Summary: There are times when this job is hard. As an analogy, imagine navigating in fog at night, except you don't know where you are, you don't know where you want to go, and your flashlight keeps dying on you. Wikipedia, in the understandable desire to protect users' privacy, has left me with precious few tools to find my way (Bounce rate and HTTP referers would be nice) and so there are times when it is impossible to determine why something is or is not on the list. The hour-by-hour viewing tool I made such a fuss about two weeks ago, and which would at least have suggested which spikes were natural, is currently down; so I'm back to erring on the side of exclusion. Although only two articles were removed from the top 10, six articles—roughly a quarter—have been removed from the top 25.
I'm asking: does anyone know of a way to track down these occasional one-day spikes if they don't appear on Reddit or a Google Doodle? And why is important information like view counts outsourced to volunteer servers liable to crash or lose functionality?
For the full top 25 report, plus exclusions, see WP:TOP25
For the week of 19–25 January, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most viewed pages* were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jordan Belfort | 
|
799,325 | Onetime stockbroker who spent 22 months in prison for running a penny stock boiler room, he went on to write the books that the film The Wolf of Wall Street is based on. | |
| 2 | Juan Mata |
|
647,317 |  |
Spanish footballer who was transferred this week from Chelsea F.C. to Manchester United for a club record sum of £37.1 million ($61.4 million) |
| 3 | Richard Sherman (American football) | 
|
638,607 | .JPG) |
This guy arguably came top of the list of articles related to Super Bowl XLVIII due to his combative talking style, which got him some bad press after taunting Colin Kaepernick (see below) after beating the San Francisco 49ers to reach the Super Bowl. |
| 4 | Martin Luther King, Jr. | 
|
607,434 |  |
With his birthday a federal holiday, it's not surprising that he makes an annual appearance on this list. |
| 5 | The Wolf of Wall Street (2013 film) |
|
587,561 | Martin Scorsese's acclaimed account of one person's contribution to our general economic misery opened to a respectable $34 million on Christmas Day, and has now made over $220 million worldwide | |
| 6 | Justin Bieber | 
|
554,032 |  |
Why is he on this list? Could it be his various indiscretions in Latin America? The lawsuit he was saddled with after egging a neighbour's house? Or, perhaps, his arrest after drag racing a Lamborghini drunk on a beach in Florida? Truth be told it's probably that. |
| 7 |
|
513,840 | .JPG) |
A perennially popular article | |
| 8 | Sherlock (TV series) |
|
434,520 |  |
The contemporary-set revamp of the Sherlock Holmes mythos has become a surprise global hit (and turned its star, Benedict Cumberbatch, into an international sex symbol) and is now watched in 200 countries and territories (out of 254), so it's not surprising that its much ballyhooed return from a two-year hiatus was met with feverish anticipation. |
| 9 | Frozen (2013 film) |
|
405,400 | Disney's de facto sequel to Tangled has become something of a sensation. It reclaimed the top spot in the US charts on its sixth weekend (a feat only matched by Avatar and Titanic) and has already outgrossed its predecessor both domestically and worldwide, with a total of nearly $820 million. It won a Golden Globe for Animated Feature and seems a shoo-in for the Oscar. | |
| 10 | Deaths in 2014 | List | 397,831 |  |
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. |
According to the Wikimedia Foundation's evaluation of on-wiki contests, "... contests are ways for experienced Wikipedians to come together to work together to improve the quality and quantity of Wikipedia articles." Contests have existed almost as long as the English Wikipedia. Contestants have expanded hundreds of articles and made tens of thousands of edits. Although it may seem as though there aren't any negatives to contests, they have occasionally become a divisive topic on the English Wikipedia.
So, what's not to like about contests? Well, many contrasting opinions have been flowing around Wikipedia and Wikimedia about problems with contests. Much conversation has materialized about the quality of the edits during contests and whether receiving prizes for winning is paid editing. It seems as though everyone has an opinion, and everyone's is different. Wizardman puts it nicely: "It's a double-edged sword. On the one hand it gets people editing more than they would otherwise, perhaps in areas they otherwise wouldn't touch, but they are very ripe for abuse even if said abuse is planned against."
Some say that contests are very helpful: They provide friendly competition to improve the encyclopedia. Others say that contests cause much unneeded stress, and that Wikipedia should be a relaxing place. However, stress and competitiveness are only a small part of the discussion.
Although much talk has blasted around Wikipedia and Wikimedia these past few weeks about paid editing, not much focus has been placed on whether or not contest prizes are paid editing. However, discussion on this topic will likely become more heated in the future.
As one user put it, "Contests are a form of declared paid editing, if, indeed, there is a cash reward. However, I would think that the sort of edits contests inspire would've been done anyway, which [is] how it differs from the sort of paid editing that's controversial—the kind that Wiki-PR does/did."*
An argument for rewards in contests is that prizes are just an incentive to work harder: users help out the encyclopedia and are rewarded for it. Even if you participate in the contest, a guarantee is certainly not placed that you'll win, so participating arguably isn't paid editing. You could be editing and helping out Wikipedia in an attempt to win the contest, but end up not winning.
On the other hand, one user puts it bluntly; when asked if they thought contests are paid editing, they said yes. When asked for more information, they responded: "Because it's a payment for editing?". This is a popular opinion; some of the people I've asked say getting prizes for winning contests is definitely paid editing. This opinion states that even if the reward is declared and public, the contestant is still being paid to contribute.
This is a heavily debated topic, and future discussion will without question take place. We may or may not see changes in how the system works for contests.
As Wizardman puts it, "the second some people see the word contest they push as much as they can as fast as they can, which can violate the spirit of a contest if they forget to make their edits actual improvements."
An example of this is in the Stub Contest: the goal of the Stub Contest was to reduce the number of stub-class articles on Wikipedia. However, the contest did not only focus on expanding stubs: it also involved re-rating articles listed as stubs that deserved to be rated as start-class or higher. Overall, 48,830 articles were re-rated from stub to start (or higher)-class during the contest.[1]
One of the contestants in the Stub Contest, Sven Manguard, had a complaint with the contest. As mentioned above, one of the methods to score points in the contests was to re-rate stub-class articles to start-class. Sven noticed that many people were re-rating stubs to starts even though the article did not deserve to be re-rated, thus hurting the project and scoring points unfairly.[2] Sven also touched on a very important point that is often forgotten during contests: "The point of this contest is to improve the quality of Wikipedia's weakest articles, and I fear that a dash for cash has obfuscated that goal for some people."
Like most debatable topics on Wikipedia, everyone has a different opinion on contests. Everyone goes their own ways: some choose to participate, some don't. In the future we may see adjustments to contests in regards to prizes, due to the argument that prizes are paid editing. In the end, almost everyone agrees on one thing. As one user puts it, "Prizes are just incentives, but every contest has a prize - improving Wikipedia".
You can participate in most contests by entering your username onto the 'Entry' page of the contest. If you're looking to join a contest that hasn't yet started, look at the Tyop Contest, which starts at the beginning of February, or the Core Contest, which begins on 10 February. The WikiCup is currently in progress, but signups close soon.
What do you think? Are contests paid editing? Do you participate in contests? Why or why not? Let your voice be heard in our comments section!
Next week, we'll head to Sochi. Until then, rediscover our previous adventures in the archive.
Here are some thought-provoking quotations from Wikipedia editors:*
* denotes anonymous comments from Wikipedians obtained through an online survey form.
Wiki-PR, a public relations agency whose employees used a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts to create, edit, and maintain several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients, has told Business Insider that it was demonized by the online encyclopedia.
In an interview with the prominent business and technology news website, Jordan French, Wiki-PR's CEO, said he believes the Wikimedia Foundation "painted" his company to look like an "evil entity" that is "scrubbing truths from Wikipedia":
Wiki-PR duo bulldoze a piñata store; Wifione arbitration case; French parliamentary plagiarism
1 April 2015
With paid advocacy in its sights, the Wikimedia Foundation amends their terms of use
18 June 2014
WMF bites the bullet on affiliation and FDC funding, elevates Wikimedia user groups
12 February 2014
Wiki-PR defends itself, condemns Wikipedia's actions
29 January 2014
Foundation to Wiki-PR: cease and desist; Arbitration Committee elections starting
20 November 2013
The decline of Wikipedia; Sue Gardner releases statement on Wiki-PR; Australian minister relies on Wikipedia
23 October 2013
Vice on Wiki-PR's paid advocacy; Featured list elections begin
16 October 2013
Wiki-PR's extensive network of clandestine paid advocacy exposed
9 October 2013
| “ | What are we actually doing? We’re starting with legally actionable libel. People call us. They’re upset. They’re crying. They're pissed. They typically have a lot of money. They are one hair trigger away from suing the Wikimedia Foundation and/or trying to subpoena to find out who the editors are who smeared them, whether it is an anonymous IP [address], which is almost always the case, or an actual editor. | ” |
In Wiki-PR's view, it is the victim of an egregious mistake: it did not break the WMF's terms of use, and Wikipedia "made a bunch of errors and confused us with someone else, largely", French told Business Insider. While French does not name who or what Wiki-PR was confused with, he was presumably referring to Mike Wood, the owner of professional writing service LegalMorning.com and User:Morning277, the first Wikipedia account implicated in the Wiki-PR scandal. Instead, French maintains that Wiki-PR provides a valuable service by protecting the Foundation from "legally actionable libel".
Yet many of French's new claims appear to be in conflict with the evidence. At least three questions are raised:
Were the allegations and community investigation all a mistake? The long-term abuse file shows that Wiki-PR used remote employees, IP address-hopping, and technical loopholes to maintain up to 12,000 English Wikipedia articles. The aftermath included a community ban for being "repeatedly unable or unwilling to adhere to [Wikipedia's] basic community standards." The Wikimedia Foundation's legal assessment of the allegations was strong enough to elicit a cease-and-desist order in November 2013.
Did Wiki-PR break the terms of use? The Signpost has gained access to an online document containing a list of steps for reforming the company's behavior, prepared privately by a Wikipedian and edited by French. French agreed to it on 18 November—just one day before the Foundation sent its cease-and-desist letter to Wiki-PR—by writing at the top of the document, from which the Signpost has redacted all but French's name: "Wiki-PR agrees to all of the terms laid out in this roadmap. We're working on implementing them. 11/18". The Signpost understands that this was an attempt by the Wikipedian to "provide suggestions for reform in line with community expectations", though the document includes a statement that "their completion does not ensure Wikipedia’s community acceptance", and that "nothing in this roadmap constitutes a binding agreement, contract, or guarantee."
Critically, the introduction that French had agreed to states: "Wiki-PR has seriously abused the Terms of Use (TOS) and community policies. In an attempt to redeem their conduct, Wiki-PR agrees to a comprehensive review of their practices and a detailed program of reform, in collaboration with members of the Wikipedia community." One item states: "Wiki-PR will prepare a detailed proposal for how it will manage and maintain a high standard expected from all employees. Employees will declare to Wiki-PR all of their Wikipedia accounts for monitoring. Employees will not be paid if a review of their conduct does not meet a high standard." To this, French added on 13 November: "Defining high standard: Contractors will be removed if conduct seriously breaches Wikipedia’s TOS or community policies."
The full text agreed to by French is reproduced here.
Does Wiki-PR protect the Foundation from being sued for libel? In general, as the Foundation only provides an interactive computer service, according to the US federal Communications Decency Act, Section 230 it cannot be held legally responsible in the US for defamatory content published on its sites: the responsibility lies with the individual who added the material. A recent German court's ruling on the matter was called a "legal victory" by the Foundation, though this has been disputed.Furthermore, the number of articles Wiki-PR created from scratch belies the assertion that it was primarily combating libel. Seven examples of their article creations have been uploaded and are open for viewing. Sources in these new Wiki-PR articles typically include Yahoo! Voices and CNN iReport, which despite the well-known brand attachments can be published by anyone, with little to no moderation—or by the US website Vatalyst, which appears to have been offline for six months but was operated by Wiki-PR and similarly lacked editorial oversight. In many articles in which Wiki-PR was involved, these and similar sites gave the articles "references sections [that] always have a surfeit of citations, with the clients' press releases and web sites balanced by passing mentions in seemingly independent publications." French's claim in the interview that Wiki-PR has about 45 people directly conflicts with his earlier assertion to the Wall Street Journal that they have "hundreds" of editors on staff. Wiki-PR's site even includes solicitations that attempt to interest companies in Wiki-PR's article-creating experience. Such pages were lampooned in a 31 January Wikipediocracy blog post ("Extra Creamy Wikipedia – adventures in advertising").
Wiki-PR's actions were sufficiently extensive that their online identities are still being discovered more than three months after the original revelations. Eleven additional accounts are now suspected to be editing on behalf of Wiki-PR; one, CitizenNeutral, was blocked as recently as 27 January. Before CitizenNeutral suddenly stopped editing at the end of September 2013—barely a week before the Daily Dot named Wiki-PR in an article titled "The battle to destroy Wikipedia's largest sockpuppet army"—the account had a contribution history that was characteristic of Wiki-PR employees.
Much of CitizenNeutral's early editing was filled with tagging articles for conflict of interest and puffery, which Wiki-PR commonly did prior to contacting the article's subject. A later focus was on recreating deleted articles, nearly all of which had been deleted for being authored by Wiki-PR. These 33 new articles were short, one-line stubs, with no relation to the previous iteration, which fits into Wiki-PR's typical practice. Vice's Martin Robbins profiled one Wiki-PR client in October 2013, detailing the experiences of academic Emad Rahim. His article was deleted over notability concerns. When a Wiki-PR employee recreated the page, "it contained only one sentence. Rather than apologizing, French told [the subject] he should raise his media profile, and connected [him] to Scarsdale Media, who offered 30 days of 'media relations efforts' for another $800." Rahim had already paid Wiki-PR $1500.
The Kafziel case has been closed, with Kafziel losing his administrator status as a result. The case originated from a request for arbitration filed in December 2013, in which Hasteur alleged that Kafziel had inappropriately deleted pending entries in the Articles for Creation backlog. Unusually, Kafziel chose not to contest the allegations during the arbitration proceeding and instead announced his retirement, writing that "there's nothing anyone here can say or do to make me apologize for anything I did, or agree to do anything differently, and there's nothing short of that that will please people like [Hasteur]". In a split vote, the Arbitration Committee found this action to be in violation of the administrator accountability policy:
While addressing concerns regarding his edits at Articles for Creation Kafziel acted in a hostile and indifferent manner. When concerns were brought before ArbCom, he declined to submit substantive evidence explaining his actions, a breach of administrator accountability.
and voted to strip Kafziel of his administrator status:
For conduct unbecoming an administrator by failing to respond appropriately, respectfully and civilly to good faith enquiries about his administrative actions, Kafziel is desysopped and may regain the tools via a request for adminship. The user may not seek advanced positions in an alternative account unless he links such account to his Kafziel account.
Hasteur, for his part, did not leave the proceeding unscathed, receiving an admonishment for his conduct:
For his battlefield mentality in areas relating to Articles for Creation, Hasteur is admonished.
In a split ten-to-four vote, the Arbitration Committee adopted a summary motion admonishing administrator Kww for changing the protection level on the "Conventional PCI" article, which had been protected by the Wikimedia Foundation's Philippe Beaudette in July 2013 as an "office action":
Kww is admonished for knowingly modifying a clearly designated Wikimedia Foundation Office action, which he did in the absence of any emergency and without any form of consultation, and is warned that he is subject to summary desysopping if he does this again.
Kww had requested arbitration of the dispute between Philippe and himself on January 24, claiming that Philippe had "restored the protection level to an illegitimate level" and requesting that the Committee "[make] clear to Philippe that he must choose one of the permitted protection levels", but the Committee ultimately declined to do so:
Because the request for arbitration filed by Kww seeks review of Office actions, it is outside the purview of the Arbitration Committee and accordingly the request is declined.
A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
An article, "Translating Wikipedia Articles: A Preliminary Report on Authentic Translation Projects in Formal Translator Training", [1] reports on the author's experiment with "a promising type of assignment in formal translator training which involves translating and publishing Wikipedia articles", in three courses with second- and third-year students at the Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw.
It was "enthusiastically embraced by the trainees ... Practically all of the respondents [in a participant survey] concluded that the experience was either 'positive' (31 people, 56% of the respondents) or 'very positive' (23 people, 42% of the respondents)." And "more than 90% of the respondents (50 people) recommended that the exercise 'should definitely be kept [in future courses], maybe with some improvements,' and the remaining 5 people (9%) cautioned that improvements to the format were needed before it was used again. No-one recommended culling the exercise from the syllabus."
However, the author cautions that Polish–English translations required more instructor feedback and editing than translations from English into Polish (the students' native language). And "most people found the technological aspects of the assignment frustrating, with most students assessing them as either 'hard' (39%) or 'very hard' (16%) to complete. The technical skills involved not only coding and formatting using Wikipedia's idiosyncratic syntax, but the practical aspects of publication. [Asked] to identify areas requiring better assistance, the respondents predominantly focused on the need for better information on coding/formatting the article and on publishing the entry. Thirty-nine people (almost three-quarters of the respondents) found the publication criteria baffling enough to postulate that more assistance was needed. That is even more than the 36 people (68%) who had problems dealing with Wikipedia's admittedly idiosyncratic code."
In the researcher's observation, this contributed to the initially disappointing success rate: "Of the 59 respondents, only eight had their work accepted [after drafting it in a sandbox]. Seven people were asked to revise their entries to bring them into line with Wikipedia's publication guidelines but neglected to do so, and 36 did not even try to publish. Some of those people were still waiting for their feedback to get a green light, but this result can only be described as a big disappointment. ... After a resource pack on how to translate and publish a Wikipedia entry was distributed to a fresh batch of students in the following semester, the successful publication rate proved significantly higher." These English-language instructions are humorously written in the form of a game manual ("Your mission is to create a Polish translation of an English-language article and deliver it safely to the Free Encyclopaedia HQ officially known as 'Wikipedia'. Sounds easy? Think again. Wikipedia is defended by an army of Editors who guard its gates night and day to stop Lord Factoid and his minions from corrupting it with bad articles."). They are available on the author's website, together with a small list of the resulting articles (which is absent from the actual research paper).
The project was inspired by author Cory Doctorow's use of Wikipedia in a 2009 course – most likely the one listed here, although the paper fails to specify it. The absence of discussion of the Wikipedia policies, combined with the absence of any references to prior research from the field of Wikipedia in education, makes it almost certain that the author was unaware of Wikipedia policies and available support (Wikipedia Education Program, etc.).
, author's copy at http://stuartgeiger.com/bespoke-code-ics.pdf
