Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-10-22

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2012-10-22. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Malleus Fatuorum accused of circumventing topic ban; motion to change "net four votes" rule (9,832 bytes · 💬)

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The headline is sensationalistic and inflammatory. Per Wikipedia, "War is an organized, armed, and, often, a prolonged conflict..." While the civility discussions are indeed prolonged, they are neither organized nor armed. It's just a website. Nobody Ent 12:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

How is it inflammatory? Given the way this scandal is tearing apart a portion of the encyclopedia, maybe it's time for people to wake up and realize the damage they are doing. AutomaticStrikeout 13:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly what we are saying to the authors of this piece. Gigs (talk) 14:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree with that. This is just gasoline on the fire for no apparent reason. Anyway the Arb election is coming up shortly, so there's no need for anything to happen urgently. Gigs (talk) 13:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The Signpost merely reports what is happening. Are you aware of that battlefield? The journalists saw and presented to the community, in a balanced way as far as I can see. Tony (talk) 13:18, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I've followed it. I don't see it as a battlefield. I see a lot of editors trying to do what they think is the right thing, some more misguided than others, and without any defined "sides". I think framing it as a battlefield is a disservice. Gigs (talk) 14:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. If it was an oped piece, sure. But lets leave the inflammatory commentary out of the other stories. Resolute 13:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Look, I appreciate the efforts you guys are making to improve Signpost coverage and reach, and I appreciate that some of it is coming from improved writing. But a chunk appears to be stealing headlines from The Sun. Ironholds (talk) 14:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

For the record, there have indeed been wars that have not been armed nor terribly organized. That said, in many ways, this situation has felt like a war amongst editors. For one, as was already stated below, editors are fighting for what they believe to be the right thing to do about Malleus, for Wikipedia, for the community, and for policies. That, and damage has been done in the resulting exit of several constructive editors and reluctance of some editors (like myself) to have any strong opinion because it is one of the few times in Wikipedia when participation because you believe in a principle actually makes things worse than better. So yeah. That's war enough for me. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 20:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe the "not a Wikipedian" post was retracted/redacted - why no mention of that? This is a pretty poor piece not helping in a delicate situation. Nor does it explain why the first motion was proposed. It isn't very neutral at all.--Scott Mac 14:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

It was neither retracted nor redacted. The specific wording in the vote was changed slightly, but still raised concerns, and the "not a Wikipedian" sentiment was reiterated elsewhere. Agree broadly with the neutrality issue, though I don't think there's any way to write this that would make everyone happy while still presenting the specifics. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Not good enough. The article quotes verbatum the offending remarks but makes not mention that the one everyone is quoting was later stricken with an "ammendment".[1], and [2]. I'm sure that what was left still raised concerns for some folk - major ones. But not to at least mention an amendment and let the reader decide the significance is incredibly poor form indeed - inexcusable. --Scott Mac 15:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

That was my oversight. I've added it now. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Why does drama follow Malleus everywhere? I can't really be arsed to figure out what's at issue, because I know its pointless.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 18:35, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• An exemplar of why people find the Wikipedia community difficult to participate in. Speaking as someone who has no knowledge of whatever events led to this debacle, it appears ridiculous on its surface. Why is there such a drive to protect prolific content contributors who find themselves not only unable to collaborate with others, but actively disinterested in a live-and-let-live approach? And to echo Jclemens, we reject ersatz participants who are not here to write an encyclopedia, who refuse to write from a neutral point of view, and who refuse to follow our copyleft requirements... why cannot we reject those who likewise refuse to be civil? Powers ^T 18:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Perhaps because the clear-cut difference is that contrary to the vandals, the POV warriors and copyright violators (who are rarely banned), some of those you would like to reject actually produce some of the encyclopedia's best content. Perhaps also because incivility is a highly subjective concept, in the sense that way too often, it is clearly seen, identified and called out in our opponents and those we disagree with, while overlooked, ignored or trivialized in those we see as our allies. To wit, Malleus' opponents see no problem with the formulation "is not and has never been a wikipedian", while those who support him consider it a blistering personal attack. Copyright violation is mostly a black and white issue, with close paraphrasing the grey area. Civility is mostly a grey area with only very little pure black or white to be found. MLauba ^(Talk) 09:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
    • As I understand it, Malleus' "opponents" (critics might be better) have generally rejected the "not a Wikipedian" remark, and the person who uttered it has retracted it. I've not seen the same willingness from supporters to disown Malleus' more blatant incivility. You are, of course, correct that there are grey areas in civility, but things like "fucking cunt" not so much. My problem us with people forming high-minded "my side is right - my friends are beyond criticism" battle-lines - it is better if everyone sees that all issues are at least a bit gray, and perhaps friends should not only defend their friends, but be a little more willing to say "please do tone it down a bit - the other side, for all their faults, do have something of a point here sometimes". Anyway, this is off-topic to the article.--Scott Mac 09:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
      • I believe I am in full agreement with everything you just wrote. Where's the +1 button? :) More to the point, while indeed off-topic, it's highly relevant to the issue of civility and its enforcement issues on the project. MLauba ^(Talk) 10:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
• Sadly I am no longer surprised at anything that comes form ArbCom, who individually are mostly respectable. I was surprised to see an Arb is subject to an interaction ban though. Rich Farmbrough, 23:23, 25 October 2012 (UTC).
  

I've edited the title, that was not my original wording, Ed changed it at the last minute for publication in my absence. Any perceived sensationalism was unintentional, I do not believe he did this with malice aforethought. James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 5:02pm • 07:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't recall any formal suggestion of any interaction bans between myself or Jc37 and Malleus...maybe it was mentioned somewhere...I guess with all the back and forth I didn't see it. Oh well.--MONGO 02:57, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe there is a significant gap in the coverage of this story. It mentions Isarra's request for clarification and then jumps to: "The first proposal called for Malleus to be banned...". It omits the fact that SirFozzie conjured the ban motion rather than answering the question that was asked of the arbs. Joefromrandb (talk) 15:45, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Featured content: Is RfA Kafkaesque? (2,980 bytes · 💬)

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• The page says "This edition covers content promoted from 14 to 20 October 2012", however Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:New England seems to have been promoted on 13 October 2012. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 13:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I suspect this is because the bot did not pick it up until 15 October, but hopefully Crisco can confirm this. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 13:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
    • I didn't see it, right. Nobody updated the Featured content portal on the 13th when this was promoted. Since FPOs and FTs are promoted so rarely, sometimes they get overlooked. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
      • Since this wasn't featured in the previous edition, there is no harm in giving it some light in this one. ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 13:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
        • Exactly. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
          • Usually I write a note regarding portal promotion at Wikipedia:Goings-on. But I'm not sure the individual who writes this column checks that page. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
            • I check P:FC. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:29, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Is WP:RfA Kafkaesque?

Yes. All of the above. Bearian (talk) 13:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Certainly not a time of contemplation, methinks. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:49, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Great job

Great job on this article, Crisco. Its a very good read! TBrandley 20:45, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks TBrandley! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:29, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Special report: Adminship from the German perspective (3,331 bytes · 💬)

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Thanks for your coverage of other projects. It's helpful and interesting to learn how they do things.

I hope we'll see more of these articles. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 12:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Excellent coverage! --Tito Dutta (talk) 13:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
• This is a really neat and valuable perspective on how another Wikipedia project handles the same issues we face. Thank you for presenting it so well! Ocaasi ^{t | c} 13:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
• My thanks too! Great to hear how other communities tackle the same issue. Samw (talk) 14:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
• Interesting article. On French Wikipedia, the administrator's recall procedure requires 6 editors within 6 months instead of 25 editors within 3 months. DeansFA (talk) 14:57, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
• That 50% + 1 rule should be used in en.Wikipedia for deciding administrative/governance issues. Cla68 (talk) 05:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
• A similar system has been working for years at the English Wikisource. Administrators are reconfirmed each year by simply majority vote, and special votes of confidence can be called in usual circumstances if enough established users support the need for one. This simple system guarantees accountability, and has been a primary factor in ensuring good admin-community relations. Plus it makes being an administrator much less of a "big deal" (which is a very healthy thing). I'll admit that I personally opposed this system when it was initially introduced (at the time I thought it would be too much of a beaurocratic burden to maintain), but I was totally wrong. It has worked fantastically and it is easy to maintain (take a look). I think it would work just as well at the English Wikipedia. Dovi (talk) 07:42, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
• I'd like to know whether editors think part or all of the German system should be imported to en.WP. Thoughts, WereSpielChequers? Tony (talk) 12:32, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
• Interesting to see the separation of powers, this is something I believe we need on the English project. Rich Farmbrough, 02:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC).
  
• From the article I don't understand why it's believed that the recall system made the election of new administrators easier: stats also don't seem to support this conclusion. On it.wiki there's a similar system since 2006 and it has never really helped new elections even though the required majorities are far stricter. --Nemo 17:09, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Technology report: Wikivoyage migration: technical strategy announced (1,334 bytes · 💬)

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• "The beneficiaries of the change are staff (all of whom can now merge core code)...." This makes it sound as though the entire staff of WMF can now merge core code, which is not the case; could you clarify? Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 00:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Siebrand added "engineering" and I added "full-time" which should bring the wording explicitly into line with the source. Best, - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 13:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
• "User migration is likely to be far more difficult, and yet, given the need to preserve legal attribution, just as difficult." -- that's gibberish; can I suggest you revise it? Looie496 (talk) 16:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Quite. It should of course have read "just as necessary", fixed now, thanks - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 19:14, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Where in the world is Wikipedia? (17,494 bytes · 💬)

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24 October 2012

• Thanks for making me realize that, being Italian, I might help with the WikiProject Italy :) I am also so glad you mentioned WikiAfrica, and would like to point out that within that project we developed a database of African villages, municipalities and so on. They might be easily published on Wikipedia by using a bot, but unfortunately, some linguistic versions do not seem interested. If someone reading this operates a bot and is interested in filling that gap this article talks about, please drop me a line. Thanks! --Elitre (talk) 11:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Hi Elitre, I was not aware that bots can be used to publish articles on Wikipedia. Would you please elaborate. thanx Ottawahitech (talk) 18:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Bots are allowed to publish articles, but require prior approval (see WP:BAG and WP:BOTREQ). Realistically, a bot would not be approved except for a high-volume task, such as the above-mentioned database. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• South America and Oceania do not exist in this post. :( Oceania probably actually has bigger issues in regards to representation than Africa. Look at sports for a start. How bad is the coverage for those? And ironic moment: Articles on women's football in Africa are better, based on assessment alone, than men's football. --LauraHale (talk) 11:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

South American countries Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela were mentioned in the "What can be done?" section. Aside from Australia, I did neglect Oceania, which I agree can use a lot of help. We'll be publishing an interview with WP Brazil next month, so be sure to check back. –Mabeenot (talk) 02:15, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• A very useful report, and yes it is certainly time to start drastic consolidation among the projects, sub-projects, task-forces etc etc set up with high hopes in a different period. The ones where no one objects to consolidation are the ones to go. Johnbod (talk) 12:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes I agree it is a useful report, I am not so sure though about consolidating wiki-projects. Some of us prefer to be BIG FISH in small bowls rather than the other way around :-) Ottawahitech (talk) 18:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• This was seriously the best Signpost report ever! ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^{Talk Email} 13:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Standardizing wikiprojects?

• I think you should be cautious in assessing active WikiProjects based on their talk page frequency. To me the most useful part of WikiProjects is the cleanup lists, article alerts, assessment logs and counts, dab solver and other maintenance activities that are much more easily managed when it is related to topics that you know about. But my experience with tracking some of these, especially from the WP:URBLP work, is that most projects aren't active in cleaning up their own articles. It's normally either a very small number of editors who decide to work through a backlog, or a generic backlog drive that covers all projects. One thing that would be a good start, would be to standardise all WikiProjects setups and ensure that the tools to track, monitor and maintain the articles are always running, and WMF backed, so that they don't fall over when someone's toolserver account expires (anyone seen User:DASHBot lately?) or when the toolserver gets lagged. And has anyone ever run a report of pages that aren't in any WikiProjects? Are there thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of articles that are project orphans? The-Pope (talk) 14:42, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

  No doubt there are, but since so little happens to maintain most of the ones that are in projects, of what use is that information? Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

  It at least gives them a chance of being seen, one day, by someone who is aware of these lists or the Wikipedia:Article alerts automated system (for when the manual delsort system isn't working). I shudder to think how many "lost" articles are out there, with the only real chance of ever being improved/vandal watched etc is to have enough relevant categories or wikiprojects on them for them to be found (especially those with strange spellings in the titles. The-Pope (talk) 15:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

  The main page indicates 4,082,654 articles while from this it appears that there are 3,919,430 articles tagged by at least one WikiProject, that leaves 163,224 (4%) without a WikiProject. --ELEKHH^T 02:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• @ELEKHH, actually I am surprised to find out there are only 163,224 articles that do not belong to a wiki-project. I have been tagging such articles for some time now and from my vantage point there are a lot more than 4% that need that service. I guess I must have been working the slums of Wikipedia :-)

• You must have been in a particular territory, as I haven't encountered that many. On the other hand in absolute terms 163,224 is a fairly large number. That's more articles than most (250 of 285) Wikipedias have in total. --ELEKHH^T 22:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• @Elekhh, Maybe, but I sure come across many talk pages that have no wikiproject associated with them. Just minutes ago I found 3: Talk:Consumer protection, Talk:Notary and Talk:Pocket veto. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• @The-Pope, I agree wiki-projects should be a lot more standard to allow Wikipedians to participate without having to learn a whole new set of rules, locations,rating articles, etc. How this can be accomplished is another question, though. For example, there are many wiki-projects with no articles at all, for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention. Ottawahitech (talk) 03:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'd agree. Do those figures allow for the thousands of articles claimed by (usually far too many) multiple projects, I wonder? Johnbod (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• According to the explanation on that page yes, articles are only once counted and only the tag with highest importance rating is considered. --ELEKHH^T 22:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikiproject deletions

• Wasn't the Gibralter wiki-project just barely saved from deletion earlier this month? Another wikiproject, Wikipedia: WikiProject Nortel (a Canadian company) had just disappeared into a black hole. So why encourage wikipedians to join these semi-active projects and waste precious time trying to save them? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Just thought I would add a link to the deletion discussion in case someone is still checking in here. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

• I can't speak for the Nortel one, but the Gibraltar one survived deletion by a wide margin - there was never any real danger it would get deleted. Active WikiProjects never do. Inactive ones either get marked as inactive and archived, or merged into more active projects. Prioryman (talk) 22:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• @Prioryman, I thought this deletion was defeated by a no-consensus - but I guess I will have to check when I get a chance. In any event a deletion of a wikiproject can happen with only a couple of participants in the deletion discussion itself.

As far as inactive wikiprojects being archived, or merged - that is simply not true and there is no such consensus at Wikipedia as you can clearly see in these comments: Wikipedia_talk:Canadian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#deletion of inactive projects Ottawahitech (talk) 15:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Since you are linking to my comments. I am not sure exactly what you are getting at. It does happen fairly regularly that inactive projects get merged into others or deleted. I have been in a few such discussions in the past. If you are referring to active WikiProjects. Then it is pretty rare that they get deleted, the only time I have seen it happen is when there is A> already a WikiProject with the same scope B> the project is doing something counter to the goals of the wiki. I have seen the second situation in a number of cases where the project was being used to push a particular POV. -DJSasso (talk) 15:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• @Djsasso, this is what I should have said:

As far as inactive wikiprojects ALWAYS being either archived, or merged, but NOT deleted - that is simply not true ... Ottawahitech (talk) 02:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

You are correct - in that despite our policy on the matter (as seen here and here many still get deleted for the wrong reasons - (resulting in userfication of some if someone is willing). That said many that have been deleted fall into the useless category. See an old talk on the problem of deletions HERE. Moxy (talk) 18:27, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• @Moxy, Thanks again for the relevant wikilinks which document Wikipedia's policy in regards to wikiproject deletions:

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Other_options

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion

I wonder if the admins who carry out deletions pay attention to these policies? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Canada info error

Currently the section on Canada states "only a few of these projects have talk pages that don't redirect to the Canadian Wikipedians' notice board". I would like to point out that not one of the Canadian sub projects redirects its talk page to the main Canadian notice board. It would be correct to say the Canadians seem to use the main notice board for all topics .. but we don't redirect the talk pages - we have talked about it - but it did not seem logical at the time of the discussion. Moxy (talk) 18:44, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Right you are. I seem to remember there being quite a few redirects, but looking back now, I'm clearly mistaken. I've corrected it in the article. Thanks! –Mabeenot (talk) 02:15, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• Well, I am glad to see Moxy participating here. I have been trying to participate in Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada for a long time, but find the setup there very confusing and different from other wiki-projects. Since Moxy is the main organizer of this wikiproject, it is a great opportunity to have some questions answered (I hope?). Ottawahitech (talk) 03:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I can try and answer any questions you have about most projects. As for organization (layout) - I (with others) have taken care of layouts for projects like - WP:USA - WP:CA - WP:AUS - WP:BIB.Moxy (talk) 16:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• OK, Thanks: Who does the article assessments at the various sub-projects of wp:WikiProject Canada and where are these assessments discussed? Ottawahitech (talk) 02:00, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Any editor is free to make assessments for any article (lets hope they understand the ranking) - That said we (the Canada project) do have a request section at Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Assessment#Requesting an assessment were help in this regard can be obtained. There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ for general questions.Moxy (talk) 18:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• @Moxy, Do you mean ANY editor? - If so, who makes sure that each and every one of the over 104 thousand items tagged by this wikiproject is properly rated? Is this rating coordinated anwhere?

Like categories they are a part of Wikipedia that is 'in-general" not that important for accuracy because they are not seen (used) by the average reader - there more for editors and project organization. This is why GA and FA reviews are done independently of Wikiprojects. Most big projects will have a page with examples and explanations like Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Assessment#Quality scale.Moxy (talk) 21:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

• @Moxy, thanks. Can you recommend a place where interested parties can continue this discussion, since it appears few are left here(?) Ottawahitech (talk) 19:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I would guess at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment.Moxy (talk) 19:44, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Community

Effectively a Wikipedia geographic project will be successful in proportion to an number of factors. One of these is the sense of community the project engenders. For this purpose smaller is in some ways better. In particular when there is a sufficient pool of literate people with access to the technology, uncommitted time and a volunteer culture then small is indeed beautiful. Rich Farmbrough, 02:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC).

@Rich Farmbrough: I would like to offer my own personal observation regarding the sense of community: in my experience many talkpages are frequented by editors whose mission seems to be "jump down quick on any newbie who shows up here asking questions". Sometimes these editors are not associated with the talkpage at all, but just seem to get their kicks by disrupting the discussion, or simply showing off, at least this is how I interpret it when it happens to me :-)

Other times the "jumpers" are established members who have grown through hard-knocks school and figure others should too before being allowed into the inner circle. Just my $.02. XOttawahitech (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

This is a frequently heard complaint. It would be worth looking at a sample and seeing how we can change the way we interact to lessen these confrontations. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 09:32, 16 April 2014 (UTC).

Recruiting WikiProject participants

If someone uses an automated program to invite each editor included in Category:Wikipedians by location to participate in one or more WikiProjects included in Category:Geographical WikiProjects, then probably there will be more WikiProject participants, including some who have not been aware of the existence of WikiProjects. —Wavelength (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Have always thought that our {{Welcome}} template(s) should mention and have a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject.Moxy (talk)

Or possibly, an option to fill in the name of a suitable WikiProject. Djembayz (talk) 02:51, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

WikiProjects ranked by liveliness

See also Wikipedia talk:Database reports#WikiProjects ranked by liveliness (version of 15:44, 26 October 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 16:44, 26 October 2012 (UTC)