In response to the Seigenthaler incident last week (see related story), the creation of new Wikipedia articles has been restricted on an experimental basis.
On Monday, Jimmy Wales announced that "as an experiment, we will be turning off new pages creation for anonymous users in the English Wikipedia." He then quickly logged onto the IRC channel #wikipedia and discussed the issue with various Wikipedians for several hours. A considerable amount of vandalism on Wikipedia comes in the form of new pages with offensive or pointless content, and the bulk of these are created by users without registered accounts, commonly referred to as "anons" or anonymous users. The purpose of the change is "to reduce the workload on the people doing new pages patrol" and hopefully reduce the chances of a problematic article such as the Seigenthaler case slipping through.
Wales acknowledged that this might have some undesirable side effects. People bent on creating nonsense articles could easily use an account to do so, and the change would cause the loss of some valuable efforts in creating new articles. However, based on his personal survey of the situation and discussions with people who regularly monitor new pages, Wales said that on balance he felt "a substantial improvement" was possible.
Wikimedia Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber implemented this change shortly after 19:00 UTC on 5 December. He clarified that the restriction only applies to encyclopedia articles; editors can still create talk pages without logging in, for example. With the number of articles on the English Wikipedia approaching one million, Vibber commented that creation of new articles "is less of a priority than it was two or three years ago, while tuning up existing articles is quite important."
Initial reactions included a mixture of praise, skepticism, and questions about how the change would work. Users who attempt to create an article without logging in now receive a message that explains the restriction and directs them to Wikipedia:Requested articles if they still prefer not to use an account. There was some dissatisfaction from people who learned about the change from the media, as CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman wrote a story about it prior to the announcement. A subsequent AP story about the change was also widely distributed.
Wales reiterated that this experiment was not a prelude to requiring all editors to have an account: "I am a firm believer in the validity of allowing anons to edit." He later mentioned the possibility of changing to a less restrictive system, suggested by developer Tim Starling, which would only prevent the creation of "orphan" articles by users who are not logged in. Orphaned articles have no inbound links from other articles, and normally would only be reached through the random article feature, or by directly searching for the article. Starling explained that this would be a fairly straightforward thing to determine from a technical perspective, noting that many poor-quality articles are also orphans. Similarly, the John Seigenthaler Sr. article, although not an orphan, had very few inbound links before the recent publicity.
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 created a new straw poll and responded to the community's concerns regarding the upcoming Arbitration Committee elections.
"I have removed the poll which was previously here in order to start a new poll, this one based a bit more on reality. (Of course you can see it all in the history.), " Jimbo wrote. "The previous poll claimed, for example, that 'This year, Jimbo has announced that he will appoint candidates directly.' This is either false or misleading. I have always appointed people to the ArbCom directly, for one thing. And this formulation suggests (particularly as it was misleadingly contrasted with 'a public election') that I intend to do so without any community approval or vote, which is simply false." Wales continued, "So we had a straw poll here with zero relevance to the actual question at hand. For the record, the final votes in the flawed poll were 51-17 and then a host of other sorts of votes for things like 'prefer something else', 'unsure', 'polls are evil' and so on. Most of the voters seemed to have been misled into thinking that the choice was between direct appointment by me without any community input versus democratic elections. That's really misleading. I apologize if I had anything to do with the misunderstanding."
Jimbo also attempted to quell some of the community's concerns. "I would like to emphasize very strongly that none of these deliberations has anything to do with me trusting or not trusting the community. I trust the community with my life. The issue is that voting mechanisms are inherently flawed in some ways. A lot of people are fond, as I am, of quoting Winston Churchill's famous line about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the others. He said this, of course, in defense of Great Britain -- a democracy, but also a monarchy and aristocracy. Like the British system, the Wikipedia system is a mixed system and should remain so for at least the present time. I have tried, below, to outline the most prominent options, and to write as fair as I can about the strengths and weaknesses as I see them. I encourage those who are filling out this poll to also add their own brief views on the strengths and weaknesses, so that in another round of polling a week or so from now we can try to work on the details of whatever emerges."
Wales then created a poll with five choices: "Unsure", "Don't care", last year's election method, or two methods that he proposed. Jimbo's "first proposal" was the one he had announced previously, where he would nominate several candidates and the community would either approve or reject each candidate based on a vote. Strengths, he pointed out, were that it would "allow a diversity of candidates, including famous and less famous [Wikipedians]", less ill-will and campaigning because of less controversial candidates, and still giving the community input with the "50% vote by definition". Jimbo also acknowledged several weaknesses in this plan, saying that the plan could be limited: "can Jimbo effectively appoint outside people he knows personally?" In addition, Wales also said that other weaknesses included a "trust issue" and whether or not he could "be trusted to balance community wishes against the fundamental purpose of Wikipedia (to create an encyclopedia, not to have an experiment in democracy)" and that the process would not be as open as a general election.
Jimbo's second proposal was a hybrid between the first proposal and an election. Besides letting Jimbo appoint people and have the community ratify the candidates, the community could also elect candidates with a 50% majority required to pass. However, each candidate would still have to be approved by Wales. Anyone approved by both the community and Jimbo would become an Arbitrator, with excess qualified Wikipedians going into a pool of reserves for the ArbCom. The strengths of the plan would include balancing letting the community choose Arbitrators and allowing Jimbo to ensure diversity; weaknesses would be include "elements of the weaknesses of the previous methods". Jimbo acknowledged that this proposal was an attempt to find a "middle path that does everything we want it to do".
In addition, Talrias later made a proposal on the page: that the community nominate Arbitrators themselves and require a 50% majority to be approved. All candidates would have to garner at least ten people to support him/her before the voting could begin.
After some concern was expressed regarding the deletion of the prior poll instead of archiving it elsewhere (as was later done), the community feedback to the proposals were generally positive. "I applaud you for making efforts to clarify this ArbComm issue and process and look forward to working with you," said E Pluribus Anthony. However, there was limited dissent. "I support anything that takes Jimbo out of the loop. No offense, Jimbo is a great guy, and his 1st ArbCom was awesome. Unfortunately, he is too busy doing things other than editing (which is also great!) to be any good at appointing our judges. Jimbo doesn't scale, " commented Sam Spade.
As of the time of press, Jimbo's second proposal had garnered the most support by far, followed by an open election, Talrias's proposal, and then Jimbo's first proposal. It is unclear how long the straw poll will run; Wikipedians are encouraged to voice their opinions there.
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 |
In a week of heavy activity amid responses from Jimbo Wales (see related story), several users joined the ArbCom race while two withdrew.
Dmcdevit (statement), Doktorbuk (statement), Jpgordon (statement), and Silverback (statement) joined the race. In addition, Filiocht (statement) "unwithdrew", striking out his earlier comment regarding the uncertainties of the race.
Two people also withdrew from the race this week: 172 and former Arbitrator Ambi. Both cited an improvement in the ArbCom's handling of cases and a large number of suitable candidates.
There are now 32 candidates in the race, two short of last year's 34 candidates. Anyone interested should make a statement on the candidates' page immediately.
Misinformation in Wikipedia became a hot topic again last week when a retired journalist publicized his complaints about an article. The incident prompted considerable discussion in the media generally and among Wikipedia editors specifically, while renewing discussion of measures to address such problems.
On Tuesday, USA Today published a column by its former editorial page editor, John Seigenthaler Sr., who told of finding "A false Wikipedia 'biography'", specifically his own. The piece recounted his efforts to have the falsehoods removed and his inability to trace the person responsible.
The text Seigenthaler complained about was originally posted 26 May 2005. It indicated that he had "briefly" been suspected of involvement in the assassinations of both John and Robert Kennedy, adding the caveat, "Nothing was ever proven." Aside from a spelling correction three days later, it was left unedited for months.
As Wikipedia logs are purged regularly, it is no longer possible to determine how many people viewed the article in this state. An attempt to reconstruct the number of inbound links showed that it had very few before this publicity; aside from the John Seigenthaler disambiguation page, Robert F. Kennedy included him as one of Kennedy's pallbearers, and Freedom Riders mentioned him as Kennedy's assistant. A newspaper he published, The Tennessean, mentioned him but without a link, and Profiles in Courage Award, for which he serves on the committee, mentioned him but linked to the John Seigenthaler page without distinguishing him from his son.
The article was next changed on 23 September, again from an IP address. This replaced the contents entirely with a more substantial biography. The editor included an edit summary stating, "This is the correct bio. The previous entry was bogus." However, this proved to be a copy of Seigenthaler's biography on the website of the First Amendment Center, an organization he founded. The next day, Chick Bowen rewrote the material to address the potential copyright problem.
Seigenthaler indicated that he contacted Jimmy Wales about the article after discovering it. Wales, being unsure of the technical process to delete only certain revisions, asked on IRC for someone to handle it. In response, on 7 October Essjay deleted revisions containing both the original false biography and the copied biography. The current history of the article now begins with Chick Bowen's edits.
Meanwhile, Seigenthaler said he was unable to trace the original author. With Wales' help, the IP address used was traced to BellSouth Internet, but they declined to provide any more information without a subpoena, and Seigenthaler opted not to pursue a lawsuit. Instead he criticized the system that allowed such material to be disseminated online with no consequences for the author. As he discovered, the offending text spread to a number of Wikipedia mirrors, notably Answers.com and Reference.com.
Seigenthaler closed with his metaphor for Wikipedia, citing his mother lecturing him about gossip with the image of a feather pillow, the contents of which could not be reassembled if the pillow was torn open. Considered against other metaphors used by Wikipedia critics, notably Robert McHenry's public toilet, the feather pillow seems much more tame.
The response on Wikipedia included considerable discussion of what should be done to prevent problematic content of this nature from lingering in articles. Proposed measures included increased emphasis on citing sources, along with various ideas about improved ways of screening content. The John Seigenthaler Sr. article itself, which had again gone untouched since Chick Bowen edited it, suddenly became the focus of sustained editing and has expanded considerably, including some discussion of this particular episode.
Seigenthaler's column was also reprinted or discussed in a number of other places. The story was covered on Sunday in The New York Times by Katharine Seelye, in an article entitled "Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar". Seelye spoke with Jimmy Wales and reported on possible responses, including the planned article rating feature and the possibility of preventing editors from creating pages unless they are logged in (see related story). Besides interviewing Wales, Seelye also quoted several people involved in researching the news, an indication of the extent to which Wikipedia has become part of newsroom practices.
Media coverage will likely continue, as Wales and Seigenthaler are both set to appear on CNN to discuss the incident on Monday, 5 December. Wales was careful to emphasize that he respects Seigenthaler and understood his position, saying "we are on the same side, not in opposition."
The German Wikipedia has discovered that it has been infected with widespread copyright infringement from a number of printed reference works. This incident has also seen coverage from a few online media sources (mostly German, but one report is available in English).
Over the past two years, some person or persons have been copying text from a variety of reference works published in the former German Democratic Republic and adding this text to Wikipedia. So far copied material has been traced to seven different publications, and it remains possible that others are involved that have yet to be identified. The editor(s) responsible have invariably not used an account, making it difficult to hunt down every possible infringement. Reported IP addresses belong primarily but not exclusively to the internet service provider Deutsche Telekom.
This problem was first discovered in mid-November, but the addition of these copyrighted texts appears to have been going on since at least November 2003. Since the discovery, editors on the German Wikipedia have been busy remedying the situation, involving hundreds of affected articles. Articles suspected of containing copied text would be tagged and quarantined until someone with access to the original text could check it. The typical approach to locating copyright problems, which relies heavily on checking blocks of text against search engine results, proved inadequate in this instance because these texts are not otherwise available online.
To deal with media reports, the German Wikipedia prepared a media information page explaining the situation. Although the situation is serious and has required several weeks of work, one fortunate aspect is that Wikipedia editors discovered the problem themselves, rather than facing a public complaint from an offended copyright owner.
Last week, it was discovered that a major figure in podcasting has been editing the podcasting article and removing sizable chunks of information about the contributions of others to its development. As a result, Adam Curry said the episode turned him into "the Kate Winslet of Wikipedia".
Curry, a former MTV veejay who now creates the Daily Source Code podcast, was identified as having made four edits to the article. Three of these came in quick succession on 5 February and the most recent last Wednesday, 30 November. The February edits emphasized Curry's role in the development of podcasting and removed a reference to efforts by Stephen Downes in this area. The 30 November edit, apparently prompted by Curry's mentioning the article in one of his podcasts, dropped the mention of Kevin Marks, among others.
The latest edit led to the discovery, as Marks spotted the change and traced the IP address back to Curry using whois. Curry acknowledged the edit, but said he had intended to rewrite the paragraph about Marks to incorporate his recollection of their discussions. However, Curry explained that he was "exasperated" by the wiki interface and gave up instead. He subsequently apologized to Marks for removing the information. Curry's follow-up podcast focused on giving a detailed narrative of his recollection of podcasting's history.
Meanwhile, the incident expanded into a debate among bloggers involved in podcasting about whether this was appropriate and what the real historical facts were. Rogers Cadenhead charged that Curry was trying to "remove credit from other people and inflate his role in its creation." Ewan Spence said, "I can also fully understand Curry’s actions in making sure that the public records favour his viewpoint."
The incident is part of an ongoing fight over how the roles of podcasting pioneers are publicly credited. Since the Wikipedia article is frequently cited in the media as a resource to explain this new phenomenon, it has become an important battleground. Another significant figure in podcasting, software entrepreneur Dave Winer, complained earlier this year about having been expunged from this history in a similar fashion (see archived story). The edits on that particular occasion have not been traced back to Curry, however. In fact, in his 30 November podcast, Curry himself commented sardonically, "Dave and I have almost been written out. It's all these other people who've now successfully created podcasting, and I congratulate you for doing that."
Still, Winer has been among those who think Curry promoted his contribution to podcasting at the expense of others. He took particular exception to a Wired News interview in May that billed Curry as the "Podfather". Winer commented at the time, "these lies have gone on and on, he just doesn't stop."
With this new development and the Seigenthaler incident in mind, Winer also reiterated his criticism of Wikipedia: "The bigger problem is that Wikipedia is so often considered authoritative." Curry voiced similar sentiments in his next podcast: "The whole idea of making something editable in text is just too easy" (despite his own claimed difficulty with the editing process).
The podcasting article has long been subject to heavy editing, but these events led to even greater volume. They also prompted a significant surge of edits (mixed with vandalism) to the article on Curry himself, as editors went back and forth on whether the incident should be mentioned in the article.
The next Wikimedia Foundation fundraising drive, which was originally slated to begin 1 December, has been postponed to 16 December. Wikimedia Chief Financial Officer Daniel Mayer announced the change and asked for people to translate the documents involved into other languages. The fundraiser will still last for three weeks. Although no specific goal has been set, Mayer indicated he hoped it could raise USD $500,000.
The Russian Wikipedia has just completed their first Arbitration Committee elections, with the election of Kaganer, Maxim Razin, Mitrius, Obersachse, and Wulfson.
To coincide with Angela Beesley's trip to the X|Media|Lab conference in Australia, Wikimeetups were held in Sydney and Melbourne.
Article validation is set to be enabled on Wikipedia sometime soon, according to David Gerard. Currently, Brion is "cleaning it up" for usage.
John Seigenthaler Sr., a retired journalist and USA Today editor and founder of the First Amendment Center, wrote an opinion piece entitled "A false Wikipedia 'biography'", published on November 29 in USA Today (see related story). The column was re-published verbatim in other sources as far afield as The Tennessean and China Daily.
Seigenthaler has been talking to many other media outlets as well; see a transcript of his brief interview with Tucker Carlson, host of The Situation with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, and will appear today on CNN discussing the issue with Jimbo Wales.
The story of Seigenthaler's disillusionment and Wikipedia's reaction was given extensive coverage in online and mainstream media, including:
Partially in response to the Seigenthaler problems, Jimbo Wales announced on December 5 that for the time being anonymous users would no longer be allowed to create new articles (see related story). The first story about it was the widely syndicated "Growing pains for Wikipedia", by CNET reporter Daniel Terdiman; his story went live even before the announcement was widely posted within the encyclopedia, so many Wikipedians first learned of the new policy through other outlets.
The change to Wikipedia's mechanisms was also reported in several places, most using information from "Wikipedia Tightens Rules", by Associated Press writer Dan Goodin. However, many outlets misunderstood and misrepresented the nature of Wikipedia's editorial process. "Wikipedia Tightens Rules For Posting" from Information Week is an example. A BBC report implied that only 600 volunteers were responsible for monitoring the entire site. [1]
A new flurry of commentary on Wikipedia was prompted by a blog post by Kevin Marks (see related story).
On November 29, CNET's News.com published "Web tool puts new face on Wikipedia", reporting that German designer Harald Hanek has invented Gollum, a new "Wikipedia browser" that presents Wikipedia articles in a simplified interface. It strips Wikipedia's menus and tabs, replacing them with a graphical toolbar and a prominent search bar. The story was also picked up by ZDNet, Search Engine Watch and other technology news sites.
LuMriX Wikipedia Search and WikiWax Search are two other external applications which simplify searching the Wikipedia article namespace.
Additional tools can be found at the internal page Wikipedia:Tools, as well as AKA's Wikipedia Tools and Qwikly WikiTools.
Citizen's media and marketing expert Steve Rubel, has written extensively about Wikipedia in his popular blog Micro Persuasion lately, including:
His column "Wikipedia is the next Google" has drawn many comments and trackbacks.
Taiwan's leading English-language newspaper The China Post ran an article describing how "Wikipedia democratizes information", and invited Chinese readers to contribute to the encyclopedia. "I'm a little disappointed, however, to see that the Chinese-pedia has fewer than 50,000 entries. Anyone want to help out with that?"
Twelve users were granted admin status this week: HorsePunchKid (nom), Mushroom (nom), Enochlau (nom), Snottygobble (nom), Hamster Sandwich (nom), Bunchofgrapes (nom), Shreshth91 (nom), Ronline (nom), TheParanoidOne (nom), SCZenz (nom), Mindmatrix (nom) and Cnwb (nom). Hamster Sandwich's RFA was accidently closed early, due to a mistake over timezones by Raul654 and an incorrect date on the RFA.
One article was featured this week: Objectivist poets.
The following featured articles were displayed this week on the main page as Today's featured article: Cyberpunk, Flag of Hong Kong, Rosa Parks, Acetic acid, Black pepper, Pneumonia and Arrested Development.
Two lists reached featured list status this week: List of Namibian ODI cricketers and ISO 3166-1.
Four pictures reached featured picture status this week:
Other server-related events, problems, and changes included:
The Arbitration Committee closed one case this week, against Instantnood, SchmuckyTheCat, and Huaiwei.
A case brought against Instantnood was closed on Sunday. As a result, Instantnood and two other users, Huaiwei and SchmuckyTheCat were all placed on probation for one year in regard to China-related articles. The three had been accused of edit warring over the correct naming of China, particularly in relation to Hong Kong and Taiwan. The case is a continuation of a prior case, which was closed without action.
Cases were accepted this week against Ed Poor (user page), Carl Hewitt (user page), voters on webcomics AFDs, and Reddi (user page). All are in the evidence phase.
Other cases against EffK (user page), AndriyK (user page), editors on climate change-related articles, numerous editors on Neuro-linguistic programming, Johnski (user page), a series of editors on Winter Soldier, Xed (user page), and Copperchair (user page) are in the evidence phase.
Cases against editors Ted Wilkes, numerous editors on Ted Kennedy, Wyss, and Onefortyone, numerous editors on Political Research Associates, Pigsonthewing (user page), Rangerdude (user page), and Ultramarine are in the voting phase.
A motion to close is on the table in the case against Rex071404 (user page).
