Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-24/News and notes

Not a word on the decrease in total edits after the visual editor was made opt-out for registered editors and compulsory for IP editors? Really? EllenCT (talk) 21:42, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Ellen, could you link us to where you got this information from? Tony   (talk)  08:12, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * (not ellen) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:VisualEditor%27s_effect_on_newly_registered_editors/Results 192.12.81.1 (talk) 09:32, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Is that based on pre-roll-out data (up to 1 July)? And I've heard rumours that a bug affected the gathering of those data. Getting too technical for me, but just wondering ... Tony   (talk)  10:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Tony, I'm not sure whether it is final yet as the page has been through many revisions, some quite major, but Figure 2 at looks particularly troubling and I hope you ask about it. EllenCT (talk) 23:03, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The problems with the study itself appear to be minimal (false whitelisting being the biggest culprit - estimated at ~2% of test participants). The only statistical issue I can see is that its unclear why the std error bars are so large with such a large population - probably real though. The results are mostly negative - users edit less, less often, less successfully. Whilst some of the results fall outside statistical certainty, they all trend in bad directions. There was one exception to these mostly negative results I noted, good faith edit fractions go up (statistically significant, and usefully - maybe some "bad faith" edits are due to user confusion?). Its odd that WMF doesn't look at these results in their meeting, and that the A/B results were not available (though conducted) before the rollout. That seems a poor use of data. 192.12.81.1 (talk) 11:50, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I have some sorry confusions about Wikivoyage anniversary. It is the anniversary (10th) of Wikitravel.org (where also I am editeur), but you say it is Wikivoyage anniversary? But Wikivoyage was made in 2006... So ten years not until 2016. And ten years of English Wikivoyage (even more confusing making-- does each language version have its own anniversary??) not until January 2023! I see that some Wikivoyage members are from Wikitravel, but what are they celebrating? It cannot be the "community" because they did not all join at one time at Wikitravel... So perhaps maybe the proper title is "Some Wikivoyage Members Celebrate 10th Anniversary of Wikitravel That They Used To Edit." It it just strange the way you write it. Do you celebrate a wedding anniversary still of a woman/man you broke up with? Wikivoyage was born 2006. They can party in 3 more years if they still are existing. BostonMarketChicken (talk) 22:53, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Welcome Internet Brand employee (as they and the vandals are more or less the only people left at WT). You seem to misunderstand how wikis work. It is the community that has been alive since 2003. In fact the user who made the first edit to this content, has not made a change to WT since Jan of 2012 and is know editing at WV. In fact I think IB removed his admin rights at WT some time ago as he is not listed here. He however is an admin at WV. So yes the WV community stretches all the way back to 2003 and includes the original founder of the idea and the guy who made the first edit. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:05, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * As someone amusingly pointed out on twitter, a group of ex Wikitravel editors, who are now at wikivoyage, deciding to celebrate a 10th anniversary, is like America deciding to celebrate a 1500th birthday because they used to be part of England. Pathetic attempt to look older & more established (and relevant...) by riding Wikitravel's coattails. Sad. You people are really obsessed with internet brand too. BostonMarketChicken (talk) 17:51, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, that would be the internet troll that I made the unfortunate mistake of responding to. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:37, 26 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Meh, Wikivoyage. I quickly stopped caring for it when most of my edits were reverted, as apparently adding links to Wikipedia is forbidden, even if Wikipedia has a useful page on a subject. If Wikitravel wants to boycott Wikipedia, I don't see why we should care about it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:27, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes Wikipedia has a policy against doing just that on Wikipedia. It do not see this as unreasonable especially since there is a link to the corresponding Wikipedia article on every page. Look to the left under related sites. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You misunderstand the issue. The links I wanted to add were to related Wikipedia article, equivalent of blue links, for topics Wikivoyage has no articles - things like specific museums, buildings, organizations, etc. I see them as equivalent to image articles. For a small, slow growing project, when we can expect those entries to be created in many years in the future, if ever, not adding those links is, IMHO, a major gutting of usefulness. But it is not a fight I care to fight, other than as long as it is the case, I don't feel like wasting my time contributing to Wikivoyage. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 22:04, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * So you think contributing to a travel guide is a waste of time because you can't add multiple links to an encyclopedia? That's a very odd metric.  Anyway, if you'd bothered to ask someone why we might have certain rules in place, maybe you'd have the opportunity to gain greater understanding.  Powers T 02:28, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Given that most tourists would be pleased to gain instant access from a WV ariticle to WP articles about places, buildings, monuments, and other tourist attractions treated in the WV article, reverting the judicious insertion of links to related WP articles seems like a xenophobic practice. But WV needs unique guidelines to ensure that it doesn't become a link-farm. More broadly, I've encountered a resistance to change at WV that is regrettable in the light of its sagging model. It needs attention if it is to retain (even increase) its share of the readership and editorship—there's increasingly good competition around. Tony   (talk)  02:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, you've chosen to interpret opposition to proposals which you happen favor as a general resistance to change. They're not the same thing.  The site has changed considerably since the migration.  Powers T 12:01, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Errr ... almost the same thing. Out of interest, can you bullet the main ways in which the site has changed since migration just seven months ago? Tony   (talk)  12:49, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * If I must, though I can't warrant that it's exhaustive (and note that migration was ten months ago, not seven):
 * All-new mainpage (spearheaded by a newcomer to the community, I might add, and enthusiastically embraced)
 * Implementation of page-heading banners to increase visual appeal of articles
 * Progress toward dynamic maps generated on the fly from article listings
 * Implementation of the Tourist Office, where users can ask travel questions (including a link from Wikipedia's Reference Desk)
 * Conversion from legacy XML listing tags to proper MediaWiki templates
 * Conversion from footnote-style external links to more-standard front-linking
 * Better organization of travel topics
 * Implementation of clickable maps (on high-level geographic articles like continents and countries) for navigation
 * Establishment of Twitter and Facebook accounts
 * Establishment of cooperative agreements between Wikivoyage and official tourist/visitor bureaus
 * -- Powers T 15:42, 27 July 2013 (UTC)


 * @User:LtPowers, @User:Tony1. It is true I could've discussed this on WV more; I have now done this at wikivoyage:Wikivoyage_talk:Sister_project_links. You may be interested in reading my fuller description of the issue there, and joining the discussion. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the story and especially for quoting and linking to JamesA. I've now reached out to WMF's heads of Analytics and Operations to ask them to follow up (regarding Wikivoyage requesting better analytics to help them drive readership). Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 14:14, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you a whole lot Sumana for taking the time to reach out to them! And thanks to the editors of the Signpost for taking note of our pledge, I hope we will get a major boost in our efforts thanks to that. On balance, the three logos selected for being presented at the Signpost are perhaps the three very worst ones submitted, so I hope this is just done not to promote any particular option while the voting's on (as those are quite unlikely to garner much support, hopefully). Have a great day everybody and head over to Wikivoyage to chip in your bit about your favourite destination - or your hometown! CU there, PrinceGloria (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Prince, I chose them because they're hideous, in the hope that readers would be aghast and go straight to vote for something more appropriate. The risk of unfairly advertising those candidate logos flickered through my mind, but I quickly dismissed this under the circumstances. I think Ed might have changed one of them before publication. Tony   (talk)  14:52, 28 July 2013 (UTC) Ah, yes, the blue boat is a substitue ... vaguely presentable, actually.  Tony   (talk)  14:53, 28 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Truly fantastic news about Aircel deciding to join Wikimedia Zero! I have followed the work done in this field with great interest and I am very curious to know how long time the companies are bound to provide free access to the population in order to be able to take part in Wikimedia Zero? Best, John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 22:42, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * John Andersson, I asked Kul Wadhwa (Head of Mobile and Business Development at WMF) to respond to your question. He said: "3 years. However, the program is evaluated after the first year and can be terminated by either party if there are issues one way or the other. However, we've been fine with all of our other partners so far  :)"  Hope that helps! Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 16:08, 30 July 2013 (UTC)