Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-03-19

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2012-03-19. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Race and intelligence 'review' opened, Article titles at voting (941 bytes · 💬)

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• Arbcom always mystifies me. For example the MOS case reads

"Arbitrators' opinion on hearing this matter (5/0/0/0)"

with according to the talk page 11 active arbs. I would have thought one more vote would be required to even open this case. Rich Farmbrough, 16:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC).

I believe a net four rule carries for opening cases. Lord Roem (talk) 16:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

See also WP:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Opening of proceedings, which specifies the preconditions for acceptance of a request for arbitration. AGK [•] 22:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Featured content: Featured content on the upswing! (684 bytes · 💬)

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• Gotta love those majas. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

For a moment I misread electric stimulation for erotic stimulation. ResMar 23:09, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

• Now wouldn't that be a fun TFA. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:41, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

News and notes: Chapters Council proposals take form as research applications invited for Wikipedia Academy and HighBeam accounts (2,740 bytes · 💬)

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• could you explain what the difference between "B" and "KISS" is? MathewTownsend (talk) 16:36, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

  "B" involves more explicit structure of the governing body for the Council: both an executive of paid staff and an elected legislative Council who hires and directs them. The recent draft charter that is proposed combines parts of both proposals, avoiding some of the complexity of the original "B" model but expanding on the concept of an elaborate bureaucracy, with separate [paid] executive, [volunteer, elected] legislative, and [volunteer, appointed] judicial groups. – SJ + 11:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

• Creating a Chapters Council seems to be making an extra layer of bureaucracy we do not need. Chapters are a vehicle we use for interacting with the rest of organised society and is a small sideshow to all the single persons contributing to Wikipedia, most of our contributors would not notice if the local chapter closed down. So no need to make this bigger than it is. Ulflarsen (talk) 13:40, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
• One of the main purposes of chapters are to provide a real legal entity with which other organizations can partner. The other is to provide tax benefits to the citizens of the country in which they reside. Agree with the desire to keep bureaucracy to a minimum.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:32, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

• FWIW, another legacy of the late Ben Yates was helping to found the Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron, which ironically is the subject of another Signpost article. -- llywrch (talk) 19:51, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

That is ironic. MathewTownsend (talk) 20:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

As there was no In the news section in this Signpost, thought I'd mention this here in case anyone missed it and is interested to listen again: Jimmy Wales was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 'Profile' programme on Sunday: [1]. 82.32.238.139 (talk) 22:22, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Technology report: Bugmeister to leave at end of May, but developers keen to "chart" a path ahead (2,035 bytes · 💬)

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• Oh, come on, another performance tracking site? Of course, I applaud the initiative, but why can't these things be located in the same place? We now have stats., status., ganglia. and gdash. — to count only the ones I know of. Especially the last two are practically unguessable unless linked to. Why not integrating all this in a single portal, even if just a simple page linking to the different sites? It'd make it easier to keep track of these useful resources. --Waldir ^talk 14:12, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

  I guess they'll converge over time. Unless I'm missing something. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 14:58, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

  I think that's a good point. I recommend posting something on Meta, or creating a thread on Wikitech-l. At least get the discussion started, and the idea out there.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:01, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

  I'm not a regular on wikitech-l. Would you do that? --Waldir ^talk 13:33, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

  Me either, to be honest (lists are a PITA, if you ask me). Just post something on Meta. It'll be ignored I'm sure, but... there's always hope that someone will see it.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:22, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Lessons from another Wikipedia: Czech WikiProject Protected Areas (1,567 bytes · 💬)

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Wow, a really good interview - the best since I'm following SIGNPOST. One of the main problems I have with the enwp Wikiprojects is that mostly they are dead and/or have only ~2-5 active users. I think we should start considering to remove (at enwp) many of these projects. mabdul 15:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for positive feedback, I really appreciated that it mights be inspiration for others too! :) --Chmee2 (talk) 20:19, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I thought this was a great interview, too. With regards to Mabdul's comment, however, I must protest that deleting less active Wikiprojects is not going to make them more active, just make it impossible for them to recover from what might otherwise be a temporary malaise. Abyssal (talk) 00:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikiprojects are also handy, I find, for collecting similar articles together and assessing them by quality and importance - it seems that most of the unassessed articles haven't been assigned to any wikiprojects. In a sense, they're categories with collaboration. Brammers (talk/c) 12:55, 25 March 2012 (UTC)