When Marco Leiter, a man from a little town in southwest Germany, bought his new photography drone after a visit to a model airplane fair with his family, he instantly knew he had found a very cool new hobby. The Leiters live in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, a wine-growing region full of hills topped by medieval castles intertwined by rivers with ancient towns on their banks.
"I learned that you actually don't need a permission when you're flying a small drone like this in my state, but once you're using it to take pictures of things that you want to publish online, you sort of enter a grey area, and I didn't want that", he explains. Also, getting permission to let the drone fly from within the premises of a monument is a lot easier with an official document. When a professional photographer from his region threatened to report his first tryouts to the police, Marco decided to do things the proper way. He went and applied for an official permit from the competent authority – situated at the regional airport close to his home town.
When he went on a summer holiday to the North Sea with his family a few days later, of course Marco took his new drone with him. In the small town of Westerdeichstrich, he documented an old windmill from above. Just by accident, he stumbled across the lighthouse of Westerheversand and took another picture. Back at home, Marco came across the banner for the 2015 Wiki Loves Monuments photography competition. He decided to create an account and upload a handful of his best shots.
One of them, the lighthouse, won the national contest in Germany. The jury highlighted the "unusual perspective" of the image which allows the viewer to look at the famous lighthouse at "lens-level" with the lantern on top of the tower. The image was then entered into the global competition – and won. "First place, I can't believe it, that's overwhelming.", Marco says.
As it turns out, photography drones are generally looked at with a certain suspicion – maybe because of the stories regarding their jet-powered military counterparts, maybe just because people don't like the idea of having a moving camera pointed at them from above. "My permit lays out all sorts of rules: I can't fly my drone over people, animals or roads and not above a height of 100 meters. All this can be difficult when you're trying to take a photo of a castle on a mountaintop standing on a river bank in a valley filled with little towns and a railroad track", Marco says.
In addition, Rhineland-Palatinate state law requires drone operators to notify the local authorities 48 hours before the ascent of their unmanned aerial vehicle. In addition to the drone, prices for which start at around €1000, the permit and required insurance cost an additional €200 per year. Marco has asked Wikimedia Germany to help cover some of the costs so he can continue to make more aerial photos for Wikimedia Commons.
With regulations regarding air traffic out of the way, there are other areas of the law that drone photographers have to mind. Copyright law prohibits photos of new buildings because in Germany, freedom of panorama only applies when the photographer is actually standing on a public road and holding the camera in their hand and not maneuvering it through the air with a little radio-controlled helicopter. Special permits are required near airports and in nature reserves.
Also, privacy can be a matter. From above, it can be easy yet illegal to take a peek at people's private spaces such as back yards or rooftops. Finally, drone photographers could even come up against contract and property law: For example, when you operate your drone within a private park where photography isn't allowed in general, let alone using flying equipment. Therefore, it is wise to get the landowner's consent before getting to work. "Once, the owner of a castle asked for a small fee and I paid by making a stack of postcards using my photos for the castle's gift shop. Others are just very happy when you share your photos with them", Marco remembers.
With these issues out of the way, drone photography offers great possibilities for Commons photographers. Aerial views allow readers to better understand the location and setting of a monument or a place described in an article. And, you can add a whole new dimension with aerial video, to give readers the whole picture. But as always, preparation is everything. "Make sure you get a proper permit if you need one in your area.", Marco advises, and adds a piece of photographer's wisdom, "Always make sure the sun is behind your back!".
The author is a German Wikipedian. A German-language interview with Marco also appeared on the Wikimedia Germany blog. A learning pattern on drone photography has been published on Meta.
Jimmy Wales was one of the attendees at the second annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen. Given the state of Internet censorship in China, a number of groups called for boycotting the conference, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. Charlie Smith of GreatFire, an organization devoted to monitoring and opposing Chinese Internet censorship, told The Hill that conference attendees "should be ashamed of themselves". (In September, Smith published an interview with Wales.) Representatives from Western technology companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Nokia, Netflix, and LinkedIn were in attendance, but heads of state from the West were absent, and reporters from the New York Times were banned. Of the heads of state or government leaders in attendance – Dmitry Medvedev (Russia), Nawaz Sharif and Mamnoon Hussain (Pakistan), Karim Massimov (Kazakhstan), Temir Sariyev (Kyrgyzstan), Kokhir Rasulzoda (Tajikistan), Rustam Azimov (Uzbekistan), and Siaosi Sovaleni (Tonga) – a number were from countries which practice internet censorship themselves.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some of Wales' comments on a December 17 conference panel were altered in a Chinese-language transcript posted online. Wales, an outspoken proponent of free speech and opponent of Chinese censorship of Wikipedia and the Internet, said,
| “ | We will see, not perfect, but very much improved machine translation, which will very much enhance person-to-person communication worldwide. This will be a very powerful thing. I believe as a result of this, the idea that any one government can control the flow of information of what people know in their territory will become completely antiquated and no longer possible. | ” |
In the Chinese translation, his comments were altered to make it appear he was in favor of Chinese government censorship:
| “ | Probably we will see improved machine translation, which will very much enhance person-to-person communication. And also the government could conduct good analysis on people’s communication in various relevant areas.[itm 1] | ” |
Gizmodo quipped "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is familiar with people putting made-up bullshit online." G
On December 15, the Wikimedia Foundation released its year in review video, #Edit2015, created by Victor Grigas. A blog post announcing the video said "#Edit2015 celebrates the individuals all over the world who’ve invested thousands, if not millions, of hours in curating Wikimedia sites." The video included highlights of world news and cultural events and how Wikipedia and Wikimedia project recorded and responded to those events. Engadget wrote "Wikipedia continues to chronicle human history in real time". Vice reflected that "Maybe that's part of the point of the Wikipedia Foundation's #Edit2015 montage: History is always feeding back through the present. It is always subject to edit." G
我觉得非常难说，很难预测，因为大家都提到了很多很好的观点，可能想到的就是我们会看到能够有更好的这种机器的翻译，这样会更好的提高人员之间的这种交流的效率。还有就是政府能够在各自的领域当中对人们互相之间的沟通进行很好的分析。
For this week's Arbitration Report we have the case on GMOs closed with a different case being accepted by the Committee.
On 11 December, the Arbitration Committee accepted the case on Kevin Gorman. The case was submitted by administrator and former Arbitrator Worm That Turned, who called to have fellow administrator and candidate in this year's Arbcom elections, Kevin Gorman, be de-sysopped. Worm That Turned has claimed that Kevin Gorman abused the revision deletion tool that admins have, using the tool to delete discussions to evade scrutiny during the election. WTT also pointed out how Kevin Gorman unblocked an entire group of checkuser-block accounts without consulting the blocking checkuser or any checkuser at all. Vanjagenije, another named party in the case, made a statement saying he was the one who advised Kevin Gorman to unblock the accounts but later realized it was a mistake and apologized.
Kevin Gorman responded by denying wrongdoing in some of WTT's claims, while saying other claims are too stale to have a case. He also points out how everyone makes mistakes, using an example of how WTT accused Gorman of using his health issues to avoid a ban on Wikipedia. The Committee members themselves thought this was a case worth looking into as it was opened in a 10–0 decision. The case is currently in its Evidence phase.
But as one case begins, another has ended. On 12 December, the case involving Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) articles has been closed. Among the Committee's findings was that users Jytdog, DrChrissy, and Wuerzele were all involved with edit warring. Individually, Jytdog was also found to have "belittled other editors and has engaged in non-civil conduct", SageRad had cast aspersions, added unsourced content, and articulated a clear POV in regards to the locus of the case, and Wuerzele displayed a battleground mentality and engaged in incivility. Jytdog and DrChrissy were found to "have been engaged in an oft personalized dispute", with DrChrissy also found to have violated existing restrictions, having been "topic banned from alternative medicine, broadly construed. To be clear, this includes alternative medicine for humans and animals, so Veterinary acupuncture does fall under the scope of this ban. Animal biology, behavior, health, and normal veterinary medicine does not fall under the scope of this ban so long as it does not intersect with alternative medicine. DrChrissy is also topic banned from human health and medicine, and WP:MEDRS related discussions, broadly construed."
Remedies of the case include discretionary sanctions covering pages relating to GMOs, agricultural biotechnology, and agricultural chemicals, as well as editors being prohibited to revert pages related to the topic more than once per day. DrChrissy, Jytdog, SageRad, and Wuerzele were all topic banned, with DrChrissy and Jytdog having an interaction ban placed between the two. Jytdog also received an admonishment for their poor civility.
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Four featured articles were promoted this week.
Two featured lists were promoted this week.
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Edit-a-thons ... are they worth it? Women in Red (WiR) thinks so and here’s two months' worth of reasons why. Women in Red is a task force of WikiProject Women. Its goal is to correct the gender gap that is currently present in Wikipedia’s coverage of biographies about women. Only about 15% of all English-language biographies are about women, and Women in Red is addressing this by creating new articles from "redlinked lists". Two recent successes are the Women in Architecture edit-a-thon with the Guggenheim Museum, and the Wikiproject Women Wikipedia Design (WikiD), and Women in Science edit-a-thon with the New York Academy of Sciences.
The first edit-a-thon took place in October 2015. Pharos, who is currently serving as a Wikipedian in residence at the Guggenheim Museum, approached Women in Red in August regarding a possible edit-a-thon collaboration centered on women architects and designers. WiR was about forty days old at the time, and had never hosted a virtual edit-a-thon; but two events were in the planning stage for September, one with the Smithsonian. A month later, with two edit-a-thons wrapped up, WiR began online coordination, redlist development, and promotion of the women architects event. Twenty-four editors signed up to participate in the online edit-a-thon, scheduled for Thursday–Sunday, 15–25 October. Many editors couldn't wait and jumped into editing once the project page was set up in September.
In addition to the edit-a-thon at the Guggenheim, about a dozen other in-person events were held at museums, architectural associations and universities around the world, which synched with WiR's online efforts.
The Guggenheim / WikiD / WiR architecture edit-a-thon led to an amazing 40% spike in biographies about women in architecture. The rate of growth was tracked using Quarry. This was found through an analysis and timeline of all women in architecture articles on English Wikipedia, from the very first article in 2001/2002 (for Maya Lin), until the two month campaign in September-October 2015:
Buoyed by the success of the architecture edit-a-thon, Pharos approached WiR regarding another collaboration, this time regarding women in science. Rosiestep met with Pharos and a New York Academy of Sciences member at WikiConUSA and discussed event dates and redlink lists.
The New York Academy of Sciences' week-long edit-a-thon was launched on November 22 and took place from 1–5 pm (ET). Virtual attendees also participated. Seven new articles were created and 28 were improved. The live event was promoted through the NYC Wikipedia Meetup. Eight individuals were confirmed to physically attend and six participated remotely. Of the remote editors, several were active in the WikiProject Women umbrella and active with WiR. Other editors were invited to participate through various related active WikiProjects.
The WiR virtual event took place throughout November in collaboration with Keilana's WikiProject Women Scientists. It included an "early start", where participants contributed articles before the kick-off of the event; this phase involved the creation or improvement of 75 articles. The bulk of the event took place between November 8 and the end of the month. Participants worked on 266 articles, most of which were new and the rest significantly improved. A total of 38 participants added their names to the edit-a-thon list. The event also culminated in 57 "Did You Know" features. In addition to the articles that ran on the front page, several others were queued for approval.
The WiR project worked very well as a team. As one participant put it, there was "Lots of gnoming going on behind the scenes." A crowd-sourced list of redlinks was prepared that separated the scientists by both discipline and nationality. Several participants worked on editing articles for clarity as well as creating their own. Others helped to create Wikidata entries and to translate many articles from other-language Wikipedias. Several others participated in the Did You Know process and added categories. The event was again set up by Rosiestep and Ipigott as a meetup page. The promotion phase included more invitations than before, and the thank-you notes after the event closed included promotion of the upcoming December event: Women in Religion.
Individuals involved mentioned how important it is to represent women’s accomplishments in Wikipedia. In a follow-up on why people participated, one wrote: “It is critical that the role models of the past and present be represented. Far too many notable women are not included in traditional compilations and sources.” The staff at the New York Academy of Sciences considered their physical edit-a-thon a success as well, and plan to pursue larger projects on Wikipedia. To give an idea of the experience, a remote participant wrote, “I chose a file from the list which had an article on another language WP. After translating and documenting with sources, I asked if any native speakers could check my translations. Two editors copyedited the piece. I discovered that there was no category for the award she had received and asked if anyone could help. A third editor created the category and discovered several other files that could be added to the category. Then another editor asked if they could nominate the file for Did You Know? and a 5th editor approved it. It was an effective collaboration, with some people I knew on WP and others I didn’t just jumping in to help.”
Some hurdles we faced involved making the redlink lists readable and user-friendly. Where possible, links to reliable sources were added next to the names so newer editors had a place to get started. Some articles were nominated for deletion; however, most survived the articles for deletion (AfD) process. These articles, created by newer editors unfamiliar with the notability guidelines, were improved by adding references that proved notability. Experienced editors helped the newer ones get through the AfD process so they could move on to creating better articles.
"I've participated in online edit-a-thons and in-person ones, but this collaborative model has the best results in terms of participation and content production," says Rosiestep. Over the course of conducting these edit-a-thons, almost 140 different editors from various areas of Wikipedia have signed up to participate. Twenty individuals have participated in more than one edit-a-thon. Women in Red has seen an influx of editors with different perspectives and ideas which has helped provide a diversity in biographies created. There are a large number of editors who have participated in the edit-a-thons who are not part of WiR, although several have used the WiR talk pages to communicate with members of the task force relating to the project.
One of the reasons these edit-a-thons may have been so successful is because the WiR group are very supportive of each other’s work. Everyone is willing to lend a hand to new editors and to help out experienced editors with new subject areas. It’s a place where people can ask for help and often receive a response right away. Both men and women are involved in WiR, and there is a relaxed atmosphere of camaraderie. In addition, working along with established learned institutions such as the New York Academy of Sciences may have lent more publicity to the project as a whole. Creating and significantly improving 369 articles between the two edit-a-thons is a significant boost to addressing the content gender gap on Wikipedia. As one editor put it, WiR’s combination of online and offline edit-a-thons builds “mutual momentum that makes a big difference.” According to Keilana, “The main lesson from this was that virtual edit-a-thons can provide some of the camaraderie of an in-person event and still allow people to participate from all over the world.”
These events, and others like them, have shown that we can make a difference to a big problem on Wikipedia. On 21 November, the Wikipedia gender indicators project (WIGI) reported that the number of women’s biographies had risen to 15.89%. Though the gap is still large, chipping away at it with editathons will make a difference. No one expects the gap to go away entirely—that would be a false representation of history—but it can be lessened. One editor said: “I had never realized there were so many important and vibrant women in history.” Bringing the accomplishments of women into Wikipedia is not just important, but is inspiring to many of the editors working on the project. If you're looking to be part of this movement on Wikipedia, keep an eye out for Women in Red's music edit-a-thon in January, our Black WikiHistory Month edit-a-thon campaign for February, and the Art+Feminism edit-a-thon campaign for International Women’s Month in March.
By now, I hope most of our viewers understand that this list is not a perfect reflection of raw data. Wikipedia is subject to spamming, botnets and even legitimate calibration checks that riddle the list with non-human views. Ever since this list began, we've had to use our own judgement and what evidence we had to determine which cases are real and which are not, and in the past, such decisions could be agonizing. Since the inclusion of mobile views, however, what used to be a torturous experience has become fairly routine. No more checking viewing patterns; no more furious data mining of Google hits; no more frantic attempts to wrangle Reddit's lousy search engine. Just check the mobile percentage, and if it's too low or too high, drop it. But this week, it seems the Internet has decided it wants to screw with us in a number of ways. Not only was this one of the most spammed lists ever, with 17 removals, but our #1, Donald Trump, was tenth on the raw list. Even more frustratingly, several articles, while suspicious, were just within our criteria for inclusion, leading to a return to the familiar spasms of self-doubt.
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 December 6 to 12, 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 | Donald Trump | 
|
914,072 |  |
The Donald has not graced this list with his august orangutannedness since September, but if there's one thing we've learned about him in the last few months, it's that he will find his way back into the spotlight no matter what. And "What?" indeed, for this week his comments crossed so many lines that scandalized media pundits have actually dusted off that hoary descriptor "fascist" in response, just to see if it fits. And whether it does or not, it says something about Trump's campaign that numerous mainstream news articles have devoted themselves to delicately parsing this onetime hate buzzword of the left to gauge its appropriateness for use in a 21st century election. None of this, it must be said, has hurt Donald in the polls, which now show him neck and neck with every one of his competitors combined. |
| 2 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | 
|
795,288 |  |
The final build-up has begun. The much anticipated film rolls out in parts of Europe on December 16, the U.K. on December 17, and North America on December 18. |
| 3 | Frank Sinatra | 
|
727,017 |  |
"Old Blue Eyes"'s 100th birthday was celebrated around the world on December 12, which shows just how broadly his appeal cut across generations, despite him also being very much of his time- with his crystalline voice, impeccable dress sense and icy persona, he presented the perfect embodiment of the era of James Bond and Mad Men. |
| 4 | Star Wars |
|
693,512 | |
See #2 |
| 5 | Krampus | 
|
638,373 |  |
As Yuletide falls in the German-speaking regions of the Alps, children are told not only of jolly Saint Nick with his sack of toys; they are also told of Krampus, whose sack is empty, waiting to be filled with naughty children who will then be carried to his lair. He isn't the only "anti-Santa" out there; the Dutch have Zwarte Piet, and the Haitians have Tonton Macoute, but Krampus's demonic appearance caught the eye of America last year, where he became a leering antidote to the oversaturation of manufactured Christmas cheer, and this year, it seems he's back, no doubt aided by a popular movie, which has so far nearly doubled its $15 million budget at the box office. |
| 6 | Attack on Pearl Harbor |
|
627,670 |  |
Numbers have nearly doubled since FDR's "day that will live in infamy" appeared on last year's anniversary, probably aided by this year being the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. |
| 7 | Dolly Parton |
|
601,836 |  |
The beloved country music singer's TV biopic, Coat of Many Colors, was seen by 12.8 million viewers when it aired on the US network NBC on December 10. |
| 8 | Deaths in 2015 | 
|
601,665 |  |
The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 475 and 575 thousand on average, apparently heedless of who actually died. |
| 9 | Scott Weiland |
|
599,321 | _Open_Air_St._Gallen_(rotated).jpg) |
The former lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots was found dead on his tour bus in Minnesota on December 3, likely the result of a drug overdose. Weiland was an unabashed rock star-type who came out of a 1990s grunge-era that was very ambivalent about 70s rock glamour. Sadly, Weiland's long history of drug use made his death not terribly shocking to many. |
| 10 | Jessica Jones |
|
571,640 |  |
After a second 50% drop in two weeks, it seems Marvel Studios' latest Netflix offering is emulating its predecessor, Daredevil, in rapidly tumbling from the top of this list to relegation. This is likely due to Netflix's releasing the entire series in one go, which allows fans to binge-watch it in mere hours, leading to a burst of feverish discussion followed by a rapid decline in interest. |
As we approach the end of the year, we look back on a conference that looked towards the future.
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