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Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-04-14

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2016-04-14. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: The first case of 2016—Wikicology (1,170 bytes · 💬)

  • It's unfortunate this went to Arbcom. The argument to send it there was that a widely supported community indef might be reversed by some random admin. But I think Arbcom should hear real disputes, not hypothetical ones. When there's just one person and many disinterested parties are saying what he did was wrong, that's a simple disciplinary matter, not a dispute to be arbitrated. (I mean, there's literally one "involved party" on a case being arbitrated. That kind of thing can physically damage your logic organs.) Wnt (talk) 20:26, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Just to clarify: The results of the poll (which was closed 3.5 days after opening) at the recent ANI were actually: 22 supporting site ban, 6 take it to Arbcom, 5 mentoring, and 1 neutral. Since almost all of the "take it to Arbcom" voters were actually pro-siteban, that's more than a 2/3 majority, it's over 80%. Softlavender (talk) 14:50, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Featured content: This week's featured content (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-04-14/Featured content

Gallery: A history lesson (2,751 bytes · 💬)

  • WP:Drop the stick.--v/r - TP 07:27, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • The 1852 presidential election debacle directly led to the creation of the Republican party. But did "cock" mean the same thing back then?--Milowent • hasspoken 14:52, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I have no idea, but I still giggled like a middle schooler. Gamaliel (talk) 15:38, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes. Etymology sources trace "pillicock" as slang back to 1300, and "cock" standing alone to 1610. No snickers on my wording choice, please. Remember that the political cartoons were aimed at "common folk" and getting chuckles was often used, just as Shakespeare's plays contain much innuendo. Collect (talk) 16:21, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
"Almost as much as the goal of the Signpost is to inform it is also to entertain, and this provides the impetus behind some of the publication's lighter-hearted features. The Signpost aims to be a quality online newspaper, after all, and is not an encyclopedia itself, and so allows many things—editorializing, narrative, original research—that would be blasphemy in the article space." Why, that's right there in the Signpost's Statement of Purpose! One would do well to meditate on that... There's also a Galleries tradition here, featuring work which is new or which is not highlighted in a specific article: "These are purely photographic sections containing featured and other high-quality images in a curated, topical form." Thank you, Gamaliel, for putting this together, and for your good humor in this political season.Vesuvius Dogg (talk) 06:53, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
    • So why is this topical? NE Ent 12:15, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

In the media: Wikimedia Sweden loses copyright case; Tex Watson; AI assistants; David Jolly biography (7,054 bytes · 💬)

AI assistants: citation needed

  • Don't knock the Alexa!! My mom and all of my siblings are quite happy with the one she has. It may not say that the information it gives is coming from Wikipedia, but it also doesn't say things like "You asked me that yesterday". The most common question my (blind) mother tosses at it is "What time is it?". Frankly, if the thing had to state all of its sources then I think it wouldn't be as useful. That said, my mom got a big kick out of the Eva Longoria audio version of Sewing (see the YouTube version of Glamour video). As a Wikipedian, I got a big kick out of the last bit, and I can state that my mom still knows her Funk and Wagnalls. If Wikipedia had a program whereby people could "adopt" an article and speak an audio version in, then maybe you could give Alexa-type products an easy input. Jane (talk) 07:42, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • The Echo can already read out full Wikipedia articles (apparently, you have to say, "Alexa, tell me more", and then it reads on). I doubt it can match Eva Longoria's delivery though, or her sewing skills. :P It wouldn't hurt to say the two words "Source: Wikipedia" at the end (users could be given the option to switch the source announcement off, once it becomes too repetitive). --Andreas JN466 12:18, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Ha! I relayed that tidbit to my brother, so hopefully she will soon be on her way with it. Now if only it would read the NYTimes obits to her...Jane (talk) 14:39, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • WMF is right not to take the poison bait of copyright licensing. Unless WMF can literally put a CC license on the photos so anyone can reuse them, all they would get is the ability to have someone's eyeballs on their site rather than someone else's - which is valuable to internet businesses but not actually relevant to growing a free encyclopedia that anyone can copy, modify, and improve. Let this BUS hawk "their" (taxpayer-funded) photos at their own expense. Wnt (talk) 20:18, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Maybe artists should place "Terms of Use" plaques on their artworks. If you don't accept the terms, you're not allowed to make a photograph or sketch, or even look. They own every possible 2-D projection of their public outdoor artwork; you don't. People will try to make unauthorized "pirate" copies, so the police should actively enforce the Terms of Use, no matter how stringent. Technology can help here. Tag each artwork with an electronic signal that orders all cameras not to function when it is in view. (Confiscate every old camera that lacks this helpful "added function".) Unfortunately, an "analog hole" exists: eyeballs and pencils – someone could look longer or more often than the license allows, or even make a sketch. Robotic enforcers should patrol the vicinity and destroy any sketches they detect. Repeat violators lose their unlawful tools, and next time some fingers. Preventing looking is more difficult – it would require multiple lasers to [temporarily] blind anyone trying to steal an unlicensed glimpse. Failing that, a large curtain on all sides (and above, in case of aircraft). Fully enclosed outdoor sculpture. That's what they really need or deserve. Hasn't the world seen enough with France's infamous stupidity regarding night-time illuminations of the Eiffel Tower? I didn't think Sweden was as stupid. I stand corrected. Grow up, world. -A876 (talk) 04:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
    • This looks like standard stupidity in European copyright rules. It's not more stupid than France's prohibition of photos of furniture or Article 5 (3) (o) of the InfoSoc Directive (which created a system where you're free to publish something on paper but not on the Internet). For example, Swedish copyright law used to contain a provision which said that artworks could be used in connection to a critical discussion of the artwork. The Swedish government could not find an equivalent provision in the Infosoc Directive, so it suddenly became illegal to critically discuss artworks on the Internet. A student union discussed some images critically in its magazine, and in 2009, the Court of Appeals of Scania and Blechingia declared that the paper magazine was permitted under copyright law, but that an identical copy of the magazine but in digital form on the student union's website was infringing the copyright of the critically discussed images. --Stefan2 (talk) 22:25, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
      • Позор, Швеция! Это ужасно и недопустимо. Мы должны теми или иными способами ликвидировать этих вредителей. Sverige fritt är en lösen för alla!!! Фред-Продавец звёзд (talk) 05:51, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Egyptian revolution

See also this 2011 coverage of such a statement by Ghonim, which talks a bit more about his connections with the Wikimedia movement: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-02-14/News_and_notes#Briefly ("Egyptian Wikimedians and the revolution"). Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:51, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

News and notes: Denny Vrandečić resigns from Wikimedia Foundation board (2,220 bytes · 💬)

With all respect to Denny, whose contributions to our work are immense, no members of the board are "community selected"; the community recommends, and the individuals recommended are then appointed, or not, by the board - and, as we saw with Doc James, may as easily be removed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:56, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Andy, I know that.   It's why I wrote "one of three community-selected members accepted on the board that year"). The community does select candidates which then may or may not be accepted on the board. Then again, there's no harm in being more explicit, so I've edited the sentence to replace "selected" with "recommended". --Andreas JN466 11:58, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
It occurs to me that meta:Affiliate-selected_Board_seats may be a misnomer, really, as those "selected" candidates are probably also subject to the sitting board members' approval, and are thus nothing but recommendations ... Andreas JN466 12:04, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Denny voted to remove Doc James, a fellow "community selected" board member. For that reason, I'm not sorry to see him leave. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:33, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Op-ed: Should prison inmates be permitted to edit Wikipedia? (12,840 bytes · 💬)

  • Now that is an exciting story. Cullen328 had dropped a hint privately about this, and I'm glad I got to read the whole account. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 01:36, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Very thoughtfully written. I see no reason that a convict, per se, cannot edit Wikipedia. In the good ol' US convicts do all sorts of (very poorly) paid jobs, why should they not do unpaid work, provided that they observe WP policies?
As to responding to correction requests from inmates, it would be foolish to leave something incorrect in an article, regardless of the person who pointed it out.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:44, 14 April 2016 (UTC).
  • I enjoyed reading. Thanks for sharing.--v/r - TP 03:50, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • TL;DR abstract/summary needed. Signpost should use some editorial judgement when including posts published outside. --Arjunaraoc (talk) 06:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • So short answer is "Yes, prison inmates should be permitted to edit Wikipedia" and I would agree. There is not only the question of murderers and their edits, but the whole question of what rehabilitation really means and whether we actually want these people to be productive members of society when they are released. There is a large number of people incarcerated in prisons today that are not a threat to society but are there because of poor legislation enforcement and the problem of "prisons for profit" that regards incarcerated people as a product. Though I disagree that context of edits is irrelevant, I also disagree that COI editors are deranged. Jane (talk) 07:25, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • The Swiss approach makes sense, as the prisoner is the same person who will be released. You might as well accept their contributions now; this is an encyclopedia anyone can edit. That said, vandalism and abuse can happen anywhere, and it seems like the abuses in prisons could be extreme - prisoners might for example more easily be bribed or intimidated into adding links to malware sites and scams - so the administration of such edits has to be careful. Wnt (talk) 10:38, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
You need not be concerned about malware and so forth, because in US prisons for example (and many others abroad), prisoners do not have internet access due to terrorism prevention rules and other reasons (thus the handwritten notes). Jane (talk) 11:37, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • It is actually possible to post and tweet via e-mail and SMS. The services generate a unique link for you for the purpose. If you're deep enough in your settings (like me, I like finding things for no purpose), there are options. The article is pretty nice but I just thought I should say this. --QEDK (T ☕ C) 14:07, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Prison inmates should be free to submit edit requests - that are dealt with under scrutiny. The level of transparency and accountability you demonstrate here is exemplary - and much higher than for most controversial additions to contentious political topics.
Look up Stormfront or Daesh on the administrator's noticeboards.
Dylann Roof, a recent pro-"race war" murderer, vaguely endorses the addition of white supremacist perspectives to Wikipedia articles in his manifesto. If white supremacist editors succeed in subtly modifying Wikipedia articles on race controversies, it won't be by publicly declaring their backgrounds on ORTS.
ISIL puts out propaganda in 20+ languages - they have an estimated 30,000 twitter sympathisers. How many of English wikipedia's smaller sister projects are 100% effective at removing all politically motivated contributions from terror groups? I wouldn't worry too much about the has-beens in the Manson family. -- Callinus (talk) 15:58, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • IIRC, the aim of Wikipedia is to produce a good encyclopedia. "False stuff" is not a hallmark of a good encyclopedia, ergo improving article factual content. A good case for iterating my general doubt about inclusions of opinions without making absolutely certain that no reader will or can mistake opinions for facts. I believe this covers any cavils made above. And, yes, political types tend to love "guilt by association" fluff in articles, and I find any such arguments, in my own personal opinion, to be execrable at best, and destructive of the entire project in too many cases. Collect (talk) 16:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • The only reason I would not let an inmate edit Wikipedia -- either directly or indirectly -- is that the incarcerating country has restricted that inmate from doing so. In US terms, there is a court order prohibiting him or her from editing Wikipedia. Yes, that means prisoners of conscience in totalitarian states can't edit Wikipedia, but in those cases said prisoners rarely have Internet access & are more concerned about basic needs like adequate food, shelter & medical attention than editing Wikipedia. -- llywrch (talk) 17:01, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
    • So had we found edits by Nelson Mandela, correcting details of the evolution of Bulbasaur, you would have recommended reverting and blocking his account?   All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:51, 15 April 2016 (UTC).
      • Had edits appeared with Nelson Mandela's name on them while he was incarcerated, would you be confident that they we'ren't the work of an imposter? By other existing rules they would have been reverted for assuming a false identity. (And my role in the resulting fracas would be to stand back & watch the wikidrama over the matter.) -- llywrch (talk) 00:10, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Usually the corrections agency in the U.S. will prohibit inmates from using the internet for unapproved reasons. For example the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (the agency for inmates sentenced as juveniles) states in its handbook that "You won’t get to use the internet except sometimes for school projects. You will never be allowed to get on sites like Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter while you are at TJJD. You will also not have email or instant messaging." on page 13 WhisperToMe (talk) 21:22, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
  • It is my understanding that prisoners are seldom allowed objects that can easily be thrown and hurt someone. Also no phones. Some may use the prison's computer room, if any, under strict supervision and narrow restrictions. Most are allowed pens and paper, and mail privileges for a volume that can easily be censored. These circumstances are not imposed to protect Wikipedia from subtle subversion by sly political prisoners, but together with our usual procedures they seem adequate to that purpose. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:00, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
  • A very well written submission that is also well reasoned. Everyone, including prisoners, should have freedom of expression — it is a basic human right, regardless of the charges for which the individual in question has been convicted. Facilitating such communication should in no way be viewed as bringing aid and comfort to these judged guilty of committing reprehensible crimes, but as a service to the public at large in expanding our field of knowledge and understanding. Common sense should, of course, be applied to any communication by prisoners, with its content screened for inappropriate details such as threats, libel, abusive language and anything else which might represent danger or be reasonably seen as causing specific or direct distress to victims of crimes. However, in the case at hand, with Watson already aware of the content of his Wikipedia entry and desiring to clarify certain "facts" which may, or may not, have originated from dubious sources, it would seem that the public can only be served by having access to information from all sides. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 23:59, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
  • This was a good item to publish as it discusses an interesting situation. It think this article could have benefited from some additional copy-editing, though. The beginning sections were tedious to read and generally text improves as it is made more pithy. Still, this is an important discussion and I was previously unaware the OTRS folks were taking these sorts of requests. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:33, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I agree with Arjunaraoc's first sentence. Having skimmed the article, I see no reason to object, as long as you're able to verify that the contacting person really is the prisoner whom he says he is. I'm surprised that Internet access is available to any incarcerated individuals, so (if applicable) be careful to verify that it's not an impostor, but as long as the individual is permitted access by the penal system, there's no reason for us to treat him differently from other people. Nyttend (talk) 01:59, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
  • IMHO this item could have, and should have, been edited much more substantially. It read as a defence to some un-named charge. Maybe to people who already had some context it was fine in its current form, but I just found it far too verbose and too slow. "Get to the point, man!" :) Stevage 06:14, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
  • With this last accusation I must agree. As it happens, last week I sat down with my friend Lane to discuss other Wikipedia matters, unaware that his contribution to Signpost had been issued a few hours earlier. Surely, had he started with the intention that this piece be so widely read, he would have polished it to his usual briefer, less meandering standard. With his purpose, argument, and action, I entirely agree. Oddly, one correspondent stated that "It is actually possible to post and tweet via e-mail and SMS." This is surely true and would be relevant to someone having access to those or similar facilities. Most prisoners are not held incommunicado, but their opportunities to use the advances in communication technology of the past hundred years seldom go much beyond the ball point pen, which presumably was the instrument by which the edit was suggested. Another correspondent recommended caution in identifying correctly the requester, as though that question might be as important as proper reference to a published reliable source. Jim.henderson (talk) 21:51, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
  • OTRS editors who become aware that inmates of a particular prison are categorically prohibited by prison rules or state/national law from editing Wikipedia may have a legal obligation to immediately cease assisting inmates in that prison or state/country. In some cases, they may have an affirmative obligation to check first. When in doubt, OTRS editors should consider seeking professional legal advice. Will the WMF legal team be able to assist OTRS editors in such cases? The OTRS team should probably ask them now. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 02:49, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Given the usual prison strictures, a need for assistance in censorship from our end would be surprising. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:51, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Traffic report: A welcome return to pop culture and death (0 bytes · 💬)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-04-14/Traffic report


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