Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2010-12-06. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: New case: World War II (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-12-06/Arbitration report

Features and admins: Birds and insects (874 bytes · 💬)

Superb fairywren pic is missing :(

The featured pics are all bugs and birds! —Angr (talk) 14:42, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Gave us the title of the page this week: an in-built theme. It's been a lean week for featured content ... Thanksgiving? Tony (talk) 15:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm starting to suspect that Noodle Snacks can speak to birds and insects. Tell us, Mr. Snacks, how do you say "Hold still while I take your picture" in the language of the Pink Robin? Jason Quinn (talk) 23:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

GLAM-WIKI London: British Museum hosts two days of talks between Wikimedia and the cultural sector (1,440 bytes · 💬)

Note

This page was split from Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-12-06/News and notes. (history) --Aude (talk) 19:30, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Two things that particularily struck me during the conference:

One was when Joscelyn Upendran from Creative Commons UK told us that the government is changing the terms of their Crown copyright licence to match the Open Government licence which is compatible with the CC-BY-SA licence. Once this is done it will mean all Crown Copyright documents can be reused on Wikipedia. Joscelyn advised that this change would be made retrospective - if that happens it will mean that it applies to all existing UK Crown copyright documents.

The other was when Baroness Bridgeman (of the Bridgeman Art library) commented on the en:Bridgeman v. Corel court case. She was in the audience for the NPG talk and commented afterwards that she felt that she had been badly advised in that case and the gallery could have won if they could have afforded to pursue an appeal which is what led to Liam Wyatt's comment that the NPG pictures will stay on Commons until the day that precedence is overturned and not a day longer. filceolaire (talk) 01:40, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

In the news: Amazon "shopping-enabling" Wikipedia; Al Jazeera interview; be like Wikipedia (12,659 bytes · 💬)

Regarding the supposed "(aggressive online comments which he explained by the endorsements his book had reviewed from Sue Gardner and Jimmy Wales)", well, since I am often a critic, I realize my opinion will be discounted, but I contend this paraphrase (his or the Signpost authors) is a very distorted summary of the objections. Yes, there are people who will reflexively sneer anything favorable to Wikipedia, just like there are people who will reflexively cheer at anything favorable to Wikipedia. However, in my view, there were serious critiques made of Reagle's material, which were ignored "ad hominem". And noting the evident politics around his book should not be unspeakable. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

THough I'm not sure what precisely you have in mind, I would assume he had specific comments in mind (and I would not be surprised if there had been comments that indeed were ad hominem, most WIkipedia stuff tend to attract at least some). Circéus (talk) 04:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you seen a review from someone at Wikipedia Review who actually read the whole book (instead of just the one online chapter)? There don't seem to be any. I guess that says something about the seriousness.

If you listen to the interview, Reagle acknowledges that "there are some honest, and I think perhaps good intentioned critics at Wikipedia Review but there is also a lot of nastiness". The latter can't be denied, consider just that Reagle found himself photoshopped together with lots of penises and subject to other abuse on the site.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think it can be reasonable to blog-comment and forum-discuss what he's put online, making clear the limits there. After all, that is what is available to the casual reader. While there are some fair objections to overreaching, there also seems to me an aspect of game-playing marginalization (as in, here's the online material for online reading, but someone has to go get and plow through the whole book before they can talk about the online material). I also think it's extremely reasonable to make comments along the lines of having sampled it, one isn't inclined to read further, because the sample indicates flaws because of the following reasons, etc. (i.e. not having to eat the whole apple to know it's rotten).

While I certainly wouldn't deny the existence of nastiness, I'm somewhat amused that your example is actually a case study of the problem of context. As I recall (I didn't re-read the thread), the "penises" bit was reference to the notorious Commons sexual material controversy, hence it wasn't the pure personal attack as might naively be thought. And if there isn't someone to point that out, it's easy to have a fit of the vapors and reach for the fainting-couch over the horrible, horrible, penises. I've seen things like this happen too many times in Wikipedia discussion, to quite detrimental effect. All of which gives a different view than Reagle's perspective. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 10:38, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

By the way, does anyone have any insights into one of the key exemplars of Wikipedia civility given in Reagle's book?

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027590.html

MattCrypto: Hi SlimVirgin, I don't like getting into conflict, particularly with things like block wars and protect wars, so I'm unhappy about this. . . .

SlimVirgin: I take your point, Matt, but I feel you ought to have discussed this with the blocking admin, rather than undoing the block. . . .

Kelly Martin commented in part on Reagle's blog (a comment which Reagle removed) "If the willful misinterpretation of the fairly transparently malicious conversation between MattCrypto and SlimVirgin that Joseph chooses to highlight there is typical of the analysis Joseph makes in this work, then it should indeed rise to stand as an exemplar of the sort of bankrupt scholarship that Wikipedia has come to be known for."

I found it hard to make out the politics - who is right? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 03:34, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I have to say Kelly Martin's comment utterly stump me too, but then I'm not familiar with her/their specific history in relation to SlimVirgin (which I assume is the one she is targetting specifically as the guilty party here). Circéus (talk) 04:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about Kelly Martin's past fights and politics, but that particular criticism seems beside the point, as these quotes belong to a discussion of Wikipedia's norms in the first chapter, rather than Wikipedians' personal character. So even if one assumes (as Kelly Martin seems to do) that one or both participants are aggressive, malicious types who "fairly transparently" (to whom?) conceal their maliciousness, that would still demonstrate the power of these norms. Of course it would be naive to assume that one becomes magically transformed into a better human being just by contributing to a particular website. In the interview it is acknowledged that there are fights on Wikipedia, too, and that these norms sometimes break down.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:58, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the point is being missed here. There's a big difference between collegiality and passive-aggressive, even if they might superficially look similar. To simplify for a brief comment, IF Reagle is presenting the latter as the former, it is indeed, in Kelly Martin's term, "bankrupt scholarship". Though I'm not clear yet myself who is in fact correct there. Let's not have the two-step of phrases that sound like broad reaching claims, but transform into trivialities when challenged. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 10:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Responding to the general thread Seth Finkelstein started here, I'd like to respond with these points: (1) from the few times I've read threads at Wikipedia Review, the overwhelming impression I've had of its contributors (with a few exceptions) has been everyone agrees that people "shouldn't contribute or use Wikipedia, unless you want to contribute to the downfall of Western Civilization", & every time this a message repeated by a lot of people who were booted from Wikipedia for good reasons (POV-pushing, incivility, or other behavior commonly associated with being a jerk. (2) I don't know Kelly Martin's story (although I met her in person at Wikimania 2006), but I'd guess her caustic opinions about Wikipedia are symptoms due to her being another casualty of WikiBurnout, just as Larry Sanger is. (3) The barely managed competitive environment of Wikipedia results with a lot of people leaving the project with a lot of bitterness. (No, it's not slave labor here, just a fucking lack of appreciation for the contributions volunteers make. And after a while this lack of appreciation sucks people down.) If this happens to you, my suggestion is to make a clean break & walk away from Wikipedia. There's nothing to be gained by obsessing over what experienced at Wikipedia (you think things at Wikipedia suck? Have a look at "the best print Encyclopedia"); doing so will only darken your soul. (And mine might be almost black as I type this.) -- llywrch (talk) 22:53, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

1) For comparison, suppose I wrote something like the following - "The times I've participated in Wikipedia threads, the overwhelming impression I've had of its contributors (with a few exceptions) is Kool-Aid drunk cultists, and the propaganda is repeated by a lot of people making their living off Wikipedia somehow (speaking fees, corporate huckstering, public policy hackery)." There's a real difference of perspective sometimes. 2) Burnout doesn't automatically make one's analysis wrong. Sometimes it gives insight into a dysfunctional process. 3) Do you see a problem if evangelists are free to promote, but the disillusioned are recommended to be silent? (for their own psychological well-being, of course!). In fact, does that pattern remind you of anything? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 02:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

(1) I should have finished my thought here: because of what I said, I don't read Wikipedia Review. Seth, you may do the same with Wikipedia because of your impression of the threads here. (Or not. I'm just not interested in finding the time to follow Wikipedia Review; I'm also not interested in making the time to follow many threads here on Wikipedia.) (2) You're right about burnout. However in many instances where I've read former Wikipedians who were in leadership roles criticize how things are, I'm not reading an insightful account of what is wrong, what I'm reading is what the burnout is saying. Those who leave Wikipedia due to burnout need to deal with that first -- for their own health & well-being -- before turning to criticizing Wikipedia. BTW, why do contributors to the literary quarterlies like Paris Review or Kenyon Review -- which pay as much for their work as Wikipedia does -- avoid the burnout Wikipedians often fall victim to? (I believe that that question can be answered without using words like "cult".) (3) Tens of thousands of teachers & professors tell their students not to use Wikipedia, but their students don't listen & still use Wikipedia for their research; what difference will one person's silence make? Besides, saying that Wikipedia is better than Encyclopedia Britannica isn't saying all that much: as Einbinder's book points out, Britannica set an embarrassingly low standard for anyone to exceed, & in the long run endorsing this doesn't say much for Wikipedia. So why don't you & other critics defining a new standard instead of arguing whether Britannica or World Book is truly better than Wikipedia? -- llywrch (talk) 20:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding "what the burnout is saying" - how do you know? It strikes me as a logical problem to require that critiques by those most disillusioned by Wikipedia must be accepted by those perhaps still heavily illusioned by Wikipedia. That sort of unreasoning is a very standard way for acolytes to dismiss valid but uncomfortable points made by apostates. Now, I'm hardly saying outsiders are automatically right. But do have some awareness of the near-paradox. And what difference does one person ever make about anything? That's the great quandary of activism. Regarding "defining standards", there's something a burden-of-proof issue. One of my critiques of Wikipedia is that such evaluation is prone to degenerate into cherry-picking, shifting goalposts, and other fallacies of a huckster sales-pitch. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:14, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

RE:Shopping Enabled Amazon pages/ads, their James Joyce page - This looks pretty much like what is envisioned in our free licensing, as long as they don't use Wikipedia trademarks (which they don't seem to). One question however. At the bottom they state "The Wikipedia content may be available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 ..." Shouldn't it refer to THEIR James Joyce page however, e.g. "This page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, version 3.0 ..." I don't know what the practical difference would be; I mean who would want to copy the links to their shopping pages? Smallbones (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Quite right: The content of www.amazon.com/wiki/ must be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. That is what "Share Alike" means. ~ Ningauble (talk) 16:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

News and notes: ArbCom tally pending; Pediapress renderer; fundraiser update; unreferenced BLP drive (1,991 bytes · 💬)

I actually LIKE the ad banners that we've put out, even the ones with Jimbo. The only problem is in the Jimbo banner above, where he looks like John Travolta. Smallbones (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Why do only US folks get the new banners? Bawolff (talk) 18:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

A friend of mine pointed out that, on the banners, editors are called "authors", a term avoided on Wikipedia since the beginning. He felt that this was "ironic". My question has been, for some time, why do we need so much money? Why should the staff increase so much? I'd rather that Wikipedia stay lean and mean and not depend on such massive fundraising, but maybe I'm naive. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:17, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The software and hardware needs to be faster. We need a data center somewhere other than Florida especially with rising sea leaves. We need pending changes to work. Money needs to be put aside for a rainy day. $16 million is not that much to run a 50 person corporation. Expecially one based in San Francisco. If Wikimedia is able to raise this all the power too them. It will be good for the project aswell. A million does not go as far as it used too. Expecially with the falling value of the American dollar. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

A bigger issue may be whether 'wikipedia author' is the best description for someone who's edits are so few (note this doesn't mean the person contributions aren't valued). Nil Einne (talk) 02:08, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News (419 bytes · 💬)

Interesting that making the instructions it a cartoon with non-linear flow is seen as easier. The tool as a whole is a great improvement. Rich Farmbrough, 20:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC).

WikiLeaks: Repercussions of the WikiLeaks cable leak (10,385 bytes · 💬)

Beck

Beck amazes me. Does he even understand the concept of open-source software? Has he even read the preamble of the GPL? Most likely, somewhere, someone using MediaWiki is violating the law. Somehow. Does this make WMF responsible? Nope. Allmightyduck  What did I do wrong? 03:51, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Man, you don't need to ascribe any logic to Beck's beliefs/statements- he's saying that all "open society" "things" are connected and therefore personally started by George Soros. That's not a logical chain starting from bad starting assumptions, that's a chain where none of the links are connected at all. --Pres N 04:59, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I heard this broadcast, and it seemed rather obvious to me that the comment, "Wikipedia is also a part of it though. Those bastards, and their 'free' encyclopedia! I hate those people!" was a sarcastic quip. The show now takes a fairly morning show format, with the two co-hosts providing a large amount of satirical statements. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 08:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Whoa whoa whoa wait a second here. While the rest of the quote is in context, "Those bastards, and their 'free' encyclopedia..." comes across as sarcastic. Glenn Beck's program frequently talks about such matters in jest on his program (and is in turn misquoted by Media Matters... the two have a hate-hate relationship, never quite able to accurately criticize each other in full). I'm not sure we should regurgitate anything mentioned by any of these media watchdog groups, and this is a perfect example of why. Magog the Ogre (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Did you actually spent the time to click on the link and read that "perfect example" before making that sweeping judgement? The "bastards" quote is from the original recording (as provided by Media Matters), not from their commentary. (The "As observed by Media Matters ..." referred to the initial confusion of Beck.) I agree that "sarcastic" might be a possible interpretation, but considering the serious "anti-wiki" sentiment in the rest of the comments, it is by no means an obvious one. That's why the interpretation is left to the reader in this Signpost article; either way I considered it a noteworthy information. Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Right; the rest of the comments were of course stupid, as we've agreed. But, especially given it's a living person, and one known to get annoyed about being quoted out of context, we ought to be careful to not quote him out of context. Everything but the "bastards" comment appears to be in context though. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:01, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree one needs to be careful about that kind of thing, but I don't think the "bastards" comment was quoted out of context. In any case it is not attributed to Beck in the Signpost article, but to one of his sidekicks - based on the timing of the comments and the difference in voices, having listened to it a few times. Do you think it was Beck himself who said it? Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:00, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

No, that was clearly "Stu", and he was clearly kidding. On the other parts though, yes, they were just pulling stuff out of thin air. Like I said, the rest is fine. I just think the post should have done without the "evil bastards" comment, as it was tongue-in-cheek. Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:29, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Sanger

Dr Sanger is leaving WatchKnow around now (I believe funding has run out - though I could be wrong), so presumably "Wikipedia co-founder" is better on the resume than "Citizendium founder" - David Gerard (talk) 09:43, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

My opinion of Sanger and his judgment is so low that my opinion of Wikileaks has actually improved because of Sanger's comments. I'm still not a Wikileaks fan though. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:15, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikileaks domains

The article should also have mentioned recent developments regarding the wikileaks.com, wikileaks.us etc. Internet domains, which appear to be registered to Wikia and used to point to the original Wikileaks domain www.wikileaks.org (according to Jimmy Wales' statements at WP:WIKILEAKS and on a recent Charlie Rose show, the domains were offered to Wikileaks long ago, but for some mysterious reason Assange failed to complete the transfer). The content of Wikileaks.com recently changed to a Godaddy parking page [1] and then to a "not available" message [2]. A notable development, especially considering current events regarding wikileaks.org, wikileaks.ch etc. [3]

Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:30, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Account deactivated

Is it really possible to deactivate an account? (WP:USERNAME says: "It is not possible to delete user accounts") --Eleassar ^{my talk} 10:43, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

The request was not to remove the account entirely, more like what is called a "request to vanish" on Meta. His user page was deleted, however I just noted that the requested blocking of the account does not seem to have been carried out. It might also be remarked that he hadn't been too active on the wiki in recent months.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:12, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Appropriate graphic...

AnonMoos (talk) 16:07, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Really people, it's not that hard. Magog the Ogre (talk) 16:13, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Confusion

Anthere twitted this 1 hour ago: RT @PaulLarrouturou: Sarkozy condamne Wikipédia au lieu de #WikiLeaks en cseil des ministres (Canard Enchaîné d'après @fsionneau) . I also think that this whole story is damaging our fundraising. --Elitre (talk) 20:08, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Translation? Powers ^T 20:45, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

"Sarkozy condemns Wikipedia instead of Wikileaks in council of ministers." Malcolmxl5 (talk) 00:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I did not realize it was French. However, I can not find any source for it except Twitter. --Elitre (talk) 08:53, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Titanium balls

I read the Forbes article, & it appears that that Gerard is talking about the website "Suburbia", not WikiLeaks. Now that I read it, ISTR that Gerard made that exact comment on his blog about "Suburbia". Hmm. While Gerard may believe Assange's testicles are made of that stuff (& whether or not Gerard does, I'll go on record to say that -- even though I'm not anyone worth quoting), in this matter I believe he has been quoted out of context. But I'm confident he will speak up for himself if this is not true. -- llywrch (talk) 23:18, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Quoted out of context by whom? Certainly not by this article, which made it clear that the quote was about remembering Assange's "resistance to efforts to censor a website of Gerard's in the 1990s at an ISP [i.e. Suburbia] where Assange worked as sysadmin."

David Gerard has already commented on the quote here, but only concerning a different problem with the Forbes article - that it described Assange as the founder of Suburbia, despite David Gerard telling the journalist otherwise (a user identifying as the actual founder had objected on that talk page). Interestingly, that misinformation seems to have come from Assange himself ("I started one of the first ISPs in Australia, known as Suburbia, in 1993." [4])

Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I was quoting from memory this blog posting by Gerard. Although I was right that his comment was about Assange's managing suburbia.net, since it was about Assange, my memory wasn't as accurate as I thought it was. (It didn't help that the Forbes article was unclear to me in specifying whom Gerard was referring to.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

(coming to this rather late) No, it was quite in context - I was talking about Assange's fine work defending my Suburbia page, but also the entire Wikileaks project. I think the objective evidence of titanium balls is readily apparent. In fact, this article was particularly accurate in quoting me and using material I supplied, compared to many press quotes - David Gerard (talk) 07:53, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Talking copyright with WikiProject Copyright Cleanup (2,083 bytes · 💬)

Terrific article! To illustrate Moonriddengirl's point about the situation when she first became an admin, in early 2008 there was a three-month-long backlog at WP:CP. The instructions for CSD of copyright problems versus 'suspected copyright problems' versus plain old 'copyright problems' were muddy, contradictory and confusing. One of the bots that should have been reporting at one place was reporting at the other, and the workload was so huge that I just didn't have the time or strength to figure out how to get that fixed. I cleared two months of that backlog alone. It was so lonely that I could leave a daily log page of problems open in my browser without any edit conflicts when I saved the page more than 24 hours later. A couple of other admins, including Jeepday, came along to help eventually but it was very stressful and demoralizing to feel that, despite all our crowing about free content, nobody cared very much about copyright problems. Eventually I burned out and stepped away.
Moonriddengirl has done a fabulous, stupendous, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious job in organizing and sticking with the copyright cleanup. I'm not over there to help you again yet, babe, but I will be soon, and I urge my fellow admins and every editor to come pitch in. Thanks again for a great piece. :-) - Krakatoa Katie 05:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! And I will be very pleased to see you back. :D I understand the burnout. :/ --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 12:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I never realized how directly liable it seems users are for copyvio. Keep up the good work! Jason Quinn (talk) 23:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)