Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions

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Suggestions

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This page is for suggesting news to be covered in the next Signpost. For general discussion, comments or questions regarding The Signpost, please see our feedback page.

WP:Update

The Signpost used to mention the quarterly content policy updates; I think it didn't last quarter, and possibly the quarter before, I don't recall. If you guys don't want to mention it this time, let me know so I can discuss adding a link directly to the core content policy pages. - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. It's not that we don't or won't cover it it's that, well, I wasn't aware this page even existed. I can put it in next week's N&N. ResMar 18:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks. It has run in the Signpost every quarter for a long time, until recently. I think when the historians get interested in Wikipedia, the history of the content policies will be one of the things they talk about. - Dank (push to talk) 19:20, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Dank: You may find something I'm working on atm, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Index, interesting. I was thinking, since we haven't run Discussion report in a long, long time maybe we could issue a quarterly recap of discussions leading up to policy changes based on this page. Since you update the page anyway maybe you'd like to pull that trigger: kind of like how the current traffic report is sourced from/to WP:TOP25. What do you think? ResMar 19:28, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That would have been exciting (for me) in 2007–10 or so, when everything was up in the air ... these days, most of the content policies have stabilized, so a column that focused just on the recent changes wouldn't have that much to talk about. It may be that some of the people who have had more of a hand than I have in the discussions and the changes might want to use the recent changes as a springboard to talk about the evolution of the policy pages. - Dank (push to talk) 20:29, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Dank: Broadly speaking, unless we specifically approach people to do these things they generally don't. With guidelines especially there's always such a circus behind everything.

There are a lot of different series ideas I'd like to see but nowhere near enough interest in writing them to make them a reality :) ResMar 00:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Dank: Only tangentially related. I've rebuilt the resources we use for N&N reporting; are there any goodies I should add to User:Resident Mario/tracker, by your estimation? Pages like this one that summarize past or present breaking changes. ResMar 04:22, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's very nice, it covers a lot more than I knew about. - Dank (push to talk) 18:10, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Flickr improves tools to mark images PD/CC - SpaceX puts its images into PD

Via EFF. Including a shoutout to how this helps Wikipedia with illustrations. --MASEM (t) 23:43, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New government logo actually taken from Wikimedia Commons

[1] --167.57.61.103 (talk) 15:27, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's not too surprising. The govt of Belize has been using the Commons image of the coat of arms of Belize for years. Kaldari (talk) 01:05, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

February Signpost Survey

I was clearing my browser history and found a URL for a survey you ran in February. Did any surprising results come out of it? Did you get enough respondents? Might be good material for an article. ;-) Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:47, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's a little late to publish an article on the results, but the results were decently interesting. A surprising number of people didn't know of the WM Blog. Assessments of our directional needs varied pole-to-pole (more controversy! less controversy! more en-wiki! less en-wiki!), which I figure means we're doing a good job, broadly. You can see the results yourself here. ResMar 00:57, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting to see that the two news sections are the most appreciated pages. Of course, the optional, fill-in answers are the most challenging to consider but it did seem like, reading through the responses, there is definitely a sense that the Traffic Report can be too snarky and condescending and ignorant about the world outside the U.S. And I'm a huge fan of the page myself. It is probably the most idiosyncratic section but also helps those of us who focus in on a specific area of the project know which articles are drawing a lot of page views. Any way, thanks for sharing the stats, they were interesting to look over. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:48, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative medicine advocates advocating an alternative encyclopaedia "'Unbiased'"

Mike Bundrant, NLP practitioner and contributor to NaturalNews, is heading a Kickstarter project to produce "Unbiased", an alternative to Wikipedia which he and others consider is biased against alternative medicine. The Kickstarter is here. A response from David Gorski is here.--A bit iffy (talk) 19:42, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For those unfamiliar with the acronym NLP, in this context it means neuro-linguistic programming. Mindmatrix 20:23, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My response at right. This one's in Gamaliel's court. ResMar 20:40, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's pretty much my response too, but I will look into it for ITM. Gamaliel (talk) 23:26, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Resident Mario: do we have an SP category for this sort of thing? There have been a lot of complaints from the alternative medicine world about Wikipedia, I'm wondering if we have prior Signpost coverage. Gamaliel (talk) 23:27, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See: medical. Tagging on this one could be better, but that's what we got. @Gamaliel: ResMar 00:57, 8 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative wikis are always fun, though perhaps the less narrowly focused ones are more successful. Broader alternative venues for the alternative medics could include Conservapedia, Wikipedia Watch, Citizendium, and Rationalwiki. Jim.henderson (talk) 14:36, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

m:Requests for comment/Confirmation of stewards

This RFC has global implications and might be worth a mention. (There are others like it at m:RFC, though some of them are probably not worth mentioning in the Signpost). --Rs chen 7754 22:12, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

University Challenge winner Ted Loveday: I learned my answers on Wikipedia

For In the Media brief items (do I suggest these somewhere else?)

University Challenge: The Telegraph reports that Ted Loveday, an "internet star" after leading the victorious team in the University Challenge final, learned the answers to the show's questions from Wikipedia.

Arthur goes shopping (talk) 12:27, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes this is pretty amazing. The final question was on Hapax legomenon. Suggestion for the final question on the next show Dis legomenon. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:08, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also mentioned as a boxed quote in the London Evening Standard of 15th April, although confusingly the same newspaper on the 14th April mentions Loveday saying on Twitter that the credit for the Hapax legomenon answer and many others was due to his teachers at his former secondary school in London. Maybe the teachers encouraged him to read Wikipedia? Arthur goes shopping (talk) 11:04, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Washington Post on Wikipedia Hoaxes

Caitlin Dewey, Washington Post, 15 April 2015, The story behind Jar’Edo Wens, the longest-running hoax in Wikipedia history.

Covers a number of other hoaxes as well, including the vandalism experiment described here. Andreas JN466 15:48, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It should be mentioned that a significant portion of the article is devoted to the words of Gregory Kohs. When someone writes this up for ITM, I hope they'll note it's a poor article - one-sided, superficial reporting, barely worthy of a college freshman. - kosboot (talk) 18:15, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An even more significant portion of the article is devoted to the words of Newyorkbrad. I guess this might fit the definition of "one-sided" in some people's book, as NYB also contributes to Wikipediocracy, but I think most readers of the Washington Post article would actually discern a difference in the positions taken by these two in their respective sections. Andreas JN466 19:04, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A quick look at Wikipediocracy's message board indicates that Kohs has an ongoing experiment to deliberately enter false information in WP: http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=6305 - kosboot (talk) 19:26, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't read the article yet but Dewey is usually a solid journalist who really understands new media and social media. That's her beat. I'm sure if you're inclined to contact her, through a link at the article or on Twitter, she'd be open to hearing any concerns you have. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:23, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I am aware, the experiment is concluded. (The Washington Post article is, in fact, reporting on its results.) Andreas JN466 22:29, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Having read the article, I have to say that Australian aboriginal religions, and, for that matter, religions of a large part of the world which is underrepresented by editors here, can be freaking impossible to find sources on, and it is in no way surprising to me, as someone who may have even looked at the bloody article once or twice, it wasn't seen as a hoax. There aren't many sources, most of them are under copyright and not really necessarily easily available on the net, and, well, frankly, there are so [expletive] many gods in so [expletive] many religions that even if it were said to have been a Graeco-Roman god there might be a reasonable chance that it might not have been caught as a hoax, depending on how obscure or rarely-discussed the article might indicate the subject of the article is. John Carter (talk) 21:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For more Signpost coverage on hoaxes see our hoaxes series.

ResMar 00:53, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Telegraph is also getting in on the act, with yet another hoax disclosed today: [2]. Andreas JN466 17:44, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Queers Online

I was an author in a Wiki-chapter of a book. Can this be noted in The Signpost? Please cut and present in whatever way is customary.

Queers Online: LGBT Digital Practices in Libraries, Archives, and Museums, published March 2015, contains a "Queering Wikipedia" chapter.

The chapter on Wikipedia is authored by Rachel Wexelbaum (RachelWex), Katie Herzog (Cccitizen), and Lane Rasberry (bluerasberry). The entire book is compiled and edited by RachelWex. It covers the establishment of Wikimedia LGBT+ and Wadewitz's support for Tom of Finland Foundation partnerships including an editathon in 2012. Interested persons can buy the book on Amazon, read the Wikipedia chapter online till the end of May 2015, or read it in digital form on Wikisource after summer 2016.

Cite the chapter on Wikipedia using this citation, perhaps at Adrianne Wadewitz or Wikipedia community.

Wexelbaum, Rachel; Herzog, Katie; Rasberry, Lane (2015). "Queering Wikipedia". In Wexelbaum, Rachel (ed.). Queers Online - LGBT Digital Practices in Libraries, Archives, and Museums. Sacramento, California: Litwin Books. pp. 61–80. ISBN 978-1936117796.

Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:56, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Small world, I'm putting the finishing touches on a (non-Wikipedia) book review of a recent Litwin book. I might be able to fit this into ITM, though NAN may be more appropriate. Gamaliel (talk) 22:22, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I smell a book review. No? ResMar

Litwin's going to think I'm scamming him if I ask him for another book so soon. ;) But seriously, it doesn't seem researchy enough for Recent Research, so a review might not be a bad idea. Gamaliel (talk) 22:45, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Hillary Rodham Clinton

On the off chance there is a report about newly-created WikiProjects, or any articles about Hillary Clinton appear in the section for the most popular articles, etc., it might be worth noting the creation of WikiProject Hillary Rodham Clinton, which was launched on the day she announced her campaign for the U.S. presidential election. Note: Project participants are not endorsing HRC or her political positions; they are merely expressing an interest in improving Wikipedia articles related to her, and all are welcome to participate. Thanks for your consideration. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:10, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why a whole WikiProject? This seems suitable for a task force of a WikiProject, not an entirely new one that's going to inevitably be left rotting on the vine in two year's time or less.

Our WikiProject reporter is out for the foreseeable future. This might be N&N IB worthy...maybe. ResMar 20:25, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Why not? Consider it an experiment. (Speaking of which, I've notified WikiProject X participants of this project and have offered to test new ideas/tools.) Worst case scenario: the project dries up and we convert it to a task force. Wikipedia will survive. :) ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:50, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And if she becomes president, there'll be a lot of work. - kosboot (talk) 21:04, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But she hasn't won yet. Re WikiProject X, WikiProjects -> WikiNoticeboards, in my mind. ResMar 22:16, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikirap / Harvard professor wants Wikipedia in schools

Hi all,

I would like to suggest two recent youtube videos. Two weeks ago this German Wikirap was posted [3]. And on a more serious note. Last week a harvard professor posted this [4]. Specially look at the comment section, which is particularly positive for youtube standards.

All the best, Taketa (talk) 16:15, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Grant Shapps - sockpuppetry

The Guardian has a long report on sockpuppetry by Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps. The sockpuppet report is Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Hackneymarsh and the Guardian report is here. Interestingly, as the UK is in the middle of a general election campaign, the allegation is not that Shapps was using socks to attack the opposition but used the accounts mostly to attacks rivals within his own party. Nthep (talk) 20:29, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It was on Channel 4 news tonight - a somewhat garbled account by Michael Crick, talking about him editing "websites" (rather than articles). Johnbod (talk) 20:55, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

ps.wiki

Every administrator and bureaucrat on ps.wikipedia was removed - see posts starting at [5]. --Rs chen 7754 01:09, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An item on PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents&oldid=658758488#PM_.28BBC_Radio_4.29

Anyone want to follow up on this , in the best objective and neutral reporting that Signpost is known for?

(There's also the matter of the recently Arbitration case concerning a high-profile block. The block is controversial because of certain allegations being made about an alleged account holder.) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:03, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See 2 items up for this Johnbod (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Signpost Single Page

Note the post to [Wikimedia-l] [Wikimedia Announcements] The Signpost -- Volume 11, Issue 16 -- 22 April 2015 has a corrupted line for Single Page. It looks like a slash is missing.

Cheers,

Darrell

You are the fifth or sixth person to report this; the bot is unmaintained. Also, please, this page is for story suggestions, not general feedback. ResMar 14:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary hits 4 mill

Over at Wiktionary, we've just hit 4 million entries. The entry in question is cundidos, a particularly uninteresting one. We have announced it on our Milestones page. I just so happen to have been the entry's creator. --Type56op9 (talk) 10:11, 25 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]