User talk:Jimbo Wales: Difference between revisions

Request banned user (I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow)

Jimbo, will you please ban I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow from Wikipedia. This user was blocked for vandalized editing. -- 00:23, February 3, 2008 (UTC)

Hello

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Third time, let me be more concise

Do you mind if I undelete Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gary Weiss for the duration of the Arbitration? Y/N Cool Hand Luke 20:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I see no benefit in doing so.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, Cla68 has been looking for diffs of deceitful behavior, and there appear to be a few there. Cool Hand Luke 22:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The ArbCom are all admins and can see it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You seeing no benefit in something does not necessarily mean no-one else sees the benefit - are you forbidding CHL from undeleting it? —Random832 19:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, because it was deleted for a reason and the ArbCom can see it. This is not a public circus.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I have to disagree with this, if only because it has been customary to undelete evidence in the interests of resolving disputes in the past, and also because, as this case has shown, with more eyes on the evidence, the result is a more thorough evaluation. Is there a way to restore the page, with a few of the most serious edits, that are of concern, redacted? If so, perhaps that might be a way forward. Generally, however, I favor an undeletion for the limited duration of the Arbcom case. No peanuts, R. Baley (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

"If anyone ever needs to see it, they can just ask an admin to restore it at that time." .... "If there are further problems in the future, there will be no problem restoring the article at that time."[[1]] sNkrSnee | ¿qué? 23:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

As usual, what wikipedia decides is inappropriate to publish itself is available elsewhere on the net. This aspect of wikipedia's success seems to have not yet sunk in. In any case i read what that other site offered as the deleted contents, and I found nothing in it of value. WAS 4.250 (talk) 03:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I do not see how transparency in administrative action (including the decisions of the ArbCom and evidence presented to them) could do anything but help Wikipedia, except in cases of legal dispute or matters of privacy invasion. Could you elaborate on the reasons why you are not allowing it to be undeleted? - Chardish (talk) 04:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm rather hurt that you think I'm trying to create a public circus, but it appears that another admin heroically listed every single diff as deleted diff. Cool Hand Luke 19:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I am sorry, I did not mean to imply that you are trying to create a public circus. I don't think you are trying to do that at all. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, I greatly appreciate it. Cool Hand Luke 15:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Re Edits to Jakob Dylan

Dear Mr. Wales, I'm sorry, but I cannot be complicit in the suppresion of information that Jakob Dylan himself, released into the public domain via The Daily Telegraph Magazine: Oct 7, 2000. I wish you and Wikipedia, every success. Best wishes, Educated Guest (talk) 15:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I recommend that rather than edit warring, you post to the talk page of the article to discuss the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:38, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Try the Random Button!

Hello Mr. Wales. I was wondering if you could try The Random Button. And if you like it, please join Wikipedia:Random Button. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Nothing444 (talk) 01:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

FAR Notification, "Che Guevara"

Che Guevara has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

-- Polaris999 (talk) 19:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Kosovo and Serbia articles show wikipedias weakness in neutrality

This is making wikipedia look bad, we have two competing articles, two competing maps, one claiming Kosovo is independent and one claiming it's part of Serbia. They are cesspool articles full of POV edits. Even the maps don't match, the Kosovo map shows it separate, the Serbia map shows it part of serbia. Kosovo and Serbia need to be fixed Mineralè (talk) 20:37, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

A major change in the world political climate such as a declaration of independence takes a very, very long time to integrate into Wikipedia, especially when there is no international consensus on whether the independence should be recognized. Give the good-faith editors of these pages a bit of time to iron out all the wrinkles; there will be outdated information for some time on this matter. - Chardish (talk) 21:11, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it will take time to sort this all out, and I offer some general advice in the meantime.

First, all "hot" articles should have templates noting that this is a current event, and also templates which may help to encourage calm. Wikipedia has no intention to take a stand on this issue, and partisans should not be angry with us.

Second, NPOV is entirely possible even in these circumstances. Wikipedia should not recognize... nor refuse to recognize... any nation on earth. Not our job. It is perfectly ok to say "On January 1st, 2009, California declared independence from the United States of America. Mexico and Cuba immediately recognized California as an independent nation, but Russia and China did not. There was some rioting." Such statements make it clear that we are not taking sides, we have no business taking sides.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:56, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The "hottest" issues generally don't require a template. Kosovo would have the proverbial million editors right now, with or without templates.

But there is an issue here, Jimbo. I can understand that "let the culture of NPOV work it out" will work, in most cases. But there's still editors groping in the dark, on a lot of articles. (As I type this, Kosovo "is a landlocked region in the Balkans." Not a nation, yet, on Wikipedia.) Now, of course, Wikipedia doesn't declare regions to be nations—reliable sources do. But what are those editors groping in the dark doing when they try to describe things? Don't they feel stupid, given the lack of guidance? How much heartache is being caused, at this moment, because we have no rules?

Bleh. A lack of rules is another way of saying this is a wiki. There is no guidance, because we don't invite any, and it all works anyway... But this wiki isn't ordinary. It needs rules that, often, you aren't providing. Marskell (talk) 23:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

But there are literally hundreds of pages of such guidance. And deep wells of experience which guide us as well. What rules would you propose to deal with this? Kosovo is a landlocked region in the Balkans, actually. It will be that whatever its status as a nation might be. NPOV might be in the direction of "Kosovo is a landlocked region in the Balkans which recently unilaterally declared independence from Serbia."

Sometimes when people ask for rules, they are asking for a ruling on the content in one form or another. We could adopt a rule like "You can't call anything a nation until the UN does." Or "You can't call anything a nation unless a majority of the nations with veto rights on the security council does." Or "You can't call anything a nation until Jimbo says it is ok." None of those rules strike me as particularly sensible.

But rules that do strike me as sensible are rules about editing behavior. Be nice. Try to listen to all sides. Seek wording that everyone can accept as true. Don't try to push an agenda. Be prepared to not get your way every time, but also be prepared to stand firm for neutrality. Use reason to persuade. Don't make personal attacks.

So, well, what rules would you propose?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

(ec) It is a landlocked region in the Balkans; we can state that because there is no disputing that. We cannot say that it is an independent nation because that would be taking a position. We cannot say that it is part of Serbia because that would be taking a position. We can say that it has declared itself to be an independent nation and many nations recognize that independence, but some do not. That is not taking a position.

Also, look at what wiki allows us to do! We have moderately up-to-date information on a subject about which millions of paper encyclopedias are now out-of-date. I do not advocate recentism, nor do I believe that our primary focus should be on current events (remember that Wikipedia is not a news source) but it's kind of fun to stumble across an old bit of reference material that talks about, say, the Soviet Union, and realize that such datedness is never a serious problem on Wikipedia. - Chardish (talk) 01:19, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You're both right; I shouldn't have made it sound like we have nothing to offer editors, and of course there's no page that can legislate for every content dispute. And the NPOV mechanism does work very, very well.

But there are rules I find lacking. Specifically, despite our dozens of pages of guidance, we have nothing concrete about recent events or sudden controversies. I am struck, for instance, about what happens with recent deaths. The section on Heath Ledger's death is about as long as the section on his career. (Here's The Onion's take.) About half of the Steve Irwin article is devoted to his death and the fallout from it. After the news spike ends, editors walk away, and the articles have a serious due weight problem. You can clearly see this with countries. History of Iraq devotes half its words (I checked in Word) to Saddam and subsequent. The preceeding six thousand years gets the other half. Is this appropriate due weight? As another example, I had wanted to make some improvements to articles on the current Afghan war, but it's just so daunting: we have a glut of repetitive, malformed pages, created based on news spikes and then forgotten.

So I guess I'm suggesting a Wikipedia:Recent events policy or guideline. Simply letting the free-for-all work it out often doesn't produce the best content. (Sorry, Jimbo, if my previous made it sound like it was your problem alone; it's in people's nature to focus on what's in the news, of course.) Marskell (talk) 09:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I'm beginning to see what you're talking about. One issue I see is that major news events have a tendency to generate a new article as soon as they occur (and maybe more than one, if people blindly create an article without performing a search first.) These new articles are sometimes not of notable topics and get merged into other articles; this is all well and good. A recent example I can think of is the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign office hostage crisis.

I like the idea of a style guideline encouraging editors not to give undue focus in articles to recent events. Perhaps Wikipedia:Recentism is a starting point for this. Deluging articles with details about recent events is not the best way to improve the project as a whole, particularly when we have some rather poor articles about timeless and important subjects. Articles of historical interest, in particular, are given much less treatment than articles of recent interest. For example, compare our article on the famous Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus with the recently popular musical Rent.

Thoughts on this? Marskell, Jimbo, anyone? - Chardish (talk) 21:56, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I think to create a guideline or policy on the issue of current events is an excellent idea, whether it is Kosovo or Ipswich 2006 serial murders, some guidance would be very useful especially as these articles almost certainly attract a greater number of new users than many articles. issues such as when not to lock eg the day Kosovo declared independence was not the day to lock the article, IMO, nor was the day Pope John Paul II died the day to lock that article, and I consider getting those 2 articles unlocked within a short time from realising they wwere locked to be amongst my greatest wikipedia achievements, because it was in those moments that we could attractt he greatest interest. This continues, wikinews is considered a flop because its wikipedia more than wikinews that people actually go to for news. The most edited page right now is Deaths in 2008. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I wrote much of the Recentism essay, so perhaps I will use it as a jumping off point for a guideline. It's surprising, really, that we've never had one. There's a lot of issues involved, such as the when to protect question that Squeakbox notes. Marskell (talk) 10:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I started it. Just a nutshell and proposed ToC for now. Marskell (talk) 10:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Beauties

The lovely Miss Bolivia

Hi Jimbo. Thought you might like an aesthetic break and feast your eyes on Miss Ana. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 01:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Serial Vandal

There is frequent vandalism on both Jimbo's talkpage and userpage from dynamic IP's. Currently both of these pages are semi-protected but that can't last forever. What should we do about this?--Sunny910910 ^{(talk|Contributions|Guest)} 01:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Other than nuking 4chan from orbit, I think semi-protecting might be the only way we can handle it for now. Tony Fox (arf!) 02:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

great idea

so I made a .gif image that I though you might like (let it play all the way through) but it apparently it "Outside project scope. Also, licensing issues." (I'll definitely have to fix that second one) so if you want to see it you might want to hurry it's here--Pewwer42  Talk  08:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

That had not occurred to me, dude.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Really nice! I have another good idea... Look to the right of this page.  :-) 63.3.15.1 (talk) 16:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)