An online petition trying to get Wikipedia editors to remove images from an article made headlines in the mainstream news media after continued pressure failed to bring about the desired result. The effort focused on pictures of Muhammad, based on the notion that this offends Islamic tradition.

The petition in question is hosted on ThePetitionSite.com, which allows anyone to create free online petitions (it is hosted by Care2, a social network with roots focusing on environmentalism and human rights). The stated purpose of the petition was "To request wikipedia editors to respect other peoples religion [sic]". It called for the removal of illustrations depicting Muhammad. Noting that some of the images show Muhammad's face while others leave the face blank or veiled, it said these would still be "offensive to Muslims."

In a little over two months, the petition has attracted well over 100,000 signatures. While this undoubtedly includes duplicate signatures, and some of the accompanying comments don't necessarily support the premise, the volume of participation is impressive. Over time it helped prompt a steady influx of attempts to actually remove the images, as well as a growing number of emails to the Wikimedia Foundation. Ultimately it also came to the attention of the media and the story was covered in such publications as the New York Times.

The petition was started in December by Faraz Ahmad, who edited Wikipedia as User:Farazilu and identified himself as a Pakistani programmer living in Glasgow. He initially got involved in the debate over images of Muhammad in April 2007, saying "I think we should remove all images showing imaginary portraits of Muhammad". Similar requests had been made off and on over the years. Shortly before Ahmad started the petition, the suggestion was renewed by an unregistered editor apparently located in Kenya, but generally dismissed by other editors.

Ahmad did not immediately rejoin the discussion after launching the petition. He did get into a renewed debate a few weeks later, after the petition had begun steadily attracting signatures. The debate turned acrimonious, and his account has been blocked indefinitely since 26 December. Initially he was blocked because of a comment that if the petition and a request for arbitration were rejected, he might "take Wikipedia into court to resolve this issue", which some editors interpreted as a legal threat. Although the block was quickly reconsidered, Ahmad thereafter made a few posts to talk pages for The Holocaust and Adolf Hitler, suggesting that sections be added to cover Holocaust denial (currently linked only as a "See also") and to discuss the view of "some people in this world" that consider Hitler a hero. This prompted another indefinite block.

Whether the religion of Islam really would require the removal of the images has been the subject of some debate. One oft-claimed position is that Islamic tradition forbids all images of humans or even animals. Academic experts consulted by reporters generally indicated that images, especially of Muhammad, might be "discouraged" but are not universally prohibited. In Shia Islam, the predominant faith in the Persian culture that produced the images (most come from medieval Persian manuscripts), the prevailing attitude tends to be more relaxed on the issue. Perhaps reflecting this, the Farsi Wikipedia is one of 37 Wikipedia languages displaying one of the images in question, while other languages such as Arabic or Turkish limit themselves to illustrating the article with a calligraphy of Muhammad's name.

Since the attention drawn to the issue by coverage of the petition, the Muhammad article and its talk page on the English Wikipedia have been the focus of intense activity. The talk page now has a FAQ explaining the situation and a separate subpage for discussion of the issue. Meanwhile, ThePetitionSite.com also ended up hosting a counter-petition, which has gathered over 300 signatures so far.

Muhammad is not the only founder of a world religion whose image has generated controversy on Wikipedia. In the Bahá'í faith, displaying images of Bahá'u'lláh is avoided except in a context of veneration. The Wikipedia article nevertheless includes an actual photograph taken of him, although the compromise was reached to display it at the bottom of the article, with a note to that effect near the top so that readers can avoid it if they wish.

On Friday, Wikimedia Foundation Chair Florence Devouard announced the release of the Foundation's audit, for the fiscal year 2007 (July 1, 2006 — June 30, 2007). The statements, though dated, paint an interesting picture of Wikimedia's financial situation as of June 2007.

The statement (PDF, 158KB) shows that cash and cash equivalents nearly doubled from June 2006 to June 2007, with unrestricted assets rising from US$974,216 to $1,631,282 (a 67.4% increase). Over the year, excluding temporarily restricted net assets, revenues increased by about $1.22 million, while expenses increased by about $1.28 million, resulting in a profit of $657,022, about 10% more than profits in Fiscal Year 2006.

While $514,166 in hardware was purchased this year, steep depreciation, via the double declining balance method commonly used for hardware, caused the overall book value of hardware and software to rise by just $185,766, to $612,375.

Expenses accounted for over $2 million this year, with the largest expense being salaries and wages, at $415,006. Internet hosting was close behind, costing $389,417. Operating and Travel expenses accounted for $310,334 and $264,361, respectively, and most other expenses fell into depreciation and in-kind expenses, those services that were contributed, but that must be booked under the headings of "revenue" and "expenses". Discounting these two categories, actual expenditures were just over $1.4 million.

At the end of 2007, the Foundation, for the first time, designated an allowance for accounts receivable expected to be uncollectible; at the end of the year, $3,817 was expected to be uncollectible.

Among the donations to the Foundation were 681 shares of Google common stock. Along with 187 shares received in FY2006, the shares were sold. Among other contributions were computer equipment (valued at $20,990), legal and public relations services (valued at $80,000), and Internet hosting from Yahoo! and Kennisnet (valued at $236,000). This is the first year that the value of that hosting has been calculated and reported.

This year's report was released later than many expected; in the announcement, Devouard noted that the release was "a bit later than we would have originally liked". By comparison, the statements for Fiscal Year 2006 were released on December 8, 2006, Later in the announcement, Devouard explained the issues that the Foundation ran into that delayed the process:

"Why the delay?" you might ask. We had originally hoped to post the statements a few months earlier, but more time was needed at the Foundation level to review finances and work with our Florida-based auditors.

And why did we need more time? It’s fairly normal for audits to take longer to complete than was initially predicted. The Foundation’s projects (and their popularity) grew significantly over the past year, which meant that spending (number of transactions) increased. That means there was more work to be done. Also, there had been some turnover in Foundation staff (e.g., the accountant), which resulted in some loss of institutional memory that made it harder to do the audit preparation. So it isn’t really all that surprising that the audit was fairly time-consuming. It's complete, and that's what matters.

In the notes to the financial statements, a note near the end concerned some on the mailing list: "In the normal course of business, the Organization receives various threats of litigation on a regular basis. In the opinion of management, the outcome of the pending lawsuits will not materially affect present operations or the financial stability of the Organization." As A. B. noted, the language is standard for many organizations when lawsuits are not deemed to be worthy of concern.

Some users also noted concerns about Wikia's relationship with Wikipedia. A disclosure note explained some relationships between the two entities:

The Organization shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company founded by the same founder as Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Included in accounts receivable at June 30, 2007 is $6,000 due from Wikia, Inc. for these costs. The Organization received some donated office space from Wikia Inc. during the year ended June 30, 2006 valued at $6,000. No donation of the office space occurred in 2007.

Through June 30, 2007, two members of the Organization’s board of directors also serve as employees, officers, or directors of Wikia, Inc.

Gwern noted, They share staff, [Wikipedia] favors Wikia in well-known ways, and so on - and people are surprised when the public perception is that [Wikipedia] is the non-profit branch of Wikia, or vice versa? Foundation CTO Brion Vibber replied, however:

Since the audit covers a period of time that's in the past, a few last vestiges of the Olden Days were still in effect during the audit period and are naturally covered. Today, Wikia and Wikimedia don't share any data hosting. We don't currently share any office space. We don't currently share any employees. So what is the current relationship?

• We do currently share one board member, Jimmy Wales.
• Wikia sometimes sponsors Wikimedia events or makes other donations to Wikimedia.
• Wikia uses our open-source software, and sometimes contributes back patches or plugins.
• Various people are involved in the communities of sites operated by both companies. (Eg, our target audiences overlap.)

With this year's report, only the financial statements were released. Last year, both the financial statements and a management letter were released; Devouard noted last year that she was "surprised Brad chose to publish that letter, as I remember the auditors saying it was a set of recommendations given for internal consideration." The 2006 management letter was deleted last month.

The report was audited by the firm of Gregory, Sharer and Stuart, a St. Petersburg accounting firm that the Foundation employed for its 2006 audit. It's not clear whether the firm will handle the Fiscal Year 2008 audit, or whether a San Francisco-based firm will be hired for the task.

L'Osservatore Romano, the "semi-official" newspaper of the Vatican, claims that scientists who objected to the Pope's planned inaugural speech at La Sapienza University relied on out-of-context information from the Italian Wikipedia's Pope Benedict XVI article in arguing their case against the Pope. A petition against the visit was signed by 67 scientists, sparking student protests and leading to the cancellation of the speech.

The scientists' letter quoted then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in a 1990 speech as agreeing with philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend that the Church's conviction of Galileo, for teaching heliocentrism, was 'rational and just'. In a speech given several times in late 1989 and early 1990, including once at La Sapienza University, Cardinal Ratzinger discussed the Galileo affair. According to an English translation of the published version of the speech, Ratzinger used recent views on the topic as "a symptomatic case that permits us to see how deep the self-doubt of the modern age, of science and technology goes today."

According to an English-language report of its story, L'Osservatore Romano suggests that "whoever took the quote from Feyerabend could not have read the rest of the entry in Wikipedia, as he would have realized that the meaning of Ratzinger’s statement is exactly the opposite of what the 67 claimed the Pope was saying", and "that no man of science would use [Wikipedia] as an exclusive source for his research, unless he checked the veracity of the content."

The account of Ratzinger's speech in the petition letter nearly matches a part of that given in the Wikipedia article in versions from the time of the petition's origin, around January 13. (The wordings differ by a single tense change.) The quotation in Wikipedia, which differed slightly from the text in the cited published version of the speech (this difference was not noted by L'Osservatore Romano), was followed by a claim that '[Ratzinger] agreed with [Feyerabend's] thesis that Galileo had maintained as true a theory which was subsequently corrected by modern astronomy'. The cited published version of the speech does not substantiate this claim, and it was not included in the scientists' petition. The petition did say, however, that its signatories had been offended and humiliated by Ratzinger's supposed endorsement of Feyerabend's words.

L'Osservatore Romano dates the La Sapienza speech to March 15, 1990, the same date on which the Wikipedia article and the scientists' petition say it was delivered in Parma. However, Ratzinger's 1992 book, Svolta per l'Europa?, cited in the Wikipedia article, says it was delivered at La Sapienza (in Rome) on February 15 of that year. It is apparently the common discrepancy in the reported location of the speech which led L'Osservatore Romano to suspect that the scientists had relied on Wikipedia.

L'Osservatore Romano's accusation that the quotation in the scientists' petition was taken out of context also seems to be based on a later version of the Wikipedia article, which had been altered considerably by a series of changes on January 15th. However, the petition had already been written before that date, and did accurately reflect the state of the Wikipedia article as it stood at the time when the petition was written.

The earlier Wikipedia account, including the quote, may have been derived from others, such as one on the Tradition in Action website, where similar claims are made about a March 15, 1990 speech in Parma, with citations to articles in Corriere della Sera and 30 Dias; whether Tradition in Action accurately reflects those articles is unknown at this time—Tradition in Action or the articles it cites, rather than Wikipedia, plausibly could have been the source the scientists used. Ratzinger did in fact repeat the speech several times in different cities about this time, and it is possible that the slight difference in the wordings of the quote might reflect a different deliverance of the speech.

Paul Feyerabend's autobiography states that Ratzinger gave a speech on this topic in Parma in 1990, but does not specify the date.

This WikiWorld rerun is from October 8, 2007.

This week's WikiWorld comic uses text from "W" and "Bert (Sesame Street)". The comic is released under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.

A working group on ethnic and cultural edit wars, authorized and observed by the Arbitration Committee, has announced its membership. Fifteen users were named members:

Arbitrator FT2, speaking for the Arbitration Committee, explained the selections:

As a matter of best practice we decided no arbitrator or ex-arbitrator would be allowed on the working group, to allow the group maximum freedom to find its own new approach to the entire area and not feel restricted in so doing.

We feel strongly that this group should be created genuinely fresh and cover a wider than usual range of experiences and viewpoints, subject to the guideline requirement to be able to work with others and to value communal norms. Of the above, some have rejected adminship, some have criticized past decisions (of various kinds, communal, arbcom etc), a few have been mediators and others "just good editors" or administrators putting work into the relevant areas. A few have had controversy attached. In each case, our sole criteria in the decision has been whether the group will be more likely to produce better results for their involvement, and their ability to meet the criteria set out in the guidelines and work beneficially.

An additional eight users were named "observers". According to FT2,

The intent is that the group may benefit from the views of users who are uninvolved in the main discussion but may come up with additional perspectives and analyses for consideration now and then. Observer status also better suits certain people's skills and approaches, users who are interested but expect to become busy or away, users who are uncertain about their level of involvement, and users with other specialist insight and experience relevant to an aspect of the issue. Movement between the groups will probably be allowed in some cases.

These eight users will serve as observers:

The group will attempt to generate approaches to handle ethnic and cultural edit wars. A draft of suggested guidelines for the group has been created; these guidelines will be the basic structure under which the group operates.

A project to put Wikipedia on the iPhone has resulted in the release of a rough, but working implementation. A video is available on YouTube, documenting the process.

• User:Bryan has created a tool for searching for Ogg files on the Commons.
• The Limburgish Wiktionary has reached 10,000 and 15,000 articles, having more than tripled in size over the last ten days.
• The Georgian Wikipedia has reached 20,000 articles.
• The Macedonian Wikipedia has reached 15,000 articles.
• The Hawaiian Wikipedia has reached 1,000 articles.
• The Danish Wikipedia has reached 80,000 articles.
• The Zazaki Wikipedia has reached 2,000 articles.
• The Irish Wikipedia has reached 6,000 articles.
• The Igbo Wikipedia has reached 500 articles.

Wikipedia's creator at EMU: 'We can actually do better' - Larry Sanger spoke at Eastern Michigan University about some of Wikipedia's problems as he promoted Citizendium, his latest online venture. The article points out a number of issues including inconsistent article lengths and the fact that it is written by volunteers without any particular expertise. Sanger claims that Citizendium is more like a "country fair" with judges, and with more oversight than Wikipedia.

Wikipedia's neutrality is a 'facade' - A lecturer at the University of Sydney has accused Wikipedia of US-centric bias, after some of his edits were reverted because, he claims, some of the references came from sources that fell outside the norm. He criticised the ability of administrators to remove content arbitrarily (which is not strictly accurate) and said that the no-original-research policy results in the inability to "re-organise information from a variety of sources" (again, not strictly accurate). Even a "liberal" US view excludes many perspectives from other parts of the world, he claims.

Other recent mentions in the online press include:

• Wikipedia ruled by 'Lord of the Universe' - The article suggests that Jossi Fresco, the creator of the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard, has been involved in a cult-like organisation and engaged in edits relating to that organisation that violate conflict of interest rules.
• Wikipedia Refuses To Delete Picture Of Muhammad - Some Muslims have objected to visual depictions of Muhammad on Wikipedia, although Wikipedia does not censor its articles. (See also the related article in this issue.)
• All you need to know about Wikipedia - Based on a presentation by Brianna Laugher, this article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Wikipedia, from the software to policies and the lamest edit wars.
• Does the Internet need to be saved? - Netizenship is compared to that of a volunteer fire department, where not everyone can fight fires but there are those who will light the fires.

A dispute is a situation where two or more editors disagree on a matter. What this matter is can range from some controversial information in an article to another editor's way of editing. Serious and continued disputes are highly disapproved of, since they disrupt the work of writing an encyclopedia.

Due to the open style of Wikipedia, everyone can edit; occasionally, Person A is going to add information or express an opinion that Person B disagrees with. One goal of editors should be to minimize disputes, both by preventing them and by resolving them quickly.

The important thing to do in disputes is stay cool. It isn't the end of the world if someone disagrees with you. Rather, this is an opportunity to learn more about how others view a matter.

If a person reverts your edit because they do not think you're right, with little or no explanation, one good option is to place a note on the talk page of the article (and on their user talk page as well, if you wish) inquiring as to why they think you are wrong. Do this calmly and civilly; courtesy goes a long way in keeping things cool.

Also, remember to maintain your cool along with establishing it; if the other editor starts being aggressive and unreasonable, calmly warn them that they are required to be civil. Try to keep the matter from escalating out of hand. Often, if you are able to stay calm while the other user gets heated, they may realize their mistake and calm down. If you get riled up, that will only serve to worsen the matter. Again, talk pages are great places to compromise, discuss and develop consensus on disputed matters. They should be where you turn first; only after further discussion seems pointless should you go elsewhere.

If you do find yourself in a dispute and you can't figure out how to deal with it by yourself, there are a few things you can do to seek help.

Remember; though it is always best if you settle a dispute yourself, sometimes it just won't work, so don't hesitate to ask for help. Good luck!

Over time, Wikipedia’s featured article review (FAR) has evolved from an up-and-down vote on the status of an article to a more deliberative process that allows ample time for the content improvement needed to bring an article to current standards. While it moves more slowly than it once did, the current review process has produced a number of great “saves” on some older featured articles.

Improving an article at FAR is quiet and somewhat thankless work, as the articles in question have already seen the greater exposure of a featured article candidacy and, usually, have been featured on the main page. A group of dedicated editors have emerged that have most often made saves. DrKiernan has produced excellent improvement on FAs related to royalty and nobility. Ceoil has been especially active on music and literature FAs, and he and ww2censor have made an effort to keep Ireland-related articles up to current standards. WesleyDodds has worked on modern music articles and produced a number of saves. Other editors active in improving articles at FAR include Casliber, Deckiller, Dr pda, qp10qp, and Yomangani.

A great many articles have been saved by editors who were previously editing a nominated article but have not been involved in review more generally, or who are coming to FAR for the first time based on notifications. Anyone interested in reviewing, copyediting, and helping older FAs, is encouraged to stop by the page.

Four users were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Roger Davies (nom), Gutza (nom), Nancy (nom), and Master of Puppets (nom).

Two bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: SquelchBot (task request) and HBC AIV helperbot7 (task request).

Fifteen articles were promoted to featured status last week: Bath, Somerset (nom), Oxygen (nom), Robert Peake the Elder (nom), Giovanni Villani (nom), Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia (nom), Alien vs. Predator (film) (nom), Koli Point action (nom), Planet (nom), Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki (nom), Hurricane Isis (1998) (nom), Birmingham campaign (nom), Alice in Chains (nom), 2007 ACC Championship Game (nom), Everglades National Park (nom), and Aldfrith of Northumbria (nom).

Seven lists were promoted to featured status last week: Christopher Walken filmography (nom), List of the most populous counties in the United States (nom), List of Castlevania titles (nom), List of Atlanta Thrashers players (nom), List of county courts in England and Wales (nom), List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest on the Isle of Wight (nom), and Deftones discography (nom).

One topic was featured last week: The Simpsons (season 9) (nom).

One portal was promoted to featured status last week: Portal:Oregon (nom).

Three sounds were featured last week: "The Advertising Record" - Len Spencer^ⓘ, "Was frag ich nach der Welt" - Bangkok Baroque Ensemble and Singers of Musica Ficta Bangkok^ⓘ, "A Chantar"^ⓘ

The following featured articles were displayed last week on the Main Page as Today's featured article: Ronald Reagan, Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, Golden plates, Boeing 747, Xenon, and Peru.

Two articles were delisted recently: Nightwish (nom) and Roche limit (nom).

Two lists were demoted recently: List of Canadian provincial and territorial orders and List of particles

No portal or sound was demoted.

The following featured pictures were displayed last week on the Main Page as picture of the day: Australian feral camels, Leafhopper, Iceberg, John Edwards, Atomic bombings of Nagasaki, Whale surfacing behaviour, and Neuschwanstein Castle.

One featured picture was demoted: File:Lower Yellowstone Fall-1200px.jpg

Seventeen pictures including two videos were promoted to featured status last week and are shown below.

• Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse
• Tanks in World War I
• 
  Racist campaign poster
• 
  Arches National Park
• 
  Stonemason
• 
  Los Angeles Police Department Bell 206 Jetranger helicopter
• 
  Mark Twain
• 
  Blender (software)
• 
  Baroque fresco by Rottmayr
• 
  Computed tomography
• 
  New Synagogue
• 
  William Shakespeare
• 
  Gin Lane
• 
  Japanese Squirrel
• 
  "Love or Duty"
• 
  Welding
• 
  Hurricane Felix (2007)

This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that not all changes described here are necessarily live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.44.0-wmf.8 (f08e6b3), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.

• The tab indexing (the sequence with which fields are selected when using the keyboard to select fields in a form) for the deletion confirmation screen for images has been improved. (r30538, bug 12892)
• The styling for a link to mark a page as patrolled has been fixed to prevent it bunching with other right-floated elements on the page (such as sisterproject boxes like {{Wiktionary}}). (r30651, bug 12857)

• The list=usercontribs API query now accepts multiple usernames; doing so will return contributions that were made by any of the listed users. (r30578, bug 12912)

• The list=categorymembers API query now accepts the parameter cmtitle, rather than cmcategory; cmtitle requires the Category: prefix at the start of the page name, whereas cmcategory didn't. cmcategory is now deprecated, and likely to be removed in early March. [1] (r30533, bug 12898)

• Internationalisation has been continuing as normal; help is always appreciated! See mw:Localisation statistics for how complete the translations of languages you know are, and post any updates to bugzilla or use Betawiki.

The Arbitration Committee opened one new case this week, and closed one case, leaving six currently open.

• IRC: A case involving an alleged personal attack by Tony Sidaway on Bishonen on #wikipedia-en-admins, which led to an edit war on WP:WEA, involving page protection and unprotection by David Gerard, Geogre and others, and a block of Giano II, which was quickly undone. As a result of the case, the committee stated that it will determine "Policy and procedure changes regarding Wikipedia IRC channels" separately from the case, all parties were "strongly cautioned to pursue disputes in a civil manner designed to contribute to resolution and to cause minimal disruption", and Giano II was placed on an editing restriction for one year.

• Franco-Mongol alliance: A case involving alleged misconduct over a dispute on Franco-Mongol alliance and related articles.

• Episodes and characters 2: A case involving alleged continuing disruption of articles concerning television series episodes and characters, following on from a prior case. An injunction has been enacted halting certain editing activities on these articles until the case is resolved.

• Ehud Lesar: A case involving a dispute involving Ehud Lesar, with alleged sockpuppetry on his part and alleged harassment by Fedayee, Eupator and others. Sam Blacketer has proposed a remedy finding that there is insufficient evidence of sockpuppetry and overturning the block.

• Waterboarding: A case involving a dispute between a large number of editors on Waterboarding, relating to the question as to whether the technique should be described as torture. Remedies placing the article on article probation and imposing a "general restriction" have the support of five arbitrators.

• Highways 2: A case involving editing by NE2 on articles relating to WikiProject U.S. Roads, allegedly against consensus of other editors involved with that wikiproject. A remedy has been proposed counselling editors to consider contributing outside of disputed articles.

• Matthew Hoffman: A case involving controversial blocks of MatthewHoffman by a vanished user. If closed, he would be "provisionally" desysopped for six months, and Matthew Hoffman's block log annotated to reflect the arbitrators' view that the blocks were unjustified. However, Newyorkbrad has opposed the motion to close.