Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2023-12-24

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-12-24. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

BJAODN: Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense (1,242 bytes · 💬)

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• why is this in the signpost? ltbdl (talk) 15:56, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  I agree that this doesn't belong in the signpost. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{blaze__wolf} 18:29, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  If anything it's a better attempt at comedy than this edition's Humour. But agree that by itself doesn't fit (maybe if like the Featured Content there was a regular compilation of recent BJAODN - but there are already places for this). igordebraga ≠ 00:08, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Well, the creator actually could show it for 13 minutes (+4 after tagging). Also, it had no sources, so I doubt they showed the correct way. Alfa-ketosav (talk) 10:19, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Crossword: when the crossword is sus (2,367 bytes · 💬)

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• Where are the answers?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:49, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger: It's usually in the next edition. igordebraga ≠ 00:16, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• This was fun, thanks! (Although I'm still working on 13 down, 9 down, and 10 across. (I expected 10 across to be "COI" but that doesn't fit...) 🎄Cremastra 🎄 (talk) 13:15, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• I enjoyed it. Thank you to the authors of the crossword. I don't participate in 2-down, do they really abbreviate 3-down like that? Because the WP:WP shortcut of 3-down is for something else, and it has a hatnote for 3-down. —⁠andrybak (talk) 14:37, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• I never knew I needed Wikipedia crosswords. Ca ^{talk to me!} 04:36, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Okay, it's been long enough; I will put the answers in the article. Thanks for pitching in, folks! jp×g🗯️ 02:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers!
As a person who plays crosswords, I didn't enjoy this that much when playing to crossword standards, but hey, it's there. Maybe we could steer the crossword towards hyperfixing on crosswords that look like certain things and punchlines that assemble themselves by other words, like how it does here for 1-across? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

​​ I have (admittedly somewhat limited) experience writing crosswords for a local newspaper, and I'd be happy to help out. Sincerely, Novo Tape^{My Talk Page} 23:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion report: Arabic Wikipedia blackout; Wikimedians discuss SpongeBob, copyrights, and AI (8,886 bytes · 💬)

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JPxG: Can we add an addendum to the Arabic Wikipedia forced logout issue? Just this additional paragraph since new developments have occurred while this edition was being published:

NickK filed a Steward request immediately on Meta after the Wikibreak enforcer came online: requesting for the enforcer to be removed on basis that unsuspecting logged editors going onto the Arabic Wikipedia would be logged out without adequate warnings. After a quick discussion with an unanimous view that the protest should not affect logged editors on other projects formed, the enforcer was removed.

– robertsky (talk) 11:41, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

JPxG doesn't seem to be around, or busy with other things, so I went ahead and added this update. It's rare that we change content post-publication, but this seems to be a worthwhile exception. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:36, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Pretty appalling politicisation of ar.wiki. I know it had some major POV issues with regards to Israel, but this pretty much ruins any credibilty it might have for being a balanced, reliable source. Perhaps it might need an hr.wiki-style WMF intervention? Number 57 15:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• I live in Norway and I am strongly supporting Ukraine's fight against the invasion from Russia (for reasons of moral and realpolitik). But changing the logo to display Ukraine colors, or a statement of sympathy for Ukraine? Not on my watch. I do not consider Wikipedia as pro-Ukraine or pro-Palestine, or whatever other worthy case there is, but pro neutral content, backed up with as good sources as possible. The only political engagement I would advocate is to write as neutral as possible texts on what ever topic that interests you, and leave direct promotion of this or that position to political parties, pressure groups or countries, there are enough of them already. Ulflarsen (talk) 16:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

  @Ulflarsen: I would consider myself pretty pro-Palestine and pro-Ukraine (also anti-Palestine at the same time for reasons), and I still find this apalling, because Wikipedia is supposed to be very neutral on these sorts of topics.

  Of course, I don't want the Wikipedia logo to be changed to the Israeli flag either, but rather just steer clear of anything remotely political at the site-wide level. QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 19:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

To User:QuickQuokka: I used my position on Ukraine to describe why I find it prudent for Wikipedia to steer clear of taking sides, but yes, I am also both shocked and in anguish regarding the situation in Palestine and Israel, and how both parties seems to disregard international law and human rights. But again, I don't see that as something I should promote supporting this or that side, it's just not what Wikipedia is about. Again, there are enough forums for those who want to do that, we should stick to our single mission, free knowledge to as many as possible. And of course, within that free knowledge, there should be as neutral and well sourced articles both about Hama's terrorist attack and Israels response on it, then readers can learn more about what is going on there. Ulflarsen (talk) 19:25, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Meh, enwiki did something similar to protest SOPA/PIPA. Mach61 (talk) 17:04, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

To Mach61: I know, but I did not support that either. I believe we should use our time here to write as neutral and well sourced articles as possible, not promoting this or that position directly. The way we can do that is to use time on such articles, improve them, for the benefit of as many as possible, not this or that fraction of the society. Ulflarsen (talk) 18:02, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@Mach61: I think that's different, because SOPA/PIPA presented an existential threat to Wikipedia and the WMF itself. QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 19:16, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Did they do the same to protest the 300,000+ killed in Yemen? And others said, that was about a policy that affected Wikipedia itself. Number 57 19:40, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Big difference. SOPA/PIPA/ACTA were not political, just ham fisted legal wishlists for the some big media companies, directly threatening the existence of Wikipedia. I do wonder if Wikipedians would agree to protest World War III if it started, however. What existential threats do we protest? :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:33, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Some serious PoV issues there. We laugh at Conservapedia for doing similar. Israel should rightly be condemned for its massively disproportionate response to the Hamas terrorist attacks, but that's not Wikipedia's job. The SOPA blackout was useful as it raised awareness and Wikipedia going down could have actually made a difference; ar.wiki doing this raises no awareness and will have no effect on Netanyahu's actions. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 17:04, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

What can be done about the Arabic Wikipedia at this point? Its administrators are clearly abusing their power. Yaron K. (talk) 18:38, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

See also: meta:Requests for comment/Violating the Neutral point of view in Arabic Wiki

A RfC on metawiki.· ^מקף Hyphen _෴ · 19:46, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• The steward request has been archived. It is visible at permalink. That might be added to Signpost. Johnuniq (talk) 02:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

   Done — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:08, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

• Obvious NPOV issue. No language Wikipedia should become a nationalist organ. Andre🚐 05:18, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I can't believe comments here. What is the site supposed to do, tell its Palestinian editors "we don't care if you die"? And don't think that you're just not supporting partisanship, or such (how many protested the Georgian parallel? But no, somehow western countries don't support one invasion, but are enthusiastic about another one...) - by declaring your opposition to a tiny protest that will, happily for some I presume, do little to stop the billions going into aiding a genocide, you are indeed supporting the latter. And, sure, sopa was different... in the sense that even if it was enacted no life would have been lost! Some perspective would be lovely... and no, sopa wouldn't have affected this site more, because wars kill people, and I thought people edited, not some legislation... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.7.60.13 (talk) 13:54, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

From the editor: A piccy iz worth OVAR 9000!!!11oneone! wordz ^_^ (561 bytes · 💬)

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• Please never say the word "piccy" ever again. — mw (talk) (contribs) 21:02, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

  Agreed. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Gallery: A feast of holidays and carols (601 bytes · 💬)

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@Smallbones: Thank you for this wonderful article, and Merry Christmas (and Happy New Year) to you and the rest of the staff! As a bonus, I would add that Iceland has basically built almost the entirety of its contemporary Christmas catalogue out of covers of Italian songs... : ) Oltrepier (talk) 20:57, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Humour: Guess the joke contest (1,263 bytes · 💬)

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• This is the first time I checked my talk page to find a WP:POST that I looked at in 5 years. The reason I looked is it had twice as many links as usual. I had never noticed a humor section before so it is one of about 5 links I checked. So 5 links in 5 years and I land on a joke I don't get. Since I am seeing this less than 3 hours after it was posted to my talk page. I am the first person to officially announce that I don't get the joke.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 12:48, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
• ChatGPT 4 says:

Q: How do you tickle a sleepy bear?

A: First you tread lightly... then you run like the wind.

Q: But what do you do with the honey?

A: Why the hell did you bring honey to a bear-tickling contest?

Sure, why not? Sandizer (talk) 03:09, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

In focus: Liquidation of Wikimedia RU (2,169 bytes · 💬)

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So what does it mean in practice for Russian Wikipedia? What did Russian Wikimedia Chapter do? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:17, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes I am wondering about this as well. Will ru.wikipedia be closed? Or just the organization? I am sure ru.wikipedia didn't need any organization to run perfectly. ✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 02:30, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Russian Wikipedia will continue since it is hosted on international servers. I assume there will be reduced support for local initiatives like edit-a-thons, but it would be good to know what exactly ru wiki was doing that now will be abandoned. What is the damage - and what can WMF do to mitigate this? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:59, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

You can see a number of reports about "what exactly ru wiki was doing" here in English (smaller number) and in Russian (much bigger number). For reading Russian reports, you may use an automatic translator. If you're interested in reports about Russian Wikipedia, go to n:ru:Русская_Википедия. If you're interested in reports about Wikimedia Russia, go to n:ru:Викимедиа_РУ. -- ssr (talk) 16:00, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

In fact, nobody cares about all these things for decades =))) You say: "what can WMF do to mitigate this?". I answer: WMF don't care about this, so cannot do anything.-- ssr (talk) 16:17, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

In the media: Consider the humble fork (3,869 bytes · 💬)

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• It's really quite common for Nobel laureates to not have articles before winning. Just flipping through recent years, Benjamin List didn't, George Smith didn't, Jacques Dubochet didn't. Blythwood (talk) 23:53, 24 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Our imprecise language about it (claiming someone gained an article or was granted an article) doesn't help. When the Strickland thing blew up, many commenters suggested that sexism was to blame, as if this website's aggregate don't do enough to praise women. Our notability criteria are designed to ensure a fulsome article can be written from deep-enough source material. When we, ourselves, discuss who "gets to have a Wikipedia article" we replicate this mind virus to our detriment.Chris Troutman (talk) 13:55, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
• The pen name "Shuichi Tezuka" sounded familiar. A quick online search took me to a heated talk page argument on another wiki which reminded me that the same author co-wrote an article for The Critic called "The left-wing bias of Wikipedia" in 2020. I responded to that article in the Signpost op-ed "Re-righting Wikipedia", which led a different site-banned Wikipedia editor to write a very defensive reply in a Breitbart News article. Shuichi Tezuka also published an article in the Journal of Controversial Ideas which compared people who dismiss a purported genetic link between race and intelligence to young Earth creationists. It will be interesting to see how a new fork of the entire English Wikipedia would fare in the long run, considering that the sites listed in the Alt-tech article vary widely in terms of success. — Newslinger talk 03:40, 25 December 2023 (UTC)
  • Most (all?) Wikiforks have been very unsuccessful compared to the original, why should this one be different? (t · c) buidhe 21:06, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

    Far as I know the most successful fork was one of the first, the Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español. It did pretty well in its first few years but in the past decade it is often said to have stagnated. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:59, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

    Most forks of Wikipedia fail is because (IMHO) they fail to offer any significant improvement over the existing environment of Wikipedia. Not to say that Wikipedia's environment is perfect, but there are a lot of disgruntled former Wikipedia editors (some of whom should be able to play nice with others -- the major reason many become former Wikipedians) & the barrier to entry is (as Justapedia has shown) quite low that it's hard to find any other reason for this failure. And so far the most significant difference between Wikipedia & Justapedia is that the latter has no connection to the WMF; whether this is a decisive difference or not is enough of a reason this new online encyclopedia should be watched. -- llywrch (talk) 18:07, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

News and notes: The Italian Public Domain wars continue, Wikimedia RU set to dissolve, and a recap of WLM 2023 (4,001 bytes · 💬)

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It's a shame that Wikimedia Ru has ceased to exist! Times like these! Happy New Year everyone! ---Zemant (talk) 10:30, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The T-shirt is pretty rad, to be honest. :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:17, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@Clovermoss: Still, congratulations on your new role! Oltrepier (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Pinging Oltrepier, Jayen466, HaeB, and Bri. Is the "Fork" section supposed to have content, or is this some sort of meta-commentary that is going over my head? – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:08, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Jonesey95:, I'll remove it for now. As you might imagine, getting an issue out on Christmas Eve can be a bit of a challenge. Merry Christmas! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:34, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Definitely understandable. On that note, I'm thrilled to hear of the launch of Wikimedia TKTK! 😛 {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:20, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

@Sdkb: Shh, no spoilers about that, please! : D Oltrepier (talk) 18:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Jdlrobson Thank you for this tool: I've just tried, and it looks like a very cool idea! Oltrepier (talk) 18:07, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

If Tails Wx passes nomination, they will have gotten the 13th admin shirt and thus that description will be wrong. ❤HistoryTheorist❤ 23:55, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

That might depend on your time zone and whether a crat closes the nom right away (sometimes there can be a bit of a delay there). I don't think we have many RfAs that are scheduled to end on New Year's Eve, we'll see if they're the last for 2023 or the first for 2024. :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 12:07, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if the Italian MoC is miscalculating how much they'll be able to collect—and how much cultural power paywalls will lose them. According to this 2017 Morsel article, the USDA had also put the Pomological Watercolor Collection behind a paywall to offset the costs of digitization. They never came close to breaking even and after a FOIA request and some pressure from open data community members positioned in the White House, the USDA ended up making the full digital archive available, high resolution versions and all. Arguably, it has more cultural power as a free, public resource than it ever did gathering dust and obscurity behind a paywall. I know Italy has greater claim to art history than some beautiful botanical illustrations, but the Pomological Watercolor Collection anecdote alone puts doubt in my mind as to how well thought out the MoC proposal is, even from a bloodless and purely profit-driven perspective. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 20:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Recent research: "LLMs Know More, Hallucinate Less" with Wikidata (1,089 bytes · 💬)

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The value of Wikidata becoming clearer in a world with AI is an unsurprising development. It'll be similar with Abstract Wikipedia. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:52, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you, Wikidata is becoming more valuable, especially for AI language models like good old ChatGPT or Bing Chat. - The Master of Hedgehogs ^{(always up for a conversation!)} 17:09, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

I personally do not support AI given their stratospheric impact towards politics and copyright. I cannot believe what I'm seeing here. MarioJump83 (talk) 00:43, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Special report: Did the Chinese Communist Party send astroturfers to sabotage a hacktivist's Wikipedia article? (6,708 bytes · 💬)

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Why links to archive.is, a site that can disappear at any moment, instead of perfectly good Wikipedia's permalinks to itself? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:37, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

I always ask myself this when people link to archive.is or archive.org links for Wikipedia. The obvious assumption, of course, is that they just don't realize Wikipedia has publicly viewable page history. This is probably true in some cases. But eventually it occurred to me that, well, if I believed Wikipedia to be the subject of some sort of malicious coverup, why the heck would I link to its own records? jp×g🗯️ 03:03, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia permalinks are not always permanent. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC).

Where is it documented that the sockpuppeteer Bugmenot123123123 was the creator of the Cyber Anakin article? It's clear that he targeted the page after it was created, but the article's original creator appears to be Tester beta 1298, who was never blocked. 2600:1004:B113:4D39:74E3:2A01:D84A:DF4E (talk) 13:06, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The current version of the page was imported to draftspace from test2wiki (parenthetically, an extremely bizarre thing I've never seen before). But yes, that page wasn't created by the Bugmenot123123123 account. That account created the previous version of the page (which was deleted at its AfD in 2016); you can see this at the Xtools page that lists their created pages. jp×g🗯️ 03:03, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

In the Xtools link,

It seems that most of Justapedia's articles are imported straight from here through a bot called Wikipedia legacy. The few that are written by humans are pretty bad. For example, the lede for the Donald Trump article has this gem: Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden, and reluctantly agreed to an orderly transition of power; oh totally, Jan. 6 was so orderly and they were just tourists, right? I think this is worse than Conservapedia, because at least Conservapedia doesn't play pretend with their biases. Curbon7 (talk) 18:34, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

The lead and leadimage of their Fascism article has some interesting changes. They have a useraccount named LarrySanger commenting here:[1]. See also the Showcase feature on the mainpage [2], interesting changes there too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:05, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

What I am surprised about is - where is our Justapedia article? Or at least a list of Wikipedia forks and mirrors one? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:26, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

List of online encyclopedias seems to be sticking to items with WP-articles, and Justapedia may fail WP:GNG atm. Not that I've looked for sources. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:38, 25 December 2023 (UTC)

Having searched, I think it fails WP:NWEB at present. XOR'easter (talk) 07:04, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Some Justapedia comment on, presumably, this Signpost article: [3]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:14, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Concerns from IP

An IP appears to be concerned with the inclusion of this link to Quillette, saying that in an edit summary that it may have been made by a banned user. I think the link is contextually important, and I don't see a persuasive reason to remove it here—particularly over a month after publication. I've reverted to the stable version pending this discussion. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:24, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I can wait for the discussion at Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Removal_of_Quillette_quote, and the related post at the Fringe Theories noticeboard, to reach their conclusion before I remove the link from this article. But those discussions are clearly trending in the direction of the Quillette article being a WP:PROFRINGE source that should not be linked to on Wikipedia. 174.239.49.103 (talk) 06:10, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

PROFRINGE is about mainspace, which excludes among other things The Signpost. "not be linked to on Wikipedia." is not a correct reading, for example such sources will often be linked in talkpage discussions about if they should be used in articles. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:24, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Technology report: Dark mode is coming (992 bytes · 💬)

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This is long overdue, but a welcome addition! Thanks to everyone on the web team for working tirelessly to work out all the quirks that happen with such a diverse platform! QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 18:50, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

• Very good news. I've been using the Dark Mode Toggle a couple years, on ENWP only because that's the one I read most, especially at night. Besides easier to read, Dark Mode looks very different; hence I don't forget when I'm in Simple English or Commons or Meta or whatever. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:54, 25 December 2023 (UTC)