Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2012-03-05. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: AUSC appointments announced, one case remains open (473 bytes · 💬)

The 'revised list of ArbCom clerks' is by no means definitive; it is very much a work-in-progress. --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 13:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
- OK. Thanks AD for the note. :) Lord Roem (talk) 17:35, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussion report: COI and NOTCENSORED: policies under discussion (979 bytes · 💬)

I like this section a lot - major ongoing discussions are of great interest to me and often easy to overlook. Dcoetzee 00:38, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Any suggestions to improve the discussion report? Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 23:39, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Honestly I think the current format is excellent - good summaries of major ongoing issues combined with other issues in brief. One thing I might add is "discussions resolved this week" along with their conclusions. Dcoetzee 00:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Featured content: Best of the week (4,197 bytes · 💬)

Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus photograph

The Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus blurb is misleading in several ways. It says "The plant, one of the first lilies to be cultivated, is found mainly in China."

1) It is a daylily, not a true lily. Completely different order, subfamily, family and genus. It shouldn't be called a lily as this is confusing.

2) Compare the blurb with the Wikipedia Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus page, which says "one of the first daylilies used for breeding". Being one of the first daylilies used for breeding is not the same thing as being 'one of the first lilies to be cultivated' at all. Breeding is to improve the plant line, to introduce new cultivars etc. Cultivation is likely to have gone on in China for millennia, growing the plant (but not necessarily breeding/developing it) for food and medicine. This ambiguity of meaning should be clarified.

However, a far bigger and more important problem is that I am not at all convinced that the photographed exampled is a true Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus anyway. I grow it and have been to see the Hemerocallis species and cultivars held in one of the National Collections here in the UK. All examples of the plant I have ever seen are a much more lemony-yellow than the version pictured. Given that the photographed example was not growing in its natural range, it is highly likely that it is a cultivar or a hybrid, not the true species. Hemerocallis species hybridise with each other very readily.

This brings me to one of the biggest problems in WIkipedia. We have all these rules for verifiability and sourcing in our written material, but in photographs we just take the photographer's word that the photograph shows what it purports to show. I am not suggesting the photographer here was trying to mislead; just that he or she might have been misinformed and by reproducing this photograph as a Featured Image, that error is being promulgated and given the veneer of authority and correctness. 86.134.91.157 (talk) 08:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Additional: The image gallery on the Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus page is as below:

1 Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus
2 Close up
3 Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus
4 Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus
5 Dried golden needles

Of these, No 2 'Close Up' is definitely not Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, nor of course is the image in the infobox on that page, the Featured Article shot discussed above. No 1 shows the colour of the plant well. 86.134.91.157 (talk) 08:48, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I have added a gallery to illustrate the problems with identification, but it doesn't appear to be showing in this comment box for some reason. 86.134.91.157 (talk) 08:51, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. This seems to be an FP issue, although I see several people agree with you. The nom should be corrected, methinks. ResMar 00:59, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Answer of the author:

I think I did the correct identification, this file shows it:

I wrote an extended answer to this topic here: Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_candidates#Huge_problem_with_a_featured_picture_-_it_is_not_what_it_claims_to_be Regards, --Paolo Costa 15:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

In the news: Heights reached in search rankings, privacy and mental health info; clouds remain over content policing (1,446 bytes · 💬)

The external link in the second to last brief (FA gets attention) doesn't work. It redirects to a general listing of social media news, on which I cannot find the story. jcgoble3 (talk) 01:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; I have replaced the link with a functioning alternative. Best, Skomorokh 01:46, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you.

jcgoble3 (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned that Wikiqueer's purpose appears to overlap quite entirely with that of Wikipedia itself. Unless they plan to have looser notability criteria or something. A lot of their seed content is actually from Wikipedia. Dcoetzee 00:45, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Critical Race Theory

Daily Caller 2012/03/12, Wikipedia editor responds to ‘Critical Race Theory’ edit war. Daily Caller Ling.Nut3 (talk) 05:27, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

News and notes: Chapter-selected Board seats, an invite to the Teahouse, patrol becomes triage, and this week in history (3,955 bytes · 💬)

This week in history

What brought that on? Re-running a story from just one year ago as "History" brings to mind John Brunner's remark in Stand on Zanzibar : "Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view." ~ Ningauble (talk) 15:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I thought it was an interesting little tidbit. ResMar 21:50, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

List view looks good

The mockup of "list view" of the New Pages "Triage" queue looks good; certainly superior to the the current version. My only question is how that is going to scale, assuming a list that is 5,000 articles long or whatever the NPP queue is currently. One would think that the "approved" articles will have to vanish pretty rapidly from the list, otherwise the thing is gonna be 700 screens long. Carrite (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thinking aloud here — how about two lists, one for "unpatrolled" and another for "recently patrolled" material? The more I think about it, the more I believe things are going to quickly become unmanageably long (with unanticipated consequences) if every single article takes up one inch instead of one line of screen space. Carrite (talk) 17:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, as I understand it the idea is it unfolds seamlessly - rather like twitter, or Special:FeedbackDashboard. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Okeyes (WMF), I really like the openness at Wikipedia talk:New Page Triage and think that WMF's inclusion of the wikipedia community in developing the New Pages "Triage" is a great strategic decision. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:33, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you; this is one of the (many) elements of the engagement strategy I was talking about a few weeks ago. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:11, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Carrite: what you're describing is actually going into the design document that I'm currently writing and hope to publish, either later tonight or tomorrow. We really, truly have been working on this, and want to give people something to chew on.--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 01:58, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

And viola!--Jorm (WMF) (talk) 04:10, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Just wishing to put the record straight here for Signpost readers: There is nothing 'new' about this project; serious research into NPP issues was first begun by a dedicated volunteer team in October 2010, and 'Triage' was first announced by Jorm as 'Zoom' on 20 Septembe 2011 - six months ago. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

If you look at the specific details of the project you will see a great distinction between the initial zoom interface and this. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Right! New Page Triage is merely the official name. And I see its been redirected to Page Triage, so we should call it that. MathewTownsend (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Technology report: With the 1.19 deployment now (mostly) complete, developers consider possible "mini" deployment later in the month (1,054 bytes · 💬)

I had trouble with thumbnails at the time of deployment, but this time I knew what to blame it on and didn't have to bother the Village pump people. Thanks as always for your write up. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Chinese wikipedia not update to 1.19--Shizhao (talk) 03:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

It hadn't been, but it has now (if that makes sense). - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 11:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Just as a minor update: Git has been moved to a new host and is humming along fine. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 21:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject report: We don't bite: WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles (538 bytes · 💬)

Keep up the good work! Your contributions help education people and by extension helps protect this awesome creatures. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
you don't bite much? But that means you still bite. No good. No Good. SYSS Mouse (talk) 16:04, 13 March 2012 (UTC)