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Privacy - Let's not publish the IP address of non-logged-in editors

In this 10 March 2015 thread the point was made that Wikimedia should not publish the IP address of every non-logged-in editor.

In this 23 March 2015 Wikimedia Foundation "office hours" irc discussion (focussed on the NSA and the privacy of our readers and editors), the point was raised again:

• <Dragonfly6-7>: actually, how does this apply to the NSA's (and everyone's) total access to our database of every edit made by an IP user?
• <lilatretikov>: Dragonfly6-7 You are right, we are thinking about how to mask that. It is on the radar to address. Not ETA yet.
• <Philippe>: (Lila, you mean the historical edits by IP, right?0
• <lilatretikov>: Dragonfly6-7 as it is a community related issue as well. You would need to concur.

Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:39, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Simply open an account with a non-descript user name, disclose no personal information, and your IP address will not be disclosed, and your privacy will be protected. Problem solved. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:50, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Ugh. I forgot to sign in. Would a watching admin or OS (or whoever does this kind of thing) please make my IP address disappear from the history of this page? Cheers. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:03, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Without the IP address, how would we know who was responsible for what edit? It would give the vandals a field day... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:09, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

As I suggested in the linked thread, the IP address should be replaced by a unique identifier (unique to that IP address). Checkusers would be able to see IP address. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:36, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

One possibility is a cryptographic hash function.—Wavelength (talk) 05:44, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

An obvious consequence of that would be that it would be impossible to detect the most common form of IP-swapping (where only the last part of the IP changes) without having to request checkuser. Again, facilitating vandalism. There is also the fact that we require a public means of identifying the source of edits to satisfy copyright requirements. It is arguable whether IP alone actually does this, even now - making it entirely impossible to identify the source of unregistered edits would make a nonsense of the claim that anonymous contributors hold the copyright to their posts, since they would have no way whatsoever to prove that they made them. Frankly, I think that this thread is a classic case of missing the point: if the NSA wants to find out the IP's of anonymous contributors, it has the means to do so regardless of what is publicly visible - all hiding the IP will do is give a false sense of security. A more responsible course of action would be for the WMF to make it clear that regardless of what individual websites do, any action carried out by anyone via the internet is vulnerable to interception - both legal and illegal - and that contributors need to consider the potential consequences of posting accordingly. We aren't going to foil the spooks by hiding data they can easily obtain anyway, and we shouldn't be implying that we can. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:54, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

• We need more transparency and accountability in editing, not less. Cloaking IP addresses would be a big step backwards. Carrite (talk) 06:29, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm surprised people are still making that argument after Eggers destroyed it in The Circle, a fictional work that shows how in the very name of transparency and accountability, a society transforms itself into a totalitarian state. Cloaking IP addresses is a huge step forward. You don't need to see an IP or a real name to know who is shilling what and pushing a POV. Viriditas (talk) 08:30, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

The practical argument I make about the real world of Misplaced Pages hasn't been "destroyed" by an obscure piece of antiutopian fiction. It seems goofy for me to even have to say as much. Carrite (talk) 17:10, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I see the merits in both arguments, and so it makes me wonder if there isn't possibly a "third way" that solves all the problems. First let me lay out the two main principles that I think we all agree upon, the problem being that the principles are "in tension" with each other:

1. Improving user privacy by hiding IP addresses would be beneficial, particularly since geolocation is easy and good these days and an ip reveals.
2. but ip addresses provide a crucial form of minimal pseudo-identity that we find, as a practical matter, very useful - we'd like to not use that.

Key to that second point is that it is (moderately) hard to change one's ip address, and often the only means to change leaves one with a "nearby" ip address: x.x.x.123 becomes x.x.x.214 for example, which is enough to give us key information that we find useful

Some potential "middle ground" solutions:

1. Is there a way to "hash" the IPs that preserves the property of "closeness"? I think it deserves some thought. For example, we could hash the first 3 numbers and leave the last digit in the clear. This would give significant locational privacy (since just the last digit is pretty useless for identifying someone) while still preserving what I think is the core value.
2. Should we change the user flow at logged-out-editing to more firmly encourage logging in? This would require the Foundation to do some A/B testing, but I would imagine that if done well, it could increase overall retention rate, etc. (At Wikia, experience across wikis with different policies suggests that forcing login has beneficial effects.)

My overall point here is that I think we all agree on the goals: privacy good, identifying bad actors good. So "hide IP" or "not hide IP" may be too narrow a way to look at the question - perhaps we can (imperfectly) improve both.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:04, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I am not aware of any cryptographic hash function that can't be cracked. Hiding IPs may inconvenience us considerably without ensuring privacy. Jehochman 10:25, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

At the risk of lapsing into hyperbole, "Internet privacy" is an oxymoron. The structure of the Internet makes privacy effectively unachievable. Sure we could replace the display of an IP address with a generated hash. We could even replace each IP address with a random account name (so all edits from 83.12.156.32 appear as "Guest Editor Number 12345678") so that we maintain the link between one IP and all its edits but let's not kid ourselves that this ensures privacy. QuiteUnusual (talk) 10:55, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you are both making a common error - perfect privacy isn't possible, but improvements in privacy are very much possible. No encryption is truly "uncrackable" of course - but it can be good enough to deter virtually every reasonably likely attack vector, no? QuiteUnusual's is one example of something that could only be cracked by stealing our database - that's very possible, even our database of encrypted passwords could be stolen - but it's a hell of a lot better than publishing ip addresses in the clear.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:03, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't deny we can make it better, which is why I gave an example, but what I really meant was we cannot guarantee anybody's privacy (and therefore shouldn't pretend we can) because privacy on the Internet requires significant effort from the individual to avoid technical and behavioural pitfalls and even then is still vulnerable. This includes the obvious like avoiding social engineering (phising, spearphising, etc.), malware of all kinds, server side attacks (e.g., man-in-the-middle) but also the less obvious but equally exploitable. These exploits may require government level skills and funding, but tracking an individual down is not overly taxing. People use the same username on multiple sites; they write the same text in different places (e.g., on Twitter, on another forum, on a blog). Even for you and me with Google it is often dead easy to link an IP editor here to content elsewhere on the Internet because of the reuse of common phrases. Identifying these patterns is a trivial activity for anybody with a big data analytics capability. In combination, the technical and behavioural challenges of avoiding being traced are huge. QuiteUnusual (talk) 16:35, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I was once involved in a long-standing dispute that was rekindled by an IP (I forget the topic), and the IP pursued the issue vigorously at an admin noticeboard. One of the issues must have been related to whether the IP was a good-faith editor or a sock of one of the many topic-banned users. The IP was undone when another IP posted an explanation that the first IP was from a VPN service that hid the location of the user, and the second IP posted various links to confirm their statement. In other words, it was the fact that the first IP's address was visible on a noticeboard which allowed someone in-the-know to reveal that the user behind the IP was paying to use a VPN service to hide their location, when that user claimed to be a good-faith user from the location shown by geo-locating the IP, and not a sock of a banned user known to be from another continent. Johnuniq (talk) 11:08, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

This one is a bit tougher than it looks. Certainly User:AndyTheGrump's argument about false security from the NSA is wrong, because that would imply we ought to post IP addresses of logged-in users. It should be clear that we want to allow the logged-in user a measure of privacy, and it is at least conceivable we could give the NSA a headache with sufficiently well-padded encrypted code (though if they don't have instant backdoor access I'd be stunned). More to the point, there's the issue that the NSA and friends continue to pretend they're never really going to use its database to harass, prosecute or otherwise attack random civilians in friendly countries, which hampers at least any short-term use of the data against editors. By contrast, the random MPs, cops, corrections officers, and corporate employees who get caught up in teapot tempests over their silly editing... they're not facing the NSA, but some usually internal investigative process. Then there are people like some Kashmir/Jammu editors who saw a TV broadcast that Syed Ali Shah Geelani was dead, indicated that on Misplaced Pages, and then were threatened with some kind of consequence, not necessarily "legal" in nature, for doing so. The NSA wouldn't have given them that data, but there might be local spies of some sort who would do as much.

What deeply bothers me about "hashing" IP addresses is that it reifies absolute core bedrock principles of the surveillance society, namely (1) Thou Shalt Never Actually Make It Harder To Track Somebody, and (2) Only The Elite Shall Be Allowed To Do The Spying. It's clear that a lot of NSA wannabes take great pleasure going through Misplaced Pages IP edits and trying to embarrass some entity they can be linked with. It's hard not to feel like it's a bad thing, but is purifying the monopoly, making it clearer to ordinary people that spying is always done to you, never by you ... is that really something we should welcome?

On the other hand, we really don't want our editors harmed, and they ought to have more control over privacy.

A truer, fairer way to do this is not merely to "hash" the IP data, but to find a pair of big iron cojones and actually delete a portion of the IP data outright. I understand the administrative arguments for keeping track, but ... IPs can jump from one address to the other anyway. The last part of the address can change readily. So would it really hurt vandal-fighting operations that much if we never recorded what the last number was, and chopped out a few bits from the first three numbers, until the address on record was the same for a few tens of thousands of possible computers? We'd have to abandon the use of individual IP blocks, of course; we'd need to have more people checking potentially bad edits from known problematic shortened-IPs instead. My feeling is that the vandal fighters nowadays are vastly more efficient than in the past and that this wouldn't be beyond their capabilities. Also, the IP data would have to be shortened on every single record kept on every single machine - even one notation of the full IP and governments would be parading through your offices threatening to take all your records unless you give them total access without making them ask for a warrant.

But if we don't do that, I'm having a hard time seeing clear to accepting a proposal that would set up yet another difference in power between the People In Charge and the Mere Editors on Misplaced Pages. Not just because the NYPD is embarrassed, or whoever it is. We keep seeing this gap growing between the information haves and have-nots, between the people who are supposed to discuss and decide everything in private and the people who just see gray lines in the edit history. That's a cancer that already seems out of control. Wnt (talk) 12:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

• The more basic solution is simply to make registration mandatory, as I am not sure if masking the only means of identification we have for non logged-in users would satisfy the licensing requirements. Honestly though, if you care about your privacy in that regard, register an account. Resolute 14:12, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Anyone who edits while logged out sees MediaWiki:Anoneditwarning, which looks like this:

You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to a user name, among other benefits.

This also - correctly - advises a person to create a named user account if they consider this to be a problem. I think that the current system is broadly OK, as governments already have all the tools they need to monitor a person's use of the web.--♦IanMacM♦ 14:17, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

That's a start. Here's my preferred wording... "You are not logged in... Would you like to start editing Misplaced Pages? It's easy to register an account at the following link..." Carrite (talk) 17:16, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

• I don't see how IP has anything to do with "licensing requirements". Attribution to an IP isn't much of an attribution, and the CC wording allows for any degree of anonymity. What's the difference between saying "since you didn't specify a username your edit will be attributed to " and "since you didn't specify a username your edit will be attributed to "? Wnt (talk) 17:56, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

The difference is that it doesn't identify you with anything that can be externally connected with anything at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:01, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

What's the difference between connecting a user with a shared IP that might be anybody at the cable company and connecting him with a shared shortened-IP that might be anybody at a number of cable companies? You sound as if you forget the CC license is supposed to be protecting the writer - it doesn't actually have provisions written into it demanding that someone looking to subpoena or prosecute him be able to do it, when nobody else can. Wnt (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

The CC license is there to protect the copyright of the contributor - it has precisely nothing to do with protecting their identity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:27, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. Which means it has nothing to do with exposing it. Wnt (talk) 11:44, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

There are some situations where knowing anonymous editor's IP addresses are a clear benefit to protecting Misplaced Pages. Tracking abusive behavior by IP-hopping anonymous editors is commonplace - not just in situations where the IP addresses are similar, but where very different IP addresses can be associated with the same local ISP or geolocated to identical places. There are also situations where clear COI edits have been identified because, for example, a company's IP address was used to whitewash the company's Misplaced Pages page or where Senate Office IPs were used to make edits to senators' biographies. We offer anonymity/privacy for those who wish to make use of it by registering for an account. It's there for those who want it, so why go out of our way, and to our detriment, to impose it on those who don't care? Deli nk (talk) 19:46, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

If an IP address was masked in the public logs, it would become difficult to track routine IP vandalism without a checkuser request. It is important to keep track of which IP address made which edit. The only other option would be to make registration compulsory, which is a separate debate.--♦IanMacM♦ 05:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@Ianmacm: Do you think it would be much harder for you to track an IP doing routine vandalism if we removed the last number of the IP and, say, the 5th and 8th bits of each of the first three numbers? (i.e. logical OR with 9.9.9.255) Wnt (talk) 12:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

It depends, as some of the suggestions here would make it hard to track IP vandals. I still believe that the current system is workable, as anyone concerned about privacy can and should register an account.--♦IanMacM♦ 13:35, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

If the publication of IP addresses is really all so scary, the fix is obvious: make it so everyone must register an account. Of course, many or most of the casual vandals wouldn't bother to do that and would go away... Carrite (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is very unusual in allowing non-logged in edits. The vast majority of newspaper comment sections, forums etc require a user account to be created, which takes only a few seconds.--♦IanMacM♦ 16:34, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Schools are responsible for a lot of our vandalism, and after a certain point they often receive long blocks. We can only identify schools through their IP addresses. We are forbidden to block certain IP addresses, at least not without notifying the WMF, because they fall into certain sensitive categories, eg government, the Foundation, etc. Dougweller (talk) 16:40, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful responses, Jimmy. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:50, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Requiring people to log in may be a viable discussion, but I'd like to put a damper on the hash proposals. There's a poor cost / genuine_benefit relationship if there's a real risk of some motivated geek to single-handledly break the system, offering a public the hash->IP converter. A large hash-salt would be difficult to brute force break, but there's no need to brute force attack the back door when the front door is wide open. The Misplaced Pages server itself allows for an Oracle attack by converting IP addresses into hashes, letting you build a hash->IP dictionary. We would most likely be hashing only the first three bytes of the address (so we can follow an IP hopping 123.45.67.XXX addresses). Hashing a three byte value only gives you 16 million possible hash results. However I'd bet that over 90% of our edits come from less than a hundred thousand internet address blocks. Compiling modest size hash dictionary would obliterate any hash protection. Alsee (talk) 16:49, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Regarding Wifione ArbCom case

Three years ago I noticed this thread on your talk page and I wrote: "...this issue should be properly investigated/clarified." Later, I notified you and others watching this page repeatedly about my concerns regarding Wifione's editing, but I was largely ignored. Now I'm letting you know that the case has come to an end, see this. There is a good off-site summary and broader context described in the current issue of the Newsweek magazine. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 07:02, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

I consider this one of the worst (slowest) failures to tackle a problematic editor that we've seen yet. It's good that we reached this conclusion in the end, but the question that should give us a sense of desire for change is: why did it take so long?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

No one cared, and I would also say that Wikipedians hesitate to 'take to court' a kind, polite and respected member of the community who has many friends. User:Tinucherian, a WP administrator from India, responded to my questions regarding Wifione in March 2012: "I did also inform some of the members of Arb Com. They feel that there is no credible evidence as such." Well, I presented more evidence at Misplaced Pages:Editor review/Wifione but the case went to ArbCom only after I repeatedly attacked Wifione and s/he complained at ANI. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 12:39, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

So you've raised two points. (1) No one cared. (2) " Wikipedians hesitate to 'take to court' a kind, polite and respected member of the community who has many friends" I think both points are valid but the first one is incomplete. I'm interested in the question of *why* "No one cared". Overall, it isn't true - lots of people care a lot about manipulation and COI editing. So I'm curious why no one cared *enough* and *in this particular case*.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:01, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, Vej resigned as a sysop out of disgust at not being able to get this addressed. (Thankfully he has been willing to pick up the tools again, after the case. Not all would have). At the start of the arbitration case there was a chilling atmosphere towards those seeking to provide evidence against Wifione. Only as the evidence was presented, and it started to become obvious that there was a mountain of compelling evidence, did this attitude start to shift. Several of those presenting evidence openly told others that they were afraid to present evidence in case they were sanctioned. They should have had no reason to fear, since they were helping to expose malfeasance, but the culture here is not welcoming to "whistle-blowers". Not at all. Begoon  14:23, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@Begoon: Agree that the issue lingered for years without action, mostly because there are too few editors and hardly anyone cared about an article on an obscure Indian college. Agree that Wifione's polite manner got them a long way. Also agree that the 2014-15 Arbcom case rested very strongly on Vejvančický's evidence and would never have succeeded without it. But disagree re any chilling atmosphere in this most recent case? There was opposition to unbanning Peter Damian so he could directly take part in the case. There was opposition to outsourcing the /Evidence page to an external website. But that's it, at least from my perspective. I've also not followed Wifione much longer than the last few months, but I don't feel there was any reason for anyone involved in this case to fear they would be sanctioned for presenting valid evidence. And as it turned out, nobody was sanctioned for this or any similar reason. I appreciate the point about Arbcom procedures being long and messy, and maybe they need reform. But not seeing why there's a "fear of reprisal," and would welcome evidence that this fear has any practical basis (plus suggestions on what to do about it if proven). -- Euryalus (talk) 07:20, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm speaking from my own personal experience of how the case unfolded. You are correct that nobody was sanctioned for giving evidence, but that was certainly a fear I heard from people considering participation at the time. It would be difficult to deny that Arbcom has a reputation for "sanctions all round" solutions, deserved or otherwise, and this makes people nervous. Read the first 3 sections on the case page at Misplaced Pages talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Wifione/Evidence. The atmosphere is clear - people seeing big, scary templates about possible sanctions, confusion about what is permitted. I'm not a lone voice here - there are several comments broadly agreeing with me below. Now, I've already said that this atmosphere improved once the massive amount of compelling evidence started to be examined, and I've said elsewhere that I was heartened overall by the case and the result. This is true, but you need to consider that fears like these can prevent cases from ever being brought. I can't give concrete evidence of a "fear of reprisal" other than reporting it exists, and that I have experienced it first hand, and asking you to read other comments on this page. What to do? Well, a less "officious" environment around Arbitration could help. The guys at DR strike a good line. Maybe a group of editors available to help those wishing to bring cases to tiptoe through the minefield is an idea? Maybe others have better ideas? Begoon  10:44, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

It occured to me you might like an example of unnecessary, discouraging officiousness at Arbcom cases. Ok, here's one. I recently made a very brief, hopefully helpful, uninvolved comment at a request for arbitration. As a consequence, I was added, as a party, to not one, but two arbitration cases, received 4 talkpage messages and pings, and had to post to 2 separate case talkpages to have myself removed from 2 cases I was never a part of. All my "reward" for offering a helpful, brief comment, in passing. There are perhaps between a dozen and 2 dozen people in the same position. This could all have been avoided by the 2 cases being properly considered and drafted before posting, instead of a hurried, ill-considered copy/paste to be "fixed later". Please ask yourself if that kind of thing encourages or discourages participation. Begoon  15:39, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Begoon: Can't argue with that. --Euryalus (talk) 08:16, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I should also mention that I do appreciate the good humour and efficiency which you personally brought to removing the incorrectly added parties. It was a breath of fresh air, and, quite honestly, just a lot more of that approach from the Arbs and clerks involved on those pages would be a huge help, in my opinion. Begoon  16:53, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree with the sentiments above. Fear of retaliation is a common problem when dealing with admins on Misplaced Pages because there are no checks and balances against admins. This case shows it as others have. It's the admins word against everyone else and the admin is given a 10 to 1 offset automatically. The Arbcom purposefully makes the process of addressing admin problems so complex, so long and so burdeonsome that most just leave the project in frustration rather than deal with it. Problems take years to address if they ever are at all. If anyone thinks Wifione is the only problematic admin...or the worst, they are kidding themselves. Administrative oversite of the admins is a very much needed thing in this project and the Arbcom has shown time and time again that they are both unwilling to do it and don't have the skills to do it. There needs to be a higher level of authority, preferably at the WMF, that gives editors a chance for review and allows admins actions to be reviewed and dealt with outside the protected class status they have on the projects. Unfortunately, just like this case wasn't taken seriously for years, the overarching problem with the admin culture and us and them mentality will also not be taken seriously I fear regardless of how much damage it does to the project with editor retention and the longterm success of the project. Not as long as editors have no voice and admins are allowed "broadly construed" discretionary ability to do whatever they want. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 14:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@Jimbo: It was a sophisticated work what Wifione has done for years and I guess that the opaque 'jungle' surrounding his activities on Misplaced Pages + complicated context of the topic (higher education in India) have discouraged most of editors from doing a detailed research or review the extensive researches made by others. People edit Misplaced Pages for free and few of them are interested in spending their time on investigating complicated cases of manipulation in areas completely unknown to them. That might be an explanation of 'why no one cared *enough*'. As for your 'why *in this particular case*' - I would say that it was partly because by his friendly and cordial attitude and socializing skills Wifione managed to persuade many of the core community members that his intentions are honest. Wikipedians act often more like members of a group of friends rather than independent editors-encyclopedists. Wifione knew that perfectly and found an ellegant way of how to get to the 'club', in my opinion .... and while I'm thinking about the Indian families potentially misled by Misplaced Pages and about the inability of this big open project to defend itself against sophisticated attempts to 'game the system', some other editors mourn Wifione's fall on his talk page. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 15:46, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@Begoon:: I would say that good and honest people should follow their own conscience and ethical standards without being afraid of sanctions imposed by a 'culture' of an anonymous online environment. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 15:46, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, they should, and in this case you and others did. My concern is equally for the occasions we may never discover, where a user has concerns, expresses them, gets a lukewarm or discouraging response, looks at the stress and effort that would be involved in an Arbcom case, and says, basically, "meh - screw that. I've led them to the water - not my fault they won't drink it". If the culture doesn't encourage people to express concerns, and help them through the barbed wire and minefields, we lose valuable input, and people, and serious problems go unaddressed.Begoon  16:06, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

• Any honest discussion of why it took so long to deal with Wifione, and why a chilling effect exists in examining conflicts of interest, needs to start with the one previous ArbCom case that dealt with the issue. The message from that case could not have been clearer, at least to me. It's not surprising that Wifione thought he could beat the rap by being unctuously polite and by casting himself as a victim of unjust persecution and WP:OUTING, because that exact strategy worked brilliantly for the COI accounts in the previous case. (One of the Arbs even compared the COI accounts to Martin Luther King, Jr., which left me literally speechless).

  The Newsweek article on Wifione is pretty well-done; the quotes from Jayen466 were extremely fair and provided good context. Frankly, if someone wrote up the Transcendental Meditation COI issue, we'd come out looking equally bad or even worse, but that's another story. The bottom line is that the chilling effect is very real, from my perspective as an admin, and it comes from the message sent by ArbCom in its handling of the TM COI case. Vejvančický deserves a huge debt of gratitude (and frankly, so do some of the people who put this material together on Wikipediocracy) for tackling this issue despite the confusing and downright counterproductive direction that the community's leadership has taken in previous COI cases. MastCell  16:35, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Correction: I found the MLK comparison, here, and it was not related to the TM editors. Rather, an Arb compared Newt Gingrich's PR man to Martin Luther King, Jr. I stand corrected, although no less appalled. MastCell  17:19, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

• I suppose the burning question, MastCell has to be: If someone declares a possible COI, does this mean that their colleagues, friends and/or family can then be contacted by anyone who has decides to investigate them?  Roger Davies 06:35, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• And MastCell, if someone campaigns against certain ideas in their real life occupation or activities, does this give them just as much of a COI as the editors they try to get sanctioned for operating on the contrary side of the topic as them in WP, especially if they are an admin? Cla68 (talk) 07:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

• No, Roger, the burning question is how to balance "outing" and harassment concerns with the need to protect the project's integrity against obvious COI-driven editing. In the TimidGuy case, ArbCom tackled the first part of the equation, but did worse-than-nothing about the second. Suppose I stipulate that WillBeback was a horrible person who deserved to be cast into Outer Darkness. OK, done. That still leaves the question of how to deal with a group of editors with an obvious COI, who engage in inappropriate block-voting against perceived opponents, and who consistently use Misplaced Pages to sell their product by hyping its purported medical benefits. Again, ArbCom completely ignored that concern, and implicitly validated and supported the actions of these accounts, which was seriously demoralizing to those of us who care about COI editing and about the quality and accuracy of our medical coverage.

  The case also explicitly wrote into law that "outing" and harassment concerns took absolute priority over any potential COI issues. The decision left us with a very tough needle to thread, since under these terms virtually any mention of a potential COI could be interpreted as a form of "outing" or harassment, at the whim of ArbCom. It would have been simple enough in the case to terminate WillBeback with extreme prejudice but also to insist that the COI accounts adhere to our basic best practices (for instance, avoiding article edits). By completely punting on that question; by implicitly endorsing the editing of the COI accounts; and by creating an expansive standard for sanctioning COI concerns as a form of "harassment", the TimidGuy decision did a lot to create the chilling effect that people have cited here as a factor in our response to Wifione. If that can't be acknowledged, then I don't see things going a lot differently the next time around. MastCell  19:23, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

• Re: "I consider this one of the worst (slowest) failures to tackle a problematic editor that we've seen yet. It's good that we reached this conclusion in the end, but the question that should give us a sense of desire for change is: why did it take so long?" — I suppose the facile answer is that too many people are obsessed with potty language or copyright violations or having fun fighting with "enemies" about topical topics in order to spin a "win," and not enough are doing the hard, boring work of verification and improvement. There are insufficient boots on the ground to adequately police content of everything or really much of anything... In addition, Wifione was — nice. Carrite (talk) 18:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

@ Jimmy Wales. You might also consider ending the ban you've imposed on JN466 from posting on this page. It's hard to hear with fingers in the ears, I have found, and this page is as close as anything Misplaced Pages has to being a WP version of Wikipediocracy. He can say his piece here or there (or as a contributor to Signpost) but it seems like banning him from this place is counterproductive to WP's ultimate best interests. Carrite (talk) 19:03, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Banning is always a way to silence criticism one doesn't want to hear. A couple of editors have been banned form editing, costing the project countless edits, merely because the message was a threat to those in power here on Misplaced Pages. Personally, I really don't feel like Jimbo cares nor do I think he is willing to do anything about this problem so commenting here merely makes us feel better and that we have tried to do our due diligence, but doesn't really do anything to fix the problem. Those that are the problem, got that way, because of the tendency for the community, admins, Arbcom, Jimbo and the WMF to look the other way and pretend they don't see what's going on and anyone who brings it up is banned, blocked, accused of something or other to discredit them or otherwise bullied into place. I could personally name half a dozen admins right off the top of my head (including at least one on the Arbcom) that the project would be better off not being admins and a list three times longer of editors who are a net negative. Stating them openly would lead to a block as a personal attack and not listing them leads to insinuations of "Proove it with links" whereby, once provided, accusations of personal attacks are made and the cycle continues. This is largely due to the lack of oversight of the project, the failure of those in leadership positions to do the right thing and a general attitude, as stated above, of not caring. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 19:35, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

According to a quote in the Newsweek article, "Admins have a huge advantage in Misplaced Pages....The default assumption is that they are ‘good guys.’” Invariably, the best advice for honest and talented people who are thinking about editing Misplaced Pages is this: "Don't touch anything remotely controversial until you've become an administrator."Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:58, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Queries

1. Was the any discussion of Misplaced Pages Zero (the appropriateness, use of resources, et. al.) on English Misplaced Pages before roll out?
2. Are article talk pages accessible using the mobile interface? NE Ent 01:57, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Why no one cared

You say:

I'm interested in the question of *why* "No one cared". Overall, it isn't true - lots of people care a lot about manipulation and COI editing. So I'm curious why no one cared *enough* and *in this particular case*.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:01, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you could answer this. I emailed you on 3 December 2013 with a link to this article (which I co-authored). I received no reply. I emailed again on 6 December pointing out the administrators slurs against Mahesh Peri (who I interviewed for the article) were unforgiveable, as was the article he created on Ashok Kumar Chauhan, with the sole purpose of slandering him. I copied the Arbitration Committee, not one reply. I asked an arbitrator later about it, who said “That's not something I'm going to be worrying about I'm afraid, it's not an area that I feel a lot of passion about”. He pointed out that he had won a prize of £25 in the "core content competition", and had also received free Misplaced Pages T-shirts. “Are these problematic? At what point do you draw the line?”. That, and your failure to act, speak volumes. 81.147.132.55 (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Oh pardon me, you did mention it later (email of 14 December) when I asked you to comment again. You chided me for "keep company with other dishonest trolls rather than being respected and appreciated by good people", and accused me of being intellectually dishonest, and as for the Wifione case "It is not generally reasonable to assume that someone not commenting on something is an approval of it, particularly when no one has actually inquired about it in any normal venue." Ha 81.147.132.55 (talk) 19:07, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course you are expressing concern right now, but that is because it has reached Newsweek, I suspect. But you failed to act in December 2013 because it was not an issue in the mainstream media, and because the offender was a highly placed, well-liked and well-respected administrator, who it was not in your interest to offend. Much easier to accuse me of 'keeping company with dishonest trolls" and not being "appreciated by good people". Who are these good people? 81.147.132.55 (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I think some do care, but those people are either afraid of reprisal, or they would rather focus on building content than get sucked into a month long mud slinging contest at Arbcom and risk getting banned themselves when Arbcom does their usual punish both sides so there are no winners approach. A lot of the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the Arbcom and their failures to police the project and the WMF for completely ignoring the problem unless its a piece of new software they want to force onto the community. They make the cases so long and complicated no one wants to do them and then the end result is either nothing happening to the admin in question or the invoke a bunch of penalties all around to make sure that A) no one wants to submit and will avoid it at all costs and B) there are no winners and they can be passive aggressive and not choose a side. Its already a fact that if they choose a case they then they know the person is guilty, so once the case is accepted, the person may as well just leave anyway, unless they are an admin that is because although this admin did get punished, that is an extremely rare exception. 138.162.8.57 (talk) 19:40, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

The real question is why don't we have more editors like Antonín Vejvančický's running and maintaining this site instead of what we have now? Viriditas (talk) 20:51, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

If you want to know why, read the preceding comments from Begoon and MastCell and 138.x.x.x. I know of one very definite recent/ongoing case of COI editing. But I dare not report it, or I'll be accused of outing and being a horrible person in general. Even if I were eventually to be cleared life is too short to have to mess with stuff like that. So I try to minimize the damage and figure what the hell. The quote on my user page sums up the problem as well as anything. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:23, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Short Brigade Harvester Boris Perhaps the thing to do in these circumstances is not to focus on the perceived COI but look instead at POV-pushing, misuse of sources, revert warring etc that are usually the hallmarks of someone with an agenda,  Roger Davies 06:39, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Roger. Up to now the sense that arbs (or recent arbs) think COI per se doesn't matter has been inferred indirectly. I appreciate your stating it explicitly. And no, I'm not being sarcastic. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 12:06, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Don't be too hard on him, Roger is just passing the majority view of Wikipedians along — it's not the editor, it's the edits (however you want to phrase that). For all the pious expressions of shock and horror when one POV-pushing sock puppeteer after another is revealed and neutralized, there is nothing to be surprised or horrified about so long as the cult of anonymity reigns and anyone anywhere can start editing with or without an account, without limitation on account creation, backed by anti-outing rules and the mantra of Assume Good Faith. It's just the way it is going to be forever. So don't worry too much about who is affected by what degree of COI or nationalist feeling or loyalty to their employer, etc. Concentrate on the edits, not the editor. When those go bad, that's when you've got a case. Carrite (talk) 16:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that explains the length of my block log. When I see a problem, I act. According to at least one IP up above, Jimbo and arbcom were contacted about the problem and failed to act. Is this true? Viriditas (talk) 05:02, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Viriditas. Wifione was active on the articles in question from about Apr 2009-Feb 2013, so this is largely historic. There were on-wiki allegations in numerous places, (often with little or no actual evidence) both from 2009 and, after a long gap, from late 2013 onwards: Jul 2009, Dec 2009, Dec 2009, Dec 2009, Dec 2013, Dec 2013, Jan 2014, Aug 2014, Aug 2014, Sep 2014, Dec 2014. It is also worth mentioning that Jimmy reopened one of the discussions here to get the issue aired. Once the issue was raised at ArbCom in Dec 2014, it was accepted with alacrity and resulted in a desysopping and siteban.  Roger Davies 06:54, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The IP commenting above (81.147) is User:Peter Damian. Both Peter Damian, who is banned from the English Misplaced Pages, and User:Jayen466, who is banned from this talk page, did exemplary and professional research and played fundamental role in exposing the scale of Wifione's manipulation, from what I can say. It is in the best interest of this project to listen to constructive criticism and judge the validity of arguments rather than where they come from. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 06:49, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree completely. This situation was laid out for all to see in a Wikipediocracy blog in December 2013, but I have no doubt that without Vejvančický's wholly admirable pertinacity no action would yet have been taken. Dislike of the messenger should not lead us to stop our ears against the message. Rules like "holding the person introducing the link responsible for all the content of the link" are undoubtedly a deterrent to pursuing cases like this.

I wonder whether, in the light of the danger to Misplaced Pages of widespread undeclared paid editing and the problems in dealing with it, we should rethink the rule that "the outing policy takes precedence over the Conflict of interest guideline." Fear of being sanctioned for outing is certainly another deterrent to whistleblowers. JohnCD (talk) 17:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Roger Davies The most recent examples of manipulation are from August and November 2013. Wifione stopped only because the scrutiny became more intense so they couldn't proceed, in my opinion. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 07:17, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there were a trivial number of edits after Feb 2013 (that's what I meant by "active on"). Why do you think the articles stayed uncorrected after Wifione had effectively withdrawn from the topic?  Roger Davies 07:41, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is still a mess. I tried to fix some of it. During my editing of the article Ashok Chauhan I had to go to WP:BLPN where I received no independent comments or support but only sharp attacks, see Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard/Archive204#Ashok_Chauhan. Editing in this area requires expertise which our editors don't seem to have, and even if they are familiar with the topic they often edit in a biased way. In the online reactions over this expose I can see many cynical comments by Indians pointing out that this is only the tip of the iceberg, and that the competition between Indian higher education institutions is a very dirty business. There's also a problem in this area with what we call "reliable sourcing" - IIPM is/was one of the largest advertisers in India, which means that the major newpapers and media may hesitate to publish negative stories about a company that pays them, and it might then influence the shape of our articles. Editing in this area requires very high level of competency and neutrality and we simply don't have competent editors doing that. The most troubling thing is that uncontrolled, irresponsible and biased editing might affect negatively important decisions of real people living in real world. This example also shows that Misplaced Pages might be an important tool deciding about where big money go. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 08:25, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

As several folks said above, it's not a case of not caring, but just that there is not enough time in the day to correct all the articles that appear to be written by paid editors. I don't know that Misplaced Pages is set up so that we can expect this type of editing to be reverted or even all reported somewhere or even noticed in some cases.

The ultimate problem was noted in a quote in Newsweek "by letting this go on for so long, Misplaced Pages has messed up perhaps 15,000 students’ lives.” That is very likely correct.

Now I understand that the WMF, or you, or me, or other Misplaced Pages editors are not legally responsible for this, but it does seem that we all have some moral responsibility. I'd have a very difficult time getting the system changed to deal with it, you might have a slightly easier time, the board could do it (if they knew what to do). Maybe we should spend some time giving concrete steps that would help stop this. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:26, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The issue is that the English Misplaced Pages hosts 4 700 000 articles. This is far too many to be effectively monitored by a slowly diminishing number of editors. An obvious step is to (i) greatly raise the bar for notability and (ii) raise the bar for reliable sources. Both these criteria are far too complicated, with far too much wiggle room. However, neither of these would solve the problem of a well-funded organisation using its treasure/influence to achieve positive media coverage in high quality publications. (The recent furore involving The Daily Telegraph and HSBC being a case in point., ).  Roger Davies 07:04, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's opening a fine Pandora's kettle of worms there. I don't think that I could possibly agree less that the solution to POV editing relates to changing notability and sourcing standards. Our deletion policy is one of the (very few) things at Misplaced Pages that really works well, in my opinion. Operations there are backed by long term consensus, by elaborate sets of guidelines, and a certain dispassionate and objective climate has emerged. Compare and contrast to early AfD debates which were dominated by "seems important to me" and "not important enough" types of arguments, which are a sure recipe for food fights and the rule of ignorance. There are half a dozen changes to things at WP that do not work well to be tried first (including the structure and purview of ArbCom, the establishment of binding mediation for solution of content disputes, tightening of registration and requirement of account use to edit, limitation of new starts to established accounts, etc.)

As for so-called "reliable sources" — that's a relic of the bad old days of Verifiability Not Truth. The fact is that the "best" of sources are wrong sometimes and the most sketchy of publications sometimes include important and irreplaceable true information. Good editors must learn to marshal and balance the factual evidence dispassionately. The obsession with using only a set of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval sources assures POV fighting over inclusion of sources rather than measured discussion about inclusion of truthful information. So-called "reliable sources" are a myth — everything has bias, explicit and implicit. Those who write content have to be smart enough to use the whole range of available information and the ability to do so dispassionately and fairly. End of spiel. Carrite (talk) 17:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

@Roger Davies: it's very possible I'm missing something important, but what does your response have to do with the problem? It looks like many warning signs were ignored about Wifione, before he even made it to RFA. I'm referring to the old SPI. Now I've been told there was a COI incident report that apparently didn't go anywhere. And now we find out that Wifione was instrumental in gaming Misplaced Pages Zero which preyed on the financially poor, captive audience of thousands of people in India looking to improve their lives. Something is seriously wrong here. Viriditas (talk) 20:47, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The WMF should buy a second hand Watson from IBM and let that system monitor our articles. Count Iblis (talk) 17:45, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

See automation bias and The Machine Stops. Viriditas (talk) 20:51, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

We had one major change to our deletion process a few years back when we introduced BLPprod. Something similar for "Commercially trading organizations and their products" might be an appropriate response to this case, and a rule of one independent reliable source for any commercial entity would reduce the workload on our editors whilst putting a bit of extra work onto those who write about businesses. Apologies to anyone who does that as a hobby. ϢereSpielChequers 21:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's quite possibly a good idea, but I don't quite see how it would have helped in this case. Nobody is suggesting IIPM does not exist, or is not notable. Perhaps I'm missing the point? Begoon  05:58, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

There are some subjects and areas within Misplaced Pages where the volunteer crowdsourcing model works less well than others, articles about businesses being a case in point. I'm happy to assume that everyone writing about funghi, canal restoration, sport or Milhist is a hobbyist, but, and I know this will sound cynical, I have a suspicion that some of the people who write about commercial organisations have an undeclared COI. So if we raise the bar in that area, we use our volunteer's time more efficiently, and hopefully increase the time available to deal with things like overly promotional articles and POV pushing. Begoon is of course right, this is an indirect rather than direct response to the Wifione saga, but I suggest it would be a useful response. ϢereSpielChequers 14:03, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

A plea

Jimbo. Above, Peter Damian, posting as an "anon", asks you a question. I think it's a fair question, and the comments here seem to support that. Will you answer it, please? For reference:

Perhaps you could answer this. I emailed you on 3 December 2013 with a link to this article (which I co-authored). I received no reply. I emailed again on 6 December pointing out the administrators slurs against Mahesh Peri (who I interviewed for the article) were unforgiveable, as was the article he created on Ashok Kumar Chauhan, with the sole purpose of slandering him. I copied the Arbitration Committee, not one reply. I asked an arbitrator later about it, who said “That's not something I'm going to be worrying about I'm afraid, it's not an area that I feel a lot of passion about”. He pointed out that he had won a prize of £25 in the "core content competition", and had also received free Misplaced Pages T-shirts. “Are these problematic? At what point do you draw the line?”. That, and your failure to act, speak volumes. 81.147.132.55 (talk) 18:53, 25 March 2015 (UTC) Oh pardon me, you did mention it later (email of 14 December) when I asked you to comment again. You chided me for "keep company with other dishonest trolls rather than being respected and appreciated by good people", and accused me of being intellectually dishonest, and as for the Wifione case "It is not generally reasonable to assume that someone not commenting on something is an approval of it, particularly when no one has actually inquired about it in any normal venue." Ha 81.147.132.55 (talk) 19:07, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Begoon  18:07, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid it is not clear to me what I'm being asked. I stand by my statement very strongly that it is not generally reasonable to assume that someone not commenting on something is an approval of it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:06, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I guess the thrust of the question was: with hindsight, do you regret not acting on the concerns brought to your attention in 2013, are you disappointed that Arbcom members similarly dismissed the concerns on more than one occasion, and do you think these things contributed to this becoming one of the worst (slowest) failures to tackle a problematic editor that we've seen yet? Additionally, do you accept that these failures led to innocent people being financially duped, and that taking them seriously rather than dismissing them could have mitigated that? Whatever your answer to those questions, I have a question of my own for you: what do you think you can personally do to help the community learn from this? And what should others do? Begoon  18:25, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

In order to "regret not acting" there would have to be some action in particular that I might regret not taking. What would that be? I don't personally ban people just because, as I wrote at that time on an internal mailing list, "It is abundantly clear that Wifione should be banned." We have a system, and this was a failure of that system - the correct response to a systematic failure is surely not for me to take up the mantle of personal master of bans that I stepped back from years ago.

Second, as for the ArbCom, again the issue was premature at that time for the ArbCom to handle, and certainly within our current operating parameters the ArbCom wasn't really empowered to act. They don't normally pro-actively initiate cases based on emails from banned users. So I'm disappointed in the outcome, yes, but I don't consider it a personal failure of myself or the ArbCom that we didn't step outside our normal roles. I don't know what the best change is but I think we do need a change.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

So you wrote, on an internal mailing list, at that time "It is abundantly clear that Wifione should be banned"? And this was ignored? If so, I apologise for suggesting you "failed to act". Was there a reaction to your recommendation (other than to not do it), and did you follow it up? I'm sorry to keep banging the drum, but I'm keen to get past "I don't know what the best change is but I think we do need a change", and potential failure points like this are important in that analysis, imo. Oh, and wrt They don't normally pro-actively initiate cases based on emails from banned users., maybe consider the content rather than the contributor? I think it's a rule, or a guideline, or something... Peter's evidence, however it arrived here, was crucial to removal of this bad actor. Thanks are due. Begoon  19:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, I don't think my comment should really satisfy you as me "acting" - I made it in a discussion on the communications committee mailing list where we were discussing the issue. I did not make that comment to the Arbitration Committee mailing list, and perhaps I should have, but the point is - that isn't really my role in general. So yes, I have been thinking about whether I should have lobbied ArbCom to take a closer look at the case. But that's not really where a solution to this is going to be found.

One thing that's important to note: this discussion in early December was followed by him taking a wikibreak (about which I publicly commented that it'd be best if he just didn't come back). He fell silent on the 13th of December and many likely thought ok, he's gone, so problem solved. When he came back his first edit was to start Misplaced Pages:Editor_review/Wifione. Many might have taken that as a good faith effort to do the right things.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:36, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

It may not be "your role in general", but I strongly suspect that had you, as a community member, "kicked up a stink" about it on this page, or attempted to raise an arbitration case, great notice would have been taken. We all have the power to comment - look how much more seriously you took me than you did Peter Damian, because I'm an editor "in good standing". With our relative credibilities and standings comes commensurate responsibility. I agree that isn't a good solution long term, and better processes need to be found, but we act in the situation we find ourselves. Utopia comes later. Begoon  19:55, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

It's not like this type of information is difficult to uncover

If you're willing ot hold your nose while you read. Hell might be other people (talk) 02:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

There ya go... That's one important function of Wikipediocracy: the ability to discuss problematic editing in a manner that would get a person censured or blocked if it happened on wiki... It should also be noted that Greg Kohs is really good at ferreting out COI editing... Carrite (talk) 07:42, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

The collection of information looks quite good, and should be used by someone to examine the edits and take appropriate action. To state what should be obvious, however:

• Information from WO in general would be easier to deal in a collaborative way if the environment there felt safer from doxing, for example - there might be more editors here willing to create an account and engage productively. I am not saying it is a pervasive problem, but I think it fair to say it has occurred.
• Additionally, Greg Kohs' information about COI editing would be more palatable if there wasn't the sense that he was doing this, at least in part, to out his competition, while keeping his own socking on the QT. No offense intended, but at least one post suggested the latter (perhaps he was kidding).

Regardless, I reiterate that someone should act on the information provided in a systematic way. Who will do so?

Thanks, JoeSperrazza (talk) 19:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I think i heard that some guy named JoeSperrazza wanted to volunteer for just this sort of thing. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:44, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

An answer

You asked: It's good that we reached this conclusion in the end, but the question that should give us a sense of desire for change is: why did it take so long?

What is this "us"? The project is privately owned by WMF, which has made it clear that although it will make good faith attempts to receive input from the politically active portion of English Wikipeida (en-wiki), it considers such input neither binding necessarily representative of the readership nor the entire editing community. Based on my limited interactions with WMF staff, it seems to me their understanding of en-wiki is like that of tourists getting a view of forest from a low flying plane -- they may see the forest but you have to live it it for a while to really know what's going on.

WMF made the decision to provide a filtered view of a desktop oriented, First World encyclopedia to a population that lacked the cultural and educational background to critically analyze the information presented. Whereas the bottom of every desktop view (e.g. Cheetah) contains the Disclaimer link to Misplaced Pages:General_disclaimer:

the Misplaced Pages Zero view, contains no such disclaimer, nor does the mobile view https://en.m.wikipedia.org/Cheetah . Misplaced Pages Zero was an arrogant, the road to hell is paved with good intentions decision.

We are volunteers. Per policy our individual responsibility is simply to not knowingly contribute misinformation and to try not to act like jerks. Period. We are fortunate that there are those motivated to identify and remove misinformation when they can, and it works well when volunteers have the real life backgrounds to be effective. As an American, I not only don't know anything about Indian educational instructions, I don't even know what sources are the Indian Washington Posts and which are their National Enquirers, or even whether that type of distinction makes sense.

Do I feel sad that some folks in Indian got ripped off? Of course, in the same general way I feel bad about folks being decapitated, stoned, burnt, stuck in a plane with a suicidal pilot, or I may have purchased fish produced by slave labor . Am I going to lose sleep over it tonight? Nope.

Meanwhile, WMF continues with ridiculousness like some myspace / facebook like nonsense: "Gather"

Bottom line: While the Wifione / Indian Institute of Planning and Management fiasco does raise questions, the responsibility for the damage done via Misplaced Pages Zero as indicated by the Newsweek article lies with WMF, not English Misplaced Pages.

Thanks to Jayen466 for the Wikpedia Zero link and Jehochman for stepping up and filing the arbcom case. NE Ent 11:53, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

@NE Ent: I am disappointed to see an editor I have a good impression of trade in some ugly cultural stereotypes ("...First World encyclopedia to a population that lacked the cultural and educational background to critically analyze the information presented"), but setting that aside I want to address a couple of points you made:

1. The disclaimer you quote may absolve WMF from the legal liability but it does not absolve it from the ethical responsibility to present accurate and neutral information. More importantly (since I don't answer for WMF) the disclaimer does not impact my personal desire to achieve the same goal. If ever the community/WMF decided that as long as the disclaimer is present on every wiki-page, we should not even try to get things right, I'll find another hobby. So I think the disclaimer issue is a non sequitur in some ways: if Misplaced Pages Zero were a bad idea for some reasons, it would have remained so even if it had had the pro forma disclaimer.
2. Individual editors of course can't be knowledgeable about every subject-area covered on wikiepdia, but the community on the whole does have expertise to evaluate sources, even from India. For example, I among others, twice commented at RSN on the reliability of the main critical source Career360 that was used in the IIPM articles: in July 2009 and again in November 2009 (as far as I know these were my ever edits/comments related to the article). However, the company was persistent enough to contact User:Sphilbrick through OTRS, who acting in good faith and perhaps unaware of the earlier discussions, opened another RSN query about that same source in Feb 2013 to which (voila!) only Wifione replied disparaging its reliability. So this was not an instance of editors not caring enough (as Jimbo proposed) or of editors not knowing enough (as NE Ent proposed), but rather volunteers with-no-axe-to-grind not being as single-minded about the subject as persons whose livelihood depend upon it (kudos to User:Vejvančický for being an exception).

Question for @Jimbo Wales:: In light of the Wifione debacle, how do you think we can avoid such off-wiki/on-wiki tag-teaming and deal with problematic COI-editors more swiftly? For example, in the Naveen Jain case mentioned below, how should wikipedia deal with Wiki-expert-edit (talk · contribs) who:

• created an account in 2008 and made exactly 10 edits to unrelated articles (enough to get auto-confirmed) before jumping onto the Naveen Jain article. In the next 7 years the editor has not made a single edit in any other subject area.
• the editor has edited from Jain's company IP and has claimed to be Naveen Jain himself (later denial).
• while Jain, or his representative, probably contacted you off-wiki recently (judging from your intervention), the editor revived his account on-wiki after a 4-year hiatus. he is currently blocked for a short period due to edit-warring.

Is this enough evidence to establishing problematic COI/paid-advocacy? (To be clear, I have no "evidence" that actual money was exchanged; don't see how I could have such evidence; and certainly won't go looking around for it)

Also note that I have no involvement with Jain, Ronz et al, and have never (afaik) edited any of the related articles/talk-pages and only happened to look at the page-histories after seeing the subject mentioned here. But I do strongly believe that wikipedia has to handle COI and paid-editing issues more swiftly and firmly if it does not want uninvolved, good-faith, editors to walk away from the problematic articles with a c'est la vie. Regards. Abecedare (talk) 04:16, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

"ugly cultural stereotypes" Yea, I knew that was going to happen regardless of how I phrased it. On the other hand it's a conceit to pretend that every person on the planet is "the same." There is a difference between individuals devoting what free time they can spare to trying to make Misplaced Pages as good as it can be and pretending that, or ever expecting it to be, 100% accurate, or sufficiently accurate that it's appropriate to market to unsophisticated users. The are about 140,000 active editors ... and the criterion for "active" is pretty low ... and nearly five million articles, an article per editor ratio of 59.845073216164. There are a quarter million articles tagged {{Unreferenced}}. The scale of Misplaced Pages is such that we should never pretend it is anything other than a 💕 written by amateurs with no guarantee of veracity. NE Ent 12:27, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

It’s not as bad as you say. Many articles simply don’t represent an obvious threat, and bad apples are easy to spot, especially when they work assiduously on the same set of articles. There is also a wicked offsite forum of people who can crowdsource the problems. The real problem is that this is not happening on Misplaced Pages, and the reason is that criticism is seen as negative. Not so in the real world: you can get a savage review, and sometimes these are unwarranted, but mostly they are not. They improve your work. Similarly, a free press set in opposition to the government (which the government hates) is the best means of improving government. Misplaced Pages needs a cultural change to allow people like me to work without damaging Misplaced Pages. Our strategy is simple: look for bad actors, research them thoroughly, write it up nicely, and then place it in the mainstream media (in this case, Newsweek). This helps Misplaced Pages by waking people up and thinking about ways to reform. By the same token it harms Misplaced Pages because of the negative publicity. Think how much better it would be if we weren't regarded as 'trolls' and 'dishonest manipulators', and if our emails were not sent into some spam filter and Misplaced Pages sticking its finger in its ears singing 'la la la can't hear you'. All it needs is a change in culture. Criticism is good: encourage it and help those who want to help you in this way. Simple, right? 81.147.135.211 (talk) 12:47, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Solutions

This is an interesting string, but not very focused on potential solutions to better-handling similar problems in the future, which I think would drive a more productive focus of discussion. CorporateM (Talk) 18:36, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely. What are your potential solutions to better-handling similar problems in the future? If you think they are substantial enough, maybe a new thread would be appropriate. Begoon  19:39, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

part of it comes down to the fact that people who believe everything they read on the web are going to be taken advantage of - whether its by dubious content in Misplaced Pages articles or e-mails from a Nigerian Prince or that "free" ap you just tapped. What is Misplaced Pages's role in fighting global il-weberacy? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

That's... astonishing. Among the many thousands of words I've read on the Wifione saga I think that's the first attempt I've seen to shift the blame for our years long failure to prevent a corrupt administrator from manipulating content to benefit a company and place a portion of the blame on the reader. Honestly, that leaves me pretty speechless. If we think our readers are incapable of critical thinking and analysis that would give us more of a duty of care, not less. Best bit of "victim blaming" I've seen on WP for a long while. Begoon  02:43, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@Begoon: Well, I would probably break it up conceptually into three problems:

• Sockpuppeting
• Tenuous editing
• Astroturfing

I haven't participated in many SPIs, but it does seem like we need better methods and tools for it. Personally I would support the use of analytics to automatically detect socks using IPs and device IDs (while keeping the private underlying data confidential). But I don't think such a proposal would be popular around here. CorporateM (Talk) 03:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

For "tenuous" I assume you mean tendentious (I noticed you used the same term in a section below, too)? One of the particular (systemic) problems in this case was the enormous reluctance to contemplate that a popular admin had been doing that. Addressing that should certainly be a separate item on the "list".

One of the problems with "automatic" sock detection (there are many) is that not all "socks" are illegitimate. Unless an automatic tool could consider the context of the edits (and I don't see how it could) then it seems to me that it would generate a mountain of "false positives" that a human would need to wade through. I don't entirely rule out the possibility, because software can be very clever (see Cluebot), but I think it would be a huge undertaking to create such a program, as it would need to "learn intelligently" from its errors in much the same way Bayesian spam filters do. Begoon  05:09, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Your extraordinary email

In the interests of transparency, I am noting here (a) your incredible insinuation that it was “dishonest and manipulative” of me to notify you/the Arbcom of the Wifione problem in December 2013 in the knowledge that an email from a banned user would probably be ignored, and (b) your suggestion that you could ‘solve’ this problem by placing my email address into a spam filter that deletes emails from me “the moment they arrive”. 81.147.135.211 (talk) 09:03, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Naveen Jain

You made some pretty bold claims here in response to a BLP's request for help, suggesting that Ronz was engaging in tenuous editing. I've spent quite a bit of time on the page since then after seeing it on your Talk page. From what I can tell, the page containing a substantial amount of critical material was actually representative of the total body of literature and therefore NPOV.

For example, in-depth profiles in Inc. Magazine and The Seattle Times focus mostly on allegations of lying to investors, cheating employees out of stock options, etc., whereas no sources of similar quality have been identified to suggest he is notable for other, most positive acheivements. It is a bit more balanced now though - focusing both on the rise and fall of InfoSpace.

If you have counter-arguments supported by sources, they would be welcomed. The accusation of tenuous editing wasn't very specific and it's not clear what in the actual article you felt was unfair to the article-subject. CorporateM (Talk) 04:10, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it. I'll review next week and respond with specifics - or apologize to Ronz. My past experience is that he's worked very hard to fight against positive statements and very hard to dig up negative statements.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

No problem. I don't know anything about the history between you two, but he's been reasonable as far as I can tell and not OWNed the page at all, even as I completely re-wrote it. Meanwhile, the COI that solicited you for input has been blocked repeatedly for edit-warring, says there's consensus for edits that have not even been discussed and keeps providing conflicting narratives as to the nature of their COI.

I think a topic-ban of the COI is more likely than one for Ronz.

I had a similar reaction of assuming the article-subject was treated unfairly, but came to a different conclusion after investigating the sources. It's possible Ronz just focuses on BLPs with a contentious reputation. Cheers. CorporateM (Talk) 18:47, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

A desperate scream from outside of the echo chamber

"The main source of is not mysterious. The loose collective running the site today...operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Misplaced Pages and broaden its coverage." - The Decline of Misplaced Pages.

Is anything seriously being done about this by **you** today Mr. Wales? Any widespread structural change initiatives?

Everyday there are more warnings to change. Namecheapblues (talk) 13:29, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

@Namecheapblues: You realize that report is from 2013 and was discussed here and on other pages, right? --NeilN 13:59, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

• I'm curious about what NCB feels should be done about the "loose collective" which operates a "crushing bureaucracy" with an "often abrasive atmosphere." One would thing that someone with a 99%er user box on their page would be in love with the "loose collective" part and not seeking to impose some sort of military or corporate command structure based in San Francisco as a cure for what ails us. So, what in particular do you think needs to be changed to streamline our "crushing bureaucracy?" And how exactly is JW in a position to advance such a program? Carrite (talk) 15:42, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
  • A big step in the right direction would be disbanding the Admins. Make all ArbCom cases evidence based. And repeal the absurd rule that "No administrator may modify a sanction placed by another administrator without the explicit prior affirmative consent of the enforcing administrator".MOMENTO (talk) 01:54, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Exactly right - if the direction is anarchy. --NeilN 03:09, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
      • This is a structural problem that starts at the top. Disbanding the admins and arbcom still keeps the board (who Mr. Wales is a prominent member) in control. I am just interested in what Mr. Wales personally is doing to address this. I have texted some of the other members of the board the same question. Do you think an actual old fashioned letter may get a better response? Namecheapblues (talk) 13:11, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
        • You truly have no clue what admins do around here. You'd have better luck getting people to listen to you if you showed some understanding of how Misplaced Pages actually worked instead of deriving your views from "Misplaced Pages is dying!" articles. --NeilN 23:01, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
        • You're welcome to send any letter you want, in any format you want, to whoever you want. But if it's going to start with "disbanding the admins", I don't think you'll get much traction. Put WP:AIV on your watchlist for a day or so, and see what wouldn't be stopped without any admins around. That's quite aside from everything else admins deal with, but just there, you should get an idea of where your proposal leads. Seraphimblade 23:08, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
• Just so we are on the same page, the only person suggesting the admins and arbcom be disbanded is Momento. I am just interested in what Mr. Wales personally is doing to address this. Namecheapblues (talk) 00:58, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
  • @NeilN I have had enough experience with Admins and ArbCom to qualify as an expert witness.
  • @Seraphimblade You epitomise the problem. A group of "Editors intervention against vandalism" would be just as effective. Even a humble banned editor can safely remove vandalism.
  • @Namecheapblues (talk) You won't get much joy from Mr.Wales. He likes things the way they are.MOMENTO (talk) 01:52, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes, I looked at your talk page and contribution history and am not surprised you've run into obstacles - probably a good thing. --NeilN 02:14, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
    • i'll ask you they same question I ask everyone who makes the same superficial judgement you just made - "Please show me five bad edits from my edit history". With all the blocks and bans you should be able to find a hundred.MOMENTO (talk) 02:23, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
      • Thanks for giving me the task, but no. If editors are clever enough, they can edit here tendentiously for years without crossing the line (see the Wifone section above). Those who lack self-control usually get dinged for edit warring once in a while. --NeilN 02:38, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

@ Momento - As you have made a grand total of 153 edits to mainspace in the last 7 years combined, I think your challenge to find "a hundred" bad edits in your edit history smacks of hyperbole. Carrite (talk) 11:30, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

• • • • Straight out of "1984". Innocent behaviour is a clever ruse of the guilty..MOMENTO (talk) 02:51, 29 March 2015 (UTC)