Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:27, 2 July 2009

Please stay calm and civil while commenting or presenting evidence, and do not make personal attacks. Be patient when approaching solutions to any issues. If consensus is not reached, other solutions exist to draw attention and ensure that more editors mediate or comment on the dispute.

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Index -index- As of January 16, 2003 September – December 2005 January 2006 January – February 2006 February 2006 February 2006, cont. March 2006 April 2006 - late May 2006 May 24 - July 2006 July 2006 - August 2006 August 2006 Most of September 2006 Late September 2006 - Early November 2006 Most of November 2006 Late November 2006 - December 8, 2006 December 9, 2006 - Mid January 2007 From December 22, 2006 blanking Mid January 2007 - Mid February 2007 Mid February 2007- Feb 25, 2007 From March 2, 2007 blanking March 2-5, 2007 March 5-11, 2007 March 11 - April 3, 2007 April 2 - May 2, 2007 May 3 - June 7, 2007 June 9 - July 4, 2007 July 13 - August 17, 2007 August 17 - September 11, 2007 September 14 - October 7, 2007 October 28 - December 1, 2007 December 2 - December 16, 2007 December 15 - January 4, 2008 January 4 - January 30, 2008 January 30 - February 28, 2008 February 28 - March 11, 2008 March 9 - April 18, 2008 April 18 - May 30, 2008 May 30 - July 27, 2008 July 26 - October 4, 2008 October 4 - November 12, 2008 November 10 - December 10, 2008 December 5 - December 25, 2008 December 25 - January 16, 2009 January 15 - January 27, 2009 January 26 - February 10, 2009 February 8 - March 18, 2009 March 18 - May 6, 2009 May 5 - June 9, 2009 June 10 - July 11, 2009 July 12 - August 29, 2009

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Michael Jackson and Realist2

Hi Jimmy - Raul said that the Michael Jackson article got more hits (5.9 million) than the main page. Can you confirm if that is a record for most viewed article in a 24 hour period?

It's worth mentioning one of the main editors of that article, Realist2. He's heavily associated with it, bringing it to featured status. I wrote about him when I dedicated a photo to him. Editors like Realist2 save this site and its community a lot of headaches and bad headlines. The MJ story is clearly the news event of the year, and the media has been looking for any angle on it. Editors like Realist2, through diligent work and effort on a topic that is important to him, spare us headlines about ghastly vandalism that wasn't caught or embarrassing mistakes. He's pretty broken up over Jackson's passing (as you can see from his talk page), but we all owe him and editors like him thanks for their hard work. -->David Shankbone 22:53, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to second that. He dedicated himself to that article, making sure no nonsense was added to it, and as a result I'm sure he's improved Misplaced Pages's reputation in people's minds when they turned it after the death, and found such an informative page. SlimVirgin 07:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

When I read the article only minutes after the story broke, I recall asking myself, "Why haven't I cringed, reading this?" Now I know. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Glad people recognised Realist2's contributions. Made me realise I've never written on this here talk page. There's no one on Misplaced Pages who has been more of a pleasure to argue and disagree with than Realist...seriously. Other people, you disagree and you hate each other and bite and kick and fight each other until one of you runs off. Realist though...he and I would fight each other to an absolute stand still but after hours of arguing on AIM one of us would give up and concede the argument and I'd say there was a pretty even balance between the two of us - the fanboy who is instantly suspicious of sceptics' intentions and me - the guy who just finds controversial figures interesting and has an innate loathing of fanboys all over.

I'm quite shocked at all his "I'm devastated" comments on his talk page that he's left in replies to people...I knew he was passionate but never knew he was caught up in it on such a personal level, but I think he'll have his spirits lifted by knowing "the Misplaced Pages guy!" has recognised his efforts...he's almost as passionate about Misplaced Pages as he is about Jackson I think now. He likes to follow your rules by the book (another thing he and I had a lot of fun fighting about). So do your best not to die, dude!(The Elfoid (talk) 00:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC))

Good work

This ("Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Misplaced Pages") was well done. Congrats! -- Noroton (talk) 13:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. :) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Truth be told, having thought it through, I think this was within BLP policy. Gwen Gale (talk) 16:20, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Wise and mature.

This is hilarious though: one New York Times' reporter asking another for an interview through wikipedia. :-) Abecedare (talk) 16:36, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I bet someone got a chuckle in the newsroom over that one. (And nice job, Jimbo.) Tony Fox (arf!) 18:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

That is hilarious. For the record: I had no idea at the time that a New York Times reporter had edited the entry, and didn't know who it was until I talked to the reporter after it was all over.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:43, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

“We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source,” he said. “I would have had a really hard time with it if it had.” I take it then that you would have supported keeping it out even if there were reliable sources? What about if it was widely reported? J Milburn (talk) 10:34, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

If it had been widely reported the question would not have arisen (keeping it out of wikipedia would have been pointless). Since it wasn't, and since the New York Times wanted to protect David Rhode by not making it public, this was absolutely the right thing to do. Very responsible (and almost a case for Misplaced Pages:Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Misplaced Pages!) --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 11:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

What if it was not widely reported, but we did have reliable sources? J Milburn (talk) 12:20, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

The case is unique and it is hard, perhaps impossible, to answer such a question in the hypothetical because one would have to weigh the quality of the sources, the extent to which the information was 'public', the freedom of wikipedia, the danger to the individual involved, and the immediacy required in making a decision. In that sense the question is moot--RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 14:47, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that's right. Our BLP and NOR and RS policies are naturally well suited to dealing with a case like this. We can imagine all sorts of interesting edge cases that would be tough calls, and the nature of such tough calls is that they are tough calls and it is not possible to come up with "bright line" rules - and doing so is actually a bad idea. Imagine a scenario in which a major and respected news source carried the story (let's say, the BBC), but everyone else declined to do so. In such a case, I believe that we would have no choice but to let the information into Misplaced Pages, and when I say "have no choice" I am not even reaching the moral question at all. I'm just saying that the fight to keep it out would itself generate huge amounts of discussion, any huge discussion on such a question would be noticed by bloggers, journalists, etc., and the whole thing would simply become a huge story on the spot. For those concerned that I could somehow suppress legitimate, widely reported news - well, I think experienced Wikipedians (and even those with very little experience) can say with certainty that it would be impossible.

In this case, I assumed at the outset that the New York Times would fail in their embargo within a few days. I thought we would end up removing blog speculation for a day or two, and then some major outlet would run with the story. That never happened, and I am as astonished as anyone.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:37, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not actually that surprised; news agencies around the world would be inclined to respect the desire to improve the odds of a journalist in peril — if only because they would hope to be treated in the same manner by their peers should the table be turned. — Coren  04:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Arbitration Role of Jimmy Wales in the English Misplaced Pages

As far as I can tell, no one has drawn your attention to the above-mentioned proposal and related RFC on the talk page. –xeno 19:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. It is much too premature for this proposal, and it seems to mix several different issues. I am very open, as always, to making changes, and support a general movement to refine processes over time, but I think a much more comprehensive discussion is needed before an actual proposal like this is put forward.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

For the record What do I want! modest incremental change. When do I want it! in the fullness of time after due consideration and reflection. So we're probably on the same page there. Will you give a view as to how you see your future role with respect to Arbcom and what contingencies are in place should you be unable to fulfil the role? Thanks. --Joopercoopers (talk) 01:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

That's a very good question. I think a very useful model of a modern constitutional government with checks and balances, and a healthy mix of respect for tradition, stability, and democracy is that of the UK government. We have today a very different sort of system, as suits our needs, but there are many ideas in that system which we do not have here - many of which do not need here. Admins are in some ways similar to the House of Lords, in the sense that they are in office essentially for life unless they do something pretty egregious. We do not have a House of Commons, though perhaps we should. The ArbCom is something like the Law Lords, although again, not in every particular. I would hope to see some useful ideas generated over time, in collaboration with the existing institutions, which are working pretty well but have flaws. Having a single institution - a fully elected ArbCom with absolute sovereignty for example - would be dangerous for the obvious reasons. Having me with completely unrestricted power in all things, which we do not have and I do not want... I want less power over time, not more - would be dangerous for the obvious reasons. Having everything decided by day to day popular votes also has clear problems.

One way in which our system does mirror the British system is that we have admins, elected directly by the community, being something like Parliament (though being more like the Lords in some ways, and the Commons in other ways). And ArbCom being something like the government. And me being something like the monarch, with a customary veto which is rarely used (actually, essentially never). And other odd bits and pieces.

Institutional design is a complex matter.

On a more personal level, and I believe that the ArbCom members past and present will back me up on this, I serve the ArbCom in terms of providing some institutional and "spiritual" memory and reminders. I try to make myself useful to them, and I generally have I think. I raise questions and try to pose challenges and help encourage a spirit of thoughtfulness. I don't have to do much of this, because the sorts of people who are elected to ArbCom in our current system are not the type of people generally inclined to partisanship and bickering, but to reflection and deliberation.

There are risks in change, but still, we should always look for change. Orderly, thoughtful, and productive change.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:20, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. And contingencies? --Joopercoopers (talk) 02:25, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure things would work out ok without me. Lots of good people here. How about this: in case of my untimely death or inability to perform my capacities, the ArbCom is hereby authorized to figure out what to do, subject to ratification with a 50%+1 vote of the community. In the interim between them coming up with a ratified proposal, the status quo is to be considered as much as possible. I will admend this succession plan from time to time upon the recommendation of the ArbCom and Community, until such time as we figure out a more longterm and binding way of dealing with it.

I promise to do my best to stay alive so that this is nothing more than a cute speculation, too. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your response, Mr Wales. You describe part of your power as "a customary veto which is rarely used (actually, essentially never)". Perhaps this is why the French and German WPs—actually, every other WP—seem to do fine without such a role? On your UK governance analogies, I find the House of Lords analogy for admins to be odd. Tony (talk) 03:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

"Leave ... Jimmy D. ... alone!" --- CHRIS CROCKER (link) ↜Just M E here , now 04:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, and probably something that is relatively not very well known, Jimbo's actual involvement in ArbCom business is, essentially, inexistent. He occasionally sends something our way that was addressed originally to him but doesn't require his intervention, or asks for our input on the very occasional matter that is on his lap, and we occasionally poke him for "philosophical opinion" when we consider matters of a more "constitutional" feel.

To give a sense of perspective, out of the approximately 16000 emails that have been on arbcom-l in the past six months, Jimbo has around 70 to his name, nearly half of which are on topics more social than Wikipedian. Rumors of his still ruling Misplaced Pages with the iron fist of an eminence grise are, at best, misguided. — Coren  03:37, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

An opening! I'm sure I have a grey suit in my closet *somewhere*, so all I need to do is bribe the Lord High Assigner of Titles to make me a Wiki-Cardinal.... ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC) And the kicker is this: According to WP:CONEXCEPT, this would be entirely official. <innocent cat-got-cream look>

David S. Rohde

Hi Jimbo. I've rewritten David S. Rohde pretty much from scratch; I think you'll find it's in much better shape now. Kudos on your actions in this matter - I think you did exactly the right thing. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:58, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I don't think it's right (and I speaking as a subject of the article, not as an editor of Misplaced Pages) to headline part of it as "Misplaced Pages controversy" - as far as I can tell, there is very little controversy about it at all, and certainly if there is a controversy about it, the controversy isn't a part of David Rohde's story.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, I've taken it out. Actually, there was less coverage about it in reliable sources than I originally anticipated. That may change, so I can't guarantee that the subheader won't return if it does turn into a major controversy. But hopefully it won't. By the way, if you need an article like that one to be revised in the future, please feel free to get in touch - I write for a living, I have a lot of research resources to hand and I'm used to short deadlines. To be honest, I could have made it a much better piece well before this news broke; there's a lot in reliable sources about the good work that Rohde's done on behalf of the Bosnian Muslims. I don't know if there was some reason not to add such material to the article but I would have thought the material I added at David S. Rohde#Srebrenica and David S. Rohde#Detainees would have counted in his favour. Just a thought. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

There is plenty of controversy within the Misplaced Pages community, but I haven't seen any out in the real world which is what matters for our articles. --Tango (talk) 00:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Jim, I would also like to express my support. I believe you acted in the most appropriate way, and hope you'd do it again ( hoping you won't have to though...).I'd do exactly the same thing.

Cheers, Paul Paul Roberton (talk) 03:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo, you did the right thing. I'm happy that Misplaced Pages handled this difficult situation in the right manner. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:06, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Socionics

You may or may not have heard of it, but I'm sure you've heard of the psychological type idea from which it stems. According to the Russian Misplaced Pages, ("Соционика") it is bigger over there than communism. And yet, people over here are trying to delete it. One user, Mango, seems particularly focused on eliminating it. I ask this: if you can point to hundreds of sources for a topic from hundreds of authors, then need it even be asked if the topic is notable? Tcaudilllg (talk) 21:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea about this topic. I would recommend looking for help with editors who specialize in either psychology or topics related to Russia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Rollback

I'd like to get the rollback feature for my account. Texcarson (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Try Misplaced Pages:Requests for permissions/Rollback. --Tango (talk) 00:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Although, the fact that you've been blocked for vandalism in the last 6 months will count against you quite heavily. --Tango (talk) 00:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes page for unwatched articles

There is a proposal at WP:VPR to create a recent changes page for unwatched articles. This would be done by adding an rc_watched column to the recentchanges table to store the watcher-count at the time of each revision, based on the watchlist table. Bug 18790 has more technical details. This essentially allows the filtering-out all 'watched' pages from recent changes: if someone's watching, you don't need to. This proposal has been active since April 25th - two months now - and has 17 unanimous and often enthusiastic supports at its straw poll and discussion (which could still use more input).

In 2005 you requested Special:UnwatchedPages in order to reduce vandalism on unwatched pages. This proposal is essentially an enhancement of Special:UnwatchedPages. Though that tool has been useful to some extent, it is limited to administrators and is updated infrequently. What do you think of this proposal as a potential replacement for Special:UnwatchedPages?    M   03:22, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Your daughter and BLP

Ciao, Jimbo. An editor has raised a concern here that your daughter is named in our biography of you (there are two references to her in the Personal life section). I had assumed you were fine with this since you have discussed her in public, but do please let us know if it's something you're uncomfortable with. Mahalo,  Skomorokh  11:19, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the swift and useful response on this. If you ever feel like disputing something in the article, posting a note to a public off-wiki forum (such as your blog) should be enough to qualify claims at least; except on a few contentious points, the editors of the article are not as entrenched as one might expect. I realise the article over the years has been something of a black spot, and personally distressing for you, but efforts have been made recently to develop it into a biography of some depth rather than the string of controversies it used to be. Hopefully, once this process matures, we will send the article to peer review, where your input would be very valuable. Regards,  Skomorokh  15:50, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Blocks are preventative, not punitive

This is you bargaining with Bishonen that you won't block anyone for six months if she agrees with you to support a policy of punitive blocking for naughty language. That sounds awfully ill-thought out to me. I think you should strike that and think it through a little more. You're reversing long established policy in order to block people who use bad language. Who decides what language is acceptable? Would you block for "piss off" which means "go away" in some cultures? Would you block for "You are prevaricating"? No? How about, "you're full of crap", is that blockable? They mean precisely the same thing. You want to dictate what precise words are allowable and not, and you want to have three hour blocks for using words you don't like, and you - and this is very important - you have made it clear that unless Bishonen agrees with your view, you're done discussing your actions. Oh really? You're saying, "Agree with me, or I won't talk to you?" I'm going to presume you merely posted before coffee and didn't think this one through, Jimmy. There must always be room for disagreement in civil discussion. KillerChihuahua 12:21, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I would rather to continue the discussion over there, so I'm going to omit the rest of it here, but I have read it. I will reword what I wrote to make my meaning clearer. What I did mean is that sometimes discussions do reach an impasse, and at some point Bishonen and I are just going to have to agree to disagree. And I'm not bargaining - my good faith gesture is unilateral. And I'm not trying to move the needle (at the moment!) on block policy - I'm trying to look for something Bishonen can endorse.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:20, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleted talk page archive of a banned user

Hi
Well, since you asked: Talk pages and moved talk pages of banned users are not usually deleted. The typical exception is the right to vanish, but that courtesy is not usually extended to banned users. RMHED got them deleted initially by moving them around to various subpages, adding sandbox edits to the history, and thereby obfuscating them enough so that admins deleted them in good faith as WP:CSD#U1, which specifically excludes user talk pages. Some time after the ban I noticed some deleted user talk page edits, so I investigated and restored his talk page archives and courtesy blanked them.
So much for background. I am not particularly familiar with RMHED, and what led to his ban. I believe the discussion leading up to it was here (February 2009), and the actual community ban was here (March 2009). I don't mind per se if a banned editor's talk pages are deleted after a while. With RMHED though, one of his last edits was this threat: "... maybe I will vanish or maybe I'll just retire this account and start a new one. Six months+ of being a good, well rounded little wikipedian should then equate to a nice easy RFA. Then the fun can really begin."
Quite possibly an empty threat, but if he's emailing you about his archives who knows? The old talk page archives might help identifying such a sock, and I think should stay around unless there is a very specific concern with them.
Amalthea 10:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info! I'm talking to ArbCom about it too. I generally take quite a liberal view on courtesy deletion... if it helps someone walk away with dignity, well, in most cases that benefits us both. They walk away with dignity. And from our perspective... they walk away. If the relationship wasn't work out, it's best for everyone to just let it go. There are lots of better things for us to do and for banned users to do than to feud.

However, as you point out, there can be cases where the request for deletion is itself part of a problematic ongoing campaign of bad behavior, in which case, we might (reluctantly, I hope) choose not to honor the request.

But yes, I'm talking to ArbCom, and there's a good chance that I'll restore.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:01, 2 July 2009 (UTC)