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30 August 2010

 

2010-08-30

Most linked websites on Wikipedia, New York Wiki-Conference, and more

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By Resident Mario and Tilman Bayer

Most linked websites on the English Wikipedia

On his Inkdroid blog, Library of Congress coder Ed Summers published a list of the most heavily linked websites on Wikipedia. (Summers recently started Linkypedia, a tool analyzing external links on the English Wikipedia to a given web site, providing more information than MediaWiki's own external link search function – see Signpost story.) The number-one host, not surprisingly, is the Wikipedia toolserver, with 3,169,993 links; this is followed by Google.com, with 2,117,967 links.

To generate more meaningful results, a mainspace-only chart was then generated. The most frequently linked host in the article namespace is the website of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, with over 400,000 links, followed by the digital object identifier database at dx.doi.org, the Internet Movie Database and books.google.com.

Summers also provided lists of the most linked hosts in the .edu and .gov domains, and of the 100 most frequently linked top-level domains (the three country domains of non-English language countries that are linked most often are .de, .fr and .jp).

In a related endeavour, researcher Finn Årup Nielsen compiled a list of the most frequently linked news sites, based on the usage of the {{cite news}} template.

  • Most frequently linked hosts in the article namespace
    Most frequently linked hosts in the article namespace
  • Most frequently linked .gov hosts in the article namespace
    Most frequently linked .gov hosts in the article namespace
  • Most frequently linked .edu hosts in the article namespace
    Most frequently linked .edu hosts in the article namespace
  • Most frequently linked top-level domains in the article namespace
    Most frequently linked top-level domains in the article namespace

Wiki-Conference NYC

Last weekend, Wikipedians/Wikimedians gathered at the two-day Wiki-Conference NYC at New York University. The event comprised various panels, open-space discussions, and five-minute lightning talks. Two keynote presentations were made, by author (and NYU lecturer) Clay Shirky and by the Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner. Shirky's presentation was mostly based on topics from his recent book Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age (the book's review in next week's Signpost will mention a few more details from his talk). Some of his statements were taken up by Sue Gardner on the next day, who spoke on the "Role of the Wikimedia Foundation in Supporting and Building the Movement". She started by showing slides that she normally uses to introduce non-Wikimedian audiences to Wikipedia and Wikimedia, and explained why she highlights certain aspects which audiences often misunderstand or don't know about. She then presented some new PR videos based on interviews with Wikimedia volunteers, produced at last month's Wikimania Conference. The audience found the videos to be well-made, although there was some concern whether the age of the interviewed persons was representative of the community as a whole. A low quality recording of Shirky's keynote is available, along with several audio recordings and slides from the talks. Better quality recordings from the live video stream might become available later.

Briefly

  • Fly me to San Francisco: The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for experienced Wikipedia editors to spend three days in San Francisco at the end of September (the Foundation pays airline fare, hotel, and other living expenses), to determine how to help the Wikipedia community (and other Foundation projects) to create more how-to screencasts. You don't have to have experience creating screencasts to be considered. (Although the deadline is August 30, submissions a day or two late may be considered – email ahead; application information).
  • WMF Chief Rep in India: The Wikimedia Foundation announced a job opening for the Foundation's chief representative in India. The responsibilities will include fostering advisers and friends of Wikimedia India, introducing Wikimedia to large universities, building relationships with open-software groups in India, and encouraging software development to support the growth of Indic-language projects.
    Already photographed: "De Schoolmeester" windmill, one of 50,000 national monuments in the Netherlands
    A logo used to celebrate the 100,000th article milestone on the Farsi (Persian) Wikipedia

  • Two WMF committees launched: On 25 August 2010, the Foundation launched its Research Committee (see previous coverage in The Signpost). The Committee was established "to help organize policies, practices and priorities around Wikimedia-related research", and is currently in the development phase. A second committee – the Wikimedia Foundation 2010–2011 Audit committee – has been formed to oversee financial and accounting issues for the Board of Trustees. It consists of Board member Stu West, Matt Bisanz, Ad Huikeshoven, Renata Stasaityte, Michael Snow and ex officio observing members Ting Chen and Sue Gardner.
  • Sue Gardner's report: The Executive Director's report to the Board of Trustees of the WMF for February and March 2010 has been published. Apart from events already covered by The Signpost, it records:
    • preparations for the Foundation's public policy initiative;
    • a meeting between Foundation staff members and managers of Google (at the time of the company's $2 million donation to Wikimedia – see Signpost coverage), after which Google designated a liaison contact for future WMF inquiries; and
    • the visit of a delegation from the "Chinese State Department" to the Foundation's offices in March.
  • Dutch photo hunt: Wikimedia Nederland is organizing a photo scavenger hunt, "Wiki loves monuments", in September. Prizes, including an iPad and an Android smartphone, will be awarded for sharing photos of national monuments. As explained in an English-language post on the Foundation blog, the event has been prepared on the Dutch Wikipedia with extensive lists of the 50,000 rijksmonuments (12,000 of which already have photos), sorted by municipality, with assistance from the government office responsible for national monuments.
  • Farsi milestone: The Persian Wikipedia recently celebrated the creation of its 100,000th article (a threshold reached by the Slovene Wikipedia earlier this month). In a congratulatory message, Jimbo Wales called it an "important achievement ... I am very eager to visit Iran although of course the difficult political disagreements between our countries makes that difficult. But I am sure it will happen someday soon!"

  • Hungarian camp: 16 Wikipedians from Wikimedia Hungary and the neighboring Serbia took part in the first multi-day Wikipedia camp. Based in the small town of Nagykanizsa, the four-day trip centered on sharing editor experiences. Editors expressed their hope that it may become an annual event.
  • French report: Wikimedia France has released their chapter report for April to June. There have already been 9,000 visits to their main site and 2,600 visits to their blog within the period, as well as 20,000 monthly visits to their search portal.
  • Expanded Portuguese user-rights: The Portuguese Wikipedia has implemented a new user-right for page eliminators. Members of the usergroup can delete pages from Articles for Deletion, Speedy Deletion, and other deletion pages. The group was created to compensate for a dire administrator drought on the wiki, which currently has just 40 active administrators.

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2010-08-30

Agatha Christie spoiled, Wales on Wikileaks, University students improve Wikipedia, and more

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By Ncmvocalist, Wackywace and Tilman Bayer

Agatha Christie's grandson complains: Wikipedia spoils the world's longest running play

The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie, which opened in the West End of London in 1952 and has been running continuously ever since.
When she wrote The Mousetrap, Agatha Christie gave the rights to her grandson, Matthew Prichard, as a ninth birthday present. Prichard and the rest of the family of Agatha Christie—whose book sales are surpassed by those of only the Bible—told The Independent On Sunday that they are disappointed that the Wikipedia article on the play reveals the twist ending. The play has had the longest initial run of any, with more than 24,000 performances so far; at the end of every performance, the audience is asked not to reveal the identity of the murderer. The newspaper complains that readers of the article are informed "without warning, the identity of the murderer".

Prichard described the situation as "unfortunate", and intends "to take the matter up with the play's producer for the past 23 of its 58 years in the West End, Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen.... My grandmother always got upset if the plots of her books or plays were revealed in reviews – and I don't think this is any different ... I think it is a pity if a publication, if I can call it that, potentially spoils the enjoyment for those people who go to see the play. It's not a question of money or anything like that. It's just a pity."

The Independent on Sunday states that the English "Wikipedia's policy on spoilers appears to differ in other countries, and in France and Italy the play's twist is alluded to but not revealed...."

The English Wikipedia policy on spoilers is that:

articles on the Internet sometimes feature a "spoiler warning" to alert readers to spoilers in the text, which they may then choose to avoid reading. Wikipedia has previously included such warnings in some articles on works of fiction. Since it is generally expected that the subjects of our articles will be covered in detail, such warnings are considered unnecessary. Therefore, Wikipedia no longer carries spoiler warnings, except for the content disclaimer and section headings (such as "Plot" or "Ending") which imply the presence of spoilers ... It is not acceptable to delete information from an article because you think it spoils the plot. Such concerns must not interfere with neutral point of view, encyclopedic tone, completeness, or any other element of article quality.

The spoiler warning template was removed from many articles and was eventually deleted in 2007, accompanied by much debate (see Signpost coverage and archived discussions). In 2007, David Gerard, a "long time Wikipedian" and press contact for the English Wikipedia, removed the warning template from the English Wikipedia article on The Mousetrap. The Independent on Sunday does not mention him, but states:

When asked what the site's policy on the matter is, a spokesman said: "Our purpose is to collect and report notable knowledge. It's exceedingly easy to avoid knowing the identity of the murderer: just don't read it. Asking Wikipedia not to reveal the identity of the murderer is like asking a library to remove copies of The Mousetrap book from shelves because someone could just go and read the end."

The spokesman referred to appears to be a Wikipedia editor, Cyclopia, and the quotation to be taken from a comment made earlier this year, in 2010. This has caused controversy in more than one venue on the English Wikipedia (for example, see ANI and other discussion).

Also quoted in the newspaper was an anonymous Wikipedia user whom the newspaper referred to as "another approved Wikipedia committee member":

I would argue that, however trivial it may appear, the revelation of the ending breaches an oral contract between the actors and the audience. Such is the fame of the secrecy that an audience member cannot reasonably attend without knowing their role to play in guarding it, and thus an oral contract, implied in fact, has taken place. Given the importance of Wikipedia on the internet, I believe that they have a duty to protect this contract, as its breach is completely disrespectful of an old and well-kept tradition.

Prichard concluded by saying that he didn't "pretend to be an expert on Wikipedia or modern technology ... [but] from the point of view of the theatre-going public, I think it does spoil the enjoyment of those going to have an entertaining evening at the theatre – one part of which is to guess who the murderer is."

Wales praises success of Indian-language Wikipedias

In the interview, Wales announced plans for a quarterly newsletter to be published on more than 20 different Indian-language Wikipedias.

In a wide-ranging interview with Mediaweek, a trade magazine based in New York City, Jimmy Wales has stated the Wikimedia Foundation is keen to help the smaller, foreign-language Wikipedias grow; in particular, he said that Indian-language Wikipedias are seeing "a lot of success" and are "growing very quickly".

Suggesting a reason for the vast growth of Wikipedia in India, Wales said there was a large IT sector in the country, "so there's a lot of people who are on computers and, of course, they work in English but they still have their mother tongue and they would love to do more things in their mother tongue." He said that India's "tech elite" speak English, "so it makes it easier for them to communicate with each other and to collaborate". He announced plans for a quarterly newsletter to be published on more than 20 different Indian-language Wikipedias. Each Indian-language Wikipedia will contribute to the newsletter, and share "what is going on in their Wiki, what problems they're facing ... and it's a way for them to communicate with each other, and of course it's in English, so it's nice that they're able to do that.... all around the world the smaller language Wikis are growing faster than the large wikis for obvious reasons—there's a lot left to do and a lot of opportunities." He also noted recent growth in the Russian and Arabic language Wikipedias.

Wales talked at length about his Wikia venture, which he co-founded in 2004 with Angela Beesley. Wikia, which is funded mostly by advertisements, involves people Wales described as "hardcore fans", who set up specific databases of information on a particular topic—much like Wikipedia but on a single topic: "Instead of just chatting to each other on a messageboard", fans are being productive and producing "something that other people can look at". Citing as an example Lostpedia, a wiki devoted entirely to the US television drama Lost, he said that there are "hundreds of people who have unbelievable in-depth knowledge of [its every element are] sharing that information, writing it, fact checking each other, improving the articles [and have] written 7,000 entries about this TV show". "There's a symbiotic relationship between the fans and the writers [of Lost], and they're able to create a more complicated universe and a much more consistent universe because they know the fans are documenting everything for them and that fans keep it all in order for them."

Wales said the "quirkiest" wiki he had found was the Canon Hacking Development Kit Wiki, "where people are sharing software and tips on how to hack your Canon camera". Among his personal favourite wikis, he listed the Recipes and Runescape wikis.

Wales wanted to clear up any confusion regarding Wikipedia and Wikileaks, saying that the latter has "absolutely nothing" to do with Wikipedia, and that Wikileaks "isn't even a wiki". He stated that the Wikimedia Foundation finds it "a little uncomfortable that they're using the name 'wiki' when their ideals are very different from ours.... what we're involved with has nothing to do with leaking secret documents—certainly for Wikipedia itself, everything needs to be from a public, third party, reliable source. Wales joked that he had no need for secret documents: "I don't want them". However, he did say it was good to know that Wikipedia has had such a "cultural impact" that Wikileaks' name was a "homage" to Wikipedia. Speaking to The Guardian a few days later, Sue Gardner made similar remarks, adding: "My mother asked me if I ran WikiLeaks. I told her I did not"; Wikileaks founder Julian Assange retorted that "'wiki' was around a long time before 'Wikipedia'".

University of Michigan tasks students with improving Wikipedia

The University of Michigan announced this week in a press release that "teams of students are given the task of revising a Wikipedia entry on an esoteric subject, making it understandable not only to fellow scientists but also to general readers.... In the process, students learn teamwork and improve their communication skills while mastering chemistry". The project is run by Anne McNeil, who was recently invited to make a presentation at the Wikimedia Foundation headquarters in San Francisco.

The university's website says that "McNeil, assistant professor of chemistry and of macromolecular science and engineering, had two main objectives in mind when she came up with the Wikipedia project.... One was a general desire to improve public understanding of science by training young scientists to clearly communicate advanced concepts; the other was the necessity of unifying a class that was split right down the middle ... Students were split into small groups, each of which submitted suggestions of three topics that related to the course material and weren't already adequately described in Wikipedia".

"The visibility appealed to them", McNeil said. "Instead of doing a class presentation, where only the class benefits, everybody was excited that other people would see the results of their hard work, and that seemed to motivate them to work even harder to make sure their entries were accurate, well-written and understandable.... The students learn a lot and they're really proud of what they produce, but in the process they're also improving the chemistry knowledge that's out there in the world, which benefits the chemists who rely on these sites, as well as general readers seeking to broaden their knowledge."

Briefly

  • Ex-wife tells court WP not an authority: The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that the Philippine Office of the Solicitor General lost a case in a court of appeal "for relying on Wikipedia as an authority". The case concerned a 1988 marriage that was annulled in 2007 on the grounds of psychological incapacity; the office had sought to overturn the annulment. To counter the expert testimony offered by the ex-wife, it appears to have cited the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders according to Wikipedia. The ex-wife cited Wikipedia's own disclaimers, and the justices said that the state should instead have consulted "qualified psychiatric experts".
  • Author's 10% donation to WMF: US media theorist Douglas Rushkoff has announced that 10% of the proceeds from his new book (Program or be programmed: ten commands for a digital age) will go to the Wikimedia Foundation and Archive.org.
  • WP editing "difficult and bothersome": In a blog post, an intern at a US publishing house described her experiences as a Wikipedia newbie while writing the article about the company's magazine Global Traveler. She noted that Wikipedia had "a ton of rules" and found the user-interface confusing: "Everyday tasks done on the word processor become difficult and bothersome. Pressing ctrl and “B” no longer makes something bold. The Wikipedia user has to use apostrophes (‘’’) to initiate the bold and then another set of three apostrophes to end it. Similar programming techniques are used to get italics, bullets, lists and headings." She said that her experience had given her "a new-found respect for the articles that people put up."
  • New WP iPad app: MacWorld published a review (republished by BusinessWeek) of "Discover", an iPad app that displays Wikipedia in a magazine style (see earlier Signpost coverage).

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2010-08-30

Studying WikiProject Universities

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By Mono
WikiProject news
News in brief
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

WikiProject Universities is an active project with some 180 participants, focusing on improving Wikipedia's coverage of universities, colleges, and related topics. The project has more than 9,000 articles in total, with 23 featured articles, 34 featured lists, and 57 good articles, and maintains a portal. We talked to Madcoverboy, ElKevbo, Notyourbroom, and Mabeenot, who coordinates the monthly collaboration (the September collaborations involve the University of Sydney and the University of South Dakota).

  • What motivated you to join the project?
The Royal College of Music in London, UK
Stanford University after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
  • Madcoverboy: My first edits to Wikipedia back in 2005 were on the things I (thought I) knew best: where I grew up (Las Vegas Valley and Massachusetts Institute of Technology). I imagine I was motivated, like many editors, to start editing to get the article on their alma mater into tip-top shape. However, I also interacted with some experienced editors on the article (User:Dpbsmith and User:Lentower) who really took me down a notch by pointing out my boosterism. I began looking around at other articles and realized how pervasive this self-focused bias was and resolved to help do something about it.
  • ElKevbo: Technically, I'm not a member of the project. But that's splitting hairs and picking nits.... I hang out with the project and its members because American higher education is my field of study. Regularly monitoring this project's articles and pages gives me a good view of what many people believe to be important about higher education, a view that is very different than that I get from my colleagues. I hope this view is more aligned with how the general public views higher education because it's easy to forget or minimize those views when one remains ensconced in academia. (In fact, I'm presenting a paper on this topic in a few months.) I also believe in public scholarship, and that there is a proper role for scholars to fill in editing Wikipedia.
  • Bill Price: I'm a student. Very early on as an editor, I was interested in helping to maintain the article of the Cornell University Glee Club, as I was a member of that organization for my entire undergraduate career. I branched from there to the main Cornell University article, then decided to do a major photoshoot project to better document the campus. I did a similar photoshoot of Roger Williams University later that year (2009), then shifted my focus to the University of Pittsburgh because I started graduate studies there. I've done small edits to a few other universities' articles as well, but those three are the ones I watch most closely.
  • Mabeenot: Like many of our project's members, I'm a student. This was the first WikiProject I joined and it continues to be the project I watch closest. I've cleaned up and expanded quite a few university articles, particularly smaller schools that don't seem to get as much attention. I also watch frequently vandalized articles like Public Ivy, a task that can be exhausting at times. I currently organize the Collaboration of the Month.
  • Have you contributed to one of the project's recognized articles (GA, A, FA, FL, etc.)? Share your experience.
The Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, England, as viewed from the tower of the Church of St Mary the Virgin.
  • Madcoverboy: Probably my favorite FA experience was working on the United States Military Academy. User:Ahodges7 was a new editor and like many, wanted to improve the article. I counseled him to seek out the right people and look at other articles as examples and he busted his ass and got it into really great shape. With User:BQZip01, we were able to get the article from a pretty sad state to FA in less than four months (I believe). A nice high-tempo collaboration with talented people where no one had an axe to grind and the result was a truly outstanding article.
  • ElKevbo: Probably, but I don't remember any notable experiences. Isn't the UC Riverside article now featured? That one had an interesting history with a very persistent and clever editor who did his or her best to subtly (and not-so-subtly) denigrate the institution. A student with the institution's student newspaper even contacted me to ask some question (I guess it was an e-mail interview...?).
  • Bill Price: I've never participated in those fabled mad dashes to attain higher grades of quality :) I did initiate major overhauls of the references of Cornell University (B-class, former featured) and Cathedral of Learning (B-class)—unglamorous work, but I did it with the thought in mind that any FA ought to have a meticulously-maintained stable of sources.
  • How does the project keep 9,434 articles going?
The University of California, Berkeley's, Sather Tower at sunset.
  • Madcoverboy: By the skin of our teeth. There are a few really outstanding editors like User:ElKevbo, User:Mabeenot, User:Eustress, User:Notyourbroom, User:Noeticsage, and User:Jamesontai (in no particular order) who really do their best to patrol pages, revert vandalism and naked POV, and participate in discussions as they come up. As I mention below, we have lots of editors who contribute to our articles, but only a handful contribute between our articles.
  • ElKevbo: I don't think the project "keep[s] 9,434 articles going." Other editors seem to do most of the heavy lifting with us providing some guidance and oversight, particularly when things seem to be going sour. The project seems to be more of a centralized venue for a handful of editors to communicate and loosely coordinate than a community.
  • Bill Price: I realized very early on just how sparse our ranks are. It's common for IP editors and throwaway accounts to pop in and out, but there are not very many active people with the institutional knowledge necessary to keep articles from bloating and decaying. I check my watchlist about 8–20 times per day, so I'm often quick on the draw to revert vandalism or to fix up good-faith edits. I can't watch everything, though, and I don't try to.
  • Madcoverboy: Not as far as I can tell. Sometimes you have a teacher or professor who think it's a great idea to assign the college/university Wikipedia article and we here at WP:UNI only find out after the fact because of a rash of edits. These are great opportunities to get editors to contribute pictures of campus or get some archival material, but they also have a tendency to degrade into unchecked boosterism.
  • ElKevbo: I don't think so. Sadly, that seems to mirror the scholarship of higher education in America as it is largely disconnected from other fields of study, including primary and secondary education.
  • Bill Price: Not that I am aware of. Most of the "collaboration" I see between projects occurs by default due to overlapping membership.
  • Mabeenot: WikiProject Universities has a number of child projects that focus some of our project's energies. Frequently, this results in excellent articles about the history, sports teams, and notable people for large schools, as is the case with WikiProject Texas A&M, WikiProject Texas Tech, and WikiProject University of Oxford. There are also regional and athletic projects ranging from WikiProject Bangladeshi Universities to WikiProject Big 12 Conference.
  • What are WikiProject Universities' most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?
The "hat toss", now a traditional ending to the ceremony, originated at the Naval Academy in 1912. The hat toss has since become a symbolic and visual end to the four-year program. Here, 976 midshipmen graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy to become commissioned officers.
  • Madcoverboy: We could always use more people who leave the comfort of their own alma mater's article and help out on improving other college and university articles. We have 23 featured articles and 24 featured lists, but unfortunately a lot of these really talented editors rarely contribute beyond them or stop contributing altogether once they reach status. I'd say the best way for a new contributor to help today is to read a few of the university FAs, take note of the huge variance in topical coverage and quality even among these great articles, then go read their own alma mater's article and start contributing to substantive content about the history, campus, organization and academic programs rather than copying all the glossy brochure information.
  • ElKevbo: I agree that it would good if editors could step out of their comfort zone a little bit and edit articles other than their alma mater. I think that would give them a broader view of what these articles should contain as they would be able to read an article more from the perspective of a disinterested reader than a committed alumnus. I also think that many of the project's articles - like many other articles in Wikipedia - focus much too heavily on the present and the very recent past, losing historical insights and developments.
  • Bill Price: Expanding on what Madcoverboy and ElKevbo have said: As I was beginning to mature as an editor, I witnessed this storm of drama, and it very much soured my desire to "step outside of my comfort zone" and edit other universities' articles. (See this relevant comment of mine from that RFC.) I feel like I would inevitably encounter overzealous students or alumni and invite drama. (See Madcoverboy's answer to the next question.) That disinclination of mine seems to be limited to university articles, however. When it comes to other topics, I'm no stranger to writing articles about things I lack familiarity with—virtually the entire article of Canonsburg Lake (minus the "Wildlife" section) was written by me, but I'd never previously heard of the lake until someone created a stub for it.
  • Tell me about the project's collaborations and "coordination problems".
An autumn view of Cleveland tower at the Graduate College, Princeton University.
Keble College
  • Madcoverboy: We're in a bit of a tough spot that I imagine a few other WikiProjects have experienced. First, there's obviously a huge amount of content to cover and coordinate. Second, the vast majority of contributions to this content come from people who attended, are employed by, or are otherwise involved in the topic they cover. I don't imagine that the editors who contribute to RNA view adenosine triphosphate as a competitor that should be shunned or badmouthed. This isn't to say there's an overt COI issue, but a lot of the problems with have with NPOV (rampant use of self-published sources, peacock and weasel words, and synthesized claims) stem from that original motivation to portray one's school in a favorable light. Third, (I think) our goal is to support and channel these editors' motivation into something productive such as improving content about history or the campus rather than accumulating more and more "cruft" about rankings, selectivity, awards, and popular culture references. Some people respond favorably to other editors' pointing out that a consensus exists for including or excluding some types of content and are happy to emulate and improvise. Other editors understandably don't like it when strangers tell them to take their school pride down a notch. It's obviously a touchy subject and sometimes leads to some unpleasant encounters for those few of us who patrol and participate beyond the safe confines of our own alma mater's article. On the upside, we're dealing with a lot of college-educated and generally rational and literate people and what happens on our articles is rarely a battlefield for larger meta-issues of Wikipedia policy or culture at large (as I imagine climate change, Obama, Islam, etc. are). I think our biggest coordination failure to date is our inability to sustain a collaboration of the month to improve university articles. I suspect this is largely because of the aforementioned problem of recruiting editors to contribute beyond their own school's article. I think our greatest coordination success has been the development and adoption of substantive style guidelines for college and university articles -- WP:UNIGUIDE.
  • ElKevbo: First, it's my impression that nearly all of the consistent contributors to these articles are lay persons, mostly alumni with the occasional staff or faculty member. That colors the content and tone of these articles, largely because most of those editors have a relatively narrow point of view. In fact, broadening the viewpoints of those editors seems to be much of what we try to do. Second, like many projects, we deal with some very passionate editors with strong views about particular institutions. In many cases those views are overly positive and we find ways to appropriately tone down the praise heaped upon the institution. In some cases, those views are strongly negative and we have to find ways to acknowledge controversies without denigrating the institution. Finally, many of these articles rely very, very heavily on resources published by the institutions themselves. Not only does that tend to promote a narrow and positive POV but it also leads (sometimes accurately) to accusations that we're only praising institutions. It's very difficult to find and maintain balance in these articles given the constant push and pull of energetic but novice editors.
  • Bill Price: Edited to add this preface: I did some poking around and found Wikipedia:UNIGUIDE#Neutral_point_of_view, which addresses this issue to an extent. It doesn't seem to rule out cherrypicking, however, beyond the admonishment that reported rankings should "represent a comprehensive cross-section of rankings by national and international publications". I'm concerned that editors cherrypick which rankings and accolades to report, and that this is enabled by the fact that there's no definitive standard to decide what rankings ought to be included and what ought to be excluded. Different articles report rankings and scores for very different dimensions of evaluation, making cross-article comparison difficult. The net effect is that everyone looks above average because everyone frames their accomplishments differently. For example, The Princeton Review recently rated the University of Pittsburgh as having the eighth happiest student body in the nation. I incorporated that fact into the university's article, but I didn't spare a second to check to see what the university had ranked poorly on. It's a bit like the boiling frog story—one instance of cherrypicking isn't that bad, but the more it happens, the more an article swerves toward boosterism. One could partially excuse that by saying that only exceptional rankings are notable, but then wouldn't the abysmal rankings be equally notable? And if both the excellent and terrible rankings were reported side by side, isn't that still lopsided, because it only focuses on the "extremes" of a school's image while neglecting the more mundane facets of its operation? I don't know that there's any reasonable solution other than judging these things on a case-by-case basis, though.
  • Mabeenot: I agree with the above responses. The biggest problem we face is that students, alumni, and staff edit most of these articles on a frequent basis and they will always have a fondness for their alma mater. Some editors can show objectivity, while others cram as much academic boosterism into an article as humanly possible. And don't even get me started about contentious ranking systems, athletic rivalries, and the nicknames bestowed on certain schools... Members of WikiProject Universities routinely spend nearly as much time guarding articles as they do creating new content. Needless to say, we can always use a few more eyes.
  • Anything else you'd like to add?
Jerwood Library, Trinity Hall, Cambridge
  • Eustress: Some of my most treasured offline Wikipedia moments have occurred while laboring in behalf of WP:UNI. For instance, while working to improve university b-school articles, I came across two with anemic history sections (Johnson School and Marriott School). Unable to locate any reliable sources for pertinent information on the Web, I reached out to university libraries, dean’s offices, and alumni associations for research help in my capacity as a member of WikiProject Universities. Each time I was enthusiastically received and led to volumes of rich university history that had seldom seen the light of day and never graced the Internet. Now such information can be enjoyed conveniently and without charge on Wikipedia. Furthermore, the information I found helped not only to fill in the history gaps for the schools I was targeting but also for other departments and for other universities.

Next week, we'll set out to catalog the unknown. Until then, browse the archives.

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2010-08-30

Featured article milestone: 3,000

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By Dabomb87, Tony1 and Resident Mario
New featured picture: a high-quality copy of a large steel engraving by the 18th-century English engraver William Woollett, The Battle at La Hogue, after a painting by Benjamin West (1781). The image probably shows the events of 24 May 1692, when the British sailors rowed in and torched French ships.

3,000th featured article

On 18 August, the English Wikipedia reached a milestone with the promotion of its 3,000th article to Featured article (FA) status. These 3,000 articles represent the best 0.09% of articles on Wikipedia—about one in every 1,120 articles. FAC Delegate User:SandyGeorgia said, "Congratulations to all the nominators and reviewers who contributed to reaching the 3,000 FA milestone on Wiki! I also note that FAC has reached a two-year high on monthly promotions, in spite of increasing standards, and congratulate all of the dedicated contributors – both writers and reviewers. We can always use more reviewers (without reviewers, we don't have FAs): see Reviewers achieving excellence for ways anyone can help out".

The threshold was reached when FAC delegate SandyGeorgia simultaneously promoted six articles, bringing the total to 3,001 articles. These articles were on a wide variety of topics: Whitechapel murders (11 murders in London between 1888 and 1891 by the notorious Jack the Ripper); Royal National College for the Blind (a residential college for the blind); Mount Cayley volcanic field (a volcanic field in Canada); "Road to the Multiverse" (a Family Guy episode); 90377 Sedna (a trans-Neptunian object orbiting the Sun); and Mark Tonelli (a retired Australian competitive swimmer).

The Featured article process (FAC) was initiated in June 2003 as "Brilliant prose"; we reached 500 FAs in February 2005 (see Signpost coverage); the 1,000th FA was promoted in June 2006 (Signpost coverage); the 2,000th was reached just under two years later (Signpost coverage). The deterioration over time of individual FAs and rising standards for promotion have meant that many early articles have been demoted; the number of FAs (promotions less demotions) has risen at an average rate of 34 articles a month from August 2008 to July 2010. In the first half of this year, 270 articles were promoted, and 70 were demoted, a rise of 200 articles or about 33 articles monthly.

Administrators

August has seen ten promotions to adminship, five of them over the past week alone:

  • Dabomb87 (nom), from Texas, has some 60,000 edits to his name over his three years with us. He has been described as "doing anything he can to help out, ... with careful and thorough conscientiousness". He is a featured list director and has a prolific record of reviewing featured content, good articles, and DYK nominations.
  • Nikkimaria (nom), a Canadian Wikipedian since 2005, has built up a strong record in content creation and reviewing, and has done valuable work at NewPages and RecentChanges. She has particular interests in English, history, and music, and speaks French.
  • WOSlinker (nom) has focused mainly on working on templates—in particular the use of {{editprotected}}—and editing in fields as diverse as World of Spectrum (hence the user name), motorsports, and broadcasting. He nominated for an RfA after seeing last week's Signpost story on the precipitous decline in active admins over the past few years.
  • Amatulic (nom) also nominated after seeing last week's Signpost article. Amatulic—an American scientist with an MBA in addition to an undergraduate degree in physics—has worked as an engineer for the past 25 years, mostly in the field of stealth technology; he has logged in almost every day since joining in 2006. He is experienced in dealing with user-level maintenance such as vandalism, spam, and article deletion, and participates regularly in dispute resolution on WP:Third opinion.
  • Airplaneman (nom) has experience in the project's administration, discussions, and content work (airplanes, classical music, technology, science, and literature). He participates in the adopt-a-user scheme and is a member of the Welcoming committee.
Wandsworth Bridge, joining two parts of London across the Thames.
Five articles were promoted to featured status:
  • Banksia scabrella (nom), commonly known as the "Burma Road Banksia", a species of woody shrub found in Western Australia (nominated by Casliber).
  • Seorsumuscardinus (nom), a genus of fossil dormouse from almost 20 million years ago, found in central and eastern Europe (Ucucha).
  • "The Body" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (nom), "not your typical sci-fi/fantasy episode", said one of the nominators. A commentator was also quoted: "Any sneerer of Buffy in particular or genre work should simply be sat down in front of a television and told to shut up for three-quarters of an hour while they are shown 'The Body'" (Moni3 and Courcelles).
  • Yorkshire captaincy affair of 1927 (nom), a dreadful squabble about the relationship between professionals and amateurs in English cricket, with undertones of class warfare (Sarastro1).
  • Wandsworth Bridge (nom), the story of a bridge that crosses the Thames, among the last two in London privately built for toll revenue. It was rebuilt and opened as a free bridge under public ownership in 1940, "a distinctly unlovely piece of wartime functionalist design which replaced an equally unlovely piece of 19th-century cost-cutting design", says nominator Iridescent. (picture at right)

Choice of the week. Southpark is an FA veteran at the German Wikipedia, with many "Exzellente Artikels" under his belt. He has served on the jury of de.WP's "writing contest" three times, and is fluent in English. The Signpost asked him to select the best of the week's promotions on the English Wikipedia: "I enjoyed reading all of the articles and now have a new sightseeing destination for my next London trip. Maybe I'll even give cricket a second chance. I chose "The Body" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). I especially like that this is an article that could never ever be written on the German Wikipedia. This in-depth treatment of a single television episode shows the special qualities of en.wp in an outstanding manner. It provides aesthetic and cultural background for a phenomenom that I hardly knew anything about except its mere existence. The article avoids fandom and insider-references without being overly technical or even boring. It tells the story of this special episode from several noteworthy angles. Thereby it communicates the emotional impact this episode has on its viewers (and producers) as well as it gives a detailed account of its production. I feel as much informed as I feel entertained." Southpark's blog on the judgment.

"Just Imagine"
"Just Imagine", track 1 of Hungry Lucy's Pulse of the Earth
Problems playing this file? See media help.
Pulse of the Earth album cover for the ten tracks that are now featured sounds
A single-page print of the Rescript that Japanese emperor Hirohito read on radio at the end of World War II. This broadcast is now a featured sound, the "Jewel Voice Broadcast"

One stand-alone sound-file and a set of ten files were promoted:

  • Pulse of the Earth (nom), in what might be a first for Wikimedia, a whole album of a notable group comprising 10 tracks, all at Commons. Nominator J Milburn says, "Hungry Lucy has previously released a number of their works under CC licenses, though not CC licenses that count as "free" under Wikipedia's policies. I contacted the band, asking if they'd be willing to release images/songs under a freer license, and they let me know that (contrary to what it said on archive.org) their latest album, as well as all the images associated with it, were released under cc-by-sa-3.0." The Signpost thanks the band for its generosity. (album cover and sound file for Track 1 at right)
  • The "Jewel Voice Broadcast" (nom), the momentous radio broadcast at noon on 15 August 1945 in which Japanese emperor Hirohito read out the Imperial Rescript on the Termination of the War, announcing that the Japanese government had accepted the Potsdam Declaration demanding the unconditional surrender of the Japanese military. A translation is provided here (nominator Adam Cuerden). (picture at right)
Sumatran orangutan, from the new featured list Choice of the week, The world's 25 most endangered primates
Seven lists were promoted:

Choice of the week. We asked FL nominator and reviewer Goodraise for his favorite: "It was an easy choice. The World's 25 Most Endangered Primates not only stands out for its well-written prose, but for its visual appeal, not to mention the rarity of biology lists with featured status. I particularly enjoyed reading the list because it surprised me. I wasn't aware that so many of our relatives live on the brink of extinction." (picture at right)

One topic was promoted:

  • Oryzomys, nom, with six featured articles, one featured list and five good articles.
The Whirlpool Galaxy (left, red spiral arms), one of the most famous galaxies in the sky, interacts with its neighbour, the dwarf galaxy NGC 5195 (right). Astoundingly, even though 23 million light years away, they can sometimes be seen with binoculars.
Calvin Borel, the celebrated American jockey in thoroughbred horse racing, pictured in 2007
Nine images were promoted. Each can be viewed in medium size by clicking on "nom".

Choice of the week. Jfitch, a regular reviewer and nominator at featured picture candidates, told The Signpost, "For me this week there was one nomination that really stood out over the rest. The Australian blenny has such quality and detail, which is made even more impressive when the fact that it is an underwater photograph is taken into account. The technical difficulties in achieving a shot like this are extremely difficult, and being able to capture the fish in such an elegant way really made this the only nomination that I could choose as my Choice of the week." (picture below)

Featured picture Choice of the week: The Australian blenny are small marine blennioid fish of the genus Ecsenius.


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2010-08-30

What does the Race and intelligence case tell us?

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By Ncmvocalist

The Arbitration Committee closed one case and opened none this week, leaving one open.

Open cases

Climate change (Week 12)

This case resulted from the merging of several Arbitration requests on the same topic into a single case, and the failure of a related request for comment to make headway. Innovations have been introduced for this case, including special rules of conduct that were put in place at the start of the arbitration. However, the handling of the case has received criticism from some participants (for example, although the evidence and workshop pages were closed for an extended period, no proposals were posted on the proposed decision page and participants were prevented from further discussing their case on the case pages (see Signpost coverage).

Last week, a proposed decision drafted by Newyorkbrad, Risker, and Rlevse was posted. This sparked a large quantity of unstructured discussion which mostly consists of concerns about the proposed decision (see also last week's Signpost coverage). Recently, arbitrators started modifying the proposed decision as they attempt to address these concerns. Participants also started managing the quantity of unstructured discussion which has significantly increased during the week.

Closed cases

Race and intelligence (Week 13)

This case concerned accusations of incivility, disruptive editing, a flawed informal mediation, and tag-teaming to control the content on articles related to race and intelligence. Following a number of delays (see Signpost coverage from June 28, July 5, and July 12), the case moved to the proposed decision phase. The decision that was proposed by the drafting arbitrator, Coren, sparked several concerns among participants and non-participants, and 9 out of 10 active arbitrators opposed the proposed outcome (see last week's Signpost coverage for more details). Several proposals by other arbitrators were voted on, a number of which were drafted by Roger Davies. The case was closed during the week, and the final decision was posted.

What is the effect of the decision and what does it tell us?
  • Articles closely related to race and intelligence are subject to discretionary sanctions, and editors are warned that articles within the Category:Race and intelligence controversy have been subject to extensive disruption.
  • Captain Occam is topic-banned from race- and intelligence-related articles.
  • David.Kane is topic-banned from race- and intelligence-related articles.
  • Mathsci is topic-banned from race- and intelligence-related articles.
  • Mikemikev is indefinitely topic-banned from race- and intelligence-related articles and is restricted to editing with a single account. Mikemikev is banned from Wikipedia until 24 August 2011.
  • Mediation is a voluntary process; it cannot impose involuntary or binding outcomes about content on Wikipedia. The attempt at mediation in this dispute was flawed because it went ahead even though major participants in the dispute refused mediation, and it purported to make a binding decision.
  • When working in a highly contentious topic, it is crucial for editors to adhere to fundamental Wikipedia policies. This includes maintaining a neutral point of view, citing disputed statements to reliable sources, and avoiding unseemly conduct like edit-warring, harassment, uncivil comments or assumptions of bad faith. Editors should not engage in tag-team editing to thwart core Wikipedia policies or to otherwise prevent consensus prevailing. Single-purpose accounts are expected to contribute neutrally instead of following their own agenda, and should take special care to avoid creating the impression that their focus on one topic is non-neutral – this could strongly suggest that their editing is not compatible with the goals of this project.

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2010-08-30

Reusability of MediaWiki code, Google Summer of Code: Interwiki transclusion, and more

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By Jarry1250

Making MediaWiki code easier to reuse

Developers, most of them unpaid, help to write improvements to the MediaWiki software on which WMF wikis are based. Some of these improvements are very specific to running a wiki; however, others could be useful to completely different projects, such as the provision of support for .OGG files and general-purpose handlers of CSS and JavaScript files. Trevor Pascal, one of a handful of paid programmers for the Foundation, has outlined proposals to untangle the specifically MediaWiki-only code from those sections which (i) had either been imported from other projects and would be easier to update in isolation, or (ii) could be reused by other projects in the same way that text and images can already be easily found and reused by others: "Overall, it would be great if we could take a look at this and other ways to better share our work with non-MediaWiki projects, and give back to the open-source community." How this could best be achieved is still up for debate. Suggestions include the use of the PEAR mechanism for sharing PHP modules.

Google Summer of Code: Peter Potrowl

We continue a series of articles about this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with student Peter Potrowl, who describes his project to develop a system for transcluding templates from other wikis:


Readers interested in the possibilities of interwiki transclusion may wish to refer to Daniel Kinzler's blog post earlier this month.

In brief

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.

  • As part of an ongoing upgrade of the antiquated storage of user preferences, users have had the storage of their options changed en masse. Previously, changing a preference would trigger the invisible upgrade, but since many users do not customise their preferences, 9.3 million users on the English Wikipedia alone were still on the old system, with fewer than 4 million on the new. The consistency this creates will be used in a number of new projects, including a universal "Take me back" button to switch back to the Monobook skin.
  • A PagedTiffHandler for the display of TIFF files was briefly enabled on Wikimedia Commons, but was soon disabled because of its negative side-effect (disabling the upload of any non-TIFF file, bug #24954).
  • The Bugzilla interface for tracking bugs and feature requests has been upgraded to version 3.6.2 from a previous 3.4.x series installation (bug #24874, release notes).
  • Many of the outstanding bugs with image thumbnailing have been fixed (e.g. bug #24824).
  • Oversighters are being given the capability to suppress AbuseFilter log entries (cf. bug #24943.)
  • The recent changes feed has been provisionally made available via the XMPP protocol, mainly for the use of bots. It is thought to be a significant improvement over the existing IRC feed.

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