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Archive 25 | ← | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | Archive 31 | Archive 32 | → | Archive 35 |
In
Nature: "... the effect of ideological composition on team performance by analysing millions of edits to Wikipedia’s political, social issues and science articles... polarized teams consisting of a balanced set of ideologically diverse editors produce articles of a higher quality than homogeneous teams... Analysis of article ‘talk pages’ reveals that ideologically polarized teams engage in longer, more constructive, competitive and substantively focused but linguistically diverse debates than teams of ideological moderates."
Chris Troutman (
talk)
17:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
{{ done}}
In case anybody will be bothered to continue the Signpost, some outside outlets have mentioned the current WP:Fram mess:
71.197.186.255 ( talk) 11:27, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
{{ done}}
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Per meta:Talk:Wikimania 2020. --- Another Believer ( Talk) 20:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I discussed this offline with the E in C and will help creating a template for the next issue. Moving this list to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/List of Fram discussions for inclusion by reference. ☆ Bri ( talk) 20:48, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
An interesting analysis has been written up by de:User:Dr. Bernd Gross originally in German for Kurier. The English translation is at French_Wikipedia_overtakes_German. Would this be in-scope to include in the next Signpost issue to give readers some news from outside en.wp? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 08:04, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
User:Iridescent notes on his talk page that a milestone has been reached in the number of active admins. For the first time since records began there are now fewer than 500. [1] Haukur ( talk) 17:05, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
even by the WMF's very loose "30 or more edits during the last two months" definition of "activity"in my original post that prompted this thread. (Per my above comments I don't consider this newsworthy—comparing 2019 and 2008 is apples and oranges as so much that used to be done by admins is now done by edit filters.) ‑ Iridescent 06:32, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
If somebody wants to write this up as a very short article and get it in early Tuesday, that would be fine with me. I might even make up a new rubric for it - perhaps "Graph of the month" or "Stats of the month". It could be very simple - say a large graph right at the top followed by 2 paragraphs. 1) talking through the graph so that everybody knows what the axes mean, what data is being used, and the significance of the graph in the simplest sense, e.g. "The numbers of active admins are going down." The graph I'd choose would be the second graph at User:Widefox/editors, the 1st of the 3 graphs there has just too much stuff - with the real bizarre looking early stuff turning out to be not so important. The 3rd graph just extrapolates too far, 9 years of actual data vs. 11 years of extrapolated data.
The 2nd paragraph should be on the interpretation of the graph and its significance, e.g. summarize the views expressed in this thread.
Smallbones( smalltalk) 14:20, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
Widefox; talk 12:52, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
@ DannyS712:, you should report on the creation of {{ Newsletters}} and invite people to add Newsletters that are missing from it to relevant section. If they can't figure it out themselves, just dropping a message on the template's talk page should be good. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 00:30, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
It might even be nice to list all newsletter issues that have come out since the last signpost. It could even be possible to have a section where newsletters can transclude/substitute in a little 100-200 word summary of an interesting update? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 11:21, 5 June 2019 (UTC) It seems the sort of thing that could be automated. Example of labelled section transclusion from Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Newsletter below:
On 23 May, user GreatSculptorIthas created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.
I have a two suggestions for what the Signpost could write about:
Clovermoss ( talk) 16:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
This is probably late, but if there's room on the funnypages or whatever, there's a rather vigorous Afd going on. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 12:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
I'm still thinking that a humor column would be the best place for this, but it definitely needs somebody to volunteer to write it quickly. If we want a 2 line entry for it, perhaps somebody could write this up and leave a ping for @ Pythoncoder: for the Discussions column. Smallbones( smalltalk) 23:43, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
A still-developing story, but it seems that Bulgarian Wikinews will be closed and deleted, partially due to some pre-existing controversial, biased, and propaganda content. -- Rs chen 7754 01:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Update: the bg.WN project is now locked/closed and will be deleted soon. George Ho ( talk) 00:12, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks to all. This should definitely be in News and notes. Smallbones( smalltalk) 14:22, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Another full issue which is great to see! But I missed News & Notes. I might have my months mixed up but I think we have a couple new admins. Liz Read! Talk! 22:28, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
External articles
[2]
[3]. (mind you, spoilers for the film here, but the general point can be gotten by a skim)
Short summary: prior to the film's wide release, an IP editor added a plot summary based on the fact that the film had been shown at Cannes FF. None of the other editors there were aware this summary was patently false until movie critics, who HAD seen the film at Cannes, called Wikipedia out for it. This has led to debate (at the film's talk page, and at WT:FILM) about when is it fair game for WP to include a spoiler summary of a film that has yet to hit wide release. As well as whether WP should respect wishes of content creators (Taratino here, who had written an open letter in May to the world at large about not spoiling the film), or follow our policy that when a film does it wide release, a plot summary becomes fair game. -- Masem ( t) 19:10, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Closed
This might be worth a mention in "On The Bright Side".
Clovermoss (
talk)
03:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
Closed
A proposal by WMF to hide all addresses of IP editors. --
Rs
chen
7754
04:49, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Closed
http://listen.hatnote.com/ ―
Justin (koavf)❤
T☮
C☺
M☯
04:47, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
To reduce the number of pages that staff of The Signpost need to watch, I suggest merging this page into
Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost. Pinging
Smallbones to request comment. --—
↠Pine
(✉)
22:34, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
An attack that brought down Wikipedia in Europe and parts of the Middle East was covered by numerous news outlets and led to a statement being released by the WMF
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
00:54, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
User:Monkbot seems to be editing a lot of article lately, fixing citation templates. It's noticeable. --
evrik (
talk)
04:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I have been asked to comment here. Not sure for the purpose of such comments, but:
why the heck would anybody do that?because a decision was taken to deprecate
|dead-url=
and |deadurl=
; see
this discussion and discussion linked from thereit doesn't seem to affect anything - change for change's sakeis a bit incorrect; because of this discussion, normally visible deprecated-parameter error messages are hidden. The error message looks like this:
|dead-url=
(
help)— Trappist the monk ( talk) 18:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
This is kind of fun, it's a bot that scans Wikipedia for page titles that can be sung to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song and posts them hourly:
https://twitter.com/wiki_tmnt --
valereee (
talk)
10:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... WP:GA promoted its 30,000th article, Lucca Ashtear (nominated by Abryn and reviewed by Tintor2) with this edit on September 29th... I believe the total count listed on WP:GA, currently at 30,216, is significantly overstated. Whatever bot is totaling those is double- and triple-counting articles listed in more than one category, e.g. Triathlon at the 2012 Summer Olympics (was listed 3x when I counted on Sept. 22 or so) ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:11, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
- Indy beetle ( talk) 08:41, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Also, the current edition of the BBC news channel Click (TV programme) has an interesting segment on political, especially Chinese, state interference - 5 mins or so, at the top of the programme. I expect it's available wherever their news channel is, & maybe online. link on UK site. Also this derived article. There's an amusing moment when the group of Taiwanese Wikipedians are asked what the WMF are doing about it. Johnbod ( talk) 16:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... Wikipedia's longest hoax (according to Haaretz)
For over 15 years, false claims that thousands of Poles were gassed to death in Warsaw were presented as fact. Haaretz reveals they are just the tip of an iceberg of a widespread Holocaust distortion operation by Polish nationalists.
— Benjakob, Omer (2019-10-03). "The Fake Nazi Death Camp: Wikipedia's Longest Hoax, Exposed". Haaretz. Retrieved 2019-10-03.
Press coverage about alleged systematic hoaxing at Warsaw concentration camp and elsewhere is under discussion at Jimbo's talkpage ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:01, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
We have to have a news article on this. No doubt about that. It will appear at the end of the month, so much of the current furor will die down by then. But I'd like to be sure we don't add gasoline to the fire, rather summarize the facts of the story. There's already enough to read about it at arbcom, Jimbo's talk, our submissions page for the last 2 months, the international press, probably ANI as well, and in in my email inbox. I see the most important facts of the case as being whether the "200,000 deaths" extermination camp existed and how long the "hoax" lasted and spread to other articles and wikis. I'd guess that we can track down those facts pretty well with very little controversy resulting. But we'd have to cover the arbcom case as well - at least as background - the site ban, and Icewhiz's behavior as well. There could be some controversy about this - I'd like to keep it reasonably short and non-explosive. Any volunteers to write this? Smallbones( smalltalk) 04:37, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi there. This is Techyan from Chinese Wikipedia. While we were working on our local community media Qiuwen, our media watchdogs found a popular Japanese TV talk show named " Matsuko no Shiranai Sekai" (lit. The world unknown to Matsuko) made an episode on Wikipedia and local community in early September, sparked huge echoes among the locals; while a series of activities, including the recent WikiGap meetups, carried out after the show aired. This is something pretty rare for the Japanese community, and I think you might want to cover it in this month's issue.
The episode interviewed Sae Kitamura ( User:さえぼー), and then the cameraman went to a local meetup. Several follow-up articles by local media also covered Kitamura's story. I have an archived version of the TV show for reference. The Wikipedia part starts from 34:40, and if the video doesn't stream, try to download it. [22]
It's a bit difficult for someone without any knowledge in the Japanese language to understand the show, but personally speaking, I am very delighted to see it, and there're a few things I can learn from it. The show has parts that are good for attracting audiences (such as talking about FA and GAs with interesting topics), introducing the people working behind Wikipedia, stressing the fact that there is no nation-wide user group nor a chapter in Japan so on; while everything neatly packed into a half-an-hour episode. This show is probably the best example of how to introduce Wikipedia to outsiders.
WikiGap in Japan received way more media coverage than I personally expected. Asahi Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, and the Nikkei also covered this story - all of them are top Japanese newspapers; additionally, Kyodo as Japan's largest news agency, their Japanese story was also used widely among regional media.
-- Techyan( Talk) 18:19, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
A proposal to do something about Croatian Wikipedia. -- Rs chen 7754 20:33, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, formerly involved with Citizendium and Everipedia, announced a new platform that will be free from the "arrogant and controlling oligarchy" of Wikipedia and its "shadowy group of anonymous amateurs". Perhaps worthy of a mention, perhaps not, just thought I'd leave this here. Enwebb ( talk) 18:30, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
We should hit 6 million articles in the next couple of months, at the rate we're going. -- valereee ( talk) 22:51, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I think it's interesting how LifeSiteNews was used as a "source" for your 31 October story on Taylor Marshall, while LifeSiteNews itself is deprecated and being actively removed from all over Wikipedia, wherever it has mistakenly been used as a "reliable" source. Elizium23 ( talk) 20:23, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
The Comments pages are for comments made about the published article, not about the draft. Please leave them on this page. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
---
@ 3family6: You're missing two important points in your article: 1) The KL Warsaw essay was brought to the Signpost before the material was published on Haaretz, and the Signpost rejected it for fear of sanctions by ArbCom. What does this mean for editorial freedom? 2) The assertion that the Polish government is pushing alternative historical narratives is very well founded (Haaretz alone quotes two experts on that point), even if it doesn't completely apply to the current story. François Robere ( talk) 15:04, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Smallbones, can you confirm?-- 3family6 ( Talk to me | See what I have done) 16:18, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Discussion closed. Take it elsewhere if you'd like. |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Guys, seriously. The Polish government is NOT pushing the KL Warshau conspiracy theory. The IPN is the institution which actually debunked it. Nobody in the Polish government has said anything about this theory (probably because it's actually a minor fringe theory that most people in Poland haven't even heard about). Other issues: [Icewhiz] "currently are subject to sanctions per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland". Is, not are, and also they are indef blocked for off wiki harassment related to the content disputes mentioned in the prior sentence (so quite relevant here and I think this should be mentioned earlier rather than at the very end of the story as it is in the current version). "and brought the story to Haaretz in order to generate reliable coverage " - WP:CANVASSING, anyone? This dimension should be relevant as well and the link to this policy may be relevant. I am also not sure if the usage of the world reliable is correct here. He brought it there to generate coverage, yes, but why the adjective? Considering the nwwspaper, partisan coverage might be actually better (just like a totally different spin would be given if this was published in the pro-government Polish media, ex. a few months ago Polish state media ( TVP and some other allied outlets) run this rather uninspiring story [26] suggesting that there is an Israeli conspiracy... it is about as realistic than the theory peddled in Haaretz and this is why Blatman in his response refers to the prior story as 'sensationalist' - nice title, but not backed up by any evidence). The entire conspiracy theory is ridiculous, as this topic area was recently scrutinized by ArbCom, which did not find a shred of evidence to support any claims that an army, or even small group, is pushing a POV there in violation of our policies. It should be clearly noted that the article presents zero evidence, just opinions. And opinions by an editor indef banned for harassment and hence with a major ax to grind should be taken with a major grain of salt. Lastly, since the essay by FR is mentioned, I think we should also mention a recent one posted by the otherwise retired User:Poeticbent at his userpage, since it is quite relevant (FYI Poeticbent was the Wikipedia's most active contributor to the Polish-Jewish topics; for eample he wrote and DYKed the majority of articles on WWII-era Jewish ghettos; he got into some heated fights with Icewhiz and eventually retired last year....). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:47, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Seriously folks - take it elsewhere. If you've already worn out everybody else in all the other forums on Wikipedia, then maybe it's time to just quit.
"begs the question"There are concerns that the story itself was slanted and some editors involved may not have been acting in good faith. To keep The Signpost above board, the EiC has pulled the story back. Chris Troutman ( talk) 15:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... Weaving Books into the Web—Starting with Wikipedia ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... 107.77.173.49 ( talk) 15:43, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Sloud we include video game quotes on Wikiquote?
Video game are becoming a big part of our world, and so are the quotes that come with it.
Yet, somehow i don't see any on Wikiquote, (Yet) wren i can think of a few. 107.77.173.49 ( talk) 15:43, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
The number of active administrators has dropped below 500 for the first time since 2005. By mid-year 2020, we will also cross into 2007 territory for total admin headcount. Maybe this would be a good launching point for a discussion of the number of administrators and what it implies for the future.
In better news, we had four RfAs pass in October, which is better than any month in the last five years except Dec 2016–Jan 2017 (see User:WereSpielChequers/RFA stats). That bump was probably due to various causes we investigated in January 2017 News and notes. This shows that the decline isn't necessarily inexorable.
The Signpost covered this last time in my July 2019 Special report, so it might be too soon for a full story. Maybe a shorter item in News and notes? Feel free of course to start with this text if it's useful. ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
The WMF just posted the 2019-20 Q1 Tuning session. This is the first real update on the WMF's activities in a year (since the "Quarterly check-ins" process fell out of use). Probably worth at least a mention. -- Yair rand ( talk) 01:35, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
{{ tick}} Internet Archive and Wired coverage. -- Masem ( t) 21:25, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
{{ tick}} For good or bad, the Clarice Phelps controversy has made it to the Daily Mail: [28]. Worthy of a mention in the "In the Media" section at least... AnonMoos ( talk) 19:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
{{ tick}} The Signpost should write about... wikiview.net Hi there, this is Kai Barthel from the Visual Computing Group of HTW, University of Applied Sciences from Berlin, Germany. I wanted to propose to let the Wikipedia community know about a visual exploration tool to search and discover the images from Wikimedia Commons. This project called wikiview.net started as a student project and was extended and improved by our research group. For the moment Wikiview supports 12 million Wikimedia Commons images which can be searched by keywords, colors or example images. The collection of the images is organized as a graph which allows fast visual navigation to related images similar to navigation services. For the moment the graph is built using the visual similarity of the images only. A future version will support all Wikimedia images and will use image graphs that also take the metadata into account. An article on Signpost would help to get feedback and learn about typical use cases and get ideas for improvements.
{{ tick}} Did the SP do anything on WikiCon North America? GMG talk 21:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should celebrate Turkey's access to Wikipedia being restored. If you don't have time to do a full section or a full article, here's some ready-for-proofreading text for Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media#In brief:
To followup on last month's late breaking news, as of 16 January, readers in Turkey can now access Wikpedia after that country's Constitutional Court overturned a government-imposed block dating to April 2017. To quote the Wikimedia Foundation, Welcome Back Turkey. Further coverage here, here, and elsewhere.
Feel free to shorten, lengthen, reword, replace, or otherwise make better. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs) 21:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
This user has died, I was sorry to hear. I had only the most minimal contact with him, but I believe his contribution to the FA process, peer review and the like was quite significant. It might be good to write something about him. It might also perhaps be possible to ask Brianboulton's Family to provide some personal history. Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 19:40, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
As the year's end approaches, does anyone know of any unsung editors who are about to complete a full year of some kind of editing commitment or ritual, e.g., adding a new article every day or the equivalent in a cleanup task? Might make for a nice interview if there are any candidates. czar 21:31, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about the deletion of the hoax article Princess Maria Cristina Amelia of Naples and Sicily, which was on Wikipedia for nearly 10 years, making it one of the longest running hoax articles in Wikipedia history. Here's the AfD discussion. Author Kate Heartfield first publicly raised concerns about this article and that her research indicated this person never existed. See this social media thread from Heartfield for more, including a detailed examination why this person likely never existed. The article was created by a permanently banned Wikipedia editor and references to the fictitious subject were inserted and linked from nearly 100 other articles, including for Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily. SouthernNights ( talk) 20:29, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
You had a previous article in June's "In the Media" topic: " The disinformation age". An egregious example of disinformation has recently surfaced. The key and most worrisome nature of this is that it is apparently *not* the product of a nation-state actor nor any previously recognised organization. Rather, it has become so easy to construct a huge network of fake sites that anyone can do it.
Pro-Indian 'fake websites targeted decision makers in Europe (BBC) is one ref. That article links to EU Disinfo Lab. (Their clarion call on Twitter - MSNBC.UK !?)
That NGO is apparently not associated directly with the EU's East StratCom Task Force EUvsDisinfo project, though a previous BBC article referenced an article of theirs that discussed one of the newly identified 'newssites' in October. Passing off as an 'organ' of the EU is amazing, but it fooled MEPs! Consider also that EUvsDisinfo missed the bigger picture.
(So far I have found only a small number of mentions of this here, e.g. Fake news websites , Fake news controversy)
The critical issue here is that we have reached a tipping point, where even a very small number of people with money and fervour can weave a massive network of deception that is unnoticed for years, and unrecognized even by groups looking for this evil. Fakery from any direction, for any purpose.
Your previous article gave some examples of disinformation. The above example reverses the emphasis. It is not enough to be aware of disinformation. Rather, one must now discern which few sources to trust. This escalation should be noted in the Signpost.
BTW: where on WP is it noted that "
Birmingham Gazette", "EP Today" (
WP cites), "
Eesti Aeg", "Times of Los Angeles", "Times of Geneva", "Dacca Times", "
Hamevasser" are - now - fake news outlets?
Shenme (
talk)
21:53, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about the breaking news story regarding Keir Starmer in the UK. The page for this prospective Labour Party candidate (and "Sir" to you) is undergoing an edit war about whether this man of the people is a millionaire or not. It's covered at length in UK mainstream media eg Sir Keir Starmer at centre of Wikipedia 'millionaire' row ahead of expected Labour leadership bid - Evening Standard and Sir Keir Starmer's Wikipedia page edited to remove reference to his being a 'millionaire' - Telegraph. Mujinga ( talk) 14:18, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
The big picture behind UPE spamming: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/disinformation-for-hire-black-pr-firms MER-C 13:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... the special girl is me ( talk) 01:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
please report on various hoaxes in real life
Court rules ban was unconstitutional. -- A bit iffy ( talk) 05:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 25 | ← | Archive 28 | Archive 29 | Archive 30 | Archive 31 | Archive 32 | → | Archive 35 |
In
Nature: "... the effect of ideological composition on team performance by analysing millions of edits to Wikipedia’s political, social issues and science articles... polarized teams consisting of a balanced set of ideologically diverse editors produce articles of a higher quality than homogeneous teams... Analysis of article ‘talk pages’ reveals that ideologically polarized teams engage in longer, more constructive, competitive and substantively focused but linguistically diverse debates than teams of ideological moderates."
Chris Troutman (
talk)
17:55, 17 June 2019 (UTC)
{{ done}}
In case anybody will be bothered to continue the Signpost, some outside outlets have mentioned the current WP:Fram mess:
71.197.186.255 ( talk) 11:27, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
{{ done}}
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Per meta:Talk:Wikimania 2020. --- Another Believer ( Talk) 20:08, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I discussed this offline with the E in C and will help creating a template for the next issue. Moving this list to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/List of Fram discussions for inclusion by reference. ☆ Bri ( talk) 20:48, 15 June 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
An interesting analysis has been written up by de:User:Dr. Bernd Gross originally in German for Kurier. The English translation is at French_Wikipedia_overtakes_German. Would this be in-scope to include in the next Signpost issue to give readers some news from outside en.wp? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 08:04, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
User:Iridescent notes on his talk page that a milestone has been reached in the number of active admins. For the first time since records began there are now fewer than 500. [1] Haukur ( talk) 17:05, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
even by the WMF's very loose "30 or more edits during the last two months" definition of "activity"in my original post that prompted this thread. (Per my above comments I don't consider this newsworthy—comparing 2019 and 2008 is apples and oranges as so much that used to be done by admins is now done by edit filters.) ‑ Iridescent 06:32, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
If somebody wants to write this up as a very short article and get it in early Tuesday, that would be fine with me. I might even make up a new rubric for it - perhaps "Graph of the month" or "Stats of the month". It could be very simple - say a large graph right at the top followed by 2 paragraphs. 1) talking through the graph so that everybody knows what the axes mean, what data is being used, and the significance of the graph in the simplest sense, e.g. "The numbers of active admins are going down." The graph I'd choose would be the second graph at User:Widefox/editors, the 1st of the 3 graphs there has just too much stuff - with the real bizarre looking early stuff turning out to be not so important. The 3rd graph just extrapolates too far, 9 years of actual data vs. 11 years of extrapolated data.
The 2nd paragraph should be on the interpretation of the graph and its significance, e.g. summarize the views expressed in this thread.
Smallbones( smalltalk) 14:20, 28 July 2019 (UTC)
Widefox; talk 12:52, 29 July 2019 (UTC)
@ DannyS712:, you should report on the creation of {{ Newsletters}} and invite people to add Newsletters that are missing from it to relevant section. If they can't figure it out themselves, just dropping a message on the template's talk page should be good. Headbomb { t · c · p · b} 00:30, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
It might even be nice to list all newsletter issues that have come out since the last signpost. It could even be possible to have a section where newsletters can transclude/substitute in a little 100-200 word summary of an interesting update? T.Shafee(Evo&Evo) talk 11:21, 5 June 2019 (UTC) It seems the sort of thing that could be automated. Example of labelled section transclusion from Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Newsletter below:
On 23 May, user GreatSculptorIthas created a talk page post, "Revamp of Wikiproject Biology--Who is In?". In the days since, WP:BIOL has been bustling with activity, with over a dozen editors weighing in on this discussion, as well as several others that have subsequently spawned. An undercurrent of thought is that WP:BIOL has too many subprojects, preventing editors from easily interacting and stopping a "critical mass" of collaboration and engagement. Many mergers and consolidations of subprojects have been tentatively listed, with a consolidation of WikiProjects Genetics + Molecular and Cell Biology + Computational Biology + Biophysics currently in discussion. Other ideas being aired include updating old participants lists, redesigning project pages to make them more user-friendly, and clearly identifying long- and short-term goals.
I have a two suggestions for what the Signpost could write about:
Clovermoss ( talk) 16:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
This is probably late, but if there's room on the funnypages or whatever, there's a rather vigorous Afd going on. Gråbergs Gråa Sång ( talk) 12:38, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
I'm still thinking that a humor column would be the best place for this, but it definitely needs somebody to volunteer to write it quickly. If we want a 2 line entry for it, perhaps somebody could write this up and leave a ping for @ Pythoncoder: for the Discussions column. Smallbones( smalltalk) 23:43, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
A still-developing story, but it seems that Bulgarian Wikinews will be closed and deleted, partially due to some pre-existing controversial, biased, and propaganda content. -- Rs chen 7754 01:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
Update: the bg.WN project is now locked/closed and will be deleted soon. George Ho ( talk) 00:12, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Thanks to all. This should definitely be in News and notes. Smallbones( smalltalk) 14:22, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Another full issue which is great to see! But I missed News & Notes. I might have my months mixed up but I think we have a couple new admins. Liz Read! Talk! 22:28, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
External articles
[2]
[3]. (mind you, spoilers for the film here, but the general point can be gotten by a skim)
Short summary: prior to the film's wide release, an IP editor added a plot summary based on the fact that the film had been shown at Cannes FF. None of the other editors there were aware this summary was patently false until movie critics, who HAD seen the film at Cannes, called Wikipedia out for it. This has led to debate (at the film's talk page, and at WT:FILM) about when is it fair game for WP to include a spoiler summary of a film that has yet to hit wide release. As well as whether WP should respect wishes of content creators (Taratino here, who had written an open letter in May to the world at large about not spoiling the film), or follow our policy that when a film does it wide release, a plot summary becomes fair game. -- Masem ( t) 19:10, 30 July 2019 (UTC)
Closed
This might be worth a mention in "On The Bright Side".
Clovermoss (
talk)
03:10, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
Closed
A proposal by WMF to hide all addresses of IP editors. --
Rs
chen
7754
04:49, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
Closed
http://listen.hatnote.com/ ―
Justin (koavf)❤
T☮
C☺
M☯
04:47, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
To reduce the number of pages that staff of The Signpost need to watch, I suggest merging this page into
Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost. Pinging
Smallbones to request comment. --—
↠Pine
(✉)
22:34, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
An attack that brought down Wikipedia in Europe and parts of the Middle East was covered by numerous news outlets and led to a statement being released by the WMF
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]. -
Indy beetle (
talk)
00:54, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
User:Monkbot seems to be editing a lot of article lately, fixing citation templates. It's noticeable. --
evrik (
talk)
04:27, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I have been asked to comment here. Not sure for the purpose of such comments, but:
why the heck would anybody do that?because a decision was taken to deprecate
|dead-url=
and |deadurl=
; see
this discussion and discussion linked from thereit doesn't seem to affect anything - change for change's sakeis a bit incorrect; because of this discussion, normally visible deprecated-parameter error messages are hidden. The error message looks like this:
|dead-url=
(
help)— Trappist the monk ( talk) 18:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Closed
This is kind of fun, it's a bot that scans Wikipedia for page titles that can be sung to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song and posts them hourly:
https://twitter.com/wiki_tmnt --
valereee (
talk)
10:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... WP:GA promoted its 30,000th article, Lucca Ashtear (nominated by Abryn and reviewed by Tintor2) with this edit on September 29th... I believe the total count listed on WP:GA, currently at 30,216, is significantly overstated. Whatever bot is totaling those is double- and triple-counting articles listed in more than one category, e.g. Triathlon at the 2012 Summer Olympics (was listed 3x when I counted on Sept. 22 or so) ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:11, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
- Indy beetle ( talk) 08:41, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
Also, the current edition of the BBC news channel Click (TV programme) has an interesting segment on political, especially Chinese, state interference - 5 mins or so, at the top of the programme. I expect it's available wherever their news channel is, & maybe online. link on UK site. Also this derived article. There's an amusing moment when the group of Taiwanese Wikipedians are asked what the WMF are doing about it. Johnbod ( talk) 16:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... Wikipedia's longest hoax (according to Haaretz)
For over 15 years, false claims that thousands of Poles were gassed to death in Warsaw were presented as fact. Haaretz reveals they are just the tip of an iceberg of a widespread Holocaust distortion operation by Polish nationalists.
— Benjakob, Omer (2019-10-03). "The Fake Nazi Death Camp: Wikipedia's Longest Hoax, Exposed". Haaretz. Retrieved 2019-10-03.
Press coverage about alleged systematic hoaxing at Warsaw concentration camp and elsewhere is under discussion at Jimbo's talkpage ☆ Bri ( talk) 23:01, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
We have to have a news article on this. No doubt about that. It will appear at the end of the month, so much of the current furor will die down by then. But I'd like to be sure we don't add gasoline to the fire, rather summarize the facts of the story. There's already enough to read about it at arbcom, Jimbo's talk, our submissions page for the last 2 months, the international press, probably ANI as well, and in in my email inbox. I see the most important facts of the case as being whether the "200,000 deaths" extermination camp existed and how long the "hoax" lasted and spread to other articles and wikis. I'd guess that we can track down those facts pretty well with very little controversy resulting. But we'd have to cover the arbcom case as well - at least as background - the site ban, and Icewhiz's behavior as well. There could be some controversy about this - I'd like to keep it reasonably short and non-explosive. Any volunteers to write this? Smallbones( smalltalk) 04:37, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Hi there. This is Techyan from Chinese Wikipedia. While we were working on our local community media Qiuwen, our media watchdogs found a popular Japanese TV talk show named " Matsuko no Shiranai Sekai" (lit. The world unknown to Matsuko) made an episode on Wikipedia and local community in early September, sparked huge echoes among the locals; while a series of activities, including the recent WikiGap meetups, carried out after the show aired. This is something pretty rare for the Japanese community, and I think you might want to cover it in this month's issue.
The episode interviewed Sae Kitamura ( User:さえぼー), and then the cameraman went to a local meetup. Several follow-up articles by local media also covered Kitamura's story. I have an archived version of the TV show for reference. The Wikipedia part starts from 34:40, and if the video doesn't stream, try to download it. [22]
It's a bit difficult for someone without any knowledge in the Japanese language to understand the show, but personally speaking, I am very delighted to see it, and there're a few things I can learn from it. The show has parts that are good for attracting audiences (such as talking about FA and GAs with interesting topics), introducing the people working behind Wikipedia, stressing the fact that there is no nation-wide user group nor a chapter in Japan so on; while everything neatly packed into a half-an-hour episode. This show is probably the best example of how to introduce Wikipedia to outsiders.
WikiGap in Japan received way more media coverage than I personally expected. Asahi Shimbun, Sankei Shimbun, and the Nikkei also covered this story - all of them are top Japanese newspapers; additionally, Kyodo as Japan's largest news agency, their Japanese story was also used widely among regional media.
-- Techyan( Talk) 18:19, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
A proposal to do something about Croatian Wikipedia. -- Rs chen 7754 20:33, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, formerly involved with Citizendium and Everipedia, announced a new platform that will be free from the "arrogant and controlling oligarchy" of Wikipedia and its "shadowy group of anonymous amateurs". Perhaps worthy of a mention, perhaps not, just thought I'd leave this here. Enwebb ( talk) 18:30, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
We should hit 6 million articles in the next couple of months, at the rate we're going. -- valereee ( talk) 22:51, 1 November 2019 (UTC)
I think it's interesting how LifeSiteNews was used as a "source" for your 31 October story on Taylor Marshall, while LifeSiteNews itself is deprecated and being actively removed from all over Wikipedia, wherever it has mistakenly been used as a "reliable" source. Elizium23 ( talk) 20:23, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
The Comments pages are for comments made about the published article, not about the draft. Please leave them on this page. Smallbones( smalltalk) 02:41, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
---
@ 3family6: You're missing two important points in your article: 1) The KL Warsaw essay was brought to the Signpost before the material was published on Haaretz, and the Signpost rejected it for fear of sanctions by ArbCom. What does this mean for editorial freedom? 2) The assertion that the Polish government is pushing alternative historical narratives is very well founded (Haaretz alone quotes two experts on that point), even if it doesn't completely apply to the current story. François Robere ( talk) 15:04, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Smallbones, can you confirm?-- 3family6 ( Talk to me | See what I have done) 16:18, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Discussion closed. Take it elsewhere if you'd like. |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Guys, seriously. The Polish government is NOT pushing the KL Warshau conspiracy theory. The IPN is the institution which actually debunked it. Nobody in the Polish government has said anything about this theory (probably because it's actually a minor fringe theory that most people in Poland haven't even heard about). Other issues: [Icewhiz] "currently are subject to sanctions per Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism in Poland". Is, not are, and also they are indef blocked for off wiki harassment related to the content disputes mentioned in the prior sentence (so quite relevant here and I think this should be mentioned earlier rather than at the very end of the story as it is in the current version). "and brought the story to Haaretz in order to generate reliable coverage " - WP:CANVASSING, anyone? This dimension should be relevant as well and the link to this policy may be relevant. I am also not sure if the usage of the world reliable is correct here. He brought it there to generate coverage, yes, but why the adjective? Considering the nwwspaper, partisan coverage might be actually better (just like a totally different spin would be given if this was published in the pro-government Polish media, ex. a few months ago Polish state media ( TVP and some other allied outlets) run this rather uninspiring story [26] suggesting that there is an Israeli conspiracy... it is about as realistic than the theory peddled in Haaretz and this is why Blatman in his response refers to the prior story as 'sensationalist' - nice title, but not backed up by any evidence). The entire conspiracy theory is ridiculous, as this topic area was recently scrutinized by ArbCom, which did not find a shred of evidence to support any claims that an army, or even small group, is pushing a POV there in violation of our policies. It should be clearly noted that the article presents zero evidence, just opinions. And opinions by an editor indef banned for harassment and hence with a major ax to grind should be taken with a major grain of salt. Lastly, since the essay by FR is mentioned, I think we should also mention a recent one posted by the otherwise retired User:Poeticbent at his userpage, since it is quite relevant (FYI Poeticbent was the Wikipedia's most active contributor to the Polish-Jewish topics; for eample he wrote and DYKed the majority of articles on WWII-era Jewish ghettos; he got into some heated fights with Icewhiz and eventually retired last year....). -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:47, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
Seriously folks - take it elsewhere. If you've already worn out everybody else in all the other forums on Wikipedia, then maybe it's time to just quit.
"begs the question"There are concerns that the story itself was slanted and some editors involved may not have been acting in good faith. To keep The Signpost above board, the EiC has pulled the story back. Chris Troutman ( talk) 15:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... Weaving Books into the Web—Starting with Wikipedia ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 03:06, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... 107.77.173.49 ( talk) 15:43, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
Sloud we include video game quotes on Wikiquote?
Video game are becoming a big part of our world, and so are the quotes that come with it.
Yet, somehow i don't see any on Wikiquote, (Yet) wren i can think of a few. 107.77.173.49 ( talk) 15:43, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
The number of active administrators has dropped below 500 for the first time since 2005. By mid-year 2020, we will also cross into 2007 territory for total admin headcount. Maybe this would be a good launching point for a discussion of the number of administrators and what it implies for the future.
In better news, we had four RfAs pass in October, which is better than any month in the last five years except Dec 2016–Jan 2017 (see User:WereSpielChequers/RFA stats). That bump was probably due to various causes we investigated in January 2017 News and notes. This shows that the decline isn't necessarily inexorable.
The Signpost covered this last time in my July 2019 Special report, so it might be too soon for a full story. Maybe a shorter item in News and notes? Feel free of course to start with this text if it's useful. ☆ Bri ( talk) 17:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
The WMF just posted the 2019-20 Q1 Tuning session. This is the first real update on the WMF's activities in a year (since the "Quarterly check-ins" process fell out of use). Probably worth at least a mention. -- Yair rand ( talk) 01:35, 12 November 2019 (UTC)
{{ tick}} Internet Archive and Wired coverage. -- Masem ( t) 21:25, 3 November 2019 (UTC)
{{ tick}} For good or bad, the Clarice Phelps controversy has made it to the Daily Mail: [28]. Worthy of a mention in the "In the Media" section at least... AnonMoos ( talk) 19:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
{{ tick}} The Signpost should write about... wikiview.net Hi there, this is Kai Barthel from the Visual Computing Group of HTW, University of Applied Sciences from Berlin, Germany. I wanted to propose to let the Wikipedia community know about a visual exploration tool to search and discover the images from Wikimedia Commons. This project called wikiview.net started as a student project and was extended and improved by our research group. For the moment Wikiview supports 12 million Wikimedia Commons images which can be searched by keywords, colors or example images. The collection of the images is organized as a graph which allows fast visual navigation to related images similar to navigation services. For the moment the graph is built using the visual similarity of the images only. A future version will support all Wikimedia images and will use image graphs that also take the metadata into account. An article on Signpost would help to get feedback and learn about typical use cases and get ideas for improvements.
{{ tick}} Did the SP do anything on WikiCon North America? GMG talk 21:41, 13 December 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should celebrate Turkey's access to Wikipedia being restored. If you don't have time to do a full section or a full article, here's some ready-for-proofreading text for Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media#In brief:
To followup on last month's late breaking news, as of 16 January, readers in Turkey can now access Wikpedia after that country's Constitutional Court overturned a government-imposed block dating to April 2017. To quote the Wikimedia Foundation, Welcome Back Turkey. Further coverage here, here, and elsewhere.
Feel free to shorten, lengthen, reword, replace, or otherwise make better. davidwr/( talk)/( contribs) 21:04, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
This user has died, I was sorry to hear. I had only the most minimal contact with him, but I believe his contribution to the FA process, peer review and the like was quite significant. It might be good to write something about him. It might also perhaps be possible to ask Brianboulton's Family to provide some personal history. Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 19:40, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
As the year's end approaches, does anyone know of any unsung editors who are about to complete a full year of some kind of editing commitment or ritual, e.g., adding a new article every day or the equivalent in a cleanup task? Might make for a nice interview if there are any candidates. czar 21:31, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about the deletion of the hoax article Princess Maria Cristina Amelia of Naples and Sicily, which was on Wikipedia for nearly 10 years, making it one of the longest running hoax articles in Wikipedia history. Here's the AfD discussion. Author Kate Heartfield first publicly raised concerns about this article and that her research indicated this person never existed. See this social media thread from Heartfield for more, including a detailed examination why this person likely never existed. The article was created by a permanently banned Wikipedia editor and references to the fictitious subject were inserted and linked from nearly 100 other articles, including for Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Cristina of Naples and Sicily. SouthernNights ( talk) 20:29, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
You had a previous article in June's "In the Media" topic: " The disinformation age". An egregious example of disinformation has recently surfaced. The key and most worrisome nature of this is that it is apparently *not* the product of a nation-state actor nor any previously recognised organization. Rather, it has become so easy to construct a huge network of fake sites that anyone can do it.
Pro-Indian 'fake websites targeted decision makers in Europe (BBC) is one ref. That article links to EU Disinfo Lab. (Their clarion call on Twitter - MSNBC.UK !?)
That NGO is apparently not associated directly with the EU's East StratCom Task Force EUvsDisinfo project, though a previous BBC article referenced an article of theirs that discussed one of the newly identified 'newssites' in October. Passing off as an 'organ' of the EU is amazing, but it fooled MEPs! Consider also that EUvsDisinfo missed the bigger picture.
(So far I have found only a small number of mentions of this here, e.g. Fake news websites , Fake news controversy)
The critical issue here is that we have reached a tipping point, where even a very small number of people with money and fervour can weave a massive network of deception that is unnoticed for years, and unrecognized even by groups looking for this evil. Fakery from any direction, for any purpose.
Your previous article gave some examples of disinformation. The above example reverses the emphasis. It is not enough to be aware of disinformation. Rather, one must now discern which few sources to trust. This escalation should be noted in the Signpost.
BTW: where on WP is it noted that "
Birmingham Gazette", "EP Today" (
WP cites), "
Eesti Aeg", "Times of Los Angeles", "Times of Geneva", "Dacca Times", "
Hamevasser" are - now - fake news outlets?
Shenme (
talk)
21:53, 16 December 2019 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about the breaking news story regarding Keir Starmer in the UK. The page for this prospective Labour Party candidate (and "Sir" to you) is undergoing an edit war about whether this man of the people is a millionaire or not. It's covered at length in UK mainstream media eg Sir Keir Starmer at centre of Wikipedia 'millionaire' row ahead of expected Labour leadership bid - Evening Standard and Sir Keir Starmer's Wikipedia page edited to remove reference to his being a 'millionaire' - Telegraph. Mujinga ( talk) 14:18, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
The big picture behind UPE spamming: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/disinformation-for-hire-black-pr-firms MER-C 13:40, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
The Signpost should write about... the special girl is me ( talk) 01:40, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
please report on various hoaxes in real life
Court rules ban was unconstitutional. -- A bit iffy ( talk) 05:53, 17 January 2020 (UTC)