Misplaced Pages

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Index –index– October 28, 2001 – April 12, 2004 April 16, 2004 – August 23, 2004 August 28, 2004 – December 8, 2004 December 9, 2004 – March 23, 2005 March 23, 2005 – July 24, 2005 July 26, 2005 – September 9, 2005 September 9, 2005 – September 24, 2005 September – December 2005 January 2006 January – February 2006 February 2006 February 2006, cont. March 2006 April 2006 – late May 2006 May 24 – July 2006 July 2006 – August 2006 August 2006 Most of September 2006 Late September 2006 – Early November 2006 Most of November 2006 Late November 2006 – December 8, 2006 December 9, 2006 – Mid January 2007 From December 22, 2006 blanking Mid January 2007 – Mid February 2007 Mid February 2007– Feb 25, 2007 From March 2, 2007 blanking March 2–5, 2007 March 5–11, 2007 March 11 – April 3, 2007 April 2 – May 2, 2007 May 3 – June 7, 2007 June 9 – July 4, 2007 July 13 – August 17, 2007 August 17 – September 11, 2007 September 14 – October 7, 2007 October 28 – December 1, 2007 December 2 – December 16, 2007 December 15 – January 4, 2008 January 4 – January 30, 2008 January 30 – February 28, 2008 February 28 – March 11, 2008 March 9 – April 18, 2008 April 18 – May 30, 2008 May 30 – July 27, 2008 July 26 – October 4, 2008 October 4 – November 12, 2008 November 10 – December 10, 2008 December 5 – December 25, 2008 December 25 – January 16, 2009 January 15 – January 27, 2009 January 26 – February 10, 2009 February 8 – March 18, 2009 March 18 – May 6, 2009 May 5 – June 9, 2009 June 10 – July 11, 2009 July 12 – August 25, 2009 August 26 – October 3, 2009 October 4 – November 20, 2009 November 20 – December 21, 2009 December 22, 2009 – January 25, 2010 January 22, 2010 – February 22, 2010 February 22, 2010 – March 17, 2010 March 17, 2010 – April 9, 2010 April 11, 2010 – April 24, 2010 April 23, 2010 – May 12, 2010 May 10, 2010 – June 4, 2010 June 4, 2010 – June 26, 2010 June 26, 2010 – July 22, 2010 July 22, 2010 – August 23, 2010 August 4, 2010 – August 28, 2010 August 28, 2010 – September 14, 2010 September 13, 2010 – October 6, 2010 October 6, 2010 – November 8, 2010 November 8, 2010 – November 21, 2010 November 21, 2010 – December 6, 2010 December 6, 2010 – December 22, 2010 December 21, 2010 – January 17, 2011 January 16, 2011 – February 10, 2011 February 6, 2011 – March 19, 2011 March 16, 2011 – March 26, 2011 March 26, 2011 – April 22, 2011 April 22, 2011 – May 16, 2011 May 17, 2011 – June 9, 2011 June 10, 2011 – July 1, 2011 July 1, 2011 – July 15, 2011 July 16, 2011 – July 26, 2011 July 26, 2011 – August 15, 2011 August 14, 2011 – August 23, 2011 August 21, 2011 – August 31, 2011 August 30, 2011 – September 7, 2011 September 4, 2011 – September 25, 2011 September 26, 2011 – October 19, 2011 October 16, 2011 – November 5, 2011 November 4, 2011 – November 12, 2011 November 11, 2011 – November 24, 2011 November 24, 2011 – December 6, 2011 December 3, 2011 – December 14, 2011 December 10, 2011 – December 16, 2011 (RFC about the Stop Online Piracy Act) December 15, 2011 – December 30, 2011 December 27, 2011 – January 9, 2012 January 9, 2012 – January 18, 2012 January 17, 2012 – January 30, 2012 January 28, 2012 – February 12, 2012 February 7, 2012 – February 25, 2012 February 19, 2012 – March 4, 2012 February 27, 2012 – March 18, 2012 March 17, 2012 – April 2, 2012 March 31, 2012 – April 13, 2012 April 12, 2012 – April 18, 2012 April 18, 2012 – April 26, 2012 April 26, 2012 – May 6, 2012 May 2, 2012 – May 22, 2012 May 19, 2012 – June 9, 2012 June 4, 2012 – June 20, 2012 June 18, 2012 – June 28, 2012 June 26, 2012 – July 12, 2012 July 3, 2012 – July 22, 2012 July 19, 2012 – July 29, 2012 July 25, 2012 – August 9, 2012 August 7, 2012 – August 30, 2012 August 29, 2012 – September 13, 2012 September 13, 2012 – September 27, 2012 September 26, 2012 – October 5, 2012 September 24, 2012 – October 20, 2012 October 9, 2012 – October 31, 2012 October 29, 2012 – November 19, 2012 November 17, 2012 – December 5, 2012 December 2–15, 2012 December 15–28, 2012 December 24, 2012 – January 12, 2013 January 13–31, 2013 February 1–10, 2013 February 11–28, 2013 March 1–16, 2013 March 17–27, 2013 March 28 – April 6, 2013 April 6–19, 2013 April 19 – May 3, 2013 April 25 – May 8, 2013 May 6–19, 2013 May 18–30, 2013 May 27 – June 16, 2013 June 17–30, 2013 June 27 – July 30, 2013 July 31 – August 4, 2013 August 4–12, 2013 August 13–27, 2013 August 28 – September 4, 2013 September 5–10, 2013 September 11–22, 2013 September 24 – October 6, 2013 October 7–16, 2013 October 17–27, 2103 October 28 – November 6, 2013 November 7–19, 2013 November 20–27, 2013 November 28 – December 5, 2013 December 6–24, 2013 December 25–30, 2013 December 31, 2013 – January 14, 2014 January 15–24, 2014 January 25–29, 2014 January 30 – February 10, 2014 Archives not yet dated: 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 This manual archive index may be out of date. Future archives: 184 185 186

This page has archives. Sections older than 1 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

Poll

Hi, about the poll, your close seems to suggest you'd like the opinion of as many users as possible. I was thinking that 4-5 days seems very short, as users are not always quick to comment even if aware of a poll, because they want to think about it a bit further, esp. when they didn't participate in prior discussions (which were almost a year ago). Furthermore, as you can see, this kind of polls has a tendency to attract many supports in the beginning then much more opposes than initially. I would suggest for the next poll a duration of 2 weeks and much more advertizing, otherwise in my opinion, it wouldn't be representative enough of the community. Cenarium (talk) 15:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you. This was just a snap poll to gather a sampling of opinions. Even the next poll will not result in any actual action on my part. I want to explore our options, together, in a thoughtful and non-confrontational manner. What I will be doing this weekend is categorizing by hand some of the major views to try to craft something that will answer objections. That, too, will be a short and informal poll, to see to what extent I have been successful. Any poll resulting in any sort of action will be clearly marked as such and advertised quite broadly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:51, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

That's great, thanks for the clarification. Cenarium (talk) 15:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for doing what you did.

Hello Mr Wales,
I am writing this to say a little bit of my appreciation to you for founding and setting this wonderful project (perhaps one of the most influentual projects of the 21st century). Misplaced Pages has helped me a lot with my school work and it has also expanded my knowledge of the world around me. I can't really imagine (or has ever imagined), what this world would be like with Misplaced Pages. I am a newbie myself with editing, even though I have using the site for so long. I hope that Misplaced Pages will grow to become the largest website-in term of capacity-in the world (I don't think it's not far off now :)). All in all, I just want to express to you my appreciation of the work you have done, just nearly a decade ago, and I hope that Wikipedians and the website itself, will strive for the better in the near future, and for decades to come.
Thank you very much, Mr Wales. Sp33dyphil 04:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Question

Since you founded Misplaced Pages, maybe you can answer this question:

Why are we called "Users" here? After all, we don't "Use" Misplaced Pages, we edit it.--RM (Be my friend) 16:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyone who uses the site is a user. One who edits is an editor. "Editor" has a different meaning with FlaggedRevs though, so I try to avoid that term. Reach Out to the Truth 17:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

There is also (and probably primarily) the fact that, in computer science terminology, "user" is the name given to specified identities as recognized by the system. A user is what logs in, has permissions, etc. This is similar to the common usage (one who uses), but not identical — many of the users of Misplaced Pages aren't users in the computer science meaning, and indeed many of our editors aren't users either. — Coren  17:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

For reference see User (computing).--Cube lurker (talk) 17:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages system calls for a new TAB

moved here from Talk:Jimmy Wales Tarc (talk) 17:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello Jimmy!

Misplaced Pages article calls for a new tab called for example "narrative", because there is the other side of the coin: the kind of information one cannot find any references, as it is more like self-educated knowledge.

For example aerodynamics: airfoil. One could write a long article about the topic but he/she is still inable to explain the idea "by heart" because there is no references - except if he/she writes a scientific article about the explanation of airfoil" before writing the "explanative" wikiarticle.

the new tab could be placed in between tabs "article" and "discussion" and included in every wikiarticle. it could contain completely different point of view than the main article or a narrative where the ideas in the main article are explained 'by own words'.

thanks for reading. --86.50.34.133 (talk) 10:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

(this isn't Jimbo) That's a great idea but probably not practical to implement. I don't think Misplaced Pages would have any effective way to lay down the rules for what gets said on an extra tab, and without rules we would not be able to avoid the kinds of problems we have on the article and talk tabs - edit warring, content disputes, article ownership questions, copyright violations, libel and other WP:BLP issues, and so on. There could be many different people, each who wants to be heard. It would be simpler to implement an "in their own words" section for biographies of people, or articles about organizations, places, and population groups, but even there you have issues of authenticating that someone is who they claim they are, and you still have to watch out for libel and copyright vios. I think the best way to go, if you're really interested, would be to build a Misplaced Pages mirror site that is like Misplaced Pages but has one or more extra tabs, or maybe that has only the extra tabs and refers people to Misplaced Pages for the main article. Then you could invite everyone to fill them out in the way you envision. If you do that you'll probably get a lot of respect for what it took to build the site in the first place, to get people to use it, police the rules, and so on. - Wikidemon (talk) 18:04, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

egregious abuse of Misplaced Pages in nearly all climate change BLPs

Mr. Wales,

For the last year I have struggled in vain to balance the abuses of the rights of living climate scientists the world over to have a fair, neutral, accurate biography. A year later, it's safe to say that I have achieved practically nothing, and the reason I have achieved nothing is that your gang of mostly immature, often 20-something editors and admins have closed ranks in nearly all instances to obstruct and thwart all progress.

I am not the first to notice this. Lawrence Solomon has, of course, written about it in the Financial Post in Canada a few times, and has blamed the situation personally on two of your editors, William M. Connolley and Kim D. Petersen. I disagree with Lawrence Solomon in blaming these two editors. You created Misplaced Pages. You allow your editors to do what they do. You are the founder and by remaining neutral on flagrant NPOV and BLP abuses, you are responsible, and you should answer to the public.

Does the public understand that millions of dollars of charitable donations are spent by Misplaced Pages in funding the smearing of the professional reputations of great living scientists such as Richard Lindzen, Roger Pielke Sr., or S. Fred Singer each day?

I have spent countless hours of the last year defending in vain the biographies of Richard Lindzen, Ross McKitrick, Garth Paltridge, Roger A. Pielke, and Lawrence Solomon. I have even helped out the gang in defending the likes of Rajendra K. Pachauri and Michael E. Mann occasionally. I've cleaned up Gavin Schmidt's and Raymond Pierrehumbert's biographies, but this has does little to soften the environmentalist, agenda-driven hatred your editors feel towards anyone perceived to be skeptical of anthropogenic climate change.

In the whole year, I have not received a single word of support from anyone in the Misplaced Pages Foundation, and practically none of the Misplaced Pages admins have ever helped either. A few skeptics in the admin community have helped, a bit, but most of those apparently see the fight as futile, and no one who simply cares about fairness and policy has ever stepped in to help. This is wrong, I realise. An editor, ATren, did step in, but he seems to have been finally burnt out and driven away now. Alex Harvey (talk) 15:35, 9 March 2010 (UTC) Meanwhile, my own talk page, unedited since I joined, testifies to the bullying I have received, instead, from your editors.

I should like to let you know that I have in principle approval to write up a first hand, insider's account of what goes on here, at the blog of a very prominent climate scientist. If published, my piece will not be written off as the rantings of a denier, because the scientist is well respected by the mainstream media, and he is not a skeptic. It will largely serve to independently confirm the observations of Mr. Solomon. Except, as I say, I disagree with Lawrence Solomon on one important point: I believe that you are personally responsible; it is wrong to blame all of this on the actions of two well-intentioned, fanatical volunteers.

Without an effective leader, it is my serious view that Misplaced Pages needs to be forcibly taken over either commercially or by government, for the good of the people. I will be leaving Misplaced Pages, and advocating for such a change, shortly. If, on the other hand, you would like to help me fix the BLPs of climate scientists, there is a small amount of energy left in me to continue.

Regards,

Alex Harvey (talk) 07:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Diffs would help. Sole Soul (talk) 07:52, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Sole Soul, if you'd like to see this in recent context then go to Lindzen's talk page and start at the top. If you really want to understand the problem, I'd suggest reading all of the talk pages of all the above scientists. Alex Harvey (talk) 08:12, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm starting to read Lindzen's talk page (just to understand). Sole Soul (talk) 08:20, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I just took the challenge and had a look at Talk:Richard Lindzen where I see a recent and somewhat heated discussion concerning whether it is reasonable to use the term "contrarian" in relation to Lindzen. In Richard Lindzen we find (and I confirmed the reference) that a 2001 article in Newsweek includes "Lindzen clearly relishes the role of naysayer. He'll even expound on how weakly lung cancer is linked to cigarette smoking." My conclusion (from this and more references) is that Alex Harvey is misreading a very reasonable consensus. The article has plenty of positive information about Lindzen, but also properly records his contrarian position. Johnuniq (talk) 09:37, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

By which company or government does Alex propose Misplaced Pages be taken over? Tasty monster (TS on one of those new fangled telephone thingies) 13:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I do think this is an issue worthy of attention, although whenever I have checked articles in the past, I have been mostly unimpressed with the claims that these articles are particularly problematic. Diffs would be helpful, because to assess and comment on a very broad array of edits is difficult. Particular examples give us a good opportunity to examine what is going on in light of our broader principles of NPOV and BLP.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:46, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

The discussion at Lindzen have focused, since before Christmas, on whether or not it is appropriate for a great living scientist's biography to be given ~ 600 words for his career and accomplishments, and ~ 1400 words to discussions and refutations of his stance on global warming. That said, if you are claiming that you have actually looked at the climate change biographies, and found nothing much wrong there, then I'd say that's pretty much all I need to know. I'll probably quote you on this, if you don't mind. Alex Harvey (talk) 13:57, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be very easy to write something completely unfair to me by quoting that comment out of context - please do not do that. If you want to quote me, give me a specific diff so I can comment on something in particular.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

"The discussion at Lindzen have focused, since before Christmas, on whether or not it is appropriate for a great living scientist's biography to be given ~ 600 words for his career and accomplishments, and ~ 1400 words to discussions and refutations of his stance on global warming."

I think Alex means this and this. I find the arguments in these diffs completely legitimate, though I agree with the general sentiment that Misplaced Pages articles tend to give undue wight to recent and controversial subjects. Sole Soul (talk) 14:49, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Wales, if you are concerned that I could quote you out of context, would you clarify the context of that remark then? I mean specifically, "...whenever I have checked articles in the past, I have been mostly unimpressed with the claims that articles are particularly problematic." Does it mean that you think it's fine for amateurs to write up sloppy, inaccurate biographies of living people and get it all wrong? Or do you mean that it's not fine, but it's just that other Misplaced Pages BLPs are even worse? (I wouldn't know about this, as I've focused exclusively on the climate change BLP pages.) Or do you mean that you think Misplaced Pages has largely got the climate change BLPs right? Alex Harvey (talk) 15:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Show me a specific diff or set of diffs, and I can comment accordingly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

If I may comment here as well, what it sounds like is that you have a point of view that is pretty much in the minority, and you are upset that this minority point of view is not given equal footing to the mainstream point of view. But, per WP:NPOV, we simply do not do that. And your characterization of other editors as "amateurs" whose work is "sloppy inaccurate" is not really doing much to contribute to a collegial editing environment. Tarc (talk) 15:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

• I don't think that anyone is keeping User:Alexh19740110 from adding additional information to the article which may serve to flesh out our article on Richard Lindzen, I suggest that he takes that route rather than trying to intimidate his way to having information removed of which he apparently does not approve. Unomi (talk) 15:45, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo, as a previously uninvolved editor, I believe that I can shed some light on the situation. About 3 months ago, I began editing our Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article and inadvertently got caught up in a battle between two groups of warring factions. From what I've been able to gather, this battle has been going on for years. Both sides routinely ignore our policies on neutrality, verifiability and biographies of living people and only seek to include content that advances their POV while simultaneously excluding content that is against their POV. I attempted in good faith to improve our Climatic Research Unit hacking incident article's neutrality, and was routinely attacked and harassed by both warring factions. In my short time in this topic space, this war has been brought up at several venues including most of our noticeboards (BLP, OR, RS, NPOV, FRINGE, COI, Admin), not to mention WP:Mediation Cabal and ArbCom but the community has consistently failed to resolve the situation. The issue is currently at WP:General_sanctions/Climate_change_probation where it also remains unresolved.

Neither side seems to care about the harm that they're doing to Misplaced Pages. My personal feeling is that editors who care more about advancing an agenda (rather than building an encyclopedia) are not an asset to this project but a detriment.

In any case, I gave up in frustration and no longer edit any articles in this topic space. Since someone else has brought the problem to your attention, I thought a neutral voice might help understand the situation.

BTW, sorry for the lack of diffs. The edit histories of all these pages are too long and complicated to sift through. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:03, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo, As a newcomer to Misplaced Pages I have followed these two factions battle it out on climate change issues since November last year. I completely support 'A Quest For Knowledge' frustration.

Here is my suggestions: Temporarily remove ALL Misplaced Pages pages related to Climate science as they now stand for a period of 6 months. If the kids are not playing nice then take the toys away! This will hopefully discourage the fanatical elements on both sides of the debate.130.232.214.10 (talk) 17:30, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

All of the above boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT, occasioned by frustration that an article has not been slanted in favour of one POV. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:43, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Wales:

Those saying that a cabal of extremely POV editors have hijacked the Climate articles are completely correct. Those denying it appear to be members of that very Cabal. They are assiduous in their pursuit of having WP represent their point of view and only their point of view. They are so determined that they hunt down any entry like this and jump on it to make sure it does not interfere with the party line. I think it would be instructive to follow a few conversations by those saying that people complaining to you are somehow fringe elements crying foul because their minority opinion is being trampled. They are correct that the complainers are (at any given point in time) in the minority. However, that is because they drive off and even have banned anyone with the temerity to voice a contrary opinion. You *will* see that (as above with Alex Harvey) eventually after many (many, many) incidents of baiting, badgering, bullying, etc, that people get frustrated and become intemperate. Alex should not have been so heavy handed, but he was surely driven to it by a level of frustration that no ordinary person would bear. Certainly, the ones doing the systematic baiting and banning show not nearly the temperance of their victims.

You should not be expected to personally intervene, even in things as shocking as this. However, I implore you to charge somebody with selecting a group of truly neutral editors with a background that allows them to judge a little science and logic to review all of the Climate articles (particularly the 'memory-holed' missing article on Climategate) and help to bring them back to some semblance of reality.

Like others, I took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate. Like others, my work was quickly and surely sent to the memory hole. About two thirds of what I wrote has simply disappeared.

Here is something to ponder: those who have found that the Climate articles are POV and have attempted to make corrections have been bullied right out of Misplaced Pages -- many of them banned outright. Nobody, as far as I can tell, who has been a pro AGW POV pusher or sympathizer has been pushed out. There are a fair number of people who were baited and bullied out of the picture -- more, I would say, than the side that pushed them out. The side that pushed them out has the most annoying habit of saying that the majority supports their POV and pushing out anyone who disagrees. What is wrong with that picture?

Let's say, for the sake of argument that I am an egregious and disruptive POV pusher myself and/or a sock or whatever else they use to ride people out of town on a rail. Still, would you entertain what I feel is an idea that has some hope of restoring balance to this subject area and removing the terrible black eye that is the denial (ironic, no?) of the existence of Climategate? Here is my idea: anyone who has made more than a tiny number of edits to the body of Climate related articles, should recuse themselves or be recused forcibly from making any changes to these articles for a year. Any admin that is not clearly at arm's length from the subject should similarly be recused. There are a bunch of admins who clearly are involved and more who have participated in a way that makes them similarly unfit.

Allow the recused editors to help to identify the articles in question (there are a lot and about half should be removed IMO). Send the new admins and editors out on a mission to tag, hack, slash the obvious stuff and allow the clear interest in the community at large to bring new editors in to do the 'heavy lifting' of article re-write.

During this one-year hiatus, the WP community needs to find some way to prevent a long term campaign of subtle vandalism like this from happening again or at the least some effective and rapid mechanism for correcting it when it has been found out. This stain has existed in WP for years and the Climategate blot has existed for months and appears impossible to correct. Misplaced Pages in other languages generally have a proper 'Climategate' entry, for instance. I expect that is because they are not within reach of the community of gatekeepers that have hijacked the English version.

The above is an extreme prescriptive and this entire entry (my text included) is a cheeky intrusion on the time of someone in the public eye who is very busy. However, there appears to be no mechanism in place to allow an effective way to fix this and the problem, is severe. There is no question at all that the Climate articles have been manipulated by a group of editors with a clear point of view. There are even conflicts of interest that do not stop some editors. The articles reflect very badly on Misplaced Pages. They are inaccurate or misleading themselves and so taint what has become an import subject affecting the public. They also call into question the relative verity and fairness of the entire enterprise. If this subject area can be so thoroughly dominated, controlled and skewed in a way that decreases their quality, then why not others? There is no shortage of people in this world with axes to grind, of that you can be sure.

I *LOVE* this encyclopedia. It is a thing of great beauty, warts and all. It is one of my favorite things. Its system of governance (and/or lack thereof) has allowed it to grow and flourish in a spectacular way. I am sure you would be understandably reluctant to tinker with this formula for success. I am not asking you to intervene personally in the particulars, because I do not feel that would be appropriate. I am asking you to intervene to have trusted admins and editors bring order and balance to an area of Misplaced Pages, that despite its excellent systems of governance (and I particularly *like* the lack thereof part) has been injured by (perhaps well-meaning) zealots.

I believe there has been impropriety. However, I am not asking that you act on that assumption. I am asking you to act because whether it exists or not there is a strong appearance of impropriety and, even if it is only that, it is stain on this grand enterprise that should be and can be removed. Just fixing the appearance of a problem will increase trust and confidence in the work as a whole and at the very least there is very definitely the appearance of a problem. DeepNorth (talk) 22:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

You wrote, among other things, that you "took a stab at trying to cure the ills of the bogus thing attempting to make it appear that there is no such thing as Climategate." Can you point me to more specifics? I just looked for the article, it is there, and does not seem to deny the existence of this incident at all. Not only does the event appear to be presented pretty comprehensively in the main article, we even have a separate article detailing the contents of the leaked emails: Climatic Research Unit documents. Now, I'm sure many complaints could be made about how this has been written about at various times. Yet, I don't think it is particularly helpful to wildly overstate the case, as you appear to have done. How does English Misplaced Pages's coverage of this incident differ from other language versions? Please be detailed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:30, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Major part of the dispute is about naming the article: Should the name of the article be Climategate? If not should Climategate redirect to Climatic Research Unit hacking incident or Climatic Research Unit documents? Should Climatic Research Unit hacking incident be renamed to Climatic Research Unit email and document controversy. Sole Soul (talk) 01:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

There are no so-called "gatekeepers". There are, on the other hand, a small but determined minority of people - many of them brand-new editors who have been urged to come here by anti-science blogs - who have wasted a huge amount of time complaining that their POV is not sufficiently covered, arguing that partisan nicknames should be used instead of neutral and descriptive article titles, citing the latest blog-promoted controversies as issues of earth-shattering importance that must be covered immediately, and so on and so forth. They are basically partisan campaigners, seeking to use Misplaced Pages as a soapbox and treating Misplaced Pages as a battleground. DeepNorth is a case in point, as his short list of contributions shows - to date, he has not contributed to a single article, instead spending all of his time arguing on talk pages and posting rants such as the one above. DeepNorth's complaint is essentially that his preferred POV does not dominate the article as he presumably wishes. As for Jimbo's question of how other language versions have treated the controversy: the quality of the coverage is very varied, to be honest. The English version is (as you would expect given the location of the controversy) the most comprehensive and the best-sourced version. Non-English versions are generally shorter, less well written and very variably sourced. NPOV, verifiability, undue weight and (especially) BLP have been continuous problems but the high degree of scrutiny of the English version has helped to tackle these problems reasonably well. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:55, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I think there's a pretty strong case to be made for "Climategate" as the name for the article, as it is clearly the most common name in the press for this. I think it fairly obvious why people don't want it called that - but that call is not up to Misplaced Pages. We must call it what it is called, and what it is called, is climategate. (This is not a decree, but my point is that it is pretty obvious that - contrary to the wild claims of coverup and so on - we do have a well-sourced article that is comprehensive and informative and fair... but with a pretty silly title that no one uses. The scandal here is clearly not the "hacking incident" - about which virtually nothing is known. The scandal is the content of the emails, which has proven to be deeply embarrassing (whether fairly or unfairly) to certain people.) The result of the silly title is that there is traction (unfairly) for claims that Misplaced Pages is suppressing something.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Both warring factions are guilty of treating Misplaced Pages as a WP:BATTLEGROUND. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Richard Lindzen

Thank you for your contributions to the encyclopedia! In case you are not already aware, an article to which you have recently contributed, Richard Lindzen, is on article probation. A detailed description of the terms of article probation may be found at Misplaced Pages:General sanctions/Climate change probation. Also note that the terms of some article probations extend to related articles and their associated talk pages.

The above is a templated message. Please accept it as a routine friendly notice, not as a claim that there is any problem with your edits. Thank you. -- TS 18:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Please see Misplaced Pages talk:General sanctions/Climate change probation/Log#Notice with comment?, a recently started discussion on these notification messages to which you may want to contribute. Perhaps the wording needs to be made clearer so as not to mislead or even drive away new editors. --TS 18:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

E-mail from Wikimedia CZ

Dear Mr. Wales, I am sorry to disturb You and to use this channel, but it seems to me that some bits of our communication have been lost on their way and I am looking for some urgent information. So I have recently sent You another e-mail and I wait for Your kind e-mail answer. With many thanks, writing for Wikimedia Czech Republic Okino (talk) 19:28, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Nice attack coatrack

Several editors (and I) tried to do something about it.
An admin, with a WikiProject LGBT studies article alert on the top of his talk page, canvassed at the LGBT cabal -- and we were beat down by mobocracy.
It was disappointing seeing both editors and admins actively fighting for slagging Miss Prejean any way they could, including disclosing private facts. Most of what was put into the 'article', was put in there to harm Miss Prejean's reputation.
A casual look at the relatively low quality references is telling.
Most of the 'encyclopedia article' is about the fact that Miss Prejean said she believed marriage was between a man and a woman, when asked, and the resulting fallout. There is very little else in the article.
Interestingly enough, the article references another article that's specifically for that -- so there are two articles about it.
We were unable to swim against the tide of thinly masked hatred.
I ultimately posted my impression of the reality of Misplaced Pages's attack coatracks dressed up like biographies of living persons here. -- Rico 23:06, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

The article in its current state is awful. WP:COATRACK is precisely the right phrase to use, I think.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:07, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Rico, I see no current discussion on article talk at all, just two posts this year. I think a first step would be to lay out all your concerns, plus maybe link to a userfied version of what you think the article should look like. IronDuke 23:17, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

IronDuke, you'll want to check the archive... lots of discussion there.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Right, no, I did that. I mean current discussion. There are only two posts in the last two+ months. Is it the original incident that's getting too much discussion? The tape? The Larry King interview? (About which I see no discussion, might have missed it.) Or is it a combo of these that tends to create an unbalanced impression of Prejean? These are all, IMO, good questions, and should be thrashed out on the article's talk page ASAP. IronDuke 00:25, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The sad thing, to me, is that there appears to be a general understanding that the bit about her plastic surgery is not important, and yet it has been kept in the article in a way designed, as far as I can tell, to attempt to cast a negative light on her. And notice the attitude of Luitgard in the discussions - I don't agree with his stance at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:13, 10 March 2010 (UTC)