Misplaced Pages

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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 Liaison is Maggie Dennis.

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Should the Wikimedia Foundation have joined this letter?

Apple, Google, Microsoft, and others launch campaign for NSA reform. I'm seeking your opinions about whether this is the sort of thing that the Foundation should join in the future.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:23, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps, they may be gathering information about editors, though that wouldn' seem problematic unless there is related data not available to normal editors in which they might be interested.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 09:04, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• No, unless a direct connection to Misplaced Pages can be demonstrated (such as if the NSA were known to be using WMF servers for monitoring individuals). There are many noble causes and it would be best for the WMF to not get engaged unless the issue is directly related to Misplaced Pages's future (such as WP:SOPA). The community is too diverse to strongly support a mission statement regarding surveillance. Johnuniq (talk) 09:11, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, we were mentioned in slides leaked by Snowden.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:33, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Clearly the general principles of opposing censorship (including opposing criminal action against ISPs who fail to spy on their customers when ordered) are desirable. But the letter from these corporations also serves their own interests. It has been estimated that by 2016 the spying could cost the U.S. information industry $180 billion, and these interests are therefore quite legitimate. Nonetheless, their acceptance of some surveillance in #1 and #3, their call in #4 for the free flow of lawful information across borders, coupled with the call for an "improved" mutual legal assistance treaty in #5, seems to hint at the unhealthy acceptance of an international sovereignty striking an average on censorship and surveillance policy (such as the TPP), rather than pure, unyielding support for freedom of expression. And, of course, they are very careful to speak only of government surveillance, not industry surveillance under Graduated response/Copyright Alert System for example. Given Misplaced Pages's past stand against SOPA, this seems a notable omission (especially when considering cable TV providers involved in the CAS have special status from monopoly cable franchise permissions, making them in my consideration extensions of the government). If concern of those writing this letter is not to lose out to companies in some other country that offers more freedom or more privacy, our perspective differs from theirs in that we want the goal accomplished only by having more freedom and more privacy in some countries, not mandating less in others. And our goal in opposing surveillance is to actually keep our information unmonitored, not just to make it so governments have to sign agreements to pay these companies for access to it. Wnt (talk) 09:40, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
• I am inclined, for two reasons, to say no. Foremost, I believe it erodes our neutrality stance; immediately leading to a reduction of institutional credibility. Equally perilous, it implies we can negotiate in good faith with a debased foe whose clandestine ways has created a master class of lairs. At best we'd emerge as a gullible dunce; at worst: puppets of debauchery—mouthpieces of propaganda in dutiful servitude. You may as well join the Bilderberg Group for we will no longer be seen as a pristine sovereign. For preemptive damage control, I would suggest wearing a reflective dunce cap of the highest visibility as a hedge against emerging in the worst case.—John Cline (talk) 10:14, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
• Well it would have been quite a signal, to have such a big non-profit amongst those major for-profits. But looking at the letter, especially section 4 and 5 have me slightly concerned and probably would have made this support problematic. No, it's probably better to help and support EFF with some of those topics. What could be done perhaps, is have both parties throw each other an endorsement shoutout. So you could have EFF and friends publish a letter with their ideas, and then have something like 'EFF/friends have different principals from the big 8, but applauds their enthusiasm and their work, striving to create a more open government' and the big 8 could have done something similar in their letter. That way you still show allegiance, without getting yourself into too much murky water. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:15, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's a question: WMF is already part of a coalition for "digital due process" with seven of the companies (but not Yahoo) at http://www.digitaldueprocess.org/ . (They have a much broader list of backers, running the gamut from traditional villains like ALEC and the Business Software Alliance to heroes like the ACLU, the EFF, and the Center for Democracy and Technology) That site's last news release was in April. Question is, what went wrong with that coalition that these companies have stepped away from it and are making this statement on their own? Is there something WMF could have done, or could do, to revive the broader alliance for this purpose? Wnt (talk) 18:38, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• I largely agree with what others have said. The specific wording of the letter they ultimately issued doesn't perfectly reflect our views (and this isn't a surprise since we weren't part of the group that authored it). I support us being part of a future coalition to make a statement. I'd suggest the American Library Association as a partner-- librarians are wholesome, respected, and tend to share Wikipedian values. HectorMoffet (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't feel ready to give a definitive opinion on this, but I think there are two serious red herrings in the objections above that ought to be thrown back into the water without further consideration:

• A direct connection to Misplaced Pages needs to be demonstrated, such the NSA using WMF servers to monitor individuals. We know that this is possible in principle. If there was a petition to the police about the high level of burglaries in my neighbourhood, I think I'd be entitled to sign it regardless of whether I had been burgled myself.
• It erodes our neutrality stance. I don't really know what this is supposed to mean. However, WMF has a responsibility to protect the interests of project contributors. When and how it should exercise that responsibility may not be straightforward, but the idea that it ought to be indifferent as a matter of principle to those interests for the sake of appearances or in pursuit of some vague ideal seems more than a little absurd to me.

However, I partly agree with Wnt, in that I'd find it slightly puzzling for WMF to take a platform along with such a narrow group of organisations (all large commercial information carriers based in the US). Surely, on these issues, WMF should act, if it is to act at all, in co-operation with other Internet non-profits and civil liberties organisations. Formerip (talk) 22:02, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree. Neljack (talk) 23:08, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I have asked several times in the past on this talk page whether Misplaced Pages was allowing government access to its records, etc. The new issue is far more encompassing -- including gathering of vast amounts of raw metadata. It is not the issue of reasonable garnering of salient facts using a small seine which is the issue -- it is the use of such a massive seine that an apparent possibility of violations of civil rights occurs, or is fairly certain to occur. IMO, the WMF should address this specific issue -- that of whether the amount of information gathered is so far in excess of what is reasonable that civil liberties may be abridged. It makes no difference if those who also worry about liberties are "big commercial companies" or not -- and I suggest that the WMF draft its own terse comments reflecting that proper concern. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:36, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

IMO its extremely likely that the NSA does gather data from Misplaced Pages but it probably doesn't use the servers. All they have to do is download the full database and that would get them a lot of data. Plus if they were tracking the internet traffic they would be able to see where things are going to and coming from, they wouldn't need to have direct access to Misplaced Pages servers. With that said, the data they could collect from here is of such low value it would be almost worthless I mean what could they use it for, how many porn images are in commons? Or how many biographies of Brazilian soccer players we have? I agree that the NSA's activity is alarming but I don't think Misplaced Pages has anything to be worried about. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 23:58, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

They could use the data to track the activity of anyone they were already interested in and knew the WP identity of from having read their emails. Formerip (talk) 00:48, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

• Open and anonymous internet is critical to the free dissemination of ideas, on and off Misplaced Pages. Were a government to come to the WMF and ask for the data they took, we would have no hesitation in soundly rejecting such a request. However the WMF foundation was not so asked. That browsing history was taken without cause, warrant, or permission of any party. Should we hold off on condemning this because we were *not* asked permission? No. We should condemn it immediately, soundly, and unequivocally. I share many users' concern that the WMF stays neutral, but were we given the choice to allow a government access to private data, we would certainly not give it. We should therefore not stay silent when it was taken without permission. A monitored internet is an existential threat to Misplaced Pages. Allowing government agents information on who was reading what undermines a critical element of the project. The WMF is therefore justified in responding. --TeaDrinker (talk) 00:14, 10 December 2013 (UTC)
• This specific one? NO In general? YES The biggest problem with the long-term viability of WMF projects is the dwindling number of editors. Having governments targeting WMF projects will certainly have a chilling effect on participation and so this affects the long-term viability of our projects. The WMF, The Board of Trustees and the Advisory Board have a duty to ensure the long-term viability of our projects regardless of what individual projects want. This is their purpose in life and their responsibility. None of the people that have volunteered for these projects want to see their hard work lost or the projects to disappear for whatever reason or combination of reasons. We want our work to be here for the long-term and we expect the Foundation to do whatever is necessary to ensure that our many hours of volunteering isn't for nought. 64.40.54.29 (talk) 01:58, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

How spying could affect WMF

I agree with 108.45 by and large that there's no need for spying when the database is public and traffic intercepted elsewhere can be mapped to it to identify readers and editors, but there is one exception: admins and ArbCom. There may be some private communications there that are interesting enough for the NSA to spy on. It would be well worth looking very closely at how to lock down those communications as tightly as possible - or better yet, figure out how to do more out in the open, where at least the NSA doesn't have an advantage over the rest of us. I've long been in favor of that.

The other issue is to look at where all this spying comes out in real action. We shouldn't buy into the illusion that all the spying goes to people who sit around polishing their servers "just in case" - we know that it has real effects, in coming up with plans to "neutralize" Wikileaks, perhaps (though disputed) in some arrangement to incriminate Julian Assange. I think such predictable applications are only the tip of the iceberg, though. Consider, for example, the case of Justin Carter, a kid who was railroaded into jail over some comedic comments during a video game. And he wasn't the only one. These cases were fomented at the federal level by a Joint Terrorism Task Force. Supposedly the threat by Carter was called in by some unnamed Canadian woman ... from the beginning I'd have bet she was working for CSIS in an Echelon-like arrangement, and now today I'm seeing that indeed online gaming was infested with federal agents of all stripes, FBI, NSA and CIA together with UK agents. I think that in order for them to show they had some work to do for their pay, this kid was thrown in jail for five months based solely on misrepresentations and lack of personal funds.

So for Misplaced Pages to become relevant and speak in a united voice, we need to nail these spies at one of two points: either where they spy on ArbCom, if they were careless somehow, or else by finding who in the great wide world of Misplaced Pages they're actually screwing at the far end and putting in jail on some bogus charge to make themselves look important. We should all be able to agree on action if either turns up. Wnt (talk) 03:53, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. Yes. I think the foundation should join such a project. It has a noble cause, and as an info site, wikipeidans should naturally want transparency and honesty. Instead we have information gathering concentrated for a few individuals at the top. thats not right and is dangerous to the prospect of information sharing if this is allowed to continue. Pass a Method talk 15:30, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

I think if Misplaced Pages needs to be anti-anything right now, it should be anti-TPP. The NSA has been in the media recently because of Snowden, but TPP has more of a time limit on it.

The SOPA protest worked, but that was a one-time thing that may not work so well for TPP unless as many big companies cooperate, and even then, the SOPA protest worked mostly because it was unexpected. Is there something feasible Misplaced Pages can do about TPP? Ken Arromdee (talk) 23:08, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

What is TPP, exactly? -- Ross Hill • Talk • Need Help? • 01:15, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

The Trans-Pacific Partnership. See Trans-Pacific Partnership intellectual property provisions for specific concerns. --BDD (talk) 01:36, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - Yes, absolutely. The pendulum needs to swing back the other way. What we have here is extremism gone mad. Jusdafax 04:30, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
• Misplaced Pages is supposed to be a neutral encyclopedia, not a politically active partisan. The SOPA protest was shameful. As one of the more active administrators here, I don't volunteer my time to forward anyone's political agenda. When Misplaced Pages decides they want to do more of that, then you'll do it without me. Toddst1 (talk) 17:29, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with these sentiments. The Foundation should not be taking a political position when it's goal, as far as I can see, is to be a neutral source of free information that transcends nationality. What does that have to do with the opposition of spying? To echo another comment further up, all (almost all?) information on the wiki is publicly available in the logs/page history, so how does the risk of spying actually affect the project? It sounds to me like these are the personal opinions of the individuals that run an organization, rather than the view of the organization itself. While you can object to the NSA and their practices, it really has nothing to do with the Foundation. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 18:51, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment While I'm sympathetic to what some commenters say about Misplaced Pages not getting involved in political disputes (which this is), it seems to me that Misplaced Pages could stand to benefit by associating with the other Internet companies in joining in this stance. It's the right thing to do, for one. Secondly, it's likely to generate positive publicity. Coretheapple (talk) 15:14, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment- Yes. Since Misplaced Pages is a target of the NSA, I believe it is important for the WMF to take all action to protect its readers' privacy (as well as the privacy of all editors) -A1candidate (talk) 11:56, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. The problem today is not NSA reform, the problem is the Great Firewall. Does the NSA spy on the 80k active-editor wikipedians, and more importantly, on our 500M readers? Yes. Is that good? Nope. But who is specifically at risk, of some off-wiki consequences for their on-wiki activities? People reading articles about practical nuke technology, people reading articles about jihad, and people reading articles about strong crypto. The NSA prolly passes info to the FBI, concerning people reading about pedophilia, and to the DEA for people reading about drugs. But the folks at the NSA prolly don't pass info to the TORTURE DIVISION of the secret police, concerning which members of the citizenry are reading up on drug-legalization protests, let alone democracy-legalization protests. There is little risk of a chilling effect on readers, let alone editors, in the current decade, due to *NSA* spying. Contrast the story of Nixon and his Watergate in the past millenium (not to mention J. Edgar Hoover), with the allegations about Obama and the IRS and the Tea Party (not to mention drone strikes). There is a risk here, but it is not yet a risk to *wikipedia* per se. Give it another decade.

  That said, there *is* a risk, right now, today, for wikipedia's readership, and to a lesser extent editorship. China and the google-toolbar are more of a worry than the NSA, today. We say that we'll never sell-out your reading habits. We say that registering for an account shields your IP address. But that is redacted false. We *know* that the major governments of the world, including the NSA but also *other* even-less-savory powers, spy on our readers. Ditto for hypercorps that have access to the consumer endpoint-devices. We *know* that our 'secure' account registration, and our 'secure' interactions during arhbcohm drahmahz, are anything but. It is in fact quite technologically possible to make wikipedia anonymous, and secure against spying from all manner of adversaries, whether governmental or corporate... but to do so, we would have to accept open proxies, anonymizing proxies, and all manner of untraceable sockpuppetry. Misplaced Pages is simply not ready to be a source of true privacy. We should stop pretending we are.

  As for google and facebook and buddies, their cry for NSA "reforms" is sooooo transparently self-serving. They are in the *business* of spying on citizens, just like the NSA; they are begging the feds to regulate their competition, that is all. WMF should *not* join in such 'letters'. We should be thinking of how to build technology, and build a wikiCulture, which prevents spying by both large governments, and also by large corporations, on the reading habits and editing habits of wikipedians. Without giving up on preventing socks, and spam, and visigoths, and other problems. That work will take many years. Until then, we should incrementally work towards that long-term goal. Does that mean we should pragmatically accept allies who may not share our long-term goals, just as FDR gave billions to Stalin? Maybe. But only if we cannot help it... the Cold War was a very stiff price to pay, for getting help on the Eastern Front of the European theatre. Don't lend WMF's moral sanction to the immoral. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Good comment! There is a continuum between NSA and private spying. There is also collaboration and conflict between tech companies and China. Misplaced Pages's main role is to document myriad factual details, so all these political notions should begin with an inclusionist sensibility. We shouldn't throw away opportunities at AfD that would be hard to win by political resolve and blind faith alone.

Question: is Misplaced Pages an American organization that should only involve itself in American issues for its self-preservation, or an international movement that serves its members? I prefer the latter, but how will we find out if Chinese Wikipedians are tortured? What meaningful promise of help can we offer? Wnt (talk) 19:46, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

BARF its a long time since I've seen such nonsense as some of the posts above. That the NSA and other security agencies tracks what people are posting is bad enough, but mostly they don't give a crap about whether you've read all the Harry Potter books, or Das Capital, or whether you listen to One Direction, or Black Flag. OTOH we have private companies that are incredibly interested in such stuff they are all the companies that are listed in graphic above. And why are they gathering information about you? Well in order to sell your interests to others so that they may better manipulate your opinions and buying habits, and they do this on a daily bases. Now tell me which ones are actually worse? John lilburne (talk) 17:29, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

The power of CFAA and banned users/IPs

In the news a while back : circumventing an IP block on a website is a CFAA violation. Imagine the beauty of sending WP:BLOCKEVASION violators to 50 years in federal prison! Discuss... Someone not using his real name (talk) 02:04, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

The CFAA is 30 years out of date and badly in need of reform to curb how it it currently being abused, I really hope you're being sarcastic in suggesting it is a model for how this project should treat blocked and banned users. Changing one's IP is trivial (go google for "today's fresh proxies" and you're on your way in a heartbeat) and not "hacking" in any sense of the word. Tarc (talk) 02:54, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Not so according to a US judge. Oh, and using a WP:MEATPUPPET is a violation too . Someone not using his real name (talk) 04:10, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

The passage of the CFAA was the flagship violation of the principle of freedom of expression on the Internet. It has protected Fortune 500 companies from embarrassment by teenage hackers, so that they could feel safe to continue bad security practices no matter how many Chinese hackers were busy copying their trade secrets. We might, if we dared, asked ourselves how hackers from a little third world country like Syria manage to crash Google and cut net traffic by half, shut down NASDAQ, copy private data from every newspaper ever to speak with one of their dissidents, and make monkeys out of whoever they cross paths with. Why? Because God hates a hypocrite, ourselves included, and so no matter how benighted the regime it is they serve, they have "Allah" on their side. What other explanation could possibly fit the facts? Wnt (talk) 04:24, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

First you would need to explain to a judge what exactly banning from the encyclopedia that allegedly anyone could edit means, and I assure you no normal person will ever understand it. 50.143.130.130 (talk) 04:37, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

LoL! Good point, Mr. 50.143 ;) BartłomiejB (talk) 05:19, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Not to say that such prosecution will contradict with Mr. co-founder fight for the freedom of the Internet.50.143.130.130 (talk) 05:26, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, prosecutors are badly misusing an outdated law to target people that aren't doing actual criminal activity, this is why Aaron's law is a necessity. Tarc (talk) 16:13, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

This seems like an odd tag-team argument. If I understand the logic correctly Misplaced Pages should not block people or corporations simply because they can switch IP addresses and Misplaced Pages is the "encyclopedia that anybody can edit." Nobody could possibly understand the concept that Misplaced Pages is the encyclopedia that anybody can edit as long as they follow a few simple rules. Balderdash!

The main thrust of the argument might be that corporations can insert ads into Misplaced Pages and just switch IPs if caught, because one possible method of enforcing a block is a distasteful law. More balderdash! This type of "reasoning" might just show a lack of imagination by violators who can't conceive how they'd be caught "fairly." Most of the ads inserted on Misplaced Pages violate FTC rules on fraudulent and deceptive advertising. A simple civil lawsuit might get an injunction by the court, and then if the fraudsters resume editing they would then face jail time. Another possible method of enforcing a block would be to start a case of criminal fraud - the advertisers are stealing valuable advertising from the Foundation, which doesn't agree to sell it. A third method is simply shaming the advertising agency and their customers - what corporation wants to be publicly accused of stealing from Misplaced Pages? A 4th method would be to lobby for a law that would protect us, say by setting a fine of $5,000 per day per violation, without resorting to a law that we find distasteful. There are likely many other ways that we can protect the integrity of the encyclopedia. Undercover advertisers should not let their lack of imagination lead them to believe that our policies against advertising are unenforceable. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:54, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Smallbones, could you show us one example of an ad that's been inserted into Misplaced Pages by an undercover advertiser that lasts for more than two days? I've just looked at 10 random Misplaced Pages pages, and I don't detect any advertising whatsoever. - I'm not that crazy (talk) 06:32, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Just go to almost anything in the Morning277 case, here's just one edit: --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 07:15, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I may have to use a word stronger than "balderdash" to address the comment by User:I'm not that crazy, suggesting that he can't find examples of undercover advertising.

No one is blinder than he who won't see. I know that INTC is familiar with J.D. Gordon Creative Labs which he has described as a "self-serving" article. I know that he was familiar with with Zona Rosa Caffe, a one store coffee shop seating perhaps 35 people. That article was written in 2007, tagged as an orphan and as an ad the next year, but only deleted a few weeks ago after I used it as an example to answer a similar question by INTC. It took me only 2-3 minutes to find that example because I'd seen other (small chain) coffee shops advertised on Misplaced Pages.

INTC's argument IMHO only shows that advocates of paid advocacy will use any argument, however ridiculous, to confuse the issue.

The use of 10 randomly selected articles by INTC is interesting, but I doubt that I could design a method less likely to find undercover advertising. My informed guess is that 1-2% of the articles on the English language Misplaced Pages are on businesses - so INTC likely did not find any articles on businesses - the most common advertisers.

I attempted to do a slightly more refined version of INTC's "research". I decided to look at at least 10 randomly selected articles (using the "random article" button in the left hand column), or as many articles as it took to find a business article. It took me 36 tries to find an article on a business, including 2 disambig pages, and about 4 BLPs. One BLP, Roger Rueff looked like self-promotion (note: I just briefly skimmed the articles), but I found no other advertising until I got to the first business Hamburg International (HI). The HI article is about a defunct air charter service that had about 700 employees before it went bankrupt in 2010. On the surface it looked like a simple company directory entry, that you might find in an industry-magazine, nothing blatantly over-the-top as far as promotion, but in and of itself a promotion of bland material about the company. It had been updated to show the bankruptcy. But there was a linked article: Hamburg International destinations, which just showed where HI would take its charters. There was no claim that this was in any way notable. It was not updated for the bankruptcy (until I did it). That "where we fly to" list, is simply an advertisement, the equivalent of IBM listing all the computer models it might sell you in a separate article.

So clearly this is a limited method of researching the problem, but the conclusion is: 1 business found, 100% of the businesses found have an advertisement associated with the article.

If anybody wants to do a more complete study of random articles on Misplaced Pages, please contact me (I'm very serious), but it would be months or even years before we could address an issue as specific as advertising by businesses on Misplaced Pages. (more later) 17:56, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps there is an argument in all this that advocates of paid advocacy would like to use:

If there are only 1-2%, or even 3-4%, of all articles about businesses on Misplaced Pages, why bother changing our rules for such a minor thing?

If I may, I will demolish that argument.

• Just 1% of 4,000,000 articles is 40,000 articles. With just 15,000 articles on business we could likely cover all businesses that produce 99% of sales and 99% of market value in the world, plus all those that regularly make the international newspapers (reliable general press and financial press), as well as the most promising new high tech companies. The other 25,000+ companies we cover are of extremely limited interest to anybody except their owners and employees.
• If businesses are indeed a minor part of the encyclopedia, it wouldn't hurt much simply to get rid of our coverage of them.
• All major classes of articles represent a fairly small percentage of the overall encyclopedia. Even the largest class (probably BLPs) only represents perhaps 10-12% of articles. Still violations of neutrality in one class will affect the overall standards for all classes, and reflect badly on the reliability of the entire project.
• If we effectively open up free advertising for businesses, we could expect to get millions of articles from businesses from the United States alone. Any business owner would be silly to not send in a free ad, and there are millions of newly formed business each year in the US alone. We obviously couldn't handle this influx and maintain any sort of quality control.
• Allowing free ads would attract exactly the wrong type of editor. Misplaced Pages would be threatened by having a large portion of editors who are not interested in NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS, etc., but only in selling products and services. Longstanding and obviously-needed policies such as WP:NOADS would be threatened by a highly motivated, highly organized and self-interested group that simply refuses to take the plain meaning of these policies seriously. Enough said. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:05, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

We should not take any steps to exclude coverage of businesses. The practical hassles of COI editing exist because allowing individuals to learn about businesses is valuable in real money terms. The value we lose when articles are skewed should be balanced against the value we can gain when they are comprehensive and informative! We should try to cover businesses very well, not just so people are informed consumers, but even with an eye toward making them informed competitors or suppliers. Wnt (talk) 22:56, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Wnt about our coverage of businesses. I have written several articles about relatively small but distinctive or historically significant businesses. I chose these topics entirely because I found the companies interesting and was readily able to find significant coverage of them in reliable, independent sources. I didn't get paid a penny for these articles, and have no relationship with the owners. I think these and similar articles improve the encyclopedia. As a Misplaced Pages reader, I frequently look up various businesses here, and am always pleased to find a neutral well-written article . I am well aware that promotionalism is a frequent problem, but believe that the normal editing process and constant emphasis of NPOV and reasonable restrictions on COI editing is the best response. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:44, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Always amuses me how threads here—no matter the starting topic—end up going to the usual themes of this page, if left open long enough. Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:02, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Money contribution

I do not wish to contribute to Misplaced Pages. Please remove these messages! It is wrong to badger and threaten people with these. Misplaced Pages is not a charity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.68.56 (talk) 20:50, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I think all you have to do is click the X in the banner once, and it goes away until next year. Maybe you have to do that twice a year (if anybody has better info on this, please let us know!) If the banner threatens you in any way, this is probably the best page to give information on why that is, or how it's threatening to you. The perceived threat will then be removed.

Misplaced Pages is a non-profit and I believe that its purpose "Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of the world's knowledge in their own language" (roughly) would qualify to most people as being charitable. There are people and corporations that try to use that charitable/nonprofit status for their own ends (see above), but please bear with us on that - many of us are trying to take steps to remove or minimize that problem. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:03, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually - The Misplaced Pages Foundation IS a non-profit charity, as noted above. Do you see annoying ads running along the left side of your screen? or worse... popup screens? No? That in itself is an even greater reason to give :-)

@SmallBones, maybe on your computer, but when I'm logged out I get the banner all year long. Closing it works for a few days at best. -- Ypnypn (talk) 03:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Ypnypn, that is very strange to the point of being almost impossible. Even for logged out users, the banner appears very very rarely - I believe 5 times per year per cookie. Can you give more technical details so I can ask the fundraising team to look into it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:03, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales: Hmmm. The banner appears in my computer almost everytime I visit Misplaced Pages without logging in. — ΛΧΣ 00:06, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

My problem was probably that the computer I used had trouble keeping its cookies. Still, this would affect most public computers, such as in libraries. And the banner appears about 1/2 to 1/3 of the time. (Firefox, FWIW) -- Ypnypn (talk) 17:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

@Ypnypn: @Hahc21: We are actually running banners as part of our big December fundraising drive in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. These appear only to logged out users, but they do not have the same cookie restriction to limit the number of appearances as those we had earlier in the year. This is just until we reach our goal, and I'm pleased to say we are well over halfway there. Meanwhile you can of course close the banner with the X in the top right corner, which if your browser accepts cookies will hide all banners for several months. We are also looking into better ways to deal with the few browsers configured to not accept cookies or to clear them regularly. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yeah, these ads are waaay obnoxious, and most of us don't realize it. The problem is, if I'm a) keeping scripts disabled (99% of the time) or b) logged in (99% of the time) then I won't even see the gigantic garish bold-faced banner with yellow highlighting and accompanying crass donation form with payment options. The thing that bothers me the most, looking at it, is that as far as I'm concerned you're advertising PayPal and Amazon on every page of this nonprofit web site! I mean, for example, suppose a recent proposal to accept Bitcoins gets approved. I would bet money (well, at least imaginary virtual codes I make up that I try to get my friends to say are valuable) that the price of Bitcoins would show an actual, measurable increase the moment that their name shows up on that form, inculcating it into the heads of the masses that that is a standard payment option. It might be billions of dollars worth of real imaginary money that appears that day! Anyway, I say nuts to this. Set up a very small, very discreet banner for fundraising that appears as part of the basic no-javascript code so we're all in on it together, not just the outsiders. You can make it bigger if there's an emergency but make it bigger for all and sundry so we know, and instead of putting the names of companies on the form put the financial information to know how much trouble WMF is really having. Wnt (talk) 18:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

If you are interested, there's a huge amount of information out there (perhaps Peter Coombe can give you links) about the A/B testing that the fundraising team have done. These choices were not made casually but are the results of extensive testing. There are several variables to measure and they all interact in complex ways, so I think it's a bit naive to come up with a simple idea like "set up a tiny banner and run it longer" or "put financial information on the form" and expect that it will work. One of the things we have learned is that putting the payment options in the form significantly increases the money raised per page view. One thing we have learned is that putting financial information there is not an effective strategy. I'm very interested in very specific problems that tech can help to solve (the point about library computers brought up above is worth considering) but I think we should continue to advise and support the fundraising team on the general principles (i.e. annoy people as little as possible, raise money as quickly as possible, and balance the tension between the two wisely, seeking every opportunity to do both at the same time) but trust that they are being quite smart about how they go about the details.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:44, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you can find many of our test results at meta:Fundraising 2013. Once this drive is over we're hoping to release a lot more, and also some more detail on previous ones. I do wish we could have a small discreet banner, but unfortunately history has proved that just won't raise enough money. Jimbo is right that putting financial info in the banner has generally not been very successful (although we do include it in the Frequently Asked Questions page for those people who are looking for it). Plus testing shows that people really do like to see the payment methods available, for example many donors already have accounts with PayPal so appreciate the convenience. It's not just PayPal and Amazon, we offer different methods in other countries where they are more popular. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 00:02, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll admit the information looks fairly persuasive - through some combination of having the donation amounts and putting the Paypal and Amazon names out there I think you're getting a CPM of somewhere between $3 and $5, versus an industry average of something like $0.24 if you had something like "drink Coke" in the space and received compensation in cash rather than donor hits. Though I haven't done advertising and that may not be a valid comparison because some people aren't getting multiple impressions? To be paranoid though... are you sure one of these companies didn't know you were doing an A/B test and decide to invest a thousand bucks to make you just think it works so much better to have that data up there?

Fundamentally, I worry about the philosophy here. Is the goal really to put natural selection at the helm, do whatever it takes to get as many donations as possible right now? I have JN466 telling me on my talk page you don't even need the money, and while I seldom see eye to eye with him I have to say, I've seen some chapter proposals receiving funding that I can readily imagine living without. I would worry that if you end up with donor fatigue while getting too accustomed to a maximal operating budget, you could be left in an abruptly untenable position should anything go wrong. (For example, if Google ever decides to stop rating the site highly, or attempts to launch some new Knol to replace it that builds off our present content) So while I understand that maybe the campaign can't be made completely unobtrusive, I just think those company names are a bridge too far. Wnt (talk) 02:58, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, you're talking about efficiency/efficacy, as measured by A-B testing, but the original poster 86 was talking about morality. "It is wrong to badger and threaten people..." What are the keys to the advert? First, it is badger-y. It flash-slides into view, with a bright off-yellow background color. At least they didn't use the blink-tag! Furthermore, it shows up day after day, week after week... and then does it all again, year after year, just like PBS. Second, it contains a clear threat: pay up, or we shut off the server-farm. How much money does a rack of servers cost, if you can get all the tech-skills free, and all the lawyer work pro bono? Btw, you get the same exact basic threat ("we're just a poor non-profit running a top ten website on a shoestring please give today for future upgrades think of the childrenz") in the HTTP 503 *error* messages that happen when the server-farm is overloaded... or when somebody at WMF makes a sysadmin goof. That is begging for charity. 86 thinks wikipedia should not be a charity. The question of how quietly and efficiently the charity runs their begging-operations, and how few days of the year they spam the readers in said efforts, has no bearing. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Idea for encouraging more donations to the Misplaced Pages Foundation

Hi Mr. Wales. I'm a (former) veteran editor here on Misplaced Pages, but have greatly reduced my output on these pages due to a number of reasons, including the growing incivility of protected editors, and the arcane and redundant committee structure that must be navigated in order to combat such behavior. Regardless, I continue to support the goals of the foundation. In this regard, and as a non-profit manager myself, I wonder why Misplaced Pages does not accept donations of Bitcoin.

I see the contribution request at the top of this page, so it concerns me that an organization as cool and upwardly mobile as Misplaced Pages would not accept a gift that can be instantly converted to USD for immediate deposit to Misplaced Pages accounts. I assume you take pounds, yen, pesos, rubles and anything else that can be converted to USD. Why not Bitcoin and other crytocurrencies? It seems to me to be a win-win prospect with absolutely no downside. I was interested in your take as a non-profit manager? (BTW - you do realize that Bitcoin donations are cheaper to process than credit cards, which also saves the Foundation money?). Best regards - A concerned fan of (most) things Misplaced Pages  :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.144.246.14 (talk) 22:53, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll add that I noted a request on OTRS for acceptance of bitcoins. I didn't handle the request, because I wasn't quite sure where to direct it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:45, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi! foundation:bitcoin might be of some help.···Vanischenu (mc/talk) 18:23, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice if we can get notice before "bitcoin" goes up on the main banner so we can do some insider trading. (Is there even a law against insider training in this instance?) Wnt (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

If you guys want another idea for fundraising then you should get the foundation added to the list of approved donations in the US Governments Combined Federal Campaign. 108.45.104.69 (talk) 23:38, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages principles contravening generally accepted legal principles

One of the most fundamental legal rights and principles in any democracy around the world is built up to the universally valid principle that a person remains to be seen as innocent as long as the prosecution has proven the opposite.

In the sometimes slightly outlandish world of Misplaced Pages, the exact opposite is the case and the whole project does not even hesitate or shy away from explicitly including the exact opposite in the rules, stating that accused users would have to prove their innocence to the ruling "sovereigns".

So my question, how come this could happen, in the first place - ignoring genuine and prime legal principles to the extreme - and how can Misplaced Pages still unashamedly claim to be democratic and righteous, whatsoever, while it is rather blatantly ignoring basic human rights?--37.230.24.142 (talk) 02:19, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Could you please provide a link to where Misplaced Pages "claim to be democratic and righteous"? 50.143.130.130 (talk) 02:56, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

"Welcome to Misplaced Pages, the 💕 that anyone can edit." --37.230.24.142 (talk) 04:03, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

By long established policy, Misplaced Pages is not a democracy. Misplaced Pages has never claimed to be "democratic" and it is a website operated by a private nonprofit group, not an elected government. Anyone is welcome to edit Misplaced Pages, as long as they do so in full compliance with our policies and guidelines. The Misplaced Pages community is understanding of good faith errors by new editors, but does not accept ongoing failure to comply with policies and guidelines, and this community reserves the right to block or ban disruptive contributors. Cullen Let's discuss it 04:20, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

...do so in full compliance with our policies and guidelines with pillar five... .     :-)       Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

If you're highly praised policies and guidelines would do justice to all the legal and universally valid principles out there - as they are written in the constitution - I would agree. The reality looks a bit different, namely that certain parts of the Misplaced Pages policies are actually in breach of customarily and constitutionally guaranteed rights. And this can be easily proven by pointing out Misplaced Pages's reversion of the so-called "presumption of innocence".--37.230.24.142 (talk) 04:37, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Countries and private entities are apples and oranges. Countries are given the power to deprive individuals of their liberties—to take money from them, to send them to war, to imprison or execute them—and thus any good constitution holds the government to very high standards when it wishes to exert its power. Misplaced Pages, however, cannot tax you, or conscript you, or sentence you to prison, so we need not be held to as high standards. Think of us as being like a restaurant: We can kick you out whenever we'd like, for whatever reason we'd like (unless, I suppose, said reason were a civil rights violation). The hypothetical restaurant can be widely known for its wonderful customer service, but, still, if they think you've been stealing silverware they can ban you without having to prove your guilt. These rights you talk about are not "universally" or "customarily" guaranteed; these are rights that are granted by sovereign states to their citizens, and pretty much by no one else. Misplaced Pages chooses to adhere to certain democratic principles, and not to adhere to certain other ones. There are no human rights violations here; if you find yourself called upon to serve in the Misplaced Pages Armed Forces, that'll be another matter. — PinkAmpers& 07:57, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

How can Misplaced Pages be a "private entity" when it is ruling and influencing the opinion of millions of people on a daily basis? --37.230.24.142 (talk) 08:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

How is Misplaced Pages ruling the opinion of millions of people on a daily basis? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:06, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps "swaying" not "ruling": There is a known psychological effect, from the repeated influence of text (as with propaganda), and the current "Misplaced Pages generation" (and others) have been subjected to vast amounts of non-wp:civil comments and treatment. I have suggested the WMF hire a team of psychologists (perhaps just 3) to help define policies to reduce cyberbullying and increase the focus on protections from incivility. In the real world, bullies are often quickly thwarted by swift (perhaps physical) intervention from other people, but on the web, it is very difficult to stop them without a dedicated force of people actively responding to their threats in rapid order. We have link wp:Trolling to explain some issues, but more needs to be done. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:35, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

I thought 37.230 meant readers rather than editors (millions of people), at least I did. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:48, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

It is perfectly possible for a private entity to have vast influence and even power, and still not be subject to the same rules and restrictions as a government, much less the criminal processes of a government. Historically, newspapers often had very wide influence. Later, major television networks had in effect the power to define perceived reality to a significant degree. Now, perhaps Misplaced Pages has such influence, or soemthing like it. That does mean we should try to be careful. It does not mean that we are a government, and should be bound by the rules that apply only to governments. Moreover, the "assumed innocent until proven guilty" rule even in a governmental context is limited to criminal procedure. In areas like tax policy, a government will often make assumptions about the status or liability of a person which the person must disprove to avoid. Moreover, not all democratic governments follow this rule. under the Code Napoleon and its modern versions, the government can under some circumstances force an individual to prove his or her innocence, once some evidence of criminality has been presented, as I understand the matter. So do not assert as "universal" what is in fact nothing of the sort. DES 16:07, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Further ignored legal principles

When a judge in real life renders a judgement, his very first duty is to supply precise evidence and submit any concrete proof along with his verdict. Within the Misplaced Pages system, administrators can feel free to take arbitrary assumptions and aren't obliged to give any evidence, whatsoever. You don't have to be a legal practitioner to see that this collides with common sense.37.230.24.142 (talk) 04:29, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Not true. All admin actions must be able to stand up to community scrutiny ES&L 12:14, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

What community? The vast majority of Wikipedians never take a part in the community discussions and a few dozens who do have no right yo call themselves "the community".69.181.40.174 (talk) 17:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

• Magna Carta from 1215: It takes groups a long time to organize a civilized governance. I always remember how many centuries of oppression before the Magna Carta was signed (15 June 1215), which has been well-taught as a first step in U.S. schools to explain concepts of liberty and human rights. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:27, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

This may come as a shock to you, 37.230, but Misplaced Pages is not a court of law. Resolute 15:12, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Yup. We cannot take away your 'right to a fair trial' on Misplaced Pages - because you don't have one in the first place. We don't conduct trials. We create and edit an encyclopaedia. And anyone we see as acting in a manner we think contrary to that aim, we exclude from the process. Because we can - as a private entity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:21, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

We're not beholden to Magna Carta in any case. Anytime we want to, we can make whatever changes to it we like.Formerip (talk) 15:48, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Even in an actual count of law, many rulings do not come with written opinions and "precise evidence" and "concrete proof" from the judge, although it may be already in the record from other sources. But Misplaced Pages is not a court of law. We can't lock people up, fine them, or execute them. The worst we can do is forbid them to edit this private web site, and anyone is free to start an alternative online encyclopedia at any time, and re-use all our content for the purpose. Moreover, administrators are taken to task all the time on WP:ANI and other fora. Often the community supports the admin, and often they should. But sometiems they don't. There are cases in progress even now before the Arbitration Committee considering whether admins have acted improperly. In the past some such cases have resulted in editors being removed from the position of admin. Any admin is expected to give a civil and responsive explanation of any admin action on request, and failure to do so may itself be grounds for action against that admin. DES 16:15, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• Corporations, unions, governments, and Misplaced Pages are all different things. Nonetheless, a recent Signpost points out that Wikis seem subject to the Iron law of oligarchy. This concerns the concentration of power and therefore is quite relevant to the conversation here. However difficult the 'iron law' is to break, it is possible to oppose it with a very strong sense of individual rights. After all, somehow new organizations come into existence which reset the iron law, when no one has any authority over their entry. Though this is not and should not be a court, we could institute a few basic reforms, for example a "trial by jury" (i.e. delegating difficult decisions to a set of randomly chosen editors rather than those in power or those most eager to nominate themselves) and bolstering freedom of speech by rolling back restrictions on userpage 'social media' content and inaugurating wider-ranging forums. Wnt (talk) 17:52, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

• We could institute such reforms, Wnt - but why would any of it actually work towards improving encyclopaedic content? Please provide examples - with evidence... AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:34, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but how do you collect evidence without the right to make a change in the first place? An experiment is instituted only if it increases the centralized power, and then its result is a foregone conclusion (Pending Changes). I did not mean to suggest subverting a universal law of organizations would be easy. Wnt (talk) 20:53, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Make that a 'supposed universal law of organizations'. And a dubious one at that. Anyway, you've yet to explain why turning Misplaced Pages into a forum-cum-FaceBook clone would improve the encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:50, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see where FaceBook comes into it. Could you elaborate?

AFAICS, implementing some sort of "jury" principle into WP processes would be straightforward if the community wanted it. Just as we can't throw people into prison, we also can't compel them to jury service, so our pool would be those users who are willing. But that's arguably an improvement compared to those users who are keen to exercise authority. We have various functions - any manner of close, any ArbCom case - where it would be doable and not present any obvious disadvantage to set up a system that selected a given number of deciders at random. That's it, the whole proposal.

It is, of course, impossible to prove in advance that this would improve things. But I think Wnt is correct that our current desire to rely on users in authority could be a net disbenefit to the project. I'd cite the recent Tea Party ArbCom case, which I think no-one would defend as well-handled. The thing in that case was that ArbCom did not appear to find in necessary to explain its decision-making. For all I know, they made wonderful decisions. But it seems to me a serious problem that we breed decision-makers who are more interested in exercising authority than in following process or in being accountable (what's more, our processes don't actually require accountability). I don't think a jury system could guarantee to cure this, but I also don't think it could be worse. Formerip (talk) 00:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages already utilizes a jury system. Its called ANI. Resolute 14:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

The kind of jury made up of a group of people who select themselves to come together and pass judgment is better known as a "mob". Wnt (talk) 14:53, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

ANI doesn't resemble a jury at all. If you are on a jury you (a) don't have any standing position of authority and (b) don't have the freedom to involve yourself or not involve yourself in any decision that comes along - you get questions allocated to you. Formerip (talk) 15:06, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

No, but lets face it. For the most part, the only people likely to volunteer to sit a jury are the same people likely to opine at ANI. Resolute 17:11, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that depends a little on how you set it up. But, in any case, I'm thinking of a jury system not as a replacement for open discussion, but as a means of selecting closers. What we have at the moment is a system where decision-makers mainly self-select to resolve specific questions, which has an obvious flaw if you're looking to generate confidence that the decisions are taken impartially. And, although it's not central to the issue, I think you would get a wider range of closers that way. For a number of reasons, I pretty much never close a discussion (on the few occasions I have, it has usually been an obvious SNOW close), and I definitely wouldn't run for ArbCom, but I probably would let myself be on a list of jurors. I doubt that I'm a unique case. Formerip (talk) 18:37, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

We can't do compulsion, but in lieu of that we can spam. It's the ugly part of the process, but in order to get a representative jury we have to set up a verifiably random mechanism to pick out random recent edits, and then we post a notice to the user's page that he's been selected to weigh in on XXXX, and that as a juror his opinion will carry extra weight as an impartial observer. I think that a certain proportion, not high but not zero, will be moved by such an appeal to participate to some extent, particularly if we have made it so that the cases are clearly explained (i.e. in an ArbCom case the jury might not need to come in until the "evidence" phase has concluded, apart from responses to any questions they might have) Wnt (talk) 18:30, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Wnt that PRNG-based solicitation of opinion is an ideal system. The ancient greeks used to pick their leaders the same way, albeit trusting in the will of the gods -- he who plucks the one short straw from the obscured set of 99 long straws was chosen by Athena for this task! This is somewhat distasteful, as Wnt says, because we must *spam* the readership to achieve such a result. However, it is the only way I've come up with to guarantee impartiality of closers. As a bonus, I predict that an anon who is randomly selected for jury duty, from amongst the 500M readers we get every month, will be far more likely to stay and become an editor, than one who is not so selected. Double-win, methinks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:26, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

That would 'guarantee' nothing. Given that participation if picked would still be optional, you would still end up with a self-selected jury. You would also prevent IPs from participating at all... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:39, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Poll 13,330 users to get 400 votes

Using the rule-of-thumb to expect 3% of people to volunteer, then notify about 13,330 users (3%=~400) to reply to a wiki-voter poll to decide a major issue, such as long-term topic bans (by independent vote, without seeing the ongoing tally as pile-on votes). However, there would also need to be "rules of evidence" to back any claims and wording to not beg the question by spin-wording such as "More hateful racist comments by User:<name>" where the evidence would need to back claims of racist actions rather than condemn a user beforehand. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:14, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Pro-SPAM BLP-prohibits-deletion-of-panhander-bios admin

Do you have any opinion on this novel use of BLP to protect SPAM on Misplaced Pages? Someone not using his real name (talk) 23:42, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not getting in the middle of this situation at this point for an obvious reason, but whatever else might be said about that article and/or about its deletion, the article wasn't self-promotional nor was it bulk-sent anywhere, so I don't think it can reasonably be called "spam." Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:47, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Fair point (to some extent, posting some stuff on Misplaced Pages is considered WP:SPAM even if not done "in bulk" . And SPAM doesn't have to be self-promotional to be SPAM. There are plenty of spammers willing to post someone else's spam for a fee and sometime just from a feel-good "pro bono" activism incentive.) Amended the title. Someone not using his real name (talk) 00:01, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Provenance of Parveen Chopra

Jimbo, could you take a quick look at the content of Parveen Chopra? Do you feel that it is up to Misplaced Pages standards for notability, reliable sources, neutral point of view, and conflict of interest? The account that created the biography is User:South Asian Comm. (Chopra is, according to Misplaced Pages, a South Asian and was a Commissioner in Nassau County, NY.) In February and March 2009, the user was repeatedly warned and admonished about the creation of articles about Dr. Parveen Chopra and Parveen Chopra. The account could be said to have been "single purpose". Nonetheless, in mid-March 2009, he was able to get the biography to stick. In November 2009, an IP address from Long Island, NY added an immense amount of personal information to the biography. The IP address was also single purpose. In August 2010, another New York-based IP address added a paragraph promoting a Liberty Bell award that Chopra won. It just feels to me that this seldom-viewed biography was inserted into Misplaced Pages for the purposes of self-promotion, and that for three or four years, nobody has substantially done anything about it. Could you please comment? - 2001:558:1400:10:8950:6465:CD74:E8B4 (talk) 14:59, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like you are right.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your confirmation of my suspicion. It's a real shame, because I understand from Ryan Faulkner (former Wikimedia Foundation employee) that someone named Parveen Chopra was a substantial financial contributor to the Wikimedia Foundation. One would have thought he'd have observed more caution in promoting such a biography, if that is in fact what happened. (Or, it could be that the WMF donor is a different Parveen Chopra. There are perhaps 15 people with that name on LinkedIn alone.) - 2001:558:1400:10:8950:6465:CD74:E8B4 (talk) 16:19, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how I "confirmed your suspicion" - I know nothing about this other than what you told me, plus a glance at the article shows it is pretty weak in terms of promotional language, sourcing, etc. I don't know what you mean about Ryan Faulkner (nor who he is actually nor what his job role was at the Foundation) and you haven't even told me what role you think he played in the process - i.e. how did Ryan "promote such a biography"? If you are asking if the Wikimedia Foundation takes the position that it is ok for donors to use Misplaced Pages for self-promotion, that's a pretty ridiculous question and the answer is a resounding NO.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:38, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

This appears to be cock-up rather than conspiracy. I don't see any moves by the WMF to support the article due to a conflict of interest. Rather more likely is that it is a random article in the deep depths of the wiki that is so little read that nobody cared to deal with it. Barney the barney barney (talk) 19:48, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't even understand what the alleged "cock-up" is supposed to be. What does the WMF have to do with it at all is what is unclear to me.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:53, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, bad style. In the phrase, "One would have thought he'd", the "he" refers to Parveen Chopra, not to Ryan Faulkner. I was merely speculating that if the same Parveen Chopra who gave a huge donation to the Wikimedia Foundation then turned around and wrote his own self-promotional biography on Misplaced Pages, that would reflect poorly on Chopra (not the WMF). If anyone at the WMF even knew about the biography, I would be surprised. It looks like the biography is headed for the scrap bin now, anyway, thanks to my diligent observation. Jimbo, if you want the list of large donors to WMF that Mr. Faulkner published publicly, just search for 'Wikimedia Foundation secret donor list' or some similar combination of words. There are about 250 names and organizations on the list. It would be cool if the Wikimedia Foundation would issue a research grant to someone to analyze the provenance of the Misplaced Pages biographies of those donors, and compare against a cohort group of similarly famous non-donors. Maybe donors are less likely to have had a conflict of interest in the creation or maintenance of their Misplaced Pages biographies. Or perhaps more likely. We can't know without a study. - 2001:558:1400:10:8950:6465:CD74:E8B4 (talk) 20:54, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mr. 2001. Nice to see you back. Hope you've been well. This is indeed a simply awful bit of self-promotion. However, I am glad that you agree that it is pretty bad and might perhaps be the subject of a conflict of interest. That is a recurrent problem, you know. Why, just today the employee of a company who authored an article on his employer beat me into submission with a very convincing (and accurate) argument that our current COI rules do not prohibit subjects of articles from creating and editing articles about themselves, and then carrying the banner of their employer into AfD. Yes sir, that's the way it is, he told me, and if I don't like it I can take a hike. Bright Line Rule? What Bright Line Rule? Bad situation, I think you'll agree. Time to prohibit subjects of articles, and their employees and paid hirelings, from editing articles about themselves. Right? Coretheapple (talk) 21:24, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I've requested speedy deletion of the article. The "Foundation donor" innuendo is bogus, but Mr. 2001 has, once again, demonstrated the need for a tough COI and paid editing policy. The page is semiprotected so he cannot discuss this subject for the next 24 hrs., but I recommend him to create a user account (or use one of his old ones) and contribute to the project. I recommend vandal-fighting! Coretheapple (talk) 22:09, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

This is probably the 100001st article of this kind in Misplaced Pages. Good that it got remarked and deleted now. There's little else to say besides WP:OSE. Someone not using his real name (talk) 02:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, there are many, many others. Anyway, it's good that Mr. 2001 brought it to our attention. I'd like to see him create an account and get back in the game if he can (which I doubt). Coretheapple (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Beware bot-polished PR bio pages

Just FYI. A review of English Misplaced Pages new-articles-per-day will confirm about half are BLP bio pages, and users should beware of non-notable (or wp:BLP1E) people with articles which get improved by bots. One of the worst cases was a sophisticated artiste with an illustrated article (about 2 years), who had 7 photos of artworks superbly catalogued (by others) on Wikimedia Commons. I edited the article for over 2 hours, in a rush to reword for general readers, while updating a hundred pages for a wp:GOCE backlog drive, but eventually, I noticed the "supporters" of this famous artiste were actually the illusion from handiwork of a Commons image-bot which had transformed the 7 meager uploaded photos and supplied the superbly catalogued details as if refined by a museum or municipal art gallery. Instead, it was a bot auto-filling artwork frame-boxes on Commons, with professional results. The illustrated article was not just a mere case of self-promotion, but assisted by well-meaning bots which edited the article and reframed Commons photo pages to provide a highly polished result which seemed to be several experienced users taking time to honor the esteemed artiste. Do not be fooled by the actions of bots on Commons and enwiki, which have polished a set of self-promotion images and smoothed the text of the page, as if handiwork of long-term editors honoring notability. The articles need to be deleted, despite all the lavish attention to details. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:24, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

If you could possibly give an actual example, it might be easier to understand and deal with this 'problem'. --Onorem (talk) 14:25, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Jim, you should really have a look at this...

Yes, Yes... I know there is a buh-zillion tp stalkers here, but this comment is actually directed specifically to Jim, as I (and the whole community I'm sure) would like to hear his opinion on the matter. Jim, if you haven't seen it already, please have a look at this ANI. (There are actually 3 (or 4?) related threads, some open, some closed, then there's the related talk pages). There is a lot to read, but I'm sure someone can give you the Cliff's notes version of this... seemingly unprecedented, and somewhat bizarre, incident involving one of our admin/checkuser/oversighters. As I said, please have a look, and if your of the mind to do so, please comment on this. Thank you. - WOLFchild 12:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's pretty simple to channel JW here: "We should be respectful of our BLP subjects and civil to our co-workers at Misplaced Pages." This issue is a tempest in a teapot, methinks — an attempt to make an IAR deletion was hauled to Deletion Review because the rationale wasn't clothed in the policy of IAR, but rather through an energetic and activist reading of Biography of a Living Person-1 Event. As usual, a person with more buttons than other people with a strong opinion about the matter felt himself entitled to shortcircuit and decide the debate for all time in his favor, complete with a nasty and menacing tone. The big question, which nobody is talking about, is the lack of community recall procedures for rogue administrators (let alone checkusers and oversighters). A "no confidence" vote means nothing; it takes an ArbCom case to detool. That's the real problem, in my opinion, the structure of the governing apparatus at WP. Carrite (talk) 17:31, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

As usual, Carrite, I'm in total agreement with you. You may have noted that before posting here, I left a post at that ANI suggesting that this does need to go to arbitration. It's a little to too big for any other WP:DR. (RfC? How many more comments can we get?) This isn't something that can just be resolved by a simple "aw, shucks... sorry. I won't do it again", no matter how many admins want this swept under the carpet, just 'cuz they are uncomfortable with all this talk about bringing in a community desysopping process. - Which is something we desperately need, along with a whole host of new community oversight procedures for reining in the growing number of arrogant admins storming about with total impunity and a staggering sense of entitlement. (boy, did I just paint a (bigger) target on my back. But I had to be said) - WOLFchild 19:13, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Please see

Please see the DR at Commons and in particular my comments at Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:03, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Is this how you wanted Misplaced Pages to be?

The BP article consists of 57% criticism compared with, for example, 3% for Nazi Party, 12% for Pol Pot and 21% for Joseph Stalin. Is this what you expect in an encyclopedia? Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Martin, you have an RfC pending on the talk page of the article. It isn't going quite the way you want it to, but that is no reason to engage in forum shopping, which is explicitly prohibited by policy, or the kind of cherry-picking canvassing that you've been engaged in. You really have to stop doing that kind of thing. Coretheapple (talk) 23:24, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I have voted with Margin Hogbin on the RFC that the article has become a dumping-ground for anti-BP statements. That is, I agree with him as to the content judgment. However, I agree with Coretheapple on process. The RFC is the proper means for seeking consensus. If Martin and I are in the minority, we should accept our minority status rather than engaging in forum shopping. Martin: What are you expecting from Jimbo Wales? For him to blank or delete the article that we don't like? We are in the minority. Accept it. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:45, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

(Also, to a few folks, "criticism" = historical account. Example of BP criticism: In March 2005, the Texas City Refinery, one of the largest refineries owned then by BP, exploded causing 15 deaths, injuring 180 people and forcing thousands of nearby residents to remain sheltered in their homes. There is no criticism section at the BP article, which many are saying actually reads as if it's been whitewashed.) petrarchan47tc 00:21, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Coretheapple and Petrarchan47, all I am trying to do is to get the widest possible community response to this issue, which I see as seriously damaging to the integrity and authority of Misplaced Pages. You are both welcome to help me get as many people to look at this dispute as possible. I have not specially selected people that I think will agree with me but have used neutral methods to try to get more people here. If the opinion of the whole WP community goes against me I will lose all faith in WP. I do no suppose that you or anyone else cares about that but I want to make sure that I get the view of the whole WP community rather than a that just a few. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Martin wrote: "I have not specially selected people that I think will agree with me but have used neutral methods to try to get more people here." I agree that the RFC was a neutral means. What was the objective of posting here? Was it to get more attention to the RFC (but the RFC process takes care of itself), or to get the attention of Jimbo or the WMF, or what? Is the BP article one that is so essential to the integrity of Misplaced Pages that WMF must be asked to override "community consensus" (of the English Misplaced Pages) or to intervene in the failure to establish "community consensus"? This is a content dispute, and can be handled by the usual means for a content dispute, such as the current RFC. Is there a reason why this issue is comparable to paid advocacy editing and requires Jimbo Wales or the WMF to intervene, bypassing consensus? Is it just that you don't like the outcome of the RFC? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:40, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

That's bull, and your extremely POV language makes it clear that you're engaged in canvassing on this page. Your attempt to skew the consensus is transparent and is counterproductive, if you manage to tilt the playing field to get your desired result it will be noted by the closing administrator. Here's an analogy: I am involved in an ongoing administrative noticeboard discussion in which a COI editor is involved. (I'm being deliberately murky here.) If I raised the issue concerning that COI and article here and said "is this the kind of Misplaced Pages you want it to be?" I'd be just as guilty of trying to skew the consensus as you are here. Coretheapple (talk) 15:07, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

It's not normally considered canvassing to make Jimbo aware of an issue on which one would like his opinion, whether there's an RFC ongoing or not. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Of course it is, especially in the highly prejudicial way in which he is formulating the issue. As Robert suggested, what is Martin desiring here, that Jimbo place the article under quarantine or personally rewrite it? This is no different than forum-shopping to AN/I or the neutrality noticeboard. This is a content dispute with an active RfC and does not belong here. Coretheapple (talk) 17:20, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

If you want to know what Martin desires from his post here (if anything other than discovering Jimbo's opinion), you'd have to ask Martin; for I have no idea. If you want to ask the RFC closer to disregard anything at the RFC that has resulted from Martin's post here, that's entirely reasonable. I am merely telling you that, by longstanding convention and specifically at Jimbo's request, it's not normally considered canvassing to make Jimbo aware of an issue on which one would like his opinion, whether there's an RFC ongoing or not. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:47, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Martin, could you elaborate on the methodology by which you derived your criticism percentages? MastCell  02:36, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

MastCell, it was a fairly crude method in which I cut text from the article and pasted into a text editor which gave me a word count. To get the total I just pasted the whole article (excluding the lead and eveythig after and including 'See also') into the editor. To get the criticism, sections marked 'criticism' or similar were included in their entirety. Integrated criticism was selected by sentence. For comparison I did not cherry pick as suggested above but chose articles on subjects that, in almost everyone's opinion, deserved serious criticism. The Nazi Party article was the first that I looked at and may be something of an anomaly. Pol Pot is rather more typical. The closest to BP that I could find was another large oil company Exxon. I give some more detail of my investigations here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Martin Hogbin (talk • contribs)

This kind of patent nonsense is why I think that what you're doing here is just flat-out canvassing. The way Misplaced Pages works is that we reflect the weight of the sourcing. We don't hold articles up to each other and say, "this one seems less unfavorable than the other." Implying that Stalin, Pol Pot and Nazi articles are more "positive" than other articles because they lack "criticism" sections is simply daft. A factual description of the Nazi Party ideology or the blood-soaked careers of Stalin and Pol Pot is just that, factual, neither positive nor negative. Coretheapple (talk) 15:34, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Martin, I agree with Petrarchan47 in that factual sentences should not be counted toward criticism even if the factual material describes a disaster as in her example of the Texas City Refinery explosion. You have thus skewed your results. Binksternet (talk) 17:08, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

There is some systemic bias at work here; the USSR has (historically speaking) tons of positive government-published material about it, whereas a large corporation will generally have financial reporting that is a mix of positive and negative (plus in general too statistically mind-numbing to count as encyclopedic except when summarized as a chart)... plus tons of negative publicity about disasters, layoffs, et cetera. When 1000 people are hired over the span of three years, that ain't news, except as a footnote in the financial reporting, but when those same 1000 get fired in the span of three days, all the papers buzz with the scandal. New facility built? Ho hum. New facility explodes? Story! It is not objectively fair, but our pragmatic definition of Reliable Sources, which is the key to pillar two, revolves around what the media and the publishers see fit to report. Hence, we have systemic bias. But what alternative mechanism is there? How do we keep NPOV, if not by religiously following what the sources say? We have to stick to the Reliable Sources, or wikipedia will just be a WP:POLLing system where people vote on which version of WP:The_Truth will be in the article. Sad, really. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:56, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

This is a rather poor place to look for systemic bias, if what you're seeking here is either pro-dictator or anti-corporate bias. The Nazi, Stalin and Pol Pot pages are in their entirety from sources unrelated to the subject. On the contrary, the BP article was actually written in large part by the BP public relations staff, with the BP-authored text cut-and-pasted into the article. That horrid situation was reversed a few months ago, and now we have an article that actually reflects reality and not the spin that BP desired, though it is a work in progress and much more needs to be done, as has been mentioned above. To give an example of how totally useless the article used to be, for many months it stated, incorrectly, that alternative energy was a "main business segment" when it was not. This error persisted despite the presence of a BP Wiki PR person who "saw nothing" (Sergeant Schultz style) and let this pro-BP error misinform Misplaced Pages readers, at the same time that he was micromanaging the article on the talk page to be sure that it met BP specifications. So yes, we have had institutional bias in the BP article, but it's quite the opposite of what you suggest. Coretheapple (talk) 18:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Apparently the article is still too friendly to BP, since editors continue to insist Misplaced Pages in general is plagued by paid editors working for corporate interests, and some even insist that the "assume good faith" policy should be waived if the "bad faith" accusation that one is levelling happens to be accusing another editor of being a PR flack for some some corporate interest.--Brian Dell (talk) 11:37, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps Martin needs to include a few more samples of articles in the comparison, as the choices made are skewing the results. I'd suggest adding Charles Manson for one. You see, the table of comparisons are misleading - BP is unfortunately known for a number of high-profile cock-ups while producing a much-needed commodity. Microsoft on the other hand is known for revolutionizing how we interact with computers, and turning them from something in the realm of business and academia into something every person owns - but yes, with some cock-ups along the way. Exxon's history in oil is different ... they're not known as being so lackadaisical (or unlucky) in their safety processes, even though they have a couple of biggies. So, maybe BP is the Charles Manson of oil companies ... known more for the sheer quantity of negatives? ES&L 11:59, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
• Here's a comment from left field. That BP piece is a terrible, overlong, unreadable mess of an article. Somebody needs to rewrite it from scratch. It's absurdly over-detailed and pretty obviously a coatrack of corporate culpability. Carrite (talk) 19:10, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I suppose that Martin has one more notch on the ledger thanks to his canvassing here. Coretheapple (talk) 20:17, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

• Concur with Carrite. I just read it for the first time aswell and "unreadable mess" and "obviously a coatrack" are accurate descriptions. DeCausa (talk) 20:43, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Carrite for a change, and with DeCausa. However, I have a question. Why not say something to that effect in response to the RFC, which is the neutral means for obtaining community comments? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:45, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

They can certainly do so. But since their doing so would be a direct result of improper canvassing, I'm not sure there would be much point. The reason there's a rule against canvassing is to prevent people from "stacking the deck" as is being attempted here. (and pretty openly, given the melodramatic language that he utilized) Since the RfC was going solidly against him before he commenced his canvassing, with every single previously uninvolved editor saying "no," I think that he's done a really fine job of mucking things up completely. His "get out the vote" campaign can result in 500 "yes" votes and I don't think it would amount to a hill of beans in the end. Coretheapple (talk) 20:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

An RFC on that piece of crap article would be good money chasing bad. That piece needs the Holy Hand Grenade of Brother Maynard™ and a complete do-over by somebody that knows how to write. Carrite (talk) 21:33, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I suppose we can turn it over to the previous author, BP Corporate Communications. Coretheapple (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

To paraphrase: "the only alternative to the current mess is to turn over to BP." That's ridiculous. Whilst Coretheapple is probably right that if I were to comment in the RfC it would be struck as a product of canvassing - and I won't bother. Nevertheless, the OP has a lot less to be embarrassed about than those editors that think that the current state of the article is worth preserving. That shambolic garbage is getting 2k hits a day. Sheesh. DeCausa (talk) 22:02, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

That's not hyperbole. The previous principal authors of the article were BP Corporate Communications. It received widespread publicity, and was a serious black eye for Misplaced Pages. Coretheapple (talk) 22:42, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

But if the Edward Snowden article reads like it was written by Snowden's PR team, that's just fine. No matter how dubious in terms of factual accuracy a statement by Snowden or Snowden sympathizer may be, it's give 'em the soapbox yet again. Let's not pretend that the political lean around here is such that Snowden is popular and BP (or Monsanto etc etc) is not. This is what's ultimately driving the lean of these articles.--Brian Dell (talk) 00:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

IMO it exhibits a moderate degree of anti-BP bias which could be remedied by a few tweaks addressing the method that was (inadvertently or otherwise) used to bias the article. Which is to use of lower threshold for inclusion for negative material than neutral or positive. This is a company with a 100+ years of history and on the scale of a medium sized country but even the kinds of petitions on negatives that me and two people can put together have made it into the article. The tweak would be to take the relatively small stuff out. But this points to the bigger fix needed. There is a gaping hole in wp:NPOV which enables (ironically) wp:npov to be used to POV articles. The wp:weight/wp:undue section, and it's reliance on "amount of coverage" in sources is flawed. The first problem is that as a practical matter, that standard is impossible to objectively/actually be applied. Second, even in it's vague influences, it needs better calibration to include things like significance and degree of relevance. Without those fixes, if there is a "witch hunt" majority present at an article, they can use that to avoid any effort at objectiveness and where there is "pro-subject" majority present, it's vagueness and unusability, allows them to prevent the policy from being applied. North8000 (talk) 22:11, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

email

Saludos! I know we are getting close to the holidays and all, but I havent received any response to my email yet. Did you receive it?Thelmadatter (talk) 18:07, 15 December 2013 (UTC)