Wikipedia is a wiki. In the preceding sentence, the word Wikipedia is a hyponym of the word wiki, and the word wiki is a hypernym of the word Wikipedia. There are many wikis, but not every wiki is Wikipedia.
Sometimes people confuse the two words and refer to Wikipedia incorrectly as Wiki. Conversely, sometimes people refer to a wiki (in the general sense) as a Wikipedia. A trademark used as its hypernym can become a generic trademark. My Google search for "wikipedia of” reported about 88,000 results, of which I selected the following 10 examples from the top 30.
You might wish to take steps to prevent further confusion between the words Wikipedia and wiki. —Wavelength (talk) 21:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC) I just want to make clear that it was not I who added the image to this talk page. —Wavelength (talk) 06:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Here are some additional points.
I prefer to avoid ambiguity, when I can reasonably do so. –Wavelength (talk) 17:20, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I just stumbled onto a curious example for that quality debate. Our article on diabetic neuropathy has had a curious sentence about "glucojasinogen", a term with which I'm unacquainted. I noticed that it's unsourced, but that's alright, we actually use the phrase
As you see, it's actually sourced, word for word, to an article, nay, two articles, by two nonoverlapping sets of authors, one in Res Pharm Sci and one in the International Journal of Health Research. (These are from Google Scholar [3]; the second has slight differences at the beginning). First from 2010, second from 2008. Here's the original edit (the sole contribution of an IP) from October 2007. [4]
Truly, Wikipedia's greatest long-term challenge on accuracy will be to avoid breathing its own exhaust as it becomes the ubiquitous go-to reference of the world. But we have a choice - we can hoot and holler about Wikipedia with great alarm, or we can all just have a laugh and recognize that everyone - Wikipedia and journal readers alike - needs to do a little critical thinking about what they read, and then, please, edit! ;) Wnt (talk) 19:09, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Because the discussion above may be confusing to some readers, let me try to describe what has happened here. There is no such term as "glucojasinogen". It was added to the article in a vandalism edit in 2007, which was not detected at the time. The two "sources" are articles in obscure medical journals that contain introductory material directly plagiarized from Wikipedia. Those "sources" were never actually cited in the article, though. Looie496 (talk) 19:08, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia can have show-or-hide boxes for information of various types: (1a) violent text, (1b) violent images, (2a) horrifying text, (2b) horrifying images, (3a) irreverent text, (3b) irreverent images, (4a) sexual text, (4b) sexual images, (5a) spoiler text, and (5b) spoiler images. The information can be hidden by default when a page is loaded. One challenge is in defining the boundaries of each type of information, in effect, which texts or images are included in each type and which are excluded. —Wavelength (talk) 17:00, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Warning labels contribute to informed consent by users who accept the content, and to informed rejection by those who do not. —Wavelength (talk) 20:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC) and 00:13, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo,
Because this issue is somewhat related to the paid-editing issues in which you have shown interest, you might be interested in perusing this RfC, in which it is proposed that we "Delete WP:COI/N and WP:COI." Cheers, Ebikeguy (talk) 15:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Procedures to detect verifiable untruths
All joking aside, I am curious about Wikipedia's latest procedures to detect (and remove) verifiable but untrue text, as the problem noted earlier in thread "#Glucojasinogen" about that false medical term. I would say, "Beware medical terms that do not translate into Arabic letters" (!), but there are other terms which Arabic Wikipedia still quotes in Latin letters, which are medically valid terms. As other users have discussed, for many months, "Verifiability and Truth" has already become a goal (and modus operandus) of many current Wikipedians, but perhaps we need to review the status of current guidelines, or essay pages, which help detect misinformation (or clever vandalism), even though it might be traced to journals or other "reliable-looking" sources. Then, at some point, the official policies can be revised to reflect how articles are actually updated. Meanwhile, those procedures would help to show new users why Wikipedia articles are typically much more accurate than many other webpages on the Internet. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia fact checkers conduct research, following references from tertiary sources to secondary sources to primary sources in order to verify that facts presented by secondary and tertiary sources are backed up by primary sources. Fact checkers prevent circular reporting that uses circular references. While original research is not allowed in Wikipedia articles (see Wikipedia:No original research), fact-checking research should be encouraged. --Wbm1058 (talk) 20:57, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi, seems in Germany Staredom in wikipedia is not allowed to exist respectively to be mentionend on the WP metalevel. I assume http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia Aarons Schwartzs essay on Who Writes Wikipedia? clearly states that we have to take into account how to treat our stars and power users. Your feedback for or contra de:Wikipedia:Über den Umgang mit Diven is welcome. Polentario (talk) 20:00, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
you can quote me on this: articles about films, books, videogames, celebrities and so on generally do have educational and informational value, although some don't of course and might as well be deleted. There is nothing about the statement of the Foundation that was meant to imply anything about that sort of question.. — --Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
as some administrators of Russian Wikipedia demand full excluding Anime from Russian Wikipedia as "irrelevant", I have to ask: does relevant "films, books" include anime and manga? (Idot (talk) 06:59, 3 March 2012 (UTC))
I've dug up some stuff before my time on WP, and there were plans for a WYSIWYG editor. Are there still active plans for WYSIWYG editors? Thanks, Agent 78787 talk contribs 15:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
You raise an interesting thought experiment in the thread above. You say
I think this experiment would be useless for the following reason: the best model for a Wikipedia article is my study. Yes. My study tends to get used as a lumber room for all sorts of junk and crap by the rest of my family. OK I am guilty of this too. It piles up over time until it gets so bad and I am so ashamed that I tackle it over a weekend of two, filing stuff, throwing stuff away, pointing the finger of doom at other people in the house and so on. Right now it is in a pretty good state. So if you asked me if my study is tidier than it was six months ago, I would say, definitely yes. But that would not justify the conclusion that my study is continually getting tidier. Far from it. It is already less tidy than it was two weeks ago when I had the purge. In six months time it will be a complete mess. And I put it to you that many Wikipedia articles are just like my study. I follow the article Philosophy closely as a bellwether for the state of philosophy articles generally. Right now it is in a middling state of untidiness. Four years ago it was in a terrible state. Four years before that it was in a better state. The article on Existence is a similar story. From time to time it gets cleaned up, but its whole story is a random walk around mediocrity.
Also, my study is just one room in the house, and other rooms have different patterns of tidiness. My daughter's room is a constant mess, so it would make no sense to ask whether it is more or less tidy than six months ago. Some articles on Wikipedia are like that. E.g. the article Intensional statement. I recently emailed a professor at Syracuse for a second opinion on it. He replied "It is a conceptual mess and should just be off Wikipedia". By contrast, our reception room is regularly cleaned by the cleaner. If you asked whether it is more or less tidy than six months ago, the answer would be 'about the same - pretty tidy'. Many articles on Wikipedia are like that, too. I would say the article Set theory, like many of the mathematics articles, is in reasonably good shape.
So, in reply to your thought experiment, I would say it would not be very useful if my 'rooms' model is true of Wikipedia. A more interesting question would be whether the room model is actually true. Are there certain articles which exhibit a fluctuation around a mediocre mean, like Philosophy and Existence, are there other articles which exhibit very little fluctuation, and are always in a 'good' state, are there yet others which have little fluctuation but which are always 'bad'? And if so, what would explain this? It is my impression that philosophy, economics and literature articles, and humanities articles generally, tend to fluctuate around mediocre or bad. Is that true? How would we test this?
As I start, I am thinking of writing a paper about the Philosophy article itself. This would be a point by point consideration of all the errors in the article as at Feb 17 2012, followed by some speculation about why the errors are there. How did they get there? Who put them in? Why weren't they picked up? That sort of thing.
I hope this is useful. Quisquiliae (talk) 08:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Jimbo, I also began running the comparison test, you suggested earlier, to compare with 1, 2 or 5 years ago, for the current quality of 10 Special:Random articles (on the way to checking 100 articles). The quality improvement was amazing. One article, now fairly good, began as the old one-liner sentence in 2004, where we rarely see new articles now of just one line. Another article began with full non-footnoted text, but it had major text deleted, last year, about global warming. It was interesting to see how those articles by 2011 had few spelling errors, and most sources were ref-tag footnotes (formatted like "[1]") as typical. I also noted the off-topic or unsourced text was removed in newer versions of those articles. Hence, the content was "fixed for wp:UNDUE weight" along with expansion and grammar. I am glad you took time to suggest those comparisons, and wonder what some other editors found. -Wikid77 15:44, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
Curious about your opinion about articles revealing all the key plot elements of a book and how it ends, such as in The_Hunger_Games#Plot. Are people less likely to buy a book if they know everything about it? Does it not ruin the surprise and thus enjoyment for those that would later read it? Is there any encyclopedic reason to reveal that information instead of a brief overview of what the book is about? Dream Focus 08:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
If someone looks up an encyclopedia article on a book or film they have not yet read or seen, then that is their problem, really. Same with those who Tivo television shows; if they go looking on popular entertainment websites before they get around to watching what most of the country has already seen, that's their fault. Tarc (talk) 17:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Now I am not super computer savvy but I'm under the impression, which I obtained many years ago, that hosting images costs vastly more than hosting simple text. So when I see something like this, as a donator, I get quite upset. Images don't need to be something that every single article needs. Even a strict or corporatist notability requirement doesn't seem to deter hundreds of relatively unknown bands from making pages full of images. Their only claim to legitimacy seems to be having a few lines about them in different language wikis which I assumed they google translated or being indie/vegan - which to me is a rabid cultish sub-culture that is detrimental to the project as a whole(both inclusion and deletion). I see this as a big problem and my suggestion is to make images a privilege especially for those "15 minutes of fame" articles. Privileges to post an image should either be thru a paid service or certain amount of acclaim. I see mindless deletion of articles as stupid as mindless inclusion of images to this encyclopedia.24.4.67.101 (talk) 09:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
I haven't seen his name here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.11.71.124 (talk) 04:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
For now though, a specific question is, would you be inclined to comment at Wikipedia talk:IRC/wikipedia-en-help? Discussion there concerns a perceived need for the live IRC channel "en-help" to be explicitly controlled by the WP community, as opposed to the group who run it, vs. a view that "it ain't broke so don't fix it" (though I don't mean that to be a demeaning characterisation); it was started by Chzz (talk · contribs), who has withdrawn from WP until en-help's relationship with WP is clearly defined, with the WP community in control (that's how I understand it: look at his current talk page). An issue here is that "en-help" is effectively advertised from within WP, for example in numerous, heavily-used "help" templates, even though it seems not to be part of, or controlled from within, WP. Discussion has pretty much ground to a halt, with strong emotions being expressed, and I'm hopeful that a clear contribution from you might give it direction.
The quickest way for me to explain what I mean by "NPP proposal" is to point you to the lead article in this September 2011 edition of The Signpost, which refers to "a heated altercation between English Wikipedia community members and MediaWiki sysadmins". It seems to me that all of these issues are related, indicating a worrying disjuncture between the skills and experience of the voluntary WP community, who are contributing freely to a free encyclopedia, and have their own, empirical understanding of "what really makes WP tick", and the perhaps inevitably more business-minded plans of the WMF; and, I'd like to hear your views on that.
Short of me starting out on a whole new explanation, could I ask you to have another look at the original thread on your talk page (its final form is here, though it sounds like you already found it)? It did grow rather long, but it includes lots of diffs and other links which I would only repeat if I started again here – but feel free to ask for further clarification…? If I can't supply it, I'm sure there are people who can.
I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I were to say that we're talking here about some fundamental issues for the future of WP, as it has to do with satisfaction among WP editors new and old, and new article creation; and, apart from anything else, I imagine that you'll know plenty more about what's gone on and what's being planned than I can, so I'd appreciate your input. Especially since, as far as I am aware, no-one from WMF was inclined to contribute on your talk page in your absence. Thanks for your time. Nortonius (talk) 16:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Jimbo always listens to me. It's why he's such an awesome guy. The most interesting man in the world (talk) 02:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I may of tagged it to soon but I felt an AFD was warranted here is the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_endorsed_by_Jennifer_Lopez. Thanks TucsonDavidU.S.A. 07:03, 5 March 2012 (UTC),
Never mind don't want to seem like I'm trying to swing the vote on it. TucsonDavidU.S.A. 07:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Rrecent southwest durham blog — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.80.226.88 (talk) 08:43, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
How can I find out how many categories there are in Commons? How can I find out how many categories there are in English Wikipedia?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
Yay database reports! --MZMcBride (talk) 05:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
Is there any chance we can have a developer look at Niabot's cluster search proposal, please? JN466 00:15, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
Sir, I thought you might want to see this. It popped up on the India Mailing list. Pure Fiction. Do let me know what you think. -_Rsrikanth05 (talk) 05:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
MY sole intention of bringing this up here was to highlight the mud slinging done against a respected, reputed syspo, WifiOne. I do not understand why mine and Tinu Cherian's twitter accounts keep getting dragged in. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
I don't know if it's been discussed before (probably has), but do you think it will ever get to a billion articles? Can we maintain enough editors to maintain a billion articles? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
{{Template:Track_listing/sandbox6
| headline = Album of Songs | titlewidth=120px | title1=Song 1 | writer1=John Doe Writer | length1=3:04 | title2=Song 2 | writer2=Jane Doe Writer | length2=3:05 | title3=Song 3 | writer3=Johann Doe Writer | length3=3:10 | addtotal=Total:
}}
I just posted to the talk page of the article with some edit requests from someone at the organization. The edits seem to be reasonable and the person who contacted me seems very interested in doing the right thing, and so I hope some kind people will help them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I have prepared a list of items which I recommend for inclusion in every Wikipedian’s watchlist, so that everyone can follow important discussions and avoid disappointment. I might just as well have titled this section “Essential watchlist” or “Watchlist essentials” or “Watchlist recommendations”. To this list can be added entries from Wikipedia:Database reports/Most-watched users. Someone recently expressed disappointment at not being notified of SOPA and the blackout discussion, but I was informed because I had this talk page on my watchlist. I have not started a page called Wikipedia:Strategic watchlist, because consensus for its contents might be difficult to achieve.
Even if an editor seldom or never visits a particular page on that list, there might be an occasional opportunity for that editor to be helped or to help another editor because of a particular discussion. As always, section headings that are both brief and informative help an editor to decide whether to visit the discussion from his or her watchlist. If I see a section heading “Question” or “Arbitrary break” on my watchlist, I am usually not much motivated to click to find out whether the discussion is of much interest to me. —Wavelength (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC) and 22:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
[[8]] Kittybrewster ☎ 10:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
The question has finally been answered in a reliable source:
Jon Davies, chief executive of Wikimedia UK, who owns Wikipedia, said the site would welcome any MPs who chose to become editors.— The Telegraph, 9 March 2012
Jon Davies, chief executive of Wikimedia UK, who owns Wikipedia, said the site would welcome any MPs who chose to become editors.
Editors, please make your way to the article Wikipedia, and REMEMBER: verifiability, not truth. (Sorry, Jimbo, the article didn't mention you at all.) Happy editing! --JN466 09:56, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, as I seem to have just missed your monthly check-in on Commons (judging by edits :) ) I'm flagging a new post (from me) on your Commons talk page. cheers, Rd232 talk 23:22, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
Jimbo, I was just moved to say the following on the COI RfC:
I hope you will drop by and give us your opinion, and perhaps generate some attention for this... it seems as if people do not know how badly COI is abused. Be——Critical 02:13, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)
As an editor since 2009 I would like to make this observation as to one of the reasons we might be losing new editors. Not the only reason by any means but one.
I created this article not one half hour ago. Thomas Weston (Merchant Adventurer entrepreneur) and a look at the timestamps will show that within FIFTEEN MINUTES I got a notice of a speedy deletion and an advisement by User talk:Dengero to use Sandbox first which is NOT in the Guideline Wikipedia:Your first article which CLEARLY STATES: In the search box near the top right of a page, type the title of the new article, then click Go. If the Search page reports "You may create the page" followed by the article name in red, then you can click the red article name to start editing the article. This is ridiculous by any standards. Mugginsx (talk) 15:33, 10 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your concern and help about the state of those articles. The situation has improved very slightly as a result. Please do clearly make it known that you would like some appropriate work on them as there still are several serious problems. Perhaps at an appropriate adminstrator's noticeboard you could recruit an appropriate trusted person to "get it right". Chrisrus (talk) 14:57, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I think that the idea would fly, but I would welcome your input in any event. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Religion#Activity, I have proposed as a possible incentive in an article improvement "contest" the opportunity to write an article in an offsite page, which might then be used as an external link in some articles here. I know that there are any number of potential problems with doing so, but think that if properly done it might also stimulate article development and allow some of our better informed editors to maybe write some pieces with information which might be useful to newcomers to a topic, but might not necessarily be appropriate for encyclopedia articles. Anyway, if you or the lurkers here want to comment about the idea, including ways to ensure that it doesn't descend into uselessness, I would welcome any input any of you might have. John Carter (talk) 21:33, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you are aware, but the Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) has had some heated editing, and previously some discussion on the talk page (quote, "Robert Lawton: Those who follow the rules don't get noticed. 3 February at 14:31 · 5 Likes: Jeff Taylor, New Media Strategies — Adam Harris Berkowitz, NYU — Fred Bauder, Crestone, Colorado [who should know better] — Kris Gallagher, Northwestern University — John Cass [one of the admins of the group], Boston, Massachusetts") as well as on my own talk page (quote "you'll need to change Jimbo's mind and also get WP:COI changed", Silver Seren, founder of WP:CO-OP, CTRL+F on the page)
The article paints the group in an overwhelmingly positive light with no mention of that goal, using, surprise surprise, a lot of quotes from similar and sometimes even the same PR outlets involved in running the group.
It has been directly edited by Public Relations advocates such as and employees to try influence Wikipedia policy[12], and WP:PAIDWATCH has come under attack by the same employees[13] now who are trying to shut down the independent watchdog project of WP:PAIDWATCH (it used to be to directly discourage all WP:COI editing, now it exists just to try monitor the activities of corporate representatives to ensure they stay within the WP:COI policy rather than advocating its change to better suit Corporate Representatives, as the founders of WP:CO-OP have) and the founder has been threatened with being blocked by an administrator[14] for mentioning that those attempting to get the project deleted are also corporate representatives, with which direct attempts to influence policy seems to be in violation of WP:COI?
Since other than WP:PAIDWATCH you are pretty much the only person associated with Wikipedia or WMF that seems to be actually standing up against this kind of activity, your input could be a good thing at this point as it looks like the corporate representatives have some influential individuals on their side to help mould policy to better suit them as they wish it... They appear to be attempting to create a chilling effect on discussion with that threat against Herostratus (and I was also targeted for harassment previously after my posts on the Corporate Representatives page and PAIDWATCH, after I added Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Websense,_Inc. to the PAIDWATCH wikiproject at 9:23[15], "bob rayner" arrived at 9:58[16] along with "Bilby" at 11:13[17] to talk:Websense to defend the companies' paid PR sockpuppeting — both whom are not members of wp:PAIDWATCH, but apparently founding members (the 5th and 7th respectively) of the previously mentioned Wikiproject working with the Corporate Representatives PR group, which most of them - as stated on the group itself (as you've probably seen) - are also members of themselves. After I edited in your reply to the group, speaking as the public representative for Wikipedia, I found that the very next edit after being reverted was bringing up a completely unrelated argument elsewhere as "ammunition" to get me, as an "enemy" of the group, blocked)
I'm not going to get involved in an argument with any of the people since like Herostratus, I've been warned that if I do I could be blocked too - so yeah, I thought you should know, and this should be public and transparent. --Mistress Selina Kyle (Α⇔Ω ¦ ⇒✉) 09:53, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
We need to fight to the end to do everything possible to keep paid corporate hacks off this website...--MONGO 11:04, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
In the medicine "not having a COI" is not equivalent to "listing your conflicts of interest". It is a huge issue in the medical literature with excellent evidence that COI even if listed has a dramatic effect on the conclusions made based on the data provided. We need to prevent as much as possible COI here. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:46, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I found links to these reports at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions#News items, March 11, 2011 (permanent link here).
The reports say that the domain name registrar of the Wikimedia Foundation has changed from Go Daddy to MarkMonitor. —Wavelength (talk) 16:46, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
That move was... interesting. I think a regular ol' AfD might have been more effective. But I support the move in principle. Special interests are doing their damnedest to take over Wikipedia. Even the pool of admins is changing fairly rapidly in ways that do not bode well. I appreciate your willingness to not simply shut up and let it happen. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 20:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
We have Wikipedia:WikiProject Cooperation which those on the Facebook page could direct effort to. I'm not sure how many of those in the Facebook group have Wikipedia accounts, but that, in itself, would be a start to responsible involvement. User:Fred Bauder Talk 19:01, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi! Please read this proposal on Meta-wiki (about content of www.wikimedia.org portal). Your participation in the discussion would be very important because this portal is a "face" of Wikimedia World. Thanks before ;)--Kaganer (talk) 00:12, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi from Bangkok able Tips wide Muay Thai — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.214.133.11 (talk) 05:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I'm sure you've seen the Cary Sherman piece in the NYT. I was discussing it on Slashdot and someone suggested you ought to write a quick response to the NYT piece, specifically the implicit charge that Wikipedians were 'misled' over SOPA/PIPA. As the commenter says on Slashdot, they'd probably publish it. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Hey i am sam from pakistan i am new to this board hope i will particapte alot here sorry for bad english . :) Peace — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.214.169.123 (talk) 12:16, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
User Khazar left Wikipedia 70 DYK facts about people who fight for Human rights. I turn there when I think I have "problems" because they seem smaller in comparison. He left the project, writing "I don't take the accusation as lightly as you do. I regularly engage with and learn from people who have concerns about my editing. But that editor didn't talk to me about close paraphrasing, but started posting on article pages, user pages, and project pages that my Wikipedia work consisted entirely of "clear as daylight" serial plagiarism." I am sure that the well intended quest for less close paraphrasing could be pursued with more respect for every editor as a person. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:29, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
The hijacking of Wikipedia by groups is horrifying to us all.
Forgive me if I'm being presumptuous, but to you, this must be very personal. If I were in your shoes, it would be breaking my heart, and making me very angry too.
If this is what you're going through, I want to acknowledge your feelings. I hope you can find some comfort in knowing that you have the support of millions of us who are on your side. We will work together to protect our dear project. Best wishes, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:54, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Not just at the door but everywhere: To quote from Pogo (comic strip), "We have met the enemy and he is us" because the groups pushing article contents are all around, as long-term registered users and admins. Plus, the issue is not just corporate slanting. Instead, there have been groups who refused to allow text to note, "Hurricane Katrina travelled up the entire state of Mississippi" and refused, "Coastal towns in Mississippi flooded 32 feet (10 m) deep" while omitting the fact, "Downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter did not flood". In fact, the flood waters in Alabama (waves 23 ft or 7 m) were higher than most in New Orleans, but the waters receded the same day, rather than remain 3 ft (1 m) deep for weeks. In reality, casino barges in Biloxi floated onto the roof of 2-storey hotels, and buildings were gutted at the 3rd storey, with seawaves 40 feet (12 m) high. Think about the worst tsunami in recent times and multiply by 10x, but there were no touristy photos because it was raining wet sand and debris as the towns were submerged. Inland emergency command centers, at 30 feet (9 m) elevation in Mississippi, flooded 2 feet deep inside, and the flood pushed boats and refrigerators 6–12 miles (10–19 km) inland. However, some users did not want "Hurricane Katrina" to mention any of these facts in the intro. That slanting was not a problem of paid-editors as pushing a corporate spin. Hence, in general, consider POV-pushing to be a system-wide problem, but it happens in relatively few cases, so a WikiProject could investigate problems and re-balance the text. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:50/14:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
This seems like honest people allowing baddies into a party with the plan of keeping an eye on them, fixing what they break, prosecuting them, booting them after they're caught, and keeping the door open for more.*Keeping the door open results is a waste keystrokes on repair, investigations, other backroom stuff, etc. Plus, we get overwhelmed in the end, and lose control of quality, and Wikipedia itself.Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:55, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Thank you all for shedding light. I'm not sure if I should be more hopeful now. But, it does sound like it can be managed if we try hard. Sorry to clog up Jimbo's page. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 01:53, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
In June 2010, WMF Executive Director Sue Gardner was quoted in a news story as saying "Wikipedia has a long-held, zero-tolerance policy towards pedophilia or pedophilia advocacy and child pornography. The Wikimedia community is vigilant about identifying and deleting any such material. Any allegations to the contrary are outrageous and false". Shortly after this, META:Pedophilia was created on META which attempted to document that policy (WP:CHILDPROTECT already existed here). That page was stable from July 2010 until December 2011 (when the language was changed to reflect the policy here) and again until a few days ago.
A user on Commons was blocked on 7 March 2012 when it was discovered that they had been incarcerated for distribution of child pornography. They were unblocked by User:Dcoetzee, who is an admin on Commons, and a prolonged discussion has ensued. In response to the suggestion that there is no policy on Commons which would apply to advocates of paedophilia, I offered the META:Pedophilia policy. I was surprised when told that it had been marked as a draft policy and removed the "draft" template, as Gardner's statement makes it quite clear that this is policy. This prompted some subsequent edits with the current situation being that META admin User:Nemo bis changed the policy to "none" and fully-protected the page. I think this is a clear abuse of the tools, but things seem to work a little differently on META.
I approached someone from the WMF to intervene in the discussion on Commons, but they did not. The discussion has progressed to the point where users have been blocked on Commons for fairly innocuous comments by Commons admins who seem opposed to a Commons equivalent of WP:CHILDPROTECT. The user who was originally blocked for paedophilia advocacy is indef blocked here but remains unblocked on Commons. Your previous statements on this topic were quite clear. I am obviously not asking you to get involved in the current Commons case, but is there anything you can do about the situation with META policy? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:24, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be handled by WMF legal? I don't know about anyone else, but I make a lousy Thomas Putnam. --FormerIP (talk) 19:59, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
(←) To refocus here (maybe just changing the subject), I do not think we ought to ban or block a user who was convicted of say, a drink-driving offence. And users who speak to address issues such as these or the more vexed one concerning child-protection policy ought not to be accused of being enablers or facilitors, that does not help, if it is hyperbolic. 2pennies NewbyG ( talk) 21:17, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I have raised issues relating to your comments on your talk page here at this thread on Commons. JW, it is important that editors are fully aware of what the status quo is, and your comments to editors on this talk page are misleading. As I state at that thread, it is disappointing that you won't come to Commons to help to answer these questions. So I am inviting you, and am requesting you, to come to Commons and discuss this with us at the relevant forum; your enwp talk page is not the appropriate forum, and surely you know that. Russavia ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) 12:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
As soon that we started this debate under the premise that someone charged for possession of child pornography has no right to participate inside this project, even if he does not advocate it on any of our projects. As far as i can see he had nothing compared to a fair trial (no proof, no public conclusion, but hanged). Instead all what was given where past events, even it is still not clear if he even is the same person. At least we should consider to remove the slogan
Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
from the main page, since even if we would append ", that does not vandalize or instrument it for his own purpose" wouldn't be true at all. --Niabot (talk) 21:30, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
If he or the WMF wants to impose it by fiat (as is their right), then I'm perfectly fine with that. This has gone on for more than long enough. I spend my waking hours on WP dealing with issues of children's privacy - mostly through Oversight - and watching Commons right now and how policy is being watered down by people with their own agendas is just so frustrating. Seriously.I'm a Commons admin and have been there for years now, but I really don't want to set foot in the place anymore. It's utterly out of control at this point.Alison Today, 7:08pm
A local firefighter was recently investigated for "misuse of offical resources": while off-duty, he'd picked up a woman in a bar, taken her back to the firehouse, and had sex with her. He also made some nude photos of her posed on one of the firetrucks and sent copies to her.
During the investigation, it was discovered that the woman was 17 years old rather than the 21 she claimed, and had entered the bar using a fake ID. The firefighter is now facing charges for creation, possession, and distribution of child pornography, and unless his lawyer can get a plea bargain, he's likely to be convicted.
Moral of the story: "possession of child pornography" is not the clear-cut situation it sounds like. I've talked to someone who does forensics on suspected child pornography for a police department, and the vast majority of the stuff that crosses his desk features people in their late teens, most of it created with the enthusiastic cooperation of the subject. --Carnildo (talk) 22:22, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Would we allow someone who had served a sentence for murder to edit Wikipedia? What about cannibalism? Prostitution? Rape? How about someone who had been convicted of hacking or counterfeiting? Would we allow a former member of the Nazi SS or someone who'd been involved in torture? What about abortionists? Illegal immigrants? In other words, once you start excluding people for reasons to do with their lives off-wiki, where do you stop? It feels like the start of a very slippery slope to exclude people for reasons of moral disapproval, rather than because of anything they've actually done on-wiki.
On a related issue, I note that WP:CHILDPROTECT refers only to actions that people take on-wiki or in relation to Wikipedia, and is silent about entirely off-wiki actions. If that is the letter of the policy then on what basis does off-wiki activity, especially if it's past off-wiki activity, fall under the scope of the policy? If it is intended to be both retrospective and to cover off-wiki activity then it needs to say so explicitly. Prioryman (talk) 23:11, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Just to briefly reiterate my position in this thread: when the English Wikipedia policy was enacted, I opposed the provision that users who self-identified as pedophiles should be blocked, and I also oppose it on Commons. A pedophile is defined as a person who is sexually attracted to minors, and responsible, ethical pedophiles do not act on these desires, but instead obey the law and our policies. I do not believe the evidence at this time demonstrates that Beta M is a plausible threat to child users, even incorporating off-wiki evidence. I believe the difference in consensus between Commons and enwiki reflects more cultural differences due to a larger proportion of European users rather than a failing of the project. If the Foundation chooses to override consensus I'll accept their decision and leave the matter be, but I hope they'll engage with the community on the matter. Dcoetzee 23:57, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
This is getting bonkers. Although we should never be complacent, Wikipedia is unlikely to represent great pickings for someone who wants to groom children. Although I would like to make it perfectly clear that it is not something I have thought about particularly deeply, if I wanted to find a child to abuse on the Internet, I think I would not target a site where it is not easy to be sure of anyone's age or whether they are sufficiently local to be worth bothering with, and where there is an active community of adults all around all the time.
With reference to our current lynchee, I also think I would pick a username that could not be easily linked to any of my past Internet activities.
With great emphasis, I do not think we should be complacent. We should develop and maintain proper and adequate policies and procedures, which we could easily have done by now if we had put in 10% the effort we have dedicated to pointless and dangerous drama. FormerIP (talk) 02:26, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
NYTimes reports that the 2010 edition of Britannica will be the last.[29]. The 2010 edition only sold 8,000 copies and accounted for less than 1% of the company's revenue. It isn't clear to me from the article whether the EB website will stop being updated - it has about half a million subscribers at $70 a year and accounts for 15% of the company's revenue. 85% of the company's revenue now comes from publishing curricula for schools. GabrielF (talk) 23:06, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
Although he had warm words for his erstwhile colleagues, former Britannica.com editor Charlie Madigan blasted the corporate management of the venerable institution for what he saw as their questionable ethics and narrow, profit-driven focus in recent years. Calling the abandonment of its print edition "inevitable", he expressed his disenchantment with the enterprise and his involvement with it: "I had high hopes for the idea of giving away knowledge. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what it was about. It was all about monetizing information and selling the Britannica brand."
The Wikimedia Foundation can reach out to retirees in retirement homes and to patients in hospitals for assistance in editing Wikipedia. Many retirees and invalids have large amounts of time, knowledge, and expertise, and a continuing desire to be contributing to society. However, I suspect that many of them, having been raised in the first half of the twentieth century, have a very different set of ethics than those of people born in the last half, and that they would have a low threshold of tolerance for some of the ethical standards of Wikipedia. I am referring to standards of content and standards of behavior.
Their involvement with Wikipedia can offset, to some degree, the influence of corporate editors. They (retirees and invalids) would likely find Wikipedia a more welcoming environment, if its standards were more compatible with their ethics (that is to say, the ethics of retirees and invalids). Otherwise, corporate editors might claim that Wikipedia is a "failed project" in need of a "management change" according to their standard of business ethics (that is to say, the business ethics standards of corporate editors). —Wavelength (talk) 19:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC) and 00:29, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
I propose Category:Better Business Bureau members by year (red link now), including Category:Better Business Bureau members in 2012 (red link now). Knowing whether a particular business is or has been a member of the Better Business Bureau can help a reader to evaluate the contents and the editing history of an article about that business. (I have posted this message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Business.) —Wavelength (talk) 19:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC) I have now read most of the article "Better Business Bureau", and I realize that a business’s BBB rating seems to be more indicative of its business ethics than its BBB membership status is, but even that might be difficult to use for categories. —Wavelength (talk) 20:24, 14 March 2012 (UTC) and 16:28, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
The online edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica is free for one week, and here is a link to its article about Wikipedia.
—Wavelength (talk) 23:20, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
I decided to post here after seeing your indirect invitation to edit the page, and also after seeing the comment above about Encyclopedia Britannica, shouldn't Wikipedia strive to be a better encyclopedia?
You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Big_Bang_Theory_(disambiguation)#Primary_Topic_RFC.
70.27.12.150 (talk) 04:32, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
This source says that there are 7 paid editors with administrative privileges? I just can't believe that, at least you will not be telling lies, is it so? NEVER is the answer, I think so. Dipankan says.. ("Be bold and edit!") 11:17, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
An interesting read about National Public Radio's updated journalism policy. Interesting how it compares to our own NPOV approach:
Of course, they do investigative 'original research' and we just 'report the reports', but it makes for a particular contrast in juxtaposition with our heated 'verifiability not truth' debate. We do seem to have a kinship with them along WP:WEIGHT lines. Just thought I'd share. Cheers, Ocaasi t | c 20:06, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Does anyone know if the drop in the Alexa search traffic chart (the percentage of site visits from search engines) for Wikipedia from around 38% to 25% around March 6 have any importance?[30] Jesanj (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
'Your recent reverts to this article were in line with your past POV pushing behavior. This has to stop. The statements you removed were neither promotional nor inaccurate, and were both uncontroversial and easily sourced. I know you hate Naveen Jain - but you should go start a blog about him or something, and not use Wikipedia in this way.' [31] [32]
Leave me alone, follow our behavioral policies and guidelines, or make a case in a proper noticeboard if your truly believe the harassment you repeatedly target at me. --Ronz (talk) 17:26, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for finding the Space.com source. It was the date that I tried multiple times to verify and could not. I used the archived news feature of Google to look, but failed to find the older date. Given the page protection expiring and yet another possible Intelius ipo, I like to be cautious and closely follow WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:SOAP. --Ronz (talk) 18:00, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
This article seems important enough for every Wikipedian to read.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:47, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Wavelength, thank you for troubling to post the link to a very interesting piece. You might consider contributing to the Utah Data Center article. Writegeist (talk) 22:25, 16 March 2012 (UTC) (Adding) And you might find this review of Bamford's book useful. Writegeist (talk) 22:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Do you support the use of tracking cookies on Wikipedia?Smallman12q (talk) 20:24, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
How to ban a Steward, Administrators, and editors who collude and severely violate Conflict of Interest rules with their POV
I tried to raise this issue in Teahouse follow-up, and was referred to the dispute resolution noticeboard Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard. The issue title was changed to Circumcision, but was shut off (discussion closed ) by the same Steward, Administrator, and editor cited in the complaint. Discussion closed! My guess is that's the power of a bad Steward. Circumcision is not the primary issue, though it serves to highlight the horrible extent and harm of the problem.
I re entered the complaint at the Teahouse. How to ban a Steward, Administrators, and editors who collude and severely violate Conflict of Interest rules with their POV.
See User:Healthnet11/dispute for the substance of the complaint. Isn't there some way to expose the extent of this problem and sanction the violators?Healthnet11 (talk) 20:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)Healthnet11 (talk) 21:03, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Dear Jimmy!
I’m mostly active on Commons but I have not been very active for a few weeks because I have been busy in real live. And today I realize I have been missing a big drama (child protection).
I have just spent a few hours looking through the discussion and I think that much drama and frustration could be avoided if things are done better.
I will not make a long list of who said or did what and who is to blame etc. I will just mention a few things I think could make things easier in the future.
I think that better information about what WMF wants would be helpful. I’m sure that most users is willing to do as you and WMF wants if we know what it is (and perhaps also why).
So if things are global it would be better to put it on meta and not “just” en-wiki. It is a waste of time to discuss something on Commons or elsewhere if it can’t really be discussed. There is also a risk that the discussion comes to the wrong conclusion.
If something needs to be fixed then perhaps a new policy or a chance of policy etc. is better than an office action. If things need to go fast then the solution could be an office action + a new policy or a change. That way we can all see how it should be and we do not risk policies do not match what WMF wants.
I do not expect you to do big changes today or tomorrow. I just hope this notice may inspire you and/or other users from WMF and the office.
Happy editing to you and all users reading this :-) --MGA73 (talk) 21:38, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Slon02 (talk • contribs) 22:42, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
You are the king of Wikipedia! Web+TV+3=WebTV3! (talk) 20:15, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
User:BePoWiki, self pronounced to be the official account of the Bell Pottinger group, popped up at wp:UAA as a wp:ROLE account. As you where directly involved in this I though you might have some advice how to handle this. Yoenit (talk) 10:52, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
I have just finished a discussion with some generous folks at HighBeam Research--an online, pay-for-use search engine for newspapers, magazines, academic journals, newswires, trade magazines and encyclopedias. The site has access to over 80 million articles from 6,500 publications, most of which are not available for free elsewhere on the internet. Aside from a free 7-day trial (credit card required), access to HighBeam costs $30 per month or $200 per year for the first year and $300 for subsequent years.
But...as of yesterday, HighBeam has agreed to give free, full-access, 1-year accounts for numerous Wikipedia editors to use, at the discretion of the community. They do not expect there to be a problem with the number of these free accounts; however, the plan is for editors to have a minimum 1 year-old account with 1000 edits in order to qualify.
This is a proposal/announcement of the project not the signup process, which should begin in early April and will be widely publicized. Details about the project are available at WP:Highbeam. Comments and assistance setting up the project are welcome. Cheers! Ocaasi t | c 09:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
Epic!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:14, 14 March 2012 (UTC)