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

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Request for disclosure

As evident from this edit, ru:user:DR who is a checkuser at ruwiki, was promoted to the ombudsmen commission. In addition to an obvious conflict of interest (ombudsmen are supposed to independently investigate checkuser actions), this action is very questionable because previously DR was under investigation by the ombudsman commission for an alleged violation of privacy. DR violated ru:user:Serebr's privacy by publishing the information about his wiki-mail usage. The ombudsmen commission confirmed that DR published private information, but did not impose any actions on DR on a pretense that his disclosure of private information did not constitute a disclosure of personally identifiable information. This was a curious decision. Now, after DR was assigned to the ombudsmen commission, it appears that DR may have had secret connections to that commission from the very beginning and possibly influenced it to make a decision in his favor. Assigning a violator of privacy to the commission that is supposed to ensure the users' privacy is of great concern. Therefore, I request that you disclose the secret decision making process that led to this very questionable assignment of a privacy violator to the position of a privacy guard. Who decided that? Were you a part of this decision? SA ru (talk) 12:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I know nothing about this particular decision. I am not part of the Ombudsman commission and play no role in their selection nor operation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the clarification. I am not an independent party here because DR harassed me pretty badly. Nonetheless, at the very least it does not make any sense to assign a checkuser to the ombudsmen commission which is supposed to inspect the checkusers. This is a conflict of interests. I will request a disclosure at meta.wikimedia. SA ru (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

In case you are interested in what is going on in your project, in response to my whistle blowing, the authorities on meta consulted with a secrete source who preferred to remain unidentified but is presumed to be trustworthy on ruwiki affairs, then threatened me with a global ban for whistle blowing and finally falsified the record. Pretty interesting behavior on part of the authorities who are supposed to protect users' privacy. SA ru (talk) 14:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this a subliminal message?

Hi Jimbo

I saw your picture from france on your user page here and I have discovered a subliminal message:

http://i47.tinypic.com/2dv7tqa.jpg

Hope this was still in the realm of your sense of humor :) Ich sehe gerade, dass ich das alles auch auf deutsch hätte schreiben können...^^

Schöne Grüße, --62.206.45.26 (talk) 23:15, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages has an article on this: Pareidolia. --Carnildo (talk) 01:18, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I still think that it is a subliminal stimuli (sensory stimulation below an individual's absolute threshold for conscious perception), because this was intended! ^^

--62.206.45.26 (talk) 15:24, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

And that's why you should get your public photos through a Photoshop expert before releasing them. To remove all the little details that can be misinterpreted. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:43, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Calling Durova, Durova to Jimbo's talk page please... – ukexpat (talk) 16:27, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Chess

Thank you for your comments about chess. Learn the fundamentals - there are good articles about the rules of chess and several other topics, such as Chess tactics and chess strategy (although the strategy article isn't as good as it should be). Those will link you to many other good articles. You don't have to start learning chess by learning the openings. Bubba73 , 19:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

It should be mentioned that Bobby Fischer invented a set of rules for chess960 which avoids the need for memorizing many opening moves by randomizing the position of the main pieces on the back row. Fischer predicted that one day we would all be playing chess with a random initial set-up. The rules are such as to maintain the flavor of the original game: i.e. the two bishops must be on opposite-color and the king must start between the rooks. Castling rules are extended to work with all the new positions. It really is a wonderful version of chess - it means you can focus on playing pure chess rather than spending great amounts of time on memorization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.249.201 (talk) 19:47, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

An old quote

I am sorry to contact you. But you have been quoted in this discussion regarding the importance of sources, and I believe that you did not intend you comments to be put to use in this way. The comments are used by nonspecialists to justify deleting deep mathematical content which is difficult to verify and source, because it is hard to understand.

The technical material at the page infraparticle (which is of the highest quality, and was written by a great physicist many years ago), has been deleted. Your opinions about sourcing anecdotes were brought up. What is your view regarding mathematical content with equations and so on? Do you feel that it is incumbent upon editors to understand mathematical content that they delete? This debate has been happening in the encyclopedia, and the essay WP:ESCA was written by one editor to promote the view that mathematical paraphrase is OK, even when it is difficult to verify that it is paraphrase.

I am asking you if you can chip in, because I am a technical editor, and I will leave this project (along with most others who left already), if there is no protection for technical content from uninformed deletion by editors that don't follow it well enough to read the sources. I hope you take time to understand the issue, because mathematical text is unlike any other text.Likebox (talk) 19:31, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I think you are asking two questions in one. Should mathematical/technical content, for example in physics, be sourced? Absolutely, it must be sourced, and this is one of the most important areas where sourcing has to be taken seriously, because we are not the right place for original research. (And as I'm sure you are aware, physics is one area where crackpots on the Internet are numerous.) Should editors without a technical background tread lightly in areas where they don't have much expertise? Yes, of course. But that doesn't mean that these editors can't insist quite firmly on quality, and quality means (among other things) making specialist material comprehensible to thoughtful nonspecialists (this is an encyclopedia, after all, not a journal of physics). It can be challenging yes, but it should be clear and should serve as a beacon of light to the reader.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:09, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't asking should it be sourced, nor was I asking about the desirability of simple explanations--- sure both are nice. I was asking about the following: there is material on this encyclopedia, at infraparticle, at BKL singularity which is of extremely high quality, written by experts, which is as clear as the best review articles. The articles follow the sources they cite, in that the ideas are the same, but the equations are not copied from the source, the discussion is mathematically paraphrased. It's the same ideas, with different language.

A nonexpert reader encountering the equations which are not 100% the same as the source can say "This is OR!", while an expert reader would say "No, no OR here." The issue is that when the source is difficult, the article can look like OR to a nonexpert reader, in the same way that a paraphrased Chinese text would look completely different from the original to a non-Chinese speaker.

In particular, the technical content of infraparticle was deleted, and would not be introduced even after a source was provided, because the editors did not understand the concept well enough to see that the article followed the source. This is a big risk for the best text in the encyclopedia.

The material on infraparticle is of the highest quality, and I hope that you can make a statement about sourcing: it is important that mathematical paraphrase be allowed, so that hard work of writing mathematical expositions will not be in vain.

I don't know if you are the best person to contact regarding this, since I don't know how much you follow technical discussions here. The problem seems to be sorting itself out. Thank you for you patient response, and I won't bother you again.Likebox (talk) 17:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo's response is exactly what I have been arguing in this instance. And yes, he is the best person to explain the statement of his that Likebox asked about. Now, Likebox doesn't like the answer.

Infraparticle was the subject of an AfD due to insufficient sourcing and poor quality; the result was to stubify the article, to permit expansion of the article with proper, sourced content. Likebox (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), who has been blocked several times for edit warring, restored the challenged, unsourced content, and since then has been edit warring (with a couple of allies) to keep the unsourced content in. This has been discussed on the article's talk page and is the subject of three current threads at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics, where the consensus is that the material should be sourced. Likebox also charged User:Headbomb, the coordinator of WikiProject Physics, with violating 3RR for reverting repeated insertions of Likebox's unsourced material, at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring#User:Headbomb reported by User:Likebox. Now he shows up here, the last resort of wili FORUMSHOPpers.—Finell 19:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not forum shopping--- I am searching for a clear answer. If Misplaced Pages cannot handle mathematical content, I will just stop contributing. Misplaced Pages is not doing me a favor by letting me contribute.Likebox (talk) 21:16, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You've been given a clear answer, many times, by many people: Per WP:V, all content that remains here has to be properly sourced. By all means write about mathematical content, but collect sources while doing so. After several days of complaining that this was impossible, you eventually did it for infraparticle. To quote your own words (diff) (emphasis added):

Please, do this first, rather than starting massive numbers of threads complaining that this shouldn't be necessary. --Christopher Thomas (talk) 22:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I didn't say it shouldn't be necessary to source the material--- I asked that editors patiently try to source dense mathematical material before deleting it. Accurate mathematical text is extremely valuable content, and it must be treated with respect--- it is very hard to write, very hard to proofread, and very hard to reproduce once deleted.

The problem is that even after I found the source for the argument, the argument is still getting deleted, without any discussion of the source, which is very advanced. The only editors that read the source are unanimous that the source appropriately contains the substantive content, but other editors do not address the source at all and argue that the material is OR. This is what will happen to all mathematical text if there is no careful special protection for text such as this. At the very least, editors should understand the text before deleting it, and understand the sources, or discuss them, before deleting the content.Likebox (talk) 22:31, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You asked "that editors patiently try to source dense mathematical material before deleting it." I always thought that contributors should patiently source such material before re-inserting it after it gets deleted. It looks like you did now, which is nice.

I don't think we should be afraid that all mathematical text will be removed without such "careful special protection" . That will only happen with mathematical text describing subjects that aren't sufficiently relevant or important yet. Some things need patience :-) DVdm (talk) 10:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

observation

Editor Likebox raises a perfectly legitimate query.

Editor Finell enters the thread with an attempt to undermine the credibility of Likebox by drawing attention to Likebox's block record, and accusing Likebox of edit warring. I observed the edit war in question and noted that the edit war began because editor Headbomb erased material that had been inserted by Likebox close on the heels of an arbitration hearing in which Headbomb was the chief opponent of Likebox. Finell did not accuse Headbomb of edit warring, but rather he attempted to vilify Likebox for having dared to have made accusations against Headbomb, as if to make accusations against Headbomb is a serious crime in its own right.

One issue that wikipedia needs to tackle is the deletionist culture of "I never heard this before, so nobody's going to hear about it ever" David Tombe (talk) 02:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Finell definitely has a modus operandi of trying to discredit people/ The most recent example is his suggestion of ownership of another editor of the physics project. He also encouraged someone to not edit because he didn't think him competant to edit it. It is quite funny, everytime you query him about it he clams up or asks if you should be assuming good faith with nary a word of justification of policy or stance. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 02:58, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Observation: As a result of the demand for sourced by me and other editors (including Headbomb), and work on the article by me and other editors (including Headbomb and Likebox), Infraparticle is now reasonably well sourced and is in much better shape. If Likebox had done this from the beginning, as Misplaced Pages:Verifiability requires, instead of kicking and screaming all over Misplaced Pages, we could have avoided the unnecessary drama. I'm sorry that editors with long block records, like David Tombe (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and Hell in a Bucket (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) (and Likebox), don't like being reminded of their records when they continue to weaken Misplaced Pages by flouting the community's policies and guidelines.—Finell 18:54, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Finell for a most perfect example of what I reffered to above. By the way when have you ever spoke to or with someone about my block record? And by flouting the communities guidelines you must mean when I've asked you to reference your conduct by policy and you don't? You can't respond to my arguement so you try to discredit me? Wow this sounds so familiar, oh yeah I posted this as your method of operation yesterday. it's right above your comment. You are clearly exhibiting argumentum ad hominem and a Loaded question. Anymore great examples of your cowardice? Hell In A Bucket (talk) 19:15, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

I am very proud of my blocks. The "sourcing" of infraparticle was a joke--- none of the references provided at all touch the subject in the article, except for the one reference I provided at the beginning, and other references by the same author on the same subject. At the moment, the opponents can be distracted by smoke and mirrors. It is not clear that this situation will continue.Likebox (talk) 21:48, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Only a toady would ever believe that getting blocked on wikipedia means that the block was actually warranted. Or at least, they would pretend to believe it as a means of 'ad hominem' attack. From what I can see, getting blocked often means that you have said something worthwhile, and that an admin has responded with the block button in a demonstration of cowardice. David Tombe (talk) 00:41, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

creating Africa

Last month you commented that, back in the day, an editor could feel good about having just created Africa. That would feel nice; +one for the encyclopedia. I've not looked at who did create that, but I did just start a stub on The Zen of CSS Design, which is a book that has had a lot of influence on how websites are built, including this one. This properly should be taken to one of the tiers such as good or featured. I was quite surprised that there was no article until today.

I think a great question for this project to ask and answer would be why we have such omissions when we are so many years into this work, yet we have so many articles that are, honestly, of quite dubious notability and quality. Simply put, a large number of people have poor priorities. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

We will never know who created the Africa article, because many of the earliest edits to Misplaced Pages are lost. The earliest available edit to the Africa page is at the CamelCase title "AfricA", and can be found here. Most people like to write about what interests them, and that has always been the case. The oldest edit that survives in the history of an article is this edit to the page on the American philosopher William Alston, which was made two days after Misplaced Pages went public. No disrespect to the man intended, but I do not think that an article for him would be a high priority in a fledgling encyclopedia. However, someone obviously thought otherwise, so the William Alston article was created 10 months before the article about the ant. Graham87 07:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Graham, for your comments on the restorations to the database. I don't know that far back. This post is really about unbalanced coverage and poor priorities. I'm looking at the overall goal, here; we're getting stuff backwards a lot of the time. Now — after all these years. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:17, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Regarding a Sock

An email was sent to you at jwales@wikia.com, title: Important please read it carefully. Thank you. 202.23.184.248 (talk) 21:08, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

When an editor says a reliable source is wrong

Hi, Jimmy. There has been a dispute on Union City, New Jersey regarding a local high-rise building called the Thread. A The New York Times article by Antoinette Martin that I cited as one of the sources says that that building is a former embroidery factory. But User:Djflem has asserted that this is not true, that the building is an original building, and that The New York Times is wrong. An anonymous IP editor whose IP is traced to Amsterdam (I don't know if this was also Djflem editing outside of his account) called the source "unreliable". I don't dispute that otherwise reliable sources can make mistakes, but for an editor to remove such info based solely on their assertion seems like OR, just as including such info on personal knowledge would be. What should we do? Nightscream (talk) 21:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

If you really can't agree on a wording, this might be better discussed at the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, as they are used to dealing with such issues. Rodhullandemu 21:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not a question of wording, it's a question of the veracity of the assertion. Nightscream (talk) 21:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages follows the sources. An editor's, or even a group of editors', claim that a statement supported by a reliable source is wrong is irrelevant. If the reliable sources disagree, that is dealt with in the course of normal editing; editors can decide by consensus which source appears to be more reliable on the particular issue or else point out the disagreement and the sources on each side. Not an issue for Jimbo.—Finell 21:46, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable, but I'd like to know what Jimmy has to say on this. Jimmy, do you agree? Do responses by others here automatically carry your endorsement? Or do you have something different to add? Nightscream (talk) 17:54, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Is there any other source? Is the editor who claims it is not true a known editor who people generally have good reason to trust? Is the claim in some way crucial to something important, or is it just a bit of trivia now called into question? Can someone contact the New York Times reporter to ask about it? Can someone contact whoever the New York Times reporter got it from to ask about it? I'm generally opposed, of course, to original research, but sanity must also prevail. If the editor is a known editor whom we trust, and if the claim is not important trivia, if the New York Times reporter is willing to retract it (either privately or in the newspaper or a blog somewhere), if someone from the building is willing to say it isn't true - all of those things (or even some of those things) would seem to me a valid reason for simply omitting the claim. On the other hand, if the editor just showed up to dispute this claim, if the claim is actually somehow important (such that we might suspect the denier of having an agenda of some kind), if the NYT reporter stands behind it, if the owner of the building is not willing to refute it, then all of those things would tend to argue for keeping it in place. I do not think there is an automatic formula by which we might answer these things. As an ongoing victim of journalism myself, I know that many times reliable sources say things that are flatly untrue - this doesn't mean we can or should ignore reliable sources, but it does mean that we have to thoughtfully evaluate the totality of the evidence, while at the same time resisting the easy but dangerous lure of original research.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:27, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Strange. This New York Times article (also by the same journalist) says that the building was constructed in 2007. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

What's strange about that?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but the sources seem to contradict one another. The first says that the building is a former embroidery factory that is now a condominium. The second says it was constructed in 2007 which seems to indicate that it was never an embroidery factory. Oh wait, am I being daft and you're making a point about journalists contradicting themselves? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:22, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy, the reason I included that bit of info is because Union City, New Jersey was considered the "embroidery capital of the world". The building, which is Union City's first high-rise condominium, is named the Thread, in reference to that past, and so the notion that it used to be an embroidery factory is something I saw as significant. I've tried to contact the NY Times, and someone, though not the article writer, said that that claim is untrue, as did someone at the Thread when I called them. That point has been removed from the article, but I just wanted to know your feeling on when personal knowledge conflicts with a source, in part because I started this discussion before I got a response from those two follow-up sources. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 00:22, 22 February 2010 (UTC)