Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2013-07-03
Jimmy Wales is not an Internet billionaire; a mass shooter's alleged Wikipedia editing
Jimmy Wales is not an Internet billionaire
Amy Chozick's profile of Jimmy Wales in The New York Times sparked significant controversy in international news outlets this week. Chozick's profile covered Wales's personal life, including his 12-year-old daughter, ex-wife, and current wife Kate Garvey, describing Wales himself as "a well-groomed version of a person who has been slumped over a computer drinking Yoo-hoo for hours." Chozick described his current role in Wikipedia as "Benevolent Dictator for Life", a statement which garnered conflict from all corners of the web, including from Wales, who responded to the piece as a whole with a lengthy talk page statement. The piece also reported his net worth at approximately US$1 million, attributed to his stock in Wikia and his frequent speaking engagements on the subject of Internet freedom.
| “ | But some have wondered if Wales, who couldn't figure out a way to become rich off his innovation, was cynically making a play to cash in on being a great humanitarian. "Did Jimmy have the vision or did he settle into his spontaneous role?" asked Scott Glosserman, a filmmaker who spent a year with Wales filming "Truth in Numbers?" a 2010 documentary about Wikipedia. | ” |
It also touched on the controversies surrounding Wales's mainspace editing, including allegations that he edited the page of American rapper will.i.am to include information he acquired firsthand, without adhering to the Reliable Sources policy. Chozick tells the Wikipedia origin story sans Larry Sanger (though she later details the contention over Sanger's role) with an emphasis on what people close to Wales and various experts think about Wales's desire (or lack thereof) for wealth. Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard Law School professor, was quoted as saying, "Jimmy has had an ongoing valedictory lap for having catalyzed one of the greatest creations in the history of human knowledge ... it's hard to begrudge him for that. I think he's been feeling his way around. It's not like there's a lot of precedent for this." However, others, like filmmaker Scott Glosserman, were more critical. Chozick concluded the piece by describing Wales's busy life and newfound political connections, repeatedly questioning the economics of Wikipedia.
Wales responded to the inaccuracies he saw in a thread on his talk page, where the community at large discussed the article and its implications. Wales was critical of the piece and what he perceived as many factual errors included: "Then there is the cute bit about "B.D.F.L." [Benevolent Dictator for Life]—but as Wikipedians will know quite well, it's just not true. I'm not that, I'm not known as that, I've completely rejected that title, and it doesn't reflect the history or current reality of Wikipedia ... it's a weird piece with lots of errors of basic fact that could have been gotten right." Criticism was levelled at both Chozick and Wales over the article by members of the community in that thread. Chozick answered questions in a New York Times Behind the Cover Story piece.
The Atlantic's Wire section covered the story in an article called "Jimmy Wales is Only Worth $1 Million", commenting that "Wales has run with an entrepreneur image that doesn't include dollar signs and has transformed himself into a kind of benevolent pseudo-celebrity". Business Insider focused on the Bomis angle, titling their piece "Wikipedia was Started With Revenue from Soft-Core Porn". BI reported that Bomis, which funded the early years of Wikipedia, hosted nekkid.info, a pornographic website discussed on Wikipedia at the Reference Desk in 2006. VentureBeat covered the story as well, pointing out some of the criticisms of Wales in the NYT story.
Wikipedia account and edits discovered from mass shooter
Adam Lanza, the perpetrator behind one of the United States' worst single-person mass shootings, was again the subject of a flurry of articles this week when the Hartford Courant reported that investigating authorities discovered that Lanza had used various Internet websites, including Wikipedia, under the same username.
The Courant withheld the username in question, but the quotes taken verbatim from Lanza's alleged posts made it a simple task for news sources to name User:Kaynbred, who edited between August 2009 and February 2010. In the same time frame, a user with the same name posted on various gun- and computer-related Internet forums, discussing topics varying from gun restrictions to .32 ACP to the capabilities of his laptop computer.
The Wikipedia user's twelve edits were possibly inaccurately described in sources as "a near-fixation" (Courant) and an "obsession" (Daily Dot) with Wikipedia's coverage of mass shootings, given the small number combined with large gaps in time between edits. Later reports contacted the Wikimedia Foundation for comments, with head of communications Jay Walsh responding in part that "[twelve] is a small number of edits, and we would not consider [them] to be an active user." Still, all of the edits were focused on human massacres—including the 2009 Collier Township shooting, Dawson College shooting, Richard Farley, and others—and many of the edits modified the guns used in the events. Farley, in particular, shows that Kaynbred added a complete list of the weapons used, an edit that remains mostly intact in the current article.
On-wiki discussion occurred at the Village Pump.
These revelations come just a few months after news reports detailing convicted mass shooter Anders Breivik's grand total of four Wikipedia edits, including a lengthy but copyright-infringing translation of Heimskringla (see previous Signpost coverage).
In brief
- Visual Editor: Tech Spot, Tech2, Engadget, the Next Web, Softonic and the Guardian covered the launch of Visual Editor and detailed its features and potential implications. See also this week's "Technology report".
- Child of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge: The new article on Prince William and Kate Middleton's unborn child was covered in several news outlets, including dnaIndia, the Daily Telegraph, Perth Now, and Royal Central.
- Can rappers become the new Wikipedia?: The Washington Post reported on the website Rap Genius and its aspiration to be the Wikipedia of rap music.
- Trial by Wikipedia: An American judge ruling on the acceptability of teaching yoga in that country's public schools called it a "trial by Wikipedia", saying that allegations that yoga is religious were unfounded. The story was picked up by Deseret News and the Los Angeles Times.
- Wikipedia user trolls Wikipedia founder with bizarre painting because Wikipedia is insane: The User:Russavia/Pricasso controversy over the latter's painting of Jimmy Wales was reported on in Uproxx.
- Trading in the Bachelor's Thesis for … Wikipedia?: Net Prophet published an article on the Poznan University of Medical Sciences' partnership with the Wikipedia Education Program.
- Wikipedia contributors should be proud: An article in Times Higher Education reported on an effort by WMUK and Jisc to increase open participation in the projects by academics.
- Israel and the Middle East on the battlefield of Wikipedia: Haaretz reported on various Middle-East-related edit wars.
- Wikipedia is less sexist, thanks to a survey recount: Science 2.0 reviewed a PLoS One paper presenting a revised analysis of Wikipedia survey data, arguing that previous surveys had underestimated participation by female editors by a little over a quarter. Science 2.0 pointed out that one of the study's authors, B. M. Hill, is on the advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation "and likely does not see the issue the way outsiders do". The paper itself drew attention to Hill's position under "competing interests", saying, "BMH serves on the advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation as an unpaid advisor. The Wikimedia Foundation is one of the co-creators of the dataset which the authors analyze in this paper. The authors were not involved, in any way, in the creation or collection of the survey and do not believe BMH's role as advisor had any effect on the nature of this research."
- Jimmy Wales interview: realbusiness.co.uk featured an interview with Jimmy Wales, covering Wikipedia and Wikia as well as Wales' family background.
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Queen of France
Featured articles
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Four featured articles were promoted this week.
- SMS Oldenburg (nom) by Parsecboy. The SMS Oldenburg was the second vessel of the Helgoland-class of battleships of the German Imperial Navy. Oldenburg's keel was laid in October 1908 at the Kaiserliche Werft dockyard in Wilhelmshaven. She was launched on 30 September 1909 and was commissioned into the fleet on 1 May 1912. The ship was equipped with twelve 30.5-centimeter (12.0 in) guns in six twin turrets, and had a top speed of 21.2 knots (39.3 km/h; 24.4 mph). Oldenburg was assigned to the I Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career, including World War I.
- Isabeau of Bavaria (nom) by Victoriaearle. Isabeau of Bavaria (also Elisabeth of Bavaria-Ingolstadt; c. 1370–1435) was Queen of France as the wife of King Charles VI, whom she married in 1385. She was born into the old and prestigious House of Wittelsbach, the eldest daughter of Duke Stephen III of Bavaria-Ingolstadt and Taddea Visconti of Milan. Isabeau was sent to France when she was around 15 or 16, on approval to the young French king, who liked her enough to marry her three days after meeting her.
- South Pacific (musical) (nom) by Ssilvers and Wehwalt. South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. The story is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific, combining elements of several of the stories. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed that they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, would send a strong progressive message on racism.
- Japanese battleship Musashi (nom) by Sturmvogel 66 and Dank. Musashi, named after an ancient Japanese province, was one of two Yamato-class battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy, beginning in the late 1930s. The Yamato-class ships were the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleships ever constructed, displacing 72,800 long tons (74,000 t) fully loaded and armed with nine 46-centimetre (18.1 in) main guns. Her secondary armament consisted of four 15.5-centimetre (6.1 in) triple-gun turrets formerly used by the Mogami-class cruisers. She was equipped with six or seven floatplanes to conduct reconnaissance.
Featured lists
Four featured lists were promoted this week.
- List of municipalities of the Netherlands (nom) by CRwikiCA. There are 408 regular municipalities (gemeenten) and 3 public bodies (openbare lichamen) in the Netherlands. Municipalities are the second-level administrative division in the Netherlands and are subdivisions of their respective provinces. Their duties are delegated to them by the central government and they are ruled by a municipal council that is elected every four years.
- Beth Orton discography (nom) by Underneath-it-All. The discography of Beth Orton (born 1970), an English folktronic singer-songwriter, consists of six studio albums, two compilation albums, three extended plays, twenty singles and thirteen music videos. Orton debuted in 1993 as the singer of the duo Spill, a collaboration with William Orbit.
- List of Sega 32X games (nom) by Red Phoenix. The Sega 32X was an add-on for the Sega Genesis video game console. It was designed to expand the power of the Genesis and serve as a holdover until the release of the Sega Saturn. Independent of the Genesis, the 32X used its own ROM cartridges and had its own library of games. A total of forty titles were produced, including six that required both the Sega 32X and Sega CD add-ons.
- List of Regular Show episodes (nom) by Holiday56. Regular Show is an American animated comedy television series created by J. G. Quintel for Cartoon Network. Since its debut on 6 September 2010, 106 episodes of the series have been broadcast; and its fourth season premiered on 1 October 2012. It revolves around the lives of two friends – a Blue Jay named Mordecai and a raccoon named Rigby – both of whom are employed as groundskeepers at a local park. It depicts their daily routines at work and usual attempts to slack off, which often result in surreal misadventures.
Featured pictures
Fifteen featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Namaqua chameleon (nom, related article) created by Hans Stieglitz and nominated by Nikhilb239. The Namaqua Chameleon (Chamaeleo namaquensis) is a ground lizard. They have several interesting adaptations to their desert habitat, including the ability to change their skin colours to help with thermoregulation.
- Anthocharis cardamines (nom, related article) created by MichaD and nominated by Tomer T. The Orange Tip (Anthocharis cardamines) butterfly is found in parts of Europe and Asia. The butterfly gets its name from the orange on the males' forewings. The featured picture shows a female.
- Ellmau (nom, related article) created by Bernie Kohl and nominated by Tomer T. Ellmau is a municipality in Austria. It is part of the Ski Welt skiing area. The village is a popular vacation resort.
- Artificial skull deformation (nom, related article) created by Archaeodontosaurus and nominated by Cowtowner. Artificial skull deformation involves intentionally distorting a human's skull by applying force to the skull while the individual is a child, typically an infant because the skull is most pliable at this time. Artificial skull deformation was once practiced in a number of cultures, and still happens today in a small number of places. Early examples date back to 45,000 BC in Neanderthal skulls.
- Peter Sellers (nom, related article) created by Allan warren and nominated by Cowtowner. Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 1925–1980) was a British performing artist. He is well known for his comedic roles, including the character Inspector Clouseau from The Pink Panther movie series. He had a difficult personal life, but won several awards for his work including two BAFTAs and a Golden Globe.
- Lindau Harbor entrance (nom, related article) created by Julian Herzog and nominated by Tomer T. Lindau is a town in the state of Bavaria, Germany. The harbor entrance features a lion and a lighthouse.
- George Foster Peabody (nom, related article) created by the Pach Brothers, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden. George Foster Peabody (1852–1938) was an American banker and philanthropist. He amassed much of his wealth from investing in the Edison Electric Company. Peabody retired in 1906 and began to work in public service. He was a trustee of the Hampton University where he established the Peabody Collection of materials on African-American history. He had no college degrees, but received honorary degrees from Harvard, Washington and Lee Universities, and the University of Georgia. He provided the funds to establish the well-known George Foster Peabody Awards for public service in broadcasting.
- Benjamin Harrison (nom, related article) created by the Pach Brothers and restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden. Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) was the 23rd President of the United States. A major legacy from Harrison's time in office is the Sherman Antitrust Act which remains in force today. His re-election ambitions were defeated by Grover Cleveland in 1892.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic (nom, related article) created by Kyle Cassidy and nominated by J Milburn. American performing artist and satirist "Weird Al" Yankovic (born 1959) is known for his humorous songs. He has sold 12 million albums as of 2007, performed in more than 1,000 live shows and has won three Grammy Awards.
- Diet Coke and Mentos eruption (nom, related article) created by Mikemurphy and nominated by Omg whatever. A Diet Coke and Mentos eruption involves a reaction between a carbonated beverage and Mentos mints. The pores on the surface of the candy catalyze the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) gas from the soda and a large quantity of foam. Although the effect will happen with many sodas, Diet Coke is supposedly the most effective. Tonya Coffey, a physicist at Appalachian State University, wrote an article on Diet Coke and Mentos eruption that was published in the American Journal of Physics.
- Halloween (nom, related article) created by John Masey Wright and Edward Scriven, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden. Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote a poem called "Halloween" which Wright and Scriven illustrated.
- Prague Old Town Square (nom, related article) created and nominated by Diliff. Old Town (Czech: Staré Město) is a settlement of Prague in the Czech Republic. Old Town Square is busy with tourists during the summer. The famous medieval Prague Astronomical Clock is located in the square.
- Maillezais Cathedral (nom, related article) created by Selbymay and nominated by Tomer T. Maillezais Cathedral (Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Maillezais) in France was once a Roman Catholic cathedral. The cathedral was destroyed in 1562 but a Benedictine monastic community remained until 1666. The bishopric was re-established in 1648 at La Rochelle.
- Auld Lang Syne (nom, related article) created by John Masey Wright and John Rogers, restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden. "Auld Lang Syne" is a Scots poem by Robert Burns. It is commonly sung in much of the English speaking world at New Year celebrations and at other occasions that mark endings such as funerals and graduations. It is also sung by affiliates of the international Boy Scout movement at jamborees. English translations of the song's title include "Days Gone By" and "Old Times". The new featured picture is an illustration for the poem.
- Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson (nom, related article) created by Lemuel Francis Abbott and nominated by Crisco 1492. Horatio Nelson (1758–1805) was a British flag officer who remains famous today for his actions in the Royal Navy, especially during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for inspirational leadership and innovative tactics. He was killed in action at the Battle of Trafalgar.
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Puppies!
- WikiProject Open Access has redesigned its landing page
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This week, the Signpost went to the kennel and interviewed WikiProject Dogs. The project has several featured and good articles, along with a large number of "Did you know" entries. We asked Miyagawa, Tikuko, and Sagaciousphil about the challenges of creating, curating, and maintaining canine content in an increasingly dog-obsessed world:
What motivated you to join WikiProject Dogs? Do you have any canine companions?
- Miyagawa: I joined the Dogs project very early on in my editing career. At the time I was doing the odd technical fix here and there but hadn’t really worked on any article improvements. Then my wife and I got our first dog, which pretty much changed both my life and my editing career, as it was an English Cocker Spaniel, which became the first target of mine for improvement. It became my first ever GA, although I later demoted it because it didn’t really meet the quality standards of the later articles I worked on and I didn’t want new editors to mistakenly use it as a basis for which to base new GAs on. Improving that further is on my very long list of things to do! I also have a Jack Russell Terrier, and at the time I got him there was some issues with the associated article due to the use of the term "Jack Russell Terrier" meaning different things to conformation clubs and hunting societies. Thankfully, both that article and the associated Parson Russell Terrier articles are both GAs now. I admit now that I don’t do as much article improvement work on dog articles as I used to, but that is only because I’m a member of several different Wikiprojects across a number of subject areas and so I’m spread a great deal more thinly than I used to be!
- Tikuko: I've had dogs my entire life, and at one point I was interested in taking up a career as a competition herding trainer. It was ultimately this passion that brought me to the WikiProject, and when I found out my contributions were desired - and began to get GAs - I stuck around. Although I don't currently own a dog, I've had German shepherds, American Eskimo Dogs, Border Collies, a Dobermann/Labrador Retriever cross - the list goes on and on, as I tend to adopt older dogs from the local shelter. I've stuck around in the Project because the people in it are all wonderful, supportive, and helpful.
- Sagaciousphil: Some of my very early edits were to adjust the terminology used in articles about show dogs and the awards they had won, which then progressed to adding bits and pieces of information about health tests and the like. My involvement progressed from those random, occasional edits to making what I hope are more in-depth contributions. At present I have four dogs, Setters and Spaniels; two "oldies" who are both around ten years of age, and a pair of youngsters of four and five. I also own a couple of pups who are under a year but they don't live with me. Part of my real world work means I am dealing with other peoples dogs all the time and over the years, I've owned/bred several UK titleholders who have been successful at the highest levels of competition, so I guess dogs make up a very large proportion of my life and it's natural I'm drawn to dog articles!
Are some breeds better represented on Wikipedia than others? What can be done to improve coverage of neglected breeds?
- Miyagawa: There are probably more spaniel breed articles of a good standard in the project than others, this is because at one point I was aiming to bring all of those to GA. I ended up moving onto something else, but a good chunk of it was completed. Some dog breeds that tend to have rather poor quality articles in general are those with portmanteau names such as the Labradoodle or Cockapoo.
- Tikuko: There is definitely a swing towards good spaniel articles, but there are also plenty of good herding breed articles, even if they aren't up to GA standards. The articles with the worst quality tend to be designer dog articles and articles for breeds unrecognized by any kennel clubs, as they are lacking in reliable sources and tend to be watched (and poorly edited) by supporters and breeders of these dogs.
- Sagaciousphil: I completely agree with Miyagawa and TKK's comments above - the spaniel articles are good, Cockapoo, Labradoodle etc are poor. I would also add there are some breed articles that are not much more than re-prints of the breed standards.
In addition to breeding, what aspects of the canine world are documented by Wikipedia? Are there any dog-related topics that have been overlooked?
- Miyagawa: Given the work undertaken on horse racing articles recently by several editors, it reminds me that there hasn’t been a great deal of work on Greyhound racing in the dog world. There are probably only a handful of famous racing Greyhound articles even created, and races such as the Scottish Greyhound Derby are merely stubs with a long table. The vast majority of show dog related articles are specifically about dogs who have won best in show at Crufts or the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. This is mainly because the sourcing is easier for those as typically you get a fair deal of press following a victory at either of those shows. However, there are independent conformation show publications around the world that cover shows, and if there is sufficient coverage from reliable sources than any dog could be considered notable enough to warrant an article.
- Tikuko: As Miyagawa said, there is definitely a dearth in our coverage of the Greyhound racing culture; we are missing articles on notable dogs in just about any category that isn't a conformation champion of a major show, or a dog notable in a science-related field. There is pretty good coverage of things like Dog fighting compared to more positive things like Earthdog trials.
- Sagaciousphil: With all the advances being made in the areas of canine health and DNA testing, I would like to see more articles covering this - for instance, there is an article on canine hip dysplasia but nothing for CLAD (the canine version of Leukocyte adhesion deficiency, which is known in a number of breeds.
Dogs have had a fairly strong showing in the Did You Know? section of Wikipedia's main page. Why do new dog articles sprout so frequently? Has there been any concern at the project that efforts to create stubs and start-class articles might overshadow efforts to improve articles to Good or Featured status?
- Miyagawa: Because of the availability of sources, individual dogs tend to get trapped at a stage where everything available from reliable sources on the internet has been added to the article but this is limited in the most major of achievements. So it is difficult to expand these to Good or Featured status as further information is in the more specialized publications which aren’t so easily available. Dog breed articles on the other hand are easier to take to GA or FA by virtue of the mostly more accessible sourcing.
- Tikuko: Part of the reason that stubs are so frequent in the project may actually be my fault, as I am currently working on creating articles for the List of Best in Show winners of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and at least one of those stubs was taken to DYK. However, work on the project seems to be split fairly evenly between new article creation and work on existing articles. Part of the reason we deal with so many new articles and stubs is that everyone with a mongrel thinks that their dog is a breed that needs an article.
- Sagaciousphil: It would probably be possible to have more articles on individual dogs but as Miyagawa states, it is difficult to find sufficient reliable sources as there is not much coverage in the general media except for Crufts and Westminster winners. We have a stub article on the World Dog Show but that receives hardly any general coverage (the entry figures for the World Show in 2013 was around 17,000 dogs whereas Crufts was over 25,000). As touched on by TKK, there are also new articles for "the breed I just made up and thought of a name for" being added - as fast as we can get the existing doubtful ones deleted, others seem to be added.
Has it been difficult to find sources for articles about dogs? What online and offline resources are available to editors?
- Miyagawa: The difficulty in sourcing dog breeds lies mainly with the sourcing of the history sections. Whilst most sections such as the description and health can be sourced reasonably easily from modern sources, the history section tends to be more difficult in cases where the dog breed was developed prior to the 20th century. Modern texts don’t tend to go into the history of dog breeds in great detail, although there are a few standout exceptions. However, around the end of the 19th and early 20th century there was a big push for dog conformation shows and dog hunting in general, which resulted in a great number of quality sources being published. These have since been archived at the usual archiving websites and are a keen resource for editors. For example, the detail in the Dandie Dinmont Terrier article could not have been achieved without those archived sources. Even so, at times an editor has to look for conjecture in those works – for example it was a source from that era which created the fabled death of the famous Barry the St. Bernard at the hands of a soldier he was trying to save. Complete fiction - even though it is repeated on a gravestone atop an empty grave in France – he died of old age in Switzerland and then was taxidermied. He's till on display now, although there are ongoing arguments about whether or not he should wear a barrel around his neck!
- Tikuko: It's not difficult for mainstream dog breeds, or dog breeds which have existed for a while or are popular. There is definitely more information available on breeds than on individual dogs, but most of these sources available online tend to be from the 19th century or on the breed's club websites. Sourcing for individual dogs is infinitely more difficult. There are dog-specific search engines that can help editors find sources, but even then for certain things sources are lacking.
- Sagaciousphil: Online versions of old dog breed books are a great help, the main drawback is I find myself spending hours reading through them! Many books considered "breed bibles" were actually self published, so we're generally unable to use these. Both the American Kennel Club and The Kennel Club now have breed pages giving basic information, which can be helpful. Unfortunately there are a lot of SEO sites that get added as references and really cannot be relied on. Official breed clubs can be useful but again you have to remember these are likely to be biased; I would stress "official" clubs as it is too easy these days to set up a web site and declare it is the breed club of whatever breed you made up! I tend to only use clubs that are recognised by the major kennel clubs like AKC or the KC.
Like images of cats, images of dogs are ubiquitous on the internet. How does the project determine which photograph will serve as the primary identifying image for a particular dog article? Do disputes arise between editors who favor their own pet's image in an article?
- Miyagawa: An ideal image for an infobox should be a shot of a dog standing sideways with its head turned towards the camera. However, where this isn’t available it can lead to disputes. As you say, there can also be disputes when editors add images of their own pets. There are some dog breed articles out there completely overloaded with images of people’s own dogs to the extent that the article just looks messy. Fortunately once an article is pushed through to GA/FA it becomes a great deal more stable and so it is much less likely to end up having images inserted where it actually has a negative effect on the article itself. I have no issue with editors uploading images of their own pets – as long as it is a better image than one already on the article. If you can take your dog out to the park along with your high resolution camera and take a quality photo of it posed in a manner that improves the article then great! Sadly the vast majority of owner added images are camera phone shots made in darkened rooms. There is only so much cleaning up you can do with images like those in order to actually make them worthy of being in the article. I can hold my hand up – I have had two images each of my dogs on articles in the past, one has since been removed from the article as it was replaced with an image that was more important (it was the Spaniel image above - used when I created the article on Doggles). In three of those images there were no alternatives available, whilst the fourth shot was posed in the same manner as a historical image of the breed so as to allow the reader to directly compare the two. We’re fortunate in having a subject area where images are easier to come by, but sometimes we can be a little overloaded with them!
- Tikuko: Miyagawa covered the issues well here. Unfortunately, many editors, mostly new contributors, feel that their puppy is cute and needs to be included in the article, which results in swamps of images that add nothing to the article and crowded, difficult-to-read text.
- Sagaciousphil: Yes, it can be a problem - I can think of at least one article which has pics of the same dog at eight weeks, six months, a year etc etc. Convincing people that articles are not a gallery for their dogs life stages is not easy! It can also be the case that although the image is an excellent photograph, it doesn't actually convey any encyclopaedic information.
What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new contributor help today?
- Miyagawa: There are quite a lot of ongoing page patrolling for the articles as dog breeds tend to be hit up by IP editors quite frequently. It mostly isn’t deliberate vandalism, just editors who are new and don’t know that it isn’t fine to edit the top line of the Beagle article to read "Beagles are great! I love mine!" Very much a case of don’t scare the newbies! :) Other than that, it is the need as most projects – article improvement.
- Tikuko: There are numerous breed articles where sourcing is contentious at best, and new contributors could help by finding sources for these articles. They can also help with removing unsourced statements from breed temperament sections - these tend to turn into unsourced piles of "loves children and good with everything", even for breeds whose breed clubs themselves state that the breed is awful with kids.
- Sagaciousphil: There are a lot of breed articles with external links to breed clubs, rescues etc which should be included at DMOZ instead; many also have an external link listed to the breed standard, which is not necessary as all standards are linked in the info box. Some even have links to breeders personal websites, blogs and forums either as external links or as references. TKK mentions the temperament sections requiring attention, I'd add many of the description sections need improvement. I would be inclined to prune some of the "Notable dogs" sections back as well.
Keep your fires going for next week, when we interview a project focused on areas underneath the red dragon. Until then, practice your roaring in the archives.
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Wikipedia's medical collaborations gathering pace
The key annual event in the Wikimedia calendar, Wikimania 2013, will be held in Hong Kong in just five weeks' time. Among the events will be a presentation by two people who are working to promote the development of medical content on Wikimedia projects. One is James Heilman of Wiki Project Med, a non-profit dedicated to making "clear, reliable, comprehensive, up-to-date educational resources and information in the biomedical and related social sciences freely available to all people in the language of their choice". The other is Lori Thicke, president of Translators Without Borders (TWB), the Connecticut-based organisation set up in 2010 to provide pro-bono translation services for humanitarian non-profits.
At Wikimania, Heilman and Thicke will discuss how TWB and Wikipedia are collaborating to improve medical content. Thicke told the Signpost that "more people die from lack of information than from lack of medication. ... We chose to work with Wikipedia because it’s the most frequently consulted health resource on the web. It's not only scalable, but with Wikipedia Zero, consumers in some parts of the developing world actually have access to Wikipedia free of data charges." Crossing the language barriers to health knowledge, she says, is a major hurdle for enabling people in the developing world to live healthier and longer lives.
Heilman, who was recently interviewed in a Bulletin of the World Health Organization, says that while medical articles are in a reasonable state in a few European languages, Wikipedias in almost all other languages have threadbare coverage, including languages spoken where medical services are poor or non-existent. Wikipedias there have significant potential to improve health care in many parts of the world, he says, "but translation is essential if we're going to realise that potential ... and the key to translation is that an article be important and of high quality."
The collaboration has already produced nearly 200 translations into more than 30 languages, but this is a drop in the ocean of information that Wikipedia could make available across languages. Most projects have no equivalent to the English Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine, although Heilman listed eight other Wikipedias in which there is a reasonably strong presence: the German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Romanian Wikipedias. Of passing interest is Heilman's observation that TWB's active membership is about 90% female, the inverse of the gender imbalance in the Wikipedia editing community.
In March, the cross-language medical drive attracted a $14.5k grant from the Indigo Trust to help train and fund English–Swahili translators in Kenya. The current collaboration is learning from a Google–Wikipedia translation project Health speaks, which emphasised the use of advanced machine translation. Heilman says, however, that "it's more important to forge close links between article reviewers, Wikipedia's medical editors, and the translation corps"—a hallmark of more recent efforts.
National Institutes of Health
Among our emerging medicine-based relationships with external organisations is one that arose from last year's Wikimania in Washington DC. It was there that Heilman was introduced to Hilda Bastian, who works for the PubMed health project (funded by the American National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's largest medical research funding body). In collaboration with the English Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine, Bastian has since arranged for two of her team members to spend part of their time using their scientific expertise to improve the quality of Wikipedia's medical articles.
Bastian's particular interests are post-traumatic stress disorder and women's health, including pregnancy. Speaking to the Signpost as an individual—and not on behalf of the NIH or its funded agencies—she responded to our question about the state of Wikipedia's articles on women's health by suggesting that serious improvements are needed: "Drawing in people with an active interest in women's health is a priority for me personally. Take just one example, Postpartum hemorrhage: this is one of the main reasons young women die globally and it's mostly preventable. Yet it's start class and only rated as of mid-importance."
Just over a month ago, WikiProject Medicine held a community conference at NIH's National Library of Medicine just outside Washington DC. Attended by Bastian and Heilman, the conference included an editathon conducted by Lane Rasberry for a group of NIH staff.
Cochrane Collaboration
Yet another key player is involved in Wikipedia's medical efforts. The Cochrane Collaboration is an independent non-profit that aims to systematically organise medical evidence-based research information, with some 28,000 volunteers worldwide. Cochrane has built a medical database of great significance to modern healthcare research, much of it based on the organisation's reviews and meta-analyses. User:Ocaasi has gained rare access to this database by persuading Cochrane to donate 100 free full licenses to Wikipedian medical editors. He told the Signpost that "Cochrane was always a top target for us ... their donation gives us access to high-quality, reliable secondary sources so that our articles can reflect the best available scholarship about the efficacy of medical treatments."
The Signpost can reveal that Cochrane is likely to extend its relationship with the Wikimedia movement by taking on a Wikipedian-in-residence in the northern autumn, for which Wiki Project Med is helping to coordinate the search for the best candidates. Ocaasi says the position—essentially online and not requiring relocation—will be with Cochrane's Infectious Disease Group in Liverpool, UK: "The Wikipedian-in-residence will help Cochrane's authors interact with Wikipedia, understand its policies, add reliable sources to expand and update medical articles, and engage with the broader community on medical issues."
University of California, San Francisco
To these medical efforts a higher-educational dimension has recently been added. Ocaasi and Heilman were recently invited to visit UCSF, a major medical research and training university, where they gave lectures and ran editing sessions on Wikipedia and medicine. In the first such move, the university is introducing a senior undergraduate option to train medical students to improve health-related articles on Wikipedia.
The Signpost asked Heilman to identify the biggest challenge we face in improving the dissemination of free medical information around the world. He pointed to two separate needs: "one is for more people writing content in English, and this is where initiatives like UCSF's will hopefully help; the other is for more people to integrate translated content into the respective language of Wikipedia. For the first, we want content experts; for the second, we want Wikipedians in targeted languages who can integrate translated material."
In brief
- Wikip/median in Residencies: Wikimedia Switzerland (WMCH; the local chapter in the country) and the Swiss Federal Archives have partnered together through a Wikipedian in Residence (Micha L. Rieser) to publish source materials on the Wikimedia Commons, the sister project entrusted with collecting and curating various forms of educational media for Foundation sites. The first of what is hoped to be many collaborations will involve the release of materials from a First World War photographic collection. In a similar vein, the Science Museum and Natural History Museum's Wikimedian in Residence, John Cummings, has announced that the establishment will be releasing fifty images under a free Creative Commons license.
- FDC Ombudsperson report: The annual report of the Funds Dissemination Committee's Ombudsperson has been published on Meta. The committee is charged with recommending funding levels to organizations affiliated with the Wikimedia movement, which in practice is limited to the Foundation itself and various Wikimedia chapters. The ombudsperson documents and investigates complaints about the FDC's process, which have included the Hong Kong chapter's protest over receiving none of its requested US$212k in funding.
- Quarterly review: Wikipedia Zero's second quarterly review has been published on Meta. Wikipedia Zero is partnering with mobile providers in developing countries to give free mobile access to Wikipedia articles; quarterly reviews are aimed to ensure accountability and allow senior Foundation staff to offer specific guidance to their proliferous and diverse initiatives.
- English Wikipedia news
- NRHP: The halfway mark has been reached in the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject's goal of having an article on every listed place. The register is the United States' federal government listing of various locations that are considered worthy of preservation. The current total number of NRHP-related articles is just over 1% of all articles on the English Wikipedia.
- Quarterly update: The quarterly update comprising of all changes to the English Wikipedia's content policies has been published at Wikipedia:Update. Volunteers to restart updates of deletion and enforcement policies are requested.
- Research collaboration wins funding: Wikimedia Australia (WMAU) has jointly secured a prestigious grant from the Australian Research Council, with two scholars of sports history at the University of Queensland, and the Australian Paralympic Movement (APC). The three-year project will concern a neglected area of historical research: "Creating histories of the Australian Paralympic Movement: a new relationship between researchers and the community." Associate Professor Murray Phillips and Dr Gary Osmond will disseminate their findings in three parallel modes: a scholarly book, an e-history, and a program of related articles on the English Wikipedia with the close involvement of the Australian editing community. Two partner investigators will work with the university researchers on editor training workshops, a mobile app, and hyperlinking innovations (WMAU's John Vandenberg); and the gathering, analysis, and electronic storage of related oral history and audiovisual material from the paralympics community throughout the country (the APC's Tony Naar).
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Snuggle, mainpage link to Wikinews, 3RR, and more
This is mostly a list of Non-article page requests for comment believed to be active on 3 July 2013 linked from subpages of Wikipedia:RfC, and recent watchlist notices and SiteNotices. The latter two are in bold. Items that are new to this report are in italics even if they are not new discussions. If an item can be listed under more than one category it is usually listed once only in this report. Clarifications and corrections are appreciated; please leave them in this article's comment box at the bottom of the page.
Style and naming
- Style of closing quotation marks
- "Should BLPs contain a duplicate name in basic ASCII character set?"
- Manual of Style/Road junction lists
- Manual of Style/Trademarks
- Dates in the Citation Style 1 family of citation templates
- WP:CITE; Variation in citation methods
- Capital letters for short prepositions
Policies and guidelines
- Non-free content policy; quoting from non-free Bible translations
- Edit warring 3RR; content and patterns of reverts
- Notability of extrasolar planets
- Non-free content criterion 1
- Naming conventions for Australian roads
- RfC on validity of RfC on main page items
- Conflict of interest guideline amendment
WikiProjects and collaborations
- Mark the Article Incubator as historical or inactive?
- WikiProject Eurovision; Eurovision Song Contest
Technical issues and templates
- "VisualEditor is now enabled for all logged-in users. Learn more, help out and give feedback."
- Where should the templatedata block be placed?
- Infobox Chinese; Chinese Hán and Vietnamese nôm scripts
- Members of the European Parliament 1999–2004 template
Proposals
- Remove mainpage link to Wikinews from the "In the News" section?
- Mass removal of old indefinite rangeblocks
- Bot flags
English Wikipedia notable requests for permissions
(This section will include active RfAs, RfBs, CU/OS appointment requests, and Arbcom elections)
Meta
- Make detailed information on X!'s edit counter visible by default?
- Call for input about the WMF Privacy policy
- Elections postmortem discussion
- Trademark practices
- Scope of the Ombudsman Commission
- Logo selection procedure for Wikivoyage
Upcoming online meetings
- "Snuggle's place as a tool for mentor-ship in Wikipedia", 10 July 16:00 UTC
- "Universal Language Selector and other updates from Language Engineering", 10 July 17:00 UTC
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VisualEditor in midst of game-changing deployment series
The VisualEditor extension has gone live by default to registered users on the English Wikipedia, marking a huge milestone in a project that has taken the best part of a decade to reach fruition. The extension was previously described as "the biggest and most important change to our user experience we’ve ever undertaken" by the WMF team behind it.
WYSIWYG editors, 2004 to 2011
| “ | At the moment, we know that very few people who create an account ... ever complete an edit or become members of the community. One of the reasons for this is that Wikipedia, unlike almost everywhere else on the Internet in 2013, expects users to learn a markup language to properly contribute. | ” |
—WMF VisualEditor team | ||
| “ | It would be no overstatement to call it the most significant change in Wikipedia’s short history | ” |
—The Economist, December 2011 | ||
The idea of a fully-integrated What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) editor has a long history. The associated Meta-wiki page—now a redirect—was created in 2004, drawing on an already significant literature. Much of its content then ("many would-be users of MediaWiki are put off by what looks to them—rightly—to be code of any sort") would not look out of place in a discussion of contemporary developments, and at least one of the page's authors, Gabriel Wicke, has been able to help bring his ideas into fruition as a staff developer. When asked in July 2004 what one thing he'd change about Wikipedia, wiki-innovator Ward Cunningham immediately listed the installation of a WYSIWYG editor.
With much of the web moving its user-facing interfaces over to various WYSIWYG systems in the years following (WordPress went WYSIWYG in December 2005, for example), several WYSIWYG editors—specially tailored to output Wikitext rather than HTML—were created, including a popular fork of FCKEditor (2007). Commercial wikifarms Seedwiki and Wikia were among those to benefit, allowing site administrators to banish wikitext from their wikis as early as 2005.
Nevertheless, the freedom that Wikitext provides editors, the difficulties of working with MediaWiki's evolving and generally idiosyncratic Wikitext-to-HTML parser, and a drive for perfection prevented the introduction of any WYSIWYG editing capability to Wikimedia wikis—at least by default (previous Signpost coverage).
WMF development, 2011 to present
That changed in May 2011, when the Wikimedia Foundation took on the challenge of creating a fully functioning visual editor (a commitment with its origins in the 2010 Wikimedia Usability Initiative and confirmed in 2011's product whitepaper, which described rich-text editing as a "great movement project").
At the time, June 2012 was given as a first release date, albeit for a smaller wiki. Though a working prototype was successfully released on time in December 2011, attracting (mostly positive) attention from the press, including The Economist, PC World and The Verge, the project ultimately got off to a bad start when an early decision to build their own edit surface ("ES") rather than use the (then rudimentary) ContentEditable ("CE") component built into browsers was reversed in March 2012. As a result, users would have been forgiven if they could not see the difference between the first prototype and the second, released in June 2012 on MediaWiki.org. Indeed, months of development restricted to behind-the-scenes code refinements to both the VisualEditor itself and Parsoid—the new and improved wikitext parsers that underpins it—meant that a year after the first prototype and six months after the original deployment target, the team was still demo'ing almost exactly the same feature set as it had always done: bold/italics, lists, links and headings.
Seven months on and the transformation is complete. The editor now includes template prompting, reference tag integration, image handling and category support—in theory at least. The revised timetable, published a year ago, seems to have been broadly kept to, for better or worse. If the trend continues, anonymous users on the English Wikipedia will get the editor next week, users on other large Wikipedias the week after, and all other Wikipedias where compatibility can be guaranteed a week after that—an adventurous timetable, especially given the storm of comment after the initial deployment on the English Wikipedia and the bug reports it provoked. It is not known when users of Internet Explorer will be able to use the editor, though support for recent versions of the browser is planned.
The contemporary debate
Based on an estimated 4 FTEs over two years, back-of-an-envelope calculations suggest the project has cost the Foundation upwards of half a million US dollars. It is hardly surprising, then, that the Foundation stands by its assertion that the VE will help reverse the recent decline in editor numbers. Certainly, there can be little doubt that the VisualEditor will, once any bugs are ironed out, make it easier to edit. Whether that translates into a net positive, however, is more dubious. As Ubergizmo suggested back in December 2011, it is not clear that the edits that Wikimedia wikis miss out on every day because they are too hard to edit are of the high-quality variety, drive-by vandalism, or (more likely) a mixture of the two. Other commenters have suggested that new editors may now be additionally bewildered when learning to use talk pages, which still rely on wikitext. In any case, as more data is collected—a trial on new editors started last week—the question of impact should more or less be laid to rest.
In the meantime, the nature of the present deployment—with its focus on existing users—has shifted the focus of discussion onto the merits of providing the VisualEditor to power users by default. Fueled by the fact that only a gadget (instead of a proper preference) allows editors to effectively hide the VE, along with VE's lengthy loading times, bugs (including occasionally adding <nowiki> tags without being prompted), and the lack of reference and template support, many immediate comments on the tool's feedback page have been generally negative. "This is yet another botched new feature deployment by the WMF" wrote one; "turn it off and fire whoever developed it" wrote another. Other comments were more helpful, pointing to the lack of integration with features such as the citation toolbar and special character selection, while yet others posted their appreciation for a tool that "has greatly eased [their] editing"; one user explained that he had "given up on editing" many times, and that VE now allowed him to contribute. The results of an A/B test on new users will be forthcoming. At time of writing, the VisualEditor team say they have no plans to reverse the deployment.
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Yahoo! crushes the competition ... in Wikipedia views
Summary: The real world made a strong showing in the top 10 last week, as news stories such as Yahoo!'s purchase of Tumblr, the murder of Odin Lloyd, the continuing drama over NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the ill-health of Nelson Mandela crowded out the usual roster of TV shows, movies, websites and video games. Not that they were entirely excluded, of course.
For the complete Top 25 report with analysis, see here.
For the week of June 23 to 29, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
| Rank | Article | Views | Image | Class | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yahoo! | 2,901,780 | .svg) |
|
Once considered moribund, the Internet company has been radically redesigning itself; purchasing Tumblr, dropping AltaVista and refocusing its attention on mobile applications. It seems to have worked; stock is up 50% on last year, and interest is high (this was the most viewed article on Wikipedia in over four months). |
| 2 | Antoni Gaudí | 1,154,577 |  |
|
The designer of the Sagrada Família cathedral got some posthumous recognition thanks to a Google Doodle on what would have been his 161st birthday. |
| 3 | Aaron Hernandez | 952,383 |  |
|
A football player for the New England Patriots who was arrested for the murder of Odin Lloyd on June 26. |
| 4 | Edward Snowden | 814,450 |
|
The whistleblower of the NSA's domestic spying program has been denied a passport by the US government and remains in Terminal E of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, seeking asylum in Ecuador. Polls suggest Americans are still fairly divided on whether to treat this man as a hero or a traitor, which augurs more debate and, likely, more Wikipedia views in future. | |
| 5 | Nelson Mandela | 804,204 | .jpg) |
|
The 94-year-old former President of South Africa was rushed to hospital on June 8 amid serious worries about his health. His condition, described as critical, added poignancy to Barack Obama's visit to South Africa. |
| 6/7 | World War Z (film) and Man of Steel (film) |
683,510/ 659,271 |
 /
|
These two Hollywood films, despite each being out for more than a week, remain the only ones in Wikipedia's top 40. Conversely, Monsters University, which leads the current weekend and has already outgrossed World War Z by a wide margin, barely cracked the top 50, while the two latest releases, The Heat and White House Down, were both well outside the top 100. | |
| 8 | 570,110 | .JPG) |
|
A perennially popular article. | |
| 9 | Raanjhanaa | 529,383 |  |
|
The Bollywood debut of award-winning Tamil actor Dhanush was released on June 21 and has already made back its ₹35 crore ($6 million) budget, no doubt aided by a score from internationally renowned composer A. R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire) |
| 10 | The Last of Us | 514,965 |
|
This eagerly awaited and critically praised not-quite-zombie apocalypse video game was released on June 13. |
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Tea Party movement reopened, new AUSC appointments
Following a one-month period of moderated discussion, Tea Party movement has been reopened by the Committee. The proposed decisions are currently being voted upon. Race and politics remains suspended pending the return of Apostle12. The Audit Subcommittee terms for Arbitrators User:Newyorkbrad, AGK and Timotheus Canens expired on 30 June 2013. Newyorkbrad and AGK will be sitting for another term and Risker will be filling the position vacated by Timotheus Canens. Risker was previously the subcommittee's coordinator; that position has been filled by NuclearWarfare.
Open cases
The case, brought before the Committee on 23 February 2013 by KillerChihuahua, involves accusations raised against Goethean and the filer. The filer alleges North8000 insulted him and "misrepesented Goethean" and Malke 2010 accused the filer of being Goethean's meatpuppet. He called the environment "toxic" and went on to say that North8000, Malke 2010 and Arzel had previously engaged in battleground behaviour and violations of Wikipedia:No personal attacks.
In his statement, North8000 stated that the dispute is a two-way dispute between himself and the filer. He alleged that the crux of the dispute does not lie with nor did it take place on the talk page for the Tea Party movement article. In his statement, Arzel claimed that KillerChihuahua's statement that: "They [Arzel and North8000] reject any editors and any sources which do not promote the Tea Party movement, to the point that the New York Times and MSNBC were dismissed as non-RS - rather snidely, too - by Arzel and Malke 2010." is completely inaccurate and a baseless accusation.
He clarifies his position by stating that his involvement in the dispute began when an editor added to the Tea Party movement article the "agenda/defintion [sic] from the point of view of a person outside of the movement. I simply moved that sentence to later in the section with the reasoning that the movement should define itself first." He then provided a verbatim copy of his edit and asked the filer where in this edit he mentions the New York Times and MSNBC as being unreliable sources:
- "It is written as an opinion of the writer. Who says that this writer gets to define the Tea Party? Why doesn't it belong in the media section? It is formed from a media outlet, what makes the NYT special in this regard? Why not include ALL of the media opinions in the definition? Arzel (talk) 19:03, 23 February 2013 (UTC)"
The case was unsuspended on 2 July 2013.
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