Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-06-26/In the news

Notable academic paper
The article "Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past" was originally published in the Journal of American History (Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006): 117-46), and was reprinted on the web at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

New York Times issues correction
On 21 June, The New York Times issued a correction to last week's front page Wikipedia story (see archived story).

A front-page headline on Saturday with an article about the online reference work Wikipedia referred imprecisely to its "anyone can edit" guidelines, which have always restricted changes in a small percentage of articles. While Wikipedia has indeed added a category of articles that are "semi-protected" from editing, it has not "revised" its policy or otherwise put additional restrictions on editing; it says the change is intended to reduce the number of entries on which editing is banned altogether.

The change was reflected in the new headline, "Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy", with "refines" substituted for the previous version that read "revises".

Overview article
The Independent published "New Media: Who are the real winners now we've all gone Wiki-crazy?", saying: The most widely known wiki project is Wikipedia - the online encyclopedia that now contains nearly 40 million articles. While the project is not without its controversies and critics, the sheer size, scope and pace of the documentation of knowledge have led some to the conclusion that what has been unleashed is "a repository of knowledge to rival the ancient library of Alexandria".

Search for Wikimedia CEO
In "Maybe they should look on Craigslist", the San Francisco Chronicle has noted the appointment of Brad Patrick as interim CEO for the Wikimedia Foundation while the search for a long-term candidate goes on (see archived story).

Internationalization
Corante's "Going Global" blog discusses "How Wikipedia Manages Multilingual Content Expectations", noting how the http://www.wikipedia.org portal specifies the number of articles per Wikipedia language.

Amusing mentions

 * News.com writes, with some amusement, about the Wikipedia list of fictional expletives, in "Wikipedia presents: Alien insults for rookies".


 * A Globe and Mail columnist writes about having his test edits corrected "by an 11-year-old with a bowl cut and spectacles", in "Here come the Wikipedia police". The edit, a whimsical addition to the Human article, was reverted the following minute by PHDrillSergeant. PHDrill Sergeant, who signs as Porphyric Hemophiliac and is in reality 18 years old, also left the behave template on the talk page for the columnist's IP address, prompting the columnist's discovery that "Wikipedia, like MySpace, has homepages for its denizens."

[Wikipedia is] something I'm kind of obsessed with at the moment. The thing that I want to find out is who's doing the entry for butter. There's an entry for butter! What would motivate someone to do that? There's an entry for waffles; I cannot fathom what that person's motive is. And it's good—it's got the history of waffles! It's amazing to me!
 * Essayist Chuck Klosterman says, in an interview with Willamette Week