Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-08-18

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2016-08-18. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: The Michael Hardy case (421 bytes · 💬)

← Back to 2016-08-18

Discuss this story

GoodDay's diacritics ban, suspended

• Just wanna thank Arbcom for suspending my diacritics ban. Now the onus is on me to prove their decision was the correct one. I shall prove it was :) GoodDay (talk) 14:45, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

In the media: The ugly, the bad, the playful, and the promising (2,731 bytes · 💬)

← Back to 2016-08-18

Discuss this story

• If you reverse the first two words such as "The bad, the ugly, the playful, and the promising" it would be a tetracolon crescens (four parts in increasing magnitude of syllables). -- GreenC 19:10, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
• I found the Tom Mendelsohn article on Ars Technica to be an entertaining read, and a curious reflection on the overly sensitive age in which we live. Praemonitus (talk) 19:25, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I enjoyed the article as well, but I'm not sure I understand your comment. Do I understand your statement that we (humanity) are too sensitive? Ckoerner (talk) 16:21, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

I too was unsure of the meaning there. Was it meant that Tom Mendelsohn was too sensitive about the Wikipedia article's content? If there were a WP article about me, I would not want it to say untrue stuff about me. But there isn't anything overly sensitive about feeling that way; rather, it's the rational amount of sensitivity! Quercus solaris (talk) 23:27, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

• Note that Wikiverse is by the same main author as Wikigalaxy, Owen Cornec. He makes good things. :-) (Also, there are related discussions/proposals at m:Grants:Project/Arc.heolo.gy and mw:Wikimedia User Interface/Concepts/Explorer and mw:User:Quiddity/Tree of knowledge). Quiddity (talk) 22:06, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
• Backchannel has some high-quality pieces. Thanks! And a request—please stop giving Cracked traffic czar 19:42, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I second that notion from Czar. It's just not a website worth talking about. GamerPro64 20:11, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
• The Vice article is so absurd that I came away thinking that I had wasted three minutes of my life trying to read it. As an American, I would like to undertstand the UKIP better, but this didn't help. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:45, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

News and notes: Focus on India—WikiConference produces new apps; state government adopts free licenses (952 bytes · 💬)

← Back to 2016-08-18

Discuss this story

• Great news. --Tito Dutta (talk) 19:21, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
• So excited to see this news about Tamil Nadu government's decision! Congratulations to Tamil Virtual Accademy and Thamizhpparithi_Maari, Ravidreams, and all of the community members involved in this effort. This is big news! KLove (WMF) (talk) 00:13, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
• Great outcome from hack-a-thon, and good news about Tamil Nadu government's decision. Skhushi (talk) 12:09, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
• I wish all indic ligua communities will come with their comments--Drcenjary (talk) 03:27, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Special report: Engaging diverse communities to profile women of Antarctica (8,746 bytes · 💬)

← Back to 2016-08-18

Discuss this story

Thanks to all who participated in this effort. You did this the right way and I'm sure others will follow your example. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:24, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I'd echo Smallbones - nicely done. Hchc2009 (talk) 18:54, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

My congratulations to those who took part in expanding the coverage of this area. All of you are an inspiration to others. MWright96 (talk) 19:33, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Under-represented?

What's the evidence that female Antarctic scientists were underrepresented on Wikipedia before? (For better or worse, it seems clear that, post-"Wikibomb", female Antarctic scientists are now highly over-represented on the English-language Wikipedia, with 92 entries vs. 40 for men, judging by the categories Antarctic scientists and Women Antarctic scientists.) Yaron K. (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

It's tricky to gauge the total number of notable Antarctic scientists. We do know that women make up ~50% of lab heads and ~60% of early-career researchersand that it drops below 50% for research heads. There are certainly notable male Antarcic researchers aren't yet covered.

The category:Antarctic scientists is only a few months old. We did a reasonably thorough search to find the 7 initial biographies of women (<14%, not too far from the encyclopaedia-wide average of ~16%). However, we've probably not found and categorised all the men yet. Nevertheless, even if we have indeed reached >60% women in Antarctic scientists, the number of biographies of women added each month is typically 20-40%. I suspect that the gender balance will slowly swing back, so I think a temporary over-representation of women in this field isn't too problematic. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 09:09, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

References

So this comment by Yaron K. is EXACTLY why this initiative is so important. Poor men. Feel very bad for them to be so outrageously under-represented. Like women are in most other instances. Not surprised an editor would have the audacity to make this point and not be called out on it. I mean, really?!? With a history of women not even being allowed to go to work on these research stations until the very recent past this question is not even defensible.

Way to go SCAR folks! Please reach out to others if you need any support and assistance. I think beyond the Rapid Grant you got SCAR should consider doing an annual plan grant -- it's obvious you are an organized group of experts in the field who have a lot to contribute to this area which is so scientifically important. Way to go! -- BrillLyle (talk) 13:54, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Well, that escalated quickly... anyway, I don't know what the right ratios should be (neither does anyone else, it seems), but count me among those who think Wikipedia should reflect reality, rather than compensate for it. Yaron K. (talk) 17:33, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Also, T.Shafee - thanks for your response. Yaron K. (talk) 17:43, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

@Yaron K.: I don't think anything escalated. I just called you out on something that I think should be addressed. If that's upsetting to you then that is on you.

And ironically, this "reality" you refer to that should be reflected, whose reality should this be? This seems to be another framing of the gender gap issue using a suspect framing constraint. Baffling. -- BrillLyle (talk) 18:06, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

@BrillLyle: I think Yaron K. is right and making comments like "Poor men. Feel very bad for them to be so outrageously under-represented" aren't helpful. I agree with T.Shafee that the rising tide will eventually lift all boats. My concern is that initiatives like these, while adding useful content, seem to grow out of a WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS mentality although I trust proper sourcing on these efforts has been observed. I've written content about women and ethnic-minorities in the US without a triumphal attitude of sticking it to the man. By the way, I think "framing of the gender gap issue using a suspect framing constraint" is Newspeak and ought to be avoided. Those of us educated white men that are way too over-represented on wiki don't deserve to be treated as a heteronormative patriarchal class enemy of yours. We're editing with NPOV as I assume you are. We're all on the same side here. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:15, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't mind over-representation of women thanks to special WP efforts at all, but to continue to use emotive language about the under-representation of women on WP when evidence suggests the balance has in fact gone the other way is rather irritating, here and in some other contexts. Johnbod (talk) 13:56, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

Are we all on the same side? It doesn't sound like it from what you say.

And good job of calling my comments emotive. Emotive=female so therefore bad? #ugh While both yours and Yaron's comments are factual and un-emotive? Yeah, I don't think so.

I continue to weep with pity #QuelleHorreuer that men might feel like the gender balance is not in their favor in this one instance. If there is an imbalance, then fix it. In almost all cases on Wikipedia the gender balance is very clearly weighted on the side of over-representation of white male subjects and white male editors. The fact that this initiative and WiR are so successful must be both threatening and difficult to absorb. So sorry to hear there is disquiet and concern about that. Imagine now that this is how the rest of us feel.

Very sad the responses to such a cool initiative is (a) so stereotypically awful and (b) completely misses the whole point of how great this inititiave is. Also illustrates exactly why events like this are necessary. BrillLyle (talk) 14:09, 23 August 2016 (UTC)

@BrillLyle: This is a great initiative, and by all means disagree with people who you feel haven't grasped why, but please try and be more collegial when you do it. I find it frustrating when people choose to talk to other volunteer editors in this way when there are much politer ways of phrasing. Acather96 (click here to contact me) 17:43, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

@Acather96: Wow. Your comment above characterizes _me_ as being un-collegial, yet ironically enough, your comment is in an of itself wildly un-collegial. Huh. -- BrillLyle (talk) 21:21, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Hi @BrillLyle:. Apologies if it came across that way; I tried to phrase it as politely as possible. I've never interacted with you before to the best of my knowledge, so I can't say that you are uncollegial - but as an uninvolved user reading these comments I did think the replies you were leaving weren't perhaps the most charitable. Don't take that as a criticism, but more a reminder on trying to assume good faith when engaging with other users: we all forget to do it, but the atmosphere here is much better when we all do! Acather96 (click here to contact me) 22:33, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

"I don't know what the right ratios should be": there is no "right ratio"; there's only notability. Mathematically, the content will trend toward 100% of available notable subject matter over time, so this fretting over perceived bias is actually a near-term issue. Praemonitus (talk) 18:19, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Traffic report: Olympic views (2,519 bytes · 💬)

← Back to 2016-08-18

Discuss this story

• I'll tell you what Steven Universe is: ITS AWESOME!!!!! And like Tim McGraw sang 22 years ago: "I like, I love it, I want some more of it." :) TomStar81 (Talk) 01:19, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
  • And yesterday on the radio station I was listening to. I didn't feel that way about the song then and I'm not crazy about it now .... My title would be "It's acceptable. I can live with it. Other songs are better."— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:14, 24 August 2016 (UTC)
• User:Milowent and User:Serendipodous if it is of interest, User:West.andrew.g provides a regular report of most-trafficked WP:MED articles. See here. Jytdog (talk) 01:36, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• @Serendipodous: Thanks for doing this. There is an inconsistency in the 2nd traffic report: The lead-in to the chart says the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from Topviews Analysis were: but the list itself only has 10 articles. Please consider re-wording the sentence. Thanks. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 14:54, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you! Fixed :-) Serendi^podous 15:54, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

• About Donald Trump: assume that every week between now & the end of the election he will make at least controversial statement that will generate lots of news coverage. (And in other news, scientists have verified that water is wet.) -- llywrch (talk) 18:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

• Re: And in other news, scientists have verified that water is wet. - "citation needed" :). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:35, 22 August 2016 (UTC)