Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2018-04-26

Anyone who has been staying informed on the Wikipedia community's affairs by now surely heard of it: our problem of systemic bias. Special attention is often given to the gender gap in our content and the diverging proportion of female and male contributors. In fact, it would seem that is all the people hear about – or that the media cares about. Leafing through Google News results, one can find countless articles on our gender bias issues and the many, many edit-a-thons and other methods meant to alleviate them:

• "Why Wikipedia often overlooks stories of women in history". PBS NewsHour. March 17, 2018.
• Carroll, Tamar; Nicosia, Lara (March 19, 2018). "Why Wikipedia Keeps Overlooking Women". YES! Magazine.
• Shih, Carol (December 14, 2017). "Wikipedia has 1.5 million biographies in English. Only 17 percent are about women". The Lily.
• Guo, Eileen (January 8, 2018). "Inside the Fight to Change Wikipedia's Gender Problem". Inverse.
• Weaver, Shaye (February 27, 2018). "Wiki history will change in worldwide edit-a-thon for Women's History Month". am New York. Newsweek.
• Anderson, Emily (March 29, 2018). "Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at Marriott Library Increases Woman Representation on the Site". The Daily Utah Chronicle. University of Utah Student Media.
• Whelan, Zuzia (April 3, 2018). "A Wikipedia Workshop Fills in the Gaps on Women Artists". Dublin Inquirer.
• Borders, Amira (April 12, 2018). "Fixing Wikipedia's gender gap: Women editors are coming together to address Wikipedia's gender trouble". Daily Emerald.
• "Women fighting for equality on Wikipedia". BBC News. March 28, 2018.
• Wendland, Brian (March 31, 2018). "More women learning to edit Wikipedia". 9news.com. KUSA-TV.
• Kerr, Emma (March 20, 2018). "Women's-Studies Students Across the Nation Are Editing Wikipedia". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
• "Alumnae Host Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon". Morgridge College of Education. Retrieved April 15, 2018.
• Sayej, Nadja (March 15, 2018). "Wikipedia's forgotten women: inside the editing marathon to fix imbalance". The Guardian.
• "Sweden tries to increase gender equality on the web". The Economist. March 8, 2018.
• Somani, Sharmeen (March 4, 2018). "Queen's U hosts Wikipedia workshop to encourage female contributors". Global News.
• Millward, Kandel (March 8, 2018). "Why 'women's voices disappear' on Wikipedia and what Hamilton women are doing about it". CBC/Radio-Canada.
• Myrow, Rachael (March 3, 2018). "Wikipedia Needs More Female Artists -- So Go Add Them, Says Stanford". KQED Inc.
• Schwarb, John (January 17, 2018). "IU students boost presence of Hoosier women in STEM through Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon". Indiana University.
• "Pratt Institute Hosts Art and Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon 2018". Pratt Institute. April 19, 2018.

Most of these news articles open with the citation of the infamously unimpressive percentage of women contributors on the site or the proportions of women biography or women's issues articles to their counterparts. Recent Wikidata statistics suggest that the gender gap remains a wide gulf to cross. There is still work to be done in this area. Between Women in Red and the Art+Feminism campaign an impressive amount of energy and effort has been directed at the issue, and no doubt it would benefit the encyclopedia for the work to continue full steam ahead.

But what about our geographical biases? They aren't given anywhere near the same attention as the gender gap—and the effect they have on our image can be just as glaring. This leads to us to doing things as embarrassing as inventing a Congolese prime minister and forgetting about it while the falsehood circulates through other language Wikipedias ([1][2][3][4]). Note that there are articles on American municipal officials that are longer than those on 14-year Burkinabé presidents, and pieces on popular Western TV episodes that are more developed than a highly influential political ideology of the 1960s.

Many African WikiProjects have no Featured Articles and at most only a handful of Good Articles to their name:

The same problem exists for some of our Asian areas:

A few countries from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean also suffer:

Many of these WikiProjects are all but abandoned. WikiProject Africa, which is responsible for managing all content related to a continent home to 1.2 billion people, nominally has 179 members. An appeal to discuss the project's direction in February garnered responses from only three users. Its "Open tasks" sections hasn't been updated in four years. This project and its contemporaries may be tagged "Relevant for Countering systemic bias", but – being reduced to little more than organizational tools – they seem mostly irrelevant for seriously combating gaps in coverage. The last major push to improve Africa content was the 2016 Destubathon, which successfully brought expansions to over 2,000 articles. These additions formed the basis for The 10,000 Challenge, "aiming to reach 10,000 article improvements for Africa long term from a series of regional contests and general independent article contribution." Improvements are still listed once or twice a week, but momentum has noticeably slowed and followup contests were never organized.

Covering all topics duly and comprehensively is key to maintaining the encyclopedia's academic integrity. But it is quite clear that a mere commitment to academic integrity will not energize enough people to fill these gaps. While Wikipedia isn't supposed to be the place to

A key component of that method is that most of the users who "advocate" do it for themselves. That is, women like writing about women. Men like writing about men and Americans, Canadians, Brits, and Australians like writing about America, Canada, Britain, and Australia; that's the most common hypothesis for how Wikipedia ended up with systemic bias in the first place. So, if increased recruitment of women editors is addressing the content gender gap, will getting more African, Asian, and Latin American members alleviate geographical bias? Put simply, yes. Wikipedia is already seeing a rise in articles on Indian, Nigerian, and Zambian topics from editors in those countries. It's a functional strategy, but it does mean that the community must – as it should always – be prepared to offer assistance and guidance to new members, including having the patience to negotiate language barriers and cultural divides.

But it is not enough to simply wait and hope that others will come to pick up the slack. There may be no deadline, but the longer the community waits the longer the gap areas will languish. All editors should try and go a little outside their comfort zone. Like politics? Try the history of labor unions in Burkina Faso's public affairs. Interested in music? Perhaps Congolese rumba will pique your interests. Fancy yourself a geographer? Check out the mountains and glaciers of Central Asia. A little broadening might just be enough to get people to put their feet in the door that opens into a great new realm of possibilities. Let's show the world that we are tackling our deficiencies on all fronts.

• How long have you been a member of WikiProject Military History? Do you prefer working on articles related to particular subjects, people, or time periods?
  • I have been involved with MILHIST for over nine years. In terms of article writing, I tend to focus on Australian infantry units and Second World War battles involving Australia as this is the area of military history I am most comfortable with (although even in this field I am still learning every day and would not consider myself anything but an amateur at best). However, working within MILHIST has provided me with the opportunity to expand my knowledge, and as such I have tried to branch out a little to other areas, including working on articles relating to New Zealand infantry units, and battles of the Pacific War not involving Australia. My work at
    MILHIST A-class review (as well as GAN and FAC), though, has allowed me to get involved in a broader range of topics also. I have really enjoyed this aspect of the project, as well as the opportunity to interact with many different people from all walks of life. AustralianRupert (talk
    )
  • I have been with the Military History Project since December 2006. Originally I focused on articles related to technology and logistics in the Australian Army in the First and Second World Wars, the areas I wrote my master's and doctoral theses on. Since 2011, I have worked on improving the articles related to nuclear weapons. Working on a series of articles in a particular topic area allows you to re-use the sources that you have assembled. I have brought over 60 military articles to FAC. For every major, FAC-worthy article that I create, I also create a couple of lesser, GA-quality articles. These are often new articles, but I have also taken seven articles that I created all the way to FAC. Hawkeye7 (discuss)
  • I've been a member of both the Military history Wikiproject and Wikipedia for over ten years, and in that time I've seen or done almost everything that can be seen or done in the Military history Project. I started off just editing articles, then worked on moving articles up to GA, A, and FA class, then switched to article reviews, and now I'm working largely within the realm of our in house newsletter The Bugle, where I've done a number of op-ed pieces commemorating the 100-year anniversary of World War I. In addition, I'm still something of a think tank, offering my suggestions and advice on milhist matters. TomStar81 (Talk)
  • I've been involved with MilHist almost as long as I've been on WP, which is over a decade now. I primarily write biographies of Australian military aviators, but have branched out to do some Australian Army and Navy personnel as well; I also write a lot of RAAF unit articles. I find myself better suited to articles with a narrow but deep focus, such as bios and unit histories -- broader topics like battles and wars I tend to leave to others. I like to take the articles I edit through as many review processes as I think they can stand, from our B-Class assessment to GAN, A-Class Review, and FAC; in turn I review others' articles. I've been a coordinator of the project for most of the past several years, and also edit the Bugle newsletter with Nick-D. Ian Rose (talk)

• What sets this Wikiproject, which has remained relatively active, apart from most other projects, which have fallen into slow decline?
  • To be honest, I'd argue that MILHIST is also currently in a process of decline and that this mirrors (broadly) the general trend on Wikipedia. I would argue, though, that this is normal for any organisation following a period of rapid expansion, as it finds its equilibrium. AustralianRupert (talk)
  • The Military History Project has not been immune to the general inexorable decline process, and to survive in the long run Wikipedia needs to ditch some of the dogma. We have the advantage that the subject is highly accessible to the general public. We have some advantages over other projects in our subject area. Military history is amenable to eventualism. For the moment at least, historians write books, which are not subject to loss through technological changes. There is a general demand for the books. Most bookstores have a Military History section. It also means that there is a thriving trade in second hand military books, whereas the work I did for the Paralympics required the mobilisation of a workforce and the attendance at events to grab the information while it was available. Although frowned on by academia, military history has a loyal following, and the project is lucky to have a solid core of highly knowledgeable editors. It is pleasing that the Military History Project has carved out a reputation for high quality workmanship. A key part of this has been our A-class review process. It has standards comparable to FAC, but more structured and without its limitations. Like FAC, its standards have risen over time. I tried to simplify its administration by automating it with a Bot. Hawkeye7 (discuss)
  • To be brutally honest, we've lost our thrusters and have been suffering a slow decline over the last few years due to an absence of new contributors to Wikipedia in general. That combined with our ever changing standards is making it harder for us to maintain the articles and reviews and such at currently acceptable levels. For the time being this is somewhat offset by our core of hardcore contributors, but there's only so much that they can do to keep us in orbit. If Wikipedia as a whole could rebound somewhat, this problem in general may resolve itself - if we could convince enough people to give the site a chance. TomStar81 (Talk)
  • I tend to agree with Rupert, Hawkeye and Tom that MilHist has also slowed down, although I'd still count it as thriving in comparison to some areas of WP. Just to take an example close to my heart, while we've not always run closely to our planned schedule with the Bugle newsletter, we've never missed an issue. In terms of what sets the project apart, not being an active member of any similar projects it's perhaps difficult to say but I do think there is a good sense of community and -- generally -- a lack of conflict (perhaps ironically in light of our subject interest). As far as processes go, A-Class Review is still a very important and distinguishing aspect. Ian Rose (talk)

• Is the success transferable to other projects, by changing how they work?
  • Each project has its own strengths and weaknesses, and its own challenges and opportunities. As does MILHIST. We do some things well, while other areas could be improved. Such is life. Ultimately, the key to success for any project will be to build a core of editors keen to work together for a common(ish) purpose. Achieving this, and maintaining it, is difficult, but there are certainly many ways to do so. AustralianRupert (talk)
  • As is the case everywhere on Wikipedia, a small group of editors create 90 per cent of the content. Ironically, military history is a peaceful, constructive and collaborative community. But the key is always enthusiasm and a desire to spread knowledge in pursuit of our educational mission. Hawkeye7 (discuss)
  • We have a particular contributor base that works with our particular model for our articles and reviews and such, so copying what we have won't automatically work for other projects. That being said, solving the larger Wikipedia related issues would (in theory) help all the projects by bringing in fresh blood, fresh perspective, and fresh ideas to projects that we can all agree we sorely need. TomStar81 (Talk)

• Is there any work that the project has done you would like to highlight as being particularly successful?
  • I think our
    A-class review process has been quite successful over the years. The project's newsletter, The Bugle, is also an aspect that I think deserves highlighting. This is largely the result of a small group including its dedicated editors, Nick-D and Ian Rose, and some regular contributors such as Hawkeye7 and TomStar81. AustralianRupert (talk
    )
  • Echoing Rupert, even though A-Class Review doesn't attract quite the same interest it once did, it's still going quite strong, and I think serves as a model for any project seeking to create a "pre-FAC" community assessment process. Rupert was also too modest to mention his own contributions to the Bugle, often helping with project news, contest results and so on -- this sort of effort has meant that Nick and I really do just need to edit much of the time, most of the original writing being done by other project members, as one would hope. Ian Rose (talk)

• Are there any methods you use to prevent biases and conspiracy theories from existing?
  • I think site wide policies such as
    WP:FRINGE say it best. AustralianRupert (talk
    )
  • We do keep an eye on the articles for this, and in fairness we've had trouble in the past with some black project related material for which sourcing is generally fringe at best. A conscious effort to keep the pages clear of conspiracy material helps, but I personally feel that the larger problem is with the never ending amount of popular culture related appearances which people document in trivial ways in the articles. While there can be no denying that military equipment is a popular culture area, most of what we see is material that is not sourced, poorly, sourced, and generally not really needed in the articles in question. Wrangling all this into corals so it can be handled correctly can be challenging at times, especially when dealing with new or unregistered users who feel that the material should be present at any cost. TomStar81 (Talk)
  • There are constant conflicts with
    WP:FRINGE sounds like a reference to the tinfoil hat brigade, but as the term is defined on Wikipedia, it also covers many popular and widely-held ideas and beliefs. Biases that affect Military History often arise from the very heart of English-speaking culture. Our best defence is each other; the collective will of the project that can marshal numbers needed to fight off challenges from individuals or even small groups. Hawkeye7 (discuss)

• Anything else you'd like to add?
  • The project's ongoing success will be tested in the coming years. To remain successful, we need to ensure that we welcome new editors while managing to keep our olds and bolds. New isn't always better, but the old ways also aren't always the best way either. Encouraging people to get involved in the broader processes of the project will also be a challenge. We need to ensure that our processes are simple, but also effective in producing quality content, while providing an editing environment that encourages people to participate and enables them to feel part of a community. Whether we can achieve this remains to be seen, but it will be a defining part of our Wikipedia journey as a project. AustralianRupert (talk)
  • For some years now we've escaped the downward spiral of Wikipedia's dry rot but it's finally starting to catch up with us, and that should concern everyone here. If a large project as successful as ours has been is starting to feel the grasp of lady death's cold fingers then it means we've reached a point where Wikipedia is going to have to evolve if it is going to survive. New members are urgently needed, but our overall sense of community has declined in the last five or so years such that these days it seems that the site survives less on contributors and more on luck. We need to reignite that spark from the old days when this was still an exciting and cool place to be, otherwise the constant burnout is going to be the death of all of us. TomStar81 (Talk)

Ever get that itch to drop the pretense of congeniality and just let loose with how you really feel about an issue? Wish there was a place where you can vent as your internal pressure continues to climb?

Channel all that pent-up energy into the creating your own essay! They can be a great outlet when compared to ad-hominem-attacks-every-one-knows-are-true-about-an-editor-but-are-just-afraid-to-say-so. I tend to lean toward the humorous types, but others lean toward the grim. Since this is Wikipedia and I am an editor, I really don't have to create new content to be considered amusing because others have already done this for me.

I can magically read the emotions of the editor(s) who write essays. They run deep. I detect that some have really poured their heart and soul into their work. I am saddened because some emotions are not exactly positive and are actually somewhat grim. Some essays can be so grim as to make you drop you head onto your computer keyboard, break down and cry.

Essays are strangely therapeutic for me. My suffering is relieved in the act of reading (and re-reading) some essays. On dark days when all my contributions are reverted, it brings healing to my wounded heart to read the very words the essayist uses to express my own emotions. Someone finally understands my heart and my agony. It's as if the author has committed a copyvio of the words that exist within me. How could they know? How could they understand? It's as if the essayist knows exactly what I am going through in response to the cruel reversions to

I have realized that an essay is the perfect environment for sarcasm and irony. These are unappreciated skills on Wikipedia. Conveying such things in writing is a very rare ability. I usually can't pull it off and admire those who can. Those who are particularly skilled can intertwine Puns^{see image} and double meanings into their writing without you realizing it until you get to the end of their sentence. On the happier side of things, the policy on pointiness doesn't apply to essays. If it did there would be no essays. You get away with (if you're good) writing things in an essay that would get you into trouble if you 'said' the same thing on a talk page.

Finally, can we deny that many unreferenced articles and lists are really essays written by (usually) well-intentioned folks that mistake their opinions for an encyclopedia article? No listing of such article-essays are part of this piece, but you all know who you are. If you would like to confess, leave your comments after this Signpost article.

Grim and grimmer

• Wikipedia:Explanationism

Though I wasn't moved to tears, I was able to force out a few sniffles. This one is disappointingly short but has great potential for getting point-i-er.

• Wikipedia:But I'm an Administrator!

Grim but humorous all wrapped up into a tidy package.

• Wikipedia:Acronym overkill

APKT^[2]

• Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Puffery

This section of a policy page needs an explanatory essay written describing it further. I'll probably accept the assignment.

• Wikipedia:One sentence does not an article make

...obviously you've mistaken WP for Wiktionary. Not even two sentences make an article. But how about three? four? How about a really long sentence with five clauses?

• Wikipedia:On Wikipedia, solutions are mixtures and nothing else

Essay-worthy but probably can't be understood by those active in

WP:WikiProject American Idol

.

Humorous (though with sometimes deadly serious purpose)

• Wikipedia:Are you evil?

This would mean something entirely different if it contained a comma instead of a colon. Not really about the deletionists, but an essay that is more along the lines of vandalism.

• Wikipedia:Talk page stalker

Someone got this right.

• Wikipedia:Diffusing conflict

A little snotty/funny but the punchline is good: "Sometimes people write lengthy posts at WP:ANI in hopes of defusing a situation; however, the ensuing drama means it is diffused instead."

• Wikipedia:Lies Miss Snodgrass Told You

Poking fun at cherished grammar and usage myths.

• Wikipedia:Principle of Some Astonishment

Actually the next Humorous Signpost article.

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not about winning

Sure it is. "Ego does not matter to Wikipedia"? Hah!

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not about whining

Also debatable.

• Wikipedia:Wikipedia is all about whining about the winners

Creating this essay is on my to-do list.

• Wikipedia is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game

I was really into this essay, then it got a little weird. I mean what is this supposed to mean? "Brick crystallizer: A game master can also choose to re-crystallize a brick that has been dissolved, turning it back into a normally-functional brick." Your game character probably has the special skills necessary to do things to bricks. Aren't you lucky!

• Wikipedia:1AM

Voted "most misleading essay title",[

ed

] this essay gives marginal magical advice for use when everyone is against you.

Notes and dubious references

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by igordebraga (March 25 to 31), Stormy clouds (April 1 to 7), and Ahecht (April 8 to 14).

In brief

New user scripts to customise your Wikipedia experience

• SearchSuite.js^[1] (source) by User:The Transhumanist – list-friendly search results enhancer. On/Off features include sort, single-line results, wikilink formatting, etc.
• source) by User:KATMAKROFAN - circa-2006 styles for templates using the ambox metatemplate
  .
• User Highlighter v2.0^[3] (source) by User:Bellezzasolo – a modified version of Admin Highlighter, which highlights other user groups as well.
• Vote Symbols Lite
  User:AnAwesomeArticleEditor — modified version of Vote Symbols
  that removes some keywords likely to cause icons to show up at the wrong time.
• User:Anchorvale
  – This adds a link to an extra sandbox, if you want more.
• source) by User:Sam Sailor – a modified version of Keφr's script
  with more Rcats.
• User:Lingzhi
  – displays 16 errors when using Harv templates

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2018 #16 & #17. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

• Recent changes
  • Profiling statistics for an abuse filter tell how often edits match the filter. The statistics for the abuse filters were reset after 10,000 actions. Wikis can now decide to reset it more or less often. They can file a phabricator task to do so. [5]
  • Abuse filters will now treat integers and floats more precisely. For example, 5/2 was rounded down to 2 but will now be 2.5 and 2*4 will be the integer 8 and not the floating-point number 8.0. Division values are the only ones changed. For the rest only strict comparisons (=== and !==) will be affected leaving the values unchanged. [6][7]
  • All Wikipedias now have Page Previews.
  • The iOS and Android apps now have synced reading lists. This means you can save articles to a private list that can be seen on your other devices if you use the apps.
  • The icons in the 2010 wikitext editor have changed. [8]
  • The visual editor and the 2017 wikitext ask you to write an edit summary after you press Publish. This button now also shows an ellipsis. This is to show that pressing Publish is not the last step. [9]
• Future changes
  • The new PDF renderer could not create PDFs from books. Books are in this case collections of pages on a Wikimedia wiki. PediaPress will take over development of the books-to-PDF function. [10]
  • Pywikibot will no longer support Python 2.7.2 and 2.7.3. [11]
  • <mapframe> will come to most Wikipedias in May. This means that you can put interactive maps in the articles. Nine Wikipedias that use a strict version of flagged revisions will not get this feature in May. [12]
  • The rollback function could change. This was a German community request. All editors with rollback rights can leave feedback on the proposed solution. The last day to leave feedback is 4 May (UTC).

Installation code