The detention of Pavel Pernikaŭ is the second confirmed case of persecution of Wikipedians in Belarus (the first one was the detention of Mark Bernstein which The Signpost reported on in this column last month). On March 28, the office of the Prosecutor General of Belarus stated that its regional office in Brest sent the case of a "30-years old resident of Brest" to the court accusing him of "committing acts that discredit the Republic of Belarus" on several websites, including the "Internet sites of the foreign organization 'Wikimedia Foundation Inc.' (USA)" (links in Russian: Official site — possibly unavailable from outside Belarus; Official Telegram account). The prosecutor's office reported that the user distributed "deliberately false information about the activities of law enforcement and state bodies of the Republic of Belarus", but it seems that he tried to resist the propaganda in Belarus. The user can be sentenced up to four years of prison, although non-prison options are also possible. He seems to have been arrested before the war in Ukraine began, and the known charges are connected with the politics of Belarus. Interested readers can see a related article at In focus. – H
On 5 April a representative from the Wikimedia Foundation's Trust and Safety team reported results to the Wikimedia-l mailing list from the community vote on recommending the proposed Enforcement Guidelines for the Universal Code of Conduct to the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees for ratification. 59% of community members voted to adopt; 41% voted against adoption. A total of 2,283 votes were collected. The ballots included an option to comment on the reasoning behind their decision. The Wikimedia Foundation is holding those ballots, and staff may use those community comments to revise the text. The election was designed to inform the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, who have expressed that they will make the decision whether to ratify the code. The Community Affairs Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has shared that a drafting committee will revise the UCoC further based on community feedback. Interested editors can read more on Meta. – Blu, E
The WMF has changed the Board selection process for 2022. Affiliates will now pre-select candidates before the community vote. The rationale for the change is described as follows on Meta: "The Board of Trustees wants to improve the set of skills and the diversity contributed by newly selected trustees. For this reason, the Board has approved a new process to select two community-and-affiliate trustees this year. The objective is to have two trustees confirmed by October 1st. Affiliates will vote to pre-select 6 candidates. A community vote will decide who from these 6 candidates will be recommended for the two seats." For more information see Meta. – AK
See also related earlier coverage:
GorillaWarfare launched a Request for Comment on Meta on 17 January 2022 regarding whether the Wikimedia Foundation should stop accepting cryptocurrency donations. The WMF currently accepts cryptocurrency donations through BitPay. Arguments supporting a ban included that accepting cryptocurrencies constitutes an endorsement of Bitcoin and its environmentally unsustainable operations, and the risk to the movement's reputation for accepting cryptocurrencies. Arguments opposing a ban included the existence of potentially less energy-intensive "proof-of-stake" cryptocurrencies, that cryptocurrencies provide safer ways to donate and engage in finance for people in oppressive countries, and that government-controlled currencies also have issues with environmental sustainability. This RfC was open to community input between January 10 and April 12. Almost 400 users participated in the !voting and discussion. Excluding new accounts and unregistered users, the tally at closing time was 232 to 94, or 71.17% in support of the ban. On April 12 Vermont, a steward and administrator on Meta closed the RfC finding community consensus to request that the Wikimedia Foundation stop accepting cryptocurrency donations.[a] – E
The Wikimedia Foundation is soliciting feedback for the draft 2022-2023 WMF Annual Plan. The Foundation proposes that the annual plan this year be anchored on Movement Strategy, centering on the goals of knowledge equity and knowledge as a service. The planning process began late last year with a listening tour trying to understand what the world and the movement need now. The Wikimedia Foundation decided that the Plan this year would be how they do their work, rather than a list of initiatives and projects. This led to the creation of four draft goals. Editors are encouraged to share their feedback on Meta. – E
Analysis of the requested moves backlog appears to show growth over time by as much as 113 percent. Although the data are spiky, plotting shows a general trend of an increasing number of active discussions over time. The current record of 299 active discussions was set earlier this month. In parallel, the number of old discussions is increasing at a disproportionate rate. Example statistics are compared with a day 5 years ago:
The cause of this trend is unclear. More details are available on the requested moves talk page. – CM, E
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports (paywalled, in German) that government employees have made 17,000 edits mainly to the German Wikipedia in recent years. As summarized by golem.de (in German) some of the edits were traced to the IP addresses of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and contained vandalism and slurs.
In a very recent case Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Green party was accused by an anonymous editor from a BSI IP of enriching himself with funds intended to fight COVID. A criminal investigation of Habeck was dropped in March and the edit was removed.
In June 2021 a government IP edited articles on "Illegal immigration" and "Illegal residence", trying to criminalize immigrants. In an article about journalists, a government IP described a professional society as "the rectum of the powerful" and described journalists as "press whores." These edits were also reverted by the Wikipedia community.
The Signpost can confirm these reports to the following extent:
Altogether there are about 1,000 English-language edits traceable to BSI, about 10,000 German language edits, and likely more in other languages.−S
Do Kremlin-related sources publish disinformation on Wikipedia? If so, how well does Wikipedia deal with the problem? Some basic answers to these questions were provided this week by the European Union's East StratCom Task Force in its publication EU vs Disinfo in the story Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Outlets Referenced By Hundreds Of Wikipedia Articles which was republished by Stop Fake, a Ukrainian organization that fights Russian disinformation.
East StratCom researchers "ran a pilot study last year focusing on four well-known pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets – SouthFront, NewsFront, InfoRos and Strategic Culture Foundation. All four are linked to Russian intelligence services and are sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury for attempts to interfere in the 2020 US elections." (wikilinks added)
They examined mentions of these websites, such as in references, over multiple versions, for at least 625 articles. Southfront.org accounted for the majority of the mentions (57 per cent), with news-front.info at 27 per cent. Twenty language versions of Wikipedia were represented, with five having the majority of mentions: Russian (136 articles), Arabic (70), Spanish (52), Portuguese (45) and Vietnamese (32).
The English-language version is not included in the tables for the sample period because a Reliable Sources Request for Comment deprecated southfront.org and news-front.info as reliable sources in 2019.
The article continues with an examination of whether the links were inserted intentionally as disinformation and what strategies could be used to limit these links.−S
Starting in 2020 as a "pandemic project" Rauwerda posted odd Wikipedia articles on her Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok accounts under the title Depths of Wikipedia. The project grew until now she has "about a million followers".[1] In March people really began to notice her with an article she wrote for Slate on Russians downloading complete versions of Wikipedia, followed by an article she wrote about Reddit, and the New York Times wrote [open-access link through subscriber referral] about her in a long article on March 31. The Times followed up with a student opinion on April 12. The New Yorker then gave her first try at a live comedy show a plug in their new issue. The recent show in Manhattan featured three comedians, Rauwerda as MC, and a sold-out crowd of 150. Add in a new Wikipedia article on Depths with a DYK on the main page. Several other newspaper articles piled on including one in the University of Michigan's The Michigan Daily. She'll be graduating from U of M with a degree in neuroscience in a couple of weeks. Check back here next month for more strange and exciting stories.
Rauwerda modestly told The Signpost "I'm still pretty surprised that any of this is news. All I do is take a bunch of screenshots. But hey, if another publication wants a feel-good story with goofy fun facts, I'll happily oblige. By the way, I think Wikipedians are the best (both on and off Wikipedia). Thank you all for always being so nice to me!" −S
A shooter opened fire on a school in Washington D.C. at about 3:20 pm on Friday, April 22, as classes were letting out for the weekend, injuring four people, including one minor. No deaths were reported until later in the evening, when a suspect was reported as having possibly committed suicide, according to several articles published in The Washington Post. The suspect was found dead in a fifth-floor apartment across from the school. He was surrounded by a tripod, ammunition, and several guns, which may have been used to shoot down at the school, according to the Post.
The Post also reported that the suspect was active on social media, 4chan, and Wikipedia, soon after the shooting began. He had previously edited Wikipedia articles on two other shooting incidents.
A thread at the administrators' noticeboard shows that the newspaper report had been noted; a user account, which was less than two weeks old, had been blocked and renamed; and several edits by the user had been removed from the article about the school.
The edits that were oversighted included one from four days before the shooting and three starting about 40 minutes after the shooting.−S
Russia's invasion of Ukraine caused the whole country to mobilize, defending itself against military aggression. Just as with other Ukrainians, the Wikimedia community's work takes many forms – from volunteering to helping refugees to writing Wikipedia articles, from documenting the war’s impact to serving in the army.
In this article, we'll look at three members of Ukraine's Wikimedia community carrying their share of the load.
Andrii Hrytsenko teaches history and pedagogy to university students, chairing a department at the Hlukhiv National Pedagogical University of Oleksandr Dovzhenko. When he is not busy performing his teaching and administrative duties, he contributes to Wikipedia – and quite prolifically so.
Andrii (user Андрій Гриценко) is one of the most active editors of Ukrainian Wikipedia. Andrii has been a winner of multiple contests and campaigns on Wikipedia, most notably international WikiGap Challenge in 2019 and 2020. He has created at least one new article on Wikipedia every single day for over four years now – and continues doing so during the full-scale war that Russia started on February 24th.
Andrii lives in the town of Hlukhiv in Northern Ukraine, close to a border with Russia. Hlukhiv was not occupied when Russia invaded Ukraine, but fighting had been taking place all around this region, and at some point there was a real danger that Hlukhiv would come under attack.
However, Andrii has remained in Hlukhiv with his family and devoted much his time to covering the war in Wikipedia articles. For example, he creates many articles about Ukrainian soldiers and officers notable for participation in the war – such as Inna Derusova, the first woman to be posthumously awarded the Hero of Ukraine title.
Andrii also writes about events and processes like peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia or reparations from Russia. However, Andrii’s work isn’t limited to the Ukrainian topic; for example, he has created multiple articles about Scandinavian women within this year’s ongoing WikiGap Challenge.
Ukraine's north was fully liberated in early April, and Andrii’s town isn't in immediate danger – though the locals fear the war might return, with fighting taking place in other parts of the country and Hlukhiv being so close to the Russian border. Despite the remaining problems with food and petrol supplies, however, Hlukhiv is gradually recovering from the blockade it went through, and Andrii is continuing his daily work on Wikipedia.
On the night of February 24, Kyiv resident Anton Obozhyn stayed up late at night, so he woke up later than millions of other Ukrainians – at 8 am. Instead of morning coffee, he started the day with calls from Wikipedian friends from Kharkiv and Chernihiv, who talked about explosions and Russian tanks near them. In a few hours, he was at the military enlistment office – he volunteered for the armed forces to defend his country.
Anton (user Tohaomg) is an active Wikipedia editor and Wikimedian. He has been a Wikipedian for almost 10 years now, having created almost 500 articles in the Ukrainian edition. He is particularly active in tech circles as a developer and bot owner.
Anton is also active in organizational work: he helped organize several national and international conferences, participates in organizing contests and other projects. Since 2020, he has been a member of Wikimedia Ukraine's Board.
However, when Russia started its military aggression against Ukraine, other priorities became more important.
Anton says that about a month before the start of the full-scale invasion, he realized that the situation was serious and war could not be avoided (news about Russia's military buildup near Ukraine abounded). The most logical step, even the only logical step, for him was to apply to the armed forces. It was a calculated decision rather than an emotional one – Anton thought he could be most useful this way.
A programmer by education and profession, Anton had no military experience. That's why before the war he enrolled in military skills courses for civilians. From the beginning of February, he learned how to hold a gun and how to provide medical aid. He did not manage to complete this training: on February 24, the war began.
But the skills Anton already acquired have been greatly beneficial since February 24, when Anton came to his district territorial center of recruitment and social support (better known as military enlistment office). Anton was accepted to the armed forces; now he remains in Kyiv and performs duties that he cannot yet speak about publicly.
Although Anton lives on base, his responsibilities leave time and space for computer work, including volunteering on Wikipedia. Recently he received a temporary status of administrator on the Ukrainian Wikipedia, and also continues to create articles: for example, he wrote in Ukrainian about Belarusian Wikipedian Mark Bernstein, who was arrested for his editing on Wikipedia.
Now the company where Anton worked before the war, developing computer games, is resuming remote work. So he plans to devote some time to working there as well, and donate the money he earns to army causes.
Anton has no strict plans for the future yet – he and his colleagues are focused on their day-to-day tasks. After Ukraine wins, though, he dreams of resting in a hut in the woods, alone with nature, where he already has an invitation.
Anastasia Petrova joined the Wikimedian community when she applied for Wikimedia Ukraine’s position of project manager for the international Wiki Loves Earth photo contest in early 2020. After two years managing the competition, she recently transitioned to a volunteer role on the project's organizing team.
Anastasia has a big network of friends and a lot of experience volunteering for various social and ecological causes. So, when the war in Ukraine started, it was a logical and obvious step for Anastasia to devote herself to volunteer work helping refugees and the army.
In the first week, Anastasia took a leave from work and was volunteering full-time. At the time, she stayed in Lviv, a city in Western Ukraine, and worked in the humanitarian center. They accepted humanitarian help from locals (such as food and clothes), sorted it and sent it to those who needed it – people displaced by the war, hospitals, and armed forces. Anastasia also helped with translations from Ukrainian for foreigners who arrived at the railway station in Lviv.
Anastasia's main job is managing projects at Beetroot Academy, a non-profit Swedish-Ukrainian IT school. A week into the war, she resumed her work there, focusing on the projects that help people who have suffered from the war to start a new career in tech, particularly women and vulnerable populations.
Still, Anastasia is doing a lot of volunteering as well. She temporarily moved to Berlin, where she is working at the humanitarian center that helps Ukrainians. Sometimes she helps with logistics (such as sorting and shipping items), but her main focus is fundraising. She is raising money for the Ukrainian cause and is working with local Berlin companies to solicit material donations, such as clothes and food packets.
Once the humanitarian center's work becomes more stable, Anastasia plans to return to Kyiv and put more focus on information work, documenting the war. She says a lot of people across the world don't know about the situation in Ukraine, especially those who don't speak English – and she wants to join the effort in communicating with people across the globe.
Today i got in touch with a friend of mine who had been missing for several days. Near Kyiv, the settlement of Rudnitskoye was liberated. She was there. Here are her personal impressions, quote:
Since we still have problems with light and communication, i can only tell you now. The orcs were hitting our positions with artillery for a long time. Ours also smoked them for a long time with mortars, artillery and hailstones [BM-21 "Grad" multiple rocket launcher – editors] outside the village. We have already learned to distinguish these terrible sounds. This morning we woke up from explosions and from the fact that tanks were coming in from all sides. It was scary when I saw tank in my garden 30 meters away, but then I noticed that the blue ribbons on the guys (they came in cheerfully, shouted something, sang) combed every yard and asked if there were orcs. Our fellow villagers warmly welcomed them. Then there were fights in the old part of the village, because the orcs remained there. Orcs fired back from machine guns, but our troops quickly bombarded them with mines. The whole day our guys combed every centimeter of the village (empty yards, farm, forest belts, etc.). The village is heavily mined, so they said that they had several days ahead of work to clear it.
Unfortunately, there is no school or church in the village anymore.
People in the old part of the village suffered greatly. From the constant shelling, the wave knocked out the windows and tore off the slate from the roofs. We also have a couple of holes from fragments on the roof, such large pieces flew in. One stray bullet shattered a window and lodged in the ceiling.
Personally, today i talked with the guys from the Georgian Legion who came to fight for Ukraine. There were also Belarusians there who are fighting for Ukraine under their white-red-white flag.
After the cleansing of Lukyanovka 4 days ago, all the orcs moved here, but this did not save the enemies.
-- GC
There is little news in Vinnytsia today. Only the evening is very rich in air raid sirens. Bombs fall on Lviv, Kharkiv, Dnepr, Odessa just now.
I have prepared a short review about the church's fifth column in Ukraine. Initially, the theme of the church was greatly inflated in the Russian media.
The most popular religion in Ukraine is Orthodoxy. After the collapse of the USSR, new states were formed on the territory of the former country, but the Orthodox Church remained united with the center (Patriarchate) in Moscow. Orthodoxy in Ukraine, even after the start of the war, retained its subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP). There is also the Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate (UOC-KP), but the unification of Orthodoxy within the framework of the state in Ukraine did not happen.
In Soviet times, there was a shameful practice of recruiting or infiltrating KGB agents among priests. The same practice was continued by Russia on the territory of Ukraine. Agents in church attire were on standby until the war began.
With the outbreak of the war, the UOC-MP became more active as an anti-Ukrainian center of sabotage.
In the district center of Khmilnyk near Vinnytsia, the priest offered armed resistance to the police, but could not escape and was captured. During a search, they found a whole warehouse of weapons and ammunition. He had a center for the coordination of saboteurs at home.
The community in the village of Sosonka near Vinnytsia expelled the priests because they campaigned in favor of the enemy during sermons. Now the priests of the Kiev Patriarchate conduct services there. And there are many such cases. Arms depots have been found in very many UOC-MP churches throughout the country, even in western Ukraine. Now all over Ukraine there are checks of Moscow priests.
On April 30, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine registered a bill to ban the UOC-MP.
Very many church communities even earlier began to move from the Moscow Patriarchate to the Kyiv Patriarchate. Such a transition was made in 2019 by the main cathedral in Vinnytsia.
In general, there is a strong split in the UOC-MP in Ukraine now. 15 bishops stopped mentioning the Moscow Patriarch Kirill. Many are moving to the Kyiv Patriarchate.
Summing up, i see no future for the Russian Church in Ukraine.
More related links
Another large group of Russian agents is the party Opposition Platform — For Life (OPZZh). Now it has become clear that this party was originally conceived and financed by the Kremlin. The party has been banned since March 20 in Ukraine. Representatives of this party become Russian commandants in the occupied territory. And it was they who were offered the role of a puppet regime if Kyiv were captured. Some rank and file members got into this party through stupidity and left it themselves. Many small district and city cells of the OPZZh disbanded on their own. In Vinnytsia, the well-known sportsman, boxer Vyacheslav Uzelkov, was in the OPZZh (i hope it was just a stupid mistake). And at the highest level - Boyko, Medvedchuk, Rabinovich.
-- GC
Today Vinnytsia was awakened by the sound of sirens at 4:00 am.
However, the main news today comes from the liberated territories. During the first days of April, the ZSU liberated more than 30 settlements. Investigations of the crimes of the Russian army against the civilian population are now beginning. This is a real shock. Thousands of civilians were tortured and killed. Corpses with their hands tied have been found in mass graves, in sewer shafts and just on the streets. About 300 shot inhabitants were found in only one burial in Bucha. There is evidence of the killing of children and the rape of women and underage girls by Russian soldiers.
Putin did not personally rape anyone in Ukraine, did not torture anyone, did not personally shoot in the back of the head. He did not personally bomb Ukrainian cities, did not fire rockets. He probably did not even give direct orders: wipe out such a city or village from the surface of the globe along with all the inhabitants, kill so many children, rape, rob, steal, loot.
All this was done by ordinary Russian soldiers, ordinary Russian people.
If you have the courage, check out the photos at the links below.
https://carabaas.dreamwidth.org/4615109.html
https://meduza.io/feature/2022/04/03/tridtsat-vosmoy-den-voyny-fotografii
--GC
More and more details of atrocities, torture and murders in the occupied territories appear in the press.
In Irpin, on Lermontov Street, the bodies of women and girls were deliberately driven over with tanks to hide the details of their torture and murders. Now were found new group graves where they tried to burn the bodies.
After the liberation of other territories, we will learn many new terrible details of the crimes of the Russian army.
I heard a comment from a Ukrainian veteran who personally saw results of similar crimes by Russian troops in two Chechen wars: "The Russian army always does this in occupied territories."
-- GC
I answer the question Jebulon: What important is : how are you ? How do you feel the new strategic situation ? What about the future, soon and late ? What do you think ?
I'm OK.
How do i see the future? Today is a good day, and i see reasons for restrained optimism. The Lend-Lease Act is a month late, but it's still great news. Today, Ukraine needs seven times more military assistance than it receives. I understand that after the signing of the law on Ukraine Lend-Lease Act, a considerable period of time (probably a month) must pass, after which Ukraine will actually receive the required weapons. This is the time for management and delivery. But now the outcome of the war is already a foregone conclusion.
Take a look at Russia's losses.
Total losses of the Russian army 02.24.2022 - 04.07.2022:
Now think about this: there is no war with one-sided losses. The Ukrainian army also suffers heavy losses. Our proud Sparta bleeds too. I personally know several families who have already lost their men at the front. Today, the online lessons at my granddaughter's school began with the whole class expressing sympathy for her classmate. Their family received the official message "Killed in action."
The mobilization of men in Ukraine takes place in several stages. A few days ago, the fourth stage began. Previously, the military commissariat refused to appoint me to the army because of my age, but now my eldest son and I meet the criteria for this stage of mobilization. The fourth stage is the last one. After him, only the elderly, women and children will remain in the rear.
At the same time, Putin, having already lost 20,000 killed and captured, is ready to throw cannon fodder all over Ukraine. He is ready to kill another 100,000 of russian soldiers, but hold his favorite parade on May 9th. Therefore, there will still be very difficult battles ahead.
Personally about myself: I am not afraid to be at the front. Yes, it is very dangerous, but i have good preparation. From the age of 11, my "toys" were hand grenades, TNT and detonators. And i was regularly trained in shooting from infantry weapons, i thank my father for this, an honest officer and a very good person. In addition, i served two years as a soldier in the Soviet army. The Ukrainian army is very close-knit, there i will not be alone, but in a circle of friends. And most importantly, Ukraine has no right to lose, otherwise the entire Ukrainian people and the entire country will repeat the fate of Bucha.
The future is still unsettling, but i believe that everything will be fine
--GC
Russia dealt a senseless and brutal blow to civilians who were waiting for an evacuation train at the Kramatorsk train station. The strike was carried out by a Tochka-U missile with a cluster warhead.
The death toll has risen to 52. Perhaps the number of victims will still increase. 38 died on the spot, 14 more died a few hours later in hospitals. Among those killed were 5 children. Of the 98 wounded who were taken to medical facilities, 16 were children, 46 women and 36 men.
The tail section of a rocket was found near the station. On it, in handwritten paint, was written "for the children."
meduza.io published shocking photos from Kramatorsk.
--GC
Wow! Today, two Ukrainian Neptune missiles hit the Russian cruiser Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. There is a big fire on the cruiser, and a storm at sea. After the shelling of Vinnytsia with Kalibr naval missiles, i feel hatred for this warship as a personal enemy.
A Ukrainian regiment of marines was able to break through to Mariupol to help the defenders of the city.
According to recent data, 13 mobile crematoriums operate on the outskirts of Mariupol, they burn the bodies of civilians, they hide the crimes of the Russian military. In addition, the bodies are collected and taken to stationary crematoria.
--GC
Yesterday I received terrible news. My youngest son was killed during the bombing of Kyiv. He stopped communicating, and I searched for him for many days and I hoped for a miracle. But yesterday I got a notice from the police that he was dead. The police are very busy with such requests. I will be able to get detailed information only on Monday, for this I will go to Kyiv for two days. I couldn't sleep last night, I just listened to the rain outside my window.
My youngest son was only 25 years old. Now I will have to replace the father for his daughter, my granddaughter, so that she grows up a good person and can be happy.
--GC
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Media Viewer is a MediaWiki component developed by the Wikimedia Foundation to display images in an immersive multimedia experience
. It was deployed as the default image viewer on the English Wikipedia on June 3, 2014, and all Wikimedia wikis on June 19, 2014. Ten days after its deployment on the English Wikipedia, Adam Cuerden opened a Phabricator ticket detailing his concerns regarding attribution for restorers of images. Creator templates such as Creator:Alfons Mucha are a common way of assigning credit to images on Commons. Since the rollout, images with multiple creators, of which one or more have a creator template, have been found to lack proper attribution: only the first template will be displayed, which is problematic when only one creator has a template, or there are multiple creator templates in use. Adam Cuerden opened an Arbitration Committee case request regarding the matter on 16 January 2022, but it was closed as out-of-scope. An example of this issue can be found here. The Signpost requested a comment from the Wikimedia Foundation Legal department regarding the legal implications of a lack of attribution but received no response by publication deadline. —E
The Wikimedia Site Reliability Engineering team announced on Diff the creation of a new status page informing the public of outages and other production issues. They hope that it will be useful for the editor community and others directly involved in the projects in the event of issues like wikis being very slow or unreachable for many users. Apart from notices of detected outages, the site generates automated graphs of five key metrics to performance and stability: total request volume, user-reported connectivity errors, wiki error responses, wiki response time and successful edits. This service is intended to supplement existing discussion forums such as the technical village pump, rather than replace them. The site is available at wikimediastatus.net, and is hosted on Atlassian Statuspage. Interested editors can read more on Diff. —E
As we wrote in the last Technology report, the Wikimedia Foundation Web team is working on the Desktop Improvements project and the new interface, Vector 2022. They began in 2019, and now most of the work is done. This is the next report about this project. In this issue, we're focusing on how Web has worked on these changes and how the community can work with the team.
This is how they have been working on each feature separately. Soon after the publication of this issue, the team will introduce the sticky table of contents. It is intended to make it easier to reach the table of contents, gain context about the page, and navigate throughout the page without needing to scroll. Next, they will move the page tools from the sidebar to the other side of the screen. After that, they will improve the overall aesthetics of the interface, and before July, everything should be ready for all readers and logged-in Vector users on the English Wikipedia. —SG (WMF)
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DoggoBot 7 (T|C|B|F) | Open | 2022-04-03, 22:49:12 | EpicPupper | 2022-04-17, 20:46:56 | ProcrastinatingReader | 2022-04-04, 13:38:56 |
| Aidan9382-Bot (T|C|B|F) | Open | 2022-03-23, 08:09:12 | Aidan9382 | 2022-04-24, 09:49:06 | TheSandDoctor | 2022-04-03, 17:23:10 |
| 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 | TheSandDoctor | 2022-04-03, 17:09:13 | TheSandDoctor | 2022-04-03, 17:09:13 |
| 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 |
| WOSlinkerBot 22 (T|C|B|F) | In trial | 2022-03-30, 16:41:56 | Primefac | 2022-04-23, 13:20:31 | Primefac | 2022-04-23, 13:20:31 |
| BareRefBot (T|C|B|F) | Extended trial | 2022-01-20, 21:37:46 | Rlink2 | 2022-04-17, 02:38:04 | Primefac | 2022-03-28, 18:32:02 |
| AssumptionBot (T|C|B|F) | In trial | 2022-02-16, 11:35:09 | AssumeGoodWraith | 2022-04-10, 03:23:38 | Primefac | 2022-03-27, 12:37:16 |
| Qwerfjkl (bot) 10 (T|C|B|F) | Trial complete | 2022-04-16, 17:17:43 | Qwerfjkl | 2022-04-23, 21:42:35 | Primefac | 2022-04-23, 13:17:17 |
| IndentBot (T|C|B|F) | Trial complete | 2021-10-15, 03:20:20 | Primefac | 2022-04-23, 14:42:55 | Primefac | 2022-04-23, 14:42:55 |
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2022 #16, #15, & #14. 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. Join the open meeting with the Web team about the new interface. It will take place on April 29 (Friday) at 13:00 UTC and/or 18:00 UTC.
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{{subst:lusc|1=User:BrandonXLF/SVGEditor.js}}
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Take a look through the featured articles, pictures, and lists that were promoted this past month. Featured content is determined by Wikipedians to be some of the best work offered on the encyclopedia.
26 featured articles were promoted this period.
24 featured pictures were promoted this period.
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No featured topics were promoted this period.
20 featured lists were promoted this period.
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Russian Wikipedia is a multinational community, edited in the Russian language by users from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Germany, the United States, Israel, and other countries. The invasion by Russia, where the largest number of users reside, into Ukraine, where the second largest number of users reside, has greatly affected the Russian Wikipedia community.
Many Ukrainian contributors woke up on February 24 to the sound of air defense sirens or explosions. Some stopped communicating, while others accessed Russian Wikipedia or related informal chats from a bomb shelter. One user, who lived in besieged Mariupol, stopped contacting us on March 2, and it was not until April 5 that we were able to contact him and learn that he was alive. As of April 22, there had been no known deaths of Ukrainian contributors to Russian Wikipedia.
Shortly after the beginning of the invasion, it was proposed to put up a banner in support of peace between Russia and Ukraine. The proposal was supported by about 60% of users; about 20% spoke out against a political statement on behalf of Wikipedia, and about 20% of users, unfortunately, expressed explicit or implicit support for the invasion. Since 66% of the vote was required, the proposal failed. Instead of it, we expressed support for Ukrainian colleagues individually, writing about it on the Ukrainian Wikipedia village pump. In comparison, a similar proposal to change the logo was not accepted by the English Wikipedia community as it was deemed a political statement, but was accepted by the Georgian Wikipedia community.
The work of the Russian and Belarusian contributors was considerably complicated due to the introduction of military censorship. On February 24, Roskomnadzor, the Russian media regulator, demanded that the Russian media provide information about the "special military operation" only from official Russian sources. In response, the Arbitration Committee of the Russian Wikipedia limited the use of sources that follow this requirement: it was forbidden to describe events related to Ukraine using these sources; only statements by Russian officials can be quoted.
On March 1, Roskomnadzor sent a notice stating that the article about the invasion allegedly contained false information which needed to be removed, or else Wikipedia would be blocked. The notice was vague about which information was meant. Roskomnadzor has previously sent numerous notices, mostly for articles about drugs or suicide; in 2015, Wikipedia was even blocked in Russia for several hours. The position of the community on this issue is unequivocal: it is against any concessions to the authorities, but we check the specified articles for compliance with Wikipedia rules, usually improving them. Some of the articles on drugs have become good or featured articles after Roskomnadzor sent a notice on them.
That said, the March 1 notice was the first notice which Roskomnadzor issued at the request of the Office of the Prosecutor General. Many users thought that a block of Wikipedia would soon follow, and so the banner "Wikipedia may be blocked in Russia because of an article about the invasion in Ukraine. Find out what to do" was placed on all the pages; a link to the article in question was included in the banner. A blocking did not follow, and a few days later the banner was removed.
Similar notices came on March 29, also on the article on the invasion, on April 4, on five articles, including an article on the Bucha massacre, and on April 12, on the article about Vladimir Putin. On April 7, Roskomnadzor sent a notice about 10 images allegedly containing child pornography. These are the images from Wikimedia Commons that depict erotic posing of children drawn in the hentai genre. Only two of them were used in Russian Wikipedia articles, and they were removed from the articles as controversial and having little relevance to the narrative. Some users fear that Wikipedia will be blocked in Russia under the pretext of distributing child pornography, and it would be done in order to hide the political motivation behind the blocking. As of April 22, Wikipedia is still not blocked in Russia.
On March 4, Putin signed the so called "fake news" law that provides that any information that "discredits" the Russian army can be punished with up to 15 years in prison. It can criminalise, for example, distributing information about casualties of the Russian army or about civilians killed by it. As a consequence, many Russian media outlets have refused to cover the invasion in Ukraine, and most opposition media outlets have been moved abroad or closed down.
All of this has disrupted the usual workflow in Russian Wikipedia, where articles on political topics were usually written using Russian moderate and pro-government sources on the one hand, and Russian opposition and Western sources on the other, balancing each other out. The Russian moderate media has stopped covering the events or has turned into pro-government media, while the pro-government media started a massive disinformation campaign. All of this leaves reliable sources on only one side, which causes a large number of conflicts in the process of editing Russian Wikipedia.
In general, the description of events in Russian Wikipedia corresponds to the description in other Wikipedias: for example, there are articles "2022 Russian invasion in Ukraine" and "Bucha massacre"; they are called the same as in English Wikipedia, although some users suggested moving them to "2022 Russian military operation in Ukraine" and "Bucha incident". The lead of the first article calls Putin's rhetoric that Ukraine is a neo-Nazi state untrue, while the lead of the second article reports that the massacre took place in territory controlled by Russian troops, and that the alleged perpetrators are Russian troops. Both passages are highly resisted by some users, but the community feels it is appropriate to write this way.
It has been suggested that some of the old accounts that became active after the invasion and made pro-government edits, may belong to pro-government organizations like the Internet Research Agency. External organizations have tried to interfere with Russian Wikipedia in the past: for example, in August 2021, during the election of the 32nd Arbitration Committee, a large group of users who voted for pro-government candidates and supposedly formed a bot farm, were found out and stripped of their votes. It turned out that, in February 2021, they also influenced the results of the elections of the 31st Arbitration Committee; allegedly due to that fact the 31st Arbitration Committee made some controversial decisions, which had to be reviewed by the 32nd Arbitration Committee.
On March 10, a well-known Russian Wikipedia contributor from Belarus, Mark Bernstein (who edited under the nickname Pessimist2006), was doxxed in a pro-government Telegram channel, after which he was arrested by Belarusian security forces. The same Telegram channel began to doxx contributors from Russia, threatening them with the "fake news" law. On March 12, Bernstein was sentenced to 15 days in prison for allegedly disobeying the police (such a sentence is often done in order not to comply with the law requiring charges be brought within 3 days after the arrest), and on March 26 it became known that Bernstein was charged under the article "Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them", the penalty for which is up to 4 years in prison.
Due to this, the Arbitration Committee recommended that contributors edit the articles related to the invasion using alternative accounts. Also, for the safety of the contributors, the history of edits of the Russian Wikipedia articles related to the invasion is now mostly hidden by an adminbot.
Unfortunately, it was already too late. Another Wikipedia contributor from Belarus, Pavel Pernikaŭ, who edited Russian, English, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and German Wikipedias, had been detained a few months earlier. Attempts were made to remove some of his former contributions using his account, probably by Belarusian security forces. This was noticed, and the account was globally locked as compromised. Pernikaŭ was not actively involved in the Wikipedia community, so it was only on March 28 that we became aware of what was happening to him. On April 7, Pernikov was sentenced to two years in prison for several edits on the Russian Wikipedia and several articles on the International Society for Human Rights website. Pernikaŭ is recognized as a political prisoner by Belarusian Viasna Human Rights Centre.
From the lush green hills of the historical site San Andrés, El Salvador, to the overwhelming waterfalls in Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda, to the captivating Second Temple in Jerusalem, Israel. Where local restrictions would allow, people have gone out again to capture their wonderful surroundings and share them with the world through the largest photo competition in the World, Wiki Loves Monuments.
As part of the competition, photographers donate their images to Wikimedia Commons, the free repository that holds most of the images used on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, helping to document the world’s cultural wonders for generations to come.
With the events going on in the world, it is important to stay aware that there is a deadline to capture the world around you. We consider it our responsibility to make people aware of its beauty, and that it deserves to be shared through the eyes of the people that experience it every day. We make the commitment to create the visuals that can illustrate the stories of these places and bring them to life, and invite you to help expand and maintain the treasure trove of the cultural heritage we all share in the upcoming 2022 edition.
The latest, 12th edition of the Wiki Loves Monuments contest was conducted throughout September 2021, and over 172,000 photos covering 37 countries were submitted. There are 4,914 contestants, 3,198 of whom are new to WLM. Experts from across the globe were enlisted as juries, and selected 339 contenders using the WLM criteria: "usefulness for Wikipedia, technical quality and originality."
Please enjoy the following profiles of the 2021 Wiki Loves Monuments winners, who were announced today. This year’s international winners come from 11 different countries, including multiple winners from Poland, Ukraine and India. All photos are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
First place: Although Donatas Dabravolskas lives only 15 minutes away from the Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Reading in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he only came to know about the place from a social media post, which motivated him to visit and take a bunch of photographs. As said by jury members, this winning picture of WLM 2021 has "amazing symmetry" and "conveys greatness and true scale of this immense library."
Second place: A professional photographer who has been in the field for over a decade, Damian Pankowiec, believes that it is important to "capture the subject at the right time of day and the weather". This stunning picture of Saint Roch chapel in Krasnobród, Poland, is praised by a jury member as the "best way to help a modest, otherwise unspectacular monument in gaining value in a picture is looking for the proper season; and for this picture autumn was chosen very well," and as another member says, "it creates the sensation to be there."
Third place: Along with his friends, Zysko Serhi, travels around Ukraine to showcase the beauty of it to the world. Far from his home, Serhi captured a "colourful interior shot" of Samchyky palace in Starokostiantyniv, Ukraine.
Fourth place: Małgorzata Pawelczyk captured the Stefan Czarniecki Monument in Tykocin, Poland, as the "sun rays were shining through the clouds and the fog." Her motivation to submit this photograph to WLM was to "create awareness of the beauty of architecture even in small towns." A jury member remarked it as a "great use of the weather and the time of day to isolate the subject within its surroundings."
Fifth place: Basavaraj M, who has been into photography for about four decades with a special interest for architecture, presents us with the picture of the Gali Mantapa from his hometown, which is Chitradurga in Karnataka, India. The photograph is also the winner of WLM 2021 in India. A jury member remarked this as a "good combination of stone architecture with natural rocks."
Sixth place: During the pandemic in 2020, Daniel Horowitz, along with his wife "rented a secluded cabin near Lake Champlain in Vermont, hundreds of miles from home." Since his childhood, he has always been drawn to old buildings, ruins and abandoned places. Towards the end of their trip, as he was taking pictures, Horowitz wandered off (as he usually does), to capture Fort Crown Point in New York. It was a British fortress along the western bank of Lake Champlain, built in 1759 to defend against French forces and partially destroyed by fire in 1773.
Seventh place: Dormition (Uspensky) Cathedral was photographed on a "rare sunny winter day" in Kharkiv, Ukraine, in "extreme cold and the snow on the roofs added some neatness to the whole scene", by Ekaterina Polischuk. She, along with being a landscape photographer, is also a drone pilot. A jury member remarked the photo as, "the tower in the foreground creates a dominant look and great perspective towards the depicted monument; lines are converging towards it and draws the eye into the shot. Excellent day for such an image; snow on top of the golden tower is like icing on the cake."
Eighth place: On a weekend walk to Ross Castle in Ireland with his family, Mark McGuire happened to perfectly capture "a series of fortunate events" in one frame, rather than just the monument. In McGuire's words, "For the ducks, boat and sunset to all align at the same time was pure chance and one of these rare moments that is unlikely to be replicated." It was also a jury member's favorite "by its composition" which blends, "architecture, nature and human elements."
Ninth place: On a cloudy day with strong winds, Hadi Dehghanpour, along with three "photographer friends" traveled almost 400 km to "one of the unique and special attractions of Khorasan Razavi" in Iran, the Windmills of Nashtifan. A jury member remarked that "the middle of a frame adds to the magnitude of the structure."
Tenth place: Yashin, who has been into photography for about seven years, presents the viewer with a beautiful image of Intercession Church in Posevkino, Russia.
Congratulations to all the winners, and our thanks go out to everyone who participated! If you'd like to see more photographs like these, see the 2021 winners from Wiki Loves Earth, a similar photo contest that aims to document the world's natural heritage. Be sure to check out the national winners from each of the participating countries in Wiki Loves Monuments 2021, and last year's international winners, too!
For more information, including how to join this year's contest, go to wikilovesmonuments.org. Share your favorite winning images on social media using #wikilovesmonuments.
A high-quality map of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine was uploaded on Wikimedia Commons the day the invasion began, and has been constantly updated since then. We interview Viewsridge, the original creator of the map, on the inspiration for the map, mapping tools, edit warring, and much more.
I first had the feeling that Ukraine was going to get invaded on 11 February 2022, after the U.S. intelligence agencies announced that Vladimir Putin had made the decision to invade Ukraine, so I requested user Rr016, a senior mapper on Wikimedia Commons, to create a map for the potential invasion of Ukraine. Rr016 created the base map on 16 February. As anticipated, the invasion began on 24 February 2022, and a high quality map was ready to go.
The map is built in vector based SVG format that allows readers to zoom in infinitely without losing quality. SVG format also allows other editors to access and edit the file at ease. It was built from a blank administrative map of Ukraine by user NordNordWest, who worked from bottom up with the addition of multiple layers of rivers, roads, towns and last the frontlines showing zones of control. The curved irregular shaped lines were added with the smooth nodes function of Inkscape, a vector editor.
The updates depend on the changes which take place on the ground in Ukraine. The map can be updated multiple times a day or go without an update for a day if there are no frontline changes. The Institute for the Study of War's (ISW) daily updates will also occasionally remain unchanged and this will correspond to how often the map changes.
Since the creation of the map, dozens of users have suggested improvements at the file's talk page. Their inputs are a great source of insight which affects the map when there is consensus at the talk page. Several editors have also worked updating the map in Commons, alongside myself.
A mix of geopositioning, which is made by identifying the settlements seen in photos and videos shared by military personnel. This is further coordinated with the claims made by the belligerents about capturing or losing settlements. The ISW's maps are used to determine the claims of control by the belligerents. Maps made by the belligerents are not used, to avoid partisanship.
Thank you to Viewsridge who completed this interview in a timely fashion. If you would like to suggest any candidates for an interview, please do so on the Signpost suggestions page.
Most Wikipedia articles have images to illustrate the interesting (but rather black and white) words. No one can imagine a Wikipedia article about Rembrandt or Van Gogh without pictures of some of their paintings. Stories about Biden and Putin come to life by displaying images from their youth and beginning of their career. Photographs of the city of Leiden make instantly clear that this city is small and cute. Everyone agrees about the importance of having Wikimedia Commons as a treasure trove of images, maps, videos and sound recordings, useful to illustrate the Wikipedia texts.
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At the same time images don’t pop out of the air. There is always a person who made the photograph of a famous politician, rock star or interesting monument. Yet the names of the photographers are only rarely mentioned. Does Wikipedia hate photographers, or have we decided that photographers don’t matter, so we don’t need to name them? But some photographers are artists, who even have a Wikipedia entry. And several of these photographers have themselves made sure their photographs were under a license that permitted Wikipedia to use the photos. Two examples pop up: the famous photographers Erling Mandelmann (from Denmark) and Belgian photographer Michiel Hendryckx. (Note: the photographs by Mandelmann were at first even proposed for deletion!) Side note: the 82 million photographs in Commons are roughly equally divided between PD and CC-BY: 40M are Public Domain, 40M are CC-BY.
There are several valid arguments against mentioning names of photographers in Wikipedia articles. (1) The CC-BY license requires attribution, but names of photographers can be found by clicking on the photo and reading the attribution in Wikimedia Commons. (2) Photographers could use it as self-promotion. (3) The authors of the Wikipedia articles aren’t mentioned either.
(1) CC-BY licenses require direct attribution, near the photo. (2) Photographers are artists - and artists deserve recognition for their work. (3) Mentioning photographers stimulates the donation of photos to Commons. (4) Mentioning the names of photographers makes clear to re-users that attribution is needed.
Many people assume that photos used in Wikipedia are “free to use”. They are, but at the same time Creative Commons licenses require attribution. That’s why I would personally favour this good practice: photographers with a Wikipedia entry should be mentioned in the caption of a photograph. It is a shame that the beautiful photo of Salvador Dali by Carl Van Vechten (above) is used 360 times in all Wikipedia language versions, but Van Vechten’s name isn’t shown.
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Taylor Hawkins | 
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The rock world was caught by surprise by the death of the long-time drummer of the Foo Fighters, one of the few who could live up to frontman Dave Grohl behind the kit, at the age of 50. Hawkins, who was also a part of Sass Jordan and Alanis Morissette's bands, and had side project Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders, was found dead in his hotel room on the same day his band would play in Bogota. No official cause of death was revealed, but ten substances were found in his body. |
| 2 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine | 
|
2,241,789 |
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As the invasion drags on into the fifth week of what was meant to be a few days, it continues to be awful. |
| 3 | RRR (film) |
|
1,404,414 | 
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Courtesy of Tollywood, RRR (short for Roudram Ranam Rudhiram) tells a fictional story of two Indian folk heroes fighting against the British Raj. Critics have broadly praised the film, and it seems set to do well at the box office. |
| 4 | Vladimir Putin |
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There's not much more to say about Russia's dictator-president, so just enjoy this photo, which for some reason was the first thing that came up on Commons when I searched up "Vladimir Putin falling over". |
| 5 | The Kashmir Files | 
|
1,270,790 | 
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Another recent Indian historical drama, The Kashmir Files tells a fictionalised version of the Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus. Some have called said fictionalisation an attempt to stir up communal tensions. |
| 6 | Ketanji Brown Jackson |
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1,203,010 | .jpeg)
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Following her nomination by President Joe Biden, Jackson's confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court took place this week. The hearings basically went how you might expect, with the Democrats touting her qualifications and emphasising the historic nature of her confirmation and most Republicans mounting vigorous opposition. |
| 7 | Madeleine Albright |
|
1,019,434 | 
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A native Czech who served as United States Secretary of State during the second Clinton administration (the first woman to occupy that role) and died at the age of 84. |
| 8 | The Batman (film) |
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891,176 | 
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The latest Batman film continues to rake in money: with over $600 million in box office receipts worldwide, it became the highest-grossing film of the year this week. Discussions of The Batman were also reignited when director Matt Reeves released a deleted scene featuring Robert Pattinson's Caped Crusader meeting none other than the Clown Prince of Crime himself, portrayed by Barry Keoghan. (in the film itself, only his voice is heard in Arkham Asylum) |
| 9 | Deaths in 2022 | 
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864,841 | 
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Let's put in a song #1 wrote: |
| 10 | 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification |
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691,300 | 
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The spots for football's greatest competition are being sorted out. Japan, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador and Uruguay punched their tickets, #2 caused Poland to win by W/O over Russia and Ukraine's games to be postponed until June. Notably, the reigning European champions and four-time World Cup winners, Italy, failed to qualify for second time in a row after losing their play-offs match against North Macedonia. |
| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jada Pinkett Smith | 
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3,341,264 | 
|
Oh, goodness. Where to start.
The 94th Academy Awards ceremony was looking to be just another year of the Oscars, for better or for worse. Comedians making "jokes" that denigrate the medium they're supposed to be celebrating. Disney winning another one of the animation awards that were specifically created just for them to win. Marvel fans getting upset because the Academy didn't nominate their favorite Marvel movie outside of technical categories. (It's worth noting that the Academy introduced two fan-voted "awards" this year that were thinly-veiled consolation prizes for the Marvel crowd, only for Zack Snyder fans to swipe both of them.) All of this is standard Oscars stuff. We'd forget about it in a week. It was the slap heard 'round the world, and it's completely overshadowed anything else that happened in the ceremony. Including how Smith, a longtime favorite to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, finally did it this ceremony (for playing the Williams sisters' father Richard in King Richard) after two previous nominations—but no one cares, because he slapped Chris Rock and shouted expletives on live television. Rather than celebrating the winners, most of the discussion regarding the 94th Academy Awards has concerned the Smith Slap. Did Smith or Rock or both cross a line? Were Smith's actions assault, or did he have a right to stand up for his wife? Was Rock's joke inoffensive or was he unaware that Pinkett Smith suffers from alopecia, which is why she shaved her head? Or was he mocking her condition? Smith has apologized to Rock, who's declined to press charges, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is conducting an investigation of the matter and may suspend Smith's Academy membership. The moment is bound to live on as one of the ugliest moments in the history of the ceremony. |
| 2 | Will Smith |
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2,897,836 | ||
| 3 | RRR (film) |
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2,745,183 | 
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Going from Hollywood to Tollywood, as our Indian friends break up the top 5 with a hit movie about revolutionaries who took on the British Raj. |
| 4 | Chris Rock |
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1,945,132 | 
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Sunday was a whole new episode of Everybody Hates Chris, this time a crossover with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (#2). All this for a G.I. Jane joke! (namely, that #1 could star in a sequel) |
| 5 | 94th Academy Awards |
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Another event on Oscar night, which was disjointed but still better than the trainwreck of last year, CODA is the first film by a streaming service and starring predominantly deaf actors to win Best Picture, Jane Campion is only the third woman in history to win Best Director for The Power of the Dog, and Ariana DeBose is the first Afro-Latina woman to win Best Supporting Actress. |
| 6 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine |
|
1,795,209 |
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It has been over a month since Russian troops entered Ukraine, beginning the largest war in Europe since 1945. Ever since that day, it’s been on the list, and on one report, it and related topics occupied 20 out of the 25 spots. However, over the next few weeks, its views declined and it mixed in with the other topics normally on the report. In the last two reports, there was no dominant topic, and I couldn’t write the usual abbreviated summary of the topics without writing in too glib a tone about a war that has killed thousands of people. I eventually gave up and wrote “This one is a difficult one to summarise well.” Let's simply say that after six weeks, it continues to be awful. |
| 7 | 2022 FIFA World Cup |
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1,774,649 | 
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Everything is almost done regarding who is playing on the Qatari football fields in November. This week had Canada earning their return after 36 years, with Mexico and the United States coming along (right before the three teams host a bloated 48-team Cup); the African spots went to Ghana, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco and Cameroon; and both the Portugal of Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski's Poland got in. The groups of the tournament were also sorted, even if some teams aren't yet set (namely, the winner of Costa Rica-New Zealand, Peru against whoever wins in United Arab Emirates-Australia... and in a complication caused by #6, Wales is waiting for the winner of Ukraine-Scotland). |
| 8 | Taylor Hawkins |
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1,516,566 | 
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The surprising death of the Foo Fighters drummer is still being mourned. Here's to him. |
| 9 | CODA (2021 film) |
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1,447,820 | 
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The first Best Picture winner that was primarily a streaming release (Apple TV+ in the US, Prime Video internationally) is the remake of a French movie where Emilia Jones (pictured) is a Child Of Deaf Adults who is coming of age and clearly wanting to live her own life without aiding her family. CODA won all three awards it was up for, which also included Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur. This here writer was one of many who liked CODA, but felt it only won the top category in another case of the Academy playing it safe. |
| 10 | Bridgerton |
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1,319,496 | 
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The Shonda Rhimes series and its actors continues to hold the attention of many people, in the second week since the second series landed on Netflix. Production of a third season has been confirmed apparently. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wrestlemania 38 |
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Every year, WWE's premier event tops this list when it happens. The venue was AT&T Stadium in Texas, and the headliner match was between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. |
| 2 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine |
|
1,973,977 | This week saw the emergence of reports of atrocities committed across Russian-occupied Ukraine: Mass graves have been found in Bucha, Russia has bombed civilian areas, and eye witness accounts suggest Russian soldiers have been shooting civilians retrieving water, food and aid, as well as killing fleeing civilians. The only problem, it is very difficult to prove that Putin and his high ranking officials ordered these war crimes - they will undoubtedly claim that these soldiers have gone rogue. | |
| 3 | RRR (film) |
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India's latest hit is this Telugu film, bringing in the crore and the Wikipedia views to check on the tale of two revolutionaries against the British Raj. Apparently it delivers quite the spectacle in its three hour runtime. |
| 4 | Jimmy Savile |
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922,601 | 
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Although his abuse scandal began years before the likes of Bill Cosby, Rolf Harris, Harvey Weinstein and Jeffery Epstein appeared on this report, Jimmy Savile makes his first appearance here since the report began in 2013.
Savile was an English media personality, BBC host, and DJ who was celebrated during his lifetime for his appearances on television shows (including being a long-running presenter of Top of the Pops and hosting the poorly aged Jim'll Fix It), and was also frequently respected for his seemingly good charity work at numerous hospitals. Although he was often rumoured by some to be a sex offender, Savile was protected by powerful political and professional connections, the affection of the general public, and his own skill in controlling and manipulating his public image (often suing people and journalists who had made complaints about him). However, a year after his death, Savile was outed as one of Britian's most prolific predatory sex offenders, and his surviving relatives agreed to the removal and destruction of his gravestone out of respect for his victims. The revelation of Savile's sex offences disguised the general public and lead to Operation Yewtree, a major police investigation in which several other high-profile figures were imprisoned for similar offences to those committed by Savile. In 2014, it was concluded that Savile had sexually assaulted staff and patients aged between 5 and 75 over several decades. Ten years after he was first exposed as a sex offender in a documentary hosted by Mark Williams-Thomas, Savile is now the subject of a new documentary; the Netflix two-part documentary Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, which was released on April 6. The documentary focuses on his life and career, his history of committing sexual abuse, as well as his friendships with other high-profile people including other celebrities, politicians, and royals (including Prince Charles, who had a close friendship with Savile and wrote to him for 20 years). |
| 5 | Jon Batiste |
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The New Orleans singer and jazz pianist won Album of the Year at 64th Annual Grammy Awards for his album, We Are. If he seems familiar and you cannot quite remember why, it is because he has been the bandleader on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert since 2015. |
| 6 | Moon Knight |
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From Marvel Comics, Marc Spector is a mercenary on a mission from God. Or rather, the Egyptian God of the Moon, Khonshu. Disney+ introduced him to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (#9) |
| 7 | Deaths in 2022 |
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You can bury me in some deep valley For many years where I may lay Then you may learn to love another While I am sleeping in my grave... |
| 8 | Morbius (film) |
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The Spider-Man spin-off featuring an obscure vampire villain that was delayed seven times (it was supposed to come out nearly two years ago!) finally came out, and I'm not lying when I say that Morbius was one of the worst movies I've ever had the displeasure of seeing in theaters. The third Sony's Spider-Man Universe film is the perfect storm of a nonsensical story, Jared Leto, generic characters (aside from Matt Smith's wonderfully hammy villain, who was the lone bright spot), Jared Leto, bad CGI, and Jared Leto. Audiences are probably going to eat this garbage up; I just want my two hours back. |
| 9 | Moon Knight (miniseries) |
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794,336 | .jpg)
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Disney+ got a parental lock just in time for the arrival of this show, where Oscar Isaac is a meek guy working in a museum that discovers that he's actually the alternate personality of a violent Egyptian-themed vigilante (#5). Every week has a new episode to keep viewers waiting for surprises like the opener's chase scene scored with "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go". |
| 10 | Olivia Rodrigo |
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This week the 19-year-old pop singer won Best New Artist and a few more awards at the Grammys off the back of her debut album Sour, which was critically acclaimed, produced several number-one singles, and even earned her a place on the Top 50 Report. |
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| Rank | Article | Class | Views | Image | Notes/about |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | K.G.F: Chapter 2 |
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2,505,301 | 
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India's latest box-office hit takes the top spot. It follows the leader of an Indian crime syndicate operating out of the Kolar Gold Fields fighting rivals for supremacy as well as the Indian government. It has received mixed reviews, but done very well at the box office and become the highest-grossing Kannada film of all time. |
| 2 | Gilbert Gottfried |
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2,425,851 | 
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April 12 brought us the unfortunate news that Gottfried, a comedian known for his exaggerated shrill voice that he lent to characters such as Aladdin's Iago and the Aflac duck, had died at the age of 67. Gottfried had privately been struggling with recurrent ventricular tachycardia complicated by type II myotonic dystrophy; I offer my deepest condolences. |
| 3 | Russian cruiser Moskva |
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1,831,133 | 
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The flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet suffered a major explosion and sank. Ukrainian soldiers on guard at Snake Island previously told it in no uncertain terms to go away. According to Ukrainian reports it was hit by one of their Neptune cruise missiles (#17 on this list) but the Russians prefer to claim incompetence and say the ship was damaged after a fire caused a munitions explosion. Russia has not yet announced official casualty numbers. The Slava ("Glory") class cruiser was originally built in Soviet Ukraine in the city of Mykolaiv, and was launched in 1979 as Slava. It later was refitted and renamed as Moskva ("Moscow") in 1996. |
| 4 | 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine |
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1,466,467 |
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Russia has retreated and regrouped for an attack on the east. The situation in Mariupol continues to worsen. The war continues to be awful. |
| 5 | Elon Musk |
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1,407,038 | _(cropped).jpg)
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Most of the time, when Elon Musk is on this list, it's because he's done something silly, like challenging Vladimir Putin to single combat, or endorsing a cryptocurrency that was started as a joke. You know, totally normal things for the richest man in the world to be doing. We make fun of it and move on. This time, though, it's for something that actually could be quite serious. This week, Musk launched a bid for a hostile takeover of Twitter, which if successful would give him ultimate control of the platform. Employees and civil rights activists are worried that Musk's "free speech absolutist" agenda, which would involve stripping back content moderation and user protections, would open the door for increased exploitation and harassment, and a potential avenue for him to silence his critics. |
| 6 | Nicola Peltz |
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1,177.989 | .jpg)
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The actress daughter of a businessman, known for roles in Bates Motel, The Last Airbender and Transformers: Age of Extinction, was in the news for marrying Brooklyn Beckham. |
| 7 | RRR (film) |
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1,075,911 | File:S-S-Rajamouli-RRR-promotional-event-1.jpg | Ah yes, Sandalwood is currently atop this list, but the highest-grossing Indian film of the year is still this Tollywood production. |
| 8 | Alia Bhatt |
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1,030,692 | _(cropped).jpg)
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The above movie has a cameo from this actress who primarily works in the Hindi films of Bollywood, and this week married one of her former co-stars, Ranbir Kapoor. |
| 9 | Scottie Scheffler |
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1,026,472 | 
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The golfer from New Jersey won the 2022 Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. Tiger Woods still recovering from injury finished 47th. |
| 10 | Jimmy Savile |
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1,007,637 | .jpg)
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The Netflix two-part documentary Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story recalls how this guy was known as a philanthropist and a popular DJ and TV host, but behind the scenes was one of Britain's most prolific predatory sex offenders, a scandal only uncovered after Savile's death. Damnatio memoriae followed, with his tombstone being destroyed, BBC taking episodes of the shows he hosted out of circulation, and most of his honors being stripped (except his knighthood, as that title expires when its holder does so). |
A monthly overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, also published as the Wikimedia Research Newsletter.
In this paper, "Civic Engagement Meets Service Learning: Improving Wikipedia's Coverage of State Government Officials",[1] the author argues that students' contributions on Wikipedia serve as civic engagement in the educational approach known as service learning. The paper cites other academic work highlighting Wikipedia's value as a teaching platform because of ease of entry, its ability to "boost students' writing, information literacy, creativity, and critical-thinking skills" while they are motivated to create content that "matters to the world". Background research also showed that basic biographical information about political representatives is often hard to find, becoming "a costly and semiprecious commodity".
For the study, students edited the Wikipedia biography of "a state or local representative who lacked a substantial Wikipedia presence", i.e. creating a new article or improving an existing low-quality one. Then they conducted self-reflective essays and "Small-N surveys" concerning the subjective outcomes.
The outcomes were generally positive except for a number of deleted new articles due to Wikipedia notability standards. The survey results found that "students left the course better able to understand government, more attentive to government actions, more likely to discuss government, and more confident that their vote matters".
This paper[2] presents a wealth of results from the "first large-scale analysis of how interactions with images happen on Wikipedia".
The authors first note that (excluding images that appear as icons), only a minority of articles are illustrated:
"Out of the 6.2M articles, 2.7M (44%) contained at least one image, for a total of 5M unique images across all English Wikipedia articles. The vast majority of the articles (91%) contain two images or less, while only 1.5% has more than eight images [..]. Around 84% of images is unique to the article where it appears."
Using a machine learning based topic model, they find that "Geographic articles are the most illustrated, containing 1/4 of the images in our dataset. Biographies, making up 30% of the articles on Wikipedia, also contain around 15% of the images. Topics such as entertainment (movies, plays, books), visual arts, transportation, military, biology, and sports follow, covering together another third of the images in English Wikipedia."
Examining the length of image captions, the study finds a "large fraction of the images without a description and the majority of existing captions centered around ten words." Regarding the position of images in the article, "only 36% of the images in our dataset is generally placed in infoboxes, while only 16% can be found in galleries, and that the majority of inline images are generally placed at the top of the article".
The analysis of reader interactions with these images is based on internal web log data from March 2021 recording three types of such interactions: image views (opening an image in Media Viewer), pageviews (of articles with images) and page previews (on the desktop version of the Wikipedia website), grouping these into reading sessions based on the (somewhat imperfect) heuristic that readers are uniquely identifiable based on the combination of IP address and user agent. A main finding (highlighted in the abstract) is "that one in 29 pageviews results in a click on at least one image, one order of magnitude higher than interactions with other types of article content", or in more detail:
We find that the [global click-through rate] across all pages in English Wikipedia with at least one image is 3.5%, meaning that around 3.5 out of 100 times readers visit a page, they also click on an image. This metric is higher for desktop (5.0%) and lower for mobile web users (2.6%), probably due to differences in the way readers navigate Wikipedia on the two devices and the better Media Viewer experience on desktop. Over time, the behavior also changes depending on the device used. For example, on desktop, readers tend to click more often on images during weekdays (Monday to Friday), with an increase of 5.5% over weekends ...
Images in articles about "topics such as transportation, visual arts, geography, and military" were found to have higher engagement, whereas |clicks on images are less likely in education, sports, and entertainment articles." Furthermore,
we observe that the most important negative predictor is the text offset, i.e. the relative position of the image with respect to the length of the article, meaning that images are more clicked if placed in the upper part of an article. Regarding the visual content, we observe a strong positive effect of outdoor settings, consistently with the positive coefficients of transportation and geography, topics in which a large portion of images display outdoor scenes. Regarding the image position on the page, we find that images in galleries show a high level of engagement, as well as images in the infobox, even though with a moderate effect.
The researchers also investigated how reader engagement was associated with page popularity and image quality (using an automated rating of image quality, based on a machine learning model trained on a balanced dataset of community rated "quality images" on Commons):
The paper proceeds to study more involved questions, e.g. finding that "the tendency to click on images with faces varies depending on page popularity. On pages with less that 1000 monthly pageviews, the presence of faces induces higher level of interactions, with a difference of 0.1%, whereas, after 1000 pageviews, we observe the opposite behavior, with a difference of 0.06%." and concluding that "Faces engage us, but only if unfamiliar".
Another high-level conclusion is that "Images serve a cognitive purpose" on Wikipedia - based on "a negative relation between article length and iCTR. This suggests that [...] images might be used by readers to complement missing information in the article".
Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. Contributions, whether reviewing or summarizing newly published research, are always welcome.
From the abstract and paper:[3]
"We present an Attention Feedback (AF) approach for Wikipedia readers. The fundamental idea of the proposed approach comprises the implicit capture of gaze-based feedback of Wikipedia readers using a commodity gaze tracker. The developed AF mechanism aims at overcoming the main limitation of the currently used “pageview” and “survey” based feedback approaches, i.e., data inaccuracy."
"For each reading session, along with the gaze density heat map, we also provide a set of sentences where a user-focused while reading along with the time for which each sentence was focused. [...] After processing the sentences, we arrange them in the order they are read along with their gaze quotient. By gaze quotient, we mean the time duration (in seconds) for which a sentence is being gazed at or read. [...] the proposed AF framework also captures some additional information listed below: (1) Wikilink clicks [...] (2) Eye blinks [...] (3) Scroll events [...]"
"Extensive experiments demonstrated [this setup's] efficiency compared to other feedback approaches used by the Wikipedia research community [...] Moreover, incorporating a single-camera image processing-based gaze tracker into a web application framework makes the overall system costefficient and portable. This study’s outcomes are currently being discussed in the Wikimedia Foundation for developing specialized tools to capture readers’ implicit feedback."
(See also meta:Research:Which parts of an article do readers read for an overview of related work)
From the abstract:[4]
"We have conducted an ethnographic analysis of several [of the French] Wikipedia's terrorist attacks pages as well as interviews with regular Wikipedia's contributors. We document how Wikipedia is used during crisis by readers and contributors. Doing so, we identify a specific pace of contributions which provides reliable information to readers. [...] we highlight how historical sources (i.e. traditional media and authorities) support this pace. Our analyses demonstrate that citizens are engaging very quickly in processes of resilience and should be, therefore, considered as relevant partners by authorities when engaging a response to the crisis."
From the abstract:[5]
"... we analyse contributions on Wikipedia and Twitter during major crises in France through online ethnographies and semi-structured interviews to investigate their roles in building and sharing information. Wikipedia has often been analysed as a collaborative tool but this approach has underestimated its use in reducing uncertainty in times of crisis. We demonstrate that despite their distinct pace and designs, Twitter and Wikipedia are used with seriousness by citizens in their dissemination of information."
This article was originally published on Diff on April 20. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. – E
During March 2022, United States Senators Patrick Leahy and Thom Tillis introduced the Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of 2022 (SMART Copyright Act). The bill is deceptively simple. It would require the Library of Congress to mandate that online platforms use certain "technical measures" (i.e., automated systems) to identify infringing content. Its simplicity masks its dangers, however. For that reason, though the Wikimedia Foundation agrees that technical measures to identify potentially infringing works can be useful in some circumstances, we sent a letter (reproduced below) on 19th April 2022 to the bill’s sponsors letting them know that we oppose it.
Under the SMART Copyright Act, the Foundation and Wikimedia communities could be forced to accommodate and implement technical tools to identify and manage copyrighted content that may not be right for Wikimedia projects. This requirement could force the Foundation to change its existing copyright review process, even though the current process is working very well.
Currently, content contributed to Wikimedia projects must be available through a free knowledge license, in the public domain, or subject to some other limitation on copyright protection. The Foundation and our communities mostly rely on Wikimedia editors to figure out whether particular content complies with the rules. These editors do use certain automated technical measures to help them, but the decisions about which measures are appropriate and what content requires action are theirs. In addition, the Foundation accepts requests to remove content under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Because the user policies and review systems are extremely effective, the number of DMCA takedown notices the Foundation receives is very small, and many are not granted. For example, our last transparency report shows we received only 21 total DMCA notices between July and December 2020 (as compared to the nearly 150,000 received by Facebook). We granted only 2 of them, which indicates that the other 19 were inappropriate or defective in some manner.
If the SMART Copyright Act forces Wikimedia projects to use inappropriate tools or to substitute inappropriate tools for our existing copyright enforcement process, we are concerned it will make our copyright enforcement worse. The SMART Copyright Act, like other proposals before it, puts too much faith in artificial intelligence and automated tools as the only solution to infringement. While we fully agree that tools can be a helpful aid in identifying infringement, they should not be considered as a fix for all enforcement problems. There are two main reasons for this:
The SMART Copyright Act tries to address these concerns by requiring the Librarian of Congress to implement a process to take input from a broad range of stakeholders. The problem with this approach is that large rights holders and large platforms are very likely to dominate the process, since these organizations can devote more time and staff to the proceedings. Lost in or absent from the debate will be small platforms, nonprofit platforms, and—most concerningly—the public and the creative community that relies on free knowledge protections to flourish. This will likely produce designated technical measures that fail to take into account the diversity of information, formats, forums, and platforms as well as the impacts that deploying these measures could have on various kinds of information, formats and platforms.
Online platforms should be free to use the processes and technical measures that are most appropriate for their individual formats and communities. Appointing a government agency to dictate which technical measures platforms must use will likely lead to censorship of legal content. It could also make Wikimedia projects’ copyright enforcement less efficient. For those reasons, we hope that senators will reconsider the SMART Copyright Act.
* * *
BE HEARD on the SMART Copyright Act! In addition to the letter the Foundation sent, you can let Congress know that you oppose mandatory censorship filters. Fight for the Future is leading a petition opposing the harmful impacts of the legislation that will be delivered to Congress on 25th April, 2022. You can sign the petition at www.nocensorshipfilter.com and make sure Congress knows just how many people are concerned about the impacts this bill will have on free speech.
* * *
Senator Patrick Leahy
Chair
Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property
437 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Senator Thom Tillis
Ranking Member
Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Intellectual Property
113 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chair Leahy and Ranking Member Tillis:
The Wikimedia Foundation opposes the Strengthening Measures to Advance Rights Technologies Copyright Act of 2022 (SMART Copyright Act) due to our strong concerns about the negative impacts it could have on free knowledge projects, including Wikipedia. The bill, as currently drafted, would require the Librarian of Congress to institute a process that would mandate that nearly all online platforms use certain technical measures to identify and remove potentially infringing content from their services. We are concerned that requiring one-size fits all measures could upset the delicate balance between encouraging free expression and allowing for vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights that has emerged since the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Particularly, we are concerned that the imposition of these measures could force the Wikimedia Foundation and other hosts of community-driven platforms to make changes to our public interest projects that could harm Wikipedia’s volunteer contributors’ commitment to the exchange of free knowledge and disrupt our already well-functioning copyright enforcement system.
The Wikimedia Foundation hosts several projects of free knowledge, the most famous of which is Wikipedia. Within these projects, hundreds of thousands of users around the world create free, collective knowledge, and the projects use a number of long-established community-led systems to ensure copyright compliance. One of the requirements for knowledge to be freely available is that it is hosted under a free culture copyright license (our projects primarily use Creative Commons licenses) or in the public domain. The Wikimedia projects also make exceptions to this free culture requirement on a case by case basis. For example, English language Wikipedia allows fair use images to illustrate articles where no non-free image is available such as for older musical groups and movies. This is reflected in a policy written and voted on by the users themselves.
The Wikimedia projects use a multi-layered system of human review and tools that assist volunteer reviewers to ensure the accuracy of copyrighted material and licensing information on the projects. As an initial step, many Wikimedia projects have an upload wizard (for example this one is the most common for photographs) that prompts the user to provide licensing information or, if it is their own work, to license it under a creative commons license. The Wikimedia Foundation’s Terms of Use also have a more formal content licensing agreement within them.
Once a work is uploaded, it is typically monitored by other users with the assistance of a variety of tools. The Foundation hosts some tools, which are developed by an open source developer community and used for detecting possible copyrighted materials on the Wikimedia projects. Other tools are hosted on community-created pages that help users address copyright issues. These tools are employed by the volunteer editors to help them review changes to the Wikimedia projects and identify changes that may infringe copyright or violate the free knowledge licensing requirements of the projects.
The Foundation also accepts DMCA requests sent to it directly. Because the user policies and review systems are extremely effective, the number of DMCAs the Foundation receives is vastly smaller than the millions received by most hosting providers and many are done in bad faith. For example, in our last transparency report we received only 21 total DMCA notices and granted only 2 of them, indicating that the other 19 were inappropriate or defective in some manner.
Because our overall architecture focuses on hosting content that is freely available under copyright law, these measures broadly assist in ensuring that Wikimedia hosted content is legally available. At the same time, limitations and exceptions to the copyright system are also an important part of protecting free expression. Some of the inaccurate DMCAs we have received in the past resulted from the use of technical tools other than those hosted by the Foundation or commonly used by our community finding works on our sites that either falsely asserted ownership or, even more concerningly, failed to adequately assess fair use even in clear cases of non-commercial educational use. Takedown demands generated by such tools can be disruptive and confusing for our user communities and require resources for a legal response that may take away from other work to advance the Foundation’s non-profit mission.
Under the SMART Copyright Act, the Foundation and our user communities could be forced to accommodate and implement technical tools to identify copyrighted content, regardless of whether those tools are appropriate for our projects. Forcing our projects to use inappropriate tools or to substitute these tools for our existing copyright enforcement process runs the risk of eliminating the nuanced review the Foundation and community are able to engage in when reviewing allegations of copyright infringement, including analysis of whether the content represents fair use of a copyrighted work. That will inevitably lead to over-enforcement and over-removal of legal content and harm to free expression and the free knowledge movement.
The SMART Copyright Act, like other proposals before it, simply puts too much faith and emphasis on artificial intelligence and automated tools to enforce copyright laws. While we strongly agree that tools can be a helpful aid in identifying infringement, they should not be considered as a fix for all enforcement problems or supersede the work of a volunteer community, and the concerns that mandating reliance on them creates for free expression and the free exchange of legal content far outweigh any benefit to rightsholders. Even YouTube’s content ID tool, which is highly accurate and efficient for its purposes, nonetheless identifies numerous false positives for infringement and also fails to catch a significant amount of problematic content as well.
We appreciate that the bill does require that the Librarian of Congress consider many of these concerns when determining whether to make a technical measure a designated technical measure and on which platforms the particular measures would have to be deployed. However, the process is very likely to be dominated by rightsholders and by large platforms that have the time and capacity to devote to the proceedings. Lost in or absent from the debate will be small platforms, non-profit platforms, and, most concerningly, the public and the creative community that relies on free-knowledge protections to flourish. In addition, any designated technical measure will present implementation problems. As noted above, they often do a poor job analyzing whether content qualifies for one of the exceptions or limitations on copyright, including whether the content is a fair use. Finally, any approved technical measure will almost certainly be proprietary rather than free and open source further limiting the ability of small platforms to integrate them and raising the likelihood that those that benefit will be the standards creators: the industry power players as well as the big tech companies. This will likely produce designated technical measures that are over-broad and implementable only by the largest platforms and/or fail to take into account the diversity of information, formats, forums, and platforms and the impacts deploying these measures could have on them.
Thank you for taking the time to consider our views and our concerns. If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Kate Ruane, Lead Public Policy Specialist for the United States, kruane@wikimedia.org.
Elegant variation is the attempt to relieve repetition by replacing words with synonyms. For example:
The English lexicographer H. W. Fowler coined "elegant variation" as an ironic criticism of this strategy. Elegant variation distracts the reader, removes clarity, and can introduce inadvertent humour or muddled metaphors. It can confuse readers who are unaware, for example, that the Pope is the Bishop of Rome. It fails to fix the real cause of repetitive prose, which is usually repeated information, not repeated words.
Some newspaper writers were famous for overusing synonyms:
It was around two decades ago [1930s], in the city room of the Boston Evening Transcript, that I first became aware of the elongated-yellow-fruit school of writing. The phrase turned up in a story, a determinedly funny story, about some fugitive monkeys and the efforts of police to recapture them by using bananas as bait. The young rewrite man of the story was bowling along in high spirits, full of references to "the gendarmes" [the police] and the "blue-coated minions of the law" [the police], and it was inevitable that in such a context the word banana would seem woefully dull. So it was that bananas became, after first mention, "the elongated yellow fruit"—a term which the Transcript staff always used thereafter in dealings with the office fruit peddler, especially when the young rewrite man was within earshot. — Charles W. Morton, 1955[1]
Elegant variation is often less absurd than in the examples above – for example, writing "the singer" instead of "Michael Jackson". It's often used to avoid repetition that arises from other problems, such as needlessly complex syntax: a case of treating the symptom and not the cause. Fixing elegant variation isn't always a case of removing flowery language, but making prose clearer and tighter overall. In other words, using plain English.
Elegant variation is often used on Wikipedia in reference to individuals – for example, writing "the director" instead of "Spielberg".
Here's a passage from an old version of the article about Bubbles, a pet chimpanzee once owned by Michael Jackson. The elegant variation is bolded:This presumably emerges from an attempt to avoid repetition. But the English language already has a solution for repetitive nouns: pronouns (he / him / she / her / they / them / it). When a pronoun isn't clear, just use the original word. In 99% of cases, the result is perfectly natural:Bubbles (born April 30, 1983) is a common chimpanzee once kept as a pet by American recording artist Michael Jackson, who bought the primate from a Texas research facility in the early 1980s. The animal frequently traveled with the singer, whose attachment to the animal led to media mockery.
Bubbles (born April 30, 1983) is a common chimpanzee once kept as a pet by American recording artist Michael Jackson, who bought him from a Texas research facility in the early 1980s. Bubbles frequently traveled with Jackson, whose attachment to him led to media mockery.
Elegant variation can reduce clarity and introduce confusion, as in this excerpt from the article on the film Taxi Driver:
According to Scorsese, it was Brian De Palma who introduced him to Schrader. In Scorsese on Scorsese, the director talks about how much of the film arose from his feeling that movies are like dreams or drug-induced reveries.
Scorsese, De Palma, and Schrader are all directors – so which director does this refer to?
This example of elegant variation, from the article about the band Pavement, makes the sentence difficult to comprehend:
Nastanovich also later recalled an awkward incident where it became apparent that Godrich did not know the name of the auxiliary percussionist.
Who was the auxiliary percussionist? It was Nastanovich himself – a fact mentioned several thousand words earlier in the article, so good luck if you missed that.
Elegant variation is sometimes used to add information with the purported advantage of avoiding repetition. This is rarely the clearest way to provide the information.
For example, the following passage from the Beatles article tells us that George Harrison was 15 when he met John Lennon:
Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney met Lennon that July, and joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after. In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison to watch the band. The fifteen-year-old auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing.
This requires the reader to work out who "the fifteen-year-old" refers to (made especially difficult here as, in the previous sentence, McCartney is also described as being fifteen). It's simpler and clearer to introduce information in a logical, sequential way:
Fifteen-year-old Paul McCartney met Lennon that July, and joined as a rhythm guitarist shortly after. In February 1958, McCartney invited his friend George Harrison, also fifteen, to watch the band. Harrison auditioned for Lennon, impressing him with his playing.
"The latter" and "the former" are rarely the best solution to repetition. For example:
Sarah and Louise went to a supermarket, where the former bought the latter an ice cream.
Without "the latter" and "the former", the sentence feels repetitive:
Sarah and Louise went to a supermarket, where Sarah bought Louise an ice cream.
This is an example of how repetition usually emerges from repeated information, not repeated words. As it stands, the sentence structure requires us to state the subjects (Sarah and Louise) twice. We already know who the subjects are, so this is repeated information.
The solution is to restructure the sentence:
At a supermarket, Sarah bought Louise an ice cream.
The word "title" is sometimes used as a synonym for media such as movies, magazines, and particularly video games. For example: The classic Mega Man series consists of ten main titles.
It seems to have been absorbed from press releases and video game journalism (reliable sources of bad writing). This is an example of the specialised style fallacy – in other words, copying the writing style of specialist sources without considering Wikipedia's general readership.
"Title" removes information and creates ambiguity. For example:
Sega announced the title Sonic Colorscould mean that Sega announced the game or the title of the game.
Resident Evil titlesmight refer to the Resident Evil films, games, or both.
Why be imprecise? Be clear and direct and write "game", "film", etc instead of "title". Or remove the word entirely where possible: Sega announced Sonic Colors
.
Consider this sentence:
Batman Returns is a 1992 American superhero film directed by Tim Burton, based on the titular DC Comics character.
This likely derives from a fear of repeating the word "Batman". But replacing the second mention with words such as "titular", "eponymous" or "title character" only adds redundancy. Readers can see when a word or phrase is in the title – we don't need to tell them. What's more, this makes the wikilink destination less clear (see WP:EASTEREGG).
Be clear and direct:
Batman Returns is a 1992 American superhero film directed by Tim Burton, based on the DC Comics character Batman.
In articles about adaptations of works with the same title, it's common to wikilink using something like [[article title|of the same name]] or [[article title|the eponymous novel]]. For example:
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed and co-written by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the 2000 novel of the same name by Michel Faber.
There are numerous problems with this:
The solution isn't necessarily obvious. For example:
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed and co-written by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the novel by Michel Faber.
This isn't ideal, because it isn't clear where the wikilink novel leads: the novel Under the Skin, or the article about novels generally?
Writing out the name in full is clear:
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed and co-written by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the 2000 novel Under the Skin by Michel Faber.
It may be clunky, but it beats "of the same name", which tries to mask clunkiness with worse clunkiness.
Two other possible solutions are to include "the" or a year in the link text.
Including "the" in the link text makes this unambiguous:
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed and co-written by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the novel by Michel Faber.
Similarly, including the year in the link text provides a clue that it leads somewhere other than the novel article.
Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed and co-written by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the 2000 novel by Michel Faber.
This comes at the cost of obscuring the name of the novel. That's OK if the context suggests the film and novel share the name, as in the example above.
Alternatively, we could use two sentences to reduce the sense of repetition.
The Martian is a 2015 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. Drew Goddard adapted the screenplay from The Martian, a 2011 novel by Andy Weir.
 | This page is intended as humor. It is not, has never been, nor will ever be, a Wikipedia policy or guideline. Rather, it illustrates standards or conduct that are generally not accepted by the Wikipedia community. |
Huge message boxes or huge templates is a Wikipedia policy regarding the minimum and average size of templates when used for display on a page as message boxes. The general idea is that these message box templates should be successful in their primary goal — to be seen — and that by being seen they should effectively distract and confuse our end readers and editors.
The general rules (in no particular order):
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees has moved forward with a step in restructuring the organization by reorganizing itself. Following a planning retreat in Frankfurt, Jimmy Wales stepped down as Chair of the board, and Florence Nibart-Devouard was chosen to replace him.
The board met with representatives of local chapters and a few others from October 20 to October 22. After the retreat, Wales nominated Devouard to take his place as Chair, and the board unanimously approved her for that position. The remaining official roles on the board were also filled at this time, with Tim Shell chosen as Vice-Chair, Erik Möller as Executive Secretary, and Michael E. Davis as Treasurer.
Devouard was elected to the Board as a member representative in 2004 and holds one of the two board seats elected by the Wikimedia community, along with Möller. She has been a strong supporter of the multilingual nature of the Wikimedia projects.
Wales, meanwhile, will continue to serve on the board and assume the honorary title of Chairman Emeritus. He will remain active in Wikimedia projects, but chose to pass on the responsibility of heading the board, due in part to his commitments to outside projects.
This action is part of an ongoing reorganization of the Wikimedia Foundation, which effectively began with the hiring of Brad Patrick earlier this year as legal counsel and Executive Director (see archived story). Patrick is filling the latter position only on an interim basis, and the Wikimedia Foundation plans to start a formal search process for a permanent Executive Director.
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