Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-09-05

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-09-05. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: BLP case closed; Cirt-Jayen466 nearly there; AUSC reshuffle (5,743 bytes · 💬)

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• The coverage of Bahamut0013 is rather abrupt. Per WT:AC/N, he has already provided valuable service to the subcommittee, and is not flippantly absent. Re the automated message on my talk: no objections to the coverage of me, obviously. AGK [•] 21:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I hurriedly expanded it (because it was mea culpa), although that led to the comments below. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Damned either way: it's a sign that you did a good job, or a very bad one. AGK [•] 10:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• "It is not known when Bahamut, a former US marine who began his term serving on the subcommittee in April, might return to regular editing." This is in fact hideously incorrect: there is no such thing as a "former" Marine! It is one of the ten commandments of the US Marine Corps: "Once a Marine, ALWAYS a Marine." I have taken the liberty of fixing the mistake, but in future please, PLEASE make a greater effort to check these little facts before publishing. :) TomStar81 (Talk) 04:03, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• I agree that "former US marine" is incorrect, but changing it to "a US marine" implies to the general public unfamiliar with USMC traditions that he is still on active duty. I changed it to "formerly active US marine." Is that acceptable wording? Guy Macon (talk) 05:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• An active marine until 2009? (or whenever it was) Tony (talk) 05:07, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• Thanks all. Fact checking priority is given to Wikipedia-related facts, rather than tangential factoids. Nonetheless, it would be nice to get these things right (I will remember this forever!). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:01, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'm not sure to what extent 'real life stress' has to do with Bahamut's inactivity, and it should be noted that only checkuser and oversight permissions were removed - he remains an administrator. And keep in mind that he held these permissions only by virtue of his being a sitting member of the Audit Subcommittee, and it is standard operating procedure to withdraw any advanced permissions that were not previously held upon the conclusion of community members' term on the subcommittee. –xeno^talk 13:02, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• I'd prefer that none of the information relating to Bahamut13's personal circumstances were included in the article, given that this page is linked to hundreds of others. The statement that Bahamut was replaced on the Audit Subcommittee because of inactivity on the project, and that his associated checkuser and oversight rights were withdrawn, should be sufficient. I'd still like to see the change made, actually, though I won't do it myself. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:09, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Done. I hope Jarry thinks it's ok; left him a note. Tony (talk) 04:02, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I should point out that the information on his life was drawn directly from his public blog, which is linked from his userpage. However, as I said to Tony when he queried this after NYB's message, there was probably a differing of opinion over the meaning of the word "stress" which gave the impression that the report writer knew more than was included on the blog (which he did not). If in doubt, cut, I guess. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Editing one's own Signpost article?

I noticed on User:Cirt's talk page a statement that he should only edit the Signpost article about him in case of "grievous factual errors". Looking here I see that User:Jayen466, also a party to that case, edited somewhat more substantially: [1] I don't see any edit notice when I go to edit the page, nor any clear warning here. Is the bot right, or is it overwrought? Wnt (talk) 06:39, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Tony has set up a thread at WT:SIGNPOST. I shall reply there. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:27, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Look at the diffs and somebody tell me again that this wasn't a dirty deal done to Cirt by a small circle of axe-grinders. Complete bullshit. Carrite (talk) 21:30, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Messed up if true. jp×g 21:04, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

In the news: Britannica and Wikipedia like "apples and chairs"; should anyone who's anyone get an article?; and why fighting and barriers to editing may be useful after all (23,619 bytes · 💬)

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Mischaracterization

"In a departure in tone from notorious comments from the company comparing Wikipedia to a public restroom, ...". This sentence is inaccurate. The "public restroom" comments were not from the company, but rather are the views of a specific individual, clearly speaking for himself. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 05:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

More on why new editors don't stay

Over-enthusiastic tagging for db-empty, db-nocontext, db-a7, etc. within seconds of creation certainly doesn't help, especially when the new editor gets a {{db-notice-multiple}} message on their brand new talk page (which they don't yet know how to use) telling them to "please see the page to see the reasons" when, if admins are on the ball, that page will often have been deleted before the new user sees those reasons. – Athaenara ✉ 07:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

But before we all panic (too late!) one should consider the effects of the economy. Are we seeing something happening to this project, or is this a wider issue with all volunteer-effort projects? A comparison with checkins to large open-source projects might be interesting. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not feeling panic, it's more bemusement which very occasionally almost crosses an invisible line to frantic for the merest fraction of a second. Wiki-Love (Signpost article last month) yields some strange results. Dozens of new users are identifying themselves as biology students who are interested in snakes and hope to make Wikipedia even better, and I personally, this week, have been given a kitten and a brownie... – Athaenara ✉ 12:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I like kittens and brownies. I suspect the contributor downturn that makes so many run around screaming "the sky is falling" has a lot more to do with inevitability than "biting newbies". In terms of websites, Wikipedia has been around long enough to be considered a fairly mature, established site... meaning it's not new (or particularly exciting) anymore. Also, I suspect many people are recognizing that they're basically working to provide content for free. Volunteering is nice, but volunteering to write articles for a website isn't as personally fulfilling to many as volunteering for charities and seeing how your efforts directly help needy people and animals. It's also far more disheartening to volunteer your time, write an article and then have it vandalized by antisocial teenagers or simply bowdlerized by someone who is misinformed. On top of that, the economy is rotten, so people are focusing on doing work that earns income rather than doing free work that frequently goes unappreciated. To borrow an overused pop-culture term, Wikipedia has probably jumped the shark. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is going to thrive for years to come and many new users are going to stay and become good editors (the sky certainly isn't falling). I merely object to tactics which put additional hazards in the way of new users (that "see the page to see the reasons" thing really bugs me as it refers to pages which have been tagged for speedy deletion) and I am nonplussed by strategies which seem to be designed to attract children and very young adolescents. – Athaenara ✉ 03:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Having spent a modest time on WP, I am bemused at how much effort and talent has gone into policy and politics, but how the policy language presently is ultimately very relativistic and subjective, and how easy it would be to develop for/against arguments based on different parts of the policy corpus, let alone real issues. FeatherPluma (talk) 20:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Copy edit required

In the section The Sum of ALL Human Knowledge?, towards the end of the first paragraph there is a close-quote mark after the word 'lives'. It is not indicated where the quote begins. Can someone put in the missing quotation mark? --bodnotbod (talk) 13:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Bialik's figures

It is unclear to me whether the figures cited/commented on by Carl Bialik apply to English Wikipedia only, or what the source of the figures might be. Can anyone assist with answers, please. Regards, Peter S Strempel | Talk 13:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sensationalistic journalism... Wikipedia "sucks"? Really?

That article was quite worthless. First his idea wasn't even well stated. I suppose I see his point and agree with him, but it's a question of how Wikipedia could be better. To say Wikipedia "sucks" is such a gross overstatement that it's unethical. He was just going for a sensationalistic title. I'm getting sick of people who probably don't even have but a surface understanding of the site attacking it. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:31, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Someone's got an axe to grind. First of all, he's missing the point entirely -- if you see something important missing from Wikipedia, you don't go write somewhere about how it's missing... you add it. Second of all, no one ever claimed Wikipedia was complete. How does being one of the top-ranked sites on Google mean that we must instantaneously create every article that everyone might ever want to look for? How could we even do that? Does he seriously think it's possible to create an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, on demand? Powers ^T 21:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I probably shouldn't do this, but I believe the attempted rebuttals are missing his core critique. He is making a standard somewhat sophisticated criticism that Wikipedia's coverage is heavily skewed to what interests the young white male demographic, and that's an enormous failing of an encyclopedia - "For some reason I can tell you all about the life of one of my favorite wrestlers, WWE Superstar William Regal, but nothing about Gladys Gooding, Vincent X. Flaherty, and the Brooklyn Symphony.". And it's not the responsibility of people who point out this well-known flaw to remedy it. That's a deflection tactic. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:43, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

In fact, instead of arguing back to me, why not do what was recommended, and devote the time instead to writing the articles he notes as missing? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the default debate-ending tactic: "Go improve the encyclopedia!" Why is it my job to write the articles he wants to read? I haven't volunteered at WP:REQUEST. Britannica doesn't include an article on Gladys Gooding; is that also an enormous failing? Powers ^T 23:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, he certainly didn't volunteer either. You seemed to think it was his job to write the articles, which is something of a catch-22. Are we then going to argue over what seems to me to be a prosaic difference, that Britannica is not as beholden to the interests of the young white male demographic? (n.b. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with WWE, but the point still stands that it does show where the interests are focused) -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

But he's missing the point of Wikipedia, which is to be a user-edited encyclopedia. He didn't volunteer, but he also doesn't have the right to say "I want to read about X topic; write me an article" -- which is essentially what he did. The entire wiki ethos is "if you see a problem, fix it". He saw a problem but wants someone else to fix it.
As for the WWE, I'm not sure that's true. All it shows is that at least one person was more interested in modern professional wrestling than in historical Dodgers esoterica. We do have a systemic bias here, and I won't deny that it's at least partially slanted in the direction you state, but the more significant bias here is toward current events and away from historical ones. That's at least partially the result of accessibility of sources (which I note the author didn't provide, either), rather than a demographic issue. Powers ^T 23:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The formulation you are using makes coverage criticism invalid by definition. I just pointed this out before. Whenever a critic notes an article failure of Wikipedia, it can then be deflected by attempting to make the topic about his/her failure to fix the failure. It's a tactic with obvious appeal, but unconvincing to those who do not subscribe to the catch-22 formulation in the first place. That is, he has every right to say "Wikipedia's failure is exemplified by the following imbalances in coverage ..." -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:02, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Well I admit I didn't read it that way at first. He seemed to have a tone of "Someone should write about these subjects". He could have framed his argument as you did, that of criticism of the scope, but instead he focused on three particular articles and said the encyclopedia isn't comprehensive until they were included. But I also don't think it's too much to ask people who show an interest in our coverage gaps to lift a finger or two toward mending those gaps. Not once in his article does he even acknowledge that he could write those articles. To an extent he is the reason for our bias -- people with his interests haven't been editing our encyclopedia enough.
Furthermore, his recommendation that Google drop our search ranking because we don't have articles on certain topics is puzzling to say the least. What sources would he rank more highly? Wikipedia may not be comprehensive, but what would he recommend as a more comprehensive source? A search for "Gladys Gooding" isn't going to return a Wikipedia result until we actually have an article, so why should that affect what our ranking is for "William Regal"? Is there any reference work that includes both of them? Powers ^T 13:33, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

In reading a column, it's important to keep in mind that they're typically written with constraints on space and attention, with colloquial phrasing. So arguments are often made sketchily and with anecdotes, in a format which is quite different from the expected logical precision and extensive explanations found in more scholarly settings. While much mischief can be done here, it is sometimes helpful to apply a bit of the principle of charity when it seems reasonable to do so. Thus, when you say "he focused on three particular articles and said the encyclopedia isn't comprehensive until they were included", the idea is not about those specific three articles in particular, but what their absence (compared to voluminous WWE coverage) indicates about the failings of Wikipedia. We're also going around the deflection yet again - it's irrelevant if he could write them or not. He has no moral obligation to do so, even if he could. The Wikipedian attempt to impose on critics some sort of affirmative duty to fix Wikipedia, has little basis outside of the promoters of Wikipedia. I'm not sure of his Google point, that part of the article is unclear even to me. But I think he's saying something along the lines of it being given too much prominence by Google as "universal" source, when it's clearly not. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 06:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The point that you seem to be missing is that we are all Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not like other encyclopedias; we are an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. That means the whole world shares responsibility for helping to create it. Obviously, not everyone has time to help, and that's fine. But it's not at all out of line to ask, when someone points out a flaw, "what are you doing to help fix it"? That's the whole premise behind {{sofixit}}. If the answer is "I don't have time to help right now," that's fair enough. But the question is not at all out of bounds. Powers ^T 12:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe I'm missing a point, rather than rejecting it. The fact that it's possible for someone to do something does not by any means automatically morally obligate them to do so. To say (my emphasis) "the whole world shares responsibility ..." is unfounded. Nobody has a responsibility to fix Wikipedia's failings simply because Wikipedia would like them to do so. I heard what you said. But you aren't responding to my reply that there's no basis to it. One might just as well say "We all must worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster". -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps "responsibility" is too strong a word, but I think the basic point stands: a wiki is not a platform where someone says "there's a problem, please fix it", but rather "here's a problem, I'll go fix it". The author was addressing a point to Wikipedia as an entity, but there's no editorial board or managers or any single authority who can do anything systematic about his complaint. His audience, rather, is the group of people who can edit the encyclopedia -- which means he was addressing himself. Powers ^T 11:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm going disagree with Seth Finkelstein on his explanation -- but in a subtle way. (And maybe I'll even be disagreeing with Mendelson here.) I'd say Wikipedia's coverage is heavily skewed in what the amazingly small group of dedicated editors happen to write about. To explain his example, the reason that there's an article about WWE Superstar William Regal & not about Gladys Gooding, Vincent X. Flaherty, or the Brooklyn Symphony is that no one has gotten around to writing one. Those articles may be missing because of the interests & biasses of the small group of people who write Wikipedia article (who are predominantly male, middle-class, & living in Europe or North America) -- or because someone intended to, had it on his (or her) list, but something prevented them from writing them. Say, ran out of time & never got back to the list, or a reference needed went missing, or ... that Person from Porlock paid a visit. There are a number of articles that exist -- important ones -- solely because I took the time to write them, yet equally important subjects lack articles simply because I haven't gotten to writing them. Nor has anyone else. (But these other people have the time to engage in some truly lame edit wars.) I find it discouraging, sometimes, to find holes like these simply because I haven't gone back to fill them. Or to find an article I threw together in a few minutes practically untouched years later -- sometimes with obvious errors or typos that anyone who took a moment to actually read the article would be compelled to fix. -- llywrch (talk) 05:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the author misunderstands what Wikipedia is in a broad sense. The homepage states, "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." If Wikipedia were only a database, or only a news outlet, or only an encyclopedia, I could understand his argument: "Why aren't you covering important topic X?" But an entire half of what is Wikipedia is being trivialized here. Wikipedia is not just content distribution of important articles – to whoever they may be important – it is a platform to create articles as well. His complaint seems to be a step to his realization that Wikipedia is a living encyclopedia, and less of a complaint about what Wikipedia actually is. --Odie5533 (talk) 01:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

To the extent that Wikipedia holds itself out as an encyclopedia, it's perfectly reasonable to critique it as such. I'd say that the "platform" part is not being trivialized, but rather not being considered as an excuse. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 06:57, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is exactly what everyone says it is: brilliant, atrocious, shallow, deep, etc. Any undertaking in which there is practically no entry-level requirement will reflect the biases and prejudices of only those who show up. Considering that there may only be 40,000 regular, committed editors, no one should really expect a work reflective of all human knowledge, wisdom or professionalism. Simply put, Wikipedia is exactly what it is (what we make of it), no more and no less. What 'ought' to be is irrelevant until we make it so. Peter S Strempel | Talk 07:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you on the "ought" part. Unfortunately, realistically, that's different from an "is" part. There's a certain two-step that goes on, where Wikipedia is greatly hyped, yet when that hyped is debunked, the critic is then told the hype somehow doesn't count, or worse they somehow have an obligation to fix Wikipedia (which they, the critic, aren't living up to!). It may be unreasonable from multiple perspectives, but it does go on. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Not disagreeing with you on that, Seth, but when children ask you why you can't fix all the injustices in the universe you usually have to be a bit forgiving and indulge them in their fantasies lest you seem churlish about telling them: 'Listen, kid, what goddam fantasy world are you living in? This ain't the way the world works, and I'll be damned if I waste my time taking directions from a little snotnose like you.'

The old Born Again ploy of making you responsible for someone else's idealism is just too jejune to take seriously. Don't let it eat at you. Wikipedia is also (in addition to everything I've already listed) exactly what you'd like to do here, not what someone else thinks you ought to do here. The former is the natural way voluntary effort is provided. The latter is called slavery. And finally, defending flaws in any endeavour by deflection is an explicit admission the flaws exist, so I'd think your argument is accepted by even its most vocal detractors. That doesn't stop any of us who are still here from plugging away at the stuff we care about or have an interest in, though, does it. For what it's worth, I think your opinion and others like it are necessary to prevent the faithful and the gullible from believing their own bullshit about Wikipedia as a sacred cow. Regards, Peter S Strempel | Talk 23:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the first part of this article has been discussed enough to admint: a community of voluteers doesn't like it very much when some other people criticise their undertaking, even if the flaws are evident and, as Peter wrote, unavoidable in some extent. Still, the title and the tone is somewhat bloodcurling. However the secord part of said article doesn't seem to get enough attention. The assumption that wiki pages shouldn't be ranked so high in Google because Wikipedia is not comprehensive enough, is like utter bollocks. Why not? If it exists, it could provide relevant info to a search request. If it doesn't, by definition it won't show up in any search request. So what's the problem? Viktorhauk (talk) 14:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

"Wikipedia Art" to return in hotel room form?

Great; an exercise in transgressive vandalism will be immortalized once more by the "art is immune from mortal bonds" crowd. (Sorry, Prof. Stern; I'd say the same thing to your face.) --Orange Mike | Talk 20:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC) (at UWM where one of the perpetrators teaches)

"Vandalism" seems harsh to me. I'd say though they were technically in the wrong, they were operating in good faith. The logical problem is really something like Wikipedia article "notability" can't/shouldn't be recursive (i.e. articles need to have a pre-existing reason before they can exist, recursion isn't notable in and of itself). But I don't think their misunderstanding of this principle was malicious. Many people misunderstand Wikipedia "notability" in less convoluted ways. They just happened to be people who thought that their favorite applied minor philosophical paradox was worth a Wikipedia page, rather than their favorite garage band. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:07, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Whereas I perceive their attitude as being analogous to "I am not a mere vandal, I am an artist creating ART when I tag your house or garage with my graffiti art without your consent; why are you being such a poopybutt about it, man?" --Orange Mike | Talk 13:32, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

See their statements such as "Since the work itself manifested as a conventional Wikipedia page, would-be art editors were required to follow Wikipedia’s enforced standards of quality and verifiability; any changes to the art had to be published on, and cited from, ‘credible’ external sources: ...". That doesn't sound like graffiti to me. More like missing just one part of the restrictions about notability. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: 24,000 votes later and community position on image filter still unclear; first index of editor satisfaction appears positive (9,153 bytes · 💬)

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• Regarding the referendum result, would it not be worth mentioning that in the small, but representative, sample of comments already analysed, over 40% were negative, while only 30% were positive and another 30% neutral. It's quite a big difference that shows a significant amount of opposition... - HIGHFIELDS (TALK • CONTRIBUTIONS) 23:38, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Though with reference to that, it is not clear if the comments were talking in negative terms about the idea of a filter, or complaining about poor design of the referendum itself (a related but different issue). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 09:06, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    • I would observe that on the broadest image filtering question question, more people voted 10 than 0, more people voted 9 than 1, more people voted 8 than 2, more people voted 7 than 3, and more people voted 6 than 4. Discounting neutral and undetermined votes, 64.6% of 20,935 declared voters were supportive. I also find the percentage of comments which were negative is surprisingly low: discounting the likes of "Looks good" and "Why not?", the majority of comments at an RfA with similar statistics would be negative. Admittedly we are still in the realms of no consensus for short term implementation, but there is certainly a clear steer for the Foundation to find a way in which this can be implemented in a way which will have zero impact on editors who do not wish to be filtered.

      Questions over the Foundation's competence aside, I'm struggling to comprehend why there remains fierce idealogical opposition to this. In particular, it is absurd that a Muslim who wishes to work on articles as fundamental as Muhammad (or perhaps more relevantly one as controversial as Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy) is forced to either ignore his faith, or disable all images on a sitewide basis. If this results in some would-be Muslim editors boycotting the site – and I challenge anyone to credibly claim otherwise – we are moving away from personal reference and into the realms of systemic bias. —WFC— 10:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

      • My concern is not so much with individual editors -- though I certainly lack respect for any religion that feels that any image ought to be forbidden -- than it is with people in authority requiring these filters to be in place for their subordinates/employees/subjects/etc. Powers ^T 21:10, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
        • But they already do that. Filtering systems have been around for yonks. They're far more advanced than a simple category-based image filter (which you should be able to turn off?). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 21:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
          • There is a distinct line between filtering and censorship. The key to ensuring that the former does not become the latter is to make the system opt-in for individual users, to ensure that a filtered user is not missing out on information (we should be providing alt text for the benefit of blind users anyway), and to give users the option of viewing "offending" material should they wish. —WFC— 21:45, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
            • As I said, we can claim it's "opt-in" all we want, but it's not "opt-in" if a provider downstream from us decides it's mandatory. Powers ^T 23:04, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
          • There are ways around them; why provide the censors with additional tools? Powers ^T 23:04, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• I think that the community position came across quite clearly in the discussion pages following the referendum- that there is a small majority of editors and significant support from interested reader-groups for the option of a personal filter - but that there is also a large minority who are strongly and philosophically opposed to the filter and see it as "enabling censorship" (Notably from DE.wiki). As well as a large number of editors who are still confused about what the image filter would mean. In a sense that is pretty much what we all knew before. It will be interesting to see how the foundation moves forward as I don't see the position of either camp changing (I am in the former). Ajbpearce (talk) 13:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• Also to add, there is a detailed critique of the survey process on the results discussion page that everyone should read, it lays out in very clearly the significant flaws in the whole survey processs. Ajbpearce (talk) 13:53, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure you can run the "survey wasn't well written" and "survey gives clear results" in parallel. (Most complaints about survey design do not seem to be entirely watertight to me, anyway, so there is bound to be an argument over that, too.) As I put forward above, the result is probably "no consensus". Whether it will stay like that is another matter. For example, many details about the proposed filter are yet to be worked out - e.g. not deploying it on the German Wikipedia. That could well be enough to get support behind the proposal. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 14:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    • Your right, what I meant was that the community position seems fairly clear to me, after reading the discussions surrounding the referendum - not that the referendum itself was much good in providing much useful information. I didn't phrase that very well, so I have updated my response.Ajbpearce (talk) 19:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
    • The problem is that there is no mandate for the filter. The Harris report specifically targeted that recommendation at the community and specifically not at the board. The survey explicitly begs the question. The community discussions are, by and large, against the proposal. Rich Farmbrough, 17:52, 6 September 2011 (UTC).
      
  • Ajbpearce, you wouldn't have meant to link to this comment? If not, I believe this comment makes some worthwhile points. Regardless of how one might think about this proposal. -- llywrch (talk) 04:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

WESI

Does the WESI metric seem particularly flawed to anyone else? There are many negative experiences one could have with fellow editors that don't fit into one of the four negative categories. And even so, I still wouldn't ascribe any negative quality to "the editing community" as a whole, even if a significant minority possessed that negative quality. Powers ^T 21:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• It does to me too. Not only is it way to community interaction focused —community is very important but not the sole thing people care about—, I think the answer to if the community has helped you grow as a Wikipedian is going to be somewhat independent of how much you like the community. Also I question the value of a scale where 50% of the scores are at a single extreme. jorgenev 23:30, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• Yeah, it's terrible, like a parody of survey statistics. My jaw dropped. It wouldn't be so bad if the "pick two from this set of many more positives than negatives" weren't so inherently biased. The fact that the Signpost write up is primarily about how it reached its inevitable conclusion would be charming if it wasn't so sad. Perhaps the Foundation should hire a professional survey statistician before attempting any further surveys. 69.171.160.37 (talk) 09:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Well to be fair, the list was four positive and four negative. Powers ^T 11:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Opinion essay: The copyright crisis, and why we should care (11,091 bytes · 💬)

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Wikipedia is in the position of strength here. The search engines require Wikipedia a lot more then the reverse. We should consider blocking spidering of Wikipedia by Yahoo unless they allow Wikipedia via CorenSearchBot access to search returns for copy vio purposes. It wouldn't take long for Yahoo to be distressed at such a decision. Can we use Google to check the copy vios? Google makes big bucks out of Wikipedia by immediately accessing the updates. Is there an a technical issue of using Google or some policy issue? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 01:58, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Even the idea that Jimbo would announce to the press that Wikipedia was thinking of blocking Yahoo would send it's share price down and some immediate attempt to rectify the situation from Yahoo. It's not like accessing it's search results automatically is a problem, they just don't want everyone doing that, I'm sure they will make an exception for Wikipedia. Has anyone even asked Yahoo? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 02:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Coren and Jimbo are in negotiation with Google with respect to this issue. MER-C 02:57, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

If Jimbo does do that it's perfectly allowable by the nonexistent rules of capitalism. --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 03:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• Sometimes the state of some of these copyvios shocks me--Guerillero | My Talk 02:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

While I kind of like the idea of us throwing our weight around, in the spirit of Christmas, lets not. extransit (talk) 05:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• I think it would be unethical to punish Yahoo for first helping us (do searches) and then deciding (for unknown reasons) that it cannot help us any longer. Why should anyone help us, if we show that we will be vengeful when they stop? JRSpriggs (talk) 06:38, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• Quite a while later but I came across this while deciding on my arbcom votes and agree whole heartedly. Particularly since we would be punishing Yahoo for something which neither Google or Bing allowed us to do. Doesn't Yahoo rely on Bing nowadays anyway (i.e. can we even block them independently)? For suggestions like ƒETCH proposing we make noise about all three it's a little fairer but IMO still not likely to be effective. People are more likely to thing just because we're a non profit doesn't mean others have to let use their service in a manner that's normally charged for, so we'll come across as whiny complainers. Remember also search engines work both ways. Yes they take our resources by indexing but they also make it easy for people to find our content. Us using a search engine to find copyvios isn't that much of a benefit to search engines except in an abstract 'it's good for us therefore good for them' or 'good publicity' sort of way. Nil Einne (talk) 17:35, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

• Great article. I try to apply a 'does it look too good to be true?' test to new articles and uploaded images, and this has produced good results (I've caught a largish number of copyright violations and been pleasantly surprised by content that turned out to be fine). In my experience text that looks like it came from a news story probably did. Nick-D (talk) 10:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• I have been criticized by an experienced Wikipedian for deleting material copied unaltered from a web site. I agree that there is a problem, both in the extent of copyvios, and the blasé attitute of many Wikipedians to copyvios. -- Donald Albury 11:02, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• There's no indication that Yahoo did this for the simple pleasure of spitting in Wikipedia's face so I don't see why we should freak out. Wikipedia's reaction was exactly what it should be: regret Yahoo's decision, try to find an agreement with Google. You don't need to act like a bully just because you have enough muscle to do so credibly. Pichpich (talk) 21:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
• Given that Yahoo!'s CEO Carol Bartz has just been kicked out, a new executive might be more open to reversing the API changes. If a Google deal falls through, I think publicly embarrassing the three major English-language search engines a little might push someone to act. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:17, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
• I'd add that the copyvio problem is not limited to articles. I've uncovered a huge number of copyvios in my short stint at AfC as well. When I watch the new user log, I frequently check new userpages, and I'm quite liberal in tagging pages from obvious corporate accounts, because my experience is that many times, even if they don't quite meet G11,they're often copyvios from somewhere. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:30, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that back on August 30th, I proposed a change to Special:NewPages to help us deal with copyvios while CorenSearchBot was down. The thread can still be found at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol#Proposal of additional bullet point at top of Special:NewPages (while CorenSearchBot is down). Singularity42 (talk) 20:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

• As someone who deals with copyright issues in the File namespace on a regular basis, I can attest to the scope of the problem there. Wikipedia has several hundred thousand images and Commons has several million. On a daily basis images that were just found on the internet and are clearly the work of other people are uploaded by usually good intentioned users as 'own work' and given free licenses. I place a good deal of blame on the Wizard and its defaults, however Moonriddengirl is correct that a major cause is the lack of knowledge about copyright among many people. Most troubling is that a good number of people know about the existence of copyright but have major details wrong. I often hear the statement "it's on the internet, therefore it's in the public domain". What is needed are a set of guides, written so clearly that a third grader could understand them, that we can link to as an easy way of showing people the mistakes they are making. Communication with these people is key. Sven Manguard Wha? 17:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• +1 to the idea that most people don't know the first or last thing about copyright law wrt to images (For fun and frustration, if you have a Flickr account, go over there, look over new uploads (especially under certain CC licenses) and find copyright violations like screenshots, or photos of three-dimensional public artwork in the U.S. (for even more of a challenge, don't use a fish-in-the-barrel tag search like that. But you'll still find some if you know what you're looking for) Then leave comments for the users who uploaded them telling them about this. Not a single one will have been aware of this; some of them will even tell you off. Yahoo! is (in addition to its other problems) sitting on a huge litigation time bomb here; they are demonstrably negligent even without comparing them to us.

  We make this even more complicated with a fair-use policy that is more restrictive than U.S. law, so someone who thinks they're OK (and would be elsewhere) is actually not (I have found it interesting that, in surveys of how many new accounts stick around to become members of the community, virtually none of those whose first edit was to create a page outside of article namespace have done so. Hmm ... what kind of new user starts by creating a non-article page? You got it ... someone uploading an image that they thought they could use (It would be interesting to see how many of them did, indeed, upload third-party copyrighted images that wouldn't be justified under our policies). Daniel Case (talk) 19:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

• Can we not make file-uploading a userright independent of autoconfirmed? It is harder to wrap one's head around all the fair-use, OTRS, etc. material than to understand "No copy/pasting text". --Σ _{^talkcontribs} 07:58, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yahoo and Google both permit automated queries (which is what Corenbot is/was). They charge for them, though; you can see those costs by following the links to the relevant terms of service mentioned here [2]. The cost wouldn't be minimal for the Foundation (Google, $5 per 1000 queries, for up to 10,000 queries per day; [3]; Yahoo either 80 cents per 1,000 or 40 cents per thousand using a limited index and slower refresh (about 3 days).[4] However many thousand new articles per day over all projects, times number of queries per article (possibly one for each article sentence?) And I'd suppose other non-profits, including university research projects, would like cost exemptions, including those for copyvio searches, and have comparable claims. Novickas (talk) 01:19, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

And TinEye (relevant to Commons) is 10 times more costly than Google -- $1500 for 30 000 of queries. Trycatch (talk) 17:36, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Sister projects: Wiki Loves Monuments 2011 (1,021 bytes · 💬)

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• You have done very much work all 3 of you, I am impressed. Good luck! Nina-no (talk) 23:31, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, I enjoyed reading this because their enthusiasm really shines through. Great work ;O) bodnotbod (talk) 13:40, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• We currently already got more than 17.000 new pictures from monuments throughout Europe! Romaine (talk) 16:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the positive feedback! Most of the credit needs to be given to Lodewijk and Maarten for the planning and (international) contacts, the technical stuff, and last but not least, keeping all of the volunteers on board all year (they sent out a lot of reminder emails). Jane (talk) 09:29, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: Pencils down in Google Summer of Code, August analysed and integrated HTTPS support in action (618 bytes · 💬)

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• What does "fill a need onwiki" mean (in section "Google Summer of Code: pencils down please")? Is it understood by the intended audience? --Mortense (talk) 09:50, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Onwiki / offwiki is a fairly common distinction, I think? As in, on the wiki. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 10:05, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Riding with WikiProject London Transport (409 bytes · 💬)

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• Great! This is inspired!  tatasport  my talk  02:16, 6 September 2011 (UTC)