User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Money contribution

(Redacted) Comment posted by ban evader User:CharlieJS13. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.68.56 (talk) 20:50, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I think all you have to do is click the X in the banner once, and it goes away until next year. Maybe you have to do that twice a year (if anybody has better info on this, please let us know!) If the banner threatens you in any way, this is probably the best page to give information on why that is, or how it's threatening to you. The perceived threat will then be removed.

Wikipedia is a non-profit and I believe that its purpose "Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of the world's knowledge in their own language" (roughly) would qualify to most people as being charitable. There are people and corporations that try to use that charitable/nonprofit status for their own ends (see above), but please bear with us on that - many of us are trying to take steps to remove or minimize that problem. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:03, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually - The Wikipedia Foundation IS a non-profit charity, as noted above. Do you see annoying ads running along the left side of your screen? or worse... popup screens? No? That in itself is an even greater reason to give :-)

@SmallBones, maybe on your computer, but when I'm logged out I get the banner all year long. Closing it works for a few days at best. -- Ypnypn (talk) 03:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Ypnypn, that is very strange to the point of being almost impossible. Even for logged out users, the banner appears very very rarely - I believe 5 times per year per cookie. Can you give more technical details so I can ask the fundraising team to look into it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales: Hmmm. The banner appears in my computer almost everytime I visit Wikipedia without logging in. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 00:06, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

My problem was probably that the computer I used had trouble keeping its cookies. Still, this would affect most public computers, such as in libraries. And the banner appears about 1/2 to 1/3 of the time. (Firefox, FWIW) -- Ypnypn (talk) 17:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

@Ypnypn: @Hahc21: We are actually running banners as part of our big December fundraising drive in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. These appear only to logged out users, but they do not have the same cookie restriction to limit the number of appearances as those we had earlier in the year. This is just until we reach our goal, and I'm pleased to say we are well over halfway there. Meanwhile you can of course close the banner with the X in the top right corner, which if your browser accepts cookies will hide all banners for several months. We are also looking into better ways to deal with the few browsers configured to not accept cookies or to clear them regularly. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yeah, these ads are waaay obnoxious, and most of us don't realize it. The problem is, if I'm a) keeping scripts disabled (99% of the time) or b) logged in (99% of the time) [or had a cookie, 10% of the time] then I won't even see the gigantic garish bold-faced banner with yellow highlighting and accompanying crass donation form with payment options. The thing that bothers me the most, looking at it, is that as far as I'm concerned you're advertising PayPal and Amazon on every page of this nonprofit web site! I mean, for example, suppose a recent proposal to accept Bitcoins gets approved. I would bet money (well, at least imaginary virtual codes I make up that I try to get my friends to say are valuable) that the price of Bitcoins would show an actual, measurable increase the moment that their name shows up on that form, inculcating it into the heads of the masses that that is a standard payment option. It might be billions of dollars worth of real imaginary money that appears that day! Anyway, I say nuts to this. Set up a very small, very discreet banner for fundraising that appears as part of the basic no-javascript code so we're all in on it together, not just the outsiders. You can make it bigger if there's an emergency but make it bigger for all and sundry so we know, and instead of putting the names of companies on the form put the financial information to know how much trouble WMF is really having. Wnt (talk) 18:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

If you are interested, there's a huge amount of information out there (perhaps Peter Coombe can give you links) about the A/B testing that the fundraising team have done. These choices were not made casually but are the results of extensive testing. There are several variables to measure and they all interact in complex ways, so I think it's a bit naive to come up with a simple idea like "set up a tiny banner and run it longer" or "put financial information on the form" and expect that it will work. One of the things we have learned is that putting the payment options in the form significantly increases the money raised per page view. One thing we have learned is that putting financial information there is not an effective strategy. I'm very interested in very specific problems that tech can help to solve (the point about library computers brought up above is worth considering) but I think we should continue to advise and support the fundraising team on the general principles (i.e. annoy people as little as possible, raise money as quickly as possible, and balance the tension between the two wisely, seeking every opportunity to do both at the same time) but trust that they are being quite smart about how they go about the details.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:44, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you can find many of our test results at meta:Fundraising 2013. Once this drive is over we're hoping to release a lot more, and also some more detail on previous ones. I do wish we could have a small discreet banner, but unfortunately history has proved that just won't raise enough money. Jimbo is right that putting financial info in the banner has generally not been very successful (although we do include it in the Frequently Asked Questions page for those people who are looking for it). Plus testing shows that people really do like to see the payment methods available, for example many donors already have accounts with PayPal so appreciate the convenience. It's not just PayPal and Amazon, we offer different methods in other countries where they are more popular. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 00:02, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll admit the information looks fairly persuasive - through some combination of having the donation amounts and putting the Paypal and Amazon names out there I think you're getting a CPM of somewhere between $3 and $5, versus an industry average of something like $0.24 if you had something like "drink Coke" in the space and received compensation in cash rather than donor hits. Though I haven't done advertising and that may not be a valid comparison because some people aren't getting multiple impressions? To be paranoid though... are you sure one of these companies didn't know you were doing an A/B test and decide to invest a thousand bucks to make you just think it works so much better to have that data up there?

Fundamentally, I worry about the philosophy here. Is the goal really to put natural selection at the helm, do whatever it takes to get as many donations as possible right now? I have JN466 telling me on my talk page you don't even need the money, and while I seldom see eye to eye with him I have to say, I've seen some chapter proposals receiving funding that I can readily imagine living without. I would worry that if you end up with donor fatigue while getting too accustomed to a maximal operating budget, you could be left in an abruptly untenable position should anything go wrong. (For example, if Google ever decides to stop rating the site highly, or attempts to launch some new Knol to replace it that builds off our present content) So while I understand that maybe the campaign can't be made completely unobtrusive, I just think those company names are a bridge too far. Wnt (talk) 02:58, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, you're talking about efficiency/efficacy, as measured by A-B testing, but the original poster 86 was talking about morality. "It is wrong to badger and threaten people..." What are the keys to the advert? First, it is badger-y. It flash-slides into view, with a bright off-yellow background color. At least they didn't use the blink-tag! Furthermore, it shows up day after day, week after week... and then does it all again, year after year, just like PBS. Second, it contains a clear threat: pay up, or we shut off the server-farm. How much money does a rack of servers cost, if you can get all the tech-skills free, and all the lawyer work pro bono? Btw, you get the same exact basic threat ("we're just a poor non-profit running a top ten website on a shoestring please give today for future upgrades think of the childrenz") in the HTTP 503 *error* messages that happen when the server-farm is overloaded... or when somebody at WMF makes a sysadmin goof. That is begging for charity. 86 thinks wikipedia should not be a charity. The question of how quietly and efficiently the charity runs their begging-operations, and how few days of the year they spam the readers in said efforts, has no bearing. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

new arbitrator?

jimbo don't you think that the wikipeia community looks rather silly when somebody (see the edit summary) like (see the ANI post) that (see the opinion of the WMF employee) gets elected to the arbcom? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.240.32.27 (talk) 17:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Lets reverse the election results since someone unwilling to put their regular username to their comment is unhappy. Resolute 18:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Didn't intend to comment here, after Sir Jimmy Of The Commons deleted an earlier comment, against WP Policy, but this pisses me off me more than 'special rules for special people'. A small portion of active editors (less than 1000) voted in the Arbcom Election and it took a ridiculously long time to tally votes. With such a low number, why not pre-register for votes, (others can still vote later but give the pre-reg option, if 'verification' will take this long) and when registered we have a single use key/token & our votes aren't connected to anyone's later ability to inspect our digital orifices. In addition, require a minimum # of votes passed to see someone elected. If that isn't met, then end the pseudo democracy promo, have WMF take control until a reasonable number of editors cast a vote (for however long that continues). At the moment, the idea that a vote by 900+ editors = democracy = a sad joke. AnonNep (talk) 19:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

AnonNep - the vote was suitably advertised on the watchlist, on AN, Arbcom/N, the signpost, ect. In addition, it has happened every year around this time for nearly half a decade, and the vote lasted for over 2 weeks. If you have a problem with a small portion of active editors voting, then I encourage you to suggest ways we can encourage more folks not to be apathetic to the vote. As far as your other suggestions, we have an annual RFC to determine how the vote will work, this years was at WP:ACE2013/RFC. I encourage you to participate in the next one. Keep your eyes pealed for it around October. It, also, will be advertised on AN, Arbcom/N, and your watchlist.--v/r - TP 19:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, of course it was advertised, I'm not suggesting it wasn't, but the numbers speak for themselves. As a result of that advertising, a small number of editors bothered to vote. New Arbcom are now locked in for all (but one) two year terms. They represent a miniscule of total active editors. That's the problem. AnonNep (talk) 19:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem is motivating editors to vote. It's not a problem that 1000 editors voted, the real problem is that more editors didn't. You can't fix "I don't care".--v/r - TP 19:54, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

There's even a bigger problem with democracy or even with common sense. Only four new arbitrators were elected, which means that most members of the arbcom are acting as jurors, persecutes, executioners and appellant judges at the same time over and over and over again with no end in sight. 69.181.40.174 (talk) 19:58, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, seven "new" arbitrators were elected, constituting about half of the 15-member Committee. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are expecting, AnonNep. There is pretty much nothing else on Wiki(p/m)edia that sees input from 900 editors. Voting in Arbcom elections, like everything else on Wikipedia, is voluntary. You'll never be able to force higher participaton. Resolute 20:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Resolute, I'm not suggesting 'forcing' higher participation but not accepting participation that is so low as a reasonable result. In other words, if the 'encyclopedia that anyone can edit' goes back to WMF staff supervision until interest is such that elections are representative and sustainable then so be it. Why play the charade of so-called 'democracy'? AnonNep (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You're made my argument: Of course 'motivating editors' is a problem because it doesn't matter which way or another if they vote or not. Arbcom requiring a minimum number of editors to vote, or, it's role falls back to WP, wouldn't be such a bad thing. At the moment its lip service to some idea of democracy. BTW, 'I encourage you to suggest ways we' implies that you are part of an established 'in' group and I'm not a member of. Is there a special handshake for the 'we' group? I though we were all editors' here? AnonNep (talk) 20:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You're relatively new, so may be unaware that a WMF take-over is a non-starter for many reasons, including legal, so let's take that off the table. What other solutions do you propose? Typically admins get the bit with 100 or so supports. 900 is quite a few. I'm not yet convinced you have even identified a problem, but if so, what solution?--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, it is easy to never come in contact with Arbcom, so it probabely does not matter to that many. Of the tens of thousands of editors, how many over the years have been involved in an Arbcom matter 50, 100, 200, 300? (I guess we can add the 700 admins to "care" about arbcom, but they might also never be involved there). It is somewhat remarkable that "oppose" and "neutral" get more votes then "support", but it just suggests how irrelevant these arbitrators or arbitrations are to most. That is probabely a good thing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think there are many reasons why the turn out was so low, not the least of them IMO is the communities growing concern/discontentment with the Arbcom and the process of Arbitration. It takes too long and the end result more often than not punishes all parties involved giving the impression that Arbcom is only setting an example. These days when an Arb filing is "approved" an increasing number of editors just leave because they know that is going to happen anyway. Because they don't accept a case unless there is guilt. Then if you do stay,you have to deal with constant harassment and nitpicking by admins who associate anything that want to the "broadly construed" language. More often than not the accused gets submitted to AE by the opposite party in the disagreement that started the Arb filing in the first place which essentially leads to an I have to get them before they get me mentality. In the end, the arbitration process and the arbitration committee are, along with the RFA process, Visual editor and the gradual degrading of the editing environment, a primary reason for the decline of Wikipedia. If Jimbo and the WMF want to stem the tide of editors leaving, they need to start at the top and work their way down. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

S Philbrick: Oh, shucks, silly little 'new' me! I'm not suggesting a WMF takeover, I'm suggesting there needs to be a minimum number of verified votes for a legitimate Arbcom election based on total active users, and, if it doesn't meet the mark, then it runs again until it does (assuming WMF as caretaker). (Then again, if active participation, in what passes for Wikipedia 'democracy', continues to run at such miniscule levels then maybe WMF should end the experiment and take over. It couldn't be worse than a pretense at representation.) AnonNep (talk) 21:06, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

S Philbrick is saying that even your suggestion isn't possible. Wikimedia would lose its "Service Provider" status and become a "Content Provider" which would have serious legal repercussions. They simply don't have the budget to be a "Content Provider". Being a service provider offers WMF certain protections against libel and copyright lawsuits. Right now, WMF can be reactive and wait for problems to be identified. They required to make a modest attempt to be proactive. However, if they became a content provider, they are immediately liable for everyone on Wikipedia. Just not feasible for a project like this. No, the WMF is never going to be more hands on than it is now. This is our problem and we have to deal with it.--v/r - TP 21:29, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

More at this blog post by legal counsel--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, when you said have WMF take control I thought you meant that the WMF should take control. Instead you meant...well, I don't know what else you might have meant. As for being new, that wasn't an insult; sorry you took it that way.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Why the references to "democracy"? Maybe WP:NOTDEMOCRACY needs more prominence.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I could have accepted Wikipedia not being democracy, but the thing is that not only Wikipedia isn't democracy, but it arbitration process and so called community banning look more like North Korea's practices. When somebody is discussed for such a harsh punishment as the community ban, at the very least this somebody should be given an opportunity to defend himself/herself, should he not? Many people have been denied this basic human right here on Wikipedia. Where else, but on Wikipedia trials like that are allowed? I did find another place with such practices. It was described in 1984 by George Orwell: "A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic." "vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture", what a great description of the community bans proceeding! 69.181.40.174 (talk) 21:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

This is not North Korea. Jang Song Taek would've been happy to be "Community banned". Godwin's Law, my friend.--v/r - TP 22:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

In case of anonymous users you might be right, but in case of named persons the dirty art of character assassination could be worse than the physical killing. 69.181.40.174 (talk) 22:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, how about when I said have WMF take control I mean't exactly that: not a legalese suggestion, not an end of discussion disruption, but just what I wrote. If Arbcom elections show such minimal engagement of editors, such pathetic numbers, a total pretense of representative democracy, then pass control to WMF until minimal engagement is achieved. What is more concerning is TParis's contribution: 'nothing can be done' which suggests that Arbcom numbers can decline from 900s, to 600s, to 300s, to 100 or 20 people but nothing would be done because 'Wikimedia would lose its "Service Provider" status and become a "Content Provider" which would have serious legal repercussions'. Does anyone really believe that WMF won't act until the 'cheese stands alone'? AnonNep (talk) 21:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Have you seen other Wikipedia's of other languages? Wikipedia uses volunteer editors as much as possible. The Stewards and Meta wikipedia have to take over for other languages who cannot support an Arbcom. If Wikipedia lost it's service provider status, the project would be completely over. It couldn't be sustained financially, independently, or realistically. So yes, they will indefinitely stay hands off. At most, they will offer kind words of encouragement like Sue Gardner and Philippe often do. But you will never ever ever see WMF get involved in content without being legally obligated because of a copyright of libel claim. You're talking about millions of dollars, boards, and big business. It doesn't change just because editors don't get along or not enough editors !voted. The realistic circumstance, if we only have 20 voters, is that Jimbo will resume his original role in Arbcom by appointing Arbitrators.--v/r - TP 22:00, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

So, to you, its a pretense of a vote, a joke, that could involve less and less editors, and there will only be an end to it when 'Jimbo will resume his original role in Arbcom by appointing Arbitrators'? Why is any less of a pretense now? Where are the guidelines that set out when that number is hit? Does WMF decide what that number is? Who does? Or aren't editors allowed to know? AnonNep (talk) 22:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, which is it? When I suggested you meant for the WMF to take control, you objected. When I pointed out that's what you said, you now claim you mean it. You act like 900 is a problem, but other than merely assertion, you haven't explained why. As Alanscottwalker suggested, if you add the active admins to everyone ever involved in a case, you still probably don't have 900, so that may be a decent number. If it drops significantly, it might become a problem, but it will be a community problem, not a WMF problem. Why are you so insistent on a non-feasible solution to a problem you've dreamed up?--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Please don't write my words for me (I did try to make this point earlier, perhaps, in trying to be polite, I was too subtle?). Let me restate, once again, I objected to the low level of participation in the recent Arbcom elections and expressed my view that if participation continues to be low, as a percentage of editors, I'd prefer to see if taken over by WMF (that it would even be preferable to see it taken over if participation remains so low). The 'ohmagawd! ohmagawd!' WMF has too much work, its a legal issue, they're scared of spiders, they went on vacation in 2006, arguments are all well and good (if you're of a certain view) but my position was, 'if Arbcom elections are a mess who steps in other than WMF?'. Rather than me suggesting 'non-feasible' solutions, to problems I've 'dreamed up', I'm grounded in pragmatism. The answer to 'what happens next?' shouldn't be 'Shhh! Shhh!'. AnonNep (talk) 23:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Responded at your talk page.--S Philbrick(Talk) 00:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

When you're talking 900 voters for Arbcom, you're talking an easily manipulated election for anyone who knows how to 'do the numbers'. Its less than co-ordinating votes for some US High School elections. If this is where en:WP is, what happens next? Any PR company, with a brain will start embedding accounts, to see they have adequate edit counts, for the next Arbcom, if they haven't already. What then? Where does it go? Who steps in & picks up the pieces? Why can't this question be even asked? AnonNep (talk) 00:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. The most important protection is to reduce ArbCom's power. They must not be allowed to become de facto policymakers, and though taking on the role of a judge, they should defer actual verdicts to a jury system. Wnt (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

It's worth noting that there aren't all that many Wikipedians around that make more than 100 edits a month (in fact it's likely that the number is smaller, since many active editors also have (perfectly legitimate) alternate accounts). The subset of those who ever come into contact with Arbcom or care much about it is probably much smaller still. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 16:27, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree that Arbcom and the Admins who domain over AE have too much power. I have stated multiple times in the past that I stronly beleive this is one of the main reasons for Wikipedias decline. Volunteer editors don't want to be subjected to an iron fist, so they leave and go elsewhere like Wikia or find lives in the real world.

There are several reasons why the numbers of editors with over 100 edits are low including: a large percentage of those are admins who also do log entries that aren't counted in that table, those who are very active tend to attract more attention and either become admins or get run off due to hounding, More bots are doing more things so there are less minor edits and another critical reason is we block about 4% of the entire internets IP's. This includes schools, libraries and even entire government organizations (the entire US navy IP range was blocked for over a year). If we want to increase the number of edits being made we have to also accept there will be an associated increase in vandalism. Its just a fact of life. Blocking every IP, protecting all the articles and even making it so that you have to create an account to edit will help reduce vandalism but we also must expect a significant associated drop in meaningful and useful edits. That is way there are so few with over 100. I myself routinely did 8000 - 10, 000 edits a month and sometimes more. But I stopped because I got tired of being told my contributions and dedication to the project weren't wanted or needed and that I couldn't be trusted. So now I only comment in discussions occassionally and generally then only as an IP. So if people really want to increase editing, they need to start addressing the problems with Arbcom, RFA and abusive admins. In the end though we are just kidding ourselves thinking anything will be done. Jimbo probably hasn't even read this thread and probably just thinks were a bunch of disgruntled editors. He is blind to the real goings on in the project and at this point I don't think he really cares anymore....which I find to be a shame. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 17:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

At Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee_Elections_December_2013#novel_proposal I suggest that the community well ought to discuss precisely what it thinks are the proper criteria for any future committee members, as that would likely affect the choices for any electoral changes. Collect (talk) 16:56, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I sure as heck would have opposed @Beeblebrox were I aware when these elections were (and looked instead to someone running on a transparency platform which they showed consistency with by disclosing their legal name). If only it was just a matter of not being "civil" in this individual's case. Instead I get informed about stuff like the WMF privacy policy where there's hardly anything to have a difference of opinion over. I am supposed to routinely wade through the enormous number of new posts on WP:AN? Maybe if one of the people who jumped in when I was protesting to tell me that Beeblebrox's oversighting behaviour is by definition not reviewable by the community because oversighting is not reviewable had added "by the way, the body in charge here is ArbCom [which I knew], and ArbCom gets elected every late November/early December [which I didn't know]" then I would have been on the look-out for the opportunity to have some input into who is basically my boss on Wikipedia. Sure, most editors never encounter this "boss" but those of us who do should be routinely advised of when and how those people acquired their powers. I remember telling an ArbCom member that I was interested in running for ArbCom myself just in order to get an issue thrown into the "campaign" and simply being told I was not eligible.--Brian Dell (talk) 19:44, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Incivility by itself would not have been such a big problem, but being uncivil, getting blocked and run to complain to the WMF about bad meta admins,it is really something.69.181.40.174 (talk) 21:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Brian, I call "nonsense" to your claim that anyone told you that you were not eligible to run for Arbcom. There is not a single arbitrator on the committee at present, or in the past, who would have told you that, because you most certainly were eligible to stand as a candidate. Arbcom is absolutely not your "boss" on Wikipedia; its scope is very narrow, and it has nothing to do with routine editorial activities. The notice inviting candidacies was on the watchlist from the day candidacies opened until the day they closed. The notice inviting votes was there from the time the polls opened until they closed. There was also a notice on several noticeboards. You also could have watchlisted the redlink for the election (the key pages are always named according to the same pattern) - in fact, why don't you redlink next year's election now? And please leave feedback about your difficulty in finding out about the election in the appropriate forum. Risker (talk) 21:41, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

@Risker: Even if they didn't tell them flat out they are ineligible, in the current atmosphere a non admin is never going to get elected to Arbcom. So since he is not an Admin, he wouldn't be "eligible" and running would just be a waste of time. I also call fowl that they do not interfere in routine activities. There are several sanctions (the Tea party one is a good example) where the broadly constued wording could easily snare an editor. Especially if you aren't an admin it won't be long until you end up getting a warning or a block. The Arbcom never seems to follows up on the cases to see the disasters they create. If they did they would see the problems they are creatign to fix the problems, particularly with using the overly vague broadly construed (meaning an admin has unlimited discretion to do as the wish) wording. Personally I thougth there was ample notification but if an editor doesn't log on frequently and doesn't pay attention to the multitude of spam banners that are thrust upon the community I coudl see where it could be missed. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 21:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

There's a gulf of difference between "eligible" and "guaranteed to succeed", as every candidate in the current election was well aware. There are no guarantees of the results, ever. Last year, two incumbents succeeded and two did not: so being an incumbent doesn't guarantee success. Lots of administrators did not succeed, so being an administrator does not guarantee success. I honestly can't say why the community has yet to select a non-administrator; there have been several good candidates over the years, although as a group they do tend to have a lower profile. No, Bdell was certainly eligible to run. But there was no guarantee he would win a seat. Risker (talk) 22:00, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh please, your just sugarcoating it. Your right that no one is guaranteed a seat but and yes, by the rules he could run, but lets be realistic, even most admins can't get elected so the chances that a non admin are going to get a seat are so low its a statistical anomaly. I for one honestly have no doubt that an Arb told them they are ineligible just based on the non admin status. Its just not realistic and the ones who might be able to pass are smart enough to stay away. Its the same problem with RFA, its so broken that people don't even want to attempt it. So if they can't get access to the tools because the RFA process is broken they surely are not going to become an Arb. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 22:18, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

So, 138.162.8.58, what your saying is that because 900 people chose of their own free will how they wanted to vote and didn't elect a non-administrator that you must know best and want to supervote them? A vote is a vote. No one controls it. If the community decides not to elect non-administrators, then they won't get elected. That doesn't make them ineligible. You're inventing a problem just so you can rail against Wikipedia. It's not a club that decides non-admins do not get to 'win'. It's a clear and fair vote. The community has decided this year not to elect a non-admins. Whether the status of admin played a role in their choice, you'd have to ask each voter. But you don't get to blame anyone that your preferred choice wasn't picked by the community. A bunch of voters not knowing how each other voted and of their own free will made a choice. We're sticking with it. Everyone has a fair shot, everyone in the Arbcom vote is equal as far as the vote is concerned. It's the voters that you have to convince. So focus your efforts toward them, write an essay.--v/r - TP 22:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Calm down, calm down, no thats not it at all. What I am saying is that the notion that a non admin will ever be elected to Arbcom is a joke and a misnomer. Your not kidding me or anyone else trying to prove otherwise. I was also happy with most of those that got selected and most of those that didn't shouldn't have...with a couple exceptions. What I am saying though is that this place will never promote a non admin to Arbcom. Never...but it should. As for the 900 voters I would be willing to bet that a large amount of them were admins. Probably around 300-400. The reason that editors won't vote for a non admin is that there is this myth in the community that editors who aren't admins can't be trusted. That's why we had to split out all these Admin functions like Rollback, filemover and template editor rather than give them the tools they need to do the job. Because we don't trust our editors. You don't have to beleive me, its a fact and evident throughout the project. There is this incorrect notion that being an admin grants you some divine knowledge about the universe or something. The fact is there are a lot of admins I don't trust to edit let alone be admins (but we're stuck with them...forever) and there are a lot of non admins I think would do great as an admin or Arb. Most of which won't run BTW for a variety of reasons. So in the end the gulf between editors and admins continues and Arbcom will probably continue to be a drain on resources with no tangible return. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 22:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Wait, we are making it easier for non-admins to have previously admin-only tools because we don't trust non-admins? That doesn't quite make sense. LFaraone 00:41, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

No the only reason why these tools are being split off is because 1) there is too much work for too few admins, 2) because too many of the admins lack the technical skills required to do many of the changes that need to be done and 3) because by doing this you reduce the number of people who have the title and powers of "admin". Its all the same tired arguments, we can't possibly give them the tools, that would give them access to the block button. If we trusted our editors giving them the tools would be and should be no big deal. But since we don't we have to design these work arounds just because there is no trust. Just to clarify, I am an advocate for modularizing the tools so more people can participate but that is because I recognize there is no trust left in this project and the only way to get enough people the tools they need is to break them up. This promoting 1 or 2 admins a month while desysopping 5-10 isn't going to work for long. Kumioko (talk) 02:44, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Two comments here. 1) To @Risker re "nonsense" that "anyone told you that you were not eligible to run for Arbcom", on August 26 I inquired about what it would take to get on WP:AUSC, which is an "Audit Subcommittee... composed of three arbitrators selected by the Arbitration Committee and three community members appointed by the Committee..." You didn't tell me that I was ineligible for appointment as one of the three "community members" because I was not an admin and leave open the possibility that I could become one of the three arbitrators, you implicitly ruled out becoming an arbitrator as well by telling me flatly "You cannot stand for the AUSC..." Now maybe there is a technicality in there such that what I was told can be ultimately rendered consistent with my standing for ArbCom. My point was that telling people what they can't do in terms of having input seems to be a higher priority than telling people what they can do.
2) 138.162.8.58 mentions "the gulf between editors and admins". This summer I noticed ArbCom was telling people seeking to provide input to a case to first consult a page that declared "Wikipedia is a cluocracy.... Passing an RfA indicates a user has Clue.... non-admins do not have Clue." It took me complaining about it to get ArbCom to un-endorse "non-admins do not have Clue." Take a look at "Admin views on their power to block long term productive content builders" here which features a photo of someone using machinery at a landfill captioned "An admin using admin tools and a retinue of admin wannabees tidy the remnants [generated by] content builders". Yet what usually happens to ordinary "content builders" who get "boss"ed by the many admins with this attitude? Get put back in their place by ArbCom is what. ArbCom rarely desysops, and if they do, when I've seen it it's been for something that violates the internal code like failing to keep a secret.--Brian Dell (talk) 01:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The caption meant what it said, "An admin using admin tools and a retinue of admin wannabees tidy the remnants of content builders", and not "An admin using admin tools and a retinue of admin wannabees tidy the remnants [generated by] content builders". --Epipelagic (talk) 03:12, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Bdell, I think you might be confusing Arbcom and AUSC. AUSC is a separate committee, made up partially of (already-in-office) arbitrators and partially of (not-arbitrator) community members. Standing for AUSC is not the the same as standing for Arbcom, and being appointed to AUSC would not make someone an arbitrator. If I recall correctly (and I very well might not, I'm dredging this up from the bottom of my brain), the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't allow non-administrators to be appointed to AUSC because the AUSC-appointment process is just that, an appointment by Arbcom, rather than a community consensus-reaching, which is what the WMF requires for people to get access to advanced toolsets. If I'm remembering that correctly, it would be 100% accurate to say that a non-administrator is not eligible to stand for AUSC, but is eligible to stand for election to Arbcom (because the WMF legal eagles have determined that being voted onto arbcom is the equivalent of community consensus as far as the right to handle advanced tools). I don't think you were given misinformation so much as you conflated two somewhat-related positions that have different qualification criteria. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 01:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

If it's true that arbitrators cannot serve on AUSC unless they are also admins then, yes, what I was told did not rule out my standing for ArbCom and taking on arbitrator responsibilities that exclude monitoring of Oversighters. This is actually a relevant question to this thread. Beeblebrox tells another editor "FUCK OFF YOU PETTY FASCIST IDIOT" in an edit summary. Later, this gets Oversighted (or at least hidden from anyone who isn't an admin) since, after all, do the voters in this election need such information about the candidates? Of course not! Who oversighted this? Beeblebrox himself? Who knows? While the rest of us have our usernames signed to our edits, oversighters enjoy true anonymity and aren't subject to community review anyway should the community happen to figure out who did it! Oversighters answer only to AUSC and, subject to getting what, a half dozen people (also on ArbCom) to agree with him, can appoint himself and his friends to oversee his own anonymous, unchallengeable (by anyone else) oversighting. All that we need now is for our constitutional monarch Jimbo to give the nod tomorrow and it all becomes official.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I should clarify here that @Beeblebrox is not the worst offender in my books for keeping Wikipedia's secret world secret. There are some up there in the ArbCom/AUSC/Oversighting complex who are yet more in favour of private deliberations, oversighting (erasing) public logs, and engaging in other actions without community transparency.--Brian Dell (talk) 02:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Non-admin arbitrators can serve on AUSC. However, non-arbitrator non-admins cannot, because being on AUSC as a non-arbitrator is an appointment, not a community election. The WMF statement confirming that non-admin arbitrators would be able to be given access to the CheckUser and Oversight tools can be found here. Re the other concern, you can see the entry in the deletion log that corresponds to the same period as that edit, see [1]. The content was revision deleted, not suppressed (or removed using the Oversight extension). LFaraone 03:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

"You cannot stand for the AUSC" was therefore not accurate, since I could, in theory at least, serve as a non-admin arbitrator. Anyway, looks like Beeblebrox should give Risker another Barnstar, this time the Eraser Barnstar.--Brian Dell (talk) 04:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't know why some are so insistent that a non admin arb is possible. Its not even if the rules don't specifically disqualify an individual from doing it the culture here won't allow it. So continuing to labor over the delusion of a non admin arbitrator having the ability of doing X, y or z is mute. Even if they did they would still be a second class citizen because they didn't get access to the tools through the traditional means. Frankly I don't think most if any admins or Arbs would want a non admin on the committee anyway. Kumioko (talk) 04:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

There are a number of non-administrators who I would have been happy to serve on the Committee alongside with. I am confident that at least a majority of the Committee felt the same way. I supported one non-administrator in WP:ACE2012, and I gave reasons for opposing every non-administrator candidate who I opposed in 2013, 2011, and 2010. You get me a experienced non-administrator whom I like for the job and I will be happy to support them in 2014, but don't be surprised if I end up nominating them for RfA simultaneously. NW (Talk) 16:12, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

That's all the more reason not to do it. Applying to either is a time consuming process but doing both at the same time would likely lead to burnout and would be a waste of the communities time. Yes there are some that would vote for a non admin, I would certainly vote for one but the us and them mentality between many admins and editors is just too great to let that occur. There was a time when I would have run for Arb myself but the more I learn about the process the more I think its more harm than good to the project. At this point I think it would e better just to close Arbcom down and deal with the problems of not having an Arbom process. Besides that and regardless of what the rules state most voters probably think (this vote included) that its a requirement to be an admin. That is certainly a reasonable argument, if they aren't an admin why would I trust them with all these tools. You may as well change the rule to state you have to be an admin to run, cause its an unwritten rule anyway. Especially now that Jimbo has resigned his tools to the mist below this hole project is just going to continue to decline. I think I stopped editing at a good time because at this point my feelings are its just inevitable for the projects failure. My guess is the next year or 2 will be it for the project. Kumioko (talk) 17:54, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a disease of coming up with increasingly elaborate bureaucratic make-work that has to be done, until not enough people want to do it, at which point we have to be satisfied with what we can get. For example, I recently did some arguable trolling about WP:ACC, which apparently is backlogged for people. The joke is, there's essentially no reason for people to need help creating an account, if people weren't so eager to come up with a security mechanism against impersonation then poke it full of holes, to push "schoolblocks" as a helpful measure then look to allow kids through them, etc. We just don't need it. And if we had a good jury system and less desire for mostly ineffective bans against editors, we might not need ArbCom either. Wnt (talk) 01:49, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

User:Wifione

There was a discussion about this here a while back that got a bit heated. I'd like to restart that conversation primarily by asking people to post a neutral summary of what is known and not known. I'd appreciate Wifione commenting here as well.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Any neutral summary of what is known and not known should probably begin with this 2010 complaint, so that parties could become familiar with what was contentious about Wifione's editing. - 2001:558:1400:10:1073:3733:209:EABC (talk) 18:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Wifione has hidden content on his Talk page. Wifione has modified the IIPM article to indicate that Careers 360 (critical of the IIPM) is "poor in quality and shady new yellow journal that keeps doing illogical and brazenly false stories about IIPM", while simultaneously underscoring the IIPM's position that "it is an academically independent and autonomous body". Wifione removed information about how an IIPM legal suit against its critics at Careers 360 was dismissed by the Dehradun High Court. Wifione also removed sourced information that "Berkeley Haas school has asked IIPM to stop using the Berkeley logo on its websites and marketing material, and has asked IIPM to correct the language in the ads to clarify that participants will not get any credits from Berkeley." Wifione spent considerable time writing about a competitor to IIPM, but devoting approximately half of the content to a fraud controversy suffered by the competitor and the school. Wifione similarly worked to discredit another IIPM competitor. I hope this presents a neutral summary of how Wifione's editing seems to repeatedly take a pro-IIPM and an anti-IIPM-competitor viewpoint. - 2001:558:1400:10:4106:61B2:CFD:FA47 (talk) 16:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Lest it be objected that these links are old, here are some more recent examples. On 24 January 2013 Wifione removed commendatory reference to Amity University with the comment "removed fluff piece references". On 21 February 2013, he removed "It has been alleged that IIPM engages in misleading advertising practices". As recently as August 2013 he removed information about a police case with the comment ("get multiple high quality sources for this exceptional claim"). The source was Times of India, which said: "In past few days several students have raised their voice against the institute's management in the city. They also sat on protest outside the institute demanding refund of fees, said reports." And in November 2013 he added disparaging information to the page about Amity University, a competitor to IIPM. - 2001:558:1400:10:4106:61B2:CFD:FA47 (talk) 21:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Well those are certainly very poor edits, and they certainly do not meet my expectations of what Admin editing behavior should be like. But isn't the allegation that he has a specifically financial conflict of interest? What is the evidence for that?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:26, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Would anything less than a payslip or a P60 suffice? The issue here is that for several years an admin has removed any reference that things are quite wholesome in the "State of Denmark", that such references were and are legitimate is provided by a recent court decision that all advertising by the IIPM has to be court approved. John lilburne (talk) 16:05, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Would the advocacy Wifione is engaging in here be qualitatively better or worse depending on if he's being paid for it? I'm not sure it makes so much different in the end, though I would normally have said that the normal policies (NPOV, V, RS, etc.) would do the trick. In this case an (apparently popular) admin has been engaged in fairly "poor edits" for years, without trouble. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 02:09, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

"...isn't the allegation that he has a specifically financial conflict of interest?" No, that is not the allegation. Let's just stick with what was alleged: that the administrator is making very poor edits, consistently to advocate a position in support of IIPM and against IIPM's competitors. Many Indian members of the Wikipedia community are dismayed by Wifione's editing history, so I am frankly a bit surprised that they have not weighed in here. Jimbo, do you think you could ask one or more of the India-focused WMF "outreach" staff to look into this, so that they might encourage some of the top India-based editors to comment? - 2001:558:1400:10:403F:8A37:AA72:A9AB (talk) 18:27, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

In March 2012, I asked something similar User:Tinucherian, a respected member of the community and another Indian admin. "I discussed this with some other admins and active Wikipedians. Nobody wants to fight this case. The alleged institution has an infamous history of suing individuals for insane amounts, that too at the courts in the remotest parts of the nation. I did also inform some of the members of Arb Com. They feel that there is no credible evidence as such", he responded. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 08:12, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

While not confirming a paid relationship an IP belonging to IIPM did revert the blanking of Wifione's user page within two hours of it occurring. Either that was Wifione editing from IIPM or someone from IIPM was keeping a close eye on Wifi's user page. In both cases it suggests a close relationship between Wifi and IIPM.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• I've notified the two editors who had previously opined on this subject. Coretheapple (talk) 22:32, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for notifying me, Coretheapple. Regarding the questionable editing pattern of Wifione I can only refer to my previous post on the subject (it is a big one including lots of diffs, so I won't bother reposting it). And yeah, the IIPM IP connection linked above, as well as this weird edit accidentally revealed, is pretty damning, and was seemingly only a small part of a [[long history of that editor using revdel or getting other admins to revdel innocous edits in order to hide past history for seemingly frivolous reasons. --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Just passing this along, since you wanted evidence:

After Wifione's careful attention the section on Careers 360 now reads on 11:05, 2 February 2012:

In 2009, IIPM filed a criminal defamation charge against Careers 360. According to Arindam Chaudhuri, Honorary Dean of IIPM, the courts in February 2010 had admitted IIPM's defamation cases against Outlook and Careers 360. In May 2010, the court upheld that the contents of the Careers 360 article were "prima facie defamatory" and issued bailable warrants against Maheshwar Peri, publisher Careers 360 and Outlook, and Mahesh B Sarma, editor of Careers 360 magazine. In September 2011, the Delhi High Court dismissed a petition filed by Outlook Publishing Private Limited and Maheshwar Peri, publisher of Outlook and Careers 360, and "upheld the order passed by the metropolitan magistrate" with respect to a criminal complaint filed by IIPM's sister concern, Planman Consulting India Pvt Ltd. The Delhi High Court held Outlook Publishing Private Ltd, publisher Maheshwar Peri, Outlook editor Vinod Mehta and other petitioners (except the Directors of Outlook) "prima facie liable for publishing [the] derogatory and defamatory article."

Maheshwar Peri is particularly upset about this, given the way it misrepresents the chronology, and the legal judgments themselves.

It's striking that there's yet to be any comment whatsoever from User:Wifione. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 00:16, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The editor real lifed from 6 Dec 2012 to 8 Jan 2013, so why is surprising they're doing so again now? NE Ent 03:47, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The editor had a lot of chances to explain the situation but he didn't. He was active in the meantime. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 08:35, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I commented on this on several occasions previously, thanks for notifying me, Coretheapple. I don't think it is important whether Wifione edited for money or not, the problem is that in articles about educational institutes in India he knowingly tried to put some organizations and people into bad light while on the other hand he quietly promoted interests of others. The articles in question are: Indian Institute of Planning and Management (+ Arindam Chaudhuri, director of IIPM Think Tank) and its competitors, Indian School of Business and Amity University (+its founder and president Ashok Chauhan), the most frequently edited main space pages by Wifione. The difference and unfair bias is clearly visible when you check Wifione's edits to the articles Arindam Chaudhuri and Ashok Chauhan (my analysis here), but it is possible to continue - others did that above and in the previous note on this page and I can only elaborate further. Not long ago I proposed here to completely ban Wifione from editing articles on education in India, but - speaking strictly for myself - I also think that this editor is untrustworthy as an administrator on this project. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 08:35, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Closing useless discussion which is off-topic.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:19, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The wagons were circled a week or so ago. I don't think you're on the inside this time, Jimbo. Wifione isn't worried about what you know or think, so he'll probably not comment. The horses are long gone from the barn. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:25, 16 December 2013 (UTC) Clearly Jimbo makes a distinction between advocacy and paid advocacy, for reasons that entirely escape me, and he obviously hasn't thought through the issue in his usual careful and thoughtful way. Isn't the problem simply advocacy? Eric Corbett 18:48, 19 December 2013 (UTC) Just to clarify that in case it seems like snark: a few rounds ago (weeks or months, I don't keep track), you (Jimmy) scolded an admin who admitted to doing some paid editing. He was vindicated on WP:AN, and there were no consequences for violating your edicts. You're absolutely correct about the need to counter paid editing with policies, but (AGF) you don't seem to understand that your "simple solutions" simply aren't going to fly with the people who actually manage Wikipedia. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC) I'll concur that those of us who want to curb paid editing in a meaningful way are in the minority. Coretheapple (talk) 22:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC) How do you draw that conclusion?--S Philbrick(Talk) 22:49, 16 December 2013 (UTC) From participating in numerous paid editing discussions and seeing each policy proposal shot down in flames. I'm in that minority, by the way. Just recognizing reality. Coretheapple (talk) 22:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC) I think the majority is concerned. My point is that it's a vanishingly small minority (especially of admins) that are buying into the bright line rule that Jimbo insists is already working. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:54, 16 December 2013 (UTC) There's been no consensus for any policy proposal. When the !votes come in, they are overwhelmingly opposed. I have not sensed any overwhelming concern, but rather the opposite. See [2] Coretheapple (talk) 22:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC) By that logic, there are a minority of editors who think RfA reform is needed, because proposals for change are shot down. I've made proposals for reform that have not been enacted, but I do not conclude from that experience that a minority of editors feel some changes are needed. My guess is that there are a minority of editors who fully embrace your preferred solution while there may be a larger number of editors who want to curb paid editing in a meaningful way.--S Philbrick(Talk) 00:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC) I'd be more optimistic if the opposition wasn't so intense. Coretheapple (talk) 00:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC) I'm not so sure about that, Corethe. You may be right. Specific proposals have been made to do with banning and restricting paid editors and these proposals have been shot down. But Philbrick may also be right. Analogy: not everyone who favours the legalisation of recreational drugs does so because they believe that the authorities should take absolutely no action. Formerip (talk) 00:50, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Bright Line Rule not adopted by WMF staff?

Jimbo, I believe that your Bright Line Rule is sometimes difficult for people to get accustomed to, although you have said that it should be "easy" to follow. You've maintained this position since at least the first half of 2012. Has your message not been transmitted yet to the Wikimedia Foundation staff? I ask because Visual Editor is a product being co-developed by the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikia. Yet, several WMF employees and affiliates are directly editing the article about that product. For example, here is the WMF staff member serving as the community liaison to answer questions and report problems with the transition to Visual Editor, directly editing the article. And here is the Treasurer of Wikimedia Australia, directly adding a reference link that could have easily been proposed on the article's Talk page. (By the way, his wife is also a WMF chapter official with Wikimedia Indonesia, and she seems to not understand your Bright Line Rule on her User page, saying: "naturally I will edit about Wikimedia Indonesia and it's (sic) effort".) And here is Victor Grigas, the paid "storyteller" for the Wikimedia Foundation trying to squeeze his own promotional video into the article. Why wasn't the inclusion of the video first discussed on the Talk page? This is supposed to be "easy". If you expect the Bright Line Rule to be adopted by politicians, industrial companies, and public relations firms, don't you think that you should emphasize to the WMF staff that they also need to be leading by example? The next time you visit the WMF headquarters, I think you should gather the staff for an "all hands" meeting of about 10 or 15 minutes, to convey to them the importance of the Bright Line Rule. - 2001:558:1400:10:4106:61B2:CFD:FA47 (talk) 15:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The bright line rule reminds me of zero tolerance policies. Those are considered bad for a reason. We also have IAR for a reason and IAR could be described as "there is no such thing as a bright line rule". Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:34, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Just the other day, an employee of the subject of an article shoved in my face the fact that the COI guideline discourages, but does not prohibit, his editing of the article and participating in (and dominating) the AfD of said article. You can't apply "ignore all rules" to a rule that does not exist. Coretheapple (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Transitioning your powers

Jimmy, back in December 2012, you said: "I'm planning in January to submit to the community for a full project-wide vote a new charter further transitioning my powers." You followed up in February 2013 that you were "running behind" but "looking forward to doing a lot of on-wiki work". We're getting close to the one-year anniversary of your first announcement. Has this project stalled, or have you intentionally abandoned it? - 2001:558:1400:10:4106:61B2:CFD:FA47 (talk) 16:16, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

He said something similar about reforming WP:RFA and were still waiting on that one too. I wouldn't count on seeing anything at this point. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 19:52, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

(Per Mark's comment above, this cunning "anonymous" comment seems to be "KumiokoCleanstart" again. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 01:42, 18 December 2013 (UTC))

I was not trying to be cunning. I just don't see any point in logging in anymore. The only reason I bothered to login now was because the page was protected. Kumioko (talk) 02:44, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of the author, it is a valid question. I for one was intrigued by Jimmy's announcement and have been wondering for a long time what became of it. For what it's worth, Jimmy, if you have changed your mind I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that. People come to different conclusions about things and change or even cancel projects all the time. I've certainly done it myself any number of times. But it would be great if you could update us on what the story is. At the time it seemed to be potentially quite important, and I'm sure a fair few of the people who read your talk page are also interested to know. — Scott • talk 10:54, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Both questions answered below, thanks!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, it's appreciated. — Scott • talk 12:13, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

ArbCom Appointments

Having determined that they met all the criteria for appointment, including having already identified to the Foundation, and in accordance with our longstanding traditions and their performance in the election campaign, I hereby appoint as follows:

1. 28bytes, a new arbitrator and a bureaucrat
2. GorillaWarfare, a new arbitrator and current oversighter
3. Seraphimblade, a new arbitrator who has done a lot of work at arbitration enforcement
4. Roger Davies, a returning arbitrator, back for his third consecutive term
5. AGK, a returning arbitrator, back for his second consecutive term
6. NativeForeigner, a new arbitrator and current checkuser
7. LFaraone, a new arbitrator and current checkuser and oversighter
8. Floquenbeam, a new arbitrator and longtime administrator
9. Beeblebrox, a new arbitrator and current oversighter.

All of these arbitrators will serve two-year terms, except Beeblebrox who will serve a one-year term.

Continuing their terms are:

1. Carcharoth
2. David Fuchs
3. Newyorkbrad
4. Salvio giuliano
5. Timotheus canens
6. Worm That Turned

Arbitrators whose terms are ending as of December 31 are:

1. Courcelles
2. Kirill Lokshin
3. Risker
4. SilkTork

I have fairly wide-ranging traditional powers to make policy by fiat, to hear appeals from the ArbCom, and to dismiss ArbCom and call for new elections. For those powers to be lost entirely from our constitutional arrangements would be unwise. As I wrote last year, "it is increasingly clear to me that we need those powers to be usable, which means transitioning them into a community-based model of constitutional change. One good example of this is the ongoing admin-appointment situation... a problem which I think most people agree needs to be solved, but for which our usual processes have proven ineffective for change. Some have asked me to simply use my reserve powers to appoint a bunch of admins - but I've declined on the view that this would cause a useless fight. Much better will be for us to put my traditional powers on a community-based footing so that we, as a community, can get out of 'corner solutions' that aren't working for us."

Subject to a majority vote in the community to approve the change (though in theory I suppose I could do it unilaterally) I am hereby expressing my desire to weaken my power to make policy by fiat. New policy will require me first to seek majority approval of both ArbCom (who will be asked solely to determine whether they think the issue is important enough to warrant a community vote) and the Community (who will have the final say) before making new policy. Therefore, this new arrangement is designed to handle only relatively rare issues, and not invite a general approach of majority vote instead of our generally very successful consensus approach which only sometimes fails to reach any conclusion at all on important matters, leaving serious holes in our progress. There will be no change to our existing consensus-based route to policy change.

It is my intention that once this is accomplished, we use the new constitutional arrangements to address some major issues regarding the falling size of the admin corp. If my proposal is rejected, then we fall back to the existing arrangement in which my powers are preserved as they have been. This is not what I urge, as I think the new approach is much more workable in terms of our ability to actually make real reforms.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Discussion about proposed change

• So Jimbo, let me get this straight. What you're proposing is that the community try to work it out on it's own and if it cannot, then it asks Arbcom to elevate the issue to you where you will then, and only then, exercise your policy by fiat authority? You will propose said change and then the community will be required to support or reject it?--v/r - TP 14:35, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Not exactly. There is no easy or obvious mechanism for the community as a group to ask ArbCom without yet another vote. But when it has become clear through multiple rfc's that we have a situation where neither solution A nor solution B (in a simple example) can reach 70% support, but it is also clear that remaining in infinite paralysis is worse than either alternative, I can ask ArbCom if the issue is important enough in their judgement to make a majority vote between A and B (perhaps to be tried experimentally depending on the issue) worthwhile. And if they agree then I can call for a vote.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:54, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, could you describe what such a vote would look like. Two options is likely going to produce a majority result. But what if there are 3 or 4 options like the recent discussion over COI editors. If no option reaches majority, what then? How would your proposal help?--v/r - TP 15:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, thank you for taking time to make new appointments quickly, during this busy time at year's end, as some have suggested moving ArbCom elections further back into November. I like the idea of transitioning some of your powers to require community majority support, as I have also witnessed others posting extreme hostility towards your, even wise, decisions when people imagined you were acting in a totalitarian manner (which often countered their attempts to force the outcome against broad consensus). However, I also fear too much reduction in your powers, so as others have noted earlier, if you decide to retain some full powers, then that might be wise as well. In general, most people tend to trust your long-term judgement, or otherwise, they would have ridden you out on a rail long ago! Things to consider. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikid, would you point me to a description of Jimbo's discretionary powers, please? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo's discretionary powers equates to God of Wikipedia minus the things Jimbo has voluntarily given up. Everything left is his discretionary powers; essentially. In the beginning, before there was a community, Jimbo was the sole authority. He delegated that authority to much of the community as time progressed, but we've never come to a decision to limit the authority derived from the time before the community was capable of making decisions on it's own.--v/r - TP 15:02, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

My first comment here is that Jimbo never uses his powers aside from appointing arbs so they are not even being use now. Secondly, I think Jimbo's idea would be a good one if the community had any hope of passing changes, but the community has shown repeatedly that it is incapable of making these changes. The only time in recent memory that anything resembling a meaningful change was done by the community was the creating of the Template editor user right and the rejection of Visual Editor. For example, RFA changes repeatedly fail even after hundreds of hours have been devoted to the task of fixing it. So really, all we are going to see is more stalemate, more fighting and more decline The alternative is to give the Arbcom even more power which I wholeheartedly contend is absolutely not the right answer. This revelation is disappointing to say the least. Kumioko (talk) 15:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

You can add this week's creation of the Draft namespace there, but I agree, it's a depressingly short list. — Scott • talk 17:02, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

• Remember Lua with wp:TEDs & VE hidden: Don't forget Lua utility templates (cites/infoboxes), rewritten by community editors, made edit-preview 3x-4x faster since March 2013, plus 60 wp:Template_editors (wp:TED) have made hundreds of improvements to templates (reducing workload of tech admins), as just the beginning, while we advance into auto-correcting templates, beyond the 1950s-style error messages which rejected thousands of valid dates in wp:CS1 cite templates this month. Step 1 was gain permission to enhance major templates, and Step 2 is to shift into "smart templates" which are easier to use. Also, hiding VisualEditor was a major advancement, to overcome a too-soon release crisis of a mangled tool, by a community vote of 472 for Opt-in (wp:VisualEditor/Default_State_RFC). -Wikid77 (talk) 01:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Although I do agree that hiding VE was a good thing I didn't include Lua because although it does offer improvements it also ensures that only a few people can make changes to them, mostly admins. We had too few people with the ability to modify templates, once they have all been converted we'll go from 20 or 30 that can edit templates to half a dozen. Since the template editor user right doesn't apply to the module namespace, its only a matter of time before the Lua modules completely eliminate the need for the template editor user right. Kumioko (talk) 02:14, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• WP:TED editors update Lua but mostly 1950s error messages: The 60 wp:TED editors were also given similar mid-level access to Lua script modules, which although cryptic, mostly mimic the older 1940s-style templates, plus show 1950s-style error messages ("Invalid data - does not compute"). Few of the Lua modules are totally obtuse, and with enough "mental modelling" many tech editors have found ways to update those twisted Lua modules. I was hoping for powerful, smart Lua modules soon, but most just "re-invent the wheel" or the "paintbrush" as Luafied templates which people can copycat update as geekspeak modules, which seem arcane but bearable. Meanwhile, the navbox craze is a flash-in-the-pandemic now creating millions of tag-along navbox templates (invoking some Lua modules), which saddle many thousands of pages with hundreds of never-clicked wikilinks. But the prior millions of templates often just call a Lua utility module for faster wp:data hoarding of details, under parameter names only the obsessed can remember. I keep pressing for 1960s-style auto-correction of parameters, and 1990s-style automated grammar wizards, but the focus to re-invent Luafied templates has been the dominant effort. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:30, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

"...transitioning them into a community-based model of constitutional change..." - while I wish you and yours all the best for the non-denominational festive tree season, and upcoming new year, I also think this is wise in terms of the 'What if Jimmy Wales gets hit by a bus' scenario. AnonNep (talk) 15:16, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

No offense at all intended toward Jimbo, and I'm not saying it wouldn't upset the community, but we'd survive. We always have Newyorkbrad to fill Jimbo's shoes.--v/r - TP 15:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

According WP:JIMBO, in the event of Jimbo's "untimely death or inability to perform [his] capacities", ArbCom is to decide what to do next, subject to communal majority-vote ratification. So in that regard we already have a community-based model of constitutional change, though I certainly don't hope for it to come into play any time soon. As an aside, I agree with TParis that we'd likely wind up transferring Jimbo's powers to NYB, or another "elder statesman" of the project. The importance of the founder role is greater than any one man, and I very much hope that, once Jimbo's tenure comes to an end (either due to retirement or to less happy circumstances), we keep the office in place (though I guess we'd have to call it something other than "founder"). — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 14:24, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Nobody has voted NYB - or any other editor - into any kind of position to receive a transfer of special powers in a post-Jimmy situation. I severely doubt that the community would be able to create such a position, nor do I believe that we should. Jimmy's position is a legacy one, and does not need to be renewed. — Scott • talk 14:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I keep seeing this argument that Rfa is a broken process. But how many qualified candidates that ran for admin failed to get the mop? Those that failed such as me simply didn't have the trust of the community or were unable to demonstrate a need for extra tools.--MONGO 19:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't just the rejected or wp:SNOW-closes of each wp:RfA, but the whole notion of a "named wp:attack-page" as with my wp:Requests for adminship/Wikid77, which was loaded with insults, including bizarre claims my attitude was off because I posted to Jimbo-talk(!), or I did not "understand the software" with 2 degrees in computer science (having graduated in the top of my class and written a million+ lines of source code), or claims I was too tempermental when I have been an official debate judge for years. As one user noted, who had been trusted to "approve equipment" used in jet airliners worldwide, but still could not pass RfA. The insult-ridden RfAs need to stop, and need to be moderated, redacted, with disparaging remarks blocked, perhaps with no-RfA-edit topic bans. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem is not that qualified candidates are failing, it's that qualified candidates aren't running at all. Based on historical trends, we should have seen around 900 RfA filings in 2013, of whom about 350 would be promoted. Instead, we've had 71 candidates, of whom 33 were promoted. --Carnildo (talk) 01:09, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree. In fact the only reason the number wasn't lower lower was because there has been ongoing discussions about RFA almost continuously all year long. That IMO is the only reason why this year broke the 50% less yearly cycle that had been seen for the last 5 years. Next year will likely be less and we could see our active admin numbers slip below 1000 fro the current 1400. Kumioko (talk) 01:24, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I've been told I'm 'new' but even I know the acronym RfA is a Wikipedia 'in-joke' for 'Request for Abuse'. AnonNep (talk) 01:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

That's very true. In the one RfA in which I actively participated (Buster7) I was appalled at the grilling this highly qualified and mature editor received. Coretheapple (talk) 17:15, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo. I very much like your proposal here—essentially finding a way to use your powers to cut through communal gridlock, without sparking an insurrection by doing so—but I'm not sure how necessary ArbCom's proposed role is. It seems to me like you'd be using a supreme court as a governor's council. If you want some sort of advisory check on your ideas before you send them to an up/down vote, why not create a separate body for just that, an actual governor's council, a small group of veteran Wikipedians with whom you'd consult before bringing matters before the community at large, just to make sure that you're not way out in left field on the issue at hand. Since such community votes would be, as you say, a "relatively rare" occurrence, your advisors would be able to give you their undivided attention, unlike ArbCom, whose members often complain of an excessive workload. Furthermore, your shared power with ArbCom already creates a complicated relationship, and it's easy to imagine cases where giving ArbCom preëmptive veto power over your proposals could effectively beget a constitutional crisis, for instance if they were to determine that the community need not hear a proposal of yours for ArbCom reform (sort of like the question of who presides over the impeachment of a U.S. vice president). — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 03:36, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• I don't agree that the convoluted pseudo-consensus supermajority electoral system used by WP is "generally very successful." It breaks down over virtually every controversial matter. It's as effective as a gridlocked and deadlocked bicameral legislature in assuring the maintenance of the status quo through inertia. If we're going to re-envision Wikipedia's governance system, let's give something called democracy a try. Carrite (talk) 04:06, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, possibly a frivolous question, but is the "not" meant to be there in the sentence "Therefore, this new arrangement is designed to handle only relatively rare issues, and not invite a general approach of majority vote ..."? That sentence makes no sense to me with that word in it. Graham87 10:26, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your detailed reply on my talk page. On re-reading that sentence carefully, I realise that the word I'd failed to absorb was "general". So what you're saying is "We're still using the consensus system, except in these corner cases of particularly difficult issues (e.g. RFA)". That sounds like an eminently sensible way of getting out of these logjams to me, and taking "not" out of that sentence would indeed drastically change its meaning to one you hadn't intended at all! Thanks again for the clarification. Graham87 12:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

• I think the proposal is a good one. However, I think the role of arbcom should be more than just to decide on whether the question is important enough. I think it should be asked to certify, on a number of heads, that the question is suitable for majority voting. For example, I think they should certify

• that there is reason to think that the question entails an issue that is unlikely to be resolved without subjecting it to a majority vote;
• that a yes vote would not fundamentally change the character of en.wp in such a way that a simple majority would not constitute a strong enough mandate (e.g. majority voting may not be used to introduce advertising);
• that the issue to be resolved is not one that can be fairly perceived as driven or championed by WMF staff or board members (because it would be problematic to empower a WMF board member so that they were able to smooth the path of a WMF proposal, besides which the WMF has existing means of imposing its will, which it should use where appropriate);
• that the outcome of the vote would not significantly affect projects other than en.wp (because the interests of smaller projects would be systematically prejudiced by majority voting);
• that the question is not unfairly double-headed (i.e. it is not trying to sneak through something that may not be popular on the back of something that is - important because majority voting would be less sensitive to nuances in community opinion).

Thanks. Formerip (talk) 12:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Hopefully this isn't a dumb question, but what policies have been imposed by Jimmy's fiats in the past? --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 15:13, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

This does seem to be an "undocumented feature" of WP. I do seem to recall something a year or two back in which a formal page was revised, including in the new text JW's ability to override ArbCom decision. As for the unilateral installment of policy, I know for sure I've never seen that since I've been here at the end of 2008; nor have I bumped into any reference to that in the course of my playing around with WP history. I'd be very interested in a link to a WP constitution page. (Counting on you to have that, Wikid!) Carrite (talk) 17:29, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales is an information page, which seems akin to an essay. Not a peep about any unilateral ability to create Policy in this review of actual practice. Of course there are Wikipedia:Office actions to override content decisions. And I know about the power to appoint and override decisions of ArbCom. But that's not what is being talked about, at all. Carrite (talk) 17:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 17:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

An interesting discussion, but it has always been so. The last time that I recall it happening was the child protection policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Is there written documentation of such a right? If so, a link would be informative. Carrite (talk) 22:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

With respect to WP:Child Protection, help me out here. The policy started as (full edit history) an essay started by User:MZMcBride on April 27, 2010; almost immediately made an Information Page by User:Pcap; with an attempt by User:Alison on June 29 to unilaterally make it policy, reverted after 8 minutes by User:Themfromspace (questioning the unilateral approach); which started a bit of edit warring on June 29/30, 2010 about marking it as Policy (see edit history). Then User:Jimbo Wales stepped in on July 5, 2010 to resolve the edit war over the tag. That's hardly "creation of Policy by fiat," in my view — nor is any claim made to some sort of undocumented right to unilaterally create policy. It's an aggressive support of one side over another as to the type of tag to put on a community-written information page or policy... Carrite (talk) 23:10, 19 December 2013 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 23:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

No, I think Jimmy gets credit for that one, but that was a case of a no-brainer policy being pointlessly blocked by process enthusiasts, and Jimmy just broke the log jam. I'm not sure how well that would work in the case of a genuinely controversial policy. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 00:27, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Trying to figure out the rationale for how this is creating policy, one possible Power Politics reading would be as follows: Assuming that such a policy change was not obviously acceptable to a big majority of Wikipedians (as was Child Protection), but something which the majority sought to overturn — the only way to trump such a marking of policy would be to take the matter to ArbCom, which could theoretically rule 15-0 against the change and then be unilaterally overruled and dismissed by Founder authority and a new compliant ArbCom directly appointed. I suppose in this scenario there is a theoretical possibility of making policy by fiat under the current written rules, but I can't even start to conceive of the magnitude of the shitstorm that would result. Carrite (talk) 23:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 23:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand what point you are trying to make about absurd hypotheticals that have never been relevant in any way. That I have always tried to be keenly respectful and slow and thoughtful about my exercise of theoretical powers is something in which I take great pride. I would not have "stepped in on July 5, 2010 to resolve the edit war over the tag" had I thought the policy was not widely supported by the community. But it was an exercise of my power - an effective and thoughtful one - in that there was no tedious policy-wide vote to support it. I correctly identified consensus and that was that. My point in my proposal is that this approach, while it is currently policy, is not sustainable nor scalable in the long run. It seems that you agree, so quibbling in an a-historical way about what has gone before strikes me as pointless. Do you oppose the notion that these powers be placed on a more formally democratic and consensus- based footing? Or do you support?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:23, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm just trying to understand the background of your assertion above that Founder status is associated with some sort of ability to make Policy by fiat. I know of nowhere on WP where such authority exists as part of the specific powers of the Founder (specific powers which include appointing ArbCom, a full set of buttons, checkuser authority, etc.) No one doubts that your "breaking of the log jam" with respect to how to mark the Child Protection essay-turned information page-turned policy reflected the majority opinion of Wikipedians concerned with the matter. If it did not, there would have been much wailing, and if it was antithetical to majority views there would have been a crisis. Bear in mind that I do not myself think that short-circuiting the normal process in this manner was either advisable or admirable; regardless, the fact is that it expedited the inevitable, and few would have a problem with the result. But it is a long ways from there to some sort of "Founder's Prerogative" to establish Wikipedia Policy by fiat. Like I say, there are hundreds or thousands of pages of internal documents about WP governance and you may well know about something that I do not. Please do point the way. I absolutely agree that any such individual fiat should not exist and that decision-making with respect to site policy needs to formally reside in the hands of the community. I just am not understanding your inference that this state of affairs has not already come to be. Is there some document instilling extraordinary powers to Founder status of which we are not aware — something specific that you feel needs to be changed? Is there an actual Wikipedia constitution or bylaws? Or a similar document for the Wikimedia Foundation? Carrite (talk) 04:35, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I think Carrite seems to have gotten the USA and Wikipedia confused. Jimbo has the powers that Jimbo says he has, well... because he says so. Carrite, we are not a practice in democracy or any other kind of government. When Jimbo speaks of "constitutional" he speaks in the manner of the British system rather than an American-style written document (please correct me if I'm wrong User:Jimbo) ""No Act of Parliament can be unconstitutional, for the law of the land knows not the word or the idea". If Jimbo wishes to give powers and abilities to the Community as he has in the past then that's his decision. Im confused where Carrite thinks the Community received the abilities and powers it currently has... does he/she think that we gave them to ourselves, much like the legal fiction in the US that the gov't receives its power from "the people"? In no way can you apply the concept of "social contract" to Wikipedia, it's a website and it is not owned by you, me, or the Community; it is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation.Camelbinky (talk) 23:13, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

There is much to be said for this perspective. In short, if I don't misunderstand you: there is no constitution, there is no organizational law, there is no entity called "the community." Everything here is an illusion and we are just worker-bee saps who have bought into the idea of creating free content for an ownership group which instead of selling ads and extracting profit a la Facebook functions as a "non-profit" company with a salaried staff. The so-called "community" is little more than a legal fiction to keep WMF from having their pants sued off by disgruntled article subjects. JW's power (ability to make a decision and cause others to comply) is derived not from any pseudo-legal structure here, but from his place within WMF, which can, on a dime, change policy by fiat. Any policy. What's that you just gave me, the blue pill or the red pill? And why are we wasting our time discussing JW "transitioning" his authority, which it is actually a question of WMF's corporate bylaws and the practice of company succession? Carrite (talk) 01:48, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Short answer- yes. Long answer- No constitution. No organizational law. Yes there is a Community. Yes in a way we are worker-bee saps, we do this because we have fun not because we get paid, in that way we are saps. But we're happy saps. Yes we have bought into the idea of creating free content for an ownership group, that's why we're here... The WMF is a non-profit, not a "non-profit" and most non-profits have salaried staff, few of any real size work with having non-paid staff, that's ridiculous if that's how you think non-profits work. The Community does not shield the WMF from being sued, I know of no legal argument that could be made that could legitimately shield the WMF by stating "the Community did it!". Yes, the WMF can change policy by fiat. Yes Jimbo's powers are not derived from the Community but instead from his position as the guy who created the website and "sold" it to the WMF which he created. I gave you the red pill. We're discussing this because you commented. Next time don't.Camelbinky (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

You're kidding, right? WMF is all about religiously guarding their Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protection from liability of posted content. That's been quite clear to me and most everyone all along. You also might want to take a close look at the day-to-day practice of "non-profit" entities other than WMF and draw your own conclusions about how they change as the money involved increases. I've got a red pill for you, too. I do thank you for providing the solution to the great mystery that was puzzling me, depressing though it is. Carrite (talk) 21:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

OMG, you're one of those jaded conspiracy types... do me a favor and don't comment on... anything... ever. If you cant be rational and scientific, instead of "this is what I came up with in my head from reading the internet and believing others who have simply thought up things", then you aren't needed here. I on the other hand will believe in science and professionals on what they are professions about and not assume I know better than them because I read "stuff" on the internet and I "thought about stuff" and drew my own conclusions. Camelbinky (talk) 22:10, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Hint for the future: don't begin an effort at being erudite and dismissive with a Valley Girl "OMG." best regards, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 07:20, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Camelbinky writes: Im [sic] confused where Carrite thinks the Community [sic] received the abilities and powers it currently has... does he/she think that we gave them to ourselves, much like the legal fiction in the US that the gov't receives its power from "the people"? Actually, yes we did. The Wikipedia community existed before the WMF. Some of the people you're talking to were even here at the time. — Scott • talk 12:58, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Scott- do you know what [sic] means and how it is used? First off- it is not to be used when someone CHOOSES to not use an apostrophe, Im is not an instance in which you need [sic], neither is an instance of capitalization, in which Community is being referred to as a proper noun. Your use of [sic] is being used as a personal insult attempting to make me look uneducated and that I'm making mistakes. I suggest you "stuff it" and on a note about your comments- you're WRONG. The Community did not give itself any powers prior to the creation of the WMF, Jimbo gave the Community the powers. Oh, and if you're going to imply I'm an idiot, I'm going to outright say it- YOU'RE AN IDIOT.Camelbinky (talk) 21:03, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I have lost the confidence that I used to have in Arbcom. I don't know whether it's the system, politics on who gets in, the fact that their deliberations / discussions now appear to mostly occur in secret (making it subject to who-know-what group dynamics and groupthink, but their decisionmaking seems to be random or worse. Leaving anything to them is I think a bad idea. I much more trust rarely and carefully used infinite power in the hands of Jimbo.North8000 (talk) 21:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I have no opinion on Arbcom. But I do think that, as a general proposition, there should be one person responsible for making tough decisions if the community is at loggerheads on particular issues. Coretheapple (talk) 21:47, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you North8000, I have lost all confidence in the Arbcom and I know that we are not alone in that statement. There are many others in the community and even among the admin corps that feel that way. I would much prefer Jimbo make the decision because although I may not always agree with that decision I generally think he has the projects best interest in mind. Unfortunately I feel that many of the Arbitrators and admins on this site only care about their individual interests and how said decision most benefits them. That is not what this site needs and it is crippling our ability to make things better. Kumioko. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 22:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree in general about ArbCom. But, realistically, we're stuck with that system for the foreseeable future. I really don't think we should be moving towards putting power in the hands of any one individual without checks and balances. That's not a comment on Jimbo's competence, but on how things should be set up so that they don't go wrong and so that they can be robust when push comes to shove. If Jimbo just acted alone, it would cause a lot of drama and, sooner or later, he would start having to back down in the face of community opposition.

To put a slightly different slant on it, I think the unreliability of ArbCom is the only real reason Jimbo would need to be involved at all, otherwise they could just do it off their own bat or in response to a proposal from any user. Formerip (talk) 22:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

FormerIP, that sounds like what I say 99% of the time. This is the other 1% because we don't have a good alternative. It's either to have the power in the hands of a proven-good king, or have it in the hands of a proven nasty random violent mob. North8000 (talk) 01:37, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the problem of mob mentality (I'd put it slightly differently - I don't think ArbCom are necessarily vicious, I just think that the expectation that they will always exercise wisdom is unrealistic) is best dealt with by giving them guidelines as to what exactly they are deciding, as I proposed above. It's true that if you give them a broad remit they will be random. So don't. Formerip (talk) 01:53, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Per PinkAmpersand that's absolutely a horrible idea in that it combines judicial powers with legislative. ArbCom has already been placed in the untenable position of both appointing and being the review board for checkusers. Additionally the pool of volunteers is constrained by those whose real-world situation allows them sufficient wiki-time to do all that ArbCom does. It's commendable you (Jimbo) wish to transfer your role to a community based one, but if Wikipedia:Governance Committee is what's needed, that should be a separate group from ArbCom, with separate elections. NE Ent 12:21, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

It always amuses me when the solution to failed bureaucracy is more bureaucracy. What we need is an honest and open discussion about our problems. Both honesty and openness seem to be the problem. Editors arn't willing to risk losing and so they arn't honest about each other and they arn't open about their concerns. A new body won't solve that. It'll suffer from exactly the same problem in no more than 2 years time.--v/r - TP 18:33, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Our problems (and they are big) are because of problems & shortcomings of the system. On average, wikipedia editors are good people, so the problems are created by the system. What worked 6 years ago doesn't work now. 95% of the problems are at English Wikipedia, and 5% are at the foundation. And one of those of the English Wikipedia is that the system is too random & unwieldy to fix itself. A small group of carefully chosen, very careful, very kind, very wise, and very wiki-wise people could fix it in 2 months. A larger group of similar people could fix it in 2 years. And the current system could fix it in 10 years, the first 9 of those to decide to do what I just described and pic the people. Maybe Jimbo could do the "first 9 years" part. North8000 (talk) 20:19, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

You're idea requires that 51% of Wikipedians are willing to write a blank check to a small group. Arbcom is evidence that an election is not a blank check. Even being founder isn't a blank check. Look at how Jimbo's fiats have been treated in the past. That's why it'll never work.--v/r - TP 21:32, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

• I am certain that I am against any so called transition of founder authority. The member of that user group needs to be nearly omnipotent, with everyone else subordinate; utterly dependent on the founders benevolence. The office of that flag needs an established line of succession to guarantee its continuity in perpetuity! I say "nearly omnipotent" because I believe it is necessary that some extreme measure must exist where the founder can be forced out by imposing a mandatory succession. I have ideas on how this could be accomplished, but I'll reserve that discussion for later.—John Cline (talk) 21:48, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Even though I'm a libertarian, I'd much rather have a king that we know than be ruled by random mob violence, incapable people, warlords and and their possies, which is how Wikipedia often works now. North8000 (talk) 21:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Innocent fun! (No...seriously) The 100 Most Significant Figures in History...how many of these articles have you edited?

How many of these Wikipedia articles have you edited?--Mark Miller (talk) 14:27, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

[3] The study used the English Wikipedia to determine the ranking. ```Buster Seven Talk 15:34, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, perhaps based slightly on enwiki rank, but pageviews of modern President Barack Obama (not on list), who reformed healthcare and solved the subprime mortgage crisis and saved the U.S. auto companies plus caught Osama bin Laden, have vastly eclipsed other recent presidents by 3x-5x times more pageviews each year since 2008. Other factors skewed the list to totally omit Obama. -Wikid77 15:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I wonder why the caption is "Thank You George W. Bush" rather than simply "George W. Bush" --S Philbrick(Talk) 18:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The prefix "Thank You" on name #36 is unusual, but it reminded me of "miserable failure" as the notable case of a Google bomb linking to a person's official biography page (Whitehouse website of President). -Wikid77 15:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

It appears to be an editorial interpolation on the part of the article author - the actual list article does not add that sentence. Collect (talk) 15:13, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The list does not include Hippocrates, Euclid, Archimedes, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mao Zedong. It does include Elvis Presley, and surprisingly King Arthur, whose existence as a real person is generally regarded as dubious.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:49, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

97% men, I noticed. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:01, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Another one

How many articles have you edited to counter something on the List of common misconceptions? Significant figures only influenced the past, and whether, how much, and in which direction they influence the future is something everyone controls. EllenCT (talk) 01:19, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Did you know...?

...that in Who’s Bigger: Where Historical Figures Really Rank, Steven Skiena and Charles Ward massively massaged English Wikipedia metadata to rank historical persons, which I'm not sure if that's a (fun and interesting!) parlor trick or has some real significance, but what caught my eye was this quote from Skiena:

“ Our methods show that for historical figures from the past 300 years, the average significance of women appearing in Wikipedia was substantially greater than that of the average man. This implies that women required greater credentials to get into Wikipedia, analogous to being about 4 IQ points smarter in the mean. Fortunately, this significance gap has closed and essentially eliminated in modern times. ” — Steven Skiena, interview with Hope Leman

Hmmmm. Obviously we have more total biographies of men than women, and the usual reason given for that is "Well, men have had more opportunities then women to have impact", but what Skiena -- a smart guy who's spent some time elbow-deep in English Wikipedia metadata -- is saying is that even accounting for that there's a disparity.

I don't really have a point. I just think that's interesting. And anyway it's good news that this applies to figures from the past only, so this could be taken either way. Herostratus (talk) 03:00, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

we have more total biographies of women than men Is that true? What are the numbers? Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:15, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Oops, meant to type the opposite, "we have more total biographies of men than women". Corrected. Herostratus (talk) 13:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:39, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Is this true?

Any comment on this assertion (in a CFD debate) about your motives in founding Wikipedia? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I saw that too. A remarkable appeal to authority there. Resolute 15:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

While I do think that preserving languages is a good cause, it was not a primary motive in starting the free encyclopedia project. I have always been in favor of it, but it was not foremost on my mind as compared to the goal of "a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet in their own language" - that goal presupposes or implies something about language preservation, I suppose, but as I say, that wasn't foremost on my mind.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:53, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:08, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Emerging discussion re Draft: namespace

Please see and join the emerging discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Drafts#Deletion_and_Draft: regarding part of the potential usage of the Draft: namespace. Fiddle Faddle 19:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Wales in parliament

[4] — Writegeist (talk) 19:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for linking this, very interesting. (Possibly less interesting to Jimbo since he knows what was said!)

On a slightly humorous note(?), I see the Grauniad feel that the best names to use in their article title are Rusbridger and Jimbo - the three MPs (one of whom is a shadow minister) obviously don't figure so highly in the public consciousness :) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

A CCTV in every home!? That's one way of finding out who's contributing to WMF. I guess. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:02, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I like how the Grauniad's subhead effectively describes Ormond as the "Wikipedia founder and former GCHQ spy chief ". Writegeist (talk) 01:20, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

wikipedia should be more privacy

i think wikipedia should have more privacy system such as delete what this user contribute history, and it's very rude while another patch box on my user page, can you change policy? because a lot of user did not respect these rules for me Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:No personal attacks --KreanMek (talk) 04:36, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

What KreanMek means is that they think User:KreanMek should be deleted because its history contains a link to their previous account. It has been suggested that they should take it to WP:MFD. (Speedy deletion nominations of the page were declined.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

i mean yes because another user did not delete and revert box patch version it to me. i mean Wikipedia:Harassment--KreanMek (talk) 06:16, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I have issued a procedural nomination for deletion of the page at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:KreanMek. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:44, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Page has now been deleted. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:39, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Commons discussion that you should be aware of

[5]

Thought you should know. Hell might be other people (talk) 08:20, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I've read through that discussion with disbelief. That video should be deleted from Commons as obvious harassment of an editor, as an Office action if need be, and the people responsible should be (at a minimum) restrained from doing this sort of thing again, just as I did with Russavia here on En. Newyorkbrad (talk) 20:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I consider it obvious trolling and it is surprising and disappointing to see such a large number of users at Commons support this kind of thing. So I have to agree with Brad's assessment. It seems likely to me that the WMF will someday have to step in and reform the leadership at Commons. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:13, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I find it funny that "assume good faith" means so little on Wikipedia despite being repeatedly recited with cult-like devotion whenever one's self or a buddy is being criticized.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:54, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I genuinely assumed good faith of the person who uploaded that video for years, and my remarks critical of Commons have been few and far between. But my experience here shows me that some people choose to engage in behavior that eventually proves so disruptive that "good faith" is nowhere to be seen in their conduct. I am slow to give up the hope that any established contributor lacks good faith. But sometimes, all hope is lost. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:49, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

"Disruptive editing" and "acting in bad faith" are not the same thing. You can think someone is being disruptive, but acting in good faith. Assuming that Russavia uploaded that stuff out of malicious intent because of a few fleeting negative encounters is quite the assumption. You would have to presume a level of petty vindictiveness that goes well beyond anything I have seen from Russavia, and he has no shortage of people to be petty and vindictive towards, people who have given him far more reason to be petty and vindictive.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:47, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I stretched my AGF until it breaks. Jee 06:44, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

That's a link to a very telling remark, Jee. Thanks for reinforcing my point. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:00, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

How is it telling that Russavia is pissed at Jimbo now, after Jimbo accused him of sexual harassment? Were that sort of comment made before this whole controversy it would help your point, but citing something he said after all the heat sent his way just reeks of self-serving manipulation of the facts.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:26, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

• Next they will claim vicious insults are "artistic combinations of words" which are needed to show young people "how the result was achieved". Perhaps more need to consider wp:OFFICE about removing wp:attack pages or videos sooner. Then we need to document this line of reasoning in wp:Editorial judgment, as for sorting out priorities to rank artistic license versus other issues. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:12, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter • 19 December 2013

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some toolbar improvements, fixing bugs, and improving support for Indic languages as well as other languages with complex characters. The current focus is on improving the reference dialog and expanding the new character inserter tool.

There have been dozens of changes since the last newsletter. Here are some of the highlights:

• Rich copying and pasting is now available. If you copy text from another website, then character formatting and some other HTML attributes are preserved. This means, for example, that if you copy a pre-formatted suggested citation from a source like this, then VisualEditor will preserve the formatting of the title in the citation. Keep in mind that copying the formatting may include formatting that you don't want (like section headings). If you want to paste plain, unformatted text onto a page, then use Control+⇧ Shift+V or ⌘ Command+⇧ Shift+V (Mac).
• Auto-numbered external links like [6] can now be edited just like any other link. However, they cannot be created in VisualEditor easily.
• Several changes to the toolbar and dialogs have been made, and more are on the way. The toolbar has been simplified with a new drop-down text styles menu and an "insert" menu. Your feedback on the toolbar is wanted here. The transclusion/template dialog has been simplified. If you have enabled mathematical formula editing, then the menu item is now called the formula editor instead of LaTeX.
• There is a new character inserter, which you can find in the new "insert" menu, with a capital Omega ("Ω"). It's a very basic set of characters. Your feedback on the character inserter is wanted here.
• Saving the page should seem faster by several seconds now.
• It is now possible to access VisualEditor by manually editing the URL, even if you are not logged in or have not opted in to VisualEditor normally. To do so, append ?veaction=edit to the end of the page name. For example, change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random?veaction=edit to open a random page in VisualEditor. This is intended to support bug testing across multiple browsers, without requiring editors to login repeatedly.

Looking ahead: The transclusion dialog will see further changes in the coming weeks, with a simple mode for single templates and an advanced mode for more complex transclusions. The new character formatting menu on the toolbar will get an arrow to show that it is a drop-down menu. The reference dialog will be improved, and the Reference item will become a button in the main toolbar, rather than an item in the Insert menu.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Option veaction=edit is closer to original WP plan: Originally, the English Wikipedia had a technical solution to simply hide the VE-edit menu option, without totally disabling all part-time usage. However, there were claims of inefficient menu operation (as if running old VE to mangle pages were not extremely inefficient), and so VE was completely removed from all non-opt-in enwiki users. Finally, the restored option "veaction=edit" will better reflect the overall consensus of the 472 users who voted for "opt-in" and did not want to severely deny access to VE. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:41, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Your license may applicable for your original work

In response to a recent discussion on COM:VPC, CC hard clarified that "in some jurisdictions releasing a photograph under a CC license will give the public permission to reuse the photograph in a different resolution."

See related updated in their FAQ:

What do the terms and conditions of a CC license apply to?

Can I apply a CC license to low-resolution copies of a licensed work and reserve more rights in high-resolution copies?

How do I know if a low-resolution photo and a high-resolution photo are the same work?

A good news for the "free culture"; but may be a "not so good" news for many photographers. See the ongoing discussion in Commons. There are some mixed responses. Some people think "we should discourage professional photographer who are only interested in using Commons to promote themselves. So it is good." Some people think "this change seriously damages Commons ability to attract professionals to donate downsized versions of their work."

Jimmy, we would like to know how you see it and whether it is good or bad for WMF projects. I see you are a director of CC too. Jee 03:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

If this new interpretation holds legal water, where it is most immediately "not so good" is how we have been obtaining large amounts of material from content creators under what turn out to be false pretenses.

"You know how we told you that you could share a lower-resolution version of your images with us, thereby helping out the encyclopedia and providing a benefit to all humanity, while still preserving your commercial rights to high-resolution versions of your work? Yeah...we were kind of wrong about that. Oops! All your stuff is actually now under a free license, and nobody needs to pay you for your content anymore. Sorry about that!"

Either we've (and by 'we' I mean individuals with the Foundation and our legal advisors) wilfully and deliberately participated in deceiving people about the effects of the Commons licenses for years, in which case we are liars and cheats, or we've been pushing this license for years without understanding its legal ramifications, in which case we are incompetent chuckleheads. Neither option is "good", and I frankly don't see a third interpretation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:57, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Or, perhaps, legal consensus on a matter can change, just as other forms of consensus do. There's no need for such a dichotomy. LFaraone 22:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Is it technically feasible to create a high resolution image from a low resolution copy? If not, isn't the owner still in control of the high resolution image by contractually protecting it? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:27, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I have many images here that are also represented by Getty Images. Clients of Getty get access to the full resolutions images as they work them into their projects and assist with design, layout, etc. There is nothing legally preventing these clients now from getting the full resolution image through Getty and licensing it from here as CC-BY-SA for free. Saffron Blaze (talk) 02:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Then wouldn't you change your contract with Getty images, and they with their reusers, if not already protected by moral rights? Getty wants to protect its interest which you have assigned them, do they not? The reusers seem to have already acknowledged both your and Getty's interest, haven't they? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:16, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Saffron/Getty could probably sue the client who redistributed the image outside of their contract terms (which are very likely to forbid this) -- assuming they can find out who it was -- but they may well be unable to ask WMF/Commons to "take down" the image once it has been uploaded, since Commons would argue it has a valid copyright licence for the work. It is typical for Commons to completely disregard the contractual mess an uploader may get themselves into as "none of my business". Also, since this is merely a contractual dispute between two other parties rather than the All-Powerful threat of copyright infringement, I suspect WMF wouldn't be willing to hand over any identifying details of the anonymous user who uploaded the perfectly legally licensed image. CC have suggested commercial artists keep their high-resolution work under lock & key, which is utterly impractical if one actually wants them to be used. Lastly, for some to sue for damages, what would the loss here be? If the copyright work has been licensed for free use, then a judge may well regard the work as worthless. Just my guess. -- Colin°^Talk 17:33, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

This sounds absurd. Cropping a picture (in an uncreative way) doesn't create a new work under copyright law either. By this reasoning, if you license the cropped image, anyone is free to use the uncropped image since they both count as the same work. Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:49, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

There's no making sense out of copyright law, or any law that infringes freedom of expression. I mean, we have the right to go around and take pictures of people. As long as they're in public. And they're not standing near a building. Or wearing a T-shirt. Or jewelry. Or clothes. (Or not wearing clothes, that would be "revenge porn") We have a situation on Commons (literally) where people will for now claim the right to upload a picture of someone wearing a necklace, but crop out just the part with the necklace and that picture would be a violation! It's not that we can't understand it, it's that it can't be understood. It's all a lot of mindless theory, after which whoever has the money wins. Wikipedians need to understand that creating this grand collaborative resource to show what people can do together was never just an end, but rather a demonstration that we are willing and able to throw aside the constant court evaluations of what we have the "right" to read or say or do. We can do what we can - and we must, even if we are regarded as dishonest for it, because it is far better to be scorned than to suffer the contempt we would earn from a featured gallery full of red links - but in the end there is no substitute for ending the entire concept of intellectual property altogether, and transitioning to a new economic system founded on better principles. Wnt (talk) 01:29, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• The copyright notice should restrict usage to "no alterations" as derivative works, to avoid retro-filling high-resolution details or juxtaposing for obscene or criminal activities. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:41, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

That won't work. Legally, changing the resolution is not making a derivative work. Even if you don't permit derivative works at all, people are still permitted to change the resolution. 208.65.89.235 (talk) 03:47, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

• Wnt, can you at least explain one economic model that would allow photographers to participate here with CC_BY_SA licenses that would still allow them to leverage their own creations for economic gain? As to your right to go around and take pictures of people... well in some jurisdictions that is true, others it is illegal without consent, but in just about every jurisdiction there are restrictions on publishing and surely commercial use of said images. Now the CC 4.0 licenses force authors to give away those rights for themselves if they want to participate in ventures such as this. Saffron Blaze (talk) 01:58, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I was focusing more on the prohibition on many kinds of manufactured objects, but true, I did not give an exhaustive list. An example economic model is as follows: a) abolish all IP. b) decree an income-based mandatory donation threshold that goes to fund artists, inventors, and other former IP creators, which each person has a free choice to appropriate according to basic rules: i.e. you can designate one or many funding agencies to dole out this portion of your income, or even designate recipients yourself, but each recipient is limited to a very small maximum share to avoid you and friends handing money back and forth. I will omit formulae; suffice it to say that though this is a heavy tax, the total amount should be the same as that currently spent on royalties (which being government mandates requiring intrusive enforcement should also be considered taxes, but largely go to middlemen! Fund pharmaceutical researchers, not drug ads; fund good musicians, not the guys who expect the blowjobs). However arbitrary or corrupt the results of individual agencies' decisions might be, could they be more arbitrary or corrupt than the IP lawsuits we've seen every year? Layer this on a more humane system that uses progressive taxation to guarantee the basic essentials of life to all, and you have a working economic system for a change. Wnt (talk) 05:45, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• Fair enough, but I suppose I should have qualified that as something in the real world as opposed to free culture utopia. Saffron Blaze (talk) 01:31, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I think Wnt is taking this discussion into areas that belong in another section for another day. I agree with TenOfAllTrades this is a potentially hugely damaging result for Wikipedia and for Creative Commons. Discussion of the finer details and questions about it are probably best done at the Commons page. I would like to hear a response from CC as to why their publicity material advertises precisely the usage now deemed impossible (having different licences for the same artistic work at different quality/resolution/format). And I would like to know officially what Wikipedia has to say to the many professional photographers who have donated low-resolution images to Wikipedia on the understanding that their high-resolution images remained "all rights reserved". -- Colin°^Talk 10:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Ha. Never mind individual contributors. I think just about every cultural institution that has donated to the creative commons will have done so under false pretenses. I imagine that they will be pissed. Good luck securing any new donations in the future too. JJ Harrison (talk) 23:37, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

In general, I'm unaware of any of our GLAM ("Gallery, Library, and Museum") work which would be affected by this at all. In general, I think the the notion of CC-licensing a low-res version while retaining full rights to a high-res version is not very popular or important.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

The discussion over at Commons mentions Commons:Bundesarchiv as one such donation – from the German Federal Archives, and involving more than 80,000 images – that appears to be affected.

In general, I think that it's very disappointing that you've adopted a laid-back attitude toward the way we have contributed to misleading content producers, even if (arguendo) their particular choices for contributing their work aren't in a way that you think is very important. Usually I'm impressed with what you have to say, but this time you're coming across as pretty tone-deaf. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:07, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry if I came across as laid back. I just haven't yet been persuaded that this is a serious problem. I was unaware of the Bundesarchiv issue, and I'm surprised and disappointed if volunteers (or staff) have been giving people advice about legal matters of any kind. At the same time, an FAQ on a Creative Commons wiki hardly changes anything in the actual law.

As a side note, one of the proposed solutions that some people have put forward doesn't strike me as plausible. One could, it is argued, license the low-res version under a CC license and if that means the high-res version is thus under a CC license, you just don't let anyone have it without imposing some additional contractual conditions. But that's really hard to do in a way that realistically restrains ultimate end users. For example, a photo might be on commons in a low-res format, and held in a photographer's personal secure archive until a magazine licenses it and publishes it. But then end purchasers of the magazine wouldn't be bound at all, much less people who happen to find the magazine blowing down the street.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Would that be so, if what is of value is not the printed (often altered) image per se but the high res. file itself, and whether it is technically feasible to protect that file? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:27, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

(ec) It depends on what you mean by "serious" problem. Is it going to have a significant effect on Wikipedia in the long run? No, probably not. It is a "serious" problem for our contributors who relied on the assurances that we provided? Yeah, it may be a bit of a big deal for some of them.

JJ Harrison (who commented above, and who has generously contributed more than 300 featured, high-resolution images to Wikipedia) has probably never uploaded a low-resolution image and should probably be this project's poster boy for wildlife photography; it's worth noting that he still gets what the problem is, in a way that you seem dreadfully blasé about. While Harrison may be right that we will feel the biggest impact from large, institutional contributors, I suspect that the largest impact will be felt by the small, individual, amateur and semi-professional contributors who trusted us to get this sort of thing right. There's no sense from anyone at Wikipedia or the WMF – or, apparently, from you – that we are embarrassed or apologetic that we made a serious error when we described the impact of our preferred license. Even for the (majority) of content contributors who didn't rely on our posted statements about how licensing low-resolution versions still allowed them to reserve rights to their high-resolution originals, it leaves a sour taste. Seeing contributors told that their concerns aren't important or serious enough to worry Wikipedia, and that it's more important for the project founder to get a cover-the-ass "I'm surprised and disappointed if volunteers (or staff) have been giving people advice about legal matters" message out than to express any concern or regret for the contributors who may be affected, is...sad. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:56, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. This "ruling" essentially makes liars out of volunteers who have convinced museums to donate low-res copies under CC licenses for use on WMF projects under the assurance that they would retain the right use a non-free license for the high res versions. That approach has been used for years, and until this was generally a good deal for all parties involved. Out of fairness, those institutions should be allowed to rescind those donations, because it turns out to have been a deceptive practice (if unintentionally).

Bear in mind also that a lot of "direct contributors" (volunteers with cameras, including professional photographers) also upload low-res versions with higher res available as all rights reserved. Quite a few even note this on their userpages and on the file descriptions. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 13:20, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad you put "ruling" in scare quotes, but I think we can go much further: there has been no ruling of any kind, just an update to an FAQ on a Creative Commons wiki. It does raise what has always been an interesting issue, but unless someone comes forward with case law I'm not that worried about it right now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:17, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I was hoping for something better than "if someone feels they've been misled, they can always sue"... there's an ethical dimension here that one would hope the WMF and CC would take into account. The "so sue me" approach pretty much characterizes what you say about the current commons management just below.

Again, the split license (low/high res) has been commonly understood as standard practice by volunteers (both direct contributors and outreach contributors) for many years (at least since 2006, when I was "educated" about it), and suddenly broadening the scope 7 or 8 years later is disrespectful. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 16:33, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Museums relied on volunteers at Commons to tell them how to protect the Museums' rights? That seems illogical, even fanciful? Is any museum making such a claim, or even asking for their images back? Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:30, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Precisely. But - and this is important - I think that Commons is (sadly) pretty ridiculous in their usual attitude of "nyah nyah too late you clicked a button" for people who regret contributions. There might be rare cases where such a fight is worth having, but in general I think it would be better for commons to be kind, decent, and generous. Those in leadership positions there have taken a different approach I'm afraid.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:17, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree and unfortunately Wikipedia has similar problems with its leadership. I wish there were someone who had the power to do something about all that since its clear these 2 communities aren't able too..hint, hint, hint. Kumioko (talk) 14:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I have no issue with Commons deleting these, but I am doubtful that it would actually make a difference in protecting the work, which is already out there and licensed, and Commons probably should not suggest to people they can put the genie back in the bottle if they cannot. So, as courtesy delete from Commons, if they ask but it is out there already in the ethersphere, isn't it? Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:33, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

There is such a thing as "damage limitation". It would make a big difference where Commons is the main repository for such files. Cuts off pretty much any future use. Please let's not make this some kind of "Evil Commons" argument. The actualities here are that Commons is behaving honourably and considering how to "do the right thing", which is more than can be said for Jimbo's talk page at present. Creative Commons and WikiGLAM (not to mention many Wikipedians) have mislead contributors for years and are now effectively saying "silly you, should have hired a lawyer" or "not interested until someone actually gets sued over this". -- Colin°^Talk 20:45, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

If this becomes the issue I think it will be... one solution could be to allow the CC-by-NC-SA license. In essence we promoted the low resolution idea to diminish commercial use of the images. Given the conversation here so far, I suspect that will not happen until/unless the big donors make a big enough stink.Thelmadatter (talk) 16:18, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm disappointed in this response from Jimbo. I'm not sure what you mean by "not very popular or important". Do you mean it isn't popular (liked by free-content advocates) or popular (widely used by commercial donors)? The "don't give legal advice" comment is not helpful as all sorts of statements can be construed as influencing someone's opinions, including widespread existing practice. How about Creative Commons' own publicity material "The Power of Open" which gives an example: "When completed, every aspect of the film will be released under two different CC licenses: BY-NC-SA for the high-resolution version, and BY-SA for the low-resolution." This is an example of a non-free licence (NC) for high-resolution material that the CEO and the Chair of CC "hope .. inspires" people to follow. The "solution" you ridicule above is actually one suggested by CC -- nobody on Commons thinks it is wise either.

If a professional wants to donate some of their work to Wikipedia and offers to donate 2MP images yet keep their 36MP images for paying clients, what would you suggest we say. Pay for legal advice? Or say nothing? Just let them stumble over the ambiguity in the word "work" that we've all mistaken all these years. BTW, I normally agree Commons is petty and unforgiving but in this case the discussion is actually more along the lines of "We'd better let them know and offer to delete their images if they aren't happy". I will try to get some better figures about how widespread this issue is, but it is a busy time of year. I wouldn't be surprised if some grumpy pro photographers write some angry blog postings or magazine articles advising people to never go near Wikipedia or CC licences again. -- Colin°^Talk 16:37, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Jimmy above. I can't see why anyone would think that by licensing a lowres version of a image you could somehow not have also licensed the hires version. This is why I've always used the NC license to stop the commercial use of my photos. Now I can understand that amateur photog might be confused and misled but large institutions - I don't think so. There may be an issue where individuals have been making false promises to others but that is essentially the Artic Kangaroo issue that we had a few months back. It has nothing to do with WMF and is purely an issue between the individuals concerned. John lilburne (talk) 16:43, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

GLAM

Some examples of misleading GLAM advice (and one example of "correct" advice -- at least according to the new CC FAQ).

• GLAM-WIKI Recommendations (recommendations from the "GLAM-WIKI: Finding the common ground" conference held at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 6-7 August 2009.). "Law / Requests to GLAM / Consider offering a free-license for lower resolution/sized institution-controlled, in-copyright content (retaining full copyright over higher resolution)."
• Wikipedia:GLAM/Natural History Museum and Science Museum/releasing content. "If you are worried about losing commercial opportunities to license the images it is possible to release images under a lower resolution to Wikimedia Commons and keep the higher resolution for this purpose. The low resolution images may even increase the interest in higher quality images via the wider audience."
• GLAM/Case studies/WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge "How we convince institutions to share their knowledge....If an institution is selling rights on its art collection then it is maybe not a good idea to release the collection in Creative Commons attribution share alike; but if they only sell high resolution images, why not providing a lower resolution?" and later "Convincing institutions to allow commercial use of their content...Explain also that the license on digital images applies only to that specific image, at the resolution they decide to release it with. This means that they can release images with a lower resolution and keep high resolution images under copyright."
• 'An (even briefer) history of open cultural data' at GLAM-Wiki 2013 "Hybrid licensing models are a pragmatic solution for the current environment. They at least allow some use and may contribute to greater use of open cultural data while other issues are being worked out. For example, some institutions in the UK are making lower resolutions images available for re-use under an open licence while reserving high resolution versions for commercial sales and licensing."
• Open data for GLAMs / Choose your License Someone posts the query: "We'll likely use a combination of CC0, CC PD, and probably CC BY SA, but probably applied only to lower resolution versions of images for the web. At first, I imagine various entities at the institution will be worried about allowing our high res images to be so open. I might be able to convince people to license the high res as CC BY ND. Eventually, I hope we'll be able to open up our high res images as BY SA as well." this is actually correctly responded to with "don't make the mistake to publish high resolution under a more restrictive license than a lower resolution work. According to most copyright laws these works are to be considered the same! This means that the more open license of the lower resolution work can also apply to the high resolution works."

-- Colin°^Talk 18:09, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for finding these. I've commented out the first three examples, although the first also has a PDF version for which WMF copyright is claimed. I'm not sure what to do with that. --Avenue (talk) 21:45, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I think strike-through would be much more useful than commenting out. These documents, although wiki-based, document thoughts at a point in time and recommendations from a panel of conference speakers. It will make it harder for people to find the "advice that mislead them" if people "change history". Better that we are honest about our mistakes and add a note saying "we were wrong". -- Colin°^Talk 22:05, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Improvements for Wikipedia

I am proposing new requests. I first want a filtering system that prevents unregistered users and registered users that are minors to read such inappropriate pages on Wikipedia and have warnings that the following page is unsuitable for minors. Also on Wikimedia Commons, there should be an option to flag inappropriate images. There also should be a date of birth section on Wikipedia to determine the user's age - Ismael777 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ismael755 (talk • contribs) 01:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

See WP:PERENNIAL#Censor offensive images and WP:CENSOR. Wikipedia is a world-wide project, and standards vary wildly between different communities. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Just addressing the image filter and censorship: An image filter is not censorship, provided the reader is free to turn it on and off. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:20, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Of course it is, regardless of the default state. And there's inevitably going to be mission creep where "respect for a partner" comes under an adult content filter. Sceptre ^(talk) 15:44, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm struggling here. Perhaps you could explain. "Censorship" to me is preventing someone from viewing or hearing something. How is a voluntary image filter doing that? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:44, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Given OP proposes to force unregistered users and minors (however the hell they intend to prove who is a minor, I don't know) to use the feature, I would say that this particular proposal most certainly is all about censorship. Resolute 16:09, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Their agenda can be predicted from their [7] incorporation of bans of information about "hacking" and "lock-picking" under their "obscene and tasteless" category. Anything that might let someone access The Pirate Bay must be banned if the parent bans obscenity; the next step is to force or threaten the parent into banning obscenity. This is the kind of censorship scheme that "filter" proponents want because it allows them to work their agenda seamlessly into the "consumer choice"! Wnt (talk) 17:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

If there are things you don't want to see, you can use specialized software. Wikipedia, however, is not in the business of keeping information from people. —Kusma (t·c) 16:09, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

It is actually possible for users to generate a highly effective and individualized scheme to block whatever images they want, as I have laid out in User:Wnt/Personal image blocking, without creating centralized censorship authority. But none of the censorship proponents have any interest in this, for exactly that reason. I once wrote up a little twelve-line Javascript program to block all the images in the Muhammad article as a proof of concept [8] - to my perhaps imperfect knowledge this remains the most functional filter ever created on Wikipedia. Wnt (talk) 17:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Wnt. That's exactly the point. Let me add:

• User:HectorMoffet made a similar proof of concept at User:HectorMoffet/OfferToHideImages.js, [9]. AFAIK nobody was interested, nobody used it.
• User:Anomie created a nice script that hides all images until you click on them. It is very fast, has good usability and it is prominently linked at Help:Options to hide an image#Hide all images until click to view. AFAIK, nobody uses it.
• In August 2011 the Wikipedia mobile WMF team provided a link to deactivate images on mobile [10]. I assume nobody used it; the developers decided that it wasn't worth the screen space and moved it to mobile Settings.
• Via adblock, anybody can easily create a personal image filter, see Help:Options to hide an image#Install the Adblock Extension (Firefox). You can even share your filterlist. Somebody in 2009 made a Wikipedia "Porn Filter for Roman Catholics" ("Just because it's on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel doesn't mean it can't be filtered."). AFAIK, pretty much nobody was interested.

Note: There is not a huge demand by people to hide images from themselves. This issue always comes down to some people wanting a filter to hide some images from others: minors, other muslims, the whole country of Saudi Arabia or public morality somewhere else. As user:Kusma said: "Wikipedia, however, is not in the business of keeping information from people." --Atlasowa (talk) 15:07, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

And it has to be pointed out that "Over 18" confirmation is impossible for any website to enforce effectively. There is nothing to stop a minor from lying in response to this question, and a website would be none the wiser when this happened. There is no substitute for adult supervision while using a computer connected to the Internet.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

That is a convenient argument, but not a true one, so we must be ideologically ready for the day it deserts us. An immense spy-industrial complex is more than ready to track serial numbers across the internet, install cameras/facial recognition, even sell fingerprint readers to a public that seems afraid even to think about their motives lest it look bad on their permanent records. Saying they can't reliably know each and every person accessing Wikipedia is a hope worth fighting for, sure... so was the Battle of Corregidor. We must defend freedom of inquiry not because censorship is inconvenient but because it is wrong. Wnt (talk) 19:09, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I was talking about a simple "click yes to confirm that you are over 18" or filling in an online form with date of birth. These are obviously prone to lying without detection. I can't imagine Wikipedia requiring fingerprint logins or facial recognition any time soon:)--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the DOB is a more effective idea than a checkbox. Even a 5-year old can click on a checkbox without hesitation, compared to a DOB, where they have to look at practically 100 years. ZappaOMati 19:21, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia wouldn't create such a mechanism. But if Britain or a large consortium of American cable companies introduces a way of marking their IP packets as under-18 or over-18 based on that kind of data, Wikipedia would immediately have access to that age classification with each incoming packet, and our virtue would be put to the test. Our experience so far has not been that these governments or corporations have any great liking for privacy. Wnt (talk) 19:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps parental controls through auto-login usernames: I have proposed that the WP webpages could offer a parental-controls interface, perhaps with Special:MyPage/common.js and Special:MyPage/common.css which would have the software auto-login to specific username (stored on user's PC/tablet), but of course on other devices (or at libraries), the person would need to login to have the same parental-control settings. At least at home, parents would have the option to preset WP usage to suppress marked images (and text templates) controlled by JavaScript and CSS directives for the username. However, other COTS products could be acquired by parents to suppress data, although people have said most likely all of WP would be suppressed by some products (due to talk-page insults and trolling). Generally the Kids-Wikipedia is the best option, to offer 100-200,000 traditional topics, but block viewing of wp:ANI discussions or other horrific bullying. -Wikid77 00:10, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Rather than join into the specific discussions here, I thought I should just offer some general thoughts on what I'd like to see happen in this debate in the future.

1. I think it important to note that there is virtually no one in favor of "censorship" and people who think we could improve our interface to allow end users better control will not find it persuasive to be called "censors". Since none of us supports censorship, it's not a word that really has any valid use in this discussion.
2. One useful approach to talking about ideas in this area will be to talk about NSFW. The idea of NSFW is that there are places and times where some kinds of images are not desirable for end users, as opposed to absolute and moralistic conceptions about what people ought to be looking at (or not looking at). Thinking in an NSFW framework helps to avoid getting into highly moralistic anti-censorship (or pro-whatever) mindsets that make it hard to seriously consider real options.
3. Wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, and me as minor public figure all have a very strong anti-censorship track record that we should all be proud of. We can safely consider solutions without fearing that this is just a starting point. Responsible editorial judgment and providing useful tools for readers is important and something that we're all actually very good at. So scaremongering about what the WMF might do to appease a "business partner" or something isn't really very helpful.

I am sure others could offer more in this same vein but the core is that I'd like to see people trying to generate light on the issues and minimize the heat. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, for the priorities. For years, people had claimed, "Content controls cannot be done" or "suppress truth" but finally we see how easily each user could select preferences, and the false claim, "It would be forced on all users" was refuted when I noted how a selected username could remain as logged-in state (such as extend 30-day login to 30,000) with viewer controls set to auto-hide the logout option by CSS-style to rename "logout" as invisible for that username. Then, future MediaWiki software could store "permanent usernames" in PC/tablet files outside of browser cookies (which most users leave for months/years anyway). The focus needs to be on implementation, and then if an "Occupy Wikipedia" protest were to claim WP is an "uncontrollable swamp" then at least the WMF could reply, "There are viewer-controls which parents can set" or the whole church congregation can set their usernames for image/text restrictions. We already discussed mature-content templates which could control sections of unviewable, uneditable text/images in controversial articles, by parser variables, such as check user's {{#viewcode}} = x-rated. As I noted, whole sections about Salvador Dali nudes (text+images) could be omitted by viewer-control sections to suppress template contents, in the same article read by any 12-year-old child, just as Special:Preferences image size > 220px reformats a page (within 7 seconds) to show larger images for the same article read by other people. Focus on how it would work quickly as a user-preference option, rather than claim, "It could only work if forced on everyone" (not true). -Wikid77 (talk) 20:03, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

• I believe Wikipedia is meant to be "PG" and open to all readers to all ages, but with inappropriate pictures and pages, how could we trust this site to be "child-friendly"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ismael755 (talk • contribs) 15:42, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Actually, Ismael, there is nothing anywhere in the history of this site which suggests that we are seeking to create an encyclopedia which is "PG" (a purely American cultural concept), or "child-friendly". --Orange Mike | Talk 15:55, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
    • "PG" is not a "purely American cultural concept". — Scott • talk 16:00, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with Jimbo that scaremongering isn't helpful, especially when it concerns the WMF, but I wouldn't dismiss some of the fears that have been expressed; anyone who doubts the existence of a slippery slope need look only as far as present-day Russia. Our ethical responsibility is to provide verifiably factual, neutral, comprehensive content to all visitors who seek it. Meeting that responsibility occasionally requires us to include content that some people find objectionable. This cannot be helped. It may be a "problem" for those people, but it really isn't our problem. Even if it were our problem, I don't think we could solve it without creating other equally serious problems.

  I cringe just as much as anyone at the thought of young children happening upon certain content, but I also cringe at the thought of adults seeking to keep information from older children simply because it conflicts with their own preconceived ideas of what is "appropriate". When I was of an age, I was lamentably ignorant and confused about several things, and my quest for answers was futile; the references available to me in those days were either silent on certain topics or (as I found out later) outdated, biased, and dead wrong. I'm sure I'm not exaggerating to say that if Wikipedia had existed back then, I would have avoided years of totally unnecessary desolation and danger.

  As for NSFW, I'd hope that employees in public settings would have the sense to avoid certain topics. If they don't, I don't think that's our problem, either. Rivertorch (talk) 20:21, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

"NSFW" is an interesting attempted dodge, but ultimately you're going to circle back to the question of which workplace, in which country, adhering to which cultural standards...which takes us right back to the same old morality debates over deciding what users should or should not be protected from seeing. Our responsibility is not to make every page on Wikipedia work-safe for every reader everywhere, but to make sure that every article on Wikipedia adheres to the 'principle of least astonishment'—that is to say, the reader who types Fargo, North Dakota in the search box should be comfortable anticipating that he won't encounter graphic or disturbing imagery, but the reader who types penis in the search box should be prepared to get exactly what he asks for. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:24, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's nearly as difficult as all that. Standards of NSFW are not that radically different in most places around the world. And the point is that we can't make the perfect the enemy of the good. We can always imagine (probably wrongly, particularly if you know nothing real about (for example) Saudi Arabia) edge cases that are problematic, but they remain edge cases. In all parts of the world, there are images that people under the principle of least astonishment don't expect to pop up on their screen at an encyclopedia without clicking something first - and with perfectly good and non-horrible reasons.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:14, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Good Tidings and all that ...

FWiW Bzuk (talk) 19:54, 23 December 2013 (UTC)