J Milburn is a British editor who has been on the site since 2006. He is one of two judges of the WikiCup.
The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds at our opinion desk.
Congratulations to Cwmhiraeth, our 2012 WikiCup champion!
On 31 October, the 2012 WikiCup drew to a close, leaving Cwmhiraeth (talk·contribs), flying the Welsh flag, the final champion. In second place was Sasata (talk·contribs), representing Canada, and in third Grapple X (talk·contribs), of the Gaelic League. The competition has been ongoing for 10 months, with over 100 participants. In that time, competitors (with fewer every round, as lower scorers were eliminated) have been responsible for dozens of featured articles and lists, hundreds of good articles and good article reviews and over 1000 did you knows.
The WikiCup is an annual competition run on the English Wikipedia which is now in its sixth year. Every year, participants compete for a number of rounds in order to be crowned WikiCup champion. Points are gained based on contributions; for instance, a did you know credit will grant a user 10 points, while a featured article credit will give them 100 points. Featured pictures, portals, topics and lists are also eligible for points, as are in the news articles, good articles, good topics and good article reviews. Finally, bonus points are awarded for high importance articles, judged (primarily) on the basis of the number of interwiki links an article possessed at the beginning of the year. For instance, twice as many points would be awarded for any work on the article brown trout than they would be for Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout; a highly significant topic like fish would be awarded more still. Each participant flies a flag of a country, state, or something akin, be they their own, a location they feel close to or just one with a flag they like.
The WikiCup has progressed from its humble beginnings in 2007. For the first two years, it was run as a knock-out competition in the userspace, primarily focused upon scoring high edit-counts. In 2009, Foxj (talk·contribs) and the now-retired iMatthew (talk·contribs) took over "judging" the competition. Though the title "judge" is used, the users who run the competition do little actual judging, and act more as administrators, occasionally providing a neutral and somewhat authoritative voice in disputes, and keeping an eye on submissions to ensure the spirit of the rules is being respected. 2009's competition still saw points for non-automated mainspace edits, but the focus was shifted to audited content, where it has remained since. J Milburn (talk·contribs) joined the judging team half-way through the competition, and has remained involved since. The competition's final winner was Durova (talk·contribs), who flew the Mexican flag. Durova won primarily due to the large number of historic pictures she restored and sent through featured picture candidates.
Edit counts were excluded in the 2010 competition, and The ed17 (talk·contribs) became a judge. That year saw 150 participants, dwarfing the 60 of 2009. It also saw the highest ever scores, after a highly competitive final round. Sturmvogel 66 (talk·contribs) was the eventual champion, who won based on a large number of articles about warships, an area in which a lot of WikiCup participants have been active.
The 2011 competition opened with the current judging team, J Milburn and The ed17. Also involved in the administration of the competition was Jarry1250 (talk·contribs), who runs the WikiCup bot (for calculating scores and updating the leaderboard). 2011 introduced bonus points for high-importance articles. Though there were slightly lower participation than in 2010, the numbers still dwarfed the 2008 and earlier competitions. Hurricanehink (talk·contribs) was the eventual winner, focusing, as his name suggests, on meteorology, another area popular among WikiCup participants.
What happened this year?
Lettuce. Dana Boomer began working on the article as part of the The Core Contest before bring it to featured status during her WikiCup participation.William the Conqueror (centre). One of several high-importance articles from Ealdgyth, the article on William the Conqueror is now featured.Yosemite National Park, a featured picture by Grandiose.
This year, the rules were adjusted to make bonus points more attractive to participants, and encourage the improvement of high-importance articles. Cwmhiraeth, the competition's winner, scored massive numbers of points for her work on high-importance articles, including, but not limited to, the featured articles frog and common toad, and the good articles sugar, amphibian, and starfish. This is despite not realising that the good article and featured article processes existed when she joined the competition at the beginning of the year. In her own words, she "benefited much during the year from others involved in the Cup", collaborating with fourth-place Casliber and receiving guidance and reviews from second-place Sasata, both WikiCup veterans, and biology editors with long lists of featured article credits.
The final 8 included a mix of WikiCup veterans (such as Sasata and Casliber) and people new to the competition (such as Cwmhiraeth and Dana Boomer). No Wikipedian specialising in meteorology or military history made the final this year, despite previous strong showings, though this year saw our first biology writer in first place. Television and sport are two subject areas which often have high scorers, but neither has yet seen a victory. Grapple X came first most rounds this year, but was beaten out in the highly competitive final. He did, however, receive two other awards:
Grapple X (talk·contribs) received prizes for his high contribution of featured articles, good articles and topics.
Cwmhiraeth (talk·contribs) received prizes for her high contribution of did you knows and high-importance articles.
Grandiose (talk·contribs) received prizes for his high contribution of featured pictures and good article reviews.
Muboshgu (talk·contribs) received a prize for his high contribution of featured lists.
ThaddeusB (talk·contribs) received a prize for his high contribution of in the news articles.
Ruby2010 (talk·contribs) received a prize for her high contribution of good article reviews.
Based on stats from Jarry1250's bot, we can see that participants this year (not counting contributions from participants after their elimination) produced somewhere in the region of:
42 featured articles, including several on highly important subjects such as frog (Cwmhiraeth), William the Conqueror (Ealdgyth), and Betelgeuse (Casliber).
433 good articles, including articles on the Middle Ages (Ealdgyth), pelicans (Casliber), and Otis Redding (GreatOrangePumpkin, now Tomcat7).
40 featured lists, on film, music, sport and other topics.
28 items appearing on the "in the news" column on the main page.
In addition, WikiCup participants completed over 400 good article reviews. Some smaller processes received little attention: no featured topics or portals were completed by participants this year, for example. Featured sounds and valued pictures were not a part of this year's competition, unlike past years: the former is inactive, and the latter was closed some time ago.
Derek Jeter. Muboshgu guided the article to featured status; his first featured article.
Beyoncé Knowles. The article on her award-winning, chart-topping song "Halo" was brought to featured article status by Jivesh boodhun.
The common puffball. The article was brought to featured status by Sasata.
Where now?
The 2013 WikiCup will begin in January, probably with a single large pool of which the top 64 will progress to the second round. Wikipedians of all levels of experience and with interests in a great number of different aspects of Wikipedia participate. Signups are open for next year, and those interested in following the WikiCup are welcome to signup for the WikiCup newsletter, which is typically sent out monthly during the competition.
One of the most interesting aspects of the WikiCup is seeing how it changes year-on year. Typically, the points awarded for each item will be adjusted slightly, and features will be added and removed from the competition. Since 2009, barring the removal of edit counting and the addition of bonus points, the competition has remained fairly constant. Right now, discussions and polls are open concerning how next year's competition should be run, and contributions are more than welcome.
The WikiCup has spun off into a variety of directions, both onto other projects (both the German and Simple English Wikipedias have had WikiCup competitions) and within this project (for instance, the Bacon WikiCup, a competition aimed at improving our coverage of, well, bacon). The WikiCup is not the only competition on Wikipedia; The Core Contest focuses entirely upon the improvement of high-importance content, without reference to good/featured processes, and improvement drives (for instance, the recent June-July GAN backlog elimination drive) are frequent. As a general competition, though, the WikiCup remains by far the most successful, and will hopefully continue to be so for many years to come.
The photo of ruins of the 13th-century medieval Catholic church of Arač (Aracs) near Novi Bečej is among the finalists submitted by Serbia.
WLM update
The gate of the public gardens in Halifax, Canada's submission to the 2nd international jury round.The Larabanga Mosque in the west African country of Ghana was among its top ten.The Scorpions Pass, a steep, twisted section of Route 227 came third in Israel's competition.Mount Rainier, a natural monument finalist from the US.The interior of a mill in Huaco, among the Argentine finalists.
The results of most of the national heats for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) have been published on Commons. WLM is the movement's international photographic competition, which was conducted throughout the month of September. A maximum of 10 images have been submitted by all but eight of the 34 participating countries, and the international jury for what is the largest competition of its type in the world is set to announce the global winner in four weeks' time.
In numerical terms, Poland submitted the highest number, with more than 51,000 files, over Spain, which could not hold its early lead, ending with 39,500. Germany came third with 34,000, and Ukraine fourth, with 33,000. France made the fifth place with 27,000. The US, with 22,000, fell short of the 50,000 Smallbones had hoped for in September, gaining sixth place.
Qualitatively, WLM 2012 has generated more than 1000 quality images on Commons so far. Eighteen photos have already been recognised as featured pictures and 15 as valued pictures. Nearly 2400 submissions are competing for the GLAM prize hosted by Europeana, the meta-aggregator and display space for European digitised works, funded by the European Commission.
The event appears to have succeeded resoundingly in the aim of attracting new editors. The WMF's new editor report stats show Commons jumping from about 1,100 to 4,800 new editors over the competition month, outflanking last year's European-wide competition (2,400 new editors). However, whether the flood of new editors translates into permanent contributors and how the new apps fit into the picture remain to be seen. Last year roughly 70% of the 5,000 participants made their first edit during the competition month and more than 90% of respondents in a subsequent survey said they would be likely to take part in another round.
The global jury is expected to announce its verdict at the end of November or in early December. All national finalists are displayed on Commons.
Brief notes
Wikivoyage launch: The beta-launch of Wikivoyage, Wikimedia's new travel guide project, is expected for the second week of November. The vote to select a new logo for the project on Meta is set to close on 15 November at 23:59 GMT. Meanwhile, the legal disputedrags on with the Wikimedia Foundation filing its opposition to the demurrer filed by Internet Brands .
WMF metrics meeting: The monthly metrics meeting of the Wikimedia Foundation, informing staff and community about the organisation's activities across the departments, has been held live on YouTube for the first time; the recorded session can be found on Commons. It includes an update from the Wikimedia Germany team that has been working on Wikidata. The WMF's written monthly report also has been published.
Chapters Association votes: On 30 October, the vote among chapter representatives whether to adopt a resolution accepting financial and organizational aid by Wikimedia Germany in finding a secretary-general, a role the German organisation's departing chairman applied for in July, ended with 5 ayes to 9 nays. The ongoing vote on office location, currently 6 ayes to 7 nays, will close on 5 November.
WMF board resolutions published: Resolutions approved by the WMF trustees during their meeting last month have been published and can be found on the foundation's wiki.
Editor survey launched: On 31 October, the annual WMF survey of Wikimedia editors has been launched. The design, largely resembling last year's survey to ensure comparability, can be discussed on the meta:feedback page on Meta.
German court rules on Wikipedia product placement: The Oberlandesgericht in Munich has ruled that companies using Wikipedia for product placement, which harms their competitors unfairly and by being non-transparent on their editorial conflict of interest, are violating German competition laws (§ 4 Nr. 3 UWG).
WMF tech department restructuring: The WMF's engineering and product department's structure is under review, with the aim of strengthening its focus on core activities. Erik Möller, the WMF's vice president in charge of the department, has started an open conversation on the issue by outlining a proposal to split the current department into two – one focusing on engineering and the other on products closer to the editing community.
Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Naturally, Wikipedia covered it.
The page was created on 23 October as a brief stub detailing the newest tropical storm of the season. Over the following days, the page evolved and was retitled to reflect its upgraded status as a hurricane. Kennvido (Ken Mampel) quickly became the top contributor to the article. This in itself would not be worthy of reporting, but Mampel's interview in Popular Science with reporter Dan Nosowitz has caused controversy.
In the interview, he claims to have single-handedly kept any mention of the possible influence of climate change on Sandy's strength out of the article:
"Someone did put [climate change] in," [Mampel] told me [Dan Nosowitz] via email on the night of November 1st. "I took it out stating not proven. They put it in again. This time someone else took it out before I even saw it...warned the person...and it never was put in again." When I mentioned that many reputable scientists and publications have pointed out the connection, he said, "It's still in debate in the world community Dan ... even if EnviroGore thinks there is no need for debate."
The article unfairly focuses on Mampel's personal life, and certainly tries to paint him in a negative light, with an unflattering picture, posting many of the asides in his emails to Nosowitz, and focusing on his current employment status. As commenter Thyork noted, the article seemed like an "attack ad" and it seemed "as though you are begging your more extreme readers to [harass] the man."
With regards to the Wikipedia article, Nosowitz believed that the "problem" of excluding climate change would eventually be addressed, and this much has proved true. Mampel was blocked for 24 hours for edit warring related to the topic of climate change, and the article now includes a "Possible relation to global warming" section. The basic premise, though—that one editor was able to keep out any mention of an important part of a major article—is valid and has raised many questions about the true nature of collaborative editing on Wikipedia. As Nosowitz said in closing his article: "for days, the [I]nternet's most authoritative article on a major tropical storm system in 2012 was written by a man with no meteorological training who thinks climate change is unproven and fought to remove any mention of it."
In brief
Film distributor complains about spoilers: After plot details of the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, leaked online after its European release (but before its release in the United States), the film's distributor, Sony, stated that "on a crowd sourced site like Wikipedia, it is difficult to police spoilers after a film has opened." The Signpost notes that this may be an insurmountable problem while films continue to be released on separate dates.
Small problem with license plate: A 26-year-old US man in Florida was arrested for driving recklessly and having false registration—his motorcycle's license plate was a cardboard printout of an image found on Wikipedia.
Opera, Sex, and Wikipedia: The Independentreports that a new opera, written by Toni Castells, is set to begin in London. Titled Light from Life, it takes its words from the Wikipedia articles sexual intercourse and family planning. The concept is far from new: the New York Times featured an op-doc in July ("Allergy to Originality") remarking on the rarity of true originality in literature and film.
This proposal aims to address conflicts of interest by adding an "intractable" section to the guideline. It specifies that by having an external relationship that could impair with the core missions of unbiased coverage, one shouldn't directly edit content or initiate deletion processes related to such a relationship.
Due to an influx of Did you Know hooks about the Gibraltar topic, a discussion was opened to see if a ban should be placed or they should continue to be shown.
Details of a backlog drive are under discussion about length of the drives, frequency of future drives, who can participate in the drives, and rewards.
This edition covers content promoted between 28 October and 3 November 2012
This week, the Signpost interviewed two editors. The first, PumpkinSky, collaborated with Gerda Arendt in writing the recently featured article on Franz Kafka and won second prize in the Core contest last August. The second, Cwmhiraeth, collaborated with Thompsma in promoting the article Frog, which was featured last week. We asked them about the special challenges faced while writing Core content and things to watch out for.
What do you think the role of featured content is? Can all core topics reach featured (FA) status?
PumpkinSky:
It's to provide a high standard for editors to strive towards in making items as good as they can and providing recognition for those who achieve that level. I would expect that any core topic could reach featured status though broad topics can be hard to get to featured level.
Cwmhiraeth:
Given the constraints of the number of Wikipedia editors able and willing to improve key articles, I'm not sure that raising them to FA would be preferable. I find the amount of time necessary to give the finicky attention to detail that seems to be part of the FAC process offputting. In my view, it would be a more realistic goal for all core topics to be brought to the good article (GA) standards: I think that would be a better goal. The "comprehensive" criterion for FAs is difficult and may be unattractive to otherwise enthusiastic editors.
What makes writing a featured core article different than an article on a lesser-known subject? Are there any special considerations we must take? Are there any special difficulties?
PumpkinSky:
Core items invariably have lots of sources whereas a lesser-known topic may have few sources available for a well-developed article. Many core topics, such as zoology and tree, are so broad that it can be hard to focus the many points within the topic into a well-balanced article.
If you are in a CORE contest, get a full time partner, as one month is not much time at all get what is needed done. About a week before the contest ends, look at what is left to get it to featured status/make it as good as you can, decide what can be realistically done be done before that deadline, focus on the most important parts, and do the rest after the contests ends. For any featured effort, work on something that interests you and get a team together to work on specific aspects of the article. For example, V. Smith did the mineralogy section of Yogo sapphire.
Cwmhiraeth: Cwmhiraeth: "sugar, which I brought to good article standard but would not attempt to promote to FA."
An article focusing on a small topic is much easier to raise to FA level, in my opinion. One's own knowledge gives a background from which a well-rounded article can be written, and if it is an article that one has started from scratch, one can feel a pride in its ongoing development.
I have been involved in improving several core articles during the year. One was sugar, which I brought to good article standard but would not attempt to promote to FA. I added a lot of basic information that was poorly covered but shied away from the diet/obesity/health considerations issues. I found it difficult to identify and distinguish recent research that related to sugar rather than to total calorific input. Finding suitable references for unsourced statements was challenging. At the same time others were editing the article, not always in a helpful way. It was different with the article frog, which has recently received FA status. This article had the advantage that it was permanently protected because of past vandalism and changed little from day to day. Nor did it have an "owner" who resisted change. I was able to rename and move sections, add and remove material and change images without hindrance. When working on the featured article Bivalvia and on the core article amphibian I was much helped by the users who undertook good article reviews and who brought new eyes to bear on the articles as a whole, whereas I had been concentrating on the detail.
What do you think of the Core Contest, and how has it helped / hurt the encyclopedia?
PumpkinSky:
I think it helps the encyclopedia by getting users to focus on vital topics, which should be in good shape but often are not. A problem with the contest is that it is only a month long and that means an article will rarely be ready for featured status at the end, though they can certainly be close.
Cwmhiraeth:
I think the Core Contest is a really useful way of encouraging users to work on important articles. Without such initiatives, there is little incentive to tackle important articles that are in bad shape: in the Core Contest, the worse the article is at the start, the more credit one can get for improving it. Many basic articles are very unreferenced and really need to be radically overhauled and I think that the contest gives a legitimacy to getting to grips with an article's structure and improving it. Often these articles are large and have been added to over the years by multiple users. There is duplication, poor arrangement of sections and other structural faults. While working on core articles as part of the contest one gets feedback as to how the article is progressing. I applaud the users who organised and judged the Core Competition and who did a fine job in encouraging substantial improvement to such important articles.
Eusèbe Jaojoby (nom) by Lemurbaby. Jaojoby (b. 1955) is a composer and singer of salegy, a musical style of northwestern Madagascar. Known as the "king" of the genre, he helped pioneer its modern incarnation in the 1970s and created two sub-genres. However, he only rose to national prominence in 1988 with "Samy Mandeha Samy Mitady", becoming a full-time professional musician five years later.
Giant eland (nom) by Sainsf. The giant eland (Taurotragus derbianus) is an open-forest savanna antelope with two subspecies. With a range spread through the savannas, woodlands and glades of Africa, the 220–290-cm (87–110-in) herbivore usually forms small herds 15–25 members strong. They were first described in 1847.
Isabella quarter (nom) by Wehwalt. The Isabella quarter was a United States commemorative coin struck in 1893 which depicted the Spanish queen Isabella, the sponsor of Christopher Columbus' trips to the New World. Designed by Charles E. Barber, it was not intended for circulation. The coin was meant to be purchased at the World's Columbian Exposition, although sales were poor. It is now popular with collectors.
Russula emetica (nom) by Sasata. R. emetica, is a mushroom and the type species of the genus Russula. The fungus has a red, convex cap and a smooth white stem. It is found throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Although it can cause gastrointestinal distress when consumed raw, if properly prepared it can be eaten; this is not recommended.
May Revolution (nom) by Cambalachero. The May Revolution was a series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires. A reaction to Spain's Peninsular War, it saw conflicts between Spanish-born and local-born citizens which led to Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros being removed. This began the Argentine War of Independence, and a formal declaration of independence was issued in 1816.
Abuwtiyuw (nom) by Tomcat7, Dr. Blofeld, and Malleus Fatuorum. Abuwtiyuw (d. before 2280 BC) was an Egyptian dog and is one of the earliest documented domestic animals for which the name is known. He is thought to have been a royal guard dog. Likely a lightly built hunting dog similar to a greyhound, Abuwityuw received an elaborate burial. The stone tablet indicating the dog's name was discovered in 1935.
Mitt Romney (nom) by Wasted Time R. Romney (b. 1947) is an American businessman and the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. Romney, the son of politicians, was active in the field from the 1970s but initially focused on his business interests. He ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 1994 and served as Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.
Featured lists
Seven featured lists were promoted this week:
List of songs recorded by Alexandra Burke (nom) by Calvin999. The British singer-songwriter Alexandra Burke has recorded forty songs since winning the fifth series of The X Factor in December 2008; these have been released on two albums, with 9 singles.
List of Indian Premier League five-wicket hauls (nom) by Vibhijain. The Indian Premier League, a professional Twenty20 cricket league, has seen eleven five-wicket hauls since it was established in 2008. Sunil Narine made the most recent one, in April 2012.
List of international cricket centuries by Saeed Anwar (nom) by Sahara4u. The Pakistani cricketer Saeed Anwar scored 11 centuries in Test cricket and 20 in One Day Internationals (ODI) between 1990 and 2003. As of writing he is the leading Pakistani century-maker in ODI.
Fugees discography (nom) by Sufur222. the Fugees, an American hip hop trio, have released four albums, nine singles, and nine music videos since their debut in 1992. Their best received was 1996's The Score, which topped the charts in seven countries.
Coldplay discography (nom) by Holiday56. The British rock band Coldplay have released 14 albums, 10 extended plays, 43 singles, and 30 music videos since their debut in 2000. They have sold more than 55 million records in this time; their last three studio albums have topped the charts in ten countries.
Branch Rickey Award (nom) by Muboshgu. The Branch Rickey Award is an American award given annually to an individual in Major League Baseball in recognition for exceptional community service. First awarded in 1992, recipients have done a variety of work such as fundraising and disaster relief.
List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by Dennis Lillee (nom) by Vensatry. The Australian cricketer Dennis Lillee took 24 five-wicket hauls during his thirteen-year career in international cricket. He was the first bowler to capture 350 Test wickets in his career and currently stands eleventh in the all-time list.
Featured pictures
Five featured pictures were promoted this week:
Saint Augustin Church (nom; related article), created by Saffron Blaze and nominated by Tomer T. Saint-Augustin is a church in Paris was built between 1860 and 1871 by Victor Baltard. With a dome height of 80 metres (260 ft), it was one of the city's earliest large buildings with a steel frame.
Malacosoma neustria (nom; related article), created by Holleday and nominated by Tomer T. The Lackey moth (Malacosoma neustria) is common across southern Britain and central Europe. Its caterpillars form silken tents to control their temperature.
The Miraculous Sacrament (nom; related article) by Alvesgaspar. The Miraculous Sacrament is a series of three stained glass windows by Jean-Baptiste Capronnier (1814–1891) of Belgium. The windows are in the Cathédrale of Saints-Michel-et-Gudule.
Hubble Extreme Deep Field (nom; related article), created by NASA and nominated by EngineerFromVega. The Hubble Extreme Deep Field is an image of a small part of space in the center of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field within the constellation Fornax, showing the deepest optical view in space.
Featured topics
One featured topic was promoted this week:
Underground Electric Railways Company of London (nom) by DavidCane and Edgepedia; consisting of seven articles. The Underground Electric Railways Company of London Limited was the holding company for the three deep-level underground railway lines opened in London between 1906 and 1907.
Wikimedia Labs now hosts 137 projects (up 6), has seen 268 instances created (up 27) and has 694 registered users (up 61).
”
—Adapted from Engineering metrics, Wikimedia blog
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for October 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which will soon be trialled on the Hungarian Wikipedia). Of the three headlines picked out for the report, two (the redesign of the mobile site "emphasizing readability and navigation" and the launch of a Wikipedia app for Windows RT and Windows 8 tablets) have already received Signpost coverage. The third drew attention to a proposed redesign on the signup page.
There was news that Parsoid, the new JavaScript-based parser due to be released in December, can "round trip" wikitext to HTML and back perfectly on 75% of a sample of 100,000 pages, does the same imperfectly but without great fault in a further 18%, and chokes on 7%. Parsoid will form the basis for the new Visual Editor and it will be rewritten in C++ to improve its performance. Likewise, there was news of improvements to both the "Page curation" and "Article Feedback" projects; version 5 of the latter is expected to go live on all English Wikipedia articles later this year. The "Wiki Loves Monuments" app was wound down during October, while the most cryptic update came from the WMF's Analytics team, who reported that they had worked on "puppetizing ... Hue, Sqoop, Oozie, Zookeeper, Hive, Pig [and] Kafka", all of which are services that help with distributed, large scale number crunching.
Because only six mentors signed up to help with the Wikimedia Foundation's provisional Google Code-In programme—far fewer than the necessary number of approximately twenty-one—the Wikimedia Foundation has decided not to participate. (mailing list). "I know this disappoints some of you; we do want to encourage new participants, and we want some structured mentorship that isn't just Google Summer of Code," wrote WMF Engineering Community Manager Sumana Harihareswara, adding that she would "start a new thread about a more suitable program for us to participate in." The later thread referred to recognised that the Foundation (on behalf of MediaWiki generally) would still like to participate in a separate Outreach Program for Women, a FOSS outreach program to offer paid internships to women to work on our open source projects (mailing list). Applicants and mentors are welcome.
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 several weeks. Though there is no poll this week, last week's question (about the utility of videos) is still open for opinions.
TimedMediaHandler goes live: As previewed in last week's "Technology report", the TimedMediaHandler extension (which overhauls MediaWiki's video handling capabilities) finally went live to a production wiki this week in the shape of the English Wikipedia. Given that this initial deployment proved successful, the extension will almost certainly go live on Wikimedia Commons next week, followed by other smaller wikis later in the month.
GitHub replication: Replication of Gerrit repositories containing code from MediaWiki extensions to popular alternative code-hosting site GitHub has now successfully been set up under the account "wikimedia". There was another account "mediawiki" in the past which has been closed to avoid confusion and duplication (mailing list). Code from extensions joins so-called "core" MediaWiki code on the site, which began replicating last month. As with core code, the service is still read-only and a way to transfer contributions on GitHub back to Gerrit is still being worked on.
It was a bad week for the JobQueueBad week for the job queue: There were problems this week with the Wikimedia job queue, which handles delayed processing tasks such as updating category membership lists. The problems are now thought to be resolved.
WMF hires: Steven Bernardin joined the Operations team as Data Center Technician, working in the Tampa, Florida data center (no announcement was made but it was mentioned in this month's engineering report, summarised above). Although Tampa has long been the Foundation's primary data centre, its alternative facility in Ashburn, Virginia has been scheduled to take over that role for the last year (though it has not done so yet due to unforeseen difficulties).
This week, we sang along with WikiProject Songs, which focuses on articles about songs of every generation and genre. The project initially began as a rough outline in October 2002 and was reimagined in March 2004 using its parent WikiProject Albums as a template. Today, the project is home to 53 Featured Articles, 75 Featured Lists, and 845 Good Articles. The project maintains a list of helpful resources, some sample articles that have achieved Featured status, a watchlist of the 1500 most popular articles about songs, and a way to monitor requests for new articles about songs. We interviewed Lil-unique1 (Lil_℧niquℇ №1).
What motivated you to join WikiProject Songs? Have you worked on any of the project's Featured Articles, Featured Lists, or Good Articles? Are you a member of any other WikiProjects dealing with musicians or the recording industry?
I am highly interested in music, I spend a lot of time listening to music when working, cooking, studying and when I'm bored. It pains me that sometimes articles about songs I've heard on the radio are poorly written when there is a huge abundance of information available that is reliable, particularly if one looks hard enough. I work closely on albums, singles and sometimes pages for artists or their discographies. I've worked on the featured list discography for Kelly Rowland, as well as numerous good articles for the likes of Cheryl Cole, Kelly Rowland, Diddy-Dirty Money and Jennifer Lopez amongst others. You can find a list of my special contributions including GAs, FAs, FLs and DYKs at User:Lil-unique1/Current & Finished Works.
Has the project dealt with many enthusiastic fans running afoul of Wikipedia policies? What do people add to song articles that typically gets removed? At what point do discussions of lyrics, reception, controversy, and cultural references become too much?
I think there is a close group of editors who constantly come up with new ideas for the policies on songs and music based on current trends. Not just trends in music but also in the internet as this is increasingly the biggest reference for information. The biggest issue facing the project is probably two individual problems: firstly the addition of copyright images. This usually takes the form of fan-made cover arts which simply are not official and break non-free content criteria. The second big issue is fan-cruft. Some editors express the behaviour of over-zealous fans and like to add speculation from blogs or sometimes even just their own random opinion which sadly isn't qualified or reliably sourced or of the correct tone.
Does Wikipedia's coverage of songs tend to skew toward particular time periods or genres? Are there any significant gaps in coverage with which the project could use some help?
Personally I only edit pop and R&B articles, typically what you would see in the top 40 charts of an major country. I think there is an issue with older releases and perhaps artists from smaller countries. E.g. in the UK and US there are specific industry-related publications and websites. The US has Billboard, while the UK has the likes of Music Week and crucially sites like Digital Spy which have 13 million unique entertainment visitors a year. Whereas sometimes it can be difficult to get coverage that relates to performance or artists beyond the UK and US.
How frequently does the project deal with notability issues for songs? Does every song on an album need an article on Wikipedia? How are cover versions of songs handled?
There is a huge issue with notability. We have criteria at WP:NMUSIC and I have personally campaigned for clearer and more stringent guidelines. I've been involved in and witnessed many fiercely contest article for deletion discussions with editors who feel it necessary for every charted song on an album to have an article. Sometimes there warrants reason, i.e. where there is significant coverage and/or unique information such as a promotional video and/or release. Personally its my belief that charting alone is NOT enough to warrant an individual page. Cover versions of songs are usually covered on the page of the original version as a new section. Sometimes where the information becomes too much a new page is started.
Does the project deal with music videos and live performances of songs? How much overlap do you see between WikiProject Songs and the projects that cover other forms of media?
The project makes a concerted effort to document a song's music video as an integral part of the song's article. An unsourced synopsis can be used but often coverage that details the technical information about a song is lacking.
What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new contributor help today?
We could do with people to help copy edit. Many of the articles require additional eyes to help improve the prose quality.
Next week, we'll visit the world's largest lusophone country. Until then, search for "order and progress" in the archive.
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