Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-07-21

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2016-07-21. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Script writers appointed for clerks (459 bytes · 💬)

• I'm very happy to see that Rich's restrictions of automated editing are finally lifted. The restrictions have become obsolete for a long time as Wikipedia itself has moved on, both as a community and as a piece of software. Deryck C. 11:21, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Discussion report: Busy month for discussions (3,701 bytes · 💬)

This applies only to the section about GMOs

• I am looking at this warning above, and do not recall ever seeing an ArbCom warning like this in the Signpost discussion space. Do ArbCom rulings apply to discussions in Signpost? I am not aware of a history of misuse of Signpost comment space that needed an ArbCom warning label. I recognize that ArbCom-issued warnings, like the one above, are to go in Wikipedia in places where certain topics are discussed, but a newspaper like this one should be more idealistic about free speech until and unless there is a problem with talk in the news discussion space. Should Signpost be exempt from routine enforcement of topic-based ArbCom restrictions? Among the world's most reputable news sources that allow comments, I thought it was accepted as tradition that news comment sections welcome the most absurd and inflammatory nonsense that anyone imagines to post. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:27, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

  Well, I presume they apply to editors commenting in the Signpost comment section on an issue that is under discretionary sanctions... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:38, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

  if you cant speak your mind(on GMO) here, then where? --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:29, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• Uh, Esquivalience, Xaosflux actually did get one oppose. Omni Flames (talk) 22:23, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Well, it seems that I am the editor who put the template here, and I am also the editor who made that oppose, go figure. About the RfB, there's no need to revise that; I don't care and it's no big deal. As for the Discretionary Sanctions, The Signpost is not exempt from policies that apply elsewhere, but that does not mean that editors cannot give their opinions. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Tryptofish is correct, we can comment, but we must maintain decorum and comply with the policies and guidelines relevant to discretionary sanctions. Please remember to assume good faith, avoid personal attacks and most of all, remember here we are discussing the story about the decision, and that discussions about the subject itself are best taken to the relevant discussion pages. Montanabw^(talk) 23:34, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, that was very well-said. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:36, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

The controversy about GMO is a red herring. The question is if GMO food brought us anything worthwhile. After 20 year the answer is still no or you should include all the negative consequences that it brought us. When I read about paid editors, I am sure that they are not happy to address GMO performance in general starting from the scientifically sound paper by Greenpeace. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 06:56, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

In the media: Women-in-science editathon gets national press; Wikipedia "shockingly biased" (15,938 bytes · 💬)

"GamerGate article as "one of the most biased pages on Wikipedia."" THB, the article seems to do very little to distance itself from saying that Gamergate supporters are bad. Nergaal (talk) 13:34, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• That Breitbart article was pretty silly.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 15:17, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Very silly or very nasty - take your pick. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:36, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• The Cracked article was hardly news, a noted above, but it was nice to see this all compiled in one place. The gender gap and Wikimediocrity sections were spot on. Not so much for the "Wikipedia is dying" section. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:36, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• One thing I'm glad to see mentioned in the Cracked article is the financial cost of researching content, something that apparently is overlooked by those who think volunteers ought not to be paid for their work in any way. (Well, unless they hack code, that is.) When I was researching content for articles on Ethiopia, I spent about $500 for books alone because the local libraries either didn't have the resources, or I could not access them. (It's hard having a family & working a full-time job to carve out time to visit during regular business hours.) And using ILL to obtain materials is not always free: besides needing to photocopy materials one can't fully use in a limited time, I've encountered more than a few cases where I had to pay fees to access materials. In short, as volunteers struggle to improve existing articles, we are going to increasingly find it expensive to do so -- despite valuable efforts such as the Wikimedia Library. -- llywrch (talk) 18:22, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

• Old news, click bait. The part about the count of very active editors declining is flat wrong (things have been up over previous-year numbers for something like 18 months, up so much that several years of declines have been erased.) The part about WPO being dedicated to the destruction of WP is also ridiculous. I will grant that the "MENSA wannabes" line is funny, I'll leave it for others to accept or discount since I'm by definition one of those being mocked. So everybody was baited, clicks were clicked, money was made, moving on... Carrite (talk) 18:39, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

From Robert Burns

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It wad frae mony a blunder free us,

An' foolish notion:

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:46, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

سَيْف ذُو حَدَيْن Carrite (talk) 21:06, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

There's something inherently hypocritical about the way that more than 95% of people behave regarding Wikipedia. All throughout Wikipedia's existence, so many of them have so often commented at length about all the many ways in which the articles aren't good enough, and why, and yet most of Wikipedia's content sits around with countless pieces of low-hanging fruit among the possible improvement increments that no one bothers to pick for months and years on end. Not just challenging subtleties and extensive content development but also lots of low-hanging fruit that could be picked off in quick hits. All these hundreds of millions of people who use the site daily or at least weekly, and yet all these obvious things go on remaining not yet done. There's a disconnect of hypocrisy there. I agree that, as Milo said, "All of these concerns have degrees of validity, and though not precisely news, the continuing focus on them is no doubt important in finding solutions." And yet somehow it's inescapable that most of the people who elaborate the concerns are effectively hanging a sign around their neck that says "I'm obviously a hypocrite, and here's some specific evidence of that." Quercus solaris (talk) 00:35, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

@Carrite: As I mentioned in the comments section of the Cracked article (see the most popular comment, where I specifically note "statistics are stabilizing, editor retention is stable, and there have been efforts to make a visual editor"), and elsewhere, there were considerable nuances which were trimmed for space by the Cracked staff. This included the stabilization of "very active" editors, a bit more nuanced perspective on Wikipediocracy (for an idea of what I mean, compare the direct quotes in that section with the Cracked writer's text), and more detailed discussion of biases that I've seen. The article which ran also completely excluded some more specific examples which would have been of interest to those of us already versed in Wikipedia, such as the Four Award kerfuffle in 2013 and the trolling COMC has done since 2014. The original interview ended up at 10k words; the article as ran was less than a fifth of that. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 08:12, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

I disliked the Cracked article article but largely because of the sensationalistic click-bait title and its poor coverage of gender bias. Gender bias on Wikipedia has been handled horribly by the WMF, with particular blame falling on WMF's former Executive Director Sue Gardner. Instead of setting the tone of the discussion as "There's lots more to write about issues concerning women or about women" she very publicly through multiple media releases set the tone as "Wikipedia is horribly biased and sexist and I blame the editors". This attitude is now the one adopted by most journalists and a large fraction of editors. This attitude is counterproductive and I believe has literally helped drive women (and new editors in general) away from Wikipedia rather than towards it. This article takes the same tone and it does so with the same poor reasoning and examples that I have noticed pervade discussion of this topic. For example, using the length of the John Cena article compared to the length of the Eleanor Roosevelt article to "demonstrate" that a gender bias exists is so flawed as to be reprehensible. Besides the important fact that article length is not a good metric of article quality, this example demonstrates the pop culture bias we have, not the gender bias. The "eye-opening" comment about the artist in the photo is so overblown as to be absurd. And the "only 15 16.4%" statistics makes the same mistake I see time and time again in every gender bias discussion: it makes the assumption that the number proves gender bias on Wikipedia without ruling out the possibility that the number is merely exposing the gender bias in society. For instance, women have for thousands of years and for the most part of written history been relegated to background roles and this is still largely true today. Given that fact one would not expect about 50% coverage of women by our notability standards. So what is the coverage that should be expected? Maybe Wikipedians do not have a big gender bias in coverage and the 15 16.4% figure is just mirroring the accumulated bias against women throughout history, including today. Such a deeper analysis requires thought and careful consideration rather than just a knee-jerk reaction and I wish people would put more effort into studying it. Jason Quinn (talk) 09:05, 22 July 2016 (UTC) EDIT: added "the Cracked article" Jason Quinn (talk) 15:26, 22 July 2016 (UTC) EDIT2: fixed 15 to 16.4 percent so the context is clearer. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:21, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

• In my experience, Cracked is capable of producing some good work, and it has a large audience, but surface coverage of gender bias issues on Wikipedia is pretty common. I am not sure whether such coverage drives women editors away or not.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 13:10, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

15% seems low, 50% would be too high. Scaring people from a group by pointing fingers does not encourage either genders to join in as volunteers. Nergaal (talk) 14:44, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

• On one hand, there is some legitimate debate over the question of whether the bad publicity drives away potential women editors, but on the other hand, I suspect the 15% figure—at least for active editors—is not that far off. Do the math on the people of reasonably clear gender identity in the photos below, I picked a sampling of group photos from English-speaking country meetups and Wikimania -- presumed to be representative of active wikipedians in general (true, one can find photos that have more women, but looking at attendance at "generic" wikipedia events not geared specifically by gender probably is apt to come out with similar proportions). Does anyone see a problem here? Montanabw^(talk) 03:41, 23 July 2016 (UTC):

• 
  Wikimania 2015
• 
  WIkimania 2015
• 
  Mexico members at Wikimania 2015
• 
  Wikimania 2015
• 
  Wikimania 2015
• 
  Indic members at Wikimania 2015
• 
  Seattle
• 
  NYC
• 
  San Francisco
• 
  Manchester
• 
  Melbourne
• 
  Sydney

Hi, Montanabw. My comment was intended to be about the "only 16.4 percent of Wikipedia's biographical articles are on women" statement, not the 15% one. Sorry, confusing rounding on my part so I will edit it. I know that there's a big difference male dominance when it comes to editors. Scanning those photos shows an even less representative number of African Americans and other minorities. I would be great if woman and American minorities would edit more. Is it a "problem"? As I explained above, I do not think it is helpful to cast things in those terms. I prefer to be thankful for the people actually there rather than malign them and think the people not there as being a problem. I also don't think much progress on a "solution" could be made. Why? Because who chooses to edit is determined by sociological forces mostly outside of their control (at least for the US.... globally there may be some exceptions). So unless the WMF can literally change America in impossibly large ways, there's not much they are going to do to impact this. It's the WMF's role to make sure that editors are safe and welcome regardless of gender, race, creed, and so on. A better message for under-represented groups would be something like, "Women and minorities, you are missing out on writing Wikipedia. Get your voice heard!". Jason Quinn (talk) 16:21, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

• I think the goal is to change America (and the world) in impossibly large ways, but the impossible can become possible if we go one step at a time. No one is maligning the nerdy white males (including myself) that contribute heavily to Wikipedia!--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:32, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

• Nerdy white guys have written many excellent women's biography articles. Actually, that 16.4% metric is more statistically rigorous than our 15% editor one. And the reality is that Wikipedia already skews the real-world proportions of articles in ways that reflect editor bias more than real world per capita content -- just look at the articles on, say, 21st century soccer players... Montanabw^(talk) 20:52, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

• @Milowent. Our current editor base absolutely has been maligned. The Telegraph article entitled, "Happy birthday sexist Wikipedia. Why do men still control our history?" is fairly representative example of the insulting and sensationalist media coverage on this topic. Accusing or implying larges groups are "sexist" implies a lot more than saying there's biased coverage. It implies a large-scale pattern of discrimination. Perhaps in few instances discrimination has occurred but a few sporadic instances in a project this large to make blanket accusations is terrible and I don't think it captures the character of the community. @Montanabw. The 16.4% statistic may be "more statistically rigorous" in the sense of easy to calculate but what's important is the interpretation of that statistic, which is many many times harder to analysis. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:30, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

• No, I don't think that the Telegraph article maligned the "current editor base." There's an argument that they painted with an unduly broad brush or that the headline writer was looking for clickbait, but that's a different issue. I think that most sexism is unconscious or unintended, and even some of us who are aware of the issue may still at times fall into a societal assumption or make a mistake in an area where we haven't really examined a particular issue. That said, watching the harassment endured by some of the editors here on WP who have identified themselves as young women and especially if their real-life identity has been made public on-wiki gives me pause. There is a problem here. Perhaps a majority of the documentable bias (dearth of articles, dearth of editors, etc.) is not due to ill will on the part of anyone -- it could easily be a combination of unconscious personal bias, societal systemic bias and so on. But a noticeable minority subset (and maybe it's 5% or maybe it's 50%, we have no real statistically valid way of knowing) is deliberate dismissal at best and harassment at worst. That reflects a serious problem that is inadequately addressed. Montanabw^(talk) 23:51, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Meh. Go complain to those who get paid to edit. Praemonitus (talk) 21:17, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

News and notes: Board faces diversity and skill-base issues in new FDC appointments (1,774 bytes · 💬)

• Bye, Geoff and thanks for all your work! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:59, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
• The best question IMHO for the candidates at the FDC was posed by Ad Huikeshoven (talk · contribs), himself a candidate.

"Diversity. The four to be appointed persons will join the five elected persons on the FDC. The current five elected persons are all man living in or coming from countries that participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. How far do you prefer diversity on the FDC that you would support all four women candidates, to not only balance on gender but also geography by adding someone from South-America, someone from North-America, someone from Africa and someone from Asia?"

I strongly support the position implied by that question, though I'll note that *all the candidates* are very well qualified this year. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:59, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

Here's a crazy idea: you could get the best-qualified people for the position regardless of gender or national origin. I know, I know, it sounds kinda nuts at first, but it just might work! 2601:602:9802:99B2:E17F:D22:1892:8864 (talk) 07:27, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Currently it's almost exactly representative of the editing community as a whole. That simply won't do. Praemonitus (talk) 20:11, 3 August 2016 (UTC)