Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2023-07-03

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-07-03. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Disinformation report: Imploded submersible outfit foiled trying to sing own praises on Wikipedia (2,905 bytes · 💬)

Nearly no other wiki task gives me more joy that cutting out marketing and PR nonsense, even when it isn't brazenly copied straight from the source. Thankfully, I think many Wikipedians feel the same way. ASUKITE 11:17, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

• I admit I didn't follow the news closely when they first came out, but to me, this is just an example of how dangerous disinformation can be at its worst... --Oltrepier (talk) 13:29, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
• The phrase "suspected OceanGate employees inserted text directly from OceanGate's website more than eight times" makes no sense. Why would any Wikipedia editor be concerned about what company employees are adding to the company website? Is it possible that the Signpost editor reviewing this piece should have changed that to "OceanGate's Wikipedia article" instead?~TPW 13:58, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  "inserted text directly from OceanGate's website" reads "they inserted it into WP" to me. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:33, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

  • Or starting with the previous sentence "Oceangate began a series of advertisements on Wikipedia a month later....suspected OceanGate employees inserted text directly from OceanGate's website more than eight times." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:58, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

This pretty much sums it up: "..there were not enough editors working on the article with enough time to complete the task.." We can only do what we can do. A lot of stuff flies under the radar and, like Diaana's following up on a problematic editor, articles full of paid promotional content are often found only by chance. One that I found TITANIIC (since AfD'd) had apparently been written by a paid project staff member. It went undetected for at least two years. Blue Riband► 00:49, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Kleuske

Kleuske is female so don’t refer to her as “he”. 2A02:A46A:2C29:1:E0BF:6986:A20:50B5 (talk) 07:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:09, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Humour: United Nations dispatches peacekeeping force to Wikipedia policy discussions (2,928 bytes · 💬)

It's the funniest thing I've read in quite a while. 😂 —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 19:25, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, on rare occasions I do wish Wikipedia had emoji buttons. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:28, 6 July 2023 (UTC) (•‿•)

Emoji added. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 20:01, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, 👍 xD —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 21:57, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Absolutely brilliant and hysterical. Oh what a wonderful laugh. Well done!! — Maile (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

• Very funny on several levels. Thanks for the laugh out loud article. WomenArtistUpdates (talk) 20:56, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Among the the "People's Front of Wikipedia", the "Peoples' Front of Wikipedia" and so on, surely there's also the various factions of the Wikipedian Peoples' Front. As for the ongoing skirmishes between the En–Dash Liberation Army and the Hyphens-are-Fine Coalition, don't forget that the closer political or religious or sport or other groups are to one another, the more deadly enemies they are to one another. The En–Dash Liberation Army and Em—Dash Liberation Army are examples of particularly close enemies. Indeed sometimes there is really no difference and yet the opposing sides will still fight with one another. Philh-591 (talk) 19:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Concern

As a proud member of the People's Front of Wikipedia, I fear this would disrupt our attempt to coup ArbCom. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 04:23, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

In the media: Journo proposes mass Wiki dox, sponsored articles on Fandom, Section 230 discussed (9,936 bytes · 💬)

To move Forward we must name names?

The Signpost takes no position on the Holocaust in Poland dispute Um, no, you deliberately and controversially took a position on the dispute while the case was ongoing at arbcom. 72.213.11.193 (talk) 13:55, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

• Like many disgruntled ex-editors, the Forward piece's author notes that Wikipedia was edited to include several pieces of disinformation in his area of expertise. This is a well-known problem. What he doesn't note is that all of the misinformation was shortly thereafter fixed, and none of his listed examples survive on the encyclopedia today. —Ganesha811 (talk) 14:30, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Shira Klien has an article dated: 14 June 2023 in the same magazine: The shocking truth about Wikipedia’s Holocaust disinformation. In it she states:"Wikipedia’s structure leaves it vulnerable to be exploited by any small group of people willing to spend the time to control the content, whether they are from a government or a corporation or are simply ideologically driven private individuals". It not the fact the misinformation was fixed in those listed examples. The problem is that it is happening at every level and every process and we no way of addressing it except with the people we have and the tools we have. And that is no longer enough and hasn't been for a long time. The scope of the problem is enormous. The arbcom decision at best is a plaster, for that area only. scope_creep^Talk 15:08, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

  Just a quick note to say that Shira's article was covered in the previous Signpost issue. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2023-06-19/In_the_media. Regards, Andreas JN466 16:03, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

• I'd like to see a source afffirming that "checking the references for an encyclopedia article is a standard component of scholarship." Encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, are tertiary sources, and while I'm not an expert on the editorial practices used in encyclopedias generally, I am fairly certain that for this encyclopedia we are encouraged to use secondary sources.~TPW 14:04, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
• This is a needlessly inflammatory headline.
  [T]hey can start by requiring everyone, occasional contributors and arbitration committee members alike, to use their real names, period is NOT doxxing, which OED defines as [T]o search for and publish private or identifying information about (an individual) on the internet, typically with malicious intent. Washington suggested (IMO, flawed and even ridiculous) a policy change that will convert Wikipedia to Citizendium; he did not suggest that internet-sleuths publish PID about current the crop of editors and arbitrators.TrangaBellam (talk) 22:04, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

What happens when adverts are allowed

On the Grimace Shake article: There's no reason to suppose that the author of that article, Arconning, has a COI regarding McDonald's, but its existence demonstrates a problem Wikipedia has with playing into the hands of commercial interests. We live in a world where TikTok memes get write-ups in The New York Times and USA Today, so any big viral marketing campaign is going to result in a Wikipedia article. Such articles might be merged or deleted further down the line, when editors can demonstrate a lack of sustained coverage, but by then the companies have already made their profits.

The Grimace Shake is currently on track for a Main Page appearance (see DYK nomination). Whether or not this will make any difference to McDonald's bottom line, I don't know, but it's certainly not a good look for us. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 20:06, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Cannot really understand the long-term significance of such articles which appear to be heavy on trivia. I understand articles on widespread "memes" but on corporate fads and temporary trends not so much where WP:TENYEARS should apply. The distinction between Fandom and Wikipedia as an encyclopedia becomes blurred. Gotitbro (talk) 00:16, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with @Sojourner in the earth: (btw, any relation to Giants in the earth?) - there is no special reason to think that the article was created as an advertisement, but the effect of putting it on Wikipedia is the same. McDonald's gets free publicity. And ultimately we know the source of the article - from the McDonald's PR campaign. Under WP:What Wikipedia is not, "Editors are encouraged to ... develop stand-alone articles on significant current events," but not on insignificant current events or routine events. I'm not sure the ad campaign even reaches the level of "insignificant" or "routine". It doesn't have any permanent notability. Nobody will remember it 2 weeks after the campaign ends, certainly not in 10 or 20 years. BTW WP:NOT is a policy, that trumps the guideline WP:Notability. If an event doesn't pass WP:NOT, it doesn't pass WP:Notability. Thus I've objected to the DYK and put a "Recentism" template on the article. Likely, I'll follow up with an AfD when I have the time. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:00, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem with this approach is that is that it can be used to give real teeth to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Don't like articles on mass shooting in the US? Delete them under WP:NOT! No need to demonstrate SIGCOV, RS or any of that sort of thing. Just vote to delete! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:14, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually WP:NOT covers this "Editors are encouraged to include current and up-to-date information within its coverage, and to develop stand-alone articles on significant current events." But this just isn't a significant event. The problem is that McDonald's running adverts is simply not anything beyond the routine everyday day events that nobody is interested two weeks after they are over. WP:NOT also covers this under WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:15, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

In general, it has been my experience that, in any situation where there is more than one wiki on a given subject matter, the one that isn't a Fandom wiki invariably has a better user experience. Even when I use an ad-blocker, I still see a ton of links alongside and below the main content, all of which point to random nonsense that has little to do with the page I'm currently reading. It's as if somebody saw Wikipedia's See also and external links sections, built an algorithm to make a larger and less useful equivalent for Fandom pages, and then proceeded to saturate all of the unused pixels with it. The only benefit Fandom provides to its users is free hosting, and at this point, I cannot possibly believe that it's worth it, given current hosting prices from other, less opinionated web hosts. An independently hosted wiki probably would have told McDonald's to take a long walk on a short pier, if they even received such an absurd request in the first place. In short, I find it difficult to care what nonsense Fandom is doing this week. I wrote them off five years ago. --NYKevin 08:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Other

• Not in this weeks report, but this one just in yesterday, from Palmer Report: Many of you are aware that a rogue anonymous Wikipedia editor added the words “liberal fake news website” to the very first sentence of Palmer Report’s Wikipedia page several years ago, and since been blocking all other Wikipedia editors from removing this absurd and libelous claim. Enjoy. And don't miss the comment section. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:52, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Hakuna Matata and Wiki donations

Why does this story claim that only the abstract and the Georgia Tech announcement are currently available? According to both [1] and [2], the full paper was already published on June 6. Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:18, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Traffic report: Are you afraid of spiders? Arnold? The Idol? ChatGPT? (759 bytes · 💬)

Re: Juneteenth -- The governor of Texas in 1938 issued a proclamation of recognition, but no governor of Texas had anything to do with the initial 1865 declaration. AnonMoos (talk) 22:37, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

• It took a submersible implosion for Chat GPT to be finally out of the top 10 list. After all, they share the same audience, don't they? —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 19:29, 4 July 2023 (UTC)