Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-12-24/Discussion report

Is SpongeBob SquarePants now freely licensed?
At the policy village pump: what's the deal with media companies uploading drawings and videos of highly recognizable characters under free licenses? Is it a proper release? Do they have the authority to make a proper release? Would it hold up in court? Who knows. One thing's for sure: in one week, the mouse will be freed from his prison. — J

Wikimedia Commons discusses how to handle AI images
On December 6, a discussion was opened at Commons' village pump regarding the proper tagging and use of pictures created using image models (e.g. Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and friends). Should they be permitted? Labeled? Forbidden? There's a litany of opinions. At the center of them is the newly-congealing Commons:AI-generated media. — J

Arabic Wikipedia blacks out main page, logs out all users, publishes statement, and adopts new logo in response to war in Gaza
Following a discussion on the Arabic Wikipedia ( archive alt), the wiki took several actions in response to the war in Gaza. The actions, as summarized by Arabic Wikipedia checkuser and administrator, are as follows:
 * 1) The logo of the Arabic Wikipedia was changed to bear the colors of the Palestinian flag indefinitely;
 * 2) On December 23, the home page of the Arabic Wikipedia was to be blacked out and editing of the wiki would be prohibited;
 * 3) The Arabic Wikipedia published a statement of solidarity with the Palestinian people; and
 * 4) A competition is to be arranged by administrators of the Arabic Wikipedia to create content relating to the cause of the Palestinian people ( القضية الفلسطينية ) and to the ongoing war in Gaza.

The discussion began when posted a message to  fellow Arabic Wikimedians, encouraging the wiki to put out a banner message in solidarity with Palestinian Arabs and calling for an end to the war. As conversation developed, lamented the state of the war's coverage on the Arabic Wikipedia, stating that it relied too much upon English sources and that several key articles were too short, and arguing that some changes should be made to encourage the creation of content related to the Palestinian cause and to encourage advocacy on its behalf.

Following initial discussion, a consensus was obtained on the Wiki to issue a statement of solidarity. made a formal proposal to take several actions in support of Palestinians, including a blackout of the Arabic Wikipedia's main page.

Later on, suggested that the logo of the Arabic Wikipedia be changed to bear the colors of the Palestinian flag. The user compared the proposal to the decision by community of the Georgian Wikipedia to change their logos to bear the colors of the Ukrainian flag following the Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Throughout the discussion, there was near unanimous support for a statement of support for the Palestinian people, the creation of new content related to the conflict, the blacking out of the main page, and the changing of the logo. A broader ban on editing on 23 December was also implemented; an interface administrator installed a fork of Wikibreak enforcer into the site's Common.js file (diff, archive alt ). It is not clear to The Signpost which interface administrator made the edit, as the username of the editor who performed the edit was subject to revision deletion.

Update: filed a Steward request (archive) immediately on Meta after the Wikibreak enforcer came online: requesting for the enforcer to be removed on basis that unsuspecting logged-in editors who visit the Arabic Wikipedia would be logged out without adequate warnings. After a quick discussion with an unanimous view that the protest should not affect logged-in editors on other projects formed, the enforcer was removed.

— R, rs