Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs) |
Rich Farmbrough (talk | contribs) |
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::::::The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them: [[Romanization of Arabic#Comparison table]]. You are saying we should pick one, ideally for reasons but at random if there aren't any good reasons to prefer any over the others, and then move all the nonconforming articles to that one? This sounds like a [[WP:VPR]] discussion. Please see also [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive J#Policy on use of Arabic and its transliteration]]. [[User:EllenCT|EllenCT]] ([[User talk:EllenCT|talk]]) 04:31, 13 May 2016 (UTC) |
::::::The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them: [[Romanization of Arabic#Comparison table]]. You are saying we should pick one, ideally for reasons but at random if there aren't any good reasons to prefer any over the others, and then move all the nonconforming articles to that one? This sounds like a [[WP:VPR]] discussion. Please see also [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive J#Policy on use of Arabic and its transliteration]]. [[User:EllenCT|EllenCT]] ([[User talk:EllenCT|talk]]) 04:31, 13 May 2016 (UTC) |
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::::::{{ping|Wnt}} those alternatives may be associated with locales. [[User:EllenCT|EllenCT]] ([[User talk:EllenCT|talk]]) 12:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC) |
::::::{{ping|Wnt}} those alternatives may be associated with locales. [[User:EllenCT|EllenCT]] ([[User talk:EllenCT|talk]]) 12:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC) |
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*'''Comment''' at one point in the past I created all the "Unadorned" redirects. I am quite willing to do so again. All the best: ''[[User:Rich Farmbrough|Rich]] [[User talk:Rich Farmbrough|Farmbrough]]'',<small> 13:32, 13 May 2016 (UTC).</small><br /> |
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== Wikimedia should support Sci-Hub == |
== Wikimedia should support Sci-Hub == |
Revision as of 13:32, 13 May 2016
Fall in active administrators
I updated Wikipedia talk:List of administrators after a few months neglect, and a bit surprised to see the big fall in the number of active administrators. It will be even worse at end of May (currently 551). Feel free to check my work.
I can’t say I am surprised. I have always thought the purely administrative side of the work was awful, which is why I never volunteered (not that I would have been remotely acceptable, ever). Would the WMF ever pay for this work, or is there some difficult legal issue that would have to be overcome? By 'this work', I mean not writing stuff, but doing the painful work like fighting vandalism, link maintenance, categories, AfD closure and all that good stuff. Peter Damian (talk) 15:44, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- The WMF maintains much more than just enwiki. If they paid for admins here they would have to pay for them on almost 300 other wikis. Also, I highly doubt the community would ever cede administrative control to the WMF. We expect admins to be volunteers just like the rest of us. Having them paid just increases the "us versus them" mentality that has made adminship so far removed from the original "no big deal" it once was. There is also the issue that the WMF explicitly stays out of the day-to-day maintenance of the various projects. I believe this has to do with their safe harbor status but I am not entirely sure as I am not a legal expert by any means. --Majora (talk) 15:54, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- I am sure that a 'scale' argument could be applied in the case of Wikipedia. On whether 'the community would ever cede administrative control' I am envisaging a needs must situation where the number of admins has fallen to such a level that action has to be taken. Noting here the conflation of 'administrative control' with 'community', which I have always suspected. Peter Damian (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- If the WMF paid admins (or any other category of editors) it would become legally responsible for the content of articles, which is obviously unacceptable. If admin numbers do fall to a really unsustainable level the pressure to appoint new ones would of necessity mean that the process would become easier. Wikipedia is a self-correcting system. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- I am sure that a 'scale' argument could be applied in the case of Wikipedia. On whether 'the community would ever cede administrative control' I am envisaging a needs must situation where the number of admins has fallen to such a level that action has to be taken. Noting here the conflation of 'administrative control' with 'community', which I have always suspected. Peter Damian (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- Well, imagine a world of needing less admins. The idea is that every good User can and many do participate in admminy stuff. (We should generally be able to regulate ourselves individually (and those who can't should find something else to do) - the self-regulation idea was probably one of the implicit things behind, everyone-should-be-an-admin, where NoBigD comes in). Then too, bot's do bot things, unbundle, etc. What the WMF could do, perhaps, is pay for an organizational and work-flow report: What should admins do and why? What is getting done and not getting done? Why aren't current admins doing them? What numbers of admins would make sense?, etc.
- Currently we say, 'raise your hand if you want to be an admin, if you survive the gauntlet then it's fine for you to basically not admin but at least you have a title, and hopefully someone else will go into the gauntlet, so they can get a title, and not address the work-flow' (Not blaming them but there just is no sense of what the workflow should be, and no organization, and no accountability for getting it done). . . . Or, possibly, it's just ok the way it is 'a machine that would go of itself' as they say. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:20, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- RfA is currently a flawed process and has been for years. Too many incompetents have been allowed to progress forward based on stupid reasons or if they are a friend of a friend. Most of those who vote simply say "support" without actually taking the time to research the nominee first. CassiantoTalk 16:39, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- Does it matter? Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:46, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- RfA is currently a flawed process and has been for years. Too many incompetents have been allowed to progress forward based on stupid reasons or if they are a friend of a friend. Most of those who vote simply say "support" without actually taking the time to research the nominee first. CassiantoTalk 16:39, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Peter Damian: I don't see anything obvious in Category:Administrative backlog which suggests a serious shortage of administrators, but I probably last looked at it years ago. You mentioned fighting vandalism, link maintenance, categories, AfD closure. Have you noticed issues at WP:AIV or AfD closures? What can admins do about links that ordinary users can't? Category:Categories for discussion is backlogged, but when I look at the specific discussions involved, in most cases I think I generally agree with admins who have seen those closures as lower priority than other work. EllenCT (talk) 16:44, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- Well, the problem isn't just having fewer RfAs, it is also admins burning out and either doing fewer admin actions, moving to non-controversial admin activity or moving back to being a content editor rather than focusing on admin work. This is just a guesstimate, but when I compare when I started regularly editing Wikipedia (summer 2013) to the present day, I think the number of admins who patrol ANI has fallen to less than half the number of admins than three years ago.
- I believe in admin accountability because admins, since they are human beings, make mistakes like everyone else. But it is also can get exhausting having to frequently justify your decisions, not because the wrong decision was made but because someone didn't like the decision. It can result in admins developing a very thick skin or simply choosing not to make difficult decisions that will inevitably bring conflict back to their talk page.
- In RfAs, I've seen candidates opposed because they were involved in noticeboards/"drama boards". But what Wikipedia is lacking right now are more admins willing to wade into drama and make tough decisions which are bound to make some editors mad and unhappy. And many aren't simple vandalism but involve tough areas like multiple editors pushing nationalistic POVs where there are complaints, counter-complaints and counter-counter-complaints, where closing one ANI case just results in a new ANI case a week from now. This is as frustrating to admins as it is to the editors involved in the disputes. Liz Read! Talk! 16:49, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- Also people move on. There simply is a natural decline to be expected if there is no influx, since folks need to have the luxury of time to participate, but as some get kids, new jobs or become ill or just find different hobbies. Few people are contributors let alone admins for life. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:37, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- I don't think RfA will become a fairer process if you pay people who pass RfA. It might become a fairer process if you pay randomly selected jurors to carefully evaluate admins and vote in RfA. But I'm thinking money is the last refuge of the incompetent here - we ought, as a community, simply be able to fix the processes both to elevate and to revoke admin status. Wnt (talk) 19:43, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- Looking over this discussion, I see several empirical questions, the answers to which would shed a fair amount of light on what ought to be done. Some of these are explicit and some are implicit in arguments put forward:
- Alanscottwalker: "What is getting done and not getting done? Why aren't current admins doing them? What numbers of admins would make sense?"
- Cassianto: puts forward repeatedly the argument that (stripped of nasty rhetoric which is unhelpful to say the least) RFA allows through too many people, or anyway too many of the wrong people, so that admin quality is not as high as it should be. It should be noted that this is not necessarily in tension with what most people view as the problem, which is too few admins. A process could select for too few people and for the wrong people at the same time - meaning that loosening up the process make make for a better admin corp overall.
- EllenCT challenges the notion of an admin shortage by inquiring about backlogs - this is a clean empirical question... have backlogs grown and which backlogs are they? But I note that not all admin actions, and in fact not even the most important ones, have "backlogs" - coming in to calmly mediate a dispute, helping parties to climb down gracefully from an edit war, but with the implicit threat of a block available, is a key admin activity not readily amenable to backlog measurement.
- Liz wonders about something else straightforwardly measurable: admin actions per admin - has it declined? How many admins patrol/post to ANI? Has it declined? (As a side note, while I'm focusing on trying to list out the empirical questions we have raised, I think that Liz is spot-on with her diagnosis of the problem at RfA.)
- TheDJ ties the adminship situation to an overall decline in editorship, which raises for me another empirical question - admins per editor, or admin actions per edits, something like that, could be a very interesting metric to look at and analyze.
- For me, I think one of the current power structure problems is that we no longer have any useful way to "be bold" as a community. We have significant inertia and every proposal has to gain full consensus. I'd like us to be able to experiment, and to have the tools to be able to evaluate those experiments. Let me put forward a flawed first cut at the kind of thing I have in mind, just so people can understand the point I'm making.
- Imagine if we had a tool that randomly selected active wikipedians and asked them to review 10 admin actions for the purposes of a study. The actions would be anonymized for the purpose of the survey. (Yes, people could figure out which ones they are rating, so there is a flaw, but I think it a minor one.) We could use this to evaluate admins over time, but there could be a lot of drama if the data were made public, so I'm thinking of this as purely a research study, not a tool for evaluating admins per se. Next imagine that we test some new processes for making admins - for example, randomly giving the bit to active editors for a test period of one month, or giving the bit to active editors who volunteer and complete an online training course, or.. or... or... the point is, we could experiment. Then, we could see what happens. Do the new admins do things that are productive? Do people rate their admin decisions as better or worse than the norm? Etc.
- These are the kind of thing that I think the Foundation should be investing in - and the kind of thing that the community should be investing time in.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:58, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- The fact is, Jimbo, and whether you like it or not, some admins do behave like idiots, so if the cap fits... . You opine that allowing randomly picked editors a one-month trial period would be good. I don't, I think it would be a dangerous move. There are some "active" editors who do nothing but cause problems and disrupt the good work of others. If we were to give them the tools then all hell would break loose. Having said that, I agree that the tools should be given to active editors, but in all areas, not just some; i.e, content, patrolling, reverting vandalism, etc... . But that is not what is currently going on with the current RfA process. Someone is nominated; various all-sorts turn up; !Vote based on stupid reasons like "why not", and "I like their signature, so they must be good", and then slope off again. That is not acceptable.
- If truth be known, most admins know nothing about how to create content, only to police it in an unfair and unjust way. If they knew about what goes into making a WP:FA, for instance, they wouldn't come under as much scrutiny as they do now. They would then gain the respect of those who are here to build quality articles. If these areas were improved, morale would improve and the idea of becoming an admin would then appeal to people. CassiantoTalk 21:19, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- I don't see the danger you see in sprinkling the bit around much more liberally on a trial basis. The key is "easy come, easy go" in those cases. People could be given it for a probationary period and it could be taken away in the event of any warning signs. I suspect the danger is much less than you think.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:31, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- I would in general be in support of some sort of Meta-moderation feedback system, perhaps starting small with selected action types that are easier to script (e.g. blocking, protection ) over complicated issues like "closing an afd" or deletion (as deleted text would not be available). Perhaps popping a "would you like to take a meta moderation survey" to logged in extendedconfirmed users? While leaving out admin names during the survey would be fine - being able to provide at least aggregate results during intervals would allow for a deeper investigation. — xaosflux Talk 00:49, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
- If truth be known, most admins know nothing about how to create content, only to police it in an unfair and unjust way. If they knew about what goes into making a WP:FA, for instance, they wouldn't come under as much scrutiny as they do now. They would then gain the respect of those who are here to build quality articles. If these areas were improved, morale would improve and the idea of becoming an admin would then appeal to people. CassiantoTalk 21:19, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Cassianto, you are wrong. Some (On Dutch WP most) does't behave like idiots, they are complete idioots and that is a different. It is a crazy idea to make every person,, who can be a troll or a sokpop or has a mental problem sysop. Well, we have seen the result on Wikipedia-NL, a wiki loaded with copyvio and the real editors are blockt. Ore, whishly, have left. What is left is a bunch of idiots who is trying to block everybody who is crashing there Wikimedia party of 15000 euro. Wikimedia_NL is only a job machine for it's members and a complete wast of money with it's director of 60000 euro and it's office. Well, now I am double block on Wikipedia and almost everywhere else, so I am looking for an other hobby. I hope you understand I will not spend one minute more In writing articles one Wikipedia, because they had tenthausends of page views and they called me a troll after all. Many times. So who is writing articles is a troll. And who like the be called a troll? Not me! Best regards, Graaf Statler (talk) 07:51, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
- Recent empirical evidence indicates that the admin backlogs are completely under control. The next few minion-filled underground lairs we're building out in the Maldives are slated to focus on the lowest quality high readership articles. EllenCT (talk) 14:51, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- For what it's worth (and it may not be much), my personal take is as follows. The "total" number of administrators is farcically high, the actual number of administrators seems to be in the ballpark of 500, of whom not all are super active. I believe this is about the "right" number for WP, that backlogs are not huge and that basic site administration is being handled more or less expeditiously. I believe that RFA is both eliminating most of the bad actors from gaining tools and is simultaneously overly stringent and keeping good people from seeking tools. I believe the system is not reproducing new administrators fast enough to compensate for attrition and that at some time in the future, medium term, there might be a crisis that develops from lack of administrators — but that that day is not now. I believe there is a phenomenon taking place in which many potential administrators who decline to undergo the RFA process are taking care of administrative functions without the tool kit. For example, it used to be rare to see "Non-Administrative Closures" at Articles for Deletion; now it is very common. These Non-Administrative Closers are more or less doing an administrative task without the tool kit. I suspect there are similar instances of Non-Administrators doing administrative things around the Wiki and that this explains why a relatively small number of active administrators is still managing to get the job done. I don't think this is a bad thing — administration is No Big Deal, but blocking buttons and deletion powers for life really is... I finally believe that while our core volunteer count has not only stabilized but reversed the trend of decline over the last decade, the count of actual, functioning administrators is still in decline and that the situation bears close monitoring. (drops mic) —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 10:34, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- True we have far fewer admins than we once did, but part of the drop is from the various unbundlings. The number of active admins who are active as admins is a difficult figure to measure, and as volunteers you are measuring something very different from staff. I know of two admins who do a significant proportion of the deletion and blocking, so any comfort about the backlogs needs to be in the context that if either of those two left it would take a lot of volunteers doing a couple of hours a week to replace them. As for the point of what the WMF could or should fund, plenty of websites pay for moderators. If we follow the principle that we should pay people to do what volunteers want to have happen but aren't volunteering to do, then at some point we might need to employ people to do the grunt part of adminning; Bouncers if you will, who can block vandals and delete G10 and G3 stuff, but leave judging consensus to the volunteers. I suspect we could obviate the need for this by unbundling "block newbie", and I'm hopeful that RFA is merely a lagging indicator and that now that the core community is growing we will eventually have more RFA candidates. But if the WMF had to appoint four or five paid moderators to do the least contentious Admin stuff on what is by far the biggest WMF site it should not be the end of the world or a significant budget item. ϢereSpielChequers 15:20, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Those people could not possibly come from anyone other than active administrators. And if four or five admins are paid, and the rest are not, I don't think the selectees will be regarded as low-status in the Wikipedia community. I think there would be enough people hostile to the situation that any action taken that can possibly be regarded as contentious, will be.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:06, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- The administrative power is already seen as a perk, as indicated by the unwillingness of even the least active administrators to formally give it up on their own. I imagine there are many people who love to put on their resume that they've been an admin at Wikipedia for the past ten years. Of course, when a position like this has value, it is wisest for them to test its powers infrequently, lest they end up on the wrong side of a purge. Frankly, the bizarre idea of paying admins strikes me as part of the neocapitalist religion - the notion that there's always someone in charge who is somehow responsible for what everyone else does, and by venerating and sacrificing for them more and more, some kind of mystical benefit will accrue to the world. But it never does.
- To put it another way, there has been an effort made to create a sort of choke point similar to the limits on access to the medical profession or the Mafia. Once an admin is suitably established, the rules and requirements are minimal; but there is an internship and initiation to get through before he can reach that point, which is made onerous to prevent too many people from coming through and showing up those currently with the perk. A part of this is a deification of things like how important it is that no new person have access to deleted revisions. Originally it was "no big deal", but now the people on top need to kick away the ladder. And above that broken ladder, why shouldn't it rain money? For it not to would seem like questioning Heaven. Wnt (talk) 17:48, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Dear Wnt and Wehwalt, I'd agree that there has been pressure to be more picky as to who can become an admin. But this isn't people kicking away a ladder that they have already climbed. For that to be the case it would have to be admins who were opposing candidates and who were pushing the standards in tenure or experience, my experience is the opposite, and that few admins would oppose a candidate who was more qualified than they were when they got through RFA. As for raining money, and how you mix volunteer and paid staff, well firstly bouncers aren't that well paid, and I doubt that online moderators would need to be either. Secondly as long as you follow the principle thatwe should pay people to do what volunteers want to have happen but aren't volunteering to do, you can mix volunteers and paid staff. The secret is that the volunteers need to be in charge, with paid staff doing the grunt work that is left after the volunteers have done the stuff they want to do. Also I'd reiterate that this isn't my ideal solution, I'd prefer that we fix RFA. But if we can't fix it then ultimately there are other options, this is one that works elsewhere. ϢereSpielChequers 13:54, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Pardon me
Greetings Mr. Wales, I hope all is well in your life. I'd like to challenge you to use the founders flag to mitigate the woes of RFA. Just as the US president as well as each state's governor are known for granting pardons, I think it would be great if you periodically set aside some failed RFAs and appoint them to administrator based on a reasonable criteria of your choosing. There are many editors who would probably be very good administrators, yet they believe, perhaps rightfully so, that they would never be able to pass an RFA. Most of these editors simply will not request adminship; ever. Perhaps some of them would, If there was such a second chance consideration as what I'm suggesting. For example, I am one who has accepted that I'll never pass an RFA. While I am resolved, to never again request sysop under the current system, I probably would try again, if failed RFAs were eligible for an executive second chance. I am curious if there are others who currently won't be an RFA candidate, but they might or would if benevolent appointments were happening under the founders flag. I am certain to hear reasons why such appointments can not happen, or why it's inherently a bad idea, but I am pretty sure that you could do this, and I believe it would be a good thing to do; as soon as you practically could. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 17:09, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'm pretty sure I would make a big mistake and people would rightly go berserk and strip me of whatever vestigial and theoretical power I might have if I did that. I think a better use of that would be in working with a small group of thoughtful and respected editors to come up with a proposal grounded in evidence for a reform of the process and then to call for a well-publicised election with a threshold for victory set somewhere less than 80%. Possibly even a majority vote would be good enough in the event that we are voting for a test period. (And correcting a mistake a previous time we did this, a clear understanding of what happens at the end of the test period.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:35, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'm one of those who passed on a second attempt, so I would suggest not ruling out a second run. Plenty of people who wait a few months and fix the main issues that the opposers cited have become admins. As for executive decision, I don't see that happening until we have such a shortage of admins that such an extreme measure is necessary. But when and if it becomes necessary, we will wind up with a large batch of hastily appointed minimally checked new admins, most of whom will do just fine. I'm not sure Jimmy would be the right person or entity to appoint them, and I don't know if we are years or decades from such an eventuality so now is not the time to plan for such a scenario, better in my view to keep trying to repair RFA to the point where such a scenario can be averted. One possible partial solution would be to add a not unless close, whereby Crats can revisit RFAs and change the result when opposers concerns have been resolved I've drafted some ideas on it here. ϢereSpielChequers 08:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- @ John Cline - Ooo, really bad idea. If the decline in the count of administrators becomes an actual problem in the future, we as a community can address the matter then. Dictatorial overrides of community processes are not the answer and would certainly create a bigger problem than they would purport to solve. See, for example, the dysfunctionality of the Heilman sacking from the WMF Board of Trustees, which was a single override of community decision-making and is still a pervasive and corrosive political issue, as anyone reading the Wikimedia-l mailing list can attest. Carrite (talk) 16:46, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Your opinion on topics regarding fringe and quackery
There is currently a discussion here regarding chiropractics. The seems to be a sentiment that any article which may have medical ramifications requires sourcing to pass WP:MEDRS specifically MEDLINE sources, as far as I know this is a misapplication of the guideline. My interpretation is that these requirements set the bar much higher than current GNG and that quackery can be notable as things may be notably wrong. What is your opinion on this matter? Valoem talk contrib 20:18, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
- As I said in that discussion, saying that a "technique is considered to be gentle and safe" is a medical claim and requires WP:MEDRS. An IP countered my comment by claiming that "The developer of the technique describes it as gentle and safe" would be fine without MEDRS, however that is exactly the kind of fringe pushing nonsense that an encyclopedia has to resist. Full marks to the IP for a good understanding of how to use Wikipedia to push a product with cues to the reader, but they would say that wouldn't they applies to all fringe claims. Johnuniq (talk) 23:27, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
- That comment has been long removed and can be fixed by simple editing not deletion. Valoem talk contrib 01:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Johnuniq: There is a huge tendency to mission creep regarding the "medical" claims. I think that if the makers of an amusement park ride or a chiropractic procedure market it as "gentle and safe", we ought to be able to say that. If someone has studied the incidence of projectile vomiting on the Tilt-A-Whirl, then we should showcase that RS to clarify if the thing is safe or not. But if such data is unavailable, we don't black out the article until some hypothetical day when doctors release a report about whether the Tower of Terror causes whiplash or not. You can label pseudoscience using RSes without demanding non-medical procedures have medical sources. Wnt (talk) 02:46, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Does anybody disagree that chiropractic is almost all quackery? If that is our starting point, how much more needs to be said? Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:38, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- It's listed here. Count Iblis (talk) 05:27, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Hi, Smallbones. I am a Chiropractic skeptic, however when my medical doctor ran out of treatment options for my back I turned to every alternative therapy I could get my hands on. I had five herniated disks. My Chiropractor was 1/3 of a mile from my home and I would walk there, walk home, then ice my back for 15-minutes. The walking home would inebriate the stuff that is broken loose during a treatment. One day I got halfway to the Chiropractor and I could not take another step. I laid down on the sidewalk, then after a while I dragged myself the rest of the way. After the 90-second treatment I walked home pain free. From then on, I thought there might be something to this quackery. After two yeas of conservative alternative treatments my herniated disks were all healed, which the doctors said was impossible, but the MRIs confirmed it. That was 17 years ago. Cheers!
{{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk}
08:20, 10 May 2016 (UTC) - @Smallbones: the most pro and con mainstream current WP:MEDRS-grade literature reviews on chiropractic therapy appear to be e.g. PMID 21248591 ("Combined chiropractic interventions slightly improved pain and disability in the short term and pain in the medium term for acute/subacute [lower back pain.]"), [1] ("A therapeutic trial of chiropractic care can be a reasonable approach to management of the pediatric patient in the absence of conclusive research evidence when clinical experience and patient/parent preferences are aligned.") and [2] ("Clinically relevant effects of [osteopathic manipulative treatment] were found for reducing pain and improving functional status in patients with acute and chronic nonspecific [lower back pain]....") Do you know of any WP:MEDRS-grade sources agreeing with your assertion that it is "almost all quackery"? EllenCT (talk) 09:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Smallbones: Many people say Christianity is quackery, but that doesn't mean we should merge all the articles about it down to three paragraphs. Wnt (talk) 09:58, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- So chiropractic has been around for about 120 years and this is the best you can come up with as far as providing evidence that it is effective? No offense intended to Checkingfax, but individual stories shouldn't carry much, if any, weight here. Re: Wnt - I think we can deal with religion and medical treatments differently - most people these days do. Re: Elen you present 3 studies
- In the 1st study you left out "However, the effect was small and studies contributing to these results had high risk of bias. There was no difference in medium- and long-term disability." and "there is currently no evidence that supports or refutes that these interventions provide a clinically meaningful difference for pain or disability in people with LBP when compared to other interventions." I think these quotes more fairly represent the study.
- 2nd study - your quote essentially says something like 'for kids, if the parents really want to and the real doctor says it's ok - why not?'
- The 3rd study is on "Osteopathic manipulative treatment" (OMT), not chiropractic "Given the differing comparison groups in the studies of both reviews, it is not possible to directly compare the effects of OMT and chiropractic management."
- It's up to the proponents of the practice of chiropractic to show that it is effective - these studies don't do it for me. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:23, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Well what do you think a representative WP:MEDRS grade review on the topic is? I see a whole lot concluding, "There is not sufficient evidence to recommend ... but neither is there sufficient evidence to conclude that they are not effective or efficacious," which is what you would expect from a placebo, right? How do you feel about PMID 23086004? It cites [3] quoting it as, "A 2010 review of scientific evidence on manual therapies for a range of conditions concluded that spinal manipulation/mobilization may be helpful for several conditions in addition to back pain, including migraine and cervicogenic (neck-related) headaches, neck pain, upper- and lower-extremity joint conditions, and whiplash-associated disorders. The review also identified a number of conditions for which spinal manipulation/mobilization appears not to be helpful (including asthma, hypertension, and menstrual pain) or the evidence is inconclusive (e.g., fibromyalgia, mid-back pain, premenstrual syndrome, sciatica, and temporomandibular joint disorders)." EllenCT (talk) 15:10, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- So chiropractic has been around for about 120 years and this is the best you can come up with as far as providing evidence that it is effective? No offense intended to Checkingfax, but individual stories shouldn't carry much, if any, weight here. Re: Wnt - I think we can deal with religion and medical treatments differently - most people these days do. Re: Elen you present 3 studies
- Does anybody disagree that chiropractic is almost all quackery? If that is our starting point, how much more needs to be said? Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:38, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Placebos are "gentle and safe" and, amazingly, work to a reliably replicable extent, involving effect sizes on the order of 0.2; see e.g. PMID 25762083 and PMID 23880289. Someone please create a WP:PLACEBO essay with advice on handling these cases. EllenCT (talk) 09:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
There appears to be more than one question floating around here, so I'd like us to separate them out a bit. First, there's this comment: "quackery can be notable as things may be notably wrong" - this is undoubtably true, and indeed in the spirit of WP:MEDRS and our general and laudable strictness on medical content, we should strive to identify popular bits of quackery and write about it neutrally as a service to readers. If there is a popular pseudoscientific medical term, and when I google it, all I get are 10 websites promoting it, I consider that a problem with the world that a good Wikipedia article could fix - so that at least the general public has a chance to hear the other side of the story. Second, if the promoter of some scientifically dubious treatment calls it "gentle and safe" - I suppose my view depends on the context, and editorial judgment is required. Homeopathic remedies are very much "gentle and safe" - and also useless beyond the placebo effects. I wouldn't be happy from a neutrality point of view if Oscillococcinum started out "Oscillococcinum (or Oscillo) is a gentle and safe homeopathic preparation marketed to relieve influenza-like symptoms." Nor should it say "Oscillococcinum (or Oscillo) is a homeopathic preparation marketed to gently and safely relieve influenza-like symptoms." This is no different, by the way, from my views on whether lots of products should be written about using marketing fluff language - they should not. Let me give a different example: the Chevrolet Corvette. Here's a sentence I got from their website: "With advanced technologies, a race-proven bloodline and a supercharged engine delivering 650 horsepower and 650 lb.-ft. of torque, the 2016 Corvette Z06 is a world-class supercar." As far as I am aware, that sentence is 100% factual. But it would not be the right thing for Wikipedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:51, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with removal of the statement "gentle and safe" which was initially included because the article was completely negative. Even though I despise the technique, NPOV suggests we should include both views if cited, my research shows the technique is "gentle and safe" because it is completely useless and has no effect on anything. I do believe it is better to remove the statement and I agree with the editors above. My main question, however, is regarding the application of WP:MEDRS as guideline for notability. My interpretation of GNG is that this is incorrect. Some editors expressed fear that allowing fringe articles could lead to promotion of the concept, which I interpret as a form of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Any promotion should always be correctable by basic editing. This was my focus question. Valoem talk contrib 14:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- So - quick question, and this is an issue that I've struggled with and been able to come to no firm resolution in my own mind. I'd be interested in your views on this hypothetical. Suppose there is a pseudoscientific or quack or whatever remedy or cure which has received only uncritical mention but in decidedly nonscientific sources. Popular newspapers and magazines, let's say. And it has not (yet) gotten any attention at all from more serious sources. And yet, in the judgment of reasonable Wikipedians, it's basically nonsense. Do we (a) follow the lead of serious sources and ignore it (b) note that a Google search returns only promotional materials and therefore write something to at least say firmly that it has not been assessed by science as a service to readers (c) go even further than b and note the similarity to other things which have been studied by science and shown to be nonsense. I think my answer is (b) only because (c) runs the risk of us engaging in original research or editorialising. Some would, I think, argue for (a) but I don't really agree (under the stated stipulation that it has gotten some attention in popular newspapers and magazines).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:19, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- I completely agree and believe that B is the best and possibly only option. I would be quoting you here, if there is a popular topic the public would be interested in reading about it, therefore our job is to provide them with neutral information regarding the subject. Many seem to disagree and have stated any topic having medical implications requires MEDRS sourcing. This greatly narrows the scope of coverage here and seems counter-intuitive to our GNG policies. This article Koren Specific Technique has been reviewed by healthcare insurance companies such as NHS Leeds and Aetna Healthcare both stating "a lack of evidence" regarding the effectiveness of KST. The AfD was closed as no consensus. The second article Gonstead technique whose AfD was closed as keep was merged against consensus due to the application of MEDRS. I then listed sources which I believed passed MEDRS such as "Journal of Physical Therapy Science" [4], a source included in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health. However arguments suggested a source must be listed on MEDLINE otherwise the article must be delete or merged. The third article Diversified technique has been used by 95% chiropractors [5], I would not mind a merge since it is only two sentences, but going forward I fear that if expanded the article it will be deleted due to mobbing not policy. This brings me to the next issue. Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard has become an anti-fringe discussion group whose primary goal appears to be removing fringe content instead of improving sourcing. DGG responded that in some cases the goal of a merge may be to slowly remove even the most "unimpeachable sources" to delete content they dislike. I've also seen this time and time again. If anything I've learned the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Valoem talk contrib 19:05, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- The point is that "gentle and safe" is a medical claim and would need MEDRS. NPOV includes WP:FALSEBALANCE—articles do not need to include promotional fluff just because the supporters would like it. Johnuniq (talk) 02:07, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Its not there anymore, do you have issues with inclusion now? Valoem talk contrib 04:54, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Saying it is "safe" is probably a medical claim. Saying it is "gentle" is not medical (what is the scientific standard of gentleness?). Saying it is gentle or safe in Wikipedia voice is however something that needs to be based on secondary sources. Saying "the manufacturer markets it as 'gentle and safe'" is a valid thing to base on a primary source, though I recall policy language somewhere about "unduly self-serving" claims. Generally it can be appropriate to say this though, especially if there is some context: "practitioner says it is 'gentle and safe', as contrasted with (another chiropractic maneuver involving sudden neck twisting) that can cause strokes." Wnt (talk) 12:53, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- NHS Leeds isn't a medical insurance company. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:25, 13 May 2016 (UTC).
- So - quick question, and this is an issue that I've struggled with and been able to come to no firm resolution in my own mind. I'd be interested in your views on this hypothetical. Suppose there is a pseudoscientific or quack or whatever remedy or cure which has received only uncritical mention but in decidedly nonscientific sources. Popular newspapers and magazines, let's say. And it has not (yet) gotten any attention at all from more serious sources. And yet, in the judgment of reasonable Wikipedians, it's basically nonsense. Do we (a) follow the lead of serious sources and ignore it (b) note that a Google search returns only promotional materials and therefore write something to at least say firmly that it has not been assessed by science as a service to readers (c) go even further than b and note the similarity to other things which have been studied by science and shown to be nonsense. I think my answer is (b) only because (c) runs the risk of us engaging in original research or editorialising. Some would, I think, argue for (a) but I don't really agree (under the stated stipulation that it has gotten some attention in popular newspapers and magazines).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:19, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with removal of the statement "gentle and safe" which was initially included because the article was completely negative. Even though I despise the technique, NPOV suggests we should include both views if cited, my research shows the technique is "gentle and safe" because it is completely useless and has no effect on anything. I do believe it is better to remove the statement and I agree with the editors above. My main question, however, is regarding the application of WP:MEDRS as guideline for notability. My interpretation of GNG is that this is incorrect. Some editors expressed fear that allowing fringe articles could lead to promotion of the concept, which I interpret as a form of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Any promotion should always be correctable by basic editing. This was my focus question. Valoem talk contrib 14:36, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
EllenCT mentioned the placebo effect. I think that this points to an important problem with these topics. It's no good explaining why X does not work, if people believe that it does work and if no explanation is given for that. The scientific literature about placebo effect is then relevant, you can't just say that X does not work because it's not more effective than a placebo if using a placebo has significant benefits over doing nothing. Take e.g. Parkinson's disease where we know that placebo treatments do work well, and the more expensive the better: "Conclusion: Expensive placebo significantly improved motor function and decreased brain activation in a direction and magnitude comparable to, albeit less than, levodopa. Perceptions of cost are capable of altering the placebo response in clinical studies.". Count Iblis (talk) 20:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Is Wikipedia committed to amateurism?
Editors are missing the point. I will give one example for now. The sourced text using reliable sources is at Chiropractic_treatment_techniques#Koren_Specific_technique. The mass original research including the use of unreliable sources is at Koren Specific Technique. See Talk:Koren_Specific_Technique#Violation_of_consensus. Who restored the OR after it was removed per consensus or is there consensus to include OR and unreliable sources? There are a lot more problems with other articles related to chiropractic. QuackGuru (talk) 19:21, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- Again, I really think we need a WP:PLACEBO essay for guidance. What other field of science than medicine has problems inherent from therapies which do work effectively but unquestionably have absolutely no reason to do so? The placebo effect is a recipe for editorial disaster in tertiary sources, and ignoring it in policy guidance doesn't help. EllenCT (talk) 20:47, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is by its very nature is amateur. People who know less than nothing edit our medical topics every day. Very rarely are there real experts editing in their field. Unfortunately, most are pushed away and eventually shunned and banned by non-experts. Where is the oversight to correct and watch over these edits to medicinal fields. If you saw an edit that was made on a very technical article, you'd shy away from it because you don't know if it is verifiable or not, or true or not. As time and time again have proved, vandalism and untruth has a long shelf life on Wikipedia, and on technical topics it extends even longer for the above reason. Pinguinn 🐧 21:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- It looks like too much has been removed from that article. For example, someone removed a statement by Koren that Koren Specific Technique is "not a chiropractic technique".[6] It doesn't matter if you're for it or against it - or at least, it shouldn't. We want to know what beliefs and definitions surround this community. Taking that kind of basic definition by the originator out is like somebody removing information about Shiite religious practices because he thinks they're wrong. We're not talking medicine here, just definition. Our readers are going to see a reference to this thing now and then, and be curious, and we get a shot to answer their curiosity. Wnt (talk) 21:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- Comment This is the exact kind of elitism Wikipedia has fought to avoid. Valoem talk contrib 00:26, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Diacritics in biographical article titles
Hello Jimmy, what are your thoughts on using diacritics in the titles of biographical articles? There have been a number of bloody battles fought in recent times, such as at Talk:Ana Ivanovic and Talk:Marko Djokovic. There is currently no consistency on diacritics, as some articles have them and some do not, mainly based on local editor consensus. I honestly would prefer that we go for all diacritics, as that is what the majority of the articles use. What are your thoughts? Rovingrobert (talk) 10:34, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Why aren't redirects sufficient for resolving this? When someone decided to replace hyphens with en dashes in article titles, the ability to type article URLs on all keyboards was restored by redirects from the original hyphenated titles. EllenCT (talk) 10:50, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: But that's the thing. There hasn't been one big swooping change. According to one estimate, there are about 300,000 biographical articles which have diacritics in their titles, and a couple of glaring exceptions which continue to generate lengthy debates. Rovingrobert (talk) 13:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Rovingrobert: have you tried asking for accessibly named redirects on WP:BOTREQ? EllenCT (talk) 13:10, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: Honestly, I think those articles have been moved so many times that a lot of them have a diacritically equivalent redirect. But I would prefer if the official titles followed some kind of convention that was the same across the board. Rovingrobert (talk) 13:27, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Rovingrobert: then please do ask there, they will probably agree. Only one way to find out. EllenCT (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: Thank you for the tip, but I'm really not sure what you mean. I'm not very experienced at Wikipedian matters. Could you please elaborate? Rovingrobert (talk) 02:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Rovingrobert: I asked for you at WP:BOTREQ#Diacritics in article titles: mass creation of redirects from unadorned ASCII? Please keep an eye on it, and I will too. EllenCT (talk) 13:18, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: Thank you! I didn't get what you meant at first, but the proposal sounds great. Looks like there is already some support. I haven't bothered to read any replies to this thread below Jimmy's. I take it those people don't agree with me? Rovingrobert (talk) 01:50, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Rovingrobert: it turns out there is a WP:TSC policy ("Sometimes the most appropriate title contains diacritics (accent marks), dashes, or other letters and characters not found on most English-language keyboards. This can make it difficult to navigate to the article directly. In such cases, provide redirects from versions of the title that use only standard keyboard characters.") So if any of them actually don't agree with you, you have every right to issue an endless series of sternly worded rebuttals until they see the error of their ways. Nothing can stop the proposed bot now, except the extent to which my immediately previous bot request for the most popular low quality articles soaks up the excess bot author attention. EllenCT (talk) 04:39, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: Thank you! I didn't get what you meant at first, but the proposal sounds great. Looks like there is already some support. I haven't bothered to read any replies to this thread below Jimmy's. I take it those people don't agree with me? Rovingrobert (talk) 01:50, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Rovingrobert: I asked for you at WP:BOTREQ#Diacritics in article titles: mass creation of redirects from unadorned ASCII? Please keep an eye on it, and I will too. EllenCT (talk) 13:18, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: Thank you for the tip, but I'm really not sure what you mean. I'm not very experienced at Wikipedian matters. Could you please elaborate? Rovingrobert (talk) 02:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Rovingrobert: then please do ask there, they will probably agree. Only one way to find out. EllenCT (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: Honestly, I think those articles have been moved so many times that a lot of them have a diacritically equivalent redirect. But I would prefer if the official titles followed some kind of convention that was the same across the board. Rovingrobert (talk) 13:27, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Rovingrobert: have you tried asking for accessibly named redirects on WP:BOTREQ? EllenCT (talk) 13:10, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- @EllenCT: But that's the thing. There hasn't been one big swooping change. According to one estimate, there are about 300,000 biographical articles which have diacritics in their titles, and a couple of glaring exceptions which continue to generate lengthy debates. Rovingrobert (talk) 13:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- It's a hard topic. I think the best solution is generally WP:COMMONNAME, but of course how different people are known in English isn't always consistent even in apparently similar cases, so following what the rest of the world does means that we are inherently going to be inconsistent, which I acknowledge is annoying. Mostly I think people should relax and try not to get too wound up about it.
- I'm personally more concerned about cases where we insist on writing things with the native spelling when the results are going to be clearly misleading to most readers. Diacritics aren't usually all that confusing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:55, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for your response. I would agree with your sentiments. In my opinion, diacritics can be helpful for purposes of pronunciation. I'm currently reading The Outsider by Albert Camus, and the original diacritics seem to have been retained in the English translation. I feel that it reminds you you're not pronouncing this in a normal English way. Rovingrobert (talk) 13:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- Diacritics are a specific case of applying general transliteration rules (and some of them are set in government laws). The world seems to respect the right of individuals to ignore those rules. Hence we have Genndy Tartakovsky, Yasuhiro Nightow, Toshihide Maskawa, Kohmei Halada (Japan does not have "s" and "la", and nobody transliterates "nai" as "nigh" there), and many other abnormalities, because those individuals chose to ignore the transliteration rules. Materialscientist (talk) 03:42, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for your response. I would agree with your sentiments. In my opinion, diacritics can be helpful for purposes of pronunciation. I'm currently reading The Outsider by Albert Camus, and the original diacritics seem to have been retained in the English translation. I feel that it reminds you you're not pronouncing this in a normal English way. Rovingrobert (talk) 13:03, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
- That's a nice sentiment, Jimbo, but it doesn't reflect what happens in practice here. Talk:Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson is a good example, which will end as "not moved". Jenks24 (talk) 17:40, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Well, actually, that's a good example of what I've said I'm "more concerned about". "þ" is not a letter in English, and it isn't just a matter of a small diacritic which English may or may not contain and which are perhaps likely to just serve as warnings to English readers that the pronunciation will be different from what you might guess. It's a symbol that for most people has no meaning. We may as well have an article titled 邓小平.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:11, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- That's kind of a funny case, since the "thorn" (þ) letter actually was a part of English writing. In any case, the proposed solution - moving Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson to a version with "th" but retaining all the other diacritics - seems like an unholy hybrid. If you're going to say the original is not in a Latin alphabet, shouldn't you Latinize it completely to something like "Hafthor Julius Bjornsson"?
- Something like this argues for case-by-case analysis, but there is one case in which I kind of wish Wikipedia would just enact a standard policy on its own, sources be damned, and let the rest of the world follow. That is with Arabic. We have a ridiculous situation where even now the media can't totally agree if it's Osama or Usama, Hussein or Husayn or Hossein, Muhammad or Mohammed. Every name, every town, every concept in Arabic is a total crapshoot, and if you want to look up two or three or four such words at once, you better write down a table and start putting in permutations like you were trying to pick a combination lock. Wikipedia's built-in search doesn't seem to give very good suggestions. Couldn't we call in some experts, put out a press release, come up with a policy - any policy, as long as it can be consistent - and set a precedent that if you have the spelling in Arabic, you have one and only one preferred spelling in English? Wnt (talk) 18:09, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- I strongly agree in principle, but if it were feasible to standardize Latin graphemes from Arabic, someone would almost certainly have done it. US intelligence agencies, who have a strong interest in doing the same thing, are just as divergent in their Latinized Arabic spellings as everyone else. EllenCT (talk) 20:57, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- Hmmm, I doubt it. Intelligence agencies are all about input, not so much about output. Actually, for all I know the CIA World Factbook may have a standard policy. But it's not their job description to help everybody in the world know as much as they do. Wnt (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- The great thing about standards is that there are so many of them: Romanization of Arabic#Comparison table. You are saying we should pick one, ideally for reasons but at random if there aren't any good reasons to prefer any over the others, and then move all the nonconforming articles to that one? This sounds like a WP:VPR discussion. Please see also Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive J#Policy on use of Arabic and its transliteration. EllenCT (talk) 04:31, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
- @Wnt: those alternatives may be associated with locales. EllenCT (talk) 12:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
- Hmmm, I doubt it. Intelligence agencies are all about input, not so much about output. Actually, for all I know the CIA World Factbook may have a standard policy. But it's not their job description to help everybody in the world know as much as they do. Wnt (talk) 21:24, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- I strongly agree in principle, but if it were feasible to standardize Latin graphemes from Arabic, someone would almost certainly have done it. US intelligence agencies, who have a strong interest in doing the same thing, are just as divergent in their Latinized Arabic spellings as everyone else. EllenCT (talk) 20:57, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- That's a nice sentiment, Jimbo, but it doesn't reflect what happens in practice here. Talk:Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson is a good example, which will end as "not moved". Jenks24 (talk) 17:40, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Comment at one point in the past I created all the "Unadorned" redirects. I am quite willing to do so again. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:32, 13 May 2016 (UTC).
Wikimedia should support Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub has all but destroyed the academic paywall that kept most people from accessing the scientific literature directly. However, Elsevier has launched a vicious counterattack, the founder of Sci-Hub, Alexandra Elbakyan is in hiding in Russia to prevent being extradited to the US. Now Wikimedia's mission is all about making knowledge available to the World's population, so I think Wikimedia has a role to play in this effort to get rid of the paywalls that are not protecting the right of authors. The academic institutions pay for the scientists they employ, they pay publication costs, they pay for the subscription for the journals they have in their libraries, and the scientists do free of charge refereeing work for the journals. As Elbakyan has pointed out, this is all ultimately paid for by the public via taxes, and it's they who are the most restricted from accessing scientific work.
One can debate whether one should just violate copyright wholesale, perhaps a more reasonable approach would be to make all published scientific articles freely available, say, two years after publication. But it should not be up to Elsevier to block any such moves. Just make the not very recent scientific literature freely available and then let Elsevier make a case against that in court if they think that this is unreasonable. It's not a simple matter of copyright law as there are UN conventions that guarantee public access to scientific knowledge. Count Iblis (talk) 18:36, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- This isn't something the WMF should plunge into without extensive consultation with the community, but I'd think that most Wikipedia editors woul agree that "something should be done' to make academic research freely available to the public. The problem, of course, is that if the WMF made a grave mis-step, they (we!) could get sued out of existence.
- Why not get a few ideas and alternatives going here?
- I'll suggest first that @Count Iblis: give a general outline of what he'd have the WMF and the community do. I'll even make an off-the-top of my head proposition.
- The recent NY Times article, "Should All Research Papers Be Free?" gives a good overview of the issues. They mention "pre-print repositories" that are online. Why couldn't the WMF host a very big simple pre-print repository? Simple as in, "Any faculty member of the following 5,000 universities can upload any research paper that they claim copyright to. We'll assume good faith on this, just like we do for most contributions to Wikipedia." So how many papers per year would that be (estimates please)? Could we afford it? Would it help solve the problem? (My guess is that it could break quite a few logjams, but not be a complete solution.) Well, it's one idea - do people have better ones? Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:47, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Preprints aren't particularly controversial, and I think that academics (or others...) can upload preprints to Commons now if they want. And of course Arxiv does that. What we can do now -- as editors in the community, not WMF -- is to agree that Wikipedia user-generated policy about things like "WP:ELNEVER" applies to piracy sites, not sites that facilitate interlibrary loan, provided by individuals who have access to interested researchers. We can also adjust templates to work easily with Sci-Hub. Wnt (talk) 20:24, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
- Arxiv includes preprints only when they have the right to do so; for this reason, some Arxiv indexing does not include the actual preprint. That all authors ought to have the right to upload preprints is another matter, one that most of us would very strongly support. It's not actual law at this point, very unfortunately. DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 12 May 2016 (UTC) .
- Yes, what matters is if we can read the contents of the papers, whether that's in preprint form of in the form of published journal articles. When I first published an article with Elsevier a long time ago, I was puzzled why their website refers to the submitted files as "artwork", as it's just a few plain text files containing the LaTeX source files and some postscript figures. But, of course, this has to do with Elsevier treating their articles as extremely expensive works of art. Count Iblis (talk) 20:10, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- I feel like this is a diversion. As far as I know, Sci-Hub allows people who have access at a library to share documents with interested researchers. There is no official law that says that a person has to be a member of an exclusive university library to request an interlibrary loan, or that reading a Wikipedia article is not academic research. We should stand up for ourselves! Our readers have as much right to request an ILL as anyone, and Sci-Hub offers an effective way for them to do so. If individual editors provide links to Sci-Hub inside their cite templates that make it marginally easier for readers to make these requests (it's already pretty easy), what is Elsevier going to do about it? If researchers believed everything publishers claim about copyright, they would have been afraid to photocopy Nature articles at the university library because of all those stupid "yours to have and to hold but not to copy" ads that publisher has run over the years. But nobody believes them. The law makes an exception for people passing papers back and forth for research (not preprints, but genuinely copyrighted pages copied straight out the bound journals), because if it didn't, it would be vulnerable to the freedom of expression challenges it deserves. Where the U.S. is concerned, recall that even though copyrights were permitted in the constitution, so was slavery! Just as an amendment abolished slavery, the First Amendment should, in the hands of honest judges, not permit any copyright claim (at least) that interferes with the free interchange of ideas. Wnt (talk) 21:08, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- I'm guessing that any effort to effectively abolish copyright for academic articles on Wikipedia is going to be met with a lot of opposition. If you have a more detailed proposal, please make it, and I will not stand in the way. But I'm sure others will, e.g. the WMF lawyers might be very conservative about this, and tons of editors believe in the idea of copyright as well.
- If you want to link to a site that describes itself as a "pirate", then the above probably applies. But you don't need to actually link - perhaps a pure text "available on Sci-Hub" would work almost as well.
- A pre-print repository might be the best way, especially for areas arXiv doesn't cover, e.g. sociology, anthropology and other "soft sciences", not to mention history, law, art and music theory, etc. I'd be leary of medicine however. If authors do not want to post on a repository, then there's not much we can do about it - so perhaps the best thing would be to contact researchers in the above fields and see what they want. If it's not a strict copyright problem, but simply Elsevier interprets copyright one way, but some researchers interpret it another way, then there is some room for action. Elsevier might think two or three times before filing DMCA notices against 100's or 1,000's of researchers. There might also be room for action to post articles mandated for free access by the US Federal gov't, where taxpayers paid for the research. Are there sites available to actually post these on, or are the rules too new or ineffective?
- In any case, a practical proposal will be better than "let's just throw out copyrights on all academic work." Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:53, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
- A lot of people online believe the status quo is what you say it is... but go in a library, and it's not so. You can get copies of articles delivered to you. You can go in and "borrow" music CDs and movies. And when we look up news items for our articles, think of how common it is to find the text shared on forums by other people citing their Fair Use rights. You can tell me that all these things are wrong, terribly wrong, but it looks to me like copyright never was permitted to ban as much as you imagine. Wnt (talk) 02:17, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
A kitten for you!
For all your hard work making this encyclopedia, A kitten is the least I can do.
Marksomnian (talk) 18:33, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
- Although I appreciate the sentiment, I am only offering cat emoji until such time as Jimbo burns Ayn Rand and Art Okun in effigy at Davos. 🐱 EllenCT (talk) 04:44, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Correction
Hi Mr. Wales, I had made some comments in the Wikipedia talk pages. These are the talk pages I have commented in: Sasanian Empire, Parthian empire, Achaemenid empire. Now I want to correct those comments.
I had no intention to make the comments in the talk pages. I am not so good in English. I just wanted to include some maps in some of the articles. But then the other editors said I must have a consensus to include my edits. So I had to make those comments. But then I realized it was a mistake. There are many mistakes in my language. So I want to correct those comments.
Mr.Wales, I have made three accounts for this edit. This is the fourth one. It will probably not be possible for me to make a new one. The other editors are not allowing me to do this. So I have come to you Mr. Wales. You are the owner of Wikipedia. You have the power to let me edit the comments. So please let me do this a bit.
I don't have the capability to write any article in Wikipedia. I am not so good in English. I just want to correct my comments. I will only do some grammatical change. I have to correct the comments, I have to correct them at any cost. I am feeling very uncomfortable about the comments in the talk pages. This is the last thing I want to do in Wikipedia. After doing this I will quit Wikipedia. So please mr. Wales, let me do this a bit.Arman ad88 (talk) 19:47, 12 May 2016 (UTC)