User talk:Jimbo Wales: Difference between revisions

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates. He holds the founder's seat on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The current trustees occupying "community-selected" seats until Wikimania 2017 are Pundit and Raystorm. The Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Support and Safety is Maggie Dennis.

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Wikipedia has 72,000 "solutions" (without water) for all your business needs, but not the famous "EOQ equation" taught in business classes. There are far more articles about what businesses sell rather than what businesses are. Although it can be good to know "Motorola Solutions" (company), WP needs more about business concepts, such as the EOQ equation (for "economic order quantity"). Anyway, for all your business needs, search solutions (without water), search: solutions -water. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:50, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I've absolutely no idea what you're going on about, but Wikipedia actually has 72,000 articles that contain the word "solutions" and not the word "water", rather than 72,000 with titles that fit that criteria. Many of these are mathematical articles. Though that accuracy does depend on the competence of the Wikipedia search engine, which is frankly very poor. Black Kite (talk) 18:40, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

^You say "many" of the articles are about mathematics. Where is your evidence? How many? I ran the search Wikid77 suggested (search: solutions -water) and it was exactly as he said--the first 10 articles that came up were business "solutions". --David Tornheim (talk) 19:37, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you only look at the first few pages of that search then yes, most of the articles are about businesses, because the search engine lists those with "solutions" in the title first (most of which will indeed be businesses) but if you look further down the list, most of the articles are ones with the word "solutions" in the text only, and as such quite a few are mathematics and science based (Here's 2000-2500 in the list). I was pointing out to Wikid that he was claiming that there were 72,000 articles about business solutions, which is plainly nonsense. Black Kite (talk) 19:46, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That list wasn't much better. Note: It does change slightly every time I run it. Every time I ran it, >=50% were promotional. Of the 4 times I tried it, one was 50% and the others were about 70-90% promotional. I think it is safe to say that although not 100% of the 72,000 are promotional, the overwhelming majority (~2/3) are. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:09, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, there are certainly a large number of promotional articles. Wikipedia is not good at weeding them out. But one mustn't confuse the simple existence of the word "solutions" in a business article with it being promotional; it is a pan-industrial buzzword that is used in many different contexts and thus tends to appear in even otherwise good articles. I have a catalogue on my desk for a company providing "traditional education solutions". They print school textbooks. Black Kite (talk) 20:22, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, especially with sentence #1. I think this is what Wikid77 successfully showed. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:51, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And let's be clear, the text book industry is big business[1] (Tamim Ansary author of the ref. is an excellent author by the way). That they would even consider putting creation theory in science text books says quite a lot about their priorities [2]. (See also [3] about problems with textbooks.). I have been a teacher in secondary school. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:55, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I await Wikid77's and my punishment for "casting aspersions" for his providing evidence of pro-industry bias and my agreeing with him/her. As has been made clear--talking about such POV problems on Wikipedia is not acceptable, *especially* if you provide strong evidence. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:37, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You may well agree with Wikid77 (whatever his point is), but I'm pretty sure he doesn't need you hijacking his thread to show how bitter and disgruntled you are about something completely irrelevant to this topic.--Atlan (talk) 01:02, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh please. I am not "hijacking" his thread. What happened to assume good faith? He supported my comment above and directed me here, and I am supporting his comment here. I am sorry you are unable to see what the point of this thread is. It makes perfect sense to me and I agree it is problem similar to what I pointed out. --David Tornheim (talk) 03:13, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Wow! Very interesting and sad. --David Tornheim (talk) 19:37, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikid77, please see All pages with titles containing solutions.—Wavelength (talk) 22:21, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, well if the EOQ Equation is that notable and has multiple secondary sources attest to its notability, then why don't you create the article about it? That is, if you're actually talking about that equation and not trying to make some other kind of point. LaughingVulcan 23:11, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What could a new article about the equation say that Economic order quantity doesn't? I redirected the redlink. EllenCT (talk) 01:08, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Given that you have a topic ban from all Economics related material broadly construed, next time leave it for someone else to do. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:41, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very unclear as to what this section is about. I don't find it problematic that we have a fair number of articles about businesses with "solutions" in the title. Nor do I think it shows any general pro-business bias to have those entries. So I don't think the search shows anything particularly interesting. Now, if the individual entries themselves tend to be promotional in nature, that's obviously a bad thing, but in many cases products or companies aren't particularly controversial (nor, frankly, particularly interesting) so the fact that such articles don't report on critical commentary is that often there really isn't likely to be much that's particularly relevant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:45, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed - we have had Economic order quantity since 2004. I'm sure it's true that "WP needs more about business concepts" but much stronger coverage of specific things (people, places, events, objects, companies) than of concepts and high-level topics is one of the leading characteristics of our encyclopedic coverage. Our coverage of business/industrial sectors is generally very weak indeed, and almost entirely US-centric. Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Even in the US, our coverage is very weak. Here's a random example: AEP Industries makes plastic packaging film. 2,600 employees and over $1 billion in revenue. But there's also a challenge here to being encyclopedic - this company appears in a search of Google News to be pretty invisible. I mean, it's not a consumer product, so they probably don't do a lot of PR, and it doesn't seem to have much in the way of controversy. 5 pages into a Google News search even removing irrelevant terms shows only dividend announcements and the like. Still, it strikes me as unfortunate that we have so little on such organizations.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:00, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A side effect of WP:NOTDIR is that when readers and editors can't find the information that they most frequently are looking for, they (often rightly, but as something of a self-fulfilling prophecy) assume that it is less likely the encyclopedia will have more detailed information on the same topics. There is an analogous side effect from WP:NOTHOW which causes readers and editors to assume semantic and episodic information pertaining to processes is less likely to be included or appropriate, respectively, even when it clearly should be. EllenCT (talk) 16:37, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Duckduckgo has search results for business to business directory, and such companies might be visible within such a directory.—Wavelength (talk) 23:20, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Masterseek is a business-to-business search engine.—Wavelength (talk) 23:47, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jimmy to the extent that we don't have *good* coverage of companies. About 5% of our articles are about "business" in general, or about 250,000 articles. See File:Size of English Wikipedia (1000 vol).svg. But articles about "companies" would be less than that, I'd guess no more than 3% or 150,000 articles. Even given that usually 50% of our articles are stubs or worse, 75,000 articles about major companies would go a long way toward explaining where, say, GDP or sales, comes from, for the world as a whole. Just 5,000 articles on major companies would go a long way for that in the US.

The problem is that we've got lots of articles on really minor companies, quite often written by PR people, that don't add much to an overall understanding of how economics works in the real world. Instead we get the menu of a single-store 15 seat coffee shop in Pasadena. I'm very tempted to do another random selection of articles , this time on companies, to see what our companies articles actually accomplish - but that would take lots of time. Pure guess - we've only got a few thousand articles on companies throughout the entire world that actually accomplish anything besides marketing the company. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:06, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting that only the small companies (such as a 15-seat coffee house) have enough money to do PR on Wikipedia. --David Tornheim (talk) 21:28, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying that large companies don't have PR people operating on Wikipedia. But putting PR on Wikipedia is not expensive. Probably the coffee shop owner just did it all by her/himself. It would be a lot easier to police PR if there wasn't so much of it. For large firms, where there are usually independent sources, it's a lot easier than for small companies, where almost every piece of information can be traced back to the company itself. Of course WP:NOADS, WP:GNG, WP:Organizations prohibit this type of article, or make it clear that this type of company is not notable, but we have to apply these rules consistently. We could use a revamping of WP:Organizations, but it won't help unless admins and arbs enforce the rules.

One of the things I most dislike about PR on Wikipedia is when it is *not* in company articles. For example I've seen a finance company PR guy change a math article to suit his company's rather strange interpretation of a mathematical concept. It's even more serious when company PR folks edit on their products, e.g. those covered by WP:Medicine and, of course, in the recent GMO controversy. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Small companies like that are the ones that get occasional coverage in news sources--often instigated by PR, but sometimes by fashion. As long as we keep using the GNG, we're stuck with the results. I've suggested elsewhere an alternative criterion for size. somewhere in the range of $100-$500 million for US companies, lower depending on the country. that would deal with the worst failures to include. As for getting rid of the oddities the GNG produces, I guess we'll always be stuck with them. But they are not as much a problem as the omissions. DGG ( talk ) 18:40, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Revamping WP:Organizations would help, but Arbs and admins have to enforce it. The biggest problem, IMHO, with PR editors is that they will argue forever no matter how ridiculous their case, e.g. I remember an article at AfD about a book publishing company that actually had never published a book, but planned to publish 4 or 5 reprints in the next year. The main source was a very PRish couple of paragraphs in Playbill (not your usual publishing industry source). Folks argued about deletion (and the deletion of an end-run article) for 3 weeks before I just got disgusted and left the discussion. We've got to get rid of that type of nonsense quickly and easily. How else are we going to have time for the really nasty stuff? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's important to remember that the biggest paid editing scandal Wikipedia actually had was focused on companies paying shakedowns to keep their articles. While glowing articles written by owners or hired hands are an easily visible problem, the deletion of good content is more disruptive, and apparently more lucrative also. I think Wikipedia is better off even with bad, biased pro-company articles than with these deliberate omissions. Wnt (talk) 23:58, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Having an easily understood size cutoff would prevent the type of protection racket you are describing. If we had a cutoff of $750 million in sales, it would eliminate all but approx. 6,000 companies in the US, those companies that account for more than half of production and non-goverment employment in the US. A company approached by a racketeer (who may have created the article originally) would easily understand that his/her company with only $5 million in sales just doesn't belong here in the first place. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:19, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting embarrassing:

You can create and edit a Wikipedia book design using the Book Creator and upload it to an external rendering service: MediaWiki2LaTeX provides a softcopy conversion service to pdf and other formats. It remains under active support and may be used online or installed locally. Pedia Press offer final tidying and ordering of print-on-demand bound copies in (approximately) A5 format. For help with downloading a single Wikipedia page as a PDF, see Help:Download as PDF.

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 05:57, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if we shouldn't just remove those pages. Or are you arguing that the Wikimedia Foundation should invest resources in fixing the problem? I'm not opposed to that in principle, but I don't believe the tool was ever used much. I might be wrong about that, though, so if I am, then let me know!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:49, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd really, really appreciate if Wikipedia's standard PDF export function (the clickable link in the left margin on each page – is that the same software as Book Creator?) would render tables. Only today I added this to the WP:CONTENTFORK guidance, partially based on the fact that tables are not exported. I'd rather not need a bypass for that guidance for such reason (a kind of guidance that is prone to inadvertent shadyness). Also it's quite frustrating, e.g. I've been putting some energy in List of repertoire pieces by Ferruccio Busoni lately: click on the PDF export function and *poof* almost nothing remains apart from four pages of references referencing something that isn't there. Yeah, imho, would be money well spent to get that sorted. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:59, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hope someone has some usage statistics. I know I field a number of questions at OTRS about the tool (mostly bug reports, but they do substantiate some level of usage), so I know there is interest, but I don't have a clue about whether the usage is high enough to justify expense.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:10, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Usage statistics OK, but that cuts both ways (talking about the PDF export function, still not sure whether that's the same as Book Creator): I don't use it any more while it doesn't do what it should do, i.e. not maim an article when converting it to PDF. How can one extract insightful usage statistics from something that is avoided for its cumbersome MO? Use PDFcreator or some similar tool on the weblayout is what everyone says when I bring up the issue of the discarded tables, so I assume that's what most people do when they want to create PDFs – but the result is considerably different from what one gets with the built-in PDF export function (which has a better readability afaics). Current usage as such doesn't learn much... how many Wikipedia pages are sent to local software PDF generators? Wouldn't people prefer prints in "PDF export function" layout over "weblayout" generated by local software? --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:27, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Meaningful usage statistics would have to predate the 2014 "update", I wouldn't know where or how to look. All I can say is that there is still a fair trickle of complaints at Help:Books/Feedback and it pretty much borks most new submissions to pediapress. For any one editor making their presence felt there, a standard rule of thumb is that there are 100 to 1,000 silent editors who just walked, and ten times as many visitors left with the impression that the whole business sucks. If nobody's gonna fix it, then I think it needs to be killed. OTOH if the copyrighting battle against rip-off artists is worth the fight, then book creation needs fixing up properly so pediapress and the rest of us can leverage it again. Either way, doing nothing is bad. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:00, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How much does http://pediapress.com donate for the premium service of [4]? This press release from 2007 explains what happened. The reason is when people started selling PDFs on Amazon. EllenCT (talk) 18:41, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that this is a nice conclusion you've jumped to. From what I see, and I could be wrong, there are the following problems with your theory: 1) PediaPress seems to be focused on creation of physical paper books, not just files of Wikipedia content as anyone (should) be able to generate. 2) PediaPress seems to depend upon the same book creator that creation of files do. I don't know, but I wonder if that service now suffers from the same rendering problems that Book Creator does. And I wonder if you know by experience, or are you just speculating? But I actually am writing to say that I'm one of the silent masses who would really like the book creator to be fixed; it would be nice to have the ability to port collections of astronomy articles to a document file and be able to read them offline at our observatory. LaughingVulcan 17:27, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm completely sure I remember when Wikipedia articles and collections started showing up on Amazon. I recommend simply asking PediaPress if they can make the nice PDFs you want, but don't be suprised if they charge you a token amount and add certain strings. @CAnanian (WMF): do you know the answers? You seem to be the only staff assigned to [5]. EllenCT (talk) 19:14, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but my question to you was if you actually have knowledge and/or proof that the reason for Book Creator not working properly is that people started selling PDFs on Amazon (and implying PediaPress in the process)? It appears to me that you do not, and are merely speculating / fishing in the dark. Especially since the PediaPress thing apparently began in 2007 and apparently the breaking of Book Creator occurred after that. As mentioned above by Steelpillow and as I speculated, the breaking of Book Creator ALSO breaks PediaPress as well, as Book Creator is HOW one submits files to PediaPress in addition to creating PDF files for download. But you didn't know that, did you? Anyway, it's clear to me that you do not seem to know what you're talking about, as fixing it so PediaPress would work would also fix it so I can just download a PDF. But you don't seem to get that. Anyway, as I said, mark me down as one who sees Book Creator as important and would like it to be fixed so that tables, etc. render properly. Whether for personal use, or to submit to PediaPress. LaughingVulcan 19:31, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are two obvious questions here. First, why did WMF make a bad update that broke features, then refuse to fix it? And how did we go from "This technology is of key strategic importance to the cause of free education world-wide," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. (2007) to saying that it was not worth having a management process and intentionally breaking the feature seven years later? I mean, if strategic means "totally unwanted in seven years" then there is no strategy at all and donors shouldn't be paying for overpaid Brahmins to work it out. Wnt (talk) 00:07, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As a relative outsider I looked into this a little. It seems that the old, relatively functional code was Wikipedia-specific, in an unfashionable programming language and (ironically) not easily maintainable. A more maintainable core engine was pulled in from somewhere and what I can only describe as alpha software wrapped around it and gifted to us in place of the "unmaintainable" that had basically worked. The idea was to iron out the bugs and add the missing features from here on in. But that never happened because at that point the developer walked. Maybe it had all been done for free up until then, I don't know, but the folks at WMF apparently decided to spend their money and effort elsewhere and just leave the mess hanging. Quite why they trashed Sue's strategic vision is unclear to me. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 04:06, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've got it right as to what happened. I'm willing to advocate for investing in fixing it but only if we have some indication that it was actually being used by many people. It is entirely possible that upon release Sue thought it was going to be "of key strategic importance" but within a few months time it may have become apparent that it wasn't important at all. These things happen, and no one can really be blamed for it. But if a decision was made to deprioritize it to the point that broken software has been left in place for years, well, that's not good - better to just remove it completely I would imagine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:52, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia:Books page was created at the tail end of 2008 and Help:Books in 2009 around the time of Sue's vision statement. Browsing Category:Wikipedia books gives some idea of how much Book Creator had been used up until 2014. Another way is to browse the PediaPress website, although I don't know if any download/purchase stats exist. I can't imagine the usage stats could have been all that bad after say 2012, or a long-term maintainable rewrite would never have been kicked off in 2014. To me, the key question is whether WMF should care about the likes and ambitions of PediaPress any more, and if the answer is "yes" then the management process needs resurrecting if nothing else. Let that process decide whether to share or to shaft. Or, if "no", then can the whole thing. For my part, some of the moans on the feedback page give me the feeling that that the 'press momentum was beginning to create a self-perpetuating marketplace in which academics were improving articles to publishable quality so they could provide better books in class. Is there a critical mass there to be sought for? As I say, does the WMF care? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:02, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The bias that i see within Wikipedia, in arbitration cases, in article talk pages, and in the banter of admins and arbitrators, is astounding and so blatant.

There is a continuing polarization that is causing content to be more and more polarized. It's akin to a takeover, and it is in part intentional. There is indeed a "Skeptic" movement to cause Wikipedia to move more in line with the ideology of the "Skeptic" movement, and they engage in meat-puppeting, in the form of recruiting people of their ideology to take up Wikipedia editing in order to change and maintain the changed content to move it more in line with their ideological beliefs.

It is insidious in that they pretend to be one with science -- they claim that what they believe is "science" and that it's neutral and unbiased. But that is a huge misrepresentation, because they actually take a single approach to science on certain topics and exclude other science that is not in line with their beliefs. They generally have a simplistic and reductionist view of science, not seeing the ecological and sociological dimensions of many subjects.

They also have a heavy-handed way of bullying and speaking with condescension and dripping with a nasty slimy toxicity that is holographic with the fact that they generally defend the products of the chemical industry, including chemicals which are toxic to living things. They move in groups and support one another, and having the numbers, they can knock others out, one by one, in topic bans and various other mechanisms, as well as just making editing so unpleasant that people who have other points of view simply drop out in frustration and futility. People who really want to improve articles and restore some balance and NPOV.

They pretend to be "neutral" and they pretend that they are defending "science" and that they are NPOV but they are astoundingly blind of self-deluding or lying about this, because they push a particularly biased interpretation of science and exclude other good solid science that is not in line with their general agenda.

Others have written about them in blogs like "The Ethical Skeptic" and "Wikipedia We Have A Problem" much more lucidly and in more detail than i have. It's seriously affecting Wikipedia very badly, and therefore it's affecting the world badly, as our default knowledge base is biased and getting worse daily. SageRad (talk) 12:34, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, yes, all the arbs, admins and editors are in on the grand conspiracy to sing the praises of big industry, toxic chemicals and the general destruction of the earth while suppressing the world-saving bloggers and authors out there that know the "true" science and impact of these things. We get it. It's probably not necessary to keep posting similar polemics all over WP. Capeo (talk) 13:00, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:POLEMIC is technically a guideline that explains what happens when you post polemical material, however WP:NPA is policy. Accusing editors/admins/arbitors of bias without evidence is a personal attack and subject to removal. So, either present evidence, retract statement, or comment removal Sagerad, what would you prefer? Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:04, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What a load of stuff and nonsense. Please justify your statement "Accusing editors/admins/arbitors of bias without evidence is a personal attack and subject to removal" by pointing to relevant PAGs. How many times have I seen accusations on ANI made with no evidence whatsoever. There is an atmosphere over there of being able to accuse good editors of being "Anti-industry X", "Pro-fringe Y, "Pro-alternative Z" without any evidence or apparent fear of action being taken against them. This leads to accused editors becoming extremely frustrated and simply turning their back on the project. SageRad is making a valid and truthful comment. We should listen. I for one am very glad to see that Jimbo does appear to be listening here. For those who do not believe this, I have evidence of an extremely well known editor administrator (you will all know them) deliberately changing an edit of mine to lie about me and portray me in a very bad light. When I complained, the thread was closed by a non-admin. Of course, I would not be saying this without being able to provide the evidence. DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:03, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any personal attacks here, just a discussion about a potential form of bias in Wikipedia. Better if we engage and chew on the topic thoughtfully than be too quick to push for removal. Even if the Sagerad is wrong (and I think he largely, although not completely, is wrong) it is important to reflect on how answers like this will not tend to resolve the issue but rather serve sadly as a potential example of the kind of behavior he's complaining about.

We the Wikipedia community tend to be geeky folks who are into technology and hard science. That may make it difficult to write neutrally about ideas that are different. If I believe (and I do) that much of what "world-saving bloggers and authors out there" write about science is badly mistaken and not always written in good faith, then I might tend to be too harsh in evaluating their perspective to the point that I find it hard to write about it appropriately. This is always worth reflection.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:48, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Normally I'd agree but there's history and context behind the messenger here. Sage is another of the GMO topic banned editors. They went on a hiatus but returned recently after David got TBed as well to post similar style rants all over WP claiming McCarthyism and all sorts of similar aspersions. It gets tiring. Good luck trying to have an honest conversation with them that doesn't quickly devolve to the same being claimed of you. Capeo (talk) 14:10, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree that many editors are far too rude and caustic for Wikipedia's good, and some Admins and even higher are nearly as bad. WP:CIVIL is a laughing-stock and the constant disregard for it (except of course for when your opponent holds up a mirror) is so very counter-productive. "Let's all be nice and politically correct and avoid swear words but join in the bitch fight with relish" is all too common. I am less sure about the conspiracy theories, I think it's just a reflection of today's Internet culture. But with all the poison constantly flying around, it's hard to tell and even harder to fix. WP:CIVIL should be either respected or abandoned. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 16:30, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

DrChrissy, let me assure you that administrators don't have the ability to change an edit. They can, of course, change the text you edited (it's a wiki, after all), but the diffs would always show who made what changes, so all you'd have to do is present the diffs showing the tampering (and deliberately doing that to try to frame another editor would be taken very seriously, I assure you). Admins (and functionaries, and anyone) cannot alter those diffs. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:38, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies that my language might have been a bit casual. The admin edited my edit to change the meaning. This is not permitted as I think we all know. Certainly admins should know this, which is why this particular case was so appalling. I indicated the edit they made to my text and the thread was shut down, as I said, by a non-admin. I have simply not dared to raise this case again because a boomerang (almost certainly successful because of the identity of this admin) would certainly be coming my way, and in the midst of that the perpetrator would get away scot-free again. DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:18, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In an attempt to actually have this conversation I'll note that a big point of contention arises from the fact that, by its very nature, WP is generally not on the bleeding edge of scientific topics. We reflect the established consensus. We may mention the outliers if they get sufficient attention within the scientific community, or even simply the media depending on the circumstances, but we report what the preproderance of the scientific community concludes. That means WP, like the sciences in general, is going to be slow to overturn consensus. We don't give undue weight to every anomalous paper that comes out. That's why we prefer reviews. Despite what many seem to think I'd say almost all the regulars in scientific topics acknowledge there's industry influences in scientific fields. The essential issue is that's not our battle to fight. We go with what's published and accepted or else we're injecting speculation and our own bias into articles. Capeo (talk) 16:37, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our editing model tends to struggle on topics where there is a significant divide between popular belief and scientific understanding. GMOs are one such area; other examples include vaccine safety (less of an issue recently, as the literature and people backing the anti-vaccine movement have increasingly been exposed as frauds), climate change, various forms of alternative medicine, evolution, and abortion (where the medical literature is clear about its safety, but there is a political motivation to exaggerate the procedure's risks). It doesn't help that we have never developed a mechanism to resolve content disputes expeditiously, and in fact our existing mechanisms favor pathological obsessives over sane, reasonable, policy-literate editors. Our system basically provides veto power in a content discussion to anyone with an Internet connection and a personality disorder. When one has dealt with this landscape for awhile, one tends to become a bit jaded; I've probably encountered hundreds of SageRads over my years here, and it's hard to be as patient with the 100th as you were with the first. MastCell ^Talk 17:44, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• You say "That's why we prefer reviews". But when the review of a high caliber expert (with extensive publication history) doesn't agree with the reviews that share the opinion you favor, then all of a sudden it can't be used. [6]. It becomes "fringe" [7], as if it was a "flat earth theory". I'd like to see any review article in any major journal from an expert in physics proving a "flat earth theory". The comparison is ludicruous. Other editors argued that review was somehow trumped by a writer of far lesser stature who had not even commented on the review. [8]. Double-standards. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:35, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have 2 questions bold here :
There is an article with this title "Invasion to Iran by Arabs" (title1) I can explain that title more accurately as "Invasion to Iran by Arab people". Do you assume this as a racist title? This title is for the Farsi version of the article "Muslim conquest of Persia" (title2) which we had to recommend a similar title "Conquest of Persia by Muslims" because the title2 is not so clear when it is translated to Farsi however finally we could find a clear exactly equal title for it same as English (Even Iranicaonline sources are English). I was saying that Arab Conquest means Arabic Conquest such as Islamic Conquest which is Muslim Conquest not Arab invasion.

But the problem is when I compared the :

• "Invasion to Iran by Arabs" to "Invasion to Iran by Iraqis"
• and "Arab Invasion of Iran" to "Iraq Invasion of Iran" similar to "Arabic Invasion of Iran"
• and "Rashidun Invasion of Iran" to "Ba'ath Invasion of Iran"

I just said "Muslim conquest of Persia" is a better and impartial title. Then on the opposite side the user Kouhi accused me to WP:NPA (I never accused him to be a racist but he claims this) and noted me in the WikiFa admin noticeboard and complained there AND I'M BANNED NOW by an inactive admin User:Sahehco immediately without any warning. It is wonderful.

Other users were agree with me even Sa.Vakilian (previously he had contrary viewpoint to me about the Criticism of Quran but this time he is agree with me). Previously you know me about the criticism of the Quran (in that subject after many discussions finally I could be successful).

When I pinged other active admin in my discussion to take a third opinion and no answer presented and next I pinged one another active admin then Sahehco accused me to WP:CANVASS and warned me to avoid pinging other admins. (HURRAY he can warn not only ban)

Do you have similar situation in Wiki En and in Wikimedia?

If a translator is needed this is @Darafsh: an admin.

Recently I'm not so active in Wiki and no reaction I ask about this account but I just want to make you aware of the hard situation we have in other language Wikis. From one side I see Muslim users attach partiality template to the articles like the Criticism of Quran having many different impartial sources and you can't remove the template but many articles like the Quran or Muhammad articles themselves with a lot of religious partial claims and sources(sometimes they have no historical source) are Featured and Good articles and from the other side we have articles like the Invasion to Iran by Arabs and the are partial supernationalists like this who only needs to make his lips wet to make other wiki users banned (previously I hadn't use words like this supernationalist but now that I see this situation I use it). Sometimes impartiality itself is a fault and you will be partial because you said this title is a racist title.

HAND --IranianNationalist (talk) 14:15, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]