Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-06-30/In the media
Latest comment: 4 years ago by SnowFire
Unless I am mistaken, Aaron Mak "Donald Trump's Wikipedia Entry Is a War Zone", Slate, which contained some legitimate criticism of en.wp power-users by an en.wp admin and by the journalist, was mentioned neither in May or June. This is puzzling as it's very unlikely to have been an oversight: was it considered to be unreliable? impolitic? (I mean it does have someone making snide comments like: "It sounds like you have an issue with bold editing or perhaps the world is moving too fast for you." (The article mentions that the author would later be reprimanded for ignoring consensus.) I strongly encourage people to read that article to understand how reasonable outsiders view en.wp's problematic power users. 🌿 SashiRolls t · c 19:08, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
- @SashiRolls: It was an oversight. Feel free to include this in the next issue. Go to Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom, click "in the media", and present this however you like. This is a standing invitation and anyone would have told you the same earlier. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:15, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks, BR, but I've actually just added it directly since that seemed much simpler and more timely.🌿 SashiRolls t · c 19:24, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks @SashiRolls: it is a very good article. In my prep for this column there's a gap that you might help me fill. About 2-3 days before deadline I pretty much have to ignore new articles coming out, and for a couple of days after I take a break from reading about Wikipedia. It's just a time management thing. If you see good articles in that gap please let me know. I'll probably be going for fewer articles and more topics, as well as longer write-ups, (do we need 12 articles on The North Face?), so they may be harder to fit in. Also I have a bias toward newer articles, which means I forget about the gap. Any help appreciated. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:34, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
- @SashiRolls: You said you "just added it directly" but I can't see that edit; perhaps you left the window open? In any case, it's probably better to mention this article in the July issue, while explaining it was missed in May and June. — JFG talk 01:57, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
- Thanks, BR, but I've actually just added it directly since that seemed much simpler and more timely.🌿 SashiRolls t · c 19:24, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
- I enjoy this regular column and am usually surprised by how much media coverage Wikipedia still receives. I mean, it's not 2005-2006 coverage but still, magazines regularly find article subjects here within the editing community. Between this column and recent research, Wikipedia is continually getting scrutinized which I think usually benefits the project. Liz Read! Talk! 21:15, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
- I realize it was right in the setup that this isn't quite 100% up to WP:RS standards, but I still had to laugh...
Male Wikipedia editors are deleting women, says Sandi Toksvig in The Times. Good try, but she gets a few facts wrong. "There are about 350,000 uber-volunteers..."
- Wait, is she telling us that there are over three hundred thousand sad, basement-dwelling men with too much time on their hands, all gung-ho on editing Wikipedia?! Well, that's a bloody relief, I guess we can all relax and slack off a bit, with all those hands on deck! All those editors should be able to handle the workload and still find plenty of time for Cheetos runs, their misogynistic editorial pet projects, genital-scratching contests, and whatever else they typically engage in. ...I'd invite Toksvig to pitch in, since she's so misinformed about just how large a community there really is behind-the-scenes here, but if all of her sourcing is this fanciful then maybe that's a bad idea. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 04:28, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
- Sadly (because she is a national treasure, for whom I have had the greatest respect for many years) this is not the only time that Sandi Toksvig has been badly misinformed, to use a charitable word, about Wikipedia in recent days. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#Mention on leading UK show: as well as repeating the claim that artices about women are being deleted, she has also claimed that articles about women are not being created, and that Wikipedia is 9% about women and 90% about men. 213.205.240.14 (talk) 17:25, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
- Yes and yes. She is a national treasure (and OBE) from what I understand. Yes she was sadly mistaken. I didn't mean to make fun of her, but sometimes it's important to point out mistakes that good people make. I'm just wondering now upon review - should I have included this short blurb? Please let me know here. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:15, 2 July 2019 (UTC)
- Sadly (because she is a national treasure, for whom I have had the greatest respect for many years) this is not the only time that Sandi Toksvig has been badly misinformed, to use a charitable word, about Wikipedia in recent days. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#Mention on leading UK show: as well as repeating the claim that artices about women are being deleted, she has also claimed that articles about women are not being created, and that Wikipedia is 9% about women and 90% about men. 213.205.240.14 (talk) 17:25, 1 July 2019 (UTC)
- The Forbes article on Parker is from 2016, as was the related edit war, for reference. SnowFire (talk) 05:12, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: Good catch, but Bri's The New York Times crossword really was in June (We had an all night editing party. Sorry!) Smallbones(smalltalk) 06:20, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
- @Smallbones: There actually was some recent development on that crossword scandal, but it was a retrospective video by the fellow who caught the shenanigans in the first place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aHfK8EUIzg SnowFire (talk) 06:44, 4 July 2019 (UTC)