This week's issue is smaller than usual, as a busy weekend left me with less time to work on The Signpost. But it also seemed to be a slower week in terms of news, maybe because people are more focused on this week's Wikimania conference.
Speaking of which, I will need your help in covering events at Wikimania, since I'm not able to attend myself. Unfortunately, the budget for The Signpost does not cover flying its reporters around the world, since said budget is zero. So instead we will need to rely on those of you who are attending to also be reporters. I encourage anyone who wants to write up their impressions and experiences from Wikimania to submit them to The Signpost for next week's issue.
Observers following the featured article process have recently found it a useful academic research subject, and the featured articles have garnered some outside publicity as well. There were also 5 new admins, 11 new featured articles, 2 new featured lists, and 5 new featured pictures this week.
A group of students in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois has published a paper entitled "Information Quality Discussions in Wikipedia" (PDF format). The focus of the paper was on assessing the IQ of Wikipedia featured articles — in this case, IQ stands for "information quality" — when compared to other samples from the project, including featured article removal candidates, pages marked as NPOV disputes, and a selection of random pages.
According to the paper, the study showed how seriously the Wikipedia project views issues of article quality. The authors concluded that as a quality standard, the featured article process "is not ideal, but it does seem relatively rigorous." They also noted that the process is not as resource-intensive as other possibilities, such as blind judging.
It seems that the selection of featured articles for the Main Page is becoming a matter of interest for people outside Wikipedia as well. Norman Borlaug was the featured article chosen for display on the Main Page for Wednesday, 27 July. In anticipation of this, the scheduled appearance was mentioned on a website that apparently is run by an American farmers' advocacy group.
Five users were granted admin status last week—Canderson7 (nom), Sasquatch (nom), JamesTeterenko (nom), Sango123 (nom), and Dmcdevit (nom).
Eleven articles were promoted to featured status: Louisville, Kentucky, Angkor Wat, Tasmanian Devil, Elias Ashmole, Porgy and Bess, Gas metal arc welding, Robert Lawson (architect), Congress of the United States, Space opera in Scientology doctrine, Italian Renaissance, and Algerian Civil War.
Two new featured lists were designated: List of Portuguese monarchs and List of elements by symbol.
In addition, five featured picture candidates were promoted this week:
In addition to its wide recognition as a resource on current events like the recent London bombings, Wikipedia received press coverage for something ordinary encyclopedias would never carry, a catalog of profane language in films.
Although Wikipedia's List of films ordered by uses of the word "fuck" has been around since last December, the world's media has picked up on it this week, presenting it as a new survey 'carried out' by Wikipedians. In the UK, tabloid newspaper The Mirror even quoted a 'Wikipedia spokesperson' discussing the list [1].
It was duly reported that Nil By Mouth was the most foul-mouthed film on record, notching up some 470 fucks in 128 minutes. The Mirror quoted a Wikipedian as saying 'Nil by Mouth is a classic film but it's almost non-stop swearing'. The article has had a variable history, at one point being nominated for deletion but surviving.
Quite what prompted its sudden appearance in newspapers from London to Hindustan [2] is not clear. Perhaps it has something to do with the launch of The Aristocrats, a documentary being billed as 'The most foul-mouthed movie ever'.
However, since the publication of a rash of stories mentioning the link, the list has been updated, with Nil By Mouth apparently having been usurped by The Devil's Rejects, a horror film described as 'depraved, sick and brutal' by the Internet Movie Database. It clocks up some 560 instances of the word 'Fuck', achieving a rate almost 30% greater than Nil By Mouth.
An article published in the Daily Times of Pakistan has this week looked at the phenomenon of mass participation media such as Wikipedia and Wikinews, and how it is affecting traditional media [3]. Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, Wikipedia's article on the events 'quickly became a useful resource', according to the Times. Noting that the article was edited over 5000 times during its first two weeks, the newspaper looked through the page history and said it was 'like watching the sausage of news being made by a community, edited and massaged into a historical record'.
Meanwhile, the American Journalism Review considered the possible applications of wiki technology to mainstream news in the light of the LA Times 'wikitorial' fiasco (see related story) [4]. The AJR thought that wikis could yet find a place in the mainstream media, although probably not in the form of opinion pieces on controversial topics. Instead, news sources might encourage reports from eyewitnesses via wikis, or use wikis as foci for collaborations in investigative journalism.
Nora Paul of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota was quoted as saying that a growing groups of news consumers were familiar with and wanted to make use of wiki technology, and that the time would come when 'news organizations have to adopt an attitude of, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em'.
Steven Zenith has this week published a blog entry describing how editors with opposing views and different backgrounds can work together to hone article content so that it is acceptable to everyone [5]. Writing on alwayson-network.com, he described his efforts to improve British Monarchy in concert with Lord Emsworth who added most of the content.
Characterising Emsworth's understanding of the subject as 'well-intentioned but naive', Zenith said he had edited the article advocating 'the removal of opinion and common perceptions, and the simple presentation of the facts as befits an encyclopedia'. However, he acknowledged that his idea of how the article should look was influenced by his views as an antiroyalist.
An understanding between Zenith and Emsworth was apparently disturbed by 'the self-righteous indignation of a UK student who embodies a completely different view of the matter'. Zenith acknowledges that none of the three protagonists are experts on the subject, but believes that he is the 'more knowledgeable of the facts'. However, he concludes by saying that 'freedom of speech is not a balanced thing. There is no requirement that the playing field be leveled. The ignorant...have as much right to be heard as the wise.'
The reappearance of two users who had completed their arbitration bans, but returned to their old ways, kept the Arbitration Committee busy last week.
The users in question were Irate, who had been banned for three months on 17 April, and Plautus satire, who came back after a one-year ban. Plautus satire was banned in March 2004 in one of the first rulings ever made by the Arbitration Committee, and the one-year time period had been reset in July 2004 based on a brief reappearance as User:Energybone.
As the decision in Irate's case rested on his use of personal attacks, the ruling did not subject Irate to a personal attack parole directly, but provided that the arbitrators might impose one upon his return if the behavior repeated itself. When Irate returned to editing, complaints soon resumed after he filed requests for comment against three of his earlier opponents. This prompted the arbitrators to quickly reopen the case and the parole, allowing Irate to be blocked for up to a week for any personal attacks, was imposed on Monday.
By this time, Irate had already been blocked after a revert war over the requests for arbitration page. After the parole was official, Snowspinner reset his block for a week for engaging in personal attacks on his talk page while blocked (blocked users can edit their own talk pages). Finally, Jimbo Wales intervened after a conversation via IRC, in which he said Irate had indicated a belief that Wikipedia's rules were "rubbish" and that he would continue "following" them as he had in the past. After this, Wales blocked him indefinitely, saying, "We've got an encyclopedia to write, and we should be very very sorry to those who have had to put up with him for this long."
The return of Plautus satire, described by the arbitrators last year as "a highly disruptive influence on the community from nearly the same moment this user joined Wikipedia", prompted relatively quick action. His ban expired on Wednesday, and by the next day the arbitrators had reopened his case. In one of the more expeditiously handled arbitration cases, by the end of the week they had enough votes to re-impose the one-year ban.
Arbitrator Raul654, who recused himself from the case, reported that Plautus satire had actually sent emails to several people shortly before his return, pointing out that his ban would soon expire. Upon returning, he promptly sought out his former adversaries and left messages on their talk pages, then tried to blank an earlier request for comment about him. A violation of the three-revert rule here got him blocked, leading him to launch abuse at various parties, much like his previous pattern that led to the original ban.
By Sunday, the case was ready for closure as the arbitrators had already settled on renewing the one-year ban, although longer bans were considered. Fred Bauder argued, as he had last year as well, that for this case the Arbitration Committee should disregard its self-imposed limit that penalties should last no longer than one year.
Only one new case was accepted last week, a third request for arbitration involving Everyking. The request, made by Snowspinner, did not relate to Everyking's previous cases surrounding articles related to Ashlee Simpson, or his current mentorship. Instead, Snowspinner complained about Everyking's actions on the administrators' noticeboard, which he said amounted to "attacking admins he doesn't personally like" without regard for "consensus, policy, and civility".
Everyking characterized it as a personal dispute between the two, saying that for his part Snowspinner had failed to moderate his controversial actions as an administrator, so Everyking declined to moderate his words. He also objected to the participation of arbitrator David Gerard in the case, arguing that he should be recused.
Recent media coverage has explored the workings of Wikipedia a little more closely, as the Votes for deletion process has garnered some attention. Meanwhile, the problem of repeated nominations has cropped up again, prompted by a debate over a series of articles on the sensitive subject of religious persecution.
On ZDNet Thursday, blogger Dan Farber wrote a piece about AttentionTrust.org, a "non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the basic rights of attention owners." The newly founded organization has a skeletal website with a few slogans, and has gotten a little exposure from the blogs of its creators. It also had a Wikipedia article that, in spite of the sparse information available, at least managed to paraphrase the group's mission so as not to be an obvious copyright infringement.
Farber observed that the article had been nominated for deletion and commented, "It's a good example of self-regulation on the Web." By Saturday, the article had been deleted with unanimous support from those commenting.
A New York Times story Friday about the relative standing of cats and dogs on the internet also strayed into the deletion process. It noted that Wikipedia had an article about Dog poop girl, an internet furor over a Korean woman who declined to clean up her dog's mess on the subway, along with a corresponding vote to delete the article (since closed, the article was kept).
One group of articles being considered for deletion recently has been a set dealing with religious persecution, specifically persecution by various religious groups rather than articles about the victim groups. The debate, which started with a dispute over an article on "Persecution of non-Muslims", soon spawned articles on persecution by Muslims, Jews, and Christians, with a vote on whether or not to delete each. These votes were closed by administrator Sjakkalle last Thursday.
All of the articles were kept, although the vote regarding Religious persecution by Jews was extremely close by the standards used on Votes for deletion, at 66% in favor of deleting the article (a two-thirds vote is generally considered the minimum that could qualify). Still, several people agreed that Sjakkalle had acted correctly in determining that there was not a consensus to delete the article.
The day after the previous votes were closed, -Ril- decided to resubmit Historical persecution by Muslims (the articles have all been renamed "Historical persecution by..."). -Ril- declined to explain why the article was being renominated for deletion, and after nearly all those commenting indicated it should be kept, the deletion vote was closed early.
After the recent GNAA fiasco (see archived story), the deletion policy has been updated to mention that "repeated attempts to have an article deleted may even be considered disruptive." In the meantime, -Ril- was briefly blocked over another deletion renomination and his renomination deleted, for Authentic Matthew, but this was quickly reversed.
Also appearing on Votes for deletion last week was an article related to Wikipedia's competition; specifically, a book written about the Encyclopædia Britannica. The book, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs, is about Jacobs' experience in reading the complete Britannica from beginning to end. For some reason the article had been deleted without going through the regular deletion process, so NoPuzzleStranger complained about this using Votes for undeletion.
The undeletion process provides that the article should be submitted to Votes for deletion if it is restored, so this was done even though nobody has indicated they support deletion. Rather, keeping the article or possibly merging it with Jacobs' article appear to be the preferred options.
Interestingly enough, the book appears to have inspired blogger Andy Ratto to attempt the feat again. Ratto frequently notes Britannica's use of obscure vocabulary, and in order to understand these references he has occasionally turned to Wikipedia as a source. Of course, if he tried to read Wikipedia in its entirety, then he might really have accomplished something! ;)
