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23 September 2015

 

2015-09-23

PETA makes "monkey selfie" a three-way copyright battle; Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

A Wikimania 2014 attendee

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) filed a lawsuit in United States District Court on September 22 over the copyright to the monkey selfies, a group of photographs taken in 2011 by an Indonesian Celebes crested macaque using equipment set up by wildlife photographer David Slater. Slater claimed copyright over the photographs and demanded their removal from Wikimedia Commons, but the Wikimedia Foundation refused on the grounds that the photographs could not be copyrighted because they were not taken by a human being, a position later concurred with by others, including the United States Copyright Office. The matter received significant media attention following the release of last year's WMF transparency report (see previous Signpost coverage) and the photos were enthusiastically embraced by many Wikimedians, even becoming a sort of unofficial symbol of Wikimania 2014.

Wikimedia is not mentioned in PETA's lawsuit. Instead, PETA is suing Slater, his company, and his publisher, on behalf of the monkey, who they identify as Naruto. According to PETA "The lawsuit seeks to have Naruto declared the 'author' and owner of his photograph. Our argument is simple: U.S. copyright law doesn’t prohibit an animal from owning a copyright, and since Naruto took the photo, he owns the copyright, as any human would." PETA would administer the copyright and use the proceeds for the benefit of Naruto and the macaque habitat.

Legal experts are divided on the merits of the case. David Favre of Michigan State University told the Associated Press "They have a fair argument, but I would have to say it is an uphill battle." Laurence Tribe of Harvard University disagreed, telling the AP "It trivializes the terrible problems of needless animal slaughter and avoidable animal exploitation worldwide for lawyers to focus so much energy and ingenuity on whether monkeys own the copyright in selfies taken under these contrived circumstances."

No one ever asked my opinion.

Slater told CNet:

According to BBC News, Slater argues that it took "much time and more perseverance" to obtain the famous shot:

G, AK

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Edward Zalta at Wikimania 2015

Nikhil Sonnad, writing for Quartz, reports (Sept. 21) on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in an article titled "This free online encyclopedia has achieved what Wikipedia can only dream of".

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy today contains close to 1,500 entries (less than 1/3,000 of Wikipedia) and is updated continuously. Unlike Wikipedia, however, its articles are full treatments of their topics, written by experts. The Encyclopedia enjoys an excellent reputation, and has become an important resource for students, instructors and scholars as well as the general public.

The Encyclopedia was begun in 1995 by Edward Zalta of Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information, who earlier this year gave a presentation at Wikimania 2015: "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Issues Faced by Academic Reference Works That May Be of Interest to Wikipedians". AK

What may be history's first photobomb was found in this 1853 photograph in the National Library of Wales
  • 8 times a blog plagiarized Wikipedia: Phil Edwards, the "Ephemera correspondent" at Vox who wrote about Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars last week (see last week's In the media), has posted a story about what might be "the first photobomb" in history. This story is remarkably similar to one recently posted to the WMF blog by former Signpost editor-in-chief Ed Erhart, a fact pointed out on Twitter by Katherine Maher, the WMF's chief communications officer. While Edwards does not seem to have taken any text word for word from Erhart and does link to Erhart's post deep in his story, it appears to be a textbook example of "churnalizing", an increasingly frequent practice where stories are essentially copied and rewritten by other publications. Maher writes that "it grates especially hard" when the content re-purposed by paid writers and journalists is "work done by volunteer contributors". (Sept. 25) G
  • More on Wikipedia's Google rankings: Stone Temple Consulting reports (Sept. 23) that comparing data from April, May and August of this year shows that Wikipedia has experienced ranking drops – "the site did lose many of its #1 and #2 ranking positions". However, Wikipedia was still more strongly represented in search results than Google's own web properties, and the authors note with some surprise that "Wikipedia's presence in commercial queries is actually higher than it is in informational queries". AK
  • Booker bet: The Telegraph reports (Sept. 22) on a man, "described as middle-aged, well-spoken and fair-haired", who was able to correctly predict last year's Man Booker Prize winner, enabling him to win over a dozen bets he had placed on the envisaged outcome. He later rang a newspaper to describe his methods, which partly relied on the judges' Wikipedia biographies: "I did a case study of each judge, using Wikipedia and YouTube, and read as much as I could about the books they had written, their interests, their politics and religious beliefs and then, through a process of Sherlock Holmes deductive reasoning, tried to intuit which book they would go for." This year, the mystery punter is betting on The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota. AK
  • Traffic report becomes art: Signpost's own Serendipodous has a rival! Hyperallergic magazine describes (Sept. 21) how American artist Jason Salavon has compiled a massive list of all the 5 million Wikipedia articles ordered by page views. A display this month at Expo Chicago, titled "The Master List (Semaphore)", featured lists of the most popular articles. Close by was Salavon's colorful video work based upon Wikipedia articles on art topics. N
  • Computer decides Wikipedia is reliable: TechCrunch, the online technology mag, was impressed (Sept. 21) with the "incredible" capabilities of IBM's "Watson" artificial intelligence (AI) system. Watson was asked to determine whether Wikipedia was a reliable source. In "just a few seconds" it went through all the articles on Wikipedia and "concluded that it was in fact an accurate source of information". However, Dr John Kelly, head of the Watson project, reassures us that AI won't be replacing humans just yet, instead helping us make decisions. N
  • Open-source taxonomy project: Time reports (Sept. 21) on what it calls, somewhat misleadingly, "the Wikipedia for new species" – an academically curated project to create an "Open Tree of Taxonomy". AK



Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next week's edition in the Newsroom or contact the editor.




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2015-09-23

Can we please stop bashing Wikipedia?

Here are three simple things that you could do instead:

  • Explain why Wikipedians behave the way they do. I believe we can do a better job at explaining why members of our community revert bad edits without necessarily describing them as "ultra-pedantic". Consider talking about how Wikipedians are devoting large amounts of their free time to keeping the information on Wikipedia accurate and free of vandalism. How people are performing this onerous task without ever getting paid or even being acknowledged for their work. We do this because we believe in the idea of providing the world with high-quality information free of charge.
  • Tell people about the satisfaction you get out of editing. Correct me if I'm wrong. But I haven't seen many examples of people talking about the joy that comes with creating or substantially improving Wikipedia articles or adding a new image to an article that had no illustration. However, I know countless Wikipedians (myself included) who get a deep satisfaction out of building something online, of tinkering with articles until they meet their own high quality standards. What a great talking point.
  • Talk about why you joined Wikipedia in the first place. I don't know why you joined Wikipedia. I can only talk about myself. Back in 2005, I felt like coverage of topics that I cared about was missing. Some stuff on Wikipedia was simply inaccurate. After I started making my first edits, I felt connected to that unique group of people who were funny, smart, and dedicated to the cause of free and open knowledge. Getting their feedback and interacting with them deeply satisfied me. And I'm close friends with some of them since (even far beyond our shared interest in writing articles and uploading photos).

Now, to which extent would talking in a more positive way about Wikipedia and its community make a difference? Honestly, I don't know. What I remember, though, is the effect that an article in the German magazine Der Spiegel had on Wikipedia in late 2004. A large wave of new editors flooded the German Wikipedia. Even up to the point that the existing community at that point wondered whether it would ever be able to onboard the huge amount of new editors appropriately.

Is it likely that a journal article about Wikipedia would have the same effect today? I doubt it. However, and that I know for sure – I wouldn't want to join a "rancorous, sexist, elitist" group of people. That's why I'm committed to trying my best in changing the public perception of a community and a cause I love. Are you?

Frank Schulenburg is the Executive Director of the Wiki Education Foundation, an independent organization that supports the use of Wikipedia in education in the US and Canada. He has been a Wikipedia editor since 2005. The views expressed in this editorial are his alone and do not reflect any official opinions of this publication or the Wiki Education Foundation.



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2015-09-23

Inside Duke Humfrey's Library

Portrait of Félix Fénéon by Paul Signac

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 13 September to 19 September.


One featured topic was promoted this week.

Thirty Wikipedia:featured pictures were promoted this week.



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2015-09-23

Dancing to the beat of a... wikiproject?

This time of year features the Latin Grammy Awards, so here for an interview are WikiProject Latin music. Currently with 55 members, it covers all aspects of Latin music and its associated topics. Telling us more are Victor Lopes and Magiciandude.

What motivated you to join WikiProject Latin music? Are you a musician, or just a fan of the genre?

  • Victor Lopes: I'm an amateur musician, but mostly a fan of the genre, and since I live in Latin America, I'm obviously surrounded by it.
  • Magiciandude: I grew up listening to Latin music all my life (I am of Puerto Rican descent) and I continue to do so as it is my favorite genre. I created the WikiProject as an effort to reach out to other editors who have similar interests.

Have you contributed to any of the project's fifty Featured or 131 Good articles, and do you find them easier or harder to promote than articles regarding other subjects?

Do you think that Latin music receives a reasonable amount of editor attention on Wikipedia, or should there be more editors involved?

  • Victor Lopes: The coverage is much beyond my expectations. As a matter of fact, the coverage here is much better than in my native Portuguese Wikipedia, though highly popular artists such as Shakira tend to be as well-covered as they are here.
  • Magiciandude: It varies. As Victor Lopes said, artists such as Shakira, Ricky Martin, and Enrique Iglesias tend to receive more coverage due to being internationally known. Likewise, music from popular countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Spain, and the United States also gets more contributions. We could definitely use more editors who are knowledgeable about music from other Spanish-speaking regions of Latin America that receive much less attention the project. We can also benefit more users who can speak Portuguese as the number of Spanish-speaking users on the project greatly outnumbers those who speak Portuguese so that articles related to music from Brazil and Portugal can be improved on.

The project has many DYK (did you know) items listed on its front page, more than most WikiProjects. Are your editors particularly encouraged to nominate new articles for DYK?

  • Magiciandude: Credit goes to Jaespinoza for bringing so many DYKs to the project. Most of the other active members also tend to be active making DYKs.

What is your most popular topic or article, measured by reader page views? Should it be a project aim to improve your highest visibility articles?

  • Magiciandude: As mentioned, Latin artists who are internationally known such as Enrique Iglesias and Shakira tend to have the most views as well as the countries I've said before. The project aims to improve artists and recordings that have received the highest visibility to attract new members while also reaching out to users who are interested in other Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking music from Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula that receives less attention from the project.

How can a new member help today?

  • Victor Lopes: We have recently expanded our to-do list. New members (anyone, actually ;D) are invited to help creating those articles.
  • Magiciandude: There are many ways a new member can help out whether it'd be contributing to their favorite Latin artists and their recordings or their favorite Latin genres. Since we include any music in Spanish and Portuguese that have been released in Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, and the United States, we are open to members who want to contribute to artists who frequently cross over to the Latin market such as Laura Pausini and Manu Chao. We also accept recordings with indigenous languages and dialects from Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula for anyone who is interested in either of those. I have also compiled a list of resources to help users find information for Latin music articles much easier.



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2015-09-23

¡Viva la Revolución! Kinda.

This week, drug lord and wannabe Bolivar Pablo Escobar was joined by a whole host of somewhat more primetime-friendly political insurgents, as the tidal wave of anger against the managerial styles of many political parties finally seemed to be bearing fruit across the world. Eleven people took part in this week's Republican US Presidential debate, but the only ones who made it on this list were those with no prior political experience. The debate saw Carly Fiorina, who had fought to be included, rise to second place in the polls. In Australia, Malcolm Turnbull staged an uprising from within and swiped the throne from Tony Abbott.

For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.

As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of September 13 to 19, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 Pablo Escobar B-Class 1,111,040
File:Pablo Escobar graffitti.jpg
Holding steady in the top spot for a third week (down by about 300,000 views). The Capone of cocaine shot from the bottom to the top of this list two weeks ago, thanks to the Netflix series Narcos, which charts his rise, brutal rule, and (presumably, at some point) bloody end. It is odd that the Colombian drug lords haven't been romanticised as their Italian Chicago predecessors were. Perhaps it's simple xenophobia, or more likely, because we are so much more aware of how barbaric they were.
2 Carly Fiorina C-class 1,026,856
The media's declared "winner" (if there can be such a thing) of Wednesday's second Republican US Presidential debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California and hosted by CNN. Having fought fiercely to be included in the main debate, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO held a steady course that night, keeping herself stern and no-nonsense, even when confronted yet again with Donald Trump's now legendary description of her in Rolling Stone: "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!" When asked during the debate to comment on Trump's backtrack that he was referring to her "persona", Fiorina countered coolly, "I think women all over this country heard what Mr. Trump said.". It worked; polls now show Trump has slumped, while she has shot to 2nd place.
3 Whitey Bulger C-class 954,479
Interest in this Boston Irish mobster, brother of a state senator and coddled FBI informant has skyrocketed thanks to the trailer for the film Black Mass, which features a bonechilling performance by Johnny Depp, playing a particularly icy variation of Joe Pesci's "You think I'm funny?" scene in Goodfellas. The trailer led to a respectable $23 million opening weekend gross.
4 Mia Khalifa C-class 729,528
The Lebanese American porn star (she is apparently the most viewed star on PornHub, thanks largely to the support of patriotic Lebanese) got into a bit of bother with a fifth of the world's population this week when, after a hack of her Instagram account falsely claimed she would be appearing on the Indian version of Big Brother, she huffily replied on social media that she was "never stepping foot in India". This of course led to massive backlash from that proud and still largely sexually conservative nation, one she has yet to comment on.
5 Donald Trump B-Class 688,313
For a moment there it looked as if the Donald was done, at least as far as this list was concerned; hovering above relegation last week, his numbers doubled after this week's latest Republican debate. His performance was not praised, and may have cost him in the polls, but if his rise has taught us anything, it's that there is no such thing as bad publicity – provided you don't care.
6 Malcolm Turnbull C-class 570,503
In one of those Shakespearean coups that make parliamentary democracies so interesting, the erstwhile Australian Minister for Communications launched a bid to replace then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott, on the (arguably correct) grounds that he had become an electoral liability. The bid succeeded, granting Turnbull the dubious honour of being the third person in six years to govern Australia without a mandate. Only time will tell if he outperforms his predecessors, though if recent history is anything to go by, not much time.
7 Fool's Gold Loaf Good Article 560,787
American cuisine has a habit of sacrficing pleasure on the altar of pure calories, and this delicacy of the Colorado Mine Company restaurant in Denver, is no exception. It consists of a hollowed loaf of bread filed with an entire jar of peanut butter, an entire jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon, and costs $65, hence its name. Despite this, Elvis Presley once flew from his home in Tenneseee to Denver at midnight, just to try it, as learned on a Reddit thread this week.
8 Deaths in 2015 List 553,372
The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550 thousand on average, apparently heedless of who actually died.
9 Moses Malone B-Class 536,211
The six-foot, ten-inch 12-time NBA All-Star and three-time MVP, who finished his career with a record 7,382 offensive rebounds, died in his sleep this week at the relatively young age of 60, of heart failure.
10 Ben Carson C-class 529,336
The soft-spoken neurosurgeon and Republican Presidential candidate (much like Trump and Fiorina, he has yet to hold political office, which appears to be a boon in this race) has seen his viewing numbers jump by more than 50% since the last debate, even as his polls decline slightly in favour of Carly Fiorina. Thanks to his appeal to his party's religious conservative base, he has been nipping at Trump's heels for weeks now, and even scored a point for rational skepticism during the debate by showing Trump up on his belief in the old myth about vaccines causing autism. He still managed to flub it a bit with the odd addendum that parents should have the option to exclude those vaccines that "[don't] prevent death or crippling," despite there being no such vaccines, since all the diseases we vaccinate against can cause death or crippling.



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2015-09-23

Tech news in brief

The following content has been republished as-is from the Tech News weekly report.



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