Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-12-14/News and notes

Geographical distribution of articles by language
Even many of the larger Wikipedias are very parochial, according to a new analysis of geographical density of Wikipedia articles by language, by Mark Graham. Graham wrote a column on "Wikipedia's known unknowns" in The Guardian last week that included maps of different regions of the world shaded according to the density of corresponding geocoded Wikipedia articles — that is, articles with geographic coordinates included; he found that the Global North is much better represented on Wikipedia in this regard than the Global South.

In the new follow-up up on his blog Zero Geography, Graham compares the density of geotagged articles in different language editions. The result is that each language's geotagged articles are largely concentrated in the areas where the respective languages are spoken, and only English and German Wikipedias have significant coverage outside the geographic areas where those languages predominate.

Import sources enabled on the English Wikipedia
It is now possible to import pages with their full history from Meta, several language versions of Wikipedia, and the Nostalgia Wikipedia, a copy of the English Wikipedia database from 20 December 2001. This feature can be used for attribution of translated articles alongside Iw-ref, and very old edits can be imported from the Nostalgia Wikipedia that are not in the current Wikipedia database. See Requests for page importation to make requests, and this week's technology report for more details.

Briefly

 * The Wikimedia Strategic Planning project is featuring a "Question of the Week", where anyone may help contribute to discussion about the future of the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects.
 * In a post on the Wikimedia blog, fundraising chief Rand Montoya explores the donation results from different banner messages.
 * A Wikipedia poster based on classic war propaganda, with proceeds supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is for sale.
 * Should Wikimedia buy renewable energy certificates, asks developer Tim Starling?
 * A recent paper in St. John's Law Review entitled "Wikipedia in Court: When and How Citing Wikipedia and Other Consensus Websites is Appropriate" reviews the history of Wikipedia citations in court, why Wikipedia is used and how to best use it; the paper is available for download here.

Wikipedia in the news

 * Andrew Dalby, author of The World and Wikipedia, discusses Wikipedia on the BBC Radio program "Start the Week".
 * The ABA Journal reports that jurors conducting trial-related research on Wikipedia, and friending one another on Facebook, is becoming a pervasive problem with the potential to disrupt trials.
 * Literature and humor site McSweeney's Internet Tendency features a send-up of Wikipedia: "I Am Locking the Wikipedia Article On Our Sex Life" by Alan Trotter.