This week saw the publication of the Chapter-wide Financial Trends Report 2013, a now-completed research project that examines the finances and outlays of the 36 movement-affiliated chapters for the period January 1, 2013 through December 31, 2013. "We, the Finance Fellows, following extensive research and collaboration with the participating chapters, have created a potential reporting guide for all chapters, thematic organizations, and other movement groups, to report data in a way that is more consistent and comparable across the movement. It is also within this report we highlight some our key findings."
The report was delivered by four "finance fellows", who according to their introductions to the community on the wikimedia-l mailing list in October of last year are "a multicultural team consisting of 4 young professionals ... happy to introduce a 6-month movement-wide project that focuses on the consistency of how we operate". The work stems from a presentation titled "Chapters in Numbers", prepared for Wikimania 2013 by prominent Polish Wikipedian Michał Buczyński, who is now a community-elect member of the Funds Dissemination Committee; the work was supported by the WMF Board's Audit Comittee. The initial announcement was followed by questions from chapter community members about whether or not the process, though explicitly stated not to be a full audit, will incur additional reporting overhead on the chapters being examined; on this topic, CFO Garfield Byrd wrote that "The project has been designed so that the fellows will be using existing data provided by movement entities and the Fellows will only be reaching out to movement entities with clarifying questions". There were also concerns about the timetable and the absence of prior community notification of the existence of the project (the project had apparently been in planning for two months by that time).
The project and the findings are available on the meta-wiki. Some data highlights:
http for short—has long been more or less the standard as web access protocols go. Yet soon after the June 2013 Edward Snowden revelations the Wikimedia Foundation unveiled plans (far from unique) to speed up the implementation of the more secure HTTPS as the new default for the projects. Just short of two years later, in a blog post tellingly co-penned by members of the Foundation's legal and engineering teams, the Foundation is unveiling HTTPS-by-default as the site's new access paradigm. HTTPS first had a presence on Wikipedia in 2005, when long-time Foundation tech Brion Vibber enabled on a single testbed server, funneling traffic through the https://secure.wikimedia.org/ subdomain. The current URLs and a more robust system were enabled in 2011, but progress was fairly slow past that point—until the Snowden revelations gave the project a shot in the arm in 2013. It is worth remembering also that, as the Signpost reported earlier this year, the Wikimedia Foundation is the top-billed party in an ACLU lawsuit against the NSA. Raction=query results sometime by the end of this month. The change is expected to cause compatibility issues affecting many of the bots that have not yet been retrofit to work with the new schema, and have to do with the way that continuations are handled within queries to the Mediawiki API, the primary way that the sites' many bots talk to and modify content on the Wikimedia sites. A list of affected bots, current as of early June, was presented in the mailing list. R| “ | We have over the past 18 months moved to a more focused mode of work when delivering projects that we run in collaboration with external partners. Building relationships with major organisations has shown that this can bring success in terms of impact, value for money, and perceived reputation in the movement and in the public mindset. These relationships not only open doors for us in terms of access to content, goodwill and expertise, but will also increasingly prove vital in formulating the basis for fundraising appeals and gaining the confidence of grant making organisations. They are worthy of more time, consistent focus and development, which is why we want to particularly focus on these this year and beyond, as well as bringing our broader volunteer work into this project-based approach. | ” |
| “ | Wikipedia meetups social events centered around Wikipedia or one of its sister projects. They happen in real life with real humans and can be large affairs, sponsored and hosted by universities, or smaller informal meetings held in a cafe down the street. They can be loosely themed or focused on a specific topic or article. Anyone is welcome to attend, and often people who are new to Wikipedia can learn how edit the encyclopedia by learning from experienced editors in person. These events happen in cities and towns all around the world. You can find a meetup happening near you by clicking the link above — you may also find other meetups tailored to other languages and regions by clicking the languages on the lower right side of the page. | ” |
"Happy families are all alike," Leo Tolstoy said, "but unhappy families are unhappy after their own fashion." While there is truth to that statement, I've never found it entirely right. Unhappiness can strike in many forms, but there are several we all share, the most obvious, and in many ways the most painful, is bereavement. The unexpected death of the eldest son of US Vice President Joe Biden brought respect and sympathy from viewers worldwide, while on the other end of the spectrum, Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, erstwhile scion of the Kardashian clan, followed a route to personal happiness that I doubt Tolstoy had ever conceived, but in the process put an end to his seemingly successful marriage.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of May 31 to June 6, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn Jenner | 
|
4,124,013* |  |
On June 1, the former track and field star and honorary Kardashian announced that he had completed his transition to womanhood, and was answering to the name Caitlyn. In keeping with the habits of his former family, his transition was accompanied by a full-on media blow-out, including a cover shoot for Vanity Fair. Perhaps surprisingly, America seems to have welcomed her with open arms, though you wouldn't know that from the response of the right-wing press, whose reaction has been, to quote the Washington Post, "apocalyptic".
*Numbers are combined with her now-redirected former name. Her current name alone gained 1,249,139 views this week. |
| 2 | Game of Thrones (season 5) |
|
902,536 |  |
As we approach the season finale, it seems A Song of Ice and Fire is getting some fire back, as numbers jumped again by another 80,000 views. This week's episode was the highest-rated since the première, and numbers are only likely to increase next week. |
| 3 | Beau Biden | 
|
876,235 | .jpg) |
The former Attorney General of Delaware and elder son of US Vice President Joe Biden died this week of brain cancer, aged just 46. |
| 4 | Marilyn Monroe | 
|
802,950 | Lifetime premièred a biopic of the legendary sex goddess in the weekend leading up to what would have been her 89th birthday on June 1. The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe starred Kelli Garner as Marilyn and Susan Sarandon as her mother. | |
| 5 | Joe Biden | 
|
777,579 | _2.jpg) |
The bereaved Vice President of the United States got some sympathy views in the wake of his son's untimely death (see above). |
| 6 | Stephen Curry |
|
675,368 | .jpg) |
On June 4, this record-breaking basketball wunderkind, who has been leading the Golden State Warriors to the NBA Finals, beat LeBron James's Cleveland Cavaliers in a tight battle. |
| 7 | List of Game of Thrones episodes | 
|
665,093 | |
See #2. |
| 8 | Kris Jenner |
|
665,093 |  |
The mother of the media-genic Kardashian clan and now-ex-Mrs-ex-Bruce Jenner has been tactfully quiescent in the wake of her former husband's coming out, though that hasn't stopped the media stoking rumours about rampant jealousy and catfights between the two. |
| 9 | San Andreas (film) |
|
652,261 |  |
Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's biggest starring role to date rises to become the most popular film on the list, probably in part because it inspired Californians by the carload to purchase earthquake insurance. The film had a boffo $53 million opening weekend in the States last week, though this Friday's numbers augur a rather steep dropoff. Critics seem equally nonplussed, with the film currently resting at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. |
| 10 | Mad Max: Fury Road |
|
613,713 | .png) |
Numbers are falling steeply for this belated action sequel, but it still retains its position ahead of Pitch Perfect 2, which beat it soundly at the US box office. |
UK political blog Guido Fawkes reported on the proposed decision of the Sockpuppet investigation block arbitration case: "Wikipedia slaps down Grant Shapps' LibDem tormentor" (8 June). This was followed by numerous reports in the UK mainstream media later that day. The BBC was first to weigh in ("Censure for Grant Shapps' Wikipedia accuser"), to be followed by the Guardian, one of whose writers appears to have started the entire affair when he emailed a Wikimedia UK staffer ("Wikipedia volunteer faces reprimand over 'Shapps account' investigation"). Other publications reporting the story included:
On 9 June, after the formal conclusion of the arbitration case, the Guardian reported that the Contribsx account had been unblocked by a Wikipedia administrator: "Wikipedia: account at centre of row 'not linked' to Grant Shapps". On Twitter, frequent Wikipedia critic David Auerbach pointed out that the author of the article, Randeep Ramesh, "was also the original recipient of the leak". Breitbart weighed in on 10 June, opining that the "Shapps case raises questions for Wikipedia and The Guardian"; according to Breitbart, the "Guardian reader’s editor is investigating complaints against the newspaper."
Detailed coverage of the arbitration case itself will be provided in next week's Arbitration Report. A.K.
Wikimedia Foundation executive director Lila Tretikov visited Israel and Palestine earlier this month for a number of Wikimedia-related events.
Tretikov was the keynote speaker at the 2015 Wikipedia Academy Israel Conference in Herzliya. The topic of the conference was education, and in an interview there with i24news Tretikov was optimistic about Wikipedia's ability to meet the educational challenges of the future:Tretikov visted a middle school in Hertzliya where students had been assigned the task of contributing information to Wikipedia about their city and local history. She told the Jerusalem Post "In Israel, this is the first country where we see innovation really happening on the scale where it’s a country-wide program, and that’s in primary education."Our power is in every human being around the world because people are motivated by their intrinsic motivators, by their desire to contribute, their desire to learn, and their desire to teach, and we have hundreds of thousands of contributors around the world who are participating without us having to pay them.
During her time in the area, Tretikov met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Prime Minister's office noted that his father, historian Benzion Netanyahu, was an editor of the Encyclopaedia Hebraica. Tretikov accompanied Israeli Wikimedians on one of the regular meetings of the Elef Millim project, this one to the Old City of Jerusalem. Hebrew for "a thousand words", the project tours and photographically documents sites of historical interest. Tretikov also met with Palestinian Wikimedians in Ramallah.
The Jerusalem Post noted that Tretikov will visit again in April 2016 for the Wikimedia hackathon, the first time this event will be held outside North America or Europe.
In related Wikipedia news, the Jerusalem Post also reported (June 2) on a discussion on the Hebrew Wikipedia about racially charged comments made by prime minister Netanyahu on the day of the March 2015 Israel legislative election. The discussion resulted in the comments remaining in the encyclopedia. Also, Jimmy Wales was interviewed on the July 1 episode of The Cost of Doing Business on TLV1. G.
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Four featured articles were promoted this week.
Two Featured lists were promoted this week.
One featured topic was promoted this week.
Twenty-eight Featured pictures were promoted this week.
Today it was announced that Wikimedia sites are going to become HTTPS only, finishing up 10 year effort of rolling out HTTPS. In December 2005, Brion Vibber set up an experimental HTTPS server using special urls like https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Main_Page.
In 2011, HTTPS became available using canonical urls like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, which allowed for the usage of protocol-relative urls (//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) to avoid serving HTTP content in pages loaded over HTTPS (mixed content).
Since August 2013, all logged in users used HTTPS; however, that system had some drawbacks. If a user clicked an HTTP link, they would be redirected to HTTPS, but their initial click would leak what page they were trying to visit. To counter that, HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) is also being rolled out, which instructs browsers to only visit the website over HTTPS. Wikimedia sites will also be added to browser's HSTS preload lists, which will make sure the browser uses HTTPS even if you have never visited the website before to see the HSTS information.
As of writing, only 7 language groups have been converted[1]: ca, el, en, he, it, ug, zh. The Russian Wikipedia has been practically HTTPS-only since August 2014[2].
The Medical Translation Project, an ambitious attempt to improve and translate Wikipedia’s medical content from English into other languages, began in 2012. While it was initially a collaboration between WikiProject Medicine and Translators Without Borders, one particularly successful model was developed and carried out by Wikimedia Taiwan, in partnership with the National Taiwan University College of Medicine.
This project began in the fall of 2014, when students were invited to translate entire high-quality medical articles into Chinese. The students initially struggled, due to the size and complexity of these articles. The project’s focus then shifted from improving entire articles to simply improving the leads, the three-to-four-paragraph prefaces to Wikipedia’s articles. Since many languages have very little medical content overall, it was believed that concentrating on a large number of short articles would have a greater impact than working on only a few longer articles. The leads of the English Wikipedia’s medical articles, which needed improvement, also benefited from this attention.
The students began by working on an article from a list of entries ready for translation from the English, with Wikimedia markup in place. They then used a combination of Hackpad and Facebook to coordinate their efforts and translate content using this markup. Once the translation was complete, they sent the completed article to editors from Wikimedia Taiwan, who added them to the Chinese Wikipedia. This process worked very well: as the students gained more skill and enthusiasm, they returned to the full articles and began working on them as well — and as of May 2015, 16 full articles and 48 short articles have been translated into Chinese.
This project has resulted in benefits not just for Wikipedia, but also for the students. While medical students in Taiwan learn mostly in English, after graduating they practice mostly in Chinese: this project has been an excellent way for students to not only develop their abilities to translate medical information into their own language, but also to learn the medical content at the same time. And their translations will help give the next generation of students the option to study medicine in their own language.
Aaron Huang, a medical student involved in the project, shared his experience: “Being a participant in this project changed my perspective on knowledge. In the process of finding the balance between using precise professional terms and common words to explain a medical condition, I learned a lot. This has helped me to have better communication with my patients… something that I had not expected when I started. Joining [Wikimedia Taiwan] was a great opportunity for me to rethink not only medical knowledge but also medical education.”
This collaboration’s success offers another potential model for chapters to form relationships with medical schools. Previous educational efforts have run into issues, with the use of low-quality citations, poor formatting, and copyright. This method of collaboration avoids these potential pitfalls by providing students an easy introduction to Wikipedia editing.
Currently, there are 150 short articles and 34 long articles ready for translation, and we hope to eventually increase the number of short articles to 1,000. While we initially concentrated on core human health problems, we have recently began to develop content pertaining to essential medications and public health infrastructure, like sanitation.
One of the keys to success has been ensuring that all of the content added to the translation list is of very high quality, meaning that every sentence accurately reflects and is supported by a reliable secondary source.
These efforts exemplify how chapters and thematic projects such as Wiki Project Med can effectively work together, each bringing their specific expertise to a joint initiative. We would love to see other groups emulate this promising model.
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