Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2021-01-31

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2021-01-31. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Featured content: New Year, same Featured Content report! (0 bytes · 💬)[edit]

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-01-31/Featured content

Humour: Dr. Seuss's Guide to Wikipedia (3,673 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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Beautifully putt
  • Beautifully put. GeraldWL 03:02, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I just want to make clear that 85% of the material is by Levivich, the rest by our other fellow editors. I supplied the coffee and donuts. EEng 04:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Love the (disambiguation) overview. In support, one of the pages has this hatnote to finish it off:

This is a disambiguation page for the term "Wikipedia". For information about disambiguation on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Disambiguation. For other uses of "Wikipedia" in project namespace, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia (disambiguation).

Everything clear now. -DePiep (talk) 18:16, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A true satirical masterpiece of the modern era." A. N. Other Doctor 123 (talk) 12:41, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Let's make American Literature great again!" Your worst ex 123 (talk) 12:41, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "I love the work of this Ted Cruz guy, who knew he was so smooth and encyclopedic" -xXNot the Zodiac KillerXx. Seriously tho, great work y'all, keep it up. AdmiralEek (talk) 14:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am an elder non-native English speeker, and got here without previous awareness of Dr Seuss, and with little awareness of rhythm and melody in English poetry.
I intend to show this article to some kids who (are taught English as forein language, and) are bored to aversion to that subject by curicula their teachers of English feed them.
I estimate they'll stop being bored, get interested about how the rhytm and melody materialize when text is read correctrly, get interested how to try to create their own poetry, and to get interested about what all the references (links) the humour is about. Boredom should vanish, and their teachers shall have a whole new universe of problems trying to answer the questions from every field possible (and some unpossibles), instead of their previous sole one - uninterested and unmotivated pupils.
That should also remove (too many) unmotivated and bored teachers' boredom also, and I hope they survive the experience. But if they do survive, most should remember (or even (re)learn) joy of teaching, and joy of seeing pupils flashing forward growing (in mind), instead of being laborously towed to memorize next datum listed in the curriculum.
Thanks for this article. I suppose you enjojed creating it about as much as I am reading it, and naughtily thinking to whom and at what correct moment to submit it to read.--Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 10:06, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately you're one of only about ten people who actually read it. Never have so many done so much to give laughs to so few. EEng 17:55, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In focus: From Anarchy to Wikiality, Glaring Bias to Good Cop: Press Coverage of Wikipedia's First Two Decades (22,837 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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It is not the case that Donna Strickland had an article that was deleted. A draft was written and declined [1]. XOR'easter (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hrm. The correction is appreciated, though now I'm torn between thinking that's a distinction without a difference, in terms of society at large, and feeling like that's even worse, in terms of how it reflects on our own processes / biases. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 14:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Declining a draft is a decision taken by a single person, whereas deleting a page requires a whole process. If the Donna Strickland draft had been promoted and then taken to Articles for deletion, I'm almost certain it would have been kept, per the notability guideline for academics. (And I've seen a lot of deletion debates for scientists and other scholarly types over the last few years.) XOR'easter (talk) 16:45, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@XOR'easter: Well, yeah, exactly. So once an article is successfully created, it can take the bureaucratic equivalent of the Twelve Labors to get it deleted. (Ignoring, for the sake of argument, the Speedy Deletion process.) But that same article's initial creation (or, acceptance into mainspace) can hinge on a yea/nay call from a single person? That feels perhaps a tad imbalanced, or at least there's a case to be made that it is. Not to mention, it creates a prime opportunity for lots of what could look like fairly arbitrary and inconsistent decision-making, when viewed as a whole. (Through no fault of the individuals making those decisions, and no matter how careful and impartial each of them are, or try to be.)
(I also don't completely understand the "not edited in six months" part of that speedy-deletion notice, since the history seems to indicate that the draft had only been created 2 months prior. But maybe that was a later addition to the template, and regardless it's tangential to the decision-making process itself.) -- FeRDNYC (talk) 19:12, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@FeRDNYC: in my opinion you make the same mistake as a lot of the media coverage around the Strickland decline. We would love nothing more than to have a panel of 10 editors reviewing each draft and working to improve every promising piece of content someone writes in good faith to the point where it can be included. But we are overwhelmed and number too few to do this. This draft process is overrun by conflict-of-interest editors whose financial imperatives to get crap accepted would massively outweigh our hobbyist editors' ability to do one of the least-rewarding, highest skillset, most undervalued tasks on the site if we didn't let the few outstanding human beings who consistently work in this area apply strict standards for acceptance.
The Signpost piece touches on a very interesting point about the media (and by extension the public) viewing Wikipedia as "the Man" as time goes on. But we are not The Man. In so many cases, people attribute malice to what is actually just lack of resources. An error of omission is likely due to inaction rather than conscious "suppression" of information. Poor-quality articles are likely due to lack of eyes on it rather than that the article represents the standards and ideals of the community. If anyone is responsible for the lack of coverage of women on Wikipedia then why would it be the editors we have rather than the people who choose not to edit? (Sure, people biting newbies or setting double standards in treatment of content can make us complicit, but none of us are morally obliged to write any particular article that is missing, because we are volunteers.)
On the other hand, I don't feel articles for deletion is particularly burdensome and it is often a painless and low-drama process. As for the six months question, drafts are deleted only after six months of no edits (unless they're egregious spam or similar), and can be continually resubmitted after improvements in accordance with the reviewer feedback—this is why a draft decline is just not comparable with deletion. The reason the notice shows in that old revision even though it was only two months old at the time is because the template looks at the current date whenever you view the page (so it wouldn't have shown that notice at the time). — Bilorv (talk) 00:21, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether the actual story makes Wikipedia look better or worse than the story that's often told (I could probably spin it either way if I tried). The first step is to get the facts accurate, after which we can debate the interpretation. XOR'easter (talk) 13:49, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A great overview of public perception of Wikipedia. I can't speak to Harrison, but I've read Omer Benjakob before and they are one of the few journalists who really "get" what we do here. I predict that in the future wiki press coverage will still include stuff about the gender gap, it's a given at this point. I do hope we will be able to see Wikipedia expand to other countries and have the media discuss that. Time will tell! -Indy beetle (talk) 02:38, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sure, you know Harrison, he's the guy who has a piece in Slate about Wikipedia (almost) every month explaining Wiki issues to the public mostly from multiple editors' points of view. What I am always amazed at is his ability to find the right words and phrases to explain what I thought was a very complicated concept. I "borrow" a few of those words and phrases from time to time - once I've seen them, why settle for second best? Plus I'm always amazed at his relaxed writing style - it's never work to read through the text no matter how much content is in there. As far as Omer - all I need to say is that about February 5 2020, a month before WHO declared that there was a pandemic, Omer wrote a great article on the work Wikipedians were doing to combat COVID disinformation. Talk about a scoop! Dozens of very good papers and journalists repeated the story for several months. A 3rd journalist should be mentioned, Noam Cohen who's been writing great Wiki-journalism from almost the very beginning, as noted in the text here. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:53, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many thanks, Smallbones. I would write about stories about Wikipedia MORE than once per month if I could, but I'm often strapped for time! Stephenbharrison (talk) 04:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very well written, some great thoughts in there. I somewhat bristle at the idea that we should hand out access to deleted content to reporters, but the idea that we need to be more accessible and understandable to the media is super important. AdmiralEek (talk) 16:55, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is an exceptional piece and it has given me a lot to think about. It also raises some points I've already been thinking about recently:
    • Many times, we as journalists have been told to "fix" Wikipedia instead of write about it. I think journalists would be better doing better journalism if they want to help fix Wikipedia. It's now basically a cliche to hear a celebrity complaining about the inaccuracy of their Wikipedia article, but that information is usually just repetition of news media. We're the symptom, not the disease. They never want to look inwards. WP:CITOGENESIS is a huge problem but it's really in the power of journalists, not us, to avert its cause. At the same time, I don't think the individual journalist is my enemy; rather their material conditions are. The solution is journalists being less overworked, better-paid and having more workers' rights. Unfortunately, these goals are unachievable under free market economics and populist bourgeois governments, which respectively control the industry and the regulators and lead to an outcome where journalists scramble for clicks and only steer clear of libel, rather than patiently collecting the highest-quality information.
    • The more it seems as if Wikipedia has become aligned with Big Tech, the more likely the encyclopedia will receive similarly adverse coverage. And yet we have no choice in the matter! Big Tech abuse our open license in many instances, like YouTube's PR move of putting links to Wikipedia articles beneath (e.g.) neo-Nazi propaganda topics rather than removing them, as if the supporters of such videos don't already view Wikipedia as part of the disdained "liberal elite-run mainstream media". They have the ability to monitor their site 100 times better than they do, and they are sometimes quite rightly satirised for this (e.g. The Onion), though woefully inadequate attention is given to the abusive conditions of the few overworked outsourced moderators YouTube have. But the offloading onto Wikipedia is a trick: fault with the system becomes fault with Wikipedia rather than fault with Big Tech. The headline is "Amazon shouldn't trust Wikipedia" rather than "We shouldn't trust Amazon", even though Alexa has been found cherry-picking Wikipedia article content to spread antisemitism.
    • Much of the popular coverage of Wikipedia is still lacking and is either reductive or superficial, treating Wikipedia as a unified voice and amplifying minor errors and vandalism. Absolutely. Every time they treat us as static rather than changing, or complete rather than in progress, they actively decrease readers' awareness and ability for critical evaluation of what they are reading. I see people in internet arguments treating Wikipedia either (implicitly) as an unerring body of All Truth or a vandalism-ridden 99% false site, and almost never anything even resembling what Wikipedia is. "Reductive or superficial" coverage allows the first view to go unchallenged, while the latter is caused by media "amplifying minor errors". If you understand how Wikipedia is written, you can evaluate an article's reliability on a case-by-case basis or at least apply some general principles about what our biases are and what our strengths are.
— Bilorv (talk) 01:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just an aside on Bilorv's example of a misreported article "Amazon shouldn't trust Wikipedia" Yes, that's a doozy. Gearbrain, which seems to exist to sell computer gear, was rewriting a story from the Sun (which reads like an urban legend) which they got from Kennedy News & Media (the link explains how they pay for cute or horrific stories). Checking the Wikipedia article likely involved, it wasn't edited very much in the 3 months before the Sun published the story, and the word "stab" never appeared during that time. In short Alexa wasn't quoting Wikipedia. Rather if it was Alexa at all (on the video), it was likely quoting a cynical paid-for hoax. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    A source worse than The S*n, never thought I'd see the day. At least The S*n bothers to quote "It said it was reading from Wikipedia but when I checked the article online, it didn't say [the sentences about killing myself] on there". But it ends with It is believed Alexa may have sourced the rogue text from Wikipedia, which can be edited by anyone. Journalists need to learn how to click the button "View history". There's no point saying "it's believed that there may have been..." about a completely open-source website with a transparent revision history. — Bilorv (talk) 11:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A quick note to say thanks for the kind and constructive feedback on the article. Yes, we certainly worked hard and spent a lot of time on it for Wikipedia @ 20. Stephenbharrison (talk) 04:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Toward a better working relationship[edit]

The paragraph in the text

Yet although the Wikimedia Foundation has made press contacts much more accessible, there is still work to be done to enhance communication between Wikipedia and the media. Creating a special status for wiki journalists, for example, recognizing their users and granting them read-only status for deleted articles and censored edits – a right currently reserved for official administrators – could help reporters better understand the full context of edit wars and other content disputes.

interests me a great deal.

As noted the WMF PR folks can be very helpful. I use their help on over half of Signpost issues. They are professional and competent. They're probably better than good corporate PR folks, because they recognize that communicating with the community - as well as the press and the public at large - is part of the job. But in the end, they are PR people and suffer from the same built-in limitations that all PR people have, e.g. they are going to give the official views of the corp. execs every time, they'll try to tone down controversy,they won't give any indication of a debate within the organization (WMF). They shouldn't be expected to do that.

I'll sugest working with both the WMF and independently with the community. That might be in the fotm of a WikiProject. Editors who want to see better coverage by journalists could encourage (and criticize) the press. Wikipedians could develop a reputation among journalist by suggesting good stories (and not overplaying their pet stories). They could suggest that they'd be open to an interview. (Note journalists should register Wiki accounts so that they can send email to users who want it.)

Note WP's radical transparency would be very different from usual press contacts. Very little chance of an exclusive. Probably some good debates among users, with some occasional propaganda added. The talk page would be the only place anything would get done - no Wikipedia articles to write! - but the only thing that would really get done is making contacts and throwing out general ideas.

BTW I have a huge COI here as editor-in-chief of The Signpost. I'd use such a WikiProject extensively, but I'd have no qualms about other journalists using it to. The more good press stories the better, as far as I'm concerned. And then we'll quote the press - it just makes our job easier. BTW, I and likely other Signposters are available for cooperation with the press on most stories, with credit or on background. We do know a bit about covering Wikipedia , e,g. the jargon, rules, who's who, diffs, history, how to use the Signpost archives. Any help needed to get this started - just ask. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the WMF Communications team is an amazing resource, and it doesn't surprise me that they help with a number of your stories in the Signpost, Smallbones. As for your suggestion about working independently with the community, that certainly helps for a LOT of stories that I write. I wrote an article about COVID misinformation for Slate last year where I mentioned the English Wikipedia article "Misinformation related to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in India," which had been deleted. Luckily, I knew the editor who had created that article, and that person still had a draft saved, so I was able to link to the deleted content. I found that linking to that deleted page greatly enhanced the Slate article. But what if I hadn't personally known that editor from prior interviews? There are limits to the approach of "just talk to the community" because then the scope of coverage could be limited by who the journalist has reached out to or happens to know. Stephenbharrison (talk) 04:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I second this idea of a WikiProject (and would appreciate a ping if one is ever made...). Maybe there could be crossover with academics who are interested in studying Wikipedia. Sometimes these studies are unethical (e.g. the classic, "introduce vandalism and see how long it lasts") and sometimes they have an odd focus; it could benefit researchers to know what Wikipedians think is important and what it would benefit us to know (assuming that papers are supposed to be concretely useful to someone in the real world rather than just playing games of chmess). — Bilorv (talk) 13:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
read-only status for deleted articles: Excellent article, I think this was the only point where I had an immediate negative gut reaction. We have had repeated proposals in the past to allow read-only access to deleted articles, generaly with very good reasons for the requests. Those proposals have always been rejected. Allowing read access would be fine for 99% of deleted articles. However we are acutely aware that a small number of such pages are attack pages filled with defamation, somebody's private personal information, or similar content that could cause real-world harm to real-world people. There is little chance we allow direct read access to arbitrary deleted pages, even though we support the reason for the request. What I can offer you, is that we often allow a copy to be provided on-request, for specific deleted page(s). An administrator would review the page before supplying a copy via email or by recreating the page in your Wikipedia userspace. I don't think we currently have a guideline covering reporter-requests, so admins may or may-not provide the page. I suspect the community would approve a guidelines for reporter-requests, if properly drafted proposal were posted at WP:Village pump (policy). In the absence of a guideline, I would suggest a request could be posted to WP:Administrators'_noticeboard (shortcut WP:AN) with a fair chance of success.
and censored edits: There are three possible interpretations of that phrase. One: If a page has been deleted, see above. Two: If the content was removed by an ordinary editor, or by an admin making an ordinary edit, then anyone can view it in the Page History accessible by the History link at the top of any page. If someone is unsure how to find and view the edit in History, they can put "{{help me}} explanation of what you want help with" on their own Talk page or on the article Talk page. Three: "Censored edits" most likely refers to WP:Oversighted edits. Oversight (also known as Suppression), is subject to strict limits. It is used for non-public personal information such as phone numbers, potentially libelous information, copyright infringement, hiding usernames which in-themselves make a blatant attack against somebody, or in unusual cases to deal with vandalism when other methods fail. Even admins cannot view oversighted content. There is little chance anyone would be allowed access to oversighted content. Probably the best you can do is check the list of oversighters and ask a different oversighter to confirm whether the removal legitimately complied with the approved reasons for oversight, and they can probably characterize why it was oversighted. (i.e. they might say it contained the address of a minor, or they may say a specific user posted an extremely abusive and racist personal attack.) Any abuse or concerns regarding Oversight are handled by the Arbitration Committee, or ultimately by the Wikimedia Foundation. Alsee (talk) 22:12, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Globalize[edit]

Dear Signpost staff, thank you for writing this long, deep and well-sourced article.

However, I'm afraid that the examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject.

Nearly every source quoted is American or British. And the other Wikipedia editions are barely mentioned.

We can always do better. --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:00, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Indeed. From the introduction to the article, "Omer Benjakob is a journalist and researcher focused on Wikipedia and disinformation online. He is the tech and cyber reporter and editor for Haaretz and his work has appeared in Wired UK as well as academic publications. Stephen Harrison is an attorney and writer whose writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired, and The Atlantic. He writes the Source Notes column for Slate magazine about Wikipedia and the information ecosystem." ☆ Bri (talk) 18:59, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the media: The world's press says "Happy Birthday!" with a few twists (5,398 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • I thought StandardPoodle was the standard unit of "dog".[2]davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Biglobe News is just a syndicator of that (now dead-link) Japanese article, and its original outlet is a site called Buzz Plus News, which I'd never heard of before. It looks like a bottom-of-the-barrel content farm and its Twitter account is currently suspended. Nardog (talk) 22:51, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It looks like more reliable sources have covered the same content regarding the arrest e.g. Sankei Shimbun 1/19 [4] and MBS TV 1/22 [5] -- I'll let Smallbones decide if this needs updating. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:05, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Those don't mention Wikipedia though. Nardog (talk) 00:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • (ec) True ☆ Bri (talk) 00:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing about that story really bothers me - and since this newspaper is supposed to be a snapshot in tine, I don't see any need to update it.

I see 3 things that this column should do to inform our readers about what is appearing in the media about Wikipedia.

  • find an article in a good source that says something of interest or different about WP. its not always easy to figure out what a good source is - especially in Japan or in non-English media.
  • tell the truth about what the story says and try to evaluate it in some way.
  • figure out if it is relevant to our readers. If not remove it

Each one of these has its risks, so we can fail. We took a good shot at each of the 3 points. But if we don't take risks, the column will be pretty boring. We also learn a lot from the comments! Thanks. Smallbones(smalltalk) 00:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's probably better off left alone at this point. The story itself is interesting indeed. Nardog (talk) 01:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nice collection of links. Thank you. Carrite (talk) 17:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, if someone is interested in a collection of selected Russian links about 20-years of Wikipedia, here are link 1 and link 2 (in Russian). There was a lot of stuff. --ssr (talk) 06:38, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ssr: I was really surprised at this. At first I though you were plagiarizing this column, but then I checked the dates and discovered that I must be plagiarizing you! Well actually most were different publications with similar headlines, either translations I guess, or "as inspired by". Great minds think alike! Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Obligatory: In Soviet Russia, Wikipedia edits YOU! davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:54, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Russia the government watches you edit Wikipedia.
In the US you watch the Russian government edit Wikipedia.
Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Soviet Russia, Kremlin reads what you write on Wikipedia. In America, Kremlin writes what you read on Wikipedia. Levivich harass/hound 02:00, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Let's be good Wikipedians and wikipedize: "In Soviet Russia..." =))) --ssr (talk) 06:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

News and notes: 1,000,000,000 edits, board elections, virtual Wikimania 2021 (3,831 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • I'm anticipating the day the WMF Board declares "We are the bylaws." -Indy beetle (talk) 02:39, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

News from the WMF: Wikipedia celebrates 20 years of free, trusted information for the world (1,780 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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Interesting stats but I have noticed increasing emphasis on languages other than English in the recent WMF celebratations. While I fully support accessibility in as many languages as possible, I wonder how many of the 55 million articles in 300 languages have no equivalent in English? And what proportion of the 350 edits per minute are for languages other than English? That might provide more perspective.--Ipigott (talk) 18:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

ISTR someone did a survey of that very phenomena in the last 6 months. However, I don't remember if it was covered in The Signpost or announced over at Wikidata. (Wikidata was involved since the results were based on a query of all items linked to an article, but excluding any item with an article on en.wikipedia.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:10, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also worth wondering how many of those are simply machine-translated verions of English articles, like the Cebuano ones. -Indy beetle (talk) 11:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think that a desire for Wikipedia to be "trusted" is misled. The facts should speak for themselves; Wikipedia can contain incorrect information, as can anything. Our desire should be to ensure that Wikipedia contains as much accurate information as possible, and as little inaccurate information as possible. Such a thing does not require any trust. If trust is not required, it should not be asked for. DesertPipeline (talk) 13:03, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Obituary: Flyer22 Frozen (3,605 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Flyer was an impressive editor. Her loss will be felt for a long time to come. Thank you to those who put this tribute together! Springee (talk) 21:05, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you to all who contributed from me, as well. El_C 21:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for a well-done tribute. I'll just add the following:

"A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble." - Charles H. Spurgeon

Atsme 💬 📧 16:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • A fitting tribute to a beautiful person. I've always tried to picture her - somehow just knowing approximately how old she was helps me to do so even though of course I'm imagining. If Wikipedia goes on for another hundred years it will still have her spirit in its pages. Thanks to everyone who put this together. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 05:02, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In my experience it was always a pleasure and positive experience to engage with Flyer22, including over differences of opinion. Will be sorely missed. Thanks for a fine tribute. Almanacer (talk) 13:52, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • That was indeed a fine tribute. I never knew she ill. She will be remembered. scope_creepTalk 20:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • An excellent tribute. — Bilorv (talk) 12:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Flyer22 was an important contributor and will be missed.--agr (talk) 23:11, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A sad loss indeed... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:56, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A great editor, and a sad loss. -- The Anome (talk) 14:07, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I often saw her doing RCP on Huggle. I was shocked when I heard the news. Scorpions13256 (talk) 07:08, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is just crazy.... RIP <3 Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ Talk 18:32, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very sad. Flyer was a great editor and a truly special character. She will be missed. Donner60 (talk) 04:59, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Opinion: Wikipedia's war against scientific disinformation (18,787 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • Great article, thank you for writing it. I agree with many of your points. Ganesha811 (talk) 20:20, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead might be odorless and tasteless itself, but our TEL article states with cite that this specific compound of it is "odor: pleasant, sweet". Many lead-containing chemicals are sweetish. DMacks (talk) 20:47, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wonderful article, I do think our articles on popular mass produced food products could do with more scientific objectivity on their typically unhealthiness. No Swan So Fine (talk) 21:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, No Swan So Fine. It's amazing how much information -- and how much history -- there can be behind something you take for granted. A while back I rewrote the baking powder article. I had had no idea that there were different types of it, much less the conflicts that were part of its history. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 04:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a biotechnology dropout currently studying business, I've recently gone in conflict on the ethics of products and corporate actions; one of my recent assignments involved mediate between companies as Olympic sponsors and environmentalist and health groups, citing the London 2012 Olympics as background I still haven't done this assignment -Gouleg🛋️ (Stalk • Hound) 16:03, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • We need more editors with scientific expertise. Why should they join? Fighting misinformation in science on here can be an utter time sink. Such scientists probably don’t have the time or energy to engage in lengthy circular discussions on poor sourcing attempting to introduce disinformation, unlike people whose sole agenda is disinformation. And we don’t topic ban in the name of ‘free speech’ / ‘legitimate content debate’ etc. COVID misinformation is ripe, at talk:Ivermectin for example, and it took too long for topic bans there. It’s just boring. There’s legitimate content debate, and there’s misrepresenting sources and quoting crappy sources to push a pseudoscientific POV. We should start treating editors’ time with respect, if we want editors with expert scientific expertise to contribute. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • There's likely a couple things to do, e.g. realizing that POV pushing occurs in science articles too and more strictly enforcing our rules.
    • We can invite in scientists (or their grad students or even Wikipedians-in-residence) or bring them into edit-a-thons or other methods more familiar to them.
    • What we can't do however is tell them that they'll be immune from the usual back and forth of Wikipedia editing
    • Perhaps set up a freely licensed "teaching journal" where they can get some academic credit towards tenure in a fairly normal (but speedier) peer review process, but that material can then be imported into Wikipedia more easily.
  • I'm not sure any of the above are *the answer*, but I certainly hope that nobody is giving up! Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is a huge challenge, and I thank you for your hard work. Groups like WikiEdu do good work bringing in students and teaching them to write. I'd love to see more outreach with working scientists and scientific organizations. My personal opinion is that we need to look for ways to collaborate with scientists and get them to share their expertise without requiring that they jump through all the bells and whistles of becoming full-fledged editors. We need to find ways to meet them halfway. Current talk pages are fine if you already have expertise with Wikipedia, but not if you're a scientist reading an article and going "but that's wrong". Mind you, would a scientist who knows it's wrong be reading the article? Maybe someday we'll have an interface that will make it easy for readers to highlight what they think is wrong or confusing on a Wikipedia page and flag it or tell us more about it. Then we could ask a group of scientists to review articles for us, in the same way I've sometimes asked an expert to read a Wikipedia page printout and mark what's dodgy with a highlighter pen. Knowing where the problems are goes a long way to getting them fixed; in a two-stage process experienced editors could vet those reports. Applying more of a "bug-reporting" mentality to content is just one idea; I'd love to hear what other people would suggest. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 04:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK Mary Mark Ockerbloom I'll bite on your bait and list some of the above ideas and a few more just to see if something strikes a chord with other people
        • encourage WikkiEdu to get more science students (and teachers) involved with them
        • get a freely licensed journal where scientists can "quickly" publish peer-reviewed Wiki-relevant material.
        • similarly, help set up some freely licensed science-wikis where scientists could limit participant to, say PhDs, so they could avoid some of the trolls around here.
        • There are actually lots of advanced degree holders around here who have been very successful editors. Jesswade88 comes to mind immediately. Just ask them in a survey what works and what hasn't.
        • There are lots of academics in some of the softer sciences who love to publish about Wikipedia or use Wikipedia data (see any Recent research column in The Signpost). Get some of them to write in Wikipedia about Wikipedia, or to get the "hard scientists" you seem to be talking about involved in some of the things that they like to do. Actually I just ran into a chemist this month who published a paper in Nature about Wikipedia. It's not like they are not interested.
        • And, of course, ask anybody reading this for their ideas. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:46, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • It's also worth adding a plug for the current WikiJournals at this point. It may address the 'freely licensed journal' point above, through peer review times vary widely, which is a pretty universal limitation in academic publishing. Coincidentally, given the mention of lead in the article, the WP page on Lead has gone through peer review as doi:10.15347/wjs/2018.007 (full list here). T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 11:09, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good piece. Thanks! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 09:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • My personal experience in contributing to scientific debate on Wikipedia, which is documented on talk pages but I can not easily find it now, is from several years ago, when I have seen a hot debate between two users discussing what is the energy flux and some issues related to it. I am a full professor in physics at a top-100 university in the world. I have taken an undergraduate text which was on my table and added a citation from the text, which answered precisely the question being debated. Both sides dismissed the citation, saying that it does not correspond to the current scientific consensus or whatever formulation they have chosen, I do not remember, and continued fighting. Then I thought "fuck you" and unwatched the page. I have to fight enough for my own research results and funding in the real world, and I do not have time and energy to debate with ignorant users without academic credentials about the issues which are part of a standard undergrad curriculum. I believe one of the users was later dragged to ANI and either blocked or topic-banned, the other one is probably still there.--Ymblanter (talk) 10:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, kind of.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:35, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, I agree this is a good article, and points out some of the tension that exists in science, science as servant, science as master. Are we suppressing "fringe theories" or are we ignoring disinterested science? I must admit that the "fringe" stuff is often so bleeding obvious that there is no problem refuting and dismissing it. The history of hand-washing in medicine and continental drift in geology and biogeography are both depressing however. My 2 bob: archaeologist, academic in Geography, Environmental Science, Biomedical Science and Medicine. Scientists are experts, but usually in the field that they are expert in. In other fields they are not. Take medical science, what they do they do well, but they are driven by funding and by medical culture (a powerful force in medicine). Sociology, history &c., they are quite often rubbish at. Look at the Kombucha article, the history there would fail a first year arts essay, relying on other medical journals quoting puff pieces written by kombucha sellers. But it must be true, it is written in a first-class refereed journal. No, medical scientist often do history as well as historians do medical science. Science is not the only discipline with the problems outlined in the article above. But all too often we seem to equate "scientist" with "rational thinker who can solve anything". No, scientists in the real world do what they do in their field of expertise usually quite well, but asking them to solve problems in the political or social or cultural or other complex spheres is not a "golden bullet". So, Wikipedia, disinterested, scientifically literate outsiders have been a powerful force in communicating science. Stephen Jay Gould, Tim Flannery and others are good scientists, but they also stepped out of their narrow field of expertise to summarize a broad range of disciplines. Many had/have quibbles with their work, hey, that's science. But you do not necessarily need to be a practising scientist to evaluate and communicate science, there are many science journalists who convey reasonable information strongly. Sometimes it helps to have some distance. An encyclopaedia is not a science journal. Does WP scare scientist away? Yes, if they are people who do not accept criticism and/or simplification, or notification of breaching WP protocols. I'm sorry, the previous response above, professor of physics, quotes something about energy flux from a undergraduate textbook, secondary source, a few years old, obviously not his field of expertise otherwise quote the definitive references. He gets upset when he is told that it does not represent present consensus (it may not have), the textbooks view may be under pressure from recent research, &c. He was not sufficiently disinterested in the topic to discuss calmly the options. I'm not saying that there aren't people who are sure that dragons are involved somehow, but it's amazing what a quick back and forth can reveal. Are there less scientists involved in editing WP than there are out there in the real world? Is the science in WP poorly done generally? Sorry, as a consequence of science and academia I ask, what does the data tell us? Thank you to Mary Mark Ockerbloom for the article, it is good, thank you to Ymblanter and all others who are endeavouring to make WP a better information communication source. Brunswicknic (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    For the record, what I was referring to is my field of expertise - well, this particular question has been resolved a hundred years ago, and there is no current research going on, but the ideas are still being used in my field of research. In addition, the undergraduate book was on my table because I was at the time giving an undergraduate course on the subject.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:53, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • ps. Lead is increasingly being used as a dating tool for the recent past, not only do lead radioisotopes lend themselves to recent timescales, but the sudden increase of lead in urban deposits can mark the introduction of lead into petrol into the atmosphere into sediments. Brunswicknic (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd say that Wikipedia needs more editors with expertise in countless fields. My college degree is in English literature, & I dread reading any article on one of the standard texts of the Western Canon. They are often inadequate because students are taught to respond to literature, not what are the important commentaries on a given work. (Both approaches are defensible.) I learned about what tools exists to find academic papers on literature -- such as the MLA International Bibliography -- as an afterthought by a few of my professors. I could make similar remarks about other areas I've contributed to, such as Ancient & Classical history.
    To be fair, this is a symptom of our success: back in the Stone Age of Wikipedia, articles were not very good, often written on the fly; over the years, we've gradually raised the level of quality, insisting on citations & that articles better reflect the state of knowledge. With over 6 million articles (half of which are stubs), it is expected that many will not match our expectations. But we are still raising the level of quality. -- llywrch (talk) 07:53, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Llywrch, I agree with your first statement -- more expertise is needed cross the board -- but I also want to emphasize that scientific disinformation has potentially harmful consequences that are serious for everyone. Unlike Jasper Fforde's alternate Nextian England, where ProCath terrorists wreck havoc in support of the young Catherine, no one is likely to die if we mess up a literary detail. This comment is not meant to disparage your field, btw. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 15:28, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unfortunately, your comment is harmful. There is a movement in higher education to cut back offerings in the Liberal Arts in order to expand those in STEM; while this is mostly happening in the US, I've seen signs of this in the UK. The largest target for these cutbacks is in the Classics, but I have seen reports that offerings in such arguably practical fields as French are being slashed back or eliminated. All because of thinking like yours -- "scientific disinformation has potentially harmful consequences ... [while] no one is likely to die if we mess up a literary detail" -- ignoring the fact that many wars have been fought over faulty explications of texts. In short, education is focusing more on how to do things, rather than on what things, or why. -- llywrch (talk) 22:53, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for writing this article. The permanent damage caused by TEL is a powerful example of how disinformation harms us in material ways, and illustrates why it is important to ensure that Wikipedia articles afford academic and scientific consensus its due weight. Wikipedia's best defense against disinformation is high-quality academic sources. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. Especially for popular non-medical topics, it may take more effort to locate and review academic sources (as opposed to news sources), but the higher quality and depth of the information in academic sources make the search more rewarding. Google Scholar, Semantic Scholar, and Google Books are available to everyone. Additionally, The Wikipedia Library Card Platform grants access to a wide selection of paywalled journals free of charge, and I encourage all eligible editors to sign up and make full use of this valuable resource. — Newslinger talk 08:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Indeed to the above- creating accessible, high quality sources are where experts should focus their energies. I can't imagine spending all the time, money and effort for a PhD just to deal with internet trolls and emotionally-charged COI editors. Estheim (talk) 12:51, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not just a matter of keeping disinformation off Wikipedia. We all need to be calling out disinformation around us, whether it's on twitter, talking to a coworker, or chatting with Uncle Bill at the dinner table. I just read this Canadian news article: Why we all need to call out misinformation (Scroll to part #3) Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 17:57, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wonderful article, thank you for writing this and for the work you've done. Yes, disinformation and media manipulation is not new. Thanks for presenting this excellent case study. Shameran81 (talk)

Recent research: Students still have a better opinion of Wikipedia than teachers do (1,780 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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In regards to the "Students still have a better opinion of Wikipedia than teachers" title: some of us, me for instance, will wonder whether it means that they have (A) a better opinion of Wikipedia than teachers have or (B) a better opinion of Wikipedia than they have of teachers. – Athaenara ✉ 21:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's unambiguous in the sense that (B) would require an "of" in front of "teachers" to be grammatically correct. But yeah, maybe there exists a wording that is clearer but still concise. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I had initially parsed it as (B) and had to read the actual paper to see that it meant (A)! +1 @Athaenara:! Perhaps "Students still have a better opinion of Wikipedia than teachers do" would fix it? Shyamal (talk) 10:57, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I have changed it to that wording. Regard, HaeB (talk) 20:16, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I question the usefulness of so-called "open education" where students are not taught truly helpful values such as respecting themselves, loving freedom and refusing to use loaded language which does not communicate the right ideas. For example, rather than saying "open content", using a word which communicates no positive value ("open", not communicating the actual issue, freedom), and a word which devalues works ("content"), why not say "libre media"? DesertPipeline (talk) 07:22, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Special report: Wiki reporting on the United States insurrection (14,292 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • The very set up at Wikipedia has made our efforts more evenly balanced on stories like this. National news casts in the United States are very POV based, in any direction, to the point of being tabloid journalism. Some say Rupert Murdoch had a lot of influence in that trend. Any national media outlet is not-very-subtlety hammering away giving the audience their POV presented as newscasts. Switch channels, and you get the opposite POV. Try and pull that on Wikipedia, and your fellow editors are going to take out what is not NPOV. Nice system here. And, yes, editors like those mentioned by GorillaWarfare work very hard to be neutral and factually thorough on these subjects. We have a lot to be proud of here.— Maile (talk) 00:38, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a very distant observer of this event (I am a foreigner who lives in a foreign city located almost at the polar opposite of Washington DC), I can't help thinking that the event has recentism all over it. Sure, some people died, including a trespasser who was shot by police. But the impression I get is that security didn't do very much to prevent trespassing, and that the trespassers didn't really know what to do when they got inside. Hardly a Battle of Midway or Stalingrad, or even of the US Civil War for that matter. As for the impeachment, I just wonder what the Congresspersons have been smoking: why would you bother "impeaching" a President who has already left office, when there is far more important legislative work to do? Bahnfrend (talk) 04:42, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why does any politician take any action in a (so-called) representative democracy like America? Public image and to pursue and maintain power. But I think the concrete outcome of an impeachment conviction in the Senate (which won't happen) would be the prevention of Trump from running for office again. — Bilorv (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you're right about that, then the impeachment sounds to me a lot like something that the Russian Parliament might do to one of Vladimir Putin's political enemies, or that the Myanmar military might do to Aung San Suu Kyi. Trump is no longer the President. If he really has committed a criminal offence, why can't he just be tried for that offence in a court of law before an impartial judge and a jury, like every other American accused of a criminal offence? Bahnfrend (talk) 07:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    • Hardly a Battle of Midway or Stalingrad, or even of the US Civil War for that matter.

      What a peculiar minimization of the events that took place. A better apples to oranges comparison would be recommended. Ckoerner (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, how about this one: hardly a 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, in which the whole recently democratically elected executive government and parliament was overthrown for no apparent reason. Bahnfrend (talk) 06:50, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If Wikipedia (and modern technological society as we know it) is still around in another 20 years, maybe the article will have acquired an extra tab at the top: [ Brief article | Article | Talk ], where "Brief article" could be a long-view rewrite. I’m old enough to know what Encyclopædia Britannica looked like before they added the Micropædia to their paper version. Pelagic ( messages ) – (03:18 Sat 06, AEDT) 16:18, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The Simple English Wikipedia are doing something quite similar to this, but it's also (ostensibly) written in language easy for a non-native speaker to understand. I worry, though, that the process of summarizing leads to the abandonment and misrepresentation of reliable sources. I also don't think that being briefer than the English Wikipedia is actually part of their mission (e.g. simple:2021 storming of the United States Capitol has a stub tag). — Bilorv (talk) 16:28, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not my intention to rain on anyone's parade, but isn't this a bit of a leap?

    That thousands of editors can work together, communicating only through edit summaries and talk page messages, to accurately and comprehensively document breaking news as it unfolds

    (emphasis mine) I mean, don't get me wrong, it's impressive enough that thousands of people can work together to produce anything at all, and that alone is worth celebrating. But to imagine that the in-progress article was either accurate or comprehensive — or even that it was as accurate and comprehensive as it may have ended up by now, a few weeks out from the events, or as it will be in the future, as the result of edits yet to be made — feels like believing our own hype, a bit.
The very nature of a "breaking news" cycle makes it nearly impossible for anyone to provide "accurate and comprehensive" information, after all. (I'm reminded of CNN and their "#FIRST!" claims, which always seem sort of ironic when the reporting done under that banner turns out to have inconsistencies and flat-out errors. Which it not-infrequently does, to greater or lesser degrees. Oh, sure, they go back and correct the errors later, they're not not journalists. But I often wonder whether they might take a few extra minutes to not be #FIRST!, and instead have a better claim to being "CNN: #CORRECT!".) I'm sure there were plenty of times the insurrection article had The Wrong Version live, and there are likely plenty of minor errors still to be corrected or details to be fleshed out in the current version. As I said, it's the nature of the beast, and doesn't make it or the process by which it was created any less impressive. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 12:34, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that "breaking news" is never "accurate and comprehensive" except in a relative sense, but would say that's built in to the last part "breaking news as it unfolds". Relative to other reports we're accurate and comprehensive, due to the combination and vetting of multiple reports. Another caveat should be mentioned, even though we all know it: we're *never* the first to report something. Some journalist has to report it first. So it looks to me like much of the time Wikipedia was 15 minutes behind the first reports. That by itself is simply amazing. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Any national media outlet is not-very-subtlety hammering away giving the audience their POV presented as newscasts. Switch channels, and you get the opposite POV." - this strikes me as a bit dishonest. Yes, the mainstream media in the US does have a serious agenda-driven POV-pushing problem, but this comes entirely from conservative media outlets such as Fox, OAN, the Daily Caller and their sort. Simply disregard those and you will get accurate, unbiased, non-partisan coverage of events. Mistakes happen, but always due to lack of information rather than malicious distortion of facts, and you can expect a correction before the story even cycles out. With right wing media, that is not the case. 46.97.170.253 (talk) 16:58, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's no such thing as "unbiased, non-partisan coverage" because someone has to decide what topics to cover and in how much detail—and that decision is political. For instance, the conservative channel CNN (regarded within the country as somehow "left-wing") broadcasted many Trump speeches prior to his election uncritically and without commentary, in full, because that's what sold. Now they cover every sentence that Trump says critically and with commentary, because that's what sells now. But covering Trump in so much detail is still a political decision. It still plays to this underlying notion of populism—that a political party is defined by its leader's personality rather than its legislation passed and day-to-day activities. This is not to say, of course, that there is no difference between telling lies and truth, or that there is no correlation between political point of view and rate of inaccuracy in coverage.
    This is why I think the terms "NPOV" and "neutrality" as used on Wikipedia are somewhat misnomers. Wikipedia's political perspective is grounded in choices we make like adopting verifiability as policy, never engaging in original research and deciding what level of fact-checking is sufficient for reliability (of a source in a context). These are political choices I (usually) agree with, but they give us systemic biases in coverage of cultures which rely on oral tradition, coverage of (fact-based) ideas which are excluded or marginalized within academia or journalism etc. (That's not even to say that these biases are bad—they could simply be pragmatic given our limited resources and editor numbers—just that they exist.) On the flip side, I love the focus we have on due weight because it implicitly acknowledges that the choices of what or whether to write about a topic is related to provenance, rather than anything being fair game if it's true and "neutrally" written. — Bilorv (talk) 18:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's hard to cover anything related to the GOP in any other way. The party has completely foregone all notion of policy in favor of right wing populism (which is just a euphemism for fascism, really). The Democratic party is being torn between mainline, right wing neocon/neolib corporatism and actual liberalism, policy wise. Meanwhile, the GOP has got nothing besides trumpism. Therefore that is what CNN covered, because there was nothing else about the trump administration to cover. And it's something that needed to be criticised. I'd say I'm relieved that America finally woke up and voted him out, but then I look at how many people voted FOR him in November and I'm terrified. 46.97.170.253 (talk) 01:38, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you're misunderstanding my point. In a country where most citizens wrongly think that crime is increasing, wrongly think that refugee admittance is not at an all-time low, don't understand the current admission process for immigrants, don't understand the current laws about sex work, can't name the countries in which the U.S. military is taking action etc., why is it that CNN is choosing to "educate" people about Trump saying "our military is great, our country is great" on a podium for the 600th day in a row rather than educating people about the actual functioning and current practices of your government (which is just as much "news" if not moreso)? Well, because they're making the political decision to do that, and there's a few factors I would argue are behind that decision, but I'm sure you can think of plenty yourself as well. — Bilorv (talk) 14:14, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • You mean Fox. Literally every other media outlet have been consistently and reliably fact-checking trump's lies since the day he entered office. 46.97.170.253 (talk) 06:18, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • That a successful violent overthrow almost happened became a bit more evident after the video from the (show) trial came out. Given the facts we know, it's plausible (word chosen carefully) that different actions of as little as one police officer would have led to a situation where Pence and Pelosi had been hung, half the Senate had been murdered, Trump was still in office today, and so on ... (Someone should write a book, screenplay ...) Surely someone's already published a short story? Excellent final point, Bilorv.
    The window of discourse for wikipedia articles is not very wide. Despite adequate sources [op.cit. galore], we don't report the fact that the scientific consensus among all published reviews in the medical literature based on clinical trials is that the dozens of CTs show ivermectin stops Covid-19. We don't report ANYTHING regarding ivermectin's ability to prevent and cure COVID-19 infection. We don't report on its ability to keep the COVID-19 pandemic from having more than a relatively insignificant impact in all the countries where nationwide, population-wide dispensing of ivermectin is routine either. Not yet anyway. Likewise, we're still reporting on a storming, not a putsch, insurrection or attempted coup.
    It IS for the most part, a good thing when content is excluded from wikipedia. On en, a)Perhaps 99% of the topics that are excluded should be. But among that remaining sliver are important topics like these. b)Perhaps 99% of the topics that are included should be. I wonder if anyone's tried to ascertain the ratio between a and b. (I'm interested here in topics for which we have only deleted content, not topics for which we have no content.)--50.201.195.170 (talk) 05:06, 14 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Technology report: The people who built Wikipedia, technically (6,772 bytes · 💬)[edit]

  • This was incredibly interesting to read. Thanks Legoktm! ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a magnificent article. I love the ethnographic nature of it and how it's rife with lessons for today's Wikipedia and beyond. Thanks for your hard work, Legoktm. Nardog (talk) 21:27, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fascinating read. Thank you! — MusikAnimal talk 21:37, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A very interesting behind-the-scenes view.--Wolbo (talk) 00:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a great article. Super interesting. --Yair rand (talk) 01:18, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In regards to the "Missed opportunities" section talking about how the community pushed back on a proposed user interface change... I'm glad that our website doesn't have frequent user interface changes. A lot of websites get a major UI overhaul every couple of years, probably for marketing/sales reasons, and oftentimes I don't think the changes are an improvement. For example, websites with floating stuff everywhere (toolbars, cookie notices, social share buttons). Sometimes it's good to stick with what is tried and true. –Novem Linguae (talk) 01:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, there's another (more gradual) UI redesign scheduled in the near future, called the Desktop Improvements. - Novov T C 06:47, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • These social media share buttons are about tracking people across the internet—see this article. Similarly much of the floating stuff is about tricking people into watching adverts by blurring the line between content and advertising. The simplicity of Wikipedia's UI is not something I would want to change, but the outdated 2000s-era style is something I think we desperately need to update. Nothing crazy, just a cleaner, more modern look. The WMF's Desktop Improvements plan above seems ideal. — Bilorv (talk) 11:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Legoktm: Great work ... I learnt a lot from this! FWIW the only minor factual error I found in the piece was one I noted in my edit summary re the introduction of categories, which occurred in 2004, not 2002. Graham87 10:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for writing this down--Ymblanter (talk) 11:08, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A wonderful read. Thank you. Meanderingbartender (talk) 12:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was great, thanks from me as well. Minor That Guy™ note: The initial version contained the contradictory statement, "In general bots are generally frowned [upon]." Not contradictory, merely redundant. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 14:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the idea is that a "bot policy" which says "(mostly) don't use bots" is contradictory. But I agree that the sentence makes the reader stumble. And it doesn't actually seem contradictory in the abstract to have a "bot policy" forbidding bots -- what else would you call a policy that forbids bots, a "not bot policy"? :) Perhaps "...contained the disarming statement that..." would be a better way of flagging the tension in the policy? C. Scott Ananian (talk) 14:01, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Cscott: Oh, if that's what it was referring to... actually, then my objection becomes even stronger, because the only contradiction is being injected by the after-the-fact application of the term "bot policy". Which, if the policy is "no bots", then as you say it wasn't a bot policy — it was an editing policy. One that generally discouraged users from creating software to perform fully-autonomous/automated edits (i.e. bots). While supporting software-assisted manual editing (e.g. w/ tools like Twinkle), as long as each action was under direct user control. ...That's how I'd frame it. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 18:38, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Really good article, a detailed history of Wikipedia's past and present behind the scenes functionality. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:23, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This was a fascinating read, so interesting to read of the tech backstory of which I had known nothing. Many thanks. Lopifalko (talk) 09:08, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well written. Enjoyed reading it. Thanks Legoktm!--Arjunaraoc (talk) 05:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just discovered this piece today, and it's truly fantastic. Thank you so much for writing this. ATDT (talk) 03:19, 31 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Translated in Russian language. --PereslavlFoto (talk) 11:19, 15 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2020 (5,505 bytes · 💬)[edit]

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  • I was thinking about a list like this in December and had hoped that you would pull together a 2020 Top list for the Signpost. I usually scan the weekly list but read this one thoroughly and can tell how much time you put into it. Some surprises, it's interesting to compare articles that had one strong week (RBG) vs. less newsworthy articles that get a moderate amount of views but more consistently over the year (United States). You can always rely on the Deaths article to be pretty high on the top list. It would be interesting to compare views vs. edits, to see whether those articles that were most popular also received the most attention from Wikipedia editors. Liz Read! Talk! 22:52, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Kingsif, please stop "keeping in mind" that most readers are North American, as it doesn't appear to be true, although I can't be bothered to download the figures or add them up. Very close to 50% in an case. Johnbod (talk) 04:21, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Johnbod: WHAT? Seriously, what are you referring to and why are you annoyed at what honestly sounds like some sarcastic comment. Come on. You say "please stop" like it's some disruptive edit I keep making jfc Kingsif (talk) 02:00, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • ??? Calm down - you're not making much sense. I'm referring to your comment (obviously), which you you chose to phrase in the present continuous. You're very touchy. Johnbod (talk) 04:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks Ed. Since I don't edit Signpost and don't remember a comment to John it's super clear he was not making any sense. I'm referring to your comment (obviously) - clearly it was a comment I made, but which is ridiculously not obvious. Oh, from the Top 50. Maybe if you needlessly told me off at that page I'd have understood. Sorry for using the 2018 figures, sorry for being humorous on a page with the purple banner at the top. So I repeat: jfc. What an unnecessary instruction. Kingsif (talk) 14:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry if it wasn't clear - since I commented at this page I still don't see why it wasn't totally obvious I was referring to one of your few sections here, and I included a quote so you could have3 found out which if you didn't know. Those statements were just as wrong in 2018, I think you'll find, & I'm not sure what was supposed to be "humorous". Why is it "needless" and "unnecessary" to point out a mistaken assumption by someone claiming a degree of responsibility for editing the main page? Johnbod (talk) 16:17, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • What an utterly appalling format! I felt almost nauseous by the end. Why on earth use a vertical table arranged in columns with three words per line? Just suppose the whole of article space were arranged like this? Approximately 97% of the space is entirely wasted. About as much fun to read as having a tooth extracted without anaesthetic. Obviously you are not responsible for the 'winners', but as a confirmed republican reading about our useless inbred dysfunctional royal family made the entire experience even more utterly dispiriting. You even made me use an exclamation mark, which really defines a low point for me. 0/10. MinorProphet (talk) 00:18, 6 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • On a more positive note, the table format used in List of early color feature films might be more appropriate. >MinorProphet (talk) 12:44, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • We always expect someone to complain about the content, but not the format - specially as is the same of every month of the Traffic Report (plus every week here), only with an extra column for the "peak views" and colors to note who wrote each entry, as it's been done since 2017. igordebraga ≠ 05:26, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Amazing read. Predictable yet Super interesting. Whoever wrote the text on the Shooting of Breonna Taylor must've really been hurt/annoyed/pissed. I could literally feel the emotion while reading. Sad. --OtuNwachinemere (talk) 22:02, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well done. The beginning of a house style, à la The Economist ? If so, it's all good, but please don't omit captions for images. — Neonorange (Phil) 22:21, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Videos and podcasts: Celebrating 20 years (1,333 bytes · 💬)[edit]

Discuss this story

There's also this 35 min interview with an astronaut from the WMF, marking the 20 year anniversaries of Wikipedia and the International Space Station. Modest Genius talk 12:25, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Links for Wikimedia NYC celebration[edit]

Please add a link for the Wikimeda New York City video. I found the following two links: File:Wikimedia New York City celebrates 20 years of Wikipedia.webm and "Wikimedia New York City celebrates 20 years of Wikipedia". YouTube.com.. Thanks DutchTreat (talk) 21:10, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding the links here, they'll likely be useful for finding other NYC Wikipedia videos - which there are many. I was thinking that connecting to rhe video on Commons was the easiest way for all viewers to see the video. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:01, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]


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