Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-02-06/Forum



Covering hundreds of concurrent Women's Marches was refreshingly congenial

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On January 21, 2017, millions of people worldwide marched and rallied in support of issues including women's rights, abortion, LGBTQ rights, and racial justice as part of the Women's March. Across nearly 700 gatherings—at least one on every continent—people came together peacefully to rally around a cause they felt strongly about. Here on Wikipedia, I witnessed and contributed to a similar process, as nearly 700 new and experienced editors contributed to the English Wikipedia articles about the events, building them up city by city into a great overview (2017 Women's March) and list (List of 2017 Women's March locations). The articles were read by |2017_Women%27s_March|List_of_2017_Women%27s_March_locations|List_of_2017_Women%27s_Marches 700,000 people over the week centered on the march and received praise for their comprehensiveness on social media. We're often more interested in reading about the Wikipedia articles that are filled with drama, where editors argue and edit war until blocks and sanctions start getting handed out or the article has to be locked down, but it's worth highlighting the hard work and civil editing that goes into articles like these.

Prior to the day of the event, the article - then titled Women's March on Washington and written primarily by Vikkibaumler, Bjhillis, and GandyDancer - covered the planned event in Washington, its motivations, and expected participation, with only a handful of sentences hinting at the scale of events yet to occur. Over the course of the first day, as the marches took place and media coverage of them grew, users added sections covering the biggest marches, and while the article noted that over 400 marches had occurred, just a few dozen had been written about by the end of the day.

Over the following days, users new and experienced added a huge number of documented marches to the article, with experienced users searching out the largest and most well attended to include, alongside unregistered users and new accounts enthusiastically adding the marches they had personally attended to the list (with a surprisingly high number of citations!) Unregistered users contributed information on their marches from Germany, Iceland, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Norway, the USA, and many other countries. Outside of Wikipedia, calls were made (such as on Reddit and Twitter) to add images and (reliably sourced) marches to the article. By mid-morning the article contained more than 100 sections and the decision was made to convert the information into a table, a process which took over two hours (thanks to CaroleHenson!). The article listed more than 300 references by the end of the January 22, and more than 600 by the end of the January 23, with the table split out into its own list article shortly thereafter.

By January 26, the Wikimedia Commons category for images of the march contained subcategories for more than 59 cities worldwide, along with a category devoted entirely to pussyhats.

Vandalism remained surprisingly low, with only minor incidents (including the article briefly being titled the Sore Loser March), and minimal need for blocks to be handed out. Page protection was requested but editors agreed that the beneficial contributions of IP editors far outweighed the handful of negative ones, which were easy to revert; 16% of the article edits were ultimately made by editors not logged into a Wikipedia account. No substantial edit wars took place and no major disagreements occurred on the talk page, beyond some back-and-forth about splitting the article.

While this wasn't the only civil, collaborative, and productive article expansion that's ever occurred on Wikipedia, it is a great example of new and old users coming together over a topic they feel passionate about and writing a useful and comprehensive article with minimal drama, something that I think should be highlighted by the community more often. Consider this one big barnstar to everyone involved.

Free truthful information and ponies

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Wikipedians around the world celebrated the site's 16th birthday on 15 January 2017.

For Wikipedia Day New York City, Wikimedia NYC invited Noam Cohen, a journalist well known for covering the Wikipedia beat for The New York Times, to moderate a talk between Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Katherine Maher and Columbia Law School professor and author Tim Wu. Crashing the panel was Vermin Supreme, a perennial candidate for President of the United States; Supreme provided an intriguing counterpoint to the scheduled discussion, as well as wiki-style editing of the agenda and everyone's expectations.

Here are some excerpts from the discussion:

Can Wikipedia provide free truthful information to everyone?
Noam Cohen:

Tim Wu:

Katherine Maher:

Can Wikipedia provide free ponies to everyone?
Following the 2016 United States presidential election, perennial candidate Vermin Supreme might be described as the most reasonable, traditional, and conventionally electable politician who campaigned. Amazingly in such a heated and hostile election, Supreme progressed through the entire debate season with no criticism from any political party, except versions of his own party from various timelines in parallel universes. On Wikipedia Day 2016, without prior announcement, Supreme took the stage and called for the United States government to transition to a more moderate political system: fascism under his tyrannical rule as president. It was just as well that he came, as Supreme was probably the least controversial candidate with the most transparent political platform. His political positions included advocating for America's scientists to direct their attention to time travel research and spacetime repair, the American health care system to focus on issuing everyone more and much larger toothbrushes to counter the community burden of gingivitis, and for the American military to invest all resources to prepare for the imminent zombie apocalypse. With the presidential inauguration just days later, Supreme's presence was all the more relevant, as he among all presidential candidates had the most opinions and policy statements which were specifically about Wikipedia. As the assembled audience came to realize the weight of the personality speaking to them, Supreme called for free ponies for everyone as part of a plan for the United States to shift toward a pony-based economy.

Supreme, along with campaign manager Rob Potylo, led a Wikipedia sing-along with compulsory participation. Supreme went on to say, "Gingivitis has been eroding the gumline of our great nation for long enough and must be stopped." Potylo cut to the point and asked, "Does anyone know where the buffet table is?" Katherine called for applause for these guests in the wiki spirit of inclusivity. Even "post-truth" and "alternative facts" are welcome in Wikipedia when wiki editors use citations to neutral third-party reliable sources to clearly label such content as a group's own trip, propaganda, advertising, fringe theory, false memory, mental disorder, or lie. This goes for all marketers, political parties, or anyone else feeling a wiki wish to edit their own reality.

In partnership with Vermin Supreme the Wikimedia community is providing ponies for everyone at Commons:Category:Ponies. Anyone who still has not uploaded their photos of Wikipedia Day 2017 events should do so at Commons:Category:Wikipedia 16 by country.