Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2024-08-14

Comments

The following is an automatically-generated compilation of all talk pages for the Signpost issue dated 2024-08-14. For general Signpost discussion, see Wikipedia talk:Signpost.

Discussion report: Twitter marks the spot (321 bytes · 💬)

Still, not everyone knows Twitter's new brand. This is why the article wasn't renamed. Ahri Boy (talk) 00:39, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Humour: I'm proud to be a template (311 bytes · 💬)

Haha that was an unexpected laugh! As a seasoned template editor, I honestly enjoyed the read, including the prose style lol BTW, any link to that old template? I'd love to pay the ol' rascal a visit and pay my respects! Sophivorus (talk) 00:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

In the media: Portland pol profile paid for from public purse (6,056 bytes · 💬)

• I'm very disappointed that the Signpost is drawing attention to libellous vandalism (which I've now oversighted). Very poor editorial judgement an even more disappointing in light of the lack of article news in recent issues. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:05, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
  • @HJ Mitchell: You've got me confused. What did you oversight? There's nothing showing an oversight in this page's edit history. And I checked all the other Signpost pages in this issue. Nothing. Any clue will do. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:09, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
    • I assume that was in relation to the Kennedy vandalism. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 01:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
  • Given that the revision in question was already hidden from non-administrators, this does not strike me as a particularly big deal. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 01:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
    • My mistake - I thought he was referring to something he oversighted on The Signpost. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:56, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Far worse that they link to the Daily Fail. Twice. Polygnotus (talk) 02:46, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Also its not a story "in" MSN, it is a story by reuters that MSN republished with permission. Polygnotus (talk) 02:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@HJ Mitchell and Polygnotus: The information I could find suggests that daily circulation for the Daily Mail is around 800,000 (counting only the print edition) and Sky News has about 3.5 million YouTube subscribers. I don't know what the pageview statistics are for their online stories per se, but I wrote some software to keep track of Signpost views a while ago; our most-viewed articles of 2024 (the Jan 31 disinformation report by Smallbones and the Jul 22 discussion report by Svampesky) had 180-day view counts under 50,000. Granted, many more people read Signpost articles through the single-page view, or their talk pages, or whatever -- so there are probably more readers than this -- but not several million more. But the information here has already been conveyed to upwards of several million people -- and not simply incidentally, but specifically in the course of reporting by news outlets, organizations whose primary goal is to transmit information to as many people as possible. It is hard for me to see what actual damage is done by an additional few dozen thousand pageviews on text that assiduously avoids mentioning what the libelous statement even is -- without mentioning or repeating it.

Now, I will grant that there are likely to be some differences between the demographics targeted by the Signpost and the Daily Mail, but even if we are more smarter or sexier or more important, I highly doubt it is by a margin of tens of thousands of percent; indeed, even if we are more important in some general sense, people reading the Signpost seem much more likely to understand the context and significance of BLP vandalism, such that it's hard for me to imagine any negative consequence from our readers hearing about its mere existence. Are there a bunch of administrators on the English Wikipedia who we don't trust with the ability to view revision-deleted pieces of schoolboy peepee-poopoo nonsense? If there are any of these among us, we ought to be yanking mops immediately, because we have a whole lot more damaging stuff than that lying around in revision histories.

It may indeed be true that the Mail is a tabloid of questionable accuracy, and not considered a reliable source for citations of fact in Wikipedia articles, but this doesn't mean these hundreds of thousands of people have thereby disappeared from the face of the Earth. We do not have the power to delete them; I think it still matters (and is still worth noting) what they think of us, even if it is silly or wrong (inasmuch as we're trying to write an encyclopedia for the entire world, including people who are silly or wrong). While I agree with the implication here that their opinions tend to be dumb, aren't people with dumb opinions the most important component of an encyclopedia's readership? How are we going to get them to be smart if we are so obsessively fixated on performatively hating them that we forbid ourselves to even mention their existence? jp×g🗯️ 03:00, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I am saying that linking to their site (even with nofollow) is far worse than drawing attention to that vandalism. I did not say everyone else is forbidden from talking about them. How are we going to get them to be smart we aren't. We don't have that kind of power. Polygnotus (talk) 03:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

News and notes: Another Wikimania has concluded (1,336 bytes · 💬)

• Something else that was interesting about this year's Wikimania is that the Wikimedian of the Year was a member of the English Wikipedia. Okay it's weird talking about myself in the third person. Anyways, I figured I should probably mention this here. I plan to write an essay in the near future about my experiences because a lot of interesting things happened. Stay tuned :) Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  Hello @Clovermoss. Congratulations ! Waiting for that essay :) L'embellie (talk) 23:27, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  @JPxG: What's the deadline for the next publication cycle if I wanted to aim for that? Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 23:34, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

  Congratulations Clovermoss! Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 02:42, 15 August 2024 (UTC)