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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2020-03-29. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Unfinished business (1,758 bytes · 💬)

I'm not really sure what point is being made with singling out my comment above as the sole descriptor of the case, as it's not a sentiment that was shared by the Committee as a whole. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:16, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

@David Fuchs: Bri probably just wanted to point out one of the whys as to why it was accepted. No biggie. --qedk (t 心 c) 20:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
That PD was posted on the 27th and is now basically finalized. I just like to note it when we do actually get something done on time. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:52, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
A relatively simpler case (as evident from the relative silence it was opened and closed in) for a breather. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ --qedk (t 心 c) 07:14, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

The Motorsports case has now closed. See [1]. Clovermoss (talk) 23:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Community view: Wikimedia community responds to COVID-19 (438 bytes · 💬)

The editors recognized absolutely deserve massive thanks, but there are also some pretty major holes in that list. If The Signpost is going to give individual call-outs, better research might have been warranted. Sdkb (talk) 05:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion report: Rethinking draft space (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-29/Discussion report

From the archives: Text from Wikipedia good enough for Oxford University Press to claim as own (8,129 bytes · 💬)

  • It's not as uncommon as people may hope. While reading Geoffrey Barton (2017), The Tottenham Outrage and Walthamstow Tram Chase, one chapter seemed particularly familiar; it was a verbatim copy of the section of the Immigration and demographics in London section of the Siege of Sidney Street article I'd taken to FAC the day the year before. - SchroCat (talk) 18:26, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • About 10 years ago, the local Historical Society ran a series of articles in their printed newsletter on the local tiny communities. As a member of the organization, I received copies of the newsletters in the mail (quarterly, iirc). About halfway through the first article, I realized I knew this information, I recognized the writing style, I knew THE WORDS! Boy, was I surprised to find the Wikipedia article I had personally written being used word for word by the local historical society and being claimed as their own work! They ran several articles one at a time in each newsletter for a dozen or so newsletters, never with any attribution to Wikipedia. Since then I have seen the same on Facebook more times than I can count because no one cares, it is too easy to copy and paste it and claim the credit for themselves... - Adolphus79 (talk) 20:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Here's a blog post that was recommended to me by Google algorithms, turns out it had pieces of the semi-obscure article I wrote, Waterfall furniture, written word-for-word. I posted in the comments a few times, all deleted, before privately contacting the primary author, who decided to put in a link and reword at least... ɱ (talk) 21:14, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Circular sourcing only continues to be a larger potential problem. The worst part is it's usually only easy to detect by the primary authors of the wikipedia pages. Aside from paying attention when content is audited, I'm not sure of any real solution that presents itself besides running plagiarism checks and seeing when the Wikitext dates from. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 21:43, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • What I really dislike about relatively reliable sources taking information from Wikipedia and not crediting it is that, if the information (e.g. the birthdate of a football player) is quite hard to find and can only be found in that RS and Wikipedia, I'm always afraid that I accidentally cite WP:CIRCULAR without knowing it. God damn, that annoys me. Cite your sources, people! —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) (/tɔːk/ – /ˈkɒntɹɪbs/) 16:11, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
  • William Burges (Architect) “by” Lambert M. Surhone (who specialises in this approach) is a complete lift of the WB article. It used to retail on Amazon for more than Mordaunt Crook’s book! KJP1 (talk) 13:48, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Half a decade ago, when I took a series of Audie Murphy articles to FT, his biography from Wikipedia - word for word, punctuation, etc. - ended up in the newspaper of a smallish Texas town ... and the owner of the newspaper had put his byline on it. No credit to Wikipedia, he just claimed it as his own work. I vaguely remember posting a shocked comment on Jimbo's talk page about this. So, the last few years, I've collaborated on Hawaiian history subjects, bios, etc. In particular, those related to the Hawaiian monarchy. I have too much self respect to claim full credit on those works. Wish I could say the same for those who give interviews on a given subject, sounding a lot like Wikipedia's text. Sometimes I see new books on subjects of forgotten Hawaiian history, and am fairly certain when I read them that someone used Wikipedia as a source, without crediting it. About all I can say ... is that Wikipedia is well read. — Maile (talk) 17:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Tangentially: The reputation of Wikipedia in academia often seems to be that it is...not good enough for either students or the "unwashed masses"...and so we continue to fail our students, our youth, and the public by failing to teach them digital literacy skills. Like other literacy skills, better to teach people how to use sources than to reject them wholesale. For example: to be suspicious of gossip rags because they often publish on crazy deadlines and have little to no editorial oversight, to go back to the original scientific paper the mainstream news piece links to evaluate their methods and how far we can actually extrapolate, to place works of literature like The Little Red Book in their proper historical context and not take them at face value. An even looser analogy: guardians of underage teens of course prohibit their children from drinking but (should) tell them to please call for a ride if you indulge. Even more tangentially (secantly?), it annoys me when someone attributes to Wikipedia but doesn't even put an access date. Misplaced anger: I can't help but see a broader pattern of people not understanding that Wikipedia is a dynamic document, so the sentence you took from it may not be there anymore when I'm reading it. Then comes the despair that people are using a source without understanding its strengths and its pitfalls. With this article, I see that ignorance doesn't discriminate between PhDs and the "unwashed masses" (and wow, doesn't the latter phrase rank of contempt). Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 16:20, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The oddest one I came across was on a planning application to support the demolition of a disused chapel in the village of Dunton Green in Kent. The authors of the Design Statement for the houses which would replace it had thoughtfully provided an appendix listing all the nearby churches and chapels in that area which could in theory be used as an alternative. Copying and pasting the entire 120KB of List of places of worship in Sevenoaks District—images, references, wikitext and all—was an interesting way of doing it! That reminds me – I really ought to finish off that list... On a separate and more reasonable note, rarely a day goes by when one or other of the online local newspapers in my home city of Brighton and Hove does not use one of my public-domain Commons photos to illustrate a story or to provide a thumbnail image alongside the headline. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 22:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Great story. Thanks for writing it up! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:02, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

From the editors: The bad and the good (2,958 bytes · 💬)

  • I do not like this virus and what is happening to all these people. 🌺Kori🌺 - (@) 15:54, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
  • We definitely wouldn’t want a delay in press time, but some news about new editors will be pleasant when it can be put together. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:02, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:06, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Feeling bad at the moment morally and cannot believe the conspiracy theories built up on the 2019 Military World Games linking it to the coronavirus pandemic. Some sources falsely claimed five of the American military personnel who participated in the event fell sick could have led to the outbreak of COVID-19. These conspiracy theories have also resulted in increase in page views. I personally feel bad and ashamed for contributing to the 2019 Military World Games which was held in Wuhan from 18 to 27 October 2019, nearly one month before the outbreak in Wuhan. Despite these few odds, Wikipedia has been the benchmark for providing accurate and reliable information regarding the coronavirus pandemic. Abishe (talk) 05:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Way to display Wikipedia's intransigent clinging to inaccuracy and on the first line of the article. You cannot have a pandemic of a loose virus grouping, only of a disease. Kevin McE (talk) 12:21, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • That ship sailed a long time ago. We don't get to decide what people call it, we only reflect what the sources say. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:55, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Let us hope that the pandemic will prompt a re-think of large, regular international meetups of WMians—even those at a more local scale. It's high time we adopted a more inclusive use of interactive video conferencing instead of always creating a travel-holiday out of meetups. Using the internet to network is not only more inclusive: it acknowledges the existential threat of climate breakdown. Tony (talk) 02:42, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Gallery: Visible Women on Wikipedia (3,099 bytes · 💬)

White men need not be pictured

I continue to object to Women in Red's WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS mentality. While addressing our systemic bias is fine, I find these efforts at social justice ultimately discriminatory. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:14, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

So ignore the systemic bias? To address the bias you have to directly discriminate against it.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 23:17, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
That's also a very poor interpretation about "WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS", which is about activist addition of unverifiable information. Women in Red is nothing of the sort.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 23:18, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
How would you suggest addressing systemic bias without being discriminatory? Kaldari (talk) 17:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't think encouraging all people, including people of color and those from the Global South, needs to be discriminatory. Continued editor recruiting may or may not address our systemic bias; the fault lies in our sources, not ourselves. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:22, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Marginal eyes

Can't help wondering when more than half the people on this planet will stop being "invisibilized", "marginalized" in some way or 'nother? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 18:51, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

  • "Global South includes Mexico" Please do not call me poor -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 15:08, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

In focus: "I have been asked by Jeffrey Epstein …" (8,805 bytes · 💬)

Re: The Epstein article. There seems to be a few of points to look at here. First is the obvious and longtime problem of paid promotional editing, especially as it relates to BLPs. That has been discussed and debated ad nauseum so I will confine myself to restating my view that paid editing should be banned, period. Entities that engage in the practice should be barred from the encyclopedia and if required, the WMF should be prepared to pursue legal remedies. The second and somewhat more complicated issue is detection of persistent and often professionally orchestrated POV editing. This may require a look into the editing history of target articles to see if there is a pattern. Unfortunately this can be hit and miss depending on who is watching the article and how alert they are. I would suggest that anytime we see this kind of SPA/IP promotional editing that it trigger a quick look to see if it has been going on for a while. Finally there is the question of responding to this sort of thing once detected. That at least is not altogether complicated. Articles subject to WP:BLP are also subject discretionary sanctions. I suspect a lot of admins, myself included, are at least somewhat reluctant to pull that particular trigger. But extended confirmed page protection is an obvious and powerful deterrent to this sort of thing. It won't stop those who are highly motivated to push their assigned version of facts, but it will make their life more difficult. Editors who discover evidence of a pattern of POV editing on a BLP should not hesitate to alert an admin or formally request page protection at RfPP. And admins should not shy away from ECPP if the evidence of concerted POV editing is clear. A quick look at the protection log for the Epstein article shows that while semi-protection has been applied intermittently, extended confirmed has never been employed as of this posting. Obviously we can't EC protect every article that sees some POV editing, so a little judgement is called for. But when an article has seen repeated bouts of this sort of thing, admins should be prepared to elevate the protection, if necessary for a lengthy period of time. Paid POV editing represents a serious and longstanding threat to the integrity of the project. Our response to this pernicious behavior should reflect that reality. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:54, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that needed to be said. A couple of things should be noted. 7-8 years ago, some things were quite different, e.g. very little enforcement against UPE. I was actually quite impressed with some of the admins, e.g. it only took 2 months to get 2 cited fact removers indefinitely banned. I'd love to see that now. But tthat admin wasn't around that much on this article. Just removing cited info has to be the dumbest type of paid editing. It's just so obvious. There were 2 or 3 things that just clicked for me when I looked at this. 1) pushing down material to the bottom. How many times have I seen that? 2) Forking (to the foundation article in this case) - yeah that should be pretty obvious in hindsight, the one that surprised me that I've seen before (and didn't try to explain in the article) is 3) the article switch - trying to create Jeffrey Epstein (plastic surgeon) at the same time as trying to delete Jeffrey Epstein. If it isn't obvious by now, I think there's a lot to be learned from these case studies. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:51, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
the article on the plastic surgeon was speedy deleted as an advertisement 4 hours after being submitted. It was such a blatant advertisement that I wasn't even thinking about the JE case when I removed it. DGG ( talk ) 17:21, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@DGG: As I'm sure you know, sometimes our rules aren't so clear. I wanted to avoid anything even looking like impropriety on this article and was pressed for time, so I didn't even ask about this. Am I allowed to request bringing back a deleted article, e.g. into my user space, in order to check the authorship and see what it said? Rather than improving it for publication, that is. I'm as convinced as I can be at this point that the article was some type of diversion, likely a try of switching the two articles, or maybe just bogging down the readers by taking them to a disambig page. I don't really need this info now, but it would be nice to know in the future. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Smallbones, I think User:Theroadislong/PROD log#February 2012 has at least part of the answer you are looking for. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:58, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Smallbones, I looked at the deleted article for the plastic surgeon. I don't know if it would be undeleted for you, you'd have to ask and have more of a reason than curiousity. There were just four edits, 2 by Turvill and 2 by editors tagging it for problems. There were no references, it was just puff stuff. I don't understand exactly why Turvill would have created it. Liz Read! Talk! 02:52, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks @Liz: Now I know what I'm not allowed to do. That is a very strange 1st edit for a new editor, one soon to become an SPA on the topic of Jeffrey Epstein. The only thing I can think of is as some type of distraction. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:58, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
What makes you so sure it was a new account? Editors with a barely 10 day old account rarely speak of cabals and reporting others to the BLP noticeboard. Or for that matter demonstrate familiarity with BLP policies when hours old. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:24, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Well it was a new account, but I don't believe for a moment that they were a new user. Let's see: similar writing style (and usual length of text) to a blocked user, more or less the same pages edited, same pro-Epstein single purpose POV, timing since block. I'm sure nobody here would take that as absolute proof. Too bad we don't have a tool that indicates "writing similarity", or "overall editing similarity." Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:59, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

There are such tools in existence, of course; it's called stylometry or authorship analysis. There's an interesting video featuring Patrick Juola and some resources here: [2] ☆ Bri (talk) 19:28, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks for this article. I was going to write an op-ed on suspicious editing patterns at Greg Lindberg before I realized how close the print deadline was. Glad to see we had something else to act as a good case study. -Indy beetle (talk) 02:14, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@Indy beetle: Just took a look at Greg Lindberg and your suspicions are entirely justified. If there is anymore of that, ping me or alert another admin. I will block the editor and if needed, protect the page. I am going to warn the SPA. -Ad Orientem (talk) 03:25, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ad Orientem:@Smallbones: Well, now I'm definitely going to be writing an op-ed. Greg Lindberg : Revision History -Indy beetle (talk) 18:51, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Hmmm... Last edit 30 January 2015, blocked 27 November 2019. Yet again and again I see reports of spammers and vandals closed with no action taken on the grounds of "no recent edits" or "no recent activity." Are the rules different for high profile cases? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:35, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

In the media: Blocked in Iran but still covering the big story (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-29/In the media

News and notes: 2018 Wikipedian of the year blocked (4,428 bytes · 💬)

  • Wow, the Farkhad Fatkullin story is a bit understated. The dude was indef blocked by the same user he was criticizing, Derslek, who is now wheel-warring with multiple Stewards who are trying to overturn the block as obviously inappropriate. That would be an absolute shitshow over here, though a smaller wiki like that may not have any system of checks and balances to prevent this kind of abuse. Hopefully there is some higher authority that can step in and deop this dude. ~Swarm~ {sting} 03:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    He has been desysopped by the stewards as of a few minutes ago. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 04:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    What I find really troubling is the role of AffCom. This is really not the AffCom's business to decide who can be blocked on the projects and who can be desysopped.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    It's unclear to me what the role of AffCom was. I can see that Steward Mehman97 mentioned his position as a member of AffCom, but also stated that he was not speaking or presumably acting on behalf of AffCom. He was clearly invoking some sort of perceived additional authority as being a member of AffCom, which is strange, because, as you say, AffCom, as I understand it, basically has the authority to recognize Wikipedia "clubs" as official affiliates, and nothing more. Being a Steward, he already had the full authority to take action in a rogue admin situation, and his AffCom membership would have been irrelevant. There was no reason to invoke his AffCom membership, and I'm not sure why he did. It does seem that he was not acting as a representative of AffCom itself, merely implying that part of his authority stemmed from being an AffCom member. Strange indeed. I suppose the notion comes from the fact that AffCom is an extension of the WMF Board. Still, I'm happy he took action. ~Swarm~ {sting} 06:17, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    @Swarm: For the record, Mehman97 is not a Steward. I think you're confusing him with Mardetanha, who performed the unblock. — 🦊 06:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
    Hello folks. First of all, to say that the role of the Affiliation committee is 0, I didn't act on behalf of AffCom and in general AffCom is not involved in this case. I mentioned AffCom for the reason that it is more recognizable (than for example Wikimedia UG Georgia, where I'm Chairman) for everyone, and with this I wanted to explain my interest in the matter. I think that we, the committee members have a social responsibility to help communities and people in problem situations, what I do. As a mediator, I wanted to peacefully solve the problem of blocking Farhad, but unfortunately the administrator didn't listen to my calls and ended as it is now. So, there’s nothing to do with AffCom and it’s not necessary to connect it with my actions as some kind of interested party. Kindly, --Mehman 97 13:31, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oh look, yet another ethnonationalist fight on one of the non-Western-European-language projects. For anyone who doesn't know the context, which is most people reading this, Tatars are viewed as a "troublesome minority" by Russian nationalists. I presume that's what's underlying this. Of course the WMF has no people who speak any languages needed to know what's going on here. Sooner or later one of these things will blow up into a big PR scandal. --47.146.63.87 (talk) 21:58, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
    • No, it won't. --ssr (talk) 08:54, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

News from the WMF: Amid COVID-19, Wikimedia Foundation offers full pay for reduced hours, mobilizes all staff to work remote, and waives sick time (2,338 bytes · 💬)

  • Really good to hear, and it should be the norm for businesses that are able to do this. It's another thing that sets us apart from every major website in the world. In a way it's a shame that a non-profit with fewer employees is doing this in contrast to, say, Amazon, which makes obscene amounts of profits which it could use to treat its workers with dignity and respect. But workers' rights are workers' rights and though our community has a sometimes fractured relationship with the WMF, I hope none of us would ever wish for staff to face reduced pay, safety concerns or workplace stress in the situation we are living in. — Bilorv (talk) 22:30, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • well done--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 23:24, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Shouldn't the title be "waives sick time requirements" (as in the article body:"Waived normal sick time requirements for staff who...") rather than "waives sick time" (which could be interpreted as meaning that sick time is not granted)? Apokrif (talk) 02:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I was very impressed by their action list when talking to some WMF staff at the cafe, recently. I knew they did disruption tests regularly, but I hadn't realised they did at least annual weeks where only server staff were on any site, with everyone else WFH. One particular note is that currently they are actually zero staff onsite, though they've noted they might have send in server staff on a minimal basis as required. I have some concerns about how the WMF spends money, but this is certainly an excellent use of those large reserves. Kudos to all involved. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month? (2,914 bytes · 💬)

My college has too moved to online classes, but my country redeems my job as "essential" so I'm still on the field -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 15:14, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Stay safe at your job, mate.--Vulphere 06:41, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The picture of Ermita del Santo Cristo de Miranda reminded me of our article on Møllehøj, the highest point in Denmark. I love the picture and its caption "Møllehøj ..., the highest point is obscured by the farm buildings" - it always makes me smile. Cabayi (talk) 20:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Jimbo's talk page has turned the corners of my mouth upward more than a few times this month! P.I. Ellsworth  ed. put'r there 21:50, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I couldn't help but smile when an acquaintance I've not talked to in months skyped me to rave about how an amazing wikipedia article had let her answer every question her scared, self-isolated, grandmother had about Covid when she didn't have the answers to hand. I couldn't help but weep, but with a smile, when my country hit 750,000 volunteers in 4 days. And on a lighter note, I can't help but laugh every time my 8 month nephew decides raspberries should be consumed by crushing them and dabbing his ears. And mine. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:57, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Recent research: Disease outbreak uncertainties, AfD forecasting, auto-updating Wikipedia (13,566 bytes · 💬)

  • Perhaps a more constructive quote from the last paper listed, on our editorial gender gap:

Practical implications-In order for more women to join Wikipedia, the research offers the implantation of a "Virtuous Circle" that consists of nonymity, connection to social media, inclusionist policy, soft deletion and red-flagging harassments.

I see a future RfC mentioned in this Signpost issue is relevant to the last point. The second one is something that Women in Red has worked on a lot. The third and fourth is something to think about at AfC, NPP, AfD and similar. I'm not quite sure what can be done on the matter of the first, though something I've been thinking for a while is that people should hand out barnstars more liberally. — Bilorv (talk) 22:51, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
The paper goes pretty specific with suggestions on each of those. For the first:

... Insisting on a website based on true names and pictures will also allow a much-needed concept of situated and contextualized aspects of knowledge. ... This step is especially important in regard to the overt identities of bureaucrats and system admins who have tremendous power over others on the website, including erasing entries and banning users. Position holders must be obliged to volunteer in exposed identities in order to contribute to an organizational climate of safety, based on familiarity and accountability.

Didn't finish the paper but would want to see it address the idea that exposing one's identity might make the editor more susceptible to targeted harassment. czar 01:17, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
CC User:שלומית_ליר. Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:13, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Indeed, @Czar:. I'd also like to see how they'd handle concerns about just a reduced pool of admins (et al) being less effective at fulfilling their roles, if there was a significant number of resignations, which I believe there would be. I wouldn't have participated in handling the Delhi riots page if I had a public identity. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:37, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I would also be concerned about this particular way of implementing nonymity. It's the central fact about the internet: anonymity leads to many brilliant communities, but also many terrible ones. Nonetheless, I think we can definitely do something about the other four findings. — Bilorv (talk) 18:03, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
I quite agree with Bilorv. Not reaching the goal of 25% participation by women is a huge waste of potential, and the reasons given in this research are really disheartening. I picked out the phrase "the fear of being erased" from the report for The Signpost's teaser blurb, because it was so striking.
At the same time, this research commits an error I've seen before, when it describes the deletion of an article which I located on Hebrew Wikipedia. The paper states it was impossible to request a proper debate and it was deleted without proper discussion. However, unless I'm very mistaken, the article was in fact a copyright violation (copyvio). Not only that, but it was restored after the appropriate people received permission via OTRS. So, a very misleading description. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments and for the overall interesting discussion. As to this specific remark, the speedy deletion was not related to copyright problems. In fact, the writer's draft was shown to David Shi, who was the head Wikipedian at the time, beforehand. Years later a very similar article under the same name was published in Wikipedia by someone else. שלומית ליר (talk) 07:27, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying. I was very mistaken, after all. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:32, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
We as a community really have a tough job of keeping our core principles, such as not allowing copyvios or un-referenced additions, also while not kicking new good-faith editors to the curb, and not confronting them with a maze of jargon and legalisms that make them perpetual outsiders. What may seem to the initiated as impersonal and routine procedures is apparently coming across – at least to some – as distancing and unwelcoming, if not outright contemptuous. We need to take that to heart. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
The paper repeats most of the well-known issues that have been heavily discussed for many years, but talked only to women, and falls into the trap at many points of assuming these are women-specific, which we know they are not. They also use too many old references; papers from before say 2010, and certainly 2007 are likely to be badly out of date and should not be used these days. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
My takeaway is that there is such a thing as norms of interaction that are informed by gender of each participant. The paper has told us several problems with the hard-nosed communication style common in male-dominated STEM fields where many of our early contributors come from. And how that cadre of early contributors has coalesced into difficult-to-influence norms and culture, including our processes, templates, and what have you. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:32, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm less than impressed with the recommendations; the author's enthusiasm for social media networks despite their increasingly well documented flaws is rather striking. One suggestion in a footnote is that Wikipedia should have a biography of every single human being. --RaiderAspect (talk) 10:56, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment. Nevertheless, to be accurate, I recommended a future Wiki project documenting every individual who allows the publication of his or her life story online. As I mentioned in the footnote, I believe that the understanding of what constitutes knowledge will widen with time, and with it the perception of the importance of open-to-all online documentation of more human lives.
As to the flaws of social media that you mention, I am well aware of them. I recommended allowing Wikipedians' user-pages to be associated with their Social Media profiles (if they wish to do so) as a means of achieving a much-needed sense of safety. As research points out, bullying thrives in anonymous online environments. As strange is it might sound, and in view of the long history of anonymity in the website, the principle of nonymity is crucial to overcoming the gender bias in Wikipedia. שלומית ליר (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply! I apologise for my misreading, although I'm afraid that I still feel such a project would be more akin to LinkedIn or Facebook than Wikipedia. The fact that no individual 'owns' a page is the essence of Wikipedia, at least in my opinion.
Regarding nonymity, the issue I see is that while it would probably make Wikipedia itself a friendlier place, it would also facilitate more serious harassment of Wikipedia users outside of Wikipedia. Being told that your work is worthless and that your beliefs are nonsense is hurtful, but having someone sending threats to your friends and family or calling your employer to make accusations is an order of magnitude moreso. And for users in certain countries associating their user-page with their Social Media profiles could put them in physical danger.
I realize you may be perfectly aware of these issues and simply didn't have room to discuss them in your paper. Please don't feel obliged to get dragged into a debate here, I'm merely an interested observer. --RaiderAspect (talk) 13:42, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

A very interesting discussion with good points on all sides. For me, the salient point is that Wikipedia combines an increasingly strict insistence on quality (citations, neutrality, non-commerciality, copyright, and all the rest) with rather little in the way of training and apprenticeship for newcomers. Helping even an able, willing, and co-operative newbie into editing an area effectively is quite a lot of work, specially for the first week or two, and such coaching requires expertise, energy and teaching skill, all quantities in quite short supply. But throwing newcomers straight into the rigours of editing live articles with no training seems increasingly drastic; it was alarming being a newbie over a decade ago, and now it's certainly worse. Other measures than apprenticeships and coaching are imaginable: we could encourage people to take an online tutorial; we could have a pop-up box asking new editors to make their suggestion on an article's talk page until they get the hang of things; there could be an automated 20-questions test so newcomers could see what skills they needed to get started; and so on. And of course, a safe place for new female editors in particular would be very welcome. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:01, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap: As a relative newcomer (although I guess I've now been here for over three years), I can attest that it is not very easy to learn the ins-and outs of Wikipedia. I don't recall having much help figuring things out, and I think I just got lucky by meeting very patient editors like Display Name 99 didn't get angry when I made mistakes. All I remember is that it felt to me like Wikipedia was empty and I was pretty alone. For me, I think that helped because I took my time, writing a draft article first, mainly just adding citations in the mainspace until things started to make sense. With that being said, a lot of my work was definitely sub-par, and I think I'm very lucky nobody scared me away from editing. As I remember, the first automated message I got just seemed very impersonal and didn't help at all because it just overwhelmed me with things I wasn't interested in at all. On the other hand, I remember The Wikipedia Adventure actually as a big help initially. So, in summery, I'd say that the biggest thing we can do is have patience and not not bite the newcomers. Automated messages only overwhelmed me, but more interactive things like the test or box you suggest may have a better effect. Again, this is only based on my experience, and I don't think it's universally applicable. Eddie891 Talk Work 18:35, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
  • @RaiderAspect and שלומית ליר: - those are certainly the worst "outside wiki" risks that would come from reduced anonymity, but there are also other possibilities. Employers that do social media checks of employees and/or applicants, could now more easily be found. They might be unhappy in some cases, for myriad reasons, but they could also be too happy - at my previous job (back when I'd barely started editing), a trainee colleague had to do some deft talking to avoid from being basically forced into paid editor status (on the wiki side) and being held responsible for what got added onto the company page (on his employment side). Nosebagbear (talk) 10:38, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial

This research is from 2017, as are the linked discussions. I don't understand why it is listed in A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia [...]. —⁠andrybak (talk) 08:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Andrybak: The cited revision of the paper is from 16 Aug 2019. That said, you are correct that we interpret "Recent" liberally here - our backlog of papers to cover (writeups are always welcome!) goes back several years, although ideally we want to cover new ones within a few months of their publication. It has never been the intention though to limit the scope to only things from the past month; the assumption is that the highlighted research results will stay relevant for much longer.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:12, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Special report: Wikipedia on COVID-19: what we publish and why it matters (1,150 bytes · 💬)

thank you for bringing attention to this subject that affects us all --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Translation of the Kurier article: "COVID-19 and Wikipedia – a preliminary overview". ☆ Bri (talk) 21:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Traffic report: The only thing that matters in the world (5,938 bytes · 💬)

Why is the February report the last? -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 20:12, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
It's only maybe the last time. I don't know. Natureium (talk) 20:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
Oh no, oh no. -- GreenC 02:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
We switched to reverse chronological order, thinking that readers would be most interested in the latest report. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
It's a chance to fix mistakes. One more for the last time. Natureium (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
@Bri:: Well I wanted to see the development of interest for the coronavirus pandemic overtime as March went by, as it overshadowed other important events of the month such as the 2020 Democratic primaries -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 15:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Gouleg, you can compare pageviews of two or more articles using the tool. E.g. 2020 primaries vs COVID in US [3]. But as far as I know we don't have something pre-prepared to show exactly what you're interested in. I'd encourage you to develop it and share it with us. Maybe we can even incorporate it in the next Signpost. I'm sure that we'll still be talking a lot about both topics. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • A thought on format: Could be interesting to see this portrayed as a "weeks on chart" sort of thing like NYT bestsellers or top Billboard hits, or alternatively, a kind of map with connected nodes, such as in the one above where there is cross-referential treatment between many of the list's items. A week is an arbitrary time period—I imagine most of these spikes are single days—I'd also be curious in a layered visualization that shows sustained traffic to COVID against daily spikes here or there for other topics. Like it's fun to read as-is, but I always wonder about the story behind the data: why is a topic rising or falling week over week, what does that say about influence, whence is their traffic spiking, etc. (Just ideas—not meant as any kind of criticism. Really appreciate this work!) czar 01:43, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Sort of like the hatnote top 100? I like their presentation a lot not to plug a "competitor" but credit where credit it due. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:57, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Edited to add: I thought about the trends as interesting in themselves when I saw where 2020 coronavirus pandemic in India is relative to U.S. now – much higher. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:59, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
The hatnote top 100's sparklines are pretty nice czar 01:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
  • "Rogers passed away of natural causes at his home on the 20th of March this year." - no doubt intended to convey he did not die of the virus. But virus deaths are from "natural causes" too. Johnbod (talk) 15:35, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
    And it was later revealed he did in fact die from COVID-19, according to his article. Being hyper-literal, isn't any death "natural"? "Natural causes" is a term of art that means "an anticipated death due to age or other factors like chronic conditions where it wasn't felt necessary to pin down an exact cause". --47.146.63.87 (talk) 22:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Experienced Wikipedia editors sometimes play the role of teachers who have to explain to the public and other WP "editors" about impartiality, the dangers of bias and POV, promotion, autobiography, and so on. That persistent problem is made more difficult by the people who write the Signpost and who bill it as the house newspaper. Imagine the response of all the people who see the Signpost breaking POV all the time and airing their opinions and agendas. Taking sides is something we're not supposed to do as editors. I don't know if Signpost writers have any experience in journalism. They ought to try to be impartial and to present facts without commentary, analysis, and editorializing. There are plenty of places for opinions in Interworld and the real world. There certainly are a lot of them. Read a Wikipedia debate sometime. Maximum verbosity for maximum "expertise". Watch TV, read a newspaper or a web site. And you know the old adage about the value of opinions. There's nothing special about them. If you want to be special, if you want to be rebellious outsider, part of a tiny minority of radicals, then be a thinker, a calm, rational, person who is impartial, slow to judge, giving people the benefit of the doubt. Go against the grain of TV, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. The first four letters of Twitter spell "twit". Many people are OK with that. I'm not. Demand more of yourself.
Vmavanti (talk) 15:36, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject report: WikiProject COVID-19: A WikiProject Report (1,734 bytes · 💬)

  • Great interview, best luck to WikiProject COVID-19 in maintaining related articles.--Vulphere 18:21, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Honoured to be a part of this. Wiki can make a difference. Godspeed WikiProject COVID-19! --Gtoffoletto (talk) 01:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks for having me in this interview, Puddleglum. I'll see you over at GOCE and COVID-19. Cheers! --Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 05:16, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Good interview, and interesting reading. Great work, all, and good luck to project Covid-19 as they continue their work! Eddie891 Talk Work 12:27, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks all! If there are any other WikiProjects you would like to see featured in a coming issue, please don't hesitate to suggest one (or two or three) here or on my talk page! Thanks, --Puddleglum2.0(How's my driving?) 17:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC)


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