This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current main page.

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Archive 36

What about an entire issue devoted to the Wikipedia (all languages) coverage of the Fall of Afghanistan - 2021 Taliban offensive? — Maile (talk) 22:26, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

@Maile66: Almost certainly too late now, but feel free to get something in by tomorrow! On the odd chance I could do it - what should I look for? 1.8 million page views, 339 editors (some concentration in the top few) 1,562 edits, nobody banned yet that I could see, no news coverage of our news coverage yet. So what makes the story? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:16, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Smallbones: A humanitarian crisis in the woks. Well ... going by page views, Wikipedia readers don't seem to deal with this with the same obsession as the nightly news. 2021 Taliban offensive and Withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan (2020–2021) are surprisingly low in views. Turn on the news in the US, and you'd think nothing else was happening in the world. That, and the latest sex or murder scandals. On a historical perspective, it's similar to the Fall of Saigon. But ... maybe not. — Maile (talk) 11:27, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Maile66: it's not that the overall story is unimportant. It's mostly about time pressure - we need to have a deadline to coordinate everything here. It's also about why our article is important beyond the general situaton - something like the hook on a DYK. Perhaps the difference in international coverage might be the hook? But if you want to write the story, you might discover the thrill of writing on a deadline! Maybe for a future article you might look at what were the big international stories in the press/TV over the last few years (how to measure this?) and compare it to Wiki pageviews. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:12, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

I know this may some digging, but I found it interesting how editors changed the flag of Afghanistan from the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Taliban Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on some other language Wikipedias, for example the Arab Wikipedia equivalent of Template:Diplomatic missions of Afghanistan along with its associated pages show the Taliban flag ar:قالب:سفارات أفغانستان. I will see if I can find some discussions anywhere. ~ Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:58, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I have a rough write-up of an article for the "Humour" section. It is around 250 words just now. It is related to current events in a particular country from which a superpower and allies have just pulled out, and it combines this event with a fictional Wikipedia world that has been affected by all this. I would request someone from the editorial team to read it once before I place it as an submission. Who could I email it to? DTM (talk) 14:40, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Hi DTM!

Please email it to me. I'd like it a bit longer, say 500 words minimum. It is a tough subject - a lot of people won't see anything humorous about Afganistan right now. But if you can make it work, it will likely be great! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:01, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Mailed. DTM (talk) 10:08, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Annual Russian Wiki Conference 2021 (15th) is about to begin on Saturday. There are English language materials (by link) and some worldwide guests (remotely). Worth at least mentioning in News or some summary (ends on Sunday). --ssr (talk) 15:11, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Good to see you back. It looks like the conference will be over before we publish. Perhaps the links to the videos might help - but only to a few people if they are all in Russian. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

I think I can try to gather all the information that may be useful in English for a brief summary in English so there is a little piece for reading in News to be published on 26th. A brief overall explanation based on conference program. Is it OK if I edit directly News and notes? --ssr (talk) 07:16, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

In the meantime one of the Conference participants and the founder of usergroup m:NWR-Hist Niko Bulykin is making another attempt to receive a grant from WMF while WMF is keeping (for unclear reasons) to withhold grants from Russian users while both people at WMF (by their numerous words) and Russians keep being agreed that Russian wikipedians deserve money from WMF. In the past WMF was gladly giving grants to Russians but at some time stopped. More at m:Grants:Project/Rapid/UG NWR-Hist/Aerial photography equipment. --ssr (talk) 16:30, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Is it legal for a Russian to receive money from a foreign non-profit? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:52, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Is the WMF registered as a foreign agent? Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 01:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Is legal. Discussed many times, in Russian language at Facebook most recently here with newly-elected Board member Vicki Doronina aka @Victoria:. There is also a brief explanation of this at the top of grant request. I am not directly involved, let's ask directly @Drbug:, WMRU director, @Ctac:, WMRU deputy director, @Красный:, the grant requester. They have ultimate knowledge. --ssr (talk) 05:57, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

It's most likely legal, except for a persons or legal entities involved into internal Russia's political activity. According to a Russian Federal Law № 272-ФЗ статья 2.1 часть 1 "Political activity does not include activities in the field of science, culture, art, health care, prevention and protection of citizens' health, social services, social support and protection of citizens, protection of motherhood and childhood, social support for disabled people, promotion of a healthy lifestyle, physical culture and sports, protection of flora and fauna, charitable activities". Red ^{wanna talk?} 07:19, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

The drone grant was approved, for the fist time in many years in Russia. --ssr (talk) 11:21, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

1st day of Wiki Conference over, Youtube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9NnGIXlvnI mostly in Russian but French and English speakers were present (e. g. User:Denny and w:fr:Utilisateur:Poslovitch). --ssr (talk) 05:22, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

• 2nd day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAhid1f-auE (feat. Dārija language speaker User:Csisc and English speaker User:Bukky658 from Nigeria) --ssr (talk) 11:53, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
  • And right now User:Pigsonthewing joins us from England! He speaks English. You can understand what he says and watch right now (or the record later). --ssr (talk) 13:05, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
    • Andy Mabbet's presentation @Pigsonthewing: presentation IN ENGLISH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAhid1f-auE?t=17396 --ssr (talk) 00:50, 27 September 2021 (UTC)

If there's a section for ongoing collaborations, a passing mention of Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Backlog elimination drive: Album covers would be appreciated. This is an ongoing effort to reduce a specific backlog (infoboxes lacking album covers), which runs through the end of October. No worries if this does not qualify for mention. Either way, thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:54, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

No time or writers for it this month. I do have an idea for a post-backlog drive article next month. Please remind me in about 2 weeks. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:33, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

The Dark Arts by Wiki Creators LLC could be worth an in-the-media (sort of) mention. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:26, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Wiki_Creators_LLC. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:59, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

A step-by-step guide for using Wikipedia for research communication was an interesting read. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:53, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... Krassotkin global ban by T&S of WMF. Absurd decision portraying WMF as a totalitary structure contradicting their own goals. Very obscure story that has big resonance. I hope Signpost crew are able to locate suitable locations to explore—there are many of these sparkled in several places. I can randomly point to: w:ru:Участник:Kaganer/Переписка с Trust & Safety (in English). Campaigns are underway. --ssr (talk) 08:36, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Echoes of WP:FRAMBAN? T&S bypassing (undermining) the local Arbcom rather than working with them? Cabayi (talk) 12:21, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

More complicated. Many technical issues are involved: Krassotkin is operator of crucial bots and caused WMF servers to crash 2 times (but no API was violated, it's a server-side trouble). But yes, definitely, "Framgate" has many of the resemblance. --ssr (talk) 12:36, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

The only Krassotkin's fault was the uploading of articles into the Russian Wikinews that overloaded the servers of the Wikipedia and of the other Wikimedia's projects. Instead of solving the technical problem, which has been known since 2012, the council of Wikipedia's sages decided to ban Krasotkin just because it is cheaper than solving the technical problem. This fact shows that the WMFOffice is not interested in the improvement and development of the Wikimedia's technical part, and this is very bad and sad. They prefer to spend money on themselves, rather than on improving the Wikimedia's software. Andrey177 (talk) 20:23, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Ppl who don’t listen and instead make personal attacks towards developers (volunteers or employees) have no place on these projects in my opinion. I wouldn’t accept those ppl at my workplace, I don’t see why anyone here or at WMF should. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:57, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

And if ppl want radical software changes, they can fork, start their own website and run their own servers and get intimidated by their own users if they like that so much. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:07, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

If there were no technical problems, then there would have been no personal attacks. WMFoffice have banned Krassotkin, but did not solve the technical problem. I do not care about Krassotkin, but I care about unresolved technical problems. Andrey177 (talk) 14:27, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Uploading articles was not Krassotkin's fault because he always obeyed all technical demands and did everything according to APIs and licences. He was also OTRS agent who did much of the very important OTRS work (WMF also harmed OTRS in this way). The main cause of main trouble was anonymous "test" edit in a very large meta-category that caused server-side calculations of many thousands of items included in the category. ANONYMOUS EDIT crashed the servers, NOT Krassotkin. WP:PERFORMANCE says a Wikipedia user should not ever care about servers. WMF banned a person for a fault of another unrelated anonymous person (among other troubled actions). That's why I called WMF "a totalitary structure contradicting their own goals". --ssr (talk) 06:23, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Most of this argument has been rebutted already, see T287362#7241776, T287362#7242156. That said, I do think this merits a mention/short blurb in The Signpost. Legoktm (talk) 22:44, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

There are a series of Phabricator threads, such as phab:T287380. Regardless of what was rebutted, Krassotkin never violated any API or license, he was always acting according to consensus. Outer complaints to T&S made WMF ban him, not actual server events. If a couple of people wouldn't file complaints to T&S, pure server events would not lead him/WMF to ban. Main trouble is in server's DPL, not Krassotkin who never violated API. After server crash, DPL was finally disabled. That was enough to solve server troubles. No need to ban. --ssr (talk) 04:25, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Then what could be the source of the complaints about "intimidation, harassment"? -Indy beetle (talk) 21:19, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

• It was his mistake that he corrected briefly and apologized. Not technically related to general issues with servers. Lasted for short time, was deleted soon. But as result of ban of his bots, Russian Wikinews lost main functions and is very hard to handle now. --ssr (talk) 11:13, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

New podcast interviewing Wikipedians - https://podcasts.apple.com/th/podcast/dot-com-the-wikipedia-story/id1589936008 https://play.acast.com/s/dot-com/wikipedia-ep1-dontbitethenewbies - Cabayi (talk) 15:21, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

The usernames I caught in listening to it were Ser Amantio di Nicolao, Rosiestep, Giraffedata & his brother, "Louder" (?), Another Believer, Sandiooses, & Laurie Bird Macdevitt (?) + husband - Cabayi (talk) 17:57, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Adding LoriLee and Dominic. GorillaWarfare, Larry Sanger, and I were mentioned but didn't appear in this episode. --Rosiestep (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Giraffedata's brother is laodah. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:54, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks all - I've already got something barely started at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media, getting all the usernames straight was a problem, but it looks like I've got them now. What strikes me most is that this is a 6 part series (#1 is 47 minutes). Rosiestep I thought I briefly heard your voice in the intro, will you be in a future segment? Anybody who's been mentioned want to comment on the show, what's it like to be interviewed for a podcast, etc. Just leave a 1-2 sentence comment here or send it to me via email. @LoriLee and Dominic: we've done a wedding announcement before on The Signpost, but it seems a bit late now - can we say something about the kid being a "Wikipedia baby"? Smallbones_(smalltalk)

Good catch, Smallbones. Yes, there's a tiny clip of my voice in Episode 1, but I'll be part of a future episode (don't know which one). --Rosiestep (talk) 18:46, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Just FYI, a second episode is now available as well. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:26, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

Episode 4 ("Hoax") became available on November 9:

• https://play.acast.com/s/dot-com/wikipedia-ep4-hoax
• https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/wikipedia-ep-4-hoax/id1589936008?i=1000541185263

---Another Believer _(Talk) 14:39, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about IP ban experiment on fawiki for a 6-month period started from today: phab:T291018 and phab:T292781 4nn1l2 (talk) 05:08, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

@4nn1l2: Thanks. May I ask for the cause of the change? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:27, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

@Smallbones: Obviously the community thought that the cost of letting IPs edit is significantly greater than its benefit. Here is a link to the original proposal: fa:ویکی‌پدیا:نظرخواهی/تغییر روش ویرایش کاربران گمنام#پیشنهاد چهارم: ممنوعیت موقت ویرایش کاربران گمنام. Some users made some statistical review according to which 1/3 of all IP edits get reverted and about 78% of IP edits are construed as nonconstructive: fa:ویکی‌پدیا:نظرخواهی/تغییر روش ویرایش کاربران گمنام#بررسی آماری I can't comment on the validity of these statistics. I myself am suspicious.

While I originally opposed stricter proposals to completely ban IP edits, I finally supported a temporary experiment after I heard about the WMF report on the Portuguese Wikipedia: m:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Impact report for Login Required Experiment on Portuguese Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation wanted to investigate more and fawiki seized the opportunity: m:Talk:IP Editing: Privacy Enhancement and Abuse Mitigation/Login Required Experiment#Farsi Wikipedia. 4nn1l2 (talk) 11:20, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:12, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

More coverage of Wikipedia's China problems on the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59081611 - Cabayi (talk) 10:47, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

CNN did an interesting article on the public domain and copyright here. -Indy beetle (talk) 15:09, 7 November 2021 (UTC)

• Also, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Philip Cross and his topic ban. Apparently some staff from The Grayzone are attempting to canvas people on Twitter to influence an ANI discussion. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:32, 10 November 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about "The Denial Files" https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct2yqn - I think this will be the episode covering Wikipedia Chidgk1 (talk) 06:27, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Due out Saturday, Nov. 20. Will probably be in "In the media". Ping me if I forget! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:42, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

They've expanded it into an article too - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59325128 - ping Smallbones. Cabayi (talk) 18:37, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I am a member of the WP:DISCORD, and we have a neat project called WP:TEAMB. It's where we get vital articles that are assessed as stub or start up to a B-class! Every week we vote on a new article, and get the rest of the week to finish it up before voting again. ferret, discord server operator, runs the project, but the members are the ones who edit and improve the articles. --JackFromWisconsin (talk | contribs) 15:00, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

@JackFromWisconsin: Would you like to write it for next month? A couple sidelights

• I love the ORES scores - this might be a place to see how the ORES scores changed over time
• I tried participating in Vital articles years ago and it was a useful exercise for a while. But ultimately it seems like the most commonly used inclusion criteria come down to "I really like this topic!"
• I'm always a bit skeptical about projects to help run Wikipedia that depend on off-Wiki technology and communication as does Discord (don't worry, I'm skeptical about everything) Maybe you or @Nosebagbear: might address this issue in the vital article's context. Thanks. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:34, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
  • While I'm happy to talk generally about the use of Discord and Wikipedia's interlink, I'm not involved in TeamB - though I do pay attention to its successes and topic choices. @Ferret:, if he has a little spare time, would be better qualified than I Nosebagbear (talk) 14:44, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
    • Very roughly, it's not so much that it relies on off-wiki techn/communication, as it is that editors who happened to be using Discord wanted a semi-organized "work together" structure. During an article's run, there is of course chatter about the topic in the server, usually of the nature of "is this source good?", "should we switch out the photo?" and so forth. @Sdkb: might also want to comment on this topic, and the general idea behind WP:AFI as well. Perhaps a combined topic around efforts to improve individual articles as a community event/drive? As far as Team-B-Vital, a quick note that it is less about Vital articles (in the sense of picking and curating them) as it is we chose Vital as a way to scope the effort and limit the pool of articles to choose from. Though there is of course value in ensuring Vital articles are high quality. -- ferret (talk) 15:09, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
      • Comment: Of the people I know "in real life," they also express great enthusiasm with Discord because it's an effective and immediate way to communicate with others. Maybe it merits a separate article. - kosboot (talk) 15:41, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
        • It sounds like there are two articles in here waiting to be written 1) about the Discord Wikipedia Channel (say in Community view) and 2) about the Discord-vital project. I'll suggest that all the Discorders get together and decide what should be in each one and who will write them, probably 2 different authors. Aim for one in December and one in January. If you wait for me to find a neutral writer - the chances are about 50-50 that there will be one article in the next 6 months. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:45, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
          • I'm a very active member of the Discord server, and an occasional Team B Vital participant. I'd be willing to write an article on either one (with a bit of help from others, of course), or help out if someone else wants to be the main writer. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 18:53, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

      I appreciate the ping, Ferret! I'm mostly involved with AFI nominations, where we have to filter out articles with genuine need from those just being nominated because they're of interest to the nominator. I think projects like AFI and Team-B-Vital are important, since even though Wikipedia is a volunteer project, the impact for readers of working on a vital article can be hundreds or thousands of times as significant as working on a basically unread one. We have editors willing to voluntarily focus on the most important articles and pursue million awards, and I think it's important we facilitate and encourage that. I'd be happy to say more if the Signpost writes about this. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:58, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about...the backlog at Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers (and Wikipedia:Proposed article splits), previous attempts at reform, and where we can go from here. From the former's talk:

A discussion at the village pump in 2013 overwhelmingly concluded the current proposed mergers system (the process & templates) to be inadequate. A consequent discussion on implementation of an automated system similar to requested moves was archived after 2 months of inactivity. The latter discussion had 6 participants; no conclusion was reached.

Wikipedia:WikiProject Merge may also be useful. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 17:26, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about the progress that editors made in reducing the Fix Wikilinks list of the Community Portal. A couple of years ago there were 20,000 articles with insufficient Wikilinks on this list, some dating back to 2013. Today there are only nine articles left. Rogermx (talk) 02:45, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

@Rogermx: I might write about this as an interview. Do you have any suggestions for editors to talk to first? Thank you! Ganesha811 (talk) 21:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Suggested editorial for February of 2022

The signpost editors should feel free to make any edits they choose to the following.

In the unlikely event that I can't live with the edits I will ask that my name be removed.

As with everything I write, this is released under CC0 and I do not require attribution.

---

Suggested Title:

16 years of discriminating against the disabled

Suggested text:

On February 3 2006, it was reported to the Wikimedia Foundation that our CAPTCHA system discriminates against blind people. See [ https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T6845 ]

The issue has remained unfixed for sixteen years.

This appears to be a direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and leaves Wikipedia open to discrimination lawsuits.

National Federation of the Blind v. Target Corp. was a case where a major retailer, Target Corp., was sued because their web designers failed to design its website to enable persons with low or no vision to use it. This resulted in Target paying out roughly ten million dollars.

In Robles v. Domino's Pizza, LLC the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (which has jurisdiction over the WMF) ruled that the ADA applies to websites and that all websites are required by federal law to be equally accessible for people who use assistive technology.

I have been repeatedly told that the proper way to request that Wikipedia stop discriminating against the visually impaired is through phabricator, but clearly this has not been effective.

I do not consider sixteen years years of refusing to even discuss fixing this to be reasonable behavior on the part of WMF management.

I personally have been asking the WMF for a response in multiple places (basically following every "you didn't ask in the right place" suggestion) since 3 August 2017. Many other editors have made the same request.

What I expect from the WMF

I expect a yes or no answer. Either the WMF makes an official statement saying "No, we have decided to not fix this" or an official statement saying "Yes, we have decided to fix this."

If the answer is "Yes", I expect a page to be created (preferably on the English Wikipedia, but I will accept a page on Meta) that gives us the requirements (a testable definition of "done"), a schedule with milestones and updates, and budget and staffing information.

The WMF has made multiple statements saying that they intend to be more open about these sort of thing, and this is an excellent place to show that the commitment to openness is more than just talk.

• Previously discussed at [1]
• Previously discussed at [2]
• ...and about a hundred other places in threads started by dozens of editors.

Related:

• Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2016 July 20#I am visually impaired and can't edit articles without being asked to fill in the capcha
• https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2013-January/065820.html
• https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2008-April/037309.html
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• Web accessibility#United States
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility

Again, if nobody is assigned the job of fixing this, it won't get fixed. If fixing this isn't in the budget, it won't get fixed. If there is no deadline assigned, it won't get fixed.

---

--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 20:19, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The article regarding Trump Derangement Syndrome should be edited to reflect the viewpoint that it is Donald Trump and his voters that are deranged and attempted treason.

• WP:WRONGVENUE. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:12, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... Silva, Marco (24 December 2021). "Climate change: Small army of volunteers keeping deniers off Wikipedia". BBC News. Retrieved 24 December 2021. - featuring Wikipedia:WikiProject Climate change/Participants Dtetta, Femkemilene, Sadads... Cabayi (talk) 12:07, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I was thinking about pitching a story to Signpost about our efforts on meta to support non-English Wikipedias to remove climate denial. Maybe just an overview, or maybe more of an opinion piece on how to avoid having that much misinformation in the future. Not sure how/what would be more interesting. Femke (talk) 13:19, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

@Femkemilene and Bri: - with the holidays and a deadline of the 27th, it is likely impossible for this next issue (Bri can let you know if I'm wrong). For the late January issue, we'd love to see a draft or a detailed proposal. I'll send details after the 1st. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:41, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

For now, I think we have time for a short item at News and notes. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:27, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

I've written a draft here: User:Femkemilene/Signpost. Let me know what you think. Femke (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about WP:URFA/2020. The initiative reviews FAs promoted before 2016 to ensure they still meet the FA criteria. We produced a year-end report highlighting the work that has been completed and posted here. We would be happy to create an article for the Signpost, have a Signpost editor interview key members, or contribute to an article written by a Signpost writer. Please let me know if you are interested and which option is preferred. Z1720 (talk) 20:35, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I second this. Courtesy pinging @EpicPupper, who recently asked about possible topics for a Signpost WikiProject feature. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:25, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Sdkb for the ping! @Z1720, a story for the WikiProject sounds great! In particular, for WikiProject reports, the Signpost usually interviews key members. I've started a draft page at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report, and I'll get around to adding questions in the next couple of days. In the meantime, please do share the page with interested editors! 3-4 interviewees would be great. I'll admit that I am completely new to this, so please bear with me :) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:35, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Z1720 sorry for the double ping How is the project organized? Should I refer to it as a WikiProject, or something else? 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:40, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I've added a draft of questions to the page Please let me know if you think anything should be changed! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 04:09, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@EpicPupper: URFA/2020 is not a Wikiproject; I've always called it a working group, though @SandyGeorgia: might have a better title. In the link to questions, I think a question from the last Wikiproject report was copied over (a question about open proxies?) so that might be deleted. In the interest of journalistic integrity, I won't suggest any questions, though background information on our initiative can be found at WP:URFA/2020 and our latest report is here. Our first anniversary was November 2021. Z1720 (talk) 14:42, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@EpicPupper I can contribute to the history bits, but some re-working of the setup may be ino order because … no, WP:URFA/2020 is not a WikiProject. It’s a group of editors who had worked together at FAR and FAC who got organized to be more methodical about processing old FAs, based on the decades-old WP:URFA model, because there were so many older unreviewed FAs that a methodical approach was needed. I asked for a tech person to set up list, and away we went. Z1720 and Hog Farm have been informal leaders, along with my (more sporadic) input. (there, that’s my interview response :). It would be helpful to have a See also at the bottom that links to Z1720’s year-end report (but I can use the talk page there for such suggestions, I hope?). I strongly suggest that Jimfbleak be the fourth interviewee because they have interacted with the list towards all of our goals: as a TFA Coord, as an FA writer, and as a reviewer of other FA writers’ articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:58, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to @EpicPupper: for getting this started at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report. The only problem I see is that this interview needs several respondents and there's really only 9 days before deadline. Perhaps it's already been done, but I'll ping everybody involved above @SandyGeorgia, Z1720, and Sdkb:. Anybody else who is involved should consider this an open invitation.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Hog Farm (talk · contribs) has also shown interest. Once the questions are finalised I will start typing in some answers. Please ping when you are ready for me to answer some questions. Z1720 (talk) 18:19, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jimfbleak: SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I can type my stuff in with very little time, once it's ready to go (meaning, any framework changes needed to reflect that it's not a WikiProject, and please add to the annual report to a See also somewhere, so it can be referred to ... I have watchlisted, and will plop my stuff in as soon as I get a break. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia, Z1720, Hog Farm, Jimfbleak: I've finalized the questions and conclusion. It would be appreciated if you could draft some answers at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/WikiProject report in the next 1-2 days! Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 22:39, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January 2022, a new task force Wikipedia:Nazi affiliation Task Force was launched. The task force's initiator User:Shushugah was directly inspired by the op-ed "World War II Myth-making and Wikipedia" published by User:K.e.coffman on Wikipedia Signpost in a 2018.

I think we can probably include this in News and notes. @Shushugah:. Can you give me one or two sentences that I can quote and/or cut down to a very short quote? e.g "What's it about? Why is it needed?" Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@Smallbones sure thing! See the following: The WP:Nazi affiliation task force was recently created to tackle the problem of both white washing and WP:UNDUE mentions of notable companies and individuals' affiliation or collaboration with Nazism. Unfortunately Wikipedia is not immune to such issues, but together we can address this! ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 18:35, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Louis Rwagasore just became the first-ever Burundi-related Featured Article on English Wikipedia. One of my own, so editor's discretion on whether it's worth a mention. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:51, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Conflict of interest note: I work for or provide services to the Wikimedia Foundation, and this is the account I use for edits or statements I make in that role. However, the Foundation does not vet all my activity, so edits, statements, or other contributions made by this account may not reflect the views of the Foundation.

The Signpost should write about the ongoing call for feedback for the upcoming Board of Trustees election. It opened 10 January and runs until 16 February. The Board is asking the community for input on three key questions. Participants are asked to discuss in any language and submit proposals. The call for feedback is supported by the Movement Strategy and Governance team and volunteer translators. Material is available in more than 25 languages. At time of writing, approximately 15 participants have advanced 8 proposals.

• Local announcement (permanent link)
• Call for Feedback main page (pageviews)
• Community proposals page (pageviews)
• Multilingual discussions about key questions and proposals (stats: revision history / pageviews)

Please feel free to ping if further information is needed or would be useful. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:48, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Xeno (WMF)! I've started a draft at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/News and notes. Please feel free to suggest edits. Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:38, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Several users in mainland China were desysopped and/or globally banned by WMF: m:Office actions/September 2021 statement Rschen7754 18:22, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2021-07-25/Special report for a prior report.--GZWDer (talk) 16:18, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Yes, we will cover this in as much detail as possible, though I still only know of 2 of the banned. I'd really like to hear from Chinese editors on both sides. If anybody has anything confidential to include on this story that I can otherwise verify please email me directly. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:18, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

See zh:维基百科:互助客栈/其他#WG在qq群威胁其他wiki编辑诉诸法律案 : 8 people globally banned, 12 desysopped. SYSS Mouse (talk) 17:50, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Also [3]. --Rschen7754 18:11, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

As per this post, the 8 globally locked accounts are: 城市酸儒文人挖坑, 蟲蟲飛, 玄客, Walter Grassroot, ArthurLau1997, 尤里的1994, 遊魂 and Techyan. These 12 accounts have their admin/bureaucrat rights from all WMF wikis (not just zh.wp) stripped: Alexander Misel (former CheckUser), Stang, Nbfreeh, Manchiu, 瑞麗江的河水, Hamish, DreamLiner, Lanwi1 (former CheckUser), 霧島聖, Outlookxp, 夢蝶葬花 (also losing zh Wikivoyage and zh Wikiversity admin rights) and WAN233 (also losing classical Chinese wiki admin rights). As early as March 2018, WMF revoked all zh.wp local CheckUser rights due to security concerns,[4] which was why Alexander Misel and Lanwi1 (plus others) lost their CU rights en-masse. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 22:19, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Striking off 玄客 since it was a mis-identification by the WMF office. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 21:34, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Current at zh wikipedia: that a proposal to derecognize WMC and to remove all links to WMC from the wiki is in process. And all RfA in zh wiki is suspended for 3 weeks from the bureaucrats. SYSS Mouse (talk) 13:48, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, readers, for bringing this up. There is a placeholder item at the News and notes feature for the next issue. If you would like to contribute, please contact us at the WP:Newsroom or as he said, contact the Editor in Chief privately. ☆ Bri (talk) 13:55, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks to all. I'm almost sure this will be in Special report (though thr Maryana Iskander story might possibly end up there. There is an open letter to read at [qiuwen.wmcug.org.cn/archives/403/on-wmf-office-action-en-1/]. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:18, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

all, it seems that this global ban is also related to an incident in 2017. SYSS Mouse (talk) 14:43, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

For the 2017 incident, see m:Requests_for_comment/Ongoing_issues_at_Chinese_Wikipedia/Previous_discussion.--GZWDer (talk) 16:40, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

There's a duplicate thread about this at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom#WMF bans and desysops around "infiltration concerns" with Wikimedians of Mainland China.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:53, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, the stuff is currently being worked on in Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/News_and_notes and Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Next_issue/In_the_media. --Artoria2e5 🌉 12:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Let's just use this page to link to sources:

• external
  • BBC's 1st story
  • BBC's Tech Tent podcast 1:23=9:30, 3 parts, general description, Maryana Iskander appointment with her comments on China, BBC commentary Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:59, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
  • Global Times (CCP)
  • Boxun, surprisingly good —A2
• Internal
  • zh:维基百科:互助客栈/其他#WG在qq群威胁其他wiki编辑诉诸法律案
  • Links at top of m:Talk:Office_actions/September_2021_statement: the zhwp list of users is definitely useful, as is PhiLiP's (allegedly biased :Q) stuff. There's a bit of contention about 蟲蟲飛 (CCF) being in the globally-locked 7, who is not mainland Chinese (nor WMC) but has gotten into socking allegations before.
  • And of course, earlier Signpost reports. We have Techyan's apologia (and the linked HK interview & BBC report) and the more recent special report. --Artoria2e5 🌉 12:23, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
• We can use the Newsroom talkpage for questions like "Who can help write this up?"
• Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:57, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Nature has an article about OpenAlex, a new open database of scholarly papers that are not behind paywalls -- "Massive open index of scholarly papers launches", article dated 24 January 2022. (Although I suspect this article is behind a paywall, darn it.) This is only the most recent article I've seen from Nature on free information. Any idea if the Foundation is involved in this? -- llywrch (talk) 23:34, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... Either a major milestone or just a fun bit of collective editcountitis (editcountcountitis?): within the next day or two there will be 10,000 editors who have made at least 10,000 edits to English Wikipedia (there are currently 9,999 editors who have made at least 9,999 edits)! Tdslk (talk) 05:43, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

The Independent is today (3 Feb) reporting that the UK Government's Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities's recently issued white paper contains wholesale copying from Wikipedia articles (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/levelling-up-plan-copied-wikipedia-michael-gove-b2006757.html). Articles copied from include Constantinople and List of largest cities throughout history. And to compound the issue, it looks like the sources aren't attributed. Nthep (talk) 20:27, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Added as a brief in In the Media, thanks. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 04:32, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... "How Wiktionary is Different from Wikipedia and Why It Works Anyway". I've been struggling for years to understand how Wiktionary can work if it doesn't require contributions to be verifiable. Others probably would be interested too, and even if you don't think that's the key issue this would be a chance to shine a light on Wiktionary. Dan Bloch (talk) 17:57, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@Danbloch: Relevant link: wikt:Wiktionary:Wiktionary for Wikipedians. --Yair rand (talk) 06:34, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... (or could somebody please point me to an article about...)

Interactions between Wikipedia/Wikimedia & pending legislation, both national & international

I'm a UK resident who has just discovered Signpost & my instant thought was to read an article on this topic since the Government here is proposing a huge raft of new laws, most from Home Secretary Priti Patel, banning all sorts of things including protests & nomadic lifestyles and adding restrictions to querying Government policy, including through the Courts. It all looks horrendous &, in my opinion, is likely to lead to censorship of Wikipedia so I feel that Wikipedia/Wikimedia should be broadcasting this around the world as well as doing something more direct & I would very much like to read about it & re-broadcast it on my social media page.

Obviously, what is happening in one country is likely to be happening/have happened in other countries with potential follow-through internationally in places like the United Nations Alanthehat (talk) 06:25, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

It looks like The Signpost hasn't had any coverage yet of New Vector skin aka improved reading experience. Am I just missing it? Seems like an important potential future topic. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:12, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

if it's short - maybe something short in News & notes this month. If it's long maybe write it up next month? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:30, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Courtesy link that works: mw:Reading/Web/Desktop Improvements. If nobody wants to take this on, I'd be happy to write up either a News and Notes item or something for the technology report. Thoughts? 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 00:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Decided against doing this for the Feb issue because it's quite old news by now. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} in the March issue. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:46, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Maybe there can be a gallery piece for movies that are in the public domain that may be Featured Pictures or are at least of high quality. Just thinking there could be more love for movies on Wikipedia. Especially important films like Night of the Living Dead. Or maybe a piece about movies published on Wikipedia in general. GamerPro64 06:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps in Featured Content, or Gallery? Featured Content might be good because it's usually where we put things like this, but that's usually for recently featured stuff, so that might not be favorable because of that. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 00:44, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Done as gallery for this month @GamerPro64! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:40, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... Does your birthplace affect your probability to have your Wikipedia biography ? some evidence from people born in France. a notebook computing the probability of having a biographical article on fr.wikipedia.org for people born in France. It shows huge differences between French departments. PAC2 (talk) 18:39, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

• @PAC2: Very, very nice - with one trivial detail that *must* be corrected! We could publish this - almost as is - in the next issue (Feb 26th copy deadline - a day or 2 earlier is better), or if you want to add more detail on the importance of your findings, or on your motivation, reasons for your interest in Wikidata, etc., so much the better. But the trivial can be super important! 1,340/505,578 = 0.27% (for Paris) not 2.7% (at least in American English - maybe it's something with the commas (,)?). The same mistake (just one decimal) goes throughout your calculations. Please let me know. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:36, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Quick questions (license and copyright?), (where are Lyon and Marseille.in your data)? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:52, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

* 1,340/505,578 = 0.27%. That's it. I use ‰ (per mille), not % (percent). Maybe I should explicit it.

* Paris is a city and a department. Marseille is in the department "Bouches-du-Rhône" (number 13) and Lyon in the department Rhône (69).

* I'll add a license and add more details about my motivation. PAC2 (talk) 19:51, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

I've updated the notebook with more context and more interpretation : https://observablehq.com/@pac02/births-department-wikipedia. Do you want me to write a paragraph in the wiki? PAC2 (talk) 06:26, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} was published as "by the numbers" in a past issue. Marking for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:59, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about...

Well, this is just a suggestion, and I don't know where you'd fit it. A couple of months ago, I did an interview with a group of academics (the Human Energy group) who are researching the noosphere, to discuss how Wikipedia fits into this theory. They have now published the interview. This was a long interview, three videos of about 30 minutes each (with accompanying transcript), and I leave it to your editorial decision on whether or not this is interesting enough to include in one of the routine reports. Risker (talk) 04:39, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Risker, added as a brief item here. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:39, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about the unfortunate timing of the banner of Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month across all projects and accusation of NPOV pushing from Ukrainian Institute and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (see talk page) when Russian troops are at the border, ready to invade going to march towards Kiev and we don't know if there will still be a Ukraine for the next Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month) SYSS Mouse (talk) 02:20, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

I originally wrote a section about this in News and notes, but removed it. See discussion here. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:33, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot (although this should be  Not done) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:59, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about...

The last Signpost wrote about Wiki unseen. If you want to do a follow-up, their images has had some en-WP reactions, and I see the images are also used on other WP:s (possibly because wikidata in some cases?).

• Talk:Asquith Xavier
• Wikipedia:Files_for_discussion/2022_March_8#File:Marian_Ewurama_Addy.jpg
• Talk:Communications/Wiki Unseen

Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:23, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Adding to NAN. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 07:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about...

Not sure if this is newsworthy, but I recently released a Wikimedia Commons upload tool for macOS: c:Commons:Sunflower. Thanks for your consideration. -FASTILY 07:59, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Cool, can add it to the technology report. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 16:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... TimTempleton ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:20, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia downloading in Russia [[5]]

Added to ITM. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 07:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:47, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... a Meta Platforms researcher using AI to address Wikipedia's gender gap.

• https://www.axios.com/meta-researcher-ai-wikipedia-gender-gap-fe6db4c3-f04b-4ce9-8516-8777234c1b74.html
• https://siliconangle.com/2022/03/30/meta-open-sources-ai-models-generate-biographies-notable-women-wikipedia/
• https://ai.facebook.com/blog/generating-wikipedia-biographies
• https://venturebeat.com/2022/03/30/meta-ais-open-source-system-attempts-to-right-gender-bias-in-wikipedia-biographies/

––FormalDude talk 19:25, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Adding to ITM. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:52, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:48, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

In the media — an NYT article on the Depths of Wikipedia (@depthsofwikipedia): Want to See the Weirdest of Wikipedia? Look No Further. I read it tonight and thought I'd point it out here. Maybe everyone else already knows about this. To paraphrase the pool salesman, I don't know; this is not what I do; I play keyboards, as it were. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:04, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Adding to ITM. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:31, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:48, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... Should look into who maintains the Russia-Ukraine War battle map located at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg and interview them. The map is detailed, accurate, and updated quickly. It is used by third party websites. Would be interesting to see what their process is, how many people are involved, what sources of information they typically pull from, etc. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:02, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Started a draft, thanks! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:42, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:48, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

[6] - 2 CUs were removed by the OC and WMF, one on German Wikipedia, one on Bengali. --Rschen7754 19:48, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, that's interesting. Does that mean they were found to have been abusing the right somehow? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:11, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

I would assume so. --Rschen7754 00:05, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} as a brief item in NAN. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:58, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020 has published their Q1 report for 2022. The report can be found at Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/1Q2022. Please post on the report's talk page if a Signpost reporter has any questions or would like a comment from a URFA/2020 editor. Thanks, Z1720 (talk) 20:52, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} added to NAN 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:52, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Riffing off the success of Wordle, there's a newly released browser game out there called Redactle, "where the user tries to determine the subject of a random obfuscated Wikipedia article, chosen from Wikipedia's 10,000 Vital Articles." Figured it might be an interesting mention. bibliomaniac15 18:36, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} in ITM :) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 18:36, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about Treloar, Iain (28 April 2022). "Exposed by a Strava KOM: The many lives of a fake pro cyclist". CyclingTips. It involves a faked professional sporting career, abusive behaviour, paid Wikipedia editing, questions about a military record, and lots more. I think it's around 20,000 words so takes time to read but I saw from the journalist's social media that a podcast episode is coming soon. See also Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1073#Should this page be deleted? and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nicholas P. Clark. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:02, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} in ITM. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:29, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about the deletion of the David Firth article and the dent it seems to be making in Wikipedia's reputation, as can be seen in the replies under this tweet by the man himself. A lot of concerningly negative talk below it. TimTheDragonRider (talk) 11:32, 1 May 2022 (UTC) TimTheDragonRider (talk) 11:32, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} added in deletion report; JPxG can probably write up some wonderful prose for it 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:31, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Dropping this brief mention of the Depths of Wikipedia on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday.

• "You can find anything on Wikipedia - even the weird and wacky". NPR.org. 2022-05-01. Retrieved 2022-05-01.

Peaceray (talk) 16:42, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} in ITM. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:29, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

https://cyclingtips.com/2022/04/exposed-by-a-strava-kom-the-many-lives-of-a-fake-pro-cyclist/ - It's a long article, but section 13 is very much about Wikipedia, including a large dash of COI and paid editing. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 04:25, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} see above :) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 05:30, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about an arrest of a Belarusian/Russian Wikipedian for writing about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He was arrested in Belarus. [7] _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Also see Song, Victoria (2022-03-11). "A top Wikipedia editor has been arrested in Belarus". The Verge. Retrieved 2022-03-13. François Robere (talk) 22:11, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Bernstein (Wikimedian) and Talk:Detention_of_Mark_Bernstein#Requested_move_12_March_2022 — to see how some Wikimedians are trying to oust Mark. --ssr (talk) 12:55, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

In NAN. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 07:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Another user jailed for Wikipedia: Draft:Pavel Pernikaŭ + n:ru:Участник Википедии из Бреста Павел Перников приговорён к 2 годам колонии --ssr (talk) 18:21, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Noting that this is {{done}} for the archiving bot. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 06:04, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about...

There's a new war, 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, a WP-article available in many languages. As has been noted before in media, WP language versions can have interesting differences. It would be interesting to see an article about similarities/differences primarily between the English/Russian/Ukranian versions, but there may be interesting stuff in others, too. Google translate is imperfect, but not useless. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:47, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/News and notes has a mention. Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month 2022 is supposed to be ongoing right now, perhaps the sad irony should be noted. -Indy beetle (talk) 20:09, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  I originally wrote a section about this in News and notes, but removed it. See discussion here. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 01:34, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

How the Russian Invasion of Ukraine Is Playing Out on English, Ukrainian, and Russian Wikipedia Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:58, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I'll add it to In the Media. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 19:35, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

The Russian Wikipedia will likely be blocked in Russia today or tomorrow, we will be able to compare the demographics then.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:37, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

It wasn't and won't likely. --ssr (talk) 13:43, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

See also: https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/3/22960007/russia-wikipedia-wikimedia-foundation-censorship-demand ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:20, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about...

A new scholarly book that cites Wikipedia 80 times - see https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/13/books/review/victory-at-sea-paul-kennedy.html . (Wikipedia is mentioned in several places in the article, but the meat is the third-to-last paragraph.)

-- John Broughton (♫♫) 05:39, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

 Added to next issue's In the media section. ––FormalDude talk 20:27, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done (for the archiving bot) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 22:44, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... Epiphyllumlover (talk) 19:39, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reward board#Add new Door County photos to articles and Wikipedia:WikiProject Wisconsin/Things to photograph in Door County.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 19:39, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

We can add this to the WikiProject report as a brief item :) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:24, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 06:10, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Hey, Signpost,

I thought for sure there would be a few paragraphs devoted to the new activity requirements for administrators which is the first substantial change in this in a decade. Did I miss this mention? It might reduce the number of admins considered "active" by a large percentage. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:20, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Liz, I had a paragraph or so ready for the discussion report but didn't finish it, so it was postponed until next issue. We'd always love help, especially in areas like the Discussion Report. Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 21:26, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, that's good to hear, I just think it needs as much publicity as possible. I have a hope, which might be unwarranted, that it might prompt some borderline inactive admins to return to service and help us out. We have really seen fewer and fewer admins participating in areas where they are needed. Since it's unlikely that there will be a tidal wave of new RfAs, having marginally active admins become more active seems like a promising possibility. Thanks again for this month's issue. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:55, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Even if it's only a sentence, I'd always rather we have something than nothing for big news items like this. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:47, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

 Done for this issue. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 06:09, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about measuring gender diversity in Wikipedia articles. I've written some notebooks about the topic about academic fields in Wikipedia in English, academic fields in Wikipedia in French. I've also developed a tool to measure gender diversity for any article : https://observablehq.com/@pac02/explore-gender-diversity-in-a-single-wikipedia-article?collection=@pac02/gender-diversity-in-wikipedia-articles. This part of a larger project d:User:PAC2/Gender_diversity . PAC2 (talk) 07:42, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Hiya @PAC2! I feel like you would be the best person to write on this - after all, you performed the research, and know most about it. Your "by the numbers" column in last month's issue was stellar! Please let me know if I can help in any way. Cheers, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 07:32, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer. I'll try. Is there any deadline? PAC2 (talk) 21:18, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@PAC2 the next publication deadline is in 5 days. Good luck! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 04:00, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I'll not be ready for tonight. Is it possible for next month? EpicPupper PAC2 (talk) 17:44, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

@PAC2 yep! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 17:53, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi @PAC2! I’d love to have this published in the next issue. Deadline’s in 2 weeks. Cheers! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 06:09, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

I 'll do it 💪 PAC2 (talk) 19:56, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Here is my article : User:PAC2/Gender diversity article poke EpicPupper. Let me know if it' s clear enough. PAC2 (talk) 05:01, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks,  Done 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 06:09, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

A member of the Anarchism WikiProject, @Grnrchst, was interviewed recently: Part 1 & Part 2. The second part has a bunch of great insight that I think would make for some good Signpost reading, if worth reaching out for republication. Otherwise worth a mention in ITM. czar 05:07, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

@Czar: Thanks for the tip. If we can get Commoner to give us a CC-BY SA license we'll run part I as an Op-ed, but I haven't heard back from them. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:23, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Read Colin M and EpicPupper's piece on the requested moves backlog in this week's Signpost. I was wondering what would need to happen for a similar analysis on merges and splits? Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 14:24, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

You can find the code I used to scrape and analyze the RM data here. I think the code could be adapted to WP:MERGEREQ/WP:SPLITREQ, though parsing out structured data from the Wikitext source of those pages would be more difficult, as the format is somewhat freeform (and appears to have changed over the years). Colin M (talk) 16:50, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I seem to recall there being a merge bot that shares an operator with RMCD bot. Maybe that bot generates something easier to use even if incomplete. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 22:02, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about all those videos from Youtube alleging.... get this, a left-leaning bias. The John Stossel and Mark Dice ones are juicy, and I haven't seen any talks on these:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiRgJYMw6YA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yJt0Gz1pa4

👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 03:25, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

"Conservatives don’t have as much time to tweet or argue on the web. Leftists do. And they love doing it. This helps them take over the media, universities, and now, Wikipedia." - John Stossel Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:49, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, never mind the many left-learning people forced into shitty jobs who will get fired and pushed into dangerous homelessness if they complain on the web about their workplace conditions. As a person who self-identifies as a "bleeding-heart libertarian", Stossel is the biggest insult to the libertarian term. Honestly, what else do you expect from a man responsible for real-estate and Koch-brothers funded, inciting-violence homelessness propaganda (one of which he trolled and harassed a bunch of random homeless people in bad faith, what next, is he gonna dress up as a clown and offer random homeless people jobs as circus dancers from a sewer drain), and concern-trolled about maternity leave laws causing employers to not hire women (cause god forbid employers have personality responsibility). 👨x🐱 (Nina CortexxCoco Bandicoot) 05:18, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Mark Bernstein was released from prison but nobody seems to care about that in English Wikipedia. --ssr (talk) 04:40, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Don't worry we got it in ITM.I had to wade thru Ukrainian Truth, and European Truth, before seeing it in the mirror. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:21, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

{{done}} (for the archiving bot) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:47, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-022-01369-4

---Another Believer _(Talk) 13:13, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

• • Thanks, I'm sure that either In the media or Recent research @HaeB: will have something. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:41, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Retweeted on Twitter as well, with the intention to add into ITM / reent research. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 20:08, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Perfectly agree. The authors also have a companion website with all the figures : https://medialab.github.io/bhht-datascape/ PAC2 (talk) 20:24, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about d:Template:Item documentation

Item documentation is a Wikidata template which provides generic SPARQL queries for Wikidata items.

Why is it interesting for the Signpost? The generic queries in Item documentation can be useful to create or complete Wikipedia articles.

In one click in the item's talk page header, a user can access very useful queries without writing SPARQL. For an author, you get the list of written works, for a filmmaker, you get the list of movies, for a musician, you get the list of musical works, etc ( PAC2 (talk) 20:53, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

This could fit as "tips and tricks". 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:48, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh great! I'll try to write something. PAC2 (talk) 06:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Here is a first draft User:PAC2/Item documentation. Feel free to improve it or to give feedback. @EpicPupper:. PAC2 (talk) 07:12, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

@PAC2, cool! I'd be happy to edit and accept this. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 18:29, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

It's slated for publication this issue. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 20:45, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

A link to the WP:URFA/2020 Q2 2022 report can be found here. Z1720 (talk) 19:37, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, will add as a brief in NAN. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:41, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... In the media: How a Prominent Composer Lost His Wikipedia Page—and Got Entangled in Kafkaesque Nightmare Trying to Get it Back - https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/how-a-prominent-composer-lost-his (as I write this, his WP page has not yet been reinstated). I know I'm far from the only one who feels that WP should err on the side of retaining articles, not deleting them. - kosboot (talk) 22:13, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

 Doing... {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:11, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Participants of WikiProject:Classical Music have weighed in. You might want to look at their comments. - kosboot (talk) 01:17, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost should write about... In the media: The recession article is receiving extensive news coverage due to alleged attempts to change the definition of a recession to favor the Biden administration. Just from the first page of a Google news search for "wikipedia recession": NY Post UnHerd Newsweek Daily Mail Daily Caller Outkick KBOI The Hill DNA India Cairns Post. Of course, a lot of the claims made in these headlines are pretty misleading. Wikipedia has not "suspended editing by the public" - the page so far has only been semi-protected for a week, which is a pretty tame response in the grand scheme of things. Ionmars10 (talk) 18:08, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, we have an Op-Ed ready. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 20:46, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

From A “Chinese Borges” wrote millions of words of fake Russian history on Wikipedia for a decade. in LitHub:

"For over a decade, a Chinese woman known as “Zhemao” created a massive, fantastical, and largely fictional alternate history of late Medieval Russia on Chinese Wikipedia, writing millions of words about entirely made-up political figures, massive (and fake) silver mines, and pivotal battles that never actually happened. She even went so far as to concoct details about things like currency and eating utensils. Using four puppet accounts, Zhemao—who wrote in an apology via her English Wikipedia account that she was a housewife with a high school degree—created one of the largest hoaxes in the history of Wikipedia." 2600:1700:D0A0:21B0:7D93:147C:28C1:4B04 (talk) 03:41, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm a Chinese Wikipedia editor, our community has created a page about the hoaxes: zh:Wikipedia:2022年歷史相關條目偽造事件. I can provide more infomation about this if needed. BlackShadowG (talk) 13:07, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

There is also an article on Chinese Wikipedia: zh:2022年中文维基百科古罗斯历史系列条目伪造事件. BlackShadowG (talk) 05:08, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Also on Vice: Cheung, Rachel (2022-07-13). "A Bored Chinese Housewife Spent Years Falsifying Russian History on Wikipedia". Vice. Retrieved 2022-07-18. François Robere (talk) 15:48, 18 July 2022 (UTC)