Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom

Page views

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Date	Subpage	Title	7-day	15-day	30-day	60-day	90-day	120-day	180-day
2023-01-01	Traffic report	Football, football, football! Wikipedia Football Club!	393	502	557	578	589	601	663	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	Technology report	Wikimedia Foundation's Abstract Wikipedia project "at substantial risk of failure"	5188	5616	5836	5981	6033	6062	6166	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	Serendipity	Wikipedia about FIFA World Cup 2022: quick, factual and critical	398	504	537	570	591	613	655	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	Recent research	Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement in talk page disputes	697	875	981	1060	1088	1104	1169	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	News and notes	Wikimedia Foundation ousts, bans quarter of Arabic Wikipedia admins	7393	8327	8708	8879	8978	9061	9212	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	Interview	ComplexRational's RfA debrief	658	770	804	827	864	901	961	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	In the media	Odd bedfellows, Elon and Jimbo, reliable sources for divorces, and more	1234	1533	1636	1718	1748	1773	1833	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	From the archives	Five, ten, and fifteen years ago	485	601	629	645	655	662	713	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	Featured content	Would you like to swing on a star?	432	537	572	592	601	608	656	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	Essay	Mobile editing	943	1206	1286	1357	1444	1470	1534	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	CommonsComix	#4: The Course of WikiEmpire	455	586	621	634	646	652	703	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-01	Arbitration report	Arbitration Committee Election 2022	482	586	608	615	632	641	702	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}

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Date	Subpage	Title	7-day	15-day	30-day	60-day	90-day	120-day	180-day
2023-01-16	Traffic report	The most viewed articles of 2022	2293	2558	2702	2762	2787	2803	2895	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	Technology report	View it! A new tool for image discovery	735	902	984	1019	1040	1049	1117	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	Special report	Coverage of 2022 bans reveals editors serving long sentences in Saudi Arabia since 2020	14306	14777	15226	15899	15962	16009	16213	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	Serendipity	How I bought part of Wikipedia – for less than $100	1197	1470	1585	1627	1650	1667	1732	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	Opinion	Good old days, in which fifth-symbol-lacking lipograms roam'd our librarious litany	660	777	877	924	942	949	1000	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	News and notes	Revised Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines up for vote, WMF counsel departs, generative models under discussion	820	966	1083	1121	1139	1160	1228	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	In the media	Court orders user data in libel case, Saudi Wikipedia in the crosshairs, Larry Sanger at it again	1524	1745	1955	2032	2066	2088	2258	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	In focus	Busting into Grand Central	654	766	830	850	868	885	938	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	Humour	New geologically speedy deletion criteria introduced	740	882	957	991	1003	1016	1078	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	Gallery	What is our responsibility when it comes to images?	662	782	850	875	883	897	952	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	From the team	We heard zoomers liked fortnights: the biweekly Signpost rides again	1109	1434	1609	1663	1678	1692	1764	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	From the archives	Five, ten, and fifteen years ago	473	590	655	681	686	699	760	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-01-16	Featured content	Flip your lid	391	477	540	566	577	588	649	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}

These will update automatically whenever I run the script (which, when I get around to it, I will put on Toolforge). jp×g 03:14, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it is working correctly. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:39, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. jp×g 21:44, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Investigative challenge

I bet there's at least one article on enwp that was written by ChatGPT. Challenge: find it. How: don't know yet. You could timebox the article creation times based on when the public interface was opened. Easy if someone declared that they used the AI assistant. Hard if you have to figure it out. But maybe?? ☆ Bri (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I see from reading VPP that our very own JPxG credited ChatGPT for a copyedit a copyedit in December 2022. First?? I dunno. And I still want to see a whole article.

The earliest mainspace credit in an edit summary that I can find with this Quarry query is Artwork title draft by Pharos, 6 December 2022. And the earliest edit anywhere is an experiment on Teahouse Q&A generated by the bot, posted in Teahouse subpages by 0xDeadbeef on 2 December.

The query linked above only covers December, but I found zero in November with this other one. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:06, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

As for the hard problem, detecting bot text if it wasn't declared by the WP editor. How could this be approached? This FastCompany article explains a bit about tools that can evaluate a given text with some accuracy. According to FastCompany, in the future the bot output may be watermarked but apparently it is not at this time. You can do a search on "openai detector" to find out about another. So the challenge for an investigator would be identifying a finite number of candidate wiki texts to scan. In other words: identify new articles created in the right timeframe – approximately between the OpenAI public launch on November 30 and December 6, the first declared ChatGPT creation – and maybe the right length, that are candidates to do further analysis on. I suspect this is doable becuase it's just a few days worth of new articles. Maybe starting with Special:NewPagesFeed and the appropriate date filter. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

One other rubric to whittle down the space of possibles. ChatGPT doesn't include data on events after c. 2021. So you could rule out for example the new article Death of Arshad Sharif which documents an October 2022 event. ☆ Bri (talk) 01:06, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Just saw this: apparently CNET was publishing articles generated by "an AI" since November, about 73 in all, without telling readers [1]. Is the date a coincidence? ☆ Bri (talk) 00:44, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

• Would this be of interest for our readership? I could summarize in News and notes. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:07, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
  • I'd think it could be good, probably with the section title "Investigative challenge" in Nandn. I'd think you should put in the date of December 6 but not the title. This way people would be able to find something, but then they could look for more to find something we didn't know already. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:18, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Just so I understand ... you are suggesting to report the date the first GPT-generated item was posted to enwp, but don't link to it nor give the title of the item? Make it a challenge to the readers to find it for themselves? ☆ Bri (talk) 18:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah! I thought this was your idea :b) ! But why not? maybe something like:

"Can you find it? We've found one article that was written by ChatGPT on December 6, 2022. But was it the first? ChatGPT is ... (details). So can you find the article written on December 6? More importantly can you find an article written by ChatGPT before then?" @Bri: Do it how you'd like of course. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:04, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah! I thought this was your idea :b) ! But why not? maybe something like:

"Can you find it? We've found one article that was written by ChatGPT on December 6, 2022. But was it the first? ChatGPT is ... (details). So can you find the article written on December 6? More importantly can you find an article written by ChatGPT before then?" @Bri: Do it how you'd like of course. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:05, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

I added a subheading at NaN with some wording I thought up before your reply. If you want to tweak it by all means, happy to share authorship credit. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:28, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

ChatGPT is GPT

@Bri: ChatGPT is powered by GPT-3 (3.5 to be exact). GPT can be used directly to do the types of things that ChatGPT can do, and probably more, because ChatGPT is powered by GPT, but is restricted by a pre-prompt in its API app layer between it and GPT. In other words, ChatGPT is GPT, with an alternative user interface slapped on top of it. And GPT predates ChatGPT. So, you might want to include GPT-generated articles in your investigative challenge. JPxG, for example, has been using it on Wikipedia since last Summer (maybe even earlier). I hope this heads up has been helpful. Sincerely,    — The Transhumanist   10:40, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Draft space

As drafts have the potential to become articles, it may be worthwhile to extend your search to include draft space.

rsjaffe is possibly the best at finding ChatGPT-generated content on Wikipedia. You should talk to him about how he does it. He found the following LLM-generated articles in draft space:

• Draft:NuMSP 97.69% fake
• Draft:Product Photography (the introductory paragraphs score 99.98% fake on GPT-2 detector)
• Draft:Classical Conversations 99.98% fake
• Draft:Leigh Bortins 99.82% fake
• Draft:CaSS (Competency and Skills System) 99.98%
• Draft:Sanjit Bajpai 99.90%
• Draft:Honda Big Red UTV 99.98% (features and maintenance sections, omitting the headings when measuring)

If we're lucky, maybe rsjaffe will take on your investigative challenge.    — The Transhumanist   13:25, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
P.S.: pinging @Rsjaffe:.

I’ve found over 40 articles now in draftspace. They’re tagged either with the “AI generated” template or the “AI-generated” template (there’s been a name change since I started). If I remember correctly, I found 2 articles in article space that were at least partially LLM generated. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:30, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I just sent an email to @Rsjaffe: inviting him to submit and article on this (before seeing the above comment). It's important to me that new submitters understand that they can write about almost anything related to Wikipedia, so I only suggested "500-1500 words". That said a few "sugested themes" can help new authors, if it doesn't put them off writing what they really want to write. So all Signposters and others might suggest here what they want to read. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:50, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah. I am interested in writing something though I am kind of allergic to writing articles. Any suggestions in what you would like to see would help. I may ask ChatGPT for suggestions! — rsjaffe 🗣️ 17:08, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

A few of the obvious possibilities are:

• How many have you caught vs, how many you think are out there
• What does the quality look like? Are there any humorous hallucinations? What have you got against ChatGPT anyways?
• Are there any quick tells? What's the most solid method of catching ChatGPT text
• What are the stakes in this (poker) game? What's being risked?

Well, that's more than enough from me, others will have different interests in this topic. Don't just follow this list - it will make the article sound mechanical. Do write what you are passionate about without hemming and hawing and overqualifying what you write. Your interests, your passion, is what will make it a good article. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:33, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. I also followed up with rsjaffe on-wiki. Either way I look forward to getting this in The Signpost. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:09, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

@Bri: how do I submit the article? It's about 1,000 words currently. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 22:52, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Please go to WP:NEWSROOM and click the "Start article" button next to the title "Essay". It will preload some Signpost formatting. You can copy and paste your text into the essay in the area for the body (after the preloaded "Header 1"). We can fix up the titles later if necessary. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:55, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

OK, first draft is up. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 00:05, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your contribution to The Signpost! ☆ Bri (talk) 00:43, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

@Rsjaffe, The Transhumanist, and Bri: I am totally impressed with the resulting article! I'll even suggest other than basic copyediting, that nobody tries to tweak the article (except rsjaffe if he wants to). Trying to improve near-perfection seldom works. That said I have I have one minor suggestion for a tweak. I'd like to know for sure if the interview at the start is real. I think it is but I'd like to know for sure. That should be simple enough to do. Say, right below the "Interview" section header write in italics something like This interview was recorded on February 12. or anything similar that gives just a bit more info and makes it clear that it really happened.

Thanks to Bri, TT, and especially rsj for making the article happen! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Interview is real. I'm going to byline it with "This interaction with ChatGPT was recorded on January 29, 2023", as that would make it clearer I was working with the AI and not the company that made it. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 19:37, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Newsroom formatting reorganization

I have updated the templates at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom to automatically use labeled section transclusion. Thus, if we want to discuss this issue's "From the editor" or "Serendipity" (or whatever), we can just create a section on this talk page and it will show up there as well as here. I think this will resolve the previously mentioned issue of the newsroom needing to constantly be reset and updated (as well as make it easier to participate in discussions on articles prior to running them). jp×g 02:24, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for tackling this longstanding problem. How do you suggest to deal with recurring sections, where we may often end up having two threads with the same name on this talk page until automatic archiving kicks in? (One could manually mark them for archiving right after publication, but that's kind of the same as having to reset the newsroom page.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:38, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG: OK, I see your idea appears to be to rename all the corresponding section headings on this talk page after publication [2]. This works, but it is still something that needs to be done manually every time. In fact has already been omitted for the current issue (meaning that the Newsroom page shows outdated content, with all the potential for serious misunderstandings of the kind we encountered a couple of months ago). What's the longterm plan here? Are you going to automate this step as part of the publishing script, or at least add it to the documentation (in the newsroom page and here)? Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:41, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Disinformation report, 4 Feb

@Smallbones:, if you still plan to do the disinformation report, I created an item for it on the status page. ☆ Bri (talk) 18:01, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

• @Bri: I think I can get a draft up in an hour. The problem's been that to me it's such a big and unusual story. Checking the refs will be the main work after posting. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:12, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Good :^) jp×g 19:36, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

@Bri and JPxG: go ahead without it. I have to be away from the computer for several hours. But if the delay in publishing is of the usual length, I may have something. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:19, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, I think I am going to be working on this issue for a while, so I think we will probably be ready on the other side of your break. jp×g 20:31, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

• Posting within 5 minutes. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:50, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Copyedit done. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:20, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Was going to remove that temp section header but Smallbones beat me to it! ☆ Bri (talk) 02:39, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

@Smallbones and Bri: FactsOnly13 (talk · contribs) might be worth a mention as well. Andreas JN466 00:47, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jayen466: I'd noticed he'd been banned. He certainly didn't like the old pic and got into copyvio problems trying to replace it. But there are certainly many copyvio freaks who aren't George Santos! If you can see more than that please send me an email. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:09, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Edit filter log. Just another clumsy single-purpose account that edited quite recently and was focused exclusively on the George Santos article. Andreas JN466 08:57, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Tomorrow

Well, it is 3am and I am not finished, so I think I am going to go to bed and finish properly in the morning. jp×g 11:15, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Should I move the target date to today? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:12, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

If you are talking about the countdown timer widget, I wouldn't bother. Anyone watching it and involved in publication is also watching this conversation. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:30, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Published. jp×g 21:41, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Cool. Mailing list posts done. This is quite a fat issue ... with this amount of content, it's almost worth going back to weekly. Andreas JN466 22:21, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Are we still aiming to publish the next issue on February 12? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 18:54, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

February 12 is what I set the countdown timer to just a few minutes ago, and it works for me. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:01, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Reader feedback

Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single/2023-02-04 jp×g 21:43, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Pageviews here (they will take about a day to load in, until which time they'll be shown as "-1").

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Date	Subpage	Title	7-day	15-day	30-day	60-day	90-day	120-day	180-day
2023-02-04	WikiProject report	WikiProject Organized Labour	271	356	405	501	515	544	612	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Traffic report	Films, deaths and ChatGPT	467	650	724	779	792	820	886	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Tips and tricks	XTools: Data analytics for your list of created articles	479	613	659	692	716	758	828	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Special report	Legal status of Wikimedia projects "unclear" under potential European legislation	770	980	1044	1087	1106	1130	1216	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Section 230	Twenty-six words that created the internet, and the future of an encyclopedia	988	1202	1274	1332	1345	1385	1476	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Recent research	Wikipedia's "moderate yet systematic" liberal citation bias	2359	4872	4990	5096	5142	5172	5268	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Opinion	Study examines cultural leanings of Wikimedia projects' visual art coverage	439	599	629	666	678	709	782	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Op-Ed	Estonian businessman and political donor brings lawsuit against head of national Wikimedia chapter	442	546	595	627	639	669	729	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	News and notes	Foundation update on fundraising, new page patrol, Tides, and Wikipedia blocked in Pakistan	985	1235	1378	1491	1533	1575	1696	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	In the media	Furor over new Wikipedia skin, followup on Saudi bans, and legislative debate	956	1202	1292	1342	1364	1397	1523	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	From the editor	New for the Signpost: Author pages, tag pages, and a decent article search function	770	990	1055	1082	1087	1116	1167	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Featured content	20,000 Featureds under the Sea	324	432	477	499	512	538	599	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}.
2023-02-04	Disinformation report	Wikipedia on Santos	2451	2691	2857	2940	3012	3077	3275	{{{views360}}}	{{{views999999}}}

I will be away from keyboard the next couple of days, so I won't be able to run the script (and I haven't put it on Toolforge to run automatically yet), so we'll have to hold off on this for a bit, or check them the old-fashioned way. jp×g 22:00, 4 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, this is pretty cool. EpicPupper (talk) 01:09, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG: These numbers differ a lot from those given by the Pageviews tool (e.g. for the first entry above, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-04/WikiProject report, it currently gives 378, whereas your table states 1679). It seems that you are including automated (bot/spider) views too? These should be removed, the standard is to count human views only (as in Adam's pageviews link below). Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:14, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

• This is really cool, really motivating to contributors, and greatly adds to the legitimacy of The Signpost as a publication. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:36, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Simplicissimus video on Wikimedia fundraising

Simplicissimus is a German-language YouTube channel with about 1 million subscribers. Their videos average around 800,000 views.

They published a 13m30s-long video on Wikimedia finances earlier today. It includes a few snippets from an interview with me, as well as one or two screenshots of the Signpost. The recent fundraising RfC is mentioned as well, and there are screenshots of English-language correspondence with the WMF from 10:00 onwards.

I think it's worth a mention in ITM, but obviously up to you guys. --Andreas JN466 20:04, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Hey, nice sweater! But I didn't understand a word except for "infoboxen". Maybe @HaeB, Bri, and Zarasophos: could write a paragraph each? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:42, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

If it would help to read it, you can get a transcript like this (auf Deutsch, of course). ☆ Bri (talk) 03:50, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Andreas JN466 16:43, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I learn something new every day. Nonetheless, I don't think I could really help much on this story from the translated transcript. For example starting at 9:00 (just before Andreas?) I got

"through all the money what though got in have of course the ideas what actually the mission of the Wikipedia Foundation should rabidly changed the Wikipedia Foundation wants a lot now to be more than just that she imagined back then with the clearly defined project of In the early 2000s, Wikimedia Foundation today only less Similarities the media archive Wikimedia Commons Wiki books or a animal species directory are more Foundation projects now exist there are also some regional offshoots for example the association Wikimedia Germany of the expansion of articles promoted in German."

Well, in a pinch, maybe ... but in general I'll stick to English and Russian (maybe even French or Spanish) sources. FWIW, if I understood it correctly, I disagree that Wikipedia has rabidly changed its mission since the early 2000s when the mission was clearly defined. Rather WP was ill-formed or at least immature back then and needed to slowly evolve, as has the mission. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:26, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I think that meant "rapidly" though I also saw "rabidly" in the machine translation.

(interrupting myself ...) Listening to the original audio ... I think this snip at 9:05 should be translated as "changed its mission quite ruthlessly". ☆ Bri (talk) 20:10, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

The German there is:

• Durch das ganze Geld, was aber reingekommen ist, haben sich natürlich die Vorstellungen, was eigentlich die Mission der Wikipedia Foundation sein sollte, ganz rabiat verändert. Die Wikipedia Foundation möchte jetzt viel mehr sein als einfach nur das, was sie sich damals vorgestellt hat.

If you enter this into DeepL, DeepL gives you an accurate enough translation, which is:

• With all the money that has come in, the ideas of what the mission of the Wikipedia Foundation should be have changed dramatically. The Wikipedia Foundation now wants to be much more than simply what it imagined back then.

Google Translate does okay as well – "ganz rabiat" just means "quite radically" or "drastically" in this context:

• But with all the money that came in, the ideas about what the mission of the Wikipedia Foundation should actually be have changed drastically. The Wikipedia Foundation now wants to be much more than what it originally envisioned.

This was in the context of Erik Möller's statement back in 2013 that "$10M+/year" would be enough "to ensure not only bare survival, but actual sustainability of Wikimedia's mission." (By the way, I said "Wikimedia Foundation" not "Wikipedia Foundation" ...) Andreas JN466 08:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Here's a snippet at 7:34 that I translated.

Deutsch -- as machine transcribed

Heute verfügt die Stiftung insgesamt über genug Vermögen um die Server für weit über 100 Jahre betreiben zu können etwas Zeit auf der Webseite Wikimedia Foundation und man weiß wie gut die Stiftung aufgestellt ist und wo das Geld genau hinfließt die Seite ist aber leider nicht sonderlich übersichtlichen

English -- loose translation

Today, the Foundation has enough assets overall to support the servers running Wikimedia websites [including Wikipedia] for well over 100 years. But how one tells how well the Foundation operates and exactly where the money flows into the site[s] though, is unfortunately not very clear.

I'll come back to this later if possible. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:04, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

What the presenter says there is:

Heute verfügt die Stiftung insgesamt über genug Vermögen, um die Server für weit über 100 Jahre betreiben zu können. Etwas Zeit auf der Webseite Wikimedia Foundation und man weiß, wie gut die Stiftung aufgestellt ist und wo das Geld genau hinfließt. Die Seite ist aber leider nicht sonderlich übersichtlich und hat eben nur 7,6 Millionen Besuche pro Jahr und Wikipedia 180 Milliarden.

The unedited DeepL.com translation is:

Today, the foundation as a whole has enough assets to run the servers for well over 100 years. A little time on the Wikimedia Foundation website and you know how well the foundation is positioned and where exactly the money goes. Unfortunately, the site is not very clear and has only 7.6 million visits per year and Wikipedia 180 billion.

They go on to say that most people aren't going to bother to look into the organisation more deeply when they are faced with an alarming banner.

If I had to edit the DeepL translation I might change "how well the foundation is positioned" to "how financially healthy the foundation is". I'd also change "the site is not very clear" to something like "the way the site is structured, it's not very easy to find things". (I mean, go to https://wikimediafoundation.org/ and see how long it takes you to find the financial reports, and count how many "Donate now" buttons you have passed by then ...) Andreas JN466 08:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

publishing on the 12th?

Just looking at the publication time gadget up top, it says we publish on Feb. 12. 8 days after the last publication date? I think a return to biweekly publishing is unwise just yet, but recognize why others might set this as a goal. IMHO we need to develop the staff first and concentrate on quality. I doubt if I'll be able to help with an issue this week. I expect my contributions in the future will just be a small amount of material for ITM and one piece at a time for Disinfo Report - however long that piece takes to write. For example I'm working on a subcontinental story that could take anywhere from 5 days to a month. Right now it looks like it will be more like a monsoon than a short thundershower. I'd like to take the time to be sure about it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:39, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I fixed that to "biweekly" for you. We had a brief discussion above on this page, but it really isn't settled yet. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:37, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I have been in bed the last couple days, and before that I was out of town. I am behind a few days, and it looks like everyone else is too, judging from the newsroom. What do we say to running on the 18th (Saturday)? I will set it to then for now (so that the thing isn't saying it published yesterday). jp×g 10:35, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

I think fortnightly is a good goal, but we can't jump down to 8 days. We're managing fairly well with trimmer fortnightly issues (certainly, featured content is getting way better viewcounts now that it's not in monstrously big issues and isn't monstrously big itself), but we're going to need to be generating a lot more content to go weekly, even briefly. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 18:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia day

What is Wikipedia day? 2803:1500:1200:7ACC:3991:50EC:9534:5735 (talk) 23:08, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia began publishing on January 15, 2001 (plus or minus) and every January 15 is celebrated as "Wikipedia Day". Try WP:Teahouse for these types of questions. But glad to help. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:15, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

F10 deprecated

Worth noting: Special:Permalink/1138889978#RfC: Removing F10. Useless non-media files ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:21, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, added to News and notes. --Andreas JN466 20:11, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

State of the issue

We're doing pretty well this week. Everything's either ready for copyedit or better, except for the traffic report, which, honestly, looks fully done except title and blurb. Eight Eleven articles including the Traffic report (The Arbitration report is blank, but got started as a blank article and never deleted, so it's always there.)

If we don't publish on the day indicated, we need to update a bunch of cross-links since they have to be hard-coded. Specifically:

• "In the media" → "News and notes"
• "News and notes" → "In the media"
• "From the archives" → "Cobwebs"

I've done a list before. Not sure if anyone likes them, but...

Approved

In the media, News and notes

Copyedited

Disinformation report, Essay, Featured content, Gallery, Humour, Traffic report, Cobwebs, From the archives, Tips and tricks

Copyedited but

N/A

Ready for Copyedit

N/A

Ready for Copyedit, but not for publication until next month

Next featured content

Basically done

N/A

Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 06:43, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Note: I... can't copyedit anything this week. The things I had no involvement in were already copyedited, and my attempts to bring the rest of the issue up to a complete state got my sticky little fingers into the bits that I could have previously copyedited. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 19:06, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I got Gallery. We missed the Valentine's Day deadline *shrug*. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:58, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it matters much. Didn't even exist until after Valentine's, but thought the issue needed something light and fun, and didn't have time for the more labour-intensive planned projects (have an idea for a Tombstone, AZ related one). Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 22:45, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Featured content ready now too. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:57, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Bri, Adam Cuerden, and JPxG: I just submitted a new Disinformation report. It's almost complete except for one "just summarize the basics" short section. Other than that section it should be ready for copyediting. I just need some time away from looking at it too long. But please copyedit it gently, it's a pretty sensitive article, so please don't insert any barking cats or meowing dogs. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:37, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Got the copyedit on what's there so far. Taking a break for the rest of the evening. ☆ Bri (talk) 02:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Does anybody (e.g. @JPxG:) know how to use the series template Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Series/Paid editing? I'd like to have about 6 items in the series, rather than the 64 or so it has now. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Smallbones: Key is this fix to the series template which then allows you to use a limit=6 parameter. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 06:49, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  @Adam Cuerden and JPxG: Ok I've got the trick on limiting the number of previous stories and decided to set it to 10. BUT (a big but) when Adam added the template the "full width yes or no" template went crazy and put a narrow width just before the section "Gautam Adani" I tried changing the fullwidth=yes parameter in

"Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Signpost-block-start-v2|fullwidth=yes"

which didn't work. Then I added an extra copy of the template just before the "Gautam Adani" section. No combination of parameters (yes or no) aligned the page correctly on the left. I'd rather not have the box with the previous stories if it is going to misalign the page. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Suspect it's a bug in the new Vector skin. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 20:49, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• I'm completely done with that last small section in the Disinformation report and that section (only) should be copyedited again.
• I'm going to add a section at the top of Nan that WMF (legal) is opening up a consultation for a change in the Terms of Use. It is my impression that legal very much needs and want to get a ToU change through the system, so this is everybody's chance to make a difference in the ToU. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:24, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm done with it, but a very small copyediting job should be done. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:14, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 22:16, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Tips and tricks

Should it start with Originally published as [name of userspace essay]? We often do this if it's been started somewhere else and especially if they intend to keep that as the live/updated essay. ☆ Bri (talk) 14:22, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Done. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 20:31, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Publishing?

@JPxG, Bri, and Adam Cuerden: any indictation on a publishing time? Anything we can do to help? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:10, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

I was wondering myself. At this time I think all the copyediting and brushing-up that I can do myself, has been done. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:28, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Suffice it to say that the last few days I have not quite been a paragon of human competence. I have published this issue, and hope not to delay it for quite this long in the future! Thank you for bearing with me. jp×g 18:01, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:39, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Feb. 20 issue out

Comments at Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single/2023-02-20. Pageviews will be in after a day or so. I would like to apologize for being a couple days late on publication and not helping much with the writing process. Next issue I hope to be more active (and get some of these drafts out!) jp×g 18:11, 20 February 2023 (UTC)

Publishing schedule for next few issues

If we move quickly, we can keep a two-week cadence and publish on April 1, which could lead to some opportunities for fun. These would be the dates of the target weekends for an issue:

• March 4-5
• March 18-19
• April 1-2

Thoughts on this schedule? The first target weekend is slightly under two weeks from today. ☆ Bri (talk) 16:35, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

We could always plan on a light March 18 issue. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 22:27, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, I have adjusted the deadline template for the next issue accordingly. (Regarding April 1st though, it's probably more valuable to be able to run a timely report about the happenings elsewhere than to indulge in belated funsies ourselves; also I think that good humor writing - and editing of such writing - is hard and has not always been among our strongest skills here at this venerable publication).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:22, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I think we could reasonably have a gallery and a humour section, and there used to be a tradition of having a little more fun at Featured Content for April. But, yeah, let's keep the humour contained at least, not making up a whole News and Notes Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 22:59, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't remember the details off the top of my head, but there was a major problem with an April 1 issue in the past. There was something like an article about D.Trump and J.Wales being twins separated at birth. The end result was the EiC was badgered into resigning plus some even worse stuff. We might try this as long as there are no BLP jokes, plus being really, really careful. I'd like to keep JPxG around for a while. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:21, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Aye. The reason User:Gamaliel was hounded off Wikipedia. I honestly blame the reaction more than Gamaliel. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 23:02, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-04-01/News and notes for the record. It's really not that bad, but it was at the height of Trump mania, and, well... Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 18:27, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Back from my slumber

Hi! After some very stressful study months I find myself back to full wiki-contribution ability. Any things y'all need help with I can assist in? Sorry for leaving y'all without me for the last few issues. — Ixtal ^{( T / C )} ⁂ Non nobis solum. 22:38, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Portal CSDs deprecated

Special:Permalink/1140739661#RfC: Should P1 and P2 be repealed as CSDs? ~ Amory (u • t • c) 14:23, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Upcoming Featureds section

Ha! And two of the authors of the three not MILHIST articles are themselves heavily involved with MILHIST. A military month. –♠Vamí_IV†♠ 02:28, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Aye! Was very... obvious. And so, y'know. Wouldn't surprise me if JPxG punches up the headline a bit, but... Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 22:58, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Pageview stats

First ten, Disinformation report

The Disinformation report is way higher than the others this month. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 00:53, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

India is a very populous country. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:24, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Recent research

As usual, we are preparing this regular survey on recent academic research about Wikipedia, doubling as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter (now in its twelfth year). Help is welcome to review or summarize the many interesting items listed here (also for future issues), as are suggestions of other new research papers that haven't been covered yet. Regards, HaeB (talk) 06:11, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG, HaeB, and Groceryheist: I've made some copyedits to the Holocaust in Poland review which I feel are advisable – from a BLP point of view and because there is a pending ArbCom case whose outcome we can't and shouldn't try to prejudge. Diff. Please see what you think. Andreas JN466 14:01, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

And another two: Diff 1, Diff 2. Note that Richard C. Lukas is recommended background reading on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website. What they say about him there is:

Lukas, Richard. Did the Children Cry? Hitler’s War Against Jewish and Polish Children, 1939-1945. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1994. (D 810 .C4 L82 1994) [Find in a library near you]

Focuses on the experiences of Polish children, Jewish as well as gentile, under German occupation. Organized into thematic chapters such as “Invasion,” “Deportations,” “Hiding,” “Germanization,” and “Concentration Camps.” Includes a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources, and several photographic images.

Lukas, Richard. The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939-1944. New York: Hippocrene, 1997. (D 802 .P6 L85 1997) [Find in a library near you]

An account of the systematic persecution of the Polish nation and its residents by the German forces. Features endnotes, a bibliography, appendices including lists of Poles killed for assisting Jews, primary source documents, and an index.

If the guy is recommended without caveat on the USHMM website, then I don't think it is helpful in the overall scheme of things for us to describe him flat-out as "distortionist" in The Signpost's voice and argue that The title of his most-cited work, "The Forgotten Holocaust," refers to the suffering of Poles under Nazi occupation and so insinuates a false equivalence between Polish and Jewish suffering. Arguably, Wikipedia should not reference this at all, at least not without blinding clarity about how it contradicts mainstream sources. Doing so surely would put us outside the mainstream. --Andreas JN466 16:23, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the stylistic improvements. I'm not comfortable adding "allege" everywhere. This is a positive review, not a neutral one and I don't see how an arbitration case should influence it.

As for Lukas, it's interesting that the Holocaust Memorial Museum website has a bibliography about the Poles and the Holocaust that includes Lukas. I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that this legitimizes Lukas as a Wikipedia source, however. I left these sentences in for now, but I'll think about removing them later. Groceryheist (talk) 17:44, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Lukas' book was published by an American university press (Kentucky) and has 325 scholarly citations according to Google Scholar. Looking up the "mainstream" people he's being compared to, i.e. Doris Bergen, Samuel Kassow, Zvi Gitelman, Debórah Dwork, Nechama Tec, I find their most widely referenced works in this topic area all have similar citation numbers in Google Scholar:

• Doris Bergen's War and genocide: A concise history of the Holocaust: 351 citations
• Samuel Kassow's Who will write our history?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes archive: 241 citations
• Zvi Gitelman's A Century of Ambivalence, Second Expanded Edition: The Jews of Russia and the Soviet Union, 1881 to the Present: 332 citations
• Debórah Dwork's Children with a star: Jewish youth in Nazi Europe: 387 citations
• Nechama Tec's Resilience and courage: Women, men, and the Holocaust: 198 citations

If I put that together with the (multiple) references to Lukas' works on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, then any argument that Wikipedia shouldn't reference him looks unreasonable. What am I missing? Andreas JN466 18:33, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I have Googled for mentions of all the above scholars on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, taking this to be reasonably representative of the mainstream in the U.S., at least. The result (based in each case on clicking through to the last results page):

• 22 hits for "Richard Lukas"|"Richard C. Lukas"|"Lukas, Richard" site:ushmm.org
• 52 hits for "Dwork, Deborah"|"Deborah Dwork"|"Debórah Dwork"|"Dwork, Debórah" site:ushmm.org
• 66 hits for "Bergen, Doris"|"Doris Bergen" site:ushmm.org
• 27 hits for "Samuel Kassow"|"Kassow, Samuel" site:ushmm.org
• 27 hits for "Zvi Gitelman"|"Gitelman, Zvi" site:ushmm.org
• 224 hits for "Nechama Tec"|"Tec, Nechama" site:ushmm.org

The only scholar who is in a different order of magnitude here is Nechama Tec, and this surely reflects the fact that she "was appointed to the Council of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum". Lukas' hit count seems to me perfectly respectable, given that the main thrust of his scholarship appears to have been the Holocaust experience of ethnic Poles, which can obviously be only a secondary topic of the Holocaust Memorial Museum site. Nathan, I'd love it if you could reconsider that sentence. Regards, Andreas JN466 21:39, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I've concluded that I want to leave the sentence in. I want to make a point that the error in Chart 3 doesn't invalidate the point that Wikipedia's over-relying on these dubious sources.

University of Kentucky press is not a very high-status academic publisher and an 1980s book from them doesn't necessarily inspire a lot of confidence, especially in conflict with more recent scholarship. I've pursued a handful of reviews of The Forgotten Holocaust available online, and my assessment of these is similar to Gabrowski and Klein's. The positive reviews don't provide academically rigorousness evaluations and are often very excited that the tale of Polish suffering compared to Jews has finally been told. An important takeaway from the negative reviews is that the book relies on both reliable and apocryphal data, but does a poor job distinguishing between the two.

As far as citation counts go, these are not a very good indicator that the source is reliable. If you peruse the recent citations that are publicly available, you'll see that they either cite Lukas briefly for a number (e.g., number of Poles killed in concentration camps) or cite him negatively, as evidence of efforts to broaden the definition of the Holocaust (e.g., [3], [4]).

[Edit: Attempt to fix links Groceryheist (talk) 02:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)]

It is a bit puzzling that Lukas gets cited on the USHMM website. Maybe this suggests that there's a need for new high-quality research about the Polish experience of the 20th century and Lukas is among the best available.

To be clear, I'm also not 100% convinced that this book shouldn't be used on Wikipedia. I'm just leaning that way. Hence, my hedge of "Arguably." The argument should be had, but the review isn't the place to have it. Groceryheist (talk) 23:15, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Nathan: Well, thanks for considering it. Here is another thing I would like you to consider. Grabowski and Klein say Lukas' book The Forgotten Holocaust is cited in some 80 articles. (I agree that seems excessive compared to the other authors.)

I am currently going through these 80+ articles, one by one, with WikiBlame. Among the first 15 articles I have reviewed, there is not a single one where Lukas' name was first added by either Piotrus or Volunteer Marek. In two cases it was User:Pernambuko (inactive), in three it was User:Matalea (blocked), in two it was User:NYScholar (blocked), in two it was User:Poeticbent (no longer active), in one or two it was an IP ...

Yet readers of your review will conclude that Wikipedia's relative over-reliance on Lukas is due to these two editors. How certain are you that that is a fair accusation to make? Can you say how many cases there have been where the editors you name have either added that source (which, let's not forget, is also used by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) to an article, or advocated for its retention? Andreas JN466 00:23, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Andreas I'm only naming these 2 editors in reference to their defenses / critique's of G&K's essay. So I don't think a reasonable reader would conclude that they added any particular citations. This review isn't about them, but G&K's essay. Groceryheist (talk) 00:39, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, the review text is quite clear about them only being two out of a small group of committed Wikipedians "with [according to the paper] a Polish nationalist bent". And it also already mentions Poeticbent as another member. By the way, regarding Matalea, it is worth being aware that the account was blocked as a confirmed sockpuppet of Poeticbent, so it looks like Andreas has been unearthing additional evidence in favor of Grabowski and Klein's thesis here. (Not that anyone should assume that the on-wiki evidence presented within the paper's 317 footnotes is comprehensive, anyway.) Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:41, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Andreas, it's reasonable to ask that judgments and opinions are attributed and I'm open to adding an "in this reviewer's opinion" etc. here or there, but overall this should already be clear from the byline and the topic. I'm also unclear what you mean by "prejudging" an ArbCom case - I do recall quite a bit of Signpost writing from yourself that expressed strongly held opinions about a topic (including many with BLP implications) for which there was no community consensus yet.

And please refrain from making direct edits with rationales of the form "but this review doesn't align with my opinion about topic X", especially not based on cherry-picked pieces of evidence. I'll leave it to Groceryheist if he wants to remove his tentative (Arguably,...) remark about the book in light of your objection. But clearly Grabowski and Klein offer some weighty arguments why they consider the book as distortionist. And your claim surely would put us outside the mainstream doesn't make sense - at WP:RSN it would be a rather mundane event if the use of a source is discouraged based on scholarly criticism in a number of peer-reviewed publications (Grabowski and Klein are far from being from the only researchers who have raised concerns about this book) even though it is also listed in a bibliography web page by some institution. - Anyhow, this is obviously a complicated topic with many subtopics about which reasonable people can disagree, but we need to distinguish differences in the weighting of evidence from clear factual errors; I'm not seeing any of the latter in this review so far.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:11, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I agree with HaeB. GroceryHeist's review is fairly reflective of my reading of the G&K article - it is not that every single claim made by G&K is accurate (some of Piotrus' and VM's rebut do have merit) but a preponderance are, as is the overall thrust. Lukas can be listed on the HMM website but is a bottom-tier source. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:21, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

It's Piotrus's and VM's arses that are on the line here. It's one thing to report in Wikipedia's community newspaper that two IRL-named volunteer editors have been accused by two scholars of being "holocaust distortionists". It's another for them to simply be described as "two of the [holocaust] distortionists" – which is one step away from being called "holocaust deniers", and a nuance probably lost on a lot of people out there (even though Groceryheist did take the trouble to explain the difference), once the thing has gone through Twitter and Instragram. Given that all of us can readily see that some of the claims in the essay don't stand up to scrutiny, and it takes hours to go down each rabbit hole, I'd rather have us reserve judgment until they have all been properly looked at and ArbCom has rendered its verdict.

You can't unpublish this if ArbCom decides in half a year's time that the paper substantially misrepresented what happened on Wikipedia. Andreas JN466 19:19, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm curious why you are trying to blame Groceryheist for the thing [potentially going] through Twitter and Instragram [sic] when it has already been the subject of extensive media coverage and highlighted in other Signpost articles including by yourself. And no, we don't need to withhold coverage of academic publications in "Recent research" until ArbCom has rendered its verdict. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:02, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I didn't say we shouldn't publish a review. I said we should reserve judgment and attribute opinions (unless we had performed an exhaustive study ourselves and were reporting our own findings). Andreas JN466 22:49, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

The ArbCom case is in part there to judge whether these editors were or were not "distortionist". They have been accused, but the jury is literally still out.

Adding an "in this reviewer's opinion" or "in Grabowski and Klein's opinion" here or there would help.

I also wonder whether we should provide direct links to the rebuttals if we're explicitly not trying to remain neutral on the case being litigated.

(I don't know when JPxG intends to publish, but having these discussions at the eleventh hour doesn't make this easier.) Andreas JN466 18:55, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

For clarity, the review already highlights and discusses these rebuttals, linking to your own summary of them (Piotrus and Volunteer Marek, have defended themselves by enumerating many omissions and some possible errors in the essay). I have added some attribution clarifications per your suggestion, but again, there is no requirement that every Signpost piece must agree with or wait for hypothetical future ArbCom judgments or other forms of community decisions. Quite a bit of your own past opinion writing for the Signpost might not have adhered to such a maxim either. (Did ArbCom even say that they would specifically rule on whether Grabowski and Klein's term "distortionist" is correct or not?) Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:59, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the edits. I was wondering whether a courtesy link to User:Piotrus/Response and https://volunteermarek.substack.com/p/main-response-to-grabowski-and-klein might be more appropriate. My summary begins with Grabowski and Klein's abstract, then describes the ArbCom happenings, then mentions Piotr's article in a Polish newspaper, then mentions where people can find the Polish newspaper text, and only then mentions Piotr's English response and VM's piece. I think we should make it easier for those interested in what they have to say to find their English-language responses. What do you think? Andreas JN466 21:48, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

OK, I have changed this to the two direct links you suggested. Either way, I think that the review text already duly acknowledges these objections, and that it is not obliged to agree with their overall conclusions over those of an academic paper published in a reputable peer-reviewed journal. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry but this piece is extremely bad. "Grabowski and Klein provide very strong support for this first claim,". Well, no, no they don't. First third of the article is general complaints which mostly involve text added like 15 or 14 years ago by people who are NOT the editors mentioned in the paper and many weren't even Polish. Second section is almost entirely lifted from Icewhiz's 2019 ArbCom case, evidence that was reviewed and rejected by the committee (and in numerous WP:AE reports previously). Dozens of uninvolved (and non-Polish) admins and arbitrators have looked at this "evidence" and saw through it - it's fabrications and manipulations. Third part is a hodge podge of misrepresentations, and involves some arguments started by Icewhiz's sock puppets, after he was indefinetly banned from all Wikimedia Projects for making death threats and other forms of harassment.

The fact that Grabowski and Klein rely so much on User Icewhiz in their piece, and try to portray him as a innocent "defender of historical accuracy" (in reality he was banned in multiple ways for multiple forms of abuse of policies and people) is not even mentioned in GroceryHeist's article.

Same thing applies to claims like "Grabowski and Klein persuasively argue". Or this One notable error is that the method for counting citations is imprecise and considerably underestimates Richard C. Lukas' academic citations. I'm sorry but, that's small potatoes compared to the other ridiculous accusations and false allegations in that paper! If you're going to try and describe how we defended ourselves please at least do so honestly and provide REAL reasons why I am objecting, not some trivial red herring.

Oh my god, you actually call Icewhiz a "defender of historical accuracy" too. "Short word-limits in case statements were too constraining for defenders of historical accuracy to be able to explain to non-experts the problems with the heroic Polish narrative in the articles". Is this serious??? The short word-limits is what saved Icewhiz's butt from getting indef'd right then and there and allowed him to squeak away with just a topic ban! The indef ban would have to wait till his abuse of multiple people off wiki came to light.

User:HaeB - initially you said I would have a right to reply to anything the Signpost posted. I asked to do so but you never replied. I said oh well, and basically decided to wait for the ArbCom case. But now you're going to publish THIS? This is something that GroceryHeist should put on their User page if they want, that's it.

There's going to be an ArbCom case. You don't know how it will turn out. Evaluation of the G&K paper will be part of that. As will be the activities (both on and off wiki) of Icewhiz and his sock puppets and of other editors in this topic area. To write and publish this super irresponsible piece is a really bad look. Volunteer Marek 18:50, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

User:HaeB - initially you said I would have a right to reply to anything the Signpost posted. I asked to do so but you never replied - that's not at all what I said in this discussion. I invite others reading along here to compare my actual statements there with Volunteer Marek's summary, as an illustration of how some of the editors whom the paper criticizes as distortionist also distort on-wiki evidence. (In the linked discussion I had pointed out another example, search for "rehas".)

Groceryheist was well aware of your rebuttal attempts, of the Icewhiz case and of potential BLP concerns when writing this review. Icewhiz isn't even mentioned in the review at all. I understand that there were grave misconduct issues with that particular editor that affected Piotrus and yourself personally, but these have been covered elsewhere and are ultimately not very relevant to the overarching questions that are the focus of the paper, the review and the upcoming ArbCom case.

Obviously you are entitled to your opinions and should feel to post them in the comments section, or submit a separate opinion piece, which I had suggested the Signpost could consider for publication (without speaking for JPxG or otherwise anticipating judgments about the suitability of a not yet unwritten piece). But you'll need to understand that the Signpost regularly covers severe criticism that the criticized people may not agree with. Regards, HaeB (talk) 20:28, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, what you said was this: I think it could be a good idea for the Signpost to offer them (meaning me - VM) (and/or other editors covered) to write a response, to be considered for publication as an opinion article. Maybe I read a bit too much into that. But that offer never came.

The fact that Icewhiz isn't even mentioned in the review is part of the problem (although he is... as a "defender of historical accuracy") How in the world is that not relevant?

There's a difference between publishing criticisms and writing "oh my god these guys are so right!". Seriously, this is a really really bad piece and it can even be seen as an attempt to prejudge the upcoming ArbCom case. Volunteer Marek 20:42, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand this contrived argument about having to mention (or not mention?) Icewhiz, and it's worth pointing out both the paper and the review talk about defenders of historical accuracy in plural, which you changed to singular in your quote above. E.g. the paper also highlights K.e.coffman in that regard (whose efforts to combat misinformation in this area is held in high esteem by many). What's more, regardless of Icewhiz' inexcusable misconduct against particular editors on a personal level, it also seems indisputable that he did find and address important historical inaccuracies on a content level. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

No, K.e.coffman was not a party to the case, the plural is just Icewhiz talking about himself in third person. The argument about Icewhiz is NOT "contrived" as literally half the paper is lifted straight from his "evidence" in the 2019 case. It is essentially this except wrote up in paragraph format rather than a bulleted list. And if this guy was topic banned for presenting this evidence, because it falsely accused people of crap [5] [6] [7] then the fact that G&K repeat these false accusations is kind of relevant. And no, he didn't really uncover major historical inaccuracies - he did find some sketchy sources, he removed them, nobody reverted him, they haven't been used in the past five year, then he went around pretending like he saved Wikipedia itself and demanded that anyone who disagrees with him gets banned. Oh and then, facing that topic ban he tried save himself by claiming credit for discovering the false information in the Warsaw Concentration Camp article, even though that was K.e.coffman not him.

And of course there's also the fact that many editors find and address important historical inaccuracies on a content level all the time - myself included - but we do it without being creepy sociopaths that make death threats and threats to rape other people's children, and we don't use our volunteer work to try and excuse the POV pushing in other aspects. This guy was at WP:AE like fifty times. He was before ArbCom. And ANI and AN and countless admin's talk pages. And people saw through that BS. But here is Signpost, reposting it, or at least a gushing review of it. Volunteer Marek 02:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Nobody said that K.e.coffman was a party to the case (my emphasis). Rather, the paper cites from the evidence she provided as a non-party editor at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Antisemitism_in_Poland/Evidence#Evidence_presented_by_K.e.coffman (footnote 243), where such comments were indeed subjected to a strict word limit (the page mentions it was enforced against several other editors):

K.e.coffman reached similar conclusions, writing, ‘VM [Volunteer Marek] has behaved in an aggressive and belittling manner towards others, using article TPs [talk pages]/edit summaries to accuse them of: lying; being hysterical; edit warring/dishonesty; holding consensus hostage/sabotaging productive dialog; being offended by sources positive towards Poland; and losing it.’

(Is that also among the alleged "lies" and BLP violations against you?)

And no, he didn't really uncover major historical inaccuracies - uh, just looking at the following part of the paper, I would definitely count that as a major inaccuracy discovered by Icewhiz (it also looks like you and Piotrus actually agreed with Icewhiz in that case, eventually):

Poeticbent’s false caption, combined with the photograph’s particular composition – Hebrew letters directly under the USSR’s emblem – bolster the entrenched stereotype identifying Jews with communism. Furthermore, in a country brutally occupied by the Soviets, Poeticbent’s edit painted Jews as perpetrators. The image remained in Wikipedia, wrongly captioned, until 2018, when the editor Icewhiz corrected its description.

I also noticed K.e.coffman started her above mentioned arbitration comments by providing evidence that Icewhiz identified problematic content & sourcing (not just "some sketchy sources"). That doesn't excuse harassment behavior of course and I understand why you are upset about the latter, but you have to understand that many people and the general public will ultimately be more interested in the overall content questions (has Wikipedia's holocaust coverage been distorted by the "heroic Polish narrative" over the years, and if yes, what were the mechanism and actions causing that) than in the off-wiki misconduct of one particular editor.

I think this discussion has reached a point of diminishing returns. I have now spent time debunking several claims raised in objection to publishing this review that were not even about statements in the review itself. For others reading along, the above provides yet two more examples about how some of the editors whom the paper criticizes as distortionist also distort on-wiki evidence. Yes, the Signpost should do some due diligence if it reports about criticism of Wikipedia, ArbCom cases, etc. But that has been done at this point, and we are not obliged to ride along a gish gallop of objections that continue to fall apart upon closer scrutiny. As always, not everyone will agree with everything in this Signpost piece, but that's OK - it's why we have a lively comment section that sees such disagreements in every issue. Regards, HaeB (talk) 04:14, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

K.e.coffman accused me of being mean to Icewhiz, yes. Guess why I was "uncivil" to him? Oh, it was precisely because he was making vile false accusations against me, and also faking sources etc. Annnnddd guess what did Icewhiz get topic banned for? Yup, it was for making false accusations and getting sketchy with sourcing on BLPs. The whole decision on the case was "Volunteer Marek accused Icewhiz of lying and that's uncivil so he gets a topic ban. But, well, Icewhiz WAS lying so he gets a topic ban too". Why did she not criticize Icewhiz's behavior? I don't know, ask her. Good question. Why overlook seriously disruptive behavior on his part and focus on some incivility on mine? Why are some people still trying to rehabilitate Icewhiz on Wikipedia after all he's done? I don't know, ask them.

And I don't appreciate your little snide "Is that also among the alleged "lies" and BLP violations against you?". First, you're being sarcastic here as a way of trying to dismiss real genuine and serious concerns about the truthfulness of these accusations. You're trying to imply that when I say that Icewhiz lied about me, I'm just making it up. No, this is exactly what he was doing and this is what ArbCom found and the fact you can so blithely dismiss this really doesn't put you in a good light. Again, ask yourself how would you feel if somebody accused you of awful things? And then someone like me came along and made fun of you being accused of these things and put up little taunts the way you're doing now. Second, I never said anything about BLP violations against me so I have no idea what you're talking about.

With regard to Poeticbent's caption, I don't know how many times I have to say this - no one objected to it being corrected! What was at issue was Icewhiz false claim that the miscaptioning was intentional (IIRC the miscaptioning was in the original source that Poeticbent used). Guess what the ArbCom case found? Icewhiz interpreted an apparent error by Poeticbent as a deliberate hoax. And man, did Icewhiz try to milk this one correction he made for all the good faith that was worth. Hell, he's still trying to milk it and you're right there for it.

If you think that this was a case of "the off-wiki misconduct of one particular editor." that just shows you have absolutely no idea of what has been going on here for the past four years. It's not just one editor (Icewhiz has some friends) and it's not just off-wiki.

And you haven't debunked diddly. All you did is taunt me with your "Is that also among the alleged "lies" and BLP violations against you?" You want more examples? Here:

• The claim I called Ewa Kurek a “mainstream scholar” is simply untrue. A lie. G&K provide a link to a discussion where no such thing is said, hoping, I guess that no one will check them. In fact I explicitly stated that Ewa Kurek is a source which should not be used on Wikipedia [8] (regarding Ewa Kurek I believe I've expressed the opinion that she should not be used as a source given some of her statements in the media) and removed her as source myself [9].
• Regarding the Naliboki massacre article, the authors falsely claim that I added “Jewish partisans” to it. This too is just another lie Icewhiz tried to peddle on Wikipedia before he got banned. I *removed* the claim that Jewish partisans were involved, not added it! Here and here and here. Please explain to me how claiming I did the opposite of what I actually did is not a lie?
• More examples? Sure. I never called Gazeta Wyborcza unreliable (just said it wasn’t comparable to Washington Post), I didn’t “guard” the article on Wojciech Muszynski for months (I made two edits on one single day, reverting sock puppets), I actually said Christopher Browning was a reliable source, I never added or removed anything about Obama from the Muszynski article (I don’t even know where this fabrication comes from), I never said that Glaukopis was a reliable source and “shouldn’t be a concern”, in fact I explicitly said that it should not be used. Etc. etc. etc.

The fact that some people don't know how to actually click on diffs and examine what's in them really shouldn't be my problem. But apparently it is. Volunteer Marek 06:33, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

From these editors' defensive responses OMG, this is like a bad junior high school essay. Volunteer Marek 23:35, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I see we have descended into mere name-calling now. Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

It's easy to act all high and mighty and detached and disinterested when you're not the one being lied about. If you were accused of these things how would you react? Volunteer Marek 03:01, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@JPxG: This should be publishable now (I also just added title and blurb, feel free to adjust). Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:02, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

So can I write a response or not? Volunteer Marek 23:31, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Submissions is that way. As indicated before, acceptance will really depend on the content and the decision will not be up to me.

I will also point out that since I floated that idea on February 10, the Signpost (Andreas) has already prominently featured your and Piotrus' objections in the last issue's "In the media", where the top headline read "Wikipedians rebut paper alleging 'intentional distortion' of Holocaust history" (a wording that, by the way, Grabowski and Klein could be forgiven for criticizing as rather biased against them, see e.g. WP:ALLEGE). Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:11, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll just mention here that I didn't write that headline. (The draft headline I wrote read 'Academic paper alleges Wikipedia's Holocaust coverage suffers from "intentional distortion", Wikipedians publish rebuttals', with the second part a later addition.) Andreas JN466 06:26, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

State of the issue

Small, but some time-sensitive things.

• Copyedited: Featured content, Technology report, News and notes
• Copyedited with one thing: Recent research Presuming the above discussion is sufficiently dealt with. Don't want BLP issues.
• Ready for copyedit: From the archives, In the media
• Maybe? Commons copyright rules

Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 00:30, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your work on ITM and NaN! Andreas JN466 01:16, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Glad to help! Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 01:43, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Oh, just to note, I cut one item from ITM while writing it up: https://paranormaldailynews.com/craigs-psi-wars/ felt a little too promotional: The website doesn't appear to be significant, and the article's selling a book. If I'm missing something, we could include it, but I'm not quite seeing enough notability. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 02:57, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

No objection. One thing I thought was funny about the piece in The Critic was that the author complained about Wikipedians' anonymity but chose to remain anonymous. Andreas JN466 13:30, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Aye. If it weren't for all the BLP issues of the characterisation of the academic, I'd probably engage with the article more. It's pretty full of accusations, pretty light on evidence outside of the sockpuppetteer, which... isn't really much. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 14:15, 5 March 2023 (UTC)