The Signpost
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28 February 2011

News and notes
Newbies vs. patrollers; Indian statistics; brief news
In the news
Egypt and Jordan likely candidates for Wikimedia office; Sanger interview; brief news
Arbitration statistics
Arbitration Committee hearing fewer cases; longer decision times
WikiProject report
In Tune with WikiProject Classical Music
Features and admins
The best of the week
Arbitration report
AUSC applications open; interim desysopping; two pending cases
Technology report
HTML5 adopted but soon reverted; brief news
 

2011-02-28

Newbies vs. patrollers; Indian statistics; brief news



Reader comments

2011-02-28

Egypt and Jordan likely candidates for Wikimedia office; Sanger interview; brief news



Reader comments

2011-02-28

Arbitration Committee hearing fewer cases; longer decision times

Trendlines illustrate a decline in the number of opened cases and longer times to decide a case since January 2008. The y-axis in the top graph is in days.
An analysis of Arbitration Committee records since January 2008 suggests two important trends. The number of public cases opened each month has been on a steady decline, with small spikes at the beginning of each new term of incoming arbitrators. At the same time, cases are taking longer to reach a final decision, with the most complex seeming to be resolved in the middle of the year. These trends could be of great importance to the future of dispute resolution on Wikipedia.

Case duration: from open to close

The analysis of case duration counts the number of days it took for a publicly heard case to reach a motion to close, after being opened for evidence submission and workshop input. The graph averages all cases closed during a specific two-month period. This means that a spike in case duration for September and October 2008 probably accounts for cases opened several months earlier.

Starting in January/February 2008, we find an average of 30 days for cases to be resolved. In these two months a total of 12 cases were closed, all of which were resolved in less than two months. The duration of cases in days steadily increased during each two-month interval (climbing from the 30s to the upper 40s) until it spiked in September/October 2008 with an average of 68 days. This can be accounted for by two cases (one which took 131 days and another taking 99). But 2008 saw another long case. The well-known Eastern European case took 115 days. Not only that, its evidence page had submissions from nearly 30 editors, in stark contrast to a case like John Gohde 2 which was resolved in less than two weeks with a third of the number of evidence submissions of the EE case.

Thus, with the first year of data reviewed we can see a clear (and understandable) correlation between large complicated disputes and the length of time to decide a case. An example of this issue is the Scientology case, which took an astounding 169 days to resolve. But the bigger question is not whether these long cases will always happen, but whether this is becoming a trend in regard to all Committee proceedings.

Going back to 2009, we see two cases at the start that already took longer than the longest average for the first half of 2008. For the entire year, only three cases took less than a month to resolve, and the duration of the shortest case approached the higher average of the year before.

While there was a decline in the average duration of cases at the beginning of the year 2009, that average remained consistently higher than for the first half of 2008. With three complex cases resolved in the middle of the year, the average jumped to 72 days. With another election on the horizon, cases were gradually resolved more quickly as the number of days dropped to the 40s by the end of the year.

The year 2010 then becomes intriguing as the number of very large cases began to decline, and the average sank (in March/April 2010) to 33 days, the lowest since the beginning of 2008. But this trend has not continued. By the end of the year, the average jumped back up to 70–80 days, with the longest case at 123 days.

From this data, as the trendline indicates, the duration of cases has significantly increased since 2008.

From 11 to one a month: decline in opened cases

The data on the number of opened cases each month was calculated in a very simple counting of when cases started. The trend here is easier to discern than in the first graph: a steep decline in the cases the Committee hears each year.

By today's standards, a surprising number of 11 cases were opened in January 2008, at the start of the graph. Comparing The Signpost's archives before 2008 also shows this high number of cases resolved by the Committee. This number very quickly dropped to only three accepted in February, and to only one or two a month by the middle of the year.

The numbers then remained in the same range throughout the whole of 2008. The only times the number of accepted cases a month rose to three or more was at the start of each year, when a new slate of Arbitrators came in (shown by a rise in January–March 2009 and the acceptance of three cases in February 2010). After August 2009, the Committee has always accepted one or two cases a month, with only one exception.

In December 2009, the Committee accepted no cases, for the first time in at least 23 months (my record goes back to 2008). Again, for four months between July and October 2010, ArbCom did not accept a single case. A deeper look at records in this long "no-acceptance" period shows that only one arbitrator voted to accept in one of the more than 10 declined cases.

The Signpost's weekly coverage of ArbCom cases is interesting to compare, as it exemplifies a dramatic decline in decisions before the Committee (2006 coverage, 2007, and 2010).

Comments from the Committee

Arbitrator Newyorkbrad says that the declining number of Committee cases is due to a greater reliance on community mechanisms to resolve disputes, such as community sanctions at the ANI board and through the blocking of a user by a single administrator, without a disagreeing admin unblocking. "Today, we get relatively few of those types of cases, and when we do get one, it's typically because there has been disagreement among administrators as to how to handle the situation." He pointed to the complexity of the issues that do make it before the 18-member Committee, which is arguably a cause for the length of decisions. While public perception may be that the Committee is too slow, Newyorkbrad says they always "[try] to keep the case lengths reasonable." In the Signpost's interview with several arbitrators last October, Roger Davies had made the same point about the changing nature of the cases ("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"), and Kirill Lokshin, while observing that the ArbCom "has traditionally been quite bad at keeping to deadlines", had noted that "an ever-increasing fraction of our workload consists of 'behind the scenes' work" that is not visible in the formal proceedings.

Looking into the future

Whether due to an evolution of the dispute resolution process on Wikipedia, or just a tightening of the requirements for the Committee's acceptance of cases, or (partly) due to a decrease in overall editing activity, the trend is unmistakable. But what does this really mean for Wikipedia and the Dispute Resolution process? In a few years' time, how much work could the Arbitration Committee have? We can only speculate as to the long-term effects.

Reader comments

2011-02-28

In Tune with WikiProject Classical Music


WikiProject news
News in brief
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in the London district of Covent Garden.
A montage of classical music composers. Along the top row are Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven.
A featured sound recording of 32 Variations in C Minor, WoO 80, composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1806 and performed by Wikipedia user La Pianista in 2010.

This week, we listened to WikiProject Classical Music, a mid-level project under the umbrella of WikiProject Music (see our 2009 interview). WikiProject Classical Music was started in May 2004 to expand articles, sort stubs, source statements, and document historical and musicological analysis of classical music from many time periods (not just the classical period). It does not rate articles by quality or importance, although child projects like WikiProject Composers are allowed to maintain their own rating systems. The project maintains a portal, task forces on composition and contemporary music, and a variety of to-do lists.

We interviewed three project members. Gerda Arendt "came to Wikipedia to fill the red link for a composer and cellist, then proceeded to related articles." When not editing Wikipedia, she sings in three choirs and plays piano. She likes Bach and rues the fact that about 100 of his cantatas are missing from Wikipedia. Melodia is a (bass) clarinet and former piano player, among other instruments. She listens to a lot of classical music, but if she had to pick just one composer, it would be Sibelius. Ravpapa is an amateur violinist and violist who plays a lot of chamber music. He is also interested in the music of Israel.

The talk page at WikiProject Classical Music is very active. What attracts people to discussions at the project? Do you have any tips for projects that might have a less social atmosphere?

Gerda Arendt: I raise questions there and get answers most of the time. That's the secret.
Melodia: I think it's just a matter of people needing to start discussion when it needs to be started, instead of keeping issues to individual talk pages when there's overlying issues that could affect many others.


What are some of the challenges of finding media for classical music articles?

Ravpapa: I have found finding media samples one of the most challenging tasks in preparing an article on classical music for the Wikipedia. In my view, an article describing a composition – take, for example, String Quartets, Op. 20 (Haydn) would be much less valuable to the reader without the snippets of the pieces to illustrate the points made in the article.
However, Wikipedia's very strict rules on using only free media make finding these sound bites very difficult. In the case of the article on the Opus 20 quartets, I had to get my quartet – amateur and not very good – to record them. That is why, if you listen to them, a lot are out of tune and choppy. In other articles, I tried to use excerpts from recordings with a Creative Commons license (that allows everything except commercial use), but the excerpts were removed because the media was not absolutely free.
I hope that other players joining the project can provide their own recordings to illustrate some of the articles.


The project does not assess articles, instead relying upon daughter projects to provide assessments. Why was this decision made? How has it impacted the project's goals and direction?

Gerda Arendt: I don't know why, but I see that the quality of articles is improved by peer editing rather than assessments. I like that.


What are the project's most pressing needs? How can a new member help today?

Gerda Arendt: Fill red links, improve referencing, participate in discussions.
Melodia: The majority of articles on individual works stink, yet are probably very often easy to find info on. CD liner notes, nowadays often available free online from Naxos, Hyperion, Chandos, and others are a gold mine of info about pieces. More popular composers tend to have large 'fan' websites with huge amounts of info as well. Another one, one that's hugely in my interest, is the works lists. There's very little standard between them, and the problem with "notable" or "important" ones only compounds it. (Disclaimer: I admit I don't do much grunt work like this, but for those who are willing, I'll glady help out where I can).
Ravpapa: I think Melodia is being a bit extreme when he says these articles stink. But I do want to reemphasize the point I made above. The greatest added value of an online encyclopedia is that it is multimedia – you can not only read about a work, you can hear it at the same time. Far too few of our articles have illustrative sound clips. That is something I would love to see new members work on.

Next week, the Signpost will chat with the women of Wikipedia. Until then, visit the archive.

Reader comments

2011-02-28

The best of the week

A panoramic photograph with an amphitheater surrounded by a castle wall in center. The dull colors are interrupted by green trees and beyond the walls are white houses with red tiled roofs and a blue ocean.
Scroll across to see the new featured picture: User:Muhammad Mahdi Karim's panoramic shot of the Old Fort of Zanzibar and the Stone town in Tanzania, East Africa, shot from the House of Wonders, the tallest building in the vicinity.
Interactive large-image-viewer (non-Flash)


This week's "Features and admins" covers Saturday 19 – Friday 25 February

New administrators

The Signpost welcomes The Bushranger (nom), from the US, as our newest admin. He is an active member of the MilHist and Aircraft WikiProjects, participates in the battleships project WP:OMT, and has many DYKs under his belt. He has expertise in templates and categories.

At the time of publication there are three live RfAs: Boing! said Zebedee, Kudpung, and Neelix, due to finish on 1, 2 and 3 March, respectively.

Arial photograph of an L-shaped concrete hydro-electric dam set against road swerving in a green landscape. The center of the damn is colored white as water rushes down the spillway.
Grand Coulee dam in Washington State, constructed between 1933 and 1942
An old black and white photograph with a crowd on the end of embankment for a steel bridge which recedes into the hilly background spanning the river. On one side the bridge are tracks with a steam locomotive. On the other side is occupied horse drawn wagons.
From the new featured article Empire of Brazil, a multiracial gathering at the inauguration of a railway bridge near Rio de Janeiro, c. 1888
A poster titled "Prosperity: At Home, Prestige Abroad". A man with top hat in hand and holds a man sized American flag stands atop gold coin "Sound Money", support held by men of many classes. In the background are ships "Commerce" and factories "Civilization".
New featured picture: a poster for William McKinley's 1900 presidential campaign, in which he symbolically stands on the gold standard, supported by soldiers, businessmen, farmers and professionals
A computer generated image of a rubber bulb attached to a circular metallic mount
New featured picture: computer-aided design using the advanced program Cobalt: here, the image of a coffee espresso tamper was based on a 3D solid model.

Eight articles were promoted to featured status:

  • Mantra-Rock Dance (nom), a musical countercultural event held in 1967 at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. (Nominated by Cinosaur)
  • Morgan dollar (nom), one in a long line of US dollar coins that proved unpopular with the general public. Today the coin is probably most famous for its widespread use in Westerns, but the true story of its origin and production is probably just as interesting. (RHM22)
  • Leslie Groves (nom), the man behind the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bombs. (Hawkeye7)
  • Empire of Brazil (nom), a 19th-century nation that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil. Its government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Dom Pedro I and his son Dom Pedro II, both members of the House of Braganza—a branch of the thousand-year-old Capetian Dynasty. (Lecen, Astynax, Hchc2009, and Arthur Holland; picture at right)
  • Johnstown Inclined Plane (nom), the world's most steeply inclined railway, was built after the catastrophic 1889 flood; it fulfilled its purpose as an escape route for future floods in 1936 and 1977. It is now primarily a tourist attraction. (Nominated by Niagara)
  • Grand Coulee Dam (nom), the largest power station in the US and one of the largest concrete structures in the world. (NortyNort; picture at right)
  • Pipe Dream (musical) (nom), which nominator Wehwalt says "is a musical derived from a rather raunchy novel by Steinbeck, and even though Rodgers & Hammerstein toned it down considerably, it is probably the most sexualized plot of their joint works. There is just no getting around the fact that the female lead is a prostitute, and her madam is a major character."
  • Clathrus ruber (nom), a species of fungus in the stinkhorn family, with striking fruit bodies that are shaped somewhat like a round or oval hollow sphere with interlaced or latticed branches. (Sasata)

Seven lists were promoted:

Two featured lists were delisted:

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

Seven featured sounds were promoted.

A photograph of a bird perched on a branch. Its ash colored features uncannily resembles tree bark.
New featured picture: a piece of tree bark? No, a Tawny Frogmouth in "cryptic" pose—when threatened, it will stay perfectly still with eyes almost shut and bill pointed straight, relying on camouflage for protection.

Information about new admins at the top is drawn from their user pages and RfA texts, and occasionally from what they tell us directly.

Reader comments

2011-02-28

AUSC applications open; interim desysopping; two pending cases

The Committee opened no new cases during the week. Two cases are currently open.

Open cases

During the week, another 20 kilobytes of content was submitted in on-wiki evidence. Several proposals were submitted in the workshop by several editors; drafter Elen of the Roads commented on some of the proposals, while drafter SirFozzie proposed a standard discretionary sanctions remedy as well as three standard principles.

Kehrli 2 (Week 3)

During the week, another 5 kilobytes of content was submitted in on-wiki evidence. Several proposals were submitted in the workshop by several editors. Earlier today, David Fuchs and Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry were assigned as drafters of the decision.

Motion

Two days ago, the Committee announced that it passed a motion: Rodhullandemu (talk · contribs)'s administrator privileges are revoked and he may apply for adminship by the usual means to the community. As background, it noted that the "user has engaged in conduct unbecoming an administrator...." As with other announcements by the Committee, a link to discuss the announcement was provided which sparked discussion. Active arbitrators added that this action was taken in accordance with interim desysop procedures, and that Rodhullandemu may, if he desired, make a request for a public arbitration case or for Jimbo Wales (talk · contribs) to intervene.

Other

AUSC

Seeking to appoint at least three non-arbitrator members to the Wikipedia:Audit Subcommittee (AUSC), the Committee made a call for applications last week.

What is AUSC?

AUSC is a subcommittee of the Arbitration Committee which should review and act upon concerns received by the community about CheckUser and Oversight activities. AUSC is made up of three arbitrators (who typically serve six-month terms) and three non-arbitrator members who are appointed for one-year terms. All AUSC members are subject to the relevant local and global policies and guidelines concerning CheckUser and Oversight. Active and/or sitting AUSC members:

  • are given CheckUser and Oversight permissions.
  • will have access to several mailing lists as well as the oversight-en-wp OTRS queue.
  • should be prepared and available to discuss cases promptly so they may be resolved in a timely manner.
  • are expected to actively participate in AUSC proceedings and may be replaced should they become inactive.
Applications

Applicants must be at least 18 years old and willing to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation. Applicants should self-nominate by email to arbcom-en-b@lists.wikimedia.org and will receive an application questionnaire which should be completed and returned to the same email address. This should include a nomination statement, to a maximum of 250 words. Applications will close on 7 March 2011.

Candidates

The Committee will have one week (after applications close) to review the applications, and notify the applicants who will be candidates going forward for community consultation. The candidate's nomination statement (which was submitted with the application) will be posted on a candidate subpage on-wiki.

In the following week, in addition to a few standard questions, the Community may pose additional questions which candidates will answer. While there will be no formal voting, comments will be invited publicly, or privately by email to arbcom-en-b@lists.wikimedia.org. Ideally, community members will outline in detail their rationale for supporting or opposing a candidate in either case.

Appointments

Should a sufficient number of suitably qualified candidates apply, the committee will appoint three primary non-arbitrator members along with a number of "standby members" (who would stand in, should a primary member become inactive or be unable to hear a particular case). Successful candidates will be required to identify to the Wikimedia Foundation prior to receiving AUSC permissions.

Reader comments

2011-02-28

HTML5 adopted but soon reverted; brief news

HTML5 adopted but soon reverted

HTML5-mode was briefly switched on for Wikimedia wikis this week, from the afternoon of February 23. This would begin the process of Wikimedia supporting features available in the newest browsers, and would generally put it on a better footing for the future. HTML5 had been the default for external installs since MediaWiki 1.16, but had been disabled on WMF sites due to the nature of some custom code in use. Version 1.17, now used on WMF sites, was thought to be much more stable in this regard (bug #27478).

However, after deployment, a number of errors were soon noted. As expected, virtually every tool which relied on "screen-scraping" (analysing the HTML source of Wikipedia pages) broke in some way. Though this method has been known to be vulnerable to changes in the underlying source code for many years – and MediaWiki provides an alternative, the much more stable API, for this purpose – no-one had yet seen a need to update many of the tools frequently in use on Wikipedia sites, including Twinkle and Friendly on the English Wikipedia. Even after HTML5-mode was reverted, work continued on these gadgets to move them over to the API before another attempted deployment. Just as pressing was a knock-on problem where the encoding used in citations and anchors changed subtly, breaking links which relied on them (bug #27694). It is not known when HTML5-mode will be tried again.

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.

  • As of the time of writing, file description pages for images on Wikimedia Commons are no longer being transcluded into local file namespaces. The cause remains unknown (bug #27767). Update: this bug has been resolved.
  • With the WMF install of MediaWiki 1.17 complete, developers have been "sprinting" to get it ready for release to other sites. The main point of contention has been the new installer (wikitech-l mailing list).
  • The upload of 1.8 million images from the United Kingdom-based Geograph project has resumed after technical difficulties brought complaints (Gerard Meijssen).
  • XML dumps have been restarted after the 1.17 deployment. Reusers should be aware that their form has been updated slightly (wikitech-l mailing list).
  • Shiju Alex [9] and Gerard Meijssen [10] blogged about a new MediaWiki extension called "Narayam", which provides input methods for Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Sanskrit, and Bengali, making contributions in those languages much easier.

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