Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 69

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Village pump (miscellaneous) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Talk to the Community Tech

Hello

We, the team working on the Community Wishlist Survey, would like to invite you to an online meeting with us. It will take place on 19 January (Wednesday), 18:00 UTC on Zoom, and will last an hour. This external system is not subject to the WMF Privacy Policy. Click here to join.

Agenda

• Bring drafts of your proposals and talk to to a member of the Community Tech Team about your questions on how to improve the proposal

Format

The meeting will not be recorded or streamed. Notes without attribution will be taken and published on Meta-Wiki. The presentation (all points in the agenda except for the questions and answers) will be given in English.

We can answer questions asked in English, French, Polish, Spanish, and German. If you would like to ask questions in advance, add them on the Community Wishlist Survey talk page or send to sgrabarczuk@wikimedia.org.

Natalia Rodriguez (the Community Tech manager) will be hosting this meeting.

Invitation link

• Join online
• Meeting ID: 85804347114
• Dial by your location

We hope to see you! SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 00:21, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Subscribe to the This Month in Education newsletter - learn from others and share your stories

Dear community members,

Greetings from the EWOC Newsletter team and the education team at Wikimedia Foundation. We are very excited to share that we on tenth years of Education Newsletter (This Month in Education) invite you to join us by subscribing to the newsletter on your talk page or by sharing your activities in the upcoming newsletters. The Wikimedia Education newsletter is a monthly newsletter that collects articles written by community members using Wikimedia projects in education around the world, and it is published by the EWOC Newsletter team in collaboration with the Education team. These stories can bring you new ideas to try, valuable insights about the success and challenges of our community members in running education programs in their context.

If your affiliate/language project is developing its own education initiatives, please remember to take advantage of this newsletter to publish your stories with the wider movement that shares your passion for education. You can submit newsletter articles in your own language or submit bilingual articles for the education newsletter. For the month of January the deadline to submit articles is on the 20th January. We look forward to reading your stories.

Older versions of this newsletter can be found in the complete archive.

More information about the newsletter can be found at Education/Newsletter/About.

For more information, please contact spatnaikwikimedia.org.

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About This Month in Education · Subscribe/Unsubscribe · Global message delivery · For the team: ZI Jony ^(Talk), Saturday 8:36, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

YouTube music pt2

I started a thread in August of last year about how YouTube Music steals Wikipedia content without attribution. [1] Anyways pretty much nothing has happened since then and they're still just stealing our content because copyleft is a joke now. I'm wondering what we could do on our end. For one, I'm thinking of listing YouTube Music at mirrors and forks. I haven't written any music artist ledes, but should I rewrite one so I can send a DMCA or something? Can I even send a DMCA if it isn't UGC? Are these bios UGC? Who knows. But on another note, a WMF person told us they'd reach out to Google. Supposedly they have contacts there. Yet nothing happened. What does that say about the WMF's relationship with Google that even they can't get something done? Why are we giving money (I've donated hundreds but likely not again) to the WMF to make "partnerships" with Google [2] if that partnership is so evidently useless? There's 11 people on the partnerships team. [3] 11 people! Their entire job is to maintain so-called "partnerships" with organizations like Google, and obviously especially Google since it's their top listed "partner". What are they doing all day when they can't use this partnership to advocate on behalf of enwiki? I wonder if a member of the Partnerships team can explain what they're doing or not doing. Because if they reached out with their "contacts" and Google just didn't care that's one thing, but if they're not bothering to try that's another. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:13, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Chess: in general if you are personally a (co)author (a copyright owner) of some text you licensed under CCBYSA that YTM is using without attribution, then yes - you can file a DMCA takedown request to YTM. You generally can not do this on behalf of other owners. — xaosflux ^Talk 10:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: I'm aware. That's why I'm pissed. I personally can't do anything legally speaking. Only the copyright holders, who may be anyone and likely not interested in this, can do anything to get YouTube Music to stop copying artist bios from Wikipedia without attribution? But isn't the whole purpose of building these partnerships with Google so that the WMF can advocate on behalf of us when there isn't a legal interest but there's a problem? Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Chess: I wouldn't hold my breath that the WMF "purpose" of this is that.. see Google and Wikipedia -- making knowledge available to everyone is the mission, and Google can help in that --- and if they happen to give WMF large donations, well..... — xaosflux ^Talk 00:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Chess I wanted to follow up directly so you know WMF is aware of this and that I did surface this issue to YouTube in August, as promised. Despite coordinating with Google in a multitude of ways, including advocating for the movement's positions, we cannot promise actions or behaviors on the behalf of Google or any other organization. As @Xaosflux outlined, WMF also cannot file DMCA takedowns on behalf of other owners. NPerry (WMF) (talk) 18:53, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

@NPerry (WMF): I'm glad to hear that you at least tried. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 19:16, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Call for Feedback about the Board of Trustees elections is now open

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The Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections is now open and will close on 7 16 February 2022.

With this Call for Feedback, the Movement Strategy and Governance team is taking a different approach. This approach incorporates community feedback from 2021. Instead of leading with proposals, the Call is framed around key questions from the Board of Trustees. The key questions came from the feedback about the 2021 Board of Trustees election. The intention is to inspire collective conversation and collaborative proposal development about these key questions.

Join the conversation.

Best regards,

Movement Strategy and Governance

Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Please note an additional question has now been added. There are also several proposals from participants to review and discuss. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:24, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Question about the Affiliates' role for the Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections

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Hi All,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections so far. The Movement Strategy and Governance team has announced the last key question:

How should affiliates participate in elections?

Affiliates are an important part of the Wikimedia movement. Two seats of the Board of Trustees due to be filled this year were filled in 2019 through the Affiliate-selected Board seats process. A change in the Bylaws removed the distinction between community and affiliate seats. This leaves the important question: How should affiliates be involved in the selection of new seats?

The question is broad in the sense that the answers may refer not just to the two seats mentioned, but also to other, Community- and Affiliate-selected seats. The Board is hoping to find an approach that will both engage the affiliates and give them actual agency, and also optimize the outcomes in terms of selecting people with top skills, experience, diversity, and wide community’s support.

The Board of Trustees is seeking feedback about this question especially, although not solely, from the affiliate community. Everyone is invited to share proposals and join the conversation in the Call for Feedback channels. In addition to collecting online feedback, the Movement Strategy and Governance team will organize several video calls with affiliate members to collect feedback. These calls will be at different times and include Trustees.

Due to the late addition of this third question, the Call will be extended until 16 February.

Join the conversation.

Best regards,

Movement Strategy and Governance

Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:24, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Template:Nom has an RFC

Template:Nom has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you.

Desktop Improvements update and Office Hours invitation

Hello. I wanted to give you an update about the Desktop Improvements project, which the Wikimedia Foundation Web team has been working on for the past few years.

The goals of the project are to make the interface more welcoming and comfortable for readers and useful for advanced users. The project consists of a series of feature improvements which make it easier to read and learn, navigate within the page, search, switch between languages, use article tabs and the user menu, and more.

The improvements are already visible by default for readers and editors on 24 wikis, including Wikipedias in French, Portuguese, and Persian.

The changes apply to the Vector skin only. Monobook or Timeless users are not affected.

Features deployed since our last update

• User menu - focused on making the navigation more intuitive by visually highlighting the structure of user links and their purpose.
• Sticky header - focused on allowing access to important functionality (logging in/out, history, talk pages, etc.) without requiring people to scroll to the top of the page.

For a full list of the features the project includes, please visit our project page. We also invite you to our Updates page.

The features deployed already and the table of contents that's currently under development

How to enable the improvements

Global preferences

• It is possible to opt-in individually in the appearance tab within the preferences by unchecking the "Use Legacy Vector" box. (It has to be empty.) Also, it is possible to opt-in on all wikis using the global preferences.
• If you think this would be good as a default for all readers and editors of this wiki, feel free to start a conversation with the community and contact me.
• On wikis where the changes are visible by default for all, logged-in users can always opt-out to the Legacy Vector. There is an easily accessible link in the sidebar of the new Vector.

Learn more and join our events

If you would like to follow the progress of our project, you can subscribe to our newsletter.

You can read the pages of the project, check our FAQ, write on the project talk page, and join an online meeting with us (27 January (Thursday), 15:00 UTC).

How to join our online meeting

• Join online
• Meeting ID: 89205402895
• Dial by your location

Thank you!!

On behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation Web team, SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 22:11, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

False statement removal

Please remove sentence 'For Sunnis, the crossing of the Red Sea by Moses occurred on this day.' from article Islamic calendar#Notable dates because sea cannot be crossed on foot by anyone. --5.43.74.120 (talk) 23:17, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Despite that difficulty, some people believe the story of crossing the Red Sea. The article correctly documents their belief. (I would normally suggest moving this discussion to Talk:Islamic calendar, but that page is semi-protected.) Certes (talk) 12:25, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Editorial change of my footnote

In the article Dorothy Kilgallan, I added information on her appearances as herself and as a fictional character in 3 novels by Max Allan Collins. My footnote covered all the facts in the list. It was replaced by a footnote that only covers 1 of the three. Why? Wis2fan (talk) 05:03, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Wis2fan, you could have just asked me on the article talk page or my user talk page. I changed your ref because it used the books by Collins as a source, when what is needed is an independent source that states that the fictional character in his books was based on Kilgallen. So I found an independent source that says Flo = Dorothy. Schazjmd (talk) 17:38, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I’m sorry, I don’t know how to do those two things. I’m learning as I go along. But I don’t understand, why is it not sufficient for a author himself to say I based x on y? Also, on my iPad I can no longer access the base page to edit. I can edit text but italics show as italics and footnotes as numbers, not code and text. Do you know why? Anyway, thanks for being patient with me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wis2fan (talk • contribs) 20:23, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Wis2fan, the ref you added wasn't very clear. It looked like it included two book titles (I Owe Them One, Do No Harm), with a single page number, so it looked to me like you were basing the conclusion on your reading of the novels. I just found a comment on Amazon that says Collins ends each book with an "I Owe Them One" section that explains his research, so that must be what you intended. That author's note would be an acceptable source (if properly formatted), but since we have an independent source, that does just as well.

I've never used an iPad, but it sounds like the page is opening in Visual Editor view for you. Typically, there are two edit options at the top of the page: Edit and Edit source. If you select Edit, it opens the Visual Editor. In either view, there should be a pencil-like icon in the top-upper-right that you can use to switch between the two editing views.

On each Wikipedia page (unless viewed in mobile/phone), there are two tabs at the top left: Article and Talk. Click Talk to access the talk page for that specific Wikipedia page to make comments.

As questions come to you while you're learning, please keep the Teahouse in mind. It's a good place to ask questions and get assistance from other editors. Happy editing! Schazjmd (talk) 20:51, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The confusion was caused by me, I used the italic code instead of " for the chapter title. Mea culpa. Thanks for all the advice. I also forgot to sign my question. I do that, too. Wis2fan (talk) 21:44, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Let's help Rehman

Hi all; let's support our colleague Rehman, he is a great Wikipedian, and currently is in a critical economic situation. If you wish to support, please click on commons:User:A.Savin/Rehman fundraising and click there on the campaign link. Any donation and sharing this campaign (including Social media) is highly appreciated. Happy New Year. Best regards --A.Savin (talk) 14:38, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Not commenting on the particular merit of this fundraising drive... but I have a deep aversion into using Wikipedia/Meta pages for personal fundraising (e.g. [4]). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:05, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

• It's so depressing that since I posted this here, there were 0 (zero) new donations, and the only answer suggests I did sth wrong when posting it, huh? OK I understand if people are not motivated to donate, but at least share in your (Wikimedia-related) social network, it's free of charge and it's human anyway. What about retweeting this tweet by Frank Schulenburg, OK just a suggestion, can be ignored of course. --A.Savin (talk) 18:31, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Nationality breakdown of English Wikipedia's editors

I was looking at English Wikipedia, and I was puzzled it did not provide a breakdown by nationality for our international community. Presumably, the biggest group of English Wikipedia editors is American, but do we have any hard numbers? The old ~2010 survey concerned the entire Wikimedia Community (see Wikipedia:Wikipedians back then 20% of the Wikimedia community was American), and didn't provide a breakdown by project. We have a pagrviews breakdown which can be used as a form of a proxy assuming that views correlate with the level of contributions (which they do, but not ideally; anyway, link is [5], data is from 2018, please let me know if we have a new, more up to date version of this). We also have the Category:Wikipedians by ethnicity and nationality, but I am not sure how to easily visualize the data or even get a simple count in for a spreadsheet to make a graph. Anything better? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

How could this be determined. Do you think that most accounts declare their nationality? IPs don't of course. Some of us, including me, have two nationalities. How would you deal with that? Doug Weller talk 10:34, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The newer stats.wikimedia.org provides some good data on this [6]. For December 2021 the top countries by active editors (5+ edits) on English Wikipedia:

• United States of America: 21K
• United Kingdom: 6K
• India: 5K
• Canada: 3K
• Australia: 2K

(more at the link) -- the wub "?!" 11:09, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@The wub Interesting, but a pain in the... from the "non-trivia" perspective, any idea how to contact whoever is responsible for this? Major problems: no "total" (so the 21k of Americans are what % of the total?). Also it forces you to chose either "editors with 5-99 edits" or "100+ edits", but what about "all"? And why not "5 or less edits"? Aargh, it's like this was designed by a student journalist for some newsbites, the old pages were much more clear and useful for researchers. PS. At least there's a csv download, so with a little bit of effort the totals can be calculated, but why not display them openly?? For the record, I got total of 57060 so we can estimate American editors constitute ~37% of total. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Piotrus I found the 5-99/100+ filtering on that page is a bit confusing too, the best way to give feedback is probably a Phabricator task, so I made one: phab:T300365. As for 5 or fewer edits, I don't know why that isn't available in the data. But personally I think if you're interested in the "Wikimedia community" then cutting off at 5+ edits makes more sense anyway, to avoid including every drive-by vandal. the wub "?!" 12:32, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Where does the information for that come from? I mean, how does it determine an editors' nationality? Like mine? I'll add that looks like a small amount of editors. Doug Weller talk 11:34, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I guess it's IP. And the total is messed up, as in - it only counts editors with 5+ edits, that page doesn't say anything with regards to the <5. (The 100+ seems to be a tenth of the 5-99 group, so 5-6k I guess). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:40, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I hope it's not IP, I'm not convinced that sort of data should be used this way. I'll find out. Doug Weller talk 12:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Anonymized IP is anonymized, and has been used for Wikipedia statistics since the project begun. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:09, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

They take the IP date from accounts and use it for stats? I didn't know that. Still not reliable. Doug Weller talk 13:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know that's what they do but it seems quite possible. Sure, it's not 100% reliable, but you can't get 100% in a real world. Frankly, as someone who runs surveys, sure, the "other" or such options are useful but also produce a lot of noise, much of which needs to be recoded into basic options because what the respondent thinks is 'different' for the researcher is just minute hair splitting. Like, two nationalities? Chose the more important one. It's very unlikely having two nationalities matters for most research. Particularly as such cases are very rare and it's next to impossible to build any model for them, so one can either discard such data point or "move it" to a larger group. Of course, it's case by case, shrug. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:48, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it is indeed reasonable to assume that someone editing from a certain country is most likely a citizen of that country. Whereas there could be some exceptions (I can think of the Gulf states), in the absolute majority of situations the number of users editing not from the country they are nationals of (double citizens; expats; travelers) is statistically insignificant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ymblanter (talk • contribs) 20:01, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Even if they're not citizens, they are very likely to be long-term residents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:51, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, students anyway - I get the impression quite a lot of editing on India topics is by possibly homesick & bored students of Indian origin in the US etc, like whathisname in The Big Bang Theory. But short of asking everyone, location is all we can expect, not nationality. Johnbod (talk) 04:37, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

@Doug Weller we are using the IP. All the code and methodology is available, the system is described here, and the public version of the dataset here. In short, the IP as recorded by the CheckUser extension is looked up in a local copy of the MaxMind GeoIPv2 database, which we have a subscription to. So the IP information never leaves our servers. The meta:Data_retention_guidelines govern how and what we do with this data. For example, the reason we don't provide numbers for editors with activity in the 1 to 4 edits range is privacy.

On a more general note, this particular metric is a bit rougher around the edges than the other data we publish, again because of privacy concerns. So it didn't fit as easily into wikistats and we need to prioritize some work to fix that, but we're a tiny team and we haven't really touched wikistats in two years. I hear your concerns here, and I'll make sure they're considered when we are able to get back to it. Milimetric (WMF) (talk) 19:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Doug Weller talk 07:54, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Journalist working on article about Wikipedians

Hi all,

I am a student journalist working on an article about Wikipedia, Wikipedians, and what motivates you all to spend time contributing to this website for free. If any editors here would be interested in being interviewed or even just explaining the procedures and culture on this website, please message me. Any help you can offer would be appreciated! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eg8526a (talk • contribs) 00:42, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

• its fun to research for articles that I'm interested in (learning more about the world)
• I edit a lot of local articles where the information is out of date so it feels good to update old stuff
• I like learning about the culture on Wikipedia and all the in-jokes

I haven't editing a lot recently though because school school work TubbDoose (talk) 11:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

you can also look at this presentation for your article https://up.wiki.x.io/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/WikimaniaMotivationsTalk.pdf TubbDoose (talk) 11:53, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Movement Strategy and Governance News – Issue 5

Hi all, the Universal Code of Conduct News has been re-cast, now appearing is the Movement Strategy and Governance News! I've added some direct links in the shortened version below, if you want to skip right to the subjects for this issue. Please let me know if you have any questions. The Movement Strategy and Governance team is inviting input about the newsletter (past, present, future) at m:Talk:Movement Strategy and Governance/Newsletter. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:57, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Read the full newsletter • Please help translate to other languages.

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Welcome to the fifth issue of Movement Strategy and Governance News (formerly known as Universal Code of Conduct News)! This revamped newsletter distributes relevant news and events about the Movement Charter, Universal Code of Conduct, Movement Strategy Implementation grants, Board elections and other relevant Movement Strategy and Governance topics.

This Newsletter will be distributed quarterly, while more frequent Updates will also be delivered weekly or bi-weekly to subscribers. Please remember to subscribe here if you would like to receive these updates.

• Call for Feedback about the Board elections - We invite you to give your feedback on the upcoming WMF Board of Trustees election. This call for feedback went live on 10th January 2022 and will be concluded on 16th February 2022. (continue reading)
• Universal Code of Conduct Ratification - In 2021, the WMF asked communities about how to enforce the Universal Code of Conduct policy text. The revised draft of the enforcement guidelines should be ready for community vote in March. (continue reading)
• Movement Strategy Implementation Grants - As we continue to review several interesting proposals, we encourage and welcome more proposals and ideas that target a specific initiative from the Movement Strategy recommendations. (continue reading)
• The New Direction for the Newsletter - As the UCoC Newsletter transitions into MSG Newsletter, join the facilitation team in envisioning and deciding on the new directions for this newsletter. (continue reading)
• Diff Blogs - Check out the most recent publications about MSG on Wikimedia Diff. (continue reading)

Updates on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines Review / community call on 4 February 2022

Please see additional details now available about the Universal Code of Conduct Ratification topic. There will be a live call with the project team and drafting committee members this Friday. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

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Hello everyone,

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the Universal Code of Conduct across the movement. Comments about the guidelines can be shared here or the Meta-wiki talk page.

There will be conversations on Zoom on 4 February 2022 at 15:00 UTC, 25 February 2022 at 12:00 UTC, and 4 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC. Join the UCoC project team and drafting committee members to discuss the guidelines and voting process.

The timeline is available on Meta-wiki. The voting period is March 7 to 21. See the voting information page for more details.

Thank you to everyone who has participated so far.

Sincerely,

Movement Strategy and Governance
Wikimedia Foundation

This announcement seems to imply that the community will have a vote on whether to adopt UCoC. If that's correct then it's a very welcome revelation that may not have been clear from previous information. (It seemed that our choice was to accept it or leave.) We should certainly publicise this vote on 7 March – at least a watchlist banner – so that rank-and-file Wikipedians can express our views. Certes (talk) 22:01, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Certes: The background on this can be found here: January 2022 - Board of Trustees on Community ratification of enforcement guidelines of UCoC (see also: detailed announcement). According to the voting information page: "All eligible voters within the Wikimedia Community will have an opportunity to support or oppose the adoption of the Enforcement Guidelines, and share why." I agree it would be a good idea to advertise this poll via a watchlist notice (at least). Xeno (WMF) (talk) 23:16, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Sharp decline in number of administrators in the last year?

As someone who just recently started editing again about about a year, I noticed something peculiar: I noticed the number of administrators on the English Wikipedia has went down by almost 200 from when I last noticed (which is approximately 1/6th from the about 1200 I remember.) I'm just curious ... was there any particular event that caused such a massive drop in administrators? Steel1943 (talk) 20:48, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Editors, even admins, naturally lose the ability or desire to contribute. In the past, new admins have replaced them, but RfA is now so strict and daunting that few apply and even fewer succeed. Certes (talk) 22:04, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Not sure of the chronology here, but we now deactivate admins who haven't edited for several years. There was a big initial drop. I don't really agree re RFA (depending on when you're comparing to....) Johnbod (talk) 01:35, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@Johnbod: I'm referring to the total number of admins; I'm in no way referencing any aspect of RFA since that's a can of worms I'd rather leave shut. Steel1943 (talk) 01:58, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I meant I don't agree with Certes, but sure, let's not get into that. But the chronology (indeed grammar) of your query is pretty confused - it might help if you clarified. Johnbod (talk) 15:22, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

The comments below are was I was asking about: I was primarily curious about the drop, not any additions (or any stipulations regarding possible complications with additions) in regards to offsetting the drop. Steel1943 (talk) 16:59, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@Steel1943: looking at the last few year points from now of active admins:

• 2022:478 (7% decline)
• 2021:516 (<1% decline)
• 2020:518 (1% decline)
• 2019:524 (5% decline)
• 2018:555

So yes, the number of active admins (ones actually doing anything - even if just editing) has gone down but I don't think it is "sharp". We do also carry a lot of barely-active admins in the corps. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:16, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

As far as total admins, we certainly remove more from inactivity (e.g. Wikipedia:Inactive administrators/2021) then replace - but none of those were "active" admins in the least so there is no impact to the project in removing the flag. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:18, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

• @Xaosflux: Thanks for the numeric breakdown on that ... as well as the other points, which I agree are true. It is fascinating how, per the numbers above, roughly 50% of the administrators are not active. Steel1943 (talk) 02:21, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

• @Steel1943: enwiki has one of the most lax admin inactivity policies, and we chase after admins that are about to be deflagged with 4 notification each that if they make just one edit they can keep being an admin for another year. I just looked at the Dec 2021 inactives report. 12 completely inactivate admins were slated for removal. Most likely as a result of the beg notices, 8 of them became "active" again (that should be a good thing!) - however of that number only 1 has functionally become active again - the rest just made a token edit to keep their flag, 5 of which appear to have been doing that for many years. So yea, we have a lot of not-really-here admins. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:14, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

One interesting page to observe trends would be Wikipedia:Desysoppings by month. Historically, losses from around 30-50 administrators per year appear to be a normal consequence of our current inactivity policy. In 2021, we lost 53 administrators. Mz7 (talk) 04:39, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Global ban for Niveles and socks

Hello. I've started a "Request for Comment" (RfC) on Meta for globally banning Niveles and his socks. As at least one of the accounts has edited on this project, I had to notify you. The discussion will be held at m:Requests for comment/Global ban for Niveles and socks. Thank you. ~Styyx^{Talk? ^-^} 18:05, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Leadership Development Task Force: Your feedback is appreciated

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More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

The Community Development team at the Wikimedia Foundation is supporting the creation of a global, community-driven Leadership Development Task Force. The purpose of the task force is to advise leadership development work.

The team is looking for feedback about the responsibilities of the Leadership Development Task Force. This Meta page shares the proposal for a Leadership Development Task Force and how you can help. Feedback on the proposal will be collected from 7 to 25 February 2022.

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The team is also hosting Community Calls, including an introductory call on 23 February 2022 at 15:00 UTC where community members are invited to share their experiences. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 03:13, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

MPEG-2 format not yet popular here?

The last patent for MPEG-2 format expired four years ago, yet not one such non-free file has been found. If everyone is already aware of the patent expiration, then why do I see mpg files stored in Commons and not Wikipedia? --George Ho (talk) 08:32, 10 February 2022 (UTC); edited, 08:34, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

MPEG2 file are acceptable on Commons. Ruslik_Zero 20:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Terminology: "slaves" vs. "enslaved people"

Hello. I have started a Request for Comment about whether the "Confederate States of America" article should use the terms "slaves" / "African slaves" or should use the terms "enslaved people" / "enslaved Africans". This question also applies to other articles. Interested editors are encouraged to comment at Talk:Confederate States of America#Request for comment: "slaves" vs. "enslaved people" (and not here, to keep the discussion all in one place). Thanks. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:47, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I raised this question a while back with Dlthewave who was making the change to a large number of pages even though I didn't see any of the sources actually supporting that terminology. My efforts to raise the issue on their talk page went no where but a discussion did occur on K.e.coffman's page[[7]]. I don't think there was any consensus and Dlthewave continued to make the edits. Springee (talk) 02:20, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Pretty sure we handle it the same way we handle the quotation punctuation issue (e.g. punctuation on the inside or outside of quotation marks, "word." "word".). As long as whichever version is consistent within the article (and in this case, also representative of the sources), then there doesn't need to be a WP-wide standard. Curbon7 (talk) 02:31, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes it is helpful to have a guide. I observed an editor making the change to many low traffic articles. It's not always practical to raise a talk page discussion on each one. Springee (talk) 02:43, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Curbon7: There is a Wikipedia-wide standard for positioning of quotation marks ... logical quotation. A better example is probably BC/BCE vs. AD/C. Graham87 04:26, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Yeah that lol. Curbon7 (talk) 15:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Analyse your contributions using Wikidata

Once you've created a lot of Wikipedia articles, it is useful to have some insights about them. How many biographies? How many articles about buildings? How many articles in the US? Using Wikidata and Xtools Created pages tool, I've build a small tool which analyse your list of created pages : https://observablehq.com/@pac02/look-at-your-list-of-created-articles-through-wikidata. I've a similar tool focused on gender : https://observablehq.com/@pac02/user-level-gender-statistics-for-wikipedia?collection=@pac02/pages-created. Your feedback is welcome. PAC2 (talk) 21:21, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

This is very cool! Thanks for making and sharing! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:41, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Nice work! Wish it was 3,000 limit and I would be interested to know the geographical centre of my editing .... and is it moving? Victuallers (talk) 23:09, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I'll see how to do with more than 1,000 articles created but I still don't have the solution.

You can map your geolocated created articles here: https://observablehq.com/@pac02/map-your-list-of-created-articles-through-wikidata PAC2 (talk) 06:07, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Update and reminder to participate in the UCoC Conversations and Ratification Vote 7 - 21 March 2022

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Hello everyone,

A vote in SecurePoll from 7 to 21 March 2022 is scheduled as part of the ratification process for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement guidelines. Eligible voters are invited to answer a poll question and share comments. Read voter information and eligibility details. During the poll, voters will be asked if they support the enforcement of the Universal Code of Conduct based on the proposed guidelines.

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement. The revised enforcement guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the policy across the movement. A Wikimedia Foundation Board statement calls for a ratification process where eligible voters will have an opportunity to support or oppose the adoption of the UCoC Enforcement guidelines in a vote. Wikimedians are invited to translate and share important information. For more information about the UCoC, please see the project page and frequently asked questions on Meta-wiki.

There are events scheduled to learn more and discuss:

• A community panel on 18 February 2022 at 15:00 UTC shares perspectives from small- and medium-sized community participants.
• The Movement Strategy and Governance (MSG) team is hosting Conversation Hours on 25 February 2022 at 12:00 UTC and 4 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC. Please sign-up for these conversation hours to interact with the project team and the drafting committee about the updated enforcement guidelines and the ratification process. See the Conversation Hour summaries for notes from 4 February 2022.

You can comment on Meta-wiki talk pages in any language. You may also contact either team by email: msgwikimedia.org or ucocprojectwikimedia.org

Sincerely,

Movement Strategy and Governance
Wikimedia Foundation
Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:04, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Why RFA/RFB use a voting system?

Moved from WP:VPP

Hi, I am a Wikipedian from the Chinese Wikipedia. Chinese Wikipedia, when the community is just created, applied a lot of English Wikipedia policies. Nowadays, for some reasons, the Chinese Wikipedian Community is having a lot of differences from the English one, thus a lot of policies is no longer suit the Chinese Wikipedian Community. For example, some Wikipedians are thinking of "Why RFA/RFB uses a voting system while other roles (for example, Rollbackers) uses a simple consensus system?"

（没道理）管理等等要走連署和解任投票，巡查之類的按共識。
— Роу Уилсон Фредериск Холм, Chinese Wikipedia Telegram Group

However, Jimbo Wales said that sysop is just like normal Wikipedians:

Becoming a sysop is not a big deal.
— Jimbo Wales, [WikiEN-l] Sysop status

So, why does RFA/RFB use a voting system, that's different from the other roles? Wiki Emoji | [[User:Emojiwiki|_Talk~~ 11:26, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@Emojiwiki: assuming that you aren't suggesting that en-wiki change its methodology, this probably isn't the right place. That said, firstly, despite Jimbo's words many (though by no means all) editors think that RfA is a big deal. Additionally, RfA/RfB are only mostly a vote - RfA has a threshold (65-75%) where it's far more consensus, and oppose !votes need reasoning to be counted. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:07, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@Роу Уилсон Фредериск Холм: moved this to VPM, as it is not a discussion about changing enwiki's policy. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:13, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Note, your signature is broken, please fix in Special:Preferences (you may not use templates in signatures). — xaosflux ^Talk 14:14, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Whose sign is broken? IS it mine? Wiki Emoji | Emojiwiki _Talk~~ 05:01, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• See WP:NOTAVOTE. in general, while we have thresholds, RfA is a consensus system here on the English Wikipeida, while most of our WP:PERM flags are actually discretionary grants. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:16, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
• The realistic answer is probably just because that's how the initial RFA process was setup a few decades ago, and there was never any consensus to move it to any other method, so the initial system stays as the status quo. AFAIK adminship and RfA also came before any of the unbundled groups, the first of which I assume was rollbacker (in 2008?), so it's probably more of a case that those groups diverged from the RfA-like process, rather than vice versa. It looks like the process for admins granting user groups was hashed out at Wikipedia:Non-administrator_rollback, possibly even before. Based on the links at that page, it seems earlier and less ambitious alternate methods of appointment were discussed at Wikipedia:Requests for rollback privileges, which propose a less-votey process. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:16, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@Emojiwiki: People say it is "not a big deal" but this is a lie. Everyone knows it is a big deal now and that's why WP:RFA is so complicated. Other roles though are not a big deal, since they don't come with the "big three", the ability to WP:delete, WP:block, and WP:protect. Almost all other abilities are given out because they are not that important. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 14:35, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

New IP hitting the ground running

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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What, if anything, do you do when you notice an IP who is clearly not a newbie?

No particular "incident" for AN here, but clearly 94.252.4.105 (talk · contribs) has hit the ground running starting yesterday, and is familiar with categorization (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), finding and adding articles to "See also" (6, 7, 8, 9), retargeting redirects (10) and the details of Image syntax (11). It's safe to say they've edited before. (In addition, there is an active page block on range 94.252.0.0/17 placed on 6 February by Ohnoitsjamie.)

At first glance, their edits (at least at this IP) seem consistently beneficial. I left them a standard IP welcome message which includes an invitation to WP:REGISTER, but other than that, is there anything to do or note here? Mathglot (talk) 22:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, no. Only if they edit disruptively, and then it's most likely an ANI matter. I knew an admin once who sometimes edited as an IP for the purpose of researching how IPs are treated. (His results were fairly depressing.) Why not? Bishonen | tålk 22:32, 10 February 2022 (UTC).

It could be a registered editor, deliberately or accidentally logged out. They may also have edited from other IPs before either moving location or having their address randomly changed by their ISP. Either way, let's judge the edits themselves, and thank or warn them like any other editor if appropriate. Certes (talk) 22:55, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

There is no requirement that a user register for an account and many productive editors don't use accounts. Assume Good Faith and judge the edits on their merits not on if they are from an IP address. RudolfRed (talk) 00:31, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

experienced editors who use their IP to edit usually get changed semi-often due to the vagarities of ISPs. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 14:06, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

See also WP:LOGOUT (portion of the sockpuppetry policy). There is no policy against someone with an account editing the encyclopedia while logged out 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 04:00, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Indonesian Wikipedia erroneous mass blocks

A number of global users may have been erroneously indefinitely blocked at the Indonesian Wikipedia by Stephensuleeman in 2014, who has sadly since passed away, for "invalid username." Examples of this include 8ty3hree (my former username) and Surv1v4l1st. I requested id-wiki admin User:Bennylin to request an unblock and he confirmed that the block was in error. "Surv1v4l1st" may be an exception, as id-wiki proscribes substituting numbers for similar-looking letters as in 1ove or he11o. However, I do not feel it was necessary to preemptively block global users who have never edited the Indonesian Wikipedia and do not know the vagaries of id-wiki's username policy. I do not know of any other language Wikimedia projects that have done this, as my global account was never blocked on the 104 other projects there. Additionally, having a single block for a language globally is very problematic, for example at Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library, which requires users blocked on any project to manually request an exemption. Ideally I would have put this at a noticeboard for id-wiki admins but I do not speak Indonesian, and while many of those editors may speak English, it involves other languages outside the two as well. 9³ (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I think this is out of scope of this (English) project. I have answered User:93 in User talk:Bennylin that it's not possible to revert all the blocks without a way to find out and distinguish between problematic user or innocent ones. Further discussion should be held in Indonesian Wikipedia instead.

PS: As a background, on each block, that admin always put the reason, which is violating our policy: id:Wikipedia:Kebijakan nama pengguna that said "1. Confusing, misleading or troublesome usernames" subsection "Nama-nama yang terdiri dari huruf/angka/karakter acak atau merupakan pengulang-ulangan dari huruf tertentu" (Names that consist of random letters/numbers/characters or are repetitions of certain letters.), according to his judgment. Therefore, that admin clearly operating within the policy scope (not outside of policy). Whether this is unique to our Indonesian Wikipedia or not, I do not know. Bennylin (talk) 01:40, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't speak Indonesian and I am hesitant to start a discussion at a non-English Wikipedia in English. However, if English is not a problem, please direct me to a page where I can raise this issue. 9³ (talk) 02:24, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

For English inquiry, I would suggest id:Wikipedia:Kedutaan (Embbassy page) first, (click "Message to the embassy" to leave a new message on its talk page), then I (or some other admins) can help you there. But please be clear with what you are requesting, and consider my rejection above (which I've shared with other ID admins off-wiki, they're aware of this thread in this village pump). Bennylin (talk) 07:31, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Just for tracking in the event this is escalated somewhere. I'm an en-wiki admin who is username blocked at id wiki, which I found out when @Samwalton9 (WMF) whitelisted me for The Wikipedia Library. Repetition of certain letters I guess? Star Mississippi 02:41, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Unblocked. We apologize for the mistake, and we will try to fulfill these kind of request as fast as possible in the future (e.g. via contacting id.wp admin, or id.wp embassy, or other methods, as the majority of id.wp admins are now aware of this issue). Bennylin (talk) 07:41, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks so much @Bennylin. This will definitely make the library admin's lives easier as there's a Phabricator bug that's creating issues with the whitelisting process. cc: @Samwalton9 (WMF) so they're aware unblocking may also be an option in some cases and where a discussion is possible on ID wiki. Star Mississippi 14:47, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@Bennylin, I suspect that Orf3us should be on your unblocking list. It appears that Stephensuleeman blocked him for merely reading a page. (It might be possible for someone to generate a list of usernames containing a number, blocked by Stephensuleeman, and with zero edits, for further review.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 21:02, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@Orf3us unblocked. Thank you, Whatamidoing for the info, and sorry once again. Bennylin (talk) 05:36, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC on Talk:Belize Defence Force#RFC on usage of image2 parameter on infobox

Hi... I am recently open up RfC on the usage of image2 parameter on infobox in Talk:Belize Defence Force#RFC on usage of image2 parameter on infobox. I have notify related Wikiproject, but since it was low traffic article in the beginning with, barely any comment there.... So, perhaps by posting it here... we can have more input. Your comments would be welcome. Ckfasdf (talk) 05:33, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

A good article about alt text

"The Hidden Image Descriptions Making the Internet Accessible". nytimes.com. Retrieved 19 February 2022. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:05, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Norman Rockwell painting addition ...

It would be helpful to have a picture of the actual work on the Murder in Mississippi (painting) article. Most of Rockwell's art articles have a picture, but that one does not, for whatever reason. However, I am not sure on the copyright mechanics, et al., on adding this. Any assistance would be great. Thanks. --Surv1v4l1st ^{╠Talk║Contribs╣} 00:30, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

"Criticism of" articles/sections

I know this has been discussed previously without any real resolution, but a single-purpose account that's been going from one article to the next adding lots of criticism has raised my concern that there's a serious NPOV and UNDUE problem with them. Even if the language is toned down (e.g. a section header in the Netflix article labeled "DVD spinoff disaster"), we're left with a one-sided litany of Reasons Why This Thing Is Bad. Criticism of The Walt Disney Company, for example, is basically a bitchfest about the company, almost as large as the article about the company itself: essentially a POV fork. There's one article that talks about the company neutrally, and another that tells you everything people don't like about the company. That isn't NPOV. These sections/articles then act as magnets for WP:ADVOCACY and WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 16:41, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Notability from a Phd thesis? Is it necessary for the thesis author to say why he chose the school in a case study?

Hi! I looked through a PhD thesis (seen here) that describes the workings of the Draft:American Embassy School in detail. I cannot find a specific statement from the author which explains why they chose the school as their case study, but do you think the thesis bolsters the school's notability anyway? WhisperToMe (talk) 07:57, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

@WhisperToMe Has the thesis itself recieved much attention from others? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:04, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

@Dodger67: It is a citation in the book Assessing Instructional Leadership with the Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale by Springer International Publishing (2015). I searched "TEACHER PERCEPTIONS OF THE INFLUENCE OF PRINCIPAL INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP ON SCHOOL CULTURE: A CASE STUDY OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY SCHOOL IN NEW DELHI, INDIA" in ProQuest and I found journal articles citing that thesis. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:40, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Are spin-off films really a part of the film series?

Hi. I can see that spin-off films are included in the lists of film series in the List of feature film series with (number) entries articles. I don't think it's actually correct, as spin-off films are not a part of the film series, but a separate film in the same franchise as the film series. So I think we should either remove every spin-off films from these lists in these articles or rename the articles where the word series is replaced with the word franchise. What is the most correct thing to do here? Karamellpudding1999 (talk) 09:30, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

It probably depends on which films you are talking about. Some examples might help. Blueboar (talk) 09:50, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Well, I guess that if it's a spin-off/sequel hybrid film like Men in Black: International (part of the Men in Black franchise) and Finding Dory (part of the Finding Nemo franchise), it should be included in the lists of film series since it's 50 % spin-off/50 % part of the film series. But if it's a 100 % separate spin-off film that's not a part of the film series like Hobbs & Shaw (part of the Fast & Furious franchise), Lightyear (part of the Toy Story franchise), Planes 1 and 2 (part of the Cars franchise), Lavalantula 1 and 2 (part of the Sharknado franchise), and Minions 1 and 2 (part of the Despicable Me franchise), it should not be included in the lists of film series. Karamellpudding1999 (talk) 10:57, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Note this user asked this same question here a month ago: Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 68#Spin-off films. They also tried at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film/Archive 78#Spin-off films and they've now posted much the same thing to the talk pages of the "List of feature film series with (number) entries" articles. Anomie⚔ 13:40, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Ok… my take is still that it would have to be determined on a list by list basis. It’s not something we can make a sweeping “rule” about. Blueboar (talk) 13:55, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Is the logo for Wikipedia:WikiProject Autism offensive to autistic people?

I stumbled onto Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Autism#Please update symbolism and language. Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 18:21, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

That was just a discussion about the logo being used by that project, not about the logo for Wikipedia. Schazjmd (talk) 18:25, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

As an autistic person, I think that the logo is fine. Evan Tsipas (talk) 20:12, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

To editor Schazjmd: The project logo was File:WikiProject Autism logo, July 2014.png, and their problem is the puzzle logo itself, not its colors, so basically Wikipedia logo. —Est. 2021 (talk · contribs) 18:34, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Est. 2021, the objection was to the logo being associated with WikiProject Autism, not to it being used as Wikipedia's logo. Schazjmd (talk) 19:31, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Let's remember that autistic people are just as diverse as neurotypicals, so the answer to the question posed is almost certainly that the logo is offensive to some autistic people but not to others. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:59, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

I consider myself to be on the autism spectrum. Agreed with Phil Bridger. I also think that those who participate in the WikiProject should be allowed to choose their own logo. It isn't important enough to involve the wider community. Federalism. MarshallKe (talk) 00:06, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

It's a pretty clear reference to the traditional puzzle-piece logo composed of those colours, for those unaware of the context. The uses of puzzle pieces in combination with those particular colours has a long history as being used as a symbol of autism. The reason why some people are not OK with that is they feel that the usage of a puzzle piece to represent autism presents autism as a metaphorical puzzle to be solved i.e. cured. The proposed alternate logo is that of the neurodiversity movement which considers autism to be a natural variation in the human mind and not something to be cured. This is an incredibly controversial still-ongoing debate. It would be ill-advised for us to wade into this discussion, but if we were to do so a forced compromise logo would have to be bland & inoffensive to all. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 14:26, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

(I was diagnosed young, for what it's worth) I find the coloration is an assault on the eyes, but that's simply an aesthetic preference, it's not at all offensive. And while I never much cared for the puzzle piece symbol, that has more to do with generally disliking using common items as symbols for... whatever; I have no compunction about telling people who are offended by it to lighten up, nothing bad is happening to us autistics because of a loose association with a puzzle piece. (As an aside, the neurodiversity symbol looks like some strange knockoff of a pride flag or something, it's not as garish but still runs into the using a common item as a symbol for something totally random) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:19, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm also on the autism spectrum, and I also agree with @Phil Bridger. The puzzle piece *is* offensive to many neurodiversity advocates for the reasons @Chess specified...but I also find some positive symbolism in it: a puzzle can't be solved without the unique contributions of different pieces in different shapes that fit each other perfectly. In any case, the logo isn't patently offensive enough that we should prohibit our WikiProject from using it (unlike, say, white supremacist symbols). ChromaNebula (talk) 18:38, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Folklore is extended till 15th March

Please help translate to other languages.

Greetings from Wiki Loves Folklore International Team,

We are pleased to inform you that Wiki Loves Folklore an international photographic contest on Wikimedia Commons has been extended till the 15th of March 2022. The scope of the contest is focused on folk culture of different regions on categories, such as, but not limited to, folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, etc.

We would like to have your immense participation in the photographic contest to document your local Folk culture on Wikipedia. You can also help with the translation of project pages and share a word in your local language.

Best wishes,

International Team
Wiki Loves Folklore

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:50, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

"Basuria" and "Diantnam"？

(Chinese)各位好，我在许多条目中发现了一些原创的地域名称，例如指代云南的“Diantnam”（不列滇）和“Great Diantnam”（大不列滇），指代四川的“Basuria”（巴蜀利亚）。但是我查遍整个中文互联网，在推特和Medium之外没有见到任何来源。我想知道“Diantnam”（不列滇）、"Great Diantnam"（大不列滇）“Basuria”（巴蜀利亚）这种名称是否有可靠参考来源，是否并非原创研究，以及是否需要继续保留在条目里？

据我自己所知。这些名称应当属于原创研究，他们非常的古怪，明显是生造的。例如“Diantnam”这个名称，看起来是“滇南”（意思是“云南的南部”），但是其中的“dian”来自汉语拼音“滇”，tnam的来源却是一个问题。依照汉语拼音“南”应该写作“nan”，依照古汉语发音应该是“nam”，可是“t”是哪里来的？这个“Diantnam”是不是来源于某位用户自己发明的汉语转写方案？还是说“tnam”其实是来源于越南的名称“Vietnam”？而且据我所知，云南也从来没有“滇南”之称，“滇南”只是指云南的南部，类似于“鲁南”、“苏南”这些称呼。

在谷歌上搜索，会发现发明了“Diantnam”一词的网友也发明了一个对应的中文词汇“不列滇”，“不列滇”和“大不列滇”一词是对“不列颠”和“大不列颠”的拙劣模仿，我最初以为这个词完全是网友开玩笑的，直到我在维基共享资源和维基百科上发现这个名称。

所谓“Basuria”一词中的“ria”是哪里来的？我认为“ria”一词来自欧洲语言的词根，这显然是生编乱造的。

需要注意的是，确实有一群人长期活跃在各个维基百科版本上，并持之以恒地给中国的地区或者语言起新的名字，亦或者上传自己虚构的旗帜。原创研究的地名的例子有“Yuyencia”“Diantnam”“Basuria”。原创研究的语言的例子有有人给大连话起名“青丘话”、给胶辽官话起名“齐语”、“东齐语”、“莱语”；给冀鲁官话起名“鲁语”；创造了一个新概念“燕语”，所谓的“燕语”包括北京官话、部分东北官话和部分胶辽官话。关于“燕语”的说法完整存在于所谓“Yuyencia”的官方网站上（见yuyencia.org）。毫无疑问，这些跨维基的原创研究是同一批人干的。

我曾经试图在多个维基上清除这些内容，在除了粤语维基百科之外的维基百科上都取得了成功。粤语维基的一些编辑者认为我清除原创研究和无来源内容的行为属于“政治审查”，基本上我每一笔编辑被回退了。根据我在粤语维基百科上的经验，维基百科社群是不允许私自移除原创研究内容的。因此我发布在这里，希望社群能够达成一个关于“Basuria”和“Diantnam”的共识。我期望英语维基百科也能够移除错误内容，从而保卫社群社群的价值观，捍卫百科全书的价值。

(English by Google Translate) Hello everyone, I found some original regional names in many articles, such as "Diantnam" （不列滇）and "The Great Diantnam"（大不列滇） referring to Yunnan and "Basuria"（巴蜀利亚） referring to Sichuan. But I checked the Chinese Internet and found no source except on Twitter and BBS. I want to know whether the names "Diantnam", "great Diantnam" and "Basuria" have reliable reference sources, whether they are not original research, and whether they need to continue to be kept in the articles?

As far as I know. These names should belong to original research. They are very strange and obviously made up. For example, the name "Diantnam" looks like “滇南” (meaning "Southern Yunnan"), but the "dian" in it comes from the Chinese pinyin "dian"（滇）, and the source of "tnam" is a problem. According to the Chinese Pinyin, "南" should be written as "nan", according to the middle Chinese pronunciation should be "nam", but where does "t" come from? Does this "Diantnam" come from a Chinese transcription scheme invented by a wikipedia user? Or is "tnam" actually derived from "Vietnam"? And as far as I know, Yunnan has never been called "Diannan"（滇南）. "Diannan" only refers to the south of Yunnan, similar to the terms "鲁南" (Lunan, Southern Shandong) and "苏南" (Sunan, Southern Jiangsu).

When you search on Google, you will find that the netizen who invented the word "Diantnam" also invented a corresponding Chinese word "Buliedian"（不列滇）, "Buliedian" and "Da Buliedian"（大不列滇）, which are a poor imitation of "Britain" and "Great Britain"（Britain in Chinese is "不列颠"）. At first, I thought this word was completely joked by netizens until I found this name on wikicommons and Wikipedia.

Where does the "-ria" in the "Basuria" come from? I think the "-ria" comes from European languages. This name is obviously fictional.

It should be noted that there are indeed a group of people who have been active in various Wikipedia versions for a long time, and constantly give new names to Chinese regions or languages, or upload their fictional flags. Examples of original regional names of regions are "Yuyencia", "Diantnam" and "Basuria". Examples of the language are that some people named Dalian dialect to "Qingqiu dialect" or "Qingqiu Language" and Jiaoliao Mandarin to "Qi language", "Dongqi language" and "Lai language"; Name the Jilu Mandarin to "Lu language"; Created a new concept "Yan language". The so-called "Yan language" includes Beijing Mandarin, some Northeast Mandarin and some Jiaoliao Mandarin. The statement of "Yan language" completely exists on the official website of the so-called "Yuyencia"(See [8]). There is no doubt that the original research across wikis was done by the same group.

I have tried to clear these contents on several wikis and have been successful on many Wikipedia sites except Cantonese Wikipedia. Some editors on Cantonese Wikipedia think that my act of eliminating original research and non sourced content is "political censorship", and almost every edit of me has been backed down. According to my experience on Cantonese Wikipedia, the Wikipedia community is not allowed to remove the original research content without permission. Therefore, I post here in the hope that the community can reach a consensus on "Basuria" and "Diantnam". I hope English Wikipedia can eliminate these errors， and defend the values of community and encyclopedia.--Eguersi (talk) 10:59, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Articles related to the discussion topic: List of active separatist movements in Asia, List_of_Chinese_flags, Timeline of Yunnan-Guizhou, Cuanman.--Eguersi (talk) 10:59, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Maryana Iskander invites your input on puzzles in the Wikimedia movement and external trends

Maryana Iskander, the new CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, is inviting your comments about puzzles within our movement as well as trends in the broader world that impact the work of the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia movement. Feedback is welcome here and on the Meta-Wiki talk pages through March 4. In April, the Foundation will also host community conversations on the draft focus areas for our upcoming annual plan. --KStineRowe (WMF) (talk) 18:30, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Notability inquiry: Loneliness Epidemic, a theme repeated by media and government agencies since at least 2017

There are thousands of news articles from reliable sources containing the term "loneliness epidemic", including government agencies in both the United States and the United Kingdom. This has been "a thing" mentioned in the media since well before covid. Might this be notable enough for its own article separate from loneliness and social isolation, as its own historical event? MarshallKe (talk) 15:46, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

• @MarshallKe: If enough articles explore the term in detail it may be doable. Find three of the sources with the best explanations and you may have an article ready WhisperToMe (talk) 21:47, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• Containing the phrase is not the same as explaining the thing, remember. And you need a source better than something that itself only uses the phrase in quotation marks, to justify that it's treating it as a genuine thing, rather than as a nonce coinage of a speaker in a discussion panel. If you want an article about a epidemic, look first for someone with qualifications in the field actually genuinely asserting that there's an epidemic. Remember the strict requirements of good sourcing for medical information, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). No matter how many journalists say something, you need someone with relevant medical expertise to say it. And you need the person with medical qualifications not to be being hyperbolic, but explaining how and why it really qualifies as an epidemic. Uncle G (talk) 23:12, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

  @MarshallKe, I'd suggest adding as much information to the existing articles (as a separate section) as you can first. It's sometimes easier for editors to understand the value of a separate article when they can see that the material is too much to be contained in the existing articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

  I think I like this approach. If it's not determined to be notable, at least you've contributed a bunch to the encyclopedia in another way. MarshallKe (talk) 12:33, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Donations to Wikipedia.

I use Wikipedia almost daily. It is a great resource and I want to donate to Wikipedia. But when I try to donate online, inexplicably I am REQUIRED to give my email. Why the f#ck do you need my email. I'm willing to give my credit card because that is nessary to make a donation, but there NO legitimate necessity that you have my email for me to make a donation. If you remove this unnecessary intrusion to my privacy on you donation site, I'll donate, but not until that happens. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1014:B064:E039:0:56:B1D3:6101 (talk) 22:47, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not request or accept donations. The Donate link in the Wikipedia sidebar leads to a site operated by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), which owns and hosts a number of projects including English Wikipedia. You may wish to contact the WMF directly, or here on Wikipedia via Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF). Certes (talk) 23:01, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your question. The Wikimedia Foundation collects and uses various personal information from donors that includes: amount donated, address, donor comments and email address. Requesting this information from everyone best enables us to comply with U.S. laws as well as laws in other countries. Creating a single workflow for all donors, regardless of donor location or donation amount, is the most efficient use of donor dollars and WMF staff time.

Please note that we do not share, sell, or trade donor information with any other organizations or companies. For more information on what information we collect and how we use it, please see our Donor Privacy Policy. We also offer the option to unsubscribe from any future emails from the Foundation once you have received your initial tax receipt -- there's a link at the bottom of the email that takes you to our one-step opt-out option.

Best, JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 12:37, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

One quick follow up, can you have a look at Other Ways to Give for other donation options as it is only via the donate online option that we ask for an email address. JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 13:20, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month: We are back in 2022!

Hello, dear Wikipedians!

Wikimedia Ukraine, in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and Ukrainian Institute, has launched the second edition of writing challenge "Ukraine's Cultural Diplomacy Month", which lasts from 17 February to 17 March 2022. The campaign is dedicated to famous Ukrainian artists of cinema, music, literature, architecture, design and cultural phenomena of Ukraine that made a contribution to world culture. The most active contesters will receive prizes.

We invite you to take part and help us improve the coverage of Ukrainian culture on Wikipedia! Also, we plan to set up a banner to notify users of the possibility to participate in such a challenge! -- ValentynNefedov (WMUA) ^(talk) 08:56, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

We have a NOPV issue now since Putin's troops is marching towards Kiev. SYSS Mouse (talk) 14:40, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia access blocked in iran

Iranians have started blocking Wikipedia mobile Corp of Iran, TCE,fixed line or data.bi (talk) 10:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

What do you expect? Wikipedia provides uncensored information with a Western POV. That would open people's minds and the ayatollahs do not want to allow that. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:14, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

WikiZedia: an organized influence operation at Wikipedia by the campaign of a candidate for French President

Moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject France § Organized interference at Wikipedia by the Zemmour campaign for President of France

Incidents of confirmed state actors vandalizing wiki articles?

Hi all,

I'm an undergraduate currently doing a senior capstone in rhetoric and political science; as part of this project, I'm researching what hints a state actor may leave, in particular on a platform like Wikipedia. Accordingly, I'd like to examine cases where state actors have edited Wikipedia articles, especially without disclosing the obvious conflict of interest. I'm also interested in other forms of confirmed non-organic Wikipedia editing (e.g., edits made by Congressional aides, edits made by the subject of the article themselves, etc.). What are some particularly notable cases (especially ones that are well-documented, i.e. have received news coverage or been acknowledged by the government/other actor who made the non-organic edit)? I appreciate any help you can offer! 2604:2800:0:8B9E:8DF:B89B:E335:2B0 (talk) 19:01, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

One example is documented at United States congressional staff edits to Wikipedia. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Of course the incidents that we should worry most about are those that have not been documented. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:18, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Not quite what you are looking for, but as it happens, this past week or two there has been a striking example of a presidential campaign seeking to do what you are describing (and if elected, then they would be a state actor). This made news sufficiently to be written up at a Wikipedia article; see the WikiZedia affair. A detailed version of the backstory can be found here. Mathglot (talk) 20:59, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

You'll find some things at List of Wikipedia controversies. You'll also find a partial list of interesting IP addresses at WP:SIP, and I'd recommend having a look yourself at their contributions to get some context. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:03, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Also, Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 21:11, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Less focused, but you may find something at Wikipedia:Press coverage 2022 and earlier pages. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:58, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Censorship of Wikipedia may be of interest. Somewhat off-topic, but Symbols_of_the_Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation#Wikimedia_Commons. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:13, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Did I edit it Right

https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/La_Mancha_Negra

Hello I added image to this article did I do it right

FelixAnon (talk) 16:14, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello, as there is just one image it is better to just use the image syntax, rather than use a gallery.

[[file:<file name>|thumb|<caption>]]

It will put the image at top right of page. Keith D (talk) 18:38, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

The Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections is now closed

Hey all - as a follow-up to #Call for Feedback about the Board of Trustees elections is now open: the call is now closed and reports are available for review. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 03:42, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

---

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

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The Call for Feedback: Board of Trustees elections is now closed. This Call ran from 10 January and closed on 16 February 2022. The Call focused on three key questions and received broad discussion on Meta-wiki, during meetings with affiliates, and in various community conversations. The community and affiliates provided many proposals and discussion points. The reports are on Meta-wiki.

This information will be shared with the Board of Trustees and Elections Committee so they can make informed decisions about the upcoming Board of Trustees election. The Board of Trustees will then follow with an announcement after they have discussed the information.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Call for Feedback to help improve Board election processes.

Best regards,

Movement Strategy and Governance
Xeno (WMF) (talk) 03:42, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Can WP or WM help someone retrieve a lost password?

I got an email from a long-term (2007), very active (100,000+) editor here. He says he had to delete some information from his phone and accidentally deleted his WP password. I guess he can't remember it. Is there any way to do what commercial operations do, namely email him a temporary password so he can log in and get things back set up? I don't know if WP keeps a record of our emails at all, so maybe this is not possible? Any advice, from people more savvy than me, would be very welcome. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:46, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

@MelanieN: Are they able to request a password reset via Special:PasswordReset? This help page has a bit more info 🙂 -- TNT (talk • she/her) 21:49, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

And if the above doesn't work, it is possible for a long-term editor to have their problem fixed with a request to Trust and Safety using Phabricator. That works if currently active and good-standing editors are familiar with the user (e.g. from having exchanged emails in the past). The first question then is, does the account have an email address set? You can check that by visiting their talk page and seeing if "Email this user" is available. If it is, the user needs to try password reset and check their spam folders etc. to be sure that they get any response. If that doesn't work, has the user exchanged emails with trusted people who are now able to vouch for their identity? Johnuniq (talk) 22:37, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you both, very helpful! I will tell him to come here and read your helpful advice. And yes, I can vouch for this person; he and I exchange emails about Wikipedia with some regularity. There is at least one other admin who is often in on the email exchanges. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:49, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

What are Russian readers viewing on Wikipedia today?

This is interesting (inspired by Pyb's post at Wikipedia Weekly FB group):

Top 25 page views on Russian Wikipedia, last 6 hours (source: Wikiscan):

Views	Title	Linked en-wiki article (or translation, if none)
110 k	Заглавная страница	Main page
66 k	Вторжение России на Украину (2022)	2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
24 k	SWIFT	SWIFT
19 k	Вооружённый конфликт на востоке Украины	War in Donbas
19 k	Пожар на нефтебазе под Киевом	Fire at an oil depot near Kiev
12 k	Зеленский, Владимир Александрович	Volodymyr Zelenskyy
11 k	Анонимус	Anonymous (hacker group)
11 k	Тяжёлая огнемётная система	TOS-1
10 k	Путин, Владимир Владимирович	Vladimir Putin
10 k	Starlink	Starlink
9.5 k	НАТО	NATO
8.8 k	Украина	Ukraine
7.3 k	Баллистическая ракета	Ballistic missile
6.9 k	Бандера, Степан Андреевич	Stepan Bandera
6.8 k	Список государств — членов НАТО	Member states of NATO
6.3 k	Чеченская Республика Ичкерия	Chechen Republic of Ichkeria
6.2 k	Российско-украинская война	Russo-Ukrainian War
6 k	Васильков	Vasylkiv
5.8 k	Закаев, Ахмед Халидович	Akhmed Zakayev
5.7 k	Донецкая Народная Республика	Donetsk People's Republic
5.4 k	Вооружённые силы Российской Федерации	Russian Armed Forces
5.3 k	Список стран по численности вооружённых сил и военизированных формирований	List of countries by number of military and paramilitary personnel
5.3 k	Азов (полк)	Azov Battalion
4.9 k	Битва за Киев (2022)	Battle of Kyiv (2022)
4.9 k	Призрак Киева	Ghost of Kyiv

More stats here. Mathglot (talk) 07:36, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Insightful as always, Mathglot :) A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 21:25, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Why 31 hours?

I apologize if this isn't the place to put this question, I couldn't seem to find a better place.

I've noticed that when admins block vandals, they often do it for 31 hours. Why specifically 31 hours? It just seems like an odd number. InterstateFive (talk) - just another roadgeek 19:56, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:31. :) See also quarry:query/60552, showing the very first one. (AFAICT, SlimVirgin's 31-hour blocks in July of '05 were just coincidental, so it's Magister Mathematicae's a few months later that kicked it off.) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 20:06, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. Put simply it may sometimes break a daily cycle of vandalism. More broadly it's an option listed at MediaWiki:Ipboptions - that page's talk page archive contains some discussion about it. Additionally someone once decided that it's one of the main defaults when blocking people with WP:TWINKLE, which some admins do. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:12, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

I suppose it is meant to block them in the editing day for today and tomorrow, but I'm not sure that most vandals stick to business hours. And, while it may or may not be an unusual number, it is definitely an odd number. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:37, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

To answer the almost inevitable "why 31 instead of [X], though?" question: There really is no reason. In 2005-2006 when many of the admin tools in use today were being developed, there was one that liked the number 31. The existence of an option 24<[X]<36 was attractive to other admins and it stuck. It's part of the site's history and evolution now. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:09, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

So much so that I've seen "Days+7h" blocks levied, i.e. 55h or 79h. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 21:16, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Vandals may not stick to "business hours", but some of them do stick to "school hours". In many countries, a school day is about 7 hours long. If the kid is vandalizing at the start of the school day, then a 31-hour block covers the rest of today's school day and all of tomorrow's school day, and by then, attention may wander elsewhere. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:36, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Yup this, was the same for the "after school vandals" or the "before bed vandals" - you get them today, and tomorrow. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:42, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement guidelines ratification voting open from 7 to 21 March 2022

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

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Hello everyone,

The ratification voting process for the revised enforcement guidelines of the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) is now open! Voting commenced on SecurePoll on 7 March 2022 and will conclude on 21 March 2022. Please read more on the voter information and eligibility details.

The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement. The revised enforcement guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the policy across the movement. You can read more about the UCoC project.

You can also comment on Meta-wiki talk pages in any language. You may also contact the team by email: ucocprojectwikimedia.org

Sincerely,

Movement Strategy and Governance

Wikimedia Foundation

MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:22, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Invitation to Hubs event: Global Conversation on 2022-03-12 at 13:00 UTC

Hubs Dialogue Finding Summary

Hey all - I'm including below an invitation to the upcoming Saturday 12 March Global Conversation about Hubs, which are being explored as a way to help coordinate support for communities. Please see more details below.

---

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

Hello!

The Movement Strategy and Governance team of the Wikimedia Foundation would like to invite you to the next event about "Regional and Thematic Hubs". The Wikimedia Movement is in the process of understanding what Regional and Thematic Hubs should be. Our workshop in November was a good start (read the report), but we're not finished yet.

Over the last weeks we conducted about 16 interviews with groups working on establishing a Hub in their context (see Hubs Dialogue). These interviews informed a report that will serve as a foundation for discussion on March 12. The report is planned to be published on March 9.

The event will take place on March 12, 13:00 to 16:00 UTC on Zoom. Interpretation will be provided in French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, and Portuguese. Registration is open, and will close on March 10. Anyone interested in the topic is invited to join us. More information on the event on Meta-wiki.

Best regards,

Kaarel Vaidla
Movement Strategy

---

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 17:31, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

A report on the findings of the Hubs Dialogue has been published on Commons ahead of the Global Conversation later today. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:24, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Massive disregard of WP:RS in articles related to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

Just to give an example from my watchlist: This is what I had to do in order to make the article compliant with our policies. The information is arguably credible (I did not attempt to look for more sources), but the two sources added to the article are (i) partisan from the same side and (ii) do not even make an attempt to verify the info, instead citing social media belonging to some newsmakers. Note that at least one of the sources is RS, and the second one looks more or less fine. I could have reverted, I have chosen to attribute the opinions instead. This is now massively happening across hundreds of articles. There is probably very little we can do about it, since Russian reporting is clearly just a lie and should not be added in any case, and people take Ukrainian reporting subcritically and still want to add into into articles. But it is something to have in mind, that we are now full of badly sourced partisan info. As I said elsewhere, the Russian invasion should motivate us to add high-quality info to our articles but is not an excuse to lowering our standards.--Ymblanter (talk) 11:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

That's what we get when we try to be a news service rather than an encyclopedia. The way to address this is to enforce WP:NOT#NEWS, which means waiting for proper secondary sources to be published about a subject before covering it, but, even though it is supposedly policy, consensus still seems to be against enforcing it. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:24, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

We also need editors to think more about writing towards the long term view and not the minutae of day to day events, particularly when verification is not strong here. --Masem (t) 14:31, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Isn't this more appropriate at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is watched by 790 editors, or WP:RSN, etc. Indeed, a similar discussion is ongoing at Talk:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine#Danger of repeating propaganda without checking against reality ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:28, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

I will post it now there as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 13:03, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Turned out to be a bad idea to post anything there.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• I have learned that NOT#NEWS is impossible to enforce for some topics. The best we can do is add a “breaking news” tag (so that readers are warned that the article is flawed)… and then come back and completely re-write the article once we actually have sources that allow us to take a long term approach. Blueboar (talk) 15:54, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed, as I said, I do not have any hope that we can enforce NOT#NEWS here. In some cases, reverting info on sight would work, but usually indeed neutrality, sources tags, and more specific tags like these targeting partisan and unreliable sources would help. Ymblanter (talk) 16:30, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Details of the OP's well-intentioned commentary are problematic. In any conflict, whether it is political/military/social/cultural etc., primary sources (the combatants) should be used sparingly and very clearly marked so. But this is not enough. If primary sources are to be used, all sides must be similarly included. The OP's opinion of the veracity of one side vs the other is irrelevant, and leads down the easy slope to censorship. If there are no reliable references to be had, the article should be withdrawn, as it provides no useful encyclopedic knowledge. Reliable references, not the news industry's and (even worse) academia's invention of "reliable sources" which in actual fact have never existed and neither now exist. Reliability must be judged per use, so let's stop conferring blanket reliability to people and organizations with motives and opinions. It would be much better for an article about this or any conflict written by somebody who really doesn't give a damn about any side, and sees producing such an article as a chore of the worst kind. 2603:7000:3842:C100:1D58:486A:1661:32A1 (talk) 18:16, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Is there a site which allows the public to collaborate to create "mind maps" together?

I'm basically looking for a centralised tree of knowledge, where you can collaborate with the public to construct mind-maps within each topic

As with Wiki pages - lots of hyperlinks, anyone can edit the articles.

However, wikipedia presents information as long passages of text. Often it is easier to present information as a logical flowchart or mind map, rather than as passages of text.

I'm familiar with the existance of specific 'wiki' sites, however that is not what I mean. I'm looking for a site containing "mind maps", rather than passages of text (as you see in a traditional wikipedia article)

I'm looking for a site which allows crowdsourced contributions to a universal "mind map"

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Vitreology (talk) 07:08, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

There are some on-line whiteboards and a few shared post-it note systems (such as Jamboard). None come to mind if you want live mind map collaboration. Check List of concept- and mind-mapping software? Ask at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 14:48, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I've been interested in this, too, but I'm interested in making it more complicated in that it maps not merely all significant viewpoints documented in sources deemed by consensus to be reliable, but all viewpoints, period, which takes an already many-dimensional problem and adds so many more dimensions. Seems this question is not very relevant to Wikipedia, and WP:NOTFORUM applies. MarshallKe (talk) 13:49, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Stepan (cat)

My article, Stepan (cat), created on March 3, has not yet been reviewed. ✍A.WagnerC (talk) 03:37, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

It is only 8 days since it was created. It often takes a lot longer than that. I also notice "This article is an orphan, as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles." It would help if you addressed that issue. Bduke (talk) 03:49, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Bduke I searched but couldn't find any other articles mentioning that cat. ✍A.WagnerC (talk) 15:20, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps you can add a link to it from articles about cats. I have no interest in cats. I am a dog person. There most be articles that list types of cats, so you could add it there. --Bduke (talk) 22:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

For a start you can add it to List of cat breeds. --Bduke (talk) 23:00, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@Bduke: No, it's correctly in Category:Individual cats, not a breed. PamD 00:18, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

We have List of cats, good place to add it (and de-orphan it). Schazjmd (talk) 00:40, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I've added it to List of cats; could probably be added to Cats and the Internet as well, seems as famous as many of the other cats in that article. Dan from A.P. (talk) 08:42, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

ANONYMOUS ADDITION

I wish to make an anonymous factual addition to an article, based on first hand experience, and this is the only hope I can find to achieve this. The facts are easily verified. The Article refers to Chester Seabury, who broke the educational color barrier in the State of Florida (which is correctly stated in the article about him). The following is first hand knowledge: Chester also broke the color barrier another way while at Stranahan, by singing in the boys chorus, which, under the direction of Peggy Barber, won multiple competitions including the Florida State 'Boys Chorus Competition' in Daytona. Participation required that Chet room in an all-white hotel with three other members of the chorus, who were white... Submitted anonymously by a fellow member of the chorus. Hopefully, this method will work and the article will be amended. MPC — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:143:580:4CA0:D580:F190:3B29:87EB (talk) 03:52, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Unless you have published sources we can't use this. —Jéské Couriano v^_^v ^{a little blue Bori} 04:10, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 ends tomorrow

International photographic contest Wiki Loves Folklore 2022 ends on 15th March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. This is the last chance of the year to upload images about local folk culture, festival, cuisine, costume, folklore etc on Wikimedia Commons. Watch out our social media handles for regular updates and declaration of Winners.

(Facebook , Twitter , Instagram)

The writing competition Feminism and Folklore will run till 31st of March 2022 23:59:59 UTC. Write about your local folk tradition, women, folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, folklore, and tradition, including ballads, folktales, fairy tales, legends, traditional song and dance, folk plays, games, seasonal events, calendar customs, folk arts, folk religion, mythology etc. on your local Wikipedia. Check if your local Wikipedia is participating

A special competition called Wiki Loves Falles is organised in Spain and the world during 15th March 2022 till 15th April 2022 to document local folk culture and Falles in Valencia, Spain. Learn more about it on Catalan Wikipedia project page.

We look forward for your immense co-operation.

Thanks Wiki Loves Folklore international Team MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:40, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Leadership Development Working Group: Apply to join! (14 March to 10 April 2022)

Hi all, following the call for feedback last month for the Leadership Development Working Group, I would like to share the summary of input (note the terminology change to Working Group) along with an invitation to apply. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

---

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

Hello everyone,

Thank you to everyone who participated in the feedback period for the Leadership Development Working Group initiative. A summary of the feedback can be found on Meta-wiki. This feedback will be shared with the working group to inform their work. The application period to join the Working Group is now open and will close on April 10, 2022. Please review the information about the working group, share with community members who might be interested, and apply if you are interested.

Thank you,

From the Community Development team

---

Let me know if you have questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Egyptian bean

can anyone please find a pre-2006 source confirming that Nelumbo nucifera is referred to as such? RZuo (talk) 11:10, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

This isn't really the right place to ask this question (better would probably be Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants) but, helpful chap that I am, I will point out that there are plenty here. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:21, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Top news story

I apologize if this is the wrong place for this. If it is, please tell me where it should go.

I've learned that Shane Warne was a legendary cricket player, but does his death really deserve to be the top news story on the front page for an entire week? There's a major war going on right now, that has the potential to become much much worse.

Is Warne's story likely to be updated anytime soon? Was there anything suspicious about it? I'm not trying to belittle the death of someone who was very widely beloved and admired, but there are large portions of the world that know little or nothing about cricket. I myself (I'm American) know very little about it. I wouldn't expect the death of an American athlete to completely monopolize the news at the beginning of an international crisis. --JDspeeder1 (talk) 07:10, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't characterise Warne as "monopolising" the news. Out of the five In the News items, four are non-Warne related, including one on the war in Ukraine. – Teratix ₵ 07:39, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

And far more people (including over a billion in India) follow cricket, of which Warne was one of the top few players of the last few decades, than any American sport. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:08, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Folks, let’s not miss the point. Should the death of a sports figure (of any sport) be featured as a top story in the news section for this long (especially when we consider what else is currently happening in the world)? Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly my point. Thank you. JDspeeder1 (talk) 13:37, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• You're all perfectly welcome to take this discussion topic to WT:ITN and WP:ITN/C which was and indeed is the responsible entity for managing the "In the news" template in the first place, but just so that it's as clear as a pikestaff -- "Wikipedia:In the news is not a news ticker." The posting system on ITN functions on reverse chronological order, not order of perceived importance. Shane Warne's death happened after the invasion of Ukraine began. --WaltCip-(talk) 14:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• You just had to wait a little longer; the top story is now the South Korean election.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 21:09, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• JDspeeder1's post illustrates extremely well how ITN is broken. Users expect it to operate like a normal news roundup, displaying the most significant story first rather than the most recent above all else. Users also won't intuit that we leave some stories out because the article quality isn't up go standard yet. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 15:35, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  I wasn't expecting the headlines to be listed in order of significance, I was expecting chronological. That's not what was happening, though. The Shane Warne story was at the top for a whole week, even as other stories were coming in below it. JDspeeder1 (talk) 16:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

  If stories were being added beneath an existing blurb, it's because the seminal events in those stories pre-dated said blurb, not because of significance. WaltCip-(talk) 17:25, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• I was eagerly awaiting this topic being brought to WT:ITN as I suggested, since it seems that there's a belief at least among some that ITN needs to be changed. I was quite disappointed to see no one took me up on the offer. I guess it really isn't that big of a deal. --WaltCip-(talk) 13:37, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Zelensky or Zelenskyy? – feedback requested

The Ukrainian president is much in the news, and various spellings are used by reliable sources. Your feedback would be appreciated at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ukraine#Zelensky or Zelenskyy. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:37, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Where is the discussions of speedy deletion?

When I was finding the origin of speedy deletion, I found no discussions about why this has to be set up. So, where are the discussions? Wiki Emoji | Emojiwiki _Talk~~ 23:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Emojiwiki see Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion, whose history goes back to 2004. Many policies, especially older ones, were not proposed to become a policy as we usually do today - but instead was documenting the community norms. CSD was spun off from the Wikipedia:Deletion policy where these exceptions to the "discuss first" practice is documented back to 2003. As to "why" because some things are so blatantly obviously bad that it would be a waste of community resources to hold a discussion - and more recently some things are so offensive that they need to be removed as quickly as possible to minimize disruption. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:02, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

User Page Privacy Concerns

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I've been a bit hesitant to bring this up since it might exacerbate the issue I'm having, but when I first made my user page on Wikipedia in 2015, I included a lot of personal information about myself. Although I have long since removed the info from my user page, it still shows up in my user page history.

I was wondering if an admin could remove the earlier revisions containing my personal info, as I do have a lot of privacy concerns regarding this. Thanks!

--Dtale1984 (talk) 16:53, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Did this, although it didn't contain a lot of private information IMO and I am hesitant to do a log redaction here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:58, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! I only needed the earliest revision to be redacted honestly but I appreciate it nonetheless. Dtale1984 (talk) 17:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Definition of "municipality"

Many editors, myself included, have spent a lot of time trying to make consistent the articles listing the cities, towns, villages, etc. of every state in the country (and of various other political entities around the world). One question has come up several times: how do we define "municipality"? We've settled on Lists of municipalities as a catch-all so we don't end up with separate lists for villages and cities in a state where the only legal difference is an arbitrary population cutoff. However, to that end we've been using "municipality" to mean "incorporated municipality", so as to exclude (and list separately) CDPs, civil townships, and the like. There seems to be a lot of agreement that this is good: we should list incorporated cities, towns, and villages, etc. separately from unincorporated CDPs and townships.

However, another possible definition of "municipality" is "a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction". One example of where this gets fuzzy is Michigan: Michigan only has two kinds of incorporated municipalities – cities and villages – but its unincorporated townships do have powers of self-government, and its unincorporated charter townships have even more self-government or jurisdiction. So should these be listed in a List of municipalities in Michigan? In other cases (see Wisconsin and South Dakota, both of which are still awaiting a merge) there is a consensus not to include civil townships, even if they have limited self-government.

As a further example, Vermont has 5 unincorporated towns, which are otherwise equivalent to the rest of the state's towns. Should these five towns be excluded from the list of municipalities because they aren't incorporated? If so, then shouldn't Michigan's townships be excluded from their list of municipalities? Is consistency even that important? Dylanvt (talk) 02:57, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Vermont's 5 unincorporated towns had their incorporation revoked by the state (for good reason, e.g. Glastenbury, Vermont has all of 9 residents). Townships generally shouldn't be included, I'd think, although I see Michigan has lumped together multiple survey townships into an organized township. Have you considered a population criterion, e.g. incorporated and having at least 2,000 residents (or 5,000, or 1,000, or 10,000, or ...)? --R. S. Shaw (talk) 03:16, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

The idea behind these articles is to include all "municipalities" (in common language, towns and cities and villages etc.) in one place, because it's much more convenient to have them all in one place than in two or three separate articles. A cutoff wouldn't be great because some people may be looking for the smallest, rather than the largest, cities or towns in a state. There's just some grey area in several states that make 100% consistency difficult. But I don't know how much we should care about 100% consistency. Dylanvt (talk) 15:32, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Can someone authorized to close a "withdraw" request to delete a WP article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Here [9] is the withdrawn Wikipedia page deletion request. Please, close this request. Thank you - --Ooligan (talk) 00:02, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Quarterly Community Safety survey

Apologies for cross-posting this, I wanted to make sure that as many people as possible knew this was going to happen, so people aren't surprised when it appears.

Starting the week of 28 March 2022, the Wikimedia Foundation will conduct a quarterly anonymous survey about safety perceptions among the English Wikipedia community members.

This survey responds to a Universal Code of Conduct community recommendation, and we encourage you to participate.

There are more details about the survey on the project page, and you can also leave comments.

Best regards, Community Safety Survey team –– STei (WMF) (talk) 21:25, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

“Sexual assault allegations vanished from potential Cori Bush challenger’s Wikipedia page”

Just wondering if any of you have seen this new front page article, it’s pretty concerning. https://theintercept.com/2022/03/21/missouri-senator-steven-roberts-wikipedia/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perfecnot (talk • contribs) 12:24, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

And this is exactly the sort of thing we'd never be able to catch once the WMF enables IP masking and adopts the UCoC (which prohibits discussing contributors' place of employment). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:40, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Question for a logo in Ukraine

On this page I discovered a logo combined the coat of arms of Ukraine and four fleurs-de-lis, who know about that? --Great Brightstar (talk) 17:28, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

It is the logo of the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine. --Jayron32 17:45, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Join the Community Resilience and Sustainability Conversation Hour with Maggie Dennis

You can find this message translated into additional languages on Meta-wiki.

More languages • Please help translate to other languages.

The Community Resilience and Sustainability team at the Wikimedia Foundation is hosting a conversation hour led by its Vice President Maggie Dennis.

Topics within scope for this call include Movement Strategy, Board Governance, Trust and Safety, the Universal Code of Conduct, Community Development, and Human Rights. Come with your questions and feedback, and let's talk! You can also send us your questions in advance.

The meeting will be on 24 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC (check your local time).

You can read details on Meta-wiki. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 02:48, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

This is starting in 5 minutes and can be viewed live or later on YouTube. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 14:54, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Talk page button

What happened to our talk page button? It displays the text ‘Fa tiban ka ho’! I hope someone fixes this. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 10:56, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@Inqilābī this sounds like a bad translation in the upstream interface translation files; they usually get updated every couple of weeks. If you use the "en - English" language setting in your preferences at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-personal you should not see bad translations here. — xaosflux ^Talk 11:07, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I use en-GB in my preferences. Anyway, am I the only one who sees a different translation? ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 11:10, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

My initial thoughts were the same as User:Xaosflux's, but I use en-GB and have seen no problem. Can browser language settings influence this? I am using Firefox 98.0.1, also with en-GB. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:14, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

It might be worth posting a link to this discussion at WP:VPT, as it seems to be a technical issue. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:18, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@Inqilābī and Phil Bridger: no need to put on VPT, there is nothing we can do about this here on the English Wikipedia - it has to be fixed on translatewiki, then you have to wait for any updates to sync to mediawiki and then back to us. They usually fix those on translatewiki pretty quick, then there is about a 10 day lead time. We discourage the use of en-GB here, for many reasons - this being one of them - if you insist on using en-GB, en-CA, or other en-XX variants you should expect oddities. If something extremely vulgar or severely disruptive is in one of these, please let us know at WP:IANB or WP:AN and we can put in temporary manual overrides - but we are not going to maintain those variants in general (we had an RfC about that last year I think). Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 15:01, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Thanks for the tip! I edited my preferences to use en and now I see the usual text. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 15:09, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

And thanks from me, as I was puzzled by this issue even though I wasn't suffering from it. I have no chauvinistic attachment to "en-GB", so have also changed my preference to "en". Phil Bridger (talk) 15:17, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Inqilābī and Phil Bridger good to hear! For the most part en-XX variant's in the interface are not really, we've been looking for some technical solutions for a long time to avoid this - but it requires a lot of upstream work. Changing your preference will have no impact at all on the text of articles or other content pages, and you are welcome to edit articles in whatever dialect is appropriate! Best regards — xaosflux ^Talk 17:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

en-GB is known to suck. That's really all there is to it. casualdejekyll 12:53, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Opinions on the phenomenon some might call RfC-itis?

See heading. MarshallKe (talk) 00:07, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Vexing, when it happens in situations where common sense would have served just as well, or better. Also when it involves issues affecting a minority of editors, editors already being an insignificantly small minority of daily users. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 00:59, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Could you make a definition? As it currently stands it just seems like a vague negative term. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:4CAE:9DE2:30BC:86D9 (talk) 22:19, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Not sure if this meets a definition, but it describes the symptoms. An editor, sometimes experienced, sometimes not, opens an RfC seemingly at odds with the expectations of other editors that were already present on the article's talk page. The editor filing usually has ignored or is unaware of WP:RFCBEFORE and WP:RFCNOT. Particularly egregious examples may have poorly worded, non-neutral questions. Depending on how contentious the underlying topic is, such an RfC will very likely have examples of WP:BLUDGEON behaviour. If editors are truly lucky, some sort of useful consensus can be achieved through this, though getting to it can be tedious. Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Might be worth making an essay about. By the way, I started my own RFC. See above. 2601:647:5800:1A1F:25E9:7819:F430:D78 (talk) 23:07, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Hannover Medical School

In reading about Ursula von der Leyen, I did a double-take on finding a linked article named Hannover Medical School. "Hannover" is the German spelling of the city known in English as "Hanover". Does it make any sense for the English language WP to name an article partly in German and partly in English? This would be like naming an article Bayerisch football derbies or whatever, in the many articles about Bavarian entities.

The opening of the article says "The Hannover Medical School (German: Medizinische Hochschule Hannover ... is a university medical centre in the city of Hanover, in Germany, part of a regional medical network," and thereafter in the text the German spelling Hannover is consistently used. The talk page contains only one untitled, undated and unsigned [2007, anon IP] entry; and most edits to the article are made by either IPs or bots, with no named active user having made more than a single edit. Thus there's really no one to ask or discuss the question with.

I try to limit my own edits mostly to spelling, grammar, and adding links where it seems useful, or occasionally rephrasing a confusing sentence. In any event I'm not about to repeat my tyro mistake of moving an article - although if someone else agrees and moves it from "Hannover" to "Hanover", I would happily change the spellings in the text. Milkunderwood (talk) 01:35, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

This does seem to be the version of the name used in English-language German sources, although they more commonly use just "MHH" - see https://www.hannover.de/en/Science-Education/Hannover-Science-Initiative/Universities/Hannover-Medical-School and https://www.uni-hannover.de/en/forschung/strategische-kooperationen/mhh/ as examples. As long as we have a redirect from Hanover Medical School, which we do, I think all is well. PamD 12:56, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

I've come across a similar problem with another German institution where our title is not a literal translation into English but is the English-language version used by the institution itself, but can't remember where it was. I've added a note to the article to explain the title. PamD 13:16, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much, Pam; your thoughtful edits entirely solve the issue. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:09, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Desktop Improvements: project update and invitation to our office hours

Main page: WP:VPT#Desktop Improvements: project update and invitation to our office hours

Hey, if you don't watch the technical section you may accidentally ignore an important message you perhaps would prefer not to ignore, so this is like a redirect within the VP to increase the visibility.

I'm writing on behalf of a Wikimedia Foundation team working on the new desktop interface. We're building the last features now. In a few months, we'll complete the project. We've prepared the last (fourth) prototype with improvements to the sidebar and page tools menu (aka More menu). This prototype is for you to check out and share feedback. On Tuesday, March 29, 19:00 18:00 UTC, we're having a meeting for anyone interested in the project. Read more on VP (technical) and see you on Tuesday. SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 02:18, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads-up. I'm always leery of interface changes. I have used five different desktop monitors, no two of which are the same dimensions horizontally or vertically; and I still now use two of these, which are different sizes and shapes. So far I have not experienced any difficulty with Wikipedia displaying properly on any of these monitors, and I hope your team will ensure that such flexibility will continue. Some other websites appear to be locked into a specific display shape, causing very annoying problems. Milkunderwood (talk) 10:52, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Milkunderwood for this comment. Would you be able to join the office hours and talk with us about that? SGrabarczuk (WMF) (talk) 01:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Requesting inputs

Greetings,

Adequate and nuanced overview for even non– Muslim audience is expected out of the articles Muslims and Muslim world. Whether the articles are achieving that purpose adequately? Requesting and expecting proactive participation in providing inputs from non–Muslim audience too along with Muslim users.

Since the article Muslim world is tagged various improvements it can not be submitted to formal review process still I feel the article deserves more inputs for content improvement.

Requesting your visit to the articles

• Muslims and
• Muslim world

and provide your inputs @

• Talk:Muslims/Archive 8#Requesting inputs and
• Talk:Muslim world#Requesting inputs

Thanks

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 06:28, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Feminism and Folklore 2022 ends soon

Feminism and Folklore 2022 which is an international writing contest organized at Wikipedia ends soon that is on 31 March 2022 11:59 UTC. This is the last chance of the year to write about feminism, women biographies and gender-focused topics such as folk festivals, folk dances, folk music, folk activities, folk games, folk cuisine, folk wear, fairy tales, folk plays, folk arts, folk religion, mythology, folk artists, folk dancers, folk singers, folk musicians, folk game athletes, women in mythology, women warriors in folklore, witches and witch hunting, fairy tales and more

Keep an eye on the project page for declaration of Winners.

We look forward for your immense co-operation.

Thanks Wiki Loves Folklore international Team MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:28, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

"Bold" edits: clarity requested

Prompted by an RfC discussion at the BRD discussion page.

• Is there a commonly accepted definition of what constitutes a "bold" edit? The term is used frequently, and is part of a widely quoted guideline.
• Any definition will also delineate its opposite. Is the inherent emphasis on "bold" edits justified? Does it imply non-neutral approach vs edits thought to be non-bold?

This is about content or substance edits, not proofing or html-publishing-related edits. 50.74.109.2 (talk) 13:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

The help articleWikipedia:Be bold seem deal kind of your query. This page in a nutshell: Please feel free to make improvements to Wikipedia in a fair and accurate manner.

In my personal perception 'Utilizing freedom to improve Wikipedia in reasonable goodfaith'

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 13:30, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

The response is appreciated, but it does not address the questions asked. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 14:53, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Be "bold" means do not be afraid to make a change. If you make a mistake it can be fixed. That's what "Go for it." means at Wikipedia:Be bold. The opposite of a "bold" edit is making no edit at all. The term comes from the dictionary definition as being brave and willing to take risks. It has nothing to do with being non-neutral. See Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle where it says Bold editing is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. All editors are welcome to make positive contributions. It's how new information is added to Wikipedia. When in doubt, edit! Either the edit will get the attention of interested editors, or you will simply improve the page. Either is a good outcome. StarryGrandma (talk) 00:38, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The first version of Wikipedia:Be bold was written in 2001. Back then, nobody had heard of a wiki. The idea that somebody could just walk up and make a change to a website by themselves was unheard of. That was what "Be bold" was trying to say: "Yes, really, we mean it, just make the change. You can do it. And moreover, we want you to do it". It wasn't just bold, it was radical. -- RoySmith (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

So a "bold" edit is a regular edit with a slogan attached? Was ERD (instead of BRD) too mundane a term to "impactfully" (er...) promote the guideline? 65.254.10.26 (talk) 00:53, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

A "bold" edit is one you make based on your own initiative and intuition. It comes from the just-fix-it philosophy, where if you see an error you can just go and make the change. No need to consult others, you can boldly and unilaterally declare yourself a Wikipedia editor. A non-bold edit would be one which comes through a longer process such as a talk-page discussion. Both methods have their strength and weaknesses. CMD (talk) 01:50, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

All very considered answers to be sure. But somehow it still seems to be a case of a terminology in search of a practice. I suppose it will have to do. 23.246.74.210 (talk) 02:41, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Help?

Hi. I am trying to created Category:SafeSport. But as an IP, cannot. I tried Article Wizard, but it just send me in a circle.

Articles that might be considered for it include SafeSport for starters, and some of the articles that link to SafeSport.

A parent category might be Category:Child sexual abuse in the United States. Also Category:Sexual assaults in the United States and Category:United States at the Olympics.

Can someone perhaps help and start it for me?

Thanks! --2603:7000:2143:8500:84D0:51DB:559E:8F08 (talk) 19:55, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Such requests should go at Wikipedia:Articles for creation/Redirects and categories. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:14, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Targeting of Talk:Speech synthesis

Any conjectures on why Talk:Speech synthesis receives a particularly large number of drive-by additions of new sections, added by single-edit IP users, that consist of gibberish or sentence fragments in Indonesian or both? I'm particularly intrigued by the ones (in Indonesian) that translate to "salaam aleikum to all bus passengers from johor bahru to malacca will be departing soon we from larkin sentral would like to wish you a happy hari raya"[10], "Ayang beautiful there is a whatsapp from my handsome"[11], "Moskona you love but how come you're so naughty"[12], "Hi adam there's a whatsapp message coming in"[13], and "the child has a whatsapp entry from the girl"[14], covering a span of more than two months. Largoplazo (talk) 16:36, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

There could be several reasons. I believe this belongs in VPT, perhaps tagged as a security issue, as one reason could be somebody is testing the waters for wider-scale disruption, but not necessarily targeting Wikipedia exclusively. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 00:52, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

I was figuring there could be a bigger motive behind it, whether it's sending coded messages or something else, but I chose Miscellaneous because I wasn't sure of a more suitable forum. Largoplazo (talk) 01:27, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Follow-up: The talk page has been semi-protected. Largoplazo (talk) 01:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Those messages got me, they are a form of love-scam messages, that circulate in WhatsApp and other media. Those IP addrreses are from the spammers. Those are nothing but a disgusting attempt of spamming, not coded messages or something else. Report them and make the talk pages semi-protected. VScode fanboy (talk) 07:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Could be, but it may not. It could be something else masquerading as (relatively) harmless spamming. One example would be to prompt the defending entity into restricting access, which is a form of voluntary denial of service. Whether that is necessary or not, it is like doing the attackers' job for them. Or it could be a probe or test for something else. And of course it could be what it seems to be. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Largoplazo I thought it was some sort of weird meme; the Indonesian version of the article was also protected due to similar spam. Talk:Twilight Sparkle and Talk:15.ai are also targets for this weird Southeast Asian spam. wizzito | say hello! 17:01, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Swiss "Innovation Space" survey banner?

Anyone else got the banner for a survey by Wikimedia Switzerland? Links to here, and besides not knowing why they are asking me, I also have no clue what they are going on about. Why should we care if they call it an Innolab or an Experimentation Space? Is this really something that should be put at the top of X% (all?) editors pages? Fram (talk) 09:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Just noticed the same thing. I'm guessing someone checked the wrong boxes with [15]. m:CentralNotice/Calendar lists Ilario as sponsor. Ilario, is this supposed to have such a broad scope? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 09:20, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, I did - it's this CentralNotice doing it. I imagine it is missing its geotargeting parameters... firefly ( t · c ) 09:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I am changing the settings. The idea was to have feedbacks from the linguistic communities we work with and English should not be included except for countries like Switzerland. --Ilario (talk) 09:24, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, no problem! Fram (talk) 09:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Ilario Thanks for the quick response :) firefly ( t · c ) 09:28, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

WMF fundraising campaign in South Africa

Dear community members from South Africa,

I wanted to inform you that the Wikimedia Foundation fundraising campaign on Wikipedia in South Africa will be running from the 23rd of May to the 20th of June. The banners will be visible to non-logged in readers from South Africa.

Prior to the start of the banner campaign, we are planning to run some tests in April and May, so you might see banners for 3-5 hours a couple of times before the campaign starts. This activity will ensure that our technical infrastructure works. We are currently working on the messages for the banners and I will share examples with you later.

Generally, before and during the campaign, you can contact us:

• On the talk page of the fundraising team
• If you need to report a bug or technical issue, please create a phabricator ticket
• If you see a donor on a talk page, VRT or social media having difficulties in donating, please refer them to donatewikimedia.org

Thanks you and regards,

Julia JBrungs (WMF) (talk) 07:26, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I see at meta:Talk:Fundraising#Update on banners - changes to banners for Italian fundraising campaign that some of the many complaints about previous fundraising banners have been taken into account (which is good), but that banners still contain very strange messages like "We humbly ask you not to pretend that you don't know anything." (???) or "we don't want to charge a subscription. ": this is scaring people with something that is and will never be acceptable or accepted by the communities at all, so please don't pretend that it is a possibility to scare people out of their money. Please stick to the facts in those fundraising banners. Fram (talk) 07:47, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Film, television, and streaming

• Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates
• Template:Film genres
• Template:Television genres
• List_of_genres#Film_and_television_genres
• Category:Film and television podcasts
• Category:Podcasts by genre
• Category:Film serial characters
• Category:Entertainment lists

Ok, first off, please forgive me if this has already been disccussed somewhere. I did a search and didn't find much.

My concern is this: Film and television always have had a rather large overlap when it comes to "groupings". Genres, are just one example.

And on Wikipedia we group such things in categories, lists, and navboxes.

Well, with the onset of streaming, the lines have really become blurred. They are all now "filmed presentations", with the difference mainly being whether they are "episodic" or not.

We've seen the various industries try to keep them separate for things such as the Academy Awards and the Emmy Awards, but we're also starting to see the conglomerates combine such departments, for example: NBCUniversal Television and Streaming.

(And note a lot of this applies to radio as well, but that might get more "muddy". But we should probably keep that in mind.)

Now I am not proposing that we merge everything yet. As I don't think the industry is there yet (see also WP:CRYSTAL). But I do think at this point we can probably merge together all the different genre explanation pages, just for one example. Renaming them to something more neutral. And merging filmed genres (regardless of format - tv, cable, film, video, streamed, etc). The pages, categories, lists, and navboxes.

The way we have it now, there is a fair amount of duplication, as well as splitting, which is to the detriment to our readership and navigation.

So first, this thread is about proposing such mergers, and to see what all may be entailed. Perhaps a new shared workgroup amongst the affected wikiprojects?

Second, it would be nice if we had a single term for all these filmed presentations. I did a preliminary google search, but I think there are others of you who might be better at finding authoritative sources on this topic. I do want to avoid WP:NEO of course : )

I look forward to everyone's thoughts and contributions concerning this. - jc37 09:49, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Community discussion regarding the Signpost

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In a recent ANI thread, users disagreed on various issues related to the community magazine here on wiki. In light of this, various questions arise which I believe it would be beneficial for both the Signpost team, the community, and how the Signpost is portrayed in media for us to answer. Namely, these are:

1. What exactly is the role and/or purpose of the Signpost within Wikipedia?
2. What standards and policies is it expected to follow, especially regarding neutrality and opinions?
3. Are the current editorial policies and procedures of the Signpost adequate?

General comments on how to improve the signpost or its strengths are also welcome. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 23:46, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I think a discussion like this is much wider than the Signpost and should apply to any editorial made by any editor or group of editors. ✨ Ed talk! ✨ 23:52, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I think it is wider than that; if it is inappropriate for an editorial, it would be inappropriate for a user to express in general. BilledMammal (talk) 23:57, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Ed6767 I think discussion should be kept constrained to the Signpost as much as possible for there to be any practical consensus. There are particular nuances relevant to the Signpost's unique position within the wikipedia community that also merit exploring and would be left to the side in such a general discussion, but if editors feel as a result of this discussion that a more broad conversation should be had I think that would be worth undertaking as a second step. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 00:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The signpost is just some users making their own newspaper. Who cares? Anyone can make their own "don't mention anything outside of Wikipedia" newspaper, and compete. A signpost article is no different than a statement on a userpage or a userbox. How about we just agree to not care unless it's polemic or actually disruptive. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:02, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

"We stand with X" is polemic, for any value of X. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that's true. "We stand with the pure, true X, because the Ys are nasty iditots" is a polemic. "We stand with X, despite its downsides, because we think that X is the lesser of the various bad options available right now" is not a polemic. Polemics are fundamentally aggressive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Hair splitting. Wikipedia is the wrong venue on which to state stances of any kind. Blueboar (talk) 20:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• I see that this discussion was CENT-listed, and I have to say, I don't think it will be productive. The questions it asks are very broad and rather vague, so it won't help to have a ton of comment because there's nothing specific to !vote on. Further, it'd be better to hold this at the Signpost newsroom rather than here (or, worse, at ANI).

For what it's worth, as a Signpost contributor and a journalist, I think it was very misguided for the paper to publish an editorial titled "We stand in solidarity with Ukraine". I noticed it in draft form and thought to myself that it would likely be received poorly—my apologies to EpicPupper that I did not speak up before it went to press. I think appending a note to the piece retracting it or emphasizing that we remain neutral in conflicts would be an appropriate resolution; deletion, however, is not called for. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@Sdkb's last sentence provides a good way forward.

I think that retraction would be best.However, if the article is not retracted, then the headline should be replaced with something neutral. Otherwise any statement of neutrality would be absurdly self-contradictory. (Banner "I back X" with small print "I'm neutral"). BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:17, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Two points:

1. On real-world issues, the Signpost should uphold NPOV, just as it applies to articles. Otherwise the Signpost becomes a soapbox, as it did in this case, contrary to WP:SOAPBOX.
2. The Signpost appears to have had no policy or procedure for assessing whether to take an editorial stance, leading to 4 editors involved in this article speaking for the whole team on a silence=consent process. (At ANI, the article's author @EpicPupper has been commendably civil and helpful in describing the process involved. Thanks, Eric)
   I recommend that for any article purporting to speak on behalf of the whole team, the Signpost should require explicit consent of the whole team. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)

I would like BHG (speaking as the editor who is most vehement about this issue, though not the starter of this discussion) to express which other BLUELINKS should apply to the Signpost or other non-article spaces. NPOV is explicitly about article content; but if we assume it should also apply to non-article content, does WP:OR and WP:V also apply? Is there something different about the Signpost than, say, this non-article page we are on right now, that demands that the Signpost say nothing non-neutral (or original research, or non-verifiable, etc.) but allows editors to talk all day at the Village Pump without citing their statements? --PresN 00:40, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@PresN: I see no merit in conflating an editorial statement by the community newsletter with a discussion between editors. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:32, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Editors talk all day at the Village Pump without citing their statements. XOR'easter (talk) 06:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

To answer this discussion's question, however (unlike the other 2 venues this conversation is taking place in...):

1. The role is to be a newspaper. Its the opinions and statements of a handful of editors.
2. It must follow the standards that all non-article discussions and opinions are held to—NPOV has never been one of them, any more than it applies to user talk pages
3. Haha, funny... perhaps I'm misremembering the last years and years of the Signpost begging for editors to help out in both a contributing and managing role, and getting little response. I'm presuming no one here is volunteering to be the live-in censor. --PresN 00:40, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The Signpost is not in mainspace and should not be held to those standards. NPOV does not apply here. casualdejekyll 01:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• I honestly don't understand what the point of this or why this was added to WP:CENT. I'd suggest we close this down, close the ANI thread and count to ten. Calidum 01:43, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Y'know I had a whole response written out about editorial independence and norms for POV content outside mainspace, but then I was reminded of this remark from The Blade of the Northern Lights:

  "Our work together here should be our armor, not some sharp, angry, burning sword. I would strongly recommend that everyone here find an article to work on for a while; not the cliche "random article", but something that gives you a nice tug at the heartstrings. It feels great to be out there doing work on something you genuinely care about, and I assure you it'll help you regain the sense of why you're here."

  A number of users have that quote on their userpages, but I wonder how many remember the context in which TBotNL said that. I do, because I happen to have started the thread he said it in, concerning some projectspace drama du jour. TBotNL, who had been on a vacation from projectspace to focus exclusively on the article Genie (feral child), spoke in the context of what he'd learned from that experience, and how it put our petty squabbles in perspective. Well, I've been working lately on List of journalists killed during the Russo-Ukrainian War—five civilian journalists killed in the line of duty since the full-scale invasion began, two Ukrainian, three international; plus two Ukrainian journalists killed going about their daily lives. And so nine years after TBotNL said that to me, I think I now get exactly what he meant. None of this arguing goes anywhere. It's just a wild goose chase entirely independent of actually improving this encyclopedia. This one fucking Signpost editorial is now the subject of an MfD, DRV, ANI, VPM, and Signpost talk thread, and people all seem more than happy to chip in and argue. Meanwhile Template:2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has multiple redlinks on it, and List of people and organizations sanctioned during the Russo-Ukrainian War, which I recently pared down to a readable condition, still needs a massive update to be brought in line with International sanctions during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Spending five minutes on improving any article in that navbox will do much more good for the world than any projectspace argument will, and hopefully will help you regain the sense of why you're here. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 02:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I remember writing that as well, it's good to see someone who was involved in that (and to be sure was not the source of the problem in that case) actually gets it as intended. Infighting like this is hard for me to watch, and I'd much rather people take out the frustration somewhere that would help; writing a proper encyclopedia article on such a fraught subject would be a valuable resource for people looking for good information, especially for those who aren't (like I am) somewhat well-versed in the history of the relations between Russia and Poland/Lithuania/Belarus/Western Ukraine. I'll help out where I can too, though others are definitely going to be better than me at content I know some good adminning has its part too. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• It is not our place to tell an independent publication what they can and cannot print. No policies broken in any event. Close this stupid discussion. Schierbecker (talk) 02:13, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Schierbecker: It is not an independent publication, it is based on en.wp and as such it is operating within the same structural framework, policies and guidelines as the rest of the project. (This includes WP:AGF, something you may wish to re-acquaint yourself with.) If they want to be independent, then they should move elsewhere on the internet. Of course, that will mean paying for it themselves :D SN54129 15:40, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• I noticed the ANI thread (I have ANI watchlisted for keeping track of my own posting there, will likely remove it when that gets closed) and couldn't help but think that part of the issue here is that by default new editions of the Signpost appear at the top of editors watchlists. Sure, the Signpost is just a collection of editors posting what is in effect a very fancy essay on the state of Wikipedia every month, but it doesn't feel that way. If I'm a new editor, and I see a notification at the top of my watchlist like that (something otherwise only used for project wide issues like new admins or RfCs that would shift the functioning of the project), I'm going to assume that it has at least the tacit approval of "big Wikipedia". Now obviously more experienced editors who are more familiar with the Signpost and WMF will know they aren't related, but the Signpost certainly does very little to make it clear to the casual observer that it is unofficial. I think perhaps the Signpost could do with making it more clear it is an unoffical project, especially right now when it takes a very clear political stance. Even beyond just the editorial, nearly every item in the current edition of the Signpost is either pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian, or both (especially the "war diary" republication, which IMO is much worse than the editorial and seemingly holds every piece of pro-Ukrainian disinformation that has come out of this war, as well as a heaping helping of anti-Russian racism). Now I don't think this (the Signpost taking a side, I have particular umbrage with some of the way they dd it) is a bad thing, but I simultaneously don't blame anyone who might look at the very official seeming Signpost and concludes "Wikipedia has taken a side!". BSMRD (talk) 02:34, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  nearly every item in the current edition of the Signpost is either pro-Ukrainian, anti-Russian, or both

  Now I don't think this [...] is a bad thing.

  An all-pervasive bias is not bad? Wow. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:18, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  WP:PRJC Moxy- 04:28, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think the Signpost as a unit taking a stance is inherently bad. I think they need to do a lot more to make clear they are a separate editor run entity not associated with the WMF. BSMRD (talk) 07:02, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  "An all-pervasive bias is not bad" Indeed, when the bias is being against a warmongering despot, that is a good thing. That's like crying WP:NPOV at the Wikipedia TOS for being pro-civility, being biased against harassment. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:28, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• The first sentence of WP:NPOV mentions encyclopedic content. That core content policy also mentions "article" and "articles" over 30 times. The policy never mentions talk pages or project space. This is in contrast to another really important policy, WP:BLP, which goes out of its way to say that it applies everywhere on Wikipedia, without exception. Clearly, this editorial cannot be in violation of NPOV because that policy does not apply to The Signpost, or any other civil, non-disruptive expressions of reasonable opinion outside of encyclopedia articles. The OP and some other editors object to the phrase "stand in solidarity" in the headline but Solidarity is described in our own article as an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. Wikipedia, after all, is written and maintained by a community of volunteers through a model of open collaboration and our goal is free educational content for all of humanity, including the residents of Ukraine and Russia. The actual content of the editorial seems perfectly compatible with Wikipedia's goals, and the body of the editorial was calling for improved coverage of Russia, Ukraine and the current war. How can any Wikipedian object to that? Cullen328 (talk) 04:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  @Cullen328: imagine a Signpost editorial in 2003 headlined "We stand with Iraq", while that country was being invaded.

  How do you think that would have gone down? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:42, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  BrownHairedGirl, I have no idea because I did not start editing Wikipedia until 2009. I do know that Wikipedia's current coverage of that invasion of Iraq expresses solidarity with the people of Iraq by providing neutral, educational content about the horrors of that war. Cullen328 (talk) 04:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Foundation cleary has a POV on this Wikimedia Foundation received a Russian government demand to remove content related to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. so why can't a group of editors in project namespace? Moxy- 04:59, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Sigh. Refuisng a request to remove info is a million miles from expressing explicit partisanship with one of the warring parties. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:02, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  The language is clear to most. Moxy- 05:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed. It is very clear that the WMF statement does not express unequivocal blanket support for one party. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:28, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Words are chosen for a reason Unprovoked...occurring without any identifiable cause or justification Moxy- 06:26, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Describing an attack as unprovoked is radically different to a declaration of support for the target.

  If someone was minded to say "X is a vile scumbag, but attack by Y was wholly unprovoked" then there would no logical inconsistency. We might vehemently disagree with the characterisation of X, but it is entirely possible to deplore X whilst opposing an attack. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Ah, c'mon. We're not discussing encyclopedic coverage 19 years later; we are discussing explicit partisanship while the bombs are exploding.

  The mood in America at the time was to denounce and ostracise anyone who criticised the war. Most of our editors are American, and the result would have been howls outrage at Wikipedia backing "the enemy". Not universal outrage, but the heat would have been too intense to stand. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  BrownHairedGirl, you are trying to use a reverse crystal ball to predict an alternate history scenario from the past rather than the usual use of crystal balls to predict the future. What seems crystal clear to me is that your several forum shopping complaints are based on a complete misreading of WP:NPOV, and an attempt to apply that content policy to non-content areas of the encyclopedia. Policy is important. Misinterpretation of policy is a problem.Cullen328 (talk) 05:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I share the "reverse crystal ball" concern. I don't see how "Americans, during one of their most censorious periods in recent memory, would hypothetically have reacted with disproportionate rage to a hypothetical newspaper editorial that never actually existed" is much of an argument for, well, anything really. That's like saying, "If the Signpost had existed in 1945 and ran a 'we pray for peace' editorial after Hiroshima, people would have been upset." I mean, what of it? XOR'easter (talk) 05:43, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Straw man. The Signpost didn't publish a "we pray for peace" editorial It published a "we stand with X" editorial.

  But if you want to look forwards, then would you support a policy that the Signpost should publish op-eds by editors who want to express any POV, including e.g. unequivocal support for opponents of the USA?

  Or is partisanship acceptable only when it points in one direction? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:53, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't see the problem in principle with a staunchly anti-American op-ed, if the topic is germane to the goal of building an encyclopedia. XOR'easter (talk) 16:18, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  The article that was published is a blanket declaration of support for one side in armed conflict: We stand with Ukraine

  If the standard you want to apply is germane to the goal of building an encyclopedia, then please explain how blanket declaration of support for one side in armed conflict is germane to the goal of building an encyclopedia. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:16, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Gee, I wonder how the wanton destruction by Russia of cities like Mariupol, the displacement of 6 million people, the killing of thousands, as well as the censorship of its own citizens, repression of its own press, jailing of protesters, etc... is against the goals of building an encyclopedia. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:37, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  On that logic, nearly anything that disrupts society can be categorised as being against the goals of building an encyclopedia.

  And be careful about the issues you set out as reasons. All of the items on that list have also been done or are still being done by any other countries and/or their proxies. If those are genuinely your tests of wickedness, then there are a lot of evil monster countries in this world. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:43, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  Sadly, it's becoming clear to me that using Wikipedia pages for partisan grandstanding on a political issue is to be regarded as acceptable when most of the predominantly American userbase agrees with the stance being taken.

  If the headline in the Community's newsletter was "We stand with Russia", there would be uproar.

  Policy is important. And the core policy that we are here to to build an NPOV encyclopedia is undermined by wikilawyering over whether I should have cited WP:SOAPBOX rather WP:NPOV. BrownHairedGirl (talk) •

BrownHairedGirl, this harping on "Americans, Americans, Americans" is not at all helpful because the governments of a large majority of the world's nations have called this Russsian invasion aggressive and unlawful, and the vast majority of the reliable sources frequently cited on Wikipedia and published in countries all over the world with foreign policy expertise say the exact same thing. The main sources defending the Russian invasion have been determined to be unreliable long before this war broke out a little over a month ago. This is not an "American" issue and the countries to the immediate west of Russia are demonstrably more alarmed than Americans are. Cullen328 (talk) 06:15, 28 March 2022 (UTC) (contribs) 05:46, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Newspapers publish editorials. Big flipping deal. Invoking NPOV in this context is a red herring. WP:SOAPBOX doesn't apply either; that applies to usernames, articles, drafts, categories, files, talk page discussions, templates, and user pages, none of which describes the Signpost. Stretching that policy to cover the extremely anodyne editorial currently being argued over would also require the deletion of many — I daresay most — essays on this website. XOR'easter (talk) 05:17, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Please identify the [[Wikipedia:Essay]s whose headline takes a partisan political stance on an international conflict. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:31, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:No Nazis. XOR'easter (talk) 05:33, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Ok, so there's one that comes close.

  But you say that most essays are like that, so I am sure you will have no problem quickly linking another dozen or so. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:38, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  You stated, On real-world issues, the Signpost should uphold NPOV, just as it applies to articles. Otherwise the Signpost becomes a soapbox, as it did in this case, contrary to WP:SOAPBOX. I am taking that at face value. NPOV applies even when there is no partisan political stance involved, so the only conclusion I can draw is that, accepting your premise, the Signpost can never take a position in any editorial, whether or not there's a war afoot. XOR'easter (talk) 05:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I am pleased to see that the concept of NPOV is finally becoming clearer. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 06:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Well, the strong consensus across multiple pages of discussion involving many experienced editors is that it doesn't apply here, so yes, I think the concept is pretty clear. It honestly seems to me that your invocation of it would rule out every editorial, every op-ed (they're all advocacy!), and vast swaths of our essays and guidelines. XOR'easter (talk) 16:11, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• BrownHairedGirl I strongly recommend you let the issue go. You are bludgeoning the discussion and continuing a dispute where you are clearly in absolute minority. I would recommend taking a a few days off and writing an essay where you fully outline your points, share it, and let it sit. I started this thread as an opportunity for the community to discuss the role of the Signpost within the community based on some nuances I saw in the ANI thread that weren't being discussed, not for you to rehash the same arguments over a single editorial. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 07:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I hoped that the problem of the main Community Newsletter taking a brazenly partisan political stance would be widely understood, and that this discussion could develop some guidance on how to avoid a recurrence. My initial contributiosnswere all in that vein.

  Sadly, that is not the goal of most commenters here, who have chosen to instead express their forthright defence of using the Signpost as a political soapbox to declare unqualified partisanship. I replied to those points, and it's a pity that you blame me for the choice of others to lead the discussion off-topic into their defences of that singe editorial. But so it goes.

  I will not be writing an essay on this. I have made my point quite well enough already, and it is abundantly clear that speaking up for NPOV is an utter waste of time and energy when speaking to people who think that NPOV doesn't apply when they believe that they are in a clear majority. When this issue arises again, my comments will be in the archive ... unless, of course, some POV warrior decides to simply delete the discussion rather than closing and archiving it; such outright deletion has been attempted twice already.

  My faith in the en.wp community has taken another very severe dent. Wikipedia could and should be so vastly better than this, treasuring our neutrality in a sea of angry partisanship. Instead, the Signpost has been playing to a war-frenzied crowd, and allowing the impression to stand that the community of editors who claim to produce an NPOV encyclopedia are actually a bunch of nuance-free partisans who become drop the pretence when they can argue (however implausibly) that they are not actually 'required to sustain the facade of neutrality.

  A reputation for neutrality is hard won, but easily squandered. This is a very sad day. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 07:28, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  BrownHairedGirl I think where you and the community might be disagreeing is the current piece from the editors. Some (me included) see it as unnecessarily political in its wording (especially the title), but most people seem to see it as neutral enough to not be an issue in the long term. However, seeing how consensus is that the current piece is alright, a more constructive target for your good-faith and reasonably-argued (if perhaps too intense) efforts would be to focus on the Signpost in general and not just this issue. Non-neutral userboxes and essays with the same tone would not really bat anyone's eye but the editorial did. Is this because the Signpost is seen as a de facto representative of the community, as others have said in this thread? Should that come with additional expectations than what has already been made explicit to them? That seems to me like a much more interesting question and one which might have the constructive result you seek if only in the long- and not the short-term. Let's assume the editorial is left as-is but is seen as a misstep to have published it. Is this a side-effect of their publishing process, which you yourself have raised issues with? Could that be due to low participation in the actual creation of the Signpost by the community outside of a small handful of volunteers? Ideas for how to increase that participation could help prevent such editorials from being published. These are the nuances I reference above and which I think should be discussed. I don't think those discussions will happen at ANI nor DRV, nor do I think pursuing retraction of the editorial will lead to those discussions either. I hope my post above didn't read passive-aggressively or dismissive (I am bad at subtext), and I genuinely appreciate you voicing your opinion. I hope you did not feel discouraged by me from pursuing the long-term growth and strengthening of the community we all seek. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  The representation point is an important one. While the Signpost is a user-generated project and not article material, it is not equivalent to userboxes or individual essays. There may not be a formal agreement on the matter, but in some ways the Signpost as a community-written publication is expected to follow the principles of the Wikipedian (or Wikimedian) community. These include neutrality. While NPOV as a policy does not explicitly apply, (and could not apply in the same way as it does to articles,) it is a community value. The Signpost About page already acknowledges this, stating "The Signpost does not specifically maintain a commitment to neutrality in the same way that Wikipedia articles do, but the magazine is nonetheless known, and aims to serve, as a balanced and impartial news source". On that same page, the Signpost also acknowledges its impact, stating it is "attaining a readership—and an impact—for our publications that far exceeds any of the other, more disparate publication channels and newsletters maintained among the projects." These are explicit expectations that are already written. The editorial in question takes a position not only in its title, but also (and in my mind to a more troublesome extent) in its second paragraph, which states that the Signpost is documenting, and even actively searching for, one particular POV. It is an explicit call for a certain viewpoint, and could easily be read as suggesting such a call also apply to Wikipedia content. There has been some conversation about op-eds and the importance of allowing for the expression opinions. This is valid, but this editorial is presented not just as one opinion, but as the collective view of the entire publication. I do not see how this editorial meets either the Signpost's description of itself, or its Statement of purpose. CMD (talk) 09:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Most newspapers have an editorial board that publishes opinions and even endorses political candidates in elections. This does not discredit their news reporting though, because the editorial board is separate from its news reporting. That seems to be the case here with the Signpost, but the issue is they just haven't made that distinction clear enough. ––FormalDude talk 09:27, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed, and this raises yet more questions. Newspapers often hold a particular viewpoint, based on certain principles, which their editorials reflect. I do not see what principle of the Signpost is expressed through this editorial, and as I have mentioned it seems to conflict with their existing principles as written. CMD (talk) 09:35, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  @A. C. Santacruz: thanks for the very civil tenor of that reply. I do appreciate it.

  I think that there may be merit in your description of the community's view to @EpicPupper's op-ed as being neutral enough to not be an issue in the long term. I think that's one possibly viable reading of the community's assessment.

  However, I regard any such of assessment the article as utterly absurd: that piece is blatantly and unequivocally partisan. AFAICS, there is not a microscopic shred of neutrality in declaring that you stand by one party to a conflict, and I don't care if a hundred million editors on winged horses tell me otherwise: I do not see any trace of neutrality there.

  I see a lot more mileage in your thoughtful remarks about the nature of The Signpost., and its low participation. I note for example that the very nice editor who wrote this op-ed has been on en.wp for less than two years, so is far from being one of our more experienced editors. I can't help wondering if greater experience would have led to more caution. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:06, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• NPOV doesn't apply to the Signpost, as it's not in article space. It's entitled to have editorials and opinion pieces, as long as they are identifiable as such. Storm, teacup, etc. Stifle (talk) 09:04, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• This is so overblown that it's kind of hilarious. Sdkb said it best 10 hours ago: just amend the post to explicitly state on the very top that (1) Signpost is an unofficial editorial or whatever and (2) "emphasizing that [Wikipedia] remains neutral in conflicts". Curbon7 (talk) 09:15, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Like any other user, The Signpost and its editors are absolutely required to abide by NPOV, SOAPBOX, etc. And in this case, they have done so admirably. They have not attempted to manipulate Wikipedia articles to reflect their point of view. They have been careful to limit their editorial to discussing the impacts of the war on Wikipedia rather than diving into political tangents. If some editors still take issue with their piece, then they will need to muster a strong consensus at WT:NPOV itself to actually change where the policy applies. VPM is the wrong forum. – Teratix ₵ 15:26, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Teratix this is not a discussion, at least as I have formulated it, only on whether NPOV applies to the Signpost nor an attempt to gain consensus in that favor. I'd appreciate your thoughts on the other questions asked :). A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:45, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  They have been careful to limit their editorial to discussing the impacts of the war on Wikipedia rather than diving into political tangents is blatantly untrue. If it were true, this discussion would not be happening. The editorial explicitly dives into political tangents. The only information about the war's affect on Wikipedia is that editors are updating relevant pages. CMD (talk) 16:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  I count one sentence in the editorial (The ongoing invasion of Ukraine has already caused unimaginable pain and suffering and impacted millions) which does not explicitly deal with the war's impacts on Wikipedia. – Teratix ₵ 01:49, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  If you are reading the second paragraph about the work of the Signpost to "spotlight" particular viewpoints and to feature a "rich history" as about the impact on Wikipedia, then that underlines the isuses with this editorial. CMD (talk) 02:55, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• I believe I understand where BrownHairedGirl is coming from... If a full-blown war broke out between Israel and Palestine right now, and there's a Signpost headline stating We stand in solidarity with Israel, would that be okay? Where is the line drawn? Some1 (talk) 23:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  ^ Let's stick to what we can agree on: standing in solidarity with free information. Firestar464 (talk) 01:10, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  I think there's probably a grey area between signpost pieces that should be written and those that shouldn't. —Danre98^{(talk^contribs)} 01:25, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  If Palestine (1) was uncontroversially acknowledged as the aggressor and (2) disproportionately suppressed Wikipedia's mission by, e.g. causing mass displacement of editors, demanding the WMF block access to neutral articles on the conflict or arresting editors whose contributions conflicted with the Palestinian POV, then such an editorial would be justified.

  If (1) was met but not (2), it would fail SOAPBOX. If (2) was met but not (1), the editorial would be enormously controversial, probably cause a large section of the community to disendorse the Signpost, and possibly fail HARASSMENT if it implicitly endorsed Israeli aggression.

  However, the point is moot because if a war between Israel and Palestine broke out tomorrow, I doubt either (1) or (2) would be true. – Teratix ₵ 02:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

• A logical fallacy: "if we say this about Ukraine, image saying similar about Iraq." Every case is unique, there is no slippery slope. Signpost exists outside mainspace different rules apply. I support freedom for an in-house grassroots volunteer effort even if I don't always agree with everything (comments section). Signpost is not written by "the community" rather a few volunteers. If you don't like the content get involved is the wiki way. If Signpost turns into an insufferable social justice soapbox on a wide range of issues then sure, something should be done. But I don't see that now or in the future. -- GreenC 03:24, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  @GreenC: the test you set an insufferable social justice soapbox uses the terminology of the political right in the USA, commonly used to attack social movements such as BLM and LGBT rights.

  I cannot know your intent, but the effect of what you are saying is that the Signpost may take political stances so long as they do not regularly offend one worldview one one side of the politics of the USA, a country which amounts to about 5% of the world' population.

  Our community of Wiki editors includes people from all around the world, of many different viewpoints. Setting such a narrow Overton window excludes most of the planet from expressing their views, while privileging one viewpoint. That is why I believe that is much much better to keep political opinion out of the Signpost. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Social justice is not a derogatory term nor one reserved for the "political right in the USA", nor is it specific to BLM or LGBT, your attempt to frame my comment as some sort of insular "right wing USA" thing, it's not, and way off base. The issues are fundamentally global in nature. Fascism, racism, nationalism, misogyny, science denial, historical negationism.. know no boundary and are all part of a package one can find in many countries causing division between free and open societies. Freedom and openeness are the DNA of Wikipedia, regimes that arrest and jail Wikipedia editors, shut Wikipedia down in their countries, I have no problem taking sides in support of the ecology that makes Wikipedia possible to exist - it is an existential issue. My comment "insufferable social justice soapbox" refers to a situation when anyone with an otherwise worthy cause to promote is using the Signpost ad nausea to promote it, there is nothing to unpack here for some hidden meaning beyond that, and is another logical fallacy (strawman). -- GreenC 21:15, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  social justice warrior is a "right wing USA" thing and your comments appeared to be taking that stance. Thanks for clarifying your intent, but after it is a pity that you chose to pollute your reply with a false allegation that my reasonable reading of your language was a straw man.

  However the rest of your response is an unambiguous expression of American liberal hegemony. You are quite entitled to hold that POV, but that POV is a long way from universal. Your phrase free and open societies is a propaganda term which is commonly used by propagandists to include the most imprisoned society on earth in which the Black Lives Matter movement protests what they see as systematic repression; those two facts alone are enough to show that the world is more complex than your crude division of the world into free and notfree.

  You are fully entitled to your worldiew, and I have no desire to try to dissuade you of it, or even to debate it with you. I simply ask that you respect the fact that many decent, reasonable, rational people see the world very differently. Some people with those other viewpoints are your colleagues on Wikipedia, and others are readers of Wikipedia. Please do not drive people away from Wikipedia by hijacking Wikipedia as a vehicle for one worldiew. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:49, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  I would like to know what "other" world view you refer to. This is not an "American" thing, any more than it's about the violent British colonial history of Ireland, India, Malaya, Cyprus, Kenya, Nyasaland, Jamaica, and Palestine. The term "open society" is not propaganda, not even American, it's a term of Liberal democracy which describes the prevailing political order of the West, that some would like to destroy, are currently destroying. There is a clear right and wrong in this war. Indeed it's harmful not to show support. Why? Because Wikipedia as we know it could not exist in anything but a Liberal society. This is not propaganda, it is a fact. Wikipedia has a tradition of supporting other non-profit sources over commercial, because it is a non-profit itself, this is codified in policy. I don't see why it's any different to show support for liberal societies under existential threat by closed societies who would destroy Wikipedia (or pervert it) given the chance. -- GreenC 03:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  I have news for you, @GreenC.

  Wikipedia does not exist to uphold "liberal democracy", "the west", "the prevailing political order of the West", or any of your ideological hobbyhorses.

  No WMF or en.wp policy document that I am aware of makes any such assertions. If you believe that they should do so, then feel free to campaign for such a change. But unless and until such changes are made, all your pronouncements are nothing more than your ideological spin on what you want Wikipedia to be.

  This is not the place for me or anyone else to expand your political education to include awareness of different analyses of the world, or of fact sets which do not support your ideology. But it is a place to remind you that WP:NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia and that it is the first item on WMF list of Founding principles.

  By insisting that your political POV is the only valid POV, you appear to be stridently rejecting that fundamental principle. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• To all: Could someone address whether WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS factors into this discussion? (If so, how and why… if not, why not?) Blueboar (talk) 22:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  To speak in BHG's defense given the responses they have gotten back here: the issue of whether the Signpost should opine is not an issue that NPOV or RGW should cover, but the attitudes of several editors above in harshly criticizing BHG's stance of their view about what the Signpost should do is very much in line with trying to push RGW. Wikipedia's main article content needs to stay amoral and not take sides in these larger world conflicts, and global shifts in the last ten years have made that difficult. But we have seen far too many editors (some of it here, this is the tip of the iceberg) make a big deal when other editors speak from a position related to neutrality, instead chastising them for taking a minority or fringe or similar position (I've been in that position myself). This is not acceptable at all. Yes, we do not want to welcome editors that are walking around with a huge POV chip on their shoulders, but it absolutely inappropriate to be attacking editors that raise fair questions about neutrality. And sometimes these arguments about why they raise these issues are along the RGW argument, which, no, even in personal interactions with editors, should not raised unless it is crystal clear that a POV conflict is present. (At one point I caught in a diff but since removed, "NONAZIS" was brought up, which is the ultimate insult you can throw at an editor working at good faith). While the isuse re: should the Signpost opine is a fair question, everything else around it is exposing how ugly our personal interactions have become due to trying to maintain RGW-type views. --Masem (t) 01:46, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  RGW is a type of tenacious editing, it is an extended behavior problem, not a strongly held POV. If someone was posting there, at ANI, in articles, talk pages, being difficult generally, you might make a case they are being tenacious in a RGW way. And "RGW" can go both ways including righting the wrong of Signpost. -- GreenC 04:33, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

  It would have been much better for @GreenC to actually read WP:RGW before posting.

  One of the examples therein of RGW conduct is Explain (what you perceive to be) the truth or reality of a current or historical political, religious, or moral issue ... which is what the Signpost editorial did.

  The claim that someone opposing this assertion of "the truth" is themselves engaging in RGW conduct is Orwellian. It inverts the responsibility into a game of blaming someone trying to uphold the policy, and thereby effectively negates the policy. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:04, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Signpost as a news publication

• Journalism ethics and standards
• Opinion piece

• bbc
• reuters
• chicago tribune

The above are just some examples of journalistic standards. Most legitimate news publications have them.

• per bbc:

There are several different types of newspaper articles:

• News articles - these are found at the front of a newspaper. They inform readers about things that are happening in the world or in the local area. They will be full of facts, like names, dates and places.
• Feature articles - these explore news stories in more depth. The purpose of a feature is not just to tell you what has happened, but to explore or analyse the reasons why. These kind of pieces normally name the writer who wrote them - a byline.
• Editorials, columns and opinion pieces - these are pieces by 'personality' writers. They might be there to inform (because the writer's expert opinion is valued), or they might be there to entertain (because the writer has a comic or interesting way of describing everyday life). They are likely to have a more personal style that the writer regularly uses when writing - this could be shown through particular vocabulary or the opinion of the writer.

I don't care if the signpost wants to run an editorial, or opinion piece. Just make it clear.

• mdpi article types

The link above lists types of articles, I think this could be a decent place to start for denoting the type of an article. (Though perhaps more categories than we need.) - jc37 05:07, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

It appears they already have categories like that: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Content guidance. ––FormalDude talk 05:22, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Nice! So the question is, does "From the team" make it clear that this is a Signpost editorial? I ask, because I could maybe understand the view that someone might mistakenly think this was from the community-at-large. - jc37 05:37, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

"From the team" denotes in my eyes that it comes from the Signpost editorial staff, because it'd be really hard for tens of thousands of editors (or however many Wikipedia editors edit monthly) to get together and write something :P ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 05:47, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

lol. Well all I was thinking is perhaps adding an adjective to "team", like "editorial", or "Signpost" might add clarity. - jc37 05:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

That might be a good idea, but I guess I've always had the common sense to think that anything from the Signpost that's an opinion is, well, an opinion. ♠JCW555 (talk)♠ 06:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

With the Wikipedia community being so diverse, and with so many varied perspectives and experiences, I think it might be difficult to define "common" sense : ) - jc37 06:13, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I think "From the editorial team" sounds nice and is a little more clear. ––FormalDude talk 06:45, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I kinda do too, however, the byline used "Signpost team", so, following that out of deference. - jc37 07:03, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I think I actually prefer "Signpost team" by a narrow margin. "Editorial team" isn't bad and would be fine for most newspapers, but "editor" has its own meaning on Wikipedia. XOR'easter (talk) 07:15, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I would greatly prefer that the Signpost refrained from publishing any opinion pieces on matters not directly pertaining to Wikipedia. The interwebs are awash with opinion on world affairs, and I see no advantage to anyone in having Wikipedia join the Tower of Babel by hosting yet more opinion-spouting.

The Signpost might potentially add value to the community by publishing reasoned opinions on notability, RFA reform, the reliability of sources, systemic bias, the usability of editing tools, WMF's use of resources, or a host of other internal issues. But on world affairs or politics, there are many other sources which are way better-qualified than en.wp editors. And publishing an op-ed which bravely restates the dominant view of the Anglosphere is, to put it politely, superfluous. To put it less politely, it's self-indulgent futility.

But insofar as The Signpost publishes any opinion piece on any topic, then it would be much better to drop this attempt to emulate the "collective voice" style of editorial used by self-regarding old newspapers such as The Times of London or The New York Times.

It would be much more transparent if opinion pieces were simply signed by their author(s) and (optionally) by whichever set of editors accepted a request to support them. There is no need to claim to speak for some collective. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:46, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I dunno, I'n kinda on the fence about that. I think that if we allow editors to add such things to their user page, then this isn't really out-of-bounds. That said they really need to be clear when it's opinion. On the other side of this, as it being the signpost, I would more have expected one or more articles talking about Wikipedia's coverage of the event(s), and maybe behind-the-scenes articles, like if discussions (like this one : ) - took place. I liked the idea behind that first-hand perspective of what it's like to edit Wikipedia inside Ukraine right now, for another example. - jc37 10:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

That premise seems faulty. AFAIK, we do not allow editors to use their userpages to post essays about their views on world affairs. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:17, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@BrownHairedGirl: We explicitly allow this. There was no lab leak, Lab Leak Likely, Does common sense point to a lab leak origin?, among many others. ––FormalDude talk 21:35, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude: What on earth are you on about?

User:Novem Linguae/Essays/There was no lab leak is explicitly a review of sources.

It does not in any way proclaim allegiance to one faction in a war, and it is a wholly different type of page to a partisan political declaration. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:08, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Um, I'm on about what you literally just said, posting essays about their views on world affairs? Shift the goalposts much? ––FormalDude talk 22:43, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

FormalDude is that content guidance meant for internal (e.g. training new contributors to the signpost) or external reading (explaining their content to non-contributors)?A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 06:50, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure, it kinda seems like both. It was easy for me to find. ––FormalDude talk 07:34, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I find it as dual-purpose :) 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 16:32, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

-quite similar to our guideline/policy pages. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 16:32, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, FormalDude and EpicPupper (cute emoji btw). In that regard perhaps I'd argue is a monthly community magazine written and edited by users like you may not be enough to clarify it is not a publication endorsed by the whole community or an offical publication for it? I remember as a new editor (in the olde days of 6 months ago) I genuinely thought the Signpost was official even after reading all these sections. I can't see further clarity on that point not helping. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 16:37, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• Signpost should be more of an internal “newsletter” than a Newspaper. If you want to practice journalism go to Wikinews. Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

  Newsletter or newspaper, whether a section is an opinion piece or not, should be clear to all readers. As for Wikinews, it has it's own Wikinews:Policies and guidelines, which, incidentally includes NPOV - jc37 14:59, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• This is not the first time, we have wasted pixels over the Signpost. But the story is the same. If you want stricter guidelines for it you will have to create them and get consensus for them. If you want a community retraction process, you will have to create it and get consensus for it. If you want more or different disclaimers or ëditorial notices, propose them and get consensus for them. In the meantime, The Signpost staff interprets its mission (including whether an opinion is mission related) and decides its opinions, and there are only a few things that apply: TOU, basically nothing illegal (including copyright); BLP; and general conduct- because the Signpost has been editorial opinonating since always. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:39, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
• Hello! I have edited the editorial page to clarify the nature of the editorial, its (non) involvement with the general views of the community and the Wikimedia Foundation, how the editorial came to be, its relation to policy (especially WP:NPOV), and an invitation for readers to address any concerns with me. I appreciate everyone's patience during these important times of community discussion. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 19:05, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Your effort is appreciated -- but the fundamental issue remains. Should The Signpost ever publish editorials and take advocacy positions on issues that are not directly related to Wikpedia policies and internal affairs? I say no. Hell, no. In other words, it's good and informative for The Signpost to say that an article entitled "Ukrainian Invasion" had X views and X contributors and that a dispute about X took place. But it is never appropriate for The Signpost to express an opinion, e.g. "we stand with Ukraine", that is not directly related to internal Wikipedia operations and issues. I'd like to see a policy to this effect come out of this discussion. Smallchief (talk) 21:21, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    I would not support any policy to that effect. We have WP:PRJC for a good reason. ––FormalDude talk 21:31, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    • I agree with Smallchief… the “About” page for the Signpost states that it’s purpose is to cover: “…the English Wikipedia, its sister projects, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Wikimedia movement at large.” Any coverage of world events needs to be filtered through that lens. It is fine for the Signpost to discuss how an external event (such as the war in Ukraine) affects Wikipedia, but not fine to discuss world events in general. That is not the purpose of the Signpost. Blueboar (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    I agree with Smallchief. Appropriate Signpost articles about the conflict would consider directly Wikipedia-related issues such as the work of building encyclopedic coverage of the war, and the difficulties faced by Wikipedians who have been caught up in the conflict in whatever way.

    But if Signpost writers want to express their political opinion on a hot topic, please find somewhere else to do it. Go to Twitter or Facebook, start a blog, write on medium[.]com or substack, submit your article to a newspaper or magazine ... but don't abuse Wikipedia as the soapbox for your hot take. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:17, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    And if these "difficulties" you mention include being imprisoned or killed, are you still in favor of neutrality? Explicit refusal to denounce is implicit support. Слава Украине. Vermont (talk) 22:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    @Vermont, this is not complicated. If we denounce and condemn killings, then we should be scrupulous to denounce all such killings. Writers who are not scrupulous about this are called propagandists.

    In wars, both sides are engaged in killing. That's the nature of war. If we endorse one side, we are endorsing one set of killings. That is what I want to avoid.

    Personally, I think that the best way to approach any conflict is to scrupulously avoid any moral tone: just set out the facts as fairly and accurately as we can, referencing the best sources that we can find, and let our readers set form their own moral judgement on what we describe. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:25, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    "If we endorse one side, we are endorsing one set of killings." Yes, we are endorsing the rights of those attacked by a genocidal despot to defend themselves and their land. Take your false balance nonsense out of here. There is a right and wrong side in Nazi vs Jews, just as much as there is one in Russia vs Ukraine. That you can't discern it, refuse to discern it, or espouse extreme neutralism in the face of abject evil does not mean that others, including Signpost editors, are not allowed to have a viewpoint on anything. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:46, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    Oh dear. I m not asking in any way for balance, let alone "false balance".

    I am simply asking for neutrality: that we relate the facts as best we can, and let readers decide their own view on it.

    I understand your empathy with those who you perceive as having been attacked by a genocidal despot, and your view is clearly in a large majority. I personally share that view.

    However, there are also dissenting views on this war, as there have been on many other wars. If we start taking sides on this war, where do we stop? Do we back one side in the Iraq War? In Vietnam? In the American-instigated coup in Chile, and subsequent dictatorship? In the 4 British invasions of Afghanistan? The Soviet invasion of Aghanistan? In the war in Yemen, which is claiming far more lives that Ukraine? In Syria? In the drone war in Pakistan? In the American invasions of Cuba and the Philippines, or of Guatemala? The Indian invasion of Goa? The illegal American bombing of Laos? The British wars against China to secure markets for British drug traders? Do we denounce the abject evil of American waterboarding, or British "enhanced interrogation" in Northern Ireland or the genocide of native Americans or Burmese persecution of the Rohinga?

    The internet has many many places where people can express their views of political issues. Wikipedia is the place where we come together to write neutrally about all topics, and I simply ask that we retain that neutrality in our community spaces too.

    I do have to quote your final sentence "That you can't discern it, refuse to discern it, or espouse extreme neutralism in the face of abject evil does not mean that others, including Signpost editors, are not allowed to have a viewpoint on anything.

    That is a very nasty, vicious and utterly false personal attack on me. I Have not in any way suggested that anyone should not have a viewpoint. I ask only that this site is not place to express that view. The internet has many other places where people can express their views ... and yoir claim that I am somehow trying to censor anyone is malevolent nonsense.

    I personally take the view that all war is evil. I do not ask anyone here to agree with me about that, or to debate that view; I simply ask that we keep our opinions out of this task of building an encyclopedia, and out of our community pages. I fund it deeply obnoxious and viciously bullying that you have chosen to attack me for not joining in your emotive demands that I conform to your selective denunciation of atrocity. Please take your vile smear tactics and your vicious bullying elsewhere.

    This is the third time in a few months that you have used extremely hostile language to radically misrepresent me. I hope that on this occasion you will have the decency to retract your smear. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:52, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

There is no smear, you again call for neutrality in the face of abject evil. Fuck neutrality. Neutrality is for the mainspace. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:14, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: the smear is your repeated false allegation that I take no stand on evil. That is utterly false: I just do not regard this website as the place for such stands, because POV stands divide the community and divide us from readers who have a different view.

If I enountered such hectoring, zealous, intolerance in a purely social venue I would probably just call security. But I might amuse myself by playing your venomous game back at you, and give you a taste of your own abusive medicine by denouncing you in apocalyptic terms for your failure to yell in moral outrage abject evil at each item on a list of great wrongs I throw at you. As a historian, I could keep that list running for days. And with a few stiff drinks and some drama training I might even be able to emulate some of the rage-filled aggression and tunnel vision which you have displayed here.

But this is not a social venue. It is a volunteer workplace where we collaborate on building a neutral encyclopedia. To uphold NPOV, we need that collaboration to include people of all viewpoints, not to drive away people who disagree. Using project pages as a soapbox creates division and drives people away, and that applies even more to your increasingly hysterical responses to a colleague who wants that workplace to be free of soapboxing and free of the sort of moral bullying you are engaging in. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:29, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

"not to drive away people who disagree" See WP:No Nazis. If someone thinks Russia is in the right, they don't belong on this project. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:50, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I am surprised to see @Headbomb digging such a deep hole for himself.

1. WP:No Nazis is an essay. Like other essays a notice at the top saying "This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines".
   Yet Headbomb repeatedly links to it as if it was policy. Headbomb is an experienced editor who should be well aware of the distinction between essays, policies and guidelines, so I regard this use of this essay as yet another of the aggressive and false smear tactics which Headbomb has used against me at multiple venues at multiple issues. I urge Headbomb to retract.
2. In contrast to Headbomb's reliance on an essay, the first item of the Founding principles of the WMF is NPOV. By attacking editors who refuse to declare support for Headbomb's ideology, Headbomb appears to reject this principle.
3. There are ugly factions on both sides of the Russo–Ukrainian War, but so far as I am currently aware the only overtly Nazi faction is on the Ukrainian side: the Azov Battalion, which shares a logo with the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich. I personally think that this is not a major factor, because Azov Battalion is currently kinda marginal ... but by Headbomb's own standards of zero tolerance for Nazis and blanket support for Ukraine, Headbomb should be promptly permabanned from Wikipedia for uncritically supporting Nazis and smearing people who refuse to endorse Nazis. Headbomb has an opportunity now to explicitly denounce those Nazis, and I urge Headbomb to either take that opportunity or retract all his previous statements.
4. Headbomb assumes that the alterative to denouncing Russia as abject evil is to think Russia is in the right. That is a particularly crass and nasty instance of the logical fallacy known as false dilemma. It is false because it excludes any other alternative views; and it is nasty because it is designed to imply that anyone who disagrees with Headbomb backs a war of aggression. As with any dispute, there are many logically possible stances apart from these two wild extremes ... and there are also many editors who want project pages to be used to build the encyclopedia rather than have them used as a venue for the repeated smear tactics of an editor whose aggression is matched by a hyperbolically Manichean worldview. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:59, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• • That is not what I am talking about. I refer to the human rights violations of the Russian and Belorussian governments against Wikipedia editors for their contributions to Wikipedia. If you were arrested by your government for writing about some view on Wikipedia contrary to their line, would you expect your colleagues here to remain quiet about it? Is it not a disservice to those who are actively oppressed by oligarchic regimes to maintain a "neutral" stance on this? I agree with you when it comes to mainspace articles about wars in the abstract. It would be nice if all us Wikipedia editors were alien observers watching from a nice happy uninvolved space station. But we're not, we're affected by the content we write about, and sometimes simply engaging in that writing is enough to be targeted by governments. Silence is, in my view, not an acceptable option. Vermont (talk) 23:29, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    Again, @Vermont, you misunderstand me.

    I have not in any way argued for remining silent about arrests of people for writing, and I think it's a great pity that you raise that straw man.

    All I ask that is that we do so neutrally: that we apply the same criteria in all cases, that we do not pick and choose cases, and that we speak to the actions rather than giving a blanket endorsement of one side in a dispute or a blanket condemnation of the other.

    If you want to broaden this to start to condemning regimes, then if we apply consistency we will generate lot of controversy. For example, the US & UK are currently colluding to jail a man who exposed war crimes, and if en.wp starts condemning or endorsing the countries involved, then the on-wiki dispute will be huge. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:49, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    BrownHairedGirl, "that we apply the same criteria in all cases" has not been your argument. You have continued to oppose showing support for Ukraine in the name of NPOV as your primary point. My point is that this isn't a NPOV issue, this is a human rights issue. And I understand there is a difference between simply advocating against the actions themselves instead of the governments that carry them out as a matter of policy, and a difference between advocating against those actions and other actions of that government. But this is all one larger topic, not separate issues. The Russian government is seemingly enacting a policy of enforced compliance with their line of information, specifically related to their invasion of Ukraine. And if your argument here is to pursue a line of greater nuance in how we present support for Ukraine and opposition to the Russian government, I am all for it. But that is not what you've been arguing outside of this. You have been arguing for a blanket ban on taking any side. Which, as I somewhat mentioned earlier, is itself taking a side. Vermont (talk) 00:36, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    @Vermont: whether the topic is human rights or anything else, there is more than one POV.

    I have argued throughout that we should report the facts neutrally and impartially, using consistent criteria, and let our readers decide their own POV. Declaring support for one side or the other undermines our ability to do that. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    BrownHairedGirl: You’ve selectively ignored large parts of my comments that you seemingly can’t address and changed your argument between exchanges. Are we talking about mainspace articles or project-space messaging? The latter, up until this, apparently. Are we talking about your refusal to denounce human rights abuses or the existence of multiple POVs? The former, up until this. I said previously that I agree with you, content articles should be neutral. That has not been a point of contention up until you decided to pretend it is one, and is, to borrow your phrasing, a great pity that you raise this straw man. And so I will reiterate my previous question: if you were arrested by your government for your contributions to Wikipedia, would you expect your colleagues to pretend it never happened? Why is it such a great crime that we oppose human rights violations and express support for the people subject to those atrocities? Слава Украине. Vermont (talk) 14:48, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    The arrested Wikipedians are Belarusian, and are not mentioned or alluded to in the editorial in question. (One arrest is covered here, which I suspect went to press before news of the second arrest was known.) CMD (talk) 15:17, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    Vermont, you reject the principle that we should reports the facts but remain neutral. I have explained why I support neutrality, and we will have to just disagree on that. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:27, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    BrownHairedGirl, I'm sorry, what? Did you even read my comment? I made it clear, for the second time, that we agree on neutrality in articles. And yet again you bring up this fallacy, avoiding addressing any of my actual comment. At this point there's no conclusion that I or a reader could reasonably come to other than that you are determined to maintain your initial stance regardless of what stretches of logic you need to employ to justify it. I would go on but there's no point in rehashing what Headbomb wrote above. Regardless, I've expended every bit of good faith discussion energy I can here. Vermont (talk) 18:01, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    Vermont, this is supposed to be a civil discussion between colleagues, but your tone is becoming increasingly aggressive and accusatory.

    I have not been discussing neutrality in articles. That is a starw man of your creation.

    I retain my view that the community newsletter should not take a POV stances on issues of political controversy, except insofar as they directly relate to the encyclopedia. That includes human rights issues, because many of those issues are disputed.

    Your are evidently angry that I have not changed my stance, so I see no point in continuing this discussion. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:11, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    Your position has been to vehemently oppose the denounciation of human rights violations committed against other editors. That is where my emotion in this stems from. Vermont (talk) 18:25, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    Vermont take it to her talk page if you wish to discuss this personally with BHG. Your dispute with her about the conflict does not have to take up so much space in this thread and it is time for you two to move on if you don't see that you won't convince each other.A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:02, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    Vermont, please stop the smear tactics. I have already made it very clear that I want to disengage.

    And no, @A. C. Santacruz: Vermont is NOT welcome on my talk. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:11, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    No problem. "That includes human rights issues, because many of those issues are disputed" told me all I needed to know. Vermont (talk) 22:38, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    I wanted to disengage, but I cannot let this latest snide smear stand unchallenged.

    I was thinking specifically of high-profile cases like that of Julian Assange or the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, where the applicability of human rights is very hotly disputed ... and more broadly of the many dozens of low-profile cases I worked on through Amnesty International, every one of which was disputed. It was also the same in all the dozens of court cases where I assisted victims of human rights abuses.

    My stance is simply that as a NPOV publication, any page anywhere on Wikipedia should uphold NPOV by setting out the facts neutrally and according due WP:WEIGHT to the views on those facts .. and then let readers decide.

    Those who want to take partisan stances have many avenues open to them, but this is the only NPOV project open to most of us.

    Vermont has been badgering me to join them on some soapbox, and is now trying to bait me by implying that there is something nasty in acknowledging that there is more than one viewpoint. Cut it out. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:40, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

    Hello @BrownHairedGirl. I believe a included coverage of the work of building encyclopedic coverage of the war, and the difficulties faced by Wikipedians who have been caught up in the conflict in whatever way; I believe the below sentences in the editorial may be of interest.

    People are coming to the Wikimedia projects to learn facts, and Wikimedians around the world are collaborating to share their knowledge. Contributors are helping however they can, from documenting the crisis in over 100 languages, to ensuring that coverage of Ukraine and Russia-related articles is thorough, to assisting other users who need support.

    and

    We are also working to document and unearth as much as we can about the war and those affected, publishing reports on disinformation, spotlighting the voices of Ukrainians impacted, featuring the rich history of Ukraine, and much more.

    The Signpost has published several reports relating to the War, including "In the media", covering press coverage of the Wikimedia movement's coverage of Russia and Ukraine, "News and notes", featuring explanation of the edit that caused arrest and jail time in Belarus, "Eyewitness Wikimedian", with first-hand accounts of what I believe is the difficulties faced by Wikipedians who have been caught up in the conflict in whatever way, the "Disinformation report" with information on disinformation in Wikipedia regarding conflict-related articles... and the list goes on. Respectfully, I believe that the Signpost has covered appropriately the relation between our encyclopedic content and the Russo-Ukrainian War, and I would appreciate if this coverage would be considered in the evaluation of the Signpost currently undergoing here. Please let me know if you have any questions. Sincerely. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 23:00, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    @EpicPupper: thanks for that, and thanks again for your civil and collaborative tone.

    I am sorry, but I don't have the energy to review all of the Signpost's coverage of Ukraine. I am having to waste too much time rebutting the bogus allegations, misrepresentations and outright fabrications and personal abuse made against me by a few intemperate editors who as usual remain unrestrained.

    So for now will comment only on the op-ed which I (unsuccessfully) MFDed. It does contain some good phrases, but those are fatally undermined by its naked partisanship in several places. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:14, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    @BrownHairedGirl: I fully understand. If you are intending to focus your attention on the editorial rather than the rest of the Signpost, I believe the correct venue to continue would be the deletion review discussion. Although this village pump entry has certainly been useful for facilitating early community discussion regarding the Signpost at large, I would pause or close it at the moment in order to allow the DRV to run its course. From there, I believe further community discussions can be workshopped that would allow for broader input and clearer options. I feel like continuing with discussion here could be seen by others reviewing in bad-faith as forum shopping, and would encourage an administrator to close this discussion pending closure of the deletion review. Thank you, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 23:37, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    I'd also like to clarify that the piece is an editorial, not an op-ed. Op-ed explains that an op-ed expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board., but instead this piece is an editorial, intended to express the opinion of the editorial board. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 23:39, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    I understand that theoretical distinction between editorial and op-ed, but it seems to me to be a pointless distinction. Either way, it is one or more writers expressing an opinion.

    It also seems to me to be rather overblown to characterise the handful of volunteers who write the Signpost in their spare time as an "editorial board". I value the hard work you all do, but reality is closer to a village newsletter than to the editorial conference room of The New York Times. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

    @EpicPupper: I understand your point about DRV, but I think it is mistaken.

    The discussion at DRV is a narrow one about whether to delete that page.

    The discussion here is about future policy for the 'Signpost. It covers a wide range of issues, but the fact that my input is currently restricted to a subset of pages which might be considered is no reason to close or pause this whole policy discussion. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:03, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    @EpicPupper: I have read some, although certainly not all, of the other Signpost coverage on the war and its impacts on Wikipedia. I have enjoyed them and found them informative. That is part of my disappointment relating to this editorial, which undermines that other coverage by overshadowing them with an explicit partisan stance and call to action. Determining that the Signpost has "covered appropriately the relation between our encyclopedic content and the Russo-Ukrainian War" is much harder when that work is framed around the call to "spotlight" certain views, and to focus on a "rich history" (the sort of emotive phrase we avoid in article space because it is a clear indicator the text is unlikely to be neutral and reliable). I think the body of work would be stronger if it had stood for itself, and spoke for itself. CMD (talk) 03:05, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    Thank you for your comments on the matter. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

    • I don’t completely object to “hot takes”… as long as they are about topics within the scope of the signpost. If, for a hypothetical example, the government of France were to pass a law requiring frWP articles to be approved by government censors… I would have no problem with someone at the signpost editorializing about how bad bad bad that law is. The reason I would allow such a “hot take” is that the subject matter directly relates to WP… the scope of the signpost. Blueboar (talk) 23:11, 28 March 2022 (UTC)
      • This is the same rstional as to why en.wiki supported the SOPA blackout (as a direct threat to the WP model) but has been nearly possible to get the community to show support for any other cause that does not directly impact WP. --Masem (t) 23:30, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

      I agree with @Blueboar. If it directly impacts en.wp, then it's a legit topic.

      But the scope should be narrowly-drawn. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:36, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• This is the bikeshediest of bikesheds, and the amount of collective energy editors have put into this discussion should bring nothing but deep shame upon every who participated in it. I feel dirty and gross even making this comment. Go find a spelling error to correct all of you. --Jayron32 18:10, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
• Hello all! After some careful thought, I have decided to retract the original statement on behalf of the Signpost team. Although certainly many support it, I believe it is important as a newspaper of record to remain neutral in times of crisis, as it is the reason that our readers can trust us. I have replaced it with a title that is hopefully more neutral, and a note affirming our neutrality in conflicts and explaining the retraction. I hope that this can be another step in righting this wrong. Thank you, and please ping me if you have any questions, comments or concerns. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 18:39, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks for rewording it, EpicPupper, and for your endless patience during this whole ordeal (for which I apologize in partially causing). I hope this thread can serve as a place for the community to discuss other potential ways the Signpost could improve, at least when it comes to helping make producing it easier and making its relation to the rest of the community clearer (as I said above there seems to be disagreement on it occupies a representative role for the community at large). A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:02, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

  I am disappointed to see that one user's incessant badgering has resulted in them getting their demands fulfilled (though at least the insane suggestion that the Signpost team be "sanctioned" has been ignored). Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:14, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.