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In the media

Concealment, data journalism, a non-pig farmer, and some Bluetick Hounds

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By Llewee, Bri, and Smallbones

Revealing the obvious concealment

"Wikipedia page for Biden's new Covid czar scrubbed of politically damaging material" states Politico. The article reports how an account linked to consulting firm Saguaro Strategies removed potentially politically compromising details from Jeff Zients's Wikipedia page. US President-elect Joe Biden plans to put Zients in charge of his administration's response to COVID-19. The account – which initially operated under the username Saguarostrat, was renamed, then was indefinitely blocked for undisclosed paid editing in violation of the WMF Terms of Use – removed information related to Zients's corporate career, made him appear less "Republican" and added that he left his role on the board of Facebook "over differences with company leadership over governance and its policies around political discourse" though Zients has never claimed such publicly. The article discusses how the online images of both Democrats and Republicans have been a common cause of scandal in recent years and attempts to clean them up have become a normalized part of American political life, with an inside source suggesting that while the law firms which specialize in helping candidates for senior positions through their confirmation processes generally focus on other issues such as removing social media posts, editing Wikipedia is more likely done by consultants. Another Wikipedia-related scenario mentioned was the period prior to Kamala Harris' nomination as Biden's VP candidate: her Wikipedia page "was edited far more than the other contenders for vice president and the majority of the edits were by a single person".

However, America's politicians certainly aren't the only ones not always playing above board in the Wiki world. Staffers in the Canadian and Australian governments got into hot water for Wikipedia editing in 2014 and 2016 respectively, while analysis from 2012 suggested that British MPs and their staff were responsible for nearly 10,000 changes to the site. – L

Introducing Wikipedia and data journalism

"Harnessing Wikipedia's superpowers for journalism" by Wikipedian Monika Sengul-Jones on DataJournalism.com gives a great introduction to Wikipedia in 4,000 words – with many charts, tables and illustrations. It would be worth every word even if you only wanted an academically-oriented introduction to the encyclopedia, but it spends most of those words on how journalists can use Wikipedia – a skill that many general reporters could use – and then describes how the data provided to the public as well as to reporters can be even more useful. This reporter, who has spent a couple of years writing for The Signpost, picked up a few pointers. Those Wikipedians who wish to become reporters for this newspaper are highly encouraged to read and re-read Sengul-Jones's article.

Her first example shows how a Twitter bot, which monitors Wikipedia's data feeds, revealed that an anonymous editor with an IP address from the Executive Office of the President in the White House removed the following from the article on Adam S. Boehler: "During college, Boehler was a summer roommate of his future Trump administration boss Jared Kushner." Then Sengul-Jones adds "but there's evidence the bots can be manipulated". After discussing some of the limits of Wikipedia data she quotes Benjamin Mako Hill: "The reality for journalists working on the internet is fraught [...] Most internet data sets are controlled by commercial companies. That means there's never going to be a full data set and what's available has been – or is being –manipulated. Wikipedia is different. It's free, it's accessible, and it's from a public service organization."

In just the first half of the article pageviews are covered in detail, as are the Wikipedia organizational structure, editing model, and Section 230 with quotes from Noam Cohen, Brian Keegan, Jackie Koerner and WMF CEO Katherine Maher along the way. The second half is just as packed with information. -S

The article on Michael Perry falsely said that he is a pig farmer

Michael Perry claims that he types for a living. He writes a weekly column in the Wisconsin State Journal and formerly kept a passel of five pigs. While he might return to his porcine pursuits, he doubts that it will be possible, so he wanted to correct "his" Wikipedia article. With that premise and some quirky humor he cranked out a 500 word column. He's got this writing business down to an art.

I wasn't quite convinced, so I emailed him and asked – what was that column all about? Yep, he just wanted the Wikipedia article about him to be correct. It was corrected on the same morning the column was published. It looks like Perry has solved one of the most ancient mysteries of the internet – how to get a Wikipedia article corrected. You just need to publish an article in a reliable source. Of course not everybody can write a newspaper article about themself, but thinking along the same line, article subjects might make a YouTube video of themselves, or even just write a press release to get noticed. Not that a press release would always work, but it's got to be better than writing on the article talkpage: "I'm not a pig farmer, I'm a writer, I'm a former pig farmer, a reformed swineherd, a redundant hog handler, please believe me, please ...".

Perry has written ten books, including a New York Times bestseller, Visiting Tom. He is a musician, radio show host, comedian, and nurse. He grew up on a dairy farm where he had "a childhood spent slinging manure – the metaphorical basis for a writing career." – S

External videos
video icon Hound Dog, Elvis Presley
video icon Blue Christmas, Elvis Presley

In brief

A Bluetick Hound, state dog of Tennessee, and maybe Twitter someday
"Root hog or die", a "controversial" American expression with an article found by the media
Sign held by a protester during the George Floyd protests in Michigan
  • "Twitter Wants to Use Wikipedia to Help Determine Who Gets a Blue Checkmark": Stephen Harrison in Slate discusses Twitter's plan to use Wikipedia as part of its verification process. The new system would require that bluetick wannabes prove they have a 'presence in public indices' in the case of companies or 'Off Twitter Notability' for individuals. A Wikipedia article covering the person or organization in question could be used as evidence of either status. Harrison quotes Wikipedia editors Monika Sengul-Jones, and Kevin Li, who reacted to the proposal with a mixture of 'pride and wariness' and suggests that it wouldn't hurt Twitter to bring in a few other features of Wikipedia in particular the {{Citation needed}} tag. The Twitter proposal seems to import Wikipedia's definition of "notability" into Twitter and might end up importing the systemic biases that go along with the definition. At the same time "It’s a form of Twitter offloading its work to us and expecting us to deal with it," according to Li. Perhaps Twitter should consider increasing its donation to the Wikimedia Foundation by several times.
  • "Govt asks Wikipedia to remove wrong map showing Aksai Chin as part of China": India Today (via MSM) covers a decision by the Indian government to "request" that Wikipedia take down a map depicting Aksai Chin (a part of the disputed region of Kashmir governed by China) as part of China. The issue which has created a great deal of debate in the world's largest democracy and on the world's best encyclopedia (including advice from WMF's legal counsel to the community) was sparked when a Twitter user shared an image of the map. The article suggests that India may take legal action against Wikipedia or even block the website if the map is not removed.
  • Here are a few of Wikipedia's most surprisingly controversial topics: Mike Vago at The A.V. Club takes a look down the "Wiki Wormhole". Perhaps the term 'controversial' is used too liberally in the article's headline, but the column does glance over several niche topics from the underbelly of medieval measurements to some rather contrarian traffic control methods. During December Vago has departed slightly from his usual subject matter by collecting a group of smaller topics rather than writing about one Wikipedia article per column. His December 20 column speeds through Honkbal Hoofdklasse, Root hog or die, and our favorite, List of games that Buddha would not play.
  • "Let's walk" sheriff merits Wikipedia page: The Flint, Michigan radio station, WCRZ did a story on the creation of a biography for their county's sheriff, Christopher R. Swanson. His notability is due largely to his humane response to the George Floyd protests, taking off his riot gear and telling protesters "let's walk". He has also written a children's book.

Odd bits

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  • Much kudos to Michael Perry for an amusing, constructive and successful way to correct a Wikipedia article about yourself. I've been musing recently on a recurring trend: people arrive at Wikipedia articles about themselves and try to change incorrect but reliably source content; when this fails, they begin attacking unpaid volunteers for repeating a factual mistake made by somebody who was paid to know better. Hardly fair to us, but one can see how it would be frustrating to be unable to correct something which causes continued misinformation about you (in the public sphere or in things future journalists write about you). Smallbones' suggestions of YouTube and a press release are plausible, but a Tweet might be the most successful if we encouraged such people to do so. However, if the issue is with online news content that was wrong rather than simply outdated, it seems to me that the real solution is to contact the newspaper which published the incorrect material and get them to change it. I don't know how likely that is of succeeding, but if newspapers decline to make such changes then this is a serious fault in their editorial practices.
    As for Twitter, their latest move is a good step in speeding up the death of Wikipedia, as they encourage thousands of SPAs and COI editors to act maliciously in any form possible in order to chase a blue tick that doesn't care how badly they behave on here as long as the end result is an article still standing at the time a Twitter employee installs the tick. Did they consult the WMF over this decision? If not, how dare they act with such entitlement? At least when YouTube sends us flocks of climate change deniers and neo-Nazis (videos on climate change and contemporary fascist ideas now sometimes highlight a link to a Wikipedia article) it could plausibly have the effect of reducing misinformation, though each decision was made in bad faith by tech companies looking to outsource their moderation responsibilities to unpaid, unappreciated volunteers and to pretend that they care about the disinformation which they profit heavily from deliberately promoting. — Bilorv (talk) 11:41, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks @Bilorv:. Part of our paid editing problem is that our rules are so complicated - so somebody like Perry (especially if they are not in the media) usually don't have a clue of what to do, so turn to paid editors who don't really want to follow our rules. When I see something in the news about somebody who seems to have solved their particular problem on their own I try to put something in this column, e.g. Mark Davis of the Las Vegas Raiders. The video method could work if our editors were looking out for it - or the article subjects let us know about the videos on talk pages. The "What did Wikipedia get wrong about me" genre has been around for at least a decade on YouTube and radio broadcasts. Loudwire has a long series of videos mostly about heavy metal bands. See the article on Ice-T for my favorite example. The funny thing is that they usually pretty much agree with the facts as presented on Wikipedia, but have some minor quibbles with the interpretation of the facts - fair enough! And most people (or companies) that are really notable have the resources to make and post such as video. Publicity agents should take note here - this would be one type of paid editor I would not mind at all - if you've got a client who is complaining about the article - just make a video of you and the client talking about the facts. I'll suggest giving the date of the article version you're talking about, and giving the agent's email (or at least the agency's name) so that we can be sure of the person being interviewed without original research. License the video CC-BY SA, so we can use it in the article, or we can use the external link format if necessary. What are these agents getting paid for anyway? Just to get the facts out! While they're at it, please send a good, freely-licensed photo to Commons. As I wrote above, it's questionable whether folks who don't have a publicity agent, or know how to make their own video, or find a reporter to talk to, are really notable. Writing a press release won't be as effective, but it is better than the current situation - at least we'll have some evidence that the person making the complaints are who they say they are. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:59, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • While they're at it, please send a good, freely-licensed photo to Commons. Seconded! I imagine a lot of figures look at the article about themselves and go "why isn't there a picture?" I can't really imagine anyone in the entertainment industry, for instance, who'd prefer not to have a recent picture in the infobox. Most news sources are happy to license one or use one under fair use (not quite sure how it works for them) but we need something free. If they came here to ask we'd be very happy to tell them how to go about things. — Bilorv (talk) 15:21, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Or even simpler for them, make some of their images on their webpages Creative Commons compliant. Motivated volunteer editors will find the images & do all of the skut work themselves. (And putting a CC-BY image available on the Internet is far simpler for all involved than relying on an unpaid & possibly inexperienced volunteer take a picture of a public figure/place/organization that may not be flattering!) -- llywrch (talk) 23:02, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Bilorv: makes a good point, that If they came here to ask we'd be very happy to tell them how to go about things. But I wonder if that's expecting too much? (Where, even, is "here"? Certainly not this Signpost comment thread.)
          Perhaps this is an opportunity for some proactive dissemination of information. Something like, say, a notification template at the top of BLP article talk pages. (You know, mixed in with the 3-20 other ones already there.) Some kind of message that's addressed directly to the article subjects (and their agents), rather than Wikipedians, with specific instructions on both the requirements and process for submitting a photo of the subject for use in the article. They'd still have to find that, which is still asking a lot, but I figure it's the most likely place they might visit other than the actual article. (If it became established/reliable enough, external howtos / coverage could also raise awareness by explaining that any person who's the subject of a Wikipedia article can go to the article's Talk page to find information on photo submission.) -- FeRDNYC (talk) 11:53, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • FYI, the Northern Territory is not an Australian State. It's only a self governing internal Territory, and is heavily dependent upon the largesse of federal taxpayers. We Australians also know that the Northern Territory Government is little more than a comedy show. So, eg, in the 2015 Country Liberal Party leadership spill, the Deputy Chief Minister tried to overthrow the Chief Minister, but the latter simply refused to resign, and eventually persuaded the Deputy that the Deputy wasn't clever enough to lead a government. Not surprisingly, both later lost their seats in the 2016 Northern Territory general election, which was also the worst defeat ever suffered by a sitting government in Territory history. Sadly, that government's replacement is not much better. Bahnfrend (talk) 14:41, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • By FAR my favorite entry on that "most read article for each day of 2020" list is April 21, when for just one day it was Category:Unified Modeling Language stubs' time to shine. Surely bot activity, but nevertheless probably the driest topic to ever make a yearly round-up list. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 03:26, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Twitter: *wants to use Wikipedia to decide on who gets a blue tick*
    Me: Quick! Let's nominate Donald Trump for deletion! He'll lose the tick mark! :-P
Seriously though, if Twitter does this, I propose that we demand 1 American Dollar per month for every person who gets a blue tick because they have a Wikipedia article, and Twitter should pay for it since they are the ones insisting on using Wikipedia. Twitter's decision is simply terrible for Wikipedia (as an aside, this reminds me of a joke. If YouTube, Twitter and Facebook merged, we would have YouTwitFace! :-D ) 45.251.33.98 (talk) 05:55, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The Signpost is looking for new talent.
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