User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Policy commission

Policy pages are different from article pages because the original ideas of editors are prohibited from article pages, but not from policy pages.

Just offering a suggestion that you consider appointing a commission of people you know to be trustworthy competent clear writers, that oversees the editing of the policy pages. The purpose of the commission is to help by noting problems and/or suggesting changes. [note added 04:48, 3 October 2011 (UTC):The main interest of the commission should be the clarity and organization of policy, rather than content which I expect would only be rarely affected, if at all.] If the editors at a policy page are either unwilling or unable to make appropriate changes, the commission would have the authority to make the changes. These changes by the commission could not be reverted, except possibly through an appeal to the commission, which the commission would either accept or reject. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:01, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I too favor something like that, except I believe the policy committee should be elected rather than appointed. Looie496 (talk) 22:40, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

One of the reasons for Jimbo appointing a commission is to avoid the politics of an election, which can include voting based on political alliances, stealth canvassing, etc. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

The idea of "governance from on high" for policies or for anything much other than mechanical operations might have "unforeseen consequences" froma legal point of view. While I think it would be great if salaried Wikimedia employees had some authority over articles and editors, such would assuredly affect the legal status regarding libel and other laws in various nations. By devolving the decisions to the "community", the foundation has a layer of insulation it should be unwilling to forego. This is not actually "mere opinion" but from many years experience as a contractor for an on-line service. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:04, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

It's also just wrong, I'm afraid, Collect. There would be no legal ramifications at all to the Foundation doing such a thing, and reasoning about legal risk has played as close to zero a role in our decision making around these issues as I think it is possible. This is an oft-repeated myth, that we do things the way we do them so as to insulate the Foundation from legal risk, but it just isn't true.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:25, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear that - I was using my experience with a "major ISP" and its legal department which basically said the ISP did not wish to get involved in anything remotely approaching a legal case <g>. I ended up seeing an attorney about a threat from an aggrieved party, and (thankfully for free) he gave the opinion that the threat had absolutely zero weight. Which the ISP legal department could have figured out without sending me the registered mail. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:41, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

I modified my suggestion to more accurately reflect what I intended and perhaps address some of your concerns. I added the sentence, "The main interest of the commission should be the clarity and organization of policy, rather than content which I expect would only be rarely affected, if at all." Also note that the commission would not have authority over article editing. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:09, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

I have undone your edit, because it made my reply false. Editing a talk page statement after people have responded to it is hardly ever a good thing to do. Your clarification gets the point across perfectly well. Looie496 (talk) 03:42, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

After reviewing WP:TALK, especially WP:TPO and WP:REDACT, I decided to restore what you deleted from my message, per the last option of WP:REDACT, by clearly noting that it was an addition and including a time/date stamp. Also, please note WP:TPO and recognize that you do not have my permission to modify my message. Thank you for originally bringing your concerns to my attention. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 04:48, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough; but with that modification, it's less like what I had in mind. Looie496 (talk) 05:00, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Making policy by consensus can be a tiresome process, especially where consensus doesn't favour your views. If Jimbo could wave a magic wand and appoint a commission of people sufficiently skilled at squaring circles that they could write policies to suit all points of view and resolve all differences on the pedia, then I think that after a little shock people would get used to the idea. Though if such people exist they would have more legitimacy in the community if they were an elected commission. Of course we should remember that there is an alternative model for developing policy based on crowd sourcing and consensus, and before ruling that out we should just check to see how the ten year Nupedia v Wikipedia experiment has gone. Assuming that by now Nupedia has triumphed and Wikipedia is but a flawed forgotten experiment then yes, we should conclude that a hierarchical top down approach is better than a bottom up consensus based one. Alternatively we could treat the current Image filter initiative as a trial of a new way of making policy. If that goes so smoothly and uncontentiously as to discredit our current policy making processes then I'm sure the community would embrace a similar process for all policy formulation. ϢereSpielChequers 07:03, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

At the end of the day, wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I think we are in danger of thinking of wikipedia politically in terms of policies rather than focusing on what is most important, encyclopedic content. In fact if many on here cut the bureacratic/governor pretense and wrote articles instead the site would be massively better off.. And if much of the time spent discussing policies and wiki politics instead went into actual development planning and how to feasibly greatly improve overall content we would start meeting our real objectives...♦ Dr. Blofeld

Meta:DICK

Over a period of months had been being improved one word at a time. Today, bam. [1] shows how a single editor can manage to ignore any concept of improvement by consensus etc. Cheers. Collect (talk) 19:31, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

As you can see, I reverted it to the last consensus version and asked for changes to be discussed on the talk page. I hope that will help. I would join the discussion, but it seems unlikely that I will have time in the coming week or so, as I'm going to be slammed with work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Risker has also joined in (though he thinks Robbie Burns is hard to understand <g>). Collect (talk) 15:09, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Francis of Assisi imprisoned at Perugia

The U.S. national TV networks have been reporting from Perugia all day (all week). Some U.S. reporters have noted that Francis of Assisi joined the war between Assisi and Perugia at age 20, in 1202, and he was injured and imprisoned with the others during the Battle of Collestrada, on the edge of Perugia.[2] His father paid a ransom to have him freed the next year. Francis of Assisi died just after sunset on this day in 1226,[3] almost 23 years after being freed from prison at Perugia. Dying after sunset, then October 4 is the Feast Day of Saint Francis of Assisi. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:27, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Italian wikipedia entirely blocked

• Seen this? Click on en at the top to read in english. Seems a bit of an extreme reaction, anger more than anything about content being jeopardized by the new law, but seems as it hasn't been passed yet...♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:40, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It can be argued that it's a masterful propaganda move; it would certainly get my attention if I were an Italian voter! --Orange Mike | Talk 20:11, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

How exactly was this accomplished? Every single page (not just articles) redirects straight back to the one linked above, and it appears to be a proper redirect as a opposed to a wikipedia style redirect. Who has the ability to do something like that? Surely it has to be a dev or a steward or a foundation member, its not like admins or crats could do that--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:26, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

In fact the admins can do that because it's a javascript and css trick Xavier Combelle (talk) 20:39, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems like they would have to do that on Meta though and not in the Wiki in order to affect every page like that. --Kumioko (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The same javascript is loaded for every page. It is easy to make this redirect the visitor regardless of where they come in. Dragons flight (talk) 21:01, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

If I turn off javascript in my browser, I don't get redirected to that page anymore, but there's still no content on any of the pages. The article/discussion/history/edit tabs are still there, but going to those pages leads to a blank page too. I thought maybe it was a big white fixed position image hiding the content, but when I turn images off the same thing happens. Assuming this is not a developer's doing (hard to believe it would be), it's an interesting trick. We should probably make sure we know how they did it so that the next en.wiki admin who goes off the rails can't do something we can't readily undo. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

It's a simple CSS display:none. Simple enough to undo. --Yair rand (talk) 21:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Please read this --80.180.155.18 (talk) 21:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The mobile version stills hold the common.js: http://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Common.js Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:22, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a discussion going on here. ANything to say on this Jimbo? The proposed bill seems an invasion on human rights and freedom of expression.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm supportive. I think the Italians are moving rather more quickly than we would, and making a more dramatic gesture than we would, but that's ok: they're Italians and that's awesome. Their interpretation of the law is correct, based on reports I have from various people, and so it's worthwhile to make the point really BIG in Italy, and around the world: freedom of expression matters, if the world wants to have Wikipedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:51, 4 October 2011 (UTC)