Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:00, 9 February 2009

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A suggestion for spending your money

Hi,

Just defended my dissertation; I'll be losing access to my university library's databases in a few months. I suggest that Misplaced Pages get the same access to various databases (JSTOR, AcademicSearchPremier, etc) that your local university has, and choose a team of volunteer researchers to utilize that access. Of course I volunteer to be one of them. ;-) Ling.Nut 11:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Count me in too!:) prashanthns (talk) 11:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

What companies own the databases we'd like some access to?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there are tons of them. Some well-known ones for starters:

• JSTOR – is a not for profit organization, extremely reputable, also active in Facebook.
• EBSCO – EBSCO seems to be a publisher and makes fishing lures and...
• LexisNexis owned by Reed Elsevier Inc.
• Project Muse – is a not for profit collaboration between participating publishers and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library
• IngentaConnect – owned by Publishing Technology plc
• Access World News – owned by NewsBank
• And so on. Don't wanna clog up your Talk.
• Ling.Nut 13:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Are those all independent companies, or are they owned by major publishers?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

If this could be pulled off somehow, and reasonably on price, it would be made of awesome. rootology (C)(T) 14:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not in academia and JSTOR would be so useful for Misplaced Pages. I have thought the same. I suggest Misplaced Pages invest in this and newspaper archives. I don't know how it could be co-ordinated, though. Computerjoe's talk 15:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Many universities offer borrowing privileges for people who donate $US250 (or other amount) to their library. I'm not sure if off-campus access to databases is included. That probably depends on the university, and if it is included, it may be more restricted. That's another option to look into, and the borrowing privileges would certainly be helpful too. --Aude (talk) 15:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

This has been suggested several times before in various forums. The main issue is that no company wants to give away their resources to everyone capable of registering a Misplaced Pages account. You've go to be able to set some sort of threshold for who gets access. Or, alternately, I suppose the Foundation could buy licenses similar to those that universities buy, but the cost would likely be very prohibitive. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Nonetheless worth talking JSTOR atleast. It would go a long way in improving several important categories of articles...also, JSTOR is non-profit. Worthwhile for the fondation to buy access and have a Wikiproject with access to it. prashanthns (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm asking for selfish reasons, but what would that kind of individual access cost per year/month? — Ched (talk) 17:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Most of them don't offer individual subscriptions (including JSTOR). This was indeed discussed at length and in detail on the mailing lists recently. Might be useful for participants in this discussion to look that up and see what useful information has already been dug up. Avruch 18:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

@Ling.Nut. My public library, one of the best in the nation, offers a limited selection of such databases to any cardholder. These databases are remotely accessible via a proxy. The only authentication is that you have to enter your library card number. . A godsend for those without access to a large university's subscription. I suggest that the public library (online and off-line) is a valuable alternative to subscribing to private databases. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 18:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Not always an option. I live in a small borough. Our libraries don't have access. Computerjoe's talk 19:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't be so sure. Do some research. There are many free resources available. Many universities allow local residents to enter their library for free and use their collections online and off-line. The resource I cited is available to anyone who lives in Massachusetts. Residents of many small towns in the western part of the state like North Adams and such have access to the BPL's entire circulation network. What is the general area of your residence? I bet I could find something.--Truckbest23098 (talk) 19:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I do have a university nearby but I don't fancy trekking there and back. It would be good if Misplaced Pages could get editors access (perhaps editors could apply to view specific articles to ensure it's not just used by the general public) in the right of Misplaced Pages. I don't see how/why they'd object. Computerjoe's talk 22:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

My point, of course, is that Misplaced Pages is a non-profit organization that was most recently having trouble raising money and considering ad placement. As such, the organization is not in a position to spend money unwisely. High quality database subscriptions are expensive, reaching into the five figures for institutional access. As you yourself demonstrate, a free alternative is easily available. Moreover, the distributed nature of Misplaced Pages ensures that someone somewhere will likely have access to a particular requested article. In other words, the plan of giving a limited subset of Wikipedians access to these databases is already in place. There is already a large number of people on Misplaced Pages who have access to these databases. Perhaps those with access can flag themselves so people in need can contact them and they can pass a copy of the article along. Now, if you're talking about paying for every Wikipedian to access these databases, I'm listening. --Truckbest23098 (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

While it is true that Wikimedia is a non-profit without a large budget for things like this, I just wanted to say that we were not "having trouble raising money" and absolutely were not "considering ad placement".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I doubt universities would be forthcoming with this. Computerjoe's talk 15:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

saying "The plan is already in place" is true in theory but more or less false in practice. There is (or there used to be; deletionists probably got it) a userbox for folks with JSTOR access who are willing to share. But a clearinghouse of requests is lacking. And my original idea still stands as a superior alternative. Ling.Nut 01:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I should say that the plan is in the process of being carried out. The hard part, access, is already solved for a subset of Wikipedians. I'm not sure your original idea is superior. Firstly it will cost extra money: around four figures per database to allow several thousand people to access it, for a total in the mid-five figures -- per year. Secondly, you will have a whole series of issues regarding who gets access and who does not. Thirdly, it will take time and administrators to negotiate the deals with each subscription. If a significant subset of Wikipedians already have access to these databases, it would seem not only more economical, but more expedient to simply set up a request clearinghouse much like the Admin notice board or Req for deletion board (Legal issues aside). -Truckbest23098 (talk) 02:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

• Getting official access is far and away superior because of the last three words of your post: "Legal issues aside."
• "Time to negotiate deals"? That sounds a lot like someone's official, paid job.
• "Who gets access and who does not" is a trivial question. Two options:

1. Depending on how many seats (or whatever they are termed) are acquired, select a number of folks (raul, Sandy, G-guy, TimVvickers, various WikiProjects such as MILHIST and BIO, etc.) to invite a set number of other folks to have access. My First choice, since you start with trusted individuals. Also you can deliberately spread topic coverage, so folks in the Video games WikiProject don't get every single access seat (or whatever it's called).
2. Let the community decide. My second choice.

Ling.Nut 02:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Choice of access is not trivial. That was a long explaination you had to give. Imagine the fight over who gets access and who does not. If implemented, it would be a vaulable commodity, and I assure you tempers will flare / accusations of unfairness etc. I for one do not condone futher stratifications of Misplaced Pages users as it is a major turn off for me. Legal issues, I conceed. A _formalized_ system of article exchange will likely violate T&C. But, it would be very hard for database providers to enforce or stop such an exchange system. It does go against the spirit of such things and takes advantage of the database providers. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 03:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I'm a veteran arguer, and I don't think there will be arguments. There's no power whatsoever involved, and only a truly modest amount of prestige. Ling.Nut 03:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, from personal experience, I can assure you that access to JStor sadly confers neither prestige nor power. That's not the point: I object to providing the real economic value that access to Jstor confers. Quick research also shows that T&C may not be as big of a problem as I thought: Jstor for example allows for "ad hoc" distribution of articles. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 03:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

What a wonderful idea! When I was an undergrad at Columbia we had access to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) database. That was incredibly useful for more than just definitions and can definitely be useful for building articles. Valley2city 03:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I started the thread, and added a suggestion about how to allocate seats/choose volunteers. I think I've added all the value I can add to this thread. Unwatching– Good Luck & ping me if anything ever happens. Later! Ling.Nut 04:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

As an aside User:Foxhill/internet reference sites accessible with a valid UK Library card is useful for those in the UK but may be out of date. Nanonic (talk) 05:21, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Sadly I don't think this will happen. Access is too expensive for the foundation to pay for and then give away even to a small subset of users. One solution might be to ask the foundation to examine possible ways to offer this as an add-on you pay for but I think we all know how that would be recieved by large portions of the community. Given the significant increase in traffic these providers would likely recieve if we started adding more links to them, I don't think it would unreasonable to expect a discount thus making it possible for the foundation to make a bit of badly needed money as well but as I said this will never happen. There's too much opposition to these things within the community. EconomicsGuy (talk) 11:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Britannica uses Commons images

Jimbo, I just read your interview in Deutsche Welle with Michael Knigge, where you suggest that traditional encyclopedia's might look to our images to cut costs. Britannica has actually already been doing this for some time. See, for example, the lead images in "soundboard" and "Edward O. Wilson". Although they don't explicitly credit Misplaced Pages or Commons as the source, they are using both under the GFDL and as far as I know our projects are the only place they would have found them under that license. I've found a few other of my own images on Britannica as well. I'm not sure what the scale of free image use is overall, but I think most of the new images they are adding these days are free, with many coming from us. I first noticed my images being used in September 2008, and more have popped up since then.

Nice interview, by the way.--ragesoss (talk) 20:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

EB is very nervous, since it is 249th while Misplaced Pages is #8

E Britannica has gone wild. It wants a chunk of the online thing. It has studied the matter, though. For me, since this is democracy. THERE MUST BE A VOTE on this from a) registered users and b) anonymous, to be submitted to Jimbo Wales for final countdown.

I just want to convey the message accross the news-internet on this, starting with Beebs (BBC), and hopefully, after January 29, a viable, happy and cheerful solution will be reached. *Encyclopaedia Britannica fights back against Misplaced Pages, soon to let users edit contents;

• Discuss; Any rejoinder, comment or what? Please share your thoughts on this. Cheeers. Palo alto.--124.106.80.18 (talk) 11:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo's philo

"You may edit this page!" Really, you can! Please feel free to do so. Just do it! Make an edit! Make several edits! Make thousands of edits! After all, that's what Misplaced Pages is all about! --124.106.80.18 (talk) 11:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Example of what Flagged Revisions on all BLPs would have prevented

There has been a lot of discussion about the Ted Kennedy edits that speedied the latest FR implementation suggestions, and how such fast reverted edits are not a good reason to have flagged revisions and so on. People also asked about examples of actual BLP problems.

I just came across a typical (thankfully relatively rare) example of a low-profile WP:BLP (some 100 views a month only) where very serious and open vandalism (a.o. the false claim that someone was sent to jail for ten years for molesting a five year old) went unnoticed for nearly two months. We have to take our responsability and take every measure reasonably possible to prevent such dreadful things to appear in what is supposed to be an encyclopedia. Flagged revisions is one (good) solution to achieve this, despite the drawbacks it has for well-meaning new editors. Fram (talk) 11:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

So I hope you will oppose any version of FR that would not have prevented this case, as not being fit for purpose. In just the same way that a retraction will be due from Jimbo if he somehow comes up with a proposal that would not have "100% prevented" the Ted Kennedy incident.

I hope that you might also realise that if in your words the case here is "thankfully relatively rare", why many people would then think that applying a blanket measure such as Flagged Revisions is not very appropriate at all. I contrast it as the British Government contending every citizen must be forced to carry an identity card, on the presumption that is the best way you can catch terrorists, which happen to also be "thankfully relatively rare". Why not for example in this specific case take a more intelligent approach, and implement sopmething that prevents or flags any edit that adds the word "molesting", instead of forcing onto all BLP articles an incredibly blunt and incredibly bad faith assuming measure? (and any interested observers, please, stop before you say it, these valid concerns with what FR is/could be cannot all just be washed away by referring to the quite irrelevant 'advantage' of FR of opening up the tiny minority of protected articles).

And to further address the specific example you give, maybe you can expand on why anybody would be likely to believe that one sentence claim, when it was added to the article along with another 15 sentences, which at best hint at the whole thing being a hoax, and at worst, screams delete me now for being total WP:BOLLOCKS. We can also discuss how an editor in between the vandalism and your removal 'fixes the article for typos' without noticing that it is 90% complete bollocks? Even when one of the typos is a few words away from the molesting red flag. A systemic failure perhaps?

And finally, as an admin, perhaps you can tell me why the IP user is not now blocked, irrespective of how long ago the edit occurred. Incidentally, the now famous bad account on Ted Kennedy was also not blocked immmediately after his first edit was a BLP violation on an unrelated article. Another systemic failure?

I'm all for criticla analysis of cases 'FR would have prevented', because they frequently pose more questions than they answer, about the whole model of Misplaced Pages, never mind how we efficiently and intelligently prevent BLP violations. MickMacNee (talk) 17:16, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

To a significant extent, I agree with Mick here - as a broad supporter of FR being used on BLPs, I think it is unhelpful to make blanket statements such as "FlaggedRevs would have prevented X" - we simply won't know if this is true until we try it out, and, as a restatement of what I believe is Mick's point, what the extent, if any, of the negative consequences are. Highlighting these issues is important, but making broad unsupported judgements is not helpful in the reconciling the two sides of this ongoing debate.

As a side note, we can't block the IP after two months due to the preventative nature of blocks. Blocks are not meant to be punishment. Fritzpoll (talk) 19:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Why should we insist upon anything like 100% success rate for FR? People dying in car crashes is bad, seatbelts reduce the number of people dying, but they do provide a 100% survival rate. BLP violations are bad, FR will likely reduce the number of issues, but will not completely prevent them. Seatbelts are a good idea and so, probably, are FRs. PlasticExplosive (talk) 17:07, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

But the phenomenal success of Misplaced Pages lies in all sorts of editing

When Jimbo created Misplaced Pages, he never knew it would cripple the giant EB, so, let us be conservative. Let free editing go.--119.95.25.38 (talk) 14:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Wales' USA networks "Characters" spot

It is clear that anyone who, when asked for an explanation of themselves as it relates to their greatest accomplishment, cannot measure themself in anything but racist terms (old white men) is, at his core a racist. Not that we can't benefit from the contributions of a racist, but it's important to know who one's idols really are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.96.210 (talk) 05:08, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how "old white man" is a racist term in any way.-- Darth Mike  (join the dark side) 16:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. That's one of the weirdest arguments I have ever heard.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we need an article entry on the idea of Old white men to explain the idea the IP?--Tznkai (talk) 21:41, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That was out of line. I'm not saying the OP has a point, but it is considered out of touch in some places to say a person can be 'white'. 122.107.135.153 (talk) 21:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

A different approach on content approval from enterprise collaboration

I have a commercial approval workflow product for Confluence (an enterprise wiki), and wanted to share my approach towards content approving.

I understand that enterprise collaboration is not the same as Misplaced Pages, but it could give you guys some ideas.

In a nutshell, these are the concepts:

• Read-only users view by default the published version of a page, but they can also look at the draft (unapproved) version at any time
• What version people are looking at is visually evident
• When a page is edited, it has to go through the approval process again
• When a page is edited, Reviewers (moderators) get a notification
• When a page gets approved, it becomes the published version again
• Reviewers can approve or reject changes.
• Different workflows could be applied to different user roles or type of content

My ideas for Misplaced Pages:

• Maybe you want to move from flagging content to (figuratively) flagging contributors: The level of workflow required would be based on the level of trust of the contributor. i.e. unregistered users would be subject to a more stringent approvals process than registered or trusted users.
• Any registered user could moderate a page, by subscribing as Moderator to it and they would get notified when changed
• You can track the behaviour of Contributors and Moderators to increase (or decrease or even flag) their trust level
• The concept could be applied to sections on pages... although that could add complexity

At the end, it is only a small percentage of people that actually contributes (90-9-1 theory) so I think adding extra steps will not discourage collaboration.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Some of these concepts might have already been discussed, but have a look at what I have so you know what I am taking about.

Rodogu (talk) 06:03, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Who decides what is notable ?

A few days ago I added an entry to the Geocaching Misplaced Pages entry. I put information about a new innovation in Geocaching called TextCaching. A few days later the edit was gone. I went back the the site and refined my entry and looked for a better place to insert the information. Because TextCaching creates an instant multi-cache, I put the information after the last entry for Multi-caching and I posted reasons for my entry on the discussion page. A few days later the entry was gone. I went into the Discussion page and found this: Nothing showing up on GoogleNews...again. Removing as not notable enough for inclusion for now. §hep • Talk 00:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Now, granted, I have a biased opinion, as I am the inventor of TextCaching, but I believe that it is notable. I have just recently started publicizing the site because without any advertising I got users in the U.K., Germany and the United States. So my question is, who decides what is notable ? 2050 media (talk) 06:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability is usually determined through consensus of the Misplaced Pages community, rather than any individual editor. Cheers, –Juliancolton 06:25, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I rather work to the criteria that an independent reliable third party needs to have published material (for good or bad) in respect of the subject for it to be notable, and that the role consensus plays is deciding whether the sources provided make that standard. I know that in cases the claims made for a subject may be deemed notable, and there may be consensus required on that, but I still prefer that someone else has already noted the fact. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Would this not also fall under original research ? --Chaosdruid (talk) 22:15, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Consensus expressed through the notability guidelines: what is notable in one sector of society/world/universe may not be in another. Yes but. Each case is slightly different. Babakathy (talk) 10:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Section 230

While this query does not necessarily fall under your request of "homework", I haven't seen any specific discussion from either yourself or Mr. Godwin in regards to a significant concern. I am interested in knowing how these changes are perceived to affect the Foundation's Section 230 immunity. Since Flagged Revisions may require the assigning of specific rights to users to enable them to sight article revisions, does this create de facto agents of the Foundation? Will the Foundation's "hands off" requirement be affected by having these agents approving official versions with a potential move to Flagged Revisions? Under Section 230, liability is assigned to the person creating the content, not with the entity that is hosting it, but with an approved version does this liability potentially shift? Also, since you personally are a member of the Foundation and you have stated in the past your desire to direct the developers to turn on Flagged Revisions, although you appear to have have retreated from that assertion, does this also potentially cause a tectonic shift in the Foundation's immunity under Section 230 because of your involvement? --Chasingsol 09:42, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Who can flag revisions will be decided by individual project communities, not the WMF. I don't see a problem. I think Mike has said somewhere that he's confident there is no liability for the WMF. There could be a liability for whoever does the flagging, though, which needs to be considered - it's probably a very low risk, though. --Tango (talk) 12:48, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe independent counsel is needed to assess the potential risk to editors. DuncanHill (talk) 12:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

In regards to Tango and DuncanHill's remarks. Liability for material is already the concern of the editor. If, for example, I posted libelous information on Misplaced Pages, the liability for that content solely rests with me and not with the Foundation. Under Section 230, the host has immunity from liability in regards to content that was provided by a user of their service, under certain conditions. My concern is that if a technical measure is implemented to enforce official versions of content, along with Jimbo's involvement in pushing for the measure to be implemented (he voted for the trial and has discussed requesting it be turned on), it raises some important questions. Misplaced Pages would likely not exist without Section 230 immunity. The exercise of approved editorial control and specific direction being provided to exercise that control, may potentially erode that immunity. Hence my inquiry for more analysis from both a contributors and the Foundations standpoint. --Chasingsol 13:16, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

According to the majority opinion of the California Supreme Court in Barrett_v._Rosenthal, it would appear that only the originator of defamatory content can be held liable for said content. As far as I know, that decision has never been put to a hard test. Also, I am not sure if the person sighting a page would be considered the "originator" of the content, but (from my extremely limited knowledge of this portion of the legal code) I think that is highly unlikely. J.delanoy_adds 14:22, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I am not worried about this aspect of things in the least. Section 230 immunity for the Foundation is not at all compromised by the involvement of the Foundation in decisions of software policy. Indeed, this is the entire point of Section 230 immunity: to allow for even direct interventions into content without creating new liabilities. The Foundation is legally responsible for what the Foundation does. Libellers are legally responsible for what they do. Furthermore, my participation here is in my traditional capacity in the English Misplaced Pages community, not as board member as such. (But even if it were, I don't see it raising any very interesting questions. The Foundation is allowed to turn on and off software features at will, just as every other internet service provider is.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:24, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely with all of that, however you haven't mentioned the point about the liability of the person doing the flagging. If you post something libellous and I then flag it as being ok, could I get in trouble? The case mentioned by J.delanoy certainly seems to be in my favour, but our article doesn't talk about what actually happened - did the "republishing" carry the kind of endorsement that could be thought of as being implicit in flagging? My personal (non-lawyer) opinion is that we just need to be careful what we say in the rules about flagging - if we say the edit has to be free of libel, then we might get into trouble, if we just say it has to free of "obvious libel" then I think we'll be ok (an example of non-obvious libel would be a false, negative statement with a fake source). --Tango (talk) 19:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the wording of the endorsement should be worded carefully, not just in light of Section 230, but also of what is reasonable to expect of people. In the first uses of this, I think the meaning should be not materially different from the meaning of a rollback to a prior version, i.e. a meaning of "at a glance, this looks better than the alternative - but I promise nothing".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:04, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I think part of (if not most of) the reason the German's have such a backlog is because they are expecting too much of reviewers. This is quite different from rollback - rollback says "this edit is bad", it doesn't pass any judgement on the edit before. Flagging says "this edit is good". Rejecting something is far less problematic than endorsing it. I think we need to stick the word "obvious" in there somewhere. That doesn't remove all liability, but if someone does flag something that contains obvious libel, they probably deserve to be sued - people flagging BLPs do have at least some duty of care, morally, if not legally. --Tango (talk) 20:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Can we have an independent counsel to give an opinion on the liability of editors who flag/sight? Or does the Foundation not stretch to paying for that? DuncanHill (talk) 20:32, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "independent"? There's no case yet, so there are no parties to be independent of. I agree, though, an expert opinion on this would be useful. --Tango (talk) 20:59, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Independent as in not looking to the Foundation's interests, but rather to the editors'. DuncanHill (talk) 21:01, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The two aren't really at odds with each other... They're different, sure, but not contradictory. --Tango (talk) 22:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

(indent)I would disagree that the Foundation has any concern with the liability of the users of the site. It is not their concern, since the Foundation is not responsible for the content that is posted. I appreciate Jimbo taking the time to respond to my queries, it answers some questions, but does raise others. As J.delanoy has mentioned and which I failed to elucidate, liability for "sighting" a Flagged Revision would appear to also fall upon the person making the revision since it is no different to republishing of prior content. Case law is rather lacking in depth in regards to this issue, so it may be an "unknowable unknown", but the concern is no less reduced and could be a major impediment. Will revision sighters be willing to potentially accept liability for the content that they approve? Further information can be found at the EFF's website at , in particular the statement: The courts have not clarified the line between acceptable editing and the point at which you become the "information content provider." To the extent that your edits or comment change the meaning of the information, and the new meaning is defamatory, you may lose the protection of Section 230.--Chasingsol 23:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Sighting would not change the meaning of the originators edit, it simply allows it to be viewable (or not). Likewise, the allowing of the viewing does not change the meaning of the article as it is the originators edits that do that, and therefore the sighter is operating under the same 230 protection as does the site itself. My opinion only, though, and I am not a solicitor or barrister (and nor do I play one - but I have employed their services). LessHeard vanU (talk) 00:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the crux of the matter is that there is the potential for liability to exist, an assertion that the EFF agrees with. I personally would be unwilling to act as a revision sighter if I could conceivably be held liable for another persons content that I have taken an action to publish. The concern is valid and it may not be possible to address affirmatively since there does not appear to be any precedent established by the courts in regards to specificity. --Chasingsol 01:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Reviewing the site, I was struck by the following;

Do I lose Section 230 immunity if I edit the content?

Courts have held that Section 230 prevents you from being held liable even if you exercise the usual prerogative of publishers to edit the material you publish. You may also delete entire posts. However, you may still be held responsible for information you provide in commentary or through editing. For example, if you edit the statement, "Fred is not a criminal" to remove the word "not," a court might find that you have sufficiently contributed to the content to take it as your own. Likewise, if you link to an article, but provide a defamatory comment with the link, you may not qualify for the immunity.

which appears to say that only by altering original comment to change its meaning makes a sighter potentially liable, and by only reviewing/passing content this does not arise - the sighter approves publication or not, and does not edit at all let alone change the meaning. Think of copy editors, they correct spellings, syntax and grammar but are not held responsible for the content contained within the use of the words. LessHeard vanU (talk) 01:25, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The difference arises because sighting a revision creates an official (for want of a better word) version of the content, which a person may be required to exercise reasonable care to prevent defamatory content from being posted. You'll note that the EFF isn't specifically saying that someone would not be liable, it simply has not been established by precedent. We also don't know if copyediting an article that contains defamatory material creates liability, it may. Flagged Revisions however goes beyond mere copyediting and the like since it creates a situation where the content did not exist in an public immediately viewable format. A revision sighter may be liable, but there is no way of knowing unless a court establishes precedent. That is the concern, that there may be liability, which is problematic. --Chasingsol 01:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I think the sighter is analogous to the publisher, even more than the site/host, by the wording - editorship includes the decision to publish, even in part, and the protection holds providing that the meaning is not altered. Everything that is published, or broadcast, or made available, is the "official version" until it is superceded. However, as I said I am not a legal professional and this is my take of the wording I have seen. Others, including those with training in the law, may have a different interpretation. LessHeard vanU (talk) 02:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Smile!

This template must be substituted, see Template:Smile for instructions

Possible change to Criteria on Speedy Deletion

Hey Jimbo, I know its rare to see you discussing policy changes nowadays, but maybe you might be interested on this one Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#RfC:_Reverting_speedy_deletions_-_administrator.27s_guide Thanks!--Cerejota (talk) 10:48, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Sunday Times article

Just thought you might like to read the Sunday Times article, featuring an interview with you, in which Giles Hattersley lies about Misplaced Pages's coverage of him. . DuncanHill (talk) 16:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm aware of the article, can you expand upon what you mean about him "lying"? I have already taken serious issue with the article and asked them to retract it - I am badly misquoted and misrepresented in it, in a number of ways. I took at face value the honesty of his complaints about Misplaced Pages, though.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

What I take it DuncanHill is refering to is that Giles Hattersley talks about his own entry on wikipedia but that there is no record of such an article existing until it was created today after the article was published. Davewild (talk) 20:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I created it as a rebuttal, if some Admin doea not wake up and protect the page we will look like even bigger idiots, who cannot even defend ourselves properly. FGS Wales get your act together, wake up, and defend this project from this rubbish. Giano (talk)

What I mean here by lying is deliberately saying something that is untrue. It is of course possible that someone in the pub told him that we had an article with false statements in it, and he took their word for it without checking his facts. DuncanHill (talk) 20:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Why is a 30 year old fashion journalist worthy of a Misplaced Pages article anyway? Personally, I preferred having no article at all - so anyone who goes to look can see that Mr. Hattersley was simply wrong. I'm interested to know what proposal Jimmy is making tomorrow that the article refers to, though. Avruch 20:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I have an idea, and I'd appreciate some help researching this. Perhaps the bit about him having his own entry was the doings of an over-eager editor, and he didn't write it that way. Is it possible that our entry on Roy Hattersley at some point listed Giles as his son? Or that the claim appeared in Misplaced Pages somewhere at some point in time? I think it quite important that we be 100% sure our facts are right.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't found anything, but I didn't search every article of course. --Apoc2400 (talk) 21:10, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Have just used Wikiblame to search the Roy Hattersley article for the word "Giles", and it at no time appeared in the article since at least 14:34 on the 4th July 2007. I could search further back, but I suspect that such a search could be done faster by someone at the Foundation. DuncanHill (talk) 21:13, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The article doesn't have that many revisions and presuming it's working properly wikiblame found no mention of Giles or giles ever in the Roy Hattersley aricle. No deletions in the log so only possibility I could have missed presuming the tool is working would be oversights since I obviously can't see that log but it seems to me not that likely unlike with the Giles article. Also looked in the Roy talk page Nil Einne (talk) 21:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

using the same tool, no mention of a Roy in Arena (magazine). We're looking for a possibly phantasmal needle in a very large haystack.--Tznkai (talk) 21:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

No Roy or Hattersley in The Sunday Times according to Wikiblame.--Tznkai (talk) 22:03, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I have emailed the Sunday Times to complain about the article, will update when/if I get a reply. I also tried to add a comment to the online version of his story, but it does not appear to have been published. DuncanHill (talk) 21:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(EC) Jimbo, since you are currently involved in this it my be best to mention it to you. As highlighted above and in other places e.g. it appears to most people that Giles Hattersleys article was only created recently after Giles Hattersley's story in the Times upon which it was deleted by you not long after. This makes it sound like Giles Hattersley story was nonsense (ignoring how he misquited you) since we didn't have an article on him until he made noise. As a BLP regular, I understand why an article may be oversighted if it contained highly inaccurate or libellious information but given what's happened here, we need to clear up ASAP if this (oversighting the article) is what happened or else people who don't research the story properly are going to start accusing us of trying to hide the fact we did have a potentially libellious article for a while. Cheers. Nil Einne (talk) 21:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC) So just to be clear, the article has never been oversighted then? Nil Einne (talk) 21:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your concern completely. I am deeply concerned about us making an allegation that Mr. Hattersley has lied. That, if true, could be a job-ending issue at a newspaper of strong reputation, which the Sunday Times is. For this reason, I have deleted the article about Mr. Hattersley, which appears to me have been created for the sole purpose of making this claim. Misplaced Pages is neither a tabloid, nor a newspaper of any kind. There are many possible explanations for what Hattersley wrote, including but not limited to:

• An overzealous editor misunderstanding what Hattersley actually wrote, and turning the claim false in the process
• An old version of the article which was oversighted - but I have checked the oversight logs and personally found nothing... although I would like to have this confirmed by others, more experienced than I in oversight log checking
• An innocent error on the part of Mr. Hattersley based on a faulty memory of the claim being made on the other Hattersley's page - though people seem to have adequately checked up on this as well
• An innocent error on the part of Mr. Hattersley based on a faulty memory of the claim being made on some completely unrelated website (who knows, only he can help to shed light on that)

Giano was deeply wrong to create the article and deeply wrong, as usual, to bark at people about it. However, I have unblocked him because this is not really about Giano, and I trust that he has the good sense to stay very far away from this situation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• The page Jimbo was written to set the record straight. It was factual, it was referenced and it was accurate. The matter was widely known and discussed for 21 hours before I wrote the page. The page was openly writen, I also discussed it with an Arb at the time I was writing it. I posted openly concerning it on the Admins Notceboard, where upon it was vastly edited and expanded by others. The page needed to be written by an editor, who if checked would be seen to be a reliable mainspace editor; my mainspace edits are reliable. You are reading far too much into this, and quite frankly I find your aspertions insulting. If you had dealt with this matter 24 hours ago, when Wiki En began reporting it, you would not find yourself in this mess. It was not deeply wromg to write the page, it was the right thing to do. Giano (talk) 22:52, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a tabloid, sir, and your writing an article which cast aspersions upon a journalist at a reputable newspaper, based as it turns out on a misunderstanding of the facts, was completely unacceptable. Your persistent barking at others was and is equally unacceptable. As it turns out, and of course unknown to you, I was dealing with this matter in a timely fashion. But, the right way to handle it is not to write a hatchet-job article as you did, but to allow me to contact the journalist and his editors to find out the facts in an orderly manner. Your mainspace edits are precisely what is at issue here: you engaged an egregious BLP violation. I recommend that you stay very far away from doing things like this in this or any other similar situation henceforth lest you earn yourself what will be a richly deserved permanent ban.

I cannot for the life of me understand why someone who likes to fashion himself as a good mainspace editor would even begin to imagine that the right way to respond to Mr. Hattersley's article would be to do what you did. Shame on you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

"based as it turns out on a misunderstanding of the facts" - do you have a reliable source for that? DuncanHill (talk) 23:24, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• It's also worth noting Mr Hattersley's other example - the article on Deal Castle which he claims was started by an 11 year old. It may well have been, but that was in 2004, so it's hardly breaking news. DuncanHill (talk) 21:18, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

  Didn't we have a 10 year old admin at one point? Who cares... --Tango (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

These two forum postings that are completely unrelated to Misplaced Pages say that Giles is the son of Roy: , --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Just a word about the state of the majority of British national newspapers, and especially those from the News International stable; check your calender against the date printed on the front page - just in case they are making that up as well. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Please be careful not to traduce Mr Hattersley; he has written about many notable people, including Peaches Geldof and Paris Hilton; he has also interviewed people of lesser import, such as Jilly Cooper, although she does complain that he got that wrong too. Let it not be said that whereas mainstream journalists, paid a relative fortune to preen and peacock on expense accounts, sometimes get it wrong, whereas we unpaid volunteers, giving up a lot more than our time, also do so from time to time. When I write an article here, I'd hope it stays written because I care enough to try to make it so. Would that others had the same commitment. This whole thing makes me feel ill. Actually make that "more ill". --Rodhullandemu 22:47, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• • What he said. I think a lot of people fell for the mistake of thinking the Times of today is the stolid, newspaper-of-record Times of fifty years ago. It isn't. – iridescent 22:40, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Even The Times crossword isn't what it was, which is why I switched to Araucaria in The Guardian. Now that is a crossword that can take up to an hour to complete! --Rodhullandemu 23:01, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

re the action of blocking Giano - and not the situation

Jimbo, did you - in blocking Giano for incivility - request and receive permission of the ArbCom, as required by the WP:AE conditions relating to Giano? LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That would not be necessary in this situation, but as others have noted, the point is moot now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:14, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

What? One needs permission to block editors? GoodDay (talk) 23:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

That only applies to enforcement of the civility parole, not all blocks for incivility. Also, must we have drama just because Giano was involved? --Apoc2400 (talk) 23:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The block has already been undone, what can possibly be gained by arguing about procedure? --Tango (talk) 23:09, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

(To Apoc2400) Blocks for incivility are de facto enforcement of the Giano civility parole, what else would it be? (To Tango) Well, basically I am hoping to find out if Jimbo is acting like "a regular sysop" or is in his "Constitutional Monarch" mode - because if I made as many pratfalls as a admin I would have been asked to hand in my flags some time ago. LessHeard vanU (talk) 23:23, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

There was no error here. It was a good block. Giano really screwed up here, and of course he is unlikely to apologize for it and accept that WP:NPA is hard policy. That I decided to be generous to him is an entirely different question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:26, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Can we stop handwringing about the block for a while? Deciding to write an article like this is rather silly at best, but if you are going to do something that monumentally dangerous/ridiculous, you should behave perfectly. Giano did not handle it well, and I'm sure most of us are scratching our heads wondering how Giano's WP-persona managed to leak into mainspace. Surely it will not happen again, so lets just move on. Struck most of the previous comment, as it seems silly in hindsight, and I'll take my own advice.--Tznkai (talk) 23:51, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Jimbo, would it be possible for you to inform us of exactly what the "misunderstanding" was eventually? I'm awful confused, I spent a couple hours rummaging around the site trying to find out where the false claims could've been made, and when.--Tznkai (talk) 23:42, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The latest informaton that I have is at Talk:Giles Hattersley. As it turns out, writing a hatchet job article about a man based on an alleged "lie" he told in a newspaper, was a really bad idea. The paper made an error, as it turns out. Even if the claim were to have been true, Misplaced Pages is not a tabloid, Misplaced Pages is not a newspaper, and writing an article like that which was almost completely about this one article, is just not even remotely acceptable. In my view, Giano has crossed a very big line here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:55, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Did the article say "lie"? I only saw it say "error". --Tango (talk) 23:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

The article wasn't a "hatchet job". DuncanHill (talk) 23:58, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

• Just a second here - why have you put "lie" in speech marks - I never used that word - I used the word "error" get your facts straight Wales - if you can. Now I'm out of here, you keep that page deleted because if people see it, they may just wonder what you are talking about. Giano (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Sunday Times

Can we now assume that the Sunday Times is no longer a reliable source? DuncanHill (talk) 23:59, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Please undelete Giles Hattersley

I'll repeat my request from the article talk page here in case you miss it: It seems we have the facts now. Since this was intended as a temporary deletion until we had the facts, could you please undelete and allow the community to decide what to do? Thanks. --Tango (talk) 00:00, 9 February 2009 (UTC)