Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-03-11/News and notes

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Inspire Campaign

• On the one hand "Inspire" is a laudable initiative both from an organizational and a topical perspective, on the other hand can the WMF not find $250,000 dollars in its 58 million dollar funding budget (or more) to not shut down everything else in the meantime? ResMar 21:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
  • If the issue is staff, that makes sense; I can't imagine that it would be easy to convince someone to move to SF for a few months of temp work. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 23:05, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

• I've never worked in such a large non-profit organization before so I'll defer to you on the topic of their expected level of organizational flexibility, but if they run more campaigns in the future (seems decently likely, this has gotten decent feedback so far) they're going to have to come up with some way of dealing with this shortage. ResMar 15:14, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• That is one fancy voting template! Nice job! --PresN 00:07, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• How many thousands if not millions has the WMF spent so far on gender equality efforts - almost all of which seem to have failed/not have had a noticeable long term effect. Its a very good goal - but this does seem like WMF going "we have no idea" maybe if we throw money at a bunch of random projects one of them will get some traction. I would like to see WMF not throwing money at ideas before execution but offering bounties or prizes for schemes and ideas that actually show an effect. There needs to be more incentives for success not just good intentions. AlasdairEdits (talk) 09:37, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
  • Actually, there's some recent evidence that shows that the population of women editors is growing. Correlation not equating with causation, we can't say if it's a result of WMF's efforts, but we're at least going in the right direction. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:13, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah if anything the strong progress we're making in this direction has been greatly encouraging the Foundation to be more aggressive in their campaigns, as it's a measurable trend that's hard to pin down to anything besides community and Foundation efforts. As for bounties, I think you overestimate volunteers' capacity to develop large initiatives and further development plans on their own time without financial support. This campaign is active while what you are suggesting is essentially passive. ResMar 14:19, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• +1 to the statement, "you overestimate volunteers' capacity to develop large initiatives and further development plans on their own time without financial support." That hits the nail on the head.
• As a volunteer who regularly attends in-person editing events, let me explain some of the outcomes and needs. GLAM professionals in my city skew female, and don't want to be involved with people or organizations that refuse to treat them with respect. Professionals in major cultural institutions have legitimate questions and needs for explanation regarding how to create Wikipedia content and work within the site's existing policies. There is a friendly and dedicated base of experienced Wikipedians in Washington DC, but we are getting stretched thin as we receive more and more requests for our in-person expertise. Simply providing a meal and transportation costs makes a big difference. Also, in months with two, three, and more editing events, there are limits to how much time some of us can take away from our jobs. It makes a big difference having a few people available who are full-time Wikipedians, including our Wiki-buddies in New York and Philly.
• Contests are fun, and generate content cheaply, so by all means let's keep having them! However, they are not the whole story. All that content you are seeing on the net that is freely reusable is the result of ongoing work by GLAM professionals and volunteers, and the efforts put into making that content available should not be underestimated. An event generating fewer articles may actually have more impact, if it lays the groundwork for improved access to free content, or ongoing collaboration. We need to understand that although Wikipedia provides a service to public sector and scientific organizations, it can require quite a bit of effort by paid professionals to align a Wikipedia-related project with these organizations' core missions.
• There is a need for the scholars and experts who attend the events in DC on topics like art history, scientific research, and African-American history, and many of these experts are female. If we have to feed them, and sit with them one-on-one to turn their expertise into useable material on the encyclopedia, that may just be what it takes to have the opportunity to access their expertise.
• The WMF efforts on gender equality do have a real-life impact that may not be obvious from the data-driven, software coder perspective. Essentially, many experts need a knowledgeable guide to help them deal with the difficult Wikipedia culture, which includes highly vocal members who explicitly reject the concept of implementing modern workplace anti-harassment standards. Many experts attending in-person events only edit if we're there with them, like a well-armed stagecoach driver taking them on their first trip to the Wild West. Only a very few develop the confidence to start driving the stagecoach themselves; most wait till we experienced folks come back before braving the trip again. --Djembayz (talk) 01:53, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Hoaxes

• I once thought Jar'Edo Wens wasn't a hoax until I looked at its sources on Google. They mainly seem to be Wikipedia mirrors and/or forks. That was why I nominated for deletion for non-notability of a mythological deity, and then I agreed with others' comments that it was a hoax, in which one user said that "10 years of existence on the English Wikipedia is enough to confuse internet search engines." The Snowager-is sleeping 22:04, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
• Eight years ago a reference to Yohrmum in the See-also list of Australian Aboriginal mythology was removed as being "suspected old vandalism". If the other edits of the anonymous vandal had been examined at the time, the Jared Owens hoax should have been evident.  --Lambiam 16:13, 13 March 2015 (UTC)