Another instance of Wikipedia users in Asia having their access to the site blocked surfaced in the news last week. This time around, the country reportedly doing the blocking was Saudi Arabia.

Arab News, an English-language news site focused on the Middle East, reported that access to Wikipedia in Saudi Arabia was cut off last week. Rumors of similar blocks by Saudi internet administrators have circulated before; the article indicated that Wikipedia has been blocked and unblocked several times in recent weeks.

According to the story, Saudi Arabia effectively has only one Internet service provider, except for satellite users who are unaffected by the blocks. Its policy is to block sites that are "in violation of Islamic tradition or national regulations". Blocking is done at the direction of the Saudi government, which sometimes directly requests the blocking of a particular site. The report did mention that the organization is going through a restructuring process, and mistakes are sometimes made in blocking.

If in fact Saudi officials are blocking Wikipedia due to religious concerns, this probably is not the first such case. Pakistan reportedly briefly blocked access to Wikipedia at the peak of the controversy over cartoon depictions of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper. Wikipedia nevertheless remains popular in Pakistan, ranking #14 among websites in traffic there according to Alexa's country breakdowns. [1] It no longer ranks in the top 100 in Saudi Arabia after making a brief appearance on that list earlier. [2]

The country best known for blocking particular web content remains the People's Republic of China, which has more or less steadily blocked Wikipedia since last October. In India, reports of extensive blocking of blogs surfaced last week, amid speculation that this was in reaction to the recent Mumbai train bombings. The Indian government later stated that the reason was inflammatory material on a specific blog or blogs, but that some ISPs blocked the entire domains of the blog hosting services, apparently because they lacked the capability to implement more narrowly tailored blocks. No reports of Wikipedia being affected by the Indian block have appeared.

A Nebraska private school has reportedly filed a lawsuit to determine the identity of the person or persons responsible for edits to the Wikipedia article about the school, according to a story published on 22 July by the Omaha World-Herald (subscription required to read the full report).

As reported by the World-Herald, officials from Skutt Catholic High School, a private school located in Omaha, Nebraska, have sued "John and Jane Doe" in Douglas County District Court. The suit claims unspecified damages over edits made from two IP addresses to the school's Wikipedia article. A school attorney said, "These particular edits were really harmful and mean-spirited".

It is not known precisely when the suit was filed, but the court has apparently issued a subpoena to Cox Communications to identify the users of the IP addresses. Cox, which like most internet service providers generally does not disclose such information without legal proceedings, has indicated that it would cooperate with the subpoena.

The reporter, Veronica Stickney, quoted a 13 June edit made by 68.107.235.103, a Cox IP address, that commented about the school's "ridiculously high" tuition, "awful education", and said most students are "complete idiots". This was its only edit to the article, and although it was reverted by the next editor, Shimgray, the IP was not blocked (it did receive a brief block in February for vandalism to Hannibal and Alexander the Great).

While a number of IP addresses have been responsible for vandalism to the article about Skutt, the suit reportedly focused on only two. Based on the nature of the edits, the most likely other candidate is 68.96.26.20. This IP address made a number of edits to the article, and was blocked indefinitely on 29 April by Shimgray for "repeated explicit allegations of illegal activity". (Shimgray also deleted most of the revision history; currently the article is semi-protected and its history begins with edits on 22 July.)

The user in question had regularly inserted claims about the school's principal beginning in February. On the first such occasion, the claim actually remained in the article for nearly two weeks, as the next user to come along simply marked it as {{citation needed}}. This type of approach to potentially defamatory and unsourced material has been strongly criticized by Jimmy Wales as inappropriate.

The story seemed to imply that the passage written by 68.107.235.103 came from one of the IPs identified in the suit, but this is not confirmed. If it was not one of the two IPs in question, a third candidate would be 68.99.30.137. This IP address made edits very similar in nature to 68.96.26.20, sufficiently so that one might guess the same person was responsible.

This would be the second lawsuit directly related to Wikipedia content, although so far the Wikimedia Foundation itself has not been a party to either case. The first, a German case brought by a couple whose deceased son has a Wikipedia article, was against the German Wikimedia chapter. In that matter, the court ultimately ruled against the couple's efforts to prevent the publication of their son's full name in the article.

The "lumpy work in progress" that is Wikipedia has now become the focus of additional media coverage with a feature article in The New Yorker. While covering ground that may be familiar to some readers, the article offers an interesting synthesis of the material with occasional insights and a touch of humor.

Entitled "Know It All", the article asks in its subtitle, "Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?" The lengthy piece, which appears in the 31 July issue of the magazine, was written by Stacy Schiff. Some may recall that Schiff previously discussed Wikipedia in an op-ed column for The New York Times, in the aftermath of the wikitorial experiment at the Los Angeles Times.

The article recounts some of the background to Wikipedia's creation and its early development under Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. It also relates how Wikipedia grew, added administrators, and elaborated its policies until they became "a regulatory thicket". Schiff touches upon a variety of disputes and controversies, bringing in perspectives from Sanger and Encyclopædia Britannica president Jorge Cauz (curiously, there was no mention of the Seigenthaler incident).

Schiff also reiterates the point that the bulk of the work on Wikipedia is done by a relatively small proportion of users. Using the same numbers, Wikipedia was cited by Charles Arthur in The Guardian on Thursday 20 July as an example of what he called the "1% Rule" — that only 1% of people online will actually engage in significant content creation (similar to the Pareto principle). He suggested that "if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it."

Responses to Schiff's article from Wikipedia editors were generally positive. Andrew Lih said it "aptly captures Wikipedia's most interesting corners." Others wondered about specific points mentioned in the story, such as the guesstimate that 80% of contributors are male.

Some progress was made last week in setting up the election of a replacement for Angela Beesley on the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees. The board appointed three election officials who will plan and administer the election process. More information about the election itself, scheduled to start 1 September, will hopefully be available this week.

In a resolution passed on Thursday, 20 July, the Board of Trustees named Essjay, Datrio, and Aphaia as members of an election commission. The commission is to consist of two "Inspectors of the Election", a position provided for in the Foundation's bylaws, and additional assistant election officials. Datrio and Essjay have been designated as the election inspectors, while Aphaia will serve as an assistant election official. Both Datrio and Aphaia filled their respective roles for the previous election as well.

It is still not clear whether the election will only be for Beesley's replacement, or if additional positions might also be created. The board's latest resolution simply stated "one or more seats", and the board members are currently discussing how many positions will be voted upon.

The election inspectors indicated that additional details, including information on how to sign up as a candidate, would be forthcoming in a few days. They anticipate that the process will generally be similar to last year's board election. People who can help with translating election information into other languages are needed and can sign up on the Meta coordination site.

As of Sunday, 23 July 2006, the German language Wikipedia contained about 434,350 articles. Of these, 830 articles (approximately 1 in 520) are considered Exzellente Artikel (the German Wikipedia equivalent of featured articles) and 1,460 (approximately 1 in 300) are considered Lesenswerte Artikel (the German Wikipedia equivalent of good articles). In addition, 203 images are considered Exzellente Bilder (the German Wikipedia equivalent of featured pictures).

Since Sunday 16 July, 8 articles have gained "featured article" status (Austrian film history, Mumme of Brunswick (a kind of beer), Hellenism, Brugg, Hemma von Gurk, Rurik expedition, Palais Strousberg and Motor cortex) and 20 articles have gained "good article" status, and two pictures (shown below) gained "featured picture" status.

• 
  Featured picture: Dicentra
• 
  Featured picture: 5-54 Mark 45

In an effort to improve the illustration of Wikipedia, an image contest is being held through the month of July and still has one week left to run. Over 800 pictures have been submitted in five categories so far, confronting the five elected jury members with lots of review work.

The German Gesprochene Wikipedia (Spoken Wikipedia) project saw a revival, with many newcomers submitting audio files. Wikipedians from Berlin started to work on an audio sightseeing guide for the Berlin Bus Nr. 100, whose route connects many important spots like Alexanderplatz and the Reichstag.

Recently, meetings of the German community took place in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Nuremberg and Brunswick. The Wikipedians from Frankfurt went to a barbecue evening on Friday 21 July. The WikiProject Philosophy met for the first time in real life in the small town Moers. The six participants discussed strategies to improve the quality of core articles and made plans to merge the project into a larger editorial department for arts & humanities in general.

The last week showed a few press articles about Wikipedia and related subjects. The most noteworthy example was the title story "Du bist das Netz! ("you are the (inter)net!") of the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel which started and ended with mentioning Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales and the community events. In the same issue, communication scientist Norbert Bolz talked in an interview about the erosion of expert knowledge, mentioning Wikipedia as an example for doxa - "Meinungswissen" (opinion knowledge) produced by the masses - in contrast to episteme - scientific knowledge generated by the academic world.

The monthly business magazine Capital mentioned Wikipedia briefly when introducing its audience to the wonderful new world of the "web 2.0", where people create content for free.

On 21 July, Torsten Kleinz wrote about internet related crime in the internet in the Frankfurter Rundschau. He mentioned an ongoing debate at the wikide-l mailing list about a privacy complaint from a former Wikipedian over automatic analysis of "Special:Contributions" data.

The University of Halle sent out a press release on Friday 21 July on an ongoing scientific project by Daniela Pscheida M.A. to investigate the communication of knowledge within the internet. Pscheida intends to analyse Wikipedia articles for her thesis. The project is planned to end in March 2008.

A couple of news sites mentioned PediaPress, a project of the German company "Brainbot" to offer Wikipedia text on a print-on-demand solution. PediaPress.com is offering users to select articles from the (currently only English language) Wikipedia. Prices range from about €12 up to €18. The project does not use the Wikipedia trademark and tries to comply with the GFDL.

The guideline to biographies of living persons was upgraded to policy after a short discussion period. The page, created in December 2005 "due to the Daniel Brandt situation", had already become commonly accepted and cited; its use grew significantly over the past few months as emphasis continued to be placed on making sure that articles on living people were accurate and did not contain incorrect information following the John Seigenthaler controversy (see archived story).

Following the upgrading of the page from guideline to policy, renewed attention was cast on the so-called "living people biographies", as Danny Wool proposed on the mailing list a special recent-changes patrol dedicated to living people biographies. Dubbed the "living people patrol", Wool envisioned the group as one that could focus on keeping track of which articles pertained to living people and attempt to catch any articles not complying with current policy. In addition, Wool also later suggested that notability guidelines be made more stringent, citing the articles in the category So You Think You Can Dance contestants. Each of the articles in there, he said, were of living people who were unnotable. Wool, an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, however, did note that these were "only suggestion[s]."

Wikichildren, a place where content would be geared toward children in simple language and graphics, was proposed this week. The proposal included different account levels — those for adults and those for children — and also noted that the proposal was not the same as either the Wikijunior or Wikikids proposals.

An Esperanza group has been formed on the Simple English Wikipedia, modeled after the same project on the English Wikipedia. Archer7 was chosen to serve as the group's leader until 4 October, 2006.

• The Chinese Wikipedia has reached 250,000 pages.
• The Georgian Wikipedia has reached 8,000 articles.
• The Spanish Wiktionary has reached 10,000 entries.
• The Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia has reached 5,000 articles.
• The Vietnamese Wiktionary has reached 60,000 entries.
• The Estonian Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
• The Albanian Wikipedia has reached 8,000 articles.
• The Korean Wiktionary has reached 9,500 entries.
• The Thai Wikipedia has reached 13,000 articles.
• The Georgian Wikipedia has reached 500 registered users.
• The Sinhalese Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Norman Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
• The Thai Wikipedia has reached 8,000 registered users.
• The Turkish Wikipedia has reached 25,000 registered users.
• The Telugu Wikipedia has reached 500 registered users.
• The Low German / Low Saxon Wikipedia has reached 500 registered users.
• The Tajik Wikipedia has reached 100 articles.
• The Korean Wiktionary has reached 9,000 entries.

The Digital Universe project continued to figure in the news, mixing publicity for its own goals with criticism of Wikipedia. Covering the group's efforts, John Boudreau in the San Jose Mercury-News said it "could be called the anti-Wikipedia". The story also mentioned that Encyclopedia of Earth, the project's wiki-based encyclopedia to supplement the website's current portals, is now planned to roll out in the fall. Digital Universe also received a mention in The New Yorker's feature article on Wikipedia (see related story).

Bernard Haisch, president of the Digital Universe Foundation, addressed his personal experience with Wikipedia for an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times Monday. He complained that the Wikipedia article about him neglected his mainstream work on astrophysics and focused excessively on his editing of a journal for, as he put it, "critical discussion of unorthodox topics, such as parapsychology and analysis of UFO reports". Digital Universe founder Joe Firmage is noted for similar interests related to extraterrestrial intelligence and space travel.

The echoes of Wikipedia editing by political staffers continued to rate mentions in the press even long after the initial news cycle passed by. Cathy Cox, the Georgia gubernatorial candidate whose campaign manager resigned after the revelation of edits to the article about Cox's opponent, lost the Democratic primary election to Mark Taylor. Cox received 44 percent of the vote, Taylor 52 percent. The incident was cited as one of her campaign's missteps that contributed to the loss.

Meanwhile, for the story that started it all, reporter Evan Lehmann of the Lowell Sun received an award last week. His article about Marty Meehan's staff editing Meehan's Wikipedia article earned third place in the investigative reporting category for the New England Associated Press News Executives Association's annual writing awards.

The Times of London ran a commentary on Friday by Ben Macintyre using the recent death of Kenneth Lay as the starting point to explore Wikipedia issues. He talked about being able to look up the entry for Adam Worth, an obscure Victorian-era criminal he had written a book about. Macintyre said he was "at first astonished, then flattered to find the book cited in the references", but also slightly infuriated because he felt the summary added several small errors.

The article was also reprinted over the weekend in The Australian with additional material by Nick Leys, in its Inquirer section for July 22-23, 2006. It said "Wikipedia is best used with a healthy dose of scepticism", but did cite several entries dealing with famous Australians or local geographic locations that were judged to be "comprehensive".

• The Sydney Morning Herald listed Wikipedia at #2 on its list of the 15 most amazing music sites on the web. It said Wikipedia was best for "band biographies and free classical music."
• In an unusual development, The Register had something nice to say about Wikipedia. In an article about social computing, David Tebbutt wrote, "Wikipedia is a good public example of a collaboratively authored work. It may or may not match Encyclopaedia Britannica for accuracy but my belief is that it will continue to get better, whereas Britannica is frozen until the next revision."
• The chamber of commerce in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, was mentioned in local news sources as dealing with inappropriate content in the city's article. An official there apparently registered as User:Pbchamber to address the situation.
• On CBC.ca, for that site's 10th anniversary, Cory Doctorow wrote about Wikipedia as an example of a "publish, then select" model of new media that can "fail gracefully" when they get things wrong.
• The Cavalier Daily, a student newspaper at the University of Virginia, ran a column about Wikipedia: "HOO likes Wikipedia??"

Eight users were granted admin status last week: Srikeit (nom), Kylu (nom), Edgar181 (nom), LiquidGhoul (nom), Arthur Rubin (nom), Misza13 (nom), Grendelkhan (nom) and Sean Black (nom). Sean Black had previously been an administrator, but resigned in June due to stress.

Fifteen articles were featured last week: Ubuntu (Linux distribution) (nom), Talbot Tagora (nom), Hurricane Irene (1999) (nom), Night of the Living Dead (nom), Aleksandr Vasilevsky (nom), Duke University (nom), Libya (nom), Baden-Powell House (nom), Hasekura Tsunenaga (nom), Sequence alignment (nom), Boy Scouts of America membership controversies (nom), Tyrannosaurus (nom), IG Farben Building (nom), P. K. van der Byl (nom) and Hurricane Esther (1961) (nom).

Five articles that were de-featured last week: Coca-Cola, Vanilla Ninja, Linus Pauling, Volkswagen Type 2 and United States Electoral College.

Two lists reached featured list status last week: Super 12 Champions and FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives.

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: F-35 Lightning II, Cape Town, Final Fantasy X, Enceladus (moon), National Anthem of Russia, Cryptography and "Read my lips: no new taxes".

These were the pictures of the day last week: Nepenthes rafflesiana, Extra-vehicular activity, Dietes grandiflora, Another Place, Dinner Plain, Grand Teton National Park and Leadenhall Market.

Two pictures reached featured picture status last week:

• 
  Mite
• 
  Escherichia coli

The Arbitration Committee opened two new cases this week, and closed two cases.

• Francis Schuckardt: A case involving editors on Francis Schuckardt. Remedies placed the article on a form of probation for three months, allowing the Arbitration Committee to extend the probation to editing restrictions on specific editors.

• Trey Stone Appeal: The case, an appeal of an August 2005 case, was closed without action. The previous case banned Trey Stone from articles relating to politics for one year. The Committee cited the fact that all remedies would be repealed on August 11, 2006, a date likely to be reached before the case was closed.

Two cases were opened this week; both are in the evidence phase.

• Ericsaindon2: A case involving the actions of Ericsaindon2. Coolcaesar claims that Ericsaindon2 has tried to insert original research, has disrupted Wikipedia, used sockpuppets, uploaded images violating copyright law, and failed to assume good faith.

• Chiang Kai-shek: A case involving the actions of Heqong (formerly Chiang Kai-shek) on China and Taiwan-related articles.

• His excellency: A case involving the actions of His excellency. The case involves the actions of His excellency on Islam-related talk pages.

• Israeli apartheid: A case involving the actions of editors and administrators on Allegations of Israeli apartheid (formerly at Israeli apartheid). The article was the site of a move war during a poll to determine the article's naming.

• Sathya Sai Baba: A case involving Andries and SSS108's actions on the article Sathya Sai Baba. Both have accused each other of "POV pushing", and violating Wikipedia's policy on original research.

• Eternal Equinox: A case involving Eternal Equinox. Several users complained that Eternal Equinox has been trying to claim ownership of articles with edit wars and abuse directed at those who try to edit them. Eternal Equinox claimed to have left Wikipedia, but the other parties argued that this was not credible because of a number of similar statements made previously. Eternal Equinox has since returned, editing anonymously from several related IP addresses while acknowledging his or her identity.

• Hunger: A case involving a dispute about articles related to The Hunger Project. One of the parties, Jcoonrod, identifies himself as John Coonrod, an executive with that organization. The dispute has been in mediation about how and whether to include unflattering material about the organization in the article. Fred Bauder has presented voting measures, but no remedies have yet been suggested, and no other arbitrators have yet voted.

• Alienus: A case involving Alienus. Users Tony Sidaway, Nandesuka, and Jossi have presented evidence in the case, noting that Alienus has been blocked 15 times, has assumed bad faith, and has been warned many times about making personal attacks, edit warring, and incivility. A measure to ban Alienus for a year for edit warring and personal attacks has the support of three arbitrators.

• Añoranza: A case involving Añoranza. Users asserted that Añoranza had been incivil, and had filed a retaliatory request for comment and request for checkuser. The dispute involves the usage of terms such as "Operation Iraqi Liberation" for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remedies banning Añoranza for a week for the disruptive way in which he went about bringing the terms to light have the support of two arbitrators; other remedies are split.

• 8bitJake: A case involving 8bitJake. badlydrawnjeff, the initiator of the arbitration request, has asserted that 8bitJake's editing on political articles was biased, and that 8bitJake was incivil to other editors on the articles. Remedies brought by Fred Bauder, and not yet voted on by other members, would place 8bitJake and related editors on probation and ban them from articles relating to the politics of the State of Washington.

• Dionyseus: A case involving Dionyseus and Danny Pi, and their actions on Veselin Topalov, an article on a Bulgarian chess player accused of cheating. Remedies brought by Fred Bauder, and not yet voted on by other members, would ban Danielpi for a week for "discourtesy and personal attacks".

• Iloveminun: A case brought against Minun. Evidence presented asserted that Minun and various sockpuppets violated fair use and image deletion policies by uploading copyrighted images and removing tags. Remedies supported by four arbitrators would limit Minun to one account, ban Minun for a year for various actions (with all bans running consecutively), and place Minun on probation, personal attack parole, and revert parole.

• Moby Dick: A case brought against Moby Dick. Administrators Tony Sidaway, Bishonen, and MONGO have alleged that Moby Dick is a sockpuppet of Davenbelle, violating previous arbitration rulings in his political edits and his relations with Cool Cat. Four arbitrators supported banning Moby Dick from Turkish and Kurdish-related articles, and three (with no dissent) supported allowing Moby Dick to be blocked for harassing Cool Cat.

• Pudgenet: A case brought against Pudgenet, involving a dispute between Pudgenet and -Barry-. The dispute involves pages relating to Perl, as well as Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles. Three arbitrators support banning -Barry- from Perl, warning Pudgenet to avoid disruption, and placing Pudgenet on personal attack parole.

• Irishpunktom: A case involving Irishpunktom, Karl Meier, and Dbiv. Measures to ban Irishpunktom and Dbiv from editing Peter Tatchell for one year, place Irishpunktom and Karl Meier on probation for one year, and place Irishpunktom on one revert per article per week parole have the support of five arbitrators. Debate is still ongoing on an appropriate remedy for the actions of Dbiv.

• Saladin1970: A case involving an appeal of Saladin1970's indefinite block originally placed by Jayjg, and later by SlimVirgin. Saladin1970 would be banned for at least 2 years, perhaps indefinitely, and placed on probation, general probation, and personal attack parole by the measures, supported by three arbitrators.

• Raphael1: A case brought against Raphael1, involving the display of images on Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. If closed, measures to place Raphael1 on article probation for one year, as well as general probation, and to ban Raphael1 from Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy for one year, would go into effect with the support of seven arbitrators.