Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions/Archive 3

Hoax on Polish Wikipedia
Very interesting hoax, with a much more elaborate and affectionately created story than John Seigenthaler and the Kennedy assassination. See Henryk Batuta Mieciu K 00:41, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

User:Larry Sanger/Origins of Wikipedia
Has Signpost covered User:Larry Sanger/Origins of Wikipedia, posted mid February? &mdash; Matt Crypto 11:04, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Usability study on Wikipedia/Newbies

 * Test February 2006

Interesting essay
This analysis, from a fellow named Ray King on another wiki, should appeal to people interested in studying better ways to evaluate the quality of Wikipedia articles and authors: http://www.pint2.org/index.php/Contributor_Ranking_System. I'd say it's worth writing something about if you can. --Michael Snow 22:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

1755 Lisbon earthquake
You may remember the controversy some time ago about the false claim that Catholic priests trawled Lisbon after the catastrophic earthquake, looking for heretics to hang. Theresa Carpinelli wrote two articles on the subject - Part One, Part Two - in February 2005, which were reported in the Signpost. She has written two further articles - Part Three and Part Four - in October/November 2005. The Part Four reports the reaction of the Wikipedia community and changes to the article as a result, referring to the article and the Signpost story, and the talk page of both (although non-Wikipedia mirrored copies in a few cases). -- ALoan (Talk) 10:44, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

jwales on CBS news
link,  jaco plane  23:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia beats the local newspaper
Congresswoman Jean Schmidt was found to have been claiming a college degree she did not possess, a b.a. in secondary education from the University of Cincinnati. Relying on her campaign biograpy, I had noted this degree when I wrote her article. But this week I learned there were questions about that degree. I got confirmation from UC she did not possess the degree, removed it from the biography, and noted the false claim. This was done on March 29. Her hometown paper, The Cincinnati Enquirer, did not write about this until April 1. PedanticallySpeaking 19:45, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

See, OR isn't such a bad thing, after all. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Stolen from the German WikipediA
A game of WikipediA, which comments on offical power structures, newbies, vandalism, and the recent userbox buissiness. Has already been written up in the German version of this newsppr, which is where I learned about it from. 68.39.174.238 22:25, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Basically it works like this: You're an administrator thrown into a randomly generated text arena with some users, buearucrats[sic], users, and some "n00bs". Over time articels (?) and userboxes (*) are created. By walking over them you can see what they are (Good articels, crap articels, vandalized articels) and either delete them, or revert them. Same with userboxes (Although I haven't been able to find vandalized userboxes yet). If you want to, you can "welcome" a "n00b", which turns them into a user. Also, users will occasionally get angry when you delete their worthless articels and start to make personal attacks. The userboxes are of the extreme ("This user thinks Jimbo Wales sucks ass" varaiety vs. "This user likes people") with the occasional strange one thrown in ("This user likes bananas" or "This user hates userboxes"). Also, vandals can show up and you can hit them, which bans them. You can play the good administrator by welcoming users, reverting vandalism and blocking the vandals and removing crap articels or the "rouge" administrator by attacking people, blocking users and deleting legitimate articels and userboxes. Depending on which path you take you'll accumulate "Karma" or "Rouge". If you tick off an administrator badly enough you'll get banned, and the game ends with "That's it. you're OUT" 68.39.174.238 22:40, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Also, sometimes vandals (Represented by red "v"'s) will create "articels about themselves" or "articels about bands noone knows about" (Always "junk articels" that you should delete). 68.39.174.238 22:43, 2 April 2006 (UTC) PS. I'm writing this up myself, the only thing I "stole" from the German newsppr is the idea about writing about this.


 * Also (I'm not reading the src, but writing these down as they come up): "an articel revealing someones sexual orentation in its very title" (cf. Friends of gays should not be allowed to edit articles). While not all vandals make up pages about bands (Those are usually in good faith IIRC), the sexual orientation one is somewhat true... 68.39.174.238 22:50, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Finally looking @ the GPLd src, 2 things are interesting: Jimbo might make an appearance in later versions (!), and 2nd the types of "vandalism" will be well recognized by long term vandal reverters: "insert~a a giant picture of a human penis into an article",                        "move~a an article to its \"ON WHEELS\" destination", "turn~a an article into a thorough guide to pelican shit", and "blank~a an article, replacing it with hammer and sickle picture". 68.39.174.238 23:02, 2 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Oyea, when you ban vandals, two of the "messages" are "Not even Esperanza could save vandal" and "Vandal joins the company of Lir and MSK on Wikipedia Review. 68.39.174.238 23:04, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Australian Parliament vandalizes Wikipedia
News at 11 (PS - that IP is also shared by at least one legit user, Adam Carr) Raul654 06:59, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Nobel prize winner contributing to Wikipedia?
Brian David Josephson, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physics, is apparently now actively contributing to Wikipedia at Talk:Natasha Demkina (contributions here). --Arcadian 16:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think we should actively publicise the activities of "famous" Wikipedia contributors unless they themselves choose to do so, or it attracts attention elsewhere. We don't want to drive them away by drawing undue attention to them; I doubt Prof. Josephson would take kindly to being flooded with requests to comment on every piece of pseudoscience that floats into Wikipedia (despite his proclaimed interest in the paranormal).  --Robert Merkel 07:01, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed, though if true, that's cool. Do we have any proof to substansiate this claim? --  Zanimum 12:43, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh geez. Especially don't include, it's embarressing the rants going on on that page currently. We get a foremost authority, and what do we do? --  Zanimum 12:46, 6 April 2006 (UTC)