As you read this week's The Signpost you may notice slight changes in style, as for the first time Michael Snow's careful hand is not moderating and clarifying each article. I have been asked to fill in during his vacation, and hope to maintain the steady tone and thorough coverage that have marked the first months of the Signpost.
Last week saw the first use of a new newsroom for contributing stories and ideas; it is now being used to develop all of the articles that go into each issue. Please take advantage of it to write about the projects and events closest to your heart.
The media this week noted Wikipedia's capacity to remain extremely up to date with rapidly changing events. Discussing Encarta's new functionality, webpronews.com said that the capacity to create new entries on Wikipedia would probably keep it on top, and noted that there is an extensive article here on podcasting, for example, while Encarta still has nothing on the topic [1]
Demonstrating the point, news of the election of a new pope brought Wikipedians out in force to keep the article on Pope Benedict XVI up to date. The new pontiff's article was moved from 'Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger' to his papal title at 17:44 on 19 April, just 45 minutes after the white smoke had been sighted from the roof of the Sistine Chapel and just minutes after he was proclaimed as the new pope. Since then, the article has been subject to furious editing, accruing over 3,000 edits as of late evening on 24 April, 1,200 of which came in the first 12 hours of the article's life.
As well as triggering rapid editing, the conclusion of the conclave also brought a flood of visitors to the site. Following the announcement of the election, a rush of traffic to Wikipedia saw up to 2100 hits per second registered, rising from the normal 1,500/s in just a few minutes [2]. Tim Starling temporarily disabled searches, due to the excessive load on the Apache servers, but the site was otherwise unaffected by the flood of traffic.
News.com discussed the media coverage of the papal conclave [3], and pointed out that the Wikipedia entry on the former Cardinal Ratzinger was almost instantly moved to reflect his new title as news of his election broke. The Houston Chronicle was also impressed by the article on the new pope, and invited its readers to edit the article if they saw anything they thought should be changed [4].
Since the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake, the media has been consistently impressed by Wikipedia's updates to its articles as events happen. The favourable coverage of work on pope-related articles comes hot on the heels of last week's news that Wikipedia had scooped mainstream news sources by many hours in updating the article on Andrea Dworkin with news of her death (see archived story).
The results of the International writing contest were announced last Monday, following the close of the competition on 31 March. The contest, which aimed to encourage the creation of excellent new articles across the Wikipedia world, ran simultaneously in English, German, Dutch, Ukrainian and Japanese. The German contest was the most elaborate, with over a month of preparation and press before nominations opened on March 1, and a dozen different prizes for the winner, donated by the community. The English contest was the last to begin; announced in the middle of March, it still attracted some 20 entries.
The rules for the contest stipulated that nominated articles must have been shorter than 2000 characters at the start of March. Four entries were disqualified: Terri Schiavo was ruled out as too long at the start of the contest; 2005 Britannica takeover of Wikimedia and Exploding whale (nominated anonymously by the recently-departed Ta bu shi da yu) were submitted as jokes at the onset of April Fool's Day, and Drought was ruled out for having seen no substantial edits during the month. Diamond, already a substantial article that had been nominated as a featured article candidate at the beginning of March, was submitted with the explanation that it had been rewritten from scratch. It was given an Honorable Mention for the great collaborative work that had been done on it over the course of the month.
Judges Jmabel, Sannse, Dysprosia and Sj set to work on judging the eligible entries, and commented on and graded each entry, adopting a variety of marking schemes. By the end of the judging period, the winner was very clearly Apollo 8, which had consisted of two paragraphs of text and numerous lists and tables at the beginning of the month, but had been transformed by Evil Monkey by the end of the month into a Featured article candidate, later successfully promoted to featured status.
The judges announced five runners-up: Reformation in Switzerland, Spring Heeled Jack, Kreutz Sungrazers (written mainly by the author), Oakland Cemetery and Automatic number plate recognition; and also gave an honourable mention to Diamond, which was narrowly too large at the start of the month to qualify, but noted as an exceptionally good article and the only really collaborative entry in the contest.
Several nominations in the contest went on to become featured shortly afterwards, including Spring Heeled Jack, Apollo 8, Diamond, Kreutz Sungrazers and Automatic number plate recognition. The last two were among article recently vying for the accolade of shortest time from creation to featured, at 6.5 days and 11 days respectively, although both were pipped to that prize by Pioneer Zephyr.
The other language-contests participating in the International Writing Contest were won by articles on a diverse range of subjects. In Germany, first place went to an article on the Sachsenross, a motif occurring in many German flags; while on the Dutch Wikipedia, a history of Dutch spelling was declared the narrow winner ahead of an article on the iron/nickel alloy Invar. In Japanese, the winner was an article on the Chromosome theory of inheritance. Results of the Ukrainian contest were not available as of April 23.
Discussion has continued this week about Encarta's recent announcement of a facility by which users can suggest additions and revisions to articles (see last week's story). Search engine website searchnews.com described the idea as "Wikipedia for wimps", and said that "Unlike Wikipedia's quasi-hippie vision of the Internet as a collaborative medium...for Microsoft it's all about the cost savings" [5]. The cost saving point was also noted by CNN [6], who noted that the extra cost involved in hiring fact checkers was offset by Microsoft's expectation that people would be offering their expert advice for free.
Microsoft's Encarta blog [7] Archived 2005-04-24 at the Wayback Machine saw further comment from users, who were generally unconvinced by what Encarta was offering. A couple of people said they had made suggestions: one to "an article that I have been trying to get encarta to correct for a couple years", and another to Encarta's entry on Karate, aimed at "fixing some of the most glaring problems". In response to a question from a Microsoft employee asking what would make people use the editing facilities, another user responded "Actually citing who's written the article, and a history of how it's been changed by in-house Encarta editors, would help. As it stands, with the articles completely uncited, Encarta possibly suffers from greater credibility problems than Wikipedia." [8][permanent dead link].
British think tank Demos this week published a paper looking at open source software, which included extensive analysis of Wikipedia, and why Wikipedia and Linux in particular are such successful examples of projects based on open source principles. The paper analysed the factors which make open source projects successful, and then suggested possible new applications for open source principles, including making laws open to public scrutiny during their drafting stages and setting up open learning collaborations.
The Guardian reported on the publication, and emphasised the possible applications of collaborative software in government [9]. The paper speculated that lawmaking might eventually evolve to the stage where parliament is obliged to consider contributions made by an open system, but says that entirely open Wikipedia-style drafting may not be appropriate, and suggests that contributions could be categorised into those by academics, judges, politicians and others.
The rise of the new media and decline of the old raised comment this week, as Rupert Murdoch said that newspapers were often out of touch with their readers. The Economist reported that the media mogul had said that news outlets should become more interactive, and looked at phenomena such as blogs and wikis [10] which enabled dialogue and collaboration on the Internet. Considering Wikipedia, the magazine said that while wikis might be expected to be "a recipe for anarchic chaos", Wikipedia was "growing dramatically richer by the day".
Meanwhile, Alexa.com Archived 2009-08-09 at the Wayback Machine noticed via a circuitous route that Wikipedia has now overtaken the New York Times on the Alexa traffic rankings. A graph uploaded to Flickr by Fuzheado shows the relative traffic of the two sites [11], and Geoffrey Mack of Alexa.com chanced across the graph while searching for Alexa on TagCentral, which he had found via del.icio.us. Writing on the Alexa blog, Mack wondered if the new media would eventually become like the old, and if the "fun and interesting" sites like Wikipedia would ever start charging for their content, but said that for the moment they were "making the Internet exciting again, like the early days".
It's not all onward and upward progress for the new media though: Wired News this week took a look at some of the teething problems faced by Wikipedia's sister project Wikinews. While the project is gaining new users faster than Wikipedia at the moment, according to the article, some commentators suggested that at the moment it quotes from other news sources too frequently. "After seeing the third quote that is attributed to AP, I'm going to probably click through and read the AP article", said one media observer.
Among the news outlets citing Wikipedia articles this week are the LA Times using Wikipedia as source for an article on the papal inauguration [12]; ABC News suggesting its readers come to Wikipedia for more information about virtual reality [13]; Indian financial paper Business Standard quoting from the article on Application Service Providers [14]; and the Cincinnati Post pointing readers to Hoosiers in an article about 'underdog' films [15].
Last week, Larry Sanger published two lengthy excerpts from an upcoming memoir, in which he looked back at the early days of Wikipedia and how it evolved from the now-defunct Nupedia project. The memoir was published in two parts on Slashdot ([16],[17]), and will also appear later this year in Open Sources 2.0[18], a collection of essays by people from the open source movement.
Sanger was originally employed by Jimmy Wales as editor-in-chief of Nupedia, and later played a key role in starting up Wikipedia. He introduced his retrospective by noting that there has been much debate recently on the credibility of Wikipedia as a reference work, with Sanger himself being a negative voice. Sanger stated that despite being recently cast as an enemy of the project, he remained "one of Wikipedia's strongest supporters". However, he said that "if a better job can be done, a better job should be done".
Sanger went on to correct what he saw as a number of common misconceptions about his role in the project, with journalists misquoting the system under which Nupedia ran, how it was funded, and how it led to Wikipedia, saying that this had motivated him to tell his side of the story.
One of the themes of the memoir was Sanger's disappointment that the rigorously reviewed, expert-driven Nupedia model didn't work. He outlined his original idea that Wikipedia could have generated content quickly (Nupedia's primary failing), from which the best could have been creamed off to be released in Nupedia. But the success and rapid early growth of Wikipedia left little time for Nupedia to be developed, and in early 2002 Sanger was laid off due to tightening financial circumstances at Bomis, then the owner of the project.
As Wikipedia began to decisively replace Nupedia as a viable project, Sanger originated many of the rules and conventions which were adopted, a large proportion of which are still in use. He notes his surprise that one rule he wrote as a joke, Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, has been taken by some as the very essence of Wikipedia, and that the Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View policy led to the adoption of POV as a neologism to replace the word bias.
Considering what policies could have been better formulated, Sanger wrote that the policy of extreme tolerance of 'difficult' contributors caused the most problems. He noted that when he had tried to use what authority he had to counteract abuse of the system, troublemakers had made sport of challenging his authority, and suggested that Wikipedia could have evolved in a multitude of different ways, if slightly different policy decisions had been taken early on.
The memoir triggered lively debate on blogs and mailing lists. Clay Shirky, writing on the Many-to-Many blog [19], disagreed with the idea expressed by Sanger that Wikipedia could have evolved very differently, considering instead that any consensus-based encyclopaedia-building community would have ended up broadly similar.
Discussion on Many-to-Many also included criticism of Sanger's description of himself as 'co-founder' of Wikipedia, with one poster accusing him of alternately distancing himself from and then associating himself with the project, according to how he thought it would affect his reputation.
The issue of whether Sanger could call himself co-founder of Wikipedia was also taken up on the wikipedia-l mailing list. Larry Sanger himself resubscribed after an absence of three years, to question Jimmy Wales' assertion that the original idea for a wiki encyclopaedia had come from another Bomis employee, Jeremy Rosenfeld. Sanger declared himself "extremely disillusioned" by what he saw as an attempt to write him out of the history of the project. Wales said he did not want to start a war, and was only pointing out interesting historical trivia. He "enthusiastically seconded" a post describing Sanger as "the main person that held things together long enough for the community to be strong and oriented enough to take care of things on its own" [20]. With a final post suggesting a valid description of the origins of Wikipedia, Sanger once again left the mailing list [21].
Sanger's essays appeared at an auspicious time; Wikipedians have recently been gathering their own reflections of Wikipedia's early history for a special Retrospective section of the next Wikimedia Quarto.
Personal attacks cases dominated Arbitration Committee proceedings this week. Progress on cases already accepted by the ArbCom continued this week; four of nine cases were concluded since the last report.
A case regarding User:STP remained stuck in the petition phase as arbitrators apparently suffered disagreement as to whether or not the user in question should be blocked as a sockpuppet to another user, Alberuni, who was previously banned for anti-Wikipedian behavior. Arbitrator Grunt suggested an immediate ban, while Arbitrator David Gerard felt that insufficient evidence of sockpuppetry existed to provoke such a response. A decision should be forthcoming as Wikipedia's technical support advisors are consulted.
Another outstanding issue was that of Fadix and Coolcat, a personal attacks dispute that had embroiled five different users. Arbitrators are divided as to whether or not the case should be accepted; current votes are three to accept, two to reject and one abstention, a situation exacerbated by the confusing and rancorous exchange on the petition section. It is unclear whether a consensus is forthcoming, and at the moment it looks as though the case will be remanded back to lower levels of dispute resolution, as recommended by Arbitrator mav.
The accepted case — after an unusual delay of several days for comment — was the matter of Instantnood, et al., a far-reaching dispute over the matter of China/Taiwan naming conventions. It marks the first ArbCom case in which both sides have sought AMA assistance: the petitioner, jguk (joined by Huaiwei and User:SchmuckyTheCat) has gained the representation of Snowspinner, while Instantnood has secured the services of Advocates Wgfinley and Wally. The case was brought and accepted conditional to a merger with another case on the same issue, brought by SchmuckyTheCat against Instantnood a week before that had stalled in the petition phase. The ArbCom has thus agreed to hear both complaints simultaneously, and began accepting evidence from all interested parties on 21 April.
The matter regarding Users Tkorrovi and Paul Beardsell remained in the evidence phase after its acceptance on 1 April. The case involves a dispute over the artificial consciousness page, and involves a number of alleged personal attacks. An injunction against edits by either users on the pages in question took effect 10 April.
Four cases remained in voting this week. The John Gohde case, a dispute over personal attacks and disruption, saw consensus over findings of principle but unresolved questions of fact and a total gridlock in attempts to remedy the situation, as the arbitrator discussion dissolved into piecemeal discussion. A lengthy ban does, however, seem likely. A dispute regarding William M. Connolley and Cortonin over a revert war had no such deadlock, and seemed on track towards a speedy conclusion upon further arbitrators' voting.
The second Netoholic case, meanwhile (about which an injunction was issued on 7 April), despite being an issue of nearly herculean complexity, seemed on track towards a settlement including a referral to the Developer Committee about the viability of meta-templates. The case, which saw several arbitrators in dispute about its acceptance and two recusals, includes several petitioners led by Snowspinner and Neutrality against Netoholic, represented by Advocate Wgfinley of the AMA.
The final case, involving a dispute about classicism centered around WHEELER, involved the usual allegations of incivility coupled with an interesting dispute upon the viability original research as well as the extent to which minority points-of-view ought to be given weight in an article — or even split off into their own. The proposed ruling, which would amount to essentially a slap on the wrist, has already garnered the necessary votes and the case remains only to be moved for closure.
Progress on cases in arbitration continued this week, with a few cases reaching closure since that of Irate, reported upon last week. Motions to close were outstanding on cases regarding 172 and were opened on RJII and Rex071404 3 and his various surrogates. The first is likely to be dismissed, as 172 declared his intention to leave Wikipedia upon the initiation of action against him. The second had a motion to close opened as Arbitrator Grunt noted that significant improvements had occurred in the subject's behavior, as well as objecting to several proposed findings of fact offered by Arbitrator Fred Bauder as being "extraordinarily close to content decisions". In the final case, resolution is likely to involve official sanction of a self-imposed six-month ban, with additional restrictions placed thereafter.
This week saw a slight drop in the quantity of material that gained featured status, with only 8 articles and 3 images promoted.
Of those, both Eldfell (an Icelandic volcano, by Worldtraveller) and Kalimpong (an Indian mountain village, by Nichalp) received massive support, after a peer review listing didn't result in any comments. The articles about Canadian politician Louis Riel and New Zealand architect Francis Petre received slightly fewer votes.
These promotions mean that Nichalp has now reworked 6 articles from the ground up to featured article. One of his other works is Goa which was promoted last week.
For Worldtraveller this is his ninth featured article. Before Eldfell, he helped 2 articles all the way from creation to featured article status and 6 others from a stub to featured status.
But he isn't planning on stopping there. He also got another article on Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 up for voting at featured article candidates. As the first person to react Mav jokingly said "Object - threatens my comfortable lead of FAs. :)" but immediately added his support. This article gained featured status just as this article was published.
None of these editors will overthrow the current record holder any time soon, though. Having worked on a total of 50 featured articles Lord Emsworth has a very comfortable lead.
The 8 articles that gained featured status last week are: Eldfell, Francis Petre, Diamond, Dream Theater, Palace of Westminster, Geology of the Grand Canyon area, Kalimpong and Louis Riel.
The three images that gained featured picture status all received objections some time during their voting period. The original public domain image of the Red-crested Pochard initially included another duck and bits of dirt in the surrounding water. Brian0918, who nominated the image, created a cropped version which resulted in a 9 to 1 promotion.
After some initial disagreements about copyright status and quality, the "first photograph" image received featured status 25 to 3.
The image of Bodie ghost town also received some opposition by people who found the perspective and some power lines which could be seen in the background distractive. But eventually it turned out the number of people supporting the images was much larger.
Last week also saw the promotion of six new administrators. They were Phils, Wilfried Derksen, Burgundavia, Ellsworth, Xezbeth and Mindspillage.
