Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-07-21/In the media



Editathon on female scientists in India
The Hindu reported about an edit-a-thon on Indian women scientists held on July 16 in Bangalore. Their pre-event article noted that only about 40 women scientists from the country currently have Wikipedia entries, and many of those are incomplete or lack citations.

The paper's followup article reported that about 25 editors participated in the event, creating and updating articles on prominent women scientists in the country. Sandhya Srikant Visweswariah, chair of the Department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics at the Indian Institute of Science, was among the subjects tackled. One participant noted, however, that "lack of citations online made it hard to validate entries for many women scientists from the country". This, of course, is a persistent concern, as discussed in part in The Atlantic last month. Having content online leads to the production of more content. Creating new material from non-online content – and being able to use that content to defend Wikipedia's processes of validating content and assessing notability – is a much bigger task although also an essential one. --Milo


 * Increasing visibility of Indian women in science, The Hindu (July 12)
 * Spotlight on women scientists, The Hindu (July 17)
 * Demand to better wiki pages for women scientists, The New Indian Express (July 18)
 * Indian Women in Science Edit-a-thon

Not all we're Cracked up to be?
Cracked.com featured a critical piece on Wikipedia as "shockingly biased", with input from current administrator Crisco 1492. The piece falls squarely in the sweet-spot of modern criticism of any website: (1) it comes from a website that loves Wikipedia; (2) has readers who love Wikipedia and use it all the time despite its faults; and thus (3) will read any articles, which raises "shocking" concerns about Wikipedia. And though the items discussed are mostly old-hat to Wikipedia editors (not to discount their importance), such articles are usually popular. This one has already received over 350,000 views and 450 comments.

The topic areas discussed in the article include three common complaints: (1) the lack of diversity in contributors and content, such as the gender gap and systemic biases (see The Hindu edit-a-thon discussed above), and the focus of some editors on niche content areas; (2) the ever-present problem of vandalism, but particularly the feedback loop where inaccuracies are cited in the press – "like a game of telephone, only at the end of the game, the garbled nonsense gets published in a newspaper"; and (3) petty arguments among editors, though this discussion also ends in more discussion of vandalism, such as those quixotic editors who like to change heights and weights.

The article also cites the Wikipediocracy website as one "dedicated to destroying Wikipedia", though such a threat does not seem as existential when described as "less like a public service and more like a bunch of Mensa wannabes trying to high five, only to awkwardly smack each other in the nose". Lastly, the piece concludes that "Wikipedia is dying", citing statistics about declining numbers of "very active" editors and the lack of sufficient administrators.

All of these concerns have degrees of validity, and though not precisely news, the continuing focus on them is no doubt important in finding solutions. When high-profile articles stop being written about Wikipedia's flaws, that would suggest irrelevance, which is a much surer sign of decline. No one complains about the functionality or value of Myspace anymore. --Milo


 * Wikipedia Is Shockingly Biased: 5 Lessons From An Admin, Cracked.com (July 11)



In brief

 * New notification features: The Wikipedia blog detailed the newly released updates to the notification system. Highlights include being able to monitor notifications across all wikis on which an editor is active, options to filter your notifications, and bundling of notifications ("5 people thanking you for your edit"), among other updates (July 15) --Milo
 * Apology for misuse of photo on Commons: The use of a Creative Commons licensed photo on an Italian festival poster, without proper attribution, led to a settlement with payment of legal fees when the photographer decided to stand up against the misuse of the photograph, as reported in the Wikimedia blog and elsewhere.  Teaching the Internet that a "free license" is not "public domain" is not an easy task. (July 12) --Milo
 * Ten Years on Wikipedia: William Beutler (User:WWB) celebrated ten years on Wikipedia with a post compiling some of the life lessons he has learned from his time on the site. (July 12) --Milo
 * Maybe They Got the Munchies: The Daily Mail and many Australian news outlets like Byron News report that Senator-Elect Pauline Hanson's party policy on medical marijuana appeared to be lifted from Wikipedia. The unattributed copying was first noted on Reddit. (July 10–12) --Milo
 * I Wonder What That Is: HERE announced that its app now has a "Wikipedia Sights" feature which can display geolocated links to articles of interest in your vicinity. (July 8) --Milo
 * IP removing unfavorable content geolocates close to home base: The Wikipedia biography of UK MP Andrea Leadsom (pictured above with Theresa May) drew the attention of The Guardian, when unfavorable content about the energy minister and contender for Prime Minister was removed from her Wikipedia article by an anonymous IP address that geolocated to Towcester, where her constituency office is located. (July 6) --MTbw
 * Wikipedia's seven worst moments?: A Breitbart op-ed produced a "worst moments" list ranging from the removal of the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting from list of Islamist terrorist attacks (though it has reappeared on the list subsequent to the Breitbart article) to a description of the GamerGate article as "one of the most biased pages on Wikipedia". Breitbart describes Wikipedia as "... frequently embroiled in controversy surrounding political biases, corrupt mismanagement, and attempts to secretly remove factual information contrary to their narrative". (July 5) --MTbw
 * Copypasting a Wikipedia bio for a campaign handout called a "brain freeze": When Hillary Clinton spoke at Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition in Chicago, a glossy program given to attendees was copypasted directly from Wikipedia—including mentions of assorted past controversies that generally are absent from a laudatory blurb provided at a campaign event. Organizers stated, "a volunteer had a real brain freeze" when curating the content of the program and humbly explained that the inclusion of references to the Monica Lewinsky scandal was unintentional. (June 28) --MTbw

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