Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/From the editors Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/Traffic report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/In the media
In an effort to increase its mobile presence, the Wikimedia Foundation has reached out to mobile carriers, who it hopes will see value in allowing free access to a "lite" version of the encyclopedia (Wikimedia blog, paidContent article).
The lite version will contain all of Wikipedia's textual content, but no images or other media, reducing the cost to a mobile carrier of supplying the service to users. In return, mobile carriers will hope to "lure in" potential web users with tasters such as Wikipedia. The WMF is following in the footsteps of Facebook, who unveiled a similar plan eighteen months ago. In addition to Wikipedia Zero, the WMF is also taking the opportunity to push for inclusion of "links to Wikipedia in [carrier's] WAP portals and basic browser bookmarks [and] use Wikipedia logos and other branding material in their own marketing efforts" paidContent reported. WMF Senior Manager Amit Kapoor added that the WMF was also "exploring ways to develop feature phone access to Wikipedia through SMS and USSD".
The efforts are forming part of a wider programme of delivering Wikimedia wikis to the developing world, where the mobile-to-desktop browsing ratio is far greater than in developed nations. Even in countries where that ratio is relatively low at the moment, readers are increasingly switching their Internet usage to mobile devices. Whilst in the West smartphones are generally the primary mobile access point for the Internet, the WMF's actions show it is also reaching out to users of older phones, as is common in the developing world.
Originally outlined as a top priority in the five year strategic plan published in 2010, more recently the focus on mobile browsing has prompted the launch of a new mobile site in September (see previous Signpost coverage) and the creation of an Android app set to debut shortly. Users of the new mobile site will be able to "Opt in" to receive beta features as soon as they are available, it was also reported this week on the Wikimedia blog.
Volunteer Development Coordinator Sumana Harihareswara published a writeup of the New Orleans hackathon (which was held in the American city on 14–16 October) this week on the Wikimedia blog (which was also summarised in a wikitech-l post). The two day event, aimed enticing more and more productive volunteer MediaWiki developing as well as allowing developers with different backgrounds to meet in person, included talks from a number of longtime MediaWiki developers such as Chad Horohoe (pictured) and Brion Vibber.
Reporting "broad progress", Harihareswara described the event as specifically helping to further work on "the SwiftMedia extension, Wikimedia Labs, continuous integration, ArchiveLinks, user scripts, Max's API Query Sandbox, Puppetization, Git migration, and more". She also reported how a "volunteer came in on Friday night knowing nothing about developing for MediaWiki, and by the end of the weekend had a working development environment on her laptop and had some ideas about how to contribute".
Future hackathons are scheduled for the Indian city of Mumbai (18–20 November; full details are available) and the British seaside resort of Brighton (19–20 November; full details). The former has been designed to coincide with WikiConference India 2011, and the timing and the proximity of its venue should allow potential contributors to attend both.
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/2011-10-31/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/Opinion
| The global mission, the image filter and the "German question" September 26, 2011 |
| Personal image filter referendum highlights polarization August 5, 2011 |
| "Personal image filter" to offer the ability to hide sexual or violent media March 31, 2011 |
| Draft of controversial content recommendations published September 27, 2010 |
| Board resolution on offensive content July 28, 2010 |
| Porn madness May 10, 2010 |
| Larry Sanger accuses Wikimedia of hosting illegal images April 12, 2010 |
| Explicit image featured on German Wikipedia's main page March 3, 2010 |
In June 2010, following controversy over the appearance of the vulva article as the German Wikipedia's article of the day, allegations by Larry Sanger of hosting inappropriate graphic depictions of children, and other controversial events, the board voted for an external survey, to be conducted by Robert Harris, of controversial images on Wikimedia. The study was completed by October of that year, but its recommendations were not immediately adopted. In the interim, in December, a poll failed to gain the consensus necessary to promote Commons:Sexual content to a policy, and the Wikimedia leadership focused on the topic as a central issue for 2011. In March 2011 a technical draft of a personal image filter that enables users to hide for themselves images they do not want to see was presented to the Board.
However, a poll this August showed just how polarizing the issue is for many users; on the German Wikipedia in particular, a separate vote showed that more than 4/5 of users were opposed to institution of the filter, including some 35% of core users. As Jan eissfeldt explained in an op-ed last month, the German community is particularly motivated against censorship issues; as another user put it on the mailing list, "it is against the basic rules of the project. It is intended to discriminate content. To judge about it and to represent you this judgment before you have even looked at it." On October 9, the results of the poll were followed by a "Letter to the community on Controversial Content" from WMF Board chair Ting Chen (User:Wing) and a clarification by WMF executive director Sue Gardner that although the Board's May resolution on controversial content still stood, "the specific thing that has been discussed over the past several months, and which the Germans voted against" was not being pursued any more, and that "the goal is a solution that's acceptable for everyone". Still, the letter triggered extensive discussion by German Wikipedians; and Sue Gardner promised to discuss the issue with them directly when coming to Germany in November for the German chapter's annual meeting.
Shortly thereafter, Wikipedian Sargoth proposed on October 19 that users should put white paper bags over their heads as a sign of protest when Gardner arrived. In the interim, users have taken to posting an image of a white paper bag on their userpages in protest. As of writing, more than 150 users have done so. The image filter issue has united the Germans, as one user wrote, "in a way that I haven't seen in several years." In addition, a filter-less German Wikipedia fork has been proposed, and as of writing the community poll on the issue stands at 31/40/24/1. In the meantime the referendum committee published the second and third appendices of results on Meta to make the votes per project and by age of account transparent. On October 28, Sue Gardner reiterated that she had taken the category-based solution off the table, and will not impose anything on the German community against their will.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/In focus
Activity was at a virtual stand-still this week, with only a single edit to the Workshop of the only open case, Abortion. On October 26, the request to amend the Climate Change case was closed, with William M. Connolley's topic ban being modified to allow editing within the topic of climate change, while still prohibiting him from editing articles about living people associated with the topic. Two days later, another request to amend the case was opened, requesting that Scjessey's voluntary editing restriction be lifted. Also on October 26, a request for clarification on the Δ (formerly Betacommand) case was opened, requesting the Arbitration Committee's opinion on whether the community-proposed task of removing deleted images falls under Δ's NFCC-enforcement ban. The request for clarification has prompted SirFozzie to initiate a motion that would open up a new ArbCom case, tentatively called "Review of Δ sanctions".
Finally, a motion was passed this week that applied discretionary sanctions to articles within the scopes of thirteen prior ArbCom cases. All of the affected cases had imposed editing restrictions when the cases were first closed, so the only effect of this motion was to standardize the wording used in those restrictions. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-10-31/Humour
