Reporter's kidnap blackout affects Wikipedia, and more
Another reporter kidnapping subject to media, Wikipedia blackout
The Huffington Post reported that the recent kidnapping of New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell in Afghanistan was subject to a media blackout until his rescue, similarly to the earlier response to the kidnapping of David Rohde. As in the case of Rohde, anonymous editors tried to update the reporter's Wikipedia article with news of his kidnapping; the information was removed and the article protected until his rescue several days later. As with the Rohde article, information removal was explained as enforcement of the biographies of living people policy, although in discussions on the article's talk page and the WikiEN-l mailing list some Wikipedians argued that several of the cited sources—such as this short article from the Iranian news network Press TV and a subsequently pulled article from IrishCentral—did in fact meet Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources. The article was semi-protected on 6 September with the explanation "issues with BLP and reliable sources" and a reference to an OTRS ticket.
New York Times blogs about Wikipedia-as-news
"If journalism is the first draft of history," asks a story on the New York Times blog The Lede, "what is a Wikipedia entry when it is updated within minutes of an event to reflect changes in a person’s biography?"
The story discusses Wikipedia's rapid response to U.S. Representative Joe Wilson's outburst of "you lie!" during Barack Obama's speech to joint session of Congress on 9 September, focusing on the back-and-forth on the article's talk page over whether and how the outburst should be covered and what sorts of contextual information on who lied about what ought to be included.
Briefly
- The satirical news site The Onion ran an American Voices feature (mock vox populi interviews) with reactions to the news of that most Wikipedia contributors are male (see gender statistics news item in last week's Signpost).
- Wikia, which has been undergoing exponential content growth recently, says that they have achieved profitability.
- Wikimedia Italia has been sued by an Italian MP and his son for the content of the Wikipedia articles regarding them. They are seeking 20 million euros in damages, as reported by the association president Frieda Brioschi. Gianfranco has written a summary of the situation in English.
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