December marked the end of 2007, and the end of the biggest year (and perhaps the most controversial year) that Wikipedia has seen. This week, the Wikipedia Signpost concludes our look back at the year that was 2007 in Wikipedia.
In April, Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt was briefly unblocked by Jimbo Wales, then reblocked by Wales a short time later. The block was lifted on April 18; Wales said, "he asked nicely, we are talking about a productive way forward in the future, it has been more than a year". Brandt was reblocked three days later, after indicating in a mailing list post that "I feel that Jimmy Wales made the wrong decision when he unbanned me a couple of days ago."[1]
In June, the article on Daniel Brandt was merged, after its 14th deletion discussion. Its closure called for the article to be merged to four separate articles: NameBase, Google Watch, Criticism of Wikipedia, and CIA HTTP cookies controversy (the latter since deleted).[2]
Shortly thereafter, Wales again unblocked Brandt on June 18, saying that "[Brandt] asked nicely. He only wants to edit talk pages of P.I.R. and other articles that affect him personally". He was reblocked by JoshuaZ a month later, due to the restoration of a website operated by Brandt, attempting to disseminate the real-life identities of Wikipedia editors.
Former Wikimedia Foundation employee Danny Wool was promoted after a successful request for adminship, a few weeks after his resignation from the Foundation, and his voluntary resignation of all Wikimedia rights and positions. After his unexpected resignation from the Wikimedia Foundation office in March, Wool resigned all of his rights on all Wikimedia projects, saying, "To ensure that there are no misunderstandings or claims of an abuse of power, I ask that all admin status on the various projects be revoked."[3]
The RFA, which received 68% support, was controversial; users noted that the support level ranked well below that of normal RFAs (the threshold of bureaucrat discretion is considered by many to be around 70-80%; to date, Danny's is one of only three RFAs to pass with below 70% support, the others being Ryulong's 3rd RFA and Carnildo's 3rd RFA). However, bureaucrat Rdsmith4 argued that a significant portion of opposition was worried about Wool's actions outside his realm as administrator, including his actions as a bureaucrat, and his role in the Office Actions policy.
Another controversial RFA was that of Gracenotes. The RFA had 73% support; most of the opposition hinged on Gracenotes' position on the since-rejected Attack sites proposal, since partially incorporated into a guideline at Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment. Gracenotes said that, "If posting a link to an attack site is intended, in any way, to be a personal attack in itself, then Wikipedians may wish to rephrase or remove their comments. If the issue brought up by the attack site is valid, surely Wikipedians can discuss it on-wiki. ... I oppose removing all links to all such sites in all contexts, especially if such removals interfere with the good faith development of Wikipedia."[4]
Users supporting Gracenotes' promotion noted that the comments of many were based on Gracenotes' ideology, not experience character; those opposing it defended their positions.[5] With bureaucrats divided, and unable to determine whether consensus had been met, a re-run was proposed; however, Gracenotes declined. Gracenotes has not elected to seek adminship since the June RFA.
In 2007, a few community projects were discontinued and/or deleted, for various reasons. These included:
Besides university policies regarding student papers, one of the places where citing Wikipedia as a source is most often debated seems to be in the newsroom. That question has been explored in the latest issue of the American Journalism Review, giving some additional perspective on the situations in which it would or would not be considered appropriate.
The piece, prosaically titled "Wikipedia in the Newsroom", highlights some instances where Wikipedia was acknowledged as the source of information repeated by a newspaper. Author Donna Shaw notes that this happens despite the fact that some news organizations have formal or informal policies against citing Wikipedia (in the wake of the Seigenthaler incident, a New York Times editor told staff there not to use Wikipedia when checking information). In exploring the issue, Shaw brings in opinions from academics, reporters, and newsroom staff ranging from copy editors to editors-in-chief, for a broader selection of views.
Whether doing background research, fact checking, or actually quoting from Wikipedia, many journalists have undoubtedly made at least some use of it. At this writing, the exact phrase "according to Wikipedia" produces 216 hits from Google News over the past month (naturally including the AJR article itself). Of course, the quality of news sources Google draws on can be as variable as the quality of a random selection of Wikipedia articles.
A thoroughly referenced Wikipedia article naturally provides a starting point for reporters who have to immerse themselves in a topic, and stories occasionally recommend it as a resource without relying on it. Taking information from Wikipedia and verifying it elsewhere was the use considered the most widely acceptable. For some situations, editors might feel citing Wikipedia was legitimate — to illustrate a point about how something is perceived (so that the accuracy of the information isn't critical), or for whimsical subject matter that simply has no more authoritative source (the turducken was mentioned as an example). Also, Wikipedia can still be helpful even after turning to other sources for verification. The Orlando Sentinel used it in reviewing a film about mixed martial arts, a concept the editor felt needed to be defined; after consulting various descriptions, she chose Wikipedia's as "the most concise".
Most of the publications whose staff were quoted in the story indicated they had no formal policy about Wikipedia, though they had wrestled with the issue. Blanket prohibitions on Wikipedia use, seeking to avoid the embarrassment of publishing misinformation, may contribute to other journalistic pitfalls instead. One possible scenario involves the instances that occasionally come up of Wikipedia articles being copied by reporters, slipping past an unsuspecting editor, and making it to publication without attribution, resulting in plagiarism allegations. For example, Agence France-Presse, which states that it has a written rule against using Wikipedia, nevertheless faced a situation in which a story on the 2006 Amish school shooting, written in German and syndicated in major German media, was promptly discovered to draw heavily from the German Wikipedia article on the Amish.
Another reason journalists rely on Wikipedia can be due to the pressure of deadlines, especially for last-minute fact checking. One recent example illustrating this comes from the New York Times, despite the advice from one of their editors mentioned earlier. When a recent article about a Spanish stew was questioned for repeating what one linguist called a "fake etymology", the editor responded that they had double-checked it with a Wikipedia article. That article, olla podrida, has since been modified to describe this as a "folk etymology", although some confusion could still result from Wikipedia's coverage, since the name of the dish given by the Times was "cocido", which at this writing directs the reader to a different article on the subject.
Incidentally, a passing tidbit from another piece in this AJR issue may also be of interest, particularly for those who follow the Encyclopædia Britannica's responses to Wikipedia. In it Thomas Kunkel relates an anecdote from Vartan Gregorian, former president of Brown University and now head of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Gregorian, in the course of doing consulting work for Britannica, indicated that its editors were considering adopting Wikipedia-like techniques, but he advised against it.
This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "John Calvin", "Calvinism", "Total depravity", "Original sin", "Thomas Hobbes", and "Calvin and Hobbes". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
Wikipedia philanthropy - An Internet entrepreneur has claimed that Wikipedia could be an even greater force for good by turning the Wikimedia Foundation into a for-profit entity and giving the profits to charitable organisations. In a conservative estimate, Wikipedia has enough traffic to generate $100 million by collaborating with an advertising network.
Other recent mentions in the online press include:
This week, we'll talk about the basics of adding citations to articles from the sources you used to create verifiable content.
Citations (or references) are a vital part of articles, Wikipedia:Verifiability is one of Wikipedia's core content policies and all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.[1] This is true with all Wikipedia content but particularly true with Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons for which Wikipedia is very firm about the use of high quality references. Unsourced or poorly sourced material should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles,[2] talk pages, user pages, and project space.
How you add citations is dependent on the reference and on the subject. For books or other sources that support a significant amount of the material in the article, place them at the bottom of the article in the section marked with the header ==References== if the section header is not there add it. For statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, including contentious material about living persons, and for all quotations; inline citations (references within the text) that provide source information for specific statements should be used. Inline citations, are increasingly mandated by the featured article and good article criteria.
The three inline citation styles used in Wikipedia are -
<ref>[CITATION INFO OR TEMPLATE HERE]</ref>. Using an appropriate citation template helps provide cleanly formatted and complete information about the source, but is not required. For the footnote information to be visible to the reader, the tag <references /> or the template {{reflist}} must be placed in the article, normally directly under a "References" section heading.[3] Examples -<ref Name="NAME">{{cite web
| last =
| first =
| authorlink =
| title =
| work =
| publisher =
| date =
| url =
| format =
| doi =
| accessdate = }}</ref>
Second cite of same web
<ref name="NAME"/>
<ref Name="NAME">{{cite book
|title=
|last=
|first=
|authorlink=
|year=
|publisher=
|location=
|isbn=
|page=
|pages=
|url= }}</ref>
Second cite of same book
<ref name="NAME"/>
Most, if not all, facts in a biographical article must be verified, but why? Rumors can be used to defame a person. Rumors are unacceptable; a fact must be verified by reliable sources such as CNN or the BBC, or it's not acceptable in an article. It should be promptly removed by any editor who sees it.
For example, a pregnancy rumor for a young celebrity must be removed unless a good source for it is cited in the article.
Sure! References are good anywhere on Wikipedia, and are sometimes (though not commonly) used in projectspace and userspace.
Ref tags can also be used for notes (rather than sources/citation), if a fact doesn't fit well on a page but should be included somewhere.
{{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
We've added several tools to help reviewers more quickly locate Featured Article candidates and Featured Articles under review in which they might be interested. As Featured Article production has increased, there are now usually between 40 and 60 articles seeking Featured Article status at a given time. FAR usually has fewer articles to review at any one time, but the discussions can become very long and involved. As page sizes increase, some reviewers may be discouraged from finding articles which interest them. At the request of BuddingJournalist, CBM, the operator of VeblenBot, modified the bot to create a more streamlined method of viewing the current nominations. User:VeblenBot/C/Wikipedia featured article review candidates listing the candidates at FAR, while User:VeblenBot/C/Wikipedia featured article candidates lists the candidates at FAC.
The length of the list at FAC can still make it difficult for a reviewer to quickly determine which FACs need more attention to clearly determine consensus. To solve this problem, Deckiller created a page to list the urgent FACs. The page is primarily updated by SandyGeorgia, although other regular FAC reviewers also maintain it. It can be transcluded onto any page, and can be found at the FAC talk page as well as on many user talk pages.
Nine users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Lquilter (nom), Hdt83 (nom), LAX (nom), Pb30 (nom), CIreland (nom), Rjd0060 (nom), Ultraexactzz (nom), Happy-melon (nom), and Melesse (nom).
Two bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: BaldBot (task request) and DumZiBoT (task request).
Twenty two articles were promoted to featured status last week: Introduction to evolution (nom), John Michael Wright (nom), Ryan White (nom), Reese Witherspoon (nom), Ernest Shackleton (nom), Lisa del Giocondo (nom), Kit (association football) (nom), Tarbosaurus (nom), Hell Is Other Robots (nom), Monkey Gone to Heaven (nom), Woody Guthrie (nom), Judy Garland (nom), Sirius (nom), E. Urner Goodman (nom), Le Père Goriot (nom), Giant Otter (nom), Joseph Priestley House (nom), 200 (Stargate SG-1) (nom), The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson (nom), House Martin (nom), Super Mario 64 (nom), and Mumia Abu-Jamal (nom).
Ten lists were promoted to featured status last week: Nicknames of Houston (nom), Iowa Hawkeyes football seasons (nom), Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester (nom), List of Grey Cup champions (nom), List of counties in New York (nom), List of Buffalo Sabres players (nom), List of Victoria Cross recipients by nationality (nom), List of counties in Tennessee (nom), List of members of the Hockey Hall of Fame (nom), and List of West Midlands railway stations (nom).
One topic was featured last week: Halo trilogy (nom).
Two portals were promoted to featured status last week: Portal:Comedy (nom) and Portal:Hong Kong (nom).
No sounds were featured last week.
The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Archimedes, "Manos" The Hands of Fate, Aikido, "Through the Looking Glass", Knut, and Las Meninas.
One article was delisted recently: National parks of England and Wales (nom)
No list or portal was demoted.
The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Lillian Gish, Senegal Wattled Plover, Sieve of Eratosthenes, Frederick Douglass, The Princess, Mauthausen-Gusen, and Rosie the Riveter.
One featured picture was demoted: Meissner effect (nom)
Thirteen pictures and one video 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.
{{ROOTPAGENAME}} (and an escaped version {{ROOTPAGENAMEE}}) that returns the name of the non-subpage page that the current page is a subpage (directly or indirectly) of; for instance, the ROOTPAGENAME of Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-04/Technology report is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost. (r30413, bug 12872,
The Arbitration Committee opened one new case this week, and closed one case, leaving six currently open.
