Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2023-08-01

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-08-01. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Disinformation report: Hot climate, hot hit, hot money, hot news hot off the presses! (2,529 bytes · 💬)

Update today (August 1)

The Guardian just published another article on the Sultan Al Jaber story. See "Leak reveals ‘touchy’ issues for UAE’s presidency of UN climate summit"

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• Just a small note of appreciation to the folks working on disinfo/sockpuppet campaigns like the ones mentioned in this article. It goes unnoticed by many and is crucial to keeping the site healthy and reliable. Ckoerner (talk) 20:06, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The AI university involvement is interesting, Smallbones. See Twitter thread by the BBC's climate change editor suggesting there are many AI-generated young ladies singing the Sultan's praises on Twitter. --Andreas JN466 06:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466: - There was a seemingly very big story in February describing how such networks could be bought or rented (?) on demand, complete with hundreds or thousands of social media accounts which can act autonomously, each with an independent history on social media, background stories, AI-generated photos, and in some cases credit cards. [1] DW, google "Team Jorge" for several more. Surprisingly, the story was dropped (but not withdrawn) after about a week for fairly mysterious reasons - perhaps because of the "fact" that the undercover videotaped interviews named a well-known Israeli company - but perhaps there were 2 companies with the same name in the same city? Perhaps there is a very indirect connection with an Israeli story I did. In short, the BBC reporter's twitter x story is very believable, but absolutely nailing down the facts will be very difficult. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:30, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Featured content: Featured Content, 1 to 15 July (330 bytes · 💬)

I hope everything's OK. Just to say how beautiful your work is and how much it's appreciated. Blythwood (talk) 03:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Humour: Does Wikipedia present neutral perspectives? (2,009 bytes · 💬)

• Obviously this analysis is extremely flawed as it fails to check bias in four dimensions and everyone knows that Wikipedia is dominated by a cabal of Zergs from Valhalla who only operate outside Euclidean space. AryKun (talk) 12:13, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
• Fun read. --Andreas JN466 19:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
• Disgusting oversight of not being quantitative and measuring with a protractor!! Take your imprecision to Quora!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.248.1.2 (talk) 16:56, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
• F-16XL is obviously flying to the left. a!rado는 더미입니다 (C✙T) 11:11, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

  It's flying left, sure, but it doesn't lean left. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:39, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• Wikipedia lean left? Don't be funny comrade. And if there's a photograph (or article) about anyone named Trump left not leaning left without dragging their names through the mud, turning around, then dragging them through the mud again, please alert ANI, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:07, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

In focus: Journals cited by Wikipedia (4,185 bytes · 💬)

• Suggestion for a future piece: thoughts on JCW and Wikidata. fgnievinski (talk) 04:19, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  Headbomb, Warmly seconded! Agreed that one or two highly cited (or miscited) articles will skew these stats, but any power law in that would also be also interesting to see. – SJ + 15:53, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

• Excellent work. Speaking of Wikidata, what about citations using {{Cite Q}}? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:47, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  Completely ignored. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:48, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, but how do you plan to fix that omission? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:04, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  I don't. Cite Q lives in Wikidata, not in the data dumps. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:24, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• Interesting experiment. I am probably more interested in individual highly cited journal articles than which journal they were published in. But there is obvious overlap. Highly cited articles will contribute to the highly cited journal count. I think one needs to take care in interpreting the results. The most highly cited in Wikipedia was a human genome sequencing article. This citation was added to a lot of Gene Wiki articles by a bot. It in many cases, it was the first description of the sequencing of a particular gene. One the other hand, the citation is not a very good one because it is not very specific to a particular gene and also the source is primary. This and similar citations are gradually being replaced by more specific citations. So it would be interesting to see how the most cited scholarly articles and journals change over time. Boghog (talk) 20:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
• Very interesting article. I would be curious to know if there are similar projects in other languages such as French or German. PAC2 (talk) 05:38, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge, though it should be fairly straightforward to port and localize the bot to those projects. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 01:45, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

References

In the media: Truth, AI, bull from politicians, and climate change (45,657 bytes · 💬)

Uncritical coverage of the Unherd piece on climate?

It's rather sad to see the Signpost uncritically grouping the Unherd claim of a UN lead conspiracy to create disinformation on Wikipedia along a real, evidenced piece of disinformation found on the projects. The piece makes exagerated claims of conspiracy and repression of perspectives, while also citing widely debunked and poorly researched disinformation itself. If the Signpost is going to run these kinds of claims, at least provide some basic qualitative review of how well-grounded the claims are.Sadads (talk) 21:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Sadads. Some further reading/discussion on this piece from UnHerd (and UnHerd as a source in general) is available here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#UnHerd . Interesting how the misinformation which one person or blog post started spreads around to other blog posts and gets repeated by other newsletters. Good for Signpost to pick this up but bad for not putting it into context / being critical about it. EMsmile (talk) 09:43, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sadads@EMsmile: This little piece had a convoluted edit history. User:Smallbones started it out like this, with Unherd identified as "a British conservative political magazine" and a prominent mention of the UK government (based on the headline) in the text. Then I came along and edited out the reference to the UK government (because the article didn't say it was involved in the Wikipedia initiative). A day later I combined the two climate stories, and finally it went through a copyedit by our editor-in-chief, User:JPxG, who introduced direct quotes from both the project page and the Unherd article and removed such editorialising as was there, including the label as "a British conservative political magazine".

I think the value of the Unherd article is that it mentions a Wikipedia project I (and probably many other Wikipedians) had never heard of. I think if we are asking outside experts to take on an editorial role that's something that the community should be aware of. I believe most Wikipedians would welcome this particular initiative – because limiting climate change is the challenge of our time – but I can also think of cases where outsourcing a sort of content refereeing function to outside scholars would be far more contentious (recall the recent Holocaust in Poland discussions, for example, where scholars are more divided than they are in this case). While I don't agree with much of what the Unherd article says about climate change and what to do or not do about it (I fear the author is taking a very shortsighted approach), I am grateful they highlighted the project. Andreas JN466 13:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466 I agree that highlighting the project is good -- but the article has all of the classic indicators of a vitriolic, exaggeration with claims of conspiracy of the UN towards Wikimedia and other platforms. At least acknowledging that the particular opinion piece is interpreting the Wikimedia project in a bad faith way would be important. Platforming misinformation without evaluating it as misinformation is spreading misinformation, Sadads (talk) 14:40, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I can only answer for this article version, because that is how I left it. Would you have had a problem with that wording? Andreas JN466 14:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466, Sadads, and EMsmile: Thanks to all of you for your comments. Indeed, I think Andreas's last version was perfectly acceptable. I particularly liked Sadads comment "Platforming misinformation without evaluating it as misinformation is spreading misinformation". This points out how this column has to be different than a "straight news" column on what's been published about Wikipedia. That would read something like Reader's Digest and might be one of the most boring news columns printed anywhere. I think we have to read this column as a "journalism review" (something like a book review section). That's how I've always viewed the column since I first read it 15 years or so ago. So there are sometimes going to be some pointers that say "is this really the case?" or similar. That's the type of stuff that editors can sometime miss in good faith. And I'll add with absolute certainty - good editors can be expected sometimes to make mistakes. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:36, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, Smallbones. There is just one thing I would add – I don't believe the Unherd article was written in "bad faith". As the term is commonly understood, and defined in the lede of the bad faith article, "bad faith" means a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another. I have no reason to believe that is what the author was doing. I think it more likely that they simply, quite honestly, mistrust the initiative and feel in some way powerless and overrun. Now, "mistrust" and "bad faith" sound similar, but they are not at all the same thing. You can be mistrustful, and wrong, in good faith, and if Wikipedia teaches anything, it is that assuming good faith is usually the best way to build bridges and make progress. Andreas JN466 15:53, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466 that is close to what I would expect, not quite but closer. @Smallbones agreed -- and most of the time this section is pretty good at handling that kind of "We as the editorial team, think that the piece doesn't quite understand how Wikimedia works", Sadads (talk) 15:44, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Sadads: Hi. I read through the UnHerd article, and I read through the things on-wiki that it referenced, when editing this piece. I spent a while thinking about it, and decided to go with our own description of the website, which is that it's a "British news and opinion website" (and makes virtually no reference to any political leanings other than to mention briefly that the founder had conservative beliefs). If there were space, I could indeed have come up with a more nuanced take, but as it was, we had a brief couple of sentences to describe what one piece of press coverage said, and then a lengthy blockquote from the actual project itself (which was about twice as long) that gave further context.

As for the actual content of the UnHerd piece, well: insofar as the claims about the English Wikipedia are concerned, I did not see anything that was abjectly false. There were some implications of vague sinistrosity on the part of the UN, but I don't think it is the Signpost's responsibility to defend the UN from people calling them jerks online. The factual claims (i.e. that the initiative is to write articles that "reflect UN-approved perspectives and information on the subject") are, I mean — what our own documentation page said at the time was that the project was a collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations". This is definitely a suggestive way to phrase it, but it does not seem false. I don't think it is a conspiracy theory to claim that two entities working on a collaborative project are working on a collaborative project, and then claim that this sucks.

I am not sure, in this context, what you mean by "misinformation"; I understand people have been using this term more broadly in the last few years, but it would seem here to be a matter of opinion ("The UN is collaborating with Wikipedians to edit articles, which is good" versus "The UN is collaborating with Wikipedians to edit articles, which is bad"): I dearly hope that our readers have the wisdom and fortitude to read an article and form an assessment of its opinion without needing instruction. jp×g 22:15, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Hi @JPxG (and cc @HaeB) the main argumentation in the piece is built on articles like this piece -- which uses a number of arguments that built on selective facts, and active misinterpation of the science (i.e. for example citing one 2011 study about food production increasing with heat, when the concensuse science for the last few decades and the most recent IPCC reports all point to catastrophic rolling food security issues).

The hallmarks that this is selective argumentation to create disinformation though is that they are including several widely discredited sources known to fuel climate disinformation through these kinds of public attempts to discredit anyone community climate science. For example: it includes a commentator Bjorn Lomborg, who is widely crticized for not understanding the science he cites and only choosing the studies that he finds help his narrative (see this profile in the most widely respected climate-denial database: https://www.desmog.com/bjorn-lomborg/). This is all getting couched in the language of "realistic climate policy", when in fact all of the experts and recommendations from people involved in the policy ecosystem is quite the opposite. This is charachteristic of several of the most incidious climate denial outfits, including the repeatedly cited Breakthrough Institute, a hothouse of climate disinformation that is widely discredited for its selective uses of evidence to advance discourses of delay (see the Wikipedia article or the founder's profile on desmog, who by the way has a long history of attacking editors of his biography) - which are funded by the same institutions that funded climate denial a decade ago. Its not that Unherd or the author of this piece are just using inflamatory language, its that they are creating a pool of self-referencing articles that disguise the fact that all of the arguments and criticism are about inflaming skepticism about climate change while misrepresenting the work of climate communicators -- it's misinformation.

I am sure if I dug more I could identify more problems, but I would hope that the Signpost which covers disinformation, would be a bit more helpful to Wikipedians when we platform suspicious claims of disinfo and conspiracy in the wild Sadads (talk) 12:58, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

You are presenting all this criticism without making it clear to your readers that apart from the first dozen words in your first sentence, everything you say pertains not to Kit Klarenberg's article, but to one of the 20 or so articles hyperlinked in his article ... and then to people cited in that article, and so on.

This could in itself be described as a disinformation tactic not unlike the one you are complaining about. (And do you really expect us to read and critique 20 hyperlinked articles and the people cited in them every time we mention an article here?)

To my mind, the key problem in this affair seems to be that the people in this project "embiggened" the UN involvement to make it sound like a UN project in order to increase their chances of getting funded. Andreas JN466 13:42, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• While I didn't write this Signpost story (and might have written it a bit differently), I think it's worth pointing out that the Signpost's "In the media" section has always been collecting and summarizing media coverage about Wikipedia without endorsing it (contrary to what you appear to imply by run these kinds of claims). What's more, like other ITM stories, this one links the Wikipedia article about the publication right at the beginning for context. And I find it interesting that at least in its current version, it doesn't contain criticism of that publication that would rise even near the level of outrage you express about it here.
• Regarding exagerated claims of conspiracy and repression of perspectives: Granted, I do see some overheated rhetoric in the article. But honestly, shaky accusations of bias and information suppression against Wikipedia are routine even in the mainstream news media's coverage of our projects. Just peruse the archives of this Signpost section (or the Signpost's in general). And even if media claims about causal mechanisms are wrong, that doesn't mean that there couldn't still be a real content problem, or that the Signpost should not make its readers aware of such criticisms. Yes, I understand that as someone involved in the SDG project that is being criticized by the article, you (and especially EMsmile as its paid employee - something she may want to disclose more clearly when weighing in on such matters) may bristle at being tarred with such broad a brush - just as the many admins who made deletion decisions that ended up being pilloried in the news media (such as in the Strickland case) may have been take aback at very public bias accusations against them personally, even when such biases may well exist more generally.
• Specifically regarding "perspectives", are you referring to e.g. the following claim in the Unherd article?

While there is a near-consensus that climate change is happening, how individuals and governments should respond to the problem is far from settled — yet the UN is determined to suggest otherwise.

On that matter: Speaking as an editor who has spent a non-trivial amount of time combating climate change denial on-wiki (especially back in the "Climategate" years), I do think there is an important difference between reflecting the scholarly consensus about scientific topics (as indeed recorded by the IPCC in this case), and uncritically endorsing the policy goals posited by particular international political organizations (such as the SDGs) or the action targets prescribed by international treaties for their member states. It would be highly problematic to blur the lines between these areas and decry as "disinformation" statements that are fundamentally political (we should do X/not do Y), even if we disagree with them as a matter of opinion. It looks like the SDG project clarifies in the small print that it is not about promoting these policy goals in the sense of POV pushing, but instead focuses on improving article quality in the corresponding content areas in line with Wikipedia policies, and that its content experts consists by and large of academics, rather than, say, employees of a UN agency's PR department or a think thank. That's good, but the project's title still unhelpfully conveys that it is about promoting a policy goal ("Communicating current SDG 13 knowledge through Wikipedia" instead of, say "Communicating current knowledge about climate change through Wikipedia"). And before you point out that there have been other such SDG "campaigns" before: Concerns about mixing advocacy with our mission in this regard are also not new, in fact I recall quite some eye-rolling half a decade ago already about the Wikimania 2019 "theme" (which many or most conference participants appeared to ignore by and large).

• I also have trouble understanding your concerns about grouping. In the context of a campaign to "communicate" the goals espoused by organization X about topic Y on Wikipedia, it does seem relevant for Signpost readers that the top leader of a central, influential event by organization X about topic Y has been credibly accused of deceptive PR involving topic Y that included manipulative Wikipedia editing. At the very least, it is a reminder that there is basically always some unappetizing political sausagemaking behind such goals. Understood, it may not be what you want to read if you have personally signed up for campaigning for these goals, but other Wikipedia editors may feel differently.
• In that respect I am also reminded about the WikiForHumanRights campaign that (according to your staff user page) you have been leading in your professional role as Senior Program Strategist at WMF, as a partnership between the Wikimedia Foundation with another prominent United Nations organization. Now I don't want to criticize the existence of that campaign per se here, and would be ready to believe that it has done good work overall. But it's worth noting that during that project, your UN partner was also seriously criticized (by e.g. the Washington Post's editorial board, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) for deeply problematic official statements denying or minimizing widespread human rights violations by a totalitarian regime. Fortunately the English Wikipedia community did not espouse the views of your/the WMF's WikiForHumanRights UN partner as a consensus statement about this matter, not did it dismiss criticism of these UN views as "disinformation" - otherwise the article Uyghur genocide would look very differently.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:43, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Just to clarify: the current working title of the project that was discussed in the article is "Improving communication of climate change knowledge through Wikipedia" (see here). The previous "official" project title is no longer quite correct and I have just edited our project page accordingly. The old title was "Phase 2 Communicating current SDG 13 knowledge through Wikipedia - a collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations". In Phase 1 we had called the project "Phase 1: Communication of SDG-related research knowledge in water and sanitation (SDG 6), climate action (SDG 13) and life below water (oceans) (SDG14) in Wikipedia while engaging professional networks". You might wonder why we even mentioned the SDGs in the title. The answer is simple: it's because we had submitted this project proposal in a response to a call for projects for communicating content about the SDGs and the topics underpinning the SDGs. The project is funded by Formas. This is all explained on the project page. Last year, we have published a PPT if any of you are interested to learn more about this project: https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/icsd-wikipedia-ppt-sept-20-2022-longer-version.pdf

I think more important for the Wikipedia community - or anyone who wants to help with climate change information - is the WikiProject Climate Change. We'd love to have more active editors there.

Coming back to that piece which you had included in the Signpost. When we first became aware of the media coverage on this (on 17 July), we found that the chain of events seems to have been like this: Chris Morrison wrote a first article on 16 July in “The Daily Sceptic” on July 16: https://dailysceptic.org/2023/07/16/british-government-funds-campaign-to-rewrite-climate-science-entries-on-wikipedia/ Then David Icke picked it up the next day on his own page on 17 July: https://davidicke.com/2023/07/17/british-government-funds-campaign-to-rewrite-climate-science-entries-on-wikipedia/ David Icke is, according to Wikipedia, "an English conspiracy theorist". The Unherd article which was mentioned in the Signpost came a week later: 24 July by Kit Klarenberg. It might have been interesting for the Signpost piece to show this chain of events from which it becomes clear that one person copied from the other... And I think you were indeed spreading misinformation but unintentionally, perhaps just from superficial reading & lack of time.

I don't think a discussion about WikiForHumanRights has anything to do with this, and just confuses things. Our project does not work with any "UN bodies". It actually mainly works by me doing a lot of editing myself (see my edit contributions), together with some other team members plus one or two dozen academics who have kindly donated their time to give us feedback and reviewers' comments about Wikipedia articles on climate change topics. Absolutely nothing "sinister" about this. There is no actual "story" here but climate change deniers (like David Icke) like to make a story out of anything... EMsmile (talk) 18:16, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Our project does not work with any "UN bodies". - who said that it does, and whom are you quoting here? Please avoid straw man arguments.

Thanks for updating the project page, and for clarifying that the project's previous title had been changed. But regarding You might wonder why we even mentioned the SDGs in the title. The answer is simple: it's because we had submitted this project proposal in a response to a call for projects for communicating content about the SDGs and the topics underpinning the SDGs. - well, that's the point, is it not? Such project proposals are always written to appeal to the grant giver's motivations and goals. This is an ubiquitous issue in grantmaking and funding (also in our specific context of Wikipedia projects that are externally funded by supposedly benign non-Wikimedia nonprofits or public institutions - happy to talk a bit more about the history here if you're interested). Of course this can be handled and mitigated, and I hope that that's what you and the others involved in this project have done here, by carefully keeping the work confined to the intersection area between the grantor's and Wikipedia's goals. But we should not indignantly dismiss any notion that such tensions could even exist.

As for David Icke, yes, he is a wacky conspiracy theorist, but no, the fact that he picked up this topic too among others does not automatically mean that it is invalid or (as I hope you agree) that one can accuse the Signpost of spreading antisemitic theories about lizard people. If you search hard enough, you can surely find lots of stories in established news media like (say) the Guardian or Slate that were previously popularized by random Twitter personalities or picked up by sites of dubious reputation like Occupy Democrats or Palmer Report. But that doesn't automatically mean that the writer at the more established outlet hasn't done their due diligence to separate the wheat from the chaff.

What's more, I second JPxG's observation above that the term "misinformation" (and also "disinformation") is being thrown around rather liberally here - by Sadads and you - without ever specifying which statements it refers to concretely. Such innuendo tactics may work well in some spaces, but on Wikipedia we usually pride ourselves on a more evidence-based communication style. A more convincing rebuttal might have consisted of specific statements like "UnHerd says X (quote), but X is not true because (evidence)".

Coming back to that piece which you had included in the Signpost [...] And I think you were indeed spreading misinformation but unintentionally [...] - uh, I had nothing to do with the inclusion of this story in the Signpost. I had already said right at the start of my comment above that I didn't write it. And even before that, Andreas had provided a detailed account of how it came to be. So I'm quite confused why you would even conjecture that I was to blame for a story that you and Sadads see as so problematic, let alone accuse me directly of publicizing David Icke conspiracy theories in the Signpost. The cherry on top is your belittling perhaps just from superficial reading & lack of time in a mistaken claim that quite clearly was based on your own superficial reading.

As already indicated above, I can, to some extent, understand why you or others involved in this project might feel strongly about this UnHerd article. I'm not endorsing every criticism that it levels, and am prepared to believe that your editing work as part of this project is beneficial for Wikipedia overall. But the way you are communicating here as its paid employee honestly doesn't inspire confidence. You started out above by weighing in against the Signpost's coverage involving your project without disclosing your direct involvement with it, then got several easily verifiable facts wrong in your accusations about spreading disinformation... It might be an idea to add some support from experienced public communications professionals (if the grant has room for that) or at least get a second pair of eyes on your statements before you publish them.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:16, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm going to touch on just one small part of what's been brought up so far as this discussion - among many Wikipedians I greatly respect - is heading into more-heat-than-light territory. When EMSmile said Our project does not work with any "UN bodies" I believe she was referring to the Unherd article itself, which said, "Wikipedia editing is therefore just the latest front in the UN’s ongoing online climate change narrative control war" and insinuated in various ways that the project was being directed by the UN. This insinuation is ludicrous - if the UN or any of its member bodies actually wanted to influence what goes on at Wikipedia they could simply release their reports under a Wikipedia-compatible license, but they haven't.

Kit Klarenberg's piece in Unherd says that this project was quietly launched "in the last few weeks" and makes some heavy-sounding accusations about "censoring" and "policing". Actually the project has been going on for an entire year and yet Klarenberg doesn't include a single example of anything the project has removed from Wikipedia that shouldn't have been removed. The article has no criticism whatsoever of Wikipedia article content, policies, or processes. All it is is an uninformed individual making speculations about motives because he can't believe someone other than the UN itself would think the UN's SDGs are important. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:12, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Our project does not work with any "UN bodies": Well, until yesterday, the project page cited by Klarenberg said it is a collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations. The IPCC is described by Wikipedia as an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. (The UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with a secretariat in Bonn, Germany.) --Andreas JN466 05:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I am aware that the IPCC is a UN body, but when you work with an expert at the IPCC, what that means is you're working with a scientist, generally a university professor, who volunteers to help write and review drafts of IPCC reports. IPCC scientists are paid by their home instititions; they are not paid by the IPCC or by any other UN body. The relationship between these individual scientists and the IPCC is roughly equivalent to the relationship between Wikipedia writers and the WMF. The list of names on a section of an IPCC report will be a list of people who have a grasp of the literature and scientific consensus for the contents of that section. If you call one of them and have a conversation about their area of expertise, you're working with an IPCC expert but you are not working with the IPCC per se. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 14:01, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@Clayoquot @EMsmile Thank you for the explanation, that kind of makes sense. However, I wonder how and by whom it is then decided whether or not a particular scientist can rightfully be described as an expert "at" the IPCC. Does the IPCC maintain something like a public roster of affiliated scientists?

Also, for the avoidance of doubt, is the UNFCCC secretariat in Bonn involved in the Wikipedia project, either directly or indirectly via a service provider or contractor? Regards, Andreas JN466 14:42, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The wording "expert at the IPCC" is maybe confusing. I usually refer to them as "IPCC authors", and even that is maybe confusing. Here is one of them (but he is an exception, hardly any of them have taken up Wikipedia logins as far as I am aware): https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Baylorfk. Like Clayoquot explained, these are in fact just normal academics who work at universities (and get paid by them) who then additionally perform some reviewer work for IPCC reports (not paid by IPCC). Please check the IPCC Wikipedia article, it might make things clearer for you. - And no, the UNFCCC secretariat is not involved in this project. If they were, e.g. by helping us contact academics, would you find that problematic? EMsmile (talk) 14:51, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

No, I would not, but I suspect this would be of interest to people like Kit Klarenberg. I might reach out to him and direct him to this page. Regards, --Andreas JN466 15:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@HaeB FWIW the Identify Topics for Impact movement strategy recommendation does include SDGs, if somewhat noncommittally. I think they are actually somewhat analogous to the IPCC. If you want present an evidence-based description of some issue but don't want to appoint yourself as the arbiter of what is / isn't supported by evidence, it is natural to look at intergovernmental expert bodies (such as the IPCC) as the best place to outsource that judgement to. And if you want, when using movement funds to incentivize article improvements, to prioritize those articles which have the largest positive impact on people's lives but don't want to appoint yourself the arbiter of which topics are the most impactful, it is natural to look at intergovernmental bodies tasked with making such choices (such as the UN DSDG) as the best place to outsource *that* judgement to.

That's not to say they should be above criticism, or that it's guaranteed to be a good idea to defer to their judgement, but it's a sensible default. Being critical of a project based on IPCC or SDG material by default makes sense if you think you are an iconoclast deep thinker who is better than the establishment at discerning truth or priorities - which is pretty much the brand of UnHerd, but undesirable on Wikipedia. Tgr (talk) 06:12, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Clayoquot and Tgr who are making very good points. Just to clarify two things: I am not an employee of the project. I am a freelancer who applies to funders for projects and then has billable hours for those projects. In this instance, I, together with SEI, applied to Formas to fund this communication type work. The project has actually been going for three years now, not one (but Phase 2 has been going for one year).

Secondly, I can now see that the wording collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations could have been misunderstood. In practice, we work with academics at various universities (anyone who is willing to donate their time really; we have contacted perhaps 200 people and got reviewer's comments from perhaps 20), some of whom have also been authors of IPCC reports. We also draw a lot on the content of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report which is basically a big fat literature review with consensus on WP:DUE aspects (i.e. fringe theories not getting any more room than they deserve, according to scientific consensus).

If anyone from the Wikipedia community has any specific concerns/objections about our project you are very welcome to put them here, or even better, to add them to the talk page of our project here. I would be very happy to discuss things further with you there and see how any concerns could be addressed.

For your information, I am always on the look-out for more funding for this kind of activity (usually from philanthropic sources) because I think we owe it to our readers to get the climate change content right and understandable. For that, only relying on volunteers to edit, is not enough, as is evidenced by the current low quality of many of the sub-articles on climate change topics (the main climate change article is very good). If articles' quality can be boosted by people who can work on content as part of their day jobs (always keeping WP:COI issues in mind), this would give more and better content faster. Getting this kind of funding is not easy as you can imagine. Our current Funder, Formas, has been excellent. They take a hands-off approach so you don't have to worry that they someone dictate or influence what we edit. And no, we don't have spare budget available in our project for "experienced public communications professionals". If we had spare budget, I'd rather spend it on more Wikipedia editing time.

Just to re-iterate I am very open to constructive criticism of our project, on the project's talk page. The criticism that came from David Icke, Kit Klarenberg etc. was not overly helpful to say the least (what exactly would they want us to change about the project?). May I point out that David Icke had entitled his piece: "British Government Funds Campaign to Rewrite Climate Science Entries on Wikipedia" and below it he had an image with the text: Wokepedia. What does that tell us? In any case our funder is a Swedish government research council if anything, not the British Government (just for the record).

Thank you for taking the time to look at our project and to point out any issues that you consider relevant, independently of the piece in Unherd. EMsmile (talk) 09:38, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I am not an employee of the project. - I was using the term in its generic meaning (wikt:employee). But I'm happy to switch to a more precise terminology instead that distinguishes between e.g. long-term contractors and full-time staff with benefits etc. However, such distinctions are irrelevant to the points that were raised - in particular that you should have disclosed this relation to the project when coming here to criticize the Signpost for its coverage involving your project. I don't see any reflection of that on your part, which was one of the reasons for suggesting you might want to get advice and support from people who are more aware of such communications issues. Relatedly, while it's good that you now have made various corrections and updates in reaction to the UnHerd and/or Signpost article (and that the project's name had already been changed earlier), it could be worth reflecting on how to avoid such communication mistakes from the outset, rather than having to fix them afterwards.

If anyone from the Wikipedia community has any specific concerns/objections about our project you are very welcome to [...] - that's good, but in the above discussion I don't see any Wikipedians expressing concerns or objections about the project's overall work. (E.g. speaking for myself, I had said that I am prepared to believe that your editing work as part of this project is beneficial for Wikipedia overall - that's not to say that such problems couldn't exist, but simply that I don't have formed an opinion so far on whether they exist or not.) Rather, the specific concerns and objections here are about the project's/your criticism of the Signpost's article and vague accusations of the Signpost spreading misinformation etc, at least some of which has now turned out to be not very well-founded.

Regarding David Icke etc.: Above I already discussed your efforts to tie the UnHerd piece (and by extension, the Signpost's) to wacky conspiracy theorists, and pointed out why it is problematic. I see that you decided to entirely ignore such concerns and instead double down on this tactic. For others reading along here: A useful term for the disingenuous rhetorical technique that this representative of the "Improving communication ..." project chose to use here is "nutpicking".

Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:15, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@Tgr From your comments it's unclear whether you saw what I wrote about these matters above, so allow me to quote some of it here:

Speaking as an editor who has spent a non-trivial amount of time combating climate change denial on-wiki (especially back in the "Climategate" years), I do think there is an important difference between reflecting the scholarly consensus about scientific topics (as indeed recorded by the IPCC in this case), and uncritically endorsing the policy goals posited by particular international political organizations (such as the SDGs) or the action targets prescribed by international treaties for their member states. It would be highly problematic to blur the lines between these areas and decry as "disinformation" statements that are fundamentally political (we should do X/not do Y), even if we disagree with them as a matter of opinion. It looks like the SDG project clarifies in the small print that it is not about promoting these policy goals in the sense of POV pushing, but instead focuses on improving article quality in the corresponding content areas in line with Wikipedia policies, and that its content experts consists by and large of academics, rather than, say, employees of a UN agency's PR department or a think thank. That's good, but the project's title still unhelpfully conveys that it is about promoting a policy goal ("Communicating current SDG 13 knowledge through Wikipedia" instead of, say "Communicating current knowledge about climate change through Wikipedia"). [The latter was fixed afterwards, see above]

So regarding the prioritizing of content areas, I'm unsure what your point of disagreement is exactly. However, I think your attempt at equating IPCC or SDG material in general (or to paint anyone who doesn't endorse the SDGs as "iconoclast" like someone who disagrees with the scientific consensus as recorded by the IPCC) fundamentally confuses fact and opinion, or scientific knowledge and political goals. (And let's not even get started on the weird world of movement strategy here, which since 2017 or so may have sucked up tons and tons of energy from people involved in what one might call the corporate side of the movement and whose outputs might get quoted sometimes in funding matters, but enjoy very little awareness and influence in the Wikipedia editing community's day-to-day content decisions - unlike, say, the IPCC's reports.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:44, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Regarding not having disclosed my involvement in the project in my very first post on this talk page: point taken. In the second sentence that I wrote here I had said this and provided a link to an earlier discussion: Some further reading/discussion on this piece from UnHerd (and UnHerd as a source in general) is available here: https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#UnHerd. In that earlier discussion, another Wikipedian had pointed out for example EMsmile has very properly disclosed being a paid editor in this realm, so I forgot that I should really re-introduce myself again, as this is now a different crowd of Wikipedians. Thank you for the reminder, will be more thoughtful in future.

It is also true that I am more interested in any constructive criticims of our project than of The Signpost article. (someone pointed out above I think the value of the Unherd article is that it mentions a Wikipedia project I (and probably many other Wikipedians) had never heard of. I felt that the post that sadads made was valid but overall it's probably not really worth spending too much time on this as the reach of The Signpost is rather small compared to other newsletters. So for me personally, it was actually more interesting to take this opportunity to get a feel for what other Wikipedians might not like about our project.

My take-home message from this is that it can be "dangerous" to be seen by the Wikipedia community to be too closely aligned with the SDGs or any UN bodies. I didn't think the SDGs were so controversial (even though I have been the main editor of the Sustainable Development Goals Wikipedia editor and have added a fair bit of content there about challenges) but so be it.

So from my perspective everything has now been said and (more or less) clarified. I'll bow out of the discussion now. Thanks everyone! EMsmile (talk) 13:06, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

20th anniversary of the Hebrew Wikipedia

The folks from Wikimedia Israel shared their own report of the celebration with some charming photos. Ckoerner (talk) 20:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Nice pictures indeed! Good vibes. Thanks for the link. Andreas JN466 21:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

News and notes: City officials attempt to doxx Wikipedians, Ruwiki founder banned, WMF launches Mastodon server (30,985 bytes · 💬)

Italy vs. the public domain

Should have noted that besides the links recommended in the EU Policy report, there is also a blog post by Wikimedia Italia that specifically discusses the impact on Wikimedia projects: https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/06/05/open-access-to-heritage-images-is-becoming-increasingly-difficult-in-italy/ . Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Italy wants to be paid because somebody who happened to be born there drew something 500 years ago? Do they want to be paid every time someone eats pizza, too? AryKun (talk) 12:31, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Don't give them ideas, please. It's already hard as it is. --Sannita - not just another it.wiki sysop 12:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@AryKun@HaeB@Sannita hello. Just happened to pass by this Signpost article while searching for something interesting about French or Italian's actions that may be adverse for Wikipedians.

An update: Italy vs. a German puzzle/toymaking company. Got successfully sued in Italy, then the toymaker finds ally in the Stuttgart court, and then the Italian authorities not backing out. Perhaps historic – in the sense the case may be elevated to European or even international courts; the Italian authorities previously having the Stuttgart court ruling as "abnormal". How will the legal teleserye (ala-television soap opera) play out is an interesting area that can be revisited. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 14:56, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Just an addition: another legal teleserye in the making: the issue over Victorious Youth. It is not related to the commercial use and is more of the Italian authorities' claims over a centuries-old artwork that is currently hosted in a U.S. museum, which the Italians claimed as an act of "theft" by the Americans. But, the cultural heritage laws of Italy were again invoked by the European court as one supporting basis. The case isn't yet final as per AP, with the museum seeking to appeal "'til their very last breath", but it is interesting to note that at least, some European courts will apply the Italian laws outside the jurisdiction of Italy – even to the U.S.. (source1, source2, source3). And perhaps, the cultural heritage laws of Italy may be considered as untouchable until an international body (like WIPO, UNESCO, etc.) intervenes. Very interesting times nowadays. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 06:38, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Durham bull

Excellent reporting on the events in Durham. Threats to the independence and integrity of Wikipedia should always be brought to our attention. Smallchief (talk) 14:09, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Durham motive

This story was a tough read. Who, send what, why? The mayor requested, through a letter send by the city attorney, that her signature be taken down....but also content on pages of her political opponents of something she herself uncovered? This story left me with more questions then answers. What's her motive? Bart Terpstra (talk) 15:21, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

It might be clearer at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-01/In the media#Durham bull. Something about allegations of bribery and the illegal use of civil servants in a campaign. And a shouting match, oh my. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:12, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

It is indeed a lot clearer, even with, or maybe because of, fewer words. Bart Terpstra (talk) 17:24, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Theft from Wikipedia

Why is it theft if Wikipedia is licensed under cc-by-sa-4.0? Bart Terpstra (talk) 15:27, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

(I assume you are referring to the story involving Ruwiki and its quote from [2].)

There is some more detail here (in Russian). Looks like the fork copied images from Commons without attributing them as required by their licenses. Regards HaeB (talk) 18:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

How on Earth is that the basis for a Foundation ban? Sandizer (talk) 19:20, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Why would massive violations of the Terms of Use on copyrights not be the basis for a Foundation ban? Silverseren^C 19:33, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Because they appear to be unintentional, as many of the forked files are properly attributed? Sandizer (talk) 19:56, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

What makes you think it is the (sole) basis for the Foundation's ban? Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:36, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Unlawful behavior including copyright infringement is a ToS violation [3] (section 4). Section 13 allows the Foundation to block or ban violators of the ToS. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:38, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

After having read through the linked discussions (plus this one) with Google Translate, I can't find a single Russian Wikipedian upset about attribution problems with the Commons fork, but a sizable majority are upset about the use of the term "ruwiki" in the fork's domain name. But that's just a nickname, not a Foundation trademark, isn't it?

Should we expect the Foundation to ban anyone who uses a large amount of Commons material without proper attribution going forward? Sandizer (talk) 19:50, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest they do, yes. Silverseren^C 19:51, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

As above, the lack of attribution does not appear to be intentional. Don't you think the Foundation should ask for corrections first before issuing a ban? Sandizer (talk) 19:59, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Whereas nobody knows for sure why WMF banned him, I personally think that the ban is not for the copyright violation but for the damage they inflicted on the Russian Wikipedia by opening the fork and siding with the government, without telling anyone until the last moment. The Russian Wikipedia is under an imminent treat of being blocked by the government, and he has made a significant contribution to this situation. Ymblanter (talk) 20:05, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Do you suppose that the ban itself might also have made such a contribution? Sandizer (talk) 20:07, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

You still haven't answered the question why we should assume that this was the entire basis for the Foundation's ban.

Also, apropos I can't find a single Russian Wikipedian upset about ..., recall that he was indefinitely blocked by the Russian Wikipedia community first. Are you disagreeing with their decision too? Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:13, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the community ban, just disagreeing with the Foundation ban. On the other hand, consider that Chinese Wikipedia pageviews spiked following their government censorship. Perhaps the Foundation wants to ensure a similar Streisand effect. Sandizer (talk) 20:22, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

You have again failed to answer the question, so let me put it differently: What is your reason for disagreeing with the Foundation's ban?

consider that Chinese Wikipedia pageviews spiked following their government ban - yeah, no, that's not what that chart shows. (The Chinese Wikipedia was blocked in May 2015, and the chart only starts from 2016. Also btw, as the small print below the chart warns, it includes automated pageviews from spiders and bots; for such an analysis one would need to remove them, using the filters under "Agent type".) Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:40, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

I think it is a mistake to shun a former local leader for forking, especially when it's likely he may be under threats or other political pressure, and if the pretext is obviously unintentional lack of attribution for CC-BY-SA content, that's even worse.

Thank you for correcting me on the date of the Chinese ban. The graph doesn't look substantially different without spiders and bots.

Do you think there are any good reasons to keep community members from being able to communicate with Medeyko on Commons and Meta? Sandizer (talk) 21:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be unaware of a lot of context here and I would encourage you to read or re-read the Signpost's previous coverage of this affair (linked in this issue's story), e.g. Bohdan Melnychuk's explanations quoted there.

(I personally would agree that overly harsh sanctions for unintentionally violating CC attribution terms can be problematic, but it is abundantly clear that this is not what we are looking at here.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:49, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Well I have read all of that, including Medeyko's talk page comments and the critiques of him linked there. I feel strongly that his actions are obviously involuntary at this point. For example, why would someone who professes to have not taken a side on the Russia/Ukraine conflict support an encyclopedia which sides entirely with Russia, if he wasn't being coerced? If he was merely being paid off surely he would have more respect for his own reputation. I'm sorry I couldn't answer your question because the Foundation doesn't say anything about why their bans are issued, but I would like to know your answer to mine, as to whether you think there are any good reasons to restrict the community from communicating with Medeyko on Commons and Meta? Sandizer (talk) 05:06, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Section 13 allows the Foundation to block or ban violators of the ToS. To clarify a common misconception, the ToS gives the WMF the ability to ban people for whatever reason, or no reason at all ("with or without cause") - there is no requirement to violate the ToS before being WMF-banned. Legoktm (talk) 07:26, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I totally agree. Just wanted to point out that this is an area where the Foundation specifically gave warning about consequences of certain actions. Some of the comments above might make one think "gee, this blocked guy was ambushed" when clearly that's not the case. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:14, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Is there any statement from the Foundation on the reason(s) for the ban? Sandizer (talk) 20:06, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

That's a good question. There seems to be a lot of confusion above where people have conflated "the user was banned by WMF" (with no further details) and "the user was earlier blocked on Commons for Long-term abuse: creating a Wikipedia fork which includes stolen content from Commons as well". Anomie⚔ 11:20, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

From what I know, WMF never comments on the reasons of the global ban. Ymblanter (talk) 13:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, no attribution, which is a license violation.

....Why would they do such a foolish thing, it's so easy. Bart Terpstra (talk) 16:53, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Elaine O'Neal (politician)

Her signature isn't on the page anymore. Any indication why? Therapyisgood (talk) 19:41, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Cullen328 removed it in this edit. I'm waiting for the Commons deletion discussion to finish before I re-add it in. Silverseren^C 19:46, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

He commented on it here: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1135#NLT,_subject_of_news_article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:04, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I stand by my decision to remove the signature from Elaine O'Neal (politician), although I do not support deleting it from Commons or from The Signpost. Cullen328 (talk) 21:49, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Given that Durham already had an illustrious history of electing complete lunatics with law degrees to positions of power (Mike Nifong and Tracey Cline come to mind, having a DA removed once is rare enough but who ever heard of it happening twice in 5 years?), I have to wonder what's going on with the civic culture down there. There are how many more important things to deal with while running a city of that size, none of which involve sending facially bumptious legal threats to Wikipedia editors. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 13:53, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps it was the "something" in "Something must be done!"? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:04, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Including the signature in this article

Clearly the City Attorney's letter was misguided in many ways and should not have been sent. The request to identify specific editors was especially inappropriate, as well as doomed to failure.

That being said, the letter's concern about reproducing the Mayor's signature on Wikipedia arguably has greater merit than its other aspects. Indeed, Wikipedia:Signatures of living persons, albeit an essay rather than a policy or guideline, observes that if the person in question (or their representative) wants a signature removed to protect from identity theft, it should generally be removed. This is reasonable guidance, especially where, as here, the signature is not of a highly prominent person and the signature itself lacks independent encyclopedic value. The fact that the mayor previously allowed her signature to be reproduced elsewhere is neither here nor there, as someone may come to perceive an identity theft risk belatedly, or may feel the risk is different in kind from an online posting rather than a paper one (and even more so now given the controversy).

Ordinarily we remove a moderately notable BLP subject's signature from Wikipedia at that person's request. Instead, this Signpost article chooses to further disseminate the signature in our internal online newspaper, with the foreseeable and presumably intended effort of further publicizing it. I have no qualms about publicizing the dispute regarding the signature; but there is no more news value than there is encyclopedic value to posting the signature itself over the subject's objection.

While posting the signature here is not legally actionable—let no one think I am suggesting otherwise—including it on this page can reasonably be interpreted as striking back at or even taunting a BLP subject out of (understandable) annoyance at her representative's unwarranted tactics in raising concern about the contents of her article. As such, I suggest that in the spirit of the BLP policy, the signature should be removed. @Red-tailed hawk, HaeB, Jayen466, and Bri: I'd welcome your comments. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:05, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I have no objection to removing it. In my opinion, the signature controversy was less relevant here than the disputes about including adequately sourced material in Wikipedia articles, for the reason you mention – i.e. that we do remove signatures of living people if they are not particularly prominent persons. Andreas JN466 15:27, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

We should ping User:JPxG as well here as he has the final word, as the Signpost's editor-in-chief. Andreas JN466 15:29, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466: Thank you for both responses. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:06, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I had nothing to do with the writing or editing of this story (as should be clear from the page's revision history, which you, as an experienced Wikipedian, should be able to parse; see also the author signatures at the end of each story). So I don't appreciate you calling me out in this accusatory manner here.

But since you insisted on drawing me into this, a quick opinion: Your insinuations about the Signpost writers' motivations for including this image (striking back at or even taunting) seem to be on shaky grounds. I'd find it more likely that they included this because it is an illustration that is highly suitable for conveying a central point of the story visually to the reader (something that we always strive to do, for example it's why I, as author of the EU policy story, spent time selecting and including that Vitruvian Man image after writing up the story). As for the alleged identity theft risks, I would recommend a balanced risk assessment that also takes into account that Signpost stories almost never receive sustained traffic after the initial days following publication, as opposed to a mainspace article where such a signature image will receive views for years and years to come. Yes, the BLP policy applies to non-article pages too, but as you correctly point out, the essay you rely on here is not policy or even consensus. Overall, I'm doubtful that this is a problem so serious that it would require a post-publication excision. Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:34, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

PS: Also (genuine question since I haven't been following this affair), you are implying that the mayor still wants the image removed from Wikipedia, in the present tense, and is upholding that request - are we positive that this is still the case, after all the (non-Signpost) media attention and pushback from non-Wikipedians? As you point out, she had changed her mind about this kind of matter before. Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:45, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@HaeB: (1) Your name is on the byline at the top of the page, so I associated you with its contents, but I now understand you worked on a different article. I thought it better to ping the people whose names were on the page and the image rather than risk it appearing I was going behind their backs. So, my request turns out not to have been aimed at you, and I am sorry if it upset you, but I appreciate your responding anyway. (2) I wasn't being "accusatory" toward anyone about anything; what I wrote was that including the signature can reasonably be interpreted by some others as potentially retaliatory, since it has no independent news significance. If I personally thought that there was an actual bad-faith, malicious, retaliatory motivation here, I would have donned my administrator hat and unilaterally deleted the signature as a BLP enforcement action, instead of making the gently worded request that I did. (3) I can't say for certain that the mayor hasn't changed her mind about this, but we have no evidence that she has, and we certainly aren't in a position to reach out and ask her. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:03, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

We can always ping @Kimlynn69, maybe she knows. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:19, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• Thank you for this eloquently written message. I included the image because I believe the file itself is contextually important in this story; it is not merely decorative. If the image itself were not a central part, I would agree with removal, but I think that including it is best for our readers to include this image, even if it is the signature of an elected official and public figure.
  WP:SLP, while not policy or guideline, provides five points of guidance for when to use signatures in articles. The points are as follows:
  1. Whether or not the subject has published their own signature;
  2. Whether or not secondary sources have reproduced the signature, with the subject's consent;
  3. Whether or not the image of the signature is from a reliable source
  4. Whether or not the signature is directly relevant to the article in which it is displayed; and
  5. Whether or not the use of the signature violates any relevant laws.

Evaluating this against each of those points seems to cut towards inclusion, rather than exclusion:

1. The subject regularly has published her own signature, including in press releases meant for public distribution. One such press release, was dated in June of this year and can be viewed in this news article online. That this has occurred is unsurprising, because she is the mayor of a large city, and mayors tend to sign lots of things.
2. Her signature has been reproduced in secondary sources (such as the news article above). Given that the signature was contained in a press release, this appears to indicate a willingness or desire to have the signature re-published in that context—even after requesting Wikipedia remove the signature.
3. The signature is from a letter that the mayor wrote in a playbill, and appears to be the same as the signature in the press release linked above. That this is indeed the mayor’s signature falls under WP:ABOUTSELF and the sources are reliable for it actually being the mayor’s signature.
4. The image of the signature, being one of the three requests by the city attorney, is clearly relevant to this piece, in which it is displayed.
5. As you correctly note, the signature was obtained legally and is displayed legally.

Overall, I see no need to remove the signature from here. Particularly in light of the mayor’s use of her signatures in her press releases that were made available on the internet and republished by news organization subsequent to the request to remove her signature from Wikipedia, I don’t see a particularly convincing reason to remove the contextually important image from this Signpost article. — Red-tailed sock _{(Red-tailed hawk's nest)} 17:28, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I think RTH and HaeB have provided lucid explanations for why it may be kept, and I don't have anything further to add. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:24, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

The mayor's office have provided an excellent reason to include the signature, by making it the subject of multiple news articles and thus of prose content in the article cited to reliable secondary sources. But we should make the decision dispassionately, rather than out of revenge. Rise above the mayor's office, whose level of conduct is to make entirely spurious and nonsensical threats to a talented young volunteer after their own contradiction of considering the signature classified and going to great lengths to publish it widely and publicly. — Bilorv (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

With respect to we should make the decision dispassionately, rather than out of revenge: I agree, and that's what's been done here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:33, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I support leaving it in the Signpost article. Therapyisgood (talk) 02:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Red-tailed sock's analysis of WP:SLP. This version of the mayor's signature has broad news coverage and therefore cannot be considered a breach of privacy or cause of identity theft. Now if she used a variant solely for personal documents - and THAT was published - then it would be a different argument. Babe Ruth signed tons of memorabilia items for the public with his professional name. But for legal documents he signed his legal name, George Herman Ruth. Geraldine Ferraro signed her congressional correspondance with her maiden name but used her name by marriage "Zaccaro" for personal legal documents. Blue Riband► 18:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• Support her signature becoming a Featured picture. Ha! Randy Kryn (talk) 12:49, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Remember the brouhaha over this image?

Of course we're keeping the signature image. The point of Wikipedia is the self-empowerment of over-educated under-employed dissenters who use free speech and privacy as a sort of lawfare against people with money and power. Wikipedia, as an institution, has traditionally stuck a thumb in the eye of decency when our mob of editors demanded it. Only a lawyer would attempt to make a farcical argument for the sake of propriety. It's as if you don't know who this community really is. Chris Troutman (talk) 02:44, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Mastodon server

As I said on wikimedia-l, I'm very excited that the WMF is now (finally) running its own Mastodon server. More details have since emerged about wikimedia.social, namely "staff from the Product & Technology department will maintain the instance". This reaffirms the stated goal that the instance will be used to "talk tech", which previously received some good criticism from Erik about being too narrow of a view.

Regarding The Foundation's own @wikimediafoundation account leads, with 14 posts, and has already gained over 5000 followers – undoubtedly helped by a Hacker News post that made it (near) the top of that site's front page.

Crediting it to Hacker News really misses the more obvious explanation: the post by @Wikipedia announcing the WMF account reached 900+ boosts, including one from Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko, who has some 330k+ followers. Surely people already on Mastodon are far more likely to become followers of new accounts versus people who read Hacker News :) Legoktm (talk) 08:09, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Obituary: Donald Cram, Peter McCawley, and Eagleash (484 bytes · 💬)

• Deepest condolences to their family and friends.--Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 11:02, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Opinion: Are global bans the last step? (2,184 bytes · 💬)

• You've been careful to not say that editors can make legal threats on-Wiki. But it bears repeating that WP:NLT prohibits making legal threats on-Wiki. But it does not, indeed cannot, prohibit calling the police when you've seen a crime or fear for your safety, or even just taking legal action.

As the policy states "That a legal dispute exists between users, whether as a result of incidents on Wikipedia or elsewhere, is not a valid reason to block, so long as no legal threats are made on Wikipedia. The only concern of this policy is the posting of legal threats on Wikipedia." So to put it as simply as possible: if you need to call the police or take legal action, you can (and even should in extreme situations), but just don't make a legal threat on-Wiki. Even simpler - don't talk about it, just do it when needed. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:08, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

To summarise it even further, this piece is a pointless exercise. Not only does it smack of stating the obvious, but what's the profit in speculating on the WMF's motives for doing anything; men have have gone mad attempting to unravel these secrets... SN54129 17:19, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Good days and thanks for your comment. Nope, I've never tried to speculate on the WMF's motives, and this is a little bit Misrepresentation. WMF have varieties of practices for banning him or her, these and those. In the piece I still respect what WMF has done and what they are going to do, but honestly, sometimes global bans, even enacted by WMF, are not really the last resort. Anyway, thanks for pointing out the piece is based on the obvious, will try to work on some complex points in further if possible. ---Lemonaka‎ 10:43, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Tips and tricks: Citation tools for dummies! (9,900 bytes · 💬)

• Thank you so much for including the caveats that script-generated citations must be reviewed and frequently cleaned up. It's an important step that often goes overlooked. The citation generation scripts are powerful tools that can save a lot of time – and the stable identifiers tend to work much more accurately than the URLs – but not verifying their output afterwards is like following a recipe you've never made and bringing it to service without tasting it. Folly Mox (talk) 06:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
• Another useful tool, for sorting out existing citations which have been created using Visual Editor, is User:Nardog/RefRenamer. It looks for the references with "names" such as ":0" and offers editable suggestions for human-friendly names for the refs. The guidance at Wikipedia:Citing sources#Repeated citations says "To help with page maintenance, it is recommended that the text of the name have a connection to the inline citation or footnote, for example "author year page", but VE ignores this guidance. This tool makes it easy to improve on VE's work. PamD 07:30, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  Now mentioned. With apologies to @Nardog: for the initial omission. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks @Headbomb: scope_creep^Talk 08:51, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
• Great article! However, I find that the OAbot Toolforge link always returns a 502 error on my device. Have anyone else had gotten it to work lately? Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:57, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Ca: Should be fixed now. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:02, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've noticed an increase in references with |author=August 2 and other clearly misplaced information due to these tools—or rather, due to incorrect usage of these excellent tools. No doubt the tools can get more sophisticated (e.g. never putting "[month] [number]" in an author parameter) but ultimately human oversight is always needed. — Bilorv (talk) 19:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  I've asked at Citoid talk for this extremely basic error checking, but the will doesn't seem to be there, possibly because, as I understand it, the WMF has a single contractor in charge of the codebase. The kind people who maintain reFill also don't have the time to implement it. The citation templates do populate a maintenance category for this genre of problem data, Category:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list‎ (55,966), which I've asked to be elevated to error status, but also to no action. Folly Mox (talk) 20:17, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• Regarding "... if you don't know that copy-pasting/closely paraphrasing things from sources is bad ...", I think a qualification is needed - when done for larger amounts of text. I believe that if the information from a single sentence in a source is being added to a Wikipedia article, not only is closely paraphrasing acceptable - it's really the only option. You can (and should) change a word or two, and/or rearrange a few words, focusing on what's factual within the sentence, since facts can't be copyrighted. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Ah, like "The leaves of the plant are short and spiky." Very limited ways to rephrase that and keep the sam meaning, moreso if the leaves are described with a technical term like "rugose". Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 19:22, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

"The plant has short, spiky leaves." It's exceedingly rare that I've written a sentence that exactly matches a source (I'm thinking of one case that was "[subject] attended [long university name]"). Anyway, maybe the point is that close paraphrasing and copyright violations are only properties of a whole text, not a property of a single clause or few words. — Bilorv (talk) 19:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Point, though think it's harder to invent these kind of things. But think the idea matters more than the example: there are some very basic phrasings that are likely to be maintained because that's just how you say that kind of fact. "He died in 1897 in London." or something like "He was born in 1850. His father was an electrician.". Simple declarative statements. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 07:41, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks Headbomb for the very useful compilation of citation tools. I was looking for good way of identify duplicate references. It looks like reFill could fill the bill. I will try it out. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 20:11, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

You can also run WP:AWB on an article, and it will combine duplicate references if other named references are used in an article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• BTW, for those who tried OABot and it was giving a 503 error, the issue is now solved. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've joined in very late, but still, thank you so much for the precious advice! I've already started using CiteHighlighter, but I think RefRenamer will definitely come in handy for me, too! @Headbomb and Novem Linguae: If you don't mind, I've got just one more question about the former plug-in: how can I contribute to the expansion of the pools of sources recognized by the script, and especially the one provided by WP:NPPSG? As a non-native English speaker, I'd like to help rate more international sources, focusing on Italian and European media. I'm also very interested in adding entries by topics such as pop culture, sports (mostly association football), religion and science! Oltrepier (talk) 14:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

  Hey @Oltrepier. Thanks for the ping. CiteHighlighter gets its sources from pages such as RSP, NPPSG, and WikiProject reliable sources lists. And NPPSG itself is a summary of RSN discussions. I'd prefer to keep the sources for CiteHighlighter some kind of consensus process that has at least 2 people involved, rather than 1 person. Hope that makes sense. Oh and I sync CiteHighlighter to NPPSG randomly every couple months, so if new stuff gets added there (following the RSN with at least 2 participants criteria mentioned above), it'll eventually make its way into CiteHighlighter. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:18, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae: Yes, it definitely does! I know how crucial it is to build consensus around the reliability (or unreliability) of a source, so I'll definitely respect that process whenever I'll propose or ask for advice on certain newspapers/magazines. Thank you for reaching out, by the way! Oltrepier (talk) 10:22, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

• Can any of these tools also automatically include the archived version of the source URL into the formatted reference? rootsmusic (talk) 04:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  You may be interested in WP:IABOT, which is a website you visit, feed it the article you want it to add archive links to, then that triggers a bot to go add archive links for you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:07, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

• @Headbomb: Please add WP:ProveIt. rootsmusic (talk) 17:17, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  Signpost articles do not usually undergo major additions after publication. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:18, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Traffic report: Come on Oppie, let's go party (448 bytes · 💬)

Likey the addition of a "most edited articles" chart. A nice new dimension to the Traffic Report, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:04, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• Agreed! —Ganesha811 (talk) 21:34, 5 August 2023 (UTC)