Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:31, 26 November 2011

This is Jimbo Wales's talk page, where you can send them messages and comments.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: Index, Index, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 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, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252Auto-archiving period: 1 day

Archives

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 when more than 2 sections are present.

More plagiarism

LOL @ this from the Daily Mail. "Like Eric Clapton, he popularised use of the wah-wah pedal in mainstream rock,which he often used to deliver an exaggerated sense of pitch in his solos. He was influenced by blues artists such as B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Albert King and Elmore James, and later began wearing a moustache like singer Little Richard, saying 'I want to do with my guitar what Little Richard does with his voice'.

I wrote those lines myself in the wikipedia article. When are these shoddy journalists going to write things for themselves? They should not be using wikipedia text without attribution. Are we going to let major newspapers copy from us without attribution? ♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:00, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that only you as the original author can do something about it. Have you contacted your lawyer yet? No? Too expensive? That's why they can get away with it. Hans Adler 10:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Not the first time DM has done it. Perhaps I should contact them and inform that "we're onto them" and warn them against doing it again?♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Take it to the |Mail - and then to the media if they have nothing to say for themselves; plagiarism is still viewed harshly in media circles and other outlets, I am sure, would love to gloat at the Mail being caught ;) --Errant 12:48, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

They would love to do so, but I am afraid they will all be worried it might become an own goal. If I were in charge of a newspaper, I guess I would run coyvio tests over my newspaper's output the way we are doing, but even if everything looked clean I would still feel uneasy about it. Hans Adler 13:40, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I have emailed the Daily Mail warning them.♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

That must have been quite a rushed copy-paste job. They didn't even fix the space in after the comma in ...mainstream rock,which... . Dr.K.  13:23, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Note to Paul Dacre: Please attribute. In addition, please contribute. The Misplaced Pages Fund Drive is currently in progress, and as a clear beneficiary of its work we're sure your previous lack of financial support is an easily-remedied oversight. Thank you on behalf of hard-working Wikipedians. 75.59.204.236 (talk) 19:14, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Considering what's coming out about Dacre and the Mail at the Leveson Inquiry, and related issues surrounding it, I hardly think ethics is top of Dacre's priority list. One could even say he's expressly disregarding ethics. -- M2Ys4U 21:52, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Study on GA/FA and whether Misplaced Pages is failing or not

Sorry, I know that this page is watched my a myriad of users, so I'd like to make more public about a publication that has sparked some discussions during the last few days -- user TCO has put some issue analysis down here:

PowerPoint: Misplaced Pages's poor treatment of its most important articles --Sp33dyphil © • © 10:22, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly this article rants on about "core articles" and how do we achieve this. Your answer lies in the section "Social rewards may help us align quality incentives". If you seriously want to the proportion of core articles to be GA or higher than we need to introduce a mechanism such as a Core Contest of the Month scheme to focus on the top important articles and reward those editors who put the most work into achieving it. Funny how such reports continue to be released and the issues are obvious but nobody could care less about actually doing something about it. If you want "new blood" and better focus on core article quality you need bait, plain and simple, just expecting people to come and work on the core articles is unlikely to yield the even quality articles we desire on such topics. Unless we actually start to do something actively towards addressing it then such reports will continue into the future and are utterly pointless unless there is a conscious drive to answer it. Its all well and good producing such reports but who is actually gonna take the initiative to do something about it? I would, but I don't have the power on here to implement a scheme which I am certain would be effective at improving our proportion of quality articles on important topics. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Just read it. My views on the subject are here. I think this is something WMF should look at. (Obviously, since those are my views.....) heh! What do you think? Pesky (talk …stalk!) 10:38, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

@Dr. Blofeld That's a great idea! Thanls <Sp33dyphil jots down idea> --Sp33dyphil © • © 10:42, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Sp33dyphil, but I am going to need mass support on this if anybody is going to seriously consider it. There was a Core Contest scheme back in 2008 financed by a private donor and i won it with my article Deforestation in Brazil. I only bothered to write such an article because of my competitive nature and the incentive. There was a bank of "Core Articles" drawn up and participants were allowed to select an article of their choice from several hundred articles. The contest was a major success given that the incentive had the effect of multiple editors selecting a core article and considerably improving it and it was fun I thought. If we do this every month financed by what would be an extremely small percentage of the annual budget or if not monetary based on Amazon vouchers then something of esteem or social value, then we would continously have our core articles improved and I'm certain more good articles on important topics. Now its all well and good talking about the issues but I want to see a move towards actually addressing them!♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:53, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Response from Dweller

I'm fairly sure that this is not the right place for this discussion (if there's a proper venue, please point me there) but here's my response. Apologies to Jimbo, but here I go.

The arguments are interesting, but I am bothered by them on several counts:

• Vital articles

Before you talk about page views, you discuss Vital articles. Now, I'm sure a lot of hard work and massive amounts of consensus finding went in to choosing them, but ultimately, they're a horse designed by a committee. Worst, they don't set out to - and therefore don't - correspond with readers' needs.

You cite in the powerpoint Family as one of our vital articles. I'm sure it's a very worthy choice. And indeed, it's had 115,000 views in the last 30 days. Not bad. Except Lady Gaga has had 2.3 million hits in the same period. I'm not certain Lady Gaga would ever gain the consensus to be deemed a vital article. But she is what people want to read about. There are musicians/composers in the vital articles list; 14 of them in total (counting the Beatles as 4). Of those 14, 12 are dead, nearly all of whom died before 1980 (and mostly before 1900).

• Passion

Deriding the FAs that we produce because they're about topics that some editors deem less worthy than others misses the point. People produce FAs because they're passionate about them. Believe me, without passion, you wouldn't bother entering the process a second time, even if you managed to the gumption to stick through a first time.

And that passion will equate to others' passions, too. I have little to no interest in hurricanes. In the UK, hurricanes hardly ever happen. But I admire the efforts of the editors who produce streams of hurricane FAs - and they'll be useful and interesting to a group of readers.

I tend to write on football and cricket. The latter is the subject of gleeful derision by some, mostly Americans, which I can understand. But cricket is immensely important to many - especially the growing internet userbase of the Indian subcontinent, who treat their cricketing heroes like modern day gods.

• Pride

We should be proud of the FAs we produce and encourage people to participate in the Featured processes. By all means, encourage people to develop FAs for articles you think are important. The biggest problem I have with your powerpoint is that it seems to me to disparage the work currently done. Phrases like calling some types of articles "peculiar" is counterproductive. Just because you may have little interest in mushrooms is irrelevant if someone has done the hard work to develop quality articles about mushrooms. And who's to say that with a couple of FAs under their belt about mushrooms, they may not take on getting Science featured? Worse, you even disparage individual FA writers, who should be lauded and festooned with garlands of barnstars and ribbons and praise, as "dabblers" and "star collectors". Or you deride the article itself. The Adelaide Leak article, a fascinating study of an intriguing incident, you discount as "1930s cricket player dramah". I tell you, the "dramah" is in your presentation.

I could weather my first two problems in your presentation as minor, but this third is just abysmal and it brings everything crashing down with it.

Don't go trying to improve something that is difficult and requires skill, effort and perserverance (in exchange for no money and a hard time at FAC) by disparaging the contributors and their contributions.

Go rip up this powerpoint and make a fresh start with some humility and respect for the people producing quality articles. --Dweller (talk) 11:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC) PS This "dabbler" hadn't heard of the Core Cup till he read your report. I don't understand the table and can't find it onwiki. Where is it?

I don't see any particular disrespect for people producing quality articles. I see it more as identifying the major problem we have of systematic bias and editors write because they are interested in a subject, which means Lady Gaga gets a great article and Togolese culture remains a lousy article. As an encyclopedia we have an obligation to try to cover topics evenly with a consistent level of quality. We are not achieving this because there is no incentive for editors to go that step further and write about a topic they otherwise might not. I wouldn't normally write an article about the Family but I'd be willing to write about it if there was some incentive which attracted me to it... Obviously there would be disagreement over what constitutes a "Vital Article" and I believe a far higher percentage of GAs are certainly valuable articles. But the issue still exists and we have a duty to address it precisely because editors usually only edit articles they are passionate about and why the quality of wikipedia may differ dramatically. Every featured article is extremely valuable whatever the topic and there's nothing wrong with writing about topics you are passionate about. it often produces the best results, but because of this some topics which may be considered "vital" are ignored because they lack interest or are difficult to write. As I say as an encyclopedia it is our duty to try to produce more even quality on "core" topics and at present we are failing to achieve this because there is lack of encouragement to editors to work on them when they otherwise might not do.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:03, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages does have a consistent quality, it lies between stub and start classes, with a healthy mix of undefined. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:07, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Take Togo for instance. Daunting prospect to write about it. I am interested in the country but I'm just lacking the edge to want to write it to a high standard. If somebody said "write this there is a chance of winning a reward for your efforts at the end of the month" I suddenly become interested and an incentive to try to write it. I'm sure I'm not the only person here who thinks like this. We have editor interest in a huge range of topics but we are not fulfilling our potential in what they can produce. Because we solely rely on passion for topics this is why a lot of traditional encyclopedia subjects considered "Vital Articles" on countries/capital cities for example are often barely start class and Lady Gaga B sides are featured articles. Given that this is the way wikipedia is written it is hardly surprising. Unless you rope people into writing these vital articles to a quality standard then this is how wikipedia is going to remain. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

You can propose any new reward system you like without needing to disparage the current contributors and their contributions. Doing so undermines the credibility of the person making the proposal, in my book. If my boss told me I needed to work differently and offered me an incentive to do so, I might be enthused, but not if he added "oh, and by the way, everything you've to-date is ****" --Dweller (talk) 12:20, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, you can't really attack editors for what they choose to write about, given that nobody has to edit a thing here, agreed. Given that we solely rely on the goodwill of people... But at times it does get frustrating for instance to see only a handful of GAs on traditional "Vital" topics and then hundreds of US TV episodes as a matter of priority.. There is an obvious issue but you can't blame people for what they choose to write about when they are offered nothing to write about it. I want GAs and FAs on TV episodes and on any article we have on here but I also want to every one of our core articles up to GA level... But its never going to happen unless there is a coordinated drive to get people to write every core article to a good standard... ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:32, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

If you want the rather small group of existing FA writers to write FAs about things they don't feel passion for, being sarcastic/rude about them and the things they do have passion for is a really, really bad start. --Dweller (talk) 12:43, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, they don't need to change what they do. The amount of editors willing to write a featured article on a topic they are simply not passionate about is next to zero. To put in that amount of work and dedication to one article almost always means passion is the motivator so asking them to work on Vital articles some of which may not be of interest is a tall order... Based on personal experience I've found FAC to be extremely tiresome with expectations of virtual perfection, why would anybody want to run through that just for the sake of getting a core article to FA without reward? That's where the problem lies. People simply don't want to write an article to such extreme lengths as FA if they are not passionate about it. Rather, we need a bank of new quality article writers and need a way to rope them in....♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:51, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Note that the article assessments are often way off base. Ancient Greek philosophy is supposedly a start class article, while it is obviously at least C-class. The same goes for many of the supposed "start" class articles: something like Drinking water or Sexism is not a start class article any more by any strectch of the imagination. The quality assessments often lag significantly behind the article improvements, making any study based on those assessments a bit dubious. That doesn't mean that an article like oil couldn't do with some improvement of course. Fram (talk) 13:11, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Another major issue of course is degree of difficulty of writing an article. An article on a village in northern Togo for instance would require far less research than one on Togo which woud need a massive amount of research and effort. And this is why we often have featured articles on obscure railway stations and TV episodes when the parent article itself remains of poor quality as they are easier to write. A lot of core topics on here are amongst the hardest to write about because of the time and effort needed to do the full research and then the condensing..♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:14, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I've always thought that ease of writing about a subject is inversely proportional to the number of sources available on it. --Errant 13:47, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

And it's also negatively correlated with how much you know about it before you start. One problem with core topics is that the choice of topics to mention, and among these the choice of topics to stress, is necessarily original research in the technical sense (under the current, rather sweeping interpretations), unless you just plagiarise from another encyclopedia. And it's not even the easy kind of original research. For someone not trained in the subject (which is the usual case, because the experts tend not to be motivated), I guess that getting an article on certain core topics to FA quality is similarly hard to writing a PhD thesis. Hans Adler 13:56, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed Hans. To produce a truly comprehensive concise article on something like a country would require an extreme amount of research and time to produce the best quality article. Articles like Ming Dynasty (arguably those sets are the best articles on wikipedia) is another example of an article needing an incredible amount of time and research and it was only because Pericles was passionate about Chinese history that he produced those articles and they were probably something to do with his studies.♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:30, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

This also represents a problem with your "reward system" proposal. If you proposed such a system or context for say, Canadian history, I would be all over it. But for 19th century composers? Artistic movements? Philosophy? Can't say as I would bother. I lack the passion, knowledge or source material for it. I'm with Dweller on this. The solution is not to trash the work others are doing, but to find people with an interest and desire in these topics. If you think a reward system would work, by all means, go for it. Resolute 14:48, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The key problem I see in trying to broaden the numbers of dedicated editors is that Misplaced Pages's consensus system, in its current form, makes it at least ten times harder to follow the existing rules than to break them. For example, someone can add an unattributed sentence about some occurrence into an article in a couple of minutes; if it's not obviously wrong or vandalism, by Misplaced Pages rules, I'm supposed to try to find an attribution myself, which can take me twenty minutes or more if I need to hunt down a couple of reliable sources in the online periodical archives available to me. Filibustering editors who choose to, say, contest relatively straightforward copy edits can drag out what should be a quick in-and-out process to days of discussion, and if the article isn't a popular one, a consensus may never get reached. Though it doesn't happen often, after just a few incidents of this, all the joy of editing is sucked out of it, knowing that your next edit may turn into interminable discussion. Who wants to lend their editing expertise to produce a featured article, when it's always just an edit away from drawing you into a protracted, contentious dispute? isaacl (talk) 16:37, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it would be good to shift focus on to processes that can get random poor articles into decent shape and away from new processes aimed at producing content of the very highest quality.

WP:ITN is a good process for doing that and, contrary to what you might expect, the improvements it throws up are quite diverse. So, over the past week, articles like Dersim Massacre, Bulbophyllum nocturnum, Tony Stewart, Metallic microlattice, National League for Democracy, Eurasian Union and Soyuz TMA-22 have all been significantly improved. More often then not this means turning an article which is a complete dog into one that gives a decent overview of the subject, even if it doesn't reach WP's very highest standards.

How might that sort of process be enhanced or replicated? --FormerIP (talk) 14:45, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

@Reso. Yes but there are many editors who would be interested in writing about 19th century composers and philosphers, myself included. The idea is that enough people know about an article of the month scheme where they have the chance to win something and select any article from a batch of core articles to develop... You'd be surprised at the diversity of interests if there was an incentive involved...♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:21, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I think there are probably an awful lot of editors (myself included) who like to write small quantities of articles, but who like to do each one well for their own satisfaction, who aren't remotely motivated by Cups, stars, awards and so on. Pesky (talk …stalk!) 16:45, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

e/c I agree with Dweller's analysis: FAs and GAs are the result of editors with passion for a subject, along with passion's eventual daughter, expertise. We don't need to make those editors feel guilty for not being passionate about "Family." Instead, we need to find a way to build on Misplaced Pages's unbelievable and unprecedented success in attracting such passionate people, who are willing to write expert articles on their interest, for free! Kudos, and Thanks on this day, for those who are passionate about hurricanes, US roads, mushrooms, and trains. Incentives, of course, might be an additional helpful approach. But the best "magnet" is for people passionate about "x" to see that there are FAs and GAs about a subject/passion that society judges as unusual as their own. That's how Misplaced Pages has developed: organically and naturally. First Light (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Re "But the best "magnet" is for people passionate about "x" to see that there are FAs and GAs about a subject/passion that society judges as unusual as their own." - Well, people passionate about "x" could just as well be attracted by there not being any decent articles on it, and attracted because of the potential satisfaction of making a significant impact.

Another aspect is the amount of editing activity on an article. I think people may be attracted by activity, which unfortunately may be accompanied by an increased incidence of conflict, which might even cause editors to leave Misplaced Pages because it may take too much of their time in unproductive conflict. I think there are plenty of articles where a good editor can practically have complete freedom to edit. It's just that they would have little or no interaction with other editors, which might be lonely. It's all a matter of the diverse temperaments of editors, from gladiators to quiet bookworms. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:05, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Arbcom Election

Just a heads up, there's an ongoing debate over how many seats are up for grabs during the election here. Hot Stop talk-contribs 21:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

No Idea Time

I think that's the first time I've ever seen anyone on QT be honest and say they don't have any expertise to answer with :) tickled me! Kudos. for everyone else, Jimbo is currently on BBC1 in the UK on Question Time - put it on! --Errant 23:27, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. Best moment on QT ever. "The advantage of not being a politician, is that I can say 'I have no idea'" – Jimmy Wales. Basalisk ⁄_berate 01:41, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

That is just... Wonderful. I wish politicians would admit that more often. ~~ Hi878 04:16, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

On behalf of reddit

On behalf of reddit, just wanted to let you know that there's an IAma (ask-me-anything) request up for you --  IShadowed  ✰  18:29, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't really understand what that means. I don't use reddit.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:31, 26 November 2011 (UTC)