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Signpost Virginia Tech massacre articles rise to prominence
The article on the massacre that occurred last Monday in Blacksburg, Virginia had humble beginnings. It was created with the above 18 words by Taoster some two hours after the second shooting incident, and has since been edited nearly 7,500 times by more than 2,000 unique editors and is now more than 5,000 words long. Each revision has lasted for an average time of only 70 seconds. In less than one week, it rose to the #2 article position on the top 100 list according to WikiCharts (effectively #1, since the top position belongs to the main page). When the flurry of edits began, it was requested that the article remain unprotected because it is linked to as a news item on the main page. Administrators found a compromise to the consistent vandalism by semi-protecting the article in short segments of roughly 3 hours, hoping to thwart off casual vandals. It has since been semi-protected 12 times, a status under which it remains as of press time. Natalie Erin and Kizor have led the way; the former editing the page more than 170 times since its conception. The two, as well as Swatjester, also figured in a New York Times story covering the development of the article. On the day of the incident, a timelapse video was created, quickly running through screenshots of the article's first twelve hours. It was uploaded to YouTube, where it has been viewed nearly 40,000 times. On Thursday, Dalejenkins nominated the Virginia Tech massacre article for featured status. However, the nomination was delisted by Michaelas10 7 hours later, after nearly 20 opposing comments that all cited a lack of stability. The article on Virginia Tech itself has been semi-protected since Monday afternoon. Articles currently exist for three faculty victims of the massacre, though one is being reviewed after a decision was made to cut off discussion on its possible deletion. A fourth was deleted Sunday after exhaustive discussion. Also proposed for deletion are inaccurate media reports, a list of victims, and a navigational template. The article for Seung-Hui Cho, the man confirmed to be the shooter, has been edited nearly 2,500 times since TedFrank created it. It has been the target of a number of malicious edits, and remains semi-protected. There was also confusion over the article's title; as Korean names list the family name first, he may be known as Cho Seung-Hui and Seung Cho. 20 April, 2007 marked the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado. The milestone, combined with the discovered connections between the two incidents, propelled the article to the fourth most-viewed for the month of April, behind Seung-Hui Cho. It is currently semi-protected; the new interest may have been detrimental, as the article is now under review to challenge its featured status, which it received in August of 2005. User:Phoenix2/Backlogs User:Phoenix2/Featured list Signpost Debate over non-free images heats upIn continuation of the story the Signpost ran last week about featured lists, discussion began Tuesday, involving more than two dozen editors, on the administrators' noticeboard. It concerns the inclusion of fair use images in lists such as that of Family Guy episodes, and the general undertakings of the Episode list WikiProject. Last month, after noting its effect on the nominees for featured list status, Tompw initiated discussion about modifying the featured list criteria to exclude non-free content from lists. It was aimed mainly at lists for television series which contain a screenshot from every episode. Most in support of the changes stated that screenshots could be used on the articles for individual episodes, but need not be used in episode summaries, which generally contain only one or two sentences about specific episodes. Several editors 'strongly' opposed the modifications, citing various things, including the lack of usability of a screenshot for piracy. Others said screenshots simply made the list more visually appealing and an easier recognition of a given episode, without reading the summary. Discussion on the page continued through April. On April 30, ESkog removed all of the images from List of Family Guy episodes, claiming a lack of fair use in his edit summaries. Shortly thereafter, an anonymous user reverted the change, but ESkog restored his version some three hours later.
ESkog regarding List of Family Guy episodes The anonymous user again reverted the change, after which ESkog made mention of the issue on the administrators' noticeboard. At this point, administrator Ryulong quickly reverted to ESkog's imageless version and protected the page, saying, "fair use violations aplenty." The original posting by ESkog and note of protection at the noticeboard has since sparked nearly 40,000 words of discussion. In it, he described the inclusion of a screenshot for every list as a "decorative fair-use gallery". Cburnett was very unhappy with the change and quick protection by Ryulong, calling it an obvious endorsement of his preferred version. He also accused Ryulong of taking the administrative action of protection against a page to which he was involved in editing. Also troublesome was the definition of "decorative"; several users sided with ESkog and maintained the philosophy that listed screenshots should not be included. Cburnett queried as to the amount of time that was spent ridding the Family Guy list of non-free images, when other lists, such as that for Naruto, were allowed to retain them. Ryulong then swiftly made his first edits to that list, three of which were formatting-related. The other was a reversion of the restoration by Someguy0830 of Zscout370's removal of the screenshots.
Peregrine Fisher appeared to be the main advocate for non-free image retention. He initially questioned the poor location of the discussion, and later tried to shed light on the decision that had been made regarding a proposed amendment to Wikipedia's fair use criteria. Discussion continued for a number of hours, concerning the number of editors required to achieve consensus, followed by numerous reminders that the discussion was not strictly a vote. Later, WAS 4.250 proposed that smaller (icon) sized images should be used, but the proposal was quickly dismissed. Administrator Cyde Weys, a major contributor to the discussion, said that he had taken the initiative in deleting images that had been orphaned since their removal from various lists. Gmaxwell provided a list of articles that were featured, but had episode screenshots. The most notable were those of The Simpsons, a series for which there are eighteen seasons. Future Perfect at Sunrise and Picaroon9288 removed the non-free screenshots from these lists. For a number of the other lists, users who were unaware of the discussion on the noticeboard, reverted the image removal. Early Tuesday, Cyde created a page on which lists that have had their screenshots removed are to be added. Several users have since assisted in the massive removal of the images, sparking minor edit wars at various locations; a number of episode lists were temporarily protected because of disputes that arose from the removal of images, which involved multiple editors. Consensus, or at least a general acceptance of the policy and the subsequent image removal effort, began to emerge Wednesday. Cburnett, who initially was unhappy with the immediacy of the matter and lack of consensus, praised editors for dealing with the issue in a professional manner. Hard feelings finally turned against Wikipedia's vague fair use policy for non-free images. Regarding long-term solutions to the problem, Crotalus horridus proposed a separate Wiki exclusively for popular culture. The forked site would continue to license text under the GNU Free Documentation License, but there would be a much less restrictive use on non-free content. The proposal generated discussion, but was considered unfeasible. |
