Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:29, 20 April 2006

If you are here to report abuse, or to request intervention in a dispute, please first read about resolving disputes, and try adding your request to the administrators' incident noticeboard instead. Your grievance is much more likely to be investigated and acted upon in that forum.

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Archives
as of Jan. 16, 2003 Sept. – Dec. 2005 January 2006 Jan. – Feb. 2006 February 2006 Feb. 2006, cont. March 2006

Requesting unprotection

The userpage {{protect}} notice told me to come here, so here I am. Requesting unprotection! --Cyde Weys 06:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Why so you can continue to add april fool's jokes ot the page? Pegasus1138 ---- 06:38, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there a policy against jokes on a user page? Polotet 06:40, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

In a sense, there is a policy against vandalism, a policy against disruption, a policy against a bunch of things all of which have been violated today. Pegasus1138 ---- 06:55, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I would agree that policies against vandalism and disruption exist, and that they certainly have been violated in certain parts of the encyclopedia today. However, neither has, to my knowledge, been violated on the page we're talking about. Therefore, protecting it seems rather random. Polotet 06:56, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

The history appears to tell a different story. joturner 07:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused. You see disruption or vandalism there? I don't. Unless humor==vandalism in userspace, now. Polotet 07:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Glad this is an encyclopedia. Some people should take a look at our humor article. – ClockworkSoul 06:42, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Is it wrong that amputee fetishism is a stub? – ClockworkSoul 06:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

At least it's not a stump. Polotet 06:52, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Please unprotect when tomorrow. administrator. Korean alpha for knowledge (Talk / Contributions) 08:51, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I think today the changes should be left, not reverted. It is a special day, after all. (I particularly liked ...) Tomorrow is soon enough for cleanup. IMHO. ++Lar: t/c 16:33, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Administrator abuse... and??

Hey, Jimbo. Would you please take a look at this conversation I had with Tim Starling? I don't think this to be fair at all.

I cannot accept that an administrator makes a mess and I am the one who gets unfairly punished with a (wrong) "dirty" record. Regards, Lesfer 13:22, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Free the Product Identifiers

Hi Jimbo,

I was just watching your Ten Things That Will Be Free talk about free product identifiers. I wanted to make sure that you were aware of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs), which match your thoughts( 2) on how such a system should be implemented. DOIs are used mainly for published articles and such, but they are general enough for product identification, complete with metadata. DOIs are managed by a not-for-profit foundation. Hope this helps, GChriss 14:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

helpme

Please take a look at Misplaced Pages:Nomination of new users in need of help, especially the entries about Jimbo Wales and Hildanknight. (I don't know who added those entries, or whether it's an April Fool's joke.) Thanks! --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:40, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

help request

Welcome to Misplaced Pages: The Encylopedia written by aliens and terrorists. You have recently added {{helpme}} to someone elses talk page (User talk:Hildanknight). That is considered a crime and will get you a {{test-n}} warning. If you don't repend from your crime you will be revoked of your status, namely founder of Misplaced Pages. Please stop. April on WHEELS 15:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I added the {{helpme}} to Jimbo's page, to get higher viewership of my question. Jimbo did not add the tag to my userpage. Are you Willy on Wheels? I'm guessing this is an April Fool's joke, isn't it? --J.L.W.S. The Special One 15:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

No I'm pretty sure April on WHEELS is a fake name. DDAY on WHEELS!!! 10:37, 1 April 2006]] (UTC)

• +i Ironic Cyde Weys 16:51, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

*Bow Down*

I bow down to you, my wiki master. — Ilyanep (Talk) 16:50, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Other languages?

Can someone delete the other language links on Jimbo's userpage? They are not alternative versions of that user page, but alternative versions of Jimmy Wales. They should be replaced with just his de user page, and maybe meta, commons and wikimedia if it's possible in that box. BigBlueFish 21:02, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Well it's unprotected now so I did it myself. Looks like meta, commons and wikimedia don't count as other languages. Done the German one though. BigBlueFish 17:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

APRIL FOOLS!!!

Have a good April Fools Jimbo.

The Most Controversial Image Ever Seen Here

Mr. Wales, you decreed that the "User pedo" userbox template was not allowed, and I thank you for making that decree. You thought that was revolting, but wait 'til you see this:

This is the talk page, for anyone who has second thoughts. The main article page has a very revolting anime drawing of a child exposing her rear end. (A friendly reminder: The article itself is Not Safe For Work.)

This is the talk page of the image in question, also for those who have second thoughts. (A friendly reminder: The image itself is Not Safe For Work.)

I only linked to their talk pages because someone may develop a second thought before going further to view the image, and may want to turn back.

If such content is allowed on Misplaced Pages now, what will we see here in, say, 10 years?

I must also add that if the media ever finds that image here, they will have one heck of a field day! You would not want major news outlets to have a story about THIS.

(narrating) Will Jimbo take action and disallow that image? Or will he pass on this notice and allow it to stay? Tune in tomorrow for the conclusion. This is Shultz the Fourth signing off. --Shultz IV 21:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not a child exposing her rear end, it's the drawing of a child exposing her rear end!!! The image should be kept!!!! The Psycho 22:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo: I'm going to be blunt. You need to step up on this one, and frankly, on the Userbox issue, too. They are related in that apparently a "vote" was held on this image to determine its legality. That's really pathetic, and calls into question the entire "consensus" Wiki model as it's being applied to policy rather than article content, where it makes sense. How absurd is it, that if Manga lovers all get together and vote "keep," then cartoon porn somehow becomes "acceptable" on Misplaced Pages? User:Shultz IV, above, is right, this is only the beginning - a test.

The same model of "voting" on offensive Userboxes is also absurd. If we are here to make a point then that's fine, let's all start uploading "whatever" to the site and create Homepages instead of an encyclopedia, but that's not what's written in the policies. I'm talking about this clearly pornographic image (it's labeled "Lolita girl collection" for God's sake!) and also this new userbox: Template:User_against_Iraq_war_of_aggression, which is divisive in the extreme, and takes Userbox abuse (and also size) to a new level. I'm curious: Am I within my rights now to put Leftist leaders in a Userbox and label them war criminals? If I rally enough "votes" behind such a box, will that one be able to remain in place, as this one no doubt will? If so, then that's pathetic.

I'm extremely discouraged at this point and telling people over and over again that this is not a soapbox, battleground or a homepage has no effect coming from lowly users or the few admins who "get it." It must come from you to be effective. Nhprman 00:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

• This is being delt with effectively on the article's talk page. - brenneman 01:06, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, I noticed all the chit-chat back and forth for the last six months. That doesn't appear to have solved the problem and that's why the process of "voting" on whether something is legal or not is a *bit* flawed. Nhprman 04:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Relax, its just a drawing, besides Misplaced Pages is not censored and therefore it should be kept. --GorillazFanAdam 01:37, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I think we have numerous conflicts here between policies. That's why it's imperative Jimbo clarify things. But frankly, the occassional naughty word used in an article - which is likely the intended meaning of the admonition you've repeated - is NOT carte blanche to post (potentially) pornographic pictures to make a point, or to break the law. Nhprman 04:07, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Schultz, I know you have the best intentions, but please don't WP:PANIC. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 02:06, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Censorship has no place on Misplaced Pages The Psycho 04:51, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • See above. Read carefully. Dirty words/pics = okay in context. Kiddie porn, illegal in most nations = not okay. Nhprman 14:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • By U.S. Supreme Court ruling, child pornography applies only to images made of actual children, not just images designed to look like it. In this case, the image doesn't even particularly look like a real kid; it's clearly a cartoon. Cartoon nudity is not generally considered obscene; if it were, then perhaps the makers of Spongebob Squarepants would be in trouble for their movie trailer in which Bob drops his pants. *Dan T.* 18:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Really? What about here? - CorbinSimpson 05:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• That is a case of Diagonal lemma, see Tarski's indefinability theorem The Psycho 05:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, a logically flawed analogy, like "It's not a child exposing her rear end, it's the drawing of a child exposing her rear end." (i.e. the same thing. A distinction without a difference.) Nhprman
    • There is a difference, particularly in the United States where the Supreme Court has ruled that simulated child pornography is protected free speech (largely because there is no victim). Besides, if a 6-year-old's bare butt is illegal, we'd better arrest Bill Watterson for drawing Calvin's rear so often. Powers 15:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
      • The girl cartoon in question is labeled "Lolita girl collection." Calvin was never labeled "Sexy little boy cartoon collection." And the intention of Waterston's cartoons were not to arouse his readers. So your analogy doesn't work. Nhprman 17:54, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Sounds like a case of Ceci n'est pas une child exposing her rear end :-) Mike1024 (t/c) 18:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
      • • So the legality/morality of an image now depends on what you label it? Or maybe what you think about when you read / write / draw / reproduce / upload / download it? Do we have thought crimes now? *Dan T.* 18:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Misplaced Pages is (hopefully) not and should never be censored in any way whatsoever. Any image relevant to the article which we are not forced to remove because of legal considerations should be kept. Misplaced Pages does contain and should continue to contain pornographic images because they are encyclopaedic content. I don't like Jimbo interfering with WP process, let's leave the decisions to the community. Loom91 06:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • You don't like Jimbo interfering? What are you talking about? Jimbo refuses to step in and halt the idiotic bickering over Userboxes, as they continue to get more and more divisive; and he apparently refuses to step in when a kiddie porn cartoon is posted to the site, opening it up to legal liability. Far from interfering, Jimbo, needs to tend to his responsibilities as head of a company. This company is no different than any other and I hope people are making him aware of that. Nhprman 14:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Jimbo was 100% right to remove that image. If the media had picked up on it it would have been curtains for Misplaced Pages. The media would have had a field day painting WP as a place that is tolerant of paedophiles, and that would have led to a boycott, parents blocking access to WP for their children, schools blocking WP from their computers, etc. The slightest suggestion that Misplaced Pages was in any way associated with paedophilia would have devastated the project and undermined its credibility completely. The mind boggles at the sheer niaive stupidity of some contributors on this issue. They are like kiddies playing with matches who throw tantrums when someone with sense takes the matches away to protect them. Fear ÉIREANN\ 14:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
    • First of all, the image has not been removed (and if it is removed in the future, it will be due to copyright reasons, not censorship). Second of all, a better analogy would be adults playing with matches who complain when the government takes the matches away to "protect" them. We're not children, are we? Powers 15:38, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
      • When adults act like children, laws and rules and policies are needed to control those who cannot control themselves. When laws are flaunted as part of a "game" on the Internet to see how far people can go without being caught, then self-control is obviously absent, and the real adults - the site owners, those with legal liability - should be stepping in. If men/women were angels, no government (and no such rules) would be necessary. I fear some of the site owners, and many Users, are under the delusion that people will always do the right thing. Nhprman 17:40, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
        • I don't really see much childishness here, or on the Lolicon talk page. What I do see are people who disagree on several points: the moral issue of whether Misplaced Pages should be showing material depicting naked children; the legal issue of whether it's legal to do so; the legal issue of whether this particular image can be fairly used or not; and the practical issue of what effect the presence of this image will have on the readers of Misplaced Pages. What's childish here? Powers 18:23, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, looking on some of the comments, here, children would have more cop-on. But this site is used by millions of children. It cannot risk being tainted with paedophilia. Have some cop on and live in the real world. This site is not a game. FearÉIREANN\ 15:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

ha, what makes this image worse than this? or the fact that User:Zanthalon has admitted to be a pedophile? The Psycho 17:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I very much doubt that that is "the most controversial image ever seen here"; after all, we have some of those cartoons about Muhammad that are such a big international controversy, don't we? *Dan T.* 18:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

ya, that Muhammad cartoon is probably illegal in Pakistan, but Misplaced Pages did not delete it, so why should Misplaced Pages delete this one? The Psycho 18:13, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

What the heck is a "cop-on", anyway? Powers 18:23, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I have deleted the image, with my justification on the mailing list: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-April/043119.html. Sam Korn 18:26, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Very good move. Nhprman 21:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

In your message, you called the image "grossly inappropriate," "outrageous," and "harmful to Misplaced Pages's progression." With due respect, you failed to justify any one of those three opinions. It should be obvious from the debate that the issue is far from as clear-cut as you seem to think. That said, your point 2, on the fair-use issue, is a different story, and one I generally support, but not as a unilateral action such as this. Powers 18:31, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

... not to mention that you replaced it with a cover that is just as questionable from a fair-use standpoint. Powers 18:33, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Kanon is not Lolicon, the Kanon cover is fair use just like the old image, I say User:Sam Korn should be desysoped for abusing his sysop privilage. The Psycho 18:44, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

So you've thrown yourself into the dispute and unilaterally reached a consensus to delete the image, which cannot be revert, without discussion of any type.(Maybe you're good for that?) Well, at least you're being commended as a hero, so maybe it is all worth it. I do hope some action is taken. This is plain abuse of adminstrative power. --Jqiz 19:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

If you like, start an RFC against me. I don't mean this as a challenge – if it is demonstrated that the community disagrees, I shall apologise and take whatever action is necessary to rectify the situation. Sam Korn 19:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Let me justify why I chose to replace it with that image. It was suggested on the talk page as an alternative. I presumed therefore that it fell under the "lolicon" category, and that it was possible that the magazine could be worked into the article, justifying the fair use claim. Apparently I am mistaken. These things happen. I have just been pointed to some free alternatives, and I shall include them in the article instead. Sam Korn 18:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The new image, you sure it's lolicon, and not hentai? And the image captions says "Hentai magazines being sold in Japan". The Psycho 19:03, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was really NOT the right move, Sam. Doing unreversable action while pretty much everyone disagrees with it - what the hell were you thinking? Did you read its talk? It survived IFD almost unanimously.  Grue  21:32, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Mmm... Sam has received unanimous support for his decision both at AN/I and the mailing list. "pretty much everyone disagrees with it" is simply not true. Mikker 21:46, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

A discussion no one in the lolicon talk page knew about != consensus. If he wanted to argue in favor of deleting the image, he would have voted at WP:IFD. This is what his actions were:

I think this image is inappropriate.

I think it is the best interest of Misplaced Pages to delete the image.

I will delete it now.

This is ignoring past polls, IFD deletion process, on-going discussion, and anything other process available, because I is what matters? Single man consensus. The whole process of the removal of the image got gutted. Hmm, does the 14 or so people who voted keep on the image does not apply, because we're not on the mailing list/admins?--Jqiz 22:30, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

You have very good points. There is an RfC on the matter: Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Sam Korn. Sam Korn 22:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

WP:IAR applies methinks. Mikker 22:39, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

To be clear, I read the mailing list... IN DIGEST FORM. This discussion had (correction - *HAS*)not yet reached the digest. There would have been notices on the talk page for Lolicon, the user-talk pages of people who were involved in the debate and the three wikiprojects of relevence (japan, censorship, hetrostatus' anti-porn project which I mistakenly voted to keep) about the discussion ongoing on en-l, and there would have been a message debunking the many falsehoods that were told on en-l shortly after I saw the consensus of misinformed adminstrators. But the start-to-finish on the deletion was 14 hours, 8 of which were dominated by the erronious assumption there was a good replacement GFDL image (an assumption that both parties to the initial dispute agree is a bad one) Hpuppet - «Talk» 22:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

There is another "wikiproject of relevance": Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Pedophilia Article Watch. I encourage editors who have an opinion about the Lolicon image to pay attention to that project. -Will Beback 00:59, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

By strongly supporting an out of process deletion, Jimbo Wales has showed his lack of respect for the wikipedia community and wikipedia policies. Plus it's not really smart of him taking side on such a controversial issue. The Psycho 04:06, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

No. You show almost mindboggling niavety in not grasping the seriousness of the issue. Sam's deletion was sensitive and mature. Your reaction is insensitive, naive and immature in the extreme. If he hadn't deleted it, I would have. Anyone who knows the victims of paedophiles, and sees the damage it does, wouldn't regard the issue as some sort of free speech game. Play games on your xbox. This is an encyclopaedia, not a game. Free comes with responsibility, a fact you don't seem to grasp. Instead you act as though it is simply playing with toys. FearÉIREANN\ 18:35, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

You on the other hand show almost mindboggling incompetence and bigotry. No one cares about your opinion here. Misplaced Pages is NPOV. Misplaced Pages is not censored. Don't like it? Go away.  Grue  19:42, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

First of all, please be civil. If his opinion means nothing, yours doesn't either. It's kind of amazing to say you don't believe in censorship, then tell someone they have no right to express an opinion here. Nhprman 21:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• First, Grue has never said Jtdirl has no right to express his opinion. Second, it's ridiculous to claim a drawing like Hikari_Hayashibara has anything to do with real child molestation. The Psycho 21:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

• Hmmm. Grue said (just a couple of lines up) "No one cares about your opinion here" then invited him to leave. I would say that's telling someone they have no right to express an opinion. What does it mean to you? Nhprman 14:41, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is "censored" all the time. Edits are censored by fellow editors. Pictures are censored and removed from WP if they don't fit up to the legal requirements for usage. Articles are censored by deletion in the Afd page. You clearly know as little about censorship as you do about free speech, the law, or how to build an encyclopaedia. All the evidence shows overwhelming support for Sam's actions, and little for your opinion. You may like playing at free speech as it was a toy, without the slightest grasp of what it actually means. It would help if, before proclaiming your infallibility on a topic, you actually knew the facts about it. If you want to contribute to sites with paedophile content, go ahead: find them. Misplaced Pages is not one and won't be one and images that promote paedophilia will be deleted, whether you like it or not. Fear ÉIREANN\ 20:01, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Images that "promote" something would be deleted because they are POV, regardless of what they are promoting (unless they have some other redeeming features). But from the little interaction that I had with you, I have strong suspicion that you either don't understand what "promote" means, or that Misplaced Pages articles are not intended to promote their subject, the latter being more likely. The articles should be impartial and NPOV. You however look like a sort of person that incorporates your own opinions as some sort of universal truth and pinpoint of encyclopedicity (see, I'm getting pretentious too). No wonder that with such attitude you got involved in a lot of conflicts. Well, I think I got a little off-topic here. I think that situation was resolved rather well for both sides, although I'm sure some people would be offended by the new image too...  Grue  20:32, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Grue, please remember WP:CIVIL. There is no justification to tell people things like "Don't like it? Go away." We're not here to create "Wiki-for-and-by-people-who-agree-with-Grue". Johntex\ 14:55, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You think Phil Welch should be blocked for insulting people and telling them to shut up? The Psycho 02:06, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Jesus, what a dark day. The community has secumbed to trolls. We won't exist in ten years. Shultz also tagged (for speedy deletion, no less) images of two album covers by internationally known bands, in an apparent parody of his own moral panic. Shultz should go read about autofellatio or something, anything to take his mind off these dismal and utterly non-explicit girl images. — Apr. 7, '06 <freakofnur_xture|talk>

Date for Statement of Principles?

Hi there. I've just read the "Statement of Principles", and was wondering when it was written? Was it 3 years ago, 2 years ago, 6 months ago, last week? I couldn't find anything in the history, so I was wondering if anyone knows the date when the statement was first published, and also maybe when it was last updated? Thanks. Carcharoth 00:00, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

That page is quite old. Please see it's history here. — xaosflux 04:15, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It still seems a bit odd to rely on people looking at the history to find out how old the document is - I'd only expect fairly experienced Wikipedians to think of doing that. It is normally standard practice with documents like this to make the date visible on the document itself. Well, I say normal, but in fact I come across documents everyday, all across the internet, where people don't date things properly! Anyway, thanks for answering my question. Carcharoth 11:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

February Slashdot interview

What happened with this interview? Kotepho 02:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, it's been almost two months and no responses yet. Good catch! --Cyde Weys 03:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

URL Rewrite

Since Misplaced Pages runs off a URL rewrite to make "nice" URLs, why are they /name instead of just /name?

It would work both ways and /name seems easier. Thanks! Willshepherdson 02:56, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Because there's other stuff in / that article names could collide with. --Carnildo 03:04, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

But can't you do something like this (below) that tell the server to ignore existing files and directories?

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule (.*) index.php?page=$1

Willshepherdson 03:12, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm with the Will fella here ... the / does seem unnecessary. And I don't really see what other stuff it could collide with. --Cyde Weys 03:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Wiki, for one. There's also w. --Carnildo 06:58, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

What do other people think? Would this be possible? Willshepherdson 03:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Ohh it's certainly possible, I just don't know if it'll actually get done. --Cyde Weys 03:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Who could I talk to to see if it could be done? Willshepherdson 03:33, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this is a bad idea. I have previously suggested an alternate stable implementation that would make use of that - see my comment here Raul654 03:45, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I suppose if you are forking off articles (into a "current" version and a "stable" version) then this link refactoring thing might be bad. Although, you could still have all of the current versions at / and the stable versions at /stable/ Cyde Weys 03:47, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

What makes the / a bad idea Raul654? I agree that a stable version might be nice but how would that affect what the URL of the page was? Willshepherdson 03:51, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Recurring error in Misplaced Pages?

At certain intervals, usually every week or so, every link on Misplaced Pages is automatically underlined without actually hovering over it, and this lasts for a long period. I was simply wondering if this is a glitch in Misplaced Pages or if there's something wrong on my end? Any comments?. — CRAZY`(IN)`SANE 12:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Erm, prob your browser. I have never had it happen. --Shell <e> 01:57, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I have an opposite problem: sometimes links become non-underlined all of a sudden (I have them underlined in preferences). It happens.  Grue  15:35, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I've had this problem too. Quite annoying actually. Mikker 09:49, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I've noticed it too. Not exactly annoying to me, just weird... Misza13 12:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

I get it too, both in FF 1.0.7 and 1.5, on two very different machines. I don't know much about it, presumably a CSS style sheet is getting lost or confused. Anyway it's a MediaWiki issue, not a Jimbo issue. :) Stevage 16:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It is the preferences stylesheet not getting loaded. When it happens, clear your cache (Shift-Reload on Firefox) and it'll start working again. --cesarb 17:26, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I asked Raul654 about it on #wikipedia. He reckoned that someone might have messed with the monobook.css. Any other theories? --Andy123(talk) 22:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Getting feedback on articles?

Mr Wales, I wrote 2 articles on Google Groups (a free groups and mailing list service from Google) and Homerun (a Singaporean adaptation of award-winning movie Children of Heaven). Could you (or any editors reading this page) give feedback on the two articles? I am looking for feedback that will help me improve articles, so don't just say "good". Something like "the article is slightly POV" or "the facts are not well presented" or "your style of writing is unique" or "the screenshots are appropriate" would be helpful.

I'm 14, and although I topped my level in English, and am one of the top writers in my school, I understand that Misplaced Pages is international (some of the WORLD's best writers are here), and the skills that made me a prolific essay writer may not make me a good Misplaced Pages writer. Hence I'm seeking feedback. I have found it difficult to find a place to ask for feedback on my articles, hence I'm going to your user page. In addition, I have created the:

Misplaced Pages:Article_Feedback_Desk in an attempt to meet this need. However, the project page is dead. While I understand that Misplaced Pages is not for advertising, how do I advertise a specific Misplaced Pages page within Misplaced Pages? I hope that by posting the Article Feedback Desk link here and advertising it in Misplaced Pages, the page will get more traffic, and more Wikipedians will post feedback on my articles and post their articles for feedback. I hope that the Article Feedback Desk will become an integral feature of Misplaced Pages which I will become famous for starting.

You may choose to answer here or on my talk page, but all should follow suit so I can read all the replies in one place. This is not an April Fool's joke, by the way. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

You can post these kind of requests on Misplaced Pages:Peer review. jacoplane 18:03, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

hello newbie here

Hello Im cartman4000 it is a pleasure to use wikipedia i would like it if you respond

Bots hidding vandalism

I don't know if it happens to others as well, but the recent heavy activity by robots that format articles has given me a lot of extra-work spotting vandalism in the articles I watch by getting extensive watchlists of modified articles that have only been slightly touched by a Bot.

To illustrate the problem, let me show you this edit that added some nonsense, but at the same time removed the chinnese interwiki link (zh:). Hours later to this vandal edit YurikBot restored the interwiki link, leaving the vandalism untouched. The following day I check for the last changes, and saw tha the page has been edited by YurikBot, thus thought that there's no need to check its edits, but luckily checked it anyway.

Since bots produce a huge number of changes in articles that might have not been otherwise modified in months (and therefore there's no need to check them for vandalism), it might be reasonable to give Bots a special status that would later allow us to ignore their edits when requesting your our watchlist. This way watchlists would be much more compact, and we would have less work doing our everyday check.

Another idea would be the display in the watchlists the number of edits to that page since your last log-on, or something like that. Sorry I'm leaving this here, I didn't find any better place. Good wiking, Mariano(t/c) 13:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

In the future, you're probably better off posting such proposals on Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals). jacoplane 16:07, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

See Bug #191. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 20:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Complaint with regards to User Freakofnurture, and why my account at Jonathan_7 should be unblocked

C & P ed entirely from my talk page at User: Jonathan_7 as a reason why I should be unblocked

The arrogance of Misplaced Pages (where I am not answered satisfactorily, and User: Freakofnurture appears to freak out and maliciously ban me constantly just because of one harmless typo in which I accidentally called him/her "Freakofnature" (from the Daniel Brandt talk page):

I reverted back to a 4th November version of the page because it is the most fair and NPOV way of presenting the article. I'll let the guy behind the page explain:

Jucifer, I *did* discuss my edits and my reasons for them on here, but there's been no further discussion of them from you.

I fail to understand why you felt it necessary to remove every single improvement I made. You say you don't understand why some paragraphs were combined and others removed - the answer is brevity. My version states concisely in sentences what your version takes paragraphs to do. My version tries not to amplify Beasley and Manjoo's criticisms into seeming more important than they really are. My version tries to balance hard info, without spin, from both the anti-Brandt and pro-Brandt camps. Evidently you prefer the spin.

I give up. As long as people like you are going to hover over this page day after day and remove any constructive changes made by others, there's no point. I can't keep hovering over this page myself, though, because I have a life. Nor do I have time to waste arguing about what constitutes coherent writing with someone who can't even spell the word "coherent".

And what gives you the audacity to not only remove every single change I made, but then request that no one else remove YOUR changes without discussion?? I begin to see now why Brandt and others are blanking the page out entirely.

While there is little to add to this, I should point out that articles such as Britney Spears, George W. Bush and the Ku Klux Klan articles, despite the fact that the subjects have significant hate proportions, the fact remains that this doesn't stop the articles from being NPOV and not offending them. Why? Because these guys have had no conflict with Misplaced Pages. Therefore, Brandt gets demonised in the existing article, whereas the proposed revert to 4th November is a great deal more neutral, and if the thing is not gonna be deleted, the least that can happen is that he is painted in a fair light.

Where can you find arguments for why that version of the article should be in place? Why, I would presume that seeing as how back in November this guy was discussing his edits with Jucifer, I think its obvious where the answers are: with Jucifer.

Hi, Jonathan here. I think the difference between the revisions is that the existing article on Brandt does appear to have several negative connotations about it. Too much gets made of Brandt in the existing criticism section. The suggested version of the article is NOT biased, for as the guy originally behind it points out:

"You say you don't understand why some paragraphs were combined and others removed - the answer is brevity. My version states concisely in sentences what your version takes paragraphs to do. My version tries not to amplify Beasley and Manjoo's criticisms into seeming more important than they really are. My version tries to balance hard info, without spin, from both the anti-Brandt and pro-Brandt camps."

I agree that the Brandt article can no longer be in a state of deletion, because he's a notable persona. However, the least Misplaced Pages could do is to enter into some sort of compromise with Brandt. Create a version of the article that pleases both camps. I do believe he said he would be satisfied with a Stub on himself at least. While the suggested version is not a stub, it's at least not as intruding onto his privacy than the current article.

AND FINALLY, THE ONE FOR WHICH FREAKOFNURTURE HAS MERCILESSLY BULLIED ME ABOUT.

Okay, so Brandt has been involved quite a lot with this article, as the archives do tell us. And he has had a tendency to point out that information published about him is either inaccurate or incompetent. In response his views are often criticised, but he does have a valid point. You see, if I was to suddenly achieve fame for being a Misplaced Pages user or a famous Misplaced Pages critic, I would make DAMN SURE that the person who was writing the article was someone I either knew or was able to trust, or hell, I would write it myself.

Let us take, for example, Jimmy Wales. The same principle applies here. I'm going to be willing to bet that the article was not written by Mr Wales for the purpose of NPOV, but was written by someone that he knew he could trust.

In Brandt's case though, I do believe his article was originally written by one SlimVirgin, who, correct me if I'm wrong, has been nothing but critical of Brandt. Isn't it rather odd that despite the fact that people such as Britney Spears, George W. Bush and the Ku Klux Klan have significant hate directed toward them, the connotations of hate towards them are not nearly as addressed as much as in the present article. Hell, even other Misplaced Pages critics don't get as much negativity as Brandt. His only "crime" it appears is to have set up a website opposing Misplaced Pages practices.

What are the advantages of this proposed version of this article? Why, I do believe that's already been covered:

"the answer is brevity. My version states concisely in sentences what your version takes paragraphs to do. My version tries not to amplify Beasley and Manjoo's criticisms into seeming more important than they really are. My version tries to balance hard info, without spin, from both the anti-Brandt and pro-Brandt camps."

Plus, Brandt has previously expressed the desire that if there is to be a Misplaced Pages article on him, it should be restricted to the status of being a stub article. Obviously deletion is impossible because Brandt is a notable persona, but what this proposed version of the article is something that can help to achieve a compromise between both camps, a more simplified version of the article that both Brandt and Misplaced Pages can be satisfied with. Just keep the current versions of Google Watch and Misplaced Pages Watch as they are, and of course the reference to Brandt in Criticisms of Misplaced Pages, and voila! All the basic necessary information on Brandt that you need. Everyone's happy.

Of course, you know, disputes like these could easily be resolved if Misplaced Pages were to be a reliable source of information. But it's not. The key distinguishing feature of Misplaced Pages is that it does not have any moderators. While other websites are able to provide accurate information due to the fact that they are strictly moderated, Misplaced Pages is crippled by the fact that it has no moderators. As a result, exchanges such as when Brandt made an edit labelling pieces of information to be "utterly incompetent". Someone then reverted this by saying "no it isn't" Excuse me? Just who is more likely to hold accurate information in this regard? The man to whom the subject is about, or someone who clearly has something against Brandt?

Finally, seeing as how my previous account was suspended because I was allegedly acting as a sockpuppet or impersonator of Brandt. There were several problems wth this theory:

One: Not once had I ever met Daniel Brandt, nor have I ever had any email correspondence or similar with the forementioned person. Sheesh, it's not so abnormal or unusual that someone can generate support for their cause - even the British National Party gain votes.

Two: Unless I am into to extreme extensive travelling, it should be noted that the IPs that Brandt and myself use are very much different, so therefore any theories that I was the same person as Brandt were invalid.

Three: There didn't appear to be any "evidence" to support the assertion that I was what was being claimed, otherwise the "evidence" part of "It is suspected that this user might be a sock puppet or impersonator of Daniel Brandt. Please refer to {{{evidence}}} for evidence." would have been filled in. Therefore, it was an unfair ban.

Four: From the very beginning, it appeared that Curps must have had some political, social, or absurdly personal agenda against myself to warrant that even now, he has never given a proper reason to revert my edits more than three times, and yet he was not banned for breaching the 3RR rule, thus showing bias on Misplaced Pages's part.

Five: I already tried to explain that I was not the same person who gained notoriety for randomly proclaiming "WikiFascists!" and repeatedly blanking the page, and yet Curps seemingly has no idea on the concept of "diffentiation" as he appears to enjoy lampooning both myself and the forementioned vandal as being one and the same.

Thank you for your time.

Jonathan 7 14:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Why should I be unblocked? Because Freakofnurture failed to follow a rule about the process of revert in which you should at least give your reasons as to why you have reverted the edits of the user on either the article's or the user's talk page. Also, Freakofnurture kept restricting my rights to speak and coldbloodedly calling me a sockpuppet even though the above shows I am not so. I feel this was a grossly unfair treatment upon myself.

Plus, trolls don't have any concept of spelling or grammer, and their actions are unjustified ergo - not troll. Jonathan 7 14:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

== Dear Freakofnurture ==,

Please unblock me, for I have finally had enough of the fact that you appear to have something very serious against me, as well as the fact that you appear to lack any reading comprehension. I have told you time and time again that I am not a sockpuppet, and I have explained the nature of my actions. I am pissed off, and I therefore wish to take it up with the higher authority Jimmy Wales on his user talk page. I have more than enough evidence to show that you have abused your admin powers and have had a vendetta against me ever since I made an edit you happened to disagree with on the Daniel Brandt article. You on the other hand have no evidence of any abusive conduct I have had towards you or Curps, and you simply answer only in WikiSpeak, where you use the same old "rv" and "sockpuppet used abusively" which masks the fact that you are incapable of arguing your case.

I wish to chat to Jimmy Wales, and thus request unblock. Jonathan 7 09:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/User_talk:Jonathan_7"

So my point is that Freakofnurture has had some sort of agenda against me from the very beginning, and has accused myself of all sorts of hurtful stuff such as sockpuppetry for Daniel Brandt and has constantly deleted my talk page. He is abusing his admin powers and it is greatly annoying. Jonathan_7 86.128.14.86 17:04, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

my opinion

The whole debate centers on whether if an account is banned, it can use its IP address or new account to ask the admin who banned them to be unbanned. I have seen basically seen when this happens not only is the account and IPS indefinately banned, but the messages are removed from the admins talk page (often by another admin). In this instance, the accounts and IPs were indefinately banned, but the thread "Your claim is bogus" still remains. Basically, wikipedia needs to have clear policy on this.

And of course comes the question of whether it's bad to complain to Jimbo Wales about admins and not abcom. Well, Jimbo's user page says, "Anyone with a beef should be treated with the utmost respect and dignity. They should be encouraged constantly to present their problems in a constructive way in the open forum of the mailing list. Anyone who just complains without foundation, refusing to join the discussion, I am afraid I must simply reject and ignore. Consensus is a partnership between interested parties working positively for a common goal. I must not let the "squeaky wheel" be greased just for being a jerk." So that's the policy he (or someone) states. DyslexicEditor 03:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

My 2 cents

Freak has blocked me several times for "vandalism, shared IP", and ironically, the first time I discovered I was blocked was when I was trying to revert vandalism to the RuneScape article. At one time, it became so disruptive that I had to leave Misplaced Pages for a week.

On Freak's user page, I see F-words and various inappropriate content. While I understand that Misplaced Pages is not censored, this policy is mainly for articles which are likely to contain sexual content, and not for userpages.

There have recently been complaints about admins abusing their powers (the Jebus Christ episode is an example). I am not singling out Freak, neither am I against admins. However, I hope admins use their powers wisely and do not abuse them. I think there should be a crackdown on abusive admins, and complaints against admins should be taken more seriously.

Just my 2 cents. I'll not be surprised if Freak or an abusive admin blocks me, but I hope it doesn't happen, and I hope admins will not feel insulted. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 14:48, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The IP you used first 202.156.6.54 has the proper shared IP tag on its user page that it's shared and the blocks are temporary. Freakofnurture only did three blocks and he/she unblocked it two times. The IP has close to 100 blocks from other admins. I agree that there are abusive admins, but I think Freakofnurture has been picked on because of controversial inclusions on their user page. The abusive admins I know of are ones strangely invincible enough that I would not even dare to mention--but they seem bad enough that I have seen a couple of the bad ones change their user names. DyslexicEditor 18:26, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Agree with DyslexicEditor, freakofnurture has not actually blocked you, he has blocked the IP address from which you and probably many others edit, because some of those other editors have vandalised wikipedia the block is legitimate, i.e. he is not singling you out personally, you are what is generally termed collateral damage (an unintended "victim") --pgk 18:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. As explained earlier, while I am against abusive admins, I am not singling out Freak, although his userpage does contain objectional content. Therefore, Misplaced Pages should take a stand against both abusive admins and inappropriate content on userpages. In addition, I think that Misplaced Pages should change the blocking policy, because blocking shared IPs can harm many legimate editors. My suggestion is that when an IP is blocked, established, legimate editors who are logged in should be able to continue editing. Of course, this raises the issue of vandals signing up for accounts, but most vandals are lazy, and we can simply block them from signing up without affecting established, legimate editors who already have accounts. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 09:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

There are actually two different 'bugs' on wikipedia's bugzilla in regards to this and they have decent support. Someone just has to get around to implementing them. Kotepho 09:42, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Could you please clarify what, exactly, you find objectionable on User:Freakofnurture's userpage? I have looked over his page in-depth, and, with the possible exception of the "vandalism-space" section he's provided for random users' graffiti, I see nothing whatsoever objectionable, offensive, or mean-spirited on his userpage. In fact, a lot of the page is rather pleasant and uplifting, like his list of "users whom i appreciate". I can think of many much, much more borderline userpages than this, which is why I found using that page as an example bizarre, even though you claim to not be "singling out Freak". Some specifics, please, so we can understand what userspace content, exactly, you are asking to be "cracked down" on? -Silence 09:46, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

The last time I viewed Freakofnuture's user page, it contained a pornographic image or something similar, and F-words, and a lot of disturbing catogeries like "Sockpuppets of Jesus" and "Rogue admins". I don't know if it has changed since then or if that was an act of vandalism. With his repeated banning of me clarified (I posted since someone reported the same problem), I think the issue should be abusive admins in general.

OMG my ears are bleeding. --Cyde Weys 05:33, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Gator1 stalked in the real world

Greetings, Jimbo,

Thought I should bring this situation to your attention: Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Gator1 - in brief, one of our admins had his anonymity compromised by a vandal who sent a terse letter to that admin's employer. BDAbramson T 03:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

• I would like to add how important it is that this be dealt with. Perhaps you could get personally involved or help something along. This is a grave invasion of privacy and should be of concern to all users of Misplaced Pages and the other projects. --Mboverload 04:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I rather not email you on this matter, but I can if that is preferable. I am not sure about all the issues raised by this situation, but it does appear to be of great potential concern to many editors. Whatever you can advise would be most welcome. Thank you.--MONGO 05:32, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Chinese Misplaced Pages is banning informatinon about persecution on Falungong

This is the first time I write to you, Mr. Wales. I have the account holder of "Ilovehk1248" of Chinese Misplaced Pages.

I have just been banned.

I have been banned for saying the FACT that the Foreign Minsiter of Australia Alexander Downer is sued by Falungong members, which is widely published by most Australian media.

I have been banned for saying the FACT that Jiang Zemin is prosecuted in many countries for genocide.

I have been banned for mentioning the RCMP is monitoring 45 Chinese officials.

I have been banned for mentioning that most of the Hong Kong democratic legislators concern and support Falun Gong members in anti-prosecution movement.

I have been banned for saying things which are verifiable.

Administrators are doing censorship on Chinese Misplaced Pages!!

Is this what you want? PLEASE investigate!! PLEASE kindly TAKE ACTION to keep Misplaced Pages really a place "everyone can edit"!! I thank you for your attention in advance. I do wait for your answer! I thank you in advance!!Doreme1248 04:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

China's government is exercising the censorship. Blame them. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 05:29, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

He said he was banned from chinese wikipedia by an administrator. Chinese government is not supposed to be able to censor chinese version of wikipedia because it's hosted on servers located in USA. But it's possible that the chinese government is slowly taking over Chinese Misplaced Pages by having chinese communist party members become high ranking admins. The Psycho 06:56, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

You are totally correct! One of such administrator I spot is "SHIZHAO" (Beijing) and "Louer" (USA, but from mainland China). SHIZHAO is a STEWARD and SYSOP. He undid my edit without giving reasons at all or giving unjustifiable reasons. He took an article about a Chinese official who was convicted of persecuting Falun gong members for voting for deletion, TWICE. The Chinese Communist Party know that they must control Chinese Misplaced Pages. Please kindly read my user page for details, which will be updated frequently. I thank you for your concern!Doreme1248 07:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't be so quick to swallow Doreme1248's summary of what has happened. It may very well be that s/he was doing POV-pushing (which one can do by inserting verifiable facts in a particular manner) or something else that would warrant a ban. --Chan-Ho (Talk) 07:09, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your concern. Please kindly read my user page for details, which will be updated frequently.Doreme1248 07:16, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have just read Misplaced Pages: Banning Policy and I am BLOCKED, rather than simply banned. The admin who blocked me is Pubuhan. He did not give a reason for the block. Misplaced Pages: Blocking policy says: "Use of blocks to gain an advantage in a content dispute is strictly prohibited. That is, sysops must not block ediors with whom they are currently engaged in a content dispute."

The fact is: The MAINLAND CHINESE ADMINSTRATORS are gaining an advantage in a content dispute (Dispute as to whether content involving Falungong or related issues should be put into other articles) by BLOCKING ME!!Doreme1248 08:03, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Doreme1248(in Chinese wikipedia known as Ilovehk1248) kept adding information based on bias of Falungong into Chinese Misplaced Pages, so he got blocked. In my opinion, Doreme1248 deserves what he got. I am one of the administrators and also a bureaucrat in the Chinese Misplaced Pages, and I am from Taiwan, no relationship with the Chinese government or Chinese Communist Party. This matter is totally not related to any censorship from the PRC government. Pubuhan took his action after discussed with several administrators in an online chatting room with no objection. Please don't get mislead by Doreme1248.--zh:User:Theodoranian 17:57, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. I am also one of the administrator group discussing the issue. Staying in North America, I am thus not related to the Chinese government or the CCP whatsoever. In addition to what Theodoranian expressed, Doreme1248 vilified, on hir user page of the Chinese wikipedia, shizhao (steward), 3dball (ordinary user), Pubuhan (admin), Theodoranian (bureaucrat), 妙詩人 (ordinary user), Louer (admin), Panda (ordinary user) as possible "special agents" working for the CCP.

As a administrator of both communities, here and the Chinese wikipedia, my impression suggests me that User:Doreme1248 is a new contributor to the Chinese wikipedian community so I wish hir to interpret and back up the information on hir userpage in the Chinese wikipedia to the wikipedians here, who shall aid hir positively. I.H.S.V. (talk) 18:39, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for coming!! I have been waiting you for long! I have been waiting you for coming to this relatively fair forum! After all, I am not interested in your real identity whether you are a special agent or not. After all, whether you are not we are equal on the Misplaced Pages. Are you going to DENY THAT YOU GAINED AN ADVANTAGE IN A CONTENT DISPUTE INVOLVING WHETHER MOST ARTICLES SHOULD INVOLVE FALUN GONG MATERIALS BY BLOCKING ME? Misplaced Pages: Blocking policy says "Use of blocks to gain an advantage in a content dispute is strictly prohibited. That is, sysops must not block ediors with whom they are currently engaged in a content dispute." Answer me!! You have never answered this although I asked many times!! Can't you answer this!!Doreme1248 01:28, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I'm also a user of both Chinese and English Misplaced Pages and I'm from Taiwan. What Theodoranian wrote here is correct. Administrators of Chinese Misplaced Pages are not only from China, but also from Taiwan and Hong Kong. I can tell you that there is no censorship in Chinese Misplaced Pages. Every banning operation on Chinese Misplaced Pages is been done after proper discussion amount many Wikipedians in the Skype chatting room. These admins had discussed about Ilovehk1248's case on the Skype chatting room and there is no objections on banning Ilovehk1248. I know because I'm in the Skype chatting room at that time (although I'm not one of the admins). Please do not get misleaded by Doreme1248. FYR.--H.T. Chien (Discuss) 18:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I have blanked part of Doreme1248's userpage for personal attacks against a couple of zh-wiki users. NSLE _(T+C) at 01:31 UTC (2006-04-09)

I refuse admit that I intended to launch a personal attack on Shizhao, although I would be happy to rephrase it to make it more "friendly". Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks says (Please read): Examples that are not personal attacks: ... Personal attacks do not include civil language used to describe an editor's actions, and when made without involving their personal character, should not be construed as personal attacks. If you still insist that the following is personal attack, state your reason. However, I am sure mentioning what a Steward has done is totally OK, other their power can never be challenged, and this is unacceptable.Doreme1248 02:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

If information is biased, it should rewritten from a neutral standpoint. Though I'm not proficient in moonspeak, this revert doesn't look acceptable. 24.224.153.40 21:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Regarding Mr. Brian Peppers (and his Misplaced Pages article)

Dear Sir: I believe that your decision to remove the Brian Peppers aritcle was indeed a wise one. I happen to have a correspondence with Mr. Peppers and his sister-in-law, Susan, and I know that Brain does not deserve to be disrespected in any way. The pure existance of any article about him and his past would be an insult to his person, and Thus I must, on his behalf, thank you. P.H. - Kyoukan, UASC 20:44, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Below I give a description of Shizhao done as an administrator

The Steward and SysOp Shizhao get the article of Gloria Cheung﹙張韻琪﹚ to be voted for deletion by the reason that Gloria Cheung﹙張韻琪﹚ was of little importance to become a Misplaced Pages article. However, she was a university student union chairlady of Hong and is an activist promoting democracy. She is well known by most Hong Kong teenages. Eventually the result of voting is preservation of the article.

The Steward and SysOp Shizhao get the article of Zhao Zhifei﹙趙志飛﹚ to be voted for deletion by the reason that Zhao Zhifei﹙趙志飛﹚ was of little importance to become a Misplaced Pages article. However he is actually a person convicted of persecuting 38 Falun gong members to death. Eventually the result of voting is preservation of the article. Ignoring the result, he get the SAME article to be voted again.

SHIZHAO also seldom explaining his reason for reverting my edit (For example, Jiang Zemin in Chinese Misplaced Pages), breaching the Misplaced Pages official policy. When he did, the reasons are almost always unjustifiable.

SHIAZHAO is nominating PUBUHAN, who blocked me, to be a bureaucrat. This may match the situation a previous Wikipedian mentioned: The Chinese Communist Party pushes one personnel to the administrating level, and get him to nominate others of the same back ground, slowly taking over the administrating power of the whole Chinese Misplaced Pages.

I urge Mr. Wales and the Community to review about Shizhao's use of power as a Steward.Doreme1248 02:07, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

To Deoreme1248, Pubuhan didn't dispute with you in this matter. He was executing the dicision which was made by the community. We have warned you not to keep adding POV material into Chinese Misplaced Pages for several times before the blocking. Since I am not interested in your real identity whether you are a special agent or not., why you said that I am a special agent from the PRC? You owe everybody you mentioned an apology.--zh:User:Theodoranian02:05, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

(1)I deny that I keep adding POV materials. Indeed, there are probably no such things in the world called "POV materials", but only "POV description about a conflict". I have said many many times, although I am willing to say it once more, that Falun Gong background media such as Epoch Times, Renminbao, Minghui are Reliable sources, and I described such sources in a neutral way. You may think that they are unreliable sources, but these are your personal opinion, and please keep them to yourself. After all, I have not just put these sources, but also BBC and other Australian media. It gives you no excuse to censor them.Misplaced Pages: Neutral point of view says policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these are fairly presented, NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints However, what most administrators involved was doing is: deleting my description of the conflict, not letting me to describe the conflict, preclude me from the right to describe the conlict. By doing so, it is the one who deletes the neutral description of the conflict breaches the NPOV rule, NOT the editor. If it is in your opinion that my description about a conflict is not neutral enough, edit it to become more neutral, rather than delete it. Editting is what Misplaced Pages about, not deletion.

(2)I understand that this is a decision made by the community, as you alleged, and I am not going to dispute about it. However, I allege that such community decision is ignoring the Misplaced Pages rules, and wrongly decided, as I have described above. Such a majority decision violating Misplaced Pages rules, which are WIDELY ACCEDPTED by Wikipedians, are ILLEGITIMATE. This is just like: A piece of legislation is illegitimate if it violates universally accpeted human right rules EVEN if it is passed by majority.

(3)(revoked due to Misplaced Pages policy) I refuse to aplogise. If you are interested in listening to my reason of refusal of reply, I am happy to give you one. But due to Misplaced Pages policy, I cannot put it here.

(4)Pubuhan disputes with me and the Community disputes with me. OK, let's assume that Pubuhan is neutral as to this dispute and the Community disputes with me. So it's the Community blocked me, not Pubuhan blocked me. Well, After all, the rule is not going to be circumvented simply because it is done in the name of the Community. Last but not the least, are you going to answer this? Use of blocks to gain an advantage in a content dispute is strictly prohibited. That is, sysops must not block editors with whom they are currently engaged in a content dispute. The Community is not going to be priviledged simply because it is the Community. The Community has to observe Misplaced Pages Rules. Now, the Community (made up of many individual administrators who are in dispute with me as to the content) is in a dispute with me and it gained advantage in this dispute by blocking me, and THIS IS PROHIBITED.

(5)I do not understand why you (on behalf of the Community again?) can give me a dozens of "reasons" HERE why Pubuhan blocked me, while I was given no reasons at all at the time I was blocked. Well, didn't the Community instruct Pubuhan to give a reason? Does he, or the Community knows that, by Misplaced Pages: Blocking policy he is obliged to give a reason??

I wait for you replies.Doreme1248 02:28, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Warned for personal attacks in point 3. Next infringement gets you blocked from en-wiki too. NSLE _(T+C) at 02:35 UTC (2006-04-09)

Revoked. Thank you for you warning and I will be careful.Doreme1248 02:50, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

• Can I ask how he has been banned 7 times as he states? --Mboverload 02:43, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I am another ZH admin, I live in America, and I totally disagree with the way how CCP illegally cracked down FLG and subsequently treated the FLG members with no due respect to PRC constitution and human rights. I also declare that I am not a "special agent" of CCP (or employed by CCP or FLG in any way) and I warn that I dislike any personal attacks or libeling.

However, after examining relevant edit histories and the blocking log on ZH Misplaced Pages, as well as the Skype chat record, I have found that ZH administrators are doing everything in line with Misplaced Pages's mission and policies, I have also found that Doreme1248 (aka Ilovehk1248 in ZH) has misrepresented the case with false/wrong information and misinterpreted Misplaced Pages policies.

• S/He accused here that Pubuhan (the ZH admin who blocked Ilovehk1248 for 3 days) "did not give a reason for the block". This is a blatant lie, as one can check the blocking log and find the reason (translated) as "violation of 3RR, also allow you time to find proof supporting your accusations that several users are indeed special agents (employed by CCP)".
• S/He accused here that Pubuhan violated Misplaced Pages: Blocking policy by blocking him/her "to gain an advantage in a content dispute" in which the admin is currently engaged with the blocked user. This is a misinterpretation of the policy and a misleading account of the situation. As the edit histories of 羅幹 (Luo Gan), 劉京 (Liu Jing), 亞歷山大•唐納 (Alexander Downer), 孫家正 (Sun Jiazheng), 司徒華 (Szeto Wah), 張德江 (Zhang Dejiang), 夏德仁 (Xia Deren), 李卓人 (Lee Cheuk Yan), 2008年夏季奧林匹克運動會 (2008 Summer Olympics) (and many others) show, all reversions to Ilovehk1248's edits were initiated by several other editors (not Pubuhan) because they consider his/her edits as POV-pushing and unverifiable. Ilovehk1248 simply reverted back without actions to improve the NPOV or supply verifiable sources. For some of the articles, Pubuhan intervened to simply re-revert. I do not think that such re-reversions should be treated as "involvement in content editing". Ilovehk1248 was blocked temporarily (not banned) because of 3RR, not because Pubuhan wanted to gain any "advantage in a content dispute" by misusing his power.
• The information and references provided by him/her come from The Epoch Times, which itself is deeply involved in the conflicts between FLG and CCP and related subjects, therefore many Chinese editors (Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Overseas) do not treat reports from this source (and other FLG-sponsored or -themed sources) as verifiable for the reported subject per se (other than the facts regarding FLG's POV), in the same way as they treat CCP's sources or accounts in these matters.
• Here and in several other places on EN and ZH, s/he accused and publicly labeled Shizhao/Louer as CCP members without any sound proof, s/he also accused and publicly labeled Shizhao, 3dball, Pubuhan, Theodoranian, 妙詩人, Louer, and Panda as "special agents" from CCP on Misplaced Pages without any sound proof. Indeed, it seems that s/he made these loose accusations only because these users do not agree with his/her edits on Misplaced Pages and consider him/her a POV-pusher. Some of the affected users also consider these accusations as defamatory and libels.

--roc (talk) 03:54, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The horror and disappointment of Misplaced Pages

I have always used Misplaced Pages as a reference source and considered it to be an informative and good resource. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that adminstrators such as Jpgordon and JZG roam behind the scenes and manipulate information to their whims through abuse of admin powers. Yet this is exactly what has happened as can be seen on the history page of the gunpowder article. Jpgordon disliked the information I had added to the article and continually reverted my edits. I in turn reverted back. Frighteningly, instead of entering into discussions about differences, Jpgordon immediately banned me based on a groundless claim of the 3RR. Jpgordon reverted my edits more than 3 times himself and then proceeded to ban me to further his edit war. This experience has severely tainted the image of Misplaced Pages and unless justice is served I doubt I will ever use Misplaced Pages again. In fact, I had planned on pointing others towards Misplaced Pages, but after this horribly disappointing experience I think I will be instead cautioning others on using Misplaced Pages at all. From this experience, I and those who associate with me, have been forced to face the idead that Misplaced Pages is no more than a place where a select group of bigoted pseudo-intellectuals push their particular brand of misinformation through the crushing of opposition using blocking and banning functions. Please prove us wrong. 69.194.137.183 18:30, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

You're being unreasonable. You are trying to push your own POV in the gunpowder article, that the Chinese were the sole inventors, when in fact historians have varied viewpoints on this. You also are hurling unfair accusations against other editors who oppose you, in violation of the Assume Good Faith policy. It was particularly silly of you to write that you were justified in pursuing arbitration against Jpgordon without prior attempts to resolve the dispute, because it wasn't a "dispute among equals"; you (an anonymous IP address) was "more equal" than Jpgordon (an administrator). That's hardly a way to win sympathy for your position. *Dan T.* 23:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Ya, annonymous IP cannot be an admin's equal, you have to earn at least 5000 reputation points before you can challenge an admin. The Psycho 00:10, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Further to my e-mail regarding ArbCom

I would like to just point you to some relevant pages in relation to my earlier e-mail regarding the un-blocking of the three named Users. I think that this page is important for two reasons as it shows, firstly, that there is an outside opinion that all three users should have blocks removed, and secondly that it has no response from the arbitrators, and this has been the problem facing my client, in that he has had no two-way communication, and thus the sentiments expressed in my e-mail can be understood. I await your response. --Wisden17 20:35, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello from Germany

Hello Mr. Wales. My name is Sebastian, my user name both in the German Misplaced Pages and in the Englisch section is The Rain Man. I'm writing you because I see severe things going wrong in the German community. The special problem I face belongs to a general one in the German Section. Over the last six weeks, I put all my time and energy in the study of literatur to set up a new page. The Subject is called "Disorder of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified" (DENSOS). It is the hard form of PTSD, what means "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder". The most common Name of this hard and chronic form is "komplex PTSD". Unfortunately, in our country there is poor knowledge about this topic. Even psychiatrists and psychologists don't know about the whole thing. So I got myself ten Books from well reputated researchers, altogether about 30 authors or more. Judith Herman who teaches at Harvard is one of them. I did my best to give a detached and good structured insight into the matter. Anyone should be able to understand it, professionals should be able to enrich their horizon. Not one thing contained by that page is doubted amomg the real experts. Some friends of mine read that page today, and I was surprised about their positive feedback. But they are no community members. As having set up some Redirects after havin finished my work, several administrators began to remove pictures, rather without being willing to talk about. They arrange with each other, obviously just to get that page deleted. The official reason for putting the page on the candidates for deletion is that the content was ambigious, and further this topic wasn't worth an own page. It took just from friday 11:17h, when administrator Nina startet to "clear out the pictures", as she wrote in her Edit summary, to Saturday 18:38 when administrator Southpark (it's interesting to see his page) put it for deletion. Obviously, there is a clique of administrators who practice clear abuse of their rights. No one came out with one reasonable argument to justify such a step. They just bood the page and insulted me by making clear in their postings that I was mentally deranged. No reasonable content-related arguments were brougth out at the discussion about deletion. Any statment containing more than insults and the vote for deletion (in German: löschen) shows clear, that these members, mostly administrators, didn't read the page at all. Now they vote down that article. Only few visitors from outside the community came along to vote for it. The expression komplex PTSD is hardly kown here and accordingly minor requested. Repeatedly, they told I had no believable souces. They couldn`t find the komplex PTSD with Google. Then a pro-voter told that he had found 147 hits with Google for that special expression. It was just ignored, like most of the pro arguments. The pictures are embeded from Misplaced Pages-Commons. It was brought up as a reason for deletion of the page, that these pictures were not according to the rules. Actually 10 of the pictures are free, the first picture in the page has a tag and another, a quite changeable one, is requested for speedy deletion now (but I thought it wasn't last week). The page is quite big, so it contains 12 pictures, illustraiting the content and the meanings, not glutting the article.

And there is another thing about that page. It is a very sensitive topic. Actually 80% of the concerned by komplex PTSD are women. That Disorder is often caused by rape, and at the most by sexual abuse and mistreatment of children, especially young girls. One thing in the background, I didn't write that in the article of course, is a reliable study that tells about the extremly high rates of such grievances. I wrote that in the discussion. These girls suffer their whole life in an unthinkable way from the resulting damages, including lifetime neuronal damages. Hard depressions, awful feelings, unrecognized partial splittings of their counsciousness, bad fears and various additional burdens come up later in their lifes. The shock is stored timeless in their neuronal system and is always present in their feelings, actions and thoughts. It is characteristic that these victims don't know about that, mostly they can't. Typically, they can't remember the horrors cognizantly. The combination to their bad expieriences is generally not made. These people are often threated wrong, both socially and medically. That boosts the damages in a vicious circle. Many of them die very young. Over the last fifty years, one can count the extimated deaths about several million in Germany. (Of course that is no content of the page.) And all that just because people don't know about the komplex PTSD. So I told the people willing to delete the page to think about responsibility, even Misplaced Pages is a non-party encyclopedia. I argumented, many concerned could be serious to get the information contained by the article. And there might few administrators to get rid of it, but many people out there to be very interested. Many administrators in Germany are very sure to be responsible to nobody and vote friends for Administrators to join their cliques. I told them, they are. They just bood me. One of them, Administrator Markus Mueller, puts a new citatation on top of his user page every day. Today ist was mine, exactly that statement about responsibility of administrators. Another administrator, Mathias Schindler, has a logo on top of his user page continuing the following statement: "We eleminate the knowledge of mankind - yours too. Relevance is relative." Intrinsically one could think that was just ironic. But unfortunately it seems to be true. These people seem to run free their destructive desire behind the mask of an administrator. I said, besides several human righs organizations and victim organizations Jimbo Wales might be against their attitude. They considered that statement rather as a funny nonsense. So all I can do now is to turn to you Mr. Wales as my first choice. And I want to add, that I am not the only community member beeing dissapointet by such things going on.

And here is the link of the German page komplex PTSD and for the discussion about deletion.

I'd be unimaginably moved, if you would bestow consideration upon that matter. Kindest regards and greets from Munich! Sebastian -- The Rain Man 03:19, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Why do administrators always assume bad faith ? Shouldn't the wikilink assume bad faith be made an article and not a redirect? Take my example

Hi, I'm in a potentially awkward position with an Administrator. I have read the Wiki pages on dispute resolution but I'm still not sure how to proceed.

The Admin ContiE has a personal grudge against me for reasons I do not fully understand. He has been this way since I began frequenting wikipedia.

I have done work improving the furvert article. He has basically gone on a crusade against any edit I make. He controls every furry category article and several others ruthlessly. He is an iron fist and bans anyone he edit wars with. I had uploaded pictures and he deleted them with no talking. He seems to believe I am every person he has had an edit war against. He is always using personal attacks, calling me troll without reason. I uploaded them again and he voted them for deleted, but to his surprise the person who runs the images, thank you Nv8200p, found they were acceptable once I tagged them properly. Just recently he removed both the images without himself discussing it in the talk page (unless he was the same person who discussed only one) with the edit here Then ContiE assumed bad faith, added his constant insult of troll in the talk page. It appears on a completed different wiki, a comedy one in all things, somebody else stole my username and I believe this was Conti himself and uploaded them. ContiE showed it as his reason. While vandalism like his, I would revert and mention it, he would ban me permanently if I undid his edit. That is why I am asking admins for help. He holds a couple of accounts on wikipedia and I think they are administrators so I have to be careful who I tell about this. Arights 05:43, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

ContiE does not have a vendetta against Arights that I have seen, and his actions have been appropriate. I've also had to undo some of Arights' "contributions". Arights has a misguided concept of furry fandom and tries to enforce it on the related articles. Coyoty 20:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I got the message, too. I looked over arights's contributions and his/her talk page and his/her early contributions say you are a sock puppet of ContiE. Arights never told you. You also never come here. ContiE never told you. No one told you. I checked your contributions. I checked your old account, Gentaur's contributions (the account forwards to yours). I checked ContiE's contributions. I checked other things like your livejournal, google for anything by anyone. Arights does accuse you of being a sock puppet. But I am not accussing you. I am not suggesting to anyone here that yes, you are a sockpuppet ContiE. And I certainly wouldn't want everyone to strongly believe that Coyoty is a sockpuppet of ContiE. I'm sure no one would ever come to that conclusion that you are sock puppets. Now, you just act like you want people to think you are the same user. For example, you claim to no live near ContiE, but your website bestiaria.com says you live far from where you claim to. And then ContiE claims to be a furry fox and you use a fox next to your name. I'm sure no one would even consider you to be sock puppets. Admins can never do wrong. Why would an admin have more than one account? SnowConeYellow 07:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

First, I am not an admin. I'm not sure I want to be, seeing what they have to put up with. Second, renaming an account puts too much of a load on the system, so Misplaced Pages prefers a new account be created and the old account redirected to it. Third, that's a coyote, not a fox. Fourth, I've been here many times, if you look more carefully. Fifth, my webpage doesn't claim I live anywhere. Sixth, you seem to be doing a very good job of accusing me of being ContiE. Are you sure you're not really Arights? Seventh, this is silly and you are being a doody head. Coyoty 18:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Faked user "Jimbo Wales" at the Faroese Misplaced Pages

Hi Jimbo. I assume, that this user http://fo.wikipedia.org/Brúkari:Jimbo_Wales is not really you, but just another fake, isn't he? He links to your English user page. Best Regards -- Arne List 09:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC) (one Administrator of the Faroese Misplaced Pages)

Complaints about admins get user banned and talk page protected

A user contacted me about some admin issue. Hi I noticed this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AArights&diff=47916155&oldid=47915977

Someone suggests "complain about admin abuse on RFC" person says, "If I complained about an admin there I would not just be banned, but my talk page would be protected."

And now the person can't even answer. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk%3AArights&diff=47928087&oldid=47916429

This isn't me, but I'm disgusted mostly because the person can't even answer on their talk page.

The person who did this is User:NSLE who says on they are only 17 and too immature to handle responsibilty and power and only have been an admin for 4 months. And before being an admin they claimed that that they would only turn 16 last december. http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:NSLE&oldid=24692717 They lied about their age after they became admin. SnowConeYellow 11:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's clear a few things up here. He was trolling. Blocked users who misuse their usertalk pages get them protected. Secondly. In October I said I'd be 16 in December. Now I'm saying I'll be 17 this year. Which bit of that is a lie? NSLE _(T+C) at 00:31 UTC (2006-04-12)

Let me add that age is not an issue on Misplaced Pages. I myself am only 15, and a large majority of editors and administrators on Misplaced Pages are between fourteen and thirty. Claiming that a user is "too immature to handle responsibility and power" is considered a personal attack, and does not help your case anyway. Werdna648/_C\ 01:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Vote Stacking & Misplaced Pages:Infestation

The two proposed policies in my view supposed to be common senese. I think it might be intriguing to hear what you have to say. --Cool Cat 14:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Being nice

This comment strikes me like it could be misinterpreted. I think "needs improvement" is a better word choice than saying "it's horrible". Someone did put some work into making the article and it might be kind of disconcerting and offputting to have one's work being characterized as horrible by the leader of the project. You know you're sort of in the media spotlight, so it's best to choose your words carefully and not give anyone the opportunity to latch on and write some sort of negative article on "Jimbo the Slavemaster raining complaints down upon his free volunteers"  :-P Kind regards, Cyde Weys 23:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Cyde, I've seen many of your wonderful helpful contributions to Misplaced Pages, but may I suggest to you that : "This article was horrible. Now, thanks to my improvements, it is merely awful. :) --Jimbo Wales should be understood as tongue in cheek, humor, ha ha, :) even, ???? Can we lighten up? Please? WAS 4.250 00:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

We may know it's tongue-in-cheek but Jimbo is being watched by a lot of news outlets following the Seigenthaler controversy. Look at all of the silly and stupid statements various politicians have been tripped up for making. I'm just saying Jimbo should be more careful. "Famous" people can get away with a lot less than "normal" people can. --Cyde Weys 01:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Ok. :) But I agree with WAS 4.250, I think calling it 'merely awful' after my own edits was intended to soften the remark.--Jimbo Wales 01:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I totally misread your original comment. I read up to "horrible" and stopped reading I guess, totally missing the merely awful part followed by the smiley face. My bad. As for more real concerns, what do you think about the Answers.com Misplaced Pages tool ToS? Nowhere in it does it even mention the GFDL, and it seems to treat all of "The Content" (aka Misplaced Pages's content) as if it's the exclusive property of Answers.com and can't be redistributed, edited, etc. Here's a quote from your userpage: The GNU FDL license, the openness and viral nature of it, are fundamental to the longterm success of the site. Anyone who wants to use our content in a closed, proprietary manner must be challenged. We must adhere very strictly to both the letter and spirit of the license. --Cyde Weys 02:58, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you send me a link to that? The demo I saw was very good about the GFDL compliance, and I can assure you without any qualifications that Bob Rosenschein, CEO of Answers.com, is extremely eager to get this right. --Jimbo Wales 12:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's the download page for 1-click answers which I'm sure you're familiar with. Notice the disclaimer: "By downloading our software, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy". Clicking through to Terms of Use brings you to this page, which doesn't mention the GFDL or free licenses at all. In addition, the EULA doesn't mention the GFDL or free licenses either. I'm not a lawyer so I can't qualify on the legality of this, but you'd think that either the Terms of Service or EULA would at least mention the GFDL, as Misplaced Pages is the biggest source Answers.com seems to be using. --Cyde Weys 20:19, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

This says Misplaced Pages - All articles are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. (see "http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Copyrights" for details). I think you were looking at their intellectual property comments on their software that you are downloading (they call it "contents"). WAS 4.250 21:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

If you read the contents of the GFDL I really don't think it allows for a program such as 1-click, which relies heavily on GFDL contents, to be distributed without a GFDL note somewhere in it. Just like the GPL, the GFDL is a "viral license" and applies to all derivative works. Answers.com is heavily derivative on Misplaced Pages, and at least they admit so on their webpages. But the 1-click tool does not admit it whatsoever. --Cyde Weys 22:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that Misplaced Pages is data for their software and that their software is in no way derivative of anything from Misplaced Pages. Database software is not "derivative" of the data it uses. They are legally independent of each other as far as intellectual property goes (unless someone owns a format; but I'm sure that doesn't apply here). WAS 4.250 22:36, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for Minangkabau Misplaced Pages Edition

Hi Jimbo Wales, I m proposing an Minangkabau Misplaced Pages to be open for everyone because my father is a Minangkabau descent and it is an interesting language. Also Minangkabau is an Austronesian language and Minangkabau too is also a very great race. Can you do it for me and for everyone those who will visit Minangkabau Misplaced Pages? If you cannot do it, can anyone else do it? — Emrrans 10:32, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

File:DSC06161.jpg

P/S: This is a picture of myself (see above). My real name is Imran and I m a Malay.

There is a page where proposals for new language editions of Misplaced Pages are discussed on Meta. See m:Requests for new languages. Thryduulf 10:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Question!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you ever going to go to Sydney.Thats where I live Ohnomad 10:42, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

My very own "Inspiration"

Hi again Jimbo Wales, its a sample from Frank Sinatra song "My way", this is my own word of inspirations as followed:

And now, the end is near;

And so I face the final curtain.

My friend, I'll say it clear,

I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full.

I've traveled each and ev'ry highway;

And more, much more than this,

I did it my way.

Regrets, I've had a few;

But then again, too few to mention.

I did what I had to do

And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;

Each careful step along the byway,

But more, much more than this,

I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew

When I bit off more than I could chew.

But through it all, when there was doubt,

I ate it up and spit it out.

I faced it all and I stood tall;

And did it my way.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried.

I've had my fill; my share of losing.

And now, as tears subside,

I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;

And may I say - not in a shy way,

" Oh no, oh no not me,

I did it my way".

For what is a man, what has he got?

If not himself, then he has naught.

To say the things he truly feels;

And not the words of one who kneels.

The record shows I took the blows -

And did it my way

also, my self-made word of inspiration:

"Knowledge is a source of daily human life, so let us work together to free all sum of the human knowledge for the benefits of mankind." :Self-Made

— Emrrans 10:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Hello

Hey you're coming to Gainesville I'm going to see you. --Anaraug 11:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: template on WP:TOOLS

I removed the template you added to WP:TOOLS. It was incorrect. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.

If you think that, editorially speaking, that link does not belong there, I would most certainly love to hear your justification.--Jimbo Wales 12:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo: Thank you for your message. I am sorry if my application of the template to the section was indeed incorrect; of course, I defer to your better judgement, and am willing to accept I may well be ignorant about the issues at play regarding the Answers.com search tool. It was my understanding, however, that the link was added to WP:TOOLS as part of the contract that the Wikimedia Foundation signed with Answers.com; if I have this wrong, then you were quite right to remove it. However if the link was indeed added because of a business arrangement, and not because of mere editorial decision that it should be there, it is important that such material that is added as a consequence of business arrangements are indeed marked as such. Regardless of whether or not I approve of the arrangement, if the link must be there due to such an arrangement then I would, of course, be prepared to consider it a fait accomplis but would however demand the link is clearly labelled as being added due to business reasons outside the discretion of Misplaced Pages editors.

In response to your question whether I think the link should not be there - I do indeed think the link should not be there, but I wouldn't remove it myself because if an arrangement was indeed reached, it is not after all my place to interfere with the Foundation's business decision making. However, I must point out to you that the Answers.com search tool is, in my opinion, in direct violation of the GFDL license that Misplaced Pages is distributed under, albeit perhaps in spirit versus in legal terms. I am not a lawyer, admittedly, but in the EULA that accompanies the search tool the user is required to agree to the following:

You are only permitted view and/or browse the Content, and/or make limited copies of portions of the Content as fall within the "fair use" provisions of the United States Copyright Act, provided all such uses are for noncommercial personal purposes. you may not: (i) modify or create any derivative works of the Content or documentation, including without limitation, translation, customization or localization; (ii) remove or alter any trademark, logo, copyright or other proprietary notices, legends, symbols or labels in the Content; You are not permitted to retrieve and store in electronic or any other form any of the databases underlying the Content that is accessed through our Web Site or Software. All commercial and/or unauthorized use of the Content of any kind, including reproduction of any kind for a commercial purpose of any kind, direct or indirect, is strictly prohibited. The Content, the Web Site and the Software remain solely the property of Answers or of Answers Content providers at all times...

This is, if I am not mistaken, in complete violation of the GFDL in a number of respects, as it not only claims copyright ownership of the content used by the tool but denies the user the right to copy, modify or redistribute the content, and indeed the EULA makes no mention of the GFDL and the user's rights to use and redistribute the material under this license. Although perhaps if the Wikimedia Foundation has granted Answers.com the right to use the content in legal terms this issue may not be enforceable, I believe that, even if Answers.com are not legally forbidden from claiming such due to whatever licensing the Wikimedia Foundation granted to them, this is not only directly misleading to users operating the tool but also denies the contribution made by the myriad of Misplaced Pages editors who have worked hard towards the provision of free content. I thus believe Misplaced Pages should not be condoning the usage of a product that claims copyright ownership of its material, appears to deny the users to redistribute the content under the GFDL - and, even less so, should be directly profiting from the operation of such a service. The recent competitive patent litigation launched by Answers.com against another similar toolbar provider also strikes me as contrary to the spirit of open collaboration and free exchange of contribution that Misplaced Pages is built on. However, I fear such concerns of mine will of course lead to nothing since the deal has already been struck, but nevertheless in my opinion the link should not be there. As I said, however, I defer to your judgement, since you are after all the leader of our project, but hope you may perhaps give the above some thought. Best regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 22:02, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The link will stay when it meets the normal editorial standards. The GFDL compliance stuff is not going to be an issue. I have forwarded comments to them, and based on ALL my interactions with them, I am confident that this oversight will be corrected promptly. They are extremely eager to do the right thing and be of service to the community. I continue to be astonished at the level of hostility people have shown towards one of the best friends that the Misplaced Pages community has. If there are problems, then there are problems, and Assume Good Faith is one of our cardinal rules for dealing with it.--Jimbo Wales 06:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not hostility, Jimbo, it's mistrust. We in the open source community have been getting screwed over for years on stuff like this. Whether it's Linksys including modified GPL code in their routers or just Microsoft being Microsoft, some of us constantly feel like we're under attack. Yes, we'd love to be able to trust Answers.com, but when their ToS is several pages of legalese and doesn't even mention the GFDL once, we get nervous. --Cyde Weys 08:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo: I'd like to make it perfectly clear I don't harbour any specific hostility against Answers.com in a personal sense; what I am however hostile to is the all-too-common restrictive approach to intellectual property taken by many dot-com and technology-related businesses in relation to copyright, speaking as an individual who is fervently in support of software and information freedom. Personally I cannot see how Answers.com claiming ownership of Misplaced Pages content would be an "oversight"; I could easily assume so if, for example, no copyright attribution was mentioned and neither the GFDL nor Answers.com's ownership was mentioned within the license. Assuming good faith is one thing, but, considering that you have personally made assurances that these issues would be remedied months ago when these concerns were first aired there comes a point where one has to raise objection to such a use of Misplaced Pages content. Forgive me for saying so, but I cannot see that you would be accusing those who disagree with Answers.com's claim of copyright ownership relating to Misplaced Pages content of bad faith if prior relations, and indeed financial support, had not been forthcoming by Answers.com; regardless of whether Answers.com is indeed "one of the best friends that the Misplaced Pages community has" I see no reason that misattribution of copyright should be tolerated, nor indeed dismissed as mere "hostility" or assumption of bad faith. I am also yet to see any evidence that Answers.com is indeed "eager to do the right thing"; please remember that we have not had any personal dialogue with this organisation, and so we have no other means of determining the trustworthiness of their approach to using Misplaced Pages content other than the direct use that they apply to it. Regards, --NicholasTurnbull | (talk) 22:26, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi Mr. Wales!

Hello Mr.Wales! I just want to say hello to you. Have a nice day sir. Have A Nice Day 23:51, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Spoiler templates and other censoring

Hello, I've been all over Misplaced Pages the last few days trying to figure this out, and have asked it in a few of the related talk, but to no response. I am confused about Spoiler warnings in literature, tv, and movie articles. I understand that Misplaced Pages is not censored, and that templates that warn readers of things like pornographic material are inappropiate. So then why do we use spoiler warnings, as they perform the same function, just warning a different group of people. Besides the fact that the template is unsightly, it is a constant debate (as it would also be about a warning of prornography) about where to put the warning, what material can go outside the warning, or if the spoiler material should even have it's own article. I think that the Spoiler warnings should be taken down from all articles (of course, just my opinion). But if they aren't, I am curious to know how they can stay up and templates such as this one will be taken down. Thank you for your time, and have a good night (or day, depending on where in the world you are). --Chuck 06:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

• The first thing I was going to say was that it's simply uncontroversial. You are the first person I've seen who is against spoiler warnings, they are so obviously necessary. This is because whether or not something i pornography is a subjective judgement, while whether or not something is a spoiler is a purely objective and factual judgement, and therefore unlikely to be controversial. There may be other good reasons. Loom91 07:38, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• He's not the only person who thinks spoiler warnings are inappropriate for an encyclopedia. If people come to Misplaced Pages to read about a book, TV program or film, they shouldn't be surprised to find a discussion of the plot. If they're squeamish about discussion of plot detail, they probably shouldn't be reading such articles in the first place. --Tony Sidaway 10:33, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• I should say they're the most unsightliest things any fellow came near. If a person wanders to wikipedia to partake of information pertaining to a subject, there should be nothing odd about learning of in-depth summeries. On most occassion, I remove spoiler tags upon sight. -Zero 10:45, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• I think logical consistency in the area of "warnings" is a hopeless task. There are too many people with too many opinions. My take is that a wrapper around WP that censors topics/sections of a user's choice is the only way forward. There are a few possible business models that might just work, so I hope this will happen one day. Pcb21 Pete 11:13, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• Spoiler templates a very useful. They give the user a choice whether they want to read about the plot/ending or not. They may be looking for that, but they may be looking for information about the author/subject without wanting to know the ending. Misplaced Pages is not the only reference site on the net but it is many people's reference of choice and is (one of) the first google hits for many books/films/etc. The last debate I was involved in about warning templates was a clear consensus that spoiler templates should be used but no others should be. I can't remember off the top of my head where the debate was though, but I'll add a link when I remember/find it. Thryduulf 11:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Your defence is that people may come to see the plot details, but then they also might not. I understand that. But I also understand that someone might want to view information about, say, the governments involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison controversy, without seeing all of the pictures accompanied by it. However, a warning about those pictures (which by the way there can be no controversy about that they are pictures of torture and abuse) was not allowed. When searching for "Abu Ghraib" on Google, Misplaced Pages's "Abu Ghraib torture and Prisoner Abuse" article is the third result listed. A seperate version of that article, without pictures, was also not allowed. You say, "...a clear consensus that spoiler templates should be used but no others should be.". Well that's not very good policy. There is no difference between warning people about pictures in order to skip over them, and warning people that plot endings follow. I have heard so many times that Misplaced Pages is not censored, but clearly spoilers are censorship. That's why I brought this up on Jimbo's page. I ask you, Jimbo, to put down a ruling on this (preferably to get rid of them) and not leave the matter up for debate, scattered over more than 5 talk pages, where no one can make sense of any community consensus. Thanks, Chuck 12:26, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• • • I'd also be interested to see the debate that a clear consensus for "censor spoilers only, and not other things". Seems really odd and unlikely to me! Pcb21 Pete 12:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

• If someone goes looking for a page on Ghandi, they should expect to find out everything about his life. In a similar vein, should someone go looking for Dumbledore, getting bent out of shape that someone put how he died is ridiculous. This isn't a fandom encyclopedia, it is an encyclopedia. If you go looking and you find something, don't get pissy because you don't like what you find. I say that there should be a movement to have Spoiler Tags removed from the pages they mar. I hate them and it is nice to see I am not alone. Vaguely 14:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the picture!

Thank you for posting a link to the pic of my shirt! Your talk at UF was really wonderful and wholly inspiring. I'm going to tackle Wikibooks with a renewed vitality. Keep up the amazing work, Mr. Wales! -Asarkees 06:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The issue of accountability, power, and the community's role

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, Jimbo, and I'm going to put my neck on the line and say what I think about it. To be blunt, I don't think you need to be running things here on the site itself; whether you're involved technically, financially or with the media is another question. You are not responsive to concerns, requests, or appeals; whether this is due to a lack of time, apathy, or a combination of the two is ultimately inconsequential. The fact is, the guy at the top is identified as the one to go to for the resolution of a variety of matters, yet he is not actually there to resolve anything. This means nothing can actually be changed or fixed about these problems—if you choose to not respond, then that's the end of the story and there's nowhere else to go. You have no accountability; if you ignore people, or even abuse them, the community can do nothing about it. I've suggested before that you delegate your on-wiki role to other individuals who are able and willing to fulfill the role, but as usual you ignored me. Furthermore, you make decrees that have no basis in any kind of collective or democratically-oriented governance; there is no way for the community to influence these decrees if you choose not to listen to it, and there is no way to overturn these decrees no matter how unpopular they are. Everyone knows how hard it is to change policy and process here; what do you do when there isn't even a mechanism of process to affect a change in the first place? What do you do when the person with the ultimate authority cannot be made accountable and will not voluntarily make himself accountable?

What I'm getting at, Jimbo—and I am not trying to be uncivil, just completely honest, although there may be unavoidable overlap—is that for the sake of the entire project you need to change something about your leadership role. Why not let the community elect someone, or a small group of users, to fulfill your role? Failing this, you could at least appoint someone to do it. The community needs a representative at the top to be calm, neutral, and fair, to listen to people's concerns, engage in dialogue with them, to hear people's appeals regarding arbitration matters, and to give advice on questions of policy and practice. It needs someone who is active in talking and listening, but not active in doing—not active in "laying down the law", making decrees, etc. If such a representative is going to ever fulfill such a role, is ever going to issue final decisions, then there needs to be a check on that representative's authority—there should be a way to vote him or her in, or to vote him or her out. Or barring all this, we could simply do without someone serving your role altogether. Even that, I think, would be better than unresponsiveness punctuated by occasional harsh decrees and out of the blue measures. Everyking 06:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Just a quick note about this. You are an administrator and this post seems very immature. Jimbo's userpage doesn't say anything about people being an ass if they question an admin. Principle 8 doesn't say at all what you've said it does above. There are current procedures to implement change, and Jimbo does not need to go away. Is this post a joke? --Chuck 08:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Everyking, I don't understand what you say about principles 7 and 8. I can't see your interpretation of them. I have considerable sympathy with everything else you say above.-gadfium 08:26, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

They have been modified, and apparently the changes are out of the history as well. That's amazing. Well, it is possible the way it was written before was vandalism, I suppose I can give Jimbo the benefit of the doubt on that. If it stayed that way for a while, maybe a mirror caught it, otherwise they've got me looking pretty stupid. Everyking 09:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It must have been vandalism. It was extremely offensive and provocative before, whereas now it sounds quite reasonable. Well, I'll accordingly remove that portion of my criticism, then. Everyking 09:14, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Will the community elect an anonymous internet user or will the elected person have to show who they are in real life like Jimbo Wales has done--pictures, media appearances, something? What if we elect someone and they die in a car crash, or were a criminal and got sent to jail--and all we see is just someone stops responding--no way to phone them, no name for obituaries? At the very least we need an emergency contact like a family member should they vanish or their account gets taken over. DyslexicEditor 09:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be a good idea to have a higher standard of real world identification for someone filling that role. I'd be content with Jimbo being elected to such a position, if he was willing to step up and start filling the role he assigned for himself. The first and most important issue is having that degree of accountability and association with the actual community. Everyking 09:32, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It actually sounds like you want someone doing what Larry did. I imagine that person would get absolutely inundated with requests. Pcb21 Pete 09:39, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I think so too, but it could certainly be handled by multiple people. That might actually be better. Everyking 09:49, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This entire discussion will make a lot more sense if readers understand that Everyking was sanctioned by just such a group of multiple people, and that his appeal to me failed to gain him a reprieve. In my view, the process has worked perfectly in this case.--Jimbo Wales 10:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I was not aware that you had heard Everyking's appeal. From the comment immediately below this, it does not appear that Everyking believes that his appeal has been considered. I have no problem if you have considered his appeal, discussed it with him, and turned it down. If this is the case I think a clear statement of this would be helpful.-gadfium 21:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

What I was saying had little to do with arbitration. I did mention that I think someone in your role should actually respond to appeal requests and deal with them properly; in my case you accepted my appeal and then proceeded to ignore me completely. I think questionable cases should be reviewed seriously and some of them should be sent back to the ArbCom for reconsideration. In present practice, your availability to hear appeals is just a formality, a pretense to give people the idea that there is some means of seeking redress; I think you can acknowledge that. Everyking 10:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm delighted to see Jimbo weigh in. While not privy to the sanction/appeal issue noted here, I share some of Everyking's frustration. There seems to be a feeling that this site will run on autopilot with a few loosely elucidated philosophical principles to guide it, and that's a nice concept, but it's a recipe for endless conflict and division. I think Jimbo is a visionary and probably does an awesome job running the day-to-day business of the foundation behind Misplaced Pages, but the president of a foundation cannot assume all will go well without setting solid boundaries and policies for important issues such as Userboxes (which have been a particular interest of mine) or other supposed policies listed at WP:NOT. For example:

• Either this is a social networking site, or it isn't. Either we're here to argue over Userbox templates, or not. Some Userboxes are deleted and others are saved, or all Userboxes are deleted. Which is it? Without clear guidance, the bickering leads to confusion, mixed messages and anger over Admins' deletions.
• What about the issue of "voting"? This isn't a democracy, and we don't "vote," says WP:NOT. But look at the Separation of Church and State Userbox Template deletion review. It appears that it's going to "win" because supporters are "rallying" to its defense. I may or may not agree with the box, but it's clearly a divisive issue that will give rise to OPPOSING Userboxes. That, to me, is the true test of divisiveness. So if it "wins," will it be kept? The Template:User_Communist box has "won" challenges too, but the Template:User_Fascist box was speedy deleted. Communism isn't divisive, too? Why does the "popular" box get saved? Because this is a democracy and this is a stark illustration. I think it's time for a re-think about this site's policies - or at least its procedures - and it has to come from the top. Consensus works on the small scale when creating articles, but doesn't seem to work for Userboxes and other Template-related issues. Jimbo, please decide the proper role of the User in constructing this encyclopedia. Thanks! Nhprman 19:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Note: It looks like, for some reason, Prometheuspan's message was posted smack dab in the middle of mine. I separated the two again, to keep it readable. Nhprman 02:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

(about above)Poli-Sci note; Misplaced Pages is a beneficient Dictatorship with extremely strong Democratic Tendencies. It has multiple different and redundant methods for conflict resolution, based primarilly upon consensus, which is a Democratic Methodology.

(about below) Consensus process has its limitations, and, this is the good part about having a lucid beneficient dictator. If you are unhappy with an aspect of the process here, it seems like the way to go about resolving such issues is to make a lucid and strong and cogent analysis of the problem in the community setting. Consensus process tends to bog down with larger numbers of people and with more complicated issues. That doesn't mean it isn't working, just that it takes time and patience. Where Misplaced Pages will always run into the most problems for itself is catering to non-Encyclopedic aspects of social functioning. The obvious rational answer is, if something doesn't have an encyclopedic function, but rather, a social one, and is causing the community to spend time and stress, then maybe that feature isn't as useful as much as it is problematic. Put yourself in the Beneficient Dictators Shoes for a moment. Everybody is begging for Deus ex machina to come and fix their problem; But the Wise Beneficient Dictator Knows that the closer things approximate Democracy the better. The BEST thing that Jimbo can do in most cases is NOTHING. It doesn't mean that he isn't listening, or doesn't care. It may mean that he is busy. It also means that as Beneficient Dictators go, he is doing the best thing he can for us; Trying to let the wisdom of the many work its way through the problem. Prometheuspan 21:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This is an interesting vision, but a misguided and naive one. I disagree that Jimbo needs to 'do nothing' and let the mob continue to argue and 'vote' incessently in a freakish exercise in Direct Democracy (something that never works.) Jimbo needs to step up and speak out, not as a dictator but as the head of his foundation. Consensus-building is not working in a group of hundreds of thousands. It isn't simply "slow" at working, it just isn't capable of setting policy. I don't see consensus here, I see a model that's flawed, and it needs an update that can only come from its creator. Nhprman 02:47, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

p.s. Your message got garbled a bit below..

are his powers that some began calling him "the benevolent dictator." But Wales bristled at that tag. So his minions assigned him a different, though no less imposing, label. "Jimbo," says Misplaced Pages administrator Mark Pelle­grini, "is the God-King."

Sorry, I didn't know there was a...er...bristle. Prometheuspan 01:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

In response to Nhprman, Jimbo, you might want to check out Misplaced Pages:Proposed template and category usage policy. It basically reaffirms that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia and that templates and categories should be used only to that end. I know a fair number of users browse through Misplaced Pages looking for new things to find and read about using categories. The list of all categories is linked from the main page. How long are we going to wait and what percentage of those categories are going to be user categories before we say enough is enough? --Cyde Weys 19:30, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This was posted by a sysop?!? That's unbelievable! I assumed from the first line that this was someone with at most 10-20 edits. This is not to say I don't agree with the things said, but I can't see an admin actually making a post like that. In general the more experienced an editor is more he worships Jimbo (and don't take worship in necessarily a bad sense). This is just the sort of thing WikiCranks post. Anyway, as society is capitalist and Jimbo owns this, I can't see Jimbo not having a right to unilaterally change policies. The best we can hope for is that Jimbo chooses not to exercise this right. Loom91 07:50, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

It's funny that surprised you. Perhaps it will get you to think about things a little more. Everyking 08:36, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Server

Hello Jimbo. For about the last 25 minutes it seemed that the Wikimedia sites wouldn't work, and anything that came under this branch (Misplaced Pages, Wikia, Wikimedia Foundation, the wikis under Wikia, you name it) just came up with "The page cannot be displayed." Was this a server failure? The server might have refused to work long before I got up (10:50 UTC, I live in Perth, WA.) Just wanted to let you know about this--M Johnson (talk • contribs) 23:19, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I was unable to edit pages for about 25 minutes, when I pressed save button nothing happened. --GorillazFanAdam 23:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Prometheuspan 23:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC) me 3 Prometheuspan 23:24, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This is a regular occurance. The server info page says wikipedia has about 100 terabytes or so of storage space and that it has 85% data compression rate. DyslexicEditor 23:54, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(technical)#Network_problem may explain what happened. Usually, you should look or post at WP:VP/T for problems like these rather than bringing them to Jimbo's talk page.-gadfium 00:22, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Gadfium, I don't report them. I just assume that lots of people use wikipedia so it's busy, and don't bother with it. My reply was to the thread saying that server problems are regular. M Johnson brought the topic up; I didn't. DyslexicEditor 06:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Just visiting.....

Just visiting to see how you're doing Boss. Martial Law 01:31, 14 April 2006 (UTC) :)

Article about Misplaced Pages and the "Bogdanov affair"

Hi,

I have just published on my web site an article about the behavior of some administrators and of the Arbcom in the "revert war" concerning the article "Bogdanov Affair", in which all people who had tried to edit anything positive about them have been banned. Now the article has become terribly partial against the Bogdanovs, which is "normal" since it has been written only by their detractors. This article, which does not respect the NPOV, and which has been written without consensus between the editors, is the result of the choice of the Arbcom, who decided to keep only some editors who were the worse "anti-Bogdanov" ones, deciding in this way on the orientation of the article... I do not think this practice matches with Misplaced Pages's rules...

The title of my article is : "Wikipédia et l'affaire Bogdanov : "encyclopédie libre" ou dictature virtuelle ?", which means "Misplaced Pages and the Bogdanov affair : "💕" or virtual dictatorship ?".

Unhappily it is in french, it hasn't been translated in english yet (I am looking for someone who could do it). I hope you can understand it, one way or another. I summed up the problem in english on my user page : Laurence67.

Anyways I want to congratulate you on having the idea of creating Misplaced Pages : it is a great idea, and I was very enthusiastic about it when I discovered it. That's why I find it's a pity that people who are supposed to enforce its rules make such an abuse of power, to the extent that it has a detrimental effect on the content of an article... It would seem that Misplaced Pages is not better than the "real world" !

Best regards,

Laurence67

Severe abuse of administrator rights in Germany (Bwilcke)

Involved parties:

• User Bwilcke, that is me
• Misplaced Pages Administrator Henriette Fiebig
• Misplaced Pages Administrator GS
• Misplaced Pages Administrator Achim Raschka
• Misplaced Pages Administrator Markus Mueller

From March 10, 2006 through 24 (an unusual long period of time) I was blocked on the grounds that I allegedly, despite several warnings (no links given), repeatedly insulted other users by "Nazi insults" (two links) and were prone to conflict and disturbance from the beginning (one link). The request/reasoning for the blockage had been written by Administrator GS. I had allegedly insulted him and Henriette Fiebig.

March 5, 2005 I filed a Request for Mediation/Problem Bwilcke vs. GS to clear this allegations, which I found highly unjustified and insulting, with Administrator GS and a mediator. I numbered the sentences (1) – (4) of GS' request/reasoning, excluded (3) for another RFM (not concerning GS), and demanded deliverance of the links for the alleged "several warnings" regarding the alleged Nazi insults, to explain the alleged insult of him (GS) and to explain how the one and only link he set could account for my allegedly being "prone to conflict and disturbance from the beginning" (end of January), especially since I deleted this remark from the article discussion site exactly 1 minute later, accompanied by the explanation "error".

Furthermore, I asked for an explanation why I got no opportunity, as is required by the template for blockage requests, to defend myself/comment on the issue.

No mediator showed up and I got the advice to forget it.

Meanwhile every administrator seems to know that I added solid official documents and primary authors into the articles to which I contribute, which cannot be deleted but have the great disadvantage that they do by no means agree with the POV of the "majority", which GS likes to cite again and again, and especially Henriette Fiebig whose opinion can also be read in a "skeptical" journal, so that my suspicion is that she uses Misplaced Pages (in respect to the articles involved) as a platform to propagate her opinion or the journal respectively - – and her opinion alone by always trying to get me out. It seems nobody dares to help me, because she is in the managing board of Wikimedia Deutschland e.V., or nobody dares to mediate on the same reason, unless by taking her part and accusing me.

I repeated my request by saying it again in slightly altered form. A mediator showed up, talked about the content of the articles instead of the issue in this RFM (of course, accusing me of having the wrong opinion), and as I asked for someone "neutral enough" to mediate, he snapped at me and left.

I repeated my request a third time. Now GS answered, merely repeated some of the sentences criticized by me and declined to discuss the matter.

Finally I repeated my request a fourth time, and now I threatened to clear things with GS by a libel suit, as his request/reasoning was full of lies and insults. I set a time limit and advised to settle the matter in this RFM in good terms instead.

At once I was blocked out "unlimited" by Misplaced Pages Administrator Markus Mueller because of "threatening with legal action". As this action hindered me from participating in the discussion and thereby forced me to take legal action instead, Markus Mueller soon reverted the blockage, but limited my actions to "participate in the RFM".

Now there was a discussion at last. The discussion showed that GS' request/reasoning for blockage was founded on lies; and it showed not to be the culprit for my blockage but that Henriette Fiebig and Achim Raschka carried it out on March 10 without any procedure at all. GS gave evidence of that by hinting at the fact that Achim Raschka did not give a confirmation of action in his request/reasoning for blockage.

I filed a second RFM Bwilcke vs. Achim Raschka and Henriette Fiebig to learn why they did not follow any of the required procedures, thereby excluding my from defending myself or other comments, respectively; and second, to discuss my alleged insult.

I filed a third RFM Bwilcke vs. Markus Mueller regarding his blockage because of my "threatening with legal action" (libel suit). It is illegal to prevent someone from contributing to the open Misplaced Pages by denying his right to take legal action if necessary. Moreover, my threat was by no means unjustified, as without it I would not have had any success in discussing the libelous GS request/reasoning for blockage; and my threat did by no means concern trifles.

Very soon Henriette Fiebig and a "Berlin-Jurist" took action. Berlin-Jurist blocked me once and for all, Henriette Fiebig proposed "achiving" all of my RFM, and they cannot be found any more on the site of RMF, neither among the new RMFs nor among the old RMFs. They altogether have vanished completely.

I will not take that. I ask you to intervene.

-- Bwilcke 03:56, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Wiki software

Hey, Mr. Wales, I was wondering if I could ask you something. Do you mind if I ask you a question regarding a problem I am having with wiki on my wiki site? If so, please reply here (as it is on my website and I will more likely see it there) and I'll give more details. I thought you would be a good person to ask because I've searched everywhere for the solution to my problem and, well, you started this whole Encyclopedia Project (which I think is awsome).  :)

Thanks for any reply! --Galaxy001 05:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe that Jimbo is an expert in how the software works, and in any case he's a very busy person and unlikely to be the best person you can ask for help in such matters. I suggest you look at and select one of the methods of asking for help listed there.-gadfium 05:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Picture of Jimbo

I took and posted this photo of Jimmy Wales. He said he did not like the old picture and I volunteered to take and post a new one. BTW, he mentioned the picture in his talk today in San Francisco, while using it as an example of how anyone can edit any page, that he liked the new picture. So please don't revert it. It is not vandalism, and it really is Jimmy Wales, and I think it looks more like him than the old picture. -- Samuel Wantman 05:37, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Note that somebody had uploaded a picture of a completely different person over that picture for a while, which probably explains some of the earlier reverts. (I can't provide a link to the other picture because it's been deleted from the image's history.) –Tifego _{06:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)}

Note: If you suspect that the photo has been changed, click on this link to see the picture that should be displayed. If it is different from the image showing above, a bogus version of Jimmy's picture has been uploaded. An admin can restore the correct version, or you can re-upload the correct version to Image:Jimmy Wales.jpg. This is preferred to reverting to a different image file. -- Samuel Wantman 20:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

This page is now invalid - it returns a 404 error. --Quintin3265 20:25, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

1-Click Answers

I'm sorry to see this tank. I'm generally in support of anything that brings in cash so long as it doesn't damage the project. It's hard for me to read hostile comments from users -- some of whom pay nothing and have plenty mighty fine time here -- not only insisting that they continue to pay nothing but that nobody else should ever pay anything. Is profit evil?

I don't expect a personal response so I don't intend to watch this high-traffic page; if you do comment here, please flag on my talk. Thank you. John Reid 14:59, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be of the impression that merely because we don't pay anything means we shouldn't have a say in the project. That is entirely incorrect. A lot of us donate our time — hundreds upon hundreds of hours of our time — and that is worth a lot. The users complaining to Jimbo aren't the ones who read the encyclopedia a lot and don't really contribute — they are the users who are putting in lots of effort to make the encyclopedia better and really should have a say in things. --Cyde Weys 00:18, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

toolbox link

Shouldn't there be some type of community consensus as to whether its linked? --Urthogie 19:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Irpen (talk · contribs)

Regarding the behaviour of the Irpen (talk · contribs) he's been reverting all my edits of today on false accusations. Now this user is been provocking, taunting only. I request you to speak with him to calm him down. --Chisinau 20:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Whoever is reading this (I don't think Jimbo will be one of them but if so, even better), see this and this. --Irpen 20:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I still haven't seen any evidences. I saw only something else. What is the connection Irpen? I also saw how a a user like Irpen is reverting my edits. --Chisinau 20:33, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Chisinau indefinitely blocked as suspected sockpuppet of permbanned troll; see user:Bonaparte/sockpuppetry. `'mikka (t) 23:12, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Toolserver

Hello, I have started a discussion about the toolserver (Misplaced Pages:Toolserver), and our increasing reliance on it. I was told you might be interested in the discussion due to your interest in the categorization and maintenance/observation of Category:Living people which was facilitated by the toolserver. The discussion is just starting really, so if you want to and have time, I'm sure your thoughts would be appreciated. - cohesion 02:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Happy Easter

Comment/Suggestion

Misplaced Pages is probably the most profoundly impactful social experiment of the internet era we live in to date. Misplaced Pages, despite it's difficulties controlling bad content, is a fantastic research starting poitn and knowledge base. While one would be remiss to directly cite wikipedia as a source, the references in articles are superb. My kudos go out to Jim for creating something revolutionary, useful and exciting. I have a suggestion that may be worthwile, or may not- I leave that up to you.

What if over successive unreverted edits of a page, sections of text that don't change start building 'longevity points' and users who post unreverted changes build up a similar sort of counter. While edits to pages would still remain controlled by the existing rules, warnings could be sent when a low level user makes changes to long standing text. It would also be interesting to have two colorized versions of a page available- one which shows by color the amount of time text has stood unchanged (red is new, green or black is old), and another which shows the 'longevity rating' of the text (red is low, green or black is high).

That system or something similar could help weed out bad edits without restricting user mobility.

Again, thanks for everything! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.226.239.43 (talk • contribs)

Misplaced Pages isn't a social experiment, it's an encyclopedia. --Cyde Weys 22:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Besides that, it sounds like a good idea, but I would find it hard to believe it hasn't already been considered and discussed at length somewhere. And, this isn't really the right place for making Misplaced Pages proposals, try Misplaced Pages:Proposals. –Tifego _{05:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)}

Last I heard, User:Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason was working on something like this, that would give author and date of each piece of text. It's extremely nontrivial to do it efficiently. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 00:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Violations of GFDL?

Has the Wikimedia Foundation ever knowingly violated the GFDL?

You think they'll admit it if they did? Logical Step 02:52, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Norwegian impostor?

no:Bruker:Jimbo Wales -- Curps 02:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

... and there also is a nn:Brukar:Jimbo Wales. Until now, we have been somewhat sceptic as to whether it was an impostor, but if it is you, you are welcome, of course. In any case, we wish you a nice trip to Ålesund. Trondtr 18:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC).

220.130.153.208 (talk · contribs) added a +zh user link for you, which I have removed. I think if these were really you, you would have added the interwiki links yourself. Note that zh:User:Jimbo Wales announces he's "here to help with the vandalbot". -- Curps 02:51, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Broken linkage

I'm getting a 403 error trying to access http://blog.jimmywales.com/ (and, as it turns out, www.jimmywales.com). Server troubles? --horsedreamer 04:33, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

it is time

mr jimbo you are doing a terrific job.BUT i came here to say it is time to wikipedia to have a own search engine like google or yahoo this wont take us away from wikipedia to sites like google or yahoo then back to wikipedia with the exactly name we are looking for. i tell this because i came for non inglish speak country some words in inglish i dont spell very well.with a search engine like google or yahoo it can be much more helpful.thank you.user: Felisberto 13:30 17april2006 (UTC)

Nice to know that you enjoy reading Misplaced Pages! Unfortunately, writing a search engine is not something that can be done on some rainy Sunday, even without a hangover... Google actually uses millions of dollars on research, just to keep their engine up to date.

If you want to limit your google searches to Misplaced Pages, you can search using term site:wikipedia.org, or site:en.wikipedia.org to limit your search to the English Misplaced Pages. For example use site:en.wikipedia.org orange to search for "orange" in English Misplaced Pages. -- Heptor _talk 20:17, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

this is the main reason im against those people who are against supported ads in the wikipedia.we could use that money to develop

our encyclopedia .wikipedia is one of top sites in the world BUT the truth is:wikipedia is very primitive website doesnt have a own search engine we should go through many sites to get the information on wikipedia .i think is a SHAME of wikipedia like being in the age of stone when humans didnt discovered the fire yet.felisberto,18april2006(UTC)

We've gone over ads, and if we ever get them, I, for one, would expect to be paid, not to mention numerous other problems with ads. As for searching, there is a "Search" button on the sidebar, which rather sucks, but it's there. But do you want a search engine for Misplaced Pages? MediaWiki is open source! Write your own and submit it! —BorgHunter (talk) 12:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Why don't you expect to be paid a share of donations, then? I may be wrong, but I think that all the humans who work for Wikimedia (except possibly the lawyers) are volunteers, and nobody's proposing to change that. All money goes to pay for machines, and will continue to do so.

As for searching, it's not a matter of writing it, it's a matter of searching's inherent intractability. There are somewhat better search features than we have built in, but they're disabled (in particular, indexing is disabled) because of server strain. If Wikimedia had more money, they could buy more servers, and thus permit more server-intensive things such as searching. Nobody would get paid, it would just be buying more equipment. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 13:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

In my most humble opinion, having a search engine on Misplaced Pages is redundant and inefficient. Bibliomaniac15 kowtows to Jimbo Wales.

Bibliomaniac15 01:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Politics

I read somewhere once that America's founding fathers didn't want political parties and wrote the constitution in accordance with that hope. I have always wondered what they would have done different if they could have forseen the nature of future political parties in America. A very interseting article by a bright guy says:What Misplaced Pages has taught us now, is that in a vacuum of politics, politics will be created. There is no vacuum of politics. People who are encountering this space where they can not lord over others for technicalities and gain power for themselves will then proceed to invoke technicalities, take power from other people. They just do this. This is what human beings do." I have for a while now, thought the creation of political parties (factions) within wikipedia seemed inevitable. You are fighting factionalism, but suppose factionalism wins. Admins organized outside wikipedia space into contenting groups, each wishing the best for wikipedia, but each forced by the nature of political power realities and human nature to value loyalty to the group above and beyond any one specific choice. Creationists versus evolutionists, for example. A hundred such sincere conflicts is workable, but when favors are traded forming alliances (and how do you stop human from being humans and would you want to), the bigger alliance wins, so political parties become inevitable. I don't have an answer. Only questions. Anyway, back to finish reading the article. WAS 4.250 15:47, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Do you have any actual examples of creationists or evolutionists trading votes with people in order to accomplish something on Misplaced Pages? People are sometimes tactical, but not actually all that political, from what I've seen. JDoorjam Talk 16:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

There definitely is a pro-science cabal on Misplaced Pages. And I think that is a good thing ... pseudoscience and religious opinions on scientific matters really don't belong in an encyclopedia of knowledge. Yeah, we do cover creationism in its own article (because it is a notable movement), but we sure as hell don't modify the evolution article to reflect some manufactured controversy that isn't really there. --Cyde Weys 00:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

"pseudoscience and religious opinions on scientific matters really don't belong in an encyclopedia of knowledge." - I disagree. If they are noteworthy/widespread enough, all opinions on all matters belongs in an encyclopedia, regardless of their scientific validity or religiosity. What matters is noteworthiness; we even include archaic, disproven scientific theories that noone believes in anymore if they have enough historical significance, so obviously we don't forbid the inclusion of untrue beliefs. Where the vital distinction must be made, though, is that while we include beliefs that lack any evidence or support, we don't present them as being equally as valid and substantiated as scientific facts and theories: we should include erroneous or unverifiable beliefs on scientific topics in the exact same way we include popular culture references to scientific topics: as a secondary focus of discussion, and a sociological one.

"but we sure as hell don't modify the evolution article to reflect some manufactured controversy that isn't really there." - Actually, there really is a controversy, and a highly noteworthy one, regarding evolution, regardless of whether or not it's "manufactured". However, the controversy is a social and religious one, not a scientific one, and that is correctly reflected in the evolution article: rather than presenting Creationism as an "equally valid scientific theory" or some nonsense like that, it mentions such views as an after-the-fact, sociological item of interest, first describing the phenomenon itself. It's not that Misplaced Pages shouldn't deal with pseudoscience; it's that Misplaced Pages should deal with pseudoscience as pseudoscience, rather than dealing with pseudoscience as science. -Silence 08:30, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

• I agree, there can be no vaccuam of politics. It is a proven fact that human beings engage in politics over the smallest of stakes, and in this era of information, control (even limited) over the content of the world's most popular encyclopaedia is not a very low stake. Power games and string-pullings will take place regardless of whether we like it or not. We can only hope that the current or future mechanics of Misplaced Pages will channel those politics in such a manner as to keep wikipedia on its current goal, produce a free repository of all verifiable encyclpaedic knowledge. Loom91 08:45, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Dbachmann and clique

The case is at present handled by ther arbitration commitee. Misplaced Pages:Requests_for_arbitration#Dbachmann_and_clique

User:Dbachman and clique permanently vandalize pages thru redirection. Besides that, they add rassistic hate comments to pages. This is the arb com's opininon so far: Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (0/3/0/0)

• Reject as very premature. Though if there is evidence that Bgully is Antifinnugor, I'd like to see it so I can consider an extension of the ban. Dmcdevit·t 20:12, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
• Reject ➥the Epopt 07:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
• Reject as per Dom. James F. (talk) 08:43, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The arbitration committee seems to completely ignore, that dbachmann and clique vandalizes and eclatantly misuse administrator rights.

If you are unwilling or unable to intervene, and care for stopping vandalization and misuse of administrator rights, then I must summarize:

impact of such cliques to wikipedia

• articles are incorrect and contain dogmatic views of small (hate) cliques
• quality of articles gets worse, important facts remain unmentioned or get permanently vandalized as here
• donators and potentional donators hear the above practices, and stop donations

You can be sure, such cases will not remain secret of the wikipedia. Bgully 18:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Jeff Merkey

I recommend you email politely one Jeff Merkey and request he the insane stuff he is putting about you... This is definately lawsuit material http://www.merkeylaw.com/ or if it is gone this is what it was. http://www.gaiser.org/www.merkeylaw.com/ --Kebron 15:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)