The humour column in our February issue was controversial, with lengthy discussions ensuing at Miscellany for deletion, ANI, ArbCom, and other forums. As a result the humour page was blanked but not deleted. We were saddened that our acting editor-in-chief and two other contributors subsequently left The Signpost of their own volition.
The column's headline was “Pesky pronouns”, but was about non-neutral writing of several kinds. The column was originally written by SMcCandlish, one of Wikipedia's most productive and thoughtful editors, on a user page. With his consent we reprinted it in last month's Signpost. Some readers interpreted the pronoun-related material as an attack against the transgender community. We do not believe that any Signpost editor or contributor intended to attack the transgender community, but we also do not believe that our readers were wrong to complain about the column.
Rather, we believe that we can now use this controversy as an opportunity to inform all of our readers and staff about violence and discrimination against the transgender community and how we can all work to prevent it in our lives and online. The special report by Bluerasberry is one step towards this goal.
We apologize to all our readers who were offended by the column. As Wikipedia's internal newspaper for the community, The Signpost must be more sensitive to potential offense or insult among our diverse readership. In hindsight, we should not have published the column.
We pledge that we will never attack or mock any group whose members include those who do not have a choice about their membership in the group. Groups covered by this pledge include, but are not limited to, those based on race, nationality, sex, gender, age, disability, social or economic status, veteran status, body type, or religion.
Is it even possible to write humor that doesn't ever mock these groups? Of course it is! An excellent example is in this issue's humour column, The Epistolary of Arthur 37.
We are sad to see the departure of three contributors from The Signpost. Bri and Kudpung saved this publication a year ago after the unannounced departure of its then editor-in-chief and a hiatus in publishing. We will be grateful for as long as there is a Signpost—which we expect to be a long time. Also departing is Barbara (WVS), our long-time humour columnist who has been as funny and good-humoured as her columns.
We're sorry that contributors to The Signpost sometimes are subject to such storm and fury.
You might know me as Smallbones, and perhaps even know something of my work about paid editing, or seen some of my photos of sites on the National Register of Historic Places. I'm The Signpost's new editor-in-chief.
I'll try not to overwhelm you with my two favorite topics—not everybody has the same interests I do. The best way to counter the problem of the EiC's interests dominating The Signpost is to submit your own articles on your own favorite topics, or just drop us a suggestion on a topic that interests you on our suggestion page.
An important part of the EiC job is to ensure that The Signpost follows Wikipedia's rules and to read every word in every article to make sure violations of our policies and guidelines do not happen. If you believe there is a violation, please politely inform us on the article's talk page. I'll take every such report seriously, even if I disagree with you. If there is no satisfactory response, please email me directly and I'll try my best to make sure that any violations are corrected. This promise is not a guarantee that I'll take the actions you request. I will not censor a contributor's opinion simply because you disagree with it.
All Wikipedia users have the right to take any further complaints to the Administrators' noticeboard for incidents or the arbitration committee, but please remember that your complaint will be against me, since I am in charge of compliance with Wikipedia's rules, and not against our writers, staff or other contributors.
Peace.
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This week, the viewers have been mostly focused on the 91st Academy Awards, with sixteen of the twenty-five entries linked, directly or indirectly, to the awards. Best Actor winner Rami Malek tops the charts, while there are also places for the winners of Best Original Song (Lady Gaga, #6), Best Picture (Green Book, #7), Best Actress (Olivia Colman, #9), Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali), Best Foreign Language Film (Roma) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Spike Lee). Five of the eight Best Picture nominees are included in the 25.
Away from the awards, the probably urban legend that is the Momo challenge took the second place, with Netflix's The Umbrella Academy hitting tenth place and the original comic strip, 19th. Former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and current Chelsea F.C. goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga caused difficulties for former and current bosses this week, and both make appearances in the lower reaches of the 25.
For the week of February 24 to March 2, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | About |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rami Malek | 
|
2,781,135 | _(cropped).jpg) |
Rami Malek, who plays Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, won the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 91st Academy Awards, wrapping up an awards season that has also seen him win acting awards at the Golden Globes, the SAG awards and the BAFTAs. Malek is the first actor of Egyptian heritage to win the Best Actor Academy Award. His next appearances will be the fourth and final series of Mr. Robot and a voice role as Chee-Chee the gorilla in the talking-animal-athon The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle. |
| 2 | Momo Challenge hoax | 
|
2,688,438 | It is alleged that a number of children and adolescents have received messages on social media, from accounts using a picture of a sculpture entitled Mother Bird, instructing them to perform a series of tasks culminating in suicide. This phenomenon was first noted by YouTuber ReignBot in July of last year, but received an increased level of attention this week after the Police Service of Northern Ireland issued a public warning about the challenge. There are no confirmed occasions of anyone actually being harmed by the challenge, and a number of organisations including NSPCC and the Samaritans say the whole thing is a complete hoax. | |
| 3 | Freddie Mercury | 
|
2,564,597 |  |
Played by Academy Award for Best Actor winner Rami Malek (#1) in Bohemian Rhapsody. |
| 4 | Bradley Cooper | 
|
1,975,800 | _Cropped.jpg) |
Despite failing to snatch any of the three awards he was nominated for at the 91st Academy Awards – for producing, starring in, and writing A Star Is Born – Cooper gained attention for a performance of the Best Original Song winning "Shallow" with his ASIB co-star Lady Gaga (#6). Some speculated the duet was an indicator that the two of them were truly in love, but the duo have denied it. And in fairness, they are both actors. Good actors. Oscar-nominated actors. |
| 5 | 91st Academy Awards | 
|
1,882,127 |  |
The Oscars were held at the Dolby Theatre (pictured) on February 24th, going hostless for the first time since the 61st Academy Awards in 1989. A viewership of 29.6 million is a 12% increase on last year. |
| 6 | Lady Gaga |
|
1,873,614 |  |
Gaga picked up the Academy Award for Best Original Song from her second nomination for "Shallow" for the film A Star Is Born, where she was also nominated for Best Actress. |
| 7 | Green Book (film) | 
|
1,422,196 |  |
The Academy Award for Best Picture, Green Book, directed by Peter Farrelly, is inspired by the story of a tour of the Deep South by African-American pianist Don Shirley and his driver and bodyguard Tony Vallelonga; and his named after The Negro Motorist Green Book (pictured), a guidebook for African-American travellers to help them find motels and resturants that would accept them at a time of racial segregation. The acting of stars Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen is seen as the highlight of the movie, but despite the awards, the film has been criticised by some for advancing a white savior narrative in film, and by Don Shirley's relatives, who were not contacted by studio representatives during development. |
| 8 | Irina Shayk |
|
1,176,991 | .jpg) |
Russian supermodel Shayk is the current partner of Bradley Cooper (#4). Not Lady Gaga, no matter what Oscar viewers may try to convince themselves. |
| 9 | Olivia Colman |
|
1,143,884 | .jpg) |
Olivia Colman, who plays Queen Anne in The Favourite, won the Academy Award for Best Actress at the 91st Academy Awards, wrapping up an awards season that has also seen her win acting awards at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. Her next big role will also see her play a British monarch, as she takes over as Queen Elizabeth II in the next series of Netflix's The Crown, a role which will almost certainly get her back in this list in a couple of months. |
| 10 | The Umbrella Academy (TV series) |
|
1,084,605 |  |
Netflix's new superhero series, based on the comic book series of the same name. The ensemble cast is led by Ellen Page and Tom Hopper. The series launched on February 15, and has received mostly positive reviews. |
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In a way it's a week full of music – a techno singer died (#3), Freddie Mercury (#4) and his friends seem to just keep themselves in the Report, those old claims about Michael Jackson resurfaced (#8, #10), a rock star's comic is adapted, R. Kelly's image is still dirty, the Jonas Brothers reunited, and Lady Gaga is still in the spotlight. Gaga also helps a female presence in the week of International Women's Day (#9), where theaters see the release of a powerful superhero once known as Ms. Marvel (#2, #7), Google honors a female mathematician (#5) ... and on less flattering notes, there are entries with women dying or gathering attention for their love lives. Still, the top entry is another death (#1) the same day as that singer, namely of an actor. A TV host revealing an unfavorable diagnosis (#6), a holiday, a hoax and a sports event complete our list.
For the week of March 3 to 9, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | About |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luke Perry |
|
5,363,473 | .jpg) |
Last week, he had a stroke. And now this actor, who rose to fame in Beverly Hills 90210 (which narrowly missed the list at #26) and was part of the Riverdale cast (and was also a young priest in one of my favorite movies, The Fifth Element) died at the age of 52, being survived by a fiancé and two children. |
| 2 | Captain Marvel (film) |
|
2,340,178 | .jpg) |
11 months after the post-credits scene of Avengers: Infinity War, comes the movie where Carol Danvers, a fighter pilot turned space cop, crashes on Earth in the mid-1990s and shows audiences why Nick Fury, who looks straight out of Die Hard with a Vengeance, would ask for her help to stop a giant purple bastard. Light-hearted and fun like most Marvel Cinematic Universe entries, Captain Marvel already got good reviews and opened to a whopping $456 million worldwide, in spite of the badmouthing by men's rights activists who seemingly can't accept any movie starring a strong woman. |
| 3 | Keith Flint |
|
1,739,259 |  |
Got a lousy haircut, a really stupid haircut! Rave music owes much to The Prodigy and its two singers named Keith, one of whom tragically hung himself at the age of 49. |
| 4 | Freddie Mercury |
|
1,402,368 | |
22 straight reports with the King of Queen! "Are you happy, are you satisfied? How long can you stand the heat?" |
| 5 | Olga Ladyzhenskaya |
|
1,121,525 | Google honored this Russian mathematician who in spite of a tough childhood, owing mostly to her father being jailed and executed by Soviet authorities who accused him of being an “enemy of the state”, became very prolific and recognized in her field. | |
| 6 | Alex Trebek |
|
1,039,358 | .jpg) |
The long-tenured Jeopardy! host announced he is battling pancreatic cancer, but will continue on the show. |
| 7 | Brie Larson |
|
997,779 | .jpg) |
Call me Captain Marvel (#2), eternal light These gravely digs of mine Will surely prove a sight. |
| 8 | Michael Jackson |
|
981,146 | In June, it will be ten years since the shocking and Wiki-breaking death of the King of Pop. And so apparently it's time to again ignore his awesome music and just claim he was a molester, if Leaving Neverland and its claims by Wade Robson (#10) have a say. | |
| 9 | International Women's Day |
|
973,486 | With women still struggling to get properly recognized, this year had many women forgoing being congratulated on March 8. Hope they at least appreciated that in that same day, a woman was shown to be the most powerful being of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (#2). | |
| 10 | Wade Robson |
|
948,495 |  |
In 2005, this choreographer who worked with Britney Spears and NSYNC testified in favor of Michael Jackson (#8), claiming he never abused him during Robson's childhood friendship with MJ. 8 years later, he changed his mind, as documented in Leaving Neverland. |
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Captain Marvel is in the lead this week, bringing in its star (#4). And while Leaving Neverland has dropped below the top 25, the King of Pop (#10) who is the subject – and even once owed something to the other royal of the Report, the King of Queen (#8) – is still here. There are some major news events making it into the top 25: airplanes crashing (#2, #19), two actresses who were accused of bribing colleges to accept their children (#3, #5), and a politician declaring his candidacy (#6). A Google celebration of a major anniversary this week (#7) completes the list.
For the week of March 10 to 16, 2019, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | About |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Captain Marvel (film) |
|
2,391,725 | |
I'm not sure if it was intended, but it seems the controversy over this film (spearheaded by some fairly innoccuous comments made by star Brie Larson, which were then twisted out of all recognition by Internet trolls) has given it a massive boost in recognition, with this formerly obscure Marvel Comics character seeing her grosses approach the magic $1 billion number. I haven't seen it myself (the trailers didn't wow me) but from all accounts it seems like a fairly bog-standard Marvel origin story, which, had it not received the "attention" it had, likely would have been regarded as such. Sometimes the Streisand effect is the only antidote to Internet vileness. |
| 2 | Boeing 737 MAX |
|
2,123,234 |  |
The tragic crashes of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (#20) and Lion Air Flight 610 led to a mass grounding of this aircraft across the world, even, eventually, in the US, home to the company that manufactures them. Boeing later acknowledged that the causes might include a fault in the aircraft's computer system. |
| 3 | Lori Loughlin |
|
1,821,735 |  |
The first of several articles on this list related to the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, arrests having been made this week. (would be #79, if the list went that long). This actress and her husband were both arrested on suspicion of having sent $500,000 to the University of Southern California (disguised as a charity donation) so that the admissions committee would be led to believe that their two daughters would be joining the school's women's rowing team. She got nearly double the views as her fellow TV star Felicity Huffman (#5), no doubt due to the cringe-inducing tweets from Youtube star Olivia Jade, Laughlin's silver-spooned spawn whose entry into said college may have been enabled by the bribes. Li'l Liv doesn't seem to have appreciated her mother's efforts, describing her feelings toward the ultra-exclusive college thusly: "I HATE SCHOOL OH MY GODDDDDDD!"; "I'm too tired; my eyes hurt and I don't want to b at school", and the admirably succinct, "It's so hard to try in school when you don't care about anything you're learning". Thing is, Olivia is a Youtube and Instagram celebrity. She's already successful (for a given value of success) and likely didn't benefit at all from her time at college. So why did she need to go? |
| 4 | Brie Larson |
|
1,089,646 | .jpg) |
The star of #1, whose past experiences include dating a superpowered vegan, being kept captive by a rapist (and winning an Oscar for it) and lending a hand to a giant ape. Also the unwitting instigator of a massive Internet backlash thanks to some perhaps ill-judged but ultimately harmless comments. |
| 5 | Felicity Huffman |
|
1,084,725 | _(cropped).jpg) |
Like #3, another actress suspect in the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal (though a much more acclaimed one, holding an Emmy and an Oscar nom to her name), with the accusation being that she paid $15,000 for someone to take the SAT for her daughter. |
| 6 | Beto O'Rourke |
|
980,971 | .jpg) |
An American politician from the Texas Democratic Party and former punk rocker, who announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2020, and raised $6 million in campaign funds in just a few days. Still, the fact that he lost his Texas Senate race to the distinctly un-charismatic Ted Cruz and said, when asked by Vanity Fair why he wanted to be President, "I want to be in it; man, I'm just born to be in it," has led to some backlash from the true opposition, late night comedians. |
| 7 | World Wide Web |
|
978,963 |  |
30 years ago this week, on March 12th, Sir Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for "a large hypertext database with typed links", which became the World Wide Web. Without it, there would be no Wikipedia, nor Google, whose homepage Doodle tradition sent droves over to this article. This week, Sir Tim took the opportunity to lament how his dream of free information for all had been hijacked by anonymous trolls. |
| 8 | Freddie Mercury |
|
927,775 | |
The King of Queen rocks the list once again this week, for reasons most likely well drilled into your head by now. But just in case they weren't: there was a movie last November. Then it won a few Oscars. Now people are reading the article about the person the film was about. |
| 9 | Deaths in 2019 |
|
842,579 |  |
The ever-morbid inclinations of Wikipedians reveal themselves once again, this week's casualties featuring a cartoonist and a guitarist. |
| 10 | Michael Jackson |
|
749,518 | In a world rocked by seemingly constant #MeToo accusations, a documentary entitled Leaving Neverland (which has fallen off this list since its release, but its subject remains here) detailing the alleged sexual abuse of two boys by the King of Pop certainly struck a sensitive note, with many rallying behind the film as an accurate portrayal of the effects of sexual abuse, yet still accessible to the outsiders fortunate enough never to have suffered that way. This type of documentary is bound to produce controversy, though, and produce controversy this did: the directors have received death threats from a few overzealous fans, and critics are split between "this was a necessary movie to the #MeToo movement" and "this is far too biased to qualify as a documentary." The Jackson estate has issued an official release condemning the film, citing a lack of independent evidence and the boys' testimony under oath; a month later they sued HBO for a million dollars, citing a contract from 1992. This entire mess shows (to me) that humans are drawn to scandal and controversy, but what's new? |
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New movies helming the Top 25 Report, no surprise, as the horror film Us pushes down Captain Marvel, which is still bringing along its leading star (#19), its franchise (#15) and the next movie (#21). Theatrical releases only bring one more entry for an upcoming release (#14), as TV and streaming bring along their movies and limited series, regarding people doing stuff that God only knows it's not what we would choose to do, such as kidnapping (#2), fraud (#6), murder (#10), heist (#17), and self-destructive hedonism (#12, #18, #20, #22, #23). The views go up and down, with returning entries on the terrorist attack in New Zealand (#7, #8, #25) and an aspiring presidential candidate (#13), and in the end it's only round and round for topics such as recent deaths (#9), India (#4, #16), holidays (#5), wrestling (#24), and in the latest months, Freddie Mercury (#11), which will appear on the list no matter what.
Out of the way, it's a busy day, I've got things on my mind. For the week of March 17 to 23, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | About |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Us (2019 film) |
|
1,632,199 |  |
Comedian Jordan Peele is still strong in his shift to horror, following Get Out (whose script won Peele an Oscar) by writing and directing the story of a family being visited by doppelgängers clad in red with murderous intentions. This intriguing premise managed to beat the sophomore slump, earning an impreessive 95% critic approval on Rotten Tomatoes, while attracting droves of filmgoers – including this here writer, who approves the film even if Get Out was better – to make it #1 in the box office with $71 million. |
| 2 | Disappearance of Madeleine McCann |
|
1,338,648 |  |
In 2007, a British family vacationing in Portugal had three year old daughter Madeleine suddenly vanish from her room. Everything is still unsolved to this day, as detailed by a Netflix eight-part documentary series, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Hope one day this mystery gets a conclusion, instead of finishing the most depressing way possible. |
| 3 | Captain Marvel (film) |
|
1,280,692 |  |
Us took the top spot of both the U.S. box office and our Report from the 21st Marvel Cinematic Universe film, and first female-fronted. Just like Wonder Woman, it's a period piece centered around a superpowered woman discovering the human world. The success has also been comparable, if not bigger, as the adventures of Carol Danvers should break $1 billion in the worldwide box office very soon. |
| 4 | Manohar Parrikar |
|
1,124,518 | _Crop.jpg) |
Been a while since an Indian subject brought so many views, and the cause is a sad one: the Chief Minister of Goa died at the age of 63 from a pancreatic cancer. |
| 5 | Saint Patrick's Day |
|
1,024,573 | .jpg) |
17 March is the feast day of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, leading people all over the world to celebrate the Emerald Isle by overusing the color green and buying some Guinness. |
| 6 | Elizabeth Holmes |
|
946,669 | .jpg){kind=spacer} |
HBO released documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, about this entrepreneur who seemed to be the female Steve Jobs in that she emerged from Silicon Valley wearing black turtlenecks and was raising billions for revolutionary technology – only instead of computers, it was health care, with the most lauded breakthrough of Holmes' Theranos being blood tests that only needed very small amounts of blood. But all turned out to be a huge fraud, leading Holmes to lose her money and her reputation, and now she might even be sentenced to jail. |
| 7 | Christchurch mosque shootings |
|
910,872 | .jpg) |
An armed maniac broke into a New Zealand mosque and killed 50 people, showing that for all the bad Muslim extremists have caused, that's no excuse for other followers of this faith to be targeted by White supremacy and Islamophobia. The country's Prime Minister has been praised for how she's handled the aftermath, announcing a period of national mourning, visiting Christchurch to meet first responders and families of the victims, and promising to introduce stronger firearms regulations. |
| 8 | Jacinda Ardern |
|
859,105 |  | |
| 9 | Deaths in 2019 |
|
737,293 |  |
If we lose love and self respect for each other,this is how we finally die |
| 10 | Murder of Dee Dee Blanchard |
|
720,909 |  |
Hulu released The Act, where Joey King (pictured) plays Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who back in 2015, along with an online boyfriend, murdered her abusing mother (portrayed by Patricia Arquette), who spent 24 years fabricating illness and disabilities on Gypsy Rose, subjecting her to unnecessary medication and surgery. |
During March's Women's History Month articles on Wikipedia's role in recording this history exploded in the press. We can only give a sample:
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Slate's Stephen Harrison discusses the gender gap's relation to Wikipedia's notability standards. Are the standards written in a way that allows the sexism of past generations to exclude articles on women?
Earlier this month Harrison wrote that Wikipedia has a citogenesis problem — websites copy uncited information from Wikipedia, and Wikipedia editors then cite those websites for the same information. Harrison notes that our list of citogenesis incidents includes the "facts" that Jar'Edo Wens is an Australian aboriginal god and that Mike Pompeo served in the U.S. military during the war in Vietnam.
In January Harrison wrote 'Wikipedia's Medical Content Is Superior' highlighting Doc James.
We look forward to Harrison's continuing series, Source Notes, which features Wikipedia. – R, S
Mike Vago's long-running Wiki Wormhole is a quirky column on some of Wikipedia's most quirky articles. Last week's column featured The Langley Schools Music Project about a 1976 elementary school band recording, re-released in 2001. What could be so fascinating about that? Listen to the linked YouTube video of Desperado. Vago claims the Wormhole will be a 5,664,405-week series.
Ashley Feinberg at the Huffington Post reports that "Facebook, Axios and NBC" used a declared paid editor, Ed Sussman (BC1278) from the firm WhiteHatWiki, to 'whitewash' their pages. Nevertheless she appeared to stop short of claiming that Sussman broke any Wikipedia rules, except perhaps that he badgered volunteer editors with "walls of text."
Breitbart News – which is not considered to be a reliable source on Wikipedia – repeated much of Feinberg's story and added some Wikipedia-bashing. A follow-up, which was written by banned editor The Devil's Advocate, adds some interesting details and takes a run at another declared paid editor, WWB. Breitbart links are not allowed on Wikipedia, but Donald Trump, Jr. has thoughtfully provided a link on Twitter.
The Wikimedia Research team is creating a new tool to suggest sections to add to articles. This could be useful for suggesting improvements new editors could make to stub articles. Machine learning would be used to recommend sections to add, based on what sections other similar articles have.
Before actually building the tool, the developers need to test the quality of the suggestions. Experienced editors can help by evaluating recommendations and providing feedback using the testing tool (instructions).
Further questions and feedback can be left on the Meta-Wiki talk page.
A new site-wide CSS page was activated this month: MediaWiki:Group-checkuser.css. At the same time, an increasing number of CSS classes are being removed from MediaWiki:Common.css as the community takes advantage of the TemplateStyles extension. This month, the styles for portals and the Letterhead template migrated to individual style pages.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2019 #10, #11, #12, & #13. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.
mw.wikibase.entity:formatStatements Lua function or the #statements parser function. If they do, they will now be shown using a Kartographer <maplink> if the wiki can use Kartographer. You can report bugs or ask questions on Phabricator.
Toolforge will shut down the Ubuntu Trusty job grid. This will happen the week of 25 March. Tools that use this grid needs to be moved to the new Debian Stretch job grid. If they haven't, they will be taken offline. Maintainers can restart the tools later. Users may not be able to use them in the meanwhile. You can see a list of affected tools.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting takes place every Wednesday from 4:00–5:00 p.m. UTC. See how to join here.{{subst:lusc|1=User:PAC2/chouette.js}}
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{{subst:lusc|1=User:Begoon/addUploadsLink.js}}
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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-03-31/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-03-31/Opinion
The Danish, German, Czech, and Slovak Wikipedias blacked out for 24 hours on March 21 to protest before the final vote on the EU Copyright Directive. The Asturian, Catalan, Galician, and Italian Wikipedias followed with their own blackouts on March 25. Unlike the anti-SOPA blackouts of 2012, this protest did not lead to the desired result. The directive passed on March 26 by a vote of 348 in favor to 274 opposed.
Popular protests went well beyond Wiki-blackouts. A Change.org petition collected over 5 million signatures. According to Deutsche Welle, 40 street protests were organized in Germany, with 40,000 protesters in Munich and 30,000 in Berlin. Other protests were held in Austria, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland.
The cause of this furor, the EU Copyright Directive, contains two articles that are predicted to change the internet as we know it. Article 15 (formerly article 11) has been labeled the "link tax". Websites that aggregate news by using links to other sites will be required to pay those sites for the privilege of linking to them. Article 17 (formerly article 13) will make websites responsible for copyright violations that result from user uploads, and pay fines unless they employ adequate means to filter out the offending uploads. Opponents argue that this article will force websites to use heavy-handed filtering technology that will drastically limit the availability and free use of photos, text, and even memes online. See the analysis of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) on the directive's effects here.
The directive will be implemented by legislation in each of the 28 countries in the European Union. The process is expected to take about two years, and the WMF hopes to influence the overall effects of the directive during this period.
– S
Coordinated political protests using Wikipedia, such as the blackouts, are always controversial. The recent blackouts were supported by the WMF and were consistent with the WMF's goals and analysis, but individual Wikipedias and their editors decided on whether and how to protest or blackout their sites.
Christian140 protested the German Wikipedia's blackout, writing "Only 139 users voted for this shutdown of 2.28 million articles and rushed this in one week.... I have ... contributed more than 500 articles and now they are abused for the political agenda of a small group." Three RFCs were conducted March 1–8. In the largest 146 (68%) out of 215 editors voted for a protest; 139 (82%) of 167 voted for a blackout instead of a banner.
For the Czech and Slovak Wikipedias the decisions were made by small, but even more determined groups. Czech editors voted 44 (85%) to 8 in favor of a blackout in a week long RFC. Slovak editors voted 18-0 in favor at the same time, according to editors Venca24 and Luky001. Most of the countries' press covered the blackout story. In the Czech Republic coverage started even before the RFC was completed. There were about 2.25 million visitors to the Czech site on the day of the blackout, equivalent to about one-fifth of the Czech Republic's 10.6 million population. There were about 500,000 visitors to the Slovak site, equivalent to almost one-tenth of the Slovak Republic's population. The majority of the Czech Members of Parliament (MEPs) voted against the directive or abstained, but the majority of the Slovak MEPs supported the directive.
– S
Early this month, the bureaucrat rights of Kingturtle were removed for inactivity. Kingturtle first became a bureaucrat back in 2004, before the current user rights log. From Wikipedia:Bureaucrat log:
16:36, 28 Feb 2004 Infrogmation set Kingturtle: +bureaucrat
With the loss of Kingturtle, the 'crat corps fell below 20 for the first time since 2004. A full timeline of Wikipedia's bureaucrats can be found at Template:Bureaucrat timeline.
This situation was quickly remedied, however; DeltaQuad nominated herself for bureaucratship in the first week of March, resulting in the first RfB since July 2017. Her RfB was closed as successful, and DeltaQuad became the newest bureaucrat on the English Wikipedia. This RfB was the first successful RfB since Xaosflux's in July of 2016.
– D
The administrator rights of Necrothesp and Bogdangiusca were both removed this month as "suspected compromised account[s]." As of writing, neither has regained their bit, though Necrothesp has regained control of their account.
– D
– D
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-03-31/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-03-31/Op-ed
Tens of thousands of freely available sources flagged
4 December 2023
Top scholarly citers, lack of open access references, predicting editor departures
27 March 2022
The Wikipedia SourceWatch
31 March 2019
New guideline for technical collaboration
4 November 2016
Wikimedia Foundation adopts open-access research policy
25 March 2015
A few years back, while working on WikiProject Academic Journals' Journals Cited by Wikipedia (JCW) compilation, I realized we could harness the power of bots to identify a variety of unreliable sources which are cited by Wikipedia. I've dubbed the project The Wikipedia SourceWatch (or just The SourceWatch),[a] as it aims to identify and combat unreliable sourcing, similarly to Quackwatch, which aims to identify and combat medical quackery and Retraction Watch, which reports retracted research in scientific journals.
For context, the JCW compilation takes the various |journal= parameters of {{cite xxx}} templates found in articles, and compiles them into various lists. For example, in the following citation
{{cite journal |last1=Yager |first1=K. |year=2006 |title=Wiki ware could harness the Internet for science |journal=Nature |volume=440 |issue=7082 |pages=278–278 |doi=10.1038/440278a}}a bot would find |journal=Nature and then report it at WP:JCW/N7.[b][c] The compilation is organized in many ways (alphabetically, by citation count, and so on) and is typically updated a few days after the 1st and 20th of each month, when database dumps are generated. Those who want a bit of history and technical details can check the main JCW page or this talk I gave in Montreal for Wikimania 2017.
The idea of using the JCW compilation to fight unreliable sourcing stewed in my mind for a while, until I finally decided to take action in August 2018. I contacted JLaTondre, who runs the bot, and together we began laying down the first bricks of The SourceWatch. The bot would look for the various |journal= parameters of citation templates and cross-check them against Beall's List, a list maintained by librarian Jeffrey Beall to identify predatory journals and publishers until it was taken down in 2017. Beall's List is not perfect by any means, especially if you want a list that only identifies journals that are definitely predatory, rather than journals that range from questionable to definitely predatory, but it was a good start. Since there are other efforts beyond Beall's List to identify unreliable sources in general, I expanded The SourceWatch to draw from a variety of additional sources, including circular references to Wikipedia, deprecated or generally unreliable sources, journals lying about being included in the Directory of Open Access Journals, Quackwatch's list of non-recommended periodicals, self-published sources and vanity publications, and sources from notoriously unreliable fields (which are broadly speaking the subcategories of Category:Pseudo-scholarship and a few others). While journals from Cabell's blacklist could not be included as of writing due to the exorbitant paywall, they might get included in the future.
Two main ways of using The SourceWatch exist:
For example, as of writing, the article on Heinrich Albert cites Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, a German newspaper published from 1861 to 1945, which is categorized in Category:Propaganda > Category:Nazi propaganda > Category:Nazi newspapers. This does not mean that citing Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is necessarily inappropriate – the newspaper did not exclusively publish Nazi propaganda over the 84 years of its existence – but it is good to verify that we are not citing Nazi propaganda inappropriately. This can be found either by browsing WP:SOURCEWATCH, which features Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung under the 'Propaganda' category, or through Special:WhatLinksHere/Heinrich Albert, which shows a link from Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable1.
Of course, due to the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes an unreliable source, The SourceWatch includes sources that range from questionable to definitely unreliable, but it also has a few false positives. For the questionable we have, for example, journals and publishers which may merely engage in questionable practices such as sending spam emails to researchers, but which nonetheless remain committed to scientific and academic standards. For the definitely unreliable, we have journals that literally accept anything, even SCIgen papers, if you pay them. For false positives, we have hijacked journals, which are fraudulent publications designed to have identical or similar names to established publications.[d] Other false positives can include members of categories such as Category:Paranormal magazines, which may set out to debunk hoaxes and nonsensical claims, rather than perpetuate them. Yet another cause of false positives is that the algorithm used to find those unreliable sources is not perfect. It is designed to find typos and similar names (Journal of Science vs Journal of Sciences), but will sometimes pick up journals that are obviously (to humans) unrelated (African Journal of ... vs American Journal of ...). However, false positives can be manually identified, and the compilation will be updated accordingly in future bot runs. And lastly, The SourceWatch is heavily based on third party lists and will to an extent reflect the opinion of those lists' compilers, which could be inaccurate or outdated in certain cases.
I want to emphasize here just how much work JLaTondre has done on this and JCW over the nearly 10 years of the compilation. The original JCW compilation and The SourceWatch may be my ideas, but JLaTondre is the one responsible for the heavy lifting and making them a reality since 2011.[e] I must also acknowledge the contributions of several people: Ronhjones's for their help managing the configuration pages,[f] Tokenzero's for their help with the creation of several redirects useful to The SourceWatch,[g] as well as the help of many people at Village Pump (technical) over the years with various matters, Galobtter in particular. Hundreds of citations were cleaned up using The SourceWatch during development, but it was only known to a handful of people due to its unpolished state. The compilation was at times plagued with a staggering number of false positives and poor presentation structure. Now, after several iterations, The SourceWatch is something that should be usable by the community at large. While there likely is still room for improvements and debates on what should or should not be listed, one no longer needs to be familiar with the intricate workings of the bot to make sense of The SourceWatch lists, or spend months playing Whac-A-Mole against false positives.
The SourceWatch does not definitely answer whether a source is unreliable. Even if a source were unreliable, it does not definitively answer whether it is appropriate to cite it either. However, The SourceWatch is a good starting point to find unreliable sources, at least those which make use of citation templates. Once they are found, the community can then critically evaluate whether or not they should be cited, leading to a better, more reliable, Wikipedia. Whether a source should be cited can be discussed at the reliable sources noticeboard, or alternatively at a relevant WikiProject's talk page, such as WikiProject Medicine for medically dubious sources, or WikiProject Physics for sources claiming to have proven aether theories.
Suggestions on how to improve The Wikipedia SourceWatch can be made at WT:SOURCEWATCH. Particularly welcomed would be suggestions for additional sources that The SourceWatch could draw from, like lists of journals lying about being indexed by reputable databases. Other efforts to identify and prevent unreliable sourcing can be found in the "other efforts" section of the WP:JCW navbox.
Maddox, J.; Randi, J.; Stewart, W. W. (1988). "'High-dilution' experiments a delusion". ''Nature''. '''334''' (6180): 287–290. {{doi|10.1038/334287a0}}.
After a fairly tame February, ARBCOM had a lot on its plate this month. Here are the highlights from March.
Several other case request were made in March, including one that followed the publication of The Signpost's controversial humour article last month (see The Signpost's response in this month's issue), but all were declined as premature.
Signpost exclusive: The National Archives is expected to announce an astounding discovery of a cache of 19th century e-mails stored on an early-format CD which was previously thought to be unreadable. A sample of the e-mails from a pioneer Wikipedia editor, Arthur37, follows.
My Dearest Brunhilde,
I write to you now that I am finally settled in the mines of the New Pages Feed. My accommodations are humble, but sufficient here at the reviewer's village. The work is long, but we have been making good progress ever since we got through the cluster of lists about events that occurred to various branches of the Armed Forces of the United States of Central America (1821). The pay is abysmal and not worth mentioning. I miss you with all my heart, and cannot wait for the day that we are reunited.
Sincerely,
My Dearest Brunhilde,
Things have become more difficult since I wrote you last. We were drilling deep into the bedrock of the Feed when suddenly a series of articles about individual startups in Serbia collapsed onto us. They each had exactly one source that wasn't blatantly promotional, and we had to search in both Cyrillic and Latin. Three reviewers haven't been seen since, and the Feed has grown a thousand pages in the meantime. We have been forced into double shifts to compensate. Despite all of these hardships, my love for you endures.
Sincerely,
My Dearest Brunhilde,
I am afraid that this has been a difficult two months. Two reviewers got in a fight about something inconsequential at the village and ended up both getting slapped with temporary blocks. The work has piled on so high that it now takes me at least forty minutes just to clear my watchlist at the beginning of each day. Still, we approved a wonderful group of well-written articles about women who fought against slavery in the 1850s. The Feed is an unpredictable place. It is bright moments like this that bring a shine to the otherwise dull life that I have had to lead since your father banished me to this place.
Sincerely,
My Dearest Brunhilde,
Forgive me for being so long since your last missive, I assure that I have read every one of them and treasure them dearly. You are a far better writer than I could ever hope to be. These months have been terrible, and the Feed has been long and cold. Some idiot kept swapping the content of articles about North Africa with articles waxing nostalgic about the Roman Empire and the Garibaldi era before accusing everyone of being anti-Italian and Maltese on the talk page. Then I had to spend weeks cleaning up in the AfD because an editor kept sending sockpuppets to blank discussion pages for articles they started but then it turned out that actually it was their little brother all along. The editor says that their brother is an orphan and is trying very hard to learn English, but despite these assurances I have yet to see any improvement in their writing abilities. Rations have been cut and several reviewers appear to have caught scurvy. The backlog is piling up so high that some of the editors have confessed that they don't always search for coverage in languages other than English before applying PROD. Your love is my only light in these darkest caverns.
Sincerely,
