Parody newspaper The Onion poked fun at Wikipedia last week with a "news" story about celebrating the 750th anniversary of American independence. Reactions from Wikipedia editors ranged from enthusiastic appreciation of the joke to advocating major changes in an effort to have Wikipedia taken more seriously.
The article was part of The Onion's 26 July issue, and described how Wikipedia celebrated the supposed anniversary on 25 July with a featured section on the Main Page. It included excerpts from the "American Inderpendance" article riddled with vandalism, and indicated that it had apparently been protected as a result. A number of farcical facts and subjects were discussed, rounded out by sincere-sounding quotes from Jimmy Wales about the age of the United States relative to other historical events. The Onion even mentioned links to videos of the first Thanksgiving hosted on YouTube.
This is one of several recent uses of Wikipedia in a humor context. A piece in the August issue of Wired by comedian Stephen Colbert refers to Wikipedia as a way to get your own encyclopedia entry. As a bonus, he adds, "You can edit your own entry to make yourself seem even smarter." Late Show host David Letterman read the article Cougar (slang) aloud on air earlier this month. Also, the comic strip Working Daze recently featured a series of strips featuring Wikipedia, culminating in a manager ordering one of her employees to write an article about her.
A number of Wikipedia editors thought The Onion parody was one of the better attempts at Wikipedia-related comedy they had seen. Dpbsmith said he found it "hysterically funny". Not all agreed that The Onion's effort was especially witty, however, as a few contributors from outside the United States thought the story was somewhat lacking in the humour department.
Going even further, some editors took this as an opportunity to reiterate calls for significant change. Adam Carr said the piece should be taken as "a very serious warning" that the Wikipedia philosophy of open access to all editors was turning it into "an object of ridicule." Carr, who believes Wikipedia would be better off with both fewer articles and fewer editors, has long advocated eliminating the ability to edit without registering, along with a process for bringing articles to a state of completion.
Meanwhile, Ben Houston wrote an essay criticizing the overuse of anonymity and pseudonymity on Wikipedia. He suggested adopting a system similar to Amazon.com's "Real Name" attributions. Implementing a method to authenticate an editor's identity and encouraging its use, he said, "substantively improve Wikipedia's quality and reputation." Houston thought the authentication process could be outsourced to a commercial partner, possibly fee-supported, with a second option provided for those who don't have credit cards, which is what the Amazon.com system is based on.
Reactions to these proposals were mixed. Some editors agreed with the notion of disabling edits by unregistered users; others defended the importance of anonymity to the principle of free speech. Whether any action will be taken as a result is uncertain — similar proposals have been floated in the past, but so far the primary change is the restriction of article creation by unregistered users (see archived story), a practice that is still officially considered experimental.
Educators in the social sciences and humanities remain wary of Wikipedia despite, and in part because of, widespread use among students.
The most frequent complaint among professors is plagiarism; many receive disjointed essays cobbled together from Wikipedia articles or simply lifted verbatim. Historian of science and Wikipedian Katherine Tredwell discovered this the hard way when 16 students turned in plagiarized final papers for the Spring 2006 semester, 9 of which involved Wikipedia. However, Tredwell and others have noted Wikipedia plagiarism is often much easier to detect than traditional print sources.
Wikipedia, its value, and its accuracy have been the topics of discussion on academic listservs with increasing frequency in recent months. Many professors consider Wikipedia virtually worthless, and for some citing a Wikipedia article is grounds for an automatic failing grade. For others Wikipedia is a nuisance, but not necessarily any worse than the rest of the internet—or even many print sources.
The topic of Wikipedia's relative reliability came up on an 18th-century list, C18-L, in September 2005. The thread, which began with a discussion of the provenance of the term "Nihilartikel," focused on the inaccuracy of traditionally "unimpeachable" sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary. Posters concluded that Wikipedia is not fundamentally different, since all sources should be treated skeptically. One scholar speculated that the original anonymous author of the German article was a colleague (whose identity he did not reveal), defending her own linguistic creation in the tradition of 18th century literary society. A pre-Wikipedia German source for the word has yet to be found.
A number of mailing list discussions started in December 2005, following the widely reported Seigenthaler controversy and Nature's Wikipedia accuracy study. One of the most sustained and optimistic discussions occurred on the H-Net Africa-related listservs (h-africa, h-west-africa, and others). Africanists, many of whom are frustrated by systemic bias within academia as well as online, seem to view Wikipedia as an opportunity to fill large holes in publicly accessible information about Africa. A number of messages between December 2005 and February 2006 exhorted colleagues to post work they had put "on the backburner" or otherwise decided not to publish in an academic forum.
In more traditional and well-populated disciplines, reactions to Wikipedia have been tepid. According to one medievalist, the conclusion of an earlier "huge debate" on MEDIEV-L was that "Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and that the premise is severely flawed for any academic applications."
Smaller, newer disciplines tend to take a more positive approach. One h-histsex participant noted: "Of course, it remains a crime to cite or quote from Wikipedia in essays and I get very frustrated when my supervisees do so, but nonetheless it is extremely useful as a springboard for further research. It will be impossible to find anything on "goosing" or "Dirty Sanchez" in the more respectable (elitist?) encyclopedias, or much on more obscure forms of sexual behaviour."
Historical geographers discussed Wikipedia in January 2006 after one professor noticed there was no entry for historical geography. This has since been rectified by members of h-histgeog, though many times that much content went into debating the value of Wikipedia, with no definitive conclusion.
Inter-discipline rivalry is often the strongest pro-Wikipedia factor in academic listserv discussions. One geographer noted "how much more complete the Wikipedia entries on 'race' and 'class' and 'power' are compared to such cherished geographers' terms as 'landscape' and 'place'; I'd say the sociologists are royally kicking our butts on this one."
Reacting to the promotion of the History of Science Collaboration on h-sci-med-tech in July 2006, several historians voiced concerns about whether professionals should spend time editing Wikipedia. For many academics, Wikipedia's lack of "authorship" and related issues articles are the central concern. One professor asked, "If we consider an entry to Wikipedia as 'public or community service,' what institution in the country recognizes a contribution to Wikipedia for promotion and advancement, over an editorial in the local paper, or a lecture at the Rotary Club?" She went on to say "I agree that professional historians have an obligation to participate in public discussions of history. However, I believe that as professionals we also have an obligation to question HOW that history is presented and to apply academic standards already in place---such as peer review---to the new technologies as they emerge."
Roy Rosenzweig's recent article in the Journal of American History, Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past, seems to be having a powerful effect in turning the tide of academic opinion. Several posters suggested the article to naysayers. Said one, "Rosenzweig convinced me of the importance of this entity, which I had been trying unsuccessfully to ignore."
Editor's note: The Wikimania article for this week was not submitted in time for publication this week. As a result, users interested in Wikimania should watch this article. More information will be added as it becomes available. -Ral315
Registration is now closed for Wikimania 2006. The conference is scheduled to occur from Friday 4 August through to Sunday 6 August (the coming weekend). The campus of Harvard Law School will be the host of this year's conference. For users who are unable to make it to Wikimania, online feeds of many events, including audio, video, and textual information, will be available.
For more information on the conference, contact Sj, or visit the Wikimania 2006 wiki.
As of Sunday, 31 July 2006, the Polish language Wikipedia contained about 255,196 articles. Of these, 170 articles (approximately 1 in 1500) are considered artykuły na medal ("Articles for a medal", the Polish Wikipedia equivalent of featured articles). Polish Wikipedia has no equivalent of good articles page in the English or Lesenswerte Artikel in the German Wikipedia yet. In addition, 143 images are considered grafiki na medal (the Polish Wikipedia equivalent of featured pictures).
The latest three additions to the list of articles for a medal are: Migration Period, Biecz (a town in southern Poland) and Freemasonry. Among images from the Polish Wikipedia probably the most noteworthy are maps, illustrations and diagrams. The latest three images that have gained recently featured status are:
Wikimedia Polska (the Polish local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation) is aiming to publish a DVD with Polish Wikipedia content in Autumn 2006. The publication is a joint venture with a leading Polish IT publisher Helion, will strictly follow GNU FDL license, and will be available in shops all over Poland for a to-be-announced price. The DVD publication is being worked on by a group of 13 paid Wikipedia contributors and a growing number of Wikipedia volunteers. Revenue from the sale of the DVD will be distributed between Wikimedia Polska, the Wikimedia Foundation and Helion.
Unlike its English equivalent, WikiRPG WikiFaktoria in the Polish Wikipedia generated much wider interest and has made considerable contribution to quality. Basically, WikiRPG is a quality drive under guise of a role playing game. WikiRPG "players" enjoy taking part in the project that they think is competitive and fun. The WikiProject was introduced into Polish Wikipedia by Wikipedian WarX and now it's run by Przykuta, who is current Game Master.
According to research published by Megapanel, the biggest website popularity research, on 30 July 2006, Wikipedia was the 8th most popular website in Poland in May 2006. Wikipedia's reach in the last six months is stable and shows growth compared to the equivalent results in 2005.
Several interesting news items about Wikipedia and related subjects have appeared in prestigious news outlets in Poland in 2006. The most noteworthy examples are:
Rules and requirements for the candidates in the upcoming Board elections were released. The rules were approved by all three election organizers: Essjay, Aphaia, and Datrio; candidates may start registering on 1 August for the September elections. In addition, candidates must have at least 400 edits on a Wikimedia project, and the first edit must have been made at least 90 days before the start of candidate registration. Finally, candidates may not be anonymous or use a pseudonym, and must be at least 18 years of age. Brief candidate statements are also strongly encouraged.
The English Wikipedia reached five million total pages this week. Included are all articles, talk pages, policy pages, user pages, redirects, and pages in other namespaces. Of the five million pages, approximately one-fourth are considered articles. In addition, the Swahili Wikipedia reached 1,000 articles this week, marking the first African-language Wikipedia to reach such a milestone (correction). Swahili is a common language in Eastern Africa with approximately five million native speakers and 50 million total speakers.
A project was undertaken by the Institute of Information Systems and Digital Media at the Graz University of Technology in Austria to combine Brockhaus multimedial, the little brother of Brockhaus Enzyklopädie, and Die Presse, a major newspaper based in Vienna. The project will be based on a community-driven model, with users bringing and collecting data. It is unclear whether the project will incorporate a true wiki or use another system to accumulate information.
A vote to change the name of the Wikimedia Incubator was closed this week after a month of discussion and voting. The results were heavily in favor of keeping the current name; the only other proposed name with a significant amount of support was Wikimedia Hatchery. Several other proposed names received few votes.
Wikipedia figured in media coverage last week about jockeying in Canadian election campaigns, while other news items appeared leading up to this week's Wikimania conference.
The Vaughan Citizen reported that Wikipedia was the site of an "online battle" surrounding upcoming municipal elections. Corey Shefman (User:Pm shef) is the son of Alan Shefman, a Councillor in Vaughan, Ontario, and was one of several users involved. The immediate focus of the dispute was the article Vaughan municipal election, 2006, and whether it was appropriate to include corporate donations to members of the council as a "main issue" in the campaign. Shefman and others reverted the initial attempts, but relented after citations were provided to support the claim.
Vaughan-related articles have actually been the subject of a running dispute that also resulted in a request for comment. This led to a number of accounts being blocked for vandalism, personal attacks directed at Shefman and others, and use of sock puppets. Following up on the story, the Citizen also raised questions about the naming of one of these accounts, User:VaughanWatch, since that is also the name of an organization run by one of the candidates for the council.
In an attempt to find a "rough gauge of ex-officio support" for candidates in the 2006 Canadian Liberal leadership race, news agency Canadian Press turned to Wikipedia's article Endorsements for the Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, 2006. Most of the candidates' "camps" say the list is accurate, but either incomplete (Scott Brison's team suggests a dozen are missing from his list of 13), or lacking ex-officios that have only privately endorsed a candidate.
The article concludes "While Wikipedia's list of endorsements can only give a rough idea of ex-officio support levels for the candidates thus far, it is arguably a better gauge of how the race is going than the unverifiable claims and counter-claims about how many new party members each camp has signed up." The article was syndicated on a number of sites, including CTV, Ottawa Sun, Toronto Sun, Winnipeg Sun, Macleans, Canada East, the Montreal Gazette, and Canada.com.
The Akron Beacon Journal published several articles about Wikipedia on Thursday, 27 July. One discussed the life of an article about the term "Akroness", a neologism coined on an Akron-oriented Internet forum that was deleted shortly before these stories appeared. The paper also profiled several contributors from the Akron area. Included as well were some tips on "How to navigate Wikipedia" by Wikipedia editor Ian Manka.
Scotland on Sunday added itself to the roster of Scottish papers that have taken notice of the local angle to the English Wikipedia's one-millionth article, Jordanhill railway station. Although the milestone was reached in March, the story took its lead from the more recent news cycle about semi-protection and talked about the article as "the unlikely focus of a battle in cyberspace." It did not mention that the article was only semi-protected during the first couple of days in its existence, and has seen relatively little editing recently (although if you're looking for a battle, there was a back-and-forth on 1 July over a redundant template, {{UKrailwaystations}}).
Meanwhile, Alan McIlwraith, the Scottish call centre worker whose attempt to pass himself off as a decorated war hero, including the creation of a Wikipedia article, was revealed in April, is back in the news. McIlwraith gave an interview to The Guardian about the experience that was published on Tuesday, 25 July.
Six users were granted admin status last week: Centrx (nom), RyanGerbil10 (nom), Firsfron (nom), Yanksox (nom), WAvegetarian (nom) and ERcheck (nom).
No articles were featured last week.
Four articles were de-featured last week: C programming language, Java programming language, George II of Great Britain and Sealand.
Two lists reached featured list status last week: List of dragonfly species recorded in Britain and List of Ashes series.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the main page as Today's featured article: Lastovo, Alpha Phi Alpha, Malwa, Mosque, Bulbasaur, Battle of Smolensk (1943) and Chromatophores.
These were the pictures of the day last week: Bats, Miners, Malé, Kayan, Loch Ard Gorge, Mount Hotham and Grizzly Bear.
Three pictures reached featured picture status last week:
The Arbitration Committee opened three new cases this week and closed one case.
Three new cases were opened this week; all are in the evidence phase.
No cases were under a motion to close this week.
