Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2024-08-14

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2024-08-14. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Humour: I'm proud to be a template (2,616 bytes · 💬)

• Haha that was an unexpected laugh! As a seasoned template editor, I honestly enjoyed the read, including the prose style lol BTW, any link to that old template? I'd love to pay the ol' rascal a visit and pay my respects! Sophivorus (talk) 00:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
• Userboxes also say hello. – The Grid (talk) 13:36, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
• In fact, that reminds me – if you really want to get a great heap of strings split up, you should go see my son. Why, he can split seven hundred strings in the time it takes me to split one. They wrote him with that newfangled scripting language. I'm so proud of him! I'll finish this one for you, and you can go see him instead – my arms are already getting tired. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.122.2.77 (talk) 12:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
• This is good stuff. We need more of this kind of thing. Viriditas (talk)
• Why did I read this entire piece in a thick Southern accent... when English isn't even my first language? : D Oltrepier (talk) 14:26, 19 August 2024 (UTC)
• Loved it, editor JPxG! You nailed the ol' template. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 14:08, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
• A delightful piece. Set me wondering how other people pronounce the word: I pronounce it as written, but on the radio I sometimes hear people pronouncing it "templut". What's the verdict here? Tim riley talk 16:22, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

  I say "templət" ‍Relativity ⚡️ 02:44, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

• { {not funny} } Carrite (talk) 22:25, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

In focus: Twitter marks the spot (996 bytes · 💬)

Still, not everyone knows Twitter's new brand. This is why the article wasn't renamed. Ahri Boy (talk) 00:39, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Hats off to "Ex-CEO", hehe. This sure did spark the most epic of Wikipedia arguments. I have personally found myself annoyed at how easily news publications roll over whenever a silly rebranding like this happens, so either way I appreciate Wikipedia taking its time on this. This is Wikipedia doing its job, spending thousands of words to slowly get to the optimal situation. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 11:26, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Isn't Musk now Ex-X-CEO, dos equis? -R. S. Shaw (talk) 06:14, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

In the media: Portland pol profile paid for from public purse (11,520 bytes · 💬)

• I'm very disappointed that the Signpost is drawing attention to libellous vandalism (which I've now oversighted). Very poor editorial judgement an even more disappointing in light of the lack of article news in recent issues. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
  • @HJ Mitchell: You've got me confused. What did you oversight? There's nothing showing an oversight in this page's edit history. And I checked all the other Signpost pages in this issue. Nothing. Any clue will do. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:09, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
    • I assume that was in relation to the Kennedy vandalism. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 01:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
  • Given that the revision in question was already hidden from non-administrators, this does not strike me as a particularly big deal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
    • My mistake - I thought he was referring to something he oversighted on The Signpost. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:56, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Far worse that they link to the Daily Fail. Twice. Polygnotus (talk) 02:46, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

There is no problem with linking DM on WP in the right context. "In the media" is the right context. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:36, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: I am not saying that linking to the Daily Fail isn't or shouldn't be allowed. I just think its a bad thing to do. Like putting your feet on the opposing bench on public transport. Or buying The Sun. Its not illegal; I just do not like it. Polygnotus (talk) 01:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Also its not a story "in" MSN, it is a story by reuters that MSN republished with permission. Polygnotus (talk) 02:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@HJ Mitchell and Polygnotus: The information I could find suggests that daily circulation for the Daily Mail is around 800,000 (counting only the print edition) and Sky News has about 3.5 million YouTube subscribers. I don't know what the pageview statistics are for their online stories per se, but I wrote some software to keep track of Signpost views a while ago; our most-viewed articles of 2024 (the Jan 31 disinformation report by Smallbones and the Jul 22 discussion report by Svampesky) had 180-day view counts under 50,000. Granted, many more people read Signpost articles through the single-page view, or their talk pages, or whatever -- so there are probably more readers than this -- but not several million more. But the information here has already been conveyed to upwards of several million people -- and not simply incidentally, but specifically in the course of reporting by news outlets, organizations whose primary goal is to transmit information to as many people as possible. It is hard for me to see what actual damage is done by an additional few dozen thousand pageviews on text that assiduously avoids mentioning what the libelous statement even is -- without mentioning or repeating it.

Now, I will grant that there are likely to be some differences between the demographics targeted by the Signpost and the Daily Mail, but even if we are more smarter or sexier or more important, I highly doubt it is by a margin of tens of thousands of percent; indeed, even if we are more important in some general sense, people reading the Signpost seem much more likely to understand the context and significance of BLP vandalism, such that it's hard for me to imagine any negative consequence from our readers hearing about its mere existence. Are there a bunch of administrators on the English Wikipedia who we don't trust with the ability to view revision-deleted pieces of schoolboy peepee-poopoo nonsense? If there are any of these among us, we ought to be yanking mops immediately, because we have a whole lot more damaging stuff than that lying around in revision histories.

It may indeed be true that the Mail is a tabloid of questionable accuracy, and not considered a reliable source for citations of fact in Wikipedia articles, but this doesn't mean these hundreds of thousands of people have thereby disappeared from the face of the Earth. We do not have the power to delete them; I think it still matters (and is still worth noting) what they think of us, even if it is silly or wrong (inasmuch as we're trying to write an encyclopedia for the entire world, including people who are silly or wrong). While I agree with the implication here that their opinions tend to be dumb, aren't people with dumb opinions the most important component of an encyclopedia's readership? How are we going to get them to be smart if we are so obsessively fixated on performatively hating them that we forbid ourselves to even mention their existence? jp×g🗯️ 03:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I am saying that linking to their site (even with nofollow) is far worse than drawing attention to that vandalism. I did not say everyone else is forbidden from talking about them. How are we going to get them to be smart we aren't. We don't have that kind of power. Polygnotus (talk) 03:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

JPxG makes sense to me. But then, I added a "This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:" template at Talk:Lachlan Kennedy a couple of weeks ago. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:43, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

And speaking of those templates, the one at Talk:JD Vance is filling up. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:50, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@JPxG: Well said! Ciridae (talk) 07:17, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

• Isn't Talk:Rene Gonzalez (politician)#Edit Request June 25, 2024 exactly how it's supposed to be done? Like, don't edit the article itself, neither by yourself nor by a proxy, but post an edit request and have it reviewed? Although I think they are missing some bits of the paid-editor disclosure. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:26, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  That seemed like decent WP-behavior to me too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:12, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

• I think that one quote about what a Wikipedian says at the end of Conservative Jewish media criticize Wikipedia and Wikimedia should be attributed given that the contributor's byline is right next to it. I highly doubt Jayen466 wrote that comment. Newbies sometimes read the Signpost (at least I did when I was one) and are more likely to misunderstand what that placement means. Feel free to let me know if you think I'm overthinking it. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 11:29, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  I see what you mean. I guess one could add something like

  "-Comment from a Wikipedian to JJ"

  at the end of the quote. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:41, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  Is there any particular reason we can't say who the Wikipedian in question is? I assumed that this quote was taken from a talk page discussion somewhere but please correct me if I'm wrong. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  Per my reading of JJ, it's not a talkpage quote and JJ doesn't say who the Wikipedian is. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:40, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  That was my reading too. I've edited the text in line with your comments above. Thanks for mentioning it, Clovermoss (and congratulations, by the way!). Regards, Andreas JN466 13:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for addressing my concern :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 14:17, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

• That JNS article is just "nuts", so to speak, but perhaps it's the last quoted part that confuses me the most. The author accuses the Tides Foundation of backing "antisemitic protests", but at the same time, they specifically remark that Tides has received funding by... a man who himself has been at the center of a myriad of conspiracy theories with evident antisemitic elements? --Oltrepier (talk) 11:23, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Portland story

As the headline inferred, IMO taxpayer have a right to complain that tax dollars are being use for persaonal PR purposes of an official. But IMO it's not right for the article to imply mis-behavior by the Wikipedia editor. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:48, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Aaron Bandler / Jewish Journal article

IMO pretty thorough / impressive article regarding analyzing how the nuts and bolts of Wikipedia operated on that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Franklin women

I was a participant in the Franklin women edit-a-thon in Canberra. It was very successful. Together with the event in Sydney, they created 51 new articles and updated 110 more. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 11:08, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Wow, those are some pretty impressive numbers! Congratulations! : ) --Oltrepier (talk) 14:26, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

News and notes: Another Wikimania has concluded (2,702 bytes · 💬)

• Something else that was interesting about this year's Wikimania is that the Wikimedian of the Year was a member of the English Wikipedia. Okay it's weird talking about myself in the third person. Anyways, I figured I should probably mention this here. I plan to write an essay in the near future about my experiences because a lot of interesting things happened. Stay tuned :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  Hello @Clovermoss. Congratulations ! Waiting for that essay :) L'embellie (talk) 23:27, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  @JPxG: What's the deadline for the next publication cycle if I wanted to aim for that? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Clovermoss: It's September 1 for writing and September 2 for publishing... at least hypothetically. : D By the way, many congratulations for your accolade! Oltrepier (talk) 12:01, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

  Noted. I will make sure I'm finished before then. :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 15:44, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

  Congratulations Clovermoss! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

• So, where can one watch the recordings of all these? Surely they're not restricted to people who were actually there. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Seraphimblade Categories like commons:Category:Wikimania 2024 day 3 recordings should be already populated with many of the recordings. Some of them are still remaining, but raw recordings (all sessions for a given room combined) is at WMF Youtube channel for now.

  I am informed that either Commons or the Wikimania site will have a dedicated landing page that links to all recordings etc for posterity reasons. @Nadzik should be able to tell us more. Soni (talk) 05:49, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Opinion: HouseBlaster's RfA debriefing (3,986 bytes · 💬)

I liked reading your debrief @HouseBlaster. It was thorough, organized, and insightful, and I really liked the last section for your thoughts on reform. The Night Watch (talk) 02:50, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that admins should not be discussion users only, my leanings are usually the other way. Adminship is stressful enough that I have never seen an admin's content creation not take a massive nosedive. If a user is deeply invested and very productive of content, I'd rather they remain a normal user and productive than an admin that is very liable to burnout eventually and leave wikipedia entirely. Circéus (talk) 16:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Where did this idea come from, anyway, that content creation is a useful qualifying metric for adminship? If your janitorial staff needs a supervisor, and you want to promote from within, you don't just pick whoever has the cleanest bathrooms and say, "OK, you're in charge now". Yes, it's a fairly obvious advantage if the person managing the janitorial staff has ever cleaned a bathroom, because you want someone who understands the job and can relate. But it's less clear there's any benefit to them having cleaned a lot of bathrooms. Not only does that additional experience not really bring anything extra to their new role, but as you say, you're depriving the rest of the company of a lot of sparkling toilets. FeRDNYC (talk) 08:02, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@FeRDNYC: see the Peter principle. Sdkb ^talk 16:33, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

@HouseBlaster: One of my pet peeves is people (right?) using the <s> element when they mean the <del> element. Congrats on becoming our latest administrator! Aaron Liu (talk) 03:12, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I always thought it was the other way around, Aaron Liu. Learn something new every day :) HouseBlaster (talk • he/they) 04:00, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

One couuuuuld make an argument that <del>...</del> is invalid to use in hand-edited text (and should be relegated to use in formatting the automated display of content diffs or change tracking), because if you're wrapping <del>...</del> around some text, clearly it hasn't been deleted — it's still right there! Actually deleting text would involve, you know... deleting it.

(I'm not saying that I'm making that argument. I'm a WikiGnome, not a WikiPedantSupremeWithCheese.) FeRDNYC (talk) 18:31, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I've had enough of you and your cheese now. Please go away.

Anyway, <s> would be even more inaccurate as it's to represent things that are no longer relevant or no longer accurate. I do wonder whether MDN is accurate that neither are read-aloud by most screenreaders, which sounds profoundly stupid. Aaron Liu (talk) 21:36, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Recent research: STORM: AI agents role-play as "Wikipedia editors" and "experts" to create Wikipedia-like articles, a more sophisticated effort than previous auto-generation systems (1,165 bytes · 💬)

STORM

Thanks for the report about the STORM project. In my opinion, generating Wikipedia content is a false problem. Real Wikipedia editors like doing research and writing articles. I don't why we try to replace them with an AI agent. The real problem is to enlarge the community, increase the diversity in the community, make more people interested in contributing. I don't think that STORM will help. I wrote a piece about the temptation to automate content generation last year (see fr:Wikipédia:RAW/2023-02-01#Tribune in French). Maybe I should translate it into English. PAC2 (talk) 05:43, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this will be that helpful in the community-oriented aspects, but Wikipedia has been using various bots for years now. So long as it's given the same scrutiny (or perhaps more scrutiny) than user-made articles, it should be allowed with restrictions. Baudshaw (talk) 17:58, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Special report: Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear? (3,623 bytes · 💬)

I just watched the Atomic Bamboozle DVD which I checked out from my local public library. A key takeaway from that: the first (experimental) nuclear power plants were small-sized. The problem with those was that it was hard to get them to work economically. That's why the industry went big with reactors, they're more economically efficient at producing power. Too bad large language models are only good at plagiarism and suck at math. We need AI to help us solve the puzzle of how to milk all the radioactivity out of nuclear fission waste until there's not much left, or solve the puzzle of how to make nuclear fusion work at anything resembling small scale. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:09, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Thanks for the link to Atomic Bamboozle. There's a further link to the Trailer of the film on Youtube which gives a good idea of what the film is about. At the original link is a pretty good discription:

Atomic Bamboozle - A Jan Haaken Production

As political pressure mounts in the US to meet net zero carbon goals, the nuclear power industry makes its case for a nuclear “renaissance.” This documentary by NECESSITY Director Jan Haaken follows activists as they expose the true costs of the new small nuclear reactor designs.

It does seem to be about somewhat larger nuclear generators than those discussed here.

The video linked in the articles first paragraph was just as scary to me the first couple of times I viewed it. It is definitely an animation predicting the future even though much of the footage looks very real. For people of my generation, trucking around a factory-built nuclear generator is very scary, as is trucking around nuclear fuel down some fairly small country roads. Or operating a nuclear generator on the deck of a boat. Surely they are just waiting for a truck accident or hurricane to happen - and then what? Well, that's what the company has to show before they start producing them. Yeah it might be almost nothing - no problem - losing a nuclear generator overboard. But that what they have to show before I'd be happy with it.

It was an interesting article to write. Originally it was writing "on deadline" - the first news (Hunterbrook Media) was announced on Friday morning and I figured I had at most until that Monday. Without responses from either Hunterbrook or NNE, and with almost no time for reflection, I got a bit nervous and subtly suggested to JPxG that we could pull it - so that's why this took so long to actually publish. It held up though quite well, IMHO, with little updating needed. Thanks again. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

American nuclear submarines have successfully operated for decades without major issues, so the concept is feasible. The reactors on subs must be pretty small sized. Again, I think the problem is money. The Department of Defense has an essentially unlimited piggy bank so can spend whatever it takes to keep their personnel safe. On the other hand, you can count on private industry to cut corners, and then pass the costs off to the public when trouble happens. – wbm1058 (talk) 21:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)