Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2013-02-11. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Discussion report: WebCite proposal; request for adminship reform (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-02-11/Discussion report

Featured content: A lousy week (948 bytes · 💬)

The summary/description for the Incredipede featured picture seems a little off. Did he style the game based on a Wikipedia article he read? Haha. L. Hulbert (talk) 21:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Removed. I seem to distinctly remember the article saying something about that, but the history says I'm mistaken. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:37, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

According to the article, he found the artist (Thomas Shahan) through the page on jumping spiders. A quick Google search for Shahan shows he's a macrophotographer, especially of jumping spiders. Makes sense, I guess. L. Hulbert (talk) 15:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

In the media: Wikipedia mirroring life in island ownership dispute (833 bytes · 💬)

Is this fair use of Peter Hunt's work? Per Wikipedia:Non-free_content#Text 'Extensive quotation of copyrighted text is prohibited'. To compare to music - if text was read aloud, it's use above would likely be over the Wikipedia:Music_samples limit. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 23:16, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Textual articles are quite different from music samples, so I don't see why they should be subject to a 30-second limit. I believe the quoted content is below 10% of the full article, and in any case, that's just a rule of thumb. Powers ^T 18:34, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

News and notes: UK chapter governance review marks the end of a controversial year (7,403 bytes · 💬)

and yet, the Gibraltar related DYKs persist on the mainpage. i wonder how much Bamkin would charge to instruct me on how to effectively exploit the main page for profit. 174.141.213.12 (talk) 07:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for this article Ed - I found the report heavy going and gave up, but you've provided a good summary of what non-WMUK people need to know (and, of course, this experience is relevant to the other Wikimedia associations). Nick-D (talk) 07:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks Nick. I focused on the conflict of interest parts of the report because I felt even a summary of everything in there would be heavy reading. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:09, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, WMUK doesn't do monthly reports to the Foundation. --RexxS (talk) 14:50, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
- Hmm, I can't find the page that was said now, so I removed "monthly". Thanks! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 16:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

- - It's on pp. 20–21 of the Descriptive Chronology that was released along with the review: "We have not found any explicit mention of any potential conflicts in the monthly reports the UK chapter submitted to the Wikimedia Foundation between the beginning of the year and August 2012, nor specific mention at the time of the resignation of Roger Bamkin as Chair." --Andreas JN 466 20:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
    - Looks like Compass got that wrong then. --RexxS (talk) 20:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
      - I'll take your word for it. Andreas JN 466 00:36, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Five days ago, when WMUK was soliciting community input, I asked some fairly straightforward questions about wikitown projects on the Meta page set up for discussion of the report. Stevie Benton of WMUK told me "I'll take a look at your questions and will answer them if I'm able. If I'm not, I'll see if I can prompt someone who can". That was three days ago. WMUK staff and trustees have posted on the page since then, but no one seems to be addressing my query. The questions aren't very difficult and I would expect any of the trustees to be able to answer them without difficulty. This isn't the first time that I have tried to find out something which should be easily available information -- the status of a "memorandum of understanding" with Monmouthshire County Council -- and been met with less than "transparency and openness". See for example User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_117#WMF_involvement_with_Gibraltarpedia and User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_118#WMUK_and_Mounmouthshire_County_Council_Memorandum_of_Understanding. The Compass Partnership report makes some excellent recommendations, but there needs to be a change of culture at WMUK. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:05, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

See also Wikipediocracy's reporting on the topic. Cla68 (talk) 22:37, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
I sincerely hope that future US and Canadian regional or state/province chapters will learn from the mistakes made by the WMUK, and that the WMF will invest more in helping these groups avoid scandal. Well-meaning people can sometimes end up hurting their own cause, or in some cases be led astray by seemingly nice people who have ulterior motives. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 01:12, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
- If it's any help to Delicious carbuncle, the WMUK minutes of 26 July 2012 (at wmuk:Minutes 26Jul12 ) pretty much summarise the present situation with the MOUs, Chepstowpedia, and so on, because all of those issues he is concerned about were more or less 'frozen' soon after that time and certainly before the next board meeting. Now that we have the Governance Review and the QRpedia agreement, it would probably be reasonable to review all those issues in the light of lessons learned. I very much doubt that there is any appetite for rushing into any of that though. --RexxS (talk) 03:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
  - I've seen that and it's no help at all. In fact, I think it may be at odds with later statements. I'm still waiting for someone to answer some rather simple and not unreasonable questions. It is puzzling to me why it seems so difficult to get answers, and even more puzzling to me that dues-paying members of WMUK would accept such behaviour from the management and board of WMUK. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:37, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Ongoing Gibraltarpedia hooks on the main page

Note that Gibraltarpedia hooks have never stopped, except for a brief period in September and early October.

Overall, the main page has seen the following monthly numbers of Gibraltarpedia hooks:

July: 7
August: 17
September: 12
October: 11
November: 13
December: 8
January: 12
February to date: 6

For a list of recent Gibraltar hooks, see Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know/Gibraltar-related_DYKs#List_of_Gibraltarpedia_hooks_November_through_February.

Since October, when Gibraltar hooks were resumed after a three-week gap, Gibraltar hooks have been subject to special rules (for example, limiting them to one a day, and requiring two reviewers). As can be seen from the above figures, they have continued to be a regular feature on the main page. In fact, The Register reported today that they have readers writing in who have spotted the latest "Gibraltar plug" on the Wikipedia main page.

Even so, there is currently an RfC on a DYK subpage discussing whether the special rules for Gibraltar hooks should be waived, e.g. to allow more than one Gibraltar hook per day on the main page: Wikipedia talk:Did you know/Gibraltar-related DYKs. It seems crazy to me, but there you go. Andreas JN 466 01:24, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Op-ed: An article is a construct – hoaxes and Wikipedia (14,293 bytes · 💬)

Nice article Resident Mario. It is a big problem. As Wikipedia is successful, we get more and more vandalism, lies, spam and business promotion. As maintenance instead of building up is unattractive, we lose more and more editors and donated editing time. Wikipedia's future is endangered. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 08:36, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The prose in Bicholm conflict might have been "well crafted", but the hoax itself was transparent and easily detectable - had I reviewed the article for DYK, for example, using basic DYK checks I would almost certainly have identified it as a hoax immediately. But neither the GA review nor the (admittedly brief) FAC discussion picked up the problem.

The lesson is really a pretty simple one - be suspicious of any article none of whose major references can be verified online, and for whose content you cannot find any corroboration elsewhere. Gatoclass (talk) 09:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

ROFL! This article previously quoted from the Wikipedia biography controversy article, saying that the hoax had not been discovered and corrected for more than nine months, which is a clear mathematical error (May to September is four months). The "nine months" text was in the main article about the Wikipedia biography controversy article due to unreverted vandalism from November 2012. I've fixed both the mainspace and SP articles, but I guess this op-ed proved its own point. Graham87 11:42, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Great, the Chen Fang incident was my fault... Back in 2008, I found out about the hoax from an acquaintance and immediately nominated it for deletion (because contemporary news sources had a different person as the mayor). The hoaxer one day randomly introduced himself to me at work, claimed credit for the page I'd just nominated, and presented me with "evidence" that I am User:Mxn – duh – intending to pressure me to delete the AfD template. He soon deleted the template himself and produced a source that lay behind a paywall (something like Newsbank or ProQuest). It sounded fishy, so on the talk page, I promised to check the source once I got back to campus after my internship, but I never got around to it. Moral of the story: don't procrastinate, or your error will be preserved in Harvard policy for posterity. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 12:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia may be the largest and most expansive information compendium the world has ever seen as noted in the article above, but none of Wikipedia's four million articles is a standalone article on a cover song as far as I am aware. Not one in Wikipedia's 12 year existence. Is this too a hoax? A recent DRV request to obtain consensus to create Hound Dog (Elvis Presley cover song) as a standalone article was closed as against policy that first needed to be changed: "if you want to change the policy you need an RFC." In other words, Wikipedia content policy prohibits anyone from posting Hound Dog (Elvis Presley cover song) as a standalone article. Really? What about Johnny Cash's Hurt, Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, or Aretha Franklin's Respect? No standalone cover song articles on these allowed in the largest and most expansive information compendium the world has ever seen? What that is saying is that not one of those or thousands of other cover songs meets both WP:N and WP:NOT. Does that make any sense to anyone or is it meant to play a joke on (someone)? Perhaps there is no Wikipedia policy that prohibits anyone from posting Hound Dog (Elvis Presley cover song) or thousands of other cover songs as standalone articles and this instead is the sixteenth most impactful and notable hoax to have existed on Wikipedia. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

And what the hell does this have to do with the article? Hot Stop (Talk) 13:45, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

"Hell"? Read the article and then read my post again. You'll see it. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:48, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be completely confused. That article has never existed, so it can't be undeleted, which is what DRV is for. If you think it should be created, create it, just make sure you source it. The wikiproject can't stop articles being created. All it could do is nominate it for deletion, then it's up to the community. And it has nothing to do with hoaxes. Ged UK 13:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

My above post has more in it than what you focus on in your reply. There are no standalone cover song articles in Wikipedia. Where did they all go? Further on the above, what is it that is discouraging Wikipedia writers from stepping forward to write standalone articles about some of the most popular songs of all time? Perhaps the elimination of all standalone cover song articles from Wikipedia is the sixteenth hoax to the above listed fifteen most impactful and notable hoax to have existed on Wikipedia. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Nice history overview. Hoaxes have always been around: "Some may be pleased to find that the national history begins with a hoax: the chronologically earliest ‘figure’ is Piltdown Man" [1]; but frighteningly easy? Rather than erecting higher hurdles to contribute, the system needs improvement to turn energy to productive product, such as reCAPTCHA. The wrong lesson was learned from Seigenthaler, it's not that an anonymous editor created the bio, but that anonymous attempts at corrections were reverted: the system lacks the discernment between error correction and vandalism. A hoax project is needed to flag and correct hoaxes before DYK. It shouldn't take press coverage to get factual errors corrected. Farmbrough's revenge⇔ †@1₭ 14:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)
- The difference between liar and a friend, is that a friend stays with you forever. So a registered user with more than 10,000 edits is more likely a Wikipedia friend than an anonymous IP. We need seniors, people should stay in the club and not quit with 25 years. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Very nice and well-written article! While you focus on the hoaxes, I am more thankful for your characterization of Wikipedia-editor-evolution: That as the encyclopedia has grown, much of the effort has shifted from "horizontal to vertical" editing, and requires editors with more specialized knowledge. That's a real good paragraph that should be shown to all those reporters who indicate the declining number of editors means Wikipedia is in "trouble." -- kosboot (talk) 17:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The addendum which provides a "Top 15" list of hoaxes adds information and interest to the story, but it also adds notoriety and excitement to hoaxers. I think future articles or op-eds should consider not naming hoaxes. Linking to an existing list serves the same purpose and doesn’t provide as much of an incentive to future hoaxers. SchreiberBike (talk) 19:05, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

"This is not a problem that can be easily solved; but nor is it one that should be, as it is now, easily ignored." ResMar 23:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I think there are a lot of good points here, and I understand the appeal of pending changes &c but I think that it (and other forms of page-protection, more generally) is not a helpful response to the hoax problem. This is because restricting who can edit an article is *very* hard to square with our principle that anybody can edit articles, so we only apply protection in cases where there's a known problem or there's a good reason to expect imminent abuse. These are the articles which already have many eyes on them; these are the articles where it's hardest to hoax.

Just as with other problems of accuracy and neutrality, a hoax's best chance of survival is in a quiet backwater where there are fewer other people looking; where nobody suspects a problem. I can't imagine the community agreeing to apply PC, or other protection tools, across millions of obscure, low-traffic, maybe-unwatched articles which haven't yet been flagged up on any noticeboard. bobrayner (talk) 11:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Hoax is just a form of vandalism, vandalism in the broad sense is the problem. You lose motivation and enthusiasm. It wears you down. Schoolboy vandalism, hoaxes, spam, business promotion, "political correctness" (lies), harasment, edit warring and "paid" editing (in the broad sense; you do me a favour, than I do you a favour) are all a problem. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:10, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Mind you that we are in a "mission impossible". All friends of Wikipedia want its quality improving. If we are losing editors, if the vandalism in the broad sense is getting worse, if there is no pending changes for main space edits from school IPs (at least), if there is an absolute prohibition for advertising, if you are able to access the toolserver between 24:00 and 12:00 Eastern Time Zone, only; when we are heading for disaster, probably. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 08:03, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Nice to read, thanks. I highlight a somewhat lateral issue, but it is the first time I see it prominentely written out (though I would not be surprised at all it has been mentioned quite a few times before). I quote: «The project has reached its saturation limit—put another way, there simply aren't enough new people out there with both the will and the smarts to sustain growth». Seems many of the efforts for attracting and keeping editors simply forget that, expected continuous indefinite exponential growth (as in the mid 2000's). Nabla (talk) 03:26, 17 February 2013 (UTC)
- The project isn't saturated. Fighting vandalism get's you ruder (Wikipedia:Civility) against all editors. And vandalism in the broad sense wears down all Wikipedians. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 08:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I made the "saturation limit" argument in another column here a while ago, it's linked in one of the citations. ResMar 22:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

@Chris.urs-o, I *think* it is not saturated as in "it can't grow anymore", because it may expand, it may reach new 'markets' (geographically and in type-of-editor). But is silly (though strangely common) to assume that it may grow exponentially, or even linearly, for ever. @Resident_Mario, thanks, I missed that (not so active then) I'll read it soon. - Nabla (talk) 00:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't say as I understand the logic of applying the concept of hoax in relation to not having stand-alone articles on cover songs, but the premises is utterly incorrect. The following are all stand-alone articles on cover songs that are from the first 30 results of this Google search, that returned about 30,400 results:

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand the relevancy of cover songs in an article about Wikipedia hoaxes. -- kosboot (talk) 13:05, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Nor I.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Fuhghettaboutit's comment is in response to Uzma Gamal's above. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Technology report: Wikidata client rollout stutters (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-02-11/Technology report

WikiProject report: Just the Facts – WikiProject Infoboxes (6,728 bytes · 💬)

It's always bothered me that musicians don't get spouses. Glad to see there's some movement to change that! BobAmnertiopsis ∴_ChatMe! 07:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

A participant in local transport articles, I love the route map. "Not to scale" indeed. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata seems like it will revolutionize the need and purpose of infoboxes in the near future. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 16:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I love your OCLC number! Jane (talk) 08:21, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Another use of infoboxes is that bots such as LyricsBot can use them to confirm salient attributes of articles in order to perform tasks upon those articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:50, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

@Andy/Pigsonthewing,

There are cases where an infobox has been rejected as being an eyesore or distraction for human readers. What advantage does an infobox have over a (properly implemented, perhaps improved) hidden record (like PersonData)?

Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:42, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

The term "eyesore" implies a personal aesthetic preference rather than a substantive argument. The only scientific study I've seen shows that people do indeed look at infoboxes; but seems to suggest that's an aid to their understanding, not a "distraction". I address the deficiencies of the of persondata model as an alternative for metadata in infoboxes in this essay, which is still in draft, but nearing completion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:12, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Infoboxes like {{Infobox Regular tuning}} are helpful in some articles.

Other infoboxes distract readers from the prose in other articles, particularly their ledes: See {{Infobox economist}}.

Many of your concerns actually suggest improving PersonData. Your argument that editors fail to update PersonData is more substantive; nonetheless, BLPs could easily generate a reminder to editors to update the PersonData fields.

Increasing the value of Wikipedia for Google and other corporations is not high on the list of priorities for many editors, particularly those who do not consult on the exploitation of WP's microformats. Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:26, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we could improve Persondata. We could make it more granular, just like our infobox metadata. We could align it with international standards for metadata exchange (vCard for people and organisations, for example; iCalendar for events), just like our infobox metadata. We could make it visible, to overcome the hidden metadata problem, and then we could style it to appear at a position supported by the Wikipedia community - top right on the page. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Chemboxes are useful, but they have one glaring annoyance: they can become obnoxiously wide (see Melanotan II or Solanine for an example). This has been the case for years, and sometimes discussed but never resolved appropriately at Wikipedia talk:Chemical infobox (for example, Line wrap problem for long chemical formulas). Mind matrix 16:45, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Neither of the examples you give appear unduly wide (and no wider than many other infoboxes) on my screen. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:29, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

For the record, I have a 23-inch monitor. With my browser maximized to full screen, the infobox stretches the entirety of the browser. I've uploaded File:Chembox width sample.jpg to demonstrate the issue. Mind matrix 20:53, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Indeed it's a screen issue. Those boxes are pleasant on my big computer but less pleasant on my new 10 inch (25 cm) tablet and I bet they're yes, downright obnoxious on a seven inch (17 cm) screen. Since sales growth rates nowadays are higher for small portable screens than large ones that sit on a desk, Wikipedia should try to cater to readers using them. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:57, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia does; it has a mobile interface, and an app. That said, the examples given are no larger than other infoboxes, viewed in the non-mobile web version on the 4.3-inch screen of my HTC Desire HD. I use a 10" netbook as my primary device, BTW. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)