User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Wikipedia for Idiots?

I was wondering if any thought has been given to creating a guide to Wikipedia, perhaps as part of the "Idiots" (or "dummies" guide) series? We don't currently have anything like that, just a series of links in the welcome template and other things of that kind. A comprehensive guide for beginners would really help a lot I think, covering not just the basics (and why we have our rules) but also the more technical stuff, such as formatting references and copyright. Perhaps it's just me, but I sometimes find that even after a couple of years this can be a hard site to navigate. A published guide, perhaps a free e-book, with a good index, would help a lot I think and maybe aid in editor retention. Not volunteering for the job, by the way, as I am too much of a dummy myself, but I think this might be a good job for the Foundation to commission. Coretheapple (talk) 17:06, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

• Perhaps Wikipedia: The Missing Manual is what you had in mind? Everymorning talk 17:28, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
• https://idiots.wikipedia.org? (probably a redirect to en.wiki...) --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:33, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

This comment wins the internet. I mean.. uh.... stop that! Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 08:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

@Floquenbeam: It took me to a missing page.Skate Shady - talk to me 17:36, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh that missing manual seems about right, thematically. Obviously it's far out of date. Also it needs a professionally written index. When I search "references," for instance, I get 29 hits. That's just too much. Coretheapple (talk) 17:35, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

• This might be the closest thing to what Coretheapple seems to be talking about. Everymorning talk 18:21, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
• There is Wikipedia:A primer for newcomers. JohnCD (talk) 18:31, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

As long as it kept to the technical aspect of how to edit, and stayed far, far away from things talking about the 5P, exact wording of current policies and guidelines (even long standing rarely significantly changed ones like WP:OR, WP:V, WP:RS), stay away from abstract concepts such as "courtesy" and "respect". All of those things of course are important for newbies and the curious; but codifying into a manual some of those concepts and !rules would further the spread of dogma that "As Wikipedia is the moment I came in, is the way it shall be forever! Because someone wiser than me brought these rules down from upon high". We have enough of that crap going on now without an actual published book declaring for the world to see that these things are this way and that way they shall always be. We'll have some one classifying the 5P as the Wikipedia Constitution instead of an essay based on its inclusion on the front page of Wikipedia for Idiots (quite an apropos location based on the title for the 5P really, IMHO). Look at organized religion for what happens when you write a book.Camelbinky (talk) 18:48, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Sure, at least technical. Look, maybe it's just me, but I had a hell of a time finding Help:Overview of referencing styles. It would be nice to have a comprehensive guidebook to point to when you encounter a beginner stumbling along. And why not include policies? It's hard at first to grasp why, for instance, we prohibit original research. It would be nice of a "dummies" guide to explain to beginners why that isn't allowed. The current policy pages don't get into the "why" aspect very much. They're not always self-evident. Coretheapple (talk) 20:00, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I recommend that experienced, helpful editors visit the Teahouse from time to time. We answer large numbers of "newbie" questions there. The experienced hosts are good at pointing new editors In the right direction. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:30, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I have a sincere follow-up question for User:Coretheapple, hope they don't mind- If we write a book, does it not give newbies the idea that if they see some one changing a policy, or if policy conflicts with said book, that the newbie would become confused at best, and possibly hostile to any changes in the worst case. We'd have endless debates, !votes, and downright nasty arguments over whether a policy can be changed from what it is said in the book. Also- this ties our hands on being progressive, a work in progress, and willing to always change with new consensus since debates on content will be full of "the Holy Book of Wikipedia said this! You can't override with a local consensus!" As User:Cullen328 pointed out there are good experienced hosts at the teahouse and other noticeboards who help reach consensus, that does not always stick to the letter of established policy. Even our own established policy pages are always going to lag what we actually do and our current consensus. A policy and guideline is simply- "this is what worked before, so we wrote it down to guide us for next time, but next time might be slightly different so consensus, while it should keep to this established consensus in spirit, the details may differ." Sorry, this may be a bit convoluted! Camelbinky (talk)

I think you're raising a good point, but actually one easy to deal with. Such book should say in bold type that the wording of the policies in Wikipedia prevail, and that this is just a general guide for the perplexed. For Wikipedia purposes it would have the strength of an essay. I think it's main function would be to help with all the technical details that, I have to say, still flumox me. For example, providing a good guide to all the automated editing platforms that we see out there. (Which is a roundabout way of saying that I personally would find such a manual useful.) Sure, the info is available on Wikipedia, but why not give newbies a manual they can use to quickly find the instructions if they want to give it a try? I'll bet the Foundation could get either a volunteer or team of volunteers to do that or perhaps just pay somebody 10K to do it. The important thing is an index, which to be done right costs about $1K. You can then revise it as often as you want. Coretheapple (talk) 18:00, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I like where this is heading and I do now hope a book is written. I just have one more issue that I hope User:Coretheapple can solve- If the Foundation is willing to pay $10K to a person or group to write this book, is it possible we'd have a large group of editors claim "SCANDAL!" because the Foundation is willing to pay for the book to be written but is (generally) against editors being paid to edit?Camelbinky (talk) 15:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

If anyone can't distinguish between the Foundation paying someone to write a guidebook and paying someone to edit, that's their problem. Coretheapple (talk) 16:05, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh two other points I was going to make: first when I said "idiot's guide" I really meant the "dummies guides," the ones with the yellow cover, though I see there is a knock-off series with the "idiots" name. Secondly, I think a bound volume would be helpful with older people and retirees, who are underrepresented on Wikipedia and would respond well to that kind of help. Coretheapple (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

You are looking for WP:CCC. EllenCT (talk) 18:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

MWhy do you need Wikipedia for idiots? Aren't there enough idiots on Wikipedia already? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.32.192 (talk) 00:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

This is true. Coretheapple (talk) 01:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Fortunately, there are also enough intelligent volunteers that we have built a pretty darned good free encyclopedia with 4.7 million English language articles, which is improving every day. When we criticize this project's many flaws, it is always good to keep that in mind. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 17:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

This is true as well. I was engaged in a rare moment of levity. It won't happen again! Coretheapple (talk) 18:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Help:Desk is great but some prefer to see whole overview or dashboard

The Help Desk question-and-answer page (Help:Desk) is great for getting specific answers, but some users might prefer to read an entire overview page to see a more comprehensive view of Wikipedia, such as reading WP:About. In particular, I would suspect the "medical student" mindset would prefer to speed read an extensive overview of all major aspects, and then re-read (or re-scan) the portions which are related to specific issues of concern to them. It is always important to consider the needs of people who prefer to read textbooks cover-to-cover, and who might be frustrated by a "20 questions" interface of tedious dialog about the typical FAQ topics. Also, a wp:Dashboard for typical user subjects might be preferred by similar users. Currently, there is the link wp:Overview, as a redirect to wp:About. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:27, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes and another way of approaching it would be something along the lines of the old Yahoo! Directory. Remember that? It was an index of the Internet, organized by topics, and in the 1990s it purported to cover the entire Internet. That kind of approach might work as well. On second thought it occurred to me that an index (DMOZ is another example) or dashboard would not go far enough. It would be great for people who know the basics and for experienced users, but not for newcomers, who might need to be walked through the project. Coretheapple (talk) 18:31, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Currently, wp:Index provides an annotated index of WP topics, with short descriptions of each related project page, such as for the source-reference citations. The page "Help:Overview of referencing styles" could be added into that index, as one common topic about using cites. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Well you see, that strengthens my point. So many good resources on Wikipedia, but no central repository that can be found in a handy-dandy all-in-one reference! I see Jimbo just got a $1 million award, maybe I can humbly suggest he devote 10K of that to the "Idiots Guide"? Coretheapple (talk) 15:26, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Interesting paper that could be useful as advice for new editors

• Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia
• I discovered this study recently and I wanted to know if other editors thought its content seemed like good advice to offer to newbies. Seems like a good place for new editors to start. Everymorning talk 01:39, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

What about a forced tutorial for all newbies?

How about doing what a lot of games force new players to go through, such as a non-optional tutorial? Something along the lines of putting newbies in a sandbox and having them follow pop-up instructions that guide them into creating new articles, adding sources, give them a sample page from a resource and show them "to write word for word is copyright infringement" and show them what is and is not acceptable in writing out the idea the source puts forward without being too far off in original research yet not so close as to be plagiarism. How to sign your posts on talk pages could be another easy step. How to bold and italicize and when it is appropriate. Basic markup and technical work.Camelbinky (talk) 17:06, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

If there is to be a tutorial, either required or strongly encouraged, it should first be tested by volunteer testers who should consider whether it will itself be encouraging or discouraging to new editors. I have seen some training for various products that was rigid and annoying. If we were to do something like that (unintentionally - it is easy to think that training will be useful when it is in fact annoying), it would be editor-non-retention in advance. Any training should be scrutinized carefully. We should be friendly to new editors, but existing editors should be hostile to hostile training. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:22, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

It does sound as if it might discourage people. Coretheapple (talk) 14:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

A truly mandatory tutorial would, moreover, require the end of IP editing. That's something the community has never been willing to do. I suppose that you could require it for people only after they first set up an account, but that would encourage IP editing which certainly isn't what we want to do. It might be implemented for IP editors using cookies or something like that, but that would nonetheless cause problems for those folks who clear their cookies every day. Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 14:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

There is a way, in theory, around the perverse effect about anonymous editing. That would be to require completing the tutorial in order for a new account to be autoconfirmed. IP editors are never auto-confirmed. Registered editors gain certain rights by being autoconfirmed, and completing the training could be a required condition. I do not recommend required training, or training that is required to be autoconfirmed, because I don't trust that the training will be useful. It is just as likely to be robotic, unfriendly, and discouraging. Who would be responsible for developing the training? Presumably it would be the development staff, who are known for their self-satisfaction and failure to seek feedback from non-development users. If we had an independent test function, it might be possible to develop required training, but I still think that there are other priorities with regards to new editors than forcing them to have training that would probably be robotic and discouraging., Robert McClenon (talk) 15:50, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

But I think any kind of tutorial would discourage people. What I think needs to be done is to make Wikipedia more user-friendly. Doing so has the institutional purpose of keeping the user base as wide as possible. Coretheapple (talk) 14:19, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Gamergate redux

Here is an interesting article from Slate.com by David Auerbach on the factually erroneous article seeded from Mark Bernstein's blog to The Guardian sensationalizing the then-ongoing Gamergate Arbcom case. "The Wikipedia Ouroboros: The online encyclopedia chews up and spits out bad facts, and its own policies are letting it happen." Carrite (talk) 19:16, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The thing is he's absolutely right. We have too much of a tendency to lean towards selective blog posts than news releases that have been fact checked and it just perpetuates bad writing. The essay on verifiability, not truth is an embarrassment for this project. If we can't have truth we shouldn't have anything at all. Wikipedia is a great place for articles on science or history, but much of our stuff on social issues or recent events is a mess. We worship the New York Times as reliable and then go on and cite their blog writers for their opinion, which amount to being little more credible than the Huffington Post or Breitbart (which we have banned for reasons that seem more political than practical). Will we even look twice at the Guardian after this fiasco? It will probably be as much as we second guessed the Lancet after they published Wakefield's bogus vaccine/autism paper. We should be much more strict on what we consider reliable sources and focus more on getting things done right, instead of fast. It's not like we're missing out on ad revenue if we don't add the latest news story the instant it comes out. This whole project could use a healthy dose of common sense and patience. Muscat Hoe (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Anyone citing opinion pieces from The New York Times or anywhere else as RS for statements of fact is violating Wikipedia policies (see WP:NEWSORG and WP:SOAP). I've seen this done, with opinion pieces from The Guardian and elsewhere. People say "it's RS", but they don't seem to understand that opinion pieces that appear in reliable publications are different from factual news reporting that appears in those publications. The problem is not with "verifiability", but with people manipulating "verifiability" to suit their own ends. "Verifiability" means consulting RS, and that piece in The Guardian was not RS for statements of fact, nor is this piece in Slate. RGloucester — ☎ 21:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

On this, I agree. There seems to be a lot of citing of opinion pieces for facts that then get asserted in the encyclopedia's own voice. Even worse, if there are opinion pieces tending to echo each other they can end up being treated as equivalent to a scientific or scholarly consensus on, say, biological evolution or the Holocaust. Op-eds and similar are nothing of the sort. As the recent media misrepresentations of the ArbCom show, we can't treat these kinds of topical, ephemeral opinion pieces on current controversies as reliable. If that means some articles have to be reduced to stubs, or even deleted, to maintain the quality of the encyclopedia, so be it. Metamagician3000 (talk) 02:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

(ec)Read the article more carefully. He doesn't actually criticise Wikipedia for recycling errors in the Guardian article in the Wikipedia article on Gamergate. I haven't paid enough attention to know for sure, but I am guessing that this is because we didn't. He teases us with "This is where it gets interesting", but then goes on to tell us that the interesting thing is that someone created a hoax article using the Guardian article, which got deleted after a couple of hours. So, not all that interesting, really. He does criticise us for having a policy of "verifiability not truth", but the thing is that we don't. So I expect we will be seeing a note appear at the foot of the Slate article by noon tomorrow explaining why it has been amended. Or not.

The criticisms of the Guardian article may be valid, but ropey journalism isn't really very remarkable in the 21st century. Journalism about ropey journalism even less so. But, in both cases it seems someone is willing to pay for it, so who am I to criticise? Formerip (talk) 21:27, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

If we pay heed to everything that is said about WP, we will not have WP. - Cwobeel (talk) 21:33, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Mark Bernstein would like it known, for the record, that he had no contact with or participation in the article in The Guardian. Please be more circumspect when discussing living individuals in a public forum. Gamaliel (talk) 23:52, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, but it still must be said that his inflammatory and erroneous description of the situation is what caused all this nonsense in the first place.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Hear, hear... Carrite (talk) 02:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

threadjack
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
BTW why is Gamaliel allowed to speak(proxy) for a blocked editor? Avono (talk) 09:29, 6 February 2015 (UTC) If any editor unable to speak for himself feels he is being factually misrepresented, it is appropriate to note that, just as I would take note of such a thing if anyone contacted me with such a matter, whether he or she was a blocked user or the subject of an article or anyone else under discussion on-wiki. It is an administrative duty to insure that living individuals are accurately represented on the encyclopedia, both in article and talk space. Gamaliel (talk) 15:43, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• The bottom line is that we need to put a bullet in the head of the notion that "The important thing is verifiability, not truth." The notion of so-called "Reliable Sources" is a holdover from this justly discredited epoch. There are more accurate and less accurate sources, but ultimately there is an objective reality out there that we need to describe dispassionately and fairly for our readers. This whole Bernstein-Guardian fiasco is a microcosm of the way the mainstream media works these days — forget objectivity, the name of the game is clicks and ad dollars, and don't you forget it. It is up to us as editors to filter out the bullshit (whatever its source) and to honestly get to the truth. Verifiability and veracity. Carrite (talk) 02:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The present era is the only discredited one, and there is no objective reality that Wikipedia editors must construct. You have no right to criticise establishment sources. They are the foundations of society, and Wikipedia must adhere to societal norms if it is to survive. It is not a political project, for such a politicking as you demand is an exercise in discrediting its work. What's more, you fail to distinguish between the opinion pages and factual reporting, as is demanded by our policies. The op-ed in question was never a RS for statements of fact, as Wikipedia policies state (see, for example, WP:NEWSORG). We simply cannot accept activism by self-important internet peasants. They must learn their place. Wikipedia is all too often a vehicle for their nonsense, prey to the frivolity of youths without material grounding. Thankfully, our policies are written to protect us against their assaults. People may choose to ignore them, but they will be shown their error in time. RGloucester — ☎ 02:31, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Wow. Just wow. Long live the establishment, bro... Carrite (talk) 03:13, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Kindly enlighten us then how the hell bullshit news articles are going to be kept out then, including from what are considered RSes? Over the past 2 weeks alone I've already counted dozens of articles in mass media which have, either knowingly or unknowingly, contained plenty of factual inconsistencies. And those were not only re. GamerGate, but also regarding e.g. Greece, Ukraine, etc. As far as I could tell last time I checked their articles, there hasn't been any permanent vandalization through bad RSes *yet*, but considering the stupendous amount of RSes who publish outright lies or half-truths, there is going to be a moment that it cannot be avoided and that someone decides to make an case against Wikipedia because of it. MicBenSte (talk) 04:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

@MicBenSte:, just curious, what source of information do you use to detect the "factual inconsistencies" in mainstream media? You must have alternative sources of information for you to judge these "bullshit news articles" to be wrong. Maybe you should go to WP:RSN and argue for the sources of information that you think are more factually true to be accepted in the encyclopedia. However, if you are judging these articles to be untrue based on your personal knowledge and experience, that is original research and has no place on Wikipedia. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

No, that's not how logic works. There are many mainstream news accounts that cannot both be true without any indication of which are accurate. There is no point in arguing which is correct. A simple review of the current events surrounding Brian Williams, the NBC News anchor, Reliable Source, and long time journalist. It sometimes seems that Wikipedia is like the benevolent, but hapless aliens in {{Galaxy Quest]] that use TV shows as the "historical records." --DHeyward (talk) 19:22, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

As editors we have both the right and a duty to question establishment sources. Something that is verifiably false is not verifiable. The buck stops with editors and logical arguments, not the authors that we cite. Rhoark (talk) 18:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

"Verifiability, not truth" is there for a reason. Every homeopathy shill in the world will claim that our article, which is fully verifiable from reliable independent sources, is nonetheless not The Truth™. Wikipedia cannot be the judge of truth, we do not have the subject matter expertise (or rather, we allow anyone to edit and explicitly do not restrict or weight that according to subject matter expertise). This is a foundational policy. Thus, if reliable independent sources are wrong, so are we, and so it has always been.

That doesn't mean we must include every factually incorrect allegation in a reliable source. We are allowed to look at how other sources view it, and draw sensible editorial judgments. If a climate denier (or a holocaust denier, or a creationist or whoever) manages to get an article published in a journal, that doesn't mean we set it against the overwhelming consensus view with the kind of false balance that bedevils news outlets. But accuracy and truth are separate concepts, and Truth™ is another again. We should aspire to an accurate representation of the consensus of reliable independent sources. Guy (Help!) 11:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

IMO, Auerbach is pointing out the extremely torturous WP process that created and perpetuates the GamerGate article even today. That it had to be described as "harassment and misogyny" because reliable sources said so. The Guardian was one of the most engaged reliable source on the topic. There simply weren't any reliable sources supporting "ethics in journalism" as an issue so rather than use common sense, we torched a large segment of upset gamers. Gamers complained but were drowned out by charges of "harassment and misogyny." The quest to banish the basement dwellers and rescue the damsels in distress was deemed righteous and good. Many battles were fought and many topic bans preceded ArbCom. And before the arbitration case was settled and before anything was final, the reliable sources that were torching gamers, turned to ArbCom and Wikipedia and shouted out "harassment and misogyny." Except this time we knew the reliable sources were wrong. It was error filled and loaded with hyperbole and was basically referencing a single blog written by someone that did not speaj for WP in either process or content as the source for its charges. No request for comment. No rebuttal. It really was a lesson in Ethics in Journalism after all. A number of years ago when the core of BLP was formed we looked beyond just "reliable sources" to damage to living people and made rules about "what not to write". The next logical step is to do the same with these hot-button social topics where vanquishing opposing viewpoints becomes larger than the goals of the project. We can't regulate off-site behavior but we shouldn't be blind to it either. If all the reliable sources still create an article that is so extremely polarizing that it fuels offsite threats, arguments and real-life harassment and fear, it simply can't be neutral by definition and perhaps shouldn't be written at all. --DHeyward (talk) 12:24, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Gamergate has to be described as harassment and misogyny for only one reason: the reliable sources show it to be exactly that. Doxing and threats of harm are not to be taken lightly. Those who were involved will in time, I think, come to be justly ashamed of this. I think many of them were caught up in a feeding frenzy. Others were deliberately and quite unapologetically vile, and I think history will not be kind to them. Guy (Help!) 11:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

That's the issue. Not a single, identifiable person has been named as GamerGate harassers but that's the narrative because there are identifiable victims that get coverage. On the other hand, those that are identified as GamerGate supporters by name are not harassing or doxxing anyone. Those identifiable people don't get their story told and the large number of people that are gamers are getting lumped into this anonymous group that are relentlessly attacked. "Ethics in Journalism" became a cliche as much as "Religion of Peace" is now used as a phrase to denigrate Islam. It's rather shortsighted to think that our "Reliably Sourced" article resembles reality any more than the Guardian article on Arbcom does. I'm sure the ArbCom members that banished all remaining feminists on Wikipedia will be "justly ashamed of this. I think many of them were caught up in a feeding frenzy. Others were deliberately and quite unapologetically vile, and I think history will not be kind to them." Except those ArbCom members don't exist except in Reliable Sources. Keep in mind that there are those that believe a billion Muslims will convert and will be ashamed if only more Truth about terrorism is published (and the overwhelming number of Reliable Sources today are not portraying Islam as a Religion of Peace but I hope you don't think this means Muslims will be ashamed and convert). --DHeyward (talk) 18:49, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Let me tell you a little story. Some years ago, a person took issue with my opinion on speed enforcement. They decided that my lack of opposition to enforcement of speed limits makes me a murderer (don't go expecting trolls to be rational). For over three years I was subjected to relentless harassment: phone calls at all hours of the day and night, posting fake "bad driving" reports with the number plates of cars seen outside my house, gleeful fantasies about stringing wires across cycle tracks to decapitate my children. It took me 18 months and about a thousand pounds in court costs and other expenses to find out, through a Norwich Pharmacal Order where I acted as litigant in person, who this individual was. The results of the Order were sealed by the court and can be used only in legal proceedings. The Crown Prosecution Service declined to prosecute because the person lived with their parents and all went "no comment" so any court case would have died on the basis that it's not possible to absolutely prove that it was this person and not one of the others in the house.

This was an obviously unstable person displaying anger that went well beyond the rational, who knew where I lived, knew my route to work, knew that I cycled along those roads every day. I went in fear for my life daily, because it doesn't matter if a driver only wants to give a cyclist a scare, the consequences can be fatal. A friend is a barrister, one of his first cases was prosecuting a driver who tried to scare someone and ended up hitting them and dragging the body under their car for over a mile. The case hinged on whether the driver became aware of the victim being stuck under the car before he died. Death was not instantaneous, they think he lived for several minutes as the back of his skull was worn away by the road.

By your rationale, no harassment took place. That's also the assertion of numerous trolls who followed this person around. They assert that because there was no court case, there was no harassment. The judge granting the Order disagreed: in his view the behaviour of this person was "sinister" and deeply threatening.

Who's right, the judge or the trolls who assert no harassment? Your argument says it's the trolls. If you've never been subjected to harassment then good for you, but don't make the mistake of thinking that it's just someone needing to grow a pair, because I can tell you from personal experience that it is real, serious, and affects not only the persona harassed but also those around them. Guy (Help!) 10:57, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate the personal note. I, too, have been subject to harassment. Mine is related to Wikipedia edits. Though I can't say I feared for my life, the contacts to my employer were downright nasty. I am someone in favor of the BADSITES policy which apparently gives certain trolls the license to complain to my IP provider in the hopes that I may be fired or shutdown or otherwise removed from discussion. I was also a defender of early BLP policies which made me the hero to some WP trolls that didn't like their BLP while making me the enemy of those that wished to shame the trolls. My statement about GamerGate isn't that harassment didn't occur (it did). Nor is my argument that harassment isn't intimidating or threatening (it his). In your case, it appears you were able to identify the person. That is where it diverges from GamerGate. GamerGate would be like learning that a group of people wanted subcompact cars to accurately label curb weight as under 1000 kilograms, another group claiming that their 1500 kG car is subcompact and a third group that threatens 1500 kg car owners with rape and death. By your argument, the group that wants sub-compact cars to be under 1000 kG are really harassers and responsible for death threats. They were open and public about who they were and never threatened anyone. Yet because of an anonymous group of trolls that threaten a group of 1500kG car owners, anyone that wants a standard to be upheld are responsible harassment. Surely you can see that the person responsible is a single individual. Surely there are others that drive the same make and model of car that your harasser drove. But even though seeing that make and model on the road near your house might make you anxious, you wouldn't advocate the arrest and conviction of a totally uninvolved car owner simply because he drove Make X, Model Y, Color Z. The GamerGate campaign did exactly that. What do you think happens to the gamer that says Depression Quest is not a real game or expresses indifference to how certain women are portrayed in Grand Theft Auto or says they play games to escape reality rather than reflect it? The reality is that no one really cared that all GamerGate supporters were declared misogynistic harassers even though all the harassment was anonymous and the identified supporters were not. My car was hit by a blue honda. It would certainly be great to have the police stop and arrest every blue Honda near my house, have others call in blue Honda sightings as well as blue Honda wrongdoings and have the press write stories about all the evil blue Honda drivers. It doesn't change the fact that only the blue Honda driver that hit me should be charged and his allegiance to Honda and his favorite color are not relevant to anyone but Reliqble Sources. --DHeyward (talk) 11:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Tell that to the anonymous Gamergate trolls who have sent me death threats, attempted to contact me via work channels, attempted to dox me, out me and harass me, all very identifiably done on Gamergate-related platforms. Sorry DHeyward, but the truth is obvious to everyone at this point. (And if this is a violation of the topic ban, I don't give a fuck, because ArbCom has no power to silence me from speaking out about the very real impacts on my life that stem from working to defend living people from vicious attacks and blatant misuse of the encyclopedia. I'm fielding media interview requests as I type.) NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:57, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

And who will you punish for that? "Are Gamers dead?" and deserve to do die because some unidentifiable troll harassed you and you blame gamers? I understand your anger but not how you broadly blame a wide segment of consumers because they dare share the same hobby (or more likely, they dare to dislike the same people.). --DHeyward (talk) 12:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's just blatantly false and I demand that you stop putting words in my mouth. I blame a relatively-small band of sociopathic Internet trolls who are widely-noted in reliable sources as being responsible for vicious acts of harassment, not to mention repeated, blatant, terrifyingly-awful attempts at using Wikipedia as a weapon of character assassination. That this band of people has come to define "Gamergate" is merely a statement of fact. Discussing the matter further in this venue is pointless, never mind my topic ban, so I'll leave it at that. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 12:13, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

I think you missed the point (and yes, I have been harassed as a result of Wikipedia edits too, that was just the worst one because the person was clearly unhinged and lived nearby). The issue is that anonymous and pseudonymous trolls are, by definition, commonly not identified until somebody goes to a great deal of trouble and expense. Therefore the lack of identified individuals is completely irrelevant to the well-documented incidence of harassment in the gamergate case. OK, so maybe some of it was merely obnoxious, spiteful, vile and despicable, but some of it undoubtedly was harassment and a great deal of it was undoubtedly misogynistic. The independent sources give abundant evidence of this and it would be perverse of us to whitewash that out of "fairness" to some people who refuse to acknowledge how hurtful and childish their actions were.

Gamergaters are not like people arguing over technical minutiae of car labelling. They are people who contacted employers, made credible threats of harm, fantasised about rape and assault, and engaged in various other morally indefensible acts, some of which at least have been identified by the sources as probably illegal. Sub-compact cars are not in any way damaged if you argue whether they should be classified as sub-compact or not. People are harmed, emotionally, by being accused of being whores. Trans people are harmed, traumatised to the point of suicide in some cases, by people taunting them over their gender identity and disputing their right to self-identify as they please. These are not morally neutral things.

Trolling like that is sociopathic. It is indefensible, however badly the trolls may have been hurt in the feels. Guy (Help!) 17:48, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

A "relatively-small band of sociopathic Internet trolls" is an excellent description of an anonymous, small group of unidentified people that are harassing people. Unfortunately, that's not how our article describes the harassers of GamerGate - it calls the harassers a movement with coordinated attacks not separate from GamerGate supporters in general. NBSBs statements also nicely characterizes what I said about reliable source. There are a small number of misogynistic ArbCom members that banned all feminists from Wikipedia and it was widely reported in Reliable Sources^tm but RSes were wrong and obviously so - if you never name the bad people so there is not a face to go with the charge, it's real easy to say anything about them. You've had this conversation too, though, and when "GamerGate harassment" was proposed to become the narrower definition of a small, fringe group you changed gears and would not describe them as small and fringe and rather insisted it was the main view and cause for GamerGate supporters. Again, Reliable Sources^tm was used to create this non-reality. And yes it would be nice if the small, anonymous group felt bad and apologized for harassment. The other 99% of GamerGate supporters that didn't do anything of the sort, now have to defend themselves. Why?. --DHeyward (talk) 18:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

That's like describing a mob as a small group of thugs with some hangers-on. Seriously, choose better friends. Gamergate was never about ethics in videogame journalism, the attacks started before that was retconned in. This is a group of trolls empowering each other, classic gang mentality. That's what the sources say, so it's what we say, and I strongly suspect that most of those involved will one day be justly ashamed of being part of it. Guy (Help!) 22:49, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

The sources claim this but no one has shown any track of evidence or chain of expert authority that proves this. (The closest evidence is the purported logs Quinn got from IRC but that's been put into doubt and do not have the magic bullet to prove this). They have made these claims based on current behavior and past experience in dealing with the 'chan nature, and I myself would be surprised if this wasn't the case. But as an objective, impartial work, we have to be careful in repeating statements that may be broadly shared by the majority of sources as fact if they are highly contentious with no clear chain of expert evaluation (This is what NPOV says right at the start). We don't call Westboro BC a hate mob in WP's voice, just how it is taken as one by the mass media; we don't call Global warming a fact, but an observation, but demonstrating the massive volumes of data backing up the likelihood it is happening, and so forth. In the case of GG, we cannot presume just because the press is convinced that the group is dedicated to trolling and harassment that that is fact if there are GG people that are stating otherwise. We have to be objective and impartial irregardless of any personal feelings about the situation, and that's what is just not happening here because of the nature of the topic.

Or the TL;DR version: while we can't go off what the sources say or state they are wrong, we can, as a tertiary source, make the determination when they are engaging in opinion verses objective reporting, and reiterate that in our articles by making sure all opinion statements are flagged as such in the article. And we have to do that keeping our objectivity, neutrality, and impartiality in mind. In the GG situation, there a lot of exaggerated truths out there and very much of lack of actual data to back that up from all sides of the issue, and so we have to be aware this has been a situation created by the lack of good information in this case. We can't misrepresent sources nor ignore the predominate opinion, but we are in no way required to take what they claim as a fact and repeat it as a contentious fact; in fact, NPOV policy strongly suggests we always take the more conservative route and attribute claims as opinions than facts if there's doubt. That's just not being done on the GG article. --MASEM (t) 23:01, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

@JzG: I don't know any gamergate supporters or even gamers, nor do I know indie game developers or gaming journalists so it's not me that needs new friends. I am an outsider and my first reaction to this whole thing was not to cover it. I do know how to spot railroading though. All the bad guys are anonymous. It's an amorphous "they." Anyone can be a victim of "them." It's that kind of thinking, without putting real faces and lives on the evil opponent and having them remain anonymous leads to dehumanizing conduct. This happens a lot on the internet but we should be aware about writing articles that identify an "evil" group that is easily dehumanized with very strong and broad language. --DHeyward (talk) 00:37, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Auerbach's article is beautifully written and entertaining, but he does buy into a common but clear misinterpretation of Wikipedia policy. Despite what he suggests, primary sources are not prohibited; only their original interpretation in non-obvious ways is prohibited. As I said at one of these threads a week or so ago, we should never hesitate to link to the original primary source when secondary sources discuss it in depth - whether that is an essay by Gurney Halleck, a decapitation video, or the final (or not final) decision in an ArbCom case. The more accessible we make the record of what originally was said and done in any situation, the fewer misinterpretations will be made by ourselves or our readers. Wnt (talk) 14:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Practically, that doesn't work well in cases like this where the reliable sources got it wrong. Guardian, NYT, and Gawker all echoed the same thing. What do you write? It would be incorrect to cite the Arbitration page as supporting the conclusions of the secondary sources. So the next logical step is an EL. But then we are left with a primary source link back to the blog that started the incorrect stories sitting next to a link to Byzantine ArbCom voting. No one outside WP would get the "1st choice, 2nd choice but only if two other colleagues make this other thing their 1st choice, otherwise abstain." Bottom line is ArbitrationGate was deleted and rightly so. The article couldn't be written correctly so it's better not to write it at all. --DHeyward (talk) 16:07, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this is an even slightly complicated question. The rule of thumb is don't put anything in Wikipedia that you know is false. In the event that there's absolutely no accurate information about something available in secondary sources, don't mention it, because it can't be very important. The "Arbitration Gate" article didn't really present a dilemma. It was just a straightforward case of a mischievous article. Formerip (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The entire GamerGate discussion is about what is true/false and what is in secondary sources. It's why it went to Arbcom. --DHeyward (talk) 22:02, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

No, it is about malicious people waging electronic rebellion. RGloucester — ☎ 22:32, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Avono (talk) 22:49, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh come fucking on Gloucester. That's a misrepresentation and you know it. But I won't continue THAT discussion here on Jimbo's page... MicBenSte (talk) 04:26, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

On the note of RSes... For a reason e.g. Breitbart is no RS yet Gawker is (while Gawker is at bad when it comes to the truth, and has an even worse 'falsehood recognition'-attitude then Breitbart). There's a whole list of current RSes who've shown over and over again the past years that their news articles are on average at best to be checked for minor errors, and at worst flat-out known lies... yet I don't have the impression anything has changed ever in that regard. As I stated before as an example: the Second Gulf War. The majority of the 'RSes' stated massively Hussein had ready to use WMDs, the Hussein government said it did not. How did that mess at that time get managed? If it was the same at that time as the past months, the article was in one hell of a problem when it came to being an truthful enclyclopedia (there's a reason those in print take years to make and don't compound recent events which are still going on or recently ended without any post-mortem, so to say..) MicBenSte (talk) 04:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I would never use Gawker as a source, though it may be valid for some trivia of interest to its core readership. Feel free to propose removal of any source in any article which has no reputation for fact-checking, at least if it is being used as a source of truth. Breitbaret is spectacularly unreliable, and at an extreme in the continuum of reliability, but that doesn't mean that anything less unreliable than Brietbart should be acceptable. Guy (Help!) 18:06, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Why the rev deletion? My comment is deleted yet is still visible O.o Avono (talk) 23:58, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

they have to revdel every edit after the bad one. They make an edit to the latest version to remove the bad information, then revdel every version in between so it doesn't show up in history. The fact your edit is still visible is an indication that your edit wasn't the violation. If they had more sophisticated revision control, they could extract the specific edit but they don't. I've always wondered if this method of oversight violated the TOS since comments attributed to individuals are no longer found in the history but I think they can unwind revdel's and oversights if it's necessary to identify who made a specific edit no longer in the history. --DHeyward (talk) 06:41, 8 February 2015 (UTC).

Quite the revdel it must have been then... And quite speedy. *Shudder* Just for confirmation's sake - nothing harmful to anyone was up for long, no? (Considering 25,336 character removed - were that much old posts 'removed' and reinserted? MicBenSte (talk) 02:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I would posit that the problem with the GamerGate Controversy article has nothing to do with the policy of RS itself, but rather, the biased application of the policy of RS. Yesterday a Spiked article which labelled 'GamerGate' in its people of the year 2014 was raised as a talking point. Spiked is accepted throughout Wikipedia as RS. Certain editors are scrambling to label it 'not RS' despite there being little harm in using that to say 'In Spiked's opinion'. Why? Because its opinion is 'Off Message'

In marked contradiction to this, many articles are sourced from numerous outlets such as Gawker which should be used to state 'Gamergate is commonly viewed by media outlets such as Gawker as being X, Y and Z' but which are instead used to draw 'factual' statements 'in the voice of Wikipedia' about those using the tag.

All of this considered, in addition to my great joy in lecturing the English and the billion or so who use en.wikipedia as a way to gain an opinion rather than thinking, I recommend you take a hint from 'us' on a more appropriate article in lieu of fixing fundamental editing problems: http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate

77.97.17.147 (talk) 15:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

77.97.17.147, at this point, the article has over 150 citations and every new source that is suggested on the talk page is critically evaluated for its reliability and whether it adds new information to the article. I hope you will contribute to this consideration and the evaluation of already used sources. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not even only that WP:RS is being interpreted very one-sidedly (Kotaku has investigated Kotaku and found Kotaku blameless despite related retroactive disclosures being added on some articles [1][2]). Some of the editors involved are even gaming which sources are being used by removing many articles and opinions that would be WP:RS from the fray as “irrelevant” while directly citing from other opinion pieces throughout the article.

Every single source that would dispel certain notions presented in the article or at least offer a different insight is being declined on spurious reasons, for instance User:Aquillion seems to have identified the libertarian publication Spiked as “anti-feminist” [3] while User:Liz is apparently surprised it is a WP:RS at all [4] and rejected its various related articles and opinion pieces [5][6][7][8].

The same is true for other publications like DigiTimes [9], Reason [10][11][12][13], Cinemablend which had a range of great articles on the topic that aren’t included [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] or GameZone [21][22][23][24] among various others like The Examiner and Inquisitr [25]

This takes some bizarre proportions when certain publications like The Escapist are quoted to describe GamerGate as “an unprecedented catastrof**k" and that silencing critiques of games harms games developers by depriving them of feedback” but the other 14 published interviews including by two notable CEOs of their own gaming companies like Brad Wardell and Daniel Vávra are ignored. [26] or a former member of GJP is cited as not considering it a form of collusion on Game Politics, but the two articles describing the movement politically on the same site are being ignored [27][28]

Some editors like User:Ryulong even went as far as to try and nominate a publication he identified as “GamerGate-friendly” like Adland for deletion [29] which said publication noted in one of their articles [30], but none of their other articles regarding the controversy are being used [31][32][33][34] while other editors like User:NorthBySouthBaranof were heavily involved in making Breitbart look less credible than even Gawker [35] so it couldn’t be included as a reliable source for any information in the article.

This aside from sources like TechRaptor, Niche Gamer, GamerHeadlines, APGNation, GamesNosh, Game Revolution, Bright Side of News, Pocketgamer, GoodGamers and similar, which provide a broader perspective on the whole issue but aren’t considered WP:RS even for interviews with industry veterans and if the involved editors have their say will likely never be considered such.

Considering the name “controversy”, the lede doesn’t make a point out of presenting two sides or what one part of the conflict is even about. What the editors in charge of the article are doing is basically refusing to include and choosing to eliminate any pieces they ideologically don’t align with as described above as WP:FRINGE or the “opinion of a single writer” (despite the entire article quoting opinion pieces of writers over and over as statements of fact) or not noteworthy, so at the end they can say that the very misleading and one-sided article represents “consensus” of the sources within.

For anyone watching this entire thing unfold from the outside, it seems like an unparalleled farce that is dragging the believability of the entire encyclopedia through the mud and makes it seem like it is ignoring WP:NPOV. 79.247.126.207 (talk) 17:04, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

For anyone who sees Dig and the rest of that lot being compared as equal to Columbia Journalism Review, PBS, New York Times is laughing themselves to death and saying "Yep these are the same people whose best attempt at being relevant shows a complete lack of understanding of what ethics and objective mean." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Surely you don't want to insinuate that an opinion piece clearly labeled as such [36] or a piece that is part of the New York Times Blog system [37] constitutes them being interpreted as facts coming from the Editorial voice for said publications or are less respectable than the opinions stated by equally respectable publications? As explained by User:RGloucester above [38] per WP:NEWSORG "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.247.126.207 (talk) 17:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Surely I AM stating that anything under the NYT imprimatur is vastly more important, relevant, and higher quality than most of what you have linked. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

I am not familiar with the website "Spiked" and I don't think questioning whether it is a reliable source (and for which statements it is being cited) is controversial. It should be standard editor behavior.

What I question is why you have posted this lengthy piece (filled with lots of applicable diffs) on Jimbo's talk page, rather than on the article talk page where content issues are normally discussed. I think you have a better chance at arguing your point there than on this page. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:34, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Why would anyone discuss it on a page that is as big of a scandal as the scandal itself? Posting the trite, sco.wiki is an elegant point. If you look at the Spanish, German, Norwegian etc. varieties you will find much more balanced articles that have considered RS and made very different conclusions to how that is applied. There is clearly a short circuit in en.wiki which is violating NPOV and causing bridgading on matters of RS and this has caused damage to the reputation of the encyclopedia.

My advice is simple. Avoid the tempting idea that claiming '150 sources have been RS'd' is in any way beneficial. The value of the encyclopedia has never been, nor will ever be in attempting to state it has all of the definition and answers to a problem. It is not an edited scientific journal and has no original research. Rather it is in providing sufficient information as a tertiary source to spurn users to delve deeper and reach their own opinion. Therefore, you should consider abridging the article to reflect equal opinion between available sources, if that means only using 4 sources per 'view point' and only covering the key topics then so be it.

In addition to this, I offer you a generous pro-tip: if you dislike #GamerGate and what it represents, then this will be ideal because at the moment this article is just adding fuel to the scandals fire.

Regarding why the conversation is here: IP editors are not allowed to edit the 'GamerGate Controversy' talk page (again). I guess they were inconveniently saying the whole article is embarassing and honesty hurts.

77.97.17.147 (talk) 20:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The protection level for that discussion page is that only autocomfirmed editors can post there (at least for the next few months when it expires). For more information on how to become autoconfirmed, see Wikipedia:User access levels#Autoconfirmed users.

As for your "big picture" criticism, we work within the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia as it is practiced on the English version and policies might be different in other language Wikipedias. In an article as carefully scrutinized as this one, it is best to have specific portions that you believe are not supported by WP:RS or you can present a reliable source that hasn't been used yet and make a good argument for why it should be incorporated. It sounds like your preference is for a complete rewrite on the article and, at this point, that's not going to happen. Change and improvement will occur, incrementally. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:57, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

The statement 'A re-write of the article isn't going to happen' is an ownership problem. 77.97.17.147 (talk) 22:08, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Traditionally quotation marks are used only when one is quoting, not when one is giving a tendentious bad-faith mis-reading. --JBL (talk) 22:36, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

"A re-write of the article isn't going to happen" is a correct analysis unless there is somewhere a buttload of sources of the quality of BBC/PBS/Columbia Journalism Review that have somehow not been found and presented in the past 4 months. Sorry, but Dig is not going to change anyone's perception of how the mainstream reliable sources have viewed gamergate. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:44, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

You appear to have fallen foul to a facet of IAR: Rules are 'descriptive' not 'prescriptive'. Thus a statement that an RS is usually viewed as 'High Quality' does not neccesarily engender that the source is valid in all cases, nor has priority over other sources in any case. It is the responsibilty of the editors and administrators to apply IAR if a rule is damaging the encyclopedia.

In this case the overuse (and likely unintentional abuse) of RS has caused damage both outwith the project and within the project due to a consensus failure. Common sense would deliver a result very different from the rule as should be applied here and thats where IAR steps in. As before 'RS' is a good rule, however, I recommend one of the article editors steps up and invites someone with material expertise in the application of IAR in to the topic as a method of acheiving consensus and to improve the value of the Wikipedia Project.

I'm happy to invoke IAR rather than cry foul here, however, I just checked the French version of this article and was stunned to see that it was very well balanced and NPOV just like the Spanish and Norge versions, though the Scottish one is still the best for conciseness!

77.97.17.147 (talk) 23:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

You appear to have fallen afoul of WP:IAR in the standard manner of missing the important conditional if it prevents you from improving the encyclopedia. Replacing NYT with Dig is not now or ever going to meet that conditional. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:03, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm assuming good faith on your part, you should be aware that Pedantry and the damage it can cause is the sin for which IAR was designed. 77.97.17.147 (talk) 00:11, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

As pointed out in a thread below, ET will soon be reading Wikipedia. So you have to wonder what ET would make of our obsession with Gamergate instead of more important issues. Count Iblis (talk) 21:08, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

While the Gamergaters doggedly defend their right to moral outrage over some woman I never heard of sleeping with five three two guys and subsequently having a small article published in some magazine I never heard of briefly mention her, Wikipedia is today running its fourteenth Final Fantasy Featured article as Today's Featured Ad. $$$LOL$$$ Wnt (talk) 18:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Censorship in Kazakh Wikipedia

Hello, Jimmy Wales. My name Eset Bibitalin. I am member of the Wikipedia project with 2 years experience and am writing this message using Google Translate, because I do not know English.

The essence of my message is that the Kazakh section of Wikipedia censored by the project administrators. I was first blocked for profanity words in my sandbox (I wanted to use for writing articles). Then, when I wrote an article about the Kazakh profanity words (link) and add the appropriate image in the article about sex, I was blocked for 1 year.

Administrators removed images from articles about sex and removed a piece of text from an article about profanity. In addition, they are deprived of all users except administrators to manage this article. The reason for this is the view of the morality of the majority of administrators.

• Wikinews article about it in Russian lang.
• My commentaries about this incident (Russian).
• My message to steward Ruslik0 (Russian).

Please pay attention to it. Thank you for your time. --Esetok (talk) 16:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I find it very interesting, and as is well known I have a particular interest in Kazakhstan and the Kazakh Wikipedia. It is unlikely that I can personally be of much help in resolving this conflict due to the language barrier, particularly since judgment calls about how exactly to deal with obscenity are very specific. Normally, it is a perfectly valid topic for Wikipedia to cover such words, and to be objective and neutral and high quality in discussion of sexual matters.

I wonder if you could give me your view on the way Kazakh Wikipedia discusses clearly encyclopedic but potentially difficult topics such as Vladimir Kozlov (politician).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I understand that you can not directly influence the process, but I ask you to recommend the Russian-speaking user who has the necessary permissions. This topic should not be left just like that. Today they remove unwanted images and phrases, and tomorrow will carry out the political and religious censorship. --Esetok (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I created a discussion in "Requests for comment" on Metawiki. --Esetok (talk) 17:44, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, it appears an administrator removed sourced content in this edit, calling it what Google describes as "hooliganism", then protected the page. It appears to be a simple explanatory list of the terms and etymology. Does Kazakh's Wikipedia have a rule against admins using protect as a supervote to select "the right version" and override other editors? Do they have a policy against censorship? Wnt (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

This is not vandalism and hooliganism, but simply a list of obscene expressions to the etymological meaning of the authoritative books on the ancient Turkic language. Similarly, such a list exists quietly in Russian Wikipedia (see ru:Казахская нецензурная лексика). --Esetok (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

And it is not contrary to the rules of the Kazakh Wikipedia, which can confirm the administrator kk:user:Kaiyr --Esetok (talk) 19:53, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

In 2013, I see that Esetok started two really short articles on oral sex and anal sex. Because these are indexed from the English articles as the Kazakh language versions, I think this is all that kk.wikipedia has on the topic. You can see that the same administrator Qarakesek who blocked Esetok [39] also stepped in to remove the image from the article,[40] after another user tagged it for speedy deletion as pornography. Kaiyr voiced a brief comment, which I would take as opposition to this, on the talk page. I see that there is presently a sort of discussion at [41] but between the failures of Google and the peculiarity of some of the arguments I can't actually follow it. I understand that the independence of Wikipedia projects needs to be respected, but I think this would indeed be an opportune time for the founder to speak up on the importance of covering topics like this seriously. So long as the existence of an article on the topic of oral sex remains in question, what they have will not be much more than a stub - and so long as it remains a stub, the article isn't going to talk about HIV and human papillomavirus and other such topics that have the potential to save actual human lives if people know more about them. Wnt (talk) 21:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

• Almost all of argument of admins who deleted article and banned Esetok based in religios, kazakh tradition, defend child from this information and not based in wikipedia`s principles. My objection is not answered by other admins and bureaucrat. There is no rules in Kazakh Wikipedia that prohibits illustration of articles about sex.--Kaiyr (talk) 08:46, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
• violation of the principles given bureaucrat can I unban Esetok and undo edits of bureaucrat in articles about sex?--Kaiyr (talk) 16:28, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, it appears Qarakesek can add content to a sexual-themed article... [42] Wnt (talk) 00:41, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Qarakesek added this text: «Homosexuality - is contrary to the laws of nature link between people of the same sex. This term is used only in men and women called the "lesbianism"». --Esetok (talk) 21:18, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

February is Black History Month

A reminder that February is Black History Month in North America. If Wikipedia's gender balance between women and men is pathetic, we need new adjectives for the extraordinarily poor percentage of our active community who are black (if group photos of Wikipedia conclaves are a decent measure, which I presume they are). Whatever the complaints of systemic underrepresentation of female biographies and female-related subject topics no doubt also correspond to a systemic underrepresentation of biographies and topics of relevance to the black community. So please, content people of whatever ethnicity, do try to fit a new piece on a black-related topic (or three) into your writing plans this month. —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 19:16, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

If anyone is at a loss for finding a redlink, here are a few redlinked high schools from DeSoto County, Mississippi (pop. 161,300), part of the Greater Memphis area...

• Center Hill High School (Olive Branch)
• DeSoto Central High School (Southaven)
• Lake Cormorant High School (Lake Cormorant)

And a couple from deeper in the Mississippi Delta region... From Leflore County, Mississippi (pop. 32,300)

• Amanda Elzy High School (Greenwood)
• Leflore County High School (Itta Bena)

From Washington County, Mississippi (pop. 51,100)

• Riverside High School (Avon)
• Simmons High School (Hollandale)

Carrite (talk) 19:42, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

While I can see where you're coming from: wouldn't that be risking creating BLPs which are, to say the least, doubtfull whether or not they even should be here? Especially since there's an tendency anyway as far as I known to create new pages about people anyway - although most of those are nowhere near an biography standard for an tabloid, nevermind an site which wants to be an encyclopedia. Just my 2 cents. MicBenSte (talk) 01:54, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

unless I'm mistaken , that's one of the reasons that high schools were suggested as a topic. But there are abundant bibliographic resources for biographies also, and the same caution applies to all bios, to make sure there are good sources before writing an article. DGG ( talk ) 05:39, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

High schools are topics that anybody can write and that are automatically notable. Why are these high schools still red links? What do Mississippi public high schools have to do with Black History Month? Take one on and see... Carrite (talk) 07:15, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

And indeed, BLPs are generally where our coverage is widest. BDPs have significantly worse coverage, and better fit within the popular idea of history anyhow. WilyD 10:01, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• Agree with Carrite on this one. After watching 12 Years a Slave I did articles on two of the African-American folk songs included ("Roll, Jordan, Roll" and "Run, N*****, Run") and I was shocked by how poorly the entire genre is covered. I'm absolutely certain that there are more spirituals and folk songs that should have articles. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• On a different note, we do have some high-quality content related to African Americans scheduled to reach the main page this month. Clarence 13X and Poetry of Maya Angelou are both scheduled for February TFAs, and POTD has had Ida B. Wells already. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:09, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• As for biographies, I wrote Shelton Johnson, and significantly expanded Betty Reid Soskin and Leon Jordan. I am especially proud of the third, since he was a fascinating man and the article was in very poor condition when I stumbled across it. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:35, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• On the general matter (although perhaps not those high schools, sorry) Encyclopedia of African American History (Oxford 2009) ISBN|9780195167795 and ISBN|9780195167771, might support an article about it, and at any rate is a good resource (I wonder if there is an efficient way to compare their coverage to ours?) Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:00, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

There is also Journal of Negro History (1916-2001) / Journal of Afriican-American History (2001-2011) and Journal of Negro Education (1932-2011) that are part of JSTOR, for those of you with access or who know someone who has access... Carrite (talk) 17:32, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll just leave this right here: Wikipedia:JSTOR. Gamaliel (talk) 21:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• OK, from the far side of the big pond I've created a stub for Amanda Elzy High School, but not been able to answer the question which made me choose this one: "Who was Amanda Elzy"? Was she the youngest sister of singer Ruby Elzy, mentioned in this article? If anyone can help, please expand the article accordingly! So many schools, US in particular, are named after people; so few of the articles tell us who the person was. PamD 17:12, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't do many school articles, but the ones I've bumped into with arcane names like that are usually named after local educators, school board officials, or politicians, I've found. Which doesn't answer your query... Carrite (talk) 17:39, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

From Pam's article: "In 2014 its students were reported as 100% "economically disadvantaged" and 100% "minority ethnicity/race". 98% of students were black, 2% hispanic, and 0.5% white (this last figure obscured in statistical rounding)." Show of hands: Who thought racial segregation was gone in American education? Carrite (talk) 17:40, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

From Pam's talk page note: "Unfortunately the school doesn't seem to have a website, nor the school district (well, there's a work-in-progress site, with "ipsem lorum" placefiller text, for the district)." Show of hands, who thought that such a situation was even possible in the United States of America in the year 2015? Carrite (talk) 17:49, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

And a follow up question for people to ask themselves (and to maybe even try and figure out, because there is an answer): What the fuck is going on here? Carrite (talk) 17:50, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Um... I am not seeing those stats any where in Pams article. Where did you get them from? BlueworldSpeccie (talk) 17:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

@BlueworldSpeccie: Second paragraph of Amanda Elzy High School. PamD 18:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh silly me I was looking at the Ruby article. BlueworldSpeccie (talk) 18:30, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, cracked it: yes, she was the singer's sister. Thank you, Google Books. In fact there should probably be an Amanda Elzy article, but for now I've added stuff to the school article and that's a redirect. Will give her a mention in her sister's article, too. PamD 23:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Nice work. The available online sourcing for Mississippi high schools is truly shitty, one of these days I'm gonna take a spring vacation to the Delta with a camera and am gonna sit in a few libraries... Carrite (talk) 23:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• I have always felt that BHM's appearant focus on civil rights leaders leaves so many other notable people in the shadows. In compiling the article, Kohler Distinguished Guest Series, I learned about many performing artists I never knew such as Leonard De Paur, William Warfield, Dorothy Maynor, Camilla Williams, Todd Duncan, and Hazel Scott just to name a few. These were very gifted and talented people who deserve more recognition than they get. They accomplished many firsts that most people don't know about such as the first African-Ameican woman to host a TV show, etc. Nyth63 20:29, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia in space

• Wikipedia to be beamed into space so aliens can learn about the human race Congratulations, Jimbo, your website is now going to have an extraterrestrial audience. Everymorning talk 01:52, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I always knew there was a reason that our Star Trek coverage was so comprehensive... Carrite (talk) 01:53, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

poor aliens! They'd never understand how

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=5000&offset=0&profile=default&search=%22The+neutrality+of+this+article+is+disputed%22 the neutrality of an encyclopedic article could be disputed]. Who's going to explain to them what the heck does it mean [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=5000&offset=0&ns0=1&search=%22Citation+needed%22 "citation needed"]. They'd be surprised to learn that more than [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&profile=default&search=%22This+article+is+an+autobiography+or+has+been+extensively+edited+by+the+subject+or+an+institution+related+to+the+subject%22 a thousand bios are autobiographies or have been extensively edited by the subject or an institution related to the subject.] I think we all would be better off, if astronomers are to send the entire contents of Britannica into space. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.33.154 (talk) 05:03, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Except WP:COPVIO Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

How will the government try to collect royalties from extraterrestrials? Avono (talk) 13:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

A typical meeting of alien civilizations

Contacting extraterrestrials seems like an awfully brave thing to do. I'm thinking that so far everything we've looked at seems dead. So on average, meeting any live aliens probably means dying. Sure, what happens might be better than that... or it might be worse. A lot worse. How about we get a little better at listening for the terrified screams of vanquished civilizations first?

The civilized way to contact aliens is you tune in a nice sharp image of their planet and see one of their telescopes looking back at you. Everybody waves. Wnt (talk) 14:30, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

As I understand it, a civilization as it continues to advance and reaches a certain point it is no longer broadcasting into open space (as we have been doing since the 1930s), and instead reaches a point where all telecommunications are directed from space-bound craft back to Earth (think about our cable and satellite TV and radio overtaking conventional broadcast TV and radio). A Dyson sphere is the ultimate form of this concept. So, basically it is important for our planet to intentionally broadcast these types of scientific messages, as our unintentional broadcasts become less prevalent. An advanced civilization out there should be theoretically as quiet as we were in the '20s and '30s. There's a small window of opportunity to get some thing from them. And they could have the same philosophy as Wnt and Stephen Hawking warn us about- be quiet and don't contact other peoples. It is possible by making the first contact, being of a scientific encyclopedic message, we might be the beginning of trust. But of course it is possible history will say Earthlings are the ones everyone else in the galaxy should have been worried about...? (I suppose Earthling is correct, but someone please let me know)Camelbinky (talk) 17:28, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Ever seen a plaster or metal casting of an anthill or a termite's nest? Now picture Earth is the anthill, and self-replicating nanotech that polymerizes air, water and other materials in an exciton matrix as the plaster. Picture everything in the world just comes to a stop for a few hundreds of thousands of years as interesting pieces of your planet sits in a museum, then you get chopped up, duplicated, pieces of your brain interfaced with alien machinery while some alien writes a doctoral thesis on mysterious humanoid conceptions such as "pain" and what they might mean. You want to invite that over for dinner? Wnt (talk) 21:16, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Contrary to the typical scifi tropes, its possible we're on the cutting edge of technology in the galaxy. Older stars on the galactic periphery are poor in heavier elements, so civilizations living around them could be hindered in their potential for science and industry. Towards the core there are many more energetic events that could cause extinction. Our sun is among the older stars in the Goldilocks zone. Rhoark (talk) 22:35, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I hope this one and his relatives are friendly!--5 albert square (talk) 22:41, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

As soon as the message is received, Klaatu will be on his way to put things right here: "...and so he determines that the planet must be cleansed of humans to ensure that it—with its rare ability to sustain complex life—can survive." Count Iblis (talk) 14:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• The aliens will know everything there is to know about Pokemon, mushrooms, and Gibraltar. Jehochman ^Talk 14:37, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I thought you would be concerned about them knowing the geographical coordinates, relative importance and what each and every National Register of Historic Places property and landmark looks like. Though if they are like the aliens from The Simpsons they will certainly be pleased with the corpus of celebrities and decide to spare us! Though in reality... the chances of an advanced civilization receiving the signal before it deteriorates, spending an inordinate amount of time in processing and decoding the corpus, and then reading and understanding it seems to be astronomically low. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 17:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Journalist Sharyl Attkisson criticizes Wikipedia

At TED (conference), journalist Sharyl Attkisson criticizes Wikipedia as an astroturfer’s “dream come true” saying drug companies wp:own wiki pages. video --BoboMeowCat (talk) 22:06, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

5:33: A study showed that “Wikipedia contradicted medical research 90% of the time”. What? Gamaliel (talk) 22:28, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Considering that this comes from someone who interpreted a stuck backspace key as a sign that the government was hacking her computer, I would not be inclined to take this criticism - or, well, anything else from this person - seriously. Prioryman (talk) 22:34, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

(e/c) She has long been unhappy that the Wikipedia article about her does not portray her anti-vax stance as her being a white knight saving the world. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:35, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

So the kind of person whom you view their criticism as a badge of honour then, eh? Resolute 23:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Not so much, more the kind of person whose past record of excessive credulity and conspiracy theorising makes one say "eh, whatever" to any criticism emanating from them. Prioryman (talk) 08:02, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh dear, TEDx have fucked up again. In case you did not know, TEDx is emphatically NOT TED, and there has been a steady stream of cranks slipping under the radar into TEDx events over the years. Another teapot tempest will no doubt ensue, and the video will doubtless be removed from the main TEDx website, just like that by Rupert Sheldrake. So: Wikipedia:Lunatic charlatans applies.

Nothing to see here, move along please. Guy (Help!) 22:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

So after listening to the whole thing, even excluding any potential mis-characterizations of the Roth incident, her premise is sound "Don't believe everything you read on the interwebs" - but that seems basic 4th grade common sense and not TED worthy. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Again, it was a TEDx talk. Any group of people can organize a TEDx conference. I've seen some very flaky speakers at TEDx conferences. The presenters don't get approved by the folks at TED, they are often local people who are known to the organizers. Speakers for actual TED conference go through a rather intense, pre-speech preparation, where they work with the TED organization to create the best possible presentation. I've also seen some okay TEDx talks but, at best, TEDx can claim to be "inspired" by TED and nothing more. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:38, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• Yep. Sharyl Attkisson is grossly mischaracterizing the Roth incident. First it was not Roth, it was an anonymous IP editor claiming to be Roth's biographer and it was reverted on the grounds that it was not sourced and contentious. The number of edits made? Two. In essence, while each and every case is unique and different - Wikipedia's system worked because the identity of the anonymous person claiming to be Roth's biographer is unknown. Seems as if Mrs. Attkisson's dramatization is another form of error that more or less represents another issue - veracity. Wikipedia criticism is great, but if you are going to cite examples - please let them be accurate. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:47, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• This is one that can't be blamed solely on her. Everybody seems to report the Roth story inaccurately, such as David Auerbach this week in Slate. Gamaliel (talk) 22:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

I'll work my butt off to find and correct and marking Wikipedia-originated vandalism because it gets picked up in poor publications and sources. Wikipedia has its faults, but some content I've contributed exceeds and corrects flaws from several publications by citing better sources that were not available two decades prior. I've found it difficult to correct simple errors when confronted by editors with an agenda, but such is life and the platform that is Wikipedia. Since I do not know a satisfactory way to correct such a problem - I hope some effort will come to pass. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:20, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• @Gamaliel: The "90%" statistic probably came from this paper, which was published last year in an osteopathic journal. While the paper itself is irredeemably poorly conceived and statistically unsound, it's acquired a sort of zombie-like immortality and keeps popping up anytime medical content on Wikipedia is discussed. The quality of the study notwithstanding, though, I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether Attkisson accurately conveyed its content.

  In the end, I can recall few or no instances where a pharmaceutical company exerted undue influence on Wikipedia's coverage. In contrast, it's trivially easy to find instances where dangerously ignorant misinformation was inserted into Wikipedia by, say, the anti-vaccine lobby, of which Attkisson is a charter member. MastCell ^Talk 00:07, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks, I'd forgotten about that one. Did some clicking around and found a decent response to it. Gamaliel (talk) 00:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, that's pretty decent. Sometimes I wish people could be sued for statistical malpractice. :P Note that the authors refused to release their raw data, which should be a huge red flag (not to mention that it prevents us from correcting any of the purported "errors" which the authors were so concerned about). MastCell ^Talk 00:19, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

[http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia Actually the Roth story is reported very accurately]:

“ Dear Wikipedia,

I am Philip Roth. I had reason recently to read for the first time the Wikipedia entry discussing my novel “The Human Stain.” The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. This item entered Wikipedia not from the world of truthfulness but from the babble of literary gossip—there is no truth in it at all.

Yet when, through an official interlocutor, I recently petitioned Wikipedia to delete this misstatement, along with two others, my interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.”

”

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.56.38.158 (talk) 01:20, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you should see what was actually removed by an anonymous editor who claimed to be Roth's biographer:

Salon.com critic Charles Taylor argues that Roth had to have been at least partly inspired by the case of Anatole Broyard, a literary critic who, like the protagonist of The Human Stain, was a man identified as Creole who spent his entire professional life more-or-less as white. Roth states there is no connection, as he did not know Broyard had any black ancestry until an article published months after he had started writing his novel.

Edit one and edit two. The key part of the "controversy" is something that is really simple: Roth's biographer removed sourced content which included Roth's denial that there was no connection to Broyard. This is true by Roth's own admission, but no less than 15 sources including the New York Times claimed this connection. Wikipedia included the denial before, during and after this incident. Sorry - but the actual issue was more of weight and the anonymous editor was reverted because "source: private contact with Roth" is not an independently verifiable reference. Sounds silly, but the controversy is still largely a misconception that is perpetuated because of the misconception. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:56, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• Also interesting is this IP's only edit, claiming, among other things, to be Sharyl Attkisson. Everymorning talk 01:43, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

• Also this thread: Talk:Sharyl_Attkisson#Hello_IP_editor. Was the promised expose of Wikipedia ever published or was it overtaken by Attkisson (my spellchecker wants so badly to correct that name!) getting sucked into pushing Benghazi conspiracy theories? Prioryman (talk) 08:16, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

That’s interesting context. Apparently, this is the wp:selfpub Attikison was complaining about: [43]. Seems Attkisson’s complaints are along same lines as 2 recent BLP noticeboard listings regarding Robert Sears (physician) [44] and Category:anti-vaccination advocates [45] --BoboMeowCat (talk) 16:26, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

We don't currently cite that blog piece in Attkisson's biography; in fact, her anti-vaccine advocacy is described only in a single, well-sourced sentence. (While I personally think David Gorski's blog is incisive, well-written, and a beacon of sanity piercing the dark veil of ignorance which threatens to drown us all, I'm not crazy about using it as a source on Wikipedia, since it is, you know, a blog). The other two cases you mention seem to involve a person generally identified by reliable sources with the anti-vaccine movement, but who has come to object to that linkage, presumably because the tide of public opinion has shifted somewhat in the wake of the predictable but unfortunate consequences of the movement's work. MastCell ^Talk 18:17, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, Signpost subscription to your talk page?

Jimbo, may I subscribe you to Signpost talk page delivery? --Pine^✉ 18:51, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, please.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:53, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Dan David Prize

Congratulations! Gamaliel (talk) 22:11, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

yes congratulations!--5 albert square (talk) 22:15, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

Ditto. I hope you get to keep this one! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:13, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. It's a strange and sad week, what with the terrible news of the death of my friend and business partner, and then the welcome news of this prize.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:29, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Mr. Wales, a few months ago you accepted an award from one of the Arab regimes, and were criticized for accepting it because that Arab regime as well as all other Arab regimes violate human rights You then pledged to give your award to a charity organization that fights for human rights in the Arab world. Now you were awarded by an Israeli organization. Do you believe Israel violates human rights as well, and, if so, would you use the money for a charity? Thank you. 172.56.39.59 (talk) 19:46, 11 February 2015 (UTC)