Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/From the editors Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/Traffic report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/In the media
Concerns were raised on the Foundation-l mailing list this week by several Wikipedians when it became known that the Office IT team of the Wikimedia Foundation had decided to start using Google Apps. Google Apps is a web-based office suite that includes Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs and other productivity tools.
User MZMcBride pointed out the software was closed source (in contrast to the open source nature of the MediaWiki software) and wondered if there was any connection to the $2 million grant that Google had given to Wikimedia. The privacy track record of Google was also under question, with Risker noting that "Google's greatest weakness is in the privacy sector. Anyone remember when they turned on Buzz and suddenly there was all kinds of personal information made available because they linked people's multiple accounts? Well, the same thing holds for all their other applications."
Jon Davis, the office IT employee who is running the migration, pointed out the benefits of online office tools for a group of people often on the road, the quality of the software and its usage of open standards. He added that the Foundation is a commercial user of the software and does not receive any benefits for its usage from Google. Responding to privacy concerns, he replied that:
| “ | The EULA for Google App[s] is slightly different than the normal one. We continue to own our data and Google doesn't. We have had the EULA reviewed by legal counsel, as well as our in-house tech staff, and received the opinion that the privacy provisions were strong enough to meet our needs. | ” |
The Foundation's Deputy Director Erik Möller emphasized that its "general policy is to be as open on internal tools as reasonably possible", but that unfortunately the open source Mozilla Thunderbird email client didn't meet all its needs. "We're reluctantly switching to GMail as the standard email solution, but we'd love to switch to an open solution in future".
Last week's release of the Firefox extension Firesheep prompted discussion on the wikitech-l mailing list about the lack of default secure browsing for Wikimedia websites. Firesheep is a utility that simplifies hijacking the Twitter and Facebook accounts of other users when they use insecure Wi-Fi networks. Although not included in Firesheep, Wikipedia is vulnerable to the same problem unless people make use of the secure server when logging in to Foundation sites. Questions were raised regarding switching all login requests to such secure connections, but Foundation contractor Roan Kattouw quickly pointed out that to protect connections against this problem, all traffic (and not just all login requests) would have to make use of secure connections. On this point, there were many concerns about the hardware cost of switching all traffic to secure connections, but Conrad Irwin pointed out:
| “ | There is no real massive load caused by https [using the secure server] at runtime. There is however a significant chink of developer and sys[tem] admin time needed to implement this and make it work. | ” |
Developer Ashar Voultoiz subsequently added an option to the interface of the MediaWiki software to simplify use of a secure server for logging in. The option will benefit other users of the software who do have the resources to provide a secure browsing environment. In the meantime, editors and especially administrators of the Foundation's websites are encouraged to make use of the secure server whenever they are logging in from open Wi-Fi networks and other shared internet connections, such as in libraries.
In August, The Signpost covered a study of the security of large websites, in which Wikipedia received a 4 out of 10 score on their current password practices.
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/2010-11-01/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/Opinion
Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that its audited financial statements for the 2009–10 fiscal year were available on the Foundation wiki. According to a Q&A, revenue increased from $8.7 million in 2008–09 to $16.6 million, with the "vast majority" coming from individual donations; and the cash balance including investments rose from $6.2 million to over $12.7 million. Expenses included $1,056,703 for Internet hosting, compared with $822,405 in 2008–09 – excluding donated services (by organizations such as Kennisnet), which were valued at $424,870 and $463,595, respectively (and other tech-related costs such as salaries and rents). The unaudited mid-year financial statements had been published in March, as mentioned in the Signpost, and the 2010–11 financial plan was published in July, see Signpost coverage: "Plans for major expansions of the WMF".
Last week, the number of geographical coordinates on the English Wikipedia surpassed one million, in around 620,000 articles. At the same time, around 180,000 articles were marked as needing coordinates (which would correspond to a completion rate of 78% if no more geocodable articles were added). In September 2009, the milestone of half a million articles with geocoordinates had been reached (see Signpost coverage). In related news, links to display interactive OpenStreetMap maps within articles were recently enabled by default on the German and Norwegian (Bokmål/Rikmål) Wikipedias (to see an example, click "Karte" on the top right of de:Berlin), the fruit of a collaboration that had been begun last year, supported by the German Wikimedia chapter (see Signpost coverage).
The log for the October 27 IRC office hour with Sue Gardner, the Wikimedia Foundation's executive director, has been posted. Gardner asked the participants a question about BLPs and COI editing, namely whether it was "true that 'editing your own article' has become somewhat less frowned-upon, over time?", which several of them denied. She explained that she was asking because Craig Newmark (member of the Foundation's advisory board) was considering adding information to the article about himself, and also mentioned an error in the article about herself. This was followed by a discussion of the estimate that "currently, there are 100K active editors" in the Foundation's Five-year targets (also discussed earlier and later on Foundation-l; the number is cited in the above mentioned financial statements, too).
Asked who the Foundation's interim general counsel was (after Mike Godwin's recent departure, see last week's "News and notes") and how to contact them, Gardner replied that "we have an interim GC lined up: a lawyer with Squires Sanders in DC. We also have a newly-minted lawyer who's worked with us in the past, who will be in the office supporting the more senior lawyer from Squires. They've both worked extensively with Mike, and he feels they'll be a good interim solution for us while we find a new GC", and that legal
wikimedia.org would remain the contact point for legal questions or problems.
Liam Wyatt, Katie Filbert, and Lori Phillips, along with Richard McCoy of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, attended the Museum Computer Network 2010 conference in Austin, Texas, October 28–30. Liam Wyatt gave a presentation on his experience as a "Wikipedian in Residence" at the British Museum. McCoy and Phillips talked about Wikipedia Saves Public Art, and Filbert led an unconference session to discuss collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution (cf. Signpost coverage).
A major theme discussed at the conference was how museums could make use of "e-volunteers", and in what ways they could recognize such volunteers. Wyatt explained that through Wikipedia, an e-volunteer program already exists. The Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA) launched its e-volunteer initiative at the conference, and McCoy and Phillips have posted a guide for volunteers to get started. Although the initiative is intended as a way to get new people involved in Wikipedia, current Wikipedians can also participate. E-volunteers for the IMA can utilize free admission to the museum and its wifi, along with access to its collection databases and reference library. At The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Phillips is also serving as "Wikipedian in Residence", and hosting events including a Backstage Pass event on Friday, November 5.
Throughout the conference, numerous museum representatives expressed interest in getting more involved with Wikipedia. In a blog post, Wyatt said that "there really really needs to be a Wikimedia USA chapter" or expansion of the New York City chapter, and there be an outreach coordinator working through the chapter to help manage relationships between institutions and Wikipedia.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/In focus
The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving none open.
Yesterday, after Rlevse blanked his user page and put up a "retired" tag, with an edit summary that said "you guys want it you got it", his name was removed from the list of current members of the Arbitration Committee.
Rlevse retired while copyright and plagiarism concerns were being examined at an administrators' noticeboard discussion. On behalf of Rlevse, arbitrator SirFozzie confirmed that Rlevse has scrambled his passwords in addition to turning in his CheckUser, Oversight and ArbCom permissions. It is expected that his vacant position will be filled by one of the successful candidates of this year's ArbCom elections.
The copyright and plagiarism concerns were about DYK articles by other editors, and after 3 days had come to extend to Sunday's featured article, Grace Sherwood (on a historical witch-hunt, in accordance with the Halloween theme), which had been co-authored and nominated for FA by Rlevse. Not long after the article had appeared on the main page, the first concern about possible plagiarism from a USA Today article was voiced by an anonymous editor. After 3 minutes, the concern was dismissed by Rlevse, and another 7 minutes later, the IP was blocked for "block evasion" by a checkuser. However, further investigation found that an edit by Rlevse in September had (according to a summary by Hans Adler)
| “ | No less than 8 consecutive sentences plagiarised (and in most cases obviously copied) from a passage consisting of 9 consecutive sentences in a single source, in the same order. Only a minimal amount of added information. The only source given for this passage is a website where the text did not originate. |
” |
(The third concern does not seem to apply to subsequent article versions, as Rlevse had corrected the reference 27 minutes later in the following edit. And in one of his last comments, 7 minutes before his retirement, he defended himself against the plagiarism concerns by stating that the "passage is marked with a ref".)
Raul654, the Featured Article Director, was alerted of these concerns at 11:15 (UTC), and at 12:28 (UTC), replaced the article, after it had spent more than twelve hours on the main page.
A concern was also raised that Rlevse was making unseemly responses (examples: [2] [3] [4]).
Rlevse was contacted for this story, but declined to comment.
Several other questions and allegations were raised in relation to plagiarism and copyright violations. It was asked whether Wikipedia should avoid using the present form of the DYK process, and instead, adopt different incentives. Arbitrator Risker alleged that Wikipedia’s FAC process is at fault. Other editors stated that editors were responsible for what they write, and that the process isn’t to blame for the issues. Some users discussed the differences between plagiarism, copyright violations and close paraphrasing. At the time of writing, the discussion continues at the noticeboard.
See also last year's Signpost dispatch on plagiarism.
Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2010 ArbCom election voting procedure is a request for comment: what procedure should the Community use this year to elect the 2011 Arbitration Committee? The Signpost reminds its readers that the RfC is likely to close in two days. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-11-01/Humour
