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7 January 2015

 

2015-01-07

ISIL propaganda video; AirAsia complaints

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By Gamaliel and Smurrayinchester

ISIL hostage quotes Wikipedia in propaganda video

The Al-Hayat Media Center, the propaganda arm of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, released its eighth propaganda video starring British photojournalist John Cantlie, who was abducted in Syria in 2012. (A transcript is available from the SITE Intelligence Group.) While the first six videos feature Cantlie in orange prison garb speaking behind a table, the two newest videos have him dressed in street clothes playing the role of a Western-style journalist exploring cities under ISIL control. In the latest video, Cantlie shows viewers parts of Mosul; he navigates the roadways in an automobile, visits a marketplace and a hospital, and even drives a police motorcycle. His narration counters reports in Western media about the difficulties of life in Mosul and the lack of goods and electricity. The video claims that Mosul is a safe and prosperous place, well-policed and low in crime, with the only ones suffering being children with "psychiatric problems" as the result of Western bombing raids. Cantlie quotes from the Wikipedia article on Mosul: "If you look in Wikipedia under the entry of Mosul, it says that on November 10, 2004, the policemen not killed in the fighting fled the city, leaving Mosul without any police force for about a month." By way of contrast, the video claims that ISIL's police force has a "firm presence" in Mosul despite having little to do due to the lack of crime.

Cantlie and American journalist James Foley were abducted outside an Internet cafe in Syria. Foley was repeatedly beaten and tortured in captivity before being beheaded on camera in a video uploaded to YouTube in August 2014. Last year ISIL also beheaded perhaps hundreds of other journalists, aid workers, enemy soldiers, and other humans.

AirAsia articles draw complaints regarding Flight 8501

Flight 8501 in 2011

The Independent complains (January 5) that Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 is not discussed more prominently in the articles for AirAsia and Indonesia AirAsia and that information about the crash and another incident is absent or being removed. Flight 8501 disappeared on December 28 and wreckage was found in the Karimata Strait two days later. On December 30, Indonesia AirAsia Flight 272 overshot the runway at Kalibo International Airport, forcing an evacuation of passengers via emergency slides. AirAsia owns 49 percent of Indonesia AirAsia and they share a logo, but a number of editors on the AirAsia article consider the two carriers to be entirely different airlines and have removed the information, noting that it does not comply in an unspecified way with Wikipedia:WikiProject Airlines. While Flight 8501 has its own article, the crash is only mentioned in a single sentence near the bottom of the Indonesia AirAsia article. The Independent notes "The page does feature flattering information on the airline's safety record — including the fact that it is commended by the Indonesia Civil Aviation Authority for its safety — and its domination of the local market."

Article errors reveal US political approaches to Wikipedia editing

Al Jazeera America reports (January 6) that the Wikipedia article United States congressional delegations from Kentucky incorrectly identified Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Rand Paul as belonging to the Democratic Party instead of the Republican Party in picture captions. The almost certainly inadvertent errors were introduced when an editor added a gallery of photographs to the top of the article on December 21 and remained until they were corrected following the publication of the Al Jazeera story. The story quoted a pair of digital campaign consultants, one of whom, Karl Frisch, placed the blame squarely on "the digital teams of McConnell and Paul" for not catching and correcting the mistakes, even after the Al Jazeera author sent a mocking Tweet on December 30 to the Senators' official Twitter accounts. Frisch said "If you don’t know how to get something corrected on Wikipedia for your boss and you're a digital campaign consultant in 2015, you might as well quit." Frisch said that he has brought sources to the attention of Wikipedia editors to get changes made, while another strategist, Vincent Harris, said that he has "accounts that we manage that are active in the [Wikipedia] community that we make changes with" frequently.

Rhode Island Governor numbering debate

Gina Raimondo, the 57th, 75th, or 91st Governor of Rhode Island

The Providence Journal discusses (January 2) the question of how the office of Governor of the US state of Rhode Island should be numbered. New governor Gina Raimondo, who was elected in November 2014 and assumed office on January 6, refers to herself the 75th Governor, following the example of the outgoing governor, Lincoln Chafee, who called himself the 74th Governor. The Journal asked Chafee's Communications Director, Faye Zuckerman, about the numbering and she referred the paper to the Wikipedia article List of Governors of Rhode Island.

The article lists 75 Governors beginning with Nicholas Cooke, who held office when Rhode Island declared independence in May 1776. Rhode Island was founded as the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in 1636 and was one of the Thirteen Colonies of Great Britain which declared independence and went on to form the United States of America. The list does not include any governors prior to Cooke; they are listed separately at List of colonial governors of Rhode Island.

Tom Evans, State Librarian of Rhode Island, took issue with Wikipedia's numbering. Evans told the Journal that "They've counted two people who never adopted the title of governor." Henry Smith was President of the Rhode Island Senate in 1805 when he assumed the office following the deaths of Lieutenant Governor Paul Mumford and Governor Arthur Fenner. Isaac Wilbour was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1806, but because no gubernatorial candidate received a majority vote that year, Wilbour served as Governor instead. The list and the Wikipedia articles for Smith and Wilbour do not include inline citations related to this issue, but sources such as The Encyclopedia of Rhode Island refer to them as Acting Governors.

The list's numbering includes Governors who served more than one non-consecutive term as separate Governors, such as James Fenner, who is counted as the 7th, 11th, and 17th Governor. Evans objected to this as "confusing".

For his numbering, Evans used the two governing documents used by Rhode Island's government for most of its history. Eliminating Smith, Wilbour, and duplicate office holders, he counts 57 Governors starting from the 1842 Constitution of Rhode Island and 91 Governors starting from the 1663 Royal Charter.

In brief

A 17th century copy of a 14th century Persian manuscript image of Muhammad, one of the historical images which raised objections in 2008.

2015-01-07

Interview with Jakob, one of Wikipedia's more prolific waterway contributors

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By Kevin Rutherford and Jakec
User:Jakec has been a Wikipedia editor for over two years and has been a writer of many recent Did you know articles on Wikipedia, including multiple articles on rivers and streams in the state of Pennsylvania.

Jakob, tell us a little about what brought you to edit on Wikipedia? When did you first start editing, and what were your first impressions of the site?

Back in 2012, when I joined, I was interested in exploring my local area via Google Maps. Naturally, I came to know something about local geography after a while. In August 2012, I was describing some details about a local mountain to someone, who suggested (sarcastically, I think) that I write a Wikipedia article on the mountain. I took the person literally and added a sentence about the mountain into the article on Columbia County, Pennsylvania. I registered an account a few days later and for a few months mostly did sporadic minor editing, such as replacing a few town articles' population data from the 2000 census with population data from the 2010 census. I began editing more actively in early 2013, but didn't become a very active content creator until later that year.

My first impression of Wikipedia was luckily very positive. The people I interacted with in my early days on the site were for the most part professional, civil, and willing to help newbies. The Teahouse also proved especially helpful in my first few days and weeks of editing.

Fishing Creek, of the North Branch Susquehanna River, which Jakob expanded into a Good Article

What brought you to edit waterway articles in Pennsylvania, and what made you decide to nominate all of these articles for Did you know?

The first Pennsylvania stream article I edited was Fishing Creek (North Branch Susquehanna River), back in the fall of 2012, not long after I joined. I had visited the article out of curiosity and was somewhat disappointed to find that there were only two sentences. Over the next few months, I added a lot of info to it and in early 2013 it became one of my first Good Articles. Around that time, I also discovered the articles on the nearby Catawissa Creek and Nescopeck Creek via the navbox at the bottom of the Fishing Creek article. I began expanding those two articles as well and eventually began creating a few articles on some of the larger creeks in the area. I started creating more stream articles in early 2014. During the summer of 2014, I began to create them more systematically, starting articles on all or nearly all of the streams in a watershed, which is what I'm still doing. As for nominating articles for DYK, I basically do it because it's fun to share some interesting facts with a broad audience and have my work on the main page.


Have you had any conflicts with editors in the process of adding your work to the site, and how did you deal with them?

Actually, I haven't really run into to that many content-related conflicts. I'm pretty much the only person who's really actively creating articles on Pennsylvania streams these days (though there were a few other content creators in the field before my time), so there aren't many people to have content disputes with. I've gotten into a few disputes over trivial things such as article ratings and minor wording issues, though, and hashing it out on the other editor's talk page (or sometimes the article talk page) often results in something acceptable.

I see that you also edit other Wikimedia projects. How is the culture of those projects different from the English Wikipedia?

Besides the English Wikipedia, I mostly edit Wikidata and Commons. One thing that I've noticed about the culture on those projects is that they're much more inclusionist than the English Wikipedia. For instance, one of Wikidata's inclusion criteria is that a page (items, as they are called on that site) "refers to an instance of a clearly identifiable conceptual or material entity". On Commons, files just have to have "educational value" in order to be kept. More generally, the other projects are more freewheeling, expecting people to rely more on common sense than a lot of rules (though obviously there are some).

If someone wanted to get involved in local waterway articles for their own state or country, what advice would you give them?

Creating waterway articles is definitely something that is worth doing and it's also quite easy. There aren't very many existing articles (at least compared to the number of waterways out there), the bar for inclusion is pretty low, and sources are typically abundant. Maps show pretty much every named tributary and there are a few databases that have some basic information on every named stream. All of that information is useful, but definitely other information should be added if it can be found.



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2015-01-07

Kock up

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By Xanthomelanoussprog, Adam Cuerden and Hafspajen


Hendrik Merkus, Baron de Kock as painted by Cornelis Kruseman. Suppressing local uprisings by arresting the native leader, Prince Diponegoro after inviting him to come in peace and negotiate with you? And getting raised to the nobility because of it? What a Kock! Everyone knows wars are meant to be won by tactics: Had Kock outmanoeuvred the enemy and penetrated their flank, it at least would be expected of a military man of the time. But to trick a man into surrendering himself to you under false pretences? ...Er, this getting a bit too much? ...Probably: best we move on.

De Kock became impotent in the affairs of the Dutch East Indies when he left his post as Lieutenant Governor-General in 1830, the year Johannes van den Bosch became Governor-General. Did they meet? Possibly! But if Kock was a bit stiff when they met, well, only to be expected when someone else is coming into your position.
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 21 to 27 December 2014.
Carl Bloch's In [censored] Roman Osteria, now featured picture. We apologise for article in painting's name, cunningly censored by our editors as no articles were available for this report.

As no articles were promoted to featured article, no articles - that is, "a", "an", or "the" - will be used in rest of this report.

The above is a terrible idea. I mean, "is terrible idea".

The editors proposing the above plan have been sacked.

Two featured lists were promoted this week.

Twelve featured pictures were promoted this week.

Giorgione's Adoration of the Shepherds
Hydnellum ferrugineum
Gloriette in the gardens of Schönbrunn Palace.
Apollo 17 panorama of the Taurus-Littrow lunar valley. That's no spaceship, that's a moon!
  • Adoration of the Shepherds (created by Giorgione, nominated by Hafspajen) Christmas came and went, and probably won't even call, the bastard, but Giorgione's beautiful Adoration of the Shepherds passed featured picture in the meantime. Giorgione is considered by art historians to be one of the most interesting, enigmatic and influential of the Renaissance Venetian painters. The theme Adoration of the Shepherds is different from the similar Adoration of the Magi. While the Magi are often represented as rich, colorful and exotic magnates bringing with them myrrh, incense, ivory, camels, monkey and peafowls, the shepherds are poor people. The scene is an intimate one, with the simple shepherds who came to Bethlehem and are the first to recognize Christ's divinity and thus kneel down in front of him. The article spends little time talking about the lovely composition, with brightly-lit fields leading to a dimly lit cave that highlights the holy family, and tiny cherubim hovering around, watching the birth, and occasionally looking disturbingly skull-like, such as the one on the left. Eep. No, the article concentrates on the importance of signing your work: If you don't, you might get your work claimed by Titian, Vincenzo Catena, or Giovanni Cariani, or, worse, have the majority of art experts assign it to Giorgione when it's actually by you. Add a signature and there'd be no doubt.
  • Portrait of Hendrik Merkus, Baron de Kock, Army Commandant and after 1826 Lieutenant Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (created by Cornelis Kruseman, nominated by Crisco 1492) This painting, with an admittedly somewhat long title, is a portrait of Hendrik Merkus, Baron de Kock, Army Commandant and after 1826 Lieutenant Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.
  • Durbar Court (created by Colin, nominated by Tomer T) This magnificent court is part of the former India Office (now part of the main building for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British Government). Slated for demolition in the 1960s along with the rest of Whitehall, it would have been replaced with some concrete boxes designed by Leslie Martin. Fortunately the plans were abandoned in 1971, due to lack of money and a determined public campaign (though one suspects "lack of money" was the real reason for abandonment). The Durbar Court was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and Matthew Digby Wyatt. It's got Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns made from red and grey granites from Scotland, and a gorgeous marble floor with stone from Greece, Sicily and Belgium. A Durbar court was a place where Shahs and Sultans conducted business in the warm climes of Persia and India; this particular court, under the grey skies of smoggy London, only saw civil servants hurrying from office to office.
  • La Mousmé (created by Vincent van Gogh, nominated by Crisco 1492) La Mousmé is a painting by Vincent van Gogh from 1888; a work from the period when he was experimenting with the ways of expression typical of Japanese woodprints and Japanese artwork. La Mousmé is inspired by Pierre Loti's novel Madame Chrysanthème - a very fashionable novel at the time. This painting is from a series that represented different aspects of ordinary life, from one of Van Gogh's happier periods of life, a prolific time, when in less than 444 days Van Gogh made about 100 drawings and produced more than 200 paintings. La Mousmé's outfit is a blend of modern and traditional, with the bright colors of the skirt and jacket typical for the southern region of Arles. Van Gogh's painting is focused on the girl's face, depicting her in the colors of a girl from Arles, but with a Japanese influence. The painting is part of the National Gallery of Art collection in Washington, D.C.
  • Gloriette in the Schönbrunn Palace Garden (created by Thomas Wolf, nominated by Tomer T) A gloriette is a building in an elevated position in a garden, designed to be an outlook over the foliage. This one, at Schönbrunn Palace, was built in the Early Classicist colonnaded style on the crest of a hill in 1775 for the Austrian Emperor, and has a view over Vienna from the roof. It is basically an architectural folly: buildings and other erections given unusual shapes, meant to show off the owners' ability to spend money on frivolous things. While many follies serve little to no purpose, the Gloriette is of the type that are usable despite the eccentric shape, similar to the Dunmore Pineapple. It consists of a central section built like triumphal arch, crowned with the imperial eagle. The roof is flat with a balustrade and can be accessed by a stairway. Emperors had their breakfasts there until the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918. Destroyed in the Second World War, it was reconstructed and now serves as a café, serving unemployed Emperors (and the hoi-polloi) with Sachertorte.
  • Eurasian eagle-owl (created by Carlos Delgado, nominated by Jim Carter) With a wingspan of 200 cm (79 in) the Eurasian eagle-owl is one of the largest species of owl. It is a largely nocturnal owl that mostly chooses to live in mountainious regions, steppes and remote places, preferring to nest on cliff ledges, and other concealed locations. It hunts at night, on the taiga, along rocky coast lines and over steppes and grasslands, catching birds, small mammals, fish, reptiles and (surprisingly) earthworms. Its great size, barrel-shaped build, yellow-orange irises and ear tufts give this owl a distinctive appearance. The beak and the feet are black, while each feather has a buff or cream-coloured edge. The calls they make is a deep resonant OOooh-huu that can be heard at great distance, repeated at intervals. Other calls include a rather faint OO-OO-oo and a harsh kveck-kveck. Annoyance at close quarters is expressed by bill-clicking and spitting, and a defensive posture.
  • In a Roman Osteria (created by Carl Bloch, nominated by Crisco 1492) In a Roman Osteria is a painting by the Danish painter Carl Bloch from 1866. The painting depicts the artist in Rome at a restaurant, together with his friend and major supporter Moritz G. Melchior (facing us). The painter, Bloch, is sitting at a table turning his back to the viewers, talking with his friends. The pretty girls in the foreground are the couleur locale, together with their "protector", who keeps a clasp-knife in his pocket, and is giving the viewer a dirty look. They are enjoying a hearty meal of cabbage and crusty cobs with sweet red wine, which is attracting wasps and flies. The painting was acquired by the National Gallery of Denmark in 1935, and is displayed there.
  • Apollo 17 Moon panorama: Taurus–Littrow lunar valley (created by Apollo 17, nominated by The Herald) Claims of carnivorous moon-rocks eating later missions aside, Apollo 17 marked the last time humans have set foot on another chunk of rock than our own. This panorama of the lunar valley Taurus-Littrow thus represents a height of human achievement that we have failed to reach again since, which is kind of depressing, really.
  • Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia one-koruna note (prepared and nominated by Andrew Shiva (Godot13), using specimens from the National Numismatic Collection, Smithsonian Institution) This is a banknote from Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, "an autonomous Nazi-administered territory", which came into being after Adolf Hitler intimidated the Czech President, Emil Hácha, into allowing the German occupation of what was left of Czechoslovakia. It's a Czechoslovak note on which a circular inkstamp has been impressed, with the name of the Protectorate in German (at top) and Czech (below); the German is in Fraktur, a typeface regarded at the time as a "true German script". The act of a rubber stamp slamming down onto a piece of paper representing the country rather effectively symbolises the loss of freedom implied by this note.
  • Hydnellum ferrugineum (created by Myrabella, nominated by Tomer T) Hydnellum is a genus of fungi referred to as the "tooth fungi", because, instead of the usual gills that many mushrooms have under their cap, the tooth fungi have small tooth-like projections. Most of the mushroom species that are tooth fungi are edible and safe - but not this one, apparently. Hydnellum ferrugineum has a white to pink body covered by drops of a red liquid. Yes, the fungus bleeds, and has teeth. Be afraid. Night of the Fungus coming to theatres near you this autumn!
  • Flaming June (created by Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, nominated by Armbrust) This painting failed to sell at auction in the 1960s (its reserve was $140) yet in 2001 a study for the painting sold for $163,000! Now, critical appreciation has risen even higher - it's a Featured Picture on Wikipedia! Flaming June is a painting from 1895 by Sir Frederic Leighton. Considered to be Leighton's magnum opus, it depicts a sleeping nymph or naiad covered by a gown made of transparent material of stunningly bright colour. The position of the sleeping woman gave Leighton and the voters at featured pictures a great deal of trouble. Flaming June is displayed at the Ponce Museum of Art in Puerto Rico, having been purchased by the museum's founder, Luis A. Ferré, who was a noted industrialist, and, for a time governor of Puerto Rico. In recent years, with the renewal of interest in Victorian art, it has been loaned to important expositions around the world, such as at the Prado, Madrid, in 2008 and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, in 2009.
  • The Magdalen Reading (created by Rogier van der Weyden, nominated by Crisco 1492) The Magdalen Reading is a quiet and meditative representation of Mary Magdalen, one of the women around Jesus, by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, and the article on it is well-worth a read. The woman depicted in the painting is identified as Mary Magdalen by the jar of ointment placed beside her, her traditional attribute in Christian iconography. She is depicted completely absorbed in her reading, the only movement in this contemplative image being the turning page. Mary Magdalen is a figure that is mentioned several times in the stories around Jesus - and there is some learned discussion about whether the stories relate to several women or just one; this figure is based on Mary of Bethany, the woman who sat at Jesus' feet and "listened to His Word", often seen as contemplative, as opposed to Mary's sister Martha with her active and perhaps superficial life, who scolded her for listening and not working, not being as busy and useful as she was. For Biblical times, for Mary to sit at Jesus' feet, and for him to allow her to do so, was in itself controversial and unusual. A woman in the view of first-century Judaism was regarded as being worth less than a man, and the men usually ignored them, and didn't even talk to them in public.
Flaming June by Frederic Leighton


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2015-01-07

Auld Lang Syne

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By Milowent

We end 2014 and and start 2015 with the normal array of year-end activities, including movie watching with Bollywood film PK (#1) topping the list, followed by The Interview (2014 film) (#2), 2014 in film (#10), and five other films in the rest of the Top 25, plus a number of articles about the subjects of these films. We celebrated the New Year by singing "Auld Lang Syne" (#11), or perhaps watching Adam Lambert (#9) perform with Queen. But we could not avoid a final tragedy with the crash of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 (#4) on December 28.

For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.

For the week of December 28, 2014 to January 3, 2015, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 PK (film) C-class 1,007,428
About thirty thousand fewer views than last week, when it stood at #3, this Bollywood film, starring Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma, tops the chart this week. Released on December 19, it has already become the highest grossing Bollywood film of all time, with a worldwide box office of over US$94 million. It is also the first Bollywood film to ever top this report.
2 The Interview (2014 film) B-class 824,917
Down from 1.2 million views and #1 last week. See past reports for the whole sordid history of this film, which, as of January 4, 2015, had earned more than $31 million from online sales and rentals.
3 Chris Kyle Start-class 724,445
This American sniper, whose life was the subject of the appropriately named Clint Eastwood-directed film American Sniper, which went into wide release on Christmas Day, is considered the most lethal in US military history, with 160 confirmed kills. Unfortunately, he was murdered last year by a PTSD-afflicted veteran whom he had taken to a shooting range. Before he died, he had claimed that he had once punched former wrestler and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura in 2006 for badmouthing U.S. President Bush and the military. Ventura sued him for defamation, eventually getting a $1.8 million jury award. Last week, Ventura filed a new lawsuit directly against HarperCollins, who published Kyle's book, called, naturally, American Sniper.
4 Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 Start-class 704,645
Unfortunately we could not end 2014 without yet another major passenger aircraft crash. On December 28, 2014, this flight crashed in bad weather while en route to Singapore, killing all 155 passengers and 7 crew on board.
5 Jim Harbaugh B-Class 684,677
Jim Harbaugh is an American football coach. After serving as the head coach of the professional San Francisco 49ers from 2011-2014, he was named the new head coach of the University of Michigan.
6 AirAsia B-Class 646,448
See #4
7 Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 B-Class 619,770
The crash of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 (#4) understandably caused readers to once again ask "did they ever find that other plane?" The answer is no. An "underwater search" that began in October is not scheduled to be completed until around May, so it could be quite some time.
8 Stephen Hawking B-Class 598,974
The Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist and latter-day science icon makes his ninth straight appearance in the Top 25 this week, thanks in large part to his biopic, The Theory of Everything, which opened in the United States on November 7.
9 Adam Lambert C-Class 544,868
Lambert is an American singer who was the runner up in the eighth season of American Idol in 2009. He performed a New Year's Eve concert in London with Queen (see Queen & Adam Lambert Rock Big Ben Live), which proved quite popular.
10 2014 in film N/A 539,382
No doubt this was popular among readers wishing to see what the most popular movies were of the year. Transformers: Age of Extinction starring Mark Wahlberg (pictured) was the highest-grossing film of the year, making over $1.08 billion, which puts it at number 10 on the all time list.


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