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18 April 2011

News and notes
Commons milestone; newbie contributions assessed; German community to decide on €200,000 budget; brief news
In the news
Wikipedia accurate on US politics, plagiarized in court, and compared to Glass Bead Game; brief news
WikiProject report
An audience with the WikiProject Council
Features and admins
The best of the week
Arbitration report
Case comes to a close after 3 weeks - what does the decision tell us?
Technology report
Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News
 

2011-04-18

Commons milestone; newbie contributions assessed; German community to decide on €200,000 budget; brief news

The ten millionth upload to Wikimedia Commons

Commons reaches ten million files



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2011-04-18

Wikipedia accurate on US politics, plagiarized in court, and compared to Glass Bead Game; brief news



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2011-04-18

An audience with the WikiProject Council


WikiProject news
News in brief
Submit your project's news and announcements for next week's WikiProject Report at the Signpost's WikiProject Desk.
This panorama of Swedbank Stadion, is the home of Malmö Fotbollförening – a Featured article of one of the latest approved Task forces
Want to start a new WikiProject or Task force? Begin with the WikiProject Guide from the WikiProject Council.
WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas, launched in February 2011, is the newest WikiProject to come out of the WikiProject Council
This image of the Taj Mahal is a Featured picture of WikiProject India, which has the largest number of workgroups (55)

This week, we take our first in-depth look at the WikiProject Council. Started in August 2006 by Kirill Lokshin, the Council is a group of Wikipedians gathered to encourage and assist with the development of active and new WikiProjects, and to act as a central point for inter-WikiProject discussion and collaboration. The project does not maintain a formal list of members, but there are 128 editors with the project's userbox. The Signpost interviewed project members John Carter, WhatamIdoing and Kirill Lokshin.

John is an administrator, and has been on Wikipedia since January 2007. He describes himself as "a reviewer-type editor who helped establish a lot of the existing WikiProjects". WhatamIdoing has been a Wikipedian since March 2007, and joined the project because of her interest in clarifying the rights of WikiProjects, "Who decides the group's scope? Who decides which articles to tag? Who gets to write advice pages?" Kirill is an engineer who designs and builds ground systems for satellites and spacecrafts. He has been on Wikipedia since June 2005, and is also an administrator, as well as a current member of the Arbitration Committee. During 2005–07, he was particularly involved with WikiProject Military history (MILHIST), and was one of the main players in the consolidation of different projects in that topic area into a single entity, later serving as the lead coordinator of the amalgamated project for a number of years. Kirill said, "The idea of the WikiProject Council came about primarily because of a number of editors who approached myself and the other MILHIST coordinators for advice on setting up or reviving other WikiProjects; the number of such requests was sufficient to suggest that creating a central place to share ideas and recommendations would be beneficial. The initial concept of the Council was somewhat more formal than the current one. One of the models originally considered was that of an assembly composed of elected representatives from different projects; but the key objectives of documenting best practices and encouraging inter-project dialogue and collaboration were identified at the outset, and have continued to drive the direction of the Council in the time since."

Many Wikipedians have come across the WikiProject Council, but few know what it actually does. So, what are the most important functions of the project? According to Kirill, the project has three major functions. The first is the maintenance of the WikiProject Guide: "The initial drafts of the WikiProject Guide were written in mid-2006... Since then, the guide has seen extensive revision and updating. Some sections are, admittedly, rather dated at this point and a number of more recent approaches to WikiProject infrastructure and organization are not described, but the guide remains a useful resource overall." The second is maintenance of the WikiProject directory and the WikiProject proposal process. "A third function, which has always been an objective, but which has generally seen little activity, is serving as a central discussion point for matters concerning WikiProjects in general. While many of the editors most active in WikiProject maintenance do monitor the Council's discussion pages, many do not; and so there has traditionally been a tendency for discussions on WikiProject matters to be split among a number of venues (such as the Council, the various Village Pumps, and a variety of other pages), without participants at any particular venue necessarily following, or even being aware of the others," added Kirill.

We asked what their advice is for someone wanting to propose a new WikiProject or Task force, and the main reasons proposals fail. John's advice is to check whether an active or inactive project which deals with the subject of the proposal already exists: "Many projects, particularly those related to pop culture in some form, become inactive when the artist, TV show, movies, etc., become inactive. Also, I think it makes a great deal of sense to in most cases check to see if there is an existing project with which the new proposal can work some sort of subproject status. Regarding why projects fail, that can be for any number of reasons. Sometimes, the proposal seems to be promoting POV of some sort – if that is the case, the project will likely be eventually merged with something else so our existing POV guidelines are followed. Other times, it may simply be that the subject is not one which is so interesting to others that they feel they are likely to devote much time to it. And, of course, if there aren't many materials available on the subject, however much interest there might be, there might not be sources enough to develop content." For Kirill, "the first, and most important piece of advice, is to be quite sure that you're willing to put in the time and effort in making a project successful before creating one. While WikiProjects might have many members, their infrastructure and processes are typically maintained by a much smaller group, even in the largest projects; and newer or smaller projects are particularly reliant on a small group or even a single editor, to keep the project "running" during periods of lower activity. The behind-the-scenes work involved is typically neither particularly exciting nor particularly enjoyable; but it must be done if a project is to function as an entity in its own right, and many projects fail because no individual member is able or willing to take responsibility for doing it."

WhatamIdoing believes that most people forget that a WikiProject is a group of people – not a subject area, a project page or a talk page banner: "There's a sort of 'build it and they will come' mentality. If you just make a pretty enough project page, then surely a dozen editors will show up and collaborate with you. It actually works the other way around. If you've got a dozen editors working with you, then it's probably time to create a WikiProject page. If you're on your own, creating a project page is likely to be isolating, discouraging, and ineffective. Almost all "WikiProjects" with only a couple of members go {{Inactive}}, often within a few months. You need a critical mass of people to make a project successful. Proposals by inexperienced editors are highly likely to die—and the English Wikipedia usually loses those enthusiastic editors entirely in the process."

What are the biggest challenges for the project? John says that keeping track of all the projects that get created is a big challenge, "Considering several are made without consultation from anyone, that is a bigger problem than may be obvious. Another situation we face is trying to bring editors who are affiliated with individual projects to cooperate with other projects. Kirill says that while the Council has some level of visibility into the creation of projects that go through the proposal process, there is no requirement that projects be formally proposed before creation, and many new projects bypass the proposal process entirely. "With deletions, the situation is even more challenging; as a general rule, the Council has no visibility into deletion nominations beyond individual participants who might want to keep an eye on MFD. In addition, because many of the projects nominated for deletion are inactive, there is nobody with any real reason to inform anyone about the nomination," he added.

Does the Council collaborate with other WikiProjects? John is keen to see more of this, "We would like to help encourage interaction among editors from related projects to help develop content which may be only peripherally related to their topic, and the proposed 2011 religion-philosophy meeting is one way we are trying to help encourage such interaction. Results, sadly, aren't in yet on how effective they are. Kirill says, "There has always been a vision, albeit a rather vague one, of the Council serving as a central forum for discussions that involve multiple WikiProjects. To date, we've had only limited success in actually bringing this vision to life. In large part, this is because the Council is a lower-traffic discussion area than most of the projects who might otherwise be motivated to participate in such discussions; most projects will therefore prefer to hold discussions "in-house" to attract more participation. We are, however, continuing to explore ways in which we can promote increased dialogue and collaboration."

Finally, we wanted to know what the most pressing needs for the WikiProject Council are, and how a new contributor can help. John says that keeping track of all the extant groups is a priority, "Once that is done, it will help a lot to encourage and promote inter-project collaboration. In general, maybe one of the easiest ways to help it achieve some of its purposes is help promote the interaction of extant projects and task forces, and helping make the pages of such groups more useful to new editors interested in working on related content." Kirill sees the most pressing need as the area of directory maintenance, "...updating the WikiProject directory to reflect new projects, and changes in existing ones, is something that requires little experience, and can be readily done by new participants. The directory underlies much of what the Council does and might wish to do in the future. Without a clear picture of what WikiProjects exist, it's difficult to organize anything involving them, so this task is not an unimportant one. Beyond that, the Council discussed a number of ideas for improvement earlier this year. Many of them have yet to be implemented, and assistance with any of them would certainly be appreciated." WhatamIdoing says that anyone who feels responsible for any WikiProject would likely benefit from watching the Council's pages, "Seeing the "mistakes" that other groups make can help you avoid them in your own group. Make a particular effort to respond to messages that are posted. Tell your fellow members what you're doing and pass along any news that might interest them."

Next week, we visit the home of the Stanton Drew stone circles and the Glastonbury Festival. Until then, do take a stroll through our archives.



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2011-04-18

The best of the week

The Fiji Parrotfinch, a colorful finch. Photo by Aviceda.
This week's "Features and admins" covers Sunday 10 – Saturday 16 April

New administrator

The Signpost welcomes Bahamut0013 (nom) as our newest admin. Bob has been with the US Marine Corps since 2003 and with Wikipedia since 2006. He contributes mainly to articles that deal with the Marine Corps, military life and equipment, and video games, movies, anime, and TV shows. He is helping to construct the battleship portal with other members of Operation Majestic Titan. He has just been appointed to the Audit Subcommittee.

At the time of publication there is one live RfA: RHM22, due to finish Tuesday.

A row of giraffes on the restored Broad Ripple Park Carousel
The British conductor Thomas Beecham

Eighteen articles were promoted to featured status:


From the new Featured portal Portal:Arthropods: the Grapsus grapsus, collected by Charles Darwin during his voyages on HMS Beagle

One list was promoted:

One topic was promoted:

  • Portal:Arthropods (nom) was promoted, with 26 selected articles (all good articles, FAs, or FLs), 26 featured pictures, and 16 sets of 6 facts displayed on the Main Page as part of the did you know process.
New featured picture: An Indian sculpture of the Hindu god Shiva in copper alloy. It depicts Shiva as the cosmic dancer who performs his divine dance to destroy a weary universe and make preparations for god Brahma to start the process of creation.

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


A panorama of Villa Park from the Trinity Road Stand, showing from left to right the North Stand, the Doug Ellis Stand and the Holte End
Information about new admins at the top is drawn from their user pages and RfA texts, and occasionally from what they tell us directly.



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2011-04-18

Case comes to a close after 3 weeks – what does the decision tell us?

The Arbitration Committee opened no new cases but closed one case. One case is currently open.

Open cases

During the week, several arbitrators submitted proposals, some of which will form part of the final decision. Other proposals are likely to be submitted in the coming week.

Closed case

Noleander (Week 3)

This case was opened after a number of divisive noticeboard discussions involving allegations of misrepresentation of sources, as well as tendentious and antisemitic editing. 19 editors submitted on-wiki evidence, and several users submitted proposals in the workshop. Drafter Newyorkbrad also submitted a full proposed decision in the workshop which attracted input from arbitrators, parties and others. A total of 14 arbitrators voted in the case before the case came to a close today.

What is the effect of the decision and what does it tell us?
  • Users are reminded that the terms which were recently adopted in the Race and intelligence case (see motion below) are applicable to other disputes similar to those arising in this case.
  • Noleander (talk · contribs) is indefinitely topic-banned from making any edit relating to Judaism, the Jewish people, Jewish history or culture, or individual Jewish persons identified as such, broadly but reasonably construed, anywhere on Wikipedia.
    • Noleander may request that it be terminated or modified after at least one year has elapsed. The Committee will give significant weight to whether Noleander has established an ability to edit collaboratively and in accordance with Wikipedia policies and guidelines in other topic-areas of the project. Any perceptibly biased or prejudiced editing concerning any other group would weigh against lifting of the topic-ban and could result in further sanctions.
  • An editor must not engage in a pattern of editing that focuses on a specific racial, religious, or ethnic group and can reasonably be perceived as as evincing bias in favor of or against the members of the group. Article content must be presented from a neutral point of view and the contents of source materials must be presented accurately and fairly. Contributors who engage in tendentious or disruptive editing, such as by engaging in sustained aggressive point-of-view editing or repeatedly misusing sources to favor a particular view, may be banned from the articles in question or from the site.
  • Editors are expected to refrain from making unnecessary references to the actual or perceived racial, religious, or ethnic background of fellow editors. Such references should be made only if they clearly serve a legitimate purpose. In the context of a noticeboard discussion or dispute resolution, it will rarely serve a valid purpose to seek to classify the participants in the discussion on this basis.

Motion

  • Race and intelligence case - a motion drafted by arbitrator Roger Davies was passed to replace one of the case remedies. Consequently, "standard" discretionary sanctions from the case were broadened to be applicable to: any edit relating to the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour, broadly construed, anywhere on Wikipedia. All contributors to articles in the newly defined area of conflict were reminded of the contentious nature of this subject and were cautioned that to avoid disruption, they must adhere strictly to fundamental Wikipedia policies.



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2011-04-18

Bugs, Repairs, and Internal Operational News

Two MediaWiki releases, but neither of them 1.17

On Tuesday (12 April), MediaWiki version 1.16.3 was officially released to external sites (Wikimedia Techblog). It included a group of three security fixes that had already gone live to Wikimedia sites, which are running a pre-release version of 1.17:

After the release, however, it soon became clear that the first of the three issues had not been entirely cleared up, prompting the second release of the week, MediaWiki 1.16.4, on Friday (15 April) (Wikimedia Techblog, wikitech-l mailing list). The updates also took advantage of recent localisation efforts in order to provide users with an interface translated into their own language.

In related news, no official date has yet been set for a release candidate of MediaWiki 1.17, the version WMF wikis are currently running. A beta version is expected "probably next week", however, according to developer Tim Starling, who is overseeing the release effort (also wikitech-l). The accompanying discussion also included calls to "branch" version 1.18 within the next fortnight. Branching would separate a snapshot of the software from the developmental bleeding edge version of the MediaWiki software (also known as "trunk"), allowing it to be stabilised, tested and released in the next few months.

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.

  • A discussion on the foundation-l mailing list gave an insight into the processes for dealing with inappropriate uses of the Toolserver, a topic touched upon in last week's Technology Report.
  • Developers can now get a copy of the live code via Git, even though the main repository is stored centrally in a competing format, Subversion (wikitech-l mailing list. See also Signpost coverage of recent discussions about whether MediaWiki should move to Git altogether).
  • Wikis, particularly non-English ones, can now tweak the way their Javascript-based table sorting code works to accommodate custom sort orders for special characters (so that ä sorts under ae, for example; see bug #8732).
  • Brian Wolff's work in last year's Google Summer of Code programme on image metadata was merged into the main development version of MediaWiki (revision #86169, see also original Signpost coverage).
  • Bugmeister Mark Hershberger blogged about how to get a bug report dealt with, which he argued consisted not of bumping the "Priority" field of older bugs, but in finding either a body of users to support your position, or a developer to write the code for you.
  • Operations Engineer Ryan Lane gave a talk about the server architecture of Wikimedia projects (1h video, slides), explaining how the WMF manages to operate with far fewer servers and members of staff than other "top 5" websites. One of the subjects covered was community involvement in the server operations (supporting the operating staff of currently six engineers), by giving volunteers the opportunity to help "without necessarily giving out root" access, and keeping operations as transparent as possible through the use of public IRC channels and wikis.



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