New Wikipedia for Schools edition; Anders Behring Breivik's Wikipedia contributions
Wikipedia for Schools 2013 nearly ready for release
The SOS Children's Villages news service advised on 3 May 2013 that Wikipedia for Schools 2013 is nearly ready for release.
The Wikipedia for Schools project owes its existence to patchy or non-existent Internet access in many schools in the developing world, as well as the desire to ensure that material given to children would be appropriate for use in schools:
| “ | The idea behind the Wikipedia for Schools project was to make this vital learning resource available to children who would really benefit from the broad spread of information Wikipedia had to offer.
At the same time, the selection taken would be checked to ensure all content was suitable for school-age children, and organised in line with the UK national curriculum to maximise usability and relevance in schools. |
” |
The schools' Wikipedia’s history goes back to 2005, when SOS Children began preparations for the first edition. This was released in April of the following year in CD format, under the title "A World of Learning". By 2007, SOS Children had secured permission from the Wikimedia Foundation to use the Wikipedia brand and logo, and the schools' encyclopedia was substantially expanded and relaunched as "Wikipedia for Schools" in 2007, this time in DVD format.
A much larger third edition appeared in 2008/2009; according to SOS Children, it has become the "definitive offline resource for schools in the developing world", while the online edition "continues to enjoy considerable success in the UK and beyond, with an estimated 5 million users worldwide".
The new version will again be much expanded and facelifted, and delivered on a USB stick rather than a DVD, allowing for both an increase in content and easier distribution. SOS Children advise that
| “ | A test version is online at http://schools-wikipedia-test.soschildren.org. And if anything strikes you as odd, we'd be really grateful if you could let us know by tweeting us @sos_children, visiting us on Facebook or Google+, or just by dropping us an email at wikipedia-cd@soschildren.org. | ” |
Anders Behring Breivik's English Wikipedia account revealed
On 26 April 2013, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) published an article (Google translation) reviewing Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik's edits to the English Wikipedia. The article, citing an Oslo police source, for the first time revealed the name of Breivik's English Wikipedia account: Conservatism (talk · contribs).
The account's extant edit history shows just four edits. One was a long talk page post to Talk:Sigurd the Crusader. The posted text was an English translation (available online) of the Heimskringla, an Icelandic chronicle of the kings of Norway, but with various references to "Vikings" and "heathens" replaced by Breivik with references to "Muslims". The talk page post was deleted as a copyright violation 90 minutes later.
Two other edits the account made were to the article on the small Swedish town of Kungälv, and these edits still stand more or less unchanged today.
NRK quoted Kungälv's mayor, who said she felt slightly uneasy that her town's history is described in the English Wikipedia in the words of a mass murderer. The head of Wikimedia Norway, Jon Harald Søby, was quoted as saying that if there were any content written by Breivik in the Norwegian Wikipedia that was factually correct, then he thought it should remain.
At his trial last year, Breivik cited Wikipedia as a major influence on him and his philosophy. His 1,500-page manifesto included a section titled "Battlefield Wikipedia", in which he encouraged like-minded people to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for spreading their worldview.
In brief
- Categorygate news round-up: Reports on the "Categorygate" controversy (covered in detail in last week's Signpost) continued through the week, with stories appearing on media sites ranging from Cosmopolitan (30 April) to Highbrow Magazine (2 May) and web news sites such as Digital Trends (1 May), AlterNet (1 May) and Vice (3 May). Sue Gardner released a statement on the controversy, titled "What’s missing from the media discussions of Wikipedia categories and sexism", on the Wikimedia Foundation blog on 1 May. The Economist asked on 5 May, "Who really runs Wikipedia?", and the Toronto Star weighed in on 6 May, with an editorial titled "Wikipedia’s sexist streak is a cloud over Internet dream".
- What about the Gallic Kim Kardashian: The Telegraph commented in two articles published on 30 April and 1 May on the French Wikipedia's decision not to have an article on reality TV personality Nabilla Benattia, and notability requirements in general.
- Windows 8 article vandalised: Chris Matyszczyk reported in a CNET article published on 2 May 2013 that the Wikipedia page on Windows 8 had been locked down because of sustained vandalism.
- Sarah Stierch emerges as Wikipedia's "go-to woman": womensenews.org and the Thomson Reuters Foundation published a feature on Wikipedian and Wikimedia Foundation employee Sarah Stierch on 3 May.
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