Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-08-07/In the news

Wikimania continued to prompt advance coverage from the media. The Detroit Free Press characterized the goal of the conference as "A more consistent—but still cool—site". Interviewed for the article were two local contributors, Michael Karazim and Larry Kestenbaum, who discussed using Wikipedia as a reference and dealing with vandalism. The paper also pulled factoids from various Wikipedia entries related to Michigan. Observing that relying on paid editors could not have kept up with the pace of change under the Wikipedia model, Kestenbaum commented, "It's still impossible. But it's less impossible."

In New Hampshire, the Nashua Telegraph ran a column on Wednesday by reporter David Brooks (who is also a Wikipedia editor, one of the first in the state). Starting with a discussion of the paradoxical Ignore all rules, he covered the debate over Wikipedia quality, balancing its growth and success against various points of failure.

Wales to upgrade quality of Wiki
Many reports (here PCWorld, here allheadlinenews.com) covered the announcement by Jimmy Wales at Wikimania that the English Wikipedia would focus on quality of articles over the next year rather than quantity, as the English Wikipedia is nearing 1.3 million articles. He also said he would be building a more formal advisory board, to help control Wikipedia's article quality issues.

Wales also said that he is keen to upgrade Wikipedia's humanities coverage, which will be upgraded by good quality art editors.

Wikipedia watching Shays and other rep. articles
The United States House of Representatives IP was temporarily banned from editing Wikipedia after it was determined that some edits to the article on U.S. Representative Christopher Shays had been subjected to vandalism.

According to Wikinews report on 2 February, "all mention" of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act by Shays and Rep. Marty Meehan and a paragraph about Shays raising $70,000 with House Speaker Dennis Hastert at a country club event had been removed. Consequently, the House IP address was blocked from the site for eight hours on 1 February.

A spokeswoman said the information was put back on Wikipedia later, and Shays told staff not to alter his biography. Wikipedia spokesman Wayne Saewyc said that editors are currently watching the articles for any more cases of vandalism.

Other coverage

 * The Boston Phoenix ran a story on Wikimania 2006 in the form of a diary.
 * ZDNet News ran a story about Lawrence Lessig's talk at Wikimania, in which he cited Wikipedia as an example of the "read-write" culture.
 * The Daily Tech ran a story about the offline version of Wikipedia available on $100 laptops (see related story).
 * A story was released from Digitaldivide about the new laptop partnership and Yochai Benkler's talk at Wikimania.
 * Globe and Mail Canada, published a story about User:SimonP, a Canadian from Ottawa who has more edits to the project than any non-bot contributor.
 * The Daily Telegraph ran a story on how Wikipedia was started.