Last month, I wrote an open letter to the Wikimedia Foundation, inviting others to join me in a simple but important request: roll back the recent actions—both technical and social—by which the Wikimedia Foundation has overruled legitimate decisions of several Wikimedia projects.
The context of the letter has been discussed in many venues, including the Signpost. In summary: Three of Wikimedia's most substantial projects clearly and formally rejected the full deployment of the Wikimedia Foundation's Media Viewer software, and declared that the deployment should be scaled back. The WMF disagreed, and created both technical ("superprotect") and social obstacles to those projects' decisions. In the letter, we requested, and continue to request, that the Wikimedia Foundation remove those obstacles.
I hoped that, if I contacted those who had previously spoken up on the topic, and diligently pursued my friends and close colleagues, I might earn as many as 200 signatures in a month, and thereby deliver a clear, strong message.
The response was astonishing.
In less than a month, the letter has been signed by 824 Wikimedians. An additional 82 people signed a copy of the letter published on change.org, totalling more than 900 supporters.
The signatures reflect broad support from those who have built Wikimedia's content, and who are passionate about our vision of freely sharing knowledge around the world; this group isn't narrowly centered on a certain range of experience or a specific language community. More than half of those signing began contributing between 2001 and 2007; nearly 100 started within the last 2.5 years. Wikimedians from 42 language communities signed. Volunteers have fully translated the text of the letter into 20 languages, and discussed it on various "Village Pump" pages across the Wikimedia projects. I have heard personally from Wikimedians around the world, in private emails and public talk page messages, about the letter's importance, and how it relates to local issues.
What the letter is not
Let me emphasize several things the letter does not request or assert.
The letter does not endorse the Request for Comment model, or any other particular model, for evaluating software suitability. It does not propose any specific hierarchy or power dynamic among the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia volunteers. And finally, it does not insist that software like the Media Viewer or the superprotect status can never exist.
When I wrote the letter, I took great care to maintain neutrality on points like these. Dedicated Wikimedians hold a variety of views on such issues. But the letter’s simple requests, if granted, will address an immediate and divisive issue, and will permit those of us who share the Wikimedia vision to deliberate topics like these calmly and productively.
Where do we go from here?
New software should bring celebration, not panic. Together, we need to work toward that reality. But before we can do so, we need an acceptable starting point.
900 people agree on what that starting point should look like.
The Wikimedia Foundation has the next move.
Pete Forsyth is the principal of Wiki Strategies, where he has advised organizations small and large in Wikipedia engagement, including design and recruitment for Wikipedian in residence programs.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. Editors wishing to propose their own Signpost contribution should email the Signpost's editor in chief.
Even though it's not quite 3⁄4 over, it's safe to say that 2014 will go down as a year of war, mass murder, plane crashes and terrible diseases. While certainly paying it some heed, it's not surprising that Wikipedia viewers tried this week to find any alternative to that litany of tragedy and pain, and their chosen method of escape was, as usual, celebrity. The death of comedian Joan Rivers led to much attention to both her and her family, while the leaks of the private photographs of dozens of celebrities led to much condemnation, as it is the kind of atrocity most people can get their heads around.
For the full top 25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.
The brassy, pioneering comedian died this week at 81. Many people in this profession are lazily described as "shocking"; Joan Rivers actually was. Her acerbic barbs at her fellow celebrities, most recently displayed on her cable TV show Fashion Police, were witty, caustic and often downright cruel – to the point when some threatened to sue her for defamation. A lifelong plastic surgery fan, she tended to view physical imperfections as optional and would mercilessly dig celebrities about excess hair, ageing, and weight gain. "If Kate Winslet would've just lost five pounds, Leo would've been able to fit on the raft," she said of the Titanic star, or, on Cate Blanchett: "Her movie is about Middle Earth, which is exactly where Cate's boobs have settled." But for all that, you can't deny her indomitability; after achieving fame on the talk show circuit in the 80s, she faced ruin when a failed attempt to launch her own show led to a irreparable break from her mentor Johnny Carson and, she said, her husband's suicide. But she rebounded, reinventing herself as a red carpet commentator and fashion maven, and was still working until the day she died.
An event so controversial that Wikipedia can't even decide what to name it; both its most popular titles this week are now redirects. The hack into dozens of personal files that celebrities (including Jennifer Lawrence, pictured) unwittingly stored on Apple's iCloud, which led to the mass publication of their private nude selfies, has acted as a sharp reminder of the fragility of personal privacy in the age of Web 2.0. A handy warning to any and all contemplating a bout of private exhibitionism: if you want to take a nude selfie, use a normal camera, not a phone; or, if you must use a phone, remember, just because you delete a picture, that doesn't mean it's gone.
*Number includes views for its monumentally insensitive nickname, "The Fappening", based on the subreddit where all of the pictures were collected.
Numbers are up again for this almost absurdly brutal jihadist group, which proudly posts mass executions it carries out on Twitter and has been disowned even by al-Qaeda. The surge is likely due to the fallout from Barack Obama's decision to take US troops into Iraq, (despite having campaigned on the promise of troop withdrawal from the country) including the execution of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
The singer and onetime Nickelodeon actress may have released her most recent album My Everything on August 25, but she's most likely on this list as another victim of the photo leak scandal.
A performer from the age of nine, the Hungarian-Jewish immigrant with the intense eyes and the bodybuilder's physique worked his way to becoming the most successful escape artist and magician in the world, and, along with Charlie Chaplin, one of the first modern celebrities. Aware of the power of illusion, he used his fame to debunk fraudulent mediums and other bogus psychics, a tradition his fellow magicians continue to this day. Interest in his story was piqued by a two-part miniseries based on his life written by Nicholas Meyer and starring Adrian Brody in the title role.
The actress daughter of Joan Rivers (see #1), who took her mother's stage name and eventually followed her into red carpet reportage, gained interest in the wake of her mother's death.
The only world sport that the US can truly claim as its own, basketball, as Carl Sagan noted, is younger than the cinema. But in its relatively short life, the game has risen to become the third most popular in the world (after soccer and cricket) and to see its world cup garner a global audience of over 800 million.
The Colombianstriker, currently on loan to Manchester United from AS Monaco scored a record-breaking 17 goals in a single season in 2011. Interest was raised this week due to concerns over a past injury and controversial claims that he lied about his age.
The amazing and strange tongue-eating louse replacing a fish's tongue! Because isopods, the subject of a new featured article, are both awesome and really damn weird!
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 1 to 7 September 2014. Anything in quotation marks is taken from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
Henry Burrell (admiral)(nominated by Ian Rose) An Australian admiral, Burrell entered the navy at the tail end of the First World War. He rose through the ranks, commanding a destroyer in the Second World War, before captaining the navy's most important vessels for several years after the war. After being promoted to a flag officer, Burrell was in charge of several major acquisitions, including new submarines and guided-missile destroyers. He retired in 1962, published his memoirs in 1986, and died in 1988.
Isopoda(nominated by Cwmhiraeth) An order of crustaceans, of which probably the best known is the common woodlouse, which are quite often found when lifting small rocks and other such objects in a good chunk of the world, and which can roll up into a ball. I've always thought they were adorable. I might be a bit weird. Anyway! Crustaceans are generally sea-dwelling species, and while the adaptations of the various species of woodlice make them the major exception to this rule, other members of the isopods are aquatic. And, on the subject of sea-dwelling isopods, let's talk about Cymothoa exigua, my favourite isopod, and probably one of my favourite species. Common name: The tongue-eating louse. It's stranger than it sounds, though. It doesn't just eat the tongue. No, it replaces it, then feeds off of the fish's blood or mucus. The thing is, though, it's actually a pretty good tongue: There's little or no survival difference between infected and uninfected fish, just one has a mouth full of louse. It's the only known example of a parasite functionally replacing a host organ. It's awesome! If anyone manages to get a really good picture of one of these, please, please nominate it for featured picture. Oh, yeah, and the author, Cwmhiraeth, is probably one of the most prolific creators of featured and good articles on underdeveloped, but massively important topics.
Æthelwold ætheling(nominated by Dudley Miles ) The younger son of a King of Wessex, Æthelwold made a bid for the throne after his father died but was unable to rally enough support. Fleeing to a nearby Danish-controlled area, Æthelwold was able to gather an army and march on Wessex, but died in a Pyrrhic victory.
Beaune Altarpiece(nominated by Ceoil and Victoria) More commonly known as The Last Judgement, this large work of art comprises fifteen paintings on nine panels. The most recognizable of these are the nine panels of the Abrahamic concept of the Last Judgement.
Pictor(nominated by Casliber) A constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, Pictor is notable partly "because of its second-brightest star Beta Pictoris, 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, which is surrounded by an unusual dust disk rich in carbon, as well as an exoplanet (extrasolar planet)." This is the 18th featured constellation out of 88 in the sky.
List of accolades received by Grand Theft Auto V(nominated by CR4ZE) The widely anticipated Grand Theft Auto V was released last September, and it did not disappoint—it made one billion dollars in three days, and it currently has a score of 97 on Metacritic. The video game has won 33 of the 108 awards it has been nominated for.
List of Bleach video games(nominated by Nightwolf87)Bleach, a Japanese manga and anime series, has 23 video games, including five different series, based in its universe since the first was released in 2005. Only four have been released outside of Japan.
Portrait of a Young Woman(created by Sandro Botticelli, nominated by Brandmeister) "Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting which is commonly believed to be by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed between 1480 and 1485. Others attribute authorship to Jacopo del Sellaio. The woman is shown in profile but with her bust turned in three-quarter view to reveal a cameo medallion she is wearing round her neck. The medallion is a copy in reverse of "Nero's Seal", a famous antique carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas, which belonged to Lorenzo de' Medici."
Sulphur mining in Kawah Ijen, Indonesia(created by Sémhur, nominated by Crisco 1492) "The Ijen volcano complex is a group of stratovolcanoes in the Banyuwangi Regency of East Java, Indonesia. It is inside a larger caldera Ijen, which is about 20 kilometers wide. The Gunung Merapi stratovolcano is the highest point of that complex. The name "Merapi" means "mountain of fire" in the Indonesian language; Mount Merapi in central Java and Marapi in Sumatra have the same etymology. West of Gunung Merapi is the Ijen volcano, which has a one-kilometer-wide turquoise-colored acid crater lake. The lake is the site of a labor-intensive sulfur mining operation, in which sulfur-laden baskets are carried by hand from the crater floor. The work is low-paid and very onerous. Workers earn around Rp 50,000 - 75,000 ($5.50-$8.30) per day and once out of the crater, still need to carry their loads of sulfur chunks about three kilometers to the nearby Pultuding Valley to get paid."
Sharp-tailed sandpiper(created and nominated by JJ Harrison) "The sharp-tailed sandpiper (Calidris acuminata)... is a small wader. More recently, a review of new data has indicated that this bird should perhaps better be placed into the genus Philomachus – as P. acuminatus – which now contains only the ruff but if the sharp-tailed sandpiper is merged into it would need to accommodate the broad-billed sandpiper also (Thomas et al., 2004)." The sandpiper "breeds in the boggy tundra of northeast Asia and is strongly migratory, wintering in south east Asia and Australasia. It occurs as a rare autumn migrant to North America, but in western Europe only as a very rare vagrant."
Red-kneed dotterel(created and nominated by JJ Harrison) "The red-kneed dotterel (Erythrogonys cinctus) is a long-legged, medium-sized (length 17–20 cm, wingspan 33–38 cm, weight 40-55 g) plover in a monotypic genus in the subfamily Vanellinae. It is often gregarious and will associate with other waders of its own and different species, even when nesting. It is nomadic and sometimes irruptive."
Black-fronted dotterel(created and nominated by JJ Harrison) "The black-fronted dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) is a small, slender plover, widespread throughout most of Australia, to which it is native and New Zealand, where it self-introduced in the 1950s. It is common in freshwater wetlands, around the edges of lakes and billabongs, and in shallow, temporary claypan pools. It is also found occupying saline mudflats and estuaries, but rarely. Unlike many other wading birds, black-fronted dotterels retain the same plumage all year round, which makes identification easier."
Sulphur mining in Ijen, a complex of volcanoes in Indonesia.
This week, the Signpost decided to have a look around with WikiProject Check Wikipedia, a maintenance project not concerned so much with articles' content, but in all the tiny errors that are to be found scattered within them. Their front page gives a list of things they mainly focus on:
“
Checkwiki helps clean up syntax and other errors in the source code of the Wikipedia by finding problems such as:
Eliminate errors in wiki syntax, such as a missing close tags or brackets;
Check for accessibility issues, such as small print or heading problems;
Correct, delete or move code that does not follow conventions, such as the position of references with respect to punctuation;
It's one of those essential but hidden projects home to a number of WP:WikiGnomes, who quietly come around with their tools and fix those small mistakes. It might not get much attention paid to it, but this week, we thought we'd feature them here so you can take a look at their work, and who knows, even give them a hand. So, we spoke to Bgwhite and Magioladitis to get their inside perspective on WikiProject Check Wikipedia.
What is Check Wikipedia?
Bgwhite: Check Wikipedia finds common syntactical errors. Errors range from missing closing tags, missing/extra brackets, accessibility issues and MOS issues. Errors are found by scanning the twice monthly dumps of 47 different Wikipedias and the monthly dump of English Wikipedia. Daily scans are also performed on recently changed articles for five different Wikipedias, include English Wikipedia. A whitelist is used so false positives do not show up as errors. Each different Wikipedia has their own configuration file. With the configuration file, errors can be turned off or on, errors can be assigned different priority values and each Wikipedia can have their own whitelist.
There is a web site that shows the errors and where in the article the error is found. One can manually edit the article or use the autoFormatter script to fix the error. One can also load up the errors inside the tools AWB and WPCleaner.
Tell us about the history of WikiProject Check Wikipedia and how it came to be.
Bgwhite: Stefan Kühn and a few others started the project on dewiki around September 2008. It was inspired by WikiProject Wiki Syntax, which stopped in 2006. The project was expanded to other Wikipedias and then in 2010, it received its last major update. Until 2013, the project stagnated and infrequent checks against dumps were being made. I had started running the programs on my home computer in 2012 because of Check Wikipedia being infrequently run on the dump files and I also started making fixes. Check Wikipedia was ported over to WMF Labs in late summer of 2013. Since then, several detected errors have been removed, new detected errors added, whitelist function added and a ton of fixes or tweaks done.
How much of your time that you spend on Wikipedia is used "checking" Wikipedia for errors? Is it time-consuming?
Bgwhite: I usually spend 3-4 hours a day fixing new errors found that day. Any "free" time is spent cleaning out a backlog in an error or doing some coding.
Magioladitis: I spend about the same amount of time. And there is extra time of course for fixing bugs on the automated tools, the scripts, etc. If we distribute the work better in the future and more editors involve I hope I'll need to spend less time on fixing and more time on improving the automated tool.
What motivated you to join WikiProject Check Wikipedia? Do you find yourself to be a bit of a "grammar nazi" or perfectionist, or maybe you feel it is the best way you can contribute if writing content isn't your forte?
Bgwhite: My background is in math and computer science. Anyone who has ever read a talk message of mine knows that grammar and spelling are something I rarely use. I started out writing articles. I shifted to editing new biography articles, mostly correcting mistakes. Slowly over time I went from correcting new articles to correcting mistakes via Checkwiki.
Magioladitis: I started my wikilife by fixing red links in 2005-2006 as a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery. Then I shifted into fixing Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links and later by adding {{blp}} banners in talk pages of biography articles. I am one of the developers of WP:AutoWikiBrowser which fixes dozens of common syntax errors. When I discovered WikiProject Check Wikipedia I realised it was the perfect ground for me for testing AWB's code and improving it. I am not a native English speaker and sometimes I do not feel comfortable writing large portions of text. I enjoy small edits and I certainly like to imagine Wikipedia as a huge encyclopaedia in which all articles follow a certain style. This is how printed books are and this is how I look Wikipedia to be.
Bots are only part of the effort to clean up Wikipedia; much of it is also done by hand
Is most of your scrutinizing of Wikipedia done manually or with a semi-automated script, tool or bot? Do you find these to be accurate and useful or sometimes making mistakes?
Bgwhite: It is done by manual editing and by bot. During the past year, the AWB and WPCleaner developers have worked with us to find and fix more errors. Both these tools can correct many errors in bot mode. TMg has been updating his wonderful script, autoFormatter. Both AWB and WPCleaner are integrated with Checkwiki. WPCleaner and Checkwiki both use the same configuration files. These three tools are an integral part of Checkwiki. A listing is available that shows each error and what each tool can fix automatically or find.
What is the most common problem you have to fix?
Bgwhite: There is really no common problem. What I find interesting is what makes up some of the errors. For example, Error #8 is headlines that don't end with an equal sign. 80% of these errors are a result of vandalism. Error #58 is headlines that are all CAPS. 80% of these errors are found on India related articles. Upward of 25% of the broken bracket errors are related to vandalism.
What is your inter-WikiProject relationship with the other Active Wiki Fixup Projects, and do the projects work collaboratively to fix a common problem? How many of your participants are also members of another cleanup WikiProject?
How can the average Wikipedian come to help you out; what is a good way for them to start assisting?
Magioladitis: We certainly need more Wikipedians to get involved independently if they use automated tools or not. We provide daily lists of pages with errors and everyone is invited to contribute. Pages with ISBN errors have a huge backlog and can't be done via automated tools. Moreover, we certainly prefer manual editing than bot editing since many errors involve checking the edit history. We need editors to have a closer look at pages and check whether the error reported is the result of vandalism or not.
Is there anything else you would like to add to the interview?
Magioladitis: Checking Wikipedia for syntax fixes is a great task for many editors. It involves reading many different articles, counter-vandalism (counter-vandals are the superheroes of Wikipedia), improving rendered time of pages and much more. It's the perfect task for WikiGnomes. It can be beneficial for Visual Editor and automated tools. It's a nice way to get more involved in Wikipedia. Try it!
Next week, this report will chat to the editors of Scotland just before their vote for or against political independence. In the meanwhile, check out past reports in the archive.
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