Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-05-10/In the news

Jimmy Wales takes action in response to pornography allegations

 * See also Commons:News regarding the sexual content purge

PC Pro magazine reports that Jimmy Wales has asked Commons administrators to delete images that "appeal solely to prurient interests". His plea came in the wake of Larry Sanger's reports to the FBI that the Wikimedia Foundation is freely hosting and distributing "depictions of child sexual molestation" (see archived story), the subject of a remarkably one-sided article by Fox News that cast the Wikimedia Foundation, as well as Wikimedia deputy director Erik Moeller, in a negative light.

The story of the sexual content purge and the ensuing controversy has been picked up by several news websites, including BBC News and The Register. To date the only major newspaper to cover it is the Indian Daily News & Analysis, which published an eleven-paragraph wire story on 29 April  and an eight-paragraph wire story on 8 May.

British politicians' expenses covered up on Wikipedia; ten biographies have been 'cleansed' and some remain uncorrected as scandal dies down
On 9 May the Sunday Telegraph published an investigative article, titled "MPs, their expenses and the Wikipedia 'cover-up'", about how British politicians have removed details of the Parliamentary expenses scandal from their Wikipedia biographies. It appeared on page eleven, overshadowed by the front-page story on talks to form a coalition government which was broken down over the first five pages, but the article was part of the newspaper's election coverage.

The journalists list ten cases in which details of expenses claims were removed by either the politicians themselves, a staffer, or a confidant of the politicians involved. They note that in some cases "the ploy worked" while "in other cases, the details were reinstated and the people who tried to delete them were reprimanded".

The Signpost's own analysis of the article histories shows that there was prolonged edit warring on four articles, but only two (on the Joan Ryan and Ian Taylor articles) resulted in the details being removed permanently. (Note: both articles have since been corrected). There was consensus to remove details on Malcolm Rifkind. The vast majority of edits which removed details were caught with the Twinkle vandalism tool or manually reverted within a few hours, but those that went unnoticed lasted for days or even weeks.


 * 1) Chris Grayling – 1,025 bytes removed at 15:37, 30 July 2009 (diff) – 1,025 bytes restored at 17:06, 30 July 2009 (diff)
 * 2) Margaret Moran – 1,304 bites removed at 14:22, 24 April 2009 (diff) – 1,029 bytes restored at 16:33, 27 April 2009 (diff)
 * 3) Joan Ryan &mdash;
 * 1,021 bytes removed at 11:06, 2 June 2009 (diff) – 1,015 bytes restored (slight changes) at 12:00, 18 June 2009 (diff)
 * 1) 988 bytes removed at 20:31, 29 June 2009 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 13:01, 2 July 2009 (diff)
 * 2) 987 bytes removed at 16:14, 19 July 2009 (diff) – 987 bytes restored at 13:28, 10 August 2009 (diff)
 * 3) 988 bytes removed at 19:14, 25 August 2009 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 11:20, 7 September 2009 (diff)
 * 4) 986 bytes removed at 20:47, 13 September 2009 (diff) – 986 bytes restored at 20:48, 13 September 2009 (diff)
 * 5) 987 bytes removed at 13:56, 21 September 2009 (diff) – 987 bytes restored at 11:48, 15 October 2009 (diff)
 * 6) 987 bytes removed at 14:24, 1 November 2009 (diff) – 987 bytes restored at 10:02, 29 December 2009 (diff)
 * 7) 988 bytes removed at 13:56, 4 January 2010 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 22:36, 4 January 2010 (diff)
 * 8) 988 bytes removed at 21:30, 7 January 2010 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 22:31, 7 January 2010 (diff)
 * 9) 988 bytes removed at 15:42, 14 January 2010 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 00:03, 15 January 2010 (diff)
 * 10) 989 bytes removed at 17:56, 16 January 2010 (diff) – 989 bytes restored at 17:57, 16 January 2010 (diff)
 * 11) 988 bytes removed at 10:56, 17 February 2010 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 10:58, 17 February 2010 (diff)
 * 12) 988 bytes removed at 20:06, 18 February 2010 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 14:37, 23 March 2010 (diff)
 * 13) 988 bytes removed at 16:14, 24 March 2010 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 21:31, 24 March 2010 (diff)
 * 14) 988 bytes removed at 08:44, 27 March 2010 (diff) – 988 bytes restored at 12:06, 27 March 2010 (diff)
 * 15) 988 bytes removed at 15:56, 8 April 2010 (diff) –
 * 16) Ann Keen – 1,215 bytes removed at 12:13, 28 May 2008 (diff) – 1,215 bytes restored at 12:18, 28 May 2008 (diff)
 * 17) Alan Keen &mdash;
 * 1,226 bytes removed at 12:11, 28 May 2008 (diff) – 1,226 bytes restored at 12:12, 28 May 2008 (diff)
 * 1) 204 bytes removed at 12:39, 28 May 2008 (diff) – 371 bytes restored (slight changes) at 06:07, 29 January 2009 (diff)
 * 2) Angela Christine Smith &mdash;
 * 1,088 bytes removed at 22:42, 10 July 2009 (diff) – 1,088 bytes restored at 22:31, 14 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1) 186 bytes removed at 23:12, 10 July 2009 (diff) – 304 bytes restored (slight changes) at 22:45, 14 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,420 bytes removed at 12:11, 16 July 2009 (diff) – 1,420 bytes restored at 13:03, 16 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,420 bytes removed at 19:21, 16 July 2009 (diff) – 1,420 bytes restored at 19:29, 16 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,420 bytes removed at 19:44, 16 July 2009 (diff) – 1,420 bytes restored at 20:09, 16 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,420 bytes removed at 20:18, 16 July 2009 (diff) – 1,420 bytes restored at 20:26, 16 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,420 bytes removed at 20:29, 16 July 2009 (diff) – 1,420 bytes restored at 20:30, 16 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,770 bytes removed at 22:32, 17 July 2009 (diff) – 1,770 bytes restored at 22:52, 17 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,770 bytes removed at 11:05, 18 July 2009 (diff) – 1,770 bytes restored at 12:02, 18 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,771 bytes removed at 14:03, 18 July 2009 (diff) – 1,771 bytes restored at 14:06, 18 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1) Dari Taylor &mdash;
 * 2,750 bytes removed at 16:46, 13 August 2009 (diff) – 2,750 bytes restored at 17:27, 13 August 2009 (diff)
 * 2,737 bytes removed at 11:36, 17 August 2009 (diff) – 2,737 bytes restored at 12:02, 17 August 2009 (diff)
 * 2,749 bytes removed at 12:36, 17 August 2009 (diff) – 2,749 bytes restored at 12:36, 17 August 2009 (diff)
 * 2,750 bytes removed at 13:06, 17 August 2009 (diff) – 2,750 bytes restored at 13:12, 17 August 2009 (diff)
 * 2,751 bytes removed at 13:16, 17 August 2009 (diff) – 2,751 bytes restored at 13:20, 17 August 2009 (diff)
 * 1) Christopher Fraser – 920 bytes removed at 20:37, 9 November 2009 (diff) – 920 bytes restored at 22:38, 9 November 2009 (diff)
 * 2) Malcolm Rifkind &mdash;
 * 3) 695 bytes removed at 11:29, 12 October 2009 (diff) – 692 bytes restored at 16:01, 18 October 2009 (diff)
 * 1,630 bytes removed at 15:12, 20 April 2010 (diff) – consensus to remove
 * 1) Ian Taylor (UK politician) &mdash;
 * 1,289 bytes removed at 14:41, 9 July 2009 (diff) – 1,289 bytes restored at 23:19, 9 July 2009 (diff)
 * 2,229 bytes removed at 17:30, 10 July 2009 (diff) – 2,229 bytes restored at 20:38, 10 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,037 bytes removed at 17:42, 13 July 2009 (diff) – 1,037 bytes restored at 15:53, 23 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,378 bytes removed at 20:47, 24 July 2009 (diff) – 1,378 bytes restored at 20:47, 24 July 2009 (diff)
 * 1,378 bytes removed at 20:47, 24 July 2009 (diff) –
 * 1) Barbara Follett – 407 bytes removed at 14:35, 8 December 2008 (diff) – 407 bytes restored at 18:37, 8 December 2008 (diff)

Two reports published by Irish government cite Wikipedia
On 3 May the Irish Independent published an article on page two, titled "State reports used Wikipedia as source", revealing that two government-published reports, a study produced by the Department of Environment and a report by the Department of Agriculture cited Wikipedia as a source. Apparently, neither report used Wikipedia for technical citations, as was the case in a recent Australian report that was attacked over sourcing (see Signpost coverage).

Opposition Senator Paschal Donohoe criticised the departments for failing to double-check their sources. Long-time Wikipedia critic Ian O'Doherty wrote in his column on 5 May that it was "bizarre" the government was relying on such an unstable source, pointing out that his biography has twice been vandalised this year.

Briefly

 * Two weeks ago Umberto Eco, the pioneer of modern semiotics, said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País that the omnipresence of the Internet (presumably referring to the popularity of microblogging) creates language issues which lead to culture loss, but acknowledged that reference websites like Wikipedia are useful. The interview was republished in the influential Colombian magazine Revista Cambio and was this week discussed by South American commentators.
 * Erica Cervini wrote in the education section of The Age that Australian universities are "urging students" to use the Internet in class and recommending they consult Wikipedia as a source. She was critical of both these developments, disregarding the arguments of writers such as Will Richardson and Anya Kamenetz  in favor of online classwork.
 * A product manager from Google told Reuters the company wants more structured Arabic content online, and it is now encouraging people to improve the Arabic Wikipedia. Five months ago, the company was heavily promoting Google Knol (see this interview, 6:50 in, for instance).
 * In a video interview with The Business Insider, Jimmy Wales discussed the history and success of Wikipedia and Wikia, touching on subjects such as the decision to make Wikimedia a non-profit, and comparisons with Demand Media and Google Knol. Wales has been getting a lot of positive press coverage since appearing in the documentary America: The Story of Us. A speech he gave on the use of wikis in product marketing was published as an essay in the 6 May issue of Marketing Week.