Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-12-18/Traffic report

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Grace Hopper

Actually, the term debugging predates Hopper, though she no doubt helped to popularize its use: see [1]. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:57, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Changed it to "popularized". Serendi^podous 09:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

It initially referred to actual "bugs" getting fried by the heat of tubes in the earliest computers causing problems. ENIAC is (partly) on display at UPenn. A moth is in the Smithsonian alleged to be the first real "computer bug" Hopper referred to in anecdotes. The use of "bug" meaning "problem" appears to antedate the computer age, alas. [2] Collect (talk) 14:09, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect. The term bug for a flaw in a machine is much older than ENIAC (dating to the 1800s, I believe). The moth that died in the machine was actually described as the "first bug" in the notes, demonstrating that it term was a joke and that the operators already knew the word before the bug died in there. Ego White Tray (talk) 15:50, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The article I referred to in my earlier post says: "As Alexander Magoun and Paul Israel explain in an article earlier this year in the newspaper of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 'bug' appeared in Edison's notebooks as early as 1876 to describe problems in his systems. 'Awful lot of bugs still,' read one notebook entry about a plan for incandescent lighting. He also developed what he called a 'bug trap' to catch relay errors in his early telegraph system. Within a couple of decades, Edison's usage of 'bug' became common enough to enter dictionaries. 'A fault in the working of a quadruplex telegraph or in any electrical apparatus,' was how Funk and Wagnalls' Standard Dictionary of the English Language defined it in 1893." The OED's earliest quotation for bug in this sense is from an 1889 issue of the Pall Mall Gazette: "Mr. Edison, I was informed, had been up the two previous nights discovering ‘a bug’ in his phonograph—an expression for solving a difficulty, and implying that some imaginary insect has secreted itself inside and is causing all the trouble." — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 17:52, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Cynicism

You are choosing to look at this cynically. Think of the 9+ million views of Grace Hopper...I bet few people in the world were even aware of this individual, much less knew anything about her contributions to computer science and now they do! I think we have to give Google credit for often selecting significant but lesser known scientists and artists to feature in their Google Doodle.

And you also need to think about what it means to be in the Top 10 articles viewed on Wikipedia over the course of a week. There are plenty of articles that might garner more views over the course of a year than any of these topics on a weekly list but those are articles of perennial interest. Being a trending article means that there has to be some time-based reason that motivates a large amount of people to seek out specific information they are looking for. So, we aren't going to see Organic chemistry or Love in the Time of Cholera on a Top 10 list, it's going to be news-based events, occurring at a specific point in time and people are coming to Wikipedia to find immediate answers. Of course, in the cases of deaths of well-known people, readers come to Wikipedia to find out the specifics of the person's passing or, if they aren't familiar with the individual, try to find out why they are notable.

I worked with trends on Twitter for two years, whether the trending topics were unbelievably frivolous, and I believe you must put aside judging them. They are what they are and are nothing more than that. They aren't a sign of intelligence, taste or what is of ultimate importance. They are just an indication of what is of interest to a lot of English-speaking people for a very short period of time. They aren't good of bad, they are just a sign of what, in this moment, people are curious about and that is heavily influenced by online conversations and news reports. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:00, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

To editor Serendipodous: While I appreciate your excellent volunteer effort in writing for The Signpost, I think the amount of editorialization in this column is becoming worrisome. Present the traffic report. Congratulations on having the freedom to make sardonic comments about the listed articles. Do not deign to think we need a paragraph of your opinions at the outset of the article, too. This is a Wikipedia report, not your personal blog entry. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:57, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The editorialisation was kinda necessary this week because I made a judgment call last week that didn't pan out. I felt it was better just to come clean about it rather than brush it under the carpet. Serendi^podous 07:59, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I rather enjoy reading the compiler's take on what the figures may or may not suggest, though Liz is right in that the figures are really just a snapshot of what people happen to be interested in that week. I guess people will always be more interested to find out the circumstances of the sudden, tragic death of a young person (especially one who is a Hollywood star) than the demise of someone in his 90s who has been ill for many years, regardless of how famous the latter person is. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 09:39, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It's likely that the reason the Mandela page views were relatively low was that every major news service published detailed obituaries of him at the time his death was announced. This obviously wasn't the case for Walker (though the level of interest in him does seem surprising). Nick-D (talk) 00:16, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

@Chris troutman: In my opinion it is more than a matter of editorialization -- it is a case of blatant missing journalistic integrity, and I am surprised the Signpost allows it.

In the traffic report of 28 August 2013 the author said in the comment section that he/she arbitrarily removed one of the top ten entries from the list using a judgement call. Again in the traffic report of 9 October 2013 he/she said two other entries were routinely removed.

I stopped reading this "report" because it is an opinion piece pretending it is an unbiased report. XOttawahitech (talk) 15:30, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever pretended to be unbiased. That's kinda the point. Most people complain that I act too biased. But I realised early on that, given the necessarily biased nature of the selection (I have to make a call as to which listed items are genuine and which are due to spambots, after all) it would be somewhat hypocritical to pretend to be unbiased. I do specifically note every item or group of items I remove at the bottom of the top 25 report, though; if that's not enough, you can always look at the raw data and draw your own conclusions. Serendi^podous 18:32, 22 December 2013 (UTC)