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21 February 2011

News and notes
Gender gap and sexual images; India consultant; brief news

In the news
Egyptian revolution and Wikimania 2008; Jimmy Wales' move to the UK, Africa and systemic bias; brief news

Versailles
Six-month residence in the Palace of Versailles for a Wikimedian

WikiProject report
More than numbers: WikiProject Mathematics

Features and admins
The best of the week

Arbitration report
Longevity and Shakespeare cases close; what do these decisions tell us?

Technology report
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

2011-02-21

Gender gap and sexual images; India consultant; brief news

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By Jean-Frédéric and Tilman Bayer

Gender-gap conversation links with sexual images controversy

Collage currently illustrating Women on Wikipedia Month

The "gender gap" discussion about the low rates of participation of women in Wikipedia continued last week, and extended to overlap with another much-debated topic where the Wikimedia Foundation has been pondering changes: controversial content (sexual images).

On 17 February 2011, the Foundation's Executive Director, Sue Gardner posted "a quick note recapping the basics about Wikipedia's gender gap and Wikimedia's response to it." She recalled the widespread media coverage that was triggered by a January 31 New York Times front-page article on the issue (cf. Signpost coverage), and revealed that the Foundation had actively sought it out, based on the insight that the gender-gap problem is complicated because "solutions don’t lie entirely within the Wikipedia editorial community, because important voices are missing there. We knew we would need to bring in voices from outside, and support them in making themselves heard."

In 2009, after the presentation of the UNU-MERIT study (whose estimate that only around 13% of Wikipedians are female also formed the basis of the recent debates), Noam Cohen, the author of the recent NYT article, had already written about the same topic (cf. Signpost coverage: "Wikipedia's changing culture, and gender statistics"). Indicating an explanation for how the same topic made it to the paper's front page, Sue Gardner recounted how last month she and Moka Pantages (the Foundation's Global Communications Manager) had "used the occasion of Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary to have an off-the-record lunch with New York Times staff", talking with them about Wikipedia's gender gap. Summarizing the state two and a half weeks later, she said: "[w]e've leveraged Wikipedia's visibility to develop public awareness of the gender gap, resulting in a flurry of decentralized activity in expected and unexpected forums, brainstorming potential solutions".

For example, on 17 February 2011, a list participant announced that she had started the website Women4Wikipedia.net, aiming "to organise Womens Wikipedia Hackfests between now and International Womens Day (8 March)" and is hosting weekly chat sessions on the topic. A Facebook group has been started as well. Since its inception on February 1, the "Gendergap" mailing list has reached over 600 postings at the time of writing. The gender gap page on Meta collects material on the topic.

Two days later, Gardner listed "Nine reasons women don't edit Wikipedia (in their own words)" on her personal blog, based on an extensive reading of online conversations generated by the NYT article. It mostly quoted comments made outside Wikimedia sites, with an exception being reason 7 – "Some women find Wikipedia culture to be sexual in ways they find off-putting". There, Gardner listed some answers to a question that was posed on the Gendergap list by George Herbert and herself to women editors: whether they had "come across explicit material on the Wikimedia projects that...[they found] offensive, degrading or discouraging". This was triggered by a current debate on the English Wikipedia about an essay by Herostratus.

The essay (in its current version) argues that "Wikipedia should not include images from hardcore pornography", and has been cited with regard to the article bukkake. After conflicts with users who disagreed with that view, it was userfied, but this decision was overturned by Jimmy Wales. Gendergap list members chimed in, such as Wikipedia researcher Joseph Reagle, who – somehow reminiscent of Gardner's "bring in voices from outside" – asked: "Is this the sort of thing that would benefit from public pillory? For example, a posting on Geek Feminism blog or elsewhere?"

Last November, Gardner herself had already touched on that topic in a blog post (cf. Signpost coverage: "Controversial content and Wikimedia leadership"), where she noted that "we’re the only major site that doesn’t treat controversial material – e.g., sexually-explicit imagery, violent imagery, culturally offensive imagery – differently from everything else", and that the Board of Trustees had aimed "to probe into whether that was helping or hurting our effectiveness at fulfilling our mission" at its October 2010 meeting. On that occasion, the 2010 Wikimedia Study of Controversial Content was presented, commissioned by the Foundation after widespread debates over the deletion of sexual images. It had been expected that the Board would adopt its recommendations immediately, but about half of them proved controversial (cf. last week's Signpost coverage), and a working group was formed instead. On Sunday, an update on the group's progress was posted by one of its members, Trustee Phoebe Ayers (Phoebe). She reported that she had asked the Wikimedia Tech Department about possible specifications to implement the study's recommendations for features that would enable users to block content they find offensive, for themselves only. However, no actual development of such features would commence without a request from the Board. Two of the original group members, Jan-Bart de Vreede and Kat Walsh, had stepped down and were replaced by Matt Halprin, Jimmy Wales and Bishakha Datta. Phoebe said "the board does not yet have a formal position on this whole issue".

Foundation appoints "consultant for National Programs" in India, following search for National Program Director

The Wikimedia Foundation has appointed a "consultant for National Programs, India", whose role will be "to design and implement specific pilot programs that encourage many more Indians to become contributors to our projects in Indic languages as well as English." The new position is being filled by Hisham Mundol, who worked on "large-scale national programs on HIV/AIDS prevention" when he was a consultant for the Public Health Foundation of India. As Hisham Mundol said in his first IRC office hours, he speaks Hindi, Malayalam and English, and is currently based in Delhi.

The announcement by the Wikimedia Foundation's Chief Global Development Officer, Barry Newstead, explained that Mundol is "a newcomer to the Wikimedia movement [who] will be spending the coming weeks (not months!) in learning mode". In an FAQ on the new position, it was explained that among the 179 applications, there were only seven from active Wikimedians, who do not have the required experience.

The Foundation had not been advertising a job opening for a consultant for National Programs. Instead, the job opening in last August was for a "National Program Director, India", who would have been "the Wikimedia Foundation's chief representative in India". Newstead did not mention the previous job title or explain the modifications, except to note in the FAQ that the new position was as consultant rather than a staffer, partly because "we want to keep our options open in regards to the potential structure of future Wikimedia Foundation operations in India". It is likely that concerns about such a director's exposure to legal liability for Wikimedia content may have played a role. Asked in the IRC office hour about "the strategy we have for dealing with legal issues in India", Newstead emphasized that the Indian chapter and "Hisham, who is an independent contractor, have NO control over Wikimedia content as organizations." Discussing such concerns further, he advised the Indian chapter to get a good legal counsel, and align with organizations like the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), which might be inclined to support Wikipedia.

Briefly

Upload of Nordic Museum image donation resumes: In November 2010, Wikimedia Sverige and the Nordic Museum (Nordiska museet) announced a long-term partnership, including a multimedia donation of 1000 images. Several hundred images were uploaded right away by the Museum. Per common practice, the upload was stalled and a discussion ensued about the batch upload, focusing on the extensive metadata provided by the Museum. Prolineserver, who undertook this work, has now finished and has provided a test upload of 50 images; this is open for feedback and improvements.
Google Art Project upload: Dcoetzee, who started to extract high-resolution reproductions of artworks from the Google Art Project two weeks ago (cf. Signpost coverage), has announced on Commons Village Pump that the upload is complete. He added that certain files were deleted or not uploaded because they were specifically identified as files which are not yet in the public domain. The upload comprises more than 850 files, and he has called for help in categorising and disseminating to projects. In distantly related news, the German Wikimedia chapter's monthly report for January mentions that Harriet Bridgeman, whose surname is well-known from the losing party in Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (the US court case on which Dcoetzee's uploads and the use of countless other artwork reproductions on Wikimedia projects rely), has been visiting Wikimedia GLAM events. She is in contact with Wikimedia Deutschland's Mathias Schindler about possible collaborations – "despite differing views about some questions of copyright" – where the chapter is aiming for the release of digital reproductions of public domain works.
Visualization of the revision history of the Michael Jackson article on the Swedish Wikipedia by the "mwhistory" tool
Swedish chapter reports: Wikimedia Sverige has published brief monthly reports for November and December 2010. Among the topics is a blog post (in Swedish) presenting "mwhistory", a tool to visualize article histories on the Swedish Wikipedia, representing each revision by a vertical line and distinguishing the amount of text contributed by each author with different colors (similar to the "history flow" software developed around 2002–03 by IBM researchers).
Rich-text editing and newbies as top priorities: The draft of a "Product Whitepaper for the Wikimedia Foundation on the Strategy wiki was completed by priority recommendations last week, sorting possible "product-focused" development efforts by the WMF into four categories of differing priority ("Great Movement Projects", "Strategic Opportunities", "Frontier Projects", and "Red Links"). For the top category, it nominated the development of a rich-text editing interface, and improvement of "the −1 to 100 edit experience" (which might include "welcoming strategies, user account creation as a key vector mentoring programs, changes to policies, procedures and implementations"). In related news, the Outreach team's "Account Creation Improvement Project" announced that it is starting to test different versions of the "landing page" that greets newbies after they create their account.
WMF mid-year financial report: A PDF file containing the Wikimedia Foundation's mid-year financial report for July to December 2010 has been uploaded.

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2011-02-21

Egyptian revolution and Wikimania 2008; Jimmy Wales' move to the UK; Africa and systemic bias; brief news

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By Tilman Bayer

Did Wikimania 2008 foreshadow the Egyptian revolution?

The current media debates about the role of digital communication technologies in the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 focus mostly on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but Wikipedia was mentioned a few times as well. As already noted last week, activist Wael Ghonim made headlines by saying "Our revolution is like Wikipedia... Everyone is contributing content, [but] you don't know the names of the people contributing the content. This is exactly what happened".

In an article about the role of the Internet for the protesters on the New York Times' "Link by Link" blog ("Egyptians Were Unplugged, and Uncowed"), Noam Cohen drew from, among other things, impressions and contacts made at Wikimania 2008:

“

This comfort with a relatively free-flowing Internet was on display in 2008, when Wikipedia's annual convention was held in Alexandria, at the new high-tech library built near where the legendary Library of Alexandria had been.

Filled with much of Egypt's technical class, which included many women, the gathering was billed as an effort to bolster Arabic Wikipedia. The relatively low number of articles didn't accurately reflect the importance of technology in the Arab world, the thinking went. Many Egyptians had an active, even bustling, Facebook presence, and attempts were made to organize protests at the site on behalf of bloggers who had been persecuted by the government.

”

Trying to draw a direct line to the recent events where the government had shut down the entire Egyptian Internet to quell the protests, Cohen quoted Moushira Elamrawy, "an advocate for free culture and free software in Alexandria" nowadays working for the Wikimedia Foundation (where she recently became "Chapter Relations Manager", see Signpost coverage; in fact she received the news about Mubarak's resignation during her first IRC office hour). She "remembered the conference as a chance for the budding techie community in Egypt to meet in person. Two years later, the Internet shutdown showed the need for an independent community of technical experts to protect Egyptians' connection to the world. The day the Internet was shut off represented a point of no return, Ms. Elamrawy said. 'It was definitely one of the most provoking things. We felt abandoned – completely isolated from the world.'"

In his 2008 coverage of the event, Cohen had observed that "In Egypt, Wikipedia is more than hobby", putting "the enthusiasm for building a stronger Arabic Wikipedia" among the young local participants in the context of the then-ongoing April 6 Youth Movement.

The choice of Egypt as the site of Wikimania 2008 had initially been controversial because of the Egyptian government's human rights record (Signpost coverage).

Guardian interviews Jimmy Wales after his move to the UK

The Guardian featured a long portrait of Jimmy Wales last week ("The Saturday interview: Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales"). It opened by noting that Wales had just moved to Britain to join his fiancee, who was Tony Blair's diary secretary, is currently a director at Freud Communications, a London-based PR firm (where she is handling the 2012 Summer Olympics) and is about to give birth to Wales' second child. Author Aida Edemariam then covered many topics about Wales' life and Wikipedia that have been reported elsewhere, adding several details, for example that Wales had grown up as a "'super-geek' with thick glasses and a very early interest in computers". While describing Wales as "generally being the suave public face of his company [i.e. Wikipedia - sic]", the article also gave examples of how he was still doing "some of the nitty-gritty" of Wikipedia editing, "of keeping an eye on new entries, vetting the quality of their sources, flagging up inappropriate bias ..., and reverting anything dubious". Wales noted that there are several kinds of vandalism, distinguishing libelous modifications of BLPs from more harmless edits that are called "sandboxing – people are treating it like a sandbox – they know they can't really hurt anything." The article claimed that Wales "is, in fact, generally dismissive of traditional modes of authority – peer-reviewed journals, the requirement for strings of letters after names. 'I think people have to recognise that the traditional modes of authority weren't that great.'" On Wales' actual company Wikia, the article reported claims by unnamed critics that it "in effect piggybacks on the reputation built up by the legions of unpaid contributors to the encyclopedia, and thus ruthlessly exploits them", a charge dismissed by Wales.

Essay examines systemic bias toward African topics, using disputed deletion example

A recent essay titled "The Missing Wikipedians" argues that "as large parts of Africa go online, it is expected that they will start to edit Wikipedia and that they will edit it in their own language. Both of these assumptions may be incorrect." The author, South African Heather Ford, a former member of the Wikimedia Foundation's advisory board, published the essay on her personal blog, but it will be part of an upcoming reader edited by the "Critical Point of View" (CPOV) Wikipedia research initiative (cf. Signpost interview with two of its organizers).

The essay centers around the case of the article Makmende on the English Wikipedia, about a fictional superhero that last year became what has been called Kenya's first Internet meme. Around that time, blogger and Berkman fellow Ethan Zuckerman (also a member of the WMF advisory board) had tried to look up the term on Wikipedia and instead encountered deletion log entries telling him that the article had been speedily deleted three times (a later version was kept). This prompted him to write a blog post presenting the deletions as a case of what Wikipedians call systemic bias: "Makmende may never become particularly important to English speaking users outside of Kenya. But the phenomenon's quite important within the Kenyan internet". Ford's essay expands on Zuckerman's blog post, quoting from a subsequent AfD: "Wikipedia editors claimed that the article needed to be deleted because there existed 'no reliable sources, and no claims of notability'. Pointing to the lack of sources relating to African culture online [a user] came back with this retort: 'The problem is that there is hardly any content on African influences in the 90's and 80's which may make it hard to make the connections'. However, Ford also noted that "interestingly, Makmende does not exist in the Swahili version of Wikipedia ... There seems to be a disconnect between where ordinary Kenyans want their cultural narratives to live, and where outsiders imagine it."

The essay was discussed on the Foundation-l mailing list, where participants questioned the accuracy of the description of the deletions. Thewub argued that "this particular example is portrayed absolutely incorrectly", explaining that the first version had been rightfully deleted as G1 ("Patent nonsense, meaningless, or incomprehensible"), consisting only of "Makmende. Kenyan Superhero. Spawned. Not born. Amphibious. Breaths underwater." The next two speedy deletions concerned a copyright violation. And the AfD had in fact resulted in an eight keep votes and none for deletion except the nominator (but only his statement was quoted by Ford). He concluded "Honestly, I think this is an example of Wikipedia working pretty well. The only problem was perhaps a misleading third deletion summary" (citing G3 - "pure vandalism" - instead of G12 "Unambiguous copyright infringement"). Last year, Wikimedia Trustee SJ had offered similar clarification about the speedy deletions in the comment section of Zuckerman's blog post.

Asked by the Signpost for comment, Ford acknowledged that "thewub makes some good points about the exact sequence of events that I think are important to add to the story", but that they would not refute the larger arguments in the essay, which had used the Makmende deletion "as a story that epitomises Wikipedia's current growth problems and the challenges it faces as it seeks to 'make all human knowledge accessible'."

Indeed the Foundation-l criticism did not extend to the rest of the essay. After citing various researchers on the slowing growth of Wikipedia, rising revert rates and deletionism, and questioning the expectation that increased Internet access in developing countries will generate an influx of new Wikipedians, Ford comes back to the Makmende example, asking "why was the Kenyan community so determined that the Makmende article exist on the English version of Wikipedia?", despite the existence of a Wikipedia in their own language, with much less bureaucratic red tape. To answer this, she applies four different kinds of motivation to contribute to public good in online cooperations that sociologist Peter Kollock identified: Anticipated reciprocity by other users, reputation, a sense of efficacy (having an impact) and need (of others, i.e. altruism).

In the conclusion, Ford argues that for "people in developing countries like Kenya ... the motivations for contributing in English Wikipedia are ... much greater than [for] contributing to the Swahili version, but it is unlikely that the vast holes in geographical and cultural content will be filled when the costs of contribution are so large." She observes that "far from having nothing left to talk about, Wikipedia has a number of holes", but that it needs "a strategy for dealing with local notability".

Briefly

Vandalism detectors collaborate: A new paper, titled "Wikipedia Vandalism Detection: Combining Natural Language, Metadata, and Reputation Features" was presented in a poster session at the International Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistics (CICLing) conference on February 21 (abstract, full paper). According to West.andrew.g, one of the authors, it grew out of discussions at Wikimania 2010, and "combines the logic of the WikiTrust and WP:STiki systems with some natural-language techniques ... a collaborative approach to collaborative application security". (See also related Signpost coverage: "Vandalism detection competition", "Spam attacks"). Another talk at the conference was titled "Providing Cross-Lingual Editing Assistance to Wikipedia Editors". Interestingly, the conference website asks visitors to "Please help us to improve the Wikipedia article about CICLing".
Wikipedia wooing the world: A Malaysian daily newspaper, theSun, ran an article describing how Wikipedia "has wooed and won the world over to become an indispensable tool for millions of users", giving a quick summary of its history and quoting Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger and German sociologist Christian Stegbauer. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur article had previously appeared in German some weeks ago.
Students getting "conflicting messages" about Wikipedia: The Equinox, a student newspaper at Keene State College in New Hampshire, USA, reports that "Wikipedia approval remains divided in academia". Some professors encourage the use of Wikipedia as a starting point for research, while others prohibit it altogether, "putting students at an ethical disadvantage" since they then "must not reveal to their professors all of the sources with which they have worked to gather knowledge about a topic for fear of receiving a failing grade". The college is described as having "professors of both viewpoints, sending very conflicting messages to students." Examining the reliability of Wikipedia, the article erroneously stated that "each page is reviewed by an editor staffed by Wikipedia", but that "there is a delay time between when information is posted and when it is reviewed, posing the great question: how accurate is the information?", posing the great question how accurate the information in the rest of the article was.

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2011-02-21

Six-month residence in the Palace of Versailles for a Wikimedian

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By Jean-Frédéric and Tilman Bayer

As part of a collaboration with Wikimédia France, the Palace of Versailles announced last week that they will host a "Wikimedian in Residence" for six months, to be "the interface between the scientific staff of the Palace and the editor communities".

The Palace, a royal château near Paris, was the residence of the Kings of France from 1682 until October 1789 - from when Louis XIV moved from Paris until the start of the French Revolution. The Palace and its park are viewed as an architectural masterpiece and a historical symbol strongly associated with the monarchy. It is listed by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. As an institution, the Palace makes use of new technologies and mediums, with the creation of mobile applications, the organisation of a photo contest on the social photo-sharing site, Flickr, and its recent involvement with the Google Art Project.

How the collaboration started

Following the partnership established by Wikimédia France with the City of Toulouse, Adrienne Alix, chair of the French chapter, was contacted by Laurent Gaveau, Deputy Director of Information and Communication of the Palace of Versailles. Gaveau was interested in building links with the Wikimedia projects. He attended the Rencontres Wikimédia in December 2010, where he met Benoît Evellin (User:Trizek) and discussed the idea of bringing together Versailles and Wikimedia. After the example of Liam Wyatt's past residence at the British Museum last year (cf. Signpost coverage), the project settled on the idea of a Wikimedian in Residence.

Content and possible outcomes

According to Laurent Gaveau, the institution realized that Wikipedia – the second most widely used source of information about the Palace after the official website – could not be ignored. He says his institution finds the articles numerous and of good quality. "Thus, this is not about correcting them strictly speaking, but going into the subject in greater depth, and in particular providing first-hand material to Versailles enthusiasts who edit Wikipedia". He mentions, as possible activities, taking photographs to illustrate articles, consulting archives, and gaining feedback from curators. Jean-Jacques Aillagon, former Minister of Culture and Communication and the current President of the Château de Versailles, mentioned that several curators already contribute to Wikipedia at their own initiative.

Benoît Evellin, who recently celebrated his 1000th day as a Wikipedian, is an administrator on the French-language Wikipedia and a member of the chapter. Active in helping newcomers learn about Wikipedia (as part of the Service de Parrainage Actif, equivalent of the English Wikipedia's Adopt-a-user program), he is also one of the leaders of a WikiProject dedicated to cultural heritage buildings. The Versailles domain contains many such protected monuments. He will be undertaking this residence as part of his studies, since it will be his "final training period for [his] master degree in cultural mediation". As such, "the Palace of Versailles gives me the legal compensation for a training period". The situation is similar to that of the second Wikipedian in Residence, Lori Phillips (HstryQT), at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (cf. Signpost coverage), who spent a paid student internship there, while Wyatt was at the British Museum as an unpaid volunteer.

Press coverage and community reactions

The official announcement was made on Tuesday, 15 February 2011, with a press release that was picked up in many media outlets (including Le Monde). Since then, Wikipedia and the partnership have been featured on the front page of the Palace of Versailles website (see also the English-language announcement on the Foundation's blog).

Early feedback from the French-speaking community has been very positive. Just a few hours after the announcement on the Village Pump, a WikiProject dedicated to the Palace was established, and a Château de Versailles Portal quickly followed. The editor who created both pages stated that "if it is announced everywhere (and it is!) that a partnership between Wikipedia and the Palace of Versailles is going to happen, then we have to prove now our capacity to set up a discussion space for coordinating such a project". Benoît Evellin also has a presence on Wikimedia Commons, and on the English-language Wikipedia.

Artinfo.com reported that "the fact that experts at the institution will edit the articles generated by the project may raise some eyebrows, and French art site Artclair has already been wondering if contributors will still have the ability to modify the articles that are officially sanctioned by the château." Responding to community concerns about original research, worrying that the Wikimedian in Residence or Versailles experts might be tempted to add true but unverifiable facts, Benoît said "I do not plan to go evangelizing people around by shouting "Edit, edit!". I am here to teach people how to edit Wikipedia well, the same way I strive to teach newbies while patrolling. Among other things, I am working to explain that every piece of information must have one verifiable source. The Five Pillars were presented, and they will be [presented] again".

Asked about the first week, Benoît Evellin tells the Signpost his time there has been busy:

"Interviews, press reporting, presentations of the partnership on WPfr, WPen and Commons. I have not visited the palace yet!"

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2011-02-21

More than numbers: WikiProject Mathematics

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By SMasters

WikiProject news

News in brief

This is the last week of the February Wikification Backlog Elimination Drive. Get busy and earn a barnstar!
The Guild of Copy Editors is hosting their next Copyedit Backlog Elimination Drive in March. Sign up today!
WikiProject Essex could use some help with their current collaboration: Colchester.
The WikiProject Oregon collaborations of the month are Oregon Convention Center and Columbia River Gorge
Check out the Account Creation Improvement Project at Wikimedia Outreach. You can help improve the account creation process for new users.

Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

A 3D projection of a 4D-cube performing a simple rotation about a plane which bisects the figure, is one of 29 Featured pictures of WikiProject Mathematics

This photo of the German Lorenz cipher machine, used in World War II to encrypt very high-level general staff messages, is used to illustrate the cryptography Featured article

The Fields Medal, awarded by the International Mathematical Union, is a Featured picture which shows a bas relief of Archimedes, another Featured article

This week, we take our first in-depth look at WikiProject Mathematics. Started in November 2002 by Chas zzz brown, it is one of the top 15 most active projects, and has 331 members. The project is home to 24 Featured articles, 3 Featured lists, 35 Good articles, 17 Featured pictures and a Featured portal – with a total of 8,850 assessed articles. The Signpost interviewed seven project members.

Charles Matthews has been on Wikipedia since 2003, and has a doctorate in mathematics; Jakob.scholbach joined around 2005, working mainly on frequently viewed mathematics articles; Geometry guy was invited to join the project in 2007, and became involved in assessment and review; Ozob is a professional mathematician who joined in 2008 and has a soft spot for calculus articles; computer scientist and mathematician David Eppstein, who has his own article in Wikipedia, joined in 2006; Kiefer.Wolfowitz is a statistician who joined in 2009; while CBM became involved because he "found the idea of a public, comprehensive, free reference of that sort, very exciting".

Although the project has some 8,850 assessed articles, there are actually over 25,400 articles associated with it. We asked how project members keep up with all these, and if there are any plans to assess the other articles. According to CBM, keeping up with such a large number of articles is a daunting task, "Fortunately, some of the original members of the project set up useful bots that index our articles automatically. The List of mathematics articles and List of mathematicians are maintained by a bot, and these lists are used to create Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics/Current activity. These tools have allowed us to track the huge number of math articles without relying on manual effort or talk page tags. The main limitation in going beyond tracking to actual editing is the ratio of editor time to the number of articles needing improvement." Project members, including Ozob and David, watch the Current activity list, while Kiefer works to provide references and short improvements to core articles, while developing a few articles.

Geometry guy contributed to the assessment of around 2,000 mathematics articles in 2007, but believes that "doing more than this would require substantial concerted editorial efforts that could be better applied to other goals." David sees assessment as "most useful at the top end, where GA and FA status provide recognition to excellent articles and at the bottom end, where the lists of stubs and User:Mathbot/Most wanted redlinks are a good hunting ground for articles in severe need of improvement. For the rest, I'd rather spend my editing time improving article space rather than trying to decide whether an article is really B or C class and exactly how important it is".

Of the 8,850 assessed articles, there are some 4,053 Start-class articles and 3,401 stubs. What is the project doing to advance these articles? For Jakob, many of these short articles just contain a definition of some specific concept, "in which case, it is unlikely that they will get much longer anytime soon or at all. The main task for this type of articles is to provide accurate references; here steady progress is made. From my personal experience, such highly specific topics actually tend to be more satisfactory than articles on broader mathematical subjects which require much more expertise to write".

WikiProject Mathematics has numerous Featured content. How did the project achieve this and how can other projects work toward this? For Jakob, the project as a whole has an enjoyable, friendly atmosphere: "I found that the usual procedures ensuring a sound article quality such as Peer review and Good article nomination, work well. On the other hand, most members of WikiProject Mathematics don't seem to focus on working on recognized content. For example, Riemann hypothesis (worth $1.000.000) has been pushed to an FA-ish level by a group of editors, but was not nominated. Reviewers' expectations at the FA candidacy tend to be quite high as far as the accessibility of scientific articles to the "general public" is concerned. This is often the most challenging bit in having a successful GA or FA candidacy, given that most mathematical subjects rely on a rigorous, abstract language that is not part of usual daily life. One way to deal with this issue in a more systematic way might be a "non-peer review", or just a forum for editors to meet mathematically untrained editors willing to work together on the accessibility of advanced scientific articles, outside the rather hasty FA process."

According to Kiefer, "On Wikipedia, mathematical topics present few temptations for editors to engage in point-of-view editing or to make personal attacks; goodwill flows in discussions on exposition (focusing on the public's needs) and scope (applications and generalizations). The cooperative atmosphere in Wikipedia is similar to that in the world of mathematics, and more generally, in mathematical sciences such as computer science and statistics. At the end of a day of research or teaching, editing Wikipedia is a relaxing hobby for mathematical scientists."

"Articles on mathematics are under-represented in the GA and FA categories, which do have biographies of mathematicians. Improving mathematical articles to GA and FA status is especially challenging, because of the demand that articles be accessible to the reading public. Perhaps Wikipedia should feature more good articles on important topics rather than excellent articles on minor topics and trivia? Mathematical scientists worry that Wikipedia indulges in "slumming"—dumbing down its content and showing contempt for the public's intelligence and attention—neglecting the mission of true encyclopedias, which has been and should remain enlightenment. Wikipedia should inform the populace rather than popularize infamy and so oppose the commercialism of the mass media," Kiefer added. He further suggests that Wikipedia should highlight mathematics and science on its main page, "and refrain from promoting Pokémon, pornography, and professional wrestling on Did you know?."

CBM does not think the lack of FA nominations as necessarily negative: "It has been said that Wikipedia is not a unified work, it's a collection of mostly-independent specialist encyclopedias that share goals and build on each other. Only a few members of the mathematics project have been active in nominating articles for FA status; the most recent promotion was Euclidean algorithm in 2009. I don't view this as entirely a bad thing. On a site the size of Wikipedia, there will naturally be differing visions of what an ideal article should be. One of the strengths of Wikipedia is we accommodate such a wide range of topics and writing styles." Charles believes that mathematics is different when it comes to featured content, "the FA criteria don't fit that well with what survey articles in the subject typically try to do, and we are still wrestling with the consequences for exposition. It isn't easy".

We asked what the most pressing needs for WikiProject Mathematics are, and how a new contributor can help. Charles identifies four areas, "better biographies, particularly for mathematicians outside the English-speaking world; connected historical coverage; referencing; and expository work, for topics up to first-year graduate level, through gradual expansion of material which although accurate, may be "impacted" and short of standard motivating remarks and heuristics". Ozob says that the most important way someone can help is by notifying the project of what is not clear, and feels that good exposition is their biggest problem, not just as a WikiProject but as a profession: "There's hardly any mathematical exposition for the layman anywhere. And that's despite there being some fascinating stuff which can be explained in very elementary terms. ... The WikiProject has an especially big problem with math articles that have applications to the sciences and engineering. Non-mathematicians frequently try to read those articles and end up stymied by thickets of abstraction, because we often discuss modern mathematical methods that are very abstract but very powerful. But sometimes it's our fault; we think like mathematicians, our reliable sources are written by mathematicians, and without meaning to, we sometimes end up writing for mathematicians."

Kiefer suggests that mathematics instructors should consider donating lecture-notes to appropriate articles. "More generally, graphical donations enliven articles and increase their appeal. Instructors in computational geometry and computer graphics should encourage their students to contribute, perhaps for course projects. Maybe the Wikipedia Foundation should give a special award recognizing the graphical donations by David Eppstein, Oleg Alexandrov, and others?" he added. "WikiProject Statistics has hard-working cadre like Qwfp and Melcombe, and we all would welcome new members. Personal invitations have recruited some great editors, but I am embarrassed at not having invited a professional colleague to join the project, yet! Perhaps the Wikipedia Foundation should hire staff for the mathematics project, or project members could write a letter appealing for volunteers in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society?"

CBM's recommendation is for new editors to pick a stub article on a topic that they have some knowledge about, and expand it into something a little longer. For Geometry guy, "The project has done really well in providing references for the expert, but we need to draw more readers in, while also defending the importance of specialist content to the encyclopedia. Mathematics is a stark example of this tension, but not the only one: I heartily recommend the essay Many things to many people (written primarily by Markus Poessel) for wider discussion."

We'll be Bach next week with a classic project. Until then, let our previous work serenade you in the archive.

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2011-02-21

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By Tony1 and Dabomb87

This week's "Features and admins" covers Saturday 12 – Friday 18 February

New administrators

The Signpost welcomes two editors as our newest admins.

Rami R (nom) has advanced programming skills, takes a particular interest in Israeli topics, and intends to help with administrative backlogs as needed, such as at administrator intervention against vandalism, requests for page protection, and usernames for administrator attention.
ErrantX (nom) is a graduate in electronic engineering and is completing an MSc in software engineering. He works in computer security and computer forensics. Among his contributions will be a presence at ANI, RFPP and AIV.

At the time of publication there are three live RfAs: The Bushranger and Glane23, both due to finish on Tuesday 22 February, and Snottywong, due to finish on Monday 28 February.

Featured portals

From the new featured portal Law of England and Wales: justice must be seen to be done? An illustration from the 1470s of the execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger

Two portals were promoted:

Portal:Law of England and Wales (nom) was promoted, with 29 articles (including 8 FAs and 3 FLs), and selected biographies, cases, legislation, pictures, and quotations. (picture at right)
Portal:Somerset (nom) was promoted, with 36 articles (all FA or GA), and selected biographies, pictures, and settlements. (picture at right)

Featured articles

Six articles were promoted to featured status:

Rinaldo (opera) (nom), a historically important opera and one of Handel's early masterpieces. Its tercentenary comes up in less than a week, on 24 February. (Brianboulton)
2008 Hungarian Grand Prix (nom), a Formula One motor race held in 2008, in which most of the excitement surrounded a duel between Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa. (Midgrid)
History of the New York Jets (nom), an American football team with one championship and much futility; its history goes back to 1959. (Wehwalt, The Writer 2.0)
Rutherford B. Hayes (nom) (1822–93), the 19th US President who served one term from 1877 to 1881, overseeing the end of Reconstruction and America's entry into the Second Industrial Revolution. Hayes was a reformer whose work was influential in civil service reform. He unsuccessfully tried to reconcile the divisions that had led to the Civil War. (Coemgenus; picture at right)
Minas Geraes-class battleship (nom), a pair of Brazilian dreadnoughts, in service from 1910, that caused traditional powers around the world to hail Brazil's new-found military potential (said to have "astonished the naval world"). Both ships were rapidly outmoded, but survived through the Second World War before being scrapped. (The ed17)
John J. Crittenden (nom), a US career politician in the 19th century who served as Congressman, Senator, US Attorney General, Governor, and state legislator. Nominator Acdixon says that "had his 'Crittenden Compromise' been approved, the American Civil War might have been averted."

Featured lists

Seven lists were promoted:

List of Pittsburgh Pirates first-round draft picks (nom) (Nominated by Staxringold.)
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary R&B Album (nom) (Nominated by Candyo32.)
List of WWE Divas Champions (nom) (Nominated by Scorpion0422.)
List of heads of state of the Soviet Union (nom) (Nominated by Trust Is All You Need.)
List of songs in DJ Hero 2 (nom) (Nominated by Masem.)
List of Tampa Bay Lightning seasons (nom) (Nominated by Nomader.)
List of current sovereign monarchs (nom) (Nominated by Night w.)

Four featured lists have been delisted in February thus far:

Lightning Bolt discography (nom: [lead, referencing, formatting])
List of current world boxing champions (nom: [lead, referencing])
List of states with limited recognition (nom: [lead, referencing, comprehensiveness])
List of YuYu Hakusho episodes (season 2) (nom: [referencing, comprehensiveness])

Featured sounds

JS Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G BWV1007, Prelude