The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2019-12-27. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-12-27/Arbitration report

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-12-27/Discussion report

• I'm sooooo happy wikipedia doesn't have adverts Mujinga (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  It's one of the extraordinary things about this site, I'd say. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 23:29, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

  I 100% 99% agree. It shows that you don't need ads to survive. Well done Wikipedia for making it into the top 10 and reaching largeness. >>BEANS X2t 19:12, 2 January 2020 (UTC) (The other 1%)

  And that's another reason why Wikivoyage split away from Wikitravel. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 02:47, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I think the "easiest" solution to the problem (as it were) would be to adopt the position that standard discretionary sanctions may be used on any page know or suspected by the community, ARMCOM, or the WMF of being edited by public relations firms in order to effect a timely halt to this sort of disruptive, COI based editing. This would ensure that regardless of disclosure by COI based accounts the articles themselves would be subject to much stricter scrutiny by the community and the admin corps, which in turn may frustrate undisclosed paid editors enough to stall any long term attempt to white wash, grey wash, or otherwise "police" articles here by PR-firms. In this very specific case, I would also consider authorizing pending changes level 2 protection (if it were still around) or EC protection to further frustrate edits from the COI paid editing firms. I wold also like to see a master list of known articles worked on so we could direct efforts to that effect(perhaps a Freedom of Information Act request could help us on that front), or at a least, articles known to have paid editor based issues with PR-related undertones. TomStar81 (Talk) 14:39, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The closest thing to a dump of known or suspected COI articles is provided periodically by MER-C at WT:WikiProject Spam. Periodic lists appear at WP:COIN. A list of PR companies and known accounts is at WP:PAIDLIST. Gathering data is difficult, and we are also constrained by our own outing policy – for instance, sockpuppet investigations are a one-way data flow – and to a lesser extent, our notification policies. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:06, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• • "Anyone can edit Wikipedia" is the most basic "Wiki Way". We need to convince the Foundation that required registration does not prevent any good faith editor from contributing. It only stops bad faith editors from using Wikipedia improperly, and allows us a much simpler way to control inappropriate use like paid editing. John from Idegon (talk) 16:47, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
    • We may actually be moving in the opposite direction. WMF has proposed more anonymous editing – i.e. without even leaving an IP address trace. Read an open letter from Benjamin Mako Hill for a perspective on why this is a bad idea. My mind is not made up; depends on the mitigation part which is undefined AFAIK. It might even be compatible with User:Bri/Paid editing Chinese wall. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:26, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
      • IPs are less anonymous than user names true. But it is so easy to switch IPs. So if this change keeps a single person associated with a single account better than IPs currently do it might make our job easier. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:33, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
        • Doesn't sound like that what WMF is contemplating is necessarily resistant to rolling IPs: "We intend to implement some method to make the generated usernames at least partially persistent, for example, by associating them with a cookie, the user's IP address, or both." ☆ Bri (talk) 07:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
  • We already have discretionary sanctions for BLPs. MER-C 04:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• More people stoping by AfD would help, as would a requirement that biographies cannot be deprodded without a proper rationale, or that such deprodding requires an established account. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:01, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• I remain unable to reliably distinguish between actual COI/paid editing and good faith editors writing in a similar fashion, unless the COI editor says something to make it evident. Good faith editors write in a promotional way because they see so much promotionalism in Wikipedia that they think in actual good faith that this is what we want, and because promotionalism is so generally the writing style in the world on many subjects. I have made errors by accusing good faith editors, and there is no way I or anyone can tell if something written on a WP talk page is honest. This would therefore be unsuitable for discretionary sanctions or any such action.

Registration might help, but I can see no reason why registration without also requiring identification would actually solve anything, and that would be a step I along with 90% of WPedians would never be willing to make. Similarly, I think the current view that outing is the worst of all possible sins to be exaggerated, but I know I'm in a small minority. And SP investigation are limited by the increasing weakness of checkuser information--it only really helps if the editor makes an error. Almost the only thing left, and as an inclusionist I hate to say it, is tightened inclusion requirements in the most susceptible fields. We might start with performers, but some fields of medicine are almost as bad. DGG ( talk ) 18:06, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• • @DGG: it hardly matters anymore what measures are proposed. The WMF/senior community members say "don't bother us - there's nothing we can do about it." Really? Nothing? @Doc James: used to have a page with a list of about 40 things that could be done - I don't think any one of them is the silver bullet that will be the end of paid editing, but many of the measures will definitely help. So admins tend to vote these measures down - usually along the lines of "this would never work."

So the situation now is that even the most famous, long-term situation of undeclared paid editing can't have anything done about it. The "Wiki-establishment" has now made itself irrelevant - they can't enforce any rules - except perhaps against cooperative rule-following community members. Those who openly identify that they use socks to cheat can't be punished or expelled. They can do whatever they want - and you guys can do nothing! The rules I see the Wiki-establishment trying to enforce are along the lines of "we can't talk about that", "we can't let the outside press know anything about that", and maybe "don't go accusing anybody of anything unless you can prove it - and you can never prove anything on-Wiki." Meanwhile the Wiki-PR's of the world can do anything they want, 'cause the Wiki-establishment has just laid down and said that they're not going to even try enforcing anything!" Shame on all of you. Figure out something you can do, or get out of the way. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:01, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@DGG: and I hasten to add that you should know that this is nothing personal between us. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:08, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I understand that what you are suggesting is that the foundation engage in legal action against the people and companies involved. I agree, and would even support allowing their attorney to breach confidentiality to file lawsuits against people who do not observe the TOS. The WMF execs keep talking about our "brand"; using their own language, they need to defend it. I have also myself proposed many times to senior people there that they use their own communication staff to widely advertise where potential employers will see it , why using paid editors is a very bad idea. These areactions they can take, and we cannot--they are their proper responsibility.

But we can and should do what is within our own sphere to discourage it. Surely we do not want anyone atthe foundation setting standards for articles or blocking editors on their own initiative, or adjusting our reqquirements for us. We can do these things; we should not give up on them. As we both known, and as I hope everybody here knows, no single measure we can take will solve the problem or even make a substantial dent. But taking as many different approaches as we can, they will together discourage at least the beginners. We should not stop doing them out of frustration, which it seems to me might be the attitude you are implying. I do not see what you mean by "step out of the way" --the many things we do at COIN and NPP and AfC and normal editing are not in the way of a more definitive solution. Rather, we need mroe people to join us there. There's a 3 month laga AfC, though Iand a few others specialize now in reviewing and removing the worst cases immediately . We could use another dozen people, and so could NPP. At AfD and MfD, more participation from those who feel that substantial promotionalism is a good reason for deletion can change the consensus. The effective way to work at WP is the same for keeping out advertising as for improving articles: slow but persistent effort.

Your role, Smallbones, in calling so effectively attention to the problem is essential. I hope it will help us attract editors and admins and OTRS agents to take a more focussed role. I would hope it would activate the WMF, but I wouldn't count on it. We need individually to act as if they didn't exist and it depended on us. DGG ( talk ) 06:28, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Do you realize how incomprehensible and therefore repellent your comment is to most of us? "COIN / NPP / AfC / laga AfC / MfD / OTRS" ?? Would you consider spelling them out, giving links, and paraphrasing (i.e saying they are conferences, or webinars, or discussion groups or votes, or whatever)? Numbersinstitute (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

The "page with a list of about 40 things that could be done" mentioned by Smallbones is User:Doc James/Paid editing. I'd like to thank Doc James in his community board rep role for facilitating discussions in this area and providing "air cover" e.g. for the creation of the paidlist, formerly kept in his user space. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:14, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

The WMF can do something - not suck at prioritizing tasks for software development. Having a development team dedicated to maintaining admin and anti-abuse tools would be quite helpful. But this is beyond them for the reasons I wrote about last month. My efforts against spamming are quite hamstrung by phab:T192023, and I am sick of competing for resources in popularity contests with shiny gadgets in order to get this done. MER-C 09:22, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• It's not particularly there's a lot of promotional material driving it - new editors are likely to write about things they're interested in, so of course their articles are typical pretty positive (or very negative). A lot of other practices - notably, preferring third party sources - are also very unintuitive unless you've been around here a long time, and catch new editors. We can, of course, do lots to discourage paid editing; the real issue is that the effective measures will discourage unpaid editing even more strongly, since those with CoIs have much stronger motivation to go through the gauntlet of learning Wikipedia in the face of a reception here that's rarely helpful. If I tried to join today because I noticed my favourite band, Bobo the Guava King, lacked an article, of course it'd be written in a somewhat promotional manner, probably sourced entirely to their website, I'd return the next day to a wall of text on my user page about how I'm a spammer, how I'm in trouble for violating conflict of interest guidelines, the terms of service on paid editing, how the band is unnoteworthy and terrible, how the article I spent all that time working on has been deleted ... well, of course I'd quit and never return. WilyD 06:23, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

• [[User:WilyD|Wily]describes in a nutshell my initial experience editing an article. I was looking for a hobby to fill time while I recovered from surgery. Found a page that sparked my interest and made a few changes. In no time at all I was explaining to a complete stranger that I had no interest in an advertising agency, but I was a fan of the Charlie the Tuna character and remembered the tuna commercials from my childhood. Made me feel quite as if I had done something terribly horribly wrong. Now I try to clean up COI pages but have wondered if my interest in COI pages only makes me look more like a paid editor. While I've long been recovered, I still enjoy editing Wiki pages and maybe one day will be brave enough to write one from scratch. But if you want to add to the community, you've got to embrace the newbies without automatically assuming they are being paid. Just my two cents, and it's not worth even that. NotWilkins — Preceding unsigned comment added by Not Wilkins (talk • contribs) 15:28, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

• I don't know where to put this comment, but I am quite dismayed to see no mention of the passing[1] of top FA writer, gentleman and scholar extraordinaire, Brian Boulton. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
  • User:SandyGeorgia, thanks for letting us know. I just now checked his user page, he was known and liked by all the top people in Featured Articles. If you'd like to write more, please do. Sincerely, Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:54, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
    • I guess my disappointment is that one of the @FAC coordinators: didn't make sure to let you all know. I think Brian deserves a full mention in the next Signpost :( :( If you decide to run an article, please ping me so I can contribute my memories of when he first appeared on the FAC scene, and what it was like to watch his production explode. He was so very widely respected, for his humility, his writing, and his willingness to pitch in to help everywhere at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, with Bri and Smallbones practically running The Signpost on their own (and this month a lot of the work was down to one purpose), I can say from my own former Signpost experience that it is just not possible for the editorial 'team' to know about everything that is happening on and around Wikipedia. Thanks for letting The Signpost know. It's a shame in a way that not all FA writers are so gentlemanly in their approach to other members of the community as Brian was. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:38, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

It's a shame to see your last sentence tacked on to a mention of the sad occasion of someone's death. Unwatch, retract my offer to help write a Signpost article; please forget I stopped by. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Let's say we were to tighten the sourcing standards for notability in WP:BIO to match WP:CORP - this would designate several types of coverage as routine, remove interviews as not intellectually independent and strengthen protections against churnalism. What coverage would count as routine? Coverage of job-related duties? Would this extend to e.g. appearing in X film, appearing in a footy match? Was hired/fired/quit? Spoke at a conference? What about the SNGs? I'm not a notability expert, just airing one possible way forward.
• The easiest thing to do is to strongly encourage NPPers to draftify if COI is suspected.
• I'd like to see non-extended confirmed editors prohibited from editing about privately held companies founded after (10 years prior to this year) and their personnel and investors, and advertising and marketing (broadly construed) in any namespace. But that's probably asking too much. MER-C 04:52, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
  • My impression is that tighter sourcing standards for notability of people would worsen the paid editing problem by making it harder for the people who don't pay for their publicity to become notable while not actually creating obstacles for people willing to pay for the right kind of coverage. But the actual problem in this instance has nothing to do with notability; the people whose articles were involved here are all clearly notable. It is that they wish to spin their articles to describe them as how they want to appear, not as they are, and that they are very persistent in that wish. If you read the linked special report, you would see that one of their methods is to use Wikipedia's own standards against us by describing reliable but unflattering sources as somehow being in violation of those standards. Adding more rules about how good a source must be to be usable only makes this kind of spin easier. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:15, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
    • Tighter standards would lead to more of the borderline notable vanity pages which I'd regard as the mainstream market for paid spammers being deleted. I don't know what we can do against reputation laundering by notable people and companies with practically unlimited resources. The best measure of success should be how much they have to pay - the more, the better. MER-C 09:15, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Benjamin Mako Hill's presumptions are as lacking in substance as the uncivil repudiations meeted out to the ACTRIAL 'activists' by the senior WMF staff. Bearing in mind however, that it took nearly 7 years to get even ACPERM rolled out despite huge support from the community, tightening up the requirements further would need a lot of persuasion and testing. Clearly where all the traditional encyclopedic topics are covered - and are generally the least controversial ones - and being regularly maintained, anyone who works at NPP and AfC is well aware that the vast majority of new articles (whether in mainspace or drafts) are corporate or (auto)biographical spam and the single greatest threat to the integrity of the encyclopedia. As David Eppstein says, any measures should avoid collateral damage.

The problem is that even with the significant reduction in the stream of sewage that was successfully stemmed (succinctly summed up in the two short reports at ACTRIAL wrap-up and ACTRIAL results adopted by landslide), there are far too few truly active New Page Reviewers (less than 5% of the 750 who asked for the user right), and the backlog, once down to only 350 in a bout of initial enthusiasm, is now rapidly approaching 8,000 again. ACTRIAL proved that all the Foundation's arguments against it were totally unfounded, and that despite what are claimed to be founding principles, organic change is necessary. On this premise, while Wikipedia is, and can continue to be, "the encyclopedia anyone can edit", some the suggestions above for further restrictions, especially those by MER-C, may well be getting close to maturity and ready for a serious preliminary debate.

John from Idegon hits the nail on the head and Bri's Chinese Wall is certainly worth clicking the link and actutally reading it. The dark number of whitewashers and paid editors might already have reached such proportions that they could defeat a consensus, especially where we don't know how many of the WMF's own staff are still moonlighting and making money out of their privileges - it hardly comes as a surprise that the WMF wants to relax the rule, and rotten apples have been discovered among the NPPers themselves. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:27, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Of the suggestions above, 3 come to mind as beneficial without major (or any, for the first 2) downsides: More NPP patrollers, more AfC reviewers, and authorisation for pending-changes in cases of "firmly suspected undisclosed paid editing". Disclosed paid editing already goes through a firmer wringer. I am staunchly against a further spread of DS. DS trades one set of participation handicaps for another, and so can be a necessary evil in some places, but I believe it isn't here - particularly when, unlike its current usage, we'd be placing on suspicion. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:18, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Nosebagbear, more New Page Reviewers, yes, certainly, but not until we've weeded out all the inactive ones and hat collectors from among the ~750, 90% of whom either do very little or just nothing at all. If we can get that list severely pruned, there will be some paid editors that get purged along with them. Then with the new trend of admins at PERM understanding the need to first grant new requests on a probationary period only, we may be able to start again with a fairly clean slate. Expecting the top 5 or 6 patrollers to do 90% of the work just puts us back 10 years ago when The Blade of the Northern Lights, Scottywong, and I and a couple of others were doing all the work and decided to do something about it in the shape of ACTRIAL which was very rudely refused by the WMF until we threatened unilateral action by way of a script nearly 8 long years later. Now with the entire history only in the memory of us oldies, it nevertheless represented one of the major defeats ever for the WMF, and the recent Benjamin Mako Hill claims can equally be taken cum grano salis. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:43, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, meant to clarify more active patrollers/reviewers Nosebagbear (talk) 23:46, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• "presidential" should not be capitalized in the context in which it is used in this piece.~TPW 13:49, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

  I agree, per MOS:JOBTITLES ☆ Bri (talk) 15:52, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• One thing which might help in at least a very small way (and perhaps more, in the minds of the more hopeful among us) would be if the Teahouse folks would stop posting giddy welcome and visit the teahouse messages on new user talk pages without noticing that their sole contributions at the time of the delivery of the invitations have been unadulterated SPAM. Back when I was admining, which was only a month ago (but now seems much longer :) this annoyed the bejesus out of me. – Athaenara ✉ 11:45, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-12-27/Gallery

• Why is linking to the article prohibited but naming the outlet (allowing readers to find the article in seconds) allowed? Oversighting should be consistent here. Both or neither, but not one or the other. – Teratix ₵ 14:13, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Apparently the oversight suppression has been reverted (leaving no trace, at least for non-admins.) [2] and [3] are now visible in the edit history. Outing done by third parties in the course of journalism about Wikipedia aren't "badlinks" per WP:LINKLOVE. EllenCT (talk) 14:24, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
    • I removed the story under the clear threat of suppression. An earlier version was suppressed, but I view that as "technical" - I just didn't think they were serious. Can't include a link to the Washington Post? Say what - hillarious joke that. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:33, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
      • @Smallbones: I guess there is only one way to prove my point. He's the Washing Post link in question: How the reporter who found Mitt Romney’s secret Twitter has turned online sleuthing into a beat . Wake me up when you're done claiming censorship. Bitter Oil (talk) 17:43, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
        • @Bitter Oil: I'll copy this from the other page where you asked the same question. The answer applies here as well. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:03, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Self-censorship because an authoritarian environment makes people uncomfortable speaking freely is definitely a form of censorship, often more effective than explicit censorship. It's especially effective when people like you then follow along claiming that nobody was actually censored and that if only Smallbones would consent to getting banned from Wikipedia we would see what actual censorship is like. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:44, 27 December 2019 (UTC) (Please let me know if this is misquoted) Or should I call out the oversighters and ask them directly - is it ok with you if we just go ahead in the next issue and have the discussion of the issue I had planned? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:03, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

You chose not to include my reply to David Eppstein. Here it is: "Smallbones is being self-serving, not self-censoring. He wants to be able to cry "Censorship!" when there really is none. I have pointed out that the original Slate article has been linked at Talk:Pete Buttigieg since Deember 21st (and is still there). I have posted the link to the Washington Post article in this thread and it is still here. And an editor is appropriately adding links of media mentions on Talk:Pete Buttigieg. None of them have been "censored". I joined this discussion to say that I disagreed with the oversighting of the original link, so I am hardly advocating censorship, but it is good to see that your kneejerk reflexes are still working." Cheers. Bitter Oil (talk) 18:11, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• • (EC)When Wikipedians go around trying to eliminate every instance of the text "The Washington Post", that's when we'll know that Wikipedia has fallen into the trap - the false security - of relying on censorship to accomplish its goals. Thanks for the question. The Signpost has no intention of allowing itself to be censored. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:33, 27 December 2019 (UTC) (Editor-in-chief)
    • A range of revisions of the section from 21–22 December are still redacted (but edit summaries are still visible, so it's obvious what was discussed in these revisions). This is still redacted. Could an oversighter please clarify what is and isn't allowed to be discussed, because at the moment nothing is consistent. – Teratix ₵ 14:38, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

      There are ongoing discussions at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Is it outing if a person tells a journalist their wiki account? and Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Mainspace outing czar 17:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Double standards? A few weeks ago I asked if it is ok for Signpost (and Wikipedia in general) to link to a news article that does link to an outing hate page with death threats against editors and such, and the resulting ANI discussion seemed to have closed with most people saying 'not a problem'. So what's different in this case? I wonder if the difference is that the people outed on said page are not admins, but this time the person being outed is an admin (or has active admin friends)? Just a hypothesis (as I have zero knowledge of who might have been outed), but I wonder why this time such a swift and decisive action was taken. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:12, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@Piotrus: Having read the articles at issue, there are two usernames involved, and neither one is an admin. One of the usernames hasn't made an edit in almost 10 years, and the other one made two edits this year, but previously hadn't made an edit in 5 years. Also interesting is that while the link to the article has been oversighted in some places, it hasn't been oversighted in other places. These points have been raised in the conversation at WT:Harassment. I agree that this situation has been handled differently from the one in the ANI post you link to, and I think this shows there's a "hole" in current policy that needs filling. – Levivich 17:30, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• I find the "Myanmar Wikipedia" article incredibly confusing. AFAICT there is no such thing as a "Myanmar Wikipedia, which is written in the Myanmar, Mon and Shan languages", as we have one Wikipedia per language, and contrary to the article, Burmese, Mon and Shan Wikipedias have been given their own subdomains. The Mon Wikipedia was launched as recently as last month. The number of articles given matches that of the Burmese Wikipedia. What the hell is the article talking about? Nardog (talk) 18:05, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

  @Exec8 (who was quoted by name) czar 21:05, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Mainspace outing about whether Wikipedia usernames identified by reliable sources constitute outing. As I have pointed out in that discussion (and directly to Smallbones), the original Slate story which sparked this has been linked from Talk:Pete Buttigieg since December 21st. I have linked the Washington Post article in that thread without it being oversighted or me being blocked. The claim of Signpost censorship simply does not hold water. This is a distraction from the policy issue under discussion. Bitter Oil (talk) 17:37, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

See above quote - you are just repeating yourself. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:03, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I expressed my opinion about this before you published it. You chose to continue (as is your right) and I am expressing my reaction now that you have published. That's what the comment section is for. Bitter Oil (talk) 18:15, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Bitter Oil, assuming your reference to talk:Pete Buttigieg is to the diff posted in the above section by Teratix, it is suppressed. EdChem (talk) 04:22, 28 December 2019 (UTC) Edited to correct user name and re-sign for ping to work. EdChem (talk) 04:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I believe Bitter Oil is actually referring to this section in Talk:Pete Buttigieg. – Teratix ₵ 04:30, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Ok, Teratix, thanks – I guess it's something else that's been suppressed. EdChem (talk) 04:42, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

No trend AFAICS. Just a sudden bunch of RfA on which the usual trolls were either not able to cause a stampede of pile-on oppose votes, or simply got bored and stayed away. Undeniably however, most potential candidates won't run nowadays unless they have a very, very strong reason to assume they'll pass. Of course, we nominators don't get it right all the time, but nobody is perfect. This year has seen a few more new admins than what has become 'normal', but on average I don't see it as bucking any trends. Perhaps remind The Signpost readers of the RfA trilogy I wrote last year. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:13, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

If you proceed with the belief that almost all candidates are worthy, then it's no wonder would-be kingmakers like you bristle at any dissent from the working classes. RFA stopped being meaningful once bureaucrats decided that the numbers don't matter, so anyone that participates now does so in an empty manner. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:02, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Chris troutman please do me a favour and do some fact checking before you launch into personal attacks. I am one of the rarest nominators, and I only bristle at the trolls. I would never say a word against a genuine, non vengeful, or well researched oppose vote. It might not sway my position if I'm upstairs in my House of Lords, but I would respect it. Times have changed since the days when my early votes on an RfA would have an influence; nowadays I generally vote late, and the outcome by then is pretty much already secure (one way or the other.) Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:28, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Frankly, I disagree. From my vantage point, RfA has become far less of a gauntlet than it was a few years ago. Most solid candidates pass easily. The problem lies in identifying these candidates and persuading them to run. It probably doesn't help matters that some editors are still repeating the doom-and-gloom mantra. Lepricavark (talk) 23:48, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

That's not quite accurate, Lepricavark. RfA is still the snake pit it's been for well over a decade. You only need to take a look. The only reason candidates pass with flying colours (or most of them anyway nowadays) is because the only ones who are prepared to come forward nowadays are the ones who are are almost certain to pass and are brave enough to shake the evil behaviour off like water from a ducks back. There is no 'doom', aspiring candidates only need to look at a few RfA and they can draw their own conclusions. Any 'gloom' is what we get from from the users themselves when we try to talk them into running. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:51, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I've followed recent RfAs fairly closely and I can't say that I agree with your conclusions. 'Evil behaviour' is definitely a stretch. Lepricavark (talk) 04:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Obviously Lepricavark, you won't agree if all you have only examined the most recent RfAs. Solid knowledge comes from solid - and long - empirical experience. Admittedly I've only been following RfA matters for 10 years and only voted on 400 or so, but I believe it's enough for me to have been able to notice any trends and changes. Oh, and I have been through the process myself. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:20, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Fine. I'll rephrase. I've been following RfA for years (which includes the recent one, as I'm sure you would agree) and I base my comments on the observations I have made while following RfA for years. Oh, and I have also been through the process myself. Twice, in fact. Lepricavark (talk) 18:24, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

There were 500 admins classified as active just yesterday, as well as for the full first week of this month, FWIW. Usually the number of active admins rises significantly enough in December, January, and February that we would also expect a moving average to increase. Dekimasuよ! 03:43, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I would also like to become an admin after reading this. Apart from thatI also nominated the Turkish court overruling Erdogan's decision on banning Wikipedia in ITN section. Hope this Signpost would encourage to post it in ITN. Abishe (talk) 04:14, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• For a discussion on this held in November, see RfA - Rising Success Rate. That discussion moved on to consider how many applications we'd need. In total numbers, we'd need loads, but to match the declining rate of active admins (rate as of that point), we'd need 31/year or 2.55/month. While a new strategy might be best, that number probably is acheivable. Perhaps combined with some efforts of actually trying to re-engage admins, especially those still active on the site in any fashion. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Very interesting article. I have a sense (or maybe just hope), that the body of admins is kind of stabilizing from a "bubble" in the early days? Wikipedia should have some clear graphs on the front page showing the trend in articles, which I think keeps rising – E.g. we should keep re-selling ourselves to ex-admins that the project, staffing issues aside, continues to be in high demand by its readers. I know people in Microsoft who tell me that they gave up years ago trying to "compete" with Wikipedia (e.g. proprietary and/or other platforms), and that Google is of the same view.

My biggest concern is for the smaller group of 30-50 admins who do 90% of the admin work, and who dominate individual AIV, RPP, UAA, XfD, ANI, CCI, CSD, SPI, etc. boards. The loss of any of these admins who be serious, and given the inevitable "burn-out" of many admins, is almost a certainty. Part of the issue is that we need more technology (e.g. more Cluebots in different areas), however, there are many areas that need "human" judgment. I am not sure how this is going to work out? Britishfinance (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• This is a huge concern, and it's not limited to admin backlogs either. We're currently experiencing an unprecedented crisis at WP:AFC, which has the unfortunate intersection of being a boring task that requires a good amount of expertise to handle (at least, I think that's what the problem is). As I write this there are 3,763 unreviewed submissions, including over 1,000 of which are at least two months old, so I dread to think of what would happen if some of our most diligent and hard-working editors who do an incredible job at AFC were not able to continue. — Bilorv (talk) 01:35, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Bilorv, AfC has problems, but not the ones you mention here. There is no urgency at AfC - have you seen the stats of accepted vs declined/rejected?. What the community should be focusing on right now is the huge backlog at NPP, our only firewall against inappropriate new articles, and subjected to a harsh deadline. It's an uphill battle, and it's losing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:40, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• It doesn't matter whether the backlog is at AfC, NPP or elsewhere. A problem I found is that some editors really don't like unknown admins showing up the area that they frequented (possibly because they don't know if the admin is an inclusionist or deletionist). For example, I closed an XfD 9 months ago (which I usually don't do, but have done in the past) and was promptly called out by a now-banned editor for "You are an Admin? Never seen you at MfD or take any other Admin action ever." With that kind of attitude and treatment, why would admins feel like they should continue doing admin work while being attacked? This isn't going to be fixed even with RfA reforms or more admins. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 03:59, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Kudpung: there's urgency for two reasons that I see. The first is that editor retention will improve if an editor sees their draft accepted or rejected, rather than sitting stale for as long as it takes for them to forget that they submitted it. Of course this only applies to some types of people who submit AFCs (e.g. not paid editors) but it's still a huge base. The reason you might have overlooked this factor is that currently almost no AFC submitters (other than paid ones) stick around, and the explanation for that is that our reviews are taking months. The second reason I have is that we do have a deadline: drafts are deleted after six months, information can become stale over time and the queue is getting longer, which means that if the trend were to continue indefinitely then there would be many drafts that would never be reviewed. This forecast isn't actually that unlikely, as Wikipedia continues to scare off and burn out its long-term editors, whilst paid editing and POV editing is on the increase.
  @OhanaUnited: I think this experience points to a really hostile culture we have all over Wikipedia when it comes to ownership and a perceived need for control. Admins often receive the worst of this but in general I think it's a huge editor retention problem, which in the end is a big contributing factor to every backlog we have. — Bilorv (talk) 13:26, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Bilorv, there's a lot of truth in what you are saying but unlkike NPP with its much tighter deadline, AfC is not the gatekeeper of Wikipedia - it's a concession we make to IPs and those who can't wait until their accounts are autoconfirmed. Now, autoconfirmed is an extremely low threshold, so anyone who really wants to see their article published can surely register an account or make those 10 edits in 4 days and if they don't know how to do it, there is a plethora of help pages and venues. Perhaps that's one of the problems: there's so much help and a forest of links to it and confusing policies and guidelines they can't see the wood for the trees. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:33, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree that NPP also has a big backlog which causes a lot of trouble. A pet peeve of mine, however, is your position that anyone who's truly interested can easily get autoconfirmed. I think you're really underestimating how easy it is to find places to edit when you've never edited before. You might think, "I watched this movie the other day, maybe I could look at that" and read through it thoroughly, eventually work out a small improvement you can make, and then find for some reason it won't let you edit it (semi-protection)! Most of our guidelines for newbies really do have the wood-for-the-trees issue. And of course there are brilliant tools like TWA or that Special page recommended to newbies which leads them to a random page in a few cleanup categories (e.g. needs copyediting) that even I can't find anymore. But these tools are only obvious to a newbie if they're the first thing they accidentally stumble across.

The other thing is that I feel "if they're really interested..." is exactly backwards of what we want. We want to be persuading people that they do want to edit, not making themselves prove that they do. I wasn't that interested in editing 6 years ago, but I had a decent initial experience and here I still am, and hopefully I've been a good asset to the site in that time.

Another thing is that I'd rather see autoconfirmed people still using AFC rather than creating articles directly—I think it's a lot better to have a draft rejected or a helpful comment left rather than the scary "WE'RE GOING TO DELETE YOUR PAGE" tags. What has been happening a lot more recently is NPP patrollers moving things to draftspace, the editors submitting them to AFC and then... nothing... for months and months... and then a rejection, and the editor is long gone. So in a way, NPP won't work unless AFC works as well. — Bilorv (talk) 16:17, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Bilorv, again, I can't disagree with you. I and one or two others have been working hard these past 12 months or so to dispel the traditional rivalry between NPP and AfC. Their approach to new pages is fundamentally different but the mechanics of the processes are as dissimilar as they are alike - but we do now have them cohabiting on the same feed interface sharing all the filters and ORES. But NPP is basically a binary triage (a concept that people with with front line army experience or MCI aid workers will understand) while AfC is more of a field hospital. It would naturally be ideal if all new pages were to be put through AfC, but that would require thousands of reviewers rather than just 200 or so (of whom like at NPP only a fraction are truly active). Nobody really likes doing either task once they have been at it long enough to be fed up with the arrogance and insults from people who believe 'anyone can edit' gives them a constitutional right to claim a slot in mainspace for just whatever purpose they like. I have no qualms telling such people to bugger off, but I'll bend over backwards to offer some genuine help to those who deserve it.. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:11, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

• based on what I read on these pages, I'd huve to give up full-time work and spend a couple of years editing to again feel ready to stand. By the time I retire, that bar will likely be much higher. I'm never going to write a feature article, and no one needs to do that to serve as a good administrator. That's clear in part because it's a process that isn't particularly dependent upon administrator authority at any point. I've always found that to be a curious test.~TPW 13:57, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
  • If you haven’t written a featured article you are very unlikely to get 100% support. But you could get well over 95% and the passmark is much lower. I am not convinced that the de facto criteria are actually rising, with the possible exception of tenure where several editors seem to vote against anyone with less that 15 months tenure. It is still possible to become an admin with a level of activity that fits in with also having a full time job. ϢereSpielChequers 20:36, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
• I've always felt that number of active administrators isn't the only way we should judge the health of the site as a whole. There can be many strong contributors who will not run to be an administrator, because they either fear the process or simply have no interest in it, or feel unqualified. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 15:46, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi Eddie, yes there other metrics, such as how much editing activity and how the editing community as a whole is growing or declining. When the editing community as a whole appeared to be dwindling there was a lot of fuss about that, even though much of the apparent decline from 2007 to 2014 was because of the increased use of edit filters and the move of links between different language versions of Wikipedia to Wikidata as well as the difficulty of editing Wikipedia on a smartphone. The 2015 rally seems to have ended with Wikipedia editing levels stable at a significantly higher level than in 2014. But the decline in active admin numbers has continued. However I take your point that lots of Wikipedians simply don’t want to be admins, and I’m OK with that. My fear is that there are qualified candidates out there who would easily pass RFA but have been deterred by myths that have arisen re the process. WereSpielChequers 08:51, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
• Whilst a small number of admins actively seek out potential candidates and encourage them to put themselves forward, we could probably do more to actively mentor them, as I think once used to happen, or even to train any new or existing admin in complex areas that they might become interested in. Of course, we do have WP:ORFA, and a number of guidance pages for potential admin candidates who think they might be ready to take on the role. But we have nothing whatsoever that allows editors to self-test their knowledge and understanding of our many policies and procedures, or to help them gauge for themselves how ready they might be to become an administrator. This could be something as simple as a 25-50 question multiple choice page, giving a helpful indication and scoring, but without any of the public exposure, criticism or even embarrassment that an ORFA can bring. I firmly believe we should turn our attention to creating this sort of resource, or maybe finding a way for other (extended-confirmed?) users to flag up or praise other editors who they think show  good admin-like abilities. (On a different note, Bri please not a small typo in the Turkish article: Suffice to say that we (Wikipedians) think that it [is] important for people to....) Nick Moyes (talk) 22:55, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• I just joined AFC. It's super easy with the helper gadget - don't forget to sign up first - I got to help some articles along that probably deserved to exist, and there's always a backlog! If you've been around long enough to have a good nose for what would live or die at AFD, then you're qualified - David Gerard (talk) 22:14, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

I can't remember if I ever ran. I've written FAs, GAs, and whatnot. I think I did run and I got a bunch of "doesn't need the tools". It's hard to hear someone's vocal inflection in text, but I swear it was "fuck you!" Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:14, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, you did run; t'was back in 2007. See Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Peregrine Fisher. Nick Moyes (talk) 23:31, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• A while ago I sent @Vanamonde93: a list of thirty-four prospective admin candidates, but I've decided to allow any admin to make good use of the list in the hopes of fixing Wikipedia's admin problem. ミラP 03:35, 5 January 2020 (UTC)
• What's a cratchat, and why did such an odd combination of letters pass copy edit? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 06:36, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

• @BeenAroundAWhile: Wikipedia:CRATCHAT. – Athaenara ✉ 03:55, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bri: Wikipedia is still blocked in Turkey. You might want to correct the article. Kaldari (talk) 20:49, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Unblocked yesterday, according to The New York Times ☆ Bri (talk) 17:52, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

• Hi Pine. I tend to comment on In The Bright Side and enjoy reading the Signpost, especially this series. I've wanted to help the Signpost for awhile, but I don't think I'd be able to write an entire article by myself for it. I've tried before and for me at least, it's a lot harder than it looks. That said, I'd like to keep trying. I like the idea of a team of volunteers, though, for In The Bright Side. Many hands make light work, right? Clovermoss (talk) 19:26, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Clovermoss, I would be happy to collaborate with you on future issues. There are a few ways that this could happen. One is that we could alternate weeks. Another is that each of us could contribute one point to each week's content. Do either of those sound appealing to you? I am open to other suggestions too. ↠Pine (✉) 22:26, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Pine: I like the idea of each of us contributing a point each week. I'm not a super active Wikipedian especially with being a student but I think I'm active enough for that kind of commitment. When we collaborate, would it be in the Newsroom? Clovermoss (talk) 22:33, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• @Clovermoss: the way that I usually start "On the bright side" is with a template that has placeholders for each week's content. Then each week I add some content to the draft, including a translation of "What's making you happy this week" in to a language that is relevant to the content. We can both edit the draft each week. If we want to discuss the draft then the Newsroom talk page would be one good place to do that. If we want to have realtime conversations then there are additional tools that we can use such as Google Hangouts or Internet relay chat. ↠Pine (✉) 22:52, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Pine: Okay, that sounds good. I'd prefer to keep communication on-wiki or through email but I might consider the Google Hangouts idea. Thanks for letting me collaborate wih you... I'm really excited about it. Clovermoss (talk) 23:52, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• @Clovermoss: that sounds fine to me. Would you like to introduce yourself in the Newsroom talk page? Mainly what would be good to state there is that you are volunteering to collaborate on "On the bright side". Biographical information is unnecessary but can be included if you are okay with that information being public. In your introduction, I recommend pinging the current editor in chief of The Signpost, who is Smallbones, and his primary assistant, who is Bri. Thank you for volunteering. After your introduction, let's discuss content for next week on that page. ↠Pine (✉) 23:59, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• I believe the first caption is meant to read "a historic" instead of "an historic". See [4]. Cheers, Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 19:27, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Hi Willbb234, there was a discussion about this at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 41#Change all instances of "an historic" to "a historic". The consensus appears to be that it is a WP:ENGVAR issue. Personally, I am okay with either option. If you would like to change the text to read "a historic", I won't object, but please don't get into an edit war with someone about it. Thanks! ↠Pine (✉) 22:30, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Pine doesn't matter, thanks for the help though! Willbb234^Talk (please {{ping}} me in replies) 23:18, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately my Wikipedia experience this month (indeed, this year) has been more in the nature of "what is making you unhappy". I've not been keeping a diary or commonplace book, but as Qian Xuan is so delightful (thank you) and in the spirit of sharing, here we are some recent things that I have found uplifting:

Good luck with your plan to crowdsource some happiness. God knows, we need it. Just keep swimming. Theramin (talk) 01:12, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing, Theramin. I hope that 2020 treats you well. ↠Pine (✉) 07:15, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for writing this @Jesswade88:! I know that many Wikipedians feel it an honor to have you writing on Wikipedia. It is certainly an honor for The Signpost to number you among our contributors. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:24, 27 December 2019 (UTC) (Editor-in-chief)

I think such praise is a bit overblown and I regret Smallbones offering it on behalf of The Signpost; I assure you that there was no team vote on this matter. The fact is, Wikipedia editors just want affirmation for their preferred text. In this oped, Jess plays the feminist martyr upset that she has received blowback rather than plaudits. Hers is the popular narrative in SanFran to which only hate-filled people object. She tells us that there are others online that also yearn for un-earned adulation for spouting their political beliefs, too. Shame on Wikipedia for being an unfair game. Our rules-based volunteer community should support the creation of articles meeting WP:N and should punish vindictive, bad-faith tagging. As for me, I hear the message of the "hasten-the-day" crowd and wonder if we all just stopped giving the WMF a perverse incentive by writing for our own selfish needs perhaps more equity might be found on this website. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:43, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the fandom paper. So, it turns out that what our editors know, write and care about are pretty much the same topics. Yes, some old-time editors are railfans or lovers of warships, so our articles on locomotives and submarines are carefully fussed over by several editors and tend to be excellent. And newbies often follow the dictum that petty minds discuss people, mediocre minds discuss events, and great minds discuss ideas, or for whatever other reason concentrate on biographies of the living. Some of the resulting articles are poorly written, little tended, and seldom viewed. Me, I agree with Dr Laurel Weaver; I hate the living; in my case it's because so many of them earnestly desire recognition through Wikibiography. Because I'm an elderly fanboy for infrastructure, bicycling, astronomy and diplomacy, those articles tend to have shorter sentences than when I found them. Should we stop writing about what we know and either love or hate? No, though of course we should be wary of oozing WP:POV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jim.henderson (talk • contribs)

Thank you Jesswade88 for your efforts to amplify the voices of marginalized people on Wikipedia. Funcrunch (talk) 19:59, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I have one observation. There are presently, & as far as I can tell will always be, a number of trolls, cranks & boneheads contributing to Wikipedia, & one can't really consider oneself an experienced Wikipedian until one has encountered at least one of these. These are the people who make the edits that Jesswade88 mentions here. They are endemic here on Wikipedia because they are endemic in the wider world, & I don't know of any simple & reliable way to filter them out. (Except being confident that, based on their track record, any solution the Foundation tries to implement is more likely to reduce the total number of active editors than to reduce the number of trolls, cranks & boneheads who commit the acts we find unhelpful.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:41, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

We are always going to be vulnerable to newbie "mistakes", but I do wonder whether we make it too easy for people to tag articles for deletion. This problem would not have happened, or at least not on this scale, if an account had to acquire a track record of accurate deletion tagging before being able to quickly tag 50 articles for deletion. ϢereSpielChequers 21:25, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers, re: deletion tagging restrictions, if the talk page account is right, the 49 articles were tagged for notability (not deletion), reported as disruptive, and remediated within two hours. For reference, the media appearances were a week later: Dec 5 (BBC program) and Dec 7 (Telegraph article). czar 23:09, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

That. And the tagger was blocked 5 min after report. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:12, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

WereSpielChequers, side-stepping what Czar has written -- which is very much on point -- I've found that the process for tagging articles for deletion anything but trivial: I can spend 15-20 minutes writing up an article for deletion. (But since at heart I'm an Inclusionist, perhaps I take much more time & effort to make a solid argument for any deletion I propose.) In any case, no one can write up 50 serious nominations for deletion in an hour. Maybe 50 serious CSDs, but even in that situation I'd consider it a special case & requiring justification. Or a reason for a ban on several grounds. -- llywrch (talk) 01:03, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't dispute that correct tagging, either for notability or deletion, is complex and usually time consuming. The problem in my view is that is far too easy for people to do this sort of thing incorrectly and at speed. ϢereSpielChequers 09:55, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

And has anyone bothered to enter a bug report over the fact that one can blank an entire page with a single edit? (No, let's not report that as a bug. The Foundation will come up with a solution that will prove worse than the problem. And devote an embarrassingly outlandish amount of resources to arrive at that solution.) -- llywrch (talk) 10:11, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

• With RfC for the New Page Reviewer right in October 2016, it was intended to place the quality control of new articles in the hands of quality controlled individuals. But the hive mentality of Wikipedia wisdom, waved aside any measures to prevent the wanton tagging for deletion by every troll, crank & bonehead and their dogs. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Once again, a problem with a bad faith IP editor. Color me unsurprised. How long shall we continue to put up with IP editing, which is responsible for a disproportionate number of tendentious edits and a lion's share of the outright vandalism? Carrite (talk) 20:37, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Jesswade88: While I appreciate the work you have done to raise awareness about this issue, I do wish you would spend some of your visibility capital on educating journalist on what they themselves can do to overcome this issue. SNG criteria are good and all but GNG trumps all. The journalists you are in contact with are uniquely positioned to simply solve this problem without controversy. But that does not get clicks. It doesn't sell papers. If 4 or 5 journalists today could be convinced to profile Clarice Phelps, to truly profile her, to spend as much digital real estate focusing on just her rather than this controversy, there would not be a single good-faith editor that would stand in the way of Draft:Clarice Phelps being published. Heck, I would do it myself. Since that page has been deleted, I am constantly on the look out for Google Alerts of her name and time and time again, what I see is significant coverage of this controversy and not a single new additional significant coverage of her and her life and her work. Just passing mentions of a single event in her career followed by paragraph after paragraph of how unfair it is that we have policies and consensus-based decision-making. Where was she born? When? Is she still in the Navy? What is her current area of research? etc... These are the types of questions for which if the answers could be found in a reliable sources, we can throw the whole question of NACADEMIC out the window and simply rely on GNG. But alas Wikipedia exists in the real world and scientists do not receive this much interested and detailed coverage. Wikipedia did not invent the gender gap and is not uniquely affected by it. And the current situation is only half our fault. The media are as guilty as us, the volunteers of this project we love, who they mercilessly criticize. But that is fine. Sticks and stones. I only wish something good came from it. I only wish they understood our predicament and helped solve it. I wish they would do their job: to investigate, verify and publish. We would be happy to cite them. Scholarly journals are also to blame. When is the last time you remember reading a festschrift dedicated to a female scientist? I have seen many about men but can't remember seeing a single one about a woman. I wish they knew that we do not control notability, they do. We gave them the power to dictate what is worthy of note. Are we supposed to regret that decision? --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 06:49, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

While I don't care too much about 'minority representation' issues, it is pretty unfortunate that such an important person was almost completely ignored.

Out of curiosity though, the Nobel prize woman, what were her credentials and other accomplishments compared to previous laureates? TerribleTy2727 (talk) 03:10, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-12-27/Recent research

Thanks, @Newslinger:. This is a very good report on a very serious topic. It is incredibly time-consuming to check out this material in such detail. At the end of the day ... ? Well, we are certainly sure that the WSJ did not mess up it's reporting, or that there's not some simple explanation that "outside media" just don't understand. In other words Wiki-PR/Status Labs have been caught again, stealing "free advertisements" from Wikipedia. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:09, 27 December 2019 (UTC) (Editor-in-chief, The Signpost)

• Great coverage of an important topic. We know that political editing occurs, and this reminds me of a case which was never fully resolved by appropriate sanctions. A slap on the hand and some perpetrators were just allowed to continue:
  • Koch Industries Employs PR Firm To Airbrush Wikipedia, Gets Banned For Unethical ‘Sock Puppets’

Keep up the good work. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:07, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:CORPSPAM is a problem that just won't go away. You can help too: just try to glance at several random company articles every day (or go through a stub category like Category:Japanese company stubs and try to nominate some trash for deletion every day. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:05, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• Inspired by (newly minted admin) Newslinger's special report, I finally finished Visium Asset Management which I plan to nominate for DYK. We can't prevent cases like this, but we can combat their usage through continuous productive editing. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:38, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• this excellent reporting reinforces what should be obvious: paid editing is not the problem, failure to enforce core policies is. I suppose the policy gives legal cover and allows for cease-and-desist letters, but paid or not biased editing is not okay, and neutral editing stands on its own regardless of motivation. We editors need to be more attentive rather than hiding behind a policy.~TPW 14:07, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• Thanks for doing the hard work of ferreting out the truth from the intentional confusion slung by a highly motivated editor. Keep up the good fight. SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:09, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
• A great report, but it rather depressingly highlights my own failings as an editor - and perhaps those of many others. I might think I'm fighting vandals and keeping the encyclopedia safe, but I would probably have glossed over many (all?) of these edits at Recent Changes as I personally have no interest and/or understanding in companies, trivial celebrities and political groups. If they're subtle or complex edits, and on topics I know zilch about, I'd probably have let them pass. That worries me. A lot. I can only hope that others who are motivated by these topics will indeed make up for the inevitable subject weaknesses in people like me, as we increasingly need your skills and commitment to stop Wikipedia being taken over by POV-pushers and paid editors. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:11, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-12-27/Technology report

Amazed(!) at how dense people are, regarding Tunzi's win on Miss Universe -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 14:32, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the report. Your commentary makes the statistics more interesting. As for Elizabeth II, I haven't watched The Crown (yet), but I did read her article recently, out of curiousity. Mainly because I forgot how old she was... then, I ended up reading the whole article. Clovermoss (talk) 02:24, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

There's an error here. There's been no "Queen of England" title since 1707, it's Queen of the United Kingdom. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:21, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• I perfectly know that. If it was a mainspace article it would be wrong to be this informal. It's not, so I just went "Queen of England (and many more places)", linking to the Commonwealth in the parenthesis. But someone changed it, if it tickles your fancy. igordebraga ≠ 02:29, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@Puddleglum2.0: It's great to have the WikiProject Report back again. Readers may wish to suggest their favorite WikiProject as a possible subject of future reports. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:21, 27 December 2019 (UTC) EiC

Yes, to all readers, please feel free to suggest WikiProjects that you would like to see featured. You can suggest them here or on my talk page; whichever is more convenient for you. Thanks! Puddleglum ^2.0 16:00, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

• "We have more garden than gardeners". Yes; pretty much all topics are like that. Articles about famous things get heavy traffic and are regularly vandalized and assiduously gardened, but the less famous topics get created and not much more. Promotional work such as edit-a-thons concentrate on planting more garden, and not on improving the health of the garden. Publicity is about the article count hitting the five million mark or eight or whatever million we're up to, since that's a nice simple number, but it counts weeds and sickly plants as progress. Jim.henderson (talk) 15:35, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @Jim.henderson: That's why I admire the people who take the time to expand articles, especially stubs. There's a lot more to an article than making a red link blue. When I do make stubs, I try to follow the advice of WP:Make stubs, and I also like to go back and try to expand my own articles when I think that I'm at the point where I can do that. The other thing is that article writing is hard. It's much easier when people help each other improve an article to be the best it can be. That's why I like Wikiprojects. Clovermoss (talk) 22:06, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
• Thanks to Puddleglum2.0 for reaching out for an interview! I think we have a great corner of Wikipedia at Tree of Life and it's nice to share it with the rest of the community. Enwebb (talk) 23:39, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

And thanks to you Enwebb for answering my questions! Your answers and work are appreciated. :) Puddleglum ^2.0 05:13, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Puddleglum2.0 thanks for this great coverage!! I'm glad to see WikiProjects get some great coverage. thanks! --Sm8900 (talk) 05:36, 13 January 2020 (UTC)