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Seeking topic ban from American politics, post-1932, the easy way

Almost everything I try to do in this area goes sour quickly, leads to more confusion and controversy. I waste people's time, they waste mine. It's not intentional, but it is disruptive and it does happen. I've tried to quit, but it's hard, I lack self-control and can't resist the temptations of correctable half-truths. I tried asking an admin for intervention (in a somewhat creepy way, no less), but then read a rule saying regular admins don't have that authority, only you can stop me from wasting more people's time without wasting even more people's time through a thorough public hearing. I waive that right, and any others that may hinder your verdict. I would ask for a minimum sentence of four months, but will abide by whatever you think fits the above freely-confessed crimes. Thank you for considering this plea, and once again for creating Misplaced Pages. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:32, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Dear IndedibleHulk,

I would consider it a great kindness and it would reflect very well on you if you choose not to edit articles in the area of American policies, post-1932. Out of your respect for the process - and for yourself and your own happiness - I hope that you will use this voluntary ban wisely. My suggestions would be to pick some random area of knowledge that you've always had a bit of curiosity about, but have no strong views on, and read a few books about it. Or - and I haven't checked your edit history so I have no idea what the problem has been - perhaps you could find a prominent and well-written book that takes an opposite view of your own, and read it with a sympathetic mind, to try to understand things as those who disagree with you understand them. (Have no fear, you won't brainwash yourself or anything but you are likely to come out the other end with a more nuanced and thoughtful position!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:20, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Read a book? By one of those people?!? Harsh...but fair. I'll give it my best shot! But I'm telling you, part of me is addicted to chaos, a straitjacket and muzzle might still be in order, should my reading comprehension fail. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I think you should both come to my Morris dance class. Bring your own hobnails. -Roxy the inedible dog . wooF 14:56, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't seem like a winter activity, meybe later, woof anyway! InedibleHulk (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Maybe you were cyber bullied and didn't have the armor to cope with it. Sounds like you just made honest mistakes. That's a lot better than editors who deliberately mislead. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:18, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Not even close. The speculation and the assumption, anyway. That last fact's dead on. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Fourteen Years

On 03 February 2006, it was reported to the WMF that our CAPTCHA system discriminates against the visually impaired. See phabricator T6845 and phabricator T241921.

This appears to be a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and leaves Misplaced Pages open to the possibility of a discrimination lawsuit.

In particular, National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp. was a case where a major retailer, Target Corp., was successfully sued because their web designers failed to design its website to enable persons with low or no vision to use it.

So why, after 14 years of inaction, do we not have a set of software requirements (including a testable definition of "done") and a schedule for solving this?

And no, I will not accept any proposed "solution" that lacks:

• The name of an WMF employee who has been given the assignment of fixing this,
• A budget that says how much the WMF expects to spend on solving this,
• A deadline that says how long the WMF expects it to take to solve this, and
• A way for an independent third party to look at the results and verify whether the requirements were met.

I am left with these known facts:

• For 14 years the WMF has failed to assign a single employee or contractor the task of fixing this problem.

• For 14 years the WMF has failed to budget a single dollar towards fixing this.

• For 14 years the WMF has failed to provide any estimate of how long it is expected to take to fix this.

• For 14 years the WMF has failed to create any requirements for fixing this. (Note: "Requirements" is geek talk for "please define what 'done' is and tell us exactly how how we will recognize that whoever is working on this is done").

• For 14 years the WMF has failed to make a plan for an independent third party (which in this case means "someone with a visual impairment accessing Misplaced Pages with a screen reader") to look at the results and verify whether the requirements were met.

If the WMF is not capable of solving it, why have we not put out a call for proposals in order to find someone who can?

You can expect me to bring this up again when we hit 15 years of Misplaced Pages violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, as I have for the last four years. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 21:06, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

I think this is one of the many reasons why more freely elected community representation is needed in the WMF board of trustees. As this would allow to get the priorities right – for example by making sure that we have indeed a “💕 that anyone can edit” including visually impaired people. --AFBorchert (talk) 22:30, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

What the fun fact? That's the same day I joined Misplaced Pages! I wrote "look better eventually", even. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I think it is unfortunate that you have not added "and a pony" to your list of demands -- it would make the unseriousness with which you habitually treat this issue more palatable. --JBL (talk) 01:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

This is the first I've "heard" of it. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

The above snarky "the unseriousness with which you habitually treat this issue" comment (and calling my request that we stop discriminating against the handicapped a "demand" as if I am somehow being unreasonable) is typical of WMF apologists. For years I diligently followed every single "you aren't asking in the right place" or "you aren't asking the right way" suggestion, and the end result was... nothing. If JBL thinks I am somehow approaching this the wrong way, I suggest that they show me how it's done, approach it in what they think is the right way, and see if they can get better results than I can. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

You are not making requests, you are making childish foot-stamping demands. Ten months ago, you were suggested a particular person to reach out to who could help with the issue. As below, you rejected taking constructive action in favor of reiterating childish foot-stamping demands. People who hope to accomplish something should be reaching out to potential leads and trying to build a constituency of the like-minded; childish foot-stamping on Jimbo's talk-page does nothing to accomplish this goal. --JBL (talk) 13:37, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Right. Not discriminating against the handicapped is a "childish foot-stamping demand". You are coming very close to crossing the WP:NPA line. Could you please put away the flamethrower and go back to your previous snarky sniping?

Re: "you were suggested a particular person to reach out to who could help with the issue", that person has zero authority to add this to the WMF budget and zero authority to ask any WMF employee to work on it.

Also that person had already volunteered to "look into it" as an unpaid volunteer so it's not like they were not aware of the problem and needed me to tell them about it. as I said before, I played the "you aren't asking in the right place" game for years, dutifully following every suggestion ov a new place to bring it up, and the result was accusations of WP:FORUMSHOPPING.

If you honestly think that there is some different place that this can be asked or some different person who can be asked that will magically fix the problem, do it yourself and prove me wrong. I am done playing Whac-A-Mole. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Not discriminating against the handicapped is a "childish foot-stamping demand". No. A person can make childish foot-stamping demands about anything; it happens you are making them in relation to an important issue. If you want to improve the situation, you should drop the ridiculous posturing. --JBL (talk) 16:58, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

In case you missed it there has been recent activity at T250227 and T241921 on this. Sam Walton (talk) 11:46, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Does any of this activity involve anyone who has the authority to give a WMF employee an assignment, the authority to add this to the WMF budget, or the authority to set a deadline for completion? How about someone who works for such a person and thus might be able to suggest that they do those things? Realistically, does anyone reading this believe that is there a non-zero chance that Misplaced Pages will stop discriminating against the visually impaired any time before the original Phab ticket is old enough to vote? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

This is a good point by Guy, thank you. Yet it seems Graham87 is doing fine as a top 200 editor (Graham, what is your take on this, anything you'd suggest, or do you know of any tech which the foundation and Misplaced Pages are missing?) and the WikiMedia WikiBlind User Group may be another group of editors who would have an interest. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, because I started on Misplaced Pages long before CAPTCHAs were a thing. It's inconvenient but not impossible for blind people to get around CAPTCHAs, either by asking somebody for help or using special programs. Making CAPTCHAs accessible is a very hard problem to fix tdue to the Wikimedia Foundation's (admirable) insistance on using non-proprietary software and the difficulty of making it possible for humans to crack CAPTCHAs while deterring spambots and the like. The current CAPTCHA system doesn't just suck for blind people ... it also sucks for people who don't have English as their first language and probably others. Graham87 13:42, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, this does appear to be a hard problem. If I saw that the WMF had assigned personnel, a budget, and a deadline followed by a report from those working on it that they tried and could not do it, this would have been a completely different post. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Is the problem mainly signing up as a new member with CPTCHAs in place? Asking for help (either in person or through a sent image to the friend, family member, or to the foundation itself) seems the easiest work around. Taking down CPTCHA doesn't seem a viable or recommended option. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:06, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I am not suggesting taking down CAPCHA or any other specific solution. We already have a boatload of those. I am suggesting that the WMF assign someone to the job of fixing this problem. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Graham, I'm wondering if there are access issues with the alternate Misplaced Pages:Request an account process. The ADA doesn't require identical access, it requires reasonable access, so the pertinent question is whether this utility meets that threshold, and if not, how it fails to do so. VanIsaac_WS 14:17, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Interesting thought. If you find a way to solve this with some sort of alternative, please post it here so that the ticket can be closed. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:30, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Guy Macon:, I'm sorry to say, but I had no idea about that utility until I read the thread from January. This does not speak well to your attitude in this matter. If you care about the actual issue instead of holding a vendetta against WMF (and trust me, I'd completely understand if you did), then you really should be reading to understand instead of reading to respond.VanIsaac_WS 16:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

CAPTCHAs don't just occur when creating accounts; they can also come up when non-autoconfirmed/confirmed users try to add external links, which can happen in surprising ways ... and the software seems to be quite finicky about when it thinks an external link was added. The request an account process, which would work for screen reader users, was at the back of my mind when I replied but the last time I'd heard it was infamous for having an incredibly long backlog. That seems to have been pretty much resolved, which is a very good thing. Graham87 14:44/15:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Graham87; Ahh, I was unaware that you could run into Captchas when adding some content. I'm wondering if there shouldn't just be a link to automatically add an edit request to the talk page when that happens. VanIsaac_WS 16:10, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

The CAPTCHA help text points such users to the help desk, which is probably the most sensible option here. Graham87 16:44, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

If it's a one-off thing, then absolutely the help desk is probably just fine. But if it happens to a user adding that kind of content at every page they visit, then that is problematic and we need to have a workable accommodation to get around the limitations of the Misplaced Pages Captcha system. VanIsaac_WS 17:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Want to try something interesting? Go to Testing with the NVDA Screen Reader and Using NVDA to Evaluate Web Accessibility. Log out of Misplaced Pages, run the screen reader, turn off your monitor, and try to create an account on Misplaced Pages. See how far you get. If you manage to get to the request an account page, instead of actually requesting an account just post a message explaining that you are testing accessibility with a screen reader and then self-revert. (It's OK to print out a cheat sheet for the NVDA commands; presumably if you had no vision you would have them memorized or would create a cheat sheet in braille.) Now try following the instruction in the CAPTCHA help text, but this time if you manage to get to the help desk post a test message and then self-revert. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Donation

I just LOVE it when the donation banner pushes the article content completely off the screen. Benjamin (talk) 02:09, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

For the interested

Quoting Hindustan Times:

"If Misplaced Pages fails to respond in a timely fashion, officials said, then two legal options are available to the ministry. It can either initiate action under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which can result in the imprisonment of the parties concerned, or invoke section 69A to block access to the website in India."

More at . It's about the article Bhutan–India relations. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:50, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

For me the important thing is that Misplaced Pages be accurate and neutral. The particular area of interest here, Aksai Chin, is nowhere near Bhutan and has no relevance to the topic of Bhutan-India relations. We should follow the NPOV practice that we follow elsewhere, indicating disputed areas objectively. In this particular case, if you visit the entry Bhutan, another article which has nothing to do with Aksai Chin, you can see that Aksai Chin is shown with a dotted outline indicating the disputed status. And on the articles India and Aksai Chin all maps clearly show the disputed areas as being disputed.

Indeed, this map is the only map that I can find in Misplaced Pages (there may be others, I have not conducted a comprehensive search) which fails to inform the reader in some way that the area is disputed.

I strongly disagree with threats of censorship, of course. But someone threatening to ban Misplaced Pages for an error, is not a justification to continue in error.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:24, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

See also this map, which zooms in on the disputed area. Whether India likes it or not, the disputed area is administered by China. Who owns it? Well both India and China say its theirs...like two toddlers fighting over a toy. CaptainEek ⚓ 20:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Hello

Hello! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thi36 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 3 December 2020 (UTC)