Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 18:15, 7 June 2013

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates – he has an open door policy.

I will be taking a major wikibreak from July 1 to July 21. During that time I intend to essentially close this page, and I intend to avoid all Misplaced Pages work other than anything urgent or important that Arbcom members ask me to do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:57, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

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Misplaced Pages Renaissance of improvements

I think we always suspected, some day, there would be a WP Renaissance, or Awakening, where prior ideas would resurface with renewed enthusiasm, as if it were the Golden Age of Misplaced Pages to be re-guilded. I suspect the time has arrived. Previously, I had been lamenting the dwindling interest, when I noticed all pages from the Catholic Encyclopedia had been verified as complete WP articles in 2012, as 100% done. However, during the past few weeks, I have noticed a fascinating trend: several new people are requesting fixes to problems abandoned 2-4 years ago. It's not just me re-thinking what could have been fixed, in prior years (such as 2-reply edit-conflicts fixed by auto-merging as FIFO order). Instead, people (some as IP editors) are "re-inventing the wheel" to fix many separate problems from past years. For example:

• One in New York noted kg-to-lb conversions are sloppy, so 62 kg (137 lb) should be "(137 lb)" as planned 4 years ago (but forgotten).
• One in Bratislava noted Swiss flag icon oversized everywhere: should be smaller 17px: , as asked 2 years ago.
• A regular user noted the wp:FRS list of RfC reviewers was halting at 60-second timeout, as during the past 2 years, so I fixed it to run in 4 seconds.
• A regular user requested creation of the Old Style calendar leap-year pages, after 2 years since the common-year pages from 2011 (see: "Old Style leap year starting on Monday").

When the users requested the improvements, they seemed totally unaware how the same (or similar) suggestions were made to the problems in 2009-2011, but dropped/lost or ignored in the confusion. Now, I am wondering if some of those new people will want to restart many of the 2,000 dormant wp:WikiProjects, which have faded since 2009. Possible explanations: (1) the Lua-based cite templates, running 13x faster, have allowed people to update major articles in 7 seconds (formerly "28 sec" per edit), and now they think this place is easy to improve; or (2) people have finished most simple fixes so the major issues are what remains to fix; or (3) the remaining people are not as negative and so new people offer more suggestions, or (4) what do you think is making so many people suggest major improvements, again? -Wikid77 (talk) 05:24, 1 June, 00:24, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Or perhaps the negative responses to suggestions just take longer to arrive these days? -Wikid77 13:04, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Of course, none of the three examples you give count as "major" improvements, just small fixes. I hadn't noticed a drop or rise in these, such things have always happened, so perhaps the right answer is 5) selection bias? Fram (talk) 07:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Each is a major improvement relative to related cases (see details below). -Wikid77 00:24, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Considering the non-controversial fixes: It's easy to say you will fix something, a lot harder to actually do it. It does make me wonder if an issue tracking style system might be better suited for these sorts of discussions. A wiki is a poor format for making sure things don't get forgotten. Gigs (talk) 16:48, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

• Issue-tracking system would help prioritize major issues: That is a great idea, and I think if each problem had been tracked, from the outset, within an issue-tracking system, then they would have been fixed much sooner, years sooner, as in each case:

• Swiss flag icon needing 17px height: Even the related Template:CHE had the Swiss flag icon (now in over 27,300 pages) resized as 17px over 5 years ago, and I noticed 20px was too large, and other editors discussed it, but the fix affects multiple templates and was dropped.
• The kg-to-lb fix was logged/forgotten 4 years ago: Among the top, most-used measurement conversions, kg/lb, are in the top 5, where Template:Convert/kg is used in over 60,100 pages, inside many of the Whose-Who of major articles, compared to Convert/cm in 26,825 pages.
• Common WP:FRS was slow for 2 years: I remember the wp:FRS list (wp:Feedback request service) has been popular, as viewed ~30x times per day (as compared to wp:Admin with 35 pageviews per day). The prior slow speed was a known issue, but not on a tracking list of problems to improve.

In all three cases, each issue would have remained near the very top of priorities, but they were in minor or busy talk-pages, where other newer issues were getting the attention, and people were coping, such as using {{CHE}} with 17px height when the {{flag|Switzerland}} icon was too large in the 27,300 pages, or using Convert/kg to override the poor default precision of 3-pound swings among 60,100 pages. So, yes, an issue-tracking system would have fixed each issue much sooner. The distractions which eclipsed each of the 3 complex issues occurred weekly, not daily, and all 3 could have been fixed by techniques known 3-4 years ago if reconsidered each day. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:11, 3 June, 04:05, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

• A list of major issues for each template/report would work: Although it would be great to have an issues-tracking system, I think that even if there had been a written list of the major issues, expanded for each template set or report page, then that could have helped remind people to keep reassessing the unresolved problems. Perhaps there could be a subpage name, such as "Template_talk:Xxx/Issues_list" which could contain a simple sortable table of each issue noted, with link to each talk-page/archive thread, plus date, status, suggested importance level, and extra note. Even such a simple list could be periodically reviewed, at least every 3 months, so that the above problems would not be left unresolved for 2-4 years. In each table, the "status" column would indicate completion, and the "importance level" could be increased if a problem was noted as still causing much grief months later. In the case of multiple similar templates, then a common template-talk page could be used to keep the central issues list. -Wikid77 02:35, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• Next step is how-to guide for issues-tracking pages: Because even a simple list, of ongoing issues to reconsider, could help remember them, repeatedly, during a year, then we should have a how-to guide, by creating page wp:Tracking_issues, to explain the concepts, and give examples of how some major improvements were forgotten, for years, until re-suggested by new users. That is the next step to wider usage. -Wikid77 01:00, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Frank Scalice

I noticed that you deleted and recreated Frank Scalice a few years ago. The deletion reason was "sourcing problem". Could you elaborate a bit to indicate what kind of sourcing problem justified such a drastic measure? Fram (talk) 12:37, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

For those just coming to this conversation, note that this is ongoing harassment by Fram continuing from a thread that I deleted in which he made insults about low quality article creations by me. This is not, therefore, an unmotivated inquiry, but trolling. If anyone wonders what kind of editor I think is most responsible for declining participation in Misplaced Pages, it is this: the kind who goes around digging up old stuff, with no factual basis, to insult and harass people. Fram, you should be ashamed and disappointed in yourself as a human being.

To answer the question: There was a legal complaint that the entry was plagiarized from Jay Robert Nash's Encyclopedia of World Crime. Upon investigation, we found that a number of entries related to organized crime figures either were directly plagiarized from that source or were closely paraphrased enough to suggest plagiarism. Additionally, I was informed by the author of that source that he had deliberately placed erroneous information into his encyclopedia to catch plagiarists, which to my mind destroys the credibility of the work as a legitimate source of any kind. There was a cleanup effort involving several editors, including me, and this is one of the ones that I handled. This was the right thing to do, of course.

I won't hold my breath waiting for your apology, but know that you should be making one pronto.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:08, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you could have used the correct deletion rationale then, so that other editors don't have to guess what the problem is? A significant portion of your admin actions (here and on Commons) were incorrect, so it's only natural that other ones are questioned as well and not taken at face value (certainly when there is not enough information there to guess what the actual reason may have been). Perhaps this time it was justified (from what I can see from Google Books, I can detect no plagiarism though). That doesn't mean that you are above criticism or that your actions can't be questioned, even though you are the Founder. It is obvious you don't like this, but it's a situation you have brought upon yourself. I do like how your higher civility standards, which you promised for this talk page, only seem to apply when it suits you though. Nothing new, but still amusing. It's probably for the best that you don't hold your breath for that apology, it wouldn't be healthy. Just like we don't hold our breath waiting for all the things you promised to deliver the past few months. Fram (talk) 20:00, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I did use the correct deletion rationale. This action was not problematic in any way and was the part of a concerted effort to resolve a real problem. Go away now from my talk page and never come back.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I think it's interesting that he inserted incorrect information in his encyclopedia to catch plagiarists! Frankly I don't understand the logic behind that. While that would snare plagiarists, it also disseminates incorrect information. Perhaps I'm not correctly comprehending what he did. (And yes, as you point out, it certainly does destroy the value of that as a reference work.) Coretheapple (talk) 21:19, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Indeed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:00, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

It's more common than you think - Fictitious entry --NeilN 02:30, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Did you just ban another critic from your talk page, Jimbo? Keep it up, quite a few more to go! Cla68 (talk) 23:20, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I've seen him ban a critic (whom I generally hold in high regard) who passed on a personal email to a journalist. I would shun anyone who did that to me, for disrespect, not criticism. I've just seen him ban Fram who, in my opinion, should be shunned by this entire project actually, for the reasons stated in Jimbo's first paragraph, disrespect. Respectful dealing is a minimum requirement in civilised discourse. Not deference, respect. This is a user talk page, not the stocks. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:14, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

"passed on a personal email to a journalist". Do you have some links to this story? Thanks. 76.126.142.59 (talk) 04:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

It was a while back ... 12 months? Sorry, I can't be bothered looking. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:37, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Anthony, you know don't you, that emails are considered public communication and that there is no expectation of privacy? If you work in the business world, that should have been one of the first things that your organization informed you of. Anyway, shooting the messenger is an established tradition in Misplaced Pages and Jimbo is helping to institutionalize it in WP culture. Cla68 (talk) 22:36, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

There's no law against forwarding a private email to a journalist, but then, there's no law against most kinds of personal betrayal and insult. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

It's kinda complicated to me. This delete with no words from Jimbo makes things even more complicated to me. New worl (talk) 03:50, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

DYK for Sale — Cheap!

Begging your pardon for the intrusion during vacation time, but here's one for the in-basket when you get back... A link of an article brought to attention on the Utterly Without Redeeming Value Troll Site by a Wikipedian unfortunately banned from this page:

Tony Ahn & Co. Puts Daphne Osena-Paez on the Misplaced Pages Main Page

. . . “I reached a market I never thought I could,” wrote Ms. Oseña-Paez in an entry on her blog entitled My Misplaced Pages. “You could only imagine what kind of readership you’ll get once you appear on the Misplaced Pages main page. It was overwhelming.” In six hours, Daphne’s entry racked up over 17,000 views, giving her a new kind of international exposure she has never had before. Her entry was the 4th most viewed “Did You Know?” section article in the month of June, viewed more than 955 other articles that also were featured in the same section.

To date, Tony Ahn has been successful at every attempt to place a client on the Misplaced Pages main page. “We don’t charge extra for this, nor do we guarantee placement. I write high-quality articles that naturally lend themselves to main page placement. Getting my clients on the Misplaced Pages main page is just an added bonus both for me and my clients.” . . .

It is time to get serious about shutting down the abuse of DYK, which has been brewing for a long time. See you in a few weeks... Carrite (talk) 15:46, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

If it is a proper article passing GNG and worth of DYK, what's the problem with that? I know paid editing is discouraged, to use an euphemism, but as long as it just produces articles compliant with policies and guidelines, I see no problem. Perhaps it's her that should read WP:PROUD. --Cyclopia 15:52, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Cyclopedia, that's a very naive and mistaken view of the world. Tony Ahn's actions are a disgrace.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, I wish that for once you would not pass judgement until it's absolutely clear what all the facts are. You've done this before and it's not been helpful. If I was in your position, I'd say "let's get to the bottom of this, work out if any wrongdoing has happened and work out how to fix it", rather than metaphorically lighting burning torches and handing them out to a would-be mob. Can we approach this calmly rather than getting shouty about it from the outset? Prioryman (talk) 16:22, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Jimbo, I don't know in detail who Tony Ahn is or what he did honestly, he may be the worst enemy of WP as far as I know. I am talking about this article: Does it need to be deleted? Is the topic non-notable? Then let's bring it at AFD. Is it biased because of paid editing? Then let's discuss this on the appropriate venues to seek NPOV. Is it none of these two things? Then what are we discussing about? If this is naive, I accept it, but then please explain. --Cyclopia 16:26, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Tony Ahn has actually been one of the most straightforward PR people writing Misplaced Pages content for clients. He's invited scrutiny, he hasn't hidden behind throwaway user-names, so far as I'm aware. I don't blame him personally, this is a structural problem here... The point is this: no matter what one thinks about paid writing of WP content (honest people may differ here), there needs to be a proverbial chinese wall segregating that content from DYK — absolutely incorruptible hardcore anti-PR types putting the kibosh upon attempts to use the main page to promote products, be they vacation destinations or record albums or celebrities seeking exposure to further their careers. That does not exist now and we have seen the results. Whether this happened two years ago or two days a go (per Prioryman below) is irrelevant... The fact is that Misplaced Pages's mainpage's multi-millions of page views per year are being turned into a commodity by the PR industry. That must stop. Carrite (talk) 16:36, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Why does it need to stop? If it leads to more well-sourced articles, I'd say it needs to be encouraged. Or does it make the encyclopedia worse? Really, what's wrong in having that article featuring in DYK? --Cyclopia 16:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, on one level I must admit that I'm not keen to see DYK being used for overt PR purposes, but on the other hand, as others have said, if articles meet all the requirements then I can't really see a justification for excluding them. Misplaced Pages is non-commercial, true, but that doesn't mean to say that commercial interests shouldn't contribute to Misplaced Pages as long as content requirements are met. Jimbo has after all been doing a lot of work with the PR industry to make exactly that scenario possible. Prioryman (talk) 16:56, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

There needs to be both a quality review for DYK pieces (which exists now, at least nominally) and a Conflict of Interest/Promotion review, which does not. My opinion, of course... Carrite (talk) 17:19, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

What I do not understand is the advantage that the second review would add to DYK and to the encyclopedia. --Cyclopia 17:33, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

It's not quite so simple because it involves delving into editors' motives. I don't think an article that was a blatant advertisement would get through DYK anyway because it would fail the NPOV requirements. That leaves articles which may have intentionally been written for a promotional purpose, or may simply have an unintended promotional side-effect. For instance, List of songs recorded by Dido ran not long ago. I don't think it had any promotional intent, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it prompted someone to buy some of her songs from iTunes or whatever. I'm not keen on the idea of judging the quality of DYKs on the basis of someone else's speculations about an editor's motives. It fundamentally violates the principle of assuming good faith and there is far too much danger of getting it wrong, as we've seen with the Wikipediocracy-driven harassment of anyone contributing content about Gibraltar. I would however think it a good idea if people writing articles for PR purposes would disclose that at the start of a DYK (or GA or FA) review so that extra attention can be paid to NPOV issues (which, to answer Cyclopedia's question, would be the main advantage of such a disclosure). Prioryman (talk) 17:37, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

why is everyone calling me Cyclopedia? :) --Cyclopia 18:27, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

not sure, but you need to sack that PR agent of yours at once.Martinevans123 (talk) 18:56, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

at least they aren't calling you "Cyclops." Carrite (talk) 18:02, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

My question is, isn't *everything* promotional at some level? Unless DYK is to be a stream of articles about bad things and bad people, one could argue that just about any article about anything is promotional. Article about an artist who's been dead for 100 years? Driving up his work's auction prices! Article about an obscure historic building in a small American town? Promoting tourism for that community! Article about an endangered fish? Shilling for the environmental group trying to save its habitat! What would be the guidelines for a "this is too promotional/this isn't" review?

I'm interested to know because I had a perfectly-innocent hook about a wilderness area turned down because it described the place as a "peaceful" place for kayakers. If describing a wilderness area as "peaceful" is too promotional, where in heck is the line going to be drawn for anything else?

The DYK rules already require that the article be neutral - if that's not being enforced enough, the solution isn't to add another layer of bureaucratic review, it's to make sure DYK reviewers are doing serious NPOV checks of the article. I would also support a prohibition on paid-edited articles being nominated for DYK. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:16, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

"Neutral" isn't the same thing as "Non-Commercial." The line "The Sands Hotel and Casino is a luxury hotel located in Las Vegas, Nevada..." is neutral... Carrite (talk) 18:06, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, and what would be wrong with a DYK that said that? It's neutral, it's verifiable, it's relevant. It's kind of a boring hook and I'd think one could find something better, but what could one say about a commercial property that *isn't* commercial? Or are you saying that commercial things should be banned from DYK, or that we should only use negative hooks about "commercial" DYKs? What's commercial and what's not? Should we take down the DYK on Albert Swinden that's front-paged right now on the grounds that it's promoting his artworks? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:58, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The weird thing is that I've lambasted about this issue more than once in regard to Square Enix software topics, which have been entitled to a Featured Ad every six months for the past seven years or so. But nobody cares about that - all they care about are DYKs that last a quarter of the time and take a tenth of the space. (They don't care about those awful feature ad-images either, pictures of phones and nobodies that have nothing for them except they're the best image of that product) Wnt (talk) 16:50, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The weirder thing is that you never reply to the replies about your inaccurate complaints. Or, at least, I've seen you complain about this twice and fail to reply twice. Third time's the charm, perhaps. Bencherlite 19:40, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I see nothing about inaccuracy there; I'll leave it to the audience to confirm that. I have people telling me I should have voted. Well, that's a problem - if you're not being paid, you probably have other things to do than be out there to vote every day. Wnt (talk) 03:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I've had a look at this, and it seems to be pretty old - it appeared on DYK on 17 June 2011, two years ago. This is stale and then some. But there's something that puzzles me about it - looking at the "what links here" page, I can't see any link to a DYK review which one would normally expect. Who reviewed this and when? Prioryman (talk) 16:13, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

By the way, Tony Ahn is User:Noraft (no outing; he discloses it on his user page). He seems to be pretty up front about being a PR. I'll notify him of this discussion. Prioryman (talk) 16:24, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

A PR agency might be able do more than one kind of sleazy thing. One possibility would be to push through an article for a nobody and get paid for it. Another would be to slip in ahead of a crowd of people and claim credit for what would have happened anyway. Given that Daphne was the first Filipino UNICEF Special Advocate for Children and a "celebrity" in 2010, I would find the second possibility more plausible than the first - and that one is not something we have to do anything about; that's between them and their clients. In any case, I suspect the number of clicks had something to do with her picture (as we have an unfortunate scarcity of more explicit Main Page images...) but I'm not sure how to look up the statistics on that. Because of her involvement with UNICEF I would urge people to show mercy! Wnt (talk) 16:23, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I would agree that the subject absolutely appears to pass the notability test, by a fair way. This disposes of the question of whether the subject is worth an article, but not whether the article itself is up to scratch. Prioryman (talk) 16:26, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The DYK review is here, to answer your insinuation that this was somehow an abuse of process. You might also want to see the discussion here. 78.149.172.10 (talk) 16:35, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Prioryman (or at least what I think he is suggesting) that DYK editors can (or should be able to) deal with articles on the basis of existing policies--if an article doesn't pass the GNG or some other criterion, then it should be failed anyway, regardless of whether someone was being paid to edit it. The potential problem that comes up is that an editor who's being paid to put an article on DYK might of course fight back more vehemently than another editor if his/her article gets challenged. But I don't see how that's any worse or different than a Randy in Boise who fights back vehemently because he believes really hard in whatever thing he's trying to post, or for some other personal reason. Paid editors, just like nut-job editors, might have undesirable personal reasons for trying to push edits through, but in the end if they learn how to play by the rules and not let those personal reasons cause them to create content that goes against policy, it shouldn't make a difference. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:59, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

That is pretty much what I'm suggesting. If it meets GNG and all the other content guidelines then I don't really see how we can be justified in rejecting it because the contributor may have a commercial motive for writing it. Consider the following scenarios:

• I'm a fan of Daphne Oseña-Paez and I write an article because I think she's the best person ever.
• I'm someone who's interested in Filipino culture and I write an article on Daphne Oseña-Paez to document someone who's a celebrity there.
• I'm a PR who writes an article on Daphne Oseña-Paez because she's my client.
• I can't stand Daphne Oseña-Paez and I write an article because I want to tell the world about what she's doing.

Now suppose the article I write under any of those scenarios meets all the necessary GNG and DYK requirements. How do my motives invalidate the article meeting those requirements? (Thinking back to the old maxim of focusing on the content rather than the contributor.) Prioryman (talk) 17:12, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

One fairly recent front page DYK appearance was for Ingrid Chua-Go. Ahn stated on the talk page, "This article was created by me I'm Tony Ahn (talk) for the subject without monetary or other consideration...", although on the subject's blog, she has returned the favour by posting what can only be described as an ad for his services. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:44, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• I've worked with Tony Ahn over at the Paid Editors Noticeboard for quite some time now and he's always been open about all of his affiliations. And i've never had a problem with the articles he's submitted. In the beginning, there were a few wording issues, but he learned quickly and continually submits well-written, well-referenced articles that aren't promotional at all. Silverseren 22:03, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
  • I think you're incredibly blase about the reputation of the project. This is completely and entirely unconvincing to me, and would be so to the general public - with good reason. This whole approach to Misplaced Pages is revolting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:01, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Rather than throw around emotive words like "revolting", Jimbo, what exactly do you see as the problem with this and how would you change it? Prioryman (talk) 23:06, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
    • Can you please explain how? He is completely open about his affiliations, he uses the PAIDHELP board to get outside attention to proposed edits so they can be reviewed for neutrality, and he even contributes separately on his own accord to articles that he has no affiliations with. Silverseren 23:23, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

• Just a big-picture comment, Jimmy: DYK as currently set up is a magnet for spam and paid-editing push. It needs reform both for this reason and because it often thrusts into our front window material of embarrassingly poor quality, and stubs that breach policies and guidelines, particularly those that involve verification and plagiarism. Just sayin'. Tony (talk) 10:47, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I personally think that putting in front imperfect material is a good thing, because people then rush to improve it. It puts them in the spotlight, probably more than the "Articles for improvement". I noticed the positive rush of activity on my DYK'd articles, and that's the main reason I submit stuff there. In general I feel WP is forgetting that it is mean to be a perennial work in progress, not a polished dead castle. --Cyclopia 11:34, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a place of complex balances. For example, it might take 200 person-hours, heavy involvement by several editors, and scrutiny by 100 people and three layers of review (GA, FA, FA of the day) to be the featured article of the day. Or becoming a world-wide known news event to be in the news section. In that balance, I think that DYK is the easiest way to get content to the front page, and probably a bit too easy. Adding extra review for "does not serve commercial purposes" for DYK would be a good thing. Probably the same for featured picture. North8000 (talk) 11:42, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

"Does not serve commercial purposes" is far too vague. Does a list of songs recorded by Dido (recently on DYK) "serve" a commercial purpose, in that it might interest people in spending money on iTunes? Sure, but that's not its intention. It also doesn't cover articles that might have been created for noncommercial purposes, for instance on behalf of a pressure group or political campaign. What I might support would be a requirement for editors to disclose that that they have created an article on behalf of a third party, which they could have done as an employee, contractor or activist, This would need to trigger a heightened level of scrutiny (perhaps using two reviewers?) of NPOV aspects. Prioryman (talk) 11:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)But why would it be a good thing? It is still unfathomable what this would add, apart from creating a witch-hunt climate. --Cyclopia 12:02, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

There's a legitimate concern in that content written for clients is potentially partial content - i.e. overly favourable towards the subject, playing down controversies etc. That's why a degree of extra scrutiny of NPOV would be desirable, to ensure that articles weren't being whitewashed. Prioryman (talk) 12:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The concern is indeed legitimate, and that's what WP:NPOV is for. If we want to have NPOV scrutiny, I agree, but this would be independent of paid editing -I suspect paid editing is a tiny minority of our NPOV problems. --Cyclopia 12:14, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

My "does not serve commercial purposes" what just my crude name for some criteria to be worked out. My point is that regarding "bang for the buck for paid COI work" DYK is probably the weakest link in the whole Misplaced Pages and a slight tightening up there would be a good idea.North8000 (talk) 13:23, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Why is it a weak link? I am honestly perplexed. What is this obvious damage that nobody spells out? --Cyclopia 13:38, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The one word is credibility. Page-views are money in terms of advertising exposure. If the mainpage is allowed to be undermined by those seeking to push content from which they gain a financial benefit, it reflects poorly upon the entire project, thereby undermining our fundamental mission of providing a free, accurate, coherent, non-commercial, neutral encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 18:12, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Credibility comes from if and how balance is maintained in article, not on who and why writes the articles. A biased article is biased regardless of the agenda behind the bias. A biased article written by an automated algorithm wouldn't reflect less bad on our credibility. That people get a financial benefit from the WP pageviews is, in this respect, entirely irrelevant. If paid editors write NPOV-compliant articles, we both win: they win money, we win content. If the problem is that (as below) someone fears a flood of paid editors that can gang together to bias things, I think a better suggestion is 1)to mandate full disclosure 2)to let these people write in userspace and then move to mainspace only when non-paid editors have reviewed the article. Incidentally, it seems to me that's more or less what Ahn does, if I understood correctly. --Cyclopia 18:50, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Why is it a weak link? Like water seeking the lowest point, or a crack, to flow through, or electricity seeking the lowest resistance, DYK makes it easy money for paid editors to get MP exposure. If you're uncharitable, you'd maybe use the analogy of a burglar looking for an open door or window. I'm making no judgement on the Daphne article, BTW. Tony knows that it's important to make client's WP articles look good, but like a good pro I've no doubt he is, he realises this is the best way (read "cost effective") to maximise hits is to first knock on the front door with an "interesting" sales pitch (blurb) – let's face it, many DYK blurbs are downright lame. -- Ohc _{¿que pasa?} 01:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

How do you propose to create neutral criteria on what is and what is not "serving commercial purposes?" Does the article on Albert Swinden serve a commercial purpose by promoting his artworks, many of which are in private hands and worth significant amounts of money? There's a pending DYK on Jack McAuliffe (brewer), a well-cited biography of a pioneer American microbrewer. Is that unacceptable promotion of his brewery? Where does the line get drawn?

The test should be article and hook quality — Is the article adhering to WP:NPOV? Does the hook adhere to WP:NPOV? If so, it should be acceptable. If not, it should be unacceptable. That shouldn't require another layer of bureaucracy; rather, it means reviewing standards should be improved and reviews better-conducted. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:09, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, DYK is not for sale by my agency. We do that gratis as an extra service to delight clients who have paid for us to develop an article, which is moved to mainspace by an independent editor who receives no consideration, money or otherwise. I'd like to explain our process further.

In the interest of keeping Misplaced Pages free of propaganda by regulating the unmitigated problem of secret paid edits that are against community standards, I'm pioneering another way. I have been clear that I am a public relations professional. I am also a community member who has been editing Misplaced Pages since long before I became one. My contributions include creating good & featured articles, developing Did You Know? entries, organizing backlog drives, creating a new citation template, and more. I think it is safe to say that I know the community standards and attempt to follow them. The conflict of interest guideline states:

A Misplaced Pages conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Misplaced Pages, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor. COI editing involves contributing to Misplaced Pages in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Misplaced Pages, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.

— WP:COI

But as a Wikipedian and a PR professional, I think there are plenty of times when there is no incompatibility between the aim of Misplaced Pages (to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia) and my own professional aim: to produce a neutral, reliably sourced article about an occasional client of mine (98% of my time is spent on digital PR initiatives unrelated to Misplaced Pages). To this end, there are many times when clients request things that I cannot produce: product descriptions, leads that read like press releases or advertising copy, or simply an article on a non-notable company. In these cases I inform these clients that I can't write to their specifications, as doing so would both violate community standards and invite deletion of the work they've paid for.

So I set out to find ways to produce neutral, reliably sourced articles, even though someone is paying to write them. Scientists have developed robust ways to remove bias during experiments, and I believe methods can be employed to mitigate conflicts of interest and take advantage of a resource: competent, professional writers that can improve the encyclopedia.

In my quest to figure out how conflict of interest can be mitigated, I contacted User:Roger Davies, a member of the Arbitration Committee. I proposed that if I am engaged to write a Misplaced Pages article, I could write it in my sandbox, then invite a member of the Misplaced Pages community to independently review it. If it meets community standards, they could move it to mainspace. I also proposed creating an alternate account to separate professional edits from my personal edits. Roger circulated my proposal to the rest of the ArbCom. While ArbCom declined to comment officially one way or the other, Roger gave me his personal assessment:

What you propose doing with a "professional" account for existing articles sounds sensible. Be aware though that editing those articles from another account will almost certainly be linked sooner or later and may result in both accounts being blocked. So if you intend to also have a "personal" account you not only need to completely avoid editing articles you've commented professionally but also have a link somewhere from your "personal" account to your "professional" one. See the sockpuppet policy, especially the aspects about evading scrutiny, for further information: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/Wikipedia:SOCK

— Roger Davies, Sept. 3, 2011

November 26, Saturday I had the good fortune to meet Asaf Bartov, Head of Grants and Global South Relationships for the Wikimedia Foundation, in person, when he made an official visit to Manila, supporting Wikimedia Philippines. We talked about PR firms editing Misplaced Pages, and he said a number of interesting things, which I'll enumerate here:

1. "Jimmy Wales does not own Misplaced Pages. If he says yes to something, it is yes, but if he says no, it isn't necessarily no." This was in reference to me mentioning that Jimbo said that all PR firm edits were automatically COI and people doing it should be banned. He said I could quote him on that.
2. I explained the system I proposed to ArbCom, where I'd create an article in my sandbox and invite another community member to move it to mainspace, and he thought that was a promising way to address the problem.
3. He said "What you want to do is interesting, but you understand that because of the disrespectful way that PR firms have edited Misplaced Pages in the past, you aren't starting from zero but from negative two hundred. That said, I can see value in what you're trying to do." I agree with his assessment.

All this was discussed during a meeting of Wikimedia Philippines.

I seek to be radically transparent and subject myself to the full scrutiny and review of the community. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 19:32, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Tony, I really appreciate your willingness to discuss this. There is a wide range of opinion within the community about paid editing and I think it is helpful to have a conversation about it, rather than an argument. Can you expand on what you meant in this article entitled "How Misplaced Pages Allows You to Influence the Media", when you say "Make sure your Misplaced Pages entry provides those researching/checking up on you with the right information" (bolding mine)? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

My pleasure. What I meant is that since journalists often use Misplaced Pages as a starting point for research on a subject, it is preferable to present journalists with a complete, well-sourced article, rather than an unsourced stub or an article that leaves out major relevant facts. In addition, one can have at least some initial influence over how information is presented (subject to future edits, of course). For example, I had a client that owned a facility that was involved in a highly publicized spill of many tones of sediment into a river, caused by unusually heavy rainfall that caused a holding pond to breach. Nobody was hurt. There was some temporary environmental damage (fish were killed). Families that depend on the river for their livelihood were affected. The question is: when writing about it, do we call it an accident or a disaster? The media was split. Some used accident, some used disaster. I think it is clear that the latter term has a more negative connotation than the former. On Misplaced Pages, often whoever gets there first has a significant impact on what comes after. If I wrote the client's article and used "accident," there is a good chance that term would continue to be used, which would be favorable to my client (over "disaster") and not untrue. It certainly was an accident. Whether or not it was a disaster is relative and subjective, and there was not broad agreement about that here in the Philippines. I know someone out there is yelling "spindoctor!" right now. To that person, I say two things: 1) One has to pick a word. Every word connotes something. One could say someone was spinning the issue if they used "disaster" as well, if that person was working for a competing company. 2) One great thing about Misplaced Pages is that it is the 💕 that anybody can edit. If the community generally agreed that "disaster" was a better term, they'd change it. And I wouldn't change it back. I might argue for why I think disaster is more appropriate on the talk page, but I would NEVER get into an edit war to push a POV. Doing so would undermine everything I have built in developing the method I currently use to place articles in Misplaced Pages. The difficult part of my job in that case would be going back to my client and explaining to them that the community saw fit to edit, and that's the way it is. I am very clear with my clients that I assume no responsibility for the content after it is released, and that they have very limited control over it at that point. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 04:45, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I heard an opinion during the first big discussion about paid editing on Jimbo's talk page (the one where Jimbo said that paid editing didn't exist because he saw "virtually no evidence" of it) that I really agreed with: One can never really know all the affiliations and possible COIs of editors, because many don't disclose them. Given that this is true, what you can know, 100% all of the time, is whether or not an article meets community standards. If it doesn't, you correct it. If an editor consistently violates community standards, you correct that editor. As a community, we have absolute control over our content. We do not have it over our members, which is why a lot of PR practitioners edit under the radar. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 04:45, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia Philipines

Jimbo, as you will see here, Tony Ahn is standing for election as a trustee of Wikimedia Philippines. His statement says in part "I was asked by a couple members of that Board to run". Is this another WMUK crisis waiting to happen? Is the WMF doing anything to reduce the number of marketers and self-promoters getting into positions of power in these groups? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:34, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I think you should bring it to the attention of the WMF. And to potential voters.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:08, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Jimbo, I sometimes forget that you don't represent the WMF here. What is the best way to bring this to their attention? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd ask Philippe.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the WMF tends to take a lassez faire approach to pretty much everything, unless you (Jimmy) make a stink about it. Obviously not an ideal situation for you (or them), but that seems to be how things work more often than not.

Phillipe is certainly capable, but there's a certain level of institutional inertia that makes it hard for them to "nip things in the bud". --SB_Johnny | ✌ 00:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Why would Tony serving on the board of Wikimedia Philippines be a bad thing? Could an argument not be made that having a clueful PR professional on the board be a very good thing, not only to help WM PP promote Misplaced Pages in the country but to act as a liaison with other Filipino PR professionals? Again, I note that Jimbo has been working with the PR industry to get them on side and improve their understanding of how to deal with Misplaced Pages; could this not be a logical next step? Prioryman (talk) 11:56, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it would be a "bad thing". Why? Well, if Tony can be on the board all the while doing great things for his clients, and Mr X, his competitor decides to follow Tony's successful path, (and so on), eventually we'll have all of Misplaced Pages run by entirely by PR people who have the time, resources, personnel, and profit motive to do exactly what Tony is doing. I think this would discourage the volunteers who have been so key and are so necessary to Misplaced Pages's success from continuing to participate. Rklawton (talk) 13:51, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

This is a meaningful objection -reasonable slippery slope. Thanks. --Cyclopia 14:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

What evidence do you have that Mr.X is a paid editor? If you have none then you should apologize to that editor immediately! ;) --The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:30, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

A "clueful PR professional" would understand the impropriety of serving as a board member of a chapter before, during, or after having offered professional services designed to promote businesses or people on Misplaced Pages. We had a massive scandal about this with WMF UK, a scandal which significantly set back the public image and internal standing of the chapter, a scandal which resulted directly in real impact on their functioning. To demonstrate good faith, Tony should withdraw his candidacy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:54, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

You're absolutely right about that, and I hope your comment there will get the ball rolling in the right direction. If it doesn't, please don't throw it on your "whatever pile". --SB_Johnny | ✌ 22:08, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the WMF UK scandal, but would assume it had to do with something being hidden from the members or the public. I have always been transparent about my work, and the way I arrived at my process. I think that those that believe I should be barred from running from the board of trustees are doing a disservice to the democratic process of selection we have. As others have stated, I've always been open about my work and my affiliations. I agree with Jimbo that the electorate should be aware of the nature of my work in regards to Misplaced Pages, so I'll have a statement to that effect added to my candidate's statement and be sure to mention it at the annual convention in 8 days time. Please note that all of the current trustees and many of the members are already aware of my work as I have spoken openly about it at events. If the members of Wikimedia Philippines see fit to elect me, then they clearly see value in what I can contribute to WMPH. I appreciate all the feedback and the discussion on both sides of the issue. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 18:52, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi - just to note that I've seen this, and am reviewing the situation. No further need for people to alert me to this discussion, and thank you.  :) Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 19:45, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for reassuring us! If Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation himself is reviewing the situation, we all could rest assure that integrity and common sense will prevail... Or could we? 76.126.142.59 (talk) 19:59, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Philippe, has the WMF taken care of the Gibraltarpedia situation or is the WP main page DYK section still being used for PR for tourism to Gibraltar? Cla68 (talk) 22:39, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

You mean the situation where completely independent editors were involved in creating articles and WO members went after them and tried to drive them off of Misplaced Pages? No, it clearly hasn't been resolved, as all of you haven't been blocked yet. Silverseren 23:35, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

A disclosure was added at 20:21, 6 June 2013. New worl (talk) 04:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I would like to respond to what User:Rklawton said above. He stated that if I can be on the board, "eventually we'll have all of Misplaced Pages run by entirely by PR people who have the time, resources, personnel, and profit motive to do exactly what Tony is doing." I see a fallacy in reasoning here. Boards of Trustees of local Wikimedia chapters do not "run Misplaced Pages." They run their chapters, and exert no influence over how Misplaced Pages is run by the Wikimedia Foundation and the Misplaced Pages community. I have no profit motive to run for the board. In fact, I can't think of how being on the WMPH Board of Trustees would be profitable for Tony Ahn & Co. The first board had some organizational difficulties and I assisted them with those early on (I taught a seminar on basic parliamentary procedure, for example). I was a proponent of increased professionalization of the board so they operated more like established non-profits. Because of this, and because I have experience presiding over deliberative assemblies, I was approached by two current trustees who asked me to run. In light of this issue, I'll propose the new Board adopt COI rules regarding how those who edit for profit may interact with WMPH, its trustees, and its members. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 15:50, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems I should clarify that my comments paraphrased above were my own opinion (which I still hold)-- not Foundation policy, not Misplaced Pages policy. Misplaced Pages policy is made by the editing community (of which I am an insignificant member in a volunteer capacity), not by WMF. Ijon (talk) 17:31, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

You can RfC these, you know (although you might want to wait)

By the way, as far as I know, anyone can open an RfC on whether a particular item should be published. I opened one recently (it's here: Misplaced Pages talk:Did you know#RfC: Should a DYK for Wikipediocracy be published?) and as far as I know it's operative and is the controlling authority on whether that item should be published. So this might be a better approach than just talking about it here, since RfC can actually decide issues like this. (You need to watch the appropriate pages to catch them before they're published.)

Now, I'm not certain that RfC on publishing main page are operative, or that the one mentioned above is the controlling authority. This a new thing and has not been traditionally done and there's been some pushback on this, even though RfC are supposed to be allowed on most any issue. So I don't know what's going to happen regarding that RfC. It's exciting! Can't wait to find out. (As a practical matter, it might be wise to not open too many RfC on main page items until we sees how this plays out, or the RfC described below is decided.)

Anyway, to clarify this one way or the other and put it to bed, I opened an RfC to settle this once and for all: Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment#RfC on validity of RfC on main page items. Come one come all, pay your dime and have your say. Remember to be careful what you wish for, though; this tool has a double-edged blade. Herostratus (talk) 18:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Numerous enthusiastic people still joining

This is just a reminder that, despite years of negative people predicting "gloom and doom" and sending people to wp:ANI to be ridiculed and blocked, we still have over 6,100 new editor usernames created added each month, in http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm, and a broad sample of talk-page comments still shows widespread enthusiasm for the project, in many various areas. Plus of course, the activists and COI editors think Misplaced Pages is the "greatest website ever, man" and that inspires reactionary editors to continue working to reduce the slanting of text. Overall, there is so much positive energy, that all problems seem temporary, as long as they are judged over a multi-week period, not just fearing the worst on a bad day. It is because so many enthusiastic people are still joining. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:27, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Along these lines: I'm working on a piece of analysis that I will either float on the Signpost or as a post at Wikipediocracy taking a close look at every new article created in one single day — or the first 300 as a sample if I run out of gas, which might happen. One of the interesting phenomena of WP is the way that the count of active administrators has been declining and the count of so-called "very active editors" is no better than stagnant, yet the number of articles continues to escalate, now approaching 4.25 million on En-WP. I haven't rigorously studied the question, but my impression is that the pace of new article creation is actually increasing. Amongst my peers at WPO there is much beating of drums about the decline of the "key participation metrics" and erroneous theories about the continued growth of the content database. My sense is as follows: Misplaced Pages is doing fine. Good content is being produced, although not necessarily by the narrow circle of a few thousand "very active editors," but by a broader population. The bulk of the content being created is not machine scraping of public domain databases from the internet, but actual writing. The content is split fairly evenly between "serious" and "popular culture" topics. More to follow, I'm only about 125 pieces in on my target day... Carrite (talk) 01:13, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

With regard to the number of new usernames being created, "over 6,100" per month off by a factor of more than 100 - if you look here, you'll see more than 500 new useraccounts per hour. But the more important questions are (1) compared to what? , and (2) what percentage of new user accounts do even a single new edit? .

As for new articles, I estimate that about 1,800 are created per day, and about 1,000 are deleted per day. So you might want to give new articles a day or two before you analyze them - otherwise they may not be there by the time you've finished. Also, the rate of increase in new articles (net new articles) is definitely slowing - take a look at the second chart at Misplaced Pages:Size of Misplaced Pages. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:28, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

• Over 6,700 new editors per month, 6,000 new usernames per day: Beyond the 6,700 new active editors each month, the current Special:Log shows user accounts (usernames for readers) being created at the rate of 250/hour, or nearly 6,000 per day (5,920 on 5 June 2013 for Log option "type=newusers"). With all the new usernames being created, I had been worried about too many trivial new articles, but with the daily deletions, only about 800 net new articles survive per day, so there are still numerous people actively deleting many of the non-notable pages. Hence, the work needed to overcome "crowd sourcing" by editorial selection of notable topics is still being accomplished, and despite all the negative comments trying to demoralize editors to quit helping, they continue to improve Misplaced Pages. Imagine if more people were encouraged to join WikiProjects, and encouraged to talk with pro-active users. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:28, 6 June, 05:34, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Ooh, stats?

• New user registrations (EN) etc.
• Why are users blocked on Misplaced Pages?
• Wikimedia Report Card June 2013: core (New Misplaced Pages Articles per Day etc.) / secondary (New Editors Per Month for All Wikimedia Projects, Active Wikimedia Editors for All Wikimedia Projects 5+ edits per month)
• Page Curation stats

More stats! --Atlasowa (talk) 15:29, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for those other stats. -Wikid77 05:34, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes they are creating Useraccounts...but are they edititing, what are they editing and how many edits do they do before they had to the hills? That is the question. Also, how long do they stay? Just creating an account doesn't tell us much and it doesn't help the project if the only edit they do is to make their Userpage not be red. Or vandalism. The Checkuser tool can't even tell if these are mass socks until they are used to edit at least once sao they could just be sleepers to be used later. So although it is somewhat reassuring to know that 6100 people created an account, the better question really is what did they do with it. Kumioko (talk) 20:40, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

The "6100" or 6,700 in April 2013 are the new editors, making 1 or more edits, but I agree that the "how many edits" data would help judge the types of activity. Unfortunately, the cumbersome way the stats have been gathered, up to April, has been a tedious 3-week process to recount all logged data, re-totalling activity from the founding of Misplaced Pages. There has been talk of running incremental reports, but not sure of the status. However, some issues can be deduced with the current data, such as 6,700 new editors, among 180,000 new usernames (per month), indicates 3.7% of new usernames are editing, as predicted by the "volunteer rule" where 3% of a given group will volunteer to help. -Wikid77 05:34, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

New editors on the stats chart is defined by making ten or more edits. Dragons flight (talk) 05:58, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The first link also has "Live accounts (%)" at the bottom. About 1/3 of the accounts created edited an article at least once. Whether that edit was constructive or reverted is a good question though, not answered there however. From my own gnoming experience, it's not worth bothering to log in for most article edits. A lot of people here are working to make that harder though. Ever increasing levels of protections are being added to articles. Sometimes that's maybe justified, although if a current top ANI thread is to be taken as a case study , in addition to the more recently famous Qworty, you can't really counteract self-promotion that way, until well after the act(s). Psychotropic sentence (talk) 21:40, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

It is great to see that many new editors, but I don't think the "doom and gloom" people have been shown to be wrong: just going by the number of new editors in April last year, that's a fall of approximately 6% from 2012, and April 2012 was 15% less than April 2011. We need more context, but there is still cause to be concerned about a downward trend. - Bilby (talk) 06:01, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

WP and Gibraltar

Related to the DYK discussion above, a Gibraltar-related FA article has been nominated for the front page. Cla68 (talk) 23:40, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Save me!!

I am being threatened with a topic ban for expanding the article about Minorities in Pakistan (from to in fairly short time) in collaboration with another editor (blocked now). Because of the shortage of time that article is written in strident tone and I am expecting help from more experienced editors in bringing that article closer to neutrality. I mostly used news reports (most of which are reliable for the claims) I didn't misrepresent anything wilfully, but still I am being threatened, vilified on a regular basis, not only that, every guy who is supporting me is being vituperated and vilified by random IPs, socks and sometimes veteran editors with known POV issues. I usually edit articles that are controversial that increases my chances of garnering hatred.

Kindly see my talk. and my history for more. It might seem that I am hypocritical at one glance but if you look closely a different image might emerge. Mr T 11:19, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Attack posting by ban-evading sock removed. – Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:53, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I am an Indian????? Haha.. Do you have a proof? How is my nationality, ethnicity relevant anyway? Is that the reason you attack me, you think I am an Indian and I have an agenda? That shows how civil and neutral you are. Mr T 11:49, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• There is more than what meets the eye. Mr T 12:15, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Bullying?

Editor Future Perfect at Sunrise comes out of nowhere reverts everything simply with an arbitrary accusation that I "turned an article into a tendentious POV screed in furtherance of a political agenda." and he gets to be high and mighty. What the heck is going on? Is this anarchy now? Or a mob rule? Mr T 11:42, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh and the diktats read,

1. "emergency brake: blanket rv back to 9 May, before Mrt started messing the article up. If you want to re-expand coverage of human rights issues, rewrite that from scratch"
2. "if anybody seriously wants to clean up the article and make it neutral, this is the version to start out from. Editors who reinsert obviously non-neutral material will be blocked without further warning."

Is there nobody who could take this up? Mr T 11:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with his last edit per WP:TNT. If you'd like to improve the article, you better start at the most suitable version, which is his one. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 11:56, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Agree as well. Sometimes there has been so much damage done to an article you need to go back to an earlier, salvageable version. Make small, sourced changes from this point forward and ensure that there is appropriate WP:CONSENSUS for the edits as you go forward (✉→BWilkins←✎) 12:01, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

This is the problem with Misplaced Pages. People just somehow "agree" in the end no matter how disruptive it may be. Imagine if we went on imposing our own preferred versions devoid of all the relevant info, on every controversial article? What is this?

(edit conflict)You agree, Soni?? That is fine, but it's inherently a matter of opinion. I would have thought bullishly reverting 57,399 bytes of sourced information after weeks of its inclusion without even an attempt to rectify the issues or any discussion about the possibilities of improvement with the user who added them, is disruptive and an utterly unhealthy approach.
On top of that, add his explicit threats and allegations against me on my talk. I am not pushing a political agenda here I added what was reported and there might be some holes here and there. But framing that as grounds for block and removal of everything is unacceptable. Mr T 12:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Bwilkins, do you wait for consensus before everything you do? I couldn't imagine that these sort of blanket reversals can occur in this manner. I couldn't imagine that admins will bully an editor like that.
I added scores of sources (news mostly) and I know I didn't wilfully distort anything why would I want to establish a consensus before adding what I think is relevant and legitimate info? This is disgusting!!! Mr T 12:12, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not silly enough to to massive, rapid, potentially controversial changes to any article. Article changes need to be close to glacial, as opposed to rapid-fire. You've got a positive opportunity to move forward slowly from a tabula rasa as opposed to automatically assuming bad faith. This kind of reversion happens often - it's not directed at you specifically (note: I am NOT calling anyone silly, I'm saying that I am not silly) (✉→BWilkins←✎) 12:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Mrt, Bwilkins happens to be atleast the fourth editor who disagrees with you. If that is the case, I suggest you drop the stick, and move on. Start at the suggested version, would you. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:20, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@BW that's your reason you're not silly enough? Are you joking with me? I will move forward at my own pace, but what about this trend of bullying editors who disagree with admins? I am worried for Misplaced Pages as a whole.

@Soni, none of the reasons cited for disagreement is framed in a way that relates to any policy I know about. It is not a majority rule. Mr T 12:24, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The reason for my disagreement is WP:NPOV. The best way I see to solve this is WP:TNT. NPOV is a majority rule, and what's previous there is not neutral. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:28, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

By "NPOV" you mean nitpicking about the minutiae of phraseology? Is that it? Minor tweaks here and there would have sufficed. That didn't merit a blanket reversal. And asking me start from scratch as if that is a motivator now after I have been arbitrarily reverted, who can guarantee that it won't happen again on this page or any other page???

Mr. Wales are you watching this? If an IP had done it, the it would be classified as vandalism but our editors are actually justifying it. Mr T 12:34, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Read this essay and think about it, Mr. Wales.
Save our cherished Project. It has the power to be the greatest gift or the worst curse on the future of Mankind (I don't think I am exaggerating), which one would you choose, Sir? Mr T 12:39, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Small observation: If Minorities in Pakistan is labelled as controversial then I believe everything is. There is no controversy about Minorities of Pakistan. There is a strong consensus among sources (at least those which I encountered) that they are suffering from every aspect, from terrorism to draconian laws. It's not me who's saying this, but the sources. How is it biased to put this info into article? Why should we sugar-coat the predicaments of Minorities in Pakistan and pussyfoot around it? Why? Mr T 12:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• The whole foundation relies heavily on the moral-basis for the edits we commit, that's why we emphasize on Assuming Good faith, that's why we take care before adding unsourced material about BLP and so on. But if these sort of bullish behaviour is allowed to go on (which is already the case) it sets bad precedence, and now none of the other articles are safe. Mr T 12:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Reverting to a older version is one thing and threatening to block someone because they tried to expand an article is a different matter, was there any discussion regarding the content? I don't see any, editors should not be bullied.-sarvajna (talk) 12:54, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

You'll be threatened too, Sarvajna. You need not have come here but I appreciate your support. Mr T 13:01, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Is that the "lesson" then? When you get bullied by admins, you should just meekly drop it and saunter on? Is that the lesson here, Mr. Wales? All that energy and time I spent to expand the article, to scour for reliable sources. All that was put to waste without even the minimum assurance that it won't happen again, and I am just supposed to accept it? Other editors are actually justifying what would have been classified as vandalism had it been done by a newbie or an IP.
He actually threatened to ban/block me if I didn't shut up. Is there no uninvolved editor who sees disruption in this approach? Mr T 15:31, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Is 1984 on the verizon?

On 8 May I made a "teensy query" to which you replied that you would welcome the reposing of the query ( (If you ever ask me this question and I give a different answer of any material kind, you may speculate freely that the situation has changed and that I'm fighting it behind the scenes somehow)) I am, indeed, reposing the question in light of the Verizon case affecting well over a hundred million people. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Can we create a WP:REDIRECT from 2013 to Nineteen Eighty-Four? Bus stop (talk) 12:35, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Same answer as before. :-) Again, I welcome the question from time to time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Hey Jim!

Hi Jimbo, I am developing software so blind children so read Misplaced Pages, and I need to run some things by you. I do not have your e-mail address so I was wondering if you could telephone me on (Redacted). Thank You! --Ivilbderoneday (talk) 14:47, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

If you click the "User page" tab at the top of this page, you can then see email addresses and phone numbers for Jimbo and some of his staff. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 14:50, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

You will be happy to know that there is an ideological discussion going on at the Helpdesk, Misplaced Pages:Help_desk#Misplaced Pages, and we would like your opinion. Thank You. --Ivilbderoneday (talk) 15:20, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

April 2013 edits rise after 6 years

Checking stats: http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm

I know you prefer to reserve judgment until the 12-month moving average shows a clear increase, but there has been a curious 1% uptick in the April 2013 editor-activity levels, compared to the prior year, for the first time in 6 years. April 2007 was the last year when April's editor counts (for 3, 5, 10, 100, 250 edits) rose higher, above the April 2006 levels. Each year, I keep checking the "pulse of editor activity" to look for clear signs of average activity growing, rather than slightly slowing, and this April 2013 rise is the first sign of editor-actvity growth, compared to the recent annual decline of 2% lower activity each year. I have not seen the May-editors data, yet, to confirm if the uptick has been sustained during May 2013. However, if considered together with topic "#Misplaced Pages Renaissance of improvements" then this might be a period when editor activity has broadened, as well as deepened, to re-fix some prior major problems. Beyond just a core group of intense editors re-focused to fix big issues, the whole community seems to be broadening its contributions, as would be expected from a larger "shotgun effect" which would hit more targets, including more major problems to be fixed. That is much more likely, than a "Wiki-enlightenment" revelation which suddenly focused on big improvements, which would be bizarre, compared to simply: more dedicated editing means finding more problems, both small and big. -Wikid77 15:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

It could be influenced by a WP:AFSE bump, which tend to ramp up in activity during the end of semesters. Biosthmors (talk) 17:56, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Optional new-messages box

This is just an FYI. After the May 2013 uproar about the removal of the orange new-messages bar, from top of page, the wp:Notifications developers (editor-engagement dept.) have added an option to show a floating new-messages box, at page bottom, by a setting in Special:Preferences to append the "floating" box when user-talk is updated. No JavaScript is needed. As of May 2013, the optional new-messages box has appeared as follows:

You have new messages. (view changes)

(x)

Unlike the top new-messages bar (formerly instantly visible on every page), users can only see the floating messages box when they scroll to the extreme bottom of a page; otherwise, an edit-preview page only shows the " (1) " or short " New-messages " segment at page top, and users might view the upper portion of several pages before they ever view the bottom of a page. Again, users have to know to set the Preferences option to show the "floating" messages box. That is the status so far. -Wikid77 15:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Which of the many tabs of the Preferences options is this particular option on? I can't see it. Prioryman (talk) 17:53, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Google linking to https versions of pages linked to PRISM?

As discussed here some time ago, Google is now linking to https pages when they are available (they do this for all websites, not just Misplaced Pages). I was wondering if this is done to prevent the information stored on internet servers from being read by the NSA. Count Iblis (talk) 16:08, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

I have no way of knowing why Google does that, but protection against snooping by all manner of people is a good reason to use https in as many cases as is practical. It's worth noting, though, that as a technical matter whether a page is served via https or http would have no material impact on the accessibility (or inaccessibility) of data about what was served that may be stored on google's servers.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:43, 7 June 2013 (UTC)