Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2010-10-11. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Tricky and Lengthy Dispute Resolution (3,037 bytes · 💬)

Roughly 15% of the Scibaby accusations made thus far in 2010 have resulted in specific negative findings that the accused was Scibaby. This is easily verifiable by counting accusations and number of positive CU findings. I commend a look at "reasons" given for asserting that specific users are Scibaby as well. Collect (talk) 10:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

This seems a bit too focused on the Scibaby part of it, which was not at the center of the discussion at all. Instead, the vast majority of comments these week were comments about the remedies in the proposed decision. NW (Talk) 14:13, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Alas -- the actual CC talk pages are, indeed, focussed on false charges of people being Scibaby socks, and whether the 20+% given by CUs is correct, or whether the lower 15% figure is correct. Collect (talk) 16:41, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

There's also no doubting that it was the centre of controversy in relation to CC socking. Incidentally, the proposal was sitting there for over a month without much concern, but I'm not sure how or why the Scibaby part of it attracted attention towards the end of the case. Perhaps people read over it up until recently. And sure, all sorts of events take place (including oversighting) and discussions happened too, but some of those comments may be more concise and better expressed when the post-case workshop is ready. By that point, it's possible that all the case participants will agree with each other about some parts of the case if statements are made in a particular way; it's also possible there'll be the same level of disagreement, if not more. I guess time will tell. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:26, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Where's the update on closed cases/motions? Last week warranted "no arbitrators have commented" note, they had since then... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

We'd touched on a few cases other than just the EEML one, but with the exception of a few EEML case participants (mainly you, and that too in relation to the same case), there's insufficient interest in that part of the report in that particular format. An alternative format will be used instead. Nevertheless, I suspect more arbitrator input will be received on the already-closed-cases once (1) the currently open case is closed and (2) the post-case workshop has begun for that case. Ncmvocalist (talk) 17:26, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Dispatches: Tools, part 3: Style tools and wikEd (3,766 bytes · 💬)

I have to commend Cacycle - he's been very helpful to those of us working to get wikEd to work on other wiki projects. He even helped us to set it up by default on a single page on Appropedia, so we can use it in converting content in HTML format into MediaWiki format. Extremely useful when there's a lot of open licensed content to convert to MediaWiki format.

Thanks for the review - I hadn't heard of some of those tools. --Chriswaterguy talk 16:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

My peer reviewer button disappeared when I added the UTC clock to my setting.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 01:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I just realized it's WikEd, not WikiEd. Sigh. /ƒETCH COMMS / 03:43, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

You are very much welcome. Stay tuned: we have something coming up next week as well (hopefully) (and no, it's not part 4) ResMar 03:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Recently I noticed an unusual inflow of atrociously long cite templates into articles on my watchlist. It seemed that a bunch of unrelated, good faith editors suddenly obtained The Magic Button. Now it all fits together. Blame ~~Canada~~ Signpost! East of Borschov 06:21, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I know what you mean, and I had the same. It formats all the co editors into individual first/last boxes, right? You should contact Dispenser about that. ResMar 21:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, Peer reviewer is broken and you need to use the toolserv version to get it to work (AndyZ, the author, sadly went inactive two years ago). Mind you, the last time I tried installing it was few months ago, around July - but if it was fixed, there is no indication of that on the talk page. I'd love for this Signpost article to give this useful script enough visibility so that somebody will fix it... but for that, we should make it clear that this is a BROKEN tool. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:05, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I can't believe I never noticed his absence. Wow, his last edits actually precedes my first :O ResMar 00:20, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

TheDJ did a couple of fix ups in May/June for the vector skin/JQuery. A few months later, I switched the Toolserver script back from Gary King's version since he did not want to maintain it. — Dispenser 23:05, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Features and admins: Big week for ships and music (995 bytes · 💬)

"May have been" seems terribly hard to believe. A missile destroyer colliding with a ship twice its size on a clear day is a long, long shot. ResMar 21:05, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Why isn't Portal:Business and economics on here? It was delisted on October 3rd. GamerPro64 (talk) 01:06, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I'll put it in next week's edition. Some of the low-activity processes are hard to keep within the radar when something happens only once in a while. Tony (talk) 01:48, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

In the news: Free culture conference, "The Register" retracts accusations, students blog about Wikipedia, and more (2,104 bytes · 💬)

I hope that the Signpost will report on the results of the Medieval Weirdness competition! PamD (talk) 08:57, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Is it worth noting that the Register also included a photo of David Gerard in both incorrect versions of the Norman Wisdom article? Nathan^T 13:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Academic Plagiarism

The irony is that the 11 citations to the plagiarized research article contributes to the notability of the authors, under our fundamentally flawed WP:PROF guidelines, which equates citations with notability instead of biographical coverage. Gigs (talk) 15:36, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

as a rule, detected academic plagiarism at this level is rare and does greatly contribute to notability--if confirmed by the sort of unquestionably reliable sources necessary for negative BLP. Notability is not always positive. DGG ( talk ) 16:25, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Although, do see this. ResMar 03:42, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Congrats to Jimmy for the award! -- œ ^™ 06:14, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Book scam

Is anyone aware of any action by the Foundation to contact Amazon about this book scam? It seems to me that Amazon is making itself a party to this fraud (in the ethical sense, not the legal one) by selling these books.--Chaser (away) - talk 03:49, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

News and notes: Board resolutions, fundraiser challenge, traffic report, ten thousand good articles, and more (4,950 bytes · 💬)

Writer's note: This week's Introduction to Commons video marks the third news and notes story in a row to use a video, following the WikiProject Screencast video last week and the MediaWiki shorts two weeks before. It appears the use of videos for tutoring purposes is on the rise. I have to say, I'm supportive of it: videos are a great, and underutilized, way of passing on information.

To the GA reviewers and writers: congratulations! The 10,000th GA marks a historical point in Wikipedia content; I am proud to have added my eight to the bunch. Regards, ResMar 03:02, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

10,000 GA's is great! How do we know, as Geometry Guy says, that they are maintained to GA standard? Rich Farmbrough, 17:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC).

They are systematically reviewed - I think about annually or so. Of course, at any one time, an article's quality may have slipped, but folks like User:Jezhotwells work very hard to keep their quality up. And, of course, some of them go on to FAC. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:06, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Congrats to Cumulus and Rododendron YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 06:33, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand Dutch but Rododendron removed pictures and congratulations from the talk page. User:Elitre —Preceding undated comment added 10:21, 12 October 2010 (UTC).
- Cumulus had temporarily removed the normal contents of her talk page; she placed them back. Ucucha 11:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Heh, I wonder if it would be possible to actually get married on Wiki... The Thing // Talk // Contribs

In nomine Jimbonis, communitatis et spiritu collaborationis... – ukexpat (talk) 14:11, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

HaeB, I honestly think that the GA story was the highlight this week, and should be at the front of the post rather then the back :L ResMar 04:28, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. It's a great achievement, but is still a milestone, and milestones traditionally come at the end of the report (actually usually after "Briefly"). — Pretzels^Hii! 19:26, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a pretty major milestone. The French story last week ran in first place. ResMar 21:06, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It's fine to mention jubilees and other numerical milestones, but they are not really among the kind of news which comes most unexpected or has the most impact on our readers.

Besides, this particular story did not offer much additional value in context, history or analysis (such as, for example, statistics on the growth of GAs), merely a quote by some user saying, basically, that Good articles are a good thing - not very informative, see also Tony's remark about the quote. You may recall a similar discussion about the 3000th FA story.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:43, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather not think about it. Waste of a day's work that was... ResMar 23:29, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News (453 bytes · 💬)

Well, that code bit pretty much solves the doctor-of-the-doctor conundrum. ResMar 04:30, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject report: WikiProject Smithsonian Institution (2,192 bytes · 💬)

I wonder if the museum has anything that could help us with Operation "Majestic Titan", an effort to improve the articles on all battleships and battlecruisers? I'm not sure what we the editors could do in return, though. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:48, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Meh, if I only had the source I'd help. But I don't. So I won't. But if I did...(random rant) ResMar 04:27, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't hurt to ask. -Mabeenot (talk) 20:32, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

It is easier if you can point to specific type of help (or resource) from the Smithsonian that you would like to access. If you would like certain images, for example, a list of the kind of topic area would make it easier for us to identify what would be useful. Also, if you peruse their website and find materials that are of interest, then a interlinking might be a good way to benefit both communities. Also, I can think of several other organizations, such as the Naval History & Heritage Command, which might have a little more relevant mission and material for OMT. Maybe trying to contact someone like them would be a little more fruitful. The NHHC regularly releases rare or unusual images on their Facebook group and flickr, and they have a huge collection, they would certainly be a great place to collaborate with, and seem to be more tech oriented than the CMH was. Sadads (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

i expect they would have more info on aviation, from the connection to National Air and Space Museum, although there is a connection to naval aviation. Accotink2 talk 00:36, 17 October 2010 (UTC)