Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/In the media

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The [BoingBoing] piece is somewhat overdramatic
The sad part is that their platform could be used to discuss issues of sourcing and perform some public education on how WP is more complicated than a "free encyclopedia" free-for-all. Instead, we just have this piece of alarmist clickbait and the cynicism that the blog got exactly what it wanted: publicity. czar 02:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
At the risk of being beaten about the head and shoulders again, I note that Boing Boing accuses deletion of being aimed at articles created by GF women and minority editors, often recruited in Wiki workshops. They specifically mention the disparity in notability standards for women scientists vs pop culture performers. This is an unfortunate image for us to hold in the public's eye, and may even point at systemic issues here. I have commented publicly in the past that I do think these systemic issues exist and are manifested in both poor treatment of GF recruited editors, and in poor AfDs. So now we have a public commentator (who has never communicated with me, for the record) repeating it. - Brianhe (talk) 01:11, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- What is "GF"? Neither Good Faith nor Girlfriend seem to fit. -84user (talk) 09:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - "Good Faith" makes sense to me, as in these editors are creating articles in good faith. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:24, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Several people have mentioned for several years now that the inclusion standards for female porn stars seem to be more generous than those for female scientists. It's not a new observation. AnonMoos (talk) 07:14, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  - I think, though, it is and was, wrong. At the time of this Signpost, regardless of gender "porn stars" had higher bar to pass than "entertainers". Subsequently the former was subsumed into the latter. When I was looking a the list of German Wikipedia articles about women missing from English Wikipedia, a significant number had been deleted for being insufficiently notable "porn stars". Needless to say I did not re-create them. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:10, 31 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]
- To some degree, we are prisoner to what the Corporate Media finds interesting to report about. People doing very important work for humankind aren't sexy, in more than one sense of the term. And I think it's a safe bet this applies to both men and women, but we notice the effect more because of a dearth of material about women. Of course, unfortunately women have the disadvantage of there not having been many notable women scientists in existence up to the relatively recent past, and a media still too much controlled by (white) men. Wikipedia needs to find a way to promote non-Corporate Media, yet still reliable sourcing, as one way to begin to work around this. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 02:02, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's scary that anything calling itself a newspaper would use any general encyclopedia as a source, before or after 2014. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 15:24, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
After reading the recent BoingBoing posts and their comments, I frankly dismiss much of it as a combo of misunderstandings and sour grapes. But there is one complaint that I find compelling: PRODs (and accordingly, speedy delete requests on articles that aren't new-ish) don't require any notification, and tools like Twinkle only notify the article's creator. If that creator is long gone (for whatever reason), they are obviously not around to answer for the article. It would seem much more practical if Twinkle would notify all the major editors of the article, based on a site-wide requirement to do so. At least then it might look like we're not sneakily deleting articles, and thus Wikipedia would no longer be open to such criticism. And it might just leave us with more useful content. Stevie is the man! ^{Talk • Work} 01:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Daily Mail

For what it's worth, a new highly-vitriolic story here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4280502/Anonymous-Wikipedia-activists-promote-warped-agenda.html ... -- AnonMoos (talk) 18:54, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The ban was supported by just 0.00018 per cent of site’s ‘administrators’ ... The ban was supported by a mere 53 of Wikipedia's editors, or 0.00018 per cent of the sites 30 million total, plus five administrators (file picture)

I laughed out loud. Keep shining that sunlight, DM czar 20:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Shortly after the last whinge by the Daily Mail, a TV show in Australia broadcast this on the topic of the Daily Mail's reputation for carelessness and recklessness. I'd suggest their energy would be better spent repairing their tattered reputation than on attacking Wikipedia. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 07:49, 5 March 2017 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks for the link, AnonMoos, i missed it after getting deep into the DM's current lead article [1].--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:05, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]