Talk:Simon Pulsifer

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Wikipedian An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Simon Pulsifer, has edited Wikipedia as
SimonP (talk · contribs).
This user's editing has included this article.

Readers are encouraged to review Wikipedia:Autobiography for information concerning autobiographical articles on Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit] Link to Time Article

I added a link to the Time Magazine article under references.

Thanks for fixing link.

[edit] Keep article

As Wikipedia grows in importance and global reach, the most passionate participants in this collective editing experiment become important global intellectuals. Simon Pulsifer is one of the first public Wikipedians - with a great number of articles, a passion for editing under-developed subjects, and a strong sense of the mission of Wikipedia. He might not care to have an article about him here, but already mainstream media outlets (a Canadian newspaper) and online news sites (digg.com) have saluted his work. That attention and importance is only likely to increase. Let's keep this article because Simon Pulsifer has already reached a greater number of people than many of the "historic" individuals described on Wikipedia. JustinHall 18:50, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I am honoured, but I quite certainly do not think that I deserve an article. Where are the pages on the most prolific poster at Slashdot, the person with the most reviews at Amazon.com, and the guy who has sold the most things on eBay? None of these people could be considered encyclopedic, and neither am I. One inaccuracy that I should note is, that as my edit log indicates, I quite certainly do not currently edit 8-10 hours a day. As the Globe article states, I do now have a job and one that takes more than 40 hours per week of my time. People might also want to be aware that there is an Ottawa Citizen article from last summer that has a few more details. - SimonP 22:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
The recent change is actually worse. The Globe is perfectly accurate, I did edit for 8 to 10 hours in the period just after I graduated, but that was a couple years ago. - SimonP 11:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I've re-worded the article to give it historical context on why you are significant - I agree for all the reasons you mention you would not be notable. But you are notable because Wikipedia has received a lot of public attention and other than Jimbo you have been the most depicted "human face" of Wikipedia during the 2004-2006 period (not sure about 2004, but late 2005 and 2006 for sure) - someday when someone writes the history of Wikipedia you'll be in there for that reason if nothing else. BTW I've also seen you called "king of the nerds" and other less flattering things so I'm not sure I entirely envy you :) But I admire how your handling your "fame" and taking the time to be a spokesperson for the project. -- Stbalbach 14:36, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Your work is a lot more important then the guy sold most things on eBay or the one with most reviews at amazon. Your articles are a source of information due to the careful research involved in it and will continue to be for years to come. If there was a certain person who would have written the most number of articles in Britannica way more than anyone else, would the information about that person not be of encyclopedic importance? How does the work of one author become more important then that of others? The way i see it this article is information about a pioneer in a pioneering concept that is wikipedia.Devpriya piyadassi

[edit] Work

Simon, My employer saw the Globe and Mail article and was very impressed. He has an item for a possible Wikipedia entry which he would like for you to author. I told him that I would try to contact you. I would like the opportunity to discuss with you if you are willing. --Dwoods1113 17:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Klemen Kocjancic

I don't know if this is important, but user Klemen Kocjancic has quite a few more edits on the slovene wikipedia. His edit count currently shows 137374 edits. Admittedly, he's not as well known user as SimonP, but he has more edits and he's not a bot. Should this be mentioned anywhere? --Burek 23:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I had never heard of this fellow, but he is very impressive. Him and his bot have made over 250,000 edits, out of only 570,000 edits ever made to the Slovene Wikipedia. He has made an average of 3 edits to every article in the encyclopedia. To all intents and purposes, he has practically written the encyclopedia himself. Most of these edits do seem at least partially automated, however, with at least AWB if not a full bot script. - SimonP 02:23, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't agree to him writing the encyclopedia, as his edits are often a bit destructive. He rarely actually does major edits, usually he just creates hundreds of yet-unneeded categories (we have loads of categories with one article each) and he never (and I mean never) takes other people's views into consideration.
But this aside, he can be quite productive when not in an editing war and quite a few articles are hiw work. His work also isn't (by his words) automated by use of any bot or AWB, but he does do hundreds of minor edits by opening them each in a tab in Firefox, then copy+pasting the changes. Most of his work (for example, he has changed the categories of every number from 1-2000 at least 3 times, this alone giving him thousands of edits) is done in this way. This makes him much less valuable than SimonP, but he still has (statistically) a lot of edits. --Burek 08:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Birthday

To get rid of that question mark, my birthday was September 11, 1981. - SimonP 22:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

In Ottawa? -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Halifax, Nova Scotia, actually. - SimonP 12:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Surely this counts as original research on Simon's part? :P NaLaochra 04:35, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Happy belated birthday, Simon. btw, I've lost your e-mail. (Kyle Scott, Gate House 2002-2003)

[edit] Strange footnote behavior

I just added a third reference to the Globe and Mail article, and it looks fine on preview, but on save the footnote shows six references (a,b,c,d,e,f) instead of the 3 numbered in the article. Is there something obvious I'm doing wrong or is it a MediaWiki bug? -- Stbalbach 00:19, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm this appears to be user specific but affecting a lot of people, see here for more info. -- Stbalbach 04:02, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Temp undelete

I use {{tempundelete}} as a middle ground between deletion and undeletion while this article is going through DRV. I have already seen enough "CSD wheel war" and I hope the next one isn't coming, so I use this as a middle ground and hope everyone is "happy" to a certain extent. --WinHunter (talk) 14:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compromise solution

Per suggestions on the Deletion Review of this article, I have created Wikipedians in the news as part of the media coverage article series, as an example of an alternative use of the material in the article. Do you think that's a good final resting place for the article contents? The Land 15:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

  • Approve - as an example, it get's my vote --Crimsone 15:22, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Approve Agree with Reinoutr, let's not vote on this - that's too much like AfD - let's discuss - Carcharoth 11:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC) - maybe a merge tag should be added to the top of the page to get more attention? Carcharoth 10:15, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Could be a good idea. Would suggest letting people discuss as they can be bothered for the moment though to let everybody cool down, and then officially propose - no point in formalising a proposal if the atmosphere is polarised. --Crimsone 10:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
I appreciate what you are saying, but I've added the tag anyway, as possibly it might bring more people into the debate. Fresh ideas and input would be welcome here. Carcharoth 10:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Disapprove (do we really need to turn this into a vote? I'd be in favor of removing the votes and just have comments - vote striked, argument stands) - Even the creation of Wikipedians in the news (which certainly might have merit to it for occasionaly mentioned wikipedians), should not exclude some of the prolific editors, who attract more regular attention of regular news and websites, to have their own articles. We should not be afraid of giving attention to them in those cases (currently, SimonP is part of at least 410 different stories, making it more than occasional attention). As somebody put in the deletion review, Wikipedia articles should be about topics that interest the readers of Wikipedia. Although some people might be uncomfortable with it, readers of Wikipedia actually might be interested in reading about Wikipedia and about its most prominent contributors. I therefore honestly believe this article should be in Main space and not (just) in Wikipedia space. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 10:27, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Agree about not voting. I've modified my vote to be just a comment. Carcharoth 11:26, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Consensus is that he deserves an article, and I'm not sure that the best route is the page suggested. Perhaps the page suggested should link to here, sure, but this page shouldn't disappear. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:35, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  • This is not a vote. Amos Urban Shirk was notable in the 1930's for being a "prodigious reader of the Encyclopedia Britannica" entirely because of a single article in the New Yorker. Should we move it to Wikipedia:Encyclopedia readers in the news? -- Stbalbach 11:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. Thanks for that. See also The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. There is the beginnings of a category there... And I wonder if someone can try to read all of Wikipedia? :-) Anyway, I think the argument here comes back more to self-reference. The various Wikipedia namespace news items are like a collection of newspaper clippings about Wikipedia. A mainspace article would take a different tone. Just possibly there is room for both entries to co-exist. Carcharoth 12:13, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. As long as this is removed from the article namespace, any solution is fine. Amos Shirk is also a stupid article, but do you think Britannica would write an article about him? Of course not. Adam Bishop 15:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I do not support this proposal. Through two AfDs and a DRV, the result was that this remains an article in the article namespace. I hardly think an opinion that an article is "stupid" is convincing or well-reasoned. As for what is not in Britannica and what is in Wikipedia, if the two had to mirror each other I suspect that the majority of articles on wikipedia would be wiped out. Agent 86 17:42, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

- Of course, with many thanks to Cpt. Morgan for adding in the sources proeperly, and although I'm still in favour of merging this with an article such as Wikipedians in the news, would it be possible to merge the two external links into the article somewhere as references. After all, external links mainly exist as a place to give information that cannot yet be placed in an article. It would also make the referencing all the more stronger, which can only be to the benefit of the article. --Crimsone 10:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but I just haven't had time to look more closely into those two links. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 10:22, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Just moved one of them to ref, the other was removed, since it appeared to be unrelated (academics critic wikipedia, no mention of JamesP). --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 10:32, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Very cool :) (see your talk :) ) --Crimsone 10:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section header title

It's easy for forget as Wikipedia editors we are writing for an audience other than ourselves. The section is about Simon's role in Wikipedia, not Simon's media attention. Simons media attention is important for the behind the scenes nuts and bolts rules of Wikipedia, but it's a rather minor and esoteric point for someone who knows nothing about Wikipedia. The section should be titled what it is about: Simon as a Wikipedia editor. Keep in mind the text we create here will propagate out to any number of other sources and formats - it could be printed in a book called "Famous encyclopedists". Who knows. Write for the public audience, not other editors. -- Stbalbach 12:34, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can see the section is exclusively about the media attention given to Simon as a resuly of being a prolific wikipedia editor. The article is on shakey ground as an article about the fact that a wiki editor makes lots of edits, and indeed the arguement that has caused it to survive deletion twice (at least) is that of notability because of media attention. /* Media Interest */ is in fact the reason that this article exists at all.
Only wiki editors would read this article and be in any way interested that Simon has made lots of edits to wiki. To outside readers (the people this encyclopedia is aimed at), what matters is the fact that the media has been interested in Simon for making so many edits. That's pretty much the only reason that they are likely to seek out this article in the first place (except for purposes of using it to deride the wiki project, as is quite common these days).
This is now becoming quite a high profile article, and as would be quite correct, if this is turned into an article about the fact that an editor has made lots of edits, along with simons insistance that he doesn't want an article, along with two archived AfD's and a DRV, it can only be used as another bullet in criticism of the encyclopedia as an exercise in vanity and pointlessness.
The true subject/reason of this article is in fact media interest, and that's how it should remain in my opinon. Crimsone 12:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, guys, the paragraph was about both. I've split it up into the 2 headings you wanted and divived the content accordingly. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 12:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair comment - I'll go with that. I guess it's true what they say - the best solutions are usually the simplest ones. (in this case, so simple I could think of it first! lol. I seem to have a habit of over-complicating things on occasions ;) ) --Crimsone 13:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More information?

Shouldn't the article mention that Simon was appointed/elected to, and currently serves on, the Arbitration Committee? Or is that something that can't be mentioned until an external source picks up on it? Carcharoth 13:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

It certainly will be a matter of discussion, but in my view it can be added to the biography/wikipedia section, although some reference should be user. Perhaps it was mentioned in the Wikipedia Signpost at the time. When talking about Wikipedia, naturally Wikipedia itself can be a source. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 14:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Ah! but is it a verifiable source? :p (No, I'm not actually serious! lol. I'm just making a point about self-referencing. That I know of, a reputable encyclopedia would avoid referencing through itself as a source of evidence in most cases.)Crimsone 15:01, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes I agree with you :). I am well aware that using Wikipedia itself as a reference is usually not accepted. Yet, this article is partly about Wikipedia, so I suppose something trivial like that can be self-referenced (see also the Wikipedia article for examples of self-referencing). Anyway, I've been bold and added a referenced statement for that (I've looked up the wikipedia signpost article about the elections and referred to that). --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 14:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
It's pretty difficult, to find an example of an encyclopedia not self-referencing, but it's academic given that you can see my point, but also that I agree with your own. I guess I'm just making note that if it is at all possible to find external references to replace or supplement the self-references in the article, it would probably be better for the article. :) Crimsone 14:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Insider lingo

The article largely assumes that the reader knows about Wikipedia and uses terms like "editor", "edit count list", "arbitration", etc.. for some people "editor" means a Newspaper editor, "edit count list" is completely unknown and "arbitration" is what the the judicial system does. I've tried to make a few changes to make it more user friendly and generic ("contributor" and "participant" instead of "editor") - I think it would be good for the articles future prospects if we can write for a larger audience and not just other Wikipedians. -- Stbalbach 20:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I just added short explanations for administrator and arbitrator (and modified the explanation of editor slightly) and added links to Wikipedia articles about those subjects to the See Also section. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 21:37, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions for Simon

I'm not sure the best way to do this for Wikipedia within the guidelines, but I think if you have any questions for Simon leave them here. That way I can interview him and post the interview on say, Wikinews and that can be sourced. That is if Simon doesn't mind. -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Overtaken by Rich Farmbrough?

New data: Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:35, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I suspect an inconvenient truth like that will get overlooked by someone, somewhere. --GreenJoe 05:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I suspect someone will write an article about Rich too. Adam Bishop 05:17, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's see how long it takes for the press to catch on. -- Earl Andrew - talk 05:22, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Actually, looking at User:Rich_Farmbrough/FAQ, lots of the edits are repetitive, semi-automated ones. Possibly other high-edit-count editors have their total inflated this way. I certainly know mine is inflated by my failure to consistently use preview (I still come in at 1090th!). A more interesting factoid would be who has uploded the most content to Wikipedia (ie. measure the kB of text entered, rather than number of edits). Sadly, I don't think it is possible to measure this anytime soon. Carcharoth 00:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

How do we put this in the article? I think someone needs to find out the date when Simon reached number 1, who was there before him, and the date when Rich Farmborough overtook him. Carcharoth 00:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Nah I disagree. We report on what other people say (from reliable sources) - the press used the edit count thing as a human interest story lead-in, as an excuse to pick someone to put a face and name behind the otherwise anonymous army of editors. That is what is notable. Not the actual edit count (lots of people have made lots of edits) - in 5 years the edit count will be meaningless, and in 50 years probably completely arcane and mysterious to most people (Wikipedia will have evolved to something completely different by then). We need to focus on the medias interest in Simon and what the media says about him. -- Stbalbach 01:04, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Everything you just said is a reason to delete the article. Adam Bishop 01:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, I guess we disagree that people are notable for being profiled in the media. Like John Mark Karr for example. Where do you draw the line. John Karr didn't do anything notable at all. Should we delete that article? -- Stbalbach 01:18, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, of course! Adam Bishop 01:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Notability is subjective. Like we have "style wars", we have "notability wars" - most of the AfD's are notability wars. Obviously if this was a printed/published work it would be much easier to decide. I'm not sure there is a clear answer on what notability means, except the AfD consensus process. At some point non-notable people become notable and it's hard to say when that line is crossed, which makes a real-time encyclopedia like this "interesting". One thing we do know for sure, nothing stays the same, an AfD two years from now might come back with a different result than it did now. -- Stbalbach 01:44, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikinews

I still support keeping it as a Wikipedia article, at least for now, but it might make a better Wikinews article, including even perhaps an original interview with Simon. Wikinews is probably the more appropriate Wikimedia forum, and could be a lot more informative and interesting. I think there is a lot of stuff put onto Wikipedia as being "notable" that really belongs at Wikinews but doesn't because %99 of the editors have never used Wikinews (myself included) - for example October 11, 2006 New York City plane crash. I'm not sure if this article could be re-directed to Wikinews or not, which would ally concern about a presence on Wikipedia. -- Stbalbach 21:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

No it can't be redirected to Wikinews, as Wikinews follows news. If Simon lost his title as foremost editor, or got involved in an editing scandal, sure. But what insight could an interview provide beyond what others have already done? And do we need to pry the door to his private life open even more. -- Zanimum 16:55, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time photo

Is the photo from a story that has not been mentioned in the article? -- Stbalbach 02:46, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the latest issue of Time did a piece on the rise of participatory web sites, and interviewed me about Wikipedia. It can be read here. There was also some discussion of it at Wikipedia:Village pump (news). - SimonP 03:12, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Personal information and WP:BLP

I've removed some information that seems too personal in the spirit of WP:BLP. On birthdays see Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Privacy_of_birthdays. Simon is not a "public figure". See Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Presumption_in_favor_of_privacy, notably the section on non-public figures. The information about his exact birthday, where he lives, his marriage status and his future plans have nothing to do with establishing notability, I am making a presumption in favor of privacy, per BLP. -- Stbalbach 15:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Relax. I talked to Simon about this today at our Meetup. He doesn't mind this information on the page. Plus, it's fully sourcable. -- Earl Andrew - talk 22:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
That's fine. I was partly concerned also that some of these kinds of personal details are unusual in an encyclopedia and detract from the overall encyclopedic tone and sounds more like what it is - a bunch of us all who know each other. -- Stbalbach 14:34, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

WP:BLP is official policy. Does an agreement between two people that no one knows about or can verify supercede that? GreenJoe 15:54, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. Simon willfuly gave us his date of birth on this talk page, and his moving to Toronto was willfuly given to the Ottawa Citizen, a major newspaper. For accuracy, this article needs to include the fact that he will be in Toronto! Where he will be working is also something that should be in someone's biography. I mean, why on earth not? -- Earl Andrew - talk 18:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Birthday is OK with me - I'll suggest a compromise, that until Simon actually moves and starts the new job, we leave it out of the article. Better to report on factual things that have actually happened. -- Stbalbach 19:57, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes in section "Media interest"

HI. There's a duplicate statement in the para -- "In the January 18, 2007 edition of the Ottawa Citizen, an article about Pulsifer was featured that indicated he was accepting a job in Toronto, and that the write-up in Time garnered him tremendous attention." It is flagged with two different footnotes. Also, footnote 11 goes nowhere. I'd like to fix it, but the way the footnotes are done, I don't know how to edit them, and I'm afraid I'll make a right royal mess of it. Anyone out there who can help? Tks. --SigPig |SEND - OVER 06:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MeSH pages

In case it fell off your watchlist: Wikipedia talk:MeSH. Carcharoth 01:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some advice

The newspaper coverage on this guy is not the point. It is what this guy did and who he is that is the point of this article. The articles exist only support the assertions about what he did.

Wikipedia PR is generally not notable. David Gerard is the PR guy for the Foundation in the UK and has being involved in some good PR for Wikipedia. Does that get him an article? No. Maybe someday, but we are not there yet.--75.37.12.168 01:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] High Importance?

This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale [for the Wikiproject Canada.] This means that Mr. Simon Pulsifer is as important as the Prime Minister of Canada and Ottawa. With all due respect, I don't think this is the case... Jack(Lumber) 15:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Set to low. The only sane choice... Purgatorio (talk) 21:03, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Website

I believe the website listed in the infobox should be presented as Wikipedia userpage rather than User:SimonP to avoid the appearance of Wikipedia endorsement of a userpage by giving it an internal link from a mainspace article. I guess I will go ahead and make this edit.--Michael WhiteT·C 20:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)