User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

Wikiversity

Hey Jimbo. Just wanted to say that I strongly support your recent actions at Wikiversity. As controversial as the block/delete/desysop may have been, I am sure they were performed in the best in interests of Wikiversity and the Wikimedia Foundation. Difficult as it may have been, I believe you did the right thing, and that's what counts. All the best, FASTILY_sock^(TALK) 07:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Attack coatrack we discussed

I noticed while you recognized that the Carrie Prejean attack page was a coatrack, you didn't accept straight off that it was an attack page. The "encyclopedia article" was created when Miss Prejean, then 21, said that marriage was a man-woman thing. I quote the gay/ same-sex marriage advocate mob[1] editors:

• "Hilton's words and Prejean's answer to the marriage question are the only reason Prejean has an article today."[2]
• "Prejean's fame beyond yet-another-state-pagaent-winner lies in the interactions with Hilton and the public reactions thereto."[3]

Per Wikipedia:BLP#Articles_about_people_notable_only_for_one_event, "If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a single event, and if that person otherwise remains, or is likely to remain, a low-profile individual, we should generally avoid having an article on them. Biographies in these cases can give undue weight to the event and conflict with neutral point of view." -- Rico 18:36, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

It isn't helpful to insult people by calling them a 'mob'.

As to the content issue, I don't know the case well enough to have a strong opinion on whether this is a BLP1E situation, but I will say that there is at least very good reason to consider it, and my initial inclination would be to agree with you. As it currently stands, I re-iterate my opinion from before: the article is a fiasco and embarrassment. I'm dealing with several different issues at once these days, and so I'm not going to have time to personally get involved in this one, but I do hope I will be kept informed over time as to how it progresses.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Hey Rico, since I am the first quote above, I will note that I not a mob member. Even mice don't scurry from me. I followed the Prejean "controversy" closely at first and have cleaned up vandal edits on wikipedia to her article (as I have also done to James O'Keefe more recently). I also know that state pageant winners often do not get to have articles on wikipedia because they get deleted (not by me, but I'm more of an inclusionist if articles are verifiable). There is no question that Prejean's notability stems from her answer given in the pageant and Perez's subsequent baiting to increase the controversy. Since then she has had a very rocky road, and the article necessarily reflects what has been reported, and we need to avoid being too gratuitous--Jimbo's comment is not surprising because unless you've followed the controversy closely, you would be surprised to know the overall tenor of her coverage was exceedingly negative. But she's way too famous now not to have an article, imho. Its always fair to debate whether and how certain things should be worded, but those who may not agree with you aren't necessarily some cabal of gay marriage aficianados.--Milowent (talk) 18:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Milowent, I did look into this a couple of weeks ago when it was first brought to my attention, and I think the article is quite unfair as it stands. (And I agree with you that turning this into a "pro gay marriage cabal" argument is not likely to be useful.)

I think the things that disturbs me most right now is the close of the article - the article closes with an obvious enemy of hers (remember, she sued them for terminating her contract) calling her a liar, delusional, etc. The "hook" for that quote is that she apparently performed quite poorly on Larry King, storming off the set or whatever - is that incident actually worth including in the article? (Maybe it is, I'm just raising the question.) Surely she's done dozens of other interviews that went perfectly well - but we don't talk about those, we only talk about her failed interview with King.

What do you think of the BLP1E question? It does seem pretty much right that she wouldn't have an article had Perez Hilton not behaved as he did. (Seriously, I think were it not for his behavior, no one in the press would have even noted her answer - it is, as many have noted - not a completely outrageous answer even if you don't agree with it... it's the same answer that is fairly standard for a lot of people. Had she said "I think gay people should burn in hell" then that would have likely been notable in and of itself. But this only became notable because of something that someone else did.) Even the subsequent lawsuit might not have generated any particular notice - people sue people all the time, it's not that big a deal in most cases.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think this is just a BLP1E, but the article desperately needs to be rewritten. I edited it for awhile, but got fed up with partisans on either side of the issue and took it off my watchlist. Starting with the Miss USA 2009 controversy pretty much gets undue weight. I'm going to take a crack at it and see if I can get rid of some of the bias. AniMate 19:13, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Jimbo- I personally think the Larry King coverage is too much (ETA: and i said so at the time, Talk:Carrie_Prejean/Archive_2#larry_king), though it was covered widely at the time. What you can see is that the California pageant people were really vicious in this public drama - it would likely be fairer to say both sides made contentious public statements about other side. The lawsuit also didn't get major coverage until the sex tape claim came out. As for the BLP1E issue, I can't imagine consensus would favor her deletion, and we can't ignore the massive coverage she has received. Its a "famous for being famous" dilemma, and we are reflecting what the media has made notable. Thus, for John Edwards we have a massive John Edwards extramarital affair article.--Milowent (talk) 19:24, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

This is becoming more and more of a problem that probably deserves some sort of RfC or other centralized discussion. Articles that should fail by BLP1E standards get legions of supporters at their AfDs because they cite "the massive coverage" out there. With the advent of the 24/7 news cycle and the tabloidish/sensationalist nature of even major media outlets these days, IMO the threshold for being "in the news" is far, far, far lower now than it was even 3-4 years ago. Tarc (talk) 19:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I've removed much of the contentious material. Like Milowent, there was far too much on the Larry King interview. People give weird interviews all the time, so I removed it. I also condensed everything about the post-Miss USA into a couple of paragraphs. I think the worst part of the article was a sly attempt to say that Prejean could have been convicted for distributing child pornography for her tape if she was underage when it was taken. She wasn't, but the statement was still in there with multiple sources. AniMate 19:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Discussions, that were just between anti Carrie Prejean editors, took the form of: 'how can we include this new slag in the article.'[4] Justifications ranged from simple opinions to a predilection for disparagement (veiled, of course, in standard Wikipedia fashion and shrouded in Wikipedia-speak) -- but the direction was always the same (tarnish Miss Prejean's reputation).

When people like me tried to suggest following Wikipedia policies and guidelines, throngs of Most Interested Persons swamped us with arguments that were often ridiculously unpersuasive.[5] Arguing with people that had no interest in building consensus was like trying to reverse the direction of a swarm of locusts with one's bare hands.[6]

Naturally, we gave up, withdrew, and left the attack coatrack of a living person to those that were running Google News searches for "Carrie Prejean," and copying whatever dirt was published by yellow journalists into her BLP. InaMaka wrote, "You got your way. You and your associates jammed completely inappropriate comments into the article which violate NPOV and BLP."[7] Caden wrote, "I see no point. That hateful mob owns and controls that attack page. Personally, I feel the article should be deleted."[8]

Baseball Bugs, who didn't hide disdain for Miss Prejean,[9] brought up deleting the attack coatrack.[10]

AniMate, who once wrote, "I don't think anyone would confuse me with a Prejean fan,"[11] was the principal opponent.

Frederick Douglass stated, "Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

I suspect that the limits of what people will submit to, will be the exact amount of injustice and wrong that will be imposed upon this "encyclopedia article." And the endurance of editors that want Wikipedia's policies and guidelines complied with, will again prove to be far short of what would be necessary.

What's happened now, is that AniMate -- and who has "DOWN WITH H8TE!," in a big box at the top of his/her user page, with H8TE pointing to California Proposition 8 (2008) -- has deleted some of the most egregious content and added that she's engaged to marry a football player, and that she wrote a book. AniMate also split her answer on gay marriage and the resulting fallout, into two sections, and the article looks less like a coatrack now.

But Miss Prejean's not notable for having gotten engaged to a football player, nor for having written a book. Lots of people write books these days, that don't sell. It would not make sense to report on the fallout, without putting why it occurred. Lots of women get engaged to football players. The BLP1E's still primarily about Miss Prejean's answer and the resulting fallout, and there is another article for that, entitled, "Miss USA 2009 controversy," classified as "within the scope of ... WikiProject LGBT studies."[12] -- Rico 21:03, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Rico, "people like you" aren't the only ones who follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I dare say that most of, if not all, of the main principals in this discussion follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and endeavor to edit according to those precepts. The problem is that part of the difference is in interpretation and application of Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The discussion at the talk page should be a discussion of the differing interpretations and how article proposals fit with one or the other, and attempts to persuade editors and gain consensus. Unfortunately, what the discussion is and what it should be are two different things -- far too often at the talk page, the "discussion" was nothing but repetitions of "That's censorship!", "Hilton's evil!", "Prejean's evil!", "You're all pro/anti gay marriage, why should I listen to you?", and repeated postings of quotes from policy pages with any arguments, even pathetic ones, at all. (Heck, to a large extent, many talk pages look like that.) (And, yeah, I've been guilty of that too.) Can we, at least, please discuss the ARTICLE rather than the EDITORS? Maybe the paras in the Prejean article dealing with the controversy can be shortened given the existence of the "Controversy" article - but can we talk about it over on the talk page, instead of at ANI, the BLP noticeboard, and Jimbo's talk page? -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 21:15, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Search page shortcomings

Hi, Jimbo Wales. Recently seeing this comment (again): ' Typically, Google search results are better ' about Wikipedia's Search page (and its 'cancer' outgrowth, the aptly named CatScan tool) made me think that reading it over and over in different places means that people consider this a fact of life; which seems to me strange, since after all the whole of Wikimedia sites have a very specific structure and meta-content that is not taken into account by Google at all (I guess); Wikimedia must have a 50m headstart there, not taking into account the more frequent indexing (I guess), nevertheless.... I've mentioned this pet concern of mine in other places without much reaction from Wikipedians so far and since I've not seen much improvement over time to that sorry state of affairs (I found out has a definite influence on my Wikipedia 'productivity'), I think this page may be my last hope of having a decent search tool on Wikimedia anytime soon. Thanks for your time and many thanks for having founded Wikipedia... --AlainR345^{Techno-Wiki-Geek} 18:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC) (WikiProject Java and Design portal founder)

Article renaming discussion notification

You commented earlier on Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident that you would support the article being renamed to a neutral compromise name. A formal move request has now been filed. Please feel free to add your view to the discussion at Talk:Climatic Research Unit hacking incident#Requested move. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:59, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Requesting that you review username dispute for bias

Resolved

 – Complainant is a sock: By User:Newuser549's admission, his main account of User:climateGate was confirmed by a WP:CheckUser as the sock of the banned editor User:Danrz, thus making himself a sock as well.

My username was until recently, ClimateGate. Reasons are stated in the two short appeals on the page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:ClimateGate#Please_choose_a_different_username

I'm also suggesting the policies on user names be made more clear with more specifics. Otherwise, administrators can find a reason to get rid of hundreds of editors for bad motives under the guise of some grossly attenuated connection to some vague, ambiguous username policy. I'd like to point out also that I had this username for a number of weeks and all of a sudden I was banned after I voiced my support for the community recall of administrators policy, where I pointed out past conduct by a particular administrator to explain why I thought such a policy is important. After I voted on that page, a person whom I believe is an administrator endorsed my opinion. Thank-you. Newuser549 (talk) 22:25, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

"administrators can find a reason to get rid of hundreds of editors"? Nooo, all the editors have to do is select a different username. Franamax (talk) 22:53, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

They can use it to punish and offend someone, and thus ultimately make them feel like leaving. Newuser549 (talk) 00:13, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• Note to "Newuser549/ClimateGates": Please read up on this editing guideline/policy of Wikipedia → WP:NPOV ←, the explanation for such implications are stated clearly for you to read... right there. Another thing is, I would suggest that you go back to your earlier username account to request an unblock review, stating that you have read and understand what was told to you by the blocking Admin, and that you are willing to change to another username that doesn't violate Wikipedia's policy. Because technically speaking, you are now in danger of being block again for evading your block without first resolving your earlier problem. Which to us, smells of trollish behaviour. No doubts these are minefields but it is really not a big deal if you are willing to accede to Wikipedia's policy and are willing to conform to them. Take heed. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™} 02:32, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not evading a block, because the only thing that's blocked is that username and not the user behind it. And given the fact that I can't use it anymore, it doesn't make me a sock puppet, either. And I don't have to rename the account if I don't want to. I'm free to make a new one. And as to the username, it's also not a POV issue, because it's not promotional anymore than it would be promoting baseball if I named myself baseballdude72. What is that, now? The third successive excuse? Also, feel free to remove that disingenuous welcome material you posted to my user page and stop making threats in bold type. Thanks. Newuser549 (talk) 02:59, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• You said you are not a sockpuppet because you are not evading a block? We'll wait and see. --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™} 03:44, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

• Guess what? The folks at SPI are going to nail you... you claimed that your main account is User:ClimateGate? Which, in turn, is traced and confirmed as the sock of User:Danrz, thus making you a sock too. Now, I'm bidding you adieu per WP:DENY, nuff said~! --Dave ^{♠♣♥♦1185♪♫™} 04:12, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

So, anything new on Flagged Revisions?

Since you announced the conclusion of User talk:Jimbo Wales/poll two weeks ago, I have not heard anything new about flagged revisions. Meanwhile, just today, I had to apologize to a distraught family that one of our articles called their son a pedophile and a rapist and tell them that as a result of our privacy policy, we are not at liberty to give them the IP information of the vandal who added that bit of damaging content unless they went through formal and expensive legal processes. Unfortunately, this situation is not unique. Every other OTRS ticket in the Quality subqueue in info-en seems to be a similar story. So...anything new? NW (Talk) 18:52, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I plan to post a new poll in a few days - possibly tomorrow morning if I can manage to write up my analysis in the morning. I intend to keep seeking consensus for doing something useful with the existing software while we wait for the improved software to be finished.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:18, 20 March 2010 (UTC)