Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2015-11-25

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2015-11-25. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Third Palestine–Israel case closes; Voting begins (2,639 bytes · 💬)

Side remark: I have the impression that at least one opinion about one candidate was not correctly transcribed. Main remark: concerning the predictive value of the voter guides, I have the impression that quite all voter guide writers would have voted even without the mass message reminder. Are they predictive about the whole set of voters, or only about a smaller subset? The final result will give some clues about the likeliness of such hypotheses. Pldx1 (talk) 10:11, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

If there are incorrect markings in the table, Pldx1, please feel free to click edit, and fix the problems you see. Or, equivalently, please feel equally free to just leave me a note with the specifics of the error, and I will fix it right up. Some voter-guide authors are still actively making updates, and of course even without that fact, mistakes do happen.

  The predictive value is reasonably strong, in *past* couple arbcom elections at least, for the ordering of the top-dozen-or-so candidates. That said, with the mass-message for the 2015 election, all bets are off.  :-)     But yes, WP:OR strongly suggests that to *closely* match the outcome, it is necessary to use a weighted average of the voter-guides, rather than a raw average, as was used for simplicity/transparency/neutrality in this Signpost article. I too will be curious to see the final outcome, and how well it aligns with the voter-guides. Best, 75.108.94.227 (talk) 11:14, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear 75.108.94.227. Modifying a simple table is quite easy, indeed. But in fact, this table is a spreadsheet. Modifying one or two input cells will perhaps result into modifying several output cells and perhaps result into an occasion to revisit the editorial comment attached to these output cells. That is the reason why I haven't simply SOFIXIT the problem. Obviously, no objection to tell you where are the input cells I was mentioning. Pldx1 (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Fixed now,[1] perhaps? Thanks for your sharp eye, and thanks for writing a voter-guide, too. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 12:19, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Blog: Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland urge Reiss Engelhorn Museum to reconsider suit over public domain works of art (18,950 bytes · 💬)

If the photographer's work is legally the "intellectual property" either of the photographer as a person, or of the entity which hired the photographer, then laws regarding such "intellectual property" should be followed by Wikipedia or any entity publishing such. The issue is not "this is a photo of art, and everyone should be able to see it and duplicate it freely" as that would mean that no copyrights should exist at all. I regret to say that my sympathies are with the museum which appears to be the proper owner of a copyright on the photographic images, and that this complaint with regard to copyright is ill-taken here. Of course we can always use the "the copyright is not valid here" but that is the argument used in the past by the folks who "pirated" textbooks overseas in places which did not recognize their copyrights, and to which the United States, United Kingdom, and many other nations objected strenuously in the past. Wikipedia usage must, perforce, note the copyrights, and assert "fair use" or other grounds for using non-free images. Collect (talk) 13:56, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

You can't copyright public domain works, period. By asserting they hired the photographer, I don't know if they meant hired him personally by giving him money or that they authorized him to take the photos by virtue of sentence agreement he never agreed to, like most museums do. At best they can be upset with the photographer. At worst they got nothing. In any case, public domain is free so Wikipedia can use those photos regardless, without permission from anyone. DreamGuy (talk) 14:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

In the United States, as a result of the decision in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp., "exact photographic copies of public domain images could not be protected by copyright in the United States because the copies lack originality." I don't know what the situation is like in Europe, but were the museum in the US, there would be no question these images would legally be in the public domain. Gamaliel (talk) 16:21, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

(ec)OK -- so you mean that since the Pyramids are "public domain" that if a major photographer took a picture of them now, that the photographer who spent hours taking the photo has no copyrightable interest in the photo he took, and that all photos of the Pyramids are automatically "public domain" (I do not assert that Cheops has any enforceable rights on them)? That means of course that none of Ansel Adams works are copyright since the places he took photos of are "public domain"? And since textbooks were "public domain" in China, that therefore we can reprint them all as they can not have any copyright as they were not copyright in China? Sorry -- that is not supported by case law or international treaty. The rule of law is this - "intellectual property" exists, and anyone insisting that one can not actually create anything since (I presume) all words are "public domain" is not on the winning side of the "intellectual property" debate. We might be able to claim "fair use" of the material, but we can not and ought not open up the can of worms that you propose. And we are bound by treaty to respect the laws of the other country in cases such as this. Collect (talk) 16:28, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

And re: Kaplan's decision on the art images in the Corel case: "little doubt that many photographs, probably the overwhelming majority, reflect at least the modest amount of originality required for copyright protection." Thus refuting Gamaliel's claim as to what the Corel decision actually was. If there is any originality in the photograph, beyond "slavish copying," then he found the image could be copyright under US law. Collect (talk) 16:35, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

It is not my original claim, I was quoting our Wikipedia article, so if you feel it is inaccurate, WP:SOFIXIT. It is my understanding that Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. only applies to unoriginal photographs of two-dimensional artworks already in the public domain, not photographs of three-dimensional objects which are the original artistic expression of photographers. Gamaliel (talk) 17:45, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

The quote I gave is actually in the "Wikipedia article" which you might not have noticed. I also suggest you read [2] A Guide to Copyright for Museums and Galleries by Anna Booy, Robin Fry, Peter Wienand; Routledge,; Dec 6, 2012, which I trust meets the Wikipedia requirements as a scholarly source on the topic. Note specifically the treatment of photographs of photographs - where the statement is made that the new photograph can absolutely be subject to copyright is it is made other than, for example, by a technician who is using a fixed focus camera with fixed lighting. As there is no claim that the photos at hand were "slavish copies" and in fact there is an assertion that considerable skill was used in the making of the images, this learned book as well as the actual Corel decision, which I sure you read through, support the copyright nature of the images. See also [3] "The Vatican could only license the copyrights of a public domain work due to an old quirk of copyright law. The original artwork may be in the public domain, but a photograph of that artwork may be copyrighted as a new unique work. The photograph taken today becomes a new copyrighted work with new intellectual property rights. Museums often charge for photographs of works in their collection, and publication royalties provide a modest income stream to fund conservation." The Sistine Chapel art is not, as far as I can tell, "three dimensional". For some reason, I consider the use of funds for art conservation to be a "good thing." Collect (talk) 18:05, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

As a former art teacher, I also consider the use of funds for art conservation to be a good thing. I also consider open access to public domain resources such as images to be a good thing, and necessary for underfunded classrooms, where one does not necessarily have the resources to fund art conservation in such a manner. Gamaliel (talk) 18:27, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Art museums which lack money sell off their art. Your view, alas, would lead to more of that, in my opinion. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:35, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

If any art museums are going out of business because they don't make enough money selling ,jpgs, I haven't heard of it. Gamaliel (talk) 18:40, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

[4], [5] ad nauseam. "The New York Times reports on a trend among European museums to sell part of their collections to pay for acquisitions or meet other financial obligations as government cultural subsidies have been cut back. Other museums have sold artworks to offset the costs of failed state banks or other state debts. Whether the sales fund acquisitions or government budget cuts has significant consequences.", etc. Any cuts in funding - including royalties - can harm museums. Drastically. Yes - we could say "all art is free" but the net result would be massive closings of museums. Do museums actually close? See [6]. The Louvre has many sections now "closed" on a regular basis. [7] " the museum cannot maintain all of its rooms open every day." Yes, Virginia - museums can close down when they do not have the funds to operate. (New York Sun reference) Collect (talk) 19:51, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

I am aware that many museums are struggling and I am troubled by this. But there is no evidence here to place the blame for this on images falling into the public domain. Correlation does not imply causation. (David Hume reference.) Gamaliel (talk) 20:14, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

You are, as always, hitting the nail right on the point. If we ban all museums from getting any royalty monies, that does not mean they would have less money to operate. I hate to say this but reducing income does mean one has less money, and your Hume quote does not and can not be interpreted as you seem to imply. Collect (talk) 23:13, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

It is not as simple as you wish it to be. Lowering admission prices, for example, would seem to automatically mean they have less money to operate, but in fact it often translates to more frequent and more loyal visitors, who also spend more in the gift shop. Museums, archives, and libraries have found the free dissemination of images has done much to build support, financial and otherwise, for their institutions and their goals of the preservation and dissemination of information and culture and does not always translate to less money. Gamaliel (talk) 00:41, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

you know what guys? At the end of the day, we know nothing about this is reality. Maybe we should leave it to the lawyers to decide this, who are paid to do this and have a much better hold on the law then we do. Mdann52 (talk) 07:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

There is a balance of power regarding copyright, one already shifted far, far away from the rights of the public toward those of the heirs of heirs. Those yet fighting for the right of everyone on the planet to have access to the sum total of all human knowledge should try not to fight like the Iraqi Army, which is to say, they need to put up some defense beyond tying pretty ribbons on armored personnel carriers and boxes of assault weapons and leaving these gifts behind to slow down the advancing ISIS troops. Private copyright is defined by a mishmash of idiotic and contradictory notions, and the same is true of the public domain. It should not be Wikimedia's role to unilaterally hand over advantage by refusing to stand up for itself in a world where people retain no right they don't fight for. Does it make sense that people tell us that taking a shot of a canvas with ridges and texture is two-dimensional, but putting a coin on a photocopier is three-dimensional? No. Problem is, no line a court could draw would make sense, because copyright itself doesn't make sense. Wnt (talk) 15:05, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

WMF should absolutely be fighting against copyright maximalism when it makes sense to do so. If people are trying to assert "copyrights" that they actually have no legal right to claim in the first place, someone needs to stand up and challenge that. The Mickey Mouse Copyright Perpetuation Act has already done enough damage, to say nothing of "automatic copyright" and the like. Nothing much to be done about those, but let's at the very least not let it creep farther still. If museums lose some money because of that, well—that's unfortunate, but we shouldn't refuse to challenge bogus claims so a museum can make a buck. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:07, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• It was amazing to me in 1996 or whenever the first library that I went to first got the Internet that we could see great works of art on a computer. I think that was mainly because computers had only recently become capable of handling images that detailed.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:25, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Hello everybody! We’d like to thank you all for your thoughtful comments. These complex copyright issues can raise some interesting discussions, and we see that this post was no exception. Our legal team would like to offer clarification on the Foundation’s perspective. As with our wikilegal posts, this comment is not intended as legal advice. The legal team can only represent the Wikimedia Foundation. Please see our full disclaimer for more information about the legal team’s role.

As a general principle, copyright law is intended to incentivize (and reward) originality, not effort. In our view, photographers who faithfully digitize certain two-dimensional artworks are engaged in extremely important and useful work; but that work is not protected by copyright. In order to create a protected “derivative work” (i.e., a new copyrightable work based upon a prior, underlying work), artists must introduce their own original, distinguishable, and non-trivial variation to the underlying work. In this case, the entire point of photographing these public domain images is to replicate them as exactly and with as few original modifications as possible. As a result, we believe these images are unprotected copies of public domain images, not protected derivative works.

To be clear, we do not believe this means that photographs of three-dimensional objects such as the pyramids are exempt from copyright protection. Such images often incorporate a photographer’s original expression—for example, changes in angle, distance, framing, and subject—even if the image contains an artwork within the public domain. This is why photos of three-dimensional objects are typically treated as copyrightable on Commons, assuming of course that the photos are not already in the public domain for other reasons.

We understand and appreciate the concerns about museums’ revenue streams. Photographing public domain works can be expensive, and it’s understandable that museums would want to exert some kind of control over the fruits of that labor, even if they lack a proper basis under copyright law for doing so. Fortunately, there is preliminary (but mounting) evidence to suggest that open access approaches produce net benefits for museums. For example, a 2013 guide by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) argues that “providing unfettered access to museum images is actually good business”; primarily because open access “increas[es] circulation and deliver[s] significant promotional opportunities back to the museum.” Another report published by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) noted that “[r]eal and perceived gains far outweigh the real and perceived losses for every museum in the study that has made a transition to an open access approach.” One of these benefits included major website traffic increases of “20 to 250 percent, with many museums reporting increases of at least 100 percent.” Curators reported receiving “better and more interesting inquiries from scholars and the public” concerning the images in their collections. The CLIR report also cites scholarship indicating that open access would not significantly affect museum profits because museum rights and reproductions operations are not usually a source of profits at all.

Many cultural institutions, including the Reiss Engelhorn Museum, are supported by public funds and are charged with increasing accessibility to art by the public. As we outlined in our post, several prominent cultural institutions have launched highly successful open access initiatives, including, among others, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany, Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, SMK (Statens Museum for Kunst, The National Gallery of Denmark), the British Library, and the Japan Center for Asian Historical Records. Of course, none of this prevents museums from continuing to sell merchandise containing public domain images. In addition, images incorporating a museum’s trademarks will also continue to be protected. Book publishers have been successfully selling hard copies of public domain works for decades, and we expect museums could do the same regardless of the copyright status of their images. Stepping back to look at the big picture, the Wikimedia Foundation regards cultural institutions, including the Reiss Engelhorn Museum, as natural allies in achieving the movement’s vision of spreading the sum total of human knowledge. We continue to hope that the Museum will reconsider its position and work with us to help people around the world enjoy the public domain works that it houses. Jbuatti (WMF) (talk) 00:48, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

In the media: Erasmus Prize awarded to Wikipedia; trouble on the Russian Wikipedia (990 bytes · 💬)

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What a brilliant film at the top of the page! Apwoolrich (talk) 18:35, 26 November 2015 (UTC)!

So which articles are blocked on Russian Wikipedia? And didn't we have a story in this in the past? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:34, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, this really kind of buried the lead as it gives us no idea what the actual problem is. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:28, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

They usually block pages on suicide and drugs. Roskomnadzor:Ignorance is strength!--Catlemur (talk) 15:39, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

News and notes: Fundraising update; FDC recommendations (1,444 bytes · 💬)

• Odd, if the 25 million USD is the goal for the English Wikipedia, as it appears to be. Neither the 2014-2015 fundraising report, nor the detailed fundraising data provided by WMF, breaks out fundraising by language version. What the data does show is that total donations to the WMF, during the period December 1 to December 31, 2014, were 31.0 million USD. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 03:48, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
  • The target for the December fundraiser last year was $20 million (which, as you correctly point out, was exceeded by more than $10 million). [8][9] Andreas JN466 10:42, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot for the welcome. Vanjagenije (talk) 19:59, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

Op-ed: Wikidata: the new Rosetta Stone (12,973 bytes · 💬)

How old was someone, knowing that he was born in 1821 and died in 1881? Maybe 1881-1821=60 years old. But born 1821-01-01, died 1881-12-31 gives 61 years old, while born 1821-12-31, died 1881-01-01 gives 59 years old. But there are countries where the birth of a child is her first anniversary. But there are lunar years. And what remains is something between 58 and 63 years old. When someone is reported as 1821--1881, this is even worse. And therefore, the question is not about what is written in the database, but about the confidence we can give to the way the data were collected to build the database. E.g. what says Wikidata about the death of Kim Hong-do ? Pldx1 (talk) 08:25, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

“doctors who graduated before they turned 20” – How would this query look like?--Kopiersperre (talk) 15:41, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• What do you mean by "and that Western culture is essentially inherited"? 4nn1l2 (talk) 16:45, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
  • My guess is, it's an assertion that other cultures are new or have a new essence. This would be appropriately, pretentiously, silly. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:40, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• "For this reason among many others, in 2012 the Wikimedia Foundation created Wikidata": I don't really want to be that guy, but this is false. We either write Wikimedia Deutschland or "the Wikimedia movement". Aubrey (talk) 17:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Probably is not the best sentence. Post was originally written for a non-wiki audience and was an intend of storifying the message. I do agree with you.--Kippelboy (talk) 09:56, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia-l discussion, Slate article

There is an ongoing discussion about Wikidata's quality issues and their wider implications on the Wikimedia-l mailing list: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/654001

A key fact here is that at present, only about 20% of Wikidata content is referenced to a reliable source. About half is unreferenced, and about a third is only referenced to a Wikipedia. [10]

For wider context, see yesterday's article in Slate exploring the links between Wikidata and Google's Knowledge Graph: "Why Does Google Say Jerusalem Is the Capital of Israel?" Andreas JN466 15:54, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, regarding the 20% number: let's take a random Featured Article in Wikipedia. Such as Emma Goldman. Looking at the four paragraph intro, it contains tons of information, but only 3 of the claims made in the intro have references. Her founding an anarchist journal? No reference. Her being sentenced to 22 years in prison? No reference. Her date of birth? No reference. There are much more than 15 claims in the intro, but only 3 references. So the 20% of facts in Wikidata having a reference could also be interpreted as a much higher number than what Wikipedia offers. Much more than half of all claims in Wikipedia are without reference, probably much more than 90%. Now, obviously, this is no reason to say all is rosy for Wikidata, because Wikipedia is even worse - but I am questioning whether the metric, as presented here, is very valuable. --denny vrandečić (talk) 22:25, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Denny, that's based on a lack of familiarity with citing conventions for article leads. See WP:CITELEAD; it is longstanding practice to use citations sparingly in the lead paragraphs. The lead is intended to summarise the article content; it should not contain anything that isn't covered, and sourced, in the article body. That is where the sources for those statements are found. Andreas JN466 08:53, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

You are right, I was unfamiliar with that citing convention (and I like the convention a lot). Of the three claims that I mentioned two have indeed references later (the founding of the magazine and the prison sentence) and one does not (the date of birth). But many claims in the body of the article remain without reference - her list of publications, for example. Or if you take the first paragraph of the article body, it has two references but many more claims (although it is admittedly hard to discern what exactly a reference contains).

I do not say that each of these have to have references. That would make it so much harder to read, and some claims are just obvious. In Wikidata there are claims like "the first name of Emma Goldberg is Emma", which, I mean, does it really need a reference? Or "Living my Life was written by Emma Goldman". Again, does this really need a reference?

What I want to say is - the percentages you mention are hard to interpret. What would be a good number? Is it really captured in a simple number? What is the comparison coming from Wikipedia? A lot of the referencing and citation rules on Wikidata still need to mature. What is a good reference? What needs to be referenced, and what not? Etc. Wikidata is still a young project, and it needs to find its rules. Wikipedia's citation rules were not as developed in 2004 as they are today, and Wikidata needs the time and the opportunity to find the correct set of rules as well. And every Wikipedian is invited to help at Wikidata.

Does this make any more sense? --denny vrandečić (talk) 17:46, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

The Emma Goldman article became a featured article in 2007, nearly 8 years ago. Quite possibly, it needs some work to make it conform to present-day standards. The birth date certainly should be referenced. Arguably, it is verifiable from the reference present at the end of these three sentences: Emma Goldman was born on June 27, 1869. Her father used violence to punish his children, beating them when they disobeyed him. He used a whip only on Emma, the most rebellious of them.<ref>Chalberg, p. 13.</ref> Chalberg gives the birth date in the same passage (though it is on page 12, not page 13). Would I think that a birth date like that should be referenced in Wikidata? Absolutely. Similarly, most of the bibliography is verifiable, given that each of her works bar one has its own article, complete with bibliographical data. If the biography were at WP:FAC today, I would argue for holding promotion back until at least the ISBN numbers for Goldman's works are included, making verification that these works actually exist a matter of a single click on the ISBN number. Again, if we were in Wikidata, I would consider the addition of a reference like that (i.e. the ISBN number of the book's first edition) essential.

As was recently pointed out by another contributor in the mailing list discussion, Wikidata's role makes it all the more vital that its statements be referenced, because their content is likely to be copied. Given wikis' open structure, it is not uncommon for people to add false information. See for example Wikipedia, the 25–year–old student and the prank that fooled Leveson: An American man wrongly named in the Leveson Report as a founder of The Independent newspaper has expressed surprise that a judge would accept without question information on Wikipedia. Or see the case of Hannibal Fogg, which involved the invention of an author and of books that had never existed. Or see the invention of a film director who had never lived, except on the pages of Wikipedia: The greatest movie that never was. (That is a really, really good article, worth reading for its writing as well as the story it's telling.) Or see the Amelia Bedelia hoax, whose content could conceivably have been included as a statement in Wikidata. See the Brazilian aardvaark story, told in the New Yorker; again this concerns a snippet of information that could easily have been accommodated in Wikidata's statement structure. (As I pointed out on Wikimedia-l, Wikidata said for five months last year that Franklin D. Roosevelt was also known as "Adolf Hitler" – too obvious to be copied by anyone, unlike the Brazilian aardvaark moniker that entered multiple "reliable" sources.) Just today, there is this story on dozens of major news sites: This 'legend' changed a Wikipedia page to sneak backstage at gig.

Wikidata need not and should not fall into the same ditches that plagued Wikipedia during its early years, and still continue to plague it to some extent today. Instead, Wikidata would do well to take the lessons learned in Wikipedia's early years on board, because the danger is that anything present in Wikidata may come to be copied not just across several Wikipedias, but also by Google and multiple third-party sources taking either Google's or Wikidata's or Wikipedia's statement on faith. This could lead to widespread contamination of sources everywhere ("citogenesis on steroids"). Insisting on strict sourcing standards is, in my opinion, absolutely vital, given the role envisaged for Wikidata. Otherwise you are not just creating intractable problems for yourselves, some months or years down the line, but also for all reusers.

One thing I will now go and do, Denny, is insert the reference for Goldman's birth date at the end of that sentence naming it. ;) Andreas JN466 19:25, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Also, Andreas, another difference between Wikipedia and Wikidata is that the latter is growing much faster than the former ever did. Otherwise +1 to your points, especially "Insisting on strict sourcing standards is, in my opinion, absolutely vital, given the role envisaged for Wikidata." (emphasis mine). Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:31, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Mass updates

Wikidata has some way to go but has the potential to be a massive help to building and maintaining Wikipedia. For me, the biggest advantage is the ability to store information in once place that's referenced in many Wikipedia articles, and updated suddenly. The example was given of election results; I'm still finding many articles that list incorrect members of parliament or local councillors because they haven't been updated and there's no central reference of which articles contain such information. Another prime example is census data; many UK geography articles still list the population as at the 2001 census, not the (more recent) 2011 census or any of the subsequent population estimates from the Office for National Statistics.

Working through articles that find such information to update them is time consuming and mindnumbingly dull. Because we prefer to write information in prose, writing a bot to do it isn't really an option; using templates could work but would be much harder to update than Wikidata's slick user interface is. Out of date governance and demographic information is a big problem in geographical articles and Wikidata solves that problem for us; that alone is reason enough to embrace it and welcome it with open arms. Yes, it has flaws, but let's remember it's in its infancy. When someone views an article and sees a population figure that's 14 years out of date, it doesn't make us look good. So I say let's put the effort in to make WikiData work for us. WaggersTALK 11:26, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Recent research: Do Wikipedia citations mirror scholarly impact?; co-star networks in silent films (1,414 bytes · 💬)

• For scientific papers, Wikipedia citations are inherently a very poor metric for impact. For medical articles in particular, our citation policy (WP:MEDRS) specifically discourages citing primary research studies, which make up the great bulk of the literature; instead we favor the use of secondary review articles. The same principle applies, less explicitly, to other areas of science. So there is a very strong bias in which articles we use that has nothing to do with impact. Looie496 (talk) 12:58, 29 November 2015 (UTC)

• Many non-science articles are hard to source from academic papers, and books are often the only source, certainly pre-1900. Academic books are a good source, often better than papers or their equivalent as they provide an overview of the contemporary understanding of the topic, rather than advancing one particular hypothesis. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 17:00, 30 November 2015 (UTC).
  

I'll put it more succinctly than Rich: don't expect your stuff to show up on Wikipedia if it's behind a paywall.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:33, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Traffic report: J'en ai ras le bol (543 bytes · 💬)

• What are you sick and tired of? ISIL? 4nn1l2 (talk) 17:29, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Oui.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 05:43, 1 December 2015 (UTC)