This week, the Signpost has added new features to aid in reading articles every week. First, upon a request, we have added a central page where all the week's articles are transcluded. Secondly, we've added a storybox, which can be placed on your user or user talk page to allow you to note whenever the Signpost is updated. Finally, we are working on restoring an RSS feed for users with newsreaders; this is in the works.
On an unrelated note, I personally would like to apologize for the delay in publishing this article. Due to some server downtime, I was unable to research many of my articles, and was therefore late in publishing the issue. This is solely my fault, and I do apologize.
Thank you for continuing to read the Signpost.
— Ral315
This week, five Wikipedians were granted Check User rights. The five were selected from the Arbitration Committee and were chosen after discussions within the ArbCom. Chosen were Raul654, Fred Bauder, Kelly Martin, The Epopt, and Jayjg. The chosen Arbitrators were granted the access after the Wikimedia Board approved a change in policy earlier this year, allowing each language's arbitration committee to grant the privilege (locally) to users of a particular language. Thus, the english Arbitration Committee can now grant administrators checkuser permissions to the English-wikipedia logs.
For its initial request, the Arbitration Committee limited its selection to current arbitrators with the necessary technical expertise. Prior to the request, David Gerard was one of only two widely-available Wikipedians on the English Wikipedia with CheckUser rights, with the other being developer Tim Starling. David Gerard had previously stated that tending to checkuser requests has become so time-consuming for him that "en: could easily do with another five checkers."
The move came with much controversy, as several users objected to the granting of the rights. After steward Danny posted on the meta requests for permission page seeking input, several users expressed their concerns. "Two... have only temporary positions (as they were appointed by Jimbo Wales), out of process with how the other arbitrators were chosen," said Talrias. In actuality, four of the five users were appointed by Jimbo Wales; however, Kelly Martin drew the most controversy because she was only appointed last month. Even after Martin agreed to withdraw if it would "accelerate the process of getting someone to help David Gerard deal with the huge tide of work to be done on en", more users expressed their opinions, with some seeing the move as a threat to privacy. Afterwards, steward Datrio decided to move the discussion back to the English Wikipedia: "Please link to the local announcement of the Arbitration Committee on en.Wikipedia... [that they] should be granted this status. Please move all the relevant discussion to the local village pump."
However, Datrio's statement also drew criticism because policy dictates that the local ArbCom can choose several members to be granted CheckUser access. Policy states, "On a wiki with a (Wikimedia-approved) arbitration committee only editors approved by arbitrators may have CheckUser status. They should be at least two so that they can mutually control their activity. After agreement, simply list the candidate on Requests for permissions." Thus, the five users were ultimately granted CheckUser privileges.
Discussion continues on the mailing list, with some Wikipedians dissenting and others supporting the decision. Some asked whether activity on CheckUser would be logged and visible to the public, so as to make the monitoring transparent, but this was rejected due to the same privacy concerns that require limiting access to a small group. Instead, those who have CheckUser access will be able to consult with and monitor each other's use of the tool.
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 |
Both of the past Arbitration Committee elections have been held with approval voting, with all of the candidates running against each other in one pool. Approval voting allowed each Wikipedian voter to vote for as many candidates as s/he wished, with only one vote allowed per candidate. The originations of using approval voting began with the July 2004 elections, when ArbComVote software was designed for approval voting. There was discussion before the vote, with many proposals to change the voting system used. However, the first ever vote was held using approval voting, with the top vote-receivers filling the number of seats available.
The December 2004 elections were also held using approval voting. However, the election had a higher level of interest and participation than the previous one, and more proposals were made to change the voting system. Some suggested allowing both for and against votes, with each vote against detracting from the total. Others suggested using Condorcet voting, where voters would be able to rank their choice of candidates. This idea was considered seriously for some time, with Jimbo Wales even considering the move given the amount of community input. Developer and elections manager Tim Starling also commented that the software could possibly be changed to reflect the method of voting. However, such a change was never accomplished.
Other suggested methods of voting included Single Transferable Vote and run-off voting, where the large field of candidates would be narrowed down in preliminary elections. In addition, proportional voting was also suggested, where voters would be grouped into blocks in an attempt to ensure that every group of voters would be represented.
In August of 2004, Jguk created a page in an attempt to reform the 2005 elections. Included were proposed changes to the voting system; bloc voting, where a voter could only approval vote for the number of open seats, run-off voting, and Condorcet voting were proposed. All three were met with significant opposition.
The 2005 elections were assumed to be held with approval voting; however, with Jimbo's reforms of the election, the vote will be similar to confirmation hearings — once a candidate is nominated by Jimbo, the community can then either approve or disapprove of the candidate. No further details have been released yet.
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, Arbitrator Kelly Martin announced that she would not be seeking her first full term on the ArbCom in the December elections unless asked to serve by Jimbo Wales, the current Arbitration Committee, or the community. Martin was appointed by Jimbo last month and made her decision on 11 November, stating:
"I have, after much thought, decided not to seek a full term as Arbitrator, and will further be resigning my adminship at the end of my current term. This is due to my increasing frustration with the general governance of the project, an issue I hoped to be able to do something to fix, but which is apparently broken beyond my ability to help. I hope that others will step up and fix the problems, but I don't have the energy to do it right now."
Her decision came after a week of controversy and disappointment for her. First, her request for bureaucratship was denied (see relevant story, link to Features and Admins), and a dispute, involving Mediation Cabal-related matters and catalyzed by the RfB, sprung up between Martin and Durin. Tensions were high between the two users and Martin subsequently filed a requests for comment against Durin. Later this week, Martin was the center of more controversy as several users objected to the CheckUser tool being granted to her (see related story).
On 12 November, though, Kelly Martin modified her statements:
"I have, after much thought, decided not to actively seek a full term as Arbitrator, although I will nonetheless stand for election if asked to do so by the community, the ArbCom, or Jimbo. I have, on advice from the community, elected to defer my decision whether to resign my adminship and my CheckUser rights until after the ArbCom elections are finished."
This leaves yet another seat on the ArbCom without an incumbent.
In other news, a straw poll was formed regarding the elections. Created by Radiant!, the poll was "put together to gauge public opinion. Needless to say this poll is not official or binding in any way whatsoever. It is simply a measurement." As of press time, there was limited input on the poll, but most Wikipedians indicated that they preferred an elected ArbCom.
Finally, this week Filiocht withdrew his candidacy, stating that his decision was based on "the uncertainty over the selection/election process, a state of affairs that effectively renders these candidacies meaningless." Also, Sam Korn entered the race, commenting that he is "interested in aiding the functions of our hard-worked Arbitration Committee." Korn also stated a caveat regarding the uncertainty of the elections.
In an unusual move, two banned users have been accepted back into the community. JarlaxleArtemis and MARMOT have been welcomed back to Wikipedia, under certain terms and conditions, crafted mostly by Linuxbeak.
Although theoretically even the most difficult editors are considered redeemable, including those who vandalize articles, rehabilitation of banned users is extremely rare. The last such instance (in August 2004) involved Michael, one of Wikipedia's most notorious vandals, who was allowed to resume editing as Mike Garcia.
In this situation, both users were originally banned by community consensus rather than the Arbitration Committee, although Jarlaxle had been the subject of an arbitration case at the time. Jarlaxle was banned after a CheckUser showed he created over 50 abusive usernames on Wikipedia, and even some on non-Wikipedia MediaWiki projects. Board member Anthere had banned JarlaxleArtemis Wikimedia wide. Jarlaxle has also been blocked from the Wikia project Uncyclopedia, a ban which has not been lifted as of press time.
MARMOT, meanwhile, was banned after writing the code for the Love Virus vandal bot. MARMOT also participated in creating inflammatory user names. It has been recommended that after a few months, a CheckUser is performed on the two to confirm no abusive names are created.
Linuxbeak, who had been in contact with both, originally offered JarlaxleArtemis a chance to be unbanned if he changed his behavior. Jarlaxle reluctantly accepted Linuxbeak's offer, and after first apologizing on Wikimedia IRC channels, his main user account was unblocked and his user and talk pages were unprotected.
MARMOT then contacted Linuxbeak asking to be unbanned, a request made numerous times previously. Instead of ignoring the request, Linuxbeak decided to give MARMOT a chance as well.
Linuxbeak commented, "Jarlaxle seems to have learned that being good is better than being evil, and hopefully MARMOT has as well. I am all for useful contributors coming back after they have learned how to behave themselves." The arrangement was discussed with arbitrator David Gerard, who passed on the information to the Arbitration Committee mailing list, where no serious objections were raised.
The newly organized Mentorship Committee will help supervise the users for a period of one year. The Mentorship Committee was created especially for the purpose, and hopes to serve as a resource for the Arbitration Committee generally. The launch of this committee prompted some to raise concerns on the mailing list, but these seemed to be allayed once the situation was explained. Cool Cat also worried that unbanning these users might encourage vandals. To help with the supervision, Cool Cat has developed a bot that shows each edit by an editor under mentorship.
The specific terms applied to the two editors as a condition of being unbanned are as follows:
For JarlaxleArtemis:
For MARMOT:
In the aftermath of The Guardian's effort at rating Wikipedia articles (see archived story), a number of new evaluations sprang up this past week. Both Wikipedia editors and outside sources took stabs at critiquing the quality of the content.
Last Monday, the South African newspaper the Mail & Guardian published a story online in which it ran a very similar evaluation to its British cousin, asking a variety of experts to rate specific articles on a scale ranging from 0 to 10. The articles chosen were on subjects specifically related to South Africa. Scores this time were slightly better, mostly because the lowest rating was 2/10 for Media in South Africa (as opposed to 0/10 for Haute couture), and the articles on the national rugby teams actually received perfect grades.
On Wednesday, technology news site CNET published its evaluation, which involved comparing Wikipedia against competing encyclopedia software. For its story, CNET stacked Wikipedia up against the 2006 versions of Encarta and Encyclopædia Britannica, available on DVD.
Unlike The Guardian, CNET did not rate articles and focused more on comparing features rather than specific encyclopedia content. In addition to the feature comparison table, each encyclopedia received a more in-depth review that highlighted various strengths and weaknesses. The summary of the detailed review for Wikipedia read, "Wikipedia offers rich, frequently updated information, but you might need to verify some of its facts."
The free availability of Wikipedia (assuming one has internet access) was cited as "an enormous advantage" specifically because it does not use up significant computer resources or interfere with other programs such as a firewall or antivirus software. Points criticized included the lack of resources specifically for children when compared to Encarta and Britannica, as well as the "uninspiring interface". Perhaps surprisingly, considering the frequency of questions seeking guidance in using Wikipedia, the reviewer noted that the organic development of support information produced help pages that were "perhaps more useful" than those provided by the software encyclopedias.
Meanwhile, Kosebamse started a flurry of attempts to study Wikipedia quality based on a random selection of articles. Acknowledging that it was a "totally unscientific investigation", he repeated a test he had conducted back in March by using Special:Random twenty consecutive times and seeing what came up. His summary of the results suggested that, as he put it, "the average quality of our content has not much improved" since March or even earlier.
A few other people also did their own tests using this technique, with similar results. Carnildo performed one of the more detailed examinations, going through a total of 100 articles. One criticism raised about these studies was that taking a random selection of pages at different points in time would not be a valid comparison, since the later sample would catch newer articles that had not had enough time for improvement. This problem could be addressed by conducting a longitudinal survey over time, and Carnildo indicated that he would revisit his sample in the future to see how the articles changed.
The search capability on Wikipedia was modified by the developers last week as they work to improve performance and the quality of results.
On Monday, Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber announced that he had changed the way the searching function works. In conjunction with MediaWiki software, Wikipedia uses a full-text search based on a Lucene core.
The change made affects searches that include more than one term, as results will now only show matches that contain all terms given. As Vibber explained, "This gives more focused results and is more consistent with typical search engine practice, and our behavior under the old MySQL search." In order to make a term optional, one should now use an OR operator (which must be capitalized). The use of Boolean logic remains available to construct searches generally.
The developers also responded to a complaint from Phil Boswell that the search function was producing errors. Tim Starling explained that the servers were occasionally hanging, necessitating periodic restarts of the daemons. Errors can also result from heavy server loads.
The search function is now supported by three servers, and configured to try the other two if one doesn't respond. This will hopefully reduce the amount of time for which internal searching is unavailable. For situations in which all three servers fail, a form showing the Google and Yahoo search options will remain in place.
Swiss Wikipedians met in Zurich on Sunday, 13 November, to discuss the possibility of starting a local chapter for Switzerland affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. They plan to establish their organization with bylaws adapted from the German Wikipedia chapter. A summary of the meeting highlights some of the topics that were discussed.
On 8 November 2005, the English Wiktionary reached another milestone, surpassing the 100,000 article mark. It is the 11th wiki to do this, and the 10th within Wikimedia. The next biggest Wiktionary, the Italian Wiktionary currently has almost 40,000 entries. The 100,000th word to be added was colposcope, and was added by SemperBlotto.
Since Wikimedia Board member Angela Beesley is traveling to Australia for the X|Media|Lab conference, meetups have been scheduled for two locations in the coming weeks. The first will be in Sydney on Sunday, 20 November, and the second in Melbourne on Tuesday, 29 November.
Meanwhile, plans are being made for another meetup for users in the Pacific Northwest region. The meetup will be held in Seattle, which would be the third in that city. It will most likely be held in January. There are also plans for meetups in Tampa (January 14th) and Washington DC (late January)
On November 9, Internet activist Daniel Brandt (founder of Google Watch and Wikipedia Watch) posted some musings to his site about who exactly is responsible if someone felt they had been libeled in a Wikipedia article: the individual editor(s) or the Wikimedia Foundation. Brandt has been trying to have his own article deleted or edited to his satisfaction; the article went through a second discussion at Articles for Deletion this week, which resulted in an overwhelming Keep decision. Brandt's speculations were also noted by Google technology blogger Philipp Lenssen [1] among others ([2], [3]).
Prominent web design author Peter Morville mentions Wikipedia in an interview about his new book (Ambient Findability) in Business Week magazine on 9 November, 2005. Morville says, "We can now select our sources and choose our news. And in this era of Google, blogs, and the Wikipedia, we're realizing there are many truths and many versions of the truth."
In an opinion column in The Daily Telegraph on November 11 ("Tories need a folkmoot not a husting"), Danny Kruger uses definitions drawn from Wikipedia to compare current events within the Tory party in the UK to the contrast between Britannica and Wikipedia, and between closed and open source. Kruger says, in part: "I got the definition quoted above from an online encyclopedia called Wikipedia.com. If the Encyclopaedia Britannica is a husting, Wikipedia is the folk-moot. Where the Britannica is written by a closed team of academics, Wikipedia is the product, and the virtual property, of 'the whole people'. It is built by thousands of volunteers working in spontaneous concert, writing entries and checking each others' facts. It is far larger than Britannica, far easier to use, and (because of constant, multiple peer review) just as good." (However, the husting article cited is largely drawn from the 1911 Britannica, and is currently tagged for cleanup.)
The Stanford University student newspaper, The Stanford Daily, describes Wikipedia in a 8 November piece titled "Wary of Wikipedia". In it reporter Mark Kogan discusses the caution but also the increasing acceptance of Wikipedia by professors as a starting point for student research. He quotes Jonathan Hunt, who teaches a course in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford: “I don’t think it helps students to divide the world into approved sources and forbidden sources. Obviously, an article on Wikipedia is not the same kind of source as The Wall Street Journal or a research article in a peer-reviewed journal, but all sources should be regarded with some suspicion.”
“Critical thinking, we sometimes call this,” Hunt adds.
Information World Review, a news site for the information industry, published "Tax group has its say on Wikipedia" on November 10, interviewing Professional Contractors Group leader John Kell about the group's addition of new articles to Wikipedia. The articles in question are IR35, S660A and Professional Contractors Group, created by User:John Kell on October 11 and edited by several others since. Kell hasn't been back, these are his only edits, and there has been no edit warring, but it is interesting that the PCG felt the need to give a news interview about the fact that they had created the articles.
Wikipedia was cited in the last week in the following publications:
Administration status was given to thirteen users this week: DrBob (nom), FireFox (nom), Alkivar (nom), Ramallite (nom), Philwelch (nom), MC MasterChef (nom), PRueda29 (nom), Capitalistroadster (nom), Cryptic (nom), Psy guy (nom), BrianSmithson (nom), Johann Wolfgang (nom), and Goodoldpolonius2 (nom).
Eight articles were promoted to featured status: Canon T90, Barbara McClintock, James T. Aubrey, Jr., Belgium, Acetic acid, Yoweri Museveni, The Relapse, and Music of Maryland.
One list reached featured list status this week: List of World XI ODI cricketers.
Seven pictures reached featured picture status recently:
The Arbitration Committee closed a record eight cases this week, marking over 40% of their workload.
A case against BigDaddy777 was closed on 9 November. BigDaddy777, who was blocked indefinitely by Redwolf24 on 10 October, is subject to a 2 month ban for modifying other users' comments, and an additional 12 month ban for badgering other users, should the indefinite block be removed. In addition, should BigDaddy777 be allowed to return (which at earliest, could occur in January 2007), an indefinite ban on the editing of articles relating to American politics would be enforced.
BigDaddy777, who joined Wikipedia in September, was accused of violating many policies, including no personal attacks, NPOV, on pages such as Bill O'Reilly (commentator), Karl Rove, and Ann Coulter.
A case against Everyking was closed on 11 November. As a result, Everyking has been banned from posting to the administrator's noticeboard and subpages for one year, and has had other restrictions imposed on his comments about other administrators.
A case against various editors on Bogdanov Affair was closed on 11 November. As a result, most of the users involved have been banned from editing the article indefinitely. In addition, a notice was ordered to be displayed at the top of the article, making a note of the dispute. The editors, which included the two brothers whose theoretical physics papers are at the subject of the article, were involved in an edit war with each other and with other Wikipedia editors. This edit war forced numerous 3RR blocks on both sides of the dispute, and ten page protections since the page was first extensively edited in July 2005.
A case against jguk was closed on 11 November. As a result, jguk has been banned from changing dates from BCE and CE to BC and AD. The Arbitration Committee ruled that jguk had gone out of his way to change this era notation on "hundreds of articles which he does not usually edit to reflect his preferred usage." Should he do so, he may be banned for up to a week.
A case against Zephram Stark was closed on 11 November. As a result, Zephram Stark has been banned for 6 months, placed on probation for an additional year, and banned from editing terrorism-related articles. Zephram Stark was accused for POV editing, inflammatory remarks, removing comments, and "wikilawyering".
A case against Louis Epstein was closed on 12 November. It was ruled that Louis Epstein could be blocked for neglecting correct punctuation; however, in an attempt to avoid Epstein's being blocked, Babajobu offered to correct Epstein's punctuation himself. The blocks will not be enforced unless Babajobu removes himself from the agreement, and nobody else agrees to replace him.
A case filed against REX was closed on 14 November. As a result, REX, as well as Matia.gr and Theathenae, have all been placed on personal attack parole. The parole can be enforced by bans of up to a week. The dispute centers around the ongoing dispute on Macedonian and Albanian-related articles.
A case against Researcher99 was closed on 14 November. As a result, Researcher99 has been banned indefinitely from polygamy-related articles. Violation may result in a ban of up to a week, and if continued, up to a year. Researcher99 had been accused of violating NPOV, and assume good faith.
Cases were accepted this week against Pigsonthewing (user page) and Xed (user page). Both are in the evidence phase.
Other cases against Ultramarine (user page), Maoririder (user page), Rangerdude (user page), numerous editors on Ted Kennedy, Copperchair (user page), and Silverback (user page) are in the evidence phase.
Cases against Lightbringer (user page) and Instantnood (user page) are in the voting phase.
Currently, there is a motion to close the Stevertigo case, which had been referred back to the arbitration committee following an aborted request for adminship.
