User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Russian troll farms/Facebook/Russian "meddling"

Hi Jimbo, I am wondering what your views are regarding the recent decisions by Facebook/Zuckerberg in this matter and what effects upon Wikipedia or our Trustees, this whole event(s) may have? Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:46, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just for some background see Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit America’s racial and religious divisions and Twitter called to Capitol Hill to give details on Russian election interference

I've long thought that there has been some Russian government editing on Wikipedia, and have mentioned it sotto voce (or maybe not so sotto) on this page a few times. One big problem is how you separate out ordinary Russian activists/nationalist from gov't operatives. Another problem: if the WMF is going to fight Russian gov't influence here, how do they communicate that to regular editors. After all, if you're going to fight the FSB/KGB, you don't really want to tell them how you are doing it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:31, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen some pretty stupid posts on this page but the above is in a class of its own. This is a multi-national project and posts such as the above do nothing but stir up racial disharmony. Are we to assume that every daft post promoting the rather odd views that come from Donald Trump's mouth are a secret plot from the FBI? I really think that both Putin and Trump have better things to do with their time than oversee edits to Wikipedia. We have sufficient protocols in place already to ensure that impartial views are screened out. Giano (talk) 20:22, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some more background BBC Twitter's Russia briefings 'inadequate' - US senators

Well, it is clear that several countries beyond the US have accused Russia of meddling in their elections, e.g. France and Germany. And the alleged meddling in the US elections via social media has been taken seriously enough that there are investigations by the FBI, the US Senate and the US House of Representatives. My question is - If the Russian gov't could have operations on Facebook and Twitter, why wouldn't they try to operate through Wikipedia? We should at least recognize the possibility and be prepared for proper action if it did happen, or if it seems like it is going to happen. I don't have proof that it did happen and I don't know what the appropriate action would be, but I'm sure we should consider the question thoughtfully.

So if Jimbo or Katherine were called to testify to Congress, I'd hope they'd have something more to say than "We assume that Putin has more important things to do than change information in Wikipedia." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:28, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

User:Giano is inadvertently, I think, pointing out an increasingly common and important mistake in public usage of English. A mistake which is also being aggressively and, I think, intentionally, used and promoted by Fake News outlets and/ot their "reporters" and "experts". I refer to the use of the Race card where it linguistically and obviously can not even be twisted into any sort of reasonable application. "racial" disharmony ? So now Russia and by extension every country is a race of people? Well, CNN might want to have us believe that, as well as that every religion is a "race", but lets try to stay real. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:19, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid, like it or not, Russians and Americans are not the same race. This may come as shock to many Americans, but there is another St Petersburg beyond the one on Florida. Claiming that there is Russian Government interference on Wikipedia, casts an unjust cloud over all of our excellent Russian (and former USSR) editors. It would be far more helpful if you cited a diff for where you fear this propaganda is being made, and then an individual editor could be subject to the witch-hunt which you are so obviously relishing. Giano (talk) 17:49, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm astounded at this. First, all Americans and all Russians are of the same race - the human race and that's all that matters "racially speaking." Second- I lived in Moscow, Russia for over 7 years and travelled extensively around the country. I never saw anything that I thought could be describe as a "racial difference" between the two majority ethnic groups (call them WASP and Rus). Even the minorities in both countries are pretty similar (Russia probably has more people of Asian and Middle-eastern descent, the US more of African descent).

None of this means that I can't criticize the Russian gov't or the US gov't - both of which I suspect have interfered with Wikipedia in some ways. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:11, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not the dumbed down social media that has dumbed down the US public, making them susceptible to Russian propaganda. As I point out here, the ultimate cause of this problem is the attitude of the Bush Administration w.r.t. the media. They quite successfully pushed the view of a politically biased media, that academia is politically biased, and that the judiciary is biased. It was ok. to criticize an expert, not by rebutting factual points but by merely saying that the expert is an elitist, that the t.v. program was biased for not having invited someone with the opposite views.

Also the very reason why Russia itself has turned out the way it is today is also largely the fault of the Bush Administration, I've explained that here. Count Iblis (talk) 23:22, 28 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's biggest defense is that it is an old fashioned throwback to the days when the Web worked. Specifically, we cranky editors have thrown massive tantrums every time the developers want to dust off some nice shiny Social Media Web 2.0 nonsense and shove it off on us. As a result, this is one of the last sites around where you can say something and I can say something and Jimbo Wales can say something and everybody who views the forum has to wade through all that crap, rather than helpfully seeing the Most-Upvoted Comment showcased at the top and everything else deliberately made unavailable behind 370 pages of "click to see the next 10 results". That means that - unlike better-designed modern commerce sites - it does you comparatively little good to have a publicist or a Russian troll farm behind you pumping up your comments as soon as you post them and giving everyone else's the Lone Stupid Downvote of Oblivion to ensure they never get read by anyone. Here, you're going to post something, most people will ignore it, the discussion will get closed as "no consensus" and life will go on as it always does. It is enough to make a grown troll cry... or a manager want his money back. Of course, defending the Wiki against bots takes more effort from that by a cadre of unsung heroes whom we vigorously distrust, but I think the lack of up/downvoting is the most important thing. Wnt (talk) 20:39, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

British Academy

It appears you were awarded this institution's President's Medal on Wednesday night for

facilitating the spread of information via [your] work creating and developing Wikipedia, the world's largest free online encyclopedia.

Congratulations.

This prompted the claim that Wikipedia's "entries can be exceptionally misleading" - it's a sad fact that the more worthwhile an enterprise becomes the more enemies it acquires. 82.14.24.95 (talk) 11:29, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The statement is true, and Jimmy says so frequently. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe critiques are opposition and those who know they are support. 80.169.30.228 (talk) 14:44, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reward from within, instead of paid from outside

The solution to paid operatives is some kind of incentive reward system whereby editors can receive bitcoin micropayments on the basis of merit, rather than external sources of income on the basis of promotion. Jimmy they are coming for us, like they are coming for every single other major internet platform. Lets set up the appropriate defenses now.

Jimmy (or some other initial small subset) could pass some bitcoin to whoever they trust for doing meritable work at their leisure. Then that editor can move some coin to another editor they think deserves a reward. And so forth, all publicly verifiable. See how good that would be? We could set upper limits or other transfer constraints if needed. Its not paid work because there is no agreement. Just incentive and reward, a tip or a gift, if you like. If a micropayment is not deserved we will work out a solution. They might loose trust and the system will punish, for example. The system will generate trust consensus. It will be self-reinforcing. With this we can also destroy our backlogs. We need the extra motivation to do the hard work now and to get it done sooner. There are lots of benefits. Think of it as taking WikiLove messages to the next level. We could create bounties, pools for prizes that jackpot for difficult tasks, other groovy competitions, bonus rewards, leaderboards and whole host of incentives to encourage existing editors and to bring in new editors who want to be part. Think of the buzz this would create. This way, we control the gifting economy rather than external forces by marketing and promotion. - Shiftchange (talk) 12:19, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Notice how the Village pump discussion has been misconstrued as paid editing, shut down and the problem forgotten without being mentioned? Not addressing this is like Youtube doing nothing about pornography. That problem, like the political propaganda and paid operatives here, would not just work itself out. It will only get worse. I predict my solution would fix this and make a whole lot of others things better around here. - Shiftchange (talk) 22:35, 30 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Go for it Jimmy. I will support you from the paid operatives who are against protecting Wikipedia in this manner. Trust me, on this, please. What I have suggested is Web 3.0, not digital restrictions management promoter Tim Berners-Lee suggests is the Semantic Web. If the foundation doesn't do this, someone will fork and have the original content as well as their boosted content that gets better than the original, because of a real incentive. Like a growing blockchain Wikipedia 3.0 will have more proof-of-work. It will be qualitatively superior because my invention means the goals will be maintained better than the original version. - Shiftchange (talk) 06:01, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There is some appeal to this idea -- I've suggested something similar myself, with the exception that I think Wikipedia could simply its own edit-backed currency made up out of thin air, rather than joining Bitcoin's pyramid. That said, I fear the tyranny of the majority is not much better than the tyranny of hidden elites. If editors start tipping each other, then someone will emerge to "help" them - help them track their contributions, help by suggesting their own leaderboards, help by implementing their own blacklists of editors who have done something wrong. Just as the vast unorganized mob of the internet soon became the property of a few companies, your commercialized editor network might find itself winning or losing solely based on a single company's smile or frown.

Wikipedia does have reward from within, truly within - editors who take pleasure in trying to get information together for themselves and exchanging the value of building this knowledge with others. I think any system of reward from without would need to shy away from mob rule and be very uniform - simply offer a small payment to all active editors above some neutral and easily attained threshold, mostly to improve penetrance to Third World communities. I mean, you could pay $30 a month to 10,000 active editors for $300,000, which is well within WMF budget possibilities; or by trimming the pay a little and getting some of the First World editors to donate it back you could expand it to a larger less-active group (but that might invite too many sheer spongers). Really, this wouldn't be budget-limited but disruption-limited. Some will say that the offer of free access to databases is the same thing in a less abusable way, though I like to hope the true information-liberating Wikipedian is more comfortable on a "pirate" site than with even a free subscription. ;) Wnt (talk) 11:25, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The original discussion is at WP:VPP#Our policy on political propaganda is failing and how to solve this problem forever. It's a form of paid editing however you spin it. Doug Weller talk 14:11, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do we want to fight "paid editing" or "organized advocacy to push penultimate or lesser viewpoints?" 2.99.64.75 (talk) 19:53, 1 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]