Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2010-03-08

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2010-03-08. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Features and admins: Approved this week (345 bytes · 💬)

* Congratulations X! Rock drum (talk�contribs�guestbook) 12:25, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

In the news: Pentagon shooter used Wikipedia, soon iPhone OS will too (5,842 bytes · 💬)

RE: Transcendental turmoil perplexes psychologist

Although I don't question the merits of Grohol's comments, I wonder how many other comments by academics about some page on the world's fifth most popular website go unreported in the Signpost each week. Below is a current example for illustration - which I personally hadn't thought newsworthy enough, even though it was published in a very notable scholarly journal instead of a personal blog, judged a whole set of articles instead of just one passage in one article, and is interesting in that it recommends a Wikipedia article talk page (!) as introduction to a subject:

In an article about undecidability in this month's issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Chaim Goodman-Strauss listed Wikipedia among other sources as recommended reading about the topic:

The Wikipedia entries in this area are comprehensive and generally well written and accurate.

About the controversy about the proof for the universality of Wolfram's 2-state 3-symbol Turing machine (for which Alex Smith, a student at the University of Birmingham, won a $25,000 prize in 2007), Goodman-Strauss actually recommends the talk page of the Wikipedia article (which contains many comments by Vaughan Pratt, one of the participants in that controversy):

The interested reader can ask for no better starting point than the talk page of the relevant Wikipedia article [46], following the many outward links from there.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:32, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

As the author of that article, it was interesting to come across this thread; it definitely felt like a turning point to be citing Wikipedia in a prominent academic forum-- but I note that not one of the three referees, nor the editor, felt that worthy of comment. The articles on the theory of computation really are quite good! It's also worth noting a distinct difference in my two citations: the first is to Wikipedia as a reliable, but secondary, interpretive source. The second, in effect, is to a talk page as a primary source in itself, an original document of independent interest. C Goodman-Strauss 69.152.203.105 (talk) 13:28, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

My reaction is about the same; I would have left it out if I was writing this, mainly because we can't hope to be comprehensive in cataloging every opinionated blog post from an expert. I seem to recall Grohol and his site coming up with regards to Wikipedia in the past, although I can't remember offhand what the context was.--ragesoss (talk) 01:08, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I see no harm in mentioning the Grohol post and no good in excluding it. That I didn't include the undecidability article is simply because I didn't notice it, not because I thought the Grohol one would be better. Feel free to pitch in next time you see something like that! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 04:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The Transcendental Meditation movement ArbCom case has also been covered in another blog, TM-Free Blog, written by John M. Knapp, LMSW. Transcendental Meditation Wikipedia Scandal Heats Up   Will Beback  talk  06:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, the research on medical benefits of TM constitutes about 23% of the article, not 1%. Transcendental Meditation#Health effects is about 1550 words out of a 6800-word article.   Will Beback  talk  06:14, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Whoops, sorry! I calculated it for the Research subsection, but upon rereading the blog post, he clearly states that he was referring to the entire Health effects section. Good catch. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 18:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Lord, what a terrible title, so common in academia. If 97% of English speakers don't know what the hell a word is, why use it? Trout slap for wikipedia creator. Okip 13:50, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

RE: Pentagon shooter used Wikipedia

The possibility of James Sabow, the article the Pentagon shooter created, ever surviving deletion in the future is nil. Never mind its potential notability or non-notability. Okip 13:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

::sigh:: Look at the talk page history. If we truly block users like this "per standard procedure", why do people keep removing the {{blocked user}} template??? Every indefinite block should use appropriate blocked user template, no? Standard procedure demands standardised templates! --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 16:37, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

News and notes: Financial statements, discussions, milestones (6,114 bytes · 💬)

Re: the fake DYK: Perhaps BLPs should undergo a particularly thorough review at DYK and only be accepted if two reviewers agree. -- Ssilvers (talk) 02:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Ideally no BLP (or article, for that matter), should go up if there's not secondary verification of (at the very least) the veracity of the hook. Obviously this would discriminate against dead-tree-type subjects, but it's a far better method for quality control. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 03:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Is the BLP Bjadonned? Kayau Voting IS evil 11:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

It's my impression that DYK reviewers do check the veracity of the hook. Regardless, any such proposal about the review process would not have caught this particular instance of hoaxing, because the violating material was added after the review process was complete. Powers ^T 13:42, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

That is not correct. The whole article was a hoax (and according to its author contained "entirely unsourced rumors of murder") even before it was entered into DYK. Just one additional statement was added afterwards, and while it would have exacerbated the BLP problem if the article had been about a real person, it wasn't the only "violating material" by a long shot.

In the ANI discussion, many people saw the incident as an indication of problems with the DYK selection process.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Your statements about what was in the article at the time of DYK selection are not supported by the link provided in the Signpost. Powers ^T 12:55, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Which "statements about what was in the article at the time of DYK selection" do you mean? By "it was entered into DYK" I was referring to the entering of the link to Mike Handel into the Template:Did you know. Perhaps you need to read the link that I provided in the Signpost article a bit more attentively. Quote:

Mike Handel hit the main page at midnight UTC. Administrator Ucucha performed the update (Wikipedia)(WebCite), but there's no reason to believe he even read the article. If he did, the entirely unsourced rumors of murder surrounding Oxford biologist Mike Handel didn't faze him.

Reading the whole text will help you reassessing your claim that the article was not a hoax while it went through DYK review. Regarding your "impression", you might be interested in the fact that the user who closed the DYK review ("Length, date and hook verified") despite the sourcing concerns of other users has since been blocked as "Vandalism-only account: Hoaxes".

For further discussion of this issue, Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#DYK_Hoax might be a better place. (See also the RfC there about restricting DYK review to trusted users.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

All I meant was that the hoaxer said he didn't add the murder allegations to the article until after the article was accepted for DYK, which is the point at which review of the article occurs. Powers ^T 17:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

If people are going to make fake newspaper scans, then there's nothing we can do without multiplying our manpower by 1000. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 17:28, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

...or significantly modifying or discarding Assume Good Faith as a founding principle of the site. - BanyanTree 00:52, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Even if we increase our manpower by 1,000,000, there will be embarrassments like this. Given enough cunning & malice, any article on Wikipedia can be suborned with harmful content. IMHO, I think Wikipedians do a far better job of keeping that kind of content out than do our for-profit competitors; too bad that's not enough for some people. -- llywrch (talk) 22:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

On the WMF budget

The news item is for the midyear budget and notes the time period covered, however the quote that follows uses the vague year and isn't apparent if it refers to the same time period or the 2009 year or the fiscal year. I think it would helpful to make that clear. -- Banjeboi 19:31, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

i note that grant funds were returned, "due to lack of recipients for the funds" (actual vs. plan note j) really? 98.169.251.41 (talk) 17:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject report: WikiProject Java (1,752 bytes · 💬)

From the name, I thought this was going to be a WikiProject about the most populous island in the world. +Angr 08:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

• Not about coffee? And you know it's a fact that a certain dwarf is going to track us down & whale on our ankles for our comments here. :-) -- llywrch (talk) 22:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
• You're not the only person who thought that. The Java WikiProject's page actually has a hatnote mentioning that the island of Java is handled by WikiProject Indonesia. -Mabeenot (talk) 17:09, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
• The sidebar mentions Wikipedia:WikiProject FBI but when Itried to add the project's banner to Talk:Michael Mastro I got a red link? Thanks for any help in advance. XOttawahitech (talk) 19:55, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Luckily for you, I still watch these old pages. The FBI project does not have its own banner template. Instead, it piggy backs off the WikiProject United States template. I fixed the link on the talk page you mentioned. –Mabeenot (talk) 02:00, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks –Mabeenot. BTW it appears that the two of us are not the only lurkers here :-) XOttawahitech (talk) 23:37, 16 August 2013 (UTC)