Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/From the editors Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/Traffic report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/In the media
On the Wikimedia Techblog, contractor Chad Horohoe announced the first Wikimedia "hack-a-ton", an event when developers, amateur and professional, get together with the explicit aim of bug-fixing and generally getting "down and dirty with the code". Designed to act as a counterpoint to the "MediaWiki Developers' Meetup" in Berlin, which is focused on demonstrations, workshops and small group discussions, the event is scheduled for October 22–24 in Washington DC. Bugs for the weekend are going to be tracked using a new keyword in Bugzilla, "bugsmash". MediaWiki has around 4900 bugs and feature requests outstanding from a total pool of around 25000, though not all relate to the core MediaWiki software.
We continue a series of articles about this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with Samuel Lampa, a biotechnology student at Uppsala University, who describes his project to develop a system for the general import and export of RDF metadata from the Semantic MediaWiki software.
| “ | Some of you might know Semantic MediaWiki, the MediaWiki extension that (if installed, which is not currently the case on Wikimedia wikis) lets users annotate facts in articles with a special syntax, which makes them "machine readable". This allows external software tools to use the facts for powerful stuff like integrating data, querying the data in a bandwidth-saving way, providing powerful search facilities, and so on. For example, on the Stockholm article, one would add: [[is capital of::Sweden]]. Annotations are of course best embedded in templates such as the infobox on the Methane article, where they can make use of the already formatted information without bothering users with additional syntax.
Apart from Wikipedia, MediaWiki is used by numerous organizations and companies for all kinds of knowledge bases. In fields such as construction and engineering there are loads of data available in strictly formalized and standardized document formats that, if stored in Semantic MediaWiki, could be turned into "machine readable", queryable databases, by simply adding semantic annotations in the templates, for example. Now, what if one exposes this data in a standardized format that the rest of the web was using, everyone using the same identifier for "Stockholm" and "Bosch spark plug no 0001"? This would enable connecting all the data available into a big "web of things" instead of "web of documents", which can be much more smartly queried – asking explicitly for "all cities in" "Europe", or "all spark plugs that fits" "Volvo V70", for example, instead of guessing the keyword combination that returns such a document on a search engine like Google. Such a format is already available, and called RDF. Semantic MediaWiki already allows the static export of articles in RDF, but does not allow its import; nor does it provide a method out of the box to select from remote only exactly those pieces of data you want. The RDFIO extension, which I built for the Google Summer of Code, addresses the mentioned gaps by providing ability to import RDF as well as an interface for both the querying and updating of facts via a so-called "SPARQL endpoint" (see here for an example) which external tools can also very easily talk to. This new ability to update semantic facts remotely opens up for some interesting use cases. For example, chemists and biologists using Bioclipse can take their working data and export it to a wiki where their peers can make corrections, before importing it again for further analysis, etc. This workflow is in fact already possible as hinted in this blog post / screencast, and is the focus my current work (progress documented on the blog). For a more technical description as well as download and install instructions, see the RDFIO Extension page. The development, and thoughts behind RDFIO was documented on this blog. |
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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.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/Opinion
Much of the Spaarnestad collection of some 2.5 million images dating back to the late 19th century narrowly escaped destruction in the mid-1980s, when the original publishing house experienced a financial and housing crisis. But prompt action by the newly formed non-profit Spaarnestad Foundation saved this priceless record of modern Dutch history. Private benefactors and the City of Haarlem provided funds for the interim location of the collection, which was transferred to the National Archives in 2008.
The donation is part of the Archive's Images for the Future project to preserve and digitise visual materials, and to make them publicly available, and was the result of a collaboration with Wikimedia Nederland. One of the most significant gifts of historical images ever made to the Wikimedia Foundation, it was marked at a public event in The Hague attended by several current and former politicians, who shared their personal memories surrounding specific images now freely available at Commons. A spokesperson for the Archives said, "Wikipedia is a good, reliable and social platform, and our goal is to disseminate our materials as widely as possible."
Lodewijk Gelauff, Vice Chair of Wikimedia Nederland, said "This generous release will provide photos for many related Wikipedia articles that until now had no image to accompany the article.... One of the best ways to get a good photo is through partnerships like this. [I hope] that soon more institutions will follow the example of the National Archive.... I invite everybody to incorporate the images on their language projects as they become available in the near future on Wikimedia Commons."
In July, French-speaking Wikimedians Ludo29 and Inisheer took part in the "Raid Paris – Cap Nord", a photographic challenge where competitors are ranked by a jury on the basis of the pictures they take during the trip. The journey starts in Paris, goes through Finland, Sweden and Norway, up to North Cape in Norway, the northernmost point of Europe, and ends back in Paris. Over the four weeks, the raiders drove 12,000 km in a car branded with the logos of Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikimédia France. The French chapter provided financial support.
The two Wikimedians took around 300 photographs of landscapes, buildings, fauna and flora of these nordic countries, many of which filled gaps in the Commons. The Wikimedians produced content for Wikinews, including an interview of Philippe Boucher (Google translation), creator and organiser of the raid; they also wrote a report about lifeboatmen in Norway (Google translation).
The Wikimedian team was ranked seventh out of 22 teams in the challenge. The Wikimedia logos on their car provided opportunities to talk with local people about the Foundation and its projects.
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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/In focus
The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases, leaving one open.
This case resulted from the merging of several Arbitration requests on the same topic into a single case, and the failure of a related request for comment to make headway. Innovations have been introduced for this case, including special rules of conduct that were put in place at the start. However, the handling of the case has been criticized by some participants; for example, although the evidence and workshop pages were closed for an extended period, no proposals were posted on the proposed decision page and participants were prevented from further discussing their case on the case pages (see earlier Signpost coverage).
The proposed decision, drafted by Newyorkbrad, Risker, and Rlevse, sparked a large quantity of unstructured discussion, much of it comprising concerns about the proposed decision (see earlier Signpost coverage). A number of users, including participants and arbitrator Carcharoth, made the discussion more structured, but the quantity of discussion has continued to increase significantly. Rlevse had said that arbitrators were trying to complete the proposed decision before September 6, but it was later made clear that he will no longer be voting on this decision. This week, arbitrators made further additions to the proposed decision and further attempts to manage the quantity of discussion.
Before discretionary sanctions can be imposed on an editor, the editor is required to be "given a warning advising of the problems with his or her editing". Additionally, where appropriate, the editor should be "counseled on specific steps that he or she can take to improve" his or her editing. The exception to this requirement is where there is "gross misconduct".
Littleolive oil filed a clarification request regarding this requirement and asked that the revert restriction that was imposed on her by Future Perfect at Sunrise be overturned by the Committee. A few users characterised the request as “forum shopping” and arbitrator Coren alleged that it was “not a request for clarification...but an appeal/protest.” However, the filer stated that the clarification fundamentally affects the restriction and that the Committee should stand by its statements - that discretionary sanctions may be appealed to the Committee.
Arbitrators Newyorkbrad and Roger Davies clarified that the warnings should come from "a neutral third-party" rather than "an opponent in a content dispute". In response, an administrator suggested that the discretionary sanctions from this case be replaced with what some arbitrators refer to as “standard discretionary sanctions”. However, practical issues with the latter approach were pointed out in the Climate change case:
The "standard" sanctions have changed to some extent every time that the Committee has used them, so they're hardly standard. As the wording on that page changes, editors in affected areas will have no way of knowing that the "rules" have changed. This will also lead to disputes about whether the current wording of the so-called standard discretionary sanctions, or the one in effect at the time of the decision, will hold sway. [Even with announcements of changes]...sanctions cover hundreds of pages and potentially apply to thousands of editors. Most of them don't watch WP:AN or the village pumps, and even fewer of them watch arbitration pages.
— Arbitrator Risker, Sentences taken from comments made at 04:30, 6 September 2010 (UTC) and 17:39, 6 September 2010 (UTC) in Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Climate change/Proposed decision.
In light of the clarification, the filer suggested the Committee keep the existing discretionary sanctions wording for this case because it “clearly defines the criteria” making it “easier to determine if the criteria has been met or not”. Recently, she also asked the Committee whether she will need to file another case to deal with the "allegations of wrongdoing" and editors that were "improperly sanctioned".
At the time of writing, arbitrators have not yet responded to the request to reimpose an Eastern European topic ban on Radeksz. It has been over a week since the request was filed.
Arbitrators have responded to the request to impose a topic ban on Ferahgo the Assassin from race and intelligence related articles that has been filed. It has been over a week since the request was filed. Kirill Lokshin stated that he did not see any reason to presume wrong-doing, but Shell Kinney advised Ferahgo the Assassin to avoid editing the topic, particularly in light of policy and the facts of this case. Roger Davies also stated that he would support a topic ban. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-09-20/Humour
