Contradicting himself

everyking · Unread post by **everyking** » Fri Sep 05, 2014 3:01 am

EricBarbour wrote:
If someone... is the sort of person who would block everyone who disagrees with him from his talk page, then the solution is to ban the user. People like that aren't here to build an encyclopedia. I'm hoping we can move to an understanding that we don't have to put up with people who have nothing useful to offer other than rancor.

--Jimbo Wales, 15:13, 4 September 2014
And yet, a large percentage of Wikipedia's administrators aren't "there to build an encyclopedia". In fact, they love to remove content, often for completely bogus and insane reasons. Try to get him to admit it, go ahead.

"Not here to build an encyclopedia" is a meaningless accusation, but it's useful because it acts as some kind of political code among power users that identifies people for wiki-exile/excommunication/execution. More often than not, the accusers contribute far less, and destroy far more, than the accused. But if the phrase were given real meaning, and applied honestly, it could be deployed against that whole class of destructive users, starting with Jimbo and the ArbCom, and put power in the hands of people who actually are interested in building an encyclopedia. I recommend accusing toxic authoritarian types of being "not here to build an encyclopedia" on all possible occasions.

Triptych · Unread post by **Triptych** » Fri Sep 05, 2014 6:40 pm

everyking wrote: "Not here to build an encyclopedia" is a meaningless accusation, but it's useful because it acts as some kind of political code among power users that identifies people for wiki-exile/excommunication/execution. More often than not, the accusers contribute far less, and destroy far more, than the accused. But if the phrase were given real meaning, and applied honestly, it could be deployed against that whole class of destructive users, starting with Jimbo and the ArbCom, and put power in the hands of people who actually are interested in building an encyclopedia. I recommend accusing toxic authoritarian types of being "not here to build an encyclopedia" on all possible occasions.

I agree 100% and you explained that better than I could, at least better than I could without a good deal of effort.

Another of the big code phrases is the "disruptive" charge. It's a completely amorphous word, so it's used at the convenience of those empowered people (read: those who can block others) when they don't want to bother citing a defined rule, or when there is no defined rule that has been broken. Another funny aspect of this is that disruption can actually be a good thing. A stagnant or bad system is improved by disruption. There are disruptive technologies. It can just mean that somebody figured out how to do something better, or do a new thing.

Another way to look at "not here to build an encyclopedia" and "disruptive" is that they are fig leaves for the real aim of those who use them, which is to accrue ever more power and supremacy to the Wikipedia administrative class.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Sep 06, 2014 6:19 pm

everyking wrote:I recommend accusing toxic authoritarian types of being "not here to build an encyclopedia" on all possible occasions.

That sounds like an excellent way to get permanently blocked.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:03 pm

Peter Damian wrote:March 26th, 2009: Wales is quoted by Susan Kuchinskas when asked about any updates on Wikia Search, "I have my team focused on the front end, working on the user experience, and making sure we have all the wiki-like tools people need to work on the site. We're just cranking away."

March 31st, 2009: Jimmy Wales "closes the doors" on Wikia Search. The site is permanently taken offline.

One of the best-written deconstructions of Jimbo's deceit on this matter was by Gil Reich, at Managing Greatness. I'm sad that even though Reich wrote this in 2009, it took me until 2014 to discover it. I commented that Mr. Reich would be welcome here.

Hex · Unread post by **Hex** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 4:57 pm

Wales says that he’s going to be

“refocusing resources on other Wikia.com properties, especially on Wikianswers.”
...
Wikia’s answer site brags of fewer than 15,000 “answered questions.”

Five years later, it brags of 880,992 questions, of which 232,608 are answered. New questions visible on the home page include the head-scratchers "What is the eccentricity of the elliptical orbit of planet Z?", "What is the scientific of lampunaya?" and, of course, that timeless enigma "Why are handcuffs?" Mighty useful stuff.

Kelly Martin · Unread post by **Kelly Martin** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 5:10 pm

Hex wrote:Five years later, it brags of 880,992 questions, of which 232,608 are answered. New questions visible on the home page include the head-scratchers "What is the eccentricity of the elliptical orbit of planet Z?", "What is the scientific of lampunaya?" and, of course, that timeless enigma "Why are handcuffs?" Mighty useful stuff.

Meanwhile, WikiAnswer's direct competitor, Quora, has over 2.5 million questions. Oddly enough, Jimmy Wales is a fairly active participant at Quora, with 547 answers so far, the most recent a mere five hours ago. That's almost as many as his total edits on answers.wikia.com, and his most recent edit there was in 2011. Do you suppose he's simply forgotten about WikiAnswers, and so that's why he uses the direct competitor of his own business in preference to his own? It'd be like Elon Musk driving a Hummer.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 6:52 pm

Kelly Martin wrote:Do you suppose he's simply forgotten about WikiAnswers, and so that's why he uses the direct competitor of his own business in preference to his own? It'd be like Elon Musk driving a Hummer.

Worth noting that Wales is not just a user of Quora -- he is a (small) financial investor in the project.

No surprise, really... he's been using a direct competitor of Christine Rohan since about 2010.

Johnny Au · Unread post by **Johnny Au** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 9:48 pm

thekohser wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:Do you suppose he's simply forgotten about WikiAnswers, and so that's why he uses the direct competitor of his own business in preference to his own? It'd be like Elon Musk driving a Hummer.
Worth noting that Wales is not just a user of Quora -- he is a (small) financial investor in the project.

No surprise, really... he's been using a direct competitor of Christine Rohan since about 2010.

The same reason as to why Mark Zuckerberg donated an undisclosed sum to the Diaspora social network, despite it being a competitor to his website, as well as Microsoft paying enough money to keep Apple afloat approximately two decades ago, etc.

SB_Johnny · Unread post by **SB_Johnny** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:32 am

Johnny Au wrote:
thekohser wrote:
Kelly Martin wrote:Do you suppose he's simply forgotten about WikiAnswers, and so that's why he uses the direct competitor of his own business in preference to his own? It'd be like Elon Musk driving a Hummer.
Worth noting that Wales is not just a user of Quora -- he is a (small) financial investor in the project.

No surprise, really... he's been using a direct competitor of Christine Rohan since about 2010.
The same reason as to why Mark Zuckerberg donated an undisclosed sum to the Diaspora social network, despite it being a competitor to his website, as well as Microsoft paying enough money to keep Apple afloat approximately two decades ago, etc.

Except that he's doing the backwards of that.

Unread post by **Midsize Jake** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 6:26 pm

thekohser wrote:One of the best-written deconstructions of Jimbo's deceit on this matter was by Gil Reich, at Managing Greatness. I'm sad that even though Reich wrote this in 2009, it took me until 2014 to discover it. I commented that Mr. Reich would be welcome here.

Agreed, and the words "They capitalized off the brand confusion" should probably be in our front-page top-line blurb rotation. It would also make a good title for a book about Wikia, except obviously nobody will ever bother to write one.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Oct 22, 2014 11:54 pm

I guess we all remember that it took Jimmy Wales a while to pay Demmy, the 2012 Wikipedian of the Year, his promised $5,000. The following account is from April 2013:

Last year's winner, a Wikipedian called "Demmy," didn't even know about the prize until attendees at Wales' speech told him about it on his Wikipedia user page ("Jimbo Wales has just announced the Wikipedian of the Year award, and it is you!" a Rich Farmbrough wrote. "Congratulations!")

Wales had once again announced the prize at Wikimania, held in Washington D.C. in July 2012, though this time the award's name had changed. It was now simply the "Jimbo Award"—an attempt perhaps to emphasize that Wikimedia has no formal ties to the award.

[...]

At least two accounts of Wales's Wikimania speech indicate he once again promised a prize of $5,000, from his own pocket. But it appears to have taken Wales more than five months to finally reach out to Demmy himself.

Demmy—who Wales has apparently never met—had programmed a bot to translate short English Wikipedia articles into his native Yoruba, a language spoken widely across Nigeria. The fruit of his labor was 15,000 new, machine-translated articles in the Yoruba language Wikipedia.

After reaching out to Demmy in January 2013, Wales promised to pay him the $5,000 in prize money after returning from Switzerland, where he'd be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos from Jan. 23 to 27.

Three months later, Demmy still hadn't heard a peep out of Wales. Here's what he told the Daily Dot in an email earlier today:

In January, Wales contacted me and told me the award carry prize money of $5000 which, he said, he intended to give to me. My last email to Wales was on March 29, 2013. Yes he promised to pay the award money in the last email he sent me on 20th January 2013, there he said he was going to Davos but will process the paper work when he get back the following Monday. That was the last I heard of him.

He added: "I sent him 2 emails since then (on Feb 22 [and] Mar 29) but he didn't reply to either of them."

It sounds like that's about to change. After we contacted Wales about Demmy's situation, he responded: "First I heard of it. I'm in touch with him now. Thanks for the heads up."

Fast forward to one year later, April 2014, when Wales was reportedly asked about this by another writer and went on to provide the account marked in bold below:

A year ago this week, Kevin Morris of this parish reported that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales had not paid two winners of his “Wikipedian of the Year” award the $5,000 to which they were entitled.

Shortly after publication, one of those debts was finally paid off. “There were complications around Western Union rules and nothing to report about other than that the banking system makes it hard to do what people would like to do,” Wales told me via email on Tuesday.

Yet the second debt, which is now three years old, remains unsettled. Wales says “it has always been agreed that the grant would come upon my making a trip to Kazakhstan, which has proven difficult to arrange.”

Mr. Wales should be applauded for his ingenuity. Indeed, I am thinking of using the same excuse when my next cellphone bill arrives: “I’m terribly sorry, T-Mobile, but did we not agree that I would pay you the next time I visit Kazakhstan?”

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:03 am

I guess we should include a record of the following in this thread:

In a July 2005 TED talk, Jimmy Wales stressed how little money it cost to run Wikipedia. He said that they only had one employee, and explained,

"So, we're doing around 1.4 billion page views monthly. So, it's really gotten to be a huge thing. And everything is managed by the volunteers and the total monthly cost for our bandwidth is about 5,000 dollars, and that's essentially our main cost. We could actually do without the employee ... We actually hired Brion [Vibber] because he was working part-time for two years and full-time at Wikipedia so we actually hired him so he could get a life and go to the movies sometimes."

Today, the Wikimedia Foundation attracts 21 billion page views a month – i.e. 15 times as much – but even 15 times the $5,000 a month Wales mentioned would only be $75,000 a month, or $900,000 a year; and that does not allow for economies of scale, and the fact that bandwidth has become cheaper since then.

Yet donors are now asked to donate more than $50 million a year to keep "Wikipedia online and ad-free".

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Thu Oct 23, 2014 1:01 am

Why not make a quick blog post listing Jimbo-lies over the years? (Or was that done already?)

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Wed Dec 03, 2014 12:30 pm

Already spotted by DeCausa (T-C-L) in this thread, but needs spelling out. On 4 September 2014, Jimbo commented on this complaint on ANI, about the uncivil behaviour of Eric Corbett (T-C-L), Two kinds of pork (T-C-L) and SPECIFICO (T-C-L).

In the old days some people would have been banned by now for that kind of behavior. It is a shame that we tolerate disruption - it costs us a lot of good editors.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:05, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Decausa asked Jimbo whether this wasn’t as much of a “one side at fault” situation as his previous comments suggested, given that it was actually the complainant who got banned, not the people whose behaviour was being complained about. Jimbo replied:

I fully stand by my earlier remarks. You appear to be viewing my remarks through a lens that isn't true - a lens of "sides" which I reject. I think a lot of people should be sitebanned for misbehavior and that the community will begin to grow and flourish again when we get rid of people who bring more drama than they are worth. As to specific editors in this specific case, I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you by declining to offer detailed opinions of the ArbCom decision. My role with respect to ArbCom doesn't consist of judging whether I agree with specific detailed decisions, but rather to give some oversight as to whether they are following appropriate and fair processes and procedures.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

This seems contradictory to me.

Unread post by **Zoloft** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 12:15 am

Peter Damian wrote:Already spotted by DeCausa (T-C-L) in this thread, but needs spelling out. On 4 September 2014, Jimbo commented on this complaint on ANI, about the uncivil behaviour of Eric Corbett (T-C-L), Two kinds of pork (T-C-L) and SPECIFICO (T-C-L).

In the old days some people would have been banned by now for that kind of behavior. It is a shame that we tolerate disruption - it costs us a lot of good editors.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:05, 4 September 2014 (UTC)
Decausa asked Jimbo whether this wasn’t as much of a “one side at fault” situation as his previous comments suggested, given that it was actually the complainant who got banned, not the people whose behaviour was being complained about. Jimbo replied:

I fully stand by my earlier remarks. You appear to be viewing my remarks through a lens that isn't true - a lens of "sides" which I reject. I think a lot of people should be sitebanned for misbehavior and that the community will begin to grow and flourish again when we get rid of people who bring more drama than they are worth. As to specific editors in this specific case, I'm afraid I will have to disappoint you by declining to offer detailed opinions of the ArbCom decision. My role with respect to ArbCom doesn't consist of judging whether I agree with specific detailed decisions, but rather to give some oversight as to whether they are following appropriate and fair processes and procedures.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
This seems contradictory to me.

Jimbo Wales lives in a land of self-generated smoke and mirrors, always dodging into the mists.

Ogajur · Unread post by **Ogajur** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 12:25 am

Read between the lines. He's not contradicting himself, he's saying (a) he stands by his original remark and (b) refusing to comment in detail on the ArbCom decision. Since the ArbCom decision has a different result that he presumably would have liked (he'd have banned, probably, people on both sides) then he either has to explicitly say so, or refuse to comment on it.

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 10:21 am

Ogajur wrote:Read between the lines. He's not contradicting himself, he's saying (a) he stands by his original remark and (b) refusing to comment in detail on the ArbCom decision. Since the ArbCom decision has a different result that he presumably would have liked (he'd have banned, probably, people on both sides) then he either has to explicitly say so, or refuse to comment on it.

As I said, there may be only the appearance of contradiction. But if X and Y are in some kind of dispute, and X comes running to me saying 'look at the terrible misbehaviour of Y', and I reply "Indeed, that sort of behaviour should be sanctioned", then I seem to be taking sides, no? I am endorsing the POV of X, and condemning that of Y.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 11:32 am

Peter Damian wrote:As I said, there may be only the appearance of contradiction. But if X and Y are in some kind of dispute, and X comes running to me saying 'look at the terrible misbehaviour of Y', and I reply "Indeed, that sort of behaviour should be sanctioned", then I seem to be taking sides, no? I am endorsing the POV of X, and condemning that of Y.

Look at the name of this folder. Remember, you're in "Jimboland". The rules are different in his kingdom. What he says at any point in time T, is meant to mean whatever it is that he wants it to mean at time U.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Thu Dec 04, 2014 6:54 pm

Ogajur wrote:Read between the lines. He's not contradicting himself, he's saying (a) he stands by his original remark and (b) refusing to comment in detail on the ArbCom decision. Since the ArbCom decision has a different result that he presumably would have liked (he'd have banned, probably, people on both sides) then he either has to explicitly say so, or refuse to comment on it.

No, there's a third option. He could lie through his teeth if he thought it advantageous. Not that Jimbo would ever dream of uttering an untruth, of course!

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 1:38 pm

Not so much contradicting himself, but a sort of cognitive deafness to the truth:

Jimbo you have to understand some editors here have an agenda to get you to leave Wikipedia as they despise you. -- Knowledgekid87

I'm a pretty difficult person to actually despise, and so I have a kind of quiet admiration for those rare few who can work themselves up to that. -- Jimbo Wales

It would be an interesting thing if long-standing Wikipedians could vote (secret ballot) on whether they adore, like, are indifferent to, dislike, or despise Jimmy Wales, how such a vote would turn out. Surely, many more adore or like him than dislike or despise him. But I would venture a guess that if 1,000 such votes could be collected, that hardly a "rare few" would be all that resides in the despise category.

A quick search on Google to count up pages that say "love Jimbo/Jimmy Wales", "hate Jimbo/Jimmy Wales", and "fuck Jimbo/Jimmy Wales" tends to bear this out.

Lukeno94 · Unread post by **Lukeno94** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 2:14 pm

I don't think many people would despise him, simply because that's a very strong emotion to have for someone you don't know personally and who rarely has any major impact on your life, particularly as he hasn't committed many heinous crimes. I'd imagine a fair few people dislike him though, and many more (including myself) don't give a shit about him or anything he says, and just ignore him.

Notvelty · Unread post by **Notvelty** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 2:33 pm

Lukeno94 wrote:I don't think many people would despise him, simply because that's a very strong emotion to have for someone you don't know personally and who rarely has any major impact on your life, particularly as he hasn't committed many heinous crimes. I'd imagine a fair few people dislike him though, and many more (including myself) don't give a shit about him or anything he says, and just ignore him.

"many" heinous crimes.
lol. I hope that was intentional, cos that was awesome.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 5:25 pm

He has some extremely serious sins of omission - things that he ought to have done but didn't. On Wikipedia, they must easily outnumber his sins of comission. It is not for us to comment on his private life; we literally cannot police what people do on their own time away from the site, say in their personal lives offline.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Sun Dec 07, 2014 7:09 pm

Poetlister wrote:...we literally cannot police what people do on their own time away from the site, say in their personal lives offline.

Except for those things they reportedly submitted back to the Foundation for reimbursement. See: subway fare to a Moscow massage parlor.

The Joy · Unread post by **The Joy** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 1:42 am

thekohser wrote:Not so much contradicting himself, but a sort of cognitive deafness to the truth:

Jimbo you have to understand some editors here have an agenda to get you to leave Wikipedia as they despise you. -- Knowledgekid87

I'm a pretty difficult person to actually despise, and so I have a kind of quiet admiration for those rare few who can work themselves up to that. -- Jimbo Wales
It would be an interesting thing if long-standing Wikipedians could vote (secret ballot) on whether they adore, like, are indifferent to, dislike, or despise Jimmy Wales, how such a vote would turn out. Surely, many more adore or like him than dislike or despise him. But I would venture a guess that if 1,000 such votes could be collected, that hardly a "rare few" would be all that resides in the despise category.

A quick search on Google to count up pages that say "love Jimbo/Jimmy Wales", "hate Jimbo/Jimmy Wales", and "fuck Jimbo/Jimmy Wales" tends to bear this out.

Jimbo's going to be like my late grandmother's pastor. People wanted him to leave and he wouldn't, so they left the church. The church is for sale now.

Who knows where he went?

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 3:17 pm

thekohser wrote:
Poetlister wrote:...we literally cannot police what people do on their own time away from the site, say in their personal lives offline.
Except for those things they reportedly submitted back to the Foundation for reimbursement. See: subway fare to a Moscow massage parlor.

That was of course an exact quote of something Jimbo himself said last week. link http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =636802448[/link]

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 5:26 pm

You are very unlikely to find specific cases of me speaking about the situation in Kyrgystan, Belarus, or any of a very large number of states who violate the right of freedom of speech and other human rights. I am not a one-man Amnesty International. I have always been outspoken on these issues. Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Notvelty · Unread post by **Notvelty** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 10:38 pm

Peter Damian wrote:
You are very unlikely to find specific cases of me speaking about the situation in Kyrgystan, Belarus, or any of a very large number of states who violate the right of freedom of speech and other human rights. I am not a one-man Amnesty International. I have always been outspoken on these issues. Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Two thoughts?
Why, has Belarus also given him a million?
He's missing a byphen.

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Sat Dec 13, 2014 10:55 pm

You are very unlikely to find specific cases of me speaking about the situation in Kyrgystan, Belarus, or any of a very large number of states who violate the right of freedom of speech and other human rights. I am not a one-man Amnesty International. I have always been outspoken on these issues. Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:25, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 11:05 am

"Past connection to the Kazakh dictatorship" - total and utter and complete bullshit. I have no past connection of any kind to the Kazakh dictatorship.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

What I'm going to announce right now is unknown to anybody except a few people who looked at my slides before I put them up. I'm announcing today an annual award – probably annual, if I remember next year – and, ah, the title of the award is 'Global Wikipedian of the Year'. [applause] Given by me personally and my opinion, and later of course like everything that started out 'me personally and my opinion' will find a process in the future to have this be community organised. And this year, the winner is Rauan of Kazakh Wikipedia. So Rauan, if you can come down. Maybe it's too hard to come down – maybe he'll just stay there! So – I've been following the story of Kazakh Wikipedia, er, since, er Ting went to Kazakhstan, and he came back and he reported on something amazing that was happening there. And I started to get in touch with them, and I also I've been getting in touch with the government there. I've been talking to the Prime Minister there. [ …] I'm going in December and I'm going to give the award in the presence of the Prime Minister to Rauan, pending scheduling. Prime ministers are always hard to nail down, but they've agreed to the meeting, er, and I think that if we think about the things that they're doing, think about the things that I've talked about, I think that if we really try hard on this, instead of having sad puppies and sad kittens, we'll have happy puppies and kittens. Link

I think he meant that while he had a connection of some sort to the KZ government, he had no connection to the KZ dictatorship.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Dec 14, 2014 12:03 pm

And of course, he could argue that he was completely ignored by everyone there so it doesn't count.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 10:24 pm

Regarding the BLP of Heather Bresch (T-H-L), Jimbo says at mid-day, 24 January 2015:

I think I'm hearing a pretty strong consensus that this article currently fails to meet our standards for a biography of a living person due to the question of undue weight. Like others, I'm uncomfortable with a cut-and-paste of CorporateM's version due to the COI issue. (And kudos to him for doing this the right way and engaging us in a discussion). One thing that I think we can do is bring some of the expanded material he's written over, one sentence at a time, carefully vetting it for personal endorsement. I'll do a little bit of that now.

By the end of the day, 27 January 2015:

Nothing done by Jimbo.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 12:47 pm

thekohser wrote:Regarding the BLP of Heather Bresch (T-H-L), Jimbo says at mid-day, 24 January 2015:

I think I'm hearing a pretty strong consensus that this article currently fails to meet our standards for a biography of a living person due to the question of undue weight. Like others, I'm uncomfortable with a cut-and-paste of CorporateM's version due to the COI issue. (And kudos to him for doing this the right way and engaging us in a discussion). One thing that I think we can do is bring some of the expanded material he's written over, one sentence at a time, carefully vetting it for personal endorsement. I'll do a little bit of that now.
By the end of the day, 27 January 2015:

Nothing done by Jimbo.

Be fair; he's probably just spending lots of time being thoughtful about it.

Vigilant · Unread post by **Vigilant** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:02 pm

Poetlister wrote:
thekohser wrote:Regarding the BLP of Heather Bresch (T-H-L), Jimbo says at mid-day, 24 January 2015:

I think I'm hearing a pretty strong consensus that this article currently fails to meet our standards for a biography of a living person due to the question of undue weight. Like others, I'm uncomfortable with a cut-and-paste of CorporateM's version due to the COI issue. (And kudos to him for doing this the right way and engaging us in a discussion). One thing that I think we can do is bring some of the expanded material he's written over, one sentence at a time, carefully vetting it for personal endorsement. I'll do a little bit of that now.
By the end of the day, 27 January 2015:

Nothing done by Jimbo.
Be fair; he's probably just spending lots of time being thoughtful about it.

Maybe he's just a slow thinker...

mac · Unread post by **mac** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 10:33 pm

Vigilant wrote:
Poetlister wrote:
thekohser wrote:Regarding the BLP of Heather Bresch (T-H-L), Jimbo says at mid-day, 24 January 2015:

I think I'm hearing a pretty strong consensus that this article currently fails to meet our standards for a biography of a living person due to the question of undue weight. Like others, I'm uncomfortable with a cut-and-paste of CorporateM's version due to the COI issue. (And kudos to him for doing this the right way and engaging us in a discussion). One thing that I think we can do is bring some of the expanded material he's written over, one sentence at a time, carefully vetting it for personal endorsement. I'll do a little bit of that now.
By the end of the day, 27 January 2015:

Nothing done by Jimbo.
Be fair; he's probably just spending lots of time being thoughtful about it.
Maybe he's just a slow thinker...

The dirty bit of her bio was nominated for deletion by JzG (T-C-L). Perhaps they are friends and JzG was encouraged to nominate it by Jimbo.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heather Bresch M.B.A. controversy (T-H-L)

(edited)

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 11:23 pm

mac wrote:The dirty bit of her bio was nominated for deletion by JzG (T-C-L). Perhaps they are friends and JzG was encouraged to nominate it by Jimbo.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Heather Bresch M.B.A. controversy (T-H-L)

I remember another gal's BLP that Jimbo was interested in helping to improve, and the next thing you know, there was JzG stepping in to oblige. The BLP subject was so happy with the result, she went straight to eBay and auctioned the shirt off of Jimbo's back!

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:16 pm

Jimbo rides down Liar's Trail once again! Regarding GamerGate and the ArbCom's press release:

...the Foundation pressured the ArbCom into making a press release... - TheRedPenOfDoom (link)

You said twice on my talk page something about the Foundation pressuring ArbCom into making a press release. That is absolutely false. I have no idea where you heard such a thing, nor do I know how far and wide you have spread this rumor, but it is absolutely false. - Jimbo Wales (link)

Here is the comment "In fact the impetus for the ArbCom (not Wikipedia, ArbCom) statement came from the WMF. Roger Davies" - TheRedPenOfDoom (link)

Jim · Unread post by **Jim** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:34 pm

thekohser wrote:Jimbo rides down Liar's Trail once again! Regarding GamerGate and the ArbCom's press release:

...the Foundation pressured the ArbCom into making a press release... - TheRedPenOfDoom (link)

You said twice on my talk page something about the Foundation pressuring ArbCom into making a press release. That is absolutely false. I have no idea where you heard such a thing, nor do I know how far and wide you have spread this rumor, but it is absolutely false. - Jimbo Wales (link)

Here is the comment "In fact the impetus for the ArbCom (not Wikipedia, ArbCom) statement came from the WMF. Roger Davies" - TheRedPenOfDoom (link)

Hmm.. Tricky, that one, I'll grant you.

That would just make him, well, a liar, I guess. Unless the wmf, by now, tell him bugger all too, which is, I suppose, possible.

"nor do I know how far and wide you have spread this rumor" is à la carte sealioning

ArchiveBot fixes all, though. Patience.
The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on, to a place where what it writ, was writ no more.

Or something.

(I can't help feeling I should of used green somewhere...)

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:21 am

Jimmy Wales 2015 wrote:If I had known in 2011 that someone would get a job that I disapprove of in 2014, would I refuse to give them an award in 2011? Yes, I would have refused to give that award.

Jimmy Wales 2013 wrote:You are asking the wrong questions. The right question is this: "Knowing what you know now, would you still make the award of Wikipedian of the Year to Rauan?" And the answer is "Yes". Perhaps if you could give me some indication of what the hell it is you are driving at, I'd be more inclined to research your specific questions, but I do not understand the point.
Link

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:55 am

Almost forgot this classic.

"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." - Wikipedia front page.
"If you think that sort of thing is the sort of thing that needs an apology, then perhaps you have misunderstood something important about Wikipedia. It is not an anarchy, it is not a place where people have the inherent right to edit (or admin) Wikipedia, it is a place where civility is to be paramount, and bad users should be shown the door promptly and firmly with a minimum of fuss." - Jimbo Wales, October 29, 2007. (Source)

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:39 am

EricBarbour wrote:Almost forgot this classic.

"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." - Wikipedia front page.
"If you think that sort of thing is the sort of thing that needs an apology, then perhaps you have misunderstood something important about Wikipedia. It is not an anarchy, it is not a place where people have the inherent right to edit (or admin) Wikipedia, it is a place where civility is to be paramount, and bad users should be shown the door promptly and firmly with a minimum of fuss." - Jimbo Wales, October 29, 2007. (Source)

The implications of that are fascinating. If "civility is to be paramount", someone who very courteously goes around putting in false information is better than someone who rudely corrects it; the latter "should be shown the door promptly and firmly", but not the former.

auriental · Unread post by **auriental** » Sun Mar 22, 2015 7:00 pm

EricBarbour wrote:Almost forgot this classic.

"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." - Wikipedia front page.
"If you think that sort of thing is the sort of thing that needs an apology, then perhaps you have misunderstood something important about Wikipedia. It is not an anarchy, it is not a place where people have the inherent right to edit (or admin) Wikipedia, it is a place where civility is to be paramount, and bad users should be shown the door promptly and firmly with a minimum of fuss." - Jimbo Wales, October 29, 2007. (Source)

Well thank you for that quote. Explains quite a lot to me.

I have always made the mistake of carefully trying to be right (not always claiming success—of course) but have rather more rarely wasted time being polite when dealing with self-evident moronism.

I now see the error of my ways.

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:21 pm

I wrote at that time on an internal mailing list, "It is abundantly clear that Wifione should be banned ... I made it in a discussion on the communications committee mailing list where we were discussing the issue.
[…]
the issue was premature at that time for the ArbCom to handle [...] .--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:36, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:25 pm

I'm interested in the question of *why* "No one cared".

I'm afraid it is not clear to me what I'm being asked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... 658#A_plea

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:28 pm

Peter Damian wrote:
I'm afraid it is not clear to me what I'm being asked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... 658#A_plea

And he squirms right out of the trap. I honestly don't know why you keep trying, PD.

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Fri Mar 27, 2015 11:35 pm

EricBarbour wrote:
Peter Damian wrote:
I'm afraid it is not clear to me what I'm being asked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... 658#A_plea
And he squirms right out of the trap. I honestly don't know why you keep trying, PD.

I believe he is a deeply honest man at heart, but sometimes he gets confused.

SB_Johnny · Unread post by **SB_Johnny** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 12:06 am

Peter Damian wrote:
EricBarbour wrote:
Peter Damian wrote:
I'm afraid it is not clear to me what I'm being asked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... 658#A_plea
And he squirms right out of the trap. I honestly don't know why you keep trying, PD.
I believe he is a deeply honest man at heart, but sometimes he gets confused.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Sat Mar 28, 2015 2:42 pm

Peter Damian wrote:I believe he is a deeply honest man at heart, but sometimes he gets confused.

Peter should be applauded for his devotion to WP:AGF. However, i suspect that he is in the minority here.

Triptych · Unread post by **Triptych** » Tue Mar 31, 2015 3:49 pm

Peter Damian wrote: I believe he is a deeply honest man at heart, but sometimes he gets confused.

I believe he is a shyster and a scamp, but every human has competing natures. The capacity to do productive things, and the capacity to do mischief and destruction. You're familiar with Eric Corbett's vulgar characterization of Jimbo at his own talkpage? I was thinking the other day that would be a good one to inscribe on his tombstone if he should die tomorrow, BUT you know if he lives another 50 years or whatever that is a lot of time for him to change the sum of himself. And become something better. I'd say this I think about anybody.

To not walk off without giving at least one example, his habit when he is presented with some situation, typically where someone is characterized as doing something bad, is to always say "Well I have not looked into the particular situation, but in general my opinions on such matters are..." and then gives an answer that surely responds to the particular situation. So when he stands up at Wikimania and talks about the need to get rid of editors that are (characterized as) disruptive and uncivil, it was viewed by many including me (though I also thought "Kumioko," which most didn't) as a thinly veiled swipe at Eric Corbett. This was more or less borne out later at his talkpage where he became more and more particularized in suggesting Corbett should be done away with. So I say his "I can't speak to the particular situation, but I will go ahead and say generally" is a disingenuous and yes dishonest dodge, because what he says after that in fact typically does speak to the particular situation.

Unread post by **Peter Damian** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 6:31 pm

::::::Stop misrepresenting. I didn't copy you, he did. I have no idea why.--[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] ([[User talk:Jimbo Wales#top|talk]]) 13:31, 7 April 2015 (UTC)