Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2023-03-20

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The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2023-03-20. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Eyewitness: Three more stories from Ukrainian Wikimedians (660 bytes · 💬)

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• Amazing and inspiring read, thanks for posting and I wish good health and good luck to these brave souls and to all of the Ukrainian Wiki(p/m)edians, in whatever language they contribute to. Jane (talk) 12:43, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
• I can only imagine the horrors of occupation (understatement but I can't find the words for it). Perhaps the closest I can get is "pure rage." --Firestar464 (talk) 14:14, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Featured content: Way too many featured articles (748 bytes · 💬)

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It's a very long read. Thought of being more selective in each mode? Tony (talk) 08:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@Tony1: Been simplifying things of late. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 18:51, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

In the media: Paid editing, plagiarism payouts, proponents of a ploy, and people peeved at perceived preferences (10,940 bytes · 💬)

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• I'm confused about Ranaut's claim that her Wikipedia article gets her birth date wrong... It seems to have said March 23 as early as 2014 if not earlier. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 12:02, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Those evil leftists have hijacked page history to hide their wrongdoing! /s ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 13:04, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
  • IDK maybe she's referring to another Wikipedia in another language. --Firestar464 (talk) 15:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
    • Thanks @Eddie891:! I checked out your assertion and it's correct, at least for when Ranaut made her complaint and for months, probably years, before then. There were a few times when the wrong birthday was put in for a fairly short period after 2014. The real mystery here is where Ranaut's "Wikipedia is totally hijacked by leftists" complaint comes from? Perhaps from the right field bleachers? I'd like to remind Ranaut, and all folks who have complaints about what Wikipedia writes about them, that you can get interviewed by a reliable newspaper (tweets don't carry too much weight here), or even just put out a press release. Press releases aren't the best source of course, but at least we'd have something more than a few stray comments to look at. My favorite form of correcting an article would be to make a video, perhaps with your PR agent or a well known person who knows you asking questions. Please make sure to give the date of complaint. You can upload it to Wikimedia Commons or even just to YouTube and we can put it in the biography article, or even - if you are lucky - in The Signpost. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:24, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
      • The real mystery here is where Ranaut's "Wikipedia is totally hijacked by leftists" complaint comes from? Perhaps from the right field bleachers? Ranaut is pretty well known for having hard-right views - I do not know much about the Indian film industry, but I recognized her name because of her notorious Twitter account. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 14:46, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
        • As we all know, leftism is when they celebrate your birthday on the wrong day. /s Axem Titanium (talk) 21:05, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
• The homophobes strike again..."NOOOOOO! HOMOGAY BAD! REEEEEEEE!" *insert "no one cares gif" --Firestar464 (talk) 15:49, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Aye. We had a longer rant about it, but cut it down in the end. But, yeah, that argument that all sex outside of marriage is a sin, and also gay people can't get married so homosexuality is a sin is a nice little trap, eh? Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 20:19, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Years ago there was a Swedish satirical news program (a little like Weekend Update) where a parody-politician said something like "I have absolutely no objection to a homosexual man marrying a homosexual... woman. That would also assure that there won't be any shenanigans." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:12, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  The CI also declares: "The Bible defines marriage as a lifelong union between one man and one woman. English law accepted this biblical definition until legal marriage was redefined by the introduction of same-sex 'marriage'." — Apparently they'd never heard of it being legal to divorce before then; Henry VIII and all that. But I suppose that's all the fault of gays, too.🙄 – _•Raven  ^.talk 16:38, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

• I'm curious about the Signpost's editorial thinking behind the choice to publish the piece about a community banned firm trying to promote UPE rather than DENY. Barkeep49 (talk) 16:24, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't WP:DENY apply to articles and not the Wikipedia namespace? Also, wouldn't it be beneficial to state firms that are WP:NOTHERE? – The Grid (talk) 16:41, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• These sorts of adverts are up all the time and we certainly don't and would not report on them all, but revisiting the subject from time to time seems like it's within the remit of The Signpost and raising community awareness that the problem isn't solved. If we followed WP:DENY at all times, then we couldn't discuss malfeasance in order to stop it. Also, it's not clear whether the author and/or publication is connected to the banned entity or whether they knew that those firms were banned. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:11, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: My understanding of WP:DENY is that it refers to shitposters and lulz-cravers like Willy and Jarlaxle, hence the DFTT illustration and the lead ("true vandals and trolls [...] seek recognition and infamy"). It seems implausible that an edit-for-hire firm would be motivated by lulz -- indeed, if that were the case, why would they ask for cash on top? Honestly, being publicly denounced in a newspaper seems like the worst possible outcome for such a firm, as they generally trade on claims to legitimacy. jp×g 19:22, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• (EC)I'll mostly repeat what Bri said: if we can't write about paid editors, how are most Wikipedians to know that this type of advertising of paid editing services are constantly out there soliciting peope with false claims? How can we fight this type of paid editing if we can't expose it? I'll add that WP:DENY is an essay, not a policy or even a guideline. A year or two back we had a series in this column about magazines like Entrepreneur writing self-promotional pieces on how you can write your own Wiki-articles about yourself (or if that seems too complicated just contact the authors). So, @Barkeep:, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but how would you suggest that we report on this type of paid editing? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:26, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  I am guessing you'd like to hear what I say @Smallbones not Barkeep. I asked a question. A pointed question but a question. If I had wanted to suggest what I think the Signpost should do I'd have said it. It wasn't clear to me what made this particular UPE worthy of Signpost coverage when everyone seems to agree every UPE is not worthy. @Bri who actually wrote the item makes an argument that makes sense and answers the question I asked. The sense I get from you and @JPxG is a circling of the wagons rather than an actual interest in having a conversation and since I wasn't trying to start a conversation but rather get a question answered (which I have now - thanks again Bri) I'm going to move on. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:41, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• (Another EC!) Almost every time we do an article on paid editing we get somebody complaining that we're doing something awful, often based on some wildly original interpretation of Wikipedia's rules. So please forgive me if I was a bit defensive. I really am interested in how you think The Signpost should cover this subject. So if you want to send me an email and discuss it privately, please do. For general interest, I'll just add in the text I typed before the edit conflict.
• I'll also add that last week a long-time Wikipedian forwarded me an email that they had received offering similar services. After checking out the website, I suspect that it was from the same firm that was advertising in the article above. The website gave a Wall Street address that turned out to be a rent-a-mailbox/phone number space. They guaranteed acceptance of an article for anybody (in about 5 out of 7 times that the issue came up in their text). A friendly helper asked to chat and said that I could remain confidential (after I asked). If you read closely they wrote that they'd write articles for other websites to serve as "reliable sources" here. The web-site text was not written by a native English speaker. So by exposing this, am I giving these "service providers" hints on how to avoid getting caught on Wikipedia? I doubt that they know enough about Wikipedia to check this space, but if they got themselves a real address, and they quit guaranteeing article acceptance, quit promising confidentiality, quit writing phony off-Wiki articles, and hired native English speakers to write their text, I would consider that to be a good thing (but bad for their business). All it would do is raise their costs and drive away customers. So how can we help drive away customers from these crooked-as-a-dog's-hind-leg con-men? Just expose them. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:50, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Also, anyone reading The Signpost probably isn't in the market for paid editing, and I believe Wikipedia nofollows all links. Risk almost certainly is overwhelmed by benefits. For comparison, last issue (maybe the one before), I spiked a story about how Wikipedia was supposedly censoring cryptids because the only way to read the person's argument was to buy his book. That felt like a high chance of sending profit towards a non-notable crank. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 21:45, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Interview: 228/2/1: the inside scoop on Aoidh's RfA (5,973 bytes · 💬)

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• Honestly, I don't think blanket opposes based purely on the process are helpful at all. To me, if you go to an RFA just to oppose on the lines of "the process is broken", then you should be discussing that on the general talk page for RFA and not an actual RFA. Opposing on an RfA because you think there needs to be changes to the process belongs on a talk page and not an actual RfA because that's what talk pages are for. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:08, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  I do think that's a conversation worth having, especially what to do when such an oppose occurs, but ideally not in an ongoing RfA itself. - Aoidh (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  I find it hard to read such opposes as anything other than a protest vote. Such votes are supposed to be disruptive, by design, but maybe that's why they are disfavored. On the other hand, the fact that RfA is attracting enough protest votes for it to become a noticeable problem is illustrative of how seriously broken the process has become. People are not taking it to the RfA talk page, because they have become convinced that that will accomplish exactly nothing. --NYKevin 18:18, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• Congratulations for your overwhelming positive result in your RfA recently. Even if 218 persons are not really a lot of people compared to all active Wp-en editors but it's the normally expected number of participants in those elections and okay. Indeed the very low number of negative votes is striking! - - Now the above interview text has some quality of its own. Good questions and very good answers. In any detail realistic? Maybe. I'm sort of inclined to ask if you ever trained to deliver public speeches? I reckon that it is the case. No, I'm not kidding, you've done it well! And the answers even comprise the impression of competence and point to some possible better solutions in RfA proceedings. Well, I'm aware of the fact that a good analysis not automatically will produce a good implementation. All changes depend on good networking and team work. -- Just N. (talk) 17:06, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you, but no I'm not brave enough for public speaking. - Aoidh (talk) 16:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• In the previous version of this story, the HTML lists were formatted such that each question waws read out as a separate list item, in contravention of the guideline on such matters (I've tested this with both JAWS and NVDA. The Signpost is not an article but should be accessible where possible. I'll bring this up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility. Graham87 06:37, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Is it better now? I have removed the newlines between the list items, per the instructions at MOS:DEFLIST, and moved the answers to new lines for easier (sighted) parsing of the wikitext. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:51, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
    • @Jonesey95: Yes, thanks, it's fine now. I've changed your colon to an asterisk in your reply though, because mixing lists in this case doesn't work so well. Graham87 06:55, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
• Um, FormalDude, noooooooo! I have no position with the Signpost so I have no real authority to undo that, but I'll bring this up elsewhere ... Graham87 06:58, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Done at the main Signpost talk page. Graham87 07:04, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
    • Isn't the problem in question one I accidentally produced while copyediting? [1]. It's odd FormalDude is panicking over my error. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 20:54, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
      • Adam Cuerden, a version of the problem was already there. As should be obvious from my comment needing to be reformatted above, indent/list/term list markup is fussy, and I, at least, don't always remember how it works. I don't know why there needed to be such drama about someone fixing up wikitext to make it accessible per a long-standing guideline, but sometimes change is difficult for people, or they feel a bit of ownership, or they are just having a bad day. We are all human; I know that my blood pressure rises when I see changes to one of "my" favorite pages if I do not agree with or understand the changes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:24, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Traffic report: Who died? Who won? Who lost? (3,148 bytes · 💬)

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• I forgot Baby Yoda is technically 50 years old. Also, this traffic report title gave me Hamilton vibes (Who lives? Who dies? Who tells your story?) ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:31, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

• According to childwelfare.gov, "Approximately 29 States and the District of Columbia allow the adoption of any person, regardless of age." So there would really be nothing out of the ordinary for Mando to adopt a 50 year old, under U.S. law. Whether we characterize that as a "child" may be up to interpretation for that individual's life expectancy. I'd say the TOP25 writers get some leeway on this. As for the TR title, I may have picked that up subliminally, but it wasn't a conscious reference to Hamilton. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:53, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Interesting, and that is a fair point as Baby Yoda is a child for their species (which I don't believe we actually know the name of which is interesting), although for a human he would be middle-aged. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 16:40, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

  Anybody know how long is the applicable year? Jim.henderson (talk) 15:31, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Wookiepedia says they reach maturity by their 100th year. But also that they remain in infancy for at least 50. It also worth considering that the life stages may not be in the same proportion as for humans. SSSB (talk) 16:04, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

  Yes, humans spend a larger fraction of our lives in childhood, than most vertebrates do. But, how long a year? How long a day? Different worlds spin differently. Even the planets of our little solar system have great diversity. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:36, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

  Geez this got really complicated for one simple comment. ― Blaze Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 12:46, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

• @Jim.henderson: The Star Wars galaxy has a standardized calendar with years the same as Earth's. igordebraga ≠ 16:11, 22 March 2023 (UTC)