Wikimedians are rightfully wary
- The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. The Signpost welcomes proposals for op-eds at our opinion desk.
The Wikimedia Foundation sometimes proposes new features that receive substantive criticism from Wikimedians, yet those criticisms may be dismissed on the basis that people are resistant to change—there's an unjustified view that the wikis have been overrun by vested contributors who hate all change. That view misses a lot of key details and insight because there are good reasons that Wikimedians are suspicious of features development, given past and present development of bad software, growing ties with the problematic Wikia, and a growing belief that it is acceptable to experiment on users.
There's a lot of agreement about the major technical pain-points of Wikimedia wikis. Any non-programmer who has interacted with a MediaWiki talk page or tried to edit a marginally complex article can quickly identify problems with the MediaWiki software and its design. Talk pages are horrific. Editing is horrific. Page load time—particularly for logged-in users and particularly for articles with a high number of complex templates—can be horrific. Change is needed; or to put it even more politely, there's a lot of room for improvement.
Agreement aside, we're seeing a disconnect right now between what the Foundation is spending resources on and the issues faced by the community. This misalignment has a number of origins. While many people agree that change is needed, the question is whether the Foundation will deliver these changes.
Past and present projects
Wikimedians are wary because the Foundation has been producing bad software. The bad software can be split into two groupings: older and more bloated, and the newer and less bloated.
FlaggedRevs is an example of the former. After years of delays, it was rebranded at the last minute as "Pending Changes", finally deployed to the English Wikipedia, and was a complete flop. The software was bloated, slow and inflexible, and was marred by poor usability. Ultimately, even its most die-hard fans saw that it was not going to work. Rather than focusing on improving the software, the Foundation dragged its feet and largely ran out the clock on the extension. The hope was presumably that eventually everyone would focus themselves on something other than the BLP problem, a strategy that was successful.
LiquidThreads is another example of older, bloated, bad software. Again, it was developed over years, was finally deployed to a number of smaller wikis, and was a disaster. It had substandard usability and very little support from the Foundation. Eventually it was abandoned, leaving small wikis (and anyone else who had the misfortune of having decided to use it) with absolutely no upgrade path.
More recently a newer type of bad software has been emerging, less bloated (in the sense of being meant for niche uses rather than general use) and more expensive. This includes MoodBar, ArticleFeedback (in its umpteen versions), and WikiLove. These software come with costs. The first and most prominent is that these features—as childish and valueless as they are—deplete a finite set of resources available for software development. In other words, these endeavors waste human resources. Established editors largely roll their eyes at the features and hope they don't make too much of a mess.
The secondary cost of requiring established users to administer these poorly thought-out and inadequately developed extensions cannot be overlooked. As surprising as it may be, given the years of development ploughed into them, a number of these extensions were deployed without anti-abuse mechanisms. This is unacceptable. Article feedback is a safe haven for spam and other useless noise. WikiLove is more often used by spammers and others who have no idea what it is or why it's there than it is used legitimately.
Some development of bad software is the natural result of the Foundation's growing pains. Not every line of code is going to be magical and work well, especially on first try. But it's unclear how much the Foundation has learned from its past mistakes. The lack of follow-through with its software development and the quick abandonment of any difficult project (FlaggedRevs, LiquidThreads, etc.) is troubling. The same people who worked on some of these past duds are now being brought in to lay the groundwork for other redesigned and re-engineered projects. We're seeing the same worrying trend of bringing in a contractor, who starts the development work, then leaves before it's finished. The code then rots.
Wikiafication
The newer category of software is part of the Foundation's "Wikiafication" efforts. Most people know Wikia as that family of wikis overrun by advertising, full of low-quality content, and bloated by poorly optimized code, making the site slow and generally unappealing. This has become the Foundation's model to follow, and the long-standing closer relationship with Wikia makes many Wikimedians very cautious.
The for-profit nature of the site aside, Wikia has engaged in a number of poor social and technical practices over the years that have disrupted and harmed its communities. Wikia is a bad model, and the increasingly close collaboration between the Foundation and Wikia on projects and development is cause for concern. That said, learning from Wikia's mistakes in areas such as the development of a visual editor is not a bad idea. The Foundation should look at Wikia as a model of what not to do and figure out strategies to avoid following in its footsteps.
Experimentation
As though negative past experiences and a growing relationship with Wikia were not enough, Wikimedians have also become increasingly concerned at the emergence and growth of experimentation on the projects.
The proper role of experimentation is incredibly tricky to tease out. Some of the ethical questions are enhanced on Wikimedia projects because of the volunteer nature of most project participants and the complex relationship between the Foundation and the volunteer editing community.
The Foundation sees it as acceptable to experiment on users. In the Foundation's eyes, users are viewed and treated as customers, not colleagues. This is very dangerous and is a major contributing factor to the wariness (and weariness) with which Wikimedians view the Foundation. There is a cost to any of these experimental features on the editing community, and user experience is difficult to optimize under even the best circumstances. A keen understanding of user workflow is required to make non-disruptive, helpful changes. Many Foundation employees don't understand editor needs because they are not editors. In place of this understanding is the view, as expressed by one Foundation employee, that "we will allow ourselves to behave like elephants from time to time and we expect to be suffered."
Wikimedians are rightfully skeptical.
Moving forward
How do we move forward? The past and the present are interesting to focus on, but the future is of most concern.
The lines of communication between the editing community and the Foundation must be opened. It's not just about soliciting feedback; it's about engaging in useful conversation and adapting ideas accordingly.
With any big change, it helps to be up-front and to give a lot of warning about upcoming changes. People, particularly volunteers, do not like unexpected changes. The Vector roll-out was a slow process and that slow speed helped a lot. Posting mock-ups and design documents on MediaWiki.org (as all engineering projects are now expected to do and are actually doing) is a great step forward. Adding notes to the top of the page that make it seem like outside contribution is unwelcome is a small step backward. The Foundation should not be posting op-eds in which it lays out "changes you should expect to see". Rather, it should post design documents and other pages on mediawiki.org and in other public places that convey a different message: "These are our current thoughts; how can we make this better? What problems do you anticipate with these ideas? Can you suggest any alternatives?". This attitude of publishing edicts on design or features engenders yet more hostility and distrust of the Foundation.
For every change, there must be appropriate planning for Wikimedia's needs. This means asking the editing community what the pain-points are going to be and figuring out ways to solve these early on in the design phase. Building an entire tool without any anti-abuse features is no longer acceptable. Abuse is a known fact with any tool and must be taken into account; only "really wiki" features (based on wikitext in wiki pages rather than JavaScript and database injections) can rely on the normal self-healing features of wikis. For some (though not all) features, an opt-out option must also be provided. And probably most importantly, the features must be integrated into the wiki.
Take a deep breath
The good news is that, despite the somewhat bleak picture painted in this piece, the Foundation does finally seem to recognize some of the big, scary, and difficult problems editors are facing. These problems are now receiving attention and resources. But there's the question of follow-through: Will the Foundation continue to abandon software behemoths? Will VisualEditor be the next LiquidThreads, and Wikidata the next FlaggedRevs?
To its credit, the Foundation has been snapping up every available Wikimedian with an interest in this area of work. A number of trusted and respected Wikimedians now work for the Foundation, easing concerns that it's out of touch with the editing community. Even old hands such as James Forrester and Brion Vibber have now joined or rejoined the Foundation, signaling good forces at play.
There are a lot of smart and dedicated individuals both in the Wikimedia editing community and working for the Foundation who want to see good changes happen. MediaWiki is a classic jack of all trades, serving no project well, a few projects passably, and most projects poorly. But despite ill-fitting and antiquated software, Wikimedians have created amazing content. With better tools (such as a fully functional visual editor and a sane communications infrastructure), there will be even better content. The Foundation understands this; the question is whether we'll see the fruits of its labors. Wikimedians need to remain vigilant about how resources are used, and they need to question the Foundation's output. There needs to be more dialogue and engagement between the community and the Foundation.
Further reading
- m:Editor engagement – an essay on editor engagement
- m:Experiments – a guiding document about the use of experiments on Wikimedia wikis
- Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-08-06/Op-ed – a piece by Foundation staffer Brandon Harris discussing his views on future Wikimedia features development and engineering
- 2012-13 engineering goals (and associated talk page; also commented by Erik Möller below)
Reader comments
Core content competition in full swing; Wikinews fork taken offline
Core contest enters final 10 days
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| The first prize in the previous core contest was won by Guettarda for improving Ecology. The topic involves the full scale of life, from tiny bacteria to processes that span the entire planet. Ecologists study many diverse and complex relations among species, such as predation and pollination. |
The Core Contest is a month-long competition among editors to improve Wikipedia's most important "core" articles—especially those that are in a relatively poor state. Core articles, such as Music, Computer, and Philosophy, tend to lie in the trunk of the tree of knowledge; by analogy, featured-and good-article processes generally attract more specialist topics out on the branches. Casliber, the main organiser of the contest, told the Signpost that "core articles present particular challenges in their broad scope, conceptual difficulties, and the balancing of comprehensiveness with Wikipedia's limits on article size." Nevertheless, he says, core articles are an essential part of an encyclopedia, are popular with readers, and serve as launchpads to more specific articles."
The first core contest ran for two weeks in late 2007, and the second for three weeks in March this year. For the March contest, Wikimedia UK kindly donated £250 in Amazon vouchers, which were shared by six editors. The first prize went to Ecosystem, improved by Guettarda, and the second prize to Ealdgyth, for Middle Ages. We asked Ealdgyth what problems she faced in improving an article on such a huge topic:
The biggest challenge was figuring out what not to include. Unlike most of my articles, where I start with nothing much more than a stub, there was already a pretty substantial article at Middle Ages; so I had to verify that information and cull out large chunks of unduly weighted information—for example, there was an extensive discussion of Hungarian late medieval history that was clearly unbalanced in the context of the article.
Balancing and weighting is always difficult on a big topic. No matter what you do, someone has a pet theory that they want included! In this case, I had to negotiate whether—contrary to most sources, which consider the Middle Ages a purely European subject—the article should cover the whole world.
The referencing I deployed on Middle Ages is a bit different from what I'd normally use: I went with much broader and less specialized works; so instead of journal articles and monographs, I used a lot of college textbooks and wide-scope histories. This helped to keep the balance and focus of the article on the broad sweep, instead of the minutiae of the various subtopics that are, anyway, better covered by daughter articles.
The original 2007 contest focused on producing new articles; consistent with the maturing of the English Wikipedia, this year's contests instead reward the improvement of existing articles rather than the creation of new ones, with a priority to lift the standards of articles in poor shape. The current event started on 1 August and will finish 31 August, Saturday week. It was felt that four weeks would lead to a more inclusive event, which seems to have been confirmed by increased participation: with a week and a half to go, 18 nominations in the running, up from 10 in March. The UK chapter has again funded the prizes.
Casliber told us that it's definitely not too late to enter, provided new nominators are willing to put in a bit of time: the judges want to choose from as many eligible items as possible. Editors select from lists of vital or core articles, although if they give an acceptable rationale they're welcome to nominate a broad or important article outside these two lists. A priority is to improve those core articles in the worst state of disrepair.
After the close of the contest, a panel of judges—Casliber (talk · contribs), Brianboulton (talk · contribs), Steven Walling (talk · contribs), and Binksternet (talk · contribs)—will weigh up the improvements made and the "core-ness" of the article, to determine the "best additive encyclopedic value" to Wikipedia. The judges and other editors are already providing feedback on the wide range of articles represented among the entries, which include Sculpture (entered just three days ago), Transport, Marie Curie, Language, Alps, and Indian subcontinent. Signpost readers are encouraged either to consider making a late run for the gate or to contribute helpful feedback for contestants.
The winners and prizes will be announced in September. For editors who would like to enter the competition, the rules are on the main page of the contest.
Wikinews fork OpenGlobe folds
OpenGlobe, a fork of Wikinews started last September (see Signpost coverage: 12 September, 19 September), has gone offline.
OpenGlobe was forked from Wikinews (WN) by several contributors who felt that the approval process on WN was needlessly complicated and bureaucratic. With a host (TechEssentials) ready to take them on, they made the final decision to depart in September 2011. The project's founder, Tempodivalse, told the Signpost that the first few months of OpenGlobe went very well.
Yet, the success belied a fatal flaw: a previous Signpost report put the number of active OpenGlobe users at nine, so losing any of them would have been a major blow. As such, the site ran into difficulty when real-life pressures after the new year forced a few contributors to stop writing. The authors left were unable to match a similar level of productivity: the number of contributors and stories published declined over the next several months until there were just two to three active authors.
This may not have been the project's death knell if OpenGlobe had been a typical wiki project, but Tempodivalse notes:
If we were running a project that wasn't so time-sensitive this wouldn't have been as big a problem. But a news site must have a constant stream of articles to present, or it will lose relevance rapidly. When only a few editors are available, the pressure intensifies to keep news coverage fresh, and burn-out is likely since you just can't be publishing stuff all the time – kind of a vicious cycle. I suspect that's what happened here.
With hardly any new content coming in, there was little incentive to donate to keep the project running. OpenGlobe could not meet its financial obligations to TechEssentials by March, and the consequent conflicts and stress drove all of the remaining contributors off the project. The site was finally taken offline last week.
In brief
- Arbitration report: The Arbitration Committee continues to have no open or pending cases before it.
- User:Prioryman withdrew the Youreallycan request for arbitration upon the successful conclusion of the request for comment on Youreallycan's conduct.
- Two requests for arbitration: 'Featured article process' is a conduct dispute between individuals belonging to two roughly defined factions within the featured article process, while 'Men's rights, WP:TITLE, User:KillerChihuahua' is a dispute over the title of Men's rights movement and whether using the request for comment process for a move was proper (as opposed to the standard requested moves).
- Other requests: there are three requests (clarification, amendment and discretionary appeal) into the The Troubles and one request for amendment into the controversial Race and intelligence case. Motions have been posted pending arbitrator voting.
- Signpost Android app: The first-release candidate of a Signpost Android app is free for download. See this week's Technology report for more information.
- New administrator: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's new administrator Ekabhishek (RfA). Ekabhishek has been a Wikipedia editor since 2008 and has more than 106,000 edits, with a remarkable 88% of them in article space. He concentrates on historical and cinematic topics from India.
- Milestone: The Macedonian Wikipedia has reached 60,000 articles. Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by 2–3 million people. It uses a similar Cyrillic script to Russian.
Reader comments
American judges on citing Wikipedia
Wikipedia is "tough to beat" for vernacular language
In the Utah Court of Appeals this week, the majority opinion in Fire Insurance Exchange v. Robert Allen Oltmanns and Brady Blackner relied on Wikipedia for the basic premise of their legal opinion, and included a concurring opinion devoted solely to the issue of citing Wikipedia in a legal opinion.
The Signpost covered the beginning of this trend in a UK court case in 2006, and further cases in 2007. The latter was prompted by a New York Times article that year by Noam Cohen, a frequent contributor to its Wikipedia-related stories. At the time, Cohen reported that more than 100 American court cases had cited Wikipedia, including 13 from the federal appeals courts (as distinct from American state appeals courts, within each of the states). Why did the judiciary choose to cite Wikipedia? Cohen quoted Stephen Gillers of the New York University Law School as saying that the most critical factor is public acceptance, including acceptance by the litigants: "A judge should not use Wikipedia when the public is not prepared to accept it as authority." Cohen elaborated:
For now, Professor Gillers said, Wikipedia is best used for 'soft facts' that are not central to the reasoning of a decision. All of which leads to the question, if a fact isn’t central to a judge’s ruling, why include it? "Because you want your opinion to be readable," said Professor Gillers. "You want to apply context. Judges will try to set the stage. There are background facts. You don’t have to include them. They are not determinative. But they help the reader appreciate the context." He added, "The higher the court the more you want to do it. Why do judges cite Shakespeare or Kafka?"
By 2008, the number of American court cases that cited Wikipedia had quadrupled, prompting commentary from Professor Lee Peoples, who concluded in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology that much caution is needed in citing Wikipedia because of web-page fluidity and the multiple issues inherent in a page freely editable by anyone; but in his view, it could be acceptable in "in some limited situations for defining slang terms and for getting a sense of a term's common usage." (more below)
The practice has continued. This week, the Utah Court of Appeals issued a 12-page ruling in Fire Insurance Exchange v. Robert Allen Oltmanns and Brady Blackner—which included a five-page concurring opinion from Judge J. Frederic Voros, Jr. specifically dedicated to the issue of citing Wikipedia in law decisions.
Voros quoted extensively from Peoples' 2008 study. Voros recognized the problem of Wikipedia's fluidity and quoted Peoples' study: without "a date- and time-specific citation, researchers who pull up a Wikipedia entry cited in a judicial opinion will never be absolutely certain they are viewing the entry as it existed when the judge viewed it. ... This may ultimately lead to uncertainty and instability in the law." He also touched on the divide in the judicial sector over whether to cite Wikipedia or not, saying that "citing Wikipedia is as controversial as it is common", before moving into a justification for a significant citation to Wikipedia in this case.
Voros relied heavily on Peoples in crafting this portion of his opinion, noting Peoples' "bright line rules" for not citing Wikipedia in a judicial opinion, including technical or scientific terminology. He based his defense of the citation in the specific definition needed—the common meaning of "jet ski". Fire Insurance Exchange's (FIE's) insurance policy noted that it would not cover injuries that result from "the ownership, maintenance, use, loading or unloading of aircraft, motor vehicles, jet skis and jet sleds", or various specified types of watercraft.
So the lawsuit alleged that FIE did not have to compensate Oltmann and Blackner for the injuries they suffered on their personal watercraft because "jet ski" applied to any watercraft of that type. Oltmann and Blackner disagreed. Wikipedia enters the picture when "vernacular or colloquial is key to the resolution of a case"; the judges found that "Wikipedia is tough to beat" in this area. However, this was set against a scenario where a smart individual would want to "avoid a surgeon who bases his or her understanding of complicated medical procedures on an online source whose contributors range from expert scholars to internet trolls."
Voros went deeper, saying that Peoples' endorsement of "turn[ing] to Wikipedia entries for evidence of the common usage or ordinary and plain meaning of a contract term", along with similar cases that cited Wikipedia, is proof enough that a Wikipedia citation is appropriate: "Whatever its shortcomings in other contexts, for this task, an open-source encyclopedia with many editors and millions of readers seems just the ticket."
In brief
- Systemic and gender biases examined: The Independent (UK) published "What has Wikipedia’s army of volunteer editors got against Kate Middleton’s wedding gown?" on 16 August, focusing on the links between Wikipedia's gender gap and systemic bias in its content.
Reader comments
Enough for a week – but I'm damned if I see how the helican.
Featured articles
Thirteen featured articles were promoted this week:
- Pedro I of Brazil (nom) by Astynax, Lecen, and DrKiernan. Pedro I (1798–1834) was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil. Raised in Portugal, he and his family went to Brazil following a French invasion. In 1820 he was made regent of Brazil, and he declared the country's independence in 1822. During his reign as emperor, he quashed numerous uprisings and spent a period as monarch of both Brazil and Portugal but abdicated in 1831.
- Dorset (nom) by Ykraps. The English ceremonial county of Dorset has a long history of human settlement. It is mostly rural, with roughly half its population in the South East Dorset conurbation. The county's varied landscape covers 2,653 square kilometres (1,024 sq mi), over half of which has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The county is accessed by railways, ports, an international airport, and numerous A-roads.
- ? (film) (nom) by Crisco 1492. ? is a 2011 Indonesian drama directed by Hanung Bramantyo which follows the interactions between families of different religious backgrounds in Semarang. Meant to counter the portrayal of Islam as a "radical religion", the director had difficulty finding sponsors owing to the film's pluralist nature; this pluralist message later led to protests against ?. The film was a critical and commercial success.
- Joseph B. Foraker (nom) by Wehwalt. Governor of Ohio (1886–1890) and senator from that state (1897–1909), Foraker was a Republican who was a political rival of William McKinley and Mark Hanna, and who lost re-election as senator after opposing President Theodore Roosevelt when Roosevelt dismissed over 150 black soldiers from the Army without any hearing in the Brownsville Affair.
- Olmec colossal heads (nom) by Simon Burchell. The Olmec colossal heads consist of at least seventeen monumental stone representations of human male heads sculpted from large basalt boulders. Distinctive feature of the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica, they date back to 900 BC and have physical attributes similar to the inhabitants of Tabasco and Veracruz. There are 17 confirmed examples, from four different sites.
- Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, 1860 (nom) by Bencherlite. The hotly contested election for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford in Britain was between two men with different approaches to Sanskrit scholarship; Monier Williams viewed it as a way to help convert India to Christianity, while his competitor Max Müller viewed the discipline as an end in itself. Williams won, in what proved to be the last election for the position.
- HMS Bellerophon (1786) (nom) by Benea. HMS Bellerophon was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy completed by 1787. She saw three fleet actions in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, narrowly escaping capture during the First Battle of Groix before hosting Napoleon's surrender in 1815. Bellerophon spent the rest of her career as a prison ship before being broken up in 1836.
- McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in Australian service (nom) by Nick-D. The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) has operated McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft since 1984, having purchased 75 Hornets in 1981. The aircraft have only seen combat in one war, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, although they have been used for providing security. Currently 71 remain in service, but they are to be phased out in the late 2010s.
- California State Route 57 (nom) by Rschen7754. State Route 57 is a north–south state highway in the Greater Los Angeles Area of California, United States. The freeway was built in the 1950s, partly over a previously existing road, and connects the interchange of Interstate 5 and SR 22 near downtown Orange to the Glendora Curve interchange with I-210 and SR 210 in Glendora.
- Muckaty Station (nom) by Hamiltonstone. Muckaty Station is an Aboriginal freehold landholding in Australia's Northern Territory. Originally under Aboriginal ownership it changed hands several times over the 20th century before being returned to its Indigenous custodians in 1999. The area has a sub-tropical climate and is often arid, with mostly scrubland vegetation. The station has controversially come under consideration for radioactive waste storage.
- Typhoon Chataan (nom) by Hurricanehink. Chataan, a 2002 typhoon, was the deadliest natural disaster in the history of Chuuk, Micronesia; it also hit Guam, Rota, and Japan. The storm produced floods which caused deadly landslides in Chuuk that killed 47 people; a further seven were killed in other areas, with one missing. Damage from Chataan exceeded $660 million, most of it in Japan.
- Reginald Heber (nom) by Brianboulton. Heber (1783–1826) was an English clergyman, man of letters and hymn-writer who served as the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta. After gaining an early reputation as a poet, he was ordained in 1807 and spent 16 years as a parish priest. In 1823 he was sent to Calcutta to serve as bishop, where a combination of the tropical climate and his arduous duties led to his sudden death.
- Pelican (nom) by Casliber, Maias, MeegsC, and Jimfbleak. Pelicans are a genus of large water birds comprising the family Pelecanidae, characterised by a long beak and large throat-pouch. They have a fossil record dating back at least 30 million years and are most closely related to the Shoebill and Hammerkop. These fish-feeders have a patchy relationship with humans: the birds are sometimes persecuted and sometimes feature in mythology.
Featured lists
Nine featured lists were promoted this week:
- List of video games featuring The Simpsons (nom) by Status. The Simpsons have featured in 26 titles since their series debuted in 1991. These games have occupied many genres, including puzzle, action, and race games. The most recent release is 2012's Tapped Out.
- Nebula Award for Best Short Story (nom) by PresN. The Nebula Award for Best Short Story is given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for the best story under 7,500 words published in English in the United States in the preceding calendar year. The award was established in 1966.
- List of Texas hurricanes (1980–present) (nom) by TheAustinMan. At least 69 tropical or subtropical cyclones have affected the U.S. state of Texas since 1980. The most damaging of these caused $19.3 billion in damages and 84 deaths. The most active month for storms is in September, which accounts for almost a third of the total hurricanes.
- List of Rosenborg BK seasons (nom) by Arsenikk. The associated football club Rosenborg Ballklubb of Trondheim, Norway, first played in 1928. The team have won numerous league titles, fourteen of them under manager Nils Arne Eggen, and ranked first numerous times.
- Timeline of the far future (nom) by RJHall, Spacepotato, Joe Kress, Arthur Rubin, and Serendipodous. Although predicting the future is full of uncertainty, scientists have provided a broad outline of events that will occur more than 8,000 years from the present; these include astronomical, mathematical, cultural, and geological ones.
- Grade I listed churches in Greater Manchester (nom) by Peter I. Vardy. The English metropolitan county of Greater Manchester is home to 22 Grade I listed churches. Most are of either Gothic or Gothic revival style, with few listed churches having been built in between the eras.
- List of songs recorded by Leona Lewis (nom) by Calvin999. The British singer-cum-songwriter Leona Lewis has recorded more than 50 songs since her first demo album in 2004. Several of these have featured on film soundtracks, and one of her songs blends Italian and English. She has also collaborated with numerous artists.
- List of Top Pops number-one singles (nom) by ChrisTheDude and Rambo's Revenge. The British music newspaper Top Pops noted 55 number-one singles in the three years it was published, beginning with Gary Puckett & The Union Gap's "Young Girl". Songs on this chart are not all recognised as number-one singles by the official national charts.
- CZW World Junior Heavyweight Championship (nom) by Wrestlinglover. The CZW World Junior Heavyweight Championship is a professional wrestling junior heavyweight championship owned by the Combat Zone Wrestling promotion. There have been 37 reigns shared among 26 wrestlers since the championship made its debut in 1999.
Featured pictures
Three featured pictures were promoted this week:
- Mandelbulb fractal (nom; related article), created by Ondřej Karlík and nominated by Vegard. The Mandelbulb is a three-dimensional analogue of the Mandelbrot set. According to reviewer Diliff, this one resembles a fungus.
- Mosque of Ibn Tulun (nom; related article), created by Berthold Werner and nominated by Elekhh. The Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Ţūlūn in Cairo is the largest mosque in the city and one of the oldest to survive in its original form. It dates back to the 9th century.
- Map of the Battle of Tinian (nom; related article) by Grandiose. The Battle of Tinian in World War II, fought on the island of Tinian in the Mariana Islands, occurred between Japanese and American forces. The Americans captured the island and later used it as a base.
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Reader comments
Lua onto test2wiki and news of a convention-al extension
Lua starts first high-profile testing phase
New embeddable scripting ("template replacement") language Lua received considerable scrutiny this week when it began its long road to widespread deployment, landing on the test2wiki test site on Wednesday (wikitech-l mailing list).
Specifically, under the direction of WMF lead platform architect Tim Starling, two extensions were deployed to test2wiki ahead of a deployment to MediaWiki.org in the near future: Extension:Scribunto, which acts as an interface between wikitext and a backend Lua interpreter, and Extension:CodeEditor, an extension that drastically improves the edit page for Lua modules.
In terms of design, several things have changed since Lua was first mentioned in the Signpost back in January this year, but the thrust is similar. If this first deployment is anything to go by, Lua integration will mean the creation a new module: namespace in which to host Lua scripts and the introduction of an {{#invoke:...|}} parser function. Communities will be expected to use only #invoke within template space in much the same way as they currently use other parser functions such as #if.
The gains are both potentially very significant – faster template load times, plus cleaner and more powerful template code – and are largely undisputed. Talks explaining Lua were well-received at both Berlin and Washington. The only criticism from developers was that Lua, while a step in the right direction, is not the perfect solution: Can Wikimedians really be expected to learn a whole new programming language? Should there not be a central repository of Lua scripts? Might Lua not be too simple to meet wikis' ever expanding templating requirements? For now, however, developers await with cautious optimism.
Google Summer of Code: the Convention extension
For the fourth in our series profiling participants in this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) programme, in which student developers are paid to contribute code to MediaWiki, the Signpost caught up with Akshay Chugh, a recent electronics and instrumentation graduate working out of the Indian city of Jaipur. Originally fascinated by user interface design, Akshay Chugh has more recently turned his attention to designing an extension that can turn a vanilla MediaWiki installation into one immediately suitable for use as a "convention" (for example, Wikimania) hub.
| “ |  As of now, the dashboard page (which is where an admin will spend all of their time while interacting with this extension) works as it should, and other essential functionality, including the author registration page, is good to go. At this point it still lacks some other features such as an account setup page, internationalisation/localisation support, and a payment gateway which will probably give this whole setup a lot more meaning. But overall, I would say I'm pretty content with the end result. Needless to say, some of the things I'd thought would be pretty straightforward and easy to implement didn't turn out to be. In particular, one of my goals with this extension was to make it as generic as possible to allow its users to customize it in whichever way they want. Hence the difficulty: every decision made and every step taken forward had to be done with a sense of being extensible and customizable. During the course of this project I haven't implemented many features with performance in mind, having said that I presume many of the difficulties and mind-boggling issues are yet to come in the weeks after GSoC. |
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In brief
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Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for several weeks.
- MediaWiki 1.20wmf10 begins deployment cycle: 1.20wmf10 – the tenth release to Wikimedia wikis from the 1.20 branch – was deployed to its first wikis on August 20 and will be deployed to all wikis by August 29. The release incorporates about 300 changes to the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia, comprising 146 "core" changes plus a similar number of patches for WMF-deployed extensions. Among the changes (the product of some 14 days of development time) are fixes for bugs #33037 ("Special:Newfiles treats its subpage parameter as a limit") and #12701 ("Use diff of all unseen revisions in the new messages bar"), plus enhancements for Special:Mostlinkedcategories and syntax highlighting.
- Signpost app undergoes first release candidate: The first release candidate for a new Signpost Android app was released this week by its developers, Yuvi Panda and Shankar Narayan. Although Panda is a former WMF mobile team member, both he and Narayan are developing the free-to-download and open-source app in their spare time; it already features a more comfortable interface than one would get accessing traditional Signpost pages from a mobile browser, and the ability to link up with any Facebook or Twitter apps loaded onto the device; it will also feature notifications of new issues, Panda reports; Panda will put out requests for possible testers to come forward (mobile-l mailing list). Similar positive news came this week from the team working on the Wiki Loves Monuments mobile app, which released the second beta from their 1.1 series (wikitech-l).
- Thread deletions prompt Mailman turmoil: Mailing-list software GNU Mailman's inability to handle anything other than sequentially numbered emails came to the fore this week after hundreds of links to previous messages appeared to break overnight, possibly with the added complication of archive corruption (wikitech-l). The problem was soon tracked to a series of message deletions undertaken on request by the WMF operations team. Despite efforts to undo the effect of the deletions on Mailman's numerically based index, as of time of writing, many links to /pipermail/-form URLs remain broken. The frequency and severity of such instances occurring in past months and years is unknown (recent editions of the "Technology report" are unaffected due to their use of an external mail archive system to provide permanent links).
- Mailman turmoil prompts code of conduct suggestion: The same mailing-list thread as with regards mailing-list archives also addressed the issue of the correct tone and style to adopt during public email exchanges. The discussion came after comments by wikitech-l veteran MZMcBride to WMF operations engineer Daniel Zahn (the staff member responsible for the mailing-list deletions) were picked out by other list members as being needlessly harsh and personalised. The response to the incident was mixed, with staff and volunteer developers airing a wide range of views, including the suggestion of a "code of conduct" for the mailing list; this suggestion has garnered significant support at the time of writing.
- EtherEditor undergoes stress test: Since the rise to prominence of collaborative note-taking system Etherpad, the allure of real-time collaborative editing with Wikimedia wikis has led several developers to try their hand at integrating its functionality into MediaWiki. Although not nearly production-ready, the stress-testing of WMF contractor Mark Traceur's EtherEditor passed off mostly successfully this week (wikitech-l), making it perhaps the most developed option on the table for MediaWiki system administrators.
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Land of Calm and Contrast: WikiProject Korea
- Check out the new WikiProject Westerns, which improves western films, TV series', actors and directors, writers and novels, comics, and many other related works
- The August Wikify Drive is underway – start wikifying and earn a barnstar for your efforts!
This week, we spent some time with WikiProject Korea. Started in September 2006, WikiProject Korea covers the history and culture of the Korean people, including both countries that currently occupy the Korean peninsula. This task has proven difficult with North Koreans notably absent from the Wikipedia community due to tight control over access to external media. The project is home to over 16,000 pages, including 15 pieces of Featured material and 66 Good and A-class Articles. Project members work on a to-do list, create requested articles, update articles that are missing Korean script, and maintain a variety of working groups. We interviewed Ed! and PeanutbutterjellyTaco (PBJT).
What motivated you to join WikiProject Korea?
- Ed!: I actually started out in MILHIST covering U.S. military units, and I slowly transitioned into the Korean War. Nowadays, I improve everything on that subject; battles, people, units, and events.
- PBJT: I'm from South Korea, so that was a part of the reason why I joined the project. Another reason was that modern Korean history is a very interesting topic: Korea used to be a land of Morning calm, which is the literal meaning of its old name Joseon(朝鮮), but now it became a land of Contrast. The North built a communist government, while the South pursued a free-market economy. This stark contrast can be summarized in an satellite image of Korean peninsular. While other parts of world is becoming more bright, North Korea is remained isolated.
- In social science, you rarely have a control group and experimental group. Interestingly, however, the two Koreas have been a control and experimental group in their race to modernization. And the South Koreans proved they were right. One of the misconception about Korea is that the South was always more prosperous Korea, and this was not the case in the beginning.
The project is home to 14 pieces of Featured content and over 60 Good Articles. Have you contributed to any of these articles? What are some challenges to improving articles about Korea to FA or GA status?
- Ed!: Of those on the list, I've done five of the Featured Articles and 26 of the Good Articles. Easily, the biggest challenge in Korea-related matters is the absolute lack of good sources pertaining to North Korea. I think my 766th Independent Infantry Regiment is the only North Korean topic ever to reach Featured Article level. On top of that, I don't speak Korean, so some of the better sources about South Korea are harder to track down. At the same time, It's been great collaborating with other Wikipedians who speak the language.
Does the division of the Korean peninsula into two countries impact Wikipedia's coverage of Korean topics? Are there any disagreements that arise from nationalistic or cultural differences between the North and South?
- Ed!: Well, the problem is that no one is here to offer a North Korean viewpoint. I've noticed a lot of people who edit Korea-related subject matter are South Koreans who are inclined to a negative view of their northern neighbor. Not that they're vandals or anything, it's just that you really only have one side trying to tell the whole story in the most fair way possible; there's bound to be a systematic bias.
- PBJT: Like ED! pointed out, almost no one from the North is contributing to the project. North Korean government strictly control the Internet access, and very few selected elite can have one. That being said, it's true that North Korean perspectives are under-represented in Wikipedia.
- That doesn't mean that we have a lack of disagreement: There is a division between the South Korean liberals and conservatives on how to approach the North. It is one of the key issues which divides the South Korean society. People who favor more friendly relations with the North would opposed to opening the domestic market, and believe that the South should strengthen the ties with China, not the United States. On the other hand, People who favor more stern measures toward the North is more likely to be a strong proponent of Free trade, especially the one with the U.S. This division is deep, and you could find it in every aspect of South Korean politics.
Are there any areas of Korean biography, culture, geography, politics, or business that are better covered than other areas? What topics could use some expansion?
- Ed!: Absolutely. Just about everything North Korea related could use expansion, and it seems that recent coverage of North Korea has overwhelmingly favored its leaders and human rights violations, as opposed to its culture and historic figures. Some of this is, of course, related to the political situation, but there are plenty of topics that need coverage. As for South Korea, its lifestyle and politics today are very interesting and its history is engaging, but once again the majority of the Featured and Good Content is related to the war.
- PBJT: South Korean pop culture articles are better covered than other topics, and WP Korea, pop culture is one of the most active working group within the project. One South Korean band attracted as many contributors as their country of origin, which is somewhat surprising. Many biography, geography and politics pages are at stub or start class, and we need more Wikipedian's participation in those areas. But, Korean movie and music industry is still lacking the ability to make more people genuinely interested in Korea-related topics yet.
The project has a variety of working groups. Have you been involved in any of these initiatives? Do these working groups collaborate with any other projects for which there is some overlap in subject area?
- Ed!: The Korean Military History working group is less active, so WP:MILHIST has handled all of the A-class reviews and peer reviews, and they've done quite a fine job of that.
- PBJT: I'm participating South Korean politics working group, and we don't have many members yet. One of our long-term goal is creating most of the National Assembly member's biography, and it will overlap with WP Biography.
- As for the Human rights in North Korea, WP Human right's active involvement would be helpful. Some of articles about North Korean defectors, like Shin Dong-hyuk could potentially be an "Good article" since we have reliable sources.
What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new contributor help today?
- Ed!: I hate to be nonspecific, but just about everything, really. Both Koreas have numerous art, cuisine, entertainment, geography, and politics related articles that need attention. I might add that many of the political articles dealing with politicians and international relations are in decent shape, and a lot of B-class articles show potential, if you're looking for low-hanging fruit.
- PBJT: There are not many Wikipedians who can review Korea-related articles, thus many errors are included without proof-checking. In one case, I found mis-translation of a Korean vocabulary which was added years ago and no one questioned about it. In another instance, I spotted a very unlikely Korean last name in Hanja for an actress. I'm not a experienced Wikipedian, but during a short period of time I found some obvious mistakes.
- With millions of people actively contributing to Wikipedia, this encyclopedia is mostly free from factual errors. If more people could pay attention to WP Korea, then the project will be in much better shape.
Anything else you'd like to add?
- Ed!: Thanks for writing about us!
Next week, we'll get caught in some wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. In the meantime, you'll find that our archive is bigger on the inside.
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