In a Signpost exclusive, Jimbo Wales has announced the results of the 2007 ArbCom elections. In an e-mail sent to us Wednesday morning, Wales named six new arbitrators to the Committee, effective January 1, 2008:
For the 2007 ArbCom elections, I am making the following appointments and shifts:
- Newyorkbrad - Tranche Alpha
- FT2 - Tranche Alpha
- FayssalF - Tranche Alpha
- Sam Blacketer - Tranche Alpha
- Deskana - Tranche Alpha
This fills the 5 vacancies in Tranche Alpha.
Then I am removing Flcelloguy from Tranche Gamma for inactivity, with the understanding that if he chooses to return to active service, he may claim a (perhaps temporary) expansion seat in Tranche Gamma. This is intended to be the same situation as Mindspillage and Filiocht have in Tranche Beta.
Into Flcelloguy's seat, I am moving FloNight. This effectively extends her term by 1 year, moving her from Tranche Beta to Tranche Gamma.
And then finally I am appointing Thebainer into FloNight's old seat in Tranche Beta. This unfortunately gives him only a 1 year term, but he did come in 6th.
Finally, I want to announce a desire that the ArbCom should institute some informal notions of a required level of activity, and that I will gladly act upon the advice and consent of the ArbCom at mid-term to make replacement appointments (June-ish - July-ish) for any Arbs who unfortunately have found themselves unable to live up to the time commitments of the position.
I will gladly leave the choice of those mid-term appointments up to the Arbcom (or, at their desire, make the tough decision myself), but will have a strong preference at that time for appointments (based on the election results) from this list of runner-ups: Raul654, Rebecca, Manning Bartlett, Giano II, David Fuchs, Shell Kinney, MastCell.
I am particularly interested that the community work to heal what appears to me to be perceived rifts between various factions, and encourage everyone to work within our existing frameworks and institutions for positive change with a minimum of drama. We are all here to build an encyclopedia and should understand that there are very often complex judgment calls in which we may not personally agree with every result - our first obligation is to pay attention to making sure that our _processes_ are as just, open, participatory, and transparent as possible consistent with our mission.
I believe that none of my appointments today will cause any surprise or drama, as I have followed the election results quite closely.
All five of the top five finishers in the election received three-year terms, and Thebainer, who received 67% support and finished sixth, received a one-year term. The extension of FloNight's term would lead her term to end in December 2009, giving her a three-year term. She was originally elected in the December 2006 elections, and given a two-year term.
Flcelloguy, meanwhile, was removed from the Arbitration Committee due to inactivity, but can return at any time to serve the remainder of his term (which expires in December 2009). Flcelloguy has not edited since May, when he noted that "I recently had an unexpected period of busyness. I should be back to active editing soon." This arrangement, as noted, is similar to the ones enacted for Mindspillage (Kat Walsh), who resigned when she joined the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees, and Filiocht, who has not edited significantly since December 2005 due to illness, and noted in June 2006 that s/he was "Away indefinitely."
Wales' comments about inactivity would serve as a new guideline for arbitrators; in previous years, some arbitrators have been criticized for their inactivity, but no standards had been proposed about expected activity. Raul654, an arbitrator since July 2004, was not re-elected in this year's elections, in part due to his inactivity, which was cited by some opposing voters. Other than Raul654, seven other arbitrators were inactive for at least eight weeks this year, including Flcelloguy and Neutrality, who has not participated in an arbitration case since October 2006.
This week, a resolution was approved to fill the two empty seats, and expand the Board of Trustees from seven to a maximum of eleven members:
In the aftermath of the resignation of Michael Davis (effective October 31, 2007) and Erik Möller (effective December 15, 2007), the board confirms its will to replace the two former board members, as well as its commitment to expand the number of members on the board of directors at the earliest convenience, up to a number of 11 members maximum. Due to its commitment to involve members from the community, at least half of the new members will be appointed for a term ending at the next board elections, in June 2008.
The resolution likely means that appointments of new members will be made soon, before the June 2008 board elections. The makeup of the Board would be as follows:
Thus, the Board will likely appoint either four or six additional members. Indications are that some or all of the elected positions will expire in June 2008, although Möller's seat was set to expire in July 2009, and his successor may retain the remainder of his two-year term. While no indication has been made by the Board as to how appointments will be made, it's likely that at least some of the appointments will come from those who were not elected in the 2007 Board elections.
In a separate announcement, Devouard noted that she is considering leaving the Board at the end of her term:
[In 2008], some of the board seats will be up for elections, including mine. I am not sure yet how many seats will be available, this will be clarified in the following weeks. But it seems clear there will be at least 3 seats. I wanted to give you a pre-position on this matter. In June 2008, I will complete 4 years on the board, including 1 year and a half as chair. I stopped working just 2 years ago, immediately before the birth of my third child. I now wish to officially be in activity again (meaning: working for a salary :-)). ... I also think I may be able to help the projects by continuing my activity within Wikimédia France and indicated some time ago, my interest for being a candidate at the next [Wikimédia France] board election (January or February 08).
As such, I would be happy to start the discussion as to who would be interested/willing joining the board of WMF (as appointed or as elected), and who would be potentially interested in the role of chair in the future.
NB: Greg Williams is on vacation. This rerun is from December 26, 2006.
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Molasses" and "Molasses Gang". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
After elections for new stewards ended last week, the Board of Trustees endorsed the results of the elections, and appointed all users who finished with at least 80% support, adding twelve new stewards:
Meanwhile, confirmation of current stewards is complete, and discussion between stewards is ongoing as to whether some of the stewards should retain their status. As of press time, it appears that Ausir, Romihaitza, Snowdog, and Suisui will not be confirmed due to inactivity, and Datrio and Fantasy resigned their stewardship voluntarily prior to these discussions. Sj's reconfirmation is close, with stewards evenly split as to whether Sj should be reconfirmed. Sixteen of the remaining 23 stewards will definitely retain stewardship, with no objections from the community, and it appears that the other seven will be reconfirmed as well.
On December 11th, Jimbo Wales testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in a hearing titled "E-Government 2.0: Improving Innovation, Collaboration and Access". Wales' testimony (PDF) is available, and video of the hearing, including a question-and-answer session with Wales, is available.
The Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser continued this week. Nearly sixty-five days into the fundraiser, about 40,500 people have donated at least US$1, and the Foundation has raised about $1,310,000.
A new fundraising site was introduced this week; the design highlights a Wikipedian's story, what the money is used for, and simplifies the donation form significantly. The effects of such a site on donations have yet to be seen.
Donations on December 25 (Christmas) (228 donations, totaling $8,015.20) reached a fundraiser low; however, a series of large donations were received in the last week, including $4,000 from Brooke Burgess (with comment "Ubermind, Inc."), a €1,000 ($1,439.80) donation from an anonymous contributor, $1,024 from frequent contributor Jeff Moe, and $1,000 donations from Lawrence Lessig, Robert D. Hall and Ana F. Barreto, and two anonymous contributors.
A joke inserted into the German Wikipedia's article on the 1989 European Competition for Women's Football was unwittingly reported by multiple German newspapers and magazines, and subsequently mentioned by the President of Germany, Horst Köhler. The joke revolves around the gifts received by the German champions of the competition, who received a coffee set as part of their prizes. On September 10, the joke was embellished, with the addition of an ironing board to their "prizes". After the German team's victory in the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup, the ironing board was subsequently reported in various German sources, including a syndicated article by Frank Hellmann, which was published on various German websites, including that of top periodical Der Spiegel ([1]). It was later referenced in a speech by Bundespräsident Köhler. The false information was removed on December 17.
Wikimania 2009 bidding continued this week; one more bid was submitted this week: Kathmandu, Nepal. This joins two other official bids: Bogotá and Toronto. New bids will be open until January 12, at which time the jury will be announced. Bids already created will be open until February 3, when bidding will end, and deliberations will begin. On or before February 20, the host city for Wikimania 2009 will be announced to the public.
Wikipedia's awkward adolescence - Several incidents in the past have caused speculation that Wikipedia has an informal inner circle consisting of administrators, outside of which edits might not survive very long. The wider issue at hand is that Wikipedia's governance structure is at a cross-roads - between that of a digital experiment and that of its "broader ambitions". In Wikipedia's favour is its transparency, where every article maintains a history and edit comments, but that has not prevented others from proposing sites that store text that has been rejected from Wikipedia, to enforce greater accountability. A problem that Wikipedia has to deal with is its use of jargon; following along the lines of the Simple English Wikipedia, perhaps Wikipedia could move towards explaining decisions in plain English.
Long Bet Winner: Weblogs vs. The New York Times - Rogers Cadenhead, reviewing a "long bet" made five years ago by Dave Winer and Martin Nisenholtz, concluded that while weblogs edged the New York Times in getting news-related entries ranked on the Google search engine, Wikipedia was solidly ahead of both. Using keyword phrases from the top five news stories for the year, as chosen by the Associated Press, Cadenhead compared the top-ranked blog entry against the highest-placed story from the Times website. He found that Wikipedia articles appeared before either one for four of the five stories. The one story for which Wikipedia didn't win, the current mortgage crisis, it had the fourth overall entry on Google, but the Times placed first; this was the only story for which either the Times or a blog had the top overall result, whereas Wikipedia had the top result twice, for Iraq war and Virginia Tech killings.
Your wiki entry counts - David Shankbone, a Wikinews editor, went to Israel at the invitation of the Foreign Ministry, to offer him a first-hand look at the country. He was with a dozen or so American journalists who were invited in the hope of reversing a "one-dimensional view of Israel" that is said to persist through the narratives told by the media; the visit was said to be useful because Wikipedia editors aim to present a neutral, world view in articles. Shankbone defends Wikipedia by comparing it to a bulletin board, which merely hosts the information, and implores users to consider more than one source of information, even though Wikipedia is a useful starting point.
Other recent mentions in the online press include:
WikiProject India is a WikiProject dedicated to improving Wikipedia's coverage of all topics related to the Republic of India. Started on 11 July 2006, the project has steadily grown, and currently has 250 active members and 24 inactive members.
The India WikiProject has six departments to help share and distribute its workload.
The India WikiProject has several subprojects to focus on certain areas of its scope.
If you are interested in assisting the project, you can join it by adding your name to its members list.
Seven users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Salix alba (nom), PrimeHunter (nom), Jj137 (nom), Masem (nom), Tony Fox (nom), Mattinbgn (nom), and Versageek (nom).
Six bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: MelonBot (task request), PaievBot (task request), MelonBot (task request), SoxBot II (task request), BJBot (task request), and Maelgwnbot (task request).
Fourteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Queluz National Palace (nom), Massospondylus (nom), United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (nom), Opera (web browser) (nom), Bird (nom), Louis Slotin (nom), Wulfhere of Mercia (nom), Spiderland (nom), Final Fantasy Tactics (nom), Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany (nom), Internationalist (album) (nom), Battle of Dyrrhachium (1081) (nom), Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (nom), and Vasa (ship) (nom).
Seven lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of Governors of Wisconsin (nom), Lou Marsh Trophy (nom), List of Seattle Seahawks first-round draft picks (nom), AJPW Triple Crown Championship (nom), List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film (nom), List of tallest buildings in Dubai (nom), and Nation of Ulysses discography (nom)
Three portals were promoted last week: Portal:Rugby union (nom), Portal:Scientology (nom), and Portal:Ireland (nom). No topics were promoted last week.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Heian Palace, Tropical Storm Allison, Dorset, Bupropion, Aggie Bonfire, German occupation of Luxembourg in World War I and Nancy Reagan.
Three articles and one list were delisted last week:
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Portland, Oregon; Mulberry Street (Manhattan); Motorcycling; John Wilkes Booth; Frederick III, German Emperor; Ivan Shishkin; and Neue Wache.
Nine pictures were promoted to featured status last week and are shown below.
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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.8 (f08e6b3), 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.
This week saw 34 bugs resolved across Wikimedia Foundation wikis. Some of the bugs fixed pertaining to the English language Wikipedia include:
Other bugs fixed include Bug 12309, allowing blocked users to edit their userspace on Swedish Wikipedia, Bug 12333 (Closure of several wikis), and Bug 12355 (Allow autoconfirmed users to patrol on English Wikisource).
The Arbitration Committee did not open any new cases this week, and closed one case, leaving five cases currently open.
