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VE usage drops 40% but severe bugs continue

Update: Monday sample 10% VE, down only 27%, weekend 20% lower (see below). -Wikid77 16:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

By 3 August 2013, the VisualEditor had finally dropped from 14% to only 8.2% of daily edits (in a sample of 2,000 3,000 edits), but the severe VE bugs (or problems) in August continued due to the complexity of handling intricate nested templates and improper markup already stored in pages. Edit-counts were compared as relative levels, to reduce the impacts of Saturday-editing patterns. Meanwhile, IP editing continued even-keel, at 27% of total edits, regardless of VE usage levels. Several people have reported total failure of VE edit-save during some medium to large-scale edits in VE, while some large pages fail to even parse/render when editing. Limits to the Parsoid parser still allow unclosed quotation marks, in older pages, to trigger unexpected duplications of nearby text in VE. Hence, the Parsoid interface will need to be hardened to withstand (and auto-recover) from invalid markup stored in older pages. That is a common and complex problem in computer science, to improve the "robustness" of software to recover from invalid data in prior files. Even computer languages have that problem, where a new compiler will reject prior source code which allowed minor bugs to exist in older software, but now flags the compilation as invalid syntax. So, VE not only needs to handle errors during user editing, but also recover from prior markup errors saved months ago in older pages (such as unclosed quotes: class="wikitable). Currently, when VE (or Parsoid) encounters prior invalid markup, then VE often inserts peculiar garbling of nearby text into the edited page. Another massive problem is with nested markup, or nested templates, for inserting a template call into each parameter of another template being inserted, as a recursive problem of VE-editing inside the parameter markup being added, while VE-editing the page. Then, there is the issue of keeping the user aware of the edit-level, of inserting a triple-nested template into a parameter of another double-nested template parameter, being added into the first template being inserted into the page. Such complex issues of multi-nesting and auto-recovery would likely require months to design, review, implement, test, and document in the software specs. Fortunately, 91.5% of editing continues to use the trusted wikitext editor. Update: The recent IP edits are 20% VE (down from 30% last week), and old/new username-based edits are 3% VE (formerly 9%), so VE usage is 67% lower for usernames, while IP VE edits are down 33%. -Wikid77 12:11/14:29, 3 August, 16:23, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

I think a big reason for this is the ongoing failure of the development team to get it to work on several versions of popular browsers. Further evidence the software was not and is not ready for full implementation. Its still breaking too many things when it is used. Kumioko (talk) 14:35, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

• Is there a way to tell which browsers and platforms are having more problems or user opt out rates than others from our end?--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:39, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Yeah sort of. Most of the problems are related to non IEbrowsers because IE is still blocked because they can't get the software to work with it. Once they get that fixed you can count on a lot more problems. So the bugs are actually being minimized for the moment because several of the most widely used browsers can't be used at all. Kumioko (talk) 20:53, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

That explains why I either don't use it or shut it off. I use IE and can't remember if it failed to work or I shut it off.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:00, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah its currently disabled for IE 8-10 and it will never work with anything less than 8 due to limitations in the browser. Kumioko (talk) 21:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

• VE usage down by half, mirrors a passing fad: Because the VE-editor usage is down over 40%, in one week (sample of 3,000 edits on Saturday), the large drop-off resembles a passing fad, where the drop-off should exceed 60% within another week, with wikitext-editor usage rising to 94%, while VE drops below 5.6% (60% of 14%). It appears like, "Been there. Done that. No thank you". Meanwhile, many VE bugs seem to have been fixed (which should attract more editors), but severe problems remain, such as easy tampering with headings and one extra backspace will delete the entire infobox (without warning, which one user stated for reason to avoid VE). For energetic users making medium to large-scale edits, several experienced users have reported entire failure of VE edit-save, losing all tedious keystrokes as a colossal "waste" of their time. Even with later fixes, it might be "cry-wolf software" where few still believe the claims of fixes coming soon, and the taste of VE has soured for them. Again, the massive decline of nearly half of users, so quickly, seems to indicate many people merely losing interest, as if a passing fad which offered little benefit for long-term use. Many know the adage, "First impressions mean everything," so never release software with major bugs, or many users will lose confidence for later fixes and dread future usage. That is why we were ultra-careful to test the new Lua-based wp:CS1 cites in March 2013, before releasing the new Module:Citation/CS1 software to reformat 1 million affected pages as 2x-3x times faster. -Wikid77 16:23, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
  • "First impressions mean everything," - something I've never seen acknowledged by the WMF. --NeilN 16:57, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

• Monday 5 August sample had 10% VE, down only 27%: A similar sample of 5,500 edits across Monday, 5 August 2013, averaged 10.1% VE edits, compared to Saturday/Sunday levels of 8.3% which were 20% lower than Monday. The strong uptick in Monday's VE edits refutes any notion of free-fall rejection of VE, but rather confirms the somewhat reduced, but sustained, activity during the prior week. Among those 5,500 edits, half of 559 VE edits (49%) were by anon IP edits, which means IP users had double the levels of username-based VE edits, as half of total when overall IP edits are only 28% compared to 72% username-based edits. So, the pattern might be weekend edits would be 20% lower for VE, while weekday edits would resume higher VE-edit levels but only 10% of total, with wikitext edits holding 90% as old-style editing. -Wikid77 16:44, 5 August, 09:41, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Tuesday/Wednesday samples had 9% VE, down 35%: (edit conflict) Similar samples of 7,000-8,000 edits across Tuesday and Wednesday, 6-7 August 2013, averaged 9% VE edits, compared to Saturday/Sunday levels of 8.3% which were 20% lower than Monday. The strong weekly VE edits further refute any notion of free-fall rejection of VE. Among 7,200 edits sampled Tuesday, over half of 631 VE edits (382=60%) were by anon IP edits, and on Wednesday half of 736 VE edits (398=54%) were IP edits, as half of total when the overall IP edits are only 28% compared to 72% username-based edits. -Wikid77 15:48, 7 August, 17:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thurday/Friday samples had 9% VE, half in IP edits: Similar samples of 5,000-6,000 edits across 8-9 August 2013, also averaged 9% VE edits, where IP edits were half of VE edits, but overall IP edits were 28% of all daily edits. For 9 August, a sample of 6,065 edits logged 539 VE edits, with 271 (50.2%) as IP-based VE edits. -Wikid77 23:21, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Paris

Last month I promoted Paris to GA. It previously looked like User:Dr. Blofeld/Paris April 2013. As you can see the sourcing was diabolical, poorly sourced, most sources being dead links and shoddy websites, completely overhauled with book sources. I and several others added a wealth of new material including information on the media, healthcare, fashion, music and cuisine etc. I felt it necessary to condense the overly long Demographics and Administration sections to balance out the article. My version of the article is endorsed by some of the experienced editors on here, including User:Tim riley and User:Schodringer's Cat who have produced dozens of GAs and FAs, but a small group of disgruntled editors from the wiki Jurassic period have since crawled out of the woodwork with nothing but unpleasant comments on the changes I've made to "their" article. It's a classic case of WP:OWN and one of the former editors is making a proposal to completely revert my additions and sourcing back to the April version. They also think the lead was better back in April and don't understand that the lead is supposed to summarize a full article. I'd greatly appreciate some input from some of the more experienced individuals here as to whether their proposals are justified or not. I'm not canvassing for support, I'm simply asking some decent editors who watch Jimmy's page compare the article versions and to comment on the issue at Talk:Paris.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 11:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

• Beware resistance when improving major articles: Many of us have met severe resistance trying to improve major articles, and I estimate to expect work "100x times" slower than rewriting minor articles, for summary, sources, and wider coverage. That is why I favored the "Concise WP" or at least, the wp:micropages where "Paris (micro)" could be the rapid, easier rewrite, as a condensed summary of "Top 30 things to know about Paris". Expect to write 100 micropages faster than haggle over a single major article: "Misplaced Pages is 10% information and 90% deformation". Unfortunately, I have also met wide resistance in changing the major articles, so it is frustrating to think: "The major articles are read most, but 100x times harder to rewrite for quality" (due to conflicts). This is just "life in the big city" having to handle bureaucratic bottlenecks, so perhaps try to rewrite the subarticles of Paris, instead, with less of the 100x-slower resistance to major improvements. I hope many of us can assist in supporting the rewrite of "Paris" but there is no guarantee weeks of debate would not be futile. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:38, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Ditto. Ive been asked to rework Mexico City but I wont touch it for the reasons stated. I have no patience to fight with all the people who would resist having their two cents taken out, no matter how good the rewrite happen to be. This is one major reason I think we should have protection for GA and FA status pages. Then it would be worth the effort to tackle major articles.Thelmadatter (talk) 02:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps rewrite neighborhoods or subarticles as in "Search engine": I was thinking it might be easier to write "Neighborhoods in Mexico City" or the major areas. Several years ago, the page "Search engine" became a trampled sandbox about whatever engines-with-searching, and subarticle "Web search engine" was then expanded as the sourced page about computer search-engine features and history. Eventually, page "Search engine" (containing nonsense) was reset to redirect to "Web search engine" years later. For Mexico, look at the readership levels in stats.grok.se and fix related articles which are read nearly as much as Mexico City (views 4,000/day). Half of readers come via Google, so there is no need to explicitly link inside a trampled page. -Wikid77 09:41, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I have worked on most of the articles related to the city's boroughs such as Cuauhtémoc, D.F. and notable neighborhoods like Colonia Doctores (both were my apartment is! but give me a heads up on my talk page before you come over :D) I think, however, many prefer to say they contributed something to an article that everyone knows and gets 4,000 hits a day rather than a more obscure article. I think its a case of "too many cooks" and I dont think that will change until we modify the meaning of "everyone can edit" more away from anyone on ANY page (we already limit that with controversial articles). I see no problem with limitations such as protected page or proposed changes on articles that achieve a certain level of quality as ranked by the community.Thelmadatter (talk) 15:57, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• A proposed-changes gate does seem workable: (edit conflict) There were some months when old article "Search engine" was still balanced, but later rampant changes turned it into nonsense, and few people wanted to rewrite the continual chaos and removal of computer-related search topics. Honestly, the twisted views of engines-which-search were so unusual, I cannot even remember what they were saying beyond Web searches. Instead, a proposed-changes gate could deter the landslide of rambling edits which often overwhelm editors trying to focus on basic aspects of a topic like Mexico City. Meanwhile, also consider writing new subarticles, or translate districts of a city, rather than fight over a city article. For example, with Vienna, the city district articles, such as "Favoriten" or "Margareten" or "Wieden" or "Alsergrund" or "Mariahilf" get 20-40 pageviews per day, compared to 4,500 views for "Vienna". -Wikid77 16:07, 7 August, 17:20, 8 August, 23:21, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Feedback on Visual Editor

Did you forget us? http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=566303654

Did you forget us? (talk) 15:10, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

• Actions of Wikia WYSIWYG editor are different: Many did not know Wikia had a different WYSIWYG text editor (compared to VE), and expected a fast, simple, interface with the VisualEditor to instantly accept "]" and show "link" but VE refuses. Instead, some users have noted how the Wikia interface will accept markup directly into the page, and quickly toggle (switch back) between the WYSIWYG and markup editing modes (without losing data, imagine that). Recently, users have complained that VE is very slow (crawls with large pages), and I have wondered if a Java applet should be used to quicken the VE interface for many operations, or if JavaScript-only is the best design. They are saying huge JavaScript interfaces tend to be slow, unless on mega-fast computers. Some people suggested to hire Wikia as consultant, but would Wikia people reveal their software secrets(?), knowing clever fixes to the MediaWiki software would be exposed to public inspection. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:38, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Indeed; I have no idea why the VE team doesn't want to accept typed wikitext for backwards compatibility. Pinging @Eloquence: and @Jdforrester: in hopes they may explain. 70.59.30.138 (talk) 02:29, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Can we get some kind of answer? You promised to come back on July 30 and give us an answer. It's been a week. Did you forget us? (talk) 13:51, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

VE plans were misunderstood last week: A major part of the difficulty has been the complex structure and design plans for VE, whereas last week, people imagined a quick upgrade to allow "]" and show "link" but VE treats some wikitext as a fatal warning to block the Save of the page. Numerous users have complained that VE is extremely slow as a JavaScript implementation, claiming almost "unusable" on their relatively fast computers, and that is another issue which compounds improvements, especially if new features would be even slower. Hence, it is not easy to comment about VE's future. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:41, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm at the board meeting getting a download from Erik about the current state of play. Will be better poised to talk about it by Monday.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:03, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I have no doubt that the discussion will containing wording to the effect of "Visual editor is doing great, life is great and those who say to the contrary are just being dramatic."Kumioko (talk) 14:40, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Any update on when your thoughts will be available? Did you forget us? (talk) 02:18, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Just saw your note. Did you forget us? (talk) 02:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, "Monday" refers to 12 August 2013, after Wikimania 2013 discussions. So more then. -Wikid77 17:20, 8 August, 23:21, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Access to deleted images on Commons

Jimbo, as you know, when images are deleted on Commons those images can still be viewed by admins. Without going into the details, I recently contacted Commons' Oversight Committee about nude images whose filenames contained the name of the subject and were uploaded without the subject's consent. I was told by one oversighter "I am not convinced that these images fall under our oversight policy and would prefer them to be taken care of by regular deletion". "Regular deletion" would mean that these images could be viewed by any of the current 271 admins on Commons.

Oversight should be automatic in cases where there is reason to suspect that the subject has not consented to the uploading of the image. Removing the image from public view while leaving it visible to hundreds of people (the vast majority of whom have not identified themselves to the WMF) is unacceptable. While this situation occurs all the time on Commons, it may also occur on any other project that allows image uploads. In the case that I refer to earlier, admins would have had access to naked images of the subject, along with her name. That was more than enough to track her down online, should anyone wish to.

Jimbo, can you help me to get the WMF's Access to nonpublic data policy changed or amended to take this situation into account? Point 6 of the policy seems to say that deleted revisions are not covered by the policy. I do not believe that the intention of the policy is to allow any admin to access non-public information of the nature I have described. How can I get the board to review the policy with my example in mind? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

While in general I trust Commons admin to not access such private images without an administrative reason to do so, currently such views are not tracked and so there are no checks or audits on this. On the other hand oversight can make it more difficult for Commons admins to do their job when undeletion is requested, or when validating that other admins are deleting images according to policy. While I tentatively support Delicious carbuncle's proposal under the present circumstances, I think an audit log recording views of deleted material is a better option and necessary in any case. Dcoetzee 15:46, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This is about admins having access to private and personal information, which is exactly the type of information that is meant to be restricted by WMF policy. I take it as a given that admins will access deleted images without cause. It would be both naive to assume otherwise. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:17, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

My take on this is that, assuming the above description of the image and associated personal data is correct, the image should indeed be oversighted. (I have no personal experience with oversight decisions, so this is based only on my reading of Commons:Commons:Oversight and meta:Oversight policy.) However I'm not convinced that a "reason to suspect" subject consent for upload wasn't given should automatically trigger oversight, although IMO a "reason to believe" should probably be enough.

IMO admin tools shouldn't be a big deal, and admins shouldn't generally be placed in a position where they are dealing with such private information. But I also don't see a great need to track views of deleted material. Disclaimer: I'm an admin on Commons, and I've viewed deleted material when I've felt this would help me follow or contribute to a discussion on Commons. --Avenue (talk) 05:29, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

On second thought, tracking views of deleted material might not be a bad idea. Viewing deleted material does require admin tools, and I believe that for all such tools there should be a way to audit their use to establish whether or not any abuse may have occurred (even for tools like these which have no direct effect on the wiki). --Avenue (talk) 06:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Moreover, I think already deleted images like File:Teen boy's Nipple.jpg should be reported to legal-reports AT wikimedia.org for a bolder action per inappropriate image of a child. JKadavoor Jee 13:51, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

That particular image was "kept" in each of the three deletion requests. It was courtesy-deleted some months later, which should clearly have been the result of the original deletion request. I am suggesting that all courtesy deletions also be oversighted (no additional request should be required) in order to be in compliance with the WMF policies. If we have reason to delete the image from public view, why would we allow hundreds of admins free access to the image? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 19:57, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

All courtesy deletions, even ones that don't show a human being? I hope not. Courtesy deletions with privacy implications? Perhaps, nothing against such a change to the oversight policy. Tracking anything and then perhaps asking admins to explain themselves simply for looking at something? I strongly oppose that, this should be left for extremely sensitive information like the information available to checkusers, not standard admin tools. darkweasel94 (talk) 00:05, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Whether or not an image shows a human being is not a good way of determining if there are privacy implications. I suggest that in every case of courtesy deletion, the image and logs are oversighted. Having had much experience with the judgment of some Commons admins, I would not leave it up individual discretion. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:10, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I think there's a big difference between a few hundred admins being potentially able to view your image, if they happen to find out about it and feel the need to do so, versus your image being the top Google hit for certain searches, for instance. There are legitimate reasons for admins to review deleted content, including some courtesy deletions I think.

By the way, a guideline for courtesy deletions on Commons is currently being developed here (talk), so that might be a more effective place to raise these concerns. --Avenue (talk) 06:11, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

That would require DC to contribute constructively, so it won't happen. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:12, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Quoted there. JKadavoor Jee 08:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter for 06 August 2013

It's been almost two weeks since the last newsletter, and a lot of improvements have been made during that time. The main things that people have noticed are significant improvements to speed for typing into long pages (Template:Bug), scrolling (Template:Bug) and deleting (Template:Bug) on large pages. There have also been improvements to references, with the latest being support for list-defined references, which are <ref>s defined inside a <references> block (Template:Bug). Users of Opera 12 and higher have had their web browser removed from the browser black-list, mostly as a result of work by a volunteer developer (Template:Bug). Opera has not been fully white-listed yet, so these users will get an additional warning and request to report problems.

Significant changes were made to the user interface to de-emphasize VisualEditor. This has cut the use of VisualEditor by approximately one-third. You can read about these at Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Updates/August 1, 2013, but they include:

• Re-ordering links to the editors to put "Edit source" first and VisualEditor second
• Renaming the link for VisualEditor to "Edit"
• Disabling the animation for section editing.
• Changing all labels for the classic wikitext editor to say "Edit source", regardless of namespace.

There have also been many smaller fixes, including these:

• Horizontal alignment of images working correctly on more pages (Template:Bug)
• Categories with ':'s in their names (like Category:Misplaced Pages:Privacy) now work correctly (Template:Bug)
• Magic JavaScript gadgets and tools like sortable tables will now work once the page is saved (Template:Bug)
• Keyboard shortcut for "clear annotations" - now Control+\ or ⌘ Command+\ (Template:Bug)
• Fixed corruption bugs that led to duplicate categories (Template:Bug) and improper collapsing when multiple new references were added in a row (Template:Bug).
• Improvements to display elements: The save dialog in Monobook is restored to normal size (Template:Bug), pop-up notices on save now look the same in VisualEditor as in wikitext editor (Template:Bug), and the popup about using wikitext has a link to the definition of wikitext that now opens in a new window (Template:Bug)

Most of the Wikimedia Foundation staff is traveling this week and next, so no updates are expected until at least August 15th. If you're going to be in Hong Kong for Wikimania 2013, say hello to James Forrester, Philippe Beaudette, and the other members of the VisualEditor team.

As always, if you have questions or suggestions, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting problem reports at Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback and ideas at Misplaced Pages talk:VisualEditor. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 23:31, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Independent samples confirm VE use 9%, down 35% from last week: (edit conflict) In daily samples of 4000-8000 edits (on each of 5 days), I have confirmed VE usage as 9% of edits, down 35% since last week, but I won't say it was because of link "" rather than editors losing interest in VE. About half of VE usage was by IP edits, rather than username-based edits, while IP edits are only 27%-28% of total daily edits this week. -Wikid77 15:48, 7 August, 17:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Very disturbing and eye-opening essay by retiring editor on how "Wikidata" is turning WP volunteers into unpaid workers for Google and other corporations

I invite Jimbo and others to comment on the reasons why this editor is leaving : User:Riggr Mortis - "As long as Misplaced Pages drifts from its origins as a tool for human learning to a second-rate quasi-database—apparently to the benefit of ADD-inducing tech companies—I will no longer participate as a volunteer. Neither should you." If this has been discussed here before, apologies.Smeat75 (talk) 03:23, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

not sure how he can say that.[REDACTED] has zero tracking scripts. ghostery does not show any analytics at all, beyond wikipedia's own. -- Aunva6 03:30, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

One of the factors leading to that essay is the ongoing infobox war, now at Arbcom. Johnuniq (talk) 04:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

OK, so as a community we're putting effort into structured data. But why should that imply that we're losing interest in the traditional encyclopedia text? Aren't projects like Wikidata additive? GabrielF (talk) 04:16, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

There is a long and very ugly backstory associated with the link in my above comment. In brief, about a dozen good editors who develop content for classical music (and related) articles have come to an agreement that certain articles are best without an infobox (example—check its talk). Another group of editors, smaller in numbers but much more vocal and prone to litter talk pages with links to prove their case, insists that infoboxes are mother's milk—one reason mentioned concerns metadata that infoboxes provide. For example, Google (and a host of others) crawl articles developed by volunteers, and extract key points, and that is done most easily from an infobox (or other structured data template, but infoboxes are the most common, and are maintained by volunteers). Google (and others) can then display that key information to their readers to save them the bother of going to Misplaced Pages to see the article. The essay mentioned above is strongly objecting to the battles that have been fought by those trying to insert infoboxes against the wishes of those who have built the article (which leads to questions like "are we editing for our readers, or for Google's commercial interests?"). You can read the views of both sides (rather confused, I'm afraid) at the Arbcom case I mentioned. Johnuniq (talk) 05:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

One possible compromise is to go the route of persondata and have hidden structured data which is present but not displayed in the article. This comes with disadvantages though, like errors being less likely to be detected. Dcoetzee 15:40, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• An ageing bureaucracy spends more time shifting departments: For years, management experts have warned about expensive distractions when work is split among different departments in a bureaucracy. Data records might be shifted from one computer system into another, where the rules change ("only one interwiki link per language per article", "infobox for every person"). Because of the implicit overhead in running an wp:ageing bureaucracy, attention (and resources) will divert from the core mission, from the original goals. Each department might develop competing, alternate tools: Platform Engineering would have a wikitext editor, while the User Engagement department would promote a VisualEditor. Each department would want to be represented in the user interface, most likely with dedicated menu options for each department, rather than hide the less-used tool (VE 9%) as a preference option, and instead receive "top billing" with the other department's tools. In the ageing bureaucracy, there will be periods of huge restructuring (typically recalled "reorg"), where the original work is overshadowed by the busy efforts of the reorg. When Wikidata took control of interwiki links, then page edits soared by +30% that month (+1 million edits) not to improve references, nor copy-edit for grammar, nor reword to clarify pages, but instead, total edits soared by +30% to remove the interwiki links from pages while being shifted into the Wikidata department. As could be expected, Misplaced Pages's bureaucratic growth has risen faster than the original goal as an encyclopedia, which would have written articles about the problems of bureaucracy, such as: ageing bureaucracy, reorg, division of command, duplication of effort, department rivalry, interdepartmental conflict, interoffice conflict, or even Management by Objective. However, there is a minimal article about "The Peter Principle" (and "creative incompetence") for workers to avoid promotion outside their limited expertise. In many cases, the office bloat is unstoppable; however, it can inspire people to research and write about similar problems in other old-growth organizations, before the burgeoning layers of bureaucracy become (more) unbearable. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:02/15:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

There is some validity to the original argument - there has long been a debate about CC-by-NC versus CC-by-SA, GPL versus LGPL, etc. Misplaced Pages chose to make its product available to corporations, and so far this seems reflected mostly in online drivel that comes up at the tail end of Google's search results. My feeling is that if we are developing only for Google, then this is a problem; but if we are creating a resource that actually serves competitors also, and one wishes even some free alternatives, that is another story. (This goes all the way back to the unfortunate 'WP:NOT' and the failure of Misplaced Pages, or preferably a sister project, to act as a primary search engine and directory to begin with)

There is a very good argument to be made that Wikipedians are unpaid laborers in general, and from a class war perspective (which is ever more valid nowadays) that is a big problem and you can weigh whether the class-war advantage of getting information to people outweighs it, and whether that is retained when your goal is to get out data more easily used by corporations. However, when we recognize that copyright and intellectual property is a failed system, that it is failed for rich and poor alike, a block to overall technological progress so that even the ultra-wealthy elite commanding those legal powers finds itself without the medicines, entertainments, and inventions that they would have had if it were reformed, then we should see Misplaced Pages as more importantly a proof of principle of voluntary collaboration (as well as a demonstration of its pitfalls whenever a central authority exists).

In short, Misplaced Pages editors should not be unpaid -- we should reform the copyright system so that individual taxpayers set aside an amount of money roughly equal to what they would have spent on copyright, and choose how to allocate it to independent funding organizations that support content generation (subject to very small monetary upper limits per recipient per taxpayer vote to prevent abuse). In other words, instead of copyright royalties we should have voluntary choice of who to fund, so that filmmakers, Google back-end programmers and Misplaced Pages editors all can collect actual cash for their work according to what voters think is important, without anyone being prohibited from reading or copying anything. Wnt (talk) 15:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

So someone is led to retiring because we're making it easier to reuse data and make Misplaced Pages interoperable with other tools? I am sorry but I can't think of anything else but "insane" when reading this essay. -- cyclopia 15:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The issue is to "reuse data" but also not trample the wishes of the people who wrote the original data. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:07, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Licensing is how we deal with wishes of people who wrote the data. If you don't want your contributions to be used in ways you wouldn't think of, you better not contributing to a project under a free license.-- cyclopia 16:47, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

In Misplaced Pages, how we deal with wishes of people is by wp:Consensus, so pages would not be changed in "ways you wouldn't think of". When someone says "no" it means "no" and so a dialog must begin. -Wikid77 17:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

No. What can be done with your contributions only depends from the CC licensing. So much that it is perfectly legit to rip WP, print it and sell it as books, even if this infuriates many people. Consensus is instead only about what we here, on WP, actually manage such contributions. And consensus can decide to do everything which is permitted by the licensing, including things the original contributor would have never thought about and that maybe even despises. The contributor surely then has the freedom to disagree and retire, but cannot say that he couldn't expect this to happen. If someone doesn't understand the consequences of the licensing, it's their fault, not ours. -- cyclopia 11:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's vision is to help create a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. I'm sure you know who formulated that laudable goal. At present there are 7 billion people on Earth and we have only 119,842 active editors on the English Misplaced Pages, so we are going to need some help to reach every person on the planet. The big players like Google are our fellow-travellers in that mission - for whatever their reason, I don't care; I only know that these people are generous with their time and resources and you only need look at Google Summer of Code for a good example. A Google Talk on "Intelligence in Misplaced Pages" shows some of the innovative ways that they use our data. I fully endorse making our content more easily available to all of our re-users, because without them, we're going to have an uphill battle to fulfil Jimbo's vision. And before some little troll tries to smear me with unsupported innuendo, I have no connection whatsoever with Google (or any other commercial interest - I'm happily and comfortably retired, thank you). --RexxS (talk) 16:44, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

A reasonable sentiment - still, to be fair, if people are going to tell us that Misplaced Pages is "not a directory", why must we avoid saying it is not a repository for machine-oriented datasets? (To be sure, I'd rather resolve this by allowing a directory function) There's a certain perverse bias with the Wikidata implementation so far - you can make really good use of the data if you run a server and import json or xml, but you can't put that into a straight Misplaced Pages page. So far the Lua is more limited, hardwired to only access fields from a specific article name, and the #property tag even more so. Mind you, I'm not agreeing with the person the OP referenced, but ... he's not altogether without a point. Wnt (talk) 00:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Which is good for him. How is your own search for a point going on, Wnt? Let me know if I can help. Begoon  00:17, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

If Misplaced Pages were a directory, every two-bit holiday company would be writing about itself in every scuba diving article, so that prohibition is useful. There's no corresponding reason for us to suggest that Misplaced Pages doesn't contain a massive collection of machine-readable datasets. On the other point, back in May, three of us demonstrated how you can use a Lua module with a slightly modified template {{Infobox person/Wikidata}} to pull the relevant parameter value from the Wikidata entry for whichever article contains that template - there's a quick report at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Wikidata Phase 2 #Progress in implementation with Lua. It was set up to allow a local value to override the Wikidata one. Allowing us to draw our data from a source common to all language Wikipedias (when we choose to) offers considerable potential advantages in gathering and maintaining that data, not only to us, but to many smaller wikis who don't have the resources of enWP. --RexxS (talk) 01:52, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

• Just because we're making it easier for someone else to make money, yes even a "big" company like Google, doesn't mean we're not benefiting humanity in a manner similar to Misplaced Pages's roots. Money grubbers already mirror Misplaced Pages directly, and I didn't sign up to help them out, but I don't care much that they exist. In contrast, at least Google uses my efforts to provide services people actually find useful. Equazcion 02:25, 8 Aug 2013 (UTC)

I hate Infoboxes. Infoboxes should be eliminated. They are a bad idea. A well-written article doesn't need an Infobox because information is easy to find in the body of the article. Section headings and a table of contents should be tailored to that particular article with the aim of making the information in that article easy to find. Bus stop (talk) 02:51, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

@Equazcion: That's not really the issue—nearly all content builders accept that any good article they create will end up being sold by someone in a "book". Content builders object to having infoboxes forced into articles they have developed, with one of the justifications being the metadata matter. As a matter of interest, there is a proposal here to add "gender" for metadata purposes. Johnuniq (talk) 03:02, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see the difference. Services that benefit people should be hindered because a company is also profiting from it? Why? To prove a point? To stick it to the man? Misplaced Pages is about providing your knowledge for free to whoever might use it for whatever purpose. What's the difference if it's structured data or prose? The same argument holds either way. I guess it sounds scarier when you throw around words like "Google" (big ie. evil) and metadata (automated ie. evil), but really, it's all the same. Equazcion 03:16, 8 Aug 2013 (UTC)

You say "What's the difference if it's structured data or prose?" In some cases there is no difference. But in many cases we are forcing information into fields in Infoboxes in which it does not quite fit. There is compromise involved in filling in fields in Infoboxes, in many cases. Prose is much more expressive. Information can be presented with much more subtlety in prose form than it can in the limited choices of possible terms for filling out the fields in an Infobox. At issue is accuracy versus inaccuracy. The potential is there to be accurate when using prose but sometimes accuracy is impossible when filling out Infoboxes. Bus stop (talk) 13:00, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Perfect is the enemy of the good. Yes, the strict format of an infobox may sacrifice some accuracy. But infoboxes and prose, AFAIK, are not meant to be mutually exclusive. You can have a quick, at-a-glance, machine-readable box, but of course you refer to the article prose to get the full, nuanced picture. Best of both worlds. You say you hate infoboxes because "a well-written article does not need an infobox". I don't agree in general with arguments of the form "if we have X, Y is useless". That you don't find them useful doesn't mean nobody finds them useful. I think well written articles can still benefit of the structured, quick, standardized presentation of an infobox. You may find them redundant, but some people do not, and if you choose to remove them, you remove a useful tool for many only because you don't find it useful yourself. -- cyclopia 13:44, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

If you want to get a taste of the sort of thing Johnuniq is talking about, you could have a look at , just for one instance of many. A volunteer has spent hours, days, weeks, months or years working on an article out of love and desire to share his/her knowledge, along comes someone else who has made no previous contribution and adds an infobox which the creator of the article does not want. When the objection is made "the infobox does not add anything useful" the retort is "Yes it does, it emits "metadata" that people can see on their mobiles and Google, etc., can re-use." This is an all-purpose reason for a combative and aggressive campaign to attempt to force infoboxes on articles all over the project and quite a few content creators do not like it at all. Primary contributors to articles who do not want infoboxes in the articles they have worked on are also sure to be told "You don't own this page. Smeat75 (talk) 04:16, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

The issue is the fact that there is an infobox war, and metadata is just something that arose during skirmishes. There would be no problem if a group of people were adding invisible metadata boxes to articles. This is not the place to continue that battle (and I am not advocating for either side)—I'm just reporting that good reasons have been provided by the developers of certain articles as to why they find infoboxes to be unsatisfactory, and the issue is that a group of people with no interest in developing an article have insisted that an infobox be added (I am advocating that the latter is unsatisfactory in the absence of a policy mandating infoboxes). Johnuniq (talk) 04:24, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I guess I can't speak to other arguments against infoboxes since I haven't seen them, assuming they exist beyond the general distaste I have seen from some. I will say that the wishes of the "primary" contributors shouldn't take any kind of precedence; The counter-arguments based on WP:OWN are perfectly valid in response to arguments referencing the amount of time or effort contributors spent creating or developing articles. We have that policy to deal precisely with these types of situations. You shouldn't contribute here if you think you have some sort of right to maintain control because it was "your" work. Equazcion 05:02, 8 Aug 2013 (UTC)

The situation is not as you imagine it. Let's AGF and assume there are plausible arguments against an infobox in some articles, and we know there is no policy or guideline mandating their use. For any particular article, the question then becomes "does consensus favor the addition of an infobox?". Everyone knows that consensus is not local, and that no individual is more important than another, and that no one owns an article—everyone involved knows that basic stuff. The problem is that one side says that consensus favors their view because only their arguments are policy based, while the views from the other side are simply IDONTLIKEIT. Meanwhile, the other side says pretty much exactly the same thing, and there is no procedure to decide the outcome—that's why it is at Arbcom. Often third parties form a view based on whether they favor infoboxes, but that is not the issue. The problem is the disruption caused by the combative nature of the campaign. One resolution would be to ban both sides from making changes while a community-wide RfC is held to settle the question—are infoboxes mandatory? However, leaving it to the present participants is causing enormous damage. Johnuniq (talk) 06:37, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

I came to post my thoughts on User:Riggr Mortis's essay that the OP pointed out, and various subsequent comments in this section. Whether those concerns are being voiced on their own or they are being used as an argument in a larger war, I find them invalid. I wouldn't get into the larger matter here. Equazcion 06:52, 8 Aug 2013 (UTC)

"The problem is the disruption caused by the combative nature of the campaign." Quite so, and it appears to me that the handful of aggressive pushers of infoboxes have "ownership" issues not just with single pages but the entire project - "Gotta move with the times and put machine-readable metadata in every article!" Smeat75 (talk) 12:34, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

• Encyclopedia anyone can edit with database certification: Previously, we tried to limit the Misplaced Pages data to free-form lists which any user could edit, as any typical page with rows of data, such as rare population-data templates. But now, it has become official data-identifier groups. Misplaced Pages has become total schizo, like Jekyll/Hyde+Eddy, with Dr Jekyll saying, "Remain calm and use the point-and-click editor" to change the page; meanwhile Mr Hyde says, "Please complete the data description in third normal form and select the data-identifier" to be changed. Meanwhile, both Jekyll and Hyde are trying to deny their alter-ego Eddy Conflict, who insures, whether too simple or too complex, the data update will fail to save. Whatever happened to simply editing the wikitext page, and building tools that checked for problems or Bot-edited the repetitive data? Instead, people are asked to use peculiar data-entry screens because the simple wikitext pages are now too-easy-no-too-hard (which is it?) for newcomers to handle. This is apparently another aspect of an wp:ageing bureaucracy, where one department argues how the data is too complex, while another department argues how the same data is too simple and requires data id-codes for the end-users. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:16/07:27, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
• If you don't want your contributions edited or reused elsewhere do not post here - To the question of the infobox wars - the ARBCOM case makes interesting reading and highlights how a small number of people can hold the rest of[REDACTED] to ransom until there is a final decision by the community. There is a similar issue on the various policy and MOS pages where a small number of people can dictate what should be done. On the subject of woring for Google. The German Misplaced Pages has developed an internal project on listed buildings where in a number of the German states the responsible departments are using the feedback and edits of our editors to update their data. Agathoclea (talk) 11:42, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
• I am late to this - I was busy in the ArbCom case.

1. The heading reads as if someone is retiring now, but it was last year.
2. The essay is as old and not related to 2013.
3. Adding structured data does not take away the prose text, so how does it "trample the wishes of the people who wrote the original"?
4. May I point you to a simple comparison of an article with infobox and without? I would like like to learn how consensus can be achieved. I am late to the wars as well which - I was told - have been named so in 2005. Can we move forward? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:41, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

" The essay is as old and not related to 2013." The person who wrote it amended the essay on 13 July.Smeat75 (talk) 14:08, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Taken. I was just so used to people repeating in the arbcom case their experiences of past years instead of looking at evidence from 2013. I would like an answer to "Adding structured data does not take away the prose text, so how does it "trample the wishes of the people who wrote the original"? I compare the prose to a book, the infobox to its cover, with structured data like title, subtitle, author, year, publisher, location? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:52, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, for wider problems with Wikidata, people are complaining that interwiki links are forced now as one-to-one ("That link is already used by another page"), whereas enwiki allowed many articles to all consider the same target-language page as their "interwiki link" to that language. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth - the person who wrote the essay is one of the brightest and valued contributors to scores of important articles related to the arts. His absence is a major loss...Modernist (talk) 17:20, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

• Similar fears about other long-term editors: Many of us were similarly scared that the turmoil about VE, derailing the "" button to force VE on prior (all) JavaScript users, and subjecting people to buggy software (while edit-conflicts not yet fixed), would discourage the power users, further destroying user morale; however, I think most of the long-term users are persistent and continue to help despite all the turmoil. Plus, now we have more examples of how the power users work on WP, with 96% of username-based edits using the wikitext editor instead of VE this week. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:21, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

First of all:

• A longstanding problem on Wikimedia Commons - I've heard this talked about at least five years ago - is that a child from, say, France has no way to find a picture of a duck, since the category tree is based on either English or Latin. One aspect of Wikidata is that we may be able to link the commons category for ducks with the Wikidata links to articles on ducks in other languages... thus getting the local-language names.
• Searching is a two-way street. It may make things easier for Google, but it makes it easier for Google to direct people to us.

So, honestly? It may have incidental benefits to Google, but it'll benefit us first. Adam Cuerden 10:27, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Todays articles for improvement on the main page

Hey Jimbo, Amadscientist here. Just had my user name changed so I wanted to be sure and state my old username. I have been avoiding asking for yours and other's opinion on this because I don't like asking about something that I lack such an understanding on, but then....isn't that why we ask questions to begin with?

TAFI went before the community to decide whether or not to put it on the main page. There was a very extensive Village pump discussion. The consensus of the general community was that TAFI should be implemented on the main page. However , it was removed after only a very short period. In the spirit and letter of a local consensus not overriding the larger community consensus, I ask that TAFI be returned to the main page. I was wondering If you might have a minute or two...or an hour or two, to look into what I see as a bit of a mess.

I didn't start TAFI and I am not as involved as I probably should be, but frankly why would anyone care anymore about getting involved in such collaborative efforts if they can be dismissed by a single editor or few editors that control content away from the rest of the community.

I get so frustrated seeing Misplaced Pages's Facebook page continue to bring up TAFI constantly, as a reminder to me, even off Wiki, how ridiculous this situation has become. What do I or others need to do to get TAFI back on the main page?--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 07:54, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you propose an experiment to see if there are some kinds of articles more likely to get editor participation when they are listed on the front page than others? The data you need is already in the editing logs from the time that TAFI was on the front page. Which articles had them largest number of edits (and editors) while they were on the Main Page? If you post the top ten in all four categories, then people might have hypotheses, and if they do, you will have grounds to run a confirmatory experiment by listing the two articles you think will garner the most and least participation from Main Page viewers. I'm sure the admin who took TAFI off the Main Page will be willing to help test such hypotheses. Would you please ask then? 67.165.224.185 (talk) 22:18, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

This was very helpful. This is something to look deeper into. Thank you.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 00:49, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

• Google and Facebook links might exceed Main_page impact: (edit conflict) We see half of many article pageviews come via Google, and U.S. interest in Facebook remains strong, so that might be more important. Because Main_page is so large perhaps few people read much of it. -Wikid77 15:48, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages talk:Today's articles for improvement/Archive 5#Failure. The main page implementation of TAFI was ineffective at bringing in new editors, and the box itself was not being updated. Community consensus was for a trial, and that trial failed. Resolute 15:57, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Now link where this was a consensus for a trial, how it is determined that it was a failure...because for that reason the main page is a failure and should be deleted. Seriously, what good is it except to allow a handful of editors the right to really have power and authority. Who are these main page editors and why is the main page not subject to the policies and guidelines of Misplaced Pages? I think it may be time for the community to decide whether the main page has been effective at all. Wikid77 is correct. The main page gets less views than the Misplaced Pages Facebook page. Delete the main page. It is truly a failure that can be demonstrated.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 19:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

When you're finished arguing in logical fallacies and wish to make a serious counter, let me know. Resolute 22:32, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I tell you what. Please feel free to ignore this thread if your input is restricted to such inaccurate statements. The main page is a huge failure. It creates a segregated tier of participants who have the authority and power to make unilateral decisions. If, on the other hand you would actually like to discuss this as others have...in good faith, I am willing to as well. If not, your sarcasm is noted as being your only form of collaboration here. Thanks.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 00:48, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Birth name of a porn actress

This topic is up for a new round of discussion. Would you care to weigh in? David in DC (talk) 11:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. :) David in DC (talk) 21:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Readership statistics by public organizations

It seems reasonable to publish readership statistics localized to the IP ranges of Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, etc., but how about public companies? Would anyone's privacy be violated if we found out what Koch Industries was reading about? How about private prisons? Do prisoners even have access to Misplaced Pages or some supposedly sanitized subset? Is it fair to know what Australia is reading about? Should each range of IP addresses be associated with a CIDR-style subrange over which readership statistics may be queried by interested parties? 70.59.30.138 (talk) 07:59, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Keeping track of which IP addresses read a page would be an irresistible lure to various spies looking to subpoena or otherwise obtain records, and its use even in aggregate would be highly unethical and partisan (as in the Koch Industries case). If the NSA wants to keep those sort of records they can pay their own bill for the server to track and store the connection data, not sponge off Misplaced Pages donors. Wnt (talk) 11:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

But the IP address information is already in the squid logs. Why would studying the aggregate readership statistics of a corporation be unethical? 70.59.30.138 (talk) 08:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Question

Jimbo a month ago you said "I personally think in general Snowden is an "innocent party" - a hero, in fact." Yesterday one of your admins said "Good point, there are some (non-pedophile) subject-matter experts in prison who could be very helpful. It would be great if we could get, say, Bradley Manning to start editing. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:07, 7 August 2013 (UTC)" So it looks like Wikipedians and you personally praise Whistleblowers, then why Misplaced Pages's Whistleblowers are treated so badly here, on Misplaced Pages? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.240.35.86 (talk) 22:52, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, my statement about Manning should really be read in the context of the thread at the village pump. What I was saying (in response to some editors who were categorically opposed to anyone in jail editing Misplaced Pages) is that there are some people in jail who would probably make good Wikipedians. I suspect that Manning or Snowden would make fine Wikipedians. But I don't think I've ever stated on Misplaced Pages my opinion of whether their leaks were heroic or misguided. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:20, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

And I'll respond by saying that I'm unaware of any "Misplaced Pages whistleblowers" being treated badly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:32, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I guess I don't count as a whistleblower. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:10, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Why did you think that you would? And why would you want to? So now you know, Delicious carbuncle. Please arrange to fix this disagreement. Thank you.--Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:23, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure who you are quoting or which disagreement you wish me to fix. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:37, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Does it sound to you like a well-adjusted person or not? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:47, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather not speculate. Perhaps you can just say whatever it is you are trying to say. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:55, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry sweetie, I'll wait. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 04:58, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, honey. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:39, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

DC, you do count as a whistleblower, and a very successful one. Not only you were able to free Misplaced Pages from some of its trash, but so far you've survived your whistleblowing. Hope it stays this way. Your noble task hasn't finished yet. 71.202.121.42 (talk) 14:24, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

The overwrought screed that Demiurge1000 quoted has been rev-deleted by User:Mark Arsten with the comment "Removing per WP:POSTEMAIL". Demiurge1000 does not seem to have been warned either for posting it or for his rather obtuse comments here. Anyone who know the origin of the quote is welcome to contact me. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:09, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

To hark back at the past somewhat, William Chester Minor would be a good case to consider. -- Hillbillyholiday 05:03, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Great link! The OED has always been so snooty about its precious copyright, and meanwhile it's being written by a volunteer in a loony bin. We should never forget that copyrights are not meant to reward creators, rather those with power in the marketplace. Wnt (talk) 11:16, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Is that so, Mr. Wales? Then maybe you could comment on the case in which the Misplaced Pages inner circle banned edits from 1,000 homes and one massive online retailer in an attempt to suppress the voice of one man? ""We aren't democratic." That's how Misplaced Pages founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales described his famously-collaborative online encyclopedia in a recent puff piece from The New York Times Magazine. "The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable," he said, "and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn't be writing."This is true. Despite its popular reputation as a Web 2.0 wonderland, Misplaced Pages is not a democracy. But the totalitarian attitudes of the site's ruling clique go much further than Jimbo cares to acknowledge. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.240.37.48 (talk) 16:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, if nothing else this is a rather enlightening piece that demonstrates why we don't block IP editors indefinitely.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 21:24, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Block log here. Wnt (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood my point, but I was rather vague. Sorry. I meant that a recent discussion on AN about blocking IP users for only a short period verses indef block seems to be reasonably demonstrated in that old 2007 article.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 21:57, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm still catching insults related to when I helped blow the whistle on an abusive group of editors/admins in Misplaced Pages about five years ago. Notice that nothing has been done to stop this particular editor from continuing to hector me about it. There is no protection for whistleblowers in Misplaced Pages. Also, Jimbo, I think you sent me a rather critical email when I spoke to the media about yours and David Gerard's range block of that town in Utah that someone else mentioned above. Cla68 (talk) 12:17, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

E-mail service Lavabit shut down, Snowden involvement suspected

This is important and has implications for Misplaced Pages, since its servers are based in Virginia. Lavabit founder Ladar Levison commented "This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would strongly recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States."--♦IanMacM♦ 07:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, there goes my Nth free email account. The good news is that cooltoad.com is no longer giving me warnings of virus infestation... whether that means they went along with the sort of people known to be hacking sites recently is another question. Wnt (talk) 11:23, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

This was one of the services listed in a Salon article about "avoiding PRISM" two months ago; which gives us others to keep an eye on. Wnt (talk) 11:46, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

As a side note to this (and thanks to both of you for sharing information about it here) I wanted to point out that there appears to be nothing specifically Virginia-related about this particular case. What I mean is: the legal situation would be very much the same in every part of the US.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback#Visual_Editor

I apologise for this, but I wish to retract a lot of comments I made about VisualEditor, and, as I said them widely, I want to make people widely aware of my retraction. Thank you for your time. Adam Cuerden 15:31, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

We've always been at war with Eastasia! Tarc (talk) 15:36, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Nah. I just feel stupid. I understand programming enough that, once I knew how VE was implemented, a lot of strange things about it that seemed capricious and arbitrary became decent temporary solutions that could be easily improved upon. It'll need more work, but... well, the worst I can say about it with my new understanding is that the launch was handled poorly. And that's not something worth staying upset about. And, honestly, a week ago, when the beta tag was added, the section editing fixed, and so on, I looked at it, and pretty much realised it wasn't worth being upset about any more. Learning more about it only served to make a lot of comments I misinterpreted become actually quite reasonable, explain the weirder aspects, and show that, actually, this isn't a bad start. So, yes. I do want to retract. But this is because of new evidence, and because, even before that new evidence, the launch issues had been corrected in a completely acceptable way.

And, honestly, I have never seen refusal to reconsider opinions in the light of strong evidence against them a virtue. If someone shows me that I had evidence that should have convinced me sooner, for that I will apologise. But I will not apologise for changing my mind. Adam Cuerden 16:35, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Wow, thanks. I never thought you were being unreasonable or anything at all. I have found your comments helpful throughout. I'm at Wikimania now so I don't have time to really dig in, but I still have your list of problems and I still plan to work through them myself based on the latest version and see how it is going. I'm also planning to give the VE another workout myself when I get home. I have been hearing encouraging things although everyone seems to agree there is still a long way to go.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:14, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for retraction and prior lively debates: I appreciate the apology, but I also want to thank you, Adam, for expanding the debates about the VisualEditor for many aspects of the situation, as with comments in wp:VisualEditor/Default_State_RFC. Although, as a computer scientist, I have written several macro scripting languages, text editors, graphics editors, hypertext search-engine programs, and WYSIWYG applications, I was surprised at the scope of the dialog about VE, with the variety of people who had already used (or developed) other WYSIWYG-editing programs (some slow), plus the number of people advising to shutdown VE, except as an opt-in feature, to promote newcomer awareness of the internal wikitext structure, embedded comment notes, and style guidelines used by pages. Also, it was interesting to hear from people who noted the two-worlds mindset, where users of Internet Explorer (and other browsers) seemed to be treated as "second-class citizens" and some people felt there was a stratification of social classes tied to the limited availability of VE for some users. So, even though VE, now used in only 9% of edits, had caused extensive turmoil in July (I noted "July 2013: the month VE ate"), I thank you for expanding the dialog with many long-term themes to be addressed in the coming years. It should become common knowledge how the anon IP editors make ~28% of daily edits (but 81% used the wikitext editor), and now new tools (and wp:helpboxes) for the power users can be discussed with a wider appreciation for those 10% of active editors who make most of the edits to articles. By encouraging more people to express a range of various opinions, I think many frustrations were reduced. And yes, some people were utterly shocked when they saw what the new "" button was doing on their screens; it was quite a circus. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:58, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure I said some constructive things. But my tone was terrible, and I got a bit paranoid at times about the direction of the development based on a misunderstanding of priorities created by not knowing the structure of VE, and thus, not knowing that the apparently-deprioritized parts were merely the parts that were more difficult in that programming structure. Adam Cuerden 01:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

ScienceApologist disaster

ScienceApologist has recently asked to be unblocked. He has proven himself to be a highly problematic editor in so many ways. He is chronically unable to recognize that he behaved inappropriately in the past and always comes up with ridiculous excuses to justify himself. He appears to believe that he is entitled to sock if blocked, and is proven to have socked as recently as two months ago. Somehow we are supposed to believe that he will suddenly start to respect Misplaced Pages policies if unblocked, even though he has blatantly failed to observe said policies for years and has always considered himself to be above the rules.

Users such as IRWolfie, Bishonen, MONGO, MastCell, LeadSongDog, Mathsci and others have all shown up on the relevant AN thread and they all (predictably enough) have exactly the same opinion on this matter... which wouldn't be so problematic except for the fact that in addition to his old clique of wiki-friends, ScienceApologist became a Wikipediocracy member some time ago, made a lot of new friends there, and they are all coming here to support the unblock. I don't know whether they're doing this to support their new friend, as part of a long-term strategy to help Thekohser, or just to troll Misplaced Pages (many of them have openly admitted to do this in the past).

Jimbo, do you find it acceptable that an editor can open disrespect all rules and get rewarded for this just because he is able to mount a coalition of his clique of wiki-friends here and a bunch of WO trolls? If not what do you intend to do about it?

173.178.185.39 (talk) 23:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what Jimbo would do about it, but if I saw what you just wrote here, I would feel bad for this "ScienceApologist" person that he had people that cared so much about trying to keep him off Misplaced Pages.

I might feel so bad that I would find whatever discussion it is that you're trying so hard not to refer to, and go and !vote unblock there.

What were you expecting by posting such nonsense here? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Funny...that was exactly what I was thinking...and I know where the discussion is.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 01:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Helpful link: Misplaced Pages:Administrators noticeboard#Discussion about unblocking Science Apologist. Cheers. Begoon  02:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I was just being humorous. I really didn't add any input. While I think the standard offer should apply, I also know very little about this situation.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 02:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Yeah - I knew you were kidding - but a link in a discussion is never a bad thing, is it? Begoon  02:53, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

• old clique? I think you will find that we never interacted before. It was reading the archives of edits and arbcom dealings in the fringe area that I became aware of SA. IRWolfie- (talk) 08:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Are any of these reliable sources for DOB

I give up. I really don't understand why this isn't being taken care of by the subject in a manner that is acceptable to Misplaced Pages so, I will just ask you Jimbo, as you were very helpful with the DOB situation at the Paloma Faith article.

Is this a reliable source for DOB: File:Rick Remender showing his birthdate.jpg

Is this a reliable source for DOB:

Uncategorized blog from "Rick"

I have no additional comment on either of these. I have made it more than clear on the subjects talk page how to source their date of birth if they are communicating with an editor they trust via e-mail. For some reason "Rick" can't seem to get the official website biography changed and that seems odd to me. It could be that they are just resisting any of the advice given or it could be they really don't care that much but it seems to me if this is the limited amount of sourcing we have we shouldn't include a DOB. What do you think Jimbo?--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 00:16, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

wouldn't that fall under WP:SPS? -- Aunva6 01:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I would only assume not from the wording:

Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. Take care when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so. Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

From reading that it seems that the information and how it was 'Published" do not qualify as self published.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 01:34, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

But it would seem to me that if the DOB was simply placed into the biography section of the official website it would.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 01:36, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I think Aunva6 meant the closely named WP:SELFPUB. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:47, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Possibly. That might be acceptable but for one problem.....it appears to me that the subject of the article taking a picture of himself holding a notepad with their date of birth for sourcing is very much unduly self-serving as is a blog post directed to Misplaced Pages stating a partial DOB and not placed into the official biography.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 02:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

What? What is "self-serving" about his DoB? Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:54, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Of course it's not reliable as in WP:RS—it might be a doctored image, or a joke, or a lie, or an attempt to show how silly Misplaced Pages is. However, if someone says they born on a certain date, and if there is no reason to believe otherwise, and if it is not of some critical importance (like if a particular DoB involved some legal matter regarding age), what is the problem with accepting it? Do you doubt the date? Is there a reason to believe it is implausible? Johnuniq (talk) 04:21, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

You're basically right about this, but there's actually noting in WP:RS that requires sources to be immune from doctoring etc in the first place. What we have here is just an example of a self-published source, completely usable within our policies. There's always a theoretical possibility that self-published sources contain false information. Formerip (talk) 14:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with virtually everything that Mark Miller has said on this topic, both here and on the discussion page of the article. I would say that out of the more absurd antisocial bizarre behaviors that we can engage in at Misplaced Pages, doubting people about their date of birth when there is zero evidence of any kind that they are lying, is near the top of the list. I've seen it multiple times now, and it really needs to stop. There are cases where a person's date of birth is legitimately in dispute, but they are extremely rare.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Jimbo, for you response. It appears I have stuck too close to the letter of the policy here. I don't doubt the DOB Jimbo and absolutely do not feel I have ever said anyone is lying. I certainly hope you do not feel I have stated that in any way as I have strived to remove such claims against BLP subjects even at your own direction. I am trying to figure out how to source it and if either two of these attempts are usable. While it appears you did not address my question I am pretty sure the spirit of what you stated makes it clear we can just trust the subject themselves on this issue. My apologies for making this more than it need be.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 18:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Just curious, how would you classify the "dispute" over your own DOB on your article? I don't remember all the gory details and drahma, but I do remember that it was a serious serious time sink and pretty ridiculous. Cheers, --Malerooster (talk) 15:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that was a fair comparison, but I know very little about the dispute. Jimbo was talking specifically about me and I see no reason to turn this around on him.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 18:50, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

• Mark, you might think that based on reading that passage, but you are not reading the correct policy. BLP is the correct one. Let me quote Misplaced Pages:Biographies_of_living_persons#Avoid_self-published_sources: "Never use self-published sources – including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets – as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject". Emphasis mine. Living people can self publish certain details about themselves which should generally be accepted unless there are reasons for doubt, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:00, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
  • We'll just assume "written or published" means in any form.--Mark _{Just ask! WER TEA DR/N} 18:10, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments at Wikimania

I appreciate the "State of the Wiki" comments, seeing as how I had asked for such a statement when you first returned from vacation. (It may be that you do this annually, however.) The CNN article makes note of your concerns "in the era of Snowden and Assange" and your fears of governmental hanky-panky are well-founded, in my view. I also consider your views of Misplaced Pages journalism versus "tabloid" news designed to distract, not inform, to be of high value. Snowden's girlfriend, as opposed to real accountability at the NSA, was a good example. We do need to be a bit more radical! As an WP:ITN volunteer for years, however, I can assure you that any such efforts will be contentious in the extreme. And yes, the need to involve more women as content writers is indeed an important ongoing project. Thanks again for an excellent speech, and if there is a link up yet to the actual speech itself, I'd love to see it. Jusdafax 10:41, 10 August 2013 (UTC)