Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:33, 13 February 2009

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Question

Will Mr Hattersley himself be publicly stating that at no time did he accuse either Misplaced Pages or its editors of libel? 'Cos in the article as it is on the Sunday Times website he appears to be doing exactly that. DuncanHill (talk) 02:12, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what he will say. But I am pretty sure that relaxing about it for a couple of days will do no one any harm.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:44, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You've spoken to or emailed the chap, I just thought that a false allegation of libel & what he intended to do about it might have been part of the conversation. DuncanHill (talk) 03:49, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps this will come as a surprise to you, but is usually inappropriate to reveal what was talked about in private conversations and it is definitely none of our business. Jimbo is handling this in appropriate way, dealing with it constructively and keeping a level head rather then getting angry and yelling at people to fix it, something which usually just makes the situation worse and which is liable to do wikipedia and its editors a great disservice and cause far more harm to us then the article by Giles Hattersley ever did. Nil Einne (talk) 09:39, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

A private conversation would be "how's your family" or "what are you doing for Easter" or "has that nasty infection cleared up". The founder of Misplaced Pages talking to a journalist about an article about Misplaced Pages isn't a private conversation. It is Jumbo doing something on behalf of Misplaced Pages and it's a great shame that once again Jimbo has shewn that he doesn't trust, or as far as I can see, support the community. DuncanHill (talk)

You seem to be confused between "personal" and "private". The conversation isn't personal, it is private. --Tango (talk) 17:14, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

No I don't think it is. I don't think it is appropriate for Jimbo to have such conversations and refuse to tell the community whatever it is he has said, done, or been told on our behalf. As it is we get this "you can't discuss this or make your own decisions because I am dealing with it but I won't tell you what I am doing" rubbish which serves no constructive purpose whatsoever and simply alienates editors. Patronising the community, as Jimbo seems to do more and more lately, is not leadership. DuncanHill (talk) 17:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I bet the other end of his conversation considers it private. And I think relaxing about it for a couple days is good advice...I think it'd be a good idea if you could step away from this for a bit and come back when you can be a little more even tempered. That would make this dicussion a lot more effective...RxS (talk) 17:54, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

He's a journalist for Pete's sake - I'm sure he's familiar with the idea that when you tell someone something it may be repeated elsewhere. I am well aware thank you of the standard response to criticism of Mr Wales, that the ones doing the criticising should go away for a while. DuncanHill (talk) 18:01, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I doubt even a journalist would agree that his private communications must be published whenever someone on the internet anonymously requests it. I'm sure he understands that things he says may get around (as we all do) but that's a long way off from expecting or accepting that his private communications will be published necessarily. And I’m not suggesting you go away, just that you step away from this topic until you can discuss it more even temperedly. RxS (talk) 18:11, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Nothing anonymous about me. DuncanHill (talk) 18:15, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Duncan, you're way off base here. You are arguing with someone else, not me, about your view about what I might say, although I haven't. You accuse me of not trusting the community, of refusing to tell the community something important, etc. I think it is extremely important to note that you simply made all that up out of thin air to advance your own agenda. You should be ashamed of yourself, you are behaving like a spoiled brat.

I am talking to Mr. Hattersley and (through him) his editors. Inquiries are being made. It takes them time to get back to me. He has to talk to his people, and they have to... I don't know... but there's no hurry and there's nothing new for me to tell you. Now please stop attacking me over infractions that you simply made up. Remember, this is a weekly newspaper. Everyone was off work on Monday. Tuesday he talked to them. He got back to me with an update, I responded, he responded. We're having a conversation. When there is anything useful to tell you, I will tell you. Not before. The world does not revolve around your demands for instant gratification.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not see any evidence in your behaviour over this article to suggest that you trust the community. You did not trust the community to improve the article - you deleted it. You did not trust the community to cope with a mild expression of exasperation from Giano - you blocked him. I am not ashamed of myself, and I do not see any reason why I should believe you of all people when you say I should. If anyone is behaving like a spoiled brat it is you. DuncanHill (talk) 16:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust the community either: mild expressions of exasperation from Giano tend to turn into weeks-long flamewars. --Carnildo (talk) 03:07, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Does Duncan want every word of every conversation JW has about Misplaced Pages with anyone typed up here verbatim? This would not show an intent to 'trust' the community, merely an intent to bore the pants off us. Seems reasonable to me to allow people with executive function to be able to exercise reasonable diplomacy and negotiation with all kinds of people without having to make every single detail of those discussions public. JW has made public that he is engaged in ongoing discussions and is hoping to let a few good nights sleep allow everyone involved to get things back into proportion. Riversider (talk) 13:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Per my message from a few days ago

Per my message from a few days ago, I have been doing my homework. What I am trying to do is craft a proposal for FlaggedRevs which is not controversial, that addresses as many competing concerns as possible, and gives us a clear track forward at the end of the trial. I had hoped to have something ready by Monday (today), and I still may, but due to having diverted a few hours of my time yesterday to dealing with the Giles Hattersley hatchet-job biography situation, I'm running somewhat behind. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:22, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Good luck with that! I suggest you go for "as uncontroversial as possible" rather than "not controversial", otherwise you will fail. There are people that have a seemingly religious objection to FlaggedRevs and will not be persuaded by any proposal. --Tango (talk) 18:50, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I think "not listen to any proposal" would be a more accurate description of some of them. --Deskana (talk) 18:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, you both give good advice. I don't expect to get unanimity, but the idea being put forward in the press, that there is some kind of deep split in the community about this, and that this is a huge controversial step for Misplaced Pages, is one that I find a bit foolish. (Particularly in the cases where they call to ask me about it, and I explain it to them, and then they go write something inflammatory and the opposite of what I have said!) I think that there is a pretty solid middle ground, there are some legitimate concerns that need to be dealt with, and that not everyone will get everything they want, but that there is a position which almost everyone will agree is better than the current situation, and which will provide us with real learnings for moving forward in a productive way. Some people will - quite legitimately - vote no, and who will vote no will depend a lot on what I end up proposing. Other people will - quite illegitimately - declare the end of the world and that I'm a tyrant, more or less no matter what happens. So, yeah, well get "as uncontroversial as possible" and leave the press to claim the world is falling. :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimbo Wales (talk • contribs)

I am sure there are many opinions to consider, but here is what I think is important to gain consensus:

1. Focus on underwatched BLPs.
2. Make it clear that flagged revisions will not be used on all articles. As long as that possibility is looming, many will vote against any kind of implementation.
3. Put in safeguards that makes sure this will not lead to Misplaced Pages editing grinding down to a halt, or giving too much power over article content to a small wiki-elite.

--Apoc2400 (talk) 18:55, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I'd rather not rule out flagged revs on all articles at this stage, I see no reason to. If we get up and running on just BLPs and it's only taking a couple of minutes to flag new edits, then why not expand it? Let's make one decision at a time. If people object to flagged revs on all articles then they need to speak up when someone actually proposes that, if they speak up now they need to be slapped with a wet fish. --Tango (talk) 18:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I disagree - Misplaced Pages-en is huge. Plenty of our low profile articles have redlink and IP editors as their major or sole contributors, flag revs will probably work very poorly on the fringes of Misplaced Pages space, definitely a place where we'll need compelling data before we consider turning it on wiki-wide.--Tznkai (talk) 19:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

What are you disagreeing with? I was saying it's something to consider after we have some data... --Tango (talk) 19:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Not everyone has the time to stay around and evaluate every new proposal. When would we have time to write articles if we did that? I prefer to know exactly what I vote for, not some kind of open-ended let's-see-where-it-leads. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

You do know what you vote for. You vote for the proposal at the top of the voting page. You would rather make a decision now, without any facts to go on, than wait until there are facts and make the decision then? Just to save a little time? --Tango (talk) 19:09, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

If I vote yes to a "let's turn on flagged revisions and see what we do with it" proposal, then I risk that it is applied to all articles sometime when I'm not looking. I'd better be safe and vote no. If I know that it will be BLPs and some other articles that need it, then I would be willing to support. Starting with a smaller trial to see how it works is fine, but I want to know where we are going before I support the first step. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:21, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, it was discussed already somewhere, but we (Russian Misplaced Pages) have some experience with finding some not-so-controversial rules for using FlaggedRevs to fight vandalism/BLP/copyright issues, etc. (Actually, we also had strong opposition to FlaggedRevs, but now everybody see that there's nothing bad in FlaggedRevs.) See ru:ВП:ПАТ. Russian Misplaced Pages will be happy to share its experience. Ilya Voyager (talk) 17:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure the community is ready for another debate on Flaggedrevs yet, the poll just finished in late January and the survey is still not closed. Some time to let the media frenzy die down wouldn't hurt too. Various proposals and trials are discussed, as usual the ones most supported will be presented to the community for consideration in time. Cenarium (talk) 18:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Another debate? This is all part of one big debate. This debate won't stop until we reach a conclusion, so we might as well just get on with it. --Tango (talk) 18:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

What happened?

Moved to User:Tango/GH discussion

Giles Hattersley

Jimbo, could I ask you to review the new article at Giles Hattersley? This is not a restoration of an old version but a completely new article, written from scratch, without any of the elements that made the last one a problem. Page protection is still in place until March 14th to prevent any short-term mischief and to enable you to review the article in the meantime. Hopefully this will resolve any lingering issues with this article. -- ChrisO (talk) 09:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. The article looks fine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Here (finally) , is the edit I made with attendant summary for which Jimbo Wales blocked me. It was a bad block. It was wrong and he needs to be admonished and told firmly that that is not how Admins behave.Giano (talk) 12:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Jesus, you blocked him for that? That's not even worth a warning. That isn't incivil by anyone's standards. Actually, for Giano, it's a rather restrained response. Honestly, you're way behind the times, Jimbo. Sceptre 12:58, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The truth is, what Giles Hattersley wrote on 8 February 2009 was not even close to be significant enought to worth being represented in that stub (WP:NPoV). Maybe, _{I said maybe}, in a "trivia" section of a 15 pages long article, but not in that stub. Another fact is, from Giles Hattersley point of vue and mine, Jimbo seem really concerned that "his beloved Misplaced Pages got it wrong. " . So, how Jimbo's concerns made him "fire blindly" at Giano ? Quite a bit _{or two} indeed.

Finaly, how's the fact that we must go on altogether as changed ? Not at all. Wikilove. Iluvalar (talk) 14:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, wow. The edit in question actually improved the article by taking out who wrote the article and you blocked him for that? Seriously, Jimbo, if that had of been anyone other than Giano, would you have blocked them? It seems your comments and actions toward Giano have been getting harsher and harsher. Perhaps it's time to let others deal with him? Tex (talk) 15:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Please note that Tango originally removed the Misplaced Pages self-reference twice, and he and Giano talked about it on User talk:Tango. Later, MickMacNee added Giano's name and user page to the article, Conti reverted, and Tango re-reverted. At best, Tango was editing to make a WP:POINT; at worst he was baiting Giano. It was in that context that Giano said "You are making us look like idiots." Thatcher 16:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As I've said before, Giano has a special talent for angering people above and beyond the plain text of his words, or perhaps we collectively have a special talent for being angered by Giano?--Tznkai (talk) 17:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you find anything in Giano's discussions with Tango that would justify Tango baiting him? 'Cause I can't. Thatcher 18:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Nope, although I settle for calling it an "edit war" --Tznkai (talk) 18:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not just an edit war when you change arguments in the middle and start doing the very thing you opposed before. Thatcher 18:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Would you please read my edit summaries? I think you will find them enlightening. --Tango (talk) 18:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Giano & Jimbo clashed in the past, I'm guessing. GoodDay (talk) 17:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I prefer The Clash. Most of the editors here are too young to remember. Jehochman 18:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(to Tznkai)That's a good question. Why are people (Jimbo in particular) so angered by Giano? He sometimes does things that I cringe about, but wouldn't it make more sense to just let it go? Seriously, if anyone but Giano had acted in the same way as he did, would any of this have happened? I don't think so. I'm not sure why anyone would think to put Giano's name in the article and I don't know why Tango was warring over it, but I don't think anyone would have put my name in the article if I were the one who wrote it. This whole situation happened because Giano wrote the article. And I honestly can't figure out why people are angry at him for writting it. Tex (talk) 18:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I wrote a lengthy postmoterm on the incident above where I laid out a very brief case (mostly assertions really) that the problem was less Giano and more of our collective tendancy to freak out during BLP issues. It didn't help that Giano specificly said that he created the article as a "rebuttal" which throws up a red flag no matter who the editor is. Try out these for fun: I created Accuracy of Misplaced Pages as a rebuttal. I created Science as a rebuttal. I created Essjay as rebuttal. I think this particular mess could've happened to anyone. Perhaps only with it involving Giano or another high profile user would've gotten this much internal press.--Tznkai (talk) 19:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Well said. I too have written to rebut. And as for UNDUE stress in a BLP, I knowingly created Jonathan Routh as a massively skewed stub years ago (I wrote about the one, rather minor aspect of JR that I happened to know about), and it remains heavily skewed now, even after JR's demise. The only complaints I got about that were for my insistence on templating the thing as a stub. -- Hoary (talk) 02:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

You don't need to guess the reasons for my edits - it's all in the edit summaries. --Tango (talk) 18:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

This episode seems to have been started by a good faith intention to protect WP's reputation. WP's reputation is that it is an unreliable source. There is no reason for us to wish to change this reputation, as WP is proud to be an openly unreliable source attempting to become more reliable, rather than a source which claims reliability and then always fails to live up to this promise.Riversider (talk) 13:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid whatever my intentions were, Jimbo Wales prefers to assume bad faith and slander me and then does not even have the good manners to back down on finding he was completely in the wrong. Giano (talk) 13:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I was completely in the right. The original biography was a disgrace - a hatchet job, and you created it for a bad reason. You were barking at other editors in an inappropriate manner. And, as you are completely unapologetic about it even today, I think that you have proven me correct yet again.

Hoary gives an example of an imbalanced biography that he wrote a while back (see above), and I think that's a very nice example to illustrate the difference. Hoary wrote about a series of guidebooks that someone participated in the creation of, and although that is apparently a minor part of the career of that person, the biography remains (he says) skewed to that, to this day. That's unfortunate, but notice what it is not: it is not a vicious smear on an otherwise respectable person. Your biography took, out of the entire career of the man, a single error in a single column and elevated it to the whole of his life. That's WP:UNDUE, WP:COATRACK, WP:NPOV violations all around. Furthermore, you wrote it specifically as a response to his negative column about Misplaced Pages. This is wildly inappropriate - we do not respond to critics by writing hatchet job articles about an error they made.

I stand fully behind the block, and fully behind my criticism of your actions, which were severely unbecoming.

I understand and acknowledge that you do not understand why what you did is wrong. I think there is no hope of reform here, for that very reason.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:33, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Your Conference @ FUNGLODE

Hello Mr. Jimbo. I was in the speech you gave at FUNGLODE in Dominican Republic yesterday, which was very interesting. I just want to congratulate you for your work and thank you for visiting us, I hope you liked your stay here and I'd like to attend if you give another one here. Have a good day. Alex2610 (talk) 11:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
P.S.: I almost ask you to let me take a picture with you at the end of the conference when you were leaving the conference room, but I felt too embarrassed to ask :S

Oh, you should have! Anyway, thanks for your kind words. I plan to be back in the Dominican Republic sometime soon, so we should meet then... I had a very interesting time today visiting a community center, a high school, and a university.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, very good to know that you will be here again and that you are having a good time. I guess that if I see you again I'll have the courage to ask for the picture. Thanks. Alex2610 (talk) 02:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Bad statistics

Hello Mr. Jimbo. I'm kiri Simeonovski, administrator on Misplaced Pages on macedonian language. The parameter Depth which is calculated to show the quality of the articles, for me and for us on mk.Wiki is not a good statistic shower about it. The formula (Eits/Articles)·(Non-Articles/Artciles)·(1- stub-ratio) is weak, because of its manipulation from the users. Expanding edits by talkpage edits or user edits has positive impact on the Depth value, so you can get higher Depth without editing encyclopedic pages. So, I want to propose to change the formula of this parameter and to install values in it, such as kilobytes merge of the articles and to eliminate the impact of the talkpage and user edits. Regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 16:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone actually use the Depth statistics for anything? They were an attempt at finding a numerical measure of quality, but such a measure doesn't really exist so it's useless. Just ignore it. --Tango (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I think they are used for determining which versions of Misplaced Pages are linked to from the main page. Hut 8.5 19:08, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The top ten links on www.wikipedia.org are determined by the number of visitors each Misplaced Pages gets. Everything else is ranked by number of articles. "Depth" isn't used anywhere. --Carnildo (talk) 22:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I meant the English main page. Hut 8.5 07:33, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I use those numbers personally just to judge... not 'quality'... but rather 'depth' (as the name indicates). It is a rough but usable metric to determine whether a large language wikipedia is "real" or just hundreds of thousands of stubs or bot-generated articles. I am unsure what difference removing talk page edits and user space edits from the count would make (I suspect, in general, not very much of a difference) but it would be interesting to see. It does seem to me that mainspace edits are what the statistic should be interested in though!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hello

Hello Jimmy, I am a fairly new wiki member. I am wondering what you think of the state of affairs in the world. Do you think we are in the endtimes. Also, have you ever listened to raul midon?

Thanks and God Bless Lulu262 (talk) 12:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe in the concept of "the endtimes". I think the world has a lot of problems, but I am nevertheless optimistic. I don't think I've ever heard Raul Midon, but I just glanced at his entry in Misplaced Pages, and it sounds like something I might like. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages thinks that assumeing the universe follows the most likely senario then you've only got about 50 billion years to wait. See Big Rip.Geni 17:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

No Geni. Misplaced Pages follows scientific rules which indicate that the universe may end in 50 billion years or indeed may, in fact, have ended at 4.15pm on Thursday January 29th 2009 (UTC naturally).--Scott Mac (Doc) 13:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)