Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-08-29

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-08-29. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Four existing cases (1,603 bytes · 💬)

Quick question: my (Qwyrxian's) evidence went up on the Senkaku Islands arbitration yesterday; will you be adding anything about that, or is that too late now and will be mentioned next week? I have no concerns about the repetition of the claims Lvhis made, and think you summarized his points well (though, of course, I disagree with those point...but that's an issue for the arbitration). Qwyrxian (talk) 21:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your post; we'll make every effort to mention that next week, in addition to this note here. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 22:13, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

A critical typo: The sentence in "Arbitration/Senkaku Islands case opened" of last week's issue describing

STSC and Penwhale have presented brief statements of support for the position that "'Senkaku Islands' is not POV".

should be:

STSC and Penwhale have presented brief statements of support for the position that "'Senkaku Islands' is not NPOV".

Regard --Lvhis (talk) 17:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I saw the typo was fixed on September 5. Thank you very much! --Lvhis (talk) 16:50, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Featured content: The best of the week (2,987 bytes · 💬)

Rather than writing about all eleven featured pictures, I'd prefer to see them in a small gallery. --99of9 (talk) 07:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

May as well just link readers to the nomination page. One of the themes of FC is to carefully arrange and highlight large displays of a selection of the week's promotions, rather than to carpet it with small gallery versions that have to be clicked on to see (often in too-large version at the original pic page). Tony (talk) 09:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• The link for Gobrecht dollar is wrong. It goes to the first unsuccessfull nomination rather than to the second successfull. How do you fix that with the template that is used? --Eisfbnore • talk 08:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, will change. It's a "2" after a pipe symbol, I think. Tony (talk) 09:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to the editor who changed "front of the building" to "back of the building" in Iranian Embassy siege. I took "front" from the nomination-page lead. Tony (talk) 12:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• As the section introduction states, there were 21 featured articles approved during the week. But only 20 are listed in this Signpost article; it omits Thurisind. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 12:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Not to be nit-picking, but there seems to be an error in the Featured Articles section. User:PresN was excluded from the Final Fantasy XIII slot for who nominated it. GamerPro64 12:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Quite right, thanks for spotting this. I've added it and will leave a note at Aldux's talk page. Tony (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

You guys missed featured portal again (for the n-th time). OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

In the news: Wikipedia praised for disaster news coverage, scolded for left-wing bias; brief news (21,672 bytes · 💬)

• Swindle conflates systemic bias with POV. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11, 30 August 2011 (UTC).
  
• News flash: some POV pusher finds bias wherever he looks. Why does this rate more than a brief note? 66.81.104.182 (talk) 13:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• I'm getting sick of seeing the Signpost present attacks on Wikipedia by extremely biased sources and phrasing them as if they were neutral third parties with something meaningful to say. "Wikipedia [...] scolded for left-wing bias" as a headline reads that the Signpost editor agrees that we have a left-wing bias and is merely noting that we were scolded for it. That's why "alleged left-wing bias" or "accused of left-wing bias" works better, or, better yet (and with tongue slightly in cheek), "conservative blogger complains Wikipedia not conservative enough". The same sort of thing happened with that fringe Shakespeare amateur author a short while back that was treated as if he were some expert making a considered opinion instead of some nut job upset at the lack of nuttery. By all means report on these kinds of comments (briefly so as not to give them undue weight), but make sure the writing and headline isn't slanted in favor of them. This is especially important when dealing with dishonest fringe types who will try to use misleading headlines as proof to the rest of the world that Wikipedia admits that we are left-wing biased (and anti-Shakespearean research). DreamGuy (talk) 14:23, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I apologise on behalf of the editorial board for not using the word "alleged" in the subtitle. I do, however, feel it was clearly implied. I wrote the piece in question, and I wrote it with a cynical slant, so I don't think he got away with it here.
  • I don't, however, agree about limiting the space given to fringe theorists. It is of the utmost importance that their conerns are reported in full, and, if necessary, then ridiculed. Suppressing them does no good at all. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 14:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure that the fact that it is a fringe source is coming across in the article, though. I see your point but I wonder about the value of breathlessly reporting every gripe from a source so bad that we wouldn't use it for a WP article. Gamaliel (talk) 17:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
  • As the person who wrote the subtitles, I agree that it might have been worth to consider, for example, adding quotes around "left-wing bias". But I don't see this as a serious problem - the vast majority of readers will have understood that this referred to an opinion.
  • What is much more important in such cases, and here I agree with DreamGuy's concerns, is to place such criticism in context, and enable the reader to assess its significance. It is an important difference whether such criticism comes from a blog on one of the far ends of the political spectrum, or a reputed publication known for its even-handedness. I tried to add some of this context in the same edit where I filled out the subtitles for this section.
  • As for "a source so bad that we wouldn't use it for a WP article", it's difficult to argue against this assessment, but please note that we are not writing encyclopedia articles here. It may also be worthwhile to recall the scope of the "In the news" section: Its main purpose is to inform Wikipedians about news coverage that may shape the public perception of Wikipedia, be it well-informed or not. Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
    • As an avid reader of In The News, I've never had a problem with its deadpan reporting of news coverage critical of Wikipedia. I always read such items as being subtly mocking the criticisms, rather than supporting them; publishing critics' criticisms is often used as a method of indicating a lack of concern about their seriousness. Nor do I think there's an urgent requirement for more scare quotes and use of the word "alleged". The BBC does way too much of this in headline writing, once managing a headline of "Six beheaded by suspected extremists". They might not have been extremists - they might just have been moderates who were having a really bad day. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:38, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
      • Perhaps this column should be titled In the Alleged News. It is becoming increasingly common to conflate opinion and commentary with news but, just as Signpost articles are not encyclopedia entries, op-ed pieces are not "news". It is a Good Thing™ to report what people are saying about us, but these published sayings are not all news. ~ Ningauble (talk) 13:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
• One has to laugh at Swindle and his obvious POV of "I don't like it!". Maybe we are less conservative as we are a worldwide audidence, ie. not just Americans, who tend to be more conservative. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• Never heard of Hindus denying the nature of such symbols as the lingam, and there isn't much offered as to how or what instead the lingam symbolises. This comment at HuffPost gives a better picture of the matter.. —innotata 15:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• The Left is Right and the Right is Wrong. Count Iblis (talk) 15:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• Funny that even though Wikipedia is "an Islamist hornet’s nest", WikiProject Islam is a ghosttown. Kaldari (talk) 17:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• Who was it that observed, "Reality has a left-wing bias"? I always remember this statement when the usual people make the usual accusation about Wikipedia's political bias. -- llywrch (talk) 21:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • It was Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner and the exact quote was "Reality has a well-known liberal bias". —Tom Morris (talk) 15:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
• I realize that the pan-clanging propagandist at FrontPageMagazine doesn't actually care about why Wikipedia is like it is, which is to say, vaguely left-of-center while trying to write in a neutral tone. Two reasons: (1) the Conservapedia project siphoned off a certain percentage of Right Wing editors; (2) Historians, as a social group, tend to be left-of-cemter. "History will treat me fairly. Historians probably won't because most historians are on the left," as Nixon put it... That's show biz. Wikipedia does a pretty good job of NPOV, if you ask me. Compare and contrast to Conservapedia, which is a full-on propaganda circus. Carrite (talk) 23:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

• I took the initiative and removed a really, really misleading / irrelevant piece from ITN. I don't mean misleading as in "I disagree with one party" but misleading in that it tries to make it seem like a news organization did a shoddy job and cited Wikipedia in an article on a questionable fact, when no such thing happened. The Economist never mentions Wikipedia in their article, and they're referencing a well-grounded fact anyway (but in a rude/witty manner, hence the complaint). For the record:

* The Economist found itself in hot water with Hindu readers over its reliance on Wikipedia's characterisation of lingham, a form of Lord Shiva, as a "phallic symbol".

The article in The Economist, http://www.economist.com/node/18989028 , is on Kashmir and off-handedly mentions tourism as important to the region during a lull in hostilities, and notes "Hordes of Hindu pilgrims trek, unmolested, to a sacred penis-shaped lump of ice at Amarnath, a cave temple." (It's The Economist. They're being entirely factual, along with either "witty" or "offensive," depending on your point of view.) This causes some people to get Mad. The HuffPo article links to this 'dialogue' of emails - in which the Hindu American Foundation has seen fit to only publish *their* letters and entirely omit the letters someone at The Economist wrote arguing their position. Quite fair and balanced. Since the second letter mentions Wikipedia, we can presume that The Economist's first made a cutting reference to Wikipedia... but... not in the sense the news hook implies. The letter writer was almost surely mentioning Wikipedia in the sense of "this is obvious and noncontroversial so why don't you look at the first hit you'd see on the Internet" not "dur we just wrote what Wikipedia says." Even if the letter writer somehow had written statements along the lines of the second one, this is a random correspendence with one organization which hasn't even published what was said - not a published news piece. So Wikipedia has nothing to do with this, aside from one HuffPo writer's attempt to use it as a clumsy rhetorical sledgehammer ('hah, they may have mentioned Wikipedia in a non-publicly released correpondence, so I will assume the worst, and clearly Wikipedia was their source for everything, and Wikipedia is unreliable, so they're wrong!').

I won't go into the actual editorial very much aside from the fact that I disagree with it. It's the rough equivalent of getting angry at a publication for calling communion wine "rotting grapes" rather than "the blood of Lord Jesus." Rude? Probably, but they do that to everyone, so. (And this main spat has nothing to do with Wikipedia, either.) SnowFire (talk) 01:22, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, SnowFire, for your in-depth and engaging comment. As the editor responsible for adding the piece, allow me to respond. The purpose of the "In the news" report is to highlight to Wikipedians significant coverage (i.e. the lead stories) or mentions (i.e. the brief reports) of the project in the wider media universe; note that the threshold for inclusion here is not accuracy or comprehensiveness but noteworthiness. This item was included as it served as an insight into the role of Wikipedia in the construction of knowledge and facilitator of debate in the wider web. If you look at the HuffPo piece, the author's representation of the dialogue with The Economist does not invoke Wikipedia in some disquotational metaphoric sense, but as an explicit source for the disputed content. It's true that exacting journalistic standards would push for examination of the original documents and eschew hearsay, and our representation could have been closer in tone to caveat lector, but again, The Signpost for the most part functions as a community newsletter rather than a publisher of high-grade original reporting, and one of highly limited resources of contributor time, access and specialisation. If you are interested, we could certainly use contributors of your diligence. Best, Skomorokh

Oh, I don't fault the news staff on this one. Just from reading the HuffPo article, I'd think that Wikipedia was involved, too, rather than the author apparently... uh... not sure there's a polite term for this, fantasizing? But yeah. If someone from Ohio accused The New York Times of relying on Wikipedia for calling Ohio a "Rust Belt" state which is really insulting since Ohio is doing so much other wonderful stuff these days, this would be worth an ITN slot... if the NYT actually relied on Wikipedia, even for an accepted fact. This case is just weird since such an explicit Wikipedia reliance seemingly never happened.

I'm not sure I'd be up for the thankless task of actually writing ITN, but sure, I'll try and give it a look over early sometimes. (And on that note, thanks for editing The Signpost.) SnowFire (talk) 00:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• I would like to thank the above editors for their confirmation that Wikipedia is hopelessly biased. It's always good to know that at least some people nod with approval at Wikipedia's pandemic flaws. Even better that so many are so open about it -- too many prefer to pass over this one in complicit silence. Face it: This project is a pit of politically, religiously, culturally biased slobs who couldn't really care less whether or not a controversial topic is covered fairly. I think that describes the typical Wikipedia editor. Hardly anyone actually editing controversial articles tries to present the best arguments of the side opposing their particular bias. Hardly anyone tries to present the facts that put the other side's POV in the best light. (These aren't the only necessary things for fair coverage of a controversy -- they're just some of the ways to spot a biased editor.) And other editors who don't edit controversial topics don't really care how biased they are. Over in the real world, some people actually try to find that out on both sides and present controversies that way -- but that hardly ever happens on Wikipedia, because most people will not do that in real life and Wikipedia will reflect the failings of most people. This place is utterly and absolutely clueless about what it means to cover fairly topics that are controversial in the real world. Always has been, always will be. It's the nature of this beast. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 03:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Your comments are the most blatantly biased ones on the page, and yet you are ranting about some imagined bias here being bad. Please see the Illusory superiority article. DreamGuy (talk) 19:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Calling an opinion biased is like calling water wet. Calling a fellow editor psychologically flawed because he disagrees with you is ... well, you know what that is. I described some good ways of judging bias, and it applies to bias toward any part of the political spectrum. That's more than a rant. Occasionally there have been articles where the bias is right-wing. If you've got such a fine-tuned ear for bias in other media, you should be able to see it in this unprofessional encyclopedia as well. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 22:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not sure that a bunch of editors writing on here that the political Left is objectively correct, is helpful for this project's image of neutrality! I'm fairly certain that more editors self-identify as left-wing than right-wing, and this will have a systematic effect on our content. Youth and higher levels of academic education are generally correlated with left-wing or liberal views, and most of our editor base is drawn from these groups, so I hope I am not saying anything too controversial. But not everybody who has a viewpoint will seek to impose their personal opinions on the articles they edit, while we also have "activist" editors of all stripes. Not just left-vs-right, but a full spectrum of proponents of almost all religious, nationalist, aesthetic, sporting and even technical (Free Software enthusiasts; PC-vs-Mac etc) persuasions! Nixon's comment about historians is probably accurate; Wikipedia draws heavily on academic sources and a majority of academics in some areas (particularly social science) are left-leaning. Again it would be unsurprising if this is reflected on our articles, which tend to synthesize and summarize their scholarship.

But it's also unsurprising that a right-wing advocate performing an unsystematic review of Wikipedia's content will perceive a left-wing bias - this is just an instance of cognitive bias, whereby we tend to notice misrepresentations or criticisms of our own viewpoints, but those directed at people we disagree with tend not to grate or stick out. A similar phenomenon occurs in psychological studies of sports refereeing: fans of both teams tend to feel the umpiring was biased against their own side, even when watching the same footage! No doubt left-liberal readers of Wikipedia feel upset at what they see as corporate influence on articles, insufficient criticism of market-capitalism, too much space devoted to irrationall, unscientific or fringe religious views on matters of philosophy and ethics... so I'm dubious the Signpost should be giving much space to this type of criticism of Wikipedia, as our neutrality will always be a contested area. Partisan claims are much less important than large-scale, systematic studies of Wikipedia's underlying biases (mostly, perniciously systematic as Rich Farmborough points out), comparisons or criticisms of our factual accuracy (which can be measured objectively so less chance for cognitive bias to creep in; even if a left- or right-wing loon rips holes in the veracity of our BLPs we should take them seriously) or the apparently increasingly-numerous professional reviews of our medical information. TheGrappler (talk) 14:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• "I'm not sure that a bunch of editors writing on here that the political Left is objectively correct, is helpful for this project's image of neutrality! I'm not sure anyone actually did that. There's a reference to a joke on a comedy show that someone found funy, and someone else quoted a bumper sticker, which could be equally viewed as supporting or mocking the position. Hell, the only comments above that are undeniably endorsing a position seem to be on the opposite side of the political spectrum. DreamGuy (talk) 19:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Whether intended seriously or not, my point was that it doesn't look very good to outsiders! TheGrappler (talk) 22:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• I for one have no problem with the idea that Conservapedia will usually be to the right of us, or Liberapedia to the left http://liberapedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page Now a thoughtful critique that compared us to both of those and also to reality would be interesting, but a Conservative criticising us for being less Conservative than Conservapedia.... It would be worrying if we didn't seem relatively Liberal compared to them.

As for our Che Guevara article, as well as detailing his marital infidelities it describes him as "feared for his brutality and ruthlessness" and details why. It recounts an incident of him killing someone in cold blood. Economic incompetence "Whatever the merits or demerits of Guevara’s economic principles, his programs were unsuccessful. Guevara's program of "moral incentives" for workers caused a rapid drop in productivity and a rapid rise in absenteeism". An overly confrontational attitude that failed to engage the Bolivians. Then there's the bit about him and WMD "A few weeks after the crisis, during an interview with the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker, Guevara was still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal and told correspondent Sam Russell that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off". Multiple separate and sourced criticisms that to my mind make it a far more balanced article than David Swindle claims. On my reading rather more than the 235 words that Swindle claims were negative. If anyone here is inclined to take Swindle seriously I'd commend reading Che Guevara and doing a word count of the negative bits. Of course word count is an over-simplistic tool even if you get it right; Something as serious as this guy would have used a bunch of nukes if he'd been able to, somewhat eclipses his work running literacy programs and reading literature to his soldiers. ϢereSpielChequers 21:17, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Original research?

I suggest you buy a copy of the New Yorker and read the article about the work session at the British Library. I checked only one Wikipedia entry resulting from the Wiki-work, Ruth Traill, and I marked it as Original Research and Synthesis. I wonder how many other WP articles from that session suffer from the same failings? It would be nice to know. Sincerely, a friend to all, including the British Library, GeorgeLouis (talk) 16:55, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: Abuse filter on all Wikimedia sites; Foundation's report for July; editor survey results (2,209 bytes · 💬)

Rouge/Rogue

Why is the link rouge admins to WP:ROUGE and why is it rouge instead of rogue? RJFJR (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The misspelling is an element of internet subculture (AFAIK) and is relatively common parlance here on Wikipedia. The link points to WP:ROUGE because I didn't know what title the page was at when I added it :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 21:15, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I GET it, but this dopiness should not be allowed to infest the Signpost. There are newbies that look at it, and relatively serious people, too. Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:17, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Understanding jargon is an important part of community building. That said, point noted. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 10:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm with GeorgeLouis here. That page has an "Uncyclopedia" look and feel. It's very unprofessional. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:42, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Abuse filter introduced...

There is an unbalanced closing parenthesis in the opening paragraph. ~ Ningauble (talk) 12:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Triple Crown

"The award level was newly created for the occasion" sounded odd, so I checked and the wording here isn't quite clear- the Ultimate Triple Crown award used to be at 100 articles, but when Tony got there they made up a new 100-level award and pushed the Ultimate one out to 250 so that there would still be a level no one had reached, they didn't just make up a new award for Tony. --PresN 16:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• Boy, it would really nice if the article would tell what the abuse filter DOES, for heaven's sake! GeorgeLouis (talk) 07:15, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Opinion essay: The pending changes fiasco: how an attempt to answer one question turned into a quagmire (34,107 bytes · 💬)

Editor's note: a user has objected to the point of view given in this opinion piece. Editors should be aware that it may not represent a neutral version of events, and is therefore distinct from The Signpost's other reports, all of which seek to be non-partisan.

---

• Wow. Kudos to Beeblebrox for an excellent op-ed. Really gives an interesting POV on this whole "fiasco". Nolelover ^{Talk·Contribs} 12:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• Great piece! I remember I was involved in an RFC about patrolled/sighted revisions in 2009 or 2010, and if I remember correctly it was an ugly affair. I feel like on this topic, there are a lot of users (on both sides, probably) who aren't willing to compromise. In my opinion, the recent proposals have been much less drastic than the original ones and should be a compromise which everyone can get behind already. (although I'll admit, I was on wikibreak during the trial period and haven't read the specific proposals being discussed). Anyways, good job and thanks for the great read! –Drilnoth (T/C) 13:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• Consensus-delaying strategies are finally being employed on a large scale by Wikipedians who are afraid they won't like the result of a consensus-finding process. At the moment we seem to have no effective techniques for countering them. Hans Adler 13:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• • Effective technique: Get the oversighters to remove the edits which delay the process.
    (I said that it would be effective, not that it would be a good idea :) –Drilnoth (T/C) 13:57, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• I stopped following the discussion after a week or so, so it's good to know what happened. The lesson here is that clarity is important when asking for the initial decision - if the original PC trial proposal had been either "We will trial it for 3 months then turn it off until we have completed an RFC on turning it on permanently" or "We will trial it for 3 months then keep it on until we have completed an RFC on keeping it on permanently" the whole mess would have been avoided. I very much fear we are risking similar problems with the proposed image filter, if it is implemented there will be people saying "Hey! This isn't what I voted for!" regardless of how it is implemented, because the current proposal is vague (and even more unfortunately is vague on the the hard questions). Rich Farmbrough, 14:13, 30 August 2011 (UTC).
  

• • At least the image filter will be opt-in, so even if it isn't what people wanted they won't have to use it as far as I can tell. –Drilnoth (T/C) 15:23, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• May I just congratulate Beeblebrox on the very telling expression "the guy trying to be the ringmaster of an out-of-control circus"? A lovely turn of phrase which summarizes it - and perhaps other aspects of Wikipedia - beautifully! :) Best wishes 138.37.199.206 (talk) 15:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• Personally, I think the outcome was totally reasonable: The endless trial was finally ended, and because there was no agreement on future use of Pending Changes, no policy for or against it was created. I'm sorry this caused Beeblebrox to feel like his effort was wasted, but sometimes "maybe" is actually the right answer. Kaldari (talk) 17:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• This is a bit longer than my normal comment, but I strongly feel that the editorial Op-Ed by Beeblebrox that was featured in the signpost ignored and mischaracterized the actual objections to the pending changes fiasco. Concerning the objections, he says that he "felt this was irrelevant." I think it only fair to explain exactly what the objections were that he felt to be irrelevant.

The main objection is that consensus was ignored and that trust was betrayed. There was a consensus for a two-month trial with a fixed ending date. Those who supported the trial trusted those who were to run the trial to do what they said they would do and end it on that date. The ending date was ignored. In response to this, there was a new discussion and a new consensus for a "we really mean it this time" drop-dead date. This consensus was also completely ignored. Then the RfC was closed with a two week deadline for removal from all articles -- which was ignored.

On top of the above, we saw an admin get blocked for following the clear consensus and removing pending changes from articles. If that doesn't discourage admins from following consensus, I don't know what will. As far as I can tell this block had no repercussions. Instead I we saw claims that consensus is a false god, claims that consensus can be overridden by invoking the magic BLP word, etc.

The op-ed piece acts as if Beeblebrox was just asking an innocent question about usage of pending changes, but his question started off by claiming there was "no clear policy on its continued use" - once again ignoring the clear consensus. At this point his asking the question again was very much like what certain kings used to do - trying someone over and over and keeping the jury locked up until they they returned the desired verdict.

Consider the following comments by other editors who also feel that this has harmed Wikipedia:

Comments by other editors

>"Many editors consider the refusal to end the trial on the date promised as a breach of trust" >"It's impossible to assume good faith when a past assurance continues not to be honored (i.e. begs the question: How can we trust you to honor the results of discussions if you're not honoring the results of a previous one?)" >"The main reason the trial got in in the first place was due to users supporting with the understanding that it would be removed, and only because it would be removed, saying they wanted to try it out. If we don't keep the promise of turning features off after the trial, this factor will be lost for future trial proposals" >"The poll that produced the original consensus to turn the feature on was for a trial with a specified end date. In the absence of any consensus to make the feature permanent or start another trial the feature should be removed from articles. Failing to do this has damaged the credibility of any future software trial proposals." >"I disagree that this is just removal solely for the sake of making a point. This is making good on the original agreement that the trial would end, by the end of 2010 for the last agreement. Anything beyond that wasn't approved, it's that simple. In the absence of any community agreement to do anything else this is the default option and the one we must follow. The only way around that is to totally ignore the original agreement, which totally goes against the whole concept of consensus." >"This is necessary to deal with negative feelings about being lied to. I must say I have trouble with those myself and feel a strong irrational urge to oppose to everything related to pending changes." >"The only consensus was for a fixed-term trial, with a clear expectation that if no further consensus arose then we would revert to the status quo ante. We need to deliver on that promise, to retain credibility for future trials in other areas." >"If 'trial' comes to mean 'turned on indefinitely', no-one else will get consensus to trial other new ideas in future." >"WP:IAR doesn't excuse conscious deceit. The extension of this trial beyond two months was a betrayal, not 'ignoring rules to make a better encyclopedia'... The decision to go back on one's word isn't something that is done by accident or mistake." >"I increasingly feel this debate has become about something much more important than pending changes. It's become about good faith. A sizable portion of the editor base clearly feels that without a clear consensus to continue the pending changes trial that the original commitment to end the pending changes trial after two months should have been upheld. ... Wikipedia is already hurting in recruiting and retaining editors, and cannot afford to reach a point where change and compromise has become impossible because of distrust."

The above quotes clearly show that harm was done. You cannot unring that bell. Turning off pending changes was just a baby step toward mitigating that harm. We need a firm and clear published policy that promising to try something for a limited amount of time and then breaking that promise will never again be tolerated on Wikipedia, and a formal apology for doing it in this case. That is the bare minimum required to start to regain the editor's trust. Months later, we still have no apology, no written policy, and no assurance that consensus will not be ignored again. Instead we have an editorial Op-Ed in the Guidepost implying that ignoring consensus is perfectly acceptable and that complaining about ignoring consensus is "disruption and factionalism." --Guy Macon (talk) 19:23, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The argument over PC is for others, but I feel the contention that the Op-Ed (which is not an editorial, incidentally: the Signpost does not endorse any view it publishes) legitimises breaking consensus is a non-starter. No-one deliberately tries to ignore consensus per se, and evidently, in Beeblebrox's' opinion he wasn't. What you have above is his opinion. incdientally, I realise that people may not know that this is to be the first in a series -- we're not giving Beeblebrox a special podium per se, only a podium in order to entertain and provoke debate. Which we've succeeded in IMHO. We have considered, and will consider in future again, running opinion pieces in pairs in order to appear more neutral. Would that appeal? We still would not tolerate personal attacks, however, and the above does read like an overly personalised complaint. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 19:56, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I would hope not to have strayed into personal attack territory, but of course I would likely be blind to that. If anyone thinks I have done so, feel free to suggest more neutral wording and I will change what I wrote. Alas, while the Op-Ed could say things like "long, disjointed conversation" "out of control" and "without apparently having read previous posts" about a group of editors, any response must necessarily refer to the one editor who wrote the Op-Ed. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• I'm thrilled that we're getting some op-ed submissions finally! Time for me to work on one that's been on the back burner for months, then ... urgh. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:54, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
• I took essentially a directly opposed position to Beeblebrox's during all the stages of this pending changes discussions and trial, and I feel he has commented on the matter in a perfectly fair way that I too would endorse as a summary. I'm additionally glad to see his explanation of his feelings during the later stages, as a clarification of what we could all tell was getting confused. DGG ( talk ) 00:27, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
  • With all due respect, I cannot understand how anyone can characterize "Nobody was able to keep this process moving in a forward direction once those who wanted to discuss a different issue had derailed it" can be considered commenting on the matter in a perfectly fair way. Asking that consensus be followed is not derailing forward progress. His original decision to assert that there is "no clear policy on its continued use" in the face of an overwhelming consensus against its continued use was a main source of the conflict. This is an Op-Ed piece showing his side of the dispute (which is fine), not a balanced description of the dispute. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:09, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• The easiest way (well in a way the easiest) to have known the amount of yes or no is to give 3 options -Absolute yes, Absolute No and Objections/Abstain. General Rommel (talk) 01:31, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• I was an opponent of pending changes when it was first proposed, but I came to see it as it should be used: an effective vandalism-fighting tool, to be used in extreme cases, much like page protection. Unfortunately, this seems to be an All-Or-Nothing thing in most peoples' minds. In which case, I'll have two scoops of nothing, thank you very much. If PC is wheeled out again explicitly as an anti-vandalism device for certain high risk articles, consensus could happen. But that's what it will take. Carrite (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
• Pending changes was an OK tool and its a shame we've removed it. I'd prefer that we implemented flagged revisions the way it works on DE and elsewhere, but I guess we'll have to wait for the next major incident before we can get consensus to shut the barn door. ϢereSpielChequers 13:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Regarding the objections raised above: I think some of them may have rather missed the point. The purpose of the RFC I created was to answer one single question. That question being: Should we have pending changes on the English Wikipedia in some form, or should we reject it entirely?" The short term question of whether it was turned on at that time is a different issue. Who betrayed who and who was to blame for the never ending trial is a different issue. When I say those points are irrelevant, I'm not saying they are entirely irrelevant and should never be discussed anywhere, but rather that they are not relevant to that one question. I designed the RFC to help determine the future of pending changes, but it was hijacked and re-focused on the past instead. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• Alas, you didn't just "ask a simple question." You led off your question by asserting that there was "no clear policy on its continued use" (Link) in the face of an overwhelming consensus against its continued use.

Since then you have been characterizing any attempt to disagree with your original assertion as being "irrelevant", "a different issue", "missing the point", "hijacking", etc. Nobody made you claim that there was no clear policy on its continued use. Once you made that claim, it shouldn't have surprised you that folks objected to it.

Asking whether we should we have pending changes on the English Wikipedia in some form or whether should we reject it entirely cannot be separated from the fact that a large number of editors are convinced - with good reason - that the answer to that question will be ignored unless the answer supports continued use of pending changes.

You can't just jump into a situation where consensus is being ignored and trust has been lost and ask for a third consensus on the same question. Naturally the answer was "we answered that twice already. Why are you claiming that we didn't?" Did you read the "Extended content" above? Were all of those editors "missing the point"? Please consider the possibility that it is you who are missing the point.

Change of topic: Is this what we want Signpost to be? One person posting an Op-Ed defending his POV and another editor posting a reply defending another POV, followed by a long back-and-forth? I much preferred it when Signpost treated issues (even controversial arbcom rulings) in an unbiased manner, and comments were mainly non-controversial corrections or clarifications to the article. Is the path we are on here really good for Wikipedia? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the trial was badly mismanaged, as I said myself in the piece. If a contractor did a crappy job remolding your kitchen would you blame his tools and make sure nobody ever used those specific tools again, or would you blame the contractor who wielded the tools improperly? In the end that is what happened here. People didn't like how the trial was handled, and PC itself took the blame instead of whoever it was (still waiting for an answer there) that messed up the trial. There may well have been a pre-existing consensus to end the trial. I have never said there was not. That simply was not the point of the RFC when it opened. It's unfortunate that folks were unable to look beyond their hurt feelings and evaluate the usefulness of PC objectively as a separate matter from "who screwed up the trial?" I would suggest that you may be a good candidate to write a full op-ed rebuttal for a future issue as you seem to have a lot to say on this matter. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:17, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I actually like the idea of PC and if the choice was mine to make would have retained it (with possible improvements). If the above mentioned contractor did the above mentioned crappy job and there was no possibility of ever changing contractors, how would you react to a survey about use of the same tools in the future? What if the contractors were still in the kitchen tearing things up despite being told several times to stop? Would you calmly ignore the ongoing fiasco, pretend that there was some other contractors available and say "I approve of future use of the tools I am hearing being misused in my kitchen right now"? What if the question started out by falsely claiming that there was no clear policy on whether the workers should do as they were instructed and stop?

BTW, the question of who messed up the trial is pretty easy to determine. Just look at who blocked an admin for following consensus and removing PC from articles, then look at those who supported the block and opposed the blocking admin experiencing any negative consequences for his actions. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• I would just like to note that a few changes were made just before this was published. This happened much more suddenly than I expected and I happened to be camping at the time and did not have a chance to review them, in particular this one [1] which I believe removed some important context from the front end of the piece. Despite that I have generally found the Signpost staff responsive to feedback, you might want to suggest those changes to them. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:18, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• Good Op-Ed, Beeblebrox. The entire PC RfC process was painful and depressing. We need a way to limit an editor to only respond to direct questions once it's clear they're merely repeating themselves; perhaps a new policy/guideline called WP:NOTHINGNEW or an expansion of WP:BATTLEGROUND. Otherwise, as happened in the PC debate (IMO), an editor can use a continuous stream of redundant objections to dominate a debate and wear down the "other side". --JaGa^talk 21:31, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

• The problem with such a policy encourages the ignoring of legitimate objections, knowing that any followup questions will be suppressed. It also is an invitation to biased enforcement. For example, Beeblebrox (who I believe to be discussing things calmly and in good-faith, not battling) has mentioned on several occasions that he believes that the issue of the tools and the past history of those using the tools are completely separate issues. I disagree, but it's a reasonable argument. He has restated that argument several times, but in my opinion he has refined and improved the argument at each iteration. Should he have been stopped on the first repeat? Or, perhaps you were only thinking of suppressing my responses to his argument, which have also been refined and improved as we discuss the issue?

In my opinion, continued discussion is not the problem. That's what we do on Wikipedia in order to seek consensus. In my opinion, the problem is that the Signpost is the wrong place for it. I don't like having this conversation here, but I like the alternative of letting an Op-Ed with a particular POV on an issue that is vital to the operation of Wikipedia stand with no rebuttal even less. The software that copies anything posted on the talk page to the article makes it worse. That feature should be used only on the normal Signpost articles, not on controversial Op-Eds. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:16, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually you're up to six rebuttals... --JaGa^talk 08:06, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Bad count: four, not six

Bad count. Beeblebrox's Op-Ed:[2] COUNT: Beeblebrox = 1 Support for Beeblebrox from Drilnoth:[3] COUNT: Beeblebrox = 1, Beeblebrox plus supporters = 2 My reply to Beeblebrox:[4] COUNT: Guy Macon = 1 My striking "editorial" and inserting "op-ed" in response to criticism by Jarry1250:[5] (No count, not a rebuttal) My asking for wordinng suggestions in response to criticism by Jarry1250:[6] (No count, not a rebuttal) Support for Beeblebrox from DGG:[7] COUNT: Beeblebrox = 1, Beeblebrox plus supporters = 3 My reply to DGG:[8] COUNT: Guy Macon = 2 Beeblebrox restating his position and claiming that those who disagree are missing the point:[9] COUNT: Beeblebrox = 2, Beeblebrox plus supporters = 4 My response to Beeblebrox:[10] COUNT: Guy Macon = 3 Support for Beeblebrox from JaGa. including a call to suppress disagreement with Beeblebrox:[11] COUNT: Beeblebrox = 2, Beeblebrox plus supporters = 5 Beeblebrox responding to my previous comment:[12] COUNT: Beeblebrox = 3, Beeblebrox plus supporters = 6 My response to Beeblebrox and JaGa:[13] COUNT: Guy Macon = 4 General comment from Beeblebrox (not in response to any particular comment):[14] (No count) Jaga miscounts rebuttals in support of his call to suppress disagreement with Beeblebrox:[15] (Not actually supporting Beeblebrox, so No count) I correct Jaga's incorrect count:[16](No count) TOTAL ASSERTIONS/REBUTTALS: Beeblebrox = 3, Beeblebrox plus supporters = 6, Guy Macon = 4 --Guy Macon (talk) 10:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

• You know what the drama was that started all this, I think? It was when the "trial" (which was supposed to stop), didn't. That is what got a lot of people's backs up on this. When you create a limited time trial, the trial stops at the specified time on the specified day - it doesn't carry on regardless of the fact that the trial has expired. I'm pretty sure I speak English, and I have a good idea what the words "The trial ends on..." mean. It means it stops there and then, and doesn't continue. Not "Oh we'll leave it running past the closing date while everyone decides what we do with it now." - They decided what to do with it when they started the trial - turn it off on the closing date.

There is obviously no point in listening to the people campaigning for PC now, since they clearly make promises they have no bloody intention of keeping. They broke a promise, why should we allow them to make anymore?  BarkingFish  22:15, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

The exact wording of the poll that approved a trial of Pending Changes is here: Wikipedia talk:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Poll. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Excerpts from poll

The exact wording of the poll that approved a trial of Pending Changes is here: Wikipedia talk:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions/Poll. In addition to the "Please note: This is for a two-month trial only." at the top of the poll, the following comments from the poll make it clear that those voting in favor were not voting for retaining Pending changes on articles indefinitely: "I believe it is also important to make sure that the trial is stopped, with everything back to normal at the elapsed time." "I think a major concern among some of the opposers (to the trial) is that a trial is just an excuse to get it turned on." "Support with caveat that a clearly defined trial (time, scope, evaluation) should be agreed, to prevent a drift into long-term de facto policy." "Do not support 'trial==something we will do forever since it is now policy' position." "The only thing that brings me to support this is the fact that it is a trial." "Support I was opposed to the generic "shall we try flagged revs" but this seems like an appropriately controlled experiment." "If it turns out this thing doesn't work out, it's only for two months." "I'm not convinced this is the optimal solution but would like to see a limited trial." "Support a trial for two months to allow us to evaluate how it actually works in practice." "The key point is that this is a trial." "Support as a trial only." "Support a trial, let's see how it goes." "Something needs to be done, and a trial has few drawbacks." "A trial ia a good way to assess and debug any system." "No harm in a trial." "We need to at least try this." "Support Let's see what happens." "Won't know how this works until we give it a try." "There cannot be any harm in trying something." "I've no problem with a trial run." "This will let us see if such a system could work." "We need to do a trial and see how it goes." "The first step need not be perfect. Trial sounds a great idea." "Two months seems short for such a major trial." "It's worth a trial run." "A trial can't hurt anyone." "Trial is harmless." "At some point it needs a field test." "Some people seem to think that a trial lasting for 2 months will ruin the project ... I haven't seen any convincing arguments against just checking whether this will work or not, and that's all we're doing." --Guy Macon (talk) 10:30, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Guy, exactly what I was getting onto. You see some of those comments though - "A trial can't hurt anyone", "A trial is harmless", and so on... this is where it all went tits up. The trial (Proposal 17, which was put into effect) as clearly stated it was for two months only. Those two months turned into G*d only knows how long, and I think that dug up a shedload more opposition to PC than it had in the first place. After that fiasco, who now is going to listen when someone proposes another trial or a reimplementation? I know for one, I won't.  BarkingFish  11:34, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

This situation can be salvaged. First, we need published policy that makes it clear that promising to try something for a limited amount of time and then breaking that promise will never again be tolerated on Wikipedia, and a formal apology for doing it in this case. That is the bare minimum required to start to regain the trust of the dozens of editors who still feel betrayed. It would also help if those who think these concerns are irrelevant would at least attempt to understand what the actual objections are. And, optionally, we might want to address the fact that Jimbo Wales weighed in as a strong supporter of Pending Changes, and ask ourselves if some editors and administrators decision to continue to use PC beyond the promised deadline despite a clear consensus to stop might have been influenced by this, which I am sure was not Jimbo's intent. Trust can be restored, but only if those who were involved in breaking that trust are willing to commit to never breaking it again. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:38, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

• I think the biggest issue here was one that has been an ongoing one on en.wikipedia - that of trust. When people break trust, consensus becomes almost impossible because the people who got lied to feel that any compromise is a tainted one and will probably be broken by those who did it the first time, so the discussion breaks down into a war between rival groups of activists who won't give an inch, and new participants get either confused or intimidated and simply don't participate at all. I've seen that on a smaller scale in other discussions. Beeblebrox is to be commended for starting the discussion and, from my view, running it reasonably well as far as it could be run (the term "herding cats" comes to mind), but a successful conclusion to the discussion would only have been possible if there wasn't a sour taste in some people's mouths from the very beginning. That is not Beeblebrox's responsibility, but that of the small group of activists with a "come hell or high water" attitude to what they saw (in good faith) as a positive reform, but which they couldn't get the community to agree on. Orderinchaos 02:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Recent research: Article promotion by collaboration; deleted revisions; Wikipedia's use of open access; readers unimpressed by FAs; swine flu anxiety (7,282 bytes · 💬)

Am I the only one who's seeing strange "€" characters all over the footnotes? — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:17, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks--DarTar (talk) 11:41, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

One more at "‡Philipp Sorg". :) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 14:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

re-fixed, good catch --DarTar (talk) 17:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

"Readers unimpressed by FAs" – what a sensational headline. Number of edits, unique editors, and editor names having an influence on the perceived quality of an article??? Without a proper assessment as opposed to some mere babbling the outcome of this study seems pretty worthless. Nageh (talk) 13:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

"babbling", "worthless" - did you read the study? If not, is this a valid method for assessing information quality?

I believe the subtitle aptly (if briefly) summarizes what the authors highlighted as one of the study's "novel findings" in the "Summary and conclusion" section ("The perceptions of our users regarding quality did not always coincide with the perceptions of Wikipedia editors, since in fewer than half of the cases the featured article was chosen as best. This finding warrants further exploration. Previous studies often relied implicitly on the high quality of featured articles.").

Academic research generally strives to describe the world as it is, not as it should be. Of course one can be of the opinion that the assessments of the study participants were not all well-founded, or disagree with their criteria. ("One of the participants who chose the featured article as the lowest quality article complained about the lack of images in the article: ‘Provide some images, this is an abstract concept, how can you do without visualization?’, and the others found the article too high level and detailed.") But it is nevertheless worth knowing that many readers think this way. And actually, much of the comments on WP:FAC are about formal criteria and from non-experts, too (rather than, say, systematic fact-checking).

Lastly, keep in mind that the study concerned the Hebrew Wikipedia and appears to have been conducted in 2008 or earlier.

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 11:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Note the word "seems": I did not say that the study "is" worthless. I was basing my comment on the information available as the full paper is paywalled (I would have read it otherwise). In this regard I do think my complaint was valid. It may very well be that there is more substantive reviewer feedback available in the paper (as you indicate) but if editor names and the like have an influence on the quality assessment I have a right to complain. Moreover, considering the setup of the test, if you go out on the street with an exceptional source and another one that is shorter, more easily comprehensible with colorful pictures aso. but of inferior quality people will likely prefer the latter because they don't know better. Too much detail? Heck, what a complaint is that? That's the complaint of a pupil who is forced to study something. There really has to be objective criteria for quality assessment: informative, accessible, comprehensive, balanced are suitable criteria. Having said that, I do not think that the outcome of this study is completely worthless but simply taking the outcome to state that "readers are unimpressed by FAs" is misleading and, with all respect, sensational IMHO. That's like going out on the street with a source of exceptionally high quality and expecting Joe Average to be impressed by it. Anyway, this was my thought on this and I think it was valid to present. So is yours. Thanks for the feedback! Nageh (talk) 11:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

On second thought, concerning the headline, I guess it's fine when read in the context. I complained about it because I have often seen narrow results being interpreted as general facts and wronggoings on Wikipedia, published as such in the general press. Nageh (talk) 12:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I fear there might have been a misunderstanding about the setup of the study (and I apologize if the wording of my review contributed to it): The participants were not instructed by the researchers to use particular criteria (like, say, the number of edits in a revision history, or the nicknames appearing there). Rather, these are criteria that participants came up with by themselves. So if anything, you should direct your criticism at the students who participated in the study (and in that case, it would have merit), not at the study itself, which made considerable effort to objectively record the student's assessments and the criteria they used. (BTW, another superficial criterion named frequently by the students was the presence - not the selection! - of external links.)

if you go out on the street ... - from the paper's description of the methodology, it seems that the selection of articles was sufficiently randomized to avoid such biases (i.e. not consistently pitting a high-quality text vs. an article of lower quality but higher visual appeal).

By the way, it is worth mentioning the Article feedback tool recently rolled out to the entire English Wikipedia, as another effort to learn more about the quality assessments by non-editors. There, preliminary research found that

"... there appears to be some alignment between reader assessments and community assessments of an article’s quality. Of the 25 most highly rated articles in the sample (average rating of 4.54), 10 are either Featured Articles or Good Articles (3 Featured and 7 Good). Of the 25 most poorly rated articles (average rating of 3.29), there is only one Good Article and no Featured Articles."

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 13:06, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand. Well, the article feedback tool would not be a blind study (so to say, readers can recognize an article's featured status), and there are other problems with it, but certainly there is useful information that can be drawn from it (and may allow for a comparative study of FA quality among the various Wikipedias). Cheers, Nageh (talk) 13:20, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Another excellent review article. Please keep them coming! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:50, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: The bugosphere, new mobile site and MediaWiki 1.18 close in on deployment (1,442 bytes · 💬)

• To further confuse the numbers, not all bugs are bugs, they may be requests for features. Moreover not all closed bugs are "solved" they may be duplicate bugs (probably the biggest class), "won't-fix" closes or may even become irrelevant as the software evolves over the years. Rich Farmbrough, 14:32, 30 August 2011 (UTC).
  

All excellent points Rich :) It is a complicated business, but fortunately, the important business is the fixing rather than the trending. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 14:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• The Wikimedia Bugzilla, in addition to covering bug reports and feature requests for MediaWiki and Wikimedia websites, also handles the same for many MediaWiki extensions, including plenty that have never been (and likely never will be) used on Wikimedia wikis. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · ☎ Dinoguy1000} 17:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)