Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-03-02/In the media

In the media

YOUR ARTICLE'S DESCRIPTIVE TITLE HERE

By Bri, Red-tailed hawk and Oltrepier

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

Taylor Tomlinson hosts a wikirace on live TV

Can you get from the celebrity depicted here to the Great Depression in five clicks or fewer?

In a recent episode of CBS-hosted comedy panel show After Midnight, aired on February 12, 2024, host Taylor Tomlinson arranged a special wikirace as part of one of the show's mini-games, Wikipedia Link. In the occasion, her fellow comedians Vinny Thomas, Riki Lindhome and Rob Huebel took turns to guess how many clicks it takes to go from Snoop Dogg to the Great Depression on the English Wikipedia.

Tomlinson introduced the game by deeming Wikipedia as "humanity's CliffsNotes", as the three panelists then shared increasingly unorthodox guesses, ranging from weed to The Grapes of Wrath. Although it was Huebel who eventually found the right number of articles needed to complete the race, specifically five (including the two aforementioned pages), Tomlinson revealed quite an unexpected pattern: from Snoop, to Peanuts, to Howdy Doody, to Wonder Bread, to the 1939 New York World's Fair, to the Great Depression. However, in the comments below the video extract available on the show's YouTube channel, several users have stated there are even shorter paths connecting the two pages.

No matter who is right, it's safe to say Taylor and the rest of the After Midnight staff deserve a shout-out for helping popularize the wikirace trend and, by extension, Wikipedia as a whole. – O

Selena Deckelmann profile

The MIT Technology Review has published a profile of the Wikimedia Foundation's CTO, Selena Deckelmann. The main focus of the piece is how Deckelmann sees the place of Wikipedia in the age of chatbots:

Deckelmann argues that Wikipedia will become an even more valuable resource as nuanced, human perspectives become harder to find online. But fulfilling that promise requires continued focus on preserving and protecting Wikipedia’s beating heart: the Wikipedians who volunteer their time and care to keep the information up to date through old-fashioned talking and tinkering. Deckelmann and her team are dedicated to an AI strategy that prioritizes building tools for contributors, editors, and moderators to make their work faster and easier, while running off-platform AI experiments with ongoing feedback from the community. “My role is to focus attention on sustainability and people,” says Deckelmann. “How are we really making life better for them as we’re playing around with some cool technology?”

However –

Today Deckelmann sees a newer sustainability problem in AI development: the predominant method for training models is to pull content from sites like Wikipedia, often generated by open-source creators without compensation or even, sometimes, awareness of how their work will be used. “If people stop being motivated to [contribute content online],” she warns, “either because they think that these models are not giving anything back or because they’re creating a lot of value for a very small number of people—then that’s not sustainable.” At Wikipedia, Deckelmann’s internal AI strategy revolves around supporting contributors with the technology rather than short-circuiting them. The machine-learning and product teams are working on launching new features that, for example, automate summaries of verbose debates on a wiki’s "Talk" pages (where back-and-forth discussions can go back as far as 20 years) or suggest related links when editors are updating pages. “We’re looking at new ways that we can save volunteers lots of time by summarizing text, detecting vandalism, or responding to different kinds of threats,” she says.

The article also discusses the potential need for Wikipedia to meets its readers elsewhere online, naming the Foundation's Wikipedia ChatGPT plugin as an example. – AK

Scottish parliament edits Wikipedia

• Parliament no-no: Scottish Parliament computers were used to burnish the Wikipedia biographies of a number of MPs (The National(subscription required) non-paywall via Yahoo! News, The Scottish Sun)

The Irish Sun. (TODO: independent confirmation)

In brief

We covered it, OK? Jeesh.

• Wikidata and Wikipedia as arbiters of truth: The Australian edition of The Spectator, noting that Wikipedia feeds internet search results on Google, Yahoo!, or Bing, as well as question-answering systems such as Siri, Amazon Alexa, or AI language models, wonders "how safe it is to crowdsource the truth".
• You're fired: Controversial radio talk show Coast to Coast AM recently claimed that "a cabal of hardcore skeptics and UFO debunkers has surreptitiously seized control of hundreds of Wikipedia pages". What's more, a change.org petition has been set up to "Demand Wikipedia to Dismiss Editors Suppressing UAP Phenomenon Information": one of its over 600 supporters stated that the platform "should show all sides of an issue without demanding so-called 'scientific evidence'"
• Where's my cut?: According to infamous news website BNN Breaking, under the surface of Wikipedia lies the "Billion-Dollar Web of Deception, Lies & Elite Manipulation", as evidenced by "deliberate distortion" in the articles about BNN Breaking's founder Gurbaksh Chahal, his wife, and BNN Breaking itself. But seriously... what have we done to deserve this?
• Endorsed by law professor: Pepperdine Law associate professor Jacob Charles actually trusts Wikipedia, so much that he said you should all go read the article about State constitutions in the United States right away.
• Endorsed by librarians: UC Berkeley Libraries appears to have coined the term "wikiphiliacs" in an announcement of a Valentine's Day special edit-a-thon. The always-reliable Google Trends tells us that it's likely to be truly novel.
• But also not endorsed by librarians (do your own research): The Georgia State University Library recently hosted a seminar on how to use books, journals and portals like Gale eBooks for research, "instead of relying on Wikipedia".
• Endorsed by meme as "generally reliable source": A Wikipedia-themed meme went viral on Twitter/X last week, reaching over 13 million views. Based on the "midwit" meme format featuring three Wojak characters of low, average and high intelligence, the meme mocks the supposedly naive concern "Nooooo anyone can edit it!" (expressed by the "midwit" character) with the supposedly more valid take that "Wikipedia is generally a reliable source" (expressed by both the low and high intelligence characters).
• Wikipedia: The Telos of the internet: In an article for the The Daily Northwestern, Scott Hwang praised Wikipedia's ad-free, community-centered model and strict rules on neutrality and verifiability, deeming the platform as the real-life version of the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
• Argentine edit-a-thon: Wikimedian and UNLP professor Fernando Archuby was recently interviewed on Argentine radio station Radio Antena Libre, as he hosted a work-shop in his local community to help people learn how to edit Wikipedia and improve the articles related to the natural and cultural heritage of northern Patagonia.

This beaver comes at no charge special for readers of The Signpost made in USA

• Wish I'd thought of that, whatever it is: The Guardian recently reported about the overnight success of Harlesden-based developer TJ Gardner, who last year made roughly £‎280.000 out of creating apps that are basically made of a start button, a click counter, "some lo-fi acoustic beats looping endlessly in the background" and... a cute creature from Wikimedia Commons.
• Online Images Amplify Gender Bias: The Independent has reported on a recent study which proved how online pictures can inadvertently amplify gender bias – see related Signpost coverage in Recent research.
• Robot accountants versus Wikipedia: David Pierce reported for The Verge on how robots.txt works and is especially robust on several platforms, including Wikipedia, and how the rise of AIs could be a problem for "robot accounting".
• Российский encyclopedia considers copying from Wikipedia: Meduza, Russian Wikinews and other sources reported on some statements from Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who suggested copying Wikipedia in its entirety, as well as Russian fork Ruviki, to expand another analog of the platform, Znanie. Wiki.
• Yoruba Wikipedia hits 25 million views in 2023: Nigerian newspaper The Nation has reported that the Yoruba Wikipedia hit 25 million annual views in 2023, up from about 17 million annual views in 2021, thus officially becoming the most-visited Yoruba-language website.
• Florida man nominated for deletion: The discussion that led to the (temporary) deletion of Miami-Dade County mayoral election candidate Manny Cid seemingly sparked backlash from the Republican politician himself, according to the local press.
• The Pacific Northwest has its own encyclopedia: The Seattle Times has shed a light on Historylink, an online encyclopedia of Washington state history that has CC-BY content, but can't exactly be deemed as a "fork"... since it's actually older than Wikipedia itself.
• They have the time, the life experience, and they know what they want to write about: AFP let us discover the stories of the Czech seniors who have been involved in "Seniors Write Wikipedia", a project started in 2013 by the national branch of the WMF to help elderly people learn how to edit the Czech Wikipedia. One of the participants, retired librarian Jirina Kadnerova, summed up her enthusiasm about contributing to the platform by saying, "When I write about something, I want to lay my hands on it".
• Wikipedia use rejected in U.S. court: Law360 has noted judges from the U.S. Court of International Trade rejected attempts from the U.S. Department of Commerce to use Wikipedia articles in support of their plans to expand vertical shaft engine tariffs. And if you're wondering about that vertical engine thing which is currently a redlink, we think they are gasoline motors for small machines, of the type made by Zongshen in China and Briggs and Stratton in the United States.
• Subtitle: Text text text.

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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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Scottish Parliament computers might have been used to edit Wikipedia, report says

I feel like this story deserves a full "Disinformation report", because those IP users might have edited an even bigger amount of articles than the report suggested... Oltrepier (talk) 09:11, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Taylor Tomlinson hosts a wikirace on live TV

For what it's worth, Snoop Dogg → Cleveland → Great Depression is 3. — Qwerfjkltalk 12:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

... according to this script. Qwerfjkltalk 15:34, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that's the same theme that I came here to comment. For any sufficiently famous American, one can expect with fair confidence that one can start from the portion of their Wikipedia article that discusses the places where they've grown up, lived, worked, or visited, then use that phenomenon to click through and scroll to the history of such a place, including the portion of that chronology that covers the 1930s era, and for any sufficiently famous city or state, a link to the Great Depression is likely to be discoverable. I had never consciously done that analysis before, but while I was skimming the news article the notion arose as one of the methods for solving that has the right combination of power and likelihood, across many instances of notable persons and notable places. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl and Quercus solaris: Yes, obviously the show's staff went for a specific number of articles and a specific pattern, but the possibilities are almost infinite, really... Anyhow, shout-out to Taylor and the rest of the writing crew! : D Oltrepier (talk) 08:39, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed! Good fun, plus it encourages people to think while having fun. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:03, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I suspect this varies greatly depending on whether navboxes (which are hidden on mobile) are allowed. Nardog (talk) 03:27, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

In brief

A small correction: The court case was decided by a single judge on the Court of International Trade. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:16, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts: Thank you, I'll add it to the entry! Oltrepier (talk) 08:42, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

It kind of hurts when a Federal judge says WP is "unreliable evidence"; however, Judge Choe-Groves provides some good tips in the ruling on improving the article Drive shaft to include more details on "power take-off" shafts! ☆ Bri (talk) 16:55, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

It's funny yet annoying to see cringe people and organizations complain about Wikipedia yet again. Also based washington encyclopedia; I didn't know it existed lmao Firestar464 (talk) 02:01, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

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