Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-05-29/In the media

Guerrilla warfare against crypto-grifters
Wikipedia administrator Molly White, known here as, runs a blog (Web3 Is Going Great) cataloging misfortunes and scams in cryptocurrency. Today's Washington Post covers her in [https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/29/molly-white-crypto/ ''First she documented the alt-right. Now she’s coming for crypto''] (archive). Since 2021 White has been documenting ripoffs which she estimates cost cryptocurrency investors $10 billion. You can also find her on Twitter – S

Putin – "You can't just rely on Wikipedia"
''Short video with subtitles here. Full meeting transcript (in Russian).''

The Moscow Times reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Russians to have alternatives to Wikipedia. "You can't just rely on Wikipedia," he says. So far he agrees with Jimmy Wales and most other Wikipedians. While Wikipedia is a wonderful place to start your research on a topic, it's not a good place to end it. A representative of Znanie (society), a state sponsored non-profit which publishes lecture videos, was called on to agree with Putin on TV. They're ready to help.See previous coverage in The Signpost about Putin's plans to replace Wikipedia with the Great Russian Encyclopedia here, here, and here. – S

Russia fines WMF $41,594
A "special military operation" is the name given by Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials to exchange of missiles, bombs, and bullets between Moscow's armed forces and Ukraine's which the Kremlin initiated on February 24. Western news sources and much of the rest of the world call it a "war" or an "invasion of Ukraine", as does the Russian-language version of Wikipedia. A new Russian law says that Russian publishers must only use the facts and terminology provided by officials of the Russian Federation when reporting military affairs. On April 26 a Moscow court levied a 3 million ruble fine ($41,594) on the Wikimedia Foundation for violating this law according to Reuters. The WMF has previously addressed this issue: "we will not back down in the face of efforts to censor and intimidate members of our movement. We stand by our mission to deliver free knowledge to the world." Don't expect them to pay the fine. – S

We're a battleground in a culture war. Is it genocide?
In The War Over Ukraine—On Wikipedia, Catarina Buchatskiy writes for Lawfare that the Kremlin is carrying out an "information war" on Wikipedia. She states "seemingly petty Wikipedia edit wars are actually an important battleground, and unfortunately, they are a battleground on which Russian narratives are much more successful compared to how Russian soldiers have fared on the ground in physical battle against the army of a nation Russians pretend does not exist." She states:

– FD, B, S

The Signpost and the "shadow war"
The Fake Accounts Whitewashing Oligarchs' Wikipedia Pages : Omer Benjakob at Haaretz analyzes an article published here in March. He compares the recent Signpost investigation by Smallbones into "inauthentic behavior" around Russian oligarchs' biographies and related pages to past incidents and concludes that "Wikipedia is on Russia's radar" and that "a shadow war is playing out on Wikipedia between editors seeking to weed out for-profit editing and PR firms working for their clients". – B

A profile of Wikipedians and breaking news
CNN published an in-depth look at the Wikipedians who start and maintain breaking news entries. The article, Meet the Wikipedia editor who published the Buffalo shooting entry minutes after it started focuses on the contributions of long-time Wikipedian Jason Moore and several others. Going deeper than many similar pieces, the article does a very adept job of explaining Wikipedia's policies and how these articles are shaped over time. Kudos to the reporter, Samantha Murphy Kelly! – G

A bit musky in here
The world's richest man is obsessed with how he is described on the free internet encyclopedia: in Slate, Stephen Harrison reviews the editing history of the Elon Musk article and notes that Musk has complained several times about aspects of his Wikipedia biography on Twitter. However, Harrison thinks Wikipedians had it right – and feels it is important that there is a place online "where billionaires cannot purchase their preferred version of events, nor own the means of conversation." – AK

Wales on Musk
Jimmy Wales comments on Elon Musk's buying Twitter. Speaking exclusively to LADbible, he said: "This is the point where I think it’s a huge risk for Twitter and Elon Musk, because if you go to [sic] far – or very far at all down that path from where Twitter is now - I think you start to lose market share. We have to remember, Twitter is not a monopoly, there’s loads of other platforms and places, we should be really focused on thinking about that competitive landscape. If you don’t like the moderation policies on one service, you can go somewhere else." Read the full interview here. – FD

Jimmy Wales interview: free speech and friendly society
In Reason, Katherine Mangu-Ward interviews Jimmy Wales  (30:48). Reason leads with "Wikipedia continues to quietly grow in utility, trustworthiness, and comprehensiveness" and it "has maintained its reputation and functionality since its founding, even as the rest of the social internet seems hellbent on tearing itself apart".

Reason and its editor, Mangu-Ward, advocate for some controversial positions, so this interview has some interesting sparring, but never breaks out in open debate. Discussion points include: – B, S
 * Is the Wikipedia model generalizable?
 * friendly societies versus insurance companies,
 * public spaces for heterodoxy,
 * the libertarian response to online harassment,
 * ejecting trolls in a bible study group should never be illegal,
 * Wales' WT.social social media site, which like Wikipedia eschews ads, is "not a great business model, it's not lucrative at all, we're not making money",
 * and creating meaningful content versus merely controversial content.

Other video interviews

 * Meet the Press Reports: Chuck Todd interviews WMF CEO Maryana Iskander (14:26)
 * Stossel TV – Commentary from John Stossel, with content from a past interview of and a new interview of longtime editor Jonathan Weiss.

In brief

 * Councillor edits own Wikipedia page to "repair misinformation": The Otago Daily Times reports that a member of the City Council in Dunedin, New Zealand edited his own Wikipedia biography. The edit was made under an account bearing his name; readers can come to their own conclusions as to the merits or demerits of the changes made. Both the Otago Daily Times article and the Wikipedia article claim that the changes were reverted; a perusal of the edit history shows, however, that a number of them were subsequently incorporated.
 * The many fake lives of a pro cyclist: Cycling Tips reports that the owner of a Virginia bicycle shop built a completely fake history of himself as a professional cyclist. "Until 2020, the first page of results for 'Nick Clark cyclist' brought up a Wikipedia page corroborating details of his path into the sport and his racing career, the events he said he rode at and teams he said he rode for." For a while, he was "credited on Wikipedia as the winner of the U23 Australian Time Trial Championship in 1999 and 2000 – when he would have been 23 and 24 years old, again in years that the category didn’t exist." See the 2020 AFD.
 * The saints of Wikipedia: High praise for those who "have done a good job of collecting" Space Force insignia (Gizmodo).


 * How academic institutions can help bridge Wikipedia's gender-gap: This column in Nature provides possible solutions to addressing the encyclopedia's bias that favors male achievements.


 * U.S. Senate candidate deletion:  Christian Post runs down deletion criteria pretty soundly but still disagreed with the May 9 deletion of the biography article for candidate Kathy Barnette, then 2% behind the front runner in the Pennsylvania Republican primary for U.S. Senate. She finished third with 24% of the vote according to Ballotpedia; vote counting is under way for a two-way tie between the front runners (heavily covered in U.S. media as of writing deadline). The article Kathy Barnette was re-created and re-nominated for deletion on May 19 for the third time in 45 days. The latest discussion was closed with consensus to keep.


 * How I Got Here: A pivot from music to computer science paved Tajh Taylor's path to Wikimedia VP: in Technical.ly documents how Tajh Taylor, the VP of data science and engineering at the WMF, switched from applying for university programs in music to computer science degrees from Morehouse College and UC Berkeley. Thank his mother! He is now the highest-ranking Black staff member at the WMF.
 * #KnowWithWiki is a social media campaign in India that the WMF is using to introduce Indians to Wikipedia via social media influencers. Exchange4media interviews Khanyi Mpumlwana, the WMF's Creative Director, and she tells readers about the WMF, how Wikipedia works, and about the campaign. The one message that she wants Indians to understand is "Whatever you want to know, you can know it with Wiki!"
 * Bollywood vs Wikipedia: Karma Cola with more fizz than substance?: There's controversy over the Wiki article characterizing the film The Kashmir Files as fiction.
 * (Hindustan Times) "Dear @Wikipedia, You forgot to add ‘Islamophobia… propaganda… sanghi… bigot… etc’. "
 * (Firstpost) "a self-help quick fix cocky rack of righteous knowledge" Also "dubious authenticity", "arrogant show of I-know-best knowledge for a civilization looking for instant knowledge. Wikipedia is Karma Cola with more fizz than substance".
 * Wikipedia Italia e l'invasione dell'Ucraina: la storia di una bozza lunga 19 giorni: in Italian about Mark Bernstein in la Repubblica.
 * British historian Paul Kennedy writes book with 80+ citations to Wikipedia: "Many university professors would mark down a student paper that included uncorroborated Wikipedia citations", according to the New York Times book review of Victory at Sea published by Yale University Press. But Kennedy breaks from the pack in this book about World War II, with an unprecedented 80+ citations to Wikipedia.

''Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next month's edition in the Newsroom or leave a tip on the suggestions page.''
 * Wikipedia readers uninterested in two moths: In a personal research narrative blogger Colin Morris shares their methods and tools for determining that for 2021, the Wikipedia articles for two particular moths were the least read articles in all of Wikipedia. Other commentary covers Wikipedia's traffic reporting, the random article feature, and speculation on the browsing paths of Wikipedia readers. In response and speaking for WikiProject Lepidoptera, moth editor user:SchreiberBike said "I support the assumption that every species should have an article."
 * They should have read WP:NOTDIR: "Hotel Chain Index" derived from Wikipedia data, among other things (probably locations, but these are routinely deleted due to WP:NOTDIR policy).
 * Texas secessionist wants to stay in ... Wikipedia, that is: "To Miller, his page's potential removal is par for the course of the raging war against the 'mini-Stalins of the world'" (Dallas Observer).