I'm jumping in here to get this issue out the door, filling in for Ral315. I apologize for the delay as this is now two days late, and I'm not sure what has happened with him. I know he had a year-in-review story and interviews with the new arbitrators he wanted to work on, but all that will have to wait until the next issue. Again, we appreciate your patience and especially any assistance people can provide in producing the Signpost.
—- Michael Snow
A new forum, called the WikBack, has been established for discussion about Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, seeking to serve as a neutral outside venue for debate and criticism. While its ultimate success at filling this niche remains to be determined, initially it has attracted considerable participation.
The WikBack was launched on 27 December by UninvitedCompany, who is covering the costs of hosting the forum. It requires members to sign up using the name of their primary Wikipedia account. Addressing a major complaint about some existing sites critical of Wikipedia, WikBack policy prohibits speculation about the identities and private affairs of Wikipedia contributors. In the short time that the WikBack has been active, it has picked up over 100 members (despite some complaints about the onerous registration system - in addition to a captcha at signup, accounts are manually approved).
While WikBack members need to have a Wikipedia account to participate, their status on Wikipedia does not carry over. Participants so far include people who have been banned from editing the English Wikipedia, airing views ranging from general criticism to specific grievances about their cases. Illustrating the potential for a neutral meeting ground, Jimbo Wales and several members of the Arbitration Committee have also posted to the forum. As the policy on acceptable use of WikBack states, "Fair criticism, including highly critical views, are welcome."
UninvitedCompany reported that the volume of activity already exceeds that of the English Wikipedia mailing list. The contrast with the mailing list highlights some of the challenges for discussion of Wikipedia outside of the wiki itself. Aside from the relative merits of electronic mailing lists compared with bulletin boards, the practical effects of various external venues have prompted considerable debate. IRC channels have been the subject of frequent controversy, and both IRC and Wikia-hosted mailing lists have figured in two recent requests for arbitration.
Although the mailing list is described as "the place for meta-discussions about the nature of Wikipedia" (from an oft-quoted statement of principles, written by Wales when there was only one such list), the English Wikipedia list has also been criticized as overly acrimonious and unproductive. A common alternate description is the "official project sewer". David Gerard, one of the moderators on the mailing list, observed that if he could banish problematic disputes to a "Cage match" section as on the WikBack, the quality of discussion could be expected to skyrocket.
Reaction to UninvitedCompany's announcements on various mailing lists included a mixture of prognostications about whether the WikBack could succeed. Gurch argued that any off-wiki discussion would eventually become a refuge for people whose disruptive behavior had made them unwelcome on the wiki. Other responses ranged from open-minded to enthusiastic about the idea. Pointing out that the concept of the WikBack's role was admirable, David Gerard concluded, "A forum is a different thing to talk on. Maybe it'll work."
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "Goregrind". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
The World Question Center 2008 - Kevin Kelly, editor-at-large of Wired, initially believed that an encyclopedia that could be edited by anyone an impossibility, because it would be subject to a "propensity for mischief", which would exaggerate and falsify information. However, he admits that he was wrong, and that Wikipedia has surpassed his expectations. He states that the tools provided have helped allow the collaborative community to outpace the number of individuals "competing", and he makes a comparison with similar systems of collaboration in open-source systems. He believes that Wikipedia is an indication of something more fundamental that is happening - a new respect for sharing and collaboration, and a new obligation of the individual to the collective.
Wikipedia: A community of editors or a community of authors? The key idea from this article is that the model of production of content on Wikipedia is not that much different to that of traditional publishing houses, in the sense that the content is produced by a large number of authors, often with no interest in the editing process, while the content is edited and polished by a smaller core of editors. Valuing contributors in projects like Wikipedia, even when they are not in the committed core, is important, and the disdain for user-generated content from the traditional publishers is "so perplexing". The author believes that publishers should take note of what is going on, because it is "a different and better way of doing some tasks that publishers already perform".
Other mentions in the online press include:
Four users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Camaron1 (nom), Djsasso (nom), AKeen (nom), and Aqwis (nom).
Three bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: UnCatBot (task request), Maelgwnbot (task request), and BJBot (task request).
Fourteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Altrincham (nom), Sumatran Rhinoceros (nom), Las Meninas (nom), 2003 Atlantic hurricane season (nom), Sid Barnes (nom), Europa (moon) (nom), Storm botnet (nom), Slay Tracks (1933-1969) (nom), Radiohead (nom), Blackbird (nom), Hamlet (nom), 1080° Snowboarding (nom), George Jones (RAAF officer) (nom), and Zodiac (film) (nom).
Five lists were promoted to featured status last week: List of works by William Monahan (nom), List of Indiana state symbols (nom), Green Bay Packers seasons (nom), List of tallest buildings in Cleveland (nom), and List of Heroes episodes (nom).
No portals, topics or sounds were featured last week.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Ulysses (poem), Gregory of Nazianzus, Fin Whale, William Cooley, Queluz National Palace, G. Ledyard Stebbins and Ælle of Sussex .
3 articles were delisted last week:
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Catalan Penedès, Jerome Horsey, European Hornet, Kalmar Union, Montreal City Hall, Franco-Prussian War.
2 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.4 (a8dd895), 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.
For a general review of developer activity over the past year, Midom has put together a report on the state of technology at the Wikimedia Foundation.
"{{#titleparts:Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-01-07/Technology report|1|-2}}" returns "2008-01-07", because a negative number now counts from the right. (r28708, bug 12356)
The Arbitration Committee opened five new cases this week, and did not close any cases, leaving eight currently open.
