User talk:Jimbo Wales

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(Christian) clergy titles in article names

I know how much you care about naming conventions for people in general given the number of times you edited a number of these policies/guidelines so I decided to point out yet another title related problem to you.

Since 2006 titles such as King, Queen, Sheik, Sultan, Dr. and boatloads of other titles are unwelcome in article names. Exceptions can be made on a case by case basis such as with Mother Teresa. We have one divergence from this general rule with Christian clergy more notably titles such as Pope, Cardinal, Patriarch and possibly also Saint in article names.

This anomaly in the currently used guideline was added on 04:23, 20 April 2003 without consensus and remained without much discussion. There was some village pump discussion on 00:28, 17 October 2003‎ until issue was mostly forgotten until 2005 as far as I can tell.

When objections are raised people are quick to claim of a previous consensus for this naming convention of which there is no evidence of such a discussion taking place much less an established consensus. This argument isn't a new thing and was pointed out countless times even all the way back on 02:04, 6 October 2006 when one user attempted to semi-force the idea.

This double standard originally applied to Western (Christian) clergy but then was expanded to include Eastern (Christian) clergy for perhaps obvious reasons. So at this point this issue undermines the entire naming convention as because of this exception to Christian clergy other religions and even royalty may want to have their fancy titles back in article names.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 22:54, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that these relatively limited exceptions "undermine the entire naming convention"? I don't see an actual problem here. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 23:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Sure. It is fairly easy (also as per WP:NPOV) we either need to promote religious statuses on all other religious leaders and monarchs or else we are giving special treatment to the King and Pope of the Vatican as well as the representative of the legal corporate person the Holy See. C.G.P. Grey on YouTube explains the Pope, Vatican City with fascinating detail.

Queen Elizabeth II whom is not only the head of state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as well as of the Commonwealth Realm but also the supreme leader of the Anglican Church as handed to her by God (per British tradition) making her a religious figure just like the Pope. This religious role is underplayed but it is nevertheless there. Mind that this is hardly unique to Europe as if you look at the Democratic People's Republic of Korea the former head of state had many titles such as 천출위인 (Great Man, Who Descended From Heaven) as well as 천출명장 (Glorious General, Who Descended From Heaven) of which none are put in the article's title. Practically every Caliphate including many Arab & Ottoman Sultans were also heads of state until the title was abolished in 1924. These individuals do not get to keep such a title on their article name. I could list many other examples but the list would quickly clutter this talk page. Furthermore, why shouldn't every other CEO representing a legal corporate person get a fancy title in their article name? After all arguably CEOs of the largest corporations matter far more (in terms of Notability) than the Pope given their influence on global economy.

The reason I mentioned the examples is to demonstrate just how complicated these titles can be. If we are going to give such a massive exception to a group of people, we must do so with good reason of which I can see none here in good faith. Feel free to point any out because nothing is more unwiki than double standards especially if they are arbitrary to begin with.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 23:18, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

The relevant notability guideline is WP:Naming conventions (clergy). You mention developments in 2003 and 2006, which are "ancient history" in Wikipedia terms. There is extensive recent discussion of your point on the talk page of that notability guideline; motivated, I assume, by the recent resignation of a pope. Personally, I like you would prefer "Benedict XVI" as an article title to Pope Benedict XVI, but the consensus in that discussion is clear, and is against your point.

I would submit that this is not a "massive exception", as it involves just several hundred clearly defined articles. You can speculate all you want about efforts to incorporate North Korean titles or corporate titles into article names. I see no evidence whatsoever of that happening, or of this issue spilling over into other broader areas of article naming. Why we have Queen Victoria but Elizabeth II, I do not know, but I am also not interested in rocking that boat. I suggest that you read the talk page of the guideline, and abide by the consensus, even though you disagree with it. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:32, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

The fact that we do have a Queen Victoria while having Elizabeth II shows that there is a naming convention inconsistency beyond what is being talked about and a larger discussion and rewrite should occur (though Victoria is often referred by the full title in pop culture every-day-speak whereas Liz 2 was not... most likely the origin of the inconsistency). And I'm disturbed by the fact that Christian clergy is given different guidelines on naming. Consensus or not there is no reason anyone should just "abide by the consensus" and not question it, though I'm sure Cullen328 is only saying to not vandalize; surely Cullen328 is not implying that people have no right to question the consensus, bring up good points, and sway people to see perhaps a new way is possible and better. Surely we can agree that naming convention guidelines for ALL religious leaders should be consistent and that a separate guideline for one religion is not the best way? A general guideline done by a large community consensus would be best, instead of a localized consensus by those who have a vested interest already in Christian leadership. How would the community feel if wikiproject for Judaism decided that Rabbi (or Rebbe) would precede all rabbi's articles? If your answer is that of course rabbi's should not have such naming then obviously neither should Christian clergy.97.85.242.177 (talk) 04:52, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course, I am not implying that consensus can never change, and I hope that I made clear that I would personally support such a change. Rather, I am correcting the impression created that there was no consensus, and that the issue had not been debated recently. It was debated recently, and quite a few editors offered their opinions. Personally, I oppose discussing these sorts of issues over and over again, without time for reflection and study of consequences. If it is shown that there is a spillover effect on North Korean articles or corporate CEO articles or articles of any other type, then I would be less opposed to revisiting the issue immediately. Consistency is a good thing in general, but it is not an absolute requirement, and exceptions to general rules are often made, as in this case. Accepting consensus even when one disagrees personally is an important trait of a really useful editor here.

As for comparing articles about rabbis to articles about popes, I have a unique personal perspective. I was born and raised Catholic, later converted to Judaism, and have written a biography of a rabbi, Joseph Asher. I know enough about the two religions to understand that that Judaism has no central authority while Roman Catholicism is hierarchical, and that popes pretty much abandon their birth names, while rabbis do not. The comparison you made is, in my view, not valid for those reasons. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:10, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Just as a thought, can I suggest that perhaps Queen Victoria was adopted because Victoria has multiple meanings and that was a more elegant way to disambiguate the title than Victoria (Queen)? —sroc (talk) 11:19, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Cullen328, please see- Chief Rabbi. Also there have been in the past 50 years at least one Rebbe in Brooklyn who had been declared the Messiah (his death obviously disqualified him, though like another 2000 yrs ago there are some followers who hold on, and one day they too may be excommunicated from the Jewish community for heresy and become a separate religion). Though yes, rabbis are religious/law TEACHERS analogous to lawyers and judges and are still laymen (similar to elder in Presbyterian or deacon, it is not actually a religious leadership title analogous to priest, bishop, cardinal, minister, etc. Rabbis is comparable with Imam in the Muslim religion. The Kohen are the Priests of the Jewish religion, and still have a significant religious role in prayer in the synagogue even though their duties at the Temple are unable to be fulfilled since the Temple does not exist. Point in all this anyways is that- Christianity is getting "special" treatment; though I guess the idea is now that it gets special treatment because many of its branches are episcopal... well most non-Christian religions do not have a hierarchy.97.85.242.177 (talk) 12:12, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

All this technical detail is great but Christianity is just another religion as far as Wikipedia content is concerned. If we give a special status to Christianity we are either undermining other religions or we are essentially encouraging other religions to seek a special status as well which promotes them to a special status over Kings/Queens/Presidents/Prime Ministers/etc which is not the kind of message we want to give. Consider Akihito, the Japanese Emperor. He has no fancy titles around his article name. This is with good reason. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 14:55, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

My point exactly we are giving a special privilege to Christian clergy for the sake of it. You are pointing to a disambiguation problem which can be dealt with on a case by case basis. Currently we have article names with the "Pope" title in them even if there is no disambiguation conflict. Currently Benedict XVI redirects to Pope Benedict XVI and as far as I know in history there has been only one Benedict XVI so putting a "Pope" in front of "Benedict XVI" is pointless.

Should Queen Victoria be renamed to something else? My instinct would be a "yes" but Victoria is among the most notable figures in British & World history (Victorian era is named after her after all). Most popes aren't notable beyond the walls of the Vatican globally. I'd suggest a rename of Queen Victoria to Victoria of the United Kingdom (with Queen Victoria redirecting of course) to eliminate the "Queen" in the article name but as I said I am hesitating due to the overwhelming notability of Victoria. As mentioned before the only reason why we even entertain the thought of putting a title in front of Victoria is because of a need for disambiguation and looking at the move request for it I can tell this issue is very complicated.

Among all British Monarchs how many others have a title in their article name? Among Popes how many are there without the "Pope" title? All?! Can a few popes have the same exception Victoria has? Sure, if and only if the following conditions are met

• There is a need for disambiguation
• The person is notable enough in history for WP:COMMONNAME to apply. (not my preference but it is the consensus)

Otherwise normal disambiguation guidelines would apply.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 13:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Anne, Queen of Great Britain, Charles, Prince of Wales, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Stephen, King of England, John, King of England, Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern ... John lilburne (talk) 22:50, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Note: The use of titles is not exclusively Christian on Wikipedia (vide 14th Dalai Lama, etc.) and most of the above is not actually important. "Rabbi" historically was an honorific which did not have specific requirements, thus is not relevant here. Degrees earned are also generally not used in article titles. Queen Victoria was never widely known as "Victoria" other than after her ascendancy to the throne (she was Princess Alexandrina) thus the "Queen" is specifically applicable to her name as queen. Thus - usage appears to be if the name associated with the title is not the given name of the person, then the title is also used with the name as a practical result. And this does appear to be how Wikipedia generally uses the titles (other than "Saint" which is so infrequently a problem with editors that it is fairly moot). I think this covers everything above. Collect (talk) 16:01, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

There has not been a single monarch known by their name without their title. Under normal circumstances we do not put titles in article names. There needs to be a reason why we would want to make such an exception for Popes and not others. You are not even attempting to provide any reason why Popes should be treated any differently than anyone else.

Again what you mentioned is a disambiguation problem. Would anyone not realize Benedict XVI as former Pope? Is there another Benedict XVI? As for the specific issue you pointed out, it seems like all articles on Dalai Lama lineage have a numbered Dalai Lama representation (nth Dalai Lama). I do not know enough on Dalai Lama as to why is this but that is a smaller problem with only 14 articles. The problem here is that the name itself isn't used at all, if this is the common way to refer to a Dalai Lama then it may be fine. Popes have actual names aside from their titles and in such a case the title should be unwelcome per common practice for articles on all people. Since we are talking about common names and Victorian era, David Livingstone was an icon in it and is more popularly known as "Dr. Livingstone" (redirects) which even lead to the popular quotation "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?". Despite this the title isn't in the article name. This is the example discussed in the guideline.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 17:16, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

So much fun to poke holes in "absolute" statements -- try "Louis Quatorze" - we do not call him "King Louis XIV" as a rule either in real life or on Wikipedia. Now try finding actual "rules". --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Collect (talk • contribs) 06:46, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Point is his article name does not have the title "King" as we avoid titles in names as much as possible, then we consider if there is a more common name. "Louis Quatorze" isn't mentioned once in article content so I cannot see the terms relevance. I also do not believe that it is that important because your example's article name is Louis XIV of France which follows the guideline I am proposing to apply to Popes just like how it applies to everyone else. After all there is no disambiguation problem. There exists only one "Louis XIV" in history. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 12:21, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The claim made above was There has not been a single monarch known by their name without their title which I disproved. Period. As stated. And I showed that titles are used for people who are specifically not Christian. As claimed. I could have chosen "Louis I" by the way, but was being nice enough to use an article name which is a redirect for people who are excessively literate. Thus this entire section of this talk page seeks to solve something which is not a problem on Wikipedia. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:20, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Titles are used for every Pope which breaks convention used for everyone else. We do not use titles for other royalty or religious leaders practically all the time including your example. If you look at Louis I none of the Louis I's have a title in their article name including Louis the Pious as it isn't King Louis. Current Pope should have an article name such as Francis of the Vatican rather than Pope Francis, just look at Francis only the Pope has a title in the article name. This is the problem. Popes are no more special than any other individual. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 16:13, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

@A Certain White Cat, you raised this at Talk:Pope Francis, and were told that this had been just been discussed and consensus was against you. You then raised it at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (clergy) and were told that it had just been discussed there too and consensus was against you. And now here. Don't you get that you are only raising points which have already been discussed at length and in detail a few weeks ago, you've raised nothing new and consensus is against you. DeCausa (talk) 19:21, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not satisfied with the responses I got so far. I have made reasonable arguments and have not seen a single good counter-arguments so far. Why do we need to apply a special status to Popes different from everyone else? The consensus you mention fails to satisfy such a simple question. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 21:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem with the consensus that have been reached in the past, even recently, are that they are localized to those who have a working relationship with the subject, and is not a community-wide consensus reflecting a consistent policy across more than just popes. Popes, or the Christian episcopal naming convention as a whole, should not have their own guideline made up by the sub-community of Christianity. My point about rabbis was that if the Jewish editor community came up with their own guideline regarding naming conventions there would be hell to pay (but I guess it would be gehenna to pay, since hell is not a Jewish concept nor found in the Tanakh/Old Testament). If the Jewish community would see a backlash against trying to come up with their own naming convention, then so too should the Christian community be blocked from having their own special terms simply based on "consensus". Consistency needs to override consensus sometimes.97.85.242.177 (talk) 02:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Not every decision requires wide ranging discussions involving hundreds of editors. So far the only real argument against the current naming conventions is IDONTLIKEIT. Reading White Cat's arguments, all I am seeing are false dilemma fallacies, statements that are assumed to be true simply because White Cat Says So, and finally a Run To Jimbo. But in my view - as someone who has no involvement with either religious or royal biographies, the current conventions uphold COMMONNAME rather than undermine it. I almost never hear of a pope named without the title "Pope", and likewise, it is very common for Elizabeth II, for instance, to be noted without the word "Queen". The article titles are appropriate, IMNSHO. Resolute 03:25, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Really?

• ("Elizabeth II" -"Queen Elizabeth II") 7,190,000 results vs ("Queen Elizabeth II") 29,300,000 results. 29,300,000 / (7,190,000 + 29,300,000) = 0.8029597149904083 ~ 80.3% of references to "Elizabeth II" has "Queen" in front of it.
• ("Benedict XVI" -"Pope Benedict XVI") 11,000,000 results vs "Pope Benedict XVI" 30,500,000 results. 30,500,000 / (11,000,000 + 30,500,000) = 0.7349397590361446 ~ 73.49% of references to "Benedict XVI" had "Pope" in front.

Math suggests people are more likely to attach "Queen" in front of Elizabeth II than "Pope" in front of Benedict XVI. Having titles such as King/Queen/Princess/President/Dr./(Prime) Minister/General/etc. in front of names for people is common practice as such people are more commonly associated with their job title. Here on Wikipedia we per guidelines, policy and practice based on community-wide consensus we do not normally put job related titles in article names on people. WP:COMMONNAME is intended to give articles a name that people are commonly known for which may either be a nickname or may exclude middle/other names which is why its Bill Clinton (not: William Jefferson Clinton) or Lady Gaga (not: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta). There are only a few exceptions to this general rule such as Queen Victoria as previously mentioned. With Popes it is always an exception which is bizarre. Why are Popes to be always treated differently?

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 11:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

@IP97.85: "not a community-wide consensus reflecting a consistent policy across more than just popes". In fact the consensus was reached at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (clergy) and closed on 10 April 2013. It's difficult to see a more appropriate place to reach a community wide consensus on this. @A Certain White Cat: you say you are "not satisfied" with the consensus. Whilst consensus can change, you seem not to understand a pretty basic aspect of WP:CONSENSUS. DeCausa (talk) 11:50, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

There is site-wide consensus against titles in article names. A general exception to this consensus requires a site-wide consensus. The discussion you linked suffers from Consensus-building pitfalls and errors hence it isn't much of a consensus and more of a series of potentially canvassed drive-by oppose votes. The WP:SNOW comments on the linked page support this assessment as people were more interested in ending the vote rather than engage in discussion. I do not feel most of the oppose vote comments by people do not have much of a substance. People even opposed renaming Wikipedia:Naming conventions (clergy) → Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Christian clergy) establishing the actual scope of the guideline but clearly Christianity is given an exception over other regions as we are to assume its the default religion. There is a very serious bias there. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 12:41, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's just kinda too bad, now isn't it? The consensus of a discussion didn't go your way, you don't have the right to just ignore it because you don't like thw hows and the whys of people's opinions. We went through this same junk last year with the Muhammad image censorship debate; consensus was crystal-clear, but some editors ignored that anyways and keeps hammering away. Tarc (talk) 13:02, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Really? I think a simple question such as "Why do article names on Popes have a special exception on Wikipedia to existing consensus/guidelines/policies?" should have a simple self evdient answer. If the consensusstraw poll you mentioned is full of "no need for change" votes it is pretty weak to begin with devoid of reasoning hence not much of a consensus. Comments with more substance also does not hold as demonstrated above. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 13:14, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, really. Perhaps the reason is that this is the en.wikipedia, i.e. English, for the Western world where Christianity is still the prevailing religion. I see nothing wrong with recognizing that the title of "Pope..." is inherently tied to the person who currently holds the position. Tarc (talk) 13:58, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

This isn't western world-pedia either. Wikipedia is written with a WP:NPOV which doesn't seem to interest you much. For that reason and others we do not put titles in article names for everyone else - Presidents, Kings, Queens, Ministers, etc. included. There needs to be a good reason why Popes are given a broad exception to the guidelines. If I understand correctly your reasoning is that because this is English Wikipedia, Christianity should be the default religion and be granted all sorts of exceptions? I do not want to misinterpret which is why I am asking. If that is the case can we please establish it in a policy? -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 14:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

There were good reasons in the lengthy and detailed discussion on the naming convention talk page a discussion that went on for several weeks and it's ridiculous to call a "straw poll". You appear to be unable to understand that. You have failed to grasp the points, that's all. For example, you have suggested "Francis of the Vatican". What about the vast majority of Popes who were not sovereigns of the Vatican since that state only came about in 1929? What about the Popes who were not sovereigns at all (1870-1929 and prior to the early middle ages). What are they to be "of...", eg "of Rome". Great, "Linus of Rome" or "Linus (Pope)". Except that was all thought about and discussed and consensus rejected those suggestions as being pointless and contrary to any usefulness to the reader. There is no problem to fix in the first place and COMMONAME makes Pope Linus a perfgectly good article title. You just don't like it. DeCausa (talk) 15:29, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Article names of Popes should be handled on a case by case basis just like everyone else. My main objection is to the general exception to policies. On a case by case basis I cannot see a reason for Benedict XVI to have "Pope" in the article name. Does this apply to every Pope? No. They should be handled on a case by case basis.

1. The Papal States (754 - 1870) - Format could be Name of the Papal States
2. Prisoner in the Vatican (1870–1929) - Format could be Name of the Vatican or Name of Prisoner in the Vatican
3. Vatican City (1929-...) - Format could be Name of the Vatican

Hence all Popes from (Stephen II) 754 until now were sovereigns and I proposed some examples above to name them. That is 175 of the popes out of 266 or 175/266=0.6578947368421053 ~ 66% of the popes - 2/3rds roughly. What to do with 1/3rd of the remaining pre-754 Popes ie "Pope-elect Stephen" and prior? There are many options to consider on a case by case basis. My proposed general solution (there may be exceptions on a case by case basis of course) would be Name (clergy) similar to Name (politician). We disambiguate (prime) ministers/presidents as politicians which seem to work well. The first line of the article would begin as "Pope Name" so there wouldn't be confusion. The (clergy) suffix wouldn't be added if there is no disambiguation problem such as with Felix III. This is just a suggestion on how to handle Popes on a case by case basis.

Since we are in the business of specifics I want to pick an example to illustrate my point. We currently have an anomaly: Pope-elect Stephen. Pope-elect is a horrible title - it isn't even a real title (any more than trying to add "President elect" to Mitt Romney). Name (clergy) would also help avoid this problem as well. I realize Catholic Church doesn't recognize him as pope but what Catholic Church recognizes as valid isn't necessarily relevant since Wikipedia does not abide by the rulings of Catholic Church. Historically and currently there may be sources that recognize him as a Pope contradicting the Catholic Church which would be worthwhile if they are from credible sources. All the historic/complicated details about this persons election & removal of his Pope title shouldn't be relevant for the article name. To extend the same rationale who is an Antipope who is a Pope wouldn't matter in this scheme for article name. Such title-specific details can be explained in article lead.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 16:52, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

This is all really besides the point, though; your opinion on this matter has already been rejected by a consensus of editors. Continuing to argue the point on Jimbo's talk page isn't really going to accomplish a thing. Tarc (talk) 18:16, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Then you have nothing to fear, the community would never agree with me if you are right. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 18:45, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm already quite well-aware that the community does not agree with you. I'm just reminded here by the actions of Ludwigs2 from the Muhammad images debacle who could not accept that consensus was against him either, who filled up much of Jimbo's talk page with argument after argument after argument. That didn't end well. Tarc (talk) 18:57, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) there was already an RfC on this mater not long ago. I was in support of the standardized naming, but now, I'm thinking decausa is correct; anything talking about a pope is almost certainly going to be related to the office of pope. also, unlike most elected sovereigns, popes ALWAYS take a regnal name, are elected for life, and, unlike almost all sovereigns, are almost exclusively notable for their papacy, and almost always referred to as Pope X, Pope Francis is almost never referred to simply as Francis. not to mention that changing the names would require alot of very klutzy disambiguation, and would be more inconsistent than it is now. currently, all popes are titles "Pope X"; changing it would leave some as X, and others as "X (pope)", or some other disambiguation. the seat and sovereignty of the pope has changed many times throughout history as well, and the majority of readers are probably not going to look for "X of the Vatican". 99% are going to look for "Pope X". WP:commonname WP:STICK -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 19:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting mass deletion of redirects. First 54 popes used their actual name so that statement doesn't even always work. Furthermore articles on popes (especially the more recent ones) do not exclusively cover their rule as the King & Pope of the Vatican. Popes especially more modern ones are sovereigns too. I do not think people would stop reading an article if they do not see "Pope" in the title. I am unaware of the RfC you mentioned, can you please link? -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 20:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

it's right on the talk page: Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(clergy)#Pope_as_part_of_the_name we pretty much made the exact same arguments as were made here. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 01:09, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

So what exactly is the argument against applying the guideline that applies to everyone else? I statistically demonstrated above with Elizabeth II vs Benedict XVI above how Queen title is more commonly used than Pope title when referring to the relevant people. We do not put Queen in front of Elizabeth II as per guidelines. COMMONNAME is a more general guideline and more specific naming conventions exist and would be preferred. The Guideline is clear:

“ Honorifics and other titles such as "King", "Queen", "Blessed", "Mother", "Father", "Doctor", "Mister", "Mrs" etc. are not generally used to begin the titles of biographical articles, unless they are used to form the unambiguous name by which the subject is clearly best known (as in Mother Teresa, Father Damien). ”

Pope (lit. Papa or Father) is a title no different than King/Queen etc. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (clergy) contradicts Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people) guideline that had community-wide consensus behind it without any good reason. The problems mentioned in the discussion you linked and above are no different from the problems faced by other people in history without last names.

-- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 10:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

As an atheist with no dog in this fight, I have to say this is one of the lamest Wikipedia disputes I have seen.--ukexpat (talk) 19:17, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Don't know what being an atheist has to do with your comment ukexpat, but I don't know why you would waste your time with that comment. I'm sure you've been a part of hundreds of discussions that I would find extremely lame. If you aren't interested in a discussion, fine, don't comment, but to say it's lame and put down the editors who are discussing this and feel passionate about it is quite rude and childish.97.85.242.177 (talk) 00:06, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm still laughing at "(1870–1929) - Format could be ... Name of Prisoner in the Vatican". So the genius idea is instead of Pope Leo XIII, we'll have Leo XIII of Prisoner of the Vatican - or is it Leo XIII, Prisoner of the Vatican? Per Ukexpat. The line between eccentricity and lameness is a thin one. DeCausa (talk) 12:40, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

What exactly is wrong with the title? Alternative I suggested was Leo XIII of the Vatican or perhaps Leo XIII of the States of the Church/Leo XIII, States of the Church. Prisoner of the Vatican was an era where Popes complained about being imprisoned by Italy while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge that Italy exists. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 13:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The fact that you don't know, and the fact that you don't understand why editor after editor has told you to drop it on at least three different talk pages indicates to me that there's a problem here. DeCausa (talk) 13:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It seems like papal states were also known as States of the Church so... Prisoner of the Vatican era was a continuation of the papal states so perhaps Leo XIII of the Papal States is also a possibility. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 13:41, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I think you're still missing the point that arguing about it here and now has no purpose. It's like continuing to arguing for an article to be deleted at deletion review. Tarc (talk) 13:56, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually why not just Leo XIII? There is no other Leo XIII... -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 14:15, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

It looks like Leo I through Leo VI are dab pages, though. On reflection – and I've never given this issue a thought or a glance until now – it strikes me as useful and convenient that the names of popes' articles are all automatically disambiguated in a way that is natural, obvious, consistent, and in many instances will require no piping. Of course, as everyone else has already said, it sure looks like White Cat is just beating a dead horse—and doing so in the wrong place. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:29, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I was asking for Jimbo's opinion on the matter primarily and perhaps gather the opinions of a more general audience. I am not moving Pope pages and I am not making POINTy moves of other pages to contrive a problem to support my argument. I merely don't think Popes are any more special than presidents/kings/queens and hence it is problematic for them to have their office title in their article name per exiting guidelines with consensus. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 15:29, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok, now you've "gathered the opinions of a more general audience". Opinions here are the same as on the other two talk pages you've tried. Don't you think it's time to drop it? DeCausa (talk) 15:57, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I am still needing a reason why Popes are given an exception in disambiguation/naming conventions that apply to everyone else but them. In the pages of text this simple question wasn't answered. -- A Certain White Cat ^chi? 23:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Page view stats crashing on some, but not all, articles

See: "wp:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_110#Sudden drop in pageviews" and

see: "wp:Village_pump_(technical)#Relinking Google for SSL https". -Wikid77 16:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

List of pages: wp:Google https links. -Wikid77 13:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello Mr Wales. I have noticed recently that a number of important articles have suffered a precipitous decline (two thirds to three quarters) in page views over the last month. E.g., Schizophrenia, Cancer and Depression. (I just checked the stats of seven medical articles, and these three were exhibiting this peculiar pattern.) I've asked at the Village Pump Misc. and Tech. but got no explanation. I've just left the question on a tech. staff member's talk page, but I was wondering if you might have any idea what's behind this. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 06:47, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Pageviews drop 75% with Google https secure-server links: For the articles "Schizophrenia" and "Cancer" with Google links by "https:" prefix, the pageviews can be expected to drop by 75% in April 2013, as with articles "Gone with the Wind (film)" and "Parabola". There have been prior extensive discussions (here+wp:PUMPTECH) about the drops, which began near the end of March, but coincided with Good Friday to Easter drops in readership, which clouded the impacts at the time. I tried to rename "Parabola" temporarily to "Parabola (mathematics)" (which Google newly linked by "http:" prefix), but an admin went bonkers and renamed it back, proving that a double-rename within 2 days does not clear the "https" link, but thwarting any further attempts to fix the "https:" links. For example, if "Schizophrenia" were renamed as "Schizophrenia (medical)" then it would likely supplant the current Google "https:" link to "Schizophrenia" (after a few weeks), and perhaps the overall pageviews would increase back to typical prior levels. Another issue, complicating the pageview counts is the potential for an accounting error as severely under-counting the https-protocol pageviews (by 80% too few?). That's the status so far. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:11, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I didn't understand much of that. Are 66%-75% fewer people visiting those articles, or is it just an accounting thing? Are you saying that Parabola exists on both http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabola and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabola; Google now links its readers to https version, but we're only counting readers of http version? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:32, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

See answer below. -Wikid77 15:28, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

You should speak to User:West.andrew.g. He's the expert on pageviews around here. Pass a Method talk 13:37, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

I've asked. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:18, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Hard to know where to post in this busy thread. I do indeed consume the raw data and store it locally to support the WP:5000 and my anti-damage research (you may also find my Signpost article interesting). Rather than stirring up discussion here (where few/none of the technical players are watching), there is an analytics mailing list that would put you in touch with those knowledgeable about how the raw data is generated. I highly suspect this is a technical issue in the HTTPS counting operation, rendering this discussion of Google gamesmanship/hacking unnecessary. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 06:25, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• Current discussions indicate fewer readers view those pages so fix Google links: The data tends to indicate that 66%-75% fewer people have visited those articles with Google https-links, because the related developers think https Internet requests are properly logged (after recent software changes) as not an accounting error of undercounting pageviews. Hence, my fear is the https-links are actually detering user pageviews, perhaps due to https security certificate warnings in some browser, which might scare readers to say "no" when asked to continue viewing page. Meanwhile, Bing.com does not have "https" (only "http:") links for those pages. If allowed, I would rename pages and wait a few days/weeks for Google to favor http-protocol titles:
  • Rename "Parabola" back to typical "Parabola (mathematics)" and wait a week.
  • Rename "Cancer" over redirect "Cancer (disease)" and wait a week.
  • Rename "Gone with the Wind (film)" to new "Gone with the Wind (1939 film)" (+year).
  • Rename "Schizophrenia" to new "Schizophrenia (medical)" as non-http link.
  • Rename "List of best-selling books" to new "List of best-seller books" and rename back weeks later.
• As long as the renames leave the original title, as a redirect, then all prior links, or navboxes, will continue to connect the pages. However, the new page titles will be listed by Google as normal http-protocol, rather than SSL secure-server, https-protocol links. And, within a few weeks, the new titles will rank higher (above the renames) in Google Search. The problem is that, for many people voicing opinions, these renames might seem like "playing Chess" to solve a problem (aka "my brain hurts"), but we need to solve this problem, even if mind-numbing, before it continues to deter pageviews for another whole month. -Wikid77 15:28, 5 May, 14:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Why would a rename make Google index the http link instead of the https link? And why on earth should we consider it a good thing to have Google link to the http link instead of the https link? --Conti|✉ 15:51, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Renaming pages is a move in Google-Chess to reindex pages: The action of renaming a Wikipedia page, in the past, has caused Google to index the new title by a normal "http:" protocol link, while the prior name becomes a redirect, still linked by https secure-server link. After a few days, the new title is likely to be listed on the typical search-results page, while the old redirect drops lower. However, there is no "make Google" to do anything, because this whole process is somewhat of a "Google-Chess" game, where the opponent is free to react with other moves, and we would perhaps counter with other new actions. When Google links to a page by "https" prefix, then some browsers warn the user to allow a security certificate mismatch, perhaps asking several times before the pageview would occur, and so some users are likely to say "no" and the https-link page title does not get viewed by their browsers. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:51, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
    • This is surely a stupid question, but... why would a professionally maintained site like Wikipedia be generating security certificate mismatch errors anyway? (I know it happens on other such sites, I just don't understand it.) Wnt (talk) 19:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
      • Some browsers ask about the security certificate, before each website visited. -Wikid77 16:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
    • This all seems a bit tragic. If my small sample of medical articles is anything to go by, and these results are real not a counting mistake, Google linking to an article via https reduces our page views to, I don't know, 2007 levels? Is there someone at the Foundation who's in a position to give authoritative answers to these questions? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 21:58, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
      • Yes, and xe gave an answer several weeks ago on the Technical Village Pump. If you want such things, the archives of the Pump are the place to look, not Jimbo Wales' user talk page. Here, you only get garbled re-tellings with randomly boldfaced sentences. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 12:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

That link is all questions and no answers. The only explanation there is a correction of previously double-counted https traffic. But the pattern is a sudden drop of between two thirds and three quarters - more in some cases - not a 50% drop. Perhaps there's nothing to worry about here, but we don't yet know that. I asked at User talk:Eloquence and User:West.andrew.g. Should I be asking someone else? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:17, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Why doesn't the WMF provide this information?

The page view statistics are not provided as part of Wikipedia or even as a service on the often unreliable toolserver but from a third-party site. I assume that the owner of this site is not compensated for this service and is under no obligation to continue providing it. I'm sure this question has been asked many times before, but why does the WMF not provide these statistics themselves? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:54, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• Yeah, and why don't editors get paid, either? It almost seems like the WMF exploits voluntary work! I know it's all fun finding yet another argument why the WMF is the devil incarnate, but if people voluntarily provide stats like that, it's kind of hard to fault the WMF for letting them do that. --Conti|✉ 23:29, 5 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Provided they're reliable. If the Foundation could provide more accurate/detailed figures, I wish they would. I'd like to know what percentage of readers spend less than 1 minute and more that 5 minutes on the page for one thing. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:15, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
    • I've been asking for years why the WMF doesn't support stats. They are, after all, a key measure of how much readership Wikipedia's getting and it really wouldn't be hard to do. However, apparently fluff like Wikipedia:Notifications has a higher priority. C'est la vie. Prioryman (talk) 07:02, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Conti, I'm not trying to find fault with the WMF, I'm simply asking why they don't do this themselves. It doesn't make sense to me that we are relying on a third-party site to provide something that is obviously valuable to some users of WP. Valuable enough that a link to the site is included on the history page of every article. It seems simple enough for the WMF to provide this service using their servers (and perhaps enhancing it with data that third parties would not be able to access, like showing which countries page viewers are coming from). Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:36, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
• Read the about page on that site. The is hosted here - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 07:25, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, raw data, but not analytics. The latter is done by the privately-hosted stats.grok.se toolserver. It's the latter that the WMF needs to take on. Prioryman (talk) 07:33, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd provide a long explanation of why it's impossible, absent a gross invasion of the privacy of millions of people, to tell whether people read a WWW page on their browser screens for 1 minute or for 5 minutes, but there's an encyclopaedia around here that already explains (albeit somewhat inexpertly) Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the client-server model, pull technology, stateless protocols, representational state transfer, and indeed web analytics and Internet privacy. Uncle G (talk) 12:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

You can't give us the executive summary? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The executive summary is that it can be done, and already is in enterprise-level analytics products, without any "invasion of privacy". It's simply a matter of recording the interval between sequential page views from a particular combination of IP address and user agent. If my IP and user agent accesses Talk:Jimbo Wales at 08:15 and then goes on to access WP:AN/I at 08:20, it can be inferred that I've just spent five minutes reading Jimbo's user talk page. Prioryman (talk) 07:16, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I think this is a prime example of the WMF spending time, money and effort on zero gain projects like WikiLove or the New discussion crap and not focusing enough or at all on projects that do have value like fixing the RFA process, improvements to the new pages patroller tool or things like the page view stats. Even some of the bots should IMO could or should be done by the foundation. There was a banner recently asking about how to spend money. There is an idea, maintain the toolserver and do some of these tasks that are important instead of wasting time and effort on Zero sum gain projects that no one cares about, wants or doesn't add value to the project. Kumioko (talk) 14:58, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

I care about pretty much everything the technical team is doing. Notifications is useful (though the implementation is clumsey and a bit tone deaf); their mobile and tablet work is essential; as is wysiwyg editing; and I'm getting very sick of the appalling carping I've seen directed toward them. But I agree there are other technical issues that need addressing. Perhaps we need an RfC discussing what the editing community's tech. priorities are - to inform the Foundation. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:32, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

The most frustrating thing is that, were the WMF to actually provide viewer numbers like that themselves, this page would now be full of people complaining that the WMF is wasting money because they basically duplicated the information that is already present and readily available to all (and the old stats site looks better, anyhow!). More likely than not, it would have been the same people complaining about it, too.. --Conti|✉ 23:10, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

There's no need for the WMF to duplicate. Just take over the stats.grok.se service and have it supported by WMF technical staff. Prioryman (talk) 07:13, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

All of this is dependent on what was being counted. If the page view counts aren't removing bots and spiders then you'll have wildly inaccurate data. For example one stats package I used always reported twice the number of hits than other packages because it didn't filter out the googlebot crawls. John lilburne (talk) 09:35, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• For example 101,000 daily pageviews of 'Cat anatomy' page: Where the WMF could help is perhaps explaining how to skip the automated views, or whatever process, had caused article "Cat anatomy" to log 70,000–135,000 pageviews per day (pageviews-201305), formerly 350/day until October 2012 (pageviews-201210). I am thinking to skip data where an IP requests the same page more than 10 times in 30 seconds, or similar. A daily 70,000 pageviews is over 48 views per minute, almost 1 per second. -Wikid77 14:30, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

• These odd spikes without explanation are somewhat common. If you look at WT:5000/Top25Report, there is a weekly discussion on trying to mine out what unusual spikes are the work of mis-configured bots / scripts / etc... "Cat anatomy", "G-force", and some others have been recurring for quite lengthy periods. Thanks, West.andrew.g (talk) 23:03, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

WTF? Now the edit button is moved?

Jimbo, WTF? Why are all these changes made with no notice. And why can't the people who don't like them have the option to keep it the way they like? Now the edit button is not on the right and is over by the section heading. My hand keeps going to the right and nothing is there!! Bottom line: change stuff if you want, but: 1) notify the community not just the Inner Jimbo Sanctum 2) Don't force crap down our throat, leave us the option to keep what we like. PumpkinSky talk 01:01, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

My guess is that you WMF guys are doing this to bring in new editors, but there will NEVER be a substantial increase in the active user base until the problems in this blog are fixed. PumpkinSky talk 01:08, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I thought I'd visit that blog and pass along any useful recommendations to the tech team. Point 1 is "The inherent pettiness, greed, and selfishness of mankind." With all due respect to our excellent engineers, I do not think fixing that is within their capabilities.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:17, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#.5Bedit.5D_moved. Seems it can be fixed.--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:35, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Calling a post in VP-TEch "an announcement" doesn't cut it. And requiring coding to undo WMF's fuck ups is UNSAT. PumpkinSky talk 01:39, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Another example of the WMF stepping up and making some decisions. If we as a community aren't going to do it then I'm glad the WMF is even if I don't like the changes they are implementing. The edit button is no big deal but the discussion change and removal of the orange bar was just plumb dumb. Kumioko (talk) 02:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

This is probably not the forum to discuss it though. Should we remove our comments and this section? I doubt Mr. Wales can influence it without consensus.--Canoe1967 (talk) 02:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe he likes to monitor the pulse of the community, so doesn't mind these threads, as long as they don't go overboard. On the merits, I like the change, in fact, I had enabled it via gadgets months ago. On the announcement, this fits in with a recent theme, where a number of changes have occurred which have turned out to be surprises for the community. While the response has been to point to multiple places it was discussed, we might consider a better way to communicate these announcements. Neither Village Pump Technical nor Village Pump Miscellaneous strike me as ideal venues for such announcements.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:19, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

It was clearly mentioned in the Signpost: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-04-29/Technology report. It would have been nice to consider making a new gadget to return to the status quo ante available when the change happened... which falls under the banner of generally improving how WP:interface changes are handled. See also Wikipedia:Petition to the WMF on handling of interface changes and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Developer.27s_Noticeboard. Rd232 ^talk 15:52, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the blog, anon editing is a two edged sword. It protects the innocent and allows the bad guys to hide. I'm not saying it should be or not be abolished, but it is indeed a source of one of wikis many problems. These problems seem insurmountable and prevent wiki from being all it is capable of. PumpkinSky talk 02:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

• With respect to the blog cited by PumpkinSky, I concur that Wikipedia's Cult of Anonymity is one of the primary sources of the plague. Without (real name registration + sign in to edit) there is no way to identify commercial conflict of interest, no way to enforce the removal of bad actors — who can merely grab a new name and continue. The tendency of anonymous people on the internet to be meaner to one another than they would be in real life also seems to me to be an axiomatic truth. We are expected by users to create a reliable encyclopedia, but there is no way to connect the sources of information with the real life people who have added them. Multiple accounts are used simultaneously by single people. All this is a deep and pervasive flaw, and change will only come top-down, by WMF fiat. Unfortunately, WMF remains not only pro anonymous editing, but pro-IP editing, so we've clearly got a long time to wait for a fix... —Tim Davenport, Corvallis, OR /// Carrite (talk) 15:47, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

We have seen all too often that editors who use real names have been very improperly harassed by those with some agenda, including on off-wiki forums we can't control. For every time an editor is driven by careerist/reputational pressures to say or do the right thing, there will be another time when one is driven by those same forces to omit something out of fear of being stigmatized for talking about it. There would be no net benefit anywhere to interfering with anonymous editing, nor would we have the power to do so with any reliability even if we tried - and unreliability in this case translates to the defamation of real people whose names are used by trolls and vandals. Wnt (talk) 16:13, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Hear hear. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and if we were to edit with our real names to deal with COI, we would have to give the WMF our complete CVs and other details about our private lives as well. Also, to be sure the person who logs in as X is indeed X and not someone else, you would have to use sophisticated verification techniques for logging in such as e.g. fingerprints or voice recognition and then continuous monitoring to make sure that after logging in, the computer remains under the control of the person who actually logged in. Count Iblis (talk) 15:26, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Quite: the technical problems of identity verification in Wikipedia's setup are not easy to solve comprehensively. But when even proposals for optional verification measures are squashed from a great height, it seems we're not going to get anywhere with this any time soon. Rd232 ^talk 15:56, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Rd232, that's a rather misleading summary of the discussion to which you linked. As the proposer, even you admitted that you had no idea over how it would, should, or could be used. And even then, your 'optional' suggestion was that it might (eventually) become mandatory for adminship and other elevated privileges; in your words, "Create the system, and we'll find uses for it". TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:16, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikpedia rules and the disabled

This could be a false alarm, but it seems to me that WP:OVERLINK may leave Wikipedia open to being criticised and/or sued some day for institutional discrimination against disabled people, specifically those with poor eyesight.

WP:OVERLINK currently states (among other rules):

Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead.

I could be wrong, but I suspect there is no valid justification for this rule, in the sense that its costs (in inconvenience and irritation, of which I have some experience) almost always outweigh its alleged benefits, of which I have no experience, having never found an article to be colourfully unreadable through being overlinked, nor having ever had a problem with not knowing which links are important to click (as long as the link is to the relevant Wikipedia article) - and this is despite the fact that a high proportion of Wikpedia articles seemingly are 'overlinked' according to this rule (and also according to many other equally dubious overlinking rules). However, the irritation caused by this rule does not seem equally visited on everybody - it seems greater for those with poor eyesight, who are likely to find it harder to spot the one link allowed in the article. Quite likely such increased irritation is also increased stress and thus also marginally increases their risk of death or incapacity from diseases like heart attacks and stroke. All of which could some day result in Wikipedia being criticised and/or sued. However to discuss this in the normal forums would probably achieve nothing more than putting the idea of suing Wikipedia into people's heads, which is not my intention, so I thought I'd raise the matter here instead (If you don't want this post to put that idea into people's heads, please feel free to delete it once you've read it).

Please don't feel obliged to reply to this post - I thought I ought to bring the matter to your attention 'just in case', but having done that, I don't see any obvious need for any further involvement by me, regardless of whether it's a false alarm or not. Tlhslobus (talk) 09:31, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

This is not an institution, so it can't be sued as you claim. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:38, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a lawyer, so you may be right, especially technically. The expression "Wikipedia sued by" currently gives over 44,000 hits on Google. Quite likely they are technically actually suing (or trying to sue) something like the Wikimedia Foundation, which is described as a not-for-profit organisation governed by the laws of California, one of whose projects is Wikipedia. I'm no lawyer, but it would greatly surprise me if such organisations cannot be sued - indeed I had always assumed that the strict rules concerning Biographies of Living Persons and Copyright Violations were at least partly the result of threats to sue which I vaguely remember hearing about in the media a few years ago, but of course I could be wrong. Believe it or not, when writing my message, I was actually well aware that 'Wikipedia' was probably not the correct legal term, but since I was addressing Jimbo Wales, who presumably knows all this a million times better than I do, I didn't think it necessary to waste my time researching the legal technicalities. In any case, being no lawyer, I didn't 'claim' that Wikipedia can be sued, I merely expressed concern that it might be, while twice mentioning that this may be a 'false alarm'. I also expressed concern that it might be criticized (while adding that this might be a false alarm). Incidentally, the expression "Wikipedia is an institution" currently gives over 83,000 hits on Google.Tlhslobus (talk) 12:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

IAAL, for what it's worth. Yes the Foundation as a legal entity can be sued; "Wikipedia" cannot be, although individual contributors could be, and I think have been, sued. You are also correct that a number of Wikipedia policies have been developed in part in an attempt to isolate the Foundation from liability.--ukexpat (talk) 12:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Ukexpat, nice, concise, and clear, even if it did take me nearly a minute to work out that IAAL probably meant 'I am a lawyer' :) Clearly I'm even deeper into my second childhood than I had supposed :) Tlhslobus (talk) 13:16, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

[facepalm] The point was "as you claim". Where does it say we are legally required to give a crap about disabled people? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 13:24, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Links are not related to disability - at all. There is no reason to believe that if Wikipedia disabled all internal single-word links that anyone would be harmed, as computers (the things we use) have the ability to select words and phrases and search for them. Thus this is all a bit of hot air as an issue, and would certainly also apply to all websites, not just Wikipedia if some lawyer actually dreamed he could pursue it. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Never believe Google when it estimates thousands of results. It's just really, really deceptive advertising. If you page down those 44,000 results they run out at 111. Search "Wikipedia sued by" -"german killers in privacy claim" and you get 17. Looking them over:

• Convicted killers Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber sued trying to force Wikipedia to avoid giving their names - citing German law. [1][2]
• French case in which Wikipedia was held to have ISP immunity: [3]
• Wikipedia sued by Canadian Green Party staffer. [4]
• The National Portrait Gallery case [5]
• Apparent junk hit "Wikipedia sued by bacon" e.g. [6]

I think that is all the Google hits for that phrase - though of course, there may be other stories that don't use it. Wnt (talk) 13:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

So if I have this straight, the argument basically boils down to "there is a very slim chance that a person with a visual disability may die because Wikipedia discourages the practice of repeating a link multiple times in the same article"? That is... very creative. It is also rather silly, given that is actually the standard practice of a great many websites. 14:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

To be fair, I think what the OP has in mind is that in some jurisdictions (particualrly in the EU - see this summary of the UK position for instance) web site providers have a legal obligation to make adjustments which may be needed to make the site more accessible to the disable - particularly the visually impaired. My guess, however, is that this website, governed as it is by the law of the State of Florida, is untrammelled by such obligations. DeCausa (talk) 16:27, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

As with many such debates, I'm struck with how irrelevant most discussion of the law is. We should strive to be accessible to as many people as possible, including those with various disabilities including poor eyesight, and should never accept the simple status quo if it is not working. Having said that, we also need to be fact-driven and balance a lot of competing interests. I am not an accessibility expert, but I presume that it is likely not an either/or in the sense of having to present the site exactly the same way to everyone - this is the point of modern CSS web design, really. There's no theoretical reason why we can't present the site to the vast majority of people in one way, and to people using screen readers in another way. I spoke at the recent board meeting about the importance of the issue, and while we didn't take a specific vote on a resolution (it wasn't that kind of discussion) there was no dissent from the concept that accessibility is important.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Now 300 major articles have Google https

List of pages: wp:Google_https_links

After 3 separate reports of low pageviews, I created "wp:Google https links" as an essay/list of Wikipedia pages with Google "https:" protocol links. The results are staggering, with more than 300 major articles now requiring secure-server access if clicked from Google Search. Perhaps the https links are related to fixes on the mobile website, where pages, with domain "en.m.wikipedia.org" were set as "rel=canonical" but with https prefix to enwiki. In many cases, the daily pageviews have dropped nearly 60%-75% during March/April 2013. The https links include many common terms and major articles in various fields of study:

• Common articles with https links: Email, Water, DNA, Oxygen, Ecology, iPod, iTunes, Amazon Kindle, Fluorescent lamp, Electric light, Scientific method, Rock of Gibraltar, Determinism, etc.
• Film articles with https links: Filmmaking, Film noir, Gone with the Wind (film), Film criticism, Film genre, Venice Film Festival, etc.
• Medical articles with https: Cancer, Schizophrenia, In vitro, Cancer stem cell, Acute (medicine), Preventive medicine, Squamous-cell carcinoma, Psychosomatic medicine, Carcinogenesis, etc.
• Literature pages with https links: British literature, German literature, Indian literature, Mark Twain, Lolita, 20th century in literature, etc.
• Physics pages with https: Particle physics, Photon, Plasma (physics), Maxwell's equations, Astroparticle physics, Max Planck Institute for Physics, Schrödinger equation, etc.
• Astronomy pages with https: Star, Redshift, Infrared astronomy, Astrophotography, Epoch (astronomy), Subaru Telescope, etc.
• Biology pages with https: Biologist, Paleobiology, Cell biology, Chronobiology, Francis Crick, Rod cell, Developmental biology, etc.
• Music pages with https: New Age music, Musical theatre, Lady Gaga, Music of Hawaii, Billy Joel, Dub (music), Shakira, Flat (music), Sonata form, Music of Ireland, etc.
• Math pages with https: Circle, Hexagon, Cone, Geometry, Parabola, Exponentiation, Hyperbola, Similarity (geometry), Asymptote, Discrete mathematics, etc.
• Electronics pages with https: Alternating current, Field-effect transistor, Nikola Tesla, Diffusion transistor, Electronic component, Electrical conductor, Photodiode, Electronic Waste Recycling Act, etc.
• Chemistry pages with https: Chemical bond, Carbon dioxide, List of elements, Organic compound, Dichloromethane, Dow Chemical Company, Monsanto, Hydron (chemistry), etc.

As noted, over 300 of the articles cover major topics in each field of study. Although many users can still gain access to pages by "https:" protocol (or retype as typical "http:" prefix), the reduced pageviews, for each major article, have skewed the measurements of reader interest in each topic, giving the false impression that those major articles no longer have a strong base of supporters. Several major articles even give the illusion of leaving the Top 1,000 most-viewed, such as "Cancer" or "Oxygen" in March 2013, or "Nikola Tesla" or "Mark Twain" or "Shakira" or "Lady Gaga" in late April 2013, as if their daily pageviews were actually below 6,200 per day, rather than 7,000-12,000 or higher. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

In due course

It's been 10 days since we were told a full report would be coming "in due course". I suppose that means we're 10 days closer to the finish line on this "course", but could you give us some idea of whether this course is more like the Tour de France or like the precession of the equinoxes? - 2001:558:1400:10:713B:FD62:C2B6:F2FE (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

If you think that accidentally mistaking the copyright status of an image is morally equivalent to publishing a photo of someone in a compromising situation then something is seriously wrong with you. GabrielF (talk) 16:16, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what gutter your mind is in, but I never talked about moral equivalency in my question to Jimbo. I'm just interested in the timeline of the promised full report. Some reports take a few hours to create, while others can take a year or more to construct. I thought that a 10-day span without an update was sufficiently long enough to merit a question. - 2001:558:1400:10:713B:FD62:C2B6:F2FE (talk) 16:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Every time I see this question here, it makes me think of a little kid saying, "Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet? Are We There Yet?" and Jimbo saying "Only a little bit longer... Only a little bit longer... NO! Just be patient, it's going to take a long time!" Deli nk (talk) 19:13, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Except that the car is headed to the orthodontist, when the kids have been told they're going to Disney World. - 2001:558:1400:10:713B:FD62:C2B6:F2FE (talk) 19:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps someone is watching Jimbo continuously? Count Iblis (talk) 18:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

So scrutiny decays into noise? This explains a lot, actually.→StaniStani  19:11, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I can't control the speed of responses of other people, so you're just going to have to hold your breath for now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:18, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

teensy query

I have seen some news articles recently about the FBI and various intelligence agencies (US and non-US) asking for details from Google and Facebook about users, including contents of messages. etc. Has the WMF been so asked for such information without warrants, and has the WMF acquiesced to giving out such information about users and editors here? Including contents of emails, revdeled edits, and articles accessed? Just a teensy query on my part. Collect (talk) 17:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

• Yes - the WMF handed over the IP addresses of a number of editors after a company accused them of slandering it in its Wikipedia article - Video_Professor#Video_Professor_lawsuit. I dare say there's far more details in the "usual websites". Black Kite (talk) 18:49, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

IIRC, that was in response to an open subpoena in a civil case? I was asking about cases where no actual "paper trail" for a warrant existed. Collect (talk) 18:53, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

See National Security Letters - I would not be confident in believing a U.S. organization had not turned over such details even if they deny it (or especially if they say nothing) because they risk nothing by lying to you and serious punishment if they tell you the truth. More to the point, I would be absolutely stunned if the intelligence agencies didn't have message contents and logs for all the contacts (including the "https") by spying on the "backbone" directly. As I recall, in the 1990s AOL and others built their new and improved backbone sites right next door to preexisting NSA facilities on the Dulles Technology Corridor. (See e.g. [7]) Wnt (talk) 19:02, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

In January 2013, the Wikimedia Foundation made this announcement: "Next week, the Wikimedia Foundation will transition its main technical operations to a new data center in Ashburn, Virginia, USA." Ashburn, Virginia, is part of the Washington Metropolitan Area.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:55, 8 May 2013 (UTC) and 22:56, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

• The WMF doesn't have much information about users except what is already visible. Compared to the amount of personal info on Google, Facebook, etc., I can't imagine the government caring about watchlists and preferences. So it's not a big concern. -- Ypnypn (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Presumably their interest would run more along the lines of knowing everyone who ever accessed pressure cooker bomb... or methamphetamine... or Black Panthers... or BitTorrent... The recent https: in theory should make it harder, but I'm afraid I just don't believe it; even so, it might create legal obstacles, if they matter, whereas the bare URLs in plaintext may be totally fair game [8]. Wnt (talk) 22:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

To my knowledge, the Wikimedia Foundation has never been the recipient of one of these National Security Letters nor anything similar. The reason is likely what was identified by Ypnypn: we don't really hold that much data about people. This explains our policies on subpoenas, and so as Collect points out, we have sometimes responded to subpoenas. Also pay close attention to the reserved right to judgment calls to give up information "[w]here it is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public." For more details, you'd best ask Geoff.

Speaking personally, I'm deeply opposed to the concept of National Security Letters and would personally risk prosecution if, in my judgment, the situation warranted it by exercising my First Amendment rights to speak openly about it. Fortunately, I've not been approached with any such demands. (If you ever ask me this question and I give a different answer of any material kind, you may speculate freely that the situation has changed and that I'm fighting it behind the scenes somehow. But that isn't the case. :-) )--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:42, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Glad to hear that! Also I was pleased to find [9], so far as it goes. Wnt (talk) 22:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Views on commons

Hello Jimmy. I was away for a few days and the bot wiped away my question. What are your views on the situation at commons with respect to WP:IDENT and WP:BLP? Thanks, InconvenientCritic (talk) 19:25, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I think that commons policy is enforced inconsistently and also needs some revision. I think that some of the people who are admins at commons are among the weakest admins that we have in all the projects, and that this is a core part of the problem. I think that far too many people on both sides are prone to framing this as having anything at all to do with "prudishness", rather than having to do with what are fundamentally issues of human dignity. I encourage anyone who is concerned about these issues to coordinate carefully, get involved at commons, and work to improve things. I don't have the time, and my own personal conflicts with people at commons lead me to think that I would do more harm than good trying to get personally involved.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:34, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to spell out your position. I really do appreciate it. InconvenientCritic (talk) 22:22, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

@InconvenientCritic I think the main page for discussion is at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Photographs_of_identifiable_people . See also: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Biographies_of_living_people .--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:50, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

+commons:Commons:Requests_for_comment/images_of_identifiable_people. Rd232 ^talk 21:56, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

InconvenientCritic - I'm not alone in supposing that your single purpose account is designed to cover your true identity. I would suggest that your work in helping with this problem would be more effective if you didn't resort to such measures. The cloak and dagger drama is off-putting to many, not least me.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Jimmy. Given the vitriol [10] [11] [12] I've encountered from people when I post on your talk page, I cannot agree with your conclusion. Perhaps some of the less polite people need to be reminded of WP:CIVIL or asked to stay away if they cannot abide by it. InconvenientCritic (talk) 01:39, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

So your hiding behind a sock account is justified by the fact that nobody is impressed that you are hiding behind a sock account? That's just beautiful bullshit, I must say. I may be very much opposed to DC's methods, but at least he has the courage to post from his regular account. I do respect that. Resolute 01:44, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Does anything in Wikipedia:CheckUser#Grounds_for_checking apply in this case?--Canoe1967 (talk) 01:50, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Checkuser isn't for fishing expeditions. Obvious sock may be obvious, but I don't follow the Wikipediacracy set closely enough to guess as to which person this is, or whether they are editing despite a ban or other reason that warrants such scrutiny. The irony here is that hiding behind the sock is counterproductive, since their arguments are undermined by the question of why they feel the need to hide their usual identity. Resolute 01:57, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:SCRUTINY may cover it.--Canoe1967 (talk) 02:02, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Canoe1967 and Resolute: With all due respect, please stop responding to my posts, especially when they are directed at another person. Please leave me alone. Thanks. InconvenientCritic (talk) 07:44, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

If it acts like a troll, I will step on it like a troll. I assume many others feel the same way.--Canoe1967 (talk) 07:58, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

There's no call for that whatsoever. This isn't an editing debate where things like WP:COI may be an issue if we don't know who someone is - it's fully covered by address the argument, not the person who made it. Rd232 ^talk 08:04, 9 May 2013 (UTC)