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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-19/News and notes

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Politician defends editing own article, Google translation, Row about a small Wikipedia

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By Wackywace, Tarheel95, Jarry1250, Pretzels and Tilman Bayer

British MP defends content removal from his own Wikipedia biography

Following an article in the Sunday Telegraph (see last week's Signpost), British politician Tony Baldry has "strongly defended his decision to make changes to his Wikipedia biography, saying information posted on the web-based encyclopedia was inaccurate and libellous", according to the Banbury Guardian.

Tony Baldry told the tabloid newspaper that "in the run up to the General Election, I was made aware that an anonymous blogger had gone on to Wikipedia and made a number of entries relating to me which were inaccurate, false and defamatory. I asked one of my team to go on to Wikipedia and do no more than make sure the entries were factually correct. My researcher went on under the name of Tony Baldry, you can't get more transparent than that. It was completely clear that the relevant amendments were being requested by or on my behalf."

The contributions in question are listed under Special:Contributions/Tonybaldry. However, it appears that a sockpuppet investigation found he was simultaneously using another account, User:Panther219 to make edits to his page.

Google uses machine translation to increase content on smaller Wikipedias

In a presentation at the recent Wikimania conference, a representative of Google described how, for the past 16 months, "Google has been working with the Wikimedia Foundation, students, professors, Google volunteers, paid translators, and members of the Wikipedia community to increase Wikipedia content in Arabic, Indic languages, and Swahili". (See also earlier Signpost coverage of Google's "Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge")

Stephen Shankland of cnet wrote on his blog that "Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible, but not necessarily to create it outright. This makes Wikipedia a natural partner." Google plans to expand its services with Arabic, Indic languages, and Swahili. These are languages in which there is no large corpus of material on the web, particularly in Unicode. The availability of such material would help in the training of the translator. Google's "Translation Toolkit" has aided in the translation project, and has received accuracy improvements as a result.

In a statement posted on Wednesday, Google said:

To help Wikipedia become more helpful to speakers of smaller languages, we’re working with volunteers, translators and Wikipedians across India, the Middle East and Africa to translate more than 16 million words for Wikipedia into Arabic, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Swahili, Tamil and Telugu. We began these efforts in 2008, starting with translating Wikipedia articles into Hindi, a language spoken by tens of millions of Internet users. At that time the Hindi Wikipedia had only 3.4 million words across 21,000 articles––while in contrast, the English Wikipedia had 1.3 billion words across 2.5 million articles. We selected the Wikipedia articles using a couple of different sets of criteria. First, we used Google search data to determine the most popular English Wikipedia articles read in India. Using Google Trends, we found the articles that were consistently read over time––and not just temporarily popular. Finally we used Translator Toolkit to translate articles that either did not exist or were placeholder articles or “stubs” in Hindi Wikipedia. In three months, we used a combination of human and machine translation tools to translate 600,000 words from more than 100 articles in English Wikipedia, growing Hindi Wikipedia by almost 20 percent. We’ve since repeated this process for other languages, to bring our total number of words translated to 16 million.

— Google, "Translating Wikipedia"

In another Wikimania presentation, immediately following that of Google, A. Ravishankar from the Tamil Wikipedia presented a critical view of Google's activities on that project. The concerns described by Ravishankar (and noted in the New York Times) included the fact that Google did not announce its activities beforehand - "the site’s administrators suddenly noticed articles appearing out of nowhere", the selection of coverage, and "sloppiness in language and coding". A page on the Tamil Wikipedia describes further "Issues with google translation in Tamil Wikipedia" (in English). On the Bengali Wikipedia, content provided by Google was even deleted outright because it did not meet the community's standards.

Acehnese Wikipedians threaten boycott over Muhammad images

Recently, several top contributors on the Acehnese Wikipedia added a template of protest to their userpages, and for a time to the main page of their wiki (see detailed timeline). It called (in English) for the immediate deletion of "images insulting the Prophet Muhammad PBUH" (for context, see depictions of Muhammad and Signpost coverage: 2006, 2008) from four pages on the English Wikipedia and added that the wiki would be prepared for a "boycott" of Wikipedia if a fatwa were issued on the topic. A few days later, it was noted on the Foundation's mailing list and caused a great deal of debate (about 120 messages to date). While there was some sympathy for the contributors – the Arabic Wikipedia already restricts the display of images of Muhammad by local consensus – there was general disapproval of the militancy with which the message was spread. It was noted that while the contributors had the right to fork the wiki, they could not unilaterally shut it down. After two stewards and a global sysop intervened to remove the template from the main page, they were blocked by local admins and the message was reinserted. Eventually all local admins were de-sysopped. Discussion is occurring at meta.

The Acehnese language is primarily spoken in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The Acehnese Wikipedia was started in August 2009 (after a period of incubation beginning in 2008), and a presentation at the recent Wikimania conference described its community as "very small and limited. Less than ten contributors are really active ... Almost all active contributors don’t have internet access at their home."

Briefly

  • Last May, artist Manuel Schmalstieg organized a workshop called Wiki-Sprint, which applied the "book sprint" concept to improve the article on VJing. (A book sprint is a phase of intensive collaboration by several writers in the same physical space, with the goal of finishing a whole book within just a few days. In recent years, the method has been successfully used by the FLOSS Manuals foundation to produce manuals for free software programs.) The "Wiki-Sprint" took place at the Mapping Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, which contributed a small budget together with two North American universities. In a recent interview with an organizer of the CPOV conference series, Schmalstieg described his experiences with the project.
  • On July 11, at the closing ceremony of Wikimania in Gdańsk, Poland, a local political representative relayed greetings to the conference participants by former Polish president Lech Wałęsa, apparently a frequent Wikipedia user (see Signpost coverage), and was given a present for Wałęsa in turn: A book consisting of Wałęsa's biography in many different language Wikipedias. The city's website has since published photos showing the former Solidarność leader receiving the book.
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Acehnese Wikipedians threaten boycott over Muhammad images

Well, is it any real surprise the Muhammad issue is flaring up again? It had been settled... until Jimbo Wales and the Foundation decided that Offensive to Muslims = No action, but Offensive to Fox News = PANIC!!! MASS DELETION SPREE!!! Jimbo Wales vastly undercut the moral authority of Wikipedia, and we're seeing the result of that now. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me that the pornography thing was a legal issue that could have some serious repercussions (rightly or wrongly), while the threat of boycott from Indonesia was less likely to faze anyone at the Foundation as a serious blow to the project. bahamut0013wordsdeeds 17:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jimbo later admitted that there was no legal issue: it was a horribly failed propoganda move on his part. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:00, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how deleting porn-cruft from commons erases our "moral authority". Do you really think that homemade penis photos are just as encyclopedic as historical depictions of Muhammad? Kaldari (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's a great approach to the question of freedom of speech: I don't like it so let's delete it. I would like to see gratuitous penis photos disappear too, but as the result of editorial discretion, not hate campaigns by Larry Sanger and FOX News. Lampman (talk) 21:06, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." It seems to me that that quote (commonly (mis?)attributed to Voltaire) is quite apt here; I think we need to be saying something similar in the first person plural. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits|⚡}} 23:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jimbo Wales did not go on a deletion spree of homemade penis photos. He deleted several Victorian artworks - not because they were in any way illegal but because he, in his wisdom idiocy thought that they were of no value. here is an image Jimbo Wales deleted. here is our article on the artist. Evidently, the idea that lesbians exist and appeared in art deco artwork was far too shocking for Jimbo. I was worried his next stop was going to be Gustave Doré, because Doré uses nudity in his Divine Comedy illustrations.
So, yes, as Jimbo was going on a quest to purge depictions of female sexuality by major artists, I do think that what he did was exactly on the level as deleting historic images of Muhammad. He also deleted: File:Félicien Rops - Sainte-Thérèse.png by Félicien Rops, and a couple others, all while encouraging other admins to do the same, and edit warring to keep them deleted.
This is NOT about a few homemade images of penises. This is about Jimbo Wales deciding that Wikipedia cannot cover sexuality, even in works by major artists. If anything, removing every piece of erotic art - as Jimbo explicitly attempted to do - and edit-warring to keep them deleted is a far more destructive act than deleting images of Muhammad would be. The images of Muhammad being deleted destroys our coverage of one small aspect of one religion. Jimbo's deletions would, had they remained, destroyed our coverage of every single aspect of sexual behaviour, dozens, if not hundreds, of important artists, and, judging by all his deletions of female sexuality, any idea that women are sexual beings.
Frankly, his actions on Commons have cost me any respect I had for Jimbo. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:39, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
What a tempest in a teapot. Most of the stuff Jimbo deleted was crappy porn. The other stuff was a poor attempt at PR control. The end result was that we got a lot of productive discussion about how no one on Commons was enforcing our scope policy. Kaldari (talk) 17:21, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where did Jimbo admit that, if I may ask. I'm interested to read it. Powers T 15:08, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
here. The signpost never actually covered half the story going on in that situation. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you are referring to "Jimbo later admitted that there was no legal issue" - you seem to be interpreting something into the quoted words. Smallbones (talk) 16:56, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No one is arguing that 2257 applies to us legally. Please remember not to engage in personal attacks, it is entirely unhelpful. I expect the Foundation board and/or staff to make a formal statement about this within a few days. The question is not going to be whether we are going to be a porn server.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:30, 6 May 2010 (UTC). He made vague statements like that throughout the debate, but never once admitted the true motivations before the post linked above. He also stated that he refused to discuss undeleting any of the artworks for a month. "I have redeleted the image [ {File:Félicien Rops - Sainte-Thérèse.png|}, by Félicien Rops ] for the duration of the cleanup project. We will have a solid discussion about whether Commons should ever host pornography and under what circumstances at a later day - June 1st will be a fine time to start.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:31, 7 May 2010 (UTC)" (commons:User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive/2010/5#Art). He basically wantd to do a coverup until Fox wasn't looking, but didn't trust the users enough to ever mention this to them until after he had disrupted the project, and caused all the uses of the images to be lost. He later claimed ...I deleted some things that I assumed would be undeleted after a discussion. I wanted us to take an approach that involved first deleting a lot of borderline things, and then bringing them back after careful case by case discussions. That proved to be quite unpopular, and I'm sorry about it."
I don't, however, trust him. He never mentioned the Fox News sliming until after he did the deletions. He claimed he was seeking the input of the commons community on policy, and when it was decided by the community that atrworks should be protected, just reverted and began deleting them. He attempted to delay discussions, claimed it was a crisis situation, and failed utterly to "avert" the crisis he claimed that his actions were in aid of, instead making us look worse. He failed to trust the users, failed to communicate with users, failed to listen to users, and vandalised the project. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:13, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is probably not the place to discuss this - what is the relation of the topic to the above story? -but it looks to me like you are getting wrapped up in this and losing your objectivity. It's just not obvious to me that the things you quote are at all related to the conclusions you draw. I for one have no objections to keeping kiddie porn off of Commons. At first glance, kiddie porn there looks like it is against US law, the law has a reasonable purpose and was voted on by my elected representatives, and kiddie porn in 99% of the cases I've seen has nothing to do with the purposes of Wikipedia. I realize that other things got wrapped up in this, but if you want Wikipedia to distribute kiddie porn for free, you'll get no support from me, or I suspect from Wikipedia's sponsors (the people who pay for Wikipedia's operations). Why do we need to come so close to breaking the law with no educational benefit? Smallbones (talk) 18:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea what images we are talking about, nor do I have any interest in the matter. What I do resent is editors like the above, implicitly labelling as paedophiles anyone who disagrees with them on deletion policy. "if you want Wikipedia to distribute kiddie porn for free"? Could you please point to the editor who said he thought we should be distributing kiddie porn for free, or are you simply creating straw-men and tossing around unsubstantiated bad faith accusations? Lampman (talk) 20:29, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You misunderstand me completely. If you are for a deletion policy that removes kiddie porn from Commons, then we have no argument. Surely you've seen some of the pictures where you couldn't tell if the subject was under 16 years old. (I believe the legal cut-off is 18). It appeared to me as if a large minority of folks in the discussions following Jimbo's announcement were against any "censorship" of porn ever, which as a practical matter meant distributing kiddie-porn for free. I had tried to get some obvious kiddie porn removed pre-announcement. I had to work very hard at this for about 6 weeks, sending e-mails to people at all levels in the Wikipedia hierarchy, then gave up because NOBODY in the hierarchy was willing to say that we should remove obvious kiddie porn speedily. Fortunately, the 5 pictures were removed about 2 weeks after I gave up. Smallbones (talk) 21:00, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have no idea what these pictures are, and no interest in finding out. If you do have problems with potential paedophile material, you should contact the people at WP:PedMen, who ought to know what to do about the matter. My only point is that people here might have different ideas about deletion criteria on Commons, but implying on that basis that someone condones child pornography brings the discussion down on a level that is unacceptable. Lampman (talk) 21:20, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My only dog in this fight is that Jimbo was deleting artworks, and editwarring to keep them deleted. I've linked to works by notable artworks he deleted, which I objected to. Noone is arguing that we should be encouraging paedophilia; however, Jimbo's deletions did nothing to enforce this. I don't want to actually look at Wikiporn; but, from commons:Commons:Sexual_content/Deletion_log, it looks like 3 of the 76 works he deleted were historic artworks, and I think, going by files being svg or of similar names to ones with svg extentions, about a dozen were illustrations. As far as I'm aware, not one image he deleted involved people who were even plausibly under 18, and it appears that over half his deletions did not stick. In short, about one-fifth of his deletions were either illustrations or historic artworks. As far as I'm aware - and you'll forgive me if I do not check, none of the files he deleted had anything to do with kiddie porn; and I believe that most of the files he deleted were in use in at least one Wikipedia project. So, how did his actions supposedly protect Wikipedia from Kiddie porn? Answer: They didn't. It was just a convenient excuse that had nothing to do with his actual actions, and he was called out on this by people like Cary Bass (check his talk page on Commons). Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moved here from Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-07-26/In the news:

Jimbo may be one of the most powerful people in media, but his recent actions have given grave doubts as to whether he can be trusted with that power.

Jimbo Wales, out of fear of a media attack, led by Fox News, about allegations of pornography on Wikipedia, instituted a massive deletion of content from Commons, including many examples of artwork by notable artists. For example, the artwork to the right, by Franz von Bayros, was personally deleted by Jimbo, who even edit warred to keep it deleted. On being challenged about this deletion, Wales wrote:


He also deleted a work by Félicien Rops, File:Félicien_Rops_-_Sainte-Thérèse.png, and numerous line art illustrations used to illustrate articles on sexual content.

Only long after these deletions were done did he state his reasons:


It wasn't even effective: [http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/10/porn-wikipedia-illegal-content-remains/ FoxNews shortly thereafter posted an article attacking Wikipedia.

However, as covered in last week's Signpost, the Acehnese Wikipedia has erupted in controversy over images of Muhammad hosted on Commons.

This is by no means a new debate. In 2006, the article on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy was featured on the main page, and caused significant controversy for including the cartoons. In 2008, a petition to delete images of Muhammad circulated. However, as long-standing policy stated, like Wikipedia itself, our image host, Wikimedia Commons, is not censored. That it could cause offense was not sufficient to remove an image.

Amongst those advocating for this view was Jimbo Wales. cited his free speech advocacy, and stated that "we can not deviate from our goals to accommodate [those governments who would force Wikipedia to be censored]."

One has to ask: How can we refuse to delete historic images of Muhammad, which are deeply offensive to Muslims, when historic images of lesbians, deemed offensive to Fox News, are personally deleted by Jimbo?

If Wikipedia is going to sacrifice its moral high ground and neutrality - for saying that things offensive to Fox News are worth mass deletion sprees including historic artwork, but that the complaints of Muslims are not, is highly non-neutral - we should not sell ourselves cheap. We recently did, and only the effective loss of all Jimbo Wales' powers over his actions leaves us any moral high ground at all. Still, Jimbo's actions have shown that, yes, we will give into pressure - but only if it comes from our mainstream Western culture.

--Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you move this to a subpage of your userpage and link that here. Sort of a waste of the reply space to the article if you ask me. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

End of moved part

Google uses machine translation to increase content on smaller Wikipedias

The issue of low-quality Google-powered/funded translations on the Bengali Wikipedia was extensively covered by The Telegraph (India) on their July 14, 2010 lead story. (link) --Ragib (talk) 18:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be something patronizing in Google calling Arabic and Hindi "small languages." If I'm not mistaken, these and perhaps other mentioned in the article, are in the top 10 of native speakers in the world. Smallbones (talk) 14:49, 20 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See also What happened on the Google Challenge @ the Swahili Wikipedia, a recent blog post by Muddyb Blast Producer, an admin and bureaucrat on the Swahili Wikipedia. Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:10, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, this site is called Wikipedia, not wiki. A wiki is any website using wiki software; there are thousands of them. So there! – ukexpat (talk) 01:43, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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