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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2019-07-31. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: A month of reintegration (4,998 bytes · 💬)

  • Funny how you somehow fail to mention Disputed Signpost article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:00, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • I was wondering just that, too. Perhaps better judgement has produced some embarrassment about it all... one can only hope. - SchroCat (talk) 23:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Now added. - SchroCat (talk) 10:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
      • It's worth pointing out that the case was not only rejected, but in response to one of the Arbitrator's comment: I do not think the committee should be ruling on the continued existence of the newspaper, nor really on how it conducts its stories. If the community has reservations about either matter, they may test consensus by nominating the newspaper at WP:MFD., a MFD deletion proposal was initiated and SNOW defeated. In another area, I called this an implicit embrace of The Signpost's function as a legitimate journalistic/investigatory/opinion outlet, by the community. Many of these functions were explicitly challenged by individuals commenting at the request for an Arbcom case. Bri.public (talk) 17:07, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
        • The ArbCom case request was never about the future of the newsletter: it was about one extremely bad article. Your take on the "implicit embrace" streatches logic and reality way too far to take seriously: the MfD showed people thought the newsletter should continue, nothing more. I hoped that sensible and sober reflection would have followed these two actions, but it appears that hubris is the result instead. If more lines are crossed by Signpost, this could well be the beginning of the end. - SchroCat (talk) 17:16, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
          • The comments above were a capsule of my comments at the Arbcom case request, defending The Signpost. I won't repeat them in their entirety here. My feeling is the subsequent deletion proposal spoke almost in one voice of continuing publication with some boundaries set. We all recognize this and in fact, the E in C is already investigating how to set a more formal mission and boundaries, as part of a "sensible and sober reflection". There's no reason to speak of the beginning of the end or to get all worked up around an imaginary runaway train scenario. I continue to be an enthusiastic contributor, and I wish there were more of them sharing a vision of Signpost as a key thread helping to weave a community together. Bri.public (talk) 18:08, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
            • I don't think anyone here is getting "worked up" – I view the Signpost dispassionately, not emotionally. The publication has hit a few bumps recently, including the incredibly poorly-judged Fram article. It won't take too many more of those before thing happen out of the writers' control. As for the Editor's attempt to set boundaries, are you seriously suggesting that the person who thought the Fram article was a good idea, who pulled the sorry mess together and then defended it at ArbCom, with no reflection that he might have cocked up, is really the best person to decide what the best course of action is? – SchroCat (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
              • Just to briefly add one small point to this: if the Signpost newsletter thinks it is OK to miss out of its publication an event where it was taken to ArbCom over one of its own very poorly conceived stories, how is anyone supposed to have any confidence in its content? Quietly censoring the Signpost ArbCom case request on the page supposedly covering all ArbCom case requests raises another question mark over this publication. – SchroCat (talk) 08:00, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

This may be a dumb question, but how do I read the actual Canadian Politics case? The link provided above is to a text-only diff. I can see a link in the diff, but it is not something one can navigate to. So, how do I get there? Maury Markowitz (talk) 20:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Canadian politics closed - Bri.public (talk) 20:32, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Community view: Video based summaries of Wikipedia articles. How and why? (3,552 bytes · 💬)

  • Thank you very much for writing this story, I was wholly unaware of the video project before as well a persistent barrier that illiteracy presents to a written encyclopedia like Wikipedia in providing access to knowledge. One thing that I would like to note though is that there are places throughout the article where there are formatting or grammatical errors so I would encourage you to double check your writing in the future. Again, thank you very much for writing this article. The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 17:47, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
User:The Editor's Apprentice your help fixing grammar is always appreciated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:54, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
Can and will do. The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 19:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
@Ian Furst: I have made the changes that I was considering. Please do review them and make sure that they communicate what you meant when you wrote the article and change anything that you wouldn't have written or do not mean. The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 00:41, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
  • There's an incomplete sentence in this article: due to smaller and less ., in the Multi-lingual section. What were you trying to say? —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 12:30, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    Trimmed that bit. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Blame the copyeditor and the copyeditor is me. Sorry everyone for putting out choppy edit. When this article came up for publication someone had to copyedit it. This is not my talent and I did this at the last minute without consulting the original author. I changed quite a bit of the phrasing and some of the links. I apologize for errors and miscommunication, which are all mine. Perhaps If I had things to do over again I would have edited much less. Ian Furst, great article and I enjoyed myself when I was trying to edit it. Please accept my good will and forgive my hasty attempt. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:16, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I'll take the heat; I was incommunicado for the week leading up to publication. Thanks to everyone who stepped up. Ian Furst (talk) 19:30, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • the main FOCUS of the article is Video based summaries of Wikipedia articles and that is a very good idea...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:17, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Discussion report: New proposals in aftermath of Fram ban (8,041 bytes · 💬)

  • "three high-ranking users" We have "high-ranking users" now?!? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:12, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • It is a shame that Wikipedians are using these and similar terms more often, eg WP:Unblockables, or "high-status editors" (I think I've used that myself), or people ascribe to Wikimedians-in-Residence, admins, arbs, bureaucrats, oversighters, long-term editors, as having high rank or high status. I suppose there's a trade-off between recognizing reality - are we ever going to go back to the state where we could legitimately say we're purely egalitarian? - and encouraging or legitimizing "unblockability" by using the terms. I'd love to hear what others say about this tradeoff. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:41, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Meh. I guess I'd prefer to see a different version e.g. "[well-known/highly active/well-respected/long-term] [administrators/users with advanced permissions/users in positions of trust]" rather than the sort of term we see in media narratives about Wikipedia (kind of like those "Wikipedia moderators" who have the special ability to revert people's edits). But ultimately, like Smallbones says, that sort of term gets thrown around so much that it didn't even occur to me when reading this. It doesn't seem all that improper to think of advanced permissions as a sort of rank, at the end of the day. To my real point, though: how many chevrons or stars do I get for achieving the rank of rollbacker/autopatrolled? And does it depend on my 40-sided dice roll? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:15, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
@Rhododendrites: I think it's gotta be my Magic 8-Ball. – Athaenara ✉ 10:44, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
  • "Advanced permissions" with a link to Wikipedia:User access levels would be preferable to me. Keeping the editor-ship democratic, and unlinked to technical access levels, is a good thing. Bri.public (talk) 19:27, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Yeah, you're right - another thing to add to my copyediting list of no-no's. "High status" might work in some cases (opinion, not news). But there will usually be some better way of saying it, without sounding naive. On the positive side of my developing copyediting skills, I did catch and delete an anti-New Zealand slur this issue. I don't think anybody really meant anything beyond a quick joke. Who knew that there is anti-NZ sentiment out there? Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:01, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • I think that the works of Lucy Lawless with Renee O'Connor are WOW-worthy! Hope this helps. Paine Ellsworth, ed. put'r there  20:18, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • I'll post my tl;dr comment about the az.wiki thing here for anyone who is interested in cross-wiki stuff since this is getting noticed on meta thanks to the signpost. Basically, I think it was poorly worded but the right outcome. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • There is a proposal partly mentioned during the discussion which I'll fill out further in the next few days and link here. It concerns full-scholarship travel and lodging endowments organized by Wikipedia editors, and hopefully legally assisted by the Foundation. These proposed Diderot Endowments, named for Denis Diderot, the founder and co-editor of the 18th century Encyclopédie, would fund at least 300 additional first-time attendees to the yearly Wikimania conference. Expanded past that, they would also endow similar full-scholarships to major continental conferences. The initial 300 could easily and quickly grow to many more. The endowment would be mainly funded by substantial donations from individuals and not corporations, would be separate from the regular fundraising efforts of the Foundation, and would be solicited by long-time Wikipedians (prominent Wikipedians such as Jimbo Wales and Katherine Maher would be asked to please assist in solicitations, as Wikipedians and not as officials of the Foundation). The Diderot scholars, initially composed of long-time editors and administrators who've never attended Wikimania, would then be able to effectively interact and strategize with their fellow editors from around the world. More on this idea shortly. (first posed August 1, edited August 2) Randy Kryn (talk) 12:09, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The commentary after the box ..."what gives?" We just report scuttlebutt now, unchallenged and untested? Did you put those statements to Mardetanha or did you just repeat them because they were there. Please apply a filter of decency and fairness. There are far more appropriate ways to make post-action commentary without character assassination. — billinghurst sDrewth 05:35, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • This article is replete with insider talk, incomprehensible abbreviations and argle-bargle. It would be nice if the writers could explain what is going on in plain English, but that might take some serious editing, and I understand how challenging that can be for volunteers. Kudos to the staff anyway! Best wishes. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 06:20, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
  • With regards to azwiki: for the record, it looks like there's now a closure review at m:Stewards'_noticeboard#Need_closure_review_on_Requests_for_comment/Do_something_about_azwiki. I also found the preceding discussion with the closer on their meta talk page at m:User_talk:Mardetanha#You, although there might also be other discussions I'm not aware of. Sunrise (talk) 20:28, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

Gallery: Classic panoramas from Heinrich Berann (3,922 bytes · 💬)

  • Missed these somehow. Really spectacular additions to Commons. Thanks for highlighting them here. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:21, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Excellent images. Definitely worthy of a WP:FPC nomination as a set, if they can find stable usage in articles. I've nominated the Denali one for FP on Commons, they are all worthy of the title. Also Heinrich C. Berann is a red link. MER-C 18:12, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Did I mention that these come in 2 versions, with and without labels. All the unlabeled panoramas have been uploaded, but only one with labels IIRC. The ones with labels might be the better ones to use in articles. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:46, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
      • Just one word, beautiful... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:29, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
      • I've uploaded the remaining unlabelled images. MER-C 20:26, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
  • These amazing pictures do not appear (to my eye) to be photographs, although they seem to have as much detail as a photograph would have (or more). How were they made? JRSpriggs (talk) 10:32, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
    • They are definitely paintings. I wish I had more solid info on how they were painted, but with the files at this high resolution you can see for yourself the tiniest details, you can see the brushstrokes. I'll suggest looking at the Yellowstone panorama at the highest resolution and moving your view toward the middle (below the lake). It looks like each individual tree is painted. The trees are not realistic at this level, but they do look something like trees and are each unique. I've never tried to describe brushstrokes before, but I'll call these "disciplined", rather than - as I imagine much modern art brushstrokes would be described - "inspired", "whimsical", "spectacular." You can also tell that the panoramas aren't photos in the overviews by looking at the clouds. There are very realistic clouds that feature in 3 of the paintings, but somehow they never get in the way of the scenery. A photographer would never have that kind of luck, no matter how many photos they took.
Now for some speculation. How could he have put this much information into a painting? I imagine he'd have to 1) visit the scene over the course of weeks or months, just get a feel for the place, 2) have somebody take a dozen or so aerial photos, 3) work with detailed geological maps with altitudes given. And that's just to get the information needed. How to actually record that information in one painting? I don't know, but I can guess that spending a career of 50-60 years mostly just painting mountain scenes had a lot to do with it. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:47, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Check out the pen-and-ink work of Erwin Raisz. Another gifted artist–cartographer. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:19, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

In focus: The French Wikipedia is overtaking the German (4,436 bytes · 💬)

Do we know why the number of active editors on German Wikipedia is dropping so rapidly?--Darwinek (talk) 22:09, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Maybe because the German Wikipedia uses Flagged revisions, which has a 56 day backlog. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:16, 1 August 2019 (UTC) [Full disclosure - this is a repurposed post; the orginal post was by Kusma, on a different page of this issue of The Signpost.]
Jesus, that's appalling - not much point vetting everyone if they leave before you finish doing so Nosebagbear (talk) 09:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
The free encyclopedia that anyone can suggest edits to and wait two months for them to be declined? —Nizolan (talk · c.)
Only 0,5 % of articles in dewp have pending changes. >90% of edits are reviewed within one day. -- hgzh 16:56, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

It looks a lot like the difference has converged within sub-year variation. "Overtaking" is a little hyperbolic. EllenCT (talk) 02:06, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  • The only slightly interesting thing that these charts show me is that Wikipedia editing was more of a fad among German speakers in the 2006-2007 period than it was among French speakers. Twelve years later, that is a sociological anecdote and little more. Otherwise, the charts are remarkably similar between the two language communities. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:16, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • While I do agree that the flagged revisions practice is likely an issue for German Wikipedia, I suspect that the more significant issue is that German is almost exclusively a European language, and is rarely a primary language for education on other continents; thus, the growth and expansion of the number of German speakers (and German Wikipedia contributors) is relatively stagnant. French, on the other hand, is a primary language of education in a large number of countries outside of Europe, including large swaths of Africa - a region where Wikipedia participation is in its early stages. According to our articles on each language, it is likely that French will overtake German as a primary language on a global basis within the next decade or so. There are indications already that African Wikipedians edit primarily in English, French and/or Arabic; German is not a major language in Africa comparatively speaking. As Wikipedia participation grows in Asia, Africa and South America, we can anticipate that the Wikipedias of languages of education in those continents will see increased globalization of participation. Risker (talk) 20:09, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't know about German Wikipedia, but French Wikipedia tries to take care of newcomers, with initiatives to help their first steps. Trizek from fr: 14:01, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Of course German wikipedia has got an active mentoring branch for newcomers as well. As for this, there is certainly no essential difference to French wikipedia. -- Just N. 20:40, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Interesting analysis. Would be good to do more of these comparisons IMO. Of course differences are always somewhat multifactorial. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:15, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Personally, I have never been multifactorial when editing the French or the German Wikipedia. MPS1992 (talk) 22:44, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

In the media: Politics starts getting rough (4,503 bytes · 💬)

  • As usual, a useful compilation of stories. Thanks. One comment, though, regarding The Weaponization of Wikipedia a blog and podcast by conservative broadcast journalist Sheryl Attkisson focuses on Wikipedia's "agenda editors". I'm not at all familiar with this person/dispute, but "podcaster doesn't like their article, complains on own website" seems to stand out from the rest of the entries on this list. No problem with covering the dispute, but maybe let's wait for anyone else to pick it up first? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:41, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • You might be right to wait for a better mention in the media. But she is a pretty well-known media figure on her own (formerly with CBS, etc.) now airing on Sinclair Broadcast Group. Sinclair is quietly a very big news outlet with similarities to Fox. Somebody at Signpost suggestions mentioned this a a possible "Gobbler of the Month" last month. I half-way agreed, but I also like the various formats where people get their views across to Wikipedians on "their article". Several years back there was a long discussion on "the right of reply" to Wikipedia. Of course that right has always existed in different formats. So I'll just say I have mixed feelings. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:51, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Regarding "She denies that she has done anti-vaccine reporting as stated in the Wikipedia article on her", that makes it sound like the article has a sentence or two about this. In fact, that article includes an subsection, "Anti-vaccine reporting", with eight citations. In short, it isn't "Wikipedia" that is saying something that Attkisson doesn't like, it's lots of reliable sources. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:20, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
      • Yeah, my sentence on that is correct but understated (which is better than being overstated). I didn't want to concentrate on the old issue, but look at the idea of essentially 'writing your own Wikipedia article off-Wiki' which to me, at least, is more interesting than the pretty typical 'BLP dispute with multiple reliable references on one side'. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:51, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • That Schoolweek article is short but neat, about editing wikipedia and readjust sex ed to talk about other practices -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 19:16, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Regarding the Metabrainz story, this is discussed in commons:Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2019/06#MetaBrainz_sued,_lawsuit_dismissed_with_prejudice,_but_waiting_for_Wikimedia_Commons_to_act and commons:Commons:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive_74#User:Nightshooter_-_block_&_deletion_request. Bovlb (talk) 17:09, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • That's a good link that I hadn't noticed. Thanks. As is common on Commons they talk about all aspects of the situation but don't ultimately decide on much. But Commoners did take action on their own. See the extra caption at the bottom of the Kenny Chesney photo above. The same extra caption has been placed on the other 20 photos uploaded by that photographer. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:12, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
  • How do I access the lunar backup? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 10:52, 23 August 2019 (UTC).
    • I think the general idea is that you should be an alien from a billion years in the future who has easy access to quick and cheap space travel, but who has never read Wikipedia. Some of that is not 100% impossible. Smallbones(smalltalk) 05:08, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

News and notes: Wikimedia grants less accessible for travel, equipment, meetups, and India (4,820 bytes · 💬)

  • Does In a July email to the Wikimedia-l email list, the WMF representative announced that the rapid grant process for proposals of up to US$2,000 would no longer sponsor travel support, equipment purchases, or Wikimedia meetups. Wiki editing parties, photowalks, promotion campaigns, video campaigns, and "other" are still fundable causes. plus email imply that funding is being concentrated on these measures with a direct impact on the projects? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:26, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • I think I understand that WMF has derecognized WM India because of a conflict of funding. But this is really difficult to discern and I'm not sure I'm even correct. I don't mean to sound picky, but can't you simply state in a single sentence near the beginning why the derecognition has occurred in this case? -- kosboot (talk) 17:12, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
@Kosboot: I wrote the article and I agree with Nemo that the major challenge is barriers to communication. If anyone wants to either start on-wiki conversation or even better, write or interview for The Signpost, then I can give pointers to anyone who can rally to discuss and document. I am not aware of anything private or secret here, but I do see some difficult conversations without easy answers. Someone needs to be on point in these conversations to say that there is nothing embarrassing or wrong about facing a challenge and to keep the mood positive and mutually supportive. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • This was posted in the Signpost Discussion Report comments, and an editor suggested that it also be added here. Edited from that posting:
A proposal partly mentioned during the Framban discussion seems relevant to this page (and will be expanded in the next few days and linked here). It concerns full-scholarship travel and lodging endowments organized by Wikipedia editors, and hopefully legally assisted by the Foundation. These proposed Diderot Endowments, named for Denis Diderot, the founder and co-editor of the 18th century Encyclopédie, would fund at least 300 additional first-time attendees to the yearly Wikimania conference. Expanded past that, they would also endow similar full-scholarships to major continental conferences. The initial 300 could easily and quickly grow to many more. The endowment would be mainly funded by substantial donations from individuals and not corporations, would be separate from the regular fundraising efforts of the Foundation, and would be solicited by long-time Wikipedians (prominent Wikipedians such as Jimbo Wales and Katherine Maher would be asked to please assist in solicitations, as Wikipedians and not as officials of the Foundation). The Diderot scholars, initially composed of long-time editors and administrators who've never attended Wikimania, would then be able to effectively interact and strategize with their fellow editors from around the world. More on this idea shortly. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:09, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Relevant: m:Wikimania/Scholarships/Vision 2015, announced in mailarchive:wikimania-l/2014-January/005417.html. The first attempt to implement it was in Wikimania 2016. Nemo 12:28, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Cool. Will read it later, but good to hear that such an idea has been kicked around. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:13, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. Did a quickish but good look at the links and the longish plan, and haven't yet wrapped it into a mental map. But on first glance the plan being come up with here may be the "Way to fund it" solution to whatever emerges from an overlap of ideas. Name it an honorable name like the "Diderot Endowment" (guessing "The Diderot" will become the common name) and it could be something that could fly. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:14, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

News from the WMF: Designing ethically with AI: How Wikimedia can harness machine learning in a responsible and human-centered way (730 bytes · 💬)

Theoretically an AI process could measure the positive or negative inclination of any other AI Process across The Eight Process Improvement Proposals discussed. The key feature would be a set of weighted measures in each of the Eight Processes that would define their community equitability.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.198.182.226 (talk • contribs) 11:20, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

On the bright side: What's making you happy this month? (2,604 bytes · 💬)

  • Earlier in the month, I found out that I was expecting. It’s welcome news, but was admittedly a surprise to find out about it. I’m excited and thrilled at this new chapter in my life, but another part of me is kind of nervous at the thought of being a first-time parent. OhKayeSierra (talk) 17:49, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    Best wishes. 😊 ~ ToBeFree (talk) 04:37, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    Congratulations, OhKayeSierra! Liz Read! Talk! 05:07, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    Thanks! 😊 OhKayeSierra (talk) 05:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I finished improving Fred Rogers for GAC! The goal was to at least get it through GAC before the Tom Hanks movie comes out in November, since there's no way we'd be able to get it through FAC before then, since it would take way too much research and work. (I predict that his article will get more traffic at that time, and will appear on the list here at the Signpost.) I had not taken the trailer being released last week into account, though, so I was a little disappointed and felt like I had let Mr. Rogers down. But a friend told me that he'd be very proud of me, and would tell us that we did a wonderful job, which made me feel better because it's probably true. Fortunately, the traffic hadn't increased all that much, anyway. Learning about Mr. Rogers, someone I've always admired because of his positive messages, has been a joy and inspiration. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 03:19, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Alberta currently has zero fires burning out-of-control, yay. Plenty of rain this year. — Diannaa 🍁 (talk) 02:27, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Lots of things are making me happy this month, actually. Most are off-wiki and involve just enjoying my summer vacation. Clovermoss (talk) 03:50, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Recent research: Most influential medical journals; detecting pages to protect (3,224 bytes · 💬)

Those who are curious about influential journals on Wikipedia may want to take a look at WP:JCW, in particular WP:JCW/TAR. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:06, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone at all understand Ashford et al's "Understanding the Signature of Controversial Wikipedia Articles through Motifs in Editor Revision Networks"? I've never seen anything like it. I asked in more detail at WP:JIMBOTALK#Ashford et al. in "Recent research". EllenCT (talk) 11:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I understand the mathematical operations. I suspect the phrase "controversial articles exhibit more reciprocation", that they use, reflects that such articles are more subject to edit warring, or at least, pairs of editors negotiating acceptable content in successive edits. It's nevertheless interesting to see an algorithm that picks up such behaviour. I could see such a technique being useful to pick up pathological user behaviour in financial systems, too. William Avery (talk) 19:20, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
@William Avery: how do you map the ordered list of editors to the nodes of the triads? For their example in Figure 1, what are the corresponding triads of Figure 2, and which editors are associated with each of those resulting triads' three (left, right, top) nodes? EllenCT (talk) 09:37, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
Editors A, B and D in figure 1 form a one-way circular relationship corresponding to 030C in figure 2. Any editor could be any node. Triad A, B and C form the graph 111U: A is at bottom right, C is at bottom left (A and B both follow/precede each other in the sequence), B is top (B follows A; B and C never follow each other). The algorithm to get the graphs from an ordered list of edits (the edit history) wouldn't be difficult. As a procedural algorithm, merely move along the edit history considering sections that involve three different editors, then determine whether each editor follows/precedes each of the other two editors in that segment of the history. In practice you would use a tool like https://igraph.org/. William Avery (talk) 12:32, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
@William Avery: I'm still trying to get my head around the exact algorithm here, but let me ask: do you believe that the paper establishes that a meaningfully accurate classification procedure exists? Because I don't think it does, even if the algorithm is well defined. If so, any idea how accurate it is? EllenCT (talk) 02:20, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
No. I don't really have any opinions on those matters. Perhaps the authors do. William Avery (talk) 08:45, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Special report: Administrator cadre continues to contract (35,448 bytes · 💬)

Deadweight admins and what their inactivity means

  • That almost half of admins are inactive re-ifies the fact that many hold the ban hammer as a status symbol. I think this calls into question the foolish WP:NETPOSITIVE rationales at RfA when we need to really see a need for tools. As for lacking mop-swingers, I've long called for locking-down most articles. Why not put automatically put PC1 on GAs and fully lock FAs? GAs and FAs don't need the help any n00b could provide. Vandalism, especially sneaky vandalism, so easily defaces the edifice our productive contributors made that we need to do almost anything to prevent it. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:15, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
How did that "locking down most articles" work out the last time someone tried it? --Guy Macon (talk) 18:52, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia uses Flagged revisions, which has a 56 day backlog. —Kusma (t·c) 19:39, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
I don't see how the presence of inactive admins invalidates WP:NETPOSITIVE - or at least I don't see how a harmless thing (people boosting their egos by gaining adminship does not harm anyone) is supposed to matter at RfA. Galobtter (pingó mió) 05:31, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Re "people boosting their egos by gaining adminship does not harm anyone", it is a basic principle of computer security that you don't give anyone permissions that they don't need or don't use. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
That is why we have been desysopping for inactivity since 2011. This is a nonprofit volunteer project and it would be a terrible mistake to be as stringent with permissions as a banking institution or military unit should be. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 06:02, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Since we don't pay admins and rely on volunteers we shouldn't worry if some of our admins, like many other editors, go through active and inactive phases. I'm pretty sure that admins gaining the tools and never using them is a misconception based on our adminstats not including admin actions earlier than December 2004, the vast majority of admins appointed in the last decade have at least had a phase of being active as admins. What I'm not sure of is how much movement there is between the semiactive and active camps of admins, obviously there is a fair bit of movement between inactive and not inactive, otherwise the inactives at any one time would be a good predictor of the number of desysops for inactivity over the following 24 months. ϢereSpielChequers 13:23, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The solution here is for experienced users and administrators to encourage those who they think will be good admins to run, offer to nominate users, or even to help them find nominators. We have the user base needed to create new admins. They just need to ask for it. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • It would also need experienced users and administrators to model the behavior that would encourage ordinary editors to want to follow in their footsteps. MPS1992 (talk) 22:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • I would agree. Thankfully, I think the admin corps is generally comprised of individuals who do their best to live up to the ideals of this project, so that shouldn't be too difficult to find. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:34, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Generally, yes, and I have seen some examples of that in recent days. Generally is not enough, though, and I would like to see better. A few bad apples is not what the cart needs. MPS1992 (talk) 00:09, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
It's time to give some of our long-time editors more tools and relieve our admins of tasks like AfDs, moves and PP. Qualifications could include GAs & FAs, time spent in the relative area, etc. Similar has been mentioned before and it makes sense to me. We have qualified editors who can help reduce the janitorial load and leave the big jobs for admins....OR maybe one of our tech-gurus can create an algorithm that will clone TonyBallioni. 😊 Oh, speaking of long-time editors, do we have a graph of active editors similar to the admin graph? Atsme Talk 📧 03:07, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
MPS1992, people notice and remember the bad apples rather than remember the good ones. Every week, I run into administrators I have never encountered before who are plugging away on their corner of the project, getting work done and not frequenting the high traffic noticeboards. You don't hear about them because they have found their niche and they are devoted to it. But at this point, I think they are the majority of active admins. Liz Read! Talk! 05:02, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
As proof of my point, look over this list of active admins: Wikipedia:List of administrators/Active...I bet there are dozens whose names are unfamiliar to you. They are not admins being called out for bad behavior or attracting attention, they are just getting to the work. Liz Read! Talk! 05:17, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
I agree, Liz. When straying around the less contentious areas of the encylopedia, I often see an administrative action taken by a name I do not recognize. Looking closer, I see a productive but low profile administrator who has been plugging away doing useful maintenance work for many years. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:57, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Here's my perception which may be significantly different from what others think, but that is OK. Back in the 2005-2007 timeframe, editing Wikipedia was a fad. There was lots of low hanging fruit and somebody could easily write an article about their favorite album or athlete, and tell their friends that they were editing Wikipedia. "Look at my Wikipedia's article!" Similarly with becoming an administrator. If you contributed for a few months, wrote an article or two, and weren't a complete jerk, you could easily become an administrator, and brag about it to your buddies. Many of these people made some useful contributions, but were not fully committed to the project for the long haul. When the "faddish" aspect of Wikipedia editing faded from 2007 to 2009, and it was no longer easy to write a new article, the project consolidated around a pretty solid and stable core of highly active long term editors and active administrators. The chart showing a "dramatic" decline in administrators since 2011 is less dramatic than implied by a graph that goes from 1550 to 1000 as opposed to 1550 to zero. Lies, damned lies and statistics. The chart shows the ongoing departure of those not fully committed to the project. But even that is a slight diversion. What really matters is the number of editors and administrators who are highly active and committed to the project for the long run. Those numbers have been pretty stable since about 2011, as the faddishness factor died away. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • That would imply that we are seeing an "admin bubble" from the early years in run-off? Anytime I look at the RfA of a long-standing admin, I am surprised at how different it was to now, and certainly there are many examples of successful RfAs back then that would not pass now? However, I don't think there is a view that the RfA process back then harmed WP?
However, I also note that many of the main "boards" in Wikipedia that needs admin management (RPP, AIV, etc.), are only kept going through 2-3 admins who do most of the work, which seems unsustainable – was it always that way? Britishfinance (talk) 12:29, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Of those "100,000 pages per active administrator", how many pages actually see any activity, especially any that would require admin intervention? Figures like these might sound impressive on paper but don't mean much without contextualizing and analyzing them. A better metric would have been to look at the activity on the admin noticeboards. Opencooper (talk) 06:09, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • The real killer is less articles but some of the more specialised backlogs (ACC etc) that require admins. They have backlogs stretching into months, and often depend on 2-3 energetic and keen admins. This means they have an appalling bus factor - if a stream loses even 1 of them, even for a couple of weeks, backlogs spike even further. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:42, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • There are 1,146 admins and 1,063 former admins. Soon eclipsed. The majority of admins edit some corner of the project, but perhaps don't even care to comment on the most notable happenings in the community, like Framgate. It would be interesting to see an analysis of how many admins are active at AN, ANI and AE. That's where there is real power to topic ban or block users, affecting things in the long-term. For a community with 120,000 active accounts, the core number of active admins at these must be staggeringly low. There is a real risk of these central avenues being run by a small number of gatekeepers who consider each other acquaintances.--Pudeo (talk) 12:57, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • AN and ANI are reasonably bulky for most decisions, because non-admins can participate, and consensus decisions generally seem pretty in line with the group as a whole (instead of just the Admins). AE is somewhat more power-concentrated (DS in general). Nosebagbear (talk)
  • I have yet to see anyone present a reason why any sane person would ever want to be a Wikipedia Administrator. First you go through hell at RfA, then you are either constantly attacked for doing your job or you get tired of the constant attacks and become a "deadweight admin". Maybe being willing to accept the position of admin should disqualify you from being an admin on grounds of insanity. Would anyone here like to try giving me one reason why I would ever want to become an admin? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:08, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
    @Guy Macon: I think the answer is that the wide, wide majority of the day-to-day work that needs to get done by Wikipedia administrators is mundane. If you want to be an administrator who makes it your sole job to mediate contentious disputes and calm down angry experienced users, then I can certainly see how you might get burned out very quickly. However, the flip side is that it is also easy to be a low-profile administrator who continues doing exactly the same thing you had been doing before you were an admin, only now you don't need to ask for an admin when you spot an obvious spammer because you can delete, block, and/or protect all by yourself. Mz7 (talk) 11:01, 12 August 2019 (UTC)

Layout

  • fun fact: phrases like “to the right” to describe a graph do not reflect the way information is rendered across multiple platforms.~TPW 11:59, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the reminder. I'm usually more careful with that, and I often edit on keyboardless devices with odd layout myself. Just imagine what it's like for our voice-to-text audience or others differently abled! ☆ Bri (talk) 14:16, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Further analysis

  • Wow (and wow), very interesting analysis and the trend seems unrelenting but bizarrely linear (as if there is some natural "hidden hand" behind this decay process).
It would be interesting to follow up this analysis to clarify whether this is an "admin crisis" (e.g. we need to find ways to get more admins; which I think is an accepted perennial issue), or a wider "engagement crisis" (e.g. is Wikipedia a waning, or even dying, project?).
For example, what is the graph on the ratio of pages (or page edits, or editors) per admin. If pages, edits, and editors continue to rise, we have a "higher-quality problem" (e.g. too much demand vs. resources (e.g. admins) to handle it). However, if these statistics are also declining in line with admins, then we have a more serious problem, and the fall-off in admins is only an indicator of a wider issue?
Britishfinance (talk) 12:21, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
WP:FRAM aside I was really surprised by how linear it was as well. I suppose we would expect people to apply and stop editing at roughly the same rate through the year, and thus inactivity losses. However I was surprised by how standard the resignations were (must be) as well. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:11, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
I believe the majority of admin losses are simply a result of the inactivity rules, so it's not hugely surprising to me that it would be consistent. Sam Walton (talk) 14:47, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
What decent editor would want to join a power structure that has a reputation for corruption and bullying? Having been here since 2005, I can say: it has worsened in the past two or three years. Tony (talk) 23:30, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

How about paying admins for their time for "administrative" activities and not allow them to edit articles - to get more admins

First I'll admit that I have minimal idea of what admins do (other than Noticeboard disputes, blocks, and such) so I'll be the first to admit this may be a stupid idea, since I haven't thought it through, and don't know enough about the role to do that, but I just thought I'd suggest because I hadn't seen it suggested. ---Avatar317(talk) 22:01, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

Given that it takes thousands of edits for someone to know enough about wikipedia to be an Admin, I don't think any of them would be willing to give up all editing, even if they were paid for their admin actions. There's also a community desire for admins to keep a hand in so they know what it's like for editors. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:59, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
I would favor something that is somewhat the opposite of the above. I think all WMF employees and especially board members should have to, as a requirement for keeping their job, put in at least a couple of hours of editing Wikipedia every month. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:01, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
While I personally think Guy's thought is exactly right (and I've thought it since my naivety crumbled when I realised how little experience WMF staff had), but of course, some of the legal protections might not apply to their edits, which would probably discourage the WMF. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
They may have to, Guy - at the rate we're losing/disenchanting editors - does anyone have a graph that shows long term active editors or don't they matter in the grand scheme? Atsme Talk 📧 22:07, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
"Active editors" (English Wikipedia editors with >100 edits per month)
@Atsme, there you go. Contrary to popular belief the "active editor" count has actually been rising slowly but steadily since the end of the 2007–2014 crash. ‑ Iridescent 13:22, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
Iridescent, thank you - did you create the chart? Do we know what kind of editing/topic areas we can attribute to the rise and fall? For example, prior to an election, the AP2 topic area attracts new editors and stimulates editing. Does the graph represent article edits, noticeboards, UTP, or ??? Atsme Talk 📧 13:54, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
@Atsme, it's modified from Template:Wikipedia editor graph (100 per month) with the Y axis increased to make the three separate trends (massive expansion from 2002–2007, collapse between 2007-2014 and gradual but consistent rise 2014–2018) more apparent. The raw data from the WMF is here. The data is just a straightforward count of people who've made 100 edits in the past 30 days, and not affected by which namespace (which is as it should be; someone who makes 100 edits to an article talkpage is just as invested in Wikipedia as someone who corrects 100 instances of "doe snot" in the mainspace). The data only goes up to 2018 because in December 2018 they stopped publishing the "active editor" (i.e. 100+ edits per month); the metric they now use is 5+ edits per month, presumably on the grounds that "Wikipedia has 70,000 editors" sounds better than "Wikipedia has between 3000 and 4000 editors" to the donors.
Other than the seasonal dip in December each year, I very much doubt rises and falls in editor numbers can be ascribed to any particular event; there's some kind of election, major sporting contest, war etc going on somewhere virtually all the time. (You notice the editing spikes in AP2 because that's a topic in which you're interested, but they're dwarfed into insignificance by the editing numbers generated by sports leagues as every single game played necessarily generates at least one edit apiece to the articles on both teams and on every player involved.) At least some (but certainly not all) of the post 2007 crash can be ascribed to the combination of the post-Siegenthaler expansion of semiprotection and the introduction of Cluebot leading to a general drop in vandalism and there consequently being fewer people racking up large numbers of edits reverting vandalism. For what it's worth, the start and end of the decline correspond exactly with Sue Gardner's tenure as CEO. There's some (rather rambling) discussion on the thread on my talkpage that originally prompted Bri to write this piece. ‑ Iridescent 19:00, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
That is really interesting analysis; feels like a longer article with these metrics is worth considering? Britishfinance (talk) 21:19, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
We hear non-stop about declining admins, implying WP is a waning/dying project? However, metrics like above give a different picture. Britishfinance (talk) 21:33, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Iridescent - something you may possibly find of interest re: declines of editors. I found it on the UP of Jorm. I'm not trying to take away from the declines we've recently experienced in our admins, but we also cannot forget that admins come from our pool of editors. Atsme Talk 📧 13:21, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

The admin/sysop decline is a side-effect of the editor decline, absolutely. I remember a long conversation with fuzheado about this very thing as far back as Wikimania 2012. I have an idea of what has to happen to fix it, but it's not popular. --Jorm (talk) 21:44, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
Where do the bread crumbs lead, Hansel? ~~Gretyl 21:50, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
The gender gap. That's the biggest thing. Fixing the gender gap will solve for the decline. Fixing that is a gloppy mess of solutions but in the end they won't mean shit as long as popular/prolific editors don't get sanctioned for bad behavior, people throw the c-word around, and the community disbelieves the stories of harassment victims by default and instead turns them into subjects of interrogation.--Jorm (talk) 22:08, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
I somehow doubt "c-word" has anything to do with "crowd-sourcing" but there is a connection. I'll just say that it takes a pretty heavy coat (full-length mink?) to deflect the chilling effects of a whirring boomerang. Atsme Talk 📧 00:00, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
If the decline in numbers of admins was simply a side effect of the editor decline, then 2014 should have been the low point and the 2015 rally in editing should by now have fed through to a rally in adminship. Editing volumes on at least one measure are above 2014 levels, yet last year (2018) we had less than half as many successful RFAs than in 2014. Five years ago we had over 600 active admins, now it is just under 500. If the only factor in play was the 2007-2014 decline in editing, then RFAs would not have dropped from over 400 in 2008 to 10 in 2018; If anything we would now have more active admins than in 2008, non admins would be rarer among the regular community than they were a decade ago. Numbers of new editors is down, and you'd expect that the number of RFAs would be partly linked to the number of new Wikipedians who joined us one to three years ago. But of our current admins, ignoring bots, only sixty started editing in the last ten years and only four of them in the last four years. Why isn't there a single editor who joined us in 2016 and is now an admin? Fixing the gender gap and recruiting more female editors would increase our number of admins (and fixing the bigger problem of our ethnicity gaps would help even more), but I'm pretty sure we had big gender and ethnicity gaps in 2008. ϢereSpielChequers 21:36, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
"Why isn't there a single editor who joined us in 2016 and is now an admin?" I doubt there are many editors that joined in 2016 that are qualified for adminship. Certainly if there were, they're not interested. I note that Chetsford is looking at a successful RfA now, and he joined in 2017 so it can happen. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:48, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
We have three admins already from the class of 2017, anyone who started editing in 2016 has been here for more than two and a half years, and with the de facto minimum for RFA being 12 months experience we could have a successful RFA from someone in the class of 2018 (there would be opposes, but we have had one candidate pass in recent years with only a year's editing). Given the numbers I suspect the gap in 2016 could be a statistical fluke, the bigger point is that I think our wider wikigeneration divide is unhealthy. ϢereSpielChequers 22:11, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Last Signpost report on active editors

I'm not able to scour the entire archive right now but I found Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-01-03/Editing stats by Ragesoss. It included more analysis of the numbers of non-administrator editors than was provided in this 2019 item. If there is reader interest maybe we could do a follow-up report with something like that. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:40, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

That would be quite useful...especially to demonstrate trends/triggers regarding what drives editors to & from the site. Also, academic projects may be significant enough to distinguish. Atsme Talk 📧 16:15, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
When I wrote Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-09/Admin stats nine years ago I talked about the Wikigeneration divide between the generation that supplied the admins and the current community. At the time over 90% of our admins had been wikipedians for more than three and half years, now that is over 99%. When I wrote that article the project was less than ten years old, now over 90% of our admins have been Wikipedians for more than ten years - though I suspect our few newish admins are doing a disproportionate amount of the admin activity. ϢereSpielChequers 21:54, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
  • I would be interested in a follow-up article, especially since this one was from 2009. I generally find statistics interesting and I would definitely read a Signpost article that focused on that. Clovermoss (talk) 22:16, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Moved Long Post

<!-In my opinion, when placing a reduction of number of administrators, as a whole, websites or entities should not post or show number reduction, for it unintentionally invites people off criminalistic behavior to be more voluntary and brazenly to change and illegally alter wording or facts to there agenda or favor. Hense in my claim, perpetrators have stolen income and military income at that as long as stalked and alter the information with redirected wording to maintain a continuous theft ring within the criminal faction that has complete control of all BUISNESS and household devices to prolong control of money and communication. If this was a rival company, this would be exactly how to illegally close BUISNESS to steer markets or marketing to illegal factions direction.

Administrators are needed not so much for policing but knowledge base to make sure policy and wrong doings are caught and sought out immediately. As on my keyboard, you can see the malware still has a control on device and nightly or daily nation wide there team on synchronized timing will use all redirects and enter my wife's, kids, and my devices at our domain and pump data along with carrier drop offs right out of our devices to be transported via music firm usually, then laundered into cash. They do this at the direction of a company that I hope for one last chance will take the situation serious enough to block the perpitrators from ever using there system again. For this company would be a dominant growth in our nation's economy and a true intavator along with companies and websites like Wikipedia and Google inc. In my opinion if you are caught performing illegal redirects or stealing data at any level or amount, should automatic be banned or disbarred from usage off website indefinitely. The actions off these criminals have invited more people to learn the way of the malware to which in turn creates more crimes of what this GROUP CALLS LEGAL THEFT THROUGH WIKIPEDIA.I don't hold no one responsible but the thieving operators.But this is the beginning, eventually the cash cow always runs out. And with narcissistic behavior, They will begin to steel social security from the elderly and veterans and so on.

Im not saying they need more oversight on Wikipedia,I think there should be marked barriers so as it be if someone is making a redirect, the system automatically notifies administrator to watch and clearly check to make sure the redirect is off practical legality.And if not said person is to be notified if infringing on websites by laws and given one warning, But that person is flagged and coded so they cannot go to a dark corner and do the same crime anonymously. I could think off other things that would make sure safer and less crime preventing, but I'm sure you have people to place and replace rules to effect criminals.Let me say this though as of to this point over a trillion dollars has been stolen through redirected writing on websites, on just my case alone, to which had shattered not only my future but my children's and all my extended family to which has even drive my wife and I to Divorce.Without the means to travel criminals have less chance of stealing!----------------------------------------------------------------> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2d80:c100:5700:d42:416d:b866:77da (talk • contribs)

  • @2604:2d80:c100:5700:d42:416d:b866:77da: this page is somewhat dead as it's on an old article, but I've read your very long post and I'm still no clearer as to what the issue is - I think your use of redirect is different from the one we use. Anyway. If you have an actual issue please take it to the TEAHOUSE which helps new editors with issues. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:57, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Traffic report: World cups, presidential candidates, and stranger things (2,438 bytes · 💬)

Long ago, WikiProject Spaceflight decided that times on the Moon would be in UTC, since terrestrial time zones have no meaning ion the Moon. Many Americans took umbrage at the date of the Moon landing changing to 21 July when it was 20 July in the United States. I see the Signpost editors are nailing their colours to the mast. (Best argument so far: to conform to Matthew 7:20. To which I could only reply "well if Eastern Daylight Time was good enough for Jesus...) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:28, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

In space no one can hear you scream, or tell what time it is. Since the Moon was facing Asia and Australia at the time of the Apollo 11 moonwalk it can be argued it was "High Noon on the Moon" (at least from the Aussies point of view). Randy Kryn (talk) 04:05, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
On the middle of the side of the moon that faces the sun, it's always High Noon. Guess the "time" changes depending how far from that point you are... Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:54, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
What was seen overhead near the equator (where all the Apollo missions landed) was the Earth, not the Sun. A day on the Moon is 29½ Earth days long. The Apollo missions all landed in the lunar early morning, and Apollo 17, which stayed for over three Earth days, stayed for less than three lunar hours, so it was always morning. They wanted to avoid the harsh lunar midday Sun. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:07, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
Author of the quoted report here, as someone from outside those projects or the United States to begin with (I'm South American), never would've expected such a reaction. igordebraga ≠ 00:06, 3 August 2019 (UTC)


One small correction, Cori Gauff was not "the youngest player in the history of the tournament", that honour goes to Jennifer Capriati, who was 14 when she made her Wimbledon debut. Iffy★Chat -- 12:33, 2 August 2019 (UTC)


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