Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:47, 14 January 2021

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates – he has an open door policy. He holds the founder's seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The current trustees occupying "community-selected" seats are Doc James, Pundit and Raystorm. The Wikimedia Foundation's Lead Manager of Trust and Safety is Jan Eissfeldt.

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God Jul och Gott Nytt År!

Gråbergs Gråa Sång is wishing you the season's greetings.
Whether you celebrate your hemisphere's solstice or Christmas,
Diwali, Hogmanay, Hanukkah, Lenaia, Festivus,
or the Saturnalia,
this is a special time of year for (almost) everyone.

Details of Twitter's ban of Trump

Jimbo, I agree with Twitter's detailed reasoning in their blog at https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html. Do you and why or why not? BillRogers2021 (talk) 01:07, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that things were as bad as this at Twitter. Twitter management's action and propaganda-like interpretations at that link are what one would expect in a dictatorship. For reference, according to Twitter management, here are the tweets that were the reason for permanently suspending Trump's account.

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Pardon me for being suspicious, but this makes Twitter management look so bad that I wonder if you are a Trump supporter rather than a supporter of Twitter management. Bob K31416 (talk) 23:03, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Right—I can't think of a more frightening threat to American democracy in the past week than Twitter's terms-of-use enforcement. Your sense of perspective and moral clarity are always refreshing. Just like when you advocated that Misplaced Pages should be more welcoming toward neo-Nazi editors. MastCell  05:30, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Fallacy of relative privation. PackMecEng (talk) 05:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Funny thing about Twitter is that it is a property owned by someone, & anyone who uses it does so solely by the owner's permission. While Twitter has a Terms of Service -- like Misplaced Pages -- the company can still forbid access to their website to anyone for any reason they want -- much as you can tell anyone on your property to leave for any reason you want. (That's a wonderful thing about capitalism & owning stuff.) So the people at Twitter can terminate anyone's access for any reason at any time; however, because they want to encourage people to use Twitter, they avoid doing so arbitrarily. Nevertheless, they can. And users of Twitter can be kicked off at any time just people who edit Misplaced Pages can be banned at any time, even for reasons you & I think stink. It just looks bad to do this arbitrarily, so they don't do this unless there is a good reason -- such as a user makes himself infamous. Association with infamous people could harm Twitter's reputation, so it is understandable they terminate Trump's account: a lot of people think he is a crook & a racist, & people don't like associating with people who have that reputation, nor with companies that do business with them. The bottom line always wins out. -- llywrch (talk) 06:42, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The bottom line always wins out. Uh, huh. Without even looking, I can tell you that this has hurt Twitter's 'bottom line'. With looking, I can tell you their stocks have tumbled by 10%.1 He had ~88 million followers. The 'good business' argument here has no grounding. Mr rnddude (talk) 18:36, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

A one day, or one month, or one year movement in a share price is zero evidence of whether this is "good business" or not. The question is will the fundamentals of the company be improved by this move. Longer term I guess that having a more ethical business model - including banning rightwing hate speech - is likely to be better for business. Years back the UK made a big effort to ban soccer hooligans. These devoted supporters of their clubs brought in lots of revenue, but banning them was good for business as it returned soccer to being something whole families would watch and enjoy. As for the 88 million followers... don't fall into the trap of assuming they are Trump supporters. Many of them follow to troll him, or laugh at him and many will remain on Twitter to troll Biden. QuiteUnusual (talk) 19:56, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

In one sense, I obviously support and agree with the sentiment behind it. Twitter does a terrible job of enforcing their terms of service, and is a hotbed for conspiracy theory thinking and falsehoods of all kinds, and Trump has definitely had a terrible impact.

At the same time, I do wonder/fear if this ban (and similar things like Amazon AWS kicking off parler) will simply entrench people who are in a "Q" state of mind, turn Trump into some kind of martyr, and ultimately do as much harm s good.

I definitely agree with LLywrch that it's a good thing that a private organization can set standards and enforce them, even if arbitrarily at times. My own view is that twitter's moderation model (anonymous staff moderation coupled with no real power for community norms to develop in a healthy way and be enforced) inherently doesn't scale. I hope to see more competitors arise who are looking for ways to create a platform which both serves as a platform for discussion and debate that the public finds fun and interesting, while at the same time not serving as a platform for radicalization and division. It's a hard problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:18, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

The issue raised by the OP was whether or not the two tweets of Trump were justification for Twitter management's permanent suspension of Trump's account as they claimed. Bob K31416 (talk) 11:24, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Sure. I think that's really up to them, not me. I think twitter has had a very complicated relationship with Trump for a very long time. He's surely made them tons and tons and tons of money. And yet, his behavior has often been terrible. Twitter struggles with a bad reputation as a vector for misinformation / disinformation and he's very problematic in that regard.

If I were advising twitter years ago, they should have kicked him off years ago. But I think their business model thrives on controversy, being in the news every single day, etc. I can understand that it's hard for them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:04, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Twitter gave Trump free rein when it suited their growth objectives. Now that Trump is leaving, and can't use government power to retaliate, it's expedient for Twitter to ban him. I'm sure advertisers have told Twitter that they don't want to underwrite violent sedition. I disagree that there's a risk in making Trump a martyr. He and other culpable parties should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law to demonstrate that this is not acceptable. In addition, Parler should be exposed as the Russian psyop that it appears to be. Jehochman 14:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

The GOP's political agenda since about 2010 is the political analogue of a Ponzi-scheme. A political movement that's viable on the long term has to address real world issues based on facts. The public can and is often misled by lies and half-truths, but this only works as long as the main political; agenda is still solidly based on facts. Telling lies is then similar to borrowing money that you can spend to invest in your company. It only works as long as you'll generate enough revenue to pay off the debt.

The GOP has had no viable political agenda since 2010, they needed to make more and more propaganda to sell their talking points, which then could not be covered in the mainstream media, except FOX NEWS. But even FOX NEWS had more and more problems with being the GOP's media outlet. Social media was never meant to be a media outlet for political parties, it was only because the GOP couldn't get it lies published as easily elsewhere that it ended up becoming the main pillar of the GOP's media operations. But as with any Ponzi-scheme, what then happened is that more and more lies needed to be published and the nature of the lies also become more and more extreme. It was then inevitable that a conflict would arise with the GOP and the social media platforms. Count Iblis (talk) 15:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

From the responses so far, editors haven't mentioned how there was anything wrong with the two Trump tweets that would justify permanent suspension.

On another point, I've been unable to find the full video of Trump's Capitol speech on the day of the riots. I sometimes like to check the context of excerpts that the news media take to see whether their excerpt is misleading. For example, in remarks Trump addressed to seniors months ago about Covid, there was an excerpt in the BBC TV news where he said that they weren't vulnerable and the BBC went on to discuss this and how Trump was wrong. I looked at the full video and the BBC had cut out the part that immediately followed where he added: but for Covid-19 you are. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:07, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I know most people hate Trump right now and want him impeached asap after what happened, but you're very worryingly being distracted at what is happening with China, Iran and North Korea. COVID, and such hatred between Democrats and Republicans and your president really weakens you as a nation, wake up to what is happening beyond Trump and Biden. † Encyclopædius 13:08, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

I found what appears to be the full video of Trump's Capitol speech . The Washington Post published it Jan 11, the day of my previous message. Also, I listened to some of the House impeachment debate, which seems like a good source for both sides of the issue. One of the representatives referred to a part of Trump's speech at 16:22 in the video where Trump said, "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." Bob K31416 (talk) 20:34, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

See also here. Count Iblis (talk) 00:50, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Jack Dorsey's statement: "I believe this was the right decision for Twitter. We faced an extraordinary and untenable circumstance, forcing us to focus all of our actions on public safety. Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all." Count Iblis (talk) 01:11, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Count Iblis, still waiting for his statement on Iran and China. Sir Joseph 03:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Trump's speech in the right context. Count Iblis (talk) 03:25, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Should we/WMF make a statement about US events?

On rare occasions, we should speak out on world events. Is this such a moment? Perhaps we should be encouraging readers to lobby the congress and cabinet to initiate a peaceful transfer of power? Feoffer (talk) 01:14, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

• The reality is probably that Misplaced Pages won't effect any change by being an advocate, but probably does the most good in the world by being a non-partisan (which doesn't mean balanced, of course) source of information. On issues that've directly affected our ability to do that, it's of course impossible to not be advocates. WilyD 16:25, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• No We only make statements on issues that directly affect Misplaced Pages. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:28, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• There's nothing en.wiki can do. The only thing that WMF should review is if any major contributions should be tracked to Trump or those Congresspeople that supported the challenge to the EC and consider returning said donations, and speak on that matter. Though doubtful we'd see such contributions. --Masem (t) 16:40, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• No, thanks. One of the last things we need from the WMF is more political advocacy outside its core mission. --MarioGom (talk) 16:48, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I think we are going to have our hands full enough as it is in coming years dealing with political attacks on section 230 and other things that are directly meaningful to our very existence.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:19, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the days of anonymous accounts may be coming to an end. For platforms to be exempt from responsibility for user content requires that there is transparency about who is responsible for the content. We can no longer endure the situation where nobody can be held responsible for criminal, slanderous or harmful content. Jehochman 14:53, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

My take (as I have strong interest in the Section 230 article as a primary editor on it), is that its more likely that we're going to see more responsibility placed on Big Tech to monitor for hateful content based on the way Democrats have spoken of change to the law in contrast to the GOP. That doesn't necessarily mean elimination of anonymous accounts as long as they still have IP tracking (as we do) as to assist in forensics, but it will require more proactive measures. To that end, WP is already in a good place since nearly all editors are equivalently moderators too. (If we were to be going by the GOPs route, that would have been requiring a stronger heeding of neutrality or forced balance which would have been much harder). --Masem (t) 14:59, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, they might add a requirement that the platform needs to make good faith efforts to moderate properly or else they lose immunity. That's an approach. We all know that when a user gets banned, the next thing they try is sock puppetry. We use telemetry to identify sock puppet accounts (IP address, software fingerprints, device identifier). Preventing sock puppet attacks is a hard problem. At minimum, section 230 should require transparency around paid advertisements. It should always be clear who is paying to transmit a message. Jehochman 15:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Another aspect may be that the party in power can get political opponents banned from social media sites by using the potential to remove company liability protection from section 230 to influence the company. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:42, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Male vs Female number of editors petition

Much admired Jimbo, I am reaching to you because, although I love wikipedia, I feel there are too many male editors, who often are prejudiced against women and therefore also edit articles with prejudice. I would like to ask you please to equalise the number of female and male editors to reflect the world we live in.

I have felt their prejudice in my editing of Mary Magdalene. Prejudice has been used to justify a sexist sentence in the article. I have been deleted and threatened. I know you will recommend that I go to the Misplaced Pages:dispute resolution but my trust has been eroded and I suspect the people in charge of resolving the dispute will also be men. When it comes to the undertones of a text accused of being biased against women, I can only accept a resolution from women. Men can rarely give a balance opinion of injustice committed against women, the same way white folk can rarely give a balance opinion of injustice committed against other races, etc…

The article says "Ehrman and Schaberg consider it highly improbable that the historical Jesus ever advocated complete equality between the sexes, considering that one of the best-attested facts of his life is that all twelve of his chosen apostles were male”

- We know Jesus never excluded women. Quite the opposite. The 12 were probably men because at the beginning he only had male followers (women were most likely stuck at home with babies, cleaning, cooking and serving others). Later, we know Jesus named women amongst his main followers: Mary Magdalene, Susanna, Joanna… These women happened to be wealthy which could explain their availability to follow Jesus and even support him financially.

- In this website we have many articles that show how often women have been ignored or simply written out of history (https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_scientists). Considering how the church has treated Mary Magdalene until recently, i really doubt the men who wrote the gospels also went out of their way to ask the women who followed Jesus whether he had also asked them to be their apostles...I can imagine Jesus often talking to the group of men separate to the women, simply because the women would have felt threatened by the men (Gospel of Mary, chapter 9). So we will never know what Jesus told the women who followed him. We do know however that Pope Francis (and the Vatican is not known for their equality), called Mary Magdalene the Apostle to the Apostles in 2016.

- By including these scholars opinion, Misplaced Pages seems to agree with the fact that because the 12 were male, OBVIOUSLY women were purposely excluded by Jesus. Girls are reading this. They may think that if an organisation is only men, it specifically excludes them. We know this is not true. It may be because no women applied or were available. It may stop girls from trying to become part of it thus creating a vicious circle and causing their own self-fulfilling prophecy. It is important they consider other most likely scenarios such as women not having been available before, or their input simply ignored by those writing history.

- Those references may quote scholars but not all scholars opinions should be used in Misplaced Pages, specially if they use discriminatory undertones when talking about such an important woman as Mary Madgalene.

Again, please, in order to keep Misplaced Pages fair and balance, I beg you that you balance the number of male and female editors and have a team of women monitor those articles that talk specifically about women. Sofiairiondo (talk) 15:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a volunteer-created encyclopedia, and Wikipedians consist of people who volunteer. There are no quotas, preferred sex, or anything resembling authorized balance. You sign up, you edit, and all are respected and treated, hopefully, with civility. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:37, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Dear Randy, I have not been treated with respect or civility, thus my post above. Do not try to deny my experience. What do you propose we do to reduce the gender bias? Sofiairiondo (talk) 15:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

As Misplaced Pages is a VOLUNTEER activity, your notion is completely untenable. It's also likely illegal in the country Misplaced Pages is incorporated in. Sorry if you feel undervalued, but when one isn't happy with an activity they participate in voluntarily, the usual response is simply to leave. And I'm sure your departure would have less effect on Misplaced Pages than the number of editors that would leave if they were told their edits had to be reviewed prior to publishing. Never mind the ridiculous sexist assumptions you've made. 174.254.193.246 (talk) 15:51, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi. Treating other editors with civility and a concept of accepting them as acting in good faith are central guidelines of Misplaced Pages. If you've come upon editors who don't do that (case in point, the IP above) a reminder and link to those points can be used but, remember, treat them with the same courtesy (or at least keep it in mind). Would be nice to have more women and men editing, and an advertising outreach to colleges, scientific organizations, elderly communities, and the hundreds of other places where potential editors roam can be further utilized, with celebrity editors (rock stars, nobel prize winners, science fair celebrities, gaming superstars, athletes, princesses and princes, etc.) endorsing the idea of editing Misplaced Pages by showing how easy it is. Just a couple ideas. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:54, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Sofiairiondo, We know that we don't have a diverse enough editor base, and are working to attract a more diverse group of volunteers. Our volunteers are also working to give better coverage to disadvantaged groups, see for example Women In Red, which has increased our coverage of women significantly since it began.

For better or worse, we reflect the biases of society at many times. If you think a quality source is biased, the answer is rarely to remove it, but instead to add another source that balances it out. Looking at this issue in particular, I see you were trying to make this edit. In my opinion, that sentence is already fairly neutral. It doesn't say it in Misplaced Pages's voice, and instead attributes the quote to the authors. And the very next sentence notes that Jesus' ministry brought greater liberation to women.

The best solution here is not removal, but instead additional research. Try to find a scholarly source that disagrees directly with Ehrman and Schaberg. Or that disagrees on the principle. Then you can include it and provide a counterpoint to theirs. But we do not often wholesale remove information from reliable academic sources. CaptainEek ⚓ 19:14, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I am not a sufficient expert in this area to immediately know the right answer. If Ehrman and Shaberg are eminent scholars whose opinion carries significant weight in scholarly circles, it would be wrong to simply exclude them from this article. If they are anti-feminist activists posting in random blogs and publishing populist tracts, then they probably aren't relevant for this article.

If there is a legitimate scholarly question here (again, I know too little to even guess) then there will surely be valid references to give the reader the full context of the debate. (Remember, Misplaced Pages doesn't take sides on controversial issues, but attempts to present readers with the full understanding of the state of the debate.)

I would suggest to you that finding like-minded high quality editors can be done in various places here: the Women in Red group is great in my experience.

The last thing that I would say is that the very complex questions around Women in Christianity - including historical questions of how women were treated during the earliest Christian times and throughout the history of various Christian churches - surely means that our articles are not likely to show any very simple one-dimension conclusion. What we have to do is grapple with it all, fairly, and with a spirit of inquisitiveness and kindness towards each other.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:31, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

My last couple of edits and my Wiki Anniversary

Yes, things are a bit rough in the states right now and January seems to be a bit of a month of reminders to me and my US/Hawaiian roots, on top of all of todays historic events. I have fallen behind on my edits but they remind me that Misplaced Pages takes its name from a Hawaiian word or phrase. Thank you to all who keep the free flow of encyclopedic information. Thank you to you Jimbo for your patience with me as an editor and great thanks to User:Drmies. Once upon a time Misplaced Pages saw a huge insurgence of political activism invade our space. While this editor wanted to do the extreme (or, at least what I saw as such) he heeded my words. I cannot tell you how humbled I am by that. It wasn't really much but it was still something I remember.

Coming up on avery sad anniversaries for my ohana. I am not at all happy that these days fall on such close dates but I can tell you that Misplaced Pages editors welcomed me as if I were their own family...in so many ways. I will always see these things as gifts. Huge thanks to User:TParis for your wonderful patience while I screwed up our meeting at Pearl Harbor but it was still kind of you to help me see my old home. And of course...bacon to User:Dennis Brown. Giggle. I am so honored to be associated with him and Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Editor Retention. Also, Jimbo.....if you have time please look at User:Steven Crossin's attempts to reolve onflict at DRN. He should be held in much higher esteem in our community but I have truly failed him and our attempts to resolve conflict through that venue as I have ben too controversial. I make mistakes and mostly from trying to push the envelope. I know you have had to remind me more than once not to go to far in my edits. Thank you for your caution and words as so many have offered. I will never be a perfect person or edito but...Misplaced Pages and it's community have truly made me better...all around. Mahalo to you all.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:58, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Mahalo!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:29, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Will YOU ever do anything to stop these freaks?!!

https://meta.wikimedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Mtarch11&diff=prev&oldid=20957742 https://meta.wikimedia.org/search/?title=Special:Log&logid=39628327

176.15.140.79 (talk) 03:31, 14 January 2021 (UTC)