Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-08-06
The Athena Project: being bold
- Brandon Harris is the senior designer at the Wikimedia Foundation. The views expressed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section.
- The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds at our opinion desk.
As Senior Designer of the Wikimedia Foundation, it's part of my job to stimulate conversation about the future of Wikimedia's user experiences. This op-ed is first and foremost intended to do so, although it's not an exact roadmap with deliverables and deadlines. If you'd like to see our goals for the year, please take a look at the 2012–13 goals.
At this year's Wikimania, I gave a talk entitled The Athena Project: Wikipedia in 2015 (slides). The talk broadly outlined several ideas the foundation is exploring for planned features, user interface changes, and workflow improvements. We expect that many of these changes will be welcomed, while others will be controversial.
During the question-and-answer period, I was asked whether people should think of Athena as a skin, a project, or something else. I responded, "You should think of Athena as a kick in the head" – because that's exactly what it's supposed to be: a radical and bold re-examination of some of our sacred cows when it comes to the interface.
Why we need a change
I'm certain many people are asking, "Why do we need a change? Why is this important?" Simply put: the software is a barrier and it is dragging you down.
There's no need to throw up graphs about editor decline or toss around numbers about participation and gender imbalance here – you've either seen them and agree that something needs to be done, or you've dismissed them. Let's skip those arguments and talk about why these changes will benefit the editor community at large and not just a hypothetical group of newbies.
- More editors means less work
If we can attract and retain new contributors we'll reduce the overall workload for everyone. How quickly will backlogs disappear if we add even 5,000 new editors who can easily get into the mix?
- Better workflows mean less work
I've spent the past year studying the many workflows used on Wikipedia, speaking with hundreds of Wikipedians. I've watched screencasts of editors doing page patrol that filled me with a sense of agony and sympathy for those doing the work. I've watched so many people – people who could be productive, good Wikipedians – quit in frustration simply because using Wikipedia is too hard.
What's the takeaway from all of this? The software (or lack of it) is a barrier. It doesn't do the right things, it makes simple things difficult, and it hides features and information that should be front and center. Did you know that no two page patrollers do the work the same way? That's because the software is so bad that everyone has to make up their own way to work around it and get things done.
We need to revisit these workflows. We need to make it easier to read, contribute, and curate. With better tools come streamlined processes and thus less work.
- More bodies means better articles
Increasing the size of our community will naturally adjust the voice of the community. I don't think anyone believes we should be writing only from one or two points of view – featured articles are so good precisely because they are edited by so many. Bringing on more skilled editors will create a more accurate encyclopedia. It means that the voice of Wikipedia is more powerful by virtue of being diverse. The sum of our parts becomes greater than the whole.
Changes you should expect to see
Let's face it: our interface would feel right at home in the year 2002. However, we find ourselves rapidly moving towards 2013. Our editors and readers deserve a modern interface with modern tools. The Visual Editor is one project to help make this a reality. Here are several others:
- Agora
- A project to create a singular design language for all foundation projects going forward. This is needed because the design team has grown significantly and we all have our own styles. Agora is about a common color palette, a common icon set, and common design patterns, so we can speak with one voice. We hope the greater community will want to adopt this voice as well.
- Echo
- Let's bring modern, real-time notifications to the projects. Echo is designed to drive interactions across all wikis in all languages. If someone leaves you a message on your talk page on Commons, you'll be notified on the English Wikipedia (or wherever you are currently working). You can see a working prototype of Echo on mediawiki.org now.
- Flow
- This is a replacement for user talk-pages. Our research has shown that user-to-user communication is one of the biggest hurdles for the participation for new editors. Flow will solve handfuls of problems, such as common questions: when someone posts to my talk, do I respond on my talk page or on theirs? How do they get notified that it happened?
- The Athena Skin
- The skin focuses on letting people to do what they're trying to do. It emphasizes content – what most of our users want to see – and supports the concept of different "modes" of interaction. Athena will be the end result of several iterations of user-focused design. I should point out that the various mockup screens you may find are intended not as the final product, but to spark imagination and conversation. We want this to be a vibrant process.
- Mobile (including tablets)
- Our mobile experience is becoming much better for readers. In fact, it was by examining how we could go about adding contribution features to the mobile site that many of our design problems moved directly into the light. Mobile forces us to focus on reducing complexity, something we desperately need.
- Global Profile
- Structured information about you, your skills, and your contributions will elevate your interest graph. This includes things like tracking and sharing your skills and talents as well as memberships in groups and wiki projects. It focuses on your contributions and how you are bound to the projects.
- Workflow Modes
- If we step back, it becomes obvious that people interact with Wikipedia in one of three "modes" of operation: reading, editing/contributing, and curating/patrolling. We're going to make these modes more obvious and focused. You can see the beginning of this with the introduction of our new Page Curation feature, which focuses on the activity of new-page patrolling at first, but will eventually grow into a larger suite of tools.
Wikipedia is not and will not be Facebook
The fear that Wikipedia will turn into a social networking site is one I hear fairly often. However, I don't see that as a real threat: there's a distinction between becoming a social network and having modern software to support the building of an encyclopedia.
Wikis are collaborative software engines, which makes them social software – and social networks – by definition. What makes us different from other social networks is our purpose. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are motivated by making connections between people, but we are motivated by producing something: the greatest encyclopedia ever to exist. To do that, we have to connect people with tasks they are interested in.
For us, features like Echo, Flow, and Global Profile will be used to make collaboration easier and faster. They'll do this by tying interest graphs together. Imagine a day when the software will detect a "Needs sources" tag on World War II, and members of WikiProject Military History can be automatically notified in real time if they want, without having to go check their watchlist?
How this serves the Mission
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.
What a powerful idea that is. The Mission (and I always capitalize it) is what's important here. We are here to educate, to open minds, to make the world a better place. I believe in this so much that I had it tattooed on my arm.
Indirectly, our work will do magnificent things. By educating the people of the world, we are sparking the growth of a new era in thinking. We speak to genius-level intellects who have no access to formal education. Maybe one of them will cure cancer, or discover ways for faster-than-light travel, or develop new ways of philosophical thinking that change the world? We can change the course of history. Right here. Today.
We do this by showcasing our content. By emphasising it, by curating it, by editing it. By being proud of it.
To do this, we must make the software easier to use. We must make it easier to collaborate, to read, to contribute, to curate.
Which means we have to change. Sadly, change is difficult and often painful. The good news is that after a time of chrysalis, we'll emerge as something better.
It's time to become a butterfly.
Reader comments
FDC portal launched
FDC under way
On August 1, the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) portal was launched on Meta. The FDC will implement the Wikimedia movement's new grant-orientated finance structure in accordance with the WMF board's recent resolutions (Signpost coverage). As a volunteer committee, the FDC will make recommendations to the WMF board on a $11.4 million budget for 2012–13.
Movement organizations can apply for FDC funds when they meet transparency criteria and have a successful WMF grant track record of at least two years or take part in the annual fundraiser payment processing (detailed criteria catalogue). To date, only two entities meet these criteria – the foundation itself and Wikimedia Philippines – and can submit grant application proposals. Sixteen chapters are eligible in principle but have yet to make transparent all required reports on financial conduct and grants. Twenty-two chapters, most of them recently established – are ineligible under the criteria, in particular the two-year track-record requirement.
Non-FDC funds can be requested through the WMF grant program. The foundation will make its own non-core programs subject to the FDC's volunteer review and recommendation process and will request FDC funds for its own grant program. This program budget, advised in turn by the volunteers of the Grant Advisory Committee (GAC), will allocate $400k in 2012–13 to support organizations and individuals that are not eligible to apply for FDC funds. Other resources available to individual Wikimedia volunteers are the participation support program, which has a wide non-Wikimedia centered scope, and the Wikimania-focused scholarship program, currently under review (Signpost coverage).
The early start of the FDC portal on August 1 drew some criticism due to the not-yet-concluded corrections of key documents such as the application form, and continuing work on other parts of the portal. To improve the community participation process in these efforts, the FDC staff has set up a central input page on Meta, where community members can leave their notes and get responses by the staff.
Volunteers interested in serving on the committee can submit (self-)nominations on Meta in accordance with the FDC membership criteria until 23:59 UTC August 15. The community can ask the candidates questions.
The WMF board will appoint the seven inaugural FDC members and an ombudsperson (nomination page) later this quarter and FDC eligible entities can submit their application proposals for funds until October 1. Subsequent FDC members will be partly community-elected (5) or WMF board appointed (4) and the membership will therefore be extended to 9 members.
In brief
- Creative Commons 4.0: On August 1, Creative Commons, whose CC BY SA license has powered Wikipedia since June 2009 (Signpost coverage), announced the release of the second draft of CC 4.0. According to the development timeline, the opportunity for public input – either via the mailing list or the wiki – is open until about September 15.
- New Chair of Wikimedia UK: On August 2, Wikimedia UK announced the appointment of Chris Keating (User:The Land) as new chair, replacing Ashley van Haeften (User:Fæ). Van Haeften had resigned as chairman of the board on August 1 after a call for a general meeting of the chapter was published by the chapter's former treasurer Thomas Dalton (User:Tango) to discuss the handling of the recent ban of Fæ by the ArbCom (Signpost coverage).
- Pilot study on article quality: The WMF reported in its blog on August 2 on the release of the findings of a pilot study on article quality on three Wikipedia language versions compared with other online encyclopedias in the respective languages, English, Spanish, and Arabic. The samples used (22 articles) were too small to allow generalization, but the document by EPIC/Oxford University finds that Wikipedia scores well in the three languages, the English and Spanish Wikipedia, especially, on accuracy and references.
- Springer Images: Wikimedia Germany announced in its July 2012 activity report that, with the assistance of Daniel Mietchen, it is collaborating with Springer Science on how to improve insufficient attributions in the publisher's image archives (Signpost coverage).
- Call for volunteers for the Translation Committee: The Translation Committee, which facilitates translation processes on Meta, has published a call for new volunteer members to improve the translators' network.
- WMF guideline on policy and political association: The WMF has published its new internal guideline on when and how it should associate itself publicly on policy and political issues that are consistent with its mission. The document sets out requirements for transparency in the internal consultation mechanisms for dealing with requests by third parties to the foundation, and the actions of the foundation itself. The guidelines scope is limited to these issues and does not address independent community responses and initiatives in response to policy or political issues.
- New administrator and bureaucrat: The Signpost welcomes our new administrator, De728631 (RfA), and bureaucrat, 28bytes (RfB). This marks the first bureaucrat promoted since March 2012, and the fourth in the last two years.
Reader comments
No pending or open arbitration cases
No pending cases
The closure of Fæ two weeks ago marked the closure of the last open case before the Committee. This has only happened on three occasions: in 2009, 2010 and in May of this year. At the time of writing, the Committee has no requests for arbitration before it.
Arbitration cases do not form all of the Committee's workload, however, as two requests for clarification and one request for amendment are being discussed.
Other requests and motions
Arbitrator Kirill Lokshin proposed a motion for a procedure on the alteration of an editor's previous username(s) in arbitration decisions to reflect their name change(s). Any instances appearing within the:
- enforcement log may be updated by any uninvolved administrator on request;
- text of a finding or remedy may be updated by the clerks on request; and
- evidence submissions of a case or other preliminary documents may be updated by the clerks with the committee's prior approval.
A significant body of arbitrators have opposed the motion labelling the motion's stipulations "dogmatic and inflexible" and "administration creep". Arbitrator Elen of the Roads proposed making it a policy that clerks update records upon being made aware of a name change. Concerns about such a move would then be raised to the Committee accordingly. The suggested change to the motion also requires the editor-in-question to inform the Committee beforehand.
The Devil's Advocate initiated an amendment request for the controversial Race and intelligence case. The request calls for the amendment of review remedies 1.1, 6.1 and 7.1.
Amendment 1 concerns 6.1 and 7.1; calls for the modification of SightWatcher's and TrevelyanL85A2's indefinite omni-namespace edit and discussion ban from Race and intelligence topics, including participation in discussions concerning topic-editor conduct, to be a standard topic ban from Race and intelligence-related edits (broadly construed) with a clearly-defined route for appeal of the sanction.
Amendment 2 concerns 1.1; calls for the modification of Mathsci's admonishment for engaging in battlefield conduct to include an explicit warning that further battleground conduct (towards editors) related to the topic will be "cause for discretionary sanctions."
Reader comments
Casliber's words take root
- This week the Signpost interviews Casliber, an editor who has written or contributed significantly to a startling 69 featured articles. We learn what makes him tick, why he edits, and why he can write on everything from vampires to dinosaurs, birds to plants. He also gives some advice to budding featured article writers.
On editing and featured content
I've been on a few game shows over the years, and had read bits and pieces of Wikipedia to remember trivia. Then I figured that editing and improving or correcting things would help me retain facts better, however I gravitated straightaway to editing banksias and dinosaurs, which I was interested in at the time; My first DYK came as a bit of a (welcome) surprise (I was busy making new articles)... and off I went. Hesperian and I discussed making Banksia a Featured Article very soon after I got here.
What initially attracted me to featured content was that it gives one's edits/improvements some permanence or stability, as I was dismayed with the idea that what I wrote would be subsequently erased. Featured content is the best thing we have short of Stable Versions. It marks a point where consensus has been reached on quality, and can be referred easily to later by anyone if or when the article degrades. This still remains my biggest motivator for pushing articles to FA status. I also think it helps us all be better writers; by promoting collaboration and review we can find out about our own weaknesses in writing. For instance, I can be a slob so it helps me actually finish things in less of a slap-dash way 
For the reader, I see the role of Featured Articles as twofold – laypeople can soak up information, and experts can scan the references for the sources to hunt up on if they've missed them elsewhere.
I have soft spots for almost all of the articles I've written, but some of the biggies were epic and a real pleasure afterwards to look back and go, "wow!". Vampire, Sirius, [and] Lion are some which come to mind which I look back on and feel most impressed by. Some are definitely easier than others – it is funny how sometimes they come together almost naturally and other times they just....don't. My most difficult featured article candidacy was major depressive disorder, which was finally promoted after something like six weeks, including a lengthy first page and restart. This was a group collaboration and to be fair I wasn't as thorough in checking sources as I am now. Medical articles have stricter sourcing guidelines, but relations deteriorated badly with one reviewer which sidelined the FAC somewhat.
Collaborations are an integral part of editing and most have been very enjoyable – many of the Bird WikiProject editors have joined in on various bird articles I've worked on. Helpful in a different way are the reviewers. Sasata, Ucucha and J Milburn are three who come to mind who are incredibly thorough and clinical in their dissection of stuff I put forward. Guettarda and Hesperian with writing plant articles, Circeus loves taxonomic conundrums and, of course, Sasata with fungi. The Dinosaur Wikiproject was quite active when I began so we had collaborations happening which were a lot of fun. I miss some of the dino editors, who are not now editing, as we buffed a fair few articles. Writing medical articles – part of my real-life work – is too much like... ummm... work. But seriously, I have been meaning to. One has to reach a certain level of enthusiasm and sustain it to the end to carry it through the process. Best I can say is, "watch this space".
On participating at FAC
New participants should keep upbeat, try to do everything possible to improve the article beforehand, and always respond to reviewers' concerns promptly – if you can't find sources say so, if you don't feel the point made is warranted, explain calmly why not. As a reviewer, I place a lower priority on reviewing articles where I see concerns unanswered or dismissed out of hand. The added rigour of the FA process combined with the lack of Peer Reviewing has meant that the GA reviewing process is a good thorough review-point and can act as a way-station on the way to FAC. It helps articles be better prepared for FAC. When reviewing GAs, I try to give nominees a big a shove as possible toward FAC.
For narrow or esoteric articles it is a reasonably straightforward matter of harvesting all available material and reviewing it. Broader articles become trickier as one needs to become more discerning about what to include, how much to weight it, and what to (possibly) leave out... and then on really big articles the subject of maximum prose size invariably comes up. Long articles are always tricky at FAC as a lot can go wrong and be very time-consuming to correct. It is true that (well, for me anyway) there needs to be a significant amount of enthusiasm to really carry a subject/article all the way to FA status, and mine has waxed, waned and shifted over time.
Generally the work required goes up dramatically with the size and breadth of an article. As well, some articles seem to "come together" a lot more easily than others and it can be hard to pinpoint why. Often when I've tried to improve some large existing chunk of content, I've found it a more laborious process than if I'd started from scratch. Oftentimes one has no choice if one decides to hoe into an established article to buff it for GA/FA, but is worth being aware of. The good thing is that one can always walk away for a while and come back later, which often brings new insights and a fresh look. This then is an interesting learning process at how to work through writing blocks as well, which inspires me to finish the job. The level of enthusiasm required to carry an article "all the way" makes forcing people to work on core content difficult, if not impossible. To this end, I much prefer the idea of carrots rather than sticks, which is why I've always tried to promote WikiProject collaborations (though this has met with very limited success in recent years) and the Core Contest.
For a first up, pick a reasonably narrow well-circumscribed topic you know well, and hopefully for which there is a template or format, then read the recipe below:
FA RECIPE
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It's a great way to improve writing and making sure some of your work "sticks".
Featured articles
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Seven featured articles were promoted this week:
- Maya Angelou (nom) by Figureskatingfan. Angelou (b. 1928) is an American author and poet best known for her six autobiographies, which include themes of racism, identity, family, and travel. She has also had five books of essays and several books of poetry published, and is credited in plays, movies, and television shows spanning more than fifty years. The recipient of dozens of awards and over thirty honorary doctoral degrees, she holds the Reynolds Professorship of American Studies at Wake Forest University, and has made numerous public lectures.
- HMS Hermes (95) (nom) by Sturmvogel 66. Hermes was the first ship to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier, but owing to several delays was not the first commissioned. The Royal Navy ship spent most of her career with the Mediterranean Fleet and on the China Station. Placed in reserve in 1938, she was recalled during World War II, working in European waters before being transferred to Asia. Hermes was sunk in 1942 near Batticaloa.
- "Triangle" (The X-Files) (nom) by Gen. Quon. "Triangle", the third episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, was written by series creator Chris Carter. The storyline follows Agent Mulder as he is caught in a time warp. Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's film Rope, it was filmed and edited to appear as a single take. "Triangle" premiered on November 22, 1998, receiving positive reviews and being viewed by 18.20 million people.
- Clarence 13X (nom) by Mark Arsten. Clarence Edward Smith (1928–1969), also known as Clarence 13X, was an American religious leader who founded the Five Percent movement. Initially part of the Nation of Islam, he left the group to establish the Five Percenters, teaching that that all black men were divine and that God was found within each of them. Although he initially taught his followers to hate white people, he eventually began to cooperate with white city leaders and became a community leader until his assassination.
- History of Mars observation (nom) by RJH. The recorded history of Mars observation dates back to ancient Egyptian astronomers in the 2nd millennium BCE. Various cultures have used differing techniques to learn about the Red Planet, including its size and relation to Earth. The first telescopic observation came in 1610, and within a century, astronomers had discovered visible features with distinct albedos. During the past century humans have made increasingly accurate observations with advanced technology, dispelling previous misunderstandings.
- Poppy Meadow (nom) by M.Mario, Frickative, and Malleus Fatuorum. Meadow is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, played by Rachel Bright. Introduced in January 2011, she met with critical derision, but after returning in June of that year she was better received: The Guardian critic Stuart Heritage considered Poppy to be "perhaps the greatest television bit-part character of the modern age". She left for another seven months beginning in November, but as of publication continues to appear as a minor character.
- Lettuce (nom) by Dana boomer. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is an annual plant of the aster or sunflower family. Most often grown as a vegetable, it was first cultivated by ancient Egyptians. Since then numerous varieties have been grown and consumption has spread throughout the world. World production of lettuce and chicory for calendar year 2010 stood at 23,620,000 metric tons, over half of which came from China. The plant is a good source of vitamin A and potassium, but sometimes also a source of bacterial, viral and parasitic outbreaks in humans.
Featured lists
Fifteen featured lists were promoted this week:
- Polar Music Prize (nom) by GreatOrangePumpkin. The Polar Music Prize, an annual Swedish international award, has been given forty times since 1992. Awardees receive 1 million kr (approximately US$144,000) and are selected by a committee of musicians and music critics. It is considered one of the foremost musical awards.
- List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by Brett Lee (nom) by Vensatry. The Australian cricketer Brett Lee made nineteen five-wicket hauls in his thirteen-year international career. He has the fifth highest number of international five-wicket hauls among Australian cricketers as of 2012.
- Songs, sketches and monologues of Dan Leno (nom) by Cassianto and Ssilvers. The English comedian and stage actor Dan Leno recorded twenty nine of his songs, sketches, and monologues during a two year period. He also had a repertoire of fifty-eight short works that were not recorded, but performed live.
- List of Awake episodes (nom) by TBrandley. During its single year of broadcast (2012) the American police procedural drama television series Awake had thirteen episodes. Initially feared to be too complex for mainstream audiences, on average the show was viewed by 4.8 million persons per episode and well received.
- List of Ed, Edd n Eddy episodes (nom) by Khanassassin. The Canadian animated comedy television series Ed, Edd n Eddy broadcast 131 episodes over six seasons (between 1999 and 2009). All directed by Danny Antonucci, the episodes generally received positive reviews and large viewerships.
- List of protected cruisers of Germany (nom) by Parsecboy. The German Imperial Navy built eight protected cruisers in the 1880s and 1890s before the type was superseded by armored cruisers. These ships were influenced by foreign ones and mostly served overseas. All were broken up for scrap in the early 1920s.
- MercyMe discography (nom) by Toa Nidhiki05. The American Christian rock band MercyMe has released 36 recordings since being established in 1994. They released six independent albums before being signed in 2001. Their initial studio albums charted gold or higher, while their debut single "I Can Only Imagine" reached platinum.
- List of accolades received by Mr. Nobody (nom) by Earthh. The 2009 Belgian science fiction drama film Mr. Nobody has received accolades in categories ranging from recognition of the film itself, to its cinematography, direction and editing, to the cast's performance. It won a total of 18 out of 32 nominations.
- List of battlecruisers of the United States (nom) by Sturmvogel 66 and Dank. The US began building a series of battlecruisers in the 1920s, but after an armistice with Great Britain, the majority were cancelled. Of the twelve battlecruisers and large cruisers ordered, only five were completed (two as aircraft carriers).
- List of field marshals of the British Army (nom) by HJ Mitchell. The rank of Field Marshall, the highest in the British Army since 1736, has been held by 140 men. The majority were professional soldiers, although the rank has also been granted ceremonially to British sovereigns and foreign nationals. There are currently seven living Field Marshals.
- Backstreet Boys discography (nom) by KingdomHearts25. The Backstreet Boys, an American pop vocal group, have released 59 recordings (including 25 music videos) since their first single "We've Got It Goin' On" in 1995. Their best-selling work, Millennium, sold over 30 million copies internationally.
- List of Formula One circuits (nom) by NapHit. The Grand Prix of Formula One, the highest class of open-wheeled auto racing, has been held on 68 circuits worldwide since being established in 1950, with the Autodromo Nazionale Monza in Italy having hosted the most. Two further circuits, one in the US and one in Russia, are currently proposed.
- List of Pakistan Twenty20 International cricketers (nom) by Zia Khan. The Pakistan Twenty20 International cricket team first played in 2006. Since then, 47 players have played at least one match for the team, with Shahid Afridi having made the most appearances.
- 50 home run club (nom) by Bloom6132. The 50 home run club is the group of batters who have hit 50 or more home runs in a single season of North America's Major League Baseball. Twenty-six men have hit that mark, following Babe Ruth's lead; fifteen of these were in the past 17 years. Nine batters have reached the milestone more than once.
- List of Malmö FF players (nom) by Reckless182. The Swedish professional association football club Malmö Fotbollförening has had 85 players make more than 100 appearances for the team since it was established in 1910. Krister Kristensson has made the most appearances, while Hans Håkansson has the most goals.
Featured pictures
Two featured pictures were promoted this week:
- Papilio machaon (nom; related article), created by Archaeodontosaurus and nominated by Tomer T. Papilio machaon is a butterfly of the family Papilionidae found in the Palearctic region in Europe and Asia and throughout North America. Its wings have trailing elements resembling the tails of swallowtails.
- Befreiungshalle, Kelheim (nom; related article), created by Richard Bartz and nominated by Tomer T. The Befreiungshalle, completed in 1863, is a monument to Germany's victories against Napoleon during the Wars of Liberation. It is located on Mount Michelsberg.
Reader comments
Wikidata nears first deployment and wikis go down in fibre cut calamity
July engineering report published
| “ | In July 2012:
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—Engineering metrics, Wikimedia blog | ||
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for July 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project). All three headline items in the report have already been covered in the Signpost: Wikimania and the pre-Wikimania hackathon; the launch of new software to power a refreshed Wikimedia report card (named in the report as Limn); and the ongoing deployment of version 5 of the Article Feedback tool.
Among other developments noted in the report was work on what is now being called the "Page Curation" project, a package including Special:NewPagesFeed and an opt-in "curation toolbar" that recreates much of Twinkle's functionality as well as a number of other mechanisms for helping editors deal with page creations. In July, the report says, developers "completed development of all key curation tools and are now adding a couple final features ... [and] now plan to pre-release Page Creation on the English Wikipedia in mid-August — with a full release in September 2012". Elsewhere, the first Wikipedia Engineering Meetup was set for August 15. Held in the Wikimedia Foundation's home city of San Francisco, the meetups are an attempt to engage local programmers, of which there are many. The meetups are due to be held every two months, the report noted.
There was also mixed news with regard to site performance (see also related stories below). Performance Engineer Asher Feldman hit gold with an upgraded version of the parser cache server cutting the 90th percentile response time from 53.6ms to 7.17ms, and the 99th percentile response time from 185.3ms to 17.1ms, meaning that 99% of all page requests going through the cache are now served and sent back to the user in 17 thousandths of a second or less. Lead Platform Architect Tim Starling had less success, however, with his project investigating the possibility of optimising PHP processing at the bytecode level, which "looked like a promising direction for performance optimization". Unfortunately, despite a significant "theoretical gain ... actual performance [seemed] disappointing", causing the project to be suspended indefinitely.
Wikidata closes in on first deployment
Developers are closing in on a first deployment of Wikidata, it became clear this week. Phase one of the project, aiming to provide a central repository of interwiki links, is expected to launch on the Hungarian Wikipedia within weeks (wikitech-l mailing list).
Confirming that all major work on the project, which is split across four extensions, is complete, the past week and the next couple will be dominated by work getting code reviewed, Project Director Denny Vrandečić suggested in his post on the developers' mailing list, picking out seven actionable items that will need to be negotiated ahead of a first deployment.
After the Hungarian Wikipedia, where community members have already agreed to trial the extension, the extension is likely to be deployed to either the Italian Wikipedia or the Hebrew Wikipedia, where its right-to-left support can be scrutinised; next up will be the English Wikipedia and finally all other Wikipedias. Deployment of phase 2 with centralised infobox-style data is not expected until the end of the year, if not earlier next.
In brief
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Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for several weeks.
- More questions over Wikimedia availability: This week saw two separate issues affect the availability of Wikimedia wikis. The first, on August 2 and provisionally blamed on a bad configuration file update, saw readers receive a plain 502 Bad Gateway error for approximately 10 minutes (wikitech-l mailing list). A second issue, which saw a sharp downwards spike in traffic lasting over an hour on August 6, caused two and a half hours of disruption for readers around the globe. That issue has been attributed to at least one fibre-optic cable being damaged at the WMF's Tampa site. The Foundation maintains two such cables, which link Tampa to its counterpart in Ashburn, Virginia; why the second cable (the very raison d'être of which is to take over whenever the primary cable is unavailable) could not be rotated into operation almost immediately is not yet known, reports Director of Technical Operations CT Woo on the Wikimedia blog. Any downtime is potentially embarrassing for the Wikimedia Operations team; as Woo pointed out last week in a Signpost interview, Wikipedia had only been down for 150 minutes in the whole of the preceding twelve months.
- MediaWiki 1.20wmf9 begins deployment cycle: 1.20wmf9 – the ninth release to Wikimedia wikis from the 1.20 branch – was deployed to its first wikis on August 6 and will be deployed to all wikis by August 15. The release incorporates approximately two hundred changes to the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia, comprising 120 "core" changes plus a similar number of patches for WMF-deployed extensions. Among the changes (the product of a fortnight of development time) are fixes to Special:Categories (bug #25095); an expansion to
{{PAGESINCATEGORY}}, allowing filtering to just subcategories, pages or files (bug #14237); and a fix that allows communities to set their own default block expiry time (bug #32178). - New Gerrit colours live: Code review system Gerrit has received a facelift, courtesy of Git guru and WMF developer Chad Horohoe (wikitech-l). Subtle blue and white replace bright green and yellow; but it may not be enough to win unanimous support for Gerrit during its current period of review (due to end on August 10). That review seems to be inextricably heading in the direction of keeping Gerrit, with a serious challenge not yet found and the promise of substantial customisation (going much beyond a simple colour change) being influential factors for review chief Brion Vibber (also wikitech-l).
- TimedMediaHandler nears deployment: The TimedMediaHandler extension is being prepared for its first deployment to a Wikimedia wiki (wikitech-l). The extension, which overhauls MediaWiki's video handling support, adding such features as arbitrary start and end times and subtitle support, will be deployed to a full test wiki (test2wiki) imminently. The extension is also notable for its length of development time, now at over two years (precursors longer) and including work by contractors, staff developers and volunteers, many of whom will soon be breathing a sigh of relief to see it in widespread use for the first time.
- Srikanth Lakshmanan joins internationalisation engineering team: Chennai-based developer Srikanth Lakshmanan (also known by his pseudonym User:Logicwiki) has joined the Wikimedia Foundation as both an outreach coordinator and a QA engineering contractor. Becoming, in effect, the technical liaison for the WMF's internationalisation team, Srikanth will be "actively reaching out and working with our language communities to get feedback on new i18n/L10n features being planned or rolled out to Wikimedia sites". At the beginning of the month, the Foundation was still actively advertising some 15 open positions spread across almost all its teams.
- Wiki Loves Monuments app into beta testing: A mobile app in support of the international Wiki Loves Monuments competition has entered its beta testing phase (wikitech-l). The app, developed in-house by Wikimedia Foundation developers, "enables mobile monument discovery and photo uploads for the first time" and is intended to help boost the number of photos uploaded during this year's competition. Also under active volunteer development is a Signpost app for the Android platform.
- Four bots approved: 4 BRFAs were recently approved for use on the English Wikipedia:
- DarafshBot's 3rd BRfA, adding, removing and modifying interwiki links;
- Legobot's 14th and Legobot's 16th BRfA, creating/modifying redirects related to digraphs & trigraphs and moving pages per RM;
- OKBot's 6th BRfA, creating redirects from website addresses.
- At the time of writing, 13 BRFAs are active. As usual, community input is encouraged.
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Summer sports series: WikiProject Martial Arts
- With the 2012 Summer Olympics entering its final week of competition, WikiProject Olympics and the related sports projects could use your help
- The Motto of the Day project could use your help nominating and discussing mottos for September onward
- The August Wikify Drive is underway — start wikifying and earn a barnstar for your efforts!
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Martial Arts. Since April 2004, the project has been the hub for discussion and improvement of martial arts articles, including all disciplines and national origins. The project maintains a variety of conventions for handling the names and descriptions of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Sikh, Filipino, Okinawan, and hybrid martial arts. WikiProject Martial Arts has spawned or absorbed several subprojects focusing on boxing, kickboxing, sumo, and mixed martial arts. We interviewed 3family6 and Peter Rehse (PRehse).
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What motivated you to join WikiProject Martial Arts? Do you specialize in a specific disciplines or styles of martial arts?
- 3family6: I joined because I am a martial artist. I hold a nidan in Shohei ryu karate, and have additional experience with mixed martial arts and a little bit of experience with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I've also taken seminars in various other Eastern martial arts styles.
- Peter Rehse: My primary motivation was to improve the Aikido and related articles. At the time I had just set up my own group in Japan and kept on getting the question what is Aikido from students. It would have been easy just pointing them to the article but there was a lot of style bias at the time. From there I started working on articles for other martial arts I had been exposed to and then to martial arts in general. I have a strong interest in Japanese martial arts but also the historic interrelationship between that and other countries in the region.
Are the martial arts of some countries or regions better covered than others? Are there any noticeable gaps in Wikipedia's coverage of martial arts?
- Peter Rehse: Actually I think the covered is pretty even and reflects the actual traditions in the countries. There is a bit of me tooism where more is being made of than historically can be justified but that is improving.
How often does notability become an issue for martial artists techniques, competitions, and biographies? What are some easy steps to avoid these conflicts or to resolve them quickly?
- 3family6: I don't know how often it becomes an issue. I do know that there have been some very ugly RfD debates over specific MMA bout articles. I've seen campaigns by websites to contest deletion, and a sockpuppet investigation on some editors who posted mass RfDs. The best way to avoid these conflicts I think are to provided sources for an article on its creation. This can be tricky because a lot of martial arts training is verbal. With the MMA fights, I really don't know what to say other than that notability has to be proven for each individual bout. Certain bouts may have had a big impact on the style, but a reliable source needs to say so.
- Peter Rehse: Quite a bit and as said above it can be quite contentious especially with the more popular events like MMA. Generally though consensus seems to work with me wanting a long stick only a few times. The more annoying problem are the occasional vanity page which are often the only contribution of the author. It is probably not good practice but my rule of thumb is 'I am not notable but am more notable than...'. Of course I do the standard checks and the resulting discussions sort things out. Afd works well.
How does the project handle foreign terms and "loanwords" used in articles?
- Peter Rehse: There are good guidelines in place. It seems to work just fine.
Has the project tried collaborating with projects from foreign language versions of Wikipedia? Is there material that could easily be translated or shared between Wikipedia's various languages?
- Peter Rehse: This does not seem to be done often and usually results in a poorly written English page. Professional translators only translate into their native tongue - I wish that was the case for Wikipedia. Worse yet are non-english references but without those perhaps it would be too biased toward English speaking countries.
Have you contributed to the project's portal or any of the project's Featured Articles and Good Articles? How difficult is it to improve martial arts articles to FA or GA status?
- Peter Rehse: Yes - in several instances but it is hard. I wish I could say that all the comments attracted were useful and fixable but in many cases I could not be sure of the motivation. I rarely get involved now.
What are the project's most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?
- Peter Rehse: Some major martial arts are still heavily POV and badly written. New contributors should go to the art they know best and improve it. That is always a good place to start.
This concludes the Summer Sports Series. Next week's article will look at a project that helps resolve disputes and claims that there is no cabal. If you missed one of the seven sports projects we interviewed over the past two months, be sure to check them out in the archive.
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