Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-06-04

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2012-06-04. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: Two motions for procedural reform, three open cases, Rich Farmbrough risks block and ban (806 bytes · 💬)

• It's not "alleged" there seems no doubt that I clicked "save" twice on AWB, which I was using for listing previous errors, and indeed I have apologiɀed for such.
• On the plus side I am glad to see the motion to improve publicity for ArbCom motions, and thank the committee for moving in a positive direction with that.

Rich Farmbrough, 14:56, 5 June 2012 (UTC).

• "Alleged" was me; on a quick read I thought you were disputing that. My apologies. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:24, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Discussion report: Watching Wikipedia change (538 bytes · 💬)

The first two sentences of the "Discussion and voting" section are hard to parse. I would attempt to fix it, but I personally only feel comfortable with making stylistic changes to Signpost articles rather than content changes so it doesn't appear that I'm putting words in the author's mouth. Killiondude (talk) 06:57, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

News and notes: Editors want most funding for technical areas, while widespread ignorance of WMF board elections and chapters persists; voting still live on Commons best picture (3,999 bytes · 💬)

Pie chart visualizing the distribution of the Wikimedia Foundation's total cash expenditures, including all capital purchases, in the 2010/11 fiscal year (from the WMF annual report. Note: This is not directly comparable to the survey results, see comment)

As for the (kind of) obvious question of how the actual spending of the Foundation compares to the survey result (see also [1][2]), the short answer seems to be that it is very difficult to tell, because the tracking of the actual spending uses categories that differ from the options offered by the survey question. See this reply from WMF's data analyst Ayush Khanna (on whose blog post the story is based on) in response to a question for this Signpost story. However, as also pointed out there, there is an overview at m:Wikimedia Foundation/Annual Report/2010-2011/Financials#Where the money goes (see the pie chart on the right) which probably comes closest.

Note that this is not directly comparable to the distribution from the survey, for several reasons including but not limited to the following two:

• The survey question does not account for administrative or fundraising costs (and vice versa the 2010/11 pie chart does not attempt to guess, for example, how much of the "costs for Foundation staff" in the 18% "Administration" part are due to staff in the tech department).
• E.g. the "Community" part in the 2010/11 pie chart includes expenses for "improving new technologies to help project editors", which would probably be subsumed in the "technical" part of the survey question options.

It's also worth noting that a substantial part of the money donated for/on Wikimedia projects is not spent by the Foundation, but by the Wikimedia chapters, who may have different ratios of spending on technical/nontechnical areas. (In the first editor survey from April 2011, this question included the options "grantmaking to chapters, individuals" and "support for chapters", resulting in 7% each. After a discussion involving chapters, the options were modified for the second edition of the survey, removing all explicit mentions of chapters.)

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 09:21, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

• "Widespread ignorance" sounds kind of flashy... Anyhow, the juxtaposition of said ignorance with the desire for more spending in technical areas doesn't exactly present a strong, obvious correlation. I'm still wondering why they're talked about in the same section. Killiondude (talk) 07:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Core Contest

I don't know if this was announced in Signpost this year, but I hope it is announced prominently next year, as I was unaware that it was going on. -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:14, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I had the same thought. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:24, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Me too. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:28, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

It was mentioned: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-03-12/News and notes#Brief notes -- Theramin (talk) 22:43, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Special report: WikiWomenCamp: From women, for women (4,543 bytes · 💬)

• While I know it's hard to get the right wording for these things, I don't think "female and transgendered Wikimedia editors" is quite right--it unfortunately implies that transgendered editors are not female editors. Perhaps simply saying "female" is better? That avoids the issue entirely, seeing as transgendered women already consider themselves to be in that category. An otherwise excellent article, which I won't burden with my own opinion on gender discrimination. ;p Knight of Truth (talk) 15:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Indeed - it comes across as extremely pointed editorialising from whoever wrote this. Suggest "female (including transgendered)". If the writer doesn't consider this accurate, I await the detailed explanation - David Gerard (talk) 15:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
    • "Twenty female Wikimedia editors, including those who self-identify as female," - Preferable? Or perhaps nix the whole clause. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:41, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
      • I stand by my original suggestion of "female" being the simplest and option, and the one least likely to raise any eyebrows. Unless you want to make the specific point that there were transgendered people attending, of course. Knight of Truth (talk) 15:43, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
        • I was worried it may be seen negatively if we did not mention it. Just going with "female" would be in line with the current revision of the Meta page. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
          • I can understand the concern, but I don't think people would be negative about it. People who believe that transgendered women are indeed women should have no problem with the word "women"; if anything a lack of special treatment is more equitable. People who disagree should have no trouble with transgendered people not being mentioned specifically. I imagine the group of Signpost readers who does not believe transgendered women are included in the term "women" and who would insist they be mentioned specifically and separately and is rather small. Knight of Truth (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
            • • Sounds reasonable. Now reads "female". — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

"between 2010 and 2011 the number of women editors dropped from 13 per cent to 9 per cent" The number of all editors (both men and women) has also been dropping in the last years. So those findings are only useful if you put them next to the overall editor drop, so you find out if the number of women editors dropped faster than the general editor population or that it followed the same level of decline. Targaryen^{speak or forever remain silent} 08:55, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

• That's percent of editors. 13% of 100,000 or 9% of 70,000 still shows a more rapid drop in women editors. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:11, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
  • That's obviously what is meant, but as written it's unclear. It should say the "proportion of women editors dropped"; otherwise, it could be saying that the number was reduced by a percentage somewhere between 13 and 9 percent. Powers ^T 17:36, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
    • Done. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:21, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

"Agenda here"

please fix the link to the agenda for WikiWomenCamp, it currently links to meta:Agenda which is absent, and the deletion log isn't much help. this article might have renewed interest due to recent events and a link to the agenda of WikiWomenCamp could prove useful to others besides myself. 173.87.169.15 (talk) 02:54, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Technology report: Report from the Berlin Hackathon (1,354 bytes · 💬)

• Howdy. Just a thought, but you might want to consider including the number of people that submitted survey responses to your results image in the future.--Rockfang (talk) 10:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
  • My current feeling is the survey size is clutter for most people; however, if you are interested, do click through to get the exact figures and hence a sense of the possible error. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 14:17, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
    • It's on the image description, which is not obvious. Never thought of looking before and I'm surprised by how small the sample sizes can be: 28 'users' and 12 developers for this one. —innotata 19:43, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
      • Yes, well, I'd like to improve the sample size too. But I'm not sure publishing the figures on the article is the best way to do that. Making polls fortnightly might, though - it's something I'm considering. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 12:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject report: Views of WikiProject Visual Arts (633 bytes · 💬)

Just a quick note that we featured some excerpts of this interview on the Wikimedia blog, hopefully bringing this WikiProject to the attention of some further readers who are not yet actively involved in Wikipedia but might be interested in joining the work on its visual arts coverage. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 17:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC)