Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-05/From the editors Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-05/Traffic report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-05/In the media
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Some bug fixes or new features described below have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.12 (8b8c762), 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.
The second usability release, Babaco, is now available on all Wikimedia projects for testing. The new release has three new features relating to the edit window. The new features can be enabled through your user preferences, under the "Editing" tab and then "Experimental features". The three features are:
The editing toolbar changes the layout of buttons, putting more advanced features in a dropdown menu, and adds a link to adding special characters and to a new help, which incorporates a brief, cheat-sheet style description of editing syntax into the dropdown menu. The navigable table of contents adds a right-hand side menu to the editing window, enabling you to jump to a new section of the article while editing it. Problems can be reported on the Babaco talk page.
One bot / bot task was approved in the past week:
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Wikipedia:Article Incubator, a space for the development of new articles with potential, has been launched by User:Fritzpoll and User:GTBacchus. The aim of the incubator is to save articles from deletion if they show the potential to meet Wikipedia standards. It is suggested as a better solution than userfication as it allows collaborative editing and improvement to continue, and avoids issues over ownership where there are multiple contributors.
User:Fritzpoll says: "We have two major problems around good-faith new articles that aren't up to our standards: the need to get them out of the mainspace and the desire not to bite new editors. The Article Incubator should help with both and we'll take articles from any venue where it is deemed appropriate: CSD, PROD, AfD, AfC, etc." The project is currently looking for more editors to help develop incubated articles.
Wikipedia Takes Manhattan is a planned scavenger hunt and free content photography contest coordinated with Columbia University and New York University students and The Open Planning Project, aimed at illustrating Wikipedia and Streetswiki articles covering the wondrous sights of the isle of Manhattan, and all across the Five Boroughs of New York City.
Scheduled for Saturday, 10 October 2009, this event will be a sequel to last spring's Wikipedia Takes Manhattan (WTM-1) and last fall's Wikis Take Manhattan (WTM-2) event. Participants may register their team here.
On Friday, Wikimedia contract developer Andrew Garrett announced an open beta test of David McCabe's LiquidThreads extension, described as "a next-generation discussion system for MediaWiki". The extension, originally developed as a Google Summer of Code project, replaces talk pages with a full-featured forum system, facilitating more organised and effective discussion.
The second release of features from the Wikimedia usability team was released this week, codenamed Babaco. The features enhance the editing window and editing toolbar, and can be enabled through User preferences, by going to the 'Editing' tab and selecting 'Experimental features.'
In today's online announcement of the winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Nobel Prize committee used free photos from Wikimedia Commons to depict two of the three prize winners, Elizabeth Blackburn and Carol W. Greider. The captions mention the "Attribution Share Alike 3.0" license and duly credit the photos to "Gerbil", a user on Commons and the German Wikipedia who took them in March 2009 at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany.
Since last week the second largest Wikipedia has been left without a central institution for conflict resolution, after seven members of the arbitration committee ("Schiedsgericht") resigned at once, leaving only two active arbitrators, below the minimum of five. The resignation statements cited multiple reasons, among them internal conflicts, lack of a clear mandate in certain matters, and lack of authority within the community. The German Wikipedia had introduced an ArbCom in April 2007, at a time when such an institution already existed on ten other Wikimedia projects (some of which were consulted about their experiences). Discussion is ongoing, with many users opining that electing new arbitrators won't be enough to solve the problem and that some sort of reform is needed. In April 2009, the Spanish Wikipedia voted to abolish its ArbCom ("Comité de Resolución de Conflictos") altogether.
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The Arbitration Committee did not open any cases this week, and closed one, leaving four cases open.
A number of arbitration requests and motions related to the Law affair took place this week; for details, see the full story.
An arbitration request concerning disputes on the "quantum mysticism" article was filed by Lightbound, who alleges that the article suffers from "a history of edit wars and conflicts". The Committee has not yet determined whether the case will be heard.
An arbitration request concerning the conduct of Tcaudilllg was filed by rmcnew, who alleges that Tcaudilllg has engaged in edit-warring and personal attacks. Tcaudilllg has denied the allegations, calling them "ad hominem attacks on [his] character". The Committee appears to have accepted the case to examine the conduct of all involved editors.
An arbitration request concerning the conduct of several editors, filed by Linas, was rejected, as the Committee determined there was no substantive dispute to arbitrate.
The Eastern European mailing list case has entered its third week of deliberations. The case concerns a set of leaked mailing list archives which are alleged to show an extensive history of collusion among numerous editors of Eastern European topics. Standard workshop procedures appear to have been suspended for the case, so normal drafting of proposals by the parties and other editors is not taking place; a draft decision is to be written by arbitrators Coren and Newyorkbrad, but no date for it has been announced.
The Asmahan case has also entered its third week of deliberations. The filing editor, Supreme Deliciousness, alleges that Arab Cowboy has engaged in a variety of disruptive behavior on the "Asmahan" article; Arab Cowboy denies the allegations, and claims that Supreme Deliciousness is pursuing a disruptive agenda of his own. No drafting of proposals has yet taken place; a draft decision is expected from arbitrator FayssalF by 18 October.
The Speed of light case has entered its fifth week of deliberations. The case was filed by Jehochman, who cited concerns about "tendentious editing and disruption" by a large number of editors on the "speed of light" article. Unusually, arbitrator Cool Hand Luke, who is slated to draft the decision in the case, has directly asked the parties "what resolution [they] would like to see from this process, and what (if any) concessions would [they] be willing to give to achieve that end?"; the parties have provided a set of varied responses to this. Workshop proposals have been made by a number of editors, including Cool Hand Luke and fellow arbitrator Vassyana. A draft decision in the case was expected by 30 September.
The Lapsed Pacifist 2 case has entered its seventh week of deliberations, as well as its second week of voting. The filing editor, Steve Crossin, alleges that Lapsed Pacifist has engaged in advocacy, original research, and edit warring, as well as various other improprieties, over a wide range of articles. A temporary injunction prohibits Lapsed Pacifist from editing articles related to the Corrib gas project for the duration of the case. The proposed decision, written by arbitrator Casliber, would place all articles related to the Corrib gas controversy and Shell to Sea under article probation, as well as imposing revert restrictions on Lapsed Pacifist and GainLine and issuing a series of admonishments and reminders. An alternative proposal by arbitrator Rlevse would ban Lapsed Pacifist from the topic area indefinitely.
The Noloop case has been dismissed. The case involved mutual allegations of disruptive conduct by several parties, chiefly Noloop (who had posted a statement that he did not intend to participate in the proceeding) and WebHamster (who was indefinitely blocked on 29 September, over a matter unrelated to the case); with the main parties thus absent, the Committee felt it pointless to continue the case.
The Committee announced that arbitrators Cool Hand Luke, Coren and Roger Davies would comprise the Ban Appeal Subcommittee for the month of October.
The Ban Appeal Subcommittee has requested community comments on appeals by Richard Relucio and Betacommand. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-10-05/Humour
