The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-08-01. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.
The Guardian just published another article on the Sultan Al Jaber story. See "Leak reveals ‘touchy’ issues for UAE’s presidency of UN climate summit"
Smallbones( smalltalk) 18:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
The AI university involvement is interesting, Smallbones. See Twitter thread by the BBC's climate change editor suggesting there are many AI-generated young ladies singing the Sultan's praises on Twitter. -- Andreas JN 466 06:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I hope everything's OK. Just to say how beautiful your work is and how much it's appreciated. Blythwood ( talk) 03:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
References
It's rather sad to see the Signpost uncritically grouping the Unherd claim of a UN lead conspiracy to create disinformation on Wikipedia along a real, evidenced piece of disinformation found on the projects. The piece makes exagerated claims of conspiracy and repression of perspectives, while also citing widely debunked and poorly researched disinformation itself. If the Signpost is going to run these kinds of claims, at least provide some basic qualitative review of how well-grounded the claims are. Sadads ( talk) 21:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another.I have no reason to believe that is what the author was doing. I think it more likely that they simply, quite honestly, mistrust the initiative and feel in some way powerless and overrun. Now, "mistrust" and "bad faith" sound similar, but they are not at all the same thing. You can be mistrustful, and wrong, in good faith, and if Wikipedia teaches anything, it is that assuming good faith is usually the best way to build bridges and make progress. Andreas JN 466 15:53, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
run these kinds of claims). What's more, like other ITM stories, this one links the Wikipedia article about the publication right at the beginning for context. And I find it interesting that at least in its current version, it doesn't contain criticism of that publication that would rise even near the level of outrage you express about it here.
exagerated claims of conspiracy and repression of perspectives: Granted, I do see some overheated rhetoric in the article. But honestly, shaky accusations of bias and information suppression against Wikipedia are routine even in the mainstream news media's coverage of our projects. Just peruse the archives of this Signpost section (or the Signpost's in general). And even if media claims about causal mechanisms are wrong, that doesn't mean that there couldn't still be a real content problem, or that the Signpost should not make its readers aware of such criticisms. Yes, I understand that as someone involved in the SDG project that is being criticized by the article, you (and especially EMsmile as its paid employee - something she may want to disclose more clearly when weighing in on such matters) may bristle at being tarred with such broad a brush - just as the many admins who made deletion decisions that ended up being pilloried in the news media (such as in the Strickland case) may have been take aback at very public bias accusations against them personally, even when such biases may well exist more generally.
While there is a near-consensus that climate change is happening, how individuals and governments should respond to the problem is far from settled — yet the UN is determined to suggest otherwise.
grouping. In the context of a campaign to "communicate" the goals espoused by organization X about topic Y on Wikipedia, it does seem relevant for Signpost readers that the top leader of a central, influential event by organization X about topic Y has been credibly accused of deceptive PR involving topic Y that included manipulative Wikipedia editing. At the very least, it is a reminder that there is basically always some unappetizing political sausagemaking behind such goals. Understood, it may not be what you want to read if you have personally signed up for campaigning for these goals, but other Wikipedia editors may feel differently.
Our project does not work with any "UN bodies".- who said that it does, and whom are you quoting here? Please avoid straw man arguments.
You might wonder why we even mentioned the SDGs in the title. The answer is simple: it's because we had submitted this project proposal in a response to a call for projects for communicating content about the SDGs and the topics underpinning the SDGs.- well, that's the point, is it not? Such project proposals are always written to appeal to the grant giver's motivations and goals. This is an ubiquitous issue in grantmaking and funding (also in our specific context of Wikipedia projects that are externally funded by supposedly benign non-Wikimedia nonprofits or public institutions - happy to talk a bit more about the history here if you're interested). Of course this can be handled and mitigated, and I hope that that's what you and the others involved in this project have done here, by carefully keeping the work confined to the intersection area between the grantor's and Wikipedia's goals. But we should not indignantly dismiss any notion that such tensions could even exist.
Coming back to that piece which you had included in the Signpost [...] And I think you were indeed spreading misinformation but unintentionally [...]- uh, I had nothing to do with the inclusion of this story in the Signpost. I had already said right at the start of my comment above that I didn't write it. And even before that, Andreas had provided a detailed account of how it came to be. So I'm quite confused why you would even conjecture that I was to blame for a story that you and Sadads see as so problematic, let alone accuse me directly of publicizing David Icke conspiracy theories in the Signpost. The cherry on top is your belittling
perhaps just from superficial reading & lack of timein a mistaken claim that quite clearly was based on your own superficial reading.
Our project does not work with any "UN bodies"I believe she was referring to the Unherd article itself, which said, "Wikipedia editing is therefore just the latest front in the UN’s ongoing online climate change narrative control war" and insinuated in various ways that the project was being directed by the UN. This insinuation is ludicrous - if the UN or any of its member bodies actually wanted to influence what goes on at Wikipedia they could simply release their reports under a Wikipedia-compatible license, but they haven't.
Our project does not work with any "UN bodies": Well, until yesterday, the project page cited by Klarenberg said it is a
collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations. The IPCC is described by Wikipedia as
an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. (The UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with a secretariat in Bonn, Germany.) -- Andreas JN 466 05:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisationscould have been misunderstood. In practice, we work with academics at various universities (anyone who is willing to donate their time really; we have contacted perhaps 200 people and got reviewer's comments from perhaps 20), some of whom have also been authors of IPCC reports. We also draw a lot on the content of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report which is basically a big fat literature review with consensus on WP:DUE aspects (i.e. fringe theories not getting any more room than they deserve, according to scientific consensus).
I am not an employee of the project.- I was using the term in its generic meaning ( wikt:employee). But I'm happy to switch to a more precise terminology instead that distinguishes between e.g. long-term contractors and full-time staff with benefits etc. However, such distinctions are irrelevant to the points that were raised - in particular that you should have disclosed this relation to the project when coming here to criticize the Signpost for its coverage involving your project. I don't see any reflection of that on your part, which was one of the reasons for suggesting you might want to get advice and support from people who are more aware of such communications issues. Relatedly, while it's good that you now have made various corrections and updates in reaction to the UnHerd and/or Signpost article (and that the project's name had already been changed earlier), it could be worth reflecting on how to avoid such communication mistakes from the outset, rather than having to fix them afterwards.
If anyone from the Wikipedia community has any specific concerns/objections about our project you are very welcome to [...]- that's good, but in the above discussion I don't see any Wikipedians expressing concerns or objections about the project's overall work. (E.g. speaking for myself, I had said that I
am prepared to believe that your editing work as part of this project is beneficial for Wikipedia overall- that's not to say that such problems couldn't exist, but simply that I don't have formed an opinion so far on whether they exist or not.) Rather, the specific concerns and objections here are about the project's/your criticism of the Signpost's article and vague accusations of the Signpost
spreading misinformationetc, at least some of which has now turned out to be not very well-founded.
Speaking as an editor who has spent a non-trivial amount of time combating climate change denial on-wiki (especially back in the " Climategate" years), I do think there is an important difference between reflecting the scholarly consensus about scientific topics (as indeed recorded by the IPCC in this case), and uncritically endorsing the policy goals posited by particular international political organizations (such as the SDGs) or the action targets prescribed by international treaties for their member states. It would be highly problematic to blur the lines between these areas and decry as "disinformation" statements that are fundamentally political (we should do X/not do Y), even if we disagree with them as a matter of opinion. It looks like the SDG project clarifies in the small print that it is not about promoting these policy goals in the sense of POV pushing, but instead focuses on improving article quality in the corresponding content areas in line with Wikipedia policies, and that its content experts consists by and large of academics, rather than, say, employees of a UN agency's PR department or a think thank. That's good, but the project's title still unhelpfully conveys that it is about promoting a policy goal ("Communicating current SDG 13 knowledge through Wikipedia" instead of, say "Communicating current knowledge about climate change through Wikipedia"). [The latter was fixed afterwards, see above]
IPCC or SDG materialin general (or to paint anyone who doesn't endorse the SDGs as "iconoclast" like someone who disagrees with the scientific consensus as recorded by the IPCC) fundamentally confuses fact and opinion, or scientific knowledge and political goals. (And let's not even get started on the weird world of movement strategy here, which since 2017 or so may have sucked up tons and tons of energy from people involved in what one might call the corporate side of the movement and whose outputs might get quoted sometimes in funding matters, but enjoy very little awareness and influence in the Wikipedia editing community's day-to-day content decisions - unlike, say, the IPCC's reports.)
Some further reading/discussion on this piece from UnHerd (and UnHerd as a source in general) is available here: /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#UnHerd. In that earlier discussion, another Wikipedian had pointed out
for example EMsmile has very properly disclosed being a paid editor in this realm, so I forgot that I should really re-introduce myself again, as this is now a different crowd of Wikipedians. Thank you for the reminder, will be more thoughtful in future.
I think the value of the Unherd article is that it mentions a Wikipedia project I (and probably many other Wikipedians) had never heard of. I felt that the post that sadads made was valid but overall it's probably not really worth spending too much time on this as the reach of The Signpost is rather small compared to other newsletters. So for me personally, it was actually more interesting to take this opportunity to get a feel for what other Wikipedians might not like about our project.
The folks from Wikimedia Israel shared their own report of the celebration with some charming photos. Ckoerner ( talk) 20:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Should have noted that besides the links recommended in the EU Policy report, there is also a blog post by Wikimedia Italia that specifically discusses the impact on Wikimedia projects: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/06/05/open-access-to-heritage-images-is-becoming-increasingly-difficult-in-italy/ . Regards, HaeB ( talk) 06:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Italy wants to be paid because somebody who happened to be born there drew something 500 years ago? Do they want to be paid every time someone eats pizza, too? AryKun ( talk) 12:31, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Excellent reporting on the events in Durham. Threats to the independence and integrity of Wikipedia should always be brought to our attention. Smallchief ( talk) 14:09, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
This story was a tough read. Who, send what, why? The mayor requested, through a letter send by the city attorney, that her signature be taken down....but also content on pages of her political opponents of something she herself uncovered? This story left me with more questions then answers. What's her motive? Bart Terpstra ( talk) 15:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Why is it theft if Wikipedia is licensed under cc-by-sa-4.0? Bart Terpstra ( talk) 15:27, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
I can't find a single Russian Wikipedian upset about ..., recall that he was indefinitely blocked by the Russian Wikipedia community first. Are you disagreeing with their decision too? Regards, HaeB ( talk) 20:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
consider that Chinese Wikipedia pageviews spiked following their government ban- yeah, no, that's not what that chart shows. (The Chinese Wikipedia was blocked in May 2015, and the chart only starts from 2016. Also btw, as the small print below the chart warns, it includes automated pageviews from spiders and bots; for such an analysis one would need to remove them, using the filters under "Agent type".) Regards, HaeB ( talk) 20:40, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Section 13 allows the Foundation to block or ban violators of the ToS.To clarify a common misconception, the ToS gives the WMF the ability to ban people for whatever reason, or no reason at all ("with or without cause") - there is no requirement to violate the ToS before being WMF-banned. Legoktm ( talk) 07:26, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Long-term abuse: creating a Wikipedia fork which includes stolen content from Commons as well". Anomie ⚔ 11:20, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Her signature isn't on the page anymore. Any indication why? Therapyisgood ( talk) 19:41, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Given that Durham already had an illustrious history of electing complete lunatics with law degrees to positions of power ( Mike Nifong and Tracey Cline come to mind, having a DA removed once is rare enough but who ever heard of it happening twice in 5 years?), I have to wonder what's going on with the civic culture down there. There are how many more important things to deal with while running a city of that size, none of which involve sending facially bumptious legal threats to Wikipedia editors. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 13:53, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
Clearly the City Attorney's letter was misguided in many ways and should not have been sent. The request to identify specific editors was especially inappropriate, as well as doomed to failure.
That being said, the letter's concern about reproducing the Mayor's signature on Wikipedia arguably has greater merit than its other aspects. Indeed,
Wikipedia:Signatures of living persons, albeit an essay rather than a policy or guideline, observes that if the person in question (or their representative) wants a signature removed to protect from identity theft, it should generally be removed
. This is reasonable guidance, especially where, as here, the signature is not of a highly prominent person and the signature itself lacks independent encyclopedic value. The fact that the mayor previously allowed her signature to be reproduced elsewhere is neither here nor there, as someone may come to perceive an identity theft risk belatedly, or may feel the risk is different in kind from an online posting rather than a paper one (and even more so now given the controversy).
Ordinarily we remove a moderately notable BLP subject's signature from Wikipedia at that person's request. Instead, this Signpost article chooses to further disseminate the signature in our internal online newspaper, with the foreseeable and presumably intended effort of further publicizing it. I have no qualms about publicizing the dispute regarding the signature; but there is no more news value than there is encyclopedic value to posting the signature itself over the subject's objection.
While posting the signature here is not legally actionable—let no one think I am suggesting otherwise—including it on this page can reasonably be interpreted as striking back at or even taunting a BLP subject out of (understandable) annoyance at her representative's unwarranted tactics in raising concern about the contents of her article. As such, I suggest that in the spirit of the BLP policy, the signature should be removed. @ Red-tailed hawk, HaeB, Jayen466, and Bri: I'd welcome your comments. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 15:05, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
striking back at or even taunting) seem to be on shaky grounds. I'd find it more likely that they included this because it is an illustration that is highly suitable for conveying a central point of the story visually to the reader (something that we always strive to do, for example it's why I, as author of the EU policy story, spent time selecting and including that Vitruvian Man image after writing up the story). As for the alleged identity theft risks, I would recommend a balanced risk assessment that also takes into account that Signpost stories almost never receive sustained traffic after the initial days following publication, as opposed to a mainspace article where such a signature image will receive views for years and years to come. Yes, the BLP policy applies to non-article pages too, but as you correctly point out, the essay you rely on here is not policy or even consensus. Overall, I'm doubtful that this is a problem so serious that it would require a post-publication excision. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 15:34, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
wantsthe image removed from Wikipedia, in the present tense, and is upholding that request - are we positive that this is still the case, after all the (non-Signpost) media attention and pushback from non-Wikipedians? As you point out, she had changed her mind about this kind of matter before. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 15:45, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
can reasonably be interpretedby some others as potentially retaliatory, since it has no independent news significance. If I personally thought that there was an actual bad-faith, malicious, retaliatory motivation here, I would have donned my administrator hat and unilaterally deleted the signature as a BLP enforcement action, instead of making the gently worded request that I did. (3) I can't say for certain that the mayor hasn't changed her mind about this, but we have no evidence that she has, and we certainly aren't in a position to reach out and ask her. Regards, Newyorkbrad ( talk) 16:03, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
we should make the decision dispassionately, rather than out of revenge: I agree, and that's what's been done here. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:33, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Of course we're keeping the signature image. The point of Wikipedia is the self-empowerment of over-educated under-employed dissenters who use free speech and privacy as a sort of lawfare against people with money and power. Wikipedia, as an institution, has traditionally stuck a thumb in the eye of decency when our mob of editors demanded it. Only a lawyer would attempt to make a farcical argument for the sake of propriety. It's as if you don't know who this community really is. Chris Troutman ( talk) 02:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
As I said on wikimedia-l, I'm very excited that the WMF is now (finally) running its own Mastodon server. More details have since emerged about wikimedia.social, namely "staff from the Product & Technology department will maintain the instance". This reaffirms the stated goal that the instance will be used to "talk tech", which previously received some good criticism from Erik about being too narrow of a view.
Regarding The Foundation's own @wikimediafoundation account leads, with 14 posts, and has already gained over 5000 followers – undoubtedly helped by a Hacker News post that made it (near) the top of that site's front page.
Crediting it to Hacker News really misses the more obvious explanation: the post by @Wikipedia announcing the WMF account reached 900+ boosts, including one from Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko, who has some 330k+ followers. Surely people already on Mastodon are far more likely to become followers of new accounts versus people who read Hacker News :) Legoktm ( talk) 08:09, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
To help with page maintenance, it is recommended that the text of the name have a connection to the inline citation or footnote, for example "author year page", but VE ignores this guidance. This tool makes it easy to improve on VE's work. Pam D 07:30, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
|author=August 2
and other clearly misplaced information due to these tools—or rather, due to incorrect usage of these excellent tools. No doubt the tools can get more sophisticated (e.g. never putting "[month] [number]" in an author parameter) but ultimately human oversight is always needed. —
Bilorv (
talk) 19:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Likey the addition of a "most edited articles" chart. A nice new dimension to the Traffic Report, thanks. Randy Kryn ( talk) 13:04, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-08-01. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.
The Guardian just published another article on the Sultan Al Jaber story. See "Leak reveals ‘touchy’ issues for UAE’s presidency of UN climate summit"
Smallbones( smalltalk) 18:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
The AI university involvement is interesting, Smallbones. See Twitter thread by the BBC's climate change editor suggesting there are many AI-generated young ladies singing the Sultan's praises on Twitter. -- Andreas JN 466 06:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I hope everything's OK. Just to say how beautiful your work is and how much it's appreciated. Blythwood ( talk) 03:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
References
It's rather sad to see the Signpost uncritically grouping the Unherd claim of a UN lead conspiracy to create disinformation on Wikipedia along a real, evidenced piece of disinformation found on the projects. The piece makes exagerated claims of conspiracy and repression of perspectives, while also citing widely debunked and poorly researched disinformation itself. If the Signpost is going to run these kinds of claims, at least provide some basic qualitative review of how well-grounded the claims are. Sadads ( talk) 21:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another.I have no reason to believe that is what the author was doing. I think it more likely that they simply, quite honestly, mistrust the initiative and feel in some way powerless and overrun. Now, "mistrust" and "bad faith" sound similar, but they are not at all the same thing. You can be mistrustful, and wrong, in good faith, and if Wikipedia teaches anything, it is that assuming good faith is usually the best way to build bridges and make progress. Andreas JN 466 15:53, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
run these kinds of claims). What's more, like other ITM stories, this one links the Wikipedia article about the publication right at the beginning for context. And I find it interesting that at least in its current version, it doesn't contain criticism of that publication that would rise even near the level of outrage you express about it here.
exagerated claims of conspiracy and repression of perspectives: Granted, I do see some overheated rhetoric in the article. But honestly, shaky accusations of bias and information suppression against Wikipedia are routine even in the mainstream news media's coverage of our projects. Just peruse the archives of this Signpost section (or the Signpost's in general). And even if media claims about causal mechanisms are wrong, that doesn't mean that there couldn't still be a real content problem, or that the Signpost should not make its readers aware of such criticisms. Yes, I understand that as someone involved in the SDG project that is being criticized by the article, you (and especially EMsmile as its paid employee - something she may want to disclose more clearly when weighing in on such matters) may bristle at being tarred with such broad a brush - just as the many admins who made deletion decisions that ended up being pilloried in the news media (such as in the Strickland case) may have been take aback at very public bias accusations against them personally, even when such biases may well exist more generally.
While there is a near-consensus that climate change is happening, how individuals and governments should respond to the problem is far from settled — yet the UN is determined to suggest otherwise.
grouping. In the context of a campaign to "communicate" the goals espoused by organization X about topic Y on Wikipedia, it does seem relevant for Signpost readers that the top leader of a central, influential event by organization X about topic Y has been credibly accused of deceptive PR involving topic Y that included manipulative Wikipedia editing. At the very least, it is a reminder that there is basically always some unappetizing political sausagemaking behind such goals. Understood, it may not be what you want to read if you have personally signed up for campaigning for these goals, but other Wikipedia editors may feel differently.
Our project does not work with any "UN bodies".- who said that it does, and whom are you quoting here? Please avoid straw man arguments.
You might wonder why we even mentioned the SDGs in the title. The answer is simple: it's because we had submitted this project proposal in a response to a call for projects for communicating content about the SDGs and the topics underpinning the SDGs.- well, that's the point, is it not? Such project proposals are always written to appeal to the grant giver's motivations and goals. This is an ubiquitous issue in grantmaking and funding (also in our specific context of Wikipedia projects that are externally funded by supposedly benign non-Wikimedia nonprofits or public institutions - happy to talk a bit more about the history here if you're interested). Of course this can be handled and mitigated, and I hope that that's what you and the others involved in this project have done here, by carefully keeping the work confined to the intersection area between the grantor's and Wikipedia's goals. But we should not indignantly dismiss any notion that such tensions could even exist.
Coming back to that piece which you had included in the Signpost [...] And I think you were indeed spreading misinformation but unintentionally [...]- uh, I had nothing to do with the inclusion of this story in the Signpost. I had already said right at the start of my comment above that I didn't write it. And even before that, Andreas had provided a detailed account of how it came to be. So I'm quite confused why you would even conjecture that I was to blame for a story that you and Sadads see as so problematic, let alone accuse me directly of publicizing David Icke conspiracy theories in the Signpost. The cherry on top is your belittling
perhaps just from superficial reading & lack of timein a mistaken claim that quite clearly was based on your own superficial reading.
Our project does not work with any "UN bodies"I believe she was referring to the Unherd article itself, which said, "Wikipedia editing is therefore just the latest front in the UN’s ongoing online climate change narrative control war" and insinuated in various ways that the project was being directed by the UN. This insinuation is ludicrous - if the UN or any of its member bodies actually wanted to influence what goes on at Wikipedia they could simply release their reports under a Wikipedia-compatible license, but they haven't.
Our project does not work with any "UN bodies": Well, until yesterday, the project page cited by Klarenberg said it is a
collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations. The IPCC is described by Wikipedia as
an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. (The UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with a secretariat in Bonn, Germany.) -- Andreas JN 466 05:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisationscould have been misunderstood. In practice, we work with academics at various universities (anyone who is willing to donate their time really; we have contacted perhaps 200 people and got reviewer's comments from perhaps 20), some of whom have also been authors of IPCC reports. We also draw a lot on the content of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report which is basically a big fat literature review with consensus on WP:DUE aspects (i.e. fringe theories not getting any more room than they deserve, according to scientific consensus).
I am not an employee of the project.- I was using the term in its generic meaning ( wikt:employee). But I'm happy to switch to a more precise terminology instead that distinguishes between e.g. long-term contractors and full-time staff with benefits etc. However, such distinctions are irrelevant to the points that were raised - in particular that you should have disclosed this relation to the project when coming here to criticize the Signpost for its coverage involving your project. I don't see any reflection of that on your part, which was one of the reasons for suggesting you might want to get advice and support from people who are more aware of such communications issues. Relatedly, while it's good that you now have made various corrections and updates in reaction to the UnHerd and/or Signpost article (and that the project's name had already been changed earlier), it could be worth reflecting on how to avoid such communication mistakes from the outset, rather than having to fix them afterwards.
If anyone from the Wikipedia community has any specific concerns/objections about our project you are very welcome to [...]- that's good, but in the above discussion I don't see any Wikipedians expressing concerns or objections about the project's overall work. (E.g. speaking for myself, I had said that I
am prepared to believe that your editing work as part of this project is beneficial for Wikipedia overall- that's not to say that such problems couldn't exist, but simply that I don't have formed an opinion so far on whether they exist or not.) Rather, the specific concerns and objections here are about the project's/your criticism of the Signpost's article and vague accusations of the Signpost
spreading misinformationetc, at least some of which has now turned out to be not very well-founded.
Speaking as an editor who has spent a non-trivial amount of time combating climate change denial on-wiki (especially back in the " Climategate" years), I do think there is an important difference between reflecting the scholarly consensus about scientific topics (as indeed recorded by the IPCC in this case), and uncritically endorsing the policy goals posited by particular international political organizations (such as the SDGs) or the action targets prescribed by international treaties for their member states. It would be highly problematic to blur the lines between these areas and decry as "disinformation" statements that are fundamentally political (we should do X/not do Y), even if we disagree with them as a matter of opinion. It looks like the SDG project clarifies in the small print that it is not about promoting these policy goals in the sense of POV pushing, but instead focuses on improving article quality in the corresponding content areas in line with Wikipedia policies, and that its content experts consists by and large of academics, rather than, say, employees of a UN agency's PR department or a think thank. That's good, but the project's title still unhelpfully conveys that it is about promoting a policy goal ("Communicating current SDG 13 knowledge through Wikipedia" instead of, say "Communicating current knowledge about climate change through Wikipedia"). [The latter was fixed afterwards, see above]
IPCC or SDG materialin general (or to paint anyone who doesn't endorse the SDGs as "iconoclast" like someone who disagrees with the scientific consensus as recorded by the IPCC) fundamentally confuses fact and opinion, or scientific knowledge and political goals. (And let's not even get started on the weird world of movement strategy here, which since 2017 or so may have sucked up tons and tons of energy from people involved in what one might call the corporate side of the movement and whose outputs might get quoted sometimes in funding matters, but enjoy very little awareness and influence in the Wikipedia editing community's day-to-day content decisions - unlike, say, the IPCC's reports.)
Some further reading/discussion on this piece from UnHerd (and UnHerd as a source in general) is available here: /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#UnHerd. In that earlier discussion, another Wikipedian had pointed out
for example EMsmile has very properly disclosed being a paid editor in this realm, so I forgot that I should really re-introduce myself again, as this is now a different crowd of Wikipedians. Thank you for the reminder, will be more thoughtful in future.
I think the value of the Unherd article is that it mentions a Wikipedia project I (and probably many other Wikipedians) had never heard of. I felt that the post that sadads made was valid but overall it's probably not really worth spending too much time on this as the reach of The Signpost is rather small compared to other newsletters. So for me personally, it was actually more interesting to take this opportunity to get a feel for what other Wikipedians might not like about our project.
The folks from Wikimedia Israel shared their own report of the celebration with some charming photos. Ckoerner ( talk) 20:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Should have noted that besides the links recommended in the EU Policy report, there is also a blog post by Wikimedia Italia that specifically discusses the impact on Wikimedia projects: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/06/05/open-access-to-heritage-images-is-becoming-increasingly-difficult-in-italy/ . Regards, HaeB ( talk) 06:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Italy wants to be paid because somebody who happened to be born there drew something 500 years ago? Do they want to be paid every time someone eats pizza, too? AryKun ( talk) 12:31, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Excellent reporting on the events in Durham. Threats to the independence and integrity of Wikipedia should always be brought to our attention. Smallchief ( talk) 14:09, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
This story was a tough read. Who, send what, why? The mayor requested, through a letter send by the city attorney, that her signature be taken down....but also content on pages of her political opponents of something she herself uncovered? This story left me with more questions then answers. What's her motive? Bart Terpstra ( talk) 15:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Why is it theft if Wikipedia is licensed under cc-by-sa-4.0? Bart Terpstra ( talk) 15:27, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
I can't find a single Russian Wikipedian upset about ..., recall that he was indefinitely blocked by the Russian Wikipedia community first. Are you disagreeing with their decision too? Regards, HaeB ( talk) 20:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
consider that Chinese Wikipedia pageviews spiked following their government ban- yeah, no, that's not what that chart shows. (The Chinese Wikipedia was blocked in May 2015, and the chart only starts from 2016. Also btw, as the small print below the chart warns, it includes automated pageviews from spiders and bots; for such an analysis one would need to remove them, using the filters under "Agent type".) Regards, HaeB ( talk) 20:40, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Section 13 allows the Foundation to block or ban violators of the ToS.To clarify a common misconception, the ToS gives the WMF the ability to ban people for whatever reason, or no reason at all ("with or without cause") - there is no requirement to violate the ToS before being WMF-banned. Legoktm ( talk) 07:26, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Long-term abuse: creating a Wikipedia fork which includes stolen content from Commons as well". Anomie ⚔ 11:20, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Her signature isn't on the page anymore. Any indication why? Therapyisgood ( talk) 19:41, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
Given that Durham already had an illustrious history of electing complete lunatics with law degrees to positions of power ( Mike Nifong and Tracey Cline come to mind, having a DA removed once is rare enough but who ever heard of it happening twice in 5 years?), I have to wonder what's going on with the civic culture down there. There are how many more important things to deal with while running a city of that size, none of which involve sending facially bumptious legal threats to Wikipedia editors. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 13:53, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
Clearly the City Attorney's letter was misguided in many ways and should not have been sent. The request to identify specific editors was especially inappropriate, as well as doomed to failure.
That being said, the letter's concern about reproducing the Mayor's signature on Wikipedia arguably has greater merit than its other aspects. Indeed,
Wikipedia:Signatures of living persons, albeit an essay rather than a policy or guideline, observes that if the person in question (or their representative) wants a signature removed to protect from identity theft, it should generally be removed
. This is reasonable guidance, especially where, as here, the signature is not of a highly prominent person and the signature itself lacks independent encyclopedic value. The fact that the mayor previously allowed her signature to be reproduced elsewhere is neither here nor there, as someone may come to perceive an identity theft risk belatedly, or may feel the risk is different in kind from an online posting rather than a paper one (and even more so now given the controversy).
Ordinarily we remove a moderately notable BLP subject's signature from Wikipedia at that person's request. Instead, this Signpost article chooses to further disseminate the signature in our internal online newspaper, with the foreseeable and presumably intended effort of further publicizing it. I have no qualms about publicizing the dispute regarding the signature; but there is no more news value than there is encyclopedic value to posting the signature itself over the subject's objection.
While posting the signature here is not legally actionable—let no one think I am suggesting otherwise—including it on this page can reasonably be interpreted as striking back at or even taunting a BLP subject out of (understandable) annoyance at her representative's unwarranted tactics in raising concern about the contents of her article. As such, I suggest that in the spirit of the BLP policy, the signature should be removed. @ Red-tailed hawk, HaeB, Jayen466, and Bri: I'd welcome your comments. Newyorkbrad ( talk) 15:05, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
striking back at or even taunting) seem to be on shaky grounds. I'd find it more likely that they included this because it is an illustration that is highly suitable for conveying a central point of the story visually to the reader (something that we always strive to do, for example it's why I, as author of the EU policy story, spent time selecting and including that Vitruvian Man image after writing up the story). As for the alleged identity theft risks, I would recommend a balanced risk assessment that also takes into account that Signpost stories almost never receive sustained traffic after the initial days following publication, as opposed to a mainspace article where such a signature image will receive views for years and years to come. Yes, the BLP policy applies to non-article pages too, but as you correctly point out, the essay you rely on here is not policy or even consensus. Overall, I'm doubtful that this is a problem so serious that it would require a post-publication excision. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 15:34, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
wantsthe image removed from Wikipedia, in the present tense, and is upholding that request - are we positive that this is still the case, after all the (non-Signpost) media attention and pushback from non-Wikipedians? As you point out, she had changed her mind about this kind of matter before. Regards, HaeB ( talk) 15:45, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
can reasonably be interpretedby some others as potentially retaliatory, since it has no independent news significance. If I personally thought that there was an actual bad-faith, malicious, retaliatory motivation here, I would have donned my administrator hat and unilaterally deleted the signature as a BLP enforcement action, instead of making the gently worded request that I did. (3) I can't say for certain that the mayor hasn't changed her mind about this, but we have no evidence that she has, and we certainly aren't in a position to reach out and ask her. Regards, Newyorkbrad ( talk) 16:03, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
we should make the decision dispassionately, rather than out of revenge: I agree, and that's what's been done here. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 00:33, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
Of course we're keeping the signature image. The point of Wikipedia is the self-empowerment of over-educated under-employed dissenters who use free speech and privacy as a sort of lawfare against people with money and power. Wikipedia, as an institution, has traditionally stuck a thumb in the eye of decency when our mob of editors demanded it. Only a lawyer would attempt to make a farcical argument for the sake of propriety. It's as if you don't know who this community really is. Chris Troutman ( talk) 02:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
As I said on wikimedia-l, I'm very excited that the WMF is now (finally) running its own Mastodon server. More details have since emerged about wikimedia.social, namely "staff from the Product & Technology department will maintain the instance". This reaffirms the stated goal that the instance will be used to "talk tech", which previously received some good criticism from Erik about being too narrow of a view.
Regarding The Foundation's own @wikimediafoundation account leads, with 14 posts, and has already gained over 5000 followers – undoubtedly helped by a Hacker News post that made it (near) the top of that site's front page.
Crediting it to Hacker News really misses the more obvious explanation: the post by @Wikipedia announcing the WMF account reached 900+ boosts, including one from Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko, who has some 330k+ followers. Surely people already on Mastodon are far more likely to become followers of new accounts versus people who read Hacker News :) Legoktm ( talk) 08:09, 4 August 2023 (UTC)
To help with page maintenance, it is recommended that the text of the name have a connection to the inline citation or footnote, for example "author year page", but VE ignores this guidance. This tool makes it easy to improve on VE's work. Pam D 07:30, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
|author=August 2
and other clearly misplaced information due to these tools—or rather, due to incorrect usage of these excellent tools. No doubt the tools can get more sophisticated (e.g. never putting "[month] [number]" in an author parameter) but ultimately human oversight is always needed. —
Bilorv (
talk) 19:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
Likey the addition of a "most edited articles" chart. A nice new dimension to the Traffic Report, thanks. Randy Kryn ( talk) 13:04, 4 August 2023 (UTC)