Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions/Archive 21

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2013

Editor of the Week template—make a regular section?

It was nice to see the Editor of the Week infobox featured in this week's interview with WikiProject Editor Retention. What would people think of making the EotW a regular Signpost feature? The EotW template is prepared and updated weekly by that WikiProject (the queue already has six more approved nominations ready to go), and could be used as a sidebar in News and Notes or another section. It'd be a great way to introduce some deserving but lower-profile editors to the community at large. – Khazar2 (talk) 15:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

If other editors could see how much these nominees have done for our encyclopedia, and that could be converted into positive feedback during their time as our EotW, the positive feedback as a whole to building a stronger WikiCommunity would be immense. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 16:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Hi there, I don't think that this award, while noble, should have a place in the Signpost. My apologies. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
No problem—but is it okay to ask why? It seems like profiling a weekly editor would fit naturally alongside profiling a weekly project and recently promoted content. Thanks in either case. – Khazar2 (talk) 16:23, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Oh, that's perfectly okay, don't worry. :-) We have traditionally shied away from showcasing a single editor, whether it be positively or critically, unless it comes in some other context. As for the award itself, it's just not important enough in my eyes. We're a newspaper aiming to cover the entire Wikimedia movement; giving precedence to one project's (en.wp) WikiProject's editor of the week doesn't mesh with that goal. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Makes sense. I appreciate your considering it, and keep up the good work here! – Khazar2 (talk) 17:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, and thanks for understanding! Regards, Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
Ed, I disagree. We are a community newspaper of English Wikipedia that also covers movement-wide news. We cover English Wikipedia WikiProjects, Featured content, ArbCom activity, new administrators, and RFCs. I think it would be ok for us to include the ENWP Editor of the Week as well, and I think this would be good for editor morale and community sporit. --Pine✉ 06:32, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
All of which are wide-ranging activities on the project, whereas the editor of the week is an award put out by a single small project. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:30, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

GLAM-WIKI 2013

GLAM-WIKI 2013 was held in London earlier this month. Recordings of some of the presentations are available on meta. I'm not sure that the conference has been covered by the Signpost yet? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 18:37, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

We are covering (in a relatively short article) the GLAM boot camp being held in DC this weekend this week; I believe that Wikizine is planning comprehensive coverage of the London event for the first or second issue in May. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:53, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
Speaking of GLAMorous things, you might want to cover the first GLAMout (a Google Hangout devoted to GLAM issues) to be held this Friday, May 3, 12noon PDT/3pm EDT. (Also: It was a pleasure meeting you.) – kosboot (talk) 20:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

SUL/the end of WP:CHU/renaming now to happen soleley at meta/incompatibility of various username policies

See [1] and associated tak page. We have just under a month to figure out how to work in this new reality where our crats will no longer be able to rename users. Only stewards are to have that ability and all renames will be at meta. What is less clear is if it is to be expected that the stewards understand the username policies of individual projects and how we handle names that may be okj on one site but not another, how users blocked from meta could aver ask for a change, and all the usual details that developers don't think of and leave it to the community to resolve. In less than month from when they first informed us of it, in case you missed that the first time. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree it'll be a big change, but between meta:User:DerHexer/Crats by users renamed and Wikipedia:LOGACTIONS#User_renames, I think we should be ok as long as the other stewards slow down and I keep checking the right pages before bed at night. MBisanz talk 00:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
I imagine we will be able to work out something that works reasonably well eventually, the problem is we don't have till "eventually" we have until the 27 of May. I'm concerned as well that both a dev and some meta users seem to think the various username policies just need to be reconciled and there is a "one size fits all" solution that will work on all WMF sites. While the foundation has the authority to override our local policy on this matter, meta most certainly does not, and previous experience suggests that one moth is far too short a time to expect the meta community to come to a consensus and act on it on such a big issue. If you look around RFCs there it is a simple matter to find things that were opened months or even years ago and never closed or actioned in any way. Also we will need to rewrite every single one of our username-related templates but we don't as yet actually know what they will need to say. Six months might have been enough time to get this together. I would have expected devs to understand that is that is the type of time frame they always want for big changes, but apparently they think reconciling the policies from all WMF sites into one universal policy should only take a few weeks. Not trying to bash the WMF, but a lot more notice would have been nice. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:09, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

BBC interview with Jimmy Wales

The BBC has a report of an interview with Jimmy Wales here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22160988 . The article is split roughly 50:50 between discussing MOOCs and (particularly in the latter half of the article) Wikipedia. – The Anome (talk) 08:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Interesting interview. I'll just note that our article on MOOCs is completely inadequate. I say that having written about half of it, and rewritten the rest 3 or 4 times. Most of the problem is that there are just not enough people contributing there, part of it is that it is a fast moving topic, and part of it is simply that I'm no expert on the topic. All contributions would be appreciated. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Op-ed in The Telegraph on notability

See Wikipedia: you don't get to decide who's interesting. Dcoetzee 20:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

It certainly seems odd to see so much written these days about Wikipedia's inner processes, in this case AfD. But this article is particularly clueless, the author taking no time to find out anything about what she's writing about. On the same webpage there are two other articles, seemingly higher rated by the Telegraph, titled "Why bras don't work" and "What Muslim women want in the bedroom". Both IMHO better informed, in better taste, and much more interesting. Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:12, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

FDC election deadline coming up

The deadline for candidate submission for the FDC elections is May 17, see Meta FDC elections. There are currently no candidates for the 2 positions on the committee and for the single FDC ombudsman position. There are also no questions asked of the candidates – it might be easier to apply if folks knew what the questions would be.

Given last week's brawl on the comments at News and Notes about the FDC and its policies and procedures, Ida thunk everybody would want to be on the committee.

I'll likely apply this week, and perhaps there are others who are just afraid to be the first. Questions will help. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:55, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC regarding the scope of the Ombudsman Commission

An RFC regarding the scope of the Ombudsman Commission has been launched at m:Requests for comment/Scope of Ombudsman Commission. As an Ombudsman, I am available for comment should the Signpost wish to get a quote or an interview. --(ʞɿɐʇ) ɐuɐʞsǝp 23:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; we included a note last week and have done so again this week. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:53, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Uncyclopedia breaks from Wikia

This is slightly old news in internet terms, but important nonetheless. One might also be interested in reading this: https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/The_rebirth_of_Uncyclopedia_-_the_story_of_a_community_that_decided_to_take_its_hosting_into_its_own_hands. Killiondude (talk) 06:11, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, that's a bit too old. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:53, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Non-staff admins+crats lose their rights on wmfwiki

wmf:Special:Log/rights, and the ensuing thread on wikimedia-l. Legoktm (talk) 06:01, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

This definitely warrants a note in the Signpost. All in all, sad turn of events. Killiondude (talk) 00:23, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
This will be our feature story in "News and notes" this week. Thank you both! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:53, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Name of Ombudsman Commission

m:Talk:Ombudsman commission#Gender neutrality – the discussion might be worth covering. Sumana Harihareswara 14:39, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

This will be in this week's "News and notes". Thanks! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:53, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

More notable wikipedians

Missing details: the sanitisation of Tom Waterhouse's Wikipedia page Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:45, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

This will be in this week's "In the media". Thank you! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:53, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Sue Gardner on The Story with Dick Gordon

Sue Gardner was on today's NPR radio program The Story with Dick Gordon. Here is a synopsis and link to audio of the interview. It was pretty good. Something to highlight in the 'In the Media' section maybe? --Jayron32 00:37, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

I will try to remember to hit that next week. Ed started publication for this week, I believe. Thanks for keying me in on it. Go Phightins! 00:48, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Hiring (more) community liaisons

WMF have announced they want to hire an indeterminate number of new community-liaison people: see here. The goal seems to be to have one working with each of the major developments (VisualEditor, Flow, etc), though no doubt Philippe will correct me if I've misinterpreted! Non-English capabilities a plus, but of course that doesn't rule out predominantly enwiki people. Andrew Gray (talk) 11:44, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I was just coming to post this here ;p. The goal is initially to prioritise the VisualEditor; once we've properly socialised and deployed that, I imagine we'll try to apply the CLs elsewhere (where 'elsewhere' is and in what role will be dependent on how the VE socialisation works out, in the sense that if it goes really well, it's going to have implications for how we socialise other features, too). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 16:07, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Qworty/Robert Clark Young

A pretty extensive article on User:Qworty appeared on Salon. Qworty admitted on his user talk page that he's Robert Clark Young, and there's a pretty extensive pile of conflicts of interest going on. The hammers of ANI went down, and it looks like a community ban is definitely ensuing. Further details also in Wikipediocracy. --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 22:38, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, needs coverage I think Johnbod (talk) 14:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Latest article at "Wikipedia’s anti-Pagan crusade". Dcoetzee 22:58, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia as an open source project to avoid

ITWorld This source recommends open source projects for beginners and ends with some projects to avoid, including the Linux kernel and Wikipedia. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:40, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

They're right and the poorly thought out grphical design features like the new notifications aren't helping either. Kumioko (talk) 16:46, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Might as well quote them "A well-known woman in open source explains it this way, 'They have a lot of people doing outreach and they have passionate people working to get more people in as editors and a more diverse set of editors. But if you read the Gendergap mailing list, it looks like the place is a horrible place to be.' " I certainly understand why many women would think this, but I'll also point out that it's not just women – this can be a "horrible place" to edit for any newby, and for many experienced editors as well. Seems like it's time to try for another push for civil editing and a "less hostile environment" (writing "friendly environment" unfortunately would be unrealistic at this point). Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:02, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Your right. . Kumioko (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps this is more appropriate to the discussion section but I posit: The original is hardly a reputable statement of fact. "A well-known woman" – unnamed. It could be the deranged homeless lady on the street for all anyone knows. I wonder to what extent Wikipedia's problems are the problems of any crowdsourcing project. Just like that list containing the evolutionary social stages of an email list (from enthusiasm eventually leading to hostility – here's an example: The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists), perhaps all crowdsourcing projects (be it organizations, families, political parties, etc.) will suffer from the same social evolution, and Wikipedia takes the brunt of complaints since everyone knows it. – 21:33, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
I've requested a clarification because I think it's MediaWiki, not Wikipedia, that ought to be compared to Drupal, Python, PostgreSQL, etc. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 16:19, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
That is perhaps technically true however 99.% of the world doesn't know the difference so they think Wikipedia anyway. But it doesn't eliminate the bigger problem that Wikipedia does exude the characteristics and traits of a site that is not freindly to novice beginner editors who do not already know the ways of the Wiki. I'm not just talking about the need to know a little HTML and to learn Wikicode and things of that nature. I'm more concerned about the way we treat each other and new editors. When they join and see the gigantic rift between what we call admins and editors, then wonder why an editor who has been here for years is treated like a second class citizen because they don't have the admin toolset, and then add to that the complication of learning the system and breaking through the toxic culture that has been rooted here, they leave and frequently don't come back. What's even worse is they tell their friends about the horrible experience they had and then they write articles about us that tells people that they shouldn't bother editing here. Some people here do not like that I am so vocal about the problems but articles like this illstrate the seriousness of the situation. Its not just me spouting hyperbole, there is a problem both in function and in perception that needs to be addressed. Rather than look at stories like this as attacks we should look at them as opportunities for growth and development. They have identified the problem but they can't fix it, we have to do that. Kumioko (talk) 16:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
There's a deeply flawed premise in the article: that there's any simple, one-size-fits-all answer to the question "Is Wikipedia a good project for a newbie to work on?" There are so many things you can do, and so many ways you can go about it, and so many kinds of people you can encounter, that it's a meaningless question. You might as well as, "is Earth a good planet to live on?" Just to begin with, picking the gendergap list out of the…dozens? hundreds? of email lists we have is an odd choice. There's nothing remotely systematic in how they chose any of the projects, it's a pretty casual piece. While I'm glad to see this mentioned here (and shout-outs to some awesome free/open source projects), I don't think we should cover the story in the Signpost. -Pete (talk) 18:02, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
Not very well-informed hearsay by someone (who?) who has apparently never edited WP. Zzzzzzz... Johnbod (talk) 18:27, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
I would also suggest the internet as a project to avoid ;) Kaldari (talk) 21:42, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Jerusalem lead RfC

Hello all. :) If you're having a discussion report next week, could you consider including Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jerusalem? This is a binding RfC mandated by ArbCom, so is slightly different from your common-or-garden content dispute. It is also one of Wikipedia's longest-running disputes, having first started back in 2003. If you want you could probably get a few comments from the participants of the moderated discussion (conducted by yours truly) that led to the formulation the RfC text. But in any case, a mention of the discussion page would be much appreciated. All the best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the mention! — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
You're very welcome! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 08:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Status update on the toolserver follower Tool Labs

Last weekend, the Wikimedia Hackathon took place in Amsterdam. Now it is time for a status update on Tool Labs and the plans to migrate from the Toolserver to Tool Labs. According to the Road map Tool Labs will have all necessary features by the end of June 2013. As of then, tool maintainers will have one year to migrate their software. By the end of 2014, at the latest by the end of December 2014, the Toolserver shall be empty and decommissioned.

What is working? First of all: Tool maintainers do not have to care about virtual instances oder other background stuff. You develop on a login server that is similar to Toolserver, e.g. with the infrastructure for webservices. You will work on Ubuntu Precise servers. At the moment, there are replicas of six out of the seven database clusters available. The last one (with Central Auth) is due in June. So you can already work with all the big and many small Wikipedias, with Commons and Wikidata. You have access to all data that is visible to registered users without special privileges in a wiki. You can create you own user databases. According to the first experiences, Tool Labs is fast.

Apart from home directories, you have shared project storage. Tool Labs wants to make it as easy as possible to develop software together, this is why you can add others to your projects yourself via the web interface. There is a time travel feature! You can reset you files to the state of the last three hours, the last three days and the last two Sundays. The job system that is used in Tool Labs is OpenGridengine. You can find an intro on the Tool Labs help page. Bugs can be reported in WMF's Bugzilla: Please use the product "Wikimedia Labs" and one of the components "Tools" or "Bots". If you miss software in Tool Labs that could be of interest for others, too, go file a bug!

What about "Tools" versus "Bots"? These are the names of the two projects Tool Labs consists of. The larger environment Wikimedia Labs is organized in projects, two of which form Tool Labs. They are an environment inside Labs that is customized especially for Toolserver users. The naming might be a bit misleading: The difference between "Tools" and "Bots" is not what you run in which project, but that you can run your tools in two different environments. The "Tools" project is a stable environment maintained by four admins (one of them a volunteer). There are no experiments with software versions here. In contrast to this, the "Bots" project is a more flexible environment in which you can play with changes in the environment itself, too. Here, it will be more easy to get root acces. (If you are interested, ask your way around the mailing list.)

Open tasks? Apart from the open tasks on the road map, the documentation needs improvements. Here you can help! The pioneers among you can help others a lot by documenting experiences. Thanks to Magnus Manske and to Russell Blau for the docs! Follow their example! We are thinking about how to redirect deprecated links to migrated tools in the easiest possible way. The Tool Labs user interface needs love – feel free to come to us if you want to help here!

If you run into problems or have questions when migrating tools, ask! The best places are the labs-l mailing list or the IRC channel #wikimedia-labs connect. The admins' nicks are Coren and petan. Here is a FAQ that you can continue. And finally: If you find your tool needs more adaptation than you think you can manage on your own, talk to Johannes Kroll or to Silke Meyer at WMDE for support!

Happy hacking! Silke WMDE (talk) 16:18, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Nader library disavows Wikipedia

The NaderLibrary (which appears to not be actually sponsored by Ralph Nader) has completely disassociated itself from Wikipedia. Sorry, I'm not allowed to post a link to its statement. Cla68 (talk) 22:29, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

http://www.naderlibrary.com/wikipedia.toc.htm Looking at the site, I am not very worried. --  Gadget850 talk 22:52, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
"The Ralph Nader Library, inspired by Ralph Nader's tremendous contributions to the welfare of human beings, is a project of American Buddha, an Oregon nonprofit corporation that makes available selected artistic and literary works under a system of voluntary, free online lending, under the fair use exclusion from copyright liability accorded to libraries and archives ..." Same here. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 01:15, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Yeah, looks like the site is run by a very small, fringe group. I wonder how they get away with using Ralph Nader's name? Cla68 (talk) 06:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
The NaderLibrary was associated with Wikipedia? News to me. Looks like this might be related to unsuccessful attempts to get Jim Hawkins (radio presenter) deleted. Kaldari (talk) 07:29, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Dutch Wikimedia editor survey results

This is a followup to an earlier suggestion here. The whole report (in English) is here.

  • There is a great willingness among the Dutch population to contribute to Wikimedia or Wikipedia. Contributions of one form or another, but whatever form that contribution might be varies according to the group mentality: "new conservatives" may be more interested in cultural heritage, while 'postmodern hedonists' more excited about new trends. What different groups require depends on the contribution that WMNL may expect of them. This should be further worked out into concrete recruitment activities.
  • There is a reasonable influx of new Wikipedia editors (100 per month). Recruitment Activities of WMNL should focus on increasing the diversity of editors (eg gendergap, age, minorities) and retention of new editors.
  • The atmosphere inside the editor community is not universally experienced as welcoming. Although WMNL does not deal directly with the Dutch Wikipedia project, it could develop activities that provide support to improve this atmosphere, eg offering training for moderators and coaches or give support to a "Tea House" for the Dutch Wikipedia community.
  • A number of tools that are in use on Wikipedia (bots) seem to assume 'bad faith' and presort many edit operations ny newcomers as vandalism when they are done. With the best intentions This does not contribute to a good working atmosphere and scares off new editors. In itself, this is beyond the scope of the WMNL association but possibly stimulate adjustments.
  • WMNL has little insight into the composition and background of the Dutch Wikipedia editor community. Facebook groups and social media can be better used to get / keep up with editors who are interested in contact.
  • The relative obscurity of WMNL among Wikipedia editors is of concern.
  • WMNL should offer Wikipedia editors the chance to register their contact details along with their interests and expertise on a voluntary basis. A similar survey of interests and expertise on a voluntary basis should be made available for the existing members of WMNL whose contact details are already known.
  • Recruitment of members and supporters of the association is relatively easier than recruitment of Wikipedia editors. It is suspected that signing up as a donor is easier for many people than it is to become a member. This option should be further developed.
  • A report about this meeting – with emphasis on the issues that relate to Wikipedia – should be published in the equivalent of the Village pump on the Dutch Wikipedia, known as "De Kroeg".

The above is a translated list of conclusions from a meeting by interested Dutch Wikimedians and the Motivaction survey report writers on May 4th 2013. Jane (talk) 12:43, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

The Most Controversial Topics in Wikipedia: A Multilingual and Geographical Analysis

InfoDocket (on Library Journal) has picked up this draft chapter. It's from a forthcoming book, Global Wikipedia: International and cross-cultural issues in online collaboration (expected 2014). The authors take a look at controversial topics and edit wars to form conclusions. From the authors' abstract: "We demonstrate that Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopaedia; it is also a window into divergent social-spatial priorities, interests and preferences." – kosboot (talk) 17:36, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

It'll be interesting to know how much of the book will deal with Wikipedia. – kosboot (talk) 19:05, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
According to the chapter, the 4th most controversial article on the English Wikipedia is LWWEe. WTF? Kaldari (talk) 04:57, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Gawker says List of WWE employees, which redirects to List of WWE personnel. Trivialist (talk) 00:20, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

A couple technical updates

The experimental Thanks extension was deployed to English Wikipedia on May 30. Also, as of May 30th, videos are now displayed in a modal viewer when you click on the thumbnail in an article. See Congenital insensitivity to pain for an example. Kaldari (talk) 00:54, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Distributing the Edit History of Wikipedia Infoboxes

Sometimes you can find interesting things just by searching "Wikipedia" on Twitter. The following sounds like it might have been covered before, but in case not: Google Research's blog post discusses how Google collaborated with Wikimedia Deutschland to analyze the history of Wikipedia articles in the hope that it will be useful in helping machines learn how to extract data from documents. – kosboot (talk) 01:58, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

How to organize your own Wikipedia edit-a-thon in CHE

Nice to see a positive article (by Adeline Koh) in the Chronicle of Higher Education (which has trashed WP in the past) on using edit-a-thons to address imbalances: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-to-organize-your-own-wikipedia-edit-a-thon/49757. – kosboot (talk) 02:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I suppose it was. Sir Rcsprinter, Bt (talk to me) @ 17:01, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
I could see where many Wikipedians could be defensive about this. After all, the article is talking about getting inexperienced people together to make mass edits, possibly for political reasons. It *almost* looks like some of those appeals that went out in the mass media trying to vote-stack some RfCs. But it is not really the same – it is bringing in new editors, who hopefully will stay with us. We might even call it "The edit-a-thon that anybody can organize." It might be a bit messy, but ultimately it's something we should encourage. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:18, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
I note the hostility (Rcsprinter123) and the skepticism (Smallbones). I think many of us might still be recovering from WP's heydey around 2007–2009 where it seemed like every article was being vandalized with an overload of toilet humor (often multiple times a day or hour). But those days are over and it's long past the time to let go of those memories and defensive attitudes. We need not use a sledgehammer if today an IP address makes an well-intentioned if erroneous edit. Perhaps that's what contributes most to the non-Wikipedians' perception of WP as a nasty place. "Good faith" is somewhere in those principles. – kosboot (talk) 20:15, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
Don't worry, I'm always skeptical, which is not incompatible with AGF. Keep up the good work. Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

1-year anniversary of IPv6 deployment on Wikimedia websites

Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of IPv6 deployment on Wikimedia, which to me would be something worth covering in the technology report.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:15, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Assigning Wikipedia editing: Triangulation toward understanding university student engagement

Assigning Wikipedia editing: Triangulation toward understanding university student engagement is an article in First Monday. It's a scholarly written and positive case-study of using WP in the classroom. – kosboot (talk) 23:04, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to piggyback and plug the Campus Ambassador program mentioned in the article. Fall Semester will start in a couple months. I think advertising WMF outreach could attract many Wikipedians who don't know how much good they could accomplish on their local college campus. Students with access to academic sources being mentored by professors and guided by Ambassadors (campus and online) could really improve the wiki. This essay shows that both students and professors felt more learning and engagement was had by bringing classwork to Wikipedia.
I enjoyed my past semester as an Ambassador and look forward to the Fall. I'd encourage everyone to get involved. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:52, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
Maybe you could write an article for the Signpost as well as for the Ambassador documentation. :) – kosboot (talk) 01:39, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit-a-thons simultaneously in several countries in several language versions of Wikipedia

Upcoming 29 June a group of several edit-a-thons will be held on 29 June in several countries in several language versions of Wikipedia about the subject of the World War I. This includes a multilingual edit-a-thon in Belgium. Another edit-a-thon is in Doorn, the Netherlands, both aiming on the Dutch Wikipedia and other language versions if multilingual users are present. Info at: meta:World War I edit-a-thons. Romaine (talk) 03:22, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Daily Dot on Commons

The Daily Dot just published a story by Kevin Morris on Pricasso's painting of Jimmy Wales, the WP editor who apparently made a quid-pro-quo arrangement for it, and the current Commons' crisis. I'm not allowed to link to the actual article. Cla68 (talk) 13:05, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

That's weird. Here's the link and the first few graphsDan Murphy (talk) 13:14, 25 June 2013 (UTC):
The other day, Australian artist Tim Patch slipped out of his hot pink speedo and slathered his flaccid penis in paint.
It was a pretty normal day in the studio for Patch, who goes by the stage name Pricasso. (Yes, that's Pricasso.) The sandy-haired Aussie has carved out a successful niche in the art world thanks to the versatility of his genitalia, which he uses to paint vivid portraits of celebrities, or anyone with the inclination and $200 Australian.
This day's painting was special, however. For one, the man commissioning the painting used never revealed his real name. And rather than pay money directly, he suggested a trade: I'm going to write a Wikipedia article about you, he said, and you penis-paint the face of Jimmy Wales, the cofounder of the largest and most influential encyclopedia in the world. The painting would then be added to the article.
"I was surprised that someone would do an article on me," Pricasso told me. "I thought what the hell—I'd do it."

Size in volumes

Up to 1799 so may make it to 1800 by time of publication. timing connects well with this scientific American article:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/overthinking-it/2013/06/27/when-the-last-of-us-are-left-how-long-would-it-take-to-transcribe-wikipedia/

Geni (talk) 16:42, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales Is Not an Internet Billionaire

Jimmy Wales Is Not an Internet Billionaire in the forthcoming New York Times Magazine is the best article on Jimbo, perhaps even on Wikipedia, that I've seen in a long time. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:43, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Great article. Sounds like a slam dunk for the lead story in this week's In the Media section. Unfortunately, I won't be around, as I would gladly do the writeup. Keilana and Andreas, this looks to me like a winner. Go Phightins! 00:01, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

NRHP at 50% news, for July 3 signpost

I'd like to request a news-type announcement, in the July 3 Signpost, of WikiProject NRHP achieving a major milestone of 50%. I think this news announcement could possibly be picked up by news coverage external to Wikipedia, from the Signpost article or otherwise, but this is currently a news announcement from me and the rest of the Wikiproject. This is akin to Signpost announcement in 2010 of the unsourced BLP project achievement of a major milestone, in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-05-24/News and notes#Unsourced BLP drive on track to clean up or remove 50,000 entries by year's end. The following is my first suggested draft; the [square brackets] indicate comments not meant to be included in the final article. It could use some fine-tuning of numbers as of July 2 or July 3. I would be happy for this to be edited. Let me know how I can help further, please. For posting to reach the wikiproject, please see/add to: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places#Half-way. I think this is an amazing achievement, and hope that this can be shared in the July 3 Signpost. The NRHP wikiproject has completed several major editing drives on July 4's: on July 4, 2008 completed covering all U.S. National Historic Landmarks; on July 4, 2009 completed "table-izing" the List of RHPs. --doncram 00:28, 1 July 2013 (UTC))

Something like (to be edited):

(begin suggested article)

Progress of NRHP articles, as of July 30, 2013. Dark red indicates full coverage. [Note, a hard-link to an unchanging graphic is needed; this linked graphic is the weekly-updating one.]
2012 WLM-winning pic of Cabin Creek Historic District in Washington state

WikiProject NRHP, which began in 2006, in the last week has just hit the half-way mark of creating articles describing every historic place listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Comprising 1.03% of all mainspace English Wikipedia articles, the articles indexed from List of RHPs cover historic houses, ships, historic districts, archeological sites and more. [ Calc: Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Progress: 44,170 / current en.wiki 4,270,307 = .01034 ] Its 44,170 articles now are top Google hits for most of the NRHP sites; the Wikiproject members are proud to bring details of local American history to the people in this way. 50% coverage prepares the project well for the 2013 Wiki Loves Monuments photo campaign. (In 2012, the WLM participant photo submissions brought NRHP list-articles over the 50% mark in terms of having photos; in 2013 more new photo submissions can go directly into articles containing significant coverage.) The 44,170 article achievement is the number of individual NRHP-listed sitenames developed as an individual article, or covered in a combination article; the WikiProject actually has 51,580 articles, counting multiple separate articles for "contributing properties" within historic districts, and counting other types of articles. Congratulations, and thanks to all of you who have contributed! (end of suggested article)

The unsourced BLP drive was, I think, much more newsworthy than progress in the rote creation of articles from rows of a database – a problem which is, alas, very widespread. bobrayner (talk) 00:52, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for commenting, although I disagree with your perspective. I think this is quite comparable in scope (about 30–50,000 UBLPs sourced or removed in that campaign vs. 44,000 NRHPs) and this is quite a positive achievement that fits with Wikimedia Foundation's promotion of the pretty-much-all-positive WLM. It would be nice if the Signpost could simply provide a positive mention about NRHP accomplishment, if only to counterbalance vs. some negativity as expressed here and implicit in Signpost coverage of arbitration involving myself (in which arbitration I asserted problems of others' following and negatively jabbing about creation of fully-sourced, fully-accepted NRHP articles, among other problems, not all accepted by the arbitrators, but these this things were discussed). The Signpost mention could even make that explicit: "Despite negative past coverage in Signpost of arbitration among NRHP members, ...", etc., altho I would prefer simple short positive coverage. --doncram 17:01, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I see that this item was covered in the In brief subsection of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-07-03/News_and_notes News and Notes page of the July 3, Signpost. Thanks! --doncram 16:40, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza corrected Wikipedia articles about mass killers

See The Courant, UK Daily Mail. "Using the same username [as the one authorities noted he posted on message boards under], the person also corrected details on 12 Wikipedia entries about mass shootings around the world." "A Wikipedia spokesman said the website could not identify the poster, citing privacy policies." Dcoetzee 14:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

There is enough information in the Courant article to identify the username. I won't out Lanza here but the Courant article is not quite accurate. He didn't edit 12 pages, he made a total of 12 edits to 7 articles and 1 talk page. GabrielF (talk) 15:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere. In the media there have been reports of user accounts used on various tech discussion sites by Adam Lanza. He was apparently quite an active person online, particularly a few years back when he was younger. It seems highly likely to me that he would have edited Wikipedia – most people who fit his profile (tech savvy, internet activist types) will have done so. Do we have any evidence of that, or suspicions about that? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I'm going to repeat what I said in one of the other discussions that has popped up over this: the risk is in misidentifying a user as having been Lanza, and that is not a risk we should be taking and would be considered a violation of WP:OUTING. So, no, don't engage in any specualtion on that point unless you want to see your edits disappear and your account blocked. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:53, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I don't see the logic in that at all. I'm not talking about outing – I'm talking about a public discussion of public facts. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:03, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
There are no facts, the press articles make it clear this is all purely speculative and they have no verification that it was actually Lanza. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:07, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
That's worthwhile information. It's good to know that people have looked and haven't found anything obvious. Even that little bit is helpful to know. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Ok, ok it took me a minute to get the joke here. I wasn't really watching that whole mess involving Jimbo. I'm gonna call WP:POINT here though. This is not a joke and it would not be funny to accuse an innocent person of being a child killer. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
For the benefit of those who missed it, my initial statement in this thread was how Jimbo began a discussion about possible editing by Edward Snowden on WP. I substituted "Adam Lanza" for "Edward Snowden, but it is otherwise a direct quote. My replies to Beeblebrox were also quotes from Jimbo, replying to similar questions about whether or not his questions were actively encouraging violations of WP:OUTING. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Good one, DC. The response from the WP administrator helped drive home your point even better. Cla68 (talk) 22:32, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
I have to say I find the way the supposed professional journalists behaved here alarming. They know we don't have any proof, just a suspiscion, the basis of which is not entirely clear, and yet apparently the NY Times is now outing the user over what, a dozen edits made three years ago? And their are referring to those few edits as an "obsession with changing those articles". But in any event the cat is well and truly out of the bag now so you can forget what I said before, although as a matter of policy it did apply at the time. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Why didn't you or another administrator block Jimbo when he encouraged WP editors to do the same thing, and then refused to retract it? Cla68 (talk) 22:40, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Block Jimbo? And pigs might fly write.. – Hillbillyholiday talk 22:48, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
Go a step further, Beeblebrox. Wikipedians are forever criticising the accuracy of press stories about Wikipedia. Jimbo has been bitterly criticising the recent New York Times Magazine profile of himself, listing numerous alleged errors on his talk page. So, what does that mean for the reliability of press sources in general? Does anyone really think the press is accurate about everything except Wikipedia? It doesn't make much sense, does it. But that is how the average Wikipedian, conditioned to worship "reliable sources", thinks and behaves. When a biography subject, company representative or member of some other organisation comes to a talk page and complains of press sources being inaccurate or biased, Wikipedians commonly reply – not infrequently somewhat smugly – something to the effect that "The New York Times is a reliable source in Wikipedia, and the information will stay in your article because it is verifiable. You, on the other hand, have a conflict of interest and are engaged in original research." So it seems that to the all-too-common black-and-white Wikipedian mind, press stories are indeed completely reliable except when they are about Wikipedia. If they are about Wikipedia, then the same publications are perceived as very often inaccurate and shoddily researched. Whose idea was it again to base an encyclopedia on ephemeral press articles? "What people outside do not appreciate is that a newspaper is like a soufflé, prepared in a hurry for immediate consumption. This of course is why whenever you read a newspaper account of some event of which you have personal knowledge it is nearly always inadequate or inaccurate." Andreas JN466 04:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
FYI this has now expanded to many more sources, including CBS News, Huffington Post, Daily Beast, New York Daily News, Salon, and Boing Boing; see Google News listing. The CBS story gives specific information about articles edited, which I won't quote here, and also gives this info:
Wikipedia says that the connection between Lanza and the alleged Wikipedia account appears to be speculative. When asked if the online encyclopedia would confirm the account's identity to law enforcement, head of communications at Wikimedia Foundation Jay Walsh told CBSNews.com via email: "We have no way to confirm that a username is associated with an individual. The username in question made 12 separate edits from 2009 to 2010. This is a small number of edits, and we would not consider this to be an active user."
Wikipedia users can edit entries anonymously, but the organization does log IP addresses. In this case, Walsh says that because the edits are "years old," the company no longer has a record of the IP address of the user account in question.
"Wikipedians are not required to disclose personal information (name, location, gender etc) to create an account and edit on our project, although many do disclose that information on their user pages. In this case that user has not disclosed any of that information," Walsh says.
Dcoetzee 03:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
A few comments: This is also being discussed at [2]. Also, User:Beeblebrox acknowledged on his talk page yesterday that things had progressed beyond the reach of the usual outing policy, so we're not really arguing that point any more. Even so, the press reports remain a little dicey, not because they're about a Wikipedia topic but because as you look up through those links above most of them include title text like "may" and "believed-to-be".
The oddest part of it all is that the account's largest overall edits were not, as the media focused on, the addition of technical details about guns, but the deletion of segments of text, and the largest of these was the deletion of what at the time was an unsourced version of reports about Jeremiah Neitz, who stood up to Larry Gene Ashbrook and, perhaps, convinced him to end his massacre.[3] We should give serious thought to the notion that the thing in the child, by its nature, could not help but help reveal to us the power of faith. Wnt (talk) 14:42, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:Update

The quarterly update to content policies is done. Volunteers to resume updates for deletion or enforcement policies would be most welcome. – Dank (push to talk) 00:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

To be totally reductionist about this, I would have thought that the main way to improve WP policies would be to just cut them back to the basics. They've gotten too complicated, every possible situation has to be discussed, and instruction creep has crept its way into the holy of holies. Thus I was pleasantly surprised when I checked the length of the policies that the project has worked on, and all of them have decreased since January 1 (mostly marginally) except for WP:V which has increased marginally. If this is indicative of the project's work, keep up the good work! Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

In the media: Jisc and Wikimedia UK appoint Ambassador

This story is about me, so I'm not a neutral source about it, but it seems worth including in a media round-up. Wikipedia contributors 'should be proud' – Times Higher Education. Here's Wikimedia UK's announcement of the same story. MartinPoulter (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

The Onion

July 4 lampooning by the Onion here: [4]. Many chuckles in this piece. The Interior (Talk) 15:45, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a classic, from 2006. the wub "?!" 20:49, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The Dos and Don'ts of Editing Wikipedia

See [5]. An attempt to help inform new editors in the wake of the VisualEditor rollout. Quite well-informed, appears to be written by an experienced Wikipedian. Dcoetzee 06:44, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

WMF's fundraiser changed

The foundation's fundraiser model changed from being an end-of-the-year drive to being spread out throughout the year. See m:FR2013 and Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Funding?. Cheers. 64.40.54.47 (talk) 02:50, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Russian SOPA

The Moscow Times has a story on how the new "Russian SOPA" law will affect the Russian Wikipedia and possibly limit access by Russians to all Wikipedias. My feeling is that some of this will be avoided as too drastic, but that the Russian government is looking, and will continue to look, for ways to control speech on Wikipedia since it is outside what used to be known as the Russian "unified information space." Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:40, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

It would be good to get the devs on this. According to the article, the Russian ISPs would be required to block IPs. Wikipedia is a huge institution that can get IPs easily. What we need is to hash all the articles in Wikipedia, in https mode, to a few hundred IPs. Make it so a user can search Wikipedia at any one of the IPs directly, but each article is reliably served from only one of the IPs. Modify the Wikipedia javascript so that if a site is blocked by an ISP, it sends a note of the blocked IP (not the article read!) back to a Wikipedia server. As soon as a lot of blocked notices come back from any one IP, you serve up all of its articles from a new IP, redirecting any searches for the topics covered by the previous IP to that new address. (better still, rehash the whole routing table so that each IP, except the blocked one, handles a whole new set of articles; that way you can trace which articles they're blocking, which may be important if they're not telling the truth about what they want to censor) Last but not least ... all the offices that can be identified as Russian censorship agents might get their very own special IP to censor to their hearts' content. ;) Probably the real devs can think of something much smarter than this ... the point is, DUMB censorship law doesn't have to thwart smart programmers, at least when they're out of reach of the offending agency. Wnt (talk) 20:26, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the notes here; we're planning on waiting a bit to see how this works out before devoting significant coverage in NAN to Russian Wikipedia reactions, etc. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:25, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Foreign Policy Magazine: The Most Interesting Opening Paragraph on Wikipedia

Foreign Policy Magazine's Passport blog highlights the article Adrian Carton de Wiart, asking the question Is this the Most Interesting Opening Paragraph Wikipedia Has Ever Published? GabrielF (talk) 20:26, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I'd expect that it's in the top ten – but I'm sure there must be others, perhaps Exploding whales?
Note that the linked story end "Readers, if you have a suggestion for a Wikipedia page that rivals this one, leave it in the comments." We could, of course, have our own contest. Smallbones(smalltalk) 22:06, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
By the response in Foreign Policy and Facebook, I'd say that such a question is an excellent outreach (and discovery) method. – kosboot (talk) 22:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
@ForeignPolicy tweeted the link to their blog article (per usual) reaching a pretty well-educated multilingual audience. That audience really ought to be editing Wikipedia if they're not already. Chris Troutman (talk) 17:20, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the notes, everyone. We'll get something into next week's edition! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:27, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Gizmodo and "The 10 Most Controversial Wikipedia Topics Around the World"

Apologies if you are already aware but I thought this story might be of interest. It relates to this study which appears to have employed an algorithm combining number of reverts and article importance across the ten most important Wikipedias to produce an all-time top ten list. Some of the items are somewhat historical-looking now (George W. Bush anyone? Who?) but most are unsurprising. Enjoy, and I apologise if I have misrepresented the study; I only skimmed it. --John (talk) 14:21, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

BBC News Online has also covered the story: "Topics that spark Wikipedia 'edit wars' revealed". Waltham, The Duke of 17:37, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

John Thomas Riedl (1962 – July 15, 2013)

Computer scientist and Wikipedia reseacher John T. Riedl died recently. See WMFblog:2013/07/18/researching-collaboration-better-world-john-riedl-1962-2013/ for more info. 64.40.54.131 (talk) 15:58, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

World War I centenary at DYK

Hi there, I thought it was worth while flagging up that the Did You Know? section has plans in the works for something to mark the centenary of the start of World War I on 28th July 2014. From the 28th July this year, editors will be able to nominate World War I themed hooks and once approved they'll be moved here: Wikipedia:World War I Centenary/DYK. We don't have firm plans for what we intend to precisely do with those hooks yet next year as it is entirely dependent on the number of hooks nominated and what types (i.e. we wouldn't want to have several sets comprising solely of Royal Navy minesweepers). We thought this would be a good way of encouraging article improvement in this area prior to the centenary since I think we can all expect such articles to have increased traffic at this time next year. Miyagawa (talk) 16:25, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Antarctica

Believe it!

At Commons:Commons:Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Antarctica

Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:20, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Monuments organising team recruiting paid contractor

The WLM team & Wikimedia Nederlands are recruiting a paid contractor to cover some of the technical work needed for the contest; applications close on 29 July (Monday) and the work will run for the three months August–October. Short notice, but perhaps worth mentioning this week if possible! Andrew Gray (talk) 19:21, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh damn, I saw this last week and forgot to include it. My apologies, Andrew. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

International Society for Computational Biology Wikipedia contest

Just announced – the International Society for Computational Biology's Wikipedia contest. It'll start on 9 September and run until early January, with prizes awarded for best article as judged by a panel (including our own Daniel Mietchen). They're emphasising improvement of existing content rather than solely creating new articles, which is a good sign. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:35, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

We'll note (or feature!) this when it begins. Thanks, Andrew. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Writing Women Back Into History

In the ongoing saga about silent discrimation of women on WP, there's a nice blog post about The Dinner Party Wikipedia project by a staff member of the Brooklyn Museum. She points out that some of WP's policies can be construed as subtly sexist (a point I agree with). – kosboot (talk) 20:50, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

This is related to List of women in the Heritage Floor. Kaldari (talk) 21:51, 23 July 2013 (UTC)
I can't see that "She points out that some of WP's policies can be construed as subtly sexist" at all. Which ones? Her problems, as described, relate more to the treatment of her subjects in general academic sources, especially in the past. Johnbod (talk) 16:14, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
At least among those who follow the issue of women on WP, the notability issues has come up several (numerous?) times. Perhaps the most widely known issue was the article on Duchess Kate's dress which would have gotten deleted had not Jimbo personally stepped in and practically scolded Wikpedians for wanting to do so (I think the controversy was covered in the Signpost). In other words, strict adherence to the current notability policy tends to exclude issues which are of importance to women (which is what the blog post says). – kosboot (talk) 17:23, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Well it doesn't really, and you pick a very poor example. No one can accuse the dress of lacking coverage, and while we have a large Category:Individual dresses (started by myself 2 years ago as it happens) there is no equivalent category for individual male garments, and indeed Michael Jackson's Thriller jacket seems to be the only modern male garment with an article, against dozens of female ones. Johnbod (talk) 18:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
Johnbod: Noted & acknowledged; meanwhile, the Guardian has a high-profile article about women in WP in preparation for upcoming edit-a-thons: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/occams-corner/2013/jul/25/wikipedia-next-generation-women-scientists?CMP=twt_gu – kosboot (talk) 00:13, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Recent rise in disambiguation links.

Up until July 4, the disambiguation project was making steady progress in combating disambiguation links, reaching an all-time low of only 62,419 disambiguation pages with incoming links. Since then, the number of disambiguation pages with incoming links has increased at a fairly high rate, reaching 63,859 on July 24, an increase of 1,440 in less than three weeks. The disambiguation project would like to remind all editors to be careful in making links for terms with multiple meanings, which could potentially point to an unintended target. Of course, any help in fixing existing links to disambiguation pages would be appreciated. Cheers! bd2412 T 15:07, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Note: As of August 1, 2013, the number of disambiguation pages with incoming links 64,372, an increase of nearly 2,000 in less than a month. bd2412 T 14:27, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. 3 points:

Could be an interesting Signpost article! --Atlasowa (talk) 15:59, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

  • I would be glad to work on this. We have complete day-by-day statistics going back over three years (with a few minor gaps) for the number of disambiguation pages with incoming links. The Village Pump discussion raised some theories as to the cause of the recent rise, but I don't know if we have the data to say which of these is the most likely culprit. bd2412 T 16:43, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
    • If you can narrow down the theories to a few, you could always write an analysis of the problem for a Signpost op-ed or a "Dispatch", given the latter's new focus on content issues, not just featured content. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:05, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
      • Ok, I'll tackle this on Sunday. bd2412 T 03:34, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
        • I have not been able to get to this yet, but the problem persists. As of August 6, the number of disambiguation pages with incoming links has risen to 64,495, representing an average increase of about 60 pages with incoming links per day since this trend began on July 4. According to the category's counter, there are now a total of 233,036, so (per the discussion cited above) the number of disambiguation pages has only gone up by a few hundred while the number of disambiguation pages with links has gone up by thousands. Not all new disambiguation pages will have incoming links (and many will be at "Foo (disambiguation)" titles, for which direct incoming links are not counted), so this eliminates newly created or newly tagged disambiguation pages as the prime culprit, although it may be a contributing factor. Possible causes include VisualEditor making it easier to generate errant links; disambiguator fatigue; or just a bump in carelessness in editing. bd2412 T 14:18, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
          • Just a note: the rise continues, unabated. There are now 64,667 disambiguation pages with incoming links. bd2412 T 19:31, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Museum Welcomes Wikipedia Editors

A nice article in the NY Times about the latest Smithsonian edit-a-thon: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/arts/design/museum-welcomes-wikipedia-editors.html?_r=1&. I particularly like the brief profiles showing the variety of WP editors. --kosboot (talk) 17:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, included in NAN this week! Ed [talk] [majestic titan]

WMF Legal featured on EFF blog

A little niche, but https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/cda-230-success-cases-wikipedia (quite newbie-friendly) – Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 20:56, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Added in NAN's IBs this week. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor back to opt-in only in nl-WP and de-WP after vote

A short note from non-english Wikipedia: The community of German Wikipedia editors just rejected the general introduction of the VisualEditor due on July 29. They voted overhelmingly in favor of a roll-back to an opt-in only. Results were 452 for opt-in only to 76 for all other options combined. The WMF complied. This was preceded by a similar vote and roll-back in nl-WP.-----<)kmk(>---(talk) 06:18, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Noted in this week's "News and notes", under "in brief". Thank you! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikistalker

No, it's not that kind of stalker. From a digital humanist comes Wikistalker, a visualization of semantic relevance between hyperlinked Wikipedia articles http://sepans.com/wikistalker/ I note one of the creators of this website is something called "Wikipedia Miner" – "a toolkit for tapping the rich semantics encoded within Wikipedia." http://wikipedia-miner.cms.waikato.ac.nz/ Almost makes me think that the Signpost should have an ongoing "Tech" column beyond the "in brief" section. – kosboot (talk) 11:55, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

If you have the expertise to write a tech report, or know someone who does, please get in contact/get them in contact with me. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

In the media: Suggestion

Here is the link of The Times of India stating about growth of indic language wikipedias. Please cover it in the signpost.

  • Wikipedia boom in Marathi and other desi languages

toi Regards- Nizil (talk) 08:29, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, we'll note it in "In the media" next week. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:31, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia mentioned in slow loris research/conservation article

A collaborative Wikipedia project that worked with leading slow loris researchers to create multiple FAs and GAs while also informing the public about the illegal pet trade has just received some mention in a peer-reviewed academic journal article:

  • Nekaris, K.A.I.; Campbell, N.; Coggins, T.G.; Rode, E.J.; Nijman, V. (2013). "Tickled to Death: Analysing Public Perceptions of 'Cute' Videos of Threatened Species (Slow Lorises – Nycticebus spp.) on Web 2.0 Sites". PLOS ONE. 8 (7): e69215. Bibcode:2013PLoSO...869215N. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0069215. PMC 3722300. PMID 23894432.

The article specifically mentions the article Conservation of slow lorises, a featured article I wrote when I realized there was too much information for the general Slow loris article. Its publication happened to coincide almost exactly with the release of a second viral video on YouTube, and helped shift public opinion about the video. This is briefly discussed in the article, and the "A. Dunkel" mentioned by Nekaris et al. is me.

Over the years, I have worked really hard to reach out to primate researchers in order to present their field and research in the most accurate and professional manner on Wikipedia. Even though this article only makes brief mentions of Wikipedia and its impact, I think it's a great story about how Wikipedia editors can collaborate with experts so that Wikis content can help inform the general public, especially in this age of misinformation. I've offered to give talks about it at Wiki conferences before, but never won the contests for free travel, admission, and accommodation, which I would need. Too bad... Anyway, please share this if you think this is important. – Maky « talk » 17:57, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

50,000 NRHP sites illustrate (early this week)

By the time you publish on Friday, WP:NRHP (and friends) will almost certainly have passed the 50,000 mark for sites illustrated in Wikipedia. (We were at 49,912 yesterday and moving up at about 50 per day). The 50,000 sites will be just 56.8% of the 88,058 total sites, but this is up from about 43% at this time last year. We'll almost certainly never get to 100%, since they keep adding sites and some sites have been completely demolished or are on strictly guarded military bases or private property, or are way out in the boonies. In fact there are sites that are way, way out in the boonies on strictly guarded military bases! Wiki Loves Monuments last year added about 6% of the total in the month of September and we look forward to a similar amount this year. There are several individual photographers who have each added over 1,000 site illustrations. I'll get in trouble if I leave anybody out, so I'll just mention one – User:KLOTZ (on Commons only) has been taking photos for over 60 years, uploaded his first photo last year in the middle of WLM (just a few) and has added about 1,000 NRHP sites since as well as about another 1,000 photos of historical sites outside the US.

Keep on truckin'

Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:39, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

User:Arctic Kangaroo

The above user has been banned from Commons and en.wp on grounds of competency. User requested deletion of CC-licensed files they had uploaded to Commons, claiming they were underage, didn't understand the release they granted and wanted to take it back. Deletion was denied because the files were in use and CC licences are irrevocable. User proceeded to vandalise Commons to try and delete them and was subsequently blocked. The discussion then shifted to en.wp (and UT:JIMBO) where the argument became whether minors can be allowed on the site at all, on the grounds that if they can revoke licences, or are not legally competent to release under CC in the first place, they could not contribute in any manner to a project whose ever edit is CC-licensed. Following a WP:ANI discussion (which featured many people calling for Arctic Kangaroo to be banned on the grounds that there was no substantive difference between text and media contributions, and that if AK could revoke one he could not be trusted) AK was blocked as lacking competency (AK asked for en.wp authorities to revoke the licences of his uploads).

All in all a big fracas which brings into question the future of children on this project. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:10, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

OSM 9th birthday

Yesterday was the 9th birthday of OpenStreetMap, the anyone-can-edit map of the planet. There's a short post about it on the OpenStreetMap US blog, and a tweet from OSMScotland.

OpenStreetMap is quite interesting in as much as the community seems to have been able to make quite a number of significant changes without nearly the same amount of Luddismvehement reaction as there often is on Wikipedia. This year, for instance, there has been the finalization of a new rendering platform that uses CartoCSS (which lets the rendering and design of the map be described declaratively in a stylesheet much like CSS for webpages), the introduction of a new in-browser visual editor (the iD editor), and changes to the visual interface of the site. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:28, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

50,000 NRHP pics milestone

Suggestion for the News in brief section:

WikiProject NRHP has passed a 50,000 photos milestone, by members recently uploading photos bringing its total number of illustrated sites over that level.

Note: This is out of 88,066 National Register of Historic Places-listed sites, now 50,036 being illustrated, per this "progress" status report. Some sites are marked with "Address restricted" where a placeholder image indicating no photo is needed, and these are included within the 50,000 total, so technically the number of uniquely illustrated sites is slightly less. But, many sites have multiple photos, even dozens of photos in corresponding commons categories, so there are in fact many more than 50,000 photos cumulatively uploaded. And many Wikipedia Loves Monuments participants and many others who are not wp:NRHP members have contributed. But it was a recent focus of discussion and a stir of some activity by members, at wt:NRHP#50,000 sites illustrated in a week or so! that brought it over 50k. Hope this can be mentioned somehow, as it is quite an accomplishment overall. :) --doncram 20:48, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

They got it in last week, maybe even a day early. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:30, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
We aim to please. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 22:03, 13 August 2013 (UTC)
OIC. Thanks! --doncram 23:50, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Open Education Resources India

The Hon’ble Minister of State for Human Resources Development of India, Shashi Tharoor, took suggestions from several bodies including the Wikimedia Chapter in India to make use of a Creative Commons license without the restrictive "non-commercial use only" clause when launching the National Repository of Open Education Resources (NROER). http://tharoor.in/speeches/launch-of-national-repository-of-open-education-resources-nroer/ This is very significant as works of government in India carry, by default, a 60 year copyright term without provisions like 17 USC § 105 of the United States of America. Shyamal (talk) 03:56, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Yay Ops

https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=52826 may be of interest. :-) Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 13:31, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion, August 9th news

4000th FA

See Wikipedia_talk:Featured_articles#4000th_FA.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 15:21, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Royal Ontario Museum edit-a-thon

The Toronto Star is reporting that the ROM will hold an edit-a-thon on August 16. WP project details are at Wikipedia:ROM E-Volunteer Edit-a-thon Meetup. Perhaps the newspaper will publish a post-event story. Mindmatrix 18:36, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Russavia and a discussion/new procedure at commons:Commons:Bureaucrats/Requests/Russavia_(de-Bureaucrat)

This de-Bureaucrat procedure may be especially interesting, because apparently it has never been done before. Smallbones(smalltalk) 15:10, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

"Storming Wikipedia"

"Can These Students Fix Wikipedia's Lady Problem?" – "Storming Wikipedia," a project of the feminist organization FemTechNet and an assignment given to students participating in FemTechNet's new online course. – John Broughton (♫♫) 19:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

  • Seems like a pretty good idea actually, but why did they choose to call it that? "Storming" in this context implies an assault on a fortified position, which is hardly an appropriate approach to joining a community that would actually welcome their participation and is actively seeking more diversity. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
it doesn't sound like you've edited much at articles about gender studies, race issues, or anything "intersectional". personally, i can understand why they call it that. i could point you in the direction of other editors who can corroborate that impression, if that were an interest. – [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 06:14, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Slate article on Chelsea Manning

Wikipedia Beats Major News Organizations, Perfectly Reflects Chelsea Manning’s New Gender. Dcoetzee 00:23, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

  • "With remarkably little controversy." Wonder what Slate deems controversy? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:37, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Ideally, this encyclopædia is like a swan; people looking at the swan see a graceful, serene creature gliding across the surface of the water – without realising that it's powered by those ugly wrinkly black legs flailing back and forth under the water (ie. other namespaces). The on-wiki drama around that article should be almost invisible to the typical reader. bobrayner (talk) 02:11, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Journalists are usually quite adept at looking at the other namespaces (check out the number of AFDs that get cited in the press). As such, I think this journalist may have been POV pushing by sidesweeping the controversy. That being said, I don't want to get embroiled in any aspect of this controversy so I'll stop here. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:16, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
  • I would love to live in the world you live in Crisco. For mainstream journalism (read, not small tech blogs), the media proves itself inept at understanding Wikipedia. It fails to differentiate page editors with an editorial board (still), it fails to understand that Jimbo's public statements are not those of Wikipedia, it doesn't understand the way our subsystems (categorization, FA promotion, etc.) work, it fails to understand the relationship between talk pages and content, and it cannot seem to figure out how to cite Commons images. That being said, I don't also want to get embroiled in any aspect of this controversy so I'll stop here. Sven Manguard Wha? 16:04, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Regarding awareness of the surrounding conflict, see the paragraph beginning "Remarkably, whatever editorial dispute these changes of wrought has been self-contained and ineffectual [...]" and the accompanying footnote. Dcoetzee 03:03, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
  • In fairness, the situation was um, developing rapidly. Morwen (talk) 11:16, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

More new sources:

Dcoetzee 02:41, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Also, courtesy of my newly installed Google News alerts:

  • HVG, a Hungarian weekly magazine [9]
  • El Comercio, an Ecuadorian daily [10]

I've not been contacted by anyone else from the press, for what it's worth, so it looks like it might be dying down. Morwen (talk) 11:16, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Medical WIR and New Library portal

  • The Wikipedia Library, an open research hub to organize our collective library efforts, was redesigned. Its major goals are to improve access to local libraries, free resources, and paywalled sources while building community relationships with libraries and institutions, facilitating research on Wikipedia, and advancing open access broadly. Editors can create a personal profile, pick a role, and get involved.

--Ocaasi t | c 13:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Ocaasi, added to this week's reports with a few changes. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikimedia & Outreach Program for Women coverage

Karen Sandler, speaking about OPW, mentions Wikimedia's participation a few times. Sumana Harihareswara, Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Manager (talk) 16:00, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Image donation and milestone

As part of a recent editing workshop (August 28) in the National Library of Israel, the library donated about 100 images to Commons related to Operation Horev, which can be found here.

On the same day (AFAIK) the Hebrew Wikipedia reached 150,000 articles.

—Ynhockey (Talk) 15:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikitube

Chrome extension adding relevant YouTube videos to WP articles: Wikitube adds YouTube videos to Wikipedia articles. Dcoetzee 06:53, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

philly.com does local feature on User:Dthomsen8

Ref Philadelphian is a king of Wikipedia editors. Dcoetzee 12:16, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions, September 3

– John Broughton (♫♫) 19:20, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

No.2, "The Wikipediafication of Fine Art" is wierd, but has a flattering quote at the end. Johnbod (talk) 01:15, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Jobs

I promised Ed I'd compile this list, and then I got sidetracked last week. Here's a quick rundown of the bits of the WM movement that I know are hiring, & which it seems enwiki users might be interested in (WMDE have a few job openings, but I'm guessing German-speaking is expected!). Andrew Gray (talk) 22:38, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

  • York Museums Trust (in the UK) is looking for a Wikipedian in Residence -details (6 months, 2 days/week).
  • The WMF are currently looking for software engineers for languages, fundraising, multimedia, and editor-engagement (all SF or remote worldwide), plus a handful of other development/ops/fundraising posts. Most interestingly, they're looking for a legal intern for next spring. Some of the past interns have done quite useful work on community-raised questions, IIRC, & it would be a great opportunity for a Wikipedian law student.
  • They are also looking for an Executive Director, but I think we all knew that ;-)
  • Finally, one non-Wikimedia one – but it overlaps a lot with our outreach projects – the OKFN are looking for an OpenGLAM Community Manager (worldwide, closes 16/9)
Thanks Andrew, included in this week's NAN, with a byline too ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:21, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks. Fame and fortune ;-). Andrew Gray (talk) 20:53, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

StackExchange proposed site about Wikipedia

The folks over at StackExchange have proposed a new site. The new site includes Wikipedia and other wikis in its scope, along with the MediaWiki language in general. I cleared this with some experienced editors, who said it isn't LINKSPAM: Area 51:Wikis APerson (talk!) 20:15, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

IEG open call

7 new committee members (mostly long time, active Wikipedians) were announced on Sept 6th and there is an open call for Individual Engagement Grant proposals that ends Sept 30. Some more background on the past round of IEG projects is in a post on the WMF blog. Siko (WMF) (talk) 18:31, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Jobs, week of 9/9

Recent jobs, week of 9th September Andrew Gray (talk) 18:15, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

WMF posts
Elsewhere

Lifehacker article on specific month articles

See Wikipedia's Date View Keeps You Caught Up On Current Events. Dcoetzee 01:41, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Fox News on personal image filter referendum

Fox has published yet another story about Wikipedia's supposed pornography problem, regarding the conclusion of the personal image filter referendum, which was highlighted in the September 5th Signpost News & Notes. Dcoetzee 03:37, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes. The 5 September 2011 "News and notes". ;-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:15, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Whoops, I didn't even notice that. :-) Talk about a belated response. Dcoetzee 06:45, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Jobs, week of 16/9

One new this week – Intern for Wikimedia UK, three-month paid position supporting the organisation work for Wikimania 2014 in London. Andrew Gray (talk) 22:39, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Compass Report Follow-Up

In February 2013, the Compass report was issued examining the relationship between WikiMediaUK and WMF (Signpost 2-11-2013). But I searched the Signpost archives and could find no further mention of WMUK over the past 7 months. Was there any follow-up to see if recommendations were implemented? Were there changes at WMUK to address the problems highlighted in the report?

I realize that this might require more investigative reporting than is typical for a Signpost article but we're coming up on the anniversary of the WMUK scandals and I'm sure Editors are curious to know if the problems that led to those scandals were addressed. At the least, maybe a statement from WMUK and WMF on the state of implementing the Compass report recommendations would be warranted. Thanks for hearing my suggestion. Liz Read! Talk! 00:22, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is at least close to what you were looking for? :-) We haven't done a dedicated follow-up yet, no. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:14, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
The last thing the Compass report was doing was "examining the relationship between Wikimedia UK and WMF", a subject they completely avoided as a general question, and which was not in their brief. There is ample information and discussion on the WMUK website, though it may not be very well signalled there. Several changes have been made to the constitution to implement the recommendations – see in particular April 2013 EGM resolutions and 2013 EGM minutes. Johnbod (talk) 11:11, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, Ed, I don't know why that news item didn't appear when I searched for WMUK. I appreciate the information, Johnbod. As for the goals of the Compass report, I based my opinion on reading articles, both on Signpost and off-wiki, but I'll admit that I haven't read the whole report yet. I guess that's next on my "To do" list before I make further comments. Thanks for the replies! Liz Read! Talk! 12:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Musopen Kickstarter – plans to contribute notes to Wikipedia

I recently ran across this Kickstarter proposing to record Chopin's works with a professional orchestra and release them under CC0. Besides having a lot in common with our mission and principles, according to the FAQ at the bottom:

We've located several very talented authors who write liner notes for CDs and concerts for major orchestras. We will hire them to write notes for every piece we record, and contribute this content to Wikipedia so that it can be used by others.

Dcoetzee 23:28, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Excellent news. Who's writing N&N this week? --Pine✉ 06:39, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

WikiArS offers to create illustrations

In addition to the Graphics Lab, Wikipedians can submit requests for illustrations to WikiArS at outreach:WikiArS/assignments. WikiArS was funded by IEG. Full disclosure: I'm a member of IEGCom. --Pine✉ 06:42, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

What are "IEG" and "IEGCom"? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:13, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The Radical Passion Economy of Wikipedia: An Interview with Anasuya Sengupta

Anasuya Sengupta is the new senior director of grantmaking at the Wikimedia Foundation. From Non-Profit Quarterly: [11]. Dcoetzee 00:41, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Dcoetzee. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Your first article, simple

I created Wikipedia:Your first article simple (WP:YFAS) out of dismay at how long WP:YFA was. Can it be mentioned in brief in the news and notes? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:08, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Added, thanks! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Jobs, week of 23/9

Newly announced job openings:

Andrew Gray (talk) 19:16, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, as always, Andrew. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

VE brouhaha

Sigh. It seems to me that has the potential to turn into something like a bad divorce, and I won't say any more than that, I don't want to take sides or get too beansy. I'd like to help report on this and sort things out ... my focus would be that some WMFers and many WPians are convinced that they're "not being heard", and all the discussions are getting sidetracked before any progress is made on that central, and potentially quite divisive, issue. I'd like to try to get a more focused conversation going and start reporting on progress on that conversation in the Signpost. Anyone else interested? Any other perspectives? – Dank (push to talk) 18:59, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

On the off chance you didn't see it yet, Dan, you have an email. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:08, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Ed. No response here, and my inquiries aren't making me hopeful that people want to devote more time to this ... maybe in a month or two. – Dank (push to talk) 12:44, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions/Archive_21&oldid=1187777657"