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NOTCENSORED and illustrations

Jimbo, there is a discussion at WT:NOT#Objectionable content that examines the following question: Should the use of illustrations (images, audiovisual media) in Misplaced Pages be a matter for community consensus, or should we aim for a presentation that is in line with presentations in reputable secondary sources? In other words, should the project create its own editorial standards with respect to article illustration, or should we strive to have editorial standards that are broadly consistent with and informed by editorial standards in the relevant literature? What is your view? Cheers, --JN466 11:10, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmm, I think we should aim for a presentation that community consensus agrees is in line with presentations in reputable secondary sources. What I mean is this: it isn't reliable sources *versus* community consensus, but rather that the proper goal of community consensus should be (generally) to reflect what is in reliable sources.

To be very very specific rather than abstract, we should be careful not to allow political views held by almost all Wikipedians (in a particular language) to distract us from the demands of NPOV. So as an example, if reliable sources suggest that depictions of Muhammad are rare, we shouldn't as a "political act" shove a bunch of them in just to prove some kind of case against censorship - if we do so, then we misrepresent history.

True NPOV in this area would involve finding a consensus about what reliable sources do. Depictions of Muhammad needs to have some historically relevant and important ones because that's what the article is about. Muhammad though, should not mislead the reader into thinking such images are common if they are not. This doesn't mean that the number should be zero, necessarily, just that it should reflect what is found in reliable sources.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:35, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that. It's also important for us to be able to counter complaints that our illustrations are insensitive etc. if we can point to WP:NPOV policy and say that we've looked into it, and made sure, to the best of our ability, that our illustrations appropriately reflect the range and type of illustrations that reputable sources show. --JN466 14:39, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo's comment here may be the most sensible idea I've heard in this very long debate. Joefromrandb (talk) 20:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Diacritics in our article titles when the RSs do otherwise

Jimbo, I wanted to draw your attention to something. A relatively new editor created Misplaced Pages:WikiProject English. The stated purpose there is to “Ensure that article names conform to English Misplaced Pages policies”. The user behind that has objected to certain articles on hockey players, such as Marek Zidlicky. Notwithstanding that RSs like Sports Illustrated and The New York Times (and even the NHL themselves) spelled it “Marek Zidlicky”, our article had the title (and body text) spelled “Marek Židlický”.

Well, the user behind getting the Marek Židlický moved (and who started Misplaced Pages:WikiProject English) has found himself the lightning rod of attention from editors active on those hockey articles and they started this MfD in an effort to muzzle discussion of this.

Perhaps the WikProject’s stated goals aren’t being well articulated and need to be massaged. Whatever its teething problems, it seems quite unfair to try to shut down a WikProject when it is still in its infancy (just a couple of weeks old) before it can prove that it can develop a following. I suspect that given the hyperbole at the MfD, the message point of the WikiProject will live on even if project itself is closed down for running contrary to the wishes of a cabal of editors who, in my humble opinion, are putting Misplaced Pages in the position of flouting the RSs.

All in all, this issue of flouting the RSs for some sports-related articles strikes me as an instance where a consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time is overriding the community consensus on a wider scale. Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, that isn’t allowable on Misplaced Pages. Greg L (talk) 16:36, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

People want to see the Wikiproject deleted because it is a thinly veiled lobby group used to support one side in a controversial conflict. It has nothing to do with "muzzling discussion". --Conti|✉ 17:05, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Greg L, the underlying dispute has been going on for months and has been brought up on Jimbo's talk page several times before. Congratulations that you have now found out about it, and congratulations that you have managed to form an opinion so quickly. Some facts that you may want to consider in addition to what you know already, and whose veracity you may want to check:

• Fact 1: All good English reference works other than Misplaced Pages use (almost) all applicable diacritics in titles that are proper names in foreign languages with a Latin-based alphabet. The rare exceptions include the German letter ß (which usually becomes ss) and relatively obscure, diacritic-laden languages such as Vietnamese. (The spellings of Zurich and Armin Mueller-Stahl are not exceptions but proper anglicisations that just happen to look like the original word with the ü replaced by u or ue.) If you don't believe me, look up Polish cities in Britannica, or in Britannica 1911, or look up Björn Borg in Britannica or Encarta. Or look up any big city with diacritics in the original name, in Webster's Dictionary of Geographical Names.
• Fact 2: Misplaced Pages de facto does the same. You can check this by using Special:Random. Roughly 4% of our articles are foreign proper names that contain diacritics. I have yet to find a single article with this method whose title is a foreign proper name from a Latin-based alphabet, such that there is a diacritic in the original but not in our title. So it seems safe to say that considerably less than 1% of our article titles have dropped diacritics. This has nothing to do with sports.
• Fact 3: There has been a systematic push to rename sports articles to get rid of diacritics, and User:Dolovis has created a large number of articles on virtually unknown but formally notable East European hockey players, all with dropped diacritics, obviously to make a point.
• Fact 4: If one admits that one name can have more than one spelling, and that dropping diacritics creates a new spelling of the same name rather than a new name, then Misplaced Pages's de facto practice is entirely consistent with all applicable policies and guidelines. From this point of view, the rules of WikiProject Hockey just explain the applicable rules in a way that prevents misunderstandings.
• Fact 5: There are English words (loanwords from other languages, of course), for which dictionaries such as the OED and Merriam-Webster give a version with diacritics as the primary or only spelling. Of course there are many more for which have an alternative spelling with diacritics. Examples include café, exposé, façade, führer, Götterdämmerung, although details depend on the dictionary.
• Fact 6: Many English sources drop diacritics systematically for technical reasons. As far as I know, this includes all newswire services. Some newspaper styleguides (e.g. New York Times) explain that the reason they do not restore these diacritics except in certain languages is that they are not sure they would manage to get it right under the time constraints.
• Fact 7: The Chicago Manual of Style gives detailed technical advice on how to ensure diacritics are printed correctly, advises when to use the optional diacritics in certain English words (e.g. exposé because expose is ambiguous), but never once suggests to drop diacritics from foreign words or names.
• Fact 8: The higher the editorial quality of an English source, and the higher the language register used by the source, the more diacritics you will find. Reference works and scholarly publications almost never drop diacritics in foreign proper names. National Geographic never drops diacritics in foreign place names.

In addition, quite a few editors who oppose diacritics in titles have !voted for deletion of that particular project because the bad faith and disruptive nature are just too obvious. Hans Adler 17:53, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow, Hans. You misunderstand my position on diacritics. I am only advocating following the RSs (not a bad thing to be advocating, don’t you think?). If the RSs spell it “François Mitterrand,” I’m all for that. If the RSs spell it “Marek Zidlicky”, I’m all for that too.

Methinks it unfortunate that you have such a quick propensity to see it as “just too obvious” that those who advocate follow the RSs are actually motivated by “bad faith” and are “disruptive in nature”. Please familiarize yourself with WP:AGF and WP:NPA; good editors are expected to debate ideas without attacking the motives and character of the individual behind the ideas. I’m glad this discussion has been brought here, where the sunshine of public inspection can help sanitize weak arguments and infected processes. Now…

Your “Fact 6” amounts to “Don’t put credence in the RSs like The New York Times (and Sports Illustrated and the NHL) and any other RS that has editorial policies at odds with Hans. But note that WP:RS and WP:SPELLING don’t yet mention User:Hans Adler as an RS—and for good reason; it is not within the purview of mere wikipedians to debate with furrowed brow and pouted lower lip, what are *good* English-language practices and which ones are *bad* so that Misplaced Pages can then flout how the rest of the English-language press spells words. Being that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia that “anyone can edit” and is a collaborative writing environment, following the RSs is a core principle. It is not a principle that can be thrown out with the bath water as a small group of editors try to lead the English-speaking world to a New And Brighter Future®™©.

If you don’t understand why Misplaced Pages follows the RSs, please take a look at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers. See the “Binary Prefixes” section in the archives? Click on it to expand it. Do you see those 18 archives? For three years, rather than follow what the rest of the English-language computer-related press did and write The Dell Inspiron came with 256 MB of memory, hundreds of our articles had The Dell Inspiron came with 256 MiB of memory. That’s pronounced “mebibyte”. No other computer manufacturer nor computer magazine on this pale blue dot uses such terminology when communicating to a general-interest readership. Yet, all it took was 20 editors here at this little backwater RfC to decide that mere wikipedians somehow knew better and Misplaced Pages should strike off and try to lead by example. We had hundreds of computer articles with “MiB” and “KiB” rather than “MB” and “KB” everyone else used. It took three whole years for it to dawn on those editors that Misplaced Pages did not have such influence and that using terminology and spelling that English-speaking readers will only see here and never again after leaving our pages is a disservice to our readership. It certainly wasn’t easy to reverse that. The lead proponent of that was an admin who quit Misplaced Pages after the final decision was cast to follow the RSs.

I take pride that I lead the effort that reversed that unwise practice regarding mebibytes and kibibytes so we wouldn’t finding ourselves out in left field where the RSs don’t tread. Greg L (talk) 18:42, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

When did it become Misplaced Pages policy to do what the specific reliable sources do on matters of style? Maybe this was a useful argument that helped to get rid of the silly mebibytes that practically nobody uses. I would not know where to look in Britannica, but I cannot imagine that they are using this kind of language. Of course we should not do so, either.

But "follow the sources", in this case, means opening up 4% of our articles to acrimonious spelling disputes. It means that we would have spelled Björn Borg initially, when he was only known from Scandinavian source, with the "ö". Then the American sports media started writing about him and dropped the dots because they always do that. So the article would have been moved to Bjorn Borg. And finally he made it into Britannica and other high-quality sources which consistently spell his name correctly, so that the article would have been moved back to Björn Borg. Each of these moves would probably have been proposed a bit too early at first, so that we would have had at least half a dozen requested move discussions. And the worst thing is that, as I explained, Björn Borg is not a rare exception but the typical case. Your fundamentalist "follow the sources" rule would result in a Misplaced Pages in which virtually unknown people and outright stars would be spelled with their diacritics, and those with a medium degree of international notability would be spelled without them. Does this sound like a reasonable principle for editing an encyclopedia? How would our readers benefit from this?

This principle may have helped you to win a dispute where you were right, but that does not mean it's OK to promote something that is just wrong merely to be consistent. Hans Adler 19:03, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm… “just wrong”, you say. So, do I understand, Hans, that you take issue with the judgement of the admin who closed the move RfC on “Marek Zidlicky”? That admin wrote I have no doubt that I will be pilloried for this decision but it seems to me that while a straight vote count would show this to be a fairly balanced discussion, the policy-related arguments are for the rename. Bad decision? Bad policy?

Note that User:Who R you? wanted to start a WikiProject to discuss and work on these issues. That brought out a cabal to silence the *dangerous talk*. I personally think that the proper response to “bad speech” is *better* speech. I’m funny that way. I take a dim view of attempts to squelch discussion on the premise that the underlying ideas are bankrupt and—as you just wrote here—“it is just too obvious” that those behind those ideas have “bad faith and disruptive nature”. As you are now discovering, doing an MfD on a WikiProject is easy. Squelching an idea (like adhering to core principles of Misplaced Pages) is hard. Greg L (talk) 19:13, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

See . This guy is currently playing in the US, and presumably he is using the spelling without diacritics himself when he is there and could also have established a more phonetic spelling without diacritics (e.g. Jidlitsky) had he chosen to do so. The move was OK, the rationale wasn't.

You are getting the history of that WikiProject all wrong. First they tried to change the WP Hockey guideline and failed. Then they went the Requested Moves path (bottom-up approach), with mixed success but causing a lot of disruption. Then they tried to gather support on various policy pages, with little success. They continued starting RMs, most of which failed. Then the project was created to concentrate the canvasing efforts. Some of them subscribe to a xenophobic conspiracy theory, according to which communist foreigners are systematically trying to infiltrate the English-language Misplaced Pages with their non-English symbols. So apparently everything is allowed in defence.

"Squelching an idea (like adhering to core principles of Misplaced Pages) is hard." I see. You will make a good member of the anti-diacritics group. Enjoy the company. Hans Adler 19:31, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

"Note that User:Who R you? wanted to start a WikiProject to discuss and work on these issues." - No he didn't. He wanted to form a cabal of his own with which he could push his POV on the diacritics issue despite an overall lack of consensus. His own comments make that patently obvious, and that is why I MfDed it (and I am far from a pro-diacritics editor). And a very large majority of editors - from all sides of the diacritics debate - have seen right through the facade (or façade, if you prefer). Your complaints about trying to silence "dangerous talk" is also farcical given there are active RfCs on the topic that have not been shut down. Nobody is stopping you from trying to form a consensus on this matter, Greg. But don't expect people to sit idly by when others come around and attempt to subvert it. Resolute 20:11, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

(*sigh*) To User:Resolute, your certainty and absolutism about how User:Who R You? is trying to “subvert” something (the harmony of the “in” crowd at the Central Committee For All That Is Good On Misplaced Pages?) betrays a bite the newcomer attitude.

It might surprise some here that I have no issue whatsoever with diacritics; “follow the RSs” is not a principle I use to either promote or deprecate diacritics or influence things to my personal liking (or further my own sense of what is Right and Holy with the English language). At Talk:Crêpe here, I initially !voted to support “crepe” because I first thought that was most common in English-language RSs (you know: this is en.Misplaced Pages so “English-language” has something to do with how things are done here). But after much fact finding, it became apparent the most-reliable English-language RSs (say, Alton Brown’s cookbooks), spelled it “crêpe”, so I came down ultimately for that spelling (with the diacritic).

But the principle of how the “crêpe” decision was arrived at was a paradigm the closing admin cited when he closed the RfC to move the article to the new title. Admin/user GTBacchus wrote: The result of the move request was: page moved per discussion. In particular, Noetica's excellent and thorough analysis of the sources behind the Google searches establishes that the use of the circumflex is significantly more common in reliable sources addressing this topic, so the COMMONNAME argument is turned right around. This discussion is where I'll probably point people in the future as an example of how Google searches should be treated; that's good work. Note how the closing admin cited using evidence of real-world English-language practices was the deciding factor. The decision to use either “crepe” or “crêpe” was not the product of back-room debate by mere wikipedians who fancy themselves to be power brokers for the future of the English language.

Misplaced Pages follows the way the real world works; it is not the other way around and never has been—just as it was when we went back to using “megabytes” rather than “mebibytes” even though some 20 editors were absolutely convinced this was *better* because it was a new standards proposal from the IEC. Well… fine. But is anyone else in the English-speaking world following the IEC’s suggestion? In the case of “mebibytes,” no; Misplaced Pages was off doing its own thing because some 16-year-old kid with a computer had the same say as does a wikipedian who has a Ph.D. in English.

And ‘crat/user Dweller wrote, during the move of Marek Zidlicky as follows: Opponents of the move have argued passionately and I have felt some resonance with their comments, but WikiProject guidelines and userspace essays cannot trump policy. Furthermore, tempting as it is to defer to precedent, Misplaced Pages doesn't work on precedent, so I have not viewed any previous diacritic-related page moves referred to by Darwinek.

These two principles “Follow the RSs” and “Ensure that article names and body-text spelling conform to English Misplaced Pages policies” are nothing to fear. Attempts to label any of what User:Who R You? is trying to do as “subversive” is fear mongering and has no place on Misplaced Pages. Greg L (talk) 00:28, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Or, a very accurate description of the intent of this project. Everything you say is fine and dandy, but you still need to build a consensus for your position. A project which serves as a false front for one POV in an unsettled debate has no place in Misplaced Pages. Resolute 00:50, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

In the real world, encyclopedias use all the applicable diacritics and tabloids don't. If you want to spell article titles tabloid-style or encyclopedia-style depending on which sources exist (or which we are using), then you will have to do better than vague hand-waving in the direction of policies or general principles with no immediate applicability.

If a source starts with an explicit disclaimer "In the following, all diacritics were removed for technical reasons", then the fact that a certain word is spelled without any diacritics tells us -- precisely nothing. With a large number of sources we are in the same situation, except the disclaimer is implicit or can only be found in a style guide somewhere. And then there are those sources whose style guide says explicitly that they use the original spelling with all diacritics, but in practice names are spelled randomly, sometimes with and sometimes without diacritics, depending on whether the article comes from a newswire and similar accidents. In other words: Most sources are unreliable for whether a foreign name has diacritics.

For actual English words that may have a diacritic, the situation is different, and for people on who are the subject of an English biography in book form the situation is also different. But the large majority of contentious cases is virtually unknown people who only appear in foreign sources and cursorily in English-language tabloids or sports publications. An encyclopedia cannot have its spelling dictated by such random sources of poor editorial quality. Hans Adler 00:55, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It appears that Greg L is an even better fit for WikiProject Anti-Precision Canvasing than I thought at first. I will not wantonly mention a number of RM closures that went the other way in response, and notify the closing admins. That would be too obvious, wouldn't it? Hans Adler 01:31, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

You baffle me, Hans. Why, in this venue of all places, would you persist at highlighting your unfamiliarity with Misplaced Pages’s policies for everyone here to witness?? Try reading up on WP:Canvass. It says In general, it is perfectly acceptable to notify other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it is done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus. Since those two were the closing admins and had both very carefully waded through all the arguments—pro and con—on two RfCs to move article names, and since I cited those two RfCs here on this page and mentioned the closing editors by name here, and since one is a respected ‘crat, I asked those two to weigh with their expertise if doing so could add anything of value to this discussion. If you think notifying a total of two experts in this precise matter constitutes canvassing, please take it up at ANI or hold your peace. Oh… and I’ll take your following my every move on Misplaced Pages as a compliment; thanks. Greg L (talk) 02:49, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Did anyone accuse you of technically violating WP:CANVAS? Not me. But in this context it was in poor taste. And I have no interest in following you. I have both editors on my watchlist, so your two consecutive edits stood out on my watchlist. Hans Adler 02:56, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Note on WP:CANVAS: General canvassing is ok in WP; the problem is "improper canvassing" of notifying a "disproportionate number" of one side about a discussion. However, a loophole exists in WP:CANVAS where the regular editors can be notified via an article-talk page, but attempts to notify rare users via user-talk can be seen as "improper, unbalanced canvassing" because they are notified specially, when the talk-page regulars already knew of the discussion, but also notifying the regulars via user-talk can be seen as unfair because they would be notified twice. The WP:CANVAS page needs to be changed to state that notifying "at most 5" specific people via user-talk is never improper canvassing, to allow contacting another 5 rare editors to discuss the issue, without the Catch-22 loophole of notifying rare editors without notifying regular editors twice. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:34, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, great idea. Let's make a template with the following content: "Your input is required in a discussion at #1. Please make sure you do not notify more than 5 editors using this template, and avoid multiple notifications of the same editor." This is going to make polarised discussions run so much more orderly and will likely eradicate the canvasing problem altogether. Hans Adler 23:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, I’m taking none of this too seriously this evening, Hans. I seem to be in one of my moods that goes “Rule 1: Don’t sweat the small shit. Rule 2: Most everything is small shit.” But, honestly, your trying to explain away that you didn’t accuse me of canvassing reminds me of the scarecrow on The Wizard Of Oz when the angry tree asked if there was something wrong with his apples and the scarecrow said “Oh, no! It's just that she doesn't like little green worms.” Do you think we can focus on the substance of the issue here, Hans? Or would you like to play “attack the messenger” until the heat death of the universe? Greg L (talk) 03:09, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

For each of the several RMs the project has been involved with in its brief life, there are several thousand English-language RS examples of the name without diacritics, and zero, or near zero, with. Britannica`s style is to run with a single version of a name, but Misplaced Pages generally gives variations. So even if a title is without diacritics, the formal name with diacritics can be given in the opening or box. Kauffner (talk) 01:10, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to make the same comment I always make: blind source following is detrimental to the encyclopedia. To actually use reliable sources effectively, you actually need to understand what the source is saying; just doing a Google search for sources that'll fit your point of view is the opposite to good practice. From my experience, recent good-quality sources tend to transliterate rather than do blind letter replacement; do a search for "Novak Dokovic" and compare it to "Novak Djokovic". The culture of COMMONNAME as holy scripture is very worrying; I don't think it was ever intended to bludgeon diacritic removal into the project; indeed, my reading of the naming guidelines is that, when the original form is not the most common name, then you should transliterate, as per proper practice, but for heavens sake, don't say that "И" is the same as "N". (Also, as a sidenote, XKCD's recent strip on citogenesis has some truth; there's been a shift in referring to the theme from Requiem for a Dream as "Lux Aeterna" once it got its own Misplaced Pages article, so take care that you're not creating precedent). Sceptre 02:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully, the RMs will continue. Over the years, alot of hockey players articles were unilaterally moved by pro-dios editors. Those arrogant moves were un-necessary. GoodDay (talk) 08:33, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

As a point of order, there's no requirement that you have to go through RM for a move. Indeed, current practice is the opposite. Sceptre 14:56, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It's better to go the RM route, concerning diacritics. GoodDay (talk) 15:22, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Only since you and your buddies made the topic contentious. Before that, names without the diacritics were uncontroversially moved to the correct form to ensure consistency with the rest of Misplaced Pages. I am sure that for most parts of Misplaced Pages other than sports that's still the case. Hans Adler 15:58, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The names were uni-laterally moved to personal preference form, without regard to how english sources presented them. GoodDay (talk) 16:25, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Get off your high horse, GoodDay. Your own arrogance as it relates to this issue became tedious a very long time ago - and I was on your bloody side! Also, the moves were far from unilateral, and you know that given you were involved in every diacritics debate we ever had at WP:HOCKEY and know full well the outcome of them. Resolute 16:23, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

What I recall getting at those bio articles (in the old days), was alot of you snooze, you loose attitude from the pro-dios side -after they moved those articles to diacritics form. The english sources must be respected & will be respected - until they're, this dispute will continue - If not by me, then certainly by others. GoodDay (talk) 16:30, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem you experienced on that hockey-related venue, GoodDay, is that local cabals can arrive at a local consensus that is utterly contrary to common sense editorial practices of genuine editors at major publications. Since Misplaced Pages has the principle of “follow the RSs” engrained into its DNA and since this applies also to spelling (see WP:SPELLING and WP:RS), flouting the predominant practice of most-reliable English-language RSs is verboten. Publications like The New York Times and Sports Illustrated have editors who invariably possess journalism degrees. And, yes, publications like The New York Times have access to all the diacritic marks they need and have no difficulty accessing them whenever they need to. Type foundries all the way to the Linotype days offered full diacritic support; that practice continues today after type foundries converted to digital typefaces. The New York Times experiences no difficulty with deadlines to properly spell it “François Mitterrand.” It would be only too easy for them to use diacritics when writing the name of an NHL hockey player who originated from Eastern Europe, but they don’t and spell it “Milan Jurcina”. Allegations that The New York Times isn’t an RS because deadline pressures prevent them from using diacritics even though they’d like to are baseless and absurd. And, quite properly, Misplaced Pages also doesn’t use diacritics in the name of that same hockey player, but this move regarding Milan Jurcina took a lot of editors’ time. That’s a lot of effort to fix these articles just one by one. These are the facts.

Ever since I was a businessman in my early 20s, I’ve remembered a hard-learned and important lesson about power: there is “paper power” and “practical power;” they are two very different things. Misplaced Pages, by virtue of its enormous size and diversity of its subject matter, gives wikipedians the tools to run off and do dumb things. Because Misplaced Pages is the “encyclopedia anyone can edit,” we have everyone from English professors with Ph.D.s to 16-year-old kids in their mommy’s basement; all have the same ability to be heard. I am quite certain the 16-year-old kids outnumber the Ph.D.s on Misplaced Pages; that’s the nature of the beast given that Misplaced Pages is a hobby. The result is that Misplaced Pages affords small cabals “practical power” that enables insane divergences from common sense, like this RfC where just 20 editors decided on their own that Misplaced Pages would unilaterally adopt a proposal by the IEC to use a new unit of measure called “kibibits (Kib)” and “mebibytes (MiB)”. Nearly overnight, we had hundreds of articles changed so they read The Dell Fluffy Bunny 9000 computer came with a whopping 64 MiB of memory. Misplaced Pages was the only publication on this pale blue dot using such terminology; not even Microsoft’s Dictionary of Computer Terms had entries for the terminology. And because so few general editors cared about this and the use of the terminology was controlled by a local cabal of specialists who circled the wagons (and had an admin who used his power to great effect to revert attempts to get Misplaced Pages back to planet earth), it was impossible to do anything about that insanity for three whole years.

This is why WP:LOCALCONSENSUS states that Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. That is an important principle. But it takes an admin with serious brass or a ‘crat (also with lots of brass) to step in and override a wagon-circling cabal. That’s why I brought this issue here. There is an important principle of “follow most-reliable RSs” that is being ignored in some quarters (hockey, for instance), and doing moves one by one, like we did for Marek Zidlicky and Milan Jurcina is time consuming and unnecessary.

I think we’ve had plenty of feedback from all parties here and there is an unnecessary combative nature to the discussions… far too many personal attacks on others with claims that editors intend merely to disrupt. So…

I came here to break out of this cycle so we don’t have a repeat of what happened with “mebibytes.” The proponents of that practice—like those behind eschewing the practices of most-reliable RSs on diacritics—are well meaning; in the case of “mebibytes”, they thought Misplaced Pages should Lead The World By Example©™®. But Misplaced Pages doesn’t have that sort of influence; it just looks foolish when we have articles that spell players’ names contrary to all the most-reliable English-language RSs (like the NHL and Sports Illustrated and The New York times). We have no all-powerful, college-educated editor with a journalism degree; that’s why we follow the RSs and don’t pretend that mere wikipedians can debate, with furrowed brow and pouted lower lip, what is the One True Way for proper English-language practices and they’ll just have Misplaced Pages strike off doing its own thing.

It’s time to hear Jimbo provide guidance here. Greg L (talk) 19:29, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

• Well, your speech is both persuasive and cogent, Greg L, and I agree with you. But Jimbo has already set out his personal opinion on overuse of diacritics (he's against). But Jimbo won't and can't offer a prescriptive decision. I fully agree that it'd be more functional if we had either a professional chief editor or a "content ArbCom" to decide these things in the small number of cases where contentious and well-populated issues are stalled in this manner (and I encourage all to continue to talk this up.) But we don't have that. So I'm not sure where the solution lies. Herostratus (talk) 20:06, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
  • As to a solution, Herostratus, (speaking to your So I'm not sure where the solution lies comment): me neither. Maybe the proper starting point is to clearly identify what the problem is that we would like to solve. I would propose that the objective would be to identify a more streamlined way to fix a single class of articles that are non-compliant with the principle of “follow the practice of the preponderance of most-reliable English-language RSs.” The streamlined process should cabal-proof RfC proceedings so that a closing admin or ‘crat can cut through mere nose-count in RfCs and pronounce the proper remedy (make the articles compliant with community consensus on a wider scale). At the current time, the “class of articles du jour” is some NHL hockey players (maybe those are all fixed but I sorta doubt it), but the *process* should be able to readily adapt to any class of non-compliant articles that have key elements in common. Does that make sense? If we can agree on the objective (what the problem is we’re trying to solve), perhaps discussion in a venue like this (Jimbo’s talk page) will attract the interest of some of our brighter and experienced editors who can propose solutions. Then we can head somewhere else on Misplaced Pages to work the details. What do you think? Greg L (talk) 20:39, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
    
    
  • P.S. Thinking about this a bit, what about the creation of a special tag for flagging a class of offending articles? The procedures could be a variation on WP:BUNDLE. The tag might quote and emphasize certain policies, call for streamlined procedures for presenting evidence (mostly limited to matters of fact regarding how the RSs handle the spelling) and sanctify speedy moves for closing admins. Greg L (talk) 22:28, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

(1) Greg L, as I just discovered, you were involved in these discussions previously. You commented in the huge discussions now archived at WT:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 8#Use of diacritics in biographical article titles, filling up most of WT:Naming conventions (use English)/Archive 9, and of course the massive RfC at WP:Naming conventions (use English)/Diacritics RfC, which was open for a full month and ended in a clear no consensus leaning numerically slightly to support (60 support, 47 oppose), even though it was so strongly pro-diacritics that I did not even vote and commented: "While I have been a vocal supporter of codifying our actual practice (and that of other English language reference works), this proposal is not well prepared and tends to hurt that goal."

Before this background, could you please elaborate on the "local cabals"? Who are these people? Did they dominate the big RfC?

(2) "Allegations that The New York Times isn’t an RS because deadline pressures prevent them from using diacritics even though they’d like to are baseless and absurd." -- You are aware that this is rhetorics of the cheapest kind, right? It is generally accepted that being a reliable source is not a yes/no thing but a matter of degree and dependent on the claim that one seeks to support with it. The OED is not a very reliable source on medical information, and the sports pages of the New York Times are not a very reliable source on particle physics. In the same way, the New York Times is not a very reliable source on matters of spellings in which it is demonstrably inconsistent, and it is easy to check that it uses diacritics very inconsistently even on the same name. We needn't even speculate on why that is so, because they have published a style guide whose relevant part is visible in the Amazon preview:

Under "accent marks" (page 6), it says they "are used for French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German words and names. Do not use accents in words or names from other languages (Slavic and Scandinavian ones, for example), which are less familiar to most American writers, editors and readers; such marks would be prone to error, and type fonts often lack characters necessary for consistency. Some foreign words that enter the English language keep their accent marks (protégé, résumé), others lose them (cafe, facade). The dictionary governs spellings, except for those shown in this manual. In the name of a United States resident, use or omit accents as the bearer does; when in doubt, omit them. (Exception: Use accents in Spanish names of Puerto Rico residents.) Some news wires replace the umlaut with an e after the affected vowel. Normally undo that spelling, but check before altering a personal name; some individual Germans use the e form."

Hans Adler 22:35, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Hans, how about you sit back and watch and see if the rest of the community can figure out a way to correct articles that are screwed up because a consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, has occasionally overridden community consensus on a wider scale. Yeah, I hear your message point that The New York Times isn’t an RS on *complex* issues like sports and how to spell names such as François Mitterrand and Milan Jurcina. Personally, I don’t think “them edumicated editors” over at the NYT get tripped up easily on such basics so I’m not persuaded in the least by such notions. Everyone can see that WP:SPELLING doesn’t yet list User:Hans Adler or User:Greg L as an RS but does list The New York Times as one (go figure??). Can you find an RS that states that The New York Times isn’t an RS? (Thought not.) So we’ll just have to agree to disagree about your allegations that The New York Times is all so fouled up on the fundamentals, M’kay? These “mebibyte”-type wiki-boo-boos seldom correct themselves until experienced, non-partisan editors join in to help on an issue that wasn’t previously on their radar screen; that’s why I brought it here. Greg L (talk) 01:04, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting. I was not aware that there was a "community consensus on a wider scale" over the use of diacritics. Would you care to link to a discussion that validates this claim? Resolute 01:36, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Claiming that reason and the majority are on your side is easy. The hard part is making reality adjust to what happens in your mind. At least you come up with amusing ideas in the attempt, such as the theory that the spelling of foreign names is a sports issue, and the theory that User:Hans Adler's literal quotation from a New York Times publication must be dismissed because, um, User:Hans Adler himself is not a reliable source. Um, what? Never mind. Hans Adler 01:37, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Trials of banner variations

During last year's fundraiser, on December 14, I suggested a banner that uses information that came straight out of Sue Gardner's appeal: "If all of our readers donated $1, the fundraiser would be over about four hours from now." Whether by that suggestion or not, by December 28, banners with $5 and $10 were tested out in the same exact form as the banner that is being used in this year's fundraiser. And they seemed to have done well. However, no trials were done with the $1 amount that says that the fundraiser will be over within 4 hours instead of today. Unless trials are done with smaller amounts like $1 and $2, saying the fundraiser will be over within 4 or 2 hours, or less than 1 hour (48 minutes) for $5 if it takes 4 hours for $1 donations from every reader with last year's target and whatever calculation was used to get that data in Sue Gardner's appeal, we have no way of knowing how these banners will perform. It will be a neglect to not run trials with variations of the amount and the time it will take to reach the target if every reader of the Wikimedia projects donated that amount. It can well be that one variation will perform better than the $5 banner saying that the fundraiser will be over today. I greatly urge that trials are done with these banner variations to determine which one performs best:

• "If everyone reading this donated $5, our fundraiser would be over within 1 hour." (or the time it will take with this year's target)
• "If everyone reading this donated $5, our fundraiser would be over in less than 1 hour."
• "If everyone reading this donated $5, our fundraiser would be over within 48 minutes."
• "If everyone reading this donated $5, our fundraiser would be over in less than 50 minutes."
• "If everyone reading this donated $1, our fundraiser would be over within 4 hours."
• "If everyone reading this donated $1, our fundraiser would be over in less than 4 hours."
• "If everyone reading this donated $2, our fundraiser would be over within 2 hour."
• "If everyone reading this donated $2, our fundraiser would be over in less than 2 hours."
• "If everyone reading this donated $3, our fundraiser would be over within 2 hours."
• "If everyone reading this donated $3, our fundraiser would be over in less than 2 hours."

They also need to be translated into other languages and currencies, probably based on users' IP addresses. So far, I haven't seen a translation of the $5 banner last year or this year. And similar trials should definitely be done for other countries, currencies, and languages.

There could be other variations. One can even wonder if fundraising instead of fundraiser will make a difference. Other variations could be using "all our readers," "each of our readers, "each/every reader," or "each/every reader of Misplaced Pages," "can be over" and "will be over."

Hopefully, having tested variations of this present banner, the most effective one can be found for each country, currency and language that will help this year's fundraiser and future ones reach their target quicker and easier and with less distraction for people with an element that in ways doesn't belong in Wikimedia projects. One could say it's a necessary evil. So it's all the more important that the target is reached soon and they are over soon.

Logos112 (talk) 02:25, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm a big fan of testing, but note that I'm not directly involved in the day-to-day running of those tests. You should probably talk to Zack!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:35, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

In Persian Misplaced Pages

I saw that your user page doesn't have interwiki link to Misplaced Pages Farsi, I will be glad if you want, to translate your userpage to Persian and present it to you. All the best for you--Sahehco (talk) 10:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

• That sounds like an idea that Jimmy would like, but keep the page short at first. For example, just translate the following 2 paragraphs into Persian:

I am Jimmy Wales. I go by "Jimmy" in real life, but often go by "Jimbo" online. People sometimes assume that "James" is my real name, and "Jimmy" only a nickname, but my real name is really Jimmy. I was born in the wonderful and beautiful city of Huntsville, Alabama, U.S. I founded Misplaced Pages in 2001. Since 2006, I have been Chair Emeritus of the Wikimedia Foundation, which I founded in 2003. In 2004, along with Angela Beesley, I co-founded Wikia, a completely separate organization unrelated to Misplaced Pages and the Wikimedia Foundation. I am proud of founding Misplaced Pages and am grateful for what it has offered to millions of people worldwide.

The Google Translate menu has an option to handle "Persian" but we are not sure how well it works. Anyway, translate that text and show the translation below this message. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:15, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps adding the photograph (File:Jimmy Wales Fundraiser Appeal edit.jpg) along with the description would not be a bad idea. Albacore (talk) 01:46, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Jen, don't Put Jimbo on a pedal stool. 190.175.199.105 (talk) 02:09, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Use of social micro-payments on Misplaced Pages

I see that the 'Message from Jimmy Wales' is back with requests for donations. I have recently come across Flattr, which allows users to reward all manner of bloggers, writers, musicians and anyone who delivers valuable content online. This strikes me as an excellent alternative to advertising revenue, allowing readers to show their appreciation in monetary terms for useful content. I wrote a short blog post about it here: http://www.claire-king.com/2011/11/20/imitation-is-the-best-form-of-flattry/ The website for Flattr is http://Flattr.com A flattr button would presumably be an easy thing to add to Misplaced Pages pages, and in terms of getting donations it is a much faster, easier gesture for readers to make than a credit card donation. Is it something you have thought about? Claire King (talk) 23:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Last year, the German Misplaced Pages community discussed some possible forms of using Flattr and rejected them for the time being, see this article I wrote for Signpost.

See also this.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:44, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. These four points here are particularly useful: <<Privacy: The standard Flattr button is loaded dynamically from Flattr's own servers, which would presumably violate the Foundation's privacy policy (the surfer's IP would be transmitted to an outside entity, which would be in a position to track the surfer's Misplaced Pages reading behavior). However, there is the possibility of using a static button or a link as in the examples on Commons. Collaboration: Assuming that the money would go to Wikipedians, instead of the WMF: How should the Flattr donations for an article with many different contributors be distributed? Cannibalization: The average donation per Flattr click is far smaller than the average donation via the "Donate to Misplaced Pages" link, so (in the case where the WMF would be the recipient of Flattr donations) the overall revenue might actually be reduced. Commission size: Currently, Flattr imposes a 10% fee on donations, which might be seen as too high.>> The 10% fee is still the case. As for cannibalization, perhaps as a trial (for WMF fundraising) outside the 'fundraiser' itself could give some data on clicks & revenue? Great to see from the second link that it's an idea that could be considered for next year. Claire King (talk) 08:33, 21 November 2011 (UTC)