Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2011-07-04

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2011-07-04. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Arb resigns while mailing list leaks continue; Motion re: admin (4,930 bytes · 💬)

• For clarity, this report (and its author) are observing that the email leaks issue has not been resolved when the resignation occurred; the resignation occurred at a time where/while the emails continue to be published. This is not a statement or suggestion regarding who is responsible for the leaks (and it would be unfair to interpret it as a suggestion or attempt at aspersion-casting). The Signpost is specifically limiting itself to the statements from the earlier coverage linked in the report. Should further information about the source of the leak be identified, we will let our readers know. Ncmvocalist (talk) 15:50, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
  • 1) Nobody reads comments 2) The Signpost is not sophisticated enough to do this, but it's not "bad faith" - in some cases, phrasing like the above often is used to convey a connection, an implicit nudge-and-wink. This is usually done in a situation where there is evidence, but it wouldn't hold up in court and stating the connection outright would be cause for a libel lawsuit. Again, this isn't at the level, it's just poor phrasing. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 16:16, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

    I'd prefer the title to be “Arb resigns; mailing list leaks continue; Motion re: admin” so that it doesn't appear to imply what it's not actually saying. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 17:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

    The leaks are mentioned under the heading of "Arbitrator resigns" and the two are linked, if only temporally, within one sentence. Regardless of the writer's intent, this gives the very strong appearance of innuendo. It is at best extremely poor phrasing. ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:09, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

    ACK. --Tim Landscheidt (talk) 02:16, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Note: Shell Kinney has now confirmed that her resignation was connected with the leaks - not in the sense of any wrongdoing on her part, but I can't see that assertion in the report either. Regards, HaeB (talk) 23:06, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Not assertion, rather, poor phrasing, which in different circumstances could be an implication. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:38, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

• It is worth noting that the subtitle was changed here from a previous wording similar to that suggested above. My issue with the wording 'while mailing list leaks continue' is that is it just plain inaccurate. It appears (though it is not certain) that this was a one-time leak and that the drip-drip of postings on Wikipedia Review is from a copy of the archives that was downloaded and is now being selectively released. This looks like it will happen for the foreseeable future until those posting the extracts at Wikipedia Review get bored. Are you going to say every week that the leaks are 'continuing'? You might also want to note that the person claiming to be the original leaker ('Wikileaker') is now posting what they have, so you have the bizarre situation of rival leakers 'competing' for attention. Carcharoth (talk) 03:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Carcharoth that the phrasing "leaks continue" is misleading (and that's generous). I also think the timing of the resignation and the leaks is not coincidental, but I disagree that the Signpost should imply this absent evidence. I do not see the admission of the connection that HaeB sees, but I'm not good at penumbras, so perhaps I just don't know how to parse the tea leaves.--SPhilbrickT 17:32, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Information about the leaker has appeared on Wikipedia Review. Count Iblis (talk) 01:16, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you're referring to a different leaker - there are two different people (I assume) leaking documents now -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 15:56, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

In the news: WikiLove roll-out; €25,000 in damages for being removed from Wikipedia; brief news (7,820 bytes · 💬)

French court case

I think that the real news in the French case was that, in the end, it is the complainer which has to pay: "[...] les comptes entre les parties seront soldés par un unique paiement de 75 000 € à faire par la SAS RENTABILIWEB EUROPE à la SA HI-MEDIA". --Elitre (talk) 09:37, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I disagree - from the Signpost's perspective, the newsworthy aspect is the Wikipedia part of the case, and the fact that there were also damages awarded in the other direction for blog postings and such is not relevant. But I have now mentioned the overall outcome of the case. Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:56, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

There seems to an error in either arithmetic or transcription in the Rentabiliweb brief. It says that €25,000 was related to Wikipedia, and the two other charges led to "€50,000 in damages each," which should result in a total of €125,000, not €75,000. I think you meant "€25,000 in damages each," which produces the correct result of €75,000. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 17:12, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Rentabiliweb had to pay Hi Media €100,000 (two lots of €50,000) and Hi Media had to pay Rentabiliweb €25,000, making €75,000 in total. But I agree it is confusing: active clauses would be clearer than passive ones. -84user (talk) 18:19, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Thenextweb.com has published a story about this based partly on this Signpost article (which is cited as a source).

As some have doubted the veracity of this news item (as reported on Slashdot and PCInpact.com), it seems worth pointing out that the existence of the case (including the names of the parties and the decision date) can be confirmed by entering the case number (2010075802) on the court's home page (in the "N° de Répertoire Général" field), which also offers the whole text of the decision for purchase.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:29, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Pharma COI

OMG, the pharma story second from bottom is a worry. Does WikiProject Pharmacy have any strategies to combat this kind of thing? Tony (talk) 10:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Tony that it is worrying, but, on the other hand, COI editing is hardly new. Normal editing practices usually work quite well for the run of the mill stuff; we have to hope that this new initiative will be run of the mill, I guess. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 12:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

There's a discussion at WikiProject Pharmacology on whether a check-list of tell-tale signs of possible CoI in pharma articles would be desirable or feasible. We also appear not to have enough editors to watch all of the drug articles. Tony (talk) 16:28, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Editors interested in this will want to read WP:MEDCOI. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:10, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

OOh boy. Alex's blog post says his agenda is to help "pharma in gaining more influence over" Wikipedia which I must reject up front. Thanks for the offer though. -SusanLesch (talk) 16:31, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The PHARMA industry got some bad press last time they tried to remove info that reflected badly upon them. It appears that they are now more careful. More help from fellow Wikipedians is always welcome though.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:51, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

WikiLove

• At the time this article was published, a substantial backlash to the WikiLove application was already present, much of it following the same line of criticism that The Atlantic made, with additional backlash to other aspects, like how gaudy the icon up top is. I have it turned off, and will continue to have it turned off. I don't need an app to help me give out barnstars, I've been doing that for quite a long time without the assistance. Hopefully after the initial wave of childishness ends, (the 'I have a new toy, so here's a star for breathing' that has been flooding talk pages in the past few days), barnstars will go back to being meaningful. Sven Manguard Wha?

My first reaction was, what the heck screwed up my talk page? Then I saw a new unasked-for wiki-love wiki-tab which altered the default page width. I can well believe there's a backlash (and agree with the "I have a new toy, so here's a star for breathing" characterization). A better way to show wiki-love to new contributors would be to patrol new articles to rescue pages which were not vandalism and were too hastily tagged with {{db-test}} or various varieties of {{db-a7}}. – Athaenara ✉ 01:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Manypedia

I was quite interested to see Manypedia in action but it completely hung up my Internet Explorer browser (in fact, the site loaded a warning about not working well with IE but nothing else). Just a word of warning. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 15:27, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Bachmann and Palin

I may be the only Wikipedian who doesn't know what Bachmann said (did she confuse Wayne and Gacy?) or what Palin said about Revere (I couldn't think of what that might have been). Somebody help me out here? – Athaenara ✉ 08:43, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

• Michele Bachmann presidential campaign, 2012#Public image, Public image of Sarah Palin#Paul Revere remarks -- Powers ^T 13:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

• OK, thanks, clear on Bachman (after reading a paragraph which was removed a few hours ago) and clear on Palin (man, that's a long page). – Athaenara ✉ 01:03, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Listverse 'Bizarre Articles'

Whoever compiled that list didn't try very hard - there are way more bizarre articles (pick any April 1st FA for a start). Still I'm pleased that one of my creations made the list (Mondegreen).Manning (talk) 13:58, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

News and notes: Picture of the Year 2010; data challenge; brief news (4,166 bytes · 💬)

Re the DMCA take-down issue, whatever happened to the doctrine of ostensible authority? – ukexpat (talk) 13:09, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

On the same issue, why haven't the pictures be uploaded as fair use to en Wikipedia? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:48, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Although there was apparent authority at the time, the copyright owner has directly refused permission. As such we have no right to use the images. As for using on enwiki, they'd be hosted on US servers, so we'd just get a new take down notice, surely? If the original permission-giver had been the copyright owner themselves rather than a representative, it'd be harder for a take-down notice to be enforced, as he would have directly given a release under a suitable license. Although it's a shame to lose the images, they presumably aren't so essential as to make any articles they were used in useless - or can we expect some article deletions as a result of the illustrative pictures no longer being available? -- PhantomSteve.alt/talk\^{[alternative account of Phantomsteve]} 18:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

If anyone wishes to restore one or more of these images as NFC compliant images on En, mail me and I will send them to you. The firm should also be informed of these uses. If another take-down request is issued, you then have the option under the DMCA of issuing a counter claim claiming it as fair use. See How to File a DMCA Counter Claim. Dcoetzee 19:25, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

A far more insidious problem occurs with TI calculator encryption keys. These were uploaded by an anonymous source, taken down as a result of DMCA as an "office action". Because it is an office action no-one can reverse it, the "office action" won't be withdrawn unless a DMCA counter-claim is made, and only the anonymous editor is allowed to make a counter claim. Therefore the "office action" rules, as they stand, allow anyone to effectively protect the unprotectable, by uploading it to WP via a puppet, then issuing a DMCA takedown. Rich Farmbrough, 15:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC).

I dislike the offensive image filter idea. First of all, as a certain cretin has demonstrated repeatedly, any attempt at controlling the use of offensive images can be easily circumnavigated (per BEANS I won't say how, except that it isn't a hack or exploit). This means that if someone wants to shock or offend people, we can't stop them from doing so, we can only strive to get better and better at catching and removing the offending images. As for the permanent images, who becomes the arbiter of values for Wikipedia. Do we allow anyone to set up their own personal filters? If so that does not prevent first time exposure. Do we just do it to items on the bad image list? Do we establish a working group of experts/parents/concerned bystanders? How do we decide what's inappropriate to whom? Does it become censorship? I would most certainly fear a few prudes going haywire and deeming large swaths of images as needing filtering, leading to an all out brawl when those changes are reverted. The offensive image filter will cause nothing but trouble. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:49, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Technology report: June report: Virginia datacenter, parser, user profiles; WikiLove 1.0; brief news (141 bytes · 💬)

The Structured Profile and encouraging people to be transparent is excellent. This will increase our chances of getting academics to join us.