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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-07-17. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Cobwebs: If you're reading this, you're probably on a desktop (2,402 bytes · 💬)

Curious that this page was written in 2021 by a now-blocked user, who also later requested for it to be deleted. I suppose technically the Signpost is somewhat independent, and also WP:OWN would apply to any content written here, but wondering if there was an deliberation about whether to publish or consultation with the author? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:15, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@Amakuru: It's actually kind of a confusing mess. I tried to figure out what was going on, but it was remarkably impervious to this. Per this diff, the author's account seems to have been compromised in January 2023, at which point they went on a rampage. Yhe G6 nomination they made on this draft was during said rampage, which I suppose is why it was declined by Graeme ("not a good faith nomination"). Their account was indefinitely blocked for this, but later unblocked after they submitted evidence the account wasn't compromised. But they remained indef-blocked, and I guess didn't attempt to appeal it? It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. At any rate, the situation it left us in was that we had a comprehensive and well-written statistical analysis of the Signpost in 2020 that was just rotting away in drafts — while there are many inactive drafts, few of them are fully written and complete articles — at the very least it has had its moment to shine and we do not have to think about it anymore. jp×g 21:58, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Yes, it is weird to see a byline by a blocked editor. Might be a first for the Signpost. Liz Read! Talk! 21:40, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Featured content: Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin', keep those readers scrollin', got to keep on scrollin', Rawhide! (992 bytes · 💬)

Al-Adidn't. His quest he failéd in. - Why would you do this linguistic violence to your poor, innocent readers? --PresN 15:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

@PresN: My goal is generally to get people interested in reading the article, or to teach them one interesting fact (lists can be kind of definitional, so I'm looser there.) It's a memorable way to get you to remember that fact. That said, next issue's is going to be kind of awkward due to things that happened during preparation. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.5% of all FPs. 14:10, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Humour: New fringe theories to be introduced (2,564 bytes · 💬)

Just wanted to say this made me see how close Hell is to Lake Superior. igordebraga != 16:57, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

  • The CIA wasn't founded until after WW2, but there's been a longstanding conspiracy theory among some people that Lord Kitchener of the Lord Kitchener Wants You poster faked his death and became Joseph Stalin... AnonMoos (talk) 08:51, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Nobody show this to Robert F. Kennedy Jr! -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:30, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
    "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said through a spokesperson: 'Like Stalin, the the mainstream media are mere operatives of Teh Establishment, refusing to let everyday Americans like you and I believe our fringe ideas are reality.'" Heavy Water (talk • contribs) 03:51, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

In focus: Are the children of celebrities over-represented in French cinema? (452 bytes · 💬)

Fascinating research. --Qwerfjkltalk 10:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

In the media: Tentacles of Emirates plot attempt to ensnare Wikipedia (4,617 bytes · 💬)

  • The article still contains the text "Optional: Give a short WP:LEAD-like introduction statement here" at the top, as well as a draft template at the bottom. Has anyone reviewed this? Sandstein 09:26, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Also, the wiki-link to "Stephen Harrison" at the bottom of the article actually leads to a disambiguation page... Oltrepier (talk) 09:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Usually, the publication script removes the draft templates automatically when it's run. I am not sure why it would have failed here. This is the automatic preparation edit (it does look like the draft template got removed in this oldid, but I don't know, maybe it was still being messed up). The "short WP:LEAD-like introduction" thing is just my own stupidity, though. jp×g 18:39, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
  • @HaeB and Jayen466: I just wanted to add that another newspaper involved in the EIC network, Domani, cited Wikipedia edits in one of their articles covering the investigation: however, that's under pay-wall, so I can't actually tell how deeply they dive in the topic...
On a side note, thank you for covering the latest news about Ruwiki! As I mentioned here, it also seems like volunteers currently are not allowed to create or even edit content on that platform, as Medeyko is going to hire "professional editors", anyway... Oltrepier (talk) 09:39, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, yes, unfortunately a lot of the reports are paywalled (the sentence Many or most of the news reports emanating from the collective EIC investigation don't seem to have focused on the Wikipedia angle was hedging on this because while I did click on lots of them and checked that neither the headline nor the teaser before the paywall mentioned Wikipedia, I'm not going to buy a yearly subscription solely to check that for the rest of the article too).
On frwiki's Antipub (also scroll down to a second, separate section about Alp Services there) folks have found a bit more, including [1] and [2] which apparently mentions edits to Robert Eringer.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:53, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
  • It certainly makes one wonder if we should be using sources like Louis de Raguenel (leaking confidential information that cannot legally be verified by other journalists) or Ian Hamel. They have both denied being influenced by Alp Services, but the article released by MediaPart on 10 July 2023 is pretty damning given the detailed correspondence it includes. (sorry, I suspect the article is paywalled.) -- SashiRolls 🌿 · 🍥 12:48, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
  • the real issue at hand is fawiki soups Stewards, checkusers, adminis who hates Wikipedia's guts.Baratiiman (talk) 13:01, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Honestly seems rather low energy for a nation state's capabilities. Where's the point where they bribed ClueBot and hacked an administrator account? Blythwood (talk) 01:09, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

News and notes: Big bux hidden beneath wine-dark sea as we wait for the Tides to go out? (5,109 bytes · 💬)

Spatial references to page layout considered harmful

"pictured on the right" - No it isn't. Please don't assume everyone sees the same layout that you do. Try viewing the page on mobile, for example. (Now fixed.)

My blog post refers. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:00, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

You're right – "(pictured)" alone does the job much better. (I promise to be good in future.) Andreas JN466 15:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Cost of scholarships

For what it's worth, I estimated that the total cost of the roughly 200 Wikimania scholarships for volunteer contributors – flights, hotel stays – will cost the WMF rather less than the nearly $1 million dollars it recently spent on two departing executives' severance.

If anyone has the actual figures, it would make an interesting comparison. Andreas JN466 15:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Given that the costs are completely unrelated not really. Indeed "we spent X amount of Y so should be able to spend X amount on Z" is generally a really poor argument. Spending on Wikimania scholarships is the kind of thing that needs to stand or fall on its own merrits.©Geni (talk) 06:52, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
When I worked this out, I looked up a flight to Singapore, which from San Francisco or London is around one to three thousand dollars; the whole Wikimania experience looks about a week or so. I don't know one whit about how much hotels in Singapore cost, but everywhere else the hotels within foot/bus/taxi distance of a convention get to be expensive as hell around the time of the convention. A quick look gives me about $150 to $200 per night, times seven is $1000–$1500. This means that per head we'd have something like two to five thousand dollars a person, times two hundred is $400,000 to $1,000,000. Of course, there are some things I'm not taking into account: probably if I were from Singapore I'd know how to do this way cheaper, and there are almost certainly hotel discounts for huge group reservations, but it seems at least roughly comparable. Of course, the actual process of taking the money out of the severance packages and putting it into Wikimania scholarships would probably be difficult to impossible and require a bunch of lawyer activity, so it is mostly useful as a comparison rather than a proposal. jp×g 21:03, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Gitz6666 unglock

To me, the Gitz6666 glock and (deserved) unglock illustrates a fundamental problem with the m:Universal Code of Conduct: Parts of it are phrased in such general and draconian terms that it gives admins and functionaries a ready excuse to ban practically anyone who raises a concern about them. It's a document in urgent need of community review. Andreas JN466 16:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

What policy express and how it is implemented is of interest. The current policy express a longing for chivalry and civlility. Its intentions are not bad. But how it is implemented and used, the realities on the ground, may differ from that. The russian legal consept of extremism opens up for that anyone with views or actions that could alter any sosial order can be targeted. From ISIS to Jehova Witnesses including Meta on the way. (The mother of facebook & instagram.) And is targeted. The wikipedia/media's universes understanding of what constitutes a disruptive behavior, a blocking reason, can be executed in the same way as the russian example. If so, how to describe this and that as a society? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrez1 (talk • contribs) 09:52, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
Andrez1 (talk) 09:56, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
@Andrez1 Yes, you've said that well. I had exactly the same comparison in mind. Andreas JN466 13:37, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
@Andreas. And what does it express? Is it a inherent systemic failure in both systems? Andrez1 (talk) 13:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

News from the WMF: ABC for Fundraising: Advancing Banner Collaboration for fundraising campaigns (937 bytes · 💬)

RfC date

For reference, the Request for Comment actually ran in November of last year.

Andreas JN466 07:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Signpost readers may also recall the previous Signpost article about the referenced RfC, which of course contains a convenient Wiki-link to the referenced RfC in its first paragraph.

Philh-591 (talk) 18:36, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Obituary: David Thomsen (Dthomsen8) and Ingo Koll (Kipala) (1,111 bytes · 💬)

I was lucky enough to meet David Thomsen in 2012, at an NYC event. A great editor and a great person. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:55, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

At the 2015 WCNA in DC I was assigned to hand out "Wiki-Edu" backpacks to Lightning Talkers. When Dave came off the podium and accepted his, he didn't just settle for thanking me but in return gave me one of his "Wikipedia Editor" caps. I was briefly tempted to demur on grounds that I was only doing my duty, but bit my tongue and have worn it proudly at events ever since, though it is becoming slightly battered. Alas, I didn't get to know him as well as many; just enough to appreciate his wisdom and his kindness to others. Jim.henderson (talk) 12:22, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Recent research: Wikipedia-grounded chatbot "outperforms all baselines" on factual accuracy (4,397 bytes · 💬)

Presumably the preprint about WiCE, after giving the example quoted above, goes on to discuss the problems with both the sentence from the article Santa Maria della Pietà, Prato ("13th-century icon" is not supported by the source) and the "sub-claims" GPT-3 generated from it (clearly the "icon" can't be both 13th-century and from 1638)? If so, what does it say? I think the original source has misunderstood that the 14th-century image itself (attributed to Giovanni Bonsi), as opposed to a "depiction of the miraculous event" (unspecified, but it occurred in the 17th century), is the fresco at the centre of the later altarpiece (painted by Mario Balassi in 1638, and on canvas rather than in fresco according to the Italian Wikipedia article), so that doesn't help. Ham II (talk) 11:23, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, indeed! Was this passage deliberately selected as all screwed up (because of misunderstanding the Italian original), or was it just chance? I'm not sure what this proves, other than the old maxim GIGO. All three of the "Sub-claims predicted by GPT-3" are factually incorrect! Johnbod (talk) 03:46, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
@Johnbod Looks like a case of Kozierok's First Law: "The apparent accuracy of a Wikipedia article is inversely proportional to the depth of the reader's knowledge of the topic." Andreas JN466 09:56, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks and small correction on Wikipedia ChatGPT plugin

Thanks for covering this work! One small correction RE:

"The plugin works by first performing a Google site search on Wikipedia to find articles matching the user's query"

This was true of the earliest version of the plugin, but for production we've switched to leveraging the Wikimedia Search API to find articles matching the user's query. We'll update the docs/README to reflect this (our quick R&D on this outpaced our technical documentation, but catching up now)! Maryana (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Maryana! Yes, the writeup here was solely based on the Wikimedia Foundation's public documentation and thus dependent on its correctness. (In the future I would suggest double-checking and if necessary fixing documentation in advance of such high profile public announcements.)
Just to understand correctly, I assume you mean that the plugin continues to be developed to be able to use both Google site search and the Wikimedia Search API (with a feature flag [3] that is currently set to "google_search_is_enabled"), but that the latter is selected as the preferred search provider right now in the settings. (Feel free to correct me as I may have misread the code.)
Anyway, that's good to know - I had in fact been wondering about that aspect, also in the light of some concerns about proprietary services that were voiced recently (not by me) in the Wikimedia AI Telegram group.
Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:53, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

Tips and tricks: What automation can do for you (and your WikiProject) (2,100 bytes · 💬)

  • It's because of technical editors that the Wikipedia project is where it is today. Hats off to everyone mentioned here! (and for you, Headbomb, your cite highlighter script is awesome - I don't think I can live without them :D) Ca talk to me! 12:06, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Excellent article! Frostly (talk) 13:50, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Thank you for this really well done article. Hope to see more articles about how automation, scripts and bots make a profound difference to Wikipedia. -- GreenC 11:32, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
    Keep an eye out for the next issue then! There's going to be at least two articles on those things :) Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:25, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Link to Demonstration Video in Commons:
  • Link to PDF tutorial in Commons:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiSalon_Wikipedia_Cleanup_Worklist_Bot.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk • contribs)

Traffic report: The Idol becomes the Master (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-07-17/Traffic report


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