Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2005-11-21
From the editor
We've added a new weekly series with this issue, after receiving a request to do so. To better keep you informed about server administration and other technical issues, we've added Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News (B.R.I.O.N.) This will detail major bugs and bug fixes, server problems, and major repairs. Input is appreciated on other technical issues that we can cover; feel free to leave a message at our discussion on the Tip Line.
Also, I'm sad to note that the ArbCom series will be on hiatus this week due to reform proposals by Jimbo that have not yet been announced. We hope to bring the series back as soon as possible.
Thank you for continuing to read the Signpost.
— Ral315
Creative Commons floats move toward compatibility with GFDL
In an effort to make freely licensed content more accessible across different projects, Creative Commons has released an initial draft of a license that would improve compatibility with the primary license for Wikipedia content.
Mia Garlick, General Counsel of Creative Commons, on Thursday released a proposal that would amend the organization's copyleft ShareAlike licenses. The draft amendment would change these licenses so that derivative works could also be distributed under the Free Software Foundation's GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). In explaining the proposal, Garlick cited the inability to use content from Wikipedia with Creative Commons-licensed material from other sites, such as Flickr.
Currently, the ShareAlike clause in Creative Commons licenses allows derivative works to use any license with the same "license elements", to allow for license updates and international versions. Garlick noted that the GFDL "essentially enables the same freedoms" as the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC-BY-SA).
Discussion took place largely on the Creative Commons licenses mailing list. The proposal initially met with enthusiasm about the prospects for greater interoperability among free content licenses. However, some concerns were also raised about it based on the provisions of the GFDL. The point was made that the GFDL specifically indicates that commercial uses are allowed, whereas Creative Commons provides the option to choose a ShareAlike license that is restricted to noncommercial use. Thus, to avoid going against the intentions of people who chose a noncommercial license, Garlick later indicated that the amendment might have to be limited to the CC-BY-SA license. Also, several people expressed concern about the widely disliked GFDL provisions for "invariant sections" (use of which is prohibited on Wikipedia).
Tomos made the observation that the amendment would create "a one way street" where Creative Commons material could be reused under the GFDL, but not the other way around. Since making changes in the other direction is out of Creative Commons' control, discussion also turned to the question of whether changes to the GFDL might be possible. Many people have expressed hope that the GFDL and Creative Commons licenses could eventually become more compatible, but any progress is likely to be gradual. The Free Software Foundation is currently working on a new version of the GNU General Public License (GPL), with a public comment process that is expected to last through next year. As a result, it is uncertain how much effort will be put into revising the GFDL in the near future.
ArbCom elections poll continues during week of little activity
A chat with the elected Arbitrators
6 February 2006
Jimbo Wales appoints 11 arbitrators, increases committee size
23 January 2006
Arbitration Committee elections continue; ArbCom member resigns
16 January 2006
ArbCom candidates (part two)
9 January 2006
ArbCom candidates
2 January 2006
Straw poll closes
19 December 2005
Jimbo starts new poll regarding election
5 December 2005
Last chance to run for ArbCom
28 November 2005
ArbCom voting process
14 November 2005
ArbCom duties and requirements
7 November 2005
A closer look: the calls for reform of the ArbCom
31 October 2005
A look back: the 2004 ArbCom elections
24 October 2005
Current ArbCom members
17 October 2005
Criticism of the ArbCom
10 October 2005
About the Arbitration process
3 October 2005
The history of the Arbitration Committee
26 September 2005
Introduction to a special series: A look at the upcoming Arbitration Committee elections
19 September 2005
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A chat with the elected Arbitrators |
Note: The Signpost special series on the December 2005 Arbitration Committee elections will resume soon.
This week the straw poll regarding the elections process for the December January 2006 ArbCom elections continued. As of press time, approximately 75 percent of Wikipedians giving input on the poll had indicated that they preferred an elected ArbCom, while the other 25 percent preferred an appointed ArbCom.
Discussion was also started on the suitability of a poll for gauging input and its effectiveness, with several users citing the now-famous meta page, Polls Are Evil. However, others disagreed, saying that a poll was a proper way to spark discussion and to estimate community opinions.
There were no changes this week to the candidates list as uncertainty over the elections procedure continued.
News and notes
Wikimania 2006 dates
The possible dates for Wikimania 2006 have been narrowed down to two options, one in July and one in August. The conference, to be held next year at Harvard University, is tentatively set for either July 13-16 or August 3-6. The choice depends partly on which facilities are available at the given time; the August dates have greater competition for meeting rooms, while the July dates would be tighter in terms of dorm room accommodations for conference attendees. With a view to maximizing attendance, August is believed to be preferable in terms of people's commitments and travel flexibility. The Wikimania planning committee welcomes feedback to assist in making the final selection.
Article validation to go live soon
Article validation is set to be enabled on Wikipedia "very soon", probably during this week, according to David Gerard. The feature has been available for a while, but had not been utilized.
Picture Peer Review started
After discussion in favor of the proposal, a peer review process for pictures has been created. The page, which is not required to have pictures featured, aims to help improve pictures, similarly to the peer review process for featured articles.
Briefly
- The Hungarian Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
- The Swahili Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
- The Amharic Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
- The Catalan Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
In the news
Major media discusses Wikipedia
The BBC Online discussed the Wikimedia Foundation and its goals in "Open media to connect communities" on November 20. Jo Twist says, "The goal is to tackle on one of the recurring issues that arose during the UN World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis about the lack of material online in languages other than English." It also analyzes the relevance of WikiNews, and the October blocking of Wikipedia in China (see archived story).
The New York Times also ran a prominent piece on page C4 of its print edition on November 14, "More Find Online Encyclopedia is Handy". Alex Mindlin discussed an October report from Nielsen//NetRatings on the tripling of Wikipedia's growth (see archived story), and Intelliseek's analysis of the encyclopedia's popularity among bloggers. Wikipedia "showed up in roughly one out of every 600 blog posts last month; it was one of every 3,300 posts in October 2004."
Wikipedia vandalism makes front page news
Vandalism to the English article on Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, claiming he had been in prison for pedophilia, made the front page of Norwegian tabloid-style newspaper Dagbladet on November 11 under the headline "Hengt ut som pedofil". The story was then picked up by Norway's largest newspaper Verdens Gang ("Stoltenberg uthengt i nettleksikon"), and mentioned on the air by NRK, the state broadcasting company. The graffiti was added by an anonymous user on November 9, and removed approximately 23 hours later. An anonymous apology from a different IP address was posted on the talk page for the Norwegian version of the article.
Others try their hand at the Wiki game
On November 15, technology site CNET published a long article called "How wikis are changing our view of the world" as part of their special report series "Taking Back the Web". It was written by Daniel Terdiman, who has written several previous articles on Wikipedia and other wiki matters. At the same time, they launched http://www.takebackwiki.com, a nearly empty wiki based on the MediaWiki software for their readers to take in whatever direction they chose. (The site was not working at press time.)
Similarly, the Daily Tar Heel reports in "Web site to provide link to politics, residents" that Wikipedia is the inspiration for another website. North Carolinans have launched Orangepedia (using DokuWiki software) to provide information for the communities of Orange County, North Carolina.
Mail & Guardian follow up
The South African Mail & Guardian newspaper printed "Wikipedia springs into action after M&G Online article" on November 15, in a prompt follow-up to its November 10 article "Can You Trust Wikipedia?" (see archived story). In it, Elvira van Noort says "Now, a week after the M&G Online article was published and Chambers put the experts' comments online, most of the entries have been edited and improved. Constantly changing are the entries about the ANC and the media in South Africa."
The newspaper also mentioned Wikipedia in "One foot in the future" (November 17), and cited it for a definition of killer app in "Microsoft is back in the game" (November 11).
Local analysis
On November 20, The Sunday Times in Singapore ran an article by Mak Mun San called "Wakey, Wakey, Wikipedians edit the world" (subscription required); it ran on page L8-9 of their print edition. The article describes Wikipedia and defines wiki terms such as "NPOV", "Wiki", and "Wikipediholic".
The California newspaper The Stockton Record published "Wikipedia may not be best source" on November 18, another basic article on Wikipedia. It includes quotes from high school and college students who use it as a reference, some of whom have edited the articles for Stockton, California and University of the Pacific.
Citations in the news
Wikipedia was cited in the last week in the following publications:
- The Australian (Australia), on Jemaah Islamiah [1]
- National Post (Canada), on Calvin and Hobbes [2]
- Dagbladet (Norway), on mal de debarquement [3]
- Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania, USA), on "Wikipedia's excellent entry" on Photoshop [4]
- The Arizona Republic (Arizona, USA), on vegetarian and vegan [5]
- Great Falls Tribune (Montana, USA), on World of Warcraft [6]
- Easton Courier (Connecticut, USA), on Easton, Connecticut [7]
- Online Journal (Florida, USA), on fascism [8]
- Woburn Daily Times Chronicle (Massachusetts), on defibrillator [9]
- Provo Daily Herald (Utah, USA), on Pledge of Allegiance and Bellamy salute [10]
Citations on the web
- Bloomberg.com, on Charles Darwin [11]
- PC World, on Sudoku [12]
Features and admins
Administrators
Administration status was given to six users this week: Ianblair23 (nom), Sherool (nom), Cleared as filed (nom), Nlu (nom), JoanneB (nom), and GraemeL (nom).
Featured content
Ten articles were promoted to featured status: Pneumonia, Shoe polish, Cyberpunk, Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618), Yarralumla, Australian Capital Territory, Black pepper, Imperial Japanese Navy, University of Michigan, Planetary habitability, and Hugo Chávez.
Three lists reached featured list status this week: List of NFL champions, List of U.S. states by elevation, and Provinces of Thailand.
Four pictures reached featured picture status this week:
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
Temporary image downtime possible
Images may be unavailable for sometime on 21 November or 22 November in order to finish server configurations on the new image server, 'amane'.
HTML Tidy running smoothly again
After being disabled last week, HTML Tidy was re-enabled, just 5½ hours after it was disabled. Tim Starling noted that the likely cause of most errors attributed to Tidy was elsewhere; numerous parse and other errors were responsible for many of the problems. Many Apache machines reported error logs of over 100GB at the time. Without Tidy, many talk pages were rendered unreadable, mostly due to invalid HTML within user signatures. During the downtime, brion added a feature that disallowed signatures with invalid HTML.
Wikipedia:Changing username re-enabled
The operation allowing users to change their username was re-enabled on 16 November. Special:Renameuser had been disabled since 26 September due to the page's inefficiency. brion restored the function with the 'archive' bit disabled, leaving a minor concern about the possibility for incorrect usernames in the histories of undeleted pages.
New squid statistics live
A new system for creating squid traffic statistics is now active. The site generates graphs showing statistics for all active squid farms. A previous statistics site has been phased out.
Last week in servers
Other server-related events and problems included:
- 15 November — 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica scans converted to PNG files dynamically
- 17 November — Servers srv51 through srv70 are being prepared for usage as Apache servers
- 18 November — Page leech blocked
The Report On Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee closed a case against Stevertigo this week.
Stevertigo
The case against Stevertigo was closed for a second time on 18 November. As a result, Stevertigo was de-adminned. A previous ruling required Stevertigo to resubmit himself for adminship; however, after complaints by the community, and the ensuing RFA, in which many users submitted that the decision was the Arbitration Committee's job, the case was reopened by Theresa Knott.
The case centered around Stevertigo's actions at Vietnam War; he was accused of using admin tools to evade a three-revert rule block.
Other cases
Cases were accepted this week against numerous editors on Political Research Associates, a series of editors on Winter Soldier, and Johnski (user page). All three are in the evidence phase.
An additional case against Rex071404 (user page) was accepted this week. It is in the voting phase.
Other cases against Xed (user page), Pigsonthewing (user page), Copperchair (user page), numerous editors on Ted Kennedy, and Rangerdude (user page), are in the evidence phase.
Cases against Ultramarine (user page), Silverback (user page), and Lightbringer (user page) are in the voting phase.
Motions to close are on the table in cases against Maoririder (user page) and Instantnood (user page).