User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 214

I just encountered . As I understand it, conservatives claimed Facebook's news feed had a liberal bias. Since reality has a liberal bias, the most straightforward way for Facebook to deal with the problem was to fire all its reporters and put an algorithm in charge that disseminated some proportion of fake news, including an article read 500,000 times shortly before the election that claimed an agent investigating Hillary had been killed who didn't exist. Now mind, I have no actual idea if the "fake news" phenomenon is significant, or the griping of journalists valiantly fighting to preserve their archaic profession, or some kind of phase II in an operation to censor what Facebook will allow to be covered.

Where this concerns us is that the origin of the fake news stories was something called a "Wikipedia topic ID", which Facebook used to decide if a story makes the cut, no matter whether it was about something real or imaginary. What I'm not so clear on is what that is, which surprises me since I've been around here a while. There's no WP:Topic ID, put it that way. Who are the gatekeepers of the topic ID, is it being done right, and was Wikipedia used to enable a fake news outbreak? Wnt (talk) 11:35, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I do not know whether or not this is related to Aftonbladet topic ID, WSJ topic ID, NYT topic ID, and/or TED topic ID. Wnt (talk) 12:59, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, Dear Wnt, politics is the nasty business and by definition all means are applicable to achieve the "necessary" goals. That include framing, fake news or data, manipulation and similar stuff. Whoever enter the world of politics or the struggle for power must be prepared for worst outcomes and consequences. As for "Wikipedia topic ID", its good idea.79.101.187.172 (talk) 15:18, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I for one would be interested in the use of these hidden categories / property IDs. The power of naming is an interesting one... we saw this recently with the change of ReZpect Our Water to Dakota Access Pipeline protests. Talking of which, I heard Jimbo Wales say at the Cato Institute that he was looking for a "commons" cause like SOPA that all of Wikipedia could get behind for a blackout. ^^ Also: in researching your question a bit I landed on this open article (peer reviewed in principle), which now that I've been active on Wikipedia to keep an eye on "neutrality"'s pov, I've learned how to footnote.^[1] well, sort of... Love the idea of Wikipedia (immense thank yous to all Wikipedians), but hate the fraternity-terror described by JP Sartre (sauce?) in the Critique of Dialectical Reason when a fused (or fusing) group cools into a hierarchy. SashiRolls (talk) 19:22, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

So far I'm still not sure if TechCrunch is even telling the truth. The stuff I find about Facebook and topic-ids is not so easy to put in context, but doesn't seem like it leans on one source. That said, I don't even know if these are relevant to what they were doing in early November. I wouldn't assume their topic-id somehow corresponds to one of our article titles versus (for example) some kind of hybrid of Wikidata's New York Times and Wall Street Journal topic-ids above ... it could be anything, really. But since they essentially pointed the finger at Wikipedia in that article somebody's going to have to figure it out. Wnt (talk) 23:21, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if it could be related to Facebook's "Community Pages" feature, introduced 2010, that pulled content from Wikipedia. It'd be an easy leap for a Facebook employee to simplify "Facebook ID representing a topic with a Community Page that has content pulled from Wikipedia" into "Wikipedia topic ID". All we've got on the Wikimedia end is article IDs and titles, categories, and now Wikidata items, and all of those are subject to the usual rules (NPOV, verifiability, reliable sources, etc.) on our end. It's a red herring to relate Wikipedia's accuracy to Facebook's fake news problem; ultimately, it's Facebook's detection of "a Wikipedia topic [being] frequently discussed in the news or Facebook" that is at issue. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 15:29, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

From what I read there, I think the TechCrunch author misunderstood what he was told. Here's what I think Facebook was doing. There was an algorithm which was looking at millions and millions of comments in real time, parsing string tokens out of it. Obviously people talk about a lot of things that aren't actually "trending topics" and so you need a way to figure out which are actually trending topics rather than merely common strings of words that aren't really a topic. One quick and pretty accurate way to do that is to check if it's a topic in Wikipedia. Let me be more clear by making up a purely hypothetical example.

Suppose the top 3 trending phrases in the past 10 minutes were: "I went to", "My father said", and "Battle of Mosul". The first two are obviously just ordinary things that people say in various contexts over time, as opposed to being "topics". The last one, though, is a topic, and it has a Wikipedia entry.

Using that kind of data from Wikipedia hardly means "Facebook’s algorithm is barely more than a Wikipedia-scraping bot".

I think we can get pretty strong consensus among Wikipeidans who have been around for a long time that we are a little bit susceptible to hoaxes on obscure topics, but not particularly susceptible to "fake news". If a fake news story from a made up source is flying around facebook claiming that the Pope has endorsed Donald Trump, our very experienced and very human editors are going to scrutinize that very surprising claim quite carefully. Indeed, a decent "human algorithm" when you hear something that sounds suspicious is to go to the Wikipedia entry and talk page and see what the Wikipedians are saying about it. Our culture is strongly pro-evidence and pro-fact-checking.

Ok, that's all well and good, but I thought I'd share a few thoughts about what I think Facebook should do. They can't stop people from sharing whatever they want to share - but they can and do share related things along with it. And they can and do control algorithmically (and for various business and other reasons) how much 'reach' a particular post has. If I share something on Facebook, it might be seen by a tiny portion of my followers unless I pay, as one example. If my friend shares a story about Trump and the Pope, then Facebook often also shows me other stories on that topic. They could use this to attempt to help people out of their filter bubble by making sure that if extremist or suspect sources (editorial judgment is required here) are being shared, that they are at least being paired with more centrist and higher quality sources.

However, note well - this is something that many people quite rightly fear! Do we really want Facebook to be shaping our view of the world based on the internal decisions of unaccountable editors? That's what people were concerned about when it was revealed that there was a bias in their trending topics... it's easier to be calm about this if Facebook's bias matches our own, of course.

So what I suggest - and there is much to figure out about how they could do it in practice - is an open community process with discussion and compromise to shape the editorial policy - and a clear publication of the weightings that are given to various publications in the sharing/trending algorithms. One would hope to see high quality sources (left and right) be more readily promoted than low quality sources.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:33, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

This makes sense overall. I agree with your worry about Facebook, whether humans or machines are nominally in charge. I should have linked our article fake news site, which goes into some of this. It is worth noting that Internet censorship in China is way ahead in its focus on the spreading of false rumors (yaoyan), so Facebook and the Great Firewall could in theory work together on the same list, though in practice I suppose that as with motion picture rating systems each country would want a nominal autonomy. I don't think that mechanical or human censorship is the solution to a stream of fake news - really, it is the entire Web 2.0 model of instant upclicking of any opinion you happen to agree with - and downclicking of any other - that is to blame here. In the late 1990s, companies came to us and put forward the suggestion that they could do a great job of remaking the internet, and the answer is, they can't; all they can do is whore after eyeballs, leavened as necessary with some whoring after officials in positions of power over them. Wikipedia by contrast is a bastion of Old Web thinking, people thinking carefully and writing what they think is true, and that should be a powerful force for good.

I should say that as far as I can figure out the specific incident cited by Techcrunch, concerning a fictitious FBI agent "Michael Brown", never had a Wikipedia article - at least, we have no references to the "Denver Guardian" anywhere on-site, and the fictitious nature of that paper ought to have come up at any AFD. So despite my misgivings about some of the Wikidata way of doing things, so far I think Techcrunch is simply wrong and Wikipedia had nothing substantial to do with this. Wnt (talk) 19:51, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

People spreading nonsense online is nothing new; Usenet and e-mail forwards were a breeding ground for all sorts of nonsense. Snopes was started by a couple of alt.folklore.urban regulars. In fact it's older than PCs; see faxlore. The only thing that's changed is the scale and incentives; now you can put up bullshit tailored to people's biases, disseminate it to billions via Facebook, Twitter, etc., and get paid for doing it from ads. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 03:40, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, it didn't take long for that prediction to start coming true: As for Usenet and email chains, well, the difference there was that you would be made fun of if you believed them. Wnt (talk) 12:42, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

• The Facebook trending feature is pretty useless and no better then the Yahoo! version or Twitter equivalent. It is ram-packed with gossip and TMZ-style reporting. Case in point, somebody called Ronda Rousey is apparently trending heavily because she cried about somebody else losing a fight. The Wikipedia article has been under WP:PC since September. Karst (talk) 12:12, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

See: Talk:David Hamilton (photographer). -Wikid77 (talk) 10:58, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Over the past week, a woman has made serious and (currently) unproven claims against the famous photographer David Hamilton. These claims made their way into his Wikipedia article. During this time, User:Wvdpanhuysen created an account to suggest at Talk:David Hamilton (photographer) that the allegations are removed. It was almost certainly a single-purposer account. The user found no reply. Earlier tonight, Mr Hamilton was found dead at his home in an apparent suicide. Whilst Wikipedia is probably not to blame here, it should make editors feel very uncomfortable. 2A00:23C4:A683:6A00:B09D:E229:E3F9:2664 (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

A couple of remarks

1. It's why we have WP:BIO WP:BLP corrected. Kleuske (talk) 16:21, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
2. The article cited does not claim suicide (cites unclear circumstances) and the guy was 83
3. Wikipedia is intended to summarize the sources. If reliable sources level accusations, Wikipedia reports them. Neutrally.
4. Guilt tripping people, generally, is unproductive.

Kleuske (talk) 23:35, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

This kind of response is precisely why I gave up editing Wikipedia. I have come to post a genuine concern and straight away get a rude, dismissive reply. What happened to assume good faith? The article clearly states that some reports are citing suicide, which is sad even if he is 83 (as if old-age would make it unimportant?). A brand-new user is unlikely to know WP:BIO or to know Wikipedia's policies in detail. Wvdpanhuysen should have known straightforward ways to contact experienced, helpful editors. 2A00:23C4:A683:6A00:B09D:E229:E3F9:2664 (talk) 00:07, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

In fact, now I have been reminded of the atmosphere here, I would rather not become any further involved. 2A00:23C4:A683:6A00:B09D:E229:E3F9:2664 (talk) 00:08, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

The article did not say anything about suicide at the time Kleuske composed their reply to you, for the simple reason that no reliable source had done so as of that time. Now that reliable sources have done so, this reliably sourced information has been added to the article. Indeed, assume good faith. General Ization ^Talk 00:54, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I assume good faith, but that does not imply I have to agree. The phrase "it should make editors feel very uncomfortable" is nothing short of an attempt at guilt-tripping non-involved editors. The one page you haven't posted your concerns to, is the appropriate talk-page, where these remarks might actually do some good. Kleuske (talk) 01:07, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I stand with the IP address editor. No need to be rude or to not assume good faith. Discuss the content without editorializing and personalizing it to the editor. It's not hard. SageRad (talk) 15:38, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

• While the suicide would seem to be a byproduct of the rape allegation, and not a Wikipedia article on it, we should not shrug this off. User:Wvdpanhuysen, probably Hamilton, made a valid point. That material seems excessively weighted per BLP and NPOV. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 00:52, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Shrug it off? No. Is there a WP:BIO-issue? Maybe. We have a noticeboard for that and I suggest you take it there. Should that "make editors feel very uncomfortable"? Hell, no. Kleuske (talk) 01:07, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
    • WP:BIO is the notability guideline for biographies and is utterly irrelevant to this discussion. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 03:48, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
      • Got it mixed-up with WP:BLP, apparently. Sorry 'bout that. Kleuske (talk) 12:12, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
        • I've asked for input on BLP/N. I agree that the "uncomfortable" contention is meritless. It's absurd to suggest that Wikipedia had any role in his suicide. But I do believe that the article in question may be out of balance. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:07, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
          • Had the anon raised the issue on the appropriate talk-page, I would have lauded them for it. Instead they posted this on WP:ANI, where I encountered it. The actions of the anon did not indicate a desire to rectify the situation, but an indictment of the community, using WP:ANI as a WP:SOAPBOX. Hence my terse reaction. WP:BLP issues can never entirely be avoided, given the ratio between users who know about WP:BLP, the regulars, and the sheer number of biographies on Wikipedia. Shit is bound to happen, and occasionally it will hit the fan. Kleuske (talk) 16:32, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
            • I'm not taking you to task. I was concerned that we not ignore the state of the article due to poor presentation, and now there are more editors working there so that has been effectuated. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 18:37, 27 November 2016 (UTC)
• Much of the material in question was added by a WP:SPA, Gabuzomeuh (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). This shows the block of changes: . That username is a reference to les Shadoks, a somewhat obscure French cartoon that also broadcast in the UK in the early 70s. Not sure what can be read from that. Guy (Help!) 01:55, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Most likely only that the edits were made by an English-speaking resident of France, not surprising since Hamilton was an English expatriate living in France for most of his life, and since the majority of the reporting concerning allegations by Flament, herself French, has thus far been in French media. General Ization ^Talk 03:00, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

--- Hello there, I am Gabuzomeuh and can confirm I am a real, professional and serious editor. For complete information about this facts, perhaps those of you who understand French language should read the French-written David Hamilton wikipedia page (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hamilton). It offers latest developpements and precise pieces of news about this very sad story everybody should be aware of. In fact, not only Flavie Flament (radio and tv animator, author of La consolation book) was a victim. There are four declared victim now. Three other womens have made testimony of rapes in reliable magazines (http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/societe/20161116.OBS1313/affaire-flavie-flament-d-autres-femmes-accusent-david-hamilton-de-viol.html). Also, Mrs Flament has recently received support from the French Governement in the person on Mrs Laurence Rossignol, the minister of Family, Childhood and Rights of Women, who appointed her to lead a "consensus mission" about rapes and "prescriptions delays". Flament has accepted to work on this with the help of jurist (http://www.lci.fr/people/laurence-rossignol-choisit-flavie-flament-pour-conduire-une-mission-sur-le-viol-et-les-delais-de-prescription-2013816.html, http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2016/11/25/flavie-flament-se-voit-confier-une-mission-sur-le-delai-de-prescription-pour-le-viol_5038260_3224.html). About the death, Police indicates that "suicide is privileged" (http://www.leparisien.fr/laparisienne/actu-people/personnalites/mort-de-david-hamilton-la-piste-du-suicide-privilegiee-par-les-enqueteurs-26-11-2016-6378687.php, http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2016/11/26/97001-20161126FILWWW00047-mort-de-david-hamilton-la-piste-du-suicide-privilegiee.php, http://www.europe1.fr/faits-divers/accuse-de-viol-le-photographe-david-hamilton-a-tente-de-se-suicider-2911382). If some of you can help to report on these valids and verifies informations in the UK page, that would be nice and greatly help to inform neutraly and rightly English-speaking people, including the most young ones. Best regards, and thank you, --Gabuzomeuh (talk) 13:17, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I suggest moving this discussion to the article talk page. "Wikipedia's role" is a red herring, irrelevant, and pure speculation. The question is whether Hamilton's bio is weighted properly. At first glance my sense is that it is not, due to recentism and excessive weight given to scandals. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:41, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

I've posted on BLP/N. I recommend that interested editors improve the article, perhaps by fixing any neutrality issue. There's really no mega-issue here. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:09, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

We should remember the difference between correlation and causation here. If someone is well known, he will have a Wikipedia article. If there are a number of sources describing an allegation against him, they will be added to his article. For this reason, any well-known person who commits suicide after widespread publication of allegations will do so at about the same time that Wikipedians are adding mention of these to his article - even when there is no causal link and the person never read the article.

We should also bear in mind that by covering such matters, when appropriate sourcing exists, Wikipedia is just doing its job, and should not be ashamed to do its job, just as police and prosecutors and reporters are not ashamed to do their jobs even when they know that their efforts will drive some individuals to suicide. (There is a stronger case to be made that (in general) prosecutors should be deterred by such considerations since prison is so terrible and has so little scientific justification; were they to forget such matters, at least for a situation like this, perhaps it would all be for the best. But many potential victims would vehemently disagree!) Wnt (talk) 22:34, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Wikipedia contributing to Hamilton's death, note that by design Wikipedia is second hand information. As editors, we may run the risk of having a distorted view of Wikipedia's adverse effect on a person who is the subject of a Wikipedia article, compared to the adverse effect of predominant news media. Also there is WP:BLP to help. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:40, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

• Any OTRS volunteer will tell you that people will often blame Wikipedia for allegations against them. This is rarely accurate - unsourced material is generally removed pretty quickly , and in this case the material definitely was sourced properly - but we do increase its prominence in some cases. I am not convinced en-wp had any role in the unfortunate suicide of Mr. Hamilton, the media profile of the allegations in France is unlikely to need any boosting here, but it would be as well for the Foundation to look carefully at whether the fr-wp article was compliant, as that seems to me to be a lot more forthright than our version. Guy (Help!) 23:25, 26 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Plus we have no direct evidence that he was even cognizant of the Wikipedia articles, either here or the French version. He had much going on in his life obviously. To my knowledge, no one said "I am the subject of this article." We are only surmising that. So this whole "Wikipedia killed him" meme is unsubstantiated. As far as the article itself is concerned, the central problem is that the subject and/or concerned editors failed to use the channels available to him prior to his death. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 15:56, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Jimmy, back when Wikipedia was still running on steam, we had a fairly clear hierarchy of policies. WP:V and WP:NPOV together led to WP:RS, and that in turn to what is now termed WP:GNG. Arguments that X has an article so Y should as well, were routinely discounted per WP:NOTDIR.

The School Wars resulted in a de facto policy that all high schools are "inherently notable". That is, sources could be found, if people cared, even if the sources are all namechecks in little league match reports.

We now have a whole slew of subject-specific notability guidelines following a similar model, and I have noticed that there has been a change in how these are interpreted. When I first started sysoping a decade ago, failing a subject specific notability guideline was a valid deletion argument (albeit one that could be overridden by the presence of sufficient sources). Now, passing a subject-specific guideline is taken as a suitable rationale for keeping. So, a journal which is indexed, will probably not be deleted even if there is not one single source about that journal. The only descriptors are databases and descriptions supplied by the journal. The publisher may not be notable, it may even be predatory, but WP:ITSINDEXED has become a compelling argument to keep.

This is fine as long as we accept that WP:V is valid; that WP:NPOV can be ignored as long as we merely state that it exists (and noncontroversial information such as the editor); that WP:RS does not require any independent sources, only sources that are normally considered reliable - but we still have an issue with WP:NOTDIR.

In your view, is Wikipedia legitimately a directory now? If so I will start a WP:CENT discussion to mark NOTDIR as historical. Guy (Help!) 00:51, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

For starters, if you accept the Wikipedian mantra that the project's goal is to present the sum of human knowledge free of charge to all the people of the world in their own native languages, this entire line about worrisome inclusionism overtaking the deletionist norms of old blows away like a cloud of acrid dust in the afternoon wind... So high schools are automatically included? So what? It means that we aren't stuck wasting hundreds or thousands of hours of volunteer time parsing sources and fighting over the merits or demerits of inclusion of this school and not that. So academic journals of more than a few years standing are kept? So what? It means that our readers attempting to assess whether Specific Journal A cited in one of our footnotes is trustworthy are likely to have a blue link to follow to assess the merit of the assertion backed by the citation. Where is the problem there? Whatever the problems with the inclusion boundaries of WP, these are two perfectly horrible examples to be making if one is attempting to gain sympathy for a more deletionist orientation. Talk about corporate spam about nothing businesses, or promotional crap about lawyers or PR reps, or self-serving gunk about politicians on the make if you want to gain sympathy for that orientation. A blue link for every high school on the planet seems a fine goal to me, and one that can ultimately be sourced out to boot. Similarly if we had an article on every academic or pseudo-academic journal on the planet, or every inhabited place, or every significant geological feature, or what have you — so much the better. Sum of human knowledge, and all of that... Carrite (talk) 05:24, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

To quote the most relevant sentence in WP:NOTDIR, "However, Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed." When it comes to schools, the commonly accepted working consensus is that the vast majority of primary schools are unlikely to be notable, while verified accredited degree-awarding high schools, colleges and universities are likely to be notable. If Wikipedia was an indiscriminate directory, then we would have a far more massive number of articles about primary schools, as well as a biography of me and an article about my house, all verifiable. Wikipedia should not be a directory of every blade of grass and every grain of sand on the beach, but gratefully accepting articles about high schools, parliamentarians, Olympic athletes, academic journals and the like is not at all a violation of WP:NOTDIR, but is instead a practice which actually improves this encyclopedia. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:54, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

That's missing the point I was trying to make, though. With schools, the fact is that you won't ever get one deleted because regardless of the quality of sources, there are people who will either dig new ones out or stretch the definition of WP:RS. So as far as high schools goes, there is a consensus that we are a directory and have entries that are based solely on directories.

Now back to the actual question. Numerous subject-specific guidelines are now being used not in the traditional sense that if X fails this guide then X is not likely to be notable, but instead in the sense that if X meets this guide then X is notable, regardless of the availability of sources. Journals is an example I gave, there are others. It appears to me that subject-specific guidelines agreed by special-interest editors have been used to overrule WP:GNG in numerous areas. Autobiographies of acadaemics, for example, are kept per WP:PROF even though the sources are "he has published X papers (source: subjects's list of papers)" and "he teaches at Y university (source: university directory)". DGG, whose opinion on notability I respect more than perhaps any other Wikipedian, opined, if I recall correctly, that he does not like WP:GNG and prefers subject specific guidelines.

A specific example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Journal of Global Information Management. This is a journal with an impact factor of 0.303, so would be rejected as a source in any Wikipedia article. It is published by a nonn-notable publisher whose article we actually deleted. There are no reliable independent sources discussing the journal, we have substantiation only for the fact that it exists. It is a total failure of WP:GNG but passes the journal guideline because it is indexed and has an IF (even though the IF is laughable). If we keep this, then we are a directory of journals, just like we're a directory of high schools - indexed journals have become "inherently notable" even in the absence of sources about the journal.

For me, this is a real tension. If a subject fails WP:GNG due to lack of reliable independent sources, but passes a subject-specific guide and is kept on that basis, then WP:NOTDIR has to be marked as historical, because it no longer reflects consensus. And that is why I ask the question. As it stands, a group of editors interested in, say, academic journals, can write a subject-specific notability guideline that has no reference at all to canonical policy, and use this to keep articles. This is fine as long as we are now a directory. Guy (Help!) 10:39, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Well but can't we be a directory in some ways and for some things and not for others? Some of the examples given in WP:NOTDIRECTORY I can see us wanting to avoid -- "Sales catalogue" and "Genealogical entries" and so forth. On the other hand, being more or less a sort of directory of scientific journals -- even very obscure ones! -- and valid secondary-degree-granting institutions (even very obscure ones) could fit into our mission, because these are a little more "serious" or "scholarly" maybe, or otherwise considered a useful oexception to WP:NOTDIRECTORY, even if only worthwhile for the sake of completeness. Herostratus (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOT is a deletionist's holiest totem, but I've never seen anything more in need of a harsh edit on Wikipedia. It's a mishmash of policies - some of the utmost importance, like "NOT#CENSORED", some that are utterly insignificant and misinterpreted in sabotagey ways. All points, good or bad, suffer from the stilted format of saying "Wikipedia is not..." rather than just being written like a policy from the top down. I also think that the roundabout expedient of writing a vanity notability guideline is unnecessary and undesirable. It makes more sense to make a rule simply that if a class is fully enumerable (we can list all the known members based on some reference), and most of the members are notable, and the class is notable, then we can treat all the members as notable in order to fill it out fully. (That falls a bit short of some kinds of "directory" in that a proper directory will take a stab at lists that are not enumerable or based on original criteria) Wnt (talk) 03:31, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• i hear Guy's concern and agree with it - subject-specific notability guidelines have indeed come to over-rule GNG. I ran into this on two articles about radio stations, which have the same setup as high schools per Wikipedia:Notability_(media)#Broadcast_media. If you have a license, you are notable. Gah. Frustrating in light of the goal to raise the N bar to keep out PROMO. Would be interested to hear User:DGG weigh in here. Once thing we could do, is make a list of topics where N guidelines have this kind of opt-in setup, and review it, and ones that still make sense we should add as exceptions to WP:NOT. Jytdog (talk) 06:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• For two principle specific problems indicated, there are particular reasons:

The Schools compromise was intended as just that, a compromise. Eight years ago, there were people who were inssting that every elementary school was notable, as a significant institution in its community, and, that with enough work in local sources, there was always sufficient published discussions, usually about construction and zoning, and ratings for the school, to meet the GNG standard. At the same time, there were people insisting that almost no high school would be notable, if truly discriminating sources were used, also according to the notability standard. AfD was dealing with over a dozen or so of these every day, and the results were not much better than random and depended on how much energy the participants had that week, and on the view of whoever did the closing. The compromise was to not make articles on elementary schools unless there were truly special factors for notability, but to make articles for all high schools, unless there was some real reason not to (such as inadequate evidence of real existence) Thecomproise has worked--there's now one of two afds on schools a month, and the scanty high school articles don't harm the encyclopedia nearly as much as the debates did.

For scientific journals, instead of total disagreement, there has been almost total agreement among the very few of us who work on this subject, At least in science, there is a commonly accepted criterion of importance, inclusion in Science Citation Index. It can certainly be argued that some journals not in it may nonetheless be notable, (usually for reasons of notorious publishing misbehavior), and that some journals at the bottom might not be really important except in special cases. But as a rough and ready separation of those worth including it works well enough. DGG ( talk ) 17:52, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Today a Wikipedia user moved without gaining any community consensus and also going against Wikipedia policy the song category for the Shirelles and several of their songs by removing "The" from its proper name usage. Their explanation for such a move is unacceptable. This message could have been addressed on the administrators page, but a continuous cycle of such behavior of radical moves concerning the particular user in question will not cease to exist through such matters of protocol, so by appeal it is brought here. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Early Whirly Birdie (talk • contribs) 22:01, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Somebody please stop this user User talk:Dicklyon#The Shirelles Song Category from doing these moves, and restore the Shirelles category and songs as was before. Now he wants to do the same with the Beatles. He must be stopped! Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Early Whirly Birdie (talk • contribs) 15:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Once you objected, Dicklyon opened a discussion on the matter. You are, of course, welcome to participate in that discussion. You could also open a discussion on the Shirelles category in the same way. That's how we do things, generally—someone takes an action, and if someone objects to it, it gets discussed further. No one's done anything disruptive here and no one needs to intervene. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:54, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

I know that the "Top 25 Report" is outside the mainspace and that editors don't have to adhere to NPOV, but I take issue at how an editor is describing Steve Bannon in particular, calling him "racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic". This is not only an extreme case of POV, but it is also slanderous and hurtful. I don't care (nor does it matter) what you or anyone else thinks of Bannon, in politics or as a person, but this slander is too extreme and hurtful for it to stay. --1990'sguy (talk) 04:20, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

(EC)I suppose that The Top 25 Report, because of its newsletter format, does not have to cite sources or write in the format "Sources x, y, and z consider Bannon to be racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic." That is a common opinion that is often expressed in the mainstream media, though probably not in the alt-right media. Just checking to be sure: Are you stating that Bannon is not racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:00, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Re "because of its newsletter format" – That does not exempt it from WP:BLP, which applies to all pages in Wikpedia. See below. --Bob K31416 (talk) 09:56, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Smallbones, this discussion is obviously reached its end, but just to be clear, whether Bannon is racist, anti-Semitic, etc. is completely besides the point and for a different discussion off-Wiki. Bob K31416 is correct in noting that BLP applies here. --1990'sguy (talk) 22:34, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

What's wrong with it? It's perfectly accurate and is evidenced by his own remarks and Breitbart's articles.^[1][2][3] Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 04:53, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Re "It's perfectly accurate" – That is a conclusion of a Wikipedia editor about a contentious issue regarding a living person and a violation of WP:BLP, and should be redacted. See below. --Bob K31416 (talk) 09:56, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

The item may be a violation of WP:BLP, which applies to all pages in Wikipedia. Here are some excerpts from that policy.

"Editors must take particular care when adding information about living persons to any Wikipedia page."

"Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion.^[1] Users who persistently or egregiously violate this policy may be blocked from editing."

"This policy applies to any living person mentioned in a BLP, whether or not that person is the subject of the article, and to material about living persons in other articles and on other pages, including talk pages.^[2]"

--Bob K31416 (talk) 09:39, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Please see 10 of Breitbart's most incendiary headlines. Bannon was in charge of the company that produced those headlines. He could have stopped the printing of that garbage but didn't. I don't think anybody should be censored who is just stating the obvious. It is just not "Contentious material" to say that Bannon holds certain views. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 10:12, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

• Whilst I wouldn't piss on Bannon if he was on fire, BLP does apply, so how about this - change "the racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic head of Breitbart News" to "the head of the racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic Breitbart News". Voila! No BLP issue. Black Kite (talk) 10:45, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I made the edit. --Bob K31416 (talk) 11:21, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Still better, when a claim is this contentious and negative, to actually site the source in the claim, not just in footnotes. "...which has been called racist, anti-Semitics, and misogynistic by the New York Times and other major media sources like the BBC, NBC News, etc." The point here is to maintain clarity for the reader that Wikipedia itself is not taking an editorial line.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:32, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, clarity is much needed on that page. Many readers, including myself at first, thought that Wikipedia was taking an editorial stance in that page. I like Jimbo's suggestion, and we should also consider adding a tag at the top informing the reader that the views expressed on that page are not Wikipedia's stances. --1990'sguy (talk) 19:46, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

I tried to find where the NY Times called Breitbart that and it looks like they didn't, but rather reported that critics called Breitbart that. For example,

"Critics, including some conservatives formerly associated with it, have denounced Breitbart in its current incarnation as a hate site steeped in misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, white nationalism and anti-Semitism."

So the better modification along the lines of what you're suggesting might be, "...which has been called racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic by critics." --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:58, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

That's an even better proposal. It would be best if the Top 25 Report adhered to NPOV. --1990'sguy (talk) 20:16, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

It certainly would. Let's see less of this, please. Herostratus (talk) 21:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Here is an article came out today, by Nancy LeTourneau quoting Christiane Amanpour. Amanpour says:

Two things about this, which I would ask editors to understand:

1. It's true.
2. It has nothing, almost literally nothing, to do with what we are doing here. If you think it does, you are IMO confused.

We are not Christiane Amanpour. We do want to be anything like Christiane Amanpour, not even little bit. We are not here to point who the good guys and bad guys are. We are not reporters -- not investigative reporters, and not even straight-news reporters.

The bar for calling someone a misogynist, anti-Semite, racist, or anything scurrilous of that type, should be high, and meet one of these two criteria:

1. The person himself admits to it and calls himself that, or
2. Any disinterested, informed, and sane reasonable person, being truthful, would be forced to vouchsafe that it's accurate.

Note the second point. It doesn't say "You and everyone down at the bowling alley" or "Everyone you talk to on Facebook" or anything else of the sort. It doesn't say "a lot of people" or "most people" or "everyone who reads the Times" or "who went to college" or whatever.

As to "Has been claimed by some to be", this is something you want to be very careful with. Many notable people have enemies. Enemies call names. So what.

This doesn't mean we have to be stupid. Adolph Hitler easily meets the reasonable man standard to be called an anti-Semite and so we can. Bannon? Be realistic -- not even close, not even within a mile of being close. I have no use for Bannon, but is he an admitted anti-Semite? He's not. Would any reasonable man have to see that he's a proven anti-Semite? Phhht. You have a couple of Uncle-Dwight-at-the-dinner-table type remarks, and inference at a remove from his editing activities. Let's just say there are many possible explanations for all this. Is he probably actually an anti-Semite? I have my own personal opinion on that, but the Wikipedia is not the place for speculation about stuff like that. "Is probably actually" is not our standard for allowing libel.

Bannon is too notable and important for most anything we say here to cause him any harm or even mild distress. Tempers are high right now. So I wouldn't lose sleep over this particular incident. But it's not a slope we want to start sliding down IMO. Herostratus (talk) 21:46, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Could you please begin the foundational work so as to integrate an incentive reward system whereby editors can receive bitcoin micropayments on the basis of merit. Its going to be vital to get the parameters correct. - Shiftchange (talk) 01:29, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

It would be a better idea to allow people to obtain compensation in a useful medium of exchange, rather than a volatile commodity the main purposes of which in practice are to facilitate easier illegal transactions and to allow speculators and scammers to prey on people looking to get rich quick. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Such a proposal risks turning all editors into "paid editors". In theory, editors can be paid from an impartial source -- preferably a basic income, which liberates all mankind to pursue intellectual, artistic, and monastic pursuits. Barring that, an agency which makes minimal certification that Wikipedia work is being done. But when they put out the tip jar to whore for every anonymous nickel that comes their way, editors are no longer writing for the benefit of all, but for the pleasure of whoever is paying them the most. Wnt (talk) 13:02, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Which is why we have to implement it, lest someone else take control. - Shiftchange (talk) 20:35, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Hmmm, so if I understand correctly you would like the WMF to pay editors a small amount per edit. This makes some sense, but it has some drawbacks also. The first thing, obviously, is that some people might edit more but not better to get the reward. A related issue is that people are more desperate for cash in some countries (indeed, even in some U.S. states) than others -- if you pay everyone the same per edit, then a lot of folks will be outraged about some Pakistanis who patrol for commas to fix sixteen hours a day; but if you pay Americans more, that will be seen as outrageous chauvinism (not to mention expensive -- who hires Americans?) I think that some of these problems might be reduced by moving a bit closer to the basic minimum income model, i.e. WMF would pay all "active editors in good standing" a low fixed stipend. The money would not be much and the editing required would not go beyond what an interested hobbyist does in his off time. It might be low enough that editors in wealthier countries simply cash it back to WMF, but now they could style themselves as donors; others might justify that it (perhaps) pays for the internet connection. There would still be an issue with sock puppetry, but it would be harder (and not especially worthwhile) to collect multiple checks via intermediaries. There would still be a tendency to pull in a lot more "Third World" editors this way and it would draw bitter complaints, but hopefully not with quite as much foundation, and WMF does want to broaden its user base, if Wikipedia actually remains legal to read in more than a few countries. And of course limiting the amount also would make the program cheaper. Can you do it? Maybe. Wnt (talk) 16:01, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

No. I want WMF to enable value exchange as a reward for quality contributions or merit. I want WMF to do it before others do, so that the editing process is not hijacked. If we visit a market and pay with fake money such as wikilove messages the product will always be inferior to one in which something valuable is exchanged. This is why cryptocurrencies will reshape internet media. They will be the reward for users in front of their devices for whatever outcome we collectively seek. That is how cash works. Social media will use them to filter quality content and so if Wikipedia doesn't, eyeballs will leave us. This is our new paradigm. Lets play with the genie before it plays us. - Shiftchange (talk) 03:15, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Gosh, I believe I couldn't possibly disagree more. To make this more obvious to you, suppose a major newspaper took the same approach: rather than hiring journalists, they would simply set up a marketplace so that the journalists could sell their services to the highest bidder. What kind of stories do you think major companies and authoritarian governments would be happy to sponsor? But even though that part is obvious, you should observe that another premise of your argument is being quite obviously demonstrated to be untrue every day. "That is how cash works. Social media will use them to filter quality content and so if Wikipedia doesn't, eyeballs will leave us." Wikipedia has grown to be vastly popular precisely because our model does not encourage authors to chase eyeballs with clickbait and controversy. Think about that, as it is perhaps a bit paradoxical: the way to have a huge audience in the long run, is to care very little about inflating page views in the short run. Why? Because at the end of the way, while people may end up clicking on a tempting headline of "sharable content" on social media, they find it unsatisfying and seek out quality instead.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:15, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't mean to be disrespectful nor argumentative but that analogy isn't valid because we don't conduct our business as a hierarchy. I'm talking about peer to peer reward. I just want the best way to pat my fellow contributor on the back with a gracious thank you. The best way to do that has now been optimised and proven. If we maladapt there is risk of forking and obsolescence. Isn't it possible our model will be refined upon by others through greater exchange of value mechanisms, namely cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin? I see social media improving this way leaving us behind. - Shiftchange (talk) 07:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Shiftchange, your ideas are spectacularly out-of-touch with reality. I would say the probability is approaching certainty that if you actually did try to "pat your fellow contributors on the back" by offering them payments you'd cause such offence you'd be blocked for incivility, and if the WMF were to try to introduce such a scheme it would cause such an exodus of editors that Wikipedia and its sister projects would collapse altogether, quite aside from the disastrous impact on Wikipedia's credibility such a scheme would inevitably cause. And I say that as someone near the top of both WP:WBFAN and WP:WBE, presumably the two primary metrics you intend to use to measure "quality contributions", and thus one of the people who'd have most to gain from such a system. ‑ Iridescent 16:37, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Wnt, if you want to trust the WMF with your bank account details—which would presumably be necessary in order to pay your proposed basic income, since even if they have nothing to hide most people aren't going to want the unwanted attention from the authorities that would come if they suddenly started conducting transactions in bitcoin—you have considerably more confidence in their security than I do. ‑ Iridescent 16:50, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I was not aware of fear of totalitarianism inhibiting bitcoin transactions, but the solution for WMF would seem obvious: they could send a physical check as often as it amounts to enough money to be worth cashing. Even if they offered a buck or two bonus for electronic payments to offset the cost of printing, checking and mail, some Luddites here, myself included, would likely turn it down for the reasons you mention. Alternatively, they might send out some kind of cash card unlinked to an account (though somehow the finance industry schemers usually figure out a way to encumber those with absurd fees); these might be of relevance to users without ready resort to banking. Wnt (talk) 22:37, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

@Shiftchange: It might be possible to pursue your idea via a different route. Wikipedia edits might be considered "proof of work" as the basis of a cryptocurrency scheme. There are many alternatives to Bitcoin, typically worth much less, but with a value that can increase per publicity. A Wikipedia-backed cryptocurrency would expect unusual publicity, hence unusual value. The catch is that launching a cryptocurrency is no easy feat; it requires a deep understanding of the dark illusionism by which nations and peoples are ruled. An additional technical issue is that a universal, refereeless standard of a "meaningful edit in good standing" would be needed to prevent abusers from inundating the 'pedia with spam while diluting the currency to zero. Wnt (talk) 13:46, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

By God you could develop an entire scale economy of living wage tour guides and take school vouchers for semantic dronebot rides through the tower of WonkiBabel. ^^SashiRolls (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo. Just thought you might be interested in Talk:Donald Trump#External links and the subsequent RfC. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo, I am sorry to take your precious time. I would like just to ask you is that normal for Wikipedia to have such offensive article madding "Humor" abuses, offences, and mockery about Macedonians and the state Republic of Macedonia, and not only offending Macedonians but Greeks, as well. Can someone, please, delete or remove that harassment site. Can anyone ban creators of that site. Thanks! Regards! 77.234.44.147 (talk) 15:54, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

• The IP raises an excellent point. This is a "humorous" article in Wikipedia space on the Serbo-Croat Wikipedia, which unless I've missed some incredibly subtle humour (unlikely, knowing the relationship between the countries) is basically an insulting screed against Macedonia and Macedonians. Apparently the country only exists "because of a conspiracy between the United Nations in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation", the inhabitants are mostly overweight, and their most famous athlete is a dog. The article is unsurprisingly regularly vandalised, but is restored and protected by sh.wiki admins. Someone with the appropriate permissions needs to get this gone, and have a wor with the admins involved. Black Kite (talk) 17:19, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, I agree and I would also add here national symbol insults involved, as on national coat of arms (Greek one), national flag (modified war Japanese flag), national anthem (allegedly "bread and chutney"), national motto(allegedly "killing"!!??), name o the people ("Janevistanians"), than capital of the state (allegedly Greek city of Thessaloniki), etc. For example national macedonian motto contain a threat "You will be killed",and so on. Libertarian Macedonian (talk) 20:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

So Macedonian are able to produce and export only chutney, and nothing else as "National anthem "Bread and chutney" suggests Macedonian were good only for making paper and potato(s)? All Janevistanians (Macedonians) were copies of Igor Janev?? Pollution in Macedonian city of Delcevo was that bad, so I.J. is nervous? Japanese flag suggesting Japanese fighting dogs? Or, between the lines of translation, all Macedonians were "Dogs of the war"??77.234.45.153 (talk) 12:01, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I can't read any of it and for some reason Google Translate appears down from here at the moment. So I can only comment on the principle, which is really all the matters here. There is no reason for any offensive humor to exist in any place on any Wikimedia projects at any time. This is always true, but especially true in areas and places that have to to with insults on national cultures in parts of the world where sensitivities due to past and recent conflict is high.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:16, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

The Wikilink is sh:User:Orijentolog/Janevistan; it's a user's private subpage. When you think about the magnitude of abuses by administrators on many of the small wikis who block would-be editors and impose bias in article space, I think that it would be absolutely a terrible precedent to go after the Serbo-Croatian Wiki because they don't censor user pages according to American standards of political correctness. Their welcome message to me as a user says that you can post on some of their forums in English, and you are free to mount the bully pulpit if you want, but please, don't go beyond that. Wnt (talk) 22:39, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Wnt, as usual on this and similar issues, you are wrong. Wikipedia need not tolerate nasty behavior, ever. "American standards of political correctness" is a silly thing to say in this context. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, worldwide. The values of Wikipedia are universal.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:42, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

In may opinion, Wikipedia should apply some universally accepted standards. Insults on national symbols are prohibited in every state in the world and in the International Law. At least Wiki rules should apply . Furthermore, there were threats such as "You will be killed" (Geslo: "Bićeš ubijen!")that were absolutely unacceptable. I should also mention that after protest of Macedonian administrator ] Ehrlich91, that hate speach was clearly insult to the all Macedonians, nothing happened. Regards. Libertarian Macedonian (talk) 23:30, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

"Insults on national symbols are prohibited in every state in the world and in the international law" - this is 100% false and 100% irrelevant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:40, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Dear Jimmy, whatever you decide is fine with me. If this admins. on sh.wiki think that Macedonians are fat and stupid or primitive its ok. Thank you for your precious time. Forgive me for any inconvenience. Best wishes!Libertarian Macedonian (talk) 23:48, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

P.S. I thought that the burning or tearing or damaging of the USA flag is punishable by US the law, according to the US Constitution. Libertarian Macedonian (talk) 00:06, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Nope. Burning is considered the appropriate mechanism for disposal of old and damaged flags. The Boy Scouts of America burn more flags than all the Muslims in the world combined. Guy (Help!) 00:52, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Flag desecration in the United States was formerly banned by unconstitutional legislation. The Supreme Court has upheld not merely the physical act of burning a flag but the right to deface and destroy it as an expression of personal contempt or for any other reason. This wise ruling has, incidentally, caused flag desecration to go from being frequent national news to something that is almost unheard of, because without the prosecutions, people simply don't care - and if they don't care, there is little reason to bother. Wnt (talk) 12:42, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

As for the Flag of Vergina Sun /Alexander the Grate Flag (in "Janevistan" presented under label: "Coat of Arms", as a provocation to Macedonians), it should be remembered that Greece because of that Flag started the catastrophic Trade War against Macedonia in 1994 and 1995, and reported that as "flagrant violation of the international law" to the UN Security Council. During that painful period for Macedonia, as a result of the trade blockade and sanctions introduced by Greece state, salaries and wages in Macedonia were fallen to the level of less than 50 dollars per month! Relations between the to state were than closest to the war, and relations didn't normalize until Macedonia had accepted to change its Flag (Flag of Vergina Sun). Now, sh.wikipedia editors, made mockery for the period of deepest economic crises in Macedonian history, by deliberately putting Vergina Sun Flag in the place "Coat of Arms" of Macedonia/Janevistan! Such accusations of stealing national symbols from other states, are taken very seriously both in Macedonia and in Greece. Further, in the text you may found that Macedonian were constantly stealing other people symbols (presented there in the oppositional form: "neighbors had stolen Macedonian symbols") and Macedonian state always "destroyed" other cultures, operating on principle (according to sh.wiki editors): "Demolish and bury it" (sh."sruši i zakopaj")! Thanks!5.45.62.149 (talk) 11:58, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Plus, there is no science in Macedonia (sh. "Istorijska nauka makedonologija je danas zvanično poznata i kao arheologija.") The only science in the country is digging in the past!? So the conclusion for reader should be that, according to SH., there is/was no science or scientists in the Republic of Macedonia, except experts for rewriting and falsifying history!?

5.45.62.166 (talk) 05:32, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Or this "varvarina koji su hteli da zatru sve makedonsko, pa su joj pokrali jezik, ime, nacionalne simbole i svetske velikane", basically all Macedonian culture was stolen by Barbarians, so there is no now any Culture at all!?5.45.62.166 (talk) 05:43, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Jimbo was 100% correct when stating that national symbols were not protected by the International Law ("Insults on national symbols are prohibited in every state in the world and in the international law" - this is 100% false). Also, State names cannot be the subject of forgery or theft (stealing), and states cannot be deprived from their names or externally (and internally) imposed on them, and state name as such couldn’t affect the different historical interpretation. States do not have exclusive rights over the state names, and couldn’t be subject to the imposition of negotiations on that type of matters , even by the UN. What was fanny to me in the “Janevistan”, but probably not to the Macedonians, was that allegedly leading ideologist teaches Macedonians that “Macedonian world” is “Good” one and surrounded by Evil or “non-Macedonian world”, but that “Evil” (or non-Macedonians) must exist beside Macedonians (“Good”) because other vise Macedonians wouldn’t be able (presumably as higher beings) to define their identity or themselves! According to sh. Editors, creator of this type of Racist ideology was Igor Janev (and that is obviously not only untruth, but compete creation of sh. Editors in attempt to humiliate people in Macedonia and describe Igor Janev as a Nazi nationalist/Fascist). Actually the message was suppose to be (understood) in satiric opposite modus, aiming to say that the only evil people in the World, with Nazi ideology, were Macedonians. Well, seems to me sh.editors miss the point there and actually described themselves as such nationalists.5.45.62.166 (talk) 08:34, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Still, US is well-known for large percentage of cases involving personal offences. But to say: country only exists "because of a conspiracy between the United Nations in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation" is a more serious situation. At least in Balkan countries you may not go with these defamations, unless you are prepared to pay a large amount of money. Libertarian Macedonian (talk) 01:13, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Mr. Wales, I frankly don't see much meaning in your statement that "Wikipedia need not ever tolerate nasty behavior." There are a wide range of things that go on here that can be considered "nasty", but what do you take action against? I would suggest that admins on small wikis who ban people without explanation or for writing contrary to the Official POV would be far "nastier" than someone who has some rude national humor on a user page. I think that Polish jokes and Russian reversals and even more mean-spirited efforts like Life of Brian or the 'fatface' actors in Austin Powers have some legitimate place in culture. When you act to say that small wikis must never permit users to transgress your boundaries of politeness while failing to take such invasive action where substantive article content bias issues are concerned, you send a powerful message that Wikipedia is an entertainment product meant not to offend rather than one whose educational agenda is foremost. Wnt (talk) 12:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Mr. Wnt, have you read that article? Please do so. You will see unseen offences with the death threats and defamations in each sentence of Janevistan. It shows the pattern of nasty and unlawful behavior, contrary to the rules of conduct for internet media. If you read conversation between Mac. admin. and SH. admin. you will see that SH.Wiki admin (O.C.Ripper) admits wrongdoing but is reluctant to do anything abuot it! Still, I am glad to report that one of co-creators of Janevistan (i.e. User:Kolega2357) was finally banned from editing by ‎Wikimedia Foundation , for other reasons (‎Wikimedia Foundation Block: Disruptive and superfluous edits).5.45.62.131 (talk) 14:41, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

User Kolega2357 was been previously banned forever at sr. wiki under different name, and than sr.admins., after about one year, allowed him to have a new (present) name i.e. Kolega2357.178.222.77.248 (talk) 04:00, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

P.S. My advise to Jimmy is to contact the Wikimedia Foundation - Support - Safety, just to have a proper information about legal aspects of the above mentioned offenses.Libertarian Macedonian (talk) 01:30, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

If I may add here that the banned user of SH.Wiki Kolega2357 was also involved in fabrication of famous "Hoax" META story about Igor Janev, claiming that he does not exist . That was accepted as a "truth" somewhere. But facts apparently speak for themselves .77.234.45.133 (talk) 15:41, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

SH.Wiki Kolega2357 in action on la.wikipedia talk page !178.223.39.198 (talk) 15:47, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

And more actions by presently banned user Kolega2357 , and similar on 10 more wikis.178.223.39.198 (talk) 16:07, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

So, we should keep an eye on the user page of User:Donald Trump? :) .

For anyone with the relevant access, see also OTRS ticket:2016110810027764. Ks0stm ^{(T•C•G•E)} 03:14, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

It appears on sh.wiki like a regular article not just a subpage, when you press search button. I find interesting that the actual creator of the page consider that person as his fan. See list of fans in Orjentolog list (left in Babylon).Looks to me like a stalker.5.45.62.130 (talk) 12:13, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

SH.Wikipedia is a minor small Wiki with a really bad reputation. It only makes copies from Serbian and Croatian Wikipedia. In many occasions there were formal actions from both Serbian and Croatian Wikies to close that "Serbo-Croatian Wiki", but unfortunately with no success. People there are completely incompetent and irresponsible. Actually, Serbo-Croatian language doesn't really exist any more. So all editors expelled from Serbian and Croatian Wikipedia are now there. In one word so called "Serbo-Croatian Wiki", is the embarrassment for Wikipedia in general.77.234.40.180 (talk) 13:42, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually, there is quite a funny joke there. Looking at the Google Translate for the page I saw nothing but harmless drollery (to use, nostalgically, the word now rendered as "trolling", from a more civilized time when creative expression was valued). But one of their big jokes is that every major feat in Macedonian culture was performed by Igor Janev. I found an article about him at hr:Igor_Janev, which lists 13 other Wikis, including the Macedonian and the Serbian, which have similar articles; but our article on en.wikipedia has been deleted as a "blatant hoax", and 'salted' so that no one can restart it.

If Wikipedia wants to work on improving its reputation, it'd be nice to have a better way of spreading the word (or debating the issue) about hoaxes, especially BLP hoaxes, between the different language Wikipedias. Wnt (talk) 15:37, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Admins. can always restart the BLP on Him, on the other hand He already have enough BLP in other languages. The idea on harmonization of inter-wiki policies is a good one. Someone cannot be celebrity on some Wikies and hoax on others. The article on Him was never salted on Greek Wiki, and that's surprises me. Or maybe not?5.45.62.166 (talk) 09:00, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

And what about eng.wiki? Based on apparently falsified and incomplete fact and stories about Igor Janev on META and elsewhere, his name, as such, became the subject of systematic disgracing and humiliation trough process of name eradication and termination on eng.wiki, as a spam. Was that in accordance with the rule of civility you claim to preserve here, or perhaps his rights, particularly not to be humiliated and insulted or offended, were breached?79.101.133.198 (talk) 10:03, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

And everyone who defended his name or disagreed with spam or hoax qualification(s) and insults was treated as sock(s) or vandal(s), here.79.101.133.198 (talk) 10:34, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, the Hoax or spam story was a fake and manipulation at META and even stupid. Particularly to report on META "It was recently discovered in dewp that the article about "Igor Janev" was a fake. They could saw Google Scholar . If article about him was a "blatant hoax" it would had been immediately removed on Macedonian Wikipedia and Serbian Wikipedia. But that was not the case.77.234.45.133 (talk) 15:53, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

As for trolling, I don't see anything funny by describing Macedonians as a wild primitive savages constantly attacking other people and countries with shadow "Tsar" Igor Janev, an extremist, nationalist and expansionist. Maybe he is not an A. Einstein, but he gave some notable contribution to the Macedonian science.77.234.45.133 (talk) 16:38, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

The way you describe this user subpage makes me wonder if Google Translate cuts out all the good stuff. Meanwhile, I notice that Commons deleted a number of illustrations that were once part of it, on the rationale that they were posted without permission of their true author -- Igor Janev. :) Wnt (talk) 17:18, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't know details, but I presume that these illustrations would require that I.J. personally send approvals for OTRS, and I don't think he would ever act personally on such matters. Actually what I learned observing net, he never uses Twitter, Facebook, or any other social nets.77.234.45.133 (talk) 17:36, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Ok, now I found it. These illustrations are photo's of I.J. fighting dog, that is, according to sh.wiki the only "Fauna" in Macedonia. The only sport in Janevistan or Macedonia is dog fighting, and the winner in dog fights is always his dog, and so on.. (never-ending nonsenses). The good stuff? Under label "Government" (sh./mk. "Vlada") goes "Tsar (in exile)" (sh. Car- Igor Janev (u izgnanstvu)), basically suggesting that person from another country rules and runs the government in Macedonia. And so on...

Macedonians were his fighting dogs!? "Dogs of the war"?

Proposal for the deletion of photo's of I.J.'s dog was initiated by the creator of "Janevistan", namely sh. User:Orjentolog! Apparently user "Orjentolog" was sickly obsessed by Igor Janev, just as previously sh. User:Kolega2357 was (and perhaps both were stalking him?).77.234.45.149 (talk) 20:34, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

77.234.45.151 (talk) 22:27, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Finlay, and very provocative to the Greek state is the catastrophic suggestion that "temporary occupied" Greek city of Thessaloniki (sh. "Solun" (under Capital label)) the "capital" of Janevistan should be retaken - liberated (presumably by Macedonian army, implied by sh. editors) and that it was allegedly plan of Janevistanian or Macedonian government! These inflammatory crazy nonsenses are of very sensitive nature in Balkans and should not be tolerated on any Wikipedia, regardless of the tipe of the site. Balkan countries had enough wars in the past, and to post such diabolic suggestion for war between Greece and Macedonia is not a joke, not a humor at all, nor ordinary trolling. That site should definitely be deleted and sh. admins. blocked.77.234.45.151 (talk) 23:54, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Dear Jimmy, make that abomination of sh. site vanish ones and for all. This is an embracement for Wikipedia. I ask myself here are there any limits for editors or administraotrs there, or more generally on Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia, before any intervention by management or people governing Wikipedia? Where are the boundaries here? Let me add my impression about that site. In the first sentence of "Janevistan" the editors were mocking about Macedonian Constitution that allegedly define the Macedonian territory as area of Eastern Europe, most of Africa and Asia, accusing and mocking the creators of the Macedonian Constitution for irredentism and expansionist aspirations embedded in the highest legal document. Let me remind everyone here, just for information, that there are a provisions (amendments to Macedonian Constitution, made on January 6, 1992.) asserting that of Republic Macedonia "has no territorial claims against any neighboring states". The policy of the Republic of Macedonia was peaceful and never with aspirations toward any territories of other countries. And by the way, I don't see here anybody from sh.wikipedia to defend themselves! I assume they already saw these discussion suggesting not only the removal of insulting abomination, but the meaningful ideas proposing to shutdown sh. project, as such. Remaining respectful,Risto Nikovski (talk) 02:33, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, don't get very upset. This is not the only master peace at the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia. One should give the Nobel prize for peace to the creators of that site. As for Igor Janev such articles only busted his popularity in Macedonia and beyond. And Wikipedia also benefited perhaps because now, after Janevistan, more than 5% of people in Macedonia read Wikipedia. All sins will be forgiven!178.223.24.207 (talk) 13:55, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

I wonder, about the "Name issue" of the Republic of Macedonia, how would USA behave if the United Nations try to impose UN membership designation "Former British colony", replacing the official name USA. Now, as you know reference for the Republic of Macedonia in UN is "the Former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia" (FYROM)! I guess your answer would be that US will never become a member of any international organization if it have to accept "Former British colony" for the provisional name or reference for the USA in international organization(s).79.101.187.172 (talk) 11:38, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

• Beside that, Macedonian diplomats may always say that name "Macedonia" is legally different from the "Republic of Macedonia" (disputed), so no grounds to complain from Greek State, or dispute over name.77.46.207.9 (talk) 22:14, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
• Greek allegation that the name of the applicant state implies "territorial claims" has no legal significance and grounds. The name of a state, which is a subject of that state’s domestic jurisdiction (since every state naturally has an inherent right to a name), does not create international legal rights for the state that adopts the name, nor does it impose legal obligations on other states. Clearly, the name does not have an impact on the territorial rights of states.Risto Nikovski (talk) 01:49, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

How about the basic policy and the rule of civility enshrined in the basic (legal) document(s) of Wikipedia/Wikimedia. Should this rule and the other basic rules be honored and protected? Or, just everyone can do or say whatever he/she/they like(s)?79.101.133.198 (talk) 06:09, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Failure to act in the case of Janevistan is also a crucial decision. Janevstan per se should be interpreted as the negative and terrible precedent in violating of the standards of Encyclopedia. Failure to act in this case my lead to other similar cases were people and nations could be treated in Wikies without dignity and respect.79.101.133.198 (talk) 11:36, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Don't worry very soon someone will make that site gone. Jimbo has a zero tolerance for this type of Vandalism.77.105.62.195 (talk) 12:45, 19 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't think sh.admins. will appear here to explain vandalism.79.101.187.172 (talk) 01:12, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Though, sh. Clerk / CheckUser here have provided the blocking for editor on 14. November 2016.79.101.187.172 (talk) 01:48, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Proper place for closing Wiki Project is META. Such as earlier .79.101.187.172 (talk) 09:41, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Right now, there is an ongoing request to remove one (of two) sh. administrator for the massive abuse of rights and harassment on SH. Wikipedia (i.e admin. Edgar Allan Poe) . The procedure for removal of the administrator was initiated by another sh.Wiki user "Vujkovica brdo" (https://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korisnik:Vujkovica_brdo). As everyone can understand from the voting scores, the two administrators (namely Edgar Allan Poe and O.C. Ripper) have joined together and, with the user "Orjentolog" (notorious creator of the "Janevistan") outvoted their colleague user "Vujkovica brdo" and made the mockery of the entire process! Recently, another user from sh.Wiki "Seiya" (https://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korisnik:Seiya) also left that Wikipedia unsatisfied with the behavior there.79.101.187.172 (talk) 00:12, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

It was said in the discussion that harassment of administrator Edgar Allan Poe in long period of time left virtually no wiki. standards/rules here, whatsoever.79.101.187.172 (talk) 00:25, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Just to give you an idea of the language in use there, user "Orjentolog" said in the comment of the page (→‎Za: Готов је!) or in English: "He is finished!" .93.87.214.23 (talk) 03:34, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

On "Janevistan" history page you may find even worse page comments (such as "Victims of Assassination" Category, and more similar stuff).93.87.214.23 (talk) 04:31, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Not to forget plagiarism on Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, were thousands of copies were directly taken (copy-paste) from ether Serbian Wikipedia or Croatian Wikipedia, or to put it in different way, probably more than 90 % of all articles were plagiarism.178.223.39.198 (talk) 13:30, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Plagiarism is the form of Vandalism (sometimes and somewhere crime / misdemeanor), and people who practice that on the regular basis and massive scale, as some sh.editors, should be treated as Vandals.178.223.39.198 (talk) 16:26, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

So instead of punishing real vandals Fake Meta Affair creators few years ago (2013) (users from Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia), Igor Janev (article) had been punished by being salted on English Wikipedia and few other Wikis.178.223.21.243 (talk) 13:07, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Jimbo should restart or re-salt the article on Igor Janev.178.223.39.198 (talk) 16:41, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

I reported this case of harassment/threats (on SH.Wikipedia/”Janevistan“) to META .Risto Nikovski (talk) 09:58, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Real question here may be put in the form: can racist-alike offences / insults or even threats be allowed in the Wiki space (in general), even on subpages or not? SH. editors cannot defend their site "Janevistan" by saying "that was just a subpage "humor", justifying everything by that fact. Clearly, Wikipedia should apply some universally accepted standards and take care about the economy of its space (Wiki space is not infinite). Does the intervention of WMF banning Kolega2357 (see above, disruptive and superfluous edits, basis for banning) constitute a good precedent for a similar intervention of (any) Wiki authority to remove racist-alike site(s) and preserve the (scarce) Wiki space? Some Thoughts?77.46.207.9 (talk) 15:27, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

I found one more deadly threat by user:Orjentolog directed to Igor Janev, see Orijentolog (Razgovor | doprinosi) "(likvidirali su čoveka!)" or in Eng. translation "Man has been assassinated!"!! These things goes far, far beyond the normal functioning of Encyclopedia. Not only that "Janevistan" should be deleted, but user:Orjentolog should be banned on a permanent term!77.46.207.9 (talk) 00:06, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Further, to establish motives for the site, what I learned from the communication between sh.user Orjentolog with sh.user Seiya was that there was a plan to create mess with Janevistan (Feb. 5. 2016, Izmjena od 13:21, 5 februar 2016). User Seiya said to User Orjentolog: "Ori, ti si potpuno upropastio makedonsko-srpskohrvatske odnose! Da nije Makedonija napustila SFRJ još 1991., napustila bi ju danas, nakon ovoga. Zar ti nije već dovoljno zategnuta situacija na Balkanu sa svim ovim izbjeglicama, ti još hoćeš malo dodatno zapapriti i makedonskim ratom? Čuvaj se! Nemoj ići nigdje predaleko na jug!" shortly translated: "You destroyed our relations with Macedonians. Do you want war with Macedonia?....If Macedonia had not left the Yugoslavia in 1991, that would happend today! ...Beware! Do not go to far on South." Orjentolog answered, something like " I give a damn". As I can see and conclude, some kids or students were playing war games, for fun! And META took their statements seriously 3 years ago!77.46.207.9 (talk) 01:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

In light of that, I agree with others who advocate for banning sh.admins. too.77.46.207.9 (talk) 02:21, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Before that statement i.e. (“Ori, ti si potpuno upropastio makedonsko-srpskohrvatske odnose! Da nije Makedonija napustila SFRJ još 1991., napustila bi ju danas, nakon ovoga. Zar ti nije već dovoljno zategnuta situacija na Balkanu sa svim ovim izbjeglicama, ti još hoćeš malo dodatno zapapriti i makedonskim ratom? Čuvaj se! Nemoj ići nigdje predaleko na jug! Kad krenu bombe po tvojem predgrađu, nemoj mene uvlačiti u to! Svi imaju tu crno na bijelo da sam ja po pitanju članka glasovao "za"! Македонија е наш пријател”)(please use Google Translate here), sh. administrator Edgar Allan Poe said “ali, jesu bar dobri obavještajci?” or like “Do they have a good intel?”/or: Do we have the good intelligence. So they all were playing a spy game(s) for fun or amusement.77.234.45.154 (talk) 10:02, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

plus, the other sh.admin. in chief agreed to such stupidities?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.223.27.177 (talk) 10:37, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Corruption in SH.93.86.248.226 (talk) 17:18, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Kolega2357 was already under scrutiny about META case in 2013.(Igor Janev) on sr.wiki(patrolling rights case) , and stated there: „Ne znam ja o kakvim ti to izmjenama govoriš ali iza afere Janev ko zna ko stoji ja sigurno ne jer ne znam makedonski a to svi znaju.“ shortly translated: I am not behind that Affair. (Confessing there was Affair!!). Despite that statement Kolega2357 did not got patrolling rights, probably because no one believed him.93.86.239.208 (talk) 10:14, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Dear Jimmy, I hope that you will not ignore me or my advise. In light of presented proves above, you should clear the name of Igor Janev, restart art. on him i.e.Igor Janev, and instruct someone to ask admins. on SH.Wikipedia, in good will, to remove the Janevistan site. No further measures are necessary, such as blocking or banning. Thank you for your patience and time. Remaining respectful.Risto Nikovski (talk) 04:35, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

see.178.222.115.184 (talk) 14:23, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

and this .91.150.102.226 (talk) 15:31, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

As everyone can see admin. Edgar only removed Template for deletion!79.101.161.124 (talk) 16:42, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

and user who proposed the deletion was blocked to unlimited period of time . Someone should delete the site, block creator of Janevistan (Korisnik:Orijentolog)and remove admin. rights to Edgar Allan Poe. That is why the Stewards exist!93.87.154.148 (talk) 19:17, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

plus, admins. on sh.wiki give a damn about discussion we have here on Jimbo Talk Page. In his comment admin. Edgar said: "Ovaj se baš namjerio na tebe x'D" , or "This one creates The X-Files" (as Explanation for deletion of Template for deletion of Janevistan).93.87.154.148 (talk) 19:26, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

"x'D" means "Dosije X" or "The X-Files".93.87.154.148 (talk) 19:41, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

And a new Request for deletion of Janevistan .79.101.187.251 (talk) 22:12, 27 November 2016 (UTC)

So we got the answer from sh.admin Edgar Allan Poe about "ARTICLE" : "I would kindly ask you to stop adding deletion requests to the page in question; it is clearly a humorous article not intended to insult anyone or anything, as is stated on the top of the page. There is no reason to delete it "--Biljezim se sa štovanjem,Poe 23:35, 27 novembar 2016"! No comment.178.222.60.128 (talk) 02:35, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

And administrator Edgar Allan Poe, in violation of rules, protected Talk page of Libertarian Macedonian so that even Libertarian Macedonian cannot make comments/edits on its own Talk Page!212.200.205.158 (talk) 11:05, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

The real question here is should Republic of Macedonia just sue Wiki?178.222.77.248 (talk) 11:41, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

The obvious answer is "No", as that would be a foolish attempt. There is some wisdom in Mick Jagger, in which case it is best to stop trying and trying and trying. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:52, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Maybe not a foolish attempt. Wiki is a legal person and have some legal responsibilities! Besides that would have some Media impact in public. 178.222.77.248 (talk) 13:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

At least, should someone have a word with administrator(s) on sh.wiki? As I understood from their internal communication chief admin. O.C.Ripper is now willing to delete that site. That may resolve the entire problem. Some contact to O.C.Ripper could help. 178.222.77.248 (talk) 03:14, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

If the similar sub-art. joke or humor was made about Jimbo and USA or GB, it would vanish in a minutes, not hours or months. But Janevistan will live forever.109.121.30.195 (talk) 10:57, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

"Janevistan" says much more about creators of that crazy site and Wiki Standards, than about Macedonia, Macedonians and Igor Janev.77.105.21.12 (talk) 12:49, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Agree. And actually it seams to me that the only person who clearly benefited from "Janevistan" was Igor Janev! Looks to me like an advertisement in favor of Janev. What I found striking was that Serbo-Croatian editors didn't even knew correct spelling and Serbo-Croatian grammar. So even from the technical side the so-called "ARTICLE" was far from perfect. I would say complete disaster.178.222.77.248 (talk) 14:40, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

So, I appealed an AE indef block at ARCA. The first ArbCom respondent said "To get unblocked, agree to these conditions," and I keep saying what sounds like "yes" to me. I also want them to tell me exactly why I was topic-banned in the first place because apparently the things the enforcing admin said to me in February were ...wrong? ...not meant to be taken at face value? ...something else? One member of Arbcom says the problem is my "inability to draw simple inferences." I see that as guessing. I don't want to have to guess what's expected of me, especially if I can get re-sanctioned for guessing wrong. I can think of several things it might be, but some of them are mutually exclusive and some are frankly less than flattering to certain parties and I'd rather not piss anyone off unnecessarily.

I didn't even know what "discretionary sanctions" were until last year. Half the reason I got sanctioned in the first place is because I didn't know what a voluntary ban was, or what exactly was meant by "broadly construed," and thought "1RR" meant "one talk page post per day." These are all solvable problems.

It's tempting to feel like they want to keep everything vague to make it easier to sanction some people but not others at personal discretion or that the thing they want me to agree to is something that they feel would make them look bad if they said it publicly. I know, right? But other things that looked off about this (checks watch) eleven-month-and-counting ordeal have turned out to have benign explanations, and maybe this does too. I wouldn't be surprised if >90% of this is communication.

Even if I get reblocked, I feel like I deserve a straight, hint/guess/inference-free answer about why and that one of the problems that made such a huge contribution to this mess, lack of clear guidelines for users targeted by extremely long complaints, should be solved. It's easily solvable. I'd feel a little better about this if I knew it was less likely to happen to the next person.

So if you know how the Arbitration Committee thinks, are familiar with their MO, and feel up to spelling it out for someone who isn't in an unbiased and dispassionate manner, I'd love it if you followed the link and did so. Happy post-Thanksgiving. May all your screaming be happy screaming. Like with kids. Who are happy because of snow and presents and stuff. It's late and I'm tired. Translation appreciated at ARCA. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:06, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

What is wanted is that you drop the matter. Johnuniq (talk) 06:37, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

But then wouldn't I just stay blocked and topic-banned permanently? There's no expiration date on either one. I'm under the impression that sitting tight and waiting does nothing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:48, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: The problem is, as I just commented in my section there, is that it is not clear what is meant by "drop the matter". That is unless it means that @Darkfrog24: should never appeal their topic ban. That seems the obvious interpretation but that surely can't be what they mean. I have commented in my section asking them to please clarify. Do you know what they mean? It is not an automatically expiring topic ban. If it was then to just do nothing would make sense, I am myself a topic banned author, or was, but in my case it was a six month ban and I just had to wait until it expired which happened two days ago. But @Darkfrog24: can't do that. Robert Walker (talk) 21:09, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Robertinventor it looks clear to me: Darkfrog needs to stop, forever and ever and ever, relitigating the circumstances under which they were topic banned. "Relitigating" includes but is not limited to talking about how this person lied, or that process was bad/unfair and could be improved, or Darkfrog disagrees with the topic ban because X, Y, Z. That limitation does not preclude them from appealing their topic ban. Instead, it means that any appeal they make must not include a discussion of any other editor's behaviour or what happened when they were banned but must focus solely on their own behaviour. Ca2james (talk) 22:23, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

• I refer the hon. gentleman to the following statement by Opabinia regalis, with emphasis added:

"Darkfrog, we are running out of ways to tell you this. Your choices at this point are a) agree that your future participation on the English Wikipedia will be contingent on staying away from the MOS and style issues, and ceasing to endlessly re-argue the circumstances of your topic ban, or b) find a different hobby better suited to your interests."

What part of this is unclear? We know yo want to continue doing this stuff, that is the precise reason the restriction is in place. Don't do it. Forget it. Walk away. Stop. Ignore MOS and capitalisation. Don't go there. Desist. Guy (Help!) 22:27, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

That is not unclear. It's just fascist. SageRad (talk) 15:38, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Is that a rule for topic ban appeals that you can't discuss the behaviour of any other editor in the events that lead up to the ban, only your own behaviour? If so, can you point me towards the place in wikipedia guidelines on the appeal process where it says this? Or are you saying this is a rule that only applies to Darkfrog24 and if so why does it apply only to them?

If this is what they meant it wasn't at all clear to me from what they said in the quote you just gave. They didn't say that in so many words. Also just to say to anyone reading this, that, I understand from Darkfrog24's talk page that they have been warned that they are not permitted to take part in this conversation any more. Apparently it is a breach of their unblock conditions which they didn't realize (and see their reply). So anyone reading this needs to be aware of that, that they are not permitted to comment here any more, so won't be able to answer questions put to them here. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 22:53, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Darkfrog24 stated: "Short version: It started when I was targeted by a liar with a grudge". For that, I'd simply have reblocked him. It's bullshit. Applicable policy is WP:STICK. Guy (Help!) 23:33, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

They were talking to another uninvolved editor on their own talk page, and the conversation has now been archived already.

How can you say in advance that @SMcCandlish: didn't lie without checking? I haven't looked far back in this case myself, but I did go back to the Gaslighting claim and in my own statement to WP:ARCA, as I said, I feel they went way over the top. Indeed though I didn't say it there, it is my view that Darkfrog24 deserves an apology from them, after making such a horrible and completely unfounded statement about them - not just in a talk page but as part of their submission to the admins leading to the topic ban. I don't see how the diffs there could suggest Gaslighting to anyone (i.e. deliberately trying to make someone else mentally ill through surreptitious actions). As I said, to a UK reader they don't suggest an allegation of mental impairment either. They just read to me like Darkfrog24 advising other editors to be sympathetic to them because they seem to be going through a rough patch in life. Why should it be absolutely fine for them to accuse Darkfrog24 of Gaslighting in their deposition to the admins, and then it is a blocking offence in your view for Darkfrog24 to say that they tell lies in a comment on their own talk page to an uninvolved editor? Gaslighting is a far worse offence than a lie.

Anyway the main thing is, that Darkfrog24 needs to be told what the conditions are. If the conditions are that they must never call @SMcCandlish: a liar anywhere in wikipedia even on their own talk page - well that should be said clearly, and the reasons given for that condition. I would suggest that in return another condition should be that SMcCandlish should never accuse Darkfrog24 of gaslighting. In my experience Darkfrog24 is careful to follow due process, but needs to know what the conditions are. But if SMcCandlish did lie, and if it is necessary to bring this up for a successful appeal against their topic ban, then surely Darkfrog24 should be permitted to bring it up in that particular circumstance.

If you look at my suggestion, I suggested that one way forward would be if both Darkfrog24 and SMcCandlish agree to treat the past as the past and that they don't bring any past statements by either of them back to the board. They agree not to mention any statements either of them made prior to the date that they make that agreement, except, naturally, in the case of a topic ban appeal in the appropriate forum, if necessary for an appeal. So far nobody has commented on that suggestion. How does that sound (assuming they both agreed to it)? Would that be sufficient to remove the block? Robert Walker (talk) 00:35, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that Arbcom needs to officially declare that user A must never refer to user B as a liar? If you are not joking, please stop commenting on issues like this until gaining some understanding of how Wikipedia works. And do not stir the pot by naming and pinging other editors who now have the choice of ignoring this (and "proving" they cannot defend themselves), or joining in with a full onslaught (and, due to the ensuing and unproductive fight, proving that Darkfro24 should have been indeffed a couple of weeks ago). Johnuniq (talk) 00:54, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I pinged SMcCandlish just because I was talking about them and felt it was polite to ping someone if one discusses them. Please reread what I wrote, especially the last para, as that is not what I suggested, thanks! Robert Walker (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:44, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I have a better way forward: Darkfrog forgets it. Guy (Help!) 01:19, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Robert Walker, coming from a person who has been TBANed and failed to understand it when it was happening as well as afterwards (per this and the reclose here; and within that this and this (at the bottom of that dif) and this).... do you really think you should be giving advice to other people about their TBANs? Jytdog (talk) 03:59, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

My topic ban has expired. Also, it was the most minor topic ban you can have, restricted to a single phrase in the Buddhism area and imposed as a result of talk page activity on a single page, for an article which I never edited. However that is enough to help me to get some insight into what it is like to be banned. Robert Walker (talk) 08:44, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

But, seemingly, not why it happened. There is no such thing as a "minor topic ban".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:41, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps he should have said "most narrow". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:30, 1 December 2016 (UTC).

This thread really only needed a one-word response: WP:COMPETENCE. Since Robertinventor/Robert Walker (who? why's this editor I've never encountered before going after me all of a sudden?) has dragged me into this, I'll add the following additional points, just for the Jimbo's-talk-page record (but avoiding "full onslaught" mode, per Johnuniq):

1. By all means, go right ahead try to prove I lied about DF24, in some appropriate venue. Otherwise just drop it. Good luck; diffs speak for themselves, and I only showed one card of a full hand of them I was holding (despite the large number of individual diffs that fraction racked up to). Those were more than sufficient to establishe what DF24's disruption patterns were, and how serious and long-term they were.
2. "Gaslighting" has multiple meanings, the most common of which in current American progressive socio-political discourse [both DF24 and I are American progressives, or so I would gather, so I'm extremely skeptical DF24 is unaware of this usage] is party A using crafty and ultimately dismissive language, including information withholding or outright disinformation, to convince others (perhaps even party B themselves) that party B is confused, wrongheaded, misperceiving, having memory or comprehension problems, changing their mind, etc. I see several crowdsourced definitions at UrbanDictionary that confirm that this meaning is widely recognized, along with the older, more alarming one. I decline to be raked over the coals because one party pretends the only definition is the one she can use to cast herself as a wrongly maligned victim. DF24 is a victim of nothing but her own WP:GREATWRONGS nationalistic campaigning over style trivia.
   [Here's the entire "gaslighting" statement, with diff, and phrased in such a way that my meaning cannot possibly be mistaken for DF24's extreme interpretation: "Note also that DF24 attempted a bunch of gaslighting about this, trying to convince objectors to this move that DF24 did it because we wanted it it done ; nothing could be further from the truth, as our objections obviously made clear." Whoop-de-doo. BTW, that was just one of many similar incidents, whether you like the term "gaslighting" for it or not. Another one is the word DF24 keeps using about me, and which Robertinventor has been incautiously repeating without cause or evidence.]
3. DF24's topic ban, expanded topic ban, block, and indef – in rapidly successive order, and with DF24 setting a new record for the number of requests against the same party all on WP:AE at the same time – had nothing at all to do with whether any gaslighting took place or with my use of that term. Check for yourself. It never arose once in any of these AE and ARCA proceedings (three and two so far, respectively) in any of the reasons for sanctions issued by any admin or Arb. All of these sanctions were for the same thing: tendentious, protracted, escalating disruption and WP:NOTGETTINGIT. DF24 has latched onto one extraneous word, "gaslighting", and is waving it around as a red herring to distract from the real issues with that editor. This herring, alas, will not cut down the mightiest tree in the forest, which is of course the aforementioned tendentious disruption and DF24's inability or unwillingness to drop it. Of all the issues my evidence diffs highlighted about DF24 (which was not even evidence submitted to AE, just mentioned as evidence in my userspace and still in-preparation for ArbCom, which AE admins chose to consider despite its incompletely sorted and uncompressed state), the brief mention of gaslighting is a trivial aside among the actually important points.
4. I categorically reject Robertinventor's novel suggestion that the way to deal with disruptive editors is that those who point out their disruptions to the appropriate venues should ban themselves from doing so. I will certainly not refuse to "bring any past statements ... back to the board" as relevant evidence should the need arise again, which it almost certainly will in February 2017 when the topic ban can be appealed.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:31, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Loving the shrubbery metaphor, Stanton. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:01, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Robertinventor has decided that Wikipedia is broken because we follow the reality-based consensus on Morgellons (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), i.e. that it is not a thing. Guy (Help!) 11:21, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Not aware of the dispute. It does appears to me that dismissal of reality and consensus because one has fire and conviction is the underlying genesis of the t-ban and indef under discussion here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:37, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually his issues predate that, with a topic ban from a Buddhism related article, where he showed no more sign of comprehending the problem than DF24 does his. Both of them have the same problem: unable to persuade others of their POV, and unwilling to accept it or walk away. Guy (Help!) 12:16, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@Jytdog: please don't try to get me talking about that dispute. You warned me that you will take me to AE if I discuss it again anywhere in wikipedia so I see that as baiting me in an attempt to get me topic banned. I have not been disciplined in any way it is just a threat from you but I take it very seriously as I know how easy it is to get topic banned. Robert Walker (talk) 15:39, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

What i see here is similar to the AE case brought by Jytdog against me that is currently active. There is a group who seeks subordination and obedience from others. And there are some others who (rightly) resist or disobey the orders to "drop the stick" and all the associated controlling dynamics and attempts to reframe and redefine the portrayal of the dynamic (i.e. "gaslighting" sorts of things and way-off distortions of what's happened). Some people seek what is right -- both in terms of good dialog and morality and right action with others and in regard to article content. In fact, these two meanings of "right" intersect greatly, in that right behavior with others results in getting the articles right (which is the good phrase that i think Jimbo coined). That's why Wikipedia is so fascinating to me (as well as so maddening in current cultural debasement). Because it shows the nexus of knowledge and power -- epistemology / power. Treat people right. Work for completeness. Work for integrity to the policies. That will result in good content. On the other hand, if you allow purging of people with excuse-like reasons and continual shutting-down of some people because of discord with a dogma then you get an atmosphere of conformity and fear... self censoring as well as external censoring... something like McCarthyism. The result is a biased encyclopedia that is sub-par. SageRad (talk) 15:46, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

A more conventional Wikipedian way to rephrase that screed: Some of use think we're here to campaign for what is Right and True, especially if we feel our honor is involved somehow, and the rest of the editorial pool is here to work on an encyclopedia and want the former gaggle of ranters to STFU or be shown the door like many disruptive editors before them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish:, first, thanks for replying. This is what the crowdsourced defintion at Urban Dictionary says:.

A form of intimidation or psychological abuse, sometimes called Ambient Abuse where false information is presented to the victim, making them doubt their own memory, perception and quite often, their sanity. The classic example of gaslighting is to switch something around on someone that you know they're sure to notice, but then deny knowing anything about it, and to explain that they "must be imagining things" when they challenge these changes.

A more psychological definition of gaslighting is "an increasing frequency of systematically withholding factual information from, and/or providing false information to, the victim - having the gradual effect of making them anxious, confused, and less able to trust their own memory and perception.

So - with the more psychological definition which I assume you are referring to - the aim is not "to convince others (perhaps even party B themselves)". The entire focus of gaslighting is "to make party B" anxious, confused and less able to trust their own memory and perception. Are you saying that this is what Darkfrog24 has been doing to you? If so please provide diffs that prove the allegation.

I can't find that quote at the url you gave for it. In any case it was a talk page comment and such comments may not be written carefully. But your deposition for the topic ban must have been done carefully and with thoughtful use of language, especially for someone with linguistic training. And this is what you say there:

"He's just a not-random AT/MOS editor – one to whom DF24 (noting an earlier argument between me and that editor about MOS) has repeatedly cast WP:ASPERSIONS about my mental health, after the ban , and after Ds/alert: , . Also, a long string of dishonesty allegations (increasing after ban) without evidence, only links to DF24's previous claims and denials ...

"Can prove this habit of incivility and gaslighting is much broader, but would need length-limit extension."

There where you say " has repeatedly cast WP:ASPERSIONS about my mental health" then the diffs you provide do not support that allegation. Instead if read carefully in context then in the "snarling at shadows" quote it is clear that Darkfrog24, far from trying to get you to doubt your sanity, is rather asking others to be understanding and sympathetic towards you.

Your statement about mental health there also reinforces the later statement in the same para about gaslighting, indeed would tend to suggest you meant it in the mental health sense if not clarified further as it wasn't. If you did not mean the word "gaslighting" in eithe rof the two normal senses, please assume good faith that Darkfrog24 does understand it in these ways. One way to make progress might be to make a clear statement to Darkfrog24 in your ARCA submission that you do not accuse them of gaslighting in either sense given in the urban dictionary, and then to ask for any such accusation to be removed from their record and to be considered as erased in any future topic ban appeals.

It is my understanding that they see this claim of gaslighting as the main reason for their indef topic ban. So if you can make it absolutely clear on ARCA that you do not mean it in that sense, and explain the sense in which you do mean it, we may see some movement there. Or simpler just ask for the claim to be struck from their record altogether because of the unfortunate generally understood meaning of the term. Thanks! Robert Walker (talk) 16:14, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Guy that you're effectively undistinguishable in "take" from DF24; neither of you get how this works or why you were sanctioned, and you both treat this as a battle of honor to be won. You're even using the exact same blatant OR tactic: picking and choosing specific bits from a source that support your view, and pretending the other party was referring to that part (when they explicitly did exactly the opposite), all to try to make the other party look like they're lying or confused. Guess what that is? I never accused DF24 of any form of intimidation or psychological abuse, just bullshittery and snide insinuations she thinks (incorrectly) were craftily worded enough to give her plausible deniability. Your faux-civil "Thanks for replying" followed immediately by an attempt to discredit everything the other party says is another DF24 tactic in a similar vein. Re: "I can't find that quote at the URL you gave for it" – I didn't give an URL for it (the URL in it is part of the original quoted content). If you have actually followed the DF24 AE cases, you already know where my evidence diffs are from which I'm quoting; if you did not, then you have no business carrying on at length in this discussion, because you don't know what you're talking about. You're also not absorbing what I'm telling you. I'll spell it out yet again: Yes, I think DF24 was casting mental aspersions at me, but that had nothing to do with the rationales the AE admins and Arbs have used in sanctioning DF24; they have in fact ignored those aspects of what I provided (read the sanctions for yourself), though are finally taking them seriously (at least one AE admin and one Arb are now sympathetic to my request for a one-way interaction ban to prevent DF24 from discussing me on WP). DF24 was re-sanctioned for topic-ban violation because she re-entered the MoS fray to try to recruit another MoS editor to start trouble with me on her behalf, and this was a violation of her topic ban, period. Whether her exact wording in some of it constituted gaslighting, under any of the many definitions, is completely irrelevant. I don't need to explain anything further at ARCA about any of this (no one there indicates confusion of any kind about it); I will not retract anything for which I have evidence just because an ally of the subject of the request has a different interpretation of it and the subject prefers one definition over another as a "look, I'm a victim!" game; and no "movement" needs to happen there that hasn't already happened, namely a unanimous Arb decision to reinstate DF24's block. We're done here. And there.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

@SageRad: Yes exactly. The reason I am acting here is firstly because in my experience of working with them in a sustained way on meta, Darkfrog24 is an excellent editor and would be a great asset to wikipedia. The encyclopedia is worse off without them. Also the effect on editors of being banned especially when they feel they have been accused of awful things such as Gaslighting. Many editors would have given up and turned their back on wikipedia after that. I have seen too many good editors being thrown out of wikipedia as a result of this sort of treatment. Indeed the astonishing reaction by one of the editors in this conversation when I posted a message of sympathy on your talk page is a case in point there. I'd already said that I was no longer going to take part in the discussion of the article (which I won't mention again) due to the threat to take me to AE if I continued. How could they have even begun to think that a public offer of sympathy on a talk page of a then blocked editor was a way to try to get you to comment on a discussion in a topic that you have expressed no interest in? It is beyond me. And to warn you not to take up my offer to talk to me if you are in any distress... I've seen some bizarre things in conversations here on wikipedia but that really takes the biscuit as the strangest ever. Robert Walker (talk) 16:29, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Which can be reinterpreted as: "DF24's my buddy, and her Quest for Personal Justice resonates with me, as does that of SageRad, because I too got restricted for being disruptive and will never let it go, including by continuing to discuss it through the WP:SANCTIONGAMING technique of agitating about it while pretending not to, with statements like 'no longer going to take part in the discussion of the article (which I won't mention again) due to the threat to take me to AE if I continued'." That's not going to fool anyone.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:56, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

I have no sanction against me. Just a threat by Jytdog to take me to ARE if I present my views on the article anywhere in wikipedia. So I refuse to be drawn to talk about it any more. I take that threat seriously as I know from my own experience how easy it is to get topic banned just for talking in a forthright honest way without even editing an article. If it gets mentioned here again I won't reply any more. It was good of Jytdog to warn me. The topic ban which just expired was the result of an editor who suddenly took me to WP:ANI without warning me that they intended to do so, so giving me no chance to modify my behaviour before they took me there. Robert Walker (talk) 23:09, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

Missing the point again, which is that you're still talking about it while pretending not to, drawing up battle lines against Jytdog in relationship to it, and drawing attention to yourself as some kind of victim in relationship to it. This was the same WP:LAWYER "try to exploit the technicality that I'm not naming it by name" approach that got DF24 into renewed and escalated trouble. The way to not talk about it is, obviously, to not talk about it, which includes resisting the urge to have the last word when someone else brings it up, or to characterize them for having brought it up. Maybe you think of it as aloof meta-discussion, but everyone else will see it as direct discussion of the topic through a filter of pretense.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:28, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

SMcCandlish is exactly correct. Most of those supporting Sagerad or Darkfrog are editors who do not want anyone to be sanctioned for disruptively pushing a point of view against consensus over and over and over. Amazingly, several of the supporters have themselves been similarly sanctioned and they just happen to believe that those sanctions should not apply to anyone. Johnuniq (talk) 06:36, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

If someone wants to ask the ArbCom for clarification, the correct thing to do is to ask one or more members of the ArbCom for clarification, either directly or at WP:ARCA or its talk page. However, if the arbs believe that their is no reason for further clarification based on the theory that any reasonable, competent person would be able to understand the specifcs, then there is a very strong chance that this thread itself might qualify as WP:TE. Just saying "I want (everything my way)" isn't necessarily reason to believe that everyone is necessarily obliged to act in that way. WP:CIR could be seen as being relevant here. I suggest that if this discussion goes on any longer here, where basically nothing certain can be achieved, I think it might be reasonable to raise concerns at the appropriate noticeboard. John Carter (talk) 18:02, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

See redirect: 2016 Recount. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:49, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Here we go again. This time the Green Party is filing for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan & Pennsylvania (electoral votes: 10, 16 and 20, enough to elect Hillary Clinton; source: Reuters J18X). I think we'll need a separate article page for 2016 Recount, but coverage has begun as a small section in:

• "United States presidential election, 2016#Electronic vote tampering concerns"

Beyond hiding ballots ("behind a file cabinet" as in Nov. 2000), there are numerous potential computer viruses which could switch votes, and print a voter record to match, unless a voter reads the vote-record to reject result as not how they voted. In Pennsylvania, the margin was ~68,500 more votes for Trump, but that count could be easy to slant, especially if only occasional votes were flipped and many voters did not verify their printed voter record. With Justice Antonin Scalia now gone, I don't think U.S. Supreme Court could stop recount(s) this time (as in year 2000's 5/4 halt decision), although the Trump campaign did file to stop or scrutinize Nevada after-hours voters for 2016 election day early voting, but rejected by judge. I studied potential voter viruses, years ago, which could delete themselves after election day, and only flip votes after the first hundred ballots were cast or checked by pre-test of machine tallies. See 2006 concerns: "Controversy Surrounds Computerized Voting Systems". The other recount filing deadlines are Monday/Wednesday, 28/30 Nov 2016. Because of such extensive details, I think a separate article page would be needed for proper coverage of similar details, and how Republicans try to stop recounts this time. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:50, 25 November 2016 (UTC), revised Nevada early voting -Wikid77 (talk) 13:43, 28 November 2016 (UTC) More sources: Guardian nov/23, "Nevada judge denies Trump request; warns about Twitter trolls" (CNN 8Nov16). -Wikid77 (talk) 11:26, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

What does this have to do with Jimmy Wales? If you think a topic warrants a Wikipedia article, write an article; you don't need to get his permission. ‑ Iridescent 08:53, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales has expressed interest in major elections, as with the Brexit vote, and Wikipedia coverage of major topics. The 2016 U.S. presidential election is remarkable for the "losing" candidate to have received 2 million more votes than her opponent, as suspicious where close vote totals favored the less-popular opponent. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:26, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

Keeping my ArbCom receipt ^^ SashiRolls (talk) 23:17, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I am as well. It is copied and pasted into my sandbox. ツ Fylbecatulous talk 14:13, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Multiple people have written to Wikimedia asking for support of #BlackoutUK on 2016/12/12.

(See, for example this site.)

I don't know enough about this initiative to have my own opinion about whether we should be supportive or not, but I would like feedback on two related issues:

1. How, if at all, should the Wikimedia community respond?
2. What would be a good canned response for OTRS agents to use in response to queries?--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:06, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I think a blackout would be a good idea. Unfortunately, it is quite late in the game. The right time would have been back in March, before the House of Commons voted on it, or (less optimally) in November just before the House of Lords voted on it. As it stands, the law has been passed, signed by the Queen, and is now law. I believe the odds of success for a blackout the day before the vote in the Commons were reasonably high and that this was an unfortunate missed opportunity. Even if politicians are impressed by a protest now, they only have to do nothing and wait for it all to blow over. If they were to be inspired to act, they have to draft new legislation and try to get it passed - with a Prime Minister who is very supportive of the law being passed. I think this is less likely to be successful. Even so I still want to do it, and if the community want to do it, I'll take the day off and visit as many tv and radio news programmes as I can.

In terms of a response for OTRS agents, I should leave it to those more experienced than I to draft proposed wording. But some of the best practices would be to explain that such decisions are taken by the community, and that the right way to discuss with the community is to get an account and come talk to us (providing them with a link to a page where we are specifically welcoming to newbies would be helpful). It is always wise to keep in mind that most people assume that decisions like this are made by the board/staff/CEO (or me personally or whatever) and if they get a "no, we aren't going to do this" email that doesn't explain things, they'll assume that the organization doesn't really care.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:24, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm happy to report that my temporary response emphasized the need for a community discussion.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:36, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

This is altogether relevant. I am reading things like which emphasize that this is a case of vague censorship law being adorned, quite recently, with an ever-expanding bureaucratic implementation. So this isn't really "just" the law passed earlier, but an act by the administration.

A blackout by Wikipedia may merely mirror the likely effect of a blackout by the British government itself. Wikipedia has taken a policy of encrypting connections rather than encouraging or helping in page-by-page censorship. The key thing we need to do is to resist any push by the British, who seem to have a very strong lobby on this site, to censor it to meet their standards. We have to retain our content, and if that means that the British can't read it, or they're supposed to go to some special site and submit to absurd violations o their privacy in an appeal to be allowed to read it, that's not our issue. It may be that illicit distribution on smuggled drives by armed criminal gangs is the appropriate model for disseminating Wikipedia in Britain, and may their every bullet fly straight and true. Wnt (talk) 19:18, 2 December 2016 (UTC)