Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2015-02-11. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Featured content: A grizzly bear, Operation Mascot, Freedom Planet & Liberty Island, cosmic dust clouds, a cricket five-wicket list, more fine art, & a terrible, terrible opera... (1,049 bytes · 💬)

I bet if, in the paragraph of Thomas Linley, you mentioned that his son (also named Thomas Linley) was very good friends with Mozart, you might have received a few more hits. :) kosboot (talk) 20:16, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
There's an excellent discussion of the problems of Jabberwocky translations in Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach (ch.12 and its preface). What words/syllables do you need in French to cause the same reactions in a francophone reader, that the original does in an English reader? Scarabocchio (talk) 21:33, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Il brilgue: les tôves lubricilleux

Se gyrent en vrillant dans le guave.

Enmîmés sont les gougebosqueux

Et le mômerade horsgrave.

Hafspajen (talk) 22:13, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

From the editors: We want to know what you think! (3,493 bytes · 💬)

Great - except that there is no way to log in to the poll. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:04, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@Kudpung: the password is right below the survey link. --Pine^✉ 11:05, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The survey makes a few references to the Wikimedia Blog. Here's a link to it. Tony (talk) 11:13, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I never read the blog. I spend too much time reading and deleting the crap that comes in through the New Pages Feed and gets poorly patrolled... --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:37, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. I don't read the blog either ... it's just one thing that drops off the huge list of things I'd like to do on WMF sites but don't have time for. But I think the comparison is interesting—hard to do, actually, in terms of the whole of the Signpost vs the blog, rather than individual pages. Tony (talk) 11:46, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I gave up on it. The software kept telling me I had to answer all the questions, but the layout was so confusing that I couldn't find the blanks. The layout goes WAY, WAY off the side of the screen. I appreciate the work that has gone into this, but it is not very professional. Also, some of the questions were really confusing and unanswerable. GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:39, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi GeorgeLouis. Thank you for your feedback. What device were you using to complete the survey? I only tested it on a desktop and laptop computer. Were there any specific questions you found confusing? We are always looking to improve how we seek to improve as well. Also pinging Pine, as he took the lead on this project, so he might be able to answer questions better than I. Go Phightins! 03:55, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi GeorgeLouis, it sounds like you are trying to take the survey on a mobile device. I suggest that you use a laptop or desktop instead if your mobile device has trouble with the Qualtrics pages. Thank you, --Pine^✉ 02:02, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

To keep the archives happy: Results from this survey were posted at File:Signpost_February_2015_survey_results.pdf, and also discussed in this editorial. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:45, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Gallery: Feel the love (1,922 bytes · 💬)

Very moving – extremely. As an astronomy lover, I think it was the astronauts who made the ultimate sacrifice that really caught my eye... and heart. Pine, you are a mover of mountains! – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 12:30, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Very nice idea! I often wonder how people find images on the Commons - this could be an effective way to tag images. Bravi! kosboot (talk) 20:18, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Must say, a really really great idea. Love the pictures, love the articles to edit list. -Ugog Nizdast (talk) 17:44, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
Awesome pictures...simply showing love between humans and the love between us and God. Thumbs up to that 2A03:2880:3010:6FF1:FACE:B00C:0:1 (talk) 15:03, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

2020 update

I'm going to request that this gallery re-run in the February 2020 issue of The Signpost, with a few additions.

↠Pine (✉) 04:43, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

In the media: Is Wikipedia eating itself? (4,098 bytes · 💬)

Edina

In response to the Edina article being in the news, I am proposing an edit-a-thon at the public library there. Details are on Wikipedia:Meetup/Minnesota. Feel free to ask me for more information. Jonathunder (talk) 22:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Australian report

"He says that if Education Minister Christopher Pyne wants Australians universities to have real impact, the best way would be to force professors to spend a week editing Wikipedia pages in their areas of expertise.
“In terms of making a real contribution to public knowledge, what better thing could we do? ...
Selwyn says Wikipedia editing is “an incredibly closed shop”, with hundreds of millions of viewers but active editors numbering only in their thousands. “They tend to be white, North American, of a certain age, (and) male. Which is why, when you look at things like comic books or computer games, the information on Wikipedia is brilliant. And when you look at my own area of educational sociology, it’s shocking."[1]

--Surturz (talk) 01:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

The above quote is from Ross, John (11 February 2015). "Wikipedia not destroying life as we know it". The Australian: Higher Education. which reports on Monash University professor Neil Selwyn's research. (Just adding this, and section heading, for clarification) PamD 13:39, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Irony is delicious, especially with coffee

Did anyone else gain the same level of amusement during their morning coffee as I did, when discovering that the second article on this page contains a perfect refutation of the claims in the first? Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

It's no surprise that academics largely dislike Wikipedia; they used to be the sole arbiters of knowledge on many topics, to which they could add their own biases and inflections. Now, they are faced with the prospect of complete objectivity on a generally reliable website (as opposed to some random blog or the pop-up laden Geocities pages of the past), which threatens their hegemony. In very controversial articles, it is almost impossible for any strong POV to emerge, because there a thousand eyes of all motivations looking at it, ready to remove it. I don't usually get involved with such contentious topics, because they are outside of my field, but I have the greatest respect for those who genuinely seek objectivity in those minefields. As for forcing professors to edit, maybe they would be more comfortable over on Citizendium.-RHM22 (talk) 13:57, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
By the way, credit goes to the Canadians for the most creative slander.-RHM22 (talk) 14:00, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Attkisson

That she considers vaccines to cause autism is not surprising given the rest of the inaccuracies in her talk. It is obvious that she either never read the article looking at the accuracy of Wikipedia's medical content in JAOA or simply does not understand science. I wonder if she realizes that the Andrew Wakefield paper from the Lancet has been withdrawn? It is an interesting read as one is left wonder "how did the Lancet ever agree to publish this". Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:46, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

News and notes: One editor faces likely ban for work on Wikipedia; another awarded $1 million (7,166 bytes · 💬)

The IP mentioned in the Jimmy Wales article has been blocked for trolling. The comment was his/her only visible contribution. — Brianhe (talk) 14:57, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I see the UAE complaints as totally valid, but not this one. This isn't the Israeli government promoting itself, its a university that happens to be located in its boundaries, yeah it's public, but universities usually operate pretty independently of their governments interests. The fact that the IP is blocked has nothing to do with the validity of the complaint, however. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 15:22, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Super Mario Problem... I like this phrase. I would suppose then, a 'crat is Fire Mario? What an interesting comparison. --DSA510 Pls No Pineapple 17:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I feel that the Wifione section understates what's going on with the case. While sockpuppetry is a factor, I think the bigger issues Arbitrators are trying to address is the editing. -- DQ (ʞlɐʇ) 23:13, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The headline One editor faces likely ban for work on Wikipedia; another awarded $1 million makes it sound like the second editor was awarded $1 million for doing the same thing the first editor was banned for. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:49, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Background: In Mario Brothers, When Small Mario takes a hit, he dies. When Super Mario takes the same hit he turns into Small Mario. The obvious analogy would be a case where when a regular user misbehaves badly enough he is site banned, but when an administrator misbehaves in the exact same way he is desysoped and becomes a regular user.

There is also an even larger and far rarer Giant Mario, who can walk over and destroy everything in his path, including the largest and most powerful enemies. Giant Mario has a time limit after which he reverts to being Super Mario, but can be killed with great difficulty. The analogy here is left as an exercise for the reader.

And no, I didn't know any of this before tonight. I looked it up on mariowiki.com. :)

Wikipedia edits where the Super Mario Problem has been discussed:[2][3][4][5][6] --Guy Macon (talk) 05:20, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Re:Wifione. None of this is particularly new. Particular credit to the illustrious Col. Warden who noted during the RFA: "I'm concerned by this pro-forma behaviour too. Early in his career, the candidate was accused of being a reappearance of a prolific sockmaster. I would expect a smart person of this kind to work their passage up to admin status by perfunctory activity of the kind that we see. My impression is that there are still some unresolved COI issues around The Indian Institute of Planning and Management. Colonel Warden (talk) 2:39 am, 14 September 2010, Tuesday (4 years, 5 months, 1 day ago) (UTC−7)" — Myself, I found Wifione to be a very reasonable person in general administrative sorts of discussions, although I admittedly never ventured within a 10 mile radius of their editing areas of interest. Carrite (talk) 16:45, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Re: Wifione: The deep research made by at least one uninvolved admin for this case was largely responsible for, and vital to, its conclusion by the arbitrators.

I particularly liked the accused admin in question and had absolutely no previous inkling of what came to be exposed at Arbcom. I somehow missed out on voting on their RfA, where even regular RfA oposers were unable to to sway it to a non-promotion although it was a fairly close call.

This is probably a rare case as far as site bans of sysops are concerned and we’ll probably never see the likes again of such a fiasco as Pastor Theo’s adminship again either (for those who have been around long enough to remember it) but who knows whether or not they have reincarnated their ugly head under some other guise? I already made the mistake once of supporting one candidate who later turned into an unpleasant adversary and was finally desysoped for acting in a way totally unbecoming for the role we invest in our admins.

The clear message the recent Arbcom case sends to us all therefore, is that anyone who is thinking of starting yet another perennial motion to lower the bar at RfA (or even to unbundle the tools) had better think again. We can't be careful enough when (s)electing our admins and we have a duty (including me of all people) to do more research before placing our !votes in the upstairs lobby. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:18, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh Pastor Theo. That case still irks me. NuclearWarfare and I, talking off-wiki, called that they were a sock (see the RfA questions), but we backed off because there was no solid proof. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:15, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Ed, That RfA was just a few months before I had reason to get so heavily involved in how our admins get (s)elected. If I saw a question like that today it would immediately ring all my alrm bells very loudly and certainly incur a clear oppose vote. Such findings are strong grounds for getting our CU policy changed at least for adminship candidates when someone comes up with such compelling evidence. Even if it works only once a year, it would throw out a warning to candidates with an agenda. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:57, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Traffic report: Bowled over (6,015 bytes · 💬)

Saying, "the English language Wikipedia is very often the American Wikipedia" is misleading here. Although it is not (I think) what is meant) this wording could be interpreted by some Signpost readers to mean that there's an American bias in the encyclopedia article's text. Logically speaking the neutrality of the encyclopedia need not be connected in any way to the traffic report, even if the report shows high traffic among articles with particular national interests. (Easy to see if you consider a 100% perfectly neutral encyclopedia would still show national trends in the article traffic so long as some countries have different numbers of people online.) Our editors are doing a decent job at staying neutral nationally in their writing. There *is* American bias in the encyclopedia (in topics, in depth of coverage, and even in language and interpretation) but I cannot get worked up over the first two and consider them non-issues. That kind of bias will always be proportional to the national ratios of our readership so long as we keep the encyclopedia open. (People write and read about what interests them.) The latter two are of much more concern and overall we do a decent if imperfect job at staying neutral with them so I really wouldn't want anybody to falsely believe we outright fail there. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:04, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how the original text was misleading, it is an opinion, but not an unknown or radical one. He could have gone as far to say its the American Male wikipedia.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 13:48, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn: You do notice that Milowent says "as far as viewers are concerned," right? He's not talking about the editors or coverage, just what gets the most views! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:17, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Not too "American" if we use "quaterback" as a noun. <g>. Collect (talk) 17:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Seriously, how did it take ten days for the Super Bowl article to be updated to reflect that this year's was the most-watched in TV history? I meant to do it myself and got really busy, finally remembering it when I saw this. And since I don't know where they got those really large numbers for List of most watched television broadcasts in the United States, someone needs to go fix that one too. I have it formatted but don't know what number to put there.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:55, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Here is this week's top-20 by edits and editors. This week different IP address editors are counted as different editors instead of the same one.

article	edits	editors	weighted_rank
TransAsia Airways Flight 235	469	116	37.85
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water	319	119	35.62
Deaths in 2015	346	103	35.28
Bob Simon	215	107	32.61
Brian Williams	350	56	31.78
2015 Chapel Hill shooting	317	60	31.64
Better Call Saul	182	90	30.7
Kayla Mueller	233	68	30.63
Jupiter Ascending	174	84	30.08
57th Annual Grammy Awards	207	60	29.3
Muath al-Kasasbeh	186	53	28.06
Kingsman: The Secret Service	140	63	27.39
Fifty Shades of Grey (film)	188	44	27.15
Beck	120	70	27.04
Shamitabh	134	60	26.91
When Will You Marry?	122	56	26.06
Dean Smith	121	56	26.02
2015 Africa Cup of Nations	136	49	26
RadioShack	212	31	25.89
2015 Cricket World Cup	157	38	25.47

If you want to see this regularly, please support my bot request to automate its production. Thank you. EllenCT (talk) 01:49, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is the American Wikipedia. The Hindi-language WIkipedia is an Indian Wikipedia. The Hebrew-language Wikipedia is an Israeli Wikipedia. If you're not a white male American, take pride in bringing something unique to Wikipedia; we need you, too. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: It is not only a question of adding more (less popular) content. It is also a question of having to fight much harder to keep this content, at least from my anecdotal observation. But don’t take my word for it, check these 2014 Signpost comments from those who try to save content daily. Ottawahitech (talk) 02:56, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Then of course there is also the matter of how the subjects are portrayed. Ottawahitech (talk) 21:43, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Brand new WikiProjects profiled (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-02-11/WikiProject report