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Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-09-10

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2012-09-10. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Discussion report: Closing Wikiquette; Image Filter; Education Program and Memento extensions (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-09-10/Discussion report

Featured content: Not a "Gangsta's Paradise", but still rappin' (588 bytes · 💬)

Looks like a damned good week for featured content. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:34, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

  • Agree. This month has been a heck of a month for FC. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:07, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

From the editor: Signpost adapts as news consumption changes (4,018 bytes · 💬)

Please add comments regarding an iOS Signpost app here! Please also note that a significant hurdle to this port is money, as registering an iOS app costs upward of a hundred U.S. dollars. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Even here in developing Southeat Asia, the number of iPad and iPhçne sales is phenominal. The global Apple computer user community has been shunned by Wiki developers for long enough - let the porting to IOS be a step in the right direction. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Apologies, I revised my comment above after you posted this, Kudpung. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the shoutout! I should also point to mw:User:Notnarayan, who designed the entire app and made it look slick. The source for the app is available on GitHub and is GPL'd, so contributions/bug reports welcome! YuviPanda (talk) 07:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and I added his name. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 13:11, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Where is the Signpost's RSS feed? I can't find any since wikipediasignpost.com died. The solution at http://webapps.stackexchange.com/q/30520 is not a good RSS feed (links to history page instead of content). I think a good RSS feed is more important than a dedicated app. RSS feeds can be used on any platform. Nicolas1981 (talk) 08:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm working on this. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 13:11, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
It would be trivial for me to setup a full text RSS/Atom feed for the Signpost. I can take a shot at it later tonight YuviPanda (talk) 14:02, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
And done! Atom feed of posts from last three issues up at signpost.yuvi.in/feed. Please file issues on GitHub (or poke my talk). Thanks! YuviPanda (talk) 16:18, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Reading this on my iPad. I'm logged in, but that's not unusual amount editors. I doubt I would see signposts in an app as being logged in I prompted by it's notification on my talk page. Wikipedia has a dire mobile interface on the iPad, instead it should just stick to the standard desktop as the iPad has a good screen resolution and shouldn't be treated like a 1990s mobile device. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 09:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I think we should have apps for iOS as well as Android. I do appreciate WMF focusing on the free(er) Android market first, and if releasing free iOS apps means giving $ to Apple, I suggest that the required funds be gathered on Kickstarter or such. Let those who choose the overpriced, freedom-limiting technology (i.e. bought an Apple product) pay for it themselves; I don't think that we should use our regular donation income to fund stuff for them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:14, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll note that this entire app was done with me and Notnarayan as volunteers - no WMF money was involved :) YuviPanda (talk) 15:23, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

In the media: Author criticizes Wikipedia article; Wales attacks UK government proposal (6,976 bytes · 💬)

  • So much to cover in this Signpost. First off, I think this is a pretty good Signpost article. It shows both sides evenly and gives links in every part so readers can go look up the information themselves. It doesn't appear that Roth ever stated the Tumin story anywhere else. This is especially evident in past interviews he's had, where he was asked where his inspiration came from and he merely said that it wasn't Broyard, but that he had no particular inspiration. SilverserenC 05:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • As for Shapps, you should probably note that the edits in question happened years ago. SilverserenC 05:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • And it'll be interesting how the admin activity rate compares after August, considering we had a lot of admins promoted, far more than we've been averaging for quite a while (more than 10!). SilverserenC 05:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Questions. With respect to " IP editor—claiming (truthfully). " What evidence establishes this as fact. The only competent evidence would be a confirmed (published) statement by the biographer, confirming that they are the IP. Although suppositions could be made, I don't see the direct evidence that the biographer did so. The IP did make the claim but has the biographer also confirmed? And if so, where? Thanks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I assumed that the IP's claims are true – it's hard to argue against when the timetable goes 1) IP makes claim 2) short amount of time passes 3) Roth's open letter talks about an interlocutor making edits on his behalf. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks. I was bold in editing, just now, to avoid assumption about living person. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The story is not quite right. The correspondence took place on UTRS - ticket #3217. I do not know if they are also an IP, the author's representative is certainly an account. Secretlondon (talk) 14:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I haven't seen that stated anywhere... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
      • What what do you expect me to say.. If you have access to UTRS you can check. UTRS correspondence is private. Secretlondon (talk) 19:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
        • Not exactly. UTRS is limited to administrators only because only administrator's can act on requests. We've discussed ways of making it more transparent. However, Ed, if you would like to create an account, as an administrator you certainly can and you can see the ticket. Short of that, we haven't come up with a better solution to making it more transparent.--v/r - TP 20:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
          • Well it would be inappropriate for me to post the contents of the ticket on the wiki. My reading of the privacy policy is that it makes the content of tickets exclusively for unblock purposes, and makes UTRS a bit of a walled garden. Obviously any admin with a UTRS account can see the ticket. Secretlondon (talk) 20:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
            • I read that as only requiring keeping the "private" "data" identified there (IP, email, etc) private. The written body of the two e-mails looks like it could be released. Even if any user names are also redacted, I think it would be a good idea to put the rest out there. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
              • This might be the wrong forum for this discussion. Perhaps the Village pump or WT:UTRS?--v/r - TP 20:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Roth story was covered in a rather anti-Wikipedia trollish way (IMHO) by Gizmodo here: http://gizmodo.com/5941460/how-philip-roth-outfoxed-wikipedias-idiotic-rules . --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Here's an ironic twist: Salon published an account of the controversy that was sympathetic to Philip Roth, apparently blithely unaware that it was their own critic Charles Taylor who came up with the "literary gossip" that Roth sought to remove. Dcoetzee 01:27, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • This is an evenhanded write-up of the Roth story, well done. As for Shapps, I looked into Shapps' edits to his own biography in a bit more detail, and reported my findings here, along with brief comments on some of the other recent news stories. JN466 14:20, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

News and notes: Researchers find that Simple English Wikipedia has "lost its focus" (14,553 bytes · 💬)

  • Is there no simple way for editors to find out how complex their writing is? Lotus Word Pro uses to have the means for doing this, but I don't know of any other word processors that can do it. Maybe we might have a gizmo as part of the edit page. Apwoolrich (talk) 08:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I had not read to the bottom of the article when writing the above! Apwoolrich (talk) 08:43, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • You definitely used to be able to do it using MS word too. I doubt they removed the functionality. Egg Centric 09:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • MSWord in Office 2011/Mac has a "Show readability statistics" option in the spelling/grammar preferences (results are displayed as part of the grammar-checker tool). DMacks (talk) 13:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The demo site is nice, but I think you're on the right track to suggest something easier to access from WP directly would be helpful. I checked a few of "my" articles and was shocked at how low the scores were. I'll definitely make a conscious effort to check the readability of my contributions in the future. Matt Deres (talk) 10:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I find the Readability Calculator at online-utility.org (recommended at Simple Wikipedia) to be a big help and gives other readability indices in addition to Flesch. It even tells you which sentences particularly require improvement. Having said that, writing "simply" is fiendishly difficult. I've written a few articles at Simple Wikipedia and really struggle to get the Flesch above 65%. This one has a Flesch of 79 and it took a lot of work to get it there. Voceditenore (talk) 13:12, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • A grade school primer ("Dick can run. Jane can run, too. See Dick and Jane run!") scores very high in "readability," but an encyclopedia written thus would sound idiotic. How do the scholarly encyclopedia Britannica and the children's encyclopedia Worldbook score? Edison (talk) 14:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I editted Simple English Wikipedia for a couple of years, and drop back occasionally. There are several ongoing problems:
There is a recommended word list. The words on the list were devised by someone who thought they knew what words people really needed. Not all the words on the list are "easy", and not all are "essential". In fact, many of the words that are absolutely essential for encyclopedic writing, are left out. I did make up a list, but don't have it to hand.
To write successful Simple English, one needs to have a very good grasp of the language. One needs to have the flexibility to reduce complex ideas to simple language. Basically, to do it well one needs to have experience in writing for children or for people who are learning English.
Some people who author those pages have limited language skills. Some of them with whom I have communicated have seen themselves as well suited for the purpose for the very reason that they had limited English language.
Having a background in teaching, and specifically in writing educational material for a museum, I know that this isn't the case.
Clarity, in simple words, is not easy to achieve. This is demonstrated by the fact that Simple Wiki editors sometimes string together a dozen one-syllable words in a non-grammatical way, just to avoid using one three-or four-syllable word correctly.
Among the requirements for writing good simple English articles are:
Deciding what vocabulary is essential for an article. This needs determining for every main subject area, and sometimes every individual topic. It may include some complex words that need to be explained within the context of the article itself.
Thinking around subjects for the easiest way to express them. The easy way doesn't always comply with the MOS of English Wikipedia.
I believe that Simple English Wikipedia could be very useful, if well done. But, unfortunately, the way to get it well done, is to get it done by experts.
And that defeats the purpose of Wikipedia. What we need is teamwork, because the people who have the knowledge, the people who are prepared to research to subjects, and the people who are good at writing simple, readable language are not always the same people.
Amandajm (talk) 15:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
An excellent analysis, Amandajm! Re Edison's query about how WP compares to children's encyclopedias. Britannica has the first paragraphs of entries in its Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 6-10) online. I compared the Flesch scores for "Navy" and "Frog" with the equivalent number of sentences from the first paragraphs in the Wikipedia and Simple English Wikipedia articles:
Navy
Children's Britannica = 79
Simple English Wikipedia = 76
Wikipedia = 18 (!!!)
Frog
Children's Britannica = 93
Simple English Wikipedia = 63
Wikipedia = 51
– Voceditenore (talk) 16:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I will have to pay attention to this as well (and, thank you for bringing this to my attention): I plugged in six lengthy passages of personal writing (some used on Wikipedia, some not, although my style is similar in both), and came back with Flesch Reading Ease scores between 7.09 [edit: 1.33 for a page out of my thesis - it doesn't get any worse than that!] and 27.28 - but I have always believed my writing was clear and understandable! My scores on the other metrics were equally abysmal, the worst being a 29.68 on the Gunning Fog index (that's, according to Wikipedia, "post-post-post-post-post-doctoral"); a 16.03 on the Coleman-Liau; a 24.48 on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level; a 28.45 on the Automated Readability index; and a 21.11 on the SMOG index (oddly enough for numerologists, another piece of my writing was a 17.77). I plugged in some of Gibbon's Decline and Fall and it scored marginally better than my average. I take it from the above comments that these are abysmally abysmal scores, and that my writings is essentially nonsensical to a large segment of the population. Any tips or suggestions on how to bring my writing in to, at the least, the Flesch Reading Ease 50-60 level? I tried explaining some difficult philosophical and theological concepts in simple terms and scored equally poorly, although I managed to get a 48.21 writing about the Fall of Constantinople. St John Chrysostom Δόξατω Θεώ 21:06, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
While I don't question the conclusion per se, the use of such a primitive metric is suspect. You can't measure how clear or accessible a piece is by sentence and syllable counts, but the difference to the reader is enormous. Simple routinely defines big words and then uses them repeatedly - this inflates the metric but doesn't pose any serious conceptual challenge to the reader. That said, Simple does need help with expansion and simplifying in a lot of areas if it is to keep growing while achieving its goal, rather than turning into an awkward subset of En. Dcoetzee 21:22, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 18#Suggestion: readability test(s) for Wikipedia articles (January 2008).
—Wavelength (talk) 21:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • To move away from the feature, I would advise users to go and have a look at the submissions for the new main page. I was pleasantly surprised, when I reviewed the submissions, due to a particular standout revision of the main page that caught my eye. --Izno (talk) 23:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • This comment copied from SEWP. This is what I like to call a typical "So what?" research article. The data is freely available, and the tools to generate some numbers are easy to use. But, so what? What is the actual relationship between Flesch Reading Ease and readability? They fail to demonstrate that, so the numbers don't mean anything to actual readers. Quote: "the whole concept of readability cannot be covered". Then don't present this as having anything to do with serving readers.
Plus, their methodology is pretty weak. They remove all of the headings and incomplete sentences. Yet, any editor knows that good use of headings and image captions can make a text much easier to understand. But, if they don't do that, their handy, convenient measurement won't work. Pretty poor. Also, it would have been reasonable to exclude every article on SEWP that is tagged complex from the sample. The community has marked these specifically for readers as not simple. These articles are basically placeholder texts there to be simplified. How about vocabulary frequency (common or uncommon vocabulary) and vocabulary recycling (how aften a word occurs in the text)? I could go on, but I won't.
Finally, they seem to be unaware of newer, more sophisticated tools like Coh-Metrix that go some way towards identifying writing qualities and measuring things like coherence and cohesion that are critical to ease of understanding. Gotanda (talk) 05:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't disagree with you, especially being the author of a very similar paper which is released earlier, and yet covering the same topic more in details and trying to provide some deeper understanding of the phenomenon, instead of just reporting some numbers. 130.233.245.45 (talk) 11:42, 19 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Simple English Wikipedia has a page 'Textual difficulty' Simple:Textual difficulty which explains some of the basics. The Flesch formula has been extensively researched, far more than any other readability formula, and I can provide references to substantiate this. However, I want to make a more important point.
These formulae were all developed for, and tested on, readers of printed material. Our material is a hypertext (obviously), and this has consequences. In particular, links and wiktionary give ways for readers to check immediately the meaning of words they do not know. In practice, well-constructed Simple pages give the reader these facilities. Therefore, the readability scores are universally overestimating difficulty. On the other hand, printed text in the form of a book is still outstanding in legibility and searchability.
To do better, what we really need is research on people: how our readers actually use our system. In detail, how they find out the answers to questions or topics they wish to know about, how they deal with problems, what their reading ability is, and so on. Who needs to know that some of our articles are terrrible? Of course there are. But the system is self-improving, and I can think of many pages which are far better than they were. This is another of the fundamental issues which get ignored by outsiders looking in. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:02, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
you definitely can't easily go from en:wp to Simple. There are many rules, like don't use "phrasal verbs". It would take me a long time to figure out what's ok there. And they're not so concerned with sourcing, in my experience. It's definitely a different culture. As far as how useful it is, I don't know. Are there measure of page views and such? MathewTownsend (talk) 00:49, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Re Hypertext

The comment in the project page about hypertext making Simple English Wik easier than the scores indicate needs qualification. First, many of us in less-developed countries do not have fast computers. This means that linking to hyertexts is often eschewed or, if done, breaks the train of thought. Understanding a sentence entails comprehending its entirety. When one goes to a reference and then returns, the train of thought is disturbed. Try this in a language that you barely know to get the feel of such action. You will also see that the slow pace raises your affective barrier. Another problem with hypertext is that the explanations are often not much direct help: either they are so long that a low-level reader (or a person not conversant in the field under consideration) totally gets lost or confused. To see what I mean here, look at almost any article on a technical or even somewhat technical subject in Wik/Eng (e.g., arithmetic): more than likely, you will stumbling through one definition after another trying to get some sort or understanding. This is in part because Wik is a hypertext text with no hierarchy of definitions, unlike, say, a standard text (in, e.g., mathematics), which usually has monothetic definitions. another problem with Wik hypertextualization is that the blue text (along with other font variations) adds a factor of "difficultization" not considered in Flesch. Kdammers (talk) 04:41, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Op-ed: Fixing Wikipedia's help pages one key to editor retention (10,192 bytes · 💬)

  • THANK YOU for taking on Help:Contents !, Not too long ago, I had to mention something similar in this discussion. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • At the risk of confusing new editors with a plethora of alternative options, more could be made of the {{Help me}} template. By using it, new editor can ask for help on their own talk pages, without having to worry about whether they're asking the right person. It could perhaps be improved by putting a "request help" link in, say, the toolbar. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes I do like the idea behind that template. We asked about it in the survey but not enough people had used it to get a fair rating of how well it works. So it would definitely be nice to promote it better in the redesign. Perhaps (thinking out loud here) we could make it easier to add as well by using a link that preloads the template onto the users talk page and they just need to add their question. the wub "?!" 17:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
      • How about adding a "get help now" link, letting the user type their question, and adding the question in a help me template on their talkpage, telling the user they will be notified of new answers on their talkpage, and will know when the answer is provided when they get the Orange Bar? While the help pages are badly organised (and need love too), we do excel at providing personal help, as long as we can reach the editor. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 20:33, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Is the Help:Getting started page ready for use as a welcome? Looks great and I'm eager to use it but I don't want to jump the gun.```Buster Seven Talk 08:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Absolutely, you can start using it now. the wub "?!" 17:53, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Thanks wub. Is there a template? I just copy/pasted the first batch but would prefer a template. ```Buster Seven Talk 21:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • This has been true from day one, so kudos here for the effort to fix! Learning wiki is a nightmare. However, the biggest problem to editor retention is the way people are treated.PumpkinSky talk 09:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Last year I tried to reorientate Help Contents towards readers and new editors. No, I was told, there are already planty of pages for babysitting the noobs; this page should be about quick access to more advanced topics for editors who already understand the basics. Perhaps I should have been more stubborn but I gave up. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I sympathise. It's true that the more advanced topics ought to be findable too, but that shouldn't get in the way of helping readers and new users to the extent it is at the moment. the wub "?!" 17:53, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • It's a nice initiative, but I think WMF should shell out some funding for dedicated developers on this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:18, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • What kind of development work would you like to see around help? Personally I like the idea of adding more help within the software, though to an extent that can be done by volunteers using MediaWiki messages. It's something I'm planning to investigate more after my fellowship ends. the wub "?!" 17:53, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
      • Simply put, while WMF does not pay for editing content pages, I think it should pay for editing (improving) help pages; this would result in them being improved much faster. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:55, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
        • A design which grants good user experience may not be something which crowdsourcing necessarily produces. The image in this article mapping the help pages just seems like something that, for example, Apple would never allow iPhone applications to do. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:37, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • There is little question on that we can and should improve our help. As a semi regular helper on IRC, I also notice that help with references and images often comes up. I find however that in general, the problem tends to be the actual processes. In case of images, by far the most asked question is 'how do I add this image of a company logo?' The answer is very complicated, because the process is quite complicated. (download file, upload if autoconfirmed, use requested upload if not, provide copyright information, provide fair use rationale, provide trademark information). The general response is 'cant I just link to the thing?'. No amount or quality of help pages will ever change the answer to yes. This will always leave the asker less satisfied. For references the same thing goes. It just is (currently) that complicated. 62.140.137.140 (talk) 16:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes this is true. There have been some moves forward (specifically the File Upload Wizard and the enabling of RefToolbar for everyone) but many of our processes remain extremely long-winded and hard to explain to a newbie. the wub "?!" 17:53, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • It's quite true that new editors and experienced editors have very different needs, and that experienced editors often "add[] links on their own userpage when they find useful pages, building their own navigation system, so that they don't lose the useful page." That's why I created the Editor's Index to Wikipedia - so that experienced editors had an alternative to building their own navigation system. I hope it is made clear to experienced editors, in any reworking of the help pages, that this resource exists. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I am so glad to hear that the Help Pages issue is being examined! :) For several years I have felt that the majority of our so-called help pages are a serious embarrassment. I have felt it necessary to tell newbies basically to avoid our help pages, except for Article Wizard and Upload Wizard. I would be very glad if the whole system could be overhauled and streamlined. Perhaps we can do something like having separate "easy" versions for newbies and "advanced" versions for the experienced editors. Invertzoo (talk) 00:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Excellent news, a major overhaul has been LONG overdue, good luck with the task Peter. From my very 1st involvement here in 2005 I have avoided the "help pages" like the plague, they just became the "unhelpful pages" and a massive time sink, mainly due to poor coordination, non existent structure of web site page hierarchy and consequent ineffective and non functional navigation for new (and other) users. My thoughts are; 1) get the navigation issues sorted out first; 2) Tidy up, the documentation, merging and simplifying where needed and also expanding where needed. Just some thoughts. Good luck with the project. --Cactus.man ✍ 18:32, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • In addition to consolidating and rewriting help pages, I think more images and even videos would be extremely helpful for new users. I'm frequently surprised that, for example, a help page on a Wikipedia gadget does not have an image of how it looks like and what it does. 155.201.35.58 (talk) 20:26, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Another fan of videos here! I found the videos at the Bookshelf for Beginner Wikipedians especially helpful, but it took me a long, long time before I could find them again, since they're on Outreach Wiki.Djembayz (talk) 12:55, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Special report: Lawsuit filed against two Wikipedians (12,470 bytes · 💬)

  • You know, this just reinforces my belief that companies these days are either unable or unwilling to accept the fact the Internet has fundamentally altered the economical reality of this day and age by proving that a beta form of "enlighten socialism" can in fact exist in this day and age. Companies across the world need to accept that for the first time in history humanity need not pay for information, goods, services, or other material that can be freely acquired on the internet. The fact that companies would sue simply to retain their misconceived and now obsolete economic ideologues demonstrates to me that these people can not be trusted with the future that our generation is building. TomStar81 (Talk) 06:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • What a sad commentary of the times, and I am very glad to see that Wikipedia is supporting these two volunteers. It's a sad state of affairs when one gets sued for trying to help mediate in a Wikipedia discussion, which in my opinion is generally a thankless activity anyway, somewhat akin to getting on your knees and scrubbing out the toilets. Jane (talk) 08:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Wow, a business trying to keep your volunteers by legal coercion. I'm sure that will go down well with their volunteers. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • I think it's reasonably clear to IB that Wikitravel is a lost cause; the purpose appears to be to intimidate volunteers on their other sites from daring to do the same - David Gerard (talk) 12:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Suing your volunteers will scare off most current and potential volunteers. Yaris678 (talk) 11:49, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oops, I always had the idea that volunteering was voluntary! The Banner talk 11:52, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The headline is too sensational. The volunteer has not even been served. And there will be a long time and many hurdles before any "trial." "Sued" yes, "facing trial", no. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • That's odd: the title of the summons is "Internet Brands, Inc. ..., plaintiff v. William Ryan Holliday, ... and James Heilman, inclusive, defendants." And see "JURY DEMAND" after paragraph 58: "Plaintiffs request a jury trial on all claims so triable." And Paragraphs 3(a) and (c) on p. 9 both refer to "trial". The title of this article is framed "set to face", not "face". Tony (talk) 14:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Nope, I think you're off base here, Tony... One is not "set to face trial" if one has not even been served papers... One is "set to face trial" as soon as a court date for a trial is set... "Wikipedia volunteers face potential trial" is about as far as I'd go. Carrite (talk) 17:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
I've been bold and modified the title to indicate that there is some uncertainty here, as opposed (as the headline implied) that a trial date had been firmly set. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
It was reverted by Tony, but I agree that the title is misleading. My impression from the title was that the trial date was already set. This should be retitled "Wikipedia volunteers sued", which is entirely factual and not subject to misinterpretation. —howcheng {chat} 17:47, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
And re-reverted. The title is set on more than a thousand talk pages. And I disagree with the arguments here. Tony (talk) 22:55, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Tony, you're outnumbered 5 to 1 on the title. —howcheng {chat} 02:11, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The deeper underlying issues here is about collaborative communities.
Communities like those writing Wikimedia and Wikitravel are purely members of the public. They write content in the same way they go to a local jazz or story-writing club. They are bound to the websites as much as a group of individuals is bound to stay with a club venue it habitually visits (ie not at all).
  • They have the right to decide individually or en masse that they don't like how a club is changing, or to decide to explore going to another club instead.
  • They have the right to have other people suggest other clubs to them or demonstrate that their wishes for a club are better met with another club than their present one.
  • It is allowed whether or not the "others" are affiliated with or socially members of another club.
  • It is allowed commercially in a free market (eg, when a telesales person suggests to many people they change car insurers or a business targets a competitor with an offer) although this is not the situation here. It is not "interference" to compete or be able to meet someone's needs better when they are dissatisfied. It is normal social activity and commercial activity to do so.
  • Either way it is very clearly allowed.
So the issue here is that many members of the public writing Wikitravel content wish, for whatever reasons, to consider moving their "writing club" elsewhere.
  1. They have the absolute right to do so.
  2. They have the absolute right to discuss such a move as members of the public with a common social activity, and no legal obligation not to.
  3. They have the absolute right to have other sources of hosting and services liaise, open dialog, or respond to dialog with them, much as if a new club venue is considered.
  4. And, because their entire writings to date are CC-by-SA, they have the absolute right to export the existing text if done correctly - which was never IB property.
FT2 (Talk | email) 18:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm with all of the above. Internet-age bourgeois Hitlers... Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty | Averted crashes 18:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately the state of the law is such that one cannot compel any distributor of content to continue to distribute it, even if it is to facilitate migration to a new site. This is why it is critically essential for backups of the entire state of a site to be continually created and archived in a peer-to-peer fashion by its members, or by a trusted third party like Internet Archive. If dumps or an API aren't provided, then web scraping can be developed. Some content distributors attempt to quash such attempts at preservation in their terms of service by failing to provide dumps and disallowing web scraping, etc. - any such distributor should be quickly abandoned in favor of one that provides positive migration rights. I'm only too familiar with this from my experience with TV Tropes, which had no qualms about killing entire sections of their site just to make their ad sponsors happy, with no warning (see TV Tropes deletes every rape trope; Geek Feminism wiki steps in). I believe WMF has clauses in its terms of service relating to smooth migration in the event of a shutdown (someone fact check this?), but not all providers are so generous. Dcoetzee 20:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Hasn't that been reversed, Dcoetzee? --Orange Mike | Talk 14:00, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • It is disappointing that Wikipedia and Wikitravel didn't try to work out a way to synchronize their Wikis so that the two sites could function in unison, which would have been an opportunity to expand the functionality of Wiki software. I suspect there are niches for private companies in Wiki content generation - for example, professional administration, paid positions to handle backlogged tasks, smart and safe handling of ads carefully solicited to add value to entries. But when this company claims that people contributing their content under a CC license are in fact assets, property of the site owner, and that the right of people to speak with them can be legally circumscribed - that is far beyond the pale. Wnt (talk) 02:21, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Internet Brands wouldn't be interested in such a scheme: they are—like patent trolls—a non-practicing entity; doing little to develop the intellectual property they bought, only collecting the advertising revenues. Their downfall will fortunately be that they only own the Wikitravel trademark and not its community or content. —Ruud 17:29, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree with the comments above that it might be best for the headline ("set to face jury trial") to be rephrased. There are many possible scenarios, such as IB's case being dismissed on a motion to dismiss or on summary judgment, in which the case would not go to trial. Without getting into the merits of this specific case, as a general statement, only a small fraction of all civil cases filed in American courts actually wind up going to trial. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Regardless of the outcome I would imagine Wikitravel can wave bye-bye to their volunteer base, and with it their advertising revenues. Rich Farmbrough, 23:51, 13 September 2012 (UTC).
  • I'd like to point out that while the title was inaccurate (better now!), the article itself was very good. And I'll ditto everyone else on the "WMF's involvement here is a good idea." --Philosopher Let us reason together. 06:36, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Comments.
  • I don't agree with the arguments concerning the original title of the piece, but I'm not going to argue further and have changed the title in accordance with the objections.
  • We might consider avoiding bad grace about the company (which made a business error in purchasing a trademark almost entirely reliant for its profitability on content it didn't and can't purchase). One might hope that the company affords the community and the foundation the good grace we might show it. More importantly, we need to encourage support for the two editors who've been caught up in this unpleasant scenario.
  • On a positive note, we need to start thinking as individuals about the challenges of starting the new sister project, which will stimulate our best minds. If it's done well, it could be a great service to the global public and could set new standards for travel information. I can think of a number of policies and guidelines that might need to be adapted for the specific environment of an educational travel wiki; in particular, how to deal with product placement will be an issue.
  • A lot of Wikimedians will be delighted to see the board's strong support for both the new site and our two colleagues. Tony (talk) 07:57, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Technology report: Mmmm, milkshake... (4,457 bytes · 💬)

Accessibility

The poll results diagram is inaccessible to many who are colour blind, because it uses colour alone to distinguish between sections (contrary to MOS:COLOUR). The problem can be simply remedied, by adding the relevant figures to the lower, text, part of the diagram.

It also requires an alt attribute, containing all the text in the image. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I wonder why no-one's mentioned this before? Perhaps colour-blind users interested in the poll results simply click through to see the numerical listings on the file description page? - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 11:18, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Or they might just get used to nobody considering their difficulties, lose interest, and move on to another page. While we're on the subject, the poll results are completely opaque to anyone using a screen reader as well. It just needs the Description from the image page to be used as a caption and you'd make it accessible for both colour blind and screenreaders. --RexxS (talk) 00:18, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Are there good policies anywhere on best practices for editing with consideration for readers with disabilities? Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:39, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility is a reasonable starting point (it's a guideline, of course). --RexxS (talk) 13:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

MediaWikiWidgets.org section

I think this "in brief" section could use some rewriting. The "widgets system" is actually the Widgets extension, and it's not used for displaying GUI widgets, but rather, for the most part, for embedding functionality from 3rd-party services like YouTube, Disqus, etc. Also, I don't know where "it garners little but disdain from a significant percentage of mainstream developers" came from - as far as I know, only two volunteer developers said anything bad about that extension on the mailing list discussion; I'm not sure that most core MediaWiki developers are even aware of its existence, let alone have an opinion on it.

The title of the section is spot-on, though. Yaron K. (talk) 12:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

(I would describe an embedding of an external service like DisQus as a widget? Perhaps the linked article needs generalisation) Yeah, I probably overstretched slightly on the "disdain" point -- the word is a little strong -- although one suspects that a significant proportion of developers used to writing in PHP (say) would be in general unhappy with the implementation of widgets, in the same way that they are unhappy when forced to write in wikitext {{ notation. - Jarry1250 [Deliberation needed] 20:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
What do you mean, "probably overstretched slightly"? As far as I can tell, you made a statement based on no evidence. Yaron K. (talk) 20:51, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Skyscraper sidebox

Jarry, is it possible to give more width to the sidebox? You're probably editing on a relatively wide window; at smaller widths, even half of my 27" monitor, the "In August 2012" info is down to three words a line in some cases. There's a column of white space between the bullets and the left-side edge of the main text, below the quote mark and the "In". It's no big deal, but if horizontal width is easily expandable, it might be considered. Tony (talk) 14:51, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject report: WikiProject Fungi (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-09-10/WikiProject report


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