Nightmare on Wiki Street: WikiProject Horror

WikiProject news

News in brief

• Like to eat bacon? WikiProject Bacon is looking for people to help improve articles related to bacon!
• WikiProject North America has just started. Join the project to help improve coverage of North America on Wikipedia.
• WikiProject Holidays could use some help improving Halloween-related articles covered by the Halloween Task Force.

Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.

This week, we took a look at a spooky project that dates back to 2006. WikiProject Horror covers novels, films, and other media that fit in the horror genre. As a result, many of the project's articles also fall into the scope of WikiProject Novels, WikiProject Films, WikiProject Television, WikiProject Video games, WikiProject Media franchises, and WikiProject Biography. Activity at WikiProject Horror has waxed and waned in the past year, although members have continued to produce featured and good content at a steady rate. The project is currently home to 27 featured articles, 3 A-class articles, and 68 good articles. Members are currently working on one featured article nominee (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and four good article candidates. The project maintains a portal, a cleanup listing, watchlist, and a task force covering the Saw franchise.

We interviewed four active members for this week's article. Bignole is a fan of slasher films from the 80s and 90s. He can appreciate "more intellectual" films like The Ugly, but he also enjoys "watching stupid teenagers run around and get their heads chopped off." TaerkastUA (The Taerkasten) is also a fan of horror films dating back to "one of the greatest and most controversial horror films of all time, the legendary cult classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, whose sheer influence cannot be emphasized strongly enough." Kaguya-chan grew up on "far too much 19th-century horror literature and Castlevania for my own good." Her favorite survival-horror video game is Silent Hill 2, prompting her to ask "is there anything scarier than Pyramid Head?" Andrzejbanas began working on Wikipedia in 2006 and found his calling adding infoboxes and theatrical posters to film articles. He became interested in horror and other pulp genres because "they usually have interesting posters." His favorite horror film is Night of the Demon which "has all the best (and worst) features of pre-60s horror films."

Have you contributed to any of the project's 27 featured articles or 71 good and A-class articles? Are you currently working on bringing any articles up to FA or GA status? Has there been a push to create articles to run in Did you know in time for Halloween?

Bignole: I am the primary contributor to many horror-related articles. I rewrote the Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Friday the 13th franchise, Halloween franchise articles, getting Jason to FA status and the rest to at least GA status. I have also done significant work for the Rob Zombie Halloween articles, along with the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street remake articles. I am in the process, when my real life slows down from time to time, of rewriting the original Friday the 13th articles and bringing up them up the same condition as my other GA and FA articles.

The Taerkasten: Since May/June 2008, I have been working to bring The Texas Chain Saw Massacre up to FA standard, it went through 3 prior failed FACs and is now at FAC once again, in the hope of becoming one of the best horror articles around. Once that is achieved, I will probably be aiming to bring the rest of the Chainsaw films up to scratch.

Kaguya-chan: I have contributed to five of the project's good articles. Currently, I'm working on bringing Lament of Innocence and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood up to GA status and Pyramid Head up to A-class status and eventually FA status.

Andrzejbanas: My first good article was the horror film Eyes Without a Face. Since then I've made a total of four horror related articles into GAs. I've made the suggestion in the project to try and push some horror related articles and I've got the article for Death Bell 2 on there it seems!

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is currently a featured article candidate and three articles (Inseminoid, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 film), and Anandabhadram) are good article candidates. Have you been following these FA and GA nominations? Do members of the project help tweak an article that is going through the FA or GA process?

Bignole: I have been following the Texas Chain Saw Massacre FAC, and have contributed to the discussion on improvements which eventually led to my support of the article for FA status. I am keeping an eye on the Inseminoid article's GAC, while I personally nominated the Nightmare remake article for GA status. Thus, I'm hoping others will eventually take a look at it and tell me what they think needs improvement. That said, it is not uncommon for any editor of a WikiProject to come in and help tweak or restructure articles when they are under review. I think when it comes to the Horror WikiProject, you will typically find the same few editors scrambling about to help an article achieve Wiki-greatness.

Andrzejbanas: I've been adding these articles to our GA noms page on WP:HORROR. I'm trying to bring more attention to these nominations to our members as I did with the nomination for Saw VI. I think little by little members are getting more into making sure these nominations are up to snuff.

What are some of the difficulties associated with keeping a project active? Do you have any plans to build membership at WikiProject Horror?

Bignole: The problem with keeping a project active is based primarily on how many members you have that are still editing. Many of the WikiProject Horror members no longer edit on Wikipedia, or simply do not edit for extended periods of time. Horror is a very special field, and one not as many people have a taste for. Thus, something as broad as "Film" is easier to keep active because it covers so many different forms and genres and thus attracts a more diverse field of editors who have an interest in those topics. As much as horror extends beyond simply horror film (e.g., books, games, etc.), the reality is that the primary coverage this project has provided. It's the area that garners the most attention, as I said before, because film is a very popular medium. Just, finding active editors interested specifically in the horror aspect of any medium can sometimes be difficult. At one time the project has had upwards of 200 members, but even quite a few of the ones currently listed as "Active" have not truly been active editing any article for over a year. So, staying active in general is probably one of the biggest difficulties to keeping this project active. Though, like any great horror villain, this project seems to refuse to die and drags itself out of the mud every so often for a few more scares.

Andrzejbanas: The community needs a bit of a boost to keep it going. Currently I'm trying to make the talk page more active to boost communication and interest in the project. There are a lot of people on wikipedia who do focus mostly on horror related topics but are not on the project.

WikiProject Horror is home to the Saw Task Force and was once home to a newsletter and a collaboration of the month. Do you foresee these elements of the project coming back to life if more members join the project? Were they worthwhile endeavors when the project was more active?

Bignole: These elements were worthwhile, but it would take a serious amount of life to be enfused into this project to bring them back.

The Taerkasten: I agree with Bignole, it would take a great amount of effort to revive those, but it would be great for them to be brought back.

Has the project formed ties with any other projects? Are there projects which significantly overlap WikiProject Horror?

Bignole: I think the WikiProject Films is probably the biggest overlapper for this project. We do have a few members in this project who came over because they were members of WikiProject Films and they had an interest in working on horror films for our project.

Andrzejbanas: We mostly overlap with WikiProject Films as Bignole mentioned, but I'd like to promote that our last three articles that passed for their Good Article Review were more related to WikiProject Video games.

How can a new member help today?

Bignole: The best thing any new member can do today is look over any active FA or GA candidacies and support those articles in their growth. Because horror is such a specialized interest, it can often get the cold shoulder when it comes to community reviews as many editors have no interest in reading about horror topics. They do not enjoy the films or the novels, and thus do not have an interest in reviewing such articles. So, they can sometimes sit in the GA nomination pages for months, or have their FAC closed prematuraly because there were not enough editors commenting on the discussion page.

Andrzejbanas: Agreed with Bignole. I've found pages on other topics that complain that there is not enough information about a certain film "but there's a ton of information about Halloween". More people in the project and more discussion on the talk page would make everything work much better in the project.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Bignole: PLEASE COME REVIEW THE HORROR ARTICLES UP FOR "GA" AND "FA" STATUS!!!

Kaguya-chan: Absolutely agree with Bignole. There are simply not enough reviewers at GAN or FAN, so please stop by—read though and understand the criteria first, please—and review an article. You'll make somebody's day just by reviewing, regardless of your decision on the article. Your input is wanted!

Andrzejbanas: I encourage any interested fan of horror fiction to join this project. We are always looking for new members and are glad to help with anyone who needs assistance on any horror article.

Next week, we'll try to defend against a power play. Until your time in the penalty box expires, entertain yourself with some old reports from the archive.

Reader comments

2010-10-25

The best of the week

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By Tony1 and Dabomb87

Polonaise No.6 in A-flat Major, Op. 53

A live concert performance 11 months ago by the Georgian pianist, Giorgi Latsabidze (7 m, 10 s)

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Problems playing this file? See media help.

New administrator

The Signpost welcomes Vejvančický (nom) as our newest admin. Vejvančický, from the Czech Republic, has more than 16,000 edits and two and a half years' experience in a wide range of areas, including new-page patrolling, and our currently backlogged speedy deletion and AfD processes. He has an impressive list of mostly Czech-related pages he is working towards creating at the English Wikipedia.

Featured articles

Six articles were promoted to featured status:

• "No Rest for the Wicked" (Supernatural) (nom), the third-season finale of the television series Supernatural. (nominated by Ophois).
• Jersey Act (nom), an attempt by the English thoroughbred-breeding establishment to ensure the "purity" of their breed. However, it never really worked as they intended (Ealdgyth and Malleus Fatuorum).
• George Macaulay (nom), a Yorkshire cricketer in the 1920s and 1930s who managed to offend important people and never fitted with the cricket establishment because of his aggression and hostility (Sarastro1)
• Nguyen Chanh Thi (nom), a South Vietnamese general who tried and failed to overthrow Ngo Dinh Diem in 1960, and escaped to Cambodia. He was responsible for three months of riots and mutiny in South Vietnam (YellowMonkey).
• Francis Tresham (nom), who, according to nominator Parrot of Doom, is considered by many to be "the dirty little sneak who wrote the Monteagle letter, a piece of evidence which allowed the government to find Guy Fawkes sitting in the dark, waiting to light the fuse which would have blown up the House of Lords, and killed the king and all those with him."
• Andrew Johnston (singer) (nom), which nominator J Milburn previously nominated for deletion. He asks whether this is the first such victory rescued from the jaws.

Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Jimfbleak to select the best newly promoted article from this week's offerings, together with the four promotions last week.

“

My benchmark for the quality of a Wikipedia article is whether I find myself reading from start to finish an article on a subject of which I know nothing; all ten of these FAs passed that test. It was interesting to discover that it seems to have been perfectly acceptable for a teacher in Nixon's America to enrol her charges as political cheerleaders, although less of a surprise to find that Yorkshire cricketers can be nearly as irascible as their Australian counterparts. Jersey Act, perfidious Albion at work again, was a small but perfectly formed example of what a good collaboration should be, and Bring Us Together was a fascinating peek into the US of 40 years ago. However, overall I was torn between two of the five biographies, Francis Tresham and Barnes. For me, Sid Barnes with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 edges it, if only because it's harder to write well about something as intrinsically boring as cricket than it is for a gunpowder plotter!

”

Featured lists

Ten lists were promoted:

• List of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy (nom). The battlecruiser was the brainchild of Admiral John Fisher, the same man who sponsored the construction of the famous HMS Dreadnought. (nominated by Sturmvogel 66)
• Gordon Bennett Cup (ballooning) (nom), the world's most prestigious gas balloon race, which ran from 1906 to 1938 and was later resurrected in the late 20th century. (The Rambling Man)
• List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by Ian Botham (nom). Fewer than 30 bowlers have taken more than 15 five-wicket hauls at international level, with Sir Ian Botham being one of them (27). (Harrias)
• Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award (nom), awarded annually to the goaltender who finished the season with the best save percentage in the National Hockey League (NHL).(ChrisTheDude)
• Hugo Award for Best Fanzine (nom), named after magazine publisher Hugo Gernsback, often regarded as "The Father of Science Fiction". (PresN)
• Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album (nom), awarded to recording artists for quality works such as songs or albums in the bluegrass music genre. (Another Believer)
• List of Plymouth Argyle F.C. players (nom). Rory Fallon is the only player listed who has represented his country at the World Cup while with the club, doing so in 2010. (Argyle 4 Life)
• List of Best in Show winners of Crufts (nom). The Best in Show award, first presented in 1928, is given to the dog chosen as winner of the annual Crufts dog show. (Miyagawa)
• List of NME number-one singles from the 1960s (nom). It compiles the number-one singles of NME, a British weekly popular music newspaper, during the 1960s. (Rambo's Revenge)
• Mariah Carey albums discography (nom). Carey, notably the best-selling female artist of the millennium, released twelve studio albums and four compilation albums among others. (Petergriffin9901)

Choice of the week. We asked FL nominator AngChenrui for his choice of the best:

“

Tough choice really, considering that almost all the featured lists have to do with pop culture and sports. I found List of battlecruisers of the Royal Navy—an exception here—highly informative and well-written. List of Best in Show winners of Crufts was a good read as well, since its not everyday that you hear about championship-winning dogs. I liked the last two in the list above; I suppose many of us here can identify with the music listed there. However, Choice of the week goes to Gordon Bennett Cup (ballooning) for me. The Cup is the oldest gas balloon race in the world, as you would find out, and the article sure piqued my curiosity. In this age of technology and faster-than-sound travel, it is a pleasure to be reading about slower-cruising aerial vehicles. Of course the competition is not without incident too; last month's race saw the disappearance of two Americans, both of whom were never found.

”

Featured pictures

Five images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":

• Andean fox (nom), a South American canid (created by Christian Mehlführer).
• Original manuscript of Chopin's Polonaise in A flat, Op. 53 (nom), a rare artefact of the great composer's work, from 1842, that adds significantly to two Chopin articles. Reviewers praised the quality of the scan (from the Heineman Music Collection, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City).
• Positron Emission Tomography (nom), a whole-body animated projection of a PET acquisition for tumour diagnosis (Damato).
• Uranus (nom), massive Solar System gas-giant planet, taken by the NASA's spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986. Structural details are just discernable at the full resolution.
• Tripneustes ventricosus (nom), commonly called the West Indian Sea Egg, is a species of sea urchin common in the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and Florida at depths of up to 10 m (Nick Hobgood).

Choice of the week. Nergaal, a regular reviewer and nominator at featured picture candidates, told The Signpost: "A good variety of pictures was promoted to featured status this week, but in the end, the choice is a pretty obvious one. It is rare that the project receives a donation of a high-quality artefact such as a copy of the original 1842 manuscript of Chopin's Polonaise in A flat, Op. 53, for solo piano. It is a high-quality scan of the score of one of the most popular compositions by Chopin. The composer's own autograph is visible in the top right corner of the page. Notable mentions are well deserved by other two promotions: the colorful animated projection of a whole-body PET scan, as well as another historic image, taken by Voyager in 1986 of the seventh planet."

Reader comments

2010-10-25

So what is being an arbitrator actually like?

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By Skomorokh and Tony1

Arbitrators Risker (top) and Kirill Lokshin at Wiki-Conference New York 2009

With the annual elections to the Arbitration Committee ("ArbCom") due to start in just over two weeks (see this week's News and notes), The Signpost interviewed three arbitrators and one former arbitrator about their experiences on the Committee and how it has evolved in the seven years since its inception.

Historical context and evolution

Having handled hundreds of cases, the Committee is one of the most public faces of the English Wikipedia. ArbCom has been examined in research on dispute resolution, and its decisions and role in Wikipedia-related controversies have been reported in the mainstream media (two notable examples from last year are a story by Noam Cohen in The New York Times, and a send-up by political satirist Stephen Colbert). In the early days of Wikipedia, the project's serious disputes were dealt with by Jimmy Wales personally, but the burden soon proved too much for one person to handle—so in December 2003, he created ArbCom to share the load. There have since been gradual but significant shifts in the Committee's relationship with both Wales and the community. At first, the status and future of the Committee were uncertain; in January 2004, Wales even declared that he reserved the right "to dissolve the whole thing if it turns out to be a disaster." But in 2005, a community referendum ratified the current Arbitration policy, and in April 2007, Wales confirmed that ArbCom can overturn any decision he makes in his traditional capacity within Wikipedia.

Arbitrator Roger Davies says the Committee's role has evolved significantly as the structures of the English Wikipedia have matured. "Until a couple of years ago, ArbCom was taking maybe four or five new cases a month, usually disputes between two or three editors. Since then, the landscape has changed a lot. The community is handling more and more of the routine stuff at noticeboards like AN/I. So these days, it's mostly intense, hard-core disputes that end up with ArbCom—the things the community isn't really set up to handle. So the cases ArbCom hears have become bigger, nastier and much more complex. Good examples are the Scientology, Climate Change, and Israeli–Palestinian disputes. One of the greatest challenges we face is the need to pore over large amounts of evidence from these types of cases to extract the essentials, while keeping up with talk page discussions. We are always looking for better ways of handling such cases, and different lessons can be learned from each of them."

Nature of the work

Kirill Lokshin says that while formal arbitration proceedings are probably the most visible element of the Committee's work, they are only the tip of the iceberg. "An ever-increasing fraction of our workload consists of 'behind the scenes' work—hearing appeals, responding to questions and complaints, investigating allegations of sockpuppetry. Managing this is less visible and glamorous than case work. Many new arbitrators come in thinking their main task is voting on proposed decisions, and are surprised by how little of that actually takes place." FloNight (arbitrator 2007–09) says, "the 24/7 nature of Wikipedia results in a constant flow of issues that need prompt attention. Behind the scene discussions are mostly related to ban appeals, and serious privacy- and harassment-related issues." Being an arbitrator also involves a considerable amount of correspondence. For Roger, "the variety of this work is challenging and engaging—each matter needs to be handled in different ways, with different degrees of diplomacy and sensitivity." One aspect of the workload arbitrators often struggle with, according to Kirill, is meeting expectations for the timely resolutions of tasks: "ArbCom has traditionally been quite bad at keeping to deadlines, self-imposed or otherwise. If there's one thing we perpetually need more of, it's arbitrators who can keep processes running and up to date."

The diverse nature of ArbCom's work benefits from the range of skills and interests among the individual arbitrators. In Kirill's opinion, "a group made up of editors with overly similar experiences would limit our ability to come up with new approaches to problems; we need members from all parts of the Wikipedia community to be successful." Risker agrees: "Far from being some sort of monolithic creature, one of ArbCom's greatest strengths is its diversity. Arbitrators' varied editing backgrounds and personalities have a significant impact on our ability to understand issues and anticipate the effects of decisions. Since the Committee's role is now more complex and its membership larger, different arbitrators tend to gravitate to specific roles. For example, this year one arbitrator has done much to coordinate the Ban Appeals Subcommittee and ensure timely responses; two arbitrators have focused on working with the checkuser and oversight teams. Probably the greatest challenge for us is to try to keep up with the information load. For a large or complex case, it's not unusual for arbitrators to review dozens of talk pages, archives and articles through their revision history; the evidence given by interested editors can often be just the starting point. Arbitrators who also track the oversight and checkuser mailing lists can easily find 100 new messages in their inboxes on any given day; it can be difficult to sort the chaff from the grain."

Rewards of the role

Despite the stress and acrimony that accompanies much of the work of ArbCom, the arbitrators find that it is not without recompense. FloNight says "the most rewarding aspect of the job was knowing that ArbCom was fairly addressing concerns that could not be resolved by the community alone. Despite the heavy criticism that ArbCom gets from parties in cases, positive remarks from the overall Community shows general support of ArbCom's work." Risker says, "One of the more rewarding aspects for me personally is when we have been able to identify that an editor or administrator is encountering significant difficulty, and defusing the situation before it has a disproportionate effect on either the project or the editor. It's far more healthy for the project as a whole to treat our volunteers with dignity and respect—particularly when they're not at their best than it is to have showcase discussions about all of their personal weaknesses."

For Roger, it's the complexity and variety that are rewarding about being an arbitrator, even though it can be stressful. There are some community debates he would like to participate in, but feels unable to because of the need to maintain the neutrality of his role. "The best part of it is where you occasionally see someone's attitude towards their own behaviour turn around during or after a case. That's when you feel you're really making a difference."

Reader comments

2010-10-25

Case closes within 1 month

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By Ncmvocalist

The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, but closed one, leaving none open.

Closed case

Stevertigo 2 (Week 4)

This case concerns accusations of wiki-hounding and disruptive editing, and was filed by Stevertigo, a Wikipedia editor since 2002. He alleged that several editors deem his editing to be "disruptive" or "in need of banning" because they "still hold the grudge that previous cases did not find in their favor regarding [Stevertigo]". He also alleged that he "largely won" an argument against two editors in relation to the Time article, and that those two editors began editing the Punishment article due to an undue interest in Stevertigo's editing rather than due to an interest in the article. The case moved to the proposed decision phase during the week, and within 48 hours, 11 out of 12 active arbitrators finished voting on the decision. The case was closed shortly thereafter.

What is the effect of the decision and what does it tell us?

• Stevertigo is banned from Wikipedia until 24 October 2011.
  • Even if no other bans are in force, or if the ban expires, Stevertigo is not allowed to edit Wikipedia without appealing to the Committee. Upon making an appeal, he will be offered probationary conditions by the Committee which he will need to accept in order to edit Wikipedia. Should he reject the conditions, the appeal will be unsuccessful. He can make an appeal no more than once every 6 months.
• Stevertigo is indefinitely subject to a special editing restriction – he must cite a published source for any material that he adds to any article.
  • Where he does not do so, any editor may remove the added material; removal of such material will be considered as ‘reversions of obvious vandalism’ for the purposes of revert limitations or restrictions.
  • If he cites a source that is subsequently determined not to support the material added, he may be blocked for up to a week for each violation.
• Users who have been sanctioned for improper conduct may be subject to increasingly severe sanctions if they do not improve their conduct.
• Articles need to comply with core policies concerning verifiability, reliable sources, and original research.

Other

Earlier in the week, the Committee made an announcement that sparked a brief controversy. The Committee confirmed that Polargeo was the subject of several investigations, and that he requested for his tools to be removed earlier this month. It also stated that "Polargeo has created and/or used at least ten alternate accounts in a manner neither consistent with Wikipedia's policies nor meeting the minimum standards expected of administrators." The Committee's decision was that Polargeo will need to make a successful request for adminship if he wishes to regain his administrator tools.

Reader comments

2010-10-25

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

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By Jarry1250 and Aude

Pageview counts inflated; CentralNotice blamed

About a week ago, significantly inflated pageview counts began to be noticed in Wikimedia's official statistics (for example, see Gerard Meijssen's blog post). Was it the result of some new technology directing users to WMF sites? Or just a technical glitch? Upon further investigation it (unfortunately) proved to be the latter, the result of requests to the new "Extension:CentralNotice" fundraising banner campaign. The statistics software was logging requests to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BannerController as it would log requests to a "useful" page that should be logged, such as articles and some special pages. The current convention, it was discovered (since, as Rob Lanphier noted, it had not been documented anywhere) was that requests of the "pretty" format /wiki/ would be counted, and that requests that ought not to be logged should use the alternative format /w/index.php?title=. Discussion then centred on whether this was a sustainable format or not, with a number of alternatives proposed, but no agreement was reached on the wikitech-l mailing list.

How and when should new versions of MediaWiki be released?

As reported last week, there has been a lot of discussion about getting the MediaWiki software onto a more useful development cycle, both for WMF purposes (potentially very regular updates, but of potentially imperfect software) and for that of third parties (releases months apart but thoroughly checked for bugs). Staff developer Roan Kattouw outlined his plan for getting the development cycle back on track (wikitech-l mailing list):

“

Catch up with the code review backlog (about 1,200 rev[ision]s currently). I expect this to be entirely uncontroversial, and this can be (and is being) done while we argue about the rest When trunk is fully reviewed and we feel it's probably stable, release 1.17.0beta1 and deploy it on Wikimedia Fix the numerous bugs that will inevitably rear their ugly heads when 8 months' (or more) worth of code is deployed [to WMF sites] Once deployment stabilizes... release and deploy that [to WMF sites]. Repeat 2-4 until we feel comfortable releasing the currently deployed code as 1.17.0 [to third parties] From there on out, do weekly deployments [to WMF sites]

”

This week, Rob Lanphier opened a discussion on the topic in response to "a number of calls to make the release process more predictable (or maybe just faster)". In understanding how best that could, and whether it should, be implemented, he asked first whether contributors felt "release cadence" (shipping to a specified deadline, regardless of how many features actually got released) or a feature-dominated release (shipping X, Y and Z features however long it took to develop them) was preferable. For the former, should writers of features not ready at a given date be prepared to see them cut? For the latter, how far in advanced could the list of features be reliably drawn up? And how deep is the belief that deployment to WMF sites must precede a release to third parties?

The resulting discussion was wide-ranging. Why shouldn't a new version just be released when it would be useful to release one, rather than at a specific point, some asked. Ultimately, the sentiment that garnered most support was a strong "yes" to the last question, and that the best way to implement this would be to get back to having a very fast turnaround on deploying to WMF sites (the "weekly deployments" of Roan's post, if not faster; Flickr, as Neil Kandalgaonkar pointed out, often deploys multiple times a day). "Wikipedia", wrote volunteer Aryeh Gregor, "is a great place to test new features, and we're in a uniquely good position to do so, since we wrote the code and can very quickly fix any reported bugs."

Hack-A-Ton DC

Wikimedia tech staff, contractor developers, and volunteers gathered this past weekend in Tysons Corner, Virginia (in the Washington, D.C. area) for Hack-A-Ton DC. (TechBlog post) The focus was on fixing bugs and reducing the backlog of fixmes in code review, but there also was discussion of operations issues, and on moving forward in implementing some maps features. Naren Datha of Microsoft gave a demo of the WikiBhasha translation tool, and Jan Paul Posma demoed his student project, Sentence Level Editing. On Saturday evening, hackers joined DC-area Wikipedians for DC Meetup #12.

In brief

Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.

• With the resolution of bug #20852, it is now possible for a user to perform only a "local" login, rather than a "global" one, even if your account has been unified.
• A new gadget is being tested on Wikimedia Commons, that displays a slideshow of the media in a category. Users can provide feedback on the Commons Village Pump.
  
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