Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/From the editors Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/Traffic report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/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.
One new bot task has been approved:
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/Opinion
An international outreach team at Google, in collaboration with the Swahili Wikipedia, is sponsoring a Kiswahili Wikipedia Challenge. This is an article writing contest for university students, especially targeting universities in Kenya and Tanzania who have expressed interest in fielding student teams. Swahili Wikipedians involved include Mohammed George, Ndesanjo Macha, Oliver Stegen, and Samuel Klein.
The contest will run from November 25 until January 15, 2010. Participants receive points for new Swahili articles they created based on their quality. The top individuals and universities can win a laptop or a mobile phone, and participants who create at least 10 good articles will receive a certificate of participation. As of November 15, seven universities had registered to field official teams, and roughly 200 students had signed up to participate. University workshops introducing students and teachers to Wikipedia and the benefits of editing will be run this weekend in Nairobi (by Ndesanjo) and Dar es Salaam (by Ndesanjo and Mohammed). Individual registration will remain open for a while longer.
Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.org, joined the Foundation's advisory board this week. He was invited to be an advisor "because of his work as an innovator and evangelist and his understanding of Web-based communities".[2]
Former Wikimedia Trustee Domas Mituzas, a tech-team member and database engineer at Facebook, also joined the advisory board, bringing the total number of advisors to 17.
The mailing list for Wikimedia Foundation issues was closed to general discussion for nearly a week. Brion Vibber placed the list on emergency moderation after a discussion about the recent departure of a Foundation staffer devolved into an argument over acceptable use of the list, followed by a rapidly growing series of personal attacks.
List administrator Austin Hair announced his intent to leave the list on moderation, temporarily limiting posts to official announcements only, and renew the discussion on Meta about improving the quality and usability of the list.
Later that week, Austin and fellow administrator Ryan Lomonaco announced that the list would again be open to general discussion, with the following changes:
It is the hope of the list administrators that these changes will improve the signal:noise ratio of Foundation-l, making it a more productive forum than it has been recently.
Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia was tagged as a guideline on November 11 by User:ThaddeusB. The page offers guidance on how to attribute the original author when copying text from one Wikipedia page to another. The guidance was largely written by User:Moonriddengirl, User:Flatscan, User:FT2 and User:MLauba. The impetus came from a discussion between Flatscan and Moonriddengirl, with Flatscan asking whether "a page named something like WP:Copying within Wikipedia would be useful? It would isolate the editing action from the motivation (e.g. merging or splitting) and move discussion away from Help talk:Merging, which is only relevant sometimes."
The pair worked on the page in Flatscan's user space, before moving it to Project space on October 7. After the page was promoted to Guideline status, a number of users queried the status change on process grounds. TenOfAllTrades responded "the discussion had an open policy RfC tag for two weeks before the unanimous close: [3]. The draft was also announced here at about the same time: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 68#Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia."
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/In focus
The Arbitration Committee opened two cases this week, and did not close any, leaving five cases open.
The Tothwolf case was opened this week. The case, which concerns a long-standing dispute between Tothwolf and several other editors, was filed by third party Jehochman. A draft decision, to be written by arbitrator Wizardman, is expected by 6 December.
The Ottava Rima restrictions was also opened this week. The case was filed by Ottava Rima to appeal an editing restriction imposed following a community discussion on the administrators' noticeboard. A number of proposals have already been made on the workshop page; a draft decision, to be written by arbitrators Wizardman and Rlevse, is expected by 1 December.
The Socionics case has entered its sixth week of deliberations. The case was filed by rmcnew, who alleged that Tcaudilllg has engaged in edit-warring and personal attacks. Tcaudilllg has denied the allegations, calling them "ad hominem attacks on [his] character". No significant drafting has yet taken place; a draft decision, to be written by arbitrator Carcharoth, was expected by 14 November.
The Asmahan case has entered its ninth 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. The drafting arbitrator, John Vandenberg, has posed a number of questions to the parties, and has drafted a number of proposals on the case workshop. A draft decision in the case is expected by 19 November.
The Eastern European mailing list case has entered its ninth week of deliberations, and its fifth week of voting. 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 have been suspended for the case, so normal drafting of proposals by the parties and other editors has not taken place.
The proposed decision, written by arbitrator Coren, would strip Piotrus of his administrator status, ban him for three months, and place him under a topic ban for one year; ban Digwuren and Martintg for three months and also place them under year-long topic bans; and issue a number of admonishments and reminders, as well as an amnesty for all participants of the mailing list not otherwise sanctioned. Additional proposals made by other arbitrators include bans for Tymek, Jacurek, and Radeksz, as well as more nuanced topic bans for Piotrus and Digwuren. Voting on the proposals is divided.
This week, the Committee announced the results of the Audit Subcommittee elections. The top three candidates (Dominic, Jredmond, and Tznkai) were each appointed to the subcommittee. Unexpectedly, the Committee also appointed the fourth-place candidate, MBisanz, as an "alternate member", citing the unusual closeness of the vote. Community reaction to the announcement was mixed. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-11-16/Humour
