Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-12-12/In the media

"'As biased as the BBC'"

As the title is a quote from a politician with an agenda, it should not be in WP’s voice. With out it in quote marks, with appropriate inline attribution, or choose a different title. - SchroCat (talk) 22:02, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now added, per the above. - SchroCat (talk) 22:06, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote the original headline, but see what you mean. ~~It was not really in The Signpost's voice since it was in quotes.~~ It definitely was not in Wikipedia's voice. To tell you the truth, I more or less agree with the quote: Wikipedia is very useful, and if folks want to say that we have a bias something like the BBC's, that's ok with me. Everybody has some "bias" and if ours is comparable to the BBC's, we've done a pretty good job minimizing bias.

But I don't want to fight about this. If we have a bias comparable to a UK Tory, it's not as good, but everybody has their own opinion. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When I saw the article, the headline was As biased as the BBC. No quote marks, no attribution, so it certainly was in WP’s voice, even if that wasn’t the intention. Given the parlours state of UK politics, and the source of the quote, it certainly needs some framing to explain to people that it’s not neutral, truthful or objective reflection of reality, but an opinion of a right-wing former politician (and all the baggage that type of individual carries). - SchroCat (talk) 23:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot of confusion here, some of it caused by having the main headline and the sub-head both "quoting" comments comparing Wikipedia with the BBC. But first The Signpost does not speak with "Wikipedia's voice" - never! We are an independent newspaper, not a Wikipedia mainspace article, nor a pawn of the WMF, nor of ArbCom. We follow Wikipedia rules as best as we understand them, but these rule are essentially those that any Wikiproject has to follow, pretty much the same as talkpage rules. So if I write a section of any article, it's going to reflect the voice of the Signpost as a whole, including the editor-in-chief and the copy editors, but mostly when I sign something, it is going to reflect my voice, as approved by the e-i-c and the Signpost project as a whole. Wikipedia's voice belongs on other pages, but not here.

Now, the sub-head is and always was in the drafts a quote inside quotation marks. "As biased as the BBC" The headline at the top is almost a quote, it could have been written Like "the BBC, often useful but not impartial" but leaving out the Like from the quote would be awkward. It's a paraphrase I guess, shortened from a longer quote, so I left off the quotation marks. Headlines are like that - they are not meant to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They're here to introduce the subject and get people thinking about the subject, attract their attention, and sometimes, even be funny. Here, I thought comparing Wikipedia's bias to the BBC's "liberal" bias was pretty funny. I'm from an age where the BBC was considered the gold standard of "unbiased factual reporting", even if it was a bit conservative - even aristocratic - in its overall presentation. Having Tories say Wikipedia has a liberal bias like the BBC is actually quite a compliment in that sense. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I know this newsletter isn’t an article, and you know this newsletter isn’t an article, but when the big wide world sees it, it’s not a distinction they make or even care about. And that’s a far more important point, because they’re already taking this ‘research’ out of context (based on a Signpost article) to make political capital, so they are likely to take this article (including headline) out of context too. If you use a quote, you need to use quote marks and attribution - it doesn’t matter where you put it, whether it’s in an article, or a newsletter title. I don’t think there is any point in continuing this any further - there is now attribution and quote marks, but please remember for next time. - SchroCat (talk) 05:28, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is indeed no point. You changed the headline of the article to a completely new sentence, which introduces a rather corrosive claim about a politician's views -- while leaving other people's names in the byline -- this should simply not be done. jp×g 🗯️ 04:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since I am being mentioned: I think this Signpost story could have been a bit clearer in summarizing what the Telegraph and GB News were citing me/the Signpost for, namely as leveling "accusations of bias" against Rozado's report itself - although that's also not quite what I actually said in the review:

[Rozado's] report is not peer-reviewed and was not posted in an academic venue, unlike most research we cover here usually. Rather, it was published (and possibly commissioned) by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative US think tank, which presumably found its results not too objectionable. (Also, some – broken – URLs in the PDF suggest that Manhattan Institute staff members were involved in the writing of the paper.) Still, the report indicates an effort to adhere to various standards of academic research publications, including some fairly detailed descriptions of the methods and data used.

As laid out in the review, I think it's worth taking the report seriously, but also - like with various other research that is being perceived as showing incontrovertible evidence of Wikipedia being biased against various groups (like conservatives here) - one may want to retain some healthy skepticism about causality claims. Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:44, 12 December 2024 (UTC) (Tilman)[reply]

I'm probably left of center, at least in the US, but yeah...I wouldn't recommend WP for coverage of current political issues. We're not super at covering politics, and we're not super at covering things that are recent. We're good at covering things that are distant enough to be dispassionate. GMG^talk 12:41, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, yes, recency, politics, and conflict of interest are all enormously dangerous, which is why many (most?) editors avoid them scrupulously: but it does make articles on, say, current events in the Middle East difficult to edit. Glad to hear that Toby Young gave up trying to correct "his" page (whether he added sources or not). Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:41, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  Oh yeah. There are definitely subjects that I simply avoid on any project. To the extent that there is a bias, part of it is likely fueled by people who just can't be bothered to argue for five pages over a single sentence. GMG ^talk 12:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Describing people who deny science, reality, and facts as denying science, reality, and facts is not bias. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:09, 14 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"DataStax and WMDE"

Besides the company's blog post and the press release, it might have been useful to also link WMDE's own accouncement (which we already briefly covered in last issue's "Recent research", search for "Wikimedia Deutschland"). It covers additional aspects of interest to Wikimedians, e.g. "A further goal of the project is to more easily detect vandalism on Wikidata". Generally, it is worth being aware that these are all still announcements only and the actual product has not yet been released. WMDE folks have been talking about this project for about a year already (including at some conferences and about three months ago in the "Wikimedia AI" Telegram channel, where they provided some valuable additional background in response to questions from community members). Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:44, 12 December 2024 (UTC) (Tilman)[reply]

"Politics and business in the pages of Wikipedia"

This may be of interest:

"Une mystérieuse fondation poursuit un ennemi de Poutine jusque devant le Conseil d'Etat" [Mysterious Foundation Sues Putin Foe All the Way to State Council]. Serge Pugachev (in French). 2023-01-23. Retrieved 2024-12-15.

This is about the International Foundation for Better Governance (IFBG). Peaceray (talk) 19:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. International Foundation for Better Governance (Q29508191) Peaceray (talk) 19:31, 15 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @Peaceray: "The Mysterious Foundation" article is consistent with my suspicions about International Foundation for Better Governance, but that doesn't mean that it proves or verifies them. There's a couple of references at the EU Reporter article that give a bit more info, so at this point I might start saying "According to The New York Times..." or Politico, but let's just leave this as an impression at this point:

Scott, Mark (22 September 2021). "Huawei's under-the-radar Brussels blitz". POLITICO. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
Satariano, Adam (29 January 2021). "Inside a Pro-Huawei Influence Campaign". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 September 2021.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]