The Wikimedia Foundation announced this week an increased partnership with Answers Corporation, which owns the multi-source Answers.com.
The agreement, announced 20 October, will have Wikipedia add a link to Wikipedia:Tools to the sidebar. In addition, Wikipedia:Tools will contain a visible link to Answers.com's 1-Click-Answers tool. In return, Wikipedia and Answers.com will split advertising revenue from the Answers.com website from users utilizing the software. This is expected to commence in January 2006, starting with a 60-day trial period.
In a press release, Bob Rosenschein, Answers Corporation's founder and CEO said, "We are delighted to partner with Wikipedia...Now we will not simply be using Wikipedia's remarkable content, but also helping promote its goals and vision."
Jimmy Wales, founder and president of the Wikimedia Foundation, agreed. "We are pleased to partner with Answers.com, encouraging software that improves access to Wikipedia. Bob Rosenschein and his team have created an innovative technology which helps users click on any word in any application to look it up in Wikipedia. We expect that our users will appreciate the extra convenience."
The announcement was not without controversy. A group of users concerned about the possibility of the agreement leading to a slippery slope chain of events formed a new WikiProject, WikiProject no ads, to try and prevent the agreement from taking place. Clarifications from Jimmy Wales on how the advertising was to work, however, helped calm the situation. He clarified that 1-Click-Answers would not be advertised on the sidebar, and that the only "advertisements" outside of the link on Wikipedia:Tools were to be those on Answers.com.
Another worry existed over the licensing of the site. Answers.com denies the use of their content outside of the fair use clause of the United States Copyright Act. In response to this, Angela noted that Answers.com has since agreed to add an edit link underneath all Wikipedia content by the end of the month to more clearly note that the content can be modified.
A chief problem is the current inability for users to actually see the content of the agreement; Anthere has promised that she will look into the possibility of publishing the text of the agreement. Whether the publication would clear up most worries, or create a new set of problems, is unknown at this time.
Answers Corporation is traded publicly on the NASDAQ exchange. Its stock rose sharply after the announcement: having opened on 20 October at $10.80 per share, the stock reached $12.09 before closing at $11.99. The stock closed at $9.94 per share on 24 October after a disappointing earnings release.
A chat with the elected Arbitrators
6 February 2006
Jimbo Wales appoints 11 arbitrators, increases committee size
23 January 2006
Arbitration Committee elections continue; ArbCom member resigns
16 January 2006
ArbCom candidates (part two)
9 January 2006
ArbCom candidates
2 January 2006
Straw poll closes
19 December 2005
Jimbo starts new poll regarding election
5 December 2005
Last chance to run for ArbCom
28 November 2005
ArbCom voting process
14 November 2005
ArbCom duties and requirements
7 November 2005
A closer look: the calls for reform of the ArbCom
31 October 2005
A look back: the 2004 ArbCom elections
24 October 2005
Current ArbCom members
17 October 2005
Criticism of the ArbCom
10 October 2005
About the Arbitration process
3 October 2005
The history of the Arbitration Committee
26 September 2005
Introduction to a special series: A look at the upcoming Arbitration Committee elections
19 September 2005
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A chat with the elected Arbitrators |
The first ever Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections were held in 2004, with a special election in early August, followed by a regular election in December.
The first election was conducted during the first weeks of August; however, because most of the campaigning and organizing was done in July, it is now referred to as the July 2004 election. The election was necessitated after two of the original appointees of Jimbo Wales resigned: UninvitedCompany and Eloquence. Because it was the first election, there were many decisions made that would set precedents. For example, approval voting was chosen the method of voting. Also, a general pool voting was also decided upon; in other words, all candidates would be running against each other. In addition, there was also a debate regarding the eligibility of Wikipedians to vote. A general consensus was formed on allowing registered users who had been with the project for three or more months to vote. The election was organized by Danny with technical assistance from developer Tim Starling. The vote was held using ArbComVote software, which allowed the voting to be confidential.
Ten candidates ran: Jwrosenzweig, Raul654, David Gerard, Ambi, Sj, Merovingian, 172, Sam Spade, Lir, and Misterrick. Jwrosenzweig and Raul654 finished first and second in the number of votes, respectively, and were thus elected to the ArbCom. Both terms were set to expire in December of that year.
The vote was extremely close between the top three finishers (David Gerard came in third); ten votes or less separated each of them. However, the rest of the field finished relatively far behind, with fourth-place candidate Ambi receiving 59 votes, compared to Gerard's 90 votes. The exact numeric tally of the vote, which lasted from 5 August to 14 August, 2004, was only released by Danny after the election was complete; thus, there were no indicators during the week of voting on which candidate was in the lead.
The December 2004 elections marked the first annual election. Seven seats were up for election: MyRedDice, Gutza, and Camembert, all appointed by Jimbo, decided to not complete their terms, Jwrosenzweig and Raul654, both elected in July, faced re-election, and The Cunctator and Jdforrester, both appointed as well, faced re-election. However, Jwrosenzweig decided not to run for re-election, making four seats up for grabs without incumbents.
The election was organized by Danny, UninvitedCompany, and Elian and again used approval voting with special software. The voting period was increased to two weeks, lasting from 4 December to 18 December, 2004. There was also a candidates' statement page (which was also used in the July elections); however, a disendorsements page sparked controversy. An endorsements page had been created where Wikipedians could list which candidates they supported. This inspired the creation of the disendorsements page where Wikipedians could state their opposition to candidates. However, the two pages were soon merged together. The disendorsements drew widespread criticism and praise. Jimbo Wales expressed his views, saying that "[The disendorsement page] is a magnet and incentive for a different approach [than one of mutual respect and community involvement], one which I most vigorously reject for our community. I encourage people to avoid the use of this page, and instead stick to positive endorsements of people who you think will represent our values thoughtfully and rationally. If the trolls want to have an attack party here, let them. But let's not sink to their level." However, other users disagreed. "This page allows users to voice their concern about the candidates," CheeseDreams (later banned by the Arbitration Committee) said. In a statement, UninvitedCompany, speaking for the organizers, discouraged the use of the disendorsements page but did not prohibit it.
There were 34 candidates and 520 voters. The race again was extremely tight, with Theresa Knott, Raul654, Ambi, Sannse, Neutrality, David Gerard, and Grunt finishing in the top seven. Only one candidate, Theresa Knott, finished with over fifty percent of approval votes. One vote seperated the seventh place candidate (who was successful in the election), Grunt, and the eighth-place candidate, Fennec, and two more votes seperated Fennec from Mirv and Cecropia. The rest of the votes were also extremely close.
Jdforrester and The Cunctator were unsuccessful in their re-election bids. The seven successful candidates then decided on which seat (i.e. the length of the term) they would serve, with the first place candidate (Theresa Knott) choosing first, the second place candidate (Raul654) choosing second, etc. The successful candidates began serving on 1 January, 2005.
A chat with the elected Arbitrators
6 February 2006
Jimbo Wales appoints 11 arbitrators, increases committee size
23 January 2006
Arbitration Committee elections continue; ArbCom member resigns
16 January 2006
ArbCom candidates (part two)
9 January 2006
ArbCom candidates
2 January 2006
Straw poll closes
19 December 2005
Jimbo starts new poll regarding election
5 December 2005
Last chance to run for ArbCom
28 November 2005
ArbCom voting process
14 November 2005
ArbCom duties and requirements
7 November 2005
A closer look: the calls for reform of the ArbCom
31 October 2005
A look back: the 2004 ArbCom elections
24 October 2005
Current ArbCom members
17 October 2005
Criticism of the ArbCom
10 October 2005
About the Arbitration process
3 October 2005
The history of the Arbitration Committee
26 September 2005
Introduction to a special series: A look at the upcoming Arbitration Committee elections
19 September 2005
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A chat with the elected Arbitrators |
This week Jimbo Wales outlined sweeping changes in the ArbCom elections process. In an edit on the elections page, Wales wrote:
"The exact procedure is yet to be determined, but will be radically different from last year's, reflecting our learning about what did and didn't work.
The most likely process will be direct appointments by Jimbo based on nominations and volunteerings, with the appointments made in consultation with the existing and former ArbCom members and the community at large, followed by confirmation votes from the community requiring some supermajority."
If this is implemented, it would be a radical change from last year's elections, where the community used approval voting. Jimbo did not give any input on the candidates last year, instead only commenting on the voting process at the time.
The community response was limited, as most Wikipedians were unaware of the changes, given that the change was not posted on the mailing list or another more frequently-watched page. However, Jguk immediately voiced his opposition to the changes, saying that "[While Wikipedia is indebted to you, Wikipedia] needs to grow and improve without its founder if it is to succeed in the long-term, and therefore it would be better if you stepped back as far as possible from the detail." He was the only Wikipedian to comment on the changes as of press time.
Meanwhile, earlier in the week three more Wikipedians listed themselves as candidates: Blankfaze (statement), DG (statement), and Sam Spade (statement). It is unclear whether the candidate statements will still be effective with the new changes.
Access to Wikipedia in the mainland of the People's Republic of China was cut off last week as part of continuing Internet censorship in that country. The reasons for Chinese authorities blocking Wikipedia are unknown, but based on previous experiences it is believed that access may be restored in the near future.
Several Wikipedia users from the PRC reported that for most provinces, Wikipedia was blocked starting on 18 October or 19 October. This was confirmed by developer Tim Starling, who indicated that access to both the main Florida servers and the new Korean cluster provided by Yahoo! had been cut off.
A specific reason for the block could not be confirmed. Media coverage in September had mentioned tighter supervision of online news services, but at the time Professor Andrew Lih at the University of Hong Kong expressed doubt that this particular regulation would affect Wikipedia. One report about the current block indicated that it may have been prompted by an order from the "National Security Unit" of the government (possibly the Ministry of Public Security or an agency thereof, but this was not clear). Reporters Without Borders publicly complained about the blocking as "a clear violation of the right of Chinese citizens to information".
Wikipedia has previously been blocked by PRC internet regulators on at least two occasions in 2004. Reporters Without Borders stated that this was "because of dissident political content." However, as with the present block, this claim is difficult to verify; the Chinese Wikipedia article indicates that one incident may have resulted from an influx of users after the shutdown of a political BBS. Lih has also indicated that the PRC does block based on URLs and other methods of filtering, so it would not necessarily need to block all of Wikipedia in order to satisfy its political concerns.
Because of these previous experiences, it seems possible that the situation may be resolved in the near future. Wikimedia Foundation CTO Brion Vibber offered his opinion that the cycle of China blocking and then unblocking Wikipedia will continue to repeat itself. If the present block continues, Wikipedia editors in the Chinese mainland may try to find a resolution by pursuing their case through the government's bureaucracy.
A controversial proposal to allow users to apply for Checkuser abilities, similar to adminship, was implemented last week, then quickly removed.
After a straw poll on whether to start a new "Requests for Checkuser" process ended with just over 80% of voters in favor of the proposal, Fvw and Andrevan applied for Checkuser rights. After a series of support votes for both users, many started to weigh in on the legal and moral ramifications of allowing such users to view other users' IP addresses. Some reiterated they only supported the initial proposal assuming further policy was going to be created before implementation. Others questioned the timing of the requests, just hours after the 7-day poll lapsed.
Seeing these worries, Raul654 removed both requests within a few hours of their posting, requesting that users take it to the talk page. Raul654 said, "Checkuser access is governed by the foundation privacy policy, the application of which has still not been decided. It is inappropriate to be holding votes on it (checkuser access) before Jimbo and/or the board have made any decisions regarding access." He also noted that Anthere was working on a proposal to allow Arbitration Committee members on different wikis to appoint one or more of their group as a designated party to use the checkuser rights. On the mailing list, Kelly Martin said "The notion that consensus *alone* can determine who is entitled to checkuser rights is laughable."
A proposal to convert a number of inbound links to Wikipedia into multilingual lists of articles was floated last week. However, the idea was rejected because of a conflict with the obligation to maintain the integrity of these links.
The discussion began with an inquiry last Friday on the wikipedia-l mailing list about http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl, a URL that redirects to the Chernobyl article on the English Wikipedia. Gerrit Holl argued that this was incorrect; as an alternative, he suggested that such URLs could take visitors to a page listing all articles named "Chernobyl" in any Wikipedia language.
The proposal follows a successful earlier movement to have www.wikipedia.org converted from a redirect to the Main Page of the English Wikipedia into a multilingual portal page. This change was finally implemented in January 2005 (see archived story). The portal has since been designed to feature a Wikipedia logo, the largest Wikipedias being grouped around it, plus a multilingual search function, and links to all Wikipedia languages with at least 100 articles.
Lars Aronsson, one of the earliest Wikipedia editors, explained the historical reasons for the situation. When originally created in 2001, Wikipedia was entirely in English and located at the www.wikipedia.com domain. As other languages were added, it was eventually settled that they would use two-letter languages codes based on an ISO 639 standard (since then, some three-letter codes have also been used, along with other designations for languages that have no code). However, the English Wikipedia remained at www.wikipedia.com.
A proposal was made in March 2002 to move the English Wikipedia to a language code as well. However, the idea met some resistance and was not finally implemented until October, by which time Wikipedia had also moved from a .com top-level domain to a .org. At the time, Jimmy Wales indicated that he was agreeable to changing the home page, suggesting the possibility of determining language based on browser preferences; however, he ruled out changing sublinks from www.wikipedia.com for articles on the grounds that "we must not break links that already exist on the web".
Wikimedia CTO Brion Vibber added that he had personally promised to maintain link compatibility when the change was made. He pointed out, "The only reason there exists a "www.wikipedia" is that English Wikipedia used to be there, because it was once the only one." Vibber also questioned why anyone would want to invent new URLs to go to that domain. Based on the existing agreement, Trustee Anthere also gave her view that the current system should not be changed.
Discussion in the media and the blogosphere about quality issues in Wikipedia articles continued over the past week, following an earlier admission by Jimmy Wales that some problems existed (see archived story).
This particular cycle in the debate was set in motion by Andrew Orlowski with a column in The Register on Tuesday, reporting that "Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems". As part of the article, Orlowski picked his own example out of "the many, many atrocious entries", using a diff as evidence. As he described it, "whoever wrote the entry for soul legend Baby Washington has no idea who she is, but makes a wild guess, then gives up completely".
Subsequent editors determined that Orlowski, although pointing to an article about Jeanette Washington, was actually referring to a different singer named Justine Washington, who sometimes also recorded using the name Jeanette. Until this incident, the article about the real "Baby" Washington was not wrong; rather, it did not exist at all. Meanwhile, in a resulting Slashdot discussion, several people observed that The Register is not exactly noted for its accuracy either. One offered the following as a humorous newspaper headline:
Register: Wikipedia Inaccurate, Badly-Written
Pots, kettles war over who's the blackest
Orlowski's piece led quite a few others to comment about Wikipedia as well. Nicholas Carr, the writer who prompted this debate with his criticism, added some new observations in response. He argued that the quality of Wikipedia articles on esoteric subjects, as compared to general-interest topics, actually revealed the failure of "collective intelligence" rather than its success. Carr's comments included what he called the "Law of the Wiki", which he phrased as, "Output quality declines as the number of contributors increases." Dave Winer, who has had his own complaints about Wikipedia previously (see archived story), provided a different formulation: "No matter how good something is, there are always more idiots and morons to take it down."
A contrasting view came from departing Novell executive Matt Asay, who had blogged about Carr's original critique as well. Although he agreed with Carr originally, Asay indicated that he was now reconsidering the validity of this criticism. Given the choice between the traditional model of encyclopedias and Wikipedia, he said he would choose the latter. Asay concluded, "I suspect that the real problem with Wikipedia is simply that it's still young enough that it lacks a suitably disparate and large community behind it."
The debate continued to find echoes in a column by Mike Langberg in Sunday's San Jose Mercury News, "An Internet fed mostly by amateurs is frightening". Tracing some of the highlights in the discussion, Langberg ultimately came down in favor of professionally created content over production by amateurs. He admitted, however, that as a professional journalist in an economically precarious atmosphere (the Mercury News recently announced a reduction in staff, though it hopes to avoid layoffs), he had a personal bias involved.
After delaying their decision for a week, the Wikimania planning committee made its choice between two cities as potential hosts for Wikimania 2006. In a narrow vote, Boston was picked over Toronto, the other finalist bid.
The decision was announced on Saturday by Delphine Ménard, Chapter Coordinator for the Wikimedia Foundation. The vote was 5-4 in favor of Boston, with one member of the panel abstaining. The jury to select the host site originally had 11 members, including the Board of Trustees and the team that put together Wikimania 2005. Of the latter group, however, sj withdrew from the panel because he was organizing the Boston bid.
Boston and Toronto had been chosen as finalists earlier this month (see archived story). They beat out bids from London and Milan in the first round of the competition. For the final deliberations, sj's place on the jury was taken by Fuzheado.
The Boston bid benefited from having a sizable group of local people who are active on Wikimedia projects. It also took advantage of the prestige of Harvard University, where the conference will be held at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Exact dates for Wikimania will be set later, once arrangements are finalized for scheduling the venue. It will happen sometime during the summer in any case; the bid gave dates ranging from 21 June to 21 August as possibilities.
One point of particular concern has been the difficulties people attending from other countries might experience with US customs officials. This was cited by a number of people as a reason they might not attend if the conference were held in Boston. However, sj pointed out that these issues could easily apply for travel into Canada as well. At least two people attending Wikimania in Germany this year also had similar problems. In an attempt to allay fears, the Boston organizing team has been laying groundwork with State Department officials on the process of obtaining visas.
The Toronto organizing team congratulated Boston on their victory, while remaining proud of their accomplishments. SimonP, who helped organize the bid, observed that the process helped increase local interest, adding also, "The momentum for this bid could be translated into setting up a Canadian Wikimedia chapter". He doubted that a bid for 2007 would be forthcoming, indicating his opinion that Wikimania would likely return to Europe, but held out hope for future years.
Esperanza, the WikiProject dedicated to spreading Wikilove, completed the election for the group's Advisory Committee earlier this month, marking the first such election since the establishment of the group in August 2005.
Only four out of the 15 candidates running were selected for the Committee, with the top two vote getters, Flcelloguy and Acetic Acid winning seats until the end of February 2006 in Tranche A, and the third and fourth place winners, Ryan Norton and Bratsche receiving seats until the end of this year in Tranche B. The four will join Administrator General Essjay as the guiding force towards determining the group's direction.
Flcelloguy, Acetic Acid and Ryan Norton all got out to early leads which they would not relinquish, with Flcelloguy and Acetic Acid pulling out ahead of Ryan Norton after October 8th, leaving the only suspense occuring with multiple ties throughout the election for the fourth and final slot.
The election turnout was mixed, as several users came back to change their vote slates as the election progressed, despite voting from only 31 of 75 eligible voters (41.3%) from the Esperanza Electorate under the election's rules.
The election also provided some minor controversies, such as votes for Acetic Acid being discarded due to early vote turnout.
Alterego reports that Wikipedia has regained Google PageRank 9.
In conjunction with WikiProject Missing articles, Wikipedia now has a list of famous deceased persons who do not have Wikipedia articles. The list, consisting of over 46,000 people, was compiled with the permission of Find A Grave.com.
A subproject of the Version 1.0 Editorial Team, the WikiSort project focuses on suggestions to help get the project to Wikipedia 1.0 status.
The vote on whether to create a new Wikiversity project ends on 1 November. Wikiversity, which currently resides on Wikibooks, started a vote on 15 September to move to wikiversity.org, currently hosting a near-dormant German Wikiversity project. The vote will last until 1 November. Currently, the vote is about 70% in favor of the project (a two-thirds majority and board approval is required to start a project beta period).
Wikipedia was cited in the last week in the following publications:
Administration status was given to twelve users this week: Wikiacc (nom), RobyWayne (nom), Hermione1980 (nom), Kzollman (nom), Freestylefrappe (nom), Thames (nom), Jcw69 (nom), Tregoweth (nom), Garzo (nom), Voice of All(MTG) (nom), CambridgeBayWeather (nom), and GregAsche (nom).
Nine articles were promoted to featured status: Federalist No. 10, Microsoft, Cleveland, Ohio, Arsenal F.C., Isaac Newton, Nicolas Sarkozy, U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, Cheese, and Voter turnout. Meanwhile, the article Iraqi insurgency lost its featured status.
Four lists reached featured list status this week: List of Asian XI ODI cricketers, List of Australian Twenty20 International cricketers, List of English Twenty20 International cricketers, and California hurricanes.
Twelve pictures reached featured picture status recently:
The Arbitration Committee closed four cases this week.
A case against User:Stevertigo for inappropriate use of administrative powers has closed. Stevertigo must reconfirm himself at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Stevertigo. The dispute regarded Stevertigo's violation of the three-revert rule, and subsequently unblocking himself a number of times.
A case against -Ril- has ended this week. As a result, -Ril- has been banned for a month for removing other users' comments from discussions, and for an additional week for "incorrect speedy-deletion tagging". When the ban expires, -Ril- must adopt "an un-confusing signature." -Ril-'s signature, which was identical to the software signature for signing posts, caused problems when users copied -Ril-'s comments.
A case against Rktect has closed. The ruling bans Rktect from all articles relating to weights and measures indefinitely, and allows for bans of up to one week for violating this measure. Rktect was accused of creating many unsourced articles, and insertion of unsourced information into existing articles. Rktect also admitted to reverting people who reverted vandalism on these pages, "[to make] a point".
A case against ArmchairVexillologistDon has closed. As a result, ArmchairVexillologistDon has been banned for one year. ArmchairVexillologistDon was accused of personal attacks against other users.
The case was originally filed in December 2004, and closed in January 2005 due to ArmchairVexillologistDon's departure from Wikipedia. Upon his return, the case was reopened, but was closed again in September 2005, as the user who brought the request initially rescinded it. After an RfC against him, and upon a request by Zscout370, it was reopened this month.
A case was accepted this week against User:Jguk. It is in the evidence phase.
Requests against Copperchair and Silverback have each received 4 "accept" votes, the minimum number needed for cases to move forward.
Other cases against Ultramarine (user page), Maoririder (user page), Zephram Stark (user page), numerous editors on Bogdanov Affair, Everyking (user page), REX (user page), Rangerdude (user page), numerous editors on Ted Kennedy, numerous editors on Polygamy, and Lightbringer (user page), are in the evidence phase.
Cases against Onefortyone (user page), 12.144.5.2 (user page, a.k.a. Louis Epstein), BigDaddy777 (user page), Keetowah (user page), an IP dubbed DotSix, and Instantnood (user page) are in the voting phase.
Motions to close are on the table in the cases against Rainbowwarrior1977 (user page) and DreamGuy (user page).
