A job opening for a "storyteller" was posted to the Wikimedia Foundation's web site last week, defining the new position as follows: "The movement storyteller will work with members of Wikimedia communities to teach Wikimedia readers about the world behind the content they rely on everyday." Replying to comments on the Foundation-l mailing list, Chief Community Officer Zack Exley clarified that "there is one important purpose of that job that may be a bit hidden in between the lines: For this position, I'm looking for someone who can help free us from dependence on 'The Jimmy Letter' in fundraising", by making the donation appeal letters from other community members more effective. (On the other hand, their banners – the first step in leading a reader to making a donation, with the letter being the second – already "got similar, sometimes slightly better, click rates as the Jimmy banners". Exley said that a detailed analysis of the fundraiser is in the making.)
A new page about Wikimedia Fellowships has been set up on Meta, reflecting recent clarifications (Signpost coverage) about the program, which was started last year and "offers the chance for volunteers from the projects, academics, and industry professionals to work with the Wikimedia Foundation in a new way."
On the official Wikimedia blog, the "first Virtual Community History Fellowship" program was announced, which during the summer will pair graduate students with community members from Wikimedia projects to write historical accounts of these projects (at the moment, focus is on the Tagalog, Italian, Armenian, Belarusian, Polish, Urdu, Hindi, Sanskrit, Cantonese and Chinese Wikipedias).
Two other summer fellowships for quantitative and qualitative research do not appear to have been posted by the WMF in a public venue, but were revealed last week (the deadline was March 7th) on the Wiki-research mailing list by an independent academic who called them "well-paid". One of them was to gather a small team of PhD graduate students from disciplines "involving large scale data analysis", for work on "developing a community analytics platform to gain a better understanding of [the Wikimedia Foundation's] contributors and readers." The qualitative research internships were offered to "PhD candidates or people who have completed Masters degrees in history, other humanities fields, anthropology and other social sciences", whose task will be "to understand better why the active editor base is not replenishing itself at the same rate it used to – and to present data that can help our communities figure out what to do about it".
In other news, the contracts of Community Associates Christine Moellenberndt [1] and James Alexander [2] have been extended.
The second edition of This Month in GLAM, a newsletter on Wikimedia collaborations with cultural institutions, has been published on the Wikimedia Foundation's Outreach wiki. Among various other items covered previously in the Signpost, it records the following events for February:
Following the recent debates about Wikipedia's "gender gap", the co-founder of Wikifashion (a MediaWiki-based wiki about fashion, not under a free license, where she also contributes much of the content) explained "Why wikis and women do mix ...". She argued that the debate so far had missed aesthetics as an important aspect: "Something that seemed obvious to me just didn't seem to really pop out from any of the debaters. Or perhaps it is obvious and other women just wouldn't say it? Women like things that look pretty... When I say pretty, I mean aesthetically but also it's user friendly." As proof, she presented her own (recently redesigned) wiki, describing it as "less cluttered and a little less overwhelming than traditional wikis have been- très girl friendly". However, she said that women's interest in the site's topic was also a reason for its gender ratio of 94% female contributors (a gender gap even larger than Wikipedia's reportedly 87% male contributors), which "is not something that I set out to achieve, quite the contrary, I wanted to make sure that just as many men as women used my wiki". Still, she concluded that "what I've unintentionally highlighted with my own site is not that women don't like wikis or are willing to contribute to them ... but that they perhaps don't find the site all that intuitive or appealing to edit", "although the site has made strides in it's [sic] appearance lately". Consoling and flattering the largest encyclopedia in history, she said, "Wikipedia you're that really smart nerd in high school that all the cool girls secretly wanted to date but wouldn't dare", but recommended it to "Perhaps make the help sections a little more understandable for the average non-techie and introduce some mechanisms for a more encouraging environment for learning the syntax (this would also prove helpful for new male editors)? Of course being easier on the eye wouldn't go astray."
A study on the effect of Google's update of its search results ranking algorithm on February 24 (in the US), published by the company "seoClarity", named "Wikipedia.com" among the "Top 10 Domains with greatest gains of Top 10 rankings", rising from 7578 to 8050 (+6.2%) presences in the first search result page, in a sample of around 60,000 keywords.
In a Wired interview, Google engineers Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts explained that the new algorithm's distinction of low-quality sites was based on a "strictly scientific" method, extrapolating sample judgments by outside testers into a new formula. Cutts said: "And we actually came up with a classifier to say, okay, IRS or Wikipedia or New York Times is over on this side, and the low-quality sites are over on this side."
On his Infothought blog, longtime Wikipedia critic Seth Finkelstein reacted to the seoClarity results and others which showed e.g. Mahalo.com among the sites losing in the update, lamenting that "I'm basically completely unable to get the law/policy types to realize the enormous extent to which Wikipedia is de facto subsidized by Google. Here, not only is Wikipedia getting yet another boost, but some of its arguable commercial competitors are being killed!"
Later, Fast Company interviewed Jimmy Wales about the algorithm changes and how they will affect both Wikipedia and Wikia. He said, "I haven't seen the numbers yet for Wikipedia, but I doubt it's affecting Wikipedia at all--almost nothing does. For Wikia, it's been a net-positive." In general, he welcomed Google's drive towards better editorial quality, a view he reiterated in another interview published three days later by Fortune Tech. Asked whether he was "concerned about people turning more to social networks for information than your sites", Wales replied: "Certainly not for Wikipedia. People do share Wikipedia links a lot." Much of the rest of the interview, which Forbes introduced by calling Wales "also notable because he's pretty much willing to weigh in on anything tech, even if it seems outside his purview", concerned his previously stated opinion that Apple's closed app store model presents a greater threat to the freedom of the Internet than concerns about net neutrality.
Old Man Murray was a US computer gaming review website begun in the late 1990s by Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw. Harsh, irreverent, and satirical, many in the gaming industry look back on the website as an inspirational classic. Faliszek and Wolpaw went on to work in the industry for Valve Software and were central figures in the creation of Portal, one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed games of the last few years. So, naturally, people in the industry and gaming fans were surprised when the Wikipedia article on Old Man Murray was deleted on March 2. The deletion was overturned the next day at Deletion Review.
Deletion discussions can be one of the most contentious interactions Wikipedians have with those outside Wikipedia, especially when it involves a subculture or fandom with vocal adherents. Perhaps the most notorious of these incidents was the long running conflict regarding the deletion of articles on webcomics, as discussed in this 2007 Wikinews article. Non-Wikipedians often interpret a deletion discussion as an assault on their field of interest and are offended at Wikipedians who are ignorant of it making decisions about it, and some of them respond with uncivil comments or personal attacks. Wikipedians are dismayed when they are the subject of personal attacks during what should be a sober policy discussion, and see the vocal fans who are denouncing them as little better than those who vandalize articles. Needless to say, this isn't a fertile ground for productive discussion between the two groups.
This time was no exception. Gaming blogs and message boards filled with angry messages (a Slashdot article received over 400 comments) and many fans shared their ire by posting to the Wikipedia deletion discussion. Rob Beschizza, Managing Editor of the popular website Boing Boing, wrote about the deletion. About two dozen prominent figures in the gaming industry responded to a call by John Walker from the gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun to testify to the importance of Old Man Murray. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell wrote that "Old Man Murray were the Velvet Underground of post-print journalism" and Bryan Lee O'Malley, creator of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels which are steeped in gaming culture, wrote "As far as I'm concerned, Old Man Murray invented the internet, and also invented making jokes about video games, two things which are maybe the foundation of everything I hold dear." Walker told the Signpost that he was not surprised by this response. "OMM is something spoken about by people in our industry with hushed tones of reverence. I'd be fairly disappointed to learn a developer was not a fan of their writing."
Much of the ire was focused on the Wikipedian who nominated the article for deletion, User:SchuminWeb. Ben Schumin, who runs a website called The Schumin Web, was alleged by many complaining about the nomination both on and off Wikipedia, including Beschizza and Walker, to have a conflict of interest because of past interactions with Chet Faliszek. Most of the complaints centered around a brief decade old comment mocking The Schumin Web on the website Portal of Evil, founded by Faliszek and K. Thor Jensen. (The Wikipedia article on Portal of Evil was also nominated for deletion by Schumin and deleted on February 5.) For his part, Faliszek, who did not respond to the Signpost before press time, seemed to be baffled about the situation. On the website POE News, he wrote "What the? I actually helped Ben with his site and setting up his Cafe Press store... I don't remember ever been[sic] mean to him. I don't really care about wikipedia but this is bizarre."
Schumin told the Signpost "I do not currently, nor ever did, hold a grudge on either the Portal of Evil or Old Man Murray sites, or their creators for that matter." He said he nominated the articles for deletion "strictly on notability grounds" and only after examining the sources in the article and searching for more potential sources. "I was an 'exhibit' on the Portal of Evil site, and it seems that many people automatically equated being 'exhibited' with wanting revenge" and made those claims "rather than make arguments refuting the sourcing [...] It was an easy argument to make, and so people did, even though it really had nothing to do with the discussion." Schumin told the Signpost that he feels unfairly singled out in what he calls a "case of shooting the messenger." (Schumin said he's no stranger to this sort of thing and recounted how he was similarly targeted after he was denounced as an "anarchist" on the blog of conservative commentator Michelle Malkin for merely documenting an anti-war rally he did not participate in.) Beschizza, for one, is unsympathetic. He told the Signpost that someone who doesn't wish to be the target of such public anger "should probably not initiate public debates in the world's most popular publicly-edited information resource in an attempt to delete an article about a website that just happens to be a legendary and much-loved inspiration for legions of working journalists and bloggers."
Many of the Wikipedians participating in the deletion discussion were focused on sources instead of Schumin. At the time of its deletion, sources in the Old Man Murray article were largely limited to gaming message boards and the OMM website itself. The non-Wikipedians participating who were not focused on Schumin seemed to be confused by the insistence of Wikipedians on sourcing something that everyone in their field already knew or provided sources which merely mentioned the website in passing. On Rock, Paper, Shotgun, John Walker wrote of the difficulty of finding sources for defunct websites. "The issue starts when something was notable in an online form, but in the past. There aren't so many contemporary pieces being written about a website that ended in… oh, hang on, I can't check Wikipedia." However, the controversy surrounding the deletion seems to have spurred editors to find acceptable sources to establish the notability of Old Man Murray. As of this writing the article contains 46 sources, including one book of academic essays. Schumin notes that the deletion discussion he initiated also "led to the creation of articles on gaming-news sites that established that notability. So while the proper sourcing didn't exist before, now it does, and that seems fine to me, and actually a better result than a delete."
Everyone seems to be pleased with the resulting restored and properly sourced article, but still up for debate is what Wikipedia can do to avoid such contentious interactions and controversial deletion discussions. Both Beschizza and Walker expressed concerns to the Signpost about how Wikipedians interact with non-Wikipedians during those discussions. Beschizza said that "the underlying problem is that Wikipedia's editorial culture isn't very diverse. Those outside of it who notice AFD disputes, and who understand the importance of the articles threatened, don't seem to command much respect from established Wikipedians" whom he views as "quite insular." Walker said: "My suggestion for handling similar situations would be to move beyond this peculiar misunderstanding of the presence of new accounts taking part in a debate. It seems fairly obvious that when someone unrelated and uneducated about a subject is attempting to have its page removed, that those who are related and educated about the subject would turn up to defend it. A debate like that should offer an opportunity for acculturation, rather than further building up the walls to keep out the outsiders. It's an opportunity to say, 'You know much about this subject - could you edit the article with this information, correctly cited?' People screaming 'meatpuppet' at every new person does not give the impression of a professional body making the decisions."
This week, we talked with WikiProject Feminism. Originally created in February 2008 as a task force within WikiProject Gender Studies, WikiProject Feminism became its own project in June 2010. The project focuses on articles detailing women's rights, women's health, notable activists, and the history, literature, philosophy, and concepts related to feminism. The project is home to nine Featured articles and five Good and A-class articles. To aid contributors, the project maintains a directory of project members who can provide help with specific tasks, a HotArticlesBot list of articles with high activity in the past day, a variety of pages needing attention, and a list of missing articles for women featured by the National Women's History Project.
We interviewed Kaldari, Carolmooredc, and Danger. Kaldari is an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation and admin on several Wikimedia sites including Wikipedia. He joined the Feminism Task Force in July 2008 because "most of the feminism articles on Wikipedia were in pretty bad shape at the time and I thought it was important that we provide more accurate and comprehensive information on the subject". After the task force outgrew WikiProject Gender Studies, he spun it off as a separate project. Carolmooredc first contributed to the Feminism Task Force in December 2008. Her interest in feminism began in the early 1970s, and her most recent efforts have been to seek "advice and support dealing with issues of sexism in Wikipedia". Danger is an admin and claims to be an "ethereal entity".
There have been recent discussions about a gender gap among Wikipedia's registered users (see major Signpost coverage and follow-up). Is WikiProject Feminism taking any steps to increase recruitment and contributions of women on Wikipedia? What else can be done by editors both inside and outside the project?
Some of the project's articles cover contentious issues or are frequent targets of vandalism. What tools does the project use to patrol and maintain the neutrality of the project's articles? How does the project cope with hostility from registered and anonymous users?
WikiProject Feminism is home to nine featured articles and five GA/A-class articles. Have you contributed toward any of these articles? Are you working toward bringing an article up to FA or GA status?
Does WikiProject Feminism collaborate with any other projects? Did the project play a role in the recent establishment of WikiProject Women's History?
What are the project's most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?
Anything else you'd like to add?
Next week, we'll travel to a country that renounced its right to declare war. Until then, enjoy some sushi as you read previous Reports in the archive.
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The Signpost welcomes three editors as our newest admins.
At the time of publication there are two live RfAs: Gfoley4 and Slon02 3, both due to finish Saturday 12 March.
Four featured sounds were promoted.
Four lists were promoted:
Seven images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":
The Committee opened one new case during the week. Three cases are currently open.
This case, which was opened earlier today, will examine the circumstances surrounding the removal of Rodhullandemu (talk · contribs)'s administrative privileges. The Committee revoked the relevant motion that was passed last week (cf. Signpost coverage) and replaced it with another motion: Rodhullandemu's administrator privileges are suspended for the duration of the case. Rodhullandemu indicated that he will not be participating in the proceedings. 18 kilobytes of on-wiki evidence was presented during the day, of which more than 16 kilobytes was submitted by recused arbitrator, Elen of the Roads.
During the week, another 4 kilobytes of content was submitted as on-wiki evidence, while drafter Elen of the Roads submitted additional proposed principles in the workshop.
During the week, another 2 kilobytes of content was submitted in on-wiki evidence, while drafters David Fuchs and PhilKnight submitted several proposed principles in the workshop.
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(Due to a change in titling, this is in fact the second February update to be published. In future, all reports will cover the events in the month named in the title.) The Foundation's Engineering Report for February was published last week on the Wikimedia Techblog, giving a brief overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in the last month. It summarised the developments:
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The update also noted that a job opening had been posted for a contractor in the Netherlands to support the Operations team in designing and maintaining the Wikimedia network(s), and perform on-site work in the data centre facilities in Haarlem and Amsterdam. The Foundation also noted its intention to hire a "Rich Text Editor Engineer", an indication that the Foundation is serious about its desire to provide its own WYSIWYG in-place functionality, a project for which research has begun (for context, see previous Signpost coverage). This might entail a move away from Wikimedia's traditional revise-and-save model to a more Google Wave-like approach, added developer Trevor Parscal. (On a related note, the report also discussed a new JavaScript parser for wikitext using parsing expression grammar.) In other news, Sumana Harihareswara was hired as a contractor to help out with Google Summer of Code 2011 and the Berlin Developer meeting.
In reference to the new Virginia data centre, the Foundation noted that all that was left was "finishing touches" to the hardware arrangement, as well as the initial setup of the software, "configuration of the first clusters of servers and services" and "network transport and transit services to be installed". In addition, contractor Russell Nelson has installed and deployed Swift on a test cluster of three machines. This forms part of the WMF's intent to improve the media storage architecture; the next steps are "fixing some bugs and doing some preliminary testing". The area of backups and general data redundancy has also seen significant developments: the operations team "have purchased a dedicated storage solution which will arrive in March... Once servers in the new data centre are online, and our private connection between Tampa and Ashburn is up, we will be able to replicate all data between the two data centres as well." Discussing the LiquidThreads project, the report also explained that "documentation on upcoming back-end and architecture changes [and] design specifications have been published".
The Foundation also announced the start of work done on two projects that have traditionally generated a great deal of debate: a system to allow users to censor their own visits to Wikimedia sites, and a mechanism for allowing expert reviews of articles. For the former, the report noted that initial UI design recommendations had been drawn up; on the latter, the report noted that a set of "draft requirements" had been drawn up for an "open review system for Wikipedia, as well as an API and user interface for quality indicators". The report, the Foundation's Engineering update to date, also noted work in a number of other areas not covered in this summary.
The WMF's current Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Danese Cooper, has announced the rehiring of former CTO Brion Vibber to the post of Lead Architect. The post will be in the second layer of the current employee hierarchy, and Brion will start on March 31, 2011, she reported (Wikimedia Techblog).
Brion's name will be familiar to many Wikipedia regulars; indeed, in acronym form he gives it to this very report. The author of much of the original code in MediaWiki, and, as Wikimedia's first paid employee, having been among its most involved programmers for a number of years, Brion left the Foundation in 2009. He joined StatusNet, an open source startup focused on microblogging, while remaining active as a Wikimedia volunteer (see previous Signpost coverage). Danese explained Brion's new role:
| “ | Brion's first project will be on the team tasked with re-writing MediaWiki's parser, which should be both a challenging and rewarding effort, to which Brion tells me he's looking forward. | ” |
In a blog post, Vibber outlined this "next-generation parser work" briefly, saying that it will involve separating "weird template edge cases" from those that can be treated more easily.
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.
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