Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-05-27/In the media

Discuss this story

I find it very sad that the "10% female" tale is still being told, when we have known for some time that the percentage is higher than that, and increasing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:06, 29 May 2015 (UTC).

Er, we have? But "the single article for six seasons of Sex in the City versus the 43 articles about Top Gear" is certainly nonsense. Category:Sex and the City has 16 articles, ok one on the film, and only one on an individual episode. But the List of Sex and the City episodes has a lot of info. Category:Top Gear heads a tree of 98 articles by my count, but this covers all foreign editions, and UK ones back to 1977. Heaven knows where 43 comes from. This comparison at least makes a change from the usual SATC/Sopranos one, pioneered by the New York Times 5 or more years ago. As usual the NS article fails to suggest that people unhappy about it should go and edit themselves - it doesn't seem likely they will encounter much trouble from existing editors in the area, since there don't seem to be any. It seems the world's media can only handle one Wikipedia story per decade. In the 2000s it was accuracy and "Wow, anyone can edit". In the 2010s it is gender imbalance. Johnbod (talk) 04:07, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A good chunk of that article is about efforts by women to encourage other women to edit, so it seems they are suggesting that. Gamaliel (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not really - but Jenni Murray did cut straight to the chase on Woman's Hour starts at about 16:40 in. Johnbod (talk) 18:55, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I'll give this a listen and include it in the next ITM. Gamaliel (talk) 19:20, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

While the real proportion of female editors is above 10% -the exact number is unknown- the big problem is that they are too few and that many of them prefer to hide their gender. It is not unfrequent to hear of female editors with female-sounding nicknames that ask to have them replaced with neutral or even masculine ones in order to avoid "problems". That's very worrying. B25es (talk) 05:47, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

re:An Aboriginal Wikipedia? disappointing article from my perspective as a Wikipedian who has been working on this project for more than 12 months. The article itself carries a lot of inaccuracies, many of the questions asked and left unanswered had as far as we knew been addressed more than 6 months ago. Unfortunately this may be a side effect of Clint being isolated in Sydney some 2500 miles from WA where the project work is happening, the joys of the Australian distance factor. The statistics quoted are of those that speak Noongar at home, does not include those who speak the language elsewhere, nor does it count people who are less than fluent. I think any who read the entire article should do so with the knowledge that its just one persons perspective and its more indicative of some of the challenges we all face in the development of long term projects. Gnan garra 06:20, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We'd love to have you or anyone else involved with this project to write about it in the Signpost. Gamaliel (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Politicians' biographies[edit]

The problem with that story is that as usual no one asks whether all the content that was removed was appropriate in context. No one asks whether Wikipedia biographies should properly be long laundry lists of any and all complaints ever published about a politician in a local or national paper. No one asks who the anonymous editors were who added the material that was removed. Would the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography use a source like "Quote of the day: “Bob was a terrible lover ...", London Evening Standard, 17 December 2012.?

There is a lack of clarity and vision as to what Wikipedia should be: A reputable reference work like Britannica? An anonymously compiled compendium of yellow-press gossip and hatchet jobs? A PR brochure? It is all of those, in part. Andreas JN 466 18:26, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well people do ask, and no doubt some of the relevant talk pages are full of discussion. But these matters involve subjective judgement in the application of our complicated rules and principles, and this is a summary. Without looking at these or the articles, the last two in the table seem clearly harmless/beneficial, the first one probably not. For most of the others one would have to dig. Johnbod (talk) 18:37, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

An excellent point that is generally missing from the news coverage. Sometimes people add crap to politicians' articles and it should be removed. Gamaliel (talk) 19:20, 30 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]