Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-01-31/In the media

Katherine Maher to head NPR
National Public Radio has announced that former Wikimedia Foundation CEO Katherine Maher will take the reins as NPR's CEO at the end of March, following a conference ending her five month gig as CEO of Web Summit. NPR itself (maintaining its editorial firewall) introduced her as the former CEO of WMF, quoting her saying "There is a strong alignment in both [Wikipedia and NPR] around integrity and autonomy." The New York Times emphasizes the challenges currently facing NPR, and indeed most of the media, writing she "will take over at NPR during a critical period. Listenership of traditional radio is waning as Americans adopt alternatives ... pressuring NPR to reach its audiences in new formats." RTÉ, an Irish public service broadcaster, highlights her recent connection to Web Summit. Maher was formerly Chief Communications Officer at the WMF before her CEO role; she has resigned from the US Department of State's Foreign Affairs Policy Board following her appointment to NPR, remaining Chair of the Signal Foundation and on the board of Consumer Reports.

The Signpost wishes her all the best. Congratulations Katherine!
 * See this 2019 interview with Maher in The Signpost

– S, F

Tell it like it is
The New York Post was shocked to learn that Katherine Maher, the new NPR CEO, had tweeted in 2018 that "Donald Trump is a racist". They consider the six year old personal tweet to be inconsistent with NPR's policy that they provide "fact-based reporting; opinion and commentary are secondary." The Post also seemed shocked that some time since 2018, Maher deleted the tweet, implying that she was hiding something.

They might also be shocked to learn that many people have called this guy that thing, since early in his term as president. In 2018 and 2019, a majority of Americans agreed with the statement "Donald Trump is a racist", according to two polls; in 2019, 84% of African-Americans agreed. Nevertheless, another 2018 poll had only 49% agreeing against 47% disagreeing; at any rate it's difficult to see this as evidence of extremism.

The controversy about Trump's perceived racism has not subsided since. His attacks this month on Asian-American Nikki Haley are even causing more controversy. – S

Conservative commentator races to "go check Wikipedia"
Media watchdog Media Matters for America reports on Matt Walsh's use of Wikipedia to verify the skin color of Nikki Haley, the other candidate for the GOP nomination for the U.S. presidency. Walsh's commentary is simply dishonest. He says he never noticed that Haley is brown skinned and had to "check Wikipedia" to see if it's true. With a sleight of hand he reports that Wikipedia confirms the fact that her parents are from India. (More precisely they are Sikh.) Then he says Haley's claims of discrimination in a 1980s South Carolina beauty pageant based on her skin color "strain credulity" and that all kids get teased about something.

What did he leave unsaid? In less than five minutes, he puts race back into the presidential race. – S
 * Wikipedia doesn't report her skin color.
 * discrimination based on skin color in the 1970s and in 1980s South Carolina was quite common, though not as horrific as it was in Wisconsin in 2012 or at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston in 2015.
 * Haley doesn't dwell on her ethnic heritage in public, as is her right, but was asked directly on television about her experiences with racism.

Former Wikimedia Italy president reflects on the state of Wikipedia and the open access movement
In Il Post (in Italian), Viola Stefanello breaks down the last ten years of the evolution and decline of the open access movement in academic publications, focusing on the controversies involving "shadow libraries" such as Sci-Hub and Anna's Archive, the legacy of the late Aaron Swartz and the current state of Wikipedia.

Anna's Archive, a website which hosts some 25 million books and 100 million papers totally unencumbered by copyright law (generally by virtue of just not following it), has recently been blocked by AGCOM, at the request of the Italian Publishers Association.

Among the experts cited by Stefanello for her article, former Wikimedia Italy president and Wikisource admin Andrea Zanni stands out. Now a digital librarian for openMLOL and a journalist for several Italian media, as well as the co-author of an e-book about the life of Aaron Swartz, Zanni says the death of the American hacktivist is not the only reason why the open access movement has lost the momentum it had gained throughout the 2000s and the early 2010s. According to him, this also happened due to the different priorities many of the people involved had to focus on when transitioning to adulthood – Zanni left Wikipedia himself, in order to spend more time with his family – and a decline in interest by newer generations, whose best IT talents often choose to make a personal profit out of their skills, instead. The former Wikimedia Italy president also reflects on the changes that have made the Internet more "capitalistic" and "egotistic" than it was ten years ago, underlining the web’s "centralization" in just a handful of privately owned social and entertainment media, its "mobilization" as a result of the shift of most online traffic from computers to smartphones, and its "dopaminization" through the wide spread of personalized content and advertisements.

Zanni ends his reflection on a high note, celebrating the success and the very existence of Wikipedia for over twenty years as one of the "huge battles won" by the movement, a topic he already wrote about for Domani in 2021. Given the disputes related to open access and public domain we still witness worldwide and the challenges Wikimedia projects will likely face in the near future, perhaps his words should be taken as more than just a good omen to start from. – O

In brief

 * Ruwiki launches officially: The non-Wikipedia version of the Russian Wikipedia, Ruwiki, officially launched on 15 January. You can now edit their articles, even without registering an account. Coverage from Reuters (featured e.g. in the New York Post ) cites Kommersant in saying that the founders have not yet disclosed who the financers of the project are. See prior Signpost coverage: "Wikimedia Russia director starts Russian fork and is replaced" (June 5, 2023), "Ruwiki" (July 17, 2023) The ruwiki.ru website also includes what appears to be a fork of Wikidata, at data.ruwiki.ru, titled "РУВИКИ.Данные" ("RUWIKI.Data"). The wiki's recent deletion log (archive) includes various items related to the Russo-Ukrainian war, e.g. Q111467700 ("Bucha massacre").
 * Wiki Loves Monuments image highlighted: "George Washington Masonic Memorial photo honored in Wikipedia photo competition" ALXNow, based in Alexandria, Virginia covers Daniel M Horowitz's image that earned a place at Wiki Loves Monuments 2023 winners.
 * "Editorial Malpractice": Annie Rauwerda lets Harper's Magazine know what she really thinks of The Hofmann Wobble in her letter to the editor. See previous coverage in The Signpost.
 * Pathological optimist at Davos: Jimmy Wales is listening and learning at Davos about AI and this year's elections in his usual pathologically optimistic way. On YouTube, CNBC
 * State control of content: "Wikipedia, relying on a community of volunteers to edit and maintain its content, has become a prime target for spreading disinformation and state propaganda", says Majid Rafizadeh in a Townhall.com opinion. He claims to report on the contents of "an expert report that has conducted a comprehensive review of the edits made by users affiliated with the Iranian regime on Wikipedia over the past year".
 * Do we have anything to do with this?: Italian newspaper Il Secolo XIX, based in Genoa, reports (in Italian, behind pay-wall) that the regional tourist guide union of Liguria has raised concerns over a law included in the Budget Act approved by the national government for the year 2023, which set new universal requirements for professional tourist guides. According to representatives of the union, some of the bill's key provisions might damage local tourism, by allowing "Wikipedia-like guides" – in other words, guides who are not as qualified as union members.

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 * Denigration: In a long and wide-ranging interview for Haaretz (behind pay-wall), Israeli historian Moshe Zimmermann calls out incorrect claims on his page on Hebrew Wikipedia about statements he had made about the ultra-nationalist politician Meir Kahane, settlers and Nazism, saying, "[The] more time that passes, what was written about me in Wikipedia as a denigration, becomes the Balaam-like example of 'came to curse, left by blessing' [from Numbers 24]. Because of what I was quoted as saying, which wasn't accurate, settlers and their supporters took me to court three times, and in each case the defamation suit was rejected."
 * The bigger picture: Bill Ackman's (kind of) clash with Wikipedia, which we covered in the previous issue of The Signpost, is far from being the billionaire's only high-profile fight, as recently reported by New York and The Atlantic.
 * SF footballer's page is heavily edited: "No one in the NFL has had their Wikipedia page edited more since Dec. 11, 2022, than 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy" notes SFGATE, with some reasons why they think it is so.
 * Not so bad for research: Under the sub-title "Wikipedia has moved far beyond its initial limitations, and is a helpful—and reputable—source for conducting research", the nonprofit Edutopia published an excerpt from the 2023 book Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online, published by University of Chicago Press.