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HELP ME
Mr. Wales, can you help me? I am twelve and I am a new Wikipedian. All my teachers hate Misplaced Pages and tell us to use gulp, real encyclopedias! My Wikiholic friend and classmate, Stormtracker94 is with me. Please give me some advice! --Carerra (talk) 23:35, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jimbo is travelling right now and might not respond right away. I'll respond to keep this thread from being archived, maybe he can comment when he has time.
- It is very important that you learn how to use a real encylopedia, and it is even more important that you learn how to research from lots of sources and make up your own mind whether what they say is true. The world is full of people who want you to believe what they think is right, you have to learn how to tell them all apart and decide for yourself. Don't take the easy way out and just look at Misplaced Pages - look at the "See Also" and "References" and "Further Reading" sections in the articles. Go to those places on the Internet and go to your library and look up the books and read it all for yourself.
- Your teacher just wants you to "learn how to learn", Misplaced Pages is the best starting point in the world but you have to explore past Misplaced Pages and find the truth for yourself. Good luck! Franamax (talk) 23:55, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Request banned user (I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow)
Jimbo, will you please ban I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow from Misplaced Pages. This user was blocked for vandalized editing. -- 00:23, February 3, 2008 (UTC)
Hello
Grrrlriot (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.
Misplaced Pages is run by a Hindu cult. Apparently.
And Cade Metz of The Register is apparently insane.
I spoke to him over the phone about the hoax on Brahmanical See, hoping to see maybe a good article in The Register criticizing Misplaced Pages's accuracy (since that generally tends to spur Wikipedians to improve this place).
We spoke over the phone for a while and he took notes. He seemed like a nice guy, but I kinda got that "far left-wing conspiracy theorist" vibe, like he reads Noam Chomsky on the way to work, wears Che Guevara T-shirts in the office, and supports the Green party, because all the other parties are "kapatalist." He suggested I read his article on overstock.com and I got the vibe there, also.
Well anyway, maybe I'm just being naive here (Warning: Misplaced Pages is like hypnotoad!), but I decided to check Misplaced Pages's article on naked short selling and Overstock.com. I found a fair amount of sources firmly establishing that the mainstream media considered this stuff silly. So, what is Cade, then? He seems to consider himself to be like Hunter S. Thompson, a lone crusader against the corrupt media elites. He's probably a 9/11 truther. His editor lets him do that because, as with all infotainment, it sells.
Well anyway, today, he emailed me with the subject title "story".
"Oh boy," I thought, "The article got published!"
The article is here.
I was disturbed after reading the title, the lead, and the first page, to find that it wasn't anywhere near what I expected. First off, Brahmanical See isn't even mentioned.
What the story is about: Apparently, because there's one admin who has ties to a shady to a religious organization, this automatically implies that Misplaced Pages is secretly run by a Hindu cult!
- Jimbo Wales links to Time (magazine)
- Time (magazine) links to Time Person of the Year
- Time Person of the Year links to Ronald Reagan
- Ronald Reagan links to Category:American film actors
- Category:American film actors links to Kevin Bacon
Check out these juicy tidbits:
Prem Rawat's religious movement is widely recognized as a cult or former cult
And such sources say that within the movement, Rawat is or was regarded as a divine being.
Editors on Misplaced Pages named Zenwhat think Cade did or did not do enough good factchecking.
If what Cade says is true, then there is a COI problem, but then again, it's hard to say. Jossi's response seems fair enough.
I guess I shouldn't blame Cade. I mean, he does live in the the SФѴIEТ ЅФCIДLISТ ЯEPUBLIC OF ЅДИ FЯДИCIЅCФ. San Francisco groupthink is pretty much the same as Misplaced Pages groupthink. That's what it means, I think, when somebody at the Foundation said they're moving to San Fran because of "like-minded individuals." (read: radical and naive communitarians). The result is that, like San Francisco, the economy of Misplaced Pages is in shambles, we are dominated by political correctness, and we are overrun by people trying to take advantage of the system at the expense of everybody else.
In any case, now I have to apologize to Jossi, since I guess this is somewhat my fault, since Cade wouldn't have leaped on the "Hindu conspiracy train" if I hadn't e-mailed the Register about Brahmanical See. ☯ Zenwhat (talk) 03:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I find your analysis interesting, but I can now reveal something pretty interesting which more or less proves that Cade Metz is right about everything. You see, Time Magazine has an annual Time 100 party. Current honorees and some past honorees are invited. I have been fortunate enough to attend twice, it is fun. (I usually just stand around geeking out with Mitchell Baker from Mozilla and Craig of Craig's List...) Now, I also was asked to be a presenter at an annual magazine awards show. Interestingly, the magazine awards show takes place in the same space as the Time 100 party. In the green room, I met Kevin Bacon, who was also giving out an award. Get it? Time Magazine, Kevin Bacon? It's all a big conspiracy.
And don't even get me started about Hindu cults, that's even easier to prove. I just last week was in... yep, you got it... India. What else do you need? :-)
It's really time that people realize that The Register is not a serious website, it's a parody... of itself.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jimbo, You may want to see Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Zenwhat blocked indefinitely since some admin found Zenwhat's post above as a violation of a final warning and Zenwhat has since been indef blocked. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ 05:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
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As I earned a mentioning on User:Jossi/Response:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Prem_Rawat&diff=prev&oldid=189984883
- http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Criticism_of_Prem_Rawat&diff=prev&oldid=189985429
See my edit summaries for these two edits. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- I appreciate your contributions, Francis, but please help with the article rather than reverting to your version of Jan 2007. Since that time the article has been edited by a variety of editors, responded to peer reviews and a GA review. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- PS, note that I used your version of the article of 31 January 2007 as the basis for my revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Prem_Rawat&oldid=104600180 --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:46, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Here's the GA failure review: Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 23#Fails "good article" criteria. Seems that inadvertently I was on a good way to comply to the GA reviewer's recommendations with the revert, e.g.: "Broad in coverage? - Not broad enough in coverage, criticism section should be standalone section, expanded upon. More information needs to be given regarding conflict/falling out with other members of family. Lawsuits against critics in order to attempt to remove information from the internet not covered at all."
- That's the content you resisted and still resist (although pretty much of it was in the article a few months before the GA review) — correct me if I'm wrong. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- That was a bogus GA review by an involved user (User:Smee, aka User:Smeelgova, user pages deleted by admin action upon request). The correct GA review is here: Talk:Prem_Rawat/Archive_23#GA_Review_.28Failed.29 You should contact User:Vassyana as he was instrumental in helping implement the necessary changes. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- And if you look at the responses at Talk:Prem_Rawat/Archive_23#Comments_on_GA_Review_.28Failed.29, you would see that his comments were taken very seriously and appreciated by those involved. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, but apparently rather vacuous lip service: less than a year later, still the same major contributors, succeeded in doing exactly the opposite of what was recommended, e.g.:
Well, El Reg is bad source and all that, but this was a present on a golden platter.--Francis Schonken (talk) 23:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)More neutral presentation in the article and in some instances sources with better neutrality would be preferrable. From an outside view, this article spends a lot of time on fawning over the subject and his POV. The criticisms section is well-cited, but poorly written. I receive the impression the criticism section was simply tacked on to appease complaints, without balancing the tone and sources for the rest of the article. Also, for such a controversial figure, the overall balance between positive POV and critical views is way off. This is particularly noticed in how the criticism section is very neutral in tone, while much of the article is written from a very positive POV. What is particularly disturbing to me in regards to NPOV is the occasional use of antagonistic sources to support pro and simple fact claims. This seems dishonest to me, to say the least. An editor can state "anti" sources are included to support a claim of NPOV, but this is a dishonest presentation of the use of those sources. By failing to use sources in their proper context, a casual reader is easily mislead. This not only applies to purely oppositional sources, as negative information from other sources used is also notably absent from the article. (bolding added - less than a year later the criticism section was completely gone)
- As I said, you may want to check with User:Vassyana before making a judgment based on partial information. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- Having said that, energies will be best invested in working alongside other editors there to ensure we can achieve an article that we can all be proud of. It is indeed possible. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- As I said, you may want to check with User:Vassyana before making a judgment based on partial information. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, but apparently rather vacuous lip service: less than a year later, still the same major contributors, succeeded in doing exactly the opposite of what was recommended, e.g.:
The reason I started this sub-thread was that I was mentioned in some bad journalism, while I had indeed tried to prevent with good methods what was a deplorable state of the Prem Rawat article.
I still do the same, but I think it is good for Jimbo to see where the resistance is coming from, directly, not filtered through complotist journalism. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- As I said, I appreciate your input and your contributions to the article. If the article is in bad shape, it can be fixed, this is after all a wiki. There is good work being done there by uninvolved editors, and that bodes well for the article. I will be in transit until Sunday and may not have access to the interwebs during some of that time. You can always email me as I can respond via my iPhone. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Francis, I haven't seen any evidence at all of bad faith edits here. I am indeed taking a hard look at it. I came to this issue for the first time today, prepared to block Jossi as a hardcore POV pusher, etc. But then... I looked at his contributions. I looked at links submitted by critics. And what I found is... a great Wikipedian. So far, I have seen absolutely nothing to cause any concern... but I remain open. The best thing is: show me the diffs. Not a billion diffs. Just show me 1 or 2 or 5 diffs showing Jossi engaging in bad editing. I have seen none so far.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Re. "bad faith edits here" - neither did I use these words. "Bad faith" is another thing, not what I was talking about.
- Re. "block Jossi as a hardcore POV pusher" - straw man argument, neither would I recommend to do that. A topical editing restriction might be in order though. And maybe Jossi would be better to impose that on himself, than that anyone else imposed it on him.
- Re. "show me 1 diff": http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Prem_Rawat&diff=190040542&oldid=190040070 - this edit removed all criticism from the lead section for the 3rd or 4th time that day. Note also the edit summary: this was a major revert, Jossi was trying to stop reverts... by a major revert - isn't this textbook something on how not to prevent edit-warring?
- Anyway, tx for your time, and I hope you didn't feel insulted I said "straw man argument" above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I just reviewed http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Prem_Rawat&diff=190040542&oldid=190040070 and I disagree with your assessment that there was something necessarily biased with it. It would not surprise me if the totality of Jossi's influence on the article was to minimise negativity, but I see no firm evidence of that here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't contend "there was something necessarily biased with it". Are we all back in straw man arguments again? I said that revert "removed all criticism from the lead section". Soon afterwards Jossi didn't object to put that criticism back in the lead section , so no problem there. He just shouldn't have removed it as part of a strategy to stop reverts. He performed a revert, then two minutes later he went to the talk page inviting to stop the edit wars . And then within half an hour agreed that the criticism he had removed from the lead section could be put back. As a strategy to limit reverts there's a cost/benefit issue there. Not "bad faith", not "hardcore POV pusher", not "something necessarily biased", etc.
- As for COI involvement of Jossi, combined with that other allegation of Cade Metz, that Jossi weighs heavily on policy setting (at least, that's the non-tabloid-language translation I offer for that allegation), the situation is more complex: e.g. I referred to a now deleted page (Misplaced Pages:List of POV forks) at User talk:David D.#Prem Rawat & Criticism. No, I can't say anything meaningful about that in "1 or 2 or 5 diffs" at the risk of losing nuance (which I'd think necessary — we aren't gutter press are we). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Well, its looking like no one has yet identified actual edits by Jossi that are inappropriate according to COI except for the problems associated with the appearance of unacceptable COI in an involved administrator; which in my opinion is enough all by itself to mean that Jossi should not edit certain articles. How much he should restrain himself in influencing the content (he is an admin), I can't say. We can be sure that if there is a "smoking gun" diff on Jossi's COI, people who hate Misplaced Pages will be proud to display it. Their free help in managing Misplaced Pages is appreciated by all us lazy folk who don't want to hunt through the diffs ourselves! About his alleged influencing of BLP and COI. I started BLP, helped start COI, influenced both, watched both very carefully; and my conclusion is that Jossi's influence in both cases was less than many and fully appropriate to the best of my knowledge. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think you're seriously missing a point here. I've had years of experience of encountering Jossi in all sorts of places, articles, guidelines, policies, essays, etc. Positive experiences of good collaboration, negative experiences of not getting along at all. I couldn't summarize these experiences in a 5 page tabloid article, or condense them in an executive summary, and even less in one to five diffs. Of course I could give a diff of when he called one of my ideas a brainfart, or whatever, but what would be the relevance of that? I could even give the link to our first interaction, back in the days his signature still read Jossifresco (just checked the date: October 2005), exchanging some points we have been discussing about on and of for at least two years (interspersed with encounters in other places that had different types of interaction): on that first topic, when it gathered momentum, I didn't give in much, neither did he, but eventually I suppose on both sides some concessions were made leading to a guideline currently that is somehow doable for the encyclopedia.
- Yes, I think Jossi should take care not to impose his views too vigorously, for the wellfare of this encyclopedia, but that's a general impression that I can't, as said, reduce to 5 diffs. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't think that I'm missing your point. I too have had negative encounters with Jossi, but nothing not fully explainable by the fact that we are both fallible human beings. Assume good faith is very appropriate here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 00:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I was assuming good faith, your lecture is a bit inappropriate there. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- See Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#User:Jossi_and_Prem_Rawat_2. Andries (talk) 13:35, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I just reviewed http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Prem_Rawat&diff=190040542&oldid=190040070 and I disagree with your assessment that there was something necessarily biased with it. It would not surprise me if the totality of Jossi's influence on the article was to minimise negativity, but I see no firm evidence of that here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Francis, I haven't seen any evidence at all of bad faith edits here. I am indeed taking a hard look at it. I came to this issue for the first time today, prepared to block Jossi as a hardcore POV pusher, etc. But then... I looked at his contributions. I looked at links submitted by critics. And what I found is... a great Wikipedian. So far, I have seen absolutely nothing to cause any concern... but I remain open. The best thing is: show me the diffs. Not a billion diffs. Just show me 1 or 2 or 5 diffs showing Jossi engaging in bad editing. I have seen none so far.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
"correct me if I'm wrong."
Francis, there is no such thing as wrong and I cannot correct you.
See Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view/FAQ#There's no such thing as objectivity.
I think that your subjective opinions are interesting, just as I think Jossi's subjective opinions are interesting. Perhaps you should discuss the matter directly with Jossi and you can build consensus, and come to a reasonable conclusion on what subjective opinions should be included in articles relating to Prem Rawat. If you're suggesting that Jossi is biased, we're all biased, Francis. None of us are objective because there is no such thing as objectivity or critical thinking. ☯ Zenwhat (talk) 00:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
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- My 2 cents is that if we start blocking folks for COI, then a lot of people should be blocked. I wonder if my prior employment (not since 1996) with the National Park Service makes me have a COI when I edit park related articles...see where this is going? I completely agree with you that everything I have seen from Jossi is commendable, and that doesn't mean we have always agreed with each other either. It would be crazy if we start blocking people who edit in areas where they have real life knowledge...even a POV is certainly acceptable...the only time it isn't is when that POV interferes with our requirement to be neutral. I recommend we start blocking editors who are doing the dirty work for banned editors. That kind of aiding and abetting is what makes this website less than what it should be.--MONGO 04:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Along with those editors who digress on a large percentage of discussion topics to include irrelevent comment on their favourite bete noir's. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I doubt you're in any immediate risk of being banned...but things do change here fast.--MONGO 19:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Along with those editors who digress on a large percentage of discussion topics to include irrelevent comment on their favourite bete noir's. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- My 2 cents is that if we start blocking folks for COI, then a lot of people should be blocked. I wonder if my prior employment (not since 1996) with the National Park Service makes me have a COI when I edit park related articles...see where this is going? I completely agree with you that everything I have seen from Jossi is commendable, and that doesn't mean we have always agreed with each other either. It would be crazy if we start blocking people who edit in areas where they have real life knowledge...even a POV is certainly acceptable...the only time it isn't is when that POV interferes with our requirement to be neutral. I recommend we start blocking editors who are doing the dirty work for banned editors. That kind of aiding and abetting is what makes this website less than what it should be.--MONGO 04:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
The COI guideline should be nuked. It just causes headaches for everyone. Whether or not you have a conflict of interest, you either follow the core policies or you don't. One man's "exptertise" is another's "conflict of interest." Please get rid of this hypocritical guideline. 65.54.154.116 (talk) 04:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- I wish even ten percent of the people who offer opinions about the COI guideline actually helped run the COI noticeboard. In an ideal world neither would be necessary. In the real world of Misplaced Pages, they're needed. Have people forgotten the weeks of worldwide headlines caused by the WikiScanner last summer? The sad fact is, people do edit Misplaced Pages because they want to promote some product or ideology. Not everyone who has a conflict of interest acts against the interests of the encyclopedia, but the appearance of impropriety alone is enough to raise eyebrows and news stories. WP:COI and WP:COIN help the public by keeping the site's articles honest, they help the site by reducing negative press, and they help the editors by providing feedback when people are running enormous PR risks and don't realize it. If there's a problem, better to hear it from a fellow editor or admin than from the Associated Press reporter. Durova 05:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- There is some truth in it. The article Prem Rawat grew one-sided mostly because it was left alone to warring factions by the wider wikipedia community. Dispute resolution had repeatedly been tried hy me but failed. Eventually one faction got the upper hand. Andries (talk) 14:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps what we need is more emphasis on single issue editors than COI. If someone contributes to a wide variety of subjects, but happens to have a soft spot or POV for an issue, that would be very human, and as long as he can learn to collaborate and compromise, he would be a fine editor. My concern is with people who come here for one purpose, or one topic, and tend to own the related articles. Even there, in theory this could be useful for us, but I prefer the more well rounded editor than the narrow-focused one. Crum375 (talk) 05:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Regardless of how we would like to view it, this story made the front page of Digg. We can't mold the rest of the world's impression by changing an onsite guideline. The fact that this happened in apparent compliance with our guideline is a signal to us to update our standards, so that productive editors don't get lulled into thinking they're safe from the press and from public opinion. Durova 06:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jossi is not in fact editing according to the COI guideline recommendation. It recommends not editing articles about subjects one is close to. It warns that one may embarrass oneself and what one cares about. Jossi is now paying the price of ignoring that warning. The warning used to be stronger. Who edited that guideline to weaken its warning? WAS 4.250 (talk) 07:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- Regardless of how we would like to view it, this story made the front page of Digg. We can't mold the rest of the world's impression by changing an onsite guideline. The fact that this happened in apparent compliance with our guideline is a signal to us to update our standards, so that productive editors don't get lulled into thinking they're safe from the press and from public opinion. Durova 06:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
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This might provide a good rough first guess on articles Jossi should not be over-influential on at wikipedia. Let him do his thing at Citizendium, where being too close to something is not a big deal. The contrast between what gets created there and here will help both sites in dealing with the issues. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Importing an outside conflict
User:Jossi/Response contains: "the people used as a source, even attempted to subpoena me to disclose the identities of fellow Wikipedians "
Appears the subpoena was filed before Jossi's first edit to Misplaced Pages, and had nothing to do with Misplaced Pages.
Don't import outside conflicts in Misplaced Pages, per WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND. If you had a conflict with Marianne over webcontent you produced for Prem Rawat or his organisations (or whatever), don't even dream of implicating Misplaced Pages in that via your "Response" page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
"Jossie Fresco has referred to my libel lawsuit in his wikipedia entry. His statement that I tried to find out the identities of wikipedians is completely false. My lawsuit was filed in February, 2004. The libel complaint is based on numerous statements made on the internet which falsely claimed I was involved in illegal activity. The libel complaint details many of the statements, which occurred between 2001 and 2003. Misplaced Pages is never mentioned. A superior court judge authorized a subpoena to Jossi so he could be deposed about his knowledge, as Rawat's webmaster, of the identities of the people making these libelous claims - again, none of which involved wikipedia."
Perhaps Jossi is referring to Misplaced Pages editors involved with the subpoena that together with him have helped to maintain related articles??? Just guessing, here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I tried not to speculate, I think it's better that way.
- Anyway, I'd abhorr the idea that Mike Godwin, on Misplaced Pages's behalf, would need to intervene to protect the identity of premies sought for outside the context of Misplaced Pages, but of whom Jossi now revealed they're Wikipedians too. That would not be money well spent, and Jossi should have done better to avoid the slightest chance of that ever occurring. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- WAS, Francis, you could have asked me via email about this, rather than here. You do not have all the information, the subpoena was served to me while I was actively editing Misplaced Pages. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Please remove "They even attempted to subpoena me to disclose the identities of fellow Wikipedians (etc)" from your "response" page. It was entirely inappropriate to bring that up on a Misplaced Pages user page. Our comments were in the same medium as where that was brought up. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I did. Now, you could consider investing your attention to maintain some basic talk-page discipline, by refactoring blatant personal attacks, such as and others. I am not fair game, neither that article is. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- There are also BLP violations on that page by that user and others. Neither that article, nor me, are fair game, in particular as I have done no wrong. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- For PA's I prefer to keep to WP:NPA#Initial options as long as possible. "Refactoring", which is in no way an obligatory option, (See WP:NPA#Removal of text) is almost never done by me (just the wrong guy you're asking). But to show I was annoyed too, and not of bad will, I posted this remark .
- I would have expected at a minimum a {{uw-npa2}}. I guess I will need to place a request at WP:/ANI so that someone else can warn that user about our policy of WP:CIVILITY ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- As you might remember, I tend to dismiss things that might be perceived as personal attacks with slightly out of place expressions like "over the hill", and leave interpretation to others. That was my attitude then, it is still the same. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I know, and I may be learning from you some of that :) Does it work? We shall see, I guess. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Of course it worked, as you also know. But indeed it works all the time. I consider myself a pretty controversial Misplaced Pages editor. Nonetheless I'm almost jealous of never having been at the center of some media attention. Lately I was thinking that might be caused by leaving endless lists of people saying not-so-nice things (intermingled with compliments) on my user talk page, neatly archiving these messages afterwards. ;) --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, I know, and I may be learning from you some of that :) Does it work? We shall see, I guess. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- As you might remember, I tend to dismiss things that might be perceived as personal attacks with slightly out of place expressions like "over the hill", and leave interpretation to others. That was my attitude then, it is still the same. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I would have expected at a minimum a {{uw-npa2}}. I guess I will need to place a request at WP:/ANI so that someone else can warn that user about our policy of WP:CIVILITY ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Re. "as I have done no wrong" — you say we don't have the evidence about that, so that assertion is empty, and irrelevant. Aka: Verifiability not truth. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:13, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- For PA's I prefer to keep to WP:NPA#Initial options as long as possible. "Refactoring", which is in no way an obligatory option, (See WP:NPA#Removal of text) is almost never done by me (just the wrong guy you're asking). But to show I was annoyed too, and not of bad will, I posted this remark .
My judgement is that within the context of the Prem Rawat article Jossi Fresco has exerted authority in an unfair way. To judge Jossi favourably because one can't find that he has done anything wrong seems short-sighted. What you might might want to look at is what he hasn't done that he should have. Like...over a period of years, turning a blind eye to the weasely editing of the Rawat article by fellow followers and ignoring their patronisation of other editors, whilst liberally dishing out warnings to the latter. Let me put it this way, as a critical former follower I wanted to edit this article to better reflect the truth which I see as being heavily revised. It is hardly encouraging to have Rawat's very own henchman residing over this article in an apparent position of authority. Worse to find that he is writing the rules and influencing every possible other connected article on an apparently full-time basis is extremely off-putting. One really feels that there are insurmountable ramparts around that article and most non-partisan editors have fled in frustration. As a result you now have a highly biased article. It that simple fellas.PatW (talk) 19:36, 10 February 2008 (UTC)PatW (talk) 19:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Declaration of intent
Please see User:Jossi/Response#Declaration_of_intent. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. Sounds like you have no intention to leave Rawat articles for others then. You intend to refrain from editing these articles 'directly for now' but you still intend to report people whose behaviour you deem inappropriate. If I were you, as a matter of common sense and conscience, I'd make that a very long 'for now' and when I did return (if I ever did) I'd be at great pains to demonstrate impartiality about that Prem Rawat article and I'd allow other more impartial people to take over. As a matter of fact that's what I have actually done myself. As I see it, one of the main problems with the Prem Rawat article is that premies make all these obsequious noises when caught being partisan, promise to take a break, but return to promptly revert everyone's edits when the hubbub has died down. Like everyone says you are apparently missing the gist of what people are telling you which is: Because there is notable objection to premies effectively 'owning' this article and also some furore over your perceived COI it would simply be polite and considerate to let others finish the job. As you know, I am a former premie and critic who stopped supporting Rawat and was drawn to this article because I objected to dishonesty and a policy of revisionism from him and his organisation. Even I can see that it is even best that I do not edit that article and stick to arguing my points on the discussion page and I have noticed that the other so-called 'ex-premie' critics generally do the same. Frankly I think that once opposing factions have laid out their cards on these types of controversial articles, the time naturally comes when they should both reasonably withdraw and let non-combatants take over. Both 'sides' should stick to arguing on the discussion pages and bow to the judgement of the public. How Misplaced Pages can encourage and put this into effect is another thing.PatW (talk) 12:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hello Pat. I have done my part, despite the lack of evidence that I have edited improperly or that I have abused my admin privileges. I did that as a demonstration of good faith, and to avoid further drama. What would have helped a lot would have been that you refrain from using the talk pages for things that prompted this warning. These type of comments are most unhelpful, and yes, if I see that happening and there is no response from these that have the article in their watchlist, I will indeed let other editors know so that they can take a look: The principle of WP:CIVILITY is one of the basis of this project. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jossi will you stop acting like a serious-faced school prefect and come down off your silly authoritative perch just for once?! You know that I am a 51 year old adult and an essentially civil one so so don't restrict my language or my sense of humour please. Neither I nor any self-respecting adult has time for that sort of unbending authoritarianism. All you seem to do is learn the Wiki book, follow the book and scuttle about bashing people with it if they go near your pet article. And hey, if the Wiki laws or guide-lines permit the kind of dishonesty and one-sided editorials you've encouraged there then they are full of holes and indeed do need revising! I feel you only have a gross interpretation of the word incivility and very little appreciation of subtle wit or civil responsibility. My occasional frustrated but candid outbursts (which most people will agree are actually not in the least uncalled for) are nothing compared to the unrelenting tide of mind-boggling arrogance, puerile and patronising comments from the premies who guard that article, whom you incidentally, NEVER reprimand. Where is your sense of public-spiritedness or civility helping people to obfuscate and limit the facts about Prem Rawat in an encyclopaedia of all places? I am appalled by the dishonesty manifest in that article and the constant waving of the rule book by you guys, which continues to drive all reasonable people away clutching their hair, beards or whatever in frustration.PatW (talk) 02:59, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
PS. If I were Mr Wales I would seriously worry that an expert in cult pushiness was aspiring so obsequiously to a position of authority in Wikpedia. The last thing Wikpedians need is lessons in how to hide things and get away with it! That will only lend weight to the existing accusations of Misplaced Pages being cultic. And Jossi, you do speak the cult language so perfectly. You keep saying stuff like 'Here we do things this way...' or 'In Misplaced Pages we do this " as if you are getting all cosy in some alternate reality where thousands of years of evolved human values have no place - only the cult-speak matters. The obvious parallel is Rawats own world where only his truths apply and everyone runs around nodding even if he's wrong. Maybe this is your natural home from home!PatW (talk) 03:11, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jim, lets forget about cults..this is a distraction I admit. I apologise for getting so hot about this but I feel passionately about the principal that COI is MORE important an issue than anonymity. In fact I am certain transparency is essential to the future credibility of Misplaced Pages. I have school age children who believe what they read in Misplaced Pages so I , (along with most of the rest of world) have a vested interest that they consult a reputable and credible resource. Misplaced Pages pretends to approximate to academic standards of peer review. It would be unthinkable within academia for a referee to remain anonymous.PatW (talk) 12:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Can we do anything about this?
WP:NOT#SOAPBOX --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hello Francis. I understand your concern, as bringing to the project off-wiki disputes is never a good thing. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I have refactored that comment, Francis. Thank you for pointing this out. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- You wrote yourself at a certain time that every editor work at Prem Rawat was independent. There was only some exchange of sources as far as I know. If your accusation was true then how come that a certain time nearly all criticial material had been removed? Your accusation is false and insulting. Please also remember that the ex-premie forum is the only open forum discussing Prem Rawat on the internet. I had request a more neutral forum but that was not available. Andries (talk) 19:53, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Anonymity vs COI
Jimbo, this episode with Jossi and Rawat brings up this issue again, which is, anonymity vs COI. Which one is more important? If anonymity is more important, then Jossi has just been treated unfairly because he made the "mistake" of editing under his real name. If open participation in this project is more important to you, then I would imagine that you would lean towards this view.
If COI is more important, however, as I believe it would be if your priority is to produce an encyclopedia with a credible reputation, then I imagine that you would now be telling Jossi that you don't even want him to breathe in the general direction of any of the Rawat articles. So, which side do you lean towards? Cla68 (talk) 07:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jim, I've given this matter of Jossi's COI further thought and I believe Cla68 has hit the nail on the head. I now simply arrive at exactly the same question. Which side do you lean towards? Your comments so far indicate that you lean towards favouring anonymity. Can we conclude this?PatW (talk) 11:53, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
WikiNews is inventing "news" now - posting headlines before the fact
Jimbo, your "Anti-Scientology News" has hit a new low with this article prominently displayed on the front page: Wikinews international report: "Anonymous" holds over 250 anti-Scientology protests worldwide. With two protests off "we" post a past-tense story that that are 250? Here they are taking the story live at 05:19 UTC, looking more like they want to drum up support for upcoming rallies than anything else:
"The Internet group Anonymous today held over 250 protests, critical of the religious group Church of Scientology and marking what would have been the 49th birthday of Lisa McPherson, who is claimed to be a victim of the Church of Scientology's practices."
I have said before that there is no jounalistic integrity over there when it comes to Scientology and they just proved my point with a bang! Carry on. --JustaHulk (talk) 08:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- What does this have to do with the English Misplaced Pages? Lawrence § t/e 08:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is a communication from me to Jimbo, on a page he reads. If you are not interested then you are free to move on to something else. --JustaHulk (talk) 08:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I understand that Jimbo has an email address, which is the perfect way to communicate from 'you to him' on subjects that aren't related to building an encyclopedia. Repeatedly using this (high-visibility, high-traffic) talk page to bring up non-Misplaced Pages topics might be seen by some as soapboxing. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Perhaps you have not noticed that on the Main Page of the English Misplaced Pages, we have links to and headlines from Wikinews. If they are making up stories there, it is showing up on this project's most public face. I would suggest that is a darn good reason for English Misplaced Pages to take an interest in what is going on there. Risker (talk) 16:06, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I understand that Jimbo has an email address, which is the perfect way to communicate from 'you to him' on subjects that aren't related to building an encyclopedia. Repeatedly using this (high-visibility, high-traffic) talk page to bring up non-Misplaced Pages topics might be seen by some as soapboxing. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is a communication from me to Jimbo, on a page he reads. If you are not interested then you are free to move on to something else. --JustaHulk (talk) 08:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I am on a soapbox - the soapbox that perhaps the captain of this ship, and perhaps some experienced and intelligent editors over here, might want to take a bit of responsibility for a sister project whose excesses reflects on this project, too. I see that my correction of the title of the aforementioned article, in which I removed the partisan crystal-balling in a neutral fashion, has been reverted and labeled vandalism by one of the main partisans, an admin there that says: "I am currently a candidate for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees."
"Please do not removed sourced, true information from articles. That is considered vandalism. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 15:19, 10 February 2008 (UTC)" n:User talk:JustaHulk
"I am currently a candidate for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees." Scary stuff, that. --JustaHulk (talk) 16:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- And for those that would say "sofixit", well, I did (good thing someone with some "common sense" checked in over there - I could use some help with that). Let's see if it stays fixed. On a side note, it is interesting that WikiNews reports 800 at Sydney while a "reliable source" says 150. I will leave that alone as doubless the "reporter" will stand by his "reporting". --JustaHulk (talk) 09:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm so glad that the "Church of Scientology" is teaching us how to be unbiased. Just don't sue us, OK? You'd think with all your money that you'd build a soup kitchen or something, but I guess posting here about that story is just as good. I never knew that stating plain facts qualified with such adjectives as claimed would be bias, though. But, I'm sure Jimbo will take time out of his day to delete those facts for you. So, despite what some people may think, your post made a difference and we all appreciate you taking OUR time to discuss it.--The Smartass (talk) 10:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Wikinews does original research with a variably-reliable editorial process - that's why wikipedia can't in general use them as a source. WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Too bad all this reporting is verifiable. So find another excuse. This one is old already. DragonFire1024 (talk) 19:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- "Verifiable?" Really? How about you show us just one reliable source that supports the statement you posted this morning with only a few protests in Australia/New Zealand off (note past tense below):
and that you continue to push as the headline (albeit with a vaguer tense). That someone as clueless about the difference between reality and partisan wishful thinking as you evidently are (and as willing to champion the latter as you are) would be considered for a Trustee is truly stupefying. --JustaHulk (talk) 21:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)"The Internet group Anonymous today held over 250 protests"
- "Verifiable?" Really? How about you show us just one reliable source that supports the statement you posted this morning with only a few protests in Australia/New Zealand off (note past tense below):
- Too bad all this reporting is verifiable. So find another excuse. This one is old already. DragonFire1024 (talk) 19:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
I think the problem is that we allow Anonymous editors on Misplaced Pages. ☯ Zenwhat (talk) 16:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Is that intended to be a "provocative" statement (so as to not use another term)? :) --JustaHulk (talk) 17:42, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Whether you liked the source of the 250 protests or not is not my problem. It was and is sourced, properly. Your POV of a source does not make is unreliable. So prove us wrong instead of violating policy all the time. DragonFire1024 (talk) 21:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- DragonFire, really! Are you and I even looking at the same WikiNews?? That 250 headline disappeared long ago (I disappeared it for the second time and that time it stuck). I later corrected the body with reliably sourced material that was already available in the references (any reason I have to be the one?) I asked you for the source of the 250 number (as in a link), not more doubletalk and unfounded attacks. Do you have the link? Do you have a source? And that is not to mention your other excesses, like the snide and unprofessional photo, that I removed, here ("Careful WikiNews! The Church of Scientology is coming to get you!"). PS - you would not care to back this charge of "violating policy all the time", would you? I do appreciate you coming over here, though, and talking to me though I would still like a straight answer to my questions - and that goes for your cohort Brianmc also, another WikiNews admin and bureaucrat(!), who accuses me of "lied to either Wikinews or the en.WP ArbCom" and "wildly conflicting stories" because he "discovered" that I was a Scientologist (see n:User talk:JustaHulk#Interview). When I go over to WikiNews, it is like I chugged a vial labeled "Drink Me". Wheeeeeeee --JustaHulk (talk) 21:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Whether you liked the source of the 250 protests or not is not my problem. It was and is sourced, properly. Your POV of a source does not make is unreliable. So prove us wrong instead of violating policy all the time. DragonFire1024 (talk) 21:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not even angry.
Jimbo and others, since I, on occasion, use this page in a perhaps provocative fashion, I would like to please direct your attention to User:JustaHulk#Announcement. --JustaHulk (talk) 15:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Your opinion as the founder of the Misplaced Pages project on WP:FICT issues.
I'm not exactly sure you'll even bother to read this, but I, along with many Misplaced Pages users, wonder what your stance is on fictional topics on Misplaced Pages. The users you've entrusted your project to have essentially done nothing but babble back and forth for months now on what should or shouldn't be included as content on this encyclopedia, while infamous users such as TTN have been going on crusades deleting, trimming and merging hundreds, or possibly thousands of articles citing these controversial guidelines as rules set in stone. Many of these deleted articles are episodes of popular television shows and fictional content, some being formerly Featured Articles such as Bulbasaur or ones that were constantly on the top 100 viewed articles. Most of these article deletions are cited as "okay" since the content is sometimes moved over to horribly maintained and obscure external Wikis such as Wikia. I myself have long stopped being truly involved with Misplaced Pages because of this mindset that so many "powerful" Wikipedians share, but would still enjoy hearing your opinions or seeing a little intervention. - 4.154.237.192 (talk) 18:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- It has been noted by many, that general fiction and cultural-trivia and fancruft collection is the one thing that Misplaced Pages does better than any other source. Not that Misplaced Pages isn't a good information source for other things, but cruft-collection is where it really shines. All of which makes the cruft-killers here on WP a bit bizarre, except for the existance of Wikia, the cruft-hole-that-makes-$. So NOW there's a conflict of interest in getting cruft moved from HERE to THERE. One which has been DEFINED not to be a conflict of interest. Hmmm. SBHarris 18:46, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- The cruft is GFDL-licensed. It can be moved or copied anywhere that complies with the terms of that license—Wikia included. If you'd like to copy the cruft to someplace else as well, you're more than welcome. Heck, ad-supported sites have been mirroring Misplaced Pages content for years(see WP:FORK). You can even take the stuff straight from Wikia; you don't have to catch content while it's on Misplaced Pages.
- Meanwhile, the cruft-killers on Misplaced Pages are not owners of Wikia. They just want the cruft out of the encyclopedia. Whether or not one agrees with their editorial stance is moot—they don't have a conflict of interest, and they don't stand to personally benefit from Misplaced Pages content being copied to Wikia. Don't mistake – or worse, misrepresent – a content disagreement for a conflict of interest. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Don't mistake my argument. Many of the cruft-killers may not stand to financially benefit, but if they want it out of WP, they stand to benefit by the argument that it has another place to go to. If it didn't, it would make their job harder. Meanwhile, the people who do run Wikia have a reason not to stand in the way of it disappearing HERE and reappearing THERE. The copy issue is irrelevent if it's not available in one place, but is in another. You still have to go to the other place and look at the ads to see it. And by the way, not ALL the cruft disappears to GFDL places. Go see Memory alpha for an example of cruft which disappears to a black hole place from whence no commercial re-use is ever allowed. And who profits from that move?
Now, again, don't mistake my argument. I'm sure all Trek fans are happy to have that stuff there, and cruft-killers here are happy to see it gone. BUT, the problem is that once this kind of thing is set as trivia killing precident, we set a bad precident for killing "cruft" or trivia that actually has no place else on the web to go to, because fewer people are fans of it. Once gone from wikipedia, it goes back to whatever newpaper microfiche or musty library stack it came out of originally, and is now unavailable to the rest of us. I saw that happen to bios on supercentinarians, and even some of the people who wrote them were effectively banned. Not good. Especially when we have to suffer through lists of Grand Dukes of Luxembourg and their next-in-succession (groan). SBHarris 20:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Don't mistake my argument. Many of the cruft-killers may not stand to financially benefit, but if they want it out of WP, they stand to benefit by the argument that it has another place to go to. If it didn't, it would make their job harder. Meanwhile, the people who do run Wikia have a reason not to stand in the way of it disappearing HERE and reappearing THERE. The copy issue is irrelevent if it's not available in one place, but is in another. You still have to go to the other place and look at the ads to see it. And by the way, not ALL the cruft disappears to GFDL places. Go see Memory alpha for an example of cruft which disappears to a black hole place from whence no commercial re-use is ever allowed. And who profits from that move?
- Material from Misplaced Pages cannot be copied to a Wikia project that doesn't use a GFDL-compatible license. (If the author of the material on Misplaced Pages chooses to relicense his contributions, he is welcome to. If you would like to invite such authors to contribute their material to other sites as well, you certainly may.) There is no provision for Misplaced Pages administrators, editors, or staff to transfer material to a site with, for example, a non-commercial-use-only license.
- Okay, I see we're going to need a specific example. There once existed on WMF an entire Klingon Misplaced Pages, just like the English one. Except Wiki articles were written in Klingonese. I kid you not. That entire Klingon Misplaced Pages has since been moved to Wikia. . Now, I reject that the entire Klingon Misplaced Pages was the work of one single author when it was hosted by Wikimedia as a Misplaced Pages, but you're free to argue this, if you have info. Otherwise, the thing you said could not happen, obviously did here. Please explain. And by the way, how would you feel if this had happened to the Esperanto Misplaced Pages, another constructed language Misplaced Pages still hosted by WMF ? SBHarris 18:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- As for material that 'has no place else on the web to go'—well, we're not the humane society. WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, nor a blog or webspace provider, nor a file repository. In any case, I'm not sure what the potential loss of some material from the web has to do with your apparently groundless accusations of a conflict of interest. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:31, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, well WP:NOT also mentions that WP is WP:NOTPAPER, either, so there’s space for all kinds of information that is verifiable, even if somebody made it up, like fictional works, articles written in Epiranto, or articles written in Klingon (except the latter have been hijacked, as noted). Your “indiscriminate information” is my discriminate information. It’s totally dependent on interest. I have mentioned the painful Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg with its dependent List of Grand Dukes of Luxembourg and Line of succession to the Luxembourgian Throne. All of this existing here because (to borrow a quote from Shrek) royalty makes some folks here, hotter than July (“Ewww…”). The rest of us, to whom royalty is a joke at best and pox on the history of the mankind at worst, just have to roll our eyes. Eww, indeed. But, different strokes for different folks.
Alas, the favor is not returned, for the deletionists have all kinds of rationales for deleting information that doesn’t interest them. Example: Hemoglobin used to have a subarticle created by me, discussing hemoglobin variants about the many genetic polymorphisms of alleles. This medical information was damn well more notable and important to humananity than the line of succession of Luxembourgian Grand Dukes. It got deleted and redirected to the original article before it had time to grow. Now, somebody’s on the hemoglobin TALK page, wondering what’s the difference between tetramer varients and allele varients, and I have no place to direct them. This is/was a case of encyclopedia damage, not failure to find a puppy shelter.
If you want a more whimsical example that I had little to do with, I recently made my one and only (small) contribution to Bokononisms, refering to sayings from an artificial religion created by Kurt Vonnegut for Cat’s Cradle. Somebody noticed this, and proceeded to gut the article, saying the content wasn’t referenced. When I restored it, pointing out that it was, they deleted again, saying it was copyright infringing. When I reverted, they said the material had not only infringment but had notability problems. Basically they just want it GONE, and if one reason won’t do, another will. That’s the battle we fight all the time, here. And if you’re wondering what’s the connection is, to stuff disappearing to Wikia for profit, like the Klingon articles, the answer is that ANYTHING like this, ends up “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” The enemy being people thinking to write an encyclopedia, yet who really cannot empathize with anybody else’s special interests (!). SBHarris 20:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, well WP:NOT also mentions that WP is WP:NOTPAPER, either, so there’s space for all kinds of information that is verifiable, even if somebody made it up, like fictional works, articles written in Epiranto, or articles written in Klingon (except the latter have been hijacked, as noted). Your “indiscriminate information” is my discriminate information. It’s totally dependent on interest. I have mentioned the painful Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg with its dependent List of Grand Dukes of Luxembourg and Line of succession to the Luxembourgian Throne. All of this existing here because (to borrow a quote from Shrek) royalty makes some folks here, hotter than July (“Ewww…”). The rest of us, to whom royalty is a joke at best and pox on the history of the mankind at worst, just have to roll our eyes. Eww, indeed. But, different strokes for different folks.
- Material from Misplaced Pages cannot be copied to a Wikia project that doesn't use a GFDL-compatible license. (If the author of the material on Misplaced Pages chooses to relicense his contributions, he is welcome to. If you would like to invite such authors to contribute their material to other sites as well, you certainly may.) There is no provision for Misplaced Pages administrators, editors, or staff to transfer material to a site with, for example, a non-commercial-use-only license.
To claim that wikipedia merely does cruft well is to grossly underestimate wikipedia. If I see a problem it is underselling wikipedia, after all 6 times out of 10 its a better search engine than Google or Yahoo. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- No way. Misplaced Pages's search engine per se, sucks. It can't even deal with spelling errors, half the time. To really search Misplaced Pages well, you need to USE Google. They are complimentary. Why do I have to tell you this? SBHarris 20:39, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Err, I think you are missing my point, it is the content of wikipedia that makes it so valuable, and, as someone with a tremendous intellectual curiosity, I don't see any real competitors. Though wikipedia clearly does have knowledge holes. If you are criticising the search feature, well, as I said, I think the foundation underestimates what a jewel it has (we've never seen such a user generated product before), and would do well to fortify itself through investment in order to actualise its product in the best way possible. Thanks, SqueakBox 20:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- SqueakBox , I think I agree with what you are trying to say but are slightly mis-stating. Please see if this is not your intended meaning:
- It is the community that creates the free to copy anywhere content of Misplaced Pages that makes it so valuable, and, as someone with a tremendous intellectual curiosity, I don't see any real competitors. Though wikipedia clearly does have knowledge holes. If you are criticising the search feature, well, as I said, I think the foundation underestimates what a jewel it has (we've never seen such a user generated product before), and would do well to fortify itself through investment in order to actualise its product in the best way possible. Thanks.
- I would add to that, that deleting content and moving it to Wikia is an attempt to motivate the community that created that content to abandon wikipedia and contribute elsewhere. People will not stay here at wikipedia and edit articles they don't care about if the articles they do care about are moved to Wikia. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
- Oh, and see the talk page of Wikia for some interesting conversation. The latest Wikimedia financial audit written by Wikimedia and approved by an audit firm states that Wikimedia and Wikia share hosting and bandwidth, but that Yahoo used to provide bandwidth as a donation, but no longer does. What the heck is going on? The audit goes out of its way to make clear that Wikia and wikimedia no longer share office space, but on the subject of shared bandwidth and hosting, uses the present tense and says not word about it being discontinued. Further, the report was just finalized and approved a couple days ago, so its not like it is from last year. This is very disturbing. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:44, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
For what its worth, I think the entire drive by a minority of editors to feverishly delete or get rid of all the episode articles is just over the top, stupid, and petty. It's a classic example of "I don't like it, or think it has value, so no one will have it." I'd weigh in but that's such a bitter, rancorous pool, like the spoil mess, that I really don't need the aggravation. Lawrence § t/e 17:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- Agree with LC, above. . .it's why a lot of editors don't weigh in more often. R. Baley (talk) 17:37, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- It would perhaps be a less bitter and rancorous pool if the opposition wasn't portrayed so negatively. A lot of those wanting to get rid of many of the current episode articles (and to call them a minority is pure speculation, they don't appear to be a minority of our regular editors anyway) do so because they are convinced that many of these articles violate some policies, and the chance of them improving is quasi nil. These articles are not verifiable by secondary, independent sources, have no indication of notability, and consist mainly of plot summaries (violating WP:NOT and according to some people bordering on copyright violations). Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source, but these articles are mainly secondary sources, based directly on the original episodes and not on what independent, reliable sources have written about them. While in general a list of episodes (or a list per season) may be an acceptable compromise, individual episode articles are overkill (except for those episodes that do have individual notability, as e.g. award winners, first or last of series, or for some controversy). There are many comparable things we don't have articles for, like individual sport games (again with the exception of truly notable ones), individual magazine issues, individual newspaper issues, etcetera. Discussion can be had about where to draw the line, obviously, but if you can't respect the people with a different viewpoint a bit more, it's no wonder that this has become bitter. Fram (talk) 15:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- So help me out here, we are going to keep the Star Trek episode articles, right? Between that and The Simpsons, there's half my look-ups on Misplaced Pages :) Franamax (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- That would depend (ultimately) on the number of dedicated editors (at least a small portion must be well versed in policy and guidelines) you have to defend it. R. Baley (talk) 00:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not only to defend it, but to improve the articles as well. To take a random example, an article like Court Martial (Star Trek) is not really an example of what we expect of Misplaced Pages articles. Much too long plot summary, no in line references, no reliable independent sources (one external link is a wiki, the other is not independent). Bt I know that there is tons of reliable published information about Star Trek (books, encyclopedias, nitpickers' guides, etcetera), so I assume that a decent article about each Star Trek episode (at least TOS and TNG, probably the others as well) is possible. But if you want to defend these articles, you (as a group, not Franamax personally) must be willing to make the effort to seriously improve the article as well. The article dates from October 2004, so it's not like there hasn't been time to do so... I personally see no good reason not to redirect such articles to an episode list until a better version is made, but I'm not going to do this until the discussions (ArbCom and so on) are perhaps someday resolved.Fram (talk) 08:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, that is a good example of an ungood article and it does need to be improved. But does its existence in the current form hurt anything? It does have some utility as it is and presumably gets page views (not sure where to check on that). I'd rather try to improve articles already on my list but still have that one there. It would be a shame to see it vanish under a redirect. Franamax (talk) 08:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- These are always difficult decisions. On the one hand, such articles are of interest to some people (perhaps a lot of people), but on the other hand, they diminish Misplaced Pages's credibility (in their current unsourced or poorly sourced state) and set a poor example (if you can have "that article", then why not article X?). To use a strawman: articles on ponr stars (and certainly well-illustrated articles on porn stars) get lots of page views, but we don't keep them either (unless they have sourced notability). Misplaced Pages must not aim for popularity, but for accuracy. Our aim is wide but not unlimited. To include articles that in their current state fall outside that aim (i.e. articles that fail WP:NOTE or something similar) do not improve Misplaced Pages if you consider it as an encyclopedia, a tertiary source. Of course, articles must first be given the chance to improve if there is a reasonable chance that they can meet our aims, but after a while (like this article), and especially if the problems have been tagged for a while (which at first glance hasn't happened with this article), the reasonable assumption is that either the article can not be improved, or no one at the moment is willing or able to do so, and for that reason, it should be redirected (for episodes and the like) or deleted (for e.g. biographies). This is not definitive though: such articles can be resurrected when the improvements are made. I don't think this is the most popular position to take, but I do believe that it is the best way to maintain the scope and intentions of Misplaced Pages as I understand them. I think this generally is the same as what the disputed guideline WP:EPISODE says, and what the vast majority of users at the Request for comments have said so far. I don't mean to say that your position is incorrect: it is a difference in opinion, and in the end we have the same aspirations (I believe), but the way to get there is in this case different. Fram (talk) 10:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- The thing with that is that Misplaced Pages will never be a scholarly source, so the meer existence of articles like Marth (Fire Emblem) which has been pushed for merge/deletion isn't really hurting Misplaced Pages's "credibility" at all. I don't think anyone would actually discount the merits of well-written Misplaced Pages articles on specifically real-world content just because it also has large bits of info on another subject, the people who don't trust Misplaced Pages generally do so because of its open format and not because it's a wide-scope enyclopedia. As long as a fiction article is informative without being a total plot summary on the larger subject, and is written from an objective point of view, it isn't hurting the enyclopedia's credibility at all. - 4.156.54.235 (talk) 23:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- These are always difficult decisions. On the one hand, such articles are of interest to some people (perhaps a lot of people), but on the other hand, they diminish Misplaced Pages's credibility (in their current unsourced or poorly sourced state) and set a poor example (if you can have "that article", then why not article X?). To use a strawman: articles on ponr stars (and certainly well-illustrated articles on porn stars) get lots of page views, but we don't keep them either (unless they have sourced notability). Misplaced Pages must not aim for popularity, but for accuracy. Our aim is wide but not unlimited. To include articles that in their current state fall outside that aim (i.e. articles that fail WP:NOTE or something similar) do not improve Misplaced Pages if you consider it as an encyclopedia, a tertiary source. Of course, articles must first be given the chance to improve if there is a reasonable chance that they can meet our aims, but after a while (like this article), and especially if the problems have been tagged for a while (which at first glance hasn't happened with this article), the reasonable assumption is that either the article can not be improved, or no one at the moment is willing or able to do so, and for that reason, it should be redirected (for episodes and the like) or deleted (for e.g. biographies). This is not definitive though: such articles can be resurrected when the improvements are made. I don't think this is the most popular position to take, but I do believe that it is the best way to maintain the scope and intentions of Misplaced Pages as I understand them. I think this generally is the same as what the disputed guideline WP:EPISODE says, and what the vast majority of users at the Request for comments have said so far. I don't mean to say that your position is incorrect: it is a difference in opinion, and in the end we have the same aspirations (I believe), but the way to get there is in this case different. Fram (talk) 10:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hmm, that is a good example of an ungood article and it does need to be improved. But does its existence in the current form hurt anything? It does have some utility as it is and presumably gets page views (not sure where to check on that). I'd rather try to improve articles already on my list but still have that one there. It would be a shame to see it vanish under a redirect. Franamax (talk) 08:44, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Not only to defend it, but to improve the articles as well. To take a random example, an article like Court Martial (Star Trek) is not really an example of what we expect of Misplaced Pages articles. Much too long plot summary, no in line references, no reliable independent sources (one external link is a wiki, the other is not independent). Bt I know that there is tons of reliable published information about Star Trek (books, encyclopedias, nitpickers' guides, etcetera), so I assume that a decent article about each Star Trek episode (at least TOS and TNG, probably the others as well) is possible. But if you want to defend these articles, you (as a group, not Franamax personally) must be willing to make the effort to seriously improve the article as well. The article dates from October 2004, so it's not like there hasn't been time to do so... I personally see no good reason not to redirect such articles to an episode list until a better version is made, but I'm not going to do this until the discussions (ArbCom and so on) are perhaps someday resolved.Fram (talk) 08:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- That would depend (ultimately) on the number of dedicated editors (at least a small portion must be well versed in policy and guidelines) you have to defend it. R. Baley (talk) 00:11, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- So help me out here, we are going to keep the Star Trek episode articles, right? Between that and The Simpsons, there's half my look-ups on Misplaced Pages :) Franamax (talk) 23:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
WP Logo
Mr Wales,
The Misplaced Pages Logo has the wrong Hindi alphabet. I think this issue has been brought up before. When will it be fixed?
Hope to make Misplaced Pages better Σαι ( Talk) 12:10, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- There was an article in the New York Times about it. According to the article the person who made the logo lost the original computer file and is too busy to start from scratch. Jon513 (talk) 13:02, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
- I need to register to see that? Can someone give me the text? Σαι ( Talk) 10:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- this may help. Jon513 (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I need to register to see that? Can someone give me the text? Σαι ( Talk) 10:42, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks. there was an article in the Indian newspaper Eenadu Eenadu not long ago. I guess until someone with some time on their hands comes around this will be like this. :( Σαι ( Talk) 16:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
If a well-known gramatically incorrect logo cannot be fixed after nearly a year of Misplaced Pages being aware of it, what hope can there be? Hope is the driving force behind Misplaced Pages failure. ☯ Zenwhat (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, Zenwhat, stop trolling, ok?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Could we not just very carefully replace the characters in a paint program? I'm good with this sort of stuff. Does anybody object to me giving it a go and making a test? • Anakin 21:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- Hello Jimbo, and others watching this page :-). I gave it a go. Compare Image:Misplaced Pages-logo.png and Image:Misplaced Pages-logo-fix-test.png. The new characters look a bit distorted but I think it's just because they're an unfamiliar shape anyway. I can tweak it of course. Is it an improvement? • Anakin 22:00, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman
Do I understand correctly that you still retain the ability to dissolve the present ArbCom and hold new elections? —Random832 15:35, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
I believe so, yes. I think the ArbCom would support me in that notion as well. However, the chances of me doing that are vanishingly close to zero. It's a useful safety valve in case of a major major problem, but not something I have any interest in doing. The power of our traditions rests primarily in them being sane, and their use being sane.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:40, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
Do you consider the Arbitration Committee's actions in the above-named case, by which an administrator ("Vanished User" refers to this person throughout, if you wish to review the case) has been driven away from the site and the community's input has been completely ignored for no apparent reason other than it not having been the outcome Uninvited Company wanted, to be "sane"? If you haven't been following it closely enough to know what the issue is, I can try to put together a summary sometime this week. —Random832 21:06, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I've separated out Zenwhat's comment below, so that Jimbo can reply to Random if he wants to. For what it is worth, though I was effectively one of those that helped to "bring the case" in the Matthew Hoffman arbitration case, but I share some of the concerns raised in various places. For example: Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for arbitration/Matthew Hoffman/Proposed decision#Regarding the explanation from UninvitedCompany and User talk:UninvitedCompany#Matthew Hoffman case. I think the Arbitration Committee have learnt from this themselves about how not to do things in future, but it might help if you checked in with them yourself to find out exactly what happened. Carcharoth (talk) 22:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I disagreed with my colleagues' disposition of the Matthew Hoffman case as well as with a remedy that was adopted in another recently closed, prominent case. However, I am extremely confident that in each case, the majority voted for the outcome they believed was in the best interests of the project and the contributor base as a whole, and I respectfully do not believe that the suggestion of dissolving the committee based on disagreement with a particular decision is a constructive one. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree with Newyorkbrad that dissolving the committee as a whole is UNwarranted. However, I have some very serious concerns, which are clearly shared by others including Carcharoth, MastCell and Random832. At present I am very seriously considering initiating a user RfC on one or more ArbCom members to determine whether the community wants to register its dissent, or even to declare they lack confidence in the judgement of one or more Committee members. As Newyorkbrad indicates, opinions can differ and ArbCom members are entitled to reasonable discretion. The question for me is whether some member(s) have gone beyond what the community believes are reasonable bounds on that discretion, and if so, whether this has undermined the confidence in those Committee members seriously enough for further action to be warranted. EdChem (talk) 02:05, 13 February 2008 (UTC) Note: changed warranted to UNwarranted once I noticed this mistake. Apologies for not re-reading carefully earlier. EdChem (talk) 07:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm seriously troubled, upset, and disappointed by a number of aspects in the handling of this case from start to finish. I've elaborated elsewhere and won't repeat myself here. I do think that it's not right to beat up on UninvitedCompany - after all, he was one of the few Arbs willing to share his thought process and invite questions, a considerate step which he was not obligated to take. I think the Committee does an excellent job in general, despite my very profound objections to the handling of this particular case, and I don't think an RfC would be appropriate or fruitful at this point. Nor would an unprecedented step like dissolving the Committee (though I do wish the Committee as a whole seemed to have a bit more accountability when cases like this arise). I'd rather try to understand if I'm missing something fundamental in my understanding of the case. Assuming I'm not, then I'd be much more comfortable if there was at least some acknowledgement that this case was an aberration and that its more disturbing features would not be repeated - but of course, making me comfortable is not Misplaced Pages's or the Committee's primary function. :) MastCell 04:54, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I've watched over 30 arbitration cases unfold. The Matthew Hoffman case was the worst handled one I've ever seen, and that includes my own. Durova 07:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Indeed, I'm surprised the ArbCom has managed to reduce my respect for them as a collective to zero. It was already extraordinarily low after (some event I probably can't mention without being accused of trolling), but this is a serious problem. I suppose there's nothing to do other than add my name to the pile of "The community is unhappy" voices. WilyD 13:45, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I think to be fair with the diversity of opinions on the current committee and the nature of the case, some of the mess was inevitable. However I think dissolving the committee is a bit extreme (perhaps leaning on them to drop the case, which IMO should have been done a long while ago, would however be productive). I tend to agree with MastCell in general above. Orderinchaos 12:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- The option of "leaning on them to drop the case" has left the building, it closed yesterday. —Random832 15:28, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Keeping in mind that those who disagree with a ruling may be more vocal in complaining than those who are satisfied are likely to praise it, I do not agree with those who think the ArbCom handled this case badly. The now vanished user violated policies and abused admin privileges, per the now final decision; suggesting that the ArbCom did their jobs badly because they bent over backwards to make accommodations to the vanished user is really unfair to them. —Whig (talk) 17:21, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- That probably would be unfair to the Committee, if anyone were actually arguing that. I'm certainly not. The issue is not whether the admin in question made some bad blocks (he did); the issues have to do with how the case was processed, accepted, and disposed. This was formulated as a test case - to paraphrase Voltaire, the idea was to desysop one admin with prejudice pour encourager les autres - and the processing of the case, at least initially, suggests that the Committee saw it as such. The handling of this case sends a number of damaging and demoralizing messages, which I'm far more concerned about than the fate of the admin in question's sysop bit. MastCell 17:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I agree it sends an important message to admins to be responsible with their sysop bit. I hope that message resonates. —Whig (talk) 18:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- This is not the message it sends at all. WilyD 19:31, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- As an alternative to completely dissolving the committee and holding another election, I would like to suggest this: a reconfirmation election for UninvitedCompany and Charles Matthews (since these were the two arbitrators whose actions seem to be the primary issue here); to be replaced (if they are not reconfirmed) by two new arbitrators chosen at Jimbo's discretion from those who received at least 50% in the December 2007 election but were not appointed at that time. —Random832 19:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll confess I'm a bit puzzled here (though I have not been in the details). UC was one of several arbitrators active on this case, who collectively reached a certain decision. Even if he/she was an advocate for a certain position, part of the reason we have a multiple member arbcom is so that any potential individual biases are mitigated. Charles Matthews brought forward a case and correctly recused himself from being an arbitrator in it: you might claim he should not have brought the case (but it was accepted by the committee...) or that he could have been more civil in discussing it in his role as a party to the case (but we have seen much worse from arbcom case participants...) but I fail to see any rationale for reconfirmation/recall. Martinp (talk) 20:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- My impression was that UninvitedCompany was largely considered responsible for the direction the committee took in ignoring the outcome of the RFC. Was I incorrect? As for Charles Matthews, I think both the extreme lack of decorum and, more to the point, the committee's bizarre (yes, bizarre. What's the point of a recusal if everyone else is just going to close ranks anyway?) reluctance to examine his behavior mean that it should be looked at instead by the community as a whole; arbitrators are supposed to set an example, and even though his behavior here was not strictly as an arbitrator, his behavior still has an effect on the credibility of arbcom itself. —Random832 22:04, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'll confess I'm a bit puzzled here (though I have not been in the details). UC was one of several arbitrators active on this case, who collectively reached a certain decision. Even if he/she was an advocate for a certain position, part of the reason we have a multiple member arbcom is so that any potential individual biases are mitigated. Charles Matthews brought forward a case and correctly recused himself from being an arbitrator in it: you might claim he should not have brought the case (but it was accepted by the committee...) or that he could have been more civil in discussing it in his role as a party to the case (but we have seen much worse from arbcom case participants...) but I fail to see any rationale for reconfirmation/recall. Martinp (talk) 20:38, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Now that the case ended and Vanished User has left the building, I'll point out another flaw in this proceeding: the ruling didn't actually prohibit the community from readminning this editor. Compare the wording of this case's remedy to previous arbitration desysoppings. Vanished User's supporters knew they had the numbers, thanks to the well attended RFC. An RFA would have been an open challenge to the Committee and a reminder of where their mandate springs from. Durova 20:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I see that as less of a flaw and more of a hat tipping to the fact that there were extenuating circumstances here with regards to inappropriate tool use. A probable corollary is that rather than deal with both the tool use and the circumstances, they chose to deal with only the tool use, which could easily be framed within the letter of the laws, and not the other circumstances, which would require consideration of the spirit as well.
- But in any case, I think this recall talk dramafodder should be dropped. The scope of their improving the encyclopedia is merely to make sure the rules are enforced. Yes they punted on the more pressing but longer term problem, but if Jimbo wishes to comment on that, I am sure he will. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 21:05, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'm not so sure the community would re-admin this user in any case, and recalling specific Arbs on the basis of their role in one poor decision seems like a bad precedent. I think the bottom line is that a number of people were horrified/disappointed/deeply dismayed by how this case was handled from start to finish, and there is really no outlet for that. I don't think that resysopping the user in question would fix things, nor am I convinced it would be a good idea. I'd be happy if the Committee, or rather certain elements of it, would acknowledge that they'd be more circumspect regarding special treatment the next time an angry Arbitrator brings a case, and disown the notion of turning valued editors into "test cases". Since that appears vanishingly unlikely, I think all that can be done is to file this one away and move on. MastCell 21:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I offered to nom Vanished User, and he declined. This probably only indicates he's a wiser man than I. WilyD 23:04, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Please answer me one thing
How could you? Cool Hand Luke 09:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Jimbo, did you really admit that Gary Weiss was Mantanmoreland five months ago? If so, you've let this situation fester all this time, wasting hundreds of hours of our time and threatening the credibility of this freaking project you've set up that so many of us spend so much of our time trying to make work? I know what I want to ask of you next, but I'm going to wait for your answer before I ask it, because it will be a serious request. In fact, I'm going to bold this to make sure you see it...Did you admit that Gary Weiss was Mantanmoreland on 9/15/2007? Cla68 (talk) 10:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Cla, he said he thought they were the same, but didn't want to act unless there was proof. Perhaps you want to rephrase the question? Relata refero (talk) 12:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- According to the post, here are his exact words, "I just want to go on record as saying that I believe the reason for this is that Mantanmoreland is in fact Gary Weiss." I'm giving him a chance to explain this remark before I comment further. Cla68 (talk) 12:18, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Cla, he said he thought they were the same, but didn't want to act unless there was proof. Perhaps you want to rephrase the question? Relata refero (talk) 12:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
As near as I can tell, the situation is this: One POV side was careful to be nice to all the right people while the other side was careful to be as insulting as possible to all the right people (including vicious libelous attacks on Jimbo that have now been deleted on a site they control). The cabal rallied around the nice guys. The nice guys then proceeded to use their position to make certain articles POV, but not so much that the cabal would care. Meanwhile, the bad guys launch sock after sock after sock, so the cabal stops even trying to be fair and simply views anyone with the same POV as the bad side as a sock. Thus is born the thought crime and how doing battle on wikipedia creates sides. But in the end both sides need to be banned. One side was just so nice (100s of emails to the right people says Guy) that some still make excuses. Well, stand aside those of you who have befriended either side and let the community decide. WAS 4.250 (talk) 12:23, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
(reposting from ANI and RFC) I've written to Jimbo and asked him for comment. He's traveling this week and may not be available to post onsite before Friday. I've reread the entire thread where that brief excerpt came from, and the context is about the difference between proof and hunch. It's possible to have a stong hunch without actually being right (cough). So let's not get too furious at Jimbo for being wiser in September than I was in November. Durova 12:57, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- And for Was 4.250: the policy is assume good faith. One side had conclusively violated policy and - to speak only for myself - I extended good faith toward the other because that was possible and plausible. It's still possible, but I'm concerned about plausible and I'm worried that someone may have played upon my goodwill and the goodwill of others. That's why I've been sticking my neck out these last several days. Likewise, I'm concerned that this e-mail disclosure was selected out of context to feed your worst suspicions. See contextomy. Durova 14:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- We assume good faith when we lack evidence, not when we have overwhelming evidence. Until this latest effort, AGF made sense for all the reasons pointed out; except that there was a freakin two year war on and off wikipedia and it would have been prudent to initiate an investigation like this back at least a year ago to see if there was fire under all that smoke or not. Constantly blocking/banning people who warn about a friend of the cabal having a COI is damaging to the community and our credibility. The cabal have got to stop their warfare on people who agree with their enemies on some issue. Thought crime must no longer be a block-able offense. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't like what I see here either, but cabal and thought crime? Try Wikipedian. Think back to when Runcorn/Poetlister got banned - two great editors wrapped into one. The socking wasn't endorsed or winked at; people just had doubts that took a while to prove. Durova 18:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, you're right about my choice of terminology. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- I don't like what I see here either, but cabal and thought crime? Try Wikipedian. Think back to when Runcorn/Poetlister got banned - two great editors wrapped into one. The socking wasn't endorsed or winked at; people just had doubts that took a while to prove. Durova 18:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- We assume good faith when we lack evidence, not when we have overwhelming evidence. Until this latest effort, AGF made sense for all the reasons pointed out; except that there was a freakin two year war on and off wikipedia and it would have been prudent to initiate an investigation like this back at least a year ago to see if there was fire under all that smoke or not. Constantly blocking/banning people who warn about a friend of the cabal having a COI is damaging to the community and our credibility. The cabal have got to stop their warfare on people who agree with their enemies on some issue. Thought crime must no longer be a block-able offense. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:19, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I didn't make myself clear. I'm not suggesting that you knew or admitted you were certain that he was Weiss. The reason I am outraged is that respected admins—including you—suspected it, but sat idly by as inquiries into Mantanmoreland and Samiharris were suppressed. (Suppressed, incidentally, by some of those same respected admins.) At to make myself even more clear: Wordbomb was justly banned, but when legitimate editors like Cla68 raised the question, the appropriate response was to look into it, not bury it and ban those who would oppose. Cool Hand Luke 15:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
I am unaware of any suppression of any inquiries. I am unaware of any bans of anyone under the circumstances you mention. My actions have been limited to conducting an investigation into an allegation, and finding no persuasive evidence. As I have said elsewhere, the idea that someone was given a free pass for being a friend is nonsense. I don't even like Mantanmoreland, and have found him to be difficult or impossible to interact with. Nonetheless, it is true that I don't ban people just because I don't like them, nor do we ban people due to being the victim of stalkers. It is important to understand that there is some extreme POV pushing going on in this case, and much unsavory "sleuthing" has taken place to try to "out" Mantanmoreland. It's all rubbish if you ask me, but in any event here we are. If you can show me an example of "bury it and ban those who would oppose" I encourage you to file an ArbCom case about it. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Thread involving you on AN/I
Just to let you know out of courtesy, there is a discussion involving you on AN/I. Thanks Whitstable 13:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Mantanmoreland. Thanks, SqueakBox 01:47, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
BLP guideline
Hi, Jimbo, a question: does BLP apply to articles about groups of living people as well as just living people themselves? Will 01:25, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- Tricky question. Generally the category and templates are only used for specific articles with the name of a living person in the title, but there are exceptions made when there are BLP related concerns. A singing group composed of two people, an article about a family are examples where BLP is very much an important consideration. The more people, the less any one will be affected by a claim about the group as a whole: Articles about the United States, about IBM, about a small village are in no way BLP articles. But on any page, not just in articles, a claim about any single named living person is subject to the BLP policy. The singing group the Beatles is an excellent example of a group that is exactly in the middle between being covered and not being covered by our BLP policy. WAS 4.250 (talk) 01:49, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- The reason I'm asking the question is because BLP is half-legal, half-ethical. I would assume that groups would find it easier to sue for libel than individuals. I don't think the Beatles is a good example, as George and John are dead - perhaps a band such as Green Day would serve for that comparison? Will 02:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- And any material that will affect the livelihood or reputation of the individuals should surely be subject to BLP, eg accusations of room-trashing (a typical accusation against certain rock stars historically) by a band should surely be the subject of BLP re the members of the band. Thanks, SqueakBox 02:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- For the legal issue of libel use our WP:LIBEL policy rather than WP:BLP. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- By the by, IBM is a legal person and probably entitled to BLP-style protection, if at least from the legal half. WilyD 13:29, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
a fringing big THANK YOU
Hey Jimbo,
I would just like to thank you very much for looking deaper into the fring article and bring it back to life. When I wrote that article (article number 8) I really couldnt see why it got deleted. I understood the previous attempts by previous guys because it looked like advertising but I really attempted to do it according to all the rules and yet it still got deleted, I felt the system had a big hole in it and you have given me confidence in wikipedia again. The wheel is big but it does eventually turn around and I was amazed that the founder would take the time out of hi busy schedule to add his comment.
Thank you
I send you warm regards from South Africa
ps. When you are in SA again let me know, I missed your last visit sorry.
Regards
Simon
Goplett (talk) 20:35, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland
An Arbitration case in which you commented has been opened, and is located here. Please add any evidence you may wish the Arbitrators to consider to the evidence sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland/Evidence. Please submit your evidence within one week, if possible. You may also contribute to the case on the workshop sub-page, Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Mantanmoreland/Workshop.
On behalf of the Arbitration Committee, — Rlevse • Talk • 23:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Constant attack of Hungarian users and Hungarians on Misplaced Pages (Eastern Europe series vol. 2, or more)
Romania and Slovakia has large Hungarian minorities, whom are constantly attacked in real life (for ex. Hedvig Malina, 2006 Slovak-Hungarian diplomatic affairs, etc.) and also online.
Tons of disruptive users are out there, like User:Roamataa (Romanian, deleting every Hungarian word and placename in Transsylvania related articles (choose any), despite that it was part of Hungary for more than a 1000 (thousand) years, and still 1.5 million Hungarians are living there, and many place are haveing Hungarian majority, and centuries of Hungarian history, etc. User:Svetovid: Same, just change Romania to Slovakia, see only his block log, and the related edits. It talks for itself, and it says everything I want to explain and show and present. User:Tankred the same, etc. etc. dozens of similar users, some are as long here, and playing these dirty games, as of 2004. There are also a much smaller in number, but same agressive Serbian version of them, they are especially active on Vojvodina related articles. Common in them is their same level (high) agressiveness, massive edit warring on multiple pages, and deletion of Hungarian placenames and words from Misplaced Pages's articles, mainly in articles dealing with the Carpathian Basin's history and any of its former and present countries' histories, and in those articles wich are dealing with places once were in the Kingdom Of Hungary (practically is within the Carpathian Basin) and eventually calling all of teir mere existence a (nationalist) POV, as well as every Hungarian source for anything. Not to mention those ppl, whom were born (and/or died) on those territories wich were once part of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon, so practically before the existence of Czecoslovakia or Slovakia. They are many times considered Slovak despite of ther Hungarian ethnicity. But modern times' famous or well known ppl are also victims of Slovakization, Romanianization or Serbisation (for example Monica Seles (, , , , etc. - Funny thing, that User:Tennis expert even deleted the statement copied from Monika Seles's biggest and oldest fan-webpage's (and be sure, they know EVERYTHING abt MS) confirming that she had appaled (and obtained) Hungarian citizenship. But this may be a mere different story, and he's not anti-Hungarian, just a semi-troll or what.
Almost 9 out of ten Hungarian users here were at least once probed for sockpuppetry, also at least a dozen left the project just in 2007. These constant attacks on Hungarians should be somehow "finished" once and for all. --91.82.32.54 (talk) 02:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)