For the first time in nearly a year, users in mainland People's Republic of China can read much of Wikipedia's content without resorting to various circumvention techniques. Internet regulators last week partially lifted the blocking of Wikipedia. However, as Andrew Lih commented, "the most important part of Wikipedia for PRC users - the Chinese version - is still not generally accessible."
The lifting of the block was reported Tuesday, 10 October, on the Wikimedia Foundation mailing list by Mountain and Shi Zhao, two prominent contributors to the Chinese-language Wikipedia. They indicated that the English Wikipedia and most others could now be accessed, but the Chinese Wikipedia remained blocked.
Although not the first time Wikipedia has been blocked in the mainland of China, this has easily been the longest. The current round of blocking began on 18 October or 19 October 2005, meaning that the Chinese Wikipedia will have been blocked for a full year as of later this week. Two previous blocks in 2004 lasted for only a few days or weeks.
The new development was soon noticed by the outside media, although not always without some confusion about the facts. Editor & Publisher published a story on 11 October about the unblocking, relying in part on the article Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China. It seemed to treat an edit by an unregistered user as if it were an official Wikipedia statement on the matter.
Reporters Without Borders, in its statement about the lifting of the block, said, "We congratulate those in charge of Wikipedia, especially Jimmy Wales, who could have chosen to censor their own site to get official blessing. Instead they stuck to their principles and spurned self-censorship." Alluding to internet companies that have been more accommodating to the PRC government in restricting access, the organisation called Wikipedia an example for them to follow.
The New York Times came out with a more carefully reported article about the story on 16 October. The article included a quote from Jimmy Wales that, "We are pleased to see the change, but would like to see the Chinese version unblocked, too".
Andrew Lih, who is based in Beijing and currently working on a book about Wikipedia, collected reports from various people about what they could and could not access. While there were some reports of being able to access at least part of the Chinese Wikipedia, he concluded that the majority of users probably could not. Reporters Without Borders said it had confirmed this in its tests as well. Lih updated his results on 16 October with a chart showing the accessibility of the English and Chinese versions, respectively, from a number of different locations.
In addition, the PRC has resumed filtering a variety of topics that are generally censored on all websites, such as the Falun Gong movement. Some relatively sensitive subjects could be accessed without resulting in a block, however, at least on the English Wikipedia.
The action reportedly came as the so-called "Great Firewall" was going through an upgrade. It's not known whether this had any connection to the partial lifting of the block. As in the past, no official explanations were available, so it is difficult to know the reasons for the change or whether this is merely a temporary reprieve.
In a mailing list post on Sunday, Jimbo Wales discussed a possible scenario—what copyrighted works would the Wikipedia community want purchased and released under a free license, with a budget of US$100 million? Wales indicated that an anonymous donor might be willing to purchase a number of works and freely license them.
Suggestions poured in about what the money could be used for. Some users suggested that the money be used to try and reduce copyright terms, but Wales noted that the money was not for general use, and would be handled by an outside party, not the Wikimedia Foundation. Other suggestions included a variety of images, books, textbooks, encyclopedias, fonts, newspapers, and other sources.
No specific information is available on the source of such a fund, or on a timetable for the fund's development. Wales did note that he wished for the fund to be sustainable, and was open to suggestions on how to ensure this.
In a marginally related area, fair use images, where a free image could easily be generated to replace them, can now be deleted after a template indicating its status stays on the image for seven days. Previously, such images were marked as replaceable, but weren't as easily deletable unless a free alternative was added.
Cyclist Floyd Landis, who finished first in the 2006 Tour de France but is fighting a positive doping test that would strip him of the title, is now pushing his case on the Internet. Facing an appeal before the United States Anti-Doping Agency next year, Landis dubbed this approach "the Wikipedia defense".
Landis announced on October 12, 2006 that he had published a number of documents in the case "to support his innocence in the alleged positive doping test". These included his attorney's motion for dismissal, a document package containing test information, and a PowerPoint presentation criticizing the test. This action earned considerable but sometimes skeptical media coverage in the ongoing saga over the disputed race.
Landis did not set up an actual wiki, but attempted to draw on the collective resources of cycling fans, using the internet to allow widely distributed review of evidence in his case. He succeeded in getting the community to establish its own wiki independent of him personally, based largely on the Daily Peloton Forum discussions noted below. The topic had already drawn intense interest in a variety of places, including Landis's Wikipedia entry, which has figured as something of a battleground. The release serves as both a public relations strategy and a way to potentially strengthen his appeal. As Landis put it, "Why turn down free brainpower?"
In anticipation of the release of these documents, Landis had been personally posting on the forums at the Daily Peloton cycling website. He is largely out of action while rehabilitating from hip resurfacing surgery performed in September. As the documents were about to be released, Landis said, "I am sure you guys will find every mistake, even things we haven't noticed."
In forum discussions, Landis agreed with sympathetic posters who pointed to this as a "wisdom of crowds" approach, while asking others not to judge him based on incomplete information from media reports. He encouraged people to look at all of the evidence, saying, "We'll call it the Wikipedia defense, and I would have given everything to you sooner but had a very hard time selling the idea to the lawyers." At the same time, he said that not all of his arguments against the test had been revealed: "We are not going to compromise our defense by telling all of it."
The fourth and final phase in the search for new logos for Wikibooks, Wikiversity, and Wiktionary began this week. The previous phase had identified the best variant of proposed logos, and a vote will now take place to determine the new logo for each of the three projects. This is the third vote in the process of designing and choosing new logos, and the votes will last until 31 October.
This week, the Telugu Wikipedia reached 21,000 articles, becoming the first language of the Indian subcontinent to surpass 20,000 articles. Telugu is one of 23 national languages of India with approximately 80 million total speakers. In addition, according to Alexa Internet, Wikipedia reached 60 million unique visitors in one day for the first time ever. Wikipedia now routinely ranks among the top 15 websites in the world by the number of page hits.
The NOAA, the BBC and the online news site PhysOrg.com have made use of images created by Wikipedians and released under GFDL, CC, or public domain licenses.
A recent effort to discuss deletion of a number of anonymously created articles upset the editors at The Stanford Review. The editorial discusses the deletion process and the efforts users put into what it calls "seemingly useless task," but credits Wikipedians with "often remarkably good" claims and correctly identifying opponents as having a self-interest in deletion.
An article by Jenny Sinclair (who has edited as User:Jenny Sinclair) in The Australian uses the lack of articles on notable Australian writers to explain how Wikipedia works, the nature of Wikipedia's "patchy, arbitrary" coverage, and the impact Wikipedia is having on the internet generation. After discussing the reasons Wikipedia has become a must use resource, Sinclair urges Australians to improve the Wikipedia articles on literature and signs off the article intending to "create that listing for Jessica Anderson."
The Philippine News implores readers to Try Wikipedia. After discussing the coverage of Filipino articles, the article discusses the "anyone can edit" policy, and the process of correcting questionable information. The author acknowledges being "involved in the act" of "debating whether or not certain points should be included or removed."
In an opinion piece, The French Definition Of a 'Genocide', PART TWO: Algerian Genocides, the Al-Jazeerah Information Center references the Wikipedia article on Accusations of French genocide against Algerians to provide background information about the conflict.
Four users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: StuffOfInterest (nom), Yomangani (nom), ChrisGriswold (nom), and Crzrussian (nom), who was resysopped with 85% support after voluntarily resigning his adminship on 9 August in the wake of controversy.
A notable failed request was TawkerbotTorA (nom), a bot that would have blocked Tor exit nodes, allowing existing accounts to edit from the anonymity network but blocking IP edits, and preventing new account creation from the network. The bot would have made blocks from a published list of nodes, unblocking the nodes when taken off the network. The intent of the system was to reduce vandalism performed from the Tor network while still allowing legitimate users to edit pseudo-anonymously. Jimbo Wales reportedly supported the request, though he did not weigh in on the page. The request received 65% support, judged by bureaucrats as no consensus.
Twelve articles were promoted to featured status last week: Battle of Schellenberg (nom), Frank Macfarlane Burnet (nom), Jake Gyllenhaal (nom), 0.999... (nom), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (nom), Final Fantasy IV (nom), Redshift (nom), 2004 Atlantic hurricane season (nom), Star (nom), Demosthenes (nom), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (nom), and Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (nom).
Five articles were de-featured last week: Bishōjo game, A Day in the Life, BZFlag, War elephant, and Telephone exchange.
No portals reached featured status last week.
Three lists were featured last week: List of inhabited islands of Croatia, List of calypso-like genres, and List of DanceSport dances. List of DanceSport dances becomes the 150th featured list, excluding former featured lists.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Enzyme, FA Premier League, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Photon, and Banff National Park.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Aloe aristata, Willow flowers, Tower Bridge, Amur Tiger, Plasma lamp, Martian sunset, and American Bison.
Six pictures were featured last week:
The Arbitration Committee opened three cases this week, and closed two.
