Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2024-09-26

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2024-09-26. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Gallery: Are Luddaites defending the English Wikipedia? (8,660 bytes · 💬)

Well, I liked the Lincoln/Anachronism image. Other than that I didn't see 1 AI image here that I liked or would have found useful in any encyclopedia. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:16, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like there's a disagreement to whether the image should be included at Twin paradox. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:38, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

3 No discussion of diffusion engine-created images is complete without noting that the companies that own and control such programs rest their software on a foundation of unpaid labor: the unlicensed use of artists' creative work for training the software. The historical Luddites were smeared as technophobes as a way to deflect their concerns about labor expropriation by a wealthy class who held the means of production, and at least this 'Luddaite' thinks we as a project should stay far away from these images when there are still all too many unresolved issues around labor and licensing underlying much of the software involved. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 22:25, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I think the Willy's Chocolate Experience one is the only one that clearly belongs here, since part of that fiasco was that it used AI art and AI scripts for pretty much everything it did. Listenbourg seems to be an attempt to use AI to generate things similar to things seen elsewhere on the internet that were generated by AI, which feels a step too far, and the rest... I mean, there's moral reasons to object to AI, but perhaps a more convincing argument on Wikipedia is a variant of the problem with the scientific images I lambasted: It gives the illusion that thought was put into it. For example, does the illustration for Dagon really illustrate that short story? No, it doesn't illustrate anything that happens in it. Does the AI image of John F. Kennedy actually add anything? And so on. I'd rather have an illustration by a Wikipedian where we can presume that each element is at least using what the user knows about the subject, not just an attempt to generate an image. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 00:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

While I think it reflects badly on Wikipedia that the community is often unmoved by moral reasoning—on this topic and many others—I do basically agree with you. The image at Willy's Chocolate Experience is a necessary illustration of some of actual generated imagery used in that endeavor; the rest are steps too far. (On Listenbourg, since it was one I had to give a bit of thought to: if there was a particular generated image humorously purported to be Listenbourg that gained a lot of traction and was recognizable, that might be suitable for the article. But generating an apparently new Listenbourg image doesn't sit right with me.) Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:05, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

unlicensed use of artists' creative work for training the software [sic] - The idea that a license is generally legally required for training AI models is currently a popular talking point among those who argue for the perceived business interests of the copyright industry. But it is much less accepted among actual legal experts. Yes, there are lots of lawsuits and some may eventually succeed on some aspects, but most have not been going well for the plaintiffs so far (see e.g. "Another claim that has been consistently dismissed by courts is that AI models are infringing derivative works of the training materials.")

I also think the labor rights framing is really misguided. For example because is is just empirically wrong to conceive these conflicts as copyright owners = scrappy artist laborers vs. AI "companies" = super rich mega corporations. Regarding the first group: Have you ever heard of Getty Images, Disney or Elsevier, widely admired for their super ethical practices? Regarding the latter: One of the first targets of the current lawsuits regarding AI image generation has been LAION, a nonprofit (German eingetragener Verein) with the central mission to democratize AI and make it publicly available.

See also Cory Doctorow on this topic, e.g. [1], who is both a professional "creative" himself (earning his living as a writer) and has long been a vocal labor rights advocate, well before the current AI debates.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:39, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

A solution to the unjust chokehold on intellectual property that a company like Disney exercises that also involves trampling on indie artists isn't, to my mind, much of a solution. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:55, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Nor am I much moved by any implication, inadvertent or not, that courtrooms are arbiters of the moral issue. They are arbiters of legal proceedings that are expensive and, to the inexperienced, often arcane, where it is easy to mess up and difficult to understand the audience. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

It is fascinating to see these two topics side-by-side. In general it asks us what images in our articles are for. As per other commenters, I'm happy see AI images on Wikipedia be minimized as much as possible. I am quite fond of the use of paintings, though I do worry about a certain European bias in them. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 09:09, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out these images. I have removed some of them on the French wiki and labelled other as AI generated in their caption on the articles. Skimel (talk) 13:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

No one linked to the relevant SMBC comic yet? Polygnotus (talk) 16:26, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

The "Pastoral science fiction" pitcure appears twice, so captioned both times. Maproom (talk) 21:40, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know. This wasn't a mistake, because Adam Cuerden worked on that section, while I worked on the others. I did remove it, but I later restored it as I didn't want to delete someone else's work. Svampesky (talk) 17:12, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

That Cleopatra image is exactly why I'm concerned about AI media on Commons. It's the default image used when this article is shared on social media. Out of context, does it over time become the default representation of the subject? Preferred over other art representing the subject? Used because it's the most "interesting"? The image has no basis in reality. There's no research into what dress folks wore back then, no careful representation of ethnicity or culture, it perpetuates modern beauty standards, etc. It's a refinement of noise from a sludge of data. Ckoerner (talk) 16:26, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

In the media: Courts order Wikipedia to give up names of editors, legal strain anticipated from "online safety laws" (7,856 bytes · 💬)

Online safety laws and Wikipedia

• It's interesting that "privacy infringing laws" are considered "a significant issue", as well as "privacy enhancing laws" like Germany's "right to be forgotten." Is it possible that the WMF, Wikimedians at large, and the open knowledge community are seeing the negative impact of various jurisdictions, and not the positive? I would fall out of the clouds if the opposite was the case, as I'm semi-reliably informed the Germans say. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:44, 26 September 2024 (UTC).
  

  Azerbaijan literally jails people who disagree with the ruling dynasty (sorry, democratically elected president). I've disagreed with solavirum in the past but I hope nothing bad happens to our Azerbaijani editors. (t · c) buidhe 00:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

• What's happening to Azerbaijani editors is horrible. Is there anything we can do to support them? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:23, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Clayoquot: That's a good question, but honestly, I don't know which would be the best way to reach out and protect them from further personal damage... Oltrepier (talk) 19:13, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

General discussion

• What had happened in India and Azerbaijan should concern WMF more than what it is today. With what’s going on around the world today, we could clearly see that government overreach, censorship, and monitoring may tend to increase. Discussions should be clearly be done to balance between security and privacy. At this point Wikipedia tend to be on “security” as we disallow proxies/VPNs and we logged the IPs and the emails of the editors, but what happened if the government demanded Wikipedia to hand over the data of its editors? Most of the Wikipedia editors are living on countries with good record of freedom of speech, but what happened to those that live on countries that have questionable freedom of speech? Like this case in India - would WMF be willing to close up shop in India just for the sake of protecting few of its editors? Hopefully WMF took this issue more seriously. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 12:37, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

• ITN: Absolutely not the point, but while you're Wikipediaing poison snakes, make sure to visit List of dangerous snakes, which is some damn fine en-wiki work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jengod (talk • contribs) 16:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Jengod: Finally, I've got soooooomething new... to obsess about! : D Oltrepier (talk) 08:05, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

• The headline (subheadline?) Bias in Judaism and Zionism related articles is misleading. At a minimum it ought to be something like "Accusations of bias in Judaism and Zionism related articles"; perhaps better would be "some media outlets dislike academic histories of Zionism". As one would be able to tell by going to the Wikipedia article in question, the claims that the cited media outlets dislike are all grounded in top quality sources: academically published books, peer-reviewed journal articles, etc. If there is bias in Judaism and Zionism related articles, it's not there. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 16:40, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Hydrangeans I personally stand by our articles prose, but I also don't see the point in wrapping any criticism we dislike in "alleged/purported/accusation of" type of language. The body of the summary makes it clear, that these publications do not understand nor like our community editorial process. I came up with the suggested titles, because I prefer to be direct with the subject is about, instead of the intentionally more opaque "Bias in religion/ethnicity related articles?" but I take your feedback in good faith. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:28, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

  Criticism of the changes to the article Zionism in the last year wasn't confined to media outlets; the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, in a tweet which included before and after screenshots, wrote the following:

  History needs to be balanced & authoritative, based on facts and knowledge. Its replacement here @wikipedia by prejudiced ideology, distorted facts, and ahistorical fakery is alarming . @wikipedia is (was) respected & important because it presents facts & history without bias. Sometimes there were duels on pages between historical schools of thoughts but ultimately its editors wished to present history based on facts and balance. Has this page been captured by activists? It looks like it has. If so dear @wikipedia come back: You are part of the wider underpinnings of truth, authoritative history and factbased reportage that we desperately need in our society to foster the trust in information, reporting and scholarship, and the respect for learning and evidence that we need for our democracies to work. These principles are under attack in our academies, our media and of course in social media. @wikipedia has with a few exceptions been rare sanctuary of standards. We need you. Plse restore those all important principles

  Admittedly this would not have been a good fit for "In the media" (I proposed on the Suggestions page that it be covered), but as it should be noted in our closest thing to a paper of record I've quoted it in full here. Ham II (talk) 08:20, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

  The problem with our coverage of this subject (and several others) is an inevitable result of the following:

  • Many editors view academic sources as automatically reliable and do not apply their usual editorial judgment to them.
  • A number of academic disciplines (e.g. Middle Eastern studies, postcolonial studies) effectively only exist to promote a particular ideology (usually, trying to claim that the Western world and its inhabitants are immoral) with little to no regard for factual accuracy.

  The former seems easier to fix than the latter. Partofthemachine (talk) 00:35, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

• In conclusion, ANI is a cesspool for thoughtful Wikipedia:Drama either way ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 10:31, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
• A couple months ago, people were saying that Wikipedia has a Zionist bias, and now, it's the opposite. It's honestly confusing and getting too deep into this is guaranteed to give me a headache 💽 LunaEclipse 💽 ⚧ ^{【=◈︿◈=】} 22:06, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

News and notes: Are you ready for admin elections? (1,279 bytes · 💬)

The WMF releases two new bulletins for August and September

@Soni and Oltrepier: Curious about this part:

the new WMF Global Advocacy team, which was sworn in back in August

Where do the bulletins say that this is a "new" team? It has existed under that name since 2022 (and has been led by the same person with the same job title since 2021). Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:27, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I think I see my mistake. I read [2] from the Bulletin but did not realise it never said "New". So I mistakenly wrote about them as a "new team". Thank you, I'll correct the article now. Soni (talk) 06:33, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Opinion: asilvering's RfA debriefing (721 bytes · 💬)

• Thanks for writing this, and have a nice time as admin.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:15, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
• @Asilvering: Congratulations on securing the role! Oltrepier (talk) 19:32, 3 October 2024 (UTC)
• This is very helpful, thanks for taking the time to write it up! Innisfree987 (talk) 22:42, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
• Helpful debrief, thanks! Valereee (talk) 18:25, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Recent research: Article-writing AI is less "prone to reasoning errors (or hallucinations)" than human Wikipedia editors (3,976 bytes · 💬)

If Chat GPT wasn't prone to hallucinating then this would not have happened. TarnishedPath^talk 04:10, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

What does this comment have to do with this Signpost article? Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:05, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

How would one go about having ChatGPT write an article? Would one give it a template, a topic, and the sources, then it writes the page for you? JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 17:31, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not 2022 any more ;) One takeaway from the review here should be that custom LLM systems like WikiCrow or STORM seem much better at writing Wikipedia-like articles than ChatGPT by itself. To quote from my review of STORM last month:

The use of external references [in the STORM project] is motivated by the (by now well-established) observation that relying on the "parametric knowledge" contained in the LLM itself "is limited by a lack of details and hallucinations [...], particularly in addressing long-tail topics". ChatGPT and other state-of-the art AI chatbots struggle with requests to create a Wikipedia article. (As Wikipedians have found in various experiments – see also the Signpost's November 2022 coverage of attempts to write Wikipediesque articles using LLMs – this may result e.g. in articles that look good superficially but contain lots of factually wrong statements supported by hallucinated citations, i.e. references to web pages or other publications that do not exist.) The [STORM] authors note that "current strategies [to address such shortcomings of LLMs in general] often involve retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which circles back to the problem of researching the topic in the pre-writing stage, as much information cannot be surfaced through simple topic searches." They cite existing "human learning theories" about the importance of "asking effective questions". This task in turn is likewise challenging for LLMs ("we find that they typically produce basic 'What', 'When', and 'Where' questions [...] which often only address surface-level facts about the topic".) This motivates the authors' more elaborated design [...]

Now, you said you are thinking of giving ChatGPT the sources already (i.e. you would take care of the retrieval step yourself, instead of relying on ChatGPT's parametric knowledge or its - by now - inbuilt web browsing feature). That might avoid the problem of ChatGPT hallucinating citations (coming up with non-existing references). But you might e.g. run into the problem of context length (not being able to fit the text of all the sources into the prompt, this is one reason why RAG systems use chunking). Still you could try, and maybe take some inspiration from the prompts that the WikiCrow and STORM authors used (see link in this review for WikiCrow's prompts).

Also be aware that both WikiCrow and STORM are currently more expensive to run than a single ChatGPT query (with average costs per article of about 84 cent for STORM and $5.50 for WikiCrow, although these figures may already be outdated with recent drops in LLM API costs).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:16, 29 September 2024 (UTC) (Tilman)

Serendipity: A Wikipedian at the 2024 Paralympics (2,782 bytes · 💬)

• That would also be a good topic for a Wikinews article. BilboBeggins (talk) 19:29, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
• @Hawkeye7: I'm a bit late, but thank you so much for sharing your experience! I felt very inspired and jealous while reading this! Oltrepier (talk) 19:31, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

  Ditto! Mooonswimmer 23:00, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• @Hawkeye7: Thanks for sharing your story! It reminds me a lot of our experiences at the Youth Olympic Games 2018 and 2020. The first one is covered a bit in this and that presentation. Best, —DerHexer (Talk) 16:26, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for those links. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:05, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

• Cool Thing and very good, that this gained attention. A bit sad, that as we were with all in all 6 Wikimedians in an mixed argentinian-german project at the 2018 Youth Olympics, noboday cared. -- Marcus Cyron (talk) 16:36, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  I did try to generate international interest in the Paralympic Project at Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong, but without luck. There was some cooperation in Sochi 2016 from Russia and Ukraine. There will be a Winter Paralympics in Italy in 2026, but while we can secure accreditation, Australia is a country of summer sports and backing is unlikely. Next up is Los Angeles 2028 and there is no US chapter to coordinate with. Then comes 2032 on home soil in Brisbane. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:01, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Hawkeye7: I believe there's the Wikimedians of Los Angeles User Group that you can reach out to to coordinate with US Paralympic Committee. I am interested in covering for 2028 Los Angeles, as I have done something similar for 2015 Parapan American Games in Toronto in my volunteer capacity. I will check with Wikimedia Canada to see if they have some sort of contacts with Canadian Paralympic Committee. Overall, good work! OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 15:50, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Community view: Indian courts order Wikipedia to take down name of crime victim, editors strive towards consensus (2,014 bytes · 💬)

• I'm fine with the name being removed on the grounds that BLP rules still apply to recent deaths and that quality RSes stopped using it. However I'm worried about this case emboldening the Indian legal system to bully Wikipedia. The laughably misinformed executive causes enough problems as is, and now the judiciary... Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI (^{talk to me!}/_{my edits}) 07:41, 27 September 2024 (UTC) P.S., fun fact about the case in the link: It was the ruling government's own acolytes that started the spate of libel that was eventually added, then quickly removed by RC patrol, from the page in question. It's kinda like if the teacher's kid beat you up at lunch and then the teacher berated you later for your clothes being torn.

• For the interested: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/India-related_articles#The_Kolkata_"case",_wider_implications?. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:33, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

• I agree that this may be interpreted by the ruling party in India as Wikipedia following the order of their court. On a positive side, if this means the courts attempt to censor Wikipedia in the future it may be a more unambiguous situation where Wikipedia is in the right and they are in the wrong. In addition to doing what seems to be the right thing by the victim and surviving family members in this case. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 22:46, 11 October 2024 (UTC)