Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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Do not donate to the Wikimedia Foundation

I'm posting this rant here because I'm furious. I've just learned from a discussion in WT:MATH of some basic rendering bugs in SVGs served by Wikipedia. Which is perfectly normal. Except that these bugs have already been fixed upstream for years, and Wikimedia Foundation just can't be arsed to upgrade MediaWiki to the version of the library with the fixes T97233. Wikimedia Foundation also refuses to switch to a less buggy SVG rendering library T40010 or to let the browsers do the rendering themselves T5593. They just couldn't care less. Because of this other users were saying that we should give up on SVGs and revert to PNGs. That's depressing.

To compound the pattern, there is the well-known issue that graphs are "temporarily" disabled. Because again they couldn't be arsed to upgrade a simple library for years, and suddenly it had to be retired due to a security issue. And now they can't be arsed to do it either. It's specially heartbreaking to read the thread in Phabricator T334940 where user after user volunteers to fix it only to be told "no" by WMF.

This is why I will no longer donate to the WMF until they get their shit together. I hope people join me so that they get a wake-up call. I don't know what on Earth they did with all the money I have donated over the years, but clearly they don't have their priorities straight. I'm not demanding them to do some great software development project, but the bare minimum to keep the website running. It's been abandoned, it's been left to rot. It still runs on Debian Buster, ffs, and that will be end-of-lifed in three months. Then we will have one of the largest websites in the world running on unsupported software.

Keeping the website running is the top priority. Without the website Wikipedia is nothing. And WMF needs to understand that. Tercer (talk) 23:21, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that under all of that you remain optimistic that the WMF will one day get their shit together. I will continue to donate, but on the other hand I have no expectation that they will get their shit together (I'm not ever sure I actually want them to, IMO a weak WMF is good for the project as a whole). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:23, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well without your help it won't. And please don't be so cynical, there's nothing good about a "weak" WMF. Tercer (talk) 00:17, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, I think in many ways the WMF is like a standing army... We want them to be strong enough to fight our external enemies but not strong enough that they become a threat to our freedom and way of life at home. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:21, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) For the record, the reason graphs are disabled isn't (AFAICS) that the Wikimedia foundation isn't willing to upgrade to Vega 5, but instead that Vega 5 itself has more unfixed (?) security vulnerabilities. Otherwise this seems accurate, although I've already been abstaining from donating for years so can't abstain again. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 23:28, 22 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's a compound issue. Vega 2 was end-of-lifed 7 years ago, and WMF kept using it regardless. Last year the time bomb finally exploded, and there was a rush to upgrade to the (incompatible) Vega 5. While doing that they realized that there was a security vulnerability in Vega 5 as well, so work stalled. They decided that the upgrade would only happen if they managed to sandbox it somehow, and it has been stuck in limbo ever since.

Now if WMF had been doing the bare minimum, it would have been upgrading Vega together with upstream over the years, so they wouldn't be hit with a Jurassic security vulnerability in the first place, it wouldn't need to handle tens of thousands of incompatible graphs all of a sudden, and when the security vulnerability in Vega 5 appeared they would have only one problem to handle. And hopefully they would actually handle it instead of telling the volunteers to pound sand. Tercer (talk) 00:11, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An issue with SVG files sounds irksome, but doesn't rise to an existential level of outrage where I want to undermine the entire project using cancel culture strategies. -- GreenC 00:43, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is not an issue with SVGs files, it is a generalized failure to do basic maintenance for years. If you don't like my strategy I'd love to hear a suggestion for a more effective one. Tercer (talk) 07:54, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you they could be spending more on maintenance, always. So, maybe document. Make lists. Show the problems, be vocal. I deal with this also, in some projects, basic problems go unaddressed for years. But we do see movement, the recent changes at Toolforge converting from Grid to Containers was a major effort. They are upgrading from Buster as far as I know. I wanted a recent version of GNU Awk for many years and they finally did it at some point. The bot override for spam black list was finally implemented after about 10 years. The EventStream API is buggy, they know it and there is no timeframe when it will be fixed, but they know. It can be slow. -- GreenC 15:02, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough, I put up a proposal on VPWMF. Another fun fact for you: the planned upgrade from Buster is not to Bookworm, but to Bullseye, so they will upgrade from being 5 years outdated to 3 years outdated. Tercer (talk) 16:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+1 The WMF itself is a non-profit, but with the lucrative pay the higher ups receive and the other ways they choose to allocate their abundant funds, it's clear that they see you and me as nothing more than a product, where "donations" are the income we generate for them. (See also: WP:CANCER, Signpost May 2023, Signpost August 2023) Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:26, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks for the information. So it's not a lack of money but precisely the opposite: they have so much money that they don't know what to do with it. They're burning millions on supersalaries for the CEOs and donations to unrelated projects. Just the waste that you have pointed out would be enough to hire more than a dozen full-time devs. Tercer (talk) 08:04, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ever since the WMF was created it has tended to place more emphasis on job preservation and expansion than "boring" things like infrastructure. Most people do not donate money to the WMF anyway, but everyone reading this, by definition, donates some time to Wikipedia. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:36, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm proud to donate time to Wikipedia. I would also consider helping to fund Wikipedia if I could. English Wikipedia and sister projects need hosting, technical, legal and similar services, but they cost a fraction of the WMF's budget. Over two decades, the WMF has quietly elbowed its way from facilitator to governor, grown exponentially, and diverted the majority of its budget to activities that some of us consider irrelevant and inappropriate. I don't donate to the WMF. I would advise others to donate if and only if they feel that their money will be spent wisely. Certes (talk) 21:26, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've never donated money to the WMF myself, but I think people who wants to should keep doing so. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:53, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+1 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 21:45, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Folk who denote want to know that the lights will be kept on and the roof kept on. I see no reason not to donate to it. It of fundamental importance. Its unfortunate that they are fuckwits who don't know how to use the money wisely but the software has been running fine for decades without a hitch, even though it is canker on the face of humanity, which is a good thing as it's enabled a very large community to come together to build a rather nice encyclopeadia. scope_creep^Talk 09:04, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting point. For me, the question is what difference my hypothetical donation would make, i.e. which currently unfunded activity it would enable. If it would be spent on making the servers faster or more reliable or on fixing bugs on our wishlists, then prima facie we should be donating. However, one would then have to ask why those vital activities were considered so unimportant that they happen only if donations increase. Instead, they should be prioritised above inflated management salaries, eco-friendly diversity workshops and other expensive, ultra vires and WP:NOTHERE activities. The WMF has ample income if it is spent on what our readers come here for rather than becoming a bizarre hybrid of corporate behemoth and socialist activist. Certes (talk) 10:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I find it very unlikely that an increase in donations would lead to improved software. WMF simply doesn't see it as important. It would just invent new methods of setting money on fire. If they started a donation drive specifically to fix this antediluvian horror I would actually chip in. Tercer (talk) 13:13, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully my response on this related thread on VPWMF has some clarifications on how we do and prioritize maintenance at WMF. Mark Bergsma (WMF) (talk) 15:28, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

About GNOME Products

I apologize first for my weakness in English. I am not very active on the English Wikipedia. But some time ago, I saw the article on the GNOME Panel while doing a Google search. Then I proposed its deletion. Later, I saw that there are articles on Wikipedia for almost all of GNOME's products. You can find them in the following categories: Category:GNOME Applications, Category:GNOME Core Applications, and Category:GNOME Developer Tools. Some of these articles do not have more than 3-4 references. Many of the others do many references, but always they are all primary sources. Those that are not primary sources are just passing mentions. I don't think they meet Wikipedia's notability criteria. I would like to draw the attention of the experienced Wikipedians to this issue. ― ☪ Kapudan Pasha (🧾 - 💬) 16:41, 23 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In general, many software articles rely entirely on primary sources, so the problem is bigger than these specific articles. Some articles I see in your list do have independent, reliable references (even 3 quality references can establish notability). Others may not have these references now but if those references exist elsewhere they should be added to the article. But, if you see an article that relies entirely on independent references and there are no other independent, reliable references that could be added, then those can be nominated for deletion. As I said, many articles suffer from this problem so your contributions are welcome. Mokadoshi (talk) 19:12, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See also WP:NEXIST. The sources that exist in the real world (e.g., on websites, in newspapers, as books in libraries) are more important than the sources that have been cited in the current version of the article.

This is

good:

Editor #1: There are very few sources cited in the article, and they are not very good.
Editor #2: But I looked for sources, and I found a dozen books, so we should keep the article.
Editor #1: Thanks for doing that search. I hope you will improve the article some day.

This is

bad:

Editor #1: There are very few sources cited in the article, and they are not very good.
Editor #2: But I looked for sources, and I found a dozen books, so we should keep the article.
Editor #1: I don't care! Your library might have a dozen books, but we should delete the article anyway, because articles need to cite all of the sources right now.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:52, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Korean Wikipedia blocked

I was blocked for three months from another korean Wikipedia. However, I thought the blocking was unfair, so I challenged it in my user discussion. However, the administrator blocked the user discussion without reasonable refutation, repeating the word that the blocking was justified. I have also sent an email to the administrator, but there are too few active people in the Korean Wikipedia and no one is reading it. I need the help of the English Wikipedia users. Mamiamauwy (talk) 06:47, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing we can do here. English Wikipedia has no jurisdiction over Korean Wikipedia, just as that one has no jurisdiction over us. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:13, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that someone here has some familiarity with Korean WP and has some advice to give. But en-WP has no authority over other WP:s, so your problem must be solved there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You reached out to me via the embassy but the embassy can only help you if you don’t speak Korean and need help for co-ordinating help between different langauges. --Kjoonlee 11:15, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Repetition of the same thing in different articles

Hello, I'm working on Turkish makams, I started with Rast. In it, I have a section comparing it to Western scales. It starts with:

Since the makam is based on 53-TET, it is impossible to directly tie it to 12-TET Western scales. However, using the 48-TET model, while worse than many other models in approximation, allows for such comparisons.

I want to continue with other scales, and this information is relevant. But do I repeat it for each scale? I had read that abundancy was okay on Wikipedia, but there must be a better way than this. I'm open to your suggestions. Egezort (talk) 20:04, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm that's a really interesting question. My first thought is maybe instead of having a full section on each individual makam's page comparing it to 12-TET Western scales, creating a table of all the comparisons on the overall Turkish Makam article, and then linking to that table from each individual page? I can't say that I know enough about tables or makams to know if that's a feasible idea though. I'll keep thinking about this Librarian of Sand (talk) 06:54, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I may do a comparison table for that page yes, but yes also more detailed analysis on each page is probably for the best. Thank you, I'll let you know if I start doing it (and if I don't forget) Egezort (talk) 19:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some elements of the periodic table repeat the same thing. The 'Introduction' section of flerovium (a good article), tennessine, and oganesson (both featured articles) are the exact same. 115.188.147.27 (talk) 09:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! This is a good example for me to look at. Egezort (talk) 19:54, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If the repeated text is substantial and there is an obvious main article to which it is most relevant, consider writing it once and using labeled section transclusion (LST) or {{Auszug}} in the other places where it should appear. Despite its name, LST is not limited to entire sections in the sense of the text between ==Heading==s. Certes (talk) 10:04, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oooh these are both things I don't know about, I'll take a look. Egezort (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

quick Question

what is the most used template on the english Wikipedia

I suspect it is the reflist template, but i would like to know if i am correct or if there is maybe another one. 5.2.195.104 (talk) 11:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Special:MostLinkedTemplates. As I write this the top ten are Lua modules, then there's {{Yesno}}. Reflist is #41 on the list. Graham87 (talk) 12:22, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's a very useful question unless it contains some qualification. I suspect that what the OP means is, "what is the most used template in article space on the English Wikipedia that is coded directly by humans?" or something on those lines. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:06, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Probably {{Banner holder}}, then. (Which is surprising— we have more banners than reflists?) 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 21:39, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Cremastra banner holder has all of ONE use "in article space". — xaosflux ^Talk 22:00, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That has nothing to do with "coded directly by humans" 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 22:05, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like the one that fits all those criteria really is reflist Mach61 03:57, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What about templates that are only (or commonly) used with subst? Is there any way to count those? RudolfRed (talk) 20:08, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Used on the largest number of pages, or used the most times total? Some templates, such as {{cite web}} get used many times in a single article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Special:WantedPages

Discussion is already closed at other venue. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Special:WantedPages. Mach61 03:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Tame One

Hi, Please check latest edits by DBrownHarris to this article. It broke the "flatlist" template in the Infobox. I also think there aren't enough references. This is following a question on Commons about the picture, which was removed here. This editor also has a conflict of interest in this article. Thanks, Yann (talk) 11:55, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Foundation's Product and Technology key results are now available

Hi everyone,

The Product and Technology Department at the Wikimedia Foundation has now published draft key results for the upcoming 2024-2025 fiscal year. Key results are measurable goals that we hope to achieve, and they build on the higher level objectives we shared a few weeks ago.

Like with last year, we’re sharing them with you before the full draft plan is released. This is both to highlight the technical work that will drive the overall focus of the organization, and also to give folks here the opportunity to weigh in about if we’ve chosen the right priorities. We welcome your thoughts and ideas on the talk page. I’ll add a small caveat that a large amount of the maintenance that we do for existing technical functions will appear in the full annual plan draft that will be shared in a few more weeks. Thanks, and please let me know if you have any questions. KStineRowe (WMF) (talk) 21:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Why is "#article-section-source-editor" appearing in edit summaries?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T361495

Why is "#article-section-source-editor" appearing in edit summaries e.g., [1], [2], [3]? I have searched for information but found none. ElKevbo (talk) 22:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like something to do with the iOS app, probably https://github.com/wikimedia/wikipedia-ios/pull/4738 which refers to phab:T355265. Someone apparently decided that sticking that on the end of every edit summary would somehow be useful. Anomie ⚔ 01:56, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for digging into this! ElKevbo (talk) 02:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me this should have been implemented as Special:Tags, not as unstructured text in the edit summary. RoySmith (talk) 03:21, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @JTanner (WMF) @SNowick (WMF) @Tsevener, from T355265. Could you folks please comment here on why this was done this way? Thanks. RoySmith (talk) 03:25, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The event_comment additions were a way for us to track edits from new in-app editing features. We are planning to move these event_comment values to Special:Tags, we are in the process of mapping out this transition. SNowick (WMF) (talk) 16:51, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@SNowick (WMF) thanks for your response. Would it be possible to disable this until you've got the transition completed? It's kind of sub-optimal. A while ago, foundation:Policy:Wikimedia Foundation staff test account policy was published; while that was taking about a different kind of situation, the broad intent was that there shouldn't be live testing which affects production wikis, at least without prior noitce. Perhaps I'm mis-interpreting what you said, but it sounds like this was a rollout of an intermediate version of an experimental feature on the production enwiki for testing purposes, which is what we were trying to avoid when we wrote that policy statement. If the dev team needed to see how their code behaved in the wild, could it not have been enabled on just testwiki?

In this case, a heads up on meta:Tech/News would have made sense, although maybe there was one and I just didn't notice it? RoySmith (talk) 17:27, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

phab:T361495 opened requesting this stop. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:34, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Xaosflux thanks for filing this ticket! I appreciate the ping @RoySmith and you raising this issue @ElKevbo.

I think there may have been confusion, we weren't testing a feature, rather we released a new editor in the iOS app that got rid of the bugs and incorporated a lot of requested enhancements. Previously, the way in which we tracked if these improvements were positive (and didn't lead to things like reverts) was by using edit summaries and our data scientist was able to look through mediawiki history to run queries. We learned recently, that is not the right method, instead we need to use tags. We are in touch with some of the web teams who have created tags to migrate from using edit summaries and instead use edit tags. Our team will be at an in person meeting all of next week, where we will create a plan for migration, this week our goal is to get necessary approval. When we return from our in person meeting, I will update this thread and ensure this specific edit summary is at the top of the list of migrations and the change goes in our next release. JTanner (WMF) (talk) 18:32, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Offensive search result too prominent

When I type "Boris Johnson" (in fact even "Boris Jo") into the Wikipedia search box, a barely noteworthy yet highly offensive result comes up second in the list. Yes, if people want to find that content then they should be able to do so by typing in enough of the title to firmly identify it. It should not come up straight in the face of the no doubt large numbers of people who simply wish to look up the article on Boris Johnson. Please can this be fixed. Thank you. 2A00:23C8:7B0C:9A01:FC37:861A:7F07:13E9 (talk) 19:31, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's search results are WP:NOTCENSORED just because the article title "Boris Johnson Is a Fucking Cunt" uses offensive (or even BLP-violating) language. The result is one of about 10 articles one could be interested in when typing "Boris Jo", and the search box clearly pulls in the article's short description, showing that it goes to an article about a song, and only represents the songwriter's view on the person, not anyone elses. Iffy★Chat -- 20:24, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, let's censor things we don't like. That will make everything all better. 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 21:29, 31 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spoken Wikipedia and COI

Hypothetical question: if I got, say, Tom Clancy to do a WP:SPOKEN Wikipedia version of the article on Clear and Present Danger, Jack Ryan (character), or the Tom Clancy article for that matter, would that constitute a COI? He wouldn't be modifying the text or inserting commentary -- just reading the article. Would anyone see an issue with that? (For the record, no I do not personally know the ghost of Tom Clancy). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only scenario in which I could see a serious issue is if there is disagreement about which version of a given Wikipedia article should become the spoken Wikipedia version. I could imagine some disputes when one part of the article is narrated quickly, as if it get past it as fast as possible, when another isn't. But beyond these two specific situations I wouldn't think that there would be COI issues. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is kind of an interesting question. It's not clear to me what status these spoken article have. Are they part of the encyclopedia? If so, then I would expect them to comply with all the enwiki rules about COI and such. bit my hunch is that's not the case.

On the other hand, under our CC-BY-SA-4.0 license, anybody is totally free to create a derivative work (i.e. a spoken article recording) and upload it to commons or wherever they wanted. They would have to comply with all the CC-BY-SA requirements, but enwiki policies like WP:COI aren't included in that, so they would be free to edit out whatever parts they don't like. RoySmith (talk) 00:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We'd want Commons uploaders to declare COI -- and align to other WP P&G like V and RS -- should their content be included in WP articles. This is rarely the case. For images, this is something we can and should enforce, but for something like spoken articles, it may not be practical to be too picky about what gets offered for lack of volume. Having that initial spoken upload is kinda what gets the ball rolling for others to improve on it if it's insufficient. (And COI editors are sometimes among the few actually motivated to do that kind of thing.) Once there's a few to choose from, it may then be more appropriate to audit the editor on something like COI.

That said, on Commons I usually get quick responses by just messaging uploaders when I've had questions on things like verifiability, sourcing, etc., especially if they're active on a WP as well. So if you suspect an editor or uploader of undeclared COI, the first step is just to politely ask them. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:39, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Graph of Wikipedia

I NEED a discussion of this most excellent video: Video on YouTube. Please link me to one :-) Cheers Video "I Made a Graph of Wikipedia... This Is What I Found" by adumb if it for some reason disappears. Cross posted from Talk:The Signpost#Graph of Wikipedia. CapnZapp (talk) 20:48, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Unifying monsoon page names?

Very unsure where to go with that. While I looked at Monsoon#Global monsoon, I noticed that all articles used in the main article templates are inconsistently named.

There is:

North American Monsoon
Monsoon of South Asia
East Asian Monsoon
Australian monsoon (note that monsoon is not capitalized in contrast two the first two)

There might be more pages about regional monsoon than just these 4 which also need to be accounted for.

Every page there is named differently. Where is the right place to discuss the proper format and moving those pages to reflect the format decided on? Is this the right place? Asked the IRC, too but no answer there. NetSysFire (talk) 09:25, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]