Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-09-19

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-09-19. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: ArbCom narrowly rejects application to open new case (1,957 bytes · 💬)

The headline is extremely misleading. ArbCom did not "narrowly reject" the request for arbitration: it requires a net four votes in support of a request to open a new case and the first request was declined after it actually failed to get to more arbitrators voting to accept than to decline after ten days. Furthermore, the few support votes were in favour of a motion, rather than a full case. --Alexandr Dmitri (talk) 12:45, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I did not realise that anything more than a simple majority was required, so yes, I agree, the subtitle is indeed wrong, and it is also wrong if, as you say, opening a case was never really the question. Nonetheless, I wouldn't characterise it as "extremely misleading", becuase it is, in essence, vaguely correct, Arbitrators declined to arbitrate, but not unanimously. You can still change it if you wish, though. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 16:07, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the article text is misleading - La goutte de pluie was recalled before I submitted the RFAR. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 20:16, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the graph is slightly misleading (kidding ;)). The horizontal axis is the date, right? I suggest you add the month number and "Date" below, moving "Page views for case pages" above the graph. I also suggest separate lines for the different cases, but keep the legend as it is with the circles. -- Jeandré, 2011-09-23t12:40z

From the editor: Changes to The Signpost (4,172 bytes · 💬)

Jarry, thanks for your work. Good luck with your studies.

I do want to express my concern about running editorials. I think the Signpost is strongest when reporting all sides of a story while remaining neutral. At its heart, the Signpost should be a community newspaper, and I think editorials, which explore only one view of a situation, don't jibe with that. While it was well-written, I don't feel Beeblebrox's recent op-ed was appropriate for the Signpost, because at its heart, it was one person's opinion on a controversial topic.

I don't subscribe to the belief that the Signpost's role should be to entertain other than to provide well-written articles. Perhaps the best way to do that is to go back to writing more articles about controversial topics, in the vein of the great Michael Snow articles of days past. My favorite article I ever wrote was this one, which covered a very touchy subject. But there are many more examples of good, short-to-medium length content that might make the Signpost more relevant.

I know how difficult it is to get writers of longer content; this was something I struggled with for my entire tenure (and was one of the factors that led to my retirement). But I think it really does improve the content dramatically. Ral315 (talk) 23:27, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Jarry, for performing the editorial work that you've done. I really enjoy the Signpost's "In the news" section, and read every one. And I really appreciate the people who produce the Signpost because, as a Wikipedian, I know the value and scarcity of good volunteer editing. So thanks very much. — ¾-10 02:35, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Raul, firstly, I should point out that Op-Eds are not editorials. Secondly, I feel your second paragraph conflicts with your first, although you may not see it that way. Your "favorite article" is exactly the sort of thing that the new Opinion desk would cover. The new desk allows, just as you did there, for more controversial subjects to be covered in an isolated setting where they do not conflict with the objectivity of the rest of the newsletter. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 19:29, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks for all you've done, Jarry, and thanks for introducing more focus on op-eds. Much more entertaining than the usual ArbCom report! /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:54, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'm happy to see an attempt to re-invigorate opinion pieces in The Signpost. I disagree with Ral315 about the Beeblebrox piece; it was a really valuable perspective to have, and not something that could be easily replicated outside of an opinion piece. What it did was shed light not just on the history of one particular debate, but also on what it's like to try to spearhead an important community debate toward a final decision. It was clearly marked as what it was, and readers are savvy about these things. As long as The Signpost isn't trying to use the approval or rejection of opinion pieces to push the agendas of the editors, I look forward to more pieces like that.--ragesoss (talk) 14:56, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

In the news: Wikipedia: yesterday's news? Calls for women, doctors, and scholars of humanities; Wales makes Wikimedia work "look easy" (12,287 bytes · 💬)

• In the News - and there's nothing about journalist Johann Hari and his so-called "apology" (more a non-apology) in a British national newspaper for his libellous and malicious sockpuppetting as User:David r from meth productions on Wikipedia, amongst other things? [1] [2] [3], [4], [5] and a thousand other blog posts about it. Seriously? What is going on here? Are you censoring because Wikipedia hasn't exactly covered itself in glory the way it has dealt (or rather, not dealt, over the last 6 years) with the whole thing?. This is a MASSIVE story in the UK and you ignore it? What's going on? I smell a rat. 86.133.208.203 (talk) 20:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

  No, we didn't deliberately not include it. I was fully aware of the story, blogged about it on my personal site, and should have covered it on Signpost. I was busier than usual at the weekend with the new university term starting and the usual family and work commitments so didn't have as much of a chance to write up stories for Signpost as I would usually like. On behalf of the regular Signpost editors, I apologise. If it is any consolation, we covered it in the In The News section when it first became public back in July and if there are any further developments (there is an active WP:SPI going on, for instance), we'll cover the results of that in future editions. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:17, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

  Indeed, I had meant to cover it too, but forgot in heat of the moment. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  Also, I think "MASSIVE" is overcooking it slightly. And besides, a lot of the aspects of the story were not to do with his Wikipedia editing. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

  Add me to the chorus of apologists and conspiracy-deniers; unfortunately, The Signpost is understaffed and too often working at the last minute to find and curate relevant content; stories do fall through the cracks. Please be assured we have every intention of covering the Hari story in next's week's issue. Skomorokh 16:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

• "more articles had been written about Antarctica (7,800) than any South American or African nation", according to the report, but this in fact refers to the number of articles with coordinates only. It makes sense that Antarctica would be overrepresented there, because there isn't much more than geographical features on Antarctica. Based on WikiProject counts, we actually have 21,317 articles on Brazil, 14,224 on Antarctica, 10,829 on South Africa, and (for comparison) 143,902 on the United States. I think the latter figure will exclude numerous articles tagged only for daughter projects of WikiProjects United States. Ucucha (talk) 21:39, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

  The point about the narrow scope of the survey is granted, but why would overrpresentation of the geographical features of Antarctica compared to those of Africa and South America not be considered problematic? Skomorokh 16:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

  The point I was trying to make is that articles about Antarctica are more likely to be about geographical features (and thus, to have coordinates), while articles about say Brazil are relatively more likely to be about culture or other subjects, which are less amenable to having coordinates. Thus, measuring how well a region is represented by the number of coordinates is likely to inflate representation of Antarctica. Ucucha (talk) 23:10, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

• I wish Sue would let up on the "gender gap" stuff. I feel that the past handling of this issue has harmed Wikipedia's reputation more than it's solved anything. Out of curiosity I just checked her account. In the English encyclopedia, she has less than 500 edits. Does participation at that level really give a person a sense of the culture of editing? Gaining a feeling for that, I think is crucial for the Foundation to make good decisions. Many of the issues that the Foundation is dealing with today — "gender gap" issue, declining editorship, "hostile environment" — really require an intimate feel for the community to judge their validity. This can only be gained by active participation. One thing I know is that non-editors have mentioned to me now that they've heard that Wikipedia is unpleasant for female editors. They obviously gained this idea though the media which was responding to statements released or managed by the Foundation. I see the "Wikipedia is anti-female" notion to be a total and complete myth with its origins in the misinterpretation of data. By not handling the gender disparity properly, the project has shot itself in the foot. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:40, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

And what is the proper way to handle the gender disparity? Danger (talk) 21:54, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It's simple. First double check to make sure no policies hinder female participation. They don't so that won't take long. Second make sure that there are policies against editors discriminating or harassing other editors. There are so that won't take long. Pretty much the buck ends there and the matter should no longer be considered a "problem". It's just a matter of who chooses to participate. Now since it is an admirable goal to increase female participation, it's worthwhile to do some directed marketing to women (and at the same time directed marketing to men). That's it. Any more time and effort spent on this issue is a giant waste of donated money. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:00, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Jason, in Sue's defence I would make the point that institutional culture depends on far, far more than formal rules and enforcement. It is an established fact that Wikipedia culture is less welcoming to females, and our explicit policies are one of the last things I would cite as a plausible contributory factor. The argument that "as long as we are being fair on paper gender disparity doesn't matter" is all well and good if you believe that neither the editing community nor the encyclopaedia suffer as a consequence and that there is no ethical imperative to proactively alter our culture to be de facto as well as de jure nondiscriminatory and welcoming. I don't think any of those propositions are defensible. Skomorokh 16:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I reject the claim that Wikpedia culture is less welcoming to females. And while I would say that Wikipedia is pretty much neutral in regards to gender, in some sense Wikipedia is more welcoming to females: Wikipedia has explicitly reached out to new female editors and made large gender-based changes while, as far as I know, there have been no efforts directed towards men. I'm not sure what you meant by "institutional culture" but I suppose what you mean is the same as what I would call "bureaucratic culture". This is when the amount of managerial work starts to increase relative to what is necessary. Here, significant effort has been put into a topic based on flawed thinking that more or less boils down the fallacy where it is assumed that because there's a gender disparity that means that the Wikipedia culture is hostile to women. The former does not imply the latter. It is is the same as saying "because there are fewer parents on Wikipedia, Wikipedia is has an anti-parent environment". An imbalance can exist even in a perfectly welcoming environment because there are other factors at work. In the case of parents, it's obvious: they are spending time raising their kids. In the case of the gender imbalance, it's not obvious what the factors are but it's completely possible that women aren't participating simply because they don't want to spend their free time editing Wikipedia. In fact, if the Foundation would listen to the women in the polls they do, time and time again women have expressed the idea that they don't edit because they feel like "they have more important things to do". This is what women have been saying and yet the feminist-mindset has people stick their fingers in their ears while saying that it has to be a hostile, anti-female culture. At some point, this view is as unscientific and unwarranted as any other idea whose basis is on emotion and not data. [In the interest of brevity, I will stop. There's extra complexity I'm ignoring between "internal" and "external" culture (to Wikipedia). The Foundation's role and ability to do something about each is different. A full discussion necessary has to explore that idea.]

I forgot to reply to one of your statements. I thinking saying the encyclopedia has "suffered" do to less female participation is overly dramatic. Information is a gender neutral concept so the bulk of the material shouldn't carry any hidden bias due to an imbalance in the sex of editors. Yes, there's a topic bias but the completeness of Wikipedia has really pushed "gender-related" topics to the fridges of notability anyhow. The "extra" coverage of what could be called male topics (e.g., mixed martial arts) is not a problem. The "missing" coverage of female topics is so minor that it's not worth getting worked up about. Plus, they'll get covered eventually anyhow. Lastly, I don't think efforts to force women to participate until a 50/50 ratio would have the slightest chance of succeeding; so eliminating this bias is a pipe dream.

• Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody is not a "book-length study of Wikipedia" (Wikipedia is only one of many examples covered, although an important one), and it does seem to be of the most influential books about Web 2.0. Lih's and Reagle's book on the other hand have surely seen lower sales than say Gladwell's, but then again their topic is much more specialized. (Btw, Reagle's book just became available online under CC-BY-NC! [6]) Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:19, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Thank you, that was a misstatement, now corrected. The point that Wikipedia-esque collaboration has failed to make comparable intellectual headway or capture public imagination in anything other than a superficial manner holds nevertheless. Skomorokh 16:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: Ushahidi research tool announced, Citizendium five years on: success or failure?, and Wikimedia DC officially recognised (3,831 bytes · 💬)

Another story about Citizendium? - Burpelson AFB ✈ 12:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and one where we cite Ciizendium citing Rationalwiki writing about Citizendium... Rich Farmbrough, 13:38, 20 September 2011 (UTC).

Hmm? That's only the ninth mention of Citizendium this year in The Signpost, and (I would say) the fourth story to give it more than a mere mention-in-passing; the last one of those was two months ago. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 16:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was a great story. I've wondered about Citizendium before, and now most of my questions have been answered. Their decline seems to be an exaggerated version of our own. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:12, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

"Wikipedians too have taken non-competitive perspectives on Citizendium, e.g. porting some of its content to Wikipedia" On the contrary, I've always thought of WP:CZPORT as a competitive initiative. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:08, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Citizendium publishing discussion

Do you find articles on Citizendium worthy of inclusion in the Singpost?

• I do. I think they're interesting, and I think Citizendium is an important project: at the very least, it's one that lessons on how to manage large websites and foster communities can be learned from. As such, I hope that the Signpost will continue to report on it. 82.83.130.105 (talk) 12:23, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
• [No.] Sven Manguard Wha? 10:01, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
• Most aren't. This one was, but only because it was Citizendium's 5th anniversary. Let's see how many issues of the Signpost we can go without another mention. -- llywrch (talk) 17:01, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
• The post needs content, so if someone is willing to write about something WP related, then it's a good thing. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 00:12, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
• One article every two months seems entirely appropriate to me. Citizendium is both interesting as a competitor and as an ally in the core mission of free information dissemination. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 11:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
• I'd like to encourage ongoing coverage of Citizendium. It has many of our aims and its good to be informed of the wider environment in which Wikipedia exists. --bodnotbod (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

---

• An obituary for Mr. Lemiszki appears at [7]. My condolences to his family. Carrite (talk) 21:31, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Indeed. I, and (I think) many Wikipedians feel likewise. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 11:24, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Popular pages: Article stats for the English Wikipedia in the last year (402 bytes · 💬)

• At least those who search for "wiki" when they're looking for Wikipedia would presumably know better after after reading the article. If they bother reading it. Reach Out to the Truth 20:32, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Sister projects: On the Wikinews fork (3,336 bytes · 💬)

I have had nothing but unpleasant expediences with TechEssentials, and find several members of their staff, including their leadership, both unethical and untrustworthy. I have witnessed firsthand several members of TE interfering in an ArbCom investigation, and been threatened by one of them over the IRC. While I wish OpenGlobe itself success, I find their choice of hosts to be distressing, and I personally will not create an OpenGlobe account because the thought of TE staff having access to my personal information would keep me up at night. Sven Manguard Wha? 09:09, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

It looks like OpenGlobe has followed Jimmy Wales advice in part. See: Wikipedia:Advertisements#Wikiversity, Wikinews, etc. as semi-for-profit Benefit Corporations using ads. I see that OpenGlobe has ads. I don't see a problem with that if OpenGlobe is either non-profit or a Benefit Corporation in structure. They now have the independence, and maybe the funds, to do some more things. --Timeshifter (talk) 09:51, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Just for the record: TechEssentials is currently an unregistered nonprofit organization. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 21:57, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

There is some discussion here:

http://theopenglobe.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page#OpenGlobe_organizational_structure --Timeshifter (talk) 06:41, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I tried to do an article on Wikinews once. It was there, and then it was gone. Not sure what happened, but I think they have rules kinda like DYK mixed with FA, which isn't easy for newbies. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:23, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps this needed to be done to draw attention to the sister projects. But Wikipedia has demonstrated that "only one will remain"; and a small project splitting just changes "tiny" to "invisible". I wish those project the best, but I will be surprised if they gain any significant amount of visibility on the web. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:38, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

There are some popular sites using MediaWiki software (the wiki software used by Wikipedia). Wikia is very popular. Wikitravel is doing alright. Also, WikiLeaks and WikiHow. See Category:MediaWiki websites. Few sites though, whether Mediawiki-based or not, will ever be as popular as Wikipedia. Wikipedia is one of the top ten sites on the web as far as page views are concerned. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:04, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: MediaWiki 1.18 deployment begins, the alleged "injustice" of WMF engineering policy, and Wikimedians warned of imminent fix to magic word (2,821 bytes · 💬)

• Things like GAN preloads will actually require human interaction now. →Στc. 03:44, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
• GNSM as an extension was hardly "essential" for Wikinews. (Don't get me wrong though, it certainly was nice). Prior to it being deployed to Wikinews, I bet less than 10% of Wikinewsies actually knew what it was let alone thought of it as a necessity. Well technical support for the sister projects could be better, it isn't horrible by any means (and if it is, people can always {{sofixit}} and all. you know, that whole open source thing). Bawolff (talk) 22:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

• I think that's the point...telling people to {{sofixit}} doesn't work when you still need developers to oversee the code to make sure it doesn't actually break the wiki. Even Wikipedia, as big as it is, has had similar problems with the developers before. NW (Talk) 01:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

• In fairness it's not just the small wikis that have had to wait years for bugs to be addressed. There is some conversation going on right now about the disjunction between the (developer/sysadmin) technical community, the WMF and the broader Wikimedia community. The main problem seems to be one of communication, with the three groups being unaware of what the other groups are doing. Compounding that, most of the more vociferous members of each community believe that they understand "pretty much" the area in which the others operate - and while this is true compared with "Jo Random", it is certainly does not appear to be the case, for example, that most of the board, contractors or full time developers are actively and extensively involved in project work. And of course those that "back in the day" were active admins, article writers, template wranglers, policy developers and gnomes (yes I mean they had all roles) naturally believe they understand the project, but things have changed so much in the last few years that many basic premises are outdated. And of course the same applies in reverse (although many Wikimedians are currently charitable trustees, software engineers, project mangers, researchers or lawyers for their day job). Rich Farmbrough, 17:07, 23 September 2011 (UTC).
  

WikiProject report: Back to school (1,971 bytes · 💬)

• A good article for a good project. I did want to add a bit more to my comments, but other things got in the way. Thank you to Kudpung for beefing up the interview. CT Cooper · talk 11:33, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
• @Mabeenot: @Kudpung: @CT Cooper: I have inserted a wiki-link to help those not familiar with the term AfD -- I hope this is OK? XOttawahitech (talk) 20:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure how many people are still reading this now. In any case, it's fine with me. CT Cooper · talk 23:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Hey CT Cooper, I don't know how many people actually read this feature lately, but I can see it has received 17 views in the last two days. XOttawahitech (talk) 03:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Interesting. That's higher than I would expect if I'm honest, but I suppose that the Singpost has such a distribution that even old interviews would still get a decent number of views. I did want to give longer answers to the interview but didn't have a chance due to my non-Wikipedia related commitments at the time, which was unfortunate, but at least what I did write is still being read. Perhaps a re-interview of the project within a few years would be good. CT Cooper · talk 16:35, 20 November 2013 (UTC)