Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2010-09-06

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2010-09-06. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Interim desysopping, CU/OS appointments, and more (4,188 bytes · 💬)

Congratulations to all successful candidates. Ncmvocalist (talk) 19:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I generally support the actions of the Arbitration Committee, but it seems more and more that their actions are taken in secret, rather than in the open where the collaborative nature of a wiki can examine them. Now, we are told of an action, and that the action is not suitable for discussion, but not even told why it's not suitable. Is it for privacy reasons? For matters of national security? We don't know, and so we have no way of judging whether the ArbCom is acting responsibly. Powers ^T 12:50, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Extended content

The story seems to have glossed over a relevant portion of Coren's statement: "The factors that went into our decision to take these actions involve personal information..." –xenotalk 13:07, 7 September 2010 (UTC) I don't think LtPowers was referring to the bleeding obvious, but rather, the deeper issue that goes beyond this single matter (see also his response at 14:22). Ncmvocalist (talk) 20:21, 7 September 2010 (UTC) I was responding to his statement that we haven't been told why it is not suitable. We have. –xenotalk 20:23, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Perhaps you will reconsider the helpfulness of your response if you read until the end of the editor's statement and look at the subsequent statements; you will find that the sentences were (in fact) not isolated from one another. And in case this was a separate response concerning the report generally, I wanted to quote the full statement which included the bleeding obvious, but an involved editor did not want this highlighted explicitly. Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:09, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

e.c. in answer to LtPowers: There are very good reasons that ArbCom's job should not be conducted solely under the glare of the public spotlight. Just one of those reasons concerns the privacy of those who are involved in cases and other ArbCom processes. Tony (talk) 13:11, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

But the public spotlight is the only way we have to evaluate the ArbCom's execution of their duties. It seems there's an inherent tension there that has no good resolution. Powers ^T 14:22, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

The alternative is exposing an editor to real-life harassment without his permission. Have you chummers already forgotten how User:H exited?! —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Dittobori)} 22:51, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I cannot forget that which I was never aware. While I certainly respect the need for privacy, it seems as if the number of times ArbCom invokes it has been increasing, including those actions they don't even mention on-wiki at all. I think it's a legitimate question to ask whether ArbCom is limiting this privilege to the smallest number of cases practical, but it's a question only ArbCom can answer, and that makes it hard to know whether to trust the answer or not. Powers ^T 23:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

That's true; at present, we don't have anyone else who can look at the content of those discussions (except Jimbo). Ncmvocalist (talk) 05:34, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Book review: Cognitive Surplus, by Clay Shirky (860 bytes · 💬)

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Wow, great effort in analysing and summarizing the book! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 07:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes; I hope the author sees it! Tony (talk) 13:04, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Ditto, thank you for the informative review! -Reagle (talk) 13:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Yep. Good job reviewing the book, well done. --bodnotbod (talk) 09:58, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Dispatches: Tools, part 1: References, external links, categories and size (3,369 bytes · 💬)

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This page has been blanked for ease of comment. ResMar 23:25, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

There is also "Cite for Wiki", a downloadable addition which creates a "quick and dirty" tool for adding initial sources from web pages which are susceptible to later refinement by bots and others. I've found it useful in dealing with unsourced, but credible, edits, as long as they are reliably sourced on the web. Rodhullandemu 23:51, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Some of these, like Reflinks and DYKcheck, would work better as bots, wouldn't they? Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 07:03, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ginger, at least on Reflinks, and it sounds like the same on DYKcheck, you sometimes need a human to review before edits are saved. Using Reflinks, the tool extracts infomation from websites used as sources for an article and one problem is that sometimes the info is incorrectly labelled e.g. reflinks, on the plain links setting, can suggest within a cite template: author=11 June 2010 by Joseph Pulitzer|date=11 June 2010... i.e. a human needs to look at this and see that the date has been duplicated. Having said this, Reflinks was used automatically in the past see [1] Tom B (talk) 10:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Hey, thanks for this article! I found it the most useful Signpost article I've read in a long time. Many of these features should really be included as standard, but since they aren't, people need to know about them. (I expect most users aren't even aware of all the possibilities available under User Preferences.) Robofish (talk) 21:12, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

This is a wonderfully useful report, thank you for writing it.--Eloquence* 04:01, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I wonder whether it's possible to save it as a WP page, after the next and final installment. Tony (talk) 07:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

A good addition to Signpost. I think it's a shame that probably people who read Signpost are going to be towards the end of the spectrum that are aware of useful tools already. Still, it should inspire a few readers. --bodnotbod (talk) 10:07, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

You'de be suprised... ResMar 23:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

This is good article. "Demo" link is especially nice. --Was a bee (talk) 01:15, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Features and admins: Bumper crop of admins; Obama featured portal marks our 150th (1,176 bytes · 💬)

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Why was my WP:FA for Millennium Park not included in the article?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 04:43, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

My fault, sorry. I don't know how I missed it. Inserting now. Tony (talk) 06:58, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Very entertaining this week! -- œ^™ 16:47, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Guys, be sure to check out some of Darius's other insect photo's, very nice stuff. --I'ḏ♥One 01:54, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

In the news: WikiLeaks and Wikipedia; Google–WP collaboration to translate health information (7,375 bytes · 💬)

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Wikileaks

Wikileaks have a page about contributing at http://wikileaks.org/wiki/WikiLeaks:Writer%27s_Kit. PhilKnight (talk) 09:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Not big payers, are they. You'd hope your investigative costs were insignificant. Tony (talk) 10:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Based on their talk page, I gather they aren't paying anything. PhilKnight (talk) 10:46, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I have to say, I wish Jimmy hadn't registered those Wikileak domain names. It rather muddies the waters. I think what we should be hoping for is that 'Wiki...' as a prefix becomes so widespread that we wouldn't attach it to any one movement any more than we would '... .com' or '.org' --bodnotbod (talk) 09:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

• ..and they wonder why we get mad when they abbreviate Wikipedia as "wiki".. -- œ^™ 16:03, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: The Wikipedia-related leaks/reports linked in the article have since been removed from wikileaks.org (http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks_busts_Gitmo_propaganda_team and http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Mogis_Wikipedia_article_and_history_before_removal,_Nov_2009 are currently giving 404 error messages), as have many other previous leaks. For the time being, the description page for the first is still readable in Google's cache. A copy of the second appears to be here.

Jimmy Wales has since clarified the issue of the domain names:

"The domain names were legally transferred to Wikileaks a long time ago, but for unknown reasons, Wikileaks never completed the technical aspects of the transfer. Wikia has made multiple requests to them to do so, with no result yet."

(In a recent interview on the Charlie Rose show, he mentioned having been in contact with Assange about the issue.)

And in the comments to WWB's blog posting, a reader linked to a historical version of the Wikileaks FAQ which illustrates the changes in policy mentioned in this Signpost article more clearly:

“ How will Wikileaks operate?

To the user, Wikileaks will look very much like Wikipedia. Anybody can post to it, anybody can edit it. No technical knowledge is required. Leakers can post documents anonymously and untraceably. Users can publicly discuss documents and analyze their credibility and veracity. Users can discuss interpretations and context and collaboratively formulate collective publications. Users can read and write explanatory articles on leaks along with background material and context. The political relevance of documents and their verisimilitude will be revealed by a cast of thousands.

”

Regards, HaeB (talk) 11:21, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Campaigns Wikia

Campaigns Wikia currently redirects to Wikia, but that is not what we are looking for. Can we pipe the link instead to say a webpage about Campaigns Wikia, or its article (if there is one)? ANGCHENRUI ^Talk♨ 11:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I've linked to http://campaigns.wikia.com/wiki/Campaigns_Wikia. PhilKnight (talk) 20:49, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

"Copyrighting" a word

"Wales said that he could not just copyright the word 'wiki', because he did not want to prevent other people from starting wikis." Surely Wales meant he could not just trademark the word 'wiki', right? TJRC (talk) 01:05, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Google Translating medical articles

I would have thought that we'd classify medical articles as the very last category of articles we would want to apply machine translation to, because of the sorry state of the latter. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:17, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe it is strictly as an adjunct to human translation. Tony (talk) 03:45, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes indeed. While still incipient in many ways, the practice of postediting—that is, having real translators rework and rewrite a machine translation into an accurate and functionally equivalent text—is increasingly common and is being used to great effect in several fields. With a good system in the hands of a good translator, it is a surprisingly powerful tool. Some extremely high-volume translation work, such as that required by international organizations, would be next to impossible without the aid of machine translation. Emphasis on aid. "Raw" MT is indeed a disaster in most contexts and, unsurprisingly, its use often has equally disastrous consequences. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 02:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

What Fv says. And to reinforce his point, as I understand it, speed is one of the big issues. It is much faster to fix up a bad machine translation that to translate from scratch. Editing the bad into the good actually allows the translator to focus on different things in the relationship between the original and the translated equivalent—subtle nuances that are more likely to be drowned in the pure grunt work of translating from scratch. However, fixing (bad) machine translation is no bed of roses: it involves lower-level work, but just less of it by proportion. As with all translation, it works very well if the translator knows the original language reasonably well and the target language very well.

It occurs to me that as this project gains momentum, some of the linguistically inclined volunteers and Google-paid professionals might collaborate to produce a guideline specific to the task of translating medical texts from English to other languages with machine assistance. Perhaps those new to the task can be warned of pitfalls, of common quirks thrown up by the machine process, of things to look out for. It could be partly generic and partly language-specific. It could be combined with a guideline on the cultural sensitivities of the target readers, and how to handle the vexed issues raised in the Signpost article above concerning traditional medicine. Tony (talk) 02:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

News and notes: Pending changes analyzed, Foundation report, Main page bias, brief news (2,796 bytes · 💬)

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We definitely need more detail about what exactly "Movement Roles II" is. I've looked all over the official Foundation documentation where the term is used, but have not been able to find a clear definition of scope, purpose, staffing levels, budget, goals, or anything else more than a few sentences of fleeting reference. Ginger Conspiracy (talk) 05:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I have recently joined the working group and can only answer some of these things. One main purpose of the group is to help define clearer long-term roles of the chapters vis-a-vis the foundation, and of Wikimedians at large vis-a-vis both chapters and the foundation. I have started a page on meta describing the group. –SJ+ 10:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Given that the most ITN/SA involve politics and military battles, the bias against women is not surprising especially as the % of women in political/military roles would be < 5% until recently (particularly affecting the anniversaries) YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 08:52, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

In article discussions about controversial subjects we concede that Wikipedia reflects the world and that Wikipedia is not the place to right great wrongs. In the history of civilizations, many women have been excluded from positions of power. Rightly or wrongly (mostly wrongly), that is reflected in featured articles. The bias is exaggerated by the phenomenal work of the military history project, which trades in the male-dominated arena of war. I think there's probably room for more women than 15%, but part of the bias is just built into the male editors who disproportionately work here.

What role should the main page play? Should it attempt to present a balance which reflects demographics or the reality of culture and history? I'm not sure making the main page gender-balanced is really the answer unless we can attract the same numbers of actual female editors. Obviously males can work on articles about females, but people have biases and preferences too. I think the easiest way to rectify this problem is to keep bringing women to Wikipedia and to keep making it a more accessible and friendly place to edit. Ocaasi 22:54, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Technology report: Development transparency, resource loading, GSoC: extension management (1,789 bytes · 💬)

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• "Systems Administrator Domas Mituzas blogged about how the Wikipedia database system compares with those of other websites, and the upgrade from MySQL versions 4.0 to 5.1." That blog was actually written in July. An interesting read, but not particularly recent. I actually read half of it before realizing I had read it before. Reach Out to the Truth 23:58, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Well, it's only, er, September. Guess I should have noticed the URL. Hmm, something must have given me the impression it was new, some other story, or Twitter or something. Still, an interesting read we didn't cover in July (thankfully, now that really would be bad). - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 16:26, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Oh, found it. The de.wp's version of the Signpost (sort of) covered it [2] as news. - Jarry1250 ^{[Who? Discuss.]} 14:42, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad. Some folks at the talk page of WP:NEU (a pace dedicated mostly to technical news) noticed the update. Because some of the servers seemed to still run 4.0, I presumed the update was still ongoing and up-to-date. I didn't consider the possibility the update was spread over several months ;-) --Church of emacs (Talk) 20:12, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Putting articles in their place: the Uncategorized Task Force (1,609 bytes · 💬)

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Hey, my teaser stuck ^^ ResMar 23:24, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Uncategorized pages

Subtotals

May 2024	84
Undated articles	349

All articles

433

• Uncat (and uncat-stubs) is the only backlog that is kept reasonable (see right). These folk do a great service to Wikipedia, I know they will cat any article I create better and faster than I can. They also give hope to the other backlogs, where the tail is three, four or even five years. Rich Farmbrough, 00:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC).

Browsing the categories has always felt like crawling through the sewers or ventilation shafts. Thanks for making them more expansive. HereToHelp ^{(talk to me)} 01:09, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

@Resident Mario: I've changed the teaser slightly, sorry. Rock drum _Ba-dum^Crash _{(Driving well?)} 16:29, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

• Right on you two, great job. -- œ^™ 16:41, 10 September 2010 (UTC)