Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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Spoken Wikipedia and COI

Hypothetical question: if I got, say, Tom Clancy to do a WP:SPOKEN Wikipedia version of the article on Clear and Present Danger, Jack Ryan (character), or the Tom Clancy article for that matter, would that constitute a COI? He wouldn't be modifying the text or inserting commentary -- just reading the article. Would anyone see an issue with that? (For the record, no I do not personally know the ghost of Tom Clancy). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only scenario in which I could see a serious issue is if there is disagreement about which version of a given Wikipedia article should become the spoken Wikipedia version. I could imagine some disputes when one part of the article is narrated quickly, as if it get past it as fast as possible, when another isn't. But beyond these two specific situations I wouldn't think that there would be COI issues. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is kind of an interesting question. It's not clear to me what status these spoken article have. Are they part of the encyclopedia? If so, then I would expect them to comply with all the enwiki rules about COI and such. bit my hunch is that's not the case.
On the other hand, under our CC-BY-SA-4.0 license, anybody is totally free to create a derivative work (i.e. a spoken article recording) and upload it to commons or wherever they wanted. They would have to comply with all the CC-BY-SA requirements, but enwiki policies like WP:COI aren't included in that, so they would be free to edit out whatever parts they don't like. RoySmith (talk) 00:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was pondering this recently also. I thought it may be redemptive to adapt certain quality articles into distinct, possibly shorter, possibly less strictly encyclopedic podcasts, basically. I still think it's worthwhile to explore the ways Spoken Wikipedia can be value added for readers or listeners in 2024, when most people who need one to read have access to a screen reader that can be dialed to their specifications. Remsense诉 17:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We'd want Commons uploaders to declare COI -- and align to other WP P&G like V and RS -- should their content be included in WP articles. This is rarely the case. For images, this is something we can and should enforce, but for something like spoken articles, it may not be practical to be too picky about what gets offered for lack of volume. Having that initial spoken upload is kinda what gets the ball rolling for others to improve on it if it's insufficient. (And COI editors are sometimes among the few actually motivated to do that kind of thing.) Once there's a few to choose from, it may then be more appropriate to audit the editor on something like COI.
That said, on Commons I usually get quick responses by just messaging uploaders when I've had questions on things like verifiability, sourcing, etc., especially if they're active on a WP as well. So if you suspect an editor or uploader of undeclared COI, the first step is just to politely ask them. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:39, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's been done before at [[Chris Nunn. Graham87 (talk) 11:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify my original question, while I have some interest in getting unique voices (think comedians, voice actors, etc.) to record articles about which they'd have a COI, I'd be the one soliciting/vetting/uploading/adding it to the article. How nice would it be to have e.g. Tom Kenny do a spoken version of Spongebob Squarepants, or Jerry Seinfeld to read the article on Seinfeld? Last year a couple people who work for a foundation asked me for ideas to push attention towards Wikipedia's coverage of a certain topic rather than to some TikTok influencer. I suggested using the celebrity cache they had to read articles on the topic. So -- and these aren't the real examples -- something like George Clooney reading the animal welfare article. No COI involved. Now, obviously if they wanted to add anything beyond the content of the article it would have to be edited and uploaded as a separate file, but that could be a fun side project (have Seinfeld criticize how we write about the show, for example). Anyway, none of this is actually happening at the moment. Trying to think about other potential pitfalls before I consider whether to spend time on it. I see there's a good piece in the most recent WP:SIGNPOST from MPinchuk_(WMF). Wonder what they think about this sort of "personality-driven knowledge". — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:16, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, this is a neat idea! I'm also curious what the community sentiment would be about the appropriateness of this kind of content on English Wikipedia. Note that the Basque Wikipedia community is exploring the "personality-driven knowledge" space through a tangentially related project called Ikusgela, in which they get well-known Basque personalities to narrate educational video explainers based on Wikipedia content and add these videos to Commons and articles on Basque Wikipedia, e.g. the video at the top of this article: Inflazio. Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @MPinchuk (WMF)! I have been pinged about this conversation and I would like to precise that these videos are not done by "personalities" but hired actors. Is to say, the idea is to "build" a youtuber, not to use famous people to narrate those. Also, the video script is created, and is not a narration of the exact content of the article itself.
What @Rhododendrites is proposin is very interesting, and it is more related to this other projects: WikiProject Idazlezainak, where librarians recorded writers reading the lead section of their article and also an excerpt of one of their works (they chose youth literature). You can see all the audios here: c:Category:Audio_files_uploaded_in_Idazlezainak.
The other related project I see is this one made by Catalan Wikipedians, recording voice actors and some of the characters they had dubbed. All the files are here. And you can hear to ca:Son Goku or Vito Corleone's catalan voiceⓘ.
I think that those projects are more related to the proposal. Theklan (talk) 18:21, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is interesting, but I'd think that Spoken Wikipedia is more likely to be shut down than reorganized or updated with new projects. It was rendered obsolete years ago when text-to-speech technology caught up. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 02:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhododendrites, MPinchuk (WMF), and Theklan: We have a project to get article subjects (or people with Wikidata items) to record their speaking voice for us: WP:WikiVIP. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:35, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Graph of Wikipedia

I NEED a discussion of this most excellent video: Video on YouTube. Please link me to one :-) Cheers Video "I Made a Graph of Wikipedia... This Is What I Found" by adumb if it for some reason disappears. Cross posted from Talk:The Signpost#Graph of Wikipedia. CapnZapp (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't we make this the discussion? :P Thanks for sharing this video, I found it very interesting. Here's some of my notes.
Off the top, it was very cool to see the ways different communities are segmented on Wikipedia, and especially seeing how they interact with each other. I guess I can't be surprised that "United States" is the most linked article, although it is good that we now have a visual representation of US-centric bias on the platform. We desperately need more users to write about different areas of the world, and the map of linked countries is very good at showing just how under-represented the global south is in our catalogue.
The section on orphaned articles, with the demonstration of how much the graph changes when they are accounted for, I think demonstrates the importance of us de-orphaning articles wherever we can (WikiProject Orphanage is doing very important work, consider helping out!). I also loved the six degrees of separation segment, it's so interesting how articles all follow the same pattern in terms of degrees of separation and completely plateau in terms of new links soon after the 6th degree. The follow-up on Orphaned groups is something I think gets missed a lot when we discuss orphaned articles, we often don't look further into how these kinds of article cul-de-sacs can get created as well, even by articles that aren't themselves orphans. Orphaned groups are something we should probably look into. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:07, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Upcoming numerological apocalypse

This seems like the default to ask this question, though I hope some of the people I'm trying to reach actually check this page:

Long-term IP editors, you are my favorite class of editor. How are you taking the news of the upcoming temporary accounts for unregistered editors|temporary accounts for unregistered editors roll-out? I hope you all will still feel whole after this comes to pass, and you are IP editors no longer. Remsense诉 16:50, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I very strongly support that (the temporary accounts), but then I'm not an IP editor. It seems wonderful for privacy, which if I only edited as an IP I would be concerned about. Cremastra (talk) 19:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I edit as an IP from time to time and I think an increased layer of privacy is only great. Especially since those seeking to find use for such public-facing IP information are generally doing so for bad faith purposes. (The administrative purposes of site maintenance is done with non-public user IP logs.)
I'd suggest for future consideration, for editor recruitment and retention studies, making available additional features for anonymous editors, inspired by that used in other social media. Some message boards allow limited customization of signatures for anonymous posters, for example, such as flair colors and flag icons; one can hypothesize (and test quantitatively) that giving anonymous editors some extra means to express individuality might encourage eventual creation and retention of accounts. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:41, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone seeking to find your IP information may be acting in bad faith, but most investigations concern the minority of IPs which are used to vandalise Wikipedia. Tracking them down so they can be educated or blocked is very much a good-faith activity in the interests of Wikipedia and its readers. As for customisation, the problem is identifying when two visits are by the same person. In many schools and businesses and some homes, multiple editors share a connection or even a device. Wikipedia can only customise appropriately for each person if they log in. We really don't want one editor displaying another's signature because the server can't tell them apart. Certes (talk) 08:29, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to be missing something. Identical IPs have identical temporary masks, so abuse can still be tracked by casual editors. The point is that the IP address itself, with all the security concerns attached, is only visible to those with elevated privileges. As for my suggestion of signatured customization, I only made suggestions of what is termed in other forums "flair" or "flags" -- i.e. supplements -- not changing the actual displayed IP mask/username. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:46, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are some relevant comments in a VPM archive. Details of IP masking are still hazy but it may rely on cookies, allowing a vandal to get a new identity by clearing them or browsing privately (e.g. Chrome's incognito mode). It will also be difficult to work out whether two IPs are in a similar range, or to check neighbouring IPs for vandalism. (Hopping within an IPv6/64 is so trivial it often happens accidentally.) Certes (talk) 21:30, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have much of an opinion on it yet, to be honest. It'll certainly be nice if it gives me the ability to receive pings, and it may possibly give me a stable talk page across IP addresses on this range - even a separate talk page from that of other users on the range - which would be neat. But if there turn out to be a lot of downsides for English Wikipedia as a whole, the final result may be the entire loss of IP editing here, masked or not, which I would regret. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it's actually turned on. 57.140.16.57 (talk) 15:10, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a leap into the dark. We have no idea whether we will still be able to fight unregistered vandals effectively or will have to reject the millions of useful IP contributions. I fear that we may soon no longer have an encyclopedia anyone can edit, but I hope to be proven wrong. Certes (talk) 16:25, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

For the interested, WP:IPMASKING. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:49, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know how long the temporary accounts last and if they last more than 4 days can a temp account become autoconfirmed? I didn't see anything about this in the linked pages but it is a lot to go through. The closest I could find is a comment that there is awareness of the impact on anti-vandal efforts but that is quite vague. RudolfRed (talk) 22:30, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One document states that temporary accounts will last a year, but I see nothing about them becoming autoconfirmed and think it very unlikely that it will happen. Certes (talk) 16:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding notice about image copyright

The footer of our pages says:

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. By using this site...

I think it would be sensible to change it to something like (additions emboldened for clarity):

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0; additional terms may apply. Images may be subject to copyright or require attribution if reused; see individual image pages for details. By using this site...

My reasoning is that images may be open-licensed or fair-use, and in neither case do we display any notice of this to readers on the page.

Is this in our gift, or is it a WMF issue? Where should a request be raised? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:14, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The text comes from MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright, which is already locally customized. While some of the local customizations make sense, I have no idea why e.g. Special:Diff/546973720 wasn't also done in mw:Extension:WikimediaMessages. To me this seems like another one that should probably be done there first rather than only being done locally. Anomie⚔ 15:05, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I have asked there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:20, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Anomie: I mentioned you in that discussion, but my attempt to "ping" you failed (the interface is not one I'm familiar with). Please take a look. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 8, 1974

Why no mention on home page of 50th anniversary of Henry Aaron hitting 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s MLB record? Fairly significant; maybe more than formation of Progress Party in Norway? Pliny37 (talk) 07:32, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Pliny37: You can start a discussion at Talk:April_8. There was a previous suggestion to add it, but that was a few years ago. RudolfRed (talk) 19:11, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pliny37 apparently wanted it on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April 8 so it would be on Main Page April 8. If there isn't even agreement about putting it on April 8 (it was added after the post) then forget about selected anniversaries. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:26, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation draft annual plan available for review

Hi everyone,

The Wikimedia Foundation’s draft annual plan for the 2024-2025 fiscal year is now available. This plan is shaped by many factors. These include external technological, regulatory, and social trends in the world about how people look for information and rely on the Wikimedia projects. Our planning was also built around small group discussions on wiki, via mailing lists and over 130 conversations with individuals in person and in scheduled calls. These discussions consistently highlighted the need to remain focused on upgrading our technical infrastructure and supporting volunteer needs for tool maintenance and metrics.

Our answer to these trends and needs is in this draft annual plan. You will see that it prioritises maintenance and upgrades for our technical infrastructure, such as MediaWiki core, data centre operations, and site reliability engineering services. There are also key results around a number of issues discussed here over the past year, such as ways to help volunteers connect to others who share their interests, building newcomer edit workflows that reduce the burden on experienced editors, building a new community wishlist that better connects movement ideas to Foundation activities, and improving tools for editors with extended rights.

You can read a summary of the plan in yesterday’s letter from Wikimedia Foundation CEO Maryana Iskander, with a slightly-longer version on the annual plan landing page. The summary also offers details about what we’ve achieved so far in this current year. You can also read about our financial model, revenue strategy, and budget breakdown.

The annual plan talk page is open for questions and feedback now through the end of May, after which we’ll summarise all of the responses across talk pages and community calls and publish a final version of the plan that considers this feedback. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts! KStineRowe (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Will the Met Office logo ever have its copyright expire?

The Met Office logo is currently protected by Crown copyright in the United Kingdom, but may not be copyrightable in the United States because it does not meet original standards. The version currently uploaded locally on English Wikipedia is the 2009 version. There may be differences in color matching between this version and the 1987 version. Therefore, the copyright protection period of logos uploaded in different periods will also be recalculated. -Fumikas Sagisavas (talk) 04:09, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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