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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2020-06-28. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Anti-harassment RfC and a checkuser revocation (1,770 bytes · 💬)

  • <sigh> and so Wikipedia loses another prolific and well-respected admin and editor in Bbb23 who, rather predictably, has decided he no longer wants to volunteer large amounts of his time to the project in any capacity. I haven't followed the case so I can't comment on its merits, though I'm sure arbcom have followed their process and policies diligently. However, Bbb23 has long been a stalwart in the battle to protect Wikipedia from sockpuppets, vandals, spammers, LTAs and assorted other undesirables and it's hard to believe that his departure is a net gain to the project, regardless of his transgressions. Wikipedia seems to have a knack of losing the relatively few volunteers who contribute greatly to the encyclopaedia, which is regrettable. I wish there was a better way. Neiltonks (talk) 14:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I think Bbb23 is a wonderful person who has done an amazing amount of great work. I support the committee 100% in their decision, however. My work in real life deals with an enormous amount of sensitive information. If I did something similar, I would be fired on the spot and it would quite likely result in a felony conviction. -- Dolotta (talk) 16:43, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Community view: Community open letter on renaming (21,324 bytes · 💬)

  • It is ironic to call all the undersigned Wikipedians, because a main concern about this whole issue is that contributors to projects other than Wikipedia (such as Wikibooks) may feel like second-class citizens subordinate to editors of the flagship project, i.e., Wikipedia. 4nn1l2 (talk) 00:46, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Do you have a better term we could use? "MediaWikians, MetaWikians, Wikibookers, Wikidataists, Wikinewsians, Wikiquoters, Wikisourcers, Wikispeciesoids, Wikiversitians, Wikivoyagers, Wiktionarians, and Commonists" is a bit ungainly. Perhaps WikiWackJobs? WackyWikiWorers? MMWWWWWWWWWC? Jimbo's Minions? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
It should be noted that the original letter does not have this reference. @Smallbones: Could you change it to something more appropriate? It was probably an oversight. I think 'Wikimedians' would do the trick. effeietsanders 07:23, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
My suggestion is "users". User:4nn1l2 (talk) 08:30, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
"Users" includes editors and readers who never edit. Was that your intent? One could argue that the future of the encyclopedia and related projects should be determined by those who have contributed at least a moment of time to creating and improving the encyclopedia or related projects. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:41, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
That doesn't matter. Those who have signed are all users (whether editors or readers), but they may not be Wikipedians. "Users" is the superset and always true, "Wikipedins" only a subset and sometimes true. 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
"Wikinewsians" are actually called Wikinewsies, at least on WN itself. (If anyone's wondering how I know, I actually contributed there for a short while, but the main work was too stressful.) Glades12 (talk) 14:05, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikimedians is generally accepted when referring to those who contribute across projects. Simply user is fine, although volunteer is probably preferable. Also yes, something something irony.
Besides all that, yes, this whole exercise on the part of the Foundation pretty explicitly devalues other projects. And when I say "devalue" I mean that literally. Perhaps others, at least in the US, remember that stupid game kids would play, where you read fortune cookies and add "in bed" after the fortune so everyone can giggle. I kindof feel like something similar is the subtext to all this, where you read whatever the Foundation is saying and add ...that gets us money.
For example, "we value diversity that gets us money". "We want to capitalize on the brand awareness of Wikipedia that gets us money". Maybe "we value the community of volunteers that gets us money". GMGtalk 12:05, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Wow. the above comment explains every WMF decision in the last ten years. May I have permission to quote you ate WP:CANCER? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:06, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Sure. I mean...I don't intend to come off too vitriolic. At some level yeah, I get it. You have to have money to keep the lights on, and we can't lose ourselves in idealism to the point where start to become detached from the real world. I got a scholarship from the Foundation last year to go to Boston. I'm very thankful for that because otherwise I wouldn't have been there.
But at the same time, it seems like the vast majority of the community really just wants the Foundation to just chill out. We really don't need grand leaders here. We already have them, and they're all volunteers. What we actually need are technocrats who are intensely interested in the mundane boring stuff that lets us all get along with making more knowledge more free for more people. To be as cliche as possible, if we build it they will come and we really, hopelesslesy, desperately want you guys to just please God please stay focused on helping us build it. GMGtalk 13:28, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I suppose I have to answer the question "In the version posted here in The Signpost should the author credit and the italicized introduction (which I signed) use the word "Wikipedian" or "Wikimedian"?" This is just a reflection of the overall question addressed - sometimes rather vehemently - about the whole renaming issue. It's not clear to me which way is best. I'll note that the heading on meta for individual signers is "Members of the Wikimedia community" so I probably should have used "Wikimedians" here. I'll ping @Pharos and Fuzheado: who were, to the best of my understanding, part of the collective which did the drafting of the meta letter. Which is better "Wikipedia" or "Wikimedian"? I'll go with what they say - for use on The Signpost for the time being. The overall question is not for The Signpost to decide, so we'll wait for the ultimate decision on the issue by the Wikipedia/Wikimedia community. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:20, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
@Smallbones: Of course we meant the open letter for the whole Wikimedia community, and that is the best term, though of course a good part of its strength derives from the experience of many of us as volunteer Wikipedia project contributors.--Pharos (talk) 14:23, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I've change the author credit line to "members of the Wikimedia community: and used "Wikimedians" in the intro. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:47, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Renaming the WMF (oh yeah, we're also gonna have to replace every usage of "WMF" with "WPF" if this happens, that will be fun) is such a ridiculous idea on so many levels. Renaming it to something including "Wikipedia" is even worse. Wikipedia already has near-100% brand recognition among Internet users, and Wikimedia is only one letter off from Wikipedia. Wikimedia makes sense as a name for the collective movement and is easily understandable as such, even by those who have never directly encountered the WMF before and only know of Wikipedia. Renaming the WMF would serve exactly one purpose: say to everyone that Wikipedia is where our funding and our traffic comes from, every other project is a second-class citizen that only serves to help grow Wikipedia in some way. If that's really the philosophy that the WMF has, then why even bother continuing to host the other projects to begin with? Just spin them off or merge them into Wikipedia proper. If the WMF is continuing to host them as separate entities, then by definition they must have value distinct from Wikipedia. And if they have value distinct from Wikipedia, then they deserve recognition in the name of the whole. QED. Nathan2055talk - contribs 22:21, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
So yeah, turns out they're actually considering doing what I specifically brought up as a dumb strawman argument: merging all or most of the existing non-Wikipedia projects into Wikipedia. I'm not even going to bother explaining why that's stupid and terrible beyond simply linking WP:NOT, the page that literally makes up the first of the five pillars. If the community can't even agree with the WMF on something as basic as "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", then we have way more problems than just what the WMF wants to call itself. Nathan2055talk - contribs 22:27, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Silly Wikipedian. "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" is one of those quaint, silly Wikipedia rules that don't apply to the W?F. The equivalent rule at the W?F is "Wikipedia is a whole bunch of gullible saps putting in millions of hours of unpaid effort to make us money so we can increase salaries and make our kingdom larger." I hope this helps. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:19, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Feel free to assume that this stands for "WMF", "WPF", or "WTF".
I call on those who oppose the rebranding to start using "W?F".
"We should have been clearer: a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board."[1] -- Heather Walls, head of the Communications department at the Wikimedia Foundation and executive sponsor of the Brand project.
Sometimes it is the small things that tip the scales. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:38, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Remember New Coke? Two comments— one straw after another has consequences—the WMF board seems to act as if Wikipedians worked for wages. It seems there are three stakeholders here—(1) the current and potential users of Wikipedia, (2) the editors who produce and maintain the content, and the paid staff (to include the board members who I am sure, get nominal cash & fungible reputations). — Neonorange (Phil) 23:22, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
My question us this: Why does this keep happening? How many time does the W?F have to try shoving something down our throats only to back off when there is a shitstorm of protest before they "get it"? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:56, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
SanFran (the W?F) rakes in tens of millions of dollars off our hard work while they've made no effort, at all. They're only incentivized to maximize utility, which in their minds looks like making software changes to ease the collection of new editors while ensuring the donations keep flowing in. No amount of community dissatisfaction in the past has ever hurt their bottom line, so there's no reason they should proceed carefully. Each employee, perhaps hoping to bolster their resume before jumping ship, has a bias towards doing something, rather than just allowing the status quo. For these reasons, these problems will only continue. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:22, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
@Neonorange, Guy Macon, and Chris troutman: In general, the vast majority of software changes that have come out of the W?F since...honestly, at least since I registered my account way back in 2011 have been to either improve the on-boarding process for new editors or to retain new editors as best as possible. There have been very, very few changes pushed that were intended to make things easier for veteran editors, and usually when those did happen, they were things like Page Curation that were primarily designed to improve how veteran editors communicated with new editors, and any improvement to the editing experience for the veterans was basically an unintended side effect of the real goal. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of things like the Teahouse, and they've certainly improved the experience for new editors in a very visible and excellent way.
But can you name, off the top of your head, a single major recent improvement to enwiki's software intended primarily for use by veteran editors that came from the Foundation and not from one of the unpaid volunteer editors? The biggest one I can think of is Wikidata, and that ultimately turned out to cause substantially more trouble for editors than it's actually solved (yeah, let's have the mobile app and site pull in article subtitles stored on a completely separate project that's not monitored or vandal-checked by enwiki editors nor even displayed to editors on desktop unless they manually enable an optional gadget (which, by the by, was developed by another unpaid volunteer editor; the W?F supposedly has an "official" solution to the short description problem in the works, but still considers spending millions on rebranding to be a higher priority than developing a solution to something that's been a problem for several years)). I'm willing to give the Visual Editor a pass because I agree that having to learn wikitext is probably an actual significant hurdle to new editor retention, but what about stuff like the Media Viewer? I don't think anyone ever told the W?F that having to load a separate page to view full-size files was a significant issue for readers, much less so a significant issue for editors. In fact, the Media Viewer actually made editing worse during it's initial rollout, as the W?F had initially not bothered to show licensing info in the summary, requiring editors to load another screen to be able to access the information that they were most likely to be looking for other than the media itself; this was eventually fixed, but the fact that it wasn't thought of at all during the initial development just goes to show how out of touch W?F staff developers are from the actual editing processes. Despite all of this, somehow the Media Viewer managed to get a team of at least nine staff developers assigned to it during a development cycle of over a year. And let's not even the touch the whole Knowledge Engine catastrophe: a project that was ostensibly an improvement to Wikipedia's search function (but almost certainly, according to multiple leaked internal documents, began from an ill-advised plan for the W?F to build a competitor to Google Search) had, for at least a full year, the single largest and most well-funded development team in the entire Foundation.
It's very difficult to piece together a real explanation for all of this behavior just from the facts as the W?F gives them. But an application of Munroe's Economic Argument quickly reveals the truth: the W?F, by far, makes most of their donations from readers and new editors. Why would veterans like us donate money to a Foundation that hasn't actually given veteran editors anything useful on the software side for some half a decade, despite that fact seems to be burning cash at an exponential rate, and already has enough money in the bank to keep the servers running for the next century or so? (Per WP:CANCER, the W?F spends around $2 million USD per year on hosting, makes around $100 million USD per year in donations, has around $150 million USD in assets, and has $58 million USD in the endowment with plans to reach $100 million USD by 2026; in comparison, the Internet Archive has managed to make 68 petabytes of data available to the public 24/7 while making only about $20 million USD per year in donations.) And suddenly everything starts to make sense: the W?F spends all of their money on projects to benefit readers and new editors because that's the group most likely to donate. Veteran editors, the group who literally made Wikipedia what it is, are a non-revenue-generating expense that simply need to be placated as cheaply as possible. And this is extremely obvious if you look where Foundation developer time is allocated: of the ten top items on the 2019 community wishlist, three have been completed (coincidentally the ones involving Page Curation, account security, and article exporting), two have been started, and the remaining five haven't even been looked into; the 2020 community wishlist only had five top proposals, and only one has even been started: the article exporting feature...from the 2019 wishlist. Meanwhile night mode, improvements to the watchlist, better notifications, better diffs, and even just letting anyone enable two-factor authentication (a feature that's already finished on the technical side of things) have been sitting all but untouched for years.
But, somehow, the W?F has the money and the resources to perform a global rebranding effort, and one that just coincidentally happens to move the Foundation even closer to the reputation that Wikipedia has built for itself, mostly through it's volunteer editors and not the Foundation, over the past 19 years. The very same Wikipedia that also, just coincidentally, happens to be the Foundation's biggest source of donations by far.
Yeah. I'm not buying it. Nathan2055talk - contribs 05:41, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
  • It seems that the best "?" is "$". This results into rebranding WMF as W$F inc., aka the Wiki San Fran consortium. The richer they become, the more narrow-minded and arrogant they behave. This reminds me of the corporation that started as "The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and Temple" and became "the Templars", before being crushed down. Pldx1 (talk) 11:18, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you to user:Dan Szymborski(?) for the perfect conclusion: "will the community's opinions be ignored at the July or at the August (Board) meeting? Or is this considered a continual process? This information would help people with their planning." --77.13.106.165 (talk) 21:59, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
  • What should concern us is what the movement does, not what it is called. And, as pointed out, the missed opportunities and wasted efforts of the WMF, of which this is one. But the actual name is not the problem: and to the extent it matters, my voice would be for the best known and most used name in the outside word in general, the usual principle for WP naming---one based on Wikipedia. To the extent people here think the issue important, whether those in the community of the foundation, they're missing the point. (though perhaps I'm biased, as the various language wikipedias (in practice, almost entirely enWP) are the only part of the project I personally have or want to have any interest or involvement in--except of course for the relevant local geographic sections, whatever they may be called.) DGG ( talk ) 05:36, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
  • After a quick scan, it appears that a fair analogy would be, in a nutshell: the various individual communities that comprise the WMF adamantly oppose "globalization by the world bank" and choose instead to retain their individual sovereignty and identity. So basically, we could call it "communityism" in the purest form of the word...(except it's not a word, it's an ism)...but it's food for thought, is it not? Atsme Talk 📧 16:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm jumping on the opposing bandwagon (even though this is The Signpost's comment section, where nobody has a say on decisions like this). This is a very poor idea that will, for the most part, just make Wikipedia eclipse our other projects even more. W???F staff truly lack understanding for what most volunteers want from them, let alone what is needed to actually keep all these projects afloat. Glades12 (talk) 14:05, 25 July 2020 (UTC), updated 16:08, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Word. This letter couldn't have said it better. HᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴏGᴇɴᴇꜱɪꜱ (talk) 15:51, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion report: Community reacts to WMF rebranding proposals (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-06-28/Discussion report

Featured content: Sports are returning, with a rainbow (1,728 bytes · 💬)

  • Armbrust: many many thanks, a consequence of me being called out of town and away from my computer the weekend of publication, I’m afraid. I’ll attribute the errors as soon as I’m behind a laptop. Best, Eddie891 Talk Work 20:54, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Why does Stucky have a wikipedia article? -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 14:08, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Gallery: After the killing of George Floyd (5,605 bytes · 💬)

deisenbe (talk) 20:01, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

  • While blacks are disproportionately killed by police in the US, the above gallery states that, "Blacks are the people being killed on a regular basis by police in America." This is not correct. According to the statistics, U.S. Police Shootings: Blacks Disproportionately Affected there have been 1,252 black people killed by police since 2015. That also includes justified and unjustified. While the deaths per million are higher than whites and Hispanics, it is not a regular occurrence that someone, let alone a specific minority is being killed by the police. Also, I would like to point out this peer reviewed study that showed that there is no correlation to the race of the police officer and police shootings. The study found that the number one factor in determining if a police shooting will happen is crime rate, not race of the officer. Officer characteristics and racial disparities in fatal officer-involved shootings Again, this has nothing to do with minimizing police brutality or prosecuting misconduct, but we should be careful with our words. People are not being killed on a regular basis, whether by police or by citizens, and it's wrong to spread misinformation like that. Sir Joseph (talk) 05:36, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
If my understanding of your numbers is correct - 1,252 Black Americans killed by police 2015-2019, then the weekly average is (1,252/5)/52 = 4.8. In the non-technical meaning of the word, that sounds pretty "regular" to me. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:35, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
That's not as of 2019, it's as of May 28, 2020, which the Statista points out. So your numbers are a bit off. And, as those numbers also show, raw killings, it doesn't differentiate between justified and unjustified. Once you factor in unjustified killings, like Floyd's, the number goes down even more. Sir Joseph (talk) 15:39, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
@Sir Joseph: The rate for black people in America isn't just "higher" (as you wrote), it's 2.5 times higher, which seems to be a rather important detail that you left out. Kaldari (talk) 23:20, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
How did I leave that out if it's from a different source? Sir Joseph (talk) 23:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I assume that the first image refers to the song Hell You Talmbout. Of course since the song was created before this current death, George Floyd isn't in the article. Names are being added to that list as needed. This image can even find a place in that song article; I guess I will go ahead and add it. DTM (talk) 03:59, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
    • I didn't know the song, but it looks interesting. The names on the first 5 lines of the sign all look like people who were killed in the past 5 years, below that my eyes and memory fade. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
@DiplomatTesterMan: I'm listening to the song and I'm skeptical of a connection. The names are just the commonly-spread well-known instances of recent killings of African Americans, and "say their names" or "say his/her name" is just one of the many things chanted in the protests, or said to the police officers during them. I think any correlation with the song is a coincidence? ɱ (talk) 18:33, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Ɱ Yes, it may just be a coincidence. DTM (talk) 02:03, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
I read "being killed on a regular basis by police in America". This is a very wrong. The given link is Lists of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, not in America. There are many countries in America, not only the United States. Smallbones must change that. Cantons-de-l'Est (talk) 21:20, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Great photographs! Thanks for compiling this gallery of high quality pictures (+ video) on this important event.--Discott (talk) 15:00, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Humour: Cherchez une femme (5,052 bytes · 💬)

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  • This is very entertaining, and hopefully eye-opening for some. Thank you for the translation. -- a they/them | argue | contribs 19:09, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Of course there were over a hundred editors on the French Wikipedia who wrote it, and the translators were just marvelous. The French press has also covered this very well. One thing that they've mentioned over on the French article's talk page is that they hope there will be a real English-language version of this, i.e. using headlines from English -language newspapers. I hope so too. I'm sure that The Signpost will cover it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:57, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • This is not a humoristic text; this is a statement, a work of art about feminism and the perception of women in journalism, as seen and written by 106 wikipedia editors. I really enjoy these short but meaningful texts such as Augusto Monterroso's short dinosaur story and @thesmallestboy's "Punk's not dead" tweet (Spanish text) -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 15:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Hi Gouleg I am not sure I understand why you oppose "meaningful" and "humoristic" text: I can certify we had fun fun while writing it, and the European media found it unanimously quite humoristic as well JohnNewton8 (talk) 17:33, 29 June 2020 (UTC), from France
      • Not implying that this text being labeled as "humoristic" is bad, but from my point of view seeing how the sources just mention "A woman did X" without mentioning their names or last names is an interesting perspective, specially as how this text ends in how a woman is killed every two days, writing this from a country where femicides are an issue, maybe I just look into things too much... -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 19:03, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • As one who gained much of her early education from reading Walt Kelly's Pogo comic strips and books, and an admirer of Churchill "Churchy" LaFemme (pronounced laFEEmee) whose name is based on cherchez la femme, I object to the persistent and repeated neglect of la Femme in favor of une Femme here. – Athaenara ✉ 17:23, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • It's not safe to deliver a line with a straight face any more. – Athaenara ✉ 23:42, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
    Well heteronormativity isn't as cool as it once was. EEng 23:51, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
    Well, why's that? I got you. Also I noticed Un Femme is missing. Is this good or bad? (disclaimer: consider it to be a dad joke) Staszek Lem (talk)
  • Hi, I can't recall if the article can be changed by anyone after publication, so I'd like to flag that the incipit is missing the translation for "personnalité politique", and possibly also "of [...] nationality" or something along those lines. HTH, --176.206.61.149 (talk) 10:46, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • This is clever and poignant. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:31, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

In focus: Edit Loud, Edit Proud: LGBTIQ+ Wikimedians and Global Information Activism (1,229 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia has been... tonedeaf about LGBT issues in the past - Arguments for keeping Chelsea Manning on her deadname; and, further back, problematic deletion of user categories and infoboxes related to LGBT issues in 2007. It's doing better, but one can state the most appalling homophobic/transphobic comments in a deletion argument and never get the slightest bit of backlash - see Talk:Chelsea_Manning/Archive_16#Gender, so I'm not sure how much it's there. Should there be blocks for such things? I don't know, but it does strike me that, as it is, there's basically no consequences. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 7.2% of all FPs 22:48, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

In the media: Part collaboration and part combat (3,056 bytes · 💬)

  • As a Mexican female deletionist, this sucks; if anyone starts calling the other a SJW, that's a huge red flag -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 14:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @Gouleg: seeing "Social Justice Warrior" on Wikipedia does seem to be strange. What have people got against social justice? What else do people discuss about social policy other than their views of what social justice means? I guess sometimes their views of social justice come across as "I earned it and you can't get it - that's the law" or "we need to protect people just like me from being exploited" but ultimately that's just their sincerely held view of social justice. The "warrior" part used to bug me - I don't want to go to war with anybody. But expressing my views on social policy is not going to war. All in all, if somebody calls you a SJW, just take it as a compliment. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:46, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
      • I think more people just started using it as a way to dismiss or ridicule people with those kind of opinions, it's silly but sadly it does seem to work as a way for them to try and diminish that person's points. Still the acronym, excluding the "warrior" part perhaps, isn't something something dislikable IMO, which is why it makes it weirder so like Smallbones said, compliment it is I suppose. SnowingCrystals (talk) 07:35, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
    • I agree with Gouleg: The term "SJW" is useful, because it tells me that the person using it is (probably) not worth the effort of engaging with (in much the same way as a conspiracy theorist is not worth engaging with). It's a form of name-calling and tantamount to a personal attack, regardless of your political leanings or what you think it "really means." We should all be capable of a higher level of discourse than that. --NYKevin 21:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
  • As a part of public space debates Wikipedia really needs critical observers like that Slate article. It's not wrong at all to get the goings-on of Wp procedures mirrored. All the worse if the noticed factions partly consist of sockpuppets as [[User:Bri]|Bri] commented. -- And like NYKevin I agree with Gouleg: being named as SJW should be seen as tantamount to a personal attack and be socially sanctioned (especially if not evidently true). To prevent a polluted atmosphere inside Wikipedia we need to ban those microaggressions by toxic terms. -- Just N. (talk) 21:45, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Interview: What is wrong with rebranding to "Wikipedia Foundation"? (5,493 bytes · 💬)

÷

  • The open letter is calling for more comity and respect in our movement, and I hope we can all take a step together toward that.--Pharos (talk) 22:43, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • It would have been nice to ask Qgil (WMF), or another member of the team, for their viewpoints (they were pretty happy to talk in the office hours). Obviously I disagree with them, vigorously, except that some rebranding is probably necessary, but more viewpoints is beneficial. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:47, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I could do with less editorializing in the questions by The Signpost. The claim "Thus the WMF wants to promote the lesser known projects by using the world famous name" is dubious. More likely is "Thus the WMF wants to increase the effectiveness of fundraising by using the world famous name". --Guy Macon (talk) 05:36, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Both should be included as both were stated as targets in discussions with their team, including in the recent office hours calls. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:15, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • There are two issues combined here: (1) the Foundation renaming itself & its affiliates; & (2) choice of name. Speaking for myself, I have no strong objection to (1), beyond the question doesn't the Foundation have more important issues to allocate time, money & resources to? As for (2), one reason I object to the choice that hasn't been mentioned to my knowledge, is that I resent that I've donated considerable time & effort (as well as paying for access to information) to the success of Wikipedia by supplying the content people value it for, & the Foundation now wants to appropriate this success without offering much tangible help in accessing that information. I'm not saying that I want them to be entirely hands-off -- there are many ways they could help the average content contributor -- but that their effective approach to Wikipedia has been "You've done such a wonderful job with this resource. Now we just want to change everything so it conforms to what we think people should have, because we know better than you." -- llywrch (talk) 18:32, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • While I wouldn't have said it was one of the most important things for them to do, I could understand the WMF wanting to rebrand themselves to something that avoids confusion with Wikileaks. The problems with rebranding themselves as the Wikipedia foundation is that it downgrades every part of the movement except Wikipedia, and lots of Wikipedians don't want it because it would dilute the Wikipedia brand to include a whole lot of things with different policies to Wikipedia, and to be frank, not all Wikipedians are entirely comfortable with the WMF being the voice of Wikipedia, if it was just a fundraising thing it would still have a lot of opposition, but I fear their intention may be more than that. Oh and the one sensible reason why a WMF rename might be worth doing if the WMF had less on its plate? The Wikipedia foundation is likely to face as much confusion with Wikileaks as the Wikimedia foundation. ϢereSpielChequers 20:19, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Incredible. What were these schmucks thinking? That's the equivalent of trying to rebrand Apple as the iPhone company. There's simply no way this outlandish proposal can pass through community consensus. I do appreciate their good intentions of course, but it's not practical. HᴇʀᴘᴇᴛᴏGᴇɴᴇꜱɪꜱ (talk) 15:47, 26 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I go along with most all previous speakers. Of course that venture of WMF is a bad idea. It will produce grave future distortions. Core community members - the beating heart of the Wikipedia activity - will be alienated. The usurpers of WMF will probably lose the trust and the respect of a lot of people. But the answer to all these disasters to come should not just be to rant and rave at WMF. It really seems probable that they legally can do it. Sad startling discovery that there haven't been no precautionary measures installed to prevent that sort of usurption. It reminds me of those russian managers of the 1990s that turned into billionaires by becoming legal owners of the factories they had just managed before. But rants don't change anything to the better. Are there any effective measures left that could (if not stop the usurpers right away) convince them of the extent of toxic adverse effects they will have to expect? -- Just N. (talk) 20:59, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

News and notes: Progress at Wikipedia Library and Wikijournal of Medicine (517 bytes · 💬)

"A rebrand will happen" ... maybe?

Feel free to revert my edit that removed that note, but it seems inaccurate (given the Board statement of a few days ago). I haven't read other Signpost pages yet; I'm guessing the latest news is covered on other pages. - Dank (push to talk) 19:08, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Mediawiki seem to be doing much better at the whole rebranding thing than the broader WMF one! Nosebagbear (talk) 21:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

News from the WMF: We stand for racial justice (29,329 bytes · 💬)

  • (For those still on the fence about whether it would be dangerous to allow the WMF to call itself Wikipedia, WMF has you covered...)
    To remain a neutral and trustworthy source of information, we should not be having our support organizations pushing a side in a debate unrelated to the functioning of our projects. To be an inclusive community, our support organizations should not be participating in furthering outside conflicts.
    The WMF is supposed to support the Wikimedia projects. When people give the WMF donations to do that, the WMF should not spend it on something else, even if they think it's important. Support for the projects cannot be dependent on whether or not the executives happen to like the Wikimedia projects best, out of available causes. They don't get to decide the scope and purpose of the Wikimedia Foundation based on whatever they feel is important to the world. This is what it means to hold something in a position of trust.
    When we blacked to oppose the existential threat that was SOPA, we understood that we were entering dangerous waters, which is why the Wikimedia Foundation established clear guidelines, limiting when and where the WMF was permitted to engage in advocacy, prohibiting advocacy outside areas relevant to the functioning of Wikimedia projects (identified as these five areas), and generally requiring that even advocacy within those areas first receive community consent (a position endorsed by all three community-elected Trustees). These guidelines are now being ignored. The dangers identified were what we are seeing here: Straight-up advocacy for American healthcare legislation, primary/secondary education spending, criminal justice reform, etc. Like Wikipedia, the WMF should not become a vehicle for righting great wrongs or otherwise be a soapbox for whatever causes the staff happen to support at any given moment. --Yair rand (talk) 18:54, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I disagree strongly. I can only express my support of good projects like AfroCrowd and Black Lunch Table, and we shouldn't make this about any other issue.--Pharos (talk) 21:04, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
    @Pharos: Support of affiliates that do good work on Wikimedia projects does not need to be connected to the advocacy for changes in government policy and legislation expressed in the blog post. --Yair rand (talk) 21:29, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Yair, I cannot agree at all with your complaint here. Where there is systemic bias or a pervasive destruction of shared commons that pervades society, we and our institutions all have a part to play. This includes being a role model for our peers; which is not the same as formal advocacy as described in the public policy guidelines. I am proud that the Foundation took this public stand, and is sharing their approach and reasoning in this way. – SJ + 21:19, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Moreover, the systemic bias affecting our knowledge of the world, influenced persistently by active injustice, sits at the heart of our work. And that is entirely ours to recognize, categorize, prioritize, and counter. – SJ + 02:56, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I do get concerned when I see lines like Building power, relationships, and resources to advance epistemic justice without clarification. If it means things like encouraging edithons et al to create additional articles that meet all our requirements then that's fine. Equally, if it's creating an additional project to host information that can't be sourced in compliance with our secondary/reliable/independent requirement, that's also fine (in fact, to be encouraged). But the strategic recommendations details specifically leave open trying to amend the local community notability (or source definition) rules, despite that being the one facet in the recommendation opposed by a clear majority in both consultation stages. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:41, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • It continually blows my mind that so many editors fail to grasp that the goal of "creating the sum of human knowledge and making it freely available" absolutely and fundamentally requires that racial justice be in extant. You cannot have freedom without justice. Without justice, you have no one to read the pretty words.
    The simple idea of an encyclopedia is radically, insanely politic. To think otherwise is naive, or willfully hostile to the mission itself.--Jorm (talk) 03:50, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Evidence, please. Just because two things are both highly desirable does not establish that one cannot have one without the other, and it certainly does not imply that any particular organization cannot work towards one desirable goal while remaining silent on another. There are a huge number of great wrongs out there that the WMF can attempt to right:
  • The goal of "creating the sum of human knowledge and making it freely available" absolutely and fundamentally requires income equality.
  • The goal of "creating the sum of human knowledge and making it freely available" absolutely and fundamentally requires nuclear disarmament.
  • The goal of "creating the sum of human knowledge and making it freely available" absolutely and fundamentally requires CO2 reductions
  • The goal of "creating the sum of human knowledge and making it freely available" absolutely and fundamentally requires LGBT rights.
  • The goal of "creating the sum of human knowledge and making it freely available" absolutely and fundamentally requires a balanced budget.
...and so on, and so on. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:23, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
That is a cool story, bro.--Jorm (talk) 04:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Go away, Jorm. For those who don't know why Jorm keeps posting that same snarky comment, I criticized Visual Editor, Flow, and Mobile App back when he was a W?F employee and he took great umbrage to my doing so. I don't mind him defending the W?F, but repeating the exact same snarky comment again and again is just annoying. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Cool story, bro!--Jorm (talk) 19:06, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
@Jorm: What does this phrase mean? Cool story bro redirects to Internet troll, but the article doesn't explain further. Are you trying to identify as a troll, or calling Guy a troll, or something else? --Yair rand (talk) 19:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
" 'Cool Story, Bro' is a catchphrase often used as a sarcastic response on message boards or in comments to posts that are deemed boring, pointless or too long to read."[2] --Guy Macon (talk) 19:37, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • If you want to restrict the freedom of speech, you don't start with Democrats or Republicans. You start with Nazis or Communists. Nobody agrees with those people, so restrict their freedom of speech. (And no, I am not talking about some website not giving them a forum. I am talking about the government making unpopular political statements actually illegal. See https://xkcd.com/1357/ ) Bonus points if you can paint those who defend free speech as Nazi sympathizers.
If you want to lock people up for life without access to a lawyer, being charged with a crime, or a court examining the evidence against them, you don't start with a popular politician or even a bank robber. Instead you start with someone everyone agrees is a terrorist. Bonus points if you can paint those who defend Habeas corpus as Al-Qaeda or ISIS/ISIL supporters.
If you want to violate the longstanding rule that neither Wikipedia or the WMF takes any official position supporting or opposing any political view or proposal (with the sole exception being proposed laws that directly interfere with our ability to be an online encyclopedia; see Protests against SOPA and PIPA) and you want to throw meta:Legal/Foundation Policy and Political Association Guideline, into the trash can, you don't start with something that half the population opposes. You start with something everyone agrees on, like deescalating police standoffs or reforming criminal justice systems, and avoid specifics on exactly how you want to accomplish those goals. Bonus points if you can paint those who want the WMF to remain non-political as approving of police officers murdering unarmed black people by kneeling on their necks.
When I see statements (in bold) like "On these issues, there is no neutral stance.", "Our work cannot be separated from the work of equality and freedom." and "We call upon governments to..." I say HELL NO.
I could say more, but instead I urge everyone to re-read the comments by Yair rand at the top of this talk page. Key quotes:
"Support for the projects cannot be dependent on whether or not the executives happen to like the Wikimedia projects best, out of available causes. They don't get to decide the scope and purpose of the Wikimedia Foundation based on whatever they feel is important to the world."
"Like Wikipedia, the WMF should not become a vehicle for righting great wrongs or otherwise be a soapbox for whatever causes the staff happen to support at any given moment."
--Guy Macon (talk) 04:10, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Since there's a certain Canadian trio that's said almost everything worth saying, and better than any of us could, I'll just note their warning about being so full of what is right you can't see what is good. On these issues they preferred to show, not tell, by doing what they did best (side note, it's still jarring to have to write about Rush in past tense). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:40, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Are you seriously equating unambiguous support of human and racial justice to a coordinated and malicious government effort to suppress speech? That is completely beyond the pale. I am embarrassed to share the project with this comment and encourage you to delete it. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:10, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure the answer to your initial question is "no". :) These kinds of "slope" arguments are complicated, and often draw analogies from areas that aren't equivalent in all respects, but still point to useful patterns for understanding things. --Yair rand (talk) 18:46, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Re: "Are you seriously equating unambiguous support of human and racial justice to a coordinated and malicious government effort to suppress speech?", Bonus points for painting someone who wants the WMF to follow their own rules as someone who equates evil with good. Double bonus points for ignoring the [XKCD] that I carefully included to make clear the I was talking about the WMF and the government both using unpopular targets as justification for following their own rules, not comparing the government and the WMF in other ways that would be silly. Triple bonus points for having the unmitigated gall to try to paint me in a bad light after I repeatedly said "Bonus points if you can paint those who..." Did you actually think nobody would notice? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:46, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I did none of those things. You wrote three paragraphs with parallel structures saying "If you want to X", "If you want to Y," and "If you want to Z." That is, definitionally, a comparison by equation, differing in degree not in kind. Your first item was talking about the government making unpopular political statements actually illegal, which would indeed be a coordinated and malicious government effort to suppress speech. Do not put words in my mouth or hide behind "bonus points." I take no issue with you stating your views on the WMF's statement, as so many others here have; I am galled at the way in which you chose to do so. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 09:34, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Amory, I find your comments disgraceful and your argument against Guy embarrassing. Don't bother to apologize, just stop. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:09, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • This is the first time I can remember even hearing Janeen Uzzell's name, let alone being aware she was an employee of WMF. -- llywrch (talk) 18:17, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
    She hasn't been around for that long. She only joined last year. Maybe The Signpost could run a profile on her. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:02, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
    Hmm. They were so excited about Ryan Merkeley joining that it was announced several times. (For some reason I thought he was being hired as COO, so I found Uzzell's existence doubly surprising.) However, he has yet to communicate to the communities online, even to make a statement as she has. -- llywrch (talk) 02:02, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, WMF, as basically every other US-based organization, was probably under intense pressure to say something about the George Floyd killing or else be accused of racism. So the fact they released this statement should be understood not only as internal political activism but also as a result of external political necessity. WMF is also an employer, and it makes perfect sense that they want to emphasize their commitment to being fair and equitable when dealing with employees and potential hires regarding issues of race. I also understand (and support) their underlining of some of our communities like Afrocrowd as a means of improving the encyclopedia by broadening our content and reducing systemic bias. That said, I share Yair rand's concerns about the WMF perhaps going too far in embracing a political cause that resides largely outside its original purview. Ironically, this whole statement reveals how American-centric the WMF is. The fallout from the killing of Floyd is global, but it is still primarily a US problem. The talk of events in various American cities and the emphasis on the experience of American minorities highlights this. I have the suspicion that if something comparably horrific happened outside the US, and the larger Western world, we wouldn't hear a peep from the WMF. People are dying all over the world every day from poverty, war, terrorism, corruption, abuse of power, and intense discrimination. Is the WMF supposed to take a grand public stance on each one of these issues? I wouldn't expect them too, but that also means they shouldn't weigh in things just because they are closer to home. Long story short, I feel this is really about the well-meaning WMF staff making themselves feel self-righteous (or covering their asses) rather than fixing problems. Because Americans will criticize their silence, not Indians, not Kenyans, not Nigerians, not Syrians. If I could choose what was in this statement I would keep it to these simple planks:
  • As an employer, WMF is committed to treating its employees and affiliates fairly, regardless of race.
  • WMF celebrates the efforts of our editors to create reliable content regarding these major events related to the killing of George Floyd (just look at all the photos Wikipedians have uploaded to commons from the protests)
  • WMF supports and encourages efforts to minimize systemic bias on Wikipedia through creating content on underserved areas. Here are some of our Wiki communities that do this [insert Afrocrowd etc.]. Here's how you can help [insert information on how to become Wikipedia editor]
  • WMF is committed to ensuring everyone around the world has equal access to Wikipedia content and the equal chance to participate in creating it [insert possible initiative that is directly related to our mission, such as funding more computers/broadband internet connections in underserved communities].
-Indy beetle (talk) 02:22, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Indy beetle. That's exactly what WMF should have done: commit to cleaning up its own house. Instead it has tried to earn cool-points by carrying the banner ... but the whole point of NPOV is that Wikipedia doesn't carry banners. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:09, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Persuading someone that they have no choice is a common psychological manipulation tactic. No. There always is a chance to step back, think for a while and be neutral if needed. I can condemn things you did not comdemn, such as looters killing the black ex-police captain of St. Louis David Dorn during the rioting. Reasonable people can also reasonably disagree about your policy proposals for governments. --Pudeo (talk) 17:25, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
  • So far I have found nothing I fundamentally disagree with in this statement. I support most of it. However, I am also very shocked to see the WMF making this statement.
The WMF's statement should have been restricted to the narrow issue of what WMF itself will do to uphold equality and anti-racism as an employer, as a host of a community of editors, and as a publisher. This foray goes way beyond that remit into issues of police militarisation, excessive police force, mass imprisonment, failures in education etc ... and despite the explictly global scope of some of the statement, the context is clearly a response to events in one country.
This sets a very bad precedent. Is the WMF going to be driven to similar statements about events in other countries? If it does comment on injustices anywhere on earth, it will be kept very busy indeed. On the other hand, if is only going to comment when driven by events in the US, then Wikipedia's proclaimed global mission looks more horribly Amerocentric.
As Guy Macon noted above, if this issue justifies the WMF dropping neutrality, why not others? It's easy to condemn the "the violence of history and power" in America, and to rightly note that the WMF mission of freedom knowledge is impeded by such repression. But where's the logic in doing that without condemning, for example, the US-equipped Saudi bombing of Yemen, or the Xinjiang re-education camps for Uyghurs, or the Israeli military occupation of Palestine? People can't share and access knowledge when they are being bombed into the stone age, or held in an indoctrination camps or being driven off their land. Where's the logic in condemning police militarisation as a threat to freedom of knowledge without condemning the capture of news media by corporate interests, or the deep poverty and lack of medicine which leaves so many Americans struggling to survive?
The WMF has opened a massive can of worms here, and severely damaged Wikipedia's reputation. This statement reminds me of student politics: full of righteous indignation at th latest selected injustice, but with no coherent strategic view of what the student body's role is. This WMF statement may make the CEO and COO feel good, but its lack of understanding of the WMF's role is dangerously naive.
Those who want to pursue the current agendas of American liberalism have many vehicles to do so, and adding the WMF to that huge convoy makes little or no difference to their campaigns. But there is only one Wikipedia, and hitching it so overtly to one convoy in one country diminishes its stated neutrality, and makes it look as sadly parochial as it does partisan. I hoped for very much better.
(Please note, BTW, that I use the word "liberalism" narrowly, and not as a synonym for everything left of the hard right. This statement looks just as partisan from the left as it does from the right) --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
Great point! "Is the WMF going to be driven to similar statements about events in other countries" indeed. The WMF explicitly took a political stand by calling for specific changes by the US Government, but I can think of several other nations that are doing evil things that they should change. Why doesn't the new "This is bad, thus we cannot remain silent about this" rule apply to those other countries? Or to nongovernmental organizations who do bad things? Plenty of those around. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
W?F has the courage to ruin everything.
I have found that organizations (businesses and the like) mouth the words of solidarity with the alligator, in the hopes that they will be eaten last. They think making a corporate statement about responsibility only has upside and never has downside, so it's our job to remind them that they lose respect every time they talk out of turn. Also, Kudpung was right: The Signpost ought to quit re-publishing W?F's content. The W?F deserves to be ignored. Chris Troutman (talk) 18:09, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
      • @Chris troutman: I wouldn't have heard of this if not for The Signpost publishing it. I think it's important that we print such big statements from the WMF so everyone at least knows what our host organization is saying. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:13, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Who came up with this question mark thing because it looks really childish. Is this some sort of QAnon thing? Don't say Voldemort's name or something?--Jorm (talk) 19:08, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
It employs a wildcard character, which is part of computing. I guess you're unfamiliar with that subject. -- llywrch (talk) 20:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
That would be me. No need to thank me. Ours is a love that must never speak its name... :)
As a minor gesture of protest against the Wikimedia foundation's decision to rebrand itself with Wikipedia's good name, until they back down I choose to call them "the "W?F".
Feel free to assume that this stands for "WMF", "WPF", or "WTF".
I call on those who oppose the rebranding to start using "W?F".
"We should have been clearer: a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board."[3] -- Heather Walls, head of the Communications department at the Wikimedia Foundation and executive sponsor of the Brand project.
Sometimes it is the small things that tip the scales. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Jorm: The W?F is having an identity crisis; you should be more understanding, honestly. Chris Troutman (talk) 19:22, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: I should be understanding about what? I think there's probably far more important things to care about, but you kids do you. I am going to say that it doesn't make you seem serious at all.--Jorm (talk) 19:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
You could be more understanding that W?F is experiencing an existential nightmare. Anyway, it's not my goal to impress you; us kids are doing us, so to say. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Wow. Just, wow. WMF picking sides in a very controversial topic when it wants people to trust Wikipedia as a neutral source of information. It's even more striking considering that WMF wants to rebrand itself "Wikipedia Foundation". I'd quit if I thought this would actually compromise Wikipedia's neutrality.
"On these issues, there is no neutral stance." That's absurd, if there is no neutral stance, than why do we bother covering it on Wikipedia when doing so would violate one of its core values? There is always a neutral stance. In this case, the non-neutral those who believe Floyd was murdered and those who believe his death was accidental. The truly neutral are the ones that don't pick sides, the ones that watch from sidelines waiting for a full investigation into Floyd's death before jumping to conclusions.
Encouraging people to write articles about black/indigenous people is one thing, but shaming them into doing so is another. This whole "combating systemic bias" thing has been taken to an extreme by making people who write such articles feel better about themselves and rewarding them just for participating. - ZLEA T\C 17:27, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with the criticism above by Yair rand and others. I have three main reservations. The first is that racial justice is a nice-sounding term but is also essentially meaningless, especially in the context of Wikipedia. It allows different people to read in many different things, all of which we have now seemingly endorsed. The second is that it sets a worrying precedent for political engagement as set out above. The WMF's condemnation is not going to "deescalate police standoffs" or "reform criminal justice systems" in any conceivable version of reality I know. As such, it is just posturing. Are we now going to start on the Two-State Solution? Free Tibet? Condemn mass-killings in Ethiopia? All are worthy causes, and potentially much more important than US domestic policy. This brings me to the third policy which is the blatant US-centric nature of this political issue which, ironically, threatens to compromise Wikipedia's aspiration to be free of the "systematic bias" towards Anglophone and US-related issues. —Brigade Piron (talk) 08:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Our role is to accurately describe the real world, with the hoped-for result that those wishing to improve it will use the information wisely. Our job is not direct action, except in defense of our right to freely publish. DGG ( talk ) 05:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

On the bright side: For what are you grateful for this month? (1,089 bytes · 💬)

  • Not quite "this month", but the stats for the month of May show that the Hebrew Wikipedia, Farsi Wikipedia, and Turkish Wikipedia all reached new all-time highs in numbers of very-active (100+ edits) editors. Congratulations to hewiki, fawiki, and trwiki! --Yair rand (talk) 19:00, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • A reminder to be patient with new users. - When is a new user no longer a new user? Just as it is in the world that we learn at our own paces, on Wikipedia some users may grasp this place within 5000 edits, while others, like me may take over 10,000. Whatever the number, we are glad when new users stick around on Wikipedia. I am grateful that Wikipedia continues to attract new editors and that this place has been built to make sure that a small percentage of those new users stay with us. DTM (talk) 04:10, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Opinion: Trying to find COI or paid editors? Just read the news (6,117 bytes · 💬)

  • Unfortunately (or, fortunately, depending on your viewpoint) it only takes one editor to publish a BLP but it takes about a dozen editors to get one deleted. I'm involved in one AfD biography right now where the page creating editor has persistently challenged the deletion votes and has managed to get the discussion extended another seven days for further consensus. And if there is no clear consensus to delete the default will be "keep". In a nutshell, it takes a lot of time an effort to remove these paid editing biographies. Yes, vanity biographies do indeed hurt Wikipedia. When somebody's name is ran through a web search their Wikipedia biography is usually a top result. Instant credibility. I'm not sure what is the solution. Perhaps a separate BLP patrol from the general New Page Patrol? Blue Riband► 00:24, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not a reliable source. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:21, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @Davidwr: I certainly don't trust a Wikipedia article on a small or medium sized business or on a business person who is not well-known by the general public. There's way too much advertising for me. If I want advertising, I can just go to the company's website. At least that way I know for sure who is piling on the BS. If a majority of editors felt the same way I do, Wikipedia would have to quit accepting those types of articles and spend a tremendous amount of time cleaning up the old ones.. The disclaimer that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, is not however, an excuse for us to accept such garbage. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:21, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
      • @Smallbones: Despite the garbage, these articles can be useful for canny readers who can discount the puffery and seize on any critical points that are made, especially if the subject has been convicted of a crime or been officially censured. Of course, one worries that many readers may not be canny in that way. How much do we know about how people read and use Wikipedia? Mrmedley (talk) 01:30, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
        • @Mrmedley: I don't know how much we really know about our readers. Somewhere there must be readers by country for e.g. Enwiki. I assume it's fairly similar to editors by country, which has some info referred to here (with more readers than writers proportionately from countries where there are many people who speak English as a 2nd or 3rd language, since it's a lot easier to read than write a foreign language. Somewhere I think there is a survey of readers, but not so many as to tell much about them. If anybody has specifics on our data on readers, please let us know. But beyond that all i can say is the very obvious - they are a very diverse group. Probably ranging in age from 10 to 100 (I know a 90 y.o. editor and a long time ago I met an editor of maybe 12 y.o.). Probably including anybody who can afford a computer and internet connections (and quite a few who can't who use school and library computers) as long as they have a minimum literacy level. Just incredibly diverse.
        • Given that, many readers can probably read between the lines and know BS when they read it. Others will be taken in by slick PR presentations. One touchstone is some work I did on binary options articles. IIRC an article like Banc de Binary was getting something like 300 page views per day, in all language versions, but they where spending huge amounts of money or staff time for paid editing, e.g. $15,000 for a short/medium term contract was reported on-Wiki. The thing to remember is that they only needed a few victims to scam. Press accounts start at an estimated average (or median) $20,000 loss per victim. So if they only got 3 new victims per day through Wikipedia, they were still taking in very good money. So if only 1% of our readers are not sophisticated enough to see through an obvious scam like binary options, we're still doing a great disservice to our readers.
        • Sure most readers can see through most scams like that, but that is no excuse for letting those types of article in the 'pedia. Other types of PR or even just simple bias have their own costs to our readers. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
          • I don't think there is evidence been presented that canny readers can see the difference. I think it is the reverse, although I don't have any research to back it up, more so from my own experience. The reason that so many people are scammed on their own computers, is that the scammers responses fit the expectations of the scammed, and even those you expect to notice it, those in IT and IT security, still get scammed and it is the same kind of experience that is happening here. The type of articles that are being written by these folk, since about 2008, are getting more and more fluid in their response. It is a natural evolution, and it gets commensurately harder to spot them. I suspect that the number of folk that see them for what they are and extract value from them, is very small and those that do, are in that industry. I think the majority takes an honest approach and reads as it is. For me it is a regular occurrence to work on articles that have are subsequently speedied, Afd'd or whatnot, that I thought were genuine.scope_creepTalk 07:47, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Recent research: Wikipedia and COVID-19; automated Wikipedia-based fact-checking (1,678 bytes · 💬)

  • " a claim such as Tim Roth was born in <MASK> should have predicted "1961", but predicted "London"." - At risk of stating the obvious... what's the problem with that autocompletion? There are clearly multiple possible valid completions here, even if some of them are facts no normal human would bring up. But both city of birth and birthdate are valid things in normal conversation as well as syntactically. SnowFire (talk) 17:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
CCing Matthew Sumpter who wrote this review and has read the actual paper, but my understanding is that this ambiguity becomes a problem if one wants to use the method to e.g. fact-check the claim "Tim Roth was born in 1944". Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:21, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes, User:HaeB, this is a correct interpretation - while the fact is valid, it is not useful for the task. Matthew Sumpter (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Facebook research about automated Wikipedia-based fact-checking using language models
Forgive me, but I couldn’t help shake my head when I read this. Facebook is the leading source of coronavirus misinformation in the world. Perhaps these "researchers" should focus their efforts on their employer. Viriditas (talk) 22:35, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Traffic report: The pandemic, alleged murder, a massacre, and other deaths (1,041 bytes · 💬)

Where is the raw data? All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:08, 28 June 2020 (UTC).

There's a link to it atop the page. Although it compiles from this tool, given the one used before has been down since January. igordebraga ≠ 00:37, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Just want to add, that Dominic Cummings page has many views might be due to the fact that he allegedly broke curfew after he was tested positive for covid-19, enraging UK citizens. Lulusword (talk) 04:52, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject report: WikiProject Black Lives Matter (583 bytes · 💬)

This is the largest civil rights protest around the globe, so I was extremely heartened to see that Wikipedia covered the global and local dimensions when most media are focused on local or US context only. Having edited numerous law enforcement pages, it’s clear many of them suffer from promotional and WP:NPOV tone. When I created Police union I was heartened how quickly it became an internationally relevant page, even if my inspiration was admittedly to document US police unions. ~ Shushugah (talk) 22:35, 2 July 2020 (UTC)


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