Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-12-01/In the media


 * Wow, with regard to the top story, that is a truly disturbing precedent, though in no way atypical of the general trend in European law (in terms of judgements or statutes) with regard to free speech in recent time. Even so, I think this particular instance deserves substantial scrutiny from all Wikimedia communities.  The case summary here is more than a little vague (no offense Kudpung) when it says that "Whether the claims were justified or not, was not taken into account by the court.", but it sure seems as if the WMF chose not to appeal a ruling which forbids it to relay a new story by a third party, even though the underlying report had not been discredited.  That problematic on multiple levels, and I for one would like to know a bit more about what the calculus was in choosing not to appeal a ruling that has such massive potential implications for any of Wikipedia's local iterations, not just de.Wikipedia. I don't want to jump to histrionics here until I have had a chance to review the case report and the facts here, but this is certainly a situation our disparate communities ought to investigate in detail, including the WMF's response. Without wishing to sound like a broken record, the possible fallout out here is massive. Snow let's rap 05:44, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * In his brief summary, Kudpung is mostly giving the following link: https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Urteil-gegen-Wikipedia-Keine-rufschaedigende-Kritik-ohne-Recherche-4209610.html. Anyone can read this article, and even its google-translation (that doesn't appear to depart from the original text). Pldx1 (talk) 10:33, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Moreover, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.366.9300&rep=rep1&type=pdf is of interest. Pldx1 (talk) 17:02, 1 December 2018 (UTC)


 * This is highly disturbing, first in that a foreign country's courts (i.e. not U.S.) are giving Wikipedia orders directly, and second in the details of censoring an article. That said, as best as I can tell now the Wikipedia case started with an article http://www.mdr.de/fakt/usa_bezahlt_deutsche_forschung102.html which does not seem to exist now.  It is at Wayback .  I don't think Google Translate is responsible for the blurriness of this source - it makes some pretty general claims about US funding research by a professor who is 50% at Carnegie Mellon University, but MDR article doesn't seem to believe in citing sources and details.  Now there are things any rational person would guess about anyone in the field of computer science, especially one who works on automated speech recognition, but Wikipedia isn't about guessing and it's in no position to drag an apparently retracted TV news article out of the archive to publish claims sourced to it, which leaves it in a poor position to discuss a libel suit.  Even if there's some precedent to be made about not kowtowing to Berlin, it would be best to choose a different test case.  In the meanwhile, we should recognize that this was never really de.wikipedia's problem: it's an American research, American university, American government money.  The professor says his work is all public record and given the quality of that retracted news article I don't believe its writers saw anything else.  So if people are outraged here, get busy, build the article out in every direction without pruning it toward any particular goal, research what he actually worked on, state its support and usage factually and with appropriate credit of any controversial claim to its source. Wnt (talk) 12:52, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * You still haven't covered Chris Hedges' half-hour interview of investigative journalist Helen Buyniski published on 21 October. Wikipedia: A Tool of the Global Elite.  Maybe next month? &mdash; 🍣  SashiRolls t ·  c 14:19, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm going to have to break that down some. There seems to be more than a hint of irony in the Christian anarchist criticizing a work created by unpaid volunteers, himself funded by an officially designated agent of the Russian state. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:43, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Hedges picked that up from Buyniski's Progressive Radio Network pieces (republished to Medium: ). Did the pieces play anywhere besides RT? And I haven't finished them yet—what parts were worth covering? czar  15:54, 1 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, Czar, maybe Hedges' deep embarrassment when people introduce him with text from his Wikipedia page, because he just knows they've read it. I had a look at the undue emphasis on  overblown claims of plagiarism when I first read the article.  (After reading the talk page, I've removed the section as undue based on the consensus I found there for removal.)  There is also a retrospective on a number of things:  the Galloway / Phillip Cross incident of course, but also more generally the toleration of full-time editing and the obsessiveness (and competence with templates) needed to do it well, the Kazakh Wikipedia (this bit is particularly poignantly treated, for one of her sources, cf. ), the Seigenthaler story, the Clinton Foundation page, the Minassian Media story,  WikiPR, COI editing, WikiScanner, the NYPD in March 2015, the antipathy to expertise, Larry Sanger, etc.  It's quite the retrospective she's put together.  It would be interesting to watch the Signpost tear it apart or recognize that there was some truth to what she says.  I was impressed with her research at WPO, WR, and elsewhere.  Of course, I should also say that I'm fairly involved in one of the stories in particular that she writes about, though I only had a chance to exchange with her after her research was done and after this interview had been filmed.  Disclosure:  I was blocked for 500 days, at least in part for a misunderstood comment I left here concerning two things:  1) the Sagecandor morality play & 2) the Minassian Media September 2016 communications audit and c-level training mission.  Bri, let's talk content, not contributors (to the knowledge econoflu ·x ).  :) &mdash; 🍣  SashiRolls t ·  c 12:40, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
 * I've only taken a brief look at Buyniski's articles on Medium -- the first appears to confuse the concept of evidence that proves chronic & endemic problems with the concept of proving that many problems exist & are being dealt with, & I lost interest half way thru; I'm still struggling thru the second -- but I'm seeing issues with her credibility. She cites Gary Null as an example of a sustained personal attack on a person (where she raises concerns that should be addressed), & claims she or others tried to "correct" the article on Null; however I've found no evidence that these attempts were made, at least in the last 6 months. I'm suspicious. Maybe someone with more time & experience with handling fringe theories can do a better job verifying Buyniski's claims. -- llywrch (talk) 21:57, 2 December 2018 (UTC)


 * I am surprised that the top story is not yet in the Waibel article. I do not have much time right now, but it next week is still not yet there, I will add it myself.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:03, 1 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Regarding Bohemian Raphsody, it's sad that Wikipedia has now become a synonym for "banality". Kaldari (talk) 09:05, 2 December 2018 (UTC)