Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record and has caused millions of dollars in damage. Naturally, Wikipedia covered it.
The page was created on 23 October as a brief stub detailing the newest tropical storm of the season. Over the following days, the page evolved and was retitled to reflect its upgraded status as a hurricane. Kennvido (Ken Mampel) quickly became the top contributor to the article. This in itself would not be worthy of reporting, but Mampel's interview in Popular Science with reporter Dan Nosowitz has caused controversy.
In the interview, he claims to have single-handedly kept any mention of the possible influence of climate change on Sandy's strength out of the article:
"Someone did put [climate change] in," [Mampel] told me [Dan Nosowitz] via email on the night of November 1st. "I took it out stating not proven. They put it in again. This time someone else took it out before I even saw it...warned the person...and it never was put in again." When I mentioned that many reputable scientists and publications have pointed out the connection, he said, "It's still in debate in the world community Dan ... even if EnviroGore thinks there is no need for debate."
The article unfairly focuses on Mampel's personal life, and certainly tries to paint him in a negative light, with an unflattering picture, posting many of the asides in his emails to Nosowitz, and focusing on his current employment status. As commenter Thyork noted, the article seemed like an "attack ad" and it seemed "as though you are begging your more extreme readers to [harass] the man."
With regards to the Wikipedia article, Nosowitz believed that the "problem" of excluding climate change would eventually be addressed, and this much has proved true. Mampel was blocked for 24 hours for edit warring related to the topic of climate change, and the article now includes a "Possible relation to global warming" section. The basic premise, though—that one editor was able to keep out any mention of an important part of a major article—is valid and has raised many questions about the true nature of collaborative editing on Wikipedia. As Nosowitz said in closing his article: "for days, the [I]nternet's most authoritative article on a major tropical storm system in 2012 was written by a man with no meteorological training who thinks climate change is unproven and fought to remove any mention of it."
In brief
Film distributor complains about spoilers: After plot details of the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, leaked online after its European release (but before its release in the United States), the film's distributor, Sony, stated that "on a crowd sourced site like Wikipedia, it is difficult to police spoilers after a film has opened." The Signpost notes that this may be an insurmountable problem while films continue to be released on separate dates.
Small problem with license plate: A 26-year-old US man in Florida was arrested for driving recklessly and having false registration—his motorcycle's license plate was a cardboard printout of an image found on Wikipedia.
Opera, Sex, and Wikipedia: The Independentreports that a new opera, written by Toni Castells, is set to begin in London. Titled Light from Life, it takes its words from the Wikipedia articles sexual intercourse and family planning. The concept is far from new: the New York Times featured an op-doc in July ("Allergy to Originality") remarking on the rarity of true originality in literature and film.
Wikimedia Labs now hosts 137 projects (up 6), has seen 268 instances created (up 27) and has 694 registered users (up 61).
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—Adapted from Engineering metrics, Wikimedia blog
The Wikimedia Foundation's engineering report for October 2012 was published this week on the Wikimedia Techblog and on the MediaWiki wiki, giving an overview of all Foundation-sponsored technical operations in that month (as well as brief coverage of progress on Wikimedia Deutschland's Wikidata project, phase 1 of which will soon be trialled on the Hungarian Wikipedia). Of the three headlines picked out for the report, two (the redesign of the mobile site "emphasizing readability and navigation" and the launch of a Wikipedia app for Windows RT and Windows 8 tablets) have already received Signpost coverage. The third drew attention to a proposed redesign on the signup page.
There was news that Parsoid, the new JavaScript-based parser due to be released in December, can "round trip" wikitext to HTML and back perfectly on 75% of a sample of 100,000 pages, does the same imperfectly but without great fault in a further 18%, and chokes on 7%. Parsoid will form the basis for the new Visual Editor and it will be rewritten in C++ to improve its performance. Likewise, there was news of improvements to both the "Page curation" and "Article Feedback" projects; version 5 of the latter is expected to go live on all English Wikipedia articles later this year. The "Wiki Loves Monuments" app was wound down during October, while the most cryptic update came from the WMF's Analytics team, who reported that they had worked on "puppetizing ... Hue, Sqoop, Oozie, Zookeeper, Hive, Pig [and] Kafka", all of which are services that help with distributed, large scale number crunching.
Because only six mentors signed up to help with the Wikimedia Foundation's provisional Google Code-In programme—far fewer than the necessary number of approximately twenty-one—the Wikimedia Foundation has decided not to participate. (mailing list). "I know this disappoints some of you; we do want to encourage new participants, and we want some structured mentorship that isn't just Google Summer of Code," wrote WMF Engineering Community Manager Sumana Harihareswara, adding that she would "start a new thread about a more suitable program for us to participate in." The later thread referred to recognised that the Foundation (on behalf of MediaWiki generally) would still like to participate in a separate Outreach Program for Women, a FOSS outreach program to offer paid internships to women to work on our open source projects (mailing list). Applicants and mentors are welcome.
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 several weeks. Though there is no poll this week, last week's question (about the utility of videos) is still open for opinions.
TimedMediaHandler goes live: As previewed in last week's "Technology report", the TimedMediaHandler extension (which overhauls MediaWiki's video handling capabilities) finally went live to a production wiki this week in the shape of the English Wikipedia. Given that this initial deployment proved successful, the extension will almost certainly go live on Wikimedia Commons next week, followed by other smaller wikis later in the month.
GitHub replication: Replication of Gerrit repositories containing code from MediaWiki extensions to popular alternative code-hosting site GitHub has now successfully been set up under the account "wikimedia". There was another account "mediawiki" in the past which has been closed to avoid confusion and duplication (mailing list). Code from extensions joins so-called "core" MediaWiki code on the site, which began replicating last month. As with core code, the service is still read-only and a way to transfer contributions on GitHub back to Gerrit is still being worked on.
It was a bad week for the JobQueueBad week for the job queue: There were problems this week with the Wikimedia job queue, which handles delayed processing tasks such as updating category membership lists. The problems are now thought to be resolved.
WMF hires: Steven Bernardin joined the Operations team as Data Center Technician, working in the Tampa, Florida data center (no announcement was made but it was mentioned in this month's engineering report, summarised above). Although Tampa has long been the Foundation's primary data centre, its alternative facility in Ashburn, Virginia has been scheduled to take over that role for the last year (though it has not done so yet due to unforeseen difficulties).
The photo of ruins of the 13th-century medieval Catholic church of Arač (Aracs) near Novi Bečej is among the finalists submitted by Serbia.
WLM update
The gate of the public gardens in Halifax, Canada's submission to the 2nd international jury round.The Larabanga Mosque in the west African country of Ghana was among its top ten.The Scorpions Pass, a steep, twisted section of Route 227 came third in Israel's competition.Mount Rainier, a natural monument finalist from the US.The interior of a mill in Huaco, among the Argentine finalists.
The results of most of the national heats for Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) have been published on Commons. WLM is the movement's international photographic competition, which was conducted throughout the month of September. A maximum of 10 images have been submitted by all but eight of the 34 participating countries, and the international jury for what is the largest competition of its type in the world is set to announce the global winner in four weeks' time.
In numerical terms, Poland submitted the highest number, with more than 51,000 files, over Spain, which could not hold its early lead, ending with 39,500. Germany came third with 34,000, and Ukraine fourth, with 33,000. France made the fifth place with 27,000. The US, with 22,000, fell short of the 50,000 Smallbones had hoped for in September, gaining sixth place.
Qualitatively, WLM 2012 has generated more than 1000 quality images on Commons so far. Eighteen photos have already been recognised as featured pictures and 15 as valued pictures. Nearly 2400 submissions are competing for the GLAM prize hosted by Europeana, the meta-aggregator and display space for European digitised works, funded by the European Commission.
The event appears to have succeeded resoundingly in the aim of attracting new editors. The WMF's new editor report stats show Commons jumping from about 1,100 to 4,800 new editors over the competition month, outflanking last year's European-wide competition (2,400 new editors). However, whether the flood of new editors translates into permanent contributors and how the new apps fit into the picture remain to be seen. Last year roughly 70% of the 5,000 participants made their first edit during the competition month and more than 90% of respondents in a subsequent survey said they would be likely to take part in another round.
The global jury is expected to announce its verdict at the end of November or in early December. All national finalists are displayed on Commons.
Brief notes
Wikivoyage launch: The beta-launch of Wikivoyage, Wikimedia's new travel guide project, is expected for the second week of November. The vote to select a new logo for the project on Meta is set to close on 15 November at 23:59 GMT. Meanwhile, the legal disputedrags on with the Wikimedia Foundation filing its opposition to the demurrer filed by Internet Brands .
WMF metrics meeting: The monthly metrics meeting of the Wikimedia Foundation, informing staff and community about the organisation's activities across the departments, has been held live on YouTube for the first time; the recorded session can be found on Commons. It includes an update from the Wikimedia Germany team that has been working on Wikidata. The WMF's written monthly report also has been published.
Chapters Association votes: On 30 October, the vote among chapter representatives whether to adopt a resolution accepting financial and organizational aid by Wikimedia Germany in finding a secretary-general, a role the German organisation's departing chairman applied for in July, ended with 5 ayes to 9 nays. The ongoing vote on office location, currently 6 ayes to 7 nays, will close on 5 November.
WMF board resolutions published: Resolutions approved by the WMF trustees during their meeting last month have been published and can be found on the foundation's wiki.
Editor survey launched: On 31 October, the annual WMF survey of Wikimedia editors has been launched. The design, largely resembling last year's survey to ensure comparability, can be discussed on the meta:feedback page on Meta.
German court rules on Wikipedia product placement: The Oberlandesgericht in Munich has ruled that companies using Wikipedia for product placement, which harms their competitors unfairly and by being non-transparent on their editorial conflict of interest, are violating German competition laws (§ 4 Nr. 3 UWG).
WMF tech department restructuring: The WMF's engineering and product department's structure is under review, with the aim of strengthening its focus on core activities. Erik Möller, the WMF's vice president in charge of the department, has started an open conversation on the issue by outlining a proposal to split the current department into two – one focusing on engineering and the other on products closer to the editing community.
J Milburn is a British editor who has been on the site since 2006. He is one of two judges of the WikiCup.
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.
Congratulations to Cwmhiraeth, our 2012 WikiCup champion!
On 31 October, the 2012 WikiCup drew to a close, leaving Cwmhiraeth (talk·contribs), flying the Welsh flag, the final champion. In second place was Sasata (talk·contribs), representing Canada, and in third Grapple X (talk·contribs), of the Gaelic League. The competition has been ongoing for 10 months, with over 100 participants. In that time, competitors (with fewer every round, as lower scorers were eliminated) have been responsible for dozens of featured articles and lists, hundreds of good articles and good article reviews and over 1000 did you knows.
The WikiCup is an annual competition run on the English Wikipedia which is now in its sixth year. Every year, participants compete for a number of rounds in order to be crowned WikiCup champion. Points are gained based on contributions; for instance, a did you know credit will grant a user 10 points, while a featured article credit will give them 100 points. Featured pictures, portals, topics and lists are also eligible for points, as are in the news articles, good articles, good topics and good article reviews. Finally, bonus points are awarded for high importance articles, judged (primarily) on the basis of the number of interwiki links an article possessed at the beginning of the year. For instance, twice as many points would be awarded for any work on the article brown trout than they would be for Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout; a highly significant topic like fish would be awarded more still. Each participant flies a flag of a country, state, or something akin, be they their own, a location they feel close to or just one with a flag they like.
The WikiCup has progressed from its humble beginnings in 2007. For the first two years, it was run as a knock-out competition in the userspace, primarily focused upon scoring high edit-counts. In 2009, Foxj (talk·contribs) and the now-retired iMatthew (talk·contribs) took over "judging" the competition. Though the title "judge" is used, the users who run the competition do little actual judging, and act more as administrators, occasionally providing a neutral and somewhat authoritative voice in disputes, and keeping an eye on submissions to ensure the spirit of the rules is being respected. 2009's competition still saw points for non-automated mainspace edits, but the focus was shifted to audited content, where it has remained since. J Milburn (talk·contribs) joined the judging team half-way through the competition, and has remained involved since. The competition's final winner was Durova (talk·contribs), who flew the Mexican flag. Durova won primarily due to the large number of historic pictures she restored and sent through featured picture candidates.
Edit counts were excluded in the 2010 competition, and The ed17 (talk·contribs) became a judge. That year saw 150 participants, dwarfing the 60 of 2009. It also saw the highest ever scores, after a highly competitive final round. Sturmvogel 66 (talk·contribs) was the eventual champion, who won based on a large number of articles about warships, an area in which a lot of WikiCup participants have been active.
The 2011 competition opened with the current judging team, J Milburn and The ed17. Also involved in the administration of the competition was Jarry1250 (talk·contribs), who runs the WikiCup bot (for calculating scores and updating the leaderboard). 2011 introduced bonus points for high-importance articles. Though there were slightly lower participation than in 2010, the numbers still dwarfed the 2008 and earlier competitions. Hurricanehink (talk·contribs) was the eventual winner, focusing, as his name suggests, on meteorology, another area popular among WikiCup participants.
What happened this year?
Lettuce. Dana Boomer began working on the article as part of the The Core Contest before bring it to featured status during her WikiCup participation.William the Conqueror (centre). One of several high-importance articles from Ealdgyth, the article on William the Conqueror is now featured.Yosemite National Park, a featured picture by Grandiose.
This year, the rules were adjusted to make bonus points more attractive to participants, and encourage the improvement of high-importance articles. Cwmhiraeth, the competition's winner, scored massive numbers of points for her work on high-importance articles, including, but not limited to, the featured articles frog and common toad, and the good articles sugar, amphibian, and starfish. This is despite not realising that the good article and featured article processes existed when she joined the competition at the beginning of the year. In her own words, she "benefited much during the year from others involved in the Cup", collaborating with fourth-place Casliber and receiving guidance and reviews from second-place Sasata, both WikiCup veterans, and biology editors with long lists of featured article credits.
The final 8 included a mix of WikiCup veterans (such as Sasata and Casliber) and people new to the competition (such as Cwmhiraeth and Dana Boomer). No Wikipedian specialising in meteorology or military history made the final this year, despite previous strong showings, though this year saw our first biology writer in first place. Television and sport are two subject areas which often have high scorers, but neither has yet seen a victory. Grapple X came first most rounds this year, but was beaten out in the highly competitive final. He did, however, receive two other awards:
Grapple X (talk·contribs) received prizes for his high contribution of featured articles, good articles and topics.
Cwmhiraeth (talk·contribs) received prizes for her high contribution of did you knows and high-importance articles.
Grandiose (talk·contribs) received prizes for his high contribution of featured pictures and good article reviews.
Muboshgu (talk·contribs) received a prize for his high contribution of featured lists.
ThaddeusB (talk·contribs) received a prize for his high contribution of in the news articles.
Ruby2010 (talk·contribs) received a prize for her high contribution of good article reviews.
Based on stats from Jarry1250's bot, we can see that participants this year (not counting contributions from participants after their elimination) produced somewhere in the region of:
42 featured articles, including several on highly important subjects such as frog (Cwmhiraeth), William the Conqueror (Ealdgyth), and Betelgeuse (Casliber).
433 good articles, including articles on the Middle Ages (Ealdgyth), pelicans (Casliber), and Otis Redding (GreatOrangePumpkin, now Tomcat7).
40 featured lists, on film, music, sport and other topics.
28 items appearing on the "in the news" column on the main page.
In addition, WikiCup participants completed over 400 good article reviews. Some smaller processes received little attention: no featured topics or portals were completed by participants this year, for example. Featured sounds and valued pictures were not a part of this year's competition, unlike past years: the former is inactive, and the latter was closed some time ago.
Derek Jeter. Muboshgu guided the article to featured status; his first featured article.
Beyoncé Knowles. The article on her award-winning, chart-topping song "Halo" was brought to featured article status by Jivesh boodhun.
The common puffball. The article was brought to featured status by Sasata.
Where now?
The 2013 WikiCup will begin in January, probably with a single large pool of which the top 64 will progress to the second round. Wikipedians of all levels of experience and with interests in a great number of different aspects of Wikipedia participate. Signups are open for next year, and those interested in following the WikiCup are welcome to signup for the WikiCup newsletter, which is typically sent out monthly during the competition.
One of the most interesting aspects of the WikiCup is seeing how it changes year-on year. Typically, the points awarded for each item will be adjusted slightly, and features will be added and removed from the competition. Since 2009, barring the removal of edit counting and the addition of bonus points, the competition has remained fairly constant. Right now, discussions and polls are open concerning how next year's competition should be run, and contributions are more than welcome.
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Cwmhiraeth (talk · contribs), who wrote primarily on biology, especially marine biology.
Sasata (talk · contribs), who wrote primarily on biology, especially mycology.
Grapple X (talk · contribs), who wrote articles about television, especially The X-Files and Millennium
Casliber (talk · contribs), who wrote on natural sciences, including botany and astronomy.
Muboshgu (talk · contribs), who wrote primarily on baseball.
Miyagawa (talk · contribs), who wrote on a variety of topics.
Ruby2010 (talk · contribs), who wrote primarily on television and film.
Dana boomer (talk · contribs), who wrote on a variety of topics, including horses.
Grandiose (talk · contribs) received prizes for his high contribution of featured pictures and good article reviews.
ThaddeusB (talk · contribs) received a prize for his high contribution of in the news articles.
