New arbitrators interviewed
15 January 2007
Seven arbitrators chosen
26 December 2006
Elections conclude, arbitrators to be chosen
18 December 2006
Arbitration Committee elections continue, extra seat available
11 December 2006
Arbitration Committee elections open
4 December 2006
Arbitration Committee elections: Candidate profiles
27 November 2006
ArbCom elections: Information on elections
13 November 2006
Arbitration election campaigns begin
6 November 2006
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New arbitrators interviewed |
On Tuesday, Jimbo Wales announced the election of seven users to the Arbitration Committee: Flcelloguy, Kirill Lokshin, Paul August, UninvitedCompany, and Jpgordon received three-year terms, while FloNight and Blnguyen received terms of up to two years.
FloNight and Blnguyen received seats in Tranche Beta, which would expire on 31 December, 2008. FloNight replaces Mindspillage, who retired to join the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, and Blnguyen replaces Filiocht, who was appointed in January 2006, but has not participated in any arbitration cases due to illness. Should Mindspillage return to the Committee, or Filiocht return to the website, they can claim expansion seats on Tranche Beta.
Jimbo chose the top seven candidates by percentage; Flcelloguy, Kirill Lokshin and Paul August received over 90% support in the elections, while UninvitedCompany and Jpgordon received 85%, and FloNight and Blnguyen received 84%. UninvitedCompany becomes only the second arbitrator (with James F.) to rejoin the Committee after serving a prior nonconsecutive term; he retired in February 2004, shortly after the Committee began hearing cases.
The role of Wikipedia in academia has been expanding rapidly—and to some extent vice-versa. Periodic stories from student newspapers continue to report mixed attitudes to Wikipedia among college and university professors ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]). But in many courses, especially in writing, cultural studies, and interdisciplinary fields, professors are using Wikipedia as the basis for assignments: writing articles or evaluating and discussing them. Jeremy Tirrell, a Purdue English graduate student, recently summed up the advantages and disadvantages of using Wikipedia assignments in writing courses; as he concludes:
"Although it requires some cognitive stretching on the part of both instructors and students, the Wikipedia project taps into relevant themes and technologies, and offers a unique and rewarding writing experience. As with any project, results are all but guaranteed to be mixed, but real audiences and real situations are much prized in composition studies, and online production will only become increasingly important for young authors. As instructors, we would do students a disservice not to engage this burgeoning medium—while keeping, of course, an appropriately critical perspective."
Most Wikipedia writing assignments are relatively small. Typically students are asked to write or revise a few paragraphs to a few pages. For example, in Jonathan Benda's "intercultural communications" course at Tunghai University, students looked at the articles and talk pages for a number of topics related to Taiwan, Islam, and Kuwait. Students in Dean Taciuch's"Advanced Composition" course at George Mason University (in a section for IT majors) chose and expanded stub articles; David Perry ran a similar assignment in his section of "Intro to Writing for English Majors" at the University of Albany. Espen Anderson uses Wikipedia assignments (in both English and Norwegian) in several courses at the Norwegian School of Management. Only a small portion of such assignments are self-reported on Wikipedia's school and university projects page.
However, a number of more substantial course projects have been implemented, many of them in technical fields. In journalism and media studies courses at University of Hong Kong, Andrew Lih and his students worked on an array of current events articles, sometimes over several semesters; Lih's project, among the first, was the subject of a CNN article in 2003. Students in Ellen Cohn's University of Pittsburgh graduate course on cleft palate disorders (assisted by User:Piotrus) created a set of related articles; Kent Norman's students in a "Human/Computer Interaction" graduate course did the same. A Summer "Public Speaking" course at Indiana University used existing articles as the basis for group presentations, with article corrections as extra credit; similarly, a Fall University of New Brunswick English course required editing and presentations on women playwrights. The common denominator of the larger Wikipedia assignments so far has been the involvement of an experienced Wikipedian (usually the professor or teaching assistant).
Only a modest level of attention has been focused on issues related to Wikipedia teaching methods. Earlier this year, Alan Liu of UC Santa Barbara drafted and circulated a statement for students on "Appropriate Use of Wikipedia", which appears to have been well-received among humanities professors. Last fall, Betsy Colwill of San Diego State University implemented a Wikipedia assignment for her "Feminist Thought" course, and presented the results to fellow faculty for the school's People, Information and Communication Technology Project. T. Mills Kelly of George Mason University's Center for History and New Media has been using and promoting Wikipedia assignments for some time, first with graduate students and later with undergraduates as well. Andy Carvin, in his blog and on the educational technology H-Net listserv "edtech", has also initiated discussions about Wikipedia in the classroom.
One interesting development with academia beyond the classroom setting is the new Russian History WikiProject. Created by Marshall Poe, it was organized in response to listserv discussions and consists almost entirely of professional Russian historians and graduate students, many of them new users.
WikiWorld is a weekly comic, carried by the Signpost, that highlights a few of the fascinating but little-known articles in the vast Wikipedia archives. The text for each comic is excerpted from one or more existing Wikipedia articles. WikiWorld offers visual interpretations on a wide range of topics: offbeat cultural references and personality profiles, obscure moments in history and unlikely slices of everyday life - as well as "mainstream" subjects with humorous potential.
Cartoonist Greg Williams developed the WikiWorld project in cooperation with the Wikimedia Foundation, and is releasing the comics under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere. Williams works as a visual journalist for the US-based The Tampa Tribune, a daily newspaper in Tampa, Florida. He also has worked as an illustrator and designer at newspapers in Dubuque, Iowa, and Dayton, Ohio.
Following the conclusion of the steward elections last week, the Board of Trustees promoted all 12 candidates who had met both the criteria of having at least 30 support votes and an 80% support ratio. Only three of the 15 candidates in the election - Lar, Mzlla, and Taxman - did not reach those criteria and were not promoted, although each of them had at least 75% support. The appointments were first announced by steward and Board member Oscar van Dillen. Of the 12 newly-elected stewards, four had unanimous support: Dbl2010, Redux, M7, and Effeietsanders; six had above 90% support: Shanel (98%), Pathoschild (97%), Guillom (95%), Bastique (91%), Drini (91%), and Darkoneko (90%). The remaining two successful candidates were Cspurrier and MaxSem, who garnered 87% and 84% support, respectively. A tabular summary of the election is also available.
As of press time, it was not immediately clear if any current stewards would lose their status. Although most stewards had no opposition or negative comments, several stewards did have users opposing their status at the confirmation page. The process of confirmation was detailed as having "the current and newly elected stewards... consider complaints left on this page, and choose to remove stewardship as necessary taking into account both the comments left by community and their own perspective and understanding of the job." Van Dillen, when asked about the issue, commented that the re-confirmation was "a matter for the stewards/community to decide, and not [an issue] for the board."
The Wikimedia Foundation's fundraiser continued this week; as of press time, over US$341,000 had been raised. This amount does not include matching funds donations raised last week.
After the Maltese Wikipedia surpassed 1,000 articles this week, two milestones were reached. First, all Wikipedias in official languages of the European Union now have 1,000 or more articles each. There are presently 20 official languages of the European Union, although three more languages will be added after 1 January, 2007. Each of the Wikipedias in all 23 languages now have greater than 1,000 articles each. Maltese is the official language of Malta and is spoken by approximately 370,000 people. The Maltese Wikipedia also became the third Wikipedia of a Semitic language to reach 1,000 articles; the Amharic Wikipedia became the fourth-such Wikipedia to reach the milestone soon after. The largest of the Semitic languages by number of speakers are Arabic, Amharic, Hebrew, and Tigrinya. Each of the first three now have over 1,000 articles each, although the Tigrinya Wikipedia only has seven articles as of press time.
Time named "You" the Person of the Year for 2006 and Wikipedia was prominently mentioned by Time in the article. Time defined "You" as the Internet users whose efforts in creating content is revolutionizing the dissemination and creation of information. The article also cited Wikipedia as the source for historical information on the World Wide Web. See also coverage of the honor in The Boston Globe and other outlets.
A story in Yahoo!'s business section reported that Nielsen BuzzMetrics released a "Top 10 Cited Wikipedia Entries in 2006." Topping the list was Web 2.0, Steve Irwin, Mark Foley scandal, Blog, and Ajax. iTWire reported on the release by noting that technology related topics were the most popular entries on Wikipedia.
San Francisco Bay Guardian reports on the formation of WikiChix. The article states that the group was formed in response to "how male-dominated Wikipedia has become." A related mailing list was briefly hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, but is now hosted by Wikia.
TechNewsWorld reports on the creation of Scholarpedia, tagged the first "free peer-reviewed encyclopedia." Although it reports that "initial response may be, not another Wikipedia wannabe!...Scholarpedia could be very different." The article claims Scholarpedia "is not as elitist as Citizendium," but each article has "a 'curator,' who approves all changes..."
Jimmy Wales continued to get coverage in many news outlets. The Orlando Sentinel carried a story about Wales and the history of Wikipedia. Wales' new search engine, Wikiasari, was covered by The Times. The search engine will use Wiki-like technology to rank websites in the search results. The Times also carried an article on Wales' "next project - a free internet education for everyone."
Three users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Dina (nom), Canadian-Bacon (nom), and Agathoclea (nom).
Fourteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Bodyline, Hero of Belarus, Kinetoscope, 1995 Pacific hurricane season, Rus' Khaganate, Kitsune, Brabham, Hurricane Erika (2003), Cell nucleus, Charles Darwin, The Boondock Saints, Sei Whale, Hoysala Empire, and Tiridates I of Armenia.
Hero of Belarus was previously a featured article, but was de-featured in June before regaining its featured status this week.
No articles were de-featured last week.
One portal reached featured status last week: Portal:Business and Economics.
Nine lists were featured last week: List of Metal Gear Solid characters, List of Newfoundland and Labrador general elections, List of Encyclicals of Pope John Paul II, Towns of Alberta, List of Canadian Leaders of the Opposition, List of Dartmouth College alumni, List of retired Pacific hurricane names, List of Baja California Peninsula hurricanes, and List of English Football League managers by date of appointment.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Manila Metro Rail Transit System, Muhammad Iqbal, Kengir uprising, Selena, British African-Caribbean community, Torchic, Banksia brownii, and Clement of Dunblane.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Plant cell, Supermarine Spitfire, Cerro de la Silla, gallop, Orthetrum caledonicum, European Squid, Washington Monument, and Crab Nebula.
Two pictures were featured last week:
On wikis with edit patrolling enabled, users who are able to patrol their own edits now have all their edits marked patrolled. (Rob Church, bug 5411,r18435) After some consternation at certain wikis (especially the Dutch Wikipedia) that allowed all autoconfirmed users — those with accounts more than four days old — to patrol edits, the ability to patrol one's own edits was separated from the ability to patrol others' edits, so it is now possible to only be allowed to patrol others' edits. (Rob Church, r18496)
A new extension, Duplicator, was checked into Subversion. If enabled, it will allow pages to be duplicated, including all history, for purposes such as splitting up articles while preserving contribution history. However, only articles with a limited number of revisions (250 by default) can be duplicated. The extension has not yet been enabled on any wikis. (Rob Church, r18453)
Another new extension, Contributors, was also checked into Subversion. If enabled, it will generate a list of significant contributors to a particular article. The list can be accessed directly or {{included}} in other pages. Some functionality exists for this in the main MediaWiki software, but it is disabled on Wikipedia due to its inefficiency. The extension has not yet been enabled on any wikis. (Rob Church, r18510)
A bug in Safari and other WebKit-based browsers will now be avoided. The bug caused errors to occur in the recently-added "redirect to section" functionality (see archived story), but is fixed in the latest versions of WebKit. Affected browsers will now simply not jump to the correct section. (Brion Vibber, r18459)
The new recent changes counter will now count the length of added substituted templates, signatures, and similar constructions correctly. Previously it would count, for instance, ~~~~ as four characters, when actually many more were inserted. (Rob Church, bug 8329, r18463)
Image captions ending with px now work. Previously they were interpreted as an image width, even if an image width had been previously declared and even if the caption made no sense as an image width (e.g., The IATA code for Air Niugini is PX would be interpreted the same as a width of 0 pixels). (Ashar Voultoiz, bug 8335, r18465)
Page names can now no longer include Unicode right-to-left or left-to-right marks, invisible control characters that ensure that left-to-right text can be correctly mixed with right-to-left text such as Hebrew or Arabic. A left-to-right mark is appended to the end of article titles on pages such as Special:Recentchanges to ensure that titles containing right-to-left characters do not display oddly. This was causing problems, because it was easy to copy and paste the title including the invisible mark, rendering it nonfunctional. Now the mark should be ignored, hopefully reducing confusion. (Brion Vibber, bug 3696, r18513)
The "undo" button on the most recent revision now works. Due to a bug in the code, it originally filled the edit box with the current revision's text, not the previous one's. (Brion Vibber, bug 8351, r18546)
CheckUser now has a "reason" field, and it is now possible to check for recent edits by 17-23 CIDR IP address as well as to check for the IP address used recently by a user. (User:Voice of All, bug 5044, r18552)
Several improvements were made to the functioning of language variants, for wikis such as Serbian and Chinese that use more than one script. (Rainman, r18593)
Several interface changes were made:
.tar.gz, it will be rejected because it ends in .gz, but formerly the user would be told that .tar.gz was the invalid extension. (Thorsten Staerk and Rob Church, bug 6603, r18477)Some updates were made to non-English messages, specifically:
Internationalization help is always appreciated! See m:Localization statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to Mediazilla.
The Arbitration Committee opened six cases this week, including one opened on Christmas Eve, and closed one case. For readers' information, arbitrators elected in the December 2006 elections (Flcelloguy, Kirill Lokshin, Paul August, UninvitedCompany, Jpgordon, FloNight and Blnguyen) will not participate in already-opened cases unless they specifically un-recuse themselves, while those whose terms have expired (Jayjg, Theresa knott, Sam Korn and The Epopt) will continue to participate in cases already opened.
