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A banned user has an op-ed published by Breitbart today. Usually I would just skip this for ITM, but this one has to do with the removal of candidates standing for WMF Board elections. Not so sure about skipping it. Any thoughts? ☆ Bri (talk) 00:59, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri I just had a look at it, and it seems quite a comprehensive and worthwhile write-up. Also, I could not see any outings in it (whenever a name is mentioned, the article links to a relevant self-disclosure). A second pair of eyes on that aspect would be welcome though, given the incident in the current issue. Andreas JN466 12:16, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:BREITBART. The link is blacklisted, so we'd have to ask to have it white-listed. It's also considered to be unreliable for facts. The author is banned, so anybody could remove any quote that we insert from him. I always thought he was just a bully - so there are probably other people who would be offended by seeing his opinion presented here as well. And if anybody is offended, ultimately it would be our fault. We're also mentioned in his opinion piece, so us giving any background or commentary on the piece would be difficult. In general, it's just not worth the trouble. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:11, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an administrator, so I can fill whitelist requests — but I agree with the issues you raise here. I don't think we should gag ourselves for the sake of merely avoiding ruffling feathers, but I think a brief mention is probably all that is needed here (whether with or without a link). Including a link inclines a bunch of people to call us conservatards on here and excluding a link inclines a bunch of people to call us libtards elsewhere, so the only real consideration for me is whether it's actually a good or a bad idea to include it. jp×g🗯️ 07:38, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given the discussion above, I'm going to put in a brief mention without the link. Something like "A banned user published a comprehensive write-up of the situation around the slate of candidates in Breitbart News, which is also a blacklisted site on English Wikipedia. The Breitbart write-up also mentions internal Signpost discussions, making it difficult for us to present for multiple reasons." ☆ Bri (talk) 18:51, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There might be opportunity to also make a reference to a Sanger op-ed on a different blacklisted site that we can't link to: The Daily Signal. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:54, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm genuinely not sure how to describe the letter mentioned in this diff at In the media. Is it demanding information from WMF, or requesting? ☆ Bri (talk) 03:47, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• In form, he was just asking. But the committee he heads has subpoena power, and the chairman can use it. So it's really more than a request. Can we include the Green eggs and ham video? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:15, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if this goes in ItM or elsewhere? It's drafted up right below in the fashion that I would do ItM.

• This piece from IBM [1] says that WMF did the Wikimedia Enterprise model (see prior Signpost coverage 1, 2) because "Attribution is a key motivator for [Wikipedia] editors, and the [Wikimedia] Foundation sees proper sourcing as essential to its mission. Making sure LLMs credit Wikipedia for their information is an essential step."

The thing is, I haven't ever seen attribution in an AI chat result. Is that a thing? In fact the DuckDuckGo AI just told me this:

DuckDuckGo does not give direct attribution to Wikipedia authors when it displays information sourced from Wikipedia in its search results. The search engine pulls content from Wikipedia to provide quick answers but does not typically display the authors or contributors' names.

Then, when I asked for details on other chatbots:

Whether chatbots give attribution to Wikipedia authors varies by the specific chatbot and its design. Here's a breakdown of how some popular chatbots handle Wikipedia content attribution:

and this table (emphasis by yours truly):

...which is about what I expected.

Anybody want to give a reaction? Does this fit into ItM? ☆ Bri (talk) 02:26, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's close enough to fitting. Frankly, I've never heard of a chat-bot or LLM that credits the authors, but most people here would like to see Wikipedia as a whole credited or linked. The CC-by licenses must be good for something and most folks IMHO would settle for a link to the article and a declaration that its CC-by. Has that ever been upheld in court? I dunno. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:21, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, never ask a chatbot about itself (disregarding any general considerations about the reliability of LLMs, there is the specific problem that an LLM's training data can, almost by definition, not include information about itself). Besides, how many human-written publications do you know that directly attribute Wikipedia authors instead of just providing a link (as web-enabled chatbots do too)?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:09, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know your meeting with Donald Trump went ok? WP doesn't start an article about it. How Albanese can pass the Oval Office Wikipedia test. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:05, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF published a blog post on 17 October titled "New User Trends on Wikipedia" that is being picked up by the likes of Livemint:

• Wikipedia loses 8% of human traffic as generative AI and social platforms change user habits

This could be covered in ITM or N&N. As far as I can tell, currently it's in neither. @Bri and HaeB: --Andreas JN466 22:06, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I was already about to write up something, seeing that we seem to have a bit more time until publication. (I had already posted some quick notes about this on Thursday/Friday in the "Wikimedia AI" Telegram group, which btw can be recommended as currently the most active movement-wide discussion venue about that topic area.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:48, 19 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather hold new media items for next issue, if they aren't of extreme immediate note for the community (like the NYC incident was). ☆ Bri (talk) 01:42, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I'm not at all suggesting to hold up this issue for this story. But we're being told that "lots of discussion" has already begun about this, so our readers are likely to benefit more from whatever added value we can offer here if it goes out now than sometime in November. Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:12, 20 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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This section is mainly fleshed out from my end, except for one TKTK column and WMF bulletins being covered.

As a general note about N&N, User:JPxG please do not publish anything marked as TKTK under my name. I noticed it was done for 9 August issue for Bulletins, while the entire N&N section was unfleshed out. Somehow I did not notice that section being a mess in the issue until now. I'd rather publish nothing or delayed news than shoddy news. And if it's shoddy, I'd like my name retracted from the section. Soni (talk) 07:03, 15 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that the only TKTK in that particular N&N at the time of its publication on August 9 was in a commented-out part, so hopefully no readers were harmed in this incident.

However, this is a great point in general. Note that we also had a conversation here a month later after another N&N was indeed published with some visible TKTK placeholders. JPxG subsequently added a "Show all TKTKs in next issue" button to the "Article status" Newsroom section and also appears to have begun steps to implement a warning in the publication script in case it is run when TKTKs are still present.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:54, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah I don't have time to dig into when TKTKs got removed from the history. Iirc they were removed shortly before publication, which the script may not catch.

The comment was a general note for sections I write, as I believe strongly about my sections being well written or not at all. If my last edit leaves things in a placeholder state, I am requesting fleshing it out or removing those sections, instead of just publishing as is. Soni (talk) 10:55, 17 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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I have started this segment - Interview. The section as of now contains all of my questions and the responses, nearly verbatim.

I suggest copyediting a bunch of this for clarity, especially the repeated "Would you like to address [X]'s concerns?"

Soni (talk) 05:54, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have also asked the following follow up questions to the two BoT members (Nadzik and Lorenzo).

1. From the Point of View of the candidates, how confidential is this? Are BoT candidates not permitted to comment on the elections? The public and private statements on this from WMF/BoT on this contradict or are very unclear.
2. Many in the community lost faith in BoT because of transparency. Community members do not feel heard by BoT, and the comments from sitting BoT members are often sanitized to the point of losing meaning entirely. What specific measures will the Board take to improve this transparency and restore trust with the community?
3. The Board has committed to reform in the past, only to veto or reject any specific measures. What specific improvements are the BoT willing to consider? Will the BoT accept external oversight? How does the community guarantee this is not empty talk?

I don't know if we'll get their responses before the publishing deadline. My current expectation is no. If we do get the responses within time, I'll add them. Else follow ups will have to wait until next issue.

Soni (talk) 05:56, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This seems like something quite important with respect to timing, so it may be worth poning slightly. After all, the Board election will be over before the next issue. jp×g🗯️ 19:53, 16 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]