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User:Vipul sponsors Wikipedia editing

Vipul Naik sponsors Wikipedia editing. See https://vipulnaik.com/sponsored-wikipedia-editing/ and https://contractwork.vipulnaik.com/ and http://effective-altruism.com/ea/w5/looking_for_wikipedia_article_writers_topics/ (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:43, 6 February 2017 (UTC) @Peteforsyth: I hope you guys can interview Vipul Naik, I think his project is very interesting. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

This is being "vigorously" discussed at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard#Vipul's paid editing enterprise. Copied into a Word document the discussion is now 27 pages long. - Brianhe (talk) 19:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

yikes. TeeVeeed (talk) 22:14, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

• I would very much discourage "interviewing" him for the 'post. What seems on the surface to be a utopian concept turns out to be very insidious and worrisome and out-of-control. (In my opinion.) Softlavender (talk) 03:55, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

A paper about changes in user behavior once they become an RFA

[1] A statistical analysis of our RFA process and how it can help weed out "information manipulators", though finding that (for either intentional and unintentional reasons) that many admins post-RFA start to become these types of manipulators. eg: "...we document that a surprisingly large number of editors change their behavior and begin focusing more on a particular controversial topic once they are promoted to administrator status." --MASEM (t) 03:17, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a rather nice article btw. When first coming across it I expected a rather low quality paper, as we have seen so many of in this much less 'tangible' part of our encyclopedia, but it seems rather comprehensive and with quite a bit of understanding of how we operate. Refreshing ! —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:41, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Finnish Wikipedia 15 years in February 21, 2017

Finnish Wikipedia celebrates the 15th birthday of its existence.--Kulttuurinavigaattori 06:05, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

https://twitter.com/wm_rs/status/832682011076677636/photo/1 Happy Birthday! TeeVeeed (talk) 13:30, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Birthday cake - 14th Birthday of Serbian Wikipedia

Found commons photo not sure where to put itTeeVeeed (talk) 13:37, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Major user category guideline change proposal

I think it may be worthwhile to advertise this discussion to a much wider audience: Wikipedia_talk:User_categories#Request_for_Comment_on_the_guidelines_regarding_.22joke.22_categories.. The outcome potentially changes a longstanding stance on the social networking aspect of the site, for better or for worse. VegaDark (talk) 05:05, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

The conflicting instructions editors give to bots

Slashdot comments on this story in the Guardian which discusses this article in PLOS One entitled "Even good bots fight: The case of Wikipedia". From the abstract: "We find that, although Wikipedia bots are intended to support the encyclopedia, they often undo each other’s edits and these sterile “fights” may sometimes continue for years." Perhaps it's news to the read-only community that bots edit here. タチコマ robot, RussBot, Xqbot, and DarknessBot are discussed, among others. Chris Troutman (talk) 04:13, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, we'll for sure aim to cover this in the monthly research section. FYI, and without preempting a fuller review, I have heard some concerns expressed about the validity of some conclusions, in particular regarding how much of the "bot fighting bots" was simply the result of human editors' actions (e.g. moving articles back and forth, which then got reflected by these interwiki bots on other wikis).

Note also the sentence in the paper "Since our results were largely dictated by inter-language bots, we believe that the conflict we observed on Wikipedia no longer occurs today [after the introduction of Wikidata in 2013]."

Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Bot wars

Bot war on Wikipedia?

Automated Wikipedia Edit-Bots Have Been Fighting Each Other For A Decade Hawkeye7 (talk) 05:59, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I tried reading through to the Guardian and the study itself. Am I missing something? It sounds terribly overblown. They make the numbers of bot-bot reverts sound like bot "wars" are going on, but they don't present any data that supports the idea. The number of reverts is vanishingly small compared to the total number of edits that occurred over the period. The fact that nobody had any idea these bot wars were happening until an exhaustive study uncovered it is telling. Yes, it's a bug when two systems work against each other, but then they do it so rarely that nobody notices and no real harm happens, then that's a pretty decent system. But they want to make a Hollywood plotline out of it I guess. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:45, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

The Bots go crazy and kill everyone. Happens every time. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

"Virtual Front": state-sponsored pro-Russia mass-editing campaign on its way?

This article. "Russian Government Youth Group Wants to Make Wikipedia More Patriotic" reports the creation of something called "Virtual Front", a forthcoming attempt organized by the Russian State Duma Youth Parliament to mass-edit the Russian-language Wikipedia to make it "more patriotic". If this is real, it's not only Signpost-article-worthy, it's also something the Russian Wikipedia community and WMF should be aware of.

As a side-note, the article also mentions an initiative commissioned by Dmitry Medvedev to study the possibility of creating a state-approved Russian Wikipedia clone. -- The Anome (talk) 10:14, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I attempted to notify the Russian Wikipedia community. Kaldari (talk) 21:36, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Looks like there is already a vigorous discussion underway (prior to my notice). Kaldari (talk) 01:39, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

See also this Russian-language Wikinews article -- The Anome (talk) 20:32, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you both, Kaldari and The Anome. Let's be sure to include as an "in brief" on either News and Notes or In the Media. I'm trying to publish today, but way behind. If you have a moment to draft something up, that would be a big help; I'll do the best I can with it if not. -Pete Forsyth (talk) 04:21, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: This seems to be an attempt to engage with the VF project in a way that operates within, rather than opposing, Wikipedia's editorial norms. But there's very little sign of any progress so far. -- The Anome (talk) 11:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Kids on wikipedia

I think you should write an opinion piece on kids' edits. I'd do it but I edit under an Ip and I can't create pages. 68.233.214.74 (talk) 18:28, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Intellipedia for In the news

• Dreyfuss, Emily (March 10, 2017). "The Wikipedia for Spies—And Where It Goes From Here". Wired. Retrieved March 11, 2017. 

The part that bites the hardest:

Think of Intellipedia as a Wikipedia for spies. It works the same, except that there’s no anonymity for contributors, and nothing can ever be unsourced.

Way to go, WP:V czar 17:13, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest task force RfC passed

English Wikipedia is going to get "a task force of trusted editors to act as referees in matters related to conflict of interest and outing" posted 16 March 2017. Details are murky at this time. – Bri (talk) 20:17, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

But the close was retracted by an admin. I don't know what's going on. - Bri (talk) 00:19, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

A new op-ed

@Peteforsyth: My first op-ed for the Signpost: User:Kaldari/Lead sentences have cancer. Kaldari (talk) 03:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Brilliant! Johnbod (talk) 04:06, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Ha! Very good, Kaldari. Did you know that the date format in the lead of articles is the biggest conflict in German Wikipedia? It's a huge serious war over years with 5 or 6 Meinungsbilder (RfC-votes in dewiki) and even outside attention in the press and the church. German Wikipedia early on adopted a german old encyclopedic tradition of using symbols for death and birth, unfortunately the death symbol is a cross and therefor not NPOV. Muslim and jewish tradition does not appreciate crosses in biographies of their dead. Supporters of the traditional symbol claim that this symbol is not religious and therefor neutral. What really kicks the conflict into nuclear mode is that many supporters feel like they are accused of antisemitism. While... etc etc. The conflict is still unresolved and burning (currently small flame). Maybe it is good for your op-ed not to step into this territory ("Don't mention the war!"). BTW, i had to look up the year of the 9th edition to get a feel for the age of the english tradition. Good work! --Atlasowa (talk) 09:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

PS I can provide links to kilometers of heated german discussions on the subject, if you're interested. I don't recommend it, it's cringeworthy. --Atlasowa (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Editing outages on 19 April and 3 May

I hope to have all the details soon. Please {{ping}} me if you have questions about this before I get back to you. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 07:06, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

I have confirmed the schedule. All of the wikis will be in read-only mode for 20 to 30 minutes on these two days:

• Wednesday, 19 April 2017, starting at 14:00 UTC
• Wednesday, 3 May 2017 (two weeks later), starting at 14:00 UTC

(There is always a chance of a delay.) There is more information at m:Tech/Server switch 2017.

Would it be helpful if I wrote a short article about this? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:12, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Sure, if you want to write something up it can go in the next tech report - Evad37 [talk] 00:58, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

@Evad37: I've re-worked last year's article; you can find it at User:Whatamidoing (WMF)/Server switch. Let me know if you have questions, want something different, etc. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 01:31, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF): Thanks, I copied it over to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/Technology report. I also made some changes [2] (mostly minor, plus adding info on background jobs per the notice on Meta). Can I also ask if there are any further server switches planned – i.e. will this sort of test occur on a regular basis (e.g. annually)? - Evad37 [talk] 03:47, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the times for me.

Ops is talking about doing this repeatedly, but how often depends upon how fast they can make it happen. If they could do it safely and without anyone noticing, then they might do it as often as four times a year. But so far, that's not possible. It's been almost exactly one year since the first round of this, but that is mostly coincidental. They learned enough from the first time that they have only now reached the end of their list of major improvements. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:31, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

We now have signs citing wikipedia

https://twitter.com/IanMac111/status/847034550102507522/photo/1

©Geni (talk) 10:12, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Discussion re translation policy

Dear Signpost editors,

Would you consider writing an article about the discussion happening within the Wikipedia community here: Wikipedia_talk:Translation#Machine-translations?

Best, Daniel.inform (talk) 12:36, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Upcoming "420" collaboration

Would Signpost be willing to mention the upcoming "420" collaboration, which is an effort to create and improve cannabis-related content during the second half of April (and especially on April 20)? Invitations are being sent to dozens on WikiProjects, and the campaign has already received some coverage by cannabis media outlets. Thanks for your consideration! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:20, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Could you make sure that your group knows about a technology issue that will briefly affect editing during your collaboration? It's described above at #Editing outages on 19 April and 3 May. (Also, @Bluerasberry:.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I made a note about this at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cannabis/420_Collaboration#Wikipedia_outage_on_19_April_2017 in the usual manner that messages are to be posted there. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:49, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Paper on the long tail of interest in airplane crash articles on WP

I cannot access the Scientific Advances paper directly [3] but here is The Verge's article on it [4]. Basically describing research on page views on our aircrash disaster articles, showing that older airline crash articles gain interest after a similar crash occurs, even if there are no direct wikilinks connecting the two. From this, they conclude that the "collective memory" of Wikipedia's readers is around 45 years. --MASEM (t) 18:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)