Trustee candidates speak about Board structure, China, gender, global south, endowment
Nominations closed last Friday for the three community-elected seats on the Wikimedia Foundation's (WMF) ten-member Board of Trustees—the ultimate corporate authority of the worldwide WMF. The Board has influential roles and responsibilities over one of the most powerful global information sources on the Internet, hosting 900 sites, including the 286 Wikipedias, that attract 18 billion hits a month. Voting will start Saturday next week and will last for two weeks, from 1 to 15 June. All active editors on WMF sites are eligible to vote, with minor exceptions.
The 12 candidates are Leigh Thelmadatter, Milos Rancic, Liam Wyatt, Phoebe Ayers, Tom Morton, John Vandenberg, María Sefidari, Jeromy-Yu Chan, Samuel Klein, Kat Walsh, Michel Aaij, and Francis Kaguna.
The Signpost asked the candidates a set of wide-ranging questions and received responses from all but Kat Walsh, who said she was unable to meet the copy-deadline. This week, we cover their views on three issues—views that were not shared among the candidates before publication of this edition of the Signpost. For the sake of brevity, we will refer to the candidates by first name.
Are three community-elected seats out of ten enough?
Since 2008, the Wikimedia community has directly elected three trustees; the Wikimedia chapters have selected two trustees; and the Board itself has appointed four "specific expertise" trustees and one "community founder" trustee (reserved for Jimmy Wales). Current membership is listed at the Foundation's wiki; all trustees have two-year terms. We asked whether the three seats for community-elected trustees (30% of the Board) sufficiently reflect the ongoing investment of an active global editing community of about 90,000.
Not surprisingly, given that the candidates are themselves seeking community-elected seats, most believe that there should be more community representation on the Board—although there are some interesting angles. Francis says that the majority of the board members should be elected by the community, a view shared by Leigh, who added "with term limits for all seats". Phoebe supports "expanding the Board by a couple of seats to increase diversity, [but] not because I think this would somehow better represent the editing community". She adds that this would enable the Board to divide more easily into sub-committees. John believes that the entire board of trustees should be community-elected: four long-term Wikimedians, four non-Wikimedians, and two seats for those who have already served on the WMF Board for two terms, with term limits for the first two categories. Samuel says: "While it is useful to have up to four seats for appointed [expert] trustees, I'd like us to have at least as many elected trustees. Along with a fourth community-elected trustee, we should consider switching to an annual election cycle (matching the proposed FDC process), with two seats up for election each year."
Milos is concerned that the community tends to elect prominent Wikimedians, rather than people with specific relevant expertise. "I think that we could have both larger community representation and expert Board members. The Board should define those expert positions, and the community could make its wishlist and elect Board members for the specified positions." Michel provided interesting nuances on this question: "the Board's job is not to reflect editors' investment—it's to improve and further the project as a whole. Obviously there is no future without volunteer editors, but by the same token there is no future for the WMF without long-range vision, and some of that should probably be supplied by outsiders. A more interesting question is whether the three trustees typically represent those editors fairly, or if in the past editors have been short-changed by the trustees they elected, but that's not a question that I can answer. It seems to me that three capable and outspoken trustees are in principle enough to fully represent."
Some candidates consider the two chapter-selected seats to represent the "community" too, although our question specifically referred to the online editing community. María says that in the current two chapter-selected trustees "we do have Wikimedia editors on the Board who reflect the diversity of our communities [Patricio, from the global south, and Alice, from a non-anglophone country]. Notwithstanding, in the mid-term it could be preferable to increase community representation in the Board." Tom says: "there should be more seats (one more, perhaps). But don't forget there are also the chapter representatives who are also community members! With an additional community seat the community then holds a majority on the board, which is important." Jeromy-Yu thinks that three community seats are sufficient, given that the two chapter trustees "sort of represent the community" already; but he believes the chapter-selected and the board-appointed seats should be publicised on shortlists and should answer questions from the communities.
The China problem
Under the WMF's 2011–15 strategic plan, almost no WMF resources are allocated to Wikimedia-related activities within China. Should the Board grapple with the problem of how to integrate China into the Wikimedia movement?
Jeromy-Yu, from Hong Kong, has been involved in strategic planning for WMF activities in China. "The political atmosphere is very uncertain inside Mainland China; so it's really hard to develop a model similar to what we did in the other parts of the world. Assembly inside China is a sensitive issue, and I'm unsure whether the authorities are happy even with user groups. Directly funding an individual Wikimedian could get them into trouble, and the WMF and even the Hong Kong chapter may be regarded [with suspicion] as 'foreign entities'. Recently a group of Chinese Wikimedians gained funding for an outreach project funded under the WMF's individual engagements grant scheme, although I'm not sure about the outcome—but we should support that. The safer approach is to work with the experts on the Foundation's Advisory Board of experts, to see if we can set up some support framework inside China, rather than directly fund from the 'outside world'."
Although María thinks that "where there are active contributors in China doing work in compliance with the mission and strategic plan, they should be supported", she threw in a note of realism to those candidates who keenly support active funding: "Specific expenditures are not the role of the Board. The Board's role is to provide guidance. ... The possibility of empowering Chinese contributors through the GAC, FDC, AffCom, and IEG mechanisms is available, but the context of mainland China is, to put it succinctly, far from simple."
For Tom, "China is something of a problem due to ongoing censorship issues. Do we take a stance of moral outrage and refuse to interact with the country? Or do we assume that by working within the region slowly, inexorably, freedom of information will succeed? Hard choice. Perhaps the best solution is to establish a community/Foundation working group to look at these issues." Liam's view is that "China is currently in the "too hard basket" to a large extent, ... but that doesn't mean we can't try different approaches and build on successful ones. ... Targeted programs that build the capacity of local communities, such as the Individual Engagement Grants, are likely to be far more effective in the long run than a grand centralised program administered directly from San Francisco."
Samuel says: "Yes. China was discussed extensively in the development of the strategy; it was not included in the final overview because it was complicated—compared with India, Brazil and the Mideast—and we hoped to develop experience there first. But China encompasses a large portion of the world, and is one of the oldest literary and encyclopedic cultures. We must find better ways to make our projects and platform available there." Phoebe's view is that "our line on rejecting censorship is a [strict] one, and I do not see the WMF in any way supporting a compromise on content to satisfy mainland China's current internet policies. Until those policies change, our involvement directly in China is necessarily limited."
Several candidates are concerned with the diplomatic challenge. Milos says that reaching China is a complex issue and that the WMF has already put effort to into dealing with China. But this "requires much more sophisticated work, which includes WMF's entrance into formal diplomacy; this seems out of the WMF's range for years." He has personally worked on the Foundation's "entrance into formal diplomacy ... and it's likely that the first project will be ready later this year." Leigh points out that "a direct effort may not be our best option: we have a presence in Hong Kong and Taiwan and we have yet to capitalize on Chinese immigrant communities in the West. ... we should create and strengthen groups of Wikipedians among these demographics, who would be far better ambassadors to mainland China than those of us with little or no direct experience with the country/culture."
Michel says "the WMF could lobby or align itself with lobbying efforts, though at some risk of taking political sides; then again, the ultimate goal of democratizing knowledge is itself a political goal based on ideology. Political involvement is a two-edged sword—it takes away from objectivity (a price one must pay, though to which extent is open to discussion), and the more one becomes politically involved or aligned the less one represents every citizen of the world."
In John's view, "the WMF urgently needs a strategy for China and the Chinese language family. ... like establishing core funding for the existing chapters in Chinese language nations, such as Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan based on their capacity. WMF should consult the community about the viability of a chapter within China in the near future, or if a Chinese-language-family thematic organisation would be more appropriate. An organisation located in or near China is relatively cheap to bootstrap with basic operational funds for a few staff.
Gender and "the global south"
The current strategic plan includes supporting "healthy diversity in the editing community", and by 2015 by doubling the percentage of female editors to 25%, and increasing the percentage of editors in the so-called global south to 37%. Are we living up to these aims? Do the candidates have practical ideas at Board level for achieving these goals?
Leigh thinks that the gender goal is attainable, but is less optimistic about the global south. "The Foundation needs more knowledge and experience, both positive and negative, in dealing with different cultures; there's is still a bit a naivete. ... We've made some progress in South America, Africa and Asia, but we need to build on our successes to attract more interest in areas where we do not yet have a significant presence."
Milos thinks "the present results are mixed. I see more prominent women in global and chapter structures, but I don't see more female editors. I see more editors from developing countries, but I'm unsure about the extent of that increase. In both cases, it's not enough to give money, but to build environments where those people would feel safe to contribute."
Liam agrees that the results are mixed. "The GenderGap projects are doing a lot to to help increase awareness of, and redress, the gender disparity of editorship and content. Equally, Wikipedia Zero is measurably increasing the access and usage of Wikipedia in many developing countries, although the Strategy calls for increase editorship from the 'Global South', not merely readership." But he believes that true success cannot be achieved with centralised projects. Capacity development of the local communities, both on- and off-line, must be proactively supported so they can professionally and effectively undertake projects at a local level.
Phoebe says that "these goals are aspirational: we're not there yet. She thinks "huge strides" have been made in increasing outreach to women, but growing the editor communities for non-European language wikis has proved more difficult. "Increasing global editor recruitment and retention across all communities remains our biggest challenge. At Board level, we can encourage effort and research, she believes, and "experimentation with many different kinds of activities to try to increase editor numbers".
Francis believes that gender equity "is a very important tool in Africa" and points to the lack of good statistics. The reality for Africa and internationally, he says, is that we must come to terms with accessibility, accountability, responsibility, and gender equality. To bring WMF leaders and communities together, he suggests we think about having Board representation from every continent.
María pointed out that the WMF's 2012–13 plan (p. 10), says we don't yet have indicators that overall diversity has begun to improve, and it looks like we will need time before a significant shift happens. Maria again put the role of the Board in perspective, as providing "guidance in conjunction with the strategy to the Executive director in terms of implementing community ideals".
Some candidates were cautious about the Foundation's emphasis on statistical goals. John in some ways agrees: "The way these goals are worded promote a 'bums on seats' attitude, and I think instead they should look at broader ways of measuring success at diversifying the community. Tom's view is similar—that these two problems need "extensive work, but while those percentages are good things to work toward, reaching them doesn't necessarily mean any improvement (if we attract, for example, many additional female editors, who only rarely contribute, that is not really useful)."
John was also critical of the lack of statistics that the WMF does produce: the results of the 2012 Wikipedia editor survey have not yet been published, and the Report Card doesn't track these targets, as far as I can see. The WMF monthly reports do report on active editors in the 'Global South', and a graph here indicates that we've not been making progress on this target. The Wikimedia Foundation 2011–12 Annual Report doesn't even mention the Global South, and the monthly reports don't track progress on addressing the gender gap. The first and most obvious step to be taken is to have a clear and well-disseminated definition of what is 'Global South' and develop a methodology for regular reporting of the gendergap. He advocates the assignment of one community liasion employee for each of these two target demographics, to coordinate and support relevant program activities, and to analyse and report on those activities to the Board; and he wants a competitive grant scheme targetting both demographics.
Samuel says the answer is both no and yes—that despite lots of discussion about these goals, "we're not on track to reach them. ... However, our reach in readership is high among women and in parts of the Global South. We should experiment with new messaging strategies, using our site banner to reach out to new potential contributors year-round. Different messages will suit each culture—to inspire both editing in general, and female editors in particular. And we should help each language-project set up wikiclasses ...".
Jeromy-Yu supports efforts to address both issues, and cites Wikipedia Zero as an important step for the global south. He cites one problem as an example of what editors in developing countries face: "I recently reached out to some Wikipedians in Burma, who told me that the current edit interface with ajax is a big problem for them. We should figure out how to help them, although not necessary on the Board level.
Michel, whose PhD dissertation involved critical and feminist theory, says "the goal of doubling the percentage of female editors is lofty, [but] owe it as editors and administrators to take swift action. But that doesn't take place at the Board level, though editors and admins should feel supported by the Board if they take positions that support women and their participation but are not yet mainstream. Like Jeromy-Yu, he points to mobile devices as highly significant for the 'south'. "And I'd like the Foundation to get into say, North Africa, and actively scout and recruit gatekeepers, public opinion makers, ... to help spread our word", which will in turn "help spread their word".
The endowment proposal
Several arguments have been put for why the WMF should create a special endowment fund. How high a priority should the creation of such a fund be for the Board?
Most candidates generally support the formation of an endowment fund. Michel believes endowments are a "no-brainer" because they "ensure a certain level of stability and are a kind of promise toward longevity" if managed well. Endowments, he says, can encourage donations by those who would like "their names and donations to 'last' longer." Phoebe, who actually wrote most of Meta's endowment talk page, thinks that the Foundation needs to start thinking long-term and an endowment is a natural outgrowth of that; but she points out that creating such a fund would take years. Leigh, too, believes that an endowment is necessary for long-term survival, and on the question of the investments an endowment fund would make, doesn't believe that putting funds into commercial enterprises would compromise Wikipedia any more than they compromise universities.
Samuel says it should be a "quite high" priority. "The Board should consider both an endowment fund and a long-term investment plan by the end of this year. We have an abundance of support, and can raise more than our projected budget. ... It's a good time to make such plans: we are focusing on the future, and have a wealth of experience with large individual and institutional donors."
Milos and John support the idea in principle but have problems with any move to implement an endowment immediately. Milos would like the WMF to focus first on adding more projects and reaching more people. For John, "the arguments for a special endowment fund are very persuasive, and I would advocate for it in principle. ... we should engage professionals outside of the movement and within our community to outline the various options." Liam says: "in principle, an endowment should happen"; however, he believes that it would have to be accompanied by an overhaul of the fundraising apparatus—something that would take large amounts of time and effort—so he is cautious about immediate proposals.
Only one candidate is entirely opposed to the concept. Jeromy-Yu thinks Foundation money would go further if it was given to local affiliated organisations like the Wikimedia chapters. He believes that this would "empower individuals to do meaningful stuff" rather than throwing more money to bureaucratic measurements.
- Comments are welcomed below. Part 2 of our election special will be published next week, just days before the start of voting. Part 2 will cover Board candidates' opinions on other major topics, and an interview with the candidates for three vacancies on the Funds Dissemination Committee and for the position of FDC ombudsperson.
Reader comments
- Comments are welcomed below. Part 2 of our election special will be published next week, just days before the start of voting. Part 2 will cover Board candidates' opinions on other major topics, and an interview with the candidates for three vacancies on the Funds Dissemination Committee and for the position of FDC ombudsperson.
Classical Greece and Rome
- A new issue of the Bugle has been released
This week, we traveled back in time to WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. The project started in May 2006 and became the home of 37 Featured Articles, 5 A-class Articles, and 87 Good Articles. Members work on a to-do list, maintain a variety of templates, subscribe to Article Alerts, and keep an eye on a project watchlist. We interviewed davidiad, Cynwolfe, Andrew Dalby, and Amadscientist.
- What motivated you to join WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome? Do you tend to focus on one of the two cultures? Have you ever visited historic sites in the modern countries that ultimately succeeded these ancient societies?
- davidiad: Nothing fancy: on the first talk page I edited I saw the Project's banner and joined, probably because I'm a member of similar groups in real life and just figured that, if I were going to edit in classics on Wikipedia, I should be a member of such a group here so that I could coordinate with other classically minded editors.
- Most of my work is in Greek poetry, especially archaic Greek epic, and mythology, but I also occasionally do some triage on Roman writers.
- I've never had any great interest in the local realia of antiquity, but I would like to visit Aetolia in the future. The Aetolian stratum of heroic saga that has been muted by the preeminence of the Homeric and Athenian traditions and the caprices of transmission was just so wild and savage—even more so than Thebes' lovely dysfunction—that I'd really like to see the countryside that bred it.
- Cynwolfe: I mostly edit articles about ancient Rome, but deal with Greek myth and religion on a fairly regular basis, and other Greek topics if the need seems pressing. I've taught Latin and classical studies at the university level, but I abandoned my doctoral program for reasons too psychologically baroque to go into here. Wikipedia is a way to share my love of this body of knowledge. My editing began accidentally, and with extremely obscure topics, as a way to organize my thoughts on some research I was doing. I wasn't interested at first in participating in the community at large, and it took a long time for me to understand the courtly decorum required—quite unlike any publishing or academic setting I've worked in, where not suffering fools is a measure of intellectual and professional legitimacy. I don't remember how I first ended up at the G&R project talk page, but stayed because of the quality of input. Well-informed, distinctive voices. Our project page is continually out of date and out of step with what we really do, but our talk page—that's where it happens. It's unusual for someone to leave a question or invitation that goes unanswered, there or at the more relevant page for discussion.
- As for the last question, you have opened an old wound, as my trip to Rome fell through. Twice. Mérida, Spain, is now high on my list, and since I'm particularly interested in Gallo-Roman culture, one dream trip is a tour around Roman and Gallic sites in France. I'm an American, so this kind of travel is costly. Many of the best Roman sites are in North Africa and the area the Romans called Syria. Since Lara Croft isn't my alter ego, that might be too much adventure. Why do you ask? Would the foundation like to give the G&R project a travel grant? We'd make a merry entourage, with our vision of copulating landscapes.
- Andrew Dalby: I live in Gallia Lugdunensis and sometimes travel to other parts of the Graeco-Roman world (never yet Africa). I just went to visit the chunk of the ancient world that is in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. I joined because Classical antiquity is one of the focuses of my writing and because I use Wikipedia (but now usually Vicipaedia Latina) as a notepad. Although I don't currently contribute much in English, I still watch.
- I'll join Cynwolfe and others on that proposed tour: thanks for the suggestion :)
- Amadscientist: I became involved in the Greece and Rome projects when I first noticed the talk page importance and quality assessments when I started editing on Wikipedia in about 2007. They were some of the very first projects I joined. I tend to focus on ancient Rome's republican era as this seems to be lacking the most coverage, but have an interest in all of the classical period, particularly structures, traditions and politics.
- Have you contributed to any of the project's Featured or Good Articles? When did the project set the goal of getting most of the project's articles above B-class? When do you predict the project might accomplish this goal?
- davidiad: The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, my pet poem and the article on which I've worked the most, recently attained Good Article status with the help of Cynwolfe and Drmies. Hopefully with the help of other Project members it can make it to Featured Article within the year.
- I have no idea about the B-Class stuff.
- Cynwolfe: Do we have a project goal of getting most articles above B-class? (See "Project page, out of date" above.) We have thousands and thousands of articles under the G&R aegis. A great many are mere stubs based on 19th-century encyclopedia entries. I reckon I'll be dead and gone before they all become B-class. I helped with the GA Roman Empire, because it had significant gaps. I know of a dozen articles within project scope I'd like to bring to GA level. I'd like to get more of them featured. But … well, see following question.
- Andrew Dalby: I don't like long articles. The greatest thing about a big encyclopaedia is the range of small articles on minor subjects about which, till one found them, one didn't know where to start. I don't know whether I've contributed to any classical Good Articles.
- Amadscientist: I contribute to FA Greece and Rome articles, but have yet to participate in raising one of our articles to that status. I have participated in raising articles to GA, such as Alexander the Great, but focus mainly on raising stub and C class articles to B, to better prepare them to for GA review. The B class assessment totals seem to have been added recently on 8 April 2013 by Sowlos. I don't believe this is a goal to raise all to this point as much as a visual way of monitoring how low our B class assessments are over all.
- Are there any substantial gaps in Wikipedia's coverage of ancient Greece and Rome? What can be done to fill these gaps?
- davidiad: In the areas in which I edit, I don't see much of a gap in coverage, but a gap between the state of current (or, at least, tolerably recent) scholarship and the content of many mythology and literature articles on Wikipedia. There is a wealth of material concerning classics available online, but most of it is available because it is in the public domain, that is, quite old. One might think that, in a discipline focused on antiquity, a century-or-so wouldn't make much of a difference, but the past 100–150 years have seen great changes in our knowledge of the Greco-Roman world, through archaeological and papyrological discoveries, as well dramatic changes (one hopes, advances) in methodologies over the past five decades. Our reliance upon freely available and accessible 19th- and early 20th-century scholarship can often lead to an "antiquated" approach on Wikipedia, but can also lead to bald factual errors.
- The only real fix that I see for this issue is collaboration. Editors with access to university libraries and online collections of recent scholarship like JSTOR need be willing to do some of the legwork to help out other editors who are willing to write content, but might only have access to a local library and whatever the internet has to offer. At the same time, we need to collaborate as editors in a way that often seems verboten on Wikipedia: assessing the viability of sources which meet WP's definition of reliable sources, but which might no longer count as such in the real world. Just because a book was published by a reputable scholarly press at one point, does not mean that it should inform encyclopedic content simply because one our editors chanced upon it via Google. Obsolete scholarship is obsolete, and should be allowed to rest in peace. (Curmudgeonly Davidiad finishes rant and ceremoniously dozes off in his soup.)
- Cynwolfe: (Rescues Davidiad from the vichyssoise and offers him a Spanish napkin.) On a similar note, our articles often reflect outdated historiographical approaches, and treat "history" as a series of names and dates. We all loved that in school, didn't we? Historiography of the ancient world now takes a more holistic approach than annals of rulers and battles. The role of women and the labors of those who are largely nameless, social and political organization and the nature of power, broader cultural perspectives on how people lived—these are the things readers want, and the hardest things to write about from a neutral, encyclopedic perspective. Not only hard, but extremely time-consuming. You have to read and digest volumes of stuff to write four or five paragraphs that reflect and balance current scholarly perspectives. In this discipline, 19th-century scholarship is still foundational, but at the same time, it's constrained by the values and biases of its own time. You don't give readers outdated scholarship in the sciences, and you don't do it in the humanities. It's just that in the humanities, the history of how the questions have been asked are always part of the current discussion. It's a body of knowledge formed over millennia.
- We don't have a lot of missing articles. But some key articles are hit-and-miss or poor: Slavery in ancient Rome, Social class in ancient Rome, Latin literature. Roman Empire receives frequent complaints that it's too long, but that's because adequate articles don't exist for the subsections. A hot topic right now is religion under the Empire, the nature of religious pluralism in the Greco-Roman world. An astonishing array of religions existed under Imperial rule, and that's the context in which early Christianity must be understood. These kinds of topics are always controversial and in danger of being POV-driven. But that just shows they still matter.
- Andrew Dalby: Bibliographies, links, and unexpected connections, are at least as important as basic text (on "unexpected connections" see Cynwolfe on the Bouguereau painting below). One reason I now contribute less in English is the need to work around some of the guidelines and style guides -- primary sources, reliable sources, "WP is not a bibliography" etc. I think some of these imperatives need to change ... but that's just me.
- How difficult has it been to obtain images for articles about antiquity? What kinds of images are appropriate for articles about subjects that predate the invention of photography? Has the project gained access to any useful collections held by museums or galleries?
- Cynwolfe: We don't face the kind of copyright issues that editors working on modern art do, but faded wall painting and broken mosaics can be hard to photograph effectively. If we do have relevant images at Commons, they're often not of the best quality, though I've found that the Photography workshop volunteers work wonders (and with amazing speed). My single favorite treasure trove is the massive donation from the Walters Art Museum: usually high-quality images with good descriptions. It's best to illustrate articles about classical antiquity with photographs of objects that come from those cultures, or of sites. Lots of good photos of ruins. At the same time, the Greco-Roman world remains vital because of the so-called "classical tradition": its endless cultural recycling. So while we need to represent the Greeks' own images of their myths, for instance, it's also part of encyclopedic coverage to include later art that explores those themes through a new lens, as long as we don't create the impression that an 18th-century painter is creating a historical reality. But what's interesting is why we use the past, and what we make of it. I became acutely aware of that recently in working on Cupid and Psyche: a painting of the myth by Bouguereau, for instance, became the basis for tableaux vivants in vaudeville. Who knew? The ancient world just doesn't know how to stay dead.
- Andrew Dalby: There's lots of good stuff from lots of places. More coins ... from somewhere ... please!
- Is there any crossover in the project's membership with that of other historical or cultural projects? Does WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome collaborate with any other projects?
- Cynwolfe: Classical studies is by nature interdisciplinary, and attracts polymaths. I don't think we've made a formal effort to collaborate with another project during my time. I was involved in the early stages of the Women's History project, but have sadly neglected it, mainly because I became aware of how many high-traffic G&R articles needed serious improvement. However, I try to keep our goals at Women's History in mind, and in contributing to Roman Empire took care to have a section on the status of women. I integrate women's history into other articles within the G&R project scope as I can, and contribute sections on ancient Roman women in overview articles about women's history.
- davidiad: There are also some predictable relationships with other projects: several of our members are also members of WP:WikiProject Mythology, WP:WikiProject Rome, which focuses upon the city, and WP:WikiProject Greece, which takes in the entire history of the Hellenic world including the period covered by our project (prehistory through aspects of the Byzantine Empire). There's also apparently a Classical warfare task force of WP:WikiProject Military history, so some of that project's 1220 (!) members are probably also members of WPGR. Then there's WP:WikiProject Dacia, the existence of which is somehow always a pleasant surprise whenever I see its banner and members.
- What are the project's most pressing needs? How can a new editor help today?
- Cynwolfe: We desperately need to improve almost all our articles on Greek and Latin literature: the overview articles, the genre articles, and most of the author articles. Several mythology topics need refurbishing. Pop culture has a big effect on our page views: last time I looked, Spartacus had surpassed Julius Caesar as our most-trafficked article, thanks no doubt to the Starz series. Ridley Scott has made Prometheus one of our top-ten articles, and Zeus, Hades, and Ares seemed to get a bump from the recent pair of Titans movies. Readers come to these topics with an appetite. The articles need to be reliably informative, but also need to communicate with people—often teens—who lack any formal background. As a writing assignment, it's a tough challenge. That's why I like it. But I'd love to make it easier for new editors to contribute—especially those who don't want to make a long-term commitment—without being hammered by regulations and procedures. Would love for our project in particular to have more outreach to and feedback from educators.
- Andrew Dalby: I strongly agree about new editors. Too often their first experience is to be told off by a bot for doing it wrong, and many potential contributors don't come back after that experience. Would you?
- Anything else you'd like to add?
- Cynwolfe: If I had to generalize, I'd say that while G&R project members are fairly demanding about scholarly standards, they're also welcoming and helpful. We have an active talk page, and when people who aren't regular project participants post, they get responses. Compared to some projects I watch, we are incapable of remaining serious for long periods of time, and often lapse into obscure joking. So even if you aren't a classical antiquity geek, you shouldn't hesitate to drop by.
Next week's article will circle the globe. Until then, grab some coordinates and search the archive.
Reader comments
Spanish Wikipedia leaps past one million articles
On 16 May, the Spanish Wikipedia became the seventh Wikipedia to cross the million article rubicon, a symbolic yet important achievement.
The project was started in May 2001 as one of the first non-English Wikimedia projects, alongside eight other Wikipedias. It was then located at spanish.wikipedia.com, though it was soon changed to es.wikipedia.com, and then to es.wikipedia.org in 2002.
The site was also no stranger to controversy in its earlier days: in 2003, it was successfully forked to Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español, which for a short time was larger and grew at a faster pace than the Spanish Wikipedia. The fork—unique among all Wikipedias—came about after Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger said "Bomis might well start selling ads on Wikipedia sometime within the next few months", kindling rumors that advertising would be introduced on the Wikipedias—something that in 2002, was not far-fetched. As Wired put it in a 2011 retrospective: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge, brought to you by Coca-Cola."
In innovations, the Spanish Wikipedia was the first project to promote users to administrators and bureaucrats with a single request under the name of bibliotecarios (librarians), and to forbid the use of non-free images, a trend that would follow on the rest of the Spanish-language projects and on several other Wikimedia sites.
With the one million article mark coming, the es.wp community began planning how to manage this feat in March of this year using what English Wikipedians would call a community-wide request for comment. They decided to change the site's logo to a modified version of what the Italian Wikipedia used to celebrate their millionth article, and to release a public statement, which said in part:
| “ | It is in this spirit of [free] collaboration that, a few days before its twelfth birthday, the Spanish Wikipedia has passed the milestone of one million items. It is not just a million different entries, but the joint work of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the Spanish-speaking world, who with their individual contributions, assist in creating a collective project that is constantly updated. The editors come from various parts of the world, of the most varied professions, ages and cultures. Many of them no longer publish anymore, while others remain as active contributors, but invariably, all leave a little of themselves as a legacy for humanity. | ” |
However, this remarkable achievement does have its controversies. Several users dubbed the celebration as inaccurate, given that quantity doesn't necessarily translate into quality. Notwithstanding, most shared the opinion that the achievement went beyond a simple number. Administrator, bureaucrat, and global sysop Igna told the Signpost that reaching one million articles is "a major milestone that demonstrates mutual help and collaboration between users".
A larger problem came from how the Spanish Wikipedia actually leaped past the million article mark. The Spanish Wikipedia hosts their "list" articles in a separate namespace dubbed "Anexo" (annex), but these had not been included in the project's total number of articles. When a bug report to include this additional namespace was addressed on 16 May—nine months after it was originally filed—es.wp's article count jumped from around 990,000 articles to more than 1.017 million. As the site had been originally projected to cross the million article mark in October 2013, the deployment of the bug fix astonished Spanish Wikipedia contributors. Igna said that "I have always considered annexes as content space, [so] they had to be taken into account ... [but] to be honest, they were summed up at an unexpected moment."
The influx of 'new' articles did push the Spanish Wikipedia past its Russian counterpart for the title of sixth-largest Wikipedia; only the Dutch, English, French, German, and Italian Wikipedias have more. The Swedish and Polish Wikipedias are approaching the same benchmark, with over 968,000 articles each.
In brief
- Search for WMF Executive director: The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has announced the beginning of its search for a new executive director, after current director Sue Gardner announced her intention to depart in March of this year. According to the Executive Director Transition Team's timeline, they hope to be able to announce a new director in September, though they acknowledge that this may be "overly optimistic."
- Chapters Dialogue: Wikimedia Germany has began looking for a contractor for its Chapters Dialogue initiative, which will be a process involving chapters, the WMF, and the various Meta committees. The idea itself seems relatively undefined or at least open-ended; Wikimedia Germany envisions that the role of such a dialogue will “enable chapters to develop, organise and collaborate with their stakeholders from within and outside the movement” through "interviewing chapters about their current state of affairs, their feelings, needs and wishes, their goals, daily routine and their self-understanding within the Wikimedia movement as a whole. ... [This will] help facilitate and support the chapters in thinking about what they want to do."
- GLAM: The World Digital Library and its Wikipedian-in-Residence, Sarah Stierch, have launched the crowdsourcing aspects of the partnership.
- New tech newsletter: The tech ambassadors have launched a weekly tech summary/newsletter aimed at reaching non-technical readers. Interested users can subscribe to receive new issues on their talk pages.
- Main page reform: The request for comment on the design of the main page is still ongoing.
- Forward to Libraries: There is a new English Wikipedia request for comment (RfC) on the new Forward to Libraries (see previous Signpost interview). The new tool helps editors and readers locate relevant reference materials in their local libraries. User opinions in the RfC, while limited so far, have been broadly positive. Nyttend commented that "It seems to be good for saying "Since you want to learn more, go to your local public library and borrow Title1 or Title2 on this subject, and that's a wonderful thing for us to be able to provide".
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Qworty incident continues
Salon.com published another article detailing the ongoing incidents with Wikipedia user Qworty, who has identified himself as Robert Clark Young.
In the Salon article, writer Andrew Leonard comments that Qworty's edits "undermine faith" in Wikipedia. His article documents Qworty's role in the controversy involving Amanda Filipacchi's op-ed, which kindled a debate on Wikipedia sexism as it relates to categories (see Signpost coverage), where Qworty was responsible for a series of revenge edits against Filipacchi in the days after she released her op-ed. He defines these as "modifications to a Wikipedia page motivated by anger. They are acts of punishment. Such behavior is officially considered bad form by the larger Wikipedia 'community,' but given Wikipedia's commitment to anonymity and general decentralized structure, it is a practice that is very difficult to stamp out."
The piece goes on to detail how individuals affiliated with Wikipediocracy approached Leonard with research determining that they thought Young was Qworty, including Andreas Kolbe (User:Jayen466). When asked by the Signpost why he took such a keen interest in exposing Qworty, Andreas said that he wants "the public to know just what goes on under the surface of Wikipedia and how the site plays dice with people's reputations by allowing anonymous editing of biographies of living persons ... I believe the public needs to understand just what is going on in Wikipedia day after day."
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales commented on his talk page, "'For those of us who love Wikipedia, the ramifications of the Qworty saga are not comforting'. That sums it up for me." Extensive discussion has also ensued throughout Wikipedia, particularly on Wales' talk page. Another article from TalkingWriting.com on the topic rhetorically asked, "How do we mobilize against an eight-headed monster that keeps ducking responsibility for unreliable information amassed by volunteers?" The article does, however, go on to say that most of Wikipedia's contributors have "good intentions".
Qworty eventually admitted to being Bob Young and has since been indefinitely blocked and site banned by the community pursuant to a discussion on the administrator's incident noticeboard. Wikipediocracy also published a detailed article.
Since publishing the article, Leonard posted a follow-up indicating his fascination with Wikipedia's policies and updating readers on the block of Qworty. In related stories, PolicyMic.com published an article indicating that until Wikipedia changes its policies on verifiability and adding information, it will remain an unreliable source, and the Salon article spurred the creation of a Wikipediocracy Wikipedia article, which was nominated for deletion and quickly kept.
In brief
- Azerbaijan aims to increase Wikipedia coverage: AzerNews has published an article describing the Institute of Information Technology of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences' effort to increase the amount of Wikipedia coverage on Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani Wikipedia is one of the faster-growing language versions of Wikipedia.
- "A horrible place to be": Itworld.com published an article about open-source projects, one of which was Wikipedia. An unnamed "well-known woman in open source" commented that Wikipedia has "a lot of people doing outreach" but went on to say that Wikipedia looks like a "horrible place to be" based on its gender gap.
- Spanish Wikipedia surpasses one million articles: Madrid newspaper ABC published an article (in Spanish) documenting the Spanish Wikipedia's passing of 1,000,000 articles. See also this week's "News and notes."
- Sue Gardner appears on The Story: The Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director Sue Gardner was interviewed by The Story's Dick Gordon on American Public Media (better known as APM) on May 15. She discussed threats to freedom of information, the WMF's outreach to female editors, and discussed her personal role with the WMF.
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Up in the air
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Featured articles
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Nine featured articles were promoted this week.
- Lynn Hill (nom) by Wadewitz. Lynn Hill is an American rock climber who was widely regarded as one of the leading competitive sport climbers in the world during the late 1980s and early 1990s. She is famous for making the first ascent without aid of the difficult sheer rock face of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley and the first free ascent in 24 hours.
- Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (nom) by DrKiernan. Prince William, Duke of Gloucester (1689–1700) was the son of Princess Anne, the future Queen of Great Britain, and Prince George of Denmark and Norway. He was their only child to survive infancy, and his death precipitated a succession crisis because his mother was the only individual remaining in the Protestant line of succession laid down by Parliament.
- Goblin shark (nom) by Yzx. The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is a rare, poorly known species of deep-sea shark. Sometimes called a "living fossil", it is the only extant representative of the family Mitsukurinidae, a lineage some 125 million years old.
- Long-tailed Ground Roller (nom) by Rufous-crowned Sparrow. The Long-tailed Ground Roller (Uratelornis chimaera) is a species of medium-sized bird in the ground roller family Brachypteraciidae, placed in the monotypic genus Uratelornis. Endemic to arid spiny forests near the coast in southwestern Madagascar, this ground roller occurs at extremely low population densities throughout its habitat.
- Eurasian Blackcap (nom) by Jimfbleak. The Eurasian Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla), usually known as the Blackcap, is a common and widespread typical warbler. It has mainly olive-grey upperparts and pale grey underparts, and differences between the five subspecies are small.
- Pennsylvania-class battleship (nom) by The ed17. The Pennsylvania class consisted of two super-dreadnought battleships built for the United States Navy just before the First World War. The ships were named Pennsylvania and Arizona. The latter was sunk in a massive magazine explosion during the attack on Pearl Harbor, while Pennsylvania was expended as a target for atomic bombs and regular ordnance after the war.
- The Heart of a Woman (nom) by Figureskatingfan. The Heart of a Woman is the fourth of seven autobiographies by African-American writer Maya Angelou. The title is taken from a poem by Harlem Renaissance poet Georgia Douglas Johnson, which connects Angelou with other female African-American writers, and the book recounts events in Angelou's life between 1957 and 1962.
- Mass Effect 2 (nom) by Niwi3. Mass Effect 2 is an action role-playing video game. It is the second installment of the eponymous series, which is set in the Milky Way galaxy during the 22nd century. In Mass Effect 2, humanity is threatened by an insectoid species known as the Collectors, and the player must assume the role of an elite human soldier and construct a diverse team to defeat the enemy. With the use of a completed saved game of its predecessor, the player can impact the story of the game in numerous ways.
- Iven Mackay (nom) by Hawkeye7. Sir Iven Giffard Mackay was a senior Australian soldier who served in both World Wars, including at Gallipoli, the Western Front, the Battle of Greece, and New Guinea. His active service ended with his appointment as High Commissioner to India in November 1943.
Featured lists
Six featured lists were promoted this week.
- 2013 Women's Cricket World Cup squads (nom) by Harrias. The 2013 Women's Cricket World Cup squads consisted of 120 players from 8 national women's cricket teams. Organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC), the 2013 Women's Cricket World Cup, held in India, was the tenth edition of the competition. Australia won the tournament for the sixth time, defeating the West Indies by 114 runs in the final.
- List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by B. S. Chandrasekhar (nom) by Vensatry. B. S. Chandrasekhar (born 1945) is a former international cricketer who represented the Indian cricket team between 1964 and 1979. In cricket, a five-wicket haul refers to a bowler taking five or more wickets in a single inning. This is regarded as a notable achievement, and 40 bowlers have taken at least 15 five-wicket hauls at the international level as of May 2013. Chandrasekhar played as a leg spin bowler who formed a part of the Indian spin quartet. Described by West Indies cricketer Viv Richards as the "most difficult" bowler, Chandrasekhar took 16 five-wicket hauls during his international career.
- India national cricket team record by opponent (nom) by Vibhijain. The India national cricket team represents India in international cricket and is a full member of the International Cricket Council with Test and One Day International (ODI) status. As of 30 March 2013, India have played 472 Test matches, 817 ODI matches, and 45 T20I matches.
- List of accolades received by Atonement (nom) by JuneGloom07. Atonement is a 2007 British romantic World War II film directed by Joe Wright. Christopher Hampton adapted the screenplay from the eponymous novel by Ian McEwan. The film focuses on fictional lovers Cecilia and Robbie, whose lives are ruined when Cecilia's younger sister, Briony, falsely accuses Robbie of a serious crime. The film was nominated for 130 awards, and won 38 of them.
- Dannii Minogue discography (nom) by Underneath-it-All. The discography of Dannii Minogue (born 1971), an Australian dance-pop singer, consists of five studio albums, seven compilation albums, 27 singles, 24 music videos, and five video albums. Minogue rose to prominence in the early 1980s for her roles in the Australian television talent show Young Talent Time and in the soap opera Home and Away, before commencing her career as a pop singer in the early 1990s.
- List of NFL tied games (nom) by Toa Nidhiki05. The National Football League is an American football league based in the United States. In the NFL, a tied game occurs when a regular season game ends with both teams having an equal score.
Featured pictures
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Eight featured pictures were promoted this week.
- Aerial View of Makhtesh Ramon in the Negev Desert (nom, related article) created and nominated by Godot13. A makhtesh is a landform with steep rock walls surrounding a deep, enclosed valley. It is typically drained by a single wadi, and is not a meteor impact crater. The landform is unique to the Negev Desert in Israel. Makhtesh Ramon is the largest and best known, and is part of the Ramon Nature Reserve national park.
- Aerial view of Masada (nom, related article) created and nominated by Godot13. Masada is an ancient fortification on top of a plateau in Israel. It was the site of a number of armed confrontations between Jewish and Roman forces, including the Siege of Masada in the year 73.
- Alessandro Scarlatti - Griselda (nom, related article) created by Alessandro Scarlatti, digitised by the British Library, and nominated by Andrew Gray. Scarlatti (1660–1725) was an Italian Baroque composer. Griselda is an opera seria, and the last of Scarlatti's operas that currently exist in complete form. Apostolo Zeno wrote the libretto.
- Sella group (nom, related article) created by dmottl and nominated by Pine. The Sella is a massif in northern Italy in the Dolomites mountain range, with its highest peak at 3,151 meters (10,338 feet). The annual Maratona dles Dolomites (Dolomites Marathon) is a single-day road bicycle race that takes place around the Sella group.
- Grey Heron in Thailand (nom, related article) created by JJ Harrison and nominated by Pine. The Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) is a large wading bird with a range that includes parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe. It has four subspecies. Its wingspan measures 155–195 centimeters (61–77 inches).
- Lauren Mitchell layout (nom, related article) created by Steven Rasmussen and nominated by Keraunoscopia. Australian artistic gymnast Lauren Mitchell (born 1991) was the 2010 World Champion on floor. Mitchell was the first Australian female gymnast to win gold at a World Championship. She participated in the 2012 Olympic Games in London but did not win an individual Olympic medal.
- Field of sunflowers (nom, related article) created by Poco a poco and nominated by Samaksasanian. The sunflower (Helianthus annuus) is native to the Americas, and was brought to Europe in the 16th century. Sunflowers are used as symbols of numerous government organizations and cultural movements throughout the world. Sunflower oil and seeds are common food ingredients.
- Curculio occidentis (nom, related article) created and nominated by Kaldari. Curculio occidentis is commonly known as the Filbert weevil, a type of beetle that infests and damages acorns.
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