Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media: Difference between revisions
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=== Photos from a friendly journalist === |
=== Photos from a friendly journalist === |
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{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2|image=File:Peone Prairie September 3, 2016.png|size=300px|caption=Peone Prairie, the first photo uploaded by Will Maupin}} |
{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2|image=File:Peone Prairie September 3, 2016.png|size=300px|caption=Peone Prairie, the first photo ever uploaded by Will Maupin}} |
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Writing for [[Spokane, Washington|Spokane]]-based newspaper ''[[Inlander (newspaper)|Inlander]]'', [[freelance journalist]] and photographer Will Maupin recently [https://www.inlander.com/special-guides/ill-be-trading-my-laptop-for-a-camera-and-road-trips-to-visually-document-our-region-for-wikipedia-28114485 broke down his personal mission "to visually document our region for Wikipedia"]. Maupin, who edits on Wikipedia as [[User:SpokaneWilly|SpokaneWilly]] since 2005, regularly takes photos of sites on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] and other local sites from the [[Inland Northwest]] region. You can check out more of his photos in this issue's [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Gallery|Gallery]], or at [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles?limit=500&user=SpokaneWilly&ilshowall=1 this link] on [[Wikimedia Commons]]. |
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– {{small|[[User:Smallbones|S]], [[User:Oltrepier|O]]}} |
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===WMF's cloak-and-dagger "Disinformation Response Taskforce" fights election-related fake news === |
===WMF's cloak-and-dagger "Disinformation Response Taskforce" fights election-related fake news === |
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Revision as of 10:30, 26 June 2024
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Disinformation in war and politics
Optional: write a lede — not necessarily a WP:LEAD. Interesting > encyclopedic.
Wikipedia editors deem Anti-Defamation League unreliable on Israeli–Palestinian conflict
On June 18, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported that Wikipedia editors had reached consensus over recognizing the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as a "generally unreliable" media source for information regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. While Wikipedia editors routinely discuss the reliability of sources every time concerns are raised at the Noticeboard, the multi-part RfC about the ADL attracted way more editor comments than such discussions usually get.
As summarized in the JTA article, which was also published by Haaretz:
Editors supporting the ban focused on the ADL's conduct following Oct. 7, Israel's subsequent war with Hamas and the wave of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on college campuses. Many editors said the organization had undermined its credibility by altering how it categorizes antisemitic incidents. Its new methodology included many pro-Palestinian protests in its annual audit of antisemitism, which reported a large spike over the previous year.
However, according to the subsequent closure statement on another part of the RfC, the ADL still "can roughly be taken as reliable on the topic of antisemitism when Israel and Zionism are not concerned".
Both the JTA and – in a separate article – the CNN quoted a comment on the matter by historian and Johns Hopkins University professor James Loeffler, who stated e.g. that the decision was going to be "a difficult blow to the credibility of the ADL in its role on this issue", and that "the staff there will continue to do rigorous work, but this will provide an opportunity for self-reflection." Loeffler's statement was echoed by Rob Eshman in an opinion article for The Forward.
On June 20, the ADL reacted to the decision by asking its social media followers to "urge Wikipedia's board [sic] to take action on this unfair and dangerous situation". At the time of writing, 8400 supporters had signed this call (out of a goal of 10,000).
The following day, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt was invited on MSNBC news talk show Morning Joe to share his views on the subject. While professing that "Wikipedia [...] is an organization that we deeply respect", Greenblatt stated that Wikipedia's processes lacked full access and transparency – even deeming them as "a bit of a black box" – in comparison to the ADL's supposedly more transparent approach, which he described as "absolutely rigorous" and "done very above the board". He also appeared to tie his criticism to existing concerns that Wikipedia may be silencing the voices of other marginalized groups, arguing – to the immediate agreement of fellow panelist Eugene Robinson, an African American journalist who is an associate editor of the Washington Post:
I think we should listen to Black people when they tell us about what racism is. I think we should listen to LGBTQ groups themselves about [what] homophobia or transphobia is. And I think we need to listen to Jewish groups to explain what antisemitism is.
According to the JTA, a "series of controversial statements" by Greenblatt, together with media reports about an ensuing staff revolt at the ADL, had played a role in the Wikipedia RfC's outcome, alongside debates about "a controversial definition of antisemitism that the ADL embraces".
On 25 June, as reported by the Jewish News Syndicate, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, among other media, 43 leading Jewish organizations co-signed an open letter to the WMF's Board of Trustees in protest to the discussion's verdict.
This recent review of the ADL's reliability as a source follows a March 2021 discussion about the extent to which the organization was complying with Wikipedia's rules for conflict of interest, as it encouraged its staff to edit Wikipedia articles. At the time, The Forward reported that the ADL suspended their staff editing project as a result of the challenges with compliance.
Other sources:
- Rising produced by The Hill newspaper Wow: Wikipedia BANS the ADL as a Source on Israel/Palestine Conflict
- The Record by Newsmax - Wikipedia says combatting antisemitism is somehow no longer reliable: Greenblatt
- YouTubers -
- Marc Lamont Hill, 142,000 subscribers - Wikipedia DISSES ADL as Unreliable Source on Israel-Palestine Conflict & Antisemitism!!!
- Due Dissidence, 63,200 subscribers - ADL Deemed UNRELIABLE SOURCE by Wikipedia
- Kitz's Corner, 214 subscribers - Wikipedia Bans ADL as reliable source on Isr3al & Anti-Semitism
Photos from a friendly journalist
Writing for Spokane-based newspaper Inlander, freelance journalist and photographer Will Maupin recently broke down his personal mission "to visually document our region for Wikipedia". Maupin, who edits on Wikipedia as SpokaneWilly since 2005, regularly takes photos of sites on the National Register of Historic Places and other local sites from the Inland Northwest region. You can check out more of his photos in this issue's Gallery, or at this link on Wikimedia Commons.
The Brussels Times explains How Wikipedia fights against fake news, based on statements by Rebecca MacKinnon (who heads the Wikimedia Foundation's Global Advocacy team, having previously worked in journalism and digital rights). Besides summarizing various longstanding features (such as page protection, watchlists, or ArbCom) that help Wikipedia's "volunteers vigilantly defend against information that does not meet the site's policies for what constitutes reliably sourced, encyclopaedic information," the article highlights a more recent innovation:
Ahead of major elections in 2024, a new Disinformation Response Taskforce (DRT) has formed to partner with trusted Wikimedia volunteers and Wikimedia affiliates to identify potential information attacks on Wikipedia.
And it seems to be working. Wikimedia has not uncovered any specific disinformation campaigns, either private or foreign state-driven campaigns in the run-up to the elections.
"As far as we are aware, Wikipedia's content moderation processes and systems are working well and as normal. We have not been alerted to any unusual activity on EU elections-related pages," MacKinnon said.
Perhaps due to the apparently highly sensitive nature of its work, no documentation of this taskforce could be found on-wiki on the English Wikipedia at the time of writing. Elsewhere on the internet, the only information about the DRT that the Foundation has published seems to be two short paragraphs in an October 2023 blog post. There, the DRT was (somewhat confusingly) first described as a single entity being run by the "Wikimedia Foundation’s Trust and Safety Disinformation team". Right afterwards, the same team is reported as "preparing for several Disinformation Response Taskforces (DRTs), designed to support Wikimedia communities to maintain knowledge integrity during high-risk events."
Further information was revealed in emails sent last month by a WMF "Disinformation Specialist" (forwarded to a public mailing list by a Dutch Wikipedian). These listed the purposes of such taskforces, described them as "a project that we are doing related to the upcoming EU parliamentary elections, taking place from the 6th-9th of June, 2024", and appeared to invite Dutch Wikipedia's ArbCom members to an "initial meeting to discuss disinformation challenges with folks from across various European-language communities" on May 21.
The EU's recently implemented Digital Services Act (DSA) imposes various obligations on "Very Large Online Platforms" (VLOPs) such as Wikipedia. In late March, the EU Commission finalized its "Guidelines for providers of Very Large Online Platforms ... on the mitigation of systemic risks for electoral processes pursuant to the Digital Services Act", with specific mention of the European Parliament elections in June. As explained some weeks ago by MacKinnon's colleague Dimitar Dimitrov from Wikimedia Europe (long known to Wikimedians as "our man in Brussels"), the Commission's document applies to Wikipedia too. He said that "to be honest it feels simultaneously overwhelming and underwhelming. A ton of well meant recommendations (as guidelines are non-binding), but it also says that VLOPs are free to come up with other measures to mitigate risks." As summarized by Dimitrov, the Commission's exhortations come in several categories, e.g. "specific recommendations for during the election period (put in place an *internal incident response mechanism*)". – H
In brief
- The end of the world as chronicled on a Wikipedia talk page: A short story in Nature Futures, the science fiction offshoot of the scientific journal Nature (Burnett, Emma (2024-06-12). "Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday[2][3]". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-024-01723-z.) takes the form of a Wikipedia talk page (without mentioning Wikipedia). It starts with the header
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the End of Plastic (2029) article, about the Tremella purgare fungus, released into the Gulf of Mexico after the TransAm War Oil Spill, and the knock-on impact of the attempted bioremediation.
This page has been listed as a level-3 vital article in Earth. If you can improve it, please do.- The talk page discussions progress from a request to disambiguate a "deadly fungi" link over frantic attempts to keep the article updated with the UN's rapidly rising death numbers to mentions of internet access becoming spotty and editors retreating into their family bunkers.
- (See also the February 28, 2021 issue of "In the media" for coverage of other dystopian science fiction in Wikipedia style)
- 90% of Israelis use Wikipedia: A survey conducted by Wikimedia Israel (presented at a June 9 event celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hebrew Wikipedia) finds that "Wikipedia remains primary source of information for about 90% of Israelis", with "no significant gaps" between Jewish and Arab Israelis. Overall, though, Israeli internet users face high rates of fake or biased content, according to a Ynet article reporting about the study.
- Conservative magazine says research shows bias "infects" AI training: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/new-study-confirms-long-held-conservative-suspicions-of-wikipedia-bias/ (National Review) "Wikipedia Is Biased against Conservatives — and the Slant Is Infecting AI Models", cites report "Is Wikipedia Politically Biased?" likely to be reviewed in Recent research, add link
- "Suggestive evidence of political bias embedded in Wikipedia articles", says conservative think-tank: https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically-biased (Manhattan Institute published the paper link Recent research)
Possible other articles
- https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/6/14/wikipedia-war-fierce-row-erupts-over-israels-deadly-nuseirat-assault
- https://chatelaine.com/living/wikipedia-women-venturekids/
- https://www.economist.com/culture/2024/06/13/famous-birthdays-wants-to-be-the-wikipedia-for-gen-z In the Economist ("try it for free") but maybe not
- https://www.medievalists.net/2024/06/medieval-studies-articles-may-2024/ Let's get Medieval! (possible headline) takes some digging though
Oddities
- Giving us the bird Jack E. Davis, distinguished professor of history at the University of Florida, writes You probably think this is our national bird. Think again. in The Washington Post. Of course nearly everybody "knows" that the bald eagle is the U.S. national bird. Davis cites The Washington Post and Wikipedia as sources that make this mistake. The bald eagle has appeared on the Seal of the United States since 1782, as has a pyramid (on the reverse), but neither congress, nor the president, has officially declared them national symbols. Members of congress from Minnesota have recently introduced a bill to make the eagle's status as national bird official, supported by the Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes. There is no need for a national edifice, so they left out the pyramid. Congress can't seem to agree on anything these days, but they should be able to pass this unanimously the next time they meet. Just do it! – S
- Miki buses join the Wiki Wiki buses: The Wiki Wiki Shuttle at the Honolulu airport has a special place in Wikipedia lore. When Ward Cunningham wrote the first Wiki software he named it after the shuttle whose name means "quick" in Hawaiian. The airport has just added an AI powered self-driving electric sibling, "The new fleet, named "Miki", the Hawaiian word for agile, will augment the existing Wiki Wiki shuttle bus service and provide travelers with another transportation option between gates and terminals." Perhaps there is an AI powered self-writing Mikipedia in our future? I hope not. – S
- Wiki in the scrum and on the links: [1] Dallas Wiki, age 24, is a rugby player in New Zealand. He is also a golfer. "It wasn’t the first hole-in-one for Wiki, who captained his Shannon club rugby team the day before in a senior club rugby game against Rahui." I wonder if he has any relatives named Miki? – S
This page is a draft for the next issue of the Signpost. Below is some helpful code that will help you write and format a Signpost draft. If it's blank, you can fill out a template by copy-pasting this in and pressing 'publish changes': {{subst:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Story-preload}}
Images and Galleries
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To put an image in your article, use the following template (link): This will create the file on the right. Keep the 300px in most cases. If writing a 'full width' article, change
Placing (link) will instead create an inline image like below [[File:|300px|center|alt=Placeholder alt text]] CAPTION
To create a gallery, use the following to create |
Quotes
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To insert a framed quote like the one on the right, use this template (link): If writing a 'full width' article, change
To insert a pull quote like
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Side frames
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Side frames help put content in sidebar vignettes. For instance, this one (link): gives the frame on the right. This is useful when you want to insert non-standard images, quotes, graphs, and the like.
A caption
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Two-column vs full width styles
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Links and such
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