Chapter-selected Board seats, an invite to the Teahouse, patrol becomes triage, and this week in history
Chapter-selected WMF Board seats
On March 1 Béria Lima, moderator of the selection process for the chapters-selected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, announced the publication of all candidate statements for the two chapter-selected positions that are to be filled this year, with new terms to start July 1. The announcement is indicative of the partly public proceedings of this year's selection process, which has been hailed as a significant improvement in transparency over the last one in 2010. In contrast to the three trustees elected by the editing community, who were last elected in 2011 (Signpost coverage: June 6, June 20), the two chapter seats are filled according to the decision of chapter boards in what has traditionally been a private mailing list and wiki-based process open to neither the community nor the regular chapter members.
Like all Wikimedia Foundation trustees, chapter-selected members are required to oversee foundation affairs, and the board as a governing body exercises authority over the organisation's budget. As such, the board avoids interfering with both the editing processes of the projects and the daily business of foundation staff. Trustees are not direct representatives of those who elect them, but do help to determine the long-term view of the movement as a whole as well as the role of the Wikimedia Foundation within it. The current board structure, established by a reforming resolution passed in 2008, currently consists of four board-appointed "expert" members, three community-elected members, and two chapter-selected members, as well as Jimbo Wales, who occupies the unique position of "founding" member, and is reaffirmed every two years.
This year the community may take part in the open phase of the chapters selection process by submitting questions to the candidates. There are eight candidates in all, including incumbent Phoebe Ayers, who is running for a second term. The other candidates are Alice Wiegand, long-time member of the German chapter board, OTRS administrator, and participant in the movement roles project; Craig Franklin, the Treasurer of Wikimedia Australia and an English Wikipedia ArbCom clerk; Salmaan Haroon, who was extensively involved in the strategy process in 2009–2010; Liam Wyatt, former vice-president of Wikimedia Australia and Wikimedia Foundation cultural partnerships fellow; Raúl Gutiérrez, who provides an outside view backed up by international professional experience; Lodewijk Gelauff, a former steward and board member of Wikimedia Nederland as well as a current member of the Chapters Committee; and Patricio Lorente, the current president of Wikimedia Argentina and a major organizer of Wikimania 2009 in Buenos Aires and Iberocoop, the Regional Cooperation Initiative for Ibero-America of Wikimedia entities.
On March 15 the selection process will advance to the chapters debating the candidates and their responses to questions on the private chapters wiki, at the Wikimedia conference in Berlin end of March, and beyond. If no consensus can be reached before May 5, a vote will be called by the moderators and the trustees to be will be singled out on May 15 by using the single transferable vote method. The process takes place at a delicate time, marked by tensions between the WMF and the chapter community over key issues such as fundraising processing and the nature of relations between Wikimedia entities generally.
Teahouse project
Wikipedia:Teahouse is a pilot project exploring innovations in Wikipedia's social dynamics as a means to drive editor retention. Initiated last December, the initiative serves primarily as an incubator for editor development, intended to acclimatise and integrate new contributors to the culture of the editing community. The project is part of Sarah Stierch's gender gap fellowship, and is being managed by foundation community fellows on meta at Research:Teahouse. It aims to offer a "peer support space" to new editors, especially women, in a "many to many" social context. The organisers have envisioned several scenarios in which it could be helpful to new editors.
The image to the right is from the project proposal page on meta, and is meant to evoke the atmosphere that the Teahouse project seeks to create. The "Teahouse" concept was chosen to suggest a comfortable place for "meaningful social interaction", and as a reference to the English Wikipedia essay a nice cup of tea and a sit down, a plea to editors to focus on the good points of others and to interact congenially, especially during conflict. It stresses its social atmosphere by inviting guests to introduce themselves, and features Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions, a help desk of sorts to answer newcomers' questions in "real time".
The Teahouse project was announced at the Village Pump on January 21 and although feedback was requested, little was given. A team of hosts (selected "somewhat on the Online Ambassador process") were recruited to aid the incoming "guests", and the Teahouse was formally launched in late February (see the Teahouse timeline).
According to the proposal, the project is time-limited and will end with a report assessing its success on the basis of specified short-term metrics, to be delivered on May 15. The goals are as follows:
- At least 20 trained hosts active throughout the pilot
- 75 new editors utilizing the Teahouse weekly
- 50 to 100 new editors invited to participate in the Teahouse daily
- A measurable increase in retention of new editors should be apparent via an increase in logins/editing sessions of participants vs a control group.
New Page Triage initiative announced
The New Page Triage (NPT) project is a newly announced initiative of the foundation directed at improving quality of new articles, the ease of patrolling them, and the treatment of their creators on Wikipedia, by the introduction of a new software interface. According to Wikipedia:New Page Triage, problems in the way new pages are patrolled, aggravated by problems in the existing setup at Special:NewPages, created frustration in the Wikipedia community that led to their endorsement of the autoconfirmed article creation proposal that would have put tighter controls on who could create new articles. Although the foundation declined to implement that proposal on the grounds that it was exclusionary and insufficiently respectful of the editor retention priority (Signpost coverage), staffers have striven to make clear that they appreciate community concerns with the quality of the new page patrollers' experience and the other goals.
The engagement component of the Triage initiative proposes that, contrary to precedent, discussion of these improvements will take place on the English Wikipedia, and working prototypes will be provided so that editors can experience the new software and provide feedback. There will be "regular and nuanced discussion between the Foundation and the community throughout the design process" via the community liaison for product development (currently Oliver Keyes), who is a dedicated Foundation contractor. Feedback on the draft proposal is also encouraged directly on the discussion page, while those interested in following the development may sign up for a newsletter at Wikipedia:New Page Triage.
This week in history
Old Man Murray was a US computer gaming review website begun in the late 1990s by Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw. Harsh, irreverent, and satirical, many in the gaming industry look back on the website as an inspirational classic. Faliszek and Wolpaw went on to work in the industry for Valve Software and were central figures in the creation of Portal, one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed games of the last few years. So, naturally, people in the industry and gaming fans were surprised when the Wikipedia article on Old Man Murray was deleted on March 2. The deletion was overturned the next day at Deletion Review.
Deletion discussions can be one of the most contentious interactions Wikipedians have with those outside Wikipedia, especially when it involves a subculture or fandom with vocal adherents. Perhaps the most notorious of these incidents was the long running conflict regarding the deletion of articles on webcomics, as discussed in this 2007 Wikinews article. Non-Wikipedians often interpret a deletion discussion as an assault on their field of interest and are offended at Wikipedians who are ignorant of it making decisions about it, and some of them respond with uncivil comments or personal attacks. Wikipedians are dismayed when they are the subject of personal attacks during what should be a sober policy discussion, and see the vocal fans who are denouncing them as little better than those who vandalize articles. Needless to say, this isn't a fertile ground for productive discussion between the two groups.
This time was no exception. Gaming blogs and message boards filled with angry messages (a Slashdot article received over 400 comments) and many fans shared their ire by posting to the Wikipedia deletion discussion. Rob Beschizza, Managing Editor of the popular website Boing Boing, wrote about the deletion. About two dozen prominent figures in the gaming industry responded to a call by John Walker from the gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun to testify to the importance of Old Man Murray. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell wrote that "Old Man Murray were the Velvet Underground of post-print journalism" and Bryan Lee O'Malley, creator of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels which are steeped in gaming culture, wrote "As far as I'm concerned, Old Man Murray invented the internet, and also invented making jokes about video games, two things which are maybe the foundation of everything I hold dear." Walker told the Signpost that he was not surprised by this response. "OMM is something spoken about by people in our industry with hushed tones of reverence. I'd be fairly disappointed to learn a developer was not a fan of their writing."— 7 March 2011 edition: Deletion of article about website angers gaming community
Brief news
- Resolutions on movement accountability and committee standards: On March 4, two resolutions passed by the foundation's Board of Trustees, concerning movement accountability standards and committee standards, were published. The board thereby asked the Audit and the Board Governance committees respectively to develop these standards in the run up to the next Board meeting in Berlin at the end of March.
- Wikimedia partners with Telenor on mobile: The Wikimedia Foundation has announced a new partnership with the Norwegian Telenor group to promote free access to Wikipedia on the mobile devices of the telecommunication group in Southeast European and Asian countries. After the deal with Orange back in January (Signpost coverage) it is the second cooperation of this kind for WMF, and could potentially affect up to 135 million mobile users.
- Wikimedia affiliation models: Foundation trustee Bishakha Datta has posted an update on a new plan for Wikimedia affiliation models, an expanded organizational construct that will sort Wikimedia-supporting organisations into Chapters, Partner Organizations, Associations, and Affiliates. The proposal, once complete, will be presented for approval by the Board during its July meeting. A small informal group has been formed and has been discussing the proposal on its meta talk page.
- United States Education Program enters its spring semester: The United States Education Program has started its spring semester, offering upwards of fifty Wikipedia-related initiatives in colleges in all corners of the United States.
- New Wikisource logo: Discussions evolved around the bug report requesting the creation of the Marathi Wikisource project. As the bugs author Gerard Meijssen reports in his blog it is planned to use a new logo instead of the regular Wikisource logo and the change could be implemented on the Gujarati Wikisource as well. This new local approach to Wikisource logos resulted in discussions in the bug attachments.
One of the prototypes of the new article feedback form - Article feedback tool version 5: Limited release (to oversighters only, for testing purposes) of the Article feedback tool version 5 on pages of English Wikipedia is tentatively scheduled.
- Milestones this week: the Persian Wikibooks has reached 1,000 book modules, the English Wikisource has reached 300,000 text units, the Catalan Wikisource has reached 5,000 text units, and the Assamese Wikipedia has reached 10,000 total pages.
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Heights reached in search rankings, privacy and mental health info; clouds remain over content policing
Wikipedia scores on privacy, mental health info
Ed Bott reports for ZDNet that Wikipedia scores 100 of 100 points on preserving the privacy of its user traffic according to the PrivacyChoice rating, called PrivacyScore. The tool monitors 1601 pages such as CNN, which scored 43, The New York Times (71) and Twitter (95). The assessment proceeds in two separate parts, comparing the actually existing privacy policy of the site with an idealized counterpart on the one hand and looking after what's happening on the ground on the other. Wikimedia, as both David Storm on ReadWriteWeb and David Chernicoff on ZDNet pointed out, uses WatchMouse, a SaaS-based server monitoring tool from Nimsoft, to keep up with what's going on on Wikipedia and the sister projects. The performance status of Wikimedia services can be checked live here.
Wikipedia is the leading source for online information concerning mental health, researchers at the University of Melbourne concluded in research publicised this month. The scholars assessed 14 sources, including Encyclopaedia Britannica and a psychiatry textbook, judging them on how up to date, easy to use, broad in scope, well-researched and accurate the information they provided was. The results spoke favourably of Wikipedia's record at a time when editors are self-conscious about the standards of the encyclopaedia's medical and health-related content:
| “ | Researcher, Dr Nicola Reavley and her colleagues discovered that the quality of information on depression and schizophrenia on Wikipedia was generally as good as, or better than that provided by centrally controlled websites or psychiatry textbooks. | ” |
Primacy in search results
The search engine optimization world went through one of its periodic fits of interest in Wikipedia's position in the search results, triggered by a study by Intelligent Positioning which showed that out of a sample of 1000 randomly selected nouns, Wikipedia featured on page 1 of the search results 99% of the time, and in first place 56% of the time. Econsultancy ran an article arguing that Wikipedia's positioning was a fairly predictable result of its articles being typically on-topic and well-developed. Heavy inbound linking to Wikipedia was credited for giving the site a significant boost while its well-structured system of wikilinks was said to have distributed these beneficial effects across topic areas. Search Engine Land meanwhile responded by arguing that the focus on single-word nouns in the test meant that it was not representative of real-world searches, and that the study was of limited usefulness as a consequence.
Haymarket affair affair redux
The debate over sourcing in the Haymarket affair article that made news headlines last month (Signpost coverage) has continued to garner attention in the media, as well as being discussed at length on the foundation-l mailing list. Much of it was churnalism, but some contributions did advance the discussion. The Atlantic ran a piece which argued that while the situation wasn't handled well by Wikipedia editors, the underlying problem of how to handle conflicts over established narratives and newer, less supported theories was a fixture of standard historiographical discourse, and that Wikipedia therefore was in some ways being held to an unreasonably high standard. National Public Radio ran a debate on the subject between Professor Timothy Messer-Kruse, Andrew Lih – longstanding Wikipedia editor and author of The Wikipedia Revolution – and the Wikimedia Foundation's Steven Walling. Professor Messer-Kruse suggested in part that Wikipedia's lack of credentialism made attempts to rapidly adapt the historical record to changes in prevailing opinion in the face of new evidence difficult.
In brief
- State of the wikis: The Guardian was among international news media who took note of the imminent Cairo education program pilot aimed at driving improvements of the 150,000 article-strong Arabic Wikipedia, commenting that the global education had been a "mixed success" thus far. Meanwhile, The Hindu discussed the travails of the struggling Kannada Wikipedia afloat, as The Times of India praised Sanskrit Wikipedia for reviving interest in the language, and Haaretz chronicled the activism of editors of Hebrew Wikipedia to convince Israeli state institutions to embrace the facilitation of free culture. Lastly, the block of Uzbek Wikipedia by the Uzbeki government received notice in the Telegraph, The Atlantic, and Registan.
- Wikipedia as gamer bible. Well, for one game at least: Crusader Kings II, a strategy game set between 1066 and 1337, was reported by Gamercast to have used Wikipedia data to provide biographies of many of the historic characters that appear in the game. Players curious about the historical depth of characters such as vassals and bishops will be able to quickly access Wikipedia-sourced information on them.
- Featured article gets some local attention Warren County, Indiana's appearance on the main page on March 1, 2012 was covered by the Journal & Courier, with the president of the local history society thanking one of the article's main authors for writing it.
- Wikiqueered: The launch of Wikiqueer, a wiki encyclopedia focusing on LGBT content, was noted this week by Pinknews. The project is being led by long-standing Wikipedian Varnent, who fielded questions about its relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation and its projects on foundation-l.
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COI and NOTCENSORED: policies under discussion
- Poll to determine why there is a lack of non-date-specific submissions for "Today's featured article"
- An RfC on the Arbitration Committee and how to deal with good-editing sockpuppets.
- RfC on adding a more prominent link to Special:MyContributions for IP editors
- RfC about allowing watchlisting of user contributions
- Binding community discussion on the Abortion article titles, as requested by the Arbitration Committee
- RfC on the proposed cessation of selective delete (other than history merge fixes) and resulting changes to deletion policies, including the removal of a Revision Deletion criterion
This week saw a major change in focus from conduct (last edition) to policies. Discussions have been started through various avenues on Wikipedia about a number of policies such as WP:NOTCENSORED and WP:COI.
When should Wikipedia be considered "not censored"?
- In a nutshell
- "Wikipedia is not censored" (often condensed to "NOTCENSORED") is a section within the "What Wikipedia is not" policy that is a widely accepted standard that all editors should normally follow. NOTCENSORED is an extension of the content disclaimer about how images and text that are relevant to the subject may seem inappropriate or objectionable to some readers. NOTCENSORED only applies in situations where text or images are factually relevant to the subject in the article; a nude picture in an article about bananas is not, of course, covered.
- The problem
- A discussion started on February 26 by Adjwilley at the village pump centered around alleged abuse of NOTCENSORED. The initiator proposed that the policy be made more specific on when it is applicable by expanding upon the context as currently written and citing examples of when the policy can be used. The context of when the policy is applicable appears to be the main focus of discussion. Participating editors also noted the relevance of the debate to another policy that is aligned with NOTCENSORED, called WP:GRATUITOUS.
Interest in conflict re:"Conflict of interest"
Editors are sometimes confused about what exactly distinguishes a policy from a guideline and an essay:
- Policies have wide acceptance among editors and describe standards that all users should normally follow.
- Guidelines are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.
- Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors (such as a WikiProject) for which widespread consensus has not been established. They do not speak for the entire community and may be created and written without approval.
- In a nutshell
- "Conflict of interest" (often abbreviated to "COI") is a generally accepted behavioral guideline, intended to maintain Wikipedia as a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopaedia. Conflicts of interest are described as comprising the following: inclusion of autobiographical material, editing for financial gain, significant involvement with the subject of a Wikipedia article, promoting oneself or advocating on behalf of one's client.
A discussion was opened by ASCIIn2Bme at the urging of the Arbitration Committee for the following reason:
Many issues concerning paid editing, anonymous editing, outing and harassment, are unresolved. Our policies and guidelines are complicated and sometimes contradictory. Investigating, sanctioning and/or exonerating editors on the basis of who they are or what they do in real life is not only controversial but often impossible. Furthermore, extreme cases apart, there is no consensus about the extent that editors may edit articles on topics with which they are personally involved. Hence, of necessity, review must focus primarily on the editing patterns of those editors about whom problems are claimed.
This discussion has commenced in light of the recently closed TimidGuy ban appeal arbitration case. Some suggestions under debate include deleting the guideline outright, tagging it as {{historical}}, upgrading it to a policy, and requiring editors to openly declare conflicts of interest on their user pages.
Are you a close follower of important discussions within the project? Do you consider an informed community essential for Wikipedia's health and future? The Signpost is seeking regular contributors to the Discussion report feature; step forward if interested in the comments, at the WP:NEWSROOM, or by email at wikipediasignpost
gmail.com.
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We don't bite: WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles
- Round 1 of the 2012 WikiCup has ended with 64 participants advancing to Round 2
- The March issue of The Metropolitan has been released
- To celebrate International Women's Day and Women's History Month, WikiProject Women's History is hosting a month-long drive in collaboration with several other projects
- The March Copy Editing Drive and the Move to Commons Drive are in full swing
- The Teyler's Museum in the Netherlands is sponsoring a contest from now until May with real-world prizes as part of the Teylers GLAM project
This week, we spent some time with the members of WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles. Started in April 2006, the project has grown to encompass over 10,000 articles including 13 Featured Articles, 3 Featured Lists, and 26 Good Articles. The project is a child of WikiProject Animals and the parent of projects covering dinosaurs, pterosaurs, sea monsters, and turtles. WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles maintains a portal, a category filled with articles needing images, and a collection of reference sources. We interviewed Bibliomaniac15, ZooPro, and Petter Bøckman.
What motivated you to join WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles? Do you have an educational background dealing with amphibians or reptiles? Is there an amphibian or reptile you find particularly interesting?
- Bibliomaniac15: I first joined the group because I wanted help with the Komodo dragon article (my favorite animal). I have no herpetological experience whatsoever, but the WikiProject has introduced me to a host of people who do have such experience. It has been extremely interesting to see the many debates that have come up over the years in the project.
- ZooPro: I decided to join WikiProject AAR after I noticed it was rather inactive and some things hadn't been updated in a while. I wanted to breathe a bit of life back into it and encourage new editors to join. I do have a background in working with and dealing with reptiles and amphibians (I work at a zoo in Australia). My favourite reptile would have to be the Saltwater Crocodile. I love how on the surface they appear to be mindless killing machines but once you understand and study them you soon learn they are caring and loving parents and have very individual and sophisticated personalities.
- Petter Bøckman: My primary interest is in extinct amphibians and reptiles. Working as a public educator in the University of Oslo's Natural History Museum I come across questions about these animals almost daily, and see Wikipedia as an excellent platform of public education. I'm a zoologist by education, so doing work both on modern and extinct critters suits me well.
Which tend to be better covered by Wikipedia: amphibians or reptiles? In general, how does Wikipedia's coverage of amphibians and reptiles compare to coverage of other living things? What can be done to improve coverage of amphibians and reptiles?
- Bibliomaniac15: If WikiProject Dinosaurs is to be included, it would probably be reptiles by a long shot. In the project itself, the best coverage is on testudines and lizards; besides the frogs and toads, other amphibians like salamanders, newts, and caecilians haven't gotten as thorough coverage.
- ZooPro: I would have to say reptiles only because of the sheer number of articles we have on them. Our coverage is rather good overall I think; it's on par with most of our sister projects. I think to improve we need more editors who are willing to contribute long term, over a number of years, in order to keep the articles up to date with current information. I think this has been made easier with WikiProject Turtles starting up, as it takes a lot of stress away from WikiProject AAR, so we can focus more on our top-priority articles.
- Petter Bøckman: Reptiles are easily the best covered group of the two, both regarding extinct and modern animals.
The project is home to 16 pieces of Featured material and 26 Good Articles. Have you contributed to any of these articles? What are some of the challenges of improving amphibian and reptile articles to FA or GA status?
- Bibliomaniac15: In the past I've helped write a number of reptile articles (Komodo dragon, Gila Monster, Varanus salvadorii), and I've reviewed many more. Compared to other articles on organisms I feel that there are more challenges; some expected, some unexpected. Should we stick with common names or scientific names? Should the "dragon" in "Komodo dragon" be capitalized? Should we rely on more traditional taxonomies, even if they're paraphyletic? Is the size report of such-and-such a lizard exaggerated? Thorough research on specific species of reptiles is hard to come by, and often quite old if it does exist. And in terms of behavior, there are still many questions inviting further observation. So it's quite a challenge.
- ZooPro: I have been loosely involved in some of the FA and GA articles, I prefer to stick behind the scenes of the project and keep its operation running smoothly. However, I do try to contribute to the project the best I can.
- Petter Bøckman: I primarily work on small and obscure topics, and have contributed minimally to the FA and GA articles. I see my task primarily as providing reliable information on little known species and phenomena.
WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles has several child projects. Have you been active in any of these projects? Do the child projects collaborate with WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles?
- Bibliomaniac15: Of our four child projects (WikiProject Dinosaurs, WikiProject Pterosaurs, WikiProject Sea Monsters, WikiProject Turtles), I would say only WikiProject Turtles is more involved in collaborating in WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, because most members here tend to focus on extant species, and because it was started more recently. The Dinosaur WikiProject is far older than us, and the Pterosaurs project was created at around the same time we were created, so they do things more or less independently from us.
- ZooPro: I have been slightly active with WikiProject Turtles; I think they have done an incredible job in starting up a "Child" project and yes, they collaborate with WikiProject AAR and most members of WikiProject Turtles are also members of WikiProject AAR.
- Petter Bøckman: I have contributed bits and pieces here and there, but my main emphasis is on critters that fall outside these more popular groups.
How difficult is it to obtain images of amphibians and reptiles? Are there specific amphibians or reptiles the project could use some help photographing?
- Bibliomaniac15: As always, obtaining images of rarer specimens is more difficult, but I would have to say that the more daunting task is identification. Many of the threads we see in the WikiProject talk page have to do with identifying the species in the picture, and Commons has quite a few pictures of unidentified reptiles around. Although one can give a good educated guess, to conclusively identify a species is difficult.
- ZooPro: I have never found it all that difficult to obtain Australian Reptile images; however, as Bibliomaniac15 said, identifying images of reptiles is really the larger task.
- Petter Bøckman: Fortunately, there are a number of very good palaeo-artists who contribute their images for free for the extinct animals.
What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new member help today?
- Bibliomaniac15: The most urgent need at the moment is our top [importance] articles, of which two-thirds are either C-class or lower.
- ZooPro: I agree with Bibliomaniac15: we have a large number of articles; however, many of them need great improvement. I would suggest helping with our top priority articles first.
- Petter Bøckman: We won't run out of animals needing articles anytime soon. Just follow the red links, find a good reference and start typing!
Anything else you'd like to add?
- Petter Bøckman: I know Wikipedia isn't a social network site, but sometimes I come across small "Thank you, this article helped me with my assignment" messages, and they are hugely heart-warming. Making knowledge available is what Wikipedia is all about for me!
- ZooPro: I would invite everyone and anyone to join; we always like to see new members who bring fresh ideas. Come and see what we are about – we don't bite much.
Next week, we'll visit Rosie the Riveter. Until then, explore history in the archive.
Reader comments
Best of the week
Featured articles
Seven featured articles were promoted this week:
- Ontario Highway 401 (nom) by Floydian. Ontario Highway 401, also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway and colloquially as the four-oh-one, is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario stretching 817.9 kilometres (508.2 mi) from Windsor to the Quebec border. The segment of Highway 401 passing through Toronto is the busiest highway in North America, and one of the widest and busiest in the world. It features the busiest multi-structure bridge in North America, located at Hogg's Hollow in Toronto, and is one of the major backbones of a network in the Great Lakes region, connecting the populous Quebec City – Windsor corridor with Michigan, New York and central Ontario's cottage country.
- Battle of Arawe (nom) by Nick-D. The Battle of Arawe was fought between Allied and Japanese forces during the New Britain Campaign of World War II. The battle formed part of the Allied Operation Cartwheel, and had the objective of serving as a diversion before a larger landing at Cape Gloucester in late December 1943. The Allies secured Arawe after about a month of intermittent fighting with the outnumbered Japanese force there. There is no consensus among historians on whether the Allied offensive at Arawe was necessary. While some argue that the landing served as a useful diversion, others believe that the entire campaign in western New Britain was unnecessary and that the force employed at Arawe could have been better used elsewhere.
- Faryl (nom) by J Milburn. Faryl is the debut album by British mezzo-soprano Faryl Smith, produced by Jon Cohen and backed by a 60-piece orchestra. It was released on 9 March 2009 by Universal Classics and Jazz. Smith rose to fame after her appearance on the second series of Britain's Got Talent. After its release, Faryl became the fastest-selling classical solo album in British chart history, selling 20,000 copies in the first four days, and a total of 29,200 copies in the first week, higher than any other debut album of a classical singer.
- Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (nom) by GreatOrangePumpkin. The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary is a neo-Gothic church serving as the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Moscow. Located in the Central Administrative Okrug, it is one of only two Catholic churches in Moscow and the largest in Russia. Closed down in 1938 and nearly destroyed, following the fall of communism it once again became a church and was elevated to a cathedral in 2002 and reconsecrated in 2005.
- Rachel Chiesley, Lady Grange (nom) by Ben MacDui. Rachel Chiesley, usually known as Lady Grange (1679–1745), was the wife of James Erskine, Lord Grange, a Scottish lawyer with Jacobite sympathies. After 25 years of marriage and nine children, the Granges separated acrimoniously. When Lady Grange produced letters in 1732 that she claimed were evidence of his treasonable plottings against the Hanoverian government in London, her husband had her kidnapped. She was incarcerated in various remote locations on the western seaboard of Scotland and died in captivity, after being imprisoned for 13 years. Her life has been remembered in poetry, prose and a play.
- Len Hutton (nom) by Sarastro1. Sir Leonard "Len" Hutton (1916 - 1990) was an English cricketer who has been called one of the greatest batsmen in the history of the sport. Marked as a potential star as a teenager, Hutton made his professional debut with Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1934. Three years later he was playing for the English national team, and in 1938 he scored 364 runs against Australia in a Test match, holding the record for the highest individual innings in a Test match for twenty years. Despite being injured while training as a commando during World War II, Hutton continued after the war to be one of England's best batters. He retired in 1955 and was knighted the following year. Hutton remains statistically among the best batsmen to have played Test cricket.
- Prosperity theology (nom) by ItsZippy and Mark Arsten. In Christianity, prosperity theology is a doctrine claiming the Bible teaches that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians. Faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries lead to one's own enrichment. The doctrine is based heavily on non-traditional interpretations of the Bible, especially the Book of Malachi. It first became prominent in the United States in the 1950s and has since been part of the Word of Faith movement and televangelism, and has recently been embraced by members of the Charismatic Movement. Churches following the doctrine are often non-denominational and served by a single pastor.
One featured article was delisted:
- Francis Petre (nom): lack of citations
Featured lists
Five featured lists were promoted this week:
- List of Chartjackers episodes (nom) by Vobedd. The 2009 British documentary series Chartjackers, which documented the efforts of four teenaged video bloggers to create a popular song through crowdsourcing, ran for ten five-minute episodes and one thirty-minute recap finale. The episodes, produced by Adam King and Jonathan Davenport of the production company Hat Trick Productions, were released on multiple platforms. Ultimately, the project's creation, "I've Got Nothing", peaked at number 36 on the UK charts.
- List of highest-grossing films (nom) by Betty Logan. The new featured list depicts "a chart of the top box-office earners, a chart of high-grossing films by calendar year, a timeline showing the transition of the highest-grossing film record, and a chart of the highest-grossing film franchises and series". Eleven films have grossed over a billion dollars, with the 2009 film Avatar the highest grossing of all (without adjusting for inflation).
- List of cities and towns in California (nom) by Kurykh. The US state of California is home to 37,253,956 inhabitants; 82.97% of the population is spread through 482 municipalities. The oldest of these, Sacramento, was incorporated in 1850; the largest is Los Angeles, which holds a little more than 10% of California's population.
- Premier League Manager of the Season (nom) by Lemonade51 and The Rambling Man. The Premier League Manager of the Season, an annual association football award presented to managers in England, was established during the 1993–1994 season. Since then, it has been awarded annually under different names to the league's most outstanding manager, as selected by a panel assembled by the league's sponsor. The first (and also most recent) winner was Alex Ferguson.
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Michigan (nom) by Dana boomer. The US state of Michigan is home to 34 National Historic Landmarks (NHL), located in 15 of the state's 83 counties; another three former NHLs have since been delisted. The most recently listed building is the Ford Piquette Avenue Plant; other landmarks include small communities, residential homes, steamboats, and a World War II submarine.
Featured pictures
Six featured pictures were promoted this week:
- Electric steam iron (nom; related article), by Colin. The new featured picture, depicting an electric steam iron made by Russell Hobbs with a focus on the steamplate and handle, was shot on glass with a white background. Clothes irons are small household appliances used to remove wrinkles from clothing and have been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
- Ginevra de' Benci (nom; related article), created by Leonardo da Vinci and nominated by Crisco 1492. Ginevra de' Benci, a c. 1474 oil on panel painting measuring 38.1 cm × 37 cm (15.0 in × 15 in), is one of only four paintings by Leonardo depicting a lone female subject. The painting, named after its subject, is decorated on its reverse with a juniper sprig encircled by a wreath of laurel and palm, as well as the phrase Virtutem Forma Decorat.
- Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (nom; related article), directed by D.I. Yashin and nominated by Crisco 1492. Experiments in the Revival of Organisms is a 20-minute long film documenting purported Soviet research into the resuscitation of clinically dead organisms. Produced in 1940, the film features Russian text overlaid with English subtitles. The film is now in the public domain.
- Young Kaiser Ferdinand I (nom; related article), created by an unknown artist and nominated by Alexcoldcasefan. The new featured picture depicts Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, as a young boy between the ages of 10 and 12. The future emperor was born to Joanna of Castile on 10 March 1503. The painting is thought to have been completed c. 1520, after Ferdinand had assumed the throne.
- Sammy Davis Junior (nom; related article), created by Allan warren and nominated by Tomer T. American actor Sammy Davis Jr. (1925–1990), who started his career in vaudeville as a child, was known for his acting, dancing, and impersonating other celebrities. The new featured picture, taken in 1986, depicts Davis in a pensive moment, resulting in what reviewer Mathew Townsend called "an expressive portrait".
- Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus flower (nom; related article) by Paolo Costa. This new featured picture, taken in La Gran Sabana, Venezuela, shows the flower of Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus (also known as the Lemon Day-lily). The plant, one of the first daylilies to be bred, is found mainly in China.
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AUSC appointments announced, one case remains open
The Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week, leaving one open.
Audit Subcommittee appointments
On March 1, the Arbitration Committee announced the appointment of three new community members of the Audit Subcommittee (AUSC). Avraham (talk · contribs), Ponyo (talk · contribs), and Salvio giuliano (talk · contribs) will serve one-year terms on the subcommittee, while MBisanz (talk · contribs) has been designated an alternate should a subcommittee member resign.
AUSC was established by the committee to investigate complaints concerning the use of CheckUser and Oversight privileges on the English Wikipedia, and to provide better monitoring and supervision of the CheckUser and Oversight positions along with the use of the applicable tools. There were three vacancies in non-arbitrator positions on the subcommittee, due to the election of past community members AGK and Courcelles to the committee itself, and the expiration of community member Keegan's term at the end of March.
Open cases
Article titles and capitalization (Week 6)
This case was opened to review alleged disruptive editing on the Manual of Style and other pages pertaining to article naming. The workshop phase had been extended by arbitrator AGK last week. Drafter David Fuchs stated on 4 March that he would post "part or all of the [proposed decision]" later this week.
Other requests and committee action
- A revised list of ArbCom clerks has been posted on the Clerk Noticeboard.
- A proposed interaction ban motion relating to the Race and intelligence case has stalled; several arbitrators have expressed interest in opening a full case in the matter.
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With the 1.19 deployment now (mostly) complete, developers consider possible "mini" deployment later in the month
MediaWiki 1.19 deployment complete: well, almost
Over a period of several hours spread across 29 February and 1 March, MediaWiki 1.19 went live to all remaining Wikimedia wikis including the English Wikipedia. Although a number of problems were reported, the deployment as a whole only had to be reverted on the handful of wikis, such as Serbian and Chinese, which rely on the MediaWiki software to provide the same content in two scripts automatically (wikitech-l mailing list). As of time of writing, zhwikis and srwiki are still awaiting the fix that would allow the deployment to proceed.[update 1]
Perhaps more worryingly, the jump in the amount of traffic handled by 1.19 from approximately 10% of total traffic to a figure approaching 100% does appear to have put a significant strain on the Wikimedia servers. Specifically, system administrators have noted a sharp decline (pictured right) in the parser cache hit rate – the percentage of requests for web pages that could be handled without a need for further processing – around the time of the 1.19 deployments. System administrators will be hoping that the effect is only temporary; although its appearance is not yet fully understood, the latest data does indicate that the rate is slowly retreating back to its previous average.
In addition to working on the bug reports that flood in after virtually all large deployments (of which some 23 are currently marked as requiring a fix before 1.19 is released to external sites), developers have also been looking afresh at the issue of changing the default diff colouring (first covered in the Signpost back in December). MediaWiki 1.19 had headlined with accessibility improvements in this area, the benefits of which seemed to have ensured that the change survived a series of long discussions when it was first proposed. On the change's final deployment, however, observers noted that decreases in the contrast ratio offset the improvement for colour-blind users, forcing the change to be reverted (wikitech-l mailing list). A third design is now being trialled; nevertheless, the bold blue-and-yellow-bordered design is almost certain to provoke a fresh round of discussions which it will have to survive if it is to make it onto Wikimedia wikis.
Updates
- ^ Shortly after publication, the deployment of a temporary fix allowed the Chinese and Serbian Wikipedias to be updated to 1.19.
Git switchover delayed; schedule for rest of month established
The Git switchover, which had been been scheduled for March 3, has been postponed until March 21 (wikitech-l mailing list). Announcing the decision on behalf of the Foundation, WMF director of platform engineering Rob Lanphier cited a number of factors, including the unexpected scale of the difficulties resulting from the 1.19 deployment, along with software and hardware issues that would take time to resolve. Perhaps more worryingly, there also seem to be signs that a new code review backlog (the bane of the WMF deployment team's life over the past two years) is starting to build, and that too will need to be resolved before the Git switchover if all the revisions made are to be brought across.
The delay establishes a preliminary schedule for the rest of the month, to include heavy doses of code review, resolution of the hardware and software issues holding back the switchover, a MediaWiki 1.19 release candidate, the full MediaWiki 1.19.0 release, and possibly (if resources permit) a further "mini" deployment to Wikimedia wikis of the sort which will become increasingly common after the Git switchover. Lanphier, however, was clear that the successful Git switchover remained the key objective. "Anything that distracts from that (like, for instance, a [further Wikimedia] deploy) may get postponed while we finish this off once and for all". As of time of writing, Git repositories covering core code and WMF-deployed extensions are currently in a preparatory "read-only" mode, with write-actions for the existing Subversion repository being automatically fed into them (wikitech-l mailing list).
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.
- Data wiki one step closer: developer and former Google Summer of Code competitor Jeroen De Dauw blogged this week to confirm that he had begun work on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project. The project, which aims to ease the creation of a central interwiki and factual data repository, was described by De Dauw as "the most fundamental change Wikipedia will have seen since its inception"; certainly, it was the focus of a proposal as early as 2004. Wikimedia Deutschland outlined their intention to take on the project, which De Dauw reports he "can’t wait to get started on", in October last year (Signpost coverage). A concrete timetable for the first phase of the project (an interwiki link hub) has not yet been published.
- New WMF Mobile UI/UX contractor starts: Lindsey Smith started this week as the Foundation's new Mobile User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) contractor, helping developers to "flush out the look, feel, and experience across all of our mobile projects". Announcing Smith's arrival on various mailing lists, Director of Mobile and Special Projects Tomasz Finc suggested that Smith's early contribution would include design advice for a "new navigational system" for the mobile platform, as well as supporting the long-awaited image upload facility.
- Swift thumbnail changes reversed (again): The latest switchover of Wikimedia's file thumbnail handling backend to Swift was reverted on February 29. The rollback is the latest action to be taken following the continuance of thumbnail generation problems. It is not known when Swift will finally replace the existing structure once and for all; proponents argue that it will need to be soon if Wikimedia wikis are to continue to provide images in a resource-efficient and scalable manner.
- Bugzilla debate: Developer John Du Hart sparked a long discussion on the wikitech-l mailing list again by announcing that he would be trying various bug management suites to gauge whether any were superior to Bugzilla, which Wikimedia and MediaWiki have used since August 2004. This is not the first time that the question has been raised – few would argue that Bugzilla is in any respect ideal – but historically switching costs, concerns about using proprietary software and a "better the devil you know" consideration have resulted in the status quo being retained. No decision has yet been reached about which, if any, alternatives were worth trying out.
- OpenStreetMap takes Foursquare: Although not directly related to Wikimedia, quite a number of Wikimedians and developers have recently been following progress with open source mapping project OpenStreetMap (OSM), which this week became the mapping service of choice for location-based social networking website Foursquare. The site is the latest in a line of large websites to move away from the proprietary Google Maps service after it started charging larger websites to include its mapping content; transferees have also been keen to cite OSM's ideological appeal as an open source provider. The gratis and libre vector maps project, with which many Wikimedians feel a natural affinity, will celebrate its eighth birthday in June.
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