Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 00:41, 22 August 2014

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates – he has an open door policy. He holds the founder's seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The three trustees elected as community representatives until July 2015 are SJ, Phoebe, and Raystorm. The Wikimedia Foundation Senior Community Advocate is Maggie Dennis.

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Just one opinion

Dear Jimmy,

I would like to write you briefly (well, I tried being brief!) about why I am leaving Misplaced Pages.

I used to be a moderately active Misplaced Pages user (1,600 edits in 6 years), but I have not really edited Misplaced Pages in the past few months. Over the years I have repeatedly felt bullied by "more equal than thou" editors, and have had quite a few reasonable additions removed by tireless reverters, who do in fact own articles. It is an unspoken secret that article ownership is one of Misplaced Pages's main problems.

Despite Misplaced Pages's attempts to foment reasonable discussion, during a dispute it is invariably the tireless reverters and "owners" who win out. There was even one occasion where a single editor got his agenda through against myself and two others all trying to reason with him for over a week on a talk page. And we didn't even want to get rid of his opinion from the article, but rather to add that there are two opinions on the matter.

Many times I have wanted to write you about this, but thought you've got better things to do than waste your time with me. I essentially left Misplaced Pages about six months ago, but now I've got an editor removing some stuff I'd added a while back, that had never bothered anyone, and who's coming up with contradictory arguments for doing so.

Don't worry - I'm not here asking for you to defend me. That's not my point. My point is that much of Misplaced Pages editing operates like a clique, not like a community. So-called "experienced users" politely but firmly tell you that you're not welcome on their territory, they use jobsworthy arguments, and they are relentless in their agenda, which more often than not involves deleting stuff. This guy summarizes the problem succintly.

You may simply say to me "sorry to have lost you" (or you may not, I don't know), but that won't help the droves of enthusiastic new people coming into the project from being bullied out within their first year. And the enthusiastic new people are sometimes people with real knowledge, such as scholars and scientists, who get forced out by some kid in high school who sits in front of his computer all day, reverting article pages, adding barntars and/or userboxes to his user page, and quoting perfectly learned yet intentionally misinterpreted versions of Misplaced Pages policy at them.

I don't mind continuing to contribute, but it just feels ever more pointless when work you've researched meticulously because you're passionate about it and which you know is relevant to a given topic...gets erased, often without even a deletion comment. It's like a kick in the gut, man.

Thanks for your attention, and keep well! BigSteve (talk) 11:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we need a WP:Ownership noticeboard as a mild inducement for longer term editors to specific articles to chill (but only if the complainant shows all other policies are followed in their own edit). It would work for this long-time editor when ocassionally my hackles get up at some appropriate WP:RS statement that doesn't quite fit my vision of what the article needs... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:19, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The real unspoken secret here is that the overwhelmimg majority of articles aren't crowdsourced but are instead written by a very few editors. Ownership is therefore a red herring, since without it there would be even more poorly developed articles than there are now. Ownership is both inevitable and beneficial in other words. Eric Corbett 13:47, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but good "owners" should be open-minded about improvements to "their" articles, and help others "fix" their desired improvements rather than flat-out revert them.

@Bigzteve: I don't know the longer history, but just looked at your recent edits to the single article that triggered your visit to Jimbo's talk page. You might ask the reverting editor, if "the numerical examples are nonstandard notation" can you change them to the standard notation please, rather than revert, and if there are links to "numerical planetary data" elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, please provide those links, to show me where such data can be found. Engage more on the talk page. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course they should. Did I suggest otherwise? Eric Corbett 16:42, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

No, the original premise was "article ownership is one of Misplaced Pages's main problems" and you called that a "red herring". Perhaps the better way to say it is abusive article ownership is one of Misplaced Pages's main problems—but, while I know such behavior is a problem (whether it's a "main" problem is debatable), I don't see that in this editor's recent history. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

So the original premise is arguably wrong, and from a wrong premise it's unlikely that the correct conclusions will be drawn except by accident. Eric Corbett 18:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Good point. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:53, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Eric Corbett, this statement: "The real unspoken secret here is that the overwhelmimg majority of articles aren't crowdsourced but are instead written by a very few editors." Could you give your evidence for that, please? What percentage is the "overwhelming majority of articles" and how many are the "very few editors"? Lightbreather (talk) 07:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Lightbreather: "Misplaced Pages seems like a good example of a crowd of people who have created a great resource. But at a conference last year I asked Misplaced Pages founder Jimmy Wales about how articles were created. He said that the vast majority are the product of a motivated individual ... if you took away all of the articles that were individual creations, Misplaced Pages would have very little left." Eric Corbett 12:42, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

The full quote, from 2009: "Misplaced Pages seems like a good example of a crowd of people who have created a great resource. But at a conference last year I asked Misplaced Pages founder Jimmy Wales about how articles were created. He said that the vast majority are the product of a motivated individual. After articles are created, they are curated–corrected, improved and extended–by many different people. Some articles are indeed group creations that evolved out of a sentence or two. But if you took away all of the articles that were individual creations, Misplaced Pages would have very little left." AnonNep (talk) 12:57, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

When BigSteve says "My point is that much of Misplaced Pages editing operates like a clique, not like a community", I think he's absolutely right. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:15, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

And I don't. Eric Corbett 18:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree either. Perhaps there are some small cliques somewhere on Misplaced Pages—it's a big place, after all—but I'm not aware of any, or who might be members of one. You would think I'd have noticed by now, as I've recently climbed into the top 2,000 by # of edits. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:53, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Good lord, of course there are cliques here. Some are very positive, others are less so. Some of the positive ones involve interests in particular subjects. We even have a formalized system for them, we call them WikiProjects. Others, that are not positive are the non-formal packs of Editors who share beliefs about how WP should operate and what content should or should not be in it. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 21:16, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Yep, User:Scalhotrod, for you it is in spite of your not signing, wikipedia actually get users who enforce BLP in defiance of you, imagine that. Perhaps you would like to justify here as to why your favoured project, wikiporn, is being harrassed by our BLP policy and why BLP should not be enforced on porn articles when a consensus of porn editors deems that it should not be enforced, proposing topic bans for those who defy them by actually trying to enforce outr core policies. I say any cliques who try to disrupt our core policies should be disbanded. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 21:34, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder Squeak. As for the rest, you seem to be off topic. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 00:02, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Umm, this is a user talk page not an article, so there is no topic to be on. ♫ SqueakBox talk contribs 00:04, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Yep, its those fundamental misconceptions that make you so misunderstood and get Editors ticked off at you. But hey, it's what makes you, you... :) Have a nice day Squeaker. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 05:09, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Then let me suggest an experiment. Establish a new user name and start editing a controversial article. You may experience things differently. Deltahedron (talk) 19:03, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, right. Now I remember. I have had such an experience editing as an IP, before I registered. That is a problem. I think it happens in many topics that are tagged as "pseudoscience". That is definitely an issue, allowing minority viewpoints to get heard. But no, much of Misplaced Pages editing does not operate like a clique, that stuff happens on a subset of articles. It is a problem that may need the Foundation to step in with a solution, if only they didn't have such an aversion to editing content. If there was an easy answer, it would have been solved by now. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:24, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Well I admit I had a laugh when I read the reply to my comment in the collapsed section. I did not make that connection until I read the reply. Honest! Sometimes I'm slow about such things.

I did take the time to read Talk:Moors murders. What I found was excellent bold-revert-discuss behavior on the article itself, but overly lengthy and dramatic discussion to just go from mass murder → multiple murder → serial murder. It seems to me you got to the right place, but oh the ordeal to get there. And I'm not sure who to blame more for the problem. Can't y'all just work it out? Wbm1058 (talk) 18:53, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't see blame as a useful dimension. But surely new editor's contributions can be as valuable as those from established editors. Even established editors were new once. People tend to thrive on encouragement (unless they have some kind of debilitating personality disorder, of course). Martinevans123 (talk) 19:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

new editor's contributions can be as valuable as those from established editors Of course, does someone disagree? If a new editors contribution is rejected, it doesn't necessarily follow that it as rejected because the editor is new, it might be because there were issues with the contribution.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:04, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

As BigSteve says, the problem is more that an explanation for a revert may be lacking or even, of course, downright rude and derogatory. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:21, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I certainly had an unpleasant series of responses from an editor who took the view that as an established author of some very long articles, he was exempt from any requirement to explain his actions. That editor is now banned for harassment (not of me). The experience was extremely disheartening. Deltahedron (talk) 19:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

User:Deltahedron, I'm sorry to hear that someone took that view, but it sounds like the community did the right thing. Why did you bring it up, are you still disheartened? Should the community have responded more swiftly? I don't know the circumstances, but I am unsure whether you are bringing it up as an example of the community doing the right things, or as an unsolved problem.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:11, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the community did not do "the right thing", whatever that might have been – the editor in question was banned over quite another matter – so yes, I'm still disheartened. But I would rather use the experience constructively than replay it. My point is that refusal to engage in a constructive way is a toxic experience and one which is, in my opinion, likely to discourage other editors more than any other single factor. I may say that I still get that, although in a less extreme form, from a variety of other contributors, including one administrator and more than one member of WMF staff. Deltahedron (talk) 20:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Have you considered that the problem might lie with yourself as well? I have yet to edit an article in common with you where I didn't find at least some of your edits objectionable. JMP EAX (talk) 00:05, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for that. What strategy did you choose for dealing with "objectonable" edits? Did you try discussing them on the article talk page, explaining in detail what you were trying to achieve, citing appropriate policies, using reliable sources and striving to achieve consensus? Or did you refuse to discuss how to write the article and instead rely on remarks such as "Now I know why so many articles in Misplaced Pages suck", "Please stop writing new article about stuff you don't understand much", "helps to read a source before you cite it", "It's clear that you don't understand much about the topic", "You just refuse to hear", "your writing style in this article is extremely bad", "I do wonder however if you ever had to teach classes yourself anywhere and what if you did what kind of evaluations you've got", "I see you are also very fond of long logorheas and rules lawyering on the dramaz boards", "Allow me to very skeptical of your "improvements".". Which of the two strategies do you think likely to produce a better encyclopaedia? Deltahedron (talk) 13:46, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

The one where WP:RANDYs are topic banned quickly. JMP EAX (talk) 14:33, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Also, be very offended at what anther editor wrote about another article you've contributed to: "Misplaced Pages is so bad at describing these academic concepts to laypersons, even the layperson who is interested and educated in a related field. So many Misplaced Pages articles on academic topics read like pages torn out a 600 page textbook, written by a LaTeX-babbling automaton, to borrow a term." JMP EAX (talk) 14:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Why would someone be "very offended" about a comment made about an article two years before they edited it? The issue of the appropriate level for technical articles in mathematics is a recurring topic, and can be seen, for example, at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Mathematics/FAQ. Perhaps it is worth pointing out that remarks on the style and content of articles, however pointed, are capable, at least in principle, of being the start of a constructive discussion about how articles might be improved. Personal attacks on other editors, on the other hand, are almost never the start of a constructive discussion. Deltahedron (talk) 16:39, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm a day late to this discussion, but I have to say I agree with BigSteve about ownership issues. I've run into it repeatedly in my (currently) preferred subject area, which shall go unnamed since I am currently topic-banned from it. I have mostly been tag-teamed, but there are a few single-editor owners, too. The big thing I've experienced in those areas is a refusal to follow a key part of the consensus building process: Decision-making involving efforts to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns (while respecting Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines). No compromising. No discussing. Just reverting (usually with PA edit summaries). Lightbreather (talk) 08:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Who is individual creator of majority of WP content?

Jimbo Wales, after reading the beginning of this discussion, I am dying to know: Is there really one "motivated individual" responsible for the creation of a "vast majority" of Misplaced Pages articles? Will you please qualify/quantify that statement? WHO is this individual? Is it the Eric Corbett that everyone seems so hell-bent on coddling? If Misplaced Pages is truly an open project, certainly this - the fact (?) that there is a single individual responsible for the majority of WP content - is something that ought to be out in the open. It's something that ought to be discussed, because then the project is truly not what it advertises itself to be.

I'll be out of town for about a week, but I will follow this via my phone. Also, I hope to spend maybe an hour today looking at who created the majority of articles I've worked on in the past year - my first year as an active WP editor. Lightbreather (talk) 18:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I think what was meant is that most individual articles are largely the result of one person's efforts, with other people helping. Not that one person (even Eric) is responsible for the vast majority of WP articles.

So for example if you go to User:Demiurge1000 and then scroll down to and expand "Significant article contributions", each of the featured articles listed there were (mostly) written, improved or expanded by one person, but also (mostly) copyedited by me. And of the Good Articles there, most of the military ones were almost entirely written by Jim Sweeney and almost entirely copyedited by me.

But this doesn't quite tally with the claims made, since, especially in the case of the featured articles, huge amounts of effort were put in by many other people both during, before and after the featured article stage. Dozens of edits per person, across numerous persons, I think. It's more a case of half a dozen people making a great article great, not one or two.

Looking at who created a specific article is even less useful. If they created it as a stub in 2002, and it became a featured article in 2012, and they never touched it in between, what significance does that have? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

There's a big difference between who writes an article – by which I mean who actually contributes the bulk of the text – and who has the highest edit count, as this report from Business Insider expands on. Eric Corbett 19:08, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Just so... Jim would normally start by deleting most or all of the existing text, which I must admit made me slightly uneasy! Some accomplished article writers add content in vast wholesale chunks, not by many edits.

My examples (above) could also be used to support the idea that well-developed articles mostly have a single author. All of the featured articles I list, would not have gained that status without a single editor determined to achieve it, and pursuing it over, as far as I recall, between one and several years.

But, this means "a single editor with drive and determination and competence is normally needed to bring an article to featured status". It certainly does not mean (this is borne out in my examples) that editor can do it alone. Nor that the crowdsourcing method is worthless. At least, if you consider 6 to 12 people as "crowdsourcing". --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:18, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Is there really one "motivated individual" responsible for the creation of a "vast majority" of Misplaced Pages articles? Will you please qualify/quantify that statement? WHO is this individual?. This makes me think of some classic dialogue from the '70's U.S. TV show All in the Family. I think its the Rob Reiner character that says something like "....a woman is raped in America every 15 minutes." To which the Edith Bunker character replies..."O the poor thing!". ```Buster Seven Talk 20:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Demiurge1000, for explaining. It may have indeed been an Edith Bunker moment, as Buster7 suggests. I have quickly read the articles in Business Insider and Forbes by Blodget and Woods, and I'll read them more closely on my trip if I get a chance. (BTW, Eric Corbett, those two together are much more meaningful, to me anyway, than the one by Woods alone that you gave first.)

Anyway, maybe it has to do with the subject matter, but there are ownership problems on WP (or as Wbm1058 put it, "abusive article ownership"). Maybe it's just in certain topic areas, but it's there. Lightbreather (talk) 01:53, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I can only apologise for not doing your literature search for you Lightbreather. Eric Corbett 16:52, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales, Regardless of who the "#1 contributor" is, I think the "issue" is far more simple and less "insidious" as some may perceive or suspect. I think many Editors are proud of the work that they contribute to Misplaced Pages and as such try to preserve (for better or worse) that material. Furthermore, IMO many Editors tend to be passionate (for better or worse) about the subjects they review. Ideally it would great if everyone edited with a dispassionate, but knowledgeable eye for all of the material that is on the site, but the site benefits greatly from experts in any number of fields. Additionally, the "zealots" of the site (Editors whose passion sometimes or even predominantly influences their contributions) have their benefits. Often this zeal attracts the attention of other (or just more) Editors that an article would not typically receive. I touched on this "silver lining" aspect in an essay I wrote in December 2013 here. Lastly AGF I would have to say that the primary source of this "problem" is the perception of the edits and actions by other editors who simply share a different opinion about the nature of the material in a particular article or how it should addressed on Misplaced Pages, not realizing that this is not the place to take a stand or make a point. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (Talk) ☮ღ☺ 16:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)Because some may think differently, for the record, the above statement is not directed at anyone in particular

Potential misuse of POTY photo

Does our attitude on the Monkey business back fired? Are we helpless when our contributors are cheated? Does the world sympathize with us? Jee 14:54, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Its not our image in the first place. Its one particular editor who granted us a non-exclusive license under the creative commons. For all we know, the uploader could have also sold the image under other licenses that do not require attribution. Even if its a copyright violation, its a violation of the uploader's copyright, nothing we could do about it even if we wanted to. Monty₈₄₅ 15:09, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

That is inaccurate. The present files are labelled public domain as the work of a non-human animal; there is no mention of CC-licensing. (The monkeys probably think that signing such elaborate agreements to keep their content free is beneath their dignity) Wnt (talk) 12:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Presumably, they fully understand what the public domain is? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:16, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Presumably. Wnt (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah yes, I guess they use State (of Nature) copyright. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:12, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Wanna know why all the content writers are leaving?

Don't avert your eyes, dig into the history of Richard Norton and the sadism festival at Arbitration Enforcement being conducted against him. Callanecc declares that Richard's creation of THIS article in mainspace in violation of a topic ban on direct creation of articles is worth a "three to six month" ban! Of course, he's going to graciously allow Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_) to explain himself before imposing God's Will. This is sickening and illustrative of Misplaced Pages's problems retaining content writers of any merit. Carrite (talk) 15:03, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The original Norton case involved copyvio issues. Are there new copyright concerns? And why wasn't this brought to Clarification Requests; it seems people are using that process more lately. —Neotarf (talk) 15:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Some people like inflicting punishments. It's very attractive to them, sexy even. To me, all I see is a fat Southern cop on a motorbike, hiding behind a billboard with a radar gun reading 27 on a car with out of state plates, when all the locals know damned well that the speed limit is 20. Not sexy. But the reality is that Mr. Norton is one of Misplaced Pages's most prolific creators of new content and is on the verge of being driven out of WP by Vogonesque enforcement of WP:OBSERVEALLRULES, which replaced the ostensible 5th Pillar (IAR) long, long ago... Carrite (talk) 15:45, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec-ed away) - And no, there are no copyright issues, here or anywhere in Norton's recent work. Unfortunately, that isn't the issue at all. Carrite (talk) 15:59, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Why can't we have good content creators that also...behave? Tarc (talk) 15:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Because sitting around socializing and following rules and "behaving" is in many ways antithetical to the writing process. Some of the best content people are old and grumpy and just want to be left alone to work in peace. Richard Norton had the misfortune of making a passel of sourcing blunders years ago and it is an uncorrectable situation now that (a previous) ArbCom has ruled unwisely on the matter. Carrite (talk) 15:54, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

In that case, now we have a different ArbCom, take it to ARCA. For now, though, he still has a topic ban, and while I agree that if this incident was a mistake a block is an unfortunate outcome, there's no need to make borderline personal attacks on the enforcer. BethNaught (talk) 16:00, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, there's a lot of grizzled dinosaurs in IT too that would like nothing better than to be left alone in the server room. But y'know, it isn't 1991 anymore. Adapt, or die. Tarc (talk) 16:02, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Hm. Ageism is alive and well here, I see. Are we going to be morally ambitious about that, too? - Sitush (talk) 10:29, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It isn't "ageism", what an ignorant thing to say. It's not ageist to expect older workers to perhaps not do some of the things they used to do in the workplace of the 70's and 80's. Tarc (talk) 18:21, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Isn't it? You obviously do not live in the real world, where such tolerance goes on every day. This place and attitudes such as yours stink just as much as those against whom some people rant when it comes to civility. We do not all move with the times and as we get older, it gets more difficult to do so. So just shove us all out, eh? - Sitush (talk) 20:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

If you can't stop clinging to some faint notion of a Good ol' Boys club, e.g. Mad Men, then yes, the shove is a'coming. Tarc (talk) 21:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Really? I doubt it very much. You seem to be living on borrowed time here yourself, so I doubt you'll be among the shovers. Eric Corbett 21:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Your colours are showing, Tarc, and they are not pretty. Much as I think this moral ambitiousness thing is a load of codswallop and I worry greatly about the common sense and even sanity of some people who adhere to it, the youth of this world get nothing without the sagacity of age. Or, as Newton said it, we stand on the shoulders of giants. People who favour reinventing the wheel at the turn of every generation are either incredibly immature or very stupid. For starters, such an approach would rule out all but current event sources here. - Sitush (talk) 23:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite: I have understood the sexual component in these things for some time now, although it seems odd to say so. I suspect this is one of the real reasons it's so hard to get women and academics to contribute here, and not the socially acceptable "oh, I'm busy" excuse they usually give. But enforcement of these things has not been very consistent lately. —Neotarf (talk) 16:11, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

For a lot a of people the equation is simply "hassle > reward/self-motivation". It's surely true for me in some topic areas. Life is too short to spend it arguing with the loonies and the obsessed on the interwerbz; As one (real-life) college of mine put it: that battle is lost before you even begin it. Of course one can reason that providing good content in non-controversial areas is simply giving a high-profile/google-juice platform for the loonies and the obsessed to soapbox from. But I think that anyone trying to get accurate info from Misplaced Pages on any topic seriously controversial is already foolish beyond salvation. So I'm happy to ignore such areas, the crazies who write there , and the fools who might read their works. JMP EAX (talk) 18:18, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• Since Rand Paul and Corey Booker are looking at sentencing in the US criminal justice system, maybe it is time to rethink crime and punishment here at Misplaced Pages. We are criminalizing non disruptive behavior, solely because we can. We do not need escalating month-long blocks for people making typos. It does not serve a purpose. I am currently blocked from creating articles in Misplaced Pages space, and based on past performance, every 75 article creations or so, I will accidentally click a red link in Misplaced Pages space instead of my User space. No amount of draconian punishment will change the error rate. It makes no more sense than criminalizing spelling errors or arresting an Arizona State University professor for jaywalking. Look at the 150 or so articles I have created since being on probation at my user page. Will having me be discouraged for another year serve the readers of Misplaced Pages 10, 50 or 100 years from now? I have already dropped about 20 positions in my edit count since this started. Don't the people in the biographies I write deserve to have their stories read? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 14:57, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
  • It sounds like you have a slightly unhealthy obsession with your edit count, but otherwise I'm inclined to be sympathetic. There's a saying: who doesn't work can't make mistakes. The though question is of course how many mistakes are more trouble than worth... JMP EAX (talk) 19:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)
    • It is not ego driven, it is one of the metrics of my productivity. The almost yearlong hiatus and drop in edits represents maybe 300 biographies that will never be written. I have an account with the New York Times and I read historical obituaries of obscure, but notable people. I work with the Library of Congress at Flickr Commons to identify people in historical images to give them context, and add biographies of those people to Misplaced Pages and add the images Wikimedia Commons. I asked if people would continue my work while I was banned but no one did. I doubt I will ever come across those people again in the New York Times in an archive that runs from 1851 to 2014 and must contain (163 years*365 days per year*5 notable obits per day= ) 250,000 or more notable obituaries. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:30, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

See, that's pretty much the attitude that caused this whole situation, no offense intended. Once a person has tens and tens and tens of thousands of edits, it becomes physically impossible to check them all. So, if some of the early editing is sketchy (and who among us is 100% perfect in our editing from Day One?) — as a significant part of Richard's early work was — it is just so much easier to say, "Oh, this is not worth my time figuring out who is right and who is wrong — let's just flush the problem away." And, let there be no mistake, there are people who remain actively committed to doing just that in Richard's case. Well, I argue that is not the right way to approach this. Richard's a productive editor, a very big net positive to WP who remains hampered by "This Is Too Big To Deconstruct, So Let's Fetter Him" restrictions... It's really frustrating. I can't imagine how Richard feels. It can't be good. We have to end this "gotcha" culture at WP if we are going to expand our active contributor base, as we need to do. Carrite (talk) 20:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

No one thinks of leaving messages on talk pages anymore, they just go straight for the drama boards. —Neotarf (talk) 20:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ):Not if you're copying them from someone else's material, no. Looking into your case, I see hundreds of man-hours spend on trying to check and fix your copyright violations, in two separate CCI's (those are Contributor Copyright Investigations, initiated when a pattern of copyright violation by an editor has been shown, where a bunch of editors stop their article work and go through the very time-consuming and tedious work of vetting an editor's entire body of edits, checking for and fixing copyright violations), in addition to ten appearances on the Administrator's Notice board plus a full-blown ArbCom case where you were strongly admonished (by 13-0 vote of the Arbcom), prohibited from creating articles (12-1), prohibited from uploading images (13-0), and prohibited from linking to any external sites to which you had contributed (13-0; this last being, I gather, to prevent you from from doing a clever end-around of our copyright rules by creating a website, posting copyrighted material there, and linking to it).

But you created an article anyway -- by mistake. So, you made a mistake. It's a pretty careless mistake but you can appeal on that basis and in all likelihood you'll be warned to be more careful and that's that. More worryingly, none of all this seems to have sunk in, as you seem to be living on the planet of I'm-a-special-exception self-justification and actually anticipate doing this again every now and then. This is troubling.

@Carrite:, It's reasonable that when a person who is prohibited from creating articles creates an article someone makes a case of this. So re your original post there's no excuse for describing this as a "sadism festival" for "fat southern cop" types who "like inflicting punishments". (Not only that, you disappoint by failing to even work in the phrase "jack-booted thugs", which is de rigeur for vicious and toxic rants like yours -- didn't you get the memo?). This is just loathsome and horrible as well as false. Don't do that. Herostratus (talk) 20:52, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

One must be an artist with hyperbole and use it only when absolutely necessary. best, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 21:15, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo has not been nominated yet?

It's only a matter of time.... Count Iblis (talk) 19:29, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

If it's good enough for Wierd Al, it's good enough for Jimbo. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:38, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

The trustworthiness of Misplaced Pages

Hi Jmmy.

The Wikimedia Foundation envisions a world in which everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. But "knowledge" of something implies well-founded confidence in its accuracy. While Misplaced Pages is untrustworthy, it is sharing something other than knowledge. This is a problem for the foundation, since it is failing to realise its vision, but also for humankind, who deserves an encyclopaedia it can trust.

At Wikimania 2014 you said, "We're trusted slightly more than the BBC. Now, that's a little scary, and probably inappropriate. ... We all know it's flawed. We all know we don't do as good a job as we wish we could do ... People trusted Encyclopedia Britannica - I think it was, like - 20 points ahead of us. ... I'm not going to rest until people trust us more than they ever trusted Encyclopedia Britannica in the past."

Are you doing anything at the moment aimed at either improving the public's understanding of Misplaced Pages's reliability or improving its actual reliability? If so, would you like to share those initiatives here? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:14, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Everything I do related to Misplaced Pages is aimed at those things, so I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question. I think one of the biggest changes is the hiring of Lila as CEO coupled with her intention to radically increase investment in software development to help make it easier for us to get our jobs done. There are many ideas that have been floating around for years but we haven't had sufficient developer resources to do them. (It is my view that in the past 5 years we have significantly underinvested in engineering.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Could you please elaborate on how technological fixes will solve the unreliability problem? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:03, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I think there are many ways but let's just talk about one example. Watchlists are a very primitive way to surface new edits to experienced users. A more sophisticated "news feed" style watchlist could take into account a variety of factors to do a better job of showing us edits that need to be scrutinized and as well as new users who are writing in areas that we care about so that we can evaluate them, greet them, welcome them, coach them. Imagine if edits to articles that you personally care a lot about (medical articles say) were scanned and highlighted to people who are part of the relevant Wikiproject if they contain certain "likely problems" (for example, a link to a tabloid newspaper is probably not the best link in a serious medical article, but that's an editorial judgment that could, in some cases, make sense).

That's just one example and a random brainstorm by just one person (me) on some ideas that people have proposed over the years. But I hope it is indicative of the kinds of things that I have in mind.

Here's another one: I set up a link in my browser to go to a random female British author whenever I click it. I click it and see if there is some small thing I can improve. But this is very very primitive. What if, instead, the system could take me to an article which based on several factors is likely to need attention. (For example, if readers have expressed displeasure, or if someone recently posted on the talk page, or if an ip address recently edited it, or...)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:27, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

It is worth noting that Misplaced Pages:Verifiability policy rates as "questionable" any sources that "lack meaningful editorial oversight", and that this class includes Misplaced Pages itself. Deltahedron (talk) 13:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. How do you feel about scholars reviewing our medical content for accuracy, and us putting a prominent badge at the top of those articles, linking the reader to the fact-checked version? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:41, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Reliability of the information found here has to hinge on the verifiability of that information. Reliable sources...references...all of that tedious, unexciting stuff. It's quite frustrating when you know that something is true - to be unable to say it here because you need to reference reliable sources. But that's the only way we've ever found to increase both our reliability - and the perception of our reliability. When people tell me that Misplaced Pages can't possibly be reliable because any idiot can come by and put falsehoods here - I always tell them that if some fact really matters to you, then don't believe what Misplaced Pages says, click on the little blue number and read the original source of where we got that fact from. If there isn't a blue number - then forget that we ever said that. HOWEVER, if you just need to know something trivial, for idle curiosity - then Misplaced Pages is pretty darned reliable (and we have studies that show that we're at least as reliable as Encyclopedia Brittannica.

The problem is not our actual reliability (which seems to be pretty amazingly good) - but the perception of our reliability (which is kinda terrible). The bizarre part about that is that while our editor community is shrinking - our readership is climbing. That's odd...you'd think that if this perception of unreliability was prevalent, that fewer people would be reading Misplaced Pages. I suspect (without evidence) that convenience trumps perceived reliability for most people. If I want to know "Will there be another series of Crossbones (TV series)?" (darn...no!) then being able to tap the "W" icon on my phone and type one word into the interface to get the answer is ASTOUNDING. The fact that the answer might be wrong...0.1% of the time...is actually less critical. If I were instead researching how people used dockyard cranes in Medieval Europe (which I was actually doing last week) - then I still use Misplaced Pages - but not for the answers it contains, rather for the curated links it gives me to the source documents. In that regard, Misplaced Pages is more like a highly effective version of Google-search than it is an encyclopedia. It gives me the links to the source material, and functions kinda like the Brittannica "propedia" that summarizes and organizes the knowledge that can be found elsewhere.

The general public are also unaware of the fact that for any common question you're likely to be searching for the answer to, there are likely to be dozens of reliable editors watching articles and deleting incorrect information added by random idiots within a very short span of time...and those same random idiots don't get much fun from putting garbage into very obscure subject matter where it might linger for a while before being removed. Even when you point out this undoubted truth to people, we're faced with the problem that people are not good at estimating probabilities and risk. If a junk edit happens in (say) Theory of relativity - then it's going to be fixed in a matter of minutes. Since those changes happen maybe weekly - the probability of you landing on that page while the information is incorrect - multiplied by the probability that the change actually affects you - is a very, very small number. But people are bad at estimating risk...so that's a hard line to sell to people.

I'm not sure we need technological changes, or even changes to editing rules or habits to make us more reliable (although greater reliability is obviously desirable). Mostly we need public awareness of how reliable we already are - combined with education in how to use Misplaced Pages when the answer really matters...and when it doesn't.

SteveBaker (talk) 13:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

So your argument would be that we are right and everyone else, including all the people who use the encyclopaedia, are wrong? Deltahedron (talk) 14:05, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

More seriously, any useful risk assessment should include an estimate of the impact as well as the probability. While the probability of being misinformed about medical information may be low (I couldn't say), the impact of that misinformation may be very high. We regard that as an acceptable risk simply because we don't have to take it. Deltahedron (talk) 14:08, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Sadly, Deltahedron, no one knows the probability of being misinformed about medical information. No one has done a rigorous systematic review of the various small studies into the reliability of our medical offering. I've looked at all of those studies, I think, and in my opinion, a rigorous systematic review is likely to conclude nothing can be inferred from them about the reliability of our medical content. Most have fatal design flaws including tiny sample size, dubious measure of reliability and opaque selection criteria. What's really needed is a large enough, well-enough designed study. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:21, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

But that's my point. For something as important as medical advice, you really shouldn't trust Misplaced Pages - you should use it as a curated set of links to documents that are presumed trustworthy (or at least more trustworthy than Misplaced Pages). It's very easy for some random idiot to change the name of a drug as treatment for some condition - but much MUCH harder for them to point the references that back this up. We need to educate people that they really shouldn't take our information as "The Truth" in any situation where it deeply matters. So I'm quite prepared to take the risk that there really is a second season of Crossbones (TV show) in the pipeline (despite Misplaced Pages saying that there isn't) - because it's just not that important to me. In that situation, convenience trumps absolute reliability. But in deciding whether the drug my doctor just prescribed my kid has side-effects that might concern me, then I'm still going to go to Misplaced Pages - but I'll pretty much ignore what it says and follow the little blue numbers to the actual medical journals that report the studies done on the drug. SteveBaker (talk) 23:35, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure you're right. However, even with the most perfect information about the risk, it would remain true that while we lay that risk off onto other people, it will give us little incentive to get things right. Deltahedron (talk) 14:25, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I think we agree, we have a moral responsibility to minimise that risk as much and as quickly as possible. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:36, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think I was too compressed about risk. I'm not suggesting that WP or WMF accept legal responsibility for medical or other information in the same way as a doctor or othe rprofessional. What I am suggesting that that WP/WMF aspire to get things right and be reliable, say so in public and accept the reputational damage if we are not. If I publish an academic paper and it proves to be wrong, my reputation suffers, and I may fail to get a job or promotion. Fortunately in my area of mathematics, people will not be killed in the ruins of a collapsing theorem, but it could happen to others. If we absolve ourselves from all blame in advance by saying "you should have known how to use our encyclopaedia", then we insulate ourselves from all those real-world consequences. I would argue that WP's position should be: yes, we are an encyclopaedia, we aim and claim to be the best, most accurate and most reliable there is, and if we screw up then tell us so and shame on us. That way we take a risk and have an incentive to Get It Right. Technological tools are part of that; so are processes and culture. Have we got any of those right at the moment? Deltahedron (talk) 14:39, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

In his state of the wiki address this year, Jimmy said with regard to our biographical assertions, we need to do more than the minimum required by law in portraying our subjects. I think that applies to the reliability question, too. The trustworthiness of Misplaced Pages is a moral vision thing, not a legalistic ass-covering maneuver.

I'm working on a strategy for this, and I'm in email discussion with another user devising another strategy. Both of our strategies involve the "current" or "dynamic" Misplaced Pages article sporting a prominent badge, linking the reader to the reliable version. So, I'd like to know where Jimmy stands on that. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:00, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree on the moral point as well: we have an obligation to get things right. Deltahedron (talk) 15:16, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

A system like Watson (computer) could perhaps be trusted to not just highlight problems but also correct them. We would then only need to check if the correction made are appropriate. Count Iblis (talk) 14:56, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

"wikipedia isn't perfect, but its model is sound" FOR JIMMY WALES, CO-FOUNDER

Can I suggest that you two guys read Professor John Naughton's excellent article in "THE OBSERVER" of 10.08.14? If it helps you understand it, I can get it translated into Belgian (French or Walloon?) and into Dutch? I use both Misplaced Pages and ODNB and both's editors are equally 'intransigent': "unwilling or refusing to change one's views or to agree about something.synonyms: uncompromising, inflexible, unbending, unyielding, diehard, unshakable, unwavering, resolute, rigid, unaccommodating, uncooperative, stubborn, obstinate, obdurate, pigheaded, single-minded, iron-willed, stiff-necked"; intransigeant; onverzettelijk: in french/dutch?

I CAN DEBATE THE SHORTCOMINGS OF WIKIPEDIA UNTIL (AS WE SAY IN COLLOQUIAL ENGLISH) "THE COWS COME HOME", BUT THERE IS NO COMPLETE AGREEMENT ANYWHERE IN THE ACADEMIC WORLD AS TO WHO EXACTLY CONSTITUTED THE BLOOMSBURY GROUP, SO ALL THE MEMBERS ARE A MATTER OF OPINION AND NOT FACT GUYS.

WHAT IS CERTAIN IS THAT A SIGNIFICANT PROPORTION OF MALE MEMBERS WERE CAMBRIDGE APOSTLES.

Understand the above points and we may have the basis for further discussion? Otherwise....2.27.131.74 (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC) 2.27.131.74 (talk) 19:42, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• You forgot the bit where the Dreadnought hoax exonerates Mazher Mahmood because the 'Fake Sheik' just worked for News UK while the former was COINTELPRO. And Freemasonry... always mention Freemasonry... AnonNep (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Naughton's article

OP is probably referring to http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/10/wikipedia-isnt-perfect-model-channel-4-government. JMP EAX (talk) 21:40, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Since it turns out that this is somewhat related to a discussion above, here is my critique of Naughton's thesis. His thesis hinges on "So anyone with the time and inclination can see the evolution and transformation of the page over its entire lifetime." Or you might read a source on such topics where the text can't change every second. Depends how much time you're willing to put into such divination. And even then, there is no guarantee that any version of a wiki article is reasonable/informative enough to be worth reading. There is plenty of utter crap with no reasonable version to revert to around here... even on uncontroversial topics. JMP EAX (talk) 21:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Also Naughton seems rather uniformed about what else is out there on the Internet he so cherishes when he writes "Misplaced Pages may be imperfect (what isn't?) but at the moment it's the only model we have for addressing these problems." Stackoverflow and its network, which has more members than Misplaced Pages, I think, uses a different "truthiness" model, where contestants for the truth/answer don't revert each other, but post their opinions/answers independently and readers vote on those. I'm not saying that is necessarily always better. An old but problematic answer tends have more votes than a newer but more accurate one over there. But different models of collaboration/crowd-sourcing do exist, even at large scale. JMP EAX (talk) 22:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

• WP pages tend to reflect popular interest: In general, after reviewing thousands of pages, the trend is for page contents to mirror the real-world interest, and any popular topic tends to be comprehensive and current. Admittedly, many minor pages/topics can contain marginal text, often slanted to a one-off or one-time event, but in general, the fullness of pages will reflect the broader coverage in contemporary sources. A subject area where WP has been lacking, recently, would be the field of antique furniture or collectibles, but even wine vintages were formerly hollow pages, and various people have added extensive details about many common varieties of wines. The model "poster child" for page-content growth could be "Theory of Knowledge" which was formerly about a college course at one university and now reflects the broader coverage as redirected to "Epistemology". By contrast, many popular topics tend to be quite balanced in coverage, yet tend to excessive "wp:data hoarding" which is the key reason to have Micropedia versions of major articles, each limited in size and scope for use in a list of blurbs about those topics. The thinking is that the Micropedia version would generate composite pages of related topics, or pop-up sections, rather than just be a set of smaller pages each linked to a current major WP page. Anyway, the above comments about "Stackoverflow" are interesting to consider, but many subjects tend to be well-covered in current form, where a sub-page should be created to reflect divergent, or controversial views, without wp:Grandstanding of those views in the topic's main page. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:40, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

im dying of a parasite in Winnipeg Manitoba and no one believes me

please came at2049634604 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.163.53.10 (talk) 21:58, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

?????? KonveyorBelt 22:31, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

A WMF medical emergencies team has been dispatched. ETA will be approximately Friday 18:00 UTC. WMF Medical Emergencies (talk) 00:29, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

A hurricane for you!

	Hurricane
	Yeah, I like hurricanes. xD Josh M (talk) 00:34, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Paid editing issue

Hi Jimmy, A while ago you asked me to point out a particular situation where a good faith paid editor was trying to work within the system, but failing. Here's an example you can watch: Talk:Sunrun. Somebody asked me for help. I told them to identify themselves and post a request to the article talk page. That's been done. Jehochman 00:41, 22 August 2014 (UTC)