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Had to share..
Thought you might like this. This is what my instructor wrote on a recent microbiology assignment:
I didn't follow his instructions because I edit microbiology articles and know they are typically pretty reliable. Best Regards,
- @Barbara (WVS): This can be tricky. There's a difference between using a source, citing it, and relying on it for literature research. Outside of Misplaced Pages, sourcing is usually considered best when it is most direct: a cite to a key primary research paper is often better than a cite to a specialized review, which is better than a textbook, which is better than an encyclopedia. (there are some exceptions for meta-analyses and certain high-grade reviews) And because a fact from Misplaced Pages should always cite its source - or not be trusted - there is never a good reason to cite Misplaced Pages directly. Besides, versions can change at any time, and the citations can become useless. So seeing "Misplaced Pages" listed on a student paper is always going to raise hackles - that's not a matter of quality, but of how you do things. Additionally, professors want to see that students are skilled in multiple methods of research. Misplaced Pages is a neat tool, but it's a crapshoot, so they'd like to see that you can use more thorough search methods. Wnt (talk) 10:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- I completely understand your response and I could probably quote it myself. But what is quite humorous is that the instructor knows that I write for the encyclopedia and never quote it directly in any of my class assignments. As a Visiting Scholar, not quite an Ambassador, I am promoting the encyclopedia-so it is even funnier. No, of course not, no one should quote Misplaced Pages word for word-plagarism still applies to the writing of college reports, wikipedia or not. I'll probably end up giving a presentation at the University of Pittsburgh at some point and will use this photo as a visual aid. Best Regards,
- Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:42, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- If you know so much about editing Misplaced Pages, why do you use an additional line and an additional indentation, just to sign your Talk posts? That seems like a non-standard practice, to put it kindly. - 17:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:1400:10:B008:1D04:A6A:5216 (talk)
- Misplaced Pages is a good starting point for research into any subject, including medicine. However, the instructor would have been rightly annoyed to read a series of essays which had been copypasted from Misplaced Pages.--♦IanMacM♦ 06:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- But the articles usually include a list of sources you can go to and read for your sources. Nothing wrong with finding the sources through Misplaced Pages, just don't us the Misplaced Pages article itself as a source. Nyth63 13:11, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Well, for educational purposes there actually is something wrong with finding the sources this way, which is that you're potentially eating someone's bias. After all, we do have POV-pushers who manipulate articles, and for more esoteric topics we may omit a whole perspective simply by negligence. You'd often like to see the student be able to say that he researched his paper like a Cochrane review, with comprehensive evaluation of everything in PubMed or the like. Of course, sometimes a Misplaced Pages article will catch some idea that your "complete" search missed because you used the wrong keywords... I would be fond of the notion of prospecting quickly on Misplaced Pages, then following through with systematic searches when you know they find everything interesting you've found that way. Wnt (talk) 17:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- As valuable as the above information appears, I just want to point out that my original post was intended to be humorous, especially because my instructor has read my work on and told me he was impressed with the bacterial articles I created. Also, I thought the founder might like the photo. Thanks for the serious replies...but didn't anyone smile? Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- "Do not use Misplaced Pages as a source" is a standard instruction in academic courses; Jimbo himself has been issuing the same advice for the past decade. Misplaced Pages is great as a starting point for finding sources, and when you get up to the GA/FA end its articles can be useful in giving students an idea on how to structure essays, but that's as far as it goes. If I saw any course which did allow Misplaced Pages as a source (other than courses on web design, online social interaction etc in which Misplaced Pages is itself the subject) I'd treat it with extreme suspicion. ‑ iridescent 08:19, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- There's a difference between "Do not use WP" and "Do not use WP as a source". We need to communicate the distinction better, and the whole notion of "how to read Misplaced Pages". Andy Dingley (talk) 11:23, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- "Do not use Misplaced Pages as a source" is a standard instruction in academic courses; Jimbo himself has been issuing the same advice for the past decade. Misplaced Pages is great as a starting point for finding sources, and when you get up to the GA/FA end its articles can be useful in giving students an idea on how to structure essays, but that's as far as it goes. If I saw any course which did allow Misplaced Pages as a source (other than courses on web design, online social interaction etc in which Misplaced Pages is itself the subject) I'd treat it with extreme suspicion. ‑ iridescent 08:19, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- As valuable as the above information appears, I just want to point out that my original post was intended to be humorous, especially because my instructor has read my work on and told me he was impressed with the bacterial articles I created. Also, I thought the founder might like the photo. Thanks for the serious replies...but didn't anyone smile? Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:26, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Well, for educational purposes there actually is something wrong with finding the sources this way, which is that you're potentially eating someone's bias. After all, we do have POV-pushers who manipulate articles, and for more esoteric topics we may omit a whole perspective simply by negligence. You'd often like to see the student be able to say that he researched his paper like a Cochrane review, with comprehensive evaluation of everything in PubMed or the like. Of course, sometimes a Misplaced Pages article will catch some idea that your "complete" search missed because you used the wrong keywords... I would be fond of the notion of prospecting quickly on Misplaced Pages, then following through with systematic searches when you know they find everything interesting you've found that way. Wnt (talk) 17:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:42, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
- I completely understand your response and I could probably quote it myself. But what is quite humorous is that the instructor knows that I write for the encyclopedia and never quote it directly in any of my class assignments. As a Visiting Scholar, not quite an Ambassador, I am promoting the encyclopedia-so it is even funnier. No, of course not, no one should quote Misplaced Pages word for word-plagarism still applies to the writing of college reports, wikipedia or not. I'll probably end up giving a presentation at the University of Pittsburgh at some point and will use this photo as a visual aid. Best Regards,
- I second Andy Dingley's point. --Rubbish computer 20:01, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Barbara (WVS): This can be tricky. There's a difference between using a source, citing it, and relying on it for literature research. Outside of Misplaced Pages, sourcing is usually considered best when it is most direct: a cite to a key primary research paper is often better than a cite to a specialized review, which is better than a textbook, which is better than an encyclopedia. (there are some exceptions for meta-analyses and certain high-grade reviews) And because a fact from Misplaced Pages should always cite its source - or not be trusted - there is never a good reason to cite Misplaced Pages directly. Besides, versions can change at any time, and the citations can become useless. So seeing "Misplaced Pages" listed on a student paper is always going to raise hackles - that's not a matter of quality, but of how you do things. Additionally, professors want to see that students are skilled in multiple methods of research. Misplaced Pages is a neat tool, but it's a crapshoot, so they'd like to see that you can use more thorough search methods. Wnt (talk) 10:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Perpetual punishments
Do we really need perpetual punishments? I am now blocked from even contributing articles in draftspace. I add about 300 new biographies a year to my draftspace, since being blocked from writing mainspace articles. Read some of them ... don't these people deserve to have their stories told? No one else is writing them, they will be ignored by history. I am still in the top 100 for article creation, probably in the top 10 for biographies. Why have we become so doctrinaire? The people being punished are the one's whose history will not be told. They deserve better. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 07:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I note that "Statement by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )" is conspicuously empty in the Arbcom discussion. Why didn't you say anything in your defense there? That discussion has been going on for weeks. This post here amounts to "I'm too awesome to be banned" and is not going to do you any favors.--Atlan (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Probably because he wasn't notified of the motion until today(and didn't expect anything negative out of the case).--Müdigkeit (talk) 08:42, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Really? Pretty much every single time RAN has gone/been taken to a noticeboard he has ended up with harsher and more restrictive sanctions. He was notified he was before arbcom and he should have expected negativity since he has been completely unrepentant in his blatant disregard for the community consensus on his editing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- He was notified of the amendment request on 14 September. The motion comes after the discussion, so that he was only notified of it today is no excuse for completely ignoring the discussion.--Atlan (talk) 09:19, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Probably because he wasn't notified of the motion until today(and didn't expect anything negative out of the case).--Müdigkeit (talk) 08:42, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, Richard, but looking at this as an outsider it seems to me very much as if the problem here is that you have failed to respond to thoughtful feedback and people trying to help. You keep writing problematic articles until eventually you're stopped altogether, and now you say these articles won't be written, but, well, that is pretty much the point. Guy (Help!). Warning: comments may contain traces of sarcasm. 09:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) As someone who AFAIK has never interacted with you, looking at this case it seems that you're missing the point of the restriction. You complain that the motion is going to prevent you creating articles, but that appears entirely to be the purpose of the restriction, since too many of the articles you create are considered potentially problematic. You were notified on 14 September and didn't make any attempt to defend or explain your actions, so you can hardly blame the arbs for assuming that that the reason you're not defending your actions is that you can't. ‑ iridescent 09:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- When they take action it is a fait accompli, my arguments would have been as welcome as they are here. Going through 10 years of edits to show they are copyright free is designed to be a 10 year prison sentence, more now that I have less time to contribute. As pointed out multiple times, my earliest edits from 2006, where the problem existed, have long ago been corrected by me and others. If copyright problems still exist in Misplaced Pages, if quotes need to be trimmed to a single sentence, we need a bot to flag them or auto-trim them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- At least there, your argument would have been timely, rather than after the fact. Part of the problem is that you don't acknowledge that there is a problem. You have, for 4 years now, persistently denied any wrongdoing and a refusal to cooperate with editors trying to clear your CCI backlog. Do you have any idea how this thread alone reflects on you? You basically state that: this topic ban is stifling your genius; the real victims are the people you write about; everyone else is wrong and there isn't actually a problem; and if there is a problem, build a bot to auto-solve it. It comes off as arrogant and disdainful.--Atlan (talk) 14:00, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Huh? "As pointed out multiple times, my earliest edits from 2006, where the problem existed, have long ago been corrected by me and others." This has been pointed out by me, and others, at the original ANI, at the clarification, and above, and here again now. How is that "arrogant and disdainful"? Putting a green check mark next to 167,573 edits (since reduced to substantial, I am assuming 51% of the edits) one by one over the next 10 years serves no purpose. Addendum: As Carrite points out the original CCI requires me to put green check marks next to 60,000 edits now reduced to 30,001 (substantial, I am assuming > 50% by at least 1). The futility is that those edits have long ago been written over with 10 years of emendations and additions. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- At least there, your argument would have been timely, rather than after the fact. Part of the problem is that you don't acknowledge that there is a problem. You have, for 4 years now, persistently denied any wrongdoing and a refusal to cooperate with editors trying to clear your CCI backlog. Do you have any idea how this thread alone reflects on you? You basically state that: this topic ban is stifling your genius; the real victims are the people you write about; everyone else is wrong and there isn't actually a problem; and if there is a problem, build a bot to auto-solve it. It comes off as arrogant and disdainful.--Atlan (talk) 14:00, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- When they take action it is a fait accompli, my arguments would have been as welcome as they are here. Going through 10 years of edits to show they are copyright free is designed to be a 10 year prison sentence, more now that I have less time to contribute. As pointed out multiple times, my earliest edits from 2006, where the problem existed, have long ago been corrected by me and others. If copyright problems still exist in Misplaced Pages, if quotes need to be trimmed to a single sentence, we need a bot to flag them or auto-trim them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
There is an open case at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) that is still under discussion. R.A. Norton, might I suggest that you join that discussion? --Guy Macon (talk)
The real story
A Sept. 2015 ANI decision actually solved the last remaining potential problem with Richard's editing, his use of quote excerpts as part of the "quote=" parameter of our citation templates. The Nov. 2013 amendment to his ArbCom case was clarified with a new flag and the procedure for moving his new starts in his user space clarified. And then Beyond My Ken ran to ArbCom with a clarification request there and they responded by doubling down their restrictions upon him, effectively ending his ability to make user space starts. Why? Misplaced Pages's Contributor Copyright Investigations process does not scale and there are insufficient volunteers to parse RAN's first 60,000 edits one by one for copyright violation — during the wild west days of WP (2005-2008), RAN did some copy-pasting from websites, pasted in blocks of copyrighted text hidden behind <! --- flags for paraphrase while he was writing, and used what some deemed to be excessively long "quote=" glosses in his footnotes. These are his sins for which he is being eternally punished...
ArbCom, understanding that CCI is woefully short of volunteers and time, has mandated that Richard himself police his old editing for copyvio before they deign him able to make new starts again. This is a low value, idiotic mission that would gobble up a minimum of one year of his volunteer time to do properly. They don't care that it is an unreasonable requirement, they demand him to obey on bended knee with hat in hand — a satisfaction which he has not given them. So, encyclopedia be damned, rational solution of his editing shortcomings be damned, they're shutting down his new starts and doody doo on him. (gavel slams) "Next case!"
This is a prime example of an encyclopedia builder being run through the shredder by Kafkaesque bureaucrats. And nobody cares because, well, he churns out stubs of arcane individuals from the 1910s and 1920s rather than FEATURED ARTICLES.™® Richard, I'm sorry that people are so stupid about this. Carrite (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Rather than just complain, why don't you help him go through the old articles and remove the copyvios. Some people just complain, others actually do things. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Rather than make snippy comments, you might check the edit history of RAN's user page and RAN's talk page, where you will see that I have been doing just that with the current material. Some people just make flippant and ignorant comments, some people actually do things. Carrite (talk) 15:33, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- As for the ancient stuff, I've made my views on that clear in the current Amendment hearing: "...an abject waste of time..." that will never be fixed by anyone ever, nor should it because it is small potatoes as copyvio in the first place and buried under years and years and years of revision and editing by others in the second place... Carrite (talk) 15:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- 'Copyright violations' is used, as it has *always* been used in relation to you, in reference to your willing disregard for wikipedias copyright policies. So no, it is unlikely that the phrase 'copyright violations' will stop being used in relation to you, until you clean them all up. If you dont like it, you know where the door is. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Huh? This is Misplaced Pages copyright policy from the founder, Jimmy Wales: "It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. ... We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote." He has never retracted the statement. I think you are just trolling at this point. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- 'Copyright violations' is used, as it has *always* been used in relation to you, in reference to your willing disregard for wikipedias copyright policies. So no, it is unlikely that the phrase 'copyright violations' will stop being used in relation to you, until you clean them all up. If you dont like it, you know where the door is. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- RAN doesn't "willingly disregard" copyright law. He has a fairly excellent understanding of it. He was a sinner during his earliest years at WP (coming here in 2005) and has been a bullying victim for a long time ever since, as you are illustrating with your really unfair characterization of his work. Carrite (talk) 16:18, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Not really, I took a look through his userspace earlier today in order to comment at Arbcom. Picked 5 articles from the 500 drafts there, the same issues go from 2006-2015 (in fact drafts in his userspace edited *today*). If I have time on the weekend I can always go through and cull all non-free content and remove all quote= - but I suspect he would scream blue murder. But ultimately, I (nor anyone else) should have to do that. He should be doing it himself. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:23, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Another big "huh?". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Not really, I took a look through his userspace earlier today in order to comment at Arbcom. Picked 5 articles from the 500 drafts there, the same issues go from 2006-2015 (in fact drafts in his userspace edited *today*). If I have time on the weekend I can always go through and cull all non-free content and remove all quote= - but I suspect he would scream blue murder. But ultimately, I (nor anyone else) should have to do that. He should be doing it himself. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:23, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- RAN doesn't "willingly disregard" copyright law. He has a fairly excellent understanding of it. He was a sinner during his earliest years at WP (coming here in 2005) and has been a bullying victim for a long time ever since, as you are illustrating with your really unfair characterization of his work. Carrite (talk) 16:18, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Well, OID, you're blowing smoke on the need for "quote=" removal, as a 15 second glance at the material above the line should indicate — I've been systematically removing all such material and am continuing to work to get the rest of the 2014 starts compliant with the September 2015 ANI decision. As for use of "non-free content," I've run into maybe two or three block quotes, one of which wasn't properly set up with a segue, which I fixed. But in general: that's a bunch more smoke that you are blowing. Of course, you may feel that your sample of 5 is somehow more reflective of the population than the 300+ of his pieces that I have touched so far. Power to you if that's the case, figure out how to replicate that and you will be able to make a lot of money for having revolutionized the science of statistics. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I was curious about the claim of there being the makings of 500 new starts showing on RAN's user page and counted. So far this year he has made at least minimal starts showing on that page for 254 Misplaced Pages articles; the number showing for 2014 was 201. Now, not all of these are going to be able to meet GNG — what Richard has been doing is starting with the Bain Collection of public domain photographs at Library of Congress, selecting arcane news photos, and doing very, very basic investigation via old articles in the New York Times, for the most part. Raw skeletons of articles are thus built. One of his starts I recently took to mainspace and fleshed out is Timothy Healy (trade unionist) — just showing that as an example of how RAN's very basic starts can potentially be fleshed out by content writers. For the record, I now have 345 of his starts compliant with the (late) September 2015 ANI decision in his case and am picking away at the rest at the rate of about 20 a day, as time allows. Carrite (talk) 18:28, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Jimmy Wales: "It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. ... We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote." So please do not use the legal term "copyright violations", they are properly sourced quotations, that some people feel should never be used in Misplaced Pages, including Carrite, who is vigorously opposed to them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Yep, Richard, I hate them — aesthetically and functionally. I don't think they are examples of copyvio, but the fact that some people do (as you know from some of the so-called "violations" rung up against you at CCI by Anti-Fair Use Fanatics) should have steered you far, far away from "quote=" glosses... You've gotta stay out of every grey area with respect to copyvio and WP's even-more-stringent treatment of copyrighted works and this is one of them. Aesthetics has nothing to do with it; saving you from yourself for The Project has everything to do with it. best, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 16:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- I don't get it. If RAN's edits from a certain era around 2006 have copyright problems, there's a simple way forward. RAN declares a date after which he says he made no significant copyvios; his adversaries get a few weeks to search for any one counterexample. If they fail, we then accept the edits after that date are issue-free --- at least, they're surely at least as issue-free as edits from any new IP who signs up! Now to do this we must recognize, as I was saying in the last discussion along this line, that in general there's no copyright issue with having a few sentences in a quote parameter - that nonsense has to be nipped in the bud, because Misplaced Pages needs extended quotes for its scholarly functions. In other words, RAN's edits from after some cutoff date, whatever that may be, have to be compared to the same standard as anyone else's; otherwise people argue his case by playing tug of war with the goalposts. Now once we've found a way to save what material we think is good, the unpleasant part is that all the earlier edits either have to get hand checked or be sacrificed en masse, within a fairly short term, because we actually want our articles free of copyright issues. But there's no reason why this whole process has to degrade into ever more adversarial positions if the underlying problem behavior has been brought within community standards. I should add that that is one of Misplaced Pages's long term problems - people are always putting extra rules on problem editors, knowing that these untested rules may be impossible to follow, and that merely arguing over them will poison the admins against the person so affected. It is a very deliberate plan to fail that keeps getting implemented over and over again. Wnt (talk) 17:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Here's my suggestion, which I first made during the November 2013 Arbcom clarification proceeding: The requirement that RAN should be expected to self police his first 60,000 edits for potential copyvio should be set aside. His prohibition on new starts should be amended as follows: for a 12 month period RAN should be allowed to make a reasonable and limited number of new starts in mainspace, say 5 per month. These will be carefully scrutinized by his enemies for copyvio, most assuredly, and any instance will be met with wailing and crisis. If RAN commits copyvio in these pieces, he should be banned to Antarctica as a net negative to the project. If he is able to create these pieces without problems, he should be allowed to resume his work as a fully productive Wikipedian. As for CCI, his now nearly 4 year old case should be closed, unresolved and unresolvable (CCI does not scale to somebody with more than 600 starts and 60,000 edits — and RAN is way, way beyond that now...). CCI has more important cases to work upon now than picking through the lame editing of 2006... I additionally add: I fully support the Sept. 2015 ANI restriction, which mandated informational flagging of his user page starts, for a regularized system of transfer of those pieces to mainspace, and for a prohibition of RAN using the ^%^*^%*^$#$ "quote=" parameter, which is the source of much of the latest grief. Carrite (talk) 18:42, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- The number of foundational copyright violations discovered at
ANICCI, which would be subject to speedy deletion, can probably be counted on two hands. Of these, there is the example Tadahiro Sekimoto, which has subsequently been completely rewritten. The problem is minor, the solution you propose is draconian and grossly excessive and would impact the work of literally thousands of subsequent editors. Carrite (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- The number of foundational copyright violations discovered at
- @Carrite: I don't really understand your proposal. If we accept a significant number of post 2006 edits without scrutiny, why should we be specially scrutinizing or limiting editing he's doing now? If he actually cleaned up his act some time ago (apart from any violations of special rules that only applied to him), there's no real reason to have him under special restrictions now.
- However, if it's true that if the problematic edits really were a very small proportion, we really should put the case aside entirely. Misplaced Pages is always open to a mixed bag of IP and new editors who really don't follow copyright or other policies very well. The threshold for an established editor shouldn't be perfection, just to be better than that. Wnt (talk) 02:51, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- It's straight out of Kafka. It takes 5 demonstrable copyvios to open a CCI case; once opened the methodology they use is to place entire edit histories under review and to work through these "cases" article by article, flagging or fixing content. This works for an editor with a dozen articles and few hundred edits; not so much with 650 starts and 50,000 edits. With probably a dozen or fewer CCI volunteers who work at it with any regularity and a case backlog that goes back 5 years (and counting), the "Norton Case" is clearly an unsolvable problem using standard CCI methodology. The (terrible) solution that ArbCom decided upon was this: as soon as RAN reviewed his edit history, calling copyright fouls upon himself and fixing things as he went, he could start articles again. Until then, he could edit other people's material in mainspace but could not make new starts.
- Of course, for a content person, the starts are a very, very important part of the process, so the restriction severely attenuated RAN's usefulness to the project. The job of reviewing his old edits one by one is too big for a dozen people to get done in six months. Working fast and sloppy, maybe RAN could make a significant dent in a year. But basically, all these so-called big violations were small potatoes. I remember one example in which he copy-pasted a local church's history page from their website without proper attribution/paraphrase. Another big example was when he hid a huge chunk of copyrighted text behind <! --- tags so that he would have it in front of him as he paraphrased. Well, you click SAVE and that becomes part of the viewable history of the piece — copyvio!!! He was getting reemed for his "quote=" footnotes, being too long, being excessive in number, being relatively too long for the amount of original text on the page. All completely subjective calls, zero percent chance of exposing WMF to liability, well within American copyright law — but called copyvio! Another thing he did from time to time was copy pasting of old, out of copyright texts with inadequate footnoting. Tons and tons of this sort of low grade ticky-tack shit. (If anyone thinks I'm making this stuff up, go back and look at his edit history yourself in his CCI case — Misplaced Pages:Contributor_copyright_investigations/20111108.
- Well, guess what? Richard can be a grump. He doesn't like being pushed around. He fucked up, he knows he fucked up, he made a half-assed effort to help clean up some of the early stuff, but he's not gonna spend a year or two of his life hunting for narwhals with a flashlight and a fireplace poker. His bad edits are part of the sheetrock which has subsequently been spackled and textured and painted over three times by wave after wave of subsequent editors. It's a slow and extremely low value process finding bad edits from 8 or 10 years ago. He's not gonna do it. CCI is not gonna do it. Nobody is gonna do it. But ArbCom and CCI are gonna have their pound of flesh from him — no new starts until he cuts down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring...
- It's a completely stupid situation. Carrite (talk) 06:38, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- It was instigated as a punitive audit. It started when I opposed another editor at an Article for Deletion debate. It led to a heated debate and it was followed by a punitive audit at both Wikimedia Commons and at the English Misplaced Pages. It was a classic Nixonian maneuver, very clever. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:44, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Henry DeWitt Hamilton (February 26, 1863 - August 18, 1942) was the Adjutant General of New York starting in 1912.
Maybe someone could add a picture describing what was the job, in 1912, of the Adjutant General of New York (apart from sometimes sitting on a chair)? Does that person was more or less influential than the Head of any other branch of the New York's administration ? Do we have a picture of the Head Plumber of New York sitting on a chair (or even plumbing in any way) ? Pldx1 (talk) 08:57, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- WP:GNG "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." If you want to emend the GNG so that chairs become a part of the requirements, start on the talk page of WP:GNG and work toward consensus. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- Your definition of "significant" could use a little work. Ditto your definition of "independent" in some cases. But you have already been told this many times. Guy (Help!) 10:23, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Are you suggesting that he owns the New York Times so it is not an independent source from him? You do not find that having an obituary in the New York Times and his appointment as Adjutant General covered by the New York Times as being "significant coverage"? And who has told me this many times? ... links please. Or are you just trolling? You are an administrator, you should know better. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:32, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Your definition of "significant" could use a little work. Ditto your definition of "independent" in some cases. But you have already been told this many times. Guy (Help!) 10:23, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- It would appear from the reference and context that his job was head of the NY State Militia, while his rank within that paramilitary body was Adjutant General.--Noren (talk) 15:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Dear Noren. Anybody knows that the job of a bishop is to be a bishop, implying to sit, on a regular basis, on a kathedra (καθέδρα), This is so important that a special building is devoted to this, they call it a cathedral. But, for the moment, the article says that the New York Times hasn't recorded any remarquable action that would be specific to this person. Dying is so common ! Pldx1 (talk) 08:02, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- The thing that people need to keep in mind about the 450 or so stub and start articles showing on Richard's page is that not all of them are going to pass GNG and make their way to mainspace. His methodology for the overwhelming majority of these has been to work backwards, starting with a news photo from the George Grantham Bain collection at the Library of Congress (public domain) and to then scrape up a minimal biography about the subjects of these photos. MOST of them could be fleshed out to pass GNG, since they are the subject of news photos and thus apt to be the subject of news stories, but there are exceptions. Some of his stubs are very, very basic indeed — needing more work before being moved to mainspace. Remember that these are the seeds of more fully developed articles, initial stopgaps that will suffice until the next editor comes along who is willing to spend time on research and writing. Carrite (talk) 10:40, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- It's frustrating when people have to argue for the "ought-to-be" notability of an article versus trivial ignorance. I mean, people say never mind the GNG, the head of a state "paramilitary" just isn't that important. Without considering that 1863 was before the Civil War, and 1912 was before the Sixteenth Amendment (income tax). In those days, the state militias were the Army, and one from a populous state would be particularly important. In the Civil War they fought each other; by the time he was appointed they were beginning to become a unified United States National Guard but they were still not very far along that path. Even today, governors have threatened not to release their state troops to the foolhardy wars the federal government gets into.
- Whenever people substitute their notion of whether an article ought to be notable for whether it simply is notable per our criteria, they rewrite history to match their misunderstandings - and as such, Misplaced Pages takes on the role of preserving ignorance rather than preserving knowledge. Wnt (talk) 15:30, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Without considering that 1863 was before the Civil War (1861-1865)
. Citation needed ? Pldx1 (talk) 17:29, 8 October 2015 (UTC)- Maybe I should have said "ended", but overall I was thinking: George B. McClellan was better known for parades than battles. The draft in New York didn't get started until 1863. Though it didn't take long to spend those poor folks - the bloody Battle of Gettysburg was also in 1863. So maybe I cut it a bit too close. Wnt (talk) 22:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
definitely not going to let Misplaced Pages become a PR platform
@Jimbo Wales: I noticed that you were interviewed for the Times. The Drum summarizes it as, you are ' “definitely not going to let Misplaced Pages become a PR platform” which he stated would be “so against all of our values”.' This sounds excellent, but I can't get the Times article itself unless I pay 12 pounds. Any comments here? Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- To get an answer from Jimbo Wales, please go to our shopping cart and pay a 6 pound fee. Oh, wait... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 15:50, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- That's a very good sentiment, but I would respectfully suggest that Jimbo follow up by urging the WMF to take stronger action than it has to date to ban the practice. I believe that volunteer action in that regard is important, but also a waste of time unless the WMF does more than it has to protect the project's brand identity. Coretheapple (talk) 16:35, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
- Using Misplaced Pages as a PR platform is already covered by the rules. So what do you mean by "stronger action" to prevent it? Etamni | ✉ | ✓ 03:21, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- More resources for, and action from the Legal department for a start. MER-C 11:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- Publicizing our rules about WP:NOADS, WP:PAID, WP:COI to the general public. If folks don't know that they are not allowed to buy an article, they'll continue trying, and be prey for the most unethical of paid editors.
- Letting admins and ArbCom know that they are expected to enforce our rules, or at the very least not interfere with enforcement by others.Smallbones(smalltalk)
- The steps outlined above are good for starters. Also I'd suggest that the Foundation's board members and its paid employees act scrupulously to maintain a "cleaner than a hound's tooth" position on COI, lest they be subject to criticism from the usual, albeit laughingly hypocritical sources. Coretheapple (talk) 16:10, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- The obvious step would be to make the Bright Line Rule official WMF policy. I believe the board could just vote and pass this - it's really just an extension of the board's policy on not accepting advertisements. In this case, it would just be "what do we do when companies put in ads anyway" and there would have to be some teeth behind the BLR, e.g. lawsuits. Or, if they want to go the route of changing the Terms of Use again, I'll predict that this would pass by 80%-20% again. It really is a simple to understand rule and nobody should worry about whether it will pass. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:15, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- True, but as I've been saying for some months now, this is fundamentally a brand identity problem, not one that should bother ordinary editors all that much. If the Foundation won't act, what of it? No skin off my rump. I find paid editing annoying, but it is not a life or death thing for me. It is for Misplaced Pages, but I just volunteer here. Coretheapple (talk) 20:11, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- Remember too that the Bright Line Rule is no the be-all and end-all. There are ways around it. On this very page some months back we have an administrator talk about how he was paid by some guy who was the subject of an article, and got someone else to perform the edits that guy wanted. Voila! No bright line rule violation. Also we have had situations in which paid editors have essentially drafted articles outside of mainspace and gotten friendly editors to post their edits. That received a lot of publicity in BP. Again, it all comes down to brand identity and how the people most affected (Jimbo, the Foundation) feel about such things. If they don't like it, it is within their power to do something about it. The "community" is far too unwieldy and divided on this, as well as far too uninterested in COI issues, to pull the Foundation's chestnuts out of the fire. Coretheapple (talk) 20:19, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
- I strongly support the board passing 'bright line rule' as a part of the terms of service. To really get it through, though, I need to be able to demonstrate the support of the community. That's hard, but can be accomplished if we are organized and strong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:10, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- What would it take to convince the board? Presumably there would be a ToU RfC lasting at least a month with a banner directing people there. Nobody wants to have encyclopedia articles with hidden ads in them, so it's pretty obvious how that !voting will go - just like the paid editing ToU change went - 80% in favor of the change. If you want a petition before that (and on top of that!) just let me know how many signatures you think you need, and I'll see what I can do. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- What would you change? I'm no fan of advertorial, but I think the ToS on undisclosed COI, plus consensus at WP:COI, plus WP:CSD#G11 are all we need. Of course we sometimes fail to spot the promotional editors, just as we fail to spot vandals and POV-pushers, but they tend to get found out in the end. I am impatient with people who agitate to keep articles started by the subject, but they do at least tend to roll their sleeves up and fix them, because they tend to be long-term Wikipedians not just inclusionists-or-the-sake-of-it. Codifying what constitutes a COI is an obvious attempt to legislate Clue. What about True Believers? Where would they fit? Guy (Help!) 11:20, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- What would it take to convince the board? Presumably there would be a ToU RfC lasting at least a month with a banner directing people there. Nobody wants to have encyclopedia articles with hidden ads in them, so it's pretty obvious how that !voting will go - just like the paid editing ToU change went - 80% in favor of the change. If you want a petition before that (and on top of that!) just let me know how many signatures you think you need, and I'll see what I can do. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:37, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- I strongly support the board passing 'bright line rule' as a part of the terms of service. To really get it through, though, I need to be able to demonstrate the support of the community. That's hard, but can be accomplished if we are organized and strong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:10, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Jimbo Wales: Putting Misplaced Pages's reputation and brand identity in the hands of "the community" (meaning whoever turns out for a discussion) strikes me as an unsound policy, but that's not my call. Good luck with it. Coretheapple (talk) 18:28, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Using Misplaced Pages as a PR platform is already covered by the rules. So what do you mean by "stronger action" to prevent it? Etamni | ✉ | ✓ 03:21, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
What would change if BLR becomes part of the Terms of Use?
I agree with Guy that “the ToS on undisclosed COI, plus consensus at WP:COI, plus WP:CSD#G11 are all we need”, or at least it should be all we need to stop paid advocates from editing articles on the companies that pay them. Unfortunately, it seems that some people don’t agree.
For example we have ArbCom saying last February “6) The Committee has no mandate to sanction editors for paid editing”
We have lots of articles at AFC that are clearly written by employees to promote their employers. Note that I’m not accusing the article submitters of avoiding our rules in bad faith. Rather, I’m saying that we need to let them know in no uncertain terms, before they submit the articles, that these types of articles are against our rules.
At AfD we have articles such as Caidin Film Company, Horseshoe Bossier City, Shermco Industries UNETSHA. Why weren’t these companies told loud and clear that we don’t give away free advertising? Why does it take years to get these articles deleted?
A simple clear policy embedded in the ToU would stop all of this, if it is well publicized and backed up by the WMF legal department.
Let the WMF write the prospective ToU change, but the simplest, clearest statement that I’ve seen is the bright line rule. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- There are many reasons to dislike me or be skeptical of me etc. I have many failings. But I take great pride in a peculiar ability to sometimes just say what is right, in a simple way. So, thank you for appreciating it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:40, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- You keep talking about backup from the WMF legal department, but TOU are rarely enforceable againts third parties in a civil court. WMF Legal are never going to actively sue a company for employing someone to edit wikipedia against the TOU. It would be laughed out. It would also open them up to counter-suits for all the times Misplaced Pages has had blatantly skewed/NPOV/inaccurate information. Misplaced Pages defends itself against Corps who accuse it of misinformation/bias by pointing out info is all sourced elsewhere and that any real inaccurate info is removed quickly. The corp's defense for engaging in paid editing would be that it is required to in order to defend its reputation against Misplaced Pages's anonymous editors who repeatedly smear it and affect its business. The WMF's money pile would be quickly eaten up in legal costs once that gets going. Given that the WMF has been completely unwilling to do anything about serial death threats, abuse etc from a *known private individual* it has the name and address of and can provide cast iron evidence in relation to, and you honestly expect them to take on big business in a case they would likely lose? Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:12, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- Your argument is that the US legal system is incapable of supporting an ad-free community on the internet. If advertisers are counting on that, then there should be no complaints when they get themselves in trouble. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:48, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- By the logic employed by "Only in Death," there could be no meaningful TOU because it could not be "enforced in court." First of all, that's questionable at best. Companies prohibit all kinds of misconduct in their TOUs, and act against transgressors when it becomes a serious problem. Only on Misplaced Pages does obvious stuff like the BLR not get put in for all kinds of dubious excuses. However, if I understand JzG right, it is possible that there already is a sufficient community consensus so that the Foundation could go ahead and insert that rather obvious provision into the TOU, and feel it has "community support," whatever that means. Of course the Foundation could put up all kinds of bureaucratic obstacles and require an RfC or whatever before it improves its TOU. But as I keep saying, if it does, why should any of us care? Are we really hurt if the project's brand name and reputation are hurt? Hell no! Coretheapple (talk) 15:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- With a few exceptions that is the case. TOU for websites (and software in general) essentially allow the company (in this case the WMF) a reason to restrict access (ban) someone under their own rules. Its not enforceable through a civil court. A TOU is also not enforceable against a third party who has not actually agreed to it or violated it. A corporation who engages in hiring someone to edit wikipedia has not agreed to the TOU as they are neither accessing nor editing wikipedia directly. The paid editor is, however as the WMF is not interested in requiring registration to edit, an IP address is rarely sufficient to take someone to court as it alone is not considered enough to identify someone. See previous cases RE media torrents where people have been sent pay up or else letters. There is sufficient reason (and consensus) to put the provision in the TOU, as the TOU is the basis on which people can be banned, but thinking the WMF is going to take any legal action over it is ridiculous. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- I agree that the WMF has been, is, and probably will forever be timid and lacking in deterrent credibility on this issue. It is interesting that there seems to be a consensus, at least among the people here, that there is sufficient community consensus to support adding the BLR to the TOU. Jimbo Wales, please note that. Coretheapple (talk) 19:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- With a few exceptions that is the case. TOU for websites (and software in general) essentially allow the company (in this case the WMF) a reason to restrict access (ban) someone under their own rules. Its not enforceable through a civil court. A TOU is also not enforceable against a third party who has not actually agreed to it or violated it. A corporation who engages in hiring someone to edit wikipedia has not agreed to the TOU as they are neither accessing nor editing wikipedia directly. The paid editor is, however as the WMF is not interested in requiring registration to edit, an IP address is rarely sufficient to take someone to court as it alone is not considered enough to identify someone. See previous cases RE media torrents where people have been sent pay up or else letters. There is sufficient reason (and consensus) to put the provision in the TOU, as the TOU is the basis on which people can be banned, but thinking the WMF is going to take any legal action over it is ridiculous. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- You keep talking about backup from the WMF legal department, but TOU are rarely enforceable againts third parties in a civil court. WMF Legal are never going to actively sue a company for employing someone to edit wikipedia against the TOU. It would be laughed out. It would also open them up to counter-suits for all the times Misplaced Pages has had blatantly skewed/NPOV/inaccurate information. Misplaced Pages defends itself against Corps who accuse it of misinformation/bias by pointing out info is all sourced elsewhere and that any real inaccurate info is removed quickly. The corp's defense for engaging in paid editing would be that it is required to in order to defend its reputation against Misplaced Pages's anonymous editors who repeatedly smear it and affect its business. The WMF's money pile would be quickly eaten up in legal costs once that gets going. Given that the WMF has been completely unwilling to do anything about serial death threats, abuse etc from a *known private individual* it has the name and address of and can provide cast iron evidence in relation to, and you honestly expect them to take on big business in a case they would likely lose? Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:12, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
VisualEditor update
- This note is only delivered to English Misplaced Pages subscribers of the visual editor's newsletter.
The location of the visual editor's preference has been changed from the "Beta" tab to the "Editing" section of your preferences on this wiki. The setting now says Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta. This aligns en.wiki with almost all the other WMF wikis; it doesn’t mean the visual editor is complete, or that it is no longer “in beta phase” though.
This action has not changed anything else for editors: it still honours editors’ previous choices about having it on or off; logged-out users continue to only have access to wikitext; the “Edit” tab is still after the “Edit source” one. You can learn more at the visual editor’s talk page.
We don’t expect this to cause any glitches, but in case your account no longer has the settings that you want, please accept our apologies and correct it in the Editing tab of Special:Preferences. Thank you for your attention, Elitre (WMF) -16:32, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- @Elitre (WMF): Why is it worded like this? Why can't it just be "disable Visual Editor"? Temporarily disable the visual editor while it is in beta implies that you intend to make it un-disablable once it is out of beta. I find that difficult to believe but it still doesn't look friendly. BethNaught (talk) 17:18, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Hey, thanks for the question. AFAICT that’s the same message which is already used elsewhere - it has basically stayed the same since 2013, when the idea of "Beta Features" preferences didn't exist yet. It's not talking about the recent change on this wiki, or anything about "Beta Features". There are still lots of improvements yet to make, not least integrating wikitext and visual editing together properly and removing the hack of having a second edit tab that jumbles up the interface. The 'end' of the beta phase is probably 2–5 years away at this point, so the message will likely be changed as things around editing change, to better reflect what will happen. And I’ll make sure in the future the sentence is clear enough before I MassMessage hundreds of users with the exact wording ;) Best, -Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply. But "removing the hack of having a second edit tab"? There will be plenty of unhappy people if the wikitext editor does not remain readily accessible. BethNaught (talk) 21:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree. I think it fairly obvious that the inferior experience of the wikitext editor will be strongly opposed by virtually everyone once the visual editor is good enough (and it isn't yet).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- I would not be so sure. There is a sizeable number of editors who will always prefer precise markup based editors to WYSWIG editors. These are the people who would write in LaTeX in preference to Word and favour editors like EMAC and Vim. We are not seeing any increase in existing editors using VE which is still less than 1%. --Salix alba (talk): 23:37, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- I disagree. I think it fairly obvious that the inferior experience of the wikitext editor will be strongly opposed by virtually everyone once the visual editor is good enough (and it isn't yet).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply. But "removing the hack of having a second edit tab"? There will be plenty of unhappy people if the wikitext editor does not remain readily accessible. BethNaught (talk) 21:08, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Hey, thanks for the question. AFAICT that’s the same message which is already used elsewhere - it has basically stayed the same since 2013, when the idea of "Beta Features" preferences didn't exist yet. It's not talking about the recent change on this wiki, or anything about "Beta Features". There are still lots of improvements yet to make, not least integrating wikitext and visual editing together properly and removing the hack of having a second edit tab that jumbles up the interface. The 'end' of the beta phase is probably 2–5 years away at this point, so the message will likely be changed as things around editing change, to better reflect what will happen. And I’ll make sure in the future the sentence is clear enough before I MassMessage hundreds of users with the exact wording ;) Best, -Elitre (WMF) (talk) 20:59, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Well, there is a precedent... --Guy Macon (talk) 18:10, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Unless, of course, when switching to production, they intend to enable it for everyone and then allow opt-out, or releasing may somehow stop this preference from working? Without knowing fully what this pref does to disable it, it's hard to say why, but there may be perfectly sound technical reasons for this too. Mdann52 (talk) 18:27, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- There are all sorts of options they can choose, such as making it opt-in for existing editors and opt-out for new editors. From a software development perspective, it is far easier to just create a shiny new editing system that stores text and images in a new way isn't compatible with the old wikitext, until you think about the fact that as of Monday, 06 January 2025, 00:29 (UTC), The English Misplaced Pages has 62,205,279 pages of all kinds and 6,935,709 articles. Plus you have to deal with all sorts of features, such as the feature I am using in this comment; refresh the page and you get the latest article counts. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:24, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- Unless, of course, when switching to production, they intend to enable it for everyone and then allow opt-out, or releasing may somehow stop this preference from working? Without knowing fully what this pref does to disable it, it's hard to say why, but there may be perfectly sound technical reasons for this too. Mdann52 (talk) 18:27, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
- We should always keep both the raw text editor and the fancy new editor close at hand. Raw text mode would be well worth keeping for debugging purposes alone -- you know how easy it is to find in some word processor that you have dozens of italics-unitalics or mysterious line breaks that only turn up when you try to copy the text to some other format. Good software never breaks backward compatibility, for copying text from page to page and site to site in a controllable way. We also must not break compatibility for Javascript-free browsing, which is and remains the fastest way to read and edit Misplaced Pages. Also note that if raw text editing is made difficult, it is always possible that people will offer third party tools that allow the text to be edited on other websites, or using custom programs. Those things would be useful, and get around such problems (since the page has to be in raw mode sometime before it's posted) - but they also would create huge opportunities for spam advertising, unauthorized bot editing and so forth with much less effort than currently, because the work making them possible would be done for a much larger set of users. If you disable raw text editing even momentarily, you'll let a genie of abuse out of the bottle that you may never stuff back in again. Wnt (talk) 01:14, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Definitely should always have an easy way of editing the raw text. One of the things I loved about Word Perfect was the code page view. I hated MS Word for all the untraceable formatting glitches that turn up. As an experiment I once created a new blank Word document with only the text Hello world! and then saved as an html file. Then opened the file in a text editor and saw three pages of bloated formatting garbage. Ridiculous. Code bloat is a serious problem for debugging. I have not played with it much yet, but I really hope that the Visual editor does not suffer from this type of problem. Nyth63 14:51, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Impossible
Hello, Jimmy! I happened to see this video on YouTube that describes you as "heavily involved ... as an angel investor" in Impossible.com. Great idea for a community of mutual giving! Could you give an update, three years later, on how the Impossible project is doing? Has it become a profit center yet? --- Awaken lemon (talk) 10:49, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Profit center? It was never intended to be a profit center. :) Lily's plan for it was heavily influenced by her admiration for the Social business concept of Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. In a social business any excess of revenue over costs is plowed back into the business, or invested in other social businesses - the investors do not receive dividends. The idea is something between a non-profit and a for-profit. As in a non-profit, there are no returns to any shareholders. But unlike most non-profits, these are businesses rather than charitable organizations primarily existing from donations. If you are interested in similar concepts, I'm quite fond of the Benefit corporation.
- As to how Impossible.com is doing today, I wouldn't be the best person to give a comprehensive update. While Lily is a close personal friend and we speak often (lately mostly about babies as she's a new mom), I'm not involved in the day-to-day at all. (I'm not a board member, just a friend and advisor.) As an overview, I would say that the project has struggled with issues around the costs of software development - Lily funds it personally for the most part, and can't afford a huge team of developers. So progress is slower than she had hoped. But there's a great small community there and many wonderful friendships and stories have been borne out of the site.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:12, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you for that kind and thoughtful answer, Jimmy! I thought that profit was one of its goals, since Lily said, "It’s a company run for profit, and if we ever get to that point...". I found a company financials statement online, and it looks like in 2014 there was still £250,000 or so of debt. Here's hoping 2015 can be their turnaround year! --- Awaken lemon (talk) 22:43, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Kim Davis
I'd be interested in your view as to whether Kim Davis (county clerk) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) should be a biography, an article on the same-sex marriage kerfuffle, or two articles, one on each. I closed an RfC as supporting a single article rather than multiple, and I don't think it should be a biography, I agree with the former, but I could be wrong in both views. Guy (Help!) 17:53, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- This seems like a pretty clear case of BLP1E, in which case we normally don't have an article on the person, but on the event. We have additional considerations here in that she's taken a highly controversial position that makes it more likely that she will be subjected to abuse and harassment in her Misplaced Pages entry, which we would have to clean up. The thing I always ask myself is this: are we likely to have enough information on this person to write an actual high quality biography. If not, then we shouldn't have a biography at all.
- I'd additionally question the wisdom of having an article on this kerfuffle at all as it seems very short-lived and relatively unimportant. But if we are to have anything, then I suppose that's the best option.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you. Guy (Help!) 19:02, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sooooo, just clicked and see that there's still a biography. Where was the discussion and how did you close it? I perhaps have misunderstood the situation here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:45, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Talk:Kim_Davis_(county_clerk)#RfC:_Two_articles_or_one.3F_.28Or_three.3F.29 Liz 22:10, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Jimbo, I'm sorry, but I think you're underestimating how big this story has gotten in the U.S. There is a huge body of news about her meeting with the Pope, for example. Some people are actually criticizing the Pope because he met with her. That's truly a case of the tail wagging the dog, sure, but in terms of notability, this BLP1E has flown the coop. Wnt (talk) 22:44, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- That's probably right. She'll be a Joe the Plumber-like figure in the current campaign cycle. Carrite (talk) 22:56, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- I personally doubt this is going to turn into a Joe the Plumber scenario outside of, maybe, the Republican primaries when candidates are trying too court the most Conservative of their constituents. During the national elections I doubt the Republican candidate is going to harp on SSM too much. It's too well supported by the majority of the US and that's not a good strategy to get the centrist vote. They'll already have the vote of those who are against SSM mainly by default. I'm of the opinion that she's currently not notable outside of the controversy itself and my bet is it's going to stay that way. Capeo (talk) 15:08, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- It's still very much a BLP1E. It's an ongoing press circus, but "meeting the Pope" is not independently notable. Consider it this way - she met with the Pope with a group of people - without the original incident, this would be absolutely unnoticed. She remains notable for only one thing. Remember - adding more details and more ramifications and so on about the event doesn't give us any more information about her for the purpose of a biography.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:22, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- Hi, so Jimbo has the full picture... There are currently two open discussions on this topic (RM, AfD), each slowly but surely winding to a procedural close. Without doubt, there's a consensus to move the article about the person to the article about the controversy. There remains a minor discussion of whether the person is notable for a separate article, which seems more and more unlikely, but there seems no doubt that the controversy, which is currently at the biography, will be moved elsewhere. This wasn't helped, btw, by a snow close of keep for the article about the person. -- zzuuzz 09:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- There is no realistic chance of it being deleted, so snow keep is correct; there needs to be one article, per the RfC, the remaining question is what title that article should have. Jimbo agrees that it should be clearly identified as an article on the controversy not a biography, which is also my view having read the comments at the RfC I closed. So that leaves two obvious options: one includes her name in the title, the other does not. Obviously any dab page for Kim Davis would link ot this article, we're not going to try to pretend that she doesn't exist or airbrush her out of the picture, all we're going to do is what we always do, which is to try to cover the facts without joining in the bunfight over shaming of people who do stupid things. Guy (Help!) 10:33, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- I would invite you to move the article over the current controversy article forthwith, as it was originally split from the biography - a little out of process, but that's probably not important. It can almost be deleted under G7. We can then set about fine-tuning the title, and discovering whether a separate biography can be written/deleted. -- zzuuzz 10:43, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- I had more or less come to the same conclusion, I opened a thread on ANI to talk this through with fellow admins. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- I would invite you to move the article over the current controversy article forthwith, as it was originally split from the biography - a little out of process, but that's probably not important. It can almost be deleted under G7. We can then set about fine-tuning the title, and discovering whether a separate biography can be written/deleted. -- zzuuzz 10:43, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- There is no realistic chance of it being deleted, so snow keep is correct; there needs to be one article, per the RfC, the remaining question is what title that article should have. Jimbo agrees that it should be clearly identified as an article on the controversy not a biography, which is also my view having read the comments at the RfC I closed. So that leaves two obvious options: one includes her name in the title, the other does not. Obviously any dab page for Kim Davis would link ot this article, we're not going to try to pretend that she doesn't exist or airbrush her out of the picture, all we're going to do is what we always do, which is to try to cover the facts without joining in the bunfight over shaming of people who do stupid things. Guy (Help!) 10:33, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- Hi, so Jimbo has the full picture... There are currently two open discussions on this topic (RM, AfD), each slowly but surely winding to a procedural close. Without doubt, there's a consensus to move the article about the person to the article about the controversy. There remains a minor discussion of whether the person is notable for a separate article, which seems more and more unlikely, but there seems no doubt that the controversy, which is currently at the biography, will be moved elsewhere. This wasn't helped, btw, by a snow close of keep for the article about the person. -- zzuuzz 09:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
- That's probably right. She'll be a Joe the Plumber-like figure in the current campaign cycle. Carrite (talk) 22:56, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Sooooo, just clicked and see that there's still a biography. Where was the discussion and how did you close it? I perhaps have misunderstood the situation here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:45, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you. Guy (Help!) 19:02, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
And now for something completely different
I came across this offbeat edit summary . (The editor's wish came true, but not for vandalism. Reminds me of this plot from the cartoon Life with Feathers, "The film centers on a heartbroken lovebird's decision to commit suicide after his marriage goes sour. He recruits a black cat (Sylvester) to eat him, but the suspicious cat thinks the bird is poison and refuses." Although I can see that the admin may have been thinking of a bigger catch.) --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:23, 9 October 2015 (UTC)