Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-08-01

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-08-01. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Proposed decision submitted for one case (1,350 bytes · 💬)

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How can a week two case link back to June in August?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I have corrected the link.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

It may be worth mentioning that MMN just recently went on a rampage and was indef blocked in response. Critics have stated that the rampage could have been avoided if this case was closed sooner (since MMN would have gotten blocked when the case closed and since all the votes needed to end the case were apparently already in). Sven Manguard Wha? 19:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Featured content: Featured pictures is back in town (728 bytes · 💬)

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I'd like to think Professor Ferguson would approve of his image becoming a Featured Picture, though he'd probably have different views on this one :-)  —An  optimist on the run! 05:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

What a great caption for that flat earth map! Thanks for featuring it! Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 11:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

In the news: Consensus of Wikipedia authors questioned about Shakespeare authorship; 10 biggest edit wars on Wikipedia; brief news (11,459 bytes · 💬)

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Shakespeare

• Don't know what really to make of Mark Anderson's assessment of the Shakespeare authorship article's neutrality. But comparing the article to El-Gaddafi is a bit far: I don't see anything in the article about Oxfordians being gangs of drugged cockroaches, who ought to be hunted down and killed. —innotata 00:35, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Be fair. He said "... has as much claim to evenhandedness as does an entry on Libya's history written by Muammar Gaddafi". That's about the "claim to evenhandedness", not the content itself. It's as if someone wrote "This article has as much chance of surviving as a snowball in Hell", and an objection was raised "Comparing the article to Hell is a bit far, it doesn't have damned souls screaming in agony over eternal torment". (I'm not taking a position here on the merits itself, just pointing out the linguistics there) -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 02:59, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't quite understand this linguistic comparison (assuming that the cockroaches bit refers to an actual quote be Gaddafi). Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

There is a common construction "As much X as Y", where X is an attribute under discussion, and Y is a colorful way of expressing a very small or very large quantity. For example, "This article has (as much) (chance of surviving == X) (as a snowball in Hell == Y)". Here, Y applies to X, the attribute under discussion, rather than the preceding subject ("This article"). Similarly "This article has (as much claim to evenhandedness == X) (as Gaddafi's history of Libya == Y)". The construction doesn't require the content of the article to follow the forms and rhetoric of Y, but is drawing a comparison on the attribute. Again, it's not that I agree with him, but it's a perfectly valid English statement in terms of expressing his point. Misreading it makes the Wikipedia defenders look silly. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 05:07, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

• • • The article contains an error, misrepresenting Mr Anderson's remarks. We read:'Unfortunately, writes Anderson, an increase in edits by Oxfordians pushed the article towards their point of view,'
      • Mr Anderson says the article was in equilibrium until Tom Reedy, and then myself, both of us identified as Stratfordians,(not Oxfordians) created the putative 'imbalance' he discerns in it now. Nishidani (talk) 07:19, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
        •  Fixed Sorry about that; 'twas very late last night after a very long day. —Tom Morris (talk) 08:07, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

True banes of the Internet, such as WebmasterFormat himself

• It is outrageous that Wikipedia should be vandalised to raise a web page's SEO ratings. The need of the hour is for someone to write a counter article which tells a Wikipedian how to develop a page so that it figures in the top results of a search on that topic. AshLin (talk) 02:48, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
  • It is, but it's a fundamentally ineffective tactic that will discredit itself just fine. Websites link to Wikipedia articles because they're a good source of relatively unbiased information, which the "official" website is not. Dcoetzee 04:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I hope Dcoetzee is right. And I hope that WebmasterFormat knows that he's playing a sleazeball role with this effort. Of course, if he's one of the many sociopaths of the human species, he won't care; but I hope that he's at least intelligent enough to see that he himself is being a true bane to the Internet. To know and not care strikes me at the moment as being slightly better than to be so harmfully dumb as not to even know. — ¾-10 03:16, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
      • I don't know how much of a problem delinking of articles (their #2) is in reality. Obviously very hard to detect, if it is done intelligently. However, a simple countermeasure would be to program a tool that monitors the number of internal links to each article (and maybe its google rank too) in regular intervals. With this tool, significant changes could be detected automatically and the community could be alerted. --Tinz (talk) 10:04, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

More on Anderson and IEEE Spectrum

• Mr Anderson subscribes to the 'steady state' theory of the discursive universe, in which, back in the good old days (illo tempore) everything was in POV equilibrium, with the nonsense of scholarship nicely balanced by the 'truth' of the fringe theory. Nishidani (talk) 07:36, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I understand that Mr Anderson's next article for the IEEE will be about how Wikipedia fails to give Flat-Earthers a fair crack of the POV whip.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
    • It's worth pointing out the obvious - Anderson is not a neutral "journalist". He's the author of of the Oxfordian book Shakespeare by Another Name, a book that has been repeatedly rejected as a reliable source at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard‎ and which is dismissed by Shakespeare scholars. In other words he's grinding the axe with which he carves the chip on his shoulder. Paul B (talk) 13:52, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Which means, of course, that it is the IEEE which discredits itself by giving him a platform. Does it want to be seen as a respectable professional organisation or as a group that will give room to anyone who has a conspiracy theory to push?--Peter cohen (talk) 18:25, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
        • Disagree, Peter. Remember your Voltaire (no need to cite the cliché). Conspiracy theories should be aired, because if they are repressed, they feed the unenlightened view that the 'establishment' is afraid. They also, on occasion, make scholars who take the mainstream view work much harder on the archival evidence, seeing things they might not have otherwise understood. Raul Hilberg made a magnificent case for this, and I think it extends to a case like this as well. One day I hope a scholar will take the time to write a fascinating essay on the incidental gains to Elizabethan scholarship turned up by mainstream historians who, reading some obscure point in the heterodox literature, followed the paper-trial and produced fresh insights into Shakespeare (William of Strat)'s work and life. Nishidani (talk) 19:31, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
          • Not especially apropos of this news piece (I have no position on the Shakespeare question), but just in general, I really like the thought mentioned above—"Conspiracy theories should be aired, because if they are repressed, they feed the unenlightened view that the 'establishment' is afraid." Quite true. — ¾-10 03:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Why should we worry about what a Shakespearean conspiracy theorist who writes an article in a popular magazine for electrical engineers thinks are the reasons for his inability to get his quirky ideas covered in Wikipedia they way he sees fit? This is a non-issue where a fringe theorist feels slighted because everyone is telling him he's wrong. 128.59.169.46 (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I primarily included it because it's both funny and storm in a teacup. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

And I'd like to thank you for doing so, Tom. It showed good judgement also because wikipedia gave a venue for an attack on itself. We've nothing to fear, we even welcome that. Nishidani (talk) 21:41, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that Anderson has a history of trying to contribute here. Or are you saying that the article was largely written by the topic-banned person who provided the quote?--Peter cohen (talk) 14:56, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

• It's kind of sad that the information about Mark Anderson's completely biased position was not mentioned in the Signpost article. It reads as if, as far as anyone knows, it's just some neutral third party spotting a genuine problem with an article. DreamGuy (talk) 23:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually, at least "a sharply different judgment" of Wikipedia's coverage was cited, too. But I agree, it might have been worthwhile to point out more clearly that Anderson's position in the Shakespeare debate is not exactly the most mainstream one (even though the venue in which his criticism were published might suggest so). Overall though, I support the decision to feature this in the Signpost's "In the news" section - it can and should feature notable accusations even when they are not well-founded. (I fondly recall crafting the ITN subtitle "Wikipedia controlled by pedophiles, left-wing trolls, Islamofascists and Communist commandos?") Regards, HaeB (talk) 00:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

That's pretty funny. Some of those are also more of a problem than many Wikipedians would like to admit. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 05:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the value of fringe theories in stimulating research, the benefits are not restricted to Shakespearean scholarship. Our article on SAQ reports that "American cryptologists William and Elizebeth Friedman won the Folger Shakespeare Library Literary Prize in 1955 for a study of the arguments that the works of Shakespeare contain hidden ciphers. The study disproved all claims that the works contain ciphers..." What SAQ fails to mention, but which is covered in the William Friedman article, is that the Friedmans got their start as cryptologists around 1915 working for an employer who wanted to prove Sir Francis Bacon was the author of most of the plays. In the course of this work, they developed powerful statistical tools that significantly advanced the art of breaking codes. William Friedman went on to be chief cryptanalyst for the War Department and led the group that broke Japanese codes, making a major, if not crucial, contribution to Allied victory in World War II.--agr (talk) 07:37, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, well at least WWII is over. The Shakespeare authorship wars never will be, no matter how much proof Friedman or anybody else brings to bear. It is not a rational belief, and so cannot be changed by rational arguments. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:04, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Edit wars

Including Caesar salad while omitting Global warming is one hell of a big red flag. 76.254.20.205 (talk) 10:59, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: Wikimania; why Board of Trustees elections attract few votes; brief news (1,438 bytes · 💬)

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• Congrats Moksha Wikipedia and the two new admins. Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:48, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
• WRT splitting funding between the chapters and the WMF one must keep in mind the laws of the nations in which these non profit corporations run. I know here in Canada a charity must retain control over its funding. If they are seen as little more than a funnel to a charity located in another country they will have their charity status revoked by the Canadian Revenue Agency removing further ability to give tax dedications to those who donate money to the movement.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:41, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
• Article traffic statistic: perhaps less than last year because the system has had a nervous breakdown again? (For more than a week now.) Tony (talk) 04:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Someone has removed the item. See also User_talk:Henrik#Stats_missing_from_July_25_onward. Regards, HaeB (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Research interview: The Huggle Experiment: interview with the research team (5,259 bytes · 💬)

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"Fewer than half of the newbies investigated received a response from a real person during their first 30 days". I think we really dropped the ball here. Interaction is a major way to recruit newbies and hopefully turn them into "regulars". OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 05:18, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree: personal mentoring is the key, but to allocate such resources requires the identification of the most likely newbies. How to do that? Perhaps some more focused research questions? I wonder whether the research project will involve the gathering and coding of qualitative data from newbies/anons. Tony (talk) 08:43, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

One does have to be careful, though; I fully hope that we drive the vandals and SEO upstarts away, which I'm guessing is probably over half of all new users at this point. I suspect the percentage will be dramatically better once we implement a requirement to become autoconfirmed to create articles; there's no possible way we can leave customized messages for all of the people we encounter. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 19:09, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for the comments on this topic! We are definitely going to be qualitatively analyzing the edits which all of these users make after receiving each of the different warnings. This is actually our primary way of evaluating the success of each of the templates -- a simple 'do they continue to edit' isn't good, because we don't want persistent vandals and spammers to keep editing. Then we will be able to run a bunch of interesting analyses on how different kinds of new users react to these different messages. It will be interesting to see if, for example, the more personalized warnings drive away vandals but not link spammers, or if the warnings with teaching messages are better at "converting" users who make test edits into good content contributors.

As to the time needed to personally interact with new users, this is a definite problem that we are very interested in, and we are working on trying to model which new users are more likely to become good contributors in the future. We are thinking of a new user welcoming suite like Huggle, but where you can look at a newbie's first few edits and then leave one of a dozen or so targeted welcome messages. So if you see a user fixing a lot of spelling errors to articles about Canada, you'd be able to thank them for copyediting and invite them to join WikiProject Canada in just a few clicks. And if you have any other comments, questions, or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. StuGeiger (talk) 20:20, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Stu. You said, "we are working on trying to model which new users are more likely to become good contributors in the future" – this is the most important thing I've heard in this discussion. I think we'll be hoping you can find sufficiently distinctive patterning as early as possible in the editing history of the newbie-pluses (the ones we want to keep) and the newbie-minuses (vandals, link-spammers, and paid political/corporate operators). I suppose it will be a combination of factors such as (i) the linguistic patterns, (ii) the locational distribution of the edits (which pages are edited), and (iii) the temporal distribution of the edits. How these three aspects interact could do with some heavy-duty stats analysis, and of them, the linguistic is likely to be the most challenging and deepest (a research delimitation is required, I think).

Perhaps two critical concerns will govern the efficiency with which the problem can be addressed: (i) how long into a newbie's edit-history the patterns become clear, and (ii) the extent to which they can be identified by a bot (including whether a bot could do the initial "easy" filtering and pass a minority on to human eyes for higher-level sorting to identify the promising newbie-pluses for human interaction – a three-tiered filtering, as it were). Of particular interest might be the grey area of newbies – not those who will clearly stay and those who clearly won't (or who we clearly do or don't want to stay), but those where final stage, human interaction, has a reasonable likelihood of making the difference, of bringing them over the line. Finding the best bot/human mechanism for rationing the supply of "newbie mentors" to this prioritised editorial demographic, IMO, is the challenge. After that, a future project could work on developing guidelines for the best ways in which to interact with newbie-pluses. Tony (talk) 02:41, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: Developers descend on Haifa; wikitech-l discussions; brief news (711 bytes · 💬)

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• Also various other pre-conference meetings are being held:
  • Global south meeting
  • Open ZIM developers meeting
  • Chapters meeting
  • Communication committee meeting

-- Rich Farmbrough, 11:58, 2 August 2011 (UTC).

• Yes, they are covered in the N&N preview (the openZIM meeting is mentioned above, of course). - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 17:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)