Jump to content

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2023-01-16

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-01-16. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Featured content: Flip your lid (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-01-16/Featured content

From the archives: Five, ten, and fifteen years ago (1,173 bytes · 💬)

Lua

Could we use Lua to make filling out forms for our featured content candidates easier by, for example, letting people choose which category they want to file the featured content into from a list before starting the nomination? No, probably not. Lua in Scribunto runs during the parsing of the page, it doesn't have any way to interact with the reader. For that sort of thing you'd probably want JavaScript running in the browser. If you really wanted to use Scribunto for it, you'd probably have to have something like 

{{subst:Choose featured content category|
<!-- Change "[ ]" to "[x]" for the category you want to select. -->
[ ] Category 1
[ ] Category 2
[ ] etc...
}}

in the edit box and then deal with all the myriad ways someone could manage to screw up that formatting. Or you'd need an entirely different extension that uses Lua in a different manner than Scribunto does. Anomie⚔ 14:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

From the team: We heard zoomers liked fortnights: the biweekly Signpost rides again (5,985 bytes · 💬)

  • Thank you for doing biweekly! The Signpost makes my day! Lectrician1 (talk) 02:19, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Surprised_pikachu_meme.png is appropriate when I saw the mass message in my Talk page. Too used to monthly release. But this is a welcomed change. Hope that there is sufficient content in the pipeline to sustain the biweekly cadence! – robertsky (talk) 02:22, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • At first, I thought the Talk page alert was for the weekly Tech News. What a delightful surprise to see a biweekly edition of the Signpost! A great way to start the new year! Thank you Team! — WILDSTARTALK 05:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I well remember when the Signpost was weekly. Glad to see it going more often again, and I was certainly happy that the rumors of its demise were greatly exaggerated. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:44, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Thanks for doing some great work with the Signpost currently! Zarasophos (talk) 08:01, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • This is a healthy way for a project like this to evolve, I think. It's incredibly impressive how the Signpost was weekly for so many years, I cannot even imagine it. It doesn't feel sustainable to me. There's no shame in a slower or irregular publication schedule for a volunteer publication like this; I'm just glad to see it continue to exist as long as the Wikipedia Community does. A biweekly schedule would be very impressive and I fully believe you can do it. I'm looking forward to see this on my watchpage every other week, and I wish you all the best of luck <3 ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 10:43, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I thought the Signpost notification was broken because it was the middle of the month. Looking forward to more issues! Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Love love love the Signpost. Thanks for all your hard work :) Crunchydillpickle (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:13, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Fortnightly Signpost again! Well done guys! Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:31, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Well, as I understand it, it's only fortnightly from 1 February to 1 March. We shall see. Jim.henderson (talk) 02:37, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Are you going to change the message at the bottom, "WANT THE LATEST SIGNPOST DELIVERED TO YOUR TALK PAGE EVERY MONTH?", or wait a little to see if this sticks? :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Donald Albury (talk • contribs) 14:45, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • As long you all don't burn out, then this is certainly good news! :D –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 05:28, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I prefer the term semimonthly. No ambiguity in its meaning and the meaning is obvious from the word itself (semi-, half; monthly, self-evident). "Fortnightly" requires knowledge of what the word fortnight means, which is falling out of use. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:19, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
    Biweekly (which is used in the article title) is actually much clearer than semimonthly. But since we're supposed to be an encyclopedia, using fortnightly might further the education mission by teaching people the meaning of the word. Intothatdarkness 17:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
    Biweekly could mean twice a week or once every two weeks. That's intractable ambiguity for me. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
    Biweekly in standard usage in the US is every two weeks (very common payroll term). Or we could just try something totally novel and say "every two weeks." Intothatdarkness 14:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
  • One of the benefits is the thinner bundle of paper dropped on my porch, taking fewer days to work my way through. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:59, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Love The Signpost. Antrocent (♫♬) 01:22, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Gallery: What is our responsibility when it comes to images? (14,529 bytes · 💬)

  • Wanted to start out with thanks for a good, thought-provoking, Signpost article. I also felt that your policy review end bit closes it out nicely. I think there are further questions - to what degree are we responsible for what a tiny fraction of the off-wikipedia population might use it for? And what degree do we "weight" those potential harms? Some of these certainly are part of the sum of all human knowledge, do we need to tweak the mission statement? Personally, the off-wiki harm would have to be damn high for me to oppose an encyclopedic image existing in an article, I tend to argue that either the mainpage shouldn't have this stuff at all, or we should ascribe the same balancing test there.
As to the point about the main page removing that context. Well, that's a fair point that was well made. Taking a trip through the mainpage (something I do too rarely), it does feel like six lines could provide enough context about an image to at least mitigate the context issues. Perhaps some possibility to not just use the corresponding article lead, but lines ordered in a way to add in a way to mitigate (though no doubt not remove) issues in as effacacious a way as can be managed? Nosebagbear (talk) 11:39, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
@Nosebagbear: Let's consider a non-image possibility: The media has largely agreed not to give a mass shooter what he wanted, and has largely censored his name. Should we report it in the article on the shooting, and would that change if that article became a featured article and we quoted the text identifying the shooter on our main page?
I think there are cases where the level exposure matters. For images, let's consider a case where a historical image promotes a nasty, racist conspiracy theory, in the style of an educational infographic, but was notable for being the graphic that really helped propogate the theory. In the context of the article, well down the page, it's after a lot of commentary so our readers are prepared for it. On the main page, we have two paragraphs to debunk a Gish gallop of false claims. People still believe this conspiracy theory.
Further, I'm an image restorationist. Here's an example of my work (on a non-controversial subject):
If a racist image had the best copy on the internet be similar to the left option (and perhaps the most common image might be worse than the best copy), and I carefully restore it, is my work going to be adding to the encyclopedic value on the page over just using the crap version, or is it primarily going to give racists a gift of a much better copy of "their" image to use? If I'm writing an article, I can focus my text to debunk the racism, but when restoring an image, issues with the image's subject can't really be changed and still have it be the same image. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 19:51, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden on your textual example. Let's assume we do have good sources (even if a small subset of the whole media), BLPCRIME's all fine etc etc. I would say yes - I back the no drama point to a tune of it not being a headline but it's clearly a fundamental aspect of reporting the article. The media reduction would probably involve a DUE consideration for placement, but I imagine that it would make it into the FA words, though its placement might vary depending on the facts.
As to the "level exposure" aspect, this is rather an area where if this point is sufficiently true to factor in, it suggests that our current process is already flawed. Namely, currently all the featured things (excepting ITN) are on various qualitative aspects - we don't consider the degree of coverage at all. Normally that's putting things up that don't get much exposure outside of Wikipedia - but that reasoning should also work with the corollary.
Finally, as to the restorationist example, I don't know - I've not given any thought to it, and on reading through, nothing beyond the position I held before i started reading that paragraph has jumped out. That usually suggests I need to think more about it, so I may drop back on that thread. Nosebagbear (talk) 21:04, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
I'd say there's a difference between level of exposure of almost certainly non-harmful content and of harmful content. If Creatures of Impulse, a very obscure play, goes on the main page (and it did), there's basically no chance of harm. If Hitler's prophecy went on the main page (and it did), we might have to briefly consider harm, but pretty quickly decide there isn't much chance of harm. But take the image of lynching, with basically no provinence, and probably rearranged after death (why would the hat still be positioned over his face after a lynching?), so low encyclopedic value as an image. Again, maybe this is an argument against it being a featured picture, but I feel its negatives (potentially driving people away from Wikipedia by making them feel uncomfortable and/or threatened) outweigh its positives (puts text from lynching on the main page). That said, I don't think there's a huge number of images these considerations apply to. A look at Wikipedia:Picture_of_the_day/Unused will give you some idea. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 22:11, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
I mean your explanation of the flaws of the lynching picture seem convincing enough to stop it being a featured picture on criteria well before it reaches a consideration of net positive. Still, we can at least concur a hypothetical better example (or one of the earlier examples from your article for an actual one). Part of the basis of NOTCENSORED is not merely that it's beyond our scope to decide such but that knowledge will ultimately "win out", even if a negative time to time.
In this case, I believe it could be fairly argued that an unpleasant, uncomfortable photo of a topic can be a positive. Sure, we would have individuals who saw it and clicked off. And probably others elsewhere on the web who'd just see/use the photo in an undesirable fashion - the downsides. But we'd likely get more eyes to the articles - more chances for people to read as neutral a explanation of the topic as we can.
With that, I could grant that a great photo of this type on a distinctly poor article wouldn't be good - I don't know what the average standard is, but like you said, photos of this type are rare - requiring B-class articles for them wouldn't be a harsh addition. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:27, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Agreed. I think we need to think about these issues, but I think most cases are going to ally with WP:NOTCENSORED, but not necessarily all. And then there's the case of restoration: Like acting a role, you need to be spending a lot of time with an image, and are going to be attached to it afterwards. That's a big commitment for some images. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 23:17, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Thank you very much for your introduction to the problem! Sometimes I think that we mostly discuss about text, but images are an important topic by themselves. Ziko (talk) 18:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    @Ziko, I agree with you, but this also has two different sides. Using the image of the Hitler citation does not proliferate the wording. It is not machine-readable, so it is not to be found by searching machines. If I had to choose I'd rather use the image than typing the text into an article's source text. Which will be found by Google and Co. On the other hand using images of texts means you set uo a barrier. For some users the content would not be accessible. Making it accessible means proliferating it on the other hand. Matthiasb (talk) 18:06, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Generally I don't think it's worth worrying "how will the most bad-intentioned actors misuse this?" with regards to photos or, well, facts (at least the kind Wikipedia deals with). You can lead a horse to ethics, but you can't make it think. Otherwise we'd have to get rid of free re-use licenses. As for "offensive images", I have a little bit of a story. Paul Carlson was an American medical missionary who was killed by Congolese rebels in 1964. For a while the only public domain photo I had found of him was his dead body (or rather a headshot photograph of his lifeless face, think like the photos they used to take of killed outlaws in the Wild West). Perhaps somewhat callously, I put it into the infobox, since it was the only image we had of him. Fairly soon thereafter a new user identifying themselves as a descendent objected, saying it was offensive. I explained NOTCENSORED and said that while this was by no means the best photo for the purposes of identifying Carlson, it was the only one we had. The family member responded by uploading a very nice family photo of Carlson, alive and smiling, which we still use to this day. -Indy beetle (talk) 05:13, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
@Indy beetle: That's quite the interesting story. I know that Wikipedia has a pretty explicit image-use police for biographies of living persons but it gets iffy when that's no longer the case. For example, the Manual of Style talks about types of image that would normally require consent. "Dead shots", for lack of a better term, definitionally can't be taken with consent for... obvious reasons. I wonder, then, if more explicit image-use guidelines for deceased individuals should be drawn up. Krisgabwoosh (talk) 23:28, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
I think its something better resolved by common sense than rules. For example, do we really need to spare Benito Mussolini's dignity? -Indy beetle (talk) 23:35, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Anything can be abused or become controversial later. Generally I think NOTCENSORED is enough, but we should certainly try to explain why an image may be racist or controversial or such in a caption (but that judgement should be based on reliable sources). Some items have to be discussed case by case, and it's possibly our consensus will change, as our views one ethnics and such evolve. But in general, I'd stick to NOTCENSORED. Ending thought: Depictions of Muhammad can be offensive to some; in 2008 there was a petition to delete all of them from Wikipedia covered in major media ([1]), just recently a professor got fired in US over showing them [2]... But we made the right decision in 2008, and I don't see much of a difference here. Those images should be preserved, kept, and shown when they are useful to illustrate some points (again, with proper captions explaining context and controversies, as necessary). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm glad someone is thinking deeply about this. While I generally agree with the final sentiments and that we should not generally kowtow to the potential for misuse by bad actors, I also think that, as one of the highest traffic websites on the internet, we have some responsibility not to hand loaded guns to people who might use them. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:38, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
  • For an instance of this I have personally dealt with, see the article I developed on Eduard Pernkopf, the Austrian anatomist whose color atlas of the human body was a standard medical educational text for decades after World War II ... but the specimens the artists used probably in many cases came from executed political prisoners who most certainly did not consent to this use of their tissue post mortem. And Pernkopf and the artists were all ardent Nazis, too ... one of the artists even worked a swastika into his signature!

    The article has these images, controversial as they are. I decided I needed to have them, and there is plenty of accompanying text discussing not only the techniques by which they were created (they had to specially treat the paper to hold more detail than watercolor usually did). And at the end I included a long section on the debate over the continued ethics of their use, which of course I considered relevant to their use in the article at hand. The quote from South African bioethicist Pieter Carstens at the end of the article is pretty much my justification, as well, for using the images there. Daniel Case (talk) 04:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Humour: New geologically speedy deletion criteria introduced (2,589 bytes · 💬)

This was extremely amusing and I very much enjoyed it. I'm sure all the WikiProject Geology people will get a real kick out of it :p ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:26, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Obviously the particle physicists and nuclear physicists should weigh in en mass. OBVIOUSLY. kencf0618 (talk 14:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
The whole thing struck me as very parochial limited thought, sorry for the stereotyping but it obviously comes from a rocky planet perspective. I can assure you no gas giant dweller would have written this. It would benefit from a top note stating that obviously all features on gas giants are by definition notable. ϢereSpielChequers 16:54, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Y'know, for a second I thought this was real. And then I clicked a link and shortly after realized this was "/Humo(u)r". ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 16:49, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

  • As a geologist, this was hysterical, though it took me a moment to realize this was the Humour article. Nice writing. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 18:05, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • An old-time fan of geology; I join in the hope that Dr Glockenspiel can do similar research reviews for other sciences. Astronomy would be my favorite. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Finally, the project joins the contemporary eon. Wikipetra, formerly just another mirror site, has had this kind of thing in place since the Mesozoic. Axem Titanium (talk) 23:52, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
  • This is monolithic news. — Bilorv (talk) 14:12, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

In focus: Busting into Grand Central (4,881 bytes · 💬)

Interesting read! Urban truths stranger than legends are always fascinating...

And I would also argue for the inclusion of a fifth myth, East Side Access.[Joke] Its 2022 opening was certainly a bold, yet untrue statement, on the part of the MTA. Complex/Rational 02:38, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

  • I love this story. I'd seen it before, but it's nice to see it in full, updated. I could imagine this as a series about urban legends/truths about rail terminals, airports etc. Of course you may have the very best right here. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Awesome write-up and great research! This was a joy to read ^_^ ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:42, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

  • This was a really interesting piece on one of my favorite places in NYC. Great research! Netherzone (talk) 04:25, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Congratulations and kudos for a very difficult sourcing job well done! I grew up in New Jersey and loved Grand Central. It's sad that even the official tour didn't have their facts straight. Now if only someone would take on debunking all the MAGA lies surrounding the 2020 election . . . --ChetvornoTALK 06:56, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    @Chetvorno: On elections - People do. Constantly. The reason it doesn't work is because the MAGA movement is built on alternative facts and the culture of Post-truth politics. casualdejekyll 21:25, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Congratulations on excellent work! Very impressive and the end result is quite fascinating. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:26, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • By the way, the tennis court upstairs is not a myth at all; I can safely vouch for it because I've been there myself. Daniel Case (talk) 02:53, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
I did get there! Took a quick photo or two. Pretty wild. ɱ (talk) 03:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Very interesting! It is really sad that much pop education, like guided tours, is grossly untrue. There's a Peep Show clip where the main character sells out in real time. People may criticise Wikipedia as dry but I am proud of the fact that we will not tolerate distortions of fact on the grounds of entertainment. — Bilorv (talk) 13:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
  • For a few years I was a weekend bicycle tour guide. Mostly South Bronx, Harlem, Central Park, Astoria, Roosevelt Island, Greenpoint. I always mentioned that I wrote part of the Wikipedia article about most of the sights, and cautioned that my lectures were less carefully prepared. I mean, often I didn't know what part of town they wanted to see, much less what questions they would ask. Mostly I got stuff right but upon checking after a tour I never found that I had made a mistake that made it less funny or less grand. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Fascinating article and a great reminder that even the most reliable sources are often not all that reliable. WaggersTALK 11:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Sometimes the story about how an article gets written is better than the article itself. -- llywrch (talk) 00:32, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

In the media: Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again (26,291 bytes · 💬)

Encyclosphere

  • It's pretty funny to see Larry try every other possible way to run an online encyclopaedia just so that he doesn't have to admit that the original idea was the best. It's also pretty funny how he complains about editor cliques and "elites" while also maintaining that encyclopedia articles should be written by (and even able to be OWNed by) a small number of experts (the idea behind Nupedia and Citizenium), and not the anonymous masses of plebs who can look up and read sources. Essentially saying that his only problem with the cliques on WP is that they aren't official. W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 05:13, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Well, as I have said on occasion, bad reviews of WP over time will eventually start chipping away and become quite harmful - it adds up - and when we ridicule other people simply because we may not align with them epistemologically, you can pretty much rest assured that it will come back and bite us in the ass. Too big to fail is an attitude we don't need on WP. Humble, polite, courteous, encouragement, kindness always pays off in big ways. WP has been accused of losing its objectivity, and of being used as a weapon, and I'm very concerned that our respectability will be seriously harmed if we don't change direction. This story looks very much like something we would see on WO, not on WP, but that is just my opinion. It doesn't hurt to be kind to others. Atsme 💬 📧 13:53, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    We can be kind to people who we have failed to serve. We should take constructive criticism (and even learn from non-constructive criticism). But we cannot do the same with people who refuse to listen to us because they think we're part of a globalist conspiracy run by children-eating Satan-worshippers. And we most certainly don't have to "show kindness" every time Larry launches a new product, and then proceeds to bash Wikipedia so that he can advertise it in the news.
    We have many systemic biases - article POV is often Western and male, women are underrespresented in the editing population, and as the recent RfA showed, there's a disturbing amount of transphobia (both in the form of open transphobes and people who wikilawyer for transphobes). I often see a lack of awareness of the nuances involved in South Asian issues, especially with caste, politics, ethnolinguistic groups, and religion (the broad nature of ARBIPA itself is testament to this - all South Asian issues are clubbed and sanctioned under one thing, whereas with the US you have US politics before 1992, US politics after 1992, etc.).
    What are the solutions Larry proposes for these issues? To use his latest failed pet project instead? Larry's new projects are, to put it plainly, bad - OWNership as a stated policy, requiring real-life ID to edit, FRINGE presented as fact, and a heavily misjudged sense of POV balance, along with crypto woo. W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 04:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Just because Wikipedia is a big success story doesn't mean that it is perfect. We do have a systemic bias. The fact that the our reaction to somebody saying that is to mostly ignore (rather than review) what they say and instead put the main effort into trying to deprecate the messenger is an illustration of that. North8000 (talk) 17:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

    • @North8000: The problem with Sanger is that this is how he advertises every project he launches, by and large. He's not some neutral critique that there's any point responding to, he's over there shouting "Wikipedia is biased, so try [ Citizendium/Encyclopedia of Earth/Everipedia/Encyclosphere ]" - and the arguments he makes seem tailored to promote whatever he's trying this time. He attacks Wikipedia for not valuing experts enough when he launched Citizendium. He attacked Wikipedia for having too strict of notability criteria when he was part of Everipedia. Now he has a big multi-encyclopedia search tool, and he attacks Wikipedia for only allowing one article on each topic.
    There's criticisms to be made of Wikipedia, but listening to the person making arguments specifically to promote their own product... Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 20:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
A quick honest gut check would be a good. Is the reason for the negative opinions that stuff or is it because he's saying we have a left bias? North8000 (talk) 20:31, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
@North8000: Honestly, here's the thing. I know that Larry Sanger, when he was in charge of Citizendium, "countered the bias of Wikipedia" by handing over the homeopathy article to be put solely into the care of homeopath Dana Ullman, and wanted "both sides" of the intelligent design "debate" to be included. I don't think a word of complaint he says about Wikipedia is valid, because he's demonstrated such poor judgement.
Wikipedia is almost certainly biased, I don't see how it can't be given it's run by self-selecting volunteers. But to class it on a simplistic left-right axis seems distinctly unhelpful. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 21:33, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Also, the article he links in that comment above is this article, and also advocates for including discussion of holocaust denial "neutrally" and all sorts of things. He seems to go with the idea of if a lot of people believe it, report it neutrally:
"Climate change scientists and activists have dismissed the idea that journalists ought to report neutrally on climate change skepticism by arguing, “If you’re going to give equal space to climate change skepticism, you should also give equal space to Holocaust denial — which is absurd.” But I hope it’s clear how I would respond to that argument: while among the American population, climate change skepticism appears to be a (large) minority position, Holocaust denial is a tiny fringe phenomenon. In an American context, reporting neutrally about the climate change debate does not entail that reporters must so much as mention Holocaust denial. In certain other countries, however, things might be different."
Or, on Creationism, "the people of Texas (and other such places) have the right to insist, not that the science be taught a certain way, but that students be informed that a large number of citizens disagree with the science."
He has this weird populist view of neutrality. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 21:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Bias can be in many areas, but the main discussion on it in English Wikipedia is regarding the two main "sides" in US politics / culture wars. Zero bias is impossible to achieve or even define. I set a lower bar where it doesn't sink to where it damages the informativeness of the article/Wikipedia. Which unfortunately does happen. BTW I think that it is 80% fixable through policies and guidance. North8000 (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
I'd probably agree with you there, and only saying "probably" because I don't really do much on Wikipedia related to things happening in the present day, so, y'know.
Now, moving a bit off-topic, I will say that, as a European - the British Conservative Party is left of the American Democrats at a rough evaluation... some claims of left bias are kinda... eyeroll-worthy, when it's someone from America acting as if something couldn't work (like free healthcare) that the rest of the developed world has been doing for decades. And the claims that Wikipedia as a whole is biased aren't really proven by focusing on one or two very few high traffic articles like, say, Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden.
But, y'know, even if I don't agree with them after evaluation, specific claims deserve evaluation. And I'm sure it's entirely possible to make a claim of left bias on Wikipedia that's worthy of discussion, but a known gadfly like Sanger who's fundamentally opposed to WP:NPOV, and has shown appalling judgement? There's only so many times we can take his claims seriously. If he's right, for once, someone else will say it in an actionable way. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 22:32, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: The current Tory government is not to the left of the Dems but is taking from the Republican playbook - voter suppression by bringing in a requirement for photo IDs in time for council elections in May which councils say can't be done in time, laws to suppress protests and deny unions the right to strike, etc. Interesting that a Tory MP justifying voter ID could only bring up one tiny 7 year old incidence of fraud and that was by the right wing UKIP party. Doug Weller talk 09:11, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Point. But elected Tory governments... Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 12:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
I don't think I'm going to go there. One quick note, you really don't have a worldwide right/left gauge because the terms have different meanings, e.g. in the US vs. Europe. My own gauge of when wiki bias has gone too far is when it hurts informativeness. Useful, factual information gets wiki-lawyered out, and useless POV and characterization type info and trivial negative or positive info gets wiki-lawyered in so much that it floods the article. North8000 (talk) 17:30, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Fair point. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 00:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
That doesn't narrow it down much. Most criticism of Wikipedia - inherently a libertarian project - comes, obviously, from authoritarian governments, parties, and their supporters. And since the 1990s, left-wing authoritarianism has been on the decline (even China is not so communist anymore), so most authoritarians today are right-wing. In any case, my reaction would be the same if it was a CCP official, Pedro Castillo, or Kim Jong-un criticising Wikipedia - dismissal. Wikipedia should take criticism from those who want to improve it, not from those who want to destroy its very essence. W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 04:52, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I read the Bible Encyclopedia entry on evolution, and it doesn't outright deny evolution (which I guess is an improvement over Conservapedia), it does have a bunch of factual inaccuracies like evolution always proceeding towards more complex forms and humans being the pinnacle of evolution or whatever. Plus, it's written a really weird Bible-like style which makes it so hard to understand that its honestly not worth it. I really don't get Sanger's obsession with trying to find ways to neutrally present stuff that's factually wrong as being just as right as stuff that's factually correct. AryKun (talk) 13:35, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
You're braver than I am. It was so appallingly written that I just noted it didn't seem to be outright denying evolution and gave up. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 14:36, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Ironically, each side of the argument claims their sources are the only reliable ones, and criticize the beliefs of the opposing side who believes their sources are the only reliable ones. The irony begins to unfold when the realization hits that none of us were eye-witnesses to anything that happened before we were born. It boils down to opinion, belief, and epistemic differences of what we choose to believe, and to that I point to science. WP:NPOV tells us to include all significant views published by RS - objectivity factors in our choice of sources and the material published in those sources that we choose to include. Some problems arise when that material is taken out of context. Too few actually take the time to read the context of the paragraph, chapter or book from which the context was extracted. Result: bias, a touch of OR, and/or misunderstanding. I have also seen sentence comprehension issues, and Use-mention distinction issues. j/s Atsme 💬 📧 13:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Way long ago, near the end of the Wikipedia Stone Age, Sanger was publicly upset because he wasn't getting credit for creating Wikipedia. Then he was upset because it took off after he stopped contributing appeared to be related. (No comment. I started editing here a month or two after he left, & all I can attest to is that the presence of a lot of ashes suggest there had been one or more nasty flamewars.) Since then he's pursued with monomania creating an online encyclopedia that's better than Wikipedia... only to fail, & become upset again. IMHO, he really needs to find another activity to occupy his time. -- llywrch (talk) 00:28, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
  • The link to Encyclosphere doesn't work anymore, nor is it mentioned on his page. I am too lazy to figure out what happened here. Bart Terpstra (talk) 17:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

French court case

  • So, shouldn't the French case be pretty easily resolved? As long as it's actually truthful, "I don't have the information you're asking for" is a perfectly valid response to a subpoena. If the data has already been purged, well, you can't provide information you don't even have! Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:52, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    • @Seraphimblade: I was wondering whether they might have stated a requirement to WMF legal to retain the data - legal position of that varies everywhere, and I couldn't even venture a guess for either US, California, or France. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
      • Could certainly be. I don't know how public French court documents are, but if they are publicly available, it would be interesting for someone who speaks French to read and summarize what's been said in the case. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Andreas, did you ask WMF legal about this? Reading the ordonnance de référé (linked in the piece you cite) they were also ordered to pay €8000 to the company whose interests were potentially harmed for court costs (article 700). The référé also makes mention of a requirement that web platforms conserve personally identifying data for a year after the closure of the account (l’article L34-1 du Code des Postes et communications électroniques). According to their user page, the person was indeffed in March 2022. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 12:58, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why you're bringing up French regulations that require saving user data for a year. Do you mean WMF ought to change configuration of its US servers to retain IP addresses for a year instead of 90 days, to facilitate compliance with future French court orders? ☆ Bri (talk) 15:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Just reporting what is written in the référé since someone above asked about French law, not making any value judgments concerning what "should" be done. I do think the nearest servers may actually be in the Netherlands, based on my memory and comments in the fr.wp discussion Andreas linked to. FWIW, I was aware that the banned contributor had issues with BLP (§) and sought to curb their problematic contribs, but was unaware of the full degree of the problem. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 18:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • You're probably refering to the esams host in Amsterdam. According to m:Wikimedia servers, last updated in November, esams is for caching only, and the application services which include session state are in the core cluster in the U.S. WMF may have deliberately chosen this architecture, for all I know, specifically to avoid jurisdictional issues over demands for user data, as well as alleviating the impact of data privacy regulations which are very different in the EU. If so, I applaud their foresight as this kind of court paper served to the Foundation can be round-filed.
In fact the Foundation is going even further than that, potentially removing even the 90 day IP address retention through implementation of the new IP masking scheme. The implementation details talk about retaining a hash of the address, which wouldn't do an investigator a whole lot of good if it was done properly. If you didn't read about it before, I suggest starting with The Signpost's "Anti-vandalism with masked IPs", contributed by WMF rep Johan Jönsson in 2020. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:44, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Hi Bri. I'm dimly aware of that planned change. Here, though, the more pertinent issue could potentially be that the account mentioned has raised eyebrows concerning the quality of their BLPs and their penchant for attack pages by getting banned from fr.wp and by causing the WMF grief. This being a potentially "controversial" topic, I haven't looked into it in any great detail, but what I have seen, e.g. Allary_Éditions, suggests that some of their en.wp mainspace productions may need deleting as attack pages or significant rewriting. -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 04:23, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
@SashiRolls: Nice to see you here. I didn't check with Legal; as far as the 90 days are concerned, I just went by the Privacy Policy. Pyb might know more. Andreas JN466 20:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I've wondered, do we have to be in compliance with the laws of all 190+ counties? I can't wait to see the rules from Russia and North Korea for tracking and reporting dissidents. North8000 (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

  • North8000, if we become the global society that has been proposed, we will be subject to the rule of whoever controls the money, the property you won't own, and the food we won't grow because there won't be any farmers who own land to grow food, or raise beef cattle. McDonald's & Burger King will disappear unless they resort to veggie burgers. Say goodbye to the Big Mac & Whopper. We may even have to resort to human breast milk for our cereal in the morning. ^_^ j/s Atsme 💬 📧 14:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
    @North8000 and Atsme: soon even the English Wikipedia's lex loci protectionis doctrine of applying U.S. architectural freedom of panorama to the photos of copyrighted architectural works from no-FOP countries may also be tested. Perhaps by French authorities too? Things get crazy in the application of prevailing rules or laws between international borders. Whether the laws/rules of the country where Wikimedia servers reside (the U.S.) will ultimately prevail or the laws/rules of the 190+ countries will gain the upper hand, as long as Wikimedia sites (English Wikipedia, French Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons et cetera) are being accessed in those countries and their content being accessed or used in those countries. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 23:36, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
  • ...the user was banned in May 2022, so the IP data – usually only kept on WMF servers for 90 days – ought to no longer be available. While that may be true, it's a moot point since the user has been active since then using sockpuppets. Qatarina edited here only a month ago. MRCLD was editing today on French Wikipedia. The WMF should have no difficulty getting IP addresses for these accounts (and any other sockpuppets). Round and rounder (talk) 22:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • This is my concern as well. Western free speech values are not universally accepted. Law enforcement from less free country could easily create "lawful" request for IPs of editors, and unlike the West, in some countries "crime" can easily be "created" from thin air. And as Wikipedia dislikes proxies, all of the IPs would be real IPs. And I have to add this is not only in North Korea and Russia, many other countries have "rules" regarding what you can say to the government officials. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 02:49, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Celentano

  • Never expected to see Adriano Celentano feature on this newspaper, but I'll definitely take it! Maybe, this is an occasion to improve that article even more... : D Oltrepier (talk) 09:40, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    • The video certainly commands attention. BTW, I think that's Claudia Mori with the female solo (starting about 1:35) and the harmonica solo right at the end. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:29, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

In brief

  • I had wondered where the now-retired editor Prisencolin's name came from. --BDD (talk) 01:19, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Whoa! Sometimes I think that I know absolutely nothing about this site. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:27, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • The Cleopatra thing is wild. I have to imagine something like this has happened before? Axem Titanium (talk) 03:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

News and notes: Revised Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines up for vote, WMF counsel departs, generative models under discussion (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-01-16/News and notes

Opinion: Good old days, in which fifth-symbol-lacking lipograms roam'd our librarious litany (2,797 bytes · 💬)

  • I'd never heard this story before, so thanks for the well-written rendition. It would have made a good example in my previous opinion piece about Wikipedia's missing sense of fun, 'A Little Fun Goes A Long Way'.
  • Incredible story. This is the sort of thing I do think about a lot, and it's a balance impossible to hit. For some websites, oldfashioned jokes could've been grandfathered in, and on Wikipedia too we have some lovely old pages to look back on. But comedy doesn't scale, in a way. The more people there are, the more confusion and frustration is caused. It's a tragedy of the commons if every user can post their own jape. But there's still little tidbits of humor to be found even on Wikipedia (this was mine)! And I think more importantly, cyberspace still does have a million small nooks and crannies to have fun in. As long as people continue to create their own communities, the noosphere will be fine ^_^ ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I would also suggest that Wikipedia humour is still not completely gone. The beloved High five#Too slow image set is famous, and we've all run into similarly amusing items that happen to be correct and useful as well. If you can make a joke that also works as an effective way to explain a concept, then all the praise to you! Sometimes people just need to know whether Gadsby is a novel or not. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:40, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • That remains the single most bull-headed level of obstinance I've ever seen, even dealing with longevity and caste issues never quite rose to that theater of the absurd. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • This is my favorite olde-timey Wikipedia story. It was amazing to see live. ― biggins (talk) 05:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oh my, I might've seen this when I was still a lurker. :) Double sharp (talk) 22:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Serendipity: How I bought part of Wikipedia – for less than $100 (4,065 bytes · 💬)

This is another (urls are black listed) Kickstarter.com /projects/1699256938/the-vanamo-online-game-museum neat commercial project , that makes use (and provided) freely licensed images from Common about History of video games by c:User:Evan-Amos. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 13:01, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

    • And Diderot's Encyclopédie, which modestly aimed to encapsulate all knowledge in a shelf of printed volumes, unfortunately running up against the rapid increase in technology of the industrial revolution... it got to 28 volumes (or 35, depending on what you choose to include) before the team gave up the struggle ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • One major, concerning issue that this raises tangentially, is how we go about preserving history with digital content when it is easier to modify and change it according to the political climate? Our featured article on Ronald Reagan is a great example of this problem, as it reads like a hagiography written by conservative activists who present a highly selective and biased POV of the former president by moving all of the negative material to sub-articles that receive less attention than the primary subject. Print books, which aren’t subject to change as much, often highlight such negative material in the initial TOC, giving it added visibility. Aside from this glaring example of bias on Wikipedia, how do we prevent our articles from deteriorating over time due to bad actors? I would like to suggest that the increasing use of automated tools should be funded and employed to preserve the accuracy and authenticity of digital content for the future. It’s generally well known that bad actors will seek positions of authority within any online administration to try and promote their bias from within. On Reddit, this is a huge problem with subs, which are often moderated by bad actors opposed to the content of the sub, or even more harmful, actively filter content that goes against their chosen narrative. Sites like the Internet Archive act as a major bulwark against historical revisionism. In the US, we saw up close and personal how the Trump administration attempted to delete the concept of climate change from two major websites and filter out the word "carbon". The threat of all of featured content turning into biased Reagan hagiographies is real and omnipresent without more oversight. It may very well be the case that history can be preserved simply by printing out a newer, more accurate version of Wikipedia that is examined for historical inaccuracy and omissions by an AI of some kind. Recently, Matthew G. Devost spoke about his experience at DEF CON seeing automated hacking tools in action, while historian Timothy Snyder discussed the Russian fascination with changing the history of the past. It’s not a stretch to see how the two could come together to change Wikipedia pages and change the history of the past in subtle, unique ways. As a deterrent and a defensive strategy, Wikipedia should use more automated tools to detect and prevent this kind of information warfare in the first place. It’s coming, whether we like it or not, so it’s best to prepare. Given how countries keep backsliding into authoritarianism, and as democracy declines around the world during a new Dark Ages, print editions of Wikipedia may end up saving humanity from itself. Sadly, we cannot depend on digital content to record and preserve history from those who would use it against us. Viriditas (talk) 01:38, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Special report: Coverage of 2022 bans reveals editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020 (10,243 bytes · 💬)

From what I remember reading on the Arabic Wikipedia discussion about the bans, there were a significant number of other editors there making blatantly pro-SA government statements and were angry at the editor accounts being banned in relation to that. I have concerns that the Arabic (and possibly Persian) language Wikipedia communities are entirely subsumed by blatantly biased pro-government accounts. Because the reason for the bans was never a mystery to anyone, not seriously. Even if the WMF has been trying to be vague about it all. Even this very Signpost article is quite clear and direct on the fact that we all know that the banned accounts were people working directly for the SA government in order to push their own personal views of events and to downplay the ongoing human rights atrocities that Saudi Arabia's administration is committing. With our unfortunate two editors discussed above being only a single example among many. SilverserenC 05:43, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

That is an absolute monarchy for you. scope_creepTalk 13:38, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I've said this before, but I believe that if there's any way for the WMF to use its considerable funds and influence to promote the spread of free knowledge in autocratic nations, then that should be one of its highest priorities. Free knowledge is why we're here. We as the Wikipedia communities, regardless of language, should be some of Khalid and Alsufyani's strongest advocates. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:38, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

+1 CactiStaccingCrane 16:19, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Do we have a mainspace article on this? DFlhb (talk) 18:30, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@DFlhb: There isn't a stand-alone article, but it is mentioned here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThadeusOfNazereth (talk • contribs) 18:35, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
@DFlhb: A list article has just been created: List_of_people_imprisoned_for_editing_Wikipedia. I have a feeling that list will get longer as time passes. Andreas JN466 19:52, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for this report, and closing on the most important note. "But the most pressing question is perhaps what we, as a movement, can do to help Osama and Ziyad. [...] According to DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson, who discussed the case with The Signpost, campaigning for their release at this point, over two years into their sentences, is very unlikely to do them harm, and may do some good." Does a nascent campaign exist? Is there anywhere to donate funds or efforts? Mike Linksvayer (talk) 20:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Linksvayer: DAWN are working on the case; for now I would recommend donating to them. Andreas JN466 18:19, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Interesting that Arabic Wikipedia doesn't support the bans. Trust and Safety's lack of transparency is creating several issues here. Trust and Safety should consider releasing more information. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:46, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

I do get trying to be more transparent, but on the other hand... saying a lot more info might put other WIkipedia editors at risk. Trust and Safety would have to weigh the potential harm of letting other authoritarian nations improve their infiltration methods (for lack of a better term) versus the need for transparent dealing. And I certainly don't want more innocent Saudi editors to end up like Osama and Ziyad, or worse... like Khashoggi. Dial (talk) 07:00, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Democracy Now! interview with Sarah Leah Whitson (17 January 2023)

This interview discusses further details of the above story: "From Infiltrating Wikipedia to Paying Trump Millions in Golf Deals, Saudis Whitewash Rights Record" Andreas JN466 22:25, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

It seems that this interview perpetuates the same "infiltration" idea that's at best misleading regarding the structure of Wikipedia communities and the WMF. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien Let's have alook at what's being said:

So, what we learned following the December 2022 ban by Wikimedia of 16 administrators and users in the Middle East is that they had apparently an infiltration by what they called external parties. We were able to piece together that the infiltration was by the Saudi government – of administrators, users and editors who were based in Saudi Arabia and who were apparently editing, posting, deleting content relevant and important to Saudi Arabia in a way that promoted a positive image of Saudi Arabia and blocked information that appeared critical of Saudi Arabia.

What we also learned and pieced together was that two former administrators in Saudi Arabia had been arrested on the same day and ultimately — originally sentenced five and seven years in Saudi Arabia for what our sources tell us was their refusal to post propaganda for Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi government’s discovery that they had in fact posted critical information about the country. This all became much more apparent when, in September of 2022, a Saudi prosecutor increased the sentence of one of those Saudi administrators to over 30 years in prison. So, through this effort of research and investigation, basically, we were able to uncover how the Saudi government had pressured administrators and editors in Saudi Arabia to post flattering content and ban critical content about the country.

If all of that is true, is "infiltration" the best word to describe it? What other word would be more appropriate? Andreas JN466 15:21, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia, for example, has been subject to countless attempts by different parties to make information about them or about specific issues more favorable. There are plenty of long-time WP:SPAs the exclusively edit for a viewpoint on controversial issues. Have we ever given credence to the term "infiltration" in these circumstances? It's needlessly sensationalist and doesn't reflect how the Wikipedia system functions. The more I read DAWN's coverage, the less I trust them as a reliable source, which is really unfortunate, because democracy in the Arab world is so important. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:59, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien Hmmm ... not to downplay problems in the English Wikipedia, but the Arabic admins banned included three of the four founders of the WP:Saudi Wikimedia User Group and represented more than a quarter of all Arabic Wikipedia admins.
If three of the four founders of Wikimedia France were banned from Wikimedia projects, along with a quarter of all French Wikipedia admins, we wouldn't call that "business as usual". Andreas JN466 16:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Oh, I certainly don't consider this business as usual, hence our talking about it. I just don't feel that the story is being given justice through accurate or reliable reporting. The big kicker here is that this "infiltration" broadly seemed to be the will of the community supported by consensus. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:06, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

If these users' country of residence was a concern, they could have asked them to relinquish their accesses. The way this issue has been handled is a total mess, and shows a blatant lack of respect from the Wikimedia for the user community who spend countless hours to build these projects. If there are risks to users, it must be clearly and specifically communicated. Transparency has been non-existent and creates a toxic environment and undermines sense of collaboration in Wikimedia projects. Drako (talk) 21:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Other coverage

  • Article 19. Includes new WMF statement: ‘We are saddened and deeply concerned about these arrests and the harm they have caused to the freedom and safety of Osama Khalid and Ziad Al-Sufyani. The Foundation shares a common belief with Wikimedia volunteer communities around the world that access to knowledge is a human right. Andreas JN466 16:57, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Technology report: View it! A new tool for image discovery (1,260 bytes · 💬)

  • Very nice tool. Congratulations for this brilliant idea. PAC2 (talk) 03:48, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Looks great!.--Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 05:20, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I do quite a bit of categorisation on Commons so I'm glad to see the tool taking advantage of this. But I'm also aware of a certain backlog on categorisation there. I think that the vast majority of files on commons have some useful categories. However this sort of change highlights the need for better image finding tools - for example image recognition software that can find similar categorised images to our uncategorised ones and thereby let us concentrate on the unique new images. ϢereSpielChequers 16:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Good initiative. Thanks! Hispalois (talk) 21:33, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Traffic report: The most viewed articles of 2022 (11,466 bytes · 💬)

  • Hallelujah! Donald Trump is not on the list! Illustrating my isolation from current events I have no idea who Jeffrey Dahmer is. Is that a fault or a virtue? Smallchief (talk) 02:30, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    I don't know that Dahmer could be categorized as "current events" by any metric, but I'd say you're definitely better off not knowing. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)Talk to Me! 03:10, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    @Smallchief: Very briefly, serial killer and cannibal from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Had a lot of films and such based on him recently. Some people have the hots for him, I couldn't tell you why. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 04:31, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Even though I read the monthly collection of lists, I always find these end-of-the-year lists surprising. I thought Ukraine, the World Cup or Elizabeth II would be #1 but instead we get a serial killer who died decades ago. TV series are way more important and influential than I thought. Any way, thanks for compiling this annual list, I find these stats interesting as we try to understand our readership better. Liz Read! Talk! 04:37, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    @Liz: There is the other thing, mind: A TV show might leave you hungry to find out the true facts; whereas retrospectives of Queen Elizabeth II were very common. If you've just read a lengthy BBC obituary, you might well feel knowledgable enough to not need Wikipedia as well; but if you've watched a fictionalisation, you might well want to know what's true. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 05:14, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I have to firmly disagree with @Igordebraga:'s conclusion "In short, shame on everyone who let this happen". So, if there'd been no article, no-one would have come, so you've wished shame on everyone who wrote the article. The article also took a fair amount of flack, vandalism and all that fun - and every editor who came to fix it added to the view count. So shame on them too. Even the underlying concept I dispute. If our article managed to provide some accurate data to people who were otherwise just interested in it, then it's done what we are here for - and helping the knowledge of individuals is why I, at least, am here on Wikipedia. So shame on them and shame on me, too. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Did I say anything about the article itself and everyone who mantains it? Providing good information on what the people seek is never a bad thing; I only wish that what drove the most viewers wasn't such a repellant subject, or that what is supposed to be a retrospective of what happened in the year opens with a terrible thing from decades ago (the war on Ukraine would at least be a terrible thing that was on the news). Ted Bundy was #3 in 2019 for both a documentary and a movie on Netflix (that like the Dahmer show seem middling, all three didn't even pass 60% on Rotten Tomatoes), but he was below the death list and the biggest movie of the year; things were even more offset for him being the start of three straight subjects of adaptations (right below were Freddie Mercury and Chernobyl). Paraphrasing what I wrote, my problem is not what we have an article on Jeffrey Dahmer, only that of all things it was the one that the most people wanted to read. igordebraga ≠ 17:42, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
      • igordebraga except if you use phrasing like "shame on everyone who let this happen", you do end up with the broadest interpretation (and I don't believe I've had to do any egregious abuses of the English language to make that concern). Nosebagbear (talk) 16:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
        • In any case, sorry if my choice of words ended up hitting who I didn't target (specially as editors cleaning what bad visitors leave are certainly a small drop in the traffic numbers compared to the droves of Netflix viewers). igordebraga ≠ 22:55, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
    • Agreed. A lot of the write ups on this page are really subpar. It seems that several of the authors this year found a WP:SOAPBOX to express gripes and pet peeves. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:53, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
      Yeah, I was deeply unimpressed by the write-up on the Depp-Heard suit. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 03:00, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
      Agreed, you should have seen the traffic "reports" about Depp-Heard in the months during the trail, they were a soap box for a few disgrutled authors pushing their slant. On another note, Signpost templates are outdated and many articles do not render properly in mobile due to bad layout. Early in the year I had a half completed plan to modernize the templates and make the layout mobile friendly, but abandoned it after the blatant soap boxing in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/From the Signpost team (orginal version), you can see the talk page and the related spillovers to ANI and VPM for more context. The constant snide traffic "reports" about Cricket, IPL and Indian movie industry only gave me more reason not to help Signpost with anything in future. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 05:55, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
      • "This year"? Have you missed the rants against Ed Sheeran, Billie Eilish, Game of Thrones season 8, and various on Elon Musk and Trump? igordebraga ≠ 03:27, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
        With respect, I don't think it's relevant if this is unique to the 2022 report. WP:SOAPBOX applies to all namespaces, and that therefore includes the signpost and top 25 report. So there shouldn't be any rants at all. SSSB (talk) 19:28, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
        • I was just noting that long-winded and somewhat petty diatribes is nothing new. There's a Humor template at the top for a reason, it's not just handing out information but trying to make it fun to read (although it's clear that no matter if outside the mainspace even a hint of an opinion can be a minefield, as seen in the reaction to a small word choice in the editorial on the war linked above). igordebraga ≠ 22:55, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
        • SOAPBOX does NOT apply to Wikinews, of which Signpost is implicitly an extension of. Writers for Signpost editorialize in literally every single article in every issue. You appear to only object and attempt to invoke SOAPBOX here because you happen to disagree with the opinion. Axem Titanium (talk) 22:11, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Love the writeup for Diane, very akin to John Green's writing on the pizza Hawaii: "invented in 1962, in Canada by a Greek immigrant who was inspired by Chinese cuisine to put a South American food on an Italian dish." Of course, all the writing here is great, and I am extremely grateful to see this analysis on all these topics. Amazing work! ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 13:09, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the mini-reviews of a couple of movies I'll take a look at: The Batman and The Northman. Smallchief (talk) 17:55, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm on the side that the diatribes are too long, but tastes will vary. I am not on the side that the high traffic counts for vulgarly controversial articles are much inflated by vandalism, checking for vandalism, and good faith edits. Is views per edit a ratio that is often compiled? Seems to me Wikipedia's page views will generally outnumber edits by something like a thousand to one, at least on the more popular pages. How many views are by editors including vandals? Ten or twenty for each edit? If so, the fact that the same articles about sensationalized topics get a storm of views and a storm of vandal hits, is probably not because conscientious editors have to check before and after we edit. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:29, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I do like the fact that "Page information" shows both reads and edits. For example, for the past 30 days, the Ukraine War article shows slightly fewer than a thousand reads per edit, on an "extended autoconfirmed protected" topic for which there are sharply contrasting public opinions even among English speakers. Perhaps the Traffic Report ought to include the edit count, or mention it for articles in which the ratio is unusually high or low, or some such thing. My guess is, for a fan edit war, the ratio will be unusually low. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single/2023-01-16&oldid=1133904462"