User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Note, I've reset my talk page to move us into the next phase of this discussion. If you want to read the old stuff, it isn't deleted, it is in the archive: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive.)

Much of the cleanup is done, although there was so much hardcore pornography on commons that there's still some left in nooks and crannies.

I'm taking the day off from deleting, both today and tomorrow, but I do encourage people to continue deleting the most extreme stuff.

But as the immediate crisis has passed (successfully!) there is not nearly the time pressure that there was. I'm shifting into a slower mode.

We were about to be smeared in all media as hosting hardcore pornography with zero educational value and doing nothing about it. Now, the correct storyline is that we are cleaning up. I'm proud to have made sure that storyline broke the way it did, and I'm sorry I had to step on some toes to make it happen.

Now, the key is: let's continue to move forward with a responsible policy discussion.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:09, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Mr Wales, you are the only person who has stop a serious policy discussion by your actions.

You have repeatedly violated speedy deletion policy by speedy deleting files that should have gone through the normal deletion process.

You have repeatedly engaged in wheelwars — and, worse, without justifying yourself in some manner that anyone who is not you would consider reasonable.

You have gone against community consensus by deleting files that meet Commons guidelines, i.e. images that are educationally useful and not low-quality porn photos. The correct order of events should be to first try to build a consensus to change the guidelines, and then, if successful, delete the images — only after warning the projects that use them and giving them adequate time to create replacements.

When asked to explain your administrative actions, you seriously suggest everyone wait for 4 weeks before you deign to metaphorically get off your throne and discuss anything.

Mr. Wales, your gung-ho attitude towards administration has damaged the community for no good reason. You have single-handedly destroyed Wikipedia's trust in Commons. You have have single-handedly destroyed Commons' users' trust in their administrators. If everything was about FOX, you have lied to us in recent days. You show absolutely no respect for the users here and on Wikipedia. And we can not be a free encyclopedia if we delete files to make Fox happy, it's intellectual corruption.

--Ankara (talk) 07:22, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

It is not about Fox at all, it is about our educational mission. Let me ask you point blank: do you want Wikimedia Commons to be a hardcore porn hosting service? I ask you to look at this video - watch the whole thing, it's only 8 minutes or so long. And then come back and tell me that it's more important that I allow you to upload and view hardcore pornography, than that we responsibly serve our educational mission.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

When you delete a picture of woman masturbating you care more about the American view of sexuality than of a free encyclopedia. A young woman who grows up in a conservative American environment has a right to know what masturbation is and how it works. Just as a woman in the DPRK has the right to read about Christianity, or Ayn Rand, a person in Iran has the right to read about U.S.. You have started to censor the encyclopedia from an American POV, and without any kind of consensus here.

If it is not about Fox, why the rush? To send me the movielink is just arrogant, it's not me who will stop and censor knowledge. It is you who should watch the movie, and try to get back to your wonderful idea for Wikipedia. Remeber "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." Not any more, "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge who suit Christian Americans views on what is appropriate". That's what we're doing."--Ankara (talk) 07:47, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

It is not about Fox, it is about our reputation in the world generally. We were hosting (and still are, frankly, because there's deletions that still need to be done) hardcore pornography not being used in any article and of no educational value.

And it is not about the "American view of sexuality," that argument just doesn't make any sense to me. The point of the video I asked you to watch is that she's a little girl in Peru. I don't know if you've ever been to America, and I don't know if you are aware of it, but the US is the world capital of the pornography industry, and pornography is widely available for sale, rent, and on the Internet.

If we rank countries on a spectrum of tolerance for this type of material, the US would not be the most tolerant, but it would be very very far from the least tolerant.

At the same time, I question what appears to be an assumption you're making even about your own country. I've been there, but of course I'm no expert on it, so I'll just ask you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You are a well known friend of Ayn Rand's philosophy. Remember what she says: Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong. It is a contradiction between "Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia" and "Wikipedia deletes educational material that is used to illustrate articles because people do not think they are appropriate". What premise is wrong?

It is a contradiction between we are working for a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge and we are working for a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge who suit a conservative views on what is appropriat--Ankara (talk) 08:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

So rather than answering to the legitimate concerns of the community, you would just rather wipe their concerns away: out of sight, out of mind, as if blanking their questions was part of this great cleanup mission? Elian had a great name for this behavior of yours: discussion beaming. --Melanom (talk) 06:39, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Deleting discussions without comment or archiving is not acceptable behavior for an admin. Please remember you do not own your user space, none of us do. Any editor may restore any or all of the deleted material, if its inclusion is useful to the goals of the foundation. I encourage them to do so. --Alecmconroy (talk) 06:42, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

It's all archived in the history. If you want to make a separate archive page, you can do that if you want.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:47, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Again. How nice to see we are censoring even though "Wikipedia is not censored" --Koolabsol (talk) 07:37, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Current and Recent Conversations

Per above, the ongoing and recent discussions have been restored here: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive. --Alecmconroy (talk) 06:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Next steps

In the flurry of activity this weekend, I made some mistakes, and I'm sorry about that. I had thought that a good process would be to engage in a very strong series of deletions, including of some historical images, and then to have a careful discussion about rebuilding. That proved to be very unpopular and so I regret it. It also may have had the effect of confusing people about my own position on what to keep and what to get rid of.

On the Commons:Sexual content policy page there is language about "high artistic, literary, educational or historical merit" - I fully support that language, and I think the important thing for us to do now is to start working on deeper explanations of what that means.

There is also language originally taken from USC 2257 which I think is useful but which I think can also be improved upon. The nice thing about a 3rd party statement is that it gives us a simple objective criterion - that's a good thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:12, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I had thought that a good process would be to engage in a very strong series of deletions, including of some historical images,

Whoa whoa whoa.. Are you saying you intentionally chose to delete historical images that are allowed under the current Foundation rules???? --Alecmconroy (talk) 07:32, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

No.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:35, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I apologize for the confusion, I thought I had a communications breakthrough there. Perhaps we could better understand your thought process if you elaborated on that answer. I respectfully ask:

Could you please shed any light on how it was you were able to delete the same piece of artwork multiple times without realizing that it does not violate the foundation's policies? (File:Félicien Rops - Sainte-Thérèse.png) --Alecmconroy (talk) 08:02, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I am unsure what you are asking, exactly. My view was that we should first take a very hardline interpretation of policy, while it is being refined, and then bring things back if, after due consideration, we find it worthwhile to do so. Policy will be in flux for awhile, as I have said, and both the board and the community are continuing discussions about it.

It currently seems that we are going to settle on a precautionary principle of sorts, in which our default assumption will be to not keep a wide variety of potentially offensive images, with exceptions (which I fully support) for images of particularly high artistic/literary/educational value. Your assistance in thinking about how to word that would be much appreciated.

Because the immediate crisis has passed - and the board has put out a first statement about this - I think it is time to take a slower pace. I don't think it's as important at the moment to deal with the borderline cases. I think the image you are asking about is a borderline case - of precisely the sort that we are going to want to have a serious discussion on a case-by-case basis as they come up. Before, I was of the view that we should deal with the borderline cases by deleting and then discussing undeletion. I think the image in question is borderline, meaning that I think reasonable people could say that it goes to far, and reasonable people could say that it is of sufficient historical importance to be kept. Does that help to answer your question?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:25, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, gotcha. You didn't delete images that you felt were legit, but you deleted those you personally believed to be "borderline".

But why the rush? If it wasn't Fox News, why did you discontinue policy formation in favor of deleting first and asking questions later? --Alecmconroy (talk) 08:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to note that I didn't "discontinue policy formulation" - I've encouraged that we work on it, throughout all of this, and I encourage it now. I think I understand what you're asking and where we may not have communicated. I think Fox News was about to publish a story that would get picked up very far and wide, all over the world, by dozens or even hundreds of respectable sources. And that story was going to be plain and simple and factual and very very bad. It was going to say "Wikipedia is hosting hundreds of hardcore pornographic images on their servers" - with detailed explanation of what they are.

There was a problem on Commons (and there is still work to be done!) and even people who are very mad at me for acting so quickly and stepping on people's toes (and I understand why people feel that way, I really do) tend to agree that there was a problem and that policy needed to be either much more strictly enforced or changed. (Your view on which it is likely depends on your view on what policy actually was).

As it stands now, the story is that we are working on cleaning up the problem. That's a good thing.

So to answer your question: it wasn't Fox per se that I was worried about - it was our global reputation, which was about to be smeared. I would have strongly preferred if we went through a quiet process over a long period of time. I don't like having people mad at me, obviously. I strongly support policy making through consensus, and I trust that the community is the best way we have to resolve complex issues.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:01, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back

Welcome back from your Wikibreak. Sincerely not trying to be annoying, but, since we're both awake, let me be the first to ask: have you given any thought to voluntarily resigning your position as we have requested? The community is far more concerned about that than your policy proposals. --Alecmconroy (talk) 07:13, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you're more concerned about me than working on policy. Please work with me constructively on policy,rather than trying to stir up controversy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:29, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Jimbo, I am a million times more concerned about your actions than the policies you used to justify them. You are the founder, and 200+ people believe you abused your tools. We all are more concerned about you than that specific policy. You need to see that. --Alecmconroy (talk) 07:34, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, relax.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:35, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Okay, :). We'll try. But I think we'd all have a lot more success at relaxation and policy formation if we knew that Wikimedia is still governed by consensus. Like, ya know, the 3-to-1 consensus against you keeping your powers. --Alecmconroy (talk) 08:29, 9 May 2010 (UTC)