Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2020-05-31

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2020-05-31. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Board member likely to receive editing restriction (8,409 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • "Board member receives editing restriction" What's with the title? This hasn't happened yet. Natureium (talk) 19:29, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the case is still open but this sanction has been voted on 7-0, and For this case there are 9 active arbitrators, not counting 2 who are inactive and 3 who have abstained or recused, so 5 support or oppose votes are a majority. Therefore, unless someone three or more arbs reverse their vote, that's that. @Smallbones: do you want to change anything here? ☆ Bri (talk) 19:44, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've been thinking about this. Technically @Natureium: is correct, but how do we correct it now? Put a new headline of "Board member to receive editing restriction" up for 2 or 3 days? If an arb or @Doc James: wants a retraction or apology, please contact me by email. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:06, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You could do the honourable thing and correct the title to something that reflects the current situation, then correct it when it changes. You don’t have a crystal ball, and your comments in this magazine should reflect reality, not what you predict it to be. - SchroCat (talk) 22:07, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the title should read "to receive", but the potential for real-life harm caused by this inaccuracy seems limited, in particular since the main text appears to state the situation correctly.
As for the idea to update it again in a few days: I'm a big fan of {{when}} in the mainspace, but Signpost articles carry a publication date; they do not need to be constantly updated to reflect future developments. Regard, HaeB (talk) 23:56, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the only change needed would be to change "receives" to "receiving" or "likely to receive" in the header. (Note: I'm recused in the case and have not looked at the merits of the decision; just offering a semantic suggestion.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 03:21, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
ditto, as NYB suggests. just think of it as fixing a grammar error. DGG ( talk ) 05:40, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Signpost words all of the arbcom decisions wrongly.

  • The DS are not "pharmaceutical drugs broadly construed" but "pharmaceutical drug prices". This is a crucial difference: only the topic of drug prices is felt toxic enough to warrant DS, not the general area of medicines.
  • The topic moratorium wasn't on "to include prices" but any non-trivial edit "on content related to pharmaceutical drug pricing". This would include removing, updating or rewording.
  • James's topic ban is wider than is stated here. It isn't "to not include prices in articles" but "prohibited from making any edits relating to pharmaceutical drug prices or pricing in the article namespace". You could shorten this to "to not edit prices or pricing statements in articles". This includes not just dollar-cent prices, but also statements like "low cost" or "generally affordable" and also prevents James from editing, updating and removing anything related to drug prices.
  • Quackguru's topic ban is "indefinitely topic-banned from articles relating to medicine, broadly construed" is more than "to not edit medicine articles". He isn't allowed to discuss them on talk pages either.

I think it important that Signpost correct these mistakes so that its readers understand the correct extent of any sanctions or bans, and can adjust their editing or report violations appropriately. -- Colin°Talk 07:43, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Smallbones: I recently re-read coverage around the time that the Guardian misreported on a still open ARBCOM case as confirmed (though obviously their inaccuracy was in a scale of its own). The Community was rightly livid, especially since many of them didn't pass. To give a perhaps more useful, example - one PD that had received enough votes to pass in this medicine case last week has now had a number of strikes and is beneath the passing requirement. I do not believe any controversial PD should be given as a headline, let alone as a confirmed statement, until case closed. A Signpost edition is by far most read in the first couple of days. While I think it unlikely, were Doc James' sanction to be withdrawn, how would the Signpost be able to confirm that everyone who had seen it had also seen the retraction? Nosebagbear (talk) 11:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have corrected the headline to read "Board member likely to receive editing restriction"

and posted the correction The original headline made it appear that the Medicine case decision was closed. Currently the votes for an editing restriction on Doc James stand at 7-0, with 5 votes needed to pass, and the votes for closing the case at 2-0, with a net +4 needed to close. We regret the error.

Thanks to everybody who commented here for their input. Smallbones(smalltalk) 11:59, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please note that one editor is about to be "indefinitely topic-banned from articles relating to medicine, broadly construed"[1] with no real clarity over whether "medicine" means Medication (the topic of most of the Arbcom case) or Medicine. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:46, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • "relating to medicine" is singular and therefore clearly refers to "the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease". If was "relating to medicines", plural, it would refer to "drugs or other preparation for the treatment or prevention of disease". If you have a problem with the signpost wording, then this is the correct talk page. If you have a problem with the Arbcom wording, then Wikipedia talk:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Medicine/Proposed decision is still open for comment. -- Colin°Talk 19:45, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can someone please explain this to me. What is problematic in mentioning the cost of medicines given that it is universally known the extreme prices are imposed, prices that only have to do with profit not cost. How are Wikipedia standards benefiting? Why at all this discussion and who brought this and what is his/her intrest in all of this? GerardM (talk) 05:08, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's a very good question, but I think almost all editors involved agreed that some prices could be included in medicine articles. The main question was how would it work. There is a rule about not including prices as part of WP:NOTCATALOG. The idea there is that price lists are usually time sensitive and used for advertising purposes. The prices of medicines has a much broader interest than that, but finding sources, time sensitivity, differences across countries - all can make reporting them difficult. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I feel that The Signpost is letting its readers down here.
Arbcom debates are not intended as public entertainment, and are certainly not accessible as such. It can be hard for an ordinary editor to figure out what the debate is about, let alone what the arguments on each side are. So it is the duty of those who report on Arbcom decisions to comment on the decision process, and to state the justification given (whether or not they accept it) for the verdict. That has not happened here. No justification for the rather surprising outcome "we should suppress this information" is mentioned in this Signpost article. Maproom (talk) 22:31, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Community view: Transit routes and mapping during stay-at-home order downtime (4,462 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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If it wasn't for the urban sprawl, I would ride COTA a bit more often. That is coming from a guy that hasn't rode COTA in almost ten years because it's not very useful outside of I-270. Nova Crystallis (Talk) 02:36, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi fellow Columbus resident - I assure you COTA has dramatically changed in the last 10 years, it's at a much better state than that time; take a look at its developments (2). Let me know if you want to work on any articles related to the city anytime. ɱ (talk) 15:26, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting, I might give this a shot on GCRTA when I have more time. Cards84664 13:08, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Has there been discussion about notability and the suitability of this type of list for Wikipedia? Around 2013 a lot of UK bus route lists were deleted under WP:NOTDIR and WP:NOTTRAVEL. There is a particular difficulty with them, in that they need maintenance, because bus operators start new services or discontinue them. Once the original editor (creator) loses interest, there is no guarantee that the list articles will be adequately maintained. Rcsprinter123 (sing) 15:40, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there have been plenty of discussions, and they've led to the articles on most similarly major transit organizations being kept. So please let's not rehash this here, this is not the place for it, nor is it even a worthy hill to die on. ɱ (talk) 22:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I like the article, and also your post. The latter is probably most useful in providing information about creating maps for a wide variety of articles. Maybe you could publish a "how-I-made-a-map" post from time to time. In the past, I have created a lot of articles about tramway networks and trolleybus systems (eg Trams in Milan, Trolleybuses in Dayton), almost always by translating an article originally published in another language Wikipedia. My creations usually include some information about the tram or trolleybus lines. I seldom update any of that information, because I just don't have the time or inclination. I also live in a city that is literally thousands of kilometres away from the nearest tramway network or trolleybus system. However, other editors are welcome to update my creations, and sometimes do. (You're welcome to add some maps to the Trolleybuses in Dayton article, btw. Someone asked for some about five years ago, but none have been added as yet.) Bahnfrend (talk) 08:48, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll take a look at Dayton. On a quick read it's a fascinating subject, thanks for creating it! Take a look at Draft:Public transit in Columbus, Ohio too, many different historical transit systems that need better documentation on Wikipedia. ɱ (talk) 14:09, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
All of the Dayton routes are available on OpenStreetMap already, so feel free to follow my tutorial to add maps; otherwise I may get around to it sometime in the next months. In the middle of a lot of other Columbus projects right now. ɱ (talk) 14:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion report: WMF's Universal Code of Conduct (519 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • I'm interested to see the results of the Left Sidebar RfC. From what I read a few days ago, it doesn't seem like it will result in dramatic changes. We have a tendency to revert to the familiar and I feel like an opportunity for more radical change of the sidebar was missed here. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Featured content: Weathering the storm (2,429 bytes · 💬)[edit]

The part about the Featured Topic that was promoted is lackluster and doesn't even accurately mention who nominated the topic. GamerPro64 23:12, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • GamerPro64 The error in nominator listing is due to the script misidentifying it (exactly why I don't know). The lack of description was due to the fact that it was added literally as publication was occurring (or just about). Not an excuse, just a reason. I have amended accordingly. My sincerest apologies to all involved. Eddie891 Talk Work 23:46, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is better. But I have always think that Featured Topics gets the short end of the stick when it comes to coverage at the Signpsot. Yes its not as popular as the other three Featured Content and less Featured Topics are promoted monthly but I do find it disappointing at times. GamerPro64 23:52, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Armbrust: Nope, just an oversight on my part. I'm still figuring out the best way to handle each section. I'll pipe them shortly and make a mental note that piping is something the script doesn't do on its own. Thanks for bringing it up, I hadn't noticed that. Apologies, Eddie891 Talk Work 11:50, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Armbrust: should be fixed. Thanks again for bringing it up. Eddie891 Talk Work 11:57, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

From the editor: Meltdown May? (2,062 bytes · 💬)[edit]

Red links[edit]

  • What's with all the red links in this article? Schwede66 19:09, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Schwede66: – Fixed Jonatan Svensson Glad (talk) 19:15, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sometimes this happens ... if we have blue internal links during development of the issue, they become red links during publishing and vice-versa. And the publishing scripts don't correct in-article links to the current issue. So we have to remember to fix it up right before or right after. Fortunately, our kind readers often fix it. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:20, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lost faith is earned back by setting a good example and acting as a role model. EllenCT (talk) 23:30, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Anti-harassment RfC[edit]

On June 6th, 2020, ArbCom opened the long awaited RfC on Anti-harassement. The questions from Arbcom deal mostly with how Arbcom should deal with harassment cases. This is related to enforcement of an UCoC as mentioned in the article above. It does not however what should or should not be in an UCoC. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 11:49, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Let's talk about an Universal Code of Conduct[edit]

Please join the conversation. Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 11:49, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I find a non-discrimination policy with respect to volunteers, users and editors? (https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Non-discrimination_policy is restricted to staff an contractors.) Ad Huikeshoven (talk) 11:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]


What are the current guidelines on English Wikipedia?

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What should be mentioned as permissible conduct in an UCoC?

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What should be mentioned as not-permissible conduct in an UCoC?

  • ...

Gallery: Wildlife photos by the book (570 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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Charles, your photographs are amazing!! And so are Frank's. I am inspired to get busy in post for some of the photos I've been remiss in "developing". Atsme Talk 📧 21:57, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the media: CBS on COVID-19, Sanger on bias, false noses, and five prolific editors (6,320 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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Great Russia Encyclopedia was an obvious scam to grab some state money. All Russian encyclopedias and dictionaries are online already. It only remains to write a bot to aggregate all in one and keep a maintenance crew. But I am sure there was lots of politics and academic burocrats to grab a piece of pie as "scientific consultants" Staszek Lem (talk) 05:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Equally importantly, Chekists simply don't need to waste any time or money building any new zones to flood with shit, because the world already offers them many existing zones to flood and doesn't bother to be wary of the flooding, not duly understanding that "the history of our sewage disposal system" hasn't ended but only evolved into another era. Karmanatory (talk) 01:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, their idea was to combat anglosaxon shit (in their understanding). And I do not know many zones for their shit besides a couple govt-owned media. Dont tell me about utube : the amount of shit there overfloods the russian one big time. Staszek Lem (talk) 04:00, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You don't know what "flodding the zone" refers to. It means pumping massive disinformation flow into existing zones of public discourse. Here are some explanations: [2], [3] Karmanatory (talk) 13:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sanger is actually a sad case. Besides the obvious blinkers on his choice of topics, with a narrow focus on US current affairs and its concerns, his piece shows a clear ignorance of WP:SUMMARY and its effects. Summary style has been around since 2004 (some time after Sanger left WP) and to call the top-level Hillary Clinton article a whitewash because controversies are detailed in articles hanging off it is to miss the point entirely. That approach is not "bias": it is encyclopedic, and conflating its effects with issues of prominence is barking up the wrong tree. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:46, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Summary style certainly does come with its issues, and certainly it could be tweaked to mitigate the issues re prominence/"buried" info, but it's just not viable these days (indeed, 2004 would make sense, since it hasn't been for a very long time). Nosebagbear (talk)
As I've commented elsewhere, Sanger needs to forget about Wikipedia & move on with his life. I used to think of him (better analogy than another I've mentioned) of being Wikipedia's Pete Best, but time & again his efforts to prove he knew better than anyone here how to create an encyclopedia have failed. An uncharitable person might say that Wikipedia succeeded because he wasn't involved any longer. And with those words, I hereby promise not to discuss the man again. -- llywrch (talk) 18:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
His partnering up with Everipedia, where you can pay to have your preferred version of an article protected, is really what did it for me. He is "correct" about bias issues, but he has no leg to stand on in terms of his personal credibility. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sanger is not disclosing his own bias and his vested interests in that article. That's its major flaw.--Pgallert (talk) 07:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do like Godwin's op-ed (disclosure, I almost always like Godwin), with particular reference to his example/analogy of a third common use-case - the bookshops/libraries example where a content neutral model isn't needed but they still aren't liable for their offerings' words. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:42, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • That Slate article is actually a fascinating point. As has been said many times, one of Wikipedia's greatest strengths is its radical transparency - everything is recorded and saved. Somehow it never occurred to me how valuable that would be for historians! Ganesha811 (talk) 15:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Funny how reporting facts has become "left-wing". Kaldari (talk) 18:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unfunny. Not that the complaint was of any merit, but one may report facts selectively. Or use only sources with a particular bias branding the "other side" as "partisan" and "unreliable", that's just what sanger did :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 19:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am happy to continue ignoring the opinions of an "ex-founder" who has essentially been irrelevant to the project for almost two decades. I'm sure I can catch up on his views through his latest failed project Citizendum... InfoBitt?... Everipedia?... the Knowledge Standards Foundation that is "defining tech standards for encyclopedias"? or was it Encyclosphere? It's hard to keep track. I think it is best if Mr. Sanger moves on and stops worrying about the project that got away. Nihlus 03:59, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • He'll never be able to move on. He already blew through his 15 minutes of fame. Forevermore, he will be "that guy who co-founded Wikipedia, but Didn't Get It." This is unfortunate, of course, but considering Citizendium etc., I think it's not something he can change at this point. He now has a very public history of repeatedly Not Getting It, and it's probably too late to change that now. --NYKevin 21:31, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

News and notes: 2019 Picture of the Year, 200 French paid editing accounts blocked, 10 years of Guild Copyediting (8,438 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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Editing back at 2010 levels[edit]

  • Editing is certainly up across the board, and not just general edits; to give two anecdotes, the featured list project has abruptly reversed two years of decline, with successful nominations cresting 20 per month for both April and May (see Wikipedia:Featured list statistics, to be updated with May numbers tomorrow), and outstanding nominations the highest they've been in years; on an entirely different side of the wiki, the video game project has seen the number of good article promotions jump from the 5-7 per month range in January/February to 15 just in May- and 3 FAs besides. Silver lining to all clouds, I suppose. --PresN 02:38, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Catching undisclosed paid editors[edit]

  • French Wikipedia catches undisclosed paid editing firms by posing as customers: so, good news and better news. first we are able to identify and took action in time. now better news: perhaps its time to discuss and brain storm various other or new strategies to minimise impact of rouge behavior.Vishnuvardhan leela (talk) 02:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Posing as customers is also occasionally considered here. I suspect we'd want a degree of community backing before we sent any admins down that route, probably with BCCs to a dedicated arb email (who'd also have a link between any pseudonyms and usernames used), to provide at least a minimum oversight in what could be inflammatory in event of certain mistakes (I should note, community agreement would be wise, if not critical, before going down that road in any organised fashion). Nosebagbear (talk)
It was great that Merc suggested the cross-wiki anti PAIDCOI setup - I realise I couldn't really be involved in helping it, but I was thinking the same thing as I read it, so it'd be great to see. A meta paid-editing discussion, to get some more ideas cross-wiki is probably due, given the time since the last one. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:13, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more worried about rogue behaviour than rouge behaviour, and this looks like a classic example of WP:Rouge Admins catching rogues. I suspect one problem will come if we catch otherwise legit members of the community. I remember with WP:NEWT, some members of the community strongly believed that "mystery shopping" is unethical. I'm not sure why, perhaps there are parts of the world where it is deprecated. However I would caution against using your real life employer as the shopper. apparently one of the French admins did that, and hopefully they got their employer's agreement to do so. Most of the places where I have worked in my life would take a very dim view of one of their employees using the company name in that way. That said there is a great role here for chapters, shell companies are cheap. ϢereSpielChequers 11:00, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We should definitely have a discussion about "posing" here. My first reaction to hearing about this story was "of course they caught real paid editors - this is such an obvious way of doing it - but the (the admins) would have been punished on enWiki for about 5 violations." None of what I say below is criticizm of the French admins - I see no evidence that they violated frWiki rules. The moral case for the use of "posing" by the frWiki admins is clear: there were people systematically violating Wiki rules by lying and other deception to mislead readers, essentially stealing adverts from a non-profit.
If doing this on enWiki the rules likely to be interpreted as being violated might be included under WP:Harassment, "outing" for when they posted the results, "investigating fellow wikipedians " (yes that in there), not assuming good faith, deceiving fellow Wikipedians (battleground behavior). None of these make any sense to me under these conditions, but I'd expect some of this would come up here.
I wouldn't recommend getting these "posing parties" pre-approved by any official groups - they'd likely be afraid of being banned themselves and would never approve. We can compare similar cases in the real world where the technique is used. In law enforcement undercover operation are used, but in most cases I believe they preapproved by courts - something like a warrant to prevent abuses. Under US "Cannons of Journalism" undercover reporting is allowed but only as a last resort - if there is an important story that can't be otherwise covered. Strict editorial supervision is required. There are other cases like the NAACP sending around people posing as renters - a black couple, and a white couple - to see if there is discrimination. There's no law against such "deception" as far as I know. I'll leave it there for now, but would love to hear reactions. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:18, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The rules there are all pretty big ones. I don't think arbs would be concerned about being blocked if en-wiki said "yes, you can do this for a duration of one year, all with prior arbcom authorisation and oversight, with reporting to take y form, with duty to ensure local legal compliance left to the users (as always)". Whether the community were willing to agree to that, I don't know, but I know some people who really, REALLY, would like to see more action taken against paidcois and this is a viable route. I suppose there's the tough bit where you have to let (non-egregious) damage sit on some pages for some considerable amount of time to avoid giving the game away too early. Nosebagbear (talk) 15:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This might work against some of the small-fry paid editing firms on enWiki, but if we had to run an RfC, everybody would be warned against it. Getting Arbs to secretly say they preapprove this - well I just can't imagine that happening. If any admins want to do it as a story for The Signpost, please submit a proposal - and if I approve it - you'll definitely get strong editorial supervision - but please be aware that there's a chance that everybody involved, including me, would get a lot of grief and might even be banned. I'd need a strong moral case, and a clear understanding of why the admins think it's not against enWiki rules. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:01, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Woah, how did I never notice before that it's spelled "rouge"; that's amazing haha!
On a more serious note, everyone in this thread needs to go read Wikipedia:The one question (or WP:IAR, if you prefer) — the rules exist for a variety of reasons, but themselves is not one of them. There are potential downsides, absolutely, but those should be discussed on their own merits. And in light of the urgent problem this innovative tactic could help address, I think there would be significant support for it if done cautiously. Even if the company catches on, it would still have the effect of deterring them from sending examples of past work to clients, and if that in turn deters real customers, that's a plus for us. And if they don't catch on, it could yield not just sockpuppets, but evidence that a civil court might admit if the WMF ever files against them for breaching Wikipedia's Terms of Use. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 18:03, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

News from the WMF: WMF Board announces Community Culture Statement (5,860 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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So if I understand this correctly, there will be only one code of conduct everywhere on the WMF? That’s a good idea, though I personally thought it was already implied that we have to avoid any harassment or bad behaviour. RedBulbBlueBlood9911|Talk 02:52, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct. But "already implied" seems to be inadequate, as might be expected considering that we have people editing from all over the world with different understandings and customs. Smallbones(smalltalk) 12:34, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, what it would do is place a minimum standardised set of criteria (with the issue that different groups of individuals need different minimums, and a global minimum may overshoot some of these), but local communities can place more strenuous restrictions on top of that. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As a query, is there a definition for "community functionaries". I'd always thought that both en-wiki and meta use "functionary" (all of which are community functionaries) to mean several limited groups (CUs, OS, 'crats etc), but that doesn't work here. I could well be wrong about meta use, if someone is able to confirm that? Or have they just picked words without ensuring lack of clash with current meta definitions? Nosebagbear (talk) 12:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any place where we can see or take part in discussions for this proposed code? I was considering proposing a rule against people accusing other of bias, especially political, or alleging racism/communalism without any proof (for example, in many articles relating to Indian politics (especially involving Hindu-Muslim relations) like Talk:2020 Delhi riots, a few users (possibly right-wingers?) were acting like pro-Modi Twitterati and accusing Wikipedia of bias, when the problem lay in the fact that mainstream media covered whatever they disliked, and blatantly biased media sites (some of which were banned from being used as sources due to doxing) were covering what they liked) RedBulbBlueBlood9911|Talk 12:58, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@RedBulbBlueBlood9911:, The place where discussions are taking place is meta:Talk:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard/May 2020 - Board of Trustees on Healthy Community Culture, Inclusivity, and Safe Spaces. At least that's where volunteers are leaving comments, & talking to each other; it's an open question just how much effect anything written there will have on the final draft. But if we don't participate, we will certainly have no effect on it. -- llywrch (talk) 20:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • As we say in Norwegian - veien til helvete er brolagt med gode hensikter... - in English that is something like "the road to hell is paved with good intentions...". I have no doubt that this is initiated by good people, meaning all the best. I am however not so sure that it will be to the best of Wikipedia. Ulflarsen (talk) 19:09, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • In principle, I support the idea of a baseline code of conduct to be adopted by all WMF projects. This is long-overdue. But in practice, my support depends on the details of that baseline.
    In particular, I am concerned that the WMF's statement follows the current dangerous trend towards viewing conduct issues solely through the lens of group cohesion and anti-bullying principles, with far too little emphasis on the fact that the purpose of this group is to build an encyclopedia. Civility is undoubtedly a necessary condition for enyclopedia-building, but it is not a suffcient condition: competence is also required.
The narrow focus on civility is now frequently serving to privilege the Randy in Boise-style editors who fail to recognise the limits of their own competence, but who are frequently adept at leveraging conduct policies to denounce those who critique their incompetent contributions. Instead, they denounce as "uncivil" or as "bullying"/"bludgeoning" etc any critiques of their unevidenced, poorly reasoned contributions to consensus-forming discussions, and adopt a definition of "civility" which amounts to "how dare you challenge my lack of policy, evidence or sound logic".
This tendency to characterise normal scholarly discourse and critique as "bullying" or "harassment" has the potential to hollow out Wikipedia by structurally disadvantaging Wikipedians with expertise and/or those who employ critical thinking. Its end-product will be a project dominated by under-skilled editors who don't recognise their own limitations. The remedy is fairly simple: to include in the baseline code of conduct a requirement for all editors to adopt scholarly rigour, to recognise the limits of their own competence in that regard, and to act within those limits. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:39, 7 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Obituaries: Dmitrismirnov, Kattenkruid, Muidlatif, Ronhjones, Tsirel (5,250 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Thank you for starting this section! I knew about Kattenkruid and Ronhjones, but not about the others. Too many great losses in a brief period ... thank you all for your contributions to Wikipedia! Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:52, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It makes my heart heavy when a Wikipedian passes, even though I've never met them in person. I have worked with Ron on Commons, and he will surely be missed. They were all such amazing people. We were lucky to have them, even if it was for such a brief period of time in the grand scheme of things. Atsme Talk 📧 01:02, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I appreciate (liking feels wrong given the contents) this little corner of the signpost. I hope it stays. --Dutchy45 (talk) 11:35, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a saddening section of the signpost, but sort of required. People can avoid reading if they dont want to read it. Even though we interacted only three-four times, I always saw Ron's work on enwiki, and on commons. In my real life, I have seen a lot of deaths, and saw a few people dying in front of my eyes. But I still dont understand why I am so much saddened, and shaken up by hearing about Ron's death. Like I said here, I am still trying to avoid venues wherever there are signatures. —usernamekiran (talk) 14:12, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the kind words and the encouragement to continue this column. We used material from Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/2020 and that makes it a lot easier for The Signpost. Thanks to all those who contribute there. That said, my personal opinion is that obituaries are by far the toughest thing to write in any form of journalism, especially one with our limited resources (e.g. $0.00 annual budget) and the specifics of Wikipedia (e.g. anonymous editors). In the general case obits are hard to write because almost all the readers read the details in a very specific context as family members, friends, colleagues, etc. They may be in a state of shock, there likely won't be any tolerance for anything that comes close to criticism or even the slightest perceived mistake. They have personal details that we couldn't possibly have. They may compare "their" obit with others on the same page, e.g. why is this one shorter than that one, or why did you mention that guy's college but not this other guy's. I don't mean to criticize relatives or friends, but they are going through a tough time and can be very demanding. One very bad reaction to this by some journalists is to write very flowery pieces that nobody can complain about - even if they aren't true! That doesn't help anybody. On top of that the writer only gets one chance to get it right.
    • That said - Is anybody looking for a very tough job that pays exactly $0? If so send me an email. I suppose there is at lest one form of compensation. Some of the best journalists in some of the best newspapers in the world, e.g. the New York Times, specialize in obits and are recognized by their colleagues for doing it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:56, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Smallbones: If you need more help getting obits done, I wrote Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-01-27/Obituary. I just need a ping or two onwiki with the names to get started. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 20:39, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • I actually think reprinting the Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians obits is a good practice. In academic communities, obits are usually written by students or colleagues of the deceased who know both the person and their contribution to human knowledge, and often at the request of the journal's editor. My understanding is that the Deceased Wikipedians entries are written by Wikipedians in a similar position: those who were WikiFriends with the deceased as well as knowing their contributions to the encyclopedia. I think this comes close to the standard practice in collegial communities. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:35, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain. — T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

  • Deepest condolences to all of them.--Vulphere 04:44, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On the bright side: 500,000 articles in the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia (3,066 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • I am reading the section title:
" 23 500,000 articles in the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia"

and thinking "What a helluva number of articles compared to meager 6 millions on English Wikipedia!! Only recalling a bit later that I have section numbering turned on :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 06:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • I'm looking for " 23 500,000 articles..." and can't find it. If it's something that we at The Signpost can control we should certainly check for that when we copyedit. Or perhaps we'll just have to avoid putting numbers at the start of a paragraph. @Staszek Lem: could you let us know where "23 500,000" is located?
      • @Vulphere: Click your "Preferences" link, select the "Appearance tab" and check the option "Auto-number headings" (it is closer to the bottom). "23" is a section number (see, there is no comma after it). I do not think common readers ever see this option, so starting with numbers is OK. My post was intended as an insider joke; sorry for confusion. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Entering June, I became more busy with things at home during current pandemic restrictions. Drawing a lot of International Typographic Style-influenced posters, I like the beautiful colours and the simplicity of this design style.--Vulphere 10:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • And after this the Wikimedia stewards rewarded us by: De-sysop and lock arz:User:Al-Dandoon, De-sysop arz:User:HitomiAkane and De-crat arz:User:Ghaly, what a magnificent way to encourage Wikimedia projects to keep the hard work!, I guess this would be a great story for the next post! HitomiAkane (talk) 06:56, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is the number of articles exponentially increasing on arz-wiki? It's almost at 1 million articles now, apparently due to mass article translation. HᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴏGᴇɴᴇꜱɪꜱ (talk) 15:55, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On video: COVID-19 spurs innovations in Wikimedia video and virtual programming (0 bytes · 💬)[edit]

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-05-31/On video

Op-Ed: Where Is Political Bias Taking Us? (17,198 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Excellent op-ed and observations. I echo many of your points and as a matter of fact, I have unwatched many pages in several topics because of what you describe. I also want to point out that someone has done an analysis of AE (and AN/ANI to a lesser extent) with regards to topic of the action, person bringing the action, accused and admins involved, and what the disposition was. I imagine most people won't be surprised when the end result was that those on the left fared far better than those on the right with regards to sanctions. Clearly something has to be done with how we deal with biases and behavior and disputes on Wikpedia. Sir Joseph (talk) 19:42, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • One might expect that if a person's political perspective is relevant to proposed sanctions then it's more likely than average to be a major deviation from the mainstream. If we compare the far-left to the far-right, we might find that the latter group is ideologically driven by racism, misogyny, queerphobia and all the rest of it, issues far more likely to cause personal friction with other editors than a far-left person's ideological motivation of counteracting perceived institutional biases. There are, of course, many other factors, such as pseudoscience as a side-effect of a far-right person's belief system in a way that isn't symmetric on the far-left. — Bilorv (talk) 22:38, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sadly, your comments prove we have a problem. If you caricature one side of the spectrum in such outlandish terms then you might have a real myopia regarding your own partisan beliefs. It's worth pointing out that the typical beliefs of editors here do not necessarily match the typical beliefs of the readership. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:26, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oh I'm fully aware of my own "partisan" beliefs—I've got a case of chronic left-wing-ness (though that doesn't mean I support a particular political party)—but I notice that you aren't acknowledging yours, nor was the person I replied to. It seems your partisan belief left you with some comprehension difficulties regarding the fact I was limiting my comments to the far-right, for reasons I clearly explained. Or have you really had a positive and pleasant experience with far-right editors on Wikipedia? — Bilorv (talk) 08:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • I didn't reply because it's not worth replying to. I posted about bias on Wikipedia and about AN/AE, and you wrote about the far-right, kind of implying that those of us who run afoul of the admins are far-right or far-left, maybe, I don't know? So your post really has no place here because either it's a thinly veriled personal attack or it's just silly. In any event it does kind of prove the bias of Wikipedia. Sir Joseph (talk) 14:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Few editors have dared to speak up about the issues because of the chilling effects of having admins with unbridled power" - Alternatively, most editors simply don't care, and those that do care are happy with the status quo. If sanctions were never "discretionary" then admins wouldn't be needed at all, a robot could handle things. Being an admin always has and always will require judgment. It is possible that any one admin exhibits bad judgment at times, but this article seems to think that the solution is to never let admins assess the situation and respond as best they see fit, a policy that if seriously implemented would create 10x as many problems as the current one. I'm not familiar with the author's particular case; maybe they really were on the bad end of a rampaging admin. But the proper fix would be to rein in that admin and revoke their privileges in the very worst cases, not declare that admins have no authority to follow the spirit of the rules and must surrender to any Wikilawyering over quibbles. SnowFire (talk) 19:50, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree, we all know there are some admins with more power than others and can get their way. I remember admins violating strict ARBCOM rules, and yet nothing happened because of status. There most certainly is a hierarchy and that is chilling and when those admins have absolute power to block and ban, then it makes people shut up in front of them. Sir Joseph (talk) 19:56, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The number of active male editors in the political arena dwarfs the number of active females, and the same applies to real-world career politicians. Such an imbalance may contribute to the aggressiveness and bullying we occasionally encounter ...". - Unless the article suggests that male editors are engaged in intrasexual competition, I am at a loss as to how the sex imbalance contributes to "aggressiveness and bullying". -- Black Falcon (talk) 22:05, 31 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Atsme, thank you for providing this context. The BBC article was, at various points, disturbing (e.g., the parts about harassment and death threats) and puzzling, or perhaps just written unclearly (e.g., the article appears to equate "fear[ing] for [one's] safety" and having one's work "contested"/receiving "negative feedback"). The article Gender bias on Wikipedia invokes images of a scrap pile—an unorganized collection of many potentially useful bits and pieces. If you're open to a suggestion: it may help to clarify to whom the "we" in "we occasionally encounter" refers. -- Black Falcon (talk) 04:43, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • You are quite welcome, Black Falcon. As for clarification, "we" would be any editor who edits political articles and happens to encounter such a discussion, hopefully not as the target of bullying or aggression. I set-up "us" and "we" in the lead sentence of that section. 😊 Atsme Talk 📧 13:37, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for taking a stab at this. I immensely dislike the conservative news outlets in the US using Sanger's recent blog post about Wikipedia bias as a political football, but I do think he made some good points. I generally refrain from editing in modern day contentious political areas for a number of reasons (I prefer the historical stuff), but fear of admin action is not one of them. If anything, it's the mudslinging that gets dredged up to ANI by the regular participants who can't agree on something. I'd much rather avoid those kind of editors who take it upon themselves to police everything in those areas via battleground mentality, because it's just not that fun or productive. -Indy beetle (talk) 02:53, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • You make a good point in that last sentence. "Not that fun" can be a death knell for something that's 100% volunteer driven. That noxious aroma could put off more and more people from more and more topics. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:15, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find that one of the bigger flaws with the whole DS issue (that I've found myself engaging more with for harm reduction, despite hating the concept and not being a fan of the execution) is the difficult in overturning that you mention. Unilateral capability can be necessary, though certainly subject to major improvement. But AE is so reticent to overturn cases that don't have clear errors of judgement - appeals should succeed unless there's a clear demonstration the admin was correct. "Oppose change, per Admin discretion" where the price is the blocking of editors out of articles is too high a cost for me. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:50, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for mentioning the overturn issue, Nosebagbear. Disruption in one admin's eyes may not be disruption in another's, and the same applies to PAs, as exampled in this discussion. Another problem with difficulty in overturning, it handcuffs an editor to the actioning admin (apologies for using my case diffs but I cannot make bold statements without evidence and they're handy), and that simply doesn't work, especially when an admin wants/expects the editor to rethink their approach generally which I consider cognitive restructuring, and an attempt to modify an editor's thought process so that they fit into a particular mold in the homogenized utopian community built in the mind of the acting admin. That is not the job of our administrators, especially if the case was one where there was no disruption worthy of triggering an action in the first place, and it can and does happen. I think it does more harm than good to the project. Admins were elected to stop disruption, not prevent it based on their POV, political persuasion and/or prejudice against an editor, unknowing or otherwise. Prejudice and bias is hard to detect when you're the one wearing it. Atsme Talk 📧 15:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Spotting it is second nature to me." I've been practicing at it, and I've come up with a few tips. First, remove any adjectives or adverbs. Second, replace any non-neutral verb with one that has no connotations ("Trump fired back" becomes "Trump responded"). Third, remove any speculation/future tense material. This makes it easier to pick out parts that are editorial fluff and get down to bare facts. Doing this turns a surprising number of articles into either a copy of what they said yesterday, or reduces it to nothing. Argento Surfer (talk) 20:21, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • My experience in AP2 is that many times editors doing this ("this" meaning copyediting) are accused of "whitewashing", "gutting" an article, or some other variety of POV pushing. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 02:15, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for writing this. It's a conversation the community needs to have. I think AE, and really the entire DS system, needs wholesale reform, if not removal. I do have one very strong disagreement with the op-ed, though: "war of the worlds" is linked to War of the Worlds (2005 film) and not to the original, H. G. Wells's 1897 The War of the Worlds. I could forgive linking to Orson Welles's The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama), but linking to the Tom Cruise movie? Outrageous. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 02:15, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good article. I would like to add that political bias is also rampant in Indian politics on Wikipedia, sometimes to a harmful level (no wonder there are more stringent restrictions there). For example, here are some cases I have personally seen:
  • IP editor, who registered to vandalise Paatal Lok by calling it "Hinduphobic" (basically a term used by right-wingers in India against movies, TV shows and their cast if the villain happens to be an "upper caste" Hindu) - Got banned immediately, no issues.
  • Some Indian editors, requested in a half-polite half-rude manner on Talk:2020 Delhi riots that it be noted that Muslims started the violence (I personally believe both sides were acting out of hatred). This request was denied by other editors multiple times, because mainstream media showed the side on which Hindus were mainly committing crimes, while biased sites were showing what the right-wingers wanted.
  • An experienced editor was editing the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (basically the Bharatiya Janata Party’s parent organisation) in ways suggesting that it was a Hindu supremacist organisation, but added sources. While adding sources is good, the issue lay in the type of sources, and in the fact that many of those sources seemed to be inherently biased.
  • Not on Wikipedia, but an amateur journalist working for an Indian right-wing fake news outlet (technically, they do report real news, but they twist it to match their agenda) wrote an article about Wikipedia being a haven for leftists and all such nonsense, when he got banned for adding his reviews to movies and harassing other Wikipedians.
  • The same media outlet above later doxed the experienced editor in the third case (they found his name, education, employer and some people demanded that he be fired and arrested for bias, and even filed a case with the police! Of course, I don’t know if he was fired or arrested but I guess multinational corporations and the police have better things to do than appease Indian jerkservatives who are hurt by what they read from some American servers).
  • So to conclude, political bias is a bigger problem in some areas, and it has already reached serious levels. With these levels of harassment and misbehaviour, we may need stricter rules than before. RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 14:57, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • We do not edit articles here for our fellow WPedians, but for the general public, whose views can be different from those that most of us hold. Of course, we wish to educate them. We will not convince them by arguing with them, nor will we enlighten them by presenting material the way a news source in sympathy with our opinions does. The only hope of educating them to see the real nature of the world is by presenting factual material about events and people's actions and beliefs, in the most carefully neutral manner possible. It must be presented so that they will accept that we write it because it is true and verifiable, not because it expresses our views. Many of those most active in Wikipedia feel free to express their bias: by slanting articles towards their views, by accepting disproportionately long and polemical articles on their views, and minimizing the number and length of articles on people who hold opposing views--and, where they cannot minimize them, lengthening them to include as much negative material as possible. This is foolish. It ruins our usefulness, and gives those who do not actually believe in the free expression of ideas weapons to attack us. There is no need to expand material on the stupid and dangerous behavior of a particular head of government, because the plainest presentation of the facts will make it clear enough. If we include the few instances he has accidentally been correct, at the same emphasis as the others, the contrast will be evident to even a reader initially biased in his favor. Long ago here I used the example, that it is not necessary to explicitly call Stalin a tyrant--his deeds make it obvious. The analogy holds.
(You will notice I have not argued why biased writing is wrong on the basic principles of NPOV, encyclopedic writing, and ethical behavior. I am arguing for what might convince editors who might be willing to change: strategy, tactics, and exposure to the real strength of the opposition.) DGG ( talk ) 01:10, 5 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Recent research: Automatic detection of covert paid editing; Wiki Workshop 2020 (6,377 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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AUROC of 0.983 and average precision of 0.913 that sounds pretty good to me! Looking forward to seeing the results of this once it's applied in a more practical setting. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 11:57, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at it, I suspect it might help to filter out company Paidcoi SPAs, which is certainly worthwhile, but the "professionals" can tweak their behaviour fairly easy to heavily minimise their appearance without that much more work (e.g. in edits used to gain AC). Nosebagbear (talk) 12:45, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Goodhart's law applies. Nemo 14:16, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've been working in this arena for a while, and in fact have a credit in the paper for contributing labeled data that was used to train the model. We aren't sure how sophisticated some of these operations are but my feeling is there's a distinct break between the activities of the outfits catering to well-funded Global North entities (in particular corporations and their executives, entertainers/entertainment companies, and politicians and political groups) – probably what you mean by the "professionals" – and the rest. I wouldn't be surprised if the former are highly aware of the investigative techniques used on-Wiki, and adapt to whatever metrics and techniques we apply, but the latter are unable to, at least quickly. But the greatest volume of stuff that has to be dealt with is due to the less sophisticated group, and it would still be useful to have tools that willow that away so human effort can be focused on the remainder. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, or in other words it's easy to focus on the least consequential cases, while large-scale manipulations by well-funded enemies of the neutral point of view will be left untouched. Nemo 18:00, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's kind of the opposite of what I said. Enhanced tools can help identify the least consequential cases; and dogged and talented experts can detect large-scale manipulations by well-funded enemies of the neutral point of view. You should drop in at WP:COIN and see how it works. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:47, 2 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Sdkb: I put together the dataset that the authors used and generated a lot of the features. When I last checked on unseen articles, it was classifying 50% as UPE... so clearly not much help in practice. Admittedly I wasn't aware they'd published this and they might have improved, but the metrics they were getting back then were pretty similar. I still think this is possible, but it requires a lot more work to generate the training data. SmartSE (talk) 17:16, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re: "Among the most effective features was "the percentage of edits made by a user that are less than 10 bytes", every so often I chip away at articles containing "the The" (usually a typo, but not easily automated because of things like "...for the The Wall Tour", "Congo, Democratic Republic of the. The World Factbook", "...assessment criteria in the THE rankings" and "They were christened by the media as the "The" bands"). So, like many who look for typos, I have a large percentage of edits made by a user that are less than 10 bytes. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Guy, some of your edits might score high on that axis, but I don't think you would be selected by the algorithm due to the additional features outlined in 4.2 User-based features. Both of these would score low: average time between two consecutive edits made by the same user in the same article and the percentage of edits made by a user that are less than 10 bytes. Unclear if the last thing is scored across the suspicious article or across the account's lifetime, but either way. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:03, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure that this is the correct place to suggest a wiki page to subject to examination; I think the wiki on Connections Academy reads like a sales pitch and would benefit the community to subject it to scrutiny. Thanks! 146.14.46.201 (talk) 02:12, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:COIN is the best place to do this kind of thing, but heck - why not do it here and focus just on what I can count:
    • 10 awards in a list, and I've never heard of a single one of them
    • 2 SPAs, one of whom declared on the talk page (after making a bunch of earlier edits)
    • 3-4 comments on the talk page about advertising (I lost my count!)
    • 3 good refs, about 15 overall refs. Actually a pretty good ratio.
  • So why was I counting - it's something a machine can do as in the above article. I'm not sure that a machine can determine "good refs", but I'm sure we do have lists of good and bad refs around somewhere. In total - fairly suspicious. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see this catching the professional "yourwikipediabio.com" companies. As things now stand it can be hard to spot the paid editors without laborious checking of the citations. Last year I participated in an AfD that was nominated for the subject failing GNG. The bio mentioned his New York Times "interview" yet the only mention he got was a half-sentence quote. The subject's defenders had the AfD page on watch and quickly responded to any comments supporting deletion. (Ultimately it was kept for no consensus.) Automatic detection of paid editing would flag these vanity pieces and their perpetrators before they have a chance to give the appearance of overwhelming editorial support for their clients. Blue Riband► 02:30, 8 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Special report: The sum of human knowledge? Not in one Wikipedia language edition (3,298 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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@Smallbones: See the top of https://wikipedia20.pubpub.org where it says: "Selected entries will be published in print by the MIT Press in Fall 2020, also under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license." There is also a page for the forthcoming book on WorldCat, major online booksellers, and the MIT Press website: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/wikipedia-20 Biogeographist (talk) 22:30, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Copyright holders can license material under more than one license. The linked source document unequivocally states this passage is CC-BY 4.0 licensed. All CC licenses state that they are irrevocable, so it doesn't matter if it is later published under an additional license. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:42, 20 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, the purpose of my comments is to tell people about the forthcoming book, not to contest the licensing status of this article! I imagine the licensing of the MIT Press book refers to that book as a whole (including the MIT Press typesetting). Biogeographist (talk) 00:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
One reason why people might be interested in the book, for example, is because it can be cited as a source in Wikipedia articles. Biogeographist (talk) 00:05, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it will be a great book. We *plan* on having interviews with the editors, etc. when it comes out. And, just in case, I always clear these things with the editor and the author ahead of time, even though I know the license is CC-BY 4.0. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic report: Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam (586 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • People be really bored in this pandemic they all just search and read about Michael Jordan -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 13:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Better than people only searching and reading about the pandemic like it happened in the last two Traffic Reports... igordebraga ≠ 21:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject report: Revitalizing good articles (6,338 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • #4 is most interesting to me of the suggestions, but the ArticleAlerts bot already aggregates open GAs by discipline so wouldn't be needed for that reason. Not quite confident that the other suggestions will address any core need apart from generating more administrative work. If I recall correctly, more frequent (and shorter) review drives were suggested somewhere, yes? I'd be interested in efforts intended to glorify or recognize the work of reviewing. czar 04:17, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think all of those suggestions are worthwhile. I review GA's from time to time and find it enjoyable, but it can be an involved process if the article needs a lot of work. Everything mentioned would help the project. Ganesha811 (talk) 15:27, 1 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that focusing on the GA project is the wrong area. The MilHist Wikiproject example is probably a better one. I think there are far more editors who are really into a specific topic and could be convinced that they should also review GA noms on their favorite topic (i.e. Military History editors deciding to help MilHist nomination reviews), then there are editors who just love GAs regardless of topic (and would want to join WikiProject Good articles). I'm not sure what there'd even be to talk about at the GAs-in-general Wikiproject, aside from perhaps rare changes to the review criteria. Most likely any time spent there could be more productively spent on reviewing nominations and sweeping old existing GAs for any egregious declines in quality. SnowFire (talk) 18:19, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Completely agree with SnowFire - a GA I recently got within the Milhist scope was picked up in less then a day, whereas others sit in categories like Architecture and Arts for weeks or months. -- puddleglum2.0 19:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I believe all WikiProjects should have a GA task force, it could make things easier and faster. It has to be decent. As GANs become more popular, so does this idea I just thought of recently. «Iias!:,,.:usbkI» 20:54, 6 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • As someone fairly immersed into the idea of good articles, this article was very thought-provoking and, ironically, good. User:Thatoneweirdwikier | Oh, Toodles! 20:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • But many (can I say most?) WikiProjects are semi-active or inactive. We're no longer the 2006-2008 Wikipedia. WikiProjects and their task forces only work when you have a sizable community and participate in their discussions. When it falls below that critical mass (which we know based on the declining editor count each year), we see WikiProject talk pages with many topics but minimal (if any) replies. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:17, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • An easier solution is to host backlog elimination drive once a year (similar to WikiCup competition). That should put enough of a dent to the backlog number. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:13, 17 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • First it is great to see this part of Wikipedia get some love as I believe it is one of the more important processes we have to improve article content and I would encourage anyone who has thought about reviewing an article to just jump in and do so. It can be very rewarding. Thanks Eddie891 for putting this out there. However, and I am probably in the minority here, I feel the backlog drives are at best a bandaid solution and possibly cause more damage than good (rushed reviews, reviewer burnout etc). As noted above they are not a long term solution. Also you are not going to reactivate the Wikiproject, WT:GAN has served as the de facto organisational center of GA for as long as I can remember and I don't see that changing. As for sweeps, the numbers are two large for any meaningful ones at the moment. Myself and a few other editors go through User:AnomieBOT/C/Good articles in need of review and the cleanup listing every now and again, but it is a big job and like many review processes here lacks the number of willing editors. Also authority already exists to easily demote them through individual reassessment (please do that if the article is not controversial and you are confident enough in the criteria - for the community reassessment process is even more broken than GAN). Just note the tags, contact the major contributors and wikiprojects and give them a week or so to respond. We do need a new bot operator as we can't implement many changes if we can't update the bot so this is definitely a priority. As a final thing I am not convinced focusing too much on getting wikiprojects to review there GANs is ideal. I much rather prefer a lay person to review any articles I nominate as it means I can fix anything too technical or hard to understand. At the end of the day we are an encyclopaedia for the general public not specialist groups. A-class exists for many of these projects if you really want subject matter experts. This is pretty low on the list of GA problems though. AIRcorn (talk) 06:44, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


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