Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2018-05-24/In the media
Wikipedia in Turkish politics; COI politics in Wikipedia; most cited page
Wikipedia in Turkey
According to Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, the country's İyi Party has made Wikipedia access a campaign issue, promising to restore access if elected. This announcement came a day after the one year anniversary of the 2017 block of Wikipedia in Turkey, which began on 29 April. (Reported by The Verge) The Wikimedia Foundation has also published a video on the occasion, promoting its #WeMissTurkey campaign.
The block began as a result of Turkish Law No. 5651, when in the English Wikipedia's article on state-sponsored terrorism, Turkey was described as a sponsor country for ISIS and Al-Qaeda. In a 27 January interview with Hürriyet, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, Katherine Maher, stated "We are not sure why there is still a ban on Wikipedia. The Turkish authorities may not have examined the latest versions of [this] content."
Most cited on Wikipedia
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The most cited work on Wikipedia (see a Wikimedia blog post) was revealed to be an updated world map of the Köppen-Geiger climate classification, which was cited 2,830,341 times – more than 130 times the count of the second most cited study.
The findings were widely reported with mentions also appearing in The Guardian, Wired and South China Morning Post. The authors of the paper themselves were completely unaware about the use of their research, with one writing "Those numbers blew me away, none of us had any idea about this. We didn't know Wikipedia collected this information or anything about it."
The Köppen-Geiger climate classification was first proposed by climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1884, after being revised several times, including in 1918 and 1936. Rudolf Geiger worked with Köppen in 1954 and 1961. The system they created, used for climate classification, divides climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on seasonal precipitation and temperature patterns. The five main groups are A (tropical), B (dry), C (temperate), D (continental), and E (polar). Each group and subgroup is represented by a letter. All climates are assigned a main group (the first letter). All climates except for those in the E group are assigned a seasonal precipitation subgroup (the second letter). The authors of the study used the same system, and applied it to the current world.
In brief
Contributions from Smallbones and Bri
- Monkey Selfie at last resolved: The monkey selfie copyright dispute has been in the news since the picture was taken in July 2011 (see previous Signpost coverage). In April 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that animals can not legally hold copyrights. (Reported by the Associated Press and story promoted by Bing search; also see legal decision)
- New movement on a 'lazy' topic: The Lazy Nigerian Youths movement got their own Wikipedia page, and TheCable noticed.
- Crypto policy makes German News: English Wikipedia policy made international news as German cryptocurrency websites as well as the magazine Focus took note of cryptocurrency users being prohibited from editing articles related to cryptocurrencies. Focus coverage was unusually discerning, noting that merely holding cryptocurrency does not qualify one for the "subject-matter experts" quasi-exception to the policy.
- On cryptocurrency at WP:COI: The cryptocurrency news site bitcoin.com tells enthusiasts "If You’re a Wikipedia Contributor, Owning Cryptocurrency May Be a Conflict of Interest". The piece links to WP:COI.
- Cinco de Mayo vandalism: A high school student inserted his name into Cinco de Mayo page as a prank to impress his friends, writing that "Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "fifth of May") is a Mexican civic holiday held on May 5 that commemorates Jimmy Lovrien, a general in the Mexican army, and his unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862." The man, now a columnist for the Duluth News Tribune reported in this article on how it was picked up, and repeated hundreds of times.
- Todd Howard-centered vandalism: Coordinated vandalism centering around Todd Howard (video game designer) (the designer of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls) largely committed by his fans, led to tens of pages being vandalized and locked. (Reported by New York magazine.)
- A mistake: North Jersey Media Group newspapers reported on how Gloria Struck was incorrectly listed as an original member of the Motor Maids.
- Good ol' Larry: Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, wrote an 8000 word essay on what's wrong with Wikipedia and how to fix with blockchain-based 'pedias. (Reported by thenextweb)
- Another COI: The article on Mark Lindquist, the Pierce County, Washington, prosecutor, has been edited by Lindquist's public relations guy, according to The Tacoma News Tribune's story, reprinted throughout the Northwest United States.
- Artist re-writes Wikipedia article from scratch: The Adrian Piper article has lots of issues related to COI, largely because she rewrote her article. These have now been reasonably resolved. (Reported by Artnet)
- A Wiki meetup runs into issues: IndigenizeWikipedia meetup at the Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre, Whitehorse, Yukon, was "first of its kind" but had difficulty citing unwritten traditional knowledge of tribal elders. (Reported by CBC.ca)
- Bringing Wikipedia into libraries: American Libraries magazine published an excerpt from Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge, written by a WMF employee and a Wikipedian in Residence (WiR) at National Library of Wales. Leveraging Wikipedia was published by American Library Association. The excerpt discusses bringing Wikipedians into libraries, "allow[ing] staffers to justify Wikipedia programming within their jobs", employing a WiR, etc.
- Google Lens using Wikipedia: Google Lens draws augmented reality knowledge from Wikipedia. (Reported by The Verge and Tom's Guide)
- We're going to the moon! The Arch Mission Foundation and Astrobotic Technology aim to "Put Wikipedia (and More) On the Moon to Preserve Humanity's History" with the Peregrine lunar lander in 2020. The Arch Mission Foundation plans to send 50 million pages or so to the moon, much of which will be the English-language Wikipedia. Apparently it's fairly easy to print all these pages on tiny nickel sheets - the sum of all knowledge will fit in a package the size of a CD (and worth every cubic centimeter). It will only take a week to print. (Reported in Space.com, and others)
- Brave:Edit: Amnesty International's global Brave:Edit editathon for women's biographies, held May 19–20, attracted international media note, from Scotland's The National, America's US News, and India's Deccan Herald, among others. The program was coordinated under Amnesty and Wikipedia on Meta-Wiki.
- Advertorial Tones and Paid-For Posts: How Are Brands Trying to Game Wikipedia: The Fashion Law, a blog covering the fashion industry, reviews some specific abuses, deletion discussions, and notability requirements in an intelligent manner.
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