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June editors edged to 7-year low but strong

The June editor-activity data (in http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm) still shows strong levels of editing, similar to recent months, so any major change in July levels would be surprising (such as the impact of VisualEditor). However, it is sad to see the June levels continue to erode, slightly, as now the lowest in about 7 years (since July 2006), but still wondering if editors are doing more in fewer edits. I plan on doing more to encourage the power users to keep going, and try to focus more MediaWiki software updates (+templates or Lua modules) on their concerns, with the developers in WMF platform engineering. Here are the June 2013 editor-activity levels:

Edits ≥	1	3	5	10	25	100	250	1000	2500	10000
Jun 2013	104,758	46,106	30,978	18,206	9143	3233	1366	225	50	6
May 2013	114,333	50,140	33,193	19,164	9513	3322	1453	246	52	3
Apr 2013	114,142	50,326	33,494	19,430	9583	3301	1446	240	53	4
Jun 2012	108,492	48,845	32,407	18,711	9307	3249	1375	220	53	3
May 2012	112,531	50,846	33,585	19,387	9622	3358	1484	237	54	2

Adjusted for the 30/31-day difference, the June 2013 levels are mostly ~1%-4% lower than May 2013, so it's not like a 10% drop or such. I guess we should also compare the June editor-activity levels for the other target languages of VE, when released today: German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr), Hebrew (he), Italian (it), Dutch (nl), Polish (pl), Russian (ru) and Swedish (sv). The Bugzilla entry for non-English Misplaced Pages issues with VisualEditor is: Template:Bugzilla. Anyway, the June 2013 data for enwiki still shows strong editor activity among the power users, although the new-editor group, of 5,654 users reaching 10 edits (down 14% since May), was the lowest in 7 years, since November 2005 gained only 3,567 new editors. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:08, 24 July, 05:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm a big believer in comparing things to previous year rather than previous month and the metric that I care most about is the 100+ edits/month group, so-called "very active editors" in the official jargon. June 2012 showed 3249 very active editors in English-Misplaced Pages, compared to 3233 in June 2013. That drop is 0.5%, which we can call "more or less flat." The same stats for May are 3358 and 3322, respectively, which is a drop of 1.1%, which we would call a "slight drop." New article creation is off about 10% for June 2013 vs. June 2012, which is more concerning. Carrite (talk) 02:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Almost all editor-activity levels are lower for June 2013, and the lowest in 7 years, even though only slightly below prior years for 100+ edits/month. I have added June/May 2012 into the above table, to compare the lower counts at the other edit-levels, such as 25+ edits/month. There are concerns now at almost every level. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree year-on-year is more useful - June is a big exam/holiday month and the start of the usual summer vacation fall-off. All levels above 100 epm show tiny declines yoy, or rises. A fall off in new article creation a) is probably explained by the forest of barbed wire AFC now represents and b) doesn't bother me at all as (sweeping generalization) we have far too many new articles & should be concentrating on improving the old ones. Maybe we've finally run out of Kentucky politicians, US naval transport ships etc. Johnbod (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

There is strong evidence that more than than half of anonymous IP editors are as sophisticated and prolific as "active" registered editors. Therefore, trying to count people is foolish and we should start concentrating on bytes added to articlespace per time period instead. 97.122.187.243 (talk) 08:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

If there is any evidence whatsoever, let alone strong evidence, that "more than than half of anonymous IP editors are as sophisticated and prolific as 'active' registered editors," I certainly am not aware of it. Can you point me to such evidence? I believe that quite the contrary is true, that "more than than half of Misplaced Pages vandalism and problematic edits are the product of anonymous IP editors," but I admit that this is an impressionistic observation based on perusal of various edit histories over time. I'm sure vandal fighters would have a more definite opinion on this. There are certainly many anonymous IP editors who are as productive and sophisticated as is typical for mostly anonymous named accounts, don't get me wrong, but "more than half?" That I doubt. How many? That's a question resolvable by empirical evidence... If we toss aside the count of mostly anonymous named accounts contributing content, the count of new articles is way off from the previous year's pace, which may be considered a cause for grave concern. I'm not really all that stressed about that metric myself, since this would be a natural tendency of a maturing encyclopedia. Topics get "taken." Carrite (talk) 15:34, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes there is, but don't take my word for it. Click recent changes and do your own tally. Count how many IPs are adding templates or whatever measure of sophistication you prefer. It's an easy script. 97.124.165.149 (talk) 16:28, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I'll wait to take you up on that. Other "regular editors" might be doing what I did and playing with VE logged out as an IP, having shut it down for their account. I'll keep my eyes open watching edit histories... Carrite (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

After a couple visits to the ever-changing Recent Changes queue, I'm sure not seeing it. Minor changes via VE. I did see one substantial contribution about a middle school, which will be ephemeral since it won't clear the notability bar. IP editors are, I think it is very likely — (1) newer, (2) making fewer substantial contributions, (3) creating more problematic contributions, and (4) adding content at a lower level of sophistication than registered name editors — on average. You want to see adequate footnoting to provide required verifiability? An IP editor is far less likely to be making it. Again, if there are systematically sampled academic studies on this question, that trumps impressionistic opinions. But I'd lay money that I am right here... No offense, of course. Carrite (talk) 17:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

• @Wikid77. Do the "active editing" stats include IPs or just logged in edits? Carrite (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Those are username-only stats in TablesWikipediaEN.htm, while the Bot edits are in separate columns (see German: http://stats.wikimedia.org/DE/TablesWikipediaDE.htm, "Mai" is May), and so-called "new" users must reach 10 edits, but the IP users are estimated at 2/3 one-half (54% in 2013) of the general username activity levels. However, while usernames might include a few wp:SOCK#Legit alternate usernames, the IP users are often rotating as dynamic IP addresses (often 255 numbers, or more for large ISP companies, among billions of IP numbers). The IP user who created articles "Édith Piaf" and "Maria Callas" was over 100 other IPs, looking like "100 newcomers" in general. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:17, 26 July, 05:25, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

So, what exactly is an edit? Is the insert of a comma the equal to a thousand words added to an article? If so, that definition seems so skewed as to be a useless measure.

• IP edits are 54% of username levels, 1/3 of total: Because the relative edit-counts of IP users is often noted as an issue, in comparisons to username-based edits, then the levels should be emphasized. For some years, the IP edits have been about one-third of all edits, where edit-count statistics in mid-July 2013 logged IP edits as 54% of the username-based edit-counts. I am creating essay "wp:IP users" to better explain the activities of IP users, for future reference. -Wikid77 06:18, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Personal and Moral Rights?

Sorry; if I’m trying to bring your attention again to Commons.

We have a discussion on the moral rights of the photographers and the personal rights of the subjects; two different topics and rarely come together as in the case of your portrait where you are the subject and original author as per the work for hire contract. And, that video is showcasing the original Jimmy Wales portrait several times from the beginning to end and finally attributes to it with courtesy notes. So it is derivative work per http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101, "a derogatory action in relation to the Original Work which would be prejudicial to the Original Author's honor or reputation" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode 4d); a clear violation of moral rights of the Original Author.

Further, : "Creative Commons licenses do not waive or otherwise affect rights of privacy or publicity to the extent they apply. If you have created a work or wish to use a work that might in some way implicate these rights, you may need to obtain permission from the individuals whose rights may be affected." So that video is a clear violation of the privacy/personal rights of the subject too.

While discussing these matters as a generic concern that seriously affects the photographic community in Commons; we found the current policies of Commons are desperately inadequate for our safety and to protect our reputation. At Commons:Commons:Non-copyright_restrictions, Commons is trying to impose "the reusers of Commons-hosted media to ensure that they do not violate any non-copyright restrictions that apply to the media." It’s OK; Commons can’t take the responsibility of the damages, the reusers make outside it. But it is not good if Commons itself allow and encourage hosting of such works infringing the Non-copyright-restrictions (like moral rights of the authors and personal rights of the subjects).

While looking for a solution, some people suggested that "I strongly agree with you on Commons defending people's dignity through policy but think this must come first through a stronger statement from the WMF. They are legally prevented from direct editorial control (that would make them responsible and so liable to be sued for what content we have) but they can be much more specific about what they want wrt scope and moral issues."

We noticed the resolution http://wikimediafoundation.org/Resolution:Images_of_identifiable_people; but it seems only related to privacy rights; we can’t see any resolution related to photographers' moral rights. There is some discussion is going on at commons:Commons_talk:Photographs_of_identifiable_people/Update_2013/Moral_issues under commons:Commons_talk:Project_scope/Update_2013/Stage_2 on the base of it; but I can’t see much developments.

Could you express your stand on these matters; and do you promise us that you make any attempt to protect our rights. I/We feel it is dangerous to make further media contributions in a community which encourages making and hosting derivative works of our own works to humiliate us. JKadavoor Jee 08:54, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

My first comment is that it is absolutely untrue that the WMF is "legally prevented from direct editorial control (that would mke them responsible and so liable to be sued for what content we have)". This is a frequent and unfortunate misunderstanding of the law. Section 230 is explicitly designed to allow for direct editorial control without undue risk. The Foundation can exercise direct editorial control without thereby becoming liable for what other people do. This is important.

Second, I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:53, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jimmy for your reply. "I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. My views on this are not new, and are well known. Our project is a grand humanitarian effort. That it has been hijacked by people who do not share our values is something that needs to be fixed." So Jimmy; can we expect a WMF attempt to ‘’fix’’ Commons? If so; I request you to do it immediately. Otherwise Commons will end up as a cemetery of some people you mentioned above and their bot-transferred xxx contents from Flickr or similar sites.

Or you mean, that it is the responsibility of the common community is to fix their issue? If so; I've little hope. We already discussed this matter with Russavia in detail; but he refused to take any responsibility for his rude behaviour. In that discussion, Slaunger (one who started the commons:COM:VI projects) finally offered him three solutions: "If you do not agree with the resolution, you have three options. 1) Work with the WMF and try to make them change their minds, or introduce some notability exceptions in their resolution, which it appears you think would be reasonable. 2) Pretend you love it and be loyal to it, although you really do not entirely agree. This is an entirely normal and pragmatic decision for many individuals being a member of an organization, to bend a little to adapt to the norms, because, overall, you can see that in the big picture values of the organization are aligned with your own. 3) You can come to the conclusion that your own view on the resolution differs so much, that you cannot see yourself as part of it - and resign from a current role."

So I request you to once again to bring this matter to the attention of WMF, make a resolution or something to force Commons make enough policies to protect our rights as a photographer and our commitments to our subjects. I’ve not much knowledge about the WMF hierarchies; don’t know whether this is the right place to make such a request. (I’m living in the opposite side of the world, in a remote place with frequent electricity and Internet connectivity problems; so this late response. Sorry.) JKadavoor Jee 05:15, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I am just one board member on this issue. I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff, but I need help from the community to illustrate that this is a problem that concerns many of us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jimmy; we’ll try our best from our side, because it is a real concern for us as socially committed photographers. JKadavoor Jee 07:22, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Apologies for my erroneous remark concerning editorial control. My limited non-lawyer understanding is perhaps more influenced by UK/EU law see paragraphs 42-47. To me this means (if Commons was based in the EU) that staff could not participate in deletion discussions (especially voting keep) without making themselves liable for the content. Indeed, I am concerned myself about participating in deletion discussions in case that makes me liable for any content I say should be kept. Am I misreading the EU law or is the US law quite different?

On the ethical issues I think have a situation where Commons admins think they own the site and a crowdsourced editorial policy and decision-making fails when not given enough direction from above. Too often the deletion discussions rely on an mechanical interpretation of what freedoms are allowed by law or existing policy (which is generous) rather than any consideration of ethics or of not being a jerk or a creep (see Autumn leaf discussion below). -- Colin° 07:39, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• I think that the commons community has gone down a very sad and disappointing path with respect to ethical matters. I fully agree, but the real question is: what do you plan to do about it? Saying that commons should change is all good and dandy, but it changes nothing. It's become overly clear that we mere editors can't do anything about it, because the porn brigade has managed to get some of its members elected to positions of power (which means that they, basically, get to close deletion discussions and may even restrict those who try to interfere with their porn stash). This means that it's time you and the foundation put your money where your collective mouth is and start doing something other than simply repeating commons is broken. Otherwise, nothing will ever change. Salvio 11:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy already offered "I will continue to call this to the attention of the board and staff" and requested moral support "from the community". I think this includes the other matter you mentioned too. :) JKadavoor Jee 12:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Bring it on, guys. And Jimbo, thanks for your concerns with the matter as well. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

We welcome DRs which will remove low quality, redundant sexual material. Please feel free to nominate some. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:53, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Never, unless Commoners (except for a few, like Colin) change their attitude and learn their morals. You can have my word on this. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 15:56, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I was actually replying to Salvio, since he was the one who brought up the issue of sexual imagery. You are of course welcome to participate in such deletion requests as well, though I can understand why you would not wish to. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:14, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Are you joking? Why do we waste our time by begging in front of some people who are morally incapable to make any decisions? This current example is a solid proof for that. I think it will be like begging for justice in front of devils.

Further: A DR is not the best way to keep Commons away from inappropriate contents. Commons will be saved If you (the corrupted admins) take a voluntary decision to refrain from uploading contents without proper preview. Do you need examples? Here he not only failed to make a review before making the upload; he failed to understand the problem after getting the DR too. He exclaimed: “Ummm, can you please explain your nomination reason? Do we have a similar photo to this on Commons?” After getting the second arrogant comment, he desperately accepted that he violated Commons:IDENT. What more we can expect from such a ‘crat and admins?

I would like to repeat the comment that I posted somewhere else: "I believe an admin should be morally and ethically sound enough to understand the essence of those policies to make wise decisions". No community is safe even if they have enough good policies and guidelines; it (the safety) depends more on the goodness of the judges and rulers who act upon them. JKadavoor Jee 16:50, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read commons:User_talk:Underlying_lk#Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Haitian_Shower_(8010089794).jpg. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:51, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I had read it. The civility of the requester after the deletion is not an excuse for a 'crat's ignorance and incapability to understand basic things. JKadavoor Jee 02:42, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I take exception to the assertion that "It's become overly clear that we mere editors can't do anything about it, because the porn brigade has managed to get some of its members elected to positions of power (which means that they, basically, get to close deletion discussions and may even restrict those who try to interfere with their porn stash)." Commons was founded on principles of inclusivity and the admins have merely interpreted them properly, not out of personal bias, but for the sake of the project. It is easy to bully a group of editors based on potential interest in any one topic, but it is not logically valid. If some people had a personal dislike for anime they could say that the "anime brigade" had infested Commons and was failing to delete all of it when they said so, and that needed to be fixed. Or more likely, soon enough after this we will be seeing the claim that a "Democrat brigade" is immoral because it fails to delete facts and illustrations that might be embarrassing to corporate subjects. The fact is, the only people who have been organizing and trying to take power are the censorship proponents, who are trying to make as much a disaster area of Misplaced Pages as they threaten to do with their native Britain, where under guise of a fictitious decency every word is to pass through the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-wise blackboxes of BAE Detica to be heard. But Commons does not and cannot work as a set of private fiefdoms where only what is politically backed is allowed. Wnt (talk) 21:02, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Would you mind taking exception away from the keyboard please. Colin° 14:23, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Wnt has drunk deep of the Commons kool-aid, it is best to just ignore his dribblings on this subject. The Commons crew have it down to a cold science, all they do is have one of their buds hold back from supporting/opposing, delete/keep, whatever the matter at hand is...then that "uninvolved" person can be eligible to close the discussion. Wipe, rinse, repeat. Tarc (talk) 15:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Exactly; as in the case below. JKadavoor Jee 16:22, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Wnt has it right, and that comments above against him are personal attacks instead of rational arguments go a long way showing who is on the side of reason and NPOV. The truth is that there is a definite moral panic about sexual content, and that what is disruptive is the constant escalation of "I don't like sexual content" to "OMG Commons is broken". This is moral and cultural bias at its worst. -- cyclopia 16:47, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I've yet to see a 'rational argument' as to why Commons should be a host to a giant stash of low-quality porn of dubious provenance... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Well, we can say "I've yet to see a 'rational argument' as to why commons should be a host to a giant stash of ". Of parties, for example. Or of dogs. Or of computer keyboards. If redundant content is the problem, I wonder why I never see crusades against having hundreds of pictures of computer keyboards, and instead I always see them complaining about human body parts that the culture(s) of many editors happens to find somewhat disturbing (despite them having them on their bodies as well, I suppose). -- cyclopia 17:06, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

If the mob at commons didn't spend so much time obsessing over their porn stash, they could usefully get rid of some of the other redundant material too. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:12, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Guys, this isn't adding anything new to the debate. Please absorb the take-offence/righteous-anger stuff and avoid posting till you have something clam and novel to say. Colin° 17:18, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Then please stop being patronizing. The point is that this has to be repeated even if it is not new, because it is important that it doesn't look like there is only one side on this issue. -- cyclopia 18:03, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

We would welcome your nominating redundant material for deletion - we don't want it, so if you find it tell us and we can do something about it. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:51, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Cyclopia, why are you mixing morality and sexuality? Morality only means manner, character, and proper behaviour. I’ve no known hate to sexual contents as far as it respects personal rights. In the above example I mentioned; the woman was bathing in an open space due to her poverty; without expecting that she will be a prey for a wicked photographer with a tele lens. JKadavoor Jee 17:01, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I was not talking about that deletion -which makes perfect sense. I was referring in general to the "porn brigade" comments, Wnt reply and subsequent replies. -- cyclopia 17:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Wnt's comments do not show he "is on the side of reason", but do show he'd rather waste our time with lengthy attacks on some colourful rhetoric than engaging in the real issues. On the issue of deletion closure, to be fair, the consensus at that deletion request discussion was clearly keep, so there wasn't anything unfair about the admin closure result itself. Not that you'd guess that it was a "per consensus" closure from Matt's lecture to the proles. Commons:Deletion policy doesn't even mention the word consensus (though the Commons:Commons:Deletion requests page says it will be "taken in to account"). In other words, we've got a system there where admins have a stronger and final say, and the community has at best an advisory role, and at worst, gets completely ignored. Commons' deletion policy needs improved. It needs to mention consensus, to mention the "courtesy deletions" practice, and to note that the list of "Reasons for deletion" given is not necessarily exhaustive. -- Colin° 17:09, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

In that DR; I have clear evidence for improper admin involvements as a joint attack. See this. Finally I have to report it to the Administrators’ notice board. JKadavoor Jee 17:28, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Because, unfortunately, Salvio occupies a high position on en.wikipedia, I do not feel it is a waste of time for me to speak out against his call for an overturn of basic principles of inclusivity and community. It was a short reply to a long thread; I didn't cover everything, no. Some of the claims in the broader conversation need to be legally evaluated - if the WMF is not totally dysfunctional it needs to see refuting such claims as a core mission - namely, that contributions by under 18 aren't really free-licensed, or that "moral rights" prohibit people from freely adapting a photo of a butterfly as they see fit. If such claims were valid, the entire WMF and all its works would be at risk of being relegated to the realm of pirate distribution. Wnt (talk) 20:11, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your wise words. Yes; WMF should seriously involve to guide the projects they posses than simply watching and maintaining them. JKadavoor Jee 02:42, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

WMF should be a tool that serves the community, it should not guide it. When it tries to guide the community it can fail spectacularly -see the VisualEditor fiasco.-- cyclopia 11:50, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

You don't own Misplaced Pages, they do. They can, and should, set the moral and legal framework that we operate under, and define the scope and purpose of the project we are helping them achieve. IMO they haven't done enough in this regard, especially on Commons. If you want a "tool that serves the community" then you would need to (collectively) own Misplaced Pages/Commons and the WMF would just be staff employed/appointed by the community to build/maintain it -- like we pay our taxes to the local council and get to vote for their leaders. Colin° 12:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I know the community doesn't own Misplaced Pages, thanks. However, given that most of WMF is financed by donations of the community, I'd say that they are a bit in the situation of a taxes-paid council. But even if they are not, one thing is what they can do, another what they should do. If you feel WMF should govern with an iron fist, you're free to think so. My opinion is more nuanced: WMF should behave, at least, as a tool to enforce the community, not bypassing it, while of course retaining ultimate control for emergency cases (e.g. legal issues). And that's more or less what it does. Again, I personally feel that when WMF attempted to enforce its power, it created more harm than good. The last VE thing however is an interesting case in this respect. But hey, I may be wrong. -- cyclopia 12:31, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

No "iron fist" required. Just clarity. Colin° 12:56, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

You keep speaking as if you own Misplaced Pages and can throw out what you don't like. I assure you, I put great effort into weakening the proposed Commons:COM:SEX so thoroughly that I was actually neutral toward its passage in the end. Nonetheless, when it reached actual voters they rejected it as censorship. When you and I and a half dozen other people finally give up arguing on whichever of the 30-odd RFCs of the "Commons:Commons:Project scope/Update 2013" proposal that MichaelMaggs wants to hear about, whatever comes out of it will be rejected soundly in any vote, while ignoring the vote would splinter the organization. Wnt (talk) 14:36, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Lordy. Splinter the organisation, you say? Better not do that then - sounds serious. Begoon  14:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

WMF is not just a dumb tool; it is a non-profit organization that operates Misplaced Pages and other free knowledge projects. It has a bylaw, vision and mission. It has a responsibility to correct the community whenever it feels they are deviating from its values. They did it several times through many resolutions. They include Personal Image Hiding Feature, Controversial content, Images of identifiable people, Biographies of living people and Nondiscrimination. I can’t see any reason why it can’t make another resolution to protect our moral/personal rights. JKadavoor Jee 15:51, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

You can't see a reason why it can't because there isn't a reason why it can't. I hope it will see the large number of expressed concerns from the community, at least some of which Jimbo seems to share, as a reason why it should, and will. Begoon  15:58, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes; I hope. Thanks. JKadavoor Jee 16:07, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/File:Doleschallia bisaltide bisaltide (Autumn Leaf) - male, January 2013, Singapore.jpg

Hey Jimmy, I hope you can empathise with me on this. Jkadavoor's talking about this because of me. I'm getting irritated and very disturbed with my image being used, and Commons as well as Commoners' lack of respect (especially to contributors) and morals. I will be sending an email to you within the next 2 hours. Please keep your inbox checked. Cheers. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 13:55, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Arctic Kangaroo; my comments here are no way related to your issue; it is only a simple matter that can be resolved with sympathy and empathy, considering your younger age. I too have younger brothers. (My/our topic is well described here and somewhat here.) JKadavoor Jee 05:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Talking about poor morals, and no respect towards fellow contributors, I'm very disappointed to say that Geo Swan is a fellow en.wiki contributor who is part of that group on Commons. He's also carried his very good values with him when he works on en.wiki. Perhaps, you also want to read the discussion conversation argument that I had with him. diff ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:02, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

About User:Arctic Kangaroo above, Jimbo don't be swayed too much by that.If you have a look you find that s/he's just complaining because s/he suddenly changed mind about the copyright of some pictures of butterflies. That is obviously an impossible-to-honour request -if it was, I could revoke my contributions from Misplaced Pages at any moment, and WP should be obliged to comply. The whole point of free licences is that of giving up some of your intellectual "property" rights on a work. If the creator still holds the power to revoke, then s/he holds all power on the work, and thus it is not free anymore. We've banned users that refused to comply with license requirements, and rightly so. -- cyclopia 14:26, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

It's all related. And Cyclopia, I haven't sent the email. Inside there will be whatever reasons I have to say. Cheers. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:27, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• In the interests of permanence I added a diff after Arctic Kangaroo's link to my talk page. Geo Swan (talk) 15:44, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 15:42, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

• I've noted here that Arctic Kangaroo asked in all good faith about how to upload the image without others using it, he was given very very bad advice here on Misplaced Pages as part of a formal adoption process, and appears to have followed that advice in good faith. I'm seeing this issue as being largely the result of that very very bad advice, not a result of any bad faith or incompetence on Arctic Kangaroo or Geo Swan's part. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:01, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I think this is very relevant. Cyclopedia, your concern that if we allow one user to delete a file based on a change of heart, we have to do so in all cases, is simply not true. We can and should make exceptions for a wide variety of reasons. In the vast majority of cases, one picture is worth being jerks about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:41, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

If there is evidence he followed bad advice, a case could be made for him not having actually understood the CC requirements, thus invalidating it for his pictures. This is fine by me: he simply did not consent to a contract, de facto. So no exceptions to be made. Then I apologize, and this makes it clear we have to be clearer on what releasing with CC means during upload.

However what I worry is exactly the "make exceptions" issue. If you summarily understand the CC license, then there cannot be turning back, because to do so means the author has full power on the work: and that undermines the whole concept of a free license. -- cyclopia 09:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

That the CC licence is irrevocable does to compel us to irrevocably host the image or irrevocably use it on Misplaced Pages projects. We can choose to remove the file from our servers as a result of community discussion. Too often the slippery slope fallacy is used to justify taking a hard-line position. This makes it very hard to remove material because it is the right thing to do rather than because some law or policy absolutely requires it. That attitude needs to change. Commons is not compelled to host anything. An example of a user taking a hard-line principles-first approach is Geo Swan's discussion with AK (linked above). Geo Swan's uploading of AK's picture to his Flickr account not only breaks Flickr's terms and conditions but is a really nasty way of proving one's point. Colin° 10:44, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not a slippery slope argument, because one case where we guarantee this is enough to formally dismantle the whole concept of a free license. Free license = you do NOT have anymore full rights on the work, only those preserved by the license. There is no turning back. This case may be an exception only because the uploader did not actually know about what the license meant really in advance, and it perhaps can be proven by the discussion linked by Demiurge1000 above. But if there is no sound proof of that, going back is a no-no. Even doing it once would immediately make all free licensing moot: it would show they have no bearing whatsoever anymore, even if nobody else asks to revoke them again. Which, however, will most likely happen, if we create precedents. This may look like a one-time mistakes-happen let's-do-the-decent-thing occurrence, but it is instead deeply ruinous. It threatens the very foundation of the concept of a free licence. Don't underestimate that. -- cyclopia 12:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Where is the requirement or policy on Commons that says that because the image has a CC licence, Commons must host it. Too many admins and others have got deletion review upside down when they assume that because there is no policy that says we have to delete it it follows that we have to keep it. Time and again you see deletion closures saying that if the image has a valid licence and is in use then and doesn't clearly break COM:IDENT then there is no valid argument to delete. This is wrong. While the consensus at a deletion discussion shouldn't be allowed to decided to keep an image that is illegal or against policy, it must surely be allowed to decide to delete an image that is legal and complies with policy. -- Colin° 13:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There may be remote edge cases in which a deletion may be required despite policy compliance. In any other case, yes, it does follow that we have to keep it, otherwise policies etc. are just nonsense. For sure "uploader changed her mind" cannot be a reason to do so, because it would imply the uploader maintains more control on the image than the one allowed by the CC license. If an image is free once, is free forever. This must be as crystal clear and iron strong as possible. -- cyclopia 13:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Deletion from Commons does not change the license. It changes how easily the image spreads (which is still desirable for many editors) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Technically correct. But a deletion from Commons on request (with perhaps the exception of a "dammit, I uploaded the wrong image, sorry" request a few minutes after upload, or similar obvious mistakes) still acknowledges exceptional control by the uploader. This makes the image "free", but on a leash. Which is not very free. -- cyclopia 13:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Cyclopia, I agree with your arguments; which are part of the free concepts. But I don’t think raising them on every courtesy deletion request is very helpful. This is not a case like a long time established user who wants all his files get deleted; when he changed his mind. He has only a few media contributions so far, all are very recent, and all uploaded through en:wiki upload wizard. He may not even notice that they are uploaded to Commons; not to Misplaced Pages. His first visit to Commons (other than a few POY votes) was when I made a notice on his talk page regarding the FPC nomination. JKadavoor Jee 13:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Cyclopia, you are confusing the requirement to relicense the work under the same CC terms when copying, modification, or redistribution occur, with the fictitious notion that the CC license compels Commons to redistribute the work in perpetuity. Commons is not obligated to continue publishing works; it is only compelled to publish them under the same license terms if it does publish them at all. The decision whether or not to publish a work licensed under CC can be made for any number of reasons (one of which might be that the author does not want the work to be published at Commons), and that decision can be changed anytime; what cannot be done is revocation of downstream users' rights to continue to copy, modify, and redistribute under CC terms once they received the work from Commons. alanyst 13:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I am perfectly aware of this distinction. This doesn't change that, de facto, complying to such a request implies that, practically, we give the uploader a level of control that is not present in the license. We may well decide to delete something free from Commons, but setting a precedent where such a decision is made only because of a request of the uploader without extremly good reasons is noxious, because of what it implies -namely, that the uploader has a special level of control on the work. That's exactly the opposite of free content, regardless of how technically it still complies. -- cyclopia 14:09, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Absurd. Imagine that when the person uploaded the file to Commons, they also gave a copy to a friend under the same CC terms, and when they asked Commons to delete it, they also asked their friend to do so. Commons and the friend are equally free to accede to the uploader's request or to ignore it, and enjoy the exact same degree of control in their decisions. Commons does not need to be bound by precedent any more than the friend does the next time someone gives them a CC-licensed file. alanyst 14:28, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

What seems absurd to me is your analogy. A personal friend is not a public, open website hosting thousands of images that makes a point of being a repository of informative free content, run by a consensus-driven community, where anybody can see what happened before and what precedents have been set. -- cyclopia 14:45, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. And you believe we should place the free-content crusade before all else. Some of us believe there are other things equally important, such as editorial and publishing discretion, and moral concerns, even. I'd rather 'anybody' could see that we did the common sense, human, decent thing after due consideration. You never know, that might encourage more people to donate more content to a responsible host. I doubt the two points of view will ever mesh easily, so it seems tedious for us to repeat it all again, no? We can does not mean we must. Begoon  15:01, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, no, it's not matter of a crusade. Nor it is a matter of "we can therefore we must". It's a matter of what does free content mean. In other words, things have to be clear for users of Commons. In the moment I see an image on Commons, and it is obviously compliant with policies, I expect to be able to use it in any way that is compliant with the requirements of the license. That's what free content means: it is something that we can relink, share, reuse, rebuild upon, while keeping only a minimum of clear obligations, because the author explicitly relinquished (most of) her/his rights on the image, and cannot complain if it happens that he does not like what I do with it. If, instead, in any moment the copyright owner can decide to change his mind, then it has never been free: it was only "on loan", something like "hey, I'll give it to you to play until I decide it's fine". And so we jeopardize the whole concept of free content. It's not matter of crusade, I am not a free-culture-Taliban, frankly (heh, I worked for closed-source companies). But if we say that is free, then it has to be free, not "free unless uploader has a change of mind". And it has also nothing to do with "decency" and "common sense". Apart from the fact that there is no such thing as "common sense", because what is "common" in my culture can be far from common in yours, there is nothing in the notion of "decency" that requires us to abide to every whim of uploaders. If there is some serious privacy or real-life complain, then decency may play a part. It doesn't with contributors that want to pick up the ball and suddenly decide that we can't play anymore - it's not their ball anymore, once under CC. I hope I made myself more clear. -- cyclopia 15:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

More clear, no. But you used a lot of words. I already knew where you stood. I disagree. Begoon  15:42, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Given that you said that I "believe we should place the free-content crusade before all else" -which is nonsense- I'd say that no, you know really nothing of where I stand. So you're disagreeing with some figment of your imagination, not with me. -- cyclopia 15:47, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know much about Commons. You say we should not delete a file from our collection if the uploader has simply changed their mind. But is there a WMF directive or Commons policy that forbids it (that says we may not)? If I add a page to Misplaced Pages that no one else has added to and ask that it be removed, that will usually happen without any fuss. I'm fairly sure the licensing and ethical issues are much the same, so I'd be curious to know if the two projects' written policies are different on this issue. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

You're correct about the articles removal on WP. It should not happen as well. It is a shame it does. -- cyclopia 17:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I respect your right to the view that this kind of thing shouldn't happen, and your right to argue from that position. But I'm asking you, may it happen. I'm asking if it is permitted by Commons policy for a file to be deleted for no other reason than that the uploader requests it? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

To clear up, Commons has a policy that we may delete images whose uploaders have requested deletion. We do it fairly frequently actually. But we generally draw the line if the image is used on other projects. -mattbuck (Talk) 16:36, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I know you sometimes delete files upon the uploader's request but the only such deletion discussions I've seen have required the uploader to justify it, beyond simply requesting it. So to be very clear, if the file isn't being used on another project and the uploader gives no reason, or simply says they've changed their mind, policy permits deletion and the uploader's wish is usually respected, without them having to provide any rationale. Have I got that right? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

It does depend on the image in question, and timing. If you ask for deletion after a few days or a month or so, then it's more likely to be granted. If the image is something that is easily replaceable and/or low quality, again, more likely to be granted. But courtesy deletions are not generally granted if the image is in (mainspace) use, and especially not if it's widely used. -mattbuck (Talk) 22:11, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:32, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I've had contact by email with Arctic Kangaroo and he's apparently well under the age of legal competence for this sort of thing anyway. So there's a good case to be made that the license has not actually been granted, period, despite whatever checkbox he may have clicked. For me, this seals it, and I've asked Wikimedia Legal to comment on the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:51, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• |It's interesting to note that this point was made in the deletion discussion, and that one response was "if there are legal issues here, it's the WMF's lawyers who should tell us so. Not some random users who probably aren't lawyers." — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:04, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo. That's encouraging. I do a lot of image work for the project, and it's important to me that there is some common sense involved somewhere along the line. It really is important, and it's good to see. Cheers. Begoon  19:01, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo, thanks for your understanding. I will be sending you another email, hopefully by tonight (UTC+8). Cheers. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 22:46, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to pour cold water on things, but if we are saying that Arctic Kangaroo is not of legal competence to release images, then they should be globally banned and all their edits on all projects revdeled (and all subsequent revisions as derivative works). There is no difference between the CC-BY-SA the user released the image under and the CC-BY-SA they released those edits under (By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL.), other than they don't like the consequences of that particular edit. If you're arguing from a legal standpoint, then you need to be consistent and delete everything. If you argue from a moral standpoint, then the DR was already closed as keep. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with mattbuck here as well, it's all or nothing. _→AzaToth 00:08, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

This is actually a HUGE point in terms of Misplaced Pages and it would be nice to hear from house counsel on the matter. Bearing in mind that I am not a lawyer and don't play one on TV: in the United States, those under age 18 are not legally able to enter into a binding contract. Every single saved edit is a small contractual release of automatic copyright via Creative Commons license. If those under 18 have no legal standing to make such a release, they should theoretically retain copyright to the content they have created. They should theoretically be able to force its removal. They should theoretically be prohibited from editing until the age of legal majority. Carrite (talk) 17:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

But is a release into a free license a 'binding contract'? I don't think so, although I'm not an expert in USA laws. A contract normally requires two parties, but in case of releasing a file into a free license, there is no other party. Wikimedia doesn't have any contract with the author, they are just storing the text or file, after release by the author. Also after the release, the author doesn't have any binding obligations. He can even use his released work as before. Jcb (talk) 18:07, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I note that one of those giving you a hard time here has uploaded your image to a flickr account. That is contrary to the flickr terms of use

Don’t upload anything that isn't yours. This includes other people's photos, video, and/or stuff you've copied or collected from around the Internet. Accounts that consist primarily of such collections may be deleted at any time.

and flickr will delete the image from their site if you contact them. If you do so then I recommend that you go to the page and click the link at the bottom that says "report abuse". Choose "Other concerns" at the bottom of the list rather than "Someone is posting photos that I have taken ...". In the email explain that you are a minor and the person uploaded the image as a form of revenge in order to "teach you a lesson", add links to the Commons discussions where he did it. If you do it that way and emphasis the bullying aspect Geo Swann's flickr account and his 11,000 images will most likely be deleted, as Yahoo will not countenance bullying of minors. Alternatively you can click the "copyright/ip" link bottom right of the page and just get the one image deleted. John lilburne (talk) 23:27, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• We might wish to get legal to review this; this is certainly something that has huge potential to change Wikimedia. If no one who is not of legal age has legal competence to free license their work, that would of necessity include text as well as images. That being the case, I have a hard time seeing how Wikimedia could continue to allow anyone not yet of legal age to edit anything on Wikimedia. If that were so, I'd presume it would have to lead to some sort of identity confirmation of logged in users, and the end editing by users who have not logged in. (IMO this might in the long run do more good than harm, but it certainly would be a major change.) -- Infrogmation (talk) 01:00, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree, we need legal to review the wider implications of this issue, not just the limited question of whether this file should be deleted from Commons as requested by Arctic Kangaroo (AK).

First, is it sensible to keep the image hosted on Misplaced Pages (as AK wants) if the reason for deleting it from Commons is that AK wasn't legally competent to license it freely?

Second, what should be done with other images uploaded to Misplaced Pages by AK?

Third, do we similarly need to delete AK's other edits to Misplaced Pages and other WMF wikis? If AK isn't legally competent to license images freely, would the same be true of text contributions?

Fourth, what should we do about potential future edits by AK? Are blocks on all wikis required until AK is old enough, or until we have OTRS confirmation of his parents' or guardians' agreement to freely license his contributions?

Finally, what are the implications for edits and uploads by other people, including those who we suspect may be under 18, and those for whom we have no idea (including people who aren't signed in)? --Avenue (talk) 03:54, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't presume to speak for Jimbo, but my take on it is that the only precedent we would be setting is that of having respected the wish of a contributor not to host his image any more, and taking into account that he may not have fully understood the rigidness of the terms he agreed to when uploading it. There don't seem to be any licensing implications - anyone who acquired the file under the license offered is unaffected - we just agree to not host the file any more out of consideration for the users wishes. Sure, people will cry "slippery slope", because that's the way of it here, but I think it does us no harm to be seen as responsive to a reasonable request from a good faith contributor. Opinions will, of course, differ. I wouldn't still be contributing images to this site or Commons at all if the rules had been rigidly enforced in a recent deletion discussion which I initiated (although that was more complex, with other reasons to delete), so feel free to see my point of view as "involved". Begoon  04:09, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd be a lot happier granting such a request if I believed that he had good reasons for making it, that he now understood the implications of the licenses he has agreed to, and that he wouldn't be making such requests without good reason in the future. Keep in mind that this is very different from a prompt request to remove an unused image that was uploaded mistakenly. The image is used on several projects and has been promoted as an FP on both WP and Commons, after review by several editors.

But the fact that he wants us to remove the image from Commons while keeping it on Misplaced Pages seems to show that he still doesn't understand the license he applied to the image (or the aims of our movement more broadly), and that he doesn't really have good reasons for its removal. (That's not to say that there aren't good reasons, such as his being a minor, just that he didn't present them in his request.) If we do decide to delete it from Commons, it won't simply be to fulfil his request, but because of these other reasons, and I think the consequences should extend at least as far as also removing it from Misplaced Pages. I also have trouble understanding why we'd want to risk keeping AK's other uploads unless he changed his tune dramatically. If you think that means I'm crying "slippery slope", so be it.

The implications for his other contributions are messier, and I don't claim to fully understand them, but I would certainly like some legal input on the issues. I'm concerned we could create a lot of unnecessary trouble for ourselves later if we don't. --Avenue (talk) 05:38, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

he still doesn't understand the license he applied to the image - that is the issue. He doesn't understand the licence, and isn't legally competent to enter into a irrevocable agreement. In any other situation if an organisation were to maintain that a U16 was to be held to a contract there would be a page on this site about it. The concerns expressed about his other contributions are ill founded as it is highly unlikely that any of his written article work will be copyrightable. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation fixes rarely rise to the level of obtaining copyright status. I'll note in passing that Geo Swann has wisely removed the image from flickr. John lilburne (talk) 07:30, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The comments he made here are certainly eligible for copyright. There is no substantive difference between text and images. It is my view that if we accept that (even just under Singaporean law) minors cannot release things under CC, then at the very least Arctic Kangaroo must be banned from all WMF projects, and we should probably follow suit with everyone else who may not be legally compos mentis. -mattbuck (Talk) 08:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

The retention of comments here and elsewhere most likely falls under fair use. They aren't being sold, they aren't being used to promote the site, the chances of anyone putting his comments onto a tea towel, or mug is remote. No the issue is with media files, and your insistence that they be kept against the wishes of a child, who clearly wanted them to be used solely on WP. It is your, and others, grasping nature that is the real problem here Matt. 62.49.31.176 (talk) 11:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it best to wait till we get the legal answers before speculating on the consequences both for AK and other child users -- I would hope Jimbo and WMF are considering the consequences too and not just one butterfly photo. But regardless of whether the licence is valid, I think we should appreciate that children-users are more likely to misunderstand/make mistakes and so we should be more sympathetic in our handling. While AK's behaviour has made it difficult to be sympathetic (myself included), we should rise above this rather than let it anger us to being stubborn. Mattbuck mentions courtesy deletion but it appears Commons has no written policy on the matter (that I can find) -- so I suggest we consider documenting this area in the Commons deletion policy pages. Colin° 11:06, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

@Everyone in this discussion except Jimmy: My text contributions have been OK so far. It's just a misunderstanding of the whole CC thing that made my image contribution bad. Anyway, as long as I learn and fully understand any licence before uploading anything again, then it's absolutely fine right? Blocks are for prevention, not punishment. I've already promised to learn up those stuff, am I not right? Anyway, you guys don't understand the situation fully. Almost everything I need to say is stated in my email to Jimmy and you can ask him if you like to understand the full situation. Anyway, I'm never uploading anything to Commons again. You have my word on that. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:18, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

This is prevention. If you are not legally competent to release images under free licences then you cannot be allowed to upload anything on Commons, and any significant textual contribution is similarly unallowable as they are under a similar licence. -mattbuck (Talk) 14:29, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

FYI, I have no complaints about my text contributions being used. Images are things that I treasure, and thus are very picky about it. Although that doesn't mean I don't value the articles I create. However, I am actually more open (more accurately, 大方) when it comes to articles. ✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

That you value text and images differently is completely irrelevant - if we accept the argument that as a minor you were not legally able to release images under CC licences, the same is necessarily true of your text contributions. As I said earlier, this is the difference between legal reasons and courtesy reasons - courtesy can be applied to different contributions differently, but legal reasons must be applied to all contributions equally. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:29, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

--✉→Arctic Kangaroo←✎ 14:22, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

• Hmm. I've spotted this discussion via another user's talk page, and it raises a question from me; if it is ruled that minors are not competent to understand licenses and thus their Commons uploads are invalid, what happens when a user uploads something as a minor, this change comes in, but they're no longer a minor? This doesn't affect me (I didn't upload anything before I turned 18), but it definitely is an interesting problem, at least in my eyes. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 15:10, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Your pictures are wonderfully fine, AK. It's good to be charitable and donate such vivid, well-shot images to Commons. What's frustrating you? Because of some miscommunication and misinterpretation of licensing, we have landed into some mambo jumbo about the competency of minors and legal rights, stuff like that. Wiki-drama indeed. Good luck, AK. ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 09:30, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I think for this case we should disregard whatever license AK has chosen. As a minor, holding him at fault for not understanding all these legal licenses is like letting him stand trial in court. What a dilemma -- if the pictures were removed for him being a minor, what happens to the textual contributions? ☯ Bonkers The Clown \(^_^)/ Nonsensical Babble ☯ 09:36, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

• The text contributions and media contributions of own works are entirely different.

Text contributions: Help:Introduction_to_referencing/1: “One of the key policies of Misplaced Pages is that all article content has to be verifiable. This means that a reliable source must be able to support the material. All quotations and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged must include an inline citation of a source that directly supports the material. This also means that ‘’’this is no place for original work’’’, archival findings that have not been published, or evidence from any source that has not been published.” So what?

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing: “The following list sets out some basic things that you should think about before you apply a Creative Commons license to your work. 1. Make sure your work is copyrightable. 2. Make sure you have the rights.

Here you are only developing an article with third party contents that are verifiable in reliable source. That source is not owned by you; so you can’t grant any rights that you don’t have.

So what may be the text “By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license. “ above the “Save page” button mean? Probably it means that you have to ensure that the contributions you made are freely available in a reliable source. I can’t see any problem in such edits by a person below Age of consent as far as the edits are not harmful for this project. (Disclaimer: I’m not an article editor; my area of expertise is photography. So this is my limited understanding on this topic. Correct me if I’m wrong.)

Media contributions of own works: Here you owned the media you created. You hold the copyright irrespective of your age. But can consent of a person below Age of consent to grant/give-away his rights can be considered as a valid consent? No; probably. Hope legal team will answer it. JKadavoor Jee 16:18, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Er, no, text contributions are not "contributions you made freely available in a reliable source", that would mean we could only ever reference anything which was freely licensed. And furthermore, you can have copyright on third party contents which are verifiable to reliable sources, since you make deliberate compositional choices. The FACTS cannot be copyrighted, but your presentation of them can be. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:48, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes indeed. Many of AK's text contributions would be above the US's low threshold of originality, and we need them to be freely licensed to continuing hosting them. This doesn't apply to uncreative edits such as fixing typos or simple reverts of vandalism, but I think it probably applies to most posts of new content or commentary as long as a sentence. --Avenue (talk) 21:14, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Mattbuck and Avenue for correcting me. I’m not fully convinced; but my knowledge about page editing is limited, as I stated above. JKadavoor Jee 02:48, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Note: AK got blocked from Wikimedia Commons yesterday (not by me, but I fully support it), due to disturbing editing and also due to the very dangerous Jimbo Wales comment. ("I've had contact by email with Arctic Kangaroo and he's apparently well under the age of legal competence for this sort of thing anyway. So there's a good case to be made that the license has not actually been granted, period, despite whatever checkbox he may have clicked."). Following Jimbo in this very weird comment, would endanger the entire project. I hope WMF will not delete the files, because that means that any user can get his licenses revoked by convincing Jimbo Wales of a low age. And we know how accurate Jimbo can judge people. Jcb (talk) 17:00, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Not really; that seems only a procedural block; as commented by Russavia there. JKadavoor Jee 17:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

It was more than just procedural. Yesterday AK removed the featured awards from his butterfly then attempted to change the licence terms to "all rights reserved". That is "disturbing editing" and a sign he still doesn't get it. Colin° 17:21, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Hmm; it seems he is too young to understand anything. :( But I can’t see any point in Jcb’s bla bla bla. JKadavoor Jee 17:34, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Entire story. JKadavoor Jee 17:48, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Is the Russavia person that blocked Arctic Kangaroo on Commons, a friend of the Mattbuck person? Has there been any dispute between this Russavia person that blocked Arctic Kangaroo, and Jimbo who has exchanged thoughtful emails with Arctic Kangaroo?

What is the status on English Misplaced Pages of Russavia? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:10, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Such things don’t matter; I think. He is a 'crat on Commons; so he has every right to make a procedural block till they get a reply from WMF-legal. JKadavoor Jee 02:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and WebCite?

WebCite which is used for dead links required by Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is going to close.

without saving dead links Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is completely meanless!

when we got any offical solution for http://meta.wikimedia.org/WebCite ? (Idot (talk) 12:04, 25 July 2013 (UTC))

Making loud noises does not prove an argument! The closure of webcite does not make WP:V any more meaningless than it was before webcite existed. Linkrot is a problem we will always have, and will always have to deal with. Resolute 14:13, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

what we will do with dead links as do not have any alternative ways for verification of dead links?
shall we cancel WP:V as meanless rule or what?
or you just going to wait until all dead links will really die, then say "sorry guys..."? (Idot (talk) 16:07, 25 July 2013 (UTC))

Also it should be noted that the vast majority of voters supported acquisition. I was among them. We donate and we should be able to determine how Wikimedia spends our money. — kf8 17:03, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

How much more do they need to raise and by when? 97.124.165.149 (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

They need $30k by the end of year, of which 10k is already raised. Personally, I'm very disappointed by WMF spending large amounts for meaningless activities and not supporting service which stores over 300k pages for verifiability purposes. WMF could acquire WebCite or make similar service of our own, but the Foundation is occupied with its own petty projects like VE, it's a shame! --Akim Dubrow (talk) 10:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy, how can mere mortals check to see whether someone has put in a FDC application for saving WebCite? 97.122.185.40 (talk) 15:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

• Website should be supported. In the end, one of the pillars of Misplaced Pages holds, because the service operates. ADDvokat (talk) 15:22, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
• Don't acquire it, just support it. $30k is chickenfeed to the WMF - it's the kind of money they lay out to "train the trainers" so that some people in a WMxx organization can have something cool to put on their resumes (without providing a Wikiversity course for the rest of us to follow, either). That money can (a) keep them operating and (b) buy their promise to serve links to Misplaced Pages with greater reliability, to warn us if they are approaching an outage, etc. Wnt (talk) 20:25, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree completely. If this was something that the Foundation could purchase with an operations requisition, there is no question in my mind that they would pay for it to prevent service interruptions for all the outgoing links. But why can't they? Jimbo, are you going to ask the Foundation staff to cut a check to keep WebCite up? EJM86 (talk) 06:40, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Tables with VE

You said somewhere above that you thought it was acceptable to have left tables out of VE because they were hard. I think it's actually the worst deficiency of VE. Any examination of the hundreds of thousands of pop culture articles on Misplaced Pages will reveal that they are built around tables: tables of episodes, tables of release dates, filmographies, discographies, videographies, bibliographies, more -ographies than you can shake a stick at.

Go take a look at List of awards and nominations received by Demi Lovato, probably the poster-child article for something a new young editor is likely to go edit. Hit that edit button and ask yourself whether you would dare touch the result (please don't actually touch it with VE by the way: the results are highly unpredictable and rarely good).

Efforts by newbies to edit them can result in disasters like this edit. No editor really wanted to replace every episode description with the ♙ character.

No newbie can add the fact that a song charted in his country using VE, probably the single most common edit to pop song articles. The release of VE has saved me some time: newbies can't figure out how to even try to add a chart entry, so I don't have to spend as much of my time fixing them as I used to. That's certainly not your goal.

This thing really needs to get rolled back until it has the basic capabilities required to edit all of our articles, and that includes table editing, including tables of templates that don't meet Parsoid's definition of how we should have built templates.—Kww(talk) 16:49, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think rolling it back is a live option; nor should it be. But we can work together, all of us, to help the Foundation prioritize what to do next. And we may want to reconsider some editorial policies which have allowed/encouraged excessively complex markup for years. For newbies, editing that page in either wikitext or VE is a nightmare. When I click 'edit' with VE (I won't save, as I take your warning seriously), it looks quite easy to edit except for code that should never have been in there in the first place, i.e. the styling attributes. But yes, I can say this: on that page, editing using VE is essentially impossible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

No, I agree with Kww - it really should be an option. The "live" test has been done, it failed to be usable as a default editor, people are animated and willing to help. Pull it back, regroup and we'll get there. Sorry if you think that's negative, but there's lots of positive there too, if you look for it. Begoon  18:02, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

That wouldn't be my decision to make in any event, but I see the Foundation being highly responsive and iterating quickly and I think we should support and push forward with that. If show stopping problems can't be fixed for months or years then yes, I'd strongly support a campaign to get them to roll it back. But that doesn't seem to be the case. And I didn't take your comment as negative, and I do very much appreciate you being positive about it. It's very meaningful and more likely to get legitimate problems heard than the temptation some have had to yell at or denigrate the efforts of the people doing this work. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Kww and Begoon. Most of the long term editors do not want to touch VE with a yard-long stick. The usage study on new editors has shown is makes the situation worse for them, or at best identical. Rolling it back would be a huge step forward, despite what it seems: it is first and foremost a way to show the community that WMF listens to them, and second it would allow more time and peace of mind to fix the software before it is released again. -- cyclopia 18:09, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't a better way to listen be to prioritize and quickly fix serious problems? One problem we have had (for a very long time) is that widely advertised and promoted beta tests have drawn only a handful of testers and commenters (and that's much appreciated). In any event, I should emphasize: I'm not ideological on this point. I'd prefer that we hold off here on talk about rolling it back (not something that's within my range of decision making, and my excessive level of influence would mean that if I called for it, it'd be seriously considered and highly disruptive). Let's first work through the specific problems, get estimates on how long it takes to fix them, and see what the Foundation's overall timeline looks like. I think we can take a few weeks of annoyances if it means we get to where we want to be within a month or two, rather than a rollback and malaise that means it will be delayed by another year (or longer).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Rolling it back shouldn't only be considered a live option, it's the only responsible option. For what it's worth, that page and similar ones have been successfully edited by small children for a long time. Most of them could figure out what {{nom}},{{won}}, and {{lost}} meant without any help at all. None of them would have been able to create any of the templates, but that's not the point: inexperienced editors were quite capable of using them. All of the nasty and difficult parts were dealt with by experienced editors, making it easy for newbies.—Kww(talk) 18:26, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I think that's an empirical question, and I'm not convinced. Far more common would be someone (small child or not) who clicks on edit and quite rightly runs away from the whole thing. People are nice, and they don't want to break things. On the question of tables, my question is: how long will it take to get them usable? If the Foundation's answer to that is: 9 months, then yeah, let's roll it back. But if the answer is that a series of improvements are going to roll out weekly with expected full fix being done in 4 weeks, then I think we should ask them to get cracking on it. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:43, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The bugs related to the article I gave you a link to were known before VE's deployment. Per http://meta.wikimedia.org/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_reviews/VisualEditor-Parsoid/July_2013 basic table support is nearly a year away (currently scheduled for Q2 of 2014). The bugzillas related to even being able to display tables being created with templates are Template:Bugzilla (currently marked as low importance, unscheduled), Template:Bugzilla (normal importance, unscheduled), and Template:Bugzilla (unprioritized, unscheduled). The Foundation is at least nine months away from having a usable editor, and probably closer to 18 months. I don't know where you have gotten the impression that WMF has been "highly responsive" to editors, BTW: we asked them to turn it off until they got it fixed, and their only response has been to treat us like we are children throwing a temper tantrum. Take a look at User talk:Jdforrester (WMF)#Question, where his response to me basically translates to "go away and bother somebody else, because I don't care what you think."—Kww(talk) 19:15, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

@Kww:, in that document I believe they are saying that tables will be addressed in Q2 of the fiscal year, which is October-December as WMF's fiscal year starts in July. I agree that the mixing of fiscal quarters and calendar quarters can be confusing. Dragons flight (talk) 22:56, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

So Jan-March in real life, given the way engineering projects go. Still six to nine months after a feature critical to initial deployment should be available.—Kww(talk) 23:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

This is rather interesting. I tried VE when it first launched and quickly discovered that traditional wikitext was far better for me. Since an opt out was rapidly enabled, I took that and haven't spent too much time worrying about VE. I hadn't realized that something as basic as tables - which are used in hundreds of thousands of articles - are problematic to the point of being uneditable in this system. I have no idea how something so critical is left out of the release. Based on what I am reading here - especially if proper support for such major features is six months away - I think the WMF would be extremely wise to roll back. You've gotten your data, you know many of the bugs. Bring it back in house, fix the bugs, then try again. The only thing the foundation/devs are going to accomplish by continuing to try and force this down people's throats will be to firmly entrench opposition to the tool. If you bring it back in a few months once most of the bugs are fixed, you have a chance of rescuing its reputation. Otherwise, you have to consider how much damage you are willing to do to the community to force a product that simply is not ready for deployment. Resolute 19:29, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

One factor is that more and more people understand simple wikitext, as I have seen at a small MediaWiki wiki unrelated to the WMF. A few years ago, it was common to see people messing up the wiki syntax. But now it is rare to see a new user who cannot confidently edit basic wikitext. If VE was a downloadable program that lived and ran on the editor's computer, eliminating wikitext might be achievable with a reasonable result. However, while I can understand the excitement of devs facing the technical challenge of writing VE, Javascript will never be an improvement on ''italic text'' or ]. Tables are tricky, but editors should have the option to work with basic wikitext, particularly for its fast and easy copy/paste. Johnuniq (talk) 00:17, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

To be viable, VE has to be a downloadable program. Nothing else makes sense. But unfortunately the WMF made some bad choices. Eric Corbett 01:02, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible this can still be an option? That sounds very interesting and perhaps the best suggestion I have heard yet.--Amadscientist (talk) 02:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

It does sound like a good avenue for exploration, on the face of it. Even as an additional option, where the downloadable version could be a more 'heavyweight' affair. Begoon  02:43, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

From the sound of it, it seems Wikimedia will soon follow the same path of Wikia which mandatorily enforces the VE to all sister projects and refuse any request for local opt-out. The visualeditor of Wikia is a fiasco on a different level but the result is the same: VE users submit changes which ultimately ruined the markups or even the layout of the article itself. WMF will convoy VE regardless of all the serious shortcomings, just like Wikia:

Thanks for contacting Wikia. Disabling the visual editor is not something we are offering anymore. To disable that would be to remove a core functionality of the Wikia service. If you're encountering any bugs that you feel are hurting the editor on the wiki, or you have any suggestions for how you think it can be improved, you're welcome to send them our way and we'll make sure the Engineering Team and Product Team (respectively) have that information. Thanks, and feel free to let us know if you need anything else.

— Wikia staff,

-- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:11, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

?--Amadscientist (talk) 20:40, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

So, any progress on getting this thing turned off yet, Jimmy? I'd love to hear that because we are so far away from basic minimal functionality you were spearheading the move to roll this thing back into testing mode as opposed to a full deployment. Any chance of that happening?—Kww(talk) 17:17, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

On recuiting people to the VE beta

Note: "you" is used generically in this section; it does not refer to Jimbo.

I don't think the problem necessarily was the rollout to all English Misplaced Pages editors. The problem was how the rollout was handled.

1. The CentralNotice was especially poor. I believe - I can't find it now - that it did not even link people to Misplaced Pages:VisualEditor/Feedback, let alone offer any advice on what was going. And it disappeared very quickly, so any user who was inactive for a few days would not have seen it. I also think it did not explain about using "Edit source" for wikitext, but I'm less certain about that.
2. Central notice was the wrong tool for this. Sitenotice has several advantages that meant it should have been used instead:
   1. It allows users to dismiss the banner
   2. Although it can be manually turned off, if not, it keeps the banner up until dismissed, meaning users get a chance to see it even if they're away for a day or two.

It became clear in a discussion with Okeyes, here that he had no idea what the functionality of Sitenotice was (he claims a sitenotice would not be able to be dismissed, and would show to IPs as well, two functionalities sitenotice, in fact, fully supports) and he seems to be of the impression that Centralnotice banners can be dismissed, which they cannot.

And... the third point I'm going to pull out of the list, because this needs some space.

I understand your point that VisualEditor needed users to test it out, and that recruiting wasn't working. And I don't think users of Misplaced Pages would really have objected to having had VisualEditor turned on for them, so long as the sitenotice explained, at a minimum:

1. What was happening.
2. A link to clear instructions, prominently including how to use Wikitext under VisualEditor, as well as explaining the features.
3. Where to give feedback (bugzilla at WP:VE/F
4. How to opt-out

There would have been grumbling, but it'd probably have been understood. A lot of users would likely opt out, but in a large site like ours, it's likely a sufficiently sizeable percentage would at least try it out enough to give feedback, report bugs, and generally move the improvement forwards.

This was not what happened. The sitenotice was uninformative, the opt-out was intentionally disabled, forcing the community to create a gadget not under the VE team's control, and it quickly became clear the VE team was not interested in any feedback that wasn't a bug report, and, even then, many things, such as wikimarkup support in VE, had already been taken off the table before users got there.

So, let's talk about why sites provide an easy opt-out at time of launch of new features. First of all, being able to easily disable a change keeps users from resenting the change. They remain in control, if they don't like it, they don't have to use it. This is a situation that encourages a happy userbase, supportive of your project.

Now, if VisualEditor was a lot better than it was at time of launch, they might have somewhat gotten away with no opt-out. But when accidentally loading up VE caused anything short of very new computers to become slow and laggy for a quarter to half a minute, no, that was not going to work out well. Since the editor was doing that, and, in addition, also damaging articles with unwanted code, unexplained deletions and insertions, and other problems, there was no way they could have gotten away with it, and the userbase very rapidly turned against VisualEditor.

Unfortunately, by not providing an easy opt-out for so long, a secondary problem is caused for them: If you control the way users disable your proposed new code, you remain in control of turning it on again when feedback has been addressed. By not providing an opt-in, the VisualEditor instead also caused the creation of a user-gadget solely in control of the users at en-wiki.

That's a huge problem for the VE team,Gadgets are solely under the purview of en-wiki administrators, and, as such, they can't turn off the gadget without pulling major rank. Sure, they could do it, but, like the manner VE was launched, it would be a PR disaster. And most of the people who opted out are likely using the gadget, or even means not accessible to the VE team at all, such as using Adblock against VisualEditor.

Further, by forcing people to go through a lot of effort to turn the VisualEditor off... Well, basic psychology. The amount of annoyance caused by a given nuisance is, all other things being equal, proportional to the amount of work it takes to stop the thing being a nuisance. Had it been easy to turn off VE, sure, you'd have lost a proportion of your potential testers soon after launch. However, you likely didn't gain testers by stopping them. You instead turned people who likely thought, as I initially did, "This will be great for new users, but given my editing needs features A, B, and C which Visual editor likely could never have (in my case, the ability to search for filenames and a few other things:. I work a lot in WP:FPC, and regularly need to replace a number of copies of an image with a restored version of that image while maintaining the caption, size, and layout. That's not a feature it would ever be reasonable to expect something like VisualEditor to handle.) You instead only managed to make people horribly annoyed.

A clever marketing strategy would have given a date, say, two or three months in the future at which point VisualEditor would be reevaluated with community feedback, and a decision made as to whether to continue the test. It would have diffused tensions, and encouraged people to stick around, give feedback, and suggest changes.

A really clever strategy would have had a set time after which it would turn back to opt-in. That way, you could relaunch it, giving yourself a perfectly valid reason for re-enabling your improved version for all users.

But the VE team have hugely screwed things up, and every day it continues like this decreases the chance of VE ever gaining community favour. Adam Cuerden 06:24, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Expect hostilities about VE at Wikimania

One mathematician's view of VE

سلام\Hello

systemic problems evident

{{RfC}}

Look countless articles such as (11452) 1980 KE stand in violation of WP:NASTRO/WP:GNG! What's to be done? Please every/anyone, your thoughts? Chrisrus (talk) 17:53, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

• It seems the last of our problems. A concerted effort to merge all of them in appropriate places would be nice, and I'd be glad to help if there are instructions, sure. But it hardly seems to me that these little stubs endanger the encyclopedia or make it substantially worse. -- cyclopia 17:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Does Misplaced Pages have notability standards or not? Chrisrus (talk) 18:23, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

It may help to watch this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJsUDcSc6hE. Imagine if each dot were an article on Misplaced Pages. Chrisrus (talk) 18:35, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

• I've nullified your RfC template above -- please do not restore it. It is not appropriate to do an RfC on Jimbo's talk page. Instead, please do the RfC at possibly Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Astronomy or some other more appropriate venue, but not here. It is appropriate to talk about it here, but not to do an RfC. Rgrds. --64.85.214.168 (talk) 18:47, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I've already done that; the Astronomy community would rather leave this problem under the rug. The question at this point is, if informed about the problem, the rest of the community agree. Do we have notability standards or not? Chrisrus (talk) 18:57, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Not commenting on the question of whether this is a problem or not; just commenting on where to do the RfC. If a local consensus at WP:Astronomy decided one way, and you believe an overriding policy/guideline is being violated, then take the RfC to the main GNG talk page. This is just one (anon) editor's opinion, and someone else might have better advice than I. Rgrds. --64.85.214.168 (talk) 19:07, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, it is not a problem: it is a matter of some boring cleanup. No need to create drama about it, just quietly merge the articles and redirect them. Oh and I would love to see an article on each of those dots, in theory -if only we had enough RS for each one of these. We are not made of paper after all...-- cyclopia 19:29, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

How? How would this clean up be done? We need at least the beginnings of the outline of a plan. Bots will be needed, but they must be given the right instructions.

If you want to see one of something for each of these dots, it was decided long ago that it be an entry on the List of minor planets, not articles. Let's not re-hash the long settled idea (see WP:NASTRO that these articles should ever have been created. The only question now can we get rid of them. Chrisrus (talk) 20:02, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

• Which "Astronomy community", exactly, is being attacked here? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:34, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry you used the word "attack". If you would go Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Astronomy and ask about cleaning up all these NASTRO-failing articles, you will see what I am trying to say. If I'm wrong and you don't, that'd be great, but I think you'll see what happens when one takes this problem there. Chrisrus (talk) 19:53, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I see no recent posts of yours there. Could you link where you talked with the wikiproject about this issue? -- cyclopia 19:59, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Search the archives for my name. brb.... Chrisrus (talk) 20:03, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I found this. Looks like they were quite supportive. -- cyclopia 20:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I'm back. Here is some of it: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects/Archive_22#Straw_poll:_Automated_stub_redirection, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Astronomical_objects/Archive_21#Notability_.28astronomical_objects.29_promoted_to_guideline. We started in that direction and it was blocked. Chrisrus (talk) 20:36, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, you didn't mention your aim is to have a mass redirection bot for the stubs, that you know will have collateral damage. User:Christopher Thomas explained quite clearly in the discussion why that is not going to fly. The stubs, while not formally GNG/NASTRO perfectly compliant, are basically harmless to the project, while your proposed bot would almost surely damage articles on notable objects. If you want to redirect stubs one by one, after applying a healthy dose of WP:BEFORE, nobody is stopping you. But such a proposal is dangerous. You can't complain it didn't work. -- cyclopia 20:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I thought I had been perfectly clear from the beginning that the problem is countless articles represented by a few that I presented. After I was so clearly told at that link there to expect no cooperation from getting rid of these NASTRO violators, I went directly to the good folks at WP:BOTREQ and together with many helpful people there proved that it can, in fact, be done with bots, even safely following all instructions at NASTRO for a "good faith effort" to establish notability for articles that do not do that for themselves. Which, as I read GNG is not how it's supposed to work, but we obediently stepped through every notability check NASTRO asks for. We made substantial progress until at the last moment of the first round of deletions/re-directions to List of minor planets, Rich Farborough was blocked from using bots. I couldn't pick up the pieces and continue without his help, but we did nevertheless prove that those at the Astronomy project who said it couldn't be safely done with bots were wrong. And please don't believe that someone going through deleting them all by hand is any kind of solution; this can only be done with bots or not at all. It can be done safely with bots and I can prove it, see http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Search?search=chrisrus&prefix=Misplaced Pages%3ABot+requests%2F&fulltext=Search&fulltext=Search . Chrisrus (talk) 21:12, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You have been perfectly clear that the problem is countless articles, you weren't perfectly clear you were proposing mass redirection bots. Thanks for clarifying this part of the story now. It looks like your "good faith effort" is an automated search on http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi for references. However this doesn't prove that the folks at WP Astronomy were wrong. It only proves that you found a possible and relatively clever shortcut, which however cannot substitute human hand, in my opinion. Granted, you could do something similar also looking on Google Scholar, for example, and have a very good case for little or no notability. However, again, the point is that with 10K+ articles, this kind of bot thing is doomed to fail somewhere, redirecting (and effectively killing) an article which instead could have stayed (Hypothetical-but-meaningful example: The title of the article has some special character that the bot/the JPL website does not handle correctly, so it returns zero references -because it can't find the object- where instead maybe there are). And all of this would bring little advantage to the project, overall, while being at risk of killing stubs deserving to be kept.

You mis-characterize the "good faith effort" procedure we followed in Nastro. There were more searches than the one you mention. That was just one phase NASTRO requires. It was done not with one bot but several separate phases, to find articles that couldn't possibly establish their own notability, then to remove from that list all those that returned hits on one data base after another, and then to delete/redirect the remainder. I didn't do anything, just pointed the botreq guys to the requirements at nastro one by one and they followed it after discussing it among themselves in careful conversation. You seem to be saying that the whole good faith effort to establish notability, (which, I'll note again, shouldn't be necessary if an article can't do that itself) was "mine" somehow; it wasn't. There was no risk of deleting articles that were notable. Chrisrus (talk) 22:31, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Sure, it is also true that such an article can be quickly recreated, if evidence of notability pops out. But I still see a lot of effort (bot writing, debugging, checking, getting consensus, etc.) and no final advantage to Misplaced Pages. Guidelines like GNG are not meant to be robotically followed no matter what. Guidelines are meant to be followed as long as they improve the project. In this case, it seems that fanatical pruning to comply formally with GNG is not helping Misplaced Pages in any sensible way, while the solution could be problematic. -- cyclopia 21:29, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I suppose these articles don't harm the project as long as people don't know they exist. Chrisrus (talk) 22:31, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Just because it would inconvenient or hard to do a cleanup manually does not mean a bot must be created. If someone wants to delete the articles so badly then they should find the time to do it themselves and not create more problems for others to have to clean up after their bot. As an aside, I hope this brings some attention to the guideline of NASTRO, as I read it I had to scroll to the top just to keep reminding myself it is labeled a guideline and not an essay; as guidelines go it is written poorly, like someone trying to convince someone of something other than to lay down some guidelines that would guide someone to follow established policy (kinda what guidelines are meant to be right? Guides for specific sections or exceptions or flesh something out that an overarching policy couldn't be in depth about).Camelbinky (talk) 21:33, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree with some of what you say, but please understand that it's impossible to do all this by hand. I hope you won't make me find it, but the numbers were crunched and it was absurdly time consuming. Put it out of your mind, it's just never going to happen without bots, and the botsmen at botreq have proven that they can do it. see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Search?search=chrisrus&prefix=Misplaced Pages%3ABot+requests%2F&fulltext=Search&fulltext=Search Chrisrus (talk) 22:38, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

That a bot can be done does not mean it should be done, or that the community wants it done. All these discussion show is that yes, you can make a bot that can take care of some edge cases, while being at risk of killing false positives, and you need a firm consensus to do that. I highly doubt you can make a bot that looks for sources and weighs their coverage to see if the subject complies with WP:GNG as a human does. And no, it's by no means "impossible" to do by hand: just slow. But we have no deadline, and this is not a pressing concern. -- cyclopia 11:43, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Those botsmen just put the name of the object through the two databases that Nastro asks that they be put through, and eliminated from the list those that reproduced any hits. This, NASTRO says, establishes non-notability. Therefore, there is no need to worry about "killing" (please, no drama) false positives. The firm consensus for this is WP:NASTRO.

In the sense that the laws of physics don't rule it out, to do this all "by hand", i.e.: without bots, is not technically impossible. It is impossible in practical terms. The problem is, when you do the math, it turns out to be impossible in practical terms because it would take zillions of man hours and so, after you look into it, is just not an option. It's not reasonable. Put it out of your mind, it's never going to happen that way. It's bots or not at all.

As to whether it should be done, or whether the community wants it done, community consensus in the form of GNG and NASTRO are clear that it should and that we do. However, when it comes down to talk pages and such, however, you are right: there is a lot of evidence that many people would like to see those ignored, or that when the community wrote those things, they didn't really mean it, or that since that time, they have had a change of heart, or something. Chrisrus (talk) 15:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

It strikes me that what needs fixing is the policy, not the abundance of articles. The reasoning " arbitrary astronomical objects are unlikely to be visited or run across by a general reader of Misplaced Pages. Therefore..." is flagrantly wrong. Misplaced Pages articles should be written to serve the general reader - as one constituent. But for any given article there is one future reader with a specific purpose, need, and fate who is as important as all the other readers put together. Misplaced Pages articles should serve not only the general reader, but the student, the expert, the scientist, etc. We should aspire to have a complete catalogue of all objects with generally recognized names, without any holes in it. Wnt (talk) 14:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly endorse your general viewpoint, and the reasoning in WP:NASTRO brings a lot of facepalms here too. But in this case, to be fair, many of these bodies have no coverage whatsoever apart from an entry in a database with some orbital parameters. It is entirely reasonable to merge them in a list including the little information available on them: no information is actually lost. But surely it is not something that deserves a crusade: it is just a boring matter of tidying up. -- cyclopia 15:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Please don't dramatize things with terms like "crusade". This is a project to bring Wikipedian reality in line with our guidelines and such, that is all. Chrisrus (talk) 15:07, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry if the wording concerned you. However this is not a "project", this is more of you complaining in several places and doing clumsy things like putting bad CSD tags or writing "Leadership needed!" like if WP could force editors to clean up your pet peeve. This may be not a crusade, but for sure it seems an obsession of yours. And while being "in line with our guidelines" may make sense, again, it is still unclear, what advantage to the readers this "project" would attain, and if it justifies the required time investment. -- cyclopia 15:47, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

German Misplaced Pages and the Visual Editor

Per this poll, it looks like German Misplaced Pages has wholeheartedly denounced the Visual Editor per community consensus and only want it as an opt-in option for individuals and not default. Good for them. Now if we could only do that here. Silverseren 22:22, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

, , , . The community appears to lack confidence in the Foundation's judgement. EJM86 (talk) 06:52, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Subbable

DYK proposal

Hi Jimmy, as I seem to recall you expressed an opinion on something similar in the past, you might want to have a look at this, a RfC of mine that proposes that newly promoted Good Articles be eligible for DYK.--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 23:31, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Nice! And it seems to be succeeding quite well. Good work!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:58, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Could I persuade you to comment?--Gilderien Chat|List of good deeds 14:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems unnecessary at this stage. I like to keep my powder dry, so to speak. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

qui vive

See Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Tea_Party_movement/Proposed_decision where a bunch of people who were added to the case on 16 July (yep - less than two weeks ago!) are now proposed for "topic bans" in a really strange "motion for final decision" where zero evidence has been presented about them at all, where they have not been given rational notice that such an idiotic decision would be proposed, and where, in some cases, their efforts have been to reach compromise in the first place, and now see that ArbCom thinks no good deed should go unpunished, and where, since they seem unable to actually rationally discuss what should be done, they simply invoke the Massacre at Béziers as justification. If this is "arbitration" than I am Pope Francis. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:11, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Could you be more specific so that I can study this more quickly? Who was added on 16 July? Can you point me to a diff where Massacre at Béziers was given as justification? (The word 'massacre' does not appear on the page you linked to at all.

Finally, could you please relax and tone down the hostile language? It's very unhelpful and leads me to doubt the validity of your concerns. "idiotic decision", "ArbCom thinks no good deed should go unpunished", "unable to actually rationally discuss" - these are all content-free insults that do not help me to understand the situation at all. Just state the facts in an NPOV fashion, and include diffs where appropriate to prove specific points that you think I might find surprising or unlikely.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:04, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Dismissive of criticism of Visual Editor

Greetings Jimmy, I just noticed you archived several discussions containing criticisms of VE in a rather dismissive way. This is not unlike the way its been done by other members of the staff and I have no doubt this will be archived similarly or simply deleted. I wanted to say however that there are a lot of us editors who feel that VE was poorly implemented, is not nearly ready for release and is causing far too many problems. In its current state it is a detriment to the project and should be disabled until all of the major problems have been fixed. Being dismissive of the problems or the communities concerns is not only inappropriate but disheartening to those of us who believe in the project and have devoted time to it. Some of us have stopped editing for the time being until it gets sorted out. I for one do not feel like cleaning up the WMF's mess since they feel that our time isn't important enough for a proper and thouroughly tested software release. Happy editing! Kumioko (talk) 14:01, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi, can you tell me what in particular you think I was dismissive about? I don't think I've been dismissive at all!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

To be fair, it's not like he archived all of them. The more extensive, detailed points were left up. I suspect he just doesn't want to have arguments in ten different threads. Adam Cuerden 14:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, I just don't think he's done yet and I don't think he wants to hear it any more than the rest of the WMF. They knew there would be criticism because the community is incapable of doing anything related to meaningful change so they are just dismissing all comments as expected. Kumioko (talk) 14:21, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

That's completely unfair, not just to me, but to the WMF.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Its not unfair at all. There are hundreds of complaints in dozens of venues. Editors have been asking for the WMF to slow down on the implementation of the VE app but all we are getting is dismissive statements. VE isn't ready for release. It wasn't a month ago when they decided to release it in an unready condition, it wasn't ready when they decided to force it on the community and force us to clean up the mess its making but you say its unfair to you and the WMF? Maybe it is, but when you and the WMF force us to use something that doesn't work and force us to clean up the mess because everyone knows it doesn't work, causes too many problems and is driving away editors, then you are being unfair to us. If you want me and other editors to be fair, then start showing us the same courtesy and listen when we say its not ready. I was a supported of the app and so were a lot of others. But we told you that it wasn't ready and you forced it out knowing it was broken, you lost that support with most of us. Now you have to earn it back. Kumioko (talk) 14:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

You haven't addressed how you think me closing those two threads was dismissive? One asked for a specific response, which I gave: a clear statement that wikitext is not going away. The other was a relatively content-free rant about 'hostility' - something that I'm sure you know me well enough to know I don't approve of. I have personally given no dismissive statements, and to say that "all we are getting is dismissive statements" is just really far out of line. I have been giving serious responses to serious issues, and raising them internally. I'm not being dismissive at all. Please try to set aside your anger and work cooperatively to help move things forward. Yelling and stomping your feet is what is dismissive of what other people are telling you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

@Kumioko. I'm hardly a supporter of how the rollout has been handled, and I see lots of concerns with what we have now. I think most people would also classify Adam as a pretty strong opponent of the way things have gone. I think it would also be fair to include Adam with me and yourself as people who'd like to see VE succeed. Jimbo does have a point here, though - at some point just wailing about how awful it all is becomes counter productive even to the people who are basically "on your side". Just my 2 cents. Begoon  15:01, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, thank you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:11, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Well as far as the one about hostility, I agree that you don't condone that but that wasn't what that message was trying to convey. It was trying to inform you that when the topic of VE is brought up at Wikimania you should expect a lot of angry editors commenting about how much they hate it, hate how it was forced on them and more importantly how it was implemented knowing it wasn't ready. And still isn't and won't be when Wikimania happens. Not that they would be greeting you with pitchforks and torches. Whether you agree or not or regardless of the intent, that is how a lot of editors feel right now. The WMF doesn't care about our comments nor do they respect our time. They released VE knowing it was full of bugs and expect us to clean up the mess. That was fine for a few days but now we are going over a month. I stopped editing completely for 2 weeks solely because of VE. Others did as well. Some haven't come back. Some may never come back. VE is not helping. And for what its worth I was working cooperatively when I felt that the WMF wanted our help. Now they just want us to tell them what a great job they did. That isn't the case. I don't exepect you to change your mind. But that is how many of us feel and you deserve to know that, whether you want to hear it or not. Your right Begoon, I think we do want it to succeed. But sitting in the corner and keeping quite isn't going to help either. No one is listening to our concerns, so all we can do to show them at this point is to not edit until they fix it. Kumioko (talk) 15:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

"The WMF doesn't care about our comments nor do they respect our time" - this is incorrect. The WMF cares deeply about comments and is very respectful of your time. Can you explain in more detail for me why you stopped editing due to VE? Be specific. Why don't you just ignore it and just click on "edit source"? No one is forcing you to use something you don't like. I can tell you that in all my conversations with board and staff about this, from top to bottom, not one person has had the attitude "Now they just want us to tell them what a great job they did". You are speaking from a place of hurt and anger. It is absolutely false to say "no one is listening to our concerns".

What I am asking people to do is be helpful in pointing out specific fixes that need to be prioritized. Simply yelling "turn it off" with an attitude of "no one cares and I hate the Foundation because they hate us" is totally out of line and not at all helpful to anyone or anything. The surest way to make sure people really do stop listening is to say such unreasoned things that are a slap in the face of good people who are working very hard on difficult problems.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Maybe its false and maybe its not but that is the perception that many of us have after spending countless hours reading and contributing to discussions about this crappy VE app. I can give you several reasons why I stopped. First, the VE randomly causes problems with syntax in articles or deletes things it shouldn't. Then we editors are left to clean up the mess. Second, we told the WMF that these problems existed and VE wasn't ready. We were ignored. Third it slows down the article loading terribly even when disabled. So it takes longer to load the article. Fourth, it encourages editors to not use citations when adding content because its such a pain to add a citation. I can go on but all these and more have been mentioned repeatedly to deaf ears. You are partially correct I can ignore it and simply edit but then a lot of editors are using it and adding problems to articles that then need to be cleaned up. Many of which are IP's or newby's and don't know, or don't know why the problems are happening or what to do about them. So although I am not personally being forced to use it we as a community are being forced to clean up the mess becauase the WMF didn't want to do the right thing and slow down. There is no rush. But instead they wanted to hurry and get it out, knowing it wasn't ready, because they didn't care about our time or what we thought. Just as in other discussions you are getting defensive and trying to bloddy the victim to make it seem like I am the monster. I am a monster, no doubt about that but that doesn't make the message untrue. Kumioko (talk) 15:20, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Let me respond to these 4 things, but before I do, I ask again that you drop the hostile tone and that you stop repeating things that are false. There are no deaf ears and no one is being ignored. That's just an insult to people who are working very hard and being very responsive.

"First, the VE randomly causes problems with syntax in articles or deletes things it shouldn't. Then we editors are left to clean up the mess." - the empirical evidence I have seen to date shows that this is false. The rate of broken edits by newbies has not materially increased. It is easy to point to new messes made by newbies and feel outraged, but if the actual rate hasn't changed, then this is not a real problem. I invite empirical evidence to the contrary. Second, "We told the WMF that these problems existed... we were ignored" - this is just more complaining, there's nothing I can really say to respond to it. You weren't and aren't being ignored. Third, "it slows down the article loading terribly even when disabled" - this is flatly false. As it has been explained to me, there is a very marginal slowdown to download some javascript which is cached and so you should only see that slowdown (which is too small to notice) about once a week. Again, I invite empirical evidence to the contrary if you've got it. And fourth, it encouraged editors not to use citations - this is a valid concern and I'm planning to study this one further. However, for newbies, how many of them were adding cites in the first place? I don't know but again insist that this is an empirical question - if newbies or infrequent editors or experienced editors are seriously inserting fewer citations, that's a real problem that has to be solved. Finally, as an extra 5th point just for fun, I do not think you are a monster, and I'm not trying to bloody you. But if you say false or unnecessarily hostile things, I'm going to call you on it. Only through a civil and productive dialog grounded in empirical evidence can we make progress.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Anyway, I am tired of everyone walking on eggshells and not stating what the problem is flat out. The Visual editor app has a lot of potential, but well meaninged though it may be, in its current form its a piece of crap that we don't need or want. I and many others have tried to say that in nicer ways but no one is listening so its time to be blunt. If that hurts your feelings I'm sorry but it needs to be said. Kumioko (talk) 15:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Kumioko, several of the things you say are valid, in my opinion. The WMF response has been sub-optimal on various occasions - and sometimes it can feel as though concerns are being dismissed or ignored. Drawing battle lines doesn't make this improve, though, on either "side". There are occasions when we need to clean up after VE errors, and it does negatively disrupt our workflow and experience - I referred to a few in one of the "hatted" sections. I also believe it would have been better to pull the VE back and regroup, and I've said as much. You're right that many people agree with the assessment you've made of the application as not ready for primetime - I'm one of them. I don't support your approach here, though, and, just on a personal level, you might want to consider how much traction this approach has ever really got for you on any issue here. Apologies if you find that too personal, but I'm prone to reacting the same way, and have to try hard not to do so too often, so I empathise and feel a little pain for your obvious distress. Begoon  15:43, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

• @Kumioko. Just turn Visual Editor off. I generally agree with your observation that WMF doesn't want to hear carping about the extremely obvious fact that VE was in no way ready for release as the default editing platform, nor is it now. I agree that they are continuing to charge ahead with fingers in their ears singing "LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!" really loudly so they don't hear. Just turn it off. That's all. There's no need to go on strike; so far assurances are that WikiText is going to remain indefinitely, so there shouldn't be an issue... Just.turn.it.off. Carrite (talk) 16:11, 29 July 2013 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 16:14, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
  • The Foundation is not charging ahead with fingers in their ears singing anything. Such insulting and demeaning comments are inappropriate and unwelcome. Please be civil.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:34, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually I did turn it off. But that doesn't stop all the mistakes that need to be cleaned up or the dismissive attitude by the WMF. Contrary to what it may seem I am all too happy to collaborate and I did help initially when things were done sensibly. I was happy to help the app develop but when suggestions are dismissed or identified problems are ignored just so it can be rushed into production seemingly for no reason, I don't feel compelled to help. I believe in the project so I am sure that I will contribute outside discussions again at some point but not until either the VE is turned to opt in instead of opt out or its fixed. Neither of which seems to be anywhere in the near future. Kumioko (talk) 16:24, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Recent roll-outs

I've only been semi-active of late, so I apparently missed out on a couple seemingly large (to me) roll-outs/changes.

I read the above and see concerns about the visual editor. Maybe it's because I don't have/run java, but I don't see an option to use VE anywhere. I looked in preferences, and the boxes to disable (there are two in two separate sections) are unchecked. So I was wondering if VE went live yet.

The other one (and maybe this should be a separate thread) is that the orange message bar disappeared to be replaced by a tiny red box. Which is on almost all the time because I apparently created an article which is linked to daily (I just now found the option to turn that aspect of it off). I did some reading, and thought there was supposed to at least be a partial orange bar implemented. If it's not showing due to no java, I want to cry foul. The old way didn't require it, why should the new way? (And I fear that this will be a concern also if FLOW gains implementation as well...) Are those who do not use java going to become isolated and unable to adequately communicate or edit, much less, be able to assist others?

I realise this is several questions grouped together, but, to me anyway, they are seemingly related. - jc37 15:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

If you are using IE, I believe VE is currently disabled on that browser because of many of the bugs. I beleive the orange bar replacement is in gadgets as "Display a floating alert when I have new talk page messages". I'm not sure if it is javascript based, but I suspect it is, and you will still be out of luck. Resolute 15:26, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

It is Java based. They both are. Kumioko (talk) 15:27, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Javascript-based, not java. Huge difference. --NeilN 15:35, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Nod. - read "javascript and java" anywhere I'm merely stated "java". - jc37 15:52, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't use ie, and talk page notices (and the ability to edit for that matter) shouldn't require java if the old way didn't. This is and should be one of the most basic notification systems we have. Alert someone that someone just left a message on their talk page. Even if we were to strip out all the superfluous bells and whistles (and I mean everything including the watchlist) leaving us just with page histories and use contributions, that basic notification should be in place as core to the wiki environment. Are we really moving to gadgetising the interface? Is it that our current volunteers only know java these days? - jc37 15:33, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Javascript is the only way to implement something like VE natively in a browser. I've never heard of a partial orange bar being implemented. --NeilN 15:58, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

In reply to your question

Hey, Jimbo. You asked me why VisualEditor needed a way to turn it off, when there's options for avoiding it put into the VE interface. A good question, that deserves a full reply.

I'm going to start with the strongest argument, albeit one that does not apply to me: On screenreaders, as used by the visually impaired, options that only show up when you hover over them are not accessible. If VisualEditor is activated, the only way to choose "Edit source" on a section is to choose it from an option that only shows up when you hover over it. As such, it ruins accessibility of the option most suitable for visually impaired editors.

However, you probably would like to hear why I want to turn it off for myself. This boils down to seven points:

1. High cost of misclick: My computer isn't particularly old, but, nonetheless, misclicking on VisualEditor slows my computer to a crawl for.. well, it varies by article size and complexity, but at least a couple seconds, and going up to ten, fifteen seconds. This, by the way, is the computer I edit all my featured pictures on, so it's not that much of a lightweight. That's a fairly major annoyance. Admittedly, it's still an annoyance, but if I never want VE in the first place, I don't see why I should risk the annoyance.
2. Consistency of experience: I do a fair amount of work in templates (likely never suitable to VisualEditor), work on images on Commons (unlikely to have the VisualEditor anytime soon), occasional editing of foreign-language encyclopedias, as well as the usual non-VE namespaces of Talk, Misplaced Pages, etc. As such, it's very hard to get used to things being in different positions.
3. Weird interface for editing source: Editing from the section links is particularly awful if you don't want VE. It requires wrist movements on the mouse that I find somewhat uncomfortable and unnatural. I'd rather not risk a repetitive strain injury over VE.
4. I am not convinced VE will last: If points 1 and 3 were fixed, I might be willing to learn the new screen layout, but I feel VE's development is fundamentally misguided: The developers have rejected using basic Wikitext as a simple way to do simple markup, in favour of an unnecessarily complicated menu-based scheme. Whilst I'm fine with menus for complicated tasks, noone should need to use a window just to add an image with caption, or to add a basic {{cn}} template, or the hundreds of other very simple tasks in wikitext that are made much more difficult as the VE team ideologically reject continuity of experience, instead borrowing, as far as I can tell, from weird little repurposed thing. One example I noticed while reading threads: If I remember rightly Ctrl-K is used for adding a wikilink. This is apparently borrowed from the code used to add a URL link in Wordpress. So, what, instead of brackets which everyone knows, they're borrowing from Wordpress the code for a completely different functionality? Actually, I just forcing myself to take on the slowness and try it, it's incredibly unintuitive as well: there's not a single hint onscreen for how to make a Wikilink link to anything but the word highlighted, nor, so far as I can tell, can you set up a link without having typed something already. Awful. So, anyway, why bother to learn a new interface for something which every new thing I discover about makes me have less and less confidence it will last out the year?
5. Ideological reasons: VE was launched too early, and various bugs in it keep damaging articles. As damaging articles is one of the worst things you can do on an encyclopedia, I really don't want something that does that forced on me until after it's actually fixed.
6. I am terrified of the VE team, and don't want them having any control over my editing experience: See this commentary, made just before the launch, in which they talk openly about not allowing editors to edit subsections of an article in Wikitext after VE leaves beta, and planning to have VE launch with the ability to edit sections in wikitext disabled by default. Yes, they backed off on that one, but that they'd even consider that a reasonable choice is a sign of a fundamental disconnect from the users that makes them unqualified to be making decisions about the user interface.
7. The VE team do not seem to understand what goes into an encyclopedia: the VisualEditor was launched with exceptionally poor support or adding references. That's a pretty fundamental launch-day failure for an encyclopedia.

I think that covers most of the issues, and hope this helps. Now, with all that said, I would like to see VisualEditor succeed, but my problem is that my definitions of success - a simple, lightweight tool that combines the best of GUI and wikimarkup, and allows easy toggling between the two, preferably with clever customization features - seem so be so far from what the actual VE team are looking at that I'm deeply concerned that this could end very badly for Misplaced Pages, with a GUI that actively hinders. Adam Cuerden 16:13, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for this. I'll be back tomorrow and respond as best I can do this. Some of it I agree with it, some of it I don't, and some of those agreements/disagreements are philosophical and some are empirical. Right now I'm trying to focus mainly on the empirical questions because I think we can only make progress on the philosophical questions when we have stronger common understanding of the empirical facts.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)