Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2013-02-18

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2013-02-18. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

In the media: Sue Gardner interviewed by the Australian press (1,560 bytes · 💬)

Please note that while Jayen466 authored most of this piece, the "In brief" item on the two Register articles were authored and added by me. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:33, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

It's good forethought for you to note that. And a shame it needs to be done :-( . -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 02:24, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Secrecy of correspondence is a "human right" and a foundation of a democracy. If it get holes, then there is a free path to tyranny, martial law, coup d'etat and absolute power. Of course, it would kill Wikipedia too. BTW, U.S. Postal Service and its snail mail is worth to be defended too. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:26, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Kill Wikipedia? Do we operate secretly? Jim.henderson (talk) 11:40, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

1. Our nicknames protect us a lil bit against harassment
2. Nowadays, pharisaism (destructive harassment by lawyers) is a problem
3. Wikipedia is truth, neutral point-of-view and voluntary work
4. Tyranny (slavery) is media control (censorship) and paid propaganda (paid editing)
5. Of course, reality is fifty shades of grey :o)
6. Regards --Chris.urs-o (talk) 05:17, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

News and notes: Wikimedia Foundation declares "victory" in Wikivoyage lawsuit (2,858 bytes · 💬)

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The current version seems to suggest that the Affiliations Committee has seven members. This is not correct - currently the committee has 11 members, normally this is 10. effeietsanders 21:54, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

There are seven voting members; the article has been changed to reflect that. Thanks, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:10, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi Ed, thanks for looking into it, but I'm afraid also this is incorrect. Please see the Page on meta for a more elaborate explanation on its membership. There are currently 11 voting members. I do not understand where you get the impression there are only 7 - is there some documentation to be updated? effeietsanders 23:27, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't read charts, apparently—completely my fault, with none on your part. Thank you for the help! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:21, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

• Wait. About the Italian editor who died. With over 130,000 edits under his belt and from reading the text that he was popular, he doesn't have a section at Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians yet? GamerPro64 02:20, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
• I do not know where the link is, but there is something else interesting about the WikiVoyage lawsuit. The WMF made a policy of some sort relating to this that said that they had the option to use community funds to provide legal defense to community members who faced lawsuits in response to their activities in promoting the Wikimedia community. I am not making any judgment calls about this case in any way, but the important precedent to me in this case is how the WMF has shown a commitment to backing community members who need legal counsel. Blue Rasberry (talk) 04:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the WMF is to be commended for their support of the editing community. The policy I think you are refering to is at meta:Legal and Community Advocacy/Legal Fees Assistance Program, which came about after an RfC at meta:Request for comment/Legal Fees Assistance Program. The support from the WMF is very much appreciated. 64.40.54.147 (talk) 00:42, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Technology report: Better templates and 3D buildings (2,926 bytes · 💬)

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• "Arguments in favour of a more cautious approach centre on the propensity for templates to become ever more complex, obscuring their methods to the average user." I'm very concerned about that. If code gets too complex, only a bunch of people will be abled to edit Wikipedia. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:07, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Template code is already at that stage; there's very few people willing to touch the things. Apart from being better for the servers, Lua can't be worse in programmability - David Gerard (talk) 19:11, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  • I think the opposite will happen. Lua code (or code in any other half-decent programming language, for that matter) should be much more maintainable than the hacked together template "programming" language we use now. Lua code has more readable syntax, can more easily include documentation and comments and abstractions such as functions and modules should also help a lot to improve readability, re-usability and maintainability. —Ruud 19:51, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Templates are already an unreadable mess of almost-code. If we had this rollout 2 years ago I would've said the same thing. Remember that if you give software developers anything that looks like a programming language we'll try to develop in it. Much better to have an actual language than a mess of nested (and confusing) templates driven by curly braces and key-value relationships. Protonk (talk) 23:09, 20 February 2013 (UTC)
• I propose that there be a category (perhaps Category:Articles with geographic coordinates) for all articles having geographic coordinates.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

The place to discuss that would be at Template talk:Coord however the template is used on nearly a million pages so I'm not sure how useful it would be. If you really wanted to see what pages use it then you can use what links here [1].--Salix (talk): 20:00, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

• I can't find the WikiMiniAtlas icon in the planet articles. Nicolas1981 (talk) 04:14, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Check Olympus Mons for example. There has to be a coordinate in order for the WMA to appear. --Dschwen 05:28, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

• OPPOSE LUA. All of my programming expertise will be obsolete if we don't do it with horrible template hacks any more.--ragesoss (talk) 15:56, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Thank you for flying WikiProject Airlines (621 bytes · 💬)

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• Perhaps it should be noted a large load of airline articles are nominated for deletion now. Rcsprinter (talk) @ 21:17, 20 February 2013 (UTC)