theater and yelling, "Chemical reaction! Chemical reaction! The building is rapidly oxidizing! Hasten to the nearest egress for your existence!" and then wondering why everyone burned to death. But at least they sounded smart to the other academics in the audience. Zaereth (talk) 03:46, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Assuming you are talking about the replacement of the words in the old skins with icons in the new skin, the question of hieroglyphics has also been raised by others, although so far as I know no change is expected. You can modify the icons on a personal level, albeit with fiddling and technical coding that won't help most people. Hopefully the accessibility of the language can improve, I'm sure that feedback would be helpful. CMD (talk) 03:56, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
@Zaereth, I understand that those three dots are called a kebab icon, and that it's become very common in web design during the last decade.
As for warning people, CentralNotice banners have been running off and on since May 2022 (=about 8 months). Assuming you haven't disabled banners in your prefs, then you might remember a pink banner that said something like "Try out the new interface improvements. Search, language switching, sticky toolbar, table of contents, and more". If you clicked on it, it switched your skin.
Before and after the pink banner, they ran some banners asking people to provide feedback (and hundreds of editors did exactly that, e.g., at mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements/Fifth prototype testing/Feedback).
Earlier this month, they switched to a high-volume light blue banner that said something like "The new desktop interface is launching next week! Try it out and learn more about the project, community participation, and process." This one linked to Wikipedia:Vector 2022 and reportedly was very effective at getting registered editors to switch in advance of the deployment.
Of course, if you've hidden the CentralNotice banners (check both Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-centralnotice-banners and Special:GlobalPreferences#mw-prefsection-centralnotice-banners), then you wouldn't have seen any of them. If you did that, you probably would have had only the chance to see the local watchlist notices, the many discussions on the village pumps, the multiple notices in Tech/News, and the big RFC last November.
If you have ideas about how (and when) to reach people who chose to disable CentralNotice banners, don't pay attention to their watchlists, won't read the village pumps, don't subscribe to technical announcements, and don't follow RFCs, but still want to be informed about what happens (despite cutting themselves off from all the usual channels of information), then I'd be happy to hear them. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:13, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
I personally feel that the Vector skin change was about as well advertised as it could have been. Emailing every user with an email associated with their account or other methods would likely annoy those who already knew, so I'm not sure I get the warn people beforehand bit. Dreamy Jazz talk to me | my contributions 02:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
Other people might disagree, but there are certain practical limits. After the visual editor deployment (which began on 1 July 2013, just in case that date isn't seared in anyone else's brain), one English Wikipedian told me that the only acceptable approach to notifying people was to have left a note on each editor's talk page. I believe there were 19 million registered accounts at the English Wikipedia back then. Special:MassMessage didn't exist; The Signpost was still being delivered by User:EdwardsBot. Nineteen million messages is huge. Just imagine how long that would have taken. Even if the bot could have posted one message per second (I believe that its typical speed was about a quarter of that), it would have taken more than 200 (two hundred!) days to deliver all of those messages. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:29, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
Note that the “Q”’s second stroke doesn’t intersect, it’s supposed to be a magnifying glass just like most search engines and you click on it to search. Aaron Liu (talk) 12:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Draft:National Park Trust

This subject seems to be something worth including on Wikipedia. FloridaArmy (talk) 11:48, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

This was turned down per WP:BROCHURE, which I agree was the right decision. Needs a lot of work to be more neutral and encyclopedic in tone.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 12:48, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Seems a reputable and important topic for its topic collection set. It does good work, and hopefully much more acreage will be added to all national parks. Thanks FloridaArmy, I'd never heard of this conservancy group before. Have edited the draft page for some encyclopedic language and repetition (much of the brochure-like bits probably due to the repetition). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:32, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
If it reads like a brochure, that's probably because 99% of the content was copied word-for-word from the official website. The "Vision" section is copied from this page, "Youth and Family Programs" from this page, "Events and awards" from these two pages, and so on. I have no opinion on whether or not the subject is worth including on Wikipedia, but the draft is a blatant copyright violation and was rightly declined. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 13:59, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Good finds Sojourner in the earth, and much should be deleted. That should actually help the page, as a good short summary should be accepted as a stub. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:12, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

(EC) If it's wp:Notable and doesn't violate wp:not it should have an article. Even if just a stub with any problematic content removed. I'm assuming that this is about an AFC review which is inherently a higher standard than Wikipedia's standard because an AFC reviewer is not going to bless an article that has problems with it even if the topic is suitable to have an article.North8000 (talk) 14:19, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

If the page is 99% plagiarism it should be deleted, this is not an AFC issue. (We have a CSD for it at WP:G12.) A new article can be created, but if you run with the current article that's creating additional work for an admin who will have to revdel the copyrighted text. CMD (talk) 01:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

May Wikipedian kill?

I am the administrator of the Russian Wikipedia, we met in 2016, when You came to Moscow, I wrote to You in the spring of 2022 about the trial of Wikipedia in Russia, I am against war and any violence. I have a question that is important to me. Can a Wikipedia user brag on the forum about the number of Russian soldiers he personally killed? I understand that now everything is aggravated, and sympathy is on the side of the defending country, but shouldn't Wikipedia condemn the war in principle? Why are we better than Konashenkow then? Regards, Lesless (talk) 14:22, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

(UPD: context: [11]. Lesless (talk) 04:38, 17 February 2023 (UTC))

(non-Jimbo comment) Regardless of moral (un)rightfulness of killing anyone, bragging about it in any place on Wikipedia is violation of WP:NOTFORUM, as off-topic discussion unrelated to the task of writing encyclopedia. a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 05:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I would absolutely agree with this. Wikipedia is not the place for such things, at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
WP:NOTFORUM is a mild way to put it, to say the least. But yeah, it ain't something to brag about on Wikipedia. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 11:16, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 20 February 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:02, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Editing news 2023 #1

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this newsletter

This newsletter includes two key updates about the Editing team's work:

  1. The Editing team will finish adding new features to the Talk pages project and deploy it.
  2. They are beginning a new project, Edit check.

Talk pages project

Screenshot showing the talk page design changes that are currently available as beta features at all Wikimedia wikis. These features include information about the number of people and comments within each discussion.
Some of the upcoming changes

The Editing team is nearly finished with this first phase of the Talk pages project. Nearly all new features are available now in the Beta Feature for Discussion tools.

It will show information about how active a discussion is, such as the date of the most recent comment. There will soon be a new "Add topic" button. You will be able to turn them off at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion. Please tell them what you think.

Daily edit completion rate by test group: DiscussionTools (test group) and MobileFrontend overlay (control group)

An A/B test for Discussion tools on the mobile site has finished. Editors were more successful with Discussion tools. The Editing team is enabling these features for all editors on the mobile site.

New Project: Edit Check

The Editing team is beginning a project to help new editors of Wikipedia. It will help people identify some problems before they click "Publish changes". The first tool will encourage people to add references when they add new content. Please watch that page for more information. You can join a conference call on 3 March 2023 to learn more.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Open Letter to the Board of Trustees concerning the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia

Dear Jimbo Wales,

I would like to inform you about my Open Letter to the Board of Trustees concerning the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia.

Why we have a Universal Code of Conduct?

In German Wikipedia the Universal Code of Conduct is not respected. In German Wikipedia the WIKIMEDIA Terms of use are not respected.

Inside the German Wikipedia there is no control of the

This is not respected:

Administrators and the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia are tolerating Unacceptable behaviour as

The Wikipedia:Five pillars nor the Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines are respected as

Administrators and users who want ot eliminate authors - who are contributing for years with articles to German Wikipedia and photographs to commons - by defamating and houndig their work are harmful to the project.

Therefore I request these Office Actions by the WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION:

  • Interaction ban against users who are hounding and defamating constructive/productive authors
  • Removal of advanced rights of administrators who decided irregular and unjustified blocks
  • Removal of advanced rights of all members of the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia because they are not willing or not able to fulfill their duty in an adequate way.

And I also demand the WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION to cancel and overrule the irregular and unjustified decisions of these administrators and members of the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia. Sincerely--GFreihalter (talk) 09:40, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The above is an expected outcome of a WMF code of conduct. The code will be used to waste the time of volunteer admins who engage with troublemakers. See the block log. Johnuniq (talk) 09:59, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I don't really understand what you mean. Serially blocked users wasting the time of volunteer admins has always been a thing, and always will be. The UCoC should help minimize it by reducing the among of pointless lawyering about the rules themselves. Of course people will always lawyer about whether they are the victims of an unjust campaign - no matter the organizational structure of the rules. But perhaps you can explain the specific problem that you have in mind?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:15, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I mean that the meta:Universal Code of Conduct may be used as a weapon of retaliation by anyone whose contributions have been removed. I'm not opposed to there being a UCoC but, speaking with regard to enwiki, anyone engaging in harassment or vandalism will quickly be removed with no need for the WMF. Abuse of power would be more slowly handled but the only such cases that I've seen have eventually been correctly processed by Arbcom. The difficulty is that the supply of unhelpful contributors is never ending and the hope that there is an infinite supply of good editors to replace those who might be driven away by retaliatory UCoC complaints is not correct. Many unhelpful people will feel insulted when their work is criticized or will feel threatened by mentions of noticeboard reports or blocks. It is very easy to claim that someone checking contributions and reverting problems is harassing a particular contributor. An insightful comment regarding what is actually needed from the WMF was made by zzuuzz in this 2021 consultation. Johnuniq (talk) 03:39, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
The question is really how active the WMF will be about taking action based on the UCoC itself. I'm reminded of something I said way back during the Fram debacle about how the reason the WMF stepped in that is because they believed they'd uncontroversially assigned themselves various rights and therefore didn't expect backlash when they were used. Similarly, the UCoC is vague on enforcement - if it's going to result in the WMF frequently stepping in and overruling community-appointed administrators based on their interpretation of it, that's going to cause serious problems. We've always had users who waste time with frivolous appeals or calls to remove someone they're in a dispute with; the risk of the UCoC is that now it's possible the WMF might sometimes respond to such appeals in a top-down way that goes against the normal community consensus or the usual way an administrator would handle it, leading to another collision when the WMF basically says "welp, you agreed to this when you agreed to the UCoC." --Aquillion (talk) 21:25, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
WMF could help a lot by improving some small details of the software. For example:
  • Enable Admins to see the deleted edits of an IP-Range. So far you can only see live Edits of a Range or live and deleted Edits of a single IP
  • Enable global block for accounts: So far you can only lock accounts globally and g-block IPs.
Both are easy to implement but nobody does it. And these are just two out of many examples.
Back to UCOC: It doesn't contain enforcement stuff, because that is in a separate document. We'll see about how it will work. Whenever you introduce any new rules or policies, where will always be some persons who test it, who find loopwholes, strange interpretations of the wording..... You gain experience with new rules and then adapt the details.
Also, as I am one of those "Administrators and users who want ot eliminate authors" according to GFreihalter, here's my summory of the conflict: I doubt this is related to the UCOC. GFrei. would have written this open letter anyways, with or without UCOC. The conflict is basically just about two questions in her (church) articles: The exact wording in the introduction and how many pictures to use. GFrei can not accept that she is in a minority / that she doesn't own the articles. Der-Wir-Ing (talk) 06:50, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

1) To User:Der-Wir-Ing (A/CU): "Administrators and users who want ot eliminate authors"

I would have answered to you in Germnan Wikipeda, if I had not been blocked there (talk pages, discussion pages, my own user talk page etc.) You wonder here [12] why I plead for your deadministration.
  • You know the block [13] and you did not overrule it, why? There were no personal attacks ("KPA"), no violation of "WQ" (Wikipedia:Etiquette) and no violations of any restrictions of the arbitration committee - or can you show them? Otherwise it is not really elegant to be asked this defamating question "Warum bitte lügst Du..." (Why are you lying) at 00:37, 22. Jan. 2023 by ThüringerChatte (SG-A) and not having any chance to answer because I was blocked by Nordprinz (A) at 22:31, 21. Jan. 2023. This is not fair!
  • As your colleagues you neither had the courage to overrule this block [14] (decided upon a non-existant Editwar [15]) in spite of the evident Misuse of administrative tools as Involved admins see here [16].
  • You are not bothered by irregular and unjustified decisons of other admministrators in German Wikipedia and that is why I am convinced that you should not be an administrator.

2) Do you call this majority concerning the Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Christentum/Entscheidung zur Patroziniumsformulierung (two users had been excluded from the discussion by decision of the Arbitration Committee):

  • only 4 (four) members (Mitarbeitende) of the Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Christentum which counts 21 (twentyone) Mitarbeitende approuved the decision - 17 (seventeen) Mitarbeitende of the Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Christentum did not vote
  • the opposite statements of users here [17] as Enzian44, Brodkey65, Quinbus Flestrin, Turpit, Hardenacke and others have been ignored as:
    • [18]: „...In der Tat sollte die Diskussion damit beendet sein: die Formulierung ist korrekt, zu Änderungen an den bestehenden Artikeln besteht keine Berechtigung, sie sind als Versuch der Etablierung eines wikipedianischen Sondersprachgebrauchs abzulehnen und daher zu unterlassen.“ (User:Quinbus Flestrin 11:53, 4. Nov. 2020)
    • [19]: „Was WP:KORR angeht - dagegen verstößt übrinx regelmäßug Lutheraner, indem er seine Gustoformulierungen in GFreihalters Artikel zu drücken sucht, obwohl es eindeutig Geschmackssache ist...“ (User:Elop 09:31, 6. Aug. 2021)
    • [20]: „Ist das nicht das Problem, daß ihr eine Rückwirkung des aktuellen Ritus auf die Beschreibung von Vorgängen postuliert, die zum Teil viele Jahrhunderte früher stattgefunden haben?“ (User:Enzian44 01:41, 11. Nov. 2021)
    • [21]: „Das Ergebnis, zu dem das Projekt Christentum gekommen ist, ist in meinen Augen ein Skandal....“ (User:Hardenacke 12:41, 6. Jan. 2022)

3) Is this minority? (user comments to "how many pictures to use"):

    • Ich habe im Gegensatz zu anscheinend vielen anderen eher wenig Probleme mit vielen Bildern in einem Kirchenartikel: „... Ich bezweifle, dass der hier vielfach gezeigte Dogmatismus hier nicht den Bedürfnissen der Zielgruppe entspricht. In vielen Kirchenartikeln ist das nicht möglich, weil die Kirche kaum zu besichtigen ist oder die Innengestaltung noch kompletten Urheberrechtsschutz genießt. Seien wir doch froh, wo eine aussagekräftige Bebilderung möglich ist. Viele Grüße Altſprachenfreund (A)“ (User:Altsprachenfreund 21:40, 2. Okt. 2020)
    • „Vandalismus“: „...Was da in der sog. QS geschehen ist, nenne ich Vandalismus! ...“ (User:Matthiasb 22:15, 1. Mär. 2021)
    • „Cyber-Mobbing“: „Ich frage mich, ob das nicht schon an Cyber-Mobbing grenzt, wenn eine Person in die Artikel einer andere Person so extensiv QS-Bausteine setzt. Das hat dann nichts mehr mit reiner Qualitätsverbesserung zu tun, sondern da soll jemand bewußt geärgert werden...“ (User:Sinuhe20 10:56, 3. Mär. 2021)
    • „massive Projektstörung“: „...Daß von der Qualitätssicherung aber seit langem massive Projektstörung ausgeht, dem stimme ich zu. Wer ualitativ einwandfreie Artikel in die QS einträgt, weil sie dem Gusto des QS-Bausteinsetzers widersprechen, mißbraucht die Qualitätssicherung...“ (User:Matthiasb 00:34, 4. Mär. 2021)
    • „Störung und Eskalation“: „Und ja, nach meiner Wahrnehmung des Konflikts ist es Benutzerin:Nadi2018, die hier das höchste Eskaltionstempo vorlegt. Es täte der Kollegin auch gut, mal einen Bogen um GFreihalters Diskussionsseite zu machen und nicht halb-hämisch mit dem SG zu drohen. Für mich ist das Störung und Eskalation...“ (User:Matthiasb 11:58, 10. Mär. 2021)
    • [22]: „Da sind viele Bilder drin, aber sauber in Galerien verpackt. Wer nicht den Wunsch haben sollte, der Autorin hinterherzustiefeln, sollte gut damit leben können. (...) man sollte a) tatsächliches Interesse am dargestellten Objekt haben und sollte b) die Hauptautorin als Kollegin respektieren...“ (User:Elop 21:04, 5. Aug. 2021)
    • [23]: „...Leider erwecken die Beispiele den Anschein, dass es mindestens nebenbei darum gegangen sein könnte, GFreihalter mit ihrer Art der Kirchenartikelgestaltung zu düpieren...“ (User:Barnos 19:05, 6. Aug. 2021)
    • „totale Eskalation“: „Nadi, Du sprichst allen Ernstes von "Verhinderung weiterer Eskalationen"? Hast Du seit dem 18, Juli auch nur irgendwas gemacht, was nicht eine totale Eskalation zum Ziel gehabt hätte? Wobei ich es zumindest Jakob, ehrlich gesagt, nicht zugetraut hätte, (gezielt?) etwas Wahrheitswidriges zu behaupten, um dann den Hinweis ebendarauf zu melden...“ (User:Elop 13:00, 9. Aug. 2021)
    • deleted/[24]: „Die Sperre ist aufzuheben. Es lang ein Adminfehler vor. Eine solche Sperre hätte breiter diskutiert werden müssen. Man schliesst nicht um 6.55 eine Sperre von Spätabend am Vortag, ohne Beteiligten und Interesenten die Chance zu geben sich an der Entscheidung zu beteiligen. Wir sind eine Community!“ (User:Valanagut 17:29, 9. Aug. 2021)
    • [25]: „Die unterdessen anscheinend bedauerlicherweise notorischen beiderseitigen Animositäten samt entsprechenden Äußerungsformen sollten nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, dass GFreihalter für ihre jüngste Fassung von St. Vitus (Kottingwörth) mehrseitig partiellen Zuspruch erfahren hat, den Der wahre Jacob womöglich nicht wahrhaben wollte...“ (User:Barnos 09:53, 10. Aug. 2021)

4) Who does own her articles or what is the purpose of an Encyclopedia?

The purpose of an Encyclopedia should be to provide articles based on reliables sources for a big number of readers and not a manifest of personal convictions and sensibilities (Befindlichkeiten) as [26]: „Nur weil jemand etwas kann, was ich nicht kann, soll er es noch lange nicht dürfen.“ (free translation: Only by the fact that someone is able to do something that I am not able to do he should not be allowed to do this User:Magiers (A)). Authors of articles who use reliables sources/literature and who prove and have already proved their interest and their know-how in special domaines by the creation of hundreds of articles should have more influence in these articles (created by themselves) than users who never showed any interest in these domaines and never contributed with any substantial work in these domaines. These are the limits of a community project: the cleaner does not interfere in the work of the surgeon and the janitor is not teaching mathematics - but they all build a team.
The purpose of an Encyclopedia is not to create edits in meta or in Wikipedia competitions as Wikipedia:Cleanup.
These edits [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32] etc. etc. do not "improve the quality of the project or work". Best regards--GFreihalter (talk) 14:39, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Answer to Jimbo Wales and Johnuniq

Dear Jimbo Wales,

at first, thank you for reading and answering - unfortunately, administrators in German Wikipedia don't do (in order to be not bothered anymore, they prefer to block and ban and make mute).

(to Johnuniq): This block log shows that some administrators (Benutzer:He3nry and Benutzerin:Itti) are very often involved, the same (Benutzer:He3nry and Benutzerin:Itti) are also very often involved in VM/Wikipedia requests for investigation against me. Perhaps you should examinate the reasons of these blocks, for example:

1) Wikipedia:No personal attacks as here [33]: Is it a personal attack, if a user defamates you and you prove with links and citations of other users that he is wrong?
2) Wikipedia:Edit warring as here [34] (16. Okt. 2021): Is it editwar to add in an article two citations of literature/weblinks which are referenced in this article - these citations made evident the Content vandalism: unfaithful or deliberately false rendering of sources.
Otherwise this block is Misuse of administrative tools as Involved admins (the administrator Benutzer:He3nry was involved (mainly concerned) in this Request.
3) Is this [35] conflict escalation per Kurier: Das Schiedsgericht und die Grundrechte and Edit warring: The Kurier/Signpost is a place for freedom of speech of the users and not concerned by Edit warring.
4) and 5) This Sechste Sperre durch Benutzer:He3nry ("sixth block by Benutzer:He3nry") is not a unzweifelhafte Falschaussage ("undoubtable false statement") nor a erneute wiederholte Falschaussage ("renewed false statement"). These are six (6) blocks by Benutzer:He3nry
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – and later 7 und others...
and not a „Falschaussage“ ("false statement") by me.
6) This [36] is in not erneutes Auflisten aller sinnlosen und sachlich falschen Behauptungen mit erneuter Ad-personam-Nennung aller "Kontrahenten" ("renewed list of senseless and false statements/six blocks by Benutzer:He3nry and renewed Ad-personam") - see above (to 4 and 5).
7) Wikipedia:No personal attacks as here [37] and here [38] (censured version): Is it a personal attack by me to refer to „Cyber-Mobbing“ here [39], a citation of another user [40]: „Ich frage mich, ob das nicht schon an Cyber-Mobbing grenzt, wenn eine Person in die Artikel einer andere Person so extensiv QS-Bausteine setzt...“ (Benutzer:Sin 10:56, 3. Mär. 2021), a statement of this user in reference to the editing/hounding by Benutzerin:Nadi2018 concerning articles created by me.
8) [41]: Missbrauch des URV-Bausteins (alleged "misuse" of Template:Copyvio) here [42] (Wikipedia:Plagiarism of my text and violation of Wikipedia:Korrektoren)
see also URV/copyright violation 24. September 2022)
The procedure was not correct (Misuse of administrative tools Admin only).
9) This [43] is completely imaginative - there were no personal attacks ("KPA"), no violation of "WQ" (Wikipedia:Etiquette) and no violations of any restrictions of the arbitration committee; see my appeal [44] (23 January 2023) to Benutzer:Luke (SG-A)081515 (he did not answer).
and so on...

Hounding is not "correctly processed by Arbcom" in German Wikipedia as you can find here: A few examples of hounding and here [45]. The list is much longer and this [46] is an appointment for hounding.

Irregular and unjustified decisions should not be used to justify further irregular and unjustified decisions. The verification of the facts (editwar? personal attacks? false statements or defamation) would have been very easy if any adminstrator or member of the arbitration committee would have made any effort to do it. Unfortunately, there is an obstination to confirm by goodwill or tacit consent all decisions of their colleagues.

The decisions of the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia are based on false allegations; see also my My Objection to the decision of the arbitration committee. The proceeding of the Arbitration Committee in this Request is not impartial and is not corresponding to the Wikipedia rules and the Terms of use of the Wikimedia Foundation. Kind regards GFreihalter (talk) 16:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Answer to "users wasting the time of volunteer admins" and "users who waste time with frivolous appeals"

To Aquillion

Why do administrators waste so much time and spent their nights to block authors as me; ex.: monday morning at 06:55 or saturday evening at 22:37? Would German Wikipedia be in danger if they would allow a discussion about the reasons of their blocks. Would the quality of the project be in danger with articles which are illustrated with a certain number of photographs of Renaissance stained-glass windows as here [47] or gothic frescos as here [48]? Would the quality of the project be in danger with articles where is used a term/an expression that is also used in reliable sources as LThK - even if this is not the "exact wording" (Der-Wir-Ing) following the personal conviction of four (4) members (majority?) of the 21 members of the Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Christentum?

"frivolous appeals" or frivolous blocks of "volunteer admins"

I have been contributing since 2009 as an author - also volunteer - to German Wikipedia with over 700 articles (and somme others overviewed) and I am not one of them "lawyering" users. I spent/perhaps waisted a lot of time to create articles, to visit the places, to look for reliable sources and to take and to upload photographs. I am not an edit counter, I am an author and it is the content that interests me. I worked in peace untill 2020 when the harassing/hounding against me begann (see this appointment for hounding in October 2020) and continued (even in French Wikipedia [49] in february 2021 and by IP in April 2022) and was persued until 2023 like here [50].

  • My appeal to this block [51] is not "frivolous". There isn't any reason or justification for this block. It is not fair to post false statements and defamation as "Why are you lying" against me and to let me no chance to answer.
  • My appeal [52] to this block [53] was not "frivolous".
    • This [54] was not editwarring, to add in an article two citations of literature/weblinks which are referenced in this article. The citations made obvious the Content vandalism: unfaithful or deliberately false rendering of sources.
    • This block was an evident Misuse of administrative tools as Involved admins (the administrator Benutzer:He3nry was involved (mainly concerned) in this Request.

The fact that the evident misuse of administration tools is tolerated by the Arbitration Committee, that these blocks have never been overruled by any administrator of German Wikipeda, that even the Arbitration Committee od German Wikipedia uses unfounded accusations, false statements and defamation and bases its decisions on irregular and unjustified decisions of administrators is a proof that in German Wikipedia "well-established local community processes" do not exist as RStephenson (WMF) does suppose here [55].--GFreihalter (talk) 18:46, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

To Open Letter to the Board of Trustees concerning the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia (2)

Should this also be valid in German Wikipedia: User:Jimbo Wales/Statement of principles: "Anyone with a complaint should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity"?
See this discussion [56] and my block [57] decided 21:51, 23. Feb. 2023 by Der-Wir-Ing (A/CU) valid until 21. Okt. 2023 (six months) for my contributions on Meta-Wiki [58].
Should this also be valid in German Wikipedia Human and legal administration: While consensus is the key method for making decisions, a consensus amongst a small group of editors cannot override community wide policies such as "Neutral point of view"?
See this decision [59] taken by 4 (four) members (Mitarbeitende) of a Wikipedia:WikiProjekt - disregarding Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines as Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

These are the reasons why I request these Office Actions by the WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION:

  • Interaction ban against users who are hounding and defamating constructive/productive authors
  • Removal of advanced rights of administrators who decided irregular and unjustified blocks
  • Removal of advanced rights of all members of the Arbitration Committee of German Wikipedia because they are not willing or not able to fulfill their duty in an adequate way.--GFreihalter (talk) 10:25, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
    You're taking this way too seriously. Perhaps you should take a wikibreak. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 11:12, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Quote from someone of dewiki: "sie schadet sich nämlich jetzt langsam selbst mehr als uns, weil ihr Verhalten auf Unbeteiligte wahrscheinlich eher peinlich wirkt" ("she's starting to hurt herself more than us now because her behavior is likely to be embarrassing to bystanders"), and quite right too. All I can see is a privileged editor who has been given a lot of behavioural leeway because of substantial content work, who was rightly called out, and proceeded to have a huge tantrum. As above, embarrassing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:31, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

The Signpost: 9 March 2023

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:41, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Holocaust denialism at Romanian Wikipedia

Holocaust denialists are whitewashing ro:Radu Theodoru. Time for the ban hammer? What happened at Croatian Wikipedia for ten years should not be repeated.

I support indeffing for everyone who denies that the Final Report of the Wiesel Commission is WP:RS. I'm not saying that it is absolutely true and accurate, bereft of any possible mistake, I'm just saying that it is WP:RS. Denying that it is WP:RS is antisemitic hate speech.

The admins of ro.wiki are not opposed to me, but their possibility of blocking that editor according to the policies and guidelines of ro.wiki is rather limited. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:44, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, I can't read Romanian but the Google translate of the page at this moment looks pretty ok. To speak to the general question, yes, I would say that in most cases, editing to support Holocaust denialism is sufficient for an immediate ban.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:06, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
not apart of this, but what did happen in the Croatian Wikipedia circa 2013? - MountainKemono (talk) 15:57, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
It was in the hands of far-right propagandists for a long time. See meta:Croatian Wikipedia Disinformation Assessment-2021. ■ ∃ Madeline ⇔ ∃ Part of me ; 16:09, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
User:AdrianPetcu2023/Radu Theodoru—see? No mention of Theodoru's antisemitism, no mention that Theodoru is a Holocaust denialist. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:56, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
It's of course a stub, but Mr. Petcu did follow our discussion. Evidence: [60]. He understands perfectly that his own behavior is under scrutiny, but chose to call me a troll for reporting it here, instead of taking Jimbo's advice to the heart.
Let me be very clear: it there is ever going to be a Radu Theodoru article at English Wikipedia, it will surely mention his antisemitism and that he is a denialist of the Holocaust. I am not prepared to make peace with those who whitewash the biographies of such people. I will never compromise to omit these two facts about Theodoru.
If Mr. Theodoru decides to sue me: the Anti-Defamation League and nl:Centrum Informatie en Documentatie Israël have deep pockets, enough to pay for my lawyers, and he knows that too overtly propagating his views, and making a fuss about it will attract the attention of the Romanian public prosecutors (since it is technically a felony in Romania). Mr. Theodoru isn't a Wikipedian, so I'm not threatening any Wikipedian with juridical prosecution. ADL/CIDI don't pay me, but they could pay some lawyers to cream him. All I am saying is that if he claims that my views are juridically problematic, his own views are much more juridically problematic than mine. And there is absolutely no crime of libel in Romanian law. Libel is neither a felony, nor a misdemeanor. And in Dutch law libel gets never prosecuted. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:47, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

I am happy to give you a little cutesie kitten so you can adopt it. Here's how to take care of your kitten:

  • To pet it, please do 1 edit.
  • To play with it, make your own WikiLove thing and send it to me.
  • To feed it, please do 5 edits.
  • To hug it, please do 8 edits.
  • To take it somewhere, please give me a WikiLove cheeseburger and say where you are going to take it.

SonicIn2022 (talk) 22:52, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

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