This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "World domination". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
BBC presenter Clive Anderson will host a half-hour show about Wikipedia, entitled "The Wikipedia Story". The show, scheduled to air on Tuesday, July 24 at 11:30 a.m. British Summer Time (10:30 a.m. UTC) on BBC Radio 4, is described as "[asking] whether Wikipedia is a valuable source of human knowledge or a symptom of the spread of mediocrity." It includes interviews from Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, former Britannica editor-in-chief Robert McHenry, Web 2.0 critic Andrew Keen, and singer Mike Scott, who was involved in an edit war on his own article [1]. The show will be available on BBC Radio 4's website (RealAudio link) or available as a podcast (Radio 4 Choice podcast) for about a week after its original airing.
A Federal Magistrates' Court of Australia ruling that overturned the denial of a visa to an Armenian citizen repeatedly mentions Wikipedia, in an apparent misunderstanding:
21. It should be noted that the reference to the web site www.armeniapedia.org (the web site) is taken to be a reference to what I understand the parties to accept is a linked web site to the web site known as "Wikipedia".
The court appeared to have assumed that Armeniapedia.org was the same as, or related to, Wikipedia; some of the court's individual findings are questions about the reliability of Wikipedia, not Armeniapedia.
Durova, who is an administrator, wrote an article for a search engine optimisation magazine in SEO Tips & Tactics From A Wikipedia Insider. Her article begins with an example of what happens when ignorance of the ways of Wikipedia meet the transparency in Wikipedia's archives: the ease in which biased edits from Congressional computers have been traced. Evidence can be gathered even without additional administrator tools. Durova posits eight "white hat strategies" for driving traffic to a client's site, concluding that one should "Look for approaches that reconcile your goal of sending traffic to websites with Wikipedia's goal of being an informative and reliable first stop for research". A follow-up comment agrees with her sentiments that being ethical with Wikipedia is the only way to go.
Last week, the Signpost carried a review of Andrew Keen's The Cult of the Amateur (see archived story); The Plain Dealer also carried a review, albeit more sympathetic to the views of the author. The reviewer found Keen's book "scary and convincing", and he believes that the book offers food for thought for those who participate in blogosphere. His only criticisms relate to the Keen's use of anecdotes to make his arguments, and his ignorance of the role of traditional media in certain events that he blamed on the influence of bloggers.
Entitled Wikipedia - Can Teenagers Write An Encyclopedia?, the article written by Sam Vaknin in the Global Politician argued that Wikipedia's flaw lies in the inexperience of its editors, who, the article claims, are mostly under the age of 25, or "teenagers". Blissfully ignoring the possibility of under-25s attending or having attended an institution of higher learning, or the use of consensus on Wikipedia articles, the article debunks the ability of "teenagers" to satisfactorily evaluate and synthesise third-party sources and other material: "Knowledge is not comprised of lists of facts, "facts", factoids, and rumors". It asserts that knowledge cannot be democratised; instead, it must be "learned", and established through merit. Finally, the article argues for the existence of a "pernicious" feedback loop between Wikipedia, Google, MySpace and other Internet properties frequented by the younger generation, a feedback loop that apparently results in the teens of MySpace dictating Google's search results.
Other mentions of Wikipedia in the online press include:
Seven users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Melburnian (nom), carlossuarez46 (nom), ST47 (nom), DerHexer (nom), Philippe (nom), Stephan Schulz (nom) and MoRsE (nom)
Two bots bot tasks were approved to begin operating or begin performing a new task this week: EchoBot (task request) and Android Mouse Bot (task request).
Nine articles were promoted to featured status last week: Beagle (nom), Bernard Quatermass (nom), House with Chimaeras (nom), Siege of Malakand (nom), Zhou Tong (archer) (nom), Ronald Niel Stuart (nom), Chad (nom), Structural history of the Roman military (nom) and Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) (nom).
One article was de-featured last week: Spring Heeled Jack (nom)
Five lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of polio survivors (nom), List of counties in Rhode Island (nom), Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture (nom), Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (nom) and Wilco discography (nom).
No portals, topics or sounds were promoted to featured status last week.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Pierre Rossier, Cameroon, Fighting in ice hockey, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, Domenico Selvo, and Cyclol.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Earth's atmosphere, An example of homeomorphism, Horse anatomy, Plastic utensils with photoelasticity, Sather Tower, King Kelly, and A diagram of osmotic pressure on blood cells.
Nine pictures were promoted to featured status last week and are shown below.
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.4 (a8dd895), and changes with a version number higher than that will not yet be active.
The Arbitration Committee accepted two new cases this week, and closed one case.
