This is an archive of past discussions about User:Jimbo Wales. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I am an advocate for Wikipedia as a goal, not a process. The whole project is an experiment. Can we do it? Can the world create, almost spontaneously, a free-to-use un-biased encyclopedia? Like all experiments it has to reach an endpoint so it can be evaluated. Like all experiments, it will be evaluated a success or failure at some point. This is happening anyway already, if we like it or not.
I think it's time more contributors and administrators think about Wikipedia as a goal-oriented project. And that we shift focus from endless contributions and quantity to selective contribution AND quality. This may mean locking or restricting access to more articles so the quality continues to build. Even having guest experts (i.e. academics or scholar from around the globe) contribute to certain star articles that later can only be edited by vetted contributors, might be great publicity for the project. Imagine Iranian imams (maybe al-Sistani?) writing the mullah or fatwa articles or Kevin Mitnick writing the hacker article. It could be cool. And it could make Wikipedia a much richer, more respected tool.
Hi. I'd like to contact you about the charicatures of Muhammad stored on the site. I'm exploring Wikipedia's role as an observer in a historic event, and whether it should abide to the same rules being argued about right now in the world. If you are interested, please contact me at jmcfrancis@gmail.com. Thanks!
I hope you don't think I'm flattering you too much when I say Wikipedia might very well be the best and most important site on the Internet.
With that said, I must say that sometimes this little site of yours can seem rather faceless, as if the personality of the users and the administrators gets lost in the trillions of words and letters. How would you respond to that, given that you are the man who started the site?
Thank you very much,
Andrew Rauch
P.S.
I think a better answer to the problem of userboxes is: good lord, how will people know when to stop filling up their page with them? :D
Is there somewhere you can see the number of new articles you've created, as opposed to edits?
Edits and spelling fixes are important to the site, but there are people who don't really add anything to the site, apart from a comma here and there and deleting important information.
I refer to the deletion of the internet meme Lee Hotti recently. Just because people are ignorant doesn't mean the Lee Hotti incident was very important in internet history. There was an article in CNN which described its importance. The deletionists on here are turning this site into a joke.
Rogerthat02:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't really see your point. There are many different ways people can help out in this site, and creating new articles is only one of them. Even minor spelling fixes help improve the quality of the entire site. Since people aren't paid to edit, or ordered around by a boss, they all do what they wish to do. *Dan T.*02:45, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Dan T. that measuring the creation of new articles doesn't really indicate much, and that comma and spellfix people are not our problem. And I'm not so sure it is as simple to say that 'deletionists' are the problem, either. I think there's something horribly broken with the AfD process. And for me, the biggest problem is not that bad decisions are sometimes made (because any process is going to have some of that, and because as far as I can tell many or most of the decisions are not problematic) but because of the rules-bound nature of the current process and the inability for the aristocracy of good editors to find against pseudo-consensus in either direction.--Jimbo Wales15:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I suppose you're right considering many articles are expanded, so there probably isn't an adequate measure of a person's worth solely by new articles. Anyway Jimmy my main qualm has been with Brett Phillips and Lee Hotti being put up for deletion, which are both notable, they perhaps needed more expansion. In the case of Lee Hotti, if you've used the Internet in the past 2 weeks it would be hard to avoid it [1]. I think the article just needed a cleanup, ceraintly not a deletion. RogerthatTalk13:06, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
That link doesn't seem to work when I tried it. And if it's just in the last 2 weeks that this Hotti guy (whoever he is) has been "famous", then it may be too soon to judge whether he's of any long term interest or just a minor fad confined to a few web forums (not including any that I hang out in myself). *Dan T.*13:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Here's the link again [2]. Like it or not it is a huge Internet meme and yes, a fad. But like Tazos, a pretty huge fad definitely worthy of an article in the encyclopedia. Do you think the Hamspterdance still has long term interest? It is still an important part of the internet, it was included here on Wikipedia as part of a list of must-do internet tasks. The article itself was in need of a cleanup and had poor grammar, I dare say if it had that going for it it would have survived the chop. Anyway, if CNN can run an article on it after it had been around for a week then that proves how wide-reaching it was in such a short space of time. If you've ever used a forum anywhere in the world chances are you've heard about Lee Hotti - from New Jersey, to Holland, to Albania, to Australia. I think that can only be described as a phenomenon, not to mention the the social implications it holds. RogerthatTalk04:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
User Boxes
The boxes are so much a part of the culture and there are so many of them that eliminating the troublesome ones will be difficult. I'm certainly struck by how many seem to serve no other purpose than provocation.
As a starting point maybe add a caveat to the Wikipedia:Userboxes page: the primary purpose of user boxes and user categories should be to alert other Wikipedians to ways you might aid them in editing. For instance, if you speak speak a second language or have professional expertise in a technical field other users will know they can contact you for assistance. User boxes that are designed to provoke or offend or reflect a POV but no expertise are generally discouraged.
So, it's good if a box alerts me to the fact a user speaks Arabic or is an astrophysicist, but whether "this user prefers that the death penalty be used far more often" or "supports the legalization of all drugs for adults" is irrelevant to how I deal with them as a Wikipedian. Marskell13:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Go forth and spread this wisdom my friend. :-) I agree with you completely. The classic tradition of Wikipedia is that I do not know the politics or religion of major contributors, and the better their ability to write good encyclopedia articles, the less I am able to guess it. And honestly, it doesn't matter.
My hope for a solution is one of gentle kindness and a request of people who are overusing them. Rather than force our culture down the throats of newbies, we must educate them. Listen, we must say, here we are Wikipedians and while we acknowledge that we all bring biases, we do everything we can to minimize them here.
I should add, because the question comes up in these discussions, that I see nothing wrong with someone telling about themselves on their userpage in a thoughtful comment. It should ideally be of the form "I am active in my local church, and hold strong beliefs on certain religious and moral issues. I try hard to be sure that my beliefs do not lead to biased editing, and if you ever feel that I am pushing a particular perspective, please let me know kindly, because I really don't want to do that." That's a lot better than a userbox. --Jimbo Wales15:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm rather of two minds on the whole userbox thing. On the one hand, I see some value to giving some indication of "where you're coming from" regarding any personal attributes or beliefs of yours that might potentially affect your viewpoint and help others understand why you're doing whatever it is you're doing. On the other hand, I see the problems, current and potential, which arise from people using this site as a place to stake out positions and go into battle behind the flag of their own belief system. I also see a lot of silliness in the way userboxes are being used by some people who seem to want to collect them like stamps or baseball cards, filling their pages with a huge array of sometimes-redundant, sometimes-contradictory boxes. I've seen some userpages with several dozen different boxes expressing some nuance or flavor of the concept that they regard themselves as transgendered; OK, I "got it" the first time. Lest anyone think I'm picking on the transgendered, there are plenty of other groups that do similar things; some right-wing nationalists have several dozen boxes expressing variations on the viewpoint that their country is the greatest in the world, their political leaders are always right, their wars are always just, and their enemies are all evil. All of this is rubbing it on way too thick; on the other hand, I wouldn't really object to somebody giving a brief indication of their nationality, religion, and political and sexual preference (preferably along the lines of what they support, not what they hate). By the way, my only userbox besides the original and uncontroversial Babel boxes is one indicating my Myers-Briggs INTJ personality; is that considered biased now too? *Dan T.*16:49, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Diplomacy consists of combining honesty and politeness. Both are objectively valuable moral principles. Be honest with me, but don't be mean to me. Don't misrepresent my views for your own political ends. And I'll treat you the same way.
When I came to Wikipedia a little over a month ago, I came to check on some controversial issues with which I have become familiar. When I saw who had made some edits that seemed suspicious, I looked at their user page. I also looked at the userpages of those editors who seemed to be making the best contributions. Those who were honest about their point of view, whether with userboxes or equivalent personal statements, were much easier to understand as editors, and in my view, were more likely to edit without an agenda.
Everyone has a point of view. The only way we can hope to achieve neutrality is if we all understand each other's point of view. Userboxes make that easier. The only reason I have placed a column of userboxes on my userpage is so that other editors might understand my point of view, and so that we might together achieve a neutral point of view. Trying to pretend that every individual doesn't have a point of view is like trying to pretend that everyone doesn't have emotions, or a background.
I think you need to look again at the kind of people who use userboxes, and the kind of people you want to attract. What proportion of vandals, hoaxers, spammers, and blocked users bother to be honest about their point of view with userboxes? Please let me know if that proportion is not at least an order of magnitude below the proportion of the community as a whole.
Is there an easier way to be honest about our points of view than userboxes? Is squelching individual points of view honest? Will squeching points of view ever be able to achive neutrality in editing as well as announcing them? Why then not make it as easy and attractive as possible to make such an announcement? --James S.17:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, are you aware that despite your friendly advice (asking people if they would VOLUNTARILY delete political userboxes) that people are "Speedy Deleting" userboxes even while under they under debate for deletion? This occurred to the User:No Rand box and is happening with some anti-Bush boxes. If this "Keep/Delete" debate process is over, then their needs to be official policy on it, not folks going around deleting and blocking the re-creation of userboxes arbitrarily (and citing your words as a reason to do so.) As for that policy, I would suggest keeping only Babel/language and location Userboxes, but until official policy, I'll assume it's still free to use the ones that are now available. I do think, however, if you don't act soon, you are going to have thousands of very angry people who find their userboxes deleted by "enforcers" of a nonexistent-policy. Nhprman21:00, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
I noticed now that "User:No Marxism" has been 'speedy deleted', too. I STRONGLY recommend that all political userboxes be deleted immediately, to prevent an ugly, divisive delete war. Nhprman05:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh my gosh! I put esperanza instead of Wikipedia! I meant to ask how will WIKIPEDIA become more stuructured in it's leadership! Sorry for the confusion! WikieZach 17:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Userboxes
Although you, having the job that you have, probably don't care about one user, I would like to express my outrage concerning your request to remove categorization from userboxes. Userboxes exist to categorize users. Christian users add Christian userboxes to show that they are Christian. Hindus add Hindu userboxes to show that they are Hindu. We are not dividing the community. Instead, we are encouraging individualtiy and group pride. Each user will be allowed to express themselves. Be it their religion, their political standing or even their sexuallity. Why are the userboxes harming Wikipedia? Why is pride harming Wikipedia? Isn't this what makes us what we are? --Shell 16:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
We are writing an encyclopedia. As such, we do our job best when we leave aside our group prides whatever they may be. I see no reason to be outraged at me, but I want you to consider this: the very fact that you are outraged about something like this suggests to me that you haven't absorbed our culture of thoughtful friendship and careful compromise. I think that thinking about group pride instead of writing an encyclopedia is part of the problem.--Jimbo Wales16:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
This encyclopedia, whether you like it or not, is based on a community where its users enjoy to interact with each other - often on a non-encyclopedian level. Sure, we're dorks, but this is what makes it go around. I think it's a fair trade: the editors contribute and you throw them a bone or two to make them feel recognized. Individualism is the mother of progress. I don't know who said that, but I tend to agree. --Candide, or Optimism17:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I passionately do like it. I am a huge advocate of people interacting with each other on a non-encyclopedian level. You'll be hard pressed to find a bigger dork than me. This is precisely why I'm opposed to excessive userboxes... this is not MySpace. --Jimbo Wales22:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Having a profile that expresses your personal traits and religion is not a myspace. --Shell 22:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I am a Jain. Do you think I will treat a user differently if I see that he is a Muslim? You notice that what you are doing is removing individuality, right? This is too alike to a communist nation for me. You are persecuting individuality and I can not support any such site, foundation or person that does this. Also, since when is a userpage an article in an encyclopedia? --Shell 16:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Regarding your suggestion, re: the removal of political/religious/etc. userboxes... Which answer would you prefer from me: "Hell, no", "Fuck, no", "Absolutely not", "Never", or just plain "No"? What happened to Wikipedia is not censored? —CJ Marsicano16:17, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
This is a very nice example of what I mean when I say that userboxes attract the wrong type of person. A gentle and kind suggestion is met with profanity. Q.E.D. --Jimbo Wales16:35, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
He is using profanity to stress his outrage with you. --Shell 16:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Precisely my point. Instead of having a rational discussion about what sort of tone we ought to have as a community, and how we ought to present ourselves to the world, we have outrage and cursing. I think this proves my point more than 1,000 essays on the matter could.--Jimbo Wales16:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
First of all, sir, I did not direct the alleged profanity at you. It's just a word, anyway. Second of all, you should have realized beforehand how much resistance this idea of yours would have, not to mention how passionate people would get about it. Cjmarsicano16:54, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I have not cursed once so I am the argument against yours. You can no longer make an argument so you are resulting to childish character assasination. This is shameful. --Shell 16:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Userpages are not apart of the encyclopedia. They are the buisness of the user. --Shell 16:58, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
No, you're simply fighting against community consensus here, a consensus which has evolved over a long period of time. 'Wikipedia is not a free homepage provider'. Read Dan T.'s excellent commentary (above) about the difficulty of striking a thoughtful balance in this area, and you might have a great appreciation for the need for reasonable dialogue rather than 'outrage' and extreme posturing, ok?--Jimbo Wales17:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Userpages are not apart of the encyclopedia. Quite so. Therefore they can be censored. Not that removing useless and server-taxing (not to mention potentially divisive) categories from userpages is censorship. To me it's a sensible compromise between those who seek to remove such expressions of opinion and those who seek to include as many as possible. You will alienate far fewer people if you agree to compromise on your position. [[Sam Korn]]17:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I find it ironic that you mention these horrible backlogs, yet all the talk seems to be about userboxes. First we need to solve the problems that relate to encyclopedic side of Wikipedia. Leave userboxes alone. Grue 17:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a feeling that Jimbo is saying that userboxes are impeding these aims. (Not that I would ever want to put words into Jimbo's mouth.) You are falsely accusing the side seeking to delete userboxes as being solely at fault. I hope you can see that that is inaccurate. [[Sam Korn]]17:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I think that people that have issues with userboxes spend too much time reading other users' user pages instead of submitting useful content. Grue 17:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Goodness gracious me. You're arguing that deletion of userboxes stops people working on the encyclopaedia? Words fail me. [[Sam Korn]]17:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
No. We are saying that it goes against the whole wiki philosophy. --Shell 17:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
People are only wasting time debating this because they won't listen to Jimbo. If it's not important, why resist? If for nothing else it would reduce some load on the servers (difference could be trivial though) and Jimbo does have some good arguments. Let's take this debate elsewhere. If I were Jimbo I'd be pissed that other people were using my talk page to snipe at each other. BrokenS17:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
If you support me and cjmarsicano's view, add {{user:Cjmarsicano/UDUIW}} to your userpage or use [[Category:Users in Defense of Userboxes and Individuality on Wikipedia (UDUIW)]]. --Shell 17:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I think it's a pity that a polite and good faith request has met such resistance. The new years' eve mass deletion of userboxes seems to have created an 'arming for war' mentality (among both sides). It really is not helpful to anyone that any suggestion of dislike for userboxes is regarded as an attack on free speech etc., when what it really is, is an attempt to help us all get along. Personally I can see a need for userpages to declare a user's bias, in order that other users know it if they are in NPOV disputes, but combative userboxes are just that: combative. The Wikipedia community should resist all attempts to start combat within itself. More wikipacifists are needed. David | Talk17:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
There is outrage because he has crossed the line. This is not a simple request. --Shell 17:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Now, THAT is an example of being rude. --Shell 17:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Since when was I being rude? Since when was I being uncivil? I have not said one curse. I have only brought up the severe problems with Jimbo's request. Go ahead, ban me, it will just show the harsh reality of wikipedia. By banning me, you will not ban a vandal, you will not ban a someone who is violationg the rules, you will only ban a helpful editor who wants wikipedia to be a free place. --Shell 17:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Ninety percent of all Wiki admins can hardly wait to use their tools on other editors. I don't blame them. They do it for the kick. Some people climb mountains, others ban. It's the way of life. --Candide, or Optimism17:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I completly agree with Shell. I think Wikipedia should continue to try to be the largest most comprehensive online encyclopedia ever! Like Jimbo. said “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” This place shouldn't even have this arguing going on! We are almost at 1,000,000 articles! I understand why some people find userboxes innapropriate, but I can guarentee you all, that if we all engage in a new policy fight, we'll get no where. WikieZach 17:49, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Though I would hope it goes without saying, some comments above put the doubt in my mind. Simply because some people in favour of userboxes demonstrate an inability to debate the issue sans cursing, does not mean that userboxes attract that sort of person to Wikipedia. I use a number of userboxes on my page to demonstrate nationality, language skills and beliefs - I would not consider myself to be an uncivil person and though not great in number, I feel I have made substantiative edits to Wikipedia. Looking at the evidence provided both by myself and others, it seems clear that userboxes do neither attract those of a negative disposition nor do they create one. If a rule is brought in tomorrow banning userboxes, I will abide by it with no second thoughts. But given the existance of userpages, I do not see what harm is brought forth by someone stating that they like Colt weapons over H&K. I reiterate; userboxes are neither the cause nor symptom of division on Wikipedia. On such a project this will always unfortunately exist. To connect the two is almost facetious in nature. - Hayter10:44, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I have deleted several userboxes from my user page
Hmm, now you are trying to cover your tracks. Sure... --Shell 17:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me? Check the edit history of my user page and you'll find out who put them there. (I haven't checked, so I have no idea.) But you will find out that it wasn't me. Assume Good Faith. Would it make any sense for me to be on a gentle campaign to change the culture around userboxes while still using ones that I find problematic myself?--Jimbo Wales17:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
If one user who happened to be a strong Roman Catholic saw an unusual edit to the biography of the Pope, and found by looking at the user page of the user making the edit that they had a userbox declaring their undying hatred of the Catholic Church, then they are likely to assume the edit was motivated by attacking the Pope. Even if it wasn't. That's the problem. David | Talk17:44, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Then it would be the user's fault, not the userbox's fault. --Shell 18:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
As it stands, saying you hate something in a userbox is not allowed, and they get deleted rather quickly through speedy or TfD, and probably rightly so. Ian13ID:54005318:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, this discussion pertains to userboxes enforcing "ok" categories, so your argument is irrelivant. --Shell 18:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Moving on
I took up Broken S's suggestion and copied the first thread (beginning with myself and ending with James S) on userboxers here: Wikipedia talk:Proposed policy on userboxes. Much of the last two threads seems to me wheel-spinning and flamebait so I didn't copy them. Anyhow, I'd suggest people move the discussion there or to the Userbox talk page itself.
I only want to make one last comment on the above: "userpages are not the business of the encyclopedia." Yes, they are. They fall under the GFDL and Wikimedia has, unless I'm out to lunch, an identical relationship to them as it does to article pages. It's absolutely well-established that users are given leeway on their pages but have no final right to the content presented. Marskell18:11, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
heya
Hi Jimbo. I was wondering you could give your two cents, and a vote for which side you agree with on the proposed move from Islamist terrorism to Islamic terrorism. You can find the discussion and voting at the talk page. Thanks so much!--Urthogie18:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
That's a content issue outside any expertise of my own. I have no informed opinion at all. I'm sure you'll all work it out intelligently. :-) --Jimbo Wales22:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
While I hold no particularly strong opinion one way or the other on polygamy, and wish "Jenny" all the best, I must confess that at the present time and for the foreseeable future, I do not have 2 wives.--Jimbo Wales23:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Note that he says only that he doesn't have two wives. His careful wording leaves open the possibility that Jenny is one of three. JamesMLane07:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Anti-Userboxes movement splitting the community even more?
This current movement seems to be splitting the community more than ever. I am seeing pages being plastered with stuff along the lines of "Jimbo has appealed that Religious and political userboxes are removed, help!". I can see no benefit of this. It is turning into a war, with the angry-mob seemingly trying to intimidate people from voicing their viewpoint - and quite possibly those trying to oppose facing blocks for personal attacks against you and others. I have seen it last time with the Kelly Martin, Snowspinner and Cryptic incident, which lead to 2 leaving directly, many on wikibreaks, and some leaving partly due to it. People feel insecure enough as it is, and I personally feel your appeal will only add fuel to the fire. I support that 'Jimbo is not god', however for many comments from you on controversial topics are only used to force people to undertake different actions or leave. However a direct appeal to change the community, constitutes, in my opinion, to what can only be described as full-on personal attack wars, commonly with those with different view-points being told to face the consequences. I am certain that your heart is in the right place, but I feel the time is ill chosen, and the methods to achieve the goal are too. People currently feel very strongly and the community is split enough, it would sadden me to see this place weakened as a result of such actions, but I fear it will. Your current appeal will only encourage more mass deletions, more blocks, and more division. If you must act, I ask you help contribute in a conclusion, through WP:UBP, WP:UB, or even if you must creating your own policy, but I feel voicing your POV on the current matter in such a way that you have will have no positive outcome, and I am sorry I have to try and tell you in such a way. Please remember the community, because without the community there will be no encyclopaedia, and I hope you can AGF from this comment and atleast consider what I have said. Ian13ID:54005318:56, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I believe that my viewpoint is that of the vast majority of the community. It is precisely for the benefit of the community that I am asking that we change the culture. I invite everyone to please just remove the problematic userboxes themselves, because they are a bad idea, rather than us continuing this divisive fight. Peace is the better way. --Jimbo Wales22:57, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I think you may misunderstand me alittle. I feel the intention of ust asking people to remove them is fine if they so wish, I am just saying your statement may cause POV pushers to just delete userboxes because of your statement. Ian13ID:54005309:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo, it seems to me your view is actually a small minority. And I find it impossible—utterly impossible, and you can say I'm assuming bad faith if you want—that you don't comprehend that you are contributing to a fight and making "peace" vastly more difficult. Therefore I can only regard this as mere rhetoric. You've got a clear tendency on the part of the community as it develops itself towards using userboxes as a means of expression (as far as I can tell this tendency is broadly healthy, although there may be some excesses), and then you've got people in the establishment, including the number one guy in the establishment, trying to thwart that. The sensible thing to do is to allow the community to develop itself in these ways (and I find the "encyclopedia focus" arguments preposterous, because having a stronger community will enable us to build a better encyclopedia, and there is no doubt in my mind that the development of the userbox trend is a reflection of community strengthening), and that is also the route which will minimize conflict. When the establishment goes against the majority and the natural tendency, that is a cauldron of conflict no matter which way you look at it. A simple understanding of these kinds of social dynamics tells you that. Everyking10:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
There is not a single thing wrong with what you just said. I agree 115%. This is causing more conflict in the WP community. Userboxes don't hurt anybody. --CFIF13:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
The two compelling arguments I've heard against user boxes are mission/purpose creep and server load. Knowing that there are a whole lotta folks who watch this page who might know the answer, I pose the question: does having these templates pull down on the servers? Certainly the hundreds of editor-hours that have been spent on this topic are draining our most valuable resource—editors of an encyclopedia—and for that reason really should be resolved one way or another. But is there a computer resource cost here as well? JDoorjamTalk03:27, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Please Reconsider
I am replying to the note you left on my userpage here [3]. For the last week the userbox wars have gone down as the community has been starting to reach a balanced view on the issue of userboxes. However, your last post alluded to the possiblity of another mass userbox deletion and showed your POV toward the subject. This is dangerous since some people view your word as scripture and might be inclined to start the mass deletions again. You seem to think that political userboxes are divisive to the community. However, I have seen no evidence for this. What is far more divisive and time-consuming is these endless userbox wars that so inflame some users. I urge you to re-consider making such POV statements in the future and instead encourage a consensus to be reached at WP:UBP--God of War19:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I am specifically trying to avoid another mass deletion. I do not think my comments will lead to another mass deletion, since I am very specifically proposing that we do something different, which is educate the newcomers in the community as to what our core values are. The rest will follow naturally. --Jimbo Wales23:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Allow me to make an analogy. Jimbo here basically tells us to stop eating garlic because some might not like the smell. I understand what he's saying, but is it right? I think not. --Candide, or Optimism19:41, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I did not basically tell anybody to do anything. I am making a simple request in the hopes of finding peace. This is a nonviolent movement in which I hope many users will reaffirm that Wikipedia is a place of reason and neutrality and kindness, not a place for partisanship and "group pride".--Jimbo Wales23:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
War metaphors are often really misleading. "Edit wars" are more properly "repeated reverts." Similarly, these so-called "userbox wars" are more like style and fashion trends than anything resembling a real war. Calling a peaceful debate a "war" just drags the debate down further. But humans do this. Somewhere I read statistics showing that the U.S. press does it more than the European press, but they both do it a lot. I hope we can stay rational instead of resorting to hyperbole which at best approaches invective, and at worst is invective. --71.141.144.13203:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
If the whole thing leads to a big War on Garlic, with opposing camps fervently and zealously fighting either to eradicate garlic completely, or to demand absolute freedom to use it whenever and wherever one chooses, then, yes, it would be the sort of situation where outsiders could justly criticize everybody involved on all sides, like the fictional war in Gulliver's Travels over which side to break eggs. *Dan T.*19:47, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
In three years I have found the people who are easiest to work with, and most honest to deal with, are those who are totally open about their viewpoints. It didn't matter whether they were liberal or conservative, Catholic of Jew, pro-life or pro-choice, being open about who they are and their viewpoint enabled a reasoned, intelligent debate to ensue and meant people knew what viewpoints x or y would add into an article. I have found userboxes a godsend in that regard. Rather than having to write a long explanation of who they are, they can communicative their viewpoint quickly and effectively using a userbox. Others can use them to A line has to be drawn but most user boxes IMHO are perfectly valid. The genie is out of the bottle on userboxes. They cannot now be deleted without provoking a Wikipedia civil war. All we can do is try to ensure extremely offensive users (eg, This user hates queers, This user wants Israel wiped out, This user hates blacks) aren't used. The last thing WP needs is about outbreak of political correctness on WP, whereby users are banned from saying what their political or religious identity is. Allowing people to state their preferences also would enable WP to disprove claims of bias by showing that it has conservative users and liberal users, pro-israel and pro-palestinian users, pro-life and pro-choice, etc. Imposing censorship would frankly be a disaster that would drive many users away. Already the forced deletion by a cabal of a reference to a pro-life group on users has offended many and driven away some of our best contributors. People should be entitled as of right under free speech to say who they are and what their views are. Either user pages are deleted altogether or people should be given the right to reveal as much as they wish about their views. Free speech in a free encyclopaedia demands no less.
FS
This user is believes in FREE SPEECH in a FREE ENCYCLOPAEDIA
'I agree completely.' This is critical. I think that reasonable expression about oneself on the user pages is a fine thing. This is a very different matter from the question of userboxes themselves.--Jimbo Wales23:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
I completly agree. I think that common (I speak English well, I am from the State of New York, etc.) userboxes should remain while innapropriate ones (I am pro-life, Jews suck, Blacks are evil, etc.) should vanish.
I think the real concern is that many people are identified with these things. I ask for a vote, not of deletion for all userboxes, just for innapropriate ones. WikieZach 20:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong whatsoever with someone categorising themselves as pro-life or pro-choice. There would only be a problem if the template attacked the other side, as in Pro-choice is pro-murder or pro-life is anti-woman! FearÉIREANN\(caint)22:13, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Since this seems to be the new Village pump, I'll post this here as well. I started WikiProject Projectboxes to take care of projectboxes (like userboxes, but useful). The project (just me at this point) is currently working on cataloguing existing projectboxes, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Projectboxes/Catalogue, and will then concentrate on standardizing them and making them better.
Required skills are approximately the same as for userboxes, and it would be nice if some of the energy that is currently being expanded on the userbox controversy could be channeled into something genuinely useful to the project. Zocky | picture popups20:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, the Userboxes Project is not exactly in aim to oppose everyone else and just expand like mad. We are mainly trying to organise, an I hope you are not implying differently (I could just being paranoid here). Ian13ID:54005320:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
How about if we had "usercans" which look like little can icons or jars, which say something completly neutral like "This user has an opinion about George W. Bush." but wouldn't say what the opinion was until someone clicked on the usercan to "open" it. Would that help? --71.141.125.25103:35, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
No, not really. Then people could just go around clicking cans. We should just keep the userboxes. --Shell 03:39, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Not to mention, those would probably be a real strain on the servers, something the userboxes have been falsely accused of. —CJ Marsicano03:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Funny that I was once accused of being smug when I stated that I've never felt the need to categorize myself. For once it's good to be ahead of the curve! (But then, is it hypocritical to call myself a Mergist?) -,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 20:30, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
How can I help at Wikipedia?
Hi Jimmy, thanks for all the work you do here.
I just wanted to ask how I can possibly help? I can edit or stop vandalism or anything like that. I am online a lot anyway, and figure I may as well help out!
I speak French almost fluently, so I can help in English or French Wikipedia.
Please reply to me on my talk page, if tehre is anything I can do! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reddragon300 (talk • contribs)
About a year ago I wrote up an essay on why anonymity can be good for a community. I think you already recognize most of the benefits, but Kim Bruning asked me to let you see it, so here it is just in case:
I feel that allowing anonymous editing is a mistake which undermines the project. Critics of Wikipeida will say, "What's the difference anyway, I can create an account called MickyMouse in a few seconds?" The difference is that we can see that you have done just that. It's the edit history which lends a user credibility or otherwise. Of course one may obtain the edit history of an IP address, but it's neither reliable nor sufficiently accountable. I'm quite happy to engage with an effectively anonymous editor with a blank user page, but I feel I must be able to see their edit history and communicate via talk. It's the only honest approach in my view. --Laurence Boyce15:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I think the essay is pointing out how reputation can be a bad thing. In fact, I understand the japanese wikipedia is run along similar arguments as the essay, and appears to be operating ok; so the position you're pointing out proves to be at least partially incorrect -or at least- there exist other positions that are equally valid. Kim Bruning19:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I strongly belive that anonymous editing is essential. If it wasn't for incivility and the need to hold users accountable to the community, I would argue it is the only way one should edit on a wiki. Anonymous editing means that each contribution MUST meet the verifiability and NPOV criteria on its own without any assertion of expertise or reputation. Similarly, too often, disagreements about wording get sidetracked into, well that wording supports your POV so it should be excluded, instead of explaining why the language is not NPOV, etc., or other similar distraction techniques where the underlying issue is ignored and the user must defend themselves. PS - that is why I edit anonymously and encouraged Ed Poor to do the same when he was leaving - it is a very good way to meet the mission of wikipedia - to build the best encyclopedia ever!!!! 152.163.100.6920:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I accept what you are saying up to a point, but the trouble is that you're not really anonymous are you? I can see that you have over 1000 edits to your "name", except that I don't know whether they're all yours, mostly yours, or hardly any of them yours. I assume, for instance, that you're not responsible for this edit. Or perhaps you are—lucky you! If we're going to allow anonymous editing then surely we should do it properly. The user should appear as "anon" in the edit history—no user page, talk, or contribs. In my case, I've only been doing Wikipedia for a few months, and I'm quite keen to maintain a vaguely sensible edit history. Isn't that a good thing? But thanks for what you say, I can see both sides of the argument now. --Laurence Boyce22:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for finding a good example of what I mean. Anonymous edits are often utter nonsense or vandalism (thanks for finding a relatively boring version of some of the edtis made by this ip) and they are easily identifiable. It is also important to build a sense of community, and a sense of responsibility for edits, so I see the benefits of usernames as well. Note that editing through AOL makes each page I edit report a different IP - thus checking the history for one IP will not tell you anything about me - although editing the same page will often report the same IP thus making me responsible to some extent for my edit on that page. Thus it is truly anonymous - unlike editing from an IP address that could identify my geographical location. 152.163.100.6902:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Request for clarification about Wikipedian categories
OK, I think I get the argument about the userboxes. Even if I don't fully see the harm in identifying one's own position and probable biases (which one is then obliged to overcome with regard to the encyclopedia), I have enough respect for Jimbo to go along with his polite and sincere request. However, it seems to me that the argument against political and religious userboxes could also be used against political and religious subcategories of Category:Wikipedians. And, indeed, I see a note from Jimbo at the top of Category:Wikipedians by politics. Does Jimbo's request "discourag[ing] the use of these and similar templates" mean that he'd prefer it if we didn't use those categories at all, or is it only the highly visible inclusion via userboxes that is problematic? There's no note at the top of Category:Wikipedians by religion; should there be? Is there a value in placing oneself in Category:Anglican Wikipedians or Category:Sunni Wikipedians that is distinct from the value of placing oneself in Category:Conservative Wikipedians or Category:Social democratic Wikipedians? I guess I'd just like a bit more clarification on the request and its rationale. Thanks! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm concerned about self-categorization in general, yes. The userboxes are just part of the situation. As noted in other places, I do want to emphasize that I'm not opposed to people expressing their individuality! And I'm not in favor of us censoring people's userpages (except in extreme cases where the page is offensive in some specific ways of course), but rather to just gently change the culture. I think it's a very complex matter as to which categories are problematic, and I do not feel that I have standing to make a definitive judgment about it. I just hope that people will be very wary of accidentally accepting a culture of group warfare in wikipedia, where we have traditionally been so good at setting aside our differences to be good Wikipedians.--Jimbo Wales22:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I know you already made a decision, I think, about the above category. But from the likes of things around the Wikipedia Community people are pulling for both sides; delete or not to delete. IMHO, I think the use of Category:Births by year would help stop another incident like before. Adding another mass category doesn't seem to help in this situation. The Births by year category has been around much longer than the Living people category and I think it would be more sufficent to expand on the category we already have and do away with the new one. I would like to hear feed back from you if possible. SWD316talk to me07:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
You (or anyone else) has my blessing to radically stubify and rebuild these articles with line-by-line sourcing. At first glance, these articles are about notable and controversial people but since the claims being made about them are quite strong, they need to be sourced in an extremely careful way. At least some of these articles have some sources, but it would be better to have things like "According to..." with an exact cite.
Hi, I looked for pages which discuss the new policy of not allowing anonymous users to creat a new pages, but I could not find an official page of such sort. Since you are the one who created this policy (or so rumors say), can you please advise if other Wikipedias in other languages (i.e. the Hebrew one) are obliged to obey this policy too? And in any case, how does another Wikipedia other than EN adopt this policy (i.e. to whom do we turn to)? Thanks, Yonidebest14:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
But then it should be removed on sight if someone already spotted it. If it is disputed, it should remain disputed. However, if the material's defamatation-ness is disputed, it should be treated like any other content dispute; I dislike yielding to legal bullies. Elle vécut heureuseà jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 16:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion one of the biggest problems in this area is that people think that 'tagging' something is in some sense doing enough. The right thing to do with a potentially defamatory and unsourced claim is to remove it 'instantly' and demand that it be sourced (preferably by two print sources) before being re-inserted.
As for the concept of "yielding to legal bullies," I think this is one of the other biggest problems we have in this area. 'Legal bullies' are not the problem: bad articles 'are' the problem. We should recognize that content disputes which are potentially deeply hurtful to people are not the same as other content disputes, period. A dispute about some facts about the name of a river in Poland is very different from a dispute about a particular living person who is upset by an article.
People who have been defamed and threaten to sue are not 'Legal bullies' they are people who are using the laws as decided by the peoples representatives to defend themselves against slurs on their repuation. There are rules made by the community out there in the real world as to what you can and cannot say, and we must respect those.Dolive2112:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm deeply concerned about the following sequences of events: (1) someone who doesn't know our culture finds some crap in an article about themselves, (2) they blank the article or insert their press bio (3) they get reverted and possibly blocked (4) they threaten to call their lawyers and (5) they are reverted and almost certainly blocked.
People who go through that sequence of events are not bad people, they are victims of bad editors and rude customer service.--Jimbo Wales22:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Jimmy, I need to know your position on this template. Is it OK, or is it not satisfactory? We need to know because we want to flag defamation and protect the project - however if this is not satisfactory we'll work on other solutions. What is your take? - Ta bu shi da yu23:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I think it is a very bad idea. If you see potential defamation, don't flag it, delete it on site! Demand references.--Jimbo Wales19:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
In the United States, at least, a statement of opinion is not defamation. Only a false assertion as to a matter of fact can be defamatory. "Ta bu shi da yu is a big fat turd" isn't defamation. Of course, NPOV would demand that it be sourced ("According to Jimmy Wales, ...."). Nevertheless, I'm concerned that people will go hog-wild removing any remotely negative comment. JamesMLane07:21, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
The thing to do with potential defamation is to remove it immediately from the wiki and discuss it at a high level, possibly the mailing list. "X is a big fat turd" isn't defamatory, it's vulgar abuse, but "X has been accused of luring small boys with candy" is potentially defamatory and should not normally be on the wiki. It is *never* acceptable to flag potential defamation in published material; this only increases its prominence and compounds the potential damage. --Tony Sidaway14:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree. Flagging potential defamation could make it worse by dragging attention to the allegation. Given that the person posting the defamation is legally liable for it, would flagging it not also incriminate the person flagging it for in effect spreading it, while placing the poster at even greater legal risk because the post would then be seen by more people? It needs to be removed swiftly. FearÉIREANN\(caint)14:12, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
IRC channel setup for admins
We now have an IRC channel setup for admins only. It is #wikipedia-en-admins. Does this mean that admin actions are now going to be one bit closer to non-transparent? Please reply, I have large concerns about this. - Ta bu shi da yu16:19, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, James F. has addressed my concerns by making the channel status read "English Wikipedia Administrators' noticeboard, on IRC. Discussions are private and sometimes privileged. Do not repost without permission. If decisions are made as the result of discussions, the reasoning should be provided on-wiki." - Ta bu shi da yu16:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
It is not "administrators", because most of administrators don't have access to it. It is not "noticeboard", because it's not open to everyone. So that description is very much misleading. Grue 17:22, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
All admins will be given access to it. If you aren't on the access list, please just drop me a message on IRC and I'll grant it straight away. Talrias (t | e | c) 19:32, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm actually still wondering about this also. Do you endorse it? I hear talk that you believe we needed it... can we get a response? sorry, I know you might not have, but I'd just like to clear the air. Danny believes we should have it, but is this a board endorsed thing. On a side note: you must be getting sick of me asking you all these impertinent questions :-) I just want to state, for the record, that I am not asking to attack you. - Ta bu shi da yu11:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
The reason it isn't sensible is that it's not transparent. Though the channel topic is that any decisions should be explained on wiki, that doesn't give me a record of any discussion. Only admins can enter the channel. How do we stop a group of admins from doing things unilaterally without the review of the community? I was under the impression that being an admin is not meant to be a big deal. The only reason I see a closed-door admin only channel being of any use is for discussion of defamation cases. That's it. - Ta bu shi da yu15:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I talked with Anthere and she didn't know of it, and thought it was an independant action. I talked with Talrias and his ideas and rules for the channel seemed arbitrary and strange. Together with sannse I went and talked with dannyisme, but he was not very forthcoming in any level of detail. What's going on? Kim Bruning01:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
The current setup seems to be upsetting a lot of people (including sane ones ;-). I'm still not convinced the current setup of the channel is a great idea, but it does seem to be a lot more on-topic (admins talking about trouble) than #wikipedia. Not that that's difficult - David Gerard11:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I suppose to avoid accusations of cabalism, the channel should be readable by every user. To improve the signal-to-noise ratio, it should be writable only by admins. Either that or split #wikipedia into a "#wikipedia-chat" and a "#wikipedia-official", the way most internet message boards seem to do. Radiant_>|<15:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Combining David Gerards report with Locke Coles ideas seems good. #wikipedia-en is practically unused, let's use that as an on-topic channel for the english wikipedia. People would get kicked for going offtopic, in good old-fashioned irc style. Kim Bruning15:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
..all I see is people pushing through a variety of mediums, that users remove their userboxes. Not thinking people have the right to make their own choice. I fear the community may without peace, should people misinterpret your message. Ian13ID:54005317:18, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Ultimately, what you said in regards is one of the reasons why I feared become a journalist(what I was trained to do in college) -- because journalists are expected not to be humans, to have personal perceptions of their own.
I have reached out to people who I disagree with completely on real world issues, Conservatives, Libertarians, and so on, because here we are Wikipedians. Wikipedians can disagree on things and still get along for the greater good of our goal: to create a source of information bigger than any of us, even Jimbo Wales.
However, that doesn't mean I will stop being who I am or sacrifice parts of who I am for that goal, doing so would make Wikipedia little more than a cult, which I don't think is your intention. Please reconsider your statement. I wish to build this place up, but I can't do so if it tears down people who wish to do so in the process. Karmafist20:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I absolutely agree that no one should sacrifice any part of who they are. I think it's fine if people want to explain themselves on their userpages. What I think is a big mistake is using userboxes to do it, and there are a number of reasons why I think so, as I've explained. I am advocating a peaceful movement to change the culture so that we don't have to have these userbox wars anymore. Let's just get people to stop using them and instead to feel free to express their individuality in a less "group think" way.--Jimbo Wales22:49, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
That's just it, the "group think" momentum has been against userboxes. This debate will be a turning point in this project's history, and if userboxes stop because a small group of users didn't like them and intimidated others into not using them anymore, a frightening precedent will be set, a precedent that's being attempted in the real world: If you are "important" enough, have enough allies, and are willing to enter a game of chicken, rules don't apply to you. Today it's in user space, tommorrow, it'll be in articles, and before long, people will not add what's best for the project, but rather add what's best for them in dealing with the ever changing tides of public opinion behind things that may carry them away, something i've sadly see happen all too many times. karmafist19:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, you're just on the edge of trolling now. "rules don't apply to you"? I'm advocating that we simply ask ourselves some serious questions about how certain behaviors might be counter-productive and thus should perhaps be avoided. I have no idea why you're reacting with such hysteria. --Jimbo Wales19:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I just want the rules to apply to everyone, for good or bad. My reaction is from seeing many users leave this project or feel as though they couldn't participate in this project because they felt bullied out by users who found loopholes around the rules. I desperately want to fix them, but I doubt I can do it alone, and I don't want to see that happen to anyone else so i've been trying to stay away from that side of things for now. My apologies i've you've seen my comments as incivil, trolling is not my intention, I guess I just care about this place too much. I'll go back to welcoming for the time being. I hit 1300 today. karmafist19:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I'm not inclined to get too hysterical about userboxes one way or the other, but you don't seem to be willing to see another point of view here, Jimbo, which is that userboxes might not be all that counterproductive. I think there's a world of difference between "I vote Labour" and "I hate Labour". Like you, I'm a bit bemused why people would want to express their beliefs but I guess they see their userpages as expressions of themselves. We're not editing robots after all. In the ideal world, we'd all lay our POVs down at the door, but clearly we don't and are hardly likely to any time soon. I think that perhaps you might, with thought, come to agree that while possibly not entirely desirable, a userbox (subst'd onto the page maybe, to avoid the possibility of their being used for campaigning and so on) that is positive is not a huge detriment. One that expresses something about someone else, however, is something to be deprecated.
And I don't think Karmafist was trolling. I think he's been upset by some of the heavyhandedness in this whole affair. Your approach is clearly more productive and likely to lead to a resolution that most can live with than some others' have been. But I would urge you to consider whether those who feel the need to express themselves in this particular way (much though you and I might feel it a less than great way) are really doing much harm, so long as they are not attacking others. Grace Note11:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I'll echo Grace Note. I don't think karmafist was trolling in any respect. What he was pointing out was an essentially growing lawlessness among a subset of Wikipedians. I spoke of this to you before on your user page when you asked how it was I thought you had been wheel warring. I thought I'd made a pretty good statement on the issue at the time, in that you and ArbCom have essentially vacated all of Wikipedia policy. What matters is "common sense" and tradition, not policy. We are an extremely diverse community of thousands of people from around the world, representing untold number of cultures. What is common sense to you or me isn't common sense to somebody in Gabon, or Bhutan. We must have policy, it must be upheld, and it must be adhered to, most especially by you as the good example everyone else should be following. As I stated before, I don't think policy should hamstring us from doing the right thing, but when it appears it is hamstringing us then the policy needs to be updated. If Karmafist is a troll for his statements, then I'll gladly call myself a troll. Quite a lot of this debate has nothing to do with the suitability of userboxes. It has to do with how the entire situation has been handled, and the continued lawlessness. --Durin19:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't much care for the userboxes, and agree with many of the arguments against them, but I also agree that the way the issue has been handled, and the issue of images and user pages in general, has descended into lawlessness on the part of a small number of users. And they've made clear their intention to continue, regardless of any policies we have. Here is a sad example. SlimVirgin(talk)20:49, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Please see User:Lar#Beliefs as an example of why I believe it is useful to state beliefs and points of view. I put mine out in the open because if I am POV pushing, inadvertantly or not (goodness forbid), I WANT to be called on it. I would expect no less of my fellow wikipedians than to want to help me be true to WP:NPOV. Some of my beliefs are also shown in userboxes, but they have been subst'd, and they have no category assocations, (other than wikipedia specific beliefs). As to this current affair, I for one, would like to not see wheel warring. It is highly disruptive and disheartening. ++Lar: t/c16:26, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, the country Wales is Уэльс, but the surname does seem to be Уэйлс (not just for "Jimmy Wales" but also "Outlaw Josie Wales", etc), and the Russian Wikipedia article on "Jimmy Wales" uses this. Уэлс also exists, but as a transliteration for "Wells", not "Wales". Вайлс or perhaps more commonly Уайлс is used for "Andrew Wiles", the mathematician who solved Fermat's theorem. Ваилс, I believe, would not be used (it's two syllables, so it doesn't fit). -- Curps05:01, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I was about to head over here and give you a reminder, but Geni beat me to it. :-) Anyways, I've protected all the voting subpages to prevent anyone from either voting after the deadline or tampering with the votes. There's two places with tallies of the results: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/arbcom, which has updates from the server, and User:Mathbot/Results, which has a 'bot assisted table of the results, although it doesn't mark the 14 candidates that withdrew. In addition, several of us all helped mark the votes from voters without suffrage; assisted by a bot, we tried our best to simply indent the vote and give a brief comment underneath it that the voter did not have suffrage (having an account by September 30, and 150 edits by January 9). Thanks a lot! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
More than 20 elected is a very decent number. Please seat as many as you feel are sufficient to catch up with the quickly growing backlog. --James S.
My grandmother's name is Erma
My mom just called me with this error correction. They actually spelled it wrong in the Florida Trend article. I don't have a source. I could get a note from my mom, though. :-) I'd edit it myself but I don't want to touch off an international scandal.--Jimbo Wales02:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Watching a famous German historian writing a new history:
22:20, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar Benutzer Diskussion:Mathias Schindler/Unscheinbar wurde gelöscht (Bitte kopiere - nicht etwa "verschiebe"! diese Seite erst, wenn ich fertig bin.)
22:13, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar - Benutzer Diskussion:Unscheinbar/Archiv004 wurde wiederhergestellt
22:12, 22. Jan 2006 Mathias Schindler - Benutzer:Unscheinbar wurde wiederhergestellt
22:09, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar Benutzer Diskussion:Unscheinbar/Archiv003 wurde gelöscht (Wird nicht mehr gebraucht)
22:07, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar - Benutzer Diskussion:Unscheinbar/Archiv003 wurde wiederhergestellt 22:07, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar Benutzer Diskussion:Unscheinbar/Archiv002 wurde gelöscht (Wird nicht mehr benötigt)
22:06, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar - Benutzer Diskussion:Unscheinbar/Archiv002 wurde wiederhergestellt
22:06, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar Benutzer Diskussion:Unscheinbar/Archiv001 wurde gelöscht (Wird nicht mehr gebraucht)
22:05, 22. Jan 2006 Unscheinbar - Benutzer Diskussion:Unscheinbar/Archiv001 wurde wiederhergestellt (1 Versionen wiederhergestellt.)
Looking for some old chapters (from archive007) whether they will come back:
A classic GDR-joke: Genossen !! The future is clear ! One day we all will live in the worker´s paradise. Only history is vague.....
YEAH ! 18:28, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Sorry Mr.Wales, Admin Unscheinbar has gone. He´s desyopped (some say: voluntary) and so he´s not able to restore his 7 archives or present his own history version. I´m very sorry. All I could find is this week in April 2005, which he has forgotten to delete.
That´s not much, but I think you can breathe the spirit of this era , which other historians of wikipedia.de one day will name :
The Unscheinbar years or The Hamburg years. But as Bertolt Brecht says: Der Schoß ist fruchtbar noch......
Greetings from Berlin ! :-) 21:07, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
A question for Jimbo
Okay, I understand you feel people should be allowed free speach on their userpages. So why do you oppose it in the form of a userbox, would you prefer it if users subst: them? I ask purely out of curiosity.
I would also like to draw to your attention {{User_Wikipedian2}}
"Userboxes of a political or, more broadly, polemical, nature are bad for the project." -Jimbo Wales, 21 Jan 2006
As I feel this partial quote (as well as meaning the userbox practically supports its own deletion), leaves your message open to misinterpretation, as people may not understand from that that you don't want people to editwar/delete/TfD, but to just stop using them for themselves. I am begining to see this quote being used for such measures (TfD reveals that abit more).
Thank you for your time. Ian13ID:54005318:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I think most of the userboxes should be deleted, but I am hopeful that instead of a big fight, we will slowly reach a cultural shift in which we educate people what's wrong with the ones that are bad.--Jimbo Wales19:01, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Instead of userboxes, people can instead write their opinions in plain text, so the result will remain the same. I think that perhaps there's another reason to this. Something more practical, such as bandwith and waste of space, as userboxes and their popularity increase. --Candide, or Optimism19:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Sure anyone can. I have been thinking long and hard about doing so, but userboxes are just plain attractive, and their iconography is easier to understand at a glance than the several paragraphs of dense text it would take to replace them. This is Mediawiki, not Plaintextwiki. Plus, there isn't really any way to make an objective decision about what is and is not polemical. I've been in arguments about the serial comma, but not about at least a handful of other more political issues about which I also have userboxes. I thought about subst'ing, too, but then right before I did I saw that someone had improved a icon picture, and so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. --James S.19:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
"I think most of the userboxes should be deleted" - I presume because you feel it groups and seperates Wikipedians (Also note mostly I feel the main userboxes are neutral, and I would oppose their deletion), and I think it is the religious/political ones ect. that you feel really seperate. But nethertheless, why specifically is it userboxes that split rather than just statements, is it the grouping within the user of templates, is it their profile and obviousness on the page? And is there any thing which I can encourage the Wikiproject to do (since I apparently manage, dispite it being rather self supporting) with regards to existing userboxes (any effective ways to make them seem no worse than text)? As you may see I am aiming to reach a comprimise, however if I did so people would probably try to comprimise and exploit that. Ian13ID:54005319:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Email Contact
Hey Jimmy. I am been trying to send you an e-mail and I have no idea if you got it. Let me know. Thanks --^BuGs^19:54, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I imagine you have a good reason for blanking the old discussion, but that shatters the record. If there's libel or anything else that requires the record to be inaccesible, that's ok, but right now I'm just wondering what's going on. Titoxd(?!? - help us)22:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
There was discussion on the mailing list about blanking AfD discussions that might expose Wikipedia to liability or complaints, in particular with regard to people. That might be related. -- SCZenz22:18, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Dude, cool it. The archives are public. Anyway, what I said is only a possible explanation. Titoxd asked for an explanation from Jimbo, and now we wait. In the meantime, that kind of sarcasm and lack-of-AGF won't get any questions answered faster. -- SCZenz01:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
It's not like I'm going to wheel war with Jimbo, folks. I'm just asking so I can be in the clear too, in case I missed something. Titoxd(?!? - help us)02:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
My comment was only an illustration of the frustration I have regarding the fact that policy and decisions that affect us go on in the mailing list (which most folks don't know about) and IRC (a cliqueish chat room), with no track record, edit history, and off wiki. Just an unrelated complaint, realy. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*>02:06, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
People who want to be involved in policy at the highest level need to be on the mailing list. This is part of my 'statement of principles' from the very old days. In any event, I encourage people to be very liberal about blanking and protecting old AfD discussions -- we should in general do this as a matter of course upon closing a discussion, and then we should furthermore be pro-active about blanking old ones especially if we have a complaint. This is not very much about libel, it is mostly about being responsible about people's privacy.
The point is: if someone creates a page about a non-notable person, and then that page goes to AfD, and it is deleted, then 3 months later the #1 hit in google for this non-notable person's name is likely to be the Wikipedia AfD page. This page will be, on a good day, all about how unimportant that person is. On a bad day it will also contain snarky comments. It is absurd for us to publicize that, and blanking is an effective way to help with the problem.--Jimbo Wales12:35, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
"The mailing list will remain open, well-advertised, and will be regarded as the place for meta-discussions about the nature of Wikipedia." - The mailing list is not really well advertised, thus my complaint that most folks don't know about it. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*>20:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Request for assistance: Please place this notice at the top of the Main Page:
Voting for the new Main Page has begun! There are several candidates to choose from. Voting ends January 28th. To see the candidates, CLICK HERE
If you think the voting time should be extended another week (for instance), feel free to change the ending date to February 4th.
Hello, Jimbo. Have you kept your eye on the lively talk on stable versions? I believe that your imput would be respected and valued, and could potentially give it a huge boost. What do you think of the concept in general? Would you recommend anyone in particular who is good with templates? (The current templates have a few bugs in them, and there would undoubtedly be a need for quite a few more if this is to take off.)
Hi! I'm trying to do what I can to help RC Patrollers feel empowered to do a better job, and so as a part of that I'm asking people about particular edits to try to better understand why people do the things they do, and why they don't do other things. :-)
This edit caught my attention after we got a quite reasonable complaint from the subject of the article. Why did you not simply speedy delete the article, rather than add the 'wikify' and 'verify' templates?--Jimbo Wales 20:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Since I'm not an admin I can't speedy delete anything. I guess the real question is why I didn't use db-attack, to which I really don't have a good answer at the moment (I really don't remember that article in particular and can't remember my though process - sorry). Although I'm not afraid to use the db templates, I usually try not to go overboard. Since I'd never heard of Mr. Rubython, and english literature is not at all my field, I didn't want to flag a legitimate article for deletion, so I flagged it as needing verification instead. I view {{verify}} as a "I'm giving you one chance to prove this is true, otherwise it'll be up for deletion" type of template. Basically I didn't know enough about the subject at hand to feel comfortable flagging it for deletion until I'd given the author of the article a chance to defend the article. That's basically my thought process on when I use verify and not a db template. I hope I didn't cause any problems, (I've been busy lately so I'm only just now skimming over the revision history and talk page), and I have a feeling that this will manage to work itself out the way most wikipedia disagreements do. (I must admit, I take a long term view of these things - it keeps me from getting worked up over every little change). --Bachrach4401:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I guess what I'm asking is why you didn't blank the article or stubify it? I think that the {{verify}} is a fine thing but not strong enough when the article in question says extremely negative things about a person. Again, I am not criticizing you, I'm just thinking about how we might better empower people doing rc patrolling. --Jimbo Wales12:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
wikipedia.nl
Nastrovje Jimbo, please note that wikipedia.nl is registered in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation (nic.nl). A correction could be appropiate. Sincerely -- Simplicius01:53, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
What is the deal with Wikipedia??
I am given permission to put images in Wikipedia and someperson whois maybe only 6 years old goes around and around warning people that their image may be deleted for **ROBOTIC** reasons. If my files become erase, I will have to remove all my images and quit Wikipedia. --Nikitchenko06:45, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
On what basis are you guessing the age of other editors? At any rate, we are very careful about copyright license terms for images, to avoid violating the rights of others. If you don't indicate the terms of your images in the correct manner, this will be pointed out to you, as it has been, and you should not take it as a personal affront. There is a pulldown menu in the image upload form to select which of a number of conditions apply to the image you are uploading, including that you are contributing it under one of several freely usable licenses. *Dan T.*20:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
At a guess, perhaps the person is in fact 6 months or even 6 weeks old, and in fact, actually IS a robot ;-) . Usually the user page will say so if someone is a robot. Is this Roomba by any chance? Kim Bruning15:35, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Cool Cat's view on 7 day delete
7 day delete is somewhat problematic now. Let me explain:
User:Jeandré modifies the image description and removes my common property rationale (does not inform me) [9]
User:Simetrical rightfully declares {{Don't know}} as image no longer has a rationale for PD [10]
Image would have been deleted in 7 days if Simetrical didn't notify me as he does not have to. It should be made manditory for people tagging images for deletion (in 7 days) to notify the uploaders. Also the history should be reviewed.
Regardless of notifications I was on a wikibreak, if I was truly on a wikibreak the obvious PD image would have been deleted
Furthermore, people use bots to remove a spesific image (with disputed copyright status) from all articles it apears. Once an image is removed from an article, no one knows about it and its deleted in great secrecy. Even telling the author is inadequate as on many occasions such as on Kemal Ataturk, an obvious PD image (perhaps improperly tagged/not tagged) was deleted. The Image was most certainly PD as the man died over 70+ years ago.
This policy should not give breathing room to deletionists. There are images deleted with the 7-day-delete that were PD (due to age if not other reasons) and/or a fair use rationale (at the very worst) could be easily applied (such as images on biographies).
I know you are looking for Jimbo's opinion, but I will give you mine. Any images uploaded should have been tagged with the appropriate tag at the time it was uploaded. If you don't want your images deleted, it should be your job to actually tag them with the correct tag. It takes but a second. Why not just go through your past image uploads and add the correct tags? That way, it is done, and you (collective "you") don't have to worry about images being deleted "secretly". My thoughts. --LV(Dark Mark)15:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I am not suggesting images shouldnt be tagged. And I tagged my images all the time. If people remove my tags without consulting me or edit/remove my rationale I cant quite control that. Also you can find ways to keep images, after all deleting images do not help wikipedia aside from copyright concerns.
There is no acceptable reason to be trigger hapy and delete all images uploaded prior to the 7-day-delete policy. If images copyright status is unclear, people investigating should at the very least think of a fair use rationale. If there is an obvious one (such as biography pictures), why not?
Just so you know, I've removed the copyright justification on that image that you and Jeandré/Simetrical have been revert warring over, leaving only the {{PD-USGov-DOT}} tag. Now that the image has been properly tagged, there's no need for any further justification. Just give it a rest, will you? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:39, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate that, and I'm convinced many others do too! The problem with Waerth is, however, precisely his "confrontational" style at nl:wikipedia (I can't speak for other wikimedia projects), e.g. his repeated assertion that he'll leave all wikimedia projects if he can't be a sysop.
I write this here because half an hour before the closing of that vote it seems likely Waerth will be de-sysoped at nl:wikipedia. While Waerth has said a few times that, in his view, this would mean that the trolls will win, I can honestly say that I'm convinced most of the voters were motivated by building up friendships and trust among good users. I hope you can live with that too. --Francis Schonken11:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia NPOV and privacy
Jimbo, the following was posted to the Village Pump [11] by User: 210.10.166.48. S/he makes some interesting points about bios of living people, relevant to some of the issues you've raised recently on the same subject, so I'm reposting here. SlimVirgin(talk)13:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I write this as an objective visitor, touching on a potentially contentious issue in this community. Nevertheless I've decided to make my point here and it will either be accepted and discussed, or rejected and pushed away.
It seems to me, and I think it is the right time while the Google supoena is in the collective conciousness of the internet community, that Wikipedia needs to outline its boundaries in regards to privacy of the individual. I don't believe it is a reasonable enough argument to say "This is of interest to a sum of people, and therefore it belongs in an encyclopedia". This logic is a red herring, and I believe it contains flaws, which I will attempt to illuminate.
Firstly, it must be realised that the regular contributors of Wikipedia, of which predominantly all of you are, are a closed community. You are a very large community, but you exist independantly from the collective conciousness of 'general' society. Secondly, this collectivism is further concentrated by the very design of Wikipedia. By that I mean, the like-minded or polarised swarm on a particular topic, and thus give it energy and life. This is a good thing -- this is what creates great articles, allows the process of refinement and drives Wikipedia. And a side-effect of this is that an article can become, at times, inflated for what it is. This is of course a subjective comment, but look up some anime series articles or other subcultural influence articles to see the overstated and obfuscated effect of the collective 'importance' that is placed on some articles.
Even that is not my issue. But it leads me to it, in regards to privacy of the common individual.
I refer to two examples, the David Brandt article and the Brian Chase article. They are perhaps intrinsically linked, but they are how I came to see this side of Wikipedia after using it for many years. Due to the controversy surrounding one of these particular figures, I'd like to make clear that I have never been in contact or any interactive context with either of these figures beyond reading and absorbing the text that flows around these names.
In the first instance, it is overwhelmingly clear that David Brandt does not want his article on Wikipedia. In the second, Brian Chase certainly never asked, wanted, or imagined that he would be the focus of an article. He is, of course, the archetype everyman afterall. And yet both these men have articles. And so I ask why. The common response, so I can gather from the resulting delete/keep votes is the argument I paraphrased earlier -- "This is of interest to a sum of people, and therefore it belongs in an encyclopedia".
But this negates the very real issue of moral obligation. If someone does not want their article on Wikipedia, is it morally right to oblige? What constitutes a public figure? In assessing that constitution, should it be taken into account the inherent closed-circle collectivism of a non-mainstream community? Should it then be assessed whether the agenda of the community affects the reasoning towards these articles?
I chose these two examples because they outline what I see is a dangerous precedent, and one that should be openly and objectively discussed. David Brandt "critisied" Wikipedia. Brian Chase inadvertantly brought the integrity of Wikipedia into the temporary spotlight. And it is impossible to remove the motivations that spawn from a community that has this put onto them, from the objective assessment as to whether there is to be a need for the article to exist.
My strong contention is that these articles are a violation of the basic principles of privacy. This is further reinforced by the shift of power that places the opinion of one person into the subjective hands of potentially thousands. When the swarm surrounds the article, and the polarization process occurs, an angle is thus formed. So Brian Chase (hypothetically) the church going family man who enjoys his old Beatles LP becomes Brian Chase (Wikipedia hoaxer). It is of course undeniable that he placed a hoax on wikipedia. But by process of selection, the internet now knows him through the black and white context of being, essentially, stupid. Nevermind important factors such as intent or awareness. This information will concievably be retrievable instantly for the rest of his life. As a result, the mass concencous has a prepacked opinion of this man, and that will affect his day to day work and personal life.
Please assess the ethical and moral implications of this. Put yourself in that situation if it makes it easier.
I believe this man does not warrent enough importance to have his own article. But that is my opinion. Where is the line drawn? I believe this article made it to publication because of the link with Wikipedia. This inflated the relevance to the community, and thus it was assessed as relevant to the broader community. Secondly, it was not balanced with the moral and ethical repercussions that would affect this man.
Unlike a traditional encyclopedia, Wikipedia has no real issues in regards to space. This has positive consequences. But it does effect the relevance when writing about living persons. If extrapolated, one can assume that these types of articles will continue to grow. These men are not famous. They are not prominent outside of the Wikipedia community. They do not deserve their own articles, regardless of the role they have played in Wikipedia history. They are noteable to you. Indeed, these articles exist because the people that make the focus of them have touched on Wikipedia history in some way. But does how does this balance with the ethical and moral obligations such a community should possess? And doesn't, in a holistic sense violate the communities rules of NPOV? I believe Wikipedia should assess whether it has exercised a communal POV in these cases, and in doing so with no major opposition, has not felt the need to place checks on themselves.
You are in charge of a powerful tool. But articles about science and history are very different to biographical entries. Especially so when it comes to living persons. And even more so when it comes to living persons of little cultural or historical relevance outside of the Wikipedia/internet community. I believe the Wikipedia community needs to have a meaningful discussion about this. Focus on the articles that spring up involving the "little people" -- people that outside of your community have no cultural or historical relevance -- and decide on where to draw the line. "Rational"/Logical thought argument has been the general response. So now it is time to look at these articles from a moral and ethical perspective, strongly taking the effect on the subject into account, and their inability to do anything about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by User: 210.10.166.48 (talk • contribs)
A vandal (perhaps not the place)
Hi. Sorry, I did not know where to post this. There is a guy that seems to want to be banned (I reverted his edit on the Corneliu Vadim Tudor page and noticed that he had made another such edit out of the three he's ever made. The third one, however (the one for a computer game) is probably not POV. In case I got it wrong, to whom should I address such issues? Dahn13:46, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
On your request about political and religious userboxes
I support your request to try to change the culture by example and personal contact, so I've set out to do just that. For about a year I kept a watchlist to which was added, automatically, every page that I edited. Recently I dumped it out into a wikipage that, using the "related changes" link, I enables me to track active edits on those pages. Tonight I went down every user whose user or talk page appeared in the first 200 edits in the related changes list, and checked all the userpages to see if they contained political or religious userboxes.
The aim is to identify people reasonably well known to me, with whom I have a good relationship (hopefully all of them!) and a reasonable confidence of a successful request for them to consider your suggestion. Since it goes back a whole year I didn't want to just go down the bare list because quite a lot of those editors would probably have moved away. Using related changes enables me to focus on active editors, or at least those whose user and talk pages are being edited.
What surprised me is how few of these editors--comprising perhaps the most active article editors on the site--had any such userboxes at all. In the past few weeks we've seen a lot of comment from some people who were very upset at the idea that userboxes are bad for the project, but from the evidence that I see I don't think that they are at all representative of Wikipedia editors.
I am sorry if it appears as if I am butting in; IMHO, very few active editors decorate their userpages with several user boxes. However, many of the same people (including me) believe that it should be left to the choice of the users - we all seem to share a probably unstated view that our user spaces should be inviolate; and that expressing our religious, political or national identities and beliefs helps other editors in assessing our POVs. --Gurubrahma10:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't know about "inviolate". I've had cause to edit user pages because of inappropriate statements, and I've blocked for persistent abuse. But obviously here we're talking not about abuse of user pages at all but use of templates and whether it's really an appropriate way to express your individual beliefs. Saying something about your BigEndian faith and involvement in your local church is good, popping a cookie-cutter badge advertising your membership of the "BigEndian Church of the Uniquitous Orgasmotron" seems to me to be something else entirely. If you'd like to continue this dialog, I suggest that you go to my talk page. --Tony Sidaway|Talk12:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
A data point - I am a very active editor (mostly, though by no means exclusively, in the article namespace) and I have nine userboxes on my page, none of which are politically controversial as far as I can tell. Should I add my name and userbox status to your list? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)05:18, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm also not sure if that list is representative of Wikipedia editors as a whole. I'd be interested in seeing more information on who is extensively using userboxes and how much they contribute to articles. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)05:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
You can add yourself to the list if you like--you're not using any political or religious boxes at all.
Obviously my contact list will tend to be biased towards long term editors; I have not edited the talk pages of a lot of the newer editors, and there are quite a lot of those. One high profile editor who has quite a lot of political and religious userboxes is User:The Epopt, who has been around for yonks, and an arbitrator to boot, so it's hard to generalize about use of userboxes. --Tony Sidaway|Talk07:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Nature errors are corrected.
Jimbo: You might want to have good friends/editors review the work, maybe twice, but the Nature articles are all marked as corrected. Wikipedia:External_peer_review/Nature_December_2005/Errors . I hope that you do not consider the 30-day turn around to be a disappointment. Christmas really killed the momentum that the effort seemed to have. -- Pinktulip14:11, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Timecop permanently blocked
I'm informing both yourself and the ArbCom that I've permanently blocked User:Timecop. Of the many abuses, he has also created a userbox about the WTC and Jews, holds a war on blogs page on the Wiki, and according to Alkivar, threatened him off wiki for something he did on Wikipedia (apparently he found Alkivar's phone number and made threatening phone calls). As such I'm permanently blocking, I leave it up to you or the board to rescind my decision. - Ta bu shi da yu14:41, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Timecop's user page has a list of several 'backers', most, if not all of which are banned as suspected 'sock puppets', etc. One exception is User:Viscid. He says that he has herpes, has made virtually no contributions, and looks suspiciously like another 'sock puppet'. Could this ID be looked into, please? Arno05:46, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I assure you that I am myself and not anyone else but me. I do not believe my decision to announce that I have herpes is grounds for ostracism. I have contributed before, but have only registered recently. Please do not judge users based solely on their associations. Viscid10:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, let's see now. You have had nothing to say or contribute to the Wikipedia except that you're herpetic, that you support Timecop, and very little else. Furthermore, the list on Timecop's page is full of banned users and sock puppet IDs. You can't blame a fellow for getting suspicious. Arno03:34, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Everyking politely asked Jimbo to hear his appeal in November, and Jimbo said he would hear it and would get to it in due course (He said it would likely take him three weeks). Everyking gave a polite reminder on several occasions, and said in early December that he planned to appeal to the ArbCom in January and would appreciate getting a hearing from Jimbo before then. It's clear that Jimbo has other priorities, and so it is entirely appropriate that Everyking should have another avenue to appeal to. I'm not judging the merits of Everyking's case, but it does look like he's failing to get a fair hearing.-gadfium02:43, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
He is not entitled to a hearing. He is entited to make the request. Anything beyond that will be judged on the merits of the case he makes, which so far, utterly lacks substance. Raul65402:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I see that the ArbCom is rejecting hearing his appeal (based on the rejections so far), partly because they don't think anything has changed, and partly because appeals should go to Jimbo, not them. That's a fair enough position from them, but it does require Jimbo being responsive to appeals. Again, I point out that Jimbo accepted his appeal on 24 November but has apparently not yet followed through on that.
Jimbo, I think you owe Everyking a hearing, or at least an explanation from the horse's mouth why he won't get one.-gadfium03:41, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Raul654. He is entitled to request to have his appeal considered. I would suggest that Jimbo could give him the courtesy of some sort of answer. Agreeing with Raul654 would be such a possible answer. My own opinion is that everything I have seen that Everyking has been posting on Wikipedia talk pages is just vague complaining. That opinion is worth what you paid for it. Robert McClenon17:27, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad to hear that. So, do you have any thoughts on the situation thus far? Any questions, concerns? You can e-mail me about it if you like, I don't mind if the discussion is private. Everyking05:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
That's right. Two reasons: 1) the situation is rather different from ArbCom deliberations, and furthermore is only between two people and isn't a committee discussion; 2) simple pragmatism—I very badly want Jimbo to communicate with me and I was making it clear to him that the communication could be done on his own terms, thereby hopefully increasing the likelihood that he would in fact communicate. Not really very hypocritical, Raul. Everyking06:06, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Can you confirm this spam contains a quote by you please?
I'm being spammed by a user that I accused of using Wikipedia for self promotion over the article Five O'clock Dog, and they are now using what they claim to be your words to criticise my actions as a Wikipedia administrator and my choices as a Wikipedia user. The following is copied and pasted from the email they have sent me:
Tuesday, January 24, 2006 name withheld:
But that's userspace, and not articlespace. Userspace is a place to put something about yourself, who you are and what you do. If you'd like to put something in your userspace about who you are and what you do, provided you register an account you're free to do so. Weak, Poor, Bad example, the porn star informational advertisement pages are not user pages. Do you want to start switching them over ?? We are neutral concerning this. We do not believe the GNU license provides for discrimination in this area. We are smart enough to know Wikipedia is already feeling a bandwidth crunch, It may just get worse. We would not be on the side of large user pages that take up a bunch of storage. As for advertising, there may be ads in the next ten years, perhaps. But they won't be in the articles, or embedded in the articles. Such goes against policy, common sense and the idea of a free encyclopedia. We are not making any predictions but you could turn out to be 100% wrong, - The main front page of Wikipedia is an article. We, just like the original company / inventor that started Wikipedia, cannot not let anyone dictate our business model. I hold no personal animus, We won't either, even if we are attacked and vandalized by the "deletist's" but we require that everything be verifiable and reliably sourced. I wish you the best of luck in getting your book published and out to the masses. Let me know when you get your book out on store shelves and it starts selling copies. We'll be happy to have an encyclopedic article on it then.
I've asked them not to contact me by email again but rather to contact me via my talk page: that way their comments are verifiable by other users. There's more to their email but it's largely just personal attacks against my character as a person. Can you reply on my talk page please? -- Francs200001:04, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't use the term "spam" to refer to an e-mail message sent directly (and only) to you, commenting on your activity on Wikipedia. Whether wanted or unwanted, such a message is a direct personal communication, not a bulk mailing such as "spam" is usually defined. *Dan T.*23:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I was wondering if you might be willing to submit to an interview for the Wikipedia Signpost, a weekly community newspaper that I edit. Ideally, we would take question submissions from our readers, select the best questions, and ask them to you either on IRC, or by e-mail; whichever fits better for you. I understand that your schedule is extremely busy, particularly in the next month or two, as we approach a million English articles. However, I think that this interview would be a good way to talk to the community about recent events, and about the great things that Wikipedia has done. You can reach me on my talk page, or via e-mail at WikipediaSignpost@gmail.com. Thanks! Ral315(talk)15:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
Over the past month or so, I've had quite a number of email complaints about the block of the open proxy 168.209.97.34. I came across this IP address back in December, after seeing that it had been blocked by Brian0918 indefinitely as an open proxy. However, seeing as at the time the IP was blocked, it was under a shorter, 1 hour block for vandalism, the indef block did not stick. When I realised this, I re-blocked the address indefinitely (see block log), and since then I have received a number of complaints via email. The first few emails I didn't worry about, I replied pointing them to the instructions held at the top of their userpage and talk page - {{blocked proxy}} - but as I have received quite a few more, I thought it would be best to bring it to your attention, seeing as {{blocked proxy}} says that you would consider their case if they still wanted to contribute. Thanks for your help, — FireFox • T • 17:04, 28 January 2006
Arb.Com. (USERBOXES)
I am giving you notice that I will soon start an Arb.Com. case about userboxes and you overstepping your power in limiting them. Thank you. WikieZach 18:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
That's pretty funny since I haven't limited them in any way. But you know, whatever, knock yourself out. Don't let truth slow you down. --Jimbo Wales16:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Huh? I am pro-userboxes guy, but this is just ridiculous. When had Jimbo overstepped his power in relation to userboxes? He released his opinion, and that's all. Or did I miss something? Grue 18:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
You did miss something. Read above. We had a lenghty discussion about this. --Shell 19:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, since ArbCom's power is delegated by Jimbo, they can't really decide cases against him. In fact, only you can decide complaints against Jimbo: either by asking nicely, or by exercizing your right to fork or leave. -- SCZenz19:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
When Jimbo created Wikipedia, he had the common goal of having a 'universal source of all human-knowledge'. With that, he should respect all people, and for once, he should be deprived of his tyrant like powers. WikieZach 19:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
What tyrant-like powers? He runs a non-profit that owns a website, and lets you use it to further the goals set out for the site. I've always thought he was nice. -- SCZenz19:29, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
So have I, I thank him for it. But I just think that he, being the founder, shouldn't mean that he is exzempt from everything! And anyways, this Userbox issue is nowwhere near agreement. WikieZach 19:33, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
You know the ArbCom won't rule against him. What will they do? Ban him? The case will just make the situation more tense and relations less friendly. Don't do it. BrokenS19:36, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Ignoring for the moment that the ArbCom will reject out of hand any case with Jimbo as the defendant, because they certainly don't believe they have the authority to go over his head, I urge you to take a look at Wikipedia:ArbCom. They don't decide policy. So unless you think Jimbo is a problem user and should be disciplined for violating policy, ArbCom wouldn't be the right vehicle anyway. So I'm afraid that you're going about this in entirely the wrong way. -- SCZenz19:37, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
I asked before, what are userboxes? Are they the same thing as user pages?? Are userboxes the things that run "Popup assisted reversion" edits--that system by which people revert things and never explain it in talk pages (which they certainly didn't in the edit summary)??? DyslexicEditor07:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
In the recent arb-com election, you appointed the 8 highest scoring candidates and 3 others that you stated were "community approved". I have some questions about the appointment of the 3 others:
You stated somewhere that a "supermajority" would be required - do you feel that appointing someone with only 69% support means that the term "supermajority" was misleading, or could be percieved as misleading - do you think most people would have thought it meant a figure higher than 70%?
No, of course not. The term 'supermajority' does not mean '70%', and a typical example of supermajority would include the 60% requirement in the US Senate to move a vote through cloture. In any event, a mention of supermajority "somewhere" is of course different from the actual policy which was implemented, which involved a majority, not supermajority.
What was the exact threshold for someone to be considered community approved?
I regarded 50% as sufficient, but specifically looked at the overall approval, including looking at differential rates of approval between admins and ordinary users. (This last had no ultimate impact on the decision, but I did look at it.)
Why are all 3 of those "other" appointments from the same side of the political spectrum - conservative and fundamentalist (as in "fundamentalist christianity" and "fundamentalist judaism" - I think US usage of "fundamentalist" might be slightly different to UK usage)? Do you think this might be percieved as trying to bias the committee towards a series of POVs?
To my knowledge, this is simply not true. JamesF is a self-described socialist, if I remember correctly. Fred is conservative politically, I believe, but I don't know of any serious accusations that this has ever influenced his ArbCom work. JayJG, I do not know his politics at all, although I have heard that he generally supports Israel. Again, to my knowledge, I don't know of any serious accusations that this has ever influenced his ArbCom work.
Additionally, it would be quite odd, don't you think, for me to "try to bias the committee" in the direction of conservatism and fundamentalism, when I am personally not remotely either.--Jimbo Wales16:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Given the sporadic nature of Jimbo's responses here, I will attempt to answer all three of these questions for you, in my capacity as a mind reader:
Then what is "super" about a "supermajority" if it is almost exactly the same as a "majority" as in AFD?
Doesn't that mean that "community approved"="whatever Jimbo needs to set the threshold at so that people he wants to be appointed are included", i.e. cheating/corruption ?
I don't believe it is co-incidental, there seems to be a pattern in Jimbo's appointments that was present in the temporary appointments he made before the election, e.g. appointing Kelly Martin for no obvious reason.
Are you accusing me of cheating or corruption? I stated my reasons for the reappointments. "Appointing Kelly Martin for no obvious reason"? The obvious reason was that she came strongly recommended by the existing ArbCom members, and her work on the committee proved that the choice was a wise one. I believe that her failure in the elections stemmed solely form the userbox wars, and of course I respected the community judgement that she ought not to be reappointed.--Jimbo Wales16:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I'll just note that a supermajority requirement is nothing more than a requirement that more than a simple majority be obtained. Supermajorities are generally required for pretty much any Wikipedia poll to pass (including AFD, policy polls, RFAs, etc.). Saying that a vote has achieved a supermajority is fairly common but quite imprecise; the term in this sense is typically used to refer to at least the ballpark of 60%, although technically anything over 50% could have achieved a sufficiently low supermajority requirement. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Polling and prescriptive policymaking again, Radiant? You might get into the same fix as you got yourself into with Categories for Speedy Deletion here, where you got yourself entirely stuck and couldn't change anything anymore, even though actual practice did not coincide with what was stated on CSD at the time. Kim Bruning16:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
No, just formalizing what the community thinks; have you read WP:AAP? That should explain a lot. Might I point out that I/we did get past that CSD roadblock and it worked out fine? Radiant_>|<17:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Odd that this particular little example of rule creep should show up after that "non-binding" poll, eh? Administrators are expected to act on their own cognizance in the interests of the encyclopedia. While we have some commonsense rules concerning administrator conduct, this little attempt to force administrators into the straitjacket of process is not going to fly. --Tony Sidaway|Talk17:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
(to Tony) While that's true, certain admins are rather short of "cognizance" and/or the subject of a large number of community complaints, and hence some commonsensical things have been put down on the base of overwhelming input on and support for them. You stated on WP:AAP that you approve of wheel wars, while the community plainly does not. Anything else you object to in particular? Radiant_>|<17:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Please read WP:AAP. The community says that some admins shouldn't be, in varying levels of vehemence. Note that one needs a lot of support on WP:RFA to become an admin, but one needs zero support to remain an admin. If we assume that 99% of all admins are doing a good job (or no job, as in retired from the wiki) that means we still have 6 or 7 rogues. Judging from comments all over the wiki there is even a reasonable consensus on who those might be. It's a matter of accountability, really; our policy has always stated that admins are held to high standards. Radiant_>|<21:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
By similar logic, one needs zero support to remain an editor - thankfully, we do not penalize people based on polls and their popularity. We do so on the basis of the work they're doing. Phil Sandifer23:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
And one also needs zero support to become an editor, so I fail to see your point. The WP:ACC is precisely to judge people on the basis of the work they're doing; simple fact is that some of the existing admins are not doing good work. Radiant_>|<09:22, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
If anyone brings a good case against an administrator to the ArbCom, they are usually reprimanded/treated in a suitable manner. If you want to see someone removed as a sysop, file an RfAr. Sam Korn(smoddy)21:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
(Unindent) Rather than a "straightjacket" as has been described, firmer standards of admin behaviour hold the individual administrator to minimum standards. Standards that are easily measured and that admin actions can be compared against. As it is now, the process is too easily gamed by savvy admins (read:cunning), who have been in and out of Arb, RfC etc etc. so many times that they have achieved a level of expertise in evading sanction. Any protocol that even vaguely offers warnings for admins who overstep the boundries of propriety is better than no protocol at all. Of course, a periodic review of all administrators although unweildy, would serve to weed out the consistantly wrong acting or bullying individuals, but would be quite a process to oversee. However, I would be willing to offer any help I can in such an initiative. For the time being, I will merely add my support for a standard policy of sanctioning administrators who are beyond the pale of applicable process and policy, while fully comprehending the mutable nature of said processes and policies. Hamster Sandwich00:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I thought this was a case of m:Voting is evil coming along and biting us hard, particularly in the rather blanket condemnation of administrators repeatedly reversing one another's actions but having read Radiant's reasonable response on the talk page of that discussion I think it's not a bad go. I apologise to Radiant for "shooting from the hip".
I think there is a common recognition, for instance, that there are cases where there can be a reasonable disagreement between administrators on whether something urgently needs to be removed from the wiki. Those who think the removal is urgent may find themselves opposed by those who honestly believe otherwise, but in the minds of the administrators who perceive an urgent need for action this is going to cut no ice. Obviously legal problems such as defamation and removal of copyright material in the case of an actual complaint would be covered, and there are other cases such as incitement to vandalism and whatnot that may have urgency in some minds but not in others. So the "wheel warring" section, while over-broad in its outline, does admit to commonsense application. I think it unlikely that the present or any future Arbitration Commitee would feel itself bound to sanction a party who took good faith action on reasonable grounds, in order to protect the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway14:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Responce about userbox q-a
Sorry about that, my day had just been rough, and my temper was high. I am sorry I aimed it at you. Please forgive me. Thanks. WikieZach 20:53, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Users are no long allowed to have blank passwords. If you were using an account with blank password and you entered an email address, you can use the forgot password email function to change it. Otherwise, you can try begging Brion, but you may well be out of luck. Dragons flight03:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
There's currently a dispute over the naming of Category:Living people, which was apparently created at your direct request. See [12]. There is some controversy over whether or not the category should be renamed to Category:*. Since this was created at your request, you might want to comment on that CFD discussion. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)05:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Zephram Stark
Mr Wales, loathe as I am to make a direct appeal to you (I'm sure you have better things to do, and my having to do so seems to defeat the purpose of an evolutionary project such as Wikipedia) one of the Wikipedia admins suggested I do so. I am a non-sysop-ed editor, and I have suggested to the administrator noticeboard, here that a more constructive approach might be appropriate for dealing with the shennanigans of Zephram Stark. The admins, to a person, have pooh-poohed the idea. I would be interested in your view.
I don't personally know, nor do I speak at the request of Zephram - I have had a few exchanges with him on this site (prior to his block) which make me think that he's clearly intelligent, well read sort of character, and while he has some idiosyncratic views, he's fundamentally got his heart in the right place, and his behaviour is more a function of a genuine sense (whether or not justified) of poor treatment by admins on the site. ElectricRay09:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Greetings. I uploaded a photograph I had taken of my wife standing next to a folio of the Qur'an, and someone included the image in the Qur'an article. Many Muslim Wikipedians complained that the image was disparaging to Islam because my wife was wearing revealing clothing. Because of this, I asked that my photograph not be used on the Qur'an article. When this request was rebuffed, I deleted the image, removing it from Wikipedia's servers. (I'm an admin.) An RFC was then filed against me, saying that I abused my admin powers. If you could weigh in, I would really appreciate it. Thanks, – Quadell(talk) (bounties)15:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, your wishes should be respected. We don't (can't) always respect such wishes, but in the case of a longstanding excellent contributor just trying to do the right thing, we should. Certainly an RFC seems a bit much.--Jimbo Wales16:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Joturner, I really hope you will reconsider your position here. "When the best sort of sysop has to break the law to do what everyone knows is right, there's something wrong with the law." Your RfC is really ill-considered, and when we reach the point that good admins can't do what is right because of this irrational passion for rules lawyering, we lose what makes this community work: passionate people having fun together, cutting each other significant slack, and finding ways forward that are helpful to all parties. The best interest of Wikipedia is to give sensible people the power to do sensible things without a lot of red tape and nonsense after the fact.--Jimbo Wales16:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
The request for comment page is for some reason overwhelming favoring Quadell. I find that interesting and surprising because the Talk:Qur'an/Picture Controversy page is mostly against Quadell. Therefore, in my opinion, had he initiated a legitimate request for deletion (or even appealed to you), his wishes would have been fulfilled. In addition, take note that he had not contributed to the discussion surrounding the picture in the eleven days prior to the reverts/deletions. The talk page discussion had died down significantly until he revived the discussion with his deletion. Had he let the article be, it is very likely the controversy over the picture would have just faded away. Although I must admit those who opposed to his 29-Jan removal of the picture were being a little too adament about making sure the picture remained, Quadell wasn't wrestling with red tape; he just decided to sidestep the red tape he believed (most likely incorrectly) would get in his way.
When I first made the request for comment, I never expected the scales would suddenly tip in his favor so greatly. Although I believe Quadell has now taken on a sufficient amount of accountability for the incident, I will not revoke the request for comment because there are several others (including myself) who will stand by their statements. If Quadell's reputation really will outweigh this incident, he will be exonerated and we will move on. As I told Quadell, I don't believe one bad action makes a bad person, but I do believe that one who does one needs to take accountability for it to the degree deemed necessary by the community (hence the RFC).joturner23:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
A picture of someone's wife wearing revealing clothing next to the Qur'an?! And you think this is good for the project? It is not good for the project. I support Quadell in his decision to delete the image. - Ta bu shi da yu14:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia seems like a great idea, but the Mediawiki back end sucks. Editing in the browser is great for newbies, they can access without much hassle and without learning complicated technical stuff. But it is very time consuming and inefficient for regular use. Have you ever imagined about how powerful Wikipedia could be being backed by an appropriate distributed configuration management system, broadcasting changesets? Seamless addition of new servers even entirely unrelated to wikimedia, which is a single point of failure... Branching and Merging (could also solve the stable version problem)... Also regular editing of regular pages for discussion is not The Right Thing, it should be more like Usenet perhaps. Hope to see something like this being developed in the next 10 years! --Rtc20:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
If you have the necessary skills please contribute to Mediawiki and our server administration. It's easy to find better things we could be doing, but we face a shortage of skilled people willing and able to help. - TaxmanTalk21:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Response to comments I made a year ago on VfD
I didn't mock the subject of the article. Please rereview the comment. I was directing the comment at the anonymous editor, who was talking of bringing defamation charges against... someone. There are several things here I would like to bring to your attention:
The anonymous editor was threatening defamation, but they refused to say they were the subject. Can you confirm/deny that the anon was the subject themselves? Please refer to my comment "Unless they are <subject>, he/she will not be able to sue for libel as the attack was not directed at their person!" What part of that is mocking the subject or the anon?
"And I think the court would laugh them out of court on this one." that was harsh. Please apologise to the anon on my behalf for this comment. That was out of line, and I accept this. Not sure how else to put it...
Please note that the I did not condone the dwarf comment, as I stated. However, would this be enough to land you in court for defamation? That was a point I was trying to bring home to the anon. I now see that, yes, it probably would be enough. I'd like to note that I was NOT encouraging others to made fun of the subject of the article.
"I've been called worse, and I'm almost certain <subject> has been called worse at her University" - this is just stating a fact.
"Also, who are they going to sue? People are pretty much anonymous on this board." OK, this was way back in the day (you are aware that this is over a year ago?!) and at this time I wasn't aware of the seriousness of defamation claims to the Wikimedia board. Please note that I have NEVER condoned defamation, but I was serious about who they'd sue at the time. As for the "board" comment: a. be aware that I was still in Kuro5hin mode, and b. this was a slip of the tongue.
I would now like to respond to your comment "This is not a "board" and responding to upset people who are upset for a good reason (being called names) by mocking them and their legal threats is just poor poor customer service."
I am not selling anything to anyone... I was under the impression that a customer bought something from you. Maybe I'm missing the point here. What I do know is that we should treat people with respect. I have always tried to do this, I obviously have not always been terribly successful. I have had to apologise to others on this site more times than I can count. I will apologise to the anon if you can point out to me where I insulted them greatly. I try not to insult people, and if I do I almost always regret it later.
I was not mocking anyone AT ALL. I must put this in the strongest possible terms. I did NOT condone the comment about them being a dwarf!!!!
At the time I felt that their legal threats were without basis, however, again, I did not mock them.
Why were they upset? What was it about the article that made the anon upset? Again, was the anon the subject of the article? They refused to say.
Now, if I may, I would like to ask some questions:
The article is question is now deleted. Why is that?
Where was the defamation in the article?
Are you aware of the anons previous behaviour? Are you aware that they listed the article on VfD several times? Are you aware that they constantly blanked their talk page, making it impossible to correspond with them?
Why do you assume that I was mocking this person? In no way was I doing such a thing - though as I've said, I acknowledge that the "laughed out of court" comment was of bad taste and bad judgement.
Finally, why did you publicly upbraid me on my talk page, which is seen by all? Why not just send me an email? How exactly did you expect me to remember an edit I made in October 2004 without a reference to the Wikipedia page?! I've made over 17,000 edits since then, and shifted into a second job, two houses and moved between several churches!!!!! I can't remember every edit made at that time... please, be reasonable!
Sorry if this sounds like a harsh response, or not one you expected. I especially hope that you don't find me ungracious on this issue. If I have stuffed up, then I'll admit to it! I'd hope you, of all people, would understand this. I also hope you understand I was suprised to get such a vague and upsetting message on my talk page - without any way of knowing (easily) what edit I'd made. It took me some time to go through my list of contributions to find the edit in question.
OK, fully understand the problem now, wasn't aware that was happening. This response on Jimbo's talk page is really more for the Jimbo Wales talk page watchers, Jimbo knows my stance on the issue now. I know how it feels to be defamed, or at least be treated unfairly ("liberal marxist" indeed!) Full and unreserved apologies to the anon and the subject of the article if I insulted them in any way. I wish them both the best! Hope they see this. - Ta bu shi da yu15:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
There is a lot of talk about user boxes. What they are good for. What they are bad for. "Divisiveness" seems to be the key complaint. We have no guideline on "divisiveness" concerning user boxes or anything else (well, a little on how polls are evil when they are divisive). This guideline aims to clarify the concern about "divisiveness". A key missing element in the user box issue is what is and what is not an acceptable "userbox". How about if it is not userbox, but looks like one and is still divisive? What about any kind of us versus them bumpersticker label? The issue is divisiveness, not the form it takes. Here is a place to work out what qualifies as "divisive" and/or what to do about it. I suggest here that the key is not to say "I am a jew" is divisive or not divisive; but to say if people are claiming it is then the proper response is to ADD to it and say for example "My mother was a jew, so I consider myself a jew even though I am also an atheist" or any other elaboration so we are not dividing into factions, but instead are celebrating our individualities and uniqueness. WAS 4.25016:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Talk page blanking policy
What *is* the recommend practice on blanking old discussions on talk pages? You're the only one I've seen do this :) I thought removing old, resolved discussions was correct behaviour, but I got taken to task for it once, so I'm curious. Stevage22:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I think the issue is that one of the subjects of the page (which was about real life people) complained about derogatory or defamatory remarks on said talk page. This is the reason why some deletion discussions have recently been blanked; such pages turn up on google, and it's not nice to type your name in a search engine and get "that guy has never done anything useful" as one of the top results. >Radiant<23:52, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I have taken to doing it to resolve external complaints. I think anyone and everyone should feel free to remove rude or potentially annoying remarks or discussions from talk pages, especially when the discussion in question is old. The history is there for anyone who needs it, but the history is not indexed by google.--Jimbo Wales00:54, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
What's to prevent "Wikipedia Sanitation Services" from being a product for sale?
Any PR firm could include it in their list of services, I suppose; in which case the whole thing would be legal,I think, and the Meehan issue would be moot,perhaps. Neutralizer[13]
Given what I have read here about political and polemic views, and also given the response that I received to the additions I wanted to make to the United States Dollar and Federal Reserve articles, I am very concerned about Wikipedia as a whole being neutral and fully honest. For example, wouldn't it be better to move the political/religious/etc. userboxes to Wikicities and make a reference to them from the corresponding userpages, rather than deleting them entirely? Mr. Wales, could you please review the "Article Neutrality and Factual Accuracy Dispute" section in the United States Dollar discussion page and let me know either way if that is the direction that you want Wikipedia to go. In particular, I am very disturbed by the comment made by editor Macrakis ("Wikipedia isn't the place ... to publicize positions that are far out of the mainstream (even if the mainstream is wrong)."). Further, I find the current state of Wikipedia's verifiability policy disturbing for the same reason that I find Macrakis's statement disturbing. On the other hand, I find editor Seitz's approach to be the neutral and honest approach that I would want to take. However, he is being drowned out by the other editors there. I have not responded to the latest comments made there, pending the response that I receive from you. Xode16:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, it's been about a week now since I posted my question here for your response and, to date, I have received no response from you. Meanwhile, I continue to get muzzled by editors Famspear, Macrakis and their following. Even if you don't agree with my position regarding this matter, could you please at least post a response to my user page so that I at least know where I stand. Xode07:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Wonder if you'd care to comment on this latest attempt to represent the feeling of the Wikipedia community on activities--mainly political advocacy, voting on everything, and political userboxes--that tend to split us into camps. --Tony Sidaway14:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm just curious, Jimbo, but what are your opinions regarding {{maintained}}? I first ran into it today on an article talk page; it's being used in nearly 50 talk pages. The template was nominated for deletion in December but kept. I haven't made up my mind about whether I like or dislike this particular template, but I was curious what you thought of it because of its unique nature. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
I ask you a question. I am currently working on a very massive change to how the dispute resoution is done as well as how Wikipedia functions. I want to make an Appeals board (for use of a better name), that would resolve issues before they go to the Arbitration Committee as well as help enforce there (arbcom's) rulings. Earlier, when I sought to make a higher group it didn't work, but my goal would be reached with either proposal. Now back to the idea: The board would have nine members, three selected by the Arbcom, five selected by the public (users) and one selected by Jimbo. They would each serve six-month terms (I can always change this) and would require a simple majority to make a descision. I feel that I must recieve your advise, because you deal with disputes all the time. So I ask for your comments, good or bad. Thank you for your time. WikieZach 01:47, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
No Appeal:Reckless falsity,and truth Banned from your publishing organ
The post you removed was in no way an appeal. I do not intend to make an appeal to you concerning my accused POV pushing. I would suggest that you not allow of yourself to be put in the wrong, and suggest that you avail of the chance to repair the damage to yourself as publisher of an accusation made with such reckless disregard to falsity. This is not an appeal.
I posted this question on WP:VP/P, and got one response which appeared positive. However, I'd like to get more feedback to make sure. I tried to ask on the mailing list, but my message fell into a black hole.
According to the image use policy: "Also note that in the United States, reproductions of two-dimensional artwork which is in the public domain because of age do not generate a new copyright — for example, a straight-on photograph of the Mona Lisa would not be considered copyrighted (see Bridgeman v. Corel). Scans of images alone do not generate new copyrights — they merely inherit the copyright status of the image they are reproducing." Does this mean that images taken from coin auction catalogs, like this one, could be uploaded under a {{Money-US}} license? This and similar images are clearly either scans or straight-on photos, with little or no creative work involved. Can they be used in compliance with copyright law and Wikipedia policy? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)18:09, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
For all intents and purposes, coins are two-dimensional. A photograph of a coin from an orthogonal angle is therefore not eligible for its own copyright; since the subject matter, namely the coin, is public-domain, the photograph is as well. This wouldn't apply to a picture of multiple coins, or coins viewed from an angle. I would suggest using both {{Money-US}} and {{PD-art}} to clarify your rationale.
Please let's not get into an argument about that, we already have talked about userboxes. But I think we should keep it off unless Jimbo says 'yes.' WikieZach 00:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
I've been an editor for a year, and am practically in love with this site. I have never written to you in the past, because the occasion has not arisen. However, I have to express a personal request regarding the cartoons.
I don't advocate removal of the cartoons, but I do advocate replacement "below the fold". Wikipedia has broken into the top 20 sites on the web, and in all likelihood, many good-faith, non-violent Muslims from all over the world visit this site every day to look up information. The "look" of the page in its present form is deeply hurtful to them.
Even if the publishing of these cartoons in WP appears inevitable, the prominence given to them on the article page is a matter of judgment on the part of WP editors. The prominence given to them right now - the size even of the image is larger than it originally was - is profoundly hurtful to Muslim readers. Kindly reconsider. Any polling on this issue is futile, for the same reason that Wikipedia suffers from systemic bias. -- Peripatetic14:54, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for intervening on Template:User paedophile. I do wish you would make a firm statement about other such divisive and possibly inflammatory templates, because right now they have to go through Templates for Deletion one by one as people create them, and decisions are often arbitrary and stressful. (Unnecessarily stressful, I would propose, because userboxes are totally irrelevant to the encyclopedia.) There is no CSD rule which covers anything like this. Something should be done. Ashibakatock00:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry to butt in (I'm sure you all love to have another long discussion about this), just wanted to clarify that this is precisely what WP:IAR combined with a modicum of judgement is for. We cannot be so obsessed with process that we need to first formulate a rationale for every conceivable piece of trolling and disruption before we can delete it. Among other things, that would create a troll paradise, because there will never be an exhaustive list of what is trolling. The realistic and entirely workable alternative is to use common sense, on a case by case basis. --MarkSweep(call me collect)01:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
And what happens when other reasonable users, acting in good faith, disagree with your application of "common sense"? This is precisely why I think that process is important - because going through a process preserves everyone's dignity and lets everyone feel that their views received a fair hearing and were respected, even if the decision went against them. Right now, when process is ignored, the result is either wheel warring if administrators are involved, or bullying if an administrator simply imposes the solution on non-administrators. As Wikipedia gets bigger and bigger, process becomes more and more important. IAR may have made sense when Wikipedia was a small and close-knit community; it makes no sense now. The kind of "I'm right, you're wrong, so I'm going to impose my views on you, and your opinion doesn't count" talk that we're seeing on the mailing list tonight is extremely disturbing to me, and is making me consider whether this is a community that I want to be part of in the long run. You can look through my contribution history and see that most of my edits are to articles, and that I care a great deal about making an encyclopedia. But I can tell you that if this current trend continues, and especially if David and Tony actually carry out their threat to unilaterally, in defiance of consensus, delete all user boxes from pages, then I am not going to continue to contribute. Even in paid workplaces, telling people to take their personal photos and political cartoons down from their cubicle walls would cause severe morale problems and unrest. No one in the place would talk about anything but that for weeks to come. But to think that this would be acceptable on a volunteer project is lunacy. Please remember that we contribute a great deal of time to the encyclopedia and deserve to be treated with more respect than this. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)01:30, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I would think there is a consensus for that criteria: "divisive and inflammatory" is a harsher criteria than that used at the top of this talk page. Still, I'm not going to get in a revert war about it. Physchim62(talk)02:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate that decision on your part. I would not be categorically opposed to the inclusion of such a criterion if it were properly discussed, but CSD categories must have community consensus. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)03:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes consensus means making a change and the community agreeing with it. Not everything needs to be discussed interminably beforehand -- sannse(talk)11:39, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Although I find it very annoying that nobody can tell the difference between "pedophile"(the paraphilia of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent children) and "rapist", I agree with killing this template and any other divisive/politcal templates. The thing is: we don't yet have policy for that, so the TfD should have ran through (it would have been delete anyway). Lets change CSD, and then we can let admins delete on sight, unilaterally.Voice of AllT|@|ESP05:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, this has no place here. People come here to contribute to and create an encyclopedia. This is the sort of thing that shows zero respect to that goal and ignores the disruptive effects some sorts of speech have. I'm pretty sure that anyone in a workplace that hung a "This user identifies as a pedophile" sign in his or her cube would be terminated immediately. The fact that process can keep a template alive longer than it takes to hit the delete button proves once again that IAR has a place. If someones dignity is hurt because they can't identify as a pedophile then I don't know what to say, maybe they need to reconsider why they are here. It's not like a lot of sites, it's got a pretty narrow purpose/goal and there's not the same kind of user rights here than other places. Rx StrangeLove05:31, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm disturbed by your block of Joeyramoney (talk·contribs) for 1 week for what you described as "blatant trolling". I don't see how a userpage joke, even one admittedly in poor taste as this was, can justify a week-long block. He does appear to be contributing to articles, so the account was not created solely for disruptive purposes. Furthermore, I am concerned that this gives more ammunition to individuals who describe as "trolling" any disagreement with them, which is increasingly common on Wikipedia. I'd prefer to see the term "trolling" done away with entirely, as it is inherently uncivil and generally completely subjective. Also, why was User:Phyrex blocked? That account had no edits whatsoever in its history, and unless I'm missing something, I don't see any inappropriateness in the username. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)04:36, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I deleted Phyrex's edits. They were all trolling pedophilia userbox stuff. And I'm sorry, if you think a userpage joke like that isn't blatant trolling, our views on what it means to be writing a serious and high quality encyclopedia must be very different. This was not even a little bit funny. I'm sick of us tolerating such nonsense.--Jimbo Wales05:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it was in poor taste. A 24-hour block for disruption might have been justified given the extent of the arguments all this spawned. I just think a week is excessive and that the specific term "trolling" is not particularly helpful in this context or any other. Incidentally, I do contribute to the encyclopedia a great deal (currently 1101 article edits, mostly within the past two months, and much fewer in most other namespaces). You're welcome to review my article contributions to see if they meet your standards of quality. As for Phyrex, if all he was doing was disruption from the start and no useful article edits, I don't care what happened to him. I'm in favor of giving leeway to actual contributors, given the volunteer nature of the project. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)05:55, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I haven't done an exhaustive review of the users contribs, but a week seems really harsh considering what was said/done. —Locke Cole • t • c05:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Meh...he has 2-3 article edits...and his use trollish of the template lead to serious disruption (partially due to admin incompetence, inability to control emotion/baises, inability to look up the definition of words, and inability to follow process). Let him stay blocked.Voice of AllT|@|ESP05:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
From Karmafist's talk page: "I'm sorry but you've stumbled into me with my hands very full trying to stop people from wheel warring. We do not wheelwar, got it?" OK - if the new edict from Jimbo is "no wheelwars", and this is to be enforced with desysopping (both of which are fine with me - I'm sick of these ridiculous pissing contests) then when can we look forward to the desysoppings of Tony Sidaway and Snowspinner? Along with Karmafist, these are our most prolific wheel warriors on Wikipedia, and it has caused a great deal of strife and disruption. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS)05:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that they'd be desysopped with no chance of reapplication, so "permanent" is unlikely. Some at least are probably temporary, but there is one user at least for whom I think that (re-)granting adminstrative privileges should be considered very carefully before restoral. — Knowledge Seekerদ07:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The idea that Karmafist was an admin was appalling. I agree with Crotalus horridus, though, that for someone like El C to be de-sysopped while someone like Tony Sidaway continues both to wheel-war and to flout community consensus with unilateral deletions and undeletions out of process is worrying. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:02, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Why do these wheel wars happen? We invest admins with powers to act independently, according to their individual judgements, and this system pretty much governs things. Well, the problem is that if someone else disagrees with an admin action, the only effective response is for another admin to undo it. This gets you kind of a Wild West system, with a class of empowered users who are always fighting against each other and also causing problems for ordinary users in the process. Resolution takes the form of a bar brawl or a shoot-out—except that this isn't really resolution at all, because this violence tends to just deepen animosities.
My opinion is that all this is ridiculous. What we need is not a bunch of people making their own decisions and acting on them, and thus getting into endless, daily skirmishes, but for one decision to be made by the whole group, and then acted upon once the decision has been made. Of course, achieving a workable consensus—as nice and ideal as consensus is—among Wild West-style gunslingers is pretty much impossible, and even forming a consensus among mild-mannered people is extremely difficult when you have a whole bunch of them taking part. You need democratically-based decision-making—including, yes, voting, that profane word—that works cautiously, constructively, and reaches a solution that is absolutely binding and cannot be changed without changing the group's mind first. If you decide, like Kelly Martin saying "screw process", to just ignore that and do something contrary to the decision, then your adminship will be removed. Everyking10:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Unblock problem
Hi, Jim; long time, no talk!
Could I ask you to intervene in a technical problem? I had blocked a user named Brainhell for repeated personal attacks. He apologized to me via e-mail and I've since unblocked him.
There seems to be a glitch in the wiki that keeps the IP addresses blocked. This guy keeps hitting a firewall and I keep trying to unblock them as they come up.
Is there really a glitch or is there something that I'm doing wrong? Thanks for your help. I saw the discussion you had with Karmafist and I hope that I haven't reached you at a bad time. - Lucky 6.905:57, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Jimbo, could you elaborate a little on what you want the new CSD to cover? Much of the existing userbox wars have been prolonged by people that can't agree what is divisive/problematic/etc. On one end, there are people (at least a few) who seem to honestly regard templates like "I am a pedophile" or "Israel is a terrorist state" as reasonable self-expression. On the other end, there are people who see "I am gay" or "I am Roman Catholic" as problematic divisions of the community. Hence, it would be helpful if you could articulate some clear guidelines, or at least some general philosophy, for what should stay or go. Perhaps you mean something like: Userboxes should be limited to expressing opinions and affiliations that are unlikely to be offensive to others? Dragons flight06:06, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The way it works on de: apparently is that they only have userboxes for Babel and where you live. Everything else is in userspace. (e.g. note that all the really silly ones on my userpage are actually subst:ed) - David Gerard07:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you!!! so much for the steps you took tonight! These distractions that create disrepute and detract from providing an encyclopedia need to stop, and your selection of one that was clearly over the line was excellent!!! It also confirmed that, unlike the nay-sayers, you will have patience for the community to workout issues, but only if users do intend to discuss rather than leave disrupte in place to prove their point(s). I urge you to make more decisions like these. 205.188.116.13007:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC) anonymous so I don't have to deal with accusations of being a suckup on my talk page :)
Please excuse this intrusion, but it is important for us to know whether you are interested in receiving "Personal Attack block" notifications from admins of non-English Wikimedia projects. Do you find yourself responsible of keeping an eye on projects in other languages as whether everything goes well there and the rules and regulations of local wikies are consistent with en-Wiki Rules? Are you willing to have the right of saying the last word? I think we need a statement on this subject to resolve a conflict in our wiki.
I am requesting that you reconsider your block of User:Joeyramoney for several reasons:
Joeyramoney is a sixteen year old boy. As such, it is definitionally impossible for him to be a 'pedophile' as he is still a minor himself. He was apparently making a joke about wanting to have sex with girls his own age. Tasteless? Yes. See again, "sixteen year old boy".
He had no part in the creation of the userbox and thus should not be judged in connection with that separate dispute.
As of now he has been a Wikipedian for a grand total of six days. In that time he cannot be expected to have learned all of the policies and standards of the community. Especially as this actually wasn't one until just now. At that, there are still user pages where long-standing users with thousands of edits openly support NAMBLA, deny the existence of the holocaust, et cetera. Why does the presence of these views in a little rectangular box transform them from 'free speech' into a bannable offense? Or, if Wikipedia now no longer allows free speech on userpages for 'offensive' topics a clear guide or arbitor to what is being defined as 'offensive' will be needed. In any case, coming down hard on a teenager making a bad joke while taking no action against people who mean it seems disproportionate to say the least.
Contrary to what 'Voice of All' said above, Joeyramoney has contributed beneficially to several pages in his six days here. Indeed, when informed of the objections to the userbox he removed it and continued improving the encyclopedia ([15][16]) until he was blocked again. In the past it was an ironclad principle that blocks were meant to stop ongoing problems, not to retroactively 'punish' people. In this case there was no ongoing problem and your block is serving to prevent a user from contributing positively to the encyclopedia.
Right, sorry. I'm still catching up. There's alot going on here and we'd all be well advised to research more. Again, sorry for being 'out of date' on that. --CBD☎✉17:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
No one has cited any other 'bad act' by Joeyramoney beyond the userbox. You have said that he is 'clearly a troll', presumably based on that one piece of evidence, but every other edit he has made contradicts that conclusion. He has not taken 'trollish' action in any other regard, and a reasonable 'non-trolling' explanation (tasteless joke/sixteen year old boy) exists for the one 'bad act'.
Joeyramoney is not the greatest Wikipedian ever. He made a mistake and offended some people. However, when this was brought to his attention he corrected it and resumed positive contributions. That should count for something. Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this. --CBD☎✉14:59, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
"We don't Wheel War"? You should follow your own advice[17] considering that you were Wheel Warring here, along with violating WP:AGF and WP:BITE. It'd be nice if you did follow your own advice for once, it's fairly good, but it only works if you follow it. I assume after this you'll block me, and make up an excuse to justify it. Karmafist16:43, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry but it is simply not possible for me to wheel war. It's a logical contradiction. I can step in with authority to stop people from abusing their admin powers (such as you reverting my block, something which is Simply Not Done). This is not an anarchy. This is not a democracy.--Jimbo Wales18:45, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
That doesn't answer anything—how is the community run? That's the question. And to Jimbo, my response is to invoke my maxim that anyone who says "Wikipedia is not a democracy" is operating on the basis of authority rather than reasoning, and is therefore almost certainly wrong about whatever is being discussed. You can almost use that rule blindly—if one side says "Wikipedia is not a democracy", then the other side must be right. It's funny, but I've never known it not to be true. Everyking05:01, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
How was me following Wikipedia policies(WP:AGF/WP:BITE) an abuse of admin powers? You're basically saying the best way to uphold policies is to not recognize their existance? What kind of logic is that? And why is disagreeing with you "simply not done"? Tyranny on your part will only result in resentment from others. Karmafist19:10, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and by the way
Since i've also been in the state you're in now, I should mention that we should both step back from this, so i'm going to say what I feel like I need to say in the related RFAR and then step away from it because I know I have a bad temper.
You've created an amazing place here,largely from your dream and ideals but it's beyond you now, it's beyond any of us. Unfortunately, if we forget that and act rashly, we could destroy it. I'll do whatever I can to avoid that, but I can only do so much.
If you'd like to talk about this in a few days, please let me know, i'll e-mail you my phone number. We can prevent having anything like this happen ever again, if you want that. That's what I'd like, because i've fallen in love with this place, but I can move on if I need to. Karmafist17:17, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Are attack userboxes ok? Since a former arbitrator is using them, I think you would want to know and perhaps voice an opinion. --Cool CatTalk|@17:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I think it is in poor taste. It isn't technically a userbox, since it's just raw text in his page, as opposed something in the template namespace. That doesn't make in any less bad taste, but it changes the social tenor of the problem a bit.--Jimbo Wales18:49, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Also some people are complaining about CVU logo (the one that apears on the userboxes) violating wikipedias copyrights, the board has not voiced an opinion aside from having no objections. Can you do something about that. I really feel "wikipedians violating wikipedias copyrights on wikipedia" is an oxymoron. It is perhaps a minor issue but some people are making it a big deal out of it which in my view only achieves to distract people from RC patroling. --Cool CatTalk|@17:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure it could be but the question about how to determine what acceptable mods are remains. Here's another example, as part of the proposed guideline/policy on 3d illustrations, Wikipedia:3D Illustrations, an anaglyphic version of the Commons logo was created: Image:Commons-logo-Anaglyph.svg. It would be used to annotate an article to show that there are 3d images relevant to the article available on Commons, for example Gorilla has been so annotated as there's a 3d gorilla skull image available. it would be nice if this were considered an acceptable use/mod but none of us are quite sure who to ask. Thoughts? Thanks! ++Lar: t/c19:24, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The problem I have is it is few users complaining about copyright guidelines (which did not exist when the image was created). The board made no complaints. I am not sure what part of the images violate wikipedias copyrights. I do not mind image be "fixed" but sadly it is beyond what I can do with photoshop (since I did not create the image). What about the image do you think is inaproporate that should be fixed? Since this is the most watched user talk page, I invite anyone to fix the image based on jimbos comments :) --Cool CatTalk|@00:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Based on some of my conversation with people, these are the stuff people are complaining (many people complain without specifing reasons, I am rather puzzled as I am not sure what they want). My fuzzy logic is below. Tell me what you think :).
Some poeple complain about the text "Wikipedia Foundation" appearing on the image. I believe it is clear all good wikipedians work for the foundation via creating a great free encyclopedia'. I do not personaly see any problem with this as practicaly apears on every userpage (including yours) and it contains the same words. I do not think there is grounds to argue that neither your or my userpage is affiliated with the foundation just because the words "Wikipedia Foundation" apear on the userpage.
One person complained about that the logo should always be surrounded by margins of at least the size of the red circle's diameter. I think the image meets this, is it not?
The CVU logo is a clear derivative work of the Wikimedia Foundation logo. The logo would have to be removed entirely to avoid copyright issues—you can't just modify it. Use of the words "Wikimedia Foundation" are a matter of trademark, not copyright; the pertinent question there would be whether an average person might be fooled into thinking that the users in question were somehow directly associated with the Wikimedia Foundation. I think the answer there is yes, so I'd suggest "Wikipedia" be used instead (that's likely to be interpreted just as a qualifier of where they operate, not an indication of official endorsement), or the bottom text just be dropped.
As for the image, it would seem reasonable for the Board to permit use of the image, but that is a matter for the Board, not just Jimbo. Given that a) every Board member probably has the ability to either directly or indirectly have the images deleted at any time and b) per Angela's statement here they should all know about the images, I think it's safe to say that we have the tacit permission of the Board for now. Avoid copyright paranoia, anyone? —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
True. I can go with replacing "Wikimedia Foundaion" with "Wikipedia". I don't really feel its really necesary but I don't want to deal with it anymore either (so the image will be "polliticaly correct"?)... Indeed people need to avoid copyright paranoia, but as many times as I tell them that they seem to ignore :). People are just perhaps over-protective of wikipedia. ^_^
Granted this is not a matter of just Jimbo, but people are not satisfied with the boards "somewhat" permission (that they did not object). If Jimbo oked/conditional oked the image those people would let go which is ultimately better for the project (rather than endless debates about this image). --Cool CatTalk|@16:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Communication
Given all the recent ocurrences, namely Category:Living people, the userbox comments that led to Kelly Martin's decision to start deleting them [20], the criterion for speedy deletion for templates [21] have you considered perhaps being more communicative with the community. I mean, maybe something like a weekly bulletin from the foundation seems too formal, but to my eye there seem to be a break in the communication between the board and the project. I appreciate the way the setup works, and that there needs to be someone who wields executive power, otherwise there'd be wheel warring and the like constantly, but it'd help if some of these things didn't rain down like thunderbolts from the heavens. I appreciate there's a mailing list, but it's high traffic; isn't there any way some sort of posts on Wikipedia could be made? Steve blocktalk21:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I spend virtually all day every day talking publicly in a wide variety of places with the community. I don't see how I can be "more communicative" frankly. :-) And I do not see how very much that I do could be remotely considered "raining down like thunderbolts from the heavens". A handful of people who are quite frankly trolling have accused me of "banning userboxes" or whatever, when I've basically done nothing other than express a handful of very mild and cautious opinions whenever anyone asks me.--Jimbo Wales00:19, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Fair play; I apologise, I didn't mean to imply you were non-communicative. Why I described actions as appearing to be "raining down like thunderbolts from the heavens" is that your comments sometimes cause big ripples. Perhaps the time difference between you and me enhances that more than the actuality. Ironically, I'm not really communicating myself very well here at all. Fair play, having a weekly statement from you and/or the board is probably impractical and unworkable, but hey, if you don't ask you don't get. Thanks for taking the time to reply in any case. Steve blocktalk13:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Well then I have a question. How are you going to celebrate the 1,000,000th article? What do you think it will be? Thanks! WikieZach 00:25, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Please help out karmafist.
Im sure you probably didnt know this, but Karmafists morale has gone down, and his view of wikipedia is suffering as well. I cant really tell what was going on exactly as Im still abit of a newbie, but as near as I could tell it had to do with you scolding him in some kind of arbitration. Now I understand you are the President, but let me tell you something...No other administrator has helped me out more than karma has. I was recently Blocked For A Fucking Month for and I quote being a persistant jerk'. Thats not the reason he gave under my block but it IS the reason he gave me on my discussion page. As far as the rewriting of garbage articles...Okay maybe the knowing ones disliked the forst article called panty waste about the meaning of the term but it certainly had nothein to with the second article called Panty Waste about the museum. Anyway karma helped me out of that mess. He stood behind me, and helped to get me unblocked. Now Im not sure exactly what Karma is being tossed to the wolves about, but it surely wasnt as bad as telling a newbie he was blocked for a month becuase hes a jerk . I dont know if you read letters from normal people, or if you even care about them, but I do know that karma does...and your project will be poorer if you loose him. I thank you for your time. pickelbarrel21:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hello. You blocked User:Joeyramoney for one week for "blatant trolling," as apparently evidenced by this dif. However, all I see in that dif is him voting "keep" and saying he put it on his userpage for humour. I can see why you might consider this distasteful humour, but alas, you can't block people for making bad jokes. Even if, say, you decided to envoke your godkingship to block him -- which would be perfectly acceptable, since you own Wikipedia -- I'd like to ask you to reconsider. He was just joking around, the template is now delete, and a block has no merit. Thanks, // paroxysm(n)22:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I suspect Joey is being used as a scapegoat here. Even though he really didn't do anything wrong, and he's apologetic nevertheless, and he seems to be a good user, he happens to be new and powerless. The other involved participants are all relatively powerful users. So if you're punishing the others, even if they did do something wrong (and they did), there's this unspoken rule that the powerless user has to be treated most harshly of all, branded a troll, etc. It's really rather disgusting. Everyking05:15, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
After the arbcomm takes a good look and makes a measured decision i am sure Joey will not be banned indefinately; however, this is a good lesson that all teenagers should learn but too many do not. There are some things which you should just not joke about 205.188.116.13012:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Users aren't supposed to be blocked to teach them lessons, they are supposed to be blocked to prevent them harming the project. I believe that Joey can become a good contributor and he would have been able to learn from this experience without any blocks being handed out. Kappa12:59, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Apparently he already was a good contributor, and apparently he already has learned from the experience. Your general argument is correct, but you're implicitly giving Jimbo more credit than he deserves on this. I would rather characterize Joey as a good contributor who made a minor slip-up in an attempt to be humorous. There's no need for even a 1 minute block, much less a week's block. In fact his moderate and apologetic response to the block demonstrates nearly saintly tolerance. Everyking13:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, I leave it in the hands of the ArbCom. There are many different factors to consider here, of course. I think if he's apologizing now and seems ok, there's no problem with lifting it early if the ArbCom decides.--Jimbo Wales15:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
If a user with some good edits, one bad one, and an apology gets blocked for a week...then we must be harder on vandals (with nothing but bad edits and no apologies) in order to be consistant.Voice of AllT|@|ESP15:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Second in command?
Hi Jimbo (and talk page stalkers). I was wondering if there has ever been discussion about who would become chair of Wikimedia should you ever step down, for whatever reason. Mainly I'm just curious about how such a transition would affect Wikimedia/Wikipedia. Would the project survive? Thanks. ~MDD469623:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Hmm...'the chair will cast the deciding vote'. What if the chair is currently an acting member of the board? Or do people get bumped up? — Ilyanep(Talk)03:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Rest easy fellow wikipedians...In the event of Jimbo's untimely departure, Ive decided I will be willing to accept the task of President Of Wikipedia.pickelbarrel06:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo. I would like to appeal to you to overturn the 1 year ban on User:Zen-master which has just been issued [22]. I have a number of concerns about how the procedure by which this user was banned. However, all other considerations aside, I believe the ban to be excessively long for the offences for which he has been accused. Sincerely --BostonMA03:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia-caused suicide
I don't know if this is important, but I want to err on the side of safety here: I removed some uncited material from this article: Jonathan Abrams that implied this individual killed himself over untrue criticism posted on Wikipedia. It may need tending to. I'm not sure where else to post it to get it noticed, and I don't want a swarm of ppl heading there. --DanielCD05:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Can we at least determine whether the person did in fact commit suicide? Presently the article doesn't even mention whether he's dead or alive. Everyking12:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Per Google, apparently he is still alive, which would mean some of this information could prove libellous. I have linked to his website bio. --DanielCD14:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, I just had a great idea how to improve wikipedia but I don't know where else to put it forward. Wouldn't it be amazing if there were an additional "editor's" version of each article where we could highlight individual passages / words in an article & give it thumbs-up or thumbs-down? The overall opinion would then be shown as a colour spectrum from very green (excellent) to very red (crap). Ppl who edit would then immediately know if they edit against the general consensus or not... for example I've seen lots of great passages that are supported by many of us removed without a trace by rogue editors (who edit in good faith though) but who happen to have a different opinion... Rajab12:24, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
I think that would be great Idea in the Controversial topics , actually i have applied a similar idea in the protected pages in ar.wikipedia , so when we wanna protect a page , we make an editable non-formal version for editor's with good Intention and faith , offcource the semi-protection policy was good substitute for this method but it is still necessary in subjects that are so controversial especially the religional and political issues . --Chaos14:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Subjective speedying, etc.
I really, really generally try not to bug you personally, but I'm in a hotly debated issue that you seem to have personally gotten involved in.
I don't know what has caused it, but it seems like WP has shifted into a mode where it has decided that certain POV is bad. It has made it OK to make value judgements on POV in a project that otherwise insists on WP:NPOV. (Why is this? What has caused TPTB at WP to start making qualifications? Is an increase in media attention making objectivity inconvenient?) I hadn't been to WP:CSD in a while and was surprised to find recently that it had grown from its once-objective and beyond-doubt criterion to invite a high amount of subjectivity.
At very least, and I am a staunch anti-censorist (and ever more so, in fact), it would eliminate this arbitrariness and gaping potential for inconsistency if we could define what POV is "bad". Define what is "divisve". Define what is "objectionable" (which, frankly, reminds me way too much of obscenity law, but nevertheless the march is on). And use the consensual process, not the top-down process, to do this.
Another editor asserts he knows best how you think about NPOV policy, and of course (alas) I did the same. So, probably we're both wrong, but your *real* view on the matter would be appreciated, anyhow. --Francis Schonken19:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
Im sorry if I gave you the wring impression as to what I attempting to bring your attention too.
It would seem that you assumed that I was concerned with your oppinion on my block, which I really was not. As my block has already passed it is simply of no concern what you think about it either way...Although if you had been opposed to it, it would have surely benifitted me at the time I was blocked, but that doesnt seem to be the case, so Im glad you weren't involved. What I was actually referring to is the help I was given by karma. He was helping me to become a better editor, and now he's gone. If you look at my contributions you will see that karma was helping to guide my deameanor, as well as my articles. This is one of the many reasons I would like to see his position resumed. As you seem to dislike my previous article I will cease writing them, and study under you until I have mastered this wikipedia stuff, but I would ask that you show mercy on karmafist and bring him back, I realize that is completely up to your whims to do so or not, but I am just asking in the spirit of forgiveness to let him come backpickelbarrel19:33, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
A agree. I do thank Jimbo for unblocking him after his consideration of the circumstances and other users comments. Looks like we are be better off already. Thanks :).Voice of AllT|@|ESP02:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Agree fully, thanks Jimbo! Now if we could convince Radiant! that things aren't as bad as they appear regarding his other concerns, maybe he'd reconsider leaving. —Locke Cole • t • c02:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
WikiThanks! Thank you. We all have bad days sometimes, and it can be hard to be kind and forgiving when you're stressed. It's nice to see that the Jimbo I've come to know and respect is still there, after all. You have my WikiThanks for restoring my faith that this project is still worth contributing to. May this flower brighten up your day a little. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Likewise, and I apologize if i've made things any harder, I just react when I see my fellow Wikipedians(such as Joeyramoney) being treated unfairly when they've made a mistake, because we've all made mistakes in the past. I also apologize if the bad days i've been having in reality recently have caused me to be incivil towards you or anyone else afterwards. I was frustrated, as I have been for the past several months on here, but that's not an excuse to be rude. Please let me know if I can assist you with anything in the future. Karmafist03:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
practicaly apears on every userpage (including yours) and it contains the same words. I do not think there is grounds to argue that neither your or my userpage is affiliated with the foundation just because the words "Wikipedia Foundation" apear on the userpage.