Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2024-03-02. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

In the media: The Scottish Parliament gets involved, a wikirace on live TV, and the Foundation's CTO goes on record (3,969 bytes · 💬)

Scottish Parliament computers might have been used to edit Wikipedia, report says

I feel like this story deserves a full "Disinformation report", because those IP users might have edited an even bigger amount of articles than the report suggested... Oltrepier (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Taylor Tomlinson hosts a wikirace on live TV

For what it's worth, Snoop Dogg → Cleveland → Great Depression is 3. — Qwerfjkl talk 12:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

... according to this script. Qwerfjkl talk 15:34, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's the same theme that I came here to comment. For any sufficiently famous American, one can expect with fair confidence that one can start from the portion of their Wikipedia article that discusses the places where they've grown up, lived, worked, or visited, then use that phenomenon to click through and scroll to the history of such a place, including the portion of that chronology that covers the 1930s era, and for any sufficiently famous city or state, a link to the Great Depression is likely to be discoverable. I had never consciously done that analysis before, but while I was skimming the news article the notion arose as one of the methods for solving that has the right combination of power and likelihood, across many instances of notable persons and notable places. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl and Quercus solaris: Yes, obviously the show's staff went for a specific number of articles and a specific pattern, but the possibilities are almost infinite, really... Anyhow, shout-out to Taylor and the rest of the writing crew! : D Oltrepier (talk) 08:39, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed! Good fun, plus it encourages people to think while having fun. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I suspect this varies greatly depending on whether navboxes (which are hidden on mobile) are allowed. Nardog (talk) 03:27, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

In brief

A small correction: The court case was decided by a single judge on the Court of International Trade. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:16, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts: Thank you, I'll add it to the entry! Oltrepier (talk) 08:42, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

It kind of hurts when a Federal judge says WP is "unreliable evidence"; however, Judge Choe-Groves provides some good tips in the ruling on improving the article Drive shaft to include more details on "power take-off" shafts! ☆ Bri (talk) 16:55, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

It's funny yet annoying to see cringe people and organizations complain about Wikipedia yet again. Also based washington encyclopedia; I didn't know it existed lmao Firestar464 (talk) 02:01, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

News and notes: Wikimedia enters US Supreme court hearings as "the dolphin inadvertently caught in the net" (6,924 bytes · 💬)

U4C Charter vote

The result was 1249 voters in support and 420 voters opposed. 69 voters did not choose an option Who let Elon Musk rig the UCOC result? (and who let Elon Musk name it in the first place?) BilledMammal (talk) 11:03, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, operation Votey McVoteFace. I am actually impressed, even if that’s a coincidence. ASUKITE 13:56, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Based. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:55, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Came here to ask the same thing. Clear violation of WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK :) —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:55, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Can confirm, did result in quite the chuckle at tally-time. Total coincidence of course. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 19:27, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

In brief

Many congratulations to Sdkb for gaining admin powers! Oltrepier (talk) 11:40, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Oltrepier! I wasn't expecting it to spawn a round of RfA reform haha, but hope it leads to some improvements! Sdkb ^talk 16:42, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Sdkb, and congratulations on the new signature! I presume to help fellow editors recognize the new ~~powers~~ responsibilities, lest they confuse you with the old {{u|pill-shaped}} Sdkb. —⁠andrybak (talk) 13:56, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I had been overdue for a change for a while, Andrybak, and when Q21 was asked it seemed like an opportune moment! ~~Eagle~~ Lemur-eyed observers may also notice the new avatar(s) on my user page 🙂 Sdkb ^talk 16:48, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Politically motivated content moderation

these laws were designed to prevent social media platforms from engaging in politically motivated content moderation Are you sure? Polygnotus (talk) 23:53, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Leading up to the 2020 United States elections, there was a rise of misinformation on these services related to topics such as claims of election fraud and conspiracy theories related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of this misinformation originated from conservative parties including the far right and alt right.[2] Because of this, services like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook took action to moderate these posts from users, either by tagging them as misinformation or outright removal.[2] Some of this misinformation was put forth by Republican party members, including then-President Donald Trump, leading the Republican Party to seek legal review of Section 230 believing that this law allowed politically-motivated moderation.... Two state laws passed by Florida and Texas in 2021 created state-level challenges to Section 230.

One of those is Texas House Bill 20. It is certainly not "designed to prevent social media platforms from engaging in politically motivated content moderation". It is designed to ensure that platforms can't stop the spread of fake news and misinformation (lies about the election, about Biden, about Covid et cetera). Polygnotus (talk) 00:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

"If we have to negotiate the terms of the negotiation, we will never get anywhere." - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Or, more prosaically: We can discuss the law, or we can discuss how the law is described, but if we try to do both at once, it's not going to work very well. I happen to agree that the law is intended to favor conservative speech, but I don't think it would be useful to argue over whether it is intended to favor false speech specifically, and (considering the current state of the Republican Party) that is arguably a distinction without a difference anyway. --N Y Kevin 09:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

@NYKevin: All conversations in 2024 are metaconversations dixit the Zuckster. Anyway, when quoting something that is obviously false it is wise to throw a little [sic] or "We know this is bullshit but we are reproducing the quote as written" in there. A law intended to favor a particular political party != a law designed to prevent social media platforms from engaging in politically motivated content moderation. Not something to argue about, but worth pointing out so that people are not misled. Polygnotus (talk) 10:17, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I've read the Texas bill, albeit a little hastily. It's not clear to me that, even if it applies to any Wikimedia sites, there is any onerous condition. I'd be interested to know which clauses are the problem here. I haven't seen the other piece of legislation. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 14:36, 19 March 2024 (UTC).

I take a more radical view, failing to see why there should be any law on the topic of censorship by social media. No need to carve out an exception for Wikipedia and the like. If The Onion or Facebook or Truth Social or whoever, want to operate a website free of dissent or balance or truth or whatever they may decide to dislike, they should be allowed to do that. We have our values; others value something else. Jim.henderson (talk) 23:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Obituary: Vami_IV (2,763 bytes · 💬)

24 is no age to go - I didn't realise Vami was so young; he showed a maturity of approach and of writing that masked his age entirely. I will miss reviewing his excellent articles. We are less well off than we were before. - SchroCat (talk) 12:54, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
In addition to his individual accomplishments and his collaborative work at Milhist and Women in Red, which the editors rightly highlight in the obituary, I would flag his collaborations at FAR. I worked with him on Belton House, and it was an absolute pleasure. It is a matter of deep regret that the opportunity will not reoccur. Sincere condolences to his family and friends. KJP1 (talk) 13:48, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
I suggest that all condolences go to the user talk page, where his relatives and friends will see our appreciation. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
Already done. KJP1 (talk) 16:57, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

As had I. - SchroCat (talk) 11:05, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy link: User talk:Vami IV#Condolences. Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (^{talk to me!}/_{my edits}) 03:08, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
I am also approaching age of 24 and I am in shock to hear about his passing. I can remember he posted heartwarming messages and barnstars to my talkpage in 2018 regarding Women in Red August Monthly. He was a true ambassador of Wikipedia and he had lot more to deliver. Its just unfortunate that he left us too soon at such young age. Hopefully his legacy would prevail forever. I only got to know about his passing through this Signpost. Really a talented Wikipedian editor he was. He has contributed a lot towards Women in Red campaign too. RIP. Abishe (talk) 03:06, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
...What... I can't believe Vami is gone. From a couple of interaction with him on Discord, I can see his passion towards Wikipedia with contributions in diverse topics from Hololive to MilHist and Women in Red. I just a year older than him. Rest In Peace, Vami.--Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 13:10, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Recent research: Images on Wikipedia "amplify gender bias" (6,634 bytes · 💬)

I don't have the fortitude to understand the statistical complexities of this subject -- but it seems to me that availability of pictures and text accounts for a lot of what is called "gender bias." In reliable sources, especially in sources about historical subjects and long-dead people, there is a lot more information about men than women. And there are more photos and pictures of men than women available to Wikipedia editors. One reason is that many photos and pictures must be 95 or more years old to be in the public domain, and hence eligible to be posted to Wikimedia.

I have tough skin, so heave bricks at me if you wish for the above statement. Smallchief (talk) 17:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Nah, I'd heave my agreement- you're right that bias in availability is the root cause of bias in the images used. IDK man I hope AI helps with that, but that's just me. Firestar464 (talk) 02:14, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Male bias in images for "football player", "philosopher", and "mechanic"? They are not serious, are they? I say sloppy scholarship. - Altenmann >talk 21:08, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

I found a great reason to add a relevant and high-quality photo of a woman to Mechanic :) ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the authors do repeatedly call these numbers "gender bias" (although their chart legend for figure 1 uses the less loaded term "gender association"). This kind of fuzzy usage of the term "bias" is unfortunately common in publications about Wikipedia's gender gap, many of which interpret any deviation from 50% as evidence of bias on Wikipedia's part (in a "tipping the scales" kind of causal sense). Here, the authors do seem to be aware that this kind of reasoning can't be fully valid for all categories - besides the "aunt" and "uncle" examples quoted in the review, in A.1.10 they mention the category with the strongest negative [i.e. female] association (-0.42, “chairwoman”) [...] and the category with the strongest positive [i.e. male] association (0.33, “guy”).

Also, to be fair, the authors' main result focuses on the difference between these "bias" numbers for images and text. And, in the paper they also compare them with US census data on gender ratio of occupations and with the results from an opinion survey they ran, asking the question "Which gender do you most expect to belong to this category?". (We didn't get to cover that in this already quite detailed review, also because these comparisons focus on the Google-related results instead of Wikipedia.)

Ultimately though, the problem of selecting a "fair" reference point to compare Wikipedia to remains a difficult one. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:05, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

They can't be serious. - Master of Hedgehogs ^(converse) ^{(hate that hedgehog!)} 00:10, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Amusingly, today, we have six bust pictures of men on our frontpage, typically the maximum possible. This is an issue that people have thought about before of course. Scientist has the pair of Curies as the lead image and that works great (also the first "scientist"? Wow!). But should we replace a picture of Bohr or Fermi with Meitner? These are hard and arbitrary decisions. The balance of relevance within the context/framing of the article can make it hard to improve on this, but I can already spot some places where we can include more women. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:51, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I struggle with this topic a little bit because, as an encyclopaedia, it's our task to reflect the world around us, not necessarily to try and change it. Away from Wikipedia I'm a massive advocate for tackling the inequalities and stereotypes we see all around us, but here our aim is to present a neutral point of view. From a neutral point of view, the vast majority of nurses worldwide are female, so it follows that a neutrally selected illustration of a "typical" nurse would be female. We should present reality as it is, not how we would like it to be. Waggers TALK 12:00, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Typically, the bias of Wikipedia simply mirrors the bias of our sources, and that's in theory how it should be. WP:rightgreatwrongs is another hing we have to keep in mind. But I think even just considering looking for new images can be valuable for finding new perspectives to view a topic from (like I did on Mechanic), which might have a whole swath of literature tied to it as well. I think this works way better when it comes to using non-American/European perspectives, like finding images of Asian or African people in these occupations. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 12:12, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually, rather than plugging in arbitrary photos of women into articles aboiut "male-domitated" occupations, it is good to add whenever possible sections about gender bias in them, especially when thisgs were changing. For example, "Rosie the Riveter" tackles the issue; unfortunately it talks only about simple skilled crafts, such as welding, riveting, etc. - Altenmann >talk 20:24, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

The fact that some people devote their entire careers, lives even, to topics like this really speaks to the state of academia. skarz (talk) 17:11, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure thing, "British scientists" :-) - Altenmann >talk 17:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Traffic report: Supervalentinefilmbowlday (2,276 bytes · 💬)

Wow didn't expect Pakistan Super League right up there in top 10 list. I couldn't watch the matches but I think some spicy things happened between random fans and Pakistan star batsman Babar Azam which may have triggered a spike in pageviews but Babar Azam silenced his critics with splendid performances in 2024 Pakistan Super League. He let his bat talk. --Abishe (talk) 03:15, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

That "Superb Owl" joke was genius, an After Midnight-worth caption! : D Oltrepier (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand one user made over 20,000 edits to Legalism (Chinese philosophy) (98% of all edits), adding nearly 2.5 million bytes of text, yet currently only about 20,000 bytes long. -- GreenC 02:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

@GreenC: It started the year over 100 kb long. Yet in the last few months that same user decided to cut just about everything. I don't understand either. igordebraga ≠ 04:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

And 20k edits.. for example, in the past 12 hours, they made about 10-15 edits within each hour - no hour was missed, and even within each hour, barely any 10 minute period went by without an edit. And what did they accomplish for 12 hours of sustained editing. And it goes on like that, day after day, in the same article. Prev discussion from last month: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_76#Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy) where it was noted this broke a "record for the highest number of edits by a single user to one article". It was explained as a "work process" issue. -- GreenC 04:58, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

WikiCup report: High-scoring WikiCup first round comes to a close (560 bytes · 💬)

Congratulations to those who have been involved in this WikiCup tournament. Haha, I listed my name but did not even compete. Hopefully next time. Abishe (talk) 03:09, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh this is cool, I think this is the first time I've been mentioned in Singnpost! Hey man im josh (talk) 00:59, 9 March 2024 (UTC)