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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2018-01-16. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Mister Wiki is first arbitration committee decision of 2018 (3,178 bytes · 💬)

  • Jytdog, I think your op-ed was very nicely done. Just wanted to make a note of that. :) TonyBallioni (talk) 16:00, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Seconded, it was a fine and helpful op-ed: ArbCom matters are always tangled and difficult to follow from outside. On another matter, it is remarkable that admins are permitted to do paid editing, as this could easily "give the wrong impression" to non-Wikipedians: we know they won't do anything stupid, but the press could hold other opinions. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:52, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I appreciate the directness and conciseness of the op-ed. These cases involve live discussions which anyone can join and I think it is great when people outside arbcom are kind enough to try to summarize and explain the cases. This summary matches my own view. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:52, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
I seem to have adopted this column at least for the time being, so if anybody wants to take a shot at a future op-ed, or even take co-authorship credit, drop me a note ☆ Bri (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary of the case and the decision. As the person who drafted the paragraph on the scope of "paid editing," I would not bold it the way it is shown above. The core definition refers to payment to, or for the benefit of, an editor, which is what was involved in this case. I do not believe we were trying to address all the possible types of more incidental benefits, which remain within the community's purview to define. Newyorkbrad (talk) 02:44, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

This was a concern I had about the decision and ultimately why I opposed it. I estimated that it was going to be taken as "the" definition of paid editing. Anyone glancing over it would not necessarily pick up on the nuance of the context of the case, the qualifier of "core" in the sentence, or the Committee's ability to realistically define paid editing in any respect. Voting discussion is not included in the case remedy summary where much of these details are discussed. We also deal with the fact that several stakeholders have very different views on paid editing. As was the case with the WMF statement on paid editing and outing and our reply. Mkdw talk 16:30, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Featured content: History, gaming and multifarious topics (149 bytes · 💬)

Humour: Why don't we have an article about _________? (2,572 bytes · 💬)

In commemoration of this Temperance and Good Citizenship Day, I will be happy to award a barnstar to the first editor to create (well sourced etc.) one of the redlinked articles. Double credit if it links to Toe Jam Hill because, well, this. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:13, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement with the distinguished and honorable editor Bri and am seriously considering coming up with some type of prize, say, an Amazon gift card.... Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 21:59, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
All I could think of is you Blue when I was drafting up the hamster bit. At one time in my life I had 95 hammies. I bred some sweet-looking tricolors. Those Russians are satanic, n'est pas? One almost bit my finger off. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 22:39, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I actually sometimes had the temptation to vandalize, but to me the best solution is to patrol recent changes by IP addresses and read all the stupid goofy stuff they can write. About 1 edit in eight by IPs are vandalism, so if you click a few dozen changes, you should certainly find some very hilarious vandalism. I hope this helps. L293D (✉ ) 03:05, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Excellent remedy. You and I must be the only ones confessing how we struggle with the urge to vandalize. Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 07:56, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

In the media: The Paris Review, British Crown and British Media (4,764 bytes · 💬)

  • Great job on the story about Brigid Hughes, it shows us how Wikipedia can fill the gaps that have been erased by institutional histories. But was this inspired by yesterday's Longreads story? If so you should link to it. Gamaliel (talk) 15:59, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Gamaliel, thanks for catching that, I completely forgot to do that. Eddie891 Talk Work 20:01, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
  • That's rich – The Sun accusing Wikipedia of harboring fake news! LOL! Kaldari (talk) 21:11, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Daily mail probably have a link to Wikipeia somewhere, like this page have a link to Commons somewhere. Where is the attribution to the authors of the used images on this page - Hidden behind a invisible link. 62.116.217.98 (talk) 09:10, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Why does Toby get such a large image? It's okay, he probably deserves it. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 22:04, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
  • How did anyone detect plagiarism by The Daily Mail? I know that we check content posted to Wikipedia for copying, but I am not aware of how we detect copying of Wikipedia elsewhere. Did the author of the wiki article identify their own work? Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:26, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: I found the Mail article via Google News searching for details of The Coronation and recognised large chunks of text as my own work. Firebrace (talk) 22:22, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
Interesting, thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:12, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
  • More copying from Wikipedia: take a look (and listen) to this YouTube video in the HERSTORY series. The vast majority of the commentary is lifted word-for-word from the Chrissie Wellington article (I know, I wrote it!). At the end of the video JanetTV.com claims "all rights reserved" copyright - no mention of Wikipedia that I can see. --NSH001 (talk) 17:47, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
Hmm- thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:12, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
Yup, it's a cheaply made video – Chrissie deserves better than that – just a badly read out lump of Wikipedia and some stock photos and video clips (I wonder if they made the "necessary arrangements" for those). I doubt anyone would want to copy it anyway. --NSH001 (talk) 23:55, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
Plagiarism of us is rampant. It does not take much looking to find. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:04, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
I started compiling a list of celebrity or at least notable plagiarizers of Wikipedia here. It might even become article-worthy. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:31, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
Indeed so, Doc (I see you get a few mentions elsewhere). That particular one stands out for me, firstly because I wrote it, and secondly because it is lifting vast chunks of the article, and not just a few sentences, which seems to be the case in most instances of plagiarism from Wikipedia. I don't mind people using my text (I take it as a compliment) but I do care about their not acknowledging the source, and in the case of HERSTORY, butchering my text by reading it so badly. --NSH001 (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Interview: Interview with Ser Amantio di Nicolao, the top contributor to English Wikipedia by edit count (13,882 bytes · 💬)

Interesting to read and thanks for all your work over the years on articles in the arts and Women-in-Red. Jane (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jane023: You're very kind. It's always a pleasure looking up some obscure Dutch artist to find out that you've already created an article. :-) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:14, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Thanks - I don't know if you have noticed, but the work on the most obscure artists is starting to pay off, thanks to Wikidata. More and more of those Wikipedia articles are illustrated with associated Commons categories and Creator templates and I expect some of the artist categories on Commons will grow further when "Structured Data on Commons" is up and running. I am hoping you will soon be able to translate some of your Wikipedia category work to reconciling triangular associations for Wikidata/Commons Creator/Commons Category on SDoC. Jane (talk) 14:56, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Jane023: I must confess, I don't spend a whole lot of time over at Wikidata. Glad to hear that it's coming along to a place where it can be integrated more firmly into articles. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 15:53, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Fortunate to learn the success and failures of these marvellous Wikipedians. I am very pleased and blessed to be with Wikipedia. I remember Ser Amantio di Nicolao has been an exceptional contributor to the Women in Red Project and I will take him as a role model in my Wikipedia career. Abishe (talk) 15:43, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

@Abishe: You make me blush. Thanks very much for your kind words. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:25, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

VERY TELLING and thank you for your candorCoal town guy (talk) 15:44, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

@Coal town guy: I quote the musical 1776: "Well, in all my years I ain't never heard, seen nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked about." I'm a great believer in candor, wedded to tact. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 17:14, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
  • You state " I think it's time we start seriously looking at bots to create some of the needed geographic articles. Species articles, too, but geographic especially.". I can only concur, certainly seeing the lack of so many species articles, numbering much more than 100,000. Doing all this manually takes a lot of painstaking effort. A bot would be indeed more than welcome. JoJan (talk) 17:50, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@JoJan: I know others have bandied the idea about off and on over the past few years; I mentioned Dr. Blofeld, and I know there are others. I hope that the bots in use on the Swedish Wikipedia and others would point the way to some of the issues that need to be resolved. And I do understand that there are issues...but there must be a way around them. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 18:08, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
I remember this being discussed or suggested at least once before. I suppose the only objection I would have, would be having to change the tagline to "the free online encyclopedia that anyone or anything can edit". ;) I enjoyed the interview.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@Mark Miller: Anything? Great - let me see if I can find a few rocks to throw at the keyboard, then. That would provide a...novel experience, shall we say. :-) Glad you enjoyed. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 21:35, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
I've always liked this one: "I was just reading that page and my mouse slipped and hit the edit button. Then I tripped and as I was falling I hit the keyboard and typed all that content. As I struggled to my feet I was pawing at the desk and the mouse came down and hit save." [Posted by Crossmr in December 2010 (diff).] – Athaenara ✉ 05:08, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Athaenara: Oh, that's nice - I'll have to remember it. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 06:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
First, let me note that I find it surprising that no one in this thread mentioned the first bot, Rambot. Maybe because it's been over 10 years since its last edit. Anyway, having made a series of semi-automated article creation/edits of Ethiopia articles, I can confirm that setting up the process isn't that difficult: IMHO, the secret is finding enough structured data to make the effort worth while. (Combining the material into articles can be done with a trivial script, & adding those articles to Wikipedia can be done with any number of existing bots -- or thru manual copy-&-paste.) When I did that for Ethiopian woredas (their name for local districts), I had the Ethiopian census of 1995 to work with, which allowed me to provide demographic information; however, I lacked other information, such as latitude/longitude info, or average elevations. And I was forced to create by hand details like lists of geographical features in the woreda such as towns/villages or rivers/streams, & the names of the neighboring woredas.

I'm thinking the need for structured data might be the primary barrier -- well, that & most of the people who like the idea not knowing how to go about doing this. Geographic articles obviously lend themselves to this, & IMHO given enough data to start with, one could conceivably use a bot to create start-level articles. However, I don't see how one could create useful species articles in this manner. (My own thought about species articles is that they aren't useful unless they explain how a given species is distinct from related ones, which many currently existing biology articles fail at.) It's a problem that I encounter writing biographical articles on Imperial Roman consuls: beyond a few stock pieces, almost every biography ends up lacking information that others have, or otherwise requiring direct work by an editor. -- llywrch (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

@Llywrch: Rambot has been mentioned off and on whenever I've had this discussion, if I remember aright. You're right about the barriers to article creation - I'd have coded some kind of bot by now to begin closing the gap, only I don't know where to begin. Data is the other question, of course, and it's one that I would love to open up to wider considerations. I know of a couple of sites that are likely candidates, but they'd surely need some vetting before being used as information sources. Regardless, it's a conversation I'd love to take beyond the embryonic stage.
As for species...there are enough databases that would allow for the creation of stubs such as "[X] is a(n) [animal/plant/otherwise slightly less than inanimate object]. It is a member of the [Y] family." That's not much shorter than many of our current species articles.
Fair point: I've always been of the opinion that a stub is better than none in situations like this, because it allows for expansion in a way that a redlink does not, being less forbidding. Again...it's a discussion that I'd like to see taken beyond the embryonic stage.
Besides which, we have the example of User:Lsjbot elsewhere to give us some ideas of what we want and what we might want to exclude. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 02:28, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
  • They were the first editor to whom I gave a barnstar. Or rather, if I recall right, I had told Ser Amantio then that given their epic contributions, it seemed embarrassing to award them a tiny barnstar – so I awarded Ser Amantio to the barnstar family; basically, I created a new barnstar named after them :D Ser's the best! Lourdes 22:04, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
@Lourdes: I remember it well - that's the second award named after me in my lifetime. Thanks very kindly for your kind words. :-) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 06:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Barbara (WVS): Oh, he (I?) does. Doesn't always get it, but that's a Rothko of a different color.
Also, where's my latest newsletter? I've been waiting balefully by the mailbox with no sign of it, and it's been a week... :-) --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 02:20, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
  • The best thing I can say, and I'm sure everyone will understand, is that Wikipedia can be a very intimidating experience. Ser Amantio di Nicolao is not intimidating, and quite the opposite. All edits of Ser Amantio di Nicolao has made Wikipedia a better encyclopedia, and never - not ever - did they treat other editors with disrespect. We could use a whole lot more editors like this. — Maile (talk) 23:17, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
@Maile66: *sniff* Sorry, must be something in my eye...
I remember something I read, once, in Opera News about the great Tatiana Troyanos. Here was a woman that had every right to complain at the Fates over her lot in life...she was abandoned by her parents to an orphanage, and she battled health issues for many years before dying of cancer at 55. (I remember reading that selfsame article about her and being amazed at what she had overcome.) And yet she remained ever gracious in her career and her professional dealings. The writer of the article, I remember, recalled assisting in a Metropolitan Opera performance of Giulio Cesare in Egitto, in which Kathleen Battle was singing. Battle was then in the throes of some of her worst behavior, and she was really letting people have it over trivial matters. And the writer said that when the curtain fell, he was about ready to tell her off, when he felt a tug at his elbow. It was Troyanos - she took him aside, smiled, and said, "Don't. It doesn't matter."
It can be so tempting to get wound up over the least little thing around here. But every time I do, somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind...so deep that I feel her presence rather than hear it...I'm sure Troyanos is reminding me, too: "It doesn't matter." If she, with all that she overcame, could say it, then I damn well can, too. --Ser Amantio di NicolaoChe dicono a Signa?Lo dicono a Signa. 02:43, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

News and notes: Communication is key (3,661 bytes · 💬)

  • We have a brand? Ouch. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 22:03, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
    Of course first I read our article Chief creative officer. The list of examples there is heavy on entertainment, whereas I'd expect a more typical corporate title to be Chief communications officer. So this sends a subtle message; is it intentional? Is WP an entertainment company? But this also stood out: the people in the CCO role are known heavyweights and even figureheads for a particular set of intellectual property – for example John Lasseter for Pixar and Joe Quesada for Marvel. In these two examples they are creators of a great deal of the company's property in their own right. The recent appointee at WMF is an unknown to me and I spend, ahem, a lot of time here. So I'd like to know more about what that's all about. I'd also like to hear where the WP content contributors stand in their vision of stakeholder groups. Is the chief creative officer interested in hearing from the creators? I'm here. Hello? ☆ Bri (talk) 03:23, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
    It's been my experience that tech-centric nonprofits like this tend to let people create their own job titles; it's one of the perqs, or rather one of the bits of leeway for doing nonprofit work at nonprofit salaries when people could be making more money in the commercial sector. As long as the job title makes some kind of sense, no one should get too bent out of shape about it. "Chief communications office" is a corporate title, and not all that often found in nonprofits. ("Communications director" is the more frequent NGO equivalent; I've had both titles in my time, for the same work, and the only real difference was that one of the nonprofits I worked for was led by someone who really liked corporate-ish titles and the other by someone who let us design our own business cards, as long as the work got done.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  04:38, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
    What's the over–under on this CCO surviving the ExecDir's tenure? Chris Troutman (talk) 04:42, 24 January 2018 (UTC)
    Ms. Walls, who designed the early zen-inspired look and feel of the WP:TEAHOUSE back in 2012 (and who bears striking resemblance to actress Nicole Kidman) seems to have an infinite capacity for expressing calmness while within storms, and should easily survive that tenure.  Spintendo      17:33, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Technology report: Dedicated Wikidata database servers (1,076 bytes · 💬)

  • 'Publish page' button. I believe this is confusing new users who are working on drafts, in their sandboxes, or in other user sub pages. Some may believe that this implies saving to mainspace already. IMO, if it's technically possible, that button should display 'Save' when in those namespaces. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:48, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Agreed. Abyssal (talk) 18:54, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes. I ran into this exact problem a few weeks ago, coaching a newbie writing her first article in sandbox. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:32, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
  • FWIW, that picture above is not of a server. It is a switch. (Unless Juniper offers 2U servers with multiple ethernet ports.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:43, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Traffic report: The best and worst of 2017 (1,898 bytes · 💬)

How about a Top 20 list of the least visited pages last year. They need some notoriety for being the least notorious. werldwayd (talk) 21:25, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Pinging Stormy clouds, who wrote the blurb on that one. -A lad insane (Channel 2) 15:30, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 Done - Thanks. Stormy clouds (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm dyin' here, who wrote the piece about her majesty? You should try your hand at the Humour article in the Signpost. I've never seen anyone walk so close to the edge of where irony/sarcasm/hilarity meet. That was so funny. You're getting a barnstar. Best Regards, Barbara (WVS) ✐  ✉ 22:28, 17 January 2018 (UTC)


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