Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-11-20/In the media

In the media

Propaganda and photos, lunatics and a lunar backup

By Bri, Oltrepier, Smallbones, and HaeB

Optional: Give a short WP:LEAD-like introduction statement here.

Russian propagandist accused of having plagiarized Wikipedia in his thesis

The flag of Ukraine

The music video starts without music. We look down on a yellow wheat field, otherwise only seeing a young man walking away from us. Five seconds in, the view jumps so that the horizon divides the screen in half, the blue sky above, the yellow wheat below - a tableau of the Ukrainian flag. At the same time the young man screams "I’m Russian," seeming to say that Ukraine, or its flag, is part of Russia. Strangely that position is Vladimir Putin’s justification for the invasion: Ukraine was, is, and always will be part of Russia. Of course the pop patriotic anthem genre is not unique to Russia. But some artists handle it very differently.

The singer Yaroslav Dronov, better known as Shaman, first became popular with the song Встанем "We rise up", released on February 23, 2022. Befitting any song released on Defenders of the Fatherland Day, it praises Russians who sacrificed themselves to rid the world of fascism, and called upon today's Russians to be prepared to take up the same cause. The next day Russia invaded Ukraine and suddenly the song had a different meaning. Five months later he had another huge hit in Russia, the pop patriotic anthem discussed above, Я русский ("I'm Russian").

The Moscow Times wrote on November 7 that "critics (are) accusing the singer of acting as part of the Kremlin’s wartime propaganda machine." MT also wrote "According to Dissernet, more than half of Shaman's 2016 thesis, which earned him the equivalent of a Ph.D. in art history at the Gnessin Academy of Music, contained excerpts lifted directly from other sources." Out of 35 total pages in the thesis, 6 were plagiarized from Wikipedia, 13 other pages plagiarized other sources, leaving only 16 pages (including the title page, the table of contents, and some appendices) which did not contain plagiarism. Note that Dissernet only publishes preliminary reviews that can be re-evaluated or deleted at any time. The review MT cited was deleted on November 8.

Putin is getting ready to declare his re-election campaign for the Russian presidency in mid–December according to The Bell. "Shaman, who has become the latest symbol of Russian military propaganda" is expected to be part of a small group of influencers who will be key campaigners and supporters for Putin. – S

Comic-Contextualization

Bernie Sanders at a 2016 rally, one of many photos of public figures taken by Gage Skidmore, well-known for his photos of candidates for the American presidential elections that have been used on- and off-wiki

Il Post published a "flash" article (in Italian) highlighting American photographer Gage Skidmore, starting from a question made by a Reddit user in the Wikipedia-related thread of the site last October: “Why is everyone's photo on Wikipedia a picture of them at San Diego Comic-Con?” The reason is actually Skidmore’s work: as mentioned by Il Post, since 2009 the Indiana-native photographer has been to each year’s Comic-Con to take pictures of guest actors and actresses (including Tom Holland and Scarlett Johansson, among many others), before publishing them on Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons license. Throughout the years, the dozens of thousands of pictures taken by Skidmore, who is also well-known for his photos of candidates for the American presidential elections, have been used not only on Wikipedia, but also on many media, such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Associated Press and NPR. – O

Wikipedia's billion-year lunar backup to be updated

According to a press release, the Arch Mission Foundation's "second installment of the historic Lunar Library will launch to the Moon's surface later this year aboard Astrobotic's Peregrine Lander." The library's "foundational components" include "the Wikipedia" alongside from "collections from Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, and the Long Now Foundation's Rosetta Project and PanLex datasets." Stored in the form of laser-etched analogue images on thin sheets of nickel, the library is assumed to be "capable of lasting for up to billions of years on the Moon." In 2019, transportation of the first installment of the library onboard the Israeli Beresheet mission had resulted in a crash landing, but Arch Mission stated at the time that the contents likely survived intact (Signpost coverage: "Vital Articles backed up on the Moon").
The "Lunar Library" project is not to be confused with the "Wikipedia to the Moon" effort championed by Wikimedia Germany, which was envisaged to bring a disc with a community-selected collection of articles to the Moon by 2017 (Signpost coverage in 2016: "Mixed reactions to Wikipedia's lunar time-capsule"). The chapter's partner (now called Planetary Transportation Systems after several renames and a bankruptcy) does not yet appear to have launched or participated in a moon mission at the time of writing. – H

In brief

Have you seen this gentleman ... on X?

• Take Notes: The conservative newspaper Washington Examiner invokes O'Sullivan's First Law in "Is it possible to save Wikipedia?", giving a sharp critique of Wikipedia's NPOV while covering politically charged topics. They propose a solution akin to X's Community Notes.
• ChatGPT alarmism : Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales says ChatGPT is "pretty bad" in the Hindustan Times's coverage of Web Summit 2023 in Portugal. Wales compared hype on ChatGPT to other "alarmist" coverage by media. HT links directly to the opening night session where former WMF CEO and current Web Summit CEO Katherine Maher welcomes the audience (18:00-29:30). Jimmy Wales is then interviewed (59:30-1:17:30).
• Ten years behind: Wales was interviewed by CNBC at the summit on many of the same topics "Europe could put itself 10 years behind by regulating AI, Wikipedia founder says" (CNBC, video).

Wales says: Looking at AI for Wikipedia to identify errors – WMF machine learning team – AI can help Wikipedia community do a better job. AI shouldn't be used in place of human-mediated encyclopedia due to propensity for errors / confabulation. Open source community is on equal footing with big corporations wrt AI tech at this point in time. 200,000 startups can't be effectively regulated, "I don't see a role for regulators that makes any sense". Incredible positive things are coming, but I do believe in real threats. Stuff on EU regulation specifically starts at 03:45.

• Trolls and lunatics: In another part of the same CNBC interview (but with a different url) Wales discusses Elon Musk, X, and Jimbo's improved Twitter-style site Trust Café.
• Lourdes in Spanish: Un editor de Wikipedia se pasó años simulando ser Russian Red. En realidad era un estafador indio This very detailed account at times follows and even surpasses Annie Rauwerda's story on Depths of Wikipedia.
• Reading Harrison in Spanish: Spanish literary magazine Letras Libres is continuing to work with Slate, New America , and Arizona State University on their Future Tense project in Spanish. The best part of this cooperation for Wikipedians may be that Stephen Harrison's English-language articles on Slate, such as this one about Israel and Gaza, are regularly available in Spanish.
• Gaza edit wars: Haaretz reports on edit wars and notes the discrepancies between language versions in their coverage of the Israel–Palestine conflict.

Napoleon à la Wikipedia

• Movies ≠ Wiki: Another pair of critical biopic reviews lambasts the screenwriters for seeming a bit too much like Wikipedia. This time it's in The Film Stage reviewing Napoleon, and The New York Times reviewing Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in the Service of Mind. Back in January we reported on similar criticism of several others, including a Pelé biography.
• Who do you trust? An opinion piece in The Michigan Daily asks "Should you trust Wikipedia?", contrasting it to the FAANG "digital hegemons". The author covers undisclosed conflict-of-interest editing, bias on Wikipedia, lack of credibility in academia, and other ills, but still finds the devotion of the "group of active global citizens" behind its creation and upkeep "impressive" (we're blushing).
• Mary Beard Wikipedia’d the plot to Medea: New Zealand's The Spinoff gives us a tantalizingly short description of an encounter between Lyndsey Fineran, artistic director of Auckland Writers Festival, and a well-known author. Mary Beard – presumably this Mary Beard – prepped for a debate about Medea – presumably this Medea – by reading the plot in Wikipedia just before going on stage.

Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next week's edition in the Newsroom or leave a tip on the suggestions page.

This page is a draft for the next issue of the Signpost. Below is some helpful code that will help you write and format a Signpost draft. If it's blank, you can fill out a template by copy-pasting this in and pressing 'publish changes': {{subst:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Story-preload}}

Images and Galleries

Sidebar images To put an image in your article, use the following template (link): [[File:|center|300px|alt=TKTK]] O frabjous day. {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler image-v2 |image = |size = 300px |alt = TKTK |caption = |fullwidth = no }} This will create the file on the right. Keep the 300px in most cases. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes. Inline images Placing {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Inline image |image = |size = 300px |align = center |alt = Placeholder alt text |caption = CAPTION }} (link) will instead create an inline image like below [[File:|300px|center|alt=Placeholder alt text]] CAPTION Galleries To create a gallery, use the following <gallery mode = packed | heights = 200px> |Caption for second image </gallery> to create

Quotes

Framed quotes “ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet... ” — AUTHOR, SOURCE To insert a framed quote like the one on the right, use this template (link): {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler quote-v2 |1 = |author = |source = |fullwidth = }} If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes. Pull quotes To insert a pull quote like “ Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet... ” use this template (link): {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Quote |1 = |source = }} Long quotes To insert a long inline quote like The goose is on the loose! The geese are on the lease! — User:Oscar Wilde — Quotations Notes from the Underpoop use this template (link): {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/block quote | text = | by = | source = | ts = | oldid = }}

Side frames

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. A caption Side frames help put content in sidebar vignettes. For instance, this one (link): {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2 |1 = Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. |caption = A caption |fullwidth = no }} gives the frame on the right. This is useful when you want to insert non-standard images, quotes, graphs, and the like. Example − Graph/Charts Further information: Category:Graph, chart and plot templates A caption For example, to insert the {{Graph:Chart}} generated by {{Graph:Chart |width=250|height=100|type=line |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9 }} in a frame, simple put the graph code in |1= {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Filler frame-v2 |1= {{Graph:Chart |width=250|height=100|type=line |x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9 }} |caption=A caption |fullwidth=no }} to get the framed Graph:Chart on the right. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes.

Two-column vs full width styles

If you keep the 'normal' preloaded draft and work from there, you will be using the two-column style. This is perfectly fine in most cases and you don't need to do anything. However, every time you have a |fullwidth=no and change it to |fullwidth=yes (or vice-versa), the article will take that style from that point onwards (|fullwidth=yes → full width, |fullwidth=no → two-column). By default, omitting |fullwidth= is the same as putting |fullwidth=no and the article will have two columns after that. Again, this is perfectly fine in most cases, and you don't need to do anything. However, you can also fine-tune which style is used at which point in an article. To switch from two-column → full width style midway in an article, insert {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}} {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=yes}} where you want the switch to happen. To switch from full width → two-column style midway in an article, insert {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-end-v2}} {{Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=no}} where you want the switch to happen.

Article series

To add a series of 'related articles' your article, use the following code Related articles Visual Editor Five, ten, and fifteen years ago 1 January 2023 VisualEditor, endowment, science, and news in brief 5 August 2015 HTTPS-only rollout completed, proposal to enable VisualEditor for new accounts 17 June 2015 VisualEditor and MediaWiki updates 29 April 2015 Security issue fixed; VisualEditor changes 4 February 2015 More articles Draft namespace, VisualEditor meetings 25 December 2013 Sockpuppet investigations, VisualEditor, Wikidata's birthday, and more 6 November 2013 Last call for Wiki Loves Monuments; Community–WMF tension over VisualEditor 25 September 2013 Making Wikipedia more accessible 4 September 2013 Gallery improvements launch on Wikipedia 28 August 2013 The VisualEditor Beta and the path to change 31 July 2013 Defining consensus; VisualEditor default state; expert and layperson terms in article titles 31 July 2013 VisualEditor in midst of game-changing deployment series 3 July 2013 VisualEditor will "change world history" 12 June 2013 VisualEditor, elections, bots, and more 12 June 2013 The Visual Editor: Where are we now, and where are we headed? 25 March 2013 Visual Editor "on schedule" for July rollout 18 March 2013 Looking ahead to 2013 7 January 2013 The new Visual Editor gets a bit more visual 10 December 2012 Second Visual Editor prototype launches 25 June 2012 Visual editor demo launched, hailed as "most important change to our user experience ... ever"; but elsewhere over-hasty deployments criticised 19 December 2011 Full steam ahead on Visual Editor, the avoidance of lock-breaking and 1.18b1 release 7 November 2011 {{Signpost series |type = sidebar-v2 |tag = VisualEditor |seriestitle = Visual Editor |fullwidth = no }} or {{Signpost series |type = sidebar-v2 |tag = VisualEditor |seriestitle = Visual Editor |fullwidth = yes }} will create the sidebar on the right. If writing a 'full width' article, change |fullwidth=no to |fullwidth=yes. A partial list of valid |tag= parameters can be found at here and will decide the list of articles presented. |seriestitle= is the title that will appear below 'Related articles' in the box. Alternatively, you can use {{Signpost series |type = inline |tag = VisualEditor |tag_name = visual editor |tag_pretext = the }} at the end of an article to create For more Signpost coverage on the visual editor see our visual editor series. If you think a topic would make a good series, but you don't see a tag for it, or that all the articles in a series seem 'old', ask for help at the WT:NEWSROOM. Many more tags exist, but they haven't been documented yet.

Links and such

This department (In the media): Next issue · Next next issue · Search for previous Arbitration report: Arbitration · Arbcom · Archives · Cases · Enforcements Discussion report: News and notes: In the media: Google News · TechMEME By the way, the template that you're reading right now is {{Editnotices/Group/Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue}} (edit). A list of the preload templates for Signpost articles can be found here.

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20 November 2023

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Comic-Contextualization

• Skidmore is one of the finest Wikipedia (and Creative Commons) photographer, kudos for him for releasing images under Creative Commons licence.--Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 10:04, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
• Never in a million years I would've expected to see my entry at the very top of a Signpost article... Thank you so much for this opportunity! Oltrepier (talk) 20:48, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

• Oltrepier I'm grateful you wrote a contribution for the issue. Every Wikipedian is welcome to submit an idea, suggestion, or contributing in other ways like copyediting. Eventually we hope to increase the staff of The Signpost, always looking for help and there are a number of vacancies for regular columns, even. For others who might be wondering how to get involved: we created this helpful Quick Start page. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:39, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Take Notes

• One option would be for the website to institute something like X's Community Notes. Readers could add crucial context to specific Wikipedia articles or even specific sections of articles. Editors who contributed to an article could be blocked from interfering with the notes on that article so that the same editors can't extend their bias over both the article and the Community Notes section.

  Isn’t that just editing the article and the existing NPOV stuff we have in place? Aaron Liu (talk) 14:08, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
  • @Aaron Liu: Well, yeah - given how anybody can edit the article or comment on the talk page on WP, it seems redundant. But the difference is that there would be a 3rd place, on the Notes page. We've already had something like that too, I think it was called something like "Reader's comments" or just "feedback" and only lasted a couple of years. I'm not sure why it was killed off, but guess that nobody used it - either readers to forward us new ideas or editors to get ideas on changing the article. It might have been useless rather than just unused, but in any case who wanted it? I don't think The Examiner really had much to say other than, in effect, "We don't like Wikipedia", but at least they included a pretense that can be discussed. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:54, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

    After a bit of searching, I found this:

    However, a majority of editors did not find reader comments useful enough to warrant the extra work of moderating this feedback.
    — mw:Article feedback/Version 5

    Aaron Liu (talk) 15:04, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

    The article feedback tool was famously a disaster. The input it solicited was junk and had to all be revdeled, essentially. X's Community Notes are modeled off of Wikipedia, so citing them as something Wikipedia should emulate is a pretty inane argument. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:20, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

    Agreed. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:26, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

    I don't see how the summary at the top could possibly work well, which may be one reason why the Feedback tool failed. It's easy to imagine a scenario: Hard-working NPOV editors A and B create a well-sourced article about an obscure person from the 18th century. Reader C posts a Community Note: "Obscure Person liked to eat babies." Editors A and B are the only people knowledgeable on the subject on all of Wikipedia and the only watchers of the article, but they can't do anything to counter the Community Note? It's unworkable on its face. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:04, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

More on WP and the Napoleon-film

Watching the Napoleon Movie? Don’t Forget to Read His Wikipedia Page. I quote:

"Le petit caporal even has a stand-alone article on his genitals (only Jesus and Hitler can say the same)."

Wikipedians, I think we have been challenged. If nothing else, there is a gender-imbalance here that must be corrected. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:10, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

• Huh, I would have guessed that Rasputin's alleged penis might have made the cut, but apparently not. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:04, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

  Prince Harry's? It was on South Park. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:18, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

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