Malcolm X is documented as an extreme racist, calling White people inherent Devils. I don't think it's appropriate for wikipedians to be saluting him or entertaining the idea that he was in favour of racial equality.
When White people can recognise Dr.Wesley Swift and Aryan Nations as human rights activists it will be just for Blacks to list Malcolm X as a human rights activist.
Thanks,
86.27.128.183 (talk) 11:10, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Malcolm X had a variety of opinions throughout his life. He was neither born a racist, nor died a racist; but he was one to varying degrees at points in the middle. He had a very enlightening trip to Africa at one point; where he was considered a white Western man and neither black nor African. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Um ... and why is this discussion on this page? Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Happy Holidays from Marlith T/C
Credits: This card was inspired by Macy's123, assistant of V's Shop
Marlith T/C 00:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I would like to congratulate you for founding Wikipedia, that, according to Guiness World Records 2008, became the largest encyclopedia of all existing encyclopedias. Keep up the good work! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! -- Idontknow610 (WANNA TALK??) 01:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Who ever is maintaining this page for Jimbo is do a very poor job. Archives 29 and 30 were not on the list The archive header sends people on a wild goose chase claiming that posts older than 3 days are being archive to Archive 26. There was no navigation header on Archive 29 or 30. I have taken the time to fix the above mentioned problems. One problem I left was the fact that archive 29 and 30 overlap each other as the newest post in Archive 30 is November 28 and the oldest post in archive 29 is December 14 Dbiel (Talk) 23:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Copied back from Archive 30 for the second time Copied back from Archive 30 I think that this is an important enough topic to at least deserve a reply before being archived into a hidden archive file. - I created entries to archive 29 and 30 during my search to find this post. Whoever is maintaining this page is doing a very poor job.
I can understand the need to use a fundraising header from time to time; but I can not understand why it can not be created in such a way as to display properly on pages that use the coordiates template in en.Wikipedia. I realize that the problem is the absolute location of the coordinate entry, but why no one with the power to do something about it is willing to invested in the programing costs to fix the problem escapes me. The following page is a good example of the problem which displays differently dependant upon that status of the fund raising header (hidden or fully displayed) both create problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Joseph%27s_Catholic_School_%28Hamilton%2C_New_Zealand%29# Note: the smaller the window the worse the problem becomes.
Also see the discussion related to the issue in greater detail at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28technical%29#Problem_with_the_position_of_coordinates_with_fund_raising_header
Also posted at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2007/Archive2#Conflict_with_fundrasing_header_and_coordinates
These document some of my attempts to address the problem over the past 40 days
Would you be willing to forward this to someone with the tallent to fix the problem? Dbiel (Talk) 04:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Please note the suggestion I made on WikiEN-l. Thanks, Mike R (talk) 18:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
What is it like to be the creator of Wikipedia? --1BOOKFAN 02:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC) also, please sign my autograph book please! 1Bookfan Talk
Hello, Jimmy Wales. Some time ago the editor of the Wikipedia Signpost collected questions. About twenty or so people took that opportunity to ask you any questions they might have. I was pleased to be able to post about four questions, communicate with that group, and attend that interview. It seems to me that you had returned from China that day and were on your way to somewhere in Africa. I did not ever receive a precise answer to my questions, but I do recall that questions of a technical nature could not be answered during that interview anyway, in part because of lack of time (it was about one hour or so). I can look up the page of questions if need be and have a log of the IRC session most likely. I supposed at the time that my exit message was a quote from Laurie Anderson, the title of a song "Talk Normal", but I may be mistaken. Anyway, thank you for showing up that day. I have posted some other questions at Talk:Internet Engineering Task Force where they may be more likely to be addressed, or not. Take care and best wishes for the holiday season and the new year. -Susanlesch (talk) 19:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Wovon haben Sie die Idee gekommt, um so eine Enzyklopädie wie Wikipedia mit Sanger und die Volken von Bomis gekommt? Ich denke, dass ich niemals das gewusst. Antworte gerne auf Englisch oder Deutsch, ich verstehe beide :) eszetttalk 13:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Mr. McGillis is back to his legal threats as 66.229.248.172 in his talk page [1], this time he issued the threat following a warning that I left on his talk page after taking part in yet another content dispute, this time over the inclusion of a link to his website on the article wich went against your desicion in the case as he posted in the article and ignored the temporary edit ban. I blocked the address for six months as I am hesitant to indef block a address that may change eventually, I will re-protect the article as it seems he is using Wikipedia Review as a chess piece in this dispute, and has created a account by the name of "menudo.biz" to gain attention in the website as evidenced in this thread (the original text may be in the quotes as he has now edited the original comments) the protection will be because this may bring some of the banned users that edit the website into this. - Caribbean~H.Q. 06:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Excellent work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo. Do you know the last creation by Google? I refer to Knol. Can this be the Google's response to Wikia Search? I want to assume good faith by Google, but... ;). Cheers. --Emijrp (talk) 20:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Mr.Wales/any one monitering this page. I have a suggestion which I belive would seriously help out with the duties on Wikipedia (I posted this here because I do not know where else to post it). Basiccly, What I'm suggesting is the following:
What I'm trying to say is this:
You know on say the main page, you can copy the source code but you cannot edit (it's grey and won't accept any text) well, I think Admins should be able to block specific segments of text, e.g the header of the sandox, or say in an edit war, instead of protecting that page, an admin could protect the information that people are conflicting about so people are free to edit the rest of an article without having to request it on the article's talk page.
So, if admins had the privleges to do this, it could lessen out the duties (e.g restoring the sandbox header) so users can concentrate on other things.
For anyone who is reading this- Please don't steal my idea!
thanks, cf38talk 22:08, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
So what you're saying is that it should be possible to protect a part of Wikipedia's main page, while some other parts of that main page should be editable by anyone, say (for example) the "selected anniversaries" section. That's how it is done today. Someone stole your idea before you had it. It uses transclusion of non-protected pages as a technique to implement it. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
No, I used the main page as an example. I mean things such as the sandbox header could be protected, so users would'nt keep having to reset it. cf38talk 15:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I was reverted in making the following change, so I thought I'd bring it up on the talk page before making the change again. What do you think of changing the relevant section to:
Wikia is a completely separate organization according to the IRS; though in reality I fund a lot of travel for Wikia using Wikimedia Foundation funds, so thanks for donating! Wikia is working on a search engine project unrelated to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
Yes? No? Thanks. 151.200.26.18 (talk) 07:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I use no Wikimedia Foundation funds for travel. I even pay my own travel to board meetings and the like. Nice job of trolling, though.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Strong No. It's another example of where some critics of Wikia/Wikimedia entanglement "think small". The key issue is not about travel funding, or even chump-change like speaker's fees. I think making it about trivia just sets up a straw-man that's counter-productive to the topic. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 14:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Seth, you have missed the whole point. This is not a community or a cult, the community idea is a fallacy invented by God knows who - probably Jimbo. For the most part "the community" is a few hundred people writing on subjects about which they are passionate. They range from university professors to just mere "anoraks" who devour every written word on a chosen subject. Believe me I know this for a fact. They are "here" for the simple pleasure and hobby of writing and discussing their chosen interests. Every now and again those dedicated few fall out with each other over an angle in which the content is presented. Now this is where the equation becomes interesting.
There is an even greater army of those who have joined "the community" simply because they enjoy legislating and policing. Some are sincere (NewYorkBrad springs to mind) others are here because they like to throw their weight around and imagine they have the ear of Jimbo Wales. Indeed some of them do appear to have that ear, and that ear seems to enjoy the flattery it listens to. This is where the cult scenario arises, it is these people who have been shown a minuscule window for power by Jimbo's project that see him as the charismatic messianic leader - what else have they got? as for the rest - the worker ants - they just suck their teeth and email knowingly to each other and eventually drift off. No one protests too hard about the situation for fear of being banned (they enjoy writing here). Jimbo needs to wake up, if he wants to- that is! His posturing and frankly very stupid comments to me "the harm you have done...etc." may have thrilled his confidantes but look at the votes they gave me, and he would do well to look at the names of those votes as well as the quantity. It would be impossible for me to be on the present Arbcom I would be frozen out and impotent. However, if Jimbo does not start to listen to those doing the writing soon the project will undoubtedly deteriorate, it won't fail because there is always someone new, and the police force will grow even larger. Is that what Wikipedia is about? There are some here who want to be in a cult, with their seeking out of socks and traitors, but the backbone of the encyclopedia feel those people are a joke, sadly if he is not careful Jimbo will fall into that category too. He needs to shut these people up and listen to those who want what is best for the project rather than their egos. Giano (talk) 21:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo Wales,
I'd like to know how some companies and blogs (yes blogs) are allowed to be posted on External links and others are not. I'll send you hundreds of examples if you like.
I have tried to add a link to my blog/information page about living off the grid and I have been blocked from Wikipedia for ever. Mind you I tried to add links to about a dozen other blogs - (geothermal, global warming, energy medicine, Moon landing, wind power) where I have noticed that others were listed/accepted.
These are "current news" and information sites that are updated daily. This information is unbiased and useful to wikipedians who cannot find relevant current/news/information on Wikipedia. Also - I tried to link to a single Christmas Wikia. And was banned for life.
oh well -tough crowd - but also not uniform in its policies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.103.167.20 (talk) 19:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I thought it would make a pleasant change to have some good news on this page! An editor from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has been editing as User:VAwebteam, initially adding links which were reverted and images which were being deleted. They readily co-operated with established editors when approached about suitable additions. I left them an explanation of exactly how GFDL works. This has had a great result with some fine images uploaded (and some deleted ones re-uploaded) under GFDL from the museum's collection. This is a useful precedent for anyone to approach other institutions. Is this the first time a major museum has contributed in this way? Tyrenius (talk) 03:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I would like to say that, as an educator, I find your recent comment which states that "it's a bad educator that bans their students from reading Wikipedia"[2] is ignorant, rude, and disrespectful of people who actually know how to teach and have dedicated their lives to doing so. You may revel in amateurism, but professionals can see that this site is a terrible education resource. 1.33% of the Wikipedia is tagged for cleanup alone. It may be interesting as a general trivia site, but it is not something I would permit my students to learn from, whether you call me a 'bad educator' or no. 86.142.48.123 (talk) 16:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
One of my teachers frequently cites Wikipedia. He first gives the page a read over, then tells us to look at the specific article. He thinks it's a valuable resource. I agree with him. I learned a lot from Wikipedia on my Software Engineering course, and I did well on an essay (something I don't do much of on my course) thanks to Wikipedia. --Deskana (talk) 13:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
As I have said many times, while WP is not itself a reliable source (you never know when the page you load will say POOP), it is an excellent and possibly unparalleled resource for finding reliable sources on almost any topic. That is why some of us have worked hard to make the footnoted cites as complete as possible, so that any kid in a library can go find those sources. - Crockspot (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
1) To decrease vandalism: I was wondering why WP is allowing everyone to edit user pages. Vandals are mainly targeting user pages. So if you make it mandatory that users with a specific editing history/time registered only are able to edit user’s pages (& talk pages). Recently I saw an admin's user page that “This user identifies as gay” userbox on the top list. I was little frustrated though it can be true. When I checked the same page next time, it was removed and I knew that was vandalism. So, if you altered it to what I mentioned, I think it may produce with productive results.
2) To make it more user friendly: All external links should open in a different window. As per existing program it is redirecting to the same window, which I feel not a good work. How do you think? --Avinesh Jose (talk) 09:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello Mr. Wales, (and everyone else :) ), I don't like having to come here with a question about such a basic principle of editing Wikipedia. However the community as a whole seems to be confused, so I'm wondering what you had intended in the first place.
Barbara Schwarz is someone you may have already heard about, but in case you haven't I'll sum up the contention as concisely as possible since I realize you are probably very busy. To be blunt, Ms Schwarz has serious issues with reality, but has done some very notable things. In pursuit of information she believes is being held by various departments/agencies of several states, and even the federal government, she has filed more FOIA requests than anyone else in the act's history. Making her more notable is the fact that she then chose to pro se sue many of those agencies, and even specific employees by the hundreds when they were unable to find what she was looking for. In the process she was heard by the Supreme Court and her story was reported in the Salt Lake Tribune around 2003. She then sued the paper despite the fact she was not misrepresented and the paper was merely reporting both sides of her story. Needless to say she didn't like her article here either, Category:Suspected Wikipedia sockpuppets of The real Barbara Schwarz and has been trying to have it removed with some support by other Wikipedians. In general the community seemed to understand the notability of her court actions when such discussions came up:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barbara Schwarz - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barbara Schwarz (2nd nomination) - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barbara Schwarz (3rd nomination) - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barbara Schwarz (4th nomination).
When I asked myself if this article was worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia, and thus worthy of my time, I compared Ms Schwarz to others who have done notable things while not in touch with reality. Would the Sylvia Seegrist or Laurie Dann artcles be removed if Sylvia or Dann's family asked? I answered no, because their actions were notable enough for inclusion in reliable secondary sources. Even though Ms Schwarz hasn't killed anyone, she has made herself notable by her actions in court.
I'd like to know what your (and anyone else's here) opinion on Schwarz and our biographies of living people policy, are they compatible? (Just to be clear, I don't plan on going around saying "This is what Jimbo said...", rather just want to know if you intended such articles to exist or not so I know if I've been wrong. I'm also not asking for any intervention.) Thank you, Anynobody 01:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your time, thanks very much and enjoy the holidays :) Anynobody 02:44, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Seasons Greetings Jimbo Wales/Archive 31 Happy New Year !
Sandahl 15:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Cade Metz recently wrote a reasoned opinion piece on the inherent conflict in Wikipedia between anonymity and COI [3]. Which do you think should have priority as Wikipedia moves forward, COI or anonymity? Also, just one more question...you said that you had only a few hours notice before the Doran article came out in the Register...Did Cade request that you contact him a couple of days before the Doran article was released, and, if so, what was your response? Cla68 (talk) 11:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
My response was that I don't speak to the Register. I guess you know that since you were cc'd on the email.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
(outdent) I think dislike for the sources, and insularity, is causing a dismissal of a deep structural issue - WP:AGF doesn't resolve the problem that anonymity and conflict-of-interest is an open invitation for a lot of bad-faith editing. Whenever this discussion comes up, I see replies I'd characterize as that, in theory, in a perfect world with perfect people, there should be no problems because Wikipedia policies say everyone should play nice. However, it's an imperfect world, with imperfect people, and many of them play very nasty indeed. You can't escape this issue by saying it's against policy, because the policies are applied by people, and thus there's an incentive to game the system. Outsiders keep writing about this in various ways, because it's very obvious to anyone who looks into what goes on in terms of real conflict-resolution. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 20:36, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you so much for founding Wikipedia. I don't know what I'd do without it. If I need info, I always come here first. Wiki rules! A pyrate's life for me... (talk) 16:21, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Guten Tag, mein Herr. Wie geht's? Ich liebe Deustch!!!!! Translation: Hello, sir. How's it going? I love German!!!!! Good luck learning the language. I've been taking classes for two years, myself. Awesome language.
Froliche Weinachten und ein gluckes neues Jahr!!!!
Ichliebezuko (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Ichliebezuko (talk) 16:28, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo! If you need help for understanding german messages or if you want to understand german Wikipedia articles, etc., I´d be glad to help you! Whenever you want Dagadt (talk) 16:30, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
What are the patrolers, Stewards, Board vote admins, developers and imports of Wikipedia? And another question also: do you have some special things only you, with your "founder" status, can do? ----Yours, User:Deba Tihs ´n´ Mad Dog (right place to talk to me is here) 18:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo,
Please Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 09:23, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you.
1bookfan has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
You deserve these awards! 1bookfan 00:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Please sign my autograph page. 1bookfan 00:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
RoryReloaded (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing! Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
You deserve this for creating this place!--RoryReloaded (talk) 00:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
If you don't know how to speak Italian, come to my talk page! I can provide you with basic to expert Italian (probably). Feel free to come for lessons whenever you feel like it! RoryReloaded (talk) 06:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC) Wasn't expecting that... RoryReloaded (talk) 06:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
This is some questions I decided to brought up on your opinions.
I would like your opinion out of curiousity. Thank you for your time. PrestonH 19:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I like barnstars. They are a decentralized reward mechanism that seems to me to have no downsides. I think people should give cute and interesting awards whenever someone does something good or nice or helpful or of high quality or...
The Germans give gummibears. This pleases me greatly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Does everybody hate muffins or is it just me? 68.195.123.26 (talk) 23:16, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Happy Holidays Jimbo Wales/Archive 31. Have a Happy New Year !
Rlevse:) (T/C)
Dear Jimbo, I'd like to draw your attention to a call for vandalism in the German speaking Wikipedia made by established users. This group wants to censor vector graphics of NS symbols so that (dumb) Neo-Nazis could not make use of our high quality images. Please speak out against this plan.
It is a heated debate which lead to an admin blocking me for two hours for stating my opinion. When I complained about it other admins affirmed that I had not violated the rules and therefore the block was unjust. For answering the question what I think why I was blocked I have been blocked for additional 24 hours (“NPA”). Some have argued that my points were legitimate and my block should be revoked but no one did—who would dare to defend a “swastika lover”?
As I understand your statement of principles you agree with me that Wikipedia is an open project and no one should be excluded on the grounds of group membership. This means every imaginable group is generally welcomed at Wikipedia: Neo-Nazis, misogynists, child molesters etc. This consideration makes one not feel comfortable but it is the truth: all these groups are already readers and Wikipedians. Neither our license nor our five pillars forbid those groups the use and participation. I ask you to publicly admit this fact and elaborate your rationale behind these terms and conditions. --mms (talk) 12:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
(outdent) I've just read that thread and I don't see either side professing a fondness for swastikas. It's poor form to make these insinuations, particularly in a venue where most people are unable to read the original. It's a discussion between two sets of reasonable people that has deteriorated from sarcasm to animosity on a topic that would be sensitive in any language, but nowhere more so than in German. Each language edition creates its own consensus policies. Here in English we retain all material of encyclopedic value, regardless of its potential to give offense, and the community manages the occasional individuals attempt to exploit sensitive images for shock value. It isn't for us to dictate our solutions to other languages. Yet I do suggest you refrain from using polarizing tactics. DurovaCharge! 20:39, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Mms, do you think, if you compare Jimbo with Adolf Hitler, he would help you? “unser Führer”, isn't it a little bit awkward? -- 87.165.144.7 (talk) 12:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Please,look at Horton, Alabama and tell me if it is any good at my talk. 1Bookfan Talk
Signed to archive. KnightLago (talk) 16:37, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Hallo,herr Jakob.
Jes,spreche auf Deusch.Verrlassen Sie mich eine Nachritch an Ein Buchanhanger Rede .
Auf Wiedersehen und gluckliche Feiertage! Ein Buchanhanger
Signed to archive. KnightLago (talk) 16:38, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
ok well this is like my last attempt to try to talk to someone here... ...i have been banned as a user for some time now (User:Iamandrewrice), having been said to have many sockpuppets. However, this is not true, as another user (User:Joeseth1992) pretended to be me and hacked my account, making sockpuppets himself, and then leading to a phenomenon in which even though I was trying to explain my situation to fellow wikipedians, no one would listen, as they all thought that I was lying and that all the sockpuppets were mine, even though they had nothing to do with me. I really want to help edit the site, and it would really make me smile this xmas if you allowed me once again to operate here. I would very much appreciate it if the other users could be informed that many of the messages that they have read and received that they believe to be me, were in fact from another user who was impersonating me. (I know this user in real life by the way). Please please please try and help me out... if you would like a full detailed step-by-step explanation of everything that has happened, I can email it to you, but it is quite long. Well whatever you decide, please email me here on [email protected]
Thanks a lot... and have a nice xmas
89.241.196.68 (talk) 13:31, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
89.243.4.19 (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo, please have a word with JzG. This is a complete misrepresentation of the history of Awbrey's edits and concerns. Admins should show greater respect for the truth, for the content-editors that create Wikipedia content, and for the moral and legal aspects of plagiarism and copyright. JzG has been treating Awbrey like enemy number one and this is merely his latest personal attack. When will we as a community tell admins that insist on creating and angering enemies to stop it? This is just poisonous. We should be better than WR, not imitate them. Further, it hurts the encyclopedia when people delete content just because the person who wrote it is now disruptive. There was no issue with Awbrey's article content on math/logic articles until after he was justly banned and then decided to act as disruptively as possible. Finally, when an admin gets to the point that he literally says he would rather "we be sued"; I think he needs to step away from the computer and take a nice bike ride in the park. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
<<<Jon Awbrey spent something like a year faithfully contributing to Wikipedia based on his widely acknowledged expertise in Charles Peirce and his work, a very important figure in the history of logic. That expertise made his contributions to logic/math articles to be beyond reproach to people who knew the subject (although readability by non-experts was and is an issue). But he ran into trouble on articles like Truth where he had to edit with people who could not understand his specialized expert vocabulary and Jon was poorly equipped to fully appreciate WP:NPOV leading to charges of breaking WP:NOR leading him to go to the policy talk page at WP:NOR where he was abused and misinformed by that page's owners; leading to a dramatic self-destruction wherein he began to disrupt Wikipedia as much as possible and continues to do so (I tried to help, but he was having none of it, his mind was made up). This latest battle in Jon's war of honor is described by Jon (aka Jonny Cache) here. Especially relevant is this quote:"The crux of the matter is this. I contributed content to Wikipedia that to this day adds to the credibility of Wikipedia. Nobody but nobody has the right to use that credibility to discredit me. If Guy Chapman can get away with asserting unchecked lies on the Wikienlist and on Wikipedia and no one in that so-called community calls him on it, then Wikipedia as a whole has forfeited the right to continue using those contributions." I love logic and do not wish to allow Guy to create a situation where Wikipedia's logic articles are eviscerated just because Guy is angry at Jon. Jon does not want the articles deleted, he just wants Guy to cease defaming him by claiming his contributions were "original research". Guy has used this fight as an excuse to remove information and redirect and wipe Jon's attribution from the records. There is no reason for all this removal and redirection in the first place except for Guy defaming Jon and causing this stupid fight. Let's put the content of the encyclopedia ahead of the emotional satisfaction of "winning" against enemies. WAS 4.250 (talk) 16:29, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Kant is an example of a writer so difficult to understand that primary-source analysis is bound to come a cropper, because even experts — people who've been studying him all their lives — disagree about what he meant in various places.
"...it's probably safe to assume it's original research..."
Honestly, My Good People, these sorts of problems are so much easier to solve than you all make out. Darkdealt (talk) 02:36, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Most businesses have personnel worries like this but don't have AP articles written about them. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:33, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Say, have you seen a Carioca? It's not a foxtrot or a polka It has a little bit of new rhythm, a blue rhythm that sighs It has a meter that is…. tricky A bit of wicked wacky-wicky But when you dance it with a new love, there's a true love in her eye
And a bit of wicked wacky wiky this is, too. SBHarris 08:38, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd be glad to hear your opinion on the current state of Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source, proposed as a replacement for Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources (WP:NOR's PSTS section).
Related talk (which I took at heart for improvements) at:
legal threat by banned user removed part 2
I wonder what your opinion is about the following story:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/12/video_prof03.html
Apparently, Wikipedia has surrendered without argument the info about some registered Wikipedia user(s) in response to a subpoena from the Video Professor. Other websites being sued have successfuly fought back on the free speech and the first amendments grounds, and even Comcast is demonstrating some backbone on the privacy protection grounds. But apparently not Wikipedia.... Regards, Nsk92 (talk) 13:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Jossi, let's not try to gag the discussion. If not Jimbo's page, it may belong to other policy page but it certainly belongs right here on Wikipedia. How the hell did anyone give the IP information of the user just for asking? I am shocked. --Irpen 02:49, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, just a quick note to say that your input is requested at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007. Whilst appreciating the pressures on your time, a select group of candidates have been chosen by the community, and should really be helping out and/or familiarising themselves before the terms of the outgoing Arbitartors ends. Thanks, and have a good Christmas Martinp23 01:07, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
BTW, Jimmy, someone mentioned elsewhere that you can make yourself a real nice Christmas present by tweaking your picks.[9] :) --Irpen 03:57, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
In response to Raimond Arritt, this wasn't my idea. I offered the bounty on a safe bet hoping to find a fool who would take it and thus make myself an easy brandy [10]. Someone then suggested that Jimmy can turn the table on this [11].
But speaking seriously, I also hope that Jimbo cares about the integrity of the arbcom and the community's perception of the appointed arbs and won't make the January 2006 or February 2007[12] mistakes by substituting the community judgment by his own. Being able to tweak the appointments by expanding or reducing the slice's size is already questionable. As I wrote in the link given at the previous one, expanding the top slice of this to 8 would be acceptable but Jimbo can solve all the cabalism problems at once by expanding it to 10 AND getting a nice bottle in the mail by the New Year's eve if he chooses to.
Merry Christmas, Jimmy! --Irpen 17:52, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Alright Jimbo me man, this is a message from Jay Cee, he be entering the hospital engineers Tony Lieu time, he want me to tell you. Booya.
Signed to archive. KnightLago (talk) 16:39, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Íngrid Betancourt, who has been a prisoner in the Colombian jungle for years, said the one thing she had begged for and been refused is an encyclopedia. "Oh to learn something new" she is reported as having said. Which makes me think how lucky we are who have access to the endlessly informative and multi-lingual wikipedia. Living in a place myself where the nearest decent library is probably a thousand miles away, and where there are simply no book shops, I want to say thanks for founding such an excellent and enrichening project, spreading knowledge to those who need it throughout the world. Feliz Navidad, SqueakBox 17:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an astonishingly powerful evolutionary, and revolutionary idea. All of human knowledge, filtered and organized through millions and millions of minds and then made available, pre-searched, to everybody, for free. If that doesn't give you goosebumps, you should check your pulse to see if you still have one.
Critics of the project seem to come in two varieties: 1) Those obsessives for whom the best is always the enemy of the good, who complain about the quality of free food (spare me), and 2) Those who worry about those who believe in the project so much, that they think the ends justify the means, in the producing of it. I'm of the latter type, at worst. Few things are that important (thinking like that, got us the Inquisition). But overall, the project IS worthwhile and IS astounding, and the sooner we get all 6.6 billion minds on the planet connected, the sooner we will eliminate much lack of empathy (i.e., lack of imagination), much lack of knowledge, and (even more importantly) be able to use the astounding parallel processing ability of all those minds to attack any world problem, in the same way we're making an encyclopedia here. So, onward! I'm now going back to my chem, physics, and medicine pages, where (yes) I actually do spend most of my time. Happy Holidays to all. SBHarris 01:00, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
There are those who are editing Wikipedia even on Christmas day...
...that would be me, that it would. LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia provides a free encyclopedia of 50,000 words or more in 29 languages so far, with Bulgarian, Korean and Arabic likely to pass that mark in the next few weeks. Peace on earth, goodwill toward all (edit, edit). :) DurovaCharge! 00:29, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
I am Jewish, and Hannukah has already ended. : ) ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:18, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
I just want to wish my fellow Wikipedians a Merry Christmas! Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 02:20, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Same Here:
Best regards from myself! -- S♦s♦e♦b♦a♦l♦l♦o♦s (Merry Christmas!) Post this merry message on any other user talk page you can find.
Et a vous! -Susanlesch (talk) 03:10, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello again, as a quick follow up to my last question, I took your reply to mean that the subject wasn't notable enough for an entire article. I've always found the really interesting part of her "story" to be its FOIA aspect, and it fits in well on: Freedom of Information Act (United States)#Barbara Schwarz.
My last message here garnered more visibility than I had anticipated and was kinda concerned someone else might either come here and try to make it seem as if I'm being petulant or accuse me of being "afraid" to "disagree" with you directly instead sneaking off to add her anywhere.
(PS I'm sorry if the end of my last thread seemed abrupt, but since 1) you're absolutely right that keeping the article is a community decision so convincing you one way or the other would've been pointless 2) you appear to have an incredibly busy talk page which you also seem to make time for, I didn't want to bog you down with a more in depth analysis. Have(or hope you had) a happy Christmas,Kwanza, Hanukkah, and a merry new year. Anynobody 05:44, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Merry Christmas, my friend. May this find you in good health, good spirits, good company, and good finances. If any of these be missing, may God see fit to restore you in good time. — $PЯINGεrαgђ 05:17 25 December, 2007 (UTC)
yeah merry fuckin' christmas jimbo! 'av a good 'n! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.108.218.95 (talk) 10:04, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
what do you think of the pic? Blueanode (talk) 21:58, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Thedjatclubrock :) (T/C)
Excuse me, this is not acceptable. Mr. Wales did you receive this barnstar? Yes or no? Your lack of response in this particular case is neither amusing nor well timed. Unfortunately as I understand it the problem is not one that you created (I will make those edits at the MIT article as soon as I can). -Susanlesch (talk) 05:45, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
P.S. User:Jwwalker (whose name like mine was smashed but survived MediaWiki) kindly checked the information above earlier today and found nothing out of order. -Susanlesch (talk) 07:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo, your statement in the Signpost announcing the new arbitrators includes the following comment: "I am particularly interested that the community work to heal what appears to me to be perceived rifts between various factions, and encourage everyone to work without our existing frameworks and institutions for positive change with a minimum of drama." A laudable sentiment of course, but did you really mean to use the word "without"? Taken literally, it would mean that people should create new frameworks and institutions to resolve issues. You meant "within", didn't you? (By the way, please excuse the Beatles reference in the header; as I was writing this, it just sort of naturally suggested itself.) 6SJ7 (talk) 05:41, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I meant "within". I hope that someone will correct the quote in Signpost (presumably with the permission of whomever might get upset by that.) Good catch. Funny if I accidentally set off a wheel war or something. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Jim, I just interviewed Shimon Peres, the President of Israel, for Wikinews. This was reported upon heavily in the Israeli press, signifying the influence of Wiki. In addition to Peres, I have interviewed three Presidential candidates, Al Sharpton, Nadine Strossen, Augusten Burroughs, Gay Talese, and a host of others. Every time a person doesn't like a quote--this time, people don't like a quote used from the Al Sharpton interview on the Tawana Brawley artic--an editor raises whether we can use Wikinews at all for our interviews, which help flesh out a lot of information on Wikipedia.
The consensus was reached that on biographies of living people, an interview where Party A talks about Party B should not be used on Party B's article, but is fine on Party A's article and related non-BLP subjects. Now, the question is whether we can use Wikinews, a Wikimedia sister project, at all on Wikipedia.
I am asking making a public request you make a statement whether you support using accredited reporters on Wikinews to conduct interviews with notable people, and to allow those interviews to be used as sources on Wikipedia. I think your views on this matter will help clarify the matter for others on Wikipedia, including myself. Thank you.
The current discussion is here: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Wikinews:_Please_post_definite_answer. --David Shankbone 22:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
(unindent) No one seems to be suggesting that David Shankbone's interviews are unreliable or distorted, so I don't see the problem in using them. Judgements can be made on a case by case basis, and interviewers would have to prove their reliability. It is touching to see so much faith bestowed on main stream news media with their supposed fact checking systems, but anyone who has had any dealings on a private or professional level with the same would find it also more than a little naive, as is the suggestion that reliable third parties will pick up information if it's any good. That is not the criterion for news inclusion. Tyrenius (talk) 03:01, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
<<<< The accreditation policy of Wikinews is nice, but comes short in addressing the concerns expressed here. What we need is an "Editorial board" of some kind, two or three people (using their real-life identities) that are willing to put their good names on the line and be held accountable by editorial decisions regarding these interviews (or any other Wikinews material that could be used in WP articles). In summary: Nothing short of whatever we impose on other sources as it pertains to current measurement of reliability for WP articles. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:23, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
This is not just about interview but about all other Wikinews stories. We use all sources in stories (and for a moment forget about OR). We don't publish a story OR or not without some kind of source. Whether it be notes (I photograph my notes and research) or tapes. The point is interview, or exclusive story, we work as hard if not harder than MSM. Some OR stories might lack some important stuff, but not all. In fact the vast majority of our OR articles have extensive notes. But when the same excuse of verifiability is given, it gets old. Look through our articles, not just the OR ones or interviews. They all have sources, from MSM and such including any online reference that may be used old or new. DragonFire1024 (talk) 19:00, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
I started a page to begin discussing principles to follow and requirements to reach for articles on Wikinews to be used as sources on Wikipedia. It's a start. Some of the things I listed are already done, but don't worry about that now: let's start at square one. More, I want people just to think about what qualities a Wikinews article should have to make it a credible source on Wikipedia--mind you, this would create a class of articles on Wikinews that would meet this criteria while others would retain their "anyone can write a story" ethos, and unless an article meets this criteria, it can't be cited. I believe development of reasonable criteria is possible, and what I read in the discussions on this issue seem reasonable. You can find what I started here (edit whatever you want. One caveat: this page is for those who want to help, not for those who simply want to bash and denigrate the idea. --David Shankbone 22:33, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Jimbo. I'm just curious why you don't semi-protect your userpage. I have your userpage watchlisted and I've only seen about 2-3 constructive IP edits. JetLover (talk) (Report a mistake) 02:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I just thought you may be interested in a comment of an anonymous reviewer in my recent Wikipedia-related paper: I am concerned about the author’s insistence of referring to the Wikipedia founder as “Jimbo Wales.” I highly suggest that some basic fact checking occur as to his formal name. In a recent profile in the Sunday New York Times Magazine he was never referred to as “Jimbo.” If his formal name is James or Jim then I highly suggest you delete the “Jimbo”’s from the text of the paper, including where Jimbo appears in the bibliography. Your userpage has Jimbo, but article redirects to Jimmy... so... do you have any preferences as to what you'd like to be called? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 00:08, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo is just my nickname online. I prefer Jimmy in print. I am not "James" though, ever. My real name really is Jimmy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
You say here [13] of IRC "I encourage those who are concerned about what goes on in IRC to simply join it, make some friends, and participate in a spirit of loving harmony." are you aware the problem is actually #admins, which is private channel and certainly does not have a spirit of loving harmony? In the past Arbs have said they have no jurisdiction over IRC - were they wrong when they said this? Giano (talk) 18:41, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
Copied back from Archive 31 as nothing has been done Copied back from Archive 30 for the second time Copied back from Archive 30 I think that this is an important enough topic to at least deserve a reply before being archived into a hidden archive file. - I created entries to archive 29 and 30 during my search to find this post. Whoever is maintaining this page is doing a very poor job.
...I would like your opinion on this. —BoL 02:55, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I may be able to fill the treasurer position. I am a CPA with experience in the nonprofit world. Sarsaparilla (talk) 04:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
I knew you would get into GWR '08! How does it feel?--74.138.108.174 (talk) 22:27, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, I was directed to this post of yours on the mail list. Based on that, would you mind commenting on Wikipedia talk:Notability (schools)? Thanks. Lawrence Cohen 19:49, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
My views have changed substantially since that time, though. High schools are problematic because there are typically no reliable sources but also because these kinds of articles are typically magnets for BLP-violating vandalism. I still maintain, of course, that there is a big difference between not wanting thousands and thousands of bot-generating articles. But I am less sanguine about the possibility of being able to create and maintain good high quality articles on schools. I do not vote in deletion debates, and my views are just the views of one editor, so please don't quote this either way as a decree of some kind. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
I have never posted here before, but I was wondering if you might like to weigh in on a request for comment that I think will have implications well down the road. It's occurring right here. The article is What the Bleep Do We Know!? and the question basically is "Can editors use reliable sources that don't mention the movie but mention the content of the movie?" In other words, is it original research to let the reader know that certain purported "facts" in a movie are flatly contradicted by science textbooks and then reference those science textbooks which may not directly reference the movie (perhaps because they were written before the movie came out). ScienceApologist (talk) 22:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes.. Wikipedia is a great project... I think, this idea, can make it even better. Of late, I found that statistical data shown in Wikipedia is not consistent among different language versions. To make it consistent and for the benefit of editors, can we have a Wikimedia Statistics site, similar to Wikimedia commons, where we can categorize every possible statistical information starting from salary of people, to population of hungary to revenues of corporations etc? Instead of directly editing Wikipedia for updating these values, we should instead edit the common statistics site and that change should be reflected automatically to all the pages that "transclude" this information (just like page transclusion).
Can you do this? This could greatly improve the quality of the already great Wikipedia.. :) Thanks, Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 05:46, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Like if I write Population of XXX: {{statwiki:Population:XXX}}, Wikipedia should display the value from Wikitistics. Mugunth(ping me!!!,contribs) 01:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
We both know that the WikiMedia Foundation needs money. Can I volunteer to have the WikiMedia Foundation sell ad space on my user pages? Maybe we can have a user template set up so that anyone who wishes to, can help fund the WikiMedia Foundation in this way. Is this possible? This could be as limited as one small approved ad on a user page. Or it could be allowed to expand to allow users to compete to see who can create the most money producing set of user subpages. Or anything in-between. Let's make money for a good cause off the drama. There is no telling what kinds of cash crops could be grown in the set of user subpages marked with a This page's ad revenues are donated to the non-profit WikiMedia Foundation. template. Users could join forces and produce who knows what to create revenue for Wikipedia and fame for themselves. All those people who came here to promote something could create user subpages with their ideas or vanity and instead of being a constant disruptive force in the encyclopedia can be turned into a revenue generator. Of course, it would have to be very clear that it was not an encyclopedia page. Perhaps a whole different look to an ad enabled page so at a glance it would not be confused with the encyclopedia. Instead of deleting pages based on non-notability or nonsense or the like, they can be "userfied" to an ad enabled user subpage. We can convert our content problems into a revenue solution. WAS 4.250 (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello Jimmy. In case you don't know, a proposal to shut down the Volapük wikipedia failed on meta. A few days ago, a new proposal was made, this time to delete the great number of bot-created stubs and bring what's left to the Incubator. Given that some question the legitimacy of this new proposal (hot on the heels of the old one) and even the feasability of bringing 2,000+ articles to the Incubator, I'd like you to comment in the discussion, especially after I read a comment of yours in which you seem to be in favour of carrying out some kind of measure within the Volapük wikipedia. Thanks and happy new year! -- Danilot (talk) 13:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
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10:11, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Happy New Year, Jimbo Wales/Archive 31. May 2008 bring you many successful edits, featured articles, and less disagreements! Stay safe, and watch those broken bottles on the floor.
STORMTRACKER 94 13:02, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo please see [14]. This has gone on for years, I have been bullied, stalked and falsely accused of so much basically by one editor User:SandyGeorgia gaming the system and trading on her knowledge of existing issues.
I HAVE to go to arbcom and get a proper chance to defend myself...in the past I have always wound up gagged while lies are told...that is NOT fair...
I know I don't matter, why should I? I am no-one...but as long as this can be done to me it can be done to anyone, and if it can be, it will be...
I am sitting here in floods of tears....I feel like I am at the end of my rope...that must seem crazy but I was raised by a psychopathic mother, made out to be the guilty party whatever I did, however good, even perfect I tried to be...abusive people pick up on that and the dominos start to fall...
I have to turn around and fight this to the end now...please help me get a fair chance to do that? That's all I am asking, not for anyone to be censured but just for me to have a fair chance to clear this up once and for all through arbcom and PROVE that Wikipedia still works...and always can. Whatever games people try to play with the system. --Zeraeph (talk) 08:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you Kablammo, that is, indeed a link to the one sincere mistake I made as I referred to above. --Zeraeph (talk) 15:15, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Jimbo, I invite you to look on this as wikidrama staged by SlimVirgin. SlimVirgin invited Zeraeph to the stage by unblocking her. SlimVirgin knew (or should have known if she didn't) that a drama sequel was going to follow when she unblocked Zeraeph.
As far as I can see there's an unsettling divide et impera component in all this. Ask me if you don't understand what I mean by that. Compare current discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#There was an easy way to deal with all of this drama before the fact --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Marskell, as you know, the arbcom request was made by user:Jehochman not me some 12 hours after I posted here. To call that my "forum shopping" is a little odd. --Zeraeph (talk) 23:21, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Have a great year Jimbo Wales/Archive 31. Let the fireworks light begin!
Love, GalaxyGuy --GalaxyGuy (talk) 17:30, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your comments, Jimbo Wales. You raise important questions and concerns; other participants had raised them before, and I believe there are important answers that you probably need to be aware of, in order to think further about the issue and decide for yourself. I will try to quickly sketch them here (and then I'll copy and paste this on the cleanup discussion page for those who are there).
Excellent question. To me, this question should be broadened to: what is the purpose of any 'small' Wikipedia? There are other Wikipedias that don't have any real native speakers (Latin, Old English, Ancient Greek -- the latter in the Incubator), there are Wikipedias with very few active contributors (the last 100 in the List of Wikipedias probably fall in this category), there are Wikipedias in languages with very few speakers, sometimes as few as Volapük (cf. Hawaiian, Inupiaq). It is true that all Volapük speakers can speak and read other languages (in fact, Volapük is never their best language!). But this is true for many other cases. All dialectal Wikipedias (Nnapulitano, Zeeuws, Võro) have contributors who also speak their standard languages (Italian, Dutch, Estonian) and could use/contribute to the corresponding Wikipedias. All speakers of other constructed languages (Esperanto, Ido, Novial...) can also speak other languages at native level and could use/contribute to the corresponding Wikipedias. All speakers of Catalan also speak Spanish; all speakers of Dutch (where I can speak from personal experience) and, apparently, also of the Scandinavian languages, can speak excellent English, and could use/contribute to the English Wikipedia (many of them do, actually). As you said about Volapük, they don't need their specific projects to learn about the world. They can do that with other projects.
So: Do these projects have a point? What is their goal? As you see, it's not simply a Volapük question. It's actually a question for every Wikipedia in a language for which there is no significant population of monolingual speakers who only have that language as a means to explore the world of ideas. And there already are dozens of such Wikipedias, from Latin to Lombard to Zeeuws to Esperanto to Old English to Volapük to Võro to Hawaiian to Nnapulitano to Limburgish to... What is their purpose? To me: they should define it for themselves. Why? Because the stated purpose of Wikipedia as a project -- the creation of a great free Encyclopedia, a repository of all of human knowledges -- is not attainable to most of them. User communities would have to get to (I guess) at least a hundred dedicated active contributors before a full encyclopedia became a plausible goal. Even with the hundreds of thousands of contributors in en.wp, it took years! So: The goal of these small communities MUST BE DIFFERENT. It cannot be the same as the goal of larger projects like en.wp or de.wp. If this goal -- the creation of a comprehensive encyclopedia, an no other -- is the only acceptable one, then I'm afraid half, probably more than half of the projects in the List of Wikipedias should be closed as soon as possible. Is that so? Aren't there other reasons for Wikipedias to exist?
As you point out in your comments: there is the joy of those who want to create (and use) the resulting Wikipedias! I will use your own words: let the contributors of all those Wikipedias proudly and with joy create articles! For what purpose? For an all-encompassing encyclopedia? Well, no. Maybe for somethign else, for documentation of their cultures, or any other topics they thought interesting... what the goals could be is an interesting question, and I'd love to hear what other small communities (say, 20 active contributors or less) think about that.
In the old-fashioned human way?... Yes, of course. But what if they decide that they also want to do it in other ways? Should this be their decision, or should this be a general decision, to be taken at the inter-Wikipedia level? This is ultimately a question about general policy. It has thus far been the case that every project was awarded as much freedom as possible. That means deciding by themselves what could be good and bad -- even if it involves, say, creating huge amounts of bot-stubs. If these projects should however all have the same goal -- a comprehensive encyclopedia with preferably featured-article-quality contributions -- then perhaps there should be stronger guidelines that prevent other kinds of ideas from getting started. I suggest that this be made a discussion at a higher level. (Do you happen to know what I would have to do to start such a discussion?)
The decision of creating bot-articles was a hard one. I was responsible for it; nobody else on vo.wp should be blamed for this one decision. I maintain that there are good reasons for doing that (beginning with "completeness-of-coverage" and "it's-at-least-a-useful-something", but going further into other aspects of the question); but this is a different question maybe. (By itself, the question of the usefulness of bot-articles should probably be also discussed at a higher level, independent of the specifics of each project. Again, do you happen to know what I would have to do to bring this topic up for general discussion?). Here, since you mention the actual joy of creating articles, I will mention only one more: these languages have speakers who like them, who want to use them. (That's why they're not working mostly on the other wiki's whose language they know well, by the way.) They had never had much for themselves, because their communities are small. Even dead languages like Latin were loved by those who liked its past, not its present: Academics, students, lovers of history... Even a collection of simple stubs -- a "phone directory", as someone once described to me -- is more than the speakers of these languages ever had. (Of course not for Dutch of for the Scandaniavian languages, or for Esperanto, or arguably for Latin; the others, however, really never did.) It's a leap forward in terms of the amount of information available in the languages they love and prefer to use. Isn't that worth something?
But how about the other projects? Aren't they harmed by it? As far as I can see, they are not. There is no big waste of resources, there is no lack of storage space for them, there is no reduction in access time due to vo.wp, nothing I can see. The interwiki question, which is always mentioned, looks like a pretext, since it can be easily solved within each project. (Or perhaps by a general discussion about the uses of interwiki links. But anyway without forcing any project to close or delete articles...)
The only good arguments I've heard in this area are the ones about 'how fair it is' for Volapük to be so high on the table -- when projects with more contributors working hard have fewer pages? No, because I don't think the number of articles judges how good a project is. Is anybody judging a project by how many pictures they've uploaded? No, since Commons made this number immaterial: any project has now 2,000,000+ pictures and media files at their disposition at the moment of its creation. I think the parameter used at the List of Wikipedias -- number of articles -- is simply wrong. Jimbo, if you use it in presentations and talks without mentioning that it is a very, very poor parameter, then you're making an important mistake. It is not! Consider the m:List of Wikipedias by sample of articles: it has a better parameter (which has problems itself, some of which are pointed out on its talk page) and would probably be better. The Hebrew Wikipedia is, in my opinion, better than the Romanian Wikipedia, and at least as good as the Vietnamese Wikipedia; yet it is ranked lower only because it has fewer articles. This ranking is as misleading as it is for Volapük -- if you think that number of articles tells you much about the quality of a Wikipedia. Think of this: the English Wikipedia has now 2,100,000+ articles. A naive reader of the List of Wikipedias could think they are all excellent, FA-quality articles, or at least good articles; but the number of good articles is actually much smaller. As I recall, there were fewer than 100,000 Featured Articles; I'll guess (correct me if I'm wrong) that about half of these 2,100,000+ articles are of substandard quality (in that they wouldn't be accepted for a paper encyclopedia). So if this number -- 2,100,000+ -- is mentioned without qualifications (for PR reasons, etc.), it is, frankly, as misleading as the 100,000 Volapük articles -- since people want to deduce quality from it.
(The real argument in favor of en.wp is, of course, than even 100,000 FA-quality articles are more than there has ever been in an encyclopedia; the 2-million number is not really necessary for someone to say that en.wp has already achieved far more than any other similar endeavor.)
So my thought on this: please use other criteria, and advertise them as well. I'm sure it would be good for WMF, and for public presentations of Wikipedia, if a different ranking, based on different criteria, was presented. This would be more scientific and more appropriate, and the viewers would be happy to see that some obvious problems with the original criterion -- number of articles -- had been addressed and tentatively solved.
I hope my thoughts don't sound offensive -- that wasn't the intention. And I hope you may find them useful. Thanks in advance! --Smeira (talk) 13:08, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Hola amigo Jimbo. Its odd that I haven't contacted you before now but I'd just like to say thankyou and what an inspiration it was for creating wikipedia. A genius idea and the potential of this website is endless which is why I contribute so actively in it so regularly. I think of the 7 year old wikipedia as still in its infancy and given time I can see it developing beyond imagination -I feel it is important to set out something so useful for millions of people around the world. Hey I've now created over 12,000 new articles and counting-more than anybody else I think (except bots) and I've managed to set up several wiki projects like WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers which covers all film actor, director, cinematographer, producer, score composer etc articles on wikipedia (yes amazingly this was missing until April 2007!!) and WikiProject Tibet - but there is so much to do!!!. At present I'm attempting to fill in the gaps on French communes of which there are thousands missing which other small wikipedias have and attempting to draw up a detailed reference for films by year and by country e.g American films of 1936 etc which can be linked in articles and give people quick access to it. I;m doing this by country e.g France, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Bollywood etc by year which gives us a firm base for organizing films on wikipedia -but this will take time to get a detailed and complete resource by country and year. My interests cover a huge range though and I've even been attempting to plough my way through the Fine Arts in Hungary and attempting to get all of the Hungarian sculptors and painters onto wikipedia -a fascinating subject. I even tried to get Charles Matthews interested but to no avail!! Anyway it would be great to discuss some things about this project and your work with you some time. Happy New Year and Best Regards for 2008! Regards. The Bald One ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ Talk? 15:21, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
It might be a better thing to call new elections in the event of vacancies, as any temporary appointment to fill them with candidates who received lower approvals in the last election means to reduce the aggregate approval of the ArbCom. Just a thought. —Whig (talk) 03:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Jimmy - While I respect you, and I do understand the context of this edit here, I do not believe it is actually in your remit, or the AC's remit to do such a thing. While they and you can frequent the place and give gentle encouragement, there would have to be a fine line between, encouraging as a free agent, and doing so on behalf of yourself or the AC. I do not believe it is within your ability, or the AC's ability or ambit, to have any real authority over IRC, or any off wiki social communications construct. I just wanted to clear that up, that is that no new policy like this (and it is policy creation) should have been attempted, and should perhaps the statement be withdrawn in part by you. Best regards, and I hope everything is well, Mercury 14:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm the Chair of the Wikimedia Group Contacts, which basically means that I'm in charge :-) IRC policy, channel maintenance, etc. take much of my time here. Theoretically I should be the ranking chanop in every IRC channel, but it rarely works out that way until I find that I need it now. :-)
Anyway (@LHvU:) Jimbo's "policy" edit [29], and the perceived policy shift are no part of the Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/IRC RfAr case. I would not think it wise to draw policy setting measures into an RfAr case: ArbCom does not set new policy, nor is it very well equipped to judge it. It accepts policy "as is". If Arbs think otherwise, I suppose they would better handle the matter with Jimbo on the ArbCom mailing list or any such venue that doesn't influence the outcome of the IRC RfAr case. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Jim62sch.
User:Videmus Omnia claims to have forwarded you an email from User:Jim62sch where Jim apparently threatened to report his editing to his employer, the U.S. Army. VO claims that you said this was ban-worthy behavior. Is this correct?
Jim seems to maintain that its his prerogative as a taxpayer. Cool Hand Luke 01:49, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Personally speaking, I strongly recommend you that please kindly review the edit history (from last year) of User:Kafziel who is an administrator, and seriously evaluate if he is really suitable for holding the status being an administrator. I wish you could carefully detect his history and make your own decision by your experience. I think that it is quite easy to find out by yourself so I am not going to point out what the specific problems are like language and power abuse or others. From my personal opinion, I don't think he is a good administrator and I will be happy to see if you really take an action towards this matter. PS: At the moment luckily I neither blocked nor warned by him. Thanks! User Coloane from Macau, China. Coloane (talk) 13:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I wanted to draw your attention to the GDS talk where I left a message about a sense of justice. I've changed the header again, I want you thoughts on it. Regards, Mercury 20:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
It is obvious you are the founder of Wiki, but what abilities do you posess on here? Are you an admin, bueracrat, checkuser, adopter, adoptee, etc? If none of the above, I would love to nominate you for RFA. LOL :D. Trevor "Tinkleheimer" Haworth 20:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
There's a little debate at WP:NFCC about the new March 28 resolution. The problem seems to be about whether this applies to Wikipedia or not, due to the way the licensing policy is worded or something like that. I'm just wondering if you could clarify this and clear up some confusion for us? .:Alex:. 10:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Season Greetings
Hi,I too wish you a happy new year.Agent008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agent008 (talk • contribs) 18:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello. I am interested in the wiki search engine and wanted an update as to where the project might be located. Thank you. 63.3.15.130 (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, I've been editing English wikipedia for about two years now and a month ago I decided to participate more actively in the Spanish wiki. I don't know if you are aware of what is going on in all the other projects but I encountered a lot more censorship in that part of wikipedia. The five pillars tend to lag too. I usually edit articles related to Colombia.
They also have this system of voting that only users with 100+ edits and a month old user are allowed to vote on articles. I think is demoralizing for new users.. and I also felt overpowered even though I've been editing wikipedia for two years..
The referencing in the Spanish wiki is designed to accept links to organizations and blogs as long as these are referenced to a main source.. which in turn uses blogs and .org dubious organizations that might be of personal affiliation and are under a free license.
Good articles and featured articles lack a lot of information, referencing and citations.. neutrality is very hard to achieve since the rules lag and the "clicks" impose their views, specially on political issues.
This website for example http://www.aporrea.org/ supports the Bolivarian Revolution and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is apparently used widely as a source for many articles not related to it, but it has news some of them claim has citations.. but then some others are just blatant own creations... The NPOV policy in Spanish supports claims that all points of view are needed, even if it contains documents like in this case probably published on behalf of the FARC, a terrorist organization, and these are used as sources under a free license.
I was wondering if you can tell me where to go in this case, who is in charge of the Spanish wiki in the same way as you are in the English wiki... everything there is also written on behalf of what you have said in certain policies, but some other areas were achieved by consensus and differ from what I think is the essence of wikipedia.
--Zer0~Gravity (Roger - Out) 23:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)