Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2013-02-25

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2013-02-25. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Discussion report: Wikivoyage links; overcategorization (1,010 bytes · 💬)

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Kaldari suggests that rather than take over Webcite, we should just give it some money. Strikes me as the sensible approach - David Gerard (talk) 08:19, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• There's nothing sensible about it in the slightest. I know there are tons of anti-copyright activists on this site, unfortunately, but this is yet another example of people forgetting what Wikipedia is for and trying to turn it into an activist organization. WebCite links should be forbidden everywhere on Wikipedia because of our rules against links to copyvio sites. DreamGuy (talk) 03:51, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Fair use is not a copyright violation, and it is simply incorrect to claim it is - David Gerard (talk) 12:30, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

In the media: Former WMF board member creates "Wikipedia Corporate Index" for Fleishman-Hillard PR agency (5,295 bytes · 💬)

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With a couple of exceptions, these are all stories on paid editing/COI editing. It's clearly time to get site-wide rules on this and make precisely clear to everybody what's allowed and what's not allowed. And then enforce those rules. Otherwise we'll become as commercial as Facebook. Not even the PR folks want that - it's only good for them to post their stuff here if Wikipedia has some credibility. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 06:09, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm a bit astonished that the enormous(ly) critical discussion on this Index in the German Kurier has not been mentioned at all: de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Kurier#Wikipedia_Corporate_Index. With this information in mind, the Signpost article sounds a bit like an unreflected advertisement of this Index. I'm not sure if you wanted to intend this. —DerHexer (Talk) 23:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely not, and I am grateful to you for bringing it up. The discussions in de:WP have indeed been voluminous, with "Bought articles: No thank you" sticker images produced and the suggestion made that outgoing Wikimedia board members should be barred for three years from commercial involvement in Wikipedia-related matters, among many other things. Pavel Richter, the head of Wikimedia Germany, defended Arne on the other hand. Perhaps in this case a brief reference to the copious discussions over on de:WP would have been warranted, but the brief for the "In the Media" part of the Signpost is really to review and neutrally summarise media coverage rather than related community discussion. Andreas JN466 01:11, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

At least refering to the discussion would have been senseful imo, esp. since the Kurier was mentioned anyway. Cheers, —DerHexer (Talk) 23:23, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I take your point. There was actually also a critical piece in the Kurier itself, right underneath the main article, and not just on the Kurier's discussion page. Then again, most Signpost readers don't read German. :/ There is also currently an informal poll on paid editing in the German Wikipedia; at present there is a two-thirds majority for the view that "only content counts", regardless of who adds it and whether they're paid or not. Cheers. Andreas JN466 23:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

We also noted this in last week's NAN. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, it shouldn't be controversial, really. If the effect of the tool is to "improve [not just 'alter'] the way their company is described in Wikipedia", then by the law of averages 50% of the time the improvement will make the company come off worse. Right? You know: "Our article is OK, but according to the analysis tool there's really not enough coverage of our polluting those orphanages' water supplies -- lets fix that!" and so forth.

Oh, wait. Herostratus (talk) 11:05, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

As for Sarah Stierch's comments off-wiki, yeah! Wikipedia is stange and scary! To me, six years ago, not so much, since the wierdness and scaryness developed gradually during my participation, but newbie User:Thomas Craven discusses this topic well. His "Puzzleocracy" comment is part of it. We don't want people to think that we'll WP:BITE them if they trip over one of our complex guidelines, nerdy customs etc, but they do get barked at, partly by bots and partly by my fellow old-timers who are too darn eager to defend the gates from hordes of barbarians. Jim.henderson (talk) 18:20, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like anything nefarious is intended, but I think sometimes PRs interpret what "works" as being what's ethical and right, when the two are not necessarily synonymous. There is this theme for example that we saw in CIPR's work as well that making the edits in small chunks is somehow better than doing a lot at once, even if the edits are the same, just done incrementally. In another case I saw a PR share their "tip" that if you edit in other places first, your edits are less likely to be contested, which is really just dodging COI detection. Some PRs disclose on a Talk page that nobody is watching, then make overtly bad, self-serving edits on a page nobody is watching - is this ok and ethical because there was disclosure? CorporateM (Talk) 18:38, 4 March 2013 (UTC) (PR guys and frequent COI contributor)

News and notes: "Very lucky" Picture of the Year (4,650 bytes · 💬)

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Though I'm really happy about the new administrators, and about the fact that we are getting more administrators faster, that we have in January and February passed as many administrators as a quarter of the entire year 2012 invites me to do the arithmatic myself (so, we have in two months done the same as a quarter in 2012, which is the equivalent of 3 months, so we're taking 33% less time to promote the same number of administrators, equivalent to promoting 50% more administrators). I have boldly changed this to "The four successful RfAs in January, combined with the three in February, make seven adminitrators promoted so far in 2013. In the first two months of 2012 we promoted only four adminitrators." This is far clearer to me. YMMV, feel free to revert. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:20, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the change, but it isn't really applicable. Other months of 2012 had different and higher numbers. I've tweaked this to instead read that "this figure is 25% of the administrators promoted last year (28), and if the trend continues, would make a 50% increase in administrators over the full year of 2013." Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:04, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

I considered that, but reject my first thought about that since projecting the promotion velocity over the first two months to a whole year might not be applicable. The promotion rate has been very volatile in 2012 and we don't really have a reason to believe this will be different for 2013. With the "if the trend continues" you added that makes for a change I can support. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• Your one-line Ombudsman coverage links through to a discussion which states that "the Ombudsman Commission will be flying to San Francisco for three days to take part in a series of meetings at the Wikimedia Foundation offices regarding the Ombudsman Commission. One of the topics that will be discussed is what we (the Commission and Foundation) think the remit of the Commission is, and what the remit should be." to support a statement that they are being flown to the office to discuss the role the commission plays in project governance. This is...very, very, technically, true. But I would suggest amending it to make clear that the interaction between the OC and individual projects is one of many things that will be discussed. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 17:17, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Also worth noting that the OC is currently soliciting opinions from the enwp community about its local remit and how it should interact with Arbcom and AUSC. I was surprised to see this not being linked to in the blurb here. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:20, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
    • Thank you both for the notes. I have amended the article accordingly. Regards, Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Re:Chapters Association elections

It is telling that Fæ, in his statement, has chosen to misrepresent the circumstances relating to his ban. Both Michaeldsuarez and I have posted requests for corrections. Since neither is able to post here, I will not comment further except to say that I would like to consider this episode closed, but Fæ seems to bring it up wherever and whenever he can. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:34, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

POTY

• There should be an easy way to hover (or click in the lower right corner) in article images to view a larger version of the image. This would make it quicker and easier for users to appreciate these amazing photos (clicking on the image to take you to a new page disrupts flow). Currently they're confined to 200px which is just a shame. 74.202.39.3 (talk) 21:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Recent research: Wikipedia not so novel after all, except to UK university lecturers; EPOV instead of NPOV (6,023 bytes · 💬)

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Loveland and Reagle: Stigmergic accumulation

Thank you for letting others know that the continuities between Wikipedia and past encyclopedias are numerous and significant. Regarding Wikipedia's uniqueness, can you open up any other encyclopedia or most other published works and personally verify each of its sentences? Regarding the statement "Even those responsible for a singly authored encyclopedia were relying on predecessors," Wikipedia does not just rely on predecessors. Among several unique aspects, Wikipedia articles are limited to what predecessors have written, e.g., no original research, and Wikipedia's line up to add it for free. In the history of encyclopedic production, has anyone else put as their number one rule that each contributor is to have little or no concern for oneself, especially with regard to fame, position, money, or view? As for which predecessors, there is the effort that coverage is to be independent of the subject. Has any other encyclopedic adopted as a premise that a worst source of information is the subject itself? Hey, let's build an encyclopedia where the publishing decisions of everyone but the subject itself can be used in the writing. Who in their right mind could conceive of something like that? Yet, here we are, imposing selflessness on ourselves and on the subject of an article to coalesce bits of information from around the world that have published since the beginning of the first printed word into articles that best capture what others are saying about a subject in a verifiable, unbiased way. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:24, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

scope for more research

It is good to see more research going on in this area, even if the article in question is behind a [[pay wall]. Looking at the list in the wikipedia entry for Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia I see no reference to the proposal for a Workers Encyclopedia which the Russian Machists (Maxim Gorky, Alexander Bogdanov and Anatoly Lunacharsky came up with in 1908, and which Bogdanov tried to implement in 1919. Unfortunately, this project never really got of the ground, thanks to opposition from the Leninists, and unavailability of documentation, we cannot assess to what extent their proposal would have answered User:Uzma Gamal's question above. Likewise, Aksel Berg made a proposal for an on-line encyclopedia in his 1962 paper Cybernetics and Education. But this along with the associated educational reforms got lost when Brezhnev came to power in the USSR in 1964. I also feel that a discussion of these issues could usefully take place in the contect of Marshal McLuhan's Understanding Media. Another matter in which I am interested is this: what do Wikipedia editors understand by encyclopedia and to what extent do previous models inform their practice?

EPOV

We have EPOV, it's called "the top ten hits on Google". EPOV with relevancy weighting is ideal NPOV.

Multiple POVs is a perennial proposal. But the reader demand does not appear to be there - David Gerard (talk) 08:06, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• Reader demand is given in all cases where Google is used instead of Wikipedia. 93.207.194.101 (talk) 15:42, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

• For information related to distributed wikis and EPOV, please see User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 114#Ward Cunningham and wikis (1 September 2012).

—Wavelength (talk) 17:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• OMG! Quantum physics tells us that NPOV is ontologically impossible. Silly me, I always thought it was just a problem of epistemology. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:24, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
  • The quantum physics link should rather not point to (probably somewhat obscure) quantum mysticism but to quantum phenomena, such as Unruh Effect (black body radiation dependent on observer acceleration), Hawking Radiation (virtuality of a particle dependent on horizon) or numerous other quantum and relativistic effects. Many physical phenomena are highly observer dependent, with additional implications beyond and independent of conventional constructivism or epistemology. 93.207.194.101 (talk) 15:42, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

General

I'm trying to figure out how to say that stigmergy is essentially the same term as crowdsourcing in the context of these stories in a mildly negative way. Hmpf!? Josh Joaquin (talk) 08:53, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Sister cities

Sister cities are usually unsourced and incomplete. Despite this, they are surprisingly accurate.

By the way, Saint Peterburg's list of sister cities has evolved from an unsourced mess to an organized and fully sourced list. Kudos to the maintainers of the list. --Enric Naval (talk) 23:07, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Mildly negative feedback

The CMU paper on mildly negative feedback is interesting -- in layman's terms, it seems to hearken back to the long-standing wiki principle of "always leave something to do" as a way to encourage others to contribute. Seems like something to keep in mind when reviewing articles and leaving newbie feedback.

Thanks for this month's research newsletter, all really interesting. -- phoebe / (talk to me) 16:53, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Technology report: Wikidata development to be continued indefinitely (2,585 bytes · 💬)

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I would like to see the p-value for the 1.8% figure. Josh Joaquin (talk) 07:35, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

More details about the analysis, including p values, are at round 1 and round 2 pages. The 1.8% figure is in round 2, and was p < .001 to answer your question directly. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 20:29, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Is it possible to provide an explanation and/or link to what Wikidata phases 2 and 3 are? An optimist on the run!   10:51, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• • I believe meta:Wikidata/Technical_proposal covers it pretty well. Is that helpful to you? ^demon^{[omg plz]} 16:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• I'd be grateful if you could point us to where the fears about the third phase being abandoned have been expressed so that we can join that conversation.

I want to point out that deployment is - unsurprisingly, I guess - lagging behind development, and that we are quite far in developing phase 3 already. You can find code that is already prepared for a much deeper integration with Semantic MediaWiki than we originally had hoped. The code for much of phase 3 is here and here. As you can see, we are well beyond the design phase already - a first iteration of phase 3 is expected to be available pretty much as planned.

It should always have been clear that the initial development of the first year can only be a first though already useful iteration. It is something that can be built upon and extended in the future both by the community, as well as us. --denny vrandečić (talk) 13:35, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject report: How to measure a WikiProject's workload (3,998 bytes · 💬)

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• Can we please get those graphs (or a table of their most recent values) for all the wikiprojects? Josh Joaquin (talk) 07:36, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

That would require an automated program. Perhaps you could find a coder? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

We've asked the WP 1.0 bot maintainers to generate our table for us, and it is located at WP:USRD/A/S. We also have a live-updating table at WP:USRD/A/L that does not display everything due to template inclusion limits. --Rschen7754 10:35, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• This is a great article and interview. Nice work, Mabeenot. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

• Awesome article. Just my $.02 Ottawahitech (talk) 23:12, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

• It would be nice if this was automatically generated. If it requires an editor to spend time, even inputting data into a form, well, for me it's not worth the time (I speak as a manager of several WikiProject pages). I'd be happy to sign or monthly reports on how much WikiWork my projects have, but don't expect me or most other projects to have time to calculate this - we have too much wikiwork to do :> --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:32, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

The WP 1.0 bot generates the table at WP:USRD/A/S and WP:CRWP/A/P automatically for us. I don't see why the calculations couldn't be added to the WikiProject summary tables. Imzadi 1979 → 10:16, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

• To me, apart from the formal FA/GA processes, the other class levels are fairly arbitrary. A better check of the amount of work to do (but still subject to some manipulation) is the number of cleanup tags on articles. Every active project *SHOULD* be signed up to track their cleanup tags, but lots aren't. See Svick's list for the recent history and sign up here if you can't see your project listed. But this is an interesting approach, no reason why it can't be incorporated into the standard WP 1.0 bot statistics page - I've (manually calculated) done up a possible version here. You would need to work out how to deal with unassessed pages (assume a 6 = stub is probably better than ignoring) and also what value is given to non-featured lists (I've allocated them as a 4 = C class in my calc). The-Pope (talk) 03:11, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
• This woks best for projects whse scope is pretty fixed. If you are constantly adding new articles, then a large amount of work will look like losing ground. Imagine the simplest case: You have one stub, and a Wikiwork score of 6. You add three more WP:Perfect stubs. Now your wikiwork score is 24—much further from the "winning" place of zero—and the average article score hasn't budged, even though you've improved our content significantly by providing good stubs on previously missing information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:03, 17 March 2013 (UTC)