Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions/Archive 27

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Five women who aren’t on Wikipedia but should be

I wrote a response to the BBC's Five women who aren’t on Wikipedia but should be at meta:Talk:Wikimedia UK/Events/BBC 100 Women#Five women who aren’t on Wikipedia but should be—welcome to use it, if you're interested czar 18:32, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

{{done}} -Pete Forsyth (talk) 23:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Story

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published a story about me. The title is "A Wikipedia Woman of Letters" and it mentions the Visiting Scholars Program, The University of Pittsburgh, Women's Health topics on WP, Ryan of WikiEd. Unfortunately, there is no link to the story. I only have a jpg I scanned of the article. Let me know if anyone is interested. I'm guessing there might not be too many newspaper articles on women editors, but maybe that is not true. If you go to my user page: Bfpage, I have set up the option of receiving email. Let me know and I will send you the jpg. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 02:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

See [1] Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:20, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

{{done}} -Pete Forsyth (talk) 22:59, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Buzzfeed piece on relative severity of celebrity deaths

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-01-17/In the media

I don't know what section of the Signpost this would go under (research? In the news?) but two reporters at Buzzfeed recently decided to use not just Wikipedia but Wikidata to see how 2016 stacked up against all other years since 1900 in regards to significant celebrity deaths (the verdict was that 1977, which as the authors admit anyone who was alive that year will indeed remember as the year we lost Elvis at 42, among others, was as bad as 1977 if not worse).

Their twin metric is:

  • number of backlinks from within enwiki, as reported in Wikidata, and,
  • total number of articles in different-language Wikipedias.

This might be interesting because it's the first time I've seen a non-tech, non-academic news outlet use Wikidata for its research. Daniel Case (talk) 06:47, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

submittedTeeVeeed (talk) 15:08, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia information may have provoked spat with Indonesia

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/In the media

Wikipedia information may have provoked spat with Indonesia One article referred to is Act of Free Choice. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:03, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Submitted. The article was paywalled but enough other media picked it up to find a link.TeeVeeed (talk) 14:03, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Report on funded projects from gender gap Inspire Campaign

Hey Signpost editors. Community Resources has published a report on Meta detailing the outcomes from funded proposals of the first Inspire Campaign, focusing on reducing the gender gap in participation and coverage of women in Wikimedia projects. The report also contains recommendations on our next steps to increase gender diversity more broadly speaking. A blog post is also available, which provides a summary of the report. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 00:38, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

{{done}} Brief mention in News and Notes. Thanks! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 16:59, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Report?

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/WikiProject report

Could the Signpost possibly do a report on the FA run on Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds. Jimfbleak brought up the fact that not enough articles are coming in at WP:FAC to keep up with WP:TFA, and encouraged participants in the project to try and get as many articles to FA status as possible. So far, the movement is working, with multiple bird articles at WP:FAC at a time. The number of nominations coming in per day is about 2 per day, which is much better. If anybody has anything to add to this, that would be great. Thanks! RileyBugzYell at me | Edits 19:41, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

At present, the rate of production of FAs isn't sufficient to keep up with the demands of WP:TFA. The experience at the bird project shows that people are ready to respond if asked, and other active projects may want to consider similar action if they aren't already doing so Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:24, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
@RileyBugz: I'll be working on this report and reaching out to you birdfolk shortly; stay tuned. Funcrunch (talk) 18:22, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Celebrating 10 years of Twinkle

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 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/Technology report

It'd be great if you could add a brief mention of Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#Celebrating 10 years of Twinkle in the next issue. Thanks, — This, that and the other (talk) 01:16, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Will be in the next tech report - Evad37 [talk] 07:06, 3 February 2017 (UTC)
Wow 10 years already ? Impressive. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:12, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

2017 Women's March

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/Forum

I think there's an interesting story to be told about the new and experienced editors building up the 2017 Women's March article city by city over the past days. Lots of new/unregistered editors getting involved, including calls for marchers to add their cities to the article. It's been great to see this happening since I got involved yesterday. Sam Walton (talk) 17:02, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Samwalton9, can you say more? I expect you're right, but I don't know much about it! We are spread pretty thin. Will you be able to write something up, and get a draft in by Thursday 1/26? (Or not long after, if that's too soon?) Happy to discuss further, and work with you as needed, but I don't think we have any writers free to take this on for the next edition. Sounds like a good suggestion though, hope you can work something up! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 08:22, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
@Peteforsyth: Sorry for the delay. I'll try to have a draft for you today. Sam Walton (talk) 13:02, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
Samwalton9, Peteforsyth: I agree that this is a good story suggestion, and timely as the article has been in In the News for the past three days (though is likely to get bumped off shortly). The various splits and forks involved are also potentially interesting (see, for example, the AfD discussion on a related article on Inauguration Day protests). I'm already working on a WikiProject report so I won't volunteer to write this story as well, but I could help out a bit if needed; I contributed a number of photos of the San Francisco sister march, one of which is currently in the article (though not the best or most representative from that category, methinks). Funcrunch (talk) 21:45, 25 January 2017 (UTC)
@Funcrunch and Peteforsyth: It's not particularly long and I don't know where it belongs, but I've written a draft at User:Samwalton9/WomensMarch. Feel free to edit/rewrite it as much as you like. Sam Walton (talk) 18:46, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
@Samwalton9 and Funcrunch:, excellent piece -- I like it very much! Assuming we can confirm all specifics, it could run just as it is; but I do have a few comments. (No need to use hypothes.is to respond, but I think you'll find it's an easy way to see what my comments are.) I used a permalink that may be one or two revisions out of date...please disregard anything that no longer applies. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 02:40, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
@Peteforsyth: Thanks for the great feedback. I've hopefully addressed most of them, and left a response regarding the number of editors (it came from the pageviews tool). Sam Walton (talk) 15:59, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia Day NYC presentations

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 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/Forum

If folks want to cover some of the outcomes from Wikipedia Day in the next edition, we have commons:Category:Wikipedia Day 2017 NYC videos of several interesting talks, including one with Katherine Maher and Tim Wu speaking on a "Post-Truth" panel. Art, documenting activism, multilingualism, and other areas are also covered. And I don't know if there is video from the other celebrations, but there are certainly photographs from many cities of Wikipedia Day around the globe.--Pharos (talk) 03:42, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

New User Script to watch all articles in a category

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 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/Technology report

Niharika Kohli (of the WMF Community Tech team) wrote a new user script that adds a "Megawatch" link under the "More" menu on category pages. This lets you watch or unwatch all the pages within that category (although it is currently limited to 50 pages due to API limits). Kaldari (talk) 00:37, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@Kaldari: I'll mention it in the next tech report. Incidentally, new user scripts should be listed as WP:US to make them more discoverable. - Evad37 [talk] 23:13, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Generosity Crowdfunding Campaign for User:The Photographer

Teatro Municipal de São Paulo

Generosity Crowd-funding Campaign: NN3 MKII Starter Package for The Photographer.

The Photographer has taken many high quality photos for Wikipedia/Commons, including 86 Featured Pictures and 668 Quality Images. His contributions cover the architecture and culture of Brazil and Venezuela. Like many photographers he likes to take high-resolution photos by shooting lots of frames and stitching them together to create a panorama. However, this is very hard to achieve (particularly for interiors and buildings) without having parallax errors that spoil the stitching. The best way is to use a special panoramic head on a tripod. In addition to high-resolution photos, The Photographer also wants to create 180 × 360° panoramas which require a special viewer to appreciate them. Several photographers on Wikipedia/Commons are now creating such images and they are a great way to explore a scene as though one is really there. In order to photograph these 180 × 360° images, the campaign has a second goal to additionally buy an 8mm fisheye lens to add to the 35mm lens The Photographer already owns.

Please see the discussion about the Crowd-funding campaign on User talk:The Photographer#Generosity Crowdfunding Campaign and visit the Generosity Crowd-funding Campaign page to consider donating. -- Colin°Talk 12:06, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Just noting this is at 284% of goal. - Brianhe (talk) 15:01, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

WikipediaP2P

There's a new project on the block called WikipediaP2P. It's a browser extension that allows browsing by connecting to peers instead of Wikimedia servers, thus reducing the load. It's an interesting idea which could be explored! ~★ nmaia d 13:59, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Environmental changes

I think much more should and could be written on Environment (endangered species, global warming and rise in sea-levels, gas emissions, legislation, research in new energy sources, biodiversity inventory, rescue plans, incentives to local communities to protect the environment around them... the list of topics is endless), with sub-categories. I don't see any highlights on Wikipedia about environmental issues as for instance about politics, economy, sports and other more "mundane" topics. As I am not an expert, any ideas/suggestions are more than welcome Melroross (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:45, 8 December 2016

Melroross, thanks for your note. I'm sure that our editor in chief, Pete Forsyth, would be interesting in connecting with you about ideas for an op. ed., if you're interested. It would need to be of sufficient interest to readers, of course, so the scoping would need to be agreed on. Tony (talk) 05:33, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Wait! Wait!

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/In the media

Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! for February 18 had a "Bluff the Listener" game where the true story was a fan editing the article The Sherlocks so he could claim to be with the band. — Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:41, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Submitted to the draft.TeeVeeed (talk) 13:53, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia peer review

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/Special report

Wikipedia Peer Review is a service used by over time thousands of Wikipedians with hundreds of past reviews carried out. A number of changes have been made over the years including to layout and functionality and active reviews have increased from 10-20 to 30-50 presently.

We are cursed with being almost totally a very poorly supported bot (VeblenBot) which frequently fails, for months at a time, causing new reviews not to be listed and making the removal of old reviews much more difficult. We have tried in vain several times to elicit help on the village pump (Technical) and bot requests. I would be very grateful if the signpost could put out a request for someone to help support this very well-used service!

If you are interested, when this is solved I would be grateful if we could do a small article on the peer review process to attract more reviewers and make it more widely known.

Thank you! --Tom (LT) (talk) 13:06, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Tom (LT), this is a good topic, thank you. I see two options: (1) A story about peer review, which includes an appeal for help; I don't think our regular writers are likely to have bandwidth for it in the near future, but we would gladly consider a submission and help out if you'd like to be the primary author. Or (2) we could include a brief note. That's not a problem, but also might not do you much good if published without deeper context. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 17:03, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Pete Forsyth I will try and write a story; give me some time to draft it. --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:06, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
LT910001, might you be able to submit a draft by Thursday 1/26? -Pete Forsyth (talk) 08:19, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
That was a little optimistic. I will try for next week. --Tom (LT) (talk) 11:35, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
@Pete Forsyth I have a draft. Where do I submit it? --Tom (LT) 20:06, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

@Pete Forsyth / other editors: A draft is available here: User:LT910001/sandbox/Peer review history and call for reviewers --Tom (LT) 23:07, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Coverage of the "ban" of the Daily Mail as a reliable source

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/In the media

Looks like the results of this now-closed RFC are being picked up in mainstream media eg [2]. Seems like one of the first times such an RS determination on a work with a legacy as large as the DM's has been considered here, so might be an interesting story. --MASEM (t) 00:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Well it should prob./maybe be mentioned in In the media, but The Guardian, (who published this item), is after all their competitor. There are way worse British "news" (tabloid) sources than the DM.TeeVeeed (talk) 01:46, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
The Guardian was the first big one. Others AdWeek, andMashable. Still, there's more than just this being covered. I can't think of any other well-established paper/journal that we have effectively blocked. (Things like Breitbart, that's different). --MASEM (t) 02:49, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
I agree, this is definitely something worth covering for In the Media. I just talked with GamerPro64 who is exploring putting something together, but it might be worthwhile to have a couple authors on the story. Might be a good opportunity to describe the blacklist, and mention other outlets that have been banned or semi-banned. Good stuff for our readers to know about, and if we've covered it before I'm not aware of it. Further thoughts welcome. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 08:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
A few more news blips CNN, Fox News, Newsweek for starters. Some do point back to the Guardian's article. --MASEM (t) 21:22, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Still expanding. Heard it on drive time national radio. Add to the list print source Al Arabiya [3]. Slate also ran a thoughtful op-ed which stated "Wikipedia’s editors are opening a dangerous box by targeting specific news outlets for blanket prohibitions. Bans are binary, whereas journalistic credibility lies on a spectrum" [4]. - Brianhe (talk) 16:08, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
This seems to be the first article that has comment back from the Daily Mail, which says they plan to not link to WP in their articles in response, among other things (surprisingly, I can't find any mention of this on DM's site directly). --MASEM (t) 23:03, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
User:Masem-submitted that one to draft about this thing in Newsroom-,they have a pretty detailed understanding of WP, along with The Guardian for noticing it in the first place.TeeVeeed (talk) 08:07, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Submitted all of the above to the draft on Newsroom page, except for User:Brianhe's mention of radio coverage, since we don't know what station.TeeVeeed (talk) 08:23, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Armstrong & Getty Show 10 Feb 2017, 7:00-8:00 AM segment; Wikipedia story starts at 26:00 in the podcast copy of the broadcast [5]. The podcast link is from KGO San Francisco but the show is syndicated on the West Coast including Seattle. Brianhe (talk) 17:47, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
Just want to let you all know, I'm working on a post for my own blog, since the Signpost won't be out for over a week. I'll post a link here when it's done (probably a few hours). -Pete Forsyth (talk) 22:06, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I've reached out to the Mail for comment. If any of you have questions for them please run them through me, in the next ~12 hours so we have a chance at a comment prior to our own publication. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 19:42, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

I was surprised to see in your blog that Jimbo sits on the board at the Guardian. I guess that is common knowledge, but yeah it should be mentioned in this context even though it is clear that he had nothing to do with it. So, my question about errors in the DM----they have a lot, yes, compared to other sources, a lot, but, including online content, don't they just have MORE content overall? So I'm wondering about the ratio of errors. For example, you have a blog and probably post an error once in awhile. They have a massive content machine and have (?) a reasonable amount of errors for the amount of content, or more errors than a similar sized resource?TeeVeeed (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't know how often this happens to a Wikipedia news story, but this one made it into Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 15:01, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

In the news suggestion

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/In the media, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/Gallery
I am no longer watching this page—ping if you'd like a response czar 05:49, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
That's amazing! WoW! TeeVeeed (talk) 06:50, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
While it is all CC0 (effectively public domain and usable), the linked article I think is confusing Wikimedia Commons with the Creative Commons website. All those iamges are at the CC website with the CC0 licence, but I don't see them at Commons. That is not to say their availability shouldn't be highlighted and remind uses that they can freely upload those to our commons freely. --MASEM (t) 06:57, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
Oh-well I was wondering how in the world they managed to upload all of it-STILL it is amazingly generous that they released everything! I have not been to the MOMA in years but when I was a regular, they made steady bank selling images of their collections in the gift shop, some of which I personally owned and loved (the gift shop versions of course), but lost from flooding problems. I plan on doing a little "shopping" for the Commons.TeeVeeed (talk) 09:39, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
It's absolutely great that they did that, though I browser through and it seems the bulk of the collection are works that would be PD anyway due to age; they're just avoiding the National Portrait Gallery issue (claiming copyright on the digital reproduction). That said, I also saw photos of 3D items, which still are put CC0, even though they could have opted to claim copyright on those too. Regardless, it is a very positive move that only benefits them, ourselves, and the public in general. --MASEM (t) 14:30, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
These images are both at Creative Commons and The Met website. For example: Granary Tower at CC and The Met. The version at The Met has an excellent set of metadata, and the URL is amenable to a bot downloading the images (so long as the licence tag is also checked for each image, just in case). Mindmatrix 13:54, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
@Pharos: is taking care of the upload project as part of his Wikimedian in Residence position. Best to check-in with him before proposing other batch uploaders take it on. --Fæ (talk) 19:14, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
  • As follow-up, there is a better selection of sources on this news story here: Wikipedia:GLAM/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art#In_the_news_and_media. It appears that the 375k images will eventually populate commons:Category:Images from Metropolitan Museum of Art, but only ~170 have been uploaded so far. Pharos, as mentioned above, is working with the Met and would have more details on the batch upload. Yes, the Artnews piece appears to have confused Creative Commons and WM Commons. A Met press release appears to have spurred the coverage, the noteworthy item being that the Met has adopted this Open Access policy. The uploads are to come. This said, they'd make a good Signpost segment if they come in a trickle—new images from the Met will make for excellent illustrations. czar 00:08, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Paper analyzing toxic behavior on WP

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/In the media

ArsTech article about the Paper itself. It's an interesting no-editor-named breakdown of where personal attacks and abusive comments originate, showing a surprisingly high fraction from established editors (>30%). --MASEM (t) 05:42, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Was also picked up by NY mag. Are Anonymous Users Really the Worst Trolls? TeeVeeed (talk) 17:15, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
Submitted to draft in the mediaTeeVeeed (talk) 14:19, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Watching Wikipedia's extinction event from a distance

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/In the media

It's an article in BoingBoing by frustrated editor Andrea James: Watching Wikipedia's extinction event from a distance. But apparently there's more underneath the surface. On a Facebook discussion of this article, the editor who deleted the article in question has deleted thousands of articles, despite at least one mild reprimand from an admin telling them to not be so trigger happy. Perhaps a notice in The Signpost can wake up this human "robot" to the harm they are doing - or at least awaken the community to this person's abusive of privilege. - kosboot (talk) 19:27, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

They did a follow-up article. https://boingboing.net/2017/02/16/40-of-wikipedia-is-under-thre.html TeeVeeed (talk) 12:39, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Kid blags his way backstage by editing Wikipedia article at gig

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-27/In the media

Please, if possible, have a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38982914/fan-of-the-sherlocks-edits-bands-wiki-to-get-backstage and consider whether it is worth making into a news story. I do appreciate that this page is really for submitting finished stories but I don't have such a thing. I just thought someone might want to take a look. Apologies if this is wildly inappropriate. Cheers DBaK (talk) 23:16, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

@DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered: moved your suggestion here – apologies if the submissions desk was confusing, I've tried to clarify the instructions a bit - Evad37 [talk] 04:02, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
Brilliant - thank you very much for your help. DBaK (talk) 08:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
That was news like 2 years ago. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 08:46, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
It was already submitted to "In The Media" draft with another link but will look at this one tooTeeVeeed (talk) 14:24, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming "420 collaboration"

If The Signpost is to only mention April's planned 420 collaboration just once, I'd prefer to wait until April to recruit Wikipedia editors closer to the campaign dates. However, this article might be worth mentioning in the "In the media" roundup. Thanks! (This campaign might receive a bit more coverage given its nature.) ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:06, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree it should be submitted but think it is a little too early. Maybe around (duh-correction before) Saint Pat's day in green if possible?TeeVeeed (talk) 01:18, 31 January 2017 (UTC) editiedTeeVeeed (talk) 01:19, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Launch of WikiFundi

WikiFundi was launched at the recent Wiki Indaba held in Ghana. WikiFundi is an editing platform that presents an offline editable environment that provides a similar experience to editing Wikipedia online. WikiFundi provides the ability for teachers, wikipedian communities and NGOs to learn about editing Wikipedia and contributing knowledge when technology, access and electricity outages fail or are not available at all. It enables individuals, groups and communities to work on articles collaboratively. Once completed and when connected to the internet, these articles can be uploaded to Wikipedia.

WikiFundi will initially rollout in 16 countries across Africa via two programmes: the Digital Schools programme of the Orange Foundation and the Wiki In Africa project, Wikipack Africa. We, Florence Devouard and I, conceptualised WikiFundi as an effective answer to the challenges that were being experienced by Wikipedians across Africa through our work on Wiki Loves Africa, Wiki Loves Women and Kumusha Takes Wiki. We would be grateful if you would consider covering this launch and the potential impact WikiFundi could have on communities in more strained environments. Thanks! Isla Haddow (talk) 18:56, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Abandoned Articles

This popped up on Slashdot, about WP:PJAA. Many an unhappy contributor shows up in the Slashdot commentary, apparently blaming notability rules and deletionism for editor disillusion. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:44, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

We tweeted this -- thank you for the suggestion Chris troutman -- but I think we lost track and missed it in our actual coverage. Notice appreciated regardless, sorry if we overlooked it. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 08:41, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

First edit of 2017

User:MrFawwaz made the first edit of the year which was a minor edit to Radio Televisyen Malaysia. Good thing it wasn't vandalism :) --Highly Я!d¡cüłoʉ$ chat?oops… 00:33, 8 January 2017 (UTC) Thanks for the suggestion, Highly Ridiculous. Obviously we missed the boat on reporting this at an appropriate time, but I appreciate the heads-up. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 08:39, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Books that cite/quote Wikipedia

From my user talk, courtesy of Fences and windows: Special:PermaLink/765492526#People_using_books_that_copy_Wikipedia -Pete Forsyth (talk) 22:51, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

To copy here and expand, thanks Pete: Books that copy Wikipedia being used as a source is not new (see WP:ALPHASCRIPT and WP:PUS), but I've been cleaning up uses of Cram101 (and its many other names) and I've come across one Wikipedian in Residence[6] and one former Executive Director[7] adding citations to these "books". Several others adding these citations appear to be new students editing for a course. It's easy to be caught out by Google Books sources (which can't be blacklisted) and looking for a reference to cite a particular {{citation needed}} fact (as encouraged by Citation Hunt and #1lib1ref, and common among students who are required to edit for their course) may not be the best approach to improving articles. Fences&Windows 08:02, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

A paper about changes in user behavior once they become an RFA

[8] A statistical analysis of our RFA process and how it can help weed out "information manipulators", though finding that (for either intentional and unintentional reasons) that many admins post-RFA start to become these types of manipulators. eg: "...we document that a surprisingly large number of editors change their behavior and begin focusing more on a particular controversial topic once they are promoted to administrator status." --MASEM (t) 03:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a rather nice article btw. When first coming across it I expected a rather low quality paper, as we have seen so many of in this much less 'tangible' part of our encyclopedia, but it seems rather comprehensive and with quite a bit of understanding of how we operate. Refreshing ! —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:41, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Finnish Wikipedia 15 years in February 21, 2017

Finnish Wikipedia celebrates the 15th birthday of its existence.--Kulttuurinavigaattori 06:05, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

https://twitter.com/wm_rs/status/832682011076677636/photo/1 Happy Birthday! TeeVeeed (talk) 13:30, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


Birthday cake - 14th Birthday of Serbian Wikipedia
Found commons photo not sure where to put itTeeVeeed (talk) 13:37, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Major user category guideline change proposal

I think it may be worthwhile to advertise this discussion to a much wider audience: Wikipedia_talk:User_categories#Request_for_Comment_on_the_guidelines_regarding_.22joke.22_categories.. The outcome potentially changes a longstanding stance on the social networking aspect of the site, for better or for worse. VegaDark (talk) 05:05, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

"Virtual Front": state-sponsored pro-Russia mass-editing campaign on its way?

This article. "Russian Government Youth Group Wants to Make Wikipedia More Patriotic" reports the creation of something called "Virtual Front", a forthcoming attempt organized by the Russian State Duma Youth Parliament to mass-edit the Russian-language Wikipedia to make it "more patriotic". If this is real, it's not only Signpost-article-worthy, it's also something the Russian Wikipedia community and WMF should be aware of.

As a side-note, the article also mentions an initiative commissioned by Dmitry Medvedev to study the possibility of creating a state-approved Russian Wikipedia clone. -- The Anome (talk) 10:14, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I attempted to notify the Russian Wikipedia community. Kaldari (talk) 21:36, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
Looks like there is already a vigorous discussion underway (prior to my notice). Kaldari (talk) 01:39, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
See also this Russian-language Wikinews article -- The Anome (talk) 20:32, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you both, Kaldari and The Anome. Let's be sure to include as an "in brief" on either News and Notes or In the Media. I'm trying to publish today, but way behind. If you have a moment to draft something up, that would be a big help; I'll do the best I can with it if not. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 04:21, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: This seems to be an attempt to engage with the VF project in a way that operates within, rather than opposing, Wikipedia's editorial norms. But there's very little sign of any progress so far. -- The Anome (talk) 11:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

User:Vipul sponsors Wikipedia editing

Vipul Naik sponsors Wikipedia editing. See https://vipulnaik.com/sponsored-wikipedia-editing/ and https://contractwork.vipulnaik.com/ and http://effective-altruism.com/ea/w5/looking_for_wikipedia_article_writers_topics/ (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:43, 6 February 2017 (UTC) @Peteforsyth: I hope you guys can interview Vipul Naik, I think his project is very interesting. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

This is being "vigorously" discussed at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Vipul's paid editing enterprise. Copied into a Word document the discussion is now 27 pages long. - Brianhe (talk) 19:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
yikes. TeeVeeed (talk) 22:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I would very much discourage "interviewing" him for the 'post. What seems on the surface to be a utopian concept turns out to be very insidious and worrisome and out-of-control. (In my opinion.) Softlavender (talk) 03:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Kids on wikipedia

I think you should write an opinion piece on kids' edits. I'd do it but I edit under an Ip and I can't create pages. 68.233.214.74 (talk) 18:28, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Intellipedia for In the news

  • Dreyfuss, Emily (March 10, 2017). "The Wikipedia for Spies—And Where It Goes From Here". Wired. Retrieved March 11, 2017.

The part that bites the hardest:

Think of Intellipedia as a Wikipedia for spies. It works the same, except that there’s no anonymity for contributors, and nothing can ever be unsourced.

Way to go, WP:V czar 17:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest task force RfC passed

English Wikipedia is going to get "a task force of trusted editors to act as referees in matters related to conflict of interest and outing" posted 16 March 2017. Details are murky at this time. – Bri (talk) 20:17, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

But the close was retracted by an admin. I don't know what's going on. - Bri (talk) 00:19, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

We now have signs citing wikipedia

https://twitter.com/IanMac111/status/847034550102507522/photo/1

©Geni (talk) 10:12, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Editing outages on 19 April and 3 May

I hope to have all the details soon. Please {{ping}} me if you have questions about this before I get back to you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I have confirmed the schedule. All of the wikis will be in read-only mode for 20 to 30 minutes on these two days:
  • Wednesday, 19 April 2017, starting at 14:00 UTC
  • Wednesday, 3 May 2017 (two weeks later), starting at 14:00 UTC
(There is always a chance of a delay.) There is more information at m:Tech/Server switch 2017.
Would it be helpful if I wrote a short article about this? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Sure, if you want to write something up it can go in the next tech report - Evad37 [talk] 00:58, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
@Evad37: I've re-worked last year's article; you can find it at User:Whatamidoing (WMF)/Server switch. Let me know if you have questions, want something different, etc. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF): Thanks, I copied it over to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Technology report. I also made some changes [9] (mostly minor, plus adding info on background jobs per the notice on Meta). Can I also ask if there are any further server switches planned – i.e. will this sort of test occur on a regular basis (e.g. annually)? - Evad37 [talk] 03:47, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing the times for me.
Ops is talking about doing this repeatedly, but how often depends upon how fast they can make it happen. If they could do it safely and without anyone noticing, then they might do it as often as four times a year. But so far, that's not possible. It's been almost exactly one year since the first round of this, but that is mostly coincidental. They learned enough from the first time that they have only now reached the end of their list of major improvements. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:31, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion re translation policy

Dear Signpost editors,

Would you consider writing an article about the discussion happening within the Wikipedia community here: Wikipedia_talk:Translation#Machine-translations?

Best, Daniel.inform (talk) 12:36, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Paper on the long tail of interest in airplane crash articles on WP

I cannot access the Scientific Advances paper directly [10] but here is The Verge's article on it [11]. Basically describing research on page views on our aircrash disaster articles, showing that older airline crash articles gain interest after a similar crash occurs, even if there are no direct wikilinks connecting the two. From this, they conclude that the "collective memory" of Wikipedia's readers is around 45 years. --MASEM (t) 18:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

The conflicting instructions editors give to bots

Slashdot comments on this story in the Guardian which discusses this article in PLOS One entitled "Even good bots fight: The case of Wikipedia". From the abstract: "We find that, although Wikipedia bots are intended to support the encyclopedia, they often undo each other’s edits and these sterile “fights” may sometimes continue for years." Perhaps it's news to the read-only community that bots edit here. タチコマ robot, RussBot, Xqbot, and DarknessBot are discussed, among others. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:13, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, we'll for sure aim to cover this in the monthly research section. FYI, and without preempting a fuller review, I have heard some concerns expressed about the validity of some conclusions, in particular regarding how much of the "bot fighting bots" was simply the result of human editors' actions (e.g. moving articles back and forth, which then got reflected by these interwiki bots on other wikis).
Note also the sentence in the paper "Since our results were largely dictated by inter-language bots, we believe that the conflict we observed on Wikipedia no longer occurs today [after the introduction of Wikidata in 2013]."
Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Bot wars

Bot war on Wikipedia?

Automated Wikipedia Edit-Bots Have Been Fighting Each Other For A Decade Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:59, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I tried reading through to the Guardian and the study itself. Am I missing something? It sounds terribly overblown. They make the numbers of bot-bot reverts sound like bot "wars" are going on, but they don't present any data that supports the idea. The number of reverts is vanishingly small compared to the total number of edits that occurred over the period. The fact that nobody had any idea these bot wars were happening until an exhaustive study uncovered it is telling. Yes, it's a bug when two systems work against each other, but then they do it so rarely that nobody notices and no real harm happens, then that's a pretty decent system. But they want to make a Hollywood plotline out of it I guess. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:45, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
The Bots go crazy and kill everyone. Happens every time. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

A new op-ed

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-06-09/Op-ed

@Peteforsyth: My first op-ed for the Signpost: User:Kaldari/Lead sentences have cancer. Kaldari (talk) 03:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Brilliant! Johnbod (talk) 04:06, 26 March 2017 (UTC)
Ha! Very good, Kaldari. Did you know that the date format in the lead of articles is the biggest conflict in German Wikipedia? It's a huge serious war over years with 5 or 6 Meinungsbilder (RfC-votes in dewiki) and even outside attention in the press and the church. German Wikipedia early on adopted a german old encyclopedic tradition of using symbols for death and birth, unfortunately the death symbol is a cross and therefor not NPOV. Muslim and jewish tradition does not appreciate crosses in biographies of their dead. Supporters of the traditional symbol claim that this symbol is not religious and therefor neutral. What really kicks the conflict into nuclear mode is that many supporters feel like they are accused of antisemitism. While... etc etc. The conflict is still unresolved and burning (currently small flame). Maybe it is good for your op-ed not to step into this territory ("Don't mention the war!"). BTW, i had to look up the year of the 9th edition to get a feel for the age of the english tradition. Good work! --Atlasowa (talk) 09:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
PS I can provide links to kilometers of heated german discussions on the subject, if you're interested. I don't recommend it, it's cringeworthy. --Atlasowa (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
@Atlasowa: Hi. Yeah, I've been part of some of the equivalent Enwiki discussions. Here, we only prominently use that symbol as part of the {{KIA}} template, which is mostly used in infoboxes, but it still causes occasional confusion, and heated discussion when improvements are attempted. My inner-pedant feels compelled to correct the statement, "is a cross" - you mean looks like a cross, but is actually a Dagger (typography)! (I'm sure you know this (painfully well!) so this note is mostly for onlookers. Oh, I see the German article is titled "Kreuz", which surely doesn't help... :/ Condolences!). Quiddity (talk) 00:26, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
My inner-pedant feels compelled to call your inner-pedant anglocentric ;-) Quiddity I better stop now with this topic. :-) --Atlasowa (talk) 08:55, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Kaldari, finally reading this after an extended absence. I like it a lot! However, two issues with the headline/cancer theme: (1) I had complaints over Guy Macon's op-ed that the cancer metaphor was gratuitously triggering for a WMF employee who had endured the ravages of cancer, and would prefer to avoid exacerbating that issue one way or another; (2) I don't understand the connection to Guy's piece, and I'm confident that some of our less attentive readers would have even less idea what you're talking about with the mention of it at the end. Can you modify the piece to remove the references to his op-ed? (Or, if there is a worthwhile connection, help me to see what it is, and adjust to make it clearer to the general reader?) -Pete Forsyth (talk) 04:30, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Actually, the only evidence we have that "the cancer metaphor was gratuitously triggering for a WMF employee who had endured the ravages of cancer" is a claim by an editor who has been personally attacking me for years. Given his history of dubious and unverifiable claims about me, I do not believe that the WMF employee actually exists, or that if he/she did exist, he/she would have just happened to pick someone with a long history of attacking me as the person to pass on the message. Actual comments by real editors willing to sign their comments include:
  • "The cancer metaphor is harsh but appropriate."
  • "I think the cancer metaphor is a little heavy handed, but its clear the WMF has been in a crisis of planning for a while now, and there (which I think is the main point of Guy's arguments) I am in agreement."
  • "I would like second the request about the title, but for a completely different reason. Yes, it is an attention-grabber, but it also produces a knee-jerk overdefensive emotional reaction from the criticized side, rather than a thoughtful response to criticism."
  • "Anyone who is offended by cancer analogies should stop reading at the title. There are many things on Wikipedia that some people find deeply offensive, images of Muhammad being just one example. We don't censor Wikipedia because someone is offended."
  • "I find the objection of this section by an "anonymous employee" to be at best overly sensitive and at worst manipulative. There is nothing wrong with using cancer as a metaphor, especially in the sense used by the author as a deep concern about the future of the project that could lead to its demise. The author wrote a well-thought out piece and gave a thesis that suggests the aptness of the metaphor. As many of us have dedicated a large chuck of our lives to the project, the very idea that the fruit of our volunteered labor could end up in the hands of a for-profit is abhorrent. Cheers to Guy for trying to bring attention to this issue. Tell the employee that despite their personal battle, the author clearly is not disparaging those who have battled a biological form of cancer and is therefore being too sensitive. The "I find your metaphorical use of cancer" angle is an easily abused appeal to emotion that can be used to censor an unwanted point of view; so I am not convinced there's negligible chance the employee's objection is without ulterior motive."
  • "Is cancer the best analogy? Consider the alternative, 'Wikipedia has a parasite'."
  • "I would not have gone with 'cancer'; my preferred headline would have been 'Wikipedia has overeating problem; May need bariatric surgery if it cannot control high-fat, caloric diet' ".
BTW, I am a cancer survivor myself. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
@Peteforsyth: I'm fine with changing the title and removing reference to Guy's op-ed. I'll make the changes shortly. Kaldari (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Thanks Kaldari! -Pete Forsyth (talk) 18:53, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
@Peteforsyth: All done. Also added a bit more content about how this problem has affected re-users. Kaldari (talk) 19:34, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:MTC!

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-06-09/Technology report#In_brief

I have written a tool to transfer files to Commons. Is this something that could be mentioned in the upcoming technology report? Thanks, FASTILY 07:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Cool! It may also be worth mentioning that the Technical Wishes Team at WMDE is working on a pair of extension as well: a file exporter for Wikipedias, and a file importer for Commons. Kaldari (talk) 23:33, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

5k featured articles

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-06-09/News and notes

We have passed the 5,000 mark for featured articles. See Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#5K. While there isn't a clear "5000th article" as such, Waiting (2015 film), Phantasmagoria (video game) and Resident Evil 5 tipped us over from 4999 to 5002. Surely worth a mention! Josh Milburn (talk) 16:21, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

The Core Contest

{{done}}
 – Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-06-09/News and notes

The Core Contest is running will be over six weeks from 00:01 UTC 15 May to 23:59 UTC 30 June 2017. Once again, ₤250 of amazon vouchers are up for grabs. The contest focusses on improving Wikipedia's core material, with rewards for improving the worst eyesores. Casliber (talk · contribs) will be joined by Megalibrarygirl (talk · contribs) and Katherine (WMF) (talk · contribs) in judging the contributions. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:04, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming "420" collaboration

Would Signpost be willing to mention the upcoming "420" collaboration, which is an effort to create and improve cannabis-related content during the second half of April (and especially on April 20)? Invitations are being sent to dozens on WikiProjects, and the campaign has already received some coverage by cannabis media outlets. Thanks for your consideration! ---Another Believer (Talk) 15:20, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Could you make sure that your group knows about a technology issue that will briefly affect editing during your collaboration? It's described above at #Editing outages on 19 April and 3 May. (Also, @Bluerasberry:.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
I made a note about this at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cannabis/420_Collaboration#Wikipedia_outage_on_19_April_2017 in the usual manner that messages are to be posted there. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:49, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Does anyone know if an issue will be published in April? Just curious. ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:59, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Never mind, the campaign has come and gone, unless someone wants to mention as a completed inaugural effort. ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:33, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia-Academia collaboration

Hello all,

The scientific publisher PLOS has just published a relevant blog post promoting the fact that their 'Topic Page' publishing format has been extended from PLOS Computation Biology to PLOS Genetics.

This allows academics who wouldn't otherwise consider writing for Wikipedia to be able to contribute in a format that is more familiar to them, and provides the academic brownie points needed for their careers. It looks as though 2017 is shaping up to be very successful for such ventures, see also:

It might be worth covering in some form or another. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 07:42, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Cessation?

Unless I'm mistaken, the last issue of the Signpost was February 27, 2017. Is it just too hard to produce it without more staff? - kosboot (talk) 16:22, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

kosboot, I believe that Pete Forsyth, our editor-in-chief, will make an announcement soon. Tony (talk) 08:27, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Great Wall of Culture

I just came across, via Slashdot, a report in VICE News about China creating it's own (State run of course) competitor to Wikipedia called the Chinese Encyclopaedia, also apparently referred to by at least one official as the 'Great Wall of Culture'. At least 20,000 people have been recruited by to create and run this new online encyclopedia, including scholars from universities and research institutes who will contribute articles in more than 100 disciplines. This is intended to produce a knowledge base with more than 300,000 entries, each of which will be about 1,000 words long.

Here's an excerpt from the Vice article:

“The Chinese Encyclopaedia is not a book, but a Great Wall of culture,” Yang Muzhi, the editor-in-chief of the project and the chairman of the Book and Periodicals Distribution Association of China, said. He added that China was under pressure from the international community to produce an encyclopedia that will “guide and lead the public and society.”

The need for an online reference encyclopedia is in part a result of the Chinese government blocking access to Wikipedia. Chinese internet companies like Baidu and Qihoo 360 operate their own online encyclopedias, but none are capable of matching Wikipedia in terms of scale and breadth of information.


The aim of the new version of the Chinese encyclopedia is to showcase China’s latest science and technology developments, promote historical heritage, increase cultural soft power, and strengthen the core values of socialism, according to Yang, who stressed that the goal isn’t to mimic Wikipedia: “We have the biggest, most high-quality author team in the world. Our goal is not to catch up, but overtake.”

At over 720 million users, China has the world’s largest internet population by a large margin, but it also has some of the world’s most restrictive internet laws.


This is going to be interesting, perhaps even in the Chinese sense of the word, so to speak. Ceannlann gorm (talk) 09:09, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Vietnamese Wikipedia administrator passes away

vi:User:Lê Thy, until recently a Vietnamese Wikipedia administrator, passed away this weekend. [12] – Minh Nguyễn 💬 18:08, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Reddit AMA with Aaron Halfaker

Hey everyone! Aaron Halfaker's (User:EpochFail) Reddit AMA is starting in about 30 minutes, and if the Signpost gets going again, it could be a fun thing to cover. He's focusing on artificial intelligence on Wikipedia and how we're working to counteract vandalism. We'd love to have your questions. Join us! Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 20:37, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

John Rocco Edit-A-Thon

The Rick Riordan task force of WikiProject Novels is hosting its first Edit-A-Thon to increase project visibility and member participation. In honor of his July birthday, the event will focus on pages related author/illustrator John Rocco. The event will last until the first day of August, when the most helpful contributor will be featured on RRTF's forums. More information can be found here on the talk page, also a good place for questions and comments. We welcome outside input and participation! -- 2ReinreB2 (talk) 03:51, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

OTRS Commons-permission queue has a backlog of 73 days

OTRS Commons-permission is used for permissions related to Images on Commons. Currently we have a backlog of ~700 messages and 73 days. This means that many people emailing permissions for their images will not be looked at for 2.5 months. Any delay over a 15 days is problematic because images without permission are mass deleted in 15 days. This slows the process even further as you need admins to undelete images, and you usually loose info about which article was image added to. Another side effect is that once you contact back the clients, they often angry (because they sent by that time 5 more desperate emails about their images being deleted), or unresponsive if you need further clarifications. This affects all the projects and we could use some more OTRS volunteers experienced with image licensing. --Jarekt (talk) 19:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jarekt: Is there a discussion about fixing this anywhere? I imagine we wouldn't have as much of a backlog if we stopped revoking people's OTRS access after 6 months of inactivity and then making them jump through a bunch of hoops to get their access restored. It took me over a month to get my OTRS access restored after it lapsed last time. Next time, I won't bother. We shouldn't be punishing our volunteers with red tape, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 20:50, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Ah. Now we getting down to business. Think this needs to be brought to a wider audience to review our Workflow. 15 days may have seemed reasonable when this project was smaller. As Jarekt said: “We do have 190 Commons OTRS volunteers, which sounds like enough to handle the load, but somehow the system is collapsing.” Commons:Village_pump. Suggestion: Have a temporary period to extend the period from 15 days to 48 day (for any mathematicians, I choose that figure because it is 64% of 73 days. Reason: Median, binomial statistics and all those things that have faded from my mind over the decades). Yet, this extension in time, could provides a necessary buffer zone for the OTRS volunteers to get back on top of the backlog and do away with having to repeatedly undelete images. Most copyvios are obvious but whilst those are being delt with, the valid images get deleted due to the 15 day rule. Aspro (talk) 22:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Kaldari, There is a little of discussion at c:Commons:Village_pump#.7B.7BOTRS_backlog.7D.7D and c:Commons_talk:OTRS#.7B.7Btl.7COTRS_backlog.7D.7D. User:Fæ related similar experience to yours with OTRS. He lost access to OTRS and his attempt to get it back was rejected. I think others complained about this in the past. I never had issues with OTRS despite of being able to help only occasionally there. Retaining experienced volunteers is a big part of this, but we should also work on getting new volunteers. --Jarekt (talk) 02:33, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
The backlogging was also discussed at Meta-wiki's Wikimedia Forum, and the Wikimania submission is pending a review for acceptance. --George Ho (talk) 02:36, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Not good news: the submission is receiving lower scores than I hoped for. --George Ho (talk) 01:13, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
Re-checked; the submission received decent scores initially, but one bad score decreased the average score, lowering the chance of acceptance. --George Ho (talk) 01:17, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Edit warring on WP article over corruption case in Pakistan

See Talk:Calibri and the article itself. The article has been full protected for a week over edit-warring about the date of release and the relevance of this date to an ongoing corruption case in Pakistan. Nthep (talk) 16:32, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikimedia France controversy

This last few days, a huge shitstorm arose in the fr.wp community, making up for a good part of the 'Bistro' (Village Pump) discussion for the last days. At the center of it, the management of the French chapter, with several resignation on the board, conflicts of interest, members expelled, and so on. A detailled timeline is available, and several high profile wikimedians, such as former chairwoman Anthere are leading the efforts to clean up this mess. The Twitter #wmfrgate is widely used to discuss those issues. Defunes43 (talk) 19:27, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

yes. I also recommend ... this reading (in French... and I doubt anyone will ever translate that). Anthere (talk)

Community size update.

It has been a couple of years since I broke the story about the EN community - Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-08-26/In focus no longer being in decline. Despite that there is still a meme out there of the community being in decline, I've bumped into two editors in the last 24 hours who weren't aware that the 2007-2014 decline ended over two years ago. Since the story was originally broken in the signpost it seems appropriate to update it here - so would you like an update? ϢereSpielChequers 12:12, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the offer. This user would like to see an update. - kosboot (talk) 12:19, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
@WereSpielChequers, please do! czar 07:18, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
Due to a glitch the June statistics were not published so the most recent stats I have are from May. So I'm waiting for the July run of the stats as May would seem a bit out of date for a news story. But it is coming ϢereSpielChequers 07:29, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
Really looking forward to an analysis of this. It would be good to see how the different metrics compare (like 'active' vs 'highly active' editors) and what they mean. I'm sure I've seen some interesting stats on new user retention too, but can't remember where I saw it. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 07:44, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
Active means five edits in a calendar month, highly active means over a 100 edits in mainspace. Since our default for vandalism blocks is four warnings and your fifth vandalism gets a block I pay little attention to stats on active users. It is a classic area where success can be measured as a problem - take for example all the fuss about us being in a death spiral in the Gardner era. The more effective the edit filters were at preventing vandals from vandalising Wikipedia the more certain people worried about stats showing a decline in the number of "active editors". Plus if you want a simple measure for broader community health we already have time between ten million edits....... ϢereSpielChequers 12:35, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
Ah, sorry I was unclear. By 'what they mean' I meant 'what is the significance between the metrics when they differ, e.g. V.active users increasing when active users are stagnant'. Although time between million edits is useful, it looses interesting data on how contributor patterns and types. A combination of metrics is better ably to describe editor output, diversity, priorities, etc. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 01:30, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) If you're up for it, I'd be interested in reading about alternative metrics for "Wikipedia:Active users" too, based on the comments on the 2015 story and your notes at the bottom of User:WereSpielChequers/100+ editors. (Perhaps this has been done elsewhere?) I imagine that most editors familiar with the idea of edit count recognize its limitations as a metric of our industriousness. What would be far more interesting (for the splitter in me: categories of users by niche and how they have fluctuated over time. E.g., (spitballing:) wonk workers (category gnomes, infobox warriors, typo adoption, adding images, maintaining the DYK/ITN/CSD queues and "backlogs"), content-focused editors (perhaps in a single topic area and with little editor interaction), occasional editors (more active as readers but maintain an account to edit typos/mistakes once in a while), serial article creators, serial article expanders, editors who live on talk pages or in projectspace, promotional/SPA accounts "active" on an affiliated article for a month before disappearing (and souring our statistics, but what portion are they of our MAU?) A better measure of progress than "100+ edits in mainspace over the last 30 days", I'd wager, is how well we are fulfilling the niches important to our community. czar 07:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
One of the advantages of the 100 edit threshold is that it excludes some of those groups, well at least the readers who fix the odd typo when they see one. At the same time it gives no extra weight to those who do thousands, even tens of thousands of edits in a month. I don't remember anyone with the skills and tools to do the subdivisions you mention coming forward, but I'd be happy to collaborate with someone if they did. One of the things I like about the 100 edit statistic is that it has been collected fairly consistently over a very long period of time, and I'm not aware of article edits becoming a very different metric over the years. By contrast userpage edits have become something very different since CSD and Prod logs have come in that allow people to opt to add to a log in their userspace every time they do a particular sort of action. ϢereSpielChequers 12:35, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

There are 38 million dates in the English language Wikipedia.

Hello Signpost!

I have written a short description of our discovery of dates in Wikipedia.

It can be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dates_in_Wikipedia

We believe this may interest Academics in the field of history and others.

We are even offering our large amount of data up to anybody who may find it useful.

We believe this may be a good candidates for coverage in The Signpost.

If that may be the case, I can expand on the article we already have and hopefully make a solid contribution to your fine publication.

Sincerely yours,

Jeffrey Roehl

jroehl2@yahoo.com

Jroehl (talk) 14:07, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

@Jroehl: This seems like it would be really interesting to me. Eddie891 Talk Work 01:10, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Podcast WikiJabber

Hi Signpost, I started the English language Wikipedia related podcast WikiJabber (https://wikijabber.org, meta:WikiJabber). It has the same concept as my German language podcast WikiStammtisch (https:wikistammtisch.de, de:Wikipedia:WikiStammtisch): I talk with one or sometimes some people about Wikipedia, Life and all the rest. I would appriciate, if some people would join WikiJabber and if a lot of people would start to listen to it. --Sebastian Wallroth (talk) 09:49, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Sebastian, will mention in the next issue. Is there any chance we could get some transcripts to republish in the Signpost? (perhaps just some excerpts, if its too much trouble to do full episodes) - Evad37 [talk] 05:16, 5 September 2017 (UTC)
Hi @Evad37: the automatic transcript is a mess, as you can see here. There is a short summary for each episode at meta:WikiJabber. --Sebastian Wallroth (talk) 06:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

12 year old error on Wikipedia

Something for news and notes a report on an error in Wikipedia ϢereSpielChequers 15:05, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

I've put a note on the talk page of this article in German Wikipedia (the English article does not use the quote). - kosboot (talk) 15:39, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

ACTRIAL

ACTRIAL goes live on 14 September. It would be good if a article could be written about it— RADICAL SODA(FORCE)TM 05:34, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

See WP:ACTRIAL and meta:Reasearch:ACTRIAL. Kaldari (talk) 17:03, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks @Forceradical and Kaldari:. I've put a short piece in the next issue's News and notes. I don't think we need much more until we get some results in from the trial. - Evad37 [talk] 02:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

New Facebook feature utilizes Wikipedia content

Kaldari (talk) 20:00, 5 October 2017 (UTC)

Interesting wiki - Cookipedia

Greetings, Tonight at Roule Cheese I found external link to an interesting wiki.

===Further reading===

Wondering if this would make for interesting article or news for Signpost? Regards, — JoeHebda • (talk) 04:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Nearly All of Wikipedia Is Written By Just 1 Percent of Its Editors

Vice Motherboard wrote a piece about the cabal that writes the encyclopedia. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:11, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Press coverage–Paris Review

The Paris Review's approach to its history.

Very striking article coming out of Longreads regarding a literary magazine called The Paris Review. Their editor was recently fired for extremely 2017 reasons, which brought back into public attention via a widely-shared Twitter thread (which became this article) the fact that the magazine seems to have spent twelve years doing its best to totally airbrush out the existence of an editor, Brigid Hughes, who ran it for about a year (and who was, funnily enough, female).

This included deleting all mention of her from the Wikipedia article in a February 2011 edit. What that article didn't mention (I'm not sure anyone else has publicly mentioned it yet, either) is that that edit comes from an IP address registered to the magazine, which an edit made from the same IP address the previous year was happy to disclose. (The same campaign apparently involved bullying NPR into publishing a fawning apology for suggesting that the magazine's current format wasn't its founder's original vision for it.)

I don't know much about literary magazines and still less about this one, but I was amazed you could just wipe an editor's existence out of history. How do you get away with that one? Blythwood (talk) 22:08, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

I've started working on something covering this, at User:Eddie891/signpost. Eddie891 Talk Work 20:04, 29 December 2017 (UTC)
Might be better at In The Media Eddie891 Talk Work 20:14, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

{{done}} Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-01-16/In the media - Evad37 [talk] 16:12, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Annual Top 50 Report

We, as the compilers of the WP:Top 25 Report, have written a special report detailing the fifty most read articles of 2017 on en.wikipedia.org. It is located at the above link, and has been written as a joint project between seven different editors. Given the Signpost's support for the Report over the year, I feel that it would be apt that a special feature, or an article, be prepared on this specialised, larger than regular report. It is of interest to the reader-base, and I am suggesting it based on a discussion with Jimbo here. I think that it would be very well suited to the Signpost, and would greatly encourage and appreciate its coverage on these grounds. Stormy clouds (talk) 19:45, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

  • P.S. If necessary, I will report on it myself and submit it for the Signpost. Stormy clouds (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
Stormy clouds Is currently at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Traffic report. Anything else you'd like to add? Eddie891 Talk Work 19:47, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, @Eddie891:. Stormy clouds (talk) 19:55, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

{{done}} Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-01-16/Traffic report - Evad37 [talk] 16:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Toby Young

Controversial appointee by UK government said to have edited his own article 200 times: https://politicalscrapbook.net/2013/09/toby-young-has-edited-his-own-wikipedia-page-200-times-in-six-years/ --A bit iffy (talk) 22:29, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

{{done}} Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-01-16/In the media - Evad37 [talk] 16:10, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Government web address used to add 'Lucifer' to Peter Dutton's name

Government web address used to add 'Lucifer' to Peter Dutton's name. The joys of AussieParlEdits. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:03, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

First content made for Wikipedia in space!

ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoli's spoken voice

The first ever content made in space specifically for Wikipedia was uploaded to Commons today, and is used on Paolo Nespoli. See Close encounters of the Wikipedia kind for how this happened. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:10, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip; we can republish the blog post - Evad37 [talk] 07:54, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Human interest success story on Commons

See here. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:52, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

{{done}} Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-02-05/In the media - Evad37 [talk] 07:21, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Earth – international results released

Wikimedia Blog post! Wiki Loves Monuments will be coming on approx Thursday. Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 19:54, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

"sister" vs. "allied"

Not sure this is appropriate for the Signpost, but if so: Wikipedia is often referred to as having "sister projects." We should really aim for gender-neutral language, so it might be a good idea to retire "sister projects" in favor of something like "allied projects." Just putting this out there might elevate people's sensitivity to how they use language. - kosboot (talk) 20:00, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments winners

wmfblog:2017/12/14/wiki-loves-monuments-international-winners/ Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 15:40, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

MP3s on Commons

Another blog post. :-) Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 15:41, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Wishlist survey – results

Hey, maybe something about the m:2017 Community Wishlist Survey, which the Community Tech team will work to address next year? The results are now in: m:2017 Community Wishlist Survey/Results. The top ten are:

I probably won't be around much for a couple of weeks after tomorrow, but ping User:DannyH (WMF) if you've got any questions or want comments and he'll be happy to give those. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 20:01, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

newspaper

I want to be a news reporter,and will earn wages if required — Preceding unsigned comment added by Austin patrick (talk • contribs) 18:37, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

This page is only for suggesting Wikipedia/Wikimedia related news for the Signpost to cover. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions if you want to write a relevant piece for us. (And there's no wages, everyone here is a volunteer). - Evad37 [talk] 02:34, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
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