Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions/Archive 32

Archive 25

←

Archive 30

Archive 31

Archive 32

Archive 33

Archive 34

Archive 35

Suggestion by Another Believer (2020-10-25)

McNeil Jr., Donald G. (October 22, 2020). "Wikipedia and W.H.O. Join to Combat Covid-19 Misinformation". The New York Times. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:04, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

AB, it is listed already in our In the Media draft. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Bri, Like Thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 23:31, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Signpost Archives

Hello, Signpost staffers,

Back in 2015, I undertook categorizing the Signpost archives from 2005 to 2015 according to subject (see Category:Wikipedia Signpost archives 2014 as an example).

Before playing catch-up on years 2015-2020, I thought I'd ask if you all had any objections to refining the current archiving categories a bit. It can be useful to have all of the, say, News & Notes, April Fools articles or Paid editing articles in categories that are easy to find. But before diving in again, I thought I'd run the idea past you first. Since the subjects of concern have changed over the years, if you had any ideas for additional subject categories that would be helpful, I'd love to hear what they are. Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:48, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Liz:. Let me just speak personally - my preferences may be quite different from others'. Current other editors, and future other editors. I love our archives - use them all the time, others should also! Anything you want to do to improve the archives is great. OTOH I'm one of those people who almost never use categories on enwiki. On Commons, yes, on enwiki, no. In short go for it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:23, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I'm biased about categories, I use them every day on the project. Thanks for your blessing. ;-) Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:20, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by Davidwr (2020-11-07)

The Signpost should write about one or more of the many related topics covered in A vicious culture war is tearing through Wikipedia: Edit-warring was already common as India descended into political polarisation. Then along came Covid-19 (Wired Magazine web site, 5 November 2020, by Omer Benjakob). davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:33, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by TapefaceYT (2020-11-10)

The Signpost should write about edit wars and ways to prevent them.@theREALtapefaceyt (talk) 01:25, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by ssr (2020-11-13)

The Signpost should write about user:Dalorleon's study of Wikipedian Inclusionism for Harvard University. You can simply examine his contributions to find out details. --ssr (talk) 12:14, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

• A technical question: will an user receive notification upon mentioning here on this page? --ssr (talk) 12:27, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Hello, ssr! Yes, I was notified! If the Signpost wanted to write about my study, that would be awesome, although I would say that it's still in a relatively early stage. My thesis will likely be more coherent by a few months from now. But I do appreciate the suggestion! --Dalorleon (talk) 17:08, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by Another Believer (2020-11-20) -- more COVID-19 coverage in the media

• https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/19/sage-advisers-used-wikipedia-entries-model-first-covid-lockdown/
• https://metro.co.uk/2020/11/19/sage-experts-relied-on-wikipedia-to-model-impact-of-covid-crisis-13619999/
• https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/nov/19/lockdown-10-following-the-science-review-wikipedia-wuhan-and-worrying-mistakes

---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:45, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

@Another Believer: We've got the Guardian article in "In the media" already, and I can get Metro pretty easily. I've avoided the Daily Mail and other tabloids. But can you get the Telegraph and write a sentence about it and put it in "ITM". I know it's cheap, but I've got way too many $3 per month newspaper subscriptions already!

the text so far reads

Lockdown 1.0 - Following Wikipedia?

BBC Two reportedly had an excellent hour-long documentary Lockdown 1.0 - Following the Science? airing on November 19 about the UK government's handling of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately those of us outside the UK cannot view the online version due to licensing restrictions.

The Guardian provided a detailed review of the documentary, giving it 4 stars, and surveying the many facts presented, including one about Wikipedia:

"The public may be surprised to hear we were using data from Wikipedia very early on – but it really was the only data publicly available." — Dr. Ian Hall of Manchester University, deputy chair of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling

Several UK tabloids have also featured this quote in their reporting on the documentary.

Thanks, Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:22, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Things heating up over in the Somalia domain

• For the sake of having it noted, I don't know if this will turn into anything bigger, but a look through at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Visa policy of Somaliland and Osmanomar01 might be of some interest to the staff. The latter might be an account from the Somali Ministry of Interior engaging in genocide denial and legal threats—fun stuff! -Indy beetle (talk) 07:57, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion to feature Movement communications insights (2020-11-24)

Hi, is there is still time to suggest a mention to m:Movement communications insights for the News from the WMF section? I could write a piece with the length and on the deadline that you define. We are seeking volunteers with different profiles to have a good representation of the diversity in our movement. The Signpost has a very interesting distribution that could help us reach out to volunteers that otherwise would miss this call for participation. Qgil-WMF (talk) 10:51, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by davidwr (2020-11-24)

The Signpost should write about... Twitter's greatly expanded "verified Twitter account" system, which according to this edit at WT:WPAFC,"Having a Wikipedia bio with 3 references is enough to be verified under some conditions."

From the Twitter link: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts

Activists, organizers, and other influential individuals: [one item off "list A" and one item off "list B"]. List B includes A Wikipedia page about them with at least 3 external references to distinct, unaffiliated sources;

This might be better suited for the January newsletter since the program is on hold until 2021. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 21:48, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by ssr (2020-11-25)

The Signpost probably may write about, or just mention, our next Photo Wiki Excursion illustrated English language report: n:ru:Zelenogorsk Wiki Car Expedition for Railways and Swamps. There are links to previous ones within. As written (and shown) within, we regularly do this as officially recognized Wikimedia User Group to enrich Wikipedia and its "sisters" such as Commons, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. --ssr (talk) 23:46, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikimedia mention

This article has been generating a lot of debate today on India-related noticeboards and articles. The complaint is addressed to Wikimedia but involves the English Wikipedia. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:41, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Here is the MSN version. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

@Liz: I've added the MSM article to the next in the media section. Llewee (talk) 20:34, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by Gnom (2020-11-29)

German symphony orchestra releases first-ever professional recordings of orchestral music under free license – I just wrote about this for the GLAM newsletter, but it might also be someting for the Signpost. --Gnom (talk) 13:32, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Gnom: I put a note on outreach:Talk:GLAM/Newsletter/November 2020/Contents/Germany report highlighting the U.S. Marine Symphony Orchestra. I would assume its recordings are in the public domain, subject to any underlying copyrights on the music itself of course. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:07, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, davidwr, the U.S. Marine Symphony Orchestra's performances do qualify as "government works" in certain circumstances, but they have never released anything under a free license. This is relevant because their works are technically only in the public domain in the United States, and remain protected by copyright in other countries. --Gnom (talk) 17:31, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Musopen has been doing this for 15 years, so I don't think "first" is accurate here. Lots of examples in commons:Category:Musopen. czar 23:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment, Czar – do we know which orchestra(s) is/are featured in these recordings and who did the recordings? Also, they are all published under CC0, right? What I am trying to say is that it is a first, depending on how you define it :-) --Gnom (talk) 09:51, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Mainly the Czech National Symphony Orchestra[1][2] mostly under PD Mark 1.0, though Musopen has all kinds of Creative Commons works so would have to trudge through that before landing on a superlative. Still, I'd rephrase the headline as is. czar 04:39, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for helping me understand this better. It looks like that Musopen bought the rights to the recording from the orchestra(s) to then release it under CC0. I will try to open a discussion on your talk page to look into this. --Gnom (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by User:Mjroots (2020-12-10)

You might want to cover the recent requested move of the Fugging article. See talk:Fugging, Lower Austria. Mjroots (talk) 09:40, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

ArbCom voting stats

Something I compiled you may find useful for your upcoming article on the ArbCom election results. It was triggered by someone's query about how this year's voting turnout compared to previous years, so I compiled to satisfy my own curiosity. The numbers are drawn from (1) totals reported for each ArbCom election back to 2008 (vote counters did not count total votes before that year) & (2) the Foundation's reported numbers for "active editors" of en.wikipedia rounded to the nearest thousand. (What "active editors" exactly means, you'd need to ask them.)

Year	Total votes cast in election	Reported active editors (as of January)
2020	1713	39,000
2019	1695	38,500
2018	2118	39,000
2017	1993	39,000
2016	1950	37,000
2015	2674	38,000
2014	594	37,000
2013	945	39,000
2012	858	41,000
2011	736	43,500
2010	860	46,000
2009	997	50,000
2008	984	53,000

(Source for active editors -- defined as an editor with more than 5 edits a month -- is stats.wikimedia.org. As of 2018 the Foundation no longer tracks "very active editors" -- more than 100 edits a month.)

Two observations:

1. The number of people voting in ArbCom is clearly independent of how many active editors en.wikipedia has.
2. That notable fluctuation in votes falls during Lila Tretikov's tenure as head of WMF (May 2014—March 2016). I make no claim of any causal connection. -- llywrch (talk) 22:00, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Can you link your sources? For definition of "active editor", meta:Research:Metrics#User_classes or shortcut Wikipedia:Activity. czar 23:57, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Done. This gave me a chance to correct some wrong numbers. I thought I had found a page that gave numbers of active editors per year; if I had, I could not find it again. So I am providing stats for an arbitrarily picked month for each year; this correction chiefly effects my numbers for the years 2008, 2009, & 2014. (If this table is used, it will likely need to be tweaked to look more professional.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:29, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I believe 2015 was the first year in which a mass-message was sent to all eligible voters, which explains the increase that year. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:58, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: that seems to be the better explanation. (I had forgotten about that.) -- llywrch (talk) 23:48, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikifunctions name

The winner of the Wiki of functions naming contest was "Wikifunctions", which has now passed legal review, so that will be the name of the new Wikimedia project to be created when the basic software for it is ready. "WikiLambda", a runner-up, will be the name of the underlying Mediawiki software extension. They will now be setting up the process and timeline for the Wikifunctions logo contest. --Yair rand (talk) 22:43, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

In the media suggestion

Wired covers the issue we had with establishing an article for Theresa Greenfield. --Masem (t) 17:56, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion by Another Believer (2021-01-14)

• https://www.fastcompany.com/90593176/wikipedia-capitol-attack-name

---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I should thank you for all the hard work, or report you to ANI for obvious self-promotion. I think I'll just say "thank you for all of your contributions" and call it a day. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 22:11, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Davidwr, Hah! Thanks. ;p ---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jan/15/wikipedia-at-20-last-gasp-of-an-internet-vision-or-a-beacon-to-a-better-future

---Another Believer _(Talk) 17:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Obviously, there's a ton of coverage re: 20th anniversary. Do you need help collecting all these sources or is someone already on this? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:17, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

New textbook from Elsevier is heavily plagiarized from Wikipedia

The Signpost should write about a new glossy book from Elsevier that is heavily plagiarized from Wikipedia. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry#Plagiarism in Elsevier book and User_talk:Smokefoot#Possible copyright issue with an Elsevier book. It is possible that most written content of this 1000 page textbook is from Wikipedia. --Smokefoot (talk) 18:05, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• This should make it into "News and notes for the Jan.31 issue. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:30, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion by Tucoxn (2021-01-08) (In the Media)

The Signpost should write about this recent article in The Economist, titled "Wikipedia’s future lies in poorer countries: The site’s volunteer workforce has plateaued in the West, but is surging in Asia and Africa." The article might be behind a paywall. - tucoxn\^talk 00:27, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tucoxn: Along with the other 2 Economist articles in the same edition, and many more 20th birthday articles this will be in "In the media" Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Podokesaurus

The Signpost should write about Podokesaurus. This article was promoted to FA on 1 January, after a lot of work from FunkMonk. Shortly after, it was nominated for state dinosaur of Massachusetts, and it just won (notice the illustration and some of the exact wording from the article used in the video):[3]. Note that it was the first dinosaur to be found and formally described by a woman. This may be worth a mention somewhere? Gog the Mild (talk) 11:56, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it has been officially made state dinosaur yet, but if it will be at a later date, perhaps we can make it TFA that day? FunkMonk (talk) 15:43, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion by DTM (2021-02-07)

The Signpost could automate certain parameters related to its own statistics... Based on the 2018 and 2019 reports, and the 2020 report which is being compiled, items which could be automated:

• Number of articles
• Views
  • Page views per article
    • Total first week views
    • Total one year views — from this we can extract individual articles which have got the most pageviews. Accordingly we get the category views.
    • Further divide pageviews into desktop vs mobile etc
• Contributions/Authorship
  • Total number of authors
  • Total number of unique authors — from this we extract the top contributors
• Comments
  • How many comments per article — from this we get the articles with the most conversation and the amount of words
  • How many unique authors
• Other useful stuff

The raw data could be flexible enough to pick up and interpret, say through Excel, and convert to meaningful graphs. This in turn could become the basis for the "annual report of The Signpost", with further inputs from The Signpost team. DTM (talk) 15:51, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion by Aza24 (2021-02-24)

The Signpost should write about comparing articles now to those from ~10 years ago. What I mean is, maybe it would be fun to assemble a few leads for figures/places that have drastically changed over the last 10 years (Rudy Giuliani for instance, I'm sure there are better examples) and show the striking difference between their article(s) now and then. Aza24 (talk) 06:07, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion by ssr (2021-02-25)

The Signpost should write about Bashkir Wikipedia's big celebration of its 15 anniversary which included government involvement. Here is the Russian report with photos in English you can ask Farhad Fatkullin who has English details (I love to link to Farhad Fatkullin article because I am the author of the article, but talking about username he is user:Frhdkazan) --ssr (talk) 10:52, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion by ssr (2021-03-02)

The Signpost should write about usergroup m:NWR-Hist's biggest event ever made, the Wiki Excursion for photos, videos and texts for Commons, Wikipedia, Wikivoyage and Wikinews. The biggest event is marked with the biggest illustrated report in English language, here is the link: n:ru:Karelia Wiki Expedition of Petersburg Wiki Historians --ssr (talk) 13:18, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Google Doodle featuring Masako Katsura

Yesterday, the subject of the Google Doodle was Masako Katsura – my FA from 2011. The article now mentions this in its "Legacy section", sourced to this Cnet news story (that plainly used the article as a roadmap for its bio of her, with no credit to the article or my writing). I'm not sure if any part of this is fodder for a story (possibly a brief mention in News and Notes), but I thought I'd raise it here in case. I'll note a few things that occurred to me in relation.

First, because of Wikipedia's prominence, coupled with the fact that our articles are almost always the first or close to first result on Google searches, and her relative obscurity, I am certain I made her much better known by making her article an FA, and subsequently having it featured on the main page. I have no direct evidence but I am betting the Google Doodle would not have happened if she didn't have this FA. It would be interesting to see if there's a connection between FA status and being chosen for the Google Doodle (it would seem sensible that the more obscure the subject, the more likely of a causal connection – but it doesn't seem something easy to check, and likely could only be inductively reasoned).

Second, When this article was on the main page it got thousands of views (I don't remember exactly how many and the pageviews tool doesn't go back that far, but I remember looking, and I think it was in the range of 10,000). Well, it got 313,051 page views yesterday! (And 8,045 for the stub part of Saturday it was functioning as a Doodle.) One thing I find very surprising is that despite having maybe 30× the views from when it was today's featured article, it got just about the same number of edits and vandalism (as another data point I just checked the history of The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was yesterday's TFA and it also got almost exactly the same number of edits/vandalism). Given the vast number more in pageviews you would expect a commensurate increase in edits/vandalism but there isn't. I don't know what to make of that. Just spitballing.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 15:23, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion by Liz (2021-02-10)

Just a note that we now have a new oldest hoax at Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia, Sheikh Abu-Ali Urbuti at 14 years, 10 months. Not sure whether this is worth a mention but I thought I'd post a notice somewhere especially because it was a clever pun that escaped everyone's notice for so long. It might also have been a clue that this figure was 103 years old. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:18, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Liz. I'm very interested in how many pageviews the article got (even since 2015) but it seems the pageview page doesn't work for deleted articles. Anybody know how to get it? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:57, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Smallbones, I've temporarily restored this article so you could see page views. They only go back to 2015 (the article was created in 2006) but they are pretty steady so people kept viewing this page. Maybe it was an internet joke that Wikipedia didn't know about? Please reply when you've viewed so I can redelete it. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:36, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Liz got it. Thanks. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:04, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

• Pageviews:3,263
• Median:1
• Daily average:2

Re-deleted. — The Earwig ⟨talk⟩ 15:13, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, The Earwig. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:14, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Suggestion by Hawkeye7 (2021-03-11)

The Signpost should write about a new research paper on Producing distinction: Wikipedia and the Order of Australia. Although Australia-centric, it explores our concept of notability, especially when it comes to recognising the work of women. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:24, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7, Hfordsa, and HaeB: This is a *very interesting* pilot project right now. Ford has assembled a good group of folks, including some Australian Wikipedians to carry it through. I've pinged HaeB in case he wants to review it (whenever). I personally don't think it is ripe yet, but that might depend on how it is addressed. Is it a finished paper? no. Perhaps a project of Wikipedia Australia? Something that might be extended, e.g. to British honours? Or to a WikiProject. Lots of potential here! Email me if you have any specific ideas. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:27, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Nigeria "partnering" with Wikipedia to boost toursim

According to this article, the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation is "partnering" with Wikipedia and some internet giants such as Google to "contently build the tourism sector". Sparse on the details. -Indy beetle (talk) 04:38, 15 March 2021 (UTC)