Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2006-05-29
Semi-protection tweaks prompt debate over ideals
A change in the semi-protection policy proposed earlier by Jimmy Wales grew into a general debate about Wikipedia's basic principles last week with outside pundits chiming in as well. In a provocative post that sparked additional discussion, Nicholas Carr proclaimed "The death of Wikipedia", although it emerged that he was speaking figuratively about Wikipedia as a mythical ideal, rather than the actual project.
On 19 May, Wales proposed a "limited extension" of the semi-protection policy. Making the observation that a few articles would probably be semi-protected on a fairly permanent basis (for example, the current US President), he suggested that the {{Sprotected}} template was "scary and distracting" to readers and that it wasn't necessary to announce semi-protection status to them. He also encouraged more use of semi-protection for "slightly well known but controversial individuals" whose articles do not get wide attention but are vulnerable to vandalism and heavily biased editing.
Carr, a journalist and blogger who has been critical of Web 2.0 concepts and previously pointed out shortcomings in Wikipedia, published his essay last Tuesday, calling Wales' proposal an "epitaph" and a sign that the founding ideals of the project were being abandoned. A number of people responded, including Wales, who criticized Carr's characterization of this as a shift to a "gated community" and said there had always been restrictions on editing (although page protection was not used initially, and its first implementation for the Main Page was somewhat controversial). Wales argued that semi-protection was actually "a bold step toward openness" compared to having the articles protected from editing entirely, a practice of which Carr was apparently unaware.
The ongoing discussion drew others in as well. Clay Shirky wrote a response, "News of Wikipedia's Death Greatly Exaggerated", pointing to the tension between Carr's earlier criticism of Wikipedia questioning the value of "openness at all costs" and the "crocodile tears" he was shedding over its demise. Carr followed up with an effort to "bury the myth", now focusing on misconceptions produced by some of the coverage about Wikipedia, which he attributed partly to the slogan, "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". He did concede that outside of the myth, "Wikipedia is an amazing achievement, with considerable strengths and considerable weaknesses."
Meanwhile, Wales' actual proposal has in fact led to changes in the semi-protection policy, although with some modifications from what he suggested. While the idea of "permanent semi-protection" has gained some acceptance, several people expressed concerns about removing the notice. As it turns out, the template still appears on most semi-protected articles, including George W. Bush. Instead, the solution seemed to be editing the template to make its appearance less "scary", by moderating the language and removing the padlock image. However, this has since been reverted, and the padlock has been restored.
Wikipedia administrator investigated after on-wiki dispute
Wikipedia Administrator Phil Sandifer was briefly investigated earlier this month after a short fictional story he wrote was submitted to University of Florida police. The incident, which Sandifer suspects was initiated by a user he had previously blocked, led to the creation of an article on Sandifer (subsequently deleted after a successful AfD), and renewed questions about a Wikipedia criticism site where such a threat was hinted at.
According to Sandifer (formerly known as Snowspinner), he was first contacted by University of Florida officials on 12 May, after which he received a phone call from UF police. In a subsequent 16 May meeting, Sandifer was told that the problem centered on a 2004 story entitled I am Ready to Serve my Country, a first-person story centering around a murderous protagonist wishing to join the military. On 18 May, Sandifer indicated that the issue was largely resolved.
It's still unclear who contacted school officials. Sandifer indicated that he believed the person who tipped authorities off was a user from Wikipedia Review, a site critical of Wikipedia, who was angry about being blocked. Daniel Brandt first suggested contacting UF officials on Wikipedia Review earlier this month. The tip raises questions about Wikipedia Review, the same week that administrator Katefan0 left the project, after Brandt threatened to contact Katefan0's employer regarding her work on Wikipedia.
In the latter incident, Daniel Brandt discovered Katefan0's employer, and posted her real-life identity on her user talk page. When the information was removed, Brandt e-mailed Katefan0, and threatened to reveal her involvement to her employer. Soon after, Katefan0 deleted her user and user talk pages, and replaced them with a notice indicating that she had left the project. Katefan0's departure marks the second administrator recently to leave the project due to threats involving their employers; Gator1 left the project in April after his employer received a complaint about the on-wiki blocking of another user.
The incident has also raised many users' awareness about the possibility for threats. At least ten administrators have deleted old revisions of their user pages containing personal information, even information that was previously freely given by the administrators in question.
About Wikimania
Wikimania recap
28 August 2006
Wikimania recap
14 August 2006
Wikimania recap
7 August 2006
Wikimania last-minute information
31 July 2006
Events: Contests, parties, and the local area
24 July 2006
Wikimania updates
17 July 2006
Wikimania updates
10 July 2006
Meetups And Newsworthy International Assemblages
3 July 2006
More featured speakers at Wikimania
26 June 2006
Hacking Days
19 June 2006
Featured Speakers at Wikimania
12 June 2006
Other international meetups
5 June 2006
About Wikimania
29 May 2006
About Wikimania
22 May 2006
About Wikimania
15 May 2006
About Wikimania
8 May 2006
About Wikimania
1 May 2006
About Wikimania
24 April 2006
Three years of meetups : 2003-2006
17 April 2006
Introduction to a series: Looking forward to Wikimania 2006
10 April 2006
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Wikimania recap |
This week, the Signpost covers discussion themes and project content for the Wikimania 2006 program, highlighting the discussions surrounding the content and development of the projects. Registration for Wikimania is ongoing in 5 languages at http://wm06reg.wikimedia.org . A public announcement is available for release.
Wikimania 2006 will be full of discussions about popular topics on and around the projects -- content creation and validation, creating successful wikiprojects, multilingual collaboration and translation, policy making, community building, incorporating outside sources, working with outside interfaces. Some of these will be scheduled on the program; some will take place informally throughout the conference, and many will take place over email and on the conference wiki leading up to the event.
This week's column is an unusually interactive one: readers are encouraged to edit the list of discussion topics below, to add to it, and to link from it to existing discussions on Wikimedia projects, in any language. Have at it! Be careful not to remove the markers indicating which themes have already been included in the program.
General discussion themes
These are broad discussion themes which have been proposed; many of them have been discussed on Meta and various projects to date. Each of these will eventually have its own discussion space on the conference wiki; which will inform and be updated by discussions during Wikimania. Discussions which have been formally accepted for a slot on the program are marked with a P.
Projects & Content
Community & Social Science
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Hacking
Outreach and Access
Education
Law and Policy
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New discussions are being created all the time, and will be noted on the conference site. If last year is any indication, some of the best discussions are likely to come up on the spur of the moment.
Nevertheless, to promote discussions of the projects and their uses, short presentations or "lightning talks" are being solicited. The creation of a really great article or book, the development of a new process or policy, the progress of a wikiproject or group, and the history of a language-edition of a project are all excellent subjects for such a talk. For details about this, or to have a discussion listed above included in the official program, send word to cfp<<at>>wikimedia.org.
Next week: Other international Wikimedia meetups happening this year, remixed.
- Please send news or information about other meetups to the authors.
News and notes
Wikimedia Foundation Board passes resolutions
The Wikimedia Foundation Board passed seven resolutions in May. One resolution approves the hiring of an employee to answer phone calls and to respond to emails, currently handled under the OTRS system. Other resolutions deal with access to the Foundation wiki, the scope and membership of two committees, and trademarks.
Mistress Selina Kyle and Blu Aardvark unblocked, reblocked
Mistress Selina Kyle and Blu Aardvark, previously banned by the community for general disruption, were briefly unblocked by Linuxbeak, who had offered both a second chance under mentorship. Linuxbeak has previously mentored several banned users, such as MARMOT and JarlaxleArtemis, with varying degrees of success. The move to unblock the users was met with both criticism and praise, though as of press time, both remain blocked, with the restoration of the users' blocks by SlimVirgin and FeloniousMonk, respectively. FeloniousMonk cited the re-block of Blu Aardvark as temporary "until more information is provided and a consensus is reached".
English Wikipedia statistics updated through February 2006
Erik Zachte's statistics for the English Wikipedia were updated Wednesday, days after the update of other languages (see archived story). However, due to the difficulty in creating a database dump of the English Wikipedia, which is significantly larger and more complicated than other languages and projects, no dumps have been successfully completed since February. As a result, data on the reports is only current through February. The statistics can be found here.
Wikipedia Version 0.5 accepting nominations
Wikipedia Version 0.5, an effort to collect and identify high-quality articles of importance for a potential CD release later this year, has begun accepting nominations. As of press time, nearly 100 articles, encompassing both featured articles and good articles, had been nominated. The deadline for nominations is 31 August.
Wikisource modifies logo
Wikisource, the free-content library and a sister project of Wikipedia, recently updated their logo following months of discussion. The previous logo, a photomontage of an iceberg depicting much of the iceberg hidden beneath water, was replaced with an illustration of the iceberg. The logo change affects all Wikisources.
Video game guides prohibited from Wikibooks
Jimbo Wales prohibited video game guides from Wikibooks last month, saying that "in general, game guides are not appropriate for Wikibooks." He added, though, that "some content about video games could be appropriate, such as a textbook for an existing course on the impact of video games in our culture." Several video game guides were moved to different wikis.
WikiBrain, WikiPoll, and WikiActivism proposed
Three new projects were proposed recently. WikiBrain would serve as a collection of all information, including knowledge that is inappropriate for Wikipedia, such as unencyclopedic content or information that is debatable and unverifiable. WikiPoll would propose and suggest polls, and WikiActivism would act as a central place for activists and reform movements.
Briefly
- The Basque Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
- The Greek Wiktionary has reached 25,000 entries.
- The Indonesian Wikisource has reached 100 articles.
- The Vietnamese Wikipedia has reached 8,000 articles and 250,000 edits.
- The Korean Wikipedia has reached 24,000 articles and 4,400 registered users.
- The English Wiktionary has reached 145,000 entries.
- The Ladino / Judeo-Spanish Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
- The Bambara Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
- The Dutch Wikipedia has reached 200,000 articles.
- The Uzbek Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.
- The French Wikipedia has reached 290,000 articles.
- The Lithuanian Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
- The Swahili Wikipedia has reached 500 articles, the first Wikipedia in a language of African origin to reach the 500 article benchmark.
- The Spanish Wikipedia has reached 150,000 registered users.
- The Italian Wikipedia has reached 160,000 articles.
- The Estonian Wikipedia has reached 18,000 articles and 1,400 registered users.
In the news
Jimbo interview and webcast
Atomic Magazine, an Australian technology magazine, interviewed Jimbo Wales in their June 2006 issue. The interview can also be found at their website. Jimbo also participated in a webcast on 19 May sponsored by the United States Department of State. A transcript can be found here.
Brief mentions
- In lamenting technology in mobile phones, Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe mentioned the word "complexification", which they said "can now actually be found in Wikipedia." It's unclear whether they were referring to the Wikipedia article on Complexification, a vector space in mathematics, or the Wiktionary article on complexification, which fits more with the Globe's usage. The article was also syndicated to other newspapers.
- The Lufkin Daily News of Lufkin, Texas cited Newspaper in an editorial by its publisher. [1]
- The Uniontown Herald-Standard of Uniontown, Pennsylvania cited Pipe bomb. [2]
- The Jamaica Observer cited Days of our Lives. [3]
- The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin cited Limburger cheese. [4]
- The Chicago Maroon, student newspaper of the University of Chicago, cited Hammond organ. [5]
Features and admins
Administrators
Eight users were granted admin status last week: EWS23 (nom), Buchanan-Hermit (nom), Kcordina (nom), Tone (nom), Bookofjude (nom), Conscious (nom), Tijuana Brass (nom) and Blnguyen (nom).
Featured content
Six articles were featured last week: V for Vendetta (film) (nom) Glacier National Park (US) (nom), Franklin D. Roosevelt (nom), Half-Life 2 (nom), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (nom) and Canada (nom).
Eleven articles were de-featured last week: Graffiti, Mail, Labour economics, Chetwynd, British Columbia, History of Scotland, Algorithm, Richard Feynman, Robert Walpole, Bible code, Goomba and Summer Olympic Games.
Three lists reached featured list status last week: Tri Nations Series champions, List of Planetes episodes and List of Puerto Rican birds.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: James II of England, History of Miami, Florida, Short-beaked Echidna, Polish-Soviet War, Demand Note, Tenebrae (film) and Jarmann M1884.
The latest portal to reach featured status is Portal:History of science.
These were the pictures of the day last week: Castle Blankenhain panorama, Thurston Lava Tube, Georgia Aquarium - Cuttlefish, Lowering the flag on Zuikaku, Connors Hill panorama., Haeckel Actiniae and Rainbow Rises.
Two pictures reached featured picture status last week:
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Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
Last week in MediaWiki software
New functionality
- RSS/atom feeds added for the last few entries in page histories. (Brion Vibber)
- Patrolled status indicated on watchlists; allow users to mark changes as patrolled using diff links there (only works on patrolled wikis). (Rob Church)
- Suppressing of error messages allowed for thumbnail rendering issues to prevent transient errors being cached. (Brion Vibber)
- Selected namespaces can now be exempted from the rel="nofollow" behaviour on external links. This allows the English Wikipedia, which had been the only one not using nofollow, to implement it outside the article namespace. Brion Vibber indicated that he ultimately intends to enable it everywhere, although this might be in conjunction with a whitelisting option. (Brion Vibber)
Interface tweaks
- MediaWiki:Passwordremindertext now includes a parameter for the website's URL. (Rob Church)
- "licenses" now regarded as a message, shown in Special:Allmessages. (Rob Church)
- Fix hardcoded "done" when removing watchlist entries. (Anders Wegge Jakobsen)
- Self-links wrapped in a "selflink" CSS class. (Rob Church)
- "id" CSS attribute added to the undeletion form element. (Ashar Voultoiz)
Bug fixes
- HTML/JavaScript injection bug in variable handler fixed. (Brion Vibber)
- Thumbnailing of animated GIF files fixed. (Jens Franck)
- Code added to help fix incorrect thumbnail rendering. (Brion Vibber)
- Escaping fixed in edit toolbar JavaScript. (Brion Vibber)
- Squid purging of off-site upload URLs fixed. (Brion Vibber)
- {{CURRENTTIMESTAMP}} magic word added. (Rob Church)
- Logic error in {{BASEPAGENAME}} fixed. (Rob Church)
- HTML-encoded character entities in URLs normalized. (Brion Vibber)
- URL-encoding of usernames in links on Special:Ipblocklist fixed. (Rob Church)
Last week in servers
- $wgAllowTitlesInSVG switched to 'true', allowing titles in .svg files.
- enwiki database disappears from multiple servers due to configuration issues.
- Mail issues on bart fixed.
The Report On Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee did not close any cases this week.
Cases
No cases were accepted this week.
The case involving editors on the article 2004 U.S. presidential election controversy and irregularities is in the evidence phase.
Cases involving Deathrocker (user page), Infinity0 (user page), PoolGuy (user page), editors on Biological psychiatry, Sam Spade (user page), users SqueakBox and Zapatancas, Marcosantezana (user page), and Locke Cole (user page) are in the voting phase.
A motion to close is on the table in the case involving users DarrenRay and 2006BC.
A motion to restrict StrangerInParadise to one user account is still pending, with seven support votes with no opposition. No new votes have been made on the issue in over three weeks.