|Notes=As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the [[m:Research:Newsletter|Wikimedia Research Newsletter]] (now in its [[m:Research:Newsletter/Archives|ninth volume]]). Help is welcome to review and/or summarize the many interesting items listed [https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WRN201902 here], as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, [[User:Tbayer (WMF)|Tbayer (WMF)]] ([[User talk:Tbayer (WMF)|talk]]) 06:45, 20 February 2019 (UTC)
If you have a topic you want to write about yourself, check out our Quick Start page. If you need a topic to write about, take a look at the suggestions page, check down below to see if a regular feature still needs to be done or ask in the general discussion.
For discussions related to the upcoming issue, see [[:the talk page]].
Check the submissions page for submissions awaiting approval. Check the suggestions page for story suggestions.
Improving The Signpost
Firstly, regarding deadlines, I believe a significant shortcoming of The Signpost is that the editors themselves set the deadlines. There is a reason why teachers set the deadlines for students. It would be preferable if an uninvolved editor were responsible for setting these deadlines. I'm looking forward to contributing to future issues, and my hope is that The Signpost becomes a periodical, published on a regular schedule (such as on the 1st and 15th of each month). Readers know when to expect the new issue, and subscribers can look forward to their subscription template being updated on those two days. Contributors will also know these deadlines and work to them for their submissions.
Secondly, we should take further measures to boost morale. I suggest featuring a piece on the Main page (possibly a big suggestion, but I'm throwing it out there). This can be a new one or one from the archives. I don't know how the main page works (at all), I strongly oppose the idea of editors nominating their own articles, or anyone affiliated with The Signpost getting involved in this. Svampesky (talk) 11:46, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let's say you are in charge of 'the deadine'. What happens if the DEADLINE arrives, and half the articles aren't copy edited? Do you publish anyway? Do you sack the writers and hire new ones at the very competitive rate of 0$/hour? Do you demote them?
We're volunteers here, the Signpost isn't an assignment.
I'm not much of a critic, but it was more about boosting morale. During my time as a reader, I wasn't particularly aware of The Signpost. I try to write my pieces for those outside the Wikipedia community. If we, as a community, collaborate to showcase our work, it may encourage others to participate for the deadlines. Perhaps I'm being overly ambitious... I think the Main page integration is something we should work towards. Svampesky (talk) 12:03, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Looking through the archives, it seems that The Signpost used to be published on a regular schedule. What was the atmosphere like back then? In 2019, for example, it was published on the last day of each month. Svampesky (talk) 12:08, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It kind of was, and it kind of wasn't. I am glad you mentioned this, because otherwise it would be another useless piece of information stuck in my head and of no use to anybody, which may be of some interest now. Some months ago I was going through the old revisions of the main Signpost page (to extract the subheadings out and store them in the module, which had previously just been lost forever after the page was overwritten each issue). Well, I figured I could just get a list of publication dates, then take the largest diff for each day, and then that would be that day's issue -- but not in the slightest. In reality, they seem to have almost all been somewhat late, ranging from one day to several days (the "date" of publication, i.e. the part of the URL that has the datestamp in it, only occasionally being the actual day on which an issue was published back in the days before SPS.js). jp×g🗯️13:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the broader issue of publishing intervals, I wrote about it at some length in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-01-16/From_the_team; there's even a big graph of publication intervals over time. Basically, there was a weekly publication schedule from '05 through '16 or so. During 2016, publication slowed down a bit, and in 2017 it ate shit entirely for several months (there was nothing at all between February and June). The current schedule of publishing every three weeks is, depending on perspective, either a bold step up from running once a month or a cravenly retreat back from running once every two weeks (which we did a fairly adequate job of through '23 and part of '24). I must say, though, publishing every two weeks was quite arduous -- like Headbomb says, it would often be the case that we'd hit deadline and not have any articles. (not just that there was a bunch of stuff that needed copyedit/expansion, there would be straight-up nothing in some of the drafts besides lipsum).
At any rate, on the bright side, I think this is one of the fullest issues we've had in a while, in no small part due to some of the more recent additions. I think that if this energy can be sustained, it bodes well for the paper. jp×g🗯️13:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll look at all of this later. I'm pleased that these suggestions (including blue-green user links) have not been perceived as the difficult-newbie telling everyone what to do, but I'm still not going to self-declare myself as the Peculiarity writer on the about page. I have several ideas prepared for upcoming issues. If I can write something good, my next piece will focus on the UK politics. An election is happening today, and I plan to write all my political pieces after. I'm not much of a critic, but I can provide suggestions. I have some notes with ideas that could help with engagement. I don't think anyone at The Signpost should get involved with Main page space; instead, we should continue our efforts and wait for an someone uninvolved to suggest it. I can also offer a non-Wikipedian-reader perspective, as I was only mildly aware that The Signpost existed. Are you able to see the page views from logged-out vs logged-in? Svampesky (talk) 14:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the sentiment, but it's just hard to reconcile with the day job sometimes. We all have to juggle work and other commitments along with Signpost deadlines. I actually think we are muddling through quite well at the moment. AndreasJN46614:23, 4 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm consolidating all my thoughts here: User:Svampesky/Ideas/Signpost. Please feel free to add it to your watchlist. I prefer not to make too many suggestions outside my userspace. My knowledge is limited on technical restrictions and the time required for implementation. Svampesky (talk) 23:57, 6 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let's get serious about the deadline
We have to have a real deadline in order to
let readers know when we a coming out. People want to know when there is new material to read, without checking 2 or 3 times a month
let authors know when to actually submit their work. If you don't have a real deadline, people will often wait until just before the time when they think you'll actually publish. In my experience, having a deadline is the only way that newspaper production is organized. It's a waste of contributors' time not having a deadline. If JPxG is going to show up for the first time after the deadline, so too will the submissions, but there won't be any any copyeditors around, or any chance to get early feedback on an article. In short it isn't a production process, it is just chaos. "News" is time dependent. If we want to have news in our newspaper, the news writers have to know when it is going to be published. (I'll have more tomorrow or Wednesday)
Just a suggestion, if the eic consistently is 2 days late in publishing, he should just show up 2 days earlier.
Support to light a fire under JPxG, who is a very competent EiC. I support The Signpost's mission of being the Wikimedia movement's online newspaper. While JPxG performs admirably to support and enhance this mission when active, his first appearance being after the deadline undermines the credibility of The Signpost and its mission. Svampesky (talk) 14:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Quick comment (as an alum from long ago): You can choose to have releases on a fixed schedule rather than to fixed quality. Then every issue is guaranteed to have a few easy-to-compile beats, basic stats, and a reminder of where and how to submit or discuss the next issue. In that case it's fine to have shorter issues published by a broader range of editors comfortable w/ the mechanics of publishing, even if the EiC isn't available. Experience running the shorter routine issues can be a way to get experience editing. Complex stories that would benefit from more review can still get pushed to a later issue. Since the wiki is not paper you can even include teasers pointing readers to drafts in progress if you want public input.
And you could choose to, say, color the archives [or even the headers of the updates posted to talk pages :) ] to distinguish routine vs major issues, special editions, &c. – SJ +16:40, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Same. One of the things that has been a problem is that deadline will roll around and there will not be a whole lot ready -- but as Sj says, it's not really the end of the world to put out an issue that doesn't have every possible thing in it. Probably Smallbones is right too, and consistently doing this for a while will stop people from thinking that it will be fine to get stuff in late anyway, and this chicken-egg thing will resolve itself. Well, at any rate: I'll be there. jp×g🗯️02:06, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, on this note, we went out merely one day late this time, albeit at the cost of not publishing some of the stuff that rolled in after the writing deadline. This of course feels bad, because there is a bunch of crap left over for the next issue that probably could have been ready with a couple hours of editing and checking, but on the plus side it was a hell of a lot less stressful than the typical process, and it was almost not published late to boot. jp×g🗯️10:20, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm only a simple caveman, and your electronic boxes with words and sounds frighten and confuse me, but perhaps it would make more sense to publish stories as they are ready, and simply send out a digest of completed articles every month? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:30, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Epic hrrmery -- some five hours to publication
I have been looking over the stuff in the newsroom every few hours: I note we are missing a couple of things, particularly the discussion report. @Svampesky: any update on that?
At any rate, I have stuff I would like to write, and will not get to -- so it goes. I plan to run it with whatever we've got in those few hours, and if the issue ends up being very thin gruel, I suppose it can just be the thin-gruel issue. jp×g🗯️16:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I finished it yesterday, but didn't want any inaccuracies in the page history. It will be published by the deadline. See Special:Diff/1235504982. I do all my Wikipedia writing at roughly the same time in the evening (which is now). Svampesky (talk) 16:30, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reminder for folks who would like to help out with copyediting that you can go through the list at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom#Article_status and look for those that are marked "Ready for copyedit".
The top story in News and notes still looks very drafty - @Bri, Jayen466, and Bluerasberry: is any of you planning to wrap it up before the deadline? (to ping the three folks currently listed as authors there)
As usual, I'm aiming to have RR in a publishable state by the deadline.
I think it can be useful to raise visibility on the initiative (which as you pointed out, has raised a lot of strong reactions from the community that I didn't always expect, both good and bad). I'd be happy to do the interview via email or voice/video call, as preferred. 7804j (talk) 18:24, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take the Trump photo discussion report. If that's okay? I've not been active on-wiki, per IRL commitments. I think I can make something good in the style of my previous pieces, where I try to explain a little bit to non-Wikipedians. But I'll first have to research the actual image policy, myself! Svampesky (talk) 19:00, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'd recommend that whoever does the photo discussion report has at least a little knowledge of US intellectual property law. I saw a lot of erroneous assumptions and interpretations in that discussion, which I skimmed. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:03, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have knowledge on it. I'll make sure to do thorough research on everything. I usually submit my drafts on the day of the deadline, but for this one I'll submit it days before. Svampesky (talk) 19:12, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
20:10 Discussion report
I have started research on policies and related matters for the upcoming 'Discussion report' which will be on Wikipedia:Files for discussion/2024 July 14#File:Shooting of Donald Trump.webp. This report will be crafted in the same style as my previous ones, where I clarify Wikipedia guidelines/policy for those unfamiliar with it, while not over-explaining for Wikipeidans (the main audience). In this instance, I'll be detailing the image use policy (which I'll first need to research myself). Svampesky (talk) 19:08, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, however, when I mentioned "image use policy", I was referring to Wikipedia's general policies on image use. I have since discovered the specific policy relevant, per my research. It's enjoyable to learn about Wikipedia policy 'on the job', but I will ensure this submission is completed several days before the deadline to refine any details. Svampesky (talk) 19:35, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Query. I'm reviewing the discussion and making notes on it (there is quite a lot to go through). However, I have observed that JPxG participated in the discussion. Could this be a conflict of interest, as he is the one that decides what is and isn't published in The Signpost? If so, my initial thoughts are that JPxG either pre-approves the piece, or has someone else approve it, ensuring that he has no editorial involvement. Svampesky (talk) 20:01, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am definitely out of this one, as well as anything about the article, as I decided to try camping out on the talk page with all the AP2 editors during a major ongoing world politics event. Not recommended for the faint of heart. jp×g🗯️02:04, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is no proceeding: we are forced to write an entire article about this specific image and not embed the image in it.
The N in WP:NFCC might as well stand for Nationalsozialistische as far as exemptions and clemency go. Rivers of blood have been spilled over this, with the very silly conclusion that no fair-use images can be used outside of article space, ever, for any reason at all. The only thing we can do is come up with some freely-licensed shit, which is not going to be good, because it's not the specific image.
In my opinion, it is high time that somebody do something to change this, because it results in completely asinine situations like this one on a regular basis, but that's a 5-month Village Pump RFC that even if passed will have another 4 months of going through Legal. In the meantime I guess we can mspaint something, I don't know. jp×g🗯️23:03, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your suggestion. I was unaware of the existence of this template. I don't believe it's necessary in this instance, as I normally prefer to keep the reader within the Wikimedia ecosystem, unless absolutely necessary to provide an external link. I've added this hatnote Special:Diff/1235872493. Svampesky (talk) 18:39, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipediocracy
I'll complete the write-up for the Signpost later today. I discovered numerous instances across the internet and social media where the discussion was posted. However, the template was placed because This was posted on Wikipediocracy. Let's be careful.. I'll mention this in my report. I want to keep the report accurate and not inaccurately label what was posted as 'canvassing', especially since there is no evidence that it was even posted on Wikipediocracy. I attempted to contact the site but received no response. Could someone verify whether it was posted, whether it constitutes canvassing, and obtain the necessary permissions to report on posts from the members-only boards? Svampesky (talk) 14:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
https://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13631 -- in the off-topic forum, so members only (probably because it is about the entire shooting and not just the Wikipedia article). The original post is some guy I don't recognize asking about the NFCC tags saying he's never seen them before -- he links the FfD -- casualdejekyll says it fails NFCC#2, which at the time was true. Hemiauchenia concurs. Casualdejekyll concurs. At the time the image totally was just kind of plopped there, and there wasn't any cited commentary or anything -- so I think they were probably right to say this at the time.
People piss and moan for a while. Just Step Sideways (nee Beeblebrox) posts that people will probably write a ton of commentary about it. Some guy says in his opinion the image is pure propaganda because he's got his fist up. Chatter back and forth for the next page or so. Guy who said it looked like propaganda notes that it's all over the TV the next day, so it really does seem like the most representative picture. Then a couple more people mention tht they've been seeing a ton of news articles about the photo, then back to chatter about politics, then they take a moment for some griping about how some guy was mean to them once, then basically back to politics chat (that's the subforum it was in after all). I don't think it was really canvassed too hard one way or the other, apart from the simple fact that they mentioned it, and the people there tend to be more liberal than conservative -- but then so do Wikipedia editors, so who really cares? jp×g🗯️16:33, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've completed the writing and I've emailed and spoke with Midsize Jake/Somey. I'm assuming that I would need to obtain permission from every individual poster to include those details (which I agree with). Additionally, the word count is nearly at its limit. I've kept it general, as there is a lot to cover in the whole report anyway. Svampesky (talk) 16:42, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A newspaper does not need permission to mention stuff that people said on some message board, with the possible exception of message boards at norad.mil or something (and then certainly not from the message board itself). If it's a website open to the public, on which half of our readers probably already have accounts, there isn't even really an ethical issue. jp×g🗯️17:13, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
People piss and moan for a while. Just Step Sideways (nee Beeblebrox) posts that people will probably write a ton of commentary about it. and then back to chatter about politics, then they take a moment for some griping about how some guy was mean to them once, then basically back to politics chat is such tabloid drivel. I don't think the report requires this information. The only pertinent detail is that it was posted in the thread, after which the template was placed onto the discussion. Svampesky (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I was just telling you what happened since you don't have an account, I didn't think 99% of that deserved any mention. jp×g🗯️23:04, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, thank you. I've had all of those conversations in real life for the past week, not really newsworthy! I requested Midsize Jake/Somey to reserve my username to prevent any impersonation, but I don't anticipate using the account. Svampesky (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also don't believe it qualifies as 'open to the public'. When I attempted to create an account, my registration was rejected because I was on a VPN at the time. I contacted the support email and was connected to the admin. Svampesky (talk) 23:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They wouldn't even need permission for that, the government could take them to court to try to stop the publication but theres no point at which they would have to ask for permission. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:48, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Please be advised that this discussion about the putative turning of a stray comment on WPO about Daddy Liberty leading the Secret Service into full-blown canvassing was also mentioned on WPO at 23:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC). — SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥00:20, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't accused WPO of canvassing in the report (or at least it wasn't my intention). I said the Template:Not a ballot banner was placed. This banner functions to deter canvassing. I've written Within twelve minutes of the discussion being initiated, it was posted to a members-only forum thread on Wikipediocracy, a site dedicated to criticizing and discussing Wikipedia and scrutinizing Wikipedians. This prompted the placement of a banner at the top of the discussion to deter canvassing. Subsequently, I explained the concept of canvassing and concluded the paragraph with Given the forum's varied viewpoints, it remains debatable whether canvassing occurred. I don't plan on quoting anything from WPO, as the only pertinent detail is that the template was placed onto the discussion because it was posted on WPO, as noted in the edit summary This was posted on Wikipediocracy. Let's be careful. If anything needs rewording, I think it's only the at the top of the discussion to deter canvassing part. Any suggestions on how to make this clearer? Svampesky (talk) 01:53, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
WPO is a satirical website, which is at times critical of the various Wikimpedia movements, of poorly written articles, of Wikipedians' sometimes cavalier disrespect for BLP, etc., etc. It is not primarily a site dedicated to, as you put it, "scrutinizing Wikipedians", but you can write whatever you want. As for the Wikipedian obsession with canvassing, it strikes me as a somewhat exaggerated reaction to someone out there in the world pointing in here and laughing at us. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥02:15, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I also did not mean to accuse WPO of canvassing, but it seems that this is how others have interpreted my actions, for which I sincerely apologize. casualdejekyll02:29, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Casualdejekyll, I'll maintain that it was prompted by a post on WPO, as indicated in the edit summary. However, I've made it less absolute regarding whether you were actually accusing anyone of canvassing. Svampesky (talk) 03:49, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think what's in the article is basically unimpeachable -- you have done basically nothing beyond mention the existence of the site and the fact that a post was made there, so I don't think there is any basis for complaint, unless somebody is simply malding for an unrelated reason. jp×g🗯️02:49, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Just Step Sideways: As I've said several times, I do not have any kind of hostility towards the site in general, about which I remain ambivalent; this comment is quite out-of-line and I'd appreciate if you struck it. jp×g🗯️04:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Why Wikipedia content must comply with U.S. copyright law
Is it a) only because the servers are located in the U.S. b) only because the Foundation is incorporated in, and operates in, the U.S. c) both? The article presumes a is the case, but I am not so sure. ☆ Bri (talk) 06:11, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
its 6 in the morning, i haven't slept in a very long time so i am really not excited about this, and i cannot presently spend another 10 minutes making a second ms paint drawing of stick figures in a way that is guaranteed will not cause anybody to think it resembles the photo that its purpose is to resemble -- if it, even with 90% of the subject of the image obscured completely by scribbles, is a derivative work that includes non de minimis elements of the original photo, we can just overwrite the fucking file with the painting by malevich i guess. i have now made the image be five pixels in each dimension -- there is no conceivable way in which it could ever be argued that this constitues an infringement of copyright -- if anyone wants to scale it down further, perhaps to a single pixel -- a naughty, bad boy single pixel -- please go ahead and be my guest. jp×g🗯️13:21, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. You've now turned this into protest against Wikipedia's image use guidelines, and The Signpost should be neutral. After having a review, I'm actually in support of these strict guidelines. I also like it how the image isn't in the report to show how strict Wikipedia is. Svampesky (talk) 13:22, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
it's up to you whether you want to have an image in the article -- it makes no difference to me either way -- i just ask that you not call it vandalism jp×g🗯️13:26, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The 'vandalism' that I was referring is the (since deleted) version where you scrawled a giant black scribble over the image. The pixelated version that you subsequently uploaded is not vandalism. Svampesky (talk) 14:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But vandalism is specifically defined as a deliberate attempt to ruin content for the sake of ruining content; something done for the sake of policy compliance is definitionally not vandalism, even if it results in an impossibly stupid outcome (e.g. the infobox image of YouTube having gigantic disruptive porno-style blurred images all over it). jp×g🗯️23:51, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If only we'd had time to create a placeholder collage. There's no shortage of this pose on Wikimedia Commons, it seems to be something he does frequently. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:37, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's something everybody does frequently. It's an extremely common gesture, at least in the US. One could make such a collage with pretty much any politician (or athlete). It's like a "high five collage." Levivich (talk) 17:48, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree, Levivich, with the "pretty much any politician" comment. On a somewhat thorough search I could only find one image of the other candidate making the same gesture. "Mayor Pete", zero, and it's hard to even imagine him doing it. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:44, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There is more than one image of Harris doing it: [3][4][5][6] And her supporters doing it back to her: [7] Here's Biden doing it: [8][9][10][11][12][13] Biden doing it next to Harris: [14] Obama doing it: [15][16] Obama doing it next to Biden: [17] Michelle and Barack doing it together: [18] Barack doing it with others: [19][20] Hillary doing it: [21][22][23] Bill doing it: [24] Bill doing it when he was younger: [25] Search Google images for "[politician's name] fist", there is no shortage of examples on the internet. Levivich (talk) 21:06, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's always slim pickings on Commons (even when you use Google Images and site:wikimedia.org instead of the horrible on-site search) and it almost always requires extreme effort to pick an image that isn't a gross misrepresentation of the subject. For example, for this issue's "News from the WMF" there wasn't a photo of this specific WMF board I could find -- and I didn't want to use a portrait of the author because she was writing on behalf of the whole board -- and there are really not many stock photos on Commons at all. So I just went with a photo of a conference table in an empty boardroom, which is not particularly exciting, but it at least isn't misrepresentation. In this case the article was definitely not about Pete Buttigieg, so I don't think an image of him would have worked. Frankly, it wasn't really about Donald Trump either, it was about a single very specific photograph, which it is not possible to use in the Signpost, which is why I had drawn an intentionally crude stick figure version of it. It should be noted that this was extremely obviously not a fair use image, and was not uploaded with a fair use rationale, as fair use images are not allowed on Commons, and also not allowed here -- rather it was an original drawing that loosely resembled the photo. jp×g🗯️23:41, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My intent was to say I could only find one of Harris and zero of Buttigieg on Commons doing a fist pump. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:27, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Free articles to anyone interested: it would be nice to have a writer for the deletion report
@Svampesky, Sawyer777, and Oltrepier: and others who've mentioned wanting to write something before: WP:ORACLE is back up, I am in the middle of setting the schedule for it to run on the same regular basis as before (and did a bunch of overhauls to the code to fix busted/badly written stuff from before). Anyone who wants to write a deletion report should check out the lsat few months (2024 main page, July / june / may / april / march. I do have a skeleton deletion report from some months ago sitting in the drafts somewhere (with the stuff already prepped and sorted out, just requiring writeups for the actual discussions) but by now I think this is pretty old.
At any rate: the way I'd do deletion reports, when I had those as a regular feature, was to go to the monthly pages, click the column to sort the table by most votes, and by largest AfD size (these tend to give very similar but slightly different results). Typically, the top five or so would include at least something of public interest to the wider editoriat. The general categories I noticed were:
"influencer/meme/viral/youtuber/tiktoker thing".
"actual politics thing" and "extremely online politics thing" (by 2021 there was already a very blurry distinction between these, and by 2024 I think there is literally none whatsoever)
"subject which is not inherently wikipolitical, incidentally touches off some kind of recondite wikidrama" (e.g. random articles about tuskegee airmen that just happened to be the location where the gigantic ARS disaster went down... big batch nominations for Olympians/eclipses/geostubs/etc...)
"thing which is mentioned on an off-wiki site" (viral twitter stuff mostly)
Also, sometimes there are noms in the largest-by-volume category that are not actually that big of a controversy or heavily participated-in, they just happened to have some guy who made the world's biggest source analysis table, or two people cussing each other out in deeply-threaded extremely verbose posts for the full runtime of the AfD, or something.
Geez Louise -- "Where is Kate?" has three separate AfDs, all in the same month, all of which are in the top six for that month individually. I ran the Quarry sql to reevaluate the biggest thousand AfDs of all time from 2005 to now, and apparently the third one is #13 by itself (203k). If you combine them all, it's, uh: 319074 bytes, which -- holy shit -- makes it the second largst AfD ever, second only to that Communism one a couple years back. The article about that one was pretty well-received, so this Kate thing might be something, if anyone wants to take it.
amused to see Eric Hovde there; his ads have been plaguing my youtube viewing for so long. i've got stuff i'm trying to get myself to work on so i don't want to start something new, but if someone starts this deletion report i'm happy to help expand & copyedit. ... sawyer * he/they * talk02:58, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG Unfortunately, I won't be able to help this time around (apologies for saying this just now, by the way), but thank you for the heads up, still! Oltrepier (talk) 06:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have a go at drafting something for 'Where is Kate?' after I finish the Trump photo for the upcoming issue. I vaguely recall the article on her Mother's Day photo. There's a lot of policy around BLP, NOTNEWS and possibly FRINGE that can be discussed. For this one, it would be wise to not name any editors, as both of my previous pieces have been shared outside of Wikipedia; and they might not be familiar with WP:AGF. We can discuss at the appropriate time how we can best protect editors, while being a newspaper that reports on news about Wikipedia. In addition, I would prefer not to have the editors names in the text of the report as that would be indexed by Google. Those are just my thoughts, so I'll leave the final decision to you. I will also need access to the deleted article. I don't think it would be best to restore the article and that could reopen old wounds and was deemed a BLP violation, so is there a way of you giving me access to the all of the revisions for only for that article? Svampesky (talk) 11:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Woot! I think I remember you saying something about this one so I was hoping you'd like the topic. I can send you the deleted text of the most-complete version, but there are about nine hundred deleted revisions, and no way to send multiple of them automatically. I am trying to find out what the actual procedure is on temporary undeletion (I am hearing stuff can be undeleted into userspace but I think this would fill the logs with crap -- the redirect is fully protected so maybe it is harmless to just restore it there for a few days. I will find out. jp×g🗯️02:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, well, this was really dumb: the third AfD closed delete, someone recreated a redirect, it got deleted with the claim there was consensus against having a redirect, but then it was recreated again and then brought to RfD where overwhelming consensus was to keep, all of which put together indicates to me that there was never actually a reason why anybody agreed that it needed to be a redirect with no history. So I have just restored the damn page to where it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Where_is_Kate%3F&action=history - I think it should be fine now. jp×g🗯️02:43, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Exciting! I remember the Mother's Day photo was back-to-back headlines in the UK for around two weeks. I know the article spoke about a bit more other about conspiracies, and the photo was only a section of it. You will also need to restore the talk page. Is there a reason for that title? It seems in very poor taste. Was that the title for the whole thing or was it moved and that as the final title? Svampesky (talk) 12:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
JPxG, quickly on holy shit -- makes it the second largst AfD ever. This is only true if you combine the 'Where is Kate' ones, and don't combine the others. The other top ranking ones have 'Xth nomination', so you would also need to combine those to get a true statistic. Svampesky (talk) 12:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there are a lot of nth nominations at User:JPxG/Oracle/Largest_AfDs. Most of them are spread out across multiple years, though. I don't think any of them are like, three noms back-to-back in the same month. Some of them are kind of weird also (logorrhea notes here):
Query. According to Where is Kate?-AfD3, the article underwent a 'deletion review'. I'm assuming that's the same as Wikipedia:Deletion review (as the linked discussion is a subpage of 'Wikipedia:Deletion review'), so was the article deleted at some point? The linked deletion review closed with 'no consensus'. Does that mean it was subsequently restored? Sorry for the confusion, but there is a lot of of text to review. I'll come back to all of this and I won't look at this again until after I've completed the Trump photo for the upcoming issue (which also has a lot of text to go though; and I like learning about Wikipedia policy 'on the job'!). Svampesky (talk) 12:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Noting something that I idly realized just now -- this is more of a cute factoid than anything else, I don't know if it will fit in what you're writing -- but the current size of the FfD section for that image ([26]) is currently 204,174 characters/bytes. The image itself is 18,336 bytes, meaning that the discussion is some eleven times larger than the image itself. This is really unusual, since files tend to be much larger (hundreds of kilobytes, into megabytes) -- it's just that this file is abnormally tiny due to the extreme image downscaling done for NFCC purposes. jp×g🗯️09:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll review this later when complete the writing. The cover image should be the photo that's being discussed, intentionally stretched to maintain its low quality to convey how Wikipedia downscales images. Svampesky (talk) 11:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG, meaning that the discussion is some eleven times larger than the image itself. I'm glad that people who enjoy meaningless trivia have infiltrated with The Signpost. I have included this. I'm going to complete the write-up now and then email it to my friend to verify the accuracy copyright law. Additionally, I'm awaiting response to emails to ensure there's no libellous information in the report or its page history. I can put it on Google Drive, or something. so you can see it on the 'submission deadline', but it will definitely be sorted by the publication deadline. This was a big write up, and I'm pleased with myself that I got it all done in five days! Svampesky (talk) 16:27, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter (now entering its fourteenth year). Help is welcome to review or summarize the many interesting items listed here, as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Last night I had some problems saving edits. I never know what this is about, but in almost 20 years on Wiki, I've only noticed this type of problem say 2-4 times. This morning I noticed news that there had been major problems around the world with airports, health care, etc. apparently caused by an update from a cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. See e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/19/business/global-tech-outage
If there is any connection with Wikipedia, I'd guess we should lead with it in News and notes. But I don't know the techies to talk to, etc.
There's a good section on that talk page Talk:2024_CrowdStrike_incident#Wikipedia with several trustworthy Wikipedians commenting. BTW, we've been scooped by In the news on the main page, as well as by a very large Wikipedia article.
We should go over how to react to a conspiracy theory. I see 3 possible reactions:
Ignore it. But if the theory is already out there, this won't help.
A very short story, completely shooting down the conspiracy theory. The shoot down could include quotes from very trustworthy figures of authority.
A long story, completely ripping apart the theory, examining every detail.
Any of these strategies could actually increase the spread of the theory. But if we do it right it would be a service to our readers. I tend to favor a very short story. Smallbones(smalltalk)13:49, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Posted my Book review
about Stephen Harrison's The Editors, something I've been working on for a long time. It's not really ready for a final copy editing, but feel free to get started on it, I've left the arbitrary breaks in which always makes it easier for me to edit.
I suspect that this might be controversial, since there is another draft of this by another author. I've tried to get some private feedback, but been mostly unsuccessful. Feel free to comment here. I do think now is the time to publish it, since there are interviews with Harrison coming out - see In the media. And I'm almost sure there will be other reviews soon as well. Wikipedians should get their first review of this from another Wikipedian.
I'll note that in News and notes on the Global council charter, it looks like we're pushing something, but it's just not ready to push yet. I'll suggest we tone it down, it just has too many holes in it still.
I hope to finish up In the media tonight. If I have time tomorrow, I might do a Disinfo report on a topic I first heard about today. It's the type of thing that offends the hell out of me - the type of topic that I usually find easy to write about. It should be short and clean and have a happy ending.
Uh, hello? This looks like rather uncollegial behavior, considering the other review that was submitted and discussed transparently on the submissions page. What are your arguments for giving your own review preference instead?
As discussed there, the marketing material for the book (on Amazon and on the author's homepage) already touts a blurb by you (from an earlier Signpost story about a previous version of what became the book). That might be an argument for giving other views room first.
I do think now is the time to publish it - as discussed on the submissions page: From a book marketing perspective this might be preferable, as pre-order numbers are considered an important signal in the US book market (hypothesized to have considerable influence on the eventual overall sales), which means that publishers and authors expend considerable effort to drive up attention before publication and create pre-order incentives. Still, I think it would serve Signpost readers better if we publish a review only once they will actually be able to acquire and read the book themselves.
Thanks @HaeB: for the response. I do understand that this situation is unusual, perhaps unique, for The Signpost. As I wrote above, I've asked around on how to handle this. More than once. The only advice I've gotten was essentially "submit it and see what happens." I've worked on the review off and on since March or April when I finished reading the book. But I don't think it's a good idea to submit an unfinished draft well ahead of time. I also think it would be unusual to post something like "I've got dibs on this story". I've been following this story for over three years and was really looking forward to writing the review. When the other review was submitted, I contacted @SGerbic: to see whether we could write a joint review. After seeing my (fairly weak) attempt to write a joint review using some of her material, she thought that our views were too far apart to do that. I agree with that assessment. She also suggested that The Signpost might print both the reviews, which I don't expect to happen.
What are your arguments for giving your own review preference? It's pretty simply really, I think the other review missed some important points and included other things that were just distractions. Yes, I'm biased. Ultimately it will be up to the editor-in-chief to decide which review he wants to publish. But absent any guidance, I though at least I should submit my review. BTW, I think our readers can order now and get the book sent out on August 13. I wouldn't see any purpose to a Signpost policy saying that we have to wait until the public has received books before we publish a review. Pre-publication reviews are standard practice essentially everywhere (at least in the US) as far as I can tell.
I find both reviews to be excellent. However, I would like to address one point: The only advice I've gotten was essentially "submit it and see what happens.". This seems misleading, as you didn't submit it in the conventional manner on the submissions page; instead, you posted it directly to the next issue (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Book review). My opinion is that you may have unfairly used your Editor-in-chief-emeritus status to prioritize your submission over Sgerbic's submission. However, it's down to JPxG; these are just my thoughts. Svampesky (talk) 14:58, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I still believe both reviews are excellently written; however, I have striked out my comment as, upon closer examination, it appears they could function as promotional material for the book, contrary to WP:NOTPROMO. Svampesky (talk) 15:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I submitted the article in the same way I've submitted every article I've written in the last 4+ years. Then I posted this thread here, to make sure that everybody knows what is happening. It's completely transparent. We don't require e.g. HaeB to submit Recent research on the submissions page, he just posts it in the usual place. If JPxG want to replace my review with the other, he is free to do so, and he'll find it easier to do since I set up the page.
I do think that some folks are misinterpreting what a book review is. The format is pretty standard throughout the media, e.g. most book reviews are favorable, simply because most people won't write a review about books they don't think their audience will be interested in. And prepublication reviews are the industry standard because it's a convenience to the reader to be able to order a book when it's first coming out, rather than wait until it's old news. And book reviews are clearly opinion pieces, they always give something of the opinion of the reviewer. Let's not try to make our book reviews into something they've never been intended to be. Since the question of promotion has come up, I'll state (as is in the review) that I received an electronic copy of the book (which I can't sell or even give away - it has my name embedded in it) and that I'm an email acquaintance of Harrison, though we've never met in person. For example, in writing up "In the media", I might ask him about the meaning of a specific sentence. I do admire his writing and reporting style - but that is already in my review. I haven't and won't receive any payment or favors for the review. It's just a straightforward view about what I think of the book. Smallbones(smalltalk)16:19, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's completely transparent. Dude. You say above that I've worked on the review off and on since March or April when I finished reading the book. Yet when Susan submitted hers in May (in a thread that you were definitely aware of, considering that you emailed me about it), and several folks weighed in - Novem Linguae, Bluerasberry, myself and JPxG - you didn't say a word there. Not even when JPxG stated his intention there to run this alongside the release of the book, in contrast to all the arguments you are suddenly bringing up now to run it when the book is not available to the general public yet. BTW, I think our readers can order now and get the book sent out on August 13 - yes, I already said above that pre-orders exist and that driving up their numbers is considered an important book marketing technique. rather than wait until it's old news - surely you don't claim that this book is so ephemeral that it will be no longer of general interest in late August? As for industry standard, lots of professional publications run book reviews weeks or even years after publication.
We don't require e.g. HaeB to submit Recent research on the submissions page - in case it has escaped your attention for the last decade or so: RR 1) is always announced on this page a few days in advance of the deadline, and 2) maintains a public to-do list of papers to review, where folks are invited to sign up as reviewers. The latter is exactly to avoid the kind of situation that you are creating here.
Since the question of promotion has come up - Nobody suggested you were getting material favors for this favorable review. But optimizing the timing (or content) of a Signpost story for the goal of helping an author we admire to maximize their book sales would be problematic too. Our readers' interest should come first. And again, the book's marketing material on Amazon and on Harrison's website already contain a (rather fawning) blurb by you, attributed to the Signpost no less.
Just my 2¢ The review should be published after the book's release and after its promotional period. The author sending an advanced copy of the book to Wikipedia for a review could function as promotional material for it. The book is a novelization of Wikipedia; should it be posted beforehand, it could be utilized as a promotional tool by the author, who might proclaim, We have the Wikipedia stamp of approval!, in the lead-up/first sales week in order to boost sales of the book. To avoid this, the review ought to be published at least one week after the book's release, once the initial publicity phase has subsided. To add, this would not be the case for a book not about Wikipedia. I'd see it as fine if the book was a novelisation of Twitter. Svampesky (talk) 18:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't see any reason to redefine that standard practices of book reviewing just for the Signpost. And if Wikipedians choose to buy a dozen or so books a few weeks before they otherwise would have -so what? This is just not a case of promotion. Smallbones(smalltalk)20:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
standard practices of book reviewing[citation needed] - as I said above, it's entirely standard to publish book reviews after (or on) a book's publication date. If you don't believe me, check (as a non-cherry picked example) this LitHub list from two days ago: "5 Book Reviews You Need to Read This Week", from The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic and the Washington Post. All five were published on or after the reviewed book's publication date, none in advance.
This discussion took me by surprise. I didn't expect to come in and find Smallbones questioned for a good faith book review. I feel that the objections raised in the conversation above ought to be rebutted lest we set unfortunate precedents or step on each others' toes further.
In my process of finding reviews to establish notability in wp articles, I quite often find pre-publication reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. E.g. for my last book article about The New Rules of War, there is a PW review from October 2018; the book was published in 2019. My advice to Smallbones is to acknowledge the advance copy but if necessary we can say there was no (other?) compensation involved.
As for the process of composition off wiki, lots of folks prefer to do it this way. As for regular contributors not submitting their ideas or works-in-progress for approval, not a problem at all as far as I am concerned; it still has to go through the usual review and copyediting and isn't sneaking something in the issue.
I find the suggestion that the submittal of a second opinion about a work of fiction is somehow "competing" with another author off-putting and stifling our own ability to express ourselves here. If we are going to discourage ways of contributing to The Signpost, it needs to be in a consistent and transparent way, not ad hoc. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:35, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Clarification. My sole concern is the timing of the review's release in The Signpost being during the books promotional period; I offer no opinion on anything else. Book reviews are inherently promotional, which is unavoidable. Nevertheless, we can mitigate this unavoidable-promotion by publishing the review after the promotional period has concluded. The book is also a novelization of Wikipedia, and thus can serve as a promotional tool for the author during its promotional period. Svampesky (talk) 16:53, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG: An embarrassment of riches ... Having had an advance paper copy of the book as well, I would suggest we use Smallbones' review first (whether in this issue or a future one). Sgerbic gives away quite a bit of the plot; I'd propose we run hers at a later date (definitely well after book publication).
Both reviews have their strengths, but I can relate to Smallbones' piece more; he verbalises things I felt too when reading the book. A strength of Sgerbic's review is that she relates the book's plot to some of Harrison's previous journalistic writings that I had not read; that was very useful info.
If running one review first and the other later would lead to bad feeling, I'd suggest running both in the same issue. Flip a coin for which one is labelled Book Review 1 and which one is labelled Book Review 2. AndreasJN46608:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bri, this is misrepresenting the discussion above. Smallbones is not questioned for a good faith book review (at least not by me, I haven't commented on the contents of this review so far), but for his entirely unusual and uncollegial actions around it.
the suggestion that the submittal of a second opinion about a work of fiction is somehow "competing" with another author off-putting and stifling - read again. Smallbones did not merely submit "a second opinion", he wants his own review to run instead of the one that was transparently submitted in May and discussed by several Signpost team members back then. He even explicitly rejected the idea that both could be featured, i.e. promoted exactly the "competing" notion that you find "off-putting and stifling" (After seeing my (fairly weak) attempt to write a joint review using some of her material, she thought that our views were too far apart to do that. I agree with that assessment. She also suggested that The Signpost might print both the reviews, which I don't expect to happen.)
I can't help noticing that you apply your concerns about Signpost book review authors being "questioned" and met with "off-putting and stifling" comments very selectively here, to only one of the two. Have you spent a moment thinking about what kind of message we send to Signpost contributors if they make a good-faith effort to follow our submissions process, receive largely approving feedback etc., only to be muscled aside at the last minute by a Signpost bigwig who denigrates their review with vague claims? (note that in his response to my question above about arguments for giving your own review preference instead, Smallbones has provided no concrete examples for his insinuations that SGerbic's review missed some important points and included other things that were just distractions)
I quite often find pre-publication reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly - nobody said that pre-publication reviews don't exist. Rather, the point of contention is Smallbones' claim that these are the default and the Signpost publishing a review only after a book is publicly available would mean to redefine that standard practices of book reviewing. As explained above, I consider this claim pretty much debunked, considering that e.g. the New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic and the Washington Post routinely also do that terrible thing that Smallbones insists is breaking the norms of professional journalism. (If you want to dig deeper into that, consider e.g. that Publishers Weekly is a "trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents", to quote from that article's lede - not at the general public. Again, I think we should put our readers' perspective first.)
I think this is one of the most interesting pieces ever submitted to Signpost in terms of this being an evidence-supported narrative of how shenanigans significantly contributed to the establishment of United States legislation, court precedent, medical policy, and political platforms. As this is a transgender political piece, getting this out now in election season would be timely. Bluerasberry (talk)20:55, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My disinfo report I talked about above is ready. It's in my standard disinfo report style, so I'd usually put in here. But it looks like Special report is open, I'll post it there and let other people switch things around if necessary. Smallbones(smalltalk)21:50, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking that I should give a warning about the controversial practice of short selling. While strongly regulated in the US, and very controversial, it is legal and has been practiced widely (since the 1600s in the Netherlands, 1820s in the US).
I've posted in the article:
"Readers should be aware that short selling, the practice of betting that a stock's price will go down, is a controversial business and that many short sellers have been accused of exaggerating their reports in order to drive the stock price down further. We are not aware of any such accusations in this case."
@JPxG: It will certainly be worth your time to fact check this very carefully before publishing. Strong accusations and controversy often follow short selling reports. Smallbones(smalltalk)16:12, 21 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delays, since I had discussed with y'all sharing it months ago. We managed to shorten the query to <10 seconds so I'll be done with the data collection within the week. The associated graphs won't work on wiki (:sobs:) but I can host them on my website as a d3.js graph and link said website within the essay if that's fine with y'all. — ♠ Ixtal( T / C ) ⁂ Sign up for the 2024 DCWC! — Non nobis solum ♠ 01:11, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! First of all, sorry for not being able to help with the up-coming issue: I've been pretty much snowed with other tasks and priorities...
Since the first ever election cycle for the newly-established Italian ArbCom has just come to an end, I feel like it would be nice to talk about it next time, so much that I'm considering to write a full Special report about it, by even reaching out to some of the most notable users involved in the process. However, if you feel like we should rather stick to a shorter blurb in the "News and notes" column, I'd be up for it, as well!
We are abjectly grateful to anyone who writes anything at all about the governance of the non-English projects. Sounds interesting, in particular given the Orsini affair and the recent de-stewarding of one of the Italian stewards. AndreasJN46614:42, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Up to the EiC, but there aren't too many projects that have an ArbCom, so if a major project creates one, yes, I'd say that's worth writing about. I also wonder if User:Gitz6666 might like to contribute some views or info to any article; he is a native speaker. AndreasJN46622:51, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the ping. I'd be happy to help, but I'm afraid that a contribution from me would be perceived as inappropraite, even inflammatory, by many it.wiki users. Notable points about the Italian ArbCom: 1. It has limited purview and doesn't deal with deflagging/desysopping. 2. The arbitrators' opinions/votes and their reasoning are kept secret from the community (see here at No 4), which I find quite extraordinary since arbitrators are elected by the community. I've written my views on this in my blog here (in Italian). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:25, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@JPxG Thank you for bringing this up again, because I almost forgot about it... : D
Due to more real-life priorities, I'll likely be able to write this report for the end-of-August issue, but I'd love to land it, eventually! Oltrepier (talk) 08:10, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am taking my whole computer (along with my monitors) to the evacuation zone this time, so it might actually not delay publication by that much, but just fyi. jp×g🗯️10:44, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, at least one of the less serious sections can be moved down, maybe even to an "Odd bits" section. I do these sections when I don't see big news stories for the next issue, so please consider them to be more like features than news. I wouldn't be offended if sometimes one gets removed.
But the Jewish media coverage section has some major problems, e.g. there was a very reasonable response from a Jewish source that doesn't seem to be mentioned. Also the top quote borders on hate speech, e.g the Soros -Tides - (and presumably the Endowment was being referred to here) part near the end.
The included quote
"The truth is that WMF, together with the Wikimedia Endowment, holds over $350 million in assets. This means that with no further donations or investments, Wikipedia can continue operating comfortably for over a century. Yet its relationship with Big Tech has only deepened and diversified."
only shows a huge amount of ignorance. How can a $180-$200 million annual budget be covered for a century by a $350 million fund? Rather than intentionally trying to make people look stupid (in a very serious case like this), just leave it out.
You may have noticed that I haven't been writing up anything related to Israel or Gaza for about 10 months. I have mixed and even contradictory views on the situation, and I figure I'd be sure to insult somebody (maybe even both sides) even without reporting what I consider to be all the relevant facts. I'm just not the person to write about the situation. I will say that I see similar views to mine in the Israeli press.
Andreas, you need to rewrite this without my help. 1st, don't have the section dominated by big green quote boxes. Smallbones(smalltalk)
@Jayen466, JPxG, and Bri: btw the Jewish Journal was the "reasonable source" I mentioned above, though Andreas and I obviously have very different takes on that article. It's long enough that you can find what you want in it. Smallbones(smalltalk)
Bri, there's a story that I might write up (or you can) about a mayoral candidate in Portland, OR Rene Gonzalex (politician) paying $6,000 in city funds for writing the Wikipedia article on himself. The talk page has just as much from his representative. Smallbones(smalltalk)22:07, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For anyone who want to help out: The current draft still has several open to-do items which could use at least a brief (one-sentence) writeup. ThisArs Technica article about the new dark mode is also worth mentioning. I might be able to contribute myself, but not before wrapping up Recent research. Apropos: @Bri: I saw your note to JPxG in the STORM item - heads-up that I've been preparing a review of that paper for RR, which I should be able to post shortly (also informed by that team's presentation at last month's SF Wikipedia meetup).
@HaeB and JPxG: the yellow comment in the STORM section was from me, not Bri. It's to late to do anything like that now. After reading Recent research, I felt toning the section down was appropriate (but put it back if you'd like or tone it down even more). I was just confused on what the heck R&D was trying to do. Smallbones(smalltalk)18:35, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, yes, of course that was you (Bri merely added the highlighting to that comment).
Regarding tone in the STORM item: I don't quite get the Bronx humor, but whatever... The only thing that might still be worth contextualizing is the R&D reviewer's observation about the low cost per article generated - as I mentioned in the RR review, the actual cost when paying market prices for LLM and search engine APIs is much higher still, per what one of the researchers told us at the SF meetup last month. It looks like the R&D reviewer might have used a free tier that wouldn't scale.
And yes, while the generated articles can still have issues (see the examples in my RR review), they are getting quite good already. By coincidence I had made some edits to our own double descent article myself last year, and I agree with the R&D reviewer that STORM's version is quite descent, apart from the WP:PEACOCK waffling he points out ("Double descent is a fascinating and counterintuitive phenomenon that has reshaped our understanding ..."). Actually it just prompted me to improve the WP article a bit further, noting that it had so far failed to mention two important terms (overfitting and interpolation threshold) that the STORM article did mention.
I have also since added the dark mode bit, and augmented the Portland story.
Couldn't find any that claimed otherwise. Columbia Journalism Reviewincludes it among "Jewish publications [that] are funded by right-wing patrons who expect to see their investments reflect their politics". See also [27] describing the Journal's commentary as "disproportionately right wing". AndreasJN46617:11, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is mainly about stories that I've been working on, but there's also stuff about others.
In News and notes
A sentence or two about the founding of WP:COIVRT would be nice
As well as 3 sentences about Wiki Loves Monuments starting Sept.1 (in the UK and other countries) or October 1 (in US and Canada and other countries)
Book review and Special report left over from last issue. Give me a yell and I could probably have both of them checked and freshened up in an hour.
Disinformation report - I've been asked to comment and been meaning to. There's lots of stuff I like in the submission, e.g. a detailed argument about why the topic is important, lots of detailed evidence. But I've never had the time to go all the way through it, or I've lost interest by the time I get half way through. This is a real problem. Heaven knows it should be a good article, but if a disinformation report loses my interest half way through, I suggest that most of our readers will also lose interest. The argument and the evidence is too detailed. I'll suggest that the author can find another publication that would love to publish it.
In the media. The revamp on the conservative Jewish media looked good to me at a quick glance. @Bri, Jayen466, and JPxG: my concern is where to put it, but that's open to everybody to look at. It's so long and detailed (and depressing) that readers might just give up on the whole column if we put it right at the top. An editor's intro (right below the headline) or a shorter not quite so serious article at the top might help get readers into the column. I'll try both, but as I said, others can try the order they prefer (or write their own intro).
"WhiteHatWiki in Portland" is definitely a serious article and I'll try to keep it short enough for the top of ITM. Otherwise it might go in In focus, Special report, Disinformation report, or anywhere else as far as I care.
There's another article I've been working on, but I might not get done (unless publication is delayed too long). Smallbones(smalltalk)
Hi Smallbones, I just wanted to say thank you for the comments and taking a look, I really appreciated it! No rush, but I'd also appreciate ideas for other places to publish it. If you ever want to cover the story yourself with less verbosity (either rewriting it from scratch or editing it heavily) please feel free and I'd be happy to help!
P.S. funny sociological note, I ran it past a lot of queer friends of mine who found it riveting and hard to stop reading, while straight ones tended to find it too much, so I'm guessing a queer magazine/newspaper will probably be more inclined to pick it up lol.
The ANI case opened against one of our Signpost editors because of a question he asked an In the news-related firm for the upcoming issue seems newsworthy to me. ☆ Bri (talk) 13:40, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This would pour fuel onto the fire at ANI, which is ongoing and unresolved. The Signpost should make a decision after it's been resolved. The complaint is about The Signpost, so it seems very gossipy and tabloidy for The Signpost react in this way. Svampesky (talk) 17:37, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I'm just photoshopping my cover image for my In focus, and working out all the paperwork for Commons (I've never uploaded to Commons before). I think It'll take me like an hour or so to do. Svampesky (talk) 06:39, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sick. It is pretty easy (you just check the own-work crap in the upload wizard). For anything that seems complicated I will usually just do a local upload to enwp (someone else can transfer it over later if they want). jp×g🗯️06:47, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not my original work—just someone else's photo that I duplicated and overlaid, so I installed Photoshop. I had to make an Adobe account to even use it; and they also let me get all the way to finishing the editing and when I tried to export it they have the nerve to ask me for my card details for this free trial. Svampesky (talk) 07:04, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This was was sooo rushed as I saw that the requested moved was relisted, and I wanted to get the headline in before if the move was successful. Svampesky (talk) 08:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Svampesky: Yeah, that is fine (has the license and original source). For the article, I am going to start c/eing, but don't want to edit conflict, do you want me to go through quickly now or wait until you are done? jp×g🗯️08:44, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
JPxG, you've not made any edits to the page (or any edits at all) in roughly three hours and I might be too busy later to attended to it. So I'm going to do my edits now. Svampesky (talk) 13:57, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Weirdness of templates
Per this diff: I think that some of our draft articles are getting weird formatting at the top that makes them bust the script. I tried to fix them this time but I guess it did not work properly since the script still failed to take out the draft templates. @Svampesky: Where are you getting this wikitext from that you format the tops of drafts? I can try to come up with an amended version that doesn't do this. jp×g🗯️23:54, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I go onto the Signpost page and go to my previous report in the edit history and get it from the source code there. Am I not supposed to do this? I don't know where else to get the templates from. Also I'm free for the next few hours if you need me to manually sort out the 'In focus' column move. Svampesky (talk) 00:01, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Moving pages
Per email I am getting ready to move this issue's discussion report to in focus -- noticing something weird and writing it down here.
Almost every single talk page that the Signpost gets delivered to looks like this:
<divlang="en"dir="ltr"class="mw-content-ltr"><divstyle="column-count:2;">{{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14}}</div><!--Volume 20, Issue 11--><divclass="hlist"style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> * '''[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost|Read this Signpost in full]]''' * [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2024-08-14|Single-page]] * [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Subscribe|Unsubscribe]] * [[User:MediaWiki message delivery|MediaWiki message delivery]] ([[User talk:MediaWiki message delivery|talk]]) 22:47, 14 August 2024 (UTC) <!-- Sent via script ([[User:JPxG/SPS]]) --></div></div><!-- Message sent by User:JPxG@enwiki using the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Subscribe&oldid=1240033127 -->
== ''The Signpost'': 14 August 2024 ==<divlang="en"dir="ltr"class="mw-content-ltr"style="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">[[File:WikipediaSignpostIcon.svg|40px|right]]''News, reports and features from the English Wikipedia's newspaper''</div><divstyle="column-count:2;">* In the media: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/In the media|Portland pol profile paid for from public purse]]* Recent research: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/Recent research|STORM: AI agents role-play as "Wikipedia editors" and "experts" to create Wikipedia-like articles, a more sophisticated effort than previous auto-generation systems]]* Discussion report: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/In focus|Twitter marks the spot]]* News and notes: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/News and notes|Another Wikimania has concluded]]* Special report: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/Special report|Nano or just nothing: Will nano go nuclear?]]* Opinion: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/Opinion|HouseBlaster's RfA debriefing]]* Traffic report: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/Traffic report|Ball games, movies, elections, but nothing really ''weird'']]* Humour: [[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14/Humour|I'm proud to be a template]]</div><divstyle="margin-top:10px; font-size:90%; padding-left:5px; font-family:Georgia, Palatino, Palatino Linotype, Times, Times New Roman, serif;">'''[[w:en:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost|Read this Signpost in full]]''' · [[w:en:Wikipedia:Signpost/Single|Single-page]] · [[m:Global message delivery/Targets/Signpost|Unsubscribe]] · [[m:Global message delivery|Global message delivery]] 22:52, 14 August 2024 (UTC) <!-- Sent via script ([[w:en:User:JPxG/SPS]]) --></div><!-- Message sent by User:JPxG@metawiki using the list at https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Global_message_delivery/Targets/Signpost&oldid=27163580 -->
Very very strange. I wonder what the heck is going on here? Looks like some people are getting -- how is this even possible -- enwp delivery from the global list (which is, of course, hardcoded with the links). What?? jp×g🗯️23:58, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see what the issue is, the delivery method just isn't standardized. They may have been subscribed before the new one one implemented? This is just from my first glance though. Svampesky (talk) 00:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, not quite: the reason is because you can't do cross-wiki transclusions. On enwp if you type {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14}} you transclude Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14. On es or zh, if you type that you get es:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14 or zh:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-08-14 which is nothing. So it has to just be text with hardcoded links. The reason some people on here are getting global delivery is because... uh... I guess it's technically possible to go to the global delivery list on meta and type an enwp userpage instead of subscribing locally, which is kind of weird and only 17 people have done it I guess. jp×g🗯️00:21, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I plan to eventually finish writing User:Clovermoss/Wikimania 2024. A snazzier title would probably be something like "what it's like to be Wikimedian of the Year". It's been awhile since I've written anything for the Signpost but I figured this would probably be welcome once I'm actually done writing the thing. Clovermoss🍀(talk)22:20, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Shushugah: Would you be alright with waiting to copyedit until I'm actually done? I'm not even halfway through and I plan on rewriting certain things. It just seems like a lot of effort for a process that only needs to be done once at the end, y'know? Clovermoss🍀(talk)01:06, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take it a bit easy for the next issue and do the Gallery, as I want commit my time to creating a few more mainspace articles, as my two previous pieces consumed all of my 'Wikipedia-time'. The Trump piece was last-minute because I wasn't anticipating an assassination attempt, and the Twitter one was rushed since the move was relisted, and I wanted to use that headline. Svampesky (talk) 13:24, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'll take it a bit easy for the next issue and do the Gallery, as I want commit my time to creating a few more mainspace articles, as my two previous pieces consumed all of my 'Wikipedia-time'. The Trump piece was last-minute because I wasn't anticipating an assassination attempt, and the Twitter one was rushed since the move was relisted, and I wanted to use that headline. Svampesky (talk) 13:24, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]