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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2015-09-02. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Discussion report: WMF's sudden reversal on Wiki Loves Monuments (5,368 bytes · 💬)

After reading this article I'm not sure what 1) the original position of the WMF was on WLM and 2) what the final decision is. It says they will split the time, then later says that the RFC resulted in no fundraising banners. The lede should summarize the issue and the final decision please! --Trödel 11:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

1) The original position was to run the fundraising banners in Italy for most of September 2) The final decision is that there will be no fundraising banners in September in Italy. This decision was taken on August 30th. 3) there have been some intermediate steps. - Laurentius (talk) 13:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Thank you!! --Trödel 16:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • It is so pleasing to see the WMF actually changing position on the basis of input from the community before problems occur. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:19, 4 September 2015 (UTC).
  • I don't mean to sound harsh, but I find this article incomprehensible. It appears to be a quasi-random selection of talkpage posts, thrown together in no particular order. As the user above (almost) says, having read this from top to bottom I still don't understand what it's actually about, or what point is being made. (As best I can make out, it is a complaint about the placement and timing of banner ads on it-wiki, but I can't see how this relates to en-wiki except in the very indirect sense that some en-wiki articles might make use of particular images.)

    In a more general sense regarding WLM, all the "the largest photography competition ever" spin is well and good, but what's more relevant at to whether the WMF should keep throwing resources towards it is how many of the resulting images are actually of any use. The single largest source of images on Commons is Geograph—Images from the Geograph British Isles project accounts for more than 6% of all Commons's images—but I can't imagine any sane user considering Geograph as being of particularly high value to the Wikimedia movement, given that perhaps 99% of those images will never used by anyone, ever. ‑ iridescent 20:21, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

    • Yet, usage of Geograph photos is not negligible: some 50k articles with tens of millions pageviews/month. --Nemo 07:59, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
      • Oh certainly, I use Geograph images regularly, but for every Geograph photo which is used there are a hundred empty fields and generic roads which have no realistic prospect of ever being used but are just making up the numbers. ‑ iridescent 09:49, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
        • The two images you link can be used. The first one to show how the environment looks like in that area on the article about it, and the second one on both the article of Great Swinburne and the article about the road. And I do consider the Geograph images as of particularly high value for Wikipedia (as they actually show the environment), so then according to you I am maybe insane, but then I am proud of that because your comment here is bogus. Yes, it is bogus if you think images of cultural heritage are not of any use. Of course it is good to be critical, but an understanding first of the goal of the project would be welcome. Wiki Loves Monuments is not aiming on getting images of only the most popular or most beautiful cultural heritage sites or the masterpieces, but to show them all. That includes also those monuments that are less photogenic. Governments have indicated all of these cultural heritage sites, because of their historical importance, historical identity, historical value, and more. And on the English (and every) Wikipedia not just the monuments located in the English speaking countries are relevant, we have as goal to collect the sum of all knowledge, and that includes Italian monuments. And why the Signpost covers this? On Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About it says clearly: "The Signpost is a community-written and edited newspaper that covers stories, events, and reports related to the English Wikipedia, its sister projects, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Wikimedia movement at large." Romaine (talk) 03:34, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I also had a hard time following the article. It needs to provide some sort of summary of what actually happened and fewer quotes, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 05:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with Kaldari; this article looks pretty but is very hard to follow. Invertzoo (talk) 18:21, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Featured content: Brawny (14,043 bytes · 💬)

I am delighted to see that the featured pictures are displayed on this page, with attribution, and allowed to speak for themselves as images, rather than play a minor part in accompanying a huge slab of original text that usually gets posted here and I'm quite sure that nobody ever read. In a hyperlinked encyclopaedia like this one, it is quite sufficient to have a link to the article should one wish to learn more about the subject. I hope this pattern continues for all future Signposts, and congratulations to all those image makers who saw their work promoted. -- Colin°Talk 09:00, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there does seem to be a divide between the visually-orientated, such as yourself and those who are more word-orientated, as it were. I remember an elderly gentleman perusing the second-hand pornography on a market stall. The trader asked him if he would prefer pictures or words. Here we like to cater to both types; feedback indicates that there's plenty of readers as well as gawkers. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 12:03, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I'm not convinced there is any divide wrt "featured pictures". The clue is rather in the name. The previous signpost coverage of FPs read like the dullest "Did you know" rejects. Quite why anyone would want to ready 20-odd summaries of random topics, the selection of which wasn't because they were interesting topics or well written and engaging summaries, but because some photographer somewhere took a half decent picture and added it to a WP article (or cleaned up a scanned painting, etc, etc). -- Colin°Talk 14:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I did struggle through those descriptions hoping to see something interesting but I would like to have seen the photos. With my slow Internet I rarely clicked on any links. This will slow down the entire page for me, but anyway ...— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, they're "Featured" and they're "Pictures"- they're selected by a voting procedure to be featured. Your complaint about the standard of the pictures should be taken up with the voters. The two regular contributors to the FP section of FC (WPPilot and Hafspajen) both have English as their second language. If you think the summaries aren't well-written, then start writing some- there's nothing to stop you contributing. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 15:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Absolutely. If there's some feature or change that a reader wants to see in the Signpost, the best way to make that happen is to contribute themselves. We might never think of it on our own. Gamaliel (talk) 20:31, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I do wonder if there is a language-barrier problem to this discussion. I haven't made any complaint about "the standard of the pictures" -- I actually congratulated the winners. And why on earth should anyone waste their time writing better summaries -- my whole point is that we don't need them at all. If someone has the talent to write excellent summaries of topics, then they should spend that talent on the Lead section of our articles, not on a section in a newsletter dedicated to images and not dedicated to topics or articles. As for my contributions, well, I take photos. And occasionally they get featured. User:Gamaliel's comment makes no sense. I've been complaining about the FP section of this page for years, so you've all had plenty opportunity to consider a different way of doing it. And now that you have done it differently, and it is so, so much better, and clearly takes an awful lot less time to prepare, just keep at it. The best thing the editors of Signpost could do would be to listen to their readers from time to time, rather than make patronising remarks along the lines of "if you think you can do better, show us". -- Colin°Talk 08:33, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
That wasn't intended to be patronizing. I was just trying to make the point that we are not always equipped to act on reader feedback due to time and skill constraints, so the best way to make change happen is to participate in that change. We do want and encourage reader feedback and we act on it whenever we are able. I personally was not aware of your viewpoint on FPs here (it sounds you've been voicing it well before I started participating in the Signpost so I wasn't around to see it) but I certainly am now. From my perspective, this gallery change was a new experiment, not something people were clamoring for. Either way, the reader response has been positive so far and that response will be a big factor in deciding whether or not to make the change permanent. Gamaliel (talk) 14:21, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
I've been asked to point out that English is in fact WPPilot's first language, not second. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 11:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
In any case, Xanth, this is far better than how you left this prior to publication, where you hadn't actually described any of the featured pictures in the first place, just had a mess of appallingly-laid-out images surrounding a bare list. If this is what you're actually submitting for publication, a gallery is by far the better option. You seem to be spending a lot of time complaining about the gallery, without actually putting in the work for your preferred option. Given the choice between a gallery and unfinished or half-arsed descriptions, I think the gallery wins every time. There's genuine cause for debate if a lot of care is put into the text, but I don't think that's been a general rule for a while. Adam Cuerden (talk) 11:47, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
I haven't complained about the gallery at all. WTF are you on about? Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 12:04, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
The usual system is for someone else to do the pictures, while I work down from the FAs. I'll let Adam do the work this week, see if he manages to get down to the FPs. Xanthomelanoussprog (talk) 12:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-04-30/Featured_content Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2014-05-21/Featured_content. I was the major FC editor for pretty much a year before I burned out. It's entirely doable by oneself, just not advisable to do it regularly, which is one of the reasons I burned out in the end. I don't think I need to prove myself because someone points at me and says "You're going to do it!" Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:40, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
In my original post, I tried to make a positive constructive comment about the change to the FP section, though of course when saying it has improved one naturally has to mention the perceived negatives of what went before. Due to the rather bizarre responses by Xanthomelanoussprog, I may have adopted a more critical tone in subsequent posts. Sorry for any offence. It is useful to compare last week's FP content with the two posts by Adam Cuerden above. Adam's text at least made some attempt to describe the featured picture, along with some information about the subject, whereas last week's seems to have treated the FP section in the same manner as FA and FL.
Consider if you were a journalist writing about the Sony World Photography Awards. What's your #1 priority in covering that story? To display the winning photograph(s). If push comes to shove, and you have limited space in print, all you show is the photograph and a caption. If you have more room, then you can describe the winning photograph ("An Orangutan took a banana leaf and put it on top on his head to protect himself from the rain..."). If even more room, then you can discuss the award system and interview a photographer. What you wouldn't do is write "The orangutans (also spelled orang-utan, orangutang, or orang-utang) are the two exclusively Asian species of extant great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are currently found in only the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. Classified in the genus Pongo, orangutans were considered to be one species. However, since 1996, they have been divided into two species." and then find you didn't have room for the photo. The only reason that content is featured is because the image is great, and absolutely nothing to do with how well written or how interesting the topic is. So please, just make sure you display all the featured pictures in a nice format, and if you do want to write any text at all, make sure it is about the picture or the process that went into taking or restoring or scanning it. Ideally doing so alongside the image to make it easy to work out what you are talking about. -- Colin°Talk 15:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Just to add my two cents, I'm also very excited to see the featured pictures in gallery form this week. This page looks great! Michael Barera (talk) 13:28, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the gallery is good—interesting info about any of the pics could, I guess, be included in a caption. Nice work, thank you, FC people. Tony (talk) 04:39, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
While I like the gallery form I most want to know whether the elderly gentleman Xanthomelanoussprog referred to preferred images or words when it came to pornography.--Roisterer (talk) 05:18, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Nice to notice that people are not against galleries. I propose though a combination of the old and the new style. I think the featured pictures should still have a brief description, many times there is an interesting and educational history behind it. Those who doesn't care for the text, just jump over it, no problem. But the galley is a great idea, some FP'S could BE DISPLAYED AS USUAL; and the rest that don't fit in could be displayed in the GALLERY. Tis kind of dumping everything in a gallery with no further explanation is not a real presentation of the finest works Wikipedia has to offer, though the idea of a gallery is very good idea. If we describe FA's and List, why should we skip FP's? Some people do appreciate those descriptions, too. I think a good compromise could be achieved here. Hafspajen (talk) 14:56, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
But the huge problem with what we had before was that instead of celebrating "finest works Wikipedia has to offer" (the images) we got original prose instead of the images. That original prose didn't get featured and neither did the topic of the prose, and in fact the topic has no bearing on whether the image gets featured: we simply need an encyclopaedia article that uses it. Now, writing about the image is clearly easier, encyclopaedic and relevant if the image is actually a painting that is notable in its own right. But what we really need to get away from is using the fact that someone took a great photo of Tower Bridge, say, to inflict one's own original and non-award-winning writing about bridges on our readers rather that showing them the bloody photo! I suggest that given the quantity of featured articles and lists to cover, that the patience of any reader to read a random paragraph on a random topic has long gone by the time they reach the FP section. If you must entertain them with prose, make sure it is relevant and interesting, rather than doing it simply because that's what we always did, and never do it at the expense of the images that were featured. I suggest that any prose is placed adjacent to the image it concerns, to maximise the chance they may enhance one another. Please. -- Colin°Talk 17:38, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

In the media: Orangemoody sockpuppet case sparks widespread coverage (2,501 bytes · 💬)

The Daily Express still hasn't corrected its incredibly silly statement. Winner 42 Talk to me! 23:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

It now says, "The site uses 250,000 people ..."
This is a marginal improvement on "The site employs 250,000 people ..."
Reliable sources FTW!!! Andreas JN466 00:22, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • If Ja Rule is really 5'9", he probably wouldn't mind if someone took a picture of his driver's license to verify that claim. - kosboot (talk) 00:20, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Wouldn't that violate WP:BLPPRIMARY? Gamaliel (talk) 00:23, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Is the DMV a reliable source? My local DMV doesn't measure my height and weight every time I get my license renewed. I wish I still weighed what my license says! GoingBatty (talk) 03:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Given the usually mediocre newspaper coverage of Wikipedia's internal workings, I think that The Independent deserves kudos for some actual quality independent journalism. As for The Express, the less said, the better. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:13, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Is this controversy already WP:NOTABLE enough to have its own article? Unless one already exists and I missed it. Probably too soon though. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:07, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Grant Shapps victim narrative is less interesting than his willingness to comment on something he doesn't understand. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:28, 4 September 2015 (UTC).

News and notes: Flow placed on ice (13,352 bytes · 💬)

  • So, now it's time to allow VisualEditor in Talk. Not that VE is ready for prime time, but it is developing. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:37, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Flow is the Duke Nukem Forever of MediaWiki extensions. It was developed with no clear plan or requirements, without any regard whatsoever to the purpose of Wikipedia or whether it was actually wanted and prematurely deployed in an unacceptably buggy and incomplete state. It is symbolic of everything that is wrong with WMF "Features" technology management. Good riddance. MER-C 00:59, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • The effective termination of Flow is probably the best news about Wikipedia that I think we're gonna hear this year. Anybody who witnessed the destruction wrought upon the "Off-Wiki" website through the introduction of LiquidThreads (forerunner of Flow) can not have been anything but terrified about the forced adoption of this software. It was an asteroid on collision course with English-Wikipedia — now fortunately diverted. Kudos to Lila T. and the new cooperative attitude emanating from San Francisco. Carrite (talk) 01:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • As mentioned in the article there is a lot of great stuff we can do to improve our current talk page system that with effort could be easily rolled out in a timely manner. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:22, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I am not sad to see Flow finally being practically being the given the coup de grâce. I am sad about all the time and money that has been wasted on it while other far more serious priorities have been more quietly swept under the carpet. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:29, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Thank you for mentioning my departure. That's very kind. A couple of little corrections: I wasn't head of fundraising, I was head of the annual giving campaign (Zack Exley was the closest thing to Head of Fundraising, which included other teams as well as mine - Foundation relations, Major Gifts, etc.). I was also not Head of Legal and Community Advocacy - I was Director of Community Advocacy, with no authority over the "L" in "LCA" at all. Nothing like titles and job functions that are as clear as mud, huh? Thanks again. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 03:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
    • User:Philippe (WMF) we will miss you from your foundation roll but hope to see you just as engaged with the community as every, just now as a fellow community member. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:57, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • but plenty of other core improvements, like interwiki transclusion (to centralize template complexity) and further development of Echo notifications (to unify notification streams), remain to complete <-- They remain to complete, because essentially nobody is working on them. They certainly aren't the sort of thing you can do in a weekend, but its not like they are impossible tasks either. In fact, I would consider them significantly less ambitious then a lot of things that the foundation does. If they were considered high priority things, with a team actively working on them, both of those could probably be done in a couple months. I'm also not sure how they would really help flow's nebulous goal (or past goal, I don't think its been a "real" goal of flow for quite some time now) of being a replacement for everything involving a discussion. Bawolff (talk) 07:29, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Imma offer a somewhat contrarian position here. I've always been concerned about how the current Talk system is trying to use a free-form wiki page for mostly structured discussions. Most of the world does not use free form pages for structured discussions, which may say something about its suitability. Easy to put stuff in the wrong place of the conversation, the need for signing, easy to get confused about where X's post stops and Y's post starts and so on. Putting up header messages is really the main shortcoming in Flow, but a remediable one. Interwiki transclusion and interwiki notifications would be a great thing to work on, now. Also, farewell to Philippe. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:47, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Hooray! Now I don't need to invent creative workarounds for Flow! A shame about all the time and money spent on it, though... Double sharp (talk) 13:35, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • When there is an announcement to make about a project which involves test subjects, volunteers who participated in the research should be the first to be notified. I am a participant in a WikiProject where the members gave consent to test Flow so that the developers could get user data. Using Flow caused problems which volunteers would not have had otherwise, but I am glad that the developers got some test data. I have no opinion about what is reported in this article - Flow was a nice idea, and am I am sure the decision to stop development was thoughtful.
I feel that the Flow developers should have notified the communities using Flow first, so that those communities could be prepared to have discussions about their future relationship with Flow when more public announcements are made and the wider community is ready to discuss these things. This is true of research generally - volunteer research participants should get priority notification of news about research in which they participate and which affects them. As things are, I have doubts that forums that used Flow would agree to continue using Flow if the developing team does not want userdata any longer. I posted a message to the Flow developer page, but I might have preferred that developers come to the forums where they asked to test Flow and give an option to revert the format to the usual style and let the community decide what to do next.
I am going to signal this at meta:Research:Committee also. When research happens and involves human participants there should be awareness built into the research of how much volunteer time is being consumed and how the impact to volunteers can be minimized. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:52, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Re "We're now focusing our strategy on the curation, collaboration, and admin processes that take place on a variety of pages", WP:DRN and WP:FIX are two such pages that could really use some help from the WMF. How do I inform the appropriate people at the WMF that such a need exists so someone can prioritize it among the other requests for help? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:46, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I for one am gutted at the news that development is to stop on Flow. I think it's an excellent tool that works much better than talk pages, and in the vast majority of cases is already at a point where it would be beneficial to replace them with Flow. I'm really pleased to hear there will still be an opt-in to convert user talk pages to Flow, I'll certainly be signing up for that. WaggersTALK 11:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
  • About

    There's already been one failed initiative to replace them, LiquidThreads...

    You should actually count that as two initiatives, since mw:LiquidThreads 3.0 also didn't succeed. Helder 16:44, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • While I agree that the talk page system could be made more user-friendly for newbies, I am glad Flow is on the chopping block. Modeling everything on WP to be more like Facebook is not the way to go.
Although we've already had a final heckling of Philippe on the functionaries mailing list, I'd like to publicly thank him for all his work over he years. He did a lot for this project, answering emergency emails at 3 AM, helping us deal with the worst of the worst of abusive users, and keeping the functionaries informed about things that affected us. Although I have no doubt His replacement is up to the task, he will be missed. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:14, 10 September 2015 (UTC)
  • @Resident Mario: Thanks for linking to my Wikipediocracy piece about LQT and Flow.  — Scott • talk 09:19, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
I am shocked that we are now permitting linkage to a hate & attack site! - 2001:558:1400:10:502C:71A6:6A0:2CFD (talk) 13:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Not everything Wikipediocracy ever published is bad. ResMar 13:15, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
I think that Mr 2001, the Comcast employee, sorry user from Philadelphia might not need to be told that.--92.238.57.40 (talk) 13:27, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
What is this place coming to? 122.111.234.200 (talk) 20:06, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
  • This is more WMF "Communication problems". There is a temporary pause on Flow "discussion features", but the WMF is still developing Flow and still planning to deploy. In fact the WMF Executive Director announced an intent to deploy it to replace her own Talk page, and still plans on "eventually getting it ready for prime-time". The announcement that they were shifting to work on stuff to help the community was also very misleading. I spoke to the project manager. What they meant is that they are working on a FLOW-ONLY project. (Called workflow.) He said that many of the large projects will get no benefit from it..... because we haven't converted our pages to Flow. When this was initially announced he promised the project would be driven by the needs expressed by the communities. I said obviously the new workflow project should be compatible with existing pages. No dice. I asked if he would respect an RFC saying we need workflow to be compatible with existing pages. I was told that an RFC wasn't needed, the community were a bunch of change-averse luddites, and basically that those Community Needs would be ignored. I then asked if I brought him multiple RFCs (or a multi-wiki RFC) resonably representing the broader Community, would he respect that. So far no response, and it doesn't look promising. The WMF wants our existing pages GONE, still intents to deploy Flow, and is developing new projects as Flow-only. If we don't want Flow, we get a 'screw-you'. The AGF here is that the WMF thinks it's doing the right thing..... maybe their announcements were unintentionally misleading.... but nonetheless everyone (including the author of this Signpost story) were grossly misled by the WMF announcments. Alsee (talk) 23:38, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
P.S. I tested Flow a bit. Every time I touch it I run into critical problems. Just to cite SOME of the issues I've reported, copy-paste mangles content. Trying to UNDO an edit can mangle content. Flow has two edit modes (Visual and Wikitext)... merely switching between the two modes can mangle content. The Flow discussion threading model mixes top-posting with bottom-posting, which turns larger discussions into incomprehensible spaghetti. Flow expands discussions to more than twice the vertical size (the Flow FAQ has a section "Why does it look like Facebook", explaining this is because Facebook-type usability testing says it's better). Initially Flow developers were simply told to build a chatboard - and they succeed at that. But now Flow is a pile of awful kludges trying to upgrade that chatboard into something editors can use. The kludges are bursting at the seams. It's a disaster. It seems Flow actually worked BETTER when I tested it a year ago. Alsee (talk) 23:53, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Special report: Massive paid editing network unearthed on the English Wikipedia (25,082 bytes · 💬)

  • I'm gonna be honest. I was sort of expecting another big controversy to happen to Wikipedia. Guess I got what I asked. Though I must say this is certainly one of the most interesting things to happen here. I'm not at all a fan of paid editing but I sure as heck can't wait to see how this will develop. GamerPro64 23:40, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I find some of the notability criteria we've established to be rather poor. Those for businesses and business people are just a prime example. I think that unless a topic or subject meets WP:GNG then it should risk deletion (doesn't mean definitely delete, but it should be worthy of discussion). All other notability criteria should just be guidelines on what we'd reasonably expect to meet GNG, rather than saying "GNG doesn't matter because it meets our topic-specific notability criteria XYZ". If two independent sources can't be found that actually discuss a subject in some detail, how can we expect to write an encyclopaedia article about them without conducting original research? And if no one has bothered to write anything substantial about a subject, why are we assuming that it's important enough for users of our site to want to read about it? -- Shudde talk 23:48, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
  • When did this conspiracy been - and how long has it been operating undetected? - kosboot (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
    • The issue is likely ongoing. I have no illusions that us blocking nearly 400 of their accounts has stopped it. Not sure if the accounts promoting radiofrequency ablation are related but possibly.[1] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:01, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
      • That's... bad. I guess more hands are needed on deck. -- Luk talk 10:10, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Wow. This was eye opening, to say the least. TomStar81 (Talk) 01:09, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • The cookies suggested in proposals T5233 and T106930 would be malware and installing them on someone's computer (and thereby harming him) would probably be criminal. Find another method! JRSpriggs (talk) 01:43, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
    • Malware is defined as "software used to disrupt computer operation, gather sensitive information, or gain access to private computer systems". The article about malware doesn't even mention cookies, which isn't surprising, since they don't meet the definition of malware. And if installing cookies were criminal, virtually every Internet company would be under indictment.-- John Broughton (♫♫) 02:37, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • While our business coverage has improved, it suffers from recentism. Significant entities have in the past been merged to the company that takes them over, destroying content and creating a systemically biased coverage. It's certainly not true that it is easy to pass GNG for most small businesses. A lot of sources do not meet the GNG requirements for independence.
  • I have had trouble with the image which my browser claims has errors and Gimp will not load.
  • The Independent article on this subject describes three sources "Wikipedia" , "A Wikipedia spokesman" and "A Wikipedia insider." Who are they?

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC).

  • I would like to thank the team of volunteers and WMF staff that investigated this matter and helped to resolve it. It's often thankless work so I'm glad it's receiving some attention. Mkdwtalk 02:58, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • I am not surprised. Go to any business-related category: it's spammed by businesses that fail WP:NCOMPANY. In my op-ed few month ago I asked for community help: creation of a project where members would review and try to delete few such spam-entries per day. I got not a single reply. We continue drowning in spam :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:46, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Serious action needs to be taken. Every 3-6 months there is another paid editing scandal, and there will continue to be paid editing scandals on a regular basis until we take serious action. There are currently 21 proposed steps at User:Doc James/Paid editing. Editors can select from this menu what steps they think are appropriate and add their own proposals. The actions do need to go beyond what regular editors can do. Admins and ArbCom need to take notice of the problem and commit themselves to doing something about it. The WMF needs to review their policies and enforcement mechanisms. I believe a "hotline" email account has been set up to report suspected fraud by paid editors in the Orangemoody case, this needs to be made permanent and apply to any paid editing fraud. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:15, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not doing enough to inform all potential "victims" of such "edit for pay" scams. Many businesses don't realize that Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that asks for no payments whatsoever for its articles. We simply don't do enough effort to highlight this fact to all potential businesses. As far as I am concerned, this should be plastered on all our pages: "Wikipedia does not solicit any payment whatsoever for its edited pages. Please report any attempt by our editors that ask for monetary remuneration for their edits". Meanwhile in defence of potential enterprises that have actually contemplated to pay for inclusion in Wikipedia: Let's just be fair and logical at least in this instance... Businesses just know that being listed as a Wikipedia stand-alone article is valuable, and that such presence has its own "monetary value". The Wikipedia entry will list high on Google and Bing searches, it will give at least a reasonable presentation of what they do, create interest about the company, its history and range of services it provides, the article will be developed further and updated by other editors during time, have the ripple effect resulting in parts of the article or the whole article being listed elsewhere as well, plus the all important link to the business in the convenient infobox, the display of the company logo and identity for free, and the "external links" section leading to the company's website. And since there are many restrictions on insider editing and COI concerns, and all businesses do know that editing requires certain expertise and needs time and effort evaluated by a certain sum based on an hourly rate, some will be ready to pay certain sums for an "independent unrelated editor" to do edits and launch the page for them. If you go to any shopping outlet that requires service to customers, you do know for sure that the individual serving you on the counter is paid for every hour he or she puts in. It is only an organization like Wikipedia who assures that its service providers (meaning its editors) will do the work for free for ever and ever just for the love of it. I guess Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, very very savvy individuals, exactly knew from the outset what they were doing in launching such a website, and that they could successfully entice editors for a while to work for this "cause" of "free knowledge" for "free". How neat and convenient, isn't it? Bravo. Wales and Sanger did know, that when editors eventually realize this and leave after a while simply getting fed up with the refusal to be given remuneration for their time for the organization, new editors would show up and on and on like this. This is a sure model for a non-ending stream of "free workers" but is a flawed model as the Wikipedia editors sooner or later will realize they are being sucked in into a system of abuse. So if one orders a bar of chocolate or a refreshment drink from a convenience store, the guy selling him the product on the counter gets paid for it a cent or two for his 5-10 second service. No single individual would work in a convenience store for a single minute if he/she was not paid. The same for any other work he does. But if that same individual went home and signed in to his Wikipedia user account, put in say 10-20-30 hours of research to successfully launch and upkeep a full developed page about a multi-million dollar selling business, he gets zilch, not even a "thank you" note. So some businesses will logically continue on paying sums to "paid hands" for such work. Wikipedia is so intransigent it even refuses to take any advertisement to nominally pay to its long-established editors depending instead on a never-ending stream of free workers called Wikipedia editors. Plus creating an atmosphere of constant bickering and harassment by other colleagues, rendering it no fun at all if you are targetted. I personally avoid any confrontation myself. If addressed personally on one of my edits, or when confronted with a deletion, I do one brief attempt in my own defense to save the article or the edit and I'm gone. Let them do whatever they want with the article I just created or the edit I made. I go on to other articles and other edits. There is plenty to go by. And to hell with that specific article. Some editors, and I consider me as one of those, is just "too addicted" to leave. I can't contemplate a day in which I don't edit some content to the detriment of many other important things I could have done instead. An advice to editors who want to make some money: Asking for payment for work on Wikipedia from Wikipedia organization or from various businesses is futile. Sooner or later you will know better. Just do things for fun. And instead, please do seriously consider quitting serving of Wikipedia for years for absolutely free, and go behind the counter of a convenience store and sell chocolates and refreshments instead and the convenience store wuill surely pay you for every minute you pitched in. Or better, specialize on something and develop yourself in that chosen field. If you love writing, write a book instead. Become a publicist of a company or business. Unlike Wikipedia. you'll get paid by your employer for the effort you put in for his business. If you do end up in a convenience store instead, at least many many customers will say a "thank you" to you and brighten up your day. Plus you'll get enough money to survive and pay your rent. I'm not saying quit on this "free" Wikipedia altogether. Please do come from time to time and continue to contribute to this "free world knowledge" with some of your really, and I emphasize, really "free" time... for free. werldwayd (talk) 20:22, 4 September 2015 (UTC) werldwayd (talk) 13:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)
    • Well, cannot say I agree with most of this (you apparently have never worked in retail if you think most customers will give you a nice thankyou :-)     ... but I do agree with the first sentence. We need to do more, to let companies know that they **CAN** have their employees **HELP** edit wikipedia pages about the company/products/founders/etc. We don't have info on the login-page, that says "create ONE username PER human and DO NOT create a username that is your WP:CORPNAME" ... so there are a lot of procedural blocks for exactly that wiki-violation. We don't have info, right next to the save-button on BLP-articles and company-articles, "if YOU are financially connected to the SUBJECT of this article please make an {{edit request}} on the TALKPAGE rather than directly editing the article, please see WP:TEAHOUSE or #wikipedia-en-help connect should you get stuck or have concerns". Part of the reason that the bad-apple-orangemoody-socks were successful, is that the good-apple victims were unable to figure out the wiki-policies, and simply did not know that being approached off-wiki for cash was not-wiki-kosher. Agree that we need to have some kind of messages, in obvious-hard-to-miss-places, which say "this is the encyclopedia anybody can edit, if somebody demands you pay cash, don't feel you have to fess up." 75.108.94.227 (talk) 12:41, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • First of all, hats off to those who stopped this gang. This shows that, while the "bad guys" are getting more sophisticated, so are the good ones. Now, regarding the article comment that "there's little to stop this individual or group of individuals from regrouping and returning", isn't that contradictory with the claim that their acts may have constituted extortion? Shouldn't law enforcement agencies in the affected countries (US, UK...) be expected to take action? --Hispalois (talk) 00:24, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
    • You are correct that it is contradictory... but I think that the correct conclusion, is that we ought not be making such strong claims, until and unless actual real-world legal investigations (as opposed to virtual-internet on-wiki "sting ops") are actually a thing. It is better to describe orangeMoody as exactly what it was: checkuser-confirmed socking, ToU violations in many cases, WP:COPYVIO in many cases, and in at least a few cases "unconfirmed" (aka not-yet-convicted-in-a-court-of-law) allegations of off-wiki demands for cash, plus in even fewer cases, on-wiki indications that collusion to delete material when payment was not forthcoming did occur. We don't have to characterize those exact behaviors further, by using shorthand legalese that might do more harm to the 'pedia than good. The correct shorthand is "orangemoody socks" or maybe "orangemoody undisclosed paid editors" (aka alleged ToU violators) and in some cases "orangemoody copyvio instances" (aka alleged DMCA violators). Very much not the same thing as saying, without citing a judge's final court-transcript, "orangemoody blackmailers/extorters/shakedowns/racketeers/wikiMafia/etc" ... because the latter sort of language has real-world connotations, whereas the former is less risky from a CYA perspective. We should be precise in our language; we don't need to pull punches, but hyperbole is not helpful. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 13:01, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Speak to any inexperienced New Page Patroller, - of whom there are far too many - ask them how big the paid-advocacy problem is, and they'll likely answer with "What's paid advocacy?"
NE Ent's accurate comment that basically suggests that the WMF wants to keep its cake and eat it is typical of they way they often put their collective foot in their mouth like they did with their refusal of ACTRIAL four years ago when the community reached a consensus by an overwhelming majority to require new users to be at least autoconfirmed before they can create articles. Even if it had been enacted, that measure would already be a joke by today's level of problems. Well, since there is now a whole herd of new feet traipsing the corridors in SF, perhaps OrangeMoody will be the required kneejerk.
Contrary to assumptions that 'Good-faith page patrollers, are caught in the middle, risking being branded as deletionists if they tag too many articles as of questionable notability', most of our experienced patrollers won't have problems like these. The unqualified newbies, however, testing their curation tools for which they don't even need a drivers licence, don't care and haven't even read the instructions at WP:NPP, WP:CURATION, and WP:DELETION and as long as the community continues to repel any attempts to tighten up adminship, page patrolling, AfC, or notability criteria, I don't see much chance for progess.
NPP is our only official firewall against unwanted new pages among the 1,000 or so that arrive each day, but it still a joke in spite of the excellent suite of tools that has been put at the hands of the patrollers. AfC, a project and which is just a social gathering by comparison, requires qualifications, while the essential process of New Page Patrol has none and desperately needs to be brought into line with all those little minor rights that are the joy of the hat collectors who have to go through WP:PERM. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:04, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Kudpung, the problem with the orangeMoody scheme, was that AfC has too few selfsame guardians. The typical mode of operation for the orangeMoody socks, that I can tell, was this: find an AfC decline, copyvio the draft-article to a new location (usually mainspace-visible), contact the article-subject offwiki to arrange cash-payment. By the time somebody from AfC circled back to the *original* draft by the good-apple victim, ten days later (or however backlogged the AfC queue was at the time), it was usually too late. I realize that there is no silver bullet here, but I think that to properly defend against future hypothetical orangeMoody-type violations, it would help if the AfC reviewers would create WP:VALIDALT usernames which have something standardized like User:Kudpung_(AfC_reviewer) right in the username. (This could also be done with mere sigs, User:Kudpung_(AfC_reviewer), but that's not as auditable.) Thataway, when User:BadSpaSock54321 comes along to hijack the good-apple's AfC draft-article, maybe they'll be clued into the fact that User:BadSpaSock54321 isn't an "official" queue-reviewer? Also, suggest that we modify the AfC template-boilerplate, so that it specifically says, "if somebody contacts you off-wiki about this draft-article (via telephone or email) demanding payment or making threats or claiming to be a wikipedia official, please contact your friendly neighborhood-wiki-watch at info-orangemoody@wikipedia.org@" or something along those lines. It will also maybe help, if the first AfC reviewer (or perhaps the first AfC commenter?) would have a usertalk conversation with the draft-article-author, explaining the basics of the AfC process, and pointing the beginners to WP:Q and such places, so as to be an 'official' point-of-contact. I understand that some of these suggestions are additional work, or that they risk making AfC into a more-bureaucratic-place than needed, but I think we need to take a little thought to security-related-measures, to avoid bad-apples that drop into AfC unannounced, impersonating good-faith-wikipedians on-wiki whilst demanding cash off-wiki. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 12:32, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
Thank you. We know all this. That's why a consensus was reached some while ago to deprecate AfC and replace it with something better. It just hasn't been enacted yet. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:39, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Maybe I'm missing something, but given the fraud and extortion involved in this particular case, shouldn't someone get law enforcement involved in trying to track down the perpetrators in real life? I mean, victims were contacted and money changed hands. That money had to be sent somewhere; probably in the form of checks or credit/debit cards. Follow the money and you'll find the perps. (And possibly uncover a money laundering operation of the sort that tricks unemployed people with "work from home" scams too.) ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 13:41, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
    • Checkuser data doesn't reveal a full legal name. Also, there are only allegations of money changing hands. See full answer above.[2] We should be careful about how we describe these things on-wiki. Agree that getting cops involved is a good idea; with any luck, that is occurring, via WMF one would presume. But almost certainly, the details of how that is happening, and the status of any such effort, will not be made public until they have something concrete to tell us. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 16:01, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Congratulations to the team for tracking down this behavior pattern. I have to suspect though that the financial incentive will lead to more such activities, while also resulting in tactics that make it harder to detect. This may be the start of an "arms" race. Praemonitus (talk) 18:29, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
  • More congratulations to the team who uncovered this. I began following the article Angie's List after I saw an article in the New York Times concerning an unhappy customer experience. Because of this company's poor reputation (I would characterize them as legal thieves), that article regularly gets edited (probably by employees or stock holders) and then either reverted or revised. IDEA: What if more editors "adopted" articles like this, as an initial attempt to deal with unethical editing? - kosboot (talk) 16:52, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Very poor coverage. It is not at all clear from the above article as to who actually reported this supposed "gang" of evil-doers. Was it a press release from the Wikimedia Foundation, and, if so, then that does not bode very well for the accuracy or the neutrality of the piece. Any good reporter would try to get both sides of any given issue. Was any attempt made to interview the real editors who are accused in this piece? It seems as if they were simply banned from Wikipedia; is that true? And, if it is, how will we ever get their sides of the story? All this is very suspicious to me and raises all kinds of warning flags because I have BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 18:59, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

To help find your way around coverage of this event:

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:30, 14 September 2015 (UTC).

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

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-09-02/Technology report

Traffic report: You didn't miss much (2,761 bytes · 💬)

Hey, I signed up to be notified if you guys needed help. Next time instead of punting, let me punt please? EllenCT (talk) 23:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

  • Are you saying you want to do next week's Traffic Report? Serendipodous 23:27, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
I would love to! Try me out and see what you think? EllenCT (talk) 23:28, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Sure I suppose. Haven't seen a sample of your writing yet though. Serendipodous 23:29, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Please have a look through my contribs. I promise to make sure my coverage of controversial topics is grounded in data rather than opinion. EllenCT (talk) 23:31, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Opinion is unavoidable here; often you can only guess which aspects of a topic drove its popularity. But go ahead if you want. You should really ask Milowent though, since it's his job you'll be taking over. Serendipodous 23:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)
Ellen, saw your note, sounds great, I'll reply further on my talk page!--Milowent • hasspoken 14:25, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
  • @Serendipodous: The numbers for Eazy-E are wrong: if they were accurate, his bio would be #1. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)
thanks :) Serendipodous 23:02, 9 September 2015 (UTC)


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