Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions

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Suggestion by NikosLikomitros (2022-06-21)

The Signpost should write about the consequences of COVID pandemic in Wikipedias, especially in the activity of many Wikipedias of the developing world. In the developing world, the years until 2020 were met with continuous and uninterrupted growth in users and activity. However, after the beginning of the Covid pandemic, the brief further growth due to the first lockdown has been followed from a, for many Wikipedias, prolonged decrease in active users and activity.

Here are some examples:

• Hindi had 7,707 active users in 2017 (according to Wikiscan), number that doubled to 15,2 thousand active users in 2020 based in Wikiscan. However in 2021 only 12,282 users made at least one edit according to Wikiscan. The evidence from 2022's activity show further decrease. And before the pandemic it was one of the shining stars globally in activity and gradually new articles, heading for more than 2 thousand active users in 2020 (in regular basis).
• Spanish had 118 thousand active users in the same year, 2017 (Wikiscan data)). In 2020 the active users had surged in 150 thousand (Wikiscan) and in 2021 the users decreased to 131 thousand. More decrease is expected in 2022.
• Indonesian, based in the same site, has recovered from 2021's decrease and heads back to normal.
• Turkish had 32,585 users in 2020, in the first year after the unblock. In the next year 30,3 thousand users did at least one edit, and further decrease seems to be expected.
• Bengali had 5,230 users in 2017. In 2019 the users with at least one edit increased to 10,8 thousand. In 2020 users increased to 11,6 thousand, and in 2021 to 11,8 thousand. This year a small decrease is possible. The impact, thus, was lower, but it would have been nearly to 17 thousand users without the pandemic's disruption and new articles would have continued to grow to more than 40-50 thousand a year.
• Urdu had 1,385 users in 2017. In 2020 the users with at least one edit had surged to 2,576. In the next year they decreased to 2,127 and a check of this year's data shows very strong possibility for a further decrease.
• Swahili had 590 users in 2017, 1,047 in 2020 and 1,012 in 2021. Finally for 2022 there is a strong possibility of growth based in the estimation from the numbers provided from Wikiscan.
• Marathi had 2,020 users in 2017. In 2020 they reached 2,270 (in 2019 there were 2,591) and in 2021 they continued to decrease to 1,794. In 2022 the most recent data show further decrease, possibly even 30%.
• French had 105 thousand users in 2017. In 2020 they reached 139 thousand, and they decreased to 133 thousand in 2021. As in 2010 there were 99 thousand users and 112 in 2014, it is obvious that much of post-2017 growth was driven from the French-speaking African countries.
• Persian had 33 thousand users in 2017, 52 thousand in 2020 and 49 thousand in 2021.

I suggest that you should write an article for this decrease of activity in many Wikipedias of the developing world. This decrease has been mixed with stagnation or decrease in pageviews as well, as you can see from the Wikistats site. These decreases wouldn't have happened if Covid pandemic wasn't disrupting the growth cycle of various Wikipedias of the developing world. You can check, in Wikiscan, in the Calendar unit (checking Stats and after the name of year, which is given as e.g. 22 for 2022), the growth and decrease of annual new article production pre and post-2020.

I think that you must compile a such article, with interviews from Wikipedias of India, Africa and Asia giving their opinions for the decrease and what could be done to finally end it. After the publication of that article, if you judge that it would be on the benefit of the Signpost, I would suggest to publish an op-ed as well, showing an estimation of how Wikipedia's activity could be now if Covid was just a mere fiction. NikosLikomitros (talk) 21:36, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

This is quite interesting. A deep dive on topics like COVID-19, the Russo-Ukranian War, etc could be done./ 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 17:45, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

• Late, but @NikosLikomitros:, if you can give links for these statistics (I see that there are links for the first couple, but not the rest) I can try to write it into a story for this month or the next. Also, a lot of them stop around 2021 -- is it possible to get updated numbers for 2023? jp×g 08:58, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by PAC2 (2022-07-30)

The Signpost should write about... https://observablehq.com/@pac02/actress-singers-and-actor-singers-do-actresses-become-sing?collection=@pac02/wikidata

In this notebook I posit an intuition and use Wikidata to test if my assumption is wrong or false. It's not directly using Wikipedia as such but it show how data from the sister project Wikidata can be used to test various assumptions. PAC2 (talk) 20:58, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi @PAC2! Would you be comfortable with writing something up for this, for the September issue? Thanks, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 16:14, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course. PAC2 (talk) 20:16, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I'm sorry but I won't be able to finish my piece for tomorrow. PAC2 (talk) 20:47, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

@PAC2, that's totally fine! Our publication deadline is actually on the 31st, but we'd also be happy to accept something later than that. Cheers, 🥒 EpicPickle ^{(they/them | talk)} 21:30, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

@PAC2: If you are still interested, so are we -- let us know if you want to circle back on this. jp×g 09:14, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your ping. Here is my draft User:PAC2/How to use Wikidata to test your intuitions. PAC2 (talk) 09:52, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Legoktm (2022-09-05)

The Signpost should write about...the passing of Peter Eckersley. He was a prominent figure in digital rights advocacy at EFF, as well as an early contributor to Wikipedia as User:Pde, editing up through last year. I found out about his involvement in Wikipedia from this Twitter thread. Legoktm (talk) 23:12, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

? note to self, could go in 2022 obits jp×g 19:44, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion by BD2412 (2022-09-29)

The Signpost should write about... User:BD2412 becomes the fourth Wikipedian to surpass two million edits. It's here now, but should be official here tomorrow. Moving Wheeler Martin from draft to mainspace was the edit that hit the magic number. I kind of feel like Forrest Gump in that scene after he has been running back and forth across America for three years, and suddenly stops and says, "I'm pretty tired, I think I'll go home now". Cheers! BD2412 T 07:09, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

? jp×g 19:44, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

This was kind of a joke, but sometime in the next few weeks I'll cross 2,150,000. BD2412 T 12:34, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by JamieF (2022-11-02)

The Signpost should write about... the View it! tool. A new tool for discoverability of images on Commons in development utilizing Structured Data on Commons. I would be happy to write/help write the article, if others are interested. JamieF (talk) 19:19, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@JamieF: That sounds like it would be great. I would love to see a draft -- either as part of the technology report or potentially (if there is enough in there) as its own article. jp×g 09:11, 14 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Project Osprey (2022-11-15)

The Signpost should write about... Wikipedia’s Citations Are Influencing Scholars and Publishers an interesting opinion piece with references Project Osprey (talk) 22:04, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion by Gråbergs Gråa Sång (2022-11-17)

The what-to-do-about-twitter-blue discussion Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Twitter_Blue_and_verified_Twitter_accounts may be worth a mention. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:09, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion by Daniel Case (2022-11-25)

The Signpost should write about... University of Kansas archaeologist John Hoopes' praise for Wikipedia's articles in that area at the end of a recent interview in Slate Daniel Case (talk) 07:30, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion by Kosboot (2022-12-16)

The Signpost should write about... for "In the Media" https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2022/11/01/guest-post-wikipedias-citations-are-influencing-scholars-and-publishers Wikipedia’s Citations Are Influencing Scholars and Publishers By Rachel Helps kosboot (talk) 13:23, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion by PAC2 (2023-01-07)

The Signpost should write about the Wednesday index (https://mastodon.world/@OpenSexism/109315053114410894). OpenSexism measures gender diversity in 26 Wikipedia articles each week. This has created a nice dataset which helps measuring the evolution of gender diversity over time. Here is the article: https://medium.com/@OpenSexism/the-wednesday-index-one-year-of-gender-diversity-data-visualized-a6458b94d52b

This is related to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-05-29/In focus. PAC2 (talk) 14:49, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Linking talk pages of mainspace articles to relevant Signpost articles

The template 'Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost article link for WikiProjects' has been used rather consistently. Is there any mechanism to add relevant The Signpost articles to the talk pages of articles in the mainspace? There is a template already used for coverage which has been used around 4.5k times; can this template be used? For example, from this issue (v19i1), if I wanted to link the Technology Report to the corresponding Wikipedia article talk page how should I do it, the press template or some other way? Can I duplicate this process to other cases? FacetsOfNonStickPans (talk) 19:49, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

I would indeed use the press report. This is basically a newspaper that is slightly more editable/close to home than most ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 20:15, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Shushugah. I hadn't really expected a comment from a reader/contributor of The Signpost like me. Now that you have...

I think this is a small point but important enough to mention. All I can gauge from the current scenario is that no one has discussed this, it isn't on the About page, so WikiCommonsense applies, a case to case basis, based on The Signpost and English language Wikipedia structure.

The above example with Abstract Wikipedia I took seems a positive case. Other articles in mind would be more difficult to say. For example let's take, The Daily Mail does not run Wikipedia. Now the full article doesn't cover the header, since it is an "In the media" post, a bunch of other stuff are also mentioned. So do we draw from this a criteria that only those articles which cover the mainspace article in entirety and in depth with no other topic should be added? Another example, Wikipedia impacts town's reputation, assorted blogging. Here The Signpost has commented on a media article. So should The Signpost be linked, or should that media article? A number of threads emerge. Should a line about this be added to the About page? Should it become a formal part of the publication process? How many articles are we talking about here?

This much detail is unnecessary. This is a small point; getting out quality issues on time is the main priority. Those on the About page, thank you! FacetsOfNonStickPans (talk) 18:35, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Chetvorno (2023-01-17)

The Signpost should write about... The state of paid editing. This comes up on Signpost briefly every 6 months or so, but it is only getting worse. Wikipedia as a trusted worldwide information source has become the target of an enormous promotional Wikiwashing industry with the advertising budgets of huge corporations behind it. No one is even shy about paid editing anymore; I see ads for WikiFederation, WikiProficiency, WizardsOfWiki, WikiCurators (retch), The Mather Group, WhiteHatWiki all the time. I would like to see a comprehensive history of the problem, including a history of RfCs of proposals for dealing with COI editing.

I have been an editor for 16 years and I feel this is the main threat to Wikipedia. We will lose our main asset, our editors, if they realize their unpaid hard work upgrading articles with the truth will simply be reverted by boiler rooms of paid flacks at ad agencies editing anonymously. Corporations' excuse is they need to do COI editing to correct wrong or out of date information in their articles, but that's inverting causality: any actual errors in these articles are because few independent editors want to work on articles where there is a 900 pound gorilla in the room. What unbiased editor would waste their time editing corporate and business articles today? How corrupted are our articles on corporations? I would like to see the opinions of veteran editors and WMF on this, and what to do about it. --Chetvorno^TALK 20:25, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Oltrepier (2023-01-22)

The Signpost should write about... two more press features for the project, this time courtesy of Il Post and The Atlantic!

The first article was published by Italian on-line newspaper Il Post - they have already written about Wikipedia in several instances - on January 2, 2023. The piece broke down the ongoing debate on the tone of the Wikimedia Foundation's fundraising banners that are usually hosted on the site at the end of each year: in the process, previous articles by Slate and The Washington Post on the same matter, as well as the WMF's official statements on Wikimedia 2030 and donations, were quoted as sources. If needed, I can help you translate the article to English.

On the other hand, just today (January 22), American magazine The Atlantic has published an article about the platform's approach to controversies and "edit wars", as well as its commitment to fact-checking through secondary sources. Most notably, the author has presented the very long discussion involving Gloria Hemingway as the starting point of his piece.

I don't know how interesting these news could sound like, realistically, but I hope it will still be an useful suggestion! Oltrepier (talk) 15:23, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Rotideypoc41352 (2023-01-29)

Less The Signpost should write about... and more "has The Signpost written about..." Saw some journal articles linked in an old Twitter thread, and wondered if we've covered those studies already. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 09:13, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Rotideypoc41352: we covered that paper a couple of times in In the media when it came out. The media was more impressed than I was! Now I'm interested if you know anything about GPTzero. Please email me or leave message here with a ping if you've got anything. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:17, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Alas, I do not really have anything (hence the lack of a ping or an email). If you are looking at Special:Diff/1134341207, I read the NPR article on GPTZero and its creator and decided to cite and add it to an existing mention of GPTZero. Beyond what I read on NPR, I don't know anything else. Thanks for the inquiry! Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 05:12, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

For the archives:

Another detector, GPTzero, was created by Edward Tian, a senior at Princeton University, and was also used to test the same text. It reported that "Your text may include parts written by AI" and identified 12 sentences that were "more likely to be written by AI".

OpenAI and GPTzero's creator were both contacted for comments on this article at short notice, but neither have, as yet, replied. – J, S, B,
— Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-04/News and notes#Investigative challenge

(Sorry for the accidental pings.) Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 04:17, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

These three papers have been covered in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-08-05/Recent research, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-29/Recent research, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-12-28/Recent research (Rotideypoc41352: always feel free to try the archive search fuctions here or m:Research:Newsletter#Archives). Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done

Suggestion by Oltrepier (2023-02-03)

The Signpost should write about... the recent restrictions to Wikipedia imposed by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, a Government-owned agency that regulates telecommunication services in the country. Last Wednesday, the PTA seemingly blocked the platform in almost every area across the nation, in an attempt to push admins to remove some allegedly "blasphemous" (albeit unspecified) content from the site.

Not exactly a good omen, especially thinking about your report on Saudi Arabia from last month...

Oltrepier (talk) 17:44, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Nick Moyes (2023-02-10)

The Signpost should write about... a recently published piece of research entitled Wikipedia’s Intentional Distortion of the History of the Holocaust Nick Moyes (talk) 00:46, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I think I can get one of the authors to contribute something to The Signpost. Guettarda (talk) 01:46, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

The article doxxes several Wikipedia articles and violates WP:OUT. This is also, to put it in the picturesque words of someone else "Icewhiz shit again". For context, Icewhiz is a globally banned user who has engaged in long term abuse (including making death and rape threats against other editors). The impression that this article was co-written by him or under his direction is unavoidable. Volunteer Marek 01:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I have just read the article and I think it is very important. The signpost should definitely cover it. Groceryheist (talk) 05:29, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

And enable and encourage off wiki harassment of Wikipedia editors by a globally banned user? Volunteer Marek 05:43, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This is just a rehas of the stuff Signpost covered before (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-10-31/In the media) - back then as news, now it made it through the slow academic pipeline. It's not news, maybe it could be covered by "Recent research" section, but be careful. The stuff is highly controversial as it is related to editor harassment, arbcoms, indef and site bans, etc. Previous newsroom discussions for some context: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions/Archive_4, Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions/Archive_30. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:18, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

This is just a rehas of the stuff Signpost covered before (Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-10-31/In the media) - back then as news, now it made it through the slow academic pipeline - based on a quick skim of the paper, it does cover quite a few events from after 2019, so this claim does not seem to be true.

For context, Piotrus and Volunteer Marek appear to be among the main subjects of this paper, a fact that they don't disclose in their comments above. I think it could be a good idea for the Signpost to offer them (and/or other editors covered) to write a response, to be considered for publication as an opinion article. But obviously the main coverage should be written by other people. We'll definitely aim to cover it in some form in "Recent research" as with all Wikipedia-focused research papers from such academic journals (Groceryheist you would be welcome to contribute a review), but we generally aim for independent contributions in that section, so if Guettarda can get indeed get one of the authors to contribute, a separate opinion article might be the best format for that too.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I mean, if anyone clicks the article they can easily see that I'm mentioned, so I didn't think there was anything to "disclose". Note that at least one of the authors User:Chapmansh also edits Wikipedia [1].

The main concern however is that the article in question engages in doxxing Wikipedia users (following up on the doxxing and harassment conducted by User:Icewhiz), which is a violation of WP:OUTTING. Per our policy LINKING to off wiki sites which contain personal information which has not been disclosed ALSO is a form of WP:OUTTING. So actually, the link here to the article also violates our policy. Since this hasn't been done maliciously *here* I have not brought it up but increasing exposure to this doxxing is certainly a concern. Volunteer Marek 15:53, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm familiar with that policy and believe that there are ways for the Signpost to cover this peer-reviewed academic publication without violating it. Besides, based on a quick link search, it seems that many community members do not share your concern that the link may violate policy: It has so far been posted and discussed at Talk:The Holocaust in Poland, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Wikipedia’s_Intentional_Distortion_of_the_History_of_the_Holocaust, User talk:François Robere, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Chapmansh (where various uninvolved editors and admins seem to be skeptical of the harassment and outing claims), User talk:Drmies, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Climate change, Talk:Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust, Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Wikipedia’s_Intentional_Distortion_of_the_History_of_the_Holocaust, User talk:GizzyCatBella and Wikipedia:Teahouse#editors_accused_of_systematic_distortion.

PS: thanks for pinging User:Chapmansh, she's welcome to weigh in here too. (I see she doesn't disclose her real-life identity on her user page, but I agree with you that it's not a violation of WP:OUTING to connect an editor with their real-life identity if they have published their real name on-wiki themselves elsewhere, as evidenced by the diff link you provided.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:04, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

User:HaeB Okay, so here's the other issue. One of the authors is a Wikipedia editor. There already are some... certain, editors who are trying to build the spin that any criticism of this article constitutes WP:ASPERSIONS or even WP:PERSONAL ATTACK, supposedly against this one author who is a Wikipedia editor. This is a very contentious area and that's just how things work in this topic I guess. Now, obviously, if I were to write some kind of response, I would indeed criticize this article. And I would criticize it both on methodological grounds (how the article came to be and how it was developed) and on empirical grounds (whether the stuff claimed in the article is true or just a bunch of usual Icewhiz hooey). But *I know*, given how things work in this topic area, that the probability that someone will take my written response and try to use it to drag me in front of some drama board admins or even ArbCom is not insignificant. Maybe this sounds a bit AGF-lacking but there's a reason I've been able to stick around here for 17... 18, 19, damn, 19, years. I know how things end up unfolding in such situations. And of course I'm not asking for some kind of "immunity" to write completely what I please but I do need to know the parameters here. What can I criticize? Can I discuss the Wikipedia background? Can I point out deficiencies in scholarship? Can I question professionalism? Or is it pretty much "write at your own risk" and let the sluaghs wrench me to get administrated upon in one of the nine levels of these hells (all of which start with the letter A apparently)? Any help on this? Volunteer Marek 21:00, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for suggesting that I contribute a review. I'll start writing this evening and see if it seems like it will be worthwhile. Groceryheist (talk) 19:27, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

• I added a short piece on that study to In the media earlier today. I was blissfully unaware of this conversation at the time, having instead seen a link to the study on Twitter. (This is not meant to be in lieu of coverage in Recent research. Do feel free to add a line about fuller coverage coming in RR at the end of the month, User:HaeB.) --Andreas JN466 19:39, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
• When we have a well-researched, peer-reviewed article showing systematic disinformation from editors who bully and CANVAS to work their way around our dysfunctional on-wiki processes for abuse, why are those editors not banned from participation in this discussion? Arguably they should be globally, indefinitely banned, but that takes more time and relies on those aforementioned routinely-failing processes, as described in the article. But that they are using the same disinformation and bullying in this discussion is laughable. Does anyone still even pretend that functional on-wiki processes for abuse actually exist? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 23:37, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Probably because this article is just repeating false allegations made by a user who was indefinetly banned for engaging in extreme harassment of other Wikipedia editors (doxing, threats etc etc etc) and has been on a crusade against them for the last three years. Also because almost all (maybe actually all) of these allegations have been examined by numerous administrators and arbitrators extensively on many previous occasions and these examinations have correctly and almost universally rejected them as false.

Pro-tip: don't take the word of someone who makes death threats and rape threats at face value. Double Pro-tip: Don't take the word of someone who takes the word of someone like that at face value at face value. Volunteer Marek 23:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

There's more discussion of this at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#Wikipedia’s_Intentional_Distortion_of_the_History_of_the_Holocaust. Andreas JN466 00:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Media coverage:[2] (press release from uni) and [3] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:05, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Also: [4][5]. François Robere (talk) 15:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Fake news spreads... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:27, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Not that much independent coverage, then. If we're lucky journalists Harrison, Benjakob or Cohen may write something at some point. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:54, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

The press releases and op-ed obviously aren't, but Ynet and Haaretz are independent. Levivich (talk) 16:57, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Yep. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:01, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Has anyone read the Haaretz article, btw? Is it any good? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:04, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

It's a pretty standard review of the essay, with some commentary from its authors. The author is Ofer Aderet, Haaretz's history reporter[6] and a lecturer at the Open University's Ascolot School of Interdisciplinary Studies. François Robere (talk) 17:45, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@François Robere, now in English: [7] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Benjakob did a poor job with the WCC story, repeating Icewhiz claims, so I would not expect much there. What did the others covere? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:49, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Noam Cohen
• Wikipedia:Stephen Harrison Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:08, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Piotrus, you should probably start that comment with "in my opinion, as a person criticized in that piece...". François Robere (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

"In my opinion, as a person criticized by indef-blocked harasser Icewhiz, whose claims were uncritically repeated in that piece..." - will that do? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Depends how you like your BLP - steaming, or on fire. François Robere (talk) 18:36, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Sautéed, please. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:12, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Jewish Telegraphic Agency [8], Der Spiegel [9]. Levivich (talk) 17:28, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

The JTA is in Jerusalem Post as well. Anything good in the Der Spiegel? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:14, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Spiegel covered the history of the dispute from the 2019 Haaretz article thru the present. It was surprisingly comprehensive and interesting to read even through gtranslate. Levivich (talk) 15:54, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Since you read it, consider putting it on WP:PRESS 23. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:04, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Good suggestion, thanks. Done! Levivich (talk) 16:46, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Also in The Times of Israel. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:56, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Covered (despite objections) in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-20/In the media, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-03-09/Recent research, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-03-09/In the media. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done

Suggestion by EEng (2023-02-16)

The Signpost should write about WP:Songs about Wikipedia/The RfA Candidate's Song. Funniest thing ever. EEng 19:27, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I like it. Absolutely worth a listen, and so old by now that it is probably new to most. Andreas JN466 19:38, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Thinker78 (2023-02-22)

The Signpost should write about the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in 1258. February marks 765 years to the day of the finalization of the destruction of knowledge accumulated for centuries, during that grotesque event of murderous and brutal conquest. I couldn't help but to express my feelings in the page's talk. In memoriam. Thinker78 (talk) 00:58, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Looks like a worthy addition to Wikipedia:There is a deadline at least. Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:13, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Jason Rees (2023-02-26)

The Signpost should write about Wikipedia's tropical cyclone and weather projects changing their generic colour scheme which is used on the trackmaps, infoboxes and throughout the project. Its been a long slog and a lot of teeth-pulling but we seem to have finally managed to find a colour scheme that works, complies with Wikipedia's policies and a number of people are happy with, however, a number of people on and off wiki do not like the colour scheme changing. As a result, @Hurricanehink: has designed a press release to try and highlight what process the project has been through etc and I would strongly suggest that the Signpost covers this issue.Jason Rees (talk) 19:55, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Here to second this. I wrote up what should function as a press release, it would be nice to have it published somewhere besides just the project talk page. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 22:00, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Tyiohko (2023-02-27)

New Wikimedia Brand Report (about ten countries). For example, it showed that “80% of global internet users have heard of Wikipedia”, more than Britannica or Reddit, but less than Google or YouTube. Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons awareness - less than 20%. Not very good results for South Korea (Wikipedia awareness only 40%; 60% detractors; negative Net Promoter Score) and for young users (18-24). Also Free Knowledge Movement is not very popular. https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/brand-stewardship/brand-health/ Tyiohko (talk) 21:21, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Tokisaki Kurumi (2023-02-28)

I recently noticed an interesting phenomenon when observing the Chinese Wikipedia, the vast majority of Chinese Wikipedia editors are relatively young, Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Demographics tells us that 28% of users are older than 40, but it seems that the Chinese Wikipedia does not follow. I think this might be worth a writeup, right? ときさき くるみ ^{not because they are easy, but because they are hard} 18:22, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Robertsky (2023-03-01)

The Signpost should write about... Wikimania 2023, to be held on 16–19 August 2023 in Singapore, program submission is now opened (since 28 February 2023, 16:00 UTC). It will be opened until 28 March 2023, 23:59 AoE. There are 11 tracks to submit your proposal to: Community initiatives; Education; Equity, inclusion, and community health; ESEAP (East, South East Asia, and the Pacific) region; GLAM, heritage, and culture; Governance; Legal, advocacy, and risk; Open data; Research, science, and medicine; Technology; Wild ideas. Diff post: Be part of the Wikimania 2023 program!; Track details, submission questions on Wikimania wiki. – robertsky (talk) 03:26, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Really sorry this got missed. Will be in the next issue, with a "Hurry" warning. Andreas JN466 01:23, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

@Andreas, thanks! Appreciate the follow up. :) – robertsky (talk) 04:22, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm adding User:robertsky as a co-author of News and notes where this will appear. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:39, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Levivich (2023-03-13)

The Signpost should write about... "The Living Law of Wikipedia", a lecture by David Nelken of The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London, delivered at Singapore Symposium in Legal Theory 2023. YouTube video. Compares Wikipedia's WP:PAGs to legal systems. Levivich (talk) 19:24, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

User:HaeB, is this something you would want to cover as part of Recent Research? (If not then I'll add the video to In the Media.) Andreas JN466 01:09, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Andreas. Yes, legal research is definitely in scope for RR. I'll aim put a brief note in the next issue of RR, but likely just quote an excerpt from the description - if you are going to listen to the talk and do a fuller writeup, feel free to (in either ITM or RR). Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

New Wikipedia AI feature of DuckDuckGo, called "DuckAssist", which answers questions with text from Wikipedia.

The Signpost should write about the new Wikipedia AI feature of DuckDuckGo (DDG), called "DuckAssist". If the user types in a query for which Wikipedia has relevant information, DuckAssist pops up at the top of DDG's search engine results page (SERP) with an Ask button. If you click on that, it presents an answer from Wikipedia right there on the SERP.    — The Transhumanist   05:52, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I heard about this via Ars Technica[10] and Apple News. Gabriel Weinberg of Duck Duck Go writes "We’ve used Wikipedia for many years as the primary source for our “knowledge graph” Instant Answers, and, while we know it isn’t perfect, Wikipedia is relatively reliable across a wide variety of subjects. Because it’s a public resource with a transparent editorial process that cites all the sources used in an article, you can easily trace exactly where its information is coming from." [11] ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 08:37, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Covered in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-04-26/Op-Ed. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done

Suggestion by Rhododendrites (2023-03-26)

Hey Signpost. I've learned of what may be the first museum exhibit of a Wikimedian's contributions to the project. Frank Schulenburg has a photo exhibition going on through 5/14 at the Museum of Northern California Art, featuring prints of his photos that document northern California on Commons. There's information (including the photos themselves and documentation of the exhibit being set up) on this page on Commons: commons:User:Frank Schulenburg/Northern California on Wikipedia. Seems like something the Signpost may want to cover. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 22:00, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by AnonMoos (2023-03-30)

Maybe the Signpost could investigate anonymous IP's repeatedly adding short gibberish sections to the end of many article talk pages, which has been going on for months now. See the history of Talk:Tap code for one semi-random example. Or does anyone know if this has been discussed elsewhere, and any conclusions reached? Thanks. AnonMoos (talk) 22:53, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

New Yorker article on "smear campaign" financed by the ruler of the United Arab Emirates

Perhaps Smallbones is already on this, but just in case:

The New Yorker has a lengthy investigative article titled "The Dirty Secrets of a Smear Campaign", describing how "Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, paid a Swiss private intelligence firm millions of dollars to taint perceived enemies". Most of the article isn't about Wikipedia, but there are several paragraphs about how the firm ("Alp Services", founded by an investigator named Mario Brero) used it for their purposes alongside many other interesting tools (such illegitimately obtaining phone call records or tax records of their targets, and planting stories in various news outlets). I'm excerpting them below for convenience.

The first part is about an American oil trader named Hazim Nada, founder of a company called Lord Energy:

On January 5, 2018, Sylvain Besson, a journalist who had written a book purporting to tie [Hazim Nada's father] Youssef Nada to a supposed Islamist conspiracy, published an article, in the Geneva newspaper Le Temps, claiming that Lord Energy was a cover for a Muslim Brotherhood cell. “The children of the historical leaders of the organization have recycled themselves in oil and gas,” Besson wrote. A new item in Africa Intelligence hinted darkly that Lord Energy employees had “been active in the political-religious sphere.” Headlines sprang up on Web sites, such as Medium, that had little editorial oversight: “Lord Energy: The Mysterious Company Linking Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood”; “Compliance: Muslim Brotherhood Trading Company Lord Energy Linked to Crédit Suisse.” A Wikipedia entry for Lord Energy [probably fr:Lord Energy] suddenly included descriptions of alleged ties to terrorism.

This outside view from the victim's perspective is later matched to what the reporter learned from leaked/hacked internal emails of "Alp Services":

In February, 2018, [Brero] asked for more money to expand his operation against Nada, and proposed “to alert compliance databases and watchdogs, which are used by banks and multinationals, for example about Lord Energy’s real activities and links to terrorism.” His “objective,” he explained, was to block the company’s “bank accounts and business.” [...]
Alp quickly put the Emiratis’ money to work. An Alp employee named Raihane Hassaine e-mailed drafts of damning Wikipedia entries. On an invoice dated May 31, 2018, the company paid Nina May, a freelance writer in London, six hundred and twenty-five pounds for five online articles, published under pseudonyms and based on notes supplied by Alp, that attacked Lord Energy for links to terrorism and extremism. (Hassaine did not respond to requests for comment. May told me that she had worked for Alp in the past but had signed a nondisclosure agreement.)

And:

Alp operatives bragged to the Emiratis that they had successfully thwarted Nada’s efforts to correct the disparaging Lord Energy entry on Wikipedia. “We requested the assistance of friendly moderators who countered the repeated attacks,” Brero wrote in an “urgent update” to the Emiratis in June, 2018. “The objective remains to paralyze the company.” To pressure others to shun Lord Energy, Alp added dubious allegations about the company to the Wikipedia entries for Credit Suisse and for an Algerian oil monopoly [possibly Sonatrach, referring to these edits].

And regarding another target:

Brero’s campaign sometimes involved secret retaliation. In a 2018 report, a U.N. panel of human-rights experts concluded that the U.A.E. may have committed war crimes in its military intervention in Yemen. The Emiratis commissioned Brero to investigate the panel’s members, especially its chairman, Kamel Jendoubi, a widely admired French Tunisian human-rights advocate. [...] “Today, in both Google French and Google English, the reputation of Kamel Jendoubi is excellent,” Brero noted in a November, 2018, pitch to the Emiratis. “On both first pages, there is not a single critical article.” Within six months, Brero promised, Jendoubi’s image could be “reshaped” with “negative elements.” The cost: a hundred and fifty thousand euros.

Rumors spread through Arab news outlets and European Web publications that Jendoubi was a tool of Qatar, a failed businessman, and tied to extremists. A French-language article posted on Medium suggested that he might be “an opportunist disguised as a human-rights hero.” An article in English asked, “Is UN-expert Kamel Jendoubi too close to Qatar?” Alp created or altered Wikipedia entries about Jendoubi, in various languages, by citing claims from unreliable, reactionary, or pro-government news outlets in Egypt and Tunisia.

Jendoubi told me that he’d been perplexed by the flurry of slander that followed the war-crimes report. “Wikipedia is a monster!” he told me. He had managed to clean up the French entry, but the English-language page still stymied him. He said, “You speak English—can you help?”

I likely won't have time to look more into this, but it surely seems worthwhile to examine edit histories, look at whether frwiki has been discussing these issues, etc.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:37, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Wow, talk about a long form article - this one takes 1 hour 13 minutes to read. @HaeB:. It should make a very good Signpost article. For one thing, we can just quote the New Yorker as a form of "ground truth". Sure they can make mistakes, but their reputation for fact checking is probably the best in the business. And we can just quote them. Searching the WP record of edits may be fairly easy as well since they seem to give the article and the date. I'll ask @*Jules*: right here and now if he can dig up anything in FRwiki. But I certainly can't do it for this issue, and doubt that anybody could do this properly in 3 days. I'm working on a boring article on systemically important banks and it's taking more time than I'd though. If I find more time, maybe I'll find some sexy banking stuff to add to it. I'll encourage anybody who wants a shot at this to start it, and I can certainly give some advice after this issue's deadline, April 2. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:05, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Try again @Jules*: Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:08, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Hey. I will take a look tomorrow. — Jules* ^talk 18:23, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Just finished reading that article; found this added by single-purpose account User:Ramzan.khutaissi in July 2019 in the Credit Suisse history. It was subsequently removed in January 2021. I wasn't able to find an article (existing or deleted) on Lord Energy. I removed this from Sonatrach, also originally added by a a differnt SPA (User:Bounableilalaw) back around the same time in 2019: [12]. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 02:01, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't have much time, but fr:Lord Energy has been created (with negative elements) by SPI Davidefergan (talk · contribs) in June 2018. Reverts to keep the contents seem to all have been made by legit editors. I forwarded this discussion on fr-wp antispam project.

On fr:Kamel Jendoubi, negative elements have been added by SPI Rachidayedtunis (talk · contribs) in January 2019, and by SPI Mouhatou93 (talk · contribs) in August 2019. Those negative elements have been deleted in 2021 by an SPI and then by Josce (talk · contribs).

Best, — Jules* ^talk 11:23, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Seems to me it should be mentioned that Kamel Jendoubi is a BLP article, and the content added to it was clearly slanderous, poorly cited, and in ungrammatical English, but when an IP tried to remove it, one of our WP:RCP users reverted the IP, claiming "censorship". This speaks to me of the difficulties of checking thousands of edits every day NotBartEhrman (talk) 19:27, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Tcr25 (2023-04-07)

The Signpost should write about the oldest hoax/false statement found thus far. As part of a peer review/expansion of Clipperton Island attempts to source the claim of a 1725 French expedition to the island found nothing predating 2003, which is when the claim was first added to Wikipedia. It seems the claim lasted on the page for 19 years, 3 months, and 15 days, propagating to a number of other sites, including print sources.

• Talk:Clipperton Island § 1725 Expedition
• Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia § False statements in articles
• Example of WP:RS citing the incorrect statement to Wikipedia:

McGann, Mary; Schmieder, Robert W.; Loncke, Louis-Philippe (2019). "Shallow-water Foraminifera and Other Microscopic Biota of Clippertion Island, Tropical East Pacific" (PDF). Atoll Research Bulletin (626): 5. ISSN 0077-5630.

The previous longest-lasting known false statement was 15 years, 5 months; the longest-lasting known hoax article was 17 years, 5 months. —Carter (Tcr25) (talk) 22:08, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I feel vaguely sad that the item I found is no longer the record-holder. XOR'easter (talk) 15:47, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by QuicoleJR (2023-04-10)

The Signpost should write about... The discussion around User:Bradv and User:Jimbo Wales at User talk:Bradv. The discussion centers around an allegation by Jimbo that Bradv is an undisclosed paid editor, and the community response defending Bradv.

QuicoleJR (talk) 16:25, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Some links:[13][14] (one more thread below) [15] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:48, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Covered (in several stories) in the April 26 issue. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done

Suggestion by Jayron32 (2023-04-12)

The Signpost should write about... Sam Denby's Half as Interesting video on ArbCom Jayron32 15:40, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

• In "Wikipedia in other media" news, Half as Interesting has done a video about ArbCom. Just in case anyone was interested. Might be worth a little note. --Jayron32 15:40, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Oltrepier (2023-04-12)

The Signpost should write about... the role Wikipedia might have played (ironically) in NPR's decision to quit Twitter. As reported by Gizmodo, Business Insider and even the network itself, Elon Musk told reporter Bobby Allyn that he relied on this specific category to determine which accounts should be deemed as "state-affiliated" or "government-funded". As a result, someone even decided to add a clarification to the aforementioned page. Unfortunately, I guess NPR's reputation wasn't the only one at risk of serious damage here...

@Smallbones and Jayen466: It's very likely that you were already writing on this, but I still wanted to report it, hopefully it's useful. Oltrepier (talk) 16:53, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Hansmuller (2023-04-15)

Would The Signpost welcome a piece by me, combining and updating User:Hansmuller/The_sum_of_all_knowledge (including international interpretations) and User:Hansmuller/Five_Pillars_plus_one (also Wikology/Wikisophy :-) in a more appropriate style? The sum of all knowledge might also be viewed as an extra Pillar, so then we would end up with a total of Seven Pillars of Wikipedia? Thank for considering this proposal, Hansmuller (talk) 08:41, 15 April 2023 (UTC), Wikipedian in Residence African Studies Centre Leiden

@Hansmuller: This looks a bit out of place here, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions for proposing contributions written by oneself.

Without preempting a full discussion there, my first impression is that the "sum of all knowledge" piece looks like an interesting and valuable overview of various interpretations of this term. The "pillars" piece I didn't find as convincing or interesting on first glance, but that too could be further discussed on the submissions page. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:30, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Suggestion by Peaceray (2023-04-20)

The Signpost should write about...

• Schaul, Kevin; Chen, Szu Yu; Tiku, Nitasha (2023-04-19). "Inside the secret list of websites that make AI like ChatGPT sound smart". Washington Post. Retrieved 2023-04-20.

Probably behind a paywall, but I see it b/c I have a subscription. This is an analysis of Google's Colossal Clean Crawled Corpus (C4) data set From the article:

• Wikipedia to Wowhead ... The three biggest sites were patents.google.com No. 1, which contains text from patents issued around the world; wikipedia.org No. 2, the free online encyclopedia; and scribd.com No. 3, a subscription-only digital library.
• See the The websites in Google’s C4 dataset table
• Many websites have separate domains for their mobile versions (i.e., “en.m.wikipedia.org” and “en.wikipedia.org”). We treated these as the same domain. We also combined subdomains aimed at specific languages, so “en.wikipedia.org” became “wikipedia.org.” So only enwiki seems to be in the dataset.
• ... the training data for OpenAI’s GPT-3, released in 2020, began with as much as 40 times the amount of web scraped data in C4. GPT-3’s training data also includes all of English language Wikipedia, ...

Peaceray (talk) 15:33, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

C4 references

Covered in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-08/In the media. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done

Suggestion by Nardog (2023-04-25)

In wholesome news, User:Junnn11, a prolific contributor of illustrations of anthropods, made the main page of Hacker News [16] and a Japanese blog [17]. Nardog (talk) 21:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Summary of conference talk: Historians on Wikipedia in higher education #LILAC23

The Signpost should write about...for "In the media" (or something more): Authority of knowledge: historians on Wikipedia in higher education #LILAC23 blogpost by Sheila Webber about a talk by Delphine Doucet given at the #LILAC23 Conference (information literacy). Maybe Doucet is an editor? - kosboot (talk) 15:51, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Possible 'in the news' entry

• https://www.axios.com/2023/04/27/wikipedias-influence-grows

---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:59, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Covered in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-08/In the media. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done

"AI Is Tearing Wikipedia Apart"

The headline of this article on the website of Vice is more sensational than warranted, but I guess it deserves a mention in "In the news".  --Lambiam 11:37, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

So far as I have seen, the community is handling the AI issue with the same studied calm with which it has handled numerous comparable issues, and has developed sensible policies in response. BD2412 T 16:03, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

You mean, by doing absolutely nothing except letting the loudest nutjobs dominate the conversation, while everyone with something reasonable to say is forced out and wanders off to do something useful. Is that what you mean by "the same studied calm with which it has handled numerous comparable issues, and has developed sensible policies in response". Because that's the standard operating procedure at Wikipedia. --Jayron32 16:26, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Covered in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-05-08/In the media. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:22, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

 Done