Jimbo Wales

Is the editing environment for articles on controversial topics evolving towards more incivility and bias? --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:16, 17 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Having been around this place for over a decade I would say "no." More at Ecclesiastes 1:9. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:23, 17 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

For general topics, I'll agree with SBHB. Twelve years ago didn't seem like a golden age for civility on Wikipedia and IMHO we're getting a bit better. But Bob asked about controversial topics. If he's talking about politics, I'll have to say that this has always been a civility-challenged topic. It might have gotten worse as off-Wiki political discourse has gotten worse. But do remember that the level of political discourse couldn't be much worse than it was 8 years ago. There was even a bozo back then who claimed - without any evidence whatsoever - that the president was not born in the US. Thanks goodness nobody treats the current president with such nut-case disrespect.

The other area that might be less civil now is paid editing. Paid editors - salivating over their next paycheck - can be the most uncivil editors here. And there are many more of them now. That said - the mom-and-pop business operators are starting to accept a firm "no, we don't allow advertising here". The main challenge is the folks who want to make a living off just writing ads on Wikipedia. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:01, 18 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

As someone else who's been around for more than 12 years, I think civility is better now, overall. The one area we need to work on, in my opinion, is that there are still some regulars who can get away with anything because they are good content contributors and have plenty of friends to help out when they are challenged (and look the other way when they are not). They are routinely given a pass because they are supposedly a net positive, despite routine incivility. More broadly, I think Wikipedia is steadily improving in most aspects - less vandalism, fewer blatantly promotional articles, improved quality, etc. -- Ed (Edgar181) 15:13, 18 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

I agree...steadily improving overall and especially re: talk page communication. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:20, 18 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Ed, Re uncivil editors being given a pass because they are good content contributors — I looked at the last 500 edits of one of them and the article page edits were almost entirely reverts. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:19, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

And so? So what? SPECIFICO talk 02:58, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Controversial article talk pages are more decorous these days. Same for the drama boards. —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

I haven't noticed any sexism here in a while, either. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:57, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

And I've heard somewhere that Arbcom is very quiet these days. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:13, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Some more thoughts on Ed's remark about uncivil editors getting a pass. As I mentioned, the idea that the pass was because of good content contribution didn't seem to be the case for at least one editor. Is it possible that the pass for some editors is because their political bias in Wikipedia is looked on favorably by those in control or that the uncivil editors are part of a strong alliance of editors? --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

My impression is that this has improved; endless going around in circles seems common, though. —PaleoNeonate – 17:17, 20 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Says Ahmet Arslan in Hürriyet today.[1] Apparently Wikipedia allowed insults to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a standard reason given by the Turkish government for banning anything they dislike. "As we deal with all this terror, they make us look like we work with terror groups." Now this makes more sense, as the Turkish government reportedly took exception to two articles on enwiki, State-sponsored_terrorism#Turkey and Foreign_involvement_in_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Turkey. Since Atatürk died in 1938, he cannot have been insulted by anything in the current Syrian Civil War.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:51, 18 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Fairly sure that the blame lies with Turkish funding for groups, e.g. Hamas, who murder civilians. TheValeyard (talk) 03:24, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

When a government is bent on censorship, there is no scarcity of explanations. From the same article: "We placed a ban on sendika.org because the website served as a platform promoting the sexual abuse of children, vulgarity, prostitution and gambling. We also imposed a ban on the website for its insults against Atatürk..." Apparently sendika.org is a news organization (it is easy to follow http://sendika.org to an English page at http://sendika62.org/category/english/ ) It has some strongly worded headlines like "Fascist group attacks funeral for mother of jailed HDP deputy co-chair", but it does appear that under the circumstances such political epithets are entirely justifiable. We cite it a number of times in articles, though we lack an article about it (please change that -- thanks!) But there is simply no chance that censors, who are inherently enemies of truth reason and justice, could possibly approve of Wikipedia, because we'll always have inconvenient facts somewhere or other for them to gripe about. Wnt (talk) 10:21, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Note - I stubbed sendika.org, but the article still desperately needs someone who can understand the 99% of coverage about it that is in Turkish. Wnt (talk) 11:38, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

The take-home I've gotten from editing Sendika.org is that a left-wing news site can remain periodically available to residents of Turkey for years (from 2015 to present) by registering new domain names in a predictable pattern. They are literally up to http://sendika62.org/ last I looked. Apparently the Turkish bureaucracy is (perhaps intentionally???) rigid in how it handles things, so they don't block the new domain name until after it comes out, no more than once a day even right after their constitutional change.

So literally all Wikipedia has to do is register a sequence like wikipedia1 to wikipedia500.org, and start serving a complete mirror of one or more of the projects there (like tr.wikipedia1.org or en.wikipedia1.org). Every time it gets blocked in Turkey, increment N and do it again. Write a bot...

Obviously, don't broadcast the link until you register your sequence of domain names. If you're feeling energetic you might make a special Main Page insert or banner for the mirror sites, perhaps linking Sendika.Org, ANF, ANHA, DİHA, Rojnews, Yüksekova Haber, Özgür Gündem and BestaNuçe - sites that were blocked on the morning of 2015-07-25 when the Erdogan regime began its censorship. (You couldn't link all the blocked sites ... there were already more than 100,000 in April 2016 [2] Also, I'm not sure how many of the list above are permanently down because literally all their reporters are in jail.)

You might also want to give a special credit on that page to Ahmet Arslan (politician), the telecommunications minister, for closely associating Wikipedia with Sendika in his article and giving us the idea to use their idea to fight back. We can do this! No more Turkey block! (at least not for long) Wnt (talk) 14:46, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

This sounds entirely implausible and unrealistic to me. It might work for a small site that doesn't really have anyone's attention. But the block of Wikipedia is a big huge deal and assuming that it's just a matter of robotic bureaucrats is just not correct.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm thankful that you considered this idea ... but I wish you'd reconsider. Sendika is not really that low-profile -- for example, this New York Times article from June, talking about Wikipedia's block, also chose to mention Sendika, then in its 45th iteration. And remember -- Sendika is a news organization, which had been publishing for 16 years before the ban, and has been writing article after article politically opposed to Erdogan, accessible in Turkish. By contrast, Wikipedia only has a few facts picked up kind of haphazardly. Also, Turkish Wikipedia is in the 100,000+ article class, not as big a thing as the English version. All these things make me think the Turkish government really might not cross any more lines censoring Wikipedia than they did Sendika.

Additionally, well ... we have too many people acquiescing to worse and worse sort of censorship in many countries. We desperately need to see someone make a stand. Wikipedia's already censored, so it has little to lose; but by standing up and making some media coverage of how they're defying the ban, or even, how Turkey has resorted to some new excess to suppress access, we would show someone is still fighting. Isn't that worth it in its own right? Wnt (talk) 20:48, 20 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

It should be noted that multiple parties have created Wikipedia proxies that are not being blocked. I'm not gonna list the domain names and methods, per WP:BEANS, and i wouldn't advise anyone to attempt to login to wikipedia on those sites, but people are sharing these with each other behind the Erdowall. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:34, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

That's hopeful; so is the use of VPNs when people are still able ... but if the sites you mention are so fragile that you can't even list them here, they are not a solution for everyone nor a permanent solution for anyone. If Wikipedia sets up a mirror it can be fully updated, live, with full normal editing privileges for everyone who comes; and if it is able to follow the Sendika precedent, it can announce its location proudly year after year. Wnt (talk) 11:17, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hello Jimbo, the scrutineers have completed certifying the 2017 ArbCom election. The newly elected members of the arbitration committee (copied from Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2017) are below. Thank you to the scrutineers and to the election commissioners (Ritchie333, Yunshui, and DoRD). — xaosflux ^Talk 03:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Hi Jimbo, there are a bit of mismatched documentation regarding the arbitration committee election of new members, namely if the community organized election and certification process is sufficient for this committee to change members, or if there is an (indefinite?) hold pending you to personally "appoint" the elected editors. Can you clarify if this process is something that you have devolved to the English Wikipedia community or not? (Or something else?). If not, it looks like we are pending you to act on the current results. Thank you! — xaosflux ^Talk 00:24, 20 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

The past couple of years (or so) I have not made appointments but have merely allowed the change to happen. I don't think there is 100% clarity on whether I have any rights in that process other than perhaps a right, if I so choose, to ceremonially appoint and say a few words of advice. I think that I do still have the authority to disband ArbCom entirely and call for new elections, and I think this is an important safeguard. I'm sure if I tried to exercise that right, and ArbCom did not agree, it would be quite a storm. I'd obviously only do that upon a serious poll by the community with a majority requesting, or upon the request of the WMF, or similar. It's not for me in my individual opinion to decide such things, but rather to play a role in making sure that we have a good set of checks and balances without having to a priori write everything down that might ever happen. I'm sure that some will find even this statement controversial, that I think I have this right still, but I recommend that we simply let the question rest unless and until we ever need to decide it.

To answer the particular question, I don't plan to do a ceremonial appointment this year, unless there is significant desire that I do so by either the incoming ArbCom or the wider community.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:22, 20 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for your response, without being too presumptuous I think this clarifies the process question in that the established community election process is sufficient to replace members without you needing to make any specific action. Its fairly safe to say that your advise is welcome! I'm not trying to open any bags of worms about your options to appoint/dismiss/disband anyone or the entire committee. Please let me know if I'm missing anything still - didn't want to update many forks of documentation in error. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:44, 20 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Yes, that's right.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:54, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Archive.org needs 2.3 million US dollars. Big banner at the top asking for donations. Why doesn't the WMF give some of it spare millions to archive.org? (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:38, 20 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

It's an interesting idea. The Internet Archive is one of the sites that we depend on, but they likely don't have the fund raising base that we do. The only problem with this line of reasoning is that there are other sites or non-profits that we also depend on, e.g. Creative Commons. There might be some software providers in the same boat. So the question is which ones do we choose?

I'll make a modest proposal here. On the last day of the annual fundraiser, after all our goals have been met, list several of the organizations we depend on and ask the donors to pick one (or several) via radio buttons. We'd then collect the donations, subtract our costs, and pass the proceeds to the intended organization. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:05, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia's donors each individually chose to donate specifically to Wikipedia. If they wanted to donate to other organizations, they would have done so. Shouldn't we respect their wishes? Gamaliel (talk) 00:10, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Respect the wishes of people who make bad decisions based on a misrepresentation of the truth? It makes me sad and angry to read the comments of poor people who have donated. For example, I read a message from a disabled person on benefits who donated to the WMF. They actually thought that the WMF needed money to keep the lights on (because of that stupid banner begging for yet more millions). Of course if the WMF would stop fundraising for a couple of years it would still have plenty of money. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 00:39, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

I'm certainly *not* suggesting that we mislead anybody about where the money would go. The banner for that day would say that the money would go to one of the other organizations. The donor would choose which one. We'd also have to get the other organizations' permissions. The reason that a potential donor might donate here rather than at Internet Archives is that they don't go to IA that often. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:24, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

You make an interesting, incidental, point. Most donors think they’re donating to support Wikipedia technically and legally. Is there a breakdown somewhere of the amount spent on technically and legally supporting Wikipedia - as opposed to outreach, conferences, side projects like Wikidata and Wiktionary, etc.? —Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

You should ask Guy Macon. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:25, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

...Or simply read WP:CANCER. :)   --Guy Macon (talk) 08:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Jolly good idea! @Jimbo: why don't you call Brewster and work out a deal? Could be as simple as relaying archive.org's call for donations to our reader base. Or arrange a mutually beneficial collaboration agreement, in which Wikimedia would cover some of the costs of archive.org in exchange for some level of service guarantee and archive automation (we sorely need that!). — JFG ^talk 00:40, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Heck, give em 3 million, no strings attached. I use archive.org almost every day I edit Wikipedia. If archive.org goes down we as a community have a very very serious problem. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:11, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

I wouldn't be against adding a list of donation links to organisations like EFF, Creative Commons and Internet archive on our donation pages. 'thank you for your donation, but please also keep these organisations that heavily support the work we do' kind of thing. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply

Have you ever tried buying something over at humblebundle.com? They'll let you chose which charity you want to support, and how much you want to give them. https://i.imgur.com/rrvGG5a.png (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 09:44, 21 December 2017 (UTC)Reply