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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by The Placebo Effect (talk | contribs) at 23:24, 29 April 2008 (→User:Newyorkbrad: reply). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 23:24, 29 April 2008 by The Placebo Effect (talk | contribs) (→User:Newyorkbrad: reply)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) Shortcuts

Welcome to The Misplaced Pages Signpost's Tip Line. There are two ways to leave tips:

  1. Add a tip on this page
  2. Anonymously e-mail us at WikipediaSignpost@Gmail.com (for convenience, you may use this link)

Not every mention of Misplaced Pages in the media will make it into Signpost. Consider editing Misplaced Pages:Press coverage or Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages as a press source so we have a comprehensive record.

Please do not post newsletters to this page; news from WikiProjects is always appreciated, but templated messages are much more likely to be ignored. Ral315 (talk) 05:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC) Template:SignpostNavigation

Calendar of upcoming events

I intend this to be a sort of calendar of upcoming events, on and off Misplaced Pages (particularly non-obvious events, that might be easily missed) -- things that readers might be interested in. Anyone can add events here.

  • Nothing interesting is happening.

Requests for WikiProject features

If you'd like your WikiProject featured in an upcoming WikiProject report, feel free to list it here. Note that these requests are entirely advisory, and may or may not be used in future reports. Please do not "support" or "oppose" individual requests, and keep requests short and concise. Ral315 (talk) 05:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiPediaVision: Watch Realtime Misplaced Pages Edits

This looks neat. Cirt (talk) 21:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html That's the actual site, it's really interesting. Cirt (talk) 21:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

It's so cool. But how come 9 out of 10 anonymous edits are from U.S.? OhanaUnited 21:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Surely it would depend upon the time of day. The US would of course dominate during the hours when the Western hemisphere is most active. Also, the tool only tracks anonymous edits, and doesn't include IPs that can't be tied down to a single country, which may introduce unintentional biases. Still, I find this incredibly cool, and actually kind of inspiring.--Pharos (talk) 18:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia and Suicide

The BMJ put wikipedia as the forth most common result of suicide releated terms and catigoriesed wikipedia as "Information site: factual"

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/336/7648/800

Geni 15:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that it's not claiming any of the suicide-related articles on Misplaced Pages are factually correct, only that Misplaced Pages falls within a class of sites deemed to present fact-based information about the topic (instead of, say, promoting suicide, or offering news reports about people who committed suicide). Mindmatrix 16:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Is Misplaced Pages a reliable source for sources? Seems so!

From this study seems we are getting better at citing our sources. Gnangarra 01:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The Internet-based encyclopædia Misplaced Pages has grown to become one of the most visited Web sites on the Internet, but critics have questioned the quality of entries. An empirical study of Misplaced Pages found errors in a 2005 sample of science entries. Biased coverage and lack of sources are among the “Misplaced Pages risks.” This paper describes a simple assessment of these aspects by examining the outbound links from Misplaced Pages articles to articles in scientific journals with a comparison against journal statistics from Journal Citation Reports such as impact factors. The results show an increasing use of structured citation markup and good agreement with citation patterns seen in the scientific literature though with a slight tendency to cite articles in high-impact journals such as Nature and Science. These results increase confidence in Misplaced Pages as a reliable information resource for science in general. Many citations also go to Australian botany journals, seemingly because of the Banksia Wikiproject that has made well-referenced articles for this genus of plants with the beautiful flowers. A number of the articles for these plants has become so-called “featured” on Misplaced Pages: Coast Banksia, (this Banksia is listed as endangered), Heath-leaved Banksia and Banksia epica.

Newspaper picks up on local vandalism

A local paper finds that some IPs have been randomly vandalizing the article on their town (see diff). Paper apparently knows nothing about Misplaced Pages, saying "Efforts to reach Misplaced Pages officials for comment Tuesday were unsuccessful." Joshdboz (talk) 16:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Just a personal note: did someone really take the time to write a whole article on this? Must be a slow news week. And note that a municipal department had to be "alerted" about it! --Midnightdreary (talk) 15:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
True, though I think it also stems from a complete ignorance of what actually goes on here, so when they see something funny happening to an article relevant to them, it seems a lot more important than it really is. Joshdboz (talk) 15:57, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

And another on a series of vandalism to Denshaw. Joshdboz (talk) 13:32, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

BBC TV too, item here. Mr Stephen (talk) 22:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The Daily Telegraph has also picked it up, here. Mr Stephen (talk) 13:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

And now Sky News--Anthony Nolan O'Nymous (talk) 15:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

UPI Joshdboz (talk) 21:58, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages, climate change, National Post and User:Tabletop

Well, well. National Post has some editorial about Misplaced Pages on climate change, and the writer does not seem to be pleased with User:Tabletop. SYSS Mouse (talk) 01:33, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Britannica WebShare

"Encyclopedia Britannica Now Free For Bloggers", by Michael Arrington, discusses Britannica's new widget trial program, Britannica WebShare, in which web publishers of various sorts are given free access to the full version of Britannica online, and the ability to link to individual articles for their readers to access. Most news coverage is describing this as an attempt to cope with what Misplaced Pages has done to their business model.

I suggest that the Signpost attempt to sign up as a web publisher, so that we could start a new feature of weekly in-depth comparison's of individual articles. It's a long shot whether they would accept us simply because we're part of their competition, but the Signpost would seem to fall within their definition of who is eligible for the program.--ragesoss (talk) 16:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I am a bit confused why the possibility to link to a full article is being touted as news - this has already been possible for a long time, actually without the need to sign up as a web publisher. I am not sure when I saw that invitation to web masters on the EB site first, but I recall that this kind of free access had already been enabled when I made this edit in July 2007. Many Misplaced Pages articles already use this.
By the way, last time I checked it didn't work for links on a preview page; you had to actually save the page. This probably means that they do not trust the HTTP referer alone, but check the page given there to verify that it actually links to the Britannica URL. (Or that someone at Britannica has taken some time to study MediaWiki URLs.)
Regards, High on a tree (talk) 17:49, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. Maybe the only difference is that they are adding free 1-year subscriptions for "web publishers" to encourage more people to link to their (excessively ad-filled) articles. Some articles were describing this as part of a soft launch. In any case, now might be a good time to start a regular Signpost feature comparing specific articles.--ragesoss (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

User interface changes

Two changes were recently made:

  • {{talkheader}} was changed on 8 April; it now automatically includes links to archive subpages, assuming the archive subpages are numbered in the standard manner (Archive 1, Archive 2, etc.). (Discussion.) That means it is no longer necessary to add the {{archive box}} template to a page in order to provide links to archive subpages (again, if named in the standard manner).
  • The tab at the top of discussion pages that was labeled "+" is now labeled "new section", per this discussion. Editors who prefer the "+" label will find, at the "Gadgets" tab of "my preferences", the option (check box) that reads Change the "new section" tab text to instead display the much narrower "+", to put the tab back the way it was. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:57, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Another new change: Search now uses a suggestion drop-down— see . This can be disabled by checking:

My Preferences → Search → Disable AJAX suggestions.

--— Gadget850 (Ed)  - 18:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

If folks have not looked under My Preferences in a while, all sorts of options have been added in the last month or so, especially under Gadgets. See Special:Gadgets for definitions of all the installed gadgets. --— Gadget850 (Ed)  - 23:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Pro-Israel POV group

With all the rumors swirling around about pro-Israel cabalism taking place, possibly including some admins, this thread may be of some interest to Misplaced Pages participants . One long-time editor has already been indef blocked over it. Cla68 (talk) 23:43, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Mention in Karen Joy Fowler's latest novel

I don't know if this is the sort of thing the Signpost runs, but just in case ... Misplaced Pages plays a minor but noticeable role in Fowler's latest novel, Wit's End. The novel includes (on pages 144 to 146) the text (somewhat modified) of a real article from Misplaced Pages, Holy City, California, illustrating what the protagonist finds as she researches Holy City on Misplaced Pages. Another major character, a fictional mystery writer named A.B. Early, is involved in a minor edit war over her own article. Fowler is most notable as the author of The Jane Austen Book Club. Mike Christie (talk) 02:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Mentioned in court by David Irving

David Irving, a "much-criticised historian", was recently evicted from a B&B due to his behavior. In an unsucessful breach-of-contract suit against the landlady Irving alleged that she "cooled towards him after her solicitor sent her a copy of his Misplaced Pages entry detailing his views and controversies." She denied it. The case was the written up in The Independent of London. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 10:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia in mountain bike uk

wikipedia was in mountain bike uk fearuring some mountain biking terms Grandoldman (talk) 13:19, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

article 2,345,678

We announced article number 2,222,222. Do we announce 2,345,678? (I don't know which article that was). RJFJR (talk) 19:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

What's the point of looking for articles like that? I can see the importance of the 1 mill, 2 mill, and 2.5 millionth article, but what's the point? bibliomaniac15 Do I have your trust? 20:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Major WMF announcement: board restructuring

See http://wikimediafoundation.org/Board_of_Trustees/Restructure_Announcement Raul654 (talk) 19:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

They seem to have some dates mixed up. Some places say Jimmy's term will expire in Dec 08 others say 09. Unfortunately there is no email address or discussion page I can edit, so I can't tell them. Very un-wiki like. Also they don't say if Jimmy's seat is re-electable or not. -Ravedave (talk)
Jimmy seat expires at the end of this year, as per the email and the Board page. The page on http://wikimediafoundation.org/Board_of_Trustees/Restructure_Announcement is incorrect. I'll ping a message onto foundation-l mentioning it. KTC (talk) 00:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
We'll cover this. Ral315 (talk) 07:20, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

On Meta there's petition objecting to the board's failure to discuss the restructuring in advance and requesting an explanation for the change. Durova 02:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

GA debate

I woul certainly hope that the next Signpost will include something about the rather fierce debate at WT:GA about putting the GA symbol on GA articles, similar to FAs. I have only see pros to this no cons. I would like to know if there are any cons to this. Southern Illinois SKYWARN (talk) 03:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, compared to previous discussions on the matter it's pretty tame. VanTucky 03:25, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The current count as of 19:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC) is 47 in support and 25 opposed. There is also some discussion of which symbol to use. VanTucky
Further, I've offered a Dispatch slot to Geometry guy if he wants it, but I don't think this is yet worthy of the Signpost. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages in the News - Devil Dog article

Recent editing to theDevil Dog article (refer to the United States Marine Corps nickname) has been mentioned in the Marine Corps Times in discussing the current perception of the term amongst Marines:

— ERcheck (talk) 18:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Official Election Notice

I thought this was worth reposting - it appeared at WP:VPM. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The 2008 Board election committee announces the 2008 election process. Wikimedians will have the opportunity to elect one candidate from the Wikimedia community to serve as a representative on the Board of Trustees. The successful candidate will serve a one-year term, ending in July 2009.

Candidates may nominate themselves for election between May 8 and May 22, and the voting will occur between 1 June and 21 June. For more information on the voting and candidate requirements, see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/Board_elections/2008>.

The voting system to be used in this election has not yet been confirmed, however voting will be by secret ballot, and confidentiality will be strictly maintained.

Votes will again be cast and counted on a server owned by an independent, neutral third party, Software in the Public Interest (SPI). SPI will hold cryptographic keys and be responsible for tallying the votes and providing final vote counts to the Election Committee. SPI provided excellent help during the 2007 elections.

Further information can be found at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/Board_elections/2008/en>. Questions may be directed to the Election Committee at <http://meta.wikimedia.org/Talk:Board_elections/2008/en>. If you are interested in translating official election pages into your own language, please see <http://meta.wikimedia.org/Board_elections/2008/Translation>.

For the election committee,
Philippe Beaudette

RecentChangesCamp 2008 -- May 9-11, Palo Alto, California

RecentChangesCamp is a working meeting for all wiki-involved people from around the world. Three previous events have been held in Portland, Oregon and Montreal, and this year's will be in Palo Alto, California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Everyone involved in wiki -- especially Wikipedians and other Wikimedians -- are invited to participate. The two-day working event is free-of-charge for all comers. The volunteer organizers sincerely request an RSVP by participants at http://rcc2008.blueoxen.net/attendees . RCC is the family reunion for the wiki ohana, and we don't want anyone to miss out just because they never heard of it. --ESP (talk) 14:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Newyorkbrad

I have no idea what happened here, but it should be discussed in detail just as User:Essjay's case was. Remember: the public has the right to know (why one of the top editors retired and the details of the wikipolitics behind this event).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 22:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I raised this earlier and got one response. Then Ral removed it with a response in the edit summary. See here: "This issue has been duly noted, and I'm happy to discuss this via e-mail with anyone interested in this conflict.". Ral, if you remove this section with the same rationale, you might want to leave a more visible note behind to forestall other people doing what Piotrus and I did (ie. ask the same question of whether this will be reported). Otherwise it will look bad. I suggest just a bald reporting of the departure and a full or partial quote of what Newyorkbrad said. The alternative is that those who were not following what was happening will start to second-guess things, and the rumour mill will start. Better to state something in the Signpost to quell misguided rumours, rather than stay silent. Carcharoth (talk) 23:19, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
NYB said on his page that he didn't want people saying why he left in there goodbyes. An article in the signpost would only make people wonder why. It is clear he doesn't want people to know why, so an article would only raise questions he asked not to be answerd on wiki. The Placebo Effect (talk) 23:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)