Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2006-07-17
Library of Congress, Holocaust Museum negotiate with Wikimedia
Wikimedia Foundation representatives met this week with officials from two major institutions regarding the issue of access to archival materials. The United States Library of Congress has expressed interest in including Wikipedia content as part of its archive collection, while also indicating that it could make a sizable amount of its own material available for use on Wikimedia projects. In addition, use of a substantial collection belonging to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is being negotiated.
Wikimedia interim executive director Brad Patrick, accompanied by Danny Wool, Kat Walsh, and Gregory Maxwell, met with representatives from the Library of Congress this week to discuss sharing information, sources, and media. The Library, one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world, has offered access to nearly 40 terabytes (approximately 10 million items) of digital information. "That there would be a moment's hesitation to cooperate fully with the Library of Congress is beyond my comprehension," said Patrick. "I'm glad that we are moving in this direction."
Meanwhile, Wool also met with officials from the Holocaust Museum to discuss gaining access to the museum's entire digital archive and collection. According to Wool, the "remarkable collection includes images, testimonies, videos, and audio" and a multi-language online encyclopedia dealing with the Holocaust, along with materials regarding other cases of genocide. The material would be available on terms compatible with Wikipedia licensing. Wool asked users, though, to refrain from taking material from the museum's online archives until the deal can be legally finalized.
Issue of article subjects requesting deletion taken up
The difficult issue of what deference (if any) to give the wishes of people who want their Wikipedia biographies deleted became a major topic of discussion this past week. This came after Angela Beesley, in the aftermath of her resignation from the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (see archived story), made a renewed request to delete the article about her.
In posting the request, Beesley commented, "I'm sick of this article being trolled. It's full of lies and nonsense." However, as she later clarified, her primary reason for seeking deletion was the change in circumstances since the previous discussion, particularly her resignation from the Board. Believing that people had previously favored keeping the article because she was on the Board, not because she was actually notable, she thought the outcome of the discussion might change.
Beesley made the request on Wednesday, 12 July. An initial flurry of comments unanimously supported deletion and the article was actually deleted briefly, but this was reversed after objections were raised. Subsequently the discussion shifted and became roughly evenly divided between those who favor keeping the article and those who prefer to delete it. It was closed on Monday, 17 July, with "no consensus", meaning that by default the article will be kept for now.
Arguments for and against deletion covered a number of points. Responding to the claim that she was notable due to media coverage and presentations at conferences, Beesley argued that this public attention was focused on Wikipedia rather than her personally, and the attention came because she was talking about Wikipedia. Others thought that deletion would show preferential treatment, in contrast with others who had not been granted such requests. On the other hand, Beesley pointed out that executives with other wiki companies generally do not currently have articles on Wikipedia.
Additional issues explored were avoiding self-references and whether Wikipedia-related topics are over-represented in the encyclopedia. Andrew Lih, who is working on a book about Wikipedia, said "it's clear that she is notable for serving at Wikimedia, as a cofounder of Wikia, and merits an article." However, Erik Möller argued that the situation was "a borderline case" in which the wishes of the article's subject "should be the decisive criterion."
A similar recent case, without the complications of self-reference to Wikipedia, involved programmer and activist Seth Finkelstein. His article was nominated for deletion earlier this month (he didn't make or request the nomination, although the nominator apparently was a former classmate of his). Finkelstein, who had earlier expressed ambivalence about the existence of the article, now joined in arguing for its deletion. Part of his reasoning was that "for people below a certain threshold of notability, Wikipedia biographies can be an 'attractive nuisance'." However, the majority of people commenting favored keeping the article, citing his receipt of an EFF Pioneer Award and the Wikipedia guideline for notability of biographies. Reflecting on the debate, Finkelstein cited the case of John Seigenthaler and argued that "a large potential personal negative is imposed on me, for the very small positive benefit to Wikipedia."
Background on Wikimedia-related biographies
For a long time, Jimmy Wales resisted the notion that a Wikipedia article should be written about him. The issue of articles about Wikipedia contributors in general had come up on other occasions, one being in November 2003. At that time, Wales said, "I would prefer if there were no article about me, as a matter of modesty and good taste." An attempt to redirect Jimmy Wales to Wikipedia, instead of to his user page, led to it being protected in March 2004.
With media coverage of him increasing, Wales dropped his opposition in September 2004, and the article quickly grew. Nevertheless, he has periodically complained that it gives a distorted perspective and pointed to statements therein that are inaccurate or unverifiable. Since becoming the subject of media coverage last December about his editing the article itself, Wales has limited himself to commenting on the talk page.
An article about Beesley first appeared on 1 April 2005, which she quickly nominated for deletion, wondering, "Is this meant to be an April Fool's Day joke?" Whether it was or not, the article was kept, though already at that time she called the article "unfactual". An article for her colleague as the other elected Wikimedia trustee, Florence Nibart-Devouard, soon followed. In October 2005, someone else nominated Beesley's article for deletion once more before the latest instance, but this too did not succeed.
Wikimania updates
Wikimania recap
28 August 2006
Wikimania recap
14 August 2006
Wikimania recap
7 August 2006
Wikimania last-minute information
31 July 2006
Events: Contests, parties, and the local area
24 July 2006
Wikimania updates
17 July 2006
Wikimania updates
10 July 2006
Meetups And Newsworthy International Assemblages
3 July 2006
More featured speakers at Wikimania
26 June 2006
Hacking Days
19 June 2006
Featured Speakers at Wikimania
12 June 2006
Other international meetups
5 June 2006
About Wikimania
29 May 2006
About Wikimania
22 May 2006
About Wikimania
15 May 2006
About Wikimania
8 May 2006
About Wikimania
1 May 2006
About Wikimania
24 April 2006
Three years of meetups : 2003-2006
17 April 2006
Introduction to a series: Looking forward to Wikimania 2006
10 April 2006
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Wikimania recap |
This week, the Signpost takes an in-depth look at the tutorials and workshops occurring at Wikimania 2006. Discussions will take place online as well as in the workshop rooms. Registration for Wikimania and for Hacking Days continues online.
There are a number of hands-on workshops planned for Wikimania. A full list is available on the conference site. We previously described the Wiktionary workshop that is planned; descriptions of the other workshops follows.
Semapedia
Semapedia.org is a non-profit, community-driven project that hyperlinks physical places with information. Their goal is to connect the virtual and physical world by bringing knowledge from Wikipedia to the relevant place in physical space and make it accessible via mobile internet. The workshop on Semapedia, led by Alexis Rondeau and Stan Wiechers, will demonstrate how Semapedia works and how you can distribute knowledge using cell-phone readable physical hyperlinks yourself. In addition to the workshop, participants will go for a tagging session afterwards to try out the system in real-life. These tags will remain up during the conference as a demonstration and possible experimentation.
Wikisource workshop: editorial choices
- In this workshop, Jennifer Zagurski will explain the ins and outs of Wikisource, one of the newer Wikimedia projects. Wikisource provides the text of out-of-copyright works (or 'source documents'); Zagurski will guide participants in understanding the variety of editorial choices they may need to make when contributing at Wikisource. including how to decide whether a work should be presented as a stand alone article or as sub page of a larger article; how to chose which edition of a work is most appropriate to be added to Wikisource; how should minor differences between editions be noted if at all, and more. Through group discussion participants will be able to formulate some rules of thumb that can be used to help make these decisions.
Copyright basis and Wikipedia: A workshop
- In this workshop, Jean-Baptiste Soufron, the chief legal officer for the Foundation, will provide an introduction to copyright rules for publishing on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, and address questions such as how to properly use copyright to input data into wikipedia, and how to properly re-use the content of wikipedia. The workshop will take the form of a 45-minute presentation of copyright basis, followed by a discussion with participants asking questions related to their experiences and work. It is hoped that the content of these discussions will take the form of a wiki webpage with someone dedicated to input the content of the session on the wiki. The objective of the workshop is to provide a simple copyright manual, and a good introduction to copyright, for new and old Wikipedians.
Tips for conducting research and evaluating information
- This workshop, led by Jessica Baumgart, will help participants conduct more efficient research and provide an introduction to some of the tricks of library research (both useful for achieving verifiability). Baumgart writes, "Do you ever try to search for that one fact that would finish an entry, but don’t know where to go? Do you yearn to know more about a variety of sources? Do you find conflicting information in various sources and wonder what to believe? If you answered, “Yes!” to any of these questions, then this workshop is for you.
- The workshop will discuss some basics about conducting research by sharing tips about using public records, people, business information, libraries, archives, databases, and the Internet to find information. We will even learn about some sources of images. Since knowing how to approach research can be almost as important as knowing what sources to use, we will learn about some strategies for conducting research. The workshop will also provide some guidelines for evaluating information and strive to inspire discussion among the participants about useful sources."
Using Wikipedia’s knowledge in your applications
- The semantic web is a hot topic in internet and wiki development. In this workshop, Markus Krötzsch, Denny Vrandecic, and Max Völkel will help you understand and deploy semantic technologies in applications. The workshop, a follow-up to a similar presentation given at Wikimania 2005, will include a short introduction to Semantic Web technologies, presentation of basic technologies to use with the Semantic Mediawiki extension, source code and demonstrations.
Fighting vandalism with Vandalfighter
- This workshop, led by Henna, will be useful to any Wikimedian engaged in RC Patrol or vandalfighting. Henna will explain demonstrate the Vandalfighter tool, which she is currently lead developer on, and which developed as a way to more easily view recent changes and spot vandalism. The workshop will also discuss other ways to fight vandals and provide a forum for sharing ideas.
Next week: some local and logistical information. Wikimania is just a few short weeks away...
News and notes
Blocking changes implemented
The blocking changes announced last week were put into place on Tuesday. In light of the potential effects this would have on logged-in users working from a shared IP address, it was suggested that the change might warrant a range block of AOL proxies. These have been a chronic problem due to the difficulty in blocking vandals while still allowing legitimate editors to participate. However, soon after this was proposed Angela Beesley reported that AOL had agreed to set XFF headers, which will hopefully allow administrators to block one AOL user without affecting others.
Single-user login nearly ready
Single-user login, a long-awaited technical feature, is nearly ready to be implemented. The change would allow users to register a username once and have it serve as an universal username across all languages and all Wikimedia projects. To prepare for the change, developers requested that people make their email addresses and passwords uniform in all of their accounts; after the implementation, "all old accounts will be valid on all Wikimedia wikis, using a consistent username and password everywhere" after the migration of any conflicting accounts.
Fair use amendment implemented
An amendment was added to the fair use criteria after three weeks of discussion (see archived story). It allows deletion of newly uploaded images that claim fair use but fail to satisfy the criteria 48 hours after the uploader has been notified.
Voting continues on Incubator logo
The process of choosing a new logo for the Incubator entered a new step this week when voting proceeded to a new phase. After a previous vote resulted in an overwhelming result for a "meddie egg" logo, the community is now deciding between three variants of the logo. Each of the variants differs in the orientation of the middle of the "egg". A poll on the name of the Incubator wiki also continues, as does a vote on a logo for the developers' Test Wikipedia.
Briefly
- The English Wikipedia has reached 1,250,000 articles.
- The Indonesian Wikipedia has reached 28,000 articles.
- The Bosnian Wikipedia has reached 10,000 articles.
- The Haitian Wikipedia has reached 4,000 articles.
- The German Wikipedia has reached 250,000 registered users.
- The Armenian Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
- The Friulian Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
- The Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
- The Lithuanian Wikipedia has reached 25,000 articles with more than 300,000 edits.
- Articles on Marathi Wikipedia have been edited 25,000 times.
- The Manx Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
- The Cantonese Wikipedia has reached 500 registered users.
- The Finnish Wikipedia has reached 70,000 articles.
- The Polish Wikipedia has reached 250,000 articles.
- The Dutch Wikipedia has reached 50,000 registered users.
- The Greek Wiktionary has reached 40,000 entries.
- The English Wikiquote has reached 7,500 articles.
- The Icelandic Wikipedia has reached 1,000 registered users.
- The Norwegian Wikibooks has reached 100 Wikibook modules.
- Wikibooks in all languages has reached 40,000 Wikibook modules.
- The Polish Wikipedia has reached 60,000 registered users.
- The Vietnamese Wiktionary has reached 40,000 entries.
- The English Wiktionary has reached 160,000 entries.
In the News
If the Internet is "a series of tubes", what does that make Wikipedia?
Wikipedia's rapid compilation of information on topics of interest to an Internet audience brought another citation from the press last week. A widely reprinted story from the Anchorage Daily News related how U.S. Senator Ted Stevens' comments about the structure of the Internet (in a debate about legislation addressing network neutrality) earned him considerable ridicule. Discussing the reaction, the article noted that Wikipedia's article on Stevens "already includes a lengthy recap of the tube speech and its aftermath."
Salt Lake Tribune still at it
After last week noting vandalism to the article on U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, The Salt Lake Tribune followed up by pointing out another Wikipedia oddity of local interest. This time it was the article on Ralph Becker, highlighted by columnist Paul Rolly. Writing about Utah's current House Minority Leader of that name, Rolly noted that Wikipedia described him as a former ambassador and World War II veteran who was nearly a century old ... except that he had died in 1994.
It appears that Rolly had followed a link from the Utah State House of Representatives article. However, the link to Ralph Becker had since been turned into a biography of Ralph Elihu Becker, who happens to be the father of the Utah legislator, as Rolly afterward pointed out. Ta bu shi da yu cleaned up the situation by converting Ralph Becker into a disambiguation page and starting a stub on the younger Becker.
More Digital Universe
The Guardian ran the latest profile of Larry Sanger and the Digital Universe project, first announced last December. The article discussed both the portal aspects of the project, which are beginning to be fleshed out on the site, as well as the not-yet-visible encyclopedia planned to accompany them. Also covered was a side project of Sanger's called Textop (short for Text Outline Project), a collaboration planned to synthesize texts into "a single outline of human knowledge." Although Textop is "under the broad umbrella of the Digital Universe Foundation", it apparently is being hosted by Sanger at his own expense.
Features and admins
Administrators
Six users were granted admin status last week: JLaTondre (nom), Samsara (nom), Aldux (nom), Christopher Sundita (nom), Grandmasterka (nom) and Wknight94 (nom).
Featured content
Eleven articles were featured last week: Rugby World Cup (nom), Able Archer 83 (nom), Mauna Loa (nom), T-34 (nom), Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands (nom), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (nom), Richard III (1955 film) (nom), Joel Brand (nom), Excel Saga (nom), Alison Krauss (nom) and Enta Da Stage (nom).
Four articles that were de-featured last week: Peerage, King James Version of the Bible, Jim Henson and Humphrey Bogart.
The latest portals to reach featured status are Portal:Biography and Portal:Latin America.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: Michigan State Capitol, Microsoft, Velociraptor, Wayne Gretzky, Bangladesh, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
These were the pictures of the day last week: Pirate caricature, Hummingbirds, New York City, Chickens, Joan of Arc, Alchemy and Huli.
No pictures reached featured picture status last week.
The Report On Lengthy Litigation
The Arbitration Committee opened one new case this week, and did not close any cases.
New cases
One case was opened this week; it is in the evidence phase.
- His excellency: A case involving the actions of His excellency. The case involves the actions of His excellency on Islam-related talk pages.
Evidence phase
- Israeli apartheid: A case involving the actions of editors and administrators on Allegations of Israeli apartheid (formerly at Israeli apartheid). The article was the site of a move war during a poll to determine the article's naming.
- Sathya Sai Baba: A case involving Andries and SSS108's actions on the article Sathya Sai Baba. Both have accused each other of "POV pushing", and violating Wikipedia's policy on original research.
- Alienus: A case involving Alienus. Users Tony Sidaway, Nandesuka, and Jossi have presented evidence in the case, noting that Alienus has been blocked 15 times, has assumed bad faith, and has been warned many times about making personal attacks, edit warring, and incivility. Alienus has not yet presented any evidence.
- Trey Stone Appeal: No evidence has yet been presented in the case, which is an appeal of an August 2005 case which banned Trey Stone from articles relating to politics for one year (to end August 11, 2006).
- Eternal Equinox: A case involving Eternal Equinox. Several users complained that Eternal Equinox has been trying to claim ownership of articles with edit wars and abuse directed at those who try to edit them. Eternal Equinox claimed to have left Wikipedia, but the other parties argued that this was not credible because of a number of similar statements made previously. Eternal Equinox has since returned, editing anonymously from several related IP addresses while acknowledging his or her identity.
- Hunger: A case involving a dispute about articles related to The Hunger Project. One of the parties, Jcoonrod, identifies himself as John Coonrod, an executive with that organization. The dispute has been in mediation about how and whether to include unflattering material about the organization in the article.
Voting phase
- Añoranza: A case involving Añoranza. Users asserted that Añoranza had been incivil, and had filed a retaliatory request for comment and request for checkuser. The dispute involves the usage of terms such as "Operation Iraqi Liberation" for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Fred Bauder has introduced remedies commending Añoranza for noting the usage of "propagandistic operational codenames", but banning him for a week for the disruptive way in which he went about this. No other arbitrators have voted in the case.
- 8bitJake: A case involving 8bitJake. badlydrawnjeff, the initiator of the arbitration request, has asserted that 8bitJake's editing on political articles was biased, and that 8bitJake was incivil to other editors on the articles. Remedies brought by Fred Bauder, and not yet voted on by other members, would place 8bitJake and related editors on probation and ban them from articles relating to the politics of the State of Washington.
- Dionyseus: A case involving Dionyseus and Danny Pi, and their actions on Veselin Topalov, an article on a Bulgarian chess player accused of cheating. Remedies brought by Fred Bauder, and not yet voted on by other members, would ban Danielpi for a week for "discourtesy and personal attacks".
- Iloveminun: A case brought against Minun. Evidence presented asserted that Minun and various sockpuppets violated fair use and image deletion policies by uploading copyrighted images and removing tags. Remedies supported by Fred Bauder, James Forrester, and SimonP would limit Minun to one account, ban Minun for a year for various actions (with all bans running consecutively), and place Minun on probation, personal attack parole, and revert parole.
- Moby Dick: A case brought against Moby Dick. Administrators Tony Sidaway, Bishonen, and MONGO have alleged that Moby Dick is a sockpuppet of Davenbelle, violating previous arbitration rulings in his political edits and his relations with Cool Cat. Four arbitrators supported banning Moby Dick from Turkish and Kurdish-related articles, and three (with no dissent) supported allowing Moby Dick to be blocked for harassing Cool Cat.
- Pudgenet: A case brought against Pudgenet, involving a dispute between Pudgenet and -Barry-. The dispute involves pages relating to Perl, as well as Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles. Three arbitrators support banning -Barry- from Perl, warning Pudgenet to avoid disruption, and placing Pudgenet on personal attack parole.
- Irishpunktom: A case involving Irishpunktom, Karl Meier, and Dbiv. Measures to ban Irishpunktom and Dbiv from editing Peter Tatchell for one year, place Irishpunktom and Karl Meier on probation for one year, and place Irishpunktom on one revert per article per week parole have the support of four arbitrators. Debate is still ongoing on an appropriate remedy for the actions of Dbiv.
- Saladin1970: A case involving an appeal of Saladin1970's indefinite block originally placed by Jayjg, and later by SlimVirgin. Saladin1970 would be banned for at least 2 years, perhaps indefinitely, and placed on probation, general probation, and personal attack parole.
- Raphael1: A case brought against Raphael1, involving the display of images on Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. Measures to place Raphael1 on article probation for one year, as well as general probation, and to ban Raphael1 from Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy for one year, have the support of six arbitrators.
Motion to close
- Francis Schuckardt: A case involving editors on Francis Schuckardt. Remedies would place the article on a form of probation for three months.