Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-03-29/In the media

In the media

YOUR ARTICLE'S DESCRIPTIVE TITLE HERE

By Bri

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

Lead story 1

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French Wikipedia discusses transgender names

• https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2024/03/12/wikipedia-s-french-speaking-community-is-torn-apart-over-deadnaming-trans-people_6611905_13.html#

• link to Spanish language summary

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Report accuses Wikipedia of anti-Israel bias

The World Jewish Congress has published a report titled "The Bias Against Israel on Wikipedia", which has been covered by The Jerusalem Post, Jewish News Syndicate, and Spectator Australia (paywalled). The 19-page report, which focuses on English Wikipedia, "is based on research, content analysis, and interviews with Israeli Wikipedians"; its overview of challenges to Wikipedia's ideals include the gender gap (see Signpost coverage) and "The Power of the Admins and Beurocrats" [sic]. It has already been used as a citation in the article Wikipedia and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The author, Dr. Shlomit Aharoni Lir, is an academic who had previously published a peer-reviewed paper about gender bias on Wikipedia (Signpost coverage), but the present report does not seem intended to be an academic publication.

One of the report's proposals for new features that should be implemented is to "host forums and discussions within the Wikipedia community to address concerns about neutrality and gather feedback for policy improvements"; it is not specified how this would fit into the existing directory of centralized discussions, dashboard, twenty-year-old, project-wide Request for Comment process with fifteen categories, six Village Pumps, and dozen or so noticeboards, including a neutral-point-of-view noticeboard and dispute resolution noticeboard.

Lauren Dickinson of the Wikimedia Foundation's Communications Department told The Signpost that "The Foundation takes allegations of bias on Wikimedia projects seriously, so several staff have reviewed the report. They found that the WJC report makes a number of unsubstantiated claims of bias on Wikipedia. It lacks adequate references, quotes, links, or other sources to support its purported findings. Further, the report misunderstands Wikipedia's NPOV policy, as well as the importance of anonymity for user privacy on Wikimedia projects."

See also related earlier coverage: "Does Wikipedia's Gaza coverage show an anti-Israel bias?" ("In the media", November 6, 2023)

– s-m, H and J

In brief

CAPTION

• Getting away from it all?: AFAR magazine explains "Why Google Flights and Wikipedia (Yep!) Are a Traveler’s Best Friends, giving some tips on finding airports connecting aspiring travelers to their destination. The article calls the customary "Airlines and destinations" sections in Wikipedia articles about airports (example) "a great resource for those wanting to know options for nonstop flights and possibilities for mileage redemptions."
• Balkan edit wars: In an interview for Portuguese newspaper Público (in Portuguese, behind pay-wall), University of Novi Sad professor and fact-checker Stefan Janjić broke down the influence of Russian disinformation in his native country of Serbia, including a recent dispute over the content and tone of the article about the Srebrenica massacre on the Serbian Wikipedia.
• Around the world in 292 ways: Wikipedian Lucy Moore has created an article for a woman from every country in the world (as well as nearly every partially-recognized state, United Kingdom subdivision, autonomous region, special administrative region, overseas territory and disputed ethnic republic!) Moore participates in Women in Red, a WikiProject dedicated to closing the gender gap on Wikipedia. An article in The Guardian and an interview with CNN cover Moore's work and highlight women from lesser-known corners of the world. In honor of International Women's Day, an editorial in The Guardian analyzes Wikipedia's coverage of women.

• AARoads, take me home: A long-running conflict over Wikipedia's articles about US roads led to the forking of many roads articles back in September. Gizmodo recently interviewed a number of AARoads editors and Wikipedians (Imzadi1979, BMACS001, and onel5969) about the split, calling it "a promised land where the editors hope, at last, that they can find peace". See also previous Signpost coverage: "A fork in the Roads WikiProject" ("News and notes", September 16, 2023)

• Covering Pakistan's elections on Wikipedia': The Friday Times covers how Pakistan's turbulent politics and recent general election has caused problems for Wikipedians; accusations of political bias fly as editors try to figure out who to list as the leader of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, whether to list the party on election maps at all, and perhaps most importantly, who won the election.

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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29 March 2024

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• "AARoard" in the title, real yurkey moment. Pretzelles (talk) 23:48, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  And it should be BMACS1002. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 23:52, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  Also, the image's caption is "CAPTION". Reconrabbit 00:15, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  @Reconrabbit @LilianaUwU @Pretzelles must've gotten lost when the WJC report story was split off. fixed all three Y ... sawyer * he/they * talk 01:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• Also... what's with the quote in the title? "For me, it's the autism"? It feels wrong to use that quote. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 23:52, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

  I am autistic, and it doesn't particularly bother me. I think for some people who are autistic, contributing to Wikipedia really could be something that appeals; it certainly has been to me. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  i'm also autistic, and wikipedia is my primary way to engage with my special interests - based on the context in the interview, it seems the same is true of autistic AARoads editors, per their own words. the full quote is

  “For me it’s the autism. You settle on a thing and then you’re like, ‘well, this is my thing now,’” Ben said. “But people get really into all kinds of stuff, and just because it’s not the thing you’re into doesn’t mean it’s not important. We do it because we love it and we can create community around it.”

  seems pretty indicative of the somewhat personal nature of the dispute here - if my special interest were US roads, i'd also be pretty upset about the articles going to AfD constantly; hence, the forking. ... sawyer * he/they * talk 19:34, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• Re: "my ultimate goal is to fork back [AARoads content]", it seems to me we really could use a Wikimedia project that provides almanac-like info, covering all the deets of roads, public transportation, radio/TV stations, agriculture data, and more. We could keep the Wikipedia an encyclopedia, with that level of coverage, and its articles can link to the WikiAlmanac page on that or related subjects. Every so often in an AfD discussion, I feel like "this topic of community concern isn't notable for our purposes but coverage of it still seems useful." Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 01:26, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Roughly like the CIA Factbook, only bigger and going down to details on cities. You may recall that our Wikivoyage affiliate was once an independent, commercial wiki but the Admins and other heavy hitters got fed up with its commercial policies and begged admission as an autonomous wiki to our little empire, with relaxed standards appropriate to tourism. Similarly a Wikiroads, or Wikialamanac site, with looseness appropriate there but not to an encyclopedia that needs more tightness, might be welcome. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:05, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Definitely the right principle to pursue. I've seen it happen with other kinds of content as well. It was extremely useful content for certain purposes but got removed from Wikipedia simply because Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia and a general encyclopedia isn't quite the appropriate place for it. More ought to be done with this concept than has been done with it to date. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:24, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  This is definitely something that shouldn't be forgotten. Just because something is not in scope for Wikipedia does not mean it's without value; it just means it doesn't fit here. Wikipedia, for example, lists recipes as out of scope (and, in my view, correctly so), but there are some very good ones on Wikibooks. Similarly, I've found plenty of how-to guides and tutorials to be of substantial value; they just don't belong here. Unfortunately, with fictional content, that was farmed off to a for-profit endeavor that I know some people are less than happy with, but if we can fit material that is out of scope here but nonetheless useful into Wikimedia sister projects (existing or newly created), I think that we should. An almanac/gazetteer type sister project might be a great way to resolve the issue of permastubs on "populated places", roads, and so on. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 23:52, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

  • A WikiAlmanac project appeals to me. I know sports sometimes runs into this as well: primary sources publish sporting results and fans just put those into big tables of results. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  completely agree with all of the above. i'm envisioning something like wikidata but user-friendly, which i'd definitely be interested in contributing to :) ... sawyer * he/they * talk 05:06, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

  • The first pillar says: Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Even though we primarily describe ourselves as an encyclopedia, it is reasonable to discuss what almanac information is within our scope. However, I don't think forks should be considered a failure. Many Fandom wikis are huge successes. We are part of a wider movement to make information freely available: it doesn't matter what domain it's hosted at as long as readers can find it, and we should be happy to collaborate across sites. — Bilorv (talk) 10:13, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

• @Lajmmoore: Huge congrats, it's such an inspiring achievement! Oltrepier (talk) 13:41, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you so much @Oltrepier & thank you for pointing me to the signpost too - I'd have missed the mention otherwise! Many thanks to the contributor who added it in - so appreciated! Lajmmoore (talk) 23:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• Cooking could be in, not a cooking wiki but in a "how to" wiki along with corset making, cornet playing, courting, corking, cod fishing, whatever doing. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:24, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  I think cooking would in theory be covered by WikiBooks. Not that it's used much, I'm afraid. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 08:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  This is perfect for Wikibooks. In fact, why don't we encourage people to write how to on Wikibooks, and then link them from the Wikipedia page? Jim.henderson — Preceding unsigned comment added by CactiStaccingCrane (talk • contribs) 14:00, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

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