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Dummy ISBN
By coincidence, I noticed multiple references use this "dummy" ISBN: 978-1-234-56789-7. (Note the pattern of increasing numbers, except the prefix and the checksum.) Although it does correspond to a book, all the references (I suppose) actually deal with completely different works. It might be worth investigating where these ISBNs come from (and fix the invalid references).
Strange enough, this is what citoid (citation generator in visual editor) generates from it:
- Kumar, Ranjit (2011). Research methodology : a step-by-step guide for beginners (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE. ISBN 978-1-84920-300-5. OCLC 688576521.
--Matěj Suchánek (talk) 12:42, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- The ISBN is used in Template:Cite book#Examples. I guess some editors copy the example code and change other parameters but don't know what to do with the ISBN. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:20, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Maybe the example should be changed to something with an invalid checksum. That ought to avoid any clash with a real ISBN. Phil Bridger (talk) 06:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have removed the pseudo-"dummy ISBN" from these examples for now. I also considered to just invalidate the checksum but felt it could raise even more questions in new editors than provide answers for them. Is there a true dummy ISBN that could be used for such purposes instead?
- --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:21, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Maybe the example should be changed to something with an invalid checksum. That ought to avoid any clash with a real ISBN. Phil Bridger (talk) 06:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
YouTube Music stealing English Wikipedia content without attribution
I'm one of the schmucks in the world who pays for YouTube music and recently came across the artist biographies in the app that nobody ever reads. I've discovered that they wholesale steal Wikipedia content in pretty much all the artist biographies. For instance, here's the page on Daft Punk (scroll down to bottom) [1], wholesale taken from our article with no attribution. Likewise for 50 Cent. [2] When I emailed YTM support they told me that the artist biographies are provided by the artists themselves (sure they are) and that I should use the "feedback" button in the app, which we all know worked amazing for WP:CALIPH. They also said that they only provided support for purchases and my concern was out of scope.
Normally I'd follow our policies on mirrors and forks but Google doesn't provide any actual contact information to send the CC-BY-SA template to anymore, unless I am willing to send a physical letter to the Google headquarters. Anyone else got any ideas? The last time I asked WMF legal about this issue back in 2015 with Google Play Music doing this they told me to send the amazing CC-BY-SA compliance letter, so that's likely a dead end. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 20:17, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Chess: Found this after searching for the past 15 minutes. YouTube (and Google, for that matter) certainly doesn't make it easy to find contact information for them. OhKayeSierra (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- If that email doesn't lead to anything, you could at least try pinging someone from the WMF legal department. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 04:27, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @OhKayeSierra: Went ahead and emailed them. They responded saying "We're unable to determine your authority to bring this legal claim. The party whose legal rights are at issue - or their authorized representative - must notify us directly. If you're authorized to act on the party's behalf, please respond to this email specifying your relationship." as well as complaining that I didn't provide timestamps or enough information.
- I wonder if there's some way to trigger the 30 day period mentioned in the CC-BY-SA under which the licence is terminated if licensee is made aware of a licence violation and doesn't do anything about it. It's either that or I start editing the lede of random musician articles. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 17:19, 15 August 2021 (UTC)- The response that you got is correct. Copyright is a civil matter, and only the copyright holders (which in this case would be the editors who produced the content) can make any claim for redress. The advice to contact the WMF legal department is simply wrong. They will only tell you the same. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Phil Bridger: Yeah it's legally correct but disregarding our licence terms is generally considered a "dick move". Fuck Google, really. They suck out our content to power their Knowledge Graph and provide the tiniest of hyperlinks that doesn't even properly clarify that the content they're using is from Wikipedia which leads to people being mislead about the source of the content and sucking away all of our readership. Then they pay off the WMF with a few million dollars possibly so the WMF doesn't do anything that would actually make a difference. [3] They don't give a shit about FOSS and they're a cancer that sucks the life out of everything they touch. They know I can't do anything and neither can our community, so Google just acts with the impunity to do stuff like this. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 20:47, 15 August 2021 (UTC)- You are right that you can't do anything about it. Only the copyright holders can, and for them it would be very expensive and a huge risk. That's the world that we live in. I don't think that it makes any difference whether Google gives money to the WMF or not. The WMF (very rightly) does not hold the copyright to our content, so cannot do anything. Having half-agreed with you, could I suggest that "sucking away all of our readership" is a bit of an exaggeration? Phil Bridger (talk) 21:00, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Phil Bridger: Yeah it's legally correct but disregarding our licence terms is generally considered a "dick move". Fuck Google, really. They suck out our content to power their Knowledge Graph and provide the tiniest of hyperlinks that doesn't even properly clarify that the content they're using is from Wikipedia which leads to people being mislead about the source of the content and sucking away all of our readership. Then they pay off the WMF with a few million dollars possibly so the WMF doesn't do anything that would actually make a difference. [3] They don't give a shit about FOSS and they're a cancer that sucks the life out of everything they touch. They know I can't do anything and neither can our community, so Google just acts with the impunity to do stuff like this. Chess (talk) (please use
- The response that you got is correct. Copyright is a civil matter, and only the copyright holders (which in this case would be the editors who produced the content) can make any claim for redress. The advice to contact the WMF legal department is simply wrong. They will only tell you the same. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Sounds like our Wikipedia:Purpose and the Wikimedia Foundation purpose is being fulfilled.Moxy-
21:06, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- Not when there isn't appropriate attribution. Thanks @Chess for spotting this and attempting to contact YouTube. I've mentioned this situation to the WMF Partnerships team, who are going to raise it with their contacts at YouTube. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 21:18, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Pcoombe (WMF): Thanks for the reply. I can't wait until action is taken. Chess (talk) (please use
{{reply to|Chess}}
on reply) 09:05, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Pcoombe (WMF): Thanks for the reply. I can't wait until action is taken. Chess (talk) (please use
- Not when there isn't appropriate attribution. Thanks @Chess for spotting this and attempting to contact YouTube. I've mentioned this situation to the WMF Partnerships team, who are going to raise it with their contacts at YouTube. Peter Coombe (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 21:18, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
- It is possible the Wikipedia content is provided by the "artist" ie. whoever represents the artist which is like 3 or 4 big media companies these days. It's probably cheaper for those companies then creating content inhouse. And who knows it might be a third party company selling the content back to the media company and they are unaware of the origin or not care. But even if true, Google should have some responsibility if made aware of it. -- GreenC 21:44, 15 August 2021 (UTC)
Kamarinskaïa - The Grand Budapest Hotel
Hi, Sorry if I'm writing in the wrong heading (sysop on the french WP). Do you know where I can find the score of Kamarinskaïa that we may hear in the The Grand Budapest Hotel ? OT38 (talk) 21:10, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
- I was going to point you to the ref desk but I see you have found it at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment#Kamarinskaïa - The Grand Budapest Hotel. Johnuniq (talk) 23:16, 14 August 2021 (UTC)
A truly strange error that is widespread on Wikipedia
See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Best known for IP -- RoySmith (talk) 23:46, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I observe that in many biographical articles on Wikipedia, the surname of the subject is repeated over and over again, where in normal English writing of any basic standard, a pronoun would be used. In some articles, this jarring error is so frequent that it makes them almost unreadable.
The example which has prompted me to post this is Simo Häyhä, in which this person's surname is repeated five times in the five-sentence lead section (twice in one of those sentences), and appears 100 times in the article overall. I estimate that about 70 of those should be replaced by a pronoun.
Many, many articles are similarly written. I find this utterly baffling. Why are so many people writing in this way? Is there some rational explanation for this? Some guideline suggesting that it should be done, perhaps? Or is it really the case that very large numbers of Wikipedia editors simply do not know how to use pronouns correctly in English? Saturated flux (talk) 16:18, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- The usage of "error" is odd. I don't think its an attempt to write professionally, and most people are doing Wikipedia as a hobby, not a job or for school projects on improving their grammar. It's a simple fix really, just use pronouns when acceptable. The goal is to avoid using "he/she" too much. So you'll see editors use the surname more. But its supposed to be a balance.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 17:09, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think that in good writing there is certainly some latitude in when one uses pronouns or when one repeats a surname. But the examples I keep on seeing are definitely bad. Repeating a surname once or twice within a paragraph may be reasonable. Repeating it multiple times in a paragraph, and even within a sentence, is not. I cannot imagine that any authority on good writing has ever argued otherwise. And it is not a simple fix when the error is so widespread as to be almost universal.
- The goal is to avoid using "he/she" too much. - why would that be the goal?
- I know that everyone is doing Wikipedia is a hobby. But the idea is it should be a work of quality, no? On coming to Wikipedia, a reader should find a well-written and factually correct article, shouldn't they? Saturated flux (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- he/she is just as redundant as the surname. So it's best to make sure there is a balance to avoid redundancy. If multiple people are being mentioned, it's even more important to distinguish (obviously).
- Wikipedia is independent and all contributed by everyday people. And not everyone has the resources to fix all the articles that you may find issues. We encourage you to be bold and edit the article if you find any issues.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:50, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I would agree that this is not an error, although Häyhä's case could be cut back in several places. BD2412 T 19:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- MOS:SURNAME says,
After the initial mention, a person should generally be referred to by surname only
. I do agree that excessive repetition of a person's name makes for stilted prose. I'll generally use "he" or "she" when it's in close proximity to the last time I used a person's name and it's completely unambiguous who the referent is: "Fred Flintstone ordered a full rack of brontosaurus ribs at the drive-in. His car fell over when it was delivered". -- RoySmith (talk) 19:34, 16 August 2021 (UTC)- I must say I very strongly disagree with Blue Pumpkin Pie's claim that pronouns are "just as redundant as the surname". They are not redundant at all; they are the English language's specific means of avoiding the redundancy of repeating names. That is the entire point of them. Saturated flux (talk) 09:25, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Saturated flux: Not saying they are automatically redundant. but with poor writing, it can be just as redundant. Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 16:12, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- MOS:SURNAME is concerned about whether we should use the surname or the full name. It says nothing about when pronouns should be used rather than some form of the name, which is a matter of good English writing, not something that is subject to Wikipedia-specific policies and guidelines. All we need to do there is to set the requirement that articles in the English Wikipedia should be written in good English that your high-school teacher wouldn't cringe at. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:52, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- MOS:SURNAME says,
- I would agree that this is not an error, although Häyhä's case could be cut back in several places. BD2412 T 19:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
See also the wonderful essay Wikipedia:The problem with elegant variation. Switching up surname with he/she can "fail to fix the real cause of repetitive prose, which is usually repeated information, not repeated words." -- GreenC 19:41, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- I haven't looked at any specific examples, but in general would encourage only those who can already write half-way decent English to write an English-language encyclopedia article. It is not our job to rectify the failings of elementary school teaching. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:00, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Also to quote Cicero, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter". We can't assume that typos are all based on a lack of skill or education. Some people don't have the time Wikipedia requires to make a single clean edit. Some of us make a group of edits to fix one issue and may end up not being as coherent at first. TLDR: Wikipedia is a collaboration. Just be bold and make the fixes you believe are necessary to improve the articles. Not everyone has the time/resources to make the edits you want to see.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 21:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- There's a lot of room between "half-way decent English" and elegant writing. Spelling, grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure, and overall flow are the basics, and I think that's about all we can reasonably require. We can't all be Hemingway. There's some good material at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/How to. And The Elements of Style is required reading for anybody who wants to write better. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- Also to quote Cicero, "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter". We can't assume that typos are all based on a lack of skill or education. Some people don't have the time Wikipedia requires to make a single clean edit. Some of us make a group of edits to fix one issue and may end up not being as coherent at first. TLDR: Wikipedia is a collaboration. Just be bold and make the fixes you believe are necessary to improve the articles. Not everyone has the time/resources to make the edits you want to see.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 21:12, 16 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Phil Bridger: I suppose it could be very interesting to see a strict, unambiguous criterion of decent English, as well as a precise measure for half-way. Do you think you might provide one? --CiaPan (talk) 21:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- There obviously is not any "strict", "unambiguous" or "precise" quantification of good writing in general. One could easily make a quantification of this particular issue though - if an editor writes text that repeats a surname in two consecutive sentences, their English is probably not decent. If they repeat it in three consecutive sentences, it definitely isn't. Saturated flux (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Phil Bridger: I suppose it could be very interesting to see a strict, unambiguous criterion of decent English, as well as a precise measure for half-way. Do you think you might provide one? --CiaPan (talk) 21:38, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
I'm extremely surprised that some people are arguing that this is not an error. Another example that I fixed yesterday was this:
- Hedges has performed DJ sets at various clubs and festivals. In 2014, Hedges released a single titled "Best Night OML" with vocals from JB Gill. In 2016, Hedges released a single titled "Kaleidoscope" on Armada Deep featuring vocalist Sonny Reeves.
I think that is awful writing. I think that normal English demands that the second and third sentences contain a pronoun and not a repetition of the surname. Do people really disagree? Does any guide to good English writing disagree?
Meanwhile I see people saying "just fix what you think needs fixing". Sure. But the point is, the error is everywhere. If the error is arising because most editors don't really know how to use pronouns, then there's no point in the minority who do fixing anything because their efforts are logically doomed to failure. Saturated flux (talk) 09:25, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- I wouldn't say it's an "error", because it's not ungrammatical as such, but I'd agree that it's poor writing. I suspect that the reason a lot of the time is that each sentence has been added by a different editor, so no one person has drafted a particular paragraph from start to finish in a coherent and elegant manner. That's the nature of a collaborative project, and unless other editors devote time to making articles read more smoothly, there will often be jarring elements like this. Proteus (Talk) 10:14, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Saturated flux: I don't believe anyone disagreed that its poor writing. The choice to use "error" shouldn't be the problem. We can all agree it can be written better. Are you going to be bold and fix the issues?Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 14:37, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- To further quote WP:BOLD,
Fix it yourself instead of just talking about it. If you notice an unambiguous error or problem that any reasonable person would recommend fixing, the best course of action may be to be bold and fix it yourself rather than bringing it to someone's attention in the form of a comment or complaint. In the time it takes to write about the problem, you could instead improve the encyclopedia.
Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 14:39, 17 August 2021 (UTC)- Some people did disagree that it is poor writing. Am I going to be bold and fix the issues? I have done, and that completely misses the point. If it occurred in a handful of articles, that rather patronising suggestion might be applicable. But it is all over Wikipedia, and I am not asking if the error should be fixed, I am asking why it is so widespread. If the general attitude is "meh, doesn't really matter" then nobody has any incentive to fix it. Saturated flux (talk) 15:02, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- To put a different slant on things, many different skills go into writing a good encyclopedia article. You need to research the facts. You need to organize them into a coherent story. You need to have the references formatted properly. You need the article categorized properly. And connected to wikidata. You need good photos/illustrations. You need well-written prose. You need to ensure copyright compliance (hint: I recently had some photos I took deleted from commons because it turns out I misunderstood how Freedom of panorama works) And lots of other things I can't think of right now. It's not reasonable to require that any single person have all of these skills. That's what makes this collaborative project work; somebody can research a topic and write a first draft, then somebody else can come along and improve the prose. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:03, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- I agree of course that the whole thing is incremental and no one editor need contribute everything that a quality article needs. But it only works if the increments are predominantly in the right direction. In the case of proper use of pronouns, it does look like the majority of editors are incrementally making articles worse. I can certainly see how some of these cases arise - like someone said, if a few different editors each add a sentence without considering how it fits into the context, you could end up with a few repetitions of a surname. But that can still only happen if the majority of editors don't bother to consider the context. That's troubling, isn't it? Saturated flux (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- There's also a factor here of "monkey see, monkey do". If there is a line of established established text, and a new editor comes along, wanting to add new information but aren't confident how to add it, they will follow the format they see of other sentences already on the page, since this seems to "work". This is exactly how WP:PROSELINE can become a problem in an article, and would also explain why one would see the frequent repeated use of a surname rather than balancing uses of pronouns or more compound sentences to avoid that. --Masem (t) 15:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- I can see the logic, but find it hard to imagine how this could play out. It would require the error to become widespread in the first place, and then the majority of editors to either lack knowledge of how to use pronouns, or to decide to abandon it in favour of what they perceive as some "house style". I don't remotely understand how either of those could come to pass. Saturated flux (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Wikipedia doesn't reward exemplary prose. Inserting new information that differs from the format of the existing prose tends to draw attention, which then tends to lead to "no consensus" reverts and that hampers the writing process somewhat. Some people don't feel like engaging in that sort of back-and-forth exercise, so they go with the flow even if it looks somewhat awful as you said. WaltCip-(talk) 12:55, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I can see the logic, but find it hard to imagine how this could play out. It would require the error to become widespread in the first place, and then the majority of editors to either lack knowledge of how to use pronouns, or to decide to abandon it in favour of what they perceive as some "house style". I don't remotely understand how either of those could come to pass. Saturated flux (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- I'm so glad others have noticed this! Gratuitous topic-restatement is, IMHO, one of WP's most consistently amateurish-looking syndromes. Do that many authors worry that their readers may have attention challenges and must be continually reminded of the topic? And yes, I do fix it, rather than just complaining about it—and fix it, and fix it, and fix it… I just wish someone could write a macro and fix it all in one swell foop. It'd free up so much of our time for less prosaic edits. – AndyFielding (talk) 12:03, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Another issue that may be a factor in this is gender identification. Editors may be unsure about which pronouns to use (he, she, they, Xer, etc) for a bio subject, and so avoid using pronouns altogether. This leads to constant repetition of the person’s name instead of a pronoun. Blueboar (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Could be possible I guess, but surely that could only explain a tiny minority of cases. For the vast majority of biographical articles there is no doubt about which pronouns one should use.
Well, there are some plausible theories about how this error could arise, and I can see how they might apply in some cases. But I really cannot see how any of them would account for what I found at Simo Häyhä, and what I see at many other articles. Personally, I am finding it pretty hard to avoid concluding that a very significant proportion of the editors of English Wikipedia must simply not know when pronouns should be used. However, my observation is still a bit anecdotal. I think I will try to investigate some defined set of biographical articles to see how widespread the problem is. Saturated flux (talk) 16:36, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think it's probably just that each editor adds the sentence they want to add, and that they don't take time to read the context and decide whether to use a pronoun. But it would be interesting to get the views of someone who teaches English as a foreign language, to know whether failing to use pronouns is a common fault, either with learners in general or with those with a particular first-language background. PamD 16:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's the nub of the issue. Each of those sentences is correct on its own, and they were probably written by different people, but when taken as a whole they constitute bad writing style. That's one of the drawbacks of this being an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The best thing to do when seeing such things is simply to rewrite them in better style. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Pretty much this, particularly for pages where there are a large number of edits (without any serious edit warring on content) in a short amount of time. Nearly all of our "COVID in (location)" pages suffer from excessive proseline and poor writing style, composition, etc. only because it was far easier to add events that happened in a chronological manner while things were going off nearly daily. Now that most of COVID has waned (not completed), it would be rather helpful for editors to go back and actually try to work out a better prose narrative to incorporate all that information holistically rather than piecemeal. This is just the happenstance of Wikipedia's open nature, and not really an "error" per se. --Masem (t) 17:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- A few comments on this theory:
- it's definitely not always true. In the case of Charlie Hedges which I fixed the other day, the three consecutive sentences each containing a repetition of the surname were added by one editor.
- I don't think I've often seen a sentence containing a repeated surname that didn't at least follow logically from the sentence before. So the person adding it must have checked the context, presumably?
- but if it is true in a lot of cases, it would mean that there are a lot of editors who simply don't bother to consider how their edit fits into the article. That's pretty troubling too, isn't it?
- The best thing to do when seeing such things is simply to rewrite them in better style. - sure but why bother, when all the indications are that the error is being added at a far greater rate than anyone's fixing it? It was, in fact, extremely boring to go through Simo Häyhä and make it less awful. If such articles were a rarity, an occasional effort like that might be tolerable. But when I seem to encounter this error in many or even most articles, the issue cannot be addressed by simply saying "go fix it". And this issue of pronouns is definitely not the only type of glaringly bad writing that can be found all over Wikipedia. Saturated flux (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Saturated flux I think we have more than ample answers to your query. if none of these answers are satisfactory, then there's not much we can do from this point further, and you should drop the stick. Are you asking just to ask and have no intention of trying to improve the status quo? if so, it can be a waste of time just to cater to answering you only to not be satisfied and continue this discussion. If you don't want to edit the article, you don't have to. The article Simo Häyhä is a C-class article, which means Wikipedia recognizes that it requires copy editing and other improvements. Charlie Hedges is a start class. For more information on the classes, I recommend looking at WP:ASSESS.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:02, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Who said that "none of these answers are satisfactory"? I certainly didn't. And why else do you think I am asking this, other than to try to improve the status quo? I am finding it an interesting discussion, and if I raise awareness of a widespread problem, I think that is a good thing. Really not sure why you are being confrontational here. Saturated flux (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Because you said "Why bother".Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- And that made you confrontational why, exactly? Saturated flux (talk) 21:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I apologize if you think I'm being confrontational. Don't you think we addressed this enough? Are you genuinely interested in improving these articles? Remember Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. So unless you are actively looking for a solution and are planning to propose a change to improve articles or help editors improve their writing skills. I think we gave more than ample answers for why you are baffled that bad writing exists on a site that publishes free information edited by potentially anybody of any age and demographic. Wikipedia is home to 6,359,745 (and counting) with only 120,060 active editors (not all highly skilled in writing). That means there are 350 articles out there per active editor. And that's a lot to manage. So I understand you are baffled but just by understanding What Wikipedia is, helps understand why there's bad writing.Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 22:14, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- And that made you confrontational why, exactly? Saturated flux (talk) 21:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Because you said "Why bother".Blue Pumpkin Pie (talk) 18:30, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Who said that "none of these answers are satisfactory"? I certainly didn't. And why else do you think I am asking this, other than to try to improve the status quo? I am finding it an interesting discussion, and if I raise awareness of a widespread problem, I think that is a good thing. Really not sure why you are being confrontational here. Saturated flux (talk) 18:20, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- there are a lot of editors who simply don't bother to consider how their edit fits into the article. That's pretty troubling too, isn't it? I'd rather see editors include information as best they can (and ideally with some source) as an easy step that requires minimal learning of our systems, rather than chastise them for not working to improve the prose or flow or other more nuanced things that are fixable by others. We have enough problems with editor retention already that I'd rather see editors do the minimum required for verifyability so that they keep adding and have to "clean up the mess" later. --Masem (t) 22:32, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- A few comments on this theory:
- Pretty much this, particularly for pages where there are a large number of edits (without any serious edit warring on content) in a short amount of time. Nearly all of our "COVID in (location)" pages suffer from excessive proseline and poor writing style, composition, etc. only because it was far easier to add events that happened in a chronological manner while things were going off nearly daily. Now that most of COVID has waned (not completed), it would be rather helpful for editors to go back and actually try to work out a better prose narrative to incorporate all that information holistically rather than piecemeal. This is just the happenstance of Wikipedia's open nature, and not really an "error" per se. --Masem (t) 17:03, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- That's the nub of the issue. Each of those sentences is correct on its own, and they were probably written by different people, but when taken as a whole they constitute bad writing style. That's one of the drawbacks of this being an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. The best thing to do when seeing such things is simply to rewrite them in better style. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Saturated flux, If you want to know why editor(s) did that in that article, you could go ask them (see the editing history). There may be multiple and disparate reasons, depending on the article, but probably all related to lack of copy editing across the project. (Adding: Isn't the copy editing problem now at Simo Häyhä after fixing the name issue, that all the sentences are structured repetitiously?) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:21, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I have considered that. But of the two articles I've mentioned here, in one of them the text was added years ago, and in the other there were just way too many instances to work out who added them and when.
- I don't think the sentences at Simo Häyhä are structured repetitiously. I didn't find it repetitive, other than the dozens of occurrences of "Häyhä". I don't doubt it could be improved further though. Saturated flux (talk) 17:44, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- Actually my mistake, the text in Charlie Hedges was added a few months ago, not years. Anyway if I have the time to have a look at a sample of articles, and dig through the history to see when the problem was introduced, if it is present, I'll do some asking. Saturated flux (talk) 21:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
Request for comment notification
Here is a link to a RFC on Meta concerning all Wikimedia projects. Best, Lionel Scheepmans ✉ Contact (French native speaker) 01:03, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
How long can it take a new page to get reviewed?
Most of my pages have been reviewed with 24 hours, so I am wondering why a page I submitted a few days ago has still not been reviewed. Are all pages eventually reviewed and how long can it take please? Amirah talk 20:32, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
- Your question has been answered where you asked it at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers. Please don't post the same question in multiple locations. Schazjmd (talk) 20:41, 17 August 2021 (UTC)
Voting in the 2021 Board of Trustees election is now open
Hello, and thank you for your patience. The voting is now open in the 2021 Board of Trustees election.
Eligible voters can enter their vote at Special:SecurePoll/vote/791.
Please see the full announcement below, and let me know if you have any questions. Xeno (WMF) (talk) 01:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- Announcement in other languages
Voting for the 2021 Board of Trustees election is now open. Candidates from the community were asked to submit their candidacy. After a three week long Call for Candidates, there are 19 candidates for the 2021 election.
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the Wikimedia Foundation's operations. The Board wants to improve their competences and diversity as a team. They have shared the areas of expertise that they are hoping to cover with new trustees.
The Wikimedia movement has the opportunity to select candidates who have the qualities to best serve the needs of the movement for the next several years. The Board is expected to select the four most voted candidates to serve as trustees. This term starts in September and lasts for three years. Learn more about the Board of Trustees in this short video.
Vote now until August 31.
Below is some useful information about the election process.
- Learn more about the candidates
Candidates from across the movement have submitted their candidatures. Learn about each candidate to inform your vote. The community submitted questions for the candidates to answer during the campaign. Candidates answered the list of community questions collated by the Elections Committee on Meta.
- Vote
Voting for the 2021 Board of Trustees election opened on 18 August 2021 and closes on 31 August 2021. The Elections Committee chose Single Transferable Vote for the voting system. The benefit of this is voters can rank their choices in order of preference. Learn more about voting requirements, how to vote, and frequently asked questions about voting.
Please help in the selection of those people who best fit the needs of the movement at this time. Vote and spread the word so more people can vote for candidates. Those selected will help guide the Wikimedia Foundation and support the needs of the movement over the next few years.
Best,
The Elections Committee
Full list of Community questions
Hello fellow editors,
I would like to draw your attention to the complete list of 61 questions which were asked by the Community here from the candidates appearing in the Board of Trustees election process. The Election Committee of the WMF selected eleven of these questions which were mandatorily needed to be answered by the candidates in the link given in the announcement post by WMF above. Some candidates answered the complete list of 61 questions and you can read their views in their questions, however please note there was severe time pressure on the candidates in this election and all candidates were genuinely not able to answer all the questions due to commitments in real life.
Please do go through candidate statements, their answers to the mandatory 11 questions and to the complete set of community questions before voting. Vote wisely, and Happy Editting. :) AshLin (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Disclaimer: I am a candidate for the Board of Trustees Election and this post is only for information of editors on my home wiki. AshLin (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
RPP systemic conduct issue
Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Decrease is not working as intended since RPP was reformatted because most users are filing ambiguous requests under the placeholder title "Example Article Name". At Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Edit, users are also not filling in the placeholder title "Name of page you are requesting an edit to" with the page they want to be edited, and are also frequently submitting malformed requests and even attempting to create articles here. I'm not seeing this issue at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Increase. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:18, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
- See also Wikipedia talk:Requests for page protection#Bad requests. (And, to engage in a bit of shameless self-advertisement, this is precisely the sort of reason why I made this proposal.) Enterprisey (talk!) 08:42, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Flag of the Empire of Vietnam
The File:Flag of the Empire of Vietnam (1945).svg used on Wikipedia is now become questionable. Yesterday someone argued that that this flag shouldn't be similar dimensions to the South Vietnamese flag, and all red stripes shouldn't reach to the side of flag. However he posted on my talk page at the Wikimedia Commons. It would be nice if anyone can help to investigate. --Great Brightstar (talk) 09:20, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
Definition of the Donbas
I would like to draw the attention of users to the discussion of the definition of the Donbas. So far, only the user interested in promoting his point of view has spoken out there, who previously removed a number of reliable sources from the article (and earlier). Therefore, there is a need for a neutral point of view from the outside. Please read the sources on this issue and express your opinion. Thank you.94.181.192.62 (talk) 05:15, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
- I think this is not the place for content dispute resolution. Going to WP:3O or WP:DRN will yield better results. Thanks. SunDawntalk 02:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.--5.167.164.20 (talk) 05:42, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
100 graphs from the largest survey of the public's attitude to what actions should be taken on climate change
Hi all
I'm very pleased to say the EU's European Investment Bank (the largest not for profit bank in the world) has released its first batch of content under an open license. To the best of my knowledge this is only the second EU body to make content available under an open license, after the Commission.
They're released around 100 amazing graphs from the largest survey of the public's attitude to what actions should be taken on climate change (+some photos of their buildings). Broadly it shows widespread support for significant action on climate change.
Please help to encourage them to release more by adding them to articles.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Content_produced_by_the_European_Investment_Bank
Thanks
~~~~ John Cummings (talk) 19:45, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Universal Code of Conduct: Enforcement draft guidelines review
The Universal Code of Conduct Phase 2 drafting committee would like comments about the enforcement draft guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC). This review period is planned to begin 17 August 2021.
Community and staff members collaborated to develop these draft guidelines based on consultations, discussions, and research. These guidelines are not final but you can help move the progress forward. Provide comments about these guidelines by 17 October 2021. The committee will be revising the guidelines based upon community input.
Everyone may share comments in a number of places. Facilitators welcome comments in any language on the draft review talk page or by email. Comments can also be shared on talk pages of translations, at local discussions, or during round-table discussions and conversation hours.
There are planned live discussions about the UCoC enforcement draft guidelines:
- Wikimania 2021 session (recorded 16 August)
- Conversation hours - 24 August, 31 August, 7 September @ 03:00 UTC & 14:00 UTC
- Roundtable calls - 18 September @ 03:00 UTC & 15:00 UTC
The facilitation team supporting this review period hopes to reach a large number of communities. Having a shared understanding is important. If you do not see a conversation happening in your community, please organize a discussion. Facilitators can assist you in setting up the conversations.
Discussions will be summarized and presented to the drafting committee every two weeks. The summaries will be published here.
The full announcement and translations can be found here.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Best, JKoerner (WMF) (talk) 23:14, 20 August 2021 (UTC)
Britannica
Can i use Encyclopædia Britannica as reference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GogoLion (talk • contribs) 07:18, 22 August 2021 (UTC)
- @GogoLion: yes, you can, but it is regarded as a tertiary source, and secondary sources are preferred if available. See WP:BRITANNICA for details. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 07:38, 22 August 2021 (UTC)