Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-09-02/Discussion report

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After reading this article I'm not sure what 1) the original position of the WMF was on WLM and 2) what the final decision is. It says they will split the time, then later says that the RFC resulted in no fundraising banners. The lede should summarize the issue and the final decision please! --Trödel 11:39, 4 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

1) The original position was to run the fundraising banners in Italy for most of September 2) The final decision is that there will be no fundraising banners in September in Italy. This decision was taken on August 30th. 3) there have been some intermediate steps. - Laurentius (talk) 13:02, 4 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
Thank you!! --Trödel 16:32, 4 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • It is so pleasing to see the WMF actually changing position on the basis of input from the community before problems occur. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:19, 4 September 2015 (UTC).Reply
  • I don't mean to sound harsh, but I find this article incomprehensible. It appears to be a quasi-random selection of talkpage posts, thrown together in no particular order. As the user above (almost) says, having read this from top to bottom I still don't understand what it's actually about, or what point is being made. (As best I can make out, it is a complaint about the placement and timing of banner ads on it-wiki, but I can't see how this relates to en-wiki except in the very indirect sense that some en-wiki articles might make use of particular images.)

    In a more general sense regarding WLM, all the "the largest photography competition ever" spin is well and good, but what's more relevant at to whether the WMF should keep throwing resources towards it is how many of the resulting images are actually of any use. The single largest source of images on Commons is Geograph—Images from the Geograph British Isles project accounts for more than 6% of all Commons's images—but I can't imagine any sane user considering Geograph as being of particularly high value to the Wikimedia movement, given that perhaps 99% of those images will never used by anyone, ever. ‑ iridescent 20:21, 4 September 2015 (UTC)Reply

    • Yet, usage of Geograph photos is not negligible: some 50k articles with tens of millions pageviews/month. --Nemo 07:59, 5 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
      • Oh certainly, I use Geograph images regularly, but for every Geograph photo which is used there are a hundred empty fields and generic roads which have no realistic prospect of ever being used but are just making up the numbers. ‑ iridescent 09:49, 5 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
        • The two images you link can be used. The first one to show how the environment looks like in that area on the article about it, and the second one on both the article of Great Swinburne and the article about the road. And I do consider the Geograph images as of particularly high value for Wikipedia (as they actually show the environment), so then according to you I am maybe insane, but then I am proud of that because your comment here is bogus. Yes, it is bogus if you think images of cultural heritage are not of any use. Of course it is good to be critical, but an understanding first of the goal of the project would be welcome. Wiki Loves Monuments is not aiming on getting images of only the most popular or most beautiful cultural heritage sites or the masterpieces, but to show them all. That includes also those monuments that are less photogenic. Governments have indicated all of these cultural heritage sites, because of their historical importance, historical identity, historical value, and more. And on the English (and every) Wikipedia not just the monuments located in the English speaking countries are relevant, we have as goal to collect the sum of all knowledge, and that includes Italian monuments. And why the Signpost covers this? On Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/About it says clearly: "The Signpost is a community-written and edited newspaper that covers stories, events, and reports related to the English Wikipedia, its sister projects, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Wikimedia movement at large." Romaine (talk) 03:34, 6 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • I also had a hard time following the article. It needs to provide some sort of summary of what actually happened and fewer quotes, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 05:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)Reply
  • I agree with Kaldari; this article looks pretty but is very hard to follow. Invertzoo (talk) 18:21, 10 September 2015 (UTC)Reply