do people vandalize your wikipedia user page on april fools? and is it against policy or do you let them do it because you gave people permission to edit your page? Blitzfan51 (talk) 20:39, 26 March 2023 (UTC)
Hmm.... I've seen people vandalize Jimbo's page in past April Fool's Days. I mean, I wasn't there to observe it myself as I have not created a Wikipedia account yet back then, but I found some diffs showing people vandalizing Jimbo's user page in the WP:APRIL page. -- Shadowof theStarlit Sky 13:22, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
I'd rather people not mess around with user pages on April Fools, except perhaps their own.
For the front page, what our tradition has been, and I think that I'm the one who thought this up, but I wouldn't want to take credit if someone else thought of it before me, the idea is to make sure that the home page is 100% scrupulously true but that it seems to many like an April Fool's prank page. So the idea is to put up articles with weird and surprising facts, etc. I've always thought this is really great for us - it provides an outlet for those who enjoy the holiday (I do) but doesn't compromise our commitment to facts. And I love quirky surprising facts. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:50, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Original Barnstar
Thanks for MAKING wikipedia! AugustusAudax (talk) 14:53, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Hi Jay, I enjoyed having a look at that, as I have a general interest in smaller ethnic groups in the modern world, but I'm not really sure why you notified me in particular. If there's a particular angle to it that you thought could benefit from my input, please do let me know, thanks!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:06, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, Randy. Yes, Twinkle would have automatically done it, but for manual RfD nominations, notifications are also manual and optional. Jay 💬 18:17, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
How fascinating. It looks like back in 2010, I moved the page from the old title, which is now a redirect of course, to a new title. I have no memory of this now. I am curious though - given that redirects like this don't cause any harm, what is the rationale behind having such a process to delete them?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:55, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Old redirects that have lost its use over time are deleted at RfD. In this specific case, I believe the rationale is that the redirect is misleading readers with a title having "Bishnupriyas and Meiteis" into thinking that the target has content on a comparison between two ethinicities, whereas the target (Bishnupriya Manipuri people) is about a single "Bishnupriyas Meitei" ethinic group. Jay 💬 15:12, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
Exactly, exactly, exactly (just don't say it three times in a mirror)! Thousands of article and redirects and other items which cause no harm have been on an assembly line of deletion over the years, thus removing them actually hurts and does not maintain the encyclopedia. The deletion nominations are the saddest places (and, sadly, the most active in terms of scores of items brought to them daily) on Wikipedia, but some editors love to, as they call it, "nuke" the pages so the fine not-taking-up-space deletions keep rolling on. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:22, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
I, for one, prefer my search box not to be filled with useless and outright misleading suggestions. Having redirects to pages that never mention the search term is actively detrimental, since readers won't know if they're in the right place; preserving things shouldn't come at the cost of sending our readers on a wild goose chase. If it's not actually helpful, it's taking up space and disseminating either extraneous or entirely incorrect information. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:15, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Taking up what space? Where on the reflection of the head of the pin that is Wikipedia in real space does it reside? (couldn't resist, you teed that one up) Randy Kryn (talk) 02:48, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
So yeah, "taking up space" isn't compelling, but the rest of what The Blade says 100% is. If poorly formatted redirects cause clutter in our search results, that's a meaningful reason to delete them. Whether deleting them is the best possible solution, I am not qualified to say, but making sure the search results are good is a valid thing that I had not previously considered when I asked my question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:19, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Good points, but applicable on a case-by-case basis and redirects probably wouldn't interfere with search results in most uses. It is mentioned in the RfD that the page discussed here was at that title for four years, and, added to that, since it does include portions of the wording, it seems a viable redirect. A balance between logical redirects and those that take wording to an extremely unlikely search phrase should guide the process. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
It was a while ago, but I remember this mess from years ago. The main issue was with mojibake, but part of it was also Arabic redirects and other really odd search terms that made absolutely no sense. Leaving those in place would've been a bad thing, for reasons detailed in that discussion. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:16, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Notability
Greetings Jimbo. Happy Spring.
I'm curious if you think subjects like the following are notable. Do you think it's too difficuot to have them included in Wikipedia?
Jimbo of course can speak for himself, but I think that the GNG language is very clear: A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. So, if you have identified several sources that meet that three part standard, then write the draft. If not, don't bother writing a draft because that is a waste of time in my opinion. I suggest that you leave such topics on your long term "to do" list. Cullen328 (talk) 01:44, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
FloridaArmy, the first is a specialist encyclopedia article, which I think that most editors would accept but consider a tertiary source. The second is a database entry. In my opinion, most editors do not consider such entries to constitute significant coverage. The third is a book published in 1868, shortly after the Civil War that it discusses. We have a strong preference for much more recent sources, especially when trying to establish notability. I have used book of that era for direct quotes or for uncontroversial biographical details, but not for trying to establish notability. Cullen328 (talk) 02:29, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
What makes something a specialist encyclopedia User:Cullen328? I would think substantial coverage from William S. Powell, one of the premier historians of North Carolina (written in the 1990/ more than 100 years after Peyton's death) would be solid. What type of coverage are you lookong for and from whom? FloridaArmy (talk) 02:49, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
A specialist encyclopedia is something like the Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, which strives to write up as many North Carolina people as possible. You ought to be familiar with the distinction between secondary sources and tertiary sources. I am not saying that it is an unacceptable source but rather a source with a bit of weakness. Cullen328 (talk) 06:48, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Not going to do the huge job of analyzing 12 topics. But at first glance IMHO the majority would probably meet the defacto standard (e.g. survive AFD) for existence of an article in Wikipedia but the AFC standard is higher which does not pass edge cases. This is due to the structure combined with human nature. An AFC reviewer is not going to want to gamble their stamp of approval on an edge case. North8000 (talk) 02:39, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Eek's assessment
Fleta, Alabama (Draft:Fleta, Alabama): If you want places approved, I highly suggest that you learn how to use infoboxes and specifically the GPS function. If an editor can't easily tell where the town is, that really complicates things. Further, it is unclear whether this is a ghost town or not. If its just some long gone ghost town, its rather unlikely to be notable.
Jack Clifford (actor) (Draft:Jack Clifford (actor)): its just a list of films. He looks like the 1920's equivalent of a direct-to-video star. What makes him stand out? If you can't say, he's probably not notable.
Tachira Railway (Draft:Tachira Railway): not declined for notability reasons, but rather because your grammar was bad. Unfortunately, that seems to be a trend I'm noticing. I note that a sentence like "a map was sold of it" is...pretty bad writing, and also WP:TRIVIA. FA, you've been here at Jimbo talk repeatedly, and I understand your frustration. But if you're going to continue to focus on quantity over quality, you're gonna keep having the same issues. Consciously or not, when a draft is poorly written, reviewers are going to assume you don't know what you're doing, and it makes it that much harder to get approved. Focus on the details more.
Wendell Peters (Draft:Wendell Peters): You don't even have his birthday or death date. Beyond that, you have basically only primary sources: court cases that he was on. From what has been provided, this guy is no more important than every lawyer who has ever lived. In fact, it seems a bit unfair to him to create an article on him: his life seems to have gone kind of sour. Would you want your life memorialized like that for all time?
Henry Kernot (Draft:Henry Kernot): this guy is mildly interesting. But it looks like nobody has breathed a word of him in more than a century. If you could find some modern sources about him, maybe.
Don Noble (Draft:Don Noble): well from the sources you've provided, he's not notable. Its not the job of the reviewer to look for more sources. Perhaps he fits into one of the professor SNGs? Beyond that, I'm seeing a continued disconnect between you and GNG. I'm not sure what your hangup is. You need at least two, in-depth, quality sources that mention the subject at length, that are not written by the source or someone related. A short biography by the guy's employer does not and cannot fill that requirement.
John Lewis Peyton (Draft:John Lewis Peyton): he might actually be notable. But the way you have written the article is exactly the reason you keep failing at AFC. You have an entire source (Yelton, 1989) discussing an amusing exploit from this guy's life. And you have pulled nothing from it. So a reviewer, at a glance, only sees an article about...a different dude, and assumes that you mistook him for someone else. Instead of an interesting sentence like "John Lewis Peyton was the source of numerous 19th century misconceptions about the mound builders, a group of indigenous peoples in the Americas.", and so on, you have nothing. Yelton 1989 gives you a goldmine! There is so much info about John Lewis Peyton's life in there: where he went to school, that he was a fellow of the Royal Geographical society no less! Plus, the article gives a very amusing story that would make an excellent DYK hook. But you have pulled out none of that, leaving not even the barebones of an article, and are then upset when a reviewer declines it.You can't expect the reviewers to do all the work for you.
In conclusion, yes I know I was a bit sassy, but please pay attention to the details. You can succeed, but its about quality over quantity. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:18, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Eek, thank you for all that, it must have taken some significant time. I will myself try to look into a few of these but in general, I think your advice here is good. FloridaArmy, do you have access to a newspaper archive site? I do, I use newspaperarchive.com, and I find it very helpful for finding sources.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:47, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
It's nice that you can afford that subscription fee and I assume that you get the NYT and Washington Post, at the very minimum, as well. I wish I could get those. I'm retired and am on a very limited income. I've been here for over 15 years and I have put hundreds of hours into the numerous articles I've worked on. We asked for help with reference sites about four years ago and then again about two years ago. They always say, "Were working on it!". But of course they aren't, though it seems to me that they do find the money for other things. Sectionworker (talk) 21:58, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Sectionworker The Wikipedia library provides access to Newspapers.com, and a bunch of other things, free to volunteers like you. I'm not sure about the NYTimes, though I imagine access to an institutional subscription like that would be very pricey for the foundation. CaptainEekEdits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 22:08, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
Might be a good use for some of the many millions of cash the foundation has. And it would sure beat having to hit ctrl-a ctrl-c before the subscription window pops up. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
The folks at WP:REX will be able to get you copies of many/most articles you could think of to request as well. Eddie891TalkWork 23:31, 23 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure the New York Times (and other major news publications) shows up in the results on ProQuest, which is also one of the resources available in The Wikipedia Library bundle. SilverserenC 01:19, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure, at least not beyond abstract. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:29, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
ProQuest has NYT's full text from 1857 to current along with the New-York Daily Times from 1851-1857. S0091 (talk) 21:18, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks to all for the suggestions. Unfortunately, for me none of them are of much help (though one said that I wasn't eligible). Most of my work deals with current events, for example, I am a leading editor of the Warren, Sanders, and two of the President Trump policy articles. As editors, you all know something that the reading public does not know: Just one or two sentences in an article can involve hours of work reading many current news articles. So I believe that it's understandable that I don't want to then spend time getting special permission to check out one more current source. Also, I don't do as much writing as I used to do but I still do daily checks on all of my articles and when I wish to do an accuracy check of a new edit, if the NYT was used as a source, as it frequently is, I just have to hope that another watcher will check it.
While still on my soap box, I'd like to say a few heartfelt things about our encyclopedia. I have a lot of admiration, and am so thankful to Jimbo for this great endeavor he attempted and succeeded at: Let people assist other people by offering them accurate information about everything in the world at no cost - which was put together by other people working for free and doing it only for the joy of being of service to others. What else in the world can claim such a noble cause? A few, but not very many. But now that we have become so large, we have become similar to a world corporate power. I would be concerned if a large, paid governing body began to make all of our decisions. My concern would be that they would begin to only look to expansion and fund raising, etc., and the other things that corporations do. And almost invariably, they forget their humble beginnings and quit caring about the very people who carry out the daily work of making their product or project. I have copied Chris Hedges dire warning on my Gandydancer user page. I say there that we must be careful to guard against Wikipedia becoming a corporate-controlled encyclopedia. OK, to all of those who haven't nodded off by now, thanks for reading. Sectionworker (talk) 22:05, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback and input. I've read it a few times and take it all into consideration. I would like to note that bad grammar is a horrific reason for rejection of an entry. Similarly, criticism for not being adept at GPS locating or other technical requirements should not stop editors from having notable subjects included.
My two biggest takeaways are that Wikipedia is in danger of becoming much less collaborative. Requiring individual editors to produce a relatively finished entry on a subject before we include it is bad for many reasons. User:CaptainEek also badly misses the mark on the Post-Newsweek film production company. Entries like that provide a listing for films made by the company many of which may not be individually notable but are worth including. In this case we have documentary films about the women's rights movement, African American cinema, patents, the U.S. capitol and other subjects. Our encyclopedia is much worse when we exclude this material. And as it turns out the women's suffrage documentary was narrated by the actress who played Edith Bunker and the one on patents by Captain Kirk (the actor not the actual starship commander). So our biographical entries on those subjects and their filmographies have been incomplete. Thank you all for giving me ideas on how I can be better and I hope this discussion highlights some of the problems and challenges Wikipedia faces as it moves forward. Should it really take weeks or months for an entry on the former capitol of Alabama that was also used as a girls school and is now a park with ruins along the river in Tuscaloosa to get included??? This is nuts. And if it's this hard for that subject imagine what it's like trying to include African American subjects that are not of as wide general interest to our editing community. It's not pretty. And I have tried using the Wiki newspaper access program and a site recommended by User:Drmies on his talk page and had limited success. Different editors have different skills. FloridaArmy (talk) 17:57, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm only going on opine on Draft:Tachira Railway since trains are kind of my thing. It's not just bad grammar, it's clearly incomplete. You have Gran Ferrocarril del Tachira should link here at the top of the article, which is obviously an editorial note that should not appear in mainspace at any point. However, searching under the railroad's Spanish name (Ferrocarril del Tachira) shows numerous results, though largely in Spanish, which strongly suggests it is notable. For instance, here's 26 pages that appear to be about the railroad (in Spanish), and another source in English, which even has a map of the railroad on page 54. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:07, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
I absolutely agree it is notable, should be expanded (especially by editors with proficiency in Spanish), and that redirects to the page should be made so notes about them don't appear in mainspace. Every submitted draft should note what redirects are needed so they get made. FloridaArmy (talk) 18:13, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Submitted drafts should not include editorial notes as article text. Put editorial notes in hidden notes (<!--text-->) or put them on the talkpage. CMD (talk) 02:52, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Articles have long included templates. The idea of making needed redirects hidden is absurd. Every draft article submitted should include notation of needed redirects. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
Like CMD said, why not note them on the talkpage and then do them if the draft is accepted? "Notes" in draft text will probably only tell a reviewer "not ready." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:57, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
At AFC, it is normal to leave comments for important things at the top of the draft itself. To ensure that the AFC helper script deletes these when the draft is accepted, we can wrap them in the template {{AfC comment}}. Recent examples of folks commenting about redirecting, disambiguation, etc. in a draft can be found in the first comments at Draft:Billy Cotton and Draft:James Kearney. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 17:07, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
I've added some sources to the draft which you can use to expand it. I don't think anyone claimed that the school was "not notable enough for Wikipedia", only that you hadn't provided enough sources to demonstrate notability. In future, I strongly recommend compiling a list of solid sources first, before starting work on writing a draft. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 20:42, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks User:Sojourner in the earth, that's great! Let's be clear that the draft was headed for deletion. That's what happens to drafts after 6 months. There has to be a better way to handle historic institutions for African Americans than to trash a former high school established in the 1860/1870s that has been highlighted as a landmark by the state legislature. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:05, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
FloridaArmy, all you need to do is make an edit to any draft, and the six month clock resets. Unedited drafts about any topic are deleted after six months, so please do not somehow imply that this routine process is targeting African American topics. Cullen328 (talk) 20:41, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Have a read of this and let's discuss. Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:33, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
My first observation is that understanding of Wikipedia processes remains low; the early example discussion includes the statement that "her page received a “snow keep” decision, indicating that her notability might be questionable but that deleting her page would be too much of an uphill battle to pursue". This completely misunderstands snow keeps, which would to the contrary indicate that the consensus on an individual's notability could not be more solid. The assertion that AfD is "a decision-making platform for administrators to gather and debate whether a topic meets the notability criteria" is also inaccurate (although raising the interesting question of admin corps systematic bias vs wider editor systematic bias). There seems to be a slight limitation in their methodology given their search engine index was from a single day rather than on the day of the AfD, but I doubt it would impact their findings (also unsure how the error of the raw scraped AfD number and the cleaned AfD number being the same slipped through).I find the statement "WP:Too soon is being equitably applied, the label should correlate with news coverage, not the subject's career stage, regardless of ascribed characteristics" interesting, I am not sure why it would not apply to career stage in the context of our guidelines of academic notability, it would be good to hear from AfD regulars on that. This assumption seems to underly their analysis of what Too soon means. The paper's distinction between wider societal systematic bias and Wikipedia-specific bias (which they call first-level and second-level bias respectively) is helpful, and contributes to a convincing analysis of the outcome of AfD discussions. Furthermore, the data at a glance seems to provide insight into the bias in article nominations (just look at the difference in the confidence intervals for white males vs other categories), however the paper doesn't go into this, perhaps the sample size is too low or there isn't enough understanding of nomination processes. CMD (talk) 13:48, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Further misunderstanding of Wikipedia’s processes seems to be illustrated in their relatively fundamental assumption that the Search engine test is a “convenient and common way editors can determine probable notability”, when even a read of that page will make it clear that it is not the number of results, but the quality, that matters. Eddie891TalkWork 12:03, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
I’d also be curious to take a closer look at their data set- one of their two examples (Tonya Foster) would have had a much different primer index when deleted in 2016 than in 2022. Eddie891TalkWork 12:26, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Interesting, as this ties in with my thread on ideas for improving the flawed AFD process currently at Village Pump proposals and an AFD of a dress article which was created along with a number of others in 2011 when Kate Middleton 's wedding dress was up for AFD and Jimmy said we ought to have articles on hundreds of notable dresses to combat male systematic bias. I have to admit that in 16 years here I haven't noticed any particular strong bias against women bios or topics over male counterparts at AFD. AFD is a flawed process in general, we rarely get the numbers of people needed to review the articles and often editors get it wrong on all topics and don't take the time to look for sources. I've lost count how many AFDs on articles I created ended up being expanded and kept. I can recall some moments of ignorance by editors at AFD on some feminine topics, but nothing in relation to problems with all subjects I've seen there. There is a general deletionist tendency towards all topics at AFD and I don't think editors generally show more fortitude at defending male bios. Quite the opposite I've found, though perhaps on traditional male geek topics you might see a bigger turnout at AFD, which I think is just a natural reflection of editorial interest. Wikipedia does need more editors to defend women's bios and feminine topics at AFD, but the same can be said for most topics. Our content shouldn't be decided by two or three people, something I mentioned at the Village pump.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:24, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
Pasting my comment from the WiR page, because I have never seen a more methodologically flawed paper and it should be called out for its shoddy scholarship:
How did this get published?? This paper purports to investigate bias towards deletion of female academics' biographies, which it alleges is through (intentionally?) idiosyncratic application of Wikipedia P&Gs, and then uses, as the core metrics for independently validating the conclusions of academic AfDs, two deeply, fundamentally inappropriate essays: the "WP:Search Engine Test", which is explicitly discouraged by notability guidelines, and "WP:Too soon", which is a purely informal post hoc reason offered for why the subject's coverage isn't at the level expected for notability (which is very different from the mechanism used to actually determine they didn't meet a notability guideline). And not only did the authors also totally misinterpret what those essays are about (and apparently glossed over the part of TOOSOON that actually does endorse usage related to career stage!), the metrics they derived from them are so totally inapplicable to academic notability in particular that they're precisely why academic-specific notability criteria were developed! They literally are basing a large chunk of their analysis on whether the WP:Search Engine Test is being equitably utilized for academics taken to AfD between 2017 and 2020 ("equitability" being evaluated using the GHits from a webcrawler run in 2022). They then scraped the AfDs of deleted pages (n=377) for the shortcut "WP:Too soon" (n=61), which, again, they thought was being used as the metric for notability, and categorized those instances as either complying with the WP definition of TOOSOON (i.e., in the context of lack of sources and citations) ("citations" here being references in the article) or outside of the community established definition (i.e., in the context of career stage). It's also worth keeping in mind the fact that these analyses did not control for field of specialization (how could they, that would give them an even worse sample size), which will obviously impact how big a "web presence" an individual has and is obviously not homogeneous between women and men.
So this means the authors' conclusions on how biased AfD participants are against women/BIPOC academics were determined based on a) the finding that crude search engine hits for AfD'd white male academics (n=419) were significantly higher for "kept" subjects than "deleted" subjects, but no such significant relationship could be found for white women (n=185), BIPOC men (n=171), or BIPOC women (n=69); and b) the finding that editors used the "Wikipedia definition" (news coverage) of TOOSOON (n=61 total) more often for women/BIPOC than for men.
As a final example of the embarrassingly bad quality of this paper, I'll just paste the authors' commentary on their TOOSOON results:
First, let us illustrate the usage of WP:Too soon per Wikipedia guidelines. The following excerpt is from the AfD for the biography of a white, male, assistant professor who was nominated for deletion under the tag WP:Too soon: “Most of the newspaper articles cited in the main article are not directly related to the subject, and apart from this brief article in the Dainik Jagran that borders on being a hagiography of the subject, there's no real coverage for WP:GNG. WP:Too soon perhaps.” As this moderator noted, the subject had inappropriate articles cited and inadequate coverage to support notability, even after a thorough online search. Despite the academic being an assistant professor, the moderator focused on media coverage, not the career stage, of the subject which is in accordance with the Wikipedia guidelines of the tag WP:Too soon. However, we noticed that women's pages more frequently had a WP:Too soon label and that the use of the designation was often in reference to their career status, a rationale outside Wikipedia's guidelines for the tag WP:Too soon. These pages were subsequently deleted because the individual was too early in her career to be featured on Wikipedia. These examples from AfD discussions all failed to mention the presence or depth of media coverage.
Delete per WP:PROF and WP:Too soon. She has respectable citation counts for a postdoc, but postdocs (and assistant professors and the UK/Irish equivalents) are usually too early in their career to have attracted enough attention to their works for academic notability, and [X] does not appear to be an exception to this general rule.
Delete as far WP:Too soon. Assistant professors are usually not notable and this is no exception.
I agree it looks to be WP:Too soon. If there are articles on male scientists of a similar early career stage, they should be nominated for deletion. The creating editor seems to misunderstand the level of notability required for academics.
Our dataset revealed that men at similar early career stages were present on Wikipedia. For example, Colin G. DeYoung, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota had his page kept after a nomination for deletion. There was no mention of WP:Too soon in the AfD discussion and it only contained three responses, all of which voted “Keep” on the basis of citation count.
Because you were a nice guy at Wikipedia, I decided to give you a takeaway cheeseburger from McDonalds. SonicIn2022 (talk) 19:06, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Please respond
Hi Jimbo,
I would like to ask you to please respond to concerns related to your behavior here. Multiple respected editors, including admins, arbitrators, and stewards have raised concerns regarding your behavior at that page. SQLQuery Me! 01:24, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo, can you confirm if you sent your evidence to ArbCom? MarioGom (talk) 06:13, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Has ArbCom received the evidence of WikiExperts activities you claim to have? Has WMF Trust & Safety received it too? MarioGom (talk) 21:33, 10 April 2023 (UTC)
Note: the relevant section at User talk:Bradv has been blanked (not by me). But it's easily accessible through the page history. Bishonen | tålk 21:58, 10 April 2023 (UTC).
In answer to the above question, unless it is stuck in moderation or something, the committee has not received the evidence.
A user on an offsite forum has suggested that this might be the underlying incident. It sounds like the exact sort of scam that those folks who actually do real work combating paid editing are all very familiar with. The old "The article about you was vandalized, give me money and I'll watch out for it, don't and it may be deleted." Beeblebrox (talk) 02:48, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, that could be case. And yes, unfortunately, we are familiar with this kind of scam. Now, Jimbo Wales claims to have evidence that could help investigating the case, but if it's not shared, there's little to be done. Given the different angles of this incident, full details should be submitted to ArbCom, Trust & Safety, and paid-en-wp@. MarioGom (talk) 05:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Also note that WikiExperts (wikiexperts.com) and WikiExperts Inc (wikiexpertsinc.com) are different companies, and right now, we don't even know which of them are we talking about. MarioGom (talk) 06:01, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Obviously this is an ongoing situation and obviously I will be sharing all evidence with Arbcom and T&S as I obtain it. I've given SilkTork my latest update a couple of days ago and will be sending further things today and as they arrive.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:09, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
So...you made an accusation and didn't even have the evidence in hand? I'm incredibly disappointed. You have a tremendous amount of "soft power" in your position, and like it or not, everything you say carries a lot of weight (and as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility). Your actions here have not shown the thoughtfulness required. By falling for such a simple and common scam (and I expect the evidence here will consist of a screenshot someone on Telegram saying "I'm Bradv, Wikipedia moderator, go buy a page from my close personal friends at WikiScammers!" or something similarly obvious), you have engaged in an egregious personal attack against a respected member of our community. Frankly, if anyone else had done this, I would probably have blocked them on sight. Don't make this mistake again. Do better. GeneralNotability (talk) 15:27, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Now, now, a "joe job" is a relatively new, very complex idea that has not yet made it into the mainstream; the fact that Joe job was a red link as recently as 2004 is evidence enough of its novelty. You have to understand, not all WP users are savvy enough to understand the concept. It's not like this mistake was made by an experienced ... oh, wait. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:11, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
If Jimbo had responded with "sorry, I didn't know this was a common scam, sorry Bradv, I'll email my evidence to the correct places and let them handle it," I would have been more than happy to forgive and forget. We all make mistakes, and anyone can fall victim to a scam. The problem is that Jimbo doubled down, insisting that Brad answer directly, even after a half dozen very trusted folks told him that he was making a mistake. That has left me in a not particularly forgiving mood.
Also, I can say that we've received the evidence now (forwarded by SilkTork), and...there's no evidence. It's just a vague assertion by Jimbo. No screenshots, no indication of who the target of the scam was, certainly nothing strong enough to publicly accuse anybody of UPE. GeneralNotability (talk) 17:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
I have received an email from Jimbo in which he says he regrets being so assertive in his comments, and that he will be asking the "victim" (assumed to be the person who paid for an article to be written on Wikipedia) for more information, and that he will forward that information when he receives it. There is no evidence in the email regarding Bradv's involvement. There is some commentary regarding impersonation of admins by companies offering article writing services. I have forwarded the email to ArbCom. SilkTork (talk) 17:45, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Sonic says
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic wants to say: You are a nice guy, because you are doing nice at protecting from vandalism! And you are EVEN BETTER because you even founded this glorious Wikipedia! SonicIn2022 (talk) 19:14, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Lol. Did he? I'll ask him if he has! XD TailsWx 18:21, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Assume unauthenticated communications are an attack
We have an article (that needs improvement) Joe job that begins to explain why this is true, and another that goes into more detail, authentication. If there is a claim that Alice said X on the Internet, the initial assumption, the default, is that somebody is impersonating Alice, not that Alice said X. The fundamental problem of the Internet is that it was created without universal authentication -- there's no consistent, reliable way to know who's on the other end of the wire. So many of the problems we face (including sock puppetry) stem from this fundamental engineering oversight. JehochmanTalk 05:32, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
Arbcom Case
You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Paid editing recruitment allegation and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. As threaded discussion is not permitted on most arbitration pages, please ensure that you make all comments in your own section only. Additionally, the guide to arbitration and the Arbitration Committee's procedures may be of use.
Jimbo, I personally think the simplest and easiest thing to do for the project would be to voluntarily resign your advanced permissions, which you seem to have not used in a while. I really have to emphasise that I'm not having a go at you here, and I'm not saying this out of any form of malice - I don't have any strong opinions on you as an editor and to be perfectly honest I don't know you from Adam. I'm simply thinking about what would be the quickest and easiest solution to avoid a lot of verbose discussion and drama on the Arbitration Committee Noticeboard, taking up time that would be better improving and fixing up articles in the encyclopedia. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 11:39, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Opposite view, Jimbo, please don't ever give up any power here. This is your creation, it could go in different directions quickly with the wrong site or board decisions, and, if anything, take your powers out for a spin more. Your replies about this incident have been reasonable and it seems to be moving along smoothly, but it gives an in to criticize your actions. Balderdash. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:06, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
I concur with Ritchie. The most painless route out of the brewing constitutional crisis is just to hand in some tools that you don't use anyway. You can still be the founder and leave the advanced tools to the people who use them on a daily basis and are more conversant with policy and best practice. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:14, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
I don't quite agree with Ritchie, but get where he's coming from. The thing is, I dare say giving up the tools won't stop a large number of people from turning any Jimmy misstep into a massive, often newsworthy, to-do. There might be some people with real concern that he will abuse the powers, but I think it's more likely to just add to the drama next time, with ready zingers along the lines of "he even had to resign the tools!". The thing is, there was no abuse of tools here. The idea expressed on the case page that we're somehow holding Jimmy to a lower standard than others strikes me as absurd. I've seen this sort of COI/UPE question many times; some were more justifiable than others, but they never jump immediately to an arbcom case and demands to resign. Everything Jimmy does is subject to heightened levels of scrutiny and I have no doubt that, in 2023, if Jimmy actually abused his admin tools they would be removed relatively easily.
IMO the best thing for the project would be for Jimmy to make an unproxied apology ("unproxied" was based on my misreading of something someone else said) issue a straightforward mea culpa for leaving the message, and for the rest of us to use that to head off a bunch of ugliness and move on. Two other things I'd consider if I were in Jimmy's shoes: First, down the road, outside of a "cloud", I would consider giving up the tools. Done at the right moment, it could generate good will (and thus more of that soft power, which I think many of us see as a good thing most of the time). Second, I'd make a short list of a few of my Wikipedian friends who are both very experienced and very active on the English Wikipedia, and ping them privately once in a while to get their take on something before jumping into a potentially controversial issue. Just a sort of "am I missing anything here?" I know that might not jibe with Jimmy's style, but it could probably avoid headaches like this one, and they would do a better job than any PR firm could (not that I think he'd entertain the idea of filtering his wiki comments through PR, of course :) ). — Rhododendritestalk \\ 13:16, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Not that my opinion matters much but I agree with @Rhododendrites. Nothing will ever be enough for some but there is legitimate concern from very respected members of this community. It can't be ignored yet I think Jimbo giving up anything at this particular moment would ultimately have the opposite affect, however well intended the suggestion has been from other respected community members. I think the very excellent suggestion of a future giving up of the tools should be taken under advisement and seriously considered. Likewise, the suggestion of having a certain number of Wikipedia "friends" to advise in certain situations is never a bad thing. I have done this regularly in the past, albeit in a lesser way than described here. I have opinions. I am human after all, I think. By nature I am biased and sometimes my opinions do make it into my viewpoints and displayed in user/talkspace on Wikipedia but rarely into my edits in mainspace. I haven't limited my seeking of advice to just friends either. I think some of the best advice I have ever received on Wikipedia have come from those critical of me and my positions. --ARoseWolf 14:56, 12 April 2023 (UTC) --edited 14:59, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
It's a strange situation because Jimbo is who he is, dito bradv, and bradv being absent since June last year (personally I would have hesitated asking with such a long absence). Absent these things, it ([1]) would, I think, fit within the guidance at WP:COICOIN. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:59, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo, if you want to find out more about these kinds of scams, there is a list of companies that do them, at WP:PAIDLIST, and a description of the scam at WP:SCAM. You might also want to make sure that WMF Legal are paying attention to potential scammers, and maybe doing things like sending them cease-and-desist letters. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:21, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
WP:COI: If you think you've received a fraudulent solicitation, please forward it to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org for investigation.
WP:COIN: Non-public evidence of a conflict of interest can be emailed to paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org for review by a functionary. If in doubt, you can contact an individual functionary or the Arbitration Committee privately for advice.
WP:SCAM: We ask that you report any attempted paid editing scams to paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org.
That kind of guidance is spelt out in quite a few places. Given how common admin impersonation for scams is, we can assume that every admin is being impersonated for scams on a daily basis, and it is not wise for a functionary to require a public response from every admin who is impersonated, for every single scam instance. Other functionaries definitely did not go around asking these questions publicly when I emailed evidence to ArbCom and Trust & Safety in the past. Jimbo is a functionary, not a random user, and not even just an admin. MarioGom (talk) 08:14, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
While I've got some eyes on this, I'd be interested in folks views on how the template (which is transcluded at Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits) should define "editors". For example, if we say your edit count is in the top 1% "of all editors" what does that mean? There are two meanings we could use:
An editor is someone who has got an account on English Wikipedia. (They have a record in the USER table in the database).
An editors is someone who has made at least one edit. They have edited Wikipedia.
Definition 1 is what the template is currently using. The problem is most of such account holders never make any edits at all. It seems editors on other Wikis get an account here if they look at a page. Or someone might have created an account in order to get a watchlist or to do some research. Or created an account and tried to post something that the edit filter blocked and gave up. Or created an account as a student in a class doing Wikipedia, but then couldn't be bothered to do any homework. Or created an account and then forgot their password. Etc, etc..
I think that's going to confuse a lot of people who will think that, well, you need to edit to be an editor. It turns out only 28.6% of accounts here have ever made even one edit (the template claims that's 50% but it is wrong). So it really alters the stats if you include these no-edit accounts. I think it would be more sensible if we moved over to definition 2. Let us know what you think at Template talk:Registered editors by edit count#The definition of editor. -- Colin°Talk 16:03, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Editors edit, non-editors read. If someone has an account but hasn't edited, they aren't an editor. Seems an easy call. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:16, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
This section may have been lost in the dustup, but comments would be appreciated at the link above or starting at Template talk:Registered editors by edit count#Misleading. The discussion is about the definition of editor on Wikipedia. Are editors only those who have made one or more actual edits while logged in with a username, or do people who have a username but have never edited also called "editors". It makes a difference within the charts and tables included within the discussions. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:36, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
Paid editing recruitment allegation case request declined
The arbitration case request Paid editing recruitment allegation which you are a party to has been declined by the committee. You may view an archived copy of the request here. For the Arbitration Committee, Dreamy Jazztalk to me | my contributions 15:40, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
mail
Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
Greetings Jimbo, I painted a picture of you and wanted to ask you if I could upload it to Commons. I was unsure of if I could upload it so I decided to ask you for permission. Thank you! -- Grapefanatic (talk) 16:36, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
I will E-mail the Painting to you so you can decide. (Because I am on my E-mail address given to me by my school district, I am unable to view any replies from a non district E-mail addresses) -- Grapefanatic (talk) 17:12, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, we've definitely seen much worse, e.g. there were 2-3 articles in Entrepreneur that just seemed to be advice on how to slip in adverts without getting caught. This article at least has 2 sides given, on the pro-paid side, the CEO of a "Reputation management" firm. On the anti-paid side an unknown number of unnamed "current or former" Wikipedia editors. The article doesn't exactly spell it out, but there's a suggestion of a possible compromise between the sides or some common ground. I really doubt that would work for either side. What would be the result of such as compromise? Probably a really, really boring article. Paid editors would possibly quit pushing the really biased info about how great the company and CEO are. Wikipedians would probably accept a lot of the basic "news" about the routine operation of the business. Controversies would probably be avoided in order not to upset the delicate balance between the camps. Just boring!!! IMHO the stories of business are anything but boring. There may be a very good positive story (perhaps HP or Intel, at least during the first halves of their lives), or there might be horror stories (e.g. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC) or their stories might be mixed (e.g. Google or Facebook). But definitely, not boring. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
Summary of possible WMF action ideas in recent scamming discussion
Some Foundation-side ideas were floated, summarized here:
Talk to Google
Downranking paid editing sites in searches like "make a Wikipedia article"
Upranking Wikimedia messaging on the topic
Some kind of special message to the same effect (like how Google will provide a crisis line phone number in searches relating to suicide)
Investigate legal avenues
Trademark infringement against scammers positioning themselves as "Wikipedia experts" or "Wikipedia admins"
Complaints against US-based services (Zendesk, Cloudflare, etc) used by scammers / undisclosed paid editing rings
Since you're obviously passionate about the topic and this is a highly watched page, I thought I'd bring this summary here. Any mischaracterisation or elision of ideas is unintended. Folly Mox (talk) 16:00, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. I would support all of those ideas, although I think it very unlikely that Google would be willing to take those actions. It would just be highly unusual for them and I think they would view it as opening the door to all kinds of people asking them to do similar things to help them solve their own problems, whatever those might be. I could be wrong about that, I think there is a good chance that search is evolving from "here's some keywords, show me some webpages" to "here's a question, explain the answer to me" and on that front, I think that all of the new generative AI large language model platforms could be helpful in this regard. It's definitely worth some consideration.
Just to illustrate what I mean, I just asked ChatGPT+ (4.0) "Can I pay someone to update a Wikipedia page about my company?" And it gave a pretty good and NPOV answer which correctly, for the most part, identifies what I think is too weak about our policies on this today. If our policies were more strict, the advice it gives would also presumably be more strict!
ChatGPT:
While you can technically pay someone to edit a Wikipedia page, it's important to understand the principles that Wikipedia operates on, which can make this a complex issue.
1. Conflict of Interest: Wikipedia strongly discourages people with a direct connection to a subject from editing articles about that subject. If you are closely associated with a company (like being its owner or an employee), editing the company's Wikipedia page may lead to a conflict of interest. This can result in biased or non-neutral content.
2. Paid editing disclosure: Any paid editing must be disclosed according to Wikipedia's Terms of Use. If you pay someone to edit your company's Wikipedia page, they must disclose that they were paid to do so. This includes being paid indirectly, such as through a company or agency.
3. Neutral Point of View: All content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view, meaning it cannot promote any subject nor can it be used for advertising or other promotional activities. If a paid editor makes changes that violate this policy, the edits may be removed.
4. Verifiability: All content on Wikipedia must be verifiable and backed up by reliable, independent sources. If your company is not covered in such sources, it may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines and any content added about it may be removed.
So, while you can technically pay someone to update a Wikipedia page, you must navigate these rules carefully. If you wish to improve your company's Wikipedia page, a better approach might be to work with the Wikipedia community. This could involve suggesting changes on the article's talk page or providing independent, reliable sources to Wikipedia editors.
Separately, your question about legal avenues is equally interesting. Although I think this is a hard path to go down, I think it could be worthwhile for the WMF to invest some resources working on where there might be some leveerage points. I double very much that Cloudflare (for example) could be in any way legally liable for these kinds of things. But my understanding is that Visa/Mastercard do very much take an interest in the prevention of fraud, so there are definitely some ideas out there that might be helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:46, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
It may be a tad off topic, but perhaps a sensible first step would be if the WMF were willing to report on the degree of success with their existing attempts to combat paid editing. I find it very frustrating that we approve actions to limit paid editors, and that the WMF are then unwilling to tell us if those actions were effective. Instead they just ask us to support further actions that they similarly won't report on. The first step in measuring the success of any process is to have a baseline against which to measure the effectiveness of any changes, and we don't even get that. - Bilby (talk) 09:20, 5 May 2023 (UTC)
As you know, the English Wikipedia Arbitration Policy provides that remedies decided by the Arbitration Committee may be appealed to, and amended by, Jimbo Wales, unless the case involves Jimbo Wales's own actions.
This provision has formally been in effect ever since you created the ArbCom in 2004. However, from my years of following the Committee's work starting in 2006 (including my years as a member), I do not recall any instance in which you overturned an ArbCom decision. There was one instance, more than ten years ago, in which you amended a decision (clarifying the terms under which a banned user might subsequently seek permission to return). Another editor recently searched the archives in detail and found the same thing.
In light of English Wikipedia's "constitutional" development since 2004, an editor recently opened a thread on the ArbCom talkpage, asking whether the Arbitration Policy should be amended to remove the provision for decisions to be appealed to you. Please see Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee#Appeals to Jimbo. Some editors suggested asking ArbCom to propose a formal amendment to the Arbitration Policy, or alternatively opening a community-wide Request for Comment prefatory to petitioning for such an amendment, either of which could be a protracted and potentially divisive process.
At that point, I suggested that before pursuing this further, someone should simply ask you whether you even want to, or believe you should, retain this vestigial and seemingly moribund appellate role. Several other people agreed with this suggestion.
So as a follow-up to that discussion, I am asking. Your input here would be appreciated. Thank you, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:58, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo, at least hold on to this one. People keep coming here asking you to give up your powers. You've given up enough. There is no way to tell what can happen 10 years in the future, and what odd ARB decisions will be made (i.e. see all of society from ten years ago to the present), and Wikipedia (both as a project and individual editors) will need someone to balance out what may occur. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
While I would prefer arbcom appeals be sent to the UCOC Enforcement Committee, once it is established, I would like to see Mr. Wales retain the ability to view deleted pages and oversighted revisions on all projects. To that end, Mr. Wales, would you support, oppose, or be neutral on a Meta RFC restoring those rights to the Founder Flag? Sandizer (talk) 19:19, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
Would you both please consider putting your comments in a separate sub-section so that Newyorkbrad's question isn't buried by lengthy debate that would be more useful at the locus of the original discussion? JehochmanTalk 03:10, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I believe this rule provides a helpful safety valve in case of a rogue ArbCom. Currently if there were a massive community outcry about some seriously problematic ArbCom decision, there is no clear answer as to what might happen. My view is that given a sufficient outcry, I would call for a new election and a reconsideration of the controversial case by a new ArbCom, or choose some similar path in line with broad community wishes. Certainly the model of me accepting an appeal from a routine case is outdated and unnecessary, and so one possibility would be to update the rule so that my role is only in terms of giving an orderly answer in the event of a seriously new crisis in our institutional arrangement. This power could also be passed to the WMF, but I think that isn't a good idea for any number of reasons, not least of which is the important independence and power of the community itself.
To say a bit more about how I view this, as it exists. Any formal appeal to me would not and should not be about me looking at the case and thinking, oh, I would have voted differently than the majority, so I should overturn it. That would be undesirable for any numbers of reasons. But if there's a serious injustice that is generating a full and proper RfC, and an ArbCom that is refusing to go along with it - these are all extremely rare and unlikely scenarios - does need someone to step in and say "No, we will now elect a new ArbCom who will be wise to act in accordance with community wishes." Currently, our extant rules make it clear that I could do that, even though it's very much an extreme rarity. I would be happy to consider alternative arrangements, of course, but I think there can also be mistakes in attempting to take out flexibility by pre-defining every possible circumstance.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:36, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
If I am reading this correctly, you feel that if there was a situation where
There was very significant community outcry about some arbitration committee decision (or other action), and
The will of the community was clearly expressed in the form of a full and proper RFC, and
The arbitration committee refused to go along with the community's will
It would be desirable for you to retain the right to dissolve the current committee and call fresh elections for a new committee, who could then re-examine the case/action/other circumstance.
You also feel it would be beneficial to retain the right to give "an orderly answer in the event of a seriously new crisis in our institutional arrangement."
However, you regard "the model of [you] accepting an appeal from a routine case is outdated and unnecessary" and so would not be opposed to relinquishing the right to do so.
Is that correct? Thryduulf (talk) 11:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
That's definitely a good summary of what I wrote, but it's worth considering that I just reflected for a moment when asked here, and I haven't given the whole matter a full and comprehensive analysis and don't want to be lawyered over every single word. But yeah, I think that sounds about right. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:24, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
It sounds like (just to avoid WP:CREEP, and other such stuff : ) - That you suggest that "Appeal to Jimbo" is done at the community level, and not at the individual level?
If so, I would presume that should be easy enough to say, while still leaving room for WP:IAR as necessary. I'd like to avoid Wiki-lawyers trying to box you in a corner. Does that sound about right to you? - jc37 16:40, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
To answer Sandizer's question, I don't believe that I have any reason to have the technical ability to view deleted pages and oversighted revisions. If in some surprising instance there was some need for me to look at something like that, it could be shared with me without any need for the technical rights.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:38, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Both of the following possibilities are highly unlikely, so maybe it isn't worth worrying about, but: It is much more likely that Jimbo would make a serious error in judgement and inappropriately try to dissolve ArbCom, than it is that a majority of ArbCom members (minimum seven to eight individual people) would go off the deep end and ignore a clear community opinion. This isn't a slam on Jimbo; it is also much more likely that *I* - or any single person - would go off the deep end than a majority of community-elected ArbCom members would. While both are unlikely, the safer thing to do is protect against the more likely thing, and remove Jimbo's power (or not give Jimbo a new power, depending on what actually turns out to be true) to dissolve ArbCom. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:54, 2 May 2023 (UTC) tweaked 22:06, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
I would definitely not be in favor of a power to dissolve ArbCom unilaterally, for sure. I personally think I do have the power to call for new ArbCom elections but that'd be a very interesting (and not in a good way) set of circumstances. To be clear, if the three part chain of events outlined above ever did happen, I would call for new ArbCom elections, and I think that would be the only right thing to do. Whether that would have any causative impact on proceedings is a perfectly valid mystery to ponder but it seems very likely that if the ArbCom decided to defy a community RFC on some case, and if the ArbCom refused to change, and I called for a new election, that a new election would happen and the community and WMF would proceed to simply ignore the old and dissolved ArbCom.
The power of ArbCom is not in the software and I think that's important - it's validity rests solely on the consent of the governed. To the extent that I can use my words to protect the sovereignty of the community, I will. These things are fun to contemplate but yes, extremely unlikely in practice.
As a side note, the more interesting and likely conflict that could hypothetically arise would be a conflict between the WMF and Arbcom and/or Community (remember FRAMBAN as a crisis in this regard). In this case, I would again strongly defend the sovereignty of the community (and the delegated power of their elected body ArbCom) and support the community. Remember how much of an anomaly we are. The WMF does not get involved in such matters except in some very carefully proscribed circumstances that make sense and have longstanding precedent. I think that's important. Every other social website has a very different governance model where the company makes all the decisions with only pragmatic constraints on their power. (For example, a strong degree of exodus from twitter based on people not liking how Elon Musk is running it.). Here, we strive to be more forward looking, more "constitutional" in our outlook. Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:46, 3 May 2023 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo. Just saw your name when looking at recent edits to Ezra Miller, that perennial BLP nightmare, and checked what else you've been up to and saw this thread. The thrust of what you're saying makes a lot of sense to me, but I do wonder if you've defined a set of circumstances where your own role is no longer necessary? What you're describing would look something like: "A consensus among the community, as expressed in an RfC [probably some requirements here like 200+ participants and close by a panel of 'crats], may direct Jimbo Wales to compel the dissolution of the Arbitration Committee and the commencement of a snap election, with the new committee to reconsider whatever matter(s) triggered the dissolution of its predecessor." And it seems like such a system would work just as well, and in fact probably better, without the words "direct Jimbo Wales to"; otherwise your role would be redundant to that of the RfC closer(s). That's not to say there'd be no place for you in resolving a constitutional crisis: Your !vote in any such RfC (or decision to start one, even) would obviously hold a huge amount of sway. -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 02:47, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
We already have such a process: amend ArbPol to require the dissolution of ArbCom. Of course, that would be a very extraordinary measure, but this would be a very extraordinary and unique circumstance. Galobtter (talk) 05:18, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Literally exactly what I was thinking. And increase the likelihood of complete concurrence between the consensus developed via RfC and any such concrete action. Heavy Water (talk • contribs) 19:26, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
I would oppose such motion. I do think that emergency powers are necessary to keep under extraordinary circumstances and that the status quo regarding them is fine. I share the fears of a rogue ArbCom, and as many failsafes as possible are necessary in the event Wikipedia's institutions go south. The last thing we want is management comparable to a Minecraft server, and while I do believe that such a day would likely not come, you never know. Jimbo really is the only person who the vast majority of Wikipedia knows that can 100% of the time be trusted fully, mostly due to him listening. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 03:34, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Petition to remove appealing to Jimbo from the Arbitration Policy
Hi, this petition has been started which is relevant to the above discussion about ArbCom appeals. Galobtter (talk) 18:20, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I have edited it, but I actually urge you to retract it and start over. Let's come up with a proposal together, rather than this contentious petition which (in your original version) badly misstated my position.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:38, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
My personal preference would be some sort of senior status for long-term arbs who could be randomly selected as the safety valve -- GuerilleroParlez Moi 21:42, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
Even if Mr Wales decides to cede this to the community, and that is what the community and Mr Wales want, having former arbs police arbcom is probably not the best idea. Just follow our existing processes - have an RfC (or an RFA-style, if that's preferred), where bureaucrats close, and in situations where the result isn't obvious, a "crat chat" is an option. These are editors that we put in positions of trust. I think the question of whether the community thinks that it's time to have a new election, is something they could handle. - jc37 00:47, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
And incidentally, such a process could be put in place, without Mr Wales giving up any authority/responsibility. It just would give the community another avenue. - jc37 08:32, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Remove my arbcom restriction before it's too late
Can you remove my arbcom one account restriction before it's too late to do so? See here and here. Any help is appreciated. Therapyisgood (talk) 13:06, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Because Therapyisgood says so, obviously. That, or there's some grave constitutional crisis we've all missed, that makes it so essential for Jimbo to overrule ArbCom. Clearly a coverup! A conspiracy! Have the Illuminati taken over? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:20, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Of course we have, you were there when we did it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:22, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
Coverage of African Americans on Wikipedia
I was curious about Vida Blue. A black man who won 3-world series in a row in the 70s and won a Cy Young Award. Where was he from? Where did he go to high school?
Depending on the entry you read on Wikipedia he either went to Mansfield High School or DeSoto High School in Mansfield, Louisiana. Neither has an entry. Neither is even included at Mansfield High School or at DeSoto High School disambiguation pages.
This is pretty standard for how Wikipedia treats these subjects. I'm already oversubmitted for entries. Maybe someone will get to the AfC backlog or review on of my submissions in the weeks to come. In the meantime I hope you can reflect on how we treat these subjects and editors working to include them. I think there's a great deal of room for improvement. Take care.
Here's a court case with some of the issues the schools had. I think our readers should know about these subjects. Not just these two but all the other ones like them and the very notable people who fought to establish them, develop them, coach and lead at them, and who made lasting marks coming from them. FloridaArmy (talk) 03:16, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
I'd be happy to help look for further sources, but which high school is correct?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:41, 8 May 2023 (UTC)
From what I've read, Vida Blue attended DeSoto High School where the baseball team was established around him and he was a football star. His father died his senior year so he became a professional baseball player, rather than play college football at Notre Dame, because he wanted to help support his family. Even after becoming a star he had to strike to get paid well by the team's owner. He struggled with drugs and alcohol. It would be interesting to know what other stars and community leaders came out of schools like DeSoto High School and its predecessor DeSoto Parish Training School. Typically these subjects are excluded from Wikipedia. FloridaArmy (talk) 14:27, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Reportedly he was ambidextrous and was a switch hitter who as a football quarterback could scramble to his right and throw rightie or scramble left and throw leftie. It would be interesting to read more about his high school career as an athlete and his star coach as well as the state championship teams that played for DeSoto including women's basketball and its other star players. For various reasons Wikipedia excludes these subjects. FloridaArmy (talk) 14:33, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Webster High School in Minden, Louisiana is one of the schools he played against. Its coach Lee Arthur Flentroy achieved a record of 111-27-2 according to this writeup on a site about schools for African Americans in Louisiana. It says the baseball team he established won 133 games and lost 15 while winning six state championships and producing several professional players. FloridaArmy (talk) 14:47, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Interestingly Kenny Washington was the first African-American to sign a contract with a National Football League (NFL) team in the modern (post-World War II) era." But Pat Coffee, a Webster alum, was playing for the Chicago Cardinals in 1938? If only Wikipedia included African American schools, communities, biographies, and businesses maybe we could begin to get our history right and people could read about institutions other than the ones whites were involved in. FloridaArmy (talk) 15:05, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Coffee's article doesn't mention his high school and includes a link to a different high school, one where African Americans were sent after his high school was closed in the wake of desegregation. Which is exaclty how Wikipedia treats these subjects. Erase, obscure, obliterate. It's really a shame. We can do so much better and lead instead of being part of the problem and promoting white supremacy. Facts matter. Misinformation and discrimination shouldn't be the status quo for these subjects. FloridaArmy (talk) 15:09, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Please remember you have been strongly warned about accusing any specific editor of white supremacy in the past. While your statement is broad, you do not want to continue down that course. We know we have systematic and other bias issues that make our coverage of African Americans pre-2000 very poor, but none of that is being done on purpose or with any motive to purposely keep that information off WP. It is a pipeline problem...too few editors working in that area, and too few usable sources to give some of these topics the depth they need. Do remember that topics like schools can be covered in articles about the towns they were in, so that even if you only write a sentence about it, it helps that article and provides a refirect/searchable topic. Masem (t) 16:00, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I'm happy to work on these articles but I'm restricted. And I've also been threatened repeatedly by you Masem and others including admins and arbitrators for pointing out the problem. Suggesting that the solution is to cover these subjects somewhere else and that we don't have space or time to include the subjects themselves is disgusting and repulsive. Shame on you Masem. You are a BIG prt of the problem. Stop blocking efforts to fix this abhorrent problem on Wikipedia. FloridaArmy (talk) 17:14, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I have given you the apparently necessary reminder about personal attacks. —Kusma (talk) 17:28, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Yes, User:Kusma you have blocked me previously with false accusations. Attacking and threatening me and blocking me for trying to address white supremacy and institutional racism on Wikipedia is par for the course. That's why I'm here on Jimbo's page. Thanks to you both for illustrating the problem and what happens when it's discussed and attempts are made to fix it. FloridaArmy (talk) 17:32, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
This ("false accusations") is another personal attack (I blocked you for a bright line violation of your editing restrictions). As it is directed against me, I will not block you for it. —Kusma (talk) 17:40, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
What you are demonstrating is just that you are much better at complaining than at writing Wikipedia articles of even average quality. You have been treated extra leniently because of your choice of topics, but that seems to have been a mistake by the community. —Kusma (talk) 17:44, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
Agree 100% with Kusma here; "you are much better at complaining than at writing Wikipedia articles of even average quality". Why on earth do think this is tactic of yours—constantly attacking people as agents of white supremacy—is somehow conducive to improving the encyclopedia? I hope I don't sound arrogant by saying I've written/overhauled featured articles on (black) African liberation icons such as Louis Rwagasore and Barthélemy Boganda and somehow managed to avoid making baloney accusations against the rest of the Wikipedia community. And you telling us which where a black legislator in a Southern US state collected their mail or when a historically black high school decided to replaced their football coach for having a bad season suddenly makes you Malcolm X? Grow up. I've offered resources and olive branches to you in the past to help you in your quest to improve African American coverage which you appear to have neglected to use. After years of editing you continue to exhibit basic issues with factual analysis and spelling. I and lots of other editors have tried to be patient with you. You continuously neglect to consider why restrictions were placed on your ability to produce articles, blame everybody else for your issues, and are always running to WiR, Jimbo, or others to write the most basic of articles you start without even evaluating GNG. Leave Kusma and everyone else alone. Masem was largely defensive of you in the January discussion about your abysmal behavior, saying you're not "the type of editor ... that we'd want to lose" due to your work on undercovered subjects, and now you say they are a "BIG" part of the white bias problem. Really? How utterly poisonous can you be act? We're tired of this crap. -Indy beetle (talk) 10:09, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
This entire comment is more of a personal attack than anything in this thread. It seems to be a pattern; the selective enforcement of WP:CIVIL, by which mentioning institutional racism counts as an attack but comments like "how utterly poisonous can you be?" do not, remains absurd. Gnomingstuff (talk) 00:58, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
"Shame on you Masem. You are a BIG prt of the problem" is not a mundane comment on the systemic bias issue. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:48, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
Telling someone they are a "big part of the problem" is a comment on a person's actions. Telling someone they are "utterly poisonous" is an attack on a person's character. There is a difference. Gnomingstuff (talk) 03:52, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
Seeing as you find it inappropriate to say that someone who is doing X things is "being X" (as opposed to "is X"), I have altered my phrasing. -Indy beetle (talk) 06:39, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
There us zero issue when, lacking sufficient information on a high school to make a standalone article meeting all content policies and guidelines, that discussing the school in a more notable context, such as the town it was in, and providing searchable redirects for that, is a completely fair solution. I know you'd like to see standalone articles but if simple can't find those sources, add the information to a useful place with better context. Masem (t) 18:50, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
But that's not the full story, not by a long shot. More resources are becoming available all the time, but early 20th and local history are in many cases a lot of hard work. In my opinion much more valuable than some minor topics today which only require a little googling to pass notability requirements. Someone who wants to know about a Seminole "uprising" in 1907 should be able to come right here and read about Tom Tiger his horse, bones, friends and the Muskogee speaking Seminole, but what a bunch of redlinks and chore to create that content. There are people who can write and those who can't and I'm in the latter category. It's a community driven and iterative process, and FA in many cases is taking that first step to some really valuable content. But vaguely, there seems to be something lacking in the process and notability requirements that could get these articles into mainspace where editors who can write can do their thing.
It is a shame something like Draft:TSU 5 isn't already covered by WP, it needs a writer and someone who has Merline Pitre's Born to Serve to create the content. How do we get it there? fiveby(zero) 17:28, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
As I said elsewhere there is a pipeline issue, both in sourcing and volunteer editors. I have suggested before that a drive like the Women in Red project would be of great help here. Masem (t) 19:37, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
@FloridaArmy: Where'd you see mention of Pat Coffee at Webster High School? Early football is my specialty, so I could help if you'd like for any topics in that area. BeanieFan11 (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I think I got confused. I think he went to LSU and the other high school (Minden High School?) so he must have been white and either I got it wrong or the source I was reading was wrong. It would be easier to sort the info if we had entries for the respective high schools. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:09, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
That seems to be the case (attended Minden, LSU) per Pro Football Archives and this newspaper article. Feel free to let me know in the future if you'd like help with any football-related articles. BeanieFan11 (talk) 21:19, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
I wonder if I could've got away with this amount of soapboxing were I to complain about the parlous state of Central Asian articles. Probably not—after all, WP:BIAS is obviously only about African-American articles, and we all know the general American attitude towards Central Asia. On the one side, a minor early-20th century athlete's biography being short allows certain editors to label others' actions "disgusting", "repellent", and "abhorrent"; on the other, national heroes and prominent public figures across a region are stubs, but pointing that out using the same terms will result in an immediate block. Discrimination, eh? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:16, 9 May 2023 (UTC)
So according to that, the closest article is Turkoman (ethnonym), promoted this January (and it was also a GA for under three months in 2021). So CMD is not far from the truth. —Kusma (talk) 22:17, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
That Turkmenistan is a bastion of press freedom might have something to do with the dearth of articles on such subjects. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:11, 10 May 2023 (UTC)
They also have an annoying law on freedom of panorama which usually means you can't put related images on Commons. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:48, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I wasn't aware Turkoman finally made it out of development hell. @Sdkb:. CMD (talk) 10:00, 11 May 2023 (UTC)
A cup of Vietnamese milk coffee for you - Jimbo Wales!
A cup of Vietnamese milk coffee in the evening!. Tpham tran ba (talk) 12:45, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
Here is a message of kindness from Colton2022 Colton2022 (talk) 22:54, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
ARBPOL Amendment Referendum Live
As the petition for an ARBPOL amendment to remove the right for Jimbo Wales to act as an appeal route for arbcom decisions has received 100 signatures a referendum on the proposal has been opened.
It requires a majority in favour with at least 100 supporting editors.
CENT, WLN, WP:AN, and VPP will all be notified. Please feel free to provide neutral notices to other relevant fora. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:06, 17 May 2023 (UTC)
Mr. Wales, I hope you run for arbcom in all future elections. I will explain my more detailed rationale at a later date. Sandizer (talk) 04:37, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Real Life Barnstar
Thanks for coming up with this Wikipedia idea. You made the world a better place for many. Paradise Chronicle (talk) 08:50, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
Normal width
Apologies for venting here, but I don't feel that meta:, mw: or WP:Village pump (WMF) are going to care about my input. I also want to thank you for playing such a big role in this project. Wikipedia is to internet what Gutenberg's press was to the 15th century budding scientific community.
I'm retiring from Wikipedia for a number of reasons, but the real tipping point came a few days ago. As you've probably seen, WP:ROLLBACKVECTOR22 closed with a consensus to keep the new Vector (against a supermajority of over 500 !votes, including WMF's "keep" meatpuppets), but as a compromise, to make full width default. On my workplace, I couldn't bother creating an alt account just to use the original Vector skin, and now, two months later, I was faced with a popup reminder saying something like "You've been using the wide-screen version of Wikipedia for a while. Would you like to try out normal width?" (I forgot the exact wording).
If folks are already retiring because of Vector 2022, what will they say about the next iteration of Vector (see leaked image to the right) Vector 202X Comrade a!rado🇷🇺 (C🪆T) 06:13, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
That's absolutely true, I haven't been editing much for a long while now and recently "sat down" and thought about why that was, and so I came up with a retirement essay I was about to post on my userpage. Of course, after I was done writing it, I had second thoughts and I ended up putting it away, but seeing this notice this week made me change my mind.
I'm really annoyed that I've had very little time and energy to dedicate to WP so far this year, and I spent so much of it on that RfC, which WMF has apparently ignored once the wheel stopped squeaking. It makes me think of "0.000018% of Wiki admins ban Daily Mail". I guess that's how we see each other now DaßWölf 18:32, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
"we excel in researching, editing, writing and monitoring your brand's Wikipedia page; making sure that it precisely represents your business the way you want!"
Promises SEO optimization; monitoring and reversal of edits by "outsiders", and that no unfavourable edits are made; client approval of submissions; and that deleted articles will be restored [2]
I hope the WMF gets the new TOS provisions (proposed here, sections 4 and 14) in place soon and starts using it! — Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 21:31, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
Thank you for creating Wikipedia all those years ago. And for welcoming in contributors like me who didn't know shit about anything. Thank you for the Bomis babes, too. But seriously, thank you for being a believer in principles, and culture. You haven't died, but you are being managed into retirement, and this is right and as it should be, and you surely were expecting it for a long time. Take it from me. But, I do urge you to really look at the Planet Earth a little more closely. This project could be a model for so much. It's capitalist libertarians like some of your friends who insist that profit is at the root of all human enterprise. Wikipedia exists as a shining counterexample to this. Human cooperation can and should be oriented around helpfulness, kindness, pursuit of rational inquiry and knowledge and free culture. That means incentives oriented around the community and culture. There is still a rot afoot on this planet and in this project. It arises from those who believe that truth and facts may be discarded when convenient, and that every issue has 2 symmetrical sides, even when one is rooted in a lie and the other in fundamental rationality. So your willing retirement and acceptance of a prophet role would be encouraged and welcome for the growth of intelligence on this project and planet, but right now, your alignment has drifted, but it's not too late to course correct. Neutrality is admirable, but neutrality means not creating artificial sides when some sides disqualify themselves. Wikipedia has always understood that. Andre🚐 17:40, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
Paid editing spreading across wikis
Hello, Jimbo! As a defender of Wikipedia from spammers, specially those in violation of Terms of Use, I suggest a more careful look for edits outside of English Wikipedia. I am starting to notice many spammers that are blocked here on en.wiki, but left unblocked everywhere else and keeping up with the highly suspicious edits.
For instance BIB6310, that is blocked here for being a sock, but went across many other large projects doing the same, most recently on Portuguese Wikipedia. If an editor violates Terms of Use, I believe they should be prevented from doing it everywhere. I will probably lock all socks of Anne Barrington, but I believe we should start thinking on some sort of automatic process for such cases, like requesting immediately lock for accounts in violation of ToU. Do you think we should enforce that?
Kind regards. —Teles «Talk to me˱M @ C S˲» 19:32, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
While there are some obvious challenges, I actually suspect this is a very clever avenue to pursue change. The first issue that springs to mind is that someone might be very well behaved on one language wiki, but go to another language and behave badly and get blocked, and that's very different from the kind of cross-language abuse accounts that you are talking about. Distinguishing between those would be important.
In terms of forecasting the near future, I would anticipate that the right rise of large language models with very good multi-lingual capabilities will probably give rise to new forms of cross-language abuse. Why spam in only one language, if you can spam in 200 for no additional cost? Gross, but that's going to be a thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
This would seemingly be putting a lot of additional work onto stewards and I think cases like this are the exception rather than the rule. I know that for some sockrings who are known for crosswiki abuse we already globally lock them too. It would be interesting to be able to view all the edits to other wikis by users who are blocked on one wiki though. SmartSE (talk) 10:19, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
I think the latter is what I have in mind as a baby step. One thing to consider - but there are many many elements to consider - is that the exact role of stewards versus local admins is not a fact of phsyical reality but just how we have done things (for good reason). I can envision a system whereby local admins can help other wikis by blocking obvious spam accounts globally. I'm not saying that's an obvious first step, just encouraging that we don't have to think that local admins can't usefully help other language admins. A slightly milder version than enabling global blocking for local admins would be some kind of notification system where a user who is blocked in one language and tagged as "obvious spammer" is automatically highlighted to admins in other wikis where they are active.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:00, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
A global user block mechanism does not currently exist. A feature request, phab:T17294, has been open since 2008 to build this functionality; interested developers are welcome to work on it. A global RFC would be needed to define when it would be able to be used. A technical design consideration would be if a local project should be able to whitelist past it as they can global IP blocks. — xaosfluxTalk 13:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Did you mean "the rise of large language models"? Or have they formed political factions already? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:27, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Lol, thank you, yes that was a typo - corrected now!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:56, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Nowadays, it's too much easy to translate English content to several other languages that are likely to be less requiring than English Wikipedia or have less reviewers to watch new pages. Maybe it is already a thing and we just don't know for not having identified it yet. Maybe we shouldn't immediately lock users for undisclosed paid editing, but we probably should start looking at their global edits to check if they are a repetition of their actions on English Wikipedia. Projects like simple wiki and large languages are likely to be a target. Perhaps, when identifying that a certain article was a target of paid editing, we could also check for the same article in others languages as a routine. Sometimes it is hard to do because the article has been deleted and for that it is not displayed on crosswiki page lists, unless we manually go to a certain project and search the name.—Teles «Talk to me˱M @ C S˲» 04:13, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
For the record: here is another one. Blocked on Spanish wiki for paid editing and spam. Then blocked in other projects. I just became aware when it went to Portuguese Wikipedia. I believe there’s much more around. —Teles «Talk to me˱M @ C S˲» 12:28, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
You may be interested in the conversation here about how a racist hook got on the mainpage. Therapyisgood (talk) 02:51, 28 May 2023 (UTC)
Indeed, you are right, I did find that interesting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:58, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
Email
Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail! It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.
List of free and publicly available university video courses is up for deletion now. Does this article meet any of Wikipedia's objectives? Most articles are just popular culture, however there is some useful educational content to be found for those who wish to learn something. If this article helps people learn something useful to help them in life, free online courses from major universities, shouldn't it be here? DreamFocus 06:23, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
I think it has WP:NOT problems. It isn't Wikipedia's job to list things simply because they exist.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me) 06:41, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
There is currently no 'good causes' exception to Wikipedia notability requirements, though I suspect that such content may get a little leeway when compared to other topics. It is always open to anyone to propose a change of policy, but I honestly can't see it getting much traction unless an explanation is offered as to how such indiscriminate data is going to be maintained to a degree that it has any real long-term utility. Possibly it would be easier to make such a case if it was made alongside a proposal to cut back on the not-good-cause pop-culture trivia etc that also has to be looked after? AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:20, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
It's an interesting case because yeah, that's probably a pretty useful list. But "being a useful list" doesn't mean that something is actually an encyclopedia article. I'm not personally super aware of our policy on lists, though. After all, we quite famously have one of my favorite lists, List of fictional pigs, which has been around for - omg I just checked, and thought about how I am getting to be - 20 years!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:28, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
Responding to myself, after 2 minutes of research, I see that the big difference is that we mostly don't have lists of links to external resources, but we do have list of links to Wikipedia content, for organizational reasons. I think that's a good and meaningful distinction to have. For one thing, it more or less guarantees (sort of) that the things on the list are all actually notable.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:30, 7 June 2023 (UTC)
I uploaded a file to Commons but forgot to put a suitable name for it. I have created a move request as I can't move it myself. Please move the file on my behalf.
I've just posted a long thread on twitter. I hope it is of interest to the community. Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:47, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm only interested in talk about this legislation
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Perhaps your thoughts would carry more weight if the WMF itself wasn't in the habit of abusing users data rights. Did the WMF ever share the dodgy dossier it collated on Fram before it accused them of harrassment? Or after? No. The WMF routinely gives access to PI to anonymous individuals with little oversight or auditing, who then abuse their advanced tools with article subjects and editors (you may want to pay attention to what the Italian admins and stewards are doing). Then of course there is the lack of financial transparency (tides), the safeguarding lapses (by what process did the WMF come out with that made it think it was a good idea to directly fund/grant a disgraced and banned from multiple projects editor, who amongst their other issues uploaded pornography of themselves and advocated the retention of pictures of clearly underage boys genitalia. Perhaps you should put that on next year's fundraising banner), the blatant trough sinecures for former staff etc etc.
What you seem to be missing is that despite all its faults, the UK Online Safety Bill is a response to large tech (admittedly not Wikipedia) inaction or deliberate abuse (Cambridge analytics). Perhaps people might be less prone to support rigid legislation if corporations were not so abusive in the first place. The UKs legislative process has largely not changed for 100 years. Once a problem appears, industry is largely encouraged to self manage. If that doesn't work, light touch regulators and fines. If the problem still continues, then it's time to roll out the heavy guns of beurocracy and regulation. The Zuckerbergs and Musks failed to learn from other industries like manufacturing, construction, and banking before them. And this is the end result.
In short, clean up your own house before pontificating on others. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:49, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
Did you see Fram's behavior in general onwiki? In the last two weeks, he tried to get EEng banned from AN and ANI for... get this... having a sense of humor. It's a recurring thing, and it hasn't stopped, even since that WMF ban.
Also, what I'm reading from your message is that you're in favor of the UK Online Safety Bill. Are you really thinking that this bill is a positive thing? It's the closest the UK is getting to censorship in ages. Supporting this bill is essentially supporting a dictatorship that can arrest people because they dared talk against the government. LilianaUwU(talk / contributions) 16:08, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
You are describing WMF problems, not Jimbo problems. (Although Jimbo may have contributed to letting them become a largely self-appointed ivory tower.) But either way, your post is whataboutism and the real question is this particular piece of legislation. I only know it a bit, and that sounds like it is pretty bad and in direct conflict with how Wikipedia needs to operate. North8000 (talk) 17:56, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
It reminds me of an incident from 5 years ago. Roskomnadzor, a bunch of very bright and skilled fellows, got tired of blocking anime imageboards and decided to take on Telegram. 'Cause you know, how can you protect the Motherland from extremists, when you can't de-cipher what they are chatting about? When Telegram devs refused to give up encryption keys to censors, RKN-chan blew her top and decided to block the bastards. Due to her outstanding technical skills, a lot of major websites got down with blocked DNS's, while Telegram slipped the line.
The moral of that story: Online Safety Bill will "empower Ofcom to block access to particular websites". So Britons should prepare for a lot of collateral damage that will ensue when Ofcom will decide to take on something like Signal. a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 04:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Note: If Ofcom starts blocking sites, it will most likely use deep packet inspection technique. In this case, there's GoodbyeDPI utility, made in Russia with love (and other fluids). It circumvents DPI using some clever trick called WinDivert, not VPN/proxy, so it doesn't significantly slow down connection speed and WP users don't need WP:IPBE to edit with it on. Can be used as is, or can be optimized for the UKAirstrip One with something like "uk-blacklist.txt" added. a!rado🦈 (C✙T) 05:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
In Chinese Wikipedia, Bilibili, WeChat official account, Baijia account, China Universal Television, Guangming Daily, Sina Weibo have all been included in the "list of unreliable sources".If we judge whether a reference source is reliable only by political orientation, then the Wikimedia project has no future.Undoubtedly, this happened after September 2021.
When the Wikimedia Foundation claimed that the Chinese government should respect the "wiki model", did you ever think about the consequences of your involvement in this model?In July this year, the Wikimedia Foundation was once again prohibited from entering WIPO.This is a tragedy.
In the latest statement, Techyan said, "As long as users show support for the Chinese government, they will lose any opportunity to become administrators."I used to say that Wikipedia cannot enter China within 100 years, but in June this year, Qiwen opened for editing. Wikipedia already has a replacement, and 100 years may be forever.
In the past two years, the number of visitors to Chinese Wikipedia has dropped from nearly 700 million to less than 350 million. We all have to bear the consequences of political struggle.
A good encyclopedia, but not a good management team. Assifbus (talk) 03:25, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
The tragedy is that an authoritarian state feels the need to curtail the flow of accurate information and the availability of knowledge to protect its own position. While the falling number of readers is unfortunate, at least what they are reading is at less risk of POV pushing to suit a particular political agenda. MarcGarver (talk) 11:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I and everyone else can see how obviously inferior 350 million actually getting information that holds to the values of Wikipedia is compared to 700 million people reading state propaganda that they were reading already. Definitely inferior. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
Except that both those numbers appear to be made up out of thin air. There will always be a few who think that Wikipedia should compromise and agree to be censored by state actors, in order to gain access to a wider audience. I disagree and I think almost all Wikipedians disagree. Our principled stand makes it all the harder for other governments to put pressure on us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
I can ensure the authenticity of these two numbers. In July 2021, the number of visitors to Chinese Wikipedia reached the highest level in recent years. In April 2023, the number of visitors to Chinese Wikipedia will be less than 350 million.
Unfortunately, this template for viewing views was disabled in June of this year. This template shows the browsing volume of Chinese Wikipedia in Chinese Wikipedia. Displayed in English Wikipedia is the browsing volume of English Wikipedia, a very magical template. If you want, you can use it to see the views of all Wikimedia project.
Although this template is disabled, the most viewed page in Chinese Wikipedia in June this year was the lowest since records began. Assifbus (talk) 05:41, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Dunno about China but "If we judge whether a reference source is reliable only by political orientation" or the en Wikipedia version ""If we judge whether a reference source is reliable partially by political orientation" is a good cautionary note. North8000 (talk) 13:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
"In the past two years, the number of visitors to Chinese Wikipedia has dropped from nearly 700 million to less than 350 million." - all I can say to that is citation needed for both of those numbers. Wikipedia has been blocked in China since 4 years ago, so I don't think anything material has changed in the last 2 years. Sources in Wikipedia are not judged as reliable or not based on political orientation in any language version. To do so would be a serious violation of NPOV.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:20, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
I don't force you to accept my thoughts, it's just my personal thoughts.
1. The Wikimedia Foundation should be responsible for what happened, because its managers regard Wikipedia as the battlefield of political struggle.The Wikimedia Foundation should not ban administrators who support China.When the foundation banned these pro Chinese editors, it was like announcing to the outside world that "I support Taiwan as a County".When the foundation allows some editors to list Russian media as unreliable sources due to political tendencies, it is inevitable that Russia and China stand together to oppose the foundation's accession to WIPO.In short, I feel that the Wikimedia Foundation is a Political organisation, "a Political organisation opposed to China and Russia."
What will happen if there is content on Baidu Baike that supports splitting the United States?For example, Alaska belongs to Russia and Arizona belongs to Mexico.
2.This is a tragedy, which was created by the Wikimedia Foundation.350 million people browsing real information is better than 700 million people browsing fake information. What is true information? What is false information?Half of the people do not agree with this information, indicating that it is not true. Assifbus (talk) 09:01, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
@Assifbus: where do you see 700 and 350 million? Chinese Wikipedia pageviews have been above 565 million since September 2020, garnering more world-wide popularity since after the Chinese government ban. Since the most popular Chinese Wikipedia article is 六四事件 (the June 4 Tiananmen Square incident), the demand is clearly for truth. I would rather live in a world where the Wikimedia Foundation is not part of the WIPO than in which governments get to dictate and censor the contents of the internet. Sandizer (talk) 10:52, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
If you keep following this data, you will find that the viewing volume in June this year is the second lowest on record. Assifbus (talk) 13:18, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
Wikipedia's search suggestion engine seems like it could be better. If one types "Ana" into the search box, the first suggestion after Ana is Anal sex. It appears ahead of Anarchism, Anatomy, and Anatolia. Oddly, Ana de Armas has more daily views than any of these, yet is not shown. But in particular, seeing "anal sex" as the second suggestion here does not feel on par with industry leaders. I know Wikipedia is not censored, but we should also not MOS:SHOCK users, some of who are children. TarkusABtalk/contrib 02:04, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
While, per alphabet, this is H I J K L M N O P Q R S T So anal sex maybe the first suggestion. -Lemonaka 02:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
I don't think that's how it works. Anabolic steroid is the 7th suggestion. TarkusABtalk/contrib 02:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Thank you TarkusABtalk/contrib 06:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
I definitely agree that this seems sub-optimal. And I agree that Wikipedia should not shock users, and this likely would, at least to some minimal extent. It would be rather difficult to, other than manually, go through all 3 letter combinations and reorder suggestions to minimize "not safe for work" topics, and of course very controversial and hard to try to even do that. I'm going to read the link about how it works, just for my personal interest, but of course the suggestion of a phabricator ticking as a starting point is a good one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:27, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Addendum: I did a couple of minutes of research by testing various three letter combinations that I thought might lead to swear words or otherwise offensive terms. I couldn't think of many off the top of my head so I looked for a list and found this somewhat amusing bit of research from Ofcom, the UK television (and soon, Internet) regulator: Attitudes to potentially offensive language and gestures on TV and radio Quick Reference Guide. While very UK centric, it does provide an amusing read, and could be useful to anyone who wants to give this matter serious consideration. I started out, per the report above, thinking about "mature" content, but this report led me to also think about terms that are insulting or derogatory. Wikipedia quite rightly has articles about these terms, they are part of the world and an encyclopedic article describing the terms and their history is valuable. It's not clear to me, though, that some of them are appropriate to suggest too early. (Obviously if you type enough letters, you'll get to them and that's fine.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
Indeed. It's a fascinating problem to ponder. Thanks for replying. TarkusABtalk/contrib 19:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
I scrolled through that list a bit. Never came across the English word "munter" before, but it's Swedish for "cheerful". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:27, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo. What are your thoughts about Wikipedia forcefully used as propaganda? Wikipedia relies on reliable sources, but oftentimes historically reliable sources have been muzzled and used to only publish narratives favorable to the official narrative. For example in Guatemala, during the armed conflict that lasted around 40 years, the government routinely killed journalists, activists, critics that dared to speak too much against its interests. As a result, reliable sources during many years did not publish freely what they wanted but were likely heavily censored by the government. Even currently, a newspaper was shut down by the government. Its owner Jose Ruben Zamora and his lawyer were jailed on a disproportional persecution. Best regards, Thinker78(talk) 02:49, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
I think it is important to use diverse sources, particularly those outside the reach of authoritarian goverments. In the case of a country like Guatemala this may be easier than in other places, since there are many other Spanish-language news sources outside Guatemala.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:46, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
Eye images increase charitable donations
Studies have shown that eye images increase prosocial behavior in humans. This has been studied by measuring charitable donations. [3][4] One study found that the presence of eye images increased donations by 48% relative to control images. Something to keep in mind when designing donation drives. TarkusABtalk/contrib 20:41, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
That's super interesting. I'm not personally involved in banner design but I'm sure some of the readers of this page will know who to pass this along to!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:21, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Request
Dear Mr. Jimmy Wales.
I am sending you a letter from a former Wikipedian. Please consider his opinion and make a decision. Thanks in advance Aydino1967 (talk) 12:25, 15 August 2023 (UTC) :
My English is weak. I have written to you before. But you do not pay attention to my letter and do not accept my request. I am very disappointed with this. But I haven't lost hope yet. I am sure that the era of fascism is long over. What is happening is not fascism and Zionism, it is just a misunderstanding. A person opened a new account on Wikipedia. To convey my words to you. I must point out that I don't need Wikipedia, but Wikipedia needs me and people like me. That man thinks so.
I received an e-mail on December 13, 2017: "You accordingly may not participate in, edit, contribute, or otherwise modify any content on those sites, platforms, or lists without permission. This ban is placed against you personally, not against a particular username. It applies to any alternate accounts that you may control and any accounts you may create in the future. Furthermore, you may not participate as an anonymous user (“as an IP user”)".
I am very sorry about that. Because I loved Wikipedia so much. I asked myself: What should I do? I created my own Wikipedia https://shaki.info/wiki/Ana_s%C9%99hif%C9%99 ) and worked on it for 4 years. I say this because I am a Wikipedian. Although my account is a global block, I did not stop working. Please cancel the global block of my account. I am currently 56 years old. I am very upset that my account is in the global block.
I have been waiting for 5 years. Isn't that enough? I promise to strictly follow the rules of Wikipedia.
If my block is removed, I will not work in the Azerbaijani section of Wikipedia. Because this section is controlled by the government. No one is allowed. I will work in the Russian department.
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of NASCAR drivers until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.
Blast from the past, eh?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Well, that was a nice start to the list. TailsWx (they/them) ⚧ 19:04, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I can verify that those were indeed the first edits to the list using the August 2001 database dump. I've just imported this edit from the entry on the Nostalgia Wikipedia. As you may well remember Jimmy, the KeptPages system would often swallow up old edits in that sort of situation but not this time. Graham87 04:35, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
Endowment
Mr. Wales, do you know the current value of the Wikimedia Endowment? If so, can you share it? Why is it so secretive about its value and holdings? Sandizer (talk) 23:25, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
That's a year old, has a single digit of precision, and says nothing about holdings. What does it invest in? What has it invested in in the past? How often does it change investments? What are the criteria for how and how often to do so? These questions are important because as the next generation of AI billionaires attempt to launder their reputations through philanthropy, the Endowment is likely to benefit. Sandizer (talk) 23:44, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
Per its Forms 990N (available by searching "87-3024488" on https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/), it had "Gross receipts not greater than" $100,000 from 07/01/2021-06/30/2023, so I'm not sure where the $100 million number in the Foundation's annual report is coming from. — Mdaniels5757 (talk • contribs) 00:12, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
I do not personally know the day to day valuation of the endowment - it fluctuates of course with market conditions. I think it highly unlikely, as a side note, that AI billionaires seeking to launder their reputations would start with the WMF Endowment fund, since the endowment clearly has no ability to impact that whatsoever. At the last board meeting, I advocated (with universal agreement from the rest of the board) that we should publish more information, more often, because the accustions of "secrecy" do give rise (unfairly) to strange ideas that are not true.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:30, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
While I was being somewhat facetious, I am still very curious as to why there's never been a published comprehensive financial and investments statement. I understand "an update on the Endowment's activities" is expected by the end of the year. But, for example, do you think the total donations to date should be published on https://wikimediaendowment.org? Do you think the operational and investment update mentioned on meta:Wikimedia Endowment/Meetings/July 20, 2023 should be published? Sandizer (talk) 08:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
I think the latest published financial information should be posted on https://wikimediaendowment.org/. I'm surprised that it isn't, if it isn't. I do think that the operational and investment update mentioned should be published - this was indeed the document we discussed at the board meeting as a good thing to share. Now that we have a separate 501(c)(3) rather than being a fund at Tides, I think that sort of thing will become routine. Such materials do take staff time to prepare, of course, and they need to be really carefully checked for accuracy by finance and legal folks I would imagine, and I suspect that's that "by the end of the year" was mentioned somewhere. (Not sure where you saw that, but it sounds to me like a desire not to overpromise on the timeline!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:47, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
You say you advocated (with universal agreement from the rest of the board) that we should publish more information, more often. I am surprised to see you say that. A couple of days ago I wrote a draft piece for the upcoming Signpost issue noting that you appeared to have decided to do the exact opposite at that meeting:
Collapsed for readability
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
(Signpost draft) Wikimedia Endowment board minutes becoming ever more minimalist
A couple of weeks ago, the Wikimedia Foundation's Jayde Antonioposted the approved minutes for the January 19, 2023 Endowment Board Meeting on Meta. The minutes are remarkable for not divulging any new information at all – apart from noting the approval of the Endowment grants that had already been announced in a Diff post back in April.
For example, the meeting agenda posted back in February 2023 contained the following item:
6:25 - 6:55 pm UTC: Fundraising Update (Board Chair, Jimmy Wales and Endowment Director, Amy Parker)
FY22-23 year to date update
Campaign strategy
The Meeting Minutes now published cover this point as follows:
Fundraising Update (Amy Parker)
FY22-23 year to date update
Presentation of campaign strategy
Contrast this to the minutes of the January 2022 Board Meeting. They were not exactly detailed either, but did at least contain a financial summary:
8) Fundraising update
Overview, lead by Caitlin Virtue
Review of Fundraising Report, lead by Amy Parker
Summary: As of December 31, 2021, the Endowment held $105.4 million. There is currently $99.33 million in the investment account and $6.07 million in cash. An additional $8 million raised in December will be transferred to the Endowment in January 2022.
In fact, this summary marks the last time the Endowment Board Meeting Minutes contained a dollar figure for the Endowment's total value (cash plus investments). Requests for an updated figure remain unanswered.
Unlike the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia Endowment has never to date published audited financial statements detailing its revenue and expenses.
(End of draft piece).
The Signpost would, I am sure, be happy to publish ...
the financial info contained in the fundraising report Amy Parker presented to you in January,
the info contained in the operational and investment update you received last month,
precise figures for the Endowment's annual revenue and expenses over the past 7.5 years,
a summary of all moneys the Wikimedia Foundation has paid to the Tides Foundation over the past 7.5 years,
a list of the Wikimedia Endowment's highest-paid contractors, if any, besides the Tides Foundation, over the past 7.5 years,
the value of the Endowment's cash and investment holdings as of July 2023,
... if you could be so kind as to provide this information here on this page. I would then update the draft article copied above accordingly. Regards, --AndreasJN466 09:35, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
When you write "you appeared to have decided to do the exact opposite at that meeting", you are mistaken. At the meeting we discussed, to universal agreement, that we should publish more information and more often. I will check on each of the items that you mention - I'm on vacation at the moment and heading to Wikimania in Singapore tomorrow, so it will take a bit of time. I also don't know if the precise information you are asking for is what will be shared. I very much recommend that you not publish a story claiming that anything is becoming "more minimalist" since that's just not true. Be very careful and thoughtful with the timelines: at the summer endowment board meeting, the discussion about publishing more information and more often came about in no small part because the January minutes were something that I felt were not good enough in terms of being open and informative. (A financial report is forthccoming - I haven't seen it yet - but delayed because the relevant person creating it has taken a bit of family leave.) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:17, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Actions speak louder than words. Please allow us to report on the former as well as the latter. (If the January Meeting Minutes are duly expanded, giving a meaningful summary of Amy Parker's presentation, it would be my pleasure to report on this.)
As you are no doubt aware, the information I have asked for is no more than what the Endowment would have been legally required to disclose for the past 7.5 years if the Wikimedia Foundation had fulfilled its repeated promises, made since 2017, that it would soon convert the Wikimedia Endowment into a transparent 501(c)(3) charity making annual IRS disclosures of these data.
There is another thing I have noticed here. While the 501(c)(3) has now been operational for over a year, it appears that most of the money continues to be with Tides, and perhaps even to be sent to Tides. Is this true? At any rate, the most recent Form 990N (thanks for locating these, Mdaniels5757) shows Gross receipts not greater than: $50,000 on the 2022 Tax Year Form 990-N (e-Postcard) – Tax Period: 2022 (07/01/2022-06/30/2023). The Endowment averaged over $20 million per annum during its first five years. So what happened to all the Endowment donations made since July 1 2022? It appears they were not declared as revenue for the 501(c)(3).
Lastly, I second Sandizer's questions above about the nature of the Endowment's investments. More transparency in that area would be welcome as well. Regards, AndreasJN466 11:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
First, I don't have any ability or desire to "allow" or "disallow" you to write whatever you like. That's an odd way to phrase it. Second, as I said above, a financial report is forthcoming, although the relevant person has taken some family leave. You might find this document interesting: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#/media/File:Tides-Transition.png --Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:45, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
According to the graphic, the Tides transfer has been "initialized", though it does not provide a completion date.
I note you say at meta:Talk:Wikimedia_Endowment#Update_on_endowment: We ended the last fiscal year with $118 million in the WIkimedia Endowment and are projecting to grow the corpus by approximately $6.5 million depending on market performance and after expenses.
This is a start. Providing a figure for the year's revenue and expenses, and the split between investments and cash, would be further steps in the right direction. Regards, AndreasJN466 19:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
A few other points which directly or indirectly answer some other questions:
1. The Wikimedia Endowment fund has always been audited every year - as a part of Tides. If anyone is concerned that this is a giant pile of money with no oversight, that's not true. We have no means of initiating a new separate audit of Tides.
2. Most of the endowment is moved. One of the good things about Tides is that they employ very rigorous financial controls, and as a part of their due diligence on the move (they have a fiduciary responsibility to do all this the right way) they of course need to make sure that the move is consistent with the donor's intentions. We are waiting for 2 more major donors to sign releases, and then those will be moved. We will also keep the Tides account open for several more months because they are receiving some residual income from some investments. This is all normal practice. The overall point is that people (like me!) who would have preferred that we just initiate a bank transfer for $118 million may not have realized how much care and control there is in these institutions. Everything takes time and there are many signoffs and moments of due diligence on all sides. Tides has tight financial controls in place that do not allow us to easily pull money out of the endowment, which is a good thing.
I'd like to add once again that a further financial report is delayed because the relevant person took some family leave.
My understanding of the cadence of other information releases at the moment is this: an annual fundraising report in the fall which is retrospective of FY 2022-2023 and covers both the WMF and the Endowment will be relased in the autumn, at the usual time. And after that the Annual Report for both the WMF and the Endowment will be released and that includes financials for the previous fiscal year. (Some of that information (in preliminary form) is in the deck that l link above.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:30, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the document. On your two points:
1. The Tides Foundation's most recent audited statements are here. The Tides Foundation's most recent Form 990 is here. Could you please indicate to us where in these documents the community and the general public can see how much money the Wikimedia Endowment took in that year, how much money it spent, to whom it issued grants (or where it says that it did not do so), and who were the Endowment's highest-paid contractors?
2. You say most of the Endowment is moved. When will the website at https://wikimediaendowment.org/ be updated to indicate that the funds are now mostly held by a 501(c)(3)? Regards, AndreasJN466 16:24, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
I really appreciate being able to read that document. Is there anything you can share on investment holdings, strategy, and tactics (i.e., when and how to change investments)? Sandizer (talk) 00:55, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
You can't find that information in Tides audited financials - it isn't broken out that way and there's nothing that I can do about that. Again, Tides is a separate organization and we can't do anything about how they are audited or report their financials. As to the specifics of your questions, I can confidently answer that the endowment did not make *any* grants until the initial grants which have been disclosed. As to "highest-paid contractors" - I don't know the answer, other than that the Wikimedia Foundation is the highest paid by far (the Endowment contracts with the WMF for various fundraising, accounting, and legal services as you know), and that anything else is very low. (In the most recent year, in the presentation I answered, the total for all "Contractors, interns, and fellows" combined was just over $50k. Are you interested in more detail on that?). For last year, you can see all the expenses in the document that I shared. I'll be asking here in Singapore if we can get a simple breakdown of exact numbers on revenues, investment returns, and expenses for prior years in a single document.
A question I have for you: why do I keep hearing the expression "highest paid contractors"? Can you be more specific about what you're concerned about?
For the second question, I do not know when the website will be updated. That's a level of operational detail that isn't the sort of thing that the board gets involved with.
For Sandizer, leave that question with me for a bit, as I want to give you an accurate answer on investment policy - speaking off the cuff gives too much risk for error. Remember, as I have said, a financial report is forthcoming but has been delayed due to family leave by the relevant person.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:21, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
You can't find that information in Tides audited financials – that is exactly the point. The information cannot be found there, or anywhere. This is a lack of transparency, don't you agree?
Transparency would have been all the more desirable given that the Head of the Tides Foundation moved to take a position at the Wikimedia Foundation during the life of the Endowment, creating the possibility of conflicts of interest – or at least the appearance of such a possibility.
Disclosure of the five highest-paid contractors in each fiscal year is one of the IRS requirements for 501(c)(3) non-profits. If the Wikimedia Endowment had indeed been converted into a 501(c)(3) non-profit upon reaching $33 million, as we were told would happen back in March 2017, the Wikimedia Endowment would have had to make annual disclosures of its five highest compensated independent contractors that received more than $100,000 in compensation for services, whether professional or other services, from the organization. Independent contractors include organizations as well as individuals and can include professional fundraisers, law firms, accounting firms, publishing companies, management companies, and investment management companies. This has not happened.
The document you have now uploaded (thank you), for example, states on page 11 that the Endowment had about $1.8 million in expenses in 2022–2023, including over $400,000 for unspecified "professional services". The Endowment appears to have had a similar level of expenditure in the year prior, according to the minutes for the July 2022 board meeting, which mention $1,803,622 of expenses for the Endowment. These are not trifling amounts. And we know nothing at all about the Endowment's expenditure in the five or six years prior to that; it may have been higher or lower.
Basically, I think the Endowment should be held to the same standards of transparency as any other Wikimedia affiliate. And I believe I am correct in saying that no other Wikimedia affiliate would be allowed to provide so little transparency over its spending. Regards,
"five highest compensated independent contractors that received more than $100,000 in compensation for services" - given that the total for all interns, contractors, and fellows was just over $50k, then the basic answer is that there were none to be disclosed. Does that settle this particular issue for you finally? And I fully agree with you that now that we have a separate 501(c)(3) it should be held to the exact same (or even more stringent, to set a good example in the movement) transparency and reporting requirements as all movement affiliates. In the past, we had (essentially) only 2 expenses: the WMF staff and the Tides fees. There a few other things which ramped up due to the move away from Tides of course (it's a big job with a lot of ins and outs).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:53, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
The page I was referring to lists over $400,000 for "professional services" in addition to the $50k interns and contractors total. Could you say what those refer to?
Professional services are expressly included in the IRS disclosure instructions. There are also over $150k in "other operating expenses", and $875k in "personnel expense" – which personnel does this refer to? (Note that non-profits are also required to disclose any individual earning more than $100,000, for example.) And of course at present we have no data at all for 2016–2021. AndreasJN466 12:01, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
After Wikimania I'll have more time for this. Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:09, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, noted. AndreasJN466 23:35, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Shall we pick this up again? You said on Meta the information will be easy enough to publish – have you had discussions with staff to this effect in Singapore?
It would be good to have a level of transparency for the Endowment that is at least equal to the legal 501(c)(3) disclosure requirements.
Also, if you could explain a little further what the individual expenditure items on page 11 of the document you uploaded relate to – it is not clear to me who the $0.9 million in personnel expenses, $0.4 million in professional services etc. were paid to, or who the "interns, contractors and fellows" are – are these Tides staffers, Foundation staffers or individuals unrelated to either, and if it is Foundation staffers, were these payments made to the Foundation or to the individuals concerned? The table is very welcome, but it raises more questions than it answers. Regards, AndreasJN466 10:35, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Protection on English Wikiquote
Hi, Jimbo, due to excessive vandalism, we've indefinitely protected your talk page on English Wikiquote. We have left a redirect on that page to here if someone really wants to have a talk with you about that project. -Lemonaka 08:49, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
That sounds wise, thank you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
A belated welcome!
The welcome may be belated, but the cookies are still warm!
Here's wishing you a belated welcome to Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales! I see that you've already been around a while and wanted to thank you for your contributions. Though you seem to have been successful in finding your way around, you may still benefit from following some of the links below, which help editors get the most out of Wikipedia:
Need some ideas of what kind of things need doing? Try the Task Center.
I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Again, welcome! •Cyberwolf• 02:20, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Welcome jimbo
i hope this finds you well
keep up the good work lol
im sorry if this is annoying but i had too
(now i feel guilty)
but thank you for creating page Wikipedia•Cyberwolf• 02:24, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
American history and segregation
Why do you think it's so hard to get Draft:African American resorts included on Wikipedia? Do you think the history of segregation and discrimination in the U.S. is important? Should we cover the history of our African American communities? FloridaArmy (talk) 13:01, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Why is it separate than just resorts? •Cyberwolf• 13:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
These are culturally and historicaly interesting and I'm actually impressed that we have somewhat decent articles on many of them. I think the problem with the article that FloridaArmy linked is that it's just a very brief introduction and then a list. It might better be titled "List of" but I don't necessarily recommend that as (a) I don't know exactly what current standards are for list articles and (b) I think this is a much more interesting and useful potential article than that.
For expansion, I'd recommend a review of Borscht Belt as a potential model. This article is about Jewish resorts that were created out of a similar need: racism and segregation made it impossible for African Americans to visit many whites-only facilities, just as "No Jews" rules meant that Jewish people had to create alternatives. Essentially, a good article would automatically answer cyberwolf424224's question: these are interesting and separate from just "resorts" because of what they tell us about those times and the people who lived then.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:32, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Addendum - The "Borscht belt" article is about both the term and the phenomenon. I don't know that "African American resorts" is a standard term, not that that really matters per se, it's just that I wonder what the best title for the article is. I asked ChatGPT 4 and got this answer:
"Yes, there is a term that refers to resorts that catered mainly to Black Americans: the "Black Eden." This term specifically refers to Idlewild, Michigan. During the first half of the 20th century, Idlewild was a significant vacation destination for Black Americans, especially during the era of racial segregation when Black people were barred from many mainstream resorts. Idlewild attracted many Black professionals, entertainers, and families, offering them a place of leisure, entertainment, and relaxation.
Another term that might be relevant is the "Chitlin' Circuit." While not a resort term per se, the Chitlin' Circuit refers to a collection of performance venues throughout the eastern, southern, and upper Midwest areas of the United States that were safe and acceptable for African American musicians, comedians, and other entertainers to perform in during the age of racial segregation.
Both Idlewild and the Chitlin' Circuit played crucial roles in the history of Black entertainment and leisure in the U.S."
Now neither of those terms exactly captures the meaning. "Black Eden" Idlewild, Michigan is a reference to a specific place, not a type of place, and Chitlin' Circuit does refer to a type of place, but not to resorts per se. Still, I found this interesting enough to share as we think through this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:39, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
I'd be wary of using ChatGPT as a source for information. While I have no doubt "African American resorts" is not only an item, but is notable -- recent news has had several stories about a former African American resort in Southern California -- its creators have noted that ChatGPT has a tendency to "hallucinate". (Their word for this invention of sources & facts.) -- llywrch (talk) 13:59, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
For avoidance of doubt, yes, I would argue NEVER use ChatGPT as a source for articles. It makes things up out of thin air, and gets a lot wrong. At the same time, I have used and tested it extensively and it does provide a very useful research aid, like a library index or a search engine, if you use it properly. (Which, to repeat meyself, includes NEVER using ChatGPT as a source for articles.).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:10, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
I agree this is how wikipedia is portrayed by educators there is a right and wrong way to use it
i have used Wikipedia in countless assignments the right way
i think wikipedia is a database which compiles information and summarizing it
i wonder if chat gpt can be asked for its source •Cyberwolf• 15:48, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, some lawyers got sanctioned (and were lucky that's all they got) for citing a bunch of nonexistent cases ChatGPT created. Always a risk. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:11, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
I would suggest trying to see if you can expand a section in Racial segregation in the United States comparable to the current Sports one, involving lifestyle aspects that results from segregation. In that, the notion of these resorts (as pastime activities) would be readily smart to include, and then that would potentially make "List of African American resorts" a valid list from that perspective. --Masem (t) 16:01, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Happy Onam!!
Happy and prosperous Onam!
Hello Jimbo Wales, may you harvest happiness, peace and prosperity on this joyous occasion of Onam. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a happy Onam and having a sadya with them next to a pookalam. Sending you heartfelt greetings for Onam. Happy editing, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Why dont we create an ai that runs on wikipedia article for information
i know that vandalism and false information may come up
but ai is more of a closed development community
but taking good wikipedia artcles parsing data from them to answer a specific question instead of looking for them could lift the very long articles which are hard to find specific information and make it easier for ordinary users scouting for info
one thing i would be worried about is the current political situation with ai,current events,blp’s especially politicians.
take this with a grain of salt •Cyberwolf• 14:36, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
The machine learning / AI team at the Foundation is exploring all options around this. The new technology is super exciting in terms of the potential!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Any implementation should be done so very carefully with much error on the side of caution. Its potential may be good but this seems another area where a possible foundation override of English Wikipedia decisions may come into play. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:14, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes i really dont think any overrides will be needed due to page parsing and Wikipedia is also used when you ask questions in google but still as i said take this with a grain of salt •Cyberwolf• 15:43, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
I would recommend the ai to cite sources when asked •Cyberwolf• 16:07, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo can i help i would prefer a testing position but any would do •Cyberwolf• 17:17, 28 August 2023 (UTC)
Personally I think automating tasks that are of critical importance to the site with a system that is still in beta is just a recipe for disaster. I am aware Samwalton9 and his team are working on a software level version of Cluebot to help with vandalism, but with writing articles, the human touch is what makes them accurate. Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 09:42, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Wiki ai is not built to replace human editors
It's built so people can get answers to questions from a long article in a short time •Cyberwolf• 19:56, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo! It's been a long time since I've posted here. I was patrolling edit filter false positive reports today and came across an IP's request related to an edit on your user page. They were blocked by filter 803, the filter that prevents non-confirmed users editing other users' userpages. Your user page invites users to feel free to edit it, although you do mention at the top of the section that editors need to be autoconfirmed first. Would you want your userpage to be exempted from the filter, so that any user can edit it? As far as I know that's technically possible, although I'm not an edit filter manager.
The "false positive" was not constructive so I did not implement it, but I thought I'd ask about the exemption. Cheers! Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:21, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
To allow any user to edit the page there is a template you would need to add, probably called something like {{user page unblocked}}, but its name escapes me for now. — Qwerfjkltalk 21:03, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
It was unlocked for a while, until this edit - add that back in to unlock it again. — xaosfluxTalk 21:11, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
I think people who patrol it have asked if kindly it could be left as it is, simply due to not much useful coming in from non-confirmed users, but a lot of nonsense. If I were on here 12 hours a day, I'd probably want to give it a whirl, but I wouldn't want to make work for kind people who are doing the patrolling.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:22, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
I would like to know who the $2,300,946 ($874,546 + $1,426,400) in personnel expenses, $584,541 ($407,541 + $177,00) in professional services, etc. were paid to, and who the "interns, contractors and fellows" are. Are they on the Tides payroll? Foundation payroll?(Answered. See below.) What, exactly, is a "fellow" and what do these fellows do? --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 22:20, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
OK, anyone who knows my history knows that I've had my pretty legendary scuffles with the WMF (and was vindicated after 7 years), but even I can tell this could be an example in the article loaded question. I'm wondering, what answer would satisfy you? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:56, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
Any substantive discussion would satisfy me. An honest "fuck off. I am never going to answer your questions" would satisfy me. Pretty much anything other than a stonewall silence whenever someone asks a reasonable question would satisfy me.
Sure, I would prefer engaging in a polite back and forth discussion as one would hope for among people who are working towards the same goal, but at this point pretty much any response, no matter how rude or evasive, would be a step forward from not responding at all.
This is a straightforward question. This is a serious question. As a Wikipedian of over 15 years, I want a serious answer. Pecopteris (talk) 03:12, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
Another source answered part of the above question. See [5] Still waiting for any response other than silence here. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 03:02, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
The other question that I see up above is about fellows. The WMF accountants have a budget category for "interns, contractors, and fellows". We do not have any fellows on the endowment. The fellows that I know of are on the legal team (of the WMF), usually law school students who do research for them as needed. There is one hourly employee, who manages the endowment's donor database.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:40, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
I sometimes reflect on comments by you and others that most of the important subjects have been covered on Wikipedia. I thought about that sentiment recently as I was digging into the history of the Huntsville Democrat and its proprietor John Withers Clay. Also his daughters who took over his paper and property after he became incapacitated and ran it and a boarding school in Huntsville. I also reflected on those ideas as I looked into the extant home on what was once their property near downtown Huntsville.
What are the important subjects? Can we understand the history of Huntsville or the U.S. or the world if we don't cover more of these subjects? It continues to be a struggle to add entries on so many subjects including the newspapers, people, buildings, and communities that shaped who we were and who we've become. I thought these subjects were interesting so I thought I'd share them here with you and others. Take care. (I started Draft:The Weekly Democrat) FloridaArmy (talk) 15:16, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I love that draft of The Weekly Democrat. I'm traveling in New York at the moment and won't have time to chip in and help for a week or two, but if I can, I will!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:02, 21 September 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the encouragement, enthusiasm, and for your interest Jimbo. FloridaArmy (talk) 20:45, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Just as an FYI, there's a discussion going on right now to finalize some details and new information will be released very soon (I think before the week is out, barring anything unforeseen). Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:54, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation Endowment Financial Statement comparison to Standard & Poor's 500 stock index performance
Fiscal year ending date
June 2016
June 2017
June 2018
June 2019
June 2020
June 2021
June 2022
June 2023
Support and revenue:
US Dollars
Total
Contributions
6,607,435
11,590,795
11,737,537
12,000,238
21,194,726
24,093,050
11,549,007
6,547,663
105,320,451
Interest and dividends
—
434,002
591,087
991,500
1,041,846
1,052,879
1,484,920
651,991
6,248,224
Realized gains
—
-6,895
937,287
1,077,257
303,116
4,535,027
-225,081
0
6,620,711
Change in unrealized gains
—
536,615
-3,361,489
4,650,940
5,644,620
7,571,504
-21,995,265
9,109,544
2,156,469
Total support and revenue
6,607,435
12,554,518
9,904,422
18,719,935
28,184,308
37,252,460
-9,186,420
16,309,197
120,345,855
Expenses:
Grants and awards
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
4,527,086
4,527,086
Internal fees
31,425
79,971
145,598
186,364
239,954
329,416
354,192
181,368
1,548,288
Other expenses
—
3,168
11,605
13,376
19,863
32,935
33,751
17,533
132,232
Total expenses
31,425
83,139
157,202
199,741
259,816
362,352
387,943
4,725,987
6,207,605
Increase in net assets
6,576,011
12,471,379
9,747,220
18,520,194
27,924,492
36,890,109
-9,574,363
11,583,210
114,138,250
Cumulative net assets before grants and awards
6,576,011
19,047,390
28,794,610
47,314,804
75,239,296
112,129,405
102,555,042
114,138,252
Investment income less fees and expenses
880,583
-1,990,318
6,519,957
6,729,765
12,797,059
-21,123,369
9,562,634
Return on investment
7.12%
-7.99%
18.74%
11.62%
14.66%
-17.92%
9.44%
mean: 5.10%
Note well: those percentage returns assume that half of all contributions are realized on the first day of the fiscal year, and the other half on the last day.
What are our chances of seeing the historical investment holdings? That spreadsheet table is flawed because it assumes half the year's contributions come in at the beginning of the year and half come in at the end, but if we had historical investment transactions it wouldn't be necessary to make such absurd assumptions. Sandizer (talk) 03:55, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
Interesting. Thanks @Sandizer for posting the chart.
I would also be interested in the historical investment holdings. One might guess that Tides/WMF holds, say, treasury bills, treasury bonds, corporate bonds, and so on, generally adopting a more risk-averse investment strategy than 100% investment in the S&P, but in the S&P's worst year (June 2021-22), the WMF's investments did significantly worse than the S&P. I'd like to know what accounts for that. Pecopteris (talk) 05:05, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
I can't answer you, today, as to whether or not we can release that information, because I don't know. I also note that since it's really only at this point a matter of historical interest, I don't think it's worth a huge amount of staff time. I'll check whether it's something easy but I really don't want anyone mucking around with huge spreadsheets to try to answer the question. Leave it with me. It might well be that the balanced answer will be just to get some "color" on the question: "we were invested more heavily in X sector, which performed worse during Y year" or that sort of thing.
However, I can say that going forward, now that we have our own 501(c)(3) I will advocate for regular and clear transparency much greater than we have been able to provide in the past.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:37, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
No problem. Here are some typical endowment asset allocations and returns for nonprofit endowments from NACUBO (the National Association of College and University Business Officers)[6] which you might want to join, if they can do such reports at less cost than in-house. Sandizer (talk) 09:16, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
I guess the big difference between the Endowment's asset allocations (the link Jimbo posted) and typical endowment asset allocations (the link Sandizer posted) might account for the big difference between the Endowment's performance (net loss) and the average endowment performance (net gain).
I'm surprised, Jimbo. The Endowment lost millions of dollars -- it failed to keep pace with inflation -- and yet you don't think it's worth investing staff time to find out why, because it happened in the past and is thus of only historical interest? You know what they say about those who fail to learn from history... Levivich (talk) 22:20, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
I should apologise for any ambiguity, as I of course agree with you. The point is, there already is serious analysis internally and I will tell you what I can, but I'm not going to ask staff to spend days of time on specific requests for spreadsheets for people asking questions on my talk page. See below for some information that I think you will find helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
I think not asking staff to spend a lot of time on specific requests from people on your talk page is very reasonable. One staffer recently discussed some of the challenges facing WMF staff when fielding questions from online volunteers, which I'm sympathetic with.
OK so here comes the "but". But, where do we ask? Who do we ask? More to the point, why do we need to ask at all?
"How do the annual returns of the Wikimedia Endowment compare to the annual returns of similar endowments over the same period of time?" is a question so simple and obvious that neither I nor anyone else should have to ask it. It should already be answered here or here or here or somewhere very easily accessible. You are listed on the Endowment's website as the Chair of the Board of the Endowment. I think it's reasonable to ask you, individually, that question -- to ask you to see to it that a public answer to that question is given every year. And if you have to use up staff time to get an answer... well, let's be honest, you've already done that, you already know what the answer is, because the Endowment obviously has already answered this internally, each year.
So that leaves online volunteers like me knowing that while you know the answer to the obvious question, you haven't made it public. ("You" meaning both the Endowment as an organization, and you individually as Chair of its Board). Why aren't you making it public? I know the answer to that, too: because the answer makes the Endowment look bad. It's easy enough to do the math: 12.5% return over six years (2016-2022) = 12.5/6 = 2.08% average annual return, which is less than inflation (3% average over the same period). From this simple number I can figure out that the Endowment performed worse than similar endowments over the same period of time. I might be wrong about that, and I don't know how much worse, but I'd be interested in an answer to that question. An answer that treats me like an adult who knows how to read a P&L. An answer like the kind of answer that a CEO would give to shareholders if the company's investments were returning 2% per year.
Let me bend your ear a bit more with one more specific example of an obvious and unanswered question. The Endowment's Statement of Activities that was just released has this very obvious question that jumps right off the page. That's the $22 million unrealized loss recorded in 2022. Something like a 20% loss in one year.
"What was the $22 million unrealized loss in 2022?" is another super obvious question. Who do I ask? Why do I even need to ask? There are notes on the document itself explaining other figures, but no note explaining this $22 million loss in one year. No mention of it on the Endowment's website or on WMFwiki that I can see. Communication Strategy 101: get ahead of these things. (And please don't answer by saying something like "accounting adjustment"; explain exactly what the heck went wrong that the Endowment needed to record a previously-unrecorded 20% unrealized loss... either the Endowment was way overinvested in some security that tanked, or it way overvalued some securities in the past... either scenario raises further questions.)
So, takeaways: I just learned the Endowment made average net returns of 2% per year while it was with Tides, including a $22 million unrealized loss in 2022. I hope the WMF issues a public statement disclosing how this performance compares with other similar endowments, and if it's worse (as I suspect), explaining why it was worse, what lessons were learned, what steps were taken to make things better. Obviously, moving the Endowment out of Tides' hands is one of those steps already taken. But there's also the question of how we know we'll do a better job managing the endowment in the future than Tides did in the past.
I really feel that the community would not be so harsh with the WMF if the WMF treated the community like adults -- the way CEOs treat shareholders (forthright answers to tough questions) -- rather than the way teachers treat schoolchildren ("trust us, everything is fine, hush now child"). To be clear, I'm not suggesting that you, personally, treat volunteers like children, but I am saying that is how it feels when the WMF/Tides essentially fails to respond to repeated questions about financial performance specifics for years, and then releases a 6-year summary that shows 2% growth and a 20% unrealized loss in a single year, and then tries to spin it on its website as if these were positives. We all know it's bad news; the WMF should be honest that it's bad news, and be transparent about its understanding of why the bad thing happened and its plan for avoiding it in the future. Levivich (talk) 15:54, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
I believe the Endowment's asset allocations have changed over the years. Let me clarify with this summary table.
Fiscal year ending June
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
Mean return
WMF Endowment ESTIMATED* return on investment
7.1%
-8.0%
18.7%
11.6%
14.7%
-17.9%
9.4%
5.1%
Median Nat'l Assoc. of College and University Business Officers endowment returns
12.5%
8.0%
5.1%
1.8%
30.1%
-8.7%
TBD
8.1%
S&P 500 net total return
17.1%
13.7%
9.8%
6.9%
40.1%
-11.0%
19.0%
13.7%
*assuming half of all contributions were realized on the first day of the fiscal year, and the other half on the last day.
I'm not qualified to say whether those returns are outside the typical range for such funds, but I don't think they are. Sandizer (talk) 01:22, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
@Sandizer, thanks for this. I spoke with Lisa Gruwell (who acts as President of the endowment) because I want to be accurate, and she provided me with a clear and simple analysis. A few characteristics of the Wikimedia Endowment make it different from the average Endowment in your data. First, the Endowment’s portfolio has been operating under an ESG mandate while it was housed at the Tides Foundation. ESG funds were especially hard hit in 2022 because fossil fuel stocks were one of the “bright spots” that year and we were not invested in that sector due to our ESG mandate. Now that the Endowment is an independent charity, we will be considering our ESG philosophy and I am sure the discussion will generate a lot of debate. (My own belief is that it is possible to invest ethically with little-to-no impact on returns, but this view is not universally held in finance circles.) Second, the Wikimedia Endowment is only 7 years old and some of the big university endowments in the data you shared have been around for centuries. That means the Wikimedia Endowment has not benefited yet from longer-term strategies. The primary difference between our asset allocations and the data you shared is that the Wikimedia Endowment is not yet invested in alternative investments such as venture capital and private equity. We did not feel these were the right fit for us at this initial stage of our development because they tend to be higher risk and are also longer-term strategies. We needed investments during this initial stage that would provide income and liquidity sooner so that the Endowment could cover its own operational costs faster than returns from alternative investments would typically allow. This strategy has worked well for us as the endowment is already covering its expenses and making grants back to the projects according to our spending policy. As the Endowment grows and matures, we may revisit alternative investments, but they are not right for us in this initial stage. Although the S&P 500 is a ubiquitous reference point, the Endowment’s portfolio was established with its own blended benchmark to measure our more diversified strategy. Historically, the portfolio has tracked the benchmark pretty closely. From inception to June 30, 2023, the Wikimedia Endowment’s return has been 5.38 percent, while the benchmark is at 5.51 percent. Slightly lower than the S&P 500, but in the grand scheme of things, not terrible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
I agree with you that it is quite possible to beat 12.5% over 6 years while still following ESG investing. As a quick comparison, the S&P 500 (.INX) is up 56% over the past five years, while the S&P 500 ESG Index (SPESG) is up 33% over the last five years. Levivich (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
12.5% ($15 million) of the Wikimedia Endowment’s total revenue as of June 30, 2023 came from investment results. 87.5% of the Endowment’s revenue came from contributions (donations). I think you are comparing that number to something very different here.--Lgruwell-WMF (talk) 17:10, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
@Levivich I'm replying to your comment above the table on this page here to create a more streamlined reading experience. I am not familiar with the equation you are using to calculate return. @Sandizer calculated the mean annual rate of return using estimates and arrived at 5.1 percent. He is using a similar method to how we make the calculation. With actuals, the average annual rate of return for the Wikimedia Endowment from inception to June 30, 2023 is 5.38 percent, as Jimmy shared. CVirtue (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
@CVirtue (WMF): "During this time, the Wikimedia Endowment had $15 million in investment results (12.5% of total gross revenue that was under management at Tides from inception to June 30, 2023)." [7]
2016-2023 = 7 years, 12.5/7 = 1.8% average per year. Levivich (talk) 21:30, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
You're going to have to expand on what you mean by that, as I have no idea and have tried to figure it out. That's not how the return of a portfolio is calculated over time at all. As far as I can tell, it's a completely meaningless calculation. Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:53, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
It's just taking what the endowment website reported as the "investment results" over 7 years and dividing it by 7. The calculation is meaningless because the 12.5% figure on the website (quoted above) is meaningless. They may have had $15 million in investment results over 7 years, and that may be 12.5% of the total $120M (15/120=12.5%), but that doesn't mean they received a 12.5% return, either net or annual, even though that's what the language on the website I quoted above implies. What's missing from the website is any other % return figure besides "12.5%", like the average annual returns (and by what method it was calculated). I get (from this discussion) that the simple average annual return is 5% not 2%, but it'd be easier for all of us if the WMF would just post the actual annual returns on the Endowment's website, and anyway, whether it's 2% or 5% doesn't make a big difference (though 5% at least beats inflation I guess) to the two questions I'm raising above (which I hope the WMF will publicly answer). Levivich (talk) 14:29, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
It is very important for us to track what portion of the endowment is investment results vs. contributions. Our spending policy prioritizes capital preservation, meaning we do not want to spend the portion of the endowment that comes from contributions. We keep close track this figure because each year the Endowment’s finance committee will set the spending rate at between 2.5 and 4 percent in order to fund the operations of the Endowment and grants to the Wikimedia Projects. This is a meaningful factor for them to consider when making that decision.Lgruwell-WMF (talk) 18:50, 7 October 2023 (UTC)
wikipedia style platform to crowd source feedback for open source LLM
yann lecun suggests, not sure how to set a permanent link to this:
Human feedback for open source LLMs needs to be crowd-sourced, Wikipedia style.
It is the only way for LLMs to become the repository of all human knowledge and cultures.
Who wants to build the platform for this?
if it is wikipedia style, should wikipedia build it? host it? ThurnerRupert (talk) 05:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
I suspect LeCun might be responding to the surprising results this past week with Zephyr 7B, a free LLM (on Huggingface) which can work quickly on 2018-era mobile phones, and outperforms Meta's Llama-2 70B, an order of magnitude larger model, and does so solely by removing Llama's alignment conditioning (safety censorship) which has come as quite a shock to many, and is not great news for those who consider alignment-oriented fine tuning important. (I personally am skeptical because while heavily aligned models will refuse to discuss some sensitive topics, they are usually very willing to discuss subsurface details like how to use and acquire the specific equipment for weaponizing anthrax spores, for one particularly egregious and confusing example.)
As to your question, all of the commercial LLM chatbots crowdsource human feedback (the thumbs down/up buttons) but there are no open source LLMs which have integrated this technique yet as far as I know. There are some commercial companies offering it as a paid service and having open sourced the code behind it, but the administration overhead for reintegrating such feedback into the models is far more costly than the code. LeCun on the surface is suggesting the open source LLM community find a way to crowdsouce the reintegration overhead too, which I'm sure is doable, but might not attract volunteers. Sandizer (talk) 10:08, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
Elon musk is calling Wikipedia woke u replied
Then they start talking about your connection with newsguard is this true
I'm still kinda confused about the woke claim when most of us work to be neutral
If you would like to clarify your position in newguard I would like to know
Elon musk also is a asshat •Cyberwolf• 01:40, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, Elon going on a rant isn't really my definition of "hell". It's more my definition of any random day. I am an advisor to Newsguard, yes. I don't think that's in any way problematic. People who may think that I'm somehow in favor of censorship are... just making things up I'm afraid. What I am in favor of is products and services that are well designed to help people evaluate and access high quality information. At least some of the trolls who hate such things hate them because of reasons that should be obvious: Newsguard would tend to rate various crackpot propaganda sites rather less highly than trusted news organizations with standards of fact checking, running corrections, etc. Their nine critera strike me sa being fairly straightforward.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:05, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
Elon Musk has just posted the following: "Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money?
It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone!
So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know …" Count Iblis (talk) 09:07, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
As usual, Elon Musk is just trolling, much like a 12 year old schoolyard bully. A while back, he was trying to get his minions to call him a "business magnet" on Wikipedia. He hates that we accurately and neutrally summarize what reliable sources have said about him over the years. Very wealthy people are used to being surrounded by people who sing their praises, morning, noon and night. However, we cannot be bought. Cullen328 (talk) 09:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo, I was not familiar with NewsGuard until today, but I agree with you that their nine criteria are very good, and quite similar to how we evaluate the reliability of sources here on Wikipedia. Cullen328 (talk) 10:03, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Is this the opposite of hell freezing over? I know Elon must have something better to do but if he wants be a troll so bad, I'm your huckleberry. I have plenty of dye for his hair and I love rainbows. --ARoseWolf 20:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Dear Jimbo, is it possible for Elon Musk to buy Wikimedia Foundation as he bought Twitter? You know, twitter suffered a bit after Elon bought it. -Lemonaka 06:31, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
So, I've had three images removed from Userboxes' I've made. (a Montero one, a King Nothing one, and a King Crimson one). And all three images have had their images removed, due to copyright. Now, I reverted the King Nothing one, since I didn't know about the files only allowed in articles, but the bot re-reverted it, and I read about it and left it alone. but TODAY I made the King Crimson and Montero one. and the difference between these two and the first is that I KNEW SPECIFICALY What images I can and can't use. I checked and used the images on the infoboxes for the respective article. (I will use THIS MONTERO UBX as an example). AND the infobox image SAID "Fair use" on it. So if their both fair use images, then why does the images keep getting removed on the ground of copyright? IDK if ur gonna respond, since I don't know what responsibilities the owner of a website like Wikipedia has, but I just want an answer. Sorry if this is worded poorly, or if you can't help. Babysharkboss2 was here!! 17:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
The fair use tag only apply to one page •Cyberwolf• 17:36, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Fair use images can only be used in articles. You'll want to pick a freely licensed image instead. WP:TEAHOUSE Is a good page for questions like this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 19:19, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
I am not really sure this is a question Jimbo needs to answer. Perhaps the help desk would be a more effective place to ask about WP:NFCC? jp×g 10:00, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
Very dear Jimbo,
Thank you for advancing humanity by creating the single greatest website. Here's a kitten.
I've been familiar with Annie's work for a long time, as have many Wikipedians. I highly recommend the video. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:10, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Elon Musk
I'd !vote a firm no to Musk's offeriing a billion dollars to change Wikipedia's name to Dickipedia (lol, the fellow does have a good sense of humor and a way of getting his point across. Put me in a room with him and I'd say we'd get the billion plus another half-a-million just on the playful concept and discussion). I repeat my request to him on a recent The Signpost discussion that he pick one politically biased fact that he thinks should change, and then sign up on Wikipedia under his confirmed real name and change it. When or if his edit is then reverted, he should take it to the talk page and argue convincingly on behalf of his change (Jimbo, since he's in a public discussion with you, maybe consider passing along this suggestion as it would be both a fun debate and a possible improvement to a major article). I'll give him a billion mini-barnstars (equals one barnstar) if he does that. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:12, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
See https://twitter.com/EdKrassen/status/1716103049863663962 and The Hill. "All else being equal" - e.g. it's guaranteed, and we can change the name back after a year - I'm leaning to taking the offer. Of course Elon is just blowing x out of his wazoo, but it's fun to think about.
Wanting to name the encyclopedia in honor of Dicklyon for a year seems a principled suggestion for a commemorative. Dick, one of our major editors, is the inventor of the optical mouse, and Musk's offer to pay the Foundation a billion dollars to so-honor this major inventor of the computer-age has a ring of caring for Wikipedians that is missing in most billionaires. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:39, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Yep in that context i support•Cyberwolf• 17:40, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
I can't think of a better or more deserving member of our community to Honor in such a way. Great suggestion, Mr. Troll, err, I mean Musk. We can do a lot with that billion dollars. Get that pen warmed up to sign the check --ARoseWolf 17:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
In that context I would Support it. Especially if WMF uses the money to build a skyscraper world HQ and/or hire full-time researchers to work on the various projects. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 18:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
WMF already has more money than it needs and spends too much of it elsewhere and not enough on Wikipedia. Instead Elon should start a trust as a backstop for the En Wikipedia / the Wikipedias.North8000 (talk) 18:25, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Eh more money after he asked why wikimedia needs money and said they dont needit •Cyberwolf• 19:38, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
Also, as back of the envelope estimate, the main value of Wikipedia is the approx $50 Billion in unpaid volunteer time that has gone into it. You don't get renaming rights on that by giving $1 Billion to somebody else (WMF). North8000 (talk) 20:52, 24 October 2023 (UTC)f
In the unlikely case that anyone is worried about it, no one on the board has seriously suggested at all that we should take him up on this. I mean, it's... fodder for laughter but really, his opinions and desires have very little weight here - and rightly so.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:44, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
A barnstar for you!
The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
I mean, you literally founded Wikipedia... Clyde[trout needed] 02:34, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
Can Wikipedia be edited fully autonomously by ChatGPT?
It seems to me that ChatGPT should be able edit to Wikipedia without much problems. In fact, it may b able to do this better than human editors, so a fully autonomous Wikipedia may end up being superior compared to the present one. We may also consider AI-powered bots in roles of Admins and Arbitrators in the present Wikipedia edited by both humans and ChatGPT systems. Unlike humans, AI-powered bots have an infinite amount of patience, so remedies for problem users can involve measures such as the user being restricted to user space and be allowed to contribute from there. The bot will then be checking and assessing the quality of what is submitted there, giving feedback and copying to article apace what is good enough. Count Iblis (talk) 09:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Speaking of the really existing ChatGPT: it is pretty stupid and full of bogus statements, e.g. when writing a legal plea, it invented precedents which never existed. Wanna be sure? Ask it for its references, it cannot provide them.
In fact, it is pretty hard for humans to be epistemically responsible, it is much harder for computers. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Noam Chomsky described ChatGPT as "basically high tech plagiarism".[8] The poems are fun though.--♦IanMacM♦(talk to me) 09:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Who knows what the future will hold? But in late 2023, when people use ChatGPT and other AI programs to try to write Wikipedia articles, the result is a lot like something written by a failing college freshman struggling to write an acceptable essay: Stilted, banal prose, heavy on platitudes, and riddled with factual errors and fabricated footnotes. Cullen328 (talk) 09:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
I think you greatly overestimate the abilities of ChatGPT. Large language models write fluent-sounding but factually incorrect information. They absolutely are not and should not be a substitute for humans. More info at WP:LLM. –Novem Linguae (talk) 10:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
Lucky I'm not an admin, I'd indefban chat, or AI of any kind (except our friendly Wikipedia-centric bots), and put their wanted posters on every post office wall. What a horrible invention and concept for editing Wikipedia, which goes against the criteria of "anyone" (not 'anything') can edit. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
I feel the same way. The combination of fluent-sounding text and factual inaccuracies is quite a pernicious combination, in my opinion. ChatGPT-based editing has the potential to require as much cleanup as a WP:CCI. It's very labor-intensive for experienced editors, unless we resort to presumptive deletion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
ChatGPT routinely generates garbage. Plausible garbage, but garbage non the less. The bullshit-bot promoters acknowledge this, but try to spin it as 'hallucination': which is also bullshit. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
LLMs are pretty good (meaning, better than our typical sub-GA article prose) at summarization and sufficiently loose paraphrasing, but they are terrible at noteworthiness and notability judgments, figuring out where to correctly make changes for updates, and refactoring poorly organized articles. There are already competition leaderboards set up for such tasks, but they're being done apart from the live Wikipedia because of WP:NOTLAB. And you know there are less formal academic experiments going on all the time, which show up on WP:ANI as disruption when they're unsuccessful, but can't be easily detected when they work well. Sandizer (talk) 00:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
It sounds like ChatGPT should be able to be used efficiently for correcting the English of Wikipedia (and the French in the French Wikipedia or whatever it is called, and likewise for all other languages) which is actually quite important. A lot of the English on Wikipedia is terrible. I have thought for many years that the biggest flaw of Wikipedia, from the point of view of a reader who just wants to read an awesome encyclopedia, is that it is badly written, and therefore a bit of a pain in the neck to read most of the times. I always thought the information was awesome (except in rare cases when there is one of the controversial topics like religion, sex, or politics) but the writing was terrible. Fortunately, my thirst for knowledge always had me coming back for more, despite the pain. Polar Apposite (talk) 18:02, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I agree, but each automatic re-write needs to be carefully reviewed before being included. Loss of intended meaning and hallucinations can both occur when LLMs attempt to simplify prose. Sandizer (talk) 19:41, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
I didn't say anything about simplifying prose. Polar Apposite (talk) 20:10, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Here is what ChatGPT had to say about all of this:
In the world of knowledge and information,
Wikipedia stands tall, a beacon of innovation.
A place where anyone can share what they know,
And contribute to a global fountain of growth.
But as we know, with great power comes great responsibility,
And editing Wikipedia requires some ability.
It's not just about typing what you think you know,
But verifying sources and facts, so the information can flow.
So when it comes to chatbots editing this great source,
We must consider if they have the necessary force.
Can they comprehend the nuances of language and context,
And ensure what they add is accurate and correct?
The Amharic Wikipedia was brought to my attention through a YouTube
It’s disgustingly horrible no sources. 1 word articles. Conspiracy theories im wondering what should be done about it •Cyberwolf• 14:52, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
Are you referring to Wikipedia's STRANGEST Language? According to List of Wikipedias, the Amharaic Wikipedia is am which was started in December 2002 and has 58 active users (56 users and 1 admin according to am:Special:Statistics although the contributions for that admin seems to show nothing). Johnuniq (talk) 06:44, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
i found the worst. Jokes on it •Cyberwolf• 16:41, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
I had a look. While I can’t read Amharic, it looks horrifyingly like a start-class Fandom wiki. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 20:56, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely no reason to provide even a bare minimum of information for inhabitants of one of the most war-torn countries in the world; I can think of no worse violation of Wikipedia's purpose. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:50, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
okay, might want to re-phrase that. Just because the country is war-torn, doesn't mean it's being removed. It's being removed due to lack of info. the war-torn nature of it means nothing. Babysharkboss2 was here!! 14:53, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
No, it won't be removed, because quite frankly, agitating to remove a Wikipedia in a language difficult to type from a country where 20% of the population is hungry is an absolutely abhorrent exhibition of Western systemic bias. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:04, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
But that shouldn’t be an excuse for the obvious horrible pages •Cyberwolf• 15:07, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
it's not bias, it's the fact that there's little info on it. Babysharkboss2 was here!! 15:07, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
And half the pages dont even have facts on it •Cyberwolf• 15:16, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
And so we should prevent any chance of more information being added? Because that's what Wikipedia stands for, apparently. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:25, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
If you do propose the Amharic Wikipedia for deletion, do go ahead and also list the dozens of other Wikipedias unlucky enough to not have over 60 active editors? Or maybe you could just see that they exist, which I suspect you haven't. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:31, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Have you read the articles on there? Also i already did •Cyberwolf• 15:55, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
i did. I read the big Mac article, it was two paragraphs. not good Babysharkboss2 was here!! 16:00, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
Quick question on the recently released Endowment figures
The recently released Endowment figures (pictured) show a contributions total of $11,549,007 under "Support and revenue" for the 2021–2022 financial year.
$12 million for the Endowment by the end of the second quarter (31 December 2021) of that year, and
$13.4 million for the Endowment by the end of the third quarter (31 March 2022) of that year.
This means the end-of-year figure advised in this month's statement for 2021–2022 is about $2 million lower than the third-quarter figure advised in the tuning deck last year. (The fourth-quarter tuning decks for 2021–2022 were never made public.)
This is counterintuitive. Could you and User:Lgruwell-WMF please shed some light on what happened here? The two previous years' tuning session decks [9][10] match what is in the released statement (once you add the $5 million grants the Endowment received in those two years from the WMF.) Regards, --AndreasJN466 18:03, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
I don't have a precise answer for you, but I can give you an indication. For internal staff/fundraising purposes it's quite natural to consider a gift as agreed at a different date from when the money actually comes in. If someone sends an email saying thanks for the information and I've decided to give $1 million, then assuming that all other signals are good, we will internally assume that money is going to come, and for planning purposes, we know what's coming in based on that. When it actually arrives from the point of view of accounting may be a different time.
The reason I am not giving this as a precise answer is that I haven't (and won't) go back and look into all the specific details here. Lisa might, as she's closer to the day-to-day numbers than I am.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:48, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply. Given how low the 2022–2023 Contributions total was (just $6.5 million, the lowest ever), it would seem somewhat unlikely that it included $2 million from the 2021–2022 year. Perhaps someone promised a donation and reneged? Regards, AndreasJN466 01:16, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
The difference is due to the period of the fiscal years shown in the table - Tides has its fiscal years end on December 31, so the fiscal years shown in the table are January - December, as opposed to the Wikimedia Foundation fiscal years which are June - July. Tides confirmed that revenue for FY 21/22 was $13.1M, in line with the tuning deck for that same fiscal year. Please note the table inadvertently noted that the fiscal years for Tides shown were ended June 30, but that has been corrected in the table. JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 05:41, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, Julia. But I don't see an update to the table, which still speaks of "Years ended June 30, 2023 through June 30, 2016" – where was that update made? The Commons description page, too, only shows a single version in the File history. Regards, AndreasJN466 09:27, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
Hi Andreas, the file on Commons has now been update. Best, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 15:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, now the figures make more sense. AndreasJN466 10:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
More amusing than anything else. :-) I did get a traffic ticket in Italy once, but I paid the fine and as far as I know, the Italian government is pretty ok with me now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:02, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm afraid we can't have Wikipedians with dodgy legal histories. Time to shut down the Italian Wikipedia in case we get done for speeding whilst editing. Zippybonzo | talk | contribs (he|she|they) 21:30, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
A redirect on metawiki
Greeting, Jimbo. I find you seldom replied to the comment on your talk page on meta-wiki, you may want to leave a redirect there to here? -Lemonaka 16:29, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
Currently the Foundation has about $255 million in cash and short-term investments, while the Endowment has about $119 million in long-term investments. Should the Foundation transfer some to the Endowment to presumably secure a larger and safer return? If so, how much? Presumably this would be done after getting the Endowment out of Tides; so my third question is when is that expected to occur? Sandizer (talk) 19:14, 21 November 2023 (UTC)11
We are entirely out of Tides. This page details the current investment policy.
The question of moving money from WMF and into the endowment is different from the question of how money currently with WMF should be invested. I think there's merit in the idea of periodically moving money out of WMF and into the Endowment, with the caveat that we shouldn't run a high risk that WMF might need to dip into the Endowment for an emergency caused by running too short a balance within WMF. I think that using the Endowment to cover shortfalls shouldn't be something that anyone gets comfortable with.
The question of whether all of WMF's money that's currently in cash and short-term investments should stay that way is also valid. One way that I would approach the question is to start to match the duration of some of the investments to the expected timeline of expenditures, as opposed to simply blindly moving into equity or longterm bonds. (When interest rates rise, long term bonds get crushed, but if the intention is to hold some securities to maturity to meet some expected future expenditure, the the interest rate risk is less relevant. Measures of duration serve a similar function.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:58, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
Jimmy, regarding the Sandizer inquiry, I note that the Investment Policy you linked us to mentions this:
"The Wikimedia Endowment was invested through the Tides Foundation, which is committed to achieving an impact-driven portfolio. The Wikimedia Endowment is invested only in funds that had been reviewed by Tides and meet its environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors."
Does that mean that the Wikimedia Endowment continues to invest ONLY in Tides-approved ESG investments? If so, why?! Wikimedia has its own unique objectives, specifically pertaining to the Open Knowledge movement. Although impact-driven investing generally results in lower returns and can have higher risks, it sounds like the WMF Endowment has already committed to that in its Investment Policy. Let's take that as a given; however, an impact-driven portfolio consistent with the goals of the Open Knowledge movement are different than those of Tides. Tides is a donor-fund aggregator whose mission aligns with its investment policy:
“Tides conduct its investment management process with the recognition that its responsibility includes not only the traditional goals of maximizing return and minimizing risk, but also a focus on utilizing its investment capital to achieve a world of shared prosperity and social justice, founded on equality and human rights, a sustainable environment, healthy individuals and communities, and quality education.”
WMF Endowment's impact-driven investing should NOT be exclusively determined by the goals and values of Tides as stated above. We are not a Tides subsidiary.
I see that the choice of investment holdings is based on Morningstar Sustainability Ratings per your linked description. Why are we using the identical percentage distribution as Tides. Was there a review conducted where that was determined to be best for our Foundation money?
I note that 10% of our Endowment will be invested in "funds rated a “three-E;” these funds have an ESG mandate and their lower rating may be due to companies in the fund not being covered by Morningstar analysts (especially in ex-US markets)". That doesn't sound good! Why would we want any of our money to be invested in overseas companies that Morningstar analysts don't even cover? Also, 10% of the Endowment will be invested in "funds that are not rated by Morningstar but have an ESG mandate". So, that means that as of the most current financial statement, approximately $10 million of Endowment funds will be holdings of ESG mutual funds that aren't even rated by Morningstar and another $10 million might be invested in overseas companies that Morningstar doesn't rate. An ESG mandate is not well-defined, i.e. social justice, sustainable environment, and quality education can mean one thing to Tides and something else entirely to others. It would be unfortunate if $20 million of WMF Endowment money were invested with so little control by the WMF.--FeralOink (talk) 23:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Dear FeralOink, could we please dial down the heat substantially?
Of course we are not a Tides subsidiary and it's very odd for you to point is out in Bold text. No one is behaving as if we are a Tides subsidiary, and I can tell you that at the board meetings, I have not heard any board member voice any opinion that would even remotely suggest that we should blindly defer to Tides on anything. The particular ESG ratings we use have nothing to do with Tides. They are ratings developed by Morningstar, Inc.. In terms of the specific allocations they were not determined by Tides, and continue - as the page said - to be determined (ultimately) by the endowment board: "The Wikimedia Endowment will revisit this allocation periodically to make sure it delivers appropriate risk-adjusted returns.".
Now that we've got the Tides question out of the way, we can of course discuss some questions about the allocation. I don't think it is automatically a given that ESG funds will deliver a lower return (I used to believe this, but the actual evidence is mixed at best), but you seem to accept that it is something we have chosen to do. But you had a stronger question about the international component. Diversification is an important part of wise investment strategy, and investment in non-US companies is a part of that. It is just generally a fact that Morningstar doesn't have as strong coverage of non-US markets, but it isn't something that I would see as especially problematic.
In my own personal retirement savings accounts, I allocate a percentage to international markets through low-cost Vanguard index funds. I think it's a reasonable thing to do.
Implicit in your question, though you didn't actually ask it in this way, is whether or not we should adopted some kind of modified ESG strategy where we specifically invest in companies that are particularly aligned with our mission - let's imagine here things like open source software companies, educational resource companies who use free licenses, etc. I think that's an interesting idea although there are not likely to be any ESG ratings in existence of such a thing, nor any dedicated index funds. It would be a pretty wild departure from normal practice if we got into the business of picking individual stocks, and of course would raise all sorts of potential issues.
Below, I see a question about the percentage of cash and cash equivalents, and my own personal view is that cash should probably only be held for short periods "transactionally" you might call it, as money is entering the endowment or is scheduled to depart (grants, expenses) in a reasonably short time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:51, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
Hello, Sandizer. I don't think that the Endowment funds and Wikimedia Foundation funds are readily transferable, i.e. the Endowment isn't generally intended for supporting day-to-day operating costs of WMF. See Endowment FAQ item 2:
"During times of prosperity, the Wikimedia Endowment will serve as a springboard for growth and innovation. During tough economic times, the Endowment will help fund the most critical operations that keep the Wikimedia projects functioning.
Jimmy's reply to you is good, as it shows that he is cognizant of responsible corporate governance practices:
"I think that using the Endowment to cover shortfalls shouldn't be something that anyone gets comfortable with."
Your point is well-taken though. I too noticed that 2023 WMF salaries and benefits total over $100 million per year, a 20% year-on-year increase, whereas server costs are merely $3.1 million, up from $2.7 million last year.--FeralOink (talk) 23:08, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
@FeralOink: What is your opinion of the optimal ratio of Foundation cash and investments to Endowment investments?
I also want to ask your opinion about the Morningstar ESG ratings. They seem to be a very good idea financially, but I wonder how much of that is due to a circular self-fulfilling prophesy due to their enormous influence over fund flows. I'm not sure it's a great idea to have put 500 Toronto analysts in charge of such a large fraction of the world's equity and corporate debt markets. However, I used to be far more skeptical before Morningstar acquired Sustainalytics, back when the weights of the issues contributing to the ESG rating were proprietary whereas now they publish them on page 3 of their reports:
Issues driving Morningstar ESG Risk Ratings
Category
Issue
Contribution to ESG Risk Rating
Environmental 50.8%
Carbon - Own Operations
19.2%
Resource Use
10.3%
Emissions, Effluents and Waste
7.1%
Occupational Health and Safety
7.5%
Environmental and Social Impact of Products and Services
As for Foundation staff and budget allocation, my greatest hope is they keep adding more engineers assigned to the Community Wishlist, which has been a breath of fresh air recently. I think governance issues, such as why the Foundation is committed to so much secrecy that they can't lead a letter writing campaign for the jailed Aribic Wikipedia admins, are far more important than staff vs. server infrastructure spending. Sandizer (talk) 04:05, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
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That was an excellent interview, Jimbo. Informative, thoughtful, warm, upbeat and cheerful. I, too, grew up with World Book Encyclopedia. And I very rarely listen to one hour interviews. Well done. Cullen328 (talk) 09:30, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, these comments made me smile.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:28, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Censorship of Wikipedia
I am a participant of the Russian Wikipedia, my name is User:Рождествин.
I have been editing Wikipedia since 2008. Currently, there is a situation developing in the Russian Wikipedia that greatly concerns me.
Below, I will provide a chronology of events and highlight the aspects that are causing my concern.
On November 6, 2023, I wrote an article about the head of an international drug cartel operating in Russia, Ukraine, and possibly Europe - Yegor Burkin:
Three hours later, the article was deleted by a user, whose name I don't mention deliberately as a duplicate copy of a previously created and deleted article. It was removed without any discussion and even without notifying me
This was not the correct resolution, as the article was written by me from scratch and had no relation to the previous version.
The article complied with the rules of the Russian section, so I raised the issue with the administrator forum to inquire about the reasons for such behavior. Administrator Lesless responded to me, stating that someone (not me, although I am the author of the article) received real-life threats related to this article. Due to this reason, the name of the user who deleted the article has been changed, the account was blocked (at that time), and any mention of this article started to be removed from Russian Wikipedia. A few minutes later, Oversighter Q-bit array deleted the entire edit history on the administrator forum with corresponding section (plz see Screenshot 1 as attached file).
In a private email conversation, Administrator Lesless informed me that the article was removed for security reasons, and I should understand the danger. The administrator informed me that this was a private initiative of one or several administrators, who did not receive any instructions or directives from third parties, and strongly requested that I refrain from mentioning this incident further, citing the Foundation and the Foundation's legal department being aware of it. Currently, the article is protected from creation. All mentions of the discussion on this matter have been removed and hidden from the administrator forum and the article restoration page.
I acknowledge that the criminal organization in question is well-known and possesses significant resources. However, the situation where real-world threats result in the removal of an article can set a terrible precedent, which could have enormous consequences for Wikipedia: it would be sufficient to publish a threat towards the editors of a particular article to have it completely eradicated. This situation is reminiscent of an incident in the French version when an article was removed under pressure from intelligence services. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia#France
) I sincerely hope, although I cannot be entirely certain, that the administrators of the Russian Wikipedia are not operating under external pressure.
I consider this issue to require the attention of the Foundation, and I kindly ask you to clarify the following matters:
Can information about a character who is formally significant according to the criteria of notability be removed based on the decision of administrators of a regional project due to real-life threats received by some participants related to this article?
--Рождествин (talk) 15:53, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
User:Рождествин does not describe the situation quite correctly. I can only confirm that on resources external to Wikipedia, measures of physical coercion against Wikipedia users were discussed. The administrators of the Russian WP took measures. We also asked User:Рождествин to draw less attention to the situation, since the threat of de-anonymization of the users had not disappeared, but the participant, as we see, did not listen. Lesless (talk) 05:03, 29 November 2023 (UTC)
@Рождествин: If you want to engage the Foundation this page at Meta provides various ways of contacting them depending on the situation. MarcGarver (talk) 13:49, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I do not want engage Fond. Russian wikipedia administrator told me that Fond had already been engaged. But I have grounds for doubt in his words. I had already sent a letter to legal@wikimedia.org a week ago but they didn't answer. Рождествин (talk) 21:53, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
A week is not very long. Your expectations of a quick answer are probably wrong. It isn't urgent, so it'll be dealt with at some point. I recommend waiting a few weeks then contacting them again. MarcGarver (talk) 09:57, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
There are two possible issues. First, per People accused of crime, people cannot be called criminals unless they have been convicted. Second, while I can find many articles about the alleged cartel in news outlets, none of them are considered reliable sources. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, which rates the reliablity of Sputnik and other publications that have covered the story.
Can you provide any reliable sources that extensively document the topic? If not, it lacks notability for its own article. TFD (talk) 16:14, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
Please read my message attentively before answering. I don't complain about the deletion of article. I complain on reason of deletion. The reason is (by the words of russian wikipedia administratos) threats for users in real life. Article was deleted because of outside pressure. Is it clear enaugh now? Рождествин (talk) 22:00, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
And I am not a newcomer. I have been editing wiki sience 2008, so there is no need to tell me about reliable sources. Рождествин (talk) 22:03, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
I'm not allowed even discuss this article in russian wikipedia. Even mention it on forums. As I said, because of the threats against users. Do you understand the subject or I have to find another words to explain situation? Рождествин (talk) 22:08, 30 November 2023 (UTC)
There is no correct forum to do anything that might lead to people being harmed. It is unlikely that anyone here can judge whether harm may occur but that is going to make most of us decide to leave it to the current system. Raising a shit storm because you can might be an abuse of Wikipedia. What are you hoping to achieve? Not every wrong can be righted and while it might be ok to courageously put your own health on the line, it is not so good when doing that for others. Johnuniq (talk) 00:35, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
What I want achieve? It is not clear from my first message? I want to understand: 1) does the decision to delete an article about any person on Wikipedia comply with Wikipedia's rules and the Foundation allows the article's deletion if the article's author has received real-world threats? 2) does the Foundation know anything about the situation surrounding the article about Yegor Burkin? Has any evidence been provided to anyone at the Foundation that someone has received threats in connection with this article? I am the author of the article, and I have not received any threats, nor have I received any confirmation that such threats were received by anyone else. How can I know if the article was deleted due to threats rather than bribery of administrators in the Russian section or external pressure on them? Рождествин (talk) 02:48, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
@РождествинHi, have you read Wikipedia:Appeal to Jimbo? You'd better fix your problem locally, if local process is corrupted, you may want to go metawiki for help. -Lemonaka 09:00, 2 December 2023 (UTC)
Have you read my massege? It's not an appeal. It's not a local question, so why I should fix it localy? I don't understand why people hurry to give advices if they don’t understand the essence. Рождествин (talk) 22:09, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm a little suspect about the clearness of my explanation. Jimbo has waived his rights as a founder for global issues years ago, they cannot block or lock anyone again. Months ago they even resigned on English Wikipedia as a sysop. Calling him for help is useless unless something is really urgent, e.g. a government is going to file a sue against Wikimedia Foundation. This can be just likened to a school boy crying for help from principle. The better way is try to solve the problem in better process which has been already advised by others. -Lemonaka 05:40, 5 December 2023 (UTC)
"imbo has waived his rights as a founder for global issues years ago"
I know. That's why first of all I wrote letter to Foundation. But the didn't answered. Рождествин (talk) 11:55, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
"process which has been already advised by others."
What advice? Write letter to Wikimedia Foundation? I have already done it. Above I wrote on 30 November "I had already sent a letter to legal@wikimedia.org a week ago but they didn't answer". And on 2 December you give me advice to do what I have already done. So you didn't read anything above but hurry to give useless advices. Why? Рождествин (talk) 12:03, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Go to meta for raising comment, compared with Foundation, they are faster way. No one advised you about that? So you did read nothing above but hurry to criticize me, why? -Lemonaka 13:06, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I have read that message above. Where on Meta place to post such message? Point me forum on meta where I can post such message. Рождествин (talk) 13:52, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Thank you. I take your advice. Рождествин (talk) 02:41, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
There should be another essay: "Don't give advices if don't understand the plot". Рождествин (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
Or maybe there's an essay to be written entitled "If you come from one language Wikipedia to English Wikipedia, even to post on the founder's talk page, you need to be very clear what action you think can and should be taken by a founder who has no special powers and a wiki that has no authority over your wiki and when editors are puzzled by what you want in that context maybe the fault is yours in being totally unclear and/or unrealistic as to why you are posting here" or something like that. DeCausa (talk) 22:35, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
"what action you think can and should be taken by a founder who has no special powers"
I think I everything is pretty clear, this was my question:
I consider this issue to require the attention of the Foundation, and I kindly ask you to clarify the following matters: Can information about a character who is formally significant according to the criteria of notability be removed based on the decision of administrators of a regional project due to real-life threats received by some participants related to this article?Рождествин (talk) 11:54, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo isn't the Foundation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:17, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Jimbo is not the Foundation and you is not Jimbo, so if you answering intead of him, why he couldn't answer instead of Foundation? Рождествин (talk) 03:19, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
And I already wrote, I will repeat for the log: you are not conveying the essence of the matter quite correctly. That's not why the article was deleted. Lesless (talk) 14:53, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
I have letter from you where this reason was pointed. Рождествин (talk) 03:21, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Это не так. Статья вообще была удалена ДО сообщений с угрозами, и причина удаления находится в открытом доступе. = That's not so. The article was already deleted BEFORE the threatening messages, and the reason for the deletion is publicly available. Lesless (talk) 11:19, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Of course public reason of deletion couldn't be "threats for users in real life". But as I said in my top message "The article complied with the rules of the Russian section" and aske for restoration of the article, but my message on forum (Requests for undeletion) was deleted too and contributes were hidden. And you wrote me a letter where said that it is dission of Foundation because of threats to some editors. You didn't read my top message too? Why nobody read it, but give answers? Рождествин (talk) 14:05, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
Я-то знаю, как всё было. В отличие от вас. Если у Фонда будут ко мне вопросы, я отвечу. А вот зачем вы устроили всю эту кутерьму, мне неведомо. = I know how it all happened. Unlike you. If the Foundation has questions for me, I will answer. But why you started all this mess, I don’t know. Lesless (talk) 14:15, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
"But why you started all this mess, I don’t know"
Cause I have no assurance that Foundation is informed as you said to me. I didn't see screenshot of their letter to some of russian admins or letter from russian admis to Foundation. Рождествин (talk) 02:33, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
А вам и не нужно его видеть. Вот я подписку давал. А вы давали? Вы арбитр? Вы юрист Фонда? Lesless (talk) 11:05, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
And not deletion of the article is essence of my message too. Users think that some idiot came to Jimbo cause his article was deleted, he don't know that Jimbo is not in Foundation, let's give him our very important advices... No, the plot of my message is that I am not alowed even to discuss deletion, even mention it, all contributions of discussing on forums were hided beacause of threats for editors in real life. And I want to know is ok to do such actions. Рождествин (talk) 03:33, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
@Рождествин If you are in danger of threat of harm, please go to emergency@wikimedia.org, then call the police. For more information, you may want to read WP:EMERGENCY-Lemonaka 13:13, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
God, are you kidding??? Did you read my message??? I am not in danger/ Article was deleted cause of threats in adress of some wiki editors. Not me. Do you understand? And opposite I say that such deletion does not comply with the rules. This is clear? I think it is wrong to delete articlese because someone said to wiki user "I will kill you if you would't delete the article about me". It is in simle words, if it is to hard for you to read my top message. Рождествин (talk) 13:47, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
If following Wikipedia's rules gets people killed, we should consider changing them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:09, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
So if any person doesn't like some article and want this article be deleted all he needs to do is to send a message "I will kill you all" and we will delete it? Think twice Рождествин (talk) 14:14, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
That wasn't what I wrote at all. You wrote at the top of this thread that a contributor to the Russian Wikipedia "received real-life threats" in relation to an individual you stated was "the head of an international drug cartel". If it is indeed the case that the article was deleted because of these threats (a claim for which you have so far not actually produced any evidence) then clearly this is not something Wikipedia should feel good about. It might however, depending on the circumstances (particularly relating to the credibility of the threats) be justified, if the alternative is getting contributors killed. Absolutely nobody - not you, not me, not Jimbo - has the right to endanger another contributor's life in order to follow the rules of an online encyclopaedia. We don't engage in involuntary martyrdom for the sake of 'free speech' here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:26, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
"That wasn't what I wrote at all"
I think you said right that. And I don't know if there was a real danger for somebody, russian wiki administrators siad there was danger (by their opinion). But it is dengerous precedent for wiki. As I said if you don't like any article you would have just send a letter with words "I will do smth bad with you if..." Рождествин (talk) 02:40, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not taking sides, but if the drugs cartel would be angry at somebody, they would be angry at the mainstream media, not at those who cite the mainstream media. Since: how exactly do you hide something that has been read by millions of people? tgeorgescu (talk) 02:54, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
I think there would be a lot of people who would like to censor wiki that way. Politics for example. You don't like the article about war in Ukraine — just write a letter where you promise kill some of wiki editors... Рождествин (talk) 03:05, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Another reason I can think of: they are petty drug dealers. So, okay, they were reported for dealing drugs, but they are petty criminals, so they don't deserve a Wikipedia article. Even if someone cool-bloodedly murders someone else, that's not a reason for having an article. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:18, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
@Рождествин and to all who is still interested in this topic, we've interrupted Jimbo for a long while, can we move this topic to Рождествин's talk page instead of Jimbo's talk page? -Lemonaka 16:08, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
Safety and privacy concerns regarding porn performer articles
Jimmy, I know that in the past (and even quite recently) you have acted to reinforce the importance of treating porn performers with respect (as our policy on biographies of living people demands for everyone).
Recently, user Bennorey created articles for two female porn performers, Ella Jean and Emily Willis. Both of the articles prominently and repeatedly use the purported "real names" of these women. Both of them have sourcing issues. Both of them have previously been deleted. For Emily Willis, there is a "controversy" section which recounts an allegation that she had sex with a dog. The source for that allegation and related lawsuit is the New York Post, a source which is generally considered unreliable and should not be used for a biographical article.
I don't mean to suggest that a newish editor like Bennorey should stick to editing articles about proto-Nazi figures and never create articles about living people, but something is very wrong when any editor can just throw up articles like this that should be triggering all kinds of red flags. Several editors (including admins) have made edits to these two articles without addressing the name issue, which is strange because they are the very first thing in each article and they are bolded for emphasis. Above and beyond the usual BLP issues that are being ignored here, the safety and privacy concerns for porn performers should be obvious.
The reason I am writing this on your talk page and not asking for the issues to be addressed on the talk pages is that this seems to be a systemic issue. I have checked on a few other language Wikipedias and they also have the "real names" and unacceptable sourcing. Wikidata has the "real names". There is a talk page discussion on Spanish Wikipedia which uses a Los Angeles court document to confirm the name. Someone even uploaded part of that document to Commons. Fixing two articles on English Wikipedia will not fix the problem. This is a project-wide issue. I have not looked at other porn performer articles on other projects, but my suspicion is that this is not an isolated case.
I know that the Board (and you, personally) are concerned with respect for living people, but resolutions are not addressing this very real problem. WP:BLP is not addressing this very real problem. Jimmy, I ask you and the board to find ways to prevent things like this from happening again and again. Thank you. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 21:20, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Just an observation, rather than a comment on the specifics, but I'd have thought that having the real name of a performer (any performer, in any genre) was more or less a prerequisite for writing a meaningful biography about them. One certainly shouldn't be presenting promotional material about an on-screen persona as if it represents reality. If we can't source biographical content discussing the real life of an actual performer in a meaningful way, without violating Wikipedia policy, we shouldn't be creating such supposed 'biographies' at all. 'Biographies' built around the commercially-convenient fantasies of the adult film industry have no place on Wikipedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:47, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Don't see a huge problem with the real name, it's in enough sources even if a lot of them are tabloid and/or flaky. Is there really a debate that it is not her real name? I have however removed some of the more salacious details from the controversy section, purely because it really isn't needed - if anyone wants to read the details, the sources are there. Black Kite (talk) 22:04, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
@Black Kite I'm looking at the Emily Willis article right now (after your changes) and there is literally no source given for the name. The source given for the sentence that contains the birth date is link to an interview which does not contain any reference to the birth date. Those are very basic elements of any biography and covered by multiple rules and guidelines here. If you, an experienced admin, can overlook these types of obvious things, how can an inexperienced user be expected to create policy-compliant articles?
You also left in the New York Post source, as well as one from something called "My News LA". Are either of those acceptable sources for a biography of a living person? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 22:14, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Fair point. I've removed the NYP source, but I have no knowledge of "My News LA" (sounds a bit tabloid, but looks ... not too bad? Needs a RSP discussion, probably). However you are absolutely right about the name, and I've removed it. (Edit: and the DOB). Black Kite (talk) 22:30, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
Quick note: it's late in the evening here now, so I won't be able to monitor the article, but I have watchlisted it. If there's anything else that you think should be removed, be bold and do it. I'll be quite happy to fix any issues with it tomorrow morning. Black Kite (talk) 22:33, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
@Black Kite Thank you for making those changes. I don't want to get bogged down in the details of one particular article on English Wikipedia since this is a problem replicated across multiple projects and multiple articles, but you are proving my point about the lack of concern for the privacy (and, quite possibly, safety) of the living people who have articles on Wikipedia. I shouldn't have to point out basic things like that. As it is, I'm sure someone will eventually (and correctly) remove the "controversy" section, and I'm sure that if the article doesn't get deleted, someone else will eventually add back the unsourced name, the unsourced birth date, and the allegations that this woman had sex with a dog. The question is how do we avoid that happening, not what do we do to fix it now that it has happened. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 22:52, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
How to avoid such things happening? Stricter notability requirements for biographies of living persons, along with an approval process that requires assessment by uninvolved experienced contributors before the article goes live, and the automatic implementation of pending changes for all such biographies. Good luck getting consensus for that though... AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:19, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't see why we need to include the real name of a performer unless that name is (reasonably) widely published and the performance has not taken steps to try to distance themselves from that name. If the person is only widely discussed under their performance name, and you have to dig (perhaps beyond the bounds of RS) to find the real name, the real name shouldn't be there at all. Masem (t) 02:04, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
If it were possible to create properly-sourced biographies of performers under such circumstances, you might well be correct. In practice though, as has been previously noted when attempting in the past to deal with the proliferation biographies of adult film industry performers sourced solely to the industry's own media, one is very often dealing with fictional publicity material. Not just stage names, but stage 'biographies'. Not something we should be making an article out of. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:40, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
If the only reliable sources for someone's biography is known fiction, and we're turning to less-than-reliable sources for the "truth", that's a problem. Further, if we know that these are fictional biographies, and there's no other indicators of notability, then absolutely yes we should not have an article on these people in the first place.
I'm thinking on the broader picture in that we have had people like Bansky who are clearly notable but that have generally shied away or purposely kept their real identity a secret. And I could easily imagine there are porn actors in a similar situation in that they are notable under their pseudonym but have not publicly revealed their real identity, though likely there are aggressive fact-finders that have dug into the real name published in less-than-reliable sources. That's what I think we absolutely give the edge to avoiding the real name in the first place. Masem (t) 13:13, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
I am disappointed to see that readers of this talk page seem to be more interested in discussing what you might do with a completely fanciful billion dollars than they are in dealing with the privacy and safety concerns of real people. No one has even been bothered to remove the completely unsourced "real name" from the Elsa Jean article which I pointed out in my first posting here. Jimmy, the policies, guidelines, and Board Resolutions don't seem to be working. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 04:29, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
She's quite open about her name, for example right in the title of her Instagram Sapphire Howell (@elsajeanofficial). It's also printed prominently on her covers for Glamour Magazine Bulgaria[11], and Harper's Bazaar Vietnam[12]. GRuban (talk) 06:22, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
@GRuban If she's "quite open about her name" it should be easy to find reliable secondary sources that confirms it. You've been on Wikipedia for over 18 years. You know (or should know) what WP:BLP says. Yet when I bring this up here as a systemic issue, I get you and admin Black Kite making statements that go directly against clear policy. This is exactly my reason for trying to get Jimbo's attention - what we are doing now isn't working. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 16:43, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
Three, right there. She is giving her name on her own web site. That is a reliable source. She sayin "these are articles about me". Those are reliable secondary sources. Which part is missing?GRuban (talk) 17:19, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
@GRuban Just to be clear, you're saying that the cover of a fashion magazine which does not use both names (real and stage name) is a reliable source for the "real name"? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 17:53, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
I don't know what her "real name" is, quite possibly both are aliases, I never heard of her before you posted on Jimbo's talk page here. (Edited Dec 18: Actually the Glamour Bulgaria does say it is her real name.) However, when someone makes a social media account called JaneDoeOfficial, they are, in fact, openly claiming to be Jane Doe. This account is ElsaJeanOfficial; it's got 3 million followers, it's not a fly-by-night-made-yesterday. Click on the Press link right at the top there, it goes over her articles, from two Business Insiderarticles calling her "Elsa Jean ... retiring from the mainstream adult-film industry", to the Glamour and Harper's Bazaar articles I already linked calling her Sapphire Howell. Those do each use both names, in fact: "Talent: Sapphire Howell @elsajeanofficial." "Талант: Sapphire Howell @ElsaJeanOfficial". Each of those articles about Sapphire Howell says her podcast is Heartbreakers, which is "Heartbreakers" with Elsa Jean & James Maas ... a unique take on sex, love, dating and relationships from a former porn star and a gay pop singer. The Linktree right at the top of that account] goes to her Playboy pictorial and her Fleshlight, all as Elsa Jean, and also her Thrissle articles as Sapphire Howell. There is no end of the reliable sources here; yes, sources from her are perfectly reliable for what her name is, that's called WP:ABOUTSELF, we do, in fact, almost always take a person's word for it when they say "this is my name" (exceptions include Anna Anderson ...). --GRuban (talk) 03:32, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
@GRuban If what you say is correct, we should not have to rely on assumptions to verify the name. The information should be available in reliable sources in the form of statments that Elsa Jean's real name is X. I'm going to remove the name and start a discussion at the BLP noticeboard. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 04:57, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Just because an account is named "<Person>Official" does in no way assure that that Person made or is in charge of that account. We need something akin to the blue checkmark that Twitter used to have (prior to its acquisition) where we know there is a means that the service has confirmed the owner's identity, or something along those lines. Masem (t) 13:15, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Glamour and Harper's Bazaar say explicitly that Sapphire Howell is @ElsaJeanOfficial. But I see Counterfeit has started another discussion on WP:BLPN, accidentally also leaving out that part. I followed up there, saying that, and also giving multiple other sources, which are not hard to find. I'm all for "treating porn performers with respect", and taking their word for it when they say what their name is, is part of that. --GRuban (talk) 16:33, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
When you have those sources, that's fine (those are RSes). But again, the point still remains that simply an account that claims to be a real person should never be taken to be that real person until we have some type of confirmation by other RSes that that is the case. Masem (t) 16:36, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Of course. So we are in agreement that those are RSes? --GRuban (talk) 16:41, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
@GRuban I hope we can agree that regardless of whether or not reliable sources are found for the name, it should never have been included unsourced in a Wikipedia article. We can continue to discuss sourcing at BLPN, but I would like to stay on the larger issue here. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 17:05, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Of course. I am in agreement with your goal as stated and as I have quoted. However people are complicated. Some former porn stars conceal their past profession and try their best it never be associated with them. This person, however, seems to be fine with building on her past for her current career. We shouldn't confuse the two. GRuban (talk) 17:39, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Lex Friedman interview
Hello, I saw the interview with you and Lex Friedman. It was great. I do have a theoretical question,
If you were given 1 billion dollars, what would you do with it to improve Wikipedia? Waylon (he was here) (Does my editing suck? Let's talk.) (Also, not to brag, but...) 21:31, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
I've given this a few days of thought, and I still don't have an answer. I can think of a lot of projects in the world where $1 billion would help. I can think of a lot of ways that Wikipedia could be improved. But the intersection of the two is really quite small, whereas the number of ways that $1 billion could cause Wikipedia problems is quite significant.
I'm not saying absolutely no, of course. I mean, if the offer were made, of course the answer would almost certainly be yes. But there would be some real challenges that I would be concerned about. Happy to expand if this is too cryptic, but I'd also love to hear from others on this interesting thought experiment.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:53, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
Buy it's way out from under WMF :-). North8000 (talk) 14:43, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
All pretty much what the Foundation already does, except "employing expert contributors" under #2. Sandizer (talk) 07:58, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
"employing expert contributors" would make Wikipedia more "Public Broadcasting System"-like. That's what PBS does with a lot of the money it raises, and what I suspect a lot of Wikipedia's financial contributors think Wikipedia does with its contributions, but doesn't. Rather they employ amateurs who pay for the privilege of editing via their tuition to the universities who partner with Wiki Ed. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:27, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
I'd say the vast majority of contributors do so out of purely intrinsic motivations. The Wiki Ed contingent is much smaller than the tens of thousands of purely volunteer editors, but they play an important role by focusing on articles which they and their instructors consider particularly influential. They also bring intensive review of existing sources and exploration of new sources in articles which our volunteer editor contingent have, frankly, often lost interest in. Sandizer (talk) 05:23, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
Not a thought experiment, I fully expect billionaires to fund Wikipedia (Wikipedia specifically aside from the "movement" and WMF salaries and tech, which will also be covered) to the tune of hundreds of millions a year. The slogan "W comes before X" summarizes the public and private appeal: Elon Musk inadvertently set a billion dollar challenge as doable, and others will also see the value in funding it (and Musk will come around, a mind such as his can wake up one morning and write a two hundred million dollar check simply because he already consciously and unconsciously recognizes the project's worth). A few presents under the tree:
Fully and greatly fund the Wikimedia conferences for 1,000 editors. Reward them, they are the backbone - throw them yearly parties/educational sessions and venues, fully paid room and travel and then add on all the bells and whistles. A round figure of $3,000 American per person per four regional and one worldwide conference a year comes to only $15 million. Up that to 2000 editors and it's still only 30 million. Editors deserve it, billionaires can envision it, and any one of them could say upon a good meeting or lunch, "Yeah, I can cover that for ten years". Exceedingly doable and real (for example, I've been advocating VivaWikiVegas for a few years, and have put it forward as the theme of the 2026 25th Birthday North American Conference to augment the worldwide Paris event, both of which everyone should be fully funded to attend).
Then a dozen other ways to make billionaires take notice and sign-on easily come to mind. Give major bot operators and creators a few thousand a year for their machines to run and to attend their own conferences. Send out Editor Exploration teams of four editors with varied interests on week or two-week visits to specific cities or sites to research and write articles, backed-up by teams of four at home base who will communicate with them daily and serve as the four to take the next Editor Explorartion (to expand out from Wikipedia, this would be ideal for Commons editors). And fully fund Wikigroups (an aside, at the recent North American Conference, in-between great lunches and the occasional bomb threat, I thought I heard that some Wikigroups actually need funding, which I found hard to believe given that Wikipedia is already the backbone-presence for WMF funding, so it's possible I misheard).
Will stop short of adding more ideas for ease of post-length. But yes, a billion to start is not a thought experiment but is tomorrow's reality based educational playground and work-station. Actively planning for that now, and actively putting the outreach in motion, seems reasonable. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:36, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Yes. Conferences are great. The more scholarships, the better. The more conferences, the better.
More developers. Every file in MediaWiki core, every extension, and every skin should have a team assigned to maintain it. We should fill up the list at mw:Developers/Maintainers. There's an awful lot of "unassigneds" on there.
More endowment. The endowment is like a retirement account. A big windfall will let us "retire" earlier and start pulling that money out, instead of sitting and waiting for it to grow. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:04, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
I know what I'd do. Host large-scale Wikipedia improvement contests with amazing prizes and try to attract thousands of new editors. Wouldn't be "paid editing" if you could offer grants to students and things of esteem etc. Perhaps create a 1 Million Article Destubathon and start to massively reduce our 3.7 million stubs or whatever it now is. I'd put my own money into it if I was super rich! Even with £10,000 a year I could do a lot. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:56, 16 December 2023 (UTC)
Prizes for backlog drives, too. Sandizer (talk) 21:44, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
Dreaming about this is like dreaming about Wikimedia Foundation got a Nobel Peace Prize next year. -Lemonaka 12:09, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's true. When you look at the Endowment plus the Foundation's cash position, there is clearly room to explore new possibilities without placing the future prospects of the projects at any sort of risk. I expect the Board and C-suite to come up with exciting new ventures, and I'm pretty sure we aren't old enough to stagnate yet. Bold new ideas can start small to be evaluated before they scale up. Sandizer (talk) 05:28, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
Anne Hathaway
Dear Mr Wales,
I am a regular user of Wikipedia and I noticed the following comment in the article of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife:
“Harris believed that "Shakespeare's loathing for his wife was measureless" because of his entrapment by her and that this was the spur to his decision to leave Stratford and pursue a career in the theatre.” Apparently in the opinion of this scholar, Ms Hathaway entrapped Shakespeare by getting pregnant. A woman does not entrap a man by getting pregnant. A woman cannot get pregnant without the input of a man. He is responsible for his own actions (and body fluids). Moreover, at that time, she had little choice but to get pregnant...If this opinion needs to be included, it should say something like: "According to Harris, Shakespeare measureless loathing for his wife was caused by his lack of desire to marry her after getting her pregnant." Right?
Young men and women read these comments from scholars and, because they are included in Wikipedia, they may think this type of opinion is valid; whereas it is obviously sexist and misogynistic. Should Wikipedia publish misogynistic opinions? My kids are likely to come across Anne Hathaway in their studies and read this article. Could you please get it changed for the sake of the next generation's education? I am not a regular contributor so my changes will no doubt be removed from such an important article. Many thanks and wish you a wonderful Christmas. Sofia. Sofiairiondo (talk) 13:51, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
Indeed, that's good advice. Speaking only to broad general principles, which may be helpful to some degree in this case, we will often be confronted with opinions stated by reliable sources in the past which strike us as offensive or otherwise problematic today. We shouldn't always therefore simply hide those views or dismiss them out of hand, but we should take care to contextualize them appropriately. For example, in this case Sophia is objecting (rightly, in my view) to the old fashioned view of "entrapment" and so rather than use the word ourselves (in the voice of Wikipedia, as it were) we should quote from the original if that's possible. Reading the rest of the passage we see that Harris's view is far from universally held, which is all the more reason to treat it with due caution. It is noteworthy that the word 'entrapment' doesn't appear in the source. (Although a cursory reading of the passage in question leaves little doubt that Harris thought in those terms more or less at least. source)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:47, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
In fact we have an essay, WP:PRESENTISM related to this area, in that we should not apply modern sensibilities to sourced content that wasn't seen as offensive in the past. Masem (t) 16:08, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
@Sofiairiondo You don't need Jimbo Wales to change that article, you can edit it yourself if that article is not protected. Even it is protected, compared with asking Jimbo, directly talk about that on the talk page are more advisable way. -Lemonaka 14:44, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
I noticed you recently made an edit to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Rory_Stewart#Worth_noting and I did some work looking into the edits that had been made, it's really very interesting isn't it. I wonder if conflicts of interests and governance is something that you are interested in generally. I've been quite busy at the company I work for with a funding round so have only really got to relax now for xmas - so haven't really looked into this sort of stuff until now.
I really did like your podcast on Lex Fridman, I am a fan of the show but was rather busy the last few months and unfortunately did not get to watch it. I was particularly interested in this section: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMpG5VGikiQ .
If you were interested in any sort of discussion on the topic or surrounding governance, then I imagine you have many people to talk to on the topic. But I would like you to know that it's the sort of thing I am interested in as well having done a moderate amount of work on WP:MED and interacted with the crowd over there, particularly Colin, WhatamIdoing and to a lesser extend SandyGeorgia. Perhaps it's silly to offer my opinions when you get the opinions of people like that who have been around for decades when I've only be here 4 years really - but I'd be free to give you any perspectives on my experience if you wanted to ask.
Hello, Jimbo. Recently I tried to nominate article ru:Путин — хуйло! (Russian version of the article Putin khuylo!) for discussion to give it status as a good article. My aim was this article to be on the main page on the Russian Wikipedia like any other good article. But after this nomination ruwiki's administrator Sigwaldblocked me on the Wikipedia namespace for 7 days and deleted the nomination page. I asked him on my talkpage to unblock me, but he refused my request. Moreover, ruwiki's bureaucrat Vladimir Solovjev started discussion on the Administrators' noticeboard with the aim of blocking me in the Wikipedia namespace for a long time, and other participants of the discussion supported his suggestion: ruwiki's admistrators Сайга, DZ and Oleg Yunakov. What do you think about this situation? Asorev (talk) 18:10, 21 December 2023 (UTC)
jimbo has zero (0) power over what happens on ru.wiki. ltbdl (talk) 02:01, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
ltbdl, where is the right place to discuss this problem? Asorev (talk) 13:26, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
I have made the RfC. Asorev (talk) 10:49, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
At first, I have chosen not to reply, considering the falsehoods and the ongoing review of Asorev's behavior by Arbcom. Nevertheless, since someone has erroneously labeled me, a figure known in ruwiki and the mass media for my anti-Putin stance, I'll provide a few links for those who may not be acquainted with my profile. This is to ensure that no mistaken impressions are formed (please use Google translate): 1, 2. Thank you. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 22:41, 22 December 2023 (UTC)
I would like to explain to the readers why I do not trust this statement by Oleg Yunakov. The following situation occurred:
I left warning on the user talk page of Pessismist2006, that his erroneous edit destroyed the design of an article and, as a result of this edit, the article fell into the penalty category "Category:Pages with reference errors"
Oleg Yunakov canceled this warning and gave me warning that I should not write such warnings on anothers' user talk pages.
In the discussion on the administrators’ noticeboard, he spoke out in support of my long-term blocking in the Wikipedia namespace because I nominated the article Putin khuylo! for good status, citing his warning to me that I should not write warnings to other users on their user talk pages, as if I ignored his warning.
I asked Yunakov question why he mentioned this warning, if it has nothing to do with my actions in the Wikipedia namespace, but relates exclusively to warnings on the user talk pages.
He replied that if I don’t understand this, then it’s my problem.
That is, it is obvious that Yunakov lied, saying that he tried to prevent the article “Putin khuylo!” from being nominated for good status by warning me not to write warnings to users about their erroneous edits. And now Yunakov continues to lie, presenting himself as an opponent of Putin, and at the same time supporting my partial blocking for nominating the article “Putin khuylo!” to good status. Yunakov is a hypocrite trying to get out. Asorev (talk) 06:37, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
Arabic Wiki
Greeting, Jimbo. Something serious appeared on Arabic Wiki. It seemed that Wikipedia project is hijacked by a host of users, directly promoting terrorism. And some scripts, added to that project, disallowed any user from removing it.
There are two discussions on metawiki regarding this case, m:Requests_for_comment/Violating_the_Neutral_point_of_view_in_Arabic_Wiki and m:Steward_requests/Miscellaneous/2023-12. Promoting terrorism is a very serious accusation, and as the discussion going on, someone said they has already called police about that, which escalated the situation. Reports already filed to Wikimedia Foundation, but no further replies got.
If possible, we'd like to hear your voice regarding this case. -Lemonaka 02:32, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
not really hijacked, they just set up a (poorly-done) blackout in support of gaza. they have a black banner and changed the wiki logo to have a palestine flag. here. apparently they also prevented editing, although... i think it's broken. ltbdl (talk) 03:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
@Ltbdl I'm more worried about someone is going to call the police, that's more worrisome rather than the case itself. -Lemonaka 06:25, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
Seasonal greetings..!!
Merry Christmas and a Prosperous 2024!
Hello Jimbo Wales, may you be surrounded by peace, success and happiness on this seasonal occasion. Spread the WikiLove by wishing another user a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past, a good friend, or just some random person. Sending you heartfelt and warm greetings for Christmas and New Year 2024. Happy editing, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 03:34, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
Hello Jimbo Wales: Enjoy the holiday season and winter solstice if it's occurring in your area of the world, and thanks for your work to maintain, improve and expand Wikipedia. Cheers, CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 20:54, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of NASCAR drivers (2nd nomination) until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.
Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article until the discussion has finished.
Yes, you would be especially welcome as you were at the very first one(pictured)! Andrew🐉(talk) 13:58, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
Would have been great but I was away from London for a week, just now back to normal work!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
A cup of coffee for you!
Hi, Jimmy Wales. I greatly want to thank you very much for finding Wikipedia along with Larry Sanger. Wikipedia, is a good website where you can learn, read, discover, have fun with, create, edit so many things that I love this website. When I had to see any information on Google, you guys were the first to appear with your information. I started to read articles and just in matter of weeks, I became so much with in Wikipedia. Any information, there is Wikipedia. Binge on reading something new or interesting, there is Wikipedia and so much fun you can have on Wikipedia. Not only that I love Wikipedia's wonderful community always there for better and for everyone. Now, I use Wikipedia like everyday and I never get bored. And not just Wikipedia but your sister projects like Wiktionary, where there is definition for almost every word from every language. Wikimedia Commons , where there are so may images and videos. I am a new Wikipedian (didn't had any account for years until now, so I guess not new) and my goal here is to make Wikipedia the best place for information like as the phrase says, Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia. In all I want say, thank you very much for making this website and I don't think I'll be the only one who loves Wikipedia so much, there are like millions of people just like me loving Wikipedia so much. You and Larry Sanger are truly the G.O.A.T's for creating this website 23 years ago.
I hope Wikipedia realizes how lucky it is to have major historian Rjensen editing. He is able to add to discussions with subject matter expert knowledge and full cites, especially valuable as the U.S. enters its 250th anniversary cycle. My question, to both of you and others, what are good options to "attract" more historians to edit Wikipedia aside from asking in direct communication? Articles in topical magazines, speakers at subject-field conferences, an interview on History TV, etc., are just some quick ideas. Thanks. And, of course, Happy 23rd! Randy Kryn (talk) 15:47, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
I've long advocated the notion that Wikipedians are born, not made. I suspect that the way to connect with the 0.5% of active historians who are potential Wikipedians would be for someone like Dr. Jensen to connect by presenting on Wikipedia and its need for expert-written content at a national conference of historians. Just my thought. Carrite (talk) 19:54, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
Another group who would probably love to edit but just haven't put their attention on this project would be retired professors. Most care deeply about their chosen field, and Wikipedia would provide a post-teaching outlet. Some just have to become a bit more aware of Wikipedia's openness - as well as to be able to navigate its storms and gullies. Others could be reached by installing full-time Wikipedians-in-residence at large retirement communities, such as The Villages in Florida, and through professional newsletters, podcasts, etc. Tapping into the wealth of knowledge extant among retired teachers and researchers would not only share their experience but continue to enhance it. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:10, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
The redirect Manipuri: The Bishnupriyas and Meiteis of Manipur has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Anyone, including you, is welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2023 March 21 § Manipuri: The Bishnupriyas and Meiteis of Manipur until a consensus is reached. Jay 💬 13:30, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Daß Wölf 18:32, 19 May 2023 (UTC)
Already done —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 23:16, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
