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22 January 2014
Book review
Missing Links and Secret Histories: A Selection of Wikipedia Entries from Across the Known Multiverse
A particularly esoteric anthology of speculative fiction, filled with imaginary Wikipedia entries from, as the introduction puts it, "the many Wikipedias across the Multiverse."
News and notes
Modification of WMF protection brought to Arbcom
The Wikimedia Foundation's Director of Community Advocacy's application of pending changes level two on the article Conventional PCI—an action taken under its rarely used office actions policy—has escalated to the Arbitration Committee after an editor upgraded it to full protection.
Featured content
Dr. Watson, I presume
Fifteen articles, nine lists, twenty pictures, and one topic were promoted to "featured" status on the English Wikipedia over the last two weeks.
Special report
The few who write Wikipedia
On 15 January, Wikipedia turned thirteen years old. In that time, this site has grown from a small site that was known to only a select few to one of the most popular websites on the internet. At the same time, recent data suggests that there is a power curve among users, where the comparative few who are writing most of Wikipedia have most of the edits. The result of this is that there is going to be bias in what is created, and how we deal with it as Wikipedians is indicative of the future of the site. Furthermore, this brings up what we have to do in order to combat this bias, as there are many ideas, but the question is whether they will work or not.
Technology report
Architecting the future of MediaWiki
This week we're interviewing Brion Vibber about the then-upcoming Architecture Summit. Brion is a long time Wikipedian, the first employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and currently the lead software architect working with the mobile team.
In the media
Wikipedia for robots; Wikipedia—a temperamental teenager
An article in
USA Today
announced that a European-funded project called RoboEarth that is designed to give robots a mechanism by which to access information to dispense.
Traffic report
No show for the Globes
While the 71st Golden Globe Awards, held on 12 January, had an impact on the top 25, their presence was largely absent from the Top 10. With the exception of Best Actor winner Leonardo DiCaprio, the only Golden Globe entrants in the Top 10 are films that would have been there anyway.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Archives/2014-01-22
