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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2015-07-22. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Featured content: The sleep of reason produces monsters (523 bytes · 💬)

Is there a reason, why the images in the "Japanese invasion money (Malaya and Borneo) 1942–45" set are all piped the same way? Or that one of the others contains "redux"? This could be done better. Armbrust The Homunculus 07:51, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

From the editor: Change the world (1,779 bytes · 💬)

  • The whole point of Wikipedia is being able to write about any topic! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:23, 23 July 2015 (UTC).
  • The problem with The Signpost is that it's journalism. Journalism needs writers to work beats. That's how the public gets the content it desires. Working a beat is the antithesis of Wikipedia's "edit wherever you like at your own pace." Wikipedia is lucky to have some talented folks working beats like News and Notes and the ARBCOM report, the WikiProject report, the top ten, etc. Just the same, I know why I and many others eschew pitching in. I'm unwilling to be the change I want to see but maybe I'd consider a paid subscription service. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:16, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
    • You do identify a good point, Chris troutman, and that is that the Signpost has a deadline, and we all have lives -- no one does it full-time :-) We have been lucky to attract some great volunteers over the years, but from time to time, we all need a break, and that's why we wanted to recruit some backup writers, willing to pitch in occasionally as needed. Go Phightins! 18:24, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Gallery: "One small step..." (503 bytes · 💬)

  • Nice photos. --Pine✉ 01:22, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Amazing history! --- Zemant (talk) 01:27, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

In the media: Novelists annotate Wikipedia; Wales promotes TPO; Working for free (24,961 bytes · 💬)

Photos

  • Photographers can release their pictures even if they've been published elsewhere. Well, not if the publishing contract was for something like "all rights" or "exclusive rights". Then it's up to the owner of the rights. Subjects can also send a selfie. Not just a poor phone selfie; a good one if they make one. Of course they must release all rights, or anyway those rights that would make the picture salable if retained. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:24, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I had to smile at the comment "the 33-year-old Wikipedian is more active on the site than literally anyone else — including members of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation’s paid staff." As usual, outsiders -- and especially the press, including such high-end outlets as the Washington Post -- have no idea how this place works. It's probably to Wikipedia's benefit to keep it that way. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:19, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • If a notable person wants the world – including Wikipedia – to use a high-quality photograph of them, what is preventing them from releasing just one small photo with a free license? Really, would that kill them commercially? Or is it that they don't know how to do it? A PR rep could put the photo on the subject's official website with an appropriate license, alert us with a note on the article talk page, and an editor would go pick up the photo. – Wdchk (talk) 02:23, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • What we need is a simple, straight forward, plain English world-wide applicable explanation of what "releasing a photo on a free licence" really means in terms of people's images. Can that photo be used by others to assume endorsement? Can it be used on clothing or bags or posters or other commercial activities? Can it be put into someone else's book? If that can be explained, then we could approach sporting teams, publicists, non-US governments (who's work isn't automatically on a public domain basis) to donate photos, and everyone knows what that really means. Does such a guide exist already? The-Pope (talk) 03:25, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
    • You bring up useful examples of real-world questions that would need to be addressed concerning re-use of images of identifiable people; these questions serve as a reminder that not only the copyright needs to be considered, but also the personality rights of the subject, i.e. the person(s) shown may have rights that legally restrict certain re-uses unless those depicted consent to such uses. Your suggested "simple, straight forward, plain English world-wide applicable explanation" on the face of it sounds like a good idea – although in reality it might not be so simple. I say this because it seems that such an explanation would need to be a combination of a summary of the license (e.g. CC BY-SA 4.0) together with COM:PEOPLE – with all its wrinkles, including country-specific provisions. – Wdchk (talk) 04:41, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Or they could just upload it themselves (after getting an account). The problem definitely is that they don't know how to do it. We do need to educate their agents. I like Jim's idea of having them send in selfies. Maybe we could have a special "Send a selfie" day for anybody who has an article. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:45, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure I would encourage people to upload photos of themselves (or of others where they have a COI). It might be confusing if we effectively say, "OK to upload your own photo and create a file description, but we don't want you to edit your own article." (WP:AUTO) – Wdchk (talk) 04:50, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I appreciate the novelists' frustration with Wikipedia but it is not unique to Wikipedia. Every time I've had personal knowledge of an issue, then read an article in the newspaper about it, I've found problems. Any summary of a person's life is going to have distortions and misunderstandings or at least legitimate differences of opinion. How hard is it to change an article about yourself in Encyclopædia Britannica or the New York Times? What is amazing about Wikipedia is that if these people make an effort, we are willing to listen.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  04:03, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
i actually got Dorothea_Lasky to send in a selfie. but in general, the publishing industry has not drunk the wiki license kool-aid. they prefer pay to play, and the quality argument is cogent; there less than 5 quality author's photographers on commons, and shankbone has retired. Duckduckstop (talk) 15:48, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
  • SchreiberBike, neither Encyclopædia Britannica nor the New York Times will allow any troll or crank to write their material, with no personal accountability, publishing it immediately to the world with no checking whatsoever. That is arguably "unique to Wikipedia". Further, if one does complain to them, it's very rare that will result anyone there trying to spite the aggrieved party in retaliation (granted, it's conceivable - but again, the most unprofessional member of the entire organization is not on equal footing with the most professional one). It is not that there are no good people in Wikipedia and no bad people elsewhere. Rather, Wikipedia gives extraordinary power to the unaccountable, then relies on everyone to keep them in check (including the injured party). That is not justified by any argument along the lines that good and bad exist everywhere. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Emily Gould

OMG I just love her comments and can sooooo sympathize! Of course I have spoken with many subjects of Wikipedia articles who have asked me to brush up theirs and out of curiosity I always take a look, but more often than not I feel just as helpless as she does in many cases, despite all of my experience as an editor. When it comes to BLP's I just feel lost. I often leave the keyboard with an unsatisfied feeling of "this is the best I can do, and it's still really lousy". I wish there was a genius website where I could post similar views but from the "experienced Wikipedia editor" side of things. Of course she is quite correct about the criticism-career ratio, and I often create articles on the fly because I watched something on TV (though not "Larry King Live"). My moment of caring about those on-the-fly articles is disproportionate to the articles I created from one of my lists of my main hobby, which is 17th-century art, so I will pretty much ignore those on my watchlist (unless I have personally interacted with the subject, in which case I feel a mild sense of responsibility, but not much more than that). I despair again and again behind my computer screen when I see that my photograph taken with a nervous hand of some notable person or place or artwork is really just not up to snuff. I will go ahead and upload it anyway under the motto "a terrible photo is better than none" but I am always plotting ways to get a better one. Thanks for posting these perspectives, because it shows how dismally unsatisfactory our current set of tools for editors really is. If I had wrote the Emily Gould page and read that feedback just now, of course I would respond. The problem is that I never receive any feedback except from bots or other Wikipedians. As for Sheila Heti's comments about nationality and amplification of minor quotes, I can only concur that those are both very valid arguments that everyone suffers from on Wikipedia, both alive and dead. All I can say is that she's right, but it's thanks to our deeply nationalistic system that many articles get created and watched. It's the artists who (Heaven forbid!) travel to foreign countries or start speaking and writing in foreign languages that are doomed to oblivion entirely. Jane (talk) 07:18, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

This was the edit that did it, Jane: made eight years ago, by a red-linked account named Xsk8luv69 that only ever edited three articles, two of which were women's biographies to which the editor added unflattering content from TV interviews. (The third article was for a chain of frozen yogurt stores; again the editor added derogatory information.) Previously, the Gould article looked fairly bland and short, but factual. It looks much like something that might have been added by Gould herself, or a friend or colleague. But one negative person was enough to blight that BLP for 8 years (and the material is still there today). It's why Wikipedia makes such a good revenge platform, because no matter how ridiculously lopsided a biography may be, someone will always resist deletion, claiming "it's sourced material". See Wikipedia:Anonymous dirt accretion method of biography writing. Andreas JN466 09:00, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
Interesting! It's time we had a Wikipedia article about revenge editing, because it happens so often. Speaking with subjects of BLP's I have noticed it is information like what you just uncovered which helps the person the most. Often they don't really care about Wikipedia at all and are worried it's something their ex did or some disgruntled employee. When I show them the information I found it often comes as a huge relief, because they know better than I do where the edit is coming from and that answers their biggest concerns (usually). I guess tru revenge editing is something that can only live in the margins of Wikipedia where most people never go. Articles with lots of eyes on them tend to catch that stuff as it happens and it won't last for years and years like this. Jane (talk) 10:01, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Working for free

I am delighted to see this topic covered so well, in such a large mainstream publication.

The Knowledge Graph panel is part of Google's strategy to keep users on Google's own, ad-rich pages, and to increase ad clicks. It is a factor in the vast increase in revenue Google has been able to achieve: Google announced $17.7bn in revenue for the 2nd quarter of this year, averaging close to $200 million a day. (Bing follows the same strategy with its Satori panel.)

Now, if – for the sake of argument – 1/365th of Google's ad revenue were due to its being able to show Wikimedia content that keeps users on Google pages a little longer, and trains them to look at the right hand side of the page where the ads are, then Google might each year want to pay one day's revenue towards the Wikimedia community. Just out of the kindness of their hearts, right? As a thank you.

To date there have been about 2.5 billion edits to Wikimedia sites, of which probably around 2 billion to the various Wikipedias.

https://tools.wmflabs.org/wmcounter/

So, for a very, very rough calculation – if, once a year, Google donated one day's revenue to the Wikimedia community, how much would that be per edit? About 10 cents. I have made about 55,000 edits to Wikipedias, so that would translate to about $5,500 for me, annually. Yay!!

But hang on ... maybe I've totally overestimated the advertising value of the Knowledge Graph panel, or the contribution of Wikipedia, Commons and Wikidata to its content. Let's assume I have overestimated it by a factor of ten. That would still mean that I should get about $5,500, once every ten years. As luck would have it, I will have been on Wikipedia for that long in the not too distant future. Yay!!!!

Again, this is what Wikipedians would get if Google set aside the advertising revenue of *one day per decade* to say thank you to Wikipedians. We haven't even mentioned Facebook and Bing (which has a nifty timeline in its Satori panel, copying Wikipedia sentences that mention years). Andreas JN466 13:29, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

@Tomayac: how much is Google willing to reward Wikipedians? EllenCT (talk) 13:59, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Steve King

The original article was very skewed and lacked a world view. King is american. No other country would recognize his historey He is not German or Irish or any other European citizen. It's clear from the sources that the issue being discussed is politicians that have national roots but not language. Two fluent spanish speakers were highlighted. The sources make it clear that the language connection is significant. King may have descendants from Spain or Germany but neither country nor any citizens would consider him German or spanish. He's American and that is obviouse to 1st generation, Spanish speaking immigrants. That point was made in the reliable sources when they cited two, non-hispaniv but fluent speakers. --DHeyward (talk) 08:03, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I genuinely don't understand your point. Obviously King is American, as is Julian Castro. Nothing I wrote says they were not. Gamaliel (talk) 14:18, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
Your source doesn't emphasize the ethnic differences as you did, it emphasizes the language and connections. Your source [1] discussing Castro lacking fluency in Spanish doesn't make the point that many Latino's don't speak Spanish (as you synth'd into the article), rather it makes the point that fluent Spanish speakers may connect better than non-Spanish speakers. Ted Cruz and Castro were prominent non-Spanish speaking Latino's while Tim Kane and Jeb Bush were noted as fluent in Spanish. Castro was specifically compared with Kane as potential Clinton running mates. Your description of "bizarre" and your repetition of the vandalism is disappointing, and not neutral. You would not, for example, have repeated the vandalism that occurred on Brianna Wu's page regarding speculation about her past. My copyedit took nothing away from your point about King but it was balanced and reflected what the sources said. The ethnicity of King misses the point entirely as only in America would he be described as "German" or "Irish." Certainly he wouldn't be considered "German" or "Irish" in either of those countries, he would be considered "American." Castro identifies as Latino which was what made the tweet offensive but the speculation the sources made was about how well he connects to a large segment of new Latino voters that speak Spanish and consider Spanish fluency to be culturally significant. Compare your version next to mine and ask yourself which is more neutral. Instead of Castro, imagine it was tweet about George Zimmerman's Latino identity by, say Charles Schumer and then Schumer had his page vandalized. Written differently? Compare your version to mine and ask which is more neutral and accurate (and not a BLP violation). I don't think it's even close and I find your version to be both mocking and derisive in an unnecessary manner. That's blog material, not WP material --DHeyward (talk) 16:08, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
You appear to be confused about the definition of "vandalism" as it applies to Wikipedia. WP:NOTVAND may be helpful. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:29, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
The Signpost is a journalistic outlet, so my piece was a synthesis and analysis of numerous sources I consulted, including a number of other news pieces and tweets responding to King. I saw no need to link to all of them except the ones directly related to Wikipedia or the ones that I judged particularly relevant. This is typically how I approach longer ITM stories. "Bizarre" is an accurate characterization of the tweet, consistent with the reaction of most people to it. It is perfectly reasonable for a journalist to make an observation like that. With both King and Castro, I identified them not as Irish or Mexican or whatever, but of Irish or Mexican descent. This is obviously not the same as calling them something other than American. Speculation about the motives behind King's tweet is just that, speculation, and delving even further into speculation about Castro's possible vice-presidential bid or comparing him to Tim Kaine is too far away from what my story was actually about, King's tweet and how the reactions to it affected Wikipedia. Repeating the vandalism should be avoided when may be seen as particularly offensive or potentially damaging, as in the case of irresponsible speculation regarding Brianna Wu. There's nothing offensive or damaging about being called Hispanic, unless you think BLP extends to how a few hypothetical racist Iowa voters might potentially react to King's ethnicity. Gamaliel (talk) 17:46, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
Short Brigade Harvester Boris you appear to be misinformed about the substance of the Steve King article which is about the vandalism to his page. Please read both Gamaliel's and my version and they both call the edits "vandalism." That is not disputed. Repeating the substance of the vandalism is not needed in the Signpost article, however. "Steve King's article was vandalized." is sufficient. "Steve King's article was vandalized by repeatedly inserting..." is not. To highlight the problem, I use a figure Gamaliel is more sympathetic with: Brianna Wu. "Brianna Wu's page was vandalized." vs. "Brianna Wu's page was vandalized by repeatedly inserting...." Do you really want to say the act to those pages isn't vandalism? Do you really want to defend repeating the vandalism? Even the substitution of the picture - is it okay to detail it for King and Wu when pictures were substituted and what pictures they used? This is not encyclopedia Dramatica and signpost doesn't have a license to violate basoc WP principles of BLP, BEANS, etc. --DHeyward (talk) 18:18, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
@Gamaliel: it was your source that speculated about Spanish fluency and you are misrepresenting the context of that source. The context wasn't whether American Latino's spoke Spanish, it was about whether connecting with Latino voters was hindered by Spanish fluency. The speculation by your source was that the tweet was related to whether Castro connected with Latino voters. Portraying that source as supporting a simplistic view that King associated being Latino was connected to speaking Spanish is a misrepresentation of that source which made no such claim. They did say that two non-Latino candidates (Kane and Bush) might connect better than two Latino candidates (Cruz and Castro). That source did not support your thesis that King was making a claim that being Latino hinged on Spanish fluency (and your synthed bit about Spanish fluency in the Latino cmmunity). Rather that source supported speculation that speaking Spanish was more beneficial to attracting Latino voters than simply being Latino. That was what they speculated, yet you attributed an entirely different narrative and improperly attributed it to that source. Again, read my version side by side with yours and ask yourself which is more neutral. As for your claim of offensiveness, there is nothing offensive with a number of labels and we use them all the time. Are you going to argue that saying a statement like "Caitlyn Jenner is a transgender woman" is offensive because of some transphobic Iowa voters? We don't make value judgements for BLP violations. We simply say "false and unsourced." Had vandals inserted that Castro was not Latino based on King's tweets, we would revert that as well based on BLP. Not being Latino is also not offensive, but we don't allow inclusion/exclusion without sources. The reason King's tweet was offensive was because he excluded Castro from the Latino community, not because he included himself in it. But I think you'd agree that not being Latino is not negative, yet that tweet was offensive because of the exclusion it implied. --DHeyward (talk) 18:18, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
I am not misrepresenting any source because the words and analysis are mine, not the source's. I've pulled certain information from certain sources, but because I did not write my story in exactly the same way as a single one of many sources that I used for that story does not amount to a misrepresentation of one particular source. Speaking of misrepresentation, readers should know the context of why you keep brining up the transgender issue, because some time ago I redacted talk page comments of yours regarding inappropriate speculation discussion that a particular BLP was transgender. It's time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. Gamaliel (talk) 20:16, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
I have no knowledge of you redacting any comments of mine regarding any speculation as I have never speculated. I know you have redacted comments and I have done the same. I use the transgender analogy only because you seem to understand it but are lacking the ability to extend that critical thinking beyond that particular box. As I said, the offense of this tweet was implying Castro was not Latino, not that King was. The sources speculate the reason for making the tweet was based on whether or not Castro connected to Latino voters due to his lack of Spanish language and that other Spanish-speaking non-Latino's may be more appealing. Your implication that King tied being Latino to speaking Spanish, though, is a mischaracterization of sources and arguably a BLP violation. King's tweet may be offensive to Castro by implying he is not Latino but the sources did not interpret the tweet in this way and certainly not the broad way you did. --DHeyward (talk) 02:21, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
I have substituted the word "discussion" for "speculation". I disagree with your assessment of the tweet and the articles about the tweet, and discussing the matter in a slightly different way from the way you interpret one particular news article about the tweet is hardly a "mischaracterization" or a BLP violation. I believe I have written about the tweet and its context fully and fairly in a manner appropriate to the journalistic mission of the Signpost. Gamaliel (talk) 03:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Quoting Jimbo

Is this accurate? Shouldn't it be "so on"?

"'I'll just make up a fake ID and pretend to be someone' and so one ..."— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

News and notes: Wikimanía 2015 in the books; Lightbreather ArbCom case (14,416 bytes · 💬)

Layout issue
A screenshot showing text layout issues
  • Layout issues: All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:30, 23 July 2015 (UTC).
Resident Mario has been upgrading our templates and we're all getting used to them. We'll try to fix it ASAP. Gamaliel (talk) 23:32, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
 Rich Farmbrough: What is your platform and web browser. ResMar 00:27, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
For the next few days it's Windows (Microsoft version, not X-Windows) and Palemoon. I use the traditional skin (monobook?). All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:58, 24 July 2015 (UTC).
The issue is the width budget. The tools take 10%, the excessive left margin on Signpost takes another 10%. the Wikimania logo takes 30%. The first Lih quote takes 20%. The text of the article has a reasonable 30% left, but the extra column margins for the huge quote signs and layout reduce the actual text to 15% of the screen width. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:05, 24 July 2015 (UTC).
 Rich Farmbrough: There shouldn't be an issue with the width budget, because the last two items you mentioned—the Wikimania logo and the Lih quote—do not, or are not meant to, stack horizontally. Content is split between two columns that don't interact with one another until necessary, at which point the two columns simply merge into one another. Visually the issue to me appears to be that the quote is taking up a slice of the column it is in, instead of the full width of the column. Does the rest of the text in that column come through without problems? Is the quote indeed taking up less space than it was allotted, or is the entire text column that narrow?
Perhaps this is an issue with the browser itself? ResMar 03:49, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Signpost-layout-july-2105-1
It's substantially the same in Firefox. I have looked in I.E., Cometbird, Opera and Safari. They all have issues at various sizes of window, or various zoom factors. For images see my upload stream on Commons. Only on the modern Firefox browsers can I get this exact problem, it's not clear if it's a browser bug (I haven't looked at the HTML) or if it's due to the vertical proximity of the first pull-quote with the end of the image. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:50, 24 July 2015 (UTC).
 Rich Farmbrough: Ah, I think I see now what the issue is. Content in the right column is aligned via float, and if two items try to appear in the same space it appears that the browser wants to send one left instead of below. That results in a double stack of content, which messes up everything thereafter. The issue should be fixed now with the insertion of a {{clear}} between the two items to force them to stay apart. ResMar 15:25, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Did that fix the issue? If so I can add this into the templamentation to permafix it. ResMar 15:25, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes it's fixed. Funnily my first instinct was to stick a {{Clear}} in the page. But this way it's fixed for the future too. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC).
  • There has been bad characterisation of the Light Breather case, which is a shame. The committee can and does take into account off-wiki actions, however it's writ does not run outside en:wp. It is quite clear that Light Breather's ban was based on their behaviour, and was not out of the ordinary, even if there may have been other solutions which could have been implemented back at the GGTF case, and made this ban moot.
  • It's also clear that this case is another opportunity for those seeking off-wiki publicity to ride the "Wikipedians are evil" bandwagon - there are however "no wheels on this wagon".
  • As to off-wiki harassment, I haven't followed the drama, but if there is no clear connection between the accused editor and the off-wiki harasser, it would be very wrong to take peremptory action on-wiki. Instead we should be providing technical help and moral support, where we can. Dealing with the perpetrator is a matter for ISPs and if necessary law enforcement.
  • All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC).
  • Patricio Lorente most certainly does not "represent Wikimedia Argentina" on the Board of Trustees, any more than Alice Wiegand represents Wikimedia Deutschland, or María Sefidari represented Wikimedia España. Once on the board, even if selected by Wikimedia affiliates, their only duty is to act in the best interests of the Foundation and the movement. I thought it worth pointing out explicitly rather than directly editing the story, but I encourage the editors to explicitly correct this. Ijon (talk) 01:18, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Fixed. Clunky wording on my part. Thanks. Go Phightins! 01:26, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Geez. This year for the ArbCom is something else, isn't it? So much controversy from the Committee than usual it seems. Then again, I've been paying extreme attention to them since the beginning of the year. But still. GamerPro64 02:07, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Arbitration cases are like sausages. Once you know what goes into them you want as little to do with them as possible. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:09, 24 July 2015 (UTC).
  • About the value (and lack of) video recording at Wikimania 2015, there was a decision to forgo much video because of the expense of renting video equipment & retaining videographers, & the cost of preparing it for upload to Commons. However, I think that we have reached an age where good quality video can be obtained from smart phones. Witness the independent film Tangerine that was shot on iPhone 5s phones. I think that all that remains to work out tripods & audio (either a plug in microphone or a Bluetooth or wired feed from the mixing board if a sound system is used). I going to give a shout-out to Harej & Kirill Lokshin to connect me with someone who might be interested in working with this for the upcoming WikiConference USA 2015. Peaceray (talk) 16:49, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Speaking of Tangerine, it could be useful viewing for people interested in working on the conflicts surrounding womens' issues here. We could show this film to prospective female editors so they realize we're serious about free speech, no "drama", and being an encyclopedia *anyone* can edit, just to let the female editors know what kind of atmosphere they're walking into, then do an A-B study to see if it improves our retention rate ... I laughed and laughed after watching it last night, told my date "it's just like Wikipedia!!" (Luckily, the film was being shown in a "safe space," just down the block from the FBI building. :) --Djembayz (talk) 12:56, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I didn't realise that Wikimanía wasn't being videoed in full. As someone who has neither the budget nor the mental health to travel to Wikimania events (indeed my mental health meant I couldn't make it last year, when it was my own city!). We should definitely do everything we can to ensure every single session is videoed in future; even if only on a smartphone. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 13:49, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
  • On the topic of harassment in general:
    1. I did not follow this specific case, so I am speaking in general terms.
    2. Innocent people should not be harrassed. It's unjust, unfair, and should not be condoned.
    3. Some people (think of any recent public figure or someone in your office/church/neighborhood who has "fallen from grace" due in large part to their own behavior) are not entirely innocent - their past or present behavior practically begged for others to privately or publicly chastise them on or off-wiki. Sometimes this chasetisement goes over the top and crosses the line to become harrassment, but until it crosses that line, the "victim" should look inside himself rather than complain about being harrassed.
    4. I am one of those whose on- and off-Wiki behavior has earned me righteous chastisement as well as some over-the-top harrassment from both the Wikipedia community and outside of it.[2]
    davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:51, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Actually, davidwr, it isn't a question of whether you have done something wrong. Nobody should be harassed.
As per earlier remarks:
It is time to lay to rest the idea that people deserve to be harassed, because they are:
  • obnoxious in their interactions with others
  • committing infractions of our immense, complicated set of rules
  • not writing enough featured articles
  • not cool enough to be a part of the website
  • not technical enough to understand that it's just the Internet and insults don't count
  • editing from an IP address
  • a member of a group of people whose characteristics somebody doesn't like
  • [or some other excuse here].
It is time to implement a policy that everyone volunteering here deserves respect, with no exceptions, and everyone volunteering here, with no exceptions, will be required to actively show respect to others. --Djembayz (talk) 04:04, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
@Djembayz: Actually, the first item you list, "obnoxious in their interactions with others," when chronic, is something that a user should be reminded not to do, then if it persists, he should be given stern warnings and, if necessary, brought to the attention of administrators. The obnoxious user is likely to perceive some or all of these steps as harassment. Whether other editors' responses to his obnoxious behavior cross the line to harassment is up to the community to judge. For example: putting a single warning on an obnoxious user's talk page is clearly not harassment (in fact, to the extent that it educates the user, it is kinder and more respectful to the user than doing nothing), putting 5 warnings for 5 different instances of obnoxious behavior that occurred in a short period of time but before the first warning is placed is borderline but WP:AGF probably applies, putting 50 warnings for 50 different cases of recent obnoxious behavior that all happened before putting up the first warning is clearly crossing the line and is harassment. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:19, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
@Davidwr:Agreed, it is important to set out clear standards, so that reasonable and appropriate discipline does not become unreasonable chastisement, verbal abuse, or repetitious harassment. --Djembayz (talk) 04:30, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
@Djembayz: There's also the issue of confusion over vocabulary: In your most recent message above, you treat chastisement as a bad thing. The word can also be used as a near-synonym for reprimand or admonishment, which when used properly are not bad things. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 04:45, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Technology report: Tech news in brief (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07-22/Technology report

Traffic report: The Nerds, They Are A-Changin' (760 bytes · 💬)

"a rainbow appeared over Nintendo's Kyoto HQ on the day of his death." A bit late to point this out but a rainbow appeared a day after his death. GamerPro64 02:12, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Huh. I assumed the day his death was announced was also the day of his death. Oh well. This is why I'm not a paid journalist. Serendipodous 09:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikimanía report: Wikimanía 2015 report, part 1, the plenaries (4,868 bytes · 💬)

  • Susanna Mkrtchyan is in fact active in the Eastern Armenian Wikipedia (the one spoken in Armenia itself; Western Armenian is spoken throughout the Armenian diaspora), and is a board member of Wikimedia Armenia. She did also assist in some activities focused on Western Armenian, but it is misleading to gloss her name only with the Western Armenian work. Ijon (talk) 07:49, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Ijon, please feel free to be bold & fix the links & wording. I did not find the proper links when I was writing the piece. I welcome whatever corrections or clarifications that you have to offer. Peaceray (talk) 15:36, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • The "only available references may be those that the government permits." If the only available references are potentially from conflicted interests, they should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice, and there should probably be a clear indication of that state of affairs. How many countries have persecuted editors so far? EllenCT (talk) 13:47, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
EllenCT, I agree that we need to develop a policy/guideline for identifying compromised sources, like we can mark things as |subscription=yes in citation templates. I also used the {{closed access}} template, which renders as Closed access icon. It would be great to have something to identify compromised sources. Peaceray (talk) 15:36, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Peaceray, after skimming through (and updating bits of) Wikipedia:WikiProject_Inline_Templates, the closest existing ones I can see are {{SCIRS}} ⇒[unreliable scientific source?], and possibly {{POV-statement}} and the generic {{unreliable source?}}. (But those obviously aren't the within-cite-templates parameter that you suggested, they might work in the meantime). Quiddity (talk) 19:44, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes, In pectore was the actual term he used; he also explained the term and gave the example of the Chinese bishop made a cardinal in pectore while imprisoned by the Chinese dictatorship. Whether or not it's "revealing" of anything else depends on one's desired predetermined conclusion. Ijon (talk) 20:41, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
  • "because of the government's blocking actions, the perspective of China within Wikipedia would be represented only by editors outside mainland China" - and Chinese-government-sponsored meatpuppets who are allowed to access Wikipedia and who also likely have the tools to create hard-to-detect fake online personas. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:01, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Where are the videos of keynote speeches? Or should I ask why was there no provision for video to be even made, which is starting to look like the situation here... One would think that with hundreds of thousands of donor dollars being spent there would be at least some minimal effort to preserve and present key content to the 99% of Wikipedia volunteers unable to make it to Mexico City. There appears to have been a complete failure to do this by WMF, unless "copyright holders" Wikimedia-Mexico are merely being extraordinarily slow. Carrite (talk) 17:48, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
Carrite, the keynote speeches were recorded. It is my understanding that it takes awhile to process the video before it can be posted on the web. I do not know why this is, but I do know this is consistent with year's past. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on the matter could explain why it takes so long. Peaceray (talk) 06:41, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
IIRC in 2013 and 2014 the keynote speeches were uploaded to a website that stored during the live stream.
They could have filmed the rest with camera phones or camera recorders. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:14, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Some more politics (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-07-22/WikiProject report


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