Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/In the media

Reactions to Chelsea Manning's Wikipedia bio being renamed, again
After media praise for Wikipedia's decision to move the Bradley Manning article to Chelsea Manning (see last week's Signpost), the reversion of that page move on August 31, after a discussion in which several hundred Wikipedians participated, has so far triggered less favourable feedback, as well as a blog post from Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner expressing her disappointment with the decision.

The Daily Dot reported on the decision to move Chelsea Manning back to Bradley Manning on the same day, asking: "Can a website vote on a person's gender transition?" The article stated, "On Wikipedia, Chelsea has been sentenced to remain Bradley", and went on to quote Jimmy Wales, who responded to complaints from on [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=571586410#Voting_on_whether_we_recognise_a_transgendered_person.27s_gender_transition his user page] by saying:

The Daily Dot article was picked up by Slate in France on September 2. Slate expressed the opinion that Wikipedia had "put its foot in it".

On 4 September, the New Statesman weighed in with a piece titled "Chelsea Manning gets put back in the closet by Wikipedia", attributing the decision to a lack of diversity among Wikipedia editors:

The New Statesman went on to quote excerpts from a blog post Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner had published earlier that day, in which she argued:

Gardner and the New Statesman both noted that an arbitration request had been filed. Gardner commented on her blog,

It remains to be seen whether Gardner's hope that ArbCom "clarify policy" is at odds with ArbCom's constitutional role, as defined in Arbitration Policy:

The New Statesman meanwhile noted that any ArbCom decision would take at least a month. "But it's the best chance yet for Wikipedia's editing community to take some time for the introspection it apparently needs."

Gardner clarified in her blog post that she had written the post in her capacity as a volunteer editor. She added, "everything I say here, I say with lots of respect for the Wikipedia community. This is a rare misstep: an unusual and unfortunate blind spot." HASTAC also had an analysis of the naming dispute, by Wikipedians Adrianne Wadewitz and Phoebe Ayers.

Azerbaijan government's involvement in its language's Wikipedia expansion
The Azerbaijani news portal abc.az reported on September 6 that the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information is creating a "social movement for expansion of the information about the country in online encyclopedia Wikipedia". The Ministry said it was collaborating with the Azerbaijan Association of Young Translators (AGTA) to create a wiki movement in the country. The website of VikiHərəkat, the Azerbaijani wiki movement, is here. Jimmy Wales said on his talk page, "I know nothing about it." According to Human Rights Watch, Azerbaijan has a deteriorating human rights record. Under the heading "Azerbaijan: Crackdown on Civil Society", Human Rights Watch summarises the most recent developments in the country as follows:

This makes Azerbaijan, after Kazakhstan (see earlier Signpost report), the second state with a dismal record on human rights and free speech to take an active interest in the expansion of the local language version of Wikipedia.

According to The Guardian, the Azeri government is employing a number of PR agencies in Europe, including Freud Communications, Consultum Communications and Ketchum.

In brief

 * The Wikipediafication of fine art: Glendon Mellow's blog on the Scientific American website had some nice things to say about Wikipedia on August 29, speaking of "the wonder that Wikipedia and its contributors and donors gives us: a richness of topic and visual cues to lead us down a myriad of paths instead of one-note shocker headline images."
 * Hive mind: On August 30, Science News featured a belated report on a study of cooperative behavior in Wikipedia published by Simon DeDeo in December 2012.
 * Interest in Syria: A report published in Der Spiegel on August 31 noted increased page views for Syrian topics in the German Wikipedia, triggered by Syria's ongoing troubles.
 * WikiTube: On September 1, ghacks.net covered WikiTube, a Chrome extension that adds videos to the top of Wikipedia articles.
 * Portrait of a Philadelphia Wikipedian: The philly.com website had a portrait of David Thomsen, one of the top 200 Wikipedians by edit count, on September 2. The story was picked up by the Philadelphia Business Journal, and Thomsen had a further mention in Swarthmore College's Daily Gazette, which featured a profile of Google employee and Wikipedian Will Hopkins on September 4.
 * Storming Wikipedia: bust.com and The Daily Dot joined the chorus of publications reporting on FemTechNet's initiative to counter gender bias in Wikipedia (see last week's Signpost).
 * Wikipedia lies: Musician Example and comedian Chris Ramsey discussed Twitter and Wikipedia on the website of the Daily Express on September 3. Comparing notes about inaccuracies in their respective Wikipedia entries, Ramsey said, "There's something on Wikipedia that says I have this thing called the Geordie flick. And it says that I won a competition for the best haircut in Newcastle, but it's utter b*****t." The unsourced addition (removed after the article appeared) was made in December 2012.