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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2018-06-29. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: WWII, UK politics, and a user deCrat'ed (489 bytes · 💬)

  • The universal dynamics makes the wikimasters to allow competision on posetive thinking decesion making attributes behaviourable and honest edits;for the good of enovasion and transion and transformation:Suspending blocks,undos 41.138.78.16 (talk) 16:52, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

Blog: Wikipedia should be open for editors in Turkey (1,800 bytes · 💬)

Nice effort. Has a slightly higher chance of working than convincing North Korea to allow people to use Internet. Seriously, you can't expect dictatorial govt's to listen. But putting messages like this out there at least shows that we haven't forgotten about the oppressed people in those countries, so I can't blame the effort. There are worse ways to spend our donations/WMF time then to write such PR. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:08, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

They've just won an election, so now is a good time to give it a try anyway. Johnbod (talk) 12:22, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Ms. Hershenov's comments, the way Turkey is represented is a process that would be improved by more involvement from Turkish people, and they must not be afraid to engage in that process honestly and openly. Not every country's government enjoys the stability of the the United States or Britain, and it is not the fault of the people who live in those countries (including Syria and other places where Internet access is restricted). There are many reasons for this, but I appreciate WMF efforts to continue to dialogue with the government and explain Wikipedia's open editing model. Seraphim System (talk) 20:10, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page (2,471 bytes · 💬)

Nice to see something I started get a mention here, but it seems that the author of this article (and User:Kudpung) are missing a major point by assuming this doesn't concern EN WP much. Cost is a very minor issue, infusion of volunteers would be nice if hardly game changing, but a significant part of the discussion concerns ideas such as a possible merge of the simple content to EN WP, possibly through establishing of a new namespace and a new tab next to the read one. This is something EN WP should be more interested in (through of course nothing would change without a separate, dedicated RfC on EN WP). Also, the report misses explaining why I proposed to close SWP (i.e. the argument that it is not reaching the vast majority of its audience, who are unaware of this niche, hidden project; hence the argument for merge, so that the content can be more easily accessed by those who need it - the young, ESLs, special needs, etc.). I know that journalists are good at missing the forest for a tree, but this is a wiki, I am available for comment too :> --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:17, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

@Piotrus:, as part of our 'Discussion report' column, the mention of the discussion was purposely brief. Although the entire RfC was carefully viewed and nothing was missed, it was not intended to make a full feature of it at this time, and this newspaper did not wish to risk making what could be a biased opinion that might influence the process. Depending on the outcome, The Signpost may make a more in-depth report in next month's issue. You would be most welcome to contribute. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:51, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Good to see that someone had a good reason for this. The reason I didn't cover it is a mix of procrastination and slacking off. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 11:38, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Featured content: New promotions (535 bytes · 💬)

The featured article section for the Hudson Sesquicentennial half dollar has an i missing from the word "is". Just though I'd let you know. Alduin2000 (talk) 17:13, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Looks like its been fixed. L293D (☎ • ✎) 12:50, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

From the archives: Wolves nip at Wikipedia's heels: A perspective on the cost of paid editing (3,378 bytes · 💬)

Once again, wolves get a bad name in the headline because of human (primate-like) self-interested behaviour. Wolves act in the best interests of the pack and not for themselves. Such terms as "Wolf of Wallstreet" might sound catchy as a media term but it is meaningless in the wild. William Harris • (talk) • 04:42, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

My apologies to Canis lupus and their relatives. Sometimes human beings behave so badly, that we just find it difficult to come up with appropriate analogies to our behavior.
I was slightly surprised to see this on the Signpost so soon, but there are some recent followups, e.g. the European Union is finally enacting laws that strictly limit the marketing of binary options to retail investors.
On a happy note, Simona Weinglass, a reporter for the Times of Israel, received an honorable mention at the TRACE Prize for Investigative Reporting. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-06-29/In the media
But there is always a darker side to financial scams. If you want to see how scams affect Wikipedia articles now (in real time), check out Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Initial coin offering and a couple hundred related articles.
Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:57, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Thanks Smallbones - you understand. Regards, William Harris • (talk) • 22:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Money is one of the many motivations for bad-faith editors to act in ways that drain the resources of the rest of us. Money is also one of many motivations editors add unbiased, well-sourced content that's up to Wikipedia standards, but that motivation remains undetected because no one complains about good work. It was true 10 and 15 years ago and it's true now: any solution which simply targets paid editing without considering the broader range of advocacy editing would not only be shortsighted, the effort to create such a policy would draw upon those same editorial reserves with little return. Just because it's easier to understand money as a motivator doesn't mean the content is poor, and just because other reasons are harder to explain and identify doesn't mean that the problem isn't about much more than money.--~TPW 00:52, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • It would be legitimate for the Wikipedia community to sue anyone who acts on bad faith and abuses the project. If they made someone else work to fix their mess, they should pay for it.--Micru (talk) 21:54, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking (1,889 bytes · 💬)

  • Just a note on the summary, it’s the Mayor of London who’s launched the editathon, not the Lord Mayor of London. — Arwel Parry (talk) 06:48, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks, fixed above. Widefox; talk 10:32, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • If the "From the editor" section, which is the very first one on the front page, is supposed to be a hook to get readers interested in reading, it should have links to the actual articles. As a severely confusing example, it says something about "Admin Ship", but there isn't even that term anywhere else in the front page. DMacks (talk) 10:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I rather think the word should be "foundering" rather than "floundering" - that is SEW may be sinking but not "thrashing about." Collect (talk) 12:39, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Ayup. Qwirkle (talk) 14:34, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
Typo. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:57, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

There is no problem with the admin ship. We don't need to worry about admins leaving and those remaining making it a worse time for the contributors remaining. We need to focus more, spend more, and talk more about how too many males edit wikipedia and spend more energy on getting more women involved. We don't need to worry about editors slowly leaving, but we do need to worry bout overrepresentaiton of the interests of those editors that volunteered in the past. /s Nergaal (talk) 18:34, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Gallery: Wiki Loves Africa (594 bytes · 💬)

  • Thank you for highlighting these images, they are truly lovely! Sadads (talk) 19:34, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • These are absolutely beautiful. Alanna the Brave (talk) 14:41, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Great photos. I hope to see more Wiki activity in Africa in the future. -Indy beetle (talk) 23:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Humour: Television plot lines (703 bytes · 💬)

Please write a funny article about the kayfabe that infests our "professional wrestling " articles, which are now under discretionary sanctions. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that it is REAL??? Barbara ✐  ✉ 16:48, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekakariki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress (4,145 bytes · 💬)

  • Since when is Russian propaganda network RT a "mainstream media" source? Heck, it's in the article's lead. — pythoncoder  (talk | contribs) 12:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Arguably state media are distinct from mainstream, if that's what you are saying. I don't know a better term for this instance, though. It was an attempt to separate these media from others I didn't cover in the article with truly "fringey" conspiracy stories about Philip Cross. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:36, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • So you're saying.... Goodknight is a good knight? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:02, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • What does "the Mayor of London actions London schools" mean? I could speculate that somebody meant he sponsors or recommends unspecified actions, maybe it's something else, why not just tell us clearly? – Athaenara ✉ 12:08, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
  • This is irresponsible and alarming: "Among the articles he edited were some related to ...". Thousands of editors edit controversial subjects that don't actually interest them personally or reflect on their psychology in any way, ranging from WP:WikiGnome cleanup edits to preservation of WP:Neutral point of view and deletion of obvious WP:Original research, as well as flagging citations to unreliable sources. I really hope The Signpost never does anything like that again. If someone is a crackpot, unethical, or criminally minded it's because they have an "issue" in the real world, not because of what pages they happened to have edited here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:14, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
  • That was a direct quote from Haaretz, circulation ~100,000. I don't think it is irresponsible to report on what reliable national print media have said about Wikipedia. ☆ Bri (talk) 13:30, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
Though it wouldn't hurt to put those types of blockquotes in the green template, similar how those above were treated. I think the quote would display better sans the potshot, personally. Major journalists generally don't do a good job of covering WP so we have to work even harder to counterbalance their false equivalencies. But Bri, as always, appreciate the work you put into this so maybe the solution is that SMC feels free to contribute to the next edition? ;) czar 01:50, 18 July 2018 (UTC)
Is there a source for the Haaretz material that isn't behind a paywall? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:58, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

News and notes: Money, milestones, and Wikimania (4,696 bytes · 💬)

I'm a little confused by the opening sentence: "The announcement of Wikimania scholarships for 2018 provoked complaints on a Foundation mailing list." The linked mailing list thread, while very relevant and interesting, was a May 2017 thread discussing the scholarships to Wikimania 2017 in Montreal. Is there a more recent thread discussing scholarships to Wikimania 2018 in Cape Town? Noting the contrast between the way Wikipedians apply for "scholarships" and adminship and ArbCom, and the accusations of bullying in that mailing list thread. Perhaps we could apply for scholarships by some community-driven process that was some variant of how we apply for adminship and ArbCom. Of course, applicants for those positions never are bullied during the process. LOL. wbm1058 (talk) 03:44, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm also confused with this. BTW, last year I counted repeat scholarships, and found "out of 378 people awarded scholarships, 309 people have been awarded one scholarship, 55 have been awarded two, 14 have been awarded three, and 0 have been awarded four". The updated numbers for 2014-2018 are 500 people awarded scholarships, 413 awarded one scholarship, 73 awarded two, 14 awarded three, and 0 awarded four. Draw conclusions from that as you want. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
There was a May 2018 thread as well, similar to the May 2017 thread. It can be found here: https://lists.gt.net/wiki/foundation/887233. Note that there is something of a conflict of interest here perhaps that isn't disclosed, as Signpost editor Kudpung was probably the most engaged critic of the scholarship process in this thread. Nathan T 22:35, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
You make it sound as if that email list is private and that Signpost editors are guilty of leaking information, and that they are forbidden to research their areas of interest and/or specialisation. Or does AfG not count in this comments section? Probably not Nathan, this is journalism. However, I did not begin the very short News & Notes item, but FWIW, yes, I am indeed very critical about several aspects of the way Wikimedia is organised - I've attended several of them. Anyway, you'll have plenty to complain about in next month's issue - stay tuned. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
@Kudpung: "that email list is private and that Signpost editors are guilty of leaking information" ... that's not how I read Nathan's comment. I assume that by "AfG" you mean "assume faith good"... please correct me if I'm wrong. wbm1058 (talk) 19:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
No, it just seems that if the Signpost attempts to adhere to some standard of journalistic ethics it might be a good idea to report not just that "complaints were raised" but that they were raised specifically by the reporter himself. The appearance is that the Signpost brief is reporting, but because it is reporting your own beliefs it becomes advocacy and opinion writing and not journalism. I'm not normally a Signpost critic, so I'm not sure why you would anticipate that I would "complain" next month. Unless you plan to post more position advocacy under the guise of journalism? Advocacy and opinion is totally fine, it should just be clearly described as such and hopefully you will choose to do so. Nathan T 14:31, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
Nathan, I see no advocacy, and I do not see a lack of good faith coming from my quarter. The 'brief' item above was totally objective and carried no opinion. In the meantime, if Wikimania is your concern and you have something to contribute to this month's coming article about it from your own experience, and if you want to offer a better quality of journalism, the newsroom is thataway, and there are plenty of positions vacant, including that of E-in-C. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Op-ed: What do admins actually do? (33,531 bytes · 💬)

  • Seriously, anyone who's an admin sinks by default, in my estimation. Who would put themselves into a defamatory lion's den that has amply demonstrated that it lets through appalling bad apples and gives them status and power for life? It's power that some use to the detriment of the social fabric, with the guarantee of impunity through fellow admins who will protect them by wagon-circling, shooting bullets at anyone who complains. Twisting admin policy breaches into blame-the-victim is stock in trade. If you're an honest admin, your reputation is smeared, I'm sorry to say. Tony (talk) 02:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Maybe people who see stuff that needs to be done and step into the gap? WTF? ☆ Bri (talk) 02:37, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I am one of those editors who sees stuff that needs to be done and would like to step into the gap. Specifically, AfD and AIAV. But I am not willing to be abused just for the dubious privilege of volunteering my time to do something that needs to be done, plus I believe that there is a prejudice against those of us who are better at doing gnomish work than we are at creating articles. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:03, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • While it's true that there is unfortunately a trend among a subset of RFA !voters to require recognized content and that back-in-the-day™ gnomes with no real content work (including yours truly) had a much higher chance to pass, I've yet to see a RFA fail just because the candidate was not a content contributor. Regards SoWhy 06:48, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • In my journeys through the land of Wikipedia I often see user pages with the icon "Not an administrator but would like to be one someday". Well, let's scoop up about two dozen of those insane creatures loyal Wikipedians and give them their wish. New blood won't hurt the corps (unless it does). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:32, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
    @Randy Kryn: What's stopping you from nominating those people? Regards SoWhy 09:07, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    @Randy Kryn: a closer look are those useroxes will probably reveal that they were sometimes placed as the user's second edit. The first was to create the user page. Such userboxes often have an effect exactly opposite too what the user desired. Venturing an opinion here: Anyone who joins Wikipedia with the express intention of policing the project joined it for the wrong reason. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
I can only hope to some day possess this gift of seeing into the souls and intent of individuals without ever having had a conversation with them. Oh, to be so singularly brilliant and all-knowing. All hail the infallible! Vertium When all is said and done 14:22, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
  • A good point I did not consider, Kudpung. Maybe put them in charge of protecting the perimeter. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:28, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    You know what we don't have, but maybe we should, is a road map of an ideal admin's progress to the position. Like a career guide. Maybe it's difficult because there are so many different standards people use for voting, but maybe not impossible. It would also be worth mentioning that there are many un-bundled permissions now, and what they are useful for if someone really wants to help. WP:Becoming an administrator is spectacularly unhelpful in this regard -- a bunch of spooky warnings about misuse of the tools and technical info on what the permissions do, and how to proceed at the moment of nomination for RfA, but not how to become qualified. "The RfA process allows other editors to get to know the candidate, and explore the candidate's involvement and background as an editor, conduct in discussions, and understanding of the role they are requesting" may be all it says. Explore the candidate's involvement and background, harumpf. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:36, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    Oh, derp, there's a "how to" at Wikiversity. I'll go read that now. It might be what I just said we should have. (followup to myself) Nope, it was maybe a promising start but it wasn't finished and really says nothing about the cultural norms on English Wikipedia. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    Then a new or edited document could be organized by a committee of administrators and others, with EEng thrown in for the clarity and humor, which could form a sense of purpose to attract new dedicated candidates. How about a search committee, an input committee which would locate at least some candidates who would fulfill the promises of the improved document of principles which would guide administrators on the path towards, and in the presence of, their honored responsibility. Admins should be among the best of Wikipedians, those who can guide cordial relationships between the editors, and the beneficial good faith welcoming and, above all, positive treatment of new editors, into the era of Wikipedia pre-, and then post, Nobel Peace Prize. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:19, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    If you look in the right places, you might find those committees today. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:58, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Most of the work that admins do are to the benefit of Wikipedia and its users. But. Admins should not be elected for life. In Wikipedia in Norwegian Bokmål Admins are elected for two years, then they have to be re-elected (a similar system in Wikipedia in Swedish, which we basically copied). Most all are re-elected, but having to stand for election both gives a chance to remove the one's that do not fit to the role, plus it connects with the society around us. Try explaining that admins have the position for life. Its not accepted, even in Norway, we have one royal family, that's enough. Ulflarsen (talk) 21:00, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
    @Ulflarsen: That's one of those perennial proposals that simply don't work on en-wiki. no-wiki has 42 admins, sv-wiki 63. That's 1,75 / 2,625 confirmation RFAs per month. On the other hand, en-wiki has 1,211 admins (as of today), which would mean 50,46 confirmation RFAs each month, far more than the community can reasonably handle. Regards SoWhy 09:07, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    To SoWhy: If the system we have in Wikipedia in Norwegian Bokmål is copied, then Wikipedia in English will have two elections each year, one in the spring and one in the autumn. In each 1/4 of the admins are on election. That would mean around 300 admins in each election for renewal. (see the admin page here, alas only Norwegian Bokmål). But the important issue is the idea, not how its implemented. It could be an indirect system, where users vote for a group that would function in such a way that admins are not elected for life. Ulflarsen (talk) 09:56, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    @Ulflarsen: Voting for 300+ people twice a year does not sound easier. For ArbCom elections we only have like 10-15 candidates and it already takes several weeks to vet those few. Who would have time to vet 300 people? Even if you only spend 1 minute on each person, it would mean 5 hours of work - 5 hours that could be used more productively clearing all the backlogs (not to mention that 1 minute is far too short to vet someone). I'm not generally opposed to term limits but so far no one has been able to present a convincing case why term limits are better than the current system. Regards SoWhy 10:05, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    So make the term limit ten years. That shouldn't take up too much time and would still have the benefit of giving admins at least a small reason not to piss everyone off. This also addresses the issues of changing standards and some long-time admins not keeping up with policy changes. And it migh weed out those few who have spent years doing just enough work to avoid triggering an inactivity desysopping. --Guy Macon (talk)
    That would still mean 120+ reconfirmation RFAs each year (or 10+ each month). Even at its heyday, RFA never regularly had 10 nominations per month. The question remains: How many admins like this actually exist whose continued adminship hurts the project? (NB: I'm not saying this because I would reach my term-limit in three months). Regards SoWhy 12:23, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    I question your numbers. You are assuming that all 1,200 admins are/will be active after 10 years. How many of those 1,200 admins have been admins for over 10 years and less than 11 years? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:17, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    If I did it right, this query should answer the question: 184 admins who are still admins have been promoted between 2007-07-01 and 2018-06-30 (not a perfect query of course since the logging table contains some duplicates but it should do the trick). Assuming we instituted a term limit of 10 years, we would have to reconfirm 184 admins (15,33 per month), including a number of admins I think I can safely assume are "wiki nobility". Regards SoWhy 14:46, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    It looks like we would have 10 years to reconfirm those 184 admins. Only the ones from 2008 would be up for reconfirmation this year. the ones from 2009 would be up next year. And (imagining that the system has already been in place for several years) the ones from 2007 would have been up for reconfirmation last year. We would have to deal with the fact that there is a backlog of 11-year, 12-year, etc. admins when we first started doing 10th year reconfirmations, but there are ways to space them out. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:11, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    Unfortunately, 2006 to 2011 were the years with the most successful RFAs and a lot of current admins were promoted back then, so you would have huge backlogs at least until 2025. But even if it were technically feasible, I'm still waiting to hear a reason why it would be a good idea to waste so much time and energy on such reconfirmations. Not to mention that some admins would most likely stop making hard decisions if they have to fear reprisals in their reconfirmation RFA. Regards SoWhy 15:33, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    I didn't mean to imply that I thought it was a good idea. I am just interested in the math. For a yearly reconfirmation, the monthly numbers should settle out as roughly the number of successful RfAs per month times the average number of years before an admin leaves - clearly too many to handle. For a tenth year reconfirmation, the monthly number should settle out to be the number of successful RfAs on this month ten years ago minus whatever percentage of admins quit before serving for ten years -- clearly a manageable number. Add one extra reconfirmation per month to reduce the backlog and it should still be manageable. Look at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Recent. Assuming a ten-year term limit and every admin sticking around for ten years, we will have one reconfirmation in April of 2028, zero in May, and two in June. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
    Can you show me a static of inactive admins? If there are just as many inactive vs active, then that means those inactive have contributed less than active non admins, and therefore do not need those admin tools. If an admin can't defend their beliefs on why they should have the tools, they shouldn't continue to have them. A reconfirmation demonstrates an admin's continued commitment to make meaningful contributions with the tools they are privileged to have access to, and not just hollow promises to the masses. Neovu79 (talk) 03:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • There is an old saying among the gnomes... "Some of my best friends are admins!" As quaint and systemically biased as that may sound, it's undeniably true, at least in my case. Okay, it has to be said... I wouldn't be an admin if they paid me to be one. A few of the reasons are depicted on this page, and a few more are described on the Q&A page. To me, being an admin is not at all like being an officer and the rest of us are enlisted troops. No. Being an admin is more like being a no-striper or a one-striper that we hand the rakes and mops and floor buffers to while the rest of us outrank them. I do like the idea of electing admins to limited terms. That way, if an editor decides they don't like being an admin, then they can easily choose not to run for reelection. I've seen up close what admins have to face everyday, and the only thing about being an admin that I like is that they've been vetted by the community and have our trust, which is to me the best part about being an admin!  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:02, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • While I tend to agree that most admins work to benefit Wikipedia, I do not agree with a system that gives volunteers access to be judge and jury over what is technically an organization. If a person is voted as an admin, I think they should be seen as a true representative of Wikipedia because of the power that they wield. There has to be a system of accountability in an organizational level to protect the good and honest admins or attacks by non admins will continue to go unchecked. I find this to be the root of the problem of an all-volunteer non-organizational workforce and why there are so few RfAs in the past five years. Many of us non admins feel there there is no safety net there to protect from the seldom backlash they would receive if they too become admins. On the flip side, a system where admins have to be re-elected every x-number of years will ensure that any "bad apple" admins will not continue to abuse their powers. This will ensure better trust in admins by non admins. Neovu79 (talk) 00:53, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • While I have had tremendously positive experiences with most admins, and this is by no means intended as a personal attack, I do feel the need to call into question the validity of this Op-Ed from an admin defending admins. Perhaps it would carry more weight if written by someone not in the role. Admins are both necessary and valuable, and I have participated in more than a few RfA conversations. In those cases, absent a clear indicator that someone has done harm to the project or simply doesn't have sufficient experience, I !vote to give the candidate the mop because we do need admins! That said, Admins are more than administrators of the project, they are influencers of the members as a whole. Every interaction that an admin (or anyone with enhanced privileges, myself included) has with an editor can determine that individual's desire and likelihood to continue editing in a constructive and meaningful way. Most admins understand this innately and do an incredible job at it. Others do not understand it and don't seem interested in learning more about it. I have long stated that the process for Adminship needs revamping. There are no specific criteria, and it's open to subjective assessment of those who participate in the RfA and ultimately, the decision of a Bureaucrat who makes a judgment call based on those selective assessments. Further, once someone is an admin, editors are loathe to complain about them or even nominate them for recall due to fear of retaliation. You might say such fears are unfounded, but it doesn't really matter whether they are or are not. The perception becomes the reality and it drives people away from the project. It's time to have terms of adminship, 2 years, maybe 3 and then, the admin should have to reapply and the body of work performed, and their interactions with Wikipedians should be the determinants for continued privileges. Vertium When all is said and done 12:01, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
The validity of your comment would be apt if it were at least accurate - the article is a synthesis of what 32 admins had to say about their work. There were no opinions expressed by the reporter. That said, many journalists write about topics in which they are not only interested but in which they may even have some first hand knowledge. It's perfectly legitimate. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:54, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • An admin nearly killed me. I was an admin, many times, and I created the AN — and I absolutely regret it. The complete lack of civility on Wikipedia is pathetic, and whilst I used to love working on the project - devoting hours and hours of my time, there is no way in hell I would spend any time on it any more. You can thank WWGB and another fellow Australian for that. I remain disgusted by the way I was treated. - tbsdy Chris.Sherlock (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
An intertesting history. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:05, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
    • Ditto the rationale for my diminshed level of activity on the project and in the financial contributions I've made. Mine isn't with the same individuals, but it's for the same reason. Vertium When all is said and done 21:00, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
Vertium, anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themseves. This does not mean however, that the admin's reaction or reaction was always the best, but admins don't go around randomly blocking people for no reason at all. Also, while not all admins may be academics or teachers, many of them do have a good sense of project management and won't hesitate to intervene and assist when a group of very young but well meaning people are really using Wikipedia as more of a club rather than pro-actively producing some output. As an example, the WP:CVU still works extremely well many years later without its former bureaucracy . Looking back, I see several admins offering some very sound and reasonable advice there. In the meantime bots and filters have taken over much of the detection of vandalism and WP:AIV is not backlogged. There is so much to do on Wikipedia that people with real skills are always wanted and welcome in other areas, such as WP:NPR, for example, where such work used to be generally quite lonely and haphasard until I turned it round. In just over a year, motivated individuals have been able to reduce a 22,000 page backlog to under 600, but the work needs to continue to keep it there; without introducing hierarchies, it now needs replacement leadership to continue the coordination of that work . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:29, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
"anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themseves"—that is just the kind of arrogant comment that drags the reputation of admins in general down the drain, and keeps it there. Tony (talk) 06:46, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Re: "Anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themselves"[Citation Needed], so it is never the case that a completely innocent party is reported at ANI or Arbcom? --Guy Macon (talk) 07:31, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Kudpung for making my case with such clarity. And my opinion is that it's a wee bit self-serving to claim that WP:CVU is working extremely well, as you were the one who declared you were taking it over and rebuffed conversation with anyone who disagreed with you, and at the same time co-opting the rubric without so much as a thank you to those who developed it. And I take your point that other areas need attention, but perhaps editors would like to have some say in the areas they volunteer since, it *is* volunteer work, and we might want to do things that interest us instead of taking direction from you or other admins who seem to want to direct our efforts. In any case, it's probably best that we discontinue the dialogue, as this is exactly the type of admin attitude and behavior that pushes me away from the project, and I don't need the admonitions. Vertium When all is said and done 15:19, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
For the rare time you have ever contributed to this encyclopedia Vertium, I will take you recent return as pure harassment. I'm a thick skinned admin and can take a lot of fake flak, but before making thing things up as the reason for not having edited for four years, perhaps you should refresh your memory. There were several admins gently explaining to that bunch of kids that Wikipedia is not recess or break time at school, and neither of us breezed in laying down the rules and syllabus like the director of an education district. You had every opportunity to take on some leadership there, but nobody followed. Get over it - Wikipedia does not need you.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:46, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
I haven't no interest in arguing facts from long ago with you, and perhaps my suggestion to discontinue dialogue was too subtle, though I did suspect that if you replied, it would be pietistic in tone, and you did not disappoint. The notion that someone doesn't edit enough by your standards is offensive on its face and exactly the point I was making in my original post on this article. I'm glad you don't need me, as the feeling is quite mutual. Vertium When all is said and done 01:03, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

""anyone who has ever had a brush with an admin has brought it upon themselves"" This just isn't true. 1) Sometimes an editor and an admin just disagree fundamentally on the best way forward. The best solution is - if, as an admin, you are getting nowhere with an editor and feel your fingers hovering over the "block" button to "shut them up" ... get out of the bearpit and ask one of the many other admins to have a look. 2) On seriously contentious ANI threads, a group of admins can "circle the wagons" around you and make you bang your head in frustration that nobody who respects your viewpoints wants to turn up to the debate for fear of having their head ripped off. (I've seen this happen to me first-hand). It also means that while in principle I think term limits are a good thing, or at least bring positives (I have been an admin elsewhere three times, each elected to a 1-year term limit and it was fine); but I can't get excited about it because I don't have any confidence I would pass RfA again as I've rubbed too many admins up the wrong way. 3) I recall several people saying it's just a plain old fact of life that some people do "not play well with others" while simultaneously being some of the most talented and productive writers. It happens here, it happens in other projects (Linus Torvalds is infamous for his complete lack of tact and civility despite widespread acclaim for his contribution to the IT industry), it happens in the real world - it's just a plain old fact of life that you can either have a better encyclopedia, or you can have a Dolores Umbridge approach where everyone plays nicely-nicely with each other without any actual real work done. I don't particularly like this set-up, sure I would rather have super-productive writers who are also the poster boys of civil and respectful behaviour, but in a voluntary project that can't "fire" people per se, you have to use what you have. The admins that don't get this are the ones that scratch their heads wondering why the peanut gallery on Wikipediocracy and Reddit are being so utterly mean to them for "no reason whatsoever". There's always a reason. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:38, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Better watch it, folks. I see signs of a push at the Signpost newsroom to censor from story talk pages any reader comments that one or more SP contributors don't happen to like. One solution, apparently, would be to "do away with the comments section altogether". The thread here, apparently, contains "admin bashing" by people who should "should stay off the Signpost and go to one of the Wikipedia hate sites". Included in the deplorables is "Esp. gobbeldygook from non En speakers". Nice, guys—could we be more sensitive toward non-native speakers? There was a time when the SP actively sought global inter-wiki readership, and occasionally made an effort to cover issues of concern on other-language WPs. Tony (talk) 09:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
This thread on Commons seems to make all the above arguments far better than I could. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:48, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I see that the censorship of commentary has started, with the hatting of a comment I made about moves at the Signpost's newsroom to do just that: censor views that one or more of the SP's editors may not happen to welcome. It's disgusting. Tony (talk) 06:17, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I do agree that any project reliant on volunteers needs to take their needs and quirks into account. However this leads me to a different conclusion. It's a false dichotomy to say that the two choices are super-productive editors or stronger responses to rudeness and other non-collegial behaviour. There are too many editors who use belligerence as a weapon to achieve their goals, which takes advantage of the numerous editors who assume good-faith and look for a way to keep as many editors as happy as possible. There are also many editors who aren't contributing in accordance with Wikipedia's guiding principles, and because the community's decision-making structures aren't able to wean them out, rudeness can seem like the only tool available. There needs to be a way to reward desirable behaviours and discourage undesirable ones. Unfortunately, with English Wikipedia's current decision-making tradition, it's fairly random if any action is taken against negative behaviour: among other things, it depends on how many people notice and who shows up at any discussions about it. isaacl (talk) 08:53, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
  • This is late. Perhaps it might be usefully repeated or updated later somewhere. With respect to the number of administrators on the English Wikipedia and their levels of activity: From Wikipedia:List of administrators: "A list of all users who are currently administrators (sometimes referred to as "sysops") in the English Wikipedia can be found here. There are 1,214 (as of now) administrator accounts (active and otherwise), 525 of them active (as of 2018-07-23). Activity is defined as 30 or more edits during the last two months." There are 475 semi-active administrators. "These administrators have made fewer than 30 edits in the last 2 months but at least one edit in the last 3 months." There are 213 inactive administrators, who are "Administrators who have not edited in at least 3 months." Many of these may be headed toward the list of "Former administrators" who have not made an edit for more that one year. Of course, an administrator who is desysopped for inactivity can ask for automatic reinstatement during the following two-year period without having to go through an RfA. It appears that at least half of the administrators may make just an occasional edit to keep their mop active or semi-active. It seems to me that the number 1200+ put forward as the number of active administrators without looking at activity levels reflects an overstatement of the administrative capacity of the project as well as not a good indicator of the possible reduction in numbers over the next few years. Turnover is inevitable for a variety of reasons. Also, if even a fraction of the inactive administrators head into former status without corresponding reinstatements, considering the few new administrators being installed after RfAs, the number of administrators will continue to decline. This will increase the burden on the others. And of course, the need is acute in some administrative areas where the withdrawal of just a few skilled and active administrators would create even bigger backlogs and even in more active areas on certain days and at times. Donner60 (talk) 04:50, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
    • A count of the de-sysops and re-sysops for the past year at Wikipedia:Former administrators shows 62 de-sysops by my manual count and 15 re-sysops, all of which are shown on the first page of Lists of Administrators as well as in the cited article. So in fact corresponding reinstatements are not being made for administrators who become long term inactive. To complete the math, there have been 11 successful RfAs during the same 12-month period. Donner60 (talk) 05:32, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Opinion: Google isn't responsible for Wikipedia's mistakes (28,558 bytes · 💬)

My comments which are three months late

I haven't had time to read the signpost. I just found this. I was expecting to read about the problem of the knowledge graph having inaccurate information, which is a frequent complaint on the Help Desk and the Teahouse. This information is not on Wikipedia. I'm not sure where they got it. The person who complained is advised to give feedback to Google. I have done that about one particular mistake many times and gotten no results. Maybe it works for some people.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:36, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion that was already here

  • Isn't the Wikipedia link to the article minimal attribution? Also, the Google spiders that "catch and cage" the information update pretty quickly, it is these methods Google uses that appear to be the issue, not the vandalism on Wikipedia. Just my thought.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:43, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • It's certainly minimal, but I don't think it counts as a formal attribution. When it's in the form of some basic information followed by a Wikipedia link, the section reads more like "Here's some basic information, and a place you can read more about it," rather than "here's some information from this place." A better way for Google to frame the information would be "Rizaeddin bin Fakhreddin was a Tatar scholar and publicist who lived in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. (from Wikipedia)," perhaps also including the Creative Commons license display that is conspicuously absent. Aside, though this may be Fair Use, whatever happened to the ShareAlike part of the Wikipedia text's license? lethargilistic (talk) 07:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • It's alarming that Wikipedia's automated processes failed to catch and correct this glaringly obvious libel smear. But that's the thing: our automated processes aren't perfect. One minute we complain that ClueBot NG has too many false positives, the next we complain that it's not catching all the vandalism on Wikipedia. Every website in existence, everything that is written—whether it be by humans or by bots—is prone to error. We should never be viewing any source as perfect and infallible. And Wikipedia is no different in this regard. As for me, I've caught vandalism that have lingered on pages for months before. Vandalism is going to slip through, even with the best bots and the best patrollers active 24/7. Perhaps the public should be educated on how they can help fix this vandalism rather than gossiping and commenting unhelpfully about it. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 04:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the article, Zarasophos. I agree with the sentiments, but I am not at all surprised. Google benefits from such unclear attribution most of the time, as that 2017 study demonstrated, so these occasional scandals are minor in comparison—especially when the blame can be momentarily shifted when they occur to mitigate even that minor damage. Those who dislike Google and suspect it of whatever agenda will continue to do so and welcome the scandals; the Google loyalists will remain unphased. Both will largely continue to use Google services anyway. In the end, Google wins at the expense of Wikipedia and we remain invisible all the same.
    Being invisible to the rest of the world as a Wikipedia editor is expected. In fact, at least when it comes to article tone, it's intended. I suspect that what is so frustrating about how Google has implemented the Knowledge Graph is not even the reinforcement of that invisibility, which is unsurprising even if disappointing; it is the fact that the relationship is so one-sided in addition to us being left uncredited. Were Google providing generous financial and programming support to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, I doubt Wikipedians like us would be as bitter about the lack of credit; the benefits of the relationship would become pervasive and apparent. When that reciprocation amounts to less than 0.001% of Google's 2017 profits, though, the chagrin begins to show.
    Google is doing exactly as anyone familiar with how the economy works would expect Google to do. If anything, Google is already being gratuitous in its charity. After all, Google is being heralded as such a benevolent god for deigning to invest the equivalent of under 0.19% of its five-year profits into job training for tech companies and nonprofits (assuming zero revenue growth since 2017 and $25/hour for employee labor), which is a percentage that ancient elites would find laughable (and enviable!). The fact that it gave the Wikimedia Foundation alone the equivalent of roughly 0.1% of that investment last year might as well be a miracle.
    I have no faith that this trend will change without first radically changing the economy in which this all occurs, especially not in a way that is beneficial to paid and unpaid laborers alike. Google (or should I say Alphabet?) could be doing more to protect its hegemony, though. Avoiding vulnerability to criticism for errors it did not cause is one; better funding the database upon which it relies for a major feature is another. Both are easily achievable. The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to open knowledge and education, however, and copyright law does not favor Wikipedia in this battle, especially when the opponent is a titan like Google. Moreover, Google can survive the collapse of the Wikimedia Foundation, so its reliance is one of convenience; and even if that were not the case, when have corporations ever planned for long-term sustainability? Unless and until the relationships that characterize our present economy change, Google's—and Amazon's and Facebook's and everyone else's—relationship to Wikipedia probably will not either. —Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 04:27, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Isn't the point of Wiki is to spread the knowledge of the subject, not to spread the creator of the knowledge?--Rochelimit (talk) 06:27, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • The increasing re-use of Wikipedia content by commercial companies, including Google and Facebook, is a major reason I avoid editing articles most likely to be used by these companies (eg, those on places and people). I don't want to donate my labour to any company if I can avoid it. Nick-D (talk) 11:11, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • @Nick-D: As a contrast to your experience, I have been spending quite a lot of time working on improving the coverage, quality, and accuracy of content in power station article infoboxes for the past year or so, and a significant part of my motivation for doing so was because of my desire to make the content more useful to third-party users such as Google (and although Google was certainly not the main type of third-party user I had in mind when I first started, I've realized since then that the benefits from my effort are quite clearly practically realized by Google far more than by any other type of third-party users).
I personally agree that the attribution to Wikipedia on Google search result pages containing content from Wikipedia in sidebar boxes on the search results page is unacceptably poorly done in its current form (an issue that has been bothering me for quite a while), but unfortunately since all Wikipedia content is dual-licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 and the GFDL with the minimal explicitly specified attribution requirements being nothing more than a simple hyperlink, Google is technically already meeting the minimum obligations for attribution (although the fashion in which they do so is incredibly poorly done and doesn't even make it clear that they're attributing Wikipedia for content, let alone conveying the full scope of what content the attribution applies to — which honestly feels like an extremely insulting move on Google's part), and so sadly there is no real incentive for Google to bother with giving Wikipedia a more appropriate level of clearly defined and scoped attribution. While technically speaking Google does seem to actually currently be in violation of both GDFL and CC BY-SA 3.0 licensing terms due to their complete failure to comply with the requirements regarding copyright/licensing notices and potentially also those regarding redistribution licensing (as well as a few other related issues), I kinda doubt that they would take a complaint about these issues very seriously, and I'm not 100% sure that there isn't a loophole somewhere they could exploit to avoid these requirements for their particular use cases (I also personally don't really care too much about non-major violations of the relicensing terms as long as the rest of the requirements were complied with, although in this case, the rest of the requirements were seemingly not complied with, and so I am still annoyed about this because of that).
With regards to the issue of commercial use in general though, I have no problems with that as long as the attribution is clear, copyright/licensing notices were correctly included, and the redistribution of content does not grossly violate the relicensing terms. So if a company wants to benefit off of reusing content that I created or modified, they are more than welcome to go right ahead — if you aren't accepting of the fact that this type of reuse is allowed, then you shouldn't be editing Wikipedia at all. You don't have to be comfortable with it, but honestly, if you're volunteering your time to edit in order to improve the knowledge on here, shouldn't you be happy when said knowledge gets more exposure & usage? Or are you truly only happy as long as the exposure and usage exclusively happens on Wikimedia Foundation sites? Because that seems rather absurd to me. Actively avoiding making any edits that could potentially result in Google gaining more scrapable data is an utterly terrible idea if for no other reason than the fact that this adversely affects the quality of Wikipedia as a whole. Garzfoth (talk) 17:38, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • We should leave this be, unless we want Google and others to remove the data entirely. Yes, the link is attribution, and Wikipedia gets the initial credit which should be fine. If the information finds its way verbatim into books and textbooks hopefully the editors and publishers of those works will know enough to attribute, but search engines using short blurbs to help their readers best to allowed to play amongst our wording. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:21, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
I would just add that if we want to be very technical about what CC BY-SA allows, a licensing notice which explicitly states that the material being reused is available under CC BY-SA is also required in addition to the attribution with a hyperlink. The relevant policy is Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content. With that being said, the Google Knowledge Graph data is generally only a short blurb, and the Wikipedia link makes it fairly clear where it comes from, so I don't think this is a big deal. Mz7 (talk) 20:13, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • I recently wrote a bot as a potential replacement for cluebot that is 100% effective at identifying and deleting all forms of vandalism and paid editing. As soon as I fix a minor bug (right now it also deletes every other kind of edit) it will be ready to go. I am sure that this is just a minor bug which will be easy to find and correct. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Commercial use of Wikimedia projects Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:47, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • "The companies which rely on the standards we develop, the libraries we maintain, and the knowledge we curate should invest back. And they should do so with significant, long-term commitments that are commensurate with our value." I can't imagine this being implemented without an implicit commitment from the Wikipedia community to provide content that is valuable to these companies, a burden that would still fall on the backs of unpaid editors. Donations are an appropriate way to reciprocate but we shouldn't be selling our content.
We also shouldn't take responsibility for how others choose to use our content. Wikipedia is remarkably accurate for an encyclopedia that anyone can edit, but it is not a reliable source and nobody should be republishing anything (from Wikipedia or elsewhere) without doing some basic fact-checking. Blaming Wikipedia for providing bad information wouldn't fly in a high school writing class and it sure as hell shouldn't fly at Google. Using an algorithm to do your heavy lifting does not change this.
We should continue to produce quality content while addressing vandalism, to meet Wikipedia's goals and nobody else's. Republishing with proper attribution doesn't create extra work for us, but it should be understood that what we write is provided "as is" with no guarantee of accuracy. –dlthewave ☎ 19:22, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Perhaps we could kindly ask Google to improve their attribution? Anyone tried? --Felipe (talk) 03:01, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Oh and those who say that Google doesn't give back, doesn't 50% or so of Wikipedia's traffic come from Google? I think in the mission of spreading knowledge, Google is mostly an ally. --Felipe (talk) 03:04, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Overall, the article makes some good points. However, I feel that several of the things written are completely wrong-headed.

    The article complains that if Google relies on Wikipedia, it should give something back. What do you call the millions of dollars in donation to the WMF? Of course, none of the money reaches the volunteers directly, but that's the entire model of Wikipedia: people are supposed to build the encyclopedia for free.

    Wikipedia and Google have a deeply symbiotic (some would say incestuous) relationship. Around 2005, Wikipedia pages started ranking quite high in Google (and other engines') search results. This brought a big influx of people to the site and arguably made what Wikipedia is today. Even today, much of the activity (especially in the "news" and "popular culture" categories) is driven by Google and other search engine traffic. In return Google gets a passably accurate, not-too-spammy site for people to direct to.

    I understand that people might feel ripped off by Google, but the state of affairs is inherent in the whole model of Wikipedia. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

  • Your break is over, back to the data mines!--Catlemur (talk) 09:44, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
  • User:Mz7 despite what our policy says, a hyperlink alone seems sufficient. Indeed our own policy on reusing content within Wikipedia requires simply "copied content from [[page name]]; see that page's history for attribution" added to the edit summary, which is information that only appears to our readers if they view the history of the page and can figure out that it was that edit that provided that text. While the author of this article would like more personal credit, the reality on Wikipedia is that our pages have numerous authors, none of whom get more credit than another. It is a collaborative editing project and the purpose is not to create a free-to-read encyclopaedia but to create free content that can be re-used by others for any purpose.
If you consider the photographs I take, where I am sole author, Wikipedia re-uses them and there is no indication on the page whatsoever that I am the author or what licence it is used by (it is CC BY-SA 4.0, which is different to Wikipedia text). You have to know that clicking on the image will deliver the file-description page, and it is there that you will read the relevant attribution and licence details. If you Google for "Ravens of the Tower of London" you'll get a snippet from Wikipedia. The format is a bit different to the above example. It is more clear the text comes from Wikipedia. However the image is curious. If you click on that you get a Google Image page with text "Ravens of the Tower of London - Wikipedia". If you follow the "Visit" button it takes you to the Ravens of the Tower of London page. This is wrong. Firstly they are displaying a full-size image that did not actually come from that Wikipedia page (which only shows a thumbnail). But more importantly their page is the place where they should have the attribution and licence details. So to get to that information, you need to click on the thumb in the Google results, click on the "visit page" to get to Wikipedia, find my photo and know already that you can click on the photo, and then you get the attribution and licence terms. Google should fix that and properly link to the file-description page, which is where they got their image from. The problem is that there is minimal and there is best-practice, and Wikipedia already does minimal internally, so how can it persuade others that they should follow best practice? -- Colin°Talk 07:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @Colin: When reusing that kind of content within Wikimedia Foundation projects such as the English Wikipedia, attribution requirements are minimal because all Wikimedia Foundation project contributors have already released their content under compatible licenses within the project (you agree to this with every edit you make), all project pages already include the full & correct copyright/licensing notices necessary for this type of reuse, and for the specific case of images, the author attribution info is always available by simply clicking on the image (both Mediaviewer and the local Wikipedia copy of/proxy to Wikimedia Commons images show the file's author & copyright information).
Google, in contrast, does not have the appropriate full copyright/licensing notices required under either of the licenses for Wikimedia Foundation project content. For example, if they were to choose to comply with the CC BY-SA 3.0 terms (as complying with GFDL terms would likely be impractical for their use cases), they would need to add a link to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, and I think they also need to specify the content's license (CC BY-SA 3.0) as well. Garzfoth (talk) 09:23, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Garzfoth. The difference is not because Wikipedia has a special contract with contributors. The agreement with text contributors is CC BY-SA 3.0 & GFDL. This does not allow Wikipedia to reuse content any differently to how Google or any other reuser does (such as someone who clones Wikipedia). For the issue of images, the image creator often has no special agreement with Wikimedia at all: many of the images on Commons came from third parties (Flickr, etc) and were uploaded without the creator's knowledge.
So both Google and Wikipedia have identical requirements to attribute and display the licence details. Neither choose to do so on the page where the material is displayed. But at least Wikipedia does so on a page it hosts itself (e.g., a copy of the Commons file description page). Google instead relies on several jumps of third-party hyperlinks to satisfy the terms. I think that is dangerous practice because if someone removes my ravens photo from the article, and google continue to display it in their snippet, then their use of my image is unlicensed and so a copyright violation. If they linked directly to the Commons file description page, then that would be a bit safer. However even then, my image could be deleted from Commons (unlikely, but technically valid), or renamed. This is one reason Commons is reluctant to rename files, but it just comes from supporting bad practice. -- Colin°Talk 11:42, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • @Colin: The agreement between the contributor and the Wikimedia Foundation specifies that attribution via article hyperlink under the terms of the CC BY-SA 3.0 license is acceptable to the contributor (as well as use under GFDL, and alternatively attribution via two other alternative methods). Wikipedia pages already contain the required CC BY-SA 3.0 copyright/licensing notices that allow any content that is compatible with that license to be used within them (the "Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply." bit in the page footer). For the issue of rehosted images, those are rehosted under different terms from normal user-licensed images as you do not hold their copyright and there are already specific exceptions for these cases laid out in the Terms of Use as well as on each individual project.
The requirements differ depending on what is being reused. For Wikipedia text, this can only be reused under either GDFL or CC BY-SA 3.0, and Google is irrefutably not in compliance with either of those licensing terms. For images specifically, in the US and any other areas with equivalent copyright laws in this area, I believe that Google is technically protected by the fact that their use of said images can be considered "fair use" (which is an exemption that Creative Commons licenses respect). Also for images on their image search they are MUCH clearer about the fact that the image is potentially copyrighted content, and they don't seem to be rehosting full resolution content from Wikipedia/Commons both in image search results and in website search results. I am not quite sure if their reuse of text beyond the minima required for any basic generic short website summary in search results could possibly be considered "fair use" though...probably not, especially for use in knowledge graph... Garzfoth (talk) 13:24, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
Garzfoth, my argument is mostly about the images, where Wikipedia is not following best practice, but is a whole lot better than Google. For images on Wikipedia there is no contributor agreement that a hidden hyperlink is acceptable, but at least their hyperlink provides the goods. I think a fair use claim could be used by Google when the image appears as a snippet in a search results that clearly links to Wikipedia. Their fair use argument does not hold when they format the search results as an information box like the example in this article, where Google is effectively acting as an Encyclopaedia rather than web search engine. The don't mention the image is "potentially copyright content" in the search results at all, only when you click on the image and get the dark Google Images format page, and then that text is generic for all images they display. Their CC BY-SA requirement is for them to display attribution and licence details, which they don't. Expecting the user to hunt through Wikipedia to find such attribution and licence details is not acceptable imo, and liable to break when the article changes. For the Google Images page, they are hosting an enlarged image that does not come from the Wikipedia article thumb, so the CC BY-SA licence best practice is to state where they got the image from, which isn't the Wikipedia article, but the file description page which includes attribution and licence details. -- Colin°Talk 11:23, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
So, who wants to contact the WMF legal department and see if they wish to send a lawyer letter to Google about violating the the CC BY-SA license? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:59, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
WMF do not own the Wikipedia content or images. WMF legal represent WMF. The CC BY-SA violation, should it exist, is a legal issue between photographers, writers and Google, not WMF. So I don't think they would be involved. The most I've seen WMF legal do is give hints about certain interpretations of law wrt copyright. Perhaps you could get WMF legal to advise Jimbo about what he might want to say or write. But if Google are a big donor to Wikimedia, then don't hold your breath. -- Colin°Talk 22:07, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
  • The box itself is something that I like for two reasons: 1) I do use the Wikipedia link on the box often, specially when Wikipedia result is not the first one and 2) I wrote some articles were Google did not yield meaningful results in the first positions, now I am glad that it is easier for people to find more about the topic; on the other hand, on the vandalism thing, Google should take more responsibility, and if they think that vandalism is a problem, they should contribute code (they do have antivandalism code themselves) back to our antivandalism bots. I would prefer them to open source all their antivandalism stuff and help us in integrating it with our current systems, rather than taking yet another couple of millions of cash. MarioGom (talk) 07:01, 8 July 2018 (UTC)
  • I am honestly baffled. Isn't the whole point of free content that it can be used and reused without "giving back"? If we wanted people to "give back", we would have a stricter license, easy as that. I find it utterly weird that we write a free encyclopedia, and then complain when people use such free encyclopedia to do stuff. --cyclopiaspeak! 06:17, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Recent research: How censorship can backfire and conversations can go awry (3,995 bytes · 💬)

  • I don't have access to the AfD sentiment analysis paper, but I'd be curious how robust those findings are. If they're strong enough, we could theoretically use such analysis to attempt to detect potentially improper closes. I don't think that's a good idea (at least for at the individual level) so perhaps it's something to be aware of. I wonder what other discussions have a large enough sample set that similar analyses could be attempted? RfA springs to mind, but I'm not sure the numbers are there; it would be interesting to see if sentiments have changed over the years. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:39, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
The sample size of RfA is so small in recent years (since 2012) that it would not produce any usable results. The only major change in that time is that the RfAs have slowly warped into yet another platform for a lot discussion about the process and adminship in general. RfA remains the Wild West of Wikipedia. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:35, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Whatt other result would be possible except that positive expressions correlate with desires to keep? What classes of arguments for keep are there except that the subject is notable/the article is good/that it does meet policy? Or, for delete, that the subject is not notable/the article is not good/the article does not meet policy? I don't see how any of this could affect judging the quality of closes, especially considering closes aren't supposed to be a mere numerical count of votes. It would identify those closes where the closes did not match the sentiments most expressed, but that's not an indication that the close is bad--in fact, it's the usual situation for AfDs contaminated by single purpose accounts. (and similarly for RfAs) DGG ( talk ) 00:32, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
One of the many reasons why I think it'd be a Bad Idea™ to do so. Regardless, even though it's unsurprising, it's noteworthy that they can actually detect a difference. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:01, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
  • The review of "On the Self-similarity of Wikipedia Talks: a Combined Discourse-analytical and Quantitative Approach" is unintelligible. (In partial mitigation, I hasten to add that the paper it reviews [1] rates extremely high on the gobbledygook index.) I would have expected the purpose of these reviews to be to give nonspecialist readers at least an inkling of the import of the work reviewed despite (as I will hazard is the common case) prior ignorance of such terms as web genre and dialogue theory; in this it fails spectacularly. And by the way, what does it mean for a paper to be "thoroughly structured"? How do figures that "support and underpin the findings" differ from figures that simply support the findings, or underpin the findings?
Also, I thought a Wikicussion was what you get from beating your head against the wall arguing with someone who just doesn't get it. EEng 14:47, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Special report: NPR and AfC – The Marshall Plan: an engagement, or a marriage? (4,750 bytes · 💬)

  • Re: "routing or tagging drafts so that topic experts (perhaps from WikiProjects) can review them" - InceptionBot scans the Draft namespace to put drafts on WikiProject new article lists. --Bamyers99 (talk) 01:59, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Bamyers99@, just correcting your link. It should be User:InceptionBot. User:AlexNewArtBot, which it supercedes, is blocked. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:49, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
  • It would be nice to have keyboard shortcuts, like in STiki (r for review, n for next in queue, t for tag menu, i for info menu) to save on our wrists and make patrolling repetitive stuff like redirects and sockpuupet userpages easier. cinco de L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 11:56, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
If you think your suggestion is useful, and if you are a New Page Patroller, you will be aware of this page where you can list your suggestion. That said, as far as I understand, depth and accuracy of patrolls are more important than speed - at least that what it says on the New Pages Feed. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:28, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
I tried, as for how it will affect quality, we only get as good a review as the reviewer has it in them to give, regardless of how easy we make it. If others still feel that a keyboard shortcut for one-stroke reviewing is detrimental, I would recommend having page info and next-in-queue get shortcuts, and review be one mouseclick instead of two. Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 14:52, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • a black hat editor – blocked and banned. Self portrait. Uhm. WP:DENY? --Xover (talk) 13:59, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
Personally I thought that was in very bad taste and offensive. It was a poor joke, made at the expense of an editor. cinco de L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 14:32, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
I agree. But the Editor having already left it in they evidently disagree, so DENY is the only pseudo-policy based argument remaining, that I'm aware of, for its removal. --Xover (talk) 15:18, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
If readers were to take the time to read up on the entire and extensive history of this affair, they will find that the joke was the editor's own, and it has backfired on him. Although declared paid editing is not disallowed per se, the community at large does not approve of paid editing. This editor was seriously using special user rights here and at OTRS, and sockpuppetry to his own ends, and the article is a message to others who might be trying to get away with exploiting the voluntary work of users who compile and maintain this valuable knowledge resource. Please see: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:20, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
WP:DENY doesn't cover this case at all, as it is about vandals and trolls. The editor in question was neither. Further, are we talking about a "right to vanish" for people who have a less-than-squeaky-clean history with the community? Please note that WP:VANISH specifies "a user in good standing" right in the first paragraph. My opinion is Kudpung acted within his proper boundaries as writer of an editorial piece in this community newsletter – the piece as a whole was not a joke, but an expression of an important point of view. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:16, 2 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Thank you, Kudpung, for writing about this important work. I'm Marshall Miller; I'm the WMF product manager working on the project, along with WMF Collaboration and Community Tech teams. Anyone who is interested in learning more or being involved should feel free to check out the project page. The scope of our project is limited to adding the ability to review AfC drafts to the New Pages Feed, and adding ORES models and copyvio capabilities to the feed for both NPP and AfC prioritization. -- MMiller (WMF) (talk) 04:51, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Technology report: Improvements piled on more improvements (306 bytes · 💬)

When will we get responsive Vector? Lojbanist remove cattle from stage 20:01, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Traffic report: Endgame (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-06-29/Traffic report

Wikipedia essays: This month's pick by The Signpost editors (545 bytes · 💬)

  • Love it!
The statement below is true.
The above statement is false.
Use your logic digit to finger it out.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  12:29, 1 July 2018 (UTC)


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