WikiProject Smithsonian Institution

WikiProject news

News in brief

• WikiProject Holidays could use some help improving Halloween-related articles covered by the Halloween Task Force
• WikiProject Wikify is hosting a Wikification Backlog Elimination Drive this month. Join the effort and earn a barnstar along the way.
• The October WikiProject Universities Collaborations of the Month are Drexel University and Osaka University

Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

This week, we discovered a project with real-life coordination. WikiProject Smithsonian Institution is a collaboration between Wikipedians and the staff of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. The project was born out of the 10th DC Meetup held this past summer when several editors met with Smithsonian personnel to plan the project's goals and organization. The project covers all of the Smithsonian's museums, artifacts, animals, notable curators and personnel, and other programs affiliated with or sponsored by the Smithsonian. WikiProject Smithsonian Institution is one of Wikipedia's GLAM projects, an initiative to get galleries, libraries, archives, and museums involved in the creation of content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites. The two other current GLAM projects cover the British Museum and the Children's Museum of Indianapolis.

This week, we interviewed five members of the project: Accotink2, a retired engineer in Alexandria, Virginia; Sadads, an undergraduate studying history and English at James Madison University; Victuallers, a teacher in Derby, England; Taoboy49, an instructional technologist working at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian after receiving a doctorate in Instructional Technology from the University of Texas in 2003; and Aude, a geographer and web developer in Washington DC with a special interest in the digital humanities.

How was this project formed? What happened at the DC Meetup earlier this year? Does the real-life connection between editors help your efforts?

Sadads: User:Pharos contacted me at the beginning of the summer after meeting with one of the employees of the Smithsonian at a GLAM conference in Colorado early in the year. At the conference, she told him that the Smithsonian was beginning to explore more web activities, and the examples of GLAM participation which they had discussed at the conference, including the experience with the Federal Archives and the upcoming British Museum collaboration. Pharos and I had talked previously at a meetup in the DC area last winter, and he knew I was enthusiastic about building a stronger volunteer community in the DC area, to bring Wikimedia DC beyond a gather and get dinner and drinks kind of group. I began talking to the Smithsonian employee, and a meetup was scheduled at the end of June, so we got some of the more experienced editors in the area to meet with a our contact and a handful of other Smithsonian staff at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and floated ideas for participation. In order to facilitate their interest and to create a central place to discuss Smithsonian collaboration activities, we formed the GLAM/SI page and project.

Victuallers: Taoboy49, who, when he started editing Wikipedia back in November 2009, enjoyed the idea of doing some more on Smithsonian topics. He is an active member of the British Museum Project who had been working with Smithsonian Institute Resources [sic]. He was already keen to join the nascent project in the US but could not attend the meeting. He cited the Smithsonian's great willingness to share pictures, saying that images released into Commons by public institutions have inspired new Wikipedia articles – many are from the Library of Congress and the SI. Instead, he attended the August 19 Wikipedia training session.

Aude: I couldn't be at the June meetup :( but we made initial contact with the Smithsonian American Art Museum for the Wikipedia:Wikipedia Loves Art event in February 2009. It wasn't totally successful, not advertised well and had low participation in DC, but we learned some lessons and the Smithsonian is still interested in working with us. In the past year, I have become much more involved in the DC tech and social media community, and have run into Smithsonian people at various meetups and able to help stimulate interest in such collaboration and simply get the word out more about what Wikipedia volunteers are doing and that we have an active Wikipedia meetup group in DC. I have made it to some recent museum-tech meetups, getting a better sense of what the Smithsonian and others are interested... especially strong interest in mobile apps and location-based technology. As a geographer, OpenStreetMap contributor & web developer, in addition to Wikipedian, I envision ways that I can contribute in this space and establish a good working relationship with the DC area museum-tech and digital humanities communities. For the Wikipedia-Smithosnian collaboration, User:Sadads took the lead on moving things forward on the collaboration, and I'm happy to help move things forward in any way that's helpful.

What resources has the Smithsonian Institution provided to Wikipedia editors? Have there been any particularly interesting contributions of information or images?

Sadads: Thus far we have only done a close collaboration with a NMAI curator (User:Taoboy49) on Ernest Spybuck where he used his expertise and ability to acquire resources and images to produce a rather good article on a sparcely covered topic. He found our support to be very good, and is recommending it to his fellow employees. Their has also been some discussion of using some of User:Multichill's experience with uploading batch images, to bring in some large groups of images. However, a complicated terms of use on the Smithsonian's online content has slowed this image acquisition process. They have mixed copyright on much of their content because of their mixed Federal and private funding for creating the content. Where normally government related publication in the United States has a pretty straight forward copyright, the Smithsonian falls into a grey area. Hopefully we will be getting images some time in the future. I think their is interest on both sides, we just need to determine what they are willing to release. I think, to a large extent, many of us went into this project with a mindset more like the British Museum collaboration, where we are looking to get general support on content, not just media acquisition. The Spybuck article is a good case study, and it sounds like we should have some archivists participating in a similar article writing process soon. Hopefully with these under our belts, we can move to more interaction with the museum staff.

Victuallers: The resource that inspired me was a picture of Henry Morton Stanley that had gathered a lot of interest as it had a small black boy in the background. Someone suggested that this boy had a name and he was called "Kalulu". I spent several days researching this boy and I was able to find that he died still a teenager. But in his short life he travelled the world, had his model in Madame Tussaud's and attended David Livingstone's funeral as well as having a relationship of some intimacy with Stanley. The article got 10,000 hits on Did You Know and has been recreated in three other languages.

Taoboy49: One of the proposed articles for the National Museum of the American Indian was one on Ernest Spybuck, a Shawnee. The suggestion struck me because a few years back I got to see the originals with a group of Absentee Shawnee students who were doing a multimedia project on their culture utilizing our collection. The paintings were striking, especially with Shawnee culture bearers sharing their insight about what Spybuck was illustrating. Having easy access to Smithsonian Libraries with help from our NMAI librarian helped a great deal. Our photo archivist and photo services staff were able to share hi resolution images of Spybuck and a couple of his paintings to illustrate the article. NMAI has its own Collections Online project we were able to link to that had images and catalog information for most of the Spybuck items in our collections.

Aude: Focusing on what the Smithsonian can give us is not the right approach. Rather, what can Wikipedians offer, in terms of workshops, mentorship, etc. to help Smithsonian curators and other employee help improve content in relevant areas that they have expertise in? Down the road, I think there is opportunity to work with Smithsonian archivists on incorporating historical images in Wikimedia projects. I do anticipate challenges, especially in dealing with images of artwork (see commons:Derived works), trying to determine who has copyright, etc. Photographs of animals at the National Zoo and such might be more suitable, until we have greater capacity to deal with complex issues of copyright, and simply focusing on writing articles is great.

What are the toughest hurdles for museum staff who are beginning to use Wikipedia? What efforts have been made to introduce the Wiki software and lessen the learning curve?

Accotink2: The COI rules, they tend to be academics used to research citations

Sadads: Explaining notability and contributing without Spamming provided a very interesting set of discussions at our first Workshop. Also, we are working to figure out exactly what audience within the Smithsonian can best interact with us: curators, web staff, interns or volunteers. We need to get a few more case studies together to show the Smithsonian community how beneficial the interaction is, no matter who participates.

Taoboy49: Personally, I didn't find the COI policy hard to understand or adhere to, so it wasn't a hurdle to me at all. I have an unbiased interest in just about everything. The hardest thing for me was figuring out what digital resources I could share without violating SI policy on rights, which remains unclear to me. I'm hoping our working group can come up with some clearer guidelines to help SI editors make good decisions about what we can use, what we can't use, and how to quickly resolve the trickier decisions. For instance, some Spybuck paintings illustrate some "sensitive" religious ceremonies, and sharing those could alienate some of the museum's Native American constituents. Deciding not to use those images falls outside of mere copyright considerations.

And yes, the software and culture of using it is positively Byzantine, but I learned quickly that there is some real intelligence lurking behind it all in the guise of watchful, experienced Wikipedians. Thanks, everybody (you know who your are).

Aude: The COI policy is basic common sense and I think not a big deal for Smithsonian staff. Their mission to "increase & diffusion of knowledge" [7] fits nicely with the Wikimedia's vision "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". [8] What will be trickier is if/when we get to the point where the Smithsonian wants to contribute images of artworks and other materials, where we need to evaluate copyright issues. Having been around Wikipedia for a while now, it's still complex to understand some of the intricities of copyright law.

Has the project developed close ties with any other WikiProjects? Are there any plans to collaborate with other projects on articles?

Sadads: We have several projects which have volunteered ambassadors to work with us, if their topic area wants to be worked on by someone from the Smithsonian Institution side.

Victuallers: I am a member of the DYK, Derbyshire and British Museum project. So I guess I am collaborating, but I have had no contact with any other SI project members although I have been thanked by an SI staff member I think. (I neec to look back and check).

Aude: I haven't worked on any WikiProject collaborations yet for the Smithsonian project. There might be opportunity to collaborate with Wikipedia:WikiProject Visual arts or the various WikiProjects for zoology topics.

What are your impressions of the other GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) projects that have been started in the past year. Did you participate in the British Museum or Children's Museum of Indianapolis projects? Is it likely that more of these collaborations between Wikipedians and museums will occur in the future?

Sadads: I really would like to mimic the standard and approach of Liam at the British Museum, where his interaction with them was more about accessing their resources comprehensively instead of focusing on just recieving media for the commons. However, our lack of someone inside the Smithsonian, has made this harder.

I really like what we are doing with the Children's Museum, it seems having someone inside who is an employee creates a little more sense of urgency on the participation. This last summer I interned with the United States Army Center of Military History, and found that the historical and scholarly community there isn't really thinking about Web media, instead focusing on their research and traditional scholarly publication. It was only through my more forward thinking supervisor that I could begin working with Wikipedia content related to the Center's scope of history. However, even he was more concerned with a concrete connection to our webpage's traffic, not necessarily the improvement of another webpages's content accuracy. In order to prove the benefit to the Center, I had to intersperse edits that had to do with content with ones that made more consistent the presentation of references related to the Center's public domain content. I think the more urgent thing for Wikipedians, and anyone who thinks about bringing free culture in the GLAM community, is rather getting that GLAM community thinking about the web as interactive collaborative reciprocal tool for knowledge distribution, not an extension of their Public Relations Face. I don't think everyone is quite there yet. But, the presence of an employee or full time volunteer actively working within the organization seems to be much more effective in reinforcing the urgency of the GLAM communities's participation in the collaborative web.

Victuallers: I have attended two meetings at the British Museum collaborated on an FA and a two dozen or other articles have been created. I have only done one with reference to the SI but the only feedback so far has been an invitation to do this interview. It has to be noted that Liam's role was pivotal at the start but the BM project still has quite a few active members and the BM curators are helpful when approached.

Aude: I'm well aware of what User:Witty lama has been doing and it's good inspiration for us. :) Our capacity as the DC area Wikipedia meetup group is a bit limited right now, so we can't take on too many projects and then do them poorly because of lack of capacity. If/when we move towards forming a chapter in DC or expanding Wikimedia NYC to incorporate us and larger areas of the Northeast or US East Coast, then I think that will help. Wikimedia Germany and France, for example, get some steady income through the annual fundraiser, can apply for grants, etc. I think some resources would be helpful for us to hire an intern or provide a stipend for a "Wikipedian in Residence" at a museum. As a side note, I am exploring possible collaboration opportunities with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) through Carl Malamud's FedFlix project, and looking at ways Wikipedians can be helpful in that effort. Due to limit local capacity of Wikipedians, I can't promise much right now for other possible collaborations, don't want to take away resources from the Smithsonian project, etc.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Victuallers: Pleased to see the people who are putting together these interviews read the project page. It is the evidence of whats happening.

Sadads: We encourage everyone to help us develop content related to the Smithsonian and post it on our project page. Every little bit helps!

Accotink2: Sadads drove, I rode along.

Taoboy49: I have started working on another article, and I'm looking forward to doing more in the future. I don't know if I will become a prolific Wikipedian, but I find the culture and the technology fascinating, and I'm happy to be a small part of it.

Aude: I very much look forward to seeing how this project progresses! User:Sadads has been awesome, as have key folks at the Smithsonian to have vision to try new things like working with Wikipedians! Oh, and we have a meetup coming up on October 23, held in conjunction with MediaWiki Hack-A-Ton DC. If you are in DC or need an excuse to visit DC, please join us and we can discuss more about the Smithsonian collaboration, anything else Wikipedians and folks want to chat about, and "geek out" with some good food & beverages. :)

Next week, we'll be searching our pockets for spare change. Until then, admittance to the WikiProject Report Archive is free.

Reader comments

2010-10-11

Big week for ships and music

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Tony1 and Dabomb87

A 17th-century painting of Orpheus with his viol (left), and the front cover of the 1609 published score, from L'Orfeo, Claudio Monteverdi's landmark opera from the early Italian baroque, and our featured article Choice of the week.

Administrator

The Signpost welcomes Eagles247 (nom) as a new admin. Eagles247, from Philadelphia, has been editing since May 2009, with 18,000 edits, 50 new articles, two GAs and nine DYKs to his name. His interests include American football articles, and he is a member of WikiProject National Football League and WikiProject College football. He intends to participate at AIV, AFD, MFD and NPP, and has increasing expertise at sockpuppet investigations.

Featured articles

Six articles were promoted to featured status:

• SMS Baden (1915) (nom), was Germany's last battleship of World War I, and the only capital ship not successfully sunk in Scapa Flow after the end of the war (nominated by Parsecboy).
• Richard Cantillon (nom), although an obscure figure even within his profession of economics, is considered by some people to be the true father of economics (as opposed to Adam Smith), according to nominator Catalan. (picture at right)
• Caesium (nom), straight from the periodic chart on your high-school chemistry classroom wall, this metal reacts explosively with frozen water, but melts in your hand (Nergaal).
• L'Orfeo (nom) (1567–1643), the first opera by Claudio Monteverdi, the Italian composer who was the turning point between the European renaissance and baroque. This featured article completes a tryptich of his three surviving operas, all nominated by Brianboulton. (audio excerpt below)
• William O'Connell Bradley (nom) (1847–1914), known as the father of the Republican party in Kentucky (Acdixon).
• Daniel Sedin (nom) (born 1980), a Swedish professional ice hockey winger with the Vancouver Canucks (Orlandkurtenbach).

Choice of the week. Raul654, Wikipedia's Featured Article Director, has shepherded the process since its early days. We owe it to him that featured articles have appeared since January 2004 in a prominent spot on the main page, which has greatly increased their profile in the project. The Signpost asked Raul to select the best of the week.

“

We had an interesting and diverse set of articles promoted this week. If I were choosing an article based strictly on my interest in the subject, it would go to SMS Baden, which is a great article in its own right. But clearly L'Orfeo, and its primary author Brianboulton, deserve special recognition. I know first-hand how hard it is to get fine arts articles up to FA status, especially musical ones. Particularly on a subject of great importance (L'Orfeo is one of the first operas ever written). The article contains everything a reader could expect – descriptions of the background, composition, instrumentation, and a plot synopsis. I was especially pleased to see that the article includes a freely licensed sound clip. It is quite difficult to find good-quality freely licensed classical music recordings, which contribute greatly to a music article. (The audio clip got me thinking about using audio for musical articles on the main page in place of pictures – an idea that is shockingly obvious in retrospect) Kudos, Brian – excellent work. Wikipedia is the better for it.

”

The opening "Toccata" from L'Orfeo, for strings, brass, winds, and harpsichords

In a startling effect, the composer prepares us for the opening scene using just a single, unchanging harmony over a rustic drone.

Featured topics

Five topics were promoted, three of them prepared by WikiProject Military History. The first two complete the German pre-dreadnought series, leaving only the WWI-era Helgoland, Kaiser, and König classes and the handful of WWII-era ship articles to be done, "before this monster is finally finished", says nominator Parsecboy:

• Wittelsbach class battleships (nom), the third class of German pre-dreadnoughts, was the first built under the naval expansion program of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.
• Braunschweig class battleships (nom), also with six good articles, were the last but one class of German pre-dreadnoughts.
• Another of MilHist's Operation Majestic Titan projects, Kongō class battlecruisers (nom), with one featured article and four good articles, concerns the class of four battlecruisers/fast-battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second World War (nominator Cam).
• Like a Virgin (nom) is about American recording artist (legend) Madonna's second studio album of this title, the singles released from the album, and the supporting tour and its subsequent live video release (nominator Legolas).
• Brill Tramway (nom), with seven featured articles and one Good article, concerns a 10 km (six mi) privately built rail-line in the Aylesbury Vale, Buckinghamshire, England—a tramway with an interesting history (Iridescent).

Featured lists

Three lists were promoted. These will be considered for Choice of the week in the next edition.

• Bryan Adams discography (nom), consisting of ten studio albums, five compilation albums, two soundtrack albums, three live albums and sixty-six singles (nominated by Trust Is All You Need).
• List of Governors of Idaho (nom). C.L. "Butch" Otter, a Republican, has been Idaho's governor since 2007 (Bgwhite and Golbez).
• Keeper of the Archives (nom), claimed to be one of the longest continuous record-keeping traditions in Britain (Bencherlite).

Featured pictures

Seven images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":

• USS Yorktown collision (nom), a dramatic photograph of the intentional collision with this guided missile cruiser by a Soviet frigate in what some observers have called "the last incident of the Cold War" (created by the US Navy, picture at bottom).
• The chemical element cobalt (nom), a metal that has been the basis for colours and pigments in jewelry and paints since ancient times (Alchemist-hp).
• Plains Zebra Equus quagga (nom), a natural shot of this striped animal in characterful lighting, showing group grazing behaviour in the background (created by Muhammad Mahdi Karim) (picture at right).
• The chemical element rhenium (nom), a heavy, shiny metal, was the last naturally occurring stable element to be discovered, in 1925. It was named after the great river, the Rhine. It comes at a price of more than $6,000 a kilo (Alchemist-hp) (picture at right).
• F-16 jet in flight (nom), from an aerobatics display in 2009 by the elite Solo Display Team of the Dutch Air Force (Airwolf).
• Rutherford B. Hayes (nom), the 19th President of the United States (created by Mathew Brady, the celebrated 19th-century American photographer).
• Russell's The Custer Fight (nom), a lithograph depicting the Native American side in the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn (created by Charles Marion Russell, the artist of the Old American West).

Choice of the week. Our judge, Nhobgood, considered the promotions last week, plus the three eligible promotions from the week before (Red-and-yellow Barbet, Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, and USS Oregon in dry dock). He told The Signpost:

"Definitely not an easy choice this week. All the images are excellent, some depicting interesting historical events and others adding to our knowledge of natural history. Although much of my experience is underwater, having chased a good number of darting fish and other fast-moving critters, I can really appreciate the skill that was required to capture an image of a subject moving at high speed at such a distance. For me, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor (pictured at the bottom of last week's page) sticks out above the others as a high-quality image and a great choice for nomination. – Nick"

Reader comments

2010-10-11

Tools, part 3: Style tools and wikEd

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Resident Mario and Dispenser

This article is a continuation of Tools, part 1 and Tools, part 2, a series meant to introduce readers to useful tools for article editing. This time, we will be treating tools that relate to checking compliance with the Manual of Style, with a special mention of wikEd.

Many tools consist of user scripts, JavaScript code running in your browser, that can be imported by adding importScript("User:Example/awesome script.js") to your skin.js page. Compatibility varies with skin and browser, with Internet Explorer being the most problematic. A more extensive script list is at Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts.

Various other tools are hosted on the Wikimedia Toolserver (currently provided by the German Wikimedia chapter) and can be accessed via a web interface. Some are also hosted on non-Wikimedia websites.

Dash tool

The Dash tool converts dashes, hyphens, and minus signs to their proper format per the Manual of Style. Particularly useful for year and page ranges, which are often input wrongly, with hyphens. En dashes are much easier to recognise in these contexts and are recommended by most authorities as well as Wikipedia's style guide. The script has been demonstrated to have an extremely low false-positive rate.

Author : GregU

Placement : Adds an en dash ("–") next to the history tab.

Demo : Paste javascript:importScript("User:GregU/dashes.js");autoEdExecute() into your browser's address bar while editing the article of interest.

Installation : Add {{subst:js|User:GregU/dashes.js}} to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page.

Peer reviewer

Peer reviewer checks pages against some Manual of Style rules and generates a report on that. It was used as a user script to post reviews at Wikipedia:Peer review for four years before it was set up as a tool on the Toolserver. Installed as a script, it also provides some (outdated) automatic formatting options. Despite being unmaintained and looking for a new maintainer, it is still useful for checking for general issues in an article.

Author : AndyZ

Placement : Configurable, defaults next to log out on edit pages

Demo : Paste javascript:importScript('User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js');output_PR = 'wpTextbox1';JSpeerreview_simple(); into your browser's address bar while editing the article of interest.

Installation : Add {{subst:js|User:AndyZ/peerreviewer.js}} to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page or run online at tools:~dispenser/view/Peer reviewer

Altviewer

Alternative (alt) text is an appropriate text substitute for an image, such as in an audio rendering of a Wikipedia article used by blind or dyslexic users. It also has secondary uses for low-bandwidth web browser and search engine bots. Once a requirement for featured content, it has since been downgraded over confusion of what constitutes a good description.

Altviewer provide a method for examining and comparing an image's alt attribute without turning off images or install Fangs extension for Firefox.

Author: Dispenser

WikiSort

WikiSort adds a "Sort words" link on the sidebar. Pressing this opens a separate window that displays all words longer than six letters; this is useful for spell-checking articles.

Author : Michael Devore

Placement : Adds a "Sort words" link to the Wikipedia side bar.

Demo : Paste javascript:importScript("User:Michael Devore/wiksort.js");wiksLoad(); into your browser's address bar while viewing the article of interest.

Installation : Add {{subst:js|User:Michael Devore/wiksort.js}} to your Special:MyPage/skin.js page

wikEd

wikEd enhances the edit box with syntax highlighting with code check, on-page Show preview and Show changes, improved diff view, converting rich-text to wikicode, and nearly a dozen fix up buttons. Some features found their way into the usability team's editor; such as find and replace and reference and template folding.

wikEd boasts several translations, an API/customizations which are used by other scripts, and it is the second most popular gadget on the English Wikipedia. It works in most web browsers with the exception of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Author : Cacycle

Placement : Replaces the edit box and adds new editing toolbars, see wikEd Help.

Demo : Try it in the Wikipedia:Sandbox

Installation: There are several ways to install the script. The easiest is to enable it under "Gadgets" in Special:Preferences.

Reader comments

2010-10-11

Tricky and Lengthy Dispute Resolution

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Ncmvocalist

The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving two open.

Open cases

Stevertigo 2 (Week 2)

This case concerns accusations of wiki-hounding and disruptive editing. Stevertigo alleges that several editors deem his editing to be "disruptive" or "in need of banning" because they "still hold the grudge that previous cases did not find in their favor regarding [Stevertigo]". He also alleges that he "largely won" an argument against two editors in relation to the Time article, and that those two editors began editing the Punishment article due to an undue interest in Stevertigo's editing rather than due to an interest in the article. The case is currently in the evidence and workshop phase; participants have started making submissions in both phases.

Climate change (CC) (Week 18)

Innovations have been introduced for this case, including special rules of conduct that were put in place at the start of the arbitration. However, the handling of the case has been the subject of criticism; 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). More criticisms were expressed recently (examples: [9] [10]) but as reported last week, a workshop will be held where users may provide feedback. 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 arbitrators, made the discussion more structured, but the quantity of discussion continued to increase significantly in the weeks that have followed leading to arbitrators closing or archiving discussions more frequently. 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.

Concerns and questions have been raised about the proposed findings of fact which relate to sockpuppetry in the CC topic area. At the centre of controversy is the proposal alleging that:

...a significant proportion of accounts (20-40% by current checkuser estimates) blocked as Scibaby [a now banned-editor, were] subsequently determined to be unrelated....

This week, participants pointed out that the AUSC report (which the figure is based on) only dealt with range-blocks by one individual (a former arbitrator, who in particular circumstances in 2009, resigned his access to CheckUser and Oversight tools). In response to the concerns about the accuracy of the proposal, arbitrator Coren emphasised that the figure is an estimate, while arbitrator Carcharoth stated that he is still satisfied that there is an overreaction to the banned user. However, other participants have considered the approach as unconstructive, expressing concerns about the use of seemingly “outdated figures, which are confusingly billed as "current" checkuser estimates” and the making of statements which may unfairly malign “the people who are presently working on handling the sock puppetry”. Another participant also noted that other parts of the finding may need to be “reworded” due to the circumstances. All eight arbitrators who are voting on this decision continue to support the proposal as worded; arbitrators Newyorkbrad and Carcharoth stated that they are open to further explaining or simply dropping the figure, but no changes have been made at the time of writing.

Update: Earlier today, the proposal was reworded. The proposal now states that

...a significant proportion of Scibaby-related blocks (including range blocks), particularly before late 2009, were subsequently determined to be excessive or incorrect....

A motion to close the decision was initiated by arbitrator Coren.

Proposals that are passing for the decision

A discretionary sanctions scheme that was specifically tailored for the CC case & topic (see earlier Signpost coverage concerning discretionary sanctions clarification) Committee reminders to editors and administrators Committee encouragement to administrators and checkusers An evidence sub-page remedy (see earlier Signpost coverage of a similar remedy) Rulings concerning 16 editors (including 2 former administrators), 2 current administrators, and 1 current ombudsman/functionary (a former steward) Rulings in relation to the 19 individuals 1 administrator significantly edited CC content issues previously and should not participate as an uninvolved administrator in CC sanction requests. All 18 other users made significant contributions towards a battleground atmosphere in their capacity as editors or administrators. The other administrator is topic-banned from CC (no reference has been made to involvement or significant content edits). 16 editors (including a former administrator who invoked his right to vanish during the case) are topic-banned from CC. No remedies are passing in relation to the ombudsman/functionary.

Reader comments

2010-10-11

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Jarry1250 and Resident Mario

Pending Changes development update

Rob Lanphier (User:RobLa) this week posted an update on the development of pending changes to the foundation-l mailing list. He put out a request for specific feedback on the pending changes user interface. Developments that will be incorporated into the next release include a reject button, and the faster display of old revisions.

Pending changes is a new protection tool that allows administrators to apply "Pending changes" protection to a page. Under this setting, the page can be edited as normal, but only the most recent accepted version of the page will be visible to readers. This allows administrators to open up the editing of semi-protected pages to all editors, including those who edit anonymously. The technical work follows a request by Jimbo Wales that the Wikimedia Foundation developers keep Pending changes live (see earlier Signpost coverage), and the conclusion of an interim poll on the matter (see early Signpost coverage). Currently, the improved version of the Pending changes interface is in development at its own test wiki; developers are aiming to roll out an improved version of pending changes in November. Changes are based on feedback provided by users participating in the straw polls and discussions; for example, pending changes was the primary topic addressed by Sue Gardner's IRC meeting last week (see Signpost story).

In a separate development, Lanphier also called for collaboration on a list of "roadmap" bugs which the (paid) development team had been discussing. User:MZMcBride highlighted the post facto nature of the request, and asked that in the future the community be more involved in those discussions, rather than being invited to comment on conclusions alone. David Goodman (User:DGG) added that it was "more consultation than was had for some previous changes", before touching on the key tensions in the community about to what extent Pending changes was being developed for the English-language Wikipedia only.

Code review version updated

The internal installation of the "CodeReview" MediaWiki extension has been upgraded. The extension, which aids in the review of proposed changes to the MediaWiki software itself, has had the following changes implemented (wikitech-l mailing list):

• New statistics on code review have been added, specifically a "wall of shame" for fixmes (changes which have been sent back to the developer to fix as soon as possible)
• There is now a new 'old' status for revisions, designed for anything that is two or more years old and still unreviewed (for example, those from before CodeReview was implemented).
• The broken parser tests results system was removed, in favor of the phpUnderControl software.

Getting the code review software and process working efficiently again is one of the acknowledged priorities of the Wikimedia engineering department.

In brief

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.

• The official "October" WMF Engineering update was published, with the summary having few major changes from the draft published by The Signpost last week. In addition, it includes substantial in-depth detail on those activities.
• With the closing of bug #23819, bureaucrats will be able to suppress the redirects created when a user is renamed.
• As part of a breaking change to the API, integer inputs will now be validated to make sure they are within a given range (bug #25303, fix still in progress).
• Pywikipedia interwiki bots will now respect a greater range of possible indications that a page is a disambiguation page (revision #8613).
• Developer Chad Horohoe reminded wikitech-l subscribers about the "Hack-a-Ton", to be held in Tyson's Corner, Virginia (in the Washington DC area) on October 22-24.
• The Wikimedia installation of the jQuery Javascript library was upgraded from version 1.3.2 to the newer 1.4.2 (wikitech-l mailing list).
• On 10 October (UTC) all Wikimedia wikis experienced a brief outage due to an apparent bug in the software used for balancing the many millions of requests Wikimedia receives between its servers. It was fixed after around 90 minutes (Wikimedia techblog).
  
  Reader comments
  

If articles have been updated, you may need to refresh the single-page edition.

Want the latest Signpost delivered to your talk page each month?

Home

About

Archives

Newsroom

Subscribe

Suggestions