User talk:Jimbo Wales

WMF technical team

Today, after 17 years and 240,000 edits, I stopped contributing to Wikipedia. The last straw was the WMF's dismissal of its tech team, but that is just one symptom of a more widespread problem.

The WMF has completely lost the plot. It was formed to facilitate Wikipedia and initially did so well. The disks spun reliably; the software mostly worked. Since then, the WMF has bloated exponentially. Funded by aggressive and deceptive begging, it has turned to ever more tangential ways to dispose of its embarrassingly large cash surplus, yet refuses to fund basic technical fixes which the community has been requesting for years. The WMF is now so out of touch that it cannot remember its true purpose or who funds it: its mission statement and annual goals don't even mention an encyclopedia.

With hindsight, handing over our brand, domain and trademarks to the WMF was unfortunate. We are its cash cow, and it has us over a barrel. An editing strike now seems likely, but I don't think even this will stop the WMF, as it can afford to replace departing editors with less experienced substitutes.

We are losing the Wikipedia you founded. Please have a word with those who can still save it. Thank you for reading. Certes (talk) 14:49, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

"This: "refuses to fund basic technical fixes which the community has been requesting for years" is false. What is happening is something that you should attempt for a minute to understand. Let's acknowledge: there are technical fixes which the community has been requesting for years and which have not been resolved. There was a structure (community tech time, 5 engineers, 1 manager) which - per the very point you are making - did not solve that. After a lot of internal analysis a decision has been made to recognize that the existing structure has been a bottleneck. "In shifting Community Tech from a single team into a program that multiple teams are officially responsible for means the wishlist will continue to work on wishes from across languages and wikis. It will still have dedicated staff managing the wishlist intake and triage process and will continue the same financial support for this work, just under a different structure." - This is directly from Suman. Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

So the question there becomes is, does a team championing community requests perform better on achieving those requests than part-time responsibilities foisted on those who haven't had those responsibilities in the past? Econ Geek 876 (talk) 07:10, 23 May 2026 (UTC)— Econ Geek 876 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sockpuppet of Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

The problem to the bottleneck argument is that having more employees to solve the same long list of issues isn’t a necessarily a bottleneck, it's only a bottleneck if you make it one. There was never anything that stopped other teams from resolving wishes on their own, in fact, I don’t think it required co-ordination with CommTech in most cases, so how is it a bottleneck to also have CommTech maintaining a set of tools no one but them maintained and solve issues no one but them wants to solve? stjn 09:41, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

> how is it a bottleneck to also have CommTech maintaining a set of tools no one but them maintained

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking here. The laid-off engineers supported many community tools, which noone else in CommTech understands how to support. This was a blunder, and needs to be acknoleged as such. Econ Geek 876 (talk) 10:01, 23 May 2026 (UTC)— Econ Geek 876 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sockpuppet of Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I know that, that was a rhetorical question. What Jimbo doesn’t seem to get that laying off a bunch of engineers doesn’t help anyone at getting more community wishes fulfilled. stjn 14:20, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to follow this issue. I still cannot see how a reduction in resources will ease the tech support bottleneck. More generally, I fear that the WMF has little understanding of, or interest in, ordinary editors' concerns (and the only redundancies which could improve that situation would come much higher up the management structure). I respect you and trust your judgement, but some tangible sign of the WMF descending from its ivory tower to give the support we need would really help to restore our confidence in it. Certes (talk) 20:09, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

If you wish to follow my advice, I think doing all this would be effective crisis management. It may be a weekend but if there's anyone you can convince at the C-level to say something meaningful like that, I can almost guarantee that people would be more satisfied than they are right now. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:17, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

The most recent statement is nowhere near satisfying people. I'm trying to warn you that you're on the path to having hundreds of vital editors not editing at all. See Wikipedia:Wiki Workers United solidarity. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 02:35, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

We're up to 270 signatures now, many of which are 20+ year editors, and countless social media posts about how people are cancelling their recurring donations. This story is #8 on Hacker News. This situation is only going to get worse the longer the foundation does nothing. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 01:11, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Now we're at 400+ signatures and fastly growing, making this the 8th most supported thing ever on Wikipedia. I'm feeling a lot like Cassandra right now. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:04, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

If you won't listen to me, maybe you'll read Risker's long comment about why this was a horrible decision on every front. I'd like to emphasize the It seems the "volunteer support goal" mentioned in the annual plan is just some words on the screen part. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 15:01, 6 June 2026 (UTC)

I just want to reiterate how disappointed I am in the foundation. This will be my go-to example for how out of touch it is with community needs and values going forward. I'm never going to forget this. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 09:40, 7 June 2026 (UTC)

for those unaware of the context, see m:Talk:Community_Wishlist#May_20_update and Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Petition:_Editors_willing_to_join_in_collective_labor_action

Jimbo, this looks like something the board at least needs to look at (and maybe you are, already) before there's another FRAM situation. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 17:32, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

The board is aware of it and supportive. It's time to get serious about meeting community needs, and restructuring away from a system that clearly wasn't working is a positive move. Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:30, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: I would strongly urge you to read my comment to gain some context on why Suman's proposed restructuring is (in my opinion) not the correct approach. TLDR, the restructuring proposed by the WMF does not actually solve the underlying problem, rather it will exacerbate it, requiring that the community justify every wish in terms of "why X team should drop their OKR priority and work on my wish". This is not a positive thing. We need to first solve the community intake and prioritization challenges before we can remove the only pillar that was holding the Wishlist together (which I'm not terribly convinced needed removing in the first place). Sohom (talk) 06:04, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Sorry in advance for the bluntness, but you and the board are extremely out of touch with the community/ies (and this is a widely-held view). Re your role, my 2c (informed by hearing others' thoughts on this): enwiki's outgrown the need for a god-like figure to provide checks and act as the movement's 'spiritual guide' as it were. Partly why I and others recently suggested editing, being a pleb isn’t so bad. My thoughts on this saga are here Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 10:12, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Restructuring away from a system that wasn't working well enough is only a positive move if there is solid evidence that the new structure will do better. I haven't seen any. Econ Geek 876 (talk) 23:50, 23 May 2026 (UTC)— Econ Geek 876 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sockpuppet of Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

@Certes, I can tell you from my own experience in conversations with WMF people that it can afford to replace departing editors with less experienced substitutes is completely untrue. The WMF is extremely concerned with declining readership and what that means for the future of the editorial and administratorial corps. Of course, that doesn't mean that particular WMF employees or leadership as a whole will always make the decisions you or I think are best for these groups, but they do very much have this in mind. -- asilvering (talk) 19:25, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

The WMF is extremely concerned with meeting their self-set KPIs. An edit that reverts nonsense and an edit that makes a featured article are the same to them: it's just contributor engagement. Trying to dress up the current WMF situation as anything other than a disaster from an out-of-touch bureaucracy is extremely unhelpful. Johnuniq (talk) 23:21, 21 May 2026 (UTC)

Johnuniq, let me just stop you right there: you are talking absolute rubbish. Literally *no one* at the foundation is extremely concerned with meeting pointless KPIs. Seriously that's not even remotely close to accurate. Why make stuff like that up out of thin air just to cause people who don't know better to have incorrect ideas?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:22, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, that's encouraging. I look forward to a response explaining why it was appropriate to sack extremely dedicated and talented developers, at least one of whom has spent two decades ensuring that Wikipedia runs efficiently and securely. Johnuniq (talk) 06:01, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

I have read enough about the Foundation from their frequent and very appreciated outreach, to believe that they do very often if not almost always measure employee performance by KPIs, which I think is a good thing. The question of how meaningful those KPIs are is separate, with reasonable people extremely likely to reasonably disagree on that second question. (If you don't believe me, look at the diversity of responses to the GRDC requests for feedback.[1]) Having said that, and pulling back a bit to avoid comparing hypothetical KPI constructs, let me just say that removing a longstanding community support department, instead of distributing them amongst the teams which support the goals that the community surfaces through the annual wish list survey, seems like a managment blunder, but not a particularly suprising sort of such blunder. What has impressed me is how the community has come together in support of corrective action for this blunder, which makes sense because it cuts off their ability (and the primary traditional means) to communicate their needs to Foundation engineering staff. I commend the community, and, Jimbo, I think you need to take a closer look. Econ Geek 876 (talk) 06:40, 23 May 2026 (UTC)— Econ Geek 876 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sockpuppet of Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

"It will still have dedicated staff managing the wishlist intake and triage process" - that doesn't make it sound harder to communicate needs to the engineering staff at all. Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:28, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

The quote is, "We still have dedicated staff managing the wishlist intake and triage process and will continue the same financial support for this work, just under a different structure."[2] My question, whether "a team championing community requests perform better on achieving those requests than part-time responsibilities foisted on those who haven't had those responsibilities in the past" stands. Econ Geek 876 (talk) 09:54, 23 May 2026 (UTC)— Econ Geek 876 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sockpuppet of Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: I'm unsure how deeply you've been informed about this, but when Suman says "dedicated staff", what he means is "a single product manager" (who, while being a great guy has had less than 11 months at the company, compared to the CommTech team's years of experience working with the community). Also I find that doesn't make it sound harder to communicate needs to the engineering staff at all. kinda baffling. Having a system where a product manager talks about a wish behind closed doors to another product manager who can then arbitrarily decline said wish does make it infinitely harder to talk to the actual engineers (as was possible with CommTech). Sohom (talk) 18:10, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales and @Econ Geek 876: WMF has indeed measured a significant majority of it's team performance through metrics, that can be considered KPIs that are set on a yearly basis through the formulation of OKRs during the Annual planning process that they try and hit throughout the year. Whether or not they are pointless is a different discussion to have. (also if folks think that a OKR is pointless/unneeded for the next year, you can voice concerns until the end of May at m:Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2026-2027) Sohom (talk) 07:29, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

I feel the discussion around KPIs etc distracts from the two big discussions: 1. How to give the community more say in the direction of technological development. Firing of highly-skilled engineers with a great understanding of the community cannot be a solution here, even if we might disagree with how CommTech needs to be reformed. My preferred route is a combination of an annual wishlist organised by CommTech, with an obligation on different teams to select prioritised wishes. 2. How we can create a culture within the Foundation where people are not afraid to voice their opinions, and employment is not put at risk for voicing these opinions. I'm dismayed to hear from multiple directions that employees are afraid to speak out, and that those who have spoken out against senior management have faced dismissal not long after, whether related to the union formation or not. Jimmy, I hope the board takes an active role in fighting for increased community input, putting more value on expertise of staff with community expertise, and supporting a cultural shift where dissent is encouraged. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 09:38, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Suppose team A is given performance metrics based on their previous performance, which are easy for them to reach. Suppose team B is given performance metrics based on difficult achievements which are known to be strongly aligned with community goals. If team A's metrics are usually greater than team B's, does that mean team A is better than team B? Econ Geek 876 (talk) 10:09, 23 May 2026 (UTC)— Econ Geek 876 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sockpuppet of Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

I do not believe this is pertinent to the two key discussions here, where we could use Wales' help. In solidarity, —Femke (talk) 🐦 10:16, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're asking me or Femke or just the room in general, but my answer would be no, that wouldn't be a very sensible way to do things. There's a very famous essay in management science, "On the Folly of Rewarding A while hoping for B" which, if you don't know it, you may want to read as an interesting exploration of these points. Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:35, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

That is an excellent paper which is exactly on point here. I would urge everyone to read it and propose how its findings might be applied to the current situation here. Econ Geek 876 (talk) 23:40, 23 May 2026 (UTC)— Econ Geek 876 (talk · contribs) is a confirmed sockpuppet of Nrcprm2026 (talk · contribs). SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Jimbo, beyond the restructuring itself, many community members are becoming increasingly concerned about reports of how dissenting staff are treated internally. Multiple former staff members have described a culture where criticizing leadership decisions, raising concerns about product direction, or advocating for long-requested community needs could negatively affect their careers. Some also describe being discouraged or even prohibited from discussing certain technical ideas publicly or across teams. Whether every individual account is fully accurate or not, the fact that so many experienced people independently describe similar patterns should concern the Board.

Do you believe the Foundation currently has a healthy internal culture where staff can openly disagree with leadership without fear of retaliation? And will the Board investigate these concerns seriously rather than treating them as isolated complaints? Nemoralis (talk) 11:06, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Since Selena isn't answering questions

Hi Jimbo. Since SDeckelmann-WMF has decided that, apparently, 100+ editors showing willingness to go on strike is the sort of situation where it's fine to walk away for the next few days and not answer any questions, I'm hoping that you can address what I said to her on Meta. I'll condense it to two questions:

Given that the Foundation has said this reorganization is meant to improve outcomes with the Wishlist; and given that the Foundation has not explained how these employees' 10,000+ annual worker-hours of effort on the Wishlist will be replaced by existing workers on other teams (presumably not 10,000 hours of overtime), and given that the Foundation is assuring us it is quite willing to re-hire everybody (or, at least, keeps coming very close to saying that without actually saying it):

1. What reason did the Foundation have to lay these people off rather than transfer them to other teams, as has been done in the past for some teams' dissolutions?
2. Regardless of the answer to (1), is the Foundation willing to remedy the harms they've caused and rebuild community trust by offering those transfers now?

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 11:45, 23 May 2026 (UTC)

Selena has posted an update on VPW and on Meta. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 22:40, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

700+ editors now, at least. Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 20:27, 29 May 2026 (UTC)

926. Herostratus (talk) 20:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Over 1,050 now... - BlueEleephant (talk · contribs) 15:31, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Reason for a union

I have observed three extraordinarily talented developers over many years. One was fired a while ago. It was obvious that some manager with zero understanding of the situation thought he could increase efficiency by firing an incredibly dedicated super-developer. Now we have this fiasco where two others I am familiar with have been chopped because [something goes here]. Senior management should get them back and tell the managers to leave them alone. They don't need to be managed—just get out the way. You cannot buy 20 years of experience. We assume it's just a coincidence that engineers were talking about a union. A thoughtful person would ask what is the underlying reason senior developers would waste their time arranging a union? Developers like to solve problems. The only reason they would spend time on a union is because management is broken. Johnuniq (talk) 03:08, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

Sometimes people form a union simply because they selfishly want more money for themselves. -- Beland (talk) 17:19, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Sometimes people asked to be paid for doing things, simply because they selfishly want more money for themselves... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:36, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Sure, and a certain amount of selfishness is fine. If an employer doesn't want to pay you as much as you wish to earn, you can walk away and try to find someone else that will. A whole other level of selfishness is to form a monopoly and push wages higher than they need to be to find people willing to do the work. For a non-profit like WMF, that means reallocating some donations to themselves rather than allowing more workers to be hired, or forcing readers to donate more money to get the same service. Do WMF workers actually need more money? I would feel differently about asking consumers to donate more money if they were getting poverty wages, vs. letting well-paid employees decide that they need even higher pay and giving us no choice but to capitulate to whatever number they choose. -- Beland (talk) 18:34, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

My understanding is that WMF staff get paid less than the industry average (someone else could probably be far more specific than me on these details), but your anti-union rhetoric does not sit well with me. Regardless, it doesn't seem like wages are even the main concern for them. They want some really basic things and it speaks to the working conditions of the WMF that they feel the need to form a union to have them. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:39, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

From the outside, it's difficult to know if any complaints that these things are not being handled well are reasonable or not. Even with reasonable decisions, not everyone is going to agree or be happy about them. -- Beland (talk) 18:53, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I think part of what makes everyone so outraged at this is that what is publically available does not make sense and is not easily defensible. You don't make a team more effective by firing the people working tirelessly to make it sort of functional in the first place. This isn't like the board elections fiasco where you could be a bit more on the fence with the "well maybe they really did uncover something massively important at the last minute that they can't share for confidential reasons". Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

If a team isn't working well, firing everyone on it and replacing them with new people actually makes a lot of sense. That is not what is happening here; management has decided that the team structure is creating a communication bottleneck, and that is something that just might not work well no matter how good the people on the team are. -- Beland (talk) 19:13, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I may be wrong, but what I heard was that the workers got fired, and later the WMF found out that some of them were forming a union. _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 19:25, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Wow, what a statement. I'll say the WMF does look like it's saying that to the outside world right now, though. Telling people you're following what you're legally required to by law doesn't get rid of the moral side to it, and the WMF isn't doing a very good job of being convincing right now. But if it wasn't about all that, why wouldn't they have backtracked weeks ago? This "plan" makes no sense. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:38, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're expecting WMF to backtrack on what seems to be a reasonable decision. -- Beland (talk) 18:35, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

You're one of the very few people who seem convinced it sounds reasonable and your logic seems to be based on the premise that the WMF is acting logically, when most of us are looking at the facts of the situation and deciding that we don't trust the foundation one bit on this one. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:41, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like non-employees have nearly enough information to reliably second-guess management decisions, and making operational decisions based on the sentiment of a poorly-informed angry mob is a really bad way to run an enterprise. -- Beland (talk) 18:57, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

The more I interact with people from the WMF, the more comfortable I am second-guessing management decisions. I've seen a lot of really bad and out of touch decisions. I've also grown less and less confident that the board even knows what it's doing the more I interact with people who have been on it. There's a reason I said we work despite the board instead of because of it at WCNA and the entire room cheered. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 19:00, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

It's not hard for an angry mob to cheer based on misinformation or tribal affiliation that doesn't have much to do with making the decision that actually has the best outcome. -- Beland (talk) 19:41, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

There’s a chance that the WMF is right. The problem is, if the workers are forming a union, the way to stop them from doing that is not by firing them. The new workers would just form a union. Look at Wikipedia:Wiki Workers United solidarity. Do these 1100-ish people seem to be like “huh. The workers must have been jerks to the WMF?” _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 19:44, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Anger is completely rational in these circumstances. Even if the WMF is not union busting, the "plan" itself is not okay and deeply out of touch with the needs of the community. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:09, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't see why the community needs a particular team structure. It seems like as long as people are effectively building needed software, that doesn't particularly matter to us who their supervisor is. I've worked in companies with project that span teams, and it worked fine. -- Beland (talk) 22:27, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think people would have cared so much if the foundation simply got rid of a team while keeping everyone involved employed. But that's not happened here. As the unnamed employee in The Verge stated, "This follows a pattern of breaking up community-facing teams with the idea that now everyone’s going to be responsible for it," they say. "And what happens every time is no one’s responsible for it, and then it gets neglected." Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 22:30, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't find that claim particularly plausible, given that all the projects the team was responsible for have been given specific new owners. -- Beland (talk) 23:01, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Now they do, but we only got information about that 2 days ago almost a month into this crisis (and these were vital things that they didn't seem to have a plan for), and that doesn't inspire confidence that this will work out just because the foundation says to trust them. But again, that doesn't solve the crux of the issues. We've been going back and forth on this for awhile today and if you don't see the ethical implications to be as important the way I do, we're unlikely to ever agree. But I'm determined to be angry about this for years if I have to be, because if that's the only way for my voice to matter, then so be it. I've had enough of seeing situations like this and we need real change. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:11, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree it seems there was some poor communication. Now that it's resolved, I hope everyone calms down and gets back to work. -- Beland (talk) 23:29, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm never going to "calm down" about injustice when I see it. Please stop replying to my comments with inflammatory rhetoric. The candy in the break room comment you made in the past few minutes was in exceptionally poor taste. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:36, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

If you think there are serious injustices occurring, why don't you simply describe them? -- Beland (talk) 23:55, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

I have made it clear what these injustices are multiple times and you clearly don't think of them as injustice. That's your choice. You don't have to support a strike if the union calls for one, but it's the second most supported thing on Wikipedia ever for a reason. Dismissing anger doesn't make it not real or not worth being angry about. We clearly believe otherwise. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:23, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, a lot of anger about this disbanding and NDAs seems to be coming out of worst case assumptions that I haven't seen confirmed and in some cases have been refuted. Unconfirmed rumors in an ideological echo chamber may be the reason lots of people have signed on; outrage generates a lot of engagement whether or not it's based on facts.

If you're referring to the proto-union's goals as a list of injustices, maybe there are bad things happening behind the scenes motivating unionization, but if so no one seems to be sharing details that would actually distinguish that from people who simply like to complain and don't like being told what to do by their bosses. It's unclear whether giving workers more power over their own bosses will make the place run smoother because people are listening to each other more, or if it will just be harder to do anything because people become ungovernable. Most of the unions I've seen up close have made things operationally worse by creating an adversarial culture and preventing bad employees from being fired, and in the worst cases, striking. -- Beland (talk) 03:48, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

And I've made it clear that the outrage is based on facts. You don't have to find those facts convincing, but they matter. If the WMF wants to confirm or deny anything, they've had plenty of time to take action, but they've been suspiciously hands off for something that's this dire. I'd rather community needs be prioritized, that's true governance and not being ungovernable (any chance you're on the side of the British in the American Revolution?), and we're not just some inconvenient ideological echo chamber but a collective group that's tired of feeling like our work is being exploited. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 04:05, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Exploited? By who and to what end? Wikipedia is a nonprofit and our work output benefits the whole world. There are no stockholders making money off the WMF; its revenue must be used for charitable purposes.

It's not suspicious that WMF has been relatively quiet on this issue; personnel decisions are traditionally confidential, both for privacy and morale reasons (how would you feel if your employer badmouthed you in public?) and to avoid being sued. Many private companies would consider staff structure and names to be confidential business secrets that are simply not disclosed publicly, so (befitting its public mission) WMF has been unusually transparent in comparison.

The American Revolution happened hundreds of years ago, people don't...take sides on it? Workplaces are not countries and are not democracies, any more than the workforce of a democratic city is a democracy. Road crews don't get to decide which potholes to prioritize; they have to follow the priorities set by the democratically elected mayor, who if they are doing their job uses data from citizen complaints and does actually consult with workers as to the practicalities of their job. -- Beland (talk) 07:25, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

You're doing a great job of assuming good faith regarding the WMF. A shame that you haven't got a clue about the issue and assume bad faith about members of the community. Johnuniq (talk) 08:48, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, if you think I'm lacking information, it would be more helpful to supply facts than insults. -- Beland (talk) 09:37, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Let’s just all calm down. _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 11:29, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

It would be best to move all this to the wiki that exists to address wiki-world stuff. No matter how you slice it, it is removed from writing an encyclopedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:42, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Signal statement on mandatory government phone scanning in UK

I just want to make sure that the community is keeping an eye on this: Signal statement. Please post it anywhere relevant for awareness. Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:25, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

After all the recent WMF-related events affecting the community, I'm unsure whether the community is fully interested in (controversies of) online age verification in the United Kingdom or privacy in English law at this time. As I see, the government has wanted to reduce the effects of pornography on young people all along... or so I thought.

Signal claims that citing the effects was an excuse for supposed disregard for child privacy, but that's just assuming. (One of the links directs a user to a documentary Groomed: A National Scandal.) I just now am reading Signal (software)#Controversial use and Signal (software)#Use by Trump administration. George Ho (talk) 20:56, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

I have to doubt very much that any internal controversies or drama are likely to turn Wikipedians into advocates of the surveillance state. Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:55, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Brit here. Since Signal has famously never really cared that its platform has been used by groups ranging from ISIS to far-right racists, you'll have to forgive me for not really taking their hyperbole at face value. Black Kite (talk) 21:29, 9 June 2026 (UTC)

Signal is not like Telegram, which has "channels" which are like social media features. Perhaps you were thinking of Telegram?

It is certainly true that Signal has no idea who is using Signal nor what they are saying - that's because they genuinely care about privacy. Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:54, 12 June 2026 (UTC)

Jimbo is right, there is no "platform" aspect to Signal like Terrorgram. It's "just" an open source version of WhatsApp, not much more than that. Used by anyone of everyone, of course. CNC^{in solidarity} (talk) 22:28, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

Big Brother Is Watching You. _{In solidarity} Wikipedian12512 (Talking is fine | contribs) 19:48, 14 June 2026 (UTC)

June 2026 Wikimedia Café meetups regarding the English Wikipedia Editor Reflections project

Hello! There will be two Wikimedia Café discussion opportunities during the last weekend of June. Both sessions will focus on the English Wikipedia Editor Reflections project. The featured guest in the Café will be User:Clovermoss. Participants may attend either or both sessions.

1. 27 June 2026 15:00 UTC (timestamp converter), at a time friendly to the Americas, Africa, and Europe
2. 28 June 2026 03:00 UTC (timestamp converter), at a time friendly to Asia and the Pacific

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↠Pine (✉) 03:32, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikipediocracy

I've had inquiries about what is going on with Wikipediocracy, which is returning a 404 for the last day or so. As the self-appointed Gerry Adams figure for WPO, realizing that there is a huge overlap between readers of that site and this Wikipedia page, I thought I would pop in to announce: "I don't know." Wikipediocracy has had an ongoing battle with AI scraper-bots, which it has fought in various ways over time; I speculate that the current outage is related to the latest episode in that war. We all need a vacation from time to time! WPO will be back, no worries. End transmission. —tim /// Randy from Boise on WPO /// Carrite (talk) 04:24, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, I wondered yesterday. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:58, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

See also User talk:Stanistani#Error messages, which confirms that the issue is purely technical in nature. Dr. Duh 🩺 (talk) 12:17, 16 June 2026 (UTC)

• WPO is back up. Administrator Midsize Jake says: "I turned off auto-renew, is what happened. And then I put the wrong renewal date on my calendar. And then, after I'd paid them, they failed to turn on some setting and then told me (almost certainly a lie) that it would take 'a few hours for the site to propagate,' and then it didn't, so I had to send them a strongly-worded letter so to speak. But like I say, it's no excuse for not getting the date right, or for turning off auto-renew in the first place — I just fucked up." The end. Over and out. —tim //// RfB ///// Carrite (talk) 06:19, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Case-sensitive log in

Hello, Your Majesty sir. I don't want to bother you, but I have a problem to report. It seems the username part of the log-in is case-sensitive. Is there any way you can fix this? There really needs to be a forum where you can discuss Wikipedia problems. — Ultimate Ultimatum (talk) 01:11, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Nope, usernames are case-sensitive, so logins pretty much have to be. Besides, security is your friend. SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:15, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

They should at least add a "(case-sensitive)" disclaimer. — Ultimate Ultimatum (talk) 10:59, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

They did. It's in the fourth paragraph of the username policy, which is a big blue link at the top of the page when you create a username. You read it, right? SarekOfVulcan (talk) 03:04, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes. — Ultimate Ultimatum (talk) 11:23, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

You can see some forums listed at Wikipedia:Noticeboards. In this particular case, you could have tried WP:HD or WP:TECHPUMP. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 04:33, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

I think if we were designing the system from scratch, it would have been good to have case-insensitive usernames and logins. But we don't, and the historical reasons for it go all the way back to the time when we were on Usemod wiki software, which didn't even have passwords for logins. Changing it at this point would be nearly impossible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:00, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Council#Proposing_a_new_WikiProject_Intellectual_Diversity

For the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:10, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

Seems larry sanger was referred to ani for the interested as well. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:43, 20 June 2026 (UTC)

This is a real shame I would say. Leaving aside the particular issues here, broadly I think that intellectual diversity is an important value to Wikipedia and that failing in it effectively failing pillar 4 (civility) and therefore risks failures of pillar 2 (neutral point of view). I hope that rather than rejecting that concept - which is absolutely destructive of the purpose of Wikipedia - people work to correct/improve the failings of the existing proposal.

And for the record, I find the idea of any of this deserving an indef ban for Larry is ludicrous and people need to sit back and have a hard look at what they are saying.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:17, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Jimmy, if you desire to participate in the subpage about Larry, which is listed in WP:CENT, then please feel free to do so. However, would giving out a statement be better than leaving out a comment like any other regular editor?

Furthermore, this isn't about intellectual diversity but rather about Larry's actions, which has contrasted longstanding values of the whole community. Speaking of intellectual diversity, he even declared Draft:Intellectual diversity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) irrelevant to the WikiProject's supposed goals, and even the draft itself was formerly an article. Also, his proposal itself either has improperly or hasn't yet defined "intellectual diversity". Are you willing to defend Larry who has expressed his views especially about policies?

Also, rejecting the proposed WikiProject doesn't signify the impact of Wikipedia. Rather it illustrates the overlap between Larry's failures and viewpoints that would attract especially his worshippers... or fan base. There are other ways to promote awareness of intellectual diversity, not just re-proposing the failing WikiProject. I might stand corrected about all of the above. George Ho (talk) 09:35, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@George Ho, to address your points - I'm certainly willing to defend Larry for expressing his views on intellectual diversity, on policies on sourcing, etc., without thereby endorsing (or disagreeing with) those views. If we walk to talk about Wikipedia's longstanding values I think civility and a willingness to listen have to rank very high. Listen to Larry and respectfully disagree if you like, of course! Debate the issues. Vote no on the Wikiproject if that makes the most sense. But also: note well that intellectual diversity is important for Wikipedia and there's a very good reason - always - to be prepared and indeed eager to focus on it. Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

have to agree here. The debate of the behavior if what Sanger dud is a wholly separate issue, but WP has a long standing problem that a large portion of experienced editors tend to dismiss any notion that doesnt align exactly with reliable sources, which restricts intellectual diversity. Its hard enough getting editors to neutrality describe controversies rather than implicitly weigh one side of them. We are never going to stop leaning left/liberal/progressive, but that doesnt mean we cannot ever consider ideas that come from right/conservative viewpoints. That may create challenges in sourcing, organization, and tone, but its something we need to pursue. Masem (t) 18:29, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Considering that part of what Larry critiques is how we assign reliability to a source, I'd say that's actually an understatement of the problem. I would take his position to be that a large part of the Wikipedia community curates what is a reliable source in such a way that restricts intellectual diversity. This presentation changes "reliable source" from an objective metric to a subjective metric. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:57, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

the problem is that we have experienced and senior editors that use RSP as a crutch to ignore anything that is not mentioned in a RS, which is creating the ivory tower that is more harmful than collaborative, and often exploiting the notion if WEIGHT and FRINGE. A typical case will be something involving some type of controversial statement that has no objective answer or means to prove it. These editors will tend to put everything on the side of the controversy that the RSes have favored, and wing hear any attempt to be more neutral by considering that the topic may even be controversial because no RS describe the counter points. Now, while we do want yo use RSes to source things, abd it may be impossible to source an opposing views due to this treating such cases as bring non contested is a massive problem against viewpoint diversity. We can't be working out of ivory towers here. Masem (t) 21:19, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Masem, RSP is in the process of being restructured [3]. The new structure will allow for more nuanced guidance, so you'll likely get the chance to make this point in future discussions. FWIW I agree, but obv what we normally do is balance disagreements in sources which would otherwise be reliable enough for their claim to be stated in wikivoice. We could include attributed POVs from sources otherwise unreliable for their claims, but theory-wise it doesn't work as we'd be consciously correcting for perceived bias, which is subjective and irreconcilable if there's disagreement between editors. There might be some way of making it work, ie. determining when to do this and how much weight to give, but I'm not seeing it Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 21:35, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Kowal2701 How on earth would the new structure allow for more nuanced guidance? If anything, it will make it far less nuanced by allowing us an endless number of entries. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@PARAKANYAA, allows for more detail Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 06:31, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

That'll fix part of it, but I still suspect, having run into this many times, we will still have editors that deny the existence of a counterpoint to a contestable statement that might appear in weaker RSes, and stand by their approach that because so many good RSes take a stance on an issue, then that stance must be fact.

Common case is when it comes to any contentious labels, particularly those directed towards extreme conservative/far or alt right views. Unless someone has self-stated their political or ideological leanings, we should never treat this assessment by sources as fact, but instead with context and attribution. So what happens is that we get editor that can point to a activist or politician that dozens of RSes call out as being far right or similar, and so the label is applied factually with no context or sourcing, and even when there are sources that we simply cannot use that call this labelling as poor or inappropriate, we get editors that insist there's nothing contentious about this label since you can't find a usable source to challenge it. (The solution in this case is simply not to treat the label as fact but with attribution, there's not even a need to spell out that its contested, but that's a wall I've hit many many times). Part of this problem is that we do have a lot of well-intended editors that get into inadvertently stuck on RIGHTGREATWRONGS, desiring to show someone that is against the average moral/ethical/political stance of the average Wikipedian is not a good person, but that should never be our goal. Masem (t) 04:23, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

For better or for worse, that's never going to happen. We can say it should, we might, but it won't. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:48, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Saying we can't do anything about it is part of the problem. It 100% is fixable if editors are aware of what they are doing and willing to fix. Masem (t) 11:36, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@MasemYou are 100% right on all points. This is already policy and so it really is about a willingness to fix it. One problem that we have in at least some areas is that there are people who camp out on certain articles and react with hostility to efforts of good editors to move articles in line with policy. Actual policy is that contentious labels "are best avoided unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution." MOS:LABEL

It isn't a fight I want to have right now, but I am very much on the record pointing out that in one particular case that we are likely all familiar with, the vast bulk of high quality reliable sources (100% of normal media sources as far as I have seen) including Reuters, the BBC, CNN, even Al Jazeera refrain from using a particular contentious label and we use it anyway in wikivoice, without attribution. Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:14, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I’d rather we ditched labelling people and parties with reference to the political spectrum, sourced to media, altogether. It’s not educational since it’s ridiculously reductionistic, and is mostly 'vibes-based' anyway. Scholars mostly avoid using the terms for good reason, and often when they do use them it’s in passing mentions and not the product of any kind of analysis. Not to mention the BLP concerns. But that’ll never happen. (also, wrt to attributing a claim to a source that's unreliable for it, it's more akin to trivia since we've decided it can't contribute to our understanding of the reality)

A big issue with the wiki model is that few people start editing purely with the interest of building knowledge, the benefit of pouring hours of limited spare time is to be able to influence said knowledge. But for the most part wrt to current event topics we’re hamstrung by a broken media landscape, editors supporting their POV with low quality sources lose disputes and end up disenfranchised (obv changes to the external situation leads to changes onwiki). Also not to mention the role Wikipedia plays in science communication, such that we take the flak when the views of the public diverge from those of scholarship (and obv we can’t always treat analysis as opinion, belies the point of scholarship). I know it isn’t what you’re saying, but I don’t think the narrative that Wikipedia is biased because it’s been captured by biased editors is accurate at all, and it's a shame that that's what it looks like from the outside. Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 09:34, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, part of these issues is tied to how we are handling current events, far too much detail, particularly in the area of commentary, being taken from primary, shortterm sources rather than waiting for long-term viewpoints to be developed. Its fine that editors want to get the 5 W's of reporting into encyclopedia while the topic is in the news, but editors often go overkill. Its always worthwhile to compare contemporary events to events before WP started. Even something like the Watergate scandal is far less detailed compared to any other political scandal today. How WP writes about significant people with respect to these events is a problem that extends from that. Masem (t) 11:35, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

In a great many cases you are absolutely right, @Kowal2701. But I just want to add that it is also the case that there are articles/areas where in that topic it is very difficult to say that our articles follow our own neutrality policies. We see cherry-picked sources and other similar intellectual errors. It tends to persist in areas with a lot of emotional overtones because the warriors are more committed to "righting great wrongs" than to the values of Wikipedia. It needs to change. Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:18, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I’m not sure I see a way for that to change, on some topics it is very rare to get someone with a deep interest who doesn’t have strong views. Usually on contentious topics you get say two editors with opposing biases/POVs, and they eventually compromise to make a somewhat neutral article. But the balance of editor POVs in a topic area often maps onto strength of sourcing, and a shift in that can be self-perpetuating as it becomes majority vs minority. Imo our focus should be on fostering collaboration and compromise between opposing editors, instead of them constantly trying to get each other banned, but that is very difficult when people view the other's biases as morally objectionable (and "always compromise" doesn’t work as in some disputes there is just a right answer), and when people deserve to get banned lol. RfCs are good when one 'side' is right and the other is wrong, as people outside the topic area come in to resolve matters, but they’re often binary and awful at producing a compromise, which is not great given they’re our main way of resolving disputes. Reforming that would go a long way to improving matters, but we’ve struggled at WT:RFC to come up with anything (other than what's at WP:RFCBEFORE). Kowal2701 (talk, contribs) 16:35, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, source-restricting is a huge part of the issue. I want to shout out UAP research on this. There are people that believe in UFOs/UAPs and I don't see it harmful to say "hey this is what they bellieve". And if SETI finds something significant, then it will no longer be fringe. Guz13 (talk) 19:08, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

SETI has made it very clear, on numerous occasions, that they are not investigating UFOs/UAPs. [4][5] AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:15, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I would also say that's not about "intellectual diversity". Intellectual diversity would be working to improve encyclopedia articles on all schools of thought. But to do that, we have to have a consensus on how to do that, and we manifest that consensus on how to do that in our content policies and guidelines.

As a corollary, we manifest our consensus on behavior in other policies and guidelines. So, to the extent that anyone is not addressing those policies and guidelines, they should. Go there and address those. I take no position on the CBAN.

In either type of matter, if working and deciding by consensus is the implacable enemy, then we have no way to work together on this project. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:03, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree completely as far as I understand you. Intellectual diversity should be about working to improve encyclopedia articles on all schools of thought - and also improving encyclopedia articles that aren't "on" schools of thought but also those which are about subject matter on which there is serious intellectual debate. And in a genuine awareness that we may all have intellectual blind spots such that having people of diverse backgrounds and points of view is critical in order to help us all grow and learn and be respectful to the rich world of human knowledge.

Definitely working towards consensus is key to all of this. But working towards consensus by banning someone who is raising an argument that is not popular is a mistake. Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:55, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

But I think the attack chosen by the misnamed project or rather its progenitor was to attack the consensus making of content policies and guidelines, and if the supporters of the CBAN are correct, in a manner not allowed by behavioral guidelines. To put it more concretely, we need ONE consensus on what is a reliable source in whatever domain is being worked on, a variety of consensuses is not a consensus at all. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:58, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Larry has been indefinitely blocked. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:04, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

That block is confusing in itself and no, has not closed the discussion. The blocking editor has both left it open and agreed that EEng's commonsense alternate proposal is ongoing. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:09, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

The EEng Compromise is at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Possible off-wiki canvassing by User:Larry Sanger#Proposal: Have pity on a lonely and forgotten shut-in, and give him a chance to make himself useful if you'd like to comment your sentiments above to the discussion, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:16, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Larry's refusal to consider good-faith advice and continued antagonizing of other editors leads me to doubt that this will end with anything other than a community ban. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 14:26, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree that Larry could have conducted himself with more graciousness in those two exchanges. They are very far from any sensible "indef ban" traditions that we've ever had. Lots of people get grumpy in the emotional heat of a difficult exchange. It would be best for him to apologize for that and get on with the work.

It's worth noting that there will be people who say that Larry's been banned for proposing intellectual diversity. And that at least some of the people who campaigned for it were doing so in no small part because of that advocacy rather than any behavioral issues. Surely we can all agree that's unfortunate. Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:59, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Very unfortunate. Larry has some great ideas, but his conduct has been less than ideal. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, ok! "Less than ideal" doesn't usually get people indef banned. We should bend over backwards to assume good faith. People get upset and lash out sometimes. It's unfortunate but it's human. The best thing to do is for everyone to dust themselves off, relax a notch or two, and dig to find common ground and ways to compromise and collaborate. Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:55, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I think that this whole fiasco about canvassing and an indef ban started because editors saw Larry's tweet about WPID and immediately assumed he was trying to votestack to get it approved, even if he was simply recruiting for it or updating his followers on its progress. And once it got to ANI there soon emerged a massive pile-on of editors calling for a ban. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:02, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I have exercised extraordinary restraint, in fact, against a massive mob. Larry Sanger (talk) 18:56, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

You may want to look at User talk:Larry Sanger#It appears likely you will be blocked for clear off-wiki canvassing Froglord (Finnfrog99) (talk) 23:51, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

In Larry's defense (gasp!) that second diff is in response to a comment of mine that was, in all honesty, a bit of grave-dancing. Athanelar (talk) 15:20, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Perhaps, then, you should strike it? Lynch44 16:43, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales Larry, after being told to avoid off-wiki canvassing after encouraging users to join WP:WPID on his 90k follower Twitter, went on CNN-18 and canvassed for millions of Hindu Nationalists to begin editing Wikipedia to WP:POVPUSH. Any user would have been blocked for that, especially one who went from 2012-2026 without a mainspace edit. It’s very much WP:NOTHERE. EaglesFan37 (talk) 16:16, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Why is asking new editors to join the project a bad thing? The number of active editors is going down. Any parisan editors can be blocked if they do POV. Guz13 (talk) 17:04, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Because recruiting editors to support your position is meatpuppetry and is not allowed. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 17:12, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I haven't seen the CNN clip, but the tweet to 90,000 followers to join WP:WPID was unambiguously fine. Many editors, including myself, are regularly and quite rightly encouraging people to join Wikipedia. This is particularly important for groups who feel less represented in Wikipedia. The idea that it automatically constitutes canvassing is a stretch to say the least.

I have said many times, in many venues, that I would like to see more editors who disagree with things in Wikipedia to join! It is something that we should welcome, it's part of the core value of Wikipedia that we seek neutrality. One of the best ways to achieve that is with outreach to editors who may have the wrong impression that if they have certain ideas or beliefs they will not be welcomed here.

If Larry went on CNN to canvass for millions of Hindu Nationalists to come in and misbehave, then of course that's not good. If he canvassed for them to come to Wikipedia and disrupt a particular vote, then of course that's not good. But if he said "If you think Wikipedia has a problem with bias in any area, the best thing to do is come and get involved" then I'm right there with him. We are open, we are a serious and thoughtful community, and we aren't afraid of asking for more people to review our work and help us improve it.

Let me quote my own words from my book: "After all, if Musk convinces conservatives that Wikipedia is nothing more than leftist propaganda, conservatives who might otherwise have become Wikipedia editors will stay away. That would mean that when editors get together to discuss editorial matters, there will be no conservative voices, conservative perspectives won't be part of the mix, and the risk of editorial judgments becoming significantly biased against conservatives will grow. "Diversity" isn't a word that gets a lot of live in Musk's circles, but as we saw in an earlier chapter, diversity in its full sense -- not just demographic diversity but also *intellectual* diversity -- is precisely what makes open-source projects like Wikipedia work best." (p. 184 of the US edition).

If people want to take me to AN/I and argue for a ban for that, I think it's pretty obvious how silly that is. It's advocating for our core values, not "canvassing". Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:50, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

The problem is that Larry linked directly to the discussion where WPID is being considered for approval, giving many editors the impression that he intended to bring in supporters for the WikiProject to get it approved, even if that's not what he was actually trying to do. If Larry had just posted "join WPID!" that would have been fine, and I completely agree with you in that regard. Past me explained this well: There's a difference between simply recruiting people to a WikiProject and directly linking people to the discussion that will approve or reject it. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 17:58, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I find that to be a very minor difference, and a very minor thing indeed. It would definitely be better to link directly to WP:WPID of course, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't see it as particularly disruptive. Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:07, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales, now that I am unblocked again, I just want to thank you for weighing in here. This is not likely to make you popular (on Wikipedia), so I appreciate you putting your neck on the line. I would prefer not to be blocked and I don’t actually want to continue any unpleasantness with Wikipedia and Wikipedians. We actually can work together. But I am very serious about trying to reform Wikipedia. I think it desperately needs reform. And there needs to be a proper openness to discussions about reform; creating a serious reform group should not cause a person to be banned; neither should promoting that group off Wikipedia. Larry Sanger (talk) 18:11, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Wikipedians seem to have a general aversion to off-wiki promotion, probably because there are many documented cases of offsite actors who try to influence Wikipedia content. But not all off-site promotion is bad. It's just that one has to be very careful to avoid creating the appearance of recruiting editors to support a particular position. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:15, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Larry Sanger: For the record: I don't think you were intentionally trying to sway the discussion in favor of approving WPID by making that post, but evidently other editors see it differently. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 18:17, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Of course I agree, there needs to be a proper openness to discussions about reform, and creating a serious reform group should not cause a person to be banned. My own recommendation would have been to tone down a bit of the rhetoric on the page as it seems to have rubbed people the wrong way, but as I outline above, I think the proper Wikipedia way is for people not to get their backs up but rather to help out with what is obviously an uncontroversial idea directly in the main core of the traditions of Wikipedia: to be open, to be intellectually curious, to be kind and thoughtful and accepting that even when people can't agree on the underlying issues, they can still agree to be collegial and present things in a way that's fair to all reasoned points of view. Intellectual diversity is a strength and virtue for a project like Wikipedia, and will help us to avoid blind spots and worse. (By worse, I mean: hijacking by POV pushers who might someday somehow manage to somehow get the upper hand.)

One argument that I did find significantly persuasive is that a WikiProject might not be the right place for this to sit. Generally, WikiProjects have been about pretty uncontroversial subject area improvements, I'm thinking here of WP:BRIDGE as an example. A WikiProject that attempts to grapple with deeper questions of editorial policy might not succeed and might degenerate into a set of flame wars. Let me be clear: I'm not making this argument, I'm just considering it as at first blush a pretty sensible point.

But alternative proposals such as doing it on the relevant policy pages aren't really fully persuasive to me either. The reason is that, as far as I have seen, the relevant policy pages are actually pretty clear and pretty good. The problems that I see from time to time aren't about the policy pages not giving good guidance, but about local areas of Wikipedia following existing procedures and practice (as opposed to policies) in ways that can give rise to results that are clearly quite contrary to policy. The NPOV policy is very clear that NPOV can't be superseded by editor consensus, but there are very clear cases (fortunately rare) where our actual practice follows neither NPOV nor editor consensus but rather an unpleasant combination of bullying and majority vote by a tiny group of committed POV pushers.

If I'm right that this is where the problem lies, rather than on policy pages, the solution can't really lie with discussing and debating tweaks to policy - that's not the point. So where should it happen, and in particular, where might interested good Wikipedians who care more about intellectual integrity and the history and culture of Wikipedia that has served us so well over the years gather to work on the issues. If it isn't a WikiProject, then where? Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:23, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I think this hits the nail in the head, the very real NPOV issues needs to be fixed through micro, not macro efforts. By pulling up our sleeves and making them better, not by allowing say Breitbart as a reliable source or doxxing admins. Bobbobet (talk) 23:56, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales Here's @Newslinger's summary of the CNN-18 interview [6].

Encouraging millions of people to weigh in on a WP:CTOP and to commit WP:GAMING is very problematic at its core.

Also, intellectual diversity does exist on Wikipedia already: each Wikipedia has a different background and perspective than their fellow Wikipedians. Intellectual diversity does not mean allowing more media outlets to be permissible if they aren't deemed to be meet reliable sourcing standards just because they would allow for more sources from another part of the ideological spectrum to be used. EaglesFan37 (talk) 19:35, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

While of course intellectual diversity does exist on Wikipedia already - it is imperfect and surely could be improved. Even if we think that it's absolutely 100% fine as it is (I don't think it is as good as it could be), we should still take seriously looking after it and openly defending and promoting it. I disagree with Larry on the particular sources mentioned there (I intend to listen to the full podcast tomorrow, thank you for the link, I thought it was a here-and-gone television appearance) but I also think we should welcome a discourse about it. If we aren't always willing to revisit decisions (subject to people running out of patience of course, but even then we should take a deep breath and try!) then we run the risk of ideological stagnation. Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:29, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

If Larry went on CNN to canvass for millions of Hindu Nationalists to come in and misbehave, then of course that's not good. Not "if": he did. He didn't have to ask for disruption explicitly, the message was clear with whatever scrap of plausible deniability he was trying to maintain. With that said, I agree with everything else you've written here. I listened to the NYT podcast interview you did while you were promoting your book last year and I'd love to see you advocating the things you said there. If Larry wanted to commit to that, as opposed to what some call the "right-wing grift", I'd support his efforts too. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:05, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Great! I will listen to Larry's CNN podcast tomorrow. And if you're right (probably you are from the quick quotes I just read) then I hope Larry will take that to heart. The main thing I would say to him is that people like you are precisely the people he should have in mind in terms of having influence within the community and who might need support.

The wider culture outside of Wikipedia is often toxic and combative for whatever reasons. Some will call it "right wing grift" but let's be clear: in social media and tv conflict culture there's a lot of grift to go around. My thought is let's be generous and understanding that people will come to us from that world and may need time to remember the kindness and goodwill that we (however imperfectly) advocate with each other here. (By the way, even though I have a lot of complaints about social media, it's more or less always been the case. People even in the earliest days would wander in from Usenet with a WP:Battleground mentality that wasn't helpful! Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:33, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales Larry was blocked and then unblocked. Guz13 (talk) 17:15, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

the main issue was the need to reframe the project less adversarially, but its workable otherwise.

the whole ordeal has been an absolute mess User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:29, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

If you really are passionate as Larry "has" been, then perhaps you should tell the whole Board of Trustees and WMF about promoting awareness of "intellectual diversity". ...You're not gonna perform a functionary action on Larry, are you? George Ho (talk) 17:28, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't intend to act directly in any way in this matter nor similar matters. I am here to remind people of our values (all of them) and to advise as best I can about better courses of action. Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:35, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@George Ho Just to add, I do talk to the board and to the world to promote awareness of intellectual diversity as a core value of Wikipedia. We all should. Obviously I have many disagreements with Larry - all of which is pretty irrelevant to the broad point: we should not let any disagreement with Larry to poison the idea that Wikipedia is intellectually open and welcoming of constructive consent, and that there should be no ideological litmus test to come and join us. Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:53, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Right now the page Draft:Intellectual diversity (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), which I've nearly hard reset and then started from scratch, may still need re-expansion... but an appropriate re-expansion. The previous revisions were more essay-ish. George Ho (talk) 18:11, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

In re to Larry's reply above, I can't help comparing and contrasting Steve Jobs with Larry. Jobs co-founded Apple and has impacted the world.... Well, in-between, Jobs was forced to step down some time after less than successful first Macintosh and was reduced to making NeXT Computers and then NeXT Software stuff. His then-failing ex-company Apple then acquired low-profile-ish(?) NeXT, and... the rest is history.... including his sudden death.

OTOH, the Wikimedia Foundation has not acquired Larry Sanger's failing projects and all, and Sanger's endless rhetorics haven't yet stopped. Why should the WMF have bothered? George Ho (talk) 18:39, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

So you're good with doxxing administrators as well then, Jimbo, as Larry has said should be done? Black Kite (talk) 18:46, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

This is a loaded question. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:10, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

OK then, have you seen the reaction of Larry's far-right mates to the admin that blocked him? The man is toxic. Black Kite (talk) 19:37, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

No, I haven't seen them. Can you provide links? I can't find them via Google search. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:44, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

See the main discussion page. Black Kite (talk) 19:48, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I did a page search and as far as I can tell the only x.com or xcancel.com links on that discussion page are to Sanger's own posts and nothing from his supporters. @Black Kite: Can you please provide links here, on this page? SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:52, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@SuperPianoMan9167 Elon Musk retweeted it already. EaglesFan37 (talk) 19:54, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Can you please provide direct links? I'm not on X and there are zero links to posts by people other than Larry Sanger on that ANI page. (I checked.) SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 19:56, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@SuperPianoMan9167 Reply to the email I sent you and I can send a screenshot. EaglesFan37 (talk) 20:01, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Received. Thanks! I'll try to see if I can find more posts. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Welp. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:37, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

That's pretty vague. – robertsky (talk) 19:59, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I agree and I would just ignore it as not being worthy of response, but for absolute clarity, I do not support doxxing administrators and if Larry has advocated for that (as opposed to random people on X who are termed here as "right wing mates" of Larry, though I doubt that they are mates) then I'm happy to denounce it of course. Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:35, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

This is as good a place as any to clarify the facts. Not that I haven’t clarified them before, but I haven’t gone into any detail since the recent unpleasantness began.

So the Heritage Foundation announced a plan to essentially doxx a bunch of powerful editors. In a comment on my personal social media platform, I responded to this not to agree–if you actually look at the context, you will see that I didn’t agree with that plan–but I did say that there needed to be some way to name and shame powerful editors. It has been insisted in the Wikipedia article Larry Sanger against my own clarification that this meant that I was supporting the Heritage Foundation plan, when I meant nothing of the kind. In fact, as I explained at the time, in some follow-ups, my point was that it should not be possible to be a powerful editor such as a bureaucrat or a checkuser, without revealing your identity. That should be a new rule. I was not saying that the people who are currently bureaucrats or checkusers should be doxxed.

By the way, I can say this and repeat it all I like, but it does not seem to make the slightest bit of difference to those editing Larry Sanger and smearing me in the ANI, because some journalist wrote one point that I did support the Heritage Foundation plan. That was just her mistaken opinion. That reporter never interviewed me and was basing it entirely on her personal interpretation of my post. It was bad reporting and Wikipedia is not doing its credibility any favors by simply repeating it. Larry Sanger (talk) 20:06, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

In that particular Bloomberg article (this one), right after the information that you supported the plan, it says that "Sanger did not respond to requests for comment." SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:26, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

He has replied here and so I think people should definitely drop that particular stick.

Let me tell a little story, uncontroversial I think. Today I did an event where I was interviewed on stage. The organizers had prepped some suggested questions for Hannah Fry. One of the questions (not written by her, and she didn't ask this on stage) started: "You proposed integrating ChatGPT into Wikipedia's editorial process — and your own community voted it down." I understand why that is there - there's an otherwise reliable source which made a similar-enough but equally false claim. I protested it to the journalist, who looped in an editor, but in the end they refused to correct it. So - I doubt if Wikipedia makes that claim but it's entirely possible that it could, and if people with an angry axe to grind pushed to make it stick, even though it's misleading and I absolutely take a totally different position, that would obviously be silly. And claiming that the article doesn't show that I disagree with it would be... pointless.

Lots of stuff appears in the media, even reliable sources, which is confused, misleading, often innocently and sometimes out of bias. We can and must exercise thoughtful editorial judgment. Saying that someone supported something when they have clearly explained that they don't, particularly when it reflects negatively on them, is a clear WP:BLP violation. Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:44, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Makes sense. This reminds me of when a bunch of media outlets incorrectly reported you protected Gaza genocide when it was in fact ScottishFinnishRadish who placed the protection. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 20:47, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

He has replied here and so I think people should definitely drop that particular stick.

Not until the ongoing subpage about Larry is concluded. ...I think you were referring to that news article, right? Even so, there have been issues about Larry already. George Ho (talk) 21:09, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

I see. And in what way should there be a method of "naming and shaming" powerful editors, other than doxing them? Black Kite (talk) 20:36, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, at least you're "honest" [7] about it. Black Kite (talk) 20:42, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

If I understand Larry position (which I don't agree with, as I think it completely misunderstands a number of issues) it isn't that anyone should be doxxed, but that going forward, it should be a requirement for certain high level positions that real life identities are publicly disclosed, as policy. Currently it is not possible for perfectly good reasons for board members of the Wikimedia Foundation to be anonymous or pseudonymous. The argument is that some high level community positions should be similar.

That's a really bad idea, but it isn't advocating for doxxing. Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:01, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Well Larry has just indicated support for doxxing admins on Twitter/X, so I think this will soon be over. The ANI discussion is currently in the process of being closed. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 21:13, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales@SuperPianoMan9167 Basically confirmed now that that's the plan (unsure if that extend to all participants at ANI or not): [8] EaglesFan37 (talk) 21:37, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Even if that wasn't his intention, he flirted so much with doxxing and canvassing that his denials are no longer credible. Since he got flak about those, the proper reaction would have been to avoid any appearance of suggesting doxxing and canvassing. He did not call millions of Hindus to edit Wikipedia neutrally, but to skew it towards flattering their ethnic and religious biases. Wikipedia loves objective knowledge about Hinduism, but it should not be pandering to piety. So, yes, the problem is seeing mainstream academic learning as his enemy. There is of course the charge that stressing rationality and objectivity is a form of colonialism. While that opinion surely can be rendered, it is not normative for editing Wikipedia. E.g., I don't edit in order to promote my ethnicity (Romanian), nor my religion (Einsteinian-Spinozism), nor my countries of citizenship (Romania and the Netherlands). So, in the end, editors of a certain ethnicity or religion should not seek to promote their ethnicity or religion, but just the POVs of mainstream WP:RS. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:32, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I've continued discussion at Talk:Larry Sanger#I'm gonna leave this here. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:37, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

(this comment went before ones below, so moving this... —George Ho (talk) 02:29, 23 June 2026 (UTC))

Let's not forget that this is the guy who coined the acronym "GASP" for, you know, "globalist, academic, secular, and progressive". "Globalist" is a familiar red meat dogwhistle for the MAGA crowd. I think we all know who he means by that. Carlstak (talk) 02:14, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that Sanger understands that connotation. In general, I think he has problems understanding what other people understand from what he is saying. E.g., he invited millions of Hindus to "play the game". That would be abiding by WP:NPOV, in his view. But the obvious connotation is that he invited them to skew the POV of the articles about Hindus. He failed to notice it. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:32, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Eh, he knows the connotation, that's why he said it. He's been taking lessons from Tucker Carlson. Carlstak (talk) 02:51, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't think that Sanger is antisemitic. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:10, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Nope. He is however entirely capable of playing to his audience, and using whatever phraseology meets their approval in a manner that just about meets a minimum level of plausible deniability. At least, it does until you notice the pattern. Sanger's sudden concern for Wikipedia's apparent antipathy regarding Hinduism (which is nothing of the sort - it's antipathy towards concerted efforts by a small minority of Hindu's that engage in relentlessly peddling divisive and fact-free BJP propaganda on Wikipedia) has nothing to do with a newfound interest in religious diversity (not something normally found amongst the Christian right wing), but is instead clearly aimed at winning over further support from the right. The only 'diversity' Sanger is concerned with is picking up support from rightists, wherever they can be found. One week he's pretending to be Martin Luther, the next he's defending the poor persecuted Hindus of India (1.2 billion of them, or abouts) from the evils of a project he claims is run by 60-odd evil admins... AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:37, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

This WP drama did not occur in a political vacuum, and we should not act as if it does. Sanger is a right-wing extremist who laid out his program in his "Wikipedia Is Badly Biased" essay (I'm not linking to his propaganda) in which he rejects the scientific consensus on global warming, the MMR vaccine, and who embraced the phony "scandals" manufactured by the Republican party about President Obama: "Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal, and Fast and Furious, to say nothing of Solyndra or the Hillary Clinton email server scandal", yet now he is silent (as far as I can see) on the real scandals of the lawlessness and corruption of Trump and his fascist regime. Sanger doesn't hesitate to resort to racist dog whistles and to fraternize with Nazi-adjacent media personalities when it suits his purposes. The community rightfully kicked him off the platform. I would like to know why Wales supports such a figure. Carlstak (talk) 15:12, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I support intellectual diversity in Wikipedia. When we are attacked by people who we don't like, people who misbehave in various ways, whether they be Larry or Elon or the Heritage Foundation, we should never use that as an excuse to put our heads in the sand about our own issues, nor should we throw out any good ideas that come from them because they have a tainted source. Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:22, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I assume that isn't intended as a response to my post, since I don't recall ever being accused of putting my head in the sand regarding the many deeply-embedded structural problems Wikipedia has. As for good ideas, if Larry has presented any recently, it's hard to find them amongst the morass of confused and conflicting proposals he describes as his 'theses'. Likewise, if 'intellectual diversity' is a worthy-sounding objective in the abstract, it certainly isn't in the way that Larry has been framing it. Or more to the point, using it as a slogan to push to the decidedly non-diverse audience he's been seeking out. If one takes Larry at his word, he seems to have three objectives with regard to Wikipedia. (a) To instigate a root-and-branch revision of policy. (b) To fundamentally rewrite or replace much of existing content. And (c) to replace (or dilute to an extreme extent) the existing contributor base. The end result, in the unlikely event that Larry's objectives were carried out, would be a 'Wikipedia' that resembled the current one in name only. Given the complete lack of evidence that more than a very small percentage of the existing readership actually want such a change, one would have to conclude that Larry's proposals aren't in the interest of said readers. For all its faults (there are many), Wikipedia as it stands, regardless of biases (real and imagined) and/or secret admin cabals etc, seems to have attracted quite a user base, and throwing that away per Larry's WP:OWN arguments seems ill-advised to say the least. It isn't as if Larry hasn't had ample opportunity to present alternatives. None of which got very far. His latest foray into the topic appears to me to amount to little more than a proposed URL usurpation in effect, and if there is a 'good idea' or two hidden in his profligate waffling and catering to critics who are clearly more interested in silencing Wikipedia than reforming it, it is very likely there by coincidence. Anyone can utter abstract slogans about 'diversity'. They mean nothing. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:52, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I really don't see that evicting a miscreant who spouts racist tropes from a platform that he has no inherent "right" to occupy, a person inimical to its rules, no less, equates to burying "our heads in the sand about our own issues", at all. Carlstak (talk) 15:58, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

That's good. So let's turn the conversation to those issues to make something productive out of what is otherwise just an unpleasant mess. Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:08, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Which issues are you referring to Jimbo, and why does a discussion of such issues need to revolve around the questionable agenda of an individual the community evidently considers disruptive? Wikipedia's structural problems need consideration on the basis that doing so would be of benefit, and not because one individual has the capacity to raise an almighty stink. You evidently have the clout/social capital to get things discussed, and if you think something merits discussion, you don't need to sidetrack (or even unintentionally disrupt) what should be a considered discussion by bringing Larry's profligate meanderings into such discussions at all. That isn't how we are supposed to do things here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:53, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

About Sanger and Hindus: Sanger understood that pious people don't like what mainstream scholars publish about their religion. So, yup, I got the point that many Hindus were offended. But so were many Muslims and many Christians. We render WP:SCHOLARSHIP. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:10, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

discussion close

The discussion just closed with community consensus to ban. Alternative proposals failed to gain consensus. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 23:17, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Also, the discussion proposing WPID (hmm.... ID = identification, huh?) is now closed as "not created". George Ho (talk) 23:21, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

Press coverage of ban: New York Post piece by Ashley Rindsberg.

It includes the blatantly false statement "The exact reason for his blocking was not given." Which is obviously not true as it's given right on his talk page. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 00:02, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

The article also calls the project WID. EaglesFan37 (talk) 00:14, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I didn't even notice that. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 00:17, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

For supposedly being an "expert reporter on Wikipedia", Rindsberg continues to show a failing to even read the text of what he reports on. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 11:21, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, it's a lot of text to read. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:23, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

While the discussion is a lot of text, the close isn't, and if you are reporting on the matter, I would like to think you know what a close is and are able to identify and read it. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 11:24, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Changing topic slightly, I put larry sanger banned from wikipedia into Google's AI and it told me "The blocking process faced brief internal turmoil. Wikipedia's fellow co-founder, Jimmy Wales, initially stepped in to defend Sanger and briefly unblocked his account. However, Wales’ intervention was ultimately unsuccessful. Wikipedia’s decentralized community of volunteer administrators quickly overrode the action, reinstating the permanent indefinite block that evening." I don't think he did that, am I wrong? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:19, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång What happened was that an admin prematurely blocked him 7 hours before the 72 hour CBAN discussion window had closed, so another admin (not Jimbo) temporarily reversed the ban. EaglesFan37 (talk) 12:21, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I just managed to click my way to [9]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:23, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Ashley Rindsberg has made an entirely career out of making things up about Wikipedia. If he's upset about what you're doing, you're probably doing something right. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:22, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I once got called out for reverting misgendering and deadnaming on 2025 Annunciation Catholic Church shooting so I must be doing something right. At least Ashley correctly noted that I was following MOS:DEADNAME. SuperPianoMan9167 (talk) 00:25, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

Attempted but self-reverted closure by Aunva6

The below is above was closed by Aunva6. --George Ho (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2026 (UTC); updated, 21:22, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

It is. I'd like to know why anyone would consider it remotely appropriate to arbitrarily close an ongoing discussion on another contributor's talk page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:05, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

The Signpost: 21 June 2026

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Another stellar long read from Jake Orlowitz

"Not Here to Build an Encyclopedia: Larry Sanger, Jimmy Wales, and the twenty-five-year fight over who founded Wikipedia."

Ten or fifteen minutes well spent. —tim //// Carrite (talk) 21:34, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

“Oust the Commissars from Control of Wikipedia!” —New York Post editorial board

Exactly the scenario that The Philosopher King was playing for, of course. Oust the Commissars... —tim /// Carrite (talk) 02:42, 24 June 2026 (UTC)