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Revision as of 20:43, 11 January 2008

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Inequality in coverage

I just managed to sort out locator maps for the cities in Cambodia and in checking the articles on the cities -they are even worse than I thought. Provincial capitals like Pursat etc which have tens even hundreds of thousands of inhabitants as yet don't even have basic facts and are still one liners, yet places on provincial capitals in the UK and America etc would have hundreds , even thousands of articles on that place alone and an oversized article to boot. What you see on the Pursat article is the product of nearly two years work. What concerns me is that few people seem to care about it, few people have even attempted to actively try to develop some of the major cities and towns in places like cambodia, vietnam, Laos etc let alone the smaller settlements. At best there are only three or four people working on articles on countries like this and even then this isn't particularly consistent . I can't attempt to sort out places like this alone!!! If this encyclopedia is to become completely authoritive on the web , then this major uneveness needs to be addressed asap. Basically if you compare it to a developed country such as the UK - with Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, Laos etc only places like London, Birmingham and Manchester are covered and have half decent articles -the rest of the country - 99% isn't even really covered except a few minor stubs here and there. It is a huge problem gaining access to a decent and reliable amount of information. Surely there should be more people interested in places like this or at least be trying to address this. Yet in all due respect, workgroups like WikiProject Lego, Pokemon etc have many contributors. Do you find this uneveness concerning for a serious encyclopedia? I know it will take time to build this, just wish there was more people contributing in poorly developed parts of the project. Let me know what you think about my ideas. Thanks ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 12:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

You should take a look at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. - hahnchen 13:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I should add the undeveloped parts of south east asia to the main page of this project as requiring attention -perhaps it would create more interest. Even if it was two or three it would make a big difference ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 16:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you're on the right track by highlighting it on the WP:BIAS talk page. You can also try Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/open tasks and its talk page, it's an ever growing list though. Try and engage the editors at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Southeast Asia and Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Cambodia, I don't know how active those projects are. - hahnchen 17:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps there is some bias but dont forget that it is a lot harder to get information in English about a lot of these places than it would be for the UK and others you mentioned. I think one way to counter this would be to reach out to English-as-a-foreign language teachers (like moi) to get their students to write and improve articles in English about their home countries. I do this with my classes here in Mexico. Not only does Misplaced Pages get contributions, for students its a chance to show off their bilingual skills. However, I can see one possible problem with this... sources are most likely to be in the students' original language rather than English. This may not be such a huge problem for me as there are many English/Spanish bilinguals to help verify information my students contribute... but I suppose it would be more difficult for a number of other languages. I would like to work on recruiting EFL teachers to do projects similar to my own but I would like to know if there would be a language/verification issue.Thelmadatter (talk) 18:10, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Foreign language sources are absolutely fine, and completely necessary when there is no English source. Many of our scientific sources make no sense to a layman but a source does not have to be understandable for every 12 year old to be valid. Remember we are writing the encyclopedia of everything, using English to express that knowledge, we are not creating an encyclopedia about how the world is seen by English speakers. Countering systemic bias is a crucial part of our work here, I agree with Blofeld but as lmadatter indicates there are many English speaking wikipedians all over the world (there are an estimated several million ex-pat Brits in the world right now) and many wikipedians who are multi-lingual, plus many more wikipedians whose second language is English, for instance one of our most consistently prolific contributors is Russian, etc etc18:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC). Thanks, SqueakBox

That certainly makes sense SqueakBox. I put a message on an EFL forum I participate in a lot on Daves ESL Cafe to see if anyone is keen on the idea. Its a start.Thelmadatter (talk) 18:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Those are indeed excellent points made by both of you. The problem however becomes more apprarent with lesser developed countries where english or indeed the Internet is not made available and away from widely spoken languages such as Spanish, French, German, Italian etc. For articles related to south east asia particularly countries like Cambodia most info is likely to be available in Khmer - often they don't speak english and are highly unlikely to use english wikipedia and often they haven't got access to the Internet duue to poverty etc and are therefore unable to relay what info they know even in their own language let alone english. This problem of course is even more prominent in many parts of Africa where while the amount of info is gradually becoming available online it is still extremely backwards and uneven. There are also parts of Latin America -particularly countries like Bolivia, Ecaudor etc which are not well covered. I have been struggling to keep in contact with one of the few Burmese users on here User:Ekyaw who I have encouraged to take photographs and upload as much as he knows and to spread the word about wikipedia to the owner of the national library in Yangon and try to get as much on here as possible -although many references are in Burmese. It would just be great to be able to access information from all of the places cited and write it for what may be the first time in the english language and get universal coverage -e.g you search for x number of places on a map and wikipedia has a good article on each one. ♦ Sir Blofeld ♦ 21:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC).

so true about the lack of Internet access. Thats why reaching out in ways other than Misplaced Pages itself is a good way to counter this. Many people from the US, Canada and the UK live abroad, be they English teachers like myself or retirees or those "escaping" the "horrible politics" (dont get me started) in their home countries. There are web sites that cater to these folks and many probably have the time and inclination to do something for their adopted homes. While admirable, I dont think writing a page or two on Misplaced Pages will really reach the kinds of people we really want to recruit as editors. Most of us who would read it would already fit the profile of the "Misplaced Pages class" We need other ways to reach out to other folks. Thelmadatter (talk) 00:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

One Laptop Per Child is making a special effort to get computers connected to the internet in these types of places. See Arahuay and its links. Everyplace that the OLPC are installed, we should make an article on that place. WAS 4.250 (talk) 02:02, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I have observed here in Central America that many people can afford to buy a cheap, perhaps even second hand computer if they save hard, but the high monthly internet fee makes these computers virtually useless in terms of what they can do, and I fear that this will also be an issue for the One Laptop Per Child computers. If the wikipedia foundation were hugely cash rich I would love to see them pursue the charitable knowledge goal by offering wireless internet coverage throughout the third world. Internet is expensive here, and in so much of the third world, is expensive, slow and unreliable, and that is in the big cities. In the smaller towns and villages you might get dial-up but otherwise you'd have to go for satellite internet, which is even more expensive. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

So true, and in most cases the problem is basically corruption. Example: Belize, where nearly all communications is through a goverment-granted monopoly to a private corp (BTL) which is controlled by a few powerful families and investors, and charges exorbitant com fees. This ultimately hurts the economy and development of Belize in the worst way because it strangles Belize's comunications with the outside world. It persists because of something very much like bribery-- money influencing government officials. In the end, BTL will need to be trustbusted like ATT, but with a special kind of flavor that you see in getting rid of the vestigages of feudalism with land reform. Once a few owners own everything of value, they own the government also, and that's a very tough problem. SBHarris 05:46, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"no competitor approaches the XO in innovation. It is hard drive-free, runs on the Linux operating system and stretches wireless networks with "mesh" technology that lets each computer in a village relay data to the others first-grade teacher Erica Velasco just sent them to the Internet to seek out photos of invertebrates What they work with most is the (built-in) camera Before the laptops, the only cameras the kids at Santiago Apostol school saw in this population-800 hamlet arrived with tourists Peru's head of educational technology, Oscar Becerra, is betting the One Laptop program can reverse this rural exodus to the squalor of Lima's shantytowns The XOs that Peru is buying will be distributed to pupils in 9,000 elementary schools Although Peru boasts thousands of rural satellite downlinks that provide Internet access, only about 4,000 of the schools getting XOs will be connected Negroponte says One Laptop is committed to helping Peru overcome that hurdle. Without Internet access, he believes, the program is incomplete. WAS 4.250 (talk) 07:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

It certainly is incomplete without internet. With at least 80% of the world's children living in the third world its going to be a helluva task to obtain access everywhere. Peru is one thing, Latin America another and the world another, you only offer this to select poor countries and you just give them an unfair competitive edge. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:08, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Paul Otellini is quoted by the BBC today saying "Eventually we will blanket the globe in wireless broadband connectivity", hopefully this is an idea whose time is coming now, and certainly with such an infrastructure in place wikipedia, and multi-language wikipedia, will prove more than ever and considerabl;y more than now its weight in gold. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:20, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Using Misplaced Pages for English as a foreign language teaching has stirred some debate at Dave's ESL Cafe teachers forum. See for discussion of the pro's and con's from that perpective. Thelmadatter (talk) 21:24, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

This is what I'm talking about Jimbo check out Hsipaw. I want the encyclopedia to be covering places like this in detail. I've managed to make several agreements with some people at flickr who stated they'd be pleased for wikimedia to use their bank of images -I added all of the images -the local school and workers too -real eye openers!. I'll search flickr and try to get us some images of these places -of the people I've contacted many seem more than happy that their images are being used -I;m sure we could get hold of millions of images that are labelled as "copywrighted" if people just requested them. The problem is I'm concerned if I upload them to the commons that people will start sniffing -people always seem trigger happy to nuke images in the commons. If we could create articles using images like this and soon enough develop them into detailed articles about places you'd never dream about seeing this is when I feel the encyclopedia will be taken to the next level. Hopefully we can start building content in those places in Africa and South America that are highly undeveloped and search for more of those world travellers on flickr who have access to images of all these amazing locations. What do you think? I;ve also been covering articles like Cambodian Red Cross. There are so many important articles missing. Have a read of the article I wrote Deforestation in Brazil. (one of the major global issues today but took 7 years to start)! I was amazed it was missing! It may still need some work but its a start! ♦ Dr. Blofeld ♦ 22:47, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll agree with that last para. I have successfully gained copyright permission for several images from Flickr (see userpage) and many more besides, Flick users are perfectly happy to release their images if you ask nicely. It is a shame that many users on Commons are indeed trigger-happy; many of the publicity shots of celebrities I uploaded there were deleted because they were apparently "unfree", despite the fact that I showed ample proof of the source websites' releasing them as free for public use. Alternately, Commons doesn't have as exhaustive a range of license templates as Misplaced Pages does, so your free image could be deleted because you have used the wrong template. Something needs to be done about this. Ekantik 00:08, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better then to upload your images to this site and let one of the regulars reupload to the Commons, that way if anyone challenges it here a bot will post to your talk page. I wouldn't dream of uploading straight to Commons though many of my images are now at Commons. I heartily endorse getting free images people have taken themselves and was happy to post some of my local Latino city that my wife took, indeed we should get a digital camera of our own and take more. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:26, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

A brewing Misplaced Pages controversy requires your attention

You're a busy man, so I'll be brief:

In an ongoing ArbCom decision (currently suspended for 30 days), it's proposed that User:Adam Cuerden have his admin privileges taken away for blocking User:MatthewHoffman over his edits to Irreducible Complexity. There isn't a large consensus either way. Currently, most admins involved support taking away Adam's privileges, but most users in the RFC discussion seem to support retaining them. Your opinion carries a lot of weight and may help people walk away from the matter without being bitter.

See Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Adam Cuerden and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman. Zenwhat (talk) 07:23, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo's comments carry no more weight than any other user. 86.143.168.128 (talk) 18:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggested talkspace enhancement

It would be nice to be able to somehow mark or create a subpage for a user which is readable by that user and certain other authorized people but not everyone in the world, to avoid having to go to e-mail in those circumstances. This would also keep more communication on-wiki and transparent to the ArbCom and others with similar privilege. —Whig (talk) 08:51, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I have read comments from people who tried to modify the copy-left MediaWiki software that Misplaced Pages uses, in order to allow that and they have concluded that the openness that was built into it from the start can not be easily removed, making Wikimedia an inappropriate software package for controlled writing/reading projects. The functionality you mention is available in some other internet user interface packages (forums and such). Wikis are inherently open. Different things are good for different purposes. WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the information, WAS. I could certainly make a strong argument that having a wiki platform with privileges on certain spaces is not self-contradictory. Certainly there are parts of Misplaced Pages that only admins and members of other classes can read or write, but it may not be fine-grained enough to enable per-user permissions to be easily implemented. —Whig (talk) 00:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way I can certainly see serious policy implications of this feature if it were created so it is by no means a given that it is a good idea at all. I just thought I'd suggest it in case it was something people had not given much thought to. —Whig (talk) 20:50, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi

Hello. I am one of the sysops of Turkish Misplaced Pages and this is my userpage. Today I got a mail from an advertising or sth. company from Turkey. Mail says; you will be in Turkey at some certain time in this or next month i really do not remember. I asked other sysops but they had not got such a mail. I wanna ask you whether somebody is kidding me or are you going to Turkey??? Actually the latter make me happier :))). Anyway, if you can answer me on my Turkish userpage I will be happy. If you do not this account is also ok. Thank you. Sincerely.Sağlamcı (talk) 14:05, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Quick Question

Me and a few other wikipedians have created a wiki in response to the deletion of "shops" on wikipedia. There has been a recent account creation in your name and I was curious as to know if this is an impostor, see here. http://codesnippets.wikia.com/User:Jimbo_Wales Thanks. Sirkad_talk 01:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

nevermind, I figured it out. lol no need to respond Sirkad_talk 05:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Developer discretion?

Typically at some point in a controversial decision someone notifies you, and although this hasn't gotten too terribly heated, it seems likely to head in that direction, especially since it involves the actions of a developer. Hopefully, we can avoid a heated debate altogether if someone can give some input on exactly how far developer discretion goes. Justin —Preceding comment was added at 01:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

On the topic of east Europeans and draconian sanctions

Hi Jimbo,

recall your email exchange you had in February, 2004, where you asked whether the internal squabbling was getting worse, whether the mediation/arbitration system was working and what could be done to build a sense of love and harmony. One wise contributor Caroline responded: "We still have a geographical bias, partly but not soley due to the different levels of internet access amongst different communities and countries. As this divide narrows we will get more contributors who disagree with the current consensus on various articles. Most articles on countries and political movements have not been edited by people from the relevant country. If we sometimes have trouble getting Wikilove between the US and UK then it will probably get worse as net access improves in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, for example."

So how has Misplaced Pages coped in the intervening years with the arrival of contributors from eastern Europe editing articles about their own countries? Not very well I am sad to say. It is rather unfortunate that a certain sector of established editors and admins have reacted adversely to this influx of new editors who have challenged their established notions. Their response has been to characterise these newcomers as "nationalist POV-pushers", for example , regardless of the fact that these multi-lingual east Europeans may actually know more about their own country's history than many of these mostly US based editors could imagine. In fact one admin even characterises this influx of contributors as a "plague" (User:Moreschi/The Plague) that must be eradicated in the most draconian manner.

This intolerant attitude by an established sector against these newcomers is driving these newcomers away. These people, who have much potential to contribute in east European topics due to their intimate local knowledge and language skills, are essentially being vilified for the fact of their east European origin and their sincere intellectual effort is dismissed as "axe-grinding" without any further thought . Their departure is a far greater loss to Misplaced Pages than any alleged disruption these established editors and admins believe they are fighting against.

Case in point. We had a number of new editors from the former Soviet Union country of Estonia who joined the project mid year and who greatly expanded Wikiproject Estonia and contributed to a variety of articles concerning Estonia. They also challenged the established concensus through articles like Occupation of Baltic states. Add into the mix around the same time in May of 2007, the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn incident occurred where a monument to the Red Army was moved from downtown Tallinn to a military cemetary. As you may be aware, rioting among young Russians broke out in Tallinn and Estonia was also subjected to severe cyber attacks apparently orchestrated within the Russophone blogosphere. This conflict appeared to have also spread into Misplaced Pages with a number of established editors conflicting with these new Estonian editors. The result was significant disruption to almost exclusively Estonian articles which these Estonians either created or greatly expanded, ranging from Estonia-Russia relations to country specific articles such as Estophilia (which btw was initially speedy deleted by an admin who believed it was WP:POINT creation as a part of this conflict), Monument of Lihula, Jüri Uluots, Lydia Koidula, Estonian Government in Exile, Rein Lang, Erna Raid, etc. Given that many admins seem to believe in the "nationalist plague" view, these Estonian editors on balance seemed to have come off worst in terms of blocks. In one extreme case an Estonian editor was blocked for one week for the nominal reason of reverting the article Anti-Estonian_sentiment one single time, while extensive page move disruption of Soviet occupation by an established editor earned a mere 30 minute block.

Anyway, all this culminated in a case being brought to ArbCom Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Digwuren, where the complainant wanted ArbCom to initially investigate all Estonian editors. The outcome of this case was User:Digwuren and User:Petri Krohn banned for a year. The justification for this remedy was this particular finding of fact "In cases where all reasonable attempts to control the spread of disruption arising from long-term disputes have failed, the Committee may be forced to adopt seemingly draconian measures as a last resort for preventing further damage to the encyclopedia." Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#At_wit.27s_end. However there were no reasonable attempts made in the case of User:Digwuren. Mediation or a RFC/U, which is is customarily required before taking a case to ArbCom, was never under taken first.

While ArbCom may have became increasingly frustrated at the numerous cases before them concerning Eastern Europe, including:

• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Ghirlandajo
• User:Durova/Mediation
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus-Ghirla
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Molobo
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Irpen
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_comment/Halibutt
• Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/Irpen

it must be noted these cases were primarily between Russian and Polish editors (hence the east European tag). This conflict came to a head in Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration/Piotrus, the outcome being a general amnesty for those participants. Given that these Estonian newcomers who arrived around May 2007 were not a party to these earlier cases and hence had no knowledge or participation in this past disruption, it was assumed that this amnesty would also be extended to them too . However these Estonians appear to have carried the brunt of ArbCom's frustration and resultant draconian measures, in other words they were collaterally damaged by an earlier conflict not of their making. In essence, User:Digwuren was banned for a year for defending articles about his own country, which he either created or significantly expanded.

Let's not throw the baby (these new editors) out with the bath water (disruptive practices). With a country of only 1.4 million, the demographic of university educated Estonians is already small, the demographic of university educated fluent english speaking Estonians willing to contribute to Misplaced Pages is tiny. Due to this hostile environment against any east European who may challenge the comfortable concensus acheived by established editors mostly based outside Europe (i.e. USA), we have seen the exit of:

1. User:Constanz ,
2. User:3 Löwi ,
3. User:Erik Jesse ,
4. User:Klamber , the departure of
5. User:Sander_Säde , who was instrumental in getting Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Estonia off the ground as Project_Estonia coordinator, and finally
6. User:Termer , who was the driving force behind the establishment of Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Military history/Baltic states military history task force.

In addition several others like User:Alexia_Death have reduced their involvement considerably. Without this core group of enthusiasts putting energy and vitality into WikiProject_Estonia, it is essentially dead, with now only a minimal amount of house keeping edits now being done by people without the background, language skills or interest needed to create and further expand Estonia related articles.

I don't know how to fix this apparent systematic bias, dare I say xenophobia, against east European editors that seems to held by a section of established editors and admins within Misplaced Pages. Perhaps you could reflect on Caroline's words form 2004 and think about how best Misplaced Pages could end throwing the babies out with the bath water. If you believe that Misplaced Pages is enriched by the inclusion contributors from other communities and countries, perhaps you could encourage ArbCom to look favorably at the proposals here: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_arbitration/Digwuren#Requested_motions_to_.2FDigwuren, maybe some of this damage can be undone and these editors may be encouraged to return. Martintg (talk) 02:42, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm gone now too for all practical uses. I will not let our history get distorted again beyond belief as it was when I joined and I fully expect harsh times even with this little involvement. But I will not put more into this project. Giving and only receiving abuse is not worth more. Ive tried to make proposals to break the cycle of power, they have gone unheeded because those that have it will not give any of it up. I wrote it on my userpage the day my final disillusionment came and now I repeat it here.

Misplaced Pages is said to be a libertarian anarchy. It no longer is because the liberties are going away one by one. Now its just an anarchy with ever-changing rules on what you are not allowed to do interpreted at seen fit by admins. Where are the liberties? Policies that state what are my rights? They do not exist because on Misplaced Pages you have NONE. You are at the mercy of the admins interpretation of the rules. If expressing an opinion countering the ruling clique or an admin in your own user space earns you a block and a gag, then things are much worse than I suspected.

See also: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents/Daniel_Case

All in all the whole experience has been depressing. Just like you don't want to know exactly what goes into your sausages, you don't wish to know how Misplaced Pages is made and how much of what goes into it is actually meat over the odd bits of beast not presentable enough to go anywhere else. You just cant ever look at a sausage the same way once you do...

--Alexia Death the Grey (talk) 18:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I have one last proposal to add to this. Make adminship available to anyone who gives up their real life identity. Who state clearly who they are and can be validated to tell the truth like Sander, who now has left due to anonymous trolls. Admins would thus be responsible for their actions as people and wont be able to hide in their decisions behind the safety of anonymity... Give these users more credit and right than the anonymous ones and there may be hope still. Tarnishing ones name is a strong motive to keep honest.--Alexia Death the Grey (talk) 18:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Hear, hear, on your last suggestion. Anonymous people always do nastier things, which is why so many IP vandals exist. Even making people pick an anon user name makes them more responsible! Also nastier, are people who have little fear of being held responsible for petty viciousness, which the average admin does not (not really-- have you ever seen anybody get desysoped for an indefinite block which wasn't justified?). As to your suggestion about a Bill of Rights, it's an old one in other contexts. The first thing the English wanted after their revolution in the 17th century was a Bill of Rights for the common citizen (in wikispeak that would be the common nameuser). When the Americans had their own revolution a century later, they wanted a Bill of Rights because the English had one. A bill of rights protects the lowest of the low against those in authority. In medicine, we have a Patient Bill of Rights. Nothing of the sort exists on Misplaced Pages. About all you get is the "right" (if you can figure out how to do it) to petition the Lord High Appeals Court for clemency, if you get zapped by the cops. That's no way to run any organization. SBHarris 00:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I dont feel there is very much love and harmony going on, if any. This says alot right here Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/User:Vintei/shop Sirkad_talk 05:32, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

"(if you can figure out how to do it)" as mentioned by Sbharris sums up your rights within Misplaced Pages. I come from the UK rather than Eastern Europe, but I found that all it took was to be labelled a "vandal only account" by one arrogant admin, and I was doomed. There was no way I could figure out where or how I was meant to appeal, and it eventually lead to a life ban. Personally I believe the whole Wiki project is a great idea, and morally I don't feel the ban was in any way justified, so I carry on contributing via an IP address. But you've got to realise you've created a "community" somewhat akin to any fascist state - most of the dirty work is conducted by a group of narrow minded admins, with little or no accountability for their actions, with an appeals system which is entirely inaccessible except to those whose want to use it as a stick to beat you with. There would be far less need to go round awarding each other smilies and barnstars (surely the most childish way to spread WikiLove - why not just encourage a polite (and adult) "thank you" where necessary?) if the entire project wasn't built upon a foundation of suspicion, officiousness and WikiHate. --91.104.41.177 (talk) 01:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a great technical achievement, but more thought must be given to the human/organisational aspects of running an encyclopedia. Requiring admins to give up their anonymity would be a step in the right direction. Martintg (talk) 02:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikia in Catalan interview

A Catalan radio channel - http://catradio.cat/ el internauta - is interviewing me this evening about WikiaSearch. I would therefore ask you this question: What do you think will WikiaSearch mean for minorised languages as ours (Catalan)?. http://pacoriviere.cat/ /ca-WP admin). --Paco ✉ 13:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it best if I answer this question over at my .--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Please stop screwing things up by intervening

Since when does the community require the approval of, first, the Arbitration Committee, and second, the Foundation, in order to make new policy? Obviously the Foundation has the final say in any project matter, but the idea that it needs to explicitly approve new policies is ludicrous. As for the Arbitration Committee... until now they have explicitly not made policy, but based their decisions on existing policy. And now you're effectively giving them the power to veto any policy the community comes up with? Have you really thought this through? – Gurch 23:24, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Gurch, I believe you have entirely misread what I have done here. Far from taking power from the community, I have given the power to the community to make the sort of decision that traditionally would have rested with me, the developers, or the Foundation. I have put the community (of which the ArbCom is a part of course!) firmly in charge of this. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it is a matter of arbcom making policy. The community does that. But the community cannot agree, at this point, whether there is a consensus for this new policy or not. Arbcom's role is to be a representative voice in matters where the community cannot agree. Arbcom should NOT decide whether rollback is bad or good. They should, however, be called to arbitrate the community dispute as to whether there exists a settled consensus. Better that an elected body does that, than Jimbo by fiat, a single dev with no mandate, or simply allowing the strongest loudest voices to prevail.--Doc 23:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Doc, precisely my point here. The idea here is to systematize an orderly procedure whereby the English Misplaced Pages community (including the ArbCom as a trusted smaller body able to come to a single answer) can control this sort of thing, rather than having me do it, the developers do it, or the Foundation staff do it. I am a bit confused that anyone could interpret this as me taking policy-making power away from the community!

But things like rollback never did need the approval of you, the developers, or the Foundation staff (though obviously, any of those groups could block such a thing if there was a problem). What happened was consensus was sort-of-but-not-quite reached to implement rollback and then the Bugzilla request was made and handled a bit too early. Developers were only involved as far as it is unavoidably necessary for them to be involved in order for software changes to be made; neither yourself nor the Board were involved, and ArbCom was neither here nor there. So we have gone from needing community consensus plus no "veto" from yourself, the Board and the developers to needing community consensus plus no veto from those three groups plus approval of ArbCom, which was very much not present in policy-making before – Gurch 09:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Allowing the loudest voices to prevail? That's ironic don't you think Doc given there's about 10 uses who are kicking up a stink about this where everyone else is trying to get a long and work out the best ways to make this work. Ryan Postlethwaite 23:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I take absolutely no position myself on whether or not the feature is a good idea. But I think all sides can agree in principle to an orderly process of making a determination of what to do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC).

You have, however, taken an unusual position on the process, by saying it should be done through a poll that is then ratified by ArbCom. Polling is not our usual method of policy making, or at least it wasn't during the 3+ years that I was here. It also doesn't work very well, see the non-implemented Misplaced Pages:Attribution/Poll. Kusma (talk) 09:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

We do at least have instances where decisions have been made by polls in the past. It's the "ratification by ArbCom" bit that is completely new, completely unexpected and completely baffling – Gurch 09:43, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Not completely new, and not IMO unexpected; but you have to do some thinking to realise how: ArbCom was meant to replace Jimbo in day-to-day decision making; Jimbo has traditionally claimed the ability to "assent to" results of polls, thus making them official policy; this is merely a transfer of that ability to ArbCom. That said... Jimbo, your poll sucks. At the very least, it needs to be clear whether or not people can specify what their "second choice" is. (and, due to the documented variety of opinions on which two are acceptable, I would go further and say that people must, in fact, be able to specify this) —Random832 14:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, I don't think "ratify" was quite the verb you intended, and that has confused people here. As far as I can tell from reading in between the lines, the role you proposed for arbcom to play was to evaluate the results of the poll and make sure it was counted correctly; not to have their own little vote on whether it should be implemented. The right word for that would be to "certify" the results of the vote. —Random832 14:28, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo with all due respect this poll is a complete disaster. Next time you have an idea like this please be more specific because this is all over the place now with people more or less not caring about the outcome anymore. This is why we don't do these things. If you're gonna intervene then please follow up on what you proposed. This is far worse than yesterday now - the only thing we agree on is an image of a cute white cat. EconomicsGuy (talk) 15:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Jimbo, maybe you should just write the poll and post it, and declare it binding after the AC counts votes. Anything other than a pure up and down vote penned by you is probably not going to work at this point, as there are already about 5 talk pages involved, 10 alternate polls, protected pages, a pending RFAR, and any attempt by anyone to try to goad progress forward is being instantly met with 5 good suggestions, 5 complaints, 5 images of a lolcat, and 5 people screaming THIS IS SPARTA. I'm not kidding. Lawrence Cohen 16:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for rollback/Vote

Misplaced Pages:Requests for rollback/Vote

Everyone can hate me after it closes, instead of you and each other. Lawrence Cohen 03:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Releasing IP addresses of registered users: the Video Professor incident

Since this talk page does not appear to be an appropriate forum to discuss what the Foundation's actions in this incident, per the archived discussion User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 31#Misplaced Pages surrendering users' info without a fight, I have started a discussion at the Village Pump policy page at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)# Releasing IP addresses of registered users: the Video Professor incident. Your comments are welcome. Thanks. Edison (talk) 15:06, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

3rr or vandalism of your user page

A user has just made a bad faith report of me for 3rr for removing vandalism from your user page . This looks like an estanb;ished user troling to support an anon vandal insertinf g that you are the co-founder on your user page16:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Please WP:AGF. I filed 3rr reports on both yourself and the IP, so that it would be reviewed. I don't care about the content issue. I saw two users both crossing 3rr, so I reported it to be evaluated. It was, and it's done. Lawrence Cohen 16:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

all sides can agree in principle to an orderly process of making a determination of what to do

Jimbo, you said "all sides can agree in principle to an orderly process of making a determination of what to do" above.

May I recommend a tried and tested system? Representative democracy for making new policy within the limits set by the law and the Foundation. I suggest you take the lead and move the English language wikipedia community in that direction. Let's start with suggesting that everyone name some wikipedia user as his policy representative using a template that can be used to automatically tally results. Anyone can change their policy representative at any time. The details of the use of this template and choice of policy representative will not be defined in advance as there are far too many unsettled issues (socks, circular linking, qualifications to be counted either as a Wikipedian or as a representative, etc). The idea is to try it out as an experiment and see what the results look like. I'm betting the results will be good enough to eventually lead to a House of Policy Representatives to balance Arbcom (which is our Supreme Court that interprets policy and hands down specific rulings in specific cases). Prior efforts show that a site notice of a policy vote merely leads to uninformed thoughtless vote casting that solves nothing. We need a deliberative body for creation or alteration of existing policy. We are now too big for the former ways to successfully work on English language Misplaced Pages site-wide policy anymore. WAS 4.250 (talk) 19:26, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like an interesting idea, but it would (it seems to me) have a number of potential unintended consequences. I am just thinking out loud here, but I wonder if such a concept could be tried as a "shadow policy body" first to test it. I don't know of anything that would prevent it being tried out, but I recommend that the proposal to try it be widely circulated first to get people's feedback on whether it sounds worth trying. To me, it seems like it would be worth trying at least.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:33, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Intriguing ideas (as ever) come from WAS 4.250! It would need to be balanced by the caveat that only users with a committed identity revealed to Arb||Com be enfranchised, though. Then we could get rid of all the sockpuppet witchhunts and daft canvassing rules (currently we must rely on either telepathy or huge watchlists) which waste a lot of sound and fury and productive editing... Alice 20:43, 11 January 2008 (UTC)