Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Boneyard/Newsroom/Old

Note that this page dates back to 2005. Wowza! jp×g 10:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Welcome to The Wikipedia Signpost's Tip Line. There are two ways to leave tips:

1. Add a tip on this page
2. Anonymously e-mail us at WikipediaSignpost@Gmail.com (for convenience, you may use this link)

Not every mention of Wikipedia in the media will make it into Signpost. Consider editing Wikipedia:Press coverage or Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source so we have a comprehensive record.

Please do not post newsletters to this page; news from WikiProjects is always appreciated, but templated messages are much more likely to be ignored. Ral315 (talk) 05:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Calendar of upcoming events

I intend this to be a sort of calendar of upcoming events, on and off Wikipedia (particularly non-obvious events, that might be easily missed) -- things that readers might be interested in. Anyone can add events here.

• Nothing interesting is happening.

Requests for WikiProject features

If you'd like your WikiProject featured in an upcoming WikiProject report, feel free to list it here. Note that these requests are entirely advisory, and may or may not be used in future reports. Please do not "support" or "oppose" individual requests, and keep requests short and concise. Ral315 (talk) 05:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

• WP:DINO, with over 90 members, the Dinosaur WikiProject is really dedicated to dinosaur coverage. See achievements for more information. Bibliomaniac15 21:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• WikiProject Oregon is a lively and productive project that currently supports over 5000 articles, and has a dedicated core group of editors who work toward getting articles to GA and FA. Currently we are working on a response to the Oregon Historical Society's announcement that they are starting a collaborative encyclopedia project that will somehow be better than Wikipedia. Katr67 (talk) 02:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

• WikiProject Saints, the only project which to my knowledge has gotten a barnstar from an outsider as a project. And, of course, considering it just declared indpendence, Wikipedia:WikiProject Kosovo might be the most timely. John Carter (talk) 19:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:WikiProject Textile Arts nearly died and came back to life. Originally begun in early 2007, by the start of December it had dwindled to just two active members. For a view of how much it's revived, here's its March newsletter (featured pictures, good articles, DYKs, and a featured portal drive). Durova 09:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

• I think Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories/uncategorized might be a nice success-story to include in some edition of the Signpost. Various gnomes have hacked away at this backlog ever since bots like Alaibot started populating it a year and a half ago. Of course, this is a never-ending task but it's an important one and the backlog typically hovers around 2000 articles (compared to 10 times that a year ago). Pichpich (talk) 13:42, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

• WikiProject Long Island. Theres tons of things that happened in WP:LINY that would be great for the signpost. Nothing444 13:12, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiPediaVision: Watch Realtime Wikipedia Edits

• Forrest, Brady (April 10, 2008). "WikiPediaVision: Watch Realtime Wikipedia Edits". O'Reilly Radar. Retrieved 2008-04-10.

This looks neat. Cirt (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html That's the actual site, it's really interesting. Cirt (talk) 21:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

It's so cool. But how come 9 out of 10 anonymous edits are from U.S.? OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Surely it would depend upon the time of day. The US would of course dominate during the hours when the Western hemisphere is most active. Also, the tool only tracks anonymous edits, and doesn't include IPs that can't be tied down to a single country, which may introduce unintentional biases. Still, I find this incredibly cool, and actually kind of inspiring.--Pharos (talk) 18:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia and Suicide

The BMJ put wikipedia as the forth most common result of suicide releated terms and catigoriesed wikipedia as "Information site: factual"

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/336/7648/800

Geni 15:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that it's not claiming any of the suicide-related articles on Wikipedia are factually correct, only that Wikipedia falls within a class of sites deemed to present fact-based information about the topic (instead of, say, promoting suicide, or offering news reports about people who committed suicide). Mindmatrix 16:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia a reliable source for sources? Seems so!

From this study seems we are getting better at citing our sources. Gnangarra 01:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The Internet-based encyclopædia Wikipedia has grown to become one of the most visited Web sites on the Internet, but critics have questioned the quality of entries. An empirical study of Wikipedia found errors in a 2005 sample of science entries. Biased coverage and lack of sources are among the “Wikipedia risks.” This paper describes a simple assessment of these aspects by examining the outbound links from Wikipedia articles to articles in scientific journals with a comparison against journal statistics from Journal Citation Reports such as impact factors. The results show an increasing use of structured citation markup and good agreement with citation patterns seen in the scientific literature though with a slight tendency to cite articles in high-impact journals such as Nature and Science. These results increase confidence in Wikipedia as a reliable information resource for science in general. Many citations also go to Australian botany journals, seemingly because of the Banksia Wikiproject that has made well-referenced articles for this genus of plants with the beautiful flowers. A number of the articles for these plants has become so-called “featured” on Wikipedia: Coast Banksia, [[Banksia brownii|Brown's Banksia] (this Banksia is listed as endangered), Heath-leaved Banksia and Banksia epica.

Newspaper picks up on local vandalism

A local paper finds that some IPs have been randomly vandalizing the article on their town (see diff). Paper apparently knows nothing about Wikipedia, saying "Efforts to reach Wikipedia officials for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful." Joshdboz (talk) 16:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a personal note: did someone really take the time to write a whole article on this? Must be a slow news week. And note that a municipal department had to be "alerted" about it! --Midnightdreary (talk) 15:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

True, though I think it also stems from a complete ignorance of what actually goes on here, so when they see something funny happening to an article relevant to them, it seems a lot more important than it really is. Joshdboz (talk) 15:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

And another on a series of vandalism to Denshaw. Joshdboz (talk) 13:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

BBC TV too, item here. Mr Stephen (talk) 22:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The Daily Telegraph has also picked it up, here. Mr Stephen (talk) 13:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

And now Sky News--Anthony Nolan O'Nymous (talk) 15:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

UPI Joshdboz (talk) 21:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia, climate change, National Post and User:Tabletop

Well, well. National Post has some editorial about Wikipedia on climate change, and the writer does not seem to be pleased with User:Tabletop. [1] SYSS Mouse (talk) 01:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Britannica WebShare

"Encyclopedia Britannica Now Free For Bloggers", by Michael Arrington, discusses Britannica's new widget trial program, Britannica WebShare, in which web publishers of various sorts are given free access to the full version of Britannica online, and the ability to link to individual articles for their readers to access. Most news coverage is describing this as an attempt to cope with what Wikipedia has done to their business model.

I suggest that the Signpost attempt to sign up as a web publisher, so that we could start a new feature of weekly in-depth comparison's of individual articles. It's a long shot whether they would accept us simply because we're part of their competition, but the Signpost would seem to fall within their definition of who is eligible for the program.--ragesoss (talk) 16:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I am a bit confused why the possibility to link to a full article is being touted as news - this has already been possible for a long time, actually without the need to sign up as a web publisher. I am not sure when I saw that invitation to web masters on the EB site first, but I recall that this kind of free access had already been enabled when I made this edit in July 2007. Many Wikipedia articles already use this.

By the way, last time I checked it didn't work for links on a preview page; you had to actually save the page. This probably means that they do not trust the HTTP referer alone, but check the page given there to verify that it actually links to the Britannica URL. (Or that someone at Britannica has taken some time to study MediaWiki URLs.)

Regards, High on a tree (talk) 17:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Maybe the only difference is that they are adding free 1-year subscriptions for "web publishers" to encourage more people to link to their (excessively ad-filled) articles. Some articles were describing this as part of a soft launch. In any case, now might be a good time to start a regular Signpost feature comparing specific articles.--ragesoss (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

User interface changes

Two changes were recently made:

• {{talkheader}} was changed on 8 April; it now automatically includes links to archive subpages, assuming the archive subpages are numbered in the standard manner (Archive 1, Archive 2, etc.). (Discussion.) That means it is no longer necessary to add the {{archive box}} template to a page in order to provide links to archive subpages (again, if named in the standard manner).

• The tab at the top of discussion pages that was labeled "+" is now labeled "new section", per this discussion. Editors who prefer the "+" label will find, at the "Gadgets" tab of "my preferences", the option (check box) that reads Change the "new section" tab text to instead display the much narrower "+", to put the tab back the way it was. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Another new change: Search now uses a suggestion drop-down— see [2]. This can be disabled by checking:

My Preferences → Search → Disable AJAX suggestions.

--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 18:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If folks have not looked under My Preferences in a while, all sorts of options have been added in the last month or so, especially under Gadgets. See Special:Gadgets for definitions of all the installed gadgets. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 23:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Pro-Israel POV group

With all the rumors swirling around about pro-Israel cabalism taking place, possibly including some admins, this thread may be of some interest to Wikipedia participants [3]. One long-time editor has already been indef blocked over it. Cla68 (talk) 23:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

The episode has attracted press attention: [4]. I'll try to add something to the Criticism of Wikipedia article about it. Cla68 (talk) 05:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Although El Reg normally isn't a source Signpost would cite, this is currently on the front page of Slashdot.[5] Durova^Charge! 00:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that in discussions in the future about advocacy groups trying to control a subject or view in Wikipedia that this case will be one the examples most frequently referenced. Cla68 (talk) 00:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

There have certainly been other instances of people attempting to manipulate content for ideological or profit motives. What I hope results from this is a realignment of the community's priorities. WP:COIN ought to be getting as many eyes and as much traffic as WP:AN. When the Wikiscanner came out last summer, three weeks of worldwide headlines proved that we weren't keeping our own house in order. That ought to have been a big eye opener; it wasn't. If it were reasonably certain that a campaign like this one would be caught - and swiftly - by Wikipedians, then this wouldn't be so much of a problem. Coordinated ideological manipulation of any sort is a direct assault on this site's credibility; our dedicated featured article writers would work in vain if the public weren't reasonably confident that most of Wikipedia is honest and most of the site is worth reading. Durova^Charge! 18:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

This didn't get covered in the latest edition of The Wikipedia Signpost, but FWIW here was the info covered in Wikinews from April 29 (new sources have covered it since then) - US Dept. of Justice IP address blocked after 'vandalism' edits to Wikipedia. Cirt (talk) 17:22, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see Ragesoss (talk · contribs) mentioned this below. Cirt (talk) 17:23, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Mention in Karen Joy Fowler's latest novel

I don't know if this is the sort of thing the Signpost runs, but just in case ... Wikipedia plays a minor but noticeable role in Fowler's latest novel, Wit's End. The novel includes (on pages 144 to 146) the text (somewhat modified) of a real article from Wikipedia, Holy City, California, illustrating what the protagonist finds as she researches Holy City on Wikipedia. Another major character, a fictional mystery writer named A.B. Early, is involved in a minor edit war over her own article. Fowler is most notable as the author of The Jane Austen Book Club. Mike Christie (talk) 02:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Mentioned in court by David Irving

David Irving, a "much-criticised historian", was recently evicted from a B&B due to his behavior. In an unsucessful breach-of-contract suit against the landlady Irving alleged that she "cooled towards him after her solicitor sent her a copy of his Wikipedia entry detailing his views and controversies." She denied it. The case was the written up in The Independent of London.[6] ·:· Will Beback ·:· 10:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia in mountain bike uk

wikipedia was in mountain bike uk fearuring some mountain biking terms Grandoldman (talk) 13:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

article 2,345,678

We announced article number 2,222,222. Do we announce 2,345,678? (I don't know which article that was). RJFJR (talk) 19:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

What's the point of looking for articles like that? I can see the importance of the 1 mill, 2 mill, and 2.5 millionth article, but what's the point? bibliomaniac15 Do I have your trust? 20:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

GA debate

I woul certainly hope that the next Signpost will include something about the rather fierce debate at WT:GA about putting the GA symbol on GA articles, similar to FAs. I have only see pros to this no cons. I would like to know if there are any cons to this. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 03:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, compared to previous discussions on the matter it's pretty tame. VanTucky 03:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The current count as of 19:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC) is 47 in support and 25 opposed. There is also some discussion of which symbol to use. VanTucky

Further, I've offered a Dispatch slot to Geometry guy if he wants it, but I don't think this is yet worthy of the Signpost. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia in the News - Devil Dog article

Recent editing to theDevil Dog article (refer to the United States Marine Corps nickname) has been mentioned in the Marine Corps Times in discussing the current perception of the term amongst Marines:

• Tilghman, Andrew (April 27, 2008). "'Devil Dog' term taking a beating". Marine Corps Times. Retrieved 2008-04-27.

— ERcheck (talk) 18:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Item for In the News

Newsweek article; Eddie Izzard discusses his use of Wikipedia, amongst other topics. This article also mentions that Izzard reads from (and riffs on) Wikipedia as part of his current stand-up tour.--Father Goose (talk) 07:38, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Technology author and blogger endorses Wikipedia

See Wikipedia's concept is proved, The News & Observer, 30 April 2008, by Paul Gilster. Carcharoth (talk) 13:02, 30 April 2008 (UTC) Mentioned previously by IP editor.

NYB

Clearly we are aware of the story by now. Please do not discuss the item any further here, per his wishes. Ral315 (talk) 16:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Edits of switching superdelegate's bio on Slate

The Trail Head campaign blog on Slate covered the Anatomy of a Wikipedia Hijacking, the vandalism and responses that occurred in Joe Andrew after Andrew announced switching his support as a superdelegate from Clinton to Obama.--ragesoss (talk) 16:24, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

EFF tries to get Wikipedia lawsuit dismissed

As covered in Kansas City infoZine, Ars Technica and elsewhere, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton law firm have filed a motion to dismiss a case brought against the Wikimedia Foundation in January. Literary agent Barbara Bauer sued over alleged defamation that occurred in the Wikipedia article about her (now deleted because of NPOV, BLP and reliable sourcing concerns, after a heated debate during the second deletion discussion). The EFF argues that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects the WMF from liability, as an "interactive computer services" provider rather than a traditional publisher that directly controls published content. This is a test of one of the central legal issues that both directly and indirectly contributes to Wikipedia's handling of biographies of living people.--ragesoss (talk) 16:54, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

• EFF's motion

Note that this is almost certainly the first time that the legal theory that DMCA section 230 covers the WMF has been tested in court. Raul654 (talk) 17:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Mike Godwin has requested any communications about this go to him, the EFF, or James Chadwick at Sheppard Mullin. Raul654 (talk) 17:46, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The EFF motion frequently makes reference to a declaration by Mike Godwin. Is this available to read? VanTucky 02:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

According to Mike, the declaration you're referring to - which is not yet online - was a short declaration that the Barbara Bauer article is no longer available. Raul654 (talk) 16:55, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I see that a new Wikipedia article has been started, focusing on the case itself -- Bauer v. Glatzer. Cirt (talk) 17:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Cirt. I have a draft up at User:Ragesoss/Bauer lawsuit. One thing I'm confused about is when this lawsuit started. Several sources mention January (2008), but mention of the lawsuit (with the same docket number as listed on the motion to dismiss) first appeared in the Barbara Bauer article well before that, and the court website lists it as having been filed in early March 2007.--ragesoss (talk) 17:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I see that Ral315 (talk · contribs) deleted both Bauer v. Glatzer and User:Ragesoss/Bauer lawsuit citing a WP:OFFICE request. Perhaps given this new development, it would be best for any piece covering this to rely heavily, if not exclusively, on material from secondary sources, and explicitly attribute information to those sources with "According to...", etc. Cirt (talk) 17:40, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Mike Godwin has asked that we not publish an article on this until after the case is decided.--ragesoss (talk) 21:56, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Here are some sources that could be used. Cirt (talk) 17:13, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• Davis, Wendy (2008-05-05). "Wikipedia Asks Court For Immunity From Liability For User Posts". MediaPost Publications. MediaPost Communications. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
• "EFF and Sheppard Mullin Defend Wikipedia in Defamation Case: Federal Law Protects Popular User-Created Encyclopedia From Liability". Electronic Frontier Foundation. www.eff.org. 2008-05-02. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• Anderson, Nate (2008-05-02). "Dumb idea: suing Wikipedia for calling you "dumb"". Ars Technica - The Art of Technology: From the News Desk. Ars Technica, LLC. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• Jones, K.C. (2008-05-02). "Wikipedia Battles Literary Agent Over Negative Comments: While many sites add user-generated content to enhance user experience, Wikipedia relies almost entirely on posts from contributors". InformationWeek. United Business Media. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• "Wikipedia v literary agent Barbara Bauer". p2pnet news. www.p2pnet.net. 2008-05-02. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• Bayard, Sam (2008-05-02). "Bauer v. Wikimedia". Citizen Media Law Project. www.citmedialaw.org, Project hosted by Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Retrieved 2008-05-04.

WikiProject Good Articles May Newsletter

The May Newsletter for WikiProject Good Articles has now been published. Dr. Cash (talk) 22:16, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

New magic word: PAGESIZE

A new magic word was recently implemented, but not covered in Wikipedia Signpost. {{PAGESIZE:page name}} returns the size of the given page name (bug 12698, r33551). This contributes to a page's expensive parser function count. For example:

• "{{PAGESIZE:Main Page}}" = "4,769" (default);
• "{{PAGESIZE:Main Page|R}}" = "4769" (with raw flag).

—{admin} Pathoschild 09:49:27, 03 May 2008 (UTC)

National Post attacks editor, global warming coverage

The National Post is running an opinion piece called "The opinionator" by Lawrence Solomon (User:Lawrence Solomon, author of a book and many articles about global warming deniers) attacking User:William M. Connolley for supposedly enforcing his own opinions on global warming articles and smearing prominent scientists whose views on global warming differ from "global warming orthodoxy".

As part of Solomon's extended writing on "The Deniers", the Post has been publishing a series of anti-Wikipedia pieces in the last several weeks. The earlier ones are "Wikipedia's zealots", Hide your name on Wicked Pedia, and The real climate Martians.--ragesoss (talk) 17:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

CAMERA campaign makes mainstream news

Related to "Pro-Israel POV group" above:

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) has been engaged in a campaign (the subject of a recently accepted Arbcom case) to fight against alleged anti-Israel bias in Wikipedia, including attempts to install administrators who can help enforce CAMERA's viewpoint. The Boston Globe (CAMERA is based in Boston) is running an article, War of the virtual Wiki-worlds, on the CAMERA campaign and the efforts of the pro-Palestinian Electronic Intifada to expose and discredit the campaign.

CAMERA also published an article today, How and Why to Edit Wikipedia, publicly encouraging CAMERA readers to become Wikipedia editors. On a quick review, I notice nothing too out-of-hand in this article (in contrast to some of the leaked correspondence described in the Boston Globe piece).

Note that this intersects with the recent Wikinews Department of Justice banning story (also covered by The Register and elsewhere); the DoJ IPs were banned for attempting to remove material from the CAMERA article.--ragesoss (talk) 01:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm curious - where are the emails published? Raul654 (talk) 17:51, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind... Raul654 (talk) 17:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Here are some of the related sources covering the above-mentioned info. Cirt (talk) 17:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

• Ini, Gilead (2008-05-03). "CAMERA: How and Why to Edit Wikipedia". CAMERA - Media Analyses. Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• Beam, Alex (2005-05-03). "War of the virtual Wiki-worlds". The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• Leahy, Brian (2008-04-30). "Department of Justice Temp Banned from Wikipedia". G4 - The Feed - The Only News You Need to Know. G4 TV. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• "US Dept. of Justice IP address blocked after 'vandalism' edits to Wikipedia". Wikinews. 2008-04-29. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
• Weiss, Philip (2008-04-24). "If You Don`t Want to Be Labelled a Cabal, Don`t Act Like One". Israel News. www.israelenews.com. Retrieved 2008-05-04.

Featured list director

There is currently a movement/vote underway to select a Featured List director (or more probably two). See Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates for background/ongoing discussion, and Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Featured list director for the current vote. As FA director, User:Raul654 has been asked (and has agreed) to close the vote and appoint the directors on 8th May. The two users with the most votes currently are User:Scorpion0422 and User:The Rambling Man. Tompw (talk) (review) 13:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

This will be covered in the May 12 Dispatch. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make sense to mention it before the voting closes as well? -Ravedave (talk) 14:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Because ? It's announced at the Village Pump (proposals), Village Pump (policy) and all the important (i.e.; trafficed) FAC pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

So? That isn't a reason to not mention it. I only came across the whole thing by chance - surely the more people who know, the better? Tompw (talk) (review) 15:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any reason why it can't get a brief mention in News and notes. Ral315 (talk) 22:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)