This week, we're soliciting questions for yet another interview, this time with Wikimedia Foundation Chair Florence Devouard (Anthere). We'll be conducting the interview by e-mail; you can post your questions on this article's talk page. Please submit questions as soon as possible; I'll be sending her the questions on Friday or Saturday.
The interview with Wikimedia's Chief Technical Officer Brion Vibber will be posted soon; Brion has not yet responded to the questions. Meanwhile, you can suggest future interview subjects here; I'd like to continue doing one or two interviews a month.
Thanks for reading the Signpost.
— Ral315
Turning the clock back nearly two years, it appears that the English Wikipedia may again allow editors to create new encyclopedia articles without first registering an account. In an experiment announced by Greg Maxwell, reversing a previous move that was itself billed as an experiment, the change is tentatively set to be implemented for one month beginning 9 November and reevaluated at the end of that period.
Originally installed in the aftermath of the Seigenthaler incident, the restriction of page creation to registered editors has been in place since December 2005. The change was carried out by Brion Vibber at the request of Jimmy Wales and applies only to encyclopedia articles themselves, not other features like talk pages. It was announced by Wales as an experiment, partly in response to comments from new page patrollers that newly created articles were often nonsense, and that unregistered anonymous editors in particular were the worst offenders.
Predicting admin elections; studying flagged revision debates; classifying editor interactions; and collecting the Wikipedia literature
26 March 2012
Studying German flagged revisions, French library agreement, German court case
12 April 2010
Financial statements, discussions, milestones
8 March 2010
BLP deletions cause uproar
25 January 2010
Flagged revisions petitions, image donations, brief news
28 December 2009
Vibber resigns, Staff office hours, Flagged Revs, new research and more
28 September 2009
WikiTrust, Azerbaijan-Armenia edit wars
31 August 2009
An extended look at how we got to flagged protection and patrolled revisions
31 August 2009
Misleading media storm over flagged revisions
31 August 2009
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
24 August 2009
New board member, flagged revisions, Eurovision interviews
25 May 2009
End of Encarta, flagged revisions poll, new image donation, and more
30 March 2009
Commons, conferences, and more
9 March 2009
Flagged Revisions, historical image discovery, and more
16 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Wikipedia's future, WikiDashboard, and "wiki-snobs"
8 February 2009
Wikipedia in the news: Flagged Revisions, Internet Explorer add-on
31 January 2009
Jimbo requests that developers turn on Flagged Revisions
24 January 2009
News and notes: Flagged Revisions and permissions proposals, hoax, milestones
10 January 2009
Sighted revisions introduced on the German Wikipedia
12 May 2008
Page creation for unregistered users likely to be reenabled
29 October 2007
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
2 April 2007
The Seigenthaler incident: One year later
4 December 2006
Wikipedia in the news
2 October 2006
Single-user login, stable versioning planned soon
7 August 2006
Since then, the move has been debated a number of times. One repeated criticism was that despite being cast as an experiment, it was not accompanied by any evaluation process or criteria for success, making it seem more a hasty reaction to the negative publicity surrounding Seigenthaler's article. And with the passage of time, it might appear that the change was ultimately destined to be permanent.
The prevailing view now seems to be that the restriction has run its course and is no longer desirable, if indeed it ever was, as the generally positive response to Maxwell's announcement on the English Wikipedia mailing list suggested. Some people have looked to the introduction of a MediaWiki feature for stable versions or flagged revisions as a step that would allow article creation to be reopened. However, like the similarly long-awaited universal login for all Wikimedia projects, progress in developing that feature remains unclear (a planned test on the German Wikipedia has yet to begin). The occasion did prompt some renewed debate about which version, stable or live, should be displayed as the default.
Addressing concerns about the validity of the previous experiment, Maxwell indicated plans to compile data during the one-month trial and called for volunteers to participate in a quality study. The strongest argument against the planned trial came from Todd Allen, who cited the abysmal success rate at Wikipedia:Articles for creation as evidence that very few of the additional contributions would prove worthwhile. Others countered that few unregistered contributors likely choose that option, preferring to actually register an account or work on existing articles instead. Discussion on the village pump, meanwhile, pointed to the large volume of new pages that get deleted even now, with several people arguing that it should not be opened up to even more people.
More of the criticism was directed not at the substance of the plan, but the nature of Maxwell's announcement. While he happens to be Wikimedia's Chief Research Officer (an unpaid volunteer position), Maxwell avoided saying that he acted in any official capacity. However, his confident tone and use of "we" in the announcement confused some people about who was behind the decision, and also brought complaints about failing to discuss the possibility beforehand. Board chair Florence Devouard said the experiment had not been ordered by the Wikimedia Foundation, indicating that she considered it purely a matter for the community to decide — although she expressed happiness about the decision. (The original experiment, at Wales's instigation, presumably falls under the powers he "reserves" as a project founder rather than his formal Wikimedia role at the time.)
In response, Maxwell argued that public discussion had already taken place earlier, and in fact his participation had helped disrupt "nearly unanimous" agreement to reverse the original experiment. In addition, he pointed out that no new information had come up since then, nor could it without a new experiment to see what unregistered article creation would produce. So after a discussion with Sue Gardner, Mike Godwin, and Kat Walsh, he had "decided to step up to move this forward."
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Human billboard". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
A search for the Foundation's new Treasurer has begun. The position became open earlier this month as Trustee Michael Davis resigned from the position. Davis's term on the board expires on December 1, and Davis has elected not to seek a new, board-approved term. The person selected by the board would serve a one-year term as board member (renewable every year, subject to approval of the board), and handle the duties of Treasurer, including reviewing annual budgets and audits, providing financial advice to the board, and potentially working with the bookkeeper and staff to implement financial procedures and systems. Candidates, among other requirements, must understand American nonprofit accounting procedures, have an accounting or other financial designation, such as a CPA, CFA or CA, and have previously served as a treasurer on another non-profit board for at least five years. Applicants can contact the Foundation by e-mail, at <treasurer-search AT wikimedia DOT org>, for more information.
The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser continued this week. In the first seven days of the fundraiser, about 8,280 people had donated, and the Foundation had raised about US$212,000.[1] This amount is slightly less than the $261,000 donated during the first seven days of last year's drive. Interestingly, only three contributions of $1,000 or more have been recorded so far during this drive; during the last drive, 20 contributions of $1,000 or more were recorded, discounting two large contributions that appeared to have been mailed independent of the fundraising drive. Last year's drive, however, began during the holiday season, which may explain decreased giving so far.
A proposal to close the Volapük Wikipedia received an unusual amount of attention this week. The Wikipedia is the 15th largest Wikipedia by article count, and reached 100,000 articles last month. However, the nominator, Rosentod, noted that the language has a very low number of speakers (the English Wikipedia gives an uncited count of 25-30 speakers worldwide), and many of the language's articles were written by a bot. In fact, the project has only 286 users (117th most users among all Wikipedias). Others argued that the project was growing, with a few new users making edits, and should not be deleted. They also noted that the project was much larger than, and in some cases had more active contributors than, other Wikipedias that had not been closed. The discussion has been ongoing since September 21, but recently gained much more attention. Currently, 36% of voters support its closure, up from the 28% who supported its closure a week ago, but well below consensus to delete. The discussion is set to close on Monday.
Meanwhile, a proposal made in May 2006 to close the Simple English Wikiquote is set to close on Saturday. The proposal is split almost evenly between those supporting closure and those opposing it.
Thursday was the first event in a lecture series entitled "Wikipedia: The Democratization of Knowledge or the Triumph of Amateurs?" at Eastern Michigan University. Historian Marshall Poe (author of an earlier substantial article on Wikipedia in The Atlantic Monthly) gave a presentation entitled "Wikipedia: Academia's Friend or Foe?" A reporter with The Ann Arbor News had a brief interview with Poe regarding the talk and series. Future speakers in the four-part lecture series are Larry Sanger, Andrew Keen, and Kat Walsh.
As of 27 October 2007, the Wikipedia ads project reached one hundred ads. The project, started by Gurch (talk · contribs), draws attention to certain aspects of Wikipedia, such as adminship, policies and guidelines, and WikiProjects, when users add the images to their userpage. The banners made by the project were originally called "Qxz ads", as the template resided in the userspace of Qxz (talk · contribs), an alternate account of Gurch (talk · contribs), but was later moved to the template namespace. Miranda (talk · contribs) uploaded the 100th ad to Wikimedia Commons; the 99th ad was created later. To add the Wikipedia Ads template to your userpage, you can put the text {{wikipedia ads}} on it. If you want someone to create an ad for a project or page, Persian Poet Gal and Andrew Hampe are accepting requests.
WikiProject Agriculture is a relatively new WikiProject that was started on 19 September 2007 by Doug (talk · contribs). It is dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to agriculture. It is still a very small project, having been started recently, and currently has ten members. Originally proposed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals, the project quickly garnered support from the community, was started in its creator's userspace, and then created, with five supporters.
The agriculture project covers a wide range of topics, including:
The project's only department is its assessment department. So far, WikiProject Agriculture has accumulated two B-class agriculture articles, two Start-class articles, and twelve stubs (out of agriculture articles that have been rated using the {{WPFarm}} template). It has yet to assess any Good articles, A-class articles, or Featured articles related to agriculture, and 97 articles remain unassessed. A discussion has been initiated at Wikipedia:WikiProject Agriculture/Assessment/Top-importance articles about agriculture-related articles that have been assessed as Top-importance on the project's importance scale and could be collaborated on by project participants.
WikiProject Agriculture, being a very recently created project, could be greatly helped by new members. If you would like to assist the project, you can add your name to its list of participants. The project's to-do list contains multiple tasks that can be completed, including article writing work and also the creation of infoboxes for articles within its scope.
Five users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Carlosguitar (nom), Carcharoth (nom), Pats1 (nom), Kane5187 (nom), and KieferSkunk (nom).
Six bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: ArkyBot (task request), Giggabot (task request), Erwin85Bot (task request), MadmanBot (task request), Estirabot (task request), and Mgmbot (task request).
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Buildings and architecture of Bristol (nom), Oregon State Capitol (nom), King Vulture (nom), Peregrine Falcon (nom), Splendid Fairy-wren (nom), Superb Fairy-wren (nom), Florida Atlantic University (nom), Archimedes (nom), Trapped in the Closet (South Park) (nom), House of Gediminas (nom), Wihtred of Kent (nom), 2007 UEFA Champions League Final (nom), Charlie Macartney (nom), Lee Smith (baseball) (nom), Populous: The Beginning (nom), Battle of Barrosa (nom), and Second Ostend Raid (nom).
Twelve lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people: Si-Sz (nom), List of Florida hurricanes (2000-present) (nom), List of Naruto chapters (Part I) (nom), Lost (season 2) (nom), List of Highlander: The Raven episodes (nom), Powderfinger discography (nom), List of Governors of Puerto Rico (nom), List of Jacksonville Jaguars first-round draft picks (nom), List of New York Jets first-round draft picks (nom), List of Norwich City F.C. Players of the Year (nom), List of Survivor contestants (nom), and List of awards won by The Simpsons (nom).
One topic was promoted to featured status last week: National symbols of Belarus (nom).
One portal was promoted to featured status last week: Portal:Puerto Rico (nom)
No sounds were featured last week.
Two articles were de-featured last week: Ebionites (nom), and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (nom)
Two pictures were de-featured last week: Image:Mandelpart2.jpg (nom), and Image:Wikipe-tan full length.png (nom).
No lists, portals, topics, or sounds were de-featured last week.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: El Al, Cardinal-nephew, 2000 Sri Lanka cyclone, Bob Meusel, Siege of Malakand, Shen Kuo, and Girl Scouts of the United States of America.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Blackbird, First Telegraph, William Tecumseh Sherman, Melbourne Docks, Quicksort, Mouse Spider, and Yellow Warbler.
Four 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 necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.3 (b4aac1f), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.
(none relevant to the English Wikipedia)
The Arbitration Committee accepted one new case this week, and closed two cases.
