Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-02-13

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2012-02-13. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Betacommand 3 closed, proposed decision in Civility enforcement, AUSC candidates announced (1,813 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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Linguistic liberty[edit]

I understand artistic liberties exercised in written form. I am curious regarding established standards and best editorial practices related to the presentation of information if ever a contradiction was to occur. Particularly I find: "...the multitude of sanctions in effect..." significantly embellishes the less attractive facts of the case. Unless truth and accuracy is of little consequence, a "multitude of sanctions" is unsupportable. IMO - My76Strat (talk) 03:21, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is the language used to describe the case for the last several ArbReports. I am open to any suggestions for re-wording. :) Lord Roem (talk) 03:23, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am very new here, and I would not presume to enter this esteemed project with advice. I am curious to ascertain the editorial governance that good faith editors are to strive for, here; in conforming to best practice. Now if truth and accuracy is a goal, perhaps paramount, then I would assert dissenting agreement. To be colorful, and accurate, I would suggest "the ubiquitous implications of the broadly construed sanctions in effect", or some-such form. I do thank you for considering my question. My76Strat (talk) 03:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will be sure to take your comments into consideration for future reports. I appreciate any and all criticism/advice. Please know I am always open to suggestions for all reports. :-) Cheers! Lord Roem (talk) 03:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Featured content: The best of the week (1,850 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • This week saw a change in FA delegates, with SandyGeorgia and Karanacs stepping down and GrahamColm and Ian Rose replacing them. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something is wrong with The Starry Night image. When you click on it (twice) you get an error message - it won't expand to full size. If this makes a difference, I'm using Firefox on a PC. -- Ssilvers (talk) 07:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many (most?) browsers crash when attempting to view the full size image without using the tools. To see it in your browser, you should use the special tools under the picture (one in Flash, one not), and then zoom in on pieces you find interesting. To see the whole thing at once, right click on the image and click "Save link as" to download the full image (at 88mb...) Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quite a few striking ones indeed (some of the ones that we didn't show in this issue are just as stunning) Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:06, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In focus: Skirmishes in the 'great sectarian war of the Internet' (9,565 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • What the RIAA fails to realize is that it really dosen't matter what you say, or even what the law says, once you've lost the respect of the population you come into contact with. The RIAA has a track record of underhanded legal practices that's so disgusting, and has been so well covered by the mainstream media, that people from the older, pre-digital generations (a group which I'm not a member of), and the members of the digital generation that consider online piracy immoral and find the arguments made by "pirates" unconvincing (a group which I most certainly am a member of), still dislike and distrust the RIAA. Cary Sherman can yell and scream and shout (and write NYT op-eds) all he wants, but he's still the head of an organization so reviled by the people he's trying to reach that his screaming and shouting and writing op-eds only serves to energize those who oppose him. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hear, hear! ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 09:19, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • we need an education plan for congress. what is wikipedia, why we're not "corporate pawns". a little briefing tour on the hill by wikipedians, perhaps as a part of wikimania, would be a start. this is a zombie issue, they will keep coming back. they may be reviled, but in a vacuum, they had a draconian bill all set for passage. we need a contingency plan for moving servers, iceland comes to mind. Slowking4⇔ †@1₭ 16:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • When I think about explaining Wikipedia, or really even the internet, to congresspeople, this comes to mind. What we need are a few more congresspeople who are right on the minimum age line, i.e. people who have grown up with all this technology. That and less corporate money flowing into Congress. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • good point, it is like explaining the internet to your parents. we need to show up in person, and bond with all the polysci majors in congressional offices. they understand, they need a reason to brief their member. "melting the phones" is not a solution. if they understood the widespread grassroots support of open knowledge, then the money would have less impact. more common sense talk will defeat the pro-sopa hysteria. Slowking4⇔ †@1₭ 16:54, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • ... broadcast media such as television and radio networks did not use their access to an audience to push their point of view ... - well, I don't know about this particular situation, but, in general, if there is anyone who thinks that (for example) Fox News does not push a particular political point of view, I have a bridge that I'm willing to sell them. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:25, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Their point of view on this particular topic is what was meant; no pro-SOPA adbreaks during the Simpsons, in other words. Skomorokh 16:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Like most of Sherman's piece, likely not really true: TV networks just didn't cover SOPA much until the 18 January protests (CNN did on air and online, and pretty fairly) and did run ads against SOPA: some opponents called the situation a "media blackout". —innotata 20:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe this is the wrong place for this question, but can anyone briefly explain to me how a passed SOPA/PIPA would affect WP's fair use status? Would anything change in that regard? Nolelover Talk·Contribs 16:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nolelover, here's your answer, from my uncompleted WMF "manufacturing consent" FAQ (disclaimer - I oppose SOPA/PIPA, etc)

Q: But Wikipedia was in mortal peril! A: Even the Wikimedia General Counsel conceded regarding site take-down, that "The new version now exempts U.S. sites like ours." (see also e.g. Techdirt - Pirate Bay immune). Why do you believe the mortal peril misinformation?

Q: But laws can be misused! A: Haven't you just created a grotesque Wikipedian version of the terrorist-scaremongering "One Percent Doctrine" where "If there's a 1% chance that (a proposed law can be used against Wikipedia), we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.". Obviously, that way lies madness. So what would determine when there's a protest? Practically, when those in power start beating the war-drums.

-- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 16:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So nothing-ish. :/ That's kinda what I had thought...well then, is there any specific part of Wikipedia that would be majorly affected - not the big broad stuff that we all hear about, but a feature of this site specific to Wikipedia that would be affected, and is in some way different from the 'other' websites out there opposing this bill? Nolelover Talk·Contribs 18:12, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there's anything that would "majorly" affect Wikipedia. The proof of this is that above, General Counsel labored mightily to produce a "parade of horribles", and at best, came up with a scenario that under some possible (though not certain, but to be fair, not utterly absurd) interpretations, Wikipedia might have to remove some links. This is offensive in principle, but practically I'd say pretty minor. Especially given the way link-removal and spam-blacklisting is sometimes used as a political matter in Wikipedia. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 18:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, thanks for the answers. :) Nolelover Talk·Contribs 19:07, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
J. Howard Miller's "We Can Do It!" poster

We Can Do It! (a Wikipedia article about a war time poster, also known as "Rosie the Riveter") by Binksternet has an interesting example of unintended consequences of copyrighting. According to the article, although Norman Rockwell produced a similar poster that was used to sell war bonds and appeared on the cover of the Memorial Day issue of the Saturday Evening Post, following the war, the Rockwell painting gradually sank from public memory because it was copyrighted; all of Rockwell's paintings were vigorously defended by his estate after his death. This protection resulted in the original painting gaining value—it sold for nearly $5 million in 2002. Mathew Townsend (talk) 21:36, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Techdirt's Mike Masnick complaining about other people not knowing what they are talking about when it comes to copyrights is just insane. The guy's whole shtick is to completely misrepresent what the laws and court decisions actually say to try to justify pretty much any and all copyright violations he hears about. Unfortunately a lot of the people opposing copyright enforcement are being misled by similar voices saying equally incorrect things. It's propaganda, nothing less, and a lot of well-meaning but naive Internet activists are following it to support businesses who actively and knowingly profit off of wide scale copyright violations. Wikipedia has a huge group of equally deluded folks running around talking about things they are woefully misinformed about. DreamGuy (talk) 19:24, 19 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the news: Scholars and spindoctors contend with the emergent wikiorder (8,306 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Timothy Messer-Kruse came up against our system of content management, and our system of content management quite rightly won. Messer-Kruse may like to look at WP:HISTRS that covers Wikipedia's epistemological conceptions in relation to History articles. In particularly, Messer-Kruse can be confident that our emphasis on Review Articles and WEIGHTing sourced from the introductions to field survey books by historians is the basis of our WEIGHTing policy in History articles. If Messer-Kruse wants to change the article on the Haymarket martyrs, the first thing to change is the consensus amongst the scholarly community itself. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I bumped into "Ownership Issues" at Haymarket affair also. I did get substantial corrections and improvements made, but not without issues. And I should probably go back and make sure the fixes stayed up, now that I'm thinking about it. You know who you are. Knock it off. Carrite (talk) 07:01, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh, I see from the Chronicle of Higher Education article that somebody used The Supreme Wikipedia Idiocy™ on the professor -- the distilled 200-proof mind-numbing stupidity that "Wikipedia is concerned with Verifiability, not Truth." HORSESHIT!!! Wikipedia is concerned with verifiability and veracity. That other moron slogan needs to go in the dumpster. However, given our systemic ultra-conservatism with respect to policy changes that will happen when pigs fly. Still, any intelligent person using that Orwellian idiocy should be ashamed of themselves... Carrite (talk) 07:11, 15 February 2012 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 07:18, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Given that this is a 10 year old project, with rapidly changing policies, I'd suggest that we're not that conservative for a militantly free as in beer free as in speech volunteer project that supplies more highly ranked google results than any other economic information project. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Checking the talk page, it appears that the professor tried to use a blog as a source. The two editors who appear to be heavily involved with that article, User:Malik Shabazz and User:Gwen Gale rightfully explained to him why that wouldn't work, but may have gone too far with the "undue weight" argument, as the article appears to be long enough to be able to present more information. Cla68 (talk) 07:50, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sweetheart when you appear on the same page as the National Autism Society, Natural News, and Mercola you realise that Google is no arbiter of quality, but is mostly concerned with churn. John lilburne (talk) 12:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • According to MesserKruse's User contributions page, he only made a dozen edits in 2009 and another dozen edits in 2011. He gives up too easily. He didn't understand some of the basic Wikipedia rules, like giving reasons for the changes in the edit box, and not using blogs as WP:RS. If you're writing a term paper, you have to follow MLA style. If you're writing for WP, you have to follow WP style. I concede WP style can be clunky and confusing, but so is any big style book. MesserKruse made the classic mistake of saying, "I'm an expert, I found this in my research, I'm right, Avrich is wrong, do it my way." People didn't accept his changes because he didn't follow the rules. We're happy to work with academics, but give us a chance. Learn the culture and follow the rules, just like you make your undergraduates do. Haymarket affair now incorporates his research (although not as unequivocally as he might like). I think Haymarket affair proves the opposite of MesserKruse's complaint in the Chronicle -- WP can incorporate the views of experts. I hope he's happy. Best of luck with the new book. --Nbauman (talk) 19:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think your comment about "not using blogs" highlights what many people can find confusing or off-putting about Wikipedia. In the original discussion on the Haymarket Talk Page and in your comment blogs have been written about as if they are completely ruled out for sourcing information (e.g. you wrote "not using blogs" rather than "not normally using blogs"). But WP:RS actually says blogs are, "largely not acceptable". The word "largely" is there for for a reason, I presume - but the discussion was 'citing a blog is wrong' rather than 'citing a blog normally isn't ok; what's the reason for thinking it might be in this case?'. Certainly it's fair to expect people to be willing to understand and follow Wikipedia's rule, but in turn I think it's also important that anyone citing rules at someone else saying "you've got it wrong" take care to be precise and correct in what they're saying. That too is often a problem, at least in my experience. Markpackuk (talk) 16:12, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FIRST CHANGE:

Original text: "The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of eight police officers, mostly from friendly fire, and an unknown number of civilians."

So-called original research text: "The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of eight police officers and an unknown number of civilians."

The first statement implies that 5 or more of the 8 police deaths were from friendly fire. There are NO published sources which assert that. The second statement, which MesserKruse attempted to install, is factually accurate and backed by sources. Only it's not the version preferred by the "Page Owner," it would seem... The first statement violates NPOV ("not only were the Haymarket martyrs innocent, the bomber didn't kill the cops anyway").

SECOND CHANGE:

Merely switches content in a footnote gloss — the only reason a gloss is there at all is that the "Page Owner" prefers this method of footnoting and reverted my conversion to the Simple Standard System. No article content is changed at all.

In short, MesserKruse did nothing wrong other than come into conflict with an editor in serial violation of WP:OWN. NEITHER footnote gloss should be there and the inserted text of MesserKruse is NPOV, replacing still-standing POV text. Carrite (talk) 17:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Paywall?[edit]

I'm pretty sure there's no paywall hiding this article. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

History recorded by historian versus history recorded by machine[edit]

I'm having some trouble checking the truth of M. Messer-Kruse's account of past events against the actual edit history of the article and account contributions histories, as recorded by MediaWiki. See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 147#History recorded by historian versus history recorded by machine for details. Uncle G (talk) 08:42, 20 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

News and notes: Foundation launches Legal and Community Advocacy department (2,143 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Go LCA! :) – SJ + 08:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The U.S. State Department is partnering with Wikimedia Foundation — what could possibly go wrong? Jesus christ.............. Carrite (talk) 07:22, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikimedia Summer of Research 2011 is a dead link. Any help? Josh Parris 10:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clarification: I was recently added to the byline of this article by another user. I have since removed myself from the byline. Please be aware that I have not contributed to the Signpost since the end of 2011, and do not approve of myself being added to the byline of Signpost articles at this time. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:10, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Special report: Fundraising proposals spark a furore among the chapters (3,811 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Bishakha's point is well made. The jury is still out on questions of effectiveness. In the long run it is important for each national non-profit to be skilled in all aspects fundraising, and supported by many sources of revenue.
I wonder that fundraising discussions still bring up "automatic assignment of a fixed percentage of the funds raised to the local entity". This was a practice designed by the Foundation a few years ago for simplicity, which is no longer used.
In are a few countries a non-profit can gift (no strings attached) at most 50% of its revenue to another entity, before losing its status as an independent non-profit. That is a context in which the figure still comes up. Yet even then, this limitation does not mean that 50% they control must stay within the country. The chapter's annual plan can include major line items to cover global expenses such as servers and bandwidth costs. See for instance the first line of WM-France's last annual plan. – SJ + 03:42, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The German chapter's Jürgen Fenn said… – Thanks for quoting my statement on Stu West's blog post. For the record, I just would like to say that I am indeed an ordinary member of the German local chapter Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE), and I take part in WMDE's education programme as a course instructor and advisor, but I do not belong to WMDE's permanent staff nor am I a member of the WMDE's board. So I did not make this statement on behalf of the German chapter. – Regards, Jürgen Fenn.--Aschmidt (talk) 13:52, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Jürgen, thanks. I've clarified this in the text. I hope it's acceptable now. Tony (talk) 14:37, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, Tony, that's fine with me.--Aschmidt (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Wikimedia Foundation staff has published a detailed memo on the "local vs. global donation processing" issue (complementing Sue's recommendations) here.--Eloquence* 19:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Erik, you should be ashamed of that memo, published with so many errors (data and logic) and the spin is so transparent that it makes the errors seem intentional. John Vandenberg (chat) 07:11, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't agree, but there's good discussion happening on the talk page.--Eloquence* 01:51, 17 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why do we not simply give our donors the option of who they give to? They can donate to the WMF and outside of the USA not receive a tax receipt or they can donate to the local chapter and receive a tax receipt with the latter amount split based on what the laws allow. This would maximize the funds raised by the movement as a whole. There are definitely some people who will not donate 20$ without a tax receipt.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:44, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Technology report: January sees prototype new geodata API; but February looks to be a testing time for top developers (1,442 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Swift: "As predicted, there was minimal disruption during the switchover period." Not so minimal, it seems: Swift has now been disabled because of thumbnail corruption (affecting 1.6% of thumbnails, 4.5% of images). Purging should fix individual thumbnails while work continues on a bulk fix prior to a second migration attempt: mailarchive:wikitech-l/2012-February/058138.html — Richardguk (talk) 03:07, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't speak for anything technical about it, but there was quite a bit of disruption to the thumbnail systems this week. It was taking ~30s for a good part of the time to generate the thumbnails. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:55, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Jarry1250, for writing these clarifying reports that even I can (almost) understand. Gives me a great appreciation of wikikpedia behind-the-scenes stuff that otherwise I'd never think about. I'm actually learning a bit! MathewTownsend (talk) 14:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Seconding this. Thanks for yet another useful and cogent report, Jarry1250. Sumanah (talk) 13:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject report: WikiProject Stub Sorting (2,610 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Ooh! This is one of those things that occasional users occasionally do when they are bored. Well, at least I do... ResMar 03:22, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it's a mostly-thankless job. However, the processes for creating a new stub (and getting it approved) can often be extremely arcane, and heaven help anyone who does it wrong (even if unknowingly wrong). I've seen a lot of work wiped out without any explanation at all at times, and a lot of frustration trying to jump through bizarre and somewhat illogical hoops just to get something that will benefit the WikiProject(s) involved by having to adhere to some unexplained and undocumented format decided on by three people using darts somewhere in the distant past. I'm glad I don't do much in the way of creating new stub types anymore. It just made me tired trying to get anything useful done in a reasonable amount of time. Having to get everything stamped and approved in triplicate made it difficult to do anything useful when I only had a certain amount of time and had to waste it working through the (IMO) inane bureaucracy just to get a new stub template approved for use. Perhaps things have changed in the several years since I last battled through the system. That said, once someone does finally figure out all the strange and mysterious rules, and once one gives up and finally accepts that only this WikiProject has any say in the matter of stubs (unlike any other WikiProject out there as far as control goes), it's actually quite easy to get things done. </rant> ···日本穣? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 09:35, 15 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's great to get an insight into those behind the scenes gnomers, hats off to you all . 15:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.18.110.154 (talk)


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