Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-06-06

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-06-06. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Board elections: Time to vote (1,189 bytes · 💬)

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• I received a few requests off-wiki to prepare a voter's guide for these elections (but unfortunately, I have too much in my pile at this moment to keep up). Does anyone know of any voter's guides that have been made? I've been told that there was/is a shortage this year. Ncmvocalist (talk) 07:51, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

there are a few people who have made lists of the people they personally are voting for; but I don't know of any more informative voting guides (and there's not "parties" or "slates" or anything like that). Probably the posted candidate statements are the most helpful thing right now. -- phoebe / (talk to me)

Alecmconroy has provided a personal voter guide here, and AGK has stated his vote preferences here, but I am not aware of any others. Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:24, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Featured content: The best of the week (2,540 bytes · 💬)

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The name of the article isn't The Book of Ely, it's Liber Eliensis - this should be corrected. The two most recent editions of the work use that title. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:19, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:26, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

RAF Northolt

Hello, just a minor correction, RAF Northolt is situated in the north-west of Greater London not the north-east as stated. Thanks Grim²³★ 10:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I looked at the map provided, and after all this time mixed up east and west. Now fixed; sorry. Tony (talk) 12:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I added something to the Newsroom a few days ago, but haven't received any response. Would this be the right place to suggest mentioning the launch of Wikipedia:Today's featured list on 13 June? Or would that be News and Notes territory? —WFC— 21:30, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

We don't know that they're going up on 13 June for certain yet, but 29 supports and 0 opposes suggests that there is a decent chance of consensus being reached. —WFC— 21:32, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

This is up to Raul, or if not, who? Can you keep me posted? Tony (talk) 10:29, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Raul has helped considerably with backend development, as well as giving some advice on blurb structure, although he is yet to declare his position. That he has helped should not automatically be taken to assume that he supports the proposal as-is. But the final decision rests with the community here. —WFC— 10:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

In the news: 60% of doctors use Wikipedia; growing in India; brief news (2,018 bytes · 💬)

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You can find a brief history of our Movement Roles discussions, starting with the strategic planning process, on my blog. I'm planning a series of articles there, and would love to turn that into a Signpost series. People interested in how we share roles and responsibilities - and the possibilities for awesome collaboration and unhappy conflict in the future - are welcome to join in. – SJ + 00:56, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm sure The Signpost would be delighted to print a story on the issue, SJ (though it's not my call, obviously). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:41, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

adding a link to this on the suggestions page, is that where you meant to leave this? -- phoebe / (talk to me) 19:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• FYI: the NYT and Washington Post have picked up on the Palin silliness tonight, after every US broadcaster's nightly news show aired a segment about it earlier tonight (6 June).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:42, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

What is "Global South"? The link in the article redirects to North-South divide and it does not explain it. --Mortense (talk) 08:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: Board resolution on controversial content; WMF Summer of Research; indigenous workshop; brief news (706 bytes · 💬)

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• Great going, HPN. This is really commendable work. Kudos to you and others bringing the culture of Wikipedia editing to places which are bereft of such opportunities. AshLin (talk) 03:18, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• Two language workshops in one week :) Do we have stats on how many speakers of these languages do not already speak another, bigger language? Regards, - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:39, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Recent research: Various metrics of quality and trust; leadership; nerd stereotypes (3,909 bytes · 💬)

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'"regular folks" ... a "well educated, credentialed group", and thirdly, "solitary techno-geek... technologically adept, unkempt, unhealthily obsessive, and absorbed with online life." I'm not convinced the 'stereotyped' split is so far off the mark. Perhaps the third group is smaller than people think, but as a reasonably experienced contributor, I'd say these were the three biggest groups - from first to third, smaller, but more inclined to edit (see also WP:BIAS). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 08:59, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• Graph at the top of this page: why such different trends for conference and journal papers, with the first having peaked four years and on a trajectory to zero, and journal papers still peaking? I can't find the answer easily at the links.

  The article Measuring Hyperlink Distances: Figure 1a average 23.9, standard deviation 702.1?? Tony (talk) 09:53, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• The graphs of conference and journal articles makes sense. Conferences, by and large, are for observations and research that are new, so conference articles peaked when Wikipedia was a fairly new phenomena. Now that it has more or less stabilized, the conference article have tailed off. LouScheffer (talk) 15:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• This is just awsomme!! Thank you for writing it. --U5K0 (talk) 17:03, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
• Way too kempt to be "my kind of people". I may have to rethink this gig. Danger (talk) 03:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)
• Graph: I think that the conferences may simply be not up to date. I've been updating the page till 2008; then stopped. Recently another person has updated the journals, but I am not sure if they updated the conferences. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

WikiSym Research

Hello everyone! If you are curious about current (or older) Wikipedia research as published through WikiSym, you can look up all the papers in the respective proceedings. Here is a list of the WikiSym proceedings web pages:

• 2010: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2010/Proceedings
• 2009: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2009/Proceedings
• 2008: http://wikisym.org/ws2008/proceedings/
• 2007: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/proceedings.html
• 2006: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2006/proceedings/
• 2005: http://www.wikisym.org/ws2005/proceedings

Best, Dirk Riehle (talk) 21:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Nerd stereotypes

I can understand that making it uncool to edit wikipedia would deter non geeks from editing. But was it ever cool and trendy to edit Wikipedia and did we ever have much reach beyond the techno/nerd community? Hundreds of millions of people edit Facebook, hundreds of thousands edit Wikipedia, yet we aren't that different in terms of numbers of visitors. Unless someone can think of an event or meme in the last few years that would have made editing Wikipedia become less fashionable then I'm inclined to suspect that we always had a geeky tendency. ϢereSpielChequers 21:42, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News (575 bytes · 💬)

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We didn't end up participating in IPv6 day. While there was a desire to do so, in preparation we discovered a few schema changes that will need resolving prior to enabling IPv6 sitewide. I imagine we'll hear more on this soon. ^demon^{[omg plz]} 03:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Make your own book with Wikiproject Wikipedia-Books (7,444 bytes · 💬)

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One more thing worth saying; I believe that WikiProjects can form very natural partnerships with Wikipedia-Books. WikiProjects can make and maintain books on their fields as part of their regular duties, and are best equip to improve the articles in those books. Just one person in even the largest of WikiProjects can ensure that the work of that project is represented in the Wikipedia-Books library. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

The editing process here didn't go off very smoothly, but now that the article is published, let's bury the hatchet.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
My comments went under significant editing, which I do/did not appreciate. For my answers as I intended them, see this version of the interview. It contains some typos and other minor mistakes, but at least it reflects the interview I did take. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 08:17, 6 June 2011 (UTC) Can you please point out where the significant editing occurred? Comparing both versions, most of it was quoted verbatim. Any editing was to make to story more reader-friendly, concise and to highlight points that would promote your project. – SMasters (talk) 14:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC) Things like this and this and this and many others. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 16:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC) I had hoped to keep the ugliness of this editorial process out of the public, but since it's already here, I might as well say my piece. My comments were also edited in a way in which I did not approve. Most prominently several questions were combined, which mixed separate trains of thought and muddled what I was trying to say. The comment I made at the top of this thread is one example. When the interview was set out, that was a freestanding question on WikiProject collaboration. When SMasters edited it, he stuck it onto another question. I moved it back down to the other comments section so I could separate the two different statements properly, and then he cut the other comments section entirely. Therefore the only way I could make what I consider a rather important point is by posting it here. I'm unhappy with how this interview turned out, and I place the blame firmly in the lap of the interviewer. Sven Manguard Wha? 18:50, 6 June 2011 (UTC) The first question, was put into prose to form the introduction. There is nothing unusual about this. The question about collaboration was about inter-WikiProject collaboration, not about personal collaboration. This is, after all, the WikiProject Report. As such, I decided to remove the question. However, there were one or two points which I thought were good, and worth mentioning. But as the question had been removed, I thought rather than waste these gems, I would use a literary device to add them to the end of other responses. Since there was unhappiness over this, I removed them. The final question was about anything else that one might like to add. I then added them to where I thought it was appropriate and made sense, and removed the question due to length considerations. I did not change any quotes (except to correct errors, and for clarity or brevity). I edited this piece in good faith, and meant well in terms of helping promote the cause of this WikiProject. The above statements imply that I have gone and changed what was said in the interview, which simply did not happen. – SMasters (talk) 23:57, 6 June 2011 (UTC) I'm collapsing this. As far as I am concerned, mistakes were made, but there was no malice. As the article is now live, there's really not that much else to be done. Sven Manguard Wha? 01:33, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

• Since adding it to the Suggestions was useless, I'd like to add a footnote to this full story about Wikipedia-Books. Last week I launched a coupon giveaway project on it.wp, thanks to PediaPress, aimed to collect 35 new community books based on featured and quality articles as a way to celebrate Wikipedia's 10th anniversary. It's a first on our project, that's why I thought it would be worth mentioning it again. You can read more on Wikilove's blog, on my blog (in Italian, but there's a button to Google-translate it), while the project itself is here, and on the talk page you can read a statement by PediaPress. --Elitre (talk) 09:25, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
  • If you're talking about this, you didn't give The Signpost a lot of time to react. It might make a good addition to next week's News and Notes. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

FYI, Erik Zachte recently started producing regular stats on sales of printed books through the book tool, available here (the CSV file includes per-country breakdown); WMF receives 10% of the revenue reported here. The book tool is part of our larger efforts to make Wikimedia content usable offline, with the principal motivations being 1) reaching people with no or limited connectivity, 2) allowing educational institutions to manage their own collections of educational content they want to use. See m:Offline Projects for more. :-) --Eloquence* 20:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)