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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2015-03-11. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Featured content: Here they come, the couple plighted – (665 bytes · 💬)

  • Among this week's strangers (to me), Kullervo and Anna Gould and Eugene Sandow are delightful. Well done. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:00, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

In focus: WMF to NSA: "stop spying on Wikipedia users" (23,075 bytes · 💬)

Embrace the Horror People: Nothing is Beyond Their Reach :)
  • For the record, I have no problem being eyeballed by the NSA, although I do concede that it is a little upsetting to know that after all the work I do to remain anonymous online someone out there knows who I really am and what I am working on. Having said that, I absolutely ABHOR the idea that I am in any way, shape, or form being represented in a US court by the American Civil Liberties Union, including by proxy in this case as part of the project represent by the WMF. I would rather be represented by Hitler's SS than suffer myself to be associated in any way, shape, or form with the ACLU. There is a reason we have electronic surveillance groups, and every time you log on you accept the fact that you sacrifice your stand alone entity for a complex relationship in which the world tracks you actions. Why then should we take legal action against the NSA? In an age where everyone readily shares every facet of there lives on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and on this sight where users are free to add or subtract information from their user pages for the public to view and read, why should we complain if such information is collected? It was we who elected to go electronic that prompted organizations such as the US NSA to expand there electronic surveillance capabilities, and it users like us who can solve the underlying issue by abandoning the electronic medium for paper medium once more in order to prevent our information from being monitored by the various governments and used against us. Perhaps that is the citizen in me, but as this land was a colony of the British Empire once, and since England Still Expects That Every Man Will Due His Duty, I would rather we publish a story titled "Shut Up and Deal With It" than one titled "We Will Fight Pointlessly to Ensure That Our National Security Will Suffer Additional Compromises And Setbacks". Lastly, before you all crucify me, keep in mind that this is my opinion, NOT a series a facts, therefore what I have posted above can not be right or wrong, it is merely one of many ways to interpret the given information. I am 100% sure that other Wikipedians will have different perspectives on this matter, and I welcome those comments to see where their stand. After all, we either believe in freedom of speech and expression for those whose opinions are polar opposite of ours or we do not believe it in at all. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:53, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • If you were editing from Egypt or Ethiopia, you might feel a little differently. These are countries that lock people up for criticizing their governments and also have intelligence sharing with the US. MoreTomorrow (talk) 07:46, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • That does seem to form part of the WMF's calculations. From the NYT op-ed:

During the 2011 Arab uprisings, Wikipedia users collaborated to create articles that helped educate the world about what was happening. Continuing cooperation between American and Egyptian intelligence services is well established; the director of Egypt’s main spy agency under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi boasted in 2013 that he was “in constant contact” with the Central Intelligence Agency.
So imagine, now, a Wikipedia user in Egypt who wants to edit a page about government opposition or discuss it with fellow editors. If that user knows the N.S.A. is routinely combing through her contributions to Wikipedia, and possibly sharing information with her government, she will surely be less likely to add her knowledge or have that conversation, for fear of reprisal.

  • That is a legitimate concern. What the NSA snoops here and shares here I have no problem with, but if they are sharing it with other nations in an attempt to subvert anti-government movements I'd be more incline to back the WMF on their lawsuit. We have no business sharing our intelligence with nations that will use it in the above example you've given, and it is appalling (though sadly, true) to think that the NSA would have any hand in retaining a dictatorship. That is not right, and from that stand point the WMF should be lauded for taking a standing against such actions undertaken the NSA (or any other the other major or minor intelligence agencies in the United States). TomStar81 (Talk) 19:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I sure hope all that money we send to MediaWiki isn't being used for political adventures. Furthermore it creates a divide since Wikipedia may be seen as a political activist organization, exactly the opposite of a neutral source of information. -- GreenC 01:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Your concern is understandable; but I note that the ACLU "is supplying much of the lawsuit's financial backing". The WMF's mission to make knowledge freely available gets a good public profile, while it pays only modestly. Don't we owe it to our readers? Sounds like a good bet to me. Tony (talk) 02:29, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
      • In this case I think that the ulterior motive of publicity on the cheap has goaded the Foundation into striking this pose (and if it isn't a pose; never thought I'd see the day when we're the ones throwing pointless lawsuits) above its concerns about people claiming a divide between its stated mission and its sudden litigiousness. Does one exist? Certainly I do think that it's an issue that ought to be discussed, and isn't as bright-line as the Foundation probably believes—remember, they're a closed shop of extraordinarily mission-committed people, I sense organizational blindness to the fact that not everyone agrees with them that this is a good idea.
SOPA was just four years ago and it all went about so differently. ResMar 03:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Still, while in the same category, I question whether they would be able to be treated similarly. NSA surveillance is global, while SOPA was almost exclusively confined to the US. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 07:36, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
I think the broad strokes are the same although the precise source of it is somewhat different. See my reply to Bawolff below. ResMar 15:06, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
In terms of owing things to our readers, in the short-medium term, inter-data center IPSec and rel="canonical" https (yeah yeah I know, wikipedia is the ideal target for a traffic correlation attack, but https for everyone increases the effort and prevents keyword scanning) would be probably much more effective. However, in the long term this sort of legal action is probably necessary to ensure that users feel free to say what they think instead of what they think its expected that they should say. Bawolff (talk) 15:32, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I am very grateful to the WFM for having taking this courageous initiative. In my home project, Wikipedia in Spanish, the overwhelming majority of readers and editors is not based in the USA. Having all of our edits and intra-wiki emails systematically scanned by a foreign spy agency like the NSA is intimidating and irritating. --Hispalois (talk) 04:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Germany, France and Spain 'were all spying on citizens'. It is a global phenomenon, NSA is best known due to Snowden. Every country has a spy agency and will of course want to monitor Internet traffic. -- GreenC 12:05, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Though might not be a direct financial costs there will be a (probably significant) non-financial one, to borrow a term the Foundation has used before in its financial statements. Drafting this took Foundation lawyers' time, time that could have been applied elsewhere, and the effort will definitely incur further time costs that, while probably not directly measurable, are nonetheless a thing. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. ResMar 01:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • TomStar81, I suggest that you actually read the article on the SS, you might learn a thing or two. To the best of my knowledge, the ACLU has not been involved in genocide, for example, nor do they run Sonderkommandos. Your comparison is repugnant. --Randykitty (talk) 10:56, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
    • From where I sit, the SS had a code and a duty charged to them by the Fuhrer - albeit one based in the precept that only white people of a certain background and between certain ages were to be considered worthy enough for the state to give a damn about. The ACLU, by my comparison, is a diseased prostitute willing to sleep with any person or group for there 15 minutes of fame and to further the cause of strictly defining civil liberties which, in so doing, inadvertently restrict a lot of very liberties they claim to be working for. That said, I am glad that someone posted a position opposite of mine since as I noted this exercise becomes meaningless if no one speaks up. Thank you for your reply. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
      • Well then... Bawolff (talk) 14:47, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
      • It's clear this editor is relishing the opportunity to air their fringe viewpoints in a prominent forum. I suggest we follow this excellent advice. Gamaliel (talk) 15:09, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
        • Wow. Just... Wow. Good advice, Gamaliel, were it not that this is not just a troll, but an admin... But I will indeed not pursue this conversation, as anybody with this kind of ideas about the SS is somebody I will not interact with. --Randykitty (talk) 15:18, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
          • Well, the ACLU supports abortion rights and defended Nazi supporters. I think that it's controversial enough for Wikimedia members to oppose them. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:14, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
            • @TomStar81: Jeez Tom, you're going to defend that viewpoint? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
              • I feel that I explained myself poorly in the above post. That is my fault, I should know better than to edit under the influence of my emotions, so let me try this again and see if a calmer, clearer mind can find the words that my more irate self could not and relay them to you in a way that better conveys what I was trying to say. Lets start with the idea of defense of the view point of Godwin's Law. I'm not defending the 3rd reich here. Never had, never will. I will not defend the ACLU either, though. To me, they are both despicable organizations. Neither one deserves praise for the work they've done, although I do concede that today's ACLU is not the same ACLU I read about that operated in the 1950s and 1960s. On the matter of the NSA surveillance: In this case, since the US is in a declared state of war, and since the US constitution does not include any explicitly guaranteed right to privacy (you can check if you like to confirm), I feel the state to be in the right for now as opposed to the ACLU/WMF. We are at war, and civil liberties have always taken a back seat to the needs of the state in a time of war. For as much as we criticize the Nazi regime and its war crimes we overlook our own equally atrocious acts in times of war. Right now, its the NSA surveillance and the subversion of pro democracy forces in the middle east through the sharing of intelligence with other countries. In Vietnam, it was the mass surveillance of the people by the FBI, which included illegal operations against groups like the KKK to undermine their ability to operate effectively. For this, Nixon become the only President to resign his office due to the Watergate scandal. In World War II, the US forcibly relocated hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans wit full citizenship status into what were essentially concentration camps on grounds that as Americans with Japanese ancestry they were potentially enemies of the state. In the Indian Wars, the US stripped virtually every track of land upon which the Native Americans had long lived and forced most of the tribes into marches onto reservations to which we still insist on maintaining even though there is no justifiable reason. In the civil war, Lincoln virtually transformed the US into a totalitarian state, suppressing the media and the courts to help ensure that the North won the war. There is no high ground to be had here. The truth and our liberties are always the first casualties in any war. Which brings me to my point: since we are still in a declared state of war the war powers act(s) comes into effect here. The state therefore is operating at the moment as the 3rd riech did - to state it simply, the first nation to fall to the US in the war on terror was the US, because our own government passed legislation such as the patriot act to expand its power and curtail our civil liberties. As long as we are at war (and we are still at war) then any attempt to protest here is unlikely to meet with much success because the state suppresses efforts made to interfere with its ability to fight. In the long run though, this system can not and will not permanently endure. Sooner or later, the US Congress will vote to end the war, and that is when this move should be made since at that time there will be no conceivable reason for the state to continue such a massive internal surveillance program. Once the legislature declares the war to be over, I am going to be first one demanding the end of the electronic observation and the repeal of the patriot act since neither will serve the best interest of the citizens, who in the end were the ones who stood by and allowed this to happen in the first place. I therefore feel that if I am responsible for the NSA's actions by having failed to ride my Senator and/or Congressman/woman to not pass the legislation that allowed for the electronic surveillance the WMF is now protesting against then I have a responsibility as a citizen to be the one to fix it rather than passing it off to some other group or organization to lobby for the repeal of such action on my behalf. I am We The People, and if this is a result of our inaction, then the onus is ours to bear, not the ACLU's. TomStar81 (Talk) 04:09, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
                • Godwin's law and some unfortunate metaphors aside, your expanded analysis is quite interesting, Tom. I however fear you are too optimistic that this state of war cannot endure. This is not a war that has public "hurting" - there are only a few US casualties, and more less than before. However, the terror boogeyman is still being waved by a number of power powerful vested interests, which are making profit - both capital wise, and power wise - from the current situation. I don't see it as beyond the realm of likely possibility that US will continue to be in a state of war against some Third World statelets and/or the impossible-to-ever-eradicate stateless organziations like Al-Qaeda for decades, and that this will be used to justify continued and graduated curtailing of liberties. People dislike drastic change, but a law this year, a law next year, gradual change is another thing. The more this continues, the more drastic and painful of a remedy will have to be applied to reverse this effect - and this can include massive loss of life and even the end of a statehood (albeit this is a pretty far reaching, darkest scenario, yes). Second, the current governance system in US makes individuals, except the richest 0.01%, powerless. Lobbies like ACLU are a necessary evil for individuals to be able to effect change. I fully support transformation of current non-really democratic system into something that will give individuals more power (liquid democracy being my favorite ATM), but in the state of things we are, I will support ACLU, with all its imperfections, as the lesser evil, because I don't see a better option (for the record I discount "I ignore politics" and such as hiding one's hand in the sand and pretending the real world doesn't exist - it's not lesser evil, it's simple ignorance, and the very passivity of the masses that allows the current system to exist). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:34, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
                  • I suppose its in my nature to assume the best with regards to the people that run the US, but I see what your saying: in order to fight the machine, you need an equally large machine that runs the other way. Sad as I am to say this then, perhaps it is best the ACLU take up the case, although I remain concerned about how this will play out for us. What then does it say about us when we are reduced to choosing the lesser of two evils rather than best option available? I recall a line from Benjamin Franklin about how any nation that would sacrifice liberty for security deserved neither, and I fear that this is officially where we have arrived. TomStar81 (Talk) 03:44, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I find it difficult to imagine a larger waste of effort (and money?) than this. The Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an advocacy group. I am highly critical of this effort and don't understand how this wasn't put to some sort of widespread vote before proceeding on "our" behalf. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Before passing judgement on this, see chilling effect. Widefox; talk 12:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

sopa

What does sopa have to do with mass surveliance. Bawolff (talk) 12:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

  • I should think nothing, but we were one a great many sites that protested loudly and proudly about the idea of congress adopting the bill. Incidentally, it wasn't just SOPA, if we are being fair to this line of discussion, the PIPA act was also included in our protest. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree that they are unrelated, which makes me confused about the sentence "The move comes as the latest chapter in the WMF's long-standing opposition to mass surveillance on the Internet, including the unprecedented one-day SOPA blackout in 2012..." in this article. Bawolff (talk) 14:46, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
The SOPA/PIPA blackout was the last time that we as a community have aggressively pursued a stance against developments in governance AFAIK. The broad strokes of our involvement with both issues is the same, ae., governments, stop meddling in or degrading (word choice dependent on how you feel about this issue) the Internet. ResMar 15:02, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, Resident Mario is correct. I'll try to clarify this in the text. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I have contributed to Wikipedia since 2004, I do so because it is fun and I keep on learning much along the way. Why there is a lawsuit "on my behalf" I do not understand, I have not asked for it and I would say no if anyone asked me. I am not a big fan of various parts of US internal and external policy, but I am simply not interested in that the WMF try to claim they represent me, they do not. Ulflarsen (talk) 08:09, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

In the media: Gamergate; a Wiki hoax; Kanye West (6,264 bytes · 💬)

Australian Feminist Writers

Where are all the Australian feminist writers on Wiki? Encouraging update and creation of pages on Australian Feminist Writers. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:05, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

This issue's News and Notes has a long feature on the various Wikipedia events for International Women's Day and WikiWomen's History Month. Gamaliel (talk) 18:45, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Andrew McMillen

Regarding Andrew McMillen, how predictable and expected is it that a writer who criticizes Wikipedia finds his own article nominated for deletion...I'd be more surprised if it wasn't nominated. Some Wikipedians have incredibly thin skins and react poorly to anyone notable who criticizes the project, whether or not the criticism is justified. Liz Read! Talk! 20:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

"Hey, I have an article even though I shouldn't!" "Oops, thanks for pointing that out! Let's correct that error!" What were you expecting? DS (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Snore...

Blah blah blah radical liberal hogwash blah. Blah blah blah radical conservative hogwash blah.

Seriously society? You still haven't realised that radical conservatives and radical liberals are equally foolish? How?

I tire much of this "epic battle" (sarcasm) between the radical conservatives and radical liberals that never seems to halt for even a moment.

I am starting to see why the Rastafarians call politics "politricks". Because it's all just a bunch of nonsense.

People should be judging individuals by their own merits. Anything less then that is indicative of poor judgment and stark bias.

So why can't we all just take a break from sparring every second and just sit down, have a glass of root beer, and give one another friendly hugs?

I use the Web much less now because of these silly political skirmishes that are going on within it. Where I live, everybody laughs at this silliness for the most part. The Web is becoming a mindless ball of silliness, and it's hard to take anything said within it seriously when people are arguing over dumb stuff.

It is one thing to wish to weaken the systematic bias of Wikipedia, but it is another to call the ArbCom case in question a "political injustice"; that borders on WP:DIVA territory. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:27, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

So, you don't identify yourself as a proud New Englander? That is a group identification. Liz Read! Talk! 20:34, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Group identification isn't the problem in this case. The problem is that the label being used is no longer sufficient to accurately give your average joe an idea of what you believe in. Rather than seeing Feminism as "a movement striving to break the gender divide in society and to get women to be granted equal opportunity everywhere", the average joe will see it as "a sort of cultish group that harasses and slanders those that they don't like".
Such a conclusion is the result of an extremely negative stigma that has become attached to the word in question. You can not simply pooh-pooh that stigma and go on your merry way. The simple fact is that the word "Feminism" has been torn and tattered to the point of unfathomability. That label needs to be tossed out and someone needs to come up with a new one. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 22:47, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Who started this whole shebang?

Gosh, I'm so glad we are still arguing about this. If only there was some way - like say a history page, or an archive of text discussions - to actually investigate who did what. (And to save time, and speaking as someone who was here almost from the very beginning, it was Jimbo's money and Larry's idea. Jimbo was barely present during year 1, his active involvement didn't really start until after Larry left in 2002. And does anyone remember Tim Shell?).Manning (talk) 00:07, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Well as someone who has been here almost as long, I'll express doubt the argument will ever be resolved for good until all involved parties are dead. (Although I'll agree with you that Wikipedia was a creation "of Jimmy's money & Larry's idea".) On the one hand, Wikipedia is Jimmy Wales' sole claim to fame. Sharing credit for it with anyone -- Sanger, Ward Cunningham, the Foundation Board, people who write content for Wikipedia -- dilutes his single claim to fame. Then there is the problem Sanger has that when given the opportunity to create a "better Wikipedia" (i.e. Citzendium), he failed. That failure makes it appear that Sanger has no idea why Wikipedia was a success, thus invalidating his claim to have helped create it. Of course the truth is no one understands why Wikipedia was so successful for its first several years, why a bunch of nobodies would think writing an encyclopedia was worth joining a bunch of strangers & spending their spare time using Wiki software to make it happen in the first place. Simply put, there was an unexpected social dynamic here that Wales & Sanger stumbled upon by accident, which worked for a while with little need of management, & now both want to claim credit for because no one else could do it better than they. -- llywrch (talk) 23:13, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

News and notes: WikiWomen's History Month—meetups, blog posts, and "Inspire" grant-making campaign (7,681 bytes · 💬)

Inspire Campaign

  • On the one hand "Inspire" is a laudable initiative both from an organizational and a topical perspective, on the other hand can the WMF not find $250,000 dollars in its 58 million dollar funding budget (or more) to not shut down everything else in the meantime? ResMar 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
    • If the issue is staff, that makes sense; I can't imagine that it would be easy to convince someone to move to SF for a few months of temp work. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:05, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I've never worked in such a large non-profit organization before so I'll defer to you on the topic of their expected level of organizational flexibility, but if they run more campaigns in the future (seems decently likely, this has gotten decent feedback so far) they're going to have to come up with some way of dealing with this shortage. ResMar 15:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • That is one fancy voting template! Nice job! --PresN 00:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • How many thousands if not millions has the WMF spent so far on gender equality efforts - almost all of which seem to have failed/not have had a noticeable long term effect. Its a very good goal - but this does seem like WMF going "we have no idea" maybe if we throw money at a bunch of random projects one of them will get some traction. I would like to see WMF not throwing money at ideas before execution but offering bounties or prizes for schemes and ideas that actually show an effect. There needs to be more incentives for success not just good intentions. AlasdairEdits (talk) 09:37, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Actually, there's some recent evidence that shows that the population of women editors is growing. Correlation not equating with causation, we can't say if it's a result of WMF's efforts, but we're at least going in the right direction. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Yeah if anything the strong progress we're making in this direction has been greatly encouraging the Foundation to be more aggressive in their campaigns, as it's a measurable trend that's hard to pin down to anything besides community and Foundation efforts. As for bounties, I think you overestimate volunteers' capacity to develop large initiatives and further development plans on their own time without financial support. This campaign is active while what you are suggesting is essentially passive. ResMar 14:19, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • +1 to the statement, "you overestimate volunteers' capacity to develop large initiatives and further development plans on their own time without financial support." That hits the nail on the head.
  • As a volunteer who regularly attends in-person editing events, let me explain some of the outcomes and needs. GLAM professionals in my city skew female, and don't want to be involved with people or organizations that refuse to treat them with respect. Professionals in major cultural institutions have legitimate questions and needs for explanation regarding how to create Wikipedia content and work within the site's existing policies. There is a friendly and dedicated base of experienced Wikipedians in Washington DC, but we are getting stretched thin as we receive more and more requests for our in-person expertise. Simply providing a meal and transportation costs makes a big difference. Also, in months with two, three, and more editing events, there are limits to how much time some of us can take away from our jobs. It makes a big difference having a few people available who are full-time Wikipedians, including our Wiki-buddies in New York and Philly.
  • Contests are fun, and generate content cheaply, so by all means let's keep having them! However, they are not the whole story. All that content you are seeing on the net that is freely reusable is the result of ongoing work by GLAM professionals and volunteers, and the efforts put into making that content available should not be underestimated. An event generating fewer articles may actually have more impact, if it lays the groundwork for improved access to free content, or ongoing collaboration. We need to understand that although Wikipedia provides a service to public sector and scientific organizations, it can require quite a bit of effort by paid professionals to align a Wikipedia-related project with these organizations' core missions.
  • There is a need for the scholars and experts who attend the events in DC on topics like art history, scientific research, and African-American history, and many of these experts are female. If we have to feed them, and sit with them one-on-one to turn their expertise into useable material on the encyclopedia, that may just be what it takes to have the opportunity to access their expertise.
  • The WMF efforts on gender equality do have a real-life impact that may not be obvious from the data-driven, software coder perspective. Essentially, many experts need a knowledgeable guide to help them deal with the difficult Wikipedia culture, which includes highly vocal members who explicitly reject the concept of implementing modern workplace anti-harassment standards. Many experts attending in-person events only edit if we're there with them, like a well-armed stagecoach driver taking them on their first trip to the Wild West. Only a very few develop the confidence to start driving the stagecoach themselves; most wait till we experienced folks come back before braving the trip again. --Djembayz (talk) 01:53, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Hoaxes

  • I once thought Jar'Edo Wens wasn't a hoax until I looked at its sources on Google. They mainly seem to be Wikipedia mirrors and/or forks. That was why I nominated for deletion for non-notability of a mythological deity, and then I agreed with others' comments that it was a hoax, in which one user said that "10 years of existence on the English Wikipedia is enough to confuse internet search engines." The Snowager-is sleeping 22:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Eight years ago a reference to Yohrmum in the See-also list of Australian Aboriginal mythology was removed as being "suspected old vandalism". If the other edits of the anonymous vandal had been examined at the time, the Jared Owens hoax should have been evident.  --Lambiam 16:13, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Op-ed: Why the Core Contest matters (12,469 bytes · 💬)

  • Thanks for resurfacing that 2011 slideshow. It is a great read for anyone who wants to understand the way that Wikipedia has been developing and will continue to develop without an intervention. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:41, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
  • It's good that someone added TCO's report as an image and caption, to the op-ed. It was highly regrettable how little attention the Signpost gave to it at the time. As I recall, TCO submitted an essay explaining his work, that the Signpost never ran. Don't recall if it's on-wiki or just on email (I don't think my email archives go back past 2012), but if it's around, it might be worth running.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:28, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
@Wehwalt: I wasn't able to find any further information about this submission on-wiki. I think we'd run it today, pending updating, but then again what was the concern at the time that prevented it from being run originally? ResMar 20:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
This was before my time as editor, but TCO's report was one of more controversial things to happen to FAC, especially if you include the aftermath (which I suspect Wehwalt remembers all too well). If you're curious about the Signpost-related discussion, this would be a good place to start; the SP talk archives hold little. I'm curious to know why we didn't run anything about it, not even an in brief. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
I am reluctant to characterize it as it involves editors I am known to have been in conflict with, one of whom is still active and she might take umbrage, and therefore ... but as I recall, there was a request that it not run without a rebuttal, and then no rebuttal was written, so the piece never ran. I suspect that if you check TCO's contributions for that time you will find it and the discussion.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:48, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Groan. I am uncomfortably familiar with this after all, then, but in a different context. ResMar 15:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Wow. I am unfamiliar with the above history, having long dismissed contests as being about producing crisp, pleasant articles about matters of great interest to few people. Together with the old slideshow, I now see the present piece as only incidentally a promotion of Core Contest. It is more an indictment of GA/FA, for failing to give due weight to traffic reports or WP:CORE or other hints of article importance. By this reading of the question, the answer is, those thoughtful and discerning judges ought to do that. If that means adding an extra hurdle in a process already excessively difficult, then relax some other criterion. WP:TAFI similarly doesn't show the right emphasis. Of course, mine is the opinion of an editor who only goes back to 2006 and has mostly mucked around in the middle to lower reaches of our great cesspit of articles, thus may be clueless where a clue is much needed. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:01, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
I inserted the slide-show into the piece because Casliber was running it on his contest page and he OK-d the change. I wasn't aware there was sordid history involving its non-publication here. I've listed my personal opinion below. ResMar 15:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Right, my personal opinion. FA is not worth the tedium. I'm a huge fan of GA, minus the backlogs, and have near-zero intention of ever returning to FA—GA articles are 90 percent of the content with 10 percent of the stress; they're more fun to write and more fun to review, and are much closer to an ideal balance between strength of writing and strength of will to get there. In fact I'd say a GA today is of the same quality as an FA from back when the dispatches were still active in 2010. I wonder what the broad trends have been in articles being brought to either venue, incidentally.
I'm sorry if I crowded out your piece, Casliber, that...wasn't my intention. ResMar 15:17, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Not fussed - it was enlightening to read TCO's piece again. Just makes me wonder how I could make the contest more frequent without inducing writer fatigue. The Core Contest is only a tool in the bigger scheme of things....but hopefully a fun one :) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:10, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
@Casliber: I think that the best way to make core content more of a priority amongst editors is to work on making collaboration on such articles easier. I've though about taking on Volcano (every once in a while I click on it and get dismayed by its crapiness) but I know I just can't do it alone; nonetheless I'd be willing to tackle the project over the summer with help from other experienced editors. I think that a lot of people have the same feelings about these things. Too often editing Wikipedia consists of quiet work alone. When people manage to build a community in a topic of interest—for instance, with Majestic Titan—things get bright.
I'm a big fan of WP:MILLION on this front, incidentally.ResMar 21:58, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
@Harej: I think you'd find this thread of thought interesting. ResMar 22:00, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
  • I must say that both the article and the slideshow have opened my eyes and are changing my approach to wikipedia. Being apparently a "dabbler" tackling mostly low importance articles with typically less than 3k views per months (Shepseskare, Sahure, Pyramid of Userkaf, Unas etc.) I used to choose articles for improvement on a more or less random basis. Like everyone else I have read very poor articles on vital topics (e.g. Level 4: Naqada III and Old Kingdom of Egypt, with c. 200k views per year for the latter), yet never thought of doing something about it myself. This is about to change thanks to this article! Finally, three observations:
1) The GA process has a terrible problem: several times, it took me over 5 months to get someone to review my nominations. If one nominates a vital article, one should be able to call for help from someone to get a priority GA review in a timely manner.
2) A vague idea: extremely important articles of poor quality could be the target of bounty-hunter-editors if a monetary reward was attached to these articles (Amazon or WMF shop vouchers).
3) Dabblers exist, among other reasons, because many non-vital articles are in an even worse shape than vital ones. This is quite dismaying for people interested in narrow, obscur, topics and might tend to spur them into action. Furthermore, narrow topics seem easier to cover comprehensively, giving the impression that good quality is achievable with less work. For example, while researching on Shepseskare, I had to consult a dozen primary sources for everything known about him, while doing the same on the Old Kingdom would require consulting thousands of sources. Hence another, less comprehensive strategy is required, which necessitates a selection of sources and important themes to be covered as opposed to "just everything I can find". Iry-Hor (talk) 08:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
Try moving up from a topic you've already written about! South American dreadnought race was only written after I wrote about the individual dreadnoughts and ship classes. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
Good point, so I am in a good position to write Old Kingdom of Egypt. Iry-Hor (talk) 09:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
@Iry-Hor: I was thinking of something more like Fifth Dynasty of Egypt. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:07, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
An even better point! And the article has around around 36,000 views a year! Iry-Hor (talk) 10:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
For me, I won't make time for GA, being busy with pictures and other matters. Also no contests. Thus, no action to influence others. For those who seek incentives or seek to incentivize, perhaps distinct displays of "pop stars" and "vital stars" would steer some star collectors in the right direction. I shall limit myself to clicking the 30 day page read report and sometimes the 90, as part of deciding to drop or not drop an article from watch. A few years ago I tried using the watching number for that purpose, but almost all were below 30 thus gave no guidance. And I'll try to think about whether I'm looking at an article that matters to the world, rather than just to my own odd though perhaps exquisite tastes. Jim.henderson (talk) 11:48, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • TCO's paper is a fascinating read that confirms some suspicions I've always had about Featured Articles. The threads in the Talk pages linked above also confirm some other suspicions I've had about the FA process & some of the regulars involved -- which is why I've not bothered with subjecting myself to it.

    However, my comment here is to argue a counter-point to creating featured content -- that instead of working to improve one article to FA class it may be far more important to raise several articles from stub or start to B class. Or even to reduce the percentage of stubs on Wikipedia from 54% to under 40% -- which is far easier than it might appear. For one thing, reviewing articles categorized as stub class, I've found 10-25% are actually start class or better. But a lot of stubs are simply in need of some TLC -- & research -- to be turned into useful articles, & would prove good starting places for new editors. (And others might be best merged into related articles.) -- llywrch (talk) 04:46, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

That's me, all right. Upgrade crap into mediocrity. I'm happy to do that, and as usual in WP specializations, more colleagues would be welcome. We have been discussing incentive programs, starting with a fixed-time contest and branching out with possible tweaks to the GA/FA star system. But how to grade successful crap scrapers so we can proudly display a poop scoop? Jim.henderson (talk) 10:36, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Special report: An advance look at the WMF's fundraising survey (11,722 bytes · 💬)

  • Idea for future survey question: "Would you be more likely to donate if the Foundation could provide coffee to its employees for less than £3 per cup?" EllenCT (talk) 23:53, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
This is with reference to a WMF banner last year that listed a minimum recommended donation of 3 pounds with reference to it being "the price of buying a programmer a coffee", which became the topic of a Wikipediocracy article. ResMar 06:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
A cup of coffee isn't particularly cheap in countries like mine. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:00, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I see ads on Wikipedia fairly frequent. Maybe this report supports that we need to do more about removing / preventing them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:21, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

    • "(13–20%) thought that Wikipedia is supported by advertising." 13-20% is in my opinion a good estimate of the proportion of wikipedia articles that are primarily promotional. Probably half are worth rewriting. DGG ( talk ) 06:38, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
  • There are a fair number of WP mirrors that present WP content (using the same formatting as we do), and often these mirrors do have ads (which to me are different than articles that are promotional/POV). This may explain a part of those 13-20% --Randykitty (talk) 10:37, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
I'd be surprised if that were the case as I can't imagine very many people use the mirrors. If I had to guess I'd say it'd be that people are classifying global messages they get in the header (particularly fundraising prompts) as advertisements. ResMar 14:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

The report from the researchers is on Commons and also on the Fundraisng Meta page. Lgruwell-WMF (talk) 15:56, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

It's very good that the WMF did a professional survey of readers. We can count on these results. It should be noticed that the results in general are technically negative - we haven't been doing anything to turn off potential donors. Sometimes negative results are really positive, and they are worth the money spent on the survey. After all, we really want to be sure that we're not killing the goose that lays the golden egg!
I'm wondering how much the survey cost? Not that I want to complain, but it may be worthwhile having a professional survey of readers and editors on other topics as well. For example, how many of our readers are women? How many of our editors are women? Evidence on the 1st question is likely hidden in the current survey, but wasn't published as far as I can tell.
The second question is more difficult to answer. The same sample selection method as the current survey wouldn't work - but another could be devised. This question is at the heart of a current controversy - how to get more women to contribute. The evidence to my reading currently adds up to "somewhere between 10-20% of editors are women" but any details such as "is the percentage of women editors increasing?" are well beyond analysis with the current data. It would be very nice to get a better handle on these questions. A professional survey using reasonable sampling methods should do the job. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:30, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the questions Smallbones. I think WMF as a whole is interested in having better, randomized opinion research. This has already been very informative to the fundraising team and has sparked a lot of ideas that we want to test. We decided not to ask any questions at all about editing in this reader survey. It became clear that with a sample size of 2,300 that we would not find very many people who had edited Wikipedia from the audience of people who read Wikipedia at least one a month in these five countries. The number would not likely be statistically significant, so we really couldn't draw many conclusions from it. However, the number that I am excited about is that 49,123 of the 250,000 donors who completed the donor survey in December said they wanted to learn how to edit Wikipedia. With regard to gender, we do have demographic data paired with the responses in this reader survey. We are just beginning to get that analysis and will share if we find any interesting differences on the gender front. Again though, this was focused on understanding reader opinions of our fundraising efforts. We did not touch on editing in this research.--Lgruwell-WMF (talk) 22:47, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it is very good to focus on one major issue at a time, especially to keep the survey short enough so that people will answer the last half as seriously as the first half. So far, so good.
But I do think that further surveys of readers, donors (I haven't seen the 2014 donor survey - is that 250,000 who completed the survey?), and editors would be very useful. In general I think folks don't take readers' opinions seriously enough here. You can get a random sample just from the people who enter the site without logging in, though there will be a selection bias just from people who don't answer. Just don't try to get everyone who enters the site. Perhaps folks who view 3 articles in a row might be a better starting population. Also sample in proportion to the readership according to different times-of-day (so you don't get a higher sample from Europe, the US and Canada, Australia, or India than is normal).
Surveying editors can be important for issues related to the site's governance. Have editors been subjected to gender discrimination? Do they see sexism in our articles? How do they feel about the editing environment (or civility in particular) on the site? Do they see commercial advertisements hidden in our articles? Are the admins and other governance mechanisms responsive to their needs? Tough issues, but sooner or later we're going to have to get a handle on how our editors view them.
The sample of editors will have to have input from the WMF (e.g. the list of editors who made more than 5 edits last month or similar), so there likely will be some concern that the data be kept confidential. I'd suggest something like the WMF lists the overall population to be sampled, a computer selects those to be sampled and sends them to an outside contractor with a key. The contractor has no idea who from the population has been sampled and only gives aggregate results to the WMF. In any case a method can be devised to keep the sample and individual responses totally confidential.
I'll also suggest several small sample surveys per year rather than one big survey. For example, 3 surveys per year (1 every 4 months) of 400 editors each will give more information than an annual survey of 1200 editors. You'll get to see if there are changes over time. The increase in the confidence interval for the smaller samples (say ±5% from ±2%) would not be that important for many issues.
But I'm not saying - follow my guidelines or else you won't get anything meaningful. I'm just saying that there are questions that are commonly discussed on Wikipedia as being important for governance, but nobody has tried to get the answers according to some of the fairly standard statistical methods. Survey professionals should be able to guide the WMF on how to do this properly. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
@Smallbones: With regards to editor surveys, that is definitely on the radar for the new Community Engagement Department. Exact form still to be determined. —Luis V. (WMF) (talk) 18:46, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Countries

"The survey questioned a sample of 2,300 people who said they used Wikipedia at least once a month. They were from five primarily English-speaking countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with the last two countries conflated into one sample group."

The survey is interesting from a journalistic point of view, but it's hardly statistically significant. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:53, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Back of the envelope math:
So with 97.5% confidence the capped inaccuracy for the smallest sample-size population is ±5%. With α = 0.05 that is very reasonable...maybe the Foundation is using the same maths I am! ResMar 01:59, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
Dear Resident Mario, I agree that 2,300 is a great sample size. I was questioning the small selection of countries, which doesn't fit the great diversity of Wikipedia readers. --NaBUru38 (talk) 03:23, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
I'd guess the issues of importance on the English, Russian, and Indonesian Wikipedias (as well as for many other languages) can be quite different. I'll suggest that we survey one language WP at a time to avoid mixing up issues and getting the issues of the Indonesian Wikipedias watered down. For example, start with surveys (400 is a great sample size - it allows many surveys to be taken) of the English WP, then the Spanish, German, French, Russian, ... Indonesian, ... , Vietnamese, ... Catalan, etc. We wouldn't be able to do all language versions, but if we did one per month, within a year we'd be able to see how the important issues vary and be able to tell how the needs of the different language versions can be addressed. Mixing it up into one big bag would likely just confuse things. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:40, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
Since this is a fundraising survey, you would expect them to exclude all of the (many) countries and languages that the fundraising campaign doesn't target. In fact, this particular survey was about a single campaign, called "Big English", which was (a) only on the English Wikipedia and (b) only shown to logged-out users of the English Wikipedia whose IP address geolocated to those five countries. As a survey of that particular campaign, the survey's limitations were a perfect match. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:34, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Traffic report: Wikipedia: handing knowledge to the world, one prank at a time (3,254 bytes · 💬)

  • Please also check out the automated top 20 most edited articles, which at least this week is considerably more highbrow than the most read. EllenCT (talk) 23:57, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Relax Ellen; I linked to it in the article. Serendipodous 00:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
      • Thank you! EllenCT (talk) 05:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
        • @Serendipodous: Thought for the most edits link ... as it continually updates, perhaps you could use a permalink to synch it with the regular traffic report week? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:08, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • If Terry Pratchett isn't in there next week, I will be very upset. Circéus (talk) 13:54, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Circéus, initial indicators suggest he'll at least be in the Top 25. If you have proposed commentary that you think should appear in the rightmost column, please park it in on my talk page because I have no idea who he is!--Milowent • hasspoken 13:59, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Really, I was not aware of him by name, but its possible I know some of his work and don't realize it. I just looked at the raw data, and he'll be #3 on the next traffic report.--Milowent • hasspoken 14:51, 15 March 2015 (UTC)


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