Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/From the editors
For the second consecutive week, the most viewed article had less than one million views, the only two weeks that has happened in all of 2015. Five of the top 10 this week are television or movie related articles, two are football-related, two are Reddit-fueled entries, and the last is the perennial favorite Deaths in 2015, whose average 550,000 views every week tends to rise into the top 10 when other things are not drawing our attention.
As for Wikipedia editors, the list of the most edited articles over the same period (October 4–10), led by recent Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, has little overlap with the most viewed list; see here.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions.
For the week of October 4–10, 2015, the ten most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | American Horror Story: Hotel | 
|
883,185 |  |
The fifth season of American Horror Story premiered on October 7. The first episode, Checking In, has been watched by 12.17 million people as of October 11. |
| 2 | The Martian (film) |
|
833,566 |  |
Holding steady at #2 for a second week, with more than 200,000 additional views. The adaptation of Andy Weir's popular novel about an astronaut stranded on Mars (played by Matt Damon) has grossed $227.7 million as of October 11 on a budget of $108 million. Presumably this means far more people have seen this film than our #1 entry this week, though the phenomenon of darker episodic television shows being a favorite of Wikipedia readers, and placing high on our charts, is well documented. |
| 3 | Pablo Escobar | 
|
667,497 | .jpg) |
Down from #1 last week. The fascination with the Netflix series Narcos continues to keep the Capone of cocaine near the top of this list. |
| 4 | Jürgen Klopp |
|
667,497 | .jpg) |
This German football manager of Borussia Dortmund from 2008-15 was named manager of Liverpool this week, replacing the sacked Brendan Rodgers. Klopp wasn't even in the WP:5000 last week, but British press attention was immediate. (He had a respectable 40,459 desktop views in September according to stats.grok.se, over three times the views the German version of his article had.). |
| 5 | Great white shark | 
|
571,711 |  |
Reddit learned on October 5 after an Orca killed a great white shark in 2000, all nearby great whites vanished. See Great white shark#Natural threats. |
| 6 | Deaths in 2015 | 
|
540,654 |  |
As always, the viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant, apparently heedless of who actually died. Deaths from the list this week included American academic S. Malcolm Gillis (president of Rice University from 1993-2004) (October 4); Belgian author Jos Vandeloo (October 5); Hungarian-French writer Christine Arnothy (October 6) (pictured at left); Kenyan politician Julius Muthamia (October 7); American chef Paul Prudhomme (October 8); Chinese politician Du Runsheng (October 9); and Indian Tamil actress Manorama (October 10). |
| 7 | Mary Fields | 
|
518,800 |  |
Another Reddit entry. The first African-American woman to work as a mail carrier for the United States Postal Service. |
| 8 | Fear the Walking Dead |
|
463,462 |  |
The sixth and final episode of the first season of AMC's spin-off to their hit series The Walking Dead aired on 4 October. |
| 9 | UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying | 
|
452,604 | Play continues in this tournament through mid-November. | |
| 10 | Steve Jobs |
|
437,076 |  |
Steve Jobs died four years ago, and the latest entry to the mind-boggling list of artistic depictions of Steve Jobs is the movie Steve Jobs, which opened in New York and Los Angeles on October 9. Writer Aaron Sorkin also previously tackled Facebook in The Social Network. Can a film about Wikipedia be far behind? Jobs director Danny Boyle has already said he's in favor of it. Could Chris Pratt as Jimbo Wales be far off? If you've read this far, put your own casting suggestions in the comments! |
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/In the media
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
The database size lists have been updated. These control special page update frequency and which wikis use global abuse filters. [1]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from October 13. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from October 14. It will be on all Wikipedias from October 15 (calendar).
You will be able to upload images to Wikimedia Commons using the visual editor. When the image is uploaded it will be added to the article you're editing. [2]
Pages that show citation error messages will automatically be placed in a hidden category. [3]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the VisualEditor team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs you think are the most important. The meeting will be on 13 October at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
Tech news prepared by tech ambassadors and posted by bot • Contribute • Translate • Get help • Give feedback • Subscribe or unsubscribe.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/Opinion
The Wikimedia Foundation has published its fundraising update for the first quarter of the 2015–2016 financial year, covering the months of July, August and September 2015 (the Foundation's financial year runs from July 1 to June 30):
| “ | Over these past three months, the fundraising team [...] ran campaigns in Japan, Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa, Belgium and Luxembourg and prepared for the upcoming year-end English fundraising campaign. The online fundraising team missed the $6 million goal for the quarter due to postponing the Italy fundraiser to October to support the Wiki Loves Monuments campaign. We raised roughly $5.7 million in the first quarter of the year and plan to make up for the loss in the next quarter. | ” |
The Italian fundraiser, originally scheduled for September, had been postponed following a complaint from Wiki Loves Monuments organizer Romaine, which sparked a Request for comment on Meta. (The substance of the complaint was that the fundraising banner would interfere with the ability to show the banner advertising the Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition, substantially reducing Italian participation in the contest.)
The Foundation's fundraising team tested a wide variety of banners during the quarter, and reported that by September, a banner design had been found that increased donations by about 20% over the best-performing banner in the last quarter.
| “ | Better performing banners are required to raise a higher budget with declining traffic. We’ll continue testing new banners into the next quarter and sharing highlights as we go. | ” |
Minor modifications to the banner wording have since been made in response to community feedback, changing:
The announcement of the Q1 update led to debate on the Wikimedia-l mailing list. Wikimedia Foundation research scientist Leila Zia said she found the black banner (shown above) too scary. She explained her involuntary responses to the banner in detail, saying it inspired a "sudden feeling of fear" when she first saw it, as though someone important had died:
| “ | I saw that banner and I want to do all I can to help you not use it even if it performs 20% better. | ” |
Her concerns were echoed by Pete Forsyth, who opined:
| “ | Leila's post here is heartening, and I'm glad that somebody has the energy to articulate the concerns so well. I, myself, do not; I have simply lost faith in the integrity of the Wikimedia Foundation's fund-raising operation. I am, honestly, ashamed to tell people that I used to work in the fund-raising department there (though I believe the work we did was valuable).
I recently heard from a high-ranking executive at a software company. She told me that she had given money to the Wikimedia Foundation, and then looked into the WMF's budget, and the messages in the campaign she had responded to. The word she used to describe her feeling was "mortified." She had considered asking for her money back, but had decided against it. |
” |
Other posts acknowledged the fundraising team's responsiveness to community feedback, and the difficulty of meeting rising budget needs given declining pageviews. Wikimedia Foundation board member James Heilman said on October 15,
| “ | I agree that the WMF needs to slow its growth and look at stabilizing around its current level of funding. Continuing to grow at 20% is simply not sustainable while maintaining our values and our reputation. I am not yet sure what the rest of the board's position is on this matter but I share many of the concerns raised here. | ” |
AK
Geraldshields11 has submitted a grant proposal to launch Wikipedia articles into outer space. The project would include a number of articles on a 512 GB SD card to be included on a satellite launch scheduled for the end of the year. According to the proposal, the project would "increase name recondition of Wikimedia and its subcomponents" as well as "STEM coolness". G
The Wikimedia blog reports that French author Antoine Bello donated an entire year’s royalties to the Wikimedia Foundation.
| “ | Bello says he is only returning the favor—that Wikipedia astonishes him whenever he looks for information there.
"Every time I use it, I think of the people who have taken the time and devoted long evenings doing that," Bello says of Wikipedia’s articles. "And I wonder, 'Who are these people? Why did they do it? What an appetite for knowledge and for sharing it they must have.' And I feel blessed that people do that." |
” |
AK
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/Serendipity
We often describe Wikipedia as a wonderful resource, a collection of human knowledge. But Wikipedia is also a remarkable collaboration. We believe that human interaction can only make it stronger.
The WikiConference USA is proof. This year, the event was co-sponsored by the National Archives and Records Administration and the Wiki Education Foundation. The conference was organized by volunteers and co-ordinated by Wikimedia DC and Wikimedia NYC and a host of passionate Wikipedians.
The Wiki Education Foundation isn't a grant-making organization; most likely it never will be. However, when people approached us, we were more than happy to help out. Our guiding principle with regard to how we'd provide support was simple. We asked two things: "what are the things about organizing a conference that you, as Wikipedia volunteers, hate the most?" (that's what we provided) and "what are the items that you would like to be in charge of?" (that's what we kept our hands off).
This weekend was a testament to the collaborative spirit of Wikipedia and Wikipedia volunteers. The Wikimedia chapters developed the program, awarded scholarships, designed the wikiconferenceusa.org website, and co-ordinated volunteers for the event.
Since I moved to the United States, I've met some Wikipedians who have told me that they'd never shaken hands with another Wikipedian. The sheer geography of the US makes it difficult to meet. I believe this year's WikiConference was a huge step toward getting to know each other, building trust, and talking about what we love most: Wikipedia. I hope the event also provided a space where people could report on past projects and catalyze new ideas and collaborations.
While we connected people within the Wikipedia world, we wanted to connect the Wikipedia world to those outside it, too. We saw excellent presentations where Wikipedians, academics, librarians, museum workers, and archivists met and built relationships around the work they share.
As we approached this conference, we were eager to experiment with a new way of supporting the local Wikipedia community in the United States. We stepped back and provided resources based on trust. It's a tenet of Wikipedia – "assume good faith." We funded this conference without attaching strings or paperwork. We trusted volunteers to get it right. And they did.
I'm excited that we get to show the powerful results that come from relationships built on openness, trust, and good faith. Thanks so much to our partners at Wikimedia DC, Wikimedia NYC, and to the National Archives for making this event possible.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/In focus Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/Arbitration report Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-14/Humour
