User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

Mediation Committee - as discussed, your opinion requested.

Hi Jimmy,

I appreciate the time you've taken in the past to talk with me about my views of the Mediation Committee, both in the past via email when I was a WMF Community Fellow, and more recently at Wikimania. In Hong Kong, you suggested I start a discussion on your talk page, and in the meantime I have done a bit more digging to get my facts in order. I am aware that many watch this talk page, so I'll give a bit of background to myself and my comments that I will provide here. I apologise in advance for the length.

I've been on the English Wikipedia, on and off, for a bit over five years. Most of that time I have dedicated to resolving content disputes as well as working with other editors to try and improve the dispute resolution process overall. In July 2011 I created the dispute resolution noticeboard, which has two main ideas behind it; make dispute resolution overall less complicated both for parties and for potential volunteers (by simplifying the process), and create a many-to-many relationship between these parties and volunteers, to reduce the potential burnout that can be created by other processes like the Mediation Committee and ArbCom. This has had some success, but like all processes needs more work, which is ongoing.

Around 6 months later, we noticed a drop in cases filed at the Mediation Cabal (an informal process, very similar to the Mediation Committee's process) and after some analysis, figured that as the new DRN process performed largely the same role as MedCab, that it'd be best to mark MedCab as historical, and that was done. That largely leaves us at the present day with some very informal processes, DRN and the Mediation Committee. I feel the problem is that the Mediation Committee is not performing it's role, and have started questioning it's value. Let me explain in a bit more detail.

When I was doing research on dispute resolution last year, I analysed success rates of various processes, and also asked the community their opinions on how effective they felt certain processes were. While it didn't fare too badly (24% rated formal mediation as "Good" or better - page 15), I dug deeper. Over the last 2 years (April 2011-2013) there have been 99 case requests. 86 were rejected for one reason or another (not all parties agreed to mediation, request not suited to mediation, malformed and so on). 13 cases were accepted, of these, 8 were closed as outright unsuccessful (failed), 3 were closed as mediation no longer required, and two were closed as successful. These two cases were open for 19 months and 5 months respectively, which while successful is a bit of a concern. So, overall, we have 99 requests, 13% were accepted and 2% were resolved successfully. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with the members of the committee, and I get along with most of them very well, but I feel that the process itself is broken and question whether going forward it is a workable process that we can continue to use.

I have raised my concerns with both individual members of the committee in the past, as well as with the chair. Last year, myself and others raised concerns about the Mediation Committee's current structure, among other things (Mediation Committee policy is governed by the Mediation Committee, members are self-appointed by other members, and so on). Essentially, I feel that the community has no say in general on the process (unlike ArbCom, where members are directly elected by the community). Some have commented that if the process is not working well, then it's not a big issue, as it's doing no harm. I feel that we should try and be progressive in our approach to resolving disputes on Wikipedia, and recognise that while MedCom has served a useful purpose in the past, given its current state it is in and that efforts made last year to revamp MedCom had little success, that we should consider the value in its continued existence.

I come to you as you are the original creator of MedCom. It was suggested to me that as MedCom is a process that you created, and due to its longevity, that I'd have little luck in getting it closed. The lack of an alternative process has also been noted. I don't just come with problems, but I do have a potential solution. A content dispute would go through a regular DR process (like DRN) to try and resolve it through normal discussion and compromise. Failing that, at present, it would just go to MedCom, where much of the same would take place. Instead, I would propose a moderated discussion be held, where the question/dispute at hand is clearly defined, then opened up for wider discussion to the community - somewhat similar to the Jerusalem and Abortion article titles discussion. I think this could be effective, and am happy to take the lead on creating this process.

I apologise for the length of this post - I have quite a lot of thoughts about this and hope you will take some time to reflect, and consider the points I have made. Regards, Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 04:06, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that we should hold elections for medcom, and run it as you suggest. seems like a good idea. let medcom deal with content disputes, and let arbcom deal with conduct issues. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 05:46, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

That wasn't quite my point though. It was that overall, the process as it stands right now is not working. I'd be open to binning the whole thing and starting it again from the ground up, but I don't think changing the membership model to direct election by the community will solve all our problems. Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 08:52, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• I have participated in the Jerusalem RfC. I think that sort of binding RfCs should only be used as a last resort when all other DR processes fail. Mohamed CJ (talk) 14:12, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Steven neglects to refer to the fact formal mediation is not working simply because it is not being used. Nobody is referring disputes to RFM. All disputes start at WP:DRN, and Steve temporarily and presently co-ordinates that noticeboard, so why has he not simply made a greater effort to have disputes referred up the chain when so required? The simplest solution is the best. In the meantime, and until a greater effort to use RFM fails, this vague and aimless proposal seems like a solution in pursuit of a problem. AGK [•] 23:37, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The fundamental problem with MedCom (iirc) is that it cannot impose binding solutions. Thus, it is a huge waste of time, unless both people agree beforehand to follow the MedCom's solution. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 23:46, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, I think the case against Medcom as an effective DR route is quite compelling. But I also think there are major hurdles to 3-closer RfCs as a replacement. It isn't a properly formalised process and, used more widely, it would be pretty vulnerable to abuse without machinery being built around it (it seems acceptable at the moment, for example, for closers to appoint themselves and each other). The Jerusalem RfC, IMO, showed the problems that can arise if there is not a handed-down locus of dispute for the mediation. It means that the participants end up at cross-purposes as to why they are there. Without Arbcom as a referrer, where does the locus of dispute come from? Most importantly, nailing down WP content is a fairly drastic step which we take only rarely and in cases where it seems like the only answer. Making it standard operating procedure wherever people disagree would be a very big change to the way Wikipedia works and would require a lot of prior thought.
  • BTW. Steven, I don't think you should "take a lead" on this. You're welcome to work on a proposal, but I don't think the psychology of leadership is a healthy thing on WP. Formerip (talk) 00:10, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
    • @AGK: As I said above, I'm quite fond of most of the members of the Mediation Committee, and consider some of them (yourself included) friends. Please don't take my comments here or elsewhere as an attack on the committee as a whole, for this is not how I feel. This is not a "death to MedCom" thread, but I do think that the process of formal mediation in its present form has become somewhat outdated and that we should have a serious discussion about it's future. Now, I did have a discussion with MedCom a month or two back about the idea of DRN referring cases to MedCom, and they were welcoming to this idea. I spoke to several people at Wikimania and after some reflection and analysis I think that sending more cases to MedCom may not resolve its problems. If we look at cases sent to MedCom this year, 12 were filed in total. 10 were rejected, and 2 were accepted. Both of those accepted cases were unsuccessful, for one reason or another. Looking at this (though I will in further depth later today) it may seem that just sending more cases to MedCom won't necessarily be of benefit.
    • @FormerIP, I'll comment in greater depth shortly, but my proposal will not just be a straight adoption of the current 3-closer RFC format. I'd agree that just adopting that model won't work. When I said "take the lead" I meant it as "actively work on a solution". At work we call it "taking ownership" - I didn't mean to imply that I will make myself the boss of this or something. Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 00:37, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
      • I think this idea could work if the policy is changed and Medcom has some support and the ability to make binding resolutions. Otherwise, its just a waste of time. For example, since the Arbcom is the only ones that can desysop an admin for cause, there is no point in Medcom taking a case against admins because they couldn't do anything with it anyway. Kumioko (talk) 00:42, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
        • @KumiokoCleanStart: Since MedCom is for content only, I'm not sure they'd do anything with it even if they could ~Charmlet ^-talk- 01:12, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
          • Good point but the reason I mention that is because Content disputes can and frequently do contain issues of policy violations including those from Admins. In some cases the Medcom folks can mediate but frankly more often than not any mediation either fails or falls apart in short order. If the Medcom had the ability of placing topic bans or other preventitive measures then it would be much more useful. Kumioko (talk) 01:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
• Yeah, Medcom really isn't working. For whatever reason, It now has become a redundant form of DR/N and now hardly ever used at all. It seems to be less structured than DR/N and many editors are intimidated by the suggestion of a referral to formal mediation (that still appears to be non binding) many editors even push past MedCom to go directly to Arbcom as there is no formal structure to DR. I agree with Steven Zhang about using moderated discussions but I would want this to be listed on the RFC page in some manner. I see it similar to an RFC/U but this would be RFC/M. However, I don't know if that alone is enough. I really don't. Could we not strengthen MedCom to make its positions elected and give them the power to sanction in the same manner as ArbCo (as per another suggestion above). My personal experience with MedCom was incomplete but I regularly refer cases to MedCom and mention it as a an option. But Dispute resolution on Wikipedia needs to be looked at and something really does need to be proposed.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:14, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

This is just one personal opinion, obviously, but I think a lot of the questions regarding mediation of content can't really be necessarily resolved by any group without clearer guidelines and policies regarding content, and, honestly, in a lot of cases, a way to maybe make it easier for people involved in mediation to find what other reference-type sources say on a lot of topics. In short, "infrastructure" for content. Some of the free database subscriptions and similar efforts might help a lot in these regards, but even there they won't include a lot of the more recent works which might not be included yet. And, yeah, for a lot of topics, like Islamophobia, racism, and whatever, even there the existing reference sources might not be as good as we might like. For other topics, like Justin Bieber albums, I doubt if the topic is old enough to be covered at all. I could maybe see, maybe, if necessarily, the foundation maybe paying a few databanks for a subscription which would allow the subscription manager to e-mail various sources to those involved in disputes, including mediators, if that might be useful to help resolve this. But, like I said, I'm not sure how useful it would be in a lot of cases, even though I also think, basically, according to policies and guidelines as they exist today, something of that type might be about the only way to really be able to make such content mediation effective.

For content mediation to really work, it has to succeed in two areas. One, the easier one, is about making content conform to policies and guidelines in the broad sense. That part isn't easy, but it is probably the easier of the two situations that will be faced. The hard part is when it has to deal with the matters of things like weight, reliability of sources, and the like. That will be much harder. Those people involved in mediation of abstruse topics will have to believe that the mediators are as qualified on the subject as they are, and the only way I can see that happening is to give the mediators access to evidence hopefully at least equal to that the involved editors, many of whom will consider themselves to be some variety of experts on the topic, already have, to make them apparently roughly as informed on the topic as those already involved. Anyway, just an opinion. John Carter (talk) 00:05, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'm a member of MedCom, but I'm also very active at DRN (and 3O, for that matter). The fact of the matter is that most content disputes pass through DRN these days and by the time they're done there they either (a) have received no attention from a volunteer at all, which means that they cannot go on to MedCom for lack of prior DR or (b) have been debated there until going on to MedCom would be just a do-over and few people are interested in that. The most important difference between DRN and MedCom, however, is that anyone can volunteer at DRN and it's not unheard-of for a dispute to draw a volunteer who has little or no experience at WP or who has little or no experience in DR at WP or both; at MedCom the membership process at least attempts to insure that members are experienced in both DR and WP in general. Though MedCom is not receiving many cases these day due to what happens at DRN, I would be loath to see it go away if for no other reason than the pool of "certified" experienced DR folks it provides even if they're not being used in the MedCom forum per se. One thing which could be done is for MedCom to drop its prior-DR requirement, but there are considerable pros and cons to that idea. About content arbitration: (If at the end of the day, someone other than the community has the right to decide content questions, that's arbitration even if the decision is only binding on the participants in that particular dispute.) That's a perennial suggestion which never succeeds, probably because it flies in the face of the Wiki model. I support such a venue, but I believe that it must be designed to only work in the most difficult cases, must only be binding on the parties in dispute, and must make as much provision for community input as possible (as I propose more fully in my old draft of such a system). If someone wants to take another flyer at such a system, I'll probably !vote to support it, depending on the details, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to be adopted. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:27, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm also a member of MedCom, in fact I'm the chair at the moment, although my term has almost expired. Anyway, I largely agree with TransporterMan's comments above, especially that we should experiment with removing some of the requirements for MedCom to accept cases. Also, as it happens, I wrote my own essay about binding decisions on content disputes called Wikipedia:RfC Committee. PhilKnight (talk) 16:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
• I agree with AGK. Cases are not being referred from the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard (WP:DRN) to the Mediation Committee. I've been a member of MedCom since 2008 and have watched this remarkable decline in cases since the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard replaced MedCab. This change was largely engineered by Steven Zhang, so I find his proposal to now scrap Med Com surprising and disappointing. Clearly, as cases are not progressing from DRN to MedCom we need to fix that. The simplest way to do that, IMO, would be to remove the requirement that cases must go to DRN before MedCom. MedCab was never broken, yet we "fixed" it, on Steven's recommendation, by instituting DRN. Let's not "fix" MedCom by eliminating that too. Sunray (talk) 17:52, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• I just want people to know that I was in no way necessarily saying that there should be a Content committee, although, honestly, for at least a few topics, it might be welcome. But I very much believe that, in at least a few cases which go to mediation in some form, one or more of those involved may well be him- or herself less than objective about the topic. I think I know of at least a few such cases personally, and in several of them the person perhaps supporting a fringe position is in fact supporting a personal belief, which might happen to be fringe, and in fact promoting that belief might be one of, if not the only, reason they edit in the first place. In instances like that, it I believe very much would help if anyone seeking to become involved in mediating a topic were able to themselves rather quickly be able to find other existing highly regarded material on the topic, so that they can more easily find out if one or more of those involved might not themselves be clearly promoting the neutral development of related content. John Carter (talk) 17:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• @Sunray:, I didn't come to Jimmy's talk page to call for the heads of members of MedCom, nor do I think that shutting MedCom down is the best solution here, in fact I would rather it remain but in its current form it's not being overly effective. I do think that we should discuss ways to improve MedCom overall, as at present it has not had a lot of success. I think removing the requirement for prior DR could make things worse, as it would literally become a free-for-all and could see MedCom requests for very trivial disputes. Perhaps making MedCom a process that can only be used through referral, or after other DR has been requested, tried and were unsuccessful. Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 02:38, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

God help me, I think this question, kinda, has to be asked. In all honesty, how many people who are involved in significant disputes really want mediation? In at least a few cases, the individuals on both side are armed to the teeth with references for their side, and there might not be a not unreasonable reservation that, if something were to go to mediation, they might lose. And in a lot of these cases, the people involved are involved to the extent that they might not unreasonably consider it a "win" or "loss". Like I've heard is the case in some copyright law, might it wind up being that the one with a heavier batch of or more references, however good bad or indifferent, will "win"? I don't know, but to the extent that such might be the case in some matters, maybe the thing to do is to try to find some way to make it not seem as likely that there will be a winner and a loser in these efforts? John Carter (talk) 22:21, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I think at this point it might be helpful to clarify the nature of mediation, as in this thread I'm seeing a few misrepresentations about what the process involves. In a properly-done mediation there can be no winning and losing, as the outcome is decided by consensus. The only two possible outcomes are an agreement worked out by mutual consensus between the parties, or no agreement at all. Any mediation-like situation where someone has "won" and someone has "lost" is not actually mediation, but content arbitration, as TransporterMan mentioned above. In true mediation, all the mediator does is facilitate communication between the parties.

For this reason, mediators do not need to be experts in the subject about which they are mediating, although they do need to be well-read enough to judge whether something is in violation of Wikipedia policy or not, as no mediation on Wikipedia is allowed to produce a result which is in violation of Wikipedia policy. For situations where expert judgement is called for, mediators will typically negotiate a way to find this expert opinion from an outside source, rather than provide it themselves. For example, if an opinion is needed on the reliability of a reference, mediators may recommend that parties go to WP:RSN; they may also negotiate an agreement among the parties that they respect whatever consensus is reached there.

If at any point the parties cannot agree on a way forward, and there is no progress despite the intervention of the mediator, the mediation breaks down and ends with no agreement. In such an eventuality the parties may choose to wait a few months and try again to approach the problem from a fresh perspective, or to start an RfC to find a resolution that doesn't require the agreement of all parties. If user conduct is a factor in the dispute not finding a resolution, parties may also choose to try a venue specialising in conduct disputes, although communication made in formal mediation cannot be used as evidence in such a venue due to its privileged nature. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:21, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

All true, but still I believe the point I made is valid. The finer details of "formal mediation" are going to be unknown to a lot of people, particularly SPAs and others who rarely if ever leave a topic area in wikipedia. "Informal mediation" doesn't have all the same formalities, but in it too someone who might, rightly or wrongly, see themselves as up against a wall of opposition, justified or not, might opt to avoid mediation, which will bring about a change, in favor of continuing the status quo. And, yeah, for true POV pushers, just keeping the argument going, hoping the other side backs down or gets tired, is sometimes a not irrational tactic. There are, admittedly, a lot of cases where the subject under discussion is one which doesn't have such parties. But, for a lot of the major topics which have had some content here for a lot of years, and which have been subject to discussion for that time, and the discussion might have been going on for all that time, it might not be unreasonable for someone to think, rightly or wrongly, the system is either inherently broken or incapable of dealing with this particular subject. So, in a sense, if nothing else, I can see some usefulness, maybe even necessity, of somehow, I don't know how, get really positive reception and demonstratable effectiveness in mediation to help encourage people to see it as an effective way of resolving disputes. And, yes, regarding a lot of the newer editors or those not as familiar with all wikipedia processes, I'm not sure that mediation right now necessarily has that kind of public perception. John Carter (talk) 15:37, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: I am disappointed that you have not commented here, for one reason or another, especially as you encouraged me to start a thread on your talk page to get a discussion going. I will further discuss my ideas with the Mediation Committee, and while from what I have initially written it may seem that I want MedCom closed and nothing else, I would much rather see it once more be an effective process. Regards, Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 12:46, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Bravo. It seems more in keeping with Wikipedia practice to discuss this with the most concerned parties (i.e., the Mediation Committee) as a first step, rather than going elsewhere. Sunray (talk) 05:27, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps separate page for Zimmerman

WP still has redirect "George Zimmerman" to article "Shooting of Trayvon Martin" (Feb. 2012) rather than a separate bio page, despite yet more news coverage about police investigating claims of domestic violence in Lake Mary, Florida, including allegedly shattering his estranged wife's laptop computer and a fight against her father (source: CBS News, "George Zimmerman taken into custody after incident with gun", September 9, 2013 3:11 pm). I would think that the coverage in wp:RS sources has exceeded wp:BLP1E, and now a separate page is needed to explain his background with guns, crime watch, and the current police investigation about claims of domestic violence, after his wife filed for divorce. It surprises me how some separate BLP bio pages are thwarted, even when their activities are widely reported for years. Any thoughts about this case yet? -Wikid77 (talk) 23:13, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

There are many good reasons for having a separate BLP on Zimmerman. Recent scandal-mongering is not one of them.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:37, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

His being a private individual would argue against having an article on him alone. Bus stop (talk) 02:12, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Nothing outside of the Trayvon shooting is notable. WP is NOTNEWS and certainly NOTTABLOIDNEWS. The press' fascination of him post-acquittal is equivalent to a gaper's delay. --DHeyward (talk) 06:16, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Except this was a high-profile event with Zimmerman as the center, so his reputation is not aided by making his page a redirect to that event. He would be better served by a bio that does not treat him as an object in a controversy.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 15:17, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd have thought he was likely a BLP1E, and the problem with a separate article about someone is that it's a rubbish magnet, particularly if they're controversial - David Gerard (talk) 15:31, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

He would not be "better served"[1] by an article that focussed on him. Our presumption should be in favor of privacy. We should assume that such focus would would be unwanted. Bus stop (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

You can talk about privacy all you like, but we have articles on the trial and shooting, as we should, and these both focus heavily on Zimmerman. Zimmerman is all over those articles already so his privacy is shot to hell. The only difference is that, not being bios, they focus only on Zimmerman as a person to the extent that it is relevant. In other words, we get a lot about alleged anger issues and his race with some glowing character references, but little more than that. So, yes he would be better served by an independent article since it would allow him to be humanized in a way the current do not humanize him.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I see this as a difficult editorial judgment call that we often have to make. There will be no simple formula answers, but there are some general principles that we can follow. First, I think that BLP concerns should lead us to not start a biography on someone who has been uncontroversially a BLP1E just because of some small additional news event. But it is also clear that at some point (writing a best selling novel? successfully running for Mayor?) the person becomes notable separate from the original incident that led them to be notable in the first place. Some of the factors (but by no means all) would include whether the 2nd event is an ongoing sustained new chapter in life (book author, politician) or another 'incident' (as in this case) which would not be notable in and of itself had the person not been somewhat famous already due to the BLP1E situation. To make my point more practically in relation to this particular case: random dudes have domestic altercations of the type Zimmerman was involved in more recently all the time and it hardly even makes the papers. This made global news because ZImmerman made global news when he shot Trayvon Martin. For me, this doesn't add very much at all to Zimmerman's general notability in terms of having a separate article about him.

Here's an interesting philosophical question, and I'm going to use terminology that I think is not really great but mainly because I think it makes my point clearly. I reject the idea of using percentages in the following way, except as an illustrative analogy. Suppose we need 100% on a notability metric before we will have an article about someone. Suppose that person is involved in a BLP1E and they get to only 75% on our notability metric for an article about themselves, rather than about the 1E itself. Now suppose that person is involved in another BLP1E (presumably of a completely unrelated nature, but this is a hypothetical, so think through several alternatives) and if we considered this one on merit, the person would get to 75% notability on this one as well. Do the points "add up" to 150%? Or not? In what circumstances? That is, can a series of events, each of them not notability-granting enough, add up to notability? I don't have a strong view - I just raise it for contemplation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:29, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't see anything in WP:BLP1E that would prevent an article on George Zimmerman. In fact, it can be argued that it isn't even a case of one event, since there is the shooting and all the events that followed over the next year and a half, and which are continuing. The next significant and notable event coming up in Zimmerman's life may be the civil trial against NBC or a corresponding settlement.

Regarding the 75%, etc., idea, the answer might depend on how each 75% is made up. If each 75% is from very significant sources but they are respectively only 75% in number, then 75%+75% would be enough sources for notability. If each 75% came from sources of not too much significance, then it's not clear if 75%+75% would be enough for notability. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:49, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

There is only the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Jimbo Wales argues cogently when he says "But it is also clear that at some point (writing a best selling novel? successfully running for Mayor?) the person becomes notable separate from the original incident that led them to be notable in the first place. Some of the factors (but by no means all) would include whether the 2nd event is an ongoing sustained new chapter in life (book author, politician) or another 'incident' (as in this case) which would not be notable in and of itself had the person not been somewhat famous already due to the BLP1E situation." Zimmerman has not written a best selling novel nor has he successfully run for Mayor.

"[T]he events that followed over the next year and a half, and which are continuing" are merely consequential to the shooting. Bus stop (talk) 21:15, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree that a separate article on Zimmerman would be overkill. Coretheapple (talk) 21:21, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

For better or worse, the Trayvon Martin shooting made Zimmerman a celebrity of sorts. This often happens in high-profile cases in the US. At this point, not having an article on him as the subject of news coverage is just delaying the inevitable. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

That prediction may turn out to be correct, but we actually manage to hold the line over this most of the time, even in high-profile cases. It's true that we also sometimes deviate from the rules, but less often than you might guess. Zimmerman does fit the profile of an exception (21st century, lots of news coverage in the US), but it would be a good thing if Wikipedia is just able to keep calm and stick with the article it has, which it the right place for any encyclopaedic information about Zimmerman at the present time. Formerip (talk) 21:49, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

• This seems to have raised a general issue regarding what is in Wikipedia policy. I don't see anywhere in policy that when events have their origin in a single event, they should not be considered separate events for the purposes of WP:BLP1E but instead part of the same event. It would be helpful if someone could quote the excerpt from policy that supports that assertion. Thanks.
• Also, even if one considers the shooting and everything related to it in Zimmerman's life that followed as the same event, could someone quote the excerpt from WP:BLP1E or elsewhere that applies to not having an article on Zimmerman? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:15, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

There's a more specific policy that applies here, WP:CRIME. Formerip (talk) 00:22, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Could you quote the excerpt from WP:CRIME that you are using? Thanks.

Also, aside from policy considerations there is the practical point that Zimmerman is an extremely notable person and I think readers interested in this case would like to know more about him. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:37, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The relevant part of WP:CRIME is the first sentence. The point here is that the incident and the individual are indistinguishable, from and encyclopaedic perspective. There's nothing in the shooting article that would be irrelevant to a Zimmerman article and nothing that could be included in a Zimmerman article that doesn't have a place in the shooting article. So the two articles, properly written, would contain exactly the same information, it's just that one would begin "George Zimmerman is...". Redirects come free of charge, so we do not need two articles. Plus, in this case the article that exists is contentious and problematic. Why create an additional contentious and problematic article? There is no upside to doing so whatsoever. Formerip (talk) 03:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

It is the incident that is "extremely notable". What about Zimmerman is extremely notable apart from the incident at the center of his notoriety? Bus stop (talk) 01:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually, both the event and the person are extremely notable. Zimmerman became notable because of the event, i.e. the shooting, and his notability grew because of events that occurred subsequent to the shooting. For a couple of weeks after the shooting, he and the shooting were relatively unknown. It was only after the efforts of Martin's mother to get him arrested that the shooting, Trayvon Martin, and Zimmerman became well known.

Regarding WP:CRIME, in addition to the first sentence, there is also the second sentence. Here they are,

"A person who is known only in connection with a criminal event or trial should not normally be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article if there is an existing article that could incorporate the available encyclopedic material relating to that person.

Where there is such an existing article, it may be appropriate to create a sub-article, but only if this is necessitated by considerations of article size."

The existing article is Shooting of Trayvon Martin. There is a section on Zimmerman but it has been limited so as not to digress from the topic of the article and because of space considerations. As I mentioned in my previous message, I think there is the practical consideration that readers interested in this case would like to know more about Zimmerman.

An article on George Zimmerman was created yesterday. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:08, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

If the exemption in the second sentence applies, then it applies. Which is fine, so long as editors are being sincere and diligent with regard to it being "necessitated". Formerip (talk) 12:16, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Something else just occurred to me regarding WP:CRIME in general. Does this section apply if the person was found not guilty in a trial? --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:30, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• In this case, Zimmerman's biographical information has been extensively documented. Is that because of the Martin incident? Almost certainly, yes. Does that matter? No. Either we have sufficient sourcing to sustain an article or we do not. If we can sustain articles with "Jack Crack played for the Midvale Someproteam for 5 minutes off the bench in 1991", we certainly have sufficient information for a biographical article on Zimmerman. Why that coverage has arisen is irrelevant. The fact remains it has, and the coverage of Zimmerman covers him biographically and completely, far beyond his involvement in this one incident. BLP1E is meant to prohibit biographies when the only thing, or near it, we can say about X, is "X was involved in Y". That's not the case here, and why the sources chose to cover him so completely is irrelevant. They did, we can support a full article, and we need to write it. We follow reliable sources' lead, including to answer the question of what is notable and what is not. It is a violation of neutrality to second-guess them. In this case, they have clearly decided Zimmerman, in his own right, is notable. We must, to remain neutral, follow their lead. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:28, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

JImbo, FYI, it might have gotten lost in the discussion, but I responded to your 75%+75% idea in the above. I just thought I would mention it here so that you are aware that your idea wasn't ignored. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:58, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• Continued coverage led to individual notability: The longer-term focus on neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is another case where "Notability is determined by the world's attention span" and people reported, after he was acquitted of murder for shooting Trayvon 2 minutes before police arrived, Zimmerman went to visit the gun factory which manufactured his handgun. Then months later, a story is reported of him threatening his wife with a handgun and fighting her father, but she declined to press charges. Every time he has a handgun incident with police intervention, it is likely to be seen as notable. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:00, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps separate page for Trayvon Martin

Same practical consideration as above for Zimmerman, that readers interested in the case will want to know more about Trayvon Martin too. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:40, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

If anything, it's arguably more justifiable, as Trayvon Martin wouldn't be a BLP and so doesn't raise quite the same problems. Robofish (talk) 00:57, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

There might be some considerations per WP:BDP until 2 years after death, which would be Feb 2014. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:14, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I think we should act on the assumption that BLP/BDP continues to apply to Trayvon Martin for the foreseeable future. WP:BDP says: "Such extensions would apply particularly to contentious or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide or a particularly gruesome crime." This case was gruesome enough, and even if not, the words "such as" mean other situations can fall into that category as well. I would say that one of the highest-profile criminal cases of the decade, with family members of the victim still very much alive and presumably reading the Internet, is enough to bring Trayvon Martin within BDP. As for the time period, I don't think we should assume that BDP suddenly winks out on the second anniversary of the incident. The term "an indeterminate period beyond the date of death - six months, one year, two years at the outside" is hardly a model of scientific precision, and it probably ought to be fixed. That "two years" obviously was not handed down on a stone tablet and we shouldn't treat it like it was. Neutron (talk) 01:49, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

For reference, here's the part of the policy section WP:BDP that is about the time after death exception and what it is an exception from.

"Generally, this policy [ WP:BLP ] does not apply to material concerning people who are confirmed dead by reliable sources. The only exception would be for people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death - six months, one year, two years at the outside."

--Bob K31416 (talk) 05:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Trayvon Martin was really only notable in his death. He was just a kid! Is it fair that George Zimmerman can continue to go around the country potentially getting involved in further news coverage while Martin's story is done? Many think not. But that's not our fault. Wnt (talk) 03:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Re "Is it fair that George Zimmerman can continue to go around the country potentially getting involved in further news coverage while Martin's story is done? Many think not." — Could you explain this remark? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

One of them is still doing things, and the other isn't. Wnt (talk) 17:27, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Both of them continue in U.S. news reports, where Trayvon has become the "poster child" for anti-gun topics, or for protest rallies which contest the "Stand your ground" gun laws. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:00, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• His use as a poster child though is still built around 1 event. It is centered with his death, not any other aspect of his life.John Pack Lambert (talk) 23:21, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

This comment makes me sad.

An editor posted this comment, and I find it disturbing. How can we engage in our mission if some of our editors don't feel comfortable contributing due to the hostile comments of others? Powers ^T 18:23, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Truly a mess of wikipedia's own making, exacerbated by the vindictive pursuit of those who boldly made the move while ignoring those engaged in transphobic hate commentary♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 18:43, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

In the link you gave:

Re "Then I saw her name changed back on Wikipedia" — It was the title that was changed back, not the name nor gender. Here's the first paragraph of the article.

"Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was convicted in July 2013 of violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses, after releasing the largest set of restricted documents ever leaked to the public. She was sentenced to be confined for 35 years and dishonorably discharged from the service. This was reduced by 112 days for harsh treatment received during pre-trial confinement at Quantico. With credit for other pre-trial confinement and good behavior, she could be released on parole after eight years.

I have the impression that there is a belief by some Wikipedians that the move of the title back to Bradley was motivated by trans-genderphobia, rather than what editors honestly considered good editing practice. Is that the case here? --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

As the linked comment makes clear, the problem was not so much with the move itself as with the commentary that accompanied it, much of which was highly offensive. MastCell ^Talk 19:16, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

For reference, this issue was discussed in a previous section of Jimbo's Talk page here. I think that editors should be sensitive to other editors' feelings in general, including discussions involving transgender issues. Unfortunately there seems to be a significant number of editors that belong to a combative subculture in Wikipedia. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:36, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, this is not about the Manning article; this is about how some editors feel that it's not even worth the effort to try to educate others because of the pushback and hostility they receive. This specific case is about trans* editors, but it also applies to female editors, and is a major cause of our gender gap. We should find ways to encourage more editing -- and more talk page discussion -- from female and transgender editors, not discourage it. Powers ^T 21:12, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Re "We should find ways to encourage more editing -- and more talk page discussion -- from female and transgender editors, not discourage it." — Any suggestions? --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

I wish I did. I was hoping to spur some discussion and harness the wisdom of the crowds. Powers ^T 00:54, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

For the case of transgender issues for example, a template might be created that puts a notice at the top of a talk page that has discussion about transgender issues, to caution editors about the sensitivity of the subject. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:08, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't to blame - this is altogether a confused situation. We have a perfect storm of factors, including:

• The name change isn't fully legal. Manning still wants to be known as Bradley in official correspondence and for appeals, which means that many petitions, motions, and ensuing publicity will be under that name.
• Manning was known as Bradley during all major public appearances, and now is essentially unavailable.
• Manning is not permitted to do things to assert a female identity - people are still passing around a really bad picture from 2010 while she was still generally presenting herself as male.
• Manning has ticked off conservatives who may indeed be trans-phobic who deny the validity of the transition - but who also have legitimate concerns about whether taxpayers should pay for treatments. We may discount their opinions but it still affects how certain media report the issue.
• Manning has at least confused liberals who had been sticking to a script that Bradley was a gay man who was unfairly discriminated against by the military in a way that had a strongly counterproductive effect on national security. Saying she was a pre-transition transsexual who needed sex reassignment therapy opens up a huge can of worms. (Is it reasonable to expect the military to enlist a soldier who needs significant surgery and hormone treatment, and if so, should they be willing say to enlist a 400-pound soldier, pay for bariatric surgery, and pay his salary while he slims down?) So there's deep root confusion on both sides.
• Outcome of all this, not sure of the weighting, is that a news search still seems to prefer Bradley even for present articles. Which suggests that the move was premature, since typically we follow the sources.

Basically, it seems like about as confused a case as Wikipedia is likely to run across. We are ultimately no better than the data we have to work with. Wnt (talk) 03:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

So, this user, who registered 2 days ago and whose user page says that they used to be another named user, who registered a month ago and whose user page suggests that they were a long time IP editor (presumably with some time to consider a user name before registering) thinks that it is tragic that Wikipedia did not instantly change the title of an article after the subject was known by a name for 25 years but, according to some sources, chose a third name 3 years ago chose to rename themselves? Did I get all of that right? UnbelievableError (talk) 05:17, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Again, my point has nothing to do with renaming the Manning article. I brought this up because when we have a user who feels intimidated against editing because of anti-trans hostility and insensitivity coming from fellow editors, that's a serious problem. Powers ^T 13:49, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd say it is a bit of a wake-up call that it is time to learn how to deal with people with opposing points of view. The truly hostile and derogatory comments made in those discussions, if there were any, will be dealt with via the Arbitration hearings going on right now. "Insensitivity" is a catch-all buzzword for "things I don't like", quite honestly. Tarc (talk) 14:25, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Well what other word would you use for comments that disparage transgenderism? Surely you couldn't describe them as being particularly sensitive to the feelings of such people? Powers ^T 15:00, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. No response to my last message. Oh well. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:42, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I see the real problem being not so much trans hostility as Manning hostility form US patriots outraged that anyone should support Manning, who has been convicted of espionage, i.e. giving away US govt property to wikileaks. There are too many rumours of editors who have supported the Chelsea name and she pronoun being made to "pay" for daring to defend Manning, a "traitor" in the eyes of some editors though not in my eyes but I am not American either♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:02, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this thread doesn't seem to be moving towards solutions, but rather towards battling. I tried to move this thread in a positive direction in my discussion with Powers, but that seems to be ignored. Are all of you sure that you want this kind of uncooperative environment for Wkipedia? --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:04, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see battling. It's a complicated situation because Manning is so otherwise unsympathetic. Without diffs or quotes it's hard to know if this is a real problem, blowback from Manning being (at least arguably) a not very nice person, just life in the big city, or whatever. I'm inclined to be supportive because I've seen evidence of a frat-boy vibe on the Wikipedia before, but can we get some diffs or quotes? Herostratus (talk) 02:42, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Re "I don't see battling." — Actually, I wrote that it seems to be moving towards battling, in contrast to not moving towards cooperation. Perhaps you have a different impression that the discussion is moving towards cooperation or is already cooperative and working on solutions to differences?

As I mentioned in my last message, I tried to move this thread in a positive direction in my discussion with Powers, but that seems to be ignored. Did you want to contribute anything to that discussion? The last message in that discussion was mine of 01:08, 12 September 2013.

Re "I'm inclined to be supportive..." — Could you clarify what you are inclined to be supportive towards? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:33, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

For the record, I wasn't ignoring you; I just didn't have anything useful to add. Your idea sounds like it'd be a good start, but I am doubtful it would change much. Powers ^T 19:15, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't meant as a cure all. It was meant to help the editing environment for those like the person you mentioned at the beginning of this section. I was only trying to follow up on your request, "We should find ways to encourage more editing -- and more talk page discussion -- from female and transgender editors, not discourage it." If you feel it'd be a good start, could you follow up on it? If you do, feel free to give me a link on my talk page to your activity. Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:49, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I guess my problem with this, after reading the original comment, is that the commentors point may be taken as "We need to move the Wikipedia to a place where, when someone announces a self-identification as a gender different from their previous one, changing the name and pronouns (even going back to before the announcement and so on, and not regarding current state of hormone therapy, how various notable sources are handling it, and so on) is something that occurs automatically and cannot even be discussed because such a discussion would make me personally, and the class of transgendered persons generally, feel sad and unwelcome". I dunno about that. We discuss everything to death here, so I'm not sure if we want to make an exception here and, even if we do, what mechanism exists to make that so.

But maybe it's not that at all, but rather this: editors implying that trans people are less than human (the commentor did claim that this occurred). That's an entirely different kettle of fish, is not acceptable, is also way far from the sort of thing of thing we should be discussing on the Wikipedia at all and certainly not at the article in question, and is a pretty serious charge. Is it true? That's all I want to know: is it true? Is it "battling" to ask that question, or should I take the position "A person said it, so it must be true"? I don't usually do that. Provide diffs and I promise to help work on the steps leading to whatever it takes to get such blackguards thrown off the Wikipedia. Herostratus (talk) 01:31, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it was along the lines of your first paragraph, but rather along the lines of your second paragraph. Your request for the diffs and quotes regarding what were the comments implying "less than human" seems like a reasonable request. In that regard, there were some quotes without diffs presented at the beginning of this archived section. There was another list here under "Comments which can appear to be Anti-transgender" in the collapsed "extended comment". I think that different people may react differently to the quotes, depending on their respective backgrounds and the context. Regarding the second list of comments, Arbcom might give an opinion about which of them should be considered offensive and which should not, if Arbcom accepts the case. --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:54, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Those are good and useful links. I can hardly do all that material justice, but I want to get this in before the robots archive the thread. Reviewing the comments, it looks like:

• Some are reasonable, for instance "Bradley Manning still dresses as a man (wears the male military dress uniform,) and is still legally known (in name and otherwise) to the U.S. Army as Bradley - a male. Changing the name to Chelsea should not occur before hormone therapy has even begun (it it ever even will occur) or before a legal name change..." and some others of that nature. That's not the ravings of a madman or bigot. I think people need to be able to make points like that.
• Some are of the same general nature, but expressed with less a lot less literateness and sensitivy, for instance ""What would you do if s/he self-identified as a dog, cat, broomstick, or banana then? Self-identification is not the same as legal identity". Here the person is making a similar point -- we should go with legal identity, which whether right or wrong is reasonable -- but stupidly and insensitively (and using the same sort of rhetoric you hear with (say) "If we let Negroes vote, then I suppose dogs next?"). This is appalling. I don't know what you can do about this, though. You can't banish people for engaging in hyperbole or being clods, up to a point. And to some extent we're going to reflect the general cultural gestalt and not what we wish it would be. But anyway maybe a lot of this is inflamed by the next couple of points, below.
• Again, there's a general dislike of Manning (for instance ""Manning is a convicted criminal, and I couldn't care less about him/her/it" which I would classify under Manninphobia and not transphobia) which I think colors a lot of this. I mean, with "And he could say he wants to be called Minnie Mouse, for all we care, but that don't make it so" and so on (and there's a lot of that) is the person really transphobic or is he just pissed at Manning? I'm not sure you can say for sure its 100% one or the other. And on top of that there's the shocking circumstances. I was certainly shocked by Manning's announcement and I think a lot of people were. I certainly can't image worse timing or a worse set of circumstances if you wanted a test case for transgender acceptance. Maybe if Osama bin Laden had transgendered, or something.
• And there's a great deal of stuff like this: "While I think there's nothing wrong with being transgender, the level of activism here that has nothing to do with Manning makes me want to vomit. Please take your struggle for recognition elsewhere". That's anti-activist. The person did say "I think there's nothing wrong with being transgender" so do you really want to file that under transphobic statements? (A lot of people didn't bother to put in that first point though, though.) I don't know if there was any agenda-pushing, but a lot of people apparently do think so, and I guess it depends on your point of view.

All in all, I think that the Manning case is a one-off. He's sui generis because of the other circumstances. Here's what I would do: I'd look at other cases. Other people on whom we have articles have changed gender. What's happened there? Have we seen rampant transphobia there? I'd let the Manning case go for the most part and look at those.

My advice for the person making the original complaint is to probably do the same thing and maybe pick a better test case. Regarding for instance " I've discussed the Chelsea Manning issue with friends who were misgendering her and complaining about their taxes supporting her treatment, and was able to explain things from my experience as a trans woman. They know and respect me, and it didn't take long for them to understand why that attitude is so troubling and came away with a much better understanding of trans issues. For me, what's missing from that comment is "...and I came away with a much better understanding of the usual treatment of traitors and why someone would rather have their taxes paying for her execution" or something. These kinds of discussions are better when they're two-way streets. Herostratus (talk) 08:19, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you made good points and it seems that you finished with a suggestion for improvement. The suggestion seemed to originate in the quote from the editor who was feeling unwelcomed and alienated, "I've discussed the Chelsea Manning issue with friends who were misgendering her...". Although it can be hard, in the same way the editor might have discussed the matter of the comments with some of the editors who made the remarks, assuming good faith that the editors who made the comments didn't mean any harm but it was just part of their usual debate style and that they didn't understand the possible adverse personal effect on some of the editors reading the comments. Such a discussion with an editor might not be successful, but I think that it would be successful with most editors. People tend not to know much about the transgender subject or what is considered offensive. Also as you mentioned, it's a two-way street and the editor who was offended may come away with a better understanding of the editors who made the remarks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

The WMF response to the Visual Editor RFC is disappointing and insulting

Jimmy I just wanted to stop by and leave a message about how seriously disappointed I am in the WMF right now. Not only did they release Visual Editor months before it was ready (and it still isn't) when the community held an RFC and got a conensus to make Visual Editor opt in only, the WMF tells us to F off. Now it may not seem like a big deal that more than 800 individual editors voted and more almost 500 supported the proposal but its a huge deal. Its unprecedented to get that many editors to vote on anything let alone get a consensus like that. Then you have WP:FLOW on the horizon and all indications are that it will destroy all the talk page templates and pretty much eliminate all WikiProjects and a lot of the other support infrastrcture we have built up over the last few years that use the talk pages. So, since the WMF clearly doesn't give a damn about us volunteer editors and doesn't care about what we have to say, I am taking a break from editng. Maybe a few days, maybe forever and I don't think anyone will care that I'm gone. But I wanted to let you know that as passionate as I am about the success of the project, we as volunteers deserve better treatment from the organization that is supposed to be supporting the project. Kumioko (talk) 19:50, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

If you think that response evaluates to "F off", you have a serious perspective issue. What I see is more along the lines of "We've tried to accommodate the community's concerns, but going opt-in isn't an option for these reasons." Powers ^T 21:18, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The response is basically that they will continue to provide access to VE to a group of editors that isn't skilled enough to monitor their edits for damage or to have any understanding as to why things went wrong because they consider testing VE to be more important than the Wikipedia project itself. It may not be "fuck off", but it certainly smacks of "out of my way with your petty concerns".—Kww(talk) 21:31, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

• I'm a cynic about these things, but it seems to me this whole Early Introduction And Damn the Torpedos Full Speed Ahead Even Though The Boat Ain't Seaworthy approach is related to the annual WMF fundraising cycle. WMF pretty clearly has an agenda with Visual Editor and they aren't gonna let pesky established editors get in the way of it... Carrite (talk) 02:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Not to mention the unseemly institutional enthusiasm (wanting to seem cool?) for the oh-so-trendy and entrepreneurial "release early and often" screw-em standard of software user abuse. Ahem - bit of an embarrassment, that. It's an encyclopedia - software stability and usability should be of paramount concern. The opt-in consensus of the community should have been honored without hesitation. --Lexein (talk) 11:53, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

  Software development is not well suited to mob rule. Powers ^T 14:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

  This shoving of broken software down user's throats (hidden opt-out) has nothing to do with "software development". Software development is one thing and must go forward. Aggressive and blatantly unapologetic use-testing on unsuspecting and untrained users who unknowingly cause damage and more work for other users is another. The community didn't want to stop software development, which should have been obvious to you. It has to do with blinkered and piggish we know better than the community arrogance. Learn such differences before you smarm. --Lexein (talk) 07:53, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• And can I add a criticism from a slightly different angle? The Foundation admitted two years ago this month that it was a mistake to let community processes involving programming run all the way through before telling the community that they weren't going to do it no matter what the community decided. Even though they were clearly more reluctant and open about this RFC they could have saved the community a great deal of trouble by just saying up front that they weren't going to do this. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:56, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• I took their response as more along the lines of "we screwed stuff up, but so what? It's shiny!" Having a captive audience shouldn't be an excuse to operate this way. Especially when the people working on this stuff are volunteers. It might do well for some to remember that. Intothatdarkness 17:29, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• I guess the founder has no opinion on this Visual Editor debacle. I would be interested to hear his thoughts on this and if he is in support of the WMF's decision to ignore the community. 24.107.244.140 (talk) 00:01, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

There has been no decision to "ignore the community". Nor is Kumioko's characterization of the Foundation's position as "F off" even remotely accurate. I think the Foundation is broadly doing the right thing with the Visual Editor, and I also think there were serious mistakes that must be learned from going forward. In particular, I think TransporterMan is onto something when he suggests that the Foundation could have been even more clear that RfC's are not the right way to design software (although ever since the Flagged Revisions debacle, that's been abundantly clear). The Foundation is NOT, and I repeat this very loudly, NOT pursuing a software development strategy that ignores community input. Anyone who says that is either not paying attention and deeply misinformed, or just trying to cause trouble. It is important to draw a very clear distinction between "they didn't do this exactly how I think they should have done it" and "they are ignoring the community".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:41, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for taking time to comment but I do disagree with one thing. By telling community they will not support a consensus they are, by definition, ignoring them. So although the F off comment may have been pushing the limit, its more a matter of perspective to me. Is the more important thing to build an encyclopedia or to have the community test software? If the WMF doesn't need the community, then they can surely ignore them. If they don't need the community then they should probably work with them. 24.107.244.140 (talk) 00:53, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, are you blind? The foundation said this - We aren't following your consensus. We don't care about your consensus, it doesn't control us. That goes against what the WMF is supposed to be there for. You need to step up and smell the consensus, and act upon it. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 00:58, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Why do you expect me to respond with kindness to an insulting question like "Jimbo, are you blind?" Well, I will respond with kindness but you really should think about whether it's productive to insult me rather than have a thoughtful conversation with me. The Foundation did not say "We aren't following your consensus. We don't care about your consensus, it doesn't control us." You wrote that. What the Foundation said was very thoughtful and more nuanced than that. It's very easy to get yourself in an emotional outrage to the point that you are calling me blind, but a little moderation and careful reading will be quite valuable to you. I recommend you go back and read the statement again, but with love in your heart rather than anger. I think you may re-evaluate where there might be some blindness. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe if you actually thought of the community as what they are - above your own opinion - and tried to resolve this issue, then I wouldn't feel so insulted myself as a member of the community so as to need to be that blunt. Being more "nuanced" and more "thoughtful" or "thought out" does not change the message that they were conveying - We control this, and we are not going to do what you say just because you have consensus. When I read their statement, the only thing I had in my mind was "What are they saying?". Not anger. You have this "WMF IS RIGHT" ideology, and in this case, the WMF is exercising an authority it should not have. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 01:18, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

That is not the message they were conveying at all. I do not have a "WMF IS RIGHT" ideology. If you can accept that I'm saying those two things in good faith, you may be able to go back and reread what they said and what I've said in a more cooperative spirit. There are several options on the table now, all of which are better than the current situation. Which one do you support?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:17, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Why take the time to support any of them? The WMF will just do what it thinks is right. --Onorem (talk) 14:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I support the community consensus - which the WMF has said that they will not do. Them offering their options is not the same as accepting consensus. Consensus is very in favor of opt-in, not opt-out. The WMF is saying "we don't care, but here's what we'll accept as your consensus". You asking me which of the WMF options I support is irrelevant - it doesn't matter what the WMF gives us as options - they should accept the consensus for what it is. Whatever it is. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 16:48, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, that isn't going to happen. My view is that the RfC, in the nature of RfCs, offered too blunt of an option, so editors chose the best of two bad options. Now we have some middle ground proposals. That's the nature of forward progress, negotiation, and compromise.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:44, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, it's not a matter of them not doing it "exactly how I think they should have done it." They were grossly irresponsible by releasing it too early, and have been steadfastly deaf to pleas to put it back under controlled test until it works. The RFC wasn't a method of design, it was trying to get them to listen and understand basic facts, and they proved that they are unwilling to recognize that their inability to test their software is not Wikipedia's problem.—Kww(talk) 01:02, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Suffice to say, I do not agree.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:07, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I bet their minds would be changed if all or a lot of the supporters didn't edit for a while like the one who started this discussion. One person leaving won't change anything but a bunch of editors leaving would I bet. Or if they just stopped using it and stopped testing it. If no one is using it or supporting it then it won't take long for it to sink in. It really doesn't matter to me, I got here on accident anyway. But I'm sorta starting to see why there aren't many new editors signing up. If the community and the company that owns the software don't get along then the community members probably won't either. 24.107.244.140 (talk) 01:19, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

What is it that you don't agree with? Do you think that intentionally releasing software you know to be broken is responsible behaviour? Or do you think that using inexperienced editors as test subjects is an acceptable test strategy? Or that failing to allocate staff to monitor the edits produced by those inexperienced test subjects in order to repair them is responsible behaviour? What's the defense?—Kww(talk) 01:31, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok let's go through this step by step. I think it was a mistake to release VE when the Foundation did, and the Foundation agrees and has apologized repeatedly. I do not think it was 'irresponsible' - it was a poor decision, but not all poor decisions rise to the level of irresponsibility. I think that if we want to improve the software with a key goal of helping newbies become editors, then yes, we must test the software with newbies. I think that's patently obvious. In terms of monitoring for problems created by newbies using the new editor, I have seen no evidence - least of all from critics who seem more interesting in slinging around arrogant insults than in helping - that the rate of reverts is dramatically different for newbies using the VE versus newbies using wikitext. Facts matter. I do think that a key focus of bug fixing should be to focus on any bugs that are causing newbies to break things without realizing it. If you agree with me about that, let me suggest that the best way to accomplish your goals is to stop throwing around completely false claims and inappropriate moral judgments.

Now, that's a response to each of your questions, but let me additionally explain what was wrong with your original statement. The Foundation has not been "steadfastly deaf to pleas" - they have been working hard to find solutions to real problems. Some people have been "steadfastly deaf" to the Foundation's thoughtful responses. It's possible to disagree without engaging in completely silly apocalyptic dramaz.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:14, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, Comparing the RfC results to the WMF reply leaves a bad taste, and the Wikimedia response of 'never mind, we'll do it anyway, we have reasons for it'---does come across as a tad arrogant, as does the notion of 'Don't tell us how to develop software'. Such comments just invite cynic/sarcastic commentary. I have worked in software developing teams without being an SD myself. From that experience I can tell you that VE was not beta on release date, it was alpha. Releasing alpha software and afterwards putting warnings in place, fixing known major bugs, providing links to alternatives, etc. is indeed somewhat irresponsible, not of the individuals involved but of the team as one entity. Are WMF and community working together, or are they working against each other? --Pgallert (talk) 14:36, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo,to apologize retroactively and say, ten weeks later, that they finally understand that they made a mistake rings a little hollow. We told them they had made a mistake ten weeks ago. Why didn't they listen then? We're telling them now that the software is still badly broken. Will they admit 10 weeks from now that we were right?

I don't make false statements. Claiming that the revert rate is no higher is one thing: the problem is that someone has to check each and every edit looking for the problems because the software is untrustworthy. We do continually uncover bugs that lead to article corruption. We have identified sources of article corruption that they refuse to fix. They still can't perform that basic tasks required to edit most articles.

I firmly agree that once the code works, it will be necessary to have a phase that tests it with newbies. Since the code doesn't work, there's no need to test it with newbies right now. That's all the RFC said: it didn't say "Never have a Visual Editor" or "Visual Editors suck", it said "this particular Visual Editor is in such bad shape that it is not suitable for deployment." That's not a false statement.

And yes, the initial deployment may have been a mistake. To refuse to undo the deployment when that mistake became painfully obvious was irresponsible. It still is.—Kww(talk) 16:13, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Vaguely speaking, of the approx 10 things that a newbie needs to know to do basic editing in Wikipedia, they created a complicated system to make the easiest ONE (editing basic text) easier. That doesn't help. North8000 (talk) 16:37, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo - I could take this to mean "let's test BLP additions without references". Because what you're saying is, in essence, let's test this on those who already have trouble referencing, and make it super easy to add claims, but super hard to add references. Have you looked at the interface? It is not intuitive at all. New users have been using less references, but adding more vandalism and unsourced claims since VE was enabled. ~Charmlet ^-talk- 16:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I think and hope we are very slowly getting closer to you not just yelling at me but giving me actionable information. Please try really hard to continue to improve your tone.

It is of course true that you could take my words to mean "let's test BLP additions without references" - but it'd be aggressive and deeply dishonest to do so. I have not said anything of the sort.

Similarly, you can't possibly expect me to take you yelling at me as useful data, and then turn around and yell at the developers in the same way, calling them irresponsible and so on. Just drop that kind of language because it doesn't matter if I agree with you or not (I don't) it's a useless expression of anger that is not going to help you achieve your goals.

Now, you've made 3 empirical claims. (1) New users have been using less references (2) New users have been adding more vandalism (3) New users have been adding more unsourced claims. All of those are amenable to empirical analysis. I think that (1) is likely true, (2) is likely false, and (3) is likely true. But data would make a difference.

I hope you can understand the difference in the two approaches. "Jimbo, the Foundation is evil and irresponsible and hates us" leaves me with nothing actionable because I know it is total angry bullshit from top to bottom. "Jimbo, I know the developers are working hard but I'm concerned about prioritization. Here's some empirical measurement showing X, Y, and Z particular problems. Here are some suggestions for improvement: A, B, C. It seems the developers have made this part a low priority but I think it should be a high priority. Can you help us to engage them in dialog about this?" Ah, now there's finally something I can do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:42, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I hope you can forgive my tone, I'm trying :) Stress is killing me right now, as is lack of sleep. I do understand the difference between everything, so what I'd like to ask is could you potentially talk to the WMF or the developers about developing better ways to referenece in VE? In my opinion, since it is most likely still going to be available to new users, that is a higher priority than getting all the fancy stuff working (because those who are using the fancy stuff are mainly editors who will know how to use the source for time being). ~Charmlet ^-talk- 19:52, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree completely, Jimbo wants data and facts but he and the WMF ignore them when they are given. They display a classic case of WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. The community has been giving input for months and part of that input and feedback was its not ready for release, pull it back ad continue to develop it and re-release it when its ready. Instead of working with the community though its just bunch of accusations of being mean and playing victim. Jimbo, We aren't buying it. Read the RFC, the vaste majority of the few opposes it got in support of VE actually indicated they wanted it to be harder for newbies. Its obvious at this point no matter what data we provide the you and the WMF are going to continue to ignore whats best for the project and the community and continue to do whatever the hell you want. 71.178.250.15 (talk) 04:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Basically, VE makes Wikipedia evil/suck/etc. The fact that many articles on my watchlist lights up with Visual Editor tags indicates (1) we now seem to filter VE edits in the same way we filter vandal edits and (2) instead of me making one good edit, I'm going to spend three times as long checking a VE edit has been made correctly. Is this helping Wikipedia? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:03, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

"VE makes Wikipedia evil/suck/etc." Strong words but not backed up by any empirical evidence and not actually true at all as far as I can tell. Data would change my mind. And the data I've seen so far say that this is just not at all even remotely true.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:30, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, point me to the "empirical evidence" that suggest VE is working please. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:43, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Go read James Forrester's statement. It summarizes what is known quite nicely. Here is a relevant quote: "The data we have provides us with both positive and negative points about VisualEditor. One thing we have noticed, which we feel is beneficial, is that users are 6 times more likely to use edit summaries than with the markup editor – though earlier in VisualEditor's development it was more than 10 times more likely, and we're investigating what led to the shift. We've also heard a lot of qualitative feedback from users, new and old, that indicates the VisualEditor is a better interface for making small changes to content, or a better interface full stop. Some manual spot reviews of changes made with VisualEditor has shown that, though there are some issues, only a very few edits result in broken content or mistakes, and of course errors due to misunderstanding wikitext do not occur. At the same time, there are some indications that people using VisualEditor are, for whatever reason, slightly more likely to be reverted. It's a mixed bag.".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

The issue, Jimbo, is that the Foundation was so desperate to install the Visual Editor to "gather new users" that it forgot about us. I am confident that with the right investment and time, the Visual Editor can become a very powerful asset, but until then, I am sticking with what works, and that's the standard editor. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 17:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Except that this is a completely false story arc. The Foundation did not forget about you. There's a lot of noise from people who are misrepresenting what the data shows, but in fact, your approach is the right one - if you don't like VE yet, don't use it yet. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:03, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Actually no, this story is not a false one and people aren't being dramatic. What you are seeing isn't a story, but actual facts and commentary being reported to you by the active editing community. Regardless of how you choose to minimize the negligent actions of the WMF, the fact remains the volunteers have to clean up the mess and the WMF does not care and will not help. The WMF CREATED the mess, why does the community have to clean it up? If you are not going to listen to the community then the least you could do is assign people to check all the VE edits and make sure they are correct. If the WMF is helping to cleanup the thousands of articles that have been screwed up because of their incompetence then maybe next time they'll think for a second before they act. Frankly I think your comments about how people are just being dramatic is petty, callous and stupid. It shows just how you think of the people here and it illustrates how the WMF feels about the community. Instead of treating us like human capital we are just an expendable commodity to be used and thrown away. 71.178.250.15 (talk) 13:49, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

(e/c) Cool, that sounds like it's all brilliant. Can you (or WMF) tell us how many regular editors use VE, how many regular editors have switched it off? The verbal diarrhoea approach is fine, but where are the actual stats that prove this VE project is making it better? Please consider the fact that VE edits are having to be patrolled by experienced editors to fix all the issues they create. The Rambling Man (talk) 17:52, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

"all the issues they create" - the evidence suggests that these issues are rare and decreasing. If you have contrary data, please present it. Here is where you can look at the latest stats: dashboard. If you have suggestions for additional metrics that could be added to that dashboard, please specify them in as much detail as you can, and I can ask that they be added.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:03, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

That's a very nice graph. Meanwhile, the "nowiki" bug (which we've been told "won't be fixed" - in other words "F Off") is still breaking over 1,000 articles a week (as of yesterday's stats) which the WMF expects other editors to clean up. And that's just that single issue. Black Kite (talk) 19:21, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I'm fixing several articles (or getting bored of seeing bad edits on my Watchlist) every day as a result of VE. It would be better if I could just get on with improving Wikipedia, rather than fixing yet another type of poor edits, tagged, ironically, just as vandalism is tagged. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:31, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

No reply to that one, I see. Well, at least we have consistency. Black Kite (talk) 18:15, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

No, Jimbo's don't bothered about keeping editors who may have been here for six, seven, eight years, roll out the VE regardless. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:22, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Of course Jimbo doesn't pay attention to these long term editors. He knows YOU'RE addicted. It's the young kids he needs to hook. Say, "Hi" to Joe Camel for me. ;) TehCommunitah (talk) 01:10, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

General reply to Jimbo: James Forrester's statement was a well-calculated, self-serving spin on the situation. He specifically ignores the contents of this ever-growing list because he refuses to acknowledge those corruptions as being VE's fault. He points to the use of edit summaries as if this somehow counterbalances problems with the article contents. They don't even belong on the same scale.

1. "From an engineering perspective, while much work still needs to be done, the software is workable; it did not cause site-wide problems of the kind that would have made us disable it," There was widespread demand to disable it because of the damage he was causing. He even admits that , but he plowed ahead. He's even admitted the release was a mistake, yet refuses to acknowledge that mistake by reversing it. It continues to corrupt articles to this day. The fact that he chose to behave irresponsibly is not a defense. And yes, "irresponsibly" is the mildest word one can use to describe his behaviour.
2. "Our concern with this approach is that a preference available to registered users will skew VisualEditor towards use by experienced users only, and that overall usage will likely remain very low." That's true. That's what we want. Until the software actually works, only experienced users should be using it, because inexperienced users are unable to understand what happened when it fails to work properly.

As for your contention that the RFC was too blunt: no. I worked hard selecting the phrasing of the initial four questions, and allowed the community to select between 16 different combinations of making it available to different groups and labeling it in different ways. That community consensus was unfailingly pull it back now' speaks to the quality of VE, not to the bluntness of the RFC.—Kww(talk) 18:44, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

• VE usage 8% distracts from improving wikitext editor used 91%: The distraction is not just tedious discussions, but rather experienced admins spending long hours to handle VE problems, when 91% of edits are made with the {{wikitext}} source editor (or some wp:AWB, wp:ProveIt or wp:Page_Curator). Any admin focused on the 8% VE has less time to help the 91% wikitext-editor users. Even 80% of new usernames are avoiding VE now. Instead, we need to discuss major improvements to the wikitext editor, such as moving the [ShowPreview] and [ShowChanges] buttons to the top of the edit buffer, linking the top 4 (recent) revisions/dates of the edited page, or dynamically setting buffer size "[22]x[80] lines" live during the edit-preview. We need to auto-merge the simple wp:edit-conflicts. There have been few major improvements to the wikitext editor screen in months/years (except the run-preview button to test a template inside another page). We need to focus on the 91% of other users, and remember VE is a tiny fraction of how pages will get written or improved. VE is a nice courtesy tool for new users, but not to forget the major authors of Wikipedia. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:56, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Thank you Wikid77. Perhaps Jimbo, as an observer and not a frequent editor, is unaware of the time wasted fixing up these VE edits. Try to buy newbies at the expense of losing the long-term and experienced editors, is that the plan? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:01, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
    • I think Jimbo knew instantly about glitches but thought VE would soon evolve like the Wikia editor, which people say is a hybrid, dual visual/markup editor which can quickly switch the 2 modes, without losing text (imagine that: editing in visual mode without losing all text!). -Wikid77 22:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

• Some people have been saying that "F off" is an inaccurate characterization of the WMF's response. All right, then, let's find one that fits... "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that." Maybe that'll do it. Heimstern Läufer (talk) 15:11, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh, that's very good... Very good... Carrite (talk) 15:34, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

It's about right. "Yeah, thanks for your feedback but we're doing our own thing". The Rambling Man (talk) 18:22, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

• And when asking to improve the wikitext editor (used by 91%) or fix wp:edit-conflicts which derail edits to adjacent lines or busy talk-pages, then the response seems like, "Just a moment... just a moment... just a moment...." ;-( Wikid77 22:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I think the response was perfectly reasonable. what they said is, were it an opt-in, only a select group of experienced users would be using it. the sample group of users would not be large enough or diverse enough to properly represent the target users. they DID agree to have several visible ways of opting-out. FLOW, in my view, is another matter entirely... -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 20:01, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Croatian Wikipedia controversy

I'm not interested in running any kind of "war" or crusade against Croatian Wikipedia, but I think that Wikimedia Foundation should seriously look into the current media allegations against its administrators. The controversy is covered by at least three of the five largest daily newspapers in Croatia.

Although the accusations against Croatian Wikipedia are nothing new, latest controversy began when Jutarnji list published an article (appeared on the front page of printed edition) which cited examples of "historical revisionism" and "right-wing bias" on Wikipedia and accused administrators for harassing and blocking all editors who tried to remove biased statements in articles. It is possible that the initial media coverage is driven by the facebook group Razotkrivanje sramotne hr.wikipedije (Exposing shameful Croatian Wikipedia). The story was then picked up by dozens of major newspapers and portals in Croatia and across the region (for example, in Croatia:Novi list ([2]), Index.hr ([3], Slobodna Dalmacija ( [4])...)

Administrators of Croatian Wikipedia issued a statement in which they "denied accusations", but if you read the statement carefully, you will see that they didn't deny anything. The first part of the statement is unrelated rant about political situation in Croatia, and the second part is a general talk about editing Wikipedia. They used "site notice" to post a link to this statement on every page of Wikipedia. Text of the message in "site notice" is "Official and public refutation of yellow journalism of the Jutarnji list".

Željko Jovanović, Minister of Science, Education and Sports in Croatian government, issued the following statement:

So according to Jutarnji.hr Jimmy Wales has said that the Serbs and the Croats "must not" have separate Wikipedias ? If that is indeed correct interpretation of what Jimbo said, then sadly this will be my last visit to any of the Wikipedia pages in any language. It is an absolutely disgusting and arbitrary viewpoint that is insulting for Croats as well as for many Serbs I would imagine.

We can only say with regret that the possibility of open and relevant source of information that Wikipedia can be and should provide, is completely undermined in the Croatian version, which surely has never, even now, been the goal of Wikipedia founders, nor the huge number of people around the world who generously share their time and knowledge with this media. Croatian Students are thus damaged and, unfortunately, we have to point out that much of the content in the Croatian version of Wikipedia is not only questionable, but also clearly falsified, and we invite them to use more reliable sources of information which includes English version and other language editions of Wikipedia.

Croatian Wikipedia is perhaps the worst offender (although we don't know for sure), but many other small Wikipedias have nationalistic tendencies, including all those in languages of Former Yugoslavia and Balkans. The Foundation should put more effort into monitoring the situation on smaller projects, so that they can timely respond in similar situations if necessary. Regards!--В и к и T 14:35, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree with you on every aspect of this. I will make sure the Foundation sees your notice and will ask them to look into it. To me it seems particularly damning that the Croatian Minister you reference has made such a strong statement - if the complaints were coming only from Serbian sources, it becomes more complex for an outsider to evaluate it. My long held view is that it was always a mistake to have separate Wikipedias in this part of the world, since the language would be regarded as the same language under any objective standard. (The way it is written is not relevant - there is nearly perfect machine translation because it is just a change of script between Latin and Cyrillic.)

However, I ask your help as well. Could you please help me to find English speaking people from Croatian Wikipedia to have a thorough conversation about the situation?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedians who contribute to the Croatian Wikipedia and Category:User hr.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:20, 13 September 2013 (UTC) and 17:25, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to have time right away, but this seems urgent, can someone ask as many of them as is practical to pop here for a discussion? I'd like to see as many eyes on this problem as possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I have opened: m:Requests for comment/Fascism on Croatian Wikipedia which mentions some more details. Cheers --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:09, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

• I was asked by User:Wikiwind to respond here to Jimbo's call for Croatian editors to comment on the situation. I never edited much on Croatian Wikipedia and I can only speak for myself but from what I've seen as a reader and an editor, the situation looks bad over there and has been that way for years now. I might add that it is common knowledge that most Croatian editors active on en.wiki avoid hr.wiki like the plague, so I assume most of us here share a similar view. It is also common knowledge that a very large number of articles in the area of politics and history suffer from WP:UNDUE, WP:SYNTH, WP:OR and especially WP:OWN and WP:SOAP problems and are written with a heavy right-wing slant. It seems that not only is this not suppressed by admins, it is actually enforced by them, and from the reports in the media and from what I've seen on the mentioned Facebook group, it seems that many people over the years tried to voice their concerns and join the project but were driven away by aggressive admins and the generally hostile atmosphere. The guy who started the Facebook group said he only started it after he had written to Wikimedia but received no response. And even at Croatian Wikipedia's village pump some active editors publicly expressed agreement with criticisms published by Jutarnji list, while others responded with what looks like paranoid rants. The whole thing then got out of hand as Jutarnji list followed up the first report with a printed article publicly outing Croatian Wikipedia admin User:SpeedyGonsales labeling him as essentially a Neonazi, which was then followed the next day by Education Minister Željko Jovanović's statements urging pupils and students to use English-language Wikipedia instead of the Croatian version. I do feel sorry for Speedy as he does not seem to me to be the craziest of the bunch, but the open letter he composed and sent to all the media outlets on behalf of the Croatian Wikipedia after the first Jutarnji list article did not really help, as it was very belligerent and did not really address the issues raised. To make things worse, Jutarnji is required by law to re-publish his letter, which, once happens, is IMO likely going to further alienate the public.
• To be fair, Jutarnji list is a sensationalist tabloid not exactly known for high quality journalism. However, many of the points it made seem to be true to to me, and in my personal experience there really is a huge problem with the Croatian Wikipedia and the way it operates, mainly due to the ineptitude of its admins. Jutarnji claims it interviewed several former editors who are quoted as saying that the whole situation got out of hand around 2009 when Croatian Wiki's ArbCom was apparently disbanded and several admins who had previously received long-term bans returned and took charge. I cannot confirm this firsthand but I guess the scenario sounds likely.
• I also feel compelled to add that this is not the reason not to have a Croatian-language wiki, this is just an issue of a bad set of admins gone rogue. It could have happened anywhere in the world, and it could happen again at any time at any language version of this project. IMO this is something Wikimedia foundation should have predicted and prepared procedures for. And I am convinced that it can and should be fixed. I would also like to add that input from User:Joy (Croatian editor who is an admin on en.wiki) should prove to be valuable, as he used to be active on both wikis since probably day one, knows the situation far better than me or Jutarnji and has proved through years of adminning over here that his approach to touchy issues is level-headed and that his judgment can be trusted. Again, this is all just my two cents. Everyone is free to disagree. Timbouctou (talk) 22:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
• (BTW I took the liberty of notifying Croatian Wikipedia editors about this discussion.) Timbouctou (talk) 00:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi. The problem obviously exists, but merging croatian, bosnian and serbian wikipedia would kill the project in all of those 3 countries. We had a lot of language discussions *inside* croatian wikipedia, and I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have all of these languages in one project. Not to mention all the controversial articles! Media hype will probably calm down in a day or two, so better not to rush too much with decisions like this merge idea. --Ante Perkovic (talk) (the guy next to You here :) 23:20, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, Jutarnji List is a tabloid newspaper and as such they need to have sensationalist and controversial articles to keep their circulation up, in a time when they are loosing money hand over fist and are asking the government for help to keep the company afloat. You and I know that the Internet has turned the whole media business model upside down and that the "old ways" of newspapers, TV and radio where the rivers of gold in terms of advertising have all dried up. I have been a long time editor and administrator on the hr.wikipedia.org project and I will say one thing that this wikipedia project is inclusive and not an exclusive project. The wikipedia in the Croatian language is on of the most read wikipedias on the Internet and it has time and time again proven to be the most moderate and most neutral wikipedia project in the spectre of languages which make up the South Slavonic languages. As a matter of fact the hr.wikipedia.org is the most read wikipedia of the South Slavonic language family. The wikipedia in the Croatian language is a free wikipedia where everyone is welcome to contribute, but as you have seen in the whole wikipedia space that many times you, many other and I have to deal with individuals or groups that harass, bully and cause issues in the community. The whole point of the Wikipedia in general and in the Croatian Language is to advance the body of knowledge for humanity and to enable access to free and unencumbered information to anyone on this planet who has access to the Internet. Wikipedia is supposed to be free of barriers and free of political interference from different governments, pressure groups or individuals who are tyring to subdue or control a particular project. Imagine if the wikipedia in the English, German, Italian, French and other languages are taken over by a particular government after an article in a tabloid newspaper. Which country should take over the wikipedia in the English language: Great Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India????? This would be a dangerous precedent for the Wikipedia project and other projects that are connected with Wikimedia. For instance subjects and artciles in the Wikipedia would then be subjected to censorship and deletion because that article or subject is not in alignment with a certain governments view of the day. For instance all LGBT articles would be removed from the Wikipedia in the Russian language, and that the Wikipedia in the Russian language is given control or oversight to the Russian government. What about the Wikipedia in the Korean language, should control and oversight be given to the South or North Koreans, or should the Wikipedia in the Persian language be subjugated to the the Islamic Republic of Iran or should the Wikipedia in Arabic be subject to comments of the various religious leaders and fatwas that are issued by them. Wikipedia is supposed to be a place where ideas are exchanged freely and without prejudice or prosecution. Jimbo, as a wikipedian and as a person I plead with you to consider the view of keeping every Wikipedia as well as the Wikipedia in the Croatian language as independent projects and that no forced mergers are conducted based on the language group or regional belonging because that would cause problems with many other languages that have a similar problem with the groups and subgroups of languages. If we use that argument of Ante Perkovic we could "kill off" many other unnecessary language projects, wouldn't that be received well by the languages that are being merged. We can also imagine the outcry that would have around the globe. I also plead with you that before you consider any action that I would like to personally talk with you be that over a voice/video bridge or in person. In the end I would like to congratulate you on the Wikipedia project that opened and changed the world, where you have shown that many people with small contributions can change the way information and knowledge is collated and turned into content that will well accepted and respected. Please do not let sensationalistic journalism and government interference influence the Wikipedia project, please do not create a precedent that would allow government and other interference in other Wikipedia projects Vodomar (talk) 23:51, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

When I provided a reference (150 of them) for the article on Stalin, I was banned by admin zeljko. This individual is clearly biased, as you can see from his facebook profile (link provided) that he is sympathetic to the fascist Ustashe regime and was member of HOS. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=326552500782110&set=a.326541090783251.62821.100002820890724&type=3&theater 14 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.35.148.45 (talk)

I think this response is a perfect example of how paranoid the administration of the Croatian Wikipedia is. It is beyond ridiculous that a Wiki administration that promotes homophobia, pseudoscience, xenophobia and nationalism then tries to present *itself* as the victim. To try and compare criticism of the former by making analogies with "censorship" is shameful, since it is the administration of the Croatian wikipedia that does the censoring, oftentimes when dealing with scientific facts. Fejstkajkafski (talk) 03:24, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree--Pavlemocilac (talk) 09:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no homophobia on the hr.wikipedia.org project, if you look at the different articles the LGBT communities and subjects are written in fairly neutral langauage and I might say that this claim is wrong. You need to substantiate your claims before making such a general statement. Vodomar (talk) 03:01, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, Jutarnji list is not tabloid - not at all, it is not even just Jutarnji List it is all the media, including the national TV station HRT. Pavlemocilac (talk) 23:55, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Jutarnji list is a tabloid. Which serious newspaper shows naked people or people in sexually provocative poses. Or asks their readership to have a look at a movie of a sexual act and a pornographic movie as a was of proving a point or making a comparison: http://www.jutarnji.hr/video--kako-izgleda-realan-seks--a-kako-onaj-u-porno-filmovima--pogledajte-edukativni-video-/1118027/ . Isn't it also the case that the national TV station HRT is the mouthpiece of the Croatian Government, and they are not unbiased in their reporting. It is also a known fact in Croatia that the Croatian Government has written off the debts of the parent company of Jutarnji List in the tune of close to $100 million (see http://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/eph-duguje-600-milijuna-kuna-fina-im-izasla-u-susret-i-odblokirala-ih/681584.aspx , http://www.hnd.hr/hr/homepage/vijest/66868). There is also proof that the current Croatian Government has a very close relationship with the parent company of Jutarnji List see: http://www.poslovni.hr/hrvatska/ostojic-da-zivim-u-pavicevom-stanu-to-je-normalna-praksa-219512 , where a Minister of Interior has been living the flat of the owner of Jutarnji List, and before he was a minister of interior he was an employee of the Europapress Holdings. There is a great conflict of interest here. Aren't there a few Facebook hate pages that criticise Facebook, and isn't there in general a whole article about criticism of Facebook? What is happening Jimbo, is that a smoke and mirrors campaign is being conducted so that the project hr.wikipedia.org project is put under the control of the Croatian Government and Jutarnji List / which is a unprecedented move that a wikipedia project is placed under influence or full control of a Government and/or Media enterprise. Vodomar (talk) 01:57, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Vodomar, Jutarnji list is utterly irelevant here. To be honest, Jutarnji did exagerate some thing, but some things did not (eg. denial of existens of Serbs in Croatia). Here is an example what garbage a reader can found, written by a sysop!!!. Please, Vodomar, translate it to English if you dare. -- Bojan  Talk  04:42, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I have no problem, please mark the sections of text that need to be translated. Google translate does a decent job to start with. Anyway, e-mail it to me and I will do it and present it back. Vodomar (talk) 05:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Jutarnji List is the major Croatian newspapers. Get over it. --Pavlemocilac (talk) 09:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

No one said it is not a major newspaper in terms of circulation, however it is still a tabloid. Vodomar (talk) 03:12, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Here is an official international statement made by us, a group people of tired of reading pro-fascist, clerical, extreme-right wing articles on Croatian Wikipedia gathered in a FB page Razotkrivanje sramotne hr.wikipedije: Holocaust deniers rule Croatian Wikipedia.

Facebook is a haven for hate groups of any time : from the extreme left to the extreme right and all the shades in between. If there is a problem it can be resolved on the hr.wikipedia.org project pages, what is happening now is just a case of over reaching and interventionist efforts. This is a case of over reaching. There would be many politicians, and other people, companies and organisations who probably do not like he article written about them on the different wikipedia projects that exists under the Wikimedia banner. What would happen if a Minister of any country wrote a few lines in protest, backed by a state sponsored media, we would not have a free Wikipedia. Vodomar (talk) 05:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe there are shit of crap on Facebook, but thanks to involved admins User:SpeedyGonsales, User:Roberta F., User:Zeljko and User:Kubura Croatian Wikipedia has become the worst possible neo-nazi, neo-fascist holocaust-denying, xenophobic, anti-LGBT and clerical place. Worst of the worst. Deference between Facebook and Wikipedia? No-one takes Facebook for serious, but everyone takes Wikipedia for serious. Thanks to User:SpeedyGonsales and User:Roberta F. no more in Croatia.

How did this has happen? Negative selection made by User:SpeedyGonsales and User:Roberta F. in order to create their own gang, clan that will protect them from any trouble. Mr. Wales, here you can see a deluge of people denying allegations. I suggest you to contact Croatian Minister of Education, Mr. Zeljko Jovanovic and have talk with him on the topic. --Pavlemocilac (talk) 09:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo, i am zeljko, they are burdened (the haters) with their own hatred, I'm not, I do not hate anybody. They hate all non-communists. greeting --93.137.37.77 (talk) 17:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

This is just hate speech, if there is to be a level headed discussion having such bias and prejudice does make an argument more credible. Vodomar (talk) 03:12, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you to try to get as many as possible information from users on the Croatian Wikipedia themselves. However, I am not sure that the users will have courage to stand up in public with their own opinions, taken in count numerous cases of molesting and intimidation even off-line (Croatia is a small country, so users are met often personally), and this is also the reason why some administrators, due to the verdict of Arbitrary Council, year 2009, were blocked, the same those administrators, SpeedyGonsales and Roberta F, the same ones mentioned now in whole Croatian media. They have formed a right-wingers extremist clan within the Croatian Wikipedia community are protecting those users that are denying the Holocaust who are glorifying fascist regime etc. This has become a first class national scandal.

We have also informed the Simon Wiesenthal Center about this topic.

The best would be to permanently block, and remove from Croatian Wikipedia the worst abusers: SpeedyGonsales, Roberta F., Kubura, Croq and Zeljko, Starcevicanac. That is a minimum.

Pavlemocilac (talk) 00:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Holokaust article seems limited: Especially in hr:Holokaust there are no photos of camp inmates (suffering), but happy photo of Oskar Schindler(!) because "many" Jews survived (among 6 million, 3M in Poland killed). Compare Hrvatski (hr) versions of: Auschwitz (hr), Buchenwald (none for hr), Bergen Belsen (none for hr), Dachau (hr), or Treblinka (hr). Claims of "deniers" seems reasonable, at least to understate the impact and omit photos of victims. -Wikid77 14:57, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

There is no denial about the Holokaust, if some articles are limited in size or scope please write some more paragraphs to make it better. Vodomar (talk) 03:12, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I've been contributing on Croatian wiki since 2007 and don't find it extreme right (user Ivan Štambuk seeing fascism!?? get real!). Some blocked users obviously hold a grudge.--Rovoobo Talk 00:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• witchhunt

I'm really, really sad to see how easy is to discredit people and destroy all the efforts mainly because of political reasons. We had an "anonymous source" quoting out of context in Jutarnji list, and crusade has started. F.E. Here I read Mr Pavle Mocilac who I don't know, except from wikipedija.hr attacks and Jutarnji list commentary ("Croats are largely immature and uncivilized people unable to accept wings other and different". PM comm. It is pretty unacceptable to victimize complete wikipedia.hr, and whole group of admins because of very doubtful campaign. I understand fears, but in our country, the easiest way to destroy somebody is to put the "ustasa" label on them. I hope the thruth & justice are worth checking all the facts. Kind regards from Croatia.Vesta144 (talk) 00:59, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

[User:Pavlemocilac|Pavlemocilac]] demands are unreasonable - how possibly can he demand a minimum set of actions.. Proof needs to be shown about the claims of: right wing bias, holocaust denial. If [User:Pavlemocilac|Pavlemocilac]] is claiming that he has abused and molested inside the hr.wikipedia.org project and outside as well why didn't [User:Pavlemocilac|Pavlemocilac]] start a legal process in the real courts if this was happening. Why bring material from 2009 into this discussion about an Arbitration Committee that existed as part of the hr.wikipedia.org to resolve issues between administrators of wikipedia who could not resolve issues as editors and administrators which in the end. But the Arbitration Committee instead of becoming an instrument of resolving conflict instead became a so called quasi legal body inside the project, behaving like a kangaroo court. As part of a group of users on the hr.wikipedia project I lead a community forum which under fair discussion and voting system in the end which end abolished the Arbitration Committee and overturned the harsh decisions. This abolishment of the Arbitration Committee was not welcomed by some of the users, which in the end left the project and the project was not marred with no major issues that required some special attention. The project has had 4 years of decent growth and decent work. In total the hr.wikipedia project has a large number of articles, and in all honesty like any other wikipedia project require constant work and renewal - the whole point with any wikipedia project is to create a neutral point of view and not to go in either side of the political spectrum. As said before, the hr.wikipedia.org project is one of the most read in the South Slavonic Language groups. The other point, who cares that a Minister is calling on students not to use Wikipedia as a source of research, because it is a fact that Wikipedia itself says under Wikipedia:Academic use: "Wikipedia is not considered a credible source. Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from freshman students to professors, as an easily accessible tertiary source for information about anything and everything. However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may be considered unacceptable, because Wikipedia is not considered a credible or authoritative source" . Vodomar (talk) 05:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Proof needed? Are you serious? Minister of Education has explicitly advised students to avoid Croatian Wikipedia due to its distortion of historical facts and an obvious right-wing bias. You keep playing down the media hype, as if it's only one tabloid newspaper - but why would a Minister waste time commenting cheap tabloids?! I personally found out about this by waiting for a haircut, where it's customary to read newspapers until it's your turn - I grabbed a copy of Jutarnji list and bam. This scandal has reached hundreds of thousands of Croatians by now, who are now being told that Croatian Wikipedia is not the place they should be exploring. You are a diaspora Croat and not aware how popular Jutarnji list is among real people here.

The 2009 case where Croatian Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee dissolved after it desysoped and blocked for a year two of the involved admins (User:SpeedyGonsales and User:Roberta F.) is relevant here, because it appears that after that the whole project took a radical Bolshevik swing whereby anybody mildly suspicious of not being "with us" is soon tagged and blocked with increasingly progressive blocks under some vague excuses. Even one of the Croatian admins (User:Flopy) admits that in their local discussion board, in a discussion over this issue. That is the reason why so many articles with such an obvious bias exist - there are no editors that would present the other side of the coin (the non-nationalist side) - they have all been blocked, harassed and eventually driven out.

The way the Croatian Wikipedia community currently handles this, by belittling and ignoring the issue (as you are doing it here) is indicative how problems are handled there in general. Controversial edits get general promptly reverted, unfinished discussions in Kafić (local community discussion board) that deal with hot topics are being "preemptively archived", articles that deal with controversial topics are locked for editing but with the content that is generally supportive of nationalist/right-wing agenda... This is all aftermath of such policy, and it will only get worse unless something is done. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 07:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

A Minister is not a person with special powers, they are a human being who got elected as as part of the elected government are given a portfolio. Being a minister does not in some way resolve any other human issue a person has: anger, bad decisions or bias. If anything by being outside the tent and not contributing actively to the hr.wikipedia.org project, nothing is achieved in improving it's quality. Labeling me Ivan Štambuk is nothing but showing the bias you use when you approach a debate, but that is your sytle of playing the person and not the argument. Yes I know how Jutarnji is popular in Croatia, but it's popularity does not mean that the readership blindly agree with everything they are presented. The reason why the Minister is using Jutarnji list you will have to ask him, but i guess there are several reasons: Jutarnji has a high circulation, Jutarnji is a left leaning paper hence sympathetic to the cause of the current Government, EPH the owner of Jutarnji is very close to the current government and EPH was given a 600 million kuna reprieve from the Croatian Government, a Minister in the current government used to be an employee of EPH and was living in the flat of the owner of EPH. Enough said ? If you or anyone else wishes to improve the quality of a Wikipedia, then come and edit it because no matter how much yelling and writing is done on other wikipedia pages it will not improve if there are no volunteers and editors working on it. It is also the case if there is too much conflict on a specific wikipedia then not much can be done because members of the wikipedia spend more time in conflict then performing creative work. Vodomar (talk) 20:57, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

So, according to you there is no problem, and instead we're dealing with a "conspiracy" against Croatian Wikipedia orchestrated by prominent government officials and media magnate Ninoslav Pavić in order to provide a cover story for the tax relief? Mmmkay, I think we're going to have to stop our little discussion now. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:01, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I never claimed a conspiracy, I was just eluding to a conflict of interest between the current Government of Croatia and the EPH group. If you want to stop the discussion, that is your free choice. Vodomar (talk) 03:12, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, to help you make sense of all this, I've prepared an english translation and an analysis of a hr.wikipedia article "Jasenovac concentration camp" found here [5]. I've translated the problematic parts of the article and analysed the sources and references used. I do not believe mud slinging will help us here so I decided to present the facts. The text can be found on http://gist.io/6559476 for clarity --Imbehind (talk) 07:08, 14 September 2013 (UTC) This version on github seems more readable https://gist.github.com/imbehind/6559476 --Imbehind (talk) 07:34, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

If you want to make a better article, you are free to contribute on the hr.wikipedia.org project. Vodomar (talk) 03:12, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not free to contribute because I'm banned for 6 months just for voicing my opinion criticizing the admin's ban policy on MY USER PAGE. --Imbehind (talk) 17:18, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Imbehind, I see you listed me as major contributor (and labeled me as naive commentator as I have some kind of agenda here). What's wrong with this edit? And the others I provided was after no sources was there at all ( Croatian=Nedostaje izvor) after user Megnut was raising questions at talk. [6], [7] (is Natasa Matausic, whos work is published by JUSP Jasenovac a questionable ref?), [8], (Here you can see how some questionable additions/rants was removed by admin Roberta F [9]). Whats wrong with Slobodna Dalmacija author questioning JRI inflated and wrong numbers? [10], here [11] I have added ref for number of names that appeared on the Jasenovac victims list that are in fact killed by Allied bombing. [12] a scientific work by Marica Karakaš Obradov, here you can see admin Flopy returning i logor smrti (and camp of death) after it was deleted by IP and again he deleted unsourced addition [13], and again [14], and again [15], and then admin Jure Grm [16] did the same thing removing unsouced. Then I have returned my previous ref that was somehow gone missing i logor smrti (and death camp), again when there was Nedostaje izvor I have added [17] is Antun Miletic biased ref? I don't see your name there contributing, Imbehind, you just criticize.--Rovoobo Talk 08:35, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Rovoobo, So, if I understand your post correctly, you are basically confirming yourself as a major contributer, but one that does not see any problem in adding proper references and sources, however questionable, to the fascist propaganda that at the moment makes up almost half of the article itself? My point is exactly that - the article that has half of the content challenging its very existence is for sure HEAVILY BIASED. It is not the task for any contributer to prove that the Jasenovac concentration camp was any other than what it really was - a death camp. If you think it is your task, as I understand your position, you just disqualified yourself for any further civilized dialogue. And if you were German, because of their legislature, you would be charged, prosecuted and jailed just for playing the naive nazi. Please do not insult us any further with your quasi intelectual and presudo contributitive nature. --Imbehind (talk) 09:54, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Looks to me, as per here and your talk page, you're the one insulting people.--Rovoobo Talk 10:16, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I want to first say hello Jimbo. The main problems of Croatian Wikipedia, the systematic bias. false information in the articles, glorifying and praising the Ustashe and their crimes on so forth. Several administrators used the death to Andrej Šalov scarves and cancel all decisions of the Arbitration Committee and users SpeedyGonzales, Robert F. and Ex13 who have deliberately misled people on the Croatian Wikipedia.

Arbitration Committee said the following resolution 2009th year:

SpeedyGonsales:

“ determines the prohibition of (blocking) a period of not less than 1 year

consuming additional user rights (administrator, bureaucrat, check user, patroler, Automatic patrolled) prohibits the assignment of additional user rights for a period of not less than 1 year after the expiration of the ban on Wikipedia (an exception may be right that facilitate the work of Wikipedia as autopatrol Rights)

”

Roberta F:

“ determines the prohibition of (blocking) a period of not less than 1 year

consuming additional user rights (administrator, bureaucrat, patroller, Automatic patrolled) prohibits the assignment of additional user rights for a period of not less than 1 year after the expiration of the ban on Wikipedia (an exception may be right that facilitate the work of Wikipedia as autopatrol rights)

”

Ex13:

“ The arbitration committee ruled that because of the above violation rules Ex13 determines ban (block) in the period of not less than 1 month.

Arbitration Committee notes associates not to disrupt the work of Wikipedia possible, sockpuppet accounts that would create during the blockade (or is created before the blockade) and would be used for an improper purpose. Associates can not prevent the creation sockpuppet during the blockade and opening a new user name, but it must be used only to improve Wikipedia project (writing articles, updating the existing and the like), and not for other things. Blockades will execute coordinator Arbitration committee, and ask od Meta remove additional status associates SpeedyGonsales and Robert F. accordance with this decision of the Arbitration committee by appointment of members of the Arbitration committee.

”

--Kolega2357 (talk) 07:59, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

It all started when one new user was writing about WW2. He wrote from his point of view which wasn't neutral and made many mistakes to usual wikipedia rules including writing bad things about other wikipedia users and not waiting to accept wikipedia rules so he got red cards few times in little period of time. He was angry and made facebook page on which he wrote all the worst he could remember about Wikipedia on the Croatian language from his point of view. He told about that to media firstly Jutarnji list. In that newspapers they wrote terrible sensational article from only one point of view with many false information and with evil thought how to make big damage. They wrote terrible about one of the admins at our Wikipedia and without no proof. They wrote about him as fascist without no evidence. Wikipedia on Croatian language is going well for longer time. We have more and more good articles and after wikipedia on Serbian language, this is SouthEast European best wikipedia with signifacant growing in number and quality of articles the same in number of users. There is group of people who hate everything related with Croatia and they hardly wait opportunity to make somethimg evil to Wikipedia on Croatian language. They mostly look things from only one point of view and want weak admins on Wikipedia so that they can wrote what ever they want on Wikipedia without any sanctions. On Wikipedia on Croatian language, there are good admins who take good care of Wikipedia so that is problem for some people who would like to change it using opportunities like this.--Fraxinus Croat (talk) 08:36, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Not everything is perfect, but Croatian Wikipedia is a special case, the kind of glorification of Pavelic and the Ustaše embarrassing. Jimbo, have admins Šokac121, but because everyone has something about Serbs is undesirable and it is unsuitable for user name, you understand. There was a clear situation for them, Mile Budak exemplary poet who writes fables and children's stories, and Pavelić and Francetić exemplary patriots and homeguards, not to mention all the lengthy. What continues to talk? --Kolega2357 (talk) 08:42, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Dream. Do not need long to figure out that the administrators Kubura , SpeedyGonsales, etc.. irreconcilable serbsuspect laden wartime past and non-participation Croatian athletes at the World Championships in Yugo-period under the Croatian flag. For them, any changes made ​​by the user with sr.wiki suspicious, regardless of whether it is based on literature or not. User Ashgabat was booked only because he brought information that a Montenegrin military commander was an ethnic Serb. User Ašhabat referred to the memoirs of the generals, but the user Zeljko is estimated that this literature unfit just because Serbian . In the absence of quality literature, assume nationalist websites as sources Migration and Refugees literature. In addition , shotguns is not a clear distinction between the sources and literature (it is the same thing). If Kubura for Mirjana Gross, Croatian historian, said it was not authentic, can not think what to say to Čedomir Popov, Sima ĆirkoviĆ, the ideological, Mihail Dinić, Nenad Lemajić, Dejan Mikavica... and so on. ? Serb-Croat conflict are not so easily removable. I learned the Croats without prejudice oldest allegation (9th century), which speaks of the Serbs as a people, "which is said to hold a large part of Dalmatia "(Sorabos, quae natio Magnam Dalmatiae partem obtinere dicitur) do not correspond to reality. Make reference to Mandic says the verb " dicitur " information is not reliable . Noun natio (nation), however ,not taken literally , but the next Nadu Klaić said you should place natio is cives (citizens). In other words, the per them this is not about the Serbs as a nation, but the residents of the Serbs. So, they deny the existence of Serbs in Croatia from the start. In addition, no Croats will not easily give up the Bosnian bans, which considers the Croatian rulers even though these are his subjects shared the Serbs and Vlachs. --Kolega2357 (talk) 09:07, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Croatian Wikipedia and their administrators are one of worst in whole Wikimedia project. I am Wikipedian user for more than 6 years and I have great ideas which they dropped. Even Serbian, SerboCroatian, wiki have Wikinews, our admins did all which they could to stop my initiative. On our home page under news, only admins can add news and they must be only good and in Croatia. No words about Syria, US... They never translate Fundraising messages to Croatian, for more than 3 years only I translate that banners and messages on meta. As one of them said "Wikimedia doesn't need money from us". Here is not problem only in some articles, it is affected in much bigger view. For example, one year ago I edited Judith A. Reisman article to have more neutral view. In English and other wikipedias there were sentences that she is conservative, and more bad stuff about her. When we tried to add that on Croatian article multiple times, our administrators keep returning article to old version and on the end locking it without a word of controversy, article wasn't been neutral. I have a lot of examples like this and when even Croatian Minister of science and education tells kids not to use Croatian Wikipedia, you can tell that something is wrong in Croatian administrators or maybe in whole project. All medias in Croatia make fun of Croatian Wikipedia, even popular news satire magazine "News bar" (like Onion) make fun of Wikipedia saying that same people are admins on wiki and their site. Something needs to be change. --Anton 008 09:56, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Things are way simpler. Minister Željko Jovanović has a few flaws (as does current government), These "flaws" (undemocratic behavior & suppression of professionals at various fields, especially sensitive to the national culture- he dismissed internationally acknowledged linguist Radoslav Katičić from an important position of the head of Croatian language council; dubieties about his (Jovanović's) professional academic degree and personal integrity etc.) have been noted on Croatian Wikipedia. In essence, in Croatia you got Putin-like rule, just of the sort that is not very fond of national majority culture and interests. So- would you back off because some Putin's minion has orchestrated a campaign against Russian Wikipedia ? It's not about some sensationalist press, but about a corrupt government and their policy aimed at suppression of free thought based on facts. And these facts do not favor Communist Yugoslavia's past that many in the current government are fond of. It all boils down to that. And- the data on Croatian Wikipedia users and visitors show that general public accepts and inform themselves mostly from Croatian Wikipedia, more than from Slovenian, Serbian, and "Serbo-Croatian" (which is term describing a "language" which does not exist, but that's another-crucial- question). If anyone tries to suppress Croatian Wikipedia, it will certainly result in Croatian Parliament's debates and accusation of "central" Wikipedia's integrity, reliability and socio-political neutrality. Mir Harven (talk) 09:43, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Just a quick question - how does Minister's call for students to use the English-language Wikipedia fit into the narrative of his "Putin-style" government and "suppression of free thought"? Timbouctou (talk) 09:59, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Demagogues use similar tactics. For instance, Mao Ze Dong/Mao Tse Tung had begun his "cultural revolution" (a few millions death toll) by "appeal" to the students. Demagoguery is frequently faux-populist. Mir Harven (talk) 10:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

It is hysterical that you actually think you're doing yourself a service by posting in such a fashion (making mentions of communism, repression). The offences by the hr.wiki administrators have been well documented for anyone to see, there's no getting away from the fact that they actively promote a homophobic, nationalist and anti-science agenda. Comparing the critics of said administrators with "censorship" and "Putin" is a rather childish and very dishonest attempt at making your skewed world views relevant. Nationalism, downplaying nationalist crimes, homophobia, etc. will not suddenly become the correct view just because of your false accusations of "repression" or "censorship". The latter is done solely by the administrators who don't allow participants on the hr.wiki to add well-sourced, nuanced and worldwide accepted views into articles. If a world view - such as the one heralded by hr.wiki administrators - cannot be supported without resorting to censorship of foreign scientists, then perhaps such a world view ought to be reevaluated. Fejstkajkafski (talk) 11:27, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

? Sorry commissary, cool off. Current Croatian government is- perhaps you forgot- involved in many breaches of international law (lex Perković, for instance), and is trying, at all costs (but unsuccessfully) to resurrect Communist ghosts & practice a sort of historical revisionism, which is dismissed by almost entire Croatian academic community, especially in historiography. As far as homosexuality goes, this is a controversial issue, and there is no "scientific" proof of anything, nor a consensus among psychiatrists. What can one say about current government ? They- minister Ranko Ostojić- have "indulged" in the Soviet-style repression by sending political adversaries to lunatic asylums (good ole Brezhnev's times). So, my friend: a) you're lying, b) you're....hmmm...hysterical ? Btw- poor Jimbo Wales. He has to read some stuff that is as alien to him as are US local political squabbles to me. Mir Harven (talk) 11:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Timbouctou told me to comment here, but I have to say I see no real point to it, because this is still just your (Jimbo Wales') personal talk page; this kind of an incident needs to be resolved using the proper Wikimedia Foundation channels. That was my opinion before I even got here, but now that I've read your comments above, I'm convinced that this needs wider input - if you think that reopening the language issue is going to help with resolving this controversy, well, then I think you should not touch this thing with a ten foot pole. Conflating these two issues sounds as if you're saying Croatian is spoken only by people who promote far-right agendas on encyclopedias. That would be really insulting, and it would only contribute to an unnecessary escalation of this problem. meta:Requests for comment/Fascism on Croatian Wikipedia, mentioned above, sounds like a proper venue for this. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 11:10, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Hello Jimbo, I am User:Mostarac from croatian wikipedia. I think the main reason for the overall media campaign on Croatian Wikipedia is her exceptional attendance. Here are the numbers. http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm → Usage, Views per hour. There you can see, 27,973 people visit Croatian Wikipedia every hour. There are 6 million people speaking Croatian by that statistics. Croatian Wikipedia is visited more than Serbian (23,963, 12 M), Slovenian (14,525, 2 M), Serbo-Croatian (10,060, 23 M) and Bosnian (7,525, 3 M) Wikipedia. Croatian Wikipedia bother someone in Croatia because of her high attendance and political freedom. --MoBorac (talk) 11:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

My observations, as someone who had an interest in Croatian Wikipedia, but who has contributed there only sporadically, as an IP user:

• There is a pervasive far-right bias in Croatian Wikipedia, which is very apparent in key articles (i.e. chiefly those that would appeal to far-right editors).
• The bias comes from a fairly small group of users. (At 700 or so active editors, Croatian Wikipedia is a small community, and a dozen or so highly active editors and admins can set the tone.)
• Page protection and blocking is used in a rather heavy-handed way, and applied differentially: the "in-crowd" (defined both socially and ideologically) has free rein, while the "outsiders" are shut out.
• Editorializing, personal essays, rants and completely unreferenced content is the norm. In key articles (as defined above), even mild efforts to fix these problems are reverted as "vandalism".
• There is a tendency to politicize discussions, even in topics that have little to do with politics. Every discussion and dispute is thus turned into an ideological battle. This kind of tendency is apparent in some of the comments above.
• For a nice example (I think of it as a "brain scan"), see hr:Razgovor_o_kategoriji:Jugoslavenski_glazbeni_sastavi Template:Hr icon. Note the comment by SpeedyGonzales.
• The general climate is rather unlike the en wiki. It is sufficient to scan the talk pages of a dozen or so prominent collaborators to understand that this is not a happy place.
• Consequently, while I have 130 thousand edits here, I have zero interest in contributing to the Croatian Wikipedia. I don't think I'd last two weeks there. I'm sure I'm far from unique in this sentiment.

While something definitely should be done, I absolutely disagree with the idea of merging the wikis into one. I could comment further on this, but it is sufficient to say that this is completely unworkable. GregorB (talk) 12:09, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but-although I highly value your work on English Wikipedia- I have to disagree with ca. 70% of your assertions. The crucial one is: your "far right" label. Most of the texts regarding controversial issues of recent history and culture are just rewritten texts from mainstream university manuals. For instance, Croatian Wikipedia text on Snježana Kordić is completely different -and heavily annotated by relevant texts & links- from the text on English Wikipedia which reads like a promo campaign article, with deliberate omission of Croatian linguists' disputes with the said lady. Mir Harven (talk) 12:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The far-right bias - as displayed in key articles, some of which were quoted by the media - is probably the least disputable of my statements. "Mainstream university manuals" - that's kind of a stretch, I'd say. Also, Snježana Kordić is irrelevant here, even if I fully agree with you on POV problem in the article. GregorB (talk) 12:48, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo. This attack on Croatian wikipedija is by ex YUGOSLAVIAN COMMUNISTS who cant accept Croatia and hates Croatians and Franjo Tuđman! They want COMMUNISM back in Croatia and kiking us out of Wikipedia.31.147.125.176 (talk) 12:21, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary. They are written from books which serve as university manuals: say, histories from authors like Dušan Bilandžić, Marijan-Bing-Radelić..etc histories of Croatia in various periods from 1918-1991, Stjepan Antoljak, Dragutin Pavličević and Hrvoje Matković; works on Serbian aggression by Nikica Barić, Ozren Žunec, Ante Nazor and Davor Marijan etc. There are no better, nor more qualified authors. So, I completely disagree with your "far right" label- it's common sense & rebuttal of neo-communist historical revisionism. On the other hand, I'd agree (although I'm not too present at any Wikipedia, including Croatian) that admins should have had exercised more self-restraint in dealing with "others" (I don't even know all this Wikipedia quasi-masonic lingo, but you'll understand what I mean). Anyway- we agree to disagree. Just- wouldn't you agree that this whole "affair" is not something stemming from internal struggles, so to speak ? Or, to put it bluntly: it's para-political "west Balkans" bullies who are behind this orchestrated media lynching. (this is a reply to Gregor's reply) Mir Harven (talk) 13:14, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The Croatian Wikipedia has a serious problem. It is not sufficient (nor it is convincing, for that matter) to simply write off its critics as "para-political west Balkans bullies". GregorB (talk) 13:45, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

OK then-you side with Jovanović & "lex Perković" bunch. Nice to have known you (at least through Wiki). Mir Harven (talk) 14:06, 14 September 2013 (UTC)ž

[Hrvatska wikipedija platforma kriptofasista (Croatian Wikipedia is a platform of crypto-fascists)]

[Jovanoviceva poruka ucenicima i studentima - ne koristite hrvatsku wikipediju (Jovanovic's message to pupils and students - do not use Croatian Wikipedija)]

[Jovanovic pozvao na bojkot hrvatske wikipedije - velik dio sadrzaja znanstveno dvojben i falsificiran (Jovanovic calls on boycot of Croatian Wikipedia - majority of articles are scientifically ambiguous and falsified)]

[Jovanovic Djeco ne baratajte hrvatskom Wikipedijom jer su sadrzaji falsificirani (Jovanovic: Children, do not use Croatian Wikipedia since the contents are false)]

[Hrvatska wikipedija - Istrijanstvom do odcjepljenja Istre (Croatian Wikipedija - from istrianship to secession of Istria)]

[Radikalni desnicari preuzeli uredivanje hr wikipedije - NDH nije svjesno bila-totalitarna a antifasizam se bori protiv svih sloboda (Radical right-wingers took over editing of Croatian Wikipedia: "NDH was not totalitarian, antifascism is against all liberties")]

http://www.h-alter.org/vijesti/ljudska-prava/tko-prepravlja-lgbt-hrvatsku-na-wikipediji Tko prepravlja LGBT Hrvatsku na Wikipediji (Who is changing LGBT Croatia on Wikipedia)]]

[Pristranost i ideoloska obojenost hrvatske wikipedije (Favouritism and ideological bias of Croatian Wikipedia)]

[Ustaštvo na hrvatskoj wikipediji (Fascism on Croatian Wikipedia)]

[Kako je hrvatsku Wikipediju uzurpirala ustasoidnadesnica (How Croatian Wikipeda got hijacked by pro-fascist right-wingers)]

[Mladi IDS-a Wikipedija obmanjuje javnost o antifasizmu i istrijanstvu.html (IDS Youth - Wikipedia is deceiving public on antifascism and istrianship)]

[Razotkrivanje sramotne hr.wikipedije (Debunking of shameful Croatian Wikipedia)]

[Razotkrivanje sramotne hr.wikipedije (Debunking of shameful Croatian Wikipedia)]

[Djeco ne koristite hrvatsku wikipediju (Children, do not use Croatian Wikipedia)]

[Jovanovic je pozvao studente na bojkot hrvatske wikipedije (Jovanovic calls students to boycott of Croatian Wikipedia)]

[Jovanovic pozvao mlade na bojkot hrvatske wikipedije (Jovanovic calls youth to boycott of Croatian Wikipedia)]

And this problem was tackled before by some independet media: [Nezavisna Wikipedija Hrvatska (Independent State of Croatian Wikipedia)] Pavlemocilac (talk) 12:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Irrelevant pamphlets, similar to "Pravda" Croatian copycats. By the way- you're not Croatian Wikipedia contributor. Why are you so obsessed about it ? Hmmm .. Mir Harven (talk) 12:41, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Obviously Zelko Jovanovic dislikes some of the details about his CV. Please note that th emost media in Croatia is far left. By the way some information about the media in Croatia: As we all know in Croatia was never done a lustration as it was done in other former comunist countries. People who were educated and indoctrinated in comunist countries call many things "fascism" what we in the Western world we are not used to do. We have even this sad situaton with the goverment is playing "lex perkovic" Lex Perkovic, EU Inside. The administrators in Croatian Wikipedia are not doing a better and not a worse job than their collegue admins in other wikipedias. That´s all a very stupid campaign.--Croq (talk) 12:45, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• But in ex comunist cuntries "antifascism" has not the same meaning as in western democracies. In Western world we do not fit in the "red star" as here http://www.sabh.hr/ By the way the red star is prohibited in many countries who suffered under comunism. --Croq (talk) 12:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Your post talk for you ;) I think we need a mediation. You, Stambuk and Director are trying to push your POV through wiki, other opinions are not allowed. Same as in ex Yugoslavia... LoL. One party, one opinion LoL. Pure Yugoslaw vandalism and nationalism. --Croq (talk) 10:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.35.148.45 (talk)

Hi, Jimbo. Im ex-admin (2005-2009) on hr wiki. This is what i think:

1. I'm not sure if user:Vodomar understod what I meant with ...merging hr, bs and sr wikipedia would kill the project in all of those 3 countries. ... I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have all of these languages in one project, but I'm strongly against any merging. It would be unfair, and, most of all, unpossible to do. Let's keep each wikipedia as it is.
2. Forget about what our politicians think, they have their own agenda and have no clue about Wikipedia.
3. Jutarnji list is one of the biggest newspaper in Croatia, but they completely missed the point. Their journalist doesn't have a clue what role of bureaucrat is. It's not user:SpeedyGonsales's fault that hr:Ustaše article is in bad shape. The article was written in 2004 and was neglected since then. It's talk page shown no signs of edit war. BTW, the guy who started the article, and didn't found necessary to mention nazi-style concentration camps is user:Mir Harven, present on this very talk page.
4. There are other media articles who make emphasis not on the state of articles, but on futile attempts to change it. Allegedly, Kubura and Zeljko blocked any attempts to make it NPOV and SpeedyGonsales and Roberta F., 2 of the most experienced admins, supported them. Even journalist themselves reported having problems changing the obvious POV in the articles and always mentioned the same group of admins who make that impossible.
5. I have my opinion too, but You have no reason to trust me more then the other guys here. So, I'll keep it for my self. If you want to know the full truth, You should make a list of all the users wirth more then, let's say 500 or 1000 edits, and send automatic e-mails to all of them and ask them to participate in a confidental poll. Before the poll, You should collect all the accusations, and then include them in the poll. The pool should be something like Rate following claims from 1 (nonsense) to 5 (complete truth):
   • admin XY frequently pushes his POV, missusing his admin status ... 1 2 3 4 5
   • admin:XY used IRC channel to try to spread lies about other users in order to make comunnity against them ... 1 2 3 4 5

   ...You get the point. I'm not the poll expert, Wikimedia certainly can find one. So, You work out the details, just make sure that users can be sure that only Mediawiki stuff will know what they said.

   Then, when You have the poll results, we can discuss what to do next.

--Ante Perkovic (talk) 14:01, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Quote: "The project has had 4 years of decent growth and decent work. Vodomar (talk) 05:32, 14 September 2013 (UTC)" End quote (from this page and section). This graph here shows the number of croatian wikipedia users with 100+ edits per month. As far as i can see, contrary to Vodomar's claim, it shows systematic and drastic decline of users considered valuable, as they are "content" creators, and this rapid decline began as we can see in late 2009. John E. Pushkin (talk) 15:07, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia in Croatian language can not be too bad, as you can see how some use it for other copy+paste http://sh.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Posebno:Doprinosi/OC_Ripper&offset=20130913105856&target=OC+Ripper "Preuzeto s hr wiki " means copy+paste from Croatian language. That´s the way it works. --Croq (talk) 15:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Mr. Wales and dear colleagues, I am entirely convinced in hr.wikipedia's administrators' misconduct and poor judgement. My observations are:

• Some admins do not behave in a civil manner and do breach neutrality.
• Vengeful user blocking occurs. Even on Talk pages for trivial utterances. Demands for explanation often result in laconic answers.
• Administrators do contribute substandard content. Substandard both in terms of content and form. Content-wise, the contributions tend to be dogmatic, unverified, unverifiable or referenced to unreliable third-party, oftentimes disregarding or removing better references. Considering form, weasel words and peacock words are common, while the orthography and syntax leaves a lot to be desired.
• Some administrators consistently use offensive neologisms that target minorities, religious groups and political ideas.
• Only several admins are ardent in these misconducts, the other admins fail to react.
• Sysop actions page shows that hr.wikipedia human admins have blocked far more times than, for example, admins on the considerably bigger fr.wikipedia.
• In discussions, editors do appear to be demoralized (paraphrasing: "they're not coming back" until the admins are removed, feeling that their time and effort has been repeatedly annulled, etc.)
• At least in one occasion an administrator did refer to their position using a Croatian term "vlast", which is commonly used for governing bodies of the state or a dominion and translates as: those in power, those who rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aleksandar Kovac (talk • contribs) 17:35, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I would also like to add that, unlike other wikipedias, the croatian wikipedia does not have a sufficiently articulated page that would inform the editors and users about administrator's duties, status and conduct. Such page could provide the basis for the public evaluation of admins and bring the needed clarity in our own issue resolving processes. To provide such a basis, yesterday a direct translation from English article on expectations of adminship was submitted to the equivalently named article's [[18]] Talk page. The initial response from the current administrator SpeedyGonsales has been polite, yet not entirely promising. It is my sincere hope that such a fundamentally important content will be included in hr.wikipedia as soon as possible by the current admins and that it will lead to a better understanding. Aleksandar Kovac (talk) 16:23, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Not long after the statement of Minister Jovanović, his biography on Croatian Wikipedia is "expanded" and now contains obvious lies and other content that violates WP:NOR (interpretation of primary sources and WP:SYNTH), WP:NPOV, WP:V and especially WP:BLP. After a brief edit war, when one user tried to remove these lies, administrator hr:User:Zeljko fully protected the page on his preferred version.

I will mention only the most obvious lies that can now be read on the page:

Although Željko Jovanović has the academic title of docent, he does not possess scientist identification number of the Ministry of Science like other docents, and without which obtaining of academic title should not be possible.

This is obvious lie and slander. It is also abuse of the primary sources, becouse reference for this claim is this database. But if you enter minister's name, surname and birthdate in this database, you will get following result: Matični broj za traženog znanstvenika: 339670 (Identification number for the requested scientist: 339670).

At the site of the Croatian scientific bibliography, there are no listed publications whose author or co-author is the person with this name or surname.

This is also obvious lie, by searching the Croatian scientific bibliography I found at least 5 works whose author or co-author is Minister Jovanović.

The rest of the added content is similar or even worse. The page is fully protected for one week.--В и к и T 20:13, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Reason: Edit war See --93.137.58.19 (talk) 16:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

After reading all that "discussion" above, and some articles on hr i sr wikipedia, I can understand Mr. Wales thinking about merging hr and sr wikipedia. It is the only way to resolve this nationalistic BS from both sides.--89.164.190.103 (talk) 22:04, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I am fine with that, but then the same rule should be applied across the board to stop the BS around the World. Make it a rule that the article needs to be in the English version of the Wikipedia, and then for other languages (which ever that is decided what is a language by a committee of Wikimedia) then it is translated verbatum. For areas around the world where there is too much conflict, then only the English Wikipedia should suffice. The end user can utilise Google Translate to receive the article in their target language. All problems solved. Less storage used on Wikimedia servers and we only have the one source of truth. Vodomar (talk) 03:21, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

The links above are all related to Croatian left wing media. Why does nobody show any difflinks where would be proven that Croatian administrators support any far right ideologies? --Croq (talk) 08:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

When I provided a reference (150 of them) for the article on Stalin, I was banned by admin zeljko. This individual is clearly biased, as you can see from his facebook profile (link provided) that he is sympathetic to the fascist Ustashe regime and was member of HOS. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=326552500782110&set=a.326541090783251.62821.100002820890724&type=3&theater Have fun, to bad zeljko is ustasha on his facebook profile. 15 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.133.156.31 (talk)

Hi Jimbo! Hi everyone else! I am a Serbo-Croatian/Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian/Montenegrin-speaking Wikipedia user and contributor from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Initially I wanted to contribute to the hr.wikipedia, but due to nationalistic tendencies of the administrators there, I moved to sh.wikipedia. I have tried to I would like to say that I fully support the merger of all the Wikipedia projects in the aforementioned variants of the same language into one Wikipedia project. It would be a slow and difficulty process, that is true, but it is something that has to be done on the long run. If Wikipedia wants to remain credible as a fact-based, scientific, objective, free encyclopedia it has to accept that all relevant non-biased linguistic data points to the fact that we are all speaking the same language here. Animosity between different ethnic groups cannot be an excuse for the existence of four different Wikipedias for a single language. In a way, those who make these kind of decisions implicitly support the nationalistic ideology that has produced the linguistic Balkanization of our common language. People simply have to learn to cooperate, to work with each other. -- Francis Christian (talk) 16:24, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Why bother having any of the 5 lanugages anyway, placing them in the same project would be like hearding cats. The best thing is abolish them all, and if a native speaker of the above mentioned languages want's to use Wikipedia, you just simply go to the English version and use Google translate, or better learn English. If all countries instituted English as their official language, there would be less quarrels in the region! Vodomar (talk) 21:57, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Vodomar, thank you for your useful input. Btw, here's a funny story:

• Although I don't usually edit or read CW, I tried changing some of the articles that had been mentioned in media reports in the past couple of days, since nobody over there is really doing anything about it, apart from a) talking a lot about how those who criticise should do the editing and b) expanding on elaborate leftist conspiracy theories (their village pump looks like a bonafide cross between a far-right forum and a mental institution's notice board). The state of the project is so abysmal it is almost a parody of what Wikipedia should be. Although some of the most criticised articles have been half-heartedly fixed, it is still a few hundred lawsuits waiting to happen - for example, the bio on Education Minister Jovanović contains blatant distortions and is heavily negative-slanted. (It is also fully protected and nobody but admins can edit it. Apparently they see it as some sort of a revenge for his statements on Wikipedia.)
• Today I edited the article on The Holocaust in the Independent State of Croatia (English version of the article). The bottom section delves into a topic marginally connected with the topic of the article, about the Great Serbia ideology of the 1990s and its narrative of WW2 persecution of Jews. It only contained a single reference, masonicinfo.com, a site with pictures of Serbian WW2 stamps (yes, stamps) to basically illustrate that indeed Serbs persecuted Jews as well. Apart from being an obvious WP:COAT, the "source" used for the entire paragraph was clearly inappropriate so I removed the paragraph, explaining my edit in the summary. This led to an edit war with user Markus_cg1, which later led to a note from admin SpeedyGonsales on my talk page, basically explaining how "although this seems unrelated at first sight, and although the source is unofficial, the information presented there is correct, and a picture is worth a thousand words" (yes, that's a true quote from a long-time Wikipedia admin, talking about the usage of a website about stamps in an article about the Holocaust in Country X - where stamps are used basically to prove that country Y also killed Jews). Crazy, I know. Long story short, I commented on this at the village pump, where I ended up being called a "provocateur, a denier of war crimes and an anti-semite" by Markus_cg1 (literally just for saying that sites about postage stamps were not reliable sources), who called for "administrators to take measures". After apparently none of them did, probably the craziest of them all at CW, User:Mir Haven, whose eloquence you are already familiar with, posted a very nasty comment about me, telling me directly I was a "justifier of Yugo-unitarism, a snitch on English Wikipedia, not somebody who spreads knowledge but carefully selected half-truths, and a fan of Greater Serbia.".
• Now I am not bringing this episode up because it is a unique event - I am bringing it up because it is not. This type of "discussion" is common at their village pump, and there's no reason not to believe this is the level of discussion in talk pages and all other places as well. Chauvinist remarks are the norm, as are the floods of insults directed towards the apparently non-patriotic government, the education minister, the communists, the press and whatnot. Even users who shyly admit they would like to discuss issues with the project - openly admitting they were afraid to do so before the scandal broke out - (like for example User:Dean72) can only expect to be harassed and belittled (in this particular instance by Mir Haven, but other regular editors and admins normally join on the belittling). You get editors responding to recent media criticism by talking about how the Serbian Wikipedia is way worse, you get admin User:Kubura who talks about how there's nothing wrong with saying life for Serbs had improved in WW2 Croatia (which is one of the statements from Wiki which the newspapers criticized as the most blatant forgery), you get anons who come out of the woodwork to express support for the project using Nazi-style salutes. A Bosniak-language Wiki editor even left a message for interested folks to join his project, to which Mir Haven replied with references to Muslim war crimes. Yes, that's the kind of atmosphere we are talking about here. Just ask any Croatian-speaking editor to take a look at the page without vomiting. I am being perfectly serious - it is beyond horrible. And all that time (and I'm talking about the last few days), not a single administrator reacted to this madhouse in any way. But hey maybe there's a Wiki policy somewhere saying village pumps are supposed to be anarchy. I don't frequent en.wiki pump so I don't really know.
• And then there's the issue of actual editing. CW does not have any rules on weasel words, coat racks, synth. It is completely normal for any article, including BLP's, to have randomly inserted nationalist remarks or rants. Sourcing of articles is abysmal. Inline citations do not exist at all. Websites and books are accepted only if their content fits the preconceived idea what an article should say. The much talked about issue of the article on anti-fascism had contained a long paragraph in the lede section basically describing it as an abomination, entirely sourced to an essay from an anonymous author published on an obscure right-wing website. The basic process of editing boils down to editors (who have been judged patriotic enough) writing whatever feels "correct" (in both the factual and ideological sense) and then leave the referencing and sourcing for later (if ever). Serbian Wiki editors joke that that Croatian Wiki is not even capable of producing a baklava recipe without mentioning the Serbs and the Serb aggression of the 1990s. And I am afraid they are right. And with all that going on, the general consensus of both admins and seasoned editors at the village pump seems to be somewhere along the lines of "What problem? There is no problem. We are doing a great job, but for some magical reason everybody is against us." As a group, it seems a weird mini subculture developed there over the years, distinguished by - and I can't stress this enough - extreme paranoia, virulent nationalism and a strong belief in various conspiracy theories. (I can provide diffs for every detail I mentioned if you want, but since Croatian-speaking people here on en.wiki already know the atmosphere of that place, I won't bother). Editing CW is equivalent to muckraking, and there's no doubt in my mind the changes made to some articles due to recent media pressure will be reverted back in less than a week (because nobody over there really realizes there's anything wrong with them, and because they are all convinced the critics are all non-patriotic bastards who fail to appreciate that CW editors are doing this lovely work all for free).
• In essence, Wikimedia should just torch the place. CW is no longer useful to anyone, it has made a name for itself as a complete piece of garbage and a refuge to some of the most pretty fucking deranged trolls on the internet. And each day that goes by with it online is a few dozen accidents/lawsuits/newspaper front pages just waiting to happen. Maybe Wikimedia should reflect on that. So yeah, I guess I'm a snitch on the English Wikipedia. Timbouctou (talk) 06:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

My two cents... In my opinion, there should be a common core of an article, regardless of language. Then, there can be some language specific extensions. For example, an article on Medieval literature can have a common core and then an additional chapter on Croatian Medieval literature in the Croatian Wiki, on Turkish one in the Turkish Wiki etc. Now one looks into the English wiki and reads one article, then turns to Croatian wiki and reads another story, then to the Serbian wiki and yet another story. As for the common Serbian/Croatian wiki, it would never work. People would endlessly "correct" spellings and "wrong" words written by other side... dnik ► 07:49, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Dnik- how would the problems you forsee on a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia differ from what English Wikipedia has, for the most part, successfully handled? Could we be a model, given how we successfully handle the difference between American and British (along with other dialect differences globally). Some are significant differences (hood/bonnet, boot/trunk, lorry/truck, lift/elevator, pay rise/pay raise) some are minor spelling (labour/labor for example).Camelbinky (talk) 16:37, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

We already have the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia where could eventually the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian Wikipedias be merged. Personally, I allways even found funny to see how some polemical issues are completelly differently edited in one Wikipedia than on another. But the fact that I find it "funny" really says about how much credibility I give to those Wikipedias. I´ve been thinking a lot about this latelly, and at beggining I was all but in favour of merging the Wikipedias, but now I beleave that merging the Wikipedias would actually help all people from the region to collaborativelly work together and edit the polemical articles together. A major challenge, but the correct one in my view. FkpCascais (talk) 17:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

My opinion, merge all three (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian) Wikipedias into one, and only allow translated articles from English Wikipedia to being introduced into the joint Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian wikipedia. If user wants to create an article on the joint Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian wikipedia, first it would had to be created on English Wikipedia, and then it should be translated word to word on Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian wikipedia. It is the only way to deal with this problem and nationalistic BS from Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian users. Best regards --Eversman (talk) 22:15, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Croatian Wikipedia controversy - section

Two facts are clear:

1. those who are responsible for this (Speedy, Roberta, Kubura, Željko) don't have courage to explain themselves, so they sent Mir

Harven, grey eminence behind hr.wiki)

1. Mir Harven is a major troll who didn't even try to deny accusations (unlike Vodomar, who tells us fairy tales)

Having on mind this two fact, prolonging this controversy is pointless. So, I would like to know, who will make decision and when? -- Bojan  Talk  17:15, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Question on how Wikipedia language versions are chosen

From Jimbo's statement in the thread above on Croatian Wikipedia, I got to thinking- how does the Foundation (or the Community here on Wikipedia) decide on what "language" is proper to have a Wikipedia version, and what is not a properly distinguished language. I completely agree with Jimbo that Croatian and Serbian are indeed one language, separated only by script (and culture and religion, as Croatians being Roman Catholics and Serbians being Eastern Orthodox being what led to their initial split culturally and in script). How do we decide that Ukrainian and Belorussian are distinct from Russian, that Czech and Slovak are distinct, Macedonian and Bulgarian are distinct, that Cypriot Greek is different that Koine Greek, and even American English and British English. It can be pointed out that those in Spain and Portugal can often read each other's language newspapers with little to no difficulty (and that doesn't even count those in Galicia, while in Spain speak closer to a Portuguese dialect), those Spanish who speak Catalan in the region around Barcelona sometimes speak a language closer to the French spoke in Provence than they do to Castilian, Hebrew dialects in northern Israel are only slightly distinguishable from the Arabic dialects all the way into southern Lebanon, Bahasa Indonesia of Indonesia and the Malay of Malaysia are hardly differentiated as well. What criteria do we use, if any? Just a curious questionCamelbinky (talk) 16:46, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

There is a language committee. But many decisions predate the language committee. There was a time in which we trusted the ISO codes on the theory that this was an international standard with expertise behind it. Unfortunately, the ISO code turn out to be highly politicized and just wrong in some respects. You raise a lot of interesting questions and unfortunately there are not really easy answers to them. Some broad principles can be put forward, but it's tricky in the details.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Camelbinky, I didn't realize there were separate Wikipedias for American English and British English. Just kidding, but what you wrote suggests the possibility. It would be interesting, especially if combined with a rule that nobody could edit more than one of them. Things sure would be a lot different around here, and not just that I could write the word "flavor" without having a "u" sneak its way in there several edits later. Neutron (talk) 23:50, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Just because Someone Is Wrong On The Internet: there are no "Hebrew dialects in northern Israel [that] are only slightly distinguishable from the Arabic etc." While a variety of accents exists in Israel, related to country of origin and ethnic background rather than to geography, the language is standard across the entire country, and no regional dialects exist. There are, of course, some sociolects by specific groups, but they do not include any grammar or syntax differences, and are primarily a lingo -- just jargon. Ijon (talk) 00:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

There are two different Norwegian Wikipedias for two main versions of Norwegian. I have started to contribute in one of them. Count Iblis (talk) 03:03, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

These three Wikipedias are listed at "List of Wikipedias".

• Croatian Wikipedia at https://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page with more than 140,000 articles
• Serbian Wikipedia at https://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page with more than 224,000 articles
• Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia at https://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page with more than 89,000 articles

—Wavelength (talk) 04:59, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

According to http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm

Prim.+Sec.Speakers: Serbo-Croatian 23 M, Serbian 12 M, Croatian 6 M

Views per hour: Serbo-Croatian 10,060, Serbian 23,963, Croatian 27,973

Although Serbia has more inhabitants, although there's more Serbs then Croats, although there's more articles on Serbian Wikipedia, Croatian Wikipedia is the most used of all. And more used than other smaller Wikipedias from ex-Yugoslavia (Slovene, Bosnian and Macedonian). F karlo (talk) 06:44, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, from someone who has grown in Communist Croatia (part of Communist Yugoslavia): 1) Croatian and Serbian are mutually intelligible different languages, not variants of a language. The "variants of a language" policy of two Yugoslavias has been enforced by undemocratic governments- and fought by Croatian people, intelligentsia & linguists in both periods (1918-1941: 1945-1991). Now, all Croatian eminent linguists-say, 20-40 most prominent (Katičić, Matasović, Silić, Hercigonja,..) - do not consider Serbian and Bosnian "variants" of anything, but separate close languages. So is the case with Croatian people, who- since suppression of Croatian language has been, in different periods, exercised in both Yugoslavias, refuse even to read Serbian and Bosnian language books (even if they could perfectly understand them, provided they're transcribed to the Roman script). 2) These languages' situation is different from pluricentric languages like English or Spanish: both languages possess the same written corpora (at least up to 1600s-1700s)- Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Locke,....; Cid epic, Cervantes, Gongora,..- and the same normative books (grammar books, dictionaries, orthographies). In the case of standard German, grammar books from Germany are even preferred in Austria. On the other hand: Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian: a) do not have the same corpora. Their written corpora (imaginative literature, legal writings, historiography, ..) differ, say, from 98 to 100%. A few texts may be common, but you got even more common authors in the case of early periods-say, 12th century- of German and Dutch. So, in the case of corpora, from 11th to 21st century- they're exclusively either Croatian or Serbian almost 100%. b) they do not have the same-or similar- normative manuals (grammar books, dictionaries, orthographies, specialized scientific and technical dictionaries etc.)- unlike Spanish, German, French etc. Croatian, Serbian etc. are official languages in respective countries, under these very names and are very clearly defined, both synchronically and diachronically. And that's different from English in Britain, US, Australia etc. To conclude: this is the case closest to the Hindi and Urdu situation. Would you try to "merge" Hindi and Urdu Wikipedias ?Mir Harven (talk) 10:42, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Both Yugoslav regimes (Monarchist Yugoslavia and Communist Yugoslavia tried to suppress Croatian language and culture by merging it into some artificial "Yugoslav" culture and "Serbo-Croatian" language mixture. These regimes had and used various means for their agenda (secret police for the interior, diplomacy for the international etc.) ... but eventually had not succeed to deny the existence of Croatian language and culture. Yes, there are still those who are under the influence of mentioned one century long propaganda but that old 'mental concepts' are slowly changing in favor of the undeniable reality.

It is stunning that today in the era of demokracy someone want's to follow the same path that Yugoslav nondemocratic regimes went on by trying to suppress Croatian language on Wikipedia. This would be done by merging it's Wikipedia in order to create some unnatural yugoslav "serbo-croatian" mixture. It would be a huge fail.

I see some users are mentioning the Željko Jovanović words. This minister, who has a reputation of 'The worst ever minister of science and education in Croatia' has done so many mistakes during his rule that all academic community of Croatia is raged and want's him out of the goverment. Croatia does not have a tradition of public protests against politicians because of it's communist history so the minister will probably stay on his position till the next elections. His actions and words are enough evidence that his statement by which he supported the Jutarnji list tabloid article are not relevant. He, as a Serb from Croatia would like to see serbo-croatian mixture in the media and public again. He tries to replace all school books with the new one written in some new old SC standard. So his attack on Wikipedia is just one peace of the puzzle. Wikipedia should not allowe itself to blench under the political pressure.

Croatian language has been recognized as the one of the official languages of the European Union recently. EU had many interests not to do so. The cost of translation into some artificial serbo-croatian would be much smaller than translation on Serbian and Croatian as separate languages, after Serbia joins EU. But the EU did not push the old concept of biased enforcement of SC. It respects the reality of Croatian and Serbian standalone languages, although it had financial reasons to act other way. Why would Wikipedia act like some new virtual Yugoslav regime? Why should it humiliate Croatian Wikipedia users and their work because of some false tabloid article? 89.172.193.88 (talk) 12:24, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

And Luxembourg says Luxembourgish is their official language. But I'm sorry, one High German dialect is as good as another and being "official" in a country does not make a dialect any more of a true language distinct from another dialect. Nation-states have a huge bias to claim their dialect is different and official and distinct than that of their neighbor, especially if there is further historical, geopolitical, or religious differences. I guess maybe Switzerland and Austria are two countries that have never really cared about making their versions of languages more distinct for nationalistic reasons (In Austria's case not until the 1860s did Austria realize it wasn't going to lead an all-German empire, even then it wasn't until 1945 that anschluss became internationally illegal, so their identification as Germans has remained strong).Camelbinky (talk) 23:00, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Looks like your "language gendarmerie" behavior has become a tipping point for us: we're seriously discussing the option to dump Wikipedia altogether & put one of our vast 5 encyclopedias online (there have been negotiations for some time). You know- no one with the spine will tolerate such a behavior for long. We're contemplating this for some time, but this may be the moment- just, we're still undecided (I'm not talking about myself). It's your ball. But- the clock is ticking away.... Mir Harven (talk) 00:47, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Wow, the Jutarnji list wrote that "Jimy Wales- Serbs and Croats must not have any seperate wikipedias.... http://www.jutarnji.hr/jimmy-wales--srbi-i-hrvati-ne-smiju-imati-odvojene-wikipedije/1126205/ I cannot believe that you said that to them. --Croq (talk) 08:23, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Seems like some people are getting carried away here. Jimbo can't make this change by himself - it takes a community decision to decide to merge the Wikipedias. Getting down to brass tacks, someone wrote above there are over 224,000 articles in Serbian Wikipedia and 89,000 in Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia. It is not conceivable to merge the projects unless there is a consensus of the editors to do so - at least enough people to move over and adapt 135,000 articles to the merged project, plus some unique Croatian articles, not to mention cross-checking all the versions. All that work should be done anyway, but until it is over it's silly to even talk about making this decision. Wnt (talk) 21:23, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

The meta-original ASCII barnstar

*

Thank you. 72.253.168.213 (talk) 19:30, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I want one. Will you give me one, please. Formerip (talk) 00:59, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I like it. Very Web 0.1. (Or would that be -1.0) Neutron (talk) 01:19, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

That'd be Typewriter 1961.0. Rgrds. --64.85.217.189 (talk) 14:57, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Anyone want to help start the article "Money and politics in the United States"?

Jimbo, would you like to help out with a new article? Feel free to leave comments at the user talk page as well. I think Money and politics in the United States should exist. A rough sketch of an outline is at User:Biosthmors/Money_and_politics_in_the_United_States. Feel free to join in or start the article yourself. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) 10:33, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Because if you pitched in (or if anyone else did), I think that would be enjoyable. I hope you would find it enjoyable as well. I know you've remarked about Wikipedia not quite being as fun as it used to be, if I remember correctly. We'll I'd just like to point out that creating drunk walking was fun. And recently creating Murder Kroger was fun as well. =) Maybe there's an article you could create that would be enjoyable (if you have the time). Congrats on fatherhood. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) 10:43, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Right now the way you have the proto-article set up it looks quite a bit like a POV piece. You definitely want to get more second opinions and not go so negative. Money in politics is not necessarily always result in "negative" results.97.85.208.225 (talk) 16:46, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, I'd like to encourage people to check out Murder Kroger as it is up for deletion and I personally don't see how it or drunk walking exist, though I'm willing to give drunk walking the benefit of the doubt until someone else puts it up for AfD. Murder Kroger however is about one supermarket location of non-notability. Every city of any size has a supermarket with a nickname such as that, incorporating the word "ghetto" most often, for run-down locations in high-crime areas.97.85.208.225 (talk) 16:53, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I'm definitely looking for input. Feel free to help out. As for the store, there were enough newspaper articles with enough coverage about the store to write an article. Therefore, I did: WP:42. (The one with the ghetto nickname is in another part of town and I haven't looked up sources for it.) Biosthmors (talk) 17:29, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I left a note at User talk:Biosthmors/Money and politics in the United States that you may want to consider before doing much more work on that article. Neutron (talk) 17:08, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Buddha was born in India according to "reliable" sources?

I got interested in this topic based on coverage in the Times of India regarding a broadcast of a movie on the life of Buddha in which the star made a comment that Buddha was born in India and Nepalese cable companies refused to air the first episode until an apology was made. Currently our article on Birthplace of Gautama Buddha is written in a NPOV view to show that there is controversy. From my quick research, other than some "insensitive" comments that were retracted and apologies issued no one official in India states that the Buddha was born in India. Should the article be reviewed and put in light of Indian claims of birthplace for the Buddha as "fringe". The references in the article do seem to hold less weight than they are given in the article. What appears to be NPOV actually ends up being a POV push for inclusion of Indian "birthplaces" as equal weight to Nepalese. Just hoping posting this here brings some fresh neutral eyes to the article and some clean up.Camelbinky (talk) 02:25, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Every fact on the page except one appears to have a reference; do you dispute their validity? I just removed the 'one' here.

If you wish to add information, supply references to support any claims. Namaste. 88.104.27.75 (talk) 02:38, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

My God that's an awful organization. Every section split up according to "written" and "web" sources! Note that the use of Pending Changes on the page did not prevent this debacle, nor a long succession of reverts in the history. Wnt (talk) 03:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

WNT, if you wanna actually redress that type of shite, try List of best-selling albums. OWN much? That's not a wiki article at all, but jeez, you just try to challenge thise 'facts' 88.104.27.75 (talk) 04:35, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the article history, it was originally created at Gautama Buddha/Birthplace Sources as a subpage to gather references related to Buddha's birth and to aid related discussion; a commendable goal which explains the structure of the page. The error was in moving it to mainspace without restructuring the content. Hopefully someone will soon take on the task to rewrite the article based on the sources already listed (and others, if needed). Abecedare (talk) 04:54, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It does seem that we're overstating what is essentially a fringe view by having an entire article devoted to the discussing alternative views of the birthplace of the Buddha. Do we really need an entire article on this? The sources for the Indian sites are best described as "crummy". --regentspark (comment) 15:24, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I've started a thread on the talk page of said article on whether we should merge, move out of mainspace, or delete. I encourage a lot of participation and hopefully this article can get moved or someone sentimental about the topic cleans it up to prevent one of the alternatives.Camelbinky (talk) 20:31, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It seems that moving the article back to user space has some traction. Can an admin look and make a decision to move or not? I cant seem to find a template to mark it to be moved to user space.Camelbinky (talk) 00:59, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Refs

Classic case of (apparently) good motives and a desire to improve Wikipedia but an inability to relax and behave in a collaborative way with others. Rushing in like a bull in a china shop and then cursing at others who politely question what you are doing is not ok. Your block is for only 3 days. I recommend you have a few good nights sleep and come back with a more relaxed attitude.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:48, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hi, Way back, you said; “ I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information ” — [19] ...you did go on to emphasize that it was particularly important for BLPs, but still; I want to know; If I removed ALL unreferenced info from wikipedia, how would that be? Would I be banned before I made 100 edits? (I would without your intervention) - so please tell me... which of the core principles can I uphold without fearing retribution from the fearsome overlords you're empowered to define the 'facts'? These gobshite admins block contribs because they can. To fulfll the dream, Mr W, you need to set us free, Remove unreferenced shite, Make this a truly *factual* encyclopaedia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.27.75 (talk) 04:17, 15 September 2013 (UTC) Go ahead and remove "random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information", but when you see something reasonable that lacks a source, use your Google skills or library skills, and add a solid reference. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:25, 15 September 2013 (UTC) I just removed a bit of one, and admin told me, "like >70% of all Wikipedia articles are unsourced or contain unsourced information, are we removing it? No. Stop, or this will end up at AIV and EWN. Tbhotch." [20] - I expect they will ban me very soon, for trying to uphold these pillars that are crumbling. 88.104.27.75 (talk) 05:40, 15 September 2013 (UTC) First, I'm not an admin, I'm an user, second WP:ban is not wp:block. Tbhotch.™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 05:55, 15 September 2013 (UTC) I've been working over a previously unreferenced article a bit this evening. Everything in it has proven to be factually correct, more or less; now most of that is sourced out, a few tidbits remain to be sourced out. That's the correct process — find it and fix it, don't just delete unsourced-but-factually-correct information. I hear ya on the block happy sorts, however. Too many traffic cops and not enough writers... Carrite (talk) 07:26, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

New way to profit from Wikipedia...

Here's an obnoxious idea: take an image from a Wikipedia article, use a speech synthesizer to turn the text into the soundtrack for it, add an ad, post to YouTube, profit. I have a feeling searches on YouTube are about to get a lot less usable. I know I've seen many people praise the virtues of going CC-by-SA rather than CC-by-NC, but can someone point to examples of the benefits that are as tangible as for the drawbacks? Wnt (talk) 14:52, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand, what's wrong with it? Seems great for visually impaired people. That's exactly the kind of things that we should encourage.--cyclopia^speak! 15:09, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Probably because it doesn't sound too good to have a monotone robotic voice read it, and people would rather read using their own voice, unless they're either visually impaired or okay with it. ZappaOMati 15:12, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Cyclopia does have a point. But a fine edge on that point is: if someone can do this systematically, why doesn't Wikipedia have a feature to do this to any article on the fly? (Without the ads, of course) Wnt (talk) 15:18, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

What ads? The video plays start to finish for me with no advertisements. Why am I having a flashback to underwear gnomes?    DKqwerty    16:52, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I got an ad. Hot Stop talk-contribs 17:00, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Those of you getting ads: I've tried the video on three devices on two different Internet connections (Road Runner and Sprint 3G) and seen no ads. I'm not sure how or why you'd be seeing an ad anyway, as YouTube only places ads on content that is otherwise copyrighted (like a music video), but when posted by Wikipedia accounts it should be ad free.    DKqwerty    17:53, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I also got an ad, but I mmust say I like the idea despite the ads. Tazerdadog (talk) 18:09, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks like the youtube user that posted the video may have posted thousands more like it, although I'm not sure. I looked at a sample of them and they're not getting many views, so there may not be much profit in it. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:18, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Pediaphon can do this sort of thing without ads. Graham87 06:59, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Ads or not ads, who cares? They used WP to do something, good or bad. Good for them. That's what free content is for: to be reused. --cyclopia^speak! 16:25, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Pediaphon is a great feature! But why isn't this integrated into Wikipedia? There's not so much as a link in the sidebar to the audio version of the article on Pediaphon. Of course, the whole site ought to have been brought into the fold - it was apparently made as a contribution to WP:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia and its output has been GFDL-licensed. Note that now, because it wasn't integrated, the output is no longer compatible with the Wikipedia CC-licensing - a huge lost opportunity. To think that Wikipedia developers were leaving this to go stale while working on a way to automatically add kittens to a userpage...

The reason why I care is that Wikipedia content is so visible as spam rather than for any other purpose ... it is frustrating that we aren't seeing more respectable reuses. Wnt (talk) 19:00, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Because WMF is obsessing over the Visual Editor and letting may other aspects languish in the meantime?    DKqwerty    19:46, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to fault them for developing that - it's clear we need such a feature, and as long as they do it right, and don't give into a temptation to be overbearing with it, it can be a great accomplishment for the broader Wiki community. Wnt (talk) 20:43, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Users are 6 times more likely to use edit summaries than with the markup editor – though earlier in VisualEditor's development it was more than 10 times more likely

Can you dig into the facts behind that quote from the WMF rejection of the RFC? For that to be true, the use of edit summaries with the markup editor would have to be below 10% or the use of edit summaries with the Visual Editor would have to be over 100%. It's hard to believe either one.—Kww(talk) 18:24, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

• I don't know, I can somewhat believe the below 10% figure; If you look at some editors' histories, they're completely devoid of summaries over a period of months or years. However, even when editing a section or reverting an edit, a summary is automatically generated (eg. even just an auto-generated "/* History */" summary should be considered "use" of the edit summary). Maybe they were referring to anonymous editors? Or somehow established whether an auto-generated summary was editing by the user?    DKqwerty    18:41, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

• A simple look through my watchlist shows that of the last 50 changes made using the markup editor, 18 had manually written summaries, or 36%. I doubt that's extremely anomalous.—Kww(talk) 19:08, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

• And wikitext editor is 6x more likely to save an edit when VE craters: Several editors noted how VE was an interesting experience, until trying to make a very large edit, and then losing *ALL* changes (all). Imagine that. It sounds like a car whose brake pedal works well, until driving at a large speed.... (the VisualEdsel?). As for edit-summaries, since VE auto-generates the "tag:VE" then I am not sure it is fair to note VE users have 6x more edit-summaries because they are auto-generated (!). The former 10x more could be explained by fixing the early VE glitches by using the wikitext editor, while so desperate to remove the VE "nowiki" glitches, the frantic users omitted many edit-summaries during page rescues, at least 600(?) per day in July 2013. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:46, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The "VisualEditor" tags are not part of the edit summary; they are tags that are generated by the edit filter. Graham87 06:50, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Technically VE adds the tag by itself, the edit filter doesn't do so in this case. Legoktm (talk) 07:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Presumably the number would not include automatically generated summaries when editing sections. I can ask James to clarify the meaning, but it's probably faster to just ask him yourself. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:37, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Believe me, Jimbo, it will be an educational experience for you to go through the experience of asking James to actually justify one of his statements about VE. Seriously. I suspect this statement is based on examining only first edits or something that he has exaggerated and inflated into the statement above, using the behaviour of a tiny subset to make a false statement about the behaviour of the whole. When we tell you that James's statement was a self-serving pile of exaggerations and half-truths, you don't seem to believe us. I'm hoping that if you probe on a point where he is obviously making false statements, you might learn a valuable lesson about which side of this dispute is more trustworthy.—Kww(talk) 14:48, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the most recent 100 edits (15;04 and earlier), I note:

• VE, edit summary: 3
• VE, no ES: 1
• Wikitext, ES: 43
• Wikitext, no (or automated) ES: 53

A much too small sample, obviously, but still, very far from the figures given by the WMF. Only looking at the last 100 edits made with VE (between 14:52 and 15:08); 45 of the 100 don't use an edit summary. I doubt that this figure of about 60% using edit summaries is that immensely different from the number of edit summaries with Wikitext editor. I have noted though, in WMF's numbers, that even among new editors, about 80% use the Wikitext editor, and only about 20% use VE. For a tool specifically aimed at new editors, that seems to be a problem... Fram (talk) 15:14, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Chill.... Statements about risk factors, e.g. someone is 6X more likely to get sick if she has a certain genetic trait, are common in medical research and the public media reporting them. These are based on logit regression analysis, in which multiple factors explaining a 0-1 outcome are evaluated. In the statistical results, one can discern which factors are statistically significant in explaining the outcome, and the coefficients can be used to compute incremental likelihood factors, i.e. odds ratios. Technically a 6X factor, or any other factor, is applicable to an "average" subject and doesn't apply to someone who has so many traits and characteristics already that they are virtually assured of getting the sickness, or that they are virtually guaranteed not to get it. The factor is a marginal factor for an "average" subject. The practice in journalism is not to report those nuances, but rather simply to state the 6X factor, the odds ratio. The situation here doesn't appear to be a case of "someone obviously making false statements" at all. My guess it is was a statement based on logit/probit analysis type thinking, if not actual statistical output, reported normally. --doncram 15:34, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Any reason for that guess? It seems extremely complicated when compared to the normal WMF statistics and reporting on them... Wouldn't it be more logical to wait for the someone from the WMF to explain where they got the statistics from? Fram (talk) 15:43, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

The reason that I shared this is that I hope to lower the level of outrage experienced by some reading the 6X likelihood mention, when they think it is not reasonable. It is reasonable, in the normal discussion of odds and likelihoods in scientific / medical / business / news literature, to refer to a factor like 6X in the context I describe. It reconciles the seemingly opposing information. A WMF person could easily have run such a regression -- you can't quite do it in Excel, say, but it is really not hard, it just requires any basic statistics software. By the way the factor might apply to some subset of persons, not an average overall type of person but rather of new editors. I am guessing, yes, that is what some WMF person meant, and I am trying to make it easier for them to say so. Sure, i would be happy to hear from an WMF person, but I am not so happy to see other commenters getting worked up about a minor paradox that can be explained. --doncram 20:49, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

It's fairly clear that James took a special case and extrapolated it to a whole. "Users are 6 times more likely to use edit summaries than with the markup editor – though earlier in VisualEditor's development it was more than 10 times more likely" is a false statement, and this false statement was used as the first and foremost example of a benefit that Visual Editor has brought. Even if it comes about from credulous use of a statistical analysis technique, it's a sample of faulty reasoning.—Kww(talk) 22:16, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

What you need to ask is, "Why would James Forrester, project manager of Visual Editor, put forth such a claim to answer the RFC? Are any of the people there interested in these type of misleading statistics? What purpose does putting the information in that form serve?"TehCommunitah (talk) 23:33, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Why mi comment is erased here?

I wrote a help ask for Wikipedia in catalan language with a lot of links where you can see how they are censoring anything related to Spain (like flag of Spain in international listings like Olympic Games, etc), they are censoring the names of regions and they invent secessionist ones (secessionism is about the 3 or 4% of catalan speakers around the world). I don't know why somebody has deleting my complaint that after all the long bureaucracy and fighting, there was only the communication resource with Jimbo. Very bad treatment of an effort to improve Wikipedia in catalan language

I don't know why I'm fighting against that vandals, if you fight against me.

the last link I put. Erase it if you want I don't care anymore a better wikipedia: "Spain censored in cawiki. i.e: Olympics 1992 WERE NOT IN SPAIN ?¿? http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocs_Ol%C3%ADmpics#Seus_i_edicions An example of ban and censors in cawiki

Erasing my 25 or 30 links that reveals a brutal secessionist bias and censors in the catalan wikipedia, is not a good idea to make a better Wikipedia. I expect that The 9000 euros given by secessionist war-loving government of Catalonia to the secessionist association that controls cawiki are not the problem...

OMG ca.wikipedia.org has become a secessionist wiki of only one political party, what about the vast mayority of catalan speakers of the rest of catalan regions?¿? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.144.179.202 (talk) 00:22, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Comment — You comments were "erased" because they were basically incoherent and extremely excessive in their content (thousands of words and a multitude of images are not normally part of a talk page comment). I would suggest waiting for a response before making any further revisions to your inquiry.    DKqwerty    07:58, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, I just looked at the page and I would have to say yes, it would be wrong to have a list of Olympic host nations, illustrated with flags of those nations, and to have the Catalonian flag for the Barcelona Olympics rather than the Spanish flag. I suggest to you though that language such as "brutal secessionist bias" and "censors" and "war-loving government" are not likely to win you much sympathy from those who would otherwise be in agreement with the points you are making. A more calming solution might be to remove all the flags. In this way, one avoids making an unnecessary and contentious political statement in any direction.

I notice that the entry on Catalonia in Catalan Wikipedia refers to it as a 'country' (pais) whereas the English and Spanish refer to it as "an autonomous community of Spain, officially recognized as a nationality by the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia" and " es una comunidad autónoma española considerada como nacionalidad histórica" respectively. I am not in a position to know whether that is problematic or not. Here in the UK, Wales (for example) is considered to be a "country" by everyone and uncontroversially so, even though there is no (significant) independence movement. So it is possible that reliable sources in the Catalan language refer to it as a country (pais). But it is also possible that Catalan Wikipedia is pushing an agenda (as our anonymous complainer would suggest). I am not in a position at the moment to know the answer to that question, but hope that we can have further conversation about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:45, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

In cases like "Olympic host nations", let's not forget we are talking about host "nations" not countries. English, especially in the US, seems to have a hard time denoting properly the difference between a modern nation-state and a country. Wales, Catalonia, and Scotland are all be countries, but they aren't states, they are not sovereign in all aspects of being a modern state, especially foreign affairs. When doing a table of "countries" IMO we should always go by the modern nation-state. Technically from a historical usage if a state is made up of one nationality/country then it is a proper nation-state, but in today's polisci vernacular all sovereign states are considered nation-states (even technical city-states such as Singapore and the Vatican). This separation of the idea country versus nation-state can be traced in political science to the Treaty of Westphalia ending the 30 Year War in Europe. Prior to 1861, to quote Prince Metternich- "Italy is only a geographical expression", it was a country made up of one nationality of people in many little states and parts of neighboring empires. Being a nation is "natural" to a group of people, being a state is something that requires meeting an internationally recognized norm.Camelbinky (talk) 16:16, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Are Guestbooks Spam?

I was so disappointed when I saw that a user deleted my guestbook page because he/she said it was spam, I once read at your guestbook that the autograph books seem to just be about saying hello and being friendly, so why does this user think it is spam? Miss Bono ^[zootalk] 12:25, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I have never heard of a guestbook being deleted as spam. Surely this is not normal?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:30, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

The page User talk:Miss Bono/Guestbook had one edit, by an IP, which had nothing to do with a guestbook or Miss Bono and everything with spam. Hard to decipher spam at that, with sentences like "With these tips, youll preserve wherewithal from the two shakes of a lamb's tail you acquire your car, until the last indemnification payment you at all make. ", but with plenty of weblinks in it. The actual guestbook was never deleted. Running to Jimbo before you even asked the deleting admin (not me, by the way) what happened is serious overkill. Fram (talk) 12:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Hey Fram! I am sorry, I just thought asking Jimbo what he thinks about guestbooks and if he thinks they are spam?. Is it forbidden?, and actually, I tried to follow the link to my guestbook and it gave nothing, just a red link. I saw nothing wrong in asking Jimmy. If it was, please I seriously apologize. Miss Bono ^[zootalk] 12:54, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I found it, sorry for the bothers, but I don't know yet what happened, I saw a deletion log that said deleted page User talk:Miss Bono/Guestbook ‎(spam) and when I tried to follow the link (before I noticed it was a duplicated talk page) I couldn't, it was a red one. I already apologized to the admin who deleted the page and now, I am apologizing to you. Thanks for your time Jimbo and Farm. You are not going to block me for this. Are you? :'( Miss Bono ^[zootalk] 13:03, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh no, it takes a lot more to get blocked than seeing a page deleted and slightly but understandably overreacting. Just try to remember; the next time you see an admin action that seems strange or incorrect, just ask the admin what happened and wait for a reply. It's early enough to escalate things when the admin doesn't respond or his response seems truly unsatisfactory (I personally don't believe that here is the right page to escalate things, we have enough dedicated and specialized boards for these things, e.g. WP:AN, and user pages are usually not the best place for this kind of thing, but the owner of this user page disagrees with that point). Fram (talk) 13:19, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I see... again, sorry Jimmy and Fram... and Thank you so much. Miss Bono ^[zootalk] 13:25, 16 September 2013 (UTC)