Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2021-12-28

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2021-12-28. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Arbitration report: A new crew for '22 (462 bytes · 💬)

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• Bravo on those headings! 😂 {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:47, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Crossword: Another Wiki crossword for one and all (686 bytes · 💬)

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• Nicely done. 16 down had me stumped for the longest czar 07:01, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yes, that's a toughie. As usual, my first hint is that the answers are almost exclusively taken from the Wikipedia:Glossary. Happy crosswording and happy New Year to all! Ganesha811 (talk) 13:44, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Deletion report: We laughed, we cried, we closed as "no consensus" (4,111 bytes · 💬)

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• Worth noting that the original closure of List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation as delete was overturned to no consensus at DRV. (Disclosure: keep and overturn !voter, respectively) Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 21:34, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: Excellent observation. Fixed, and great thanks for pointing it out. jp×g 22:01, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• "Sound and fury"? "The past isn't dead"? What is it with you people and the Faulkner references this month? At least find a less terrible another Southern author to borrow from, jeez. _{In case there's any doubt...I'm not entirely serious. Except in my antipathy for Faulkner.} --Ser Amantio di Nicolao^{Che dicono a Signa?}_{Lo dicono a Signa.} 23:36, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• As the creator of Josh fight, your summary is very good. One correction - I created the article on the day of the event (not three days later). The discussion grew repetitive, but was otherwise surprisingly good considering the number of inexperienced users who flooded in from Reddit and TikTok. Ganesha811 (talk) 00:11, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Lots of these are quite interesting! I'm glad Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of notable surviving veterans of World War II (2nd nomination) wasn't kept, as we shouldn't be writing articles we can't keep around long-term (although a redirect to List of last surviving veterans of World War II rather than a delete might've been better). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Loved the description of AfD "Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination)". JPxG you failed to mention the result decided by the panel. --Venkat TL (talk) 06:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• So many interesting AfD.--Vulp❯❯❯here! 09:30, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• "We live in a society" oh my god he said the word -Gouleg🛋️ ^harass/_hound 15:10, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
• It's also possibly worth noting that the Carlsen v. Nepo G6 article probably wouldn't have set a length record if there hadn't been some procedural shenanigans. It probably would have closed boringly as keep in 7 days, but was instead early closed on SNOW grounds, brought to DRV, and relisted as not-so-lopsided-as-to-qualify for SNOW. So it stayed up for another week+ after the DRV (so ~2 weeks or so total since listing the AFD) just to make extra-sure everyone had their two cents in and there wouldn't be any more worries about the close being premature. It got lots of extra attention due to that. (Is the lesson that DRV should be more flexible for allowing early closes on articles on recent news events that grow in prominence? Or that such early closes should be avoided as counterproductive? You decide.) SnowFire (talk) 18:32, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

From the editor: Here is the news (554 bytes · 💬)

• Thank you, dear Bri for an excellent (informative, short and readable) editorial, and for deputizing. Any responsible Signpost editor needs a rest now and then. It's reassuring that we have a good group of people who are reliable to pass the baton on to and that do such a good job. :)) Welcome to the year 2022 (In general world view: could and should be a better one than the last). The Signpost has been and still is almost always a good read. --Just N. (talk) 16:54, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Gallery: Wikicommons presents: 2021 (1,731 bytes · 💬)

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• Since the "26 September" photo is mostly a de facto screenshot from network television, it seems like a likely copyvio. -Indy beetle (talk) 06:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
  • As might 1 October; in both cases the underlying work is probably copyrighted. I've opened deletion discussions for both on Commons: 26 Sep, 1 Oct. -M.nelson (talk) 10:58, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    • File:Переворот в Мьянме (2021).png also appears to be a stock photo and I don't see how File:Rioteu3.jpg or File:Rioteu1.jpg are CC0. Dylsss^{(talk contribs)} 23:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• I will say that this year's Wikipedia Signpost is great. More especially on the issue of the storming of the U.S capitol. Editors should try explain more and give more citations with reliable sources.Jahyal Maselam (talk) 18:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Humour: Buying Wikipedia (4,152 bytes · 💬)

• Updated the price. Now it's the same as it is. WinUser5 (talk) 17:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• How do you pronounce that numbers? 115.178.246.184 (talk) 23:22, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
  • 68 quadrillion dollars Thingofme (talk) 00:45, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
    • Butjust wait until tomorrow. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:53, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• This looked like a good deal to me, until I read that the contributors aren't included. What a rip-off! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 03:06, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  You couldn't pay me to take the contributors of this website. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:14, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Quite amusing, but tell me, how does a "lowly peasant" have a quadrillion dollars? Also, no thanks, I'd need the credible contributors if I was suddenly rich enough to buy it. Prairie Astronomer ^{Contributions} 16:49, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  how does a "lowly peasant" have a quadrillion dollars? Now this is why hard work is important! If you pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and don't waste money on things like solid gold barnstars, it doesn't matter if you're only earning minimum wage. In fact, if you're a lowly peasant and don't have a quadrillion dollars, it means you're lazy and an inferior human being and don't deserve any government assistance since you'd just squander it anyways. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)^[Humor]

  You haven't heard about Ronald Read (philanthropist)? – SD0001 (talk) 11:45, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  • @Sp0001: You may be interested in *Albert Lexie, Dale Schroeder, Richard Leroy Walters and Robert Morin (librarian) Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:32, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
    • @SD0001: Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:48, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
• Nice. Qzekrom (she/her • talk) 05:13, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
• Very Nice & Very Funny!! 🤣🤣 -Kpddg ^(talk) 14:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
• If you buy in the next five minutes, you'll get a kiss on the forehead free of charge! Panini!^🥪 17:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• Whelp time to sell all of my barnstars as NFTS... MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 05:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

In the media: The past is not even past (6,774 bytes · 💬)

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• That Forbes article does a very good job...at affirming our decision at WP:FORBESCON. Some more gems:
  • "To have a good Wikipedia page, I recommend to have several registered users contribute to it. Pages with no editing history are more likely to be flagged for deletion in my experience. You may be able to avoid this by having multiple users make edits to the page routinely."
  • "Actively promote discussion on the talk page. I’ve found that Wikipedia loves readers who engage in the article’s discussion page. Contributing comments or answering questions from other readers lets Wikipedia know that people care about a topic."
  • "edit ten articles from other users. I’ve found you have a greater chance of getting published if you contribute to improving users’ content."
  • "Make sure you provide your business email address or phone number in case there is a problem with your page."

Oh, and how about this diff? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:17, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• To be fair to Forbes contributors, that isn’t a WP:FORBESCON post. It’s a labeled paid post from a member of the “Forbes Business Council”, which to the best of my knowledge is handled separately. I think Rolling Stone has a similar program for people who want to pay money to make posts. Not a great look nonetheless. — Mhawk10 (talk) 05:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• Andrew Orlowski has Wikipedia Derangement Syndrome. X-Editor (talk) 06:43, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• There have been quite a lot of heartfelt complaints and improvement suggestions concerning the fundraising banners this month. At one point, this led to the WMF pausing the banners for several days. See meta:Talk:Fundraising#The_banner (and following sections). --Andreas JN466 16:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• Usual Orlowski attack against Wikipedia, not surprised.--Vulp❯❯❯here! 09:13, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

"Disclosure – Smallbones voted "Strong keep" at the AfD and has previously edited the article extensively."

Then why have Smallbones involved in writing that small section at all? Seems like the simplest method to avoid bias is to...just not do that? The choice to do so and to include the unnecessary second paragraph of description just makes even the Disclosure look that much worse. Silverseren^C 20:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Writing about topics where you're involved is never preferable, but it's clear that the Signpost is tight on staff. I presume that if someone else had been available to write the blurb, they would've done so, but in the absence of that, a clear and prominent disclosure is the next best thing. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:34, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

But they did. Llewee is listed as having written it too. Why not just have them be the sole contributor to that section and Smallbones bow out of any editor or other involvement with it, considering the bias conflict there? Silverseren^C 20:36, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

So what facts in that section do you dispute? First, while we do always need writers, almost all of our writers are Wikipedians, and should be Wikipedians (with very few exceptions e.g Matt Amodio). So these cases are going to come up, I think what you are objecting to is the idea of balance - but we don't insert non-facts to create a false balance. That would just be lying to our readers. Why do I believe I've struck the right balance here? Well, 6 attempts to delete the article have failed badly. The !votes in this last case were, off the top of my head, 150 to 30 in favor of keep. There appears to be only a small minority of very intensely driven people who want to delete the article, and a large majority who think that mass killings under communist regimes really did happen. With tens of millions of victims. I can't imagine that Wikipedia would delete an article on that topic, any more than I can imagine that we'd delete an article on the Holocost. I won't insert a false balance into a Signpost article anymore than I'd insert a false balance into the article on the Holocost. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:43, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

You basically just gave an example here on why you aren't neutral on the topic, so shouldn't have been involved in any writing in the Signpost involving the subject. It is entirely because you aren't an uninvolved party that is the problem and your stance here where you're continuing to relitigate the AfD and even criticizing anyone who didn't have the same opinion as you shows that you in no way are capable of writing a neutral summary on the topic. Silverseren^C 05:48, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

So what facts in that section do you dispute? Why do you think your opinion is more important than 80% of the editors who participated in the last AfD? I'm not re-litigating the AfD - just reporting the news. It's the folks who want to delete that have re-litigated 5 times since their first attempt to delete. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 06:07, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

News and notes: Jimbo's NFT, new arbs, fixing RfA, and financial statements (13,938 bytes · 💬)

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"Jimbo's Strawberry iMac and non-fungible token"

• Good for Jimbo. I hope the computer ends up in the Smithsonian some day, kind of like one of the artifacts in Warehouse 13. In the meantime if he could sell some kind of token for $600,000 it proves his momma didn't raise no fool (EDIT: and after going back and checking his article here in case he was raised by wolves or something and I was off-base about his mother, turns out she was much more of an influence on Jimbo and his path towards forming Wikipedia than is commonly known). Randy Kryn (talk) 21:14, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• This website managed to find out more about the buyer:

"Prominent Web3 investor Santiago Santos purchased the NFT for PleasrDAO, a decentralized autonomous organization most commonly known for buying the one-of-kind WuTang album [...]. 'I bought it because I think it’s priceless,' Santos said.

The bidder, who was initially anonymous, told Blockworks that he spent almost $1 million on the collectible because it was 'emblematic of Web3.'

'Wikipedia also open-sourced knowledge [sic],' Santos said, adding that the website has also gone through similar stages as cryptocurrency. 'There’s a lot of parallels. We’ve [also] gone through this phase of [people seeing] crypto as a scam.'"

He also said that he was "shocked" at the low price and had been prepared to pay "$2.5 million or more," considering that there is "so much emotional and historical attachment attached [sic] to Wikipedia."

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:45, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• $600,000 does seem low. – The Grid (talk) 21:50, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• NFTs are simply a version of LuLaRoe for tech bros. They create an impression that you can get rich quick via supposedly valuable "unicorns" but the only value you can get from one is if you can sell it for a higher price to someone else. In other words, a classic pyramid scheme. There are only so many people in the world gullible enough to spend money on that, and eventually the bubble will burst and whoever is holding NFTs at that point loses out. If $600k for this NFT is low, I'm glad it is, because it is a sign that people are starting to wake up from this unsustainable craze. feminist (talk) 01:29, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  NFTs aren't going anywhere though - especially with GME going full force with them next year. – The Grid (talk) 14:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Of course NFTs are going somewhere. It just a question of whether they get there faster or slower than the mother of all speculative bubbles. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  It's all fun and games until the music stops and the your left without a chair holding a worthless gif of a monkey. But, there are some things can have lasting value. The NFT for the computer is a certificate of authenticity and ownership that can never be lost (well it could if the keys are lost) and never destroyed or copied. You could store the computer at the Smithsonian and still sell the NFT around frictionless. -- GreenC 05:18, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  There are some misconceptions here. 1st:what are you actually buying? What does the bundle of rights called an NFT actually include. As I understand it, you could issue an NFT for a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge, but this would give the buyer no more rights than if you just told him that he was buying the Brooklyn Bridge. In any practical sense of the word you can lose an NFT, just like people lose bitcoins all the time. Perhaps you might prefer "misplaced and unable to access them" but it's the same thing.You can destroy an NFT simply by wiping the memory from the right computer. Can an NFT be copied? You can copy the photo of the Brooklyn Bridge and sell another NFT on it. Sounds like copying to me. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:25, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

  IMHO, if there is some tangible object attached to these NFTs (e.g., a paper or solid certificate of some kind) they will always have some value. Assuming the worst -- this is just the Internet version of a pet rock -- the tangible objects will become collectable items that commemorate a silly fad of the distant past. If no such tangible object exists, well, how many suckers are born every minute again? -- llywrch (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• NFTs are controversial because they require proof of work - this is inaccurate. Search on "proof of stake" in Non-fungible_token. -- GreenC 05:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  • • Any cryptocurrency-related project has had problems with false promises and vaporware. I haven't seen anything but promises so far. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:25, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Am I right in saying that NFTs can require proof of work or proof of stake, depending on the particular blockchain? — Bilorv (talk) 11:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  • I actually tried to get this right when composing the article. My understanding is the blockchain used for this particular NFT is Ethereum, which implements proof of work unless I'm misreading the first paragraph of the article. If you can show me this is incorrect, I will correct it. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
• People miss the woods for the trees when discussing NFTs: what they are is a modern art industry. That should be the starting position, and then the monetary value of "edits" to reconstructed websites that might look something like how Wikipedia once did and that abstractly symbolise something about the website but don't actually entitle you to anything, legally... is the same as the monetary value of a few random bits of paint on a canvass. For my part, I am a little bit concerned that Wales is willing to give this elitist attention-seeking the time of day, and I also don't think he's been public about where the money goes. If it goes to non-profits then at least scamming a moron out of half a million dollars is relatively better than partnering with Big Tech or scamming people in poverty by lying to them. — Bilorv (talk) 11:27, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The modern art industry in the sense of a scam, and a great way to launder money(?). I'm not sure I'd even be satisfied with the money going to non-profits - not when the impact on the environment is considered. Look, kids, I'm donating money to help you - don't mind the fact that the energy for this NFT is why you're experiencing blackouts...--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 16:06, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
• If you pardon my French, adapting a contemporary Mexican Spanish insult into English: hahaha Jimbo you're a naco and foolish -Gouleg🛋️ ^harass/_hound 14:30, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

"Requests for Adminship 2022 and beyond"

• @Bri: The close review for RfA proposal 8B took place at AN, not ANI. You've got the discussion linked properly, but the text afterwards says ANI. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:18, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
  • Commenting on the RfA reform process itself, as a participant in all stages I am going to come right out and call it a near total failure. Barkeep49 did an excellent job attempting to get the community to figure out how to improve the issues with the process, but the community at large shot down every proposal which might have made a real difference. Some were awful and deserved to fail (PROD style adminship was a terrible idea) but others were not given a chance or rejected over nitpicks without giving ideas a chance to grow. The problem with RfA is not the process, it's the community, writ large (and I include myself in that group, I'm no better than anyone else). There's no easy fix for that. Everyone has different standards for RfA candidates, ranging from reasonable to utterly absurd. Candidates are rightfully scared to come forward after seeing several RfAs go down in flames, and even successful candidates are scarred by the process. There's no way in hell I'd run for RfA now, even if I were qualified (I'm obviously not based on my edit count, though there used to be a time that 6,000 edits was enough to pass). I wish I could say I had the answers, but I don't, not at all. I'm as lost as everyone else. This problem won't go away, we will have to deal with it again sometime down the road, and when we do we will regret not acting sooner. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:48, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    Wikipedia doesn't have a formal way of trying out a change of a policy or a procedure. If there was such a way, then some of Barkeep49's suggestions could be given a trial run. Since there are not that many RfAs, the trial couldn't really be timed, but limiting the trial by amount of RfAs could work. For example, running an RfA procedure change for four or five RfAs would have shown if it was a good change or not empirically. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

    English Wikipedia's consensus-based decision-making traditions hamper all major changes as consensus doesn't scale up. So all RfCs ought to be judged within this context. There was a failure to adopt new RfA procedures, but I think there was progress in getting more editors willing to try a very different system. (Sure, there are many examples of processes that we'll regret not changing earlier. Unless we change the decision-making process, though (another future regret), reaching agreement is inevitably slow.) isaacl (talk) 00:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

    @Andrybak, @Isaacl, both good points. I think part of the issue is that editors aren't willing enough to try out trials of new things. One could start an RfC directly proposing a change or one could start an RfC proposing we conduct a trial of that change, and I suspect the result would not differ that much, even though the trial option would be a lot safer. I also think closers could do more to err on the side of experimentation with a trial as a kind of middle ground when a proposal is on the border between succeeding and no consensus. This is especially true when the discussion has an exasperated "I'm not sure this is precisely the right solution but we've got to try something" vibe. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:14, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Trainsandotherthings, you echo my thoughts entirely and I've already made very similar comments. I will add that it's just possibe that this long debate process may even have had a further chilling effect on the enthusiasm to be an admin. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• The section on admin elections was originally closed as "unsuccessful," not no consensus. It was corrected to no consensus following the discussion at AN. Calidum 14:38, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• The low RfA numbers may have been in part a byproduct of RfA reform discussion. If I were an admin hopeful, I'd probably wait until the discussion's resolution before trying to proceed. Here's hoping for good numbers in 2022. --BDD (talk) 19:59, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• It's a stretch to claim seven new admins this year when one of them already moved without leaving a forwarding address. That leaves six, or one every other month. We elected more arbitrators in 2021 than administrators! Any potential administrator waiting for the community to change its expectations to conform with theirs should refocus their efforts on trying harder to conform to what the community expects. wbm1058 (talk) 19:36, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
  • retired/vanished and requested removal of [admin] permissions (WP:BN) ☆ Bri (talk) 19:58, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Recent research: STEM articles judged unsuitable for undergraduates below the first paragraph (22,971 bytes · 💬)

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• Unsurprising. I mentioned this on EEng's talk before ([1]). Ultimately STEM isn't learned by reading and our articles are written very technically and asan encyclopaedic reference rather than as a learning resource. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:22, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• "Quality change: norm or exception? Measurement, Analysis and Detection of Quality Change in Wikipedia" – It's hard to imagine a research project more doomed from the start than one which (AND I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP) mistakes our absurd Stub-Start-C-B-GA-A-FA tags for actual indicators of article quality. EEng 22:26, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• "The First Paragraph Is As Good As It Gets" – here's the list of articles reviewed, along with Wikipedia's quality assessment. Mostly B/C, but there's one GA (Species) and one FA (Enzyme, kept at FAR in 2015). In those two cases they liked the lead, but Species got 1/3 overall and Enzyme got 2/3. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Our math and physics articles are a mix of garbled verbiage and verbal garbage, the apparent need to write in an impenetrable style instead of maybe using the English language is painful. It comes off to me as an intentional effort to show off instead of inform. To cite an obvious example, there are plenty of YouTube videos that explain Graham's number in a reasonably approachable manner (the man himself does it here, for instance), yet our article is an incomprehensible orgy of hypertechnical terms that quickly make me want to go full Oedipus on my eyes when I even attempt to read it. Linguistics articles can get like that too, for sure, but while a little clicking around is usually good enough to get through those I would never read Wikipedia to learn something about mathematics that I didn't already thoroughly understand; from that, I rather think the problem is self-evident. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 23:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Well, BotNL (hey -- you should have a bot called BotNLBot), as Andrew Gleason put it:

  It is notoriously difficult to convey the proper impression of the frontiers of mathematics to nonspecialists. Ultimately the difficulty stems from the fact that mathematics is an easier subject than the other sciences. Consequently, many of the important primary problems of the subject‍—‌that is, problems which can be understood by an intelligent outsider‍—‌have either been solved or carried to a point where an indirect approach is clearly required. The great bulk of pure mathematical research is concerned with secondary, tertiary, or higher-order problem, the very statement of which can hardly be understood until one has mastered a great deal of technical mathematics.

  I'm sorry, but Graham's Youtube chat may give you a warm feeling that you're learned something, but in fact you haven't. The purpose of our articles is to lend real understanding to those who have something like the background, not to let readers pretend they've learned something. That's what Youtube videos are for. EEng 06:42, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Heh. At least on YouTube that's about all you should expect, hence my lack of disappointment from it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:36, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Just dropping this here: Talk:Falsifiability. — Bilorv (talk) 11:56, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  I have to say, one of the very few reasonably well-written articles on this is 0.999.... Instead of going out of its way to instantly assault readers with every possible esoteric term imaginable, and a few that aren't, it presents the subject in a very straightforward manner and uses easily approachable examples to demonstrate its point. This is, as the article itself notes, a very counterintuitive bit of math, so clearly it can be done. I get that most other subjects aren't the abject crank magnets that article is, and I suspect that external pressure is why, almost alone, that article is written in such a way that it eschews navel-gazing gobbledygook in favor of language that actively encourages understanding. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 06:19, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

  To the contrary, 0.999... is mostly unsourced, and much of it looks like the sort of sophomoric filler one gets from writers who don't have a firm enough grasp of the subject to make any clear point but still need to reach a long enough page count. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

  I thought the lead was at least worth a read, I came away understanding more than when I went in. Also, since that article is under perpetual siege, I can see where its development is stunted. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

• Concurring with The Blade of the Northern Lights, I usually give up after the first paragraph. The rest of such articles seem to be preaching to the choir. Fortunately in linguistics I'm one of the singers but I'm hopelessly confused when I want to learn something in STEM. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• A sometimes applied doctrine says it's okay to be an insider to an academic discipline, writing an article, but we must remember our audience is outsiders. Alas, it seems many articles are written for insiders by insiders, or at least they try to teach the things every insider must know. If we are failing to address the audience properly, maybe we should include prominent links to tutorial videos, such as those of Khan Academy, when good ones exist. My efforts at trying to understand why stars pulsate, for example, have been more advanced by YouTube than by Wikipedia. WP assumes I know a lot about transparency of ionized gases, which actually fits me somewhat well, but also about enthalpy and other gas thermodynamic questions, which are a deep mystery to me. Such things tend to be addressed to grad students of the appropriate major and, umm, I never came close to graduating, nor did a course in optics or gas dynamics. If it were just astrophysics; no big deal but most our STEM areas are like that. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

File:Pocket ref cover 4th ed.png

• I use Wikipedia a lot for my STEM-related professional field, and expect it to be as useful as Pocket Ref i.e. some formulas and figures, a reminder or a key to further reading, not a learning resource per se. And I'm not disappointed. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:17, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  I probably wouldn't rely on Wikipedia for formulas. It's not uncommon I come across a maths article through edit filter logs or Huggle and notice some sneaky vandalism to a formula has passed through patrollers and managed to stay in the article. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 04:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  I do this sort of thing too, and it's usually a recognition-vs-recall situation; I can't remember what I'm looking for offhand but will probably notice if it's wrong. Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• The audience for Wikipedia isn't just "outsiders". Sometimes, the same article has to serve multiple purposes, because anyone might read it — from schoolchildren to professional mathematicians. This is why we have the "write one level down" and "put the easiest part up front" guidelines. And if we tried to write a hand-holding introduction to every subject that presumed half of a high-school education, we'd need more than one of each. No one introduction works for all readers. The same textbook can come across as friendly to one reader and gimmicky to another. Please the former, and you'll lose the latter. We'd also face WP:NPOV and WP:NOR problems. To write a textbook-style introduction, you need to pick how to begin and what to include, devise a path through the ideas, probably invent examples that haven't been used anywhere else before... Wikipedia, as a platform, simply isn't equipped to do any of that. As a physicist who has written expository material for students, research papers for colleagues, and Wikipedia articles, I can tell you that the process and the mindset are necessarily different for each one. XOR'easter (talk) 05:07, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Moreover, the editors who are subject-matter experts and who have managed to adapt themselves to the different requirements of writing here are either working away in obscure corners because that's where their enthusiasm leads them, or they're run ragged trying to clean up fringe nonsense, vanity-fueled autobiographies that try to use Wikipedia as LinkedIn, schlock added by well-meaning editors suckered by sensationalist pop-science and churnalism... There just aren't enough volunteers to go around. For years, I've seen complaints about the difficulty of our technical articles, and sooner or later that thread of anti-intellectualism always works its way in. "Ha ha, I was never good at math, lolz, I stopped reading at the first word I didn't get, let's pivot to video." There's no consideration for the intrinsic difficulty of the subject, or the challenge of writing about it, or the human element of finding people qualified to do so when all the incentives are for them to be doing work that advances their careers. I've been trying to make it work for years now, and I'm tired. And I'm done. XOR'easter (talk) 07:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  @XOR'easter: - I've resigned myself to mostly focusing on minor WikiGnome cleanup work for mostly this reason. I do use Wikipedia to hoover up articles in my area of interest that cover concepts I didn't know existed, and I'm fortunate that most of my watchlist is low-interest and low-traffic work, but if I attempted to conduct the Big Big Rewrites that Definitely Need To Happen, I'd wear myself thin. I still find value in the addition of accessibility templates - language templates, using {{ubl}} and {{pb}} in place of line breaks - but it's definitely not the heavy-hitting stuff I used to do. I feel sorry for people working in more active areas of interest - I can't begin to imagine the nightmare of attempting to wrangle more than five high-importance, high-traffic articles at once.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 16:02, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Of course we should always take what we can learn from this kind of exercise. In particular, we could make better use of the "Introduction to..." format to serve a wider range of audiences. But if you're going to publish an article criticizing a free resource from behind a paywall, well, pooh on you. Some "opportunistic learning" there. (Yes, I know, the OA fees are probably an arm and a leg.) Opabinia regalis (talk) 06:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• not useful for a learner seeking to understand the concept of biodiversity - and yet incredibly useful for someone wanting to understand the place of biodiversity in the world and culture at large. The study is inherently flawed by operating on the premise that any article is of primary or even exclusive use to people engaged in higher learning of its subject. Kingsif (talk) 06:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• I sometimes think whether I should write something about notions in my research field (which is condensed matter physics) and see whether anything useful would come out, but there is so much red tape (from colleagues potentially unhappy they are not cited or not cited they would like to, to users with 100-edit contribution on talk pages who know the subject way better than I potentially would ever learn it - in fact, any subject - and are not ready to accept that what they say may deviate from the divine truth) that I am not sure I would ever actually write anything related to my research.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the original meaning of encylopedia (ἐγκύκλιος παιδεία) is ‘encyclical education’, meaning "the circle of arts and sciences considered by the Greeks as essential to a liberal education." The first definition that follows this is "The circle of learning; a general course of instruction." If a credible source judges the bulk of Wikipedia unsuitable for opportunistic learning by college undergraduates, then we have a serious problem. I have more to say on this than can reasonably be posted here: User:Kent G. Budge/Response to College Teaching critique --Kent G. Budge (talk) 17:20, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• One of the standards of WP is that each article is to be focused on its topic, and make major use of bluelinks with only brief statements about what they contain, rather than have an article be anything like a self-contained exposition on the whole topic. It's not a school essay, or a single page to learn an advanced concept if one doesn't have the foggiest idea of the field of study as a basis. I think the intro section, besides defining the topic in an accessible fashion, lets one know whether one has any sort of background or context to be able to understand much of the rest. We do have a ton of articles on introductory topics and introductory articles on some advanced topics, but as the study rightly points out, we also have lots of non-introductory articles on non-introductory topics. And, as others have noted, some topics really are fairly impenetrable by their nature, due to niche article scope. The problem might not be that "any given article isn't fully accessible for self-learning to anyone with no background", but rather that we don't have at least some article on each major or lay-accessible topic that is. Depending on one's starting point (article, and personal background), that might be a few clicks down a rabbit-hole, and require a major investment to get up to speed. DMacks (talk) 04:24, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
• In "Mathematics", "articles were generally instructive from an encyclopedic viewpoint, but the fluid narrative was less useful for learners unless supplemented". While there were no accuracy concerns, "C-qualifiers were frequently applied because the development was less helpful for opportunistic learning". Accords with my experience, not just of Wikipedia, but of university textbooks, lecture notes and tutorials. Higher education maths pedagogy is horrific. I have had a small number of excellent teachers, lecture notes and truly fantastic textbooks (Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms, if anyone's looking for some light bedtime reading). However, for the most part, mathematics writing is done by a lot of thinking and scribbling and playing with toy examples, coming to some abstract conclusions, and then writing down the abstract conclusions and erasing all evidence of the toy examples, forcing the reader to rediscover those for themselves if they want to actually understand why something is true. During university, I regularly had the experience that a correct answer I had given to a problem sheet question was impenetrable to me just three days later.
  The problem for Wikipedia, then, is that making articles understandable necessarily makes them unverifiable, because mathematical papers and even textbooks and lecture notes do not give any or enough illustrative examples to learn the concept, or spell out the finer points that would be immediately obvious to anyone with the education to be reading the source. — Bilorv (talk) 11:56, 30 December 2021 (UTC)
  • "The proof is left as an excercise for the reader." Or end-of-chapter question #1 was to prove a theorem not discussed in the chapter, and then question #2 was to use that new theorem to prove yet some other thing. *cringe* DMacks (talk) 16:02, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  For real. And at any rate, this "it's not useful for learners unless supplemented" conclusion is... describing exactly what an encyclopedia should be, anyway. An encyclopedia is a reference work! Its use as a pedagogical tool is secondary. I know students are reading it, and that's a very good reason (among many others) to care about whether or not our articles are accurate. But Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, not a free university course. If it doesn't rate well as a teaching device, well, so what? -- asilvering (talk) 21:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• @The Blade of the Northern Lights: - I'd second the comment about linguistics articles - and I'd also point out that densely-written articles that take on an essay-like tone cause problems for editors who aren't even attempting to rewrite the article's content itself. It can be difficult to know what to fix or even if the addition of certain templates will cause problems if the article is too dense to work on. This repels both readers and also editors attempting to improve whatever they can on an article outside of their area of interest.--Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) ({{ping}} me!) 16:02, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

• Histogram really does suck though. That's not a proper lede at all. Way too long and what looks like body material that was moved up and shoved into the lede for some reason. Silverseren^C 19:21, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  For my background at least, the first three sentences explain it all perfectly. The rest probably can be moved down.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

• I have to say, I wasn't particularly impressed by the lead publication here. Four articles per area is barely enough to generate anecdotes, much less data or understanding. And the authors' idea that someone without any background knowledge should be able to learn a topic from a quick read of its Wikipedia article, and that any deeper content in the article that impedes that quick understanding is superfluous, seems...misguided at best. Encyclopedia articles should be encyclopedic. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)
• I'd be more interested in a study of how STEM students (and others) actually use Wikipedia, rather than some educators speculation on how useful it ought to be. I certainly would have found it very helpful when I was in school. Back then we were taught to write terms and concepts we didn't understand on index cards and spend time in the library looking them up. How quaint that seems today. Of course search engines could be used if Wikipedia did not exist, but Wikipedia provides more organized, hyperlinked and sourced presentations. One thing that would be interesting to know is how often students start their inquires on Wikipedia rather than a general search. Wikipedia is often one of the top search results in any case. And yes, our articles leave room for improvement. They always will.--agr (talk) 17:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

• Pouncing on brief summary statements in the lead without looking at the cited paragraphs (and sources) that they summarize is always going to throw up ambiguities – all natural language is ambiguous and metaphoric, basta. If "opportunistic learning" means never going beyond the lead section – because the rest of the article is – what? Too long ("Too many notes, Herr Mozart")? Too difficult? Too picky with defined terms, careful citations, attributions to scientists? – then opportunistic readers are self-condemned to read only the lead, and maybe flick through the pictures, glance at the captions. Coffee-tablePedia? TwitterFeediaPedia? Oh dear. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• I wonder if they found any difference between GA/FAs and not? Skarmory (talk • contribs) 03:30, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Serendipity: Born three months before her brother? (7,028 bytes · 💬)

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Pointing out a biological improbability may be one of the few exceptions, together with simple mathematical calculations, that can be used in this way. In most cases, we need to avoid original research and insist that Wikipedia is a tertiary source summarizing what other, mostly secondary, sources say. The requirement of verifiability and the rejection of original research are important measures to prevent the publication of misinformation in most cases, and to resolve conflicts about which statements are "correct". You'll always be able to find examples for factual errors copied from other sources to Wikipedia, but that's just caused by the way Wikipedia is designed to work. While Wikipedia makes no guarantee of validity, its approach usually works nicely. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 21:23, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

The Oxford Dictionary of Music also has an online edition, but it's still not corrected there either. The entry starts "Haebler, Ingrid (b Vienna, 1926) Austrian pianist. Début Salzburg 1937. Salzburg Fest. début 1954. Won Munich and Geneva int. comps. 1954", which exacerbates the error, considering that it makes quite a difference whether you debut at the Salzburg Festival at age 15 or 18.

On the other hand, the New Grove (also published by Oxford University Press) seems to state 1929, like Wikipedia. Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:45, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Editors can be very obstinate sometimes over making changes when a source used is itself in error. But the error ending up getting fixed so all is well. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:55, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
• This seems to be a case of editors following rules rather than common sense, something that seems to be severely lacking in many people who consider themselves qualified to write an encyclopedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:49, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  Appealing to common sense is simple, yet pretty subjective and thus meaningless. Your "common sense" is probably perfectly fine; I'd argue mine is as well. Sadly, that isn't always the case, and even we may disagree, so we have policies (like WP:V and WP:OR) to deal with cases of conflicting "common sense"s. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:57, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  I think that anyone's common sense includes knowledge that it is extremely unlikely for siblings to have been born a few months apart. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:37, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  WP:RULES covers this completely "Policies and guidelines should always be applied using reason and common sense." Note the "always". Always always means "always". The same point is made at WP:BURO. Both are policies. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:56, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

• Ambiguous birth dates are surprisingly common, it can be for a lot of reasons. -- GreenC 05:31, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  I don't think there's much surprising about it. Reasons include vanity, which is very common especially in the performing arts, simply not knowing the circumstances of one's own birth, which applies to many orphans, and lying about one's age in order to gain legal rights, which can occur either way depending on whether one wants to be treated as an adult or a child. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:37, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

  See Bob Kane for example, who said he was an adult to sign a contract to get paid for Batman, then later said he had been underage to get a better contract when Batman was successful. Argento Surfer (talk) 16:42, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

  I'm pretty sure that many Wikipedians don't understand where reports of a person's birthdate come from, or at least the don't use common sense when they see a reported birthday. Most reported birthdates come from the person themselves. Some folks - say an heir to the crown - don't have a chance to lie about their birthday. Others might have a difficult time lying, e.g me - my parents published a birth announcement soon after I was born in the local paper. But seriously - who is going to look that up, or even know it existed? I don't think most states give out birth certificates to just anybody who asks - though it might be easier than you'd think to get one if you know the birthplace (and lie a bit). Courts might require a birth certificate or other proof of age in certain cases. A lot of people will "lock themselves in" when they apply for their 1st drivers licence. But how many people do you show your drivers license to? If journalists want to know somebody's birthday, they'll usually do exactly what you would do - just ask the person. If they think something is fishy they might try to double check - but this might come down to checking a self-reported birth year in an autobio. At best a journalist on the street might say something like "Can I see your drivers licence - I just want to be sure of the spelling." So sooner or later most reported birth dates are self-reported, though it gets fairly difficult to lie as you get older. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:25, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

  There will probably be less ambiguity over ages in the U.S. now that a social security number (based on birth certificate) is required for parents to claim a tax exemption/earned income tax credit/child tax credit. I think this was phased in between 1987 and 1992. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:09, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

• That is sure a very cute picture to represent Haebler though, with a boy dressed up as Mozart -Gouleg🛋️ ^harass/_hound 14:38, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Will note that it would have been viable if the UK Old Style calendar had been in use (so today would have been 3 January 2021/2).

I have come across a few other calendar anomalies on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Jackiespeel (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Traffic report: Spider-Man, football and the departed (149 bytes · 💬)

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