Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2016-09-29

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2016-09-29. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

In the media: This edition's roundup of media coverage (1,376 bytes · 💬)

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Term papers into articles

• I'm glad to see the coverage in the LA Times about Alicejmichel's work on geobiology; we presumably have the WEF to thank for that reportage. It remains to be seen if Wikipedia can start learning to affect long-term editor recruiting and retention along these lines. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:22, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
• Chris, thanks for the comment. I noted that the article we cited has been republished in other papers, which is also good. These initiatives strike me as important and bold -- instead of sitting around and hoping content improves over time, the project is actually leveraging knowledgeable people to improve scientific articles, which may be painstaking but of real value.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 13:05, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

News and notes: Case study of Wikimedia Education Program published; remembrance of departed colleague Ray Saintonge (Eclecticology) (6,804 bytes · 💬)

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• It is a really good and interesting study, but statement "This paper is the first academic case-study of the Wikipedia:Education program" is not true, given Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-02-25/Recent_research#cite_ref-6 ([1]). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:11, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

  I was thinking of the Farzan & Kraut paper when I read that statement, but was not sure if the usage of "case-study" made a difference. In addition to the CHI paper you're referring to, there's a survey of Public Policy Initiative participants by Lampe et al. ("Classroom Wikipedia participation effects on future intentions to contribute", CSCW, 2012, see Research Newsletter coverage), and our CSCW paper that looks at factors leading to success in quality improvement projects ("The Success and Failure of Quality Improvement Projects in Peer Production Communities", CSCW, 2015) looks at the WEP as one of its datasets. There might be others as well, I'd be happy to learn about them. Cheers, Nettrom (talk) 15:39, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Nettrom and Piotrus: I could be factually incorrect, and I might not know what constitutes a case study, and I definitely could communicate more effectively. I imagined that a case study was a small, closely examined cohort. In this study of mine, about 40 studies deeply edited about 40 articles, and got review from multiple humans in each case. For that other study, about 600 students edited 800 articles, and the data about outcomes came from automated reports that are not tuned to provide insights comparable to human opinion. When I chose the term case study I was trying to communicate that "this paper reports what individuals can experience". I would say the other paper reports "given a large group, this is collectively what might happen". Thanks for raising that paper as a contrast. Maybe I should avoid saying "first" anyway, because priority is only marketing and not so insightful. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:43, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

• great paper [2] by Lane Rasberry and everybody involved!--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:23, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
• "the Wikimedia Foundation, which may favor waiting until mid-2017, when it plans to introduce discussion-oriented features [to all talk pages]": Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 14:49, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

  Pssst ... they're talking about Flow. See WT:Flow for a recent survey and reactions. That's as much as I can say without getting involved. - Dank (push to talk) 21:35, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

  I just saw this, and want to correct this misunderstanding. There are no plans for anything like this idea. I can only guess that the idea in the Signpost page, was a conclusion inferred from the confusing wording that WP:Cent used to link to the survey. There are many people with a desire to re-examine the long-term plans for structured discussion, but there are no rollout plans at all, for "mid-2017" or otherwise. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• Any friend of Pete's is a friend of mine. R.I.P. Ray Saintonge (Eclecticology). Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 01:49, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

  :-) Tony (talk) 03:43, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

First documented wiki meetup in Portland (Nov. 2006)

• I just noticed that Ray was at the first (documented) wiki meetup in Portland -- my hometown, just before I got involved with local meetups. Is this where you met and talked to him, Llywrch? Didn't realize I had just missed meeting him that long ago! -Pete (talk) 22:14, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

  No, Ray & I met at the first Seattle meetup, in November 2004. Almost at the dawn of Wikipedia. (See the pictures there.) -- llywrch (talk) 05:39, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

• Great paper in Academic Medicine! A bit of an advert for the WikiJournal of Medicine: Articles that are significantly improved/expanded/created from scratch might make good candidates for stand-alone publication as academic papers in Wiki.J.Med. I think there could be some good collaborations done between the journal and the various Wikipedia-based education initiatives as a way of further legitimising the students' work for those in the academic and medical communities who are wary of Wikipedia. Secondly, a few journals do release their view metrics. A nice example comparison is the 18k this Serpin review has generated since 2006 vs the Serpin article (approx 40k per year, plus 25k during the week when it was promoted to FA). I would absolutely love to see a more systematic analysis though! T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 13:03, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

+1 to WikiJournal of Medicine and may it inspire many efforts for better quality control in Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:43, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Technology report: Category sorting and template parameters (2,553 bytes · 💬)

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"Sometimes when you mention another user they don't get a notification": This has always struck me as a serious problem ... people routinely think they've pinged someone, but the ping didn't work for various reasons that are obscure to most editors. I see this is live at Meta ... anyone know when it's coming to en.wp? I don't see it in the Beta tab of Preferences. - Dank (push to talk) 14:12, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Dank: Preferences → Notifications → Failed/Successful mention. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 14:17, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Template for error reports

I've just made {{Template error report}}; you can see it in use on {{Authority control}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:13, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Is there a way to see which articles contain a particular erroneous parameter? Looking at the report for {{Taxobox}}, it's pretty obvious where the problem is when there's a typo for the "binomial" parameter, but not at all clear when there's a typo for a higher taxonomic rank. Plantdrew (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: Because of the volume of parameter data (millions of parameter usages), heavily used templates have been excluded from showing specific pages that use a particular parameter. The blacklist is here (GitHub). I can enable a couple of these templates per month to provide the page level links. --Bamyers99 (talk) 16:19, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Bamyers99:. Thanks. Maybe I'll ask you in a couple of months to enable page links for taxobox? For now I can find plenty of stuff to fix even without page level links. Plantdrew (talk) 16:47, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Looks useful, Pigsonthewing, thanks. Perhaps add to our suggestion page so Evad37 can include in our next edition? -Pete (talk) 17:09, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Traffic report: From Gene Wilder to JonBenét: Four weeks of traffic (816 bytes · 💬)

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• Another good showing in the consistently well-written traffic report. Chris Troutman (talk) 16:12, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
• Informative and entertaining, with particularly clever takes on Killing of Harambe, Ann Coulter, Harley-Davidson, Corrupted Blood incident, Marion Cotillard, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. —Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 15:20, 7 October 2016 (UTC)