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Revision as of 00:12, 8 April 2017

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates. He holds the founder's seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The current trustees occupying "community-selected" seats until Wikimania 2017 are Pundit and Raystorm. The Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Support and Safety is Maggie Dennis.

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DailyMailTV to launch this fall in over 100 markets across the US with executive producer Dr. Phil McGraw

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4375656/DailyMailTV-launch-fall-100-markets.html

"The show will combine all of the best elements of the website that will both engage and entertain TV audiences," said Dr. Phil McGraw.

"The series will be a fantastic showcase for all DailyMail.com’s brilliant and exclusive news, showbiz and video content," said DailyMail.com publisher Martin Clarke.

--Guy Macon (talk) 11:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, if it matters someone will no doubt write an article on it, see National Enquirer TV. No doubt, they appreciate the plug, here, though. Entertainers usually like that. --`Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:35, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The DM decision is indicative of the relatively unique way in which Misplaced Pages operates. I would not be surprised to see it reversed at some point, but in the meantime, I think our decision is a good slap in the face to all media which fail to consistently publish reliable stories.....they might be next. So, the end might justify the means in this matter. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:28, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

First reaction seems to be from City A.M. yesterday:

The show will also feature "exclusive stories" from DailyMail.com so the Americans will likely learn more about scantily clad women and how "candlelit dinners can you give you cancer". ...

The Capitalist looks forward to US President Donald Trump's appearance on the show.

Incidentally, Trump is reported to have an IQ of 156 . 51.140.123.26 (talk) 09:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Your Mark Dice edit

I'm curious as to what prompted you to make it as there was offwiki recruitment to demand that change and at least one legal threat made on the talk page resulting from that demand. --NeilN 00:34, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not really sure why that would be relevant. Our policy is to make good edits to improve biographies regardless of any inappropriate behavior on the part of a subject, and regardless of whether we dislike the subject. Misplaced Pages is not a battleground.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Did you bother to read Jimbo's edit summary? 86.147.208.100 (talk) 10:21, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, NeilN , I mean, wtf? What prompted you to make your irrelevant edit here??? Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:48, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I do not think you are in any position to complain about anyone making irrelevant edits here. But to answer, given that Jimbo rarely edits articles (his last fifty edits stretch back to July 2015), and the last time he showed up on a BLP on my watchlist he exercised questionable judgement, I thought it was a valid question. --NeilN 22:19, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Especially as the Amazon reference doesn't actually source the sentence that it claims to. Yes, it points out that he's written a book (note: not "books") about some of the things in that paragraph. Still, User:Binksternet seems to have fixed the problem. Black Kite (talk) 23:41, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I believe User:Binksternet made a good faith error as the book itself was not commented on, as his edit summary seems to infer. So, I reverted User:Binksternet's revert until there is consensus on Jimbo's edit.Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:03, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

NeilN, please advise what you mean by "offwiki recruitment to demand that change"? Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:02, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: Um, read the talk page? It's all right there. --NeilN 17:07, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

ok, I already saw the talk page topic about his twitter tweet asking his fans to edit the Blp? I assume that's what you mean...I was wondering if there was something else. Thanks. You know, this is really not worth any commotion at all, the sentence about him writing books absolutely does no harm and absolutely is notable. We should not let what Dice says or does influence the content either by inclusion or omission. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:30, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Verifiability

Hi Jimbo. I notice that verifiability is not required for the "facts" which inform this encyclopedia's decisions. That sounds really well-thought-through. Siuenti (talk) 07:32, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Can you verify your claim? (This guy is fresh off a block and is messing with the articles). 51.140.123.26 (talk) 08:52, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

The bit which says "All material in Misplaced Pages mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable" (my emphasis) Siuenti (talk) 09:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

This is one of the five pillars. Why do you think it's wrong? 51.140.123.26 (talk) 09:04, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I was thinking that the principle might usefully be applied to disputed statements in other namespaces too. Siuenti (talk) 09:22, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, all discussions about what we as a community should do should be grounded in verifiable facts. In my long experience, though, when someone proposes something that is obviously true, it is often the case that they are presenting only one side of a specific argument.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I believe the word for that would be cherry picking :) Thanks for the input. Sienti (씨유엔티) 14:12, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

All this derives from an RfC in which it is being argued that the test to be applied is one of "cromulence". If people could restrict themselves to the terms which appear in policy and guidelines the issues might become clearer. 86.147.208.100 (talk) 15:15, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

• Basically the issue relates to talk pages. I have seen many cases where an editor makes an assertion on a talk page, as part of a discussion, and then another editor calls for it to be removed from the talk page on the grounds that it is not verifiable. Unless the assertion is a clear BLP violation, this sort of behavior is generally not conducive to a productive discussion. It is best to allow a lot more latitude on talk pages than in mainspace. At the very least editors need to be able to argue about whether an assertion is verifiable without worrying about the assertion being removed from the talk page while the discussion is taking place. Looie496 (talk) 15:58, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

  Yeah I think a controversial statement can stay there but people can also expect verification. Maybe WP:V can be clarified - do you want to make a thread over there? <s Sienti (씨유엔티) 16:49, 6 April 2017 (UTC) User:Siuenti with broken signature

You want footnotes for every comment on Talk? I mean, it would shut the fuckwit antivaxers, creationists and homeopaths up, but srsly? It would be fundamentally incompatible with WP:BITE. Guy (Help!) 22:11, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Apologies for textwall; only my 2nd time posting here in nearly 10 years. I can't speak to what OP actually had in mind, but his comments called to mind a problem that I think I see on a regular basis. That's the situation where an editor asserts something on his own judgment or authority, not as a direct basis for article prose, but as a basis for determining what to include or exclude. In this scenario, the article prose itself is sourced, but the decisions on how/whether to reflect it were based on editor claims that can't be traced to any source, policy guideline, or essay.

A reasonably square example is provided by a content dispute I'm involved in, regarding Jeremy Corbyn. The question is whether, in mentioning Corbyn's activism related to the governments of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolas Maduro, we should mention that his statements and associations in this area have drawn pretty substantial criticism from both inside and outside his own party, particularly after he made remarks about Castro after Castro's death.

It has been argued (to me) that these criticisms are not important or germane to Corbyn's life, but that the positive aspects of his activism ("solidarity") are. In an effort to demonstrate that sources show it to be more important than other material that is already discussed extensively in the WP article, I pointed to the section on Corbyn's parliamentary expenses budget. But in reply, it is argued that, because of the United Kingdom parliamentary expenses scandal of 2009, every British MP must have a substantial section related to that scandal, even if their connection was tangential and went largely undiscussed.

Now, normally we use breadth and depth of RS publication as the basic guide of what topics are important enough to include in an article, but in this case very little has been said about Corbyn's connection to the scandal (to wit: he wasn't embroiled in it, and he provides a favorable contrast because he is so frugal). Corbyn received attention generally for having perennially low expense claims, and specifically it was mentioned in passing in a few sources that during one period his only claimed expense was a printer cartridge costing nine pounds. Fine, all well and good, this sort of stuff doesn't bother me. We're not running out of electrons, so let's have long, informative articles.

But here, the actual RS discussion of this topic in connection with Corbyn was so flimsy that WP editors found it necessary to go digging through multiple primary sources to illustrate that his spending has been both minimal and socially responsible. More egregiously, this thinly sourced bit of fluff is being held up as an example of what should be discussed at length in the article, whereas the significance of Corbyn's Cuba/Venezuela activism—which has actually drawn quite a bit of published commentary, including both eds/opeds and news reporting of parliamentary reaction quotes—is actually "irrelevant" to the article, in part because it's predictable he would be criticized for taking these controversial stances. It has even been vaguely argued exclusion is warranted because significance to domestic UK politics is the only sound basis for inclusion into an article about a UK MP—yet the sourcing shows that his stances are quite controversial even within the UK, and have caused members of his own party to openly question his leadership. Nor is there much doubt (in my mind, anyway) that his views on this matter have at least as much lasting significance as his frugality and decision to go with generic toner—these are matters that implicate the subject's judgment and political views, and the substantial sourcing very clearly bears this out. So far as actual policy goals go, I just don't see why we would exclude entirely, although reasonable people could disagree on the ideal word count.

In a nutshell, in my view it is being insisted that the article content must be guided by considerations that are not evident from RS material, and not evident from WP policy. If I'm correct, this is a policy black hole that, at best, engenders confusion, and at worst, invites abuse. Factchecker_atyourservice 20:30, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Right, so one this one, I have to say that 'editorial judgment' is a real and valid thing - we can't write down exact rules for every possible thing like "should the parliamentary expenses scandal stuff be included". My own view is that we are often quite silly with it - especially as nearly a decade has passed. For some MPs, the scandal was very real and meaningful. For others, such as Jeremy Corbyn, it makes little sense to even mention the scandal. Establishing that he has a reputation for being frugal as an MP (his expenses in the lower half) seems fine to me.

Regarding his controversial defenses of Castro, Chavez, and Maduro, these seem virtually mandatory to include, as they are central to his political identity and to any understanding of his position in UK politics.

But notice that for all these things, there are arguments for and against but no clean or magical way to have policy decide them. One fears that these things will be decided to some degree based on whether some subset of editors is trying to burnish (or tarnish) his reputation - but that is not the way Misplaced Pages is supposed to be written... battleground mentality is bad.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:01, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Update - I just read as much of the talk page of the article Jeremy Corbyn and I want to double down on my remarks here - that whole discussion is in part, Misplaced Pages working as it should, with editors working to find some consensus about what should be included, but in larger part, it's just a flame war with far too many personal jabs and insults - you are among the guilty, Factchecker_atyourservice, but so are people on all sides. I personally recommend a calm reboot of the discussion, mutual apologies all around for letting it get so heated, and a return to first principles including 'assume good faith'.

It seems clear to me that the question of Corbyn's support for Castro, Chavez, and Maduro is absolutely necessary to cover at length in the article for the reason I said before: it is central to his political identity, and importantly, a very frequent topic of commentary in the press - and it is not just the right wing press using it to attack him.

At the same time, it's very important to work hard to make sure that the coverage of these matters is factual, balanced, careful, and proportional. It won't be easy but that's why we have talk pages.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)