Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Next issue/In the media
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Trump is guilty, but where to stick it?
Optional: Give a short WP:LEAD-like introduction statement here.
Trump conviction causes kerfuffle[edit]
Despite our policy WP:Not news, Wikipedians can be very fast in reporting the news. On Thursday, May 30, Wikipedians were incredibly fast in reporting the news that former president Donald Trump had been convicted of 34 New York state felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up a crime. While the jury was still in the jury box at 5:07 p.m Eastern Time (21:07 UTC), the first "guilty" edit hit the Donald Trump article, adding "convicted felon" in the article's first sentence.
The jury foreperson had started pronouncing the 34 individual guilty verdicts about 5:00 p.m., perhaps a bit earlier. Each juror confirmed their agreement with the verdict. Judge Juan Merchan thanked and excused the jurors at 5:11. By the time Trump walked out of the courtroom three or four minutes later, five different editors had each edited the article once.
After another fifteen minutes and 10 edits the words "convicted felon" were removed from the article's first line, but not from the sixth paragraph of the introduction where it had already been added. Nine minutes later a Request for Comment was posted on the talk page effectively avoiding an edit war on whether "convicted felon" should be in the first line and not just in the sixth paragraph and the body of the text. The RfC will likely be closed within five days. So far the "Supports" (for including "convicted felon" in the first line) seem to have an edge in !votes, but the "Opposes" might have an edge in the style of their comments.
Bizarrely, the argument continued the next morning on CNN and on Fox which headlined its story CNN host suggests Trump conviction not mentioned prominently enough on former president's Wikipedia page. CNN host John Berman's first question to President Joe Biden's campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu according to Fox included "read Trump’s Wikipedia page after the decision, noting that the historic conviction had not been entered into the entry until the sixth paragraph. And the very top line is, 'Donald John Trump, born June 14, 1946, is an American politician, media personality, and businessman … who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.' That's the first paragraph," he continued, adding, "It’s not until paragraph six where it says he was convicted of a felony." Both CNN and Fox have removed the actual videos from their websites; the Fox transcript is at least approximately correct.
Berman's ultimate question to Landrieu, by my recollection, was "Where would you put the "convicted felon" on the page?" Fortunately, Landrieu's responses to Berman are still online at WDSU. He responded "Well I'm not going to tell people how to write their Wikipedia pages." We can all be grateful that there is at least one sane person appearing on the news channels.
– S
Trump's Truth Social borrows term "unified Reich" from Wikipedia[edit]
Where do they get these fake news quotes? In a recent pre-conviction case, Truth Social posted a video seemingly from the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign that mixed images of the former U.S. president with openly fake news headlines. The trouble started when the Associated Press noticed that "at least one of the headlines flashing in the video appears to be text that is copied verbatim from a Wikipedia entry on World War I: 'German industrial strength and production had significantly increased after 1871, driven by the creation of a unified Reich.'"[n 1] The Trump campaign press secretary told AP "This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court."[1]
But the video was not by just any person, according to The New York Times. It was made by Brenden Dilley and a group that calls itself the "Dilley Meme Team". They have worked with Trump before, including the well-known 'God made Trump' campaign video. On another video, according to the Times, Trump sent them suggested edits, which the Meme Team then incorporated into the video. They used a video background template from Envato in the unified Reich video, which contains the background "news articles". Envato seems to have picked up the offending sentence from Wikipedia.
The AP story, in addition to being run by major US news outlets like ABC News, and global media like The Times of Israel, was covered as secondary reporting by the Wall Street Journal, Politico, Axios, The Guardian and Reuters which noted the Wikipedia text connection, as did Newsweek's article "Where Trump's 'Unified Reich' Reference Came From".
So where did Wikipedia's sentence come from? Before July 8, 2009, there had been a sentence in World War I#Background about the growth of German industrial power, but it didn't mention any connection to the founding of the Second Reich in 1871. But the July 8 edit made this connection through the 1871 unification of Germany without mentioning the words "unified" or "Reich". Over the next 13 years, the sentence was rewritten - expanded and contracted - several times, with "unified" and "Reich" each appearing and then disappearing at least once, but apparently never appearing together. "Unified" stayed in the article after December 2021 until this May 22, after the video appeared and the paragraph was rewritten. "Reich" and the quoted word order appeared on November 15, 2022.[n 2] – B, S
Footnotes:
- ^ We confirm this is the first sentence at World War I#Arms race at the time of writing.
- ^ revision 1122080181
In brief[edit]
- 15% of Wikipedia is invisible: Techxplore says 15% of Wikipedia is "effectively invisible to readers". Fix those orphan articles, folks!
- NYU rulebreakers must read Wikipedia: "NYU's mandatory ethics homework for student protesters includes 'The Simpsons,' Wikipedia" (Gothamist)
- El Paso librarian is a top 2,000 editor: "El Paso librarian takes love of knowledge to Wikipedia" (El Paso Inc.)
- Bias reported: In their research for "Seven Tactics Wikipedia Editors Used to Spread Anti-Israel Bias Since Oct. 7", the cover story also available online, Jewish Journal spoke to some Wikipedians who requested anonymity because of fear of backlash on site should they discuss it openly, which is concerning in and of itself.
- Jimbo backs Labour: And not just labouring on Wikipedia.
- The Wikipedia promise: Das Wikipedia Versprechen (the Wikipedia promise) a long form documentary, in German, from the European public service agency Arte, covers Wikipedia history from the beginning. Perhaps you would prefer Il était une fois Wikipedia (in French) (likely meaning "Once upon a time on Wikipedia"?)
- AI Overviews in review: AI-Powered Search and the Rise of Google's "Concierge Wikipedia" (TechPolicy.press) see prior Signpost coverage of the Wikimedia Foundation for-profit spinoff that supplies Google with the data service that (in part) enables this Google AI engine
- Flag edits flagged: Pine Tree Flag editing was noted in several media including The Volokh Conspiracy column at Reason [1]
- You are now part of the Global Public Relations Plan for the Era of Digital Transformation: "As part of a comprehensive strategy to enhance its global recognition and reputation, Korea will update and correct information about the country on influential platforms like Wikipedia..." [2] (The Korea Times) – South Korea Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on May 28 announced the so-called Global Public Relations Plan for the Era of Digital Transformation.
- Citation (not) needed: Tom's Guide says that "Wikipedia should be worried" about Perplexity, a social search engine with AI text generation. [3] The Wikipedia-like new feature seems to be "every piece of information in the new Perplexity Pages is cited and includes links to the original source".
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