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BLP case

Jimbo, could I ask you to have a look at Talk:Tahir Abbas? It's a BLP that contains personally damaging information, based on a single secondary source from two years ago that the publisher recently removed from their website following lengthy legal action by the BLP subject. Editors at the article insist that without a formally published retraction, the original article, although no longer available online, is still a reliable source, and inclusion of the material is fully in line with WP:BLP and WP:DUE. The material based on the source makes up about 25% of the entire BLP. Best, --JN466 13:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

How many different venues are you going to use to pursue this? You got no traction at BLPN -- the one editor who seemed to support your approach (Bbb23) changed his mind (deciding to support inclusion) when he read the actual article. Even Scott MacDonald didn't see fit to get involved. In any event this looks to me like a clear instance of canvassing, and even though I have explicitly defended you against others' worries that you might not be approaching this one in good faith, I'm done with that now. For those who might take an interest -- a key principle here is WP:SOURCEACCESS: sources do not have to be available online, and it is indeed the case that the article has not been retracted. Furthermore the material is not based on a single source, we also have the fact that the journal Citizenship Studies retracted one of Abbas's articles because it contained plagiarism. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:39, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

You can only use SOURCEACCESS as an argument if you are citing the paper source - not when citing an online source that is no longer available.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:48, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

What? I read the paper source originally. I am citing a paper source. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:50, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Is the source verifiable now that it's not online? We would have a very different encyclopedia if people could just say "I read it somewhere." Even though I'm not doubting you did. Anyway I'll jump on over to the article discussion since that is where this all should be sorted out :) Quinn 21:40, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

No opinion (yet?) on whether the information should be included, but I think you misread the previous post. The best source for the claim appears to be an article in Times Higher Education, a high-quality weekly print magazine with an excellent reach. (To judge from my experience, it seems to be available in the social rooms of all British university departments.) The article was also available on the THE website, but it appears that it has been pulled specifically, for reasons unknown. Hans Adler 22:43, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

It was removed as part of a settlement of a defamation claim. --JN466 16:29, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

What is the evidence for this statement, Jayen? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 17:28, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The subject's lawyers advised OTRS of the court case several months ago, including claim number, and asked that his biography be deleted. That request appears to have been refused at the time because the THE article was considered a reliable source. Since then, several editors (as well as OTRS) have seen the recent letter from TSL Education stating, to whomever it may concern, that the article has now been removed from the Times Higher Education website. You have stated that the article is still accessible in Factiva and Nexis, and that this constitutes evidence it has not been properly retracted. I propose we wait a few days, and see if Factiva and Nexis will continue to host it. If they remove it too, I'd consider the source dead for our purposes. --JN466 01:09, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

No, you misunderstand. The persistence of the article on Factiva and Nexis is not evidence it has not been properly retracted. The question of retraction is addressed by whether there has been a retraction. We know what a retraction looks like -- it is what Citizenship Studies did with Abbas's own article. There is no retraction of the THE article. As for your proposed test -- are you proposing that if it remains on either Factiva or Nexis that you'll consider it usable? That would be progress... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Surely, it is irrelevant whether it has been properly retracted. As a matter of ethical judgment, we should not publish potentially defamatory material unless we have very good reason and are very sure of its truth. If we have reason to believe that the publisher of a source we are using no longer upholds the claim, we should not use it.--Boson (talk) 17:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this as a general principle. I haven't yet studied the individual case well enough to form a particular opinion, but if the original source has removed the article from their website, that's a perfectly good reason not to use that source anymore - if the publisher won't stand by it, we shouldn't rely on it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:46, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not the only source for the claim; we can be quite sure, via the other source, that Abbas plagiarized in writing his article that appeared in Citizenship Studies. No-one is disputing this: Abbas himself apologized for it in the notice published by the journal. We are "very sure of its truth." And, it's not that the Times Higher Education article in question has not been "properly retracted". What has become clear at the article talk page is that it hasn't been retracted at all. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that whether there has been "a retraction"--that is, whether there is a statement specifically stating 'we retract this article'--should not be a requirement. If the site removes the article for legal reasons, we should treat it as retracted, even if they did not follow all the steps (such as publishing an explicit retraction statement) that you think are necessary to retract an article. Ken Arromdee (talk) 04:18, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, from personal experience, I can say that I have seen sources print things about me that were false and defamatory and upon my complaint, they merely removed it from the web rather than printing a retraction in the paper edition. In some cases, the false information remains on the web today (thankfully, obscurely) in archives of syndicators. I assume it will often remain in paid archives as well. It's not reasonable to say "Misplaced Pages will stand by the story unless there is a published retraction" because that just isn't how things work in the real world. What happens when someone is libeled is that sometimes because a lawsuit would be expensive and bring more publicity to the lie (see: Barbara Streisand effect), the victim will often just accept the removal from the main website as taking care of 99% of the problem. Misplaced Pages can't ethically continue to publish what is very likely false information in such cases.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

And to keep this from resurfacing via a new contributor, it might be a good idea to add a "commented out" section in the article, explaining this. A section in the Talk page is also useful, but some of these pages are so active such a discussion ends up in the archives where it's not noticed, particularly by new contributors. The important thing in this case is to make sure it's documented so all contribuors are aware of the situation, but not readers. In other cases a story has become so widespread we need to address it in the article for the readers' benefit as well. 75.60.17.64 (talk) 18:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Newspapers remove material from their website frequently, and sometimes unintentionally. We even have a term for it: WP:LINKROT. How can we determine if a removal was due to a quasi-retraction instead of other causes, like a desire to free up space on a server?   Will Beback  talk  19:14, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

According to Jayen466 above, OTRS and several other editors have seen a letter from TSL Education, the publisher of the magazine, saying that the story was pulled. Hardly an ordinary case of linkrot. I am still not sure that we shouldn't include the information, but the question is why it was (silently) retracted, not if it was retracted. Hans Adler 22:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

As far as editing the article in question goes, it doesn't really matter at the point: the discussion is focusing on information verified by another source (an academic journal). Nomoskedasticity (talk) 22:51, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Which is a primary source. See WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:NPF. This is a question of proportionality. The BLP subject was marginally notable in the first place. The first AfD was closed "No consensus". The BLP subject has asked, pleaded, to have his biography deleted from Misplaced Pages, because for the past two years it has been used to hound him, and has literally ruined his life. For those two years, the article has been a WP:COATRACK, simply used to announce to the world, with top billing for anyone Googling his name, that a paper of his was retracted, with a big fat "Plagiarism" subheader in the article and prominent mention in the lead, edit-warred into the article time and again, and representing more than 25% of the entire article content. After two years, he has succeeded in having the secondary source that editors used as justification for turning his biography into an attack piece removed by the publisher. And now you would still like 25% of his biography to be about one retraction of a journal paper of his that has not attracted attention in any other secondary source than the one now removed by its publisher, by basing it on the primary source of the journal's own statement? There is no proportionality here. There is zero interest in secondary sources. Even his own university restored him to full duties after their investigation concluded, accepting that the attribution errors were not deliberate, but due to personal stress and overwork. This is a semi-private individual, considerably less notable than he was two years ago due to the fall-out. There is no public interest served in using Misplaced Pages to pillory someone like him. --JN466 11:19, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

You keep making unsourced claims about living people. I see no reason this should be tolerated, particularly as you have already been challenged on it several times. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:23, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

So then the standard for removing a source would be an official notice from the publisher, submitted to OTRS or printed publicly, announcing a retraction? That's probably reasonable.   Will Beback  talk  23:10, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Nope. We have higher standards than that in how we treat living people. We treat BLPs with kid gloves. Cla68 (talk) 23:27, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, I'm wearing kid gloves now - may I handle you? ;) What's your proposal, aside from donning gloves? Do we deleted all sources that are no longer online? That'd eviscerate the encyclopedia.   Will Beback  talk  23:44, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Comment. I would have thought it obvious that the point of discouraging the use of certain primary sources is to protect the privacy of individuals. Look at th examples used: personal information of no public interest, even if of interest to the public. iow, tabloid junk should be avoided. That has nothing to do with the issue under discussion here. The options are: 1) include the whole story, including the settlement and retraction, or 2) remove the whole thing. If I were Mr Abbas, I would base my preference on whether or not the 'partial story' is easily found (and therefore believed). If so, I would want the retraction included in Misplaced Pages, which would mean option 1. If not, I would prefer option 2 unless and until that situation changed. However, what bothers me about the discussion here is the insistence of some editors that we follow Misplaced Pages's rules by the letter, not the spirit. It's part of the whole "truth or verifiability" arguments I suppose, but I would describe it as "can't see the forest for the trees". Anyone working on ann encyclopedia has to be dedicated to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I see editors here insisting on cherry-picking the facts to provide a slanted article. That's antithetical to our purpose. Provide the whole truth or leave the whole thing out, but the suggestion of an in-between position of only including the plagiarism claim and not what came after, based on a twisted interpretation of the use of primary sources and/or "is it still available in a generally reliable source, online or in print" reflects badly on the rest of Misplaced Pages's contributors. Which includes me. Stop the game-playing. We have a reputation for truth and accuracy, and for correcting our mistakes when found. Quite frankly, the project would be better off without people who insist that misleading, incomplete material be presented, and use Misplaced Pages's own guidelines to "prove" their point. Assume good faith is not a suicide pact, nor is is consensus. If someone's private agenda conflicts with our project's basic mission, then that person should not be allowed to hurt the project. It really is that simple. 76.192.42.240 (talk) 16:10, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Some on here (not me) have seen a TLS letter confirming the removal of the THE article. I assume this material has come from the subject (or his representatives) - the publishers didn't respond to my e-mail to them. Since people have this contact, would it not be fair to ask to see the subject's 'statement of case' in the 'lengthy legal battle' to see on what grounds he was battling the THE/TLS? It might have been about plagiarism, but it might instead have been about other contentious features of the article (the accusation in THE of 'playing the race card' against his Head of Dept, for instance). Surely that's a good way of moving towards the whole truth about the removal-or-retraction (and why, and does it matter) issue? The statement of case is something any of us could obtain, with a bit of work - JN466 has said he has the case reference number. Bikerprof (talk) 18:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I think it wouldn't be fair. There have already been enough objections that have been answered. Back when the THE article wasn't removed there were people insisting that since it still exists we have to use it. Now that it's removed, there's some other reason why we have to use it--the removal's not accompanied by a retraction notice, or it's not removed from Lexis, or whatever. "We can't treat it as removed unless we see the statement of case" is another in a long line of excuses as to why we just can't follow BLP. The excuse sounds superficially reasonable, and might have been if it was the only barrier, but it's not--it's another in an endless series of barriers. We need to stop making excuses; the article was removed and we should no longer use it. That's enough.

And the reasoning "if the statement of case is too narrow, we can still use the article as a reference" is stupid anyway. The subject should not have to make sure the removal was done with all i's dotted and t's crossed in the exact way required by Misplaced Pages just to ensure that Misplaced Pages treats it seriously--the fact that he left a line out of his statement of case would not be a good excuse to avoid BLP. We don't want people to have to tell their lawyers "be careful how you word my statement of case, because if you don't phrase it correctly Misplaced Pages will refuse to remove the bad information". Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:48, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't help to start making accusations of stupidity, thanks. As per the above long-ish comment, I thought it was the truth we were after. I wasn't proposing a forensic dissection of such a document, just whether it was covering the points at issue. If the subject has successfully challenged the negative points, it would surely be worth including (and, indeed, in his own interests to do so)? As argued above, the day we stop referring to sources because they are no longer online we may as well give up. Bikerprof (talk) 19:08, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

1) I didn't call you stupid. I said your argument was stupid. Surely I am not required to agree that every argument proferred by everyone is wise.

2) It's not about referring to sources that are no longer online, it's about referring to sources that are no longer online for a specific reason. It's not going to destroy Misplaced Pages to reject sources that are no longer online because they were removed after a legal demand. That's different from rejecting all no-longer-online sources.

3) Despite your protestations, what you were saying was that we should not just remove the information--instead, we should check some document and only if this document is to your satisfaction should we then remove the information. Whether you call it a "forensic dissection" is irrelevant; it still amounts to a demand that Misplaced Pages subjects get their documents in order before you'll follow BLP. We have no right to make this demand. 208.65.89.167 (talk) 03:17, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(1) I said you were making accusations of stupidity, not that you had called me stupid. Please respond to my words, not your own re-construction of them. (2) I just want to know the specific reason it was removed - perhaps it was related to the accusations of plagiarism (on which we have a firm source, Citizenship Studies), perhaps it wasn't. After all the article makes several claims - as an academic subject/BLP the charges about retraction and plagiarism are I think the most important. Maybe TLS thought they'd win the court battle in England, but have little chance of reclaiming their costs from someone now based in Turkey? Perhaps the article was wrong in some other way. All speculation - from me and others on here, without that evidence. (3) No need for the legal case to meet my satisfaction, I'd happily leave it to a neutral editor to read through. This subject has chosen the legalistic route to resolve issues, not attempted some other form of resolution, so let's see the case. Bikerprof (talk) 07:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Why do you want to know the specific reason it was removed? It sounded like you wanted to know that because having the wrong reason means that we can't get rid of the reference. Is that true? If it is, then what I said is correct. 208.65.89.167 (talk) 08:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Please let me explain.

(1) I have no interest in accusations of filing race-related grievances, internal politics of Birmingham sociology, etc. That's gossip, and should have been removed before (in retrospect). As an academic, editing the page of an academic, I do care about the truth of specific accusations of plagiarism.

(2) The THE is so well-known in UK Higher Education that many will be aware of the accusations of plagiarism made against Dr Tahir Abbas in THE 2009 (plus the accusations about his involvement, however indirect, in the difficulties of Birmingham sociology). If the subject has gone through a legal process that has cast doubt or indeed falsified/refuted the accusations of plagiarism in the THE, he (and we) should be demanding that this is presented on his[REDACTED] page. It would then say: accusations of plagiarism were made, a legal case disproved them, TLS retracted/removed the story - end of story, handshakes all round, dispute resolved. On current knowledge, that seems plausible, perhaps the most likely sequence of events. I think this is what 76.192.42.240 (an authoritative contributor?) was arguing above when he said "include the whole story, including the settlement and retraction". However the subject doesn't seem to be pressing this argument, no correction or apology has been made, another editor is strongly arguing for the retention of the THE source, so it makes me wonder what the legal case was about (hence my general support for the THE retention, if true). And hence my suggestion that a neutral editor take a quick look at the legal case, and confirm it's about plagiarism.

To that extent, yes, you are right in what you just said -- if the legal case isn't about plagiarism, the reference still supports the retraction which has a primary source. If the legal case and THE removal is about plagiarism, then we should allow the guy to have this confirmed (my preference), or maybe delete the article. I'm not wanting to 'fish' for details, just to confirm/deny whether disproving plagiarism was the reason for the THE removal. I hope this is helpful Bikerprof (talk) 13:41, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

If his lawyer made THE remove the article, we should not continue to use the article as a reference. You're trying to split hairs and say that we can keep using it if his lawyer removed it for the wrong reason. This is wrong.

Saying that we have to confirm whether the removal was about plagiarism puts the burden on the wrong side. Since it is a BLP issue, we need to err on the side of the subject. Nobody needs to confirm that it was about plagiarism; you need to confirm that it wasn't. (And even if it wasn't, they removed the whole article, not just the non-plagiarism parts, so you still can't use the article itself.) Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

But that's just it: we can confirm that it wasn't removed on grounds that its claim about plagiarism in the Citizenship Studies article was wrong -- we know (from Citizenship Studies itself) that that claim is true. Burden satisfied. Bikerprof's other points are also important -- if other claims in the THE article were indeed wrong then it is in Abbas's interest for the biography here to inform readers of this (given how widely known this case is among British academics). But it was plainly not wrong about the CS plagiarism/retraction. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Ken Arromdee said: "Nobody needs to confirm that it was about plagiarism; you need to confirm that it wasn't". OK, if that's your view, I'll work out how to obtain a copy from the court system and check. We can debate the truth vs verification and sources points later. Bikerprof (talk) 18:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

As I see it, you're still trying to manufacture a controversy that does not exist in secondary sources, and won't let go, now wanting to use primary sources to write a Misplaced Pages biography, in direct breach of WP:BLPPRIMARY and WP:NPF. Given past edit-warring about this issue, and the past state of the article, the best solution seems to be to delete and salt. --JN466 06:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Citizenship Studies is an academic journal, exactly the sort of "high-quality secondary source" demanded by WP:NPF. In all the voluminous discussion about this person, no-one has raised doubts about the fact that his article in that journal contained plagiarism -- there's nothing "manufactured" here. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 08:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

You know it is a primary source in this context; you yourself explained that to Marius. --JN466 16:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

And I've argued it's a secondary source. T Abbas sends an apology for the errors to the journal: the apology itself is therefore a primary source. The source reporting that an apology has been made ("The author has apologised for the errors") is therefore secondary. Or at least I think it's strongly arguable that way - and to rely on this distinction as a reason to exclude the retraction is to try to put the letter of WP policies (as JN466 interprets) above what we know to be true, and what is not disputed by anyone (indeed, has been apologised for). A reliable source reporting that an apology has been made must be secondary, with the apology itself the primary source. Bikerprof (talk) 22:31, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, you and Mariusmw are basically single-purpose accounts with little understanding of or respect for policy and no other interest in Misplaced Pages than editing Abbas' biography. --JN466 10:20, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

we can confirm that it wasn't removed on grounds that its claim about plagiarism in the Citizenship Studies article was wrong -- we know (from Citizenship Studies itself) that that claim is true.
Saying "we know this article wasn't removed because of false plagiarism claims, since that other article confirms the plagiarism is real" is original research. This is not allowed.
OK, if that's your view, I'll work out how to obtain a copy from the court system and check.
As I also said, you still can't use the article even if you confirmed this. The article was removed, and it wasn't linkrot, it was intentionally removed after legal action. You are not supposed to use an article which has been removed this way. You are trying to argue that if the legal action was only over one part of the article you are allowed to use the other parts of the article. That's wrong. (And it also leads to hair-splitting like 'the legal notice only made a general statement about inaccuracies in the article, see, it didn't mention a plagiarism accusation specifically!') Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The THE article has now been removed from LexisNexis as well. --JN466 21:45, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

What I'm arguing is, I want to know the truth. A verifiable truth. Bikerprof (talk) 20:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Delaying sock blocks

This thread is continued from #Maybe_you_should_read_it... (above).

Delaying the block of sock accounts to reduce hostilities: A number of users have been given 1-month blocks (including myself) for using "alternative usernames" treated as violating WP:SOCK, such as posting from 2 usernames in the same talk-page discussion. Although I find other things to do while blocked, other users have become violently upset (and it is easy to find diff-links for hostile responses to blocks). Let's discuss ways to warn usernames that they are considered a violation, as seeming to be a sock-puppet account, and what steps could be done to delay the blocking process, to allow time to explain or refute misunderstandings of why a user needs multiple accounts. With the growing worldwide popularity of Misplaced Pages, we need to be sure Members of Parliament, a U.S. Congressman, foreign diplomats, famous celebrities, and any other well-meaning editor is not ruthlessly blocked from editing due to a disconnect in handling multiple username accounts. We should avoid using real examples of specific notable people (unless they offer to discuss their plight in this discussion), and try to use hypothetical usernames just to avoid arguments about specific people. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:37, revised 00:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the above discussion demonstrates problems that go way beyond how much rope to allow a sock puppet before he gets blocked. Having read that discussion above from its inception about a week ago - when there were multiple appearances made by Malik to get his case heard that were immediately reverted multiple times because they were made by a banned sock puppet - and at the same time following the discussion similarly progressing in the "Brexx" section, all I could think was that if I were in Jimbo's place it would be Malik I was giving the second chance to, not a well-documented incurable vandal of long-standing. Which is what caused me to make my initial op-ed type comment there ... and that was really the only comment I wanted to make. All the rest, except my comment against your own post, I was kind of sucked into interactively. But I stand by what I wrote.

The problem is much broader IMO that what you are currently addressing here ... so either we need to expand the scope of this section or we need to spawn other new sections to pick up the slack. I'll leave that decision up to you. Let me first just try to bullet out some of the problem areas that might need addressing in order to fix this issue. I won't include "the delayed blocking of sock puppets" in my list because I'll take that as a given.

• According to one of the admins involved, "creating a new account to deflect from your main one is, by definition, an attempt to mislead someone as to who they are." I don't know where he gets that from - he's not quoting it from anywhere as far as I can see, so I'm assuming (not in either an AGF or AGB manner) that he's making it up. Taking what he says at face value, if true, then that means ALL alternative accounts are sock puppet accounts because all alternative accounts deflect from your main one. He actually says as much himself. "It (Malik's account) is automatically a sock. Some socks are not blocked - under a certain number of legitimate purposes. However all other socks are disallowed." I just don't read the Misplaced Pages sock policy that same way. There exists the possibility for anyone to have multiple alternative accounts on an AGF basis. And that's all they are. It is only when you use an alternative account for disruptive purposes that it becomes an illegal use of that account that requires blocking. Also, sock puppetry is only one of the possible illegal uses. Vote stacking is an even more pernicious use but that is not sock puppetry per se. Most people use the term "sock puppet" to refer to an alternative account used disruptively / illegally, and I'm not going to get pedantic about the "overstretched" use of the "sock puppet" term in that manner. However, the discussion in that other section is the first time I've ever heard the term "sock puppet" used as a synonym for ALL alternative accounts. Now that's a very significant all-embracing misuse of the "sock puppet" term and its use in that manner needs to be cleared up ASAP if we are going to make any progress here.
• This is related to the above issue. If all alternative accounts are indeed "sock puppet" accounts, but only a few of them are given special dispensation (because the owner is a public personality requiring privacy) as that admin claims, then the current Misplaced Pages log-on screens may need to be changed. Right now the log-in screen invites you to log-in or, if you don't already have an account, to first create one. Now that wording hardly encourages the use of multiple accounts. If you have no account create one, otherwise use the one you have. However, we all know that you can ignore that wording and create a new account every time you visited Misplaced Pages if you so wanted. My understanding is that such an action in itself is not illegal. Possibly not encouraged, but not of itself illegal. If, as that admin claims, all additional accounts are "sock puppet" accounts and the only valid reason for creating an additional account to your main one is because you are a public figure requiring privacy (and possibly some other valid reasons) then verbiage needs to be added to the "create account" screen that clearly states that you had better not be creating this account if you already own one unless you specifically meet one of the valid reasons. It is because that wording has never been there that I believe that that admin's view of what constitutes a "sock puppet" account - viz. ALL alternative accounts - is seriously flawed.
• If all alternative accounts are indeed "sock puppet" accounts then all an admin needs to do when confronted with such an account is determine if it meets the "special dispensation" requirement, and if it doesn't, immediately block it because it violates the terms on which it was created. Since Malik's account didn't meet that criterion what the two admins did is perfectly correct. That also means that your intended discussion here of the delayed blocking of "sock puppet" (= alternative) accounts is completely moot. If Tony Blair is caught using an alternative account then that is OK, but if you, I, or Malik are caught using one then that's not OK because we are not public persona requiring privacy protection, so that would be a clear case of our using a new account to deflect from our main one.

If you haven't realized it by now, this situation becomes a lot simpler if my interpretation of WP:SOCK is correct rather than that admin's, because all of the above issues disappear. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 04:01, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

What about requiring admins to first issue a warning-only message to a username user-talk page that they are considered to be violating WP:SOCK, before the block is made? -Wikid77 (talk) 00:37, revised 00:44, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Assuming my (our?) interpretation of the policy (because otherwise, as stated above, this discussion is moot) I think it would be the obvious way to go. However, that would only be for the cases where a new underlying IP address user is caught socking for the first time, such as Malik was. Maybe one could be even more liberal and apply a 3-strikes-and-you're-out mindset which would mean someone would be given such a warning the first three times they are caught doing it. Any more times after that and it should automatically result in a block immediately they are caught because by then they know full well what they are doing and that it's wrong.

But that still skirts the $64,000 question of what the user with the alternate account must be doing in order to be issued his first warning for sock puppetry. Is just using his alternate account without having it clearly linked back to his main account sufficient cause? I don't think so. I don't see anything inherently disruptive in that. Is using his account to participate in Talk Page discussions and/or to edit the same article as one or more of that user's other accounts sufficient cause? Probably, but even that's a gray area. It really depends on what he edits or what he says in those situations. However, this is probably the situation where his detection by an admin merits that first warning message being sent that says something along the lines of what he is doing is considered to be disruptive sock puppetry and that he must cease and desist immediately. And it must clearly state exactly what he has to do in order to be considered as having complied with that cease and desist warning.

An argument can be made that if a user's first detection of sock puppetry is a case of him being caught red-handed vote stacking or causing a disruption amongst other users using "good-hand, bad-hand" tactics, then he should simply be blocked rather than warned. There is also the question of which account is the sock puppet account and which the main account and which account receives the warning notification. If user "Fred" makes three edits to an article and his alternative account "The other Fred" also makes three edits, which account is the sock puppet account and which one or both gets warned and/or blocked. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 06:33, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

No—this proposal is not compatible with WP:DENY as there would be too much reward for bad behavior, and a further burden placed on good editors. Is the real proposal that socks of "good" editors should not be immediately blocked? Is there an example where Misplaced Pages has lost someone helpful at building encyclopedic content due to their sock being immediately blocked? If not, the idea need not be discussed further. If such examples exist, a possible approach may be to have a template which a blocking admin could optionally include on the sock's talk page with a more friendly expression of the problem and the outcome. If multiple examples of the loss of good content contributors are available, the community could consider including a suggestion on how the sock might justify their case—I haven't really thought about that but perhaps things like a statement that there would be a mandatory 48 hours cooling off period before any public justification, after which the sock could email a trusted editor in good standing and ask them to post a brief statement somewhere like AN with a link to the sock's longer statement. Johnuniq (talk) 06:34, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

You appear to be mistaking a Misplaced Pages essay as being Misplaced Pages policy. You also appear to completely misunderstand the proposal. The issue here is that admins should not be allowed to divine malintent and preemptively block someone before he's actually done anything wrong. If they assume the worst (despite it being a violation of WP:AGF) about someone's use of an alternative account then they should issue a clear "cease and desist" warning to that person rather than just completely railroad him off of Misplaced Pages based on their own ABF. This will either cause an user making an innocent mistake to self-correct what he is doing or, if he persists despite a clear warning, will have established a sufficient criterion to go ahead and do what you currently do now on the basis of WP:ROPE. I hope that helped. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 12:54, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Some thoughts. A complex system of warnings is a bit impractical to track and implement effectively. The idea of the socking policy is to limit us all to one account - or to a few known/linked accounts - except in unusual circumstances. The reason for this is to establish community trust; i.e. that the person you are talking to is not the person who last week took you to AN/I under another account. There is a lot of talk about socks being "disruptive" before blocking - but this is not what the policy says, or what it should say. It mentioned keeping up to community standards - and one of those standards is good behaviour.

Nobody is suggesting "a complex system of warnings" - see my response above. Re: "The idea of the socking policy is to limit us all to one account - or to a few known/linked accounts - except in unusual circumstances." That is not the idea of the socking policy at all. The limitation of users to one or just a few accounts may be its consequence, but it is not the intent of the sock policy. Any Misplaced Pages user can have multiple accounts. But s/he must not use those accounts in a manner that would be disruptive or misleading to the Misplaced Pages community. An alternative account used in such a disruptive or misleading manner becomes a sock puppet account. The idea of the sock policy is to establish that fact (viz. that disruption of Misplaced Pages is not welcome and will not be tolerated) and to define all the manner of uses / situations that are considered to be disruptive or misleading sock puppetry - such as vote stacking and "good-hand, bad-hand" usage to stir up / troll editor interactions (for whatever purposes), and to avoid scrutiny.

Simply having an alternative account is not sock puppetry, nor is using an alternative account that is not linked back to the main account sock puppetry. WP:SOCK suggests that the line between benign use of multiple accounts and the disruptive or misleading use of them is crossed once crossover occurs - which means that someone uses two or more unlinked accounts to edit the same article(s) and/or to post on the same Talk Page(s), thus appearing to others as if he is two or more persons to other editors when s/he really is just the one. If that person did exactly the same crossover edits and/or posts with the accounts linked then his/her actions wouldn't be considered to be sock puppetry because the linkage clearly indicates that there is no intent to mislead or deceive the other editors. So the key criterion as to what constitutes Misplaced Pages sock puppetry is the crossover use of unlinked multiple accounts. Mancini's Lasagne invite to Harry 11:19, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

As it is, my view of socking is quite lenient (probably more so than most admins), if there is no crossover in article editing and there is no disruption of the actual encyclopaedia then it doesn't worry me (although the individual loses my respect for not being open). You'll note, though, that I said "article editing", because participation in the wider community should certainly be done through the one account.

Above we talked about newbies and what can drive them off. One thing that strikes me is that someone socking on the same article could contribute to newbie confusion - i.e. they believe they are talking to two people, for example, when really it is one (even if the discussions are seperate). This is sneaky and underhand.

Avoiding Scrutiny and Socking for Privacy are too ends of the same issue - and I think (based on previous examples of the communities views) Privacy should be used sparingly, whilst avoiding scrutiny should be promoted as a serious consideration to any potential "sock-master". Not wanting to go back too much to the above example, but, there was much reasonable suspicion over who MalikPeters was. Was he involved in the discussion before? Was he "yes another Malleus troll"? Or was he really an editor in good standing. Whilst we should, of course, assume good faith, reasonable suspicion exists. And this is the point of "avoiding scrutiny" - in a community where we are distrustful of the editors we work with then the atmosphere becomes poisonous and intransigent.

Johnuniq makes some good points above; in general most of our templates can be improved (from being accusatory to being explanatory) and our socking templates probably could do with some work.

At the end of the day we are here to write an encyclopaedia, which is why the better option is almost always to walk away from the DRAMAZ :) and politicians should be held to exactly the same account as "normal" editors - if they sock then block :) If they edit under their real name, and have an account to work in a contentious area, complying with policy, for privacy - then that is fine. As it would be fine if you or I did it. --Errant 09:36, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• Treating everyone as a celebrity: It might be a good idea to treat all users as if being famous celebrities, then for those that are, the special privacy concerns (and expected civility) could already be handled for them as well. Hence, famous user "DonaldZeDuck" could have an alternate username, but concerns of sock-puppet use would be handled with discretion. To me this means some levels of private data in Misplaced Pages: I do not see how a person can be potentially outed in accusations of nefarious sockpuppetry without violating privacy, and then consider if the puppet username is an imposter, etc. Perhaps the situation could be couched in the term "impersonation":
        "Someone possibly impersonating you is suspected of improper WP:SOCK accounts."
  By wording the accusation disclaimed as "impersonating" the person, then perhaps they could be notified without the potential ridicule attitude of "YOU are a disgusting puppet-master" rather than an "excessively constant fan of Misplaced Pages" or victim of "impersonation". All I am asking is to imagine alternatives to outing with ridicule. -Wikid77 13:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

• Proportionate sentencing of socks: Is it really necessary to block all sock-accounts permanently as indef blocks? Perhaps the first accounts should be given a 2-day block, such as for WP:DE disruption, then allowed to continue, without a 1-month clamp-down and without outing the main account username. Hence the wording might be: "This username is blocked for 2 days for potential disruption" without mentioning "sock-puppet". I can agree on indef blocking for the 3rd, 4th, 5th sock, but not the first alternative username. -Wikid77 13:29, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Ugh, I loathe the wording "potential disruption" ... it makes it sound like someone's being pre-emptive, which we typically are not, and sounds like an WP:ABF situation moreso than anything else (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 13:38, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Wikid; I'm kinda confused by what you're talking about... Privacy, when talked about in this context, relates to things not being attached to your real world identity if you choose to go that route (as most do). The privacy of pseudonymous Misplaced Pages usernames isn't a concern - if you're linked to another account that breaks policy then that is sock-puppetry. If the socking relates to a contentious area and your main account is not anonymous from your RL identity then, yes, we do exercise caution in investigating (i.e. a checkuser will work it out privately). And, yes, all undisclosed socks should be linked to the main account and blocked - unless the user can give a good reason for having the sock, and the disclosure/link is maintained. In almost all circumstances 2 un-connected user accounts is just not appropriate. --Errant 14:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The outing of alternative accounts for suspected violation in one account, is the problem, especially when the suspected violation is the fact of having multiple accounts. A person cannot have it both ways. A celebrity (or anyone) cannot have a real-name account plus a pseudonym account and have both outed due to a suspected violation in one account. The problem is that Misplaced Pages does not have a retriction to require "due process" to insist a violation be formally judged, rather than a mere accusation considered a violation, which leads to outing and shutdown of all accounts for that person. As noted above, the alternative accounts need to be handled differently for users with severe violations of policy, rather than a person says, "You are acting like a jerk" and then having all alternative accounts indef blocked. -Wikid77 10:48, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• Prove both action and intent as sockpuppets: A helpful distinction, in determining whether an alternative account is being used as an improper sockpuppet, is to prove that the user not only used the account to violate policies, but that the user clearly intended to use the alternative account in a disruptive way to repeatedly violate policies, or in connection with other usernames. An alternative account should not be blamed for trying to "avoid detection" because that is the basis of "privacy". Instead focus on a pattern of disruptive actions: alternative account posting just 1 insult does not constitute a pattern of disruption, unless coupled with multiple insults from a related username. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:30, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Advertise

You are known for being strongly against advertise. I know you don't hate them but you believe in Wiki is a sacred place or unique that it doesn't have advertise. Don't get me wrong. I'm not supporting advertise nor do i care about it. But here is the thing i love wiki (in wiki projects in any language, basically overall wiki) and i'm trying to help it better. As you can see knowledge is just too much even with English Misplaced Pages, the leading way ahead of any other languages, is still long way until finish everything in human knowledge. Any other language wikis that behind English wikis are even more so much behind. At this rate, it would take other languages wikis thousands of years until they finish all human knowledge. Why English Wikis are so ahead of everything? Because the United States are the richest country in the world, according to GDP overall. In most Asian and Africa countries are the way that at the bottom. Why? How can you ask them to help writing something while they could starve to deaths? It just doesn't work, people simply don't care because they are freaking poor. They have a long way to go until they do care about building some kinds of knowledge for their descendants. Even after they have enough food to eat, they still have better things to do than contribute to Wikis. Countries with high developing Wikis are countries are consider as rich country where they have a pretty good and leisure life.

Plus in the economy crisis as today, not many people has money to donate. I bet the donation money is getting lower since 2008 right? So let say if you allow advertise on wikis then you would get huge amount of money. Look at facebook, all they do is allowing advertise and they made billions. I believe Wikis can do the same thing. You can have an option for people to hide ads if they don't want to see them. Tell you what, most people just simply don't care whether or not if there is ads. Do you think if wikis allowed ads, many people would stop contribute, donation, or trust wikis? No. It's not going to lower wiki reputation. Perhaps because of ads, it could attract more people into wikis. Anyway my main point is you can spend that billions of dollars from ads companies on the poor countries in Africa and Asian. I'm pretty sure it would boost the growth of Wikis to the point that we have never seen before. Perhaps we would cut the time require to write all the human knowledge of any languages to about a hundred years instead of thousand years. I don't see anything bad to ads. I think ads would really give Wikis a BIG GIANT LEAP. I even think that many more people will love wikis more when they know all the money you got from ads, you will spend them all for the poor. I think allowing ads even give you better reputation and Wiki overall better reputation and development. And again i'm saying this because i want wiki to be at its best and i want it has enough information in all languages in the world to serve all people in the world not just English speaking people. So as it is right now English wikis are the only way considered as efficient enough, still has a long way to go but efficient enough.Trongphu (talk) 03:45, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

English Misplaced Pages is so much bigger because 1. it's the oldest wiki, 2. it's the language that most of the WMF staff speak and 3. there are, as you say, a disproportionate amount of English-speakers on the internet. It's both a blessing and a curse that en.wiki is the focus of most of the WMF's attention. We have almost 4 million articles written here, many of which are great. On the other hand, this means the WMF sometimes exercises an iron grip over what we do and periodically subjects us to patronizing comments which show utter disdain for the people who give them jobs and display a complete lack of ability to recognize when they're in over their heads and other people know what they're doing better than them. As to ads; your points are all valid, but I think we're set in our ways without ads. The lack of ads, especially popups, was one of the things that initially attracted me to the site, and I (personally) would like to keep it that way. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:20, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• English WP leadership is a relative illusion and due to banning ads: The so-called "leadership" of English Misplaced Pages depends on which topics are viewed. For sports, English WP has perhaps over 1.5 million articles, including more than 64,000 articles on footballers (soccer - see: WP:How many footballers). However, for data about towns in Austria, the German Misplaced Pages has far more details. For towns in Turkey, the Turkish Misplaced Pages has more details. The common Swahili term for "elephant" is "tembo" but the Swahili Misplaced Pages will also note "ndovu" (article sw:Ndovu) as a common Swahili word to name elephants. However, regarding Bruce Springsteen, there is a Swahili article "sw:Asbury Park" about Asbury Park, New Jersey for African interest about the Jersey shore, so the idea of leadership is relative.
  
  English Misplaced Pages has extremely limited information about any famous corporations, due to avoiding the spread of commercial advertising. Compare the amount of non-ad general topics in Misplaced Pages versus the knol pages in Google Knol, which has allowed more commercial topics and has contained many, many thousands of advert pages. If English WP allowed more advertising, it might cause more corporations or companies to try to force numerous articles to mention their products. Currently, English WP is not where general consumers go to get current information about buying recent products. Hence, companies-in-the-know do not see Wikpedia as a consumer forum, where people are anxious to read ads about which products might suit their needs. By comparison, the Google Search results (for each language) will list some commercial websites, so paid-ads in Google can expect readers who are already searching for commercial products, rather than the ancient history of some topic, as in Misplaced Pages. -Wikid77 16:43, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Well your second paragraph makes sense, unlike the first one. Progress. pablo 19:55, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I was wondering if I was the only one confused; notwithstanding, my comment on the WMF above still stands. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:24, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

• I was explaining that English WP is not leading in every topic, such as information about towns in Austria, which are better covered by German Misplaced Pages, or towns in Turkey with more details in the Turkish Misplaced Pages. Plus to read about Asbury Park in New Jersey (USA), readers of Swahili Misplaced Pages already have some information. Beyond those, the Japanese Misplaced Pages is certainly gigantic enough for many topics, but when checking enwiki coverage of towns and topics for India, there are many hollow areas for improvement, where "gurdwara" and "Trichy" are examples of trying to expand coverage about India in English Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages's vast store of information involves all the other-language Wikipedias, as well as enwiki. -Wikid77 00:20, revised 00:27, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Well of course! Each language of Misplaced Pages has something topic that better cover than English Misplaced Pages just like Vietnamese Misplaced Pages has more stuffs about Vietnam than en Misplaced Pages, same thing to China and many other different languages... But well everyone has to admit that English Misplaced Pages is the largest overall. English Misplaced Pages is leading in the amount of article and the depth of average article. In general, English Misplaced Pages is way ahead of any other language of Misplaced Pages.Trongphu (talk) 17:45, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is. And as I've said above, I'm not sure smaller projects would really like the WMF scrutiny under which we operate; per what I said above, it's a very double-edged sword to be so big. Comments like the one I linked above would be rather demoralizing to a small upstart project (not that it isn't maddening to us here, but we can absorb the shock a bit better). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:51, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Point of fact here, TBOTNL, are you aware that David Gerard is not an employee of the Foundation? Your link seems to be implying that he speaks for the WMF in some way. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 20:58, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Trongphu, it ain't gonna happen. In the moment[REDACTED] allows ads, I'll quit. I'm not gonna be a corporate slave, and I certainly won't volunteer to be one without compensation. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 09:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

More to the point, Trongphu, Misplaced Pages aims to be neutral. Advertising, in advocating you to buy something, do something, or think a certain way is - by definition - not neutral. The two just do not go together. WilliamH (talk) 11:08, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Hugo Chávez

Jimbo,

I thought it would be worthwhile to tell you about the discussion here. Apparently, a sockpuppet of a banned user tried to add some of the content that you were arguing should be added to the Hugo Chávez article, including some of the same specific sources. The edit was reverted because it was from a sock, but my interpretation of policy is that just because a sockpuppet tried to make some of your proposed changes to this article, that doesn’t necessarily mean none of the changes themselves are worthwhile.

I’ve already been accused of proxying for a banned user just because of saying that’s how I interpret the policy about this, so I’m not going to make an attempt at adding any of the content that you suggested and that the sock tried to add. But I think it would be useful if you could clarify how you think situations like this ought to be handled. According to this ArbCom ruling, this has happened a lot on climate change articles, where people were threatened with blocks for reinstating otherwise reasonable edits because a sockpuppet had previously tried to make these edits. I don’t agree with that; I think if edits that improve an article are disallowed allowed just because a banned user has tried to make those edits, that’s an example of rules being applied in a way that runs contrary to the ultimate goal of improving the encyclopedia. What’s your opinion about this? --Captain Occam (talk) 16:42, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Please stop drawing attention to a hyperactive and totally banned user, known for their love of attention seeking through trolling (the trolling takes many forms, one of which is to add reasonable content and laugh while dupes argue about whether to include it). I explained on your talk page that "a proposed edit is justified by various policies, and never by a reference to the actions of a banned user". If you have a proposed edit (which is some idea expressed in your words), wait for a few days then make the edit using suitable sources and no mention of a banned user. That would be the normal approach, but given the fuss (prominent attention on the article talk page, at AN, and now here), the wisdom of doing that would be very questionable. Understanding the background and the reasons for WP:DENY shows that communicating with and about banned users is very unhelpful for the encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 22:52, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

All of your comments about what I should have initially done aren’t helpful here. At first I suspected that the block was erroneous, so of course I was going to mention that. I’m aware now that it wasn’t, but it’s too late to change the fact that I wasn’t aware of this at first. And at this point, you’re telling me that if I were to propose that some of this content be added on the basis of policy alone, “the wisdom of doing that would be very questionable”. This is exactly the sort of attitude that I disagree with.

You don’t have to belabor the point about why you think this—I get it, and I also know this is a common attitude in the community. But that doesn’t mean I agree with it, or think it’s supported by policy. WP:DENY is an essay, whereas what I quoted on AN about the validity of my own perspective is part of a policy page.

Even if you think it’s necessary to abide by the WP:DENY essay, I think this essay gets carried to a ridiculous extreme when dealing with helpful changes made by sockpuppets. Imagine hypothetically that the edit made by the sock had been to remove an obvious BLP violation. In that situation, would you still be saying that the wisdom of reinstating the edit is questionable? I’m guessing that you would, but in that case the eventual outcome would be that the BLP violation stays in the article indefinitely. That’s an example of why I disapprove of this attitude, and why I’d like to get Jimbo Wales’ opinion about it. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:08, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought there was a misunderstanding, but it is now clear that you are trying to draw attention to the issue. Re BLP violation: That's easy: make whatever edit you think is helpful without mention of a banned user. Johnuniq (talk) 00:33, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

You aren’t answering my question. I’m asking what you think should be done about a BLP violation in a situation analogous to this one, where I initially tried to get other admins to review the block because I suspected that it was erroneous, and then later found out that the account was actually a sockpuppet. This is a situation where it’s already too late to avoid mentioning that the edit had been made by a banned user. What you said above is that now that it’s too late to avoid mentioning this, it’s unwise to reinstate the material regardless of how helpful it might be. And I’m asking, would you have the same opinion about this even if the edit had been to remove a BLP violation? --Captain Occam (talk) 00:59, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a big place with a lot of participants and no set of procedures will cover all possible situations. There will be corner cases with unwelcome consequences. The hypothetical scenario is that someone fixes a BLP violation, and an admin reverts the edit and blocks the editor with edit summary "abusing multiple accounts". If I noticed that (and assuming a significant problem), I would make the edit myself with a summary like "remove per WP:BLP". The blocking edit summary is sufficient to show that seeking explanations or querying the admin would not assist the encyclopedia. If I were really concerned, I would check each of the blocked editor's contributions, and if I thought some mistake had occurred, I would email the admin. Johnuniq (talk) 01:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't have much to add to this discussion, as I think we can all recognize that it's a complex and difficult problem. There is a good reason to revert even perfectly good edits from longterm abusive editors in terms of reducing their incentives to stick around. (Note, though, that this is an absolutely untested empirical question, and it is not 100% clear to me that we have it right, although I think we do.) But when there is a BLP situation, there is a good reason to accept good edits no matter what the source.

In this particular case, the BLP situation is not a BLP policy violation per se, but rather a longstanding NPOV violation. Our Chavez article has been a joke for a long time, dominated by a handful of people who have systematically excluded criticism of Chavez. It isn't that there is unsourced or poorly sourced negative information about Chavez, it's that there is dramatically too little evidence of much of the most serious criticism of him, excluded on flimsy-to-nonsensical grounds such as that it was printed in for-profit newspapers, etc.

The real solution to such a problem is to raise awareness amongst experienced Wikipedians who aren't partisans, particularly admins, who can go into the situation and lay down the law about NPOV. The participation of socks and abusive users of all kinds should be a peripheral issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:26, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for responding. I’m glad you agree that when it comes to BLP problems, we should accept good edits regardless of the source, but I think you already know that I also feel this way even when it’s a non-BLP situation.

What I’d like to ask is, doesn’t reverting edits that improve articles because they’re from socks go against the philosophy behind WP:IAR, which is that rules shouldn’t be enforced when doing so runs contrary to the goal of improving the encyclopedia? Since the ultimate goal at Misplaced Pages is to make articles as good as possible, my interpretation of IAR is that doing what’s best for the articles needs to take priority over every other consideration. And pretty much by definition, reverting edits that improve an article because of who made them is not what’s best for the articles. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:28, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes the source of the material, in this case Grundle2600 has so thoroughly poisoned the well that there can really be no discussion about any edit that he himself has made. He dug his own grave by trolling the Chavez, Obama, and Gore articles for over a year now. If you really think the material is viable, then you have to work to separate it from this banned user; I'd initiate a new talk page discussion there at Chavez and invite others to analyze the material point-by-point. Keep in mind though that not all criticism of a person is notable or significant, and that NPOV doesn't simply mean "include positive and negative material to create a balance" (that was always Grundle's flaw). Tarc (talk) 18:10, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like Jimbo Wales has now re-added some of the material that Grundle tried to add. This might be the first time in the history of Misplaced Pages that Jimbo Wales has reinstated material that had previously been added by a sockpuppet. But in any case, I agree with the sentiment behind this: if the content improves the article, the identify of the person who originally suggested it isn’t a good reason to reject it. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:30, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo should be reverted. He added word for word the text of a banned sock puppet. If he cannot go through the sources and come up with his own wording, he should not edit the article. Period. It's an insult to the many, many editors who have to put up with the continuous, never-ending flood of Grundle socks. Dave Dial (talk) 18:38, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I have removed the food price control passage. It this the direct words of a long-banned sock and IMO has little to do with the bio of Chavez himself. Tarc (talk) 18:47, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is all just a giant logical fallacy. Of course we're all more suspicious of material added by a sockpuppet -- but, if the information is reviewed and it's accurate, appropriate, etc, the identity of the editor is 100% irrelevant.JoelWhy (talk) 20:18, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Grundle2600 is either banned or not banned – there is no middle ground, i.e. 'he's banned when we feel like enforcing it'. If we're going to allow his edits, then why is he even blocked in the first place? Of course, given my last proposal to request that a similar editor be unbanned, I got profoundly shot down and was labeled as being disruptive. But if the community only wants to selectively enforce bans and act like a dog chasing its own tail in circles, then I can only come to the conclusion that the editing community is incapable of doing what it wants to do. –MuZemike 00:42, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Mr. James Wales...

Is it possible the Misplaced Pages will be closed because of having not enough money for continue working? If it's so, please answer this because I'm worried about Misplaced Pages closes. Other question is the following one: What's your criteria for becoming people administrator? I mean, what must I do for being Administrator? I am not specially interested about that but I want to know. P.D. I am spanish, if I mistook something tell me. --88.8.27.98 (talk) 16:10, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm not Mr. Wales, but I can provide some information.

You can look at Misplaced Pages's finances yourself, by looking at the Financial Reports. You can evaluate them yourself, but I think that it's pretty clear that Misplaced Pages is in no danger of being starved for money any time soon. Also interesting at that page are the Form 990s that the foundation is required to file with the IRS, which lists (among other financial information) the salaries of some of the highest paid employees.

The process of becoming an administrator is explained at Misplaced Pages:Guide to requests for adminship, as well as some of the linked pages. Buddy431 (talk) 20:25, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems unlikely it would close even in a budget crunch. If bandwidth or server capacity were a cost issue, the site performance could scale back and still function... just more slowly and irritatingly.

Looking at the financials is interesting in that there are assumed to be about 90,000 active editors. Assuming we were actually paid a modest wage for our work, say $30,000 a year, that comes out to a donated value of $2.7 billion per year in editor contributions to the encyclopedia. The chance of a work like this ever closing seems extremely unlikely.

(In light of my article contributions, I am somewhat stingy on the monetary side. I don't think I've ever donated any actual money to Wikipeda, but I figure I'm already giving the foundation thousands of dollars each year in high quality additional content, for the editorship work I'm not being pair for. That high quality content is what drives other non-editors to donate and keep the project going.) DMahalko (talk) 19:47, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Attrition

Jimbo, do you think administrator attrition is causing editor attrition or more the other way around, on balance? Are there any ways that the more quickly declining admin ranks could be caused by decreased editor retention? There are several reasons that fewer admins cause editor biting. Consider how fast WP:ANI is archived compared to about five years ago during the fastest growth period. Is there any reason to believe that admins make better decisions under one fifth the available amount of time? If it were entirely up to you, how would you prefer Foundation resources be allocated towards editor retention and admin retention, in terms of percentages of the entire budget? My opinion is 25% for admins and 1% for editors. 67.6.191.142 (talk) 12:59, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

As neither admins or non-admin editors get any resources that I am aware of, dividing zero as you suggest should not be difficult. Personally, I think the barriers of entry are higher standards (thus, anyone cannot just edit it, at least for an article which is watched, without a significant risk of being reverted for good cause) and too much drama (the subsequent condescending note or block notice left on talk). I happen to agree that we are no longer just looking for bodies with fingers, and it is more important to concentrate on keeping experienced editors (who get bored or offended, and leave) and giving them resources to do their jobs.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, but in fact according to the foundation has decided to devote considerable resources to editor retention, which seems foolish to me as it has leveled off to a slope sustainable for decades, while all the admins will be gone in less than seven years at the rate they've been leaving. I hope that Jimbo will be able to address the question. 67.6.191.142 (talk) 15:08, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Getting helpers for admins: I have been wondering if more users could be asked to be helpers for admins, such as researching troublesome user actions or other ways to compile diff-link reports of evidence needed by admins. Perhaps we need WP:WikiProject Admin Helpers, to formalize a group of people who could help admins collect and prioritize issues, without having admin powers. Also, the processes such as WP:Mentoring could be expanded where over-zealous users might be coached into milder actions, rather than escalate conflicts to the point where admin intervention seems necessary. Some frantic users need to make fewer edits each day. For requests to change protected pages, some requests are unreasonable and some admin helpers could write the long explanations when requests are excessive. I think a lot of admin time is consumed for explaining "no". Many times, I have seen an admin warn, "Both of you need to be more civil or everyone will risk consequences" as an indication that the admin is too busy to check if one user is more hostile than the other. Perhaps helpers could investigate a conflict and report (with diff-links) to admins that one user was causing 90% more of the problems than another. Those admin helpers might show evidence that they are becoming qualified to become future admins. -Wikid77 16:45, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

There have been repeated proposals for "administrators junior grade". Most have fallen over the question of unbundling admin powers. If you want to start an association of helpers, feel free and be bold. Just do it, don't ask for anyone's approval. There are enough friendly or tolerant admins that it shouldn't be a problem there, and just avoid the others. I am an admin, but I rarely use my bits except in connection with my own content work, with which I am much too busy to be involved in AN/I or similar drama. However, I understand there are other administrators who might be more useful to you.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I proposed a concept I called Tour of Duty. It wasn't exactly "admin helpers", but that was one of the aspects. It hasn't gone anywhere, but perhaps I haven't reached out to the right people. I still think it has merit, and could be used to accomplish some of the goals you mention.--SPhilbrickT 13:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

That's all we need is more people that think racking up A7s on prospective contributions at the New Pages front gate is akin to a first-person shooter... I can't imagine a worse name for an Administrative Helper program. What is needed is for "Quality Control" to become a formal function, like "Content Creation" and to separate this from the banhammer, which is related to yet another function, called something like "Rules Enforcement." I don't see any critical lack of Quality Control workers, or in the number of people wielding banhammers... They need to be better disciplined to stop chasing off new Content Contributors. WMF is on target here. Carrite (talk) 20:11, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Oh, heavens. Rather than speculating, try looking and reading what actually happens on project. The project is losing editors and admins for precisely the same reason: it's given itself over to bullying. I cannot think of a page that I've worked on (and this includes topic areas that ought to be utterly innocuous and non-controversial, like taoism-related articles) where I don't run across some 'experienced' editor with chip on his shoulder (and a bad attitude about it) harassing everyone: newbies, other seasoned editors, admins who try to intervene. On controversial topics such editors are the norm, and they band together in gangs. Most talk page discussion immediately (and by immediately I mean within roughly five posts total) cease dealing with the topic entirely and focus efforts on enforcing silence from the other side through an endless stream of policy-bashing, threats of sanctions, incivilities and etc. It's an idiotic way to create an encyclopedia.

What's happening on Misplaced Pages is precisely what Aristotle was thinking about when he declared that democracy was the worst possible form of governance. The project is dominated by a smallish contingent of editors who are excessively driven by emotion and ego: they get so wrapped up in their own personal goals that they are willing to do just about anything to satisfy those ends. It doesn't matter whether they have actual content-goals or whether they are merely fighting to preservation a particular self-image (and in fact, as far as I can tell, the former is in most cases a function of the latter); they turn every discussion into an extended psycho-drama, where they obsess about the trials and tribulations of being forced to work with "those editors" and about how "those editors" are ruining the project and must be dealt with. Reasonable discussion has no attraction for them, because reasonable discussion is nowhere near as viscerally satisfying as abuse, and (given that reasoning is not exactly their strong suit anyway) far less sure in its outcome.

Aristotle is not the be-all-and-end-all of political theory - there are numerous strategies to ameliorate this particular problem of democracy that he was not aware of - but still, once the psycho-drama has been institutionalized as the decision-makling norm it becomes nearly impossible to uproot. It's a fact of political life that consensus-style decision-making of any sort cannot work where participants are allowed to scream at each other, and yet once it has been allowed (as it has been here for years) the best screamers will scream bloody murder to defend their right to scream. And why shouldn't they? Screaming at people is an effective political tool if it's allowed, so forcing them to be civil and reasonable would disempower them.

Let me just point out that among those few people I know of in the academic social sciences who have given[REDACTED] more than a cursory thought, it's a joke. High-sounding ideals masking a swamp of adolescent pride and petulance. Don't get me wrong, I love the ideals (which is the main reason I bother with the project at all), but the implementation is so piss-poor that it's laughable. Well, if one takes the right perspective on it it is, otherwise it's just intolerable. You'd retain editors and admins more effectively if more people had a sense of perspective and an appreciation for how ludicrous it all is, but since they don't, you're going to continue to lose them until the project is pwned by whomever is left. Keep your fingers crossed that the last man standing is calm, reasonable and far-thinking… --Ludwigs2 17:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Ludwigs, if you approach all topics like you've approached the discussion at WT:NOT then it really doesn't surprise me that you're not finding much joy in being an editor here. Misplaced Pages is not a democracy - it relies on consensus decision making not on simply being in a majority. Part of this requires accepting that your views do not always match with that of the consensus and either working with the consensus or moving on. Thryduulf (talk) 17:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

See what I mean? This is a standard tactic on project - ignore the content discussion and try to suggest that the editor raising the issue is somehow flawed. What Thryduulf said in this post is absolutely unnecessary for a rational content discussion - if he's correct, consensus will win out and the point I'm raising there will be forgotten, if he's incorrect then consensus will support my position and his will be forgotten. The only value to comments like the above is to shift the discussion away from rational considerations onto emotional ones: in this case, trying to invoke feelings of shame and fears about in-group conformity. What he said, frankly, is the intellectual equivalent of telling me my mother dresses me funny.

And please keep in mind that this is not animosity brought on by a long-term dispute. He has been saying this to me since the second or third post he made on the topic. He is unwavering in his consistent emotional gambits to get me to be quiet.

Now that's fine. I'm an adult, and I can usually cope with childish tactics. But not many people have the emotional resilience to sit through endless minor pisspot behavior of this sort, and people who don't see the humor in it the way I do are simply going to get frustrated at the adolescence of it and leave. Hell, even I get frustrated by it at times. So we're back to the point I made above: we're losing editors and admins because no one wants to deal with endless streams of personal assaults fly out of everyone's mouths here. Take it as you will… --Ludwigs2 18:34, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

What is the evidence that such tactics are not a result of the stress everyone is under because, e.g., admin backlogs are usually a problem somewhere these days? 67.6.191.142 (talk) 19:17, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Other that rejecting Ludwigs' characterisation of the discussions at WT:NOT as false, there is little else I can do but recommend those interested party to read the last month or so's postings at WT:NOT and judge for yourself. Those in relation to proposals to change the Misplaced Pages is not censored policy, which are the outspill from earlier and ongoing discussions about images at Talk:Pregnancy and Talk:Muhammad/Images. "Attrition" is a good way of describing the attempts of a small handful of users over the past several years to enforce their views regarding censorship onto the community despite repeated rejections.

I'm not denying that there are editor retention problems, nor that some admin actions might be driving them away, but Ludwigs' is not the put-upon and bullied content editor he makes out, but rather one the projects prominent exponent of WP:IDHT. All the evidence required may be found at WT:NOT and the recent archives of that page. Thryduulf (talk) 19:27, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I am just chiming in. Ludwig, you need to tone down your posts dwelling upon being "bullied" or having to fight out with small swarms of insular, emotional users. The fact is that these posts make it far more difficult to work with you—it is a huge turnoff—, and nobody agrees with this assessment anyways.AerobicFox (talk) 19:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

AerobicFox: I don't actually need to tone anything down. I'm not complaining about being bullied (sorry you see it that way), I'm simply pointing out how much of our decision-making process is given over to bullying people off pages. I don't much care if you personally disagree with the assessment; the assessment stands on its own as a matter of observation and analysis. You can believe whatever you like, but anyone who looks with an objective eye will see what I see.

I'm also not trying to claim that my behavior is perfect and everyone else's is horrible - that's ridiculous on the face of it. This is not about creating heroes and villains (at least not for me); this the way the system works, and there's no good or bad to it except to the extent that we like or dislike this kind of interaction.

You go do as Thryduulf suggests: look at any of the pages I've been involved with recently and examine the quality of discussion. You'll find that something like two-thirds of the arguments made by people who oppose changes are not content statements, but efforts to close the discussion, usually accompanied by mild insults of one sort or another and/or hyperbolic fear-mongering (accusations of tendentiousness, bad faith, fanaticism, prudery; assertions that any change is going to result in rabid hordes of <whomever> running rampant and damaging the project). fully half of the remaining third are unresponsive repetitions of boiler-plate comments, usually given in a declarative voice rather than a discussion tone (e.g., I must have heard fifty different instances of editors stating baldly "This is not going to change, and nothing you do will make it change"). If I'm unpleasant to work with it's because I find this kind of silliness amusing and don't give it much heed, and that's got to be irritating to people who base their entire reasoning style around these kinds of tactics. But I have to admit that my sympathy for difficulties on that particular point run a little thin.

@ 67.6: I'm not really trying to ascribe motivations here. Stress of many sorts probably factor into it. I don't think admin backlogs are the cause of the problem (any more than understaffing at public high schools is the cause high-school bullying). It's only a contributing factor to a problem that is caused by factors endemic to the structure of the situation. --Ludwigs2 20:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Avoiding reasons why people left: Although bullying is a factor in why people might want to leave Misplaced Pages, it would be WP:UNDUE weight to ignore other factors. Look at former users and consider how to avoid why they left:

• Burnout: Some people had spent too much time each day.

• Backlog: The backlog of unfinished work seemed too overwhelming.

• Boredom: Been there. Done that. Time for a new hobby.

• Cruft: Facing too many minor articles: villages of 50 people, 80 episodes of one TV show, a minor event from the 1800s, etc.

• Addiction: People spent obsessive hours and neglected personal life.

• Distraction: People left for a "short" wp:Wikibreak and never returned.

• Edit-banned: Users were banned from editing due to many advertisements or vandalism.

Hence, there have been many reasons why people left, beyond bullying, so everyone needs to budget their time, focus on articles of new interests, seek helpers for backlogs, and take periodic breaks so there is no need to "escape" forever. -Wikid77 11:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• Well I can't argue with the thought that these are all factors, but except for the 'cruft' point they are all personal factors outside of the project's scope. If people get burned out or distracted or abuse the project that's their own lookout, and there's not much we can do to encourage them to change their minds. However, at least the first three of these (and maybe 5 & 6) are grossly exacerbated by the system of bullying. I mean seriously: do you think I enjoyed spending a month on the Pregnancy page being told I was a nipple-fearing prude and that NOTCENSORED prohibits prudes like me from making changes to the encyclopedia? Anyone less ornery than i would have left the project in disgust after a week. Don't think that I'm claiming my orneriness as a good thing - it's not - and don't think I absolutely reject the concept of using a nude image there - I don't, and a few people made some good, rational arguments in support of it. But most people lack the centeredness (or perhaps it's simple masochism) that allows me to suffer through endless waves of variations on "You're a bad person for wanting this, so shut up and go away before you get blocked." --Ludwigs2 15:51, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Please comment on strengthening civility rules

Hi Jimbo, regarding Ludwig's comments above, will you please comment at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)#Strengthening civility rules on elevating User:Mindspillage/disputes to guideline or policy level? Thank you. 67.6.191.142 (talk) 21:06, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I think Mindspillage's piece contains great wisdom, of course. But I'm not sure how it could be turned into a policy, really.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:28, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Good day sir.

Mr. Wales, if you're watching this, you'll know in the future that I've wrote this directed to you. If not, may something similar to God be with you.

What you've done untill now has contributed to the human society greatly. As the information on everything can not be stored forever as the methods of papers and pencils, this new-type of digital Bibliotheca Alexandrina shall last longer than any other forms... For the children that will carry the history and all the things in here, Misplaced Pages has the greatest role.

Yet, human shall be exterminated and other 'things' shall reclaim the hollow holes. Remember this whoever you are. Even if you're not the ones that will see this. 115.21.160.108 (talk) 10:41, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Mister Wales Sir

Can you please add stuff from here(Bots,formats,etc)over to the wikia?

~Anon from the Wikia — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.49.191 (talk) 14:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

• Ask Wikia questions at Wikia, not here: It is probably best to ask such questions, about changing some other website, within that website, rather than here. Otherwise, it just distracts from Misplaced Pages issues without involving the users of the other website. Discuss with users at the Wikia website instead. Thanks. -Wikid77 15:27, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

He owns part of the Wikia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.71.49.191 (talk) 15:40, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

--JN466 19:31, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Editing as an IP

After retiring a while back, I've been editing sporadically recently as an IP. A few minutes ago I decided to nominate Harry Price (games programmer) for AfD as a clear case of WP:BLP1E, when I discovered that I have to be a logged-in user to start an AfD. I understand and agree with the idea that IP users shouldn't be able to create articles, but can concieve of no reason why legitimate IP's should not be able to raise legitimate questions about the notability of articles in the traditional way. Unlike with creating articles where WP:AfC exists, there appears to be no mechanism to allow these people to create AfDs. The danger posed by disruptive AfDs is minimal in comparison to that posed by disruptive articles, or even disruptive speedys, which any IP can make as far as I know. I'd appreciate you and your freindly talk page stalkers comments. 137.43.188.78 (talk) 20:18, 6 December 2011 (UTC)