Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/From the editors
The recent Russian invasion of Ukraine got the whole world concerned, and this reflects in the articles receiving upwards of millions of views and extensive edits to keep things up to date.
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ukraine | 
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6,749,176 | 
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Where to begin? A long, long, time ago, the hardiest of early humans decided to settle in the cold, cold shadow of the Ural Mountains. Fast forward some millennia and different groups of these people lived in different cities and had different ideas, as ever aware of the perpetual human conundrum of empathy and understanding. In this land was born an Empire, led by Russia (#9). As empires must, it fell, and so emerged a new empire, a nation of states under one ideology, the Soviet Union (#10). Russia was still the big brother. In this union, comrade Putin (#3) was given certain powers, working intelligence that had him straddle politics and military. Reportedly, his enamoration with the union's ideals was second to none, and he did not take it well when this empire, too, fell. Spectacularly. Out of big brother's shadow emerged Ukraine (#1), the nation of Mila Kunis, endless "Chernobyl fallout" jokes, and surprisingly good Eurovision entries. A new idea came to its people, many of whom identified only as its people, with this Western thing called democracy. It was not the only element of the political West that Ukraine began to adopt over the next three decades, moving ever further from its past leaders and brothers, while physically staying tucked right next to them. Washington, D.C., 1949. A group of Western nations fear the influence and attack capabilities of the Soviet Union and sign the North Atlantic Treaty, creating an organisation (#6) to uphold it. A new empire, but without administrative powers. Over the next seventy years, more and more nations asked to become members (#8) – including, ultimately, many former Soviet nations still fearing Russia. Alone, they were small along Big Red's borders. With NATO, they became absorbed into a formerly-hostile blob sludging further east, promising defence but requiring reciprocity. |
| 2 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine |
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5,939,016 | 
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| 3 | Vladimir Putin | 
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| 4 | Russo-Ukrainian War |
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3,676,985 | 
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| 5 | Volodymyr Zelenskyy |
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3,615,762 | 
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| 6 | NATO | 
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3,278,049 | 
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| 7 | Anna Sorokin |
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2,928,999 | 
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Sorokin is the only thing preventing a top-ten monopoly of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia crisis. She was born in the Soviet Union (#10), but her place on the list comes from being the subject of a Netflix show. From a quick, distracted, read of our article on her, it looks like she pretended to be an heiress and committed a lot of service theft: pictured is a hotel she lived in and was kicked out of for never paying. |
| 8 | Member states of NATO | 
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2,667,378 | 
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See #1-6 (it's just easier that way) |
| 9 | Russia |
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1,590,249 | 
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| 10 | Soviet Union |
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1,334,085 | 
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine |
|
7,647,610 |
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Last week, Russia under #2 launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor to the south-west, marking the largest war in Europe since World War II. They initially had hopes of a quick, relatively bloodless victory, but after their campaign stalled on the ground, they've shifted to an increasingly destructive bombing campaign against civilian areas, driving Europe's largest refugee crisis in recent history. International condemnation has followed, with large-scale sanctions inflicted on Russia in retaliation. |
| 2 | Vladimir Putin |
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When he rose to power in 1999, few would have predicted that this relatively unknown former KGB head would last very long, let alone become an international pariah. Yet here we are, 22 years later, as Vladimir Putin launches an invasion of Ukraine. The autocrat of Russia has committed far too many great crimes over the years; we can only hope this will be his last. |
| 3 | Ukraine |
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4,004,528 |
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The second-largest country in Europe (by area) has been the centre of the world since Russia invaded it. Ukraine has resisted the invasion, with most main centres and most of the rest of the country remaining under Ukrainian control. |
| 4 | Volodymyr Zelenskyy |
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In 2019, a man previously known as a TV star and comedian was elected as the President of Ukraine in a landslide. Despite the mandate, few outside Ukraine took him seriously. Less than three years later, however, Zelenskyy has become the most recognisable face of Ukraine’s defence against Russia; he has been called a national hero and compared to Winston Churchill, and his leadership in the face of the invasion has been widely celebrated. |
| 5 | Russo-Ukrainian War |
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2,801,753 | 
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While the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is a recent development, Russia has effectively been at war with Ukraine since 2014, when it annexed Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass. |
| 6 | The Batman (film) |
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The article that would be our #1 if a war wasn't going on. The first big superhero film of 2022 is director Matt Reeves' (of Planet of the Apes fame) reinvention of DC Comics' Batman, featuring Robert Pattinson as the seventh actor to don the cape and cowl. The dark, violent, and insanely long The Batman also stars Aquaman's stepdaughter Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as a Zodiac Killer-inspired Riddler, and a nearly unrecognizable Colin Farrell as the Penguin. The film has received rave reviews (as someone who was lucky enough to attend an early screening, I can confirm the reviews do not lie) and is poised to make a splash at the box office this weekend. |
| 7 | Shane Warne |
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2,024,682 | 
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The Australian legbreak known as the “King of Spin” (although Sri Lankans might disagree with that) died this week of a suspected heart attack. One of the best of his kind, Warne set the world record for most Test wickets over a long career marred with controversy over his life off the field. |
| 8 | NATO |
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1,736,704 |
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#2 was vehemently opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanding further east, and #1 demonstrates why, because if prospective member #3 was in NATO, armed retaliation against Russia would be imminent. |
| 9 | Anna Sorokin |
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1,683,674 | 
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The subject of Inventing Anna continues to draw in the views, despite the show having been released nearly a month ago. |
| 10 | Thermobaric weapon |
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This highly destructive type of bomb has allegedly been used by the Russian army in its bombing campaigns. |
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vladimir Putin |
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3,815,361 | 
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As the invasion enters its third week, #1 gets accused of more war crimes in every passing week, not surprising, as it follows the same tactics as the Russian military intervention in the Syrian civil war.
Meanwhile, Europe (mostly Poland) deals with the biggest migrant crisis since the Second World War, with 3.2 million refugees (as of 14 March, 1.8 million going to Poland alone). |
| 2 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine |
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3,617,897 | 
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| 3 | The Batman (film) |
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2,348,440 | _(cropped).jpg)
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Breaking up the horrors of war is the tension of living in Gotham City. An exceptionally made, even if fairly long, superhero movie that emphasizes why Batman is known as the World's Best Detective (Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight has to go through much investigation against a Zodiac Killer-inspired Riddler), The Batman opened to glowing reviews and has shown that like Spider-Man: No Way Home, superhero movies will make money as if there wasn't a pandemic, with an opening of $134 million in the US alone. |
| 4 | Ukraine |
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1,450,466 |
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Ukrainian cities continue to be destroyed, with the Siege of Mariupol seeing some of the worst fighting and the highest levels of casulties (the highest estimates suggest the siege has 20,000 civilian casulties, more than the rest of the war put together). |
| 5 | Russo-Ukrainian War |
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1,212,786 | 
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| 6 | Anna Sorokin |
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This here writer confesses all this attention on Wikipedia made him start watching Inventing Anna, chronicling another Russian doing unsavory things – though at least Sorokin (played with an unusual accent by the woman on the left, Julia Garner) only caused financial damage as she pretended to be an heiress to infiltrate New York's high society. |
| 7 | Volodymyr Zelenskyy |
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The actor/comedian, turned Ukrainian president, turned war-leader remains defiant, refusing to yield any part of his country without a fight. |
| 8 | Elizabeth Holmes |
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HBO already made a documentary about Theranos and how their would-be revolution in clinical tests turned out to not work at all. And now Hulu is doing a miniseries where Amanda Seyfried plays the company's CEO whose ambitions were only matched by her willingness to lie her way to the top (and eventual bottom – Holmes managed the feat of being worth $4.5 billion in 2015 and $0 the following year, and earlier this year was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors). |
| 9 | Deaths in 2022 |
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866,600 | 
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I'm so insecure, I think That I'll die before I drink... |
| 10 | International Women's Day |
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744,903 | 
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March 8 is the date of this holiday celebrating the achievement of women, and a reminder they still need to fight for their rights. |
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Kashmir Files | 
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2,623,323 | One of India's latest big movies, The Kashmir Files portrays the story of a teacher from the Kashmir Valley fleeing the insurgency in Kashmir in 1990. The film has become a box-office hit, and its cinematography was generally praised, as were the performances of the cast. The film has been actively promoted by India's ruling party, the BJP, and has been exempted from taxation in most states it governs. If you know much about the BJP, however, what comes next will not surprise you. The film, which portrays the insurgency as a genocide, has been highly controversial, with critics accusing it of historical revisionism and attempting to stir up Islamophobia, and some calling it Hindu nationalist propaganda. | |
| 2 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine |
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2,571,989 |
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The invasion drags on into its fourth week, having failed to accomplish its goal of a quick victory. With the war stagnating, there's not much to write, other than that it continues to be awful. |
| 3 | William Hurt |
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2,092,026 | _crop.jpg)
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William Hurt died at the age of 71 of prostate cancer, finishing off an acting career that included an Academy Award for Kiss of the Spider Woman, and at times causing big impact in just one scene (he had an Oscar nomination for the less than 10 minutes he appears in A History of Violence!). The Marvel Cinematic Universe crowd in particular lamented that they won't see Hurt's Thunderbolt Ross become the Red Hulk bar a recast. |
| 4 | Vladimir Putin |
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1,953,038 | .jpg)
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The president of Russia has now been accused of war crimes by multiple governments. |
| 5 | Scott Hall |
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1,646,861 | A professional wrestler and member of the WWF Hall of Fame, Hall, aka Razor Ramon, passed away this week. | |
| 6 | The Batman (film) |
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1,266,594 | .jpg)
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He is vengeance, he is the night, he is at the top of the box office for the third week in a row. Robert Pattinson's Dark Knight has already grossed more than half a billion dollars worldwide. |
| 7 | Turning Red |
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1,055,852 | 
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Pixar has complained about having their last three features relegated to Disney+ while Disney still put out Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto in theaters. The latest one is Turning Red, about a Chinese-Canadian teenager who has to deal with parental demands for perfectionism, getting tickets to see her favorite boy band, and the fact that strong emotions make her become a red panda. Reviews were very positive, and this here writer admits the movie is entertaining even if not close to Pixar's best as Soul or Luca were. |
| 8 | Anna Sorokin |
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959,677 | 
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The fraudster and subject of Inventing Anna is still on the list. Having finished the show, this here writer understands why, it's quite a compelling series, and certainly makes one want to visit Wikipedia to confirm if Sorokin, pretending to be rich heiress Anna Delvey, actually did those things that earn in every episode a variation on the disclaimer "This story is completely true. Except for the parts that are totally made up". |
| 9 | Vivek Agnihotri |
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#1 has also brought its director onto the list. |
| 10 | Saint Patrick's Day |
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909,332 | _-_stained_glass,_Saint_Patrick_-_detail.jpg)
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Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was celebrated on Thursday March 17, in Ireland and around the world by the Irish, the Irish diaspora, and friends and well wishers. Actor John C. Reilly was the international guest of honour at the Saint Patrick's Day parade in Dublin city. This year Saint Patrick's day coincided with the Jewish holiday Purim and the Hindu festival Holi. |
The popular game Wordle which became viral recently appears to have a dramatic impact on the pageviews of the articles about its 5-letter answers. Our investigation into the last 30 Wordle answers (as of 6 Febuary 2022) and the corresponding article pageviews showed that each and every page had a large increase in view count. More coverage is to continue in a later issue. – E
The ongoing 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted in a considerable amount of coverage of Wikipedia's coverage of the war. But there were a number of other Wikipedia stories in the media on other topics, so if war articles aren't of interest to you, scroll on down and click away.
People enjoy reading about the recent seizures of Russian oligarchs' yachts, according to the Washington Post. They mention in passing that some of these yachts "have their own Wikipedia pages", without mentioning which ones. The Signpost knows: see Eclipse, Dilbar, Nord, and a dozen more on the list of motor yachts by length, and A at list of large sailing yachts. – S
The Intercept documents that "an IP address at the [State of Missouri] Office of Administration building" erased information from the biography of Steven Roberts on February 7. A spokesman for the state senator denied knowing about the edits and added, "As you are aware, Wikipedia is an unregulated, unedited, largely unsourced mass of information that is often inaccurate because anyone can post almost anything." -S
The Wikimedia Hackathon 2022 is taking place as a hybrid event on May 20–22, 2022. The Hackathon will be held online and there will be grants available to support local in-person meetups around the world. The Hackathon is for anyone who contributes (or wants to contribute) to Wikimedia’s technical areas – as code creators, maintainers, translators, designers, technical writers and other technical roles. You can come with a project in mind, join an existing project, or create something new with others. The choice is yours! Newcomers are welcome. If you have any accessibility or translation requests, please contact hlepp@wikimedia.org. A Wikimedia Hackathon is a space for the technical community to come together and work together on technical projects, learn from each other, and make new friends. The Hackathon will primarily be held online. Local affiliates can also apply for grants to host in-person local meetups. Meetups can be anything from social gatherings with food, to a party for watching the opening or closing ceremony, to renting a venue where people can participate together in the online event. The Code of Conduct for Wikimedia's Technical Spaces will be in effect throughout the event, on all platforms, discussion channels, and at local meetups. Please have a look at it and ensure you are willing and able to follow it.
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It has been almost 12 years since the current default desktop skin (Vector) was deployed. Since then, web design, as well as the expectations of readers and editors, have evolved. At the same time, the interface has been enriched with extensions, gadgets and user scripts. Most of these were not coordinated visually or cross-wiki.
In 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation Web team took a close look at Vector. It was time to take some of these ideas and bring them to the default experience of all users, on all wikis, in an organized, consistent way. Inspired by the existing tools, The Web team decided to build out improvements to the desktop experience based on research and communities' feedback. So the Desktop Improvements project began.
Its goals are to make Wikimedia wikis more welcoming, increase the utility for viewing, and maintain the utility for editing. The Web team measures the increase of trust and positive sentiment towards our sites, and the utility of our sites (the usage of common actions such as search and language switching).
Improvements that the team has worked on include: logo reconfiguration, a collapsible sidebar, limiting content width, moving the search widget (and other search improvements), adding a more intuitive language switcher, implementing a user menu, programming a sticky side and article header, improving the table of contents, and rearranging page tools. Next, they will make general aesthetic improvements.
Currently, on most wikis, only logged-in users are able to opt-in individually by selecting Vector (2022) in preferences. On almost 30 early adopter wikis, the changes are deployed for all by default, and logged-in users are (and will be) able to opt-out. The team increases the set of early adopter wikis gradually.
Before June 2022, they will begin conversations with all the communities of the largest wikis, including the English and German-language Wikipedias, to make the improvements default on those wikis. They are inviting everyone to an open meeting with them which will take place on Tuesday March 29 at 18:00 on Zoom.
Sunflower is an upload tool created by Fastily for macOS which makes it easy to batch-upload files to the Wikimedia Commons. The tool has a clean, intuitive yet featured-packed interface. The project's maintainer describes it as a simple and fresh take on uploading files to Commons. This means it won't do everything under the sun, nor should you expect that.
Sunflower is currently available for macOS Monterey (12.2 or newer). More details are on Commons.
Bots that have been approved for operations after a successful BRFA will be listed here for informational purposes. No other approval action is required for these bots. Recently approved requests can be found here (edit), while old requests can be found in the archives.
| Bot Name | Status | Created | Last editor | Date/Time | Last BAG editor | Date/Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aidan9382-Bot (T|C|B|F) | Open | 2022-03-23, 08:09:12 | Aidan9382 | 2022-03-27, 17:47:43 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:13:00 |
| BattyBot 66 (T|C|B|F) | Open | 2022-03-20, 21:17:35 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:14:25 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:14:25 |
| Dušan Kreheľ (bot) Ⅱ. (T|C|B|F) | Open | 2022-03-20, 09:28:55 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:24:23 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:24:23 |
| TolBot 13B (T|C|B|F) | Open | 2022-03-18, 19:15:56 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:28:17 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:28:17 |
| ButlerBlogBot (T|C|B|F) | On hold | 2022-03-07, 14:03:04 | Primefac | 2022-03-10, 10:29:19 | Primefac | 2022-03-10, 10:29:19 |
| Gaelan Bot 2 (T|C|B|F) | Open | 2022-02-07, 12:07:35 | Anomie | 2022-03-01, 12:50:31 | Anomie | 2022-03-01, 12:50:31 |
| ZabesBot (T|C|B|F) | On hold | 2022-01-15, 22:43:07 | Primefac | 2022-02-16, 12:39:30 | Primefac | 2022-02-16, 12:39:30 |
| ElliBot (T|C|B|F) | On hold | 2021-01-23, 14:46:12 | Heanor | 2022-02-08, 18:20:15 | ProcrastinatingReader | 2021-11-08, 01:07:48 |
| AssumptionBot (T|C|B|F) | In trial | 2022-02-16, 11:35:09 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:37:16 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:37:16 |
| BsoykaBot (T|C|B|F) | In trial | 2022-02-27, 05:11:36 | Bsoyka | 2022-03-15, 05:31:49 | Headbomb | 2022-03-14, 21:27:08 |
| BareRefBot (T|C|B|F) | Extended trial | 2022-01-20, 21:37:46 | Rlink2 | 2022-03-27, 12:55:24 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:53:25 |
| IndentBot (T|C|B|F) | Trial complete | 2021-10-15, 03:20:20 | David Eppstein | 2022-02-27, 20:26:29 | Primefac | 2022-02-27, 14:18:35 |
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2022 #12, #11, & #10. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.
You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting takes place every Wednesday from 4:00–5:00 p.m. UTC. See how to join here.
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Verifiability is an important and core policy of Wikipedia. Article content should be backed up by reliable sources wherever needed to show that the presentation of material on Wikipedia is consistent with the views that are presented in scholarly discourse or the world at large. Such sources help to improve the encyclopedia.
However, many editors misunderstand the citation policy, seeing it as a tool to enforce, reinforce, or cast doubt upon a particular point of view in a content dispute, rather than as a means to verify Wikipedia's information. This can lead to several mild forms of disruptive editing, which are better avoided. Ideally, common sense would always be applied, but Wiki-history shows this is unrealistic. Therefore, this essay gives some practical advice.
Not citing common knowledge and not providing bibliographic entries for very famous works is also consistent with major academic style guides, such as The MLA Style Manual and the APA style guide.
Sometimes editors will insist on citations for material simply because they dislike it or prefer some other material, not because the material in any way needs verification. For example, an editor may demand a citation for the fact that most people have five digits on each hand (yes, this really happened).[1] Another may decide that the color of the sky is actually aqua rather than blue, pull out an assortment of verifiable spectrographic analyses and color charts to demonstrate that this position is actually correct, and follow that with a demand that other editors provide equivalent reliable sources for the original statement that the sky is in fact blue. While there are cases where this kind of pedantic insistence is useful and necessary, often it is simply disruptive, and can be countered simply by pointing out that there is no need to verify statements that are patently obvious. If the alternative proposition merits inclusion in the article under other policies and guidelines it should of course be included, but it should in no way be given greater prominence because it is sourced.
Wikipedia has several templates for tagging material that needs verification: inline templates for particular lines, section templates, and article templates. See Wikipedia:Template messages. Sometimes editors will go through an article and add dozens of the inline tags, along with several section and article tags, making the article essentially unreadable (see WP:TAGBOMBING). As a rule, if there are more than 2 or 3 inline tags they should be removed and replaced with a section tag; if there are more than 2 section tags in a section they should be removed and replaced with a single 'Multiple issues' tag. If there are more than two or three sections tagged, those tags should be removed, and the entire article should be tagged.
Verification tags should not be used in a POINTed fashion. Use only those tags necessary to illustrate the problem, and discuss the matter in detail on the talk page.
Citations should be evaluated on the qualities they bring to the article, not on the quantity of citations available. The first 1 or 2 citations supporting a given point are informative; extra citations after that begin to be argumentative. Keep in mind that the purpose of a citation is to guide the reader to external sources where the reader can verify the idea presented, not to prove to other editors the strength of the idea. Extra sources for the same idea should be added to 'Further Reading', 'See Also' or 'External Sources' sections at the bottom of the page, without explicitly being cited in the text.
A common misconception when improving an article, particularly towards Good Article status, is that everything must be cited to an inline source, which leads to comments such as "the end of paragraph 3 is uncited", without specifying why that is an issue. In fact, the Good Article criteria merely state that inline citations are required for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons". While that covers much, most, or possibly even (in the case of biographies of living people) all content in an article, it does not imply that you must cite everything everywhere for every single article, period.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/Opinion
On 11 March 2022, Belarusian political police GUBOPiK arrested and detained Mark Bernstein, a Wikipedian from Minsk editing the Russian Wikipedia article about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, accusing him of the "spread of anti-Russian materials".
The Signpost has identified one edit in Russian Wikipedia adding the text вторжения России на Украину ("of the Russian invasion of Ukraine", in a reference to the United Nations emergency special session resolution adopted on March 2, 2022), which we believe is the one that resulted in Bernstein's arrest and jailing. It is not clear what was the legal basis for the arrest, as the 2022 Russian fake news law presumably does not extend into Belarus' borders.
Bernstein was arrested in Belarus on March 11, charged with not obeying a police order, and sentenced to 15 days in jail. Early reports incorrectly suggested that he might face 15 years in prison under the new Russian law.
The story is international news, with articles covering it by Omer Benjakob, a frequent analyst of Wikipedia matters, the Associated Press, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle, and the Financial Times. Due to community policies, The Signpost can not discuss all of the media reports in detail.
Concerning the matter, Jimmy Wales said on his talkpage:
With regard to the arrest of a Wikipedia editor in Belarus I am doing all that I can to make sure that he is released safely but taking what I consider to be highly reliable professional advice, going on a PR offensive is not likely to be productive and indeed may very well be counter-productive. My silence on the matter should not be interpreted as inaction nor a lack of caring – a knee jerk pronouncement is not always the best way to help in a very specific situation where other approaches may more likely prove fruitful.
On the more general issue of the tragic decline of rights of free expression in various places, I am happy to be publicly critical but me speaking out to say that journalism is a human right is not going to surprise or shock anyone nor change the course of human history. Sadly, the world doesn't really listen to me in that way. The question of blackouts does naturally arise, and in general I have been and will continue to be more supportive of carefully targeted blackouts by the community in an effort to protect the right to free speech and in particular the right of Wikipedians to write a high quality neutral encyclopedia without fear of criminal or civil penalties of any kind. However, a very key phrase in what I just wrote it "carefully targeted". We have to ask ourselves in every case whether a blackout will be influential or listened to. We have had successful and unsuccessful blackouts in the past. I am very proud of how the SOPA/PIPA blackout prevented the passage of terrible legislation in the US. I am regretful that we lost the vote on the European Copyright Directive by 1 vote when we failed to blackout – I am 100% sure that a blackout would have convinced at least 1 member of European Parliament to change their vote and we would have stopped that particular nonsense. In the current circumstance in Russia, it would take a lot of convincing for me to believe that a blackout would do more good than harm. Given the war in Ukraine, and the incredible state-level pressure being placed on Russia by the international community (sanctions, etc.) I do not believe that Russia is very likely to say "oh no, Wikipedia is blacking out, we have to reverse our new draconian anti-free-speech laws." Indeed, given that they have – to my understanding – currently blocked Facebook, twitter, BBC News Russia, Deutsche Welle, etc. – and given that – again, to my understanding – Russian Wikipedia is doing a decent job of remaining high quality and neutral in the face of enormous emotion and potential legal pressure – I am surprised that Wikipedia isn't already blocked. I think it a testament to how popular and respected Wikipedia is that even in Russia, people understand that it is a force for good and that to block it is a very bad sign of a government gone wrong. As ever, we should all continue to monitor the situation and reflect thoughtfully on the best path forward. It's important that even in emotional circumstances, we try not to become angry with each other – assume good faith and let's see how we can help.
Netzpolitik.org has a piece titled Festnahme und Drohungen wegen Artikelbearbeitung ("Arrests and threats on account of article editing") that mentions:
Netzpolitik was careful not to name the arrested individual and redacted the names of their sources who edit on Russian Wikipedia. – B
The voting for the ratification of the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines opened on 7 March 2022 and concluded on 21 March 2022. Voting closed with 2352 votes across 128 home wiki projects. The final results from the voting process will be announced on Meta, along with the relevant statistics and a summary of comments as soon as they are available.
67 additional local votes were cast bringing the total number of enwiki registrants voting to 866 (36.82% of all voters). By comparison, enwiki registrants represent 33.95% of the electorate.
The 'home wiki' value used in these charts does not necessarily represent where a user was active during the eligibility period.
These figures should be considered preliminary.
The 238 votes in the final category were from projects casting fewer than 11 votes.
Wiki Unseen, reported on last issue in the Signpost, has been garnering discussion on Wiki. Conversations on the relevance of one of the paintings was initiated on Talk:Asquith Xavier, a Files for Discussion item was opened on whether to delete the fair-use equivalents of the portraits, and other discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation and related parties is visible at m:Talk:Communications/Wiki Unseen. The major questions include whether artistic portraits can replace photos in articles, or whether fair-use photos should be deleted once artistic portraits are available. – E
Jimbo Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, hosted an "ask me anything" on Waitroom, a software allowing for "authentic conversations" between celebrities and people. Wales says It was different and fun. I've suggested to the hosts that for the next one we switch to a 5 minute format as that's more in tune with me - I like to try to fully explain myself and tell a whole story and the 2.5 minute format was tricky for me.
– E
User:BeenAroundAWhile, who will be 90 years old in April, started editing Wikipedia when he was 73. He recently made his 100,000th edit and is well on his way to 101,000. The Signpost congratulates him on all his achievements. Editors should feel free to congratulate him in the Comments section below with one caveat: he does not appreciate being called "dude".
~Unregistered8712~ that was automatically created for an anonymous user.Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/In focus
In last month's arbitration report, we saw many discretionary sanctions reviewed, two cases involving long-time administrators, and the continuation of the case involving off-site coordination among some members of the skeptic movement (largely associated with the "Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia" group). This month is some more of the same, and some more of the different.
No case requests were declined in March. Two cases were processed: one was accepted and suspended, and one was closed. One motion for a topic-ban removal was enacted, one amendment was carried out, one block appeal was processed, and one request for clarification and amendment is open.
Wow, was that exciting or what?! I thought so too. Here is all of what happened (and, indeed, is happening).
The Skepticism and coordinated editing case was closed on March 2. As I participated in this case by giving a preliminary statement, I've refrained from commenting in depth (although, for the curious, my opinion[1] is explicated at length in said statement). That said, the case's remedies are fairly straightforward. One editor (A. C. Santacruz) was reminded to be nice, and two (Roxy the dog and Rp2006) were warned to be nice. The latter of those two, Rp2006, was also topic banned from "edits related to living people associated with or of interest to scientific skepticism, broadly construed". Additionally, the "Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia" group was advised that
A presence on English Wikipedia, perhaps as its own WikiProject or as a task force of WikiProject Skepticism, will create more transparency and lessen some of the kinds of suspicion and conflict that preceded this case. It could also provide a place for the GSoW to get community feedback about its training which would increase its effectiveness.
This case will be opened but suspended for a period of three months.
If Geschichte should return to active editing on the English Wikipedia during this time and request that this case be resumed, the Arbitration Committee shall unsuspend the case by motion and it will proceed through the normal arbitration process. Such a request may be made by email to arbcom-en@wikimedia.org or at the clerks' noticeboard. Geschichte is temporarily desysopped for the duration of the case.
If such a request is not made within three months of this motion or if Geschichte resigns his administrative tools, this case shall be automatically closed, and Geschichte shall be permanently desysopped. If tools are resigned or removed, in the circumstances described above, Geschichte may regain the administrative tools at any time only via a successful request for adminship.
MustafaO, an editor previously indef-blocked and community-banned in April 2020 pursuant to this SPI, was unblocked on March 21 following a successful appeal. There is a whole crapload of chatter about it on the ACN talk page – nearly thirty two thousand bytes of it, to be exact.
Several discretionary sanctions procedures and templates were altered in an amendment process that began on March 15. Edge-of-your-seat thrills included combining multiple topic areas into a single {{Ds/alert}} transclusion, and adding a lead section to WP:AC/DS to summarize the system. The changes were approved on March 22.
On March 22, a motion was passed lifting Supreme Deliciousness's topic ban (issued as Remedy 8 of the Kurds and Kurdistan case covered in February's arbitration report).
Additionally, there were 66 total actions in March's arbitration enforcement log. Most were in common arb enforcement areas (AP2, BLP, COVID-19, EE, and the like), although there was a rare instance of a ARB911 semi-protection.
Currently, there is one open request for clarification and amendment, relating to Palestine-Israel topics. This concerns the vagaries of extended-confirmed protection as it applies to articles and talk pages covered by applicable sanctions.
Yesterday saw a new case request, WikiProject Tropical Cyclones Discord. This request, filed by TheresNoTime, concerns alleged off-wiki canvassing by two members of WikiProject Tropical Cyclones (MarioProtIV and Hurricane Noah) on an instant-messaging group maintained by the project. The aged and wise among us will remember when this was called "IRC", "AIM" or "ICQ". Now it is called "Discord", which seems fitting, since people are always arguing about it. Previously, the issue was brought up in an ANI thread by Compassionate727 (also a party to the requested case) – it's been brought to ArbCom due to privacy issues concerning logs of off-wiki discussions. Currently at 6–0–0, it looks quite likely to be accepted.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-03-27/Humour
