Unreferenced biographies under scrutiny
After continued concerns about the dismal quality of certain unreferenced articles about living people, Messedrocker has compiled, through an analysis of article categories, a list of over 16,000 articles on living persons that do not completely cite their sources. The list is divided into 17 sub-pages; users are encouraged to review uncited statements, attempt to find sources or remove uncited, controversial statements, and correctly tag articles.
Wikipedia user studies continue
The WikiProject Vandalism studies recently finished its first study and has published its conclusions (a full and detailed copy can be found here).
The first study analyzed a randomly sampled pool of 100 random articles. Within these 100 articles there were a total of 668 edits during the months of November 2004, 2005, and 2006. Of those 668 edits, 31 (or 4.64%) were a vandalism of some type. The study's salient findings suggest that in a given month approximately 5% of edits are vandalism and 97% of that vandalism is done by anonymous editors. Obvious vandalism is the vast majority of vandalism used. From the data gathered within this study it is also found that roughly 25% of vandalism reverting is done by anonymous editors and roughly 75% is done by wikipedians with user accounts. The mean average time vandalism reverting is 758.35 minutes (12.63 hours), a figure that may be skewed by outliers. The median time vandalism reverting is 14 minutes.
The planned second study is in a developmental stage; details relating to the study, which will involve a larger sample size, are being planned.
Meanwhile, one of the few user surveys of Wikipedians, conducted in 2005 and originally available only in German, was translated into English recently.
Briefly
- Jimbo Wales attended a wikimeetup on Monday, 23 April in Adelaide, South Australia and another one in Perth, Western Australia on Tuesday, 24 April. Upcoming wikimeetups include a Wednesday, April 25 meetup in Sydney, and a Friday, April 27 meetup in Melbourne. Jimbo is also expected to be in attendance at these meetups.
- Wii demolished a record for edits on a Main Page featured article on 18 April, with 667 edits over the 24 hours that it was linked to; the previous record belonged to The Lord of the Rings, which received 453 edits on 5 October, 2006.
- The Friulian Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
- The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 3,000 users.
- The French Wikinews has reached 1,000 users.
- The Korean Wikipedia has reached 36,000 articles.
- The Marathi Wikipedia has reached 75,000 edits.
- The Marathi Wikipedia has reached 9,000 articles.
- The Spanish Wikipedia has reached 9,000,000 edits.
- The Esperanto Wikipedia has reached 1,000,000 edits.
The Arbitration Committee opened four cases this week, and closed no cases.
New cases
- Zeq-Zero0000: A case involving the actions of Zeq (talk · contribs) and Zero0000 (talk · contribs). Zero alleges that Zeq has engaged in POV-pushing, while Zeq alleges that Zero has misused administrative tools in blocking him, the case in particular involving the question of whether probations, article bans, etc. can be enforced by involved admins.
Evidence phase
- E104421-Tajik: A case involving the actions of E104421 and Tajik. The case was opened, but a motion to suspend the case pending a referral to community-based mediation has the support of five arbitrators.
Voting phase
- Certified.Gangsta-Ideogram: A case involving the actions of Certified.Gangsta and Ideogram, both of whom Durova and others allege to have been involved in edit-warring on Taiwan-related articles. Ideogram, who has also been accused of improper behaviour on the community noticeboard, denies the allegations. Certified.Gangsta presented evidence, in which he alleges that Ideogram has engaged in canvassing, wikistalking, and orchestrating an anti-Certified.Gangsta campaign. He also denies Durova's allegiations. Kirill Lokshin has proposed remedies placing both parties on revert parole, and admonishing Ideogram.
- Betacommand: A case involving the actions of Betacommand. Some of Betacommand's blocks have been questioned, and his bot-related actions have led to his removal from the bot approvals group. Betacommand has noted that he makes numerous username-related blocks, and that most of his blocks were appropriate. Whether Betacommand used his administrative account for bot-related activity, whether he is unique in doing so, and whether such an action should be allowed or not, have also been questioned. Paul August has proposed a remedy, with the support of four arbitrators, desysopping Betacommand; voting on other remedies is split.
- Mudaliar-Venki123: A case involving the actions of Mudaliar and Venki123 on a series of articles. Kirill Lokshin has proposed remedies banning both parties for one year, with the support of three arbitrators.
- Freedom skies: A case involving the actions of Freedom skies. JFD and others allege that he has edit warred to push his point of view. He denies the allegations. A remedy to place Freedom skies on revert parole has the support of three arbitrators.
- Falun Gong: A case regarding the conduct of various editors on the Falun Gong article. Olaf Stephanos and Asdfg12345 allege that Samuel Luo has edit-warred in removing pro-Falun Gong material from the article, while Luo, Tomananda and others allege that Stephanos, Asdfg and others have edit-warred (including page blanking) in removing anti-Falun Gong material. A remedy placing Falun Gong on article probation has the support of five arbitrators; a series of other remedies placing various users on revert parole and/or banning them from Falun Gong and related articles and talk pages have been proposed, but voting on them is split.
