The Toronto-based National Post has claimed that it has evidence that Defence Department computers in Ottawa are being used to "vandalize information on a Wikipedia site critical of the Conservative government's decision to spend billions on a new stealth fighter." This comes less than three weeks after The Signpost reported allegations in the British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph that Members of Parliament were removing evidence of scandals they had been involved in from their Wikipedia articles.
The National Post reported that nine attempts were made to alter Wikipedia's article on the Joint Strike Fighter (Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II), "including the removal of any information that was critical of the Harper government's plan to spend at least $16 billion on the new fighter aircraft. Defence Department computers were also used to insert insults, aimed at Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, into the Wikipedia Joint Strike Fighter page. Ignatieff has questioned the proposed purchase."
It also reported that Wikipedia "traced the alterations to three computers owned by Defence Research and Development Canada's Ottawa offices." It was reported that a "spokesman for Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) said the attempts to alter the Wikipedia page were not part of a concerted effort to stifle debate on the proposed JSF purchase but inappropriate use of government computers by, as yet, an unidentified individual or individuals." Martin Champoux, DRDC's manager of public affairs, "said reminders will be sent to employees about government regulations regarding personal computer use."
An examination by The Signpost confirmed that an IP removed content, claiming in the edit summary that the information removed was "irrelevent [sic] and political and is inconsistent with entries for other countries that all have similar politics associated to the purchase". The edit was reverted, and the IP told to gain consensus on the article's talk page. The same IP then removed content multiple times (here, here, here, here, here). Then the same IP appeared to change tactic, introducing biased content (here) and attacking opposition Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff (here). The article was then semi-protected.
The IP address is registered to Canadian Department of National Defence, and has now been blocked "for a short time".
On June 19, the wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling drew half a million visitors to Stockholm, Sweden. Among the roughly 2,300 accredited media representatives covering the events were two Wikimedians, whose accreditation had been obtained with help from the Swedish and German Wikimedia chapters. One of them, User:Prolineserver, last week described his experience in a blog post (in German) for Wikimedia Deutschland. Apart from the royal family, the events presented opportunities for portraying the guests of honor, who numbered more than a thousand. Some of these guests still await identification on the photographs now at Commons. Apart from the two accredited Wikimedians, other users took pictures; according to Wikimedia Sverige[1] "at least 10 persons have uploaded 277 photos and videos to Commons". The GLAMorous tool shows that many photos from the wedding are already in use on several Wikipedias, and received a significant number of page views in June alone.
In a recent press release (English version), Wikimedia Italia voiced strong concerns about a bill that was being discussed before the Italian Chamber of Deputies, having already been approved by the Senate. According to the Italian chapter, the bill would extend a stringent right of reply to all websites, imposing restrictions they believe "will damage the Italian participation to the Internet and especially Wikipedia".
| “ | Based on the current formulation of the bill, rectifications are compulsory and non-commentable. Anybody who considers that his dignity is being damaged by any information (even if true) presented in the encyclopedia would have the right to get that information adjusted according to his wish.
Rectifications have 'to be published within forty-eight hours from the request, with the same graphical layout, the same accessibility and the same visibility of the news they refer to', and without any further comments, on penalty of a fine between 7,500 and 12,500 euros [$9,750–$16,250]. This has two main effects. First, the encyclopedia could possibly not ensure a neutral point of view, because it would have to include unmodifiable, uncommentable opinions even in absence of a reliable source, in opposition to verifiable facts. In addition, since Wikipedia has no editorial board, it would be impossible for any single person to ensure timely publication of the rectification, so that the bill would expose Wikipedia and its users to the risk of strong economic penalties. |
” |
As noted a few days later by Wikimedia Italia, the vote on the bill appears to have been postponed until September.
Last month, three English-language chapter reports were released, in which Wikimedia chapters across the globe describe their recent activities.
Wikimedians at the Italian chapter started their "Wikimedia News" bulletin with an editorial describing the results of a survey on what readers think of Wikimedia Italia. The organization will soon open its own office in Rome, thanks to an "agreement between the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Rome, the Libraries of the City of Rome and the association Liber Liber". Apart from "video editing, e-book digitizing/layout and audio editing for the creation of audiobooks", the location will be used "to host civil service volunteers and interns, to organize courses and cultural events, in collaboration with the adjacent library "Vaccheria Nardi", which has large rooms with multimedia stations, area conferences, and of course reading rooms (the structure as a whole has three buildings)".
Wikimedia Sverige (Wikimedia Sweden) announced in their June 2010 report that they have sponsored a photohunt in the middle of Sweden (Bergslagssafari). Thus far, this has resulted in the uploading of pictures to Commons and media attention. Planning has begun for a similar event in the south of Sweden in September.
Wikimedia Deutschland's monthly Chapter Report for June 2010 mentioned preparations for a new phase of its school project, which educates pupils about the proper use of Wikipedia. The report described the Chapter's support for digitization projects on Wikisource, and mentioned discussions about its "community budget" and various political activities. Preparations for the Wikipedia academy, which will be held in November 2010, are taking shape. The main context of this year's event is the Year of Science 2010 "Future of Energy". At the event, the "Zedler-Medaille" (Zedler Medal) for a high-quality encyclopedia article in German will be awarded for the fourth time. This is a collaboration of Wikimedia Deutschland with an academic publisher and a scholarly society.
The Globe and Mail recently interviewed Sue Gardner, the Foundation's executive director, in the Wikimedia office. In the piece, Wikipedians do it for love. Really. Gardner is described as "both old-fashioned and radical, a mega-voltage do-gooder, rebellious in her idealism and provocative in her optimism." Gardner says she "grew up in a public service family, we wanted to make the world a better place, and we were a good Canadian earnest family. I wanted to make good quality information available to people so they could make good decisions about their lives. At the time, the way to do that was through traditional journalistic methods.”
The report says that "Wikipedia, according to Ms. Gardner, is altruistic, its mission (one of “radical openness, radical freedom and radical convergence”) being to serve up objective information, aggregated and synthesized by volunteers in a non-commercial, credentials-neutral environment: You’re as likely to read a text written by a high-school student as one by a PhD."
"I love that at any time, when I'm asleep in California, there’s a Wikipedian somewhere fixing a typo or polishing an article", Gardner said. "Wikipedia is like the National Parks Service. The Internet is a vast space and it will only continue to grow, but in the vastness you still need space for parks or public libraries.... Wikipedians do it for love, for mission-type reasons. They don't want to be paid. They want to be praised." She described a stereotypical editor as someone who "always felt a little bit alone. They're the ones who always carry around knapsacks full of reference books. They were the ones picked last for teams and were the smartest kids in the class. Those are our people!"
Gardner concluded by saying that to achieve the vision of Wikipedia as "the sum of all the world's knowledge ... I want more women, more older people, more people from Africa!" She said that “we Wikipedians are good talkers! We love to chat. And proselytize,... We just care. A lot!"
Sue Gardner also recently started her own blog. The first two posts describe her thoughts about the Foundation's new revenue strategy (focusing on small donations instead of major donors and large grants), and about the Foundation as a workplace and the characteristics she is looking for in new hires.
Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales, also gave an interview recently, to Slate's Kathryn Schulz. When asked how he became interested in encyclopedias, he replied "it was pure accident. I was circulating an idea for a Web site around different Internet acquaintances and one of them happened to be Jimmy Wales. He responded by saying, 'Well, I'm trying to get this encyclopedia project going; would you be interested in coming to work on it?'.... I found that it was a fascinating problem to organize people online to create encyclopedias." Asked whether he had looked at historical precedents while doing so, Sanger said:
| “ | When I was first starting Nupedia and Wikipedia, everything was moving so fast that I didn't have time to go back and read Diderot and D'Alembert and all that, which would have been useful. I did read them later. I can't remember when I read The Professor and the Madman, but that made a big impression [on] me.... It actually resonated very much with the experience I had trying to organize Wikipedia. It's very interesting to me that here you have the editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, and one of his most prolific contributors was in an insane asylum. A lot of the most prolific Wikipedians, or at least many of them, also seem to have a screw loose. But that doesn't mean their work is useless. | ” |
Sanger said there are "a lot of theories" on why people edit Wikipedia. "But I think the most important thing to say is that Wikipedia has very few practical constraints about people behaving according to normal rules of politeness and fair dealing. They've got a zillion rules, of course—that's part of the problem—but there is no easy way to rein in the bad actors."
Asked why he left Wikipedia, Sanger also reiterated his often-stated criticism that Wikipedia is hostile to experts. He continued: "I don't like the word 'control', because I myself am pretty libertarian in my outlook on these things, quite frankly. It makes me nervous to think of handing the keys over to the experts. But one thing that Wikipedia could do that would not spoil the system—except in the sense that it would cause a huge ruckus among Wikipedians—is simply create a program in which articles are reviewed or rated by experts".
Sanger criticized Wikipedia's quality, too: "Wikipedia frequently gets things wrong—or, more often, states things in a misleading or biased way." However, Sanger also acknowledged that "When it comes to just basic facts—statistics about geography or demographics, things like that—then as far I can tell, and as far as I've ever heard, those are fairly accurate. They are probably not much less reliable than any traditionally fact-checked source."
The interview touched on Citizendium (described by Slate as "a rival online encyclopedia"), where Sanger had tried to avoid what he sees as Wikipedia's errors, and whose "Approved articles" constitute such an expert review program. Asked why his predictions of "explosive growth" had not come true for Citizendium, Sanger said:
| “ | If there's one bottleneck that has made it more difficult for us to grow than Wikipedia, it's the sign-up bottleneck. One of the things that allowed Wikipedia to grow explosively and with as little friction as possible is that it was not necessary to even create an account in order to participate. On Citizendium, you have to sign up for an account and get yourself approved with an e-mail address, so that adds some friction ... | ” |
(Citizendium's sign-up process requires users to state their real name and to provide evidence to verify it; a free email address alone is insufficient.)
See also last week's Signpost coverage about the ongoing efforts to give Citizendium a sustainable structure before Sanger's long-announced stepping down as editor-in-chief: Citizendium still in transition after one year.
CNet last week previewed "Discover", an upcoming software application for the Apple iPad (submitted to the App store on July 27), which renders Wikipedia as a magazine; users turn the pages by swiping their finger across the screen. An executive of Cooliris, the company behind the app, said "this new application takes structured data—in this case Wikipedia, as the starting point. We've then created a templatized starting page and structured data from Wikipedia to let users navigate the depths of Wikipedia in a beautiful and efficient way". The app generates magazin-covers using images from the article. It launches by displaying the Today's featured article and Picture of the day, as explained in a promotional video. The video ends with the tagline "Discover by Cooliris. The elegant and effortless way to enjoy Wikipedia".
The website padgadget.com described Wikipedia as "a tremendous tool for learning and searching for information. But, one of the biggest challenges is the breadth and depth of information provided by Wikipedia, which can sometimes make it difficult for all of us to navigate its content." The report goes on to say that the app "solves" this problem. "The elegant magazine style interface provides you with a simplified 'flow' navigation, glossy photos and the ability to dive more deeply into a new concept or information using smart search on Wikipedia."
As observed by Kurier (the Signpost's German sister publication), "edit" links, site notices and links to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation appear to be missing, as do copyright notices. Instead, according to CNet, advertisements by Cooliris will be displayed (the app will be cost-free for users). According to Jay Walsh, Wikimedia's Head of Communications, the Foundation appears to "have had no conversations with Cooliris about this app, nor about any topic."
Apps for viewing Wikipedia have long been popular on the iPhone, too. Several are available, apart from the free official app provided by the Wikimedia Foundation (see Signpost coverage about Wikipedia on iOS devices: May 2010, March 2010, October 2009, January 2009, December 2008, and February 2008). In March this year, the "Articles for iPhone" app (see Signpost coverage) sold more than 10,000 copies "within a short week", corresponding to more than $30,000 in revenue. It is also available for the iPad, and last week its developer asked users whether they would like it to have the capability to edit and compare revisions on the iPad.
In related news, Amazon recently released a new version of its Kindle app, updated for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch, which enriched its ebook reading interface with the option to look up words in Wikipedia and Google, using an external browser (Wired: Kindle for iOS Brings iPad Search, Dictionary, Fast-Switching).
Somehow on the other end of the spectrum of mobile Wikipedia reading devices, Wired last week reported on a new device, projected to cost only $20, that will allow every Wikipedia article to be read without an Internet connection. Called the Humane Reader, the gadget is aimed at students in developing countries, and uses very basic technology to reduce costs: It is powered by two 8-bit microcontrollers and connects to a TV set instead of using a dedicated display. The developer, computer consultant Braddock Gaskill, told Wired that "It’s meant to be an absolute basic system that can deliver Wikipedia and e-books for educational and non-profit use." He went on to say that "once you put these in the hands of the students, they can, not just learn from it, but also hack it ... The combination of a computing platform and a encyclopedia opens up the world to them."
A "viewpoint paper" (abstract) published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA) asks: "Wikipedia and osteosarcoma: a trustworthy patients' information?" The two-page article by six authors from the Medical University of Graz, Austria is a response to a paper published last year in the same journal, Seeking Health Information Online: Does Wikipedia Matter? (coauthored by Wikipedian TimVickers), which had found that "[b]ased on its search engine ranking and page view statistics, the English Wikipedia is a prominent source of online health information".
The recent paper described the results of a comparison of the English Wikipedia's article on osteosarcoma, a kind of bone cancer, (in its version as of 3 April 2009) with "the patient version and the health professional version of the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) website as 'official' reference websites". Each of the three texts was graded according to 20 questions, on a 0–3 scale. Three examples where Wikipedia scored zero were "Should radiotherapy normally be applied?", "Name three histological subtypes", "Do you find web-links to study centers (EURAMOS)?". The answers "were discussed with a member of the German board for guidelines in musculoskeletal tumor surgery (AL) and, furthermore, verified with authoritative resources and international guidelines." Wikipedia received 33 of 60 possible points, the NCI's patient version 40 points, and its professional version 50 points. However, only the difference between Wikipedia and the professional version was found to be statistically significant. As an example of Wikipedia's shortcomings, the authors specified that "important information on clinical studies or possible study centers (European and American Osteosarcoma Study Group (EURAMOS)) was missing." On the other hand, they noted that:
Despite the earlier remark about statistical significance, the paper concluded that:
Both the conclusion about information quality and the remark about ease of use are somewhat different from the results of another recent study that had also compared cancer information on Wikipedia with that provided online by the NCI, based on a slightly larger sample size – ten different cancer types (see Signpost coverage: Wikipedia's cancer coverage is reliable and thorough, but not very readable).
But for readers who think Lenssen is making a quick buck, the website goes on to report that he is "giving 50 percent of the revenues to the Wikimedia foundation, and making a free, editable version available for free download, in accordance with Wikipedia’s rules." On Amazon, the book is currently listed for $29, with "Authors of Wikipedia" named as the author. Lenssen himself explains that his original idea had been to "merely compile an encyclopedia from Wikipedia, a book for perhaps a small but dedicated group of fans", but then the project took a life of of its own:
"What I did was edit the Wikipedia articles through heavy or light rewriting, depending on what I figured the article would need to look good in book form. I then went to find additional information from other sources where I felt having more could be fun, and I added screenshots. And then I conducted interviews with many people who were involved in producing the classic graphic adventures."
This week, we took a look at the large WikiProject Images and Media, originally started in May 2008 as WikiProject Graphics. Throughout the project's history, it has absorbed the resources and scope of many other projects, the latest of which is WikiProject Photography. Both WP Photography and WP Images and Media sought to improve the quality of images on Wikipedia, although WP Photography was hampered by confusion as to what the project's scope was. Articles about photography in general were mistakenly tagged with the WikiProject Photography banner, resulting in an unwieldy collection of articles and images maintained by members who preferred to shoot photographs and critique images for featured status rather than delving into historical photographs and photography techniques.
WikiProject Images and Media also dealt with identity problems early in the project's history. While it was named WikiProject Graphics, the project struggled with the variety of different graphics on Wikipedia, resulting in the project's scope continuing to increase. WikiProject Images and Media eventually absorbed several other projects, including WikiProject Free images, WikiProject Fair use, WikiProject Moving free images to Wikimedia Commons, and WikiProject Illustration. A variety of other semi-active and inactive projects have been proposed to be merged into WikiProject Images and Media, with varying results.
WikiProject Images and Media currently covers all pages in the "File" namespace. An important part of WikiProject Images and Media's scope is reviewing images to be designated as featured pictures or valued pictures. Other tasks spearheaded by the project include suggesting better names for images, moving free media to the Commons, addressing copyright and fair-use issues, fulfilling image requests, and nominating unsuitable media for deletion.
This week we interviewed Tim Pierce, a member of WikiProject Photography who has transitioned to WikiProject Images and Media, which he believes "is a better home for me anyway." He hopes that a new WikiProject Photography will someday be born to "focus on photography technique, technology and history." Tim Pierce has fulfilled several requests for photographs, an effort we wanted to know more about:
When asked about the project's most pressing needs, Tim Pierce replied that "If you have a camera, start taking pictures! If you don't know where to start, look in Wikipedia requested photographs in places and find the state, province, county or city where you live. Those categories have a link to a page that plots all of the nearby requested photos on a Google map, so you can see at a glance where to go to take a picture that Wikipedia needs." For editors who don't have a camera, Tim Pierce says "consider going through Category:Articles which may no longer need images. These are articles that are flagged with {{reqphoto}} as needing an image, but now have one or more images on the main page. Sometimes these "images" are just logos or icons that don't really fulfill the request, but in many cases the {{reqphoto}} template is no longer needed and can be removed. There are thousands of requests in this category and we could use more people to help weed out the stale photo requests!"
Next week's Report will soar high above the clouds. Until then, stay aloft with our previous Reports in the archive.
Reader comments
The Signpost congratulates five editors on their promotion to adminship:
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status:
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Choice of the week: The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Brianboulton to select what he believes is the best FA for the week. He wrote: "I was tempted to choose Edmund Evans for the beauty of its images, but in the end I decided on Montague Druitt. Unsolved mysteries, even 120-year-old ones, are endlessly fascinating, especially when told in sparse, lucid prose which is sometimes deliciously dry. I loved this line: 'Druitt, his mother and his sister Georgiana were invited to a ball in honour of Clarence at the home of Lord Wimborne on 17 December 1888, although they did not attend because by that time Montague was dead, his mother was in an asylum, and his sister was expecting her second child.' Seems like some people will do anything to avoid their social obligations."
Four featured articles were delisted:
Eight lists were promoted:
Choice of the week: We asked regular nominator and reviewer Rambo's Revenge for his pick of this week's crop: "Look through the log of promoted featured lists and you will see that sport figures frequently. However, this is not something to be bemoaned. Even as a baseball-ignorant Brit, the 500 home run club stood out to me as an exemplary list. It uses sortabilty to show how, chronologically, members of the club appear to have a pathway into the Hall of Fame. A less common theme is architectural lists; the newly promoted Historic Chapels Trust is a beautifully complete piece of content that not only gives a rounded explanation and history of the Trust but details, descriptions and, where possible, images of each constituent chapel." Pictures from both lists appear above.
One topic was promoted:
Eleven images were promoted:
Choice of the week: Juliancolton was a member of the 2009 Organizing Committee for the Commons Picture of the Year Award (see Signpost coverage). We invited him to choose his number-one featured picture for the week. "In my opinion", he told us, "the Uluguru Mountain Ranges (top) panorama is among the most impressive images promoted this week. Aside from helping to fill a notorious gap in coverage of Africa on Wikipedia, it has impressive technical quality. Panoramas are difficult to successfully create, and this particular one expresses quite a bit of skill on the photographer's part."
Two featured pictures were delisted:
The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving two open.
The release of the latest version of MediaWiki (Version 1.16) was announced this week (Wikimedia Techblog); a separate, minor update (Version 1.15.5) was also released for operators unwilling or unable to upgrade fully. Both versions were billed as fixing an important "data leakage vulnerability" (wikitech-l mailing list). The milestone has little inherent significance for Wikimedians, since Wikimedia Foundation wikis run their own version of the MediaWiki software, which is usually well ahead of the official release. MediaWiki was originally developed with Wikipedia in mind but is now in use in some form or other on a number of other popular sites, including the commercial wiki host Wikia. System administrators of these other installations are encouraged to upgrade, both for security reasons and to take advantage of features introduced since the 1.15 milestone, reached more than a year ago. However, Wikimedians can be hopeful that the release is a sign of strength in the development community.
The handling of user passwords on 150 websites was analysed in a recent study. Joseph Bonneau and Sören Preibusch, researchers from the University of Cambridge who conducted the study (The password thicket: technical and market failures in human authentication on the web, see also blog post and downloadable data), called it "the first large-scale empirical analysis of password implementations deployed on the Internet". Wikipedia received a "password security score" of 4 out of 10, falling short of the optimal score with respect to several evaluation criteria: the password selection advice does not prohibit dictionary words, a minimum length (>1) is not required, the use of numbers or symbols in the password is not enforced, federated identity services are not supported (although a MediaWiki extension for OpenID exists), the user list is not protected from probing (the list is intentionally available), and TLS is normally not used to protect password submissions (the password is sent in cleartext when logging in. However, the secure server provides encrypted connections).
Asked by The Signpost for comment, Sören Preibusch said:
| “ | Wikipedia exhibits a unique set of password practices [see "Clustering" on p. 28]. The site is doing a decent job in preventing password guessing by requiring captcha-solving after three attempts -- one of the lowest limits observed in the market. Creating a random new password instead of sending out the old password during password reset is another positive feature. However, Wikipedia makes it easy to probe usernames through the enrolment, log-in, and reset forms. Whilst this is a deliberate and documented practice, and usernames associated with administrative privileges are also available through published lists, it leads to a lower password score in our survey.
Much security could be gained by making encrypted transmission of the password the default. Imposing a minimum length is another low-hanging fruit. Similarly, a graphical password strength indicator could complement the ample password advice already available on the sign-up page. Given the technology-savvy population of Wikipedia account holders, HTTP Digest authentication may improve security without making TLS the default. Wikipedia's threat model and its specific motivations for deploying passwords, such as reputation-building and persistent display preferences, would seem to make OpenID a viable alternative to passwords. I think it is unfortunate that Wikipedia is not yet OpenID-enabled. |
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See also past Signpost coverage about password security on Wikipedia: Four administrator accounts desysopped after hijacking, vandalism, Administrator status restored to five accounts after emergency desysopping (about a 2007 incident which led to some changes in MediaWiki and the start of the page Wikipedia:Security), Blank passwords eliminated for security reasons (2006), Password security upgraded after Slashdot furor (2005, about an incident after which salted passwords were introduced).
In an unrelated announcement, research published by Qualys – a private software security firm – has shown that 19 in every 20 MediaWiki installations are running software old enough to include "serious vulnerabilities", compared with fewer than 1 in 20 Wordpress installations (Wikimedia Techblog). Developer Tim Starling (one of only a handful of paid MediaWiki programmers) explained the startling figure:
| “ | While WordPress's web-based upgrade utility certainly has a positive impact on security, I feel I should point out that what WordPress counts as a serious vulnerability does not align with MediaWiki’s definition of the same term. For instance, if a web-based user could execute arbitrary PHP code on the server, compromising all data and user accounts, we would count that as the most serious sort of vulnerability, and we would do an immediate release to fix it.... in WordPress, they count this as a feature, and all administrators can [execute such code].... If you are running MediaWiki in a CMS-like mode, with whitelist edit and account creation restricted, then I think it's fair to say that in terms of security, you're better off with MediaWiki.
However, the statistics presented by Qualys show that an alarming number of people are running versions of MediaWiki older than 1.14.1, which was the most recent fix for an XSS vulnerability exploitable without special privileges. There is certainly room for us to do better. |
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Note: not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
xxlimit=max" in the API, broken by recent updates.
