Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-01-31/In the media

In the media

YOUR ARTICLE'S DESCRIPTIVE TITLE HERE

By Bri, Oltrepier, and Smallbones

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

Katherine Maher to head NPR

Katherine Maher in 2019

National Public Radio has announced that former Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher will take the reins as NPR's CEO at the end of March, following a conference ending her five month gig as CEO of Web Summit. NPR, itself introduced her as the the former CEO of WMF, quoting her saying "There is a strong alignment in both [Wikipedia and NPR] around integrity and autonomy." The New York Times emphasizes the challenges currently facing NPR, and indeed most of the media, writing she "will take over at NPR during a critical period. Listenership of traditional radio is waning as Americans adopt alternatives ... pressuring NPR to reach its audiences in new formats." RTÉ, an Irish public service broadcaster, highlights her recent connection to Web Summit.

The Signpost wishes her all the best. Congratulations Katherine!

See this 2019 interview with Maher in The Signpost

-S

And The NY Post emphasizes why it is not a reliable source

Conservative commentator races to "go check Wikipedia"

Media watchdog Media Matters for America reports on Matt Walsh's use of Wikipedia to verify the skin color of Nikki Haley, the other candidate for the GOP nomination for the U.S. presidency. Walsh's commentary is simply dishonest. He says he never noticed that Haley is brown skinned and had to "check Wikipedia" to see if it's true. With a quick hocus-pocus he reports that Wikipedia confirms the fact that her parents are from India. Then he says Haley's claims of discrimination in a 1980s South Carolina beauty pageant based on her skin color "strain credulity", and that all kids get teased about something. What did he leave unsaid? a) Wikipedia doesn't report her skin color; b) claims of discrimination based on skin color in 1980s South Carolina were quite common; c) Haley was asked directly on television about her experiences with racism; (check and link) and d) Walsh obviously has no experience in being teased for his skin color. In less than five minutes, he puts race back into the presidential race. - S

Former Wikimedia Italy president reflects on the state of Wikipedia and the open access movement

In Il Post (in Italian), Viola Stefanello breaks down the last ten years of the evolution and decline of the open access movement in academic publications, focusing on the controversies involving "shadow libraries" such as Sci-Hub and Anna's Archive, the legacy of the late Aaron Swartz and the current state of Wikipedia.

Anna's Archive has recently been blocked by AGCOM at the request of the Italian Publishers Association.

Andrea Zanni in 2012

Between the experts cited or contacted by Stefanello for her article, it is former Wikimedia Italy president and Wikisource admin Andrea Zanni who stands out the most. Now a digital librarian for openMLOL and a journalist for several Italian media, as well as the author of an e-book about the life of Aaron Swartz, Zanni says the death of the American hacktivist is not the only reason why the open access movement has lost much of the momentum it had gained throughout the 2000s and the early 2010s. According to him, this also happened due to the different priorities many of the people involved had to focus on when transitioning to adulthood – Zanni left Wikipedia himself, in order to spend more time with his family – and a decline in interest by newer generations, whose best IT talents often choose to make a personal profit out of their skills, instead. What’s more, the former Wikimedia Italy president also reflects on the changes that have made the Internet more "capitalistic" and "egotistic" than it was ten years ago, underlining the web’s "centralization" in just a handful of private-owned social and entertainment media, its "mobilization" as a result of the shift of most online traffic from computers to smartphones, and its "dopaminization" through the wide spread of personalized content and advertisements.

Nevertheless, Zanni ends his reflection on a high note, celebrating the success and the very existence of Wikipedia for over twenty years as one of the "huge battles won" by the movement, a topic he already wrote about for Domani in 2021. Given the disputes related to open access and public domain we still witness worldwide and the challenges Wikimedia projects will likely face in the next future, perhaps his words should be taken as more than just a good omen to start from. – O

In brief

George Washington Masonic Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia

• Ruwiki launches officially: The non-Wikipedia version of the Russian Wikipedia, Ruwiki, officially launched on 15 January. You can now edit their articles, even without registering an account. Coverage from Reuters [1] (featured e.g. in the New York Post [2]) cites Kommersant in saying that the the founders have not yet disclosed who the financers of the project are. See prior Signpost coverage: "Wikimedia Russia director starts Russian fork and is replaced" (June 5, 2023), "Ruwiki" (July 17, 2023)
  The ruwiki.ru website also includes what appears to a be a fork of Wikidata, at data.ruwiki.ru, titled "РУВИКИ.Данные" ("RUWIKI.Data"). The wiki's recent deletion log (archive) includes various items related to the Russo-Ukrainian war, e.g. Q111467700 ("Bucha massacre").
• Wiki Loves Monuments image highlighted: "George Washington Masonic Memorial photo honored in Wikipedia photo competition" ALXNow, based in Alexandria, Virginia covers Daniel M Horowitz's image that earned a place at commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2023 winners
• "Editorial Malpractice": Annie Rauwerda lets Harper's Magazine know what she really thinks of The Hofmann Wobble in her letter to the editor. See previous coverage in The Signpost.
• Pathological optimist at Davos: Jimmy Wales is listening and learning at Davos about AI and this year's elections in his usual pathologically optimistic way. On YouTube, CNBC
• State control of content: "Wikipedia, relying on a community of volunteers to edit and maintain its content, has become a prime target for spreading disinformation and state propaganda", says Majid Rafizadeh in a Townhall.com opinion. He claims to report on the contents of "an expert report that has conducted a comprehensive review of the edits made by users affiliated with the Iranian regime on Wikipedia over the past year".
• Do we have anything to do with this?: Italian newspaper Il Secolo XIX, based in Genoa, reports (in Italian, behind pay-wall) that the regional tourist guide union of Liguria has raised concerns over a law included in the Budget Act approved by the national government for the year 2023, which set new universal requirements for professional tourist guides. According to representatives of the union, some of the bill's key provisions might damage local tourism, by allowing "Wikipedia-like guides", in other words, guides who are not as qualified as union members.
• Denigration: In a long and wide-ranging interview for Haaretz (behind pay-wall), Israeli historian Moshe Zimmermann calls out incorrect statements on his Wikipedia page that risked to damage him in real life, saying quote, "[The] more time that passes, what was written about me in Wikipedia as a denigration, becomes the Balaam-like example of 'came to curse, left by blessing' [from Numbers 24]. Because of what I was quoted as saying, which wasn't accurate, settlers and their supporters took me to court three times, and in each case the defamation suit was rejected."
• The bigger picture: Bill Ackman's (kind of) clash with Wikipedia, which we covered in the previous issue of the Signpost, is far from being the billionaire's only high-profile fight, as recently reported by New York and The Atlantic.
• SF footballer's page is heavily edited: "No one in the NFL has had their Wikipedia page edited more since Dec. 11, 2022, than 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy" notes the San Francisco Chronicle, with some reasons why they think it is so.
• Subtitle: Text text text TKTKTK.

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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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31 January 2024

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These comments are automatically transcluded from this article's talk page. To follow comments, add the page to your watchlist. If your comment has not appeared here, you can try .

On a side note not exactly related to this Signpost article, I was kinda shocked when former South African cricketer AB de Villiers told that he literally had tears in his eyes after reading the Wikipedia profile of Guyanese and West Indies cricketer Shamar Joseph. I myself started the article on Shamar Joseph but I literally wrote based on facts from a Cricbuzz article written by Bharat Sundaresan on the incredible rags to riches story of Shamar Joseph. Well AB quoted to have said "Do yourself a favour, go read about his life on wikipedia! Literally had tears in my eyes while reading about his journey. Inspirational to say the least". Abishe (talk) 16:42, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• @Abishe: thank you for bringing that great story here to The Signpost. Thanks for starting the article. And it even appears to be news, much of this seems to have taken place in Australia in January 2024. Now I don't understand anything about cricket (some variant of baseball, right?), but it's a heck of a story and even got a couple of tears from me. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Literal who?

Since when should anyone here care what rando Matt Walsh says? (And arguably, since when in the past week, or 6 months, should anyone care about Nikki Haley either?) More seriously for a WP publication, the article in question does not claim nor quote Walsh as implying that WP reports on anything like Haley's skin color. The entirety of the article that has to do with WP is a quote from Walsh: ... And when I found out, like most people, I said, what? Nikki Haley isn't white? And I had to go check Wikipedia, and sure enough, like, oh, she's from -- her family's from India. I had no idea.

So how does article this warrant even a mention here, much less 200 words? SamuelRiv (talk) 18:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

We pick ITM items based on a mix of tips, personal interest, and patrolling of news aggregation newsfeeds. This one happened to appear on my radar the third way, indicating that at least the aggregator thought it was newsworthy. It's worth pointing out that Matt Walsh is deemed a notable commentator by our own standards (I decided not to link his name in the item for reasons). Two of us on the Signpost team worked this item, so I'll stand by to see if the other author has anything more to say about it. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:21, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Am I the only person who sees a conceptual switcheroo in this? First of all, just to address the elephant in the room here, Nikki Haley is not really brown... So, if Nikki Haley's brown, she's only brown in the sense that any white person is brown. I'm not doubting that Haley's family is really from India. They are. But the point is that if she doesn't tell you she's brown, you would never know. In fact, like most people, I didn't find out until this election cycle that Haley is Indian. And when I found out, like most people, I said, what? Nikki Haley isn't white? And I had to go check Wikipedia, and sure enough, like, oh, she's from -- her family's from India. I had no idea. All that to say her stories of anti-brown persecution strain credulity from the start.

He's complaining that Nikki Haley claims she's brown, says he didn't believe it until he checked Wikipedia where he found out that her family is from India. I would have thought that any political commentator would have known that she was ethnically Indian back when she was UN ambassador, or maybe during last year's debates when two Indian-Americans, Haley and Vivek, were on the stage together. But he's not talking about Indian ethnicity, the elephant in the room is her skin-color. So, according to him, he hears Haley is brown-skinned and checks out Wikipedia and sure enough learns that she is Indian. Totally bogus IMHO. The rest is just as bogus. No discrimination in SC in the 1980s (!). That she is creating stories about anti-brown persecution. (Just bogus).

ML King said "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character". Walsh would disagree with me on this being an important priciple, I'm sure. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:01, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

SF Gate

I'm noticing that an SFGate article was mentioned in this, but is attributed to the San Francisco Chronicle. While the two newsrooms were connected historically, they were split in 2019 and have since then been independent of one another. My apologies for not catching this before publication, but would someone please correct the attribution in the article? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 20:47, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Red-tailed hawk Good catch! It's SFGATE. I thought I keep pretty good track of these things, but, 5 years after the fact, I guess I haven't. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:31, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

In brief

I took a look at the article Military operations in Ukraine (from 2022), and it is as you'd expect, for example citing from "westerners" only Nicolas Sarkozy and Elon Musk on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Related articles are similarly partisan. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 09:08, 1 February 2024 (UTC).

Tell it like it is

The New York Post was shocked to learn that Katherine Maher, the new NPR CEO, had tweeted in 2018 that "Donald Trump is a racist".

The Signpost missed an opportunity to note that former reality television actor Donald Trump has been accused of racism since at least the early 1970s (see Racial views of Donald Trump), and that the New York Post has been shilling for Trump since the 1980s.[3] Viriditas (talk) 23:28, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Harper's Magazine

"Comprised of" isn't a "grammatically incorrect phrase". Even Giraffedata himself says it isn't. Nardog (talk) 01:45, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

It's your Signpost. You can help us.

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