Study tour controversy; class tackles the gender gap
Report of controversial "study tour" found to have plagiarized Wikipedia
A "study tour" by the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation for the purpose of researching development projects has been the subject of much controversy and criticism in the Indian press. The trip, from August 31 to September 9, took 26 officials of Chandigarh, the capital of the northern Indian states of Haryana and Punjab, to Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu in south India, Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal in east India, and Port Blair, the capital of the territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the east of continental India. The trip has been criticised on a number of grounds: its cost, 2.78 million rupees (about 44 thousand US dollars), the fact that many officials were accompanied by relatives, that officials allegedly skipped meetings to go sightseeing, and that travel arrangements were made by a travel agency owned by a relative of one of the officials.
The trip has resulted in a 20 page report recently submitted to Chandigarh mayor Harphool Chandra Kalyan. The Hindustan Times described it as a "vague report" (December 28) consisting of material largely available on the government websites of the trip's travel destinations. The Indian Express described (December 29) the report in more detail. It noted a number of government websites from which material was taken "verbatim", with the introduction of new factual and spelling errors. It also noted that the report copied extensively from the Wikipedia articles for Port Blair and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The Express wrote "the only original part are the photographs".
University class attempts to address gaps in Wikipedia coverage
Metro Canada reports (December 23) on the use of Wikipedia in a class at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Women’s Studies 3311 — Race, Femininity and Representation. Professor Kim Williams told Metro:
The issue is that because Wikipedia is a cultural text and, therefore, participates in the creation of knowledge . . . what sort of knowledge is being created because only certain people are participating in the editing process? It passes as objective, it passes as universal knowledge, when, in fact, it comes from a very particular perspective — overwhelmingly white or overwhelmingly male.
Professor Williams assigned the class to edit Wikipedia pages of aboriginal women, then to create their own articles about them. Such efforts can help address the gender gap here, but this effort is an example of the difficulties outside efforts encounter when they unwittingly conflict with the expectations of Wikipedia editors and the policies of the encyclopedia. Metro noted that some of the articles created for the class had been "taken down". One article cited by Metro was about Métis blogger Samantha Nock. The student expressed her pride in her Wikipedia creation: "It's like my baby now and I don’t want it to be taken down. If it's taken down, I will revise it and put it back up." However, following the publication of the Metro article, the Wikipedia article on Nock was deleted after a discussion at Articles for Deletion.
There is a disconnect between outside observers who express surprise that articles like YouTube Poop exist while articles about aboriginal bloggers are deleted, and the Wikipedia editors who expect those articles to comply with established policies and formats. Until that disconnect is successfully addressed, efforts like this will struggle in combating the gender gap and other blind spots in Wikipedia coverage.
In brief
- Wikipedia bookshelf: Times Higher Education reviews (January 1) the upcoming book by Nathaniel Tkacz, Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness.
- Urdu meetup: TwoCircles reports (December 30) on an Urdu Wikipedia meetup in Thiruvananthapuram.
- The MP from Wikipedia: On the December 26 edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme Today, Jimmy Wales suggested that votes in the UK's House of Commons should be conducted electronically. He said “The security risks would be minimal, you would have a good record of what people said and you would speed up the process so that Parliament could get more done."
- "The Lives They Lived": In a New York Times Magazine section commemorating notable deaths of 2014 (December 25), Virginia Heffernan profiles the late Wikipedia editor Adrianne Wadewitz (Wadewitz). In the profile, Heffernan takes a swipe at "Wikipedia's notoriously gangsterish back channels", a comment which has become the subject of debate among Wikipedia editors.
- Getting the last word: LiveScience reports (December 24) that California Institute of Technology professor of geophysics Don L. Anderson's extensive preparations before his December 2 death of cancer included asking his relatives to update his Wikipedia article.
- Wikipedia Free Ghana: In a press release (December 24), MTN Ghana announced that it is offering free mobile access to Wikipedia in Ghana as part of the Wikipedia Zero initiative.
- Autovandalism: De Telegraaf reports (December 22) that the front page of the Dutch Wikipedia was vandalized with a Wikimedia Commons image (NSFW) depicting autofellatio.
- Genealogical blues: In an interview (December 20) with The Independent, actress Anna Chancellor expressed disatisfaction with part of her Wikipedia article detailing genealogical links to a number of peers and other notable figures, including Jane Austen. (Chancellor portrayed Caroline Bingley in an adaptation of Austen's Pride and Prejudice.) Chancellor said "Can't you imagine? You've worked hard all your life to be an actress, or whatever you've done, and that is what's presented to you. Don't you think that's embarrassing? I don't enjoy being quoted as saying that's who I am, because I don't feel that is who I am." The section was removed following the publication of the interview on the grounds that it was largely unsourced.
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