Chapters Association self-destructs

The opening days of the annual Wikimania, referred to as the "pre-conference", are not typically newsworthy. This year's pre-conference in Hong Kong looked like no exception, with meetups scheduled for education, Chinese-language Wikipedians, and developers, along with registration, a roundtable discussion, and various chapter meetings.

This changed dramatically when the Chapters Association council met on Thursday. The Association was proposed at Berlin in March last year and set up "to serve as a central organization ... to promote coordination and accountability among the chapters, represent the chapters on common interests, facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience, and provide assistance and support in organizational development". In its year-long existence, the Association has been mired in controversy, seeing the use of the trademarked term Wikimedia in its name contested by the Foundation; dithering on proposals to recruit a so-called secretary-general and several other employees, and to incorporate the Association and set up a physical office in a European country (Brussels and Geneva were mentioned as locations); and the resignation of its inaugural chair, Ashley van Haeften (Fæ).

The Association's council meeting—with 48 in attendance, according to the etherpad records—opened with a statement from vice-chair Ziko van Dijk, who read a lengthy prepared address on the "failure" of the Association:

Van Dijk's address contained a series of references to a "fictional Johnny" (which he decoded later in the meeting—Johnny "spoke with a French accent"). There were suggestions that Johnny "doesn't take the Association seriously" and "hated the WMF", and that Johnny said "the big chapters, those with the resources, want to dominate the movement and cannot be trusted". Van Dijk said: "please explain this to me: who should take the WCA serious[ly], if even Johnny doesn't? Those questions kept coming to me." Even his own board, of the Netherlands chapter, had discussed whether supporting the Association is "flogging a dead horse".

"I don't want to end this speech in the same bitterness as when I started to write it on Wednesday's early morning", he said. "Of course, when you are pointing with your finger at others, three fingers of the same hand point to yourself". He concluded with a quotation from the Bible concerning "the power of sharing".

Wikimedia France vice-chair Christophe Henner then announced the chapter was leaving the organization. Henner denounced the current state of the Association, saying that its structure was "untenable", since "too few people are involved". He declared that Wikimedia France would instead be supporting volunteers in specific Wikimedia-related tasks, and called on the other member chapters to follow their lead in departing the Association and directly supporting volunteers. Several chapter officials told the Signpost that Association heads were informed of this pre-planned maneuver only the night before.

Van Dijk and Association chair Markus Glaser then resigned, "effective now", stating that they see no future in the Association. In subsequent discussion, participants debated what to do, but the records reveal no clear direction. Glaser said: "The movement is not taking us seriously. We are perceived to be working on our internal structures all the time. Both chairs resigned and then the solution is to rework charter, this is a death blow." He was convinced, it is recorded, that the chapters will now abolish the WCA. In Van Dijk's words: "The Wikimedia Chapters Association is no more. The Council did not abolish it, but on the Thursday meeting Markus (the Chair) and I (Ziko, the Deputy Chair) stepped down. A discussion followed that demonstrated: an early revival seems to be highly unlikely."

Asaf Bartov, the Foundation's head of the Wikimedia grants program and global south partnerships, was present as an observer. Emphasizing that he was expressing his personal views and not those of the Foundation, he introduced a different tone. What has been missing in the discussion so far, he said, is "gratitude and appreciation for the people who have been trying to make it work. It's frustrating, thankless work, and deserves appreciation all the more." Bartov said he was "intrigued but not surprised that the conversation has focused so far on recriminations and blame, ... this is not the best use of our time in this rare and expensive opportunity where we are all in one room."

Bartov said he originally saw the Association as the combination of a Wikipedian, democratic instinct coupled with the dream of "a league of chapters that would give equal representation, do conflict resolution." But some basic facts were overlooked: in his view, a lot of chapters are still not interested in participating in global movement-wide policy or planning, and there was a lack of clarity on what the Association would achieve.

In practical terms, he said: "there were no more than maybe 10 people with the actual drive to do the kind of things that the WCA said they would do. ... this was something that very few people really cared about. ... People were fooled into believing that the WCA had a lot more volunteer energy than it really had. In Berlin in 2012, we spent the better part of that conference talking about points in the charter." Bartov said he wished more time had been spent on thinking about what the Association should actually do.

He drew an analogy with Wiki Loves Monuments: "Some of these things just aren't as exciting as WLM! WLM happens on an almost military scale of coordination of troops around the planet, ... because people want to do it. There are enough people to do it, even without a chapter, or without a WLM fiscal setup, ...".

As the meeting drew to a close, Glaser narrowed the options down to four:

1. keep the association but discard the bureaucratic structure around it;
2. form a new committee that will replace the association, allowing anyone to join;
3. find local Wikimedia chapters to take over the association's current projects;
4. continue and ignore what has happened.

Votes were taken on dissolving the Association and abolishing its charter, but both failed. Only three chapters supported the former (against six opposes and two abstentions), and while a small majority voted in favor of charter abolition (four supports, three opposes, four abstentions), it failed due to the association's requirement of 66% support. One major open question is if other major chapters will pull out during Wikimania's remaining days—a chapter official opined to the Signpost that the association would fully collapse if this occurs. If not, the question will morph into if the chapters association will be able to continue functioning.

The etherpad ends with an intriguing comment: "The charter requires having a chair. The pool to select a chair from consist of the council member who voted to keep the charter. My question: which council members voted to keep the charter?"

The Chapter Association's death throes were not the only event of the pre-conference. The education program held a day-long session on Wednesday that covered important topics for the future of the program. The first session was led by Peter Gallert, who explained how to overcome fears and setbacks in an education program, including challenges with editor retention, technical ability, communication between the community and the class, and adherence to wiki norms. The Foundation's LiAnna Davis gave a presentation on best practices for starting a new program at a university. She suggested that Wikipedians start on a small scale and organize early, taking a lesson from the disastrous Pune experiment in India. Davis also discussed the aims of the Wikipedia Education Program, which have shifted from previous iterations: "We do not care about [editor] retention—we care about adding quality content to Wikipedia." However, she encouraged people involved in the program to focus retention efforts on course instructors.

Speaker Martin Poulter drew on his experience as JISC Wikipedian-in-Residence to teach participants how to "pitch" Wikipedia to educators. Other presentations given included an overview of the training materials available for students, instructors, and ambassadors; recruitment of ambassadors (both Campus Ambassadors and Online Ambassadors); a tutorial on the Education Program software extension; and a discussion of different target groups. Davis summed up her view of the conference in an email to the Signpost:

The welcome party on Thursday night was held in the Sky100 conference centre, known for its striking view of the city ("up the elevator to the 100th floor—impressively, it seemed to take less than 60 seconds", according to Hong Kong resident Ohconfucius). The normal entry fee of US$21.50 was waived for party-goers as part of the hiring cost for the party.

The venue was crowded and the food did run out, but there was delight among some people at the high-quality Cantonese offerings, and appreciation of the free alcohol. We were unable to determine whether there were relatively high levels of gate-crashing, given that there were no proper checks of registration at the door of the party venue (one source told the Signpost: "no questions—just put your name on a label and you're off").

Among comments we have received were that "the lights were too low" and the venue was "good for appreciating the view, but pretty useless if you wanted to look for people". According to Ohconfucius: "the PA was a damp squib for the size of the gathering, and I don't think more than a handful of people even heard the introduction and welcome from Jimmy Wales. I heard the welcome, but I was at the front. People at the back didn't stop talking."

The Signpost did not have the necessary information at publishing time to give in-depth coverage to the developer camp, but the WMF's James Forrester told us that it went "very well", although the "short timeframe involved means that we will need to wait to see what comes out of it." More information will be available in episode 96 of the Wikipedia Weekly, when that is released.

The next edition of the Signpost will provide coverage of key presentations at Wikimania.

• Jimmy Wales calls for ideas on new journalism site: In his keynote speech at Wikimania 2013, Jimmy Wales declared that mass media and its individual journalists are missing out on the greatest opportunity of the century by reducing coverage of the 'serious' topics to focus on topics like Edward Snowden's girlfriend. This has spurred him to call for crowdsourced ideas on a new journalism site that would be built from the ground up and possibly feature a hybrid community-paid journalist model. More coverage will be devoted to this in next week's Signpost.
• New board chair, vice chair: The Wikimedia Foundation has announced that Jan-Bart de Vreede and Phoebe Ayers have been appointed to the positions of Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, on its Board of Trustees. The press release quoted de Vreede as saying "The next twelve months promise to be significant for the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia movement and I'm excited to have the opportunity to lead the Board."
• NHRP milestone: The National Register of Historic Places Project now has images of 50,000 of the topics within its scope, or about 57%. The project, which as its name suggests covers all of the places listed on the United States' National Register of Historic Places, has several prolific photographers who have taken more than 1,000 images. The impact of the movement's Wiki Loves Monuments was also clear: the initiative added 6%, or about 5200, of these images.
• Wikimedia engineering report released: The July 2013 report covering the Wikimedia Foundation's engineering activities has been published on Mediawiki.
• Late: The Signpost offers its apologies for being extremely late this week, and responsibility for that falls on the editor-in-chief.
  
  Reader comments
  

2013-08-07

WikiProject Freedom of Speech

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Buffbills7701

This week, we journey into a WikiProject that focuses about what keeps Wikipedia running, the freedom of speech. WikiProject Freedom of speech was created in 2012 by Cirt, and has 11 pieces of featured material, along with 50 GAs. I had the pleasure of interviewing Crisco 1492, Khazar2, Kiefer.Wolfowitz, Cirt, Int21h, and John Carter.

What motivated you to join WikiProject Freedom of Speech? Can you describe the project's goals?

Crisco 1492: In the course of my standard editing about Indonesia, I did a bit of work about individuals who were killed or tried for expressing their views, working to out corruptors, or just publish something contrary to "mainstream" values. When Cirt notified me about this new project, I was happy to join (although I must admit it is secondary to my main focus on Indonesia).

Khazar2: Similar to Crisco, for me it's an extension of work at another project, in this case WikiProject Human rights. Those two have obvious overlap--human rights covers a wide range of topics, but in most cases it's the freedom of speech/press/conscience cases that tend to get into the history books rather than, say, illegal searches and seizures.

Kiefer.Wolfowitz: I contributed minor edits to Freedom Watch's Freedom in the World and I have often cited John Milton's Areopagitica. The project promotes awareness of free thought on Wikipedia, and so it should encourage editors to stop referring to disagreements, dissent, and deviance as "disruption" or "drama"---two words that are as deadly to thought on Wikipedia as "the community".

Cirt: I created WikiProject Freedom of speech in order to serve as a central location for collaboration on quality improvement projects on topics related to freedom of speech, and hopefully encourage contributors to improve articles on the subject to Good Article and Featured Article levels of quality.

Int21h: I joined to keep up with current issues (although I must admit I just added the talk page to my watchlist), to "voice" my support of this important issue, and to converse with other interested individuals.

Have you contributed to any of the project's Featured or Good Articles?

Crisco 1492: Together with Khazar2 I helped expand CPJ International Press Freedom Awards to featured list status. I have also written a couple articles which reached GA, including Murder of Udin (the murder of a reporter who often covered corruption near Yogyakarta) and Erwin Arnada (the Playboy editor who showed no nudity, then was imprisoned for almost a year).

Khazar2: Earlier this year I brought First Amendment to the United States Constitution up to GA, and I'm currently working to get United States Bill of Rights there, too. (Help welcome!) I've brought some individual cases up to GA, too, like Oswaldo Payá, Bassem al-Tamimi, Mam Sonando, and Dhondup Wangchen; all are alleged by at least one side of their controversies to be freedom of speech cases.

Cirt: Yes, I've contributed towards Featured quality: Portal:Journalism, and Portal:Comedy; Featured Article quality: Freedom for the Thought That We Hate by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Lewis; and Good Article quality entries on books about freedom of speech: Cyber Rights by Mike Godwin, Freedom of Expression by Kembrew McLeod, Free Speech, "The People's Darling Privilege" by Michael Kent Curtis, Beyond the First Amendment by Samuel Peter Nelson, and most recently Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties by law professor Christopher M. Fairman. Another fun WP:GA project recently was the documentary film about free speech and word taboo, Fuck (film).

Int21h: No (maybe? probably not). I have been working on what I consider substantial gaps.

Are there any substantial gaps in Wikipedia's coverage of freedom of speech? If so, what can be done to fill these gaps?

Khazar2: Gaps include coverage of speech-freedom and press-freedom laws around the world, as well as those imprisoned for violating those laws. This is an area where other WikiProjects, particularly country projects, could be a huge help.

Kiefer.Wolfowitz: George Anastaplo deserves finally has (!) an article because of discussing his Supreme Court case (over his admission to the Illinois Bar because he defended freedom of association, which had a memorable dissent by Justice Hugo Black) and his monograph on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He is a useful counter-example to the Wikipedia's description of the students of Leo Strauss as "neo-conservative" Jews.

Cirt: I'd like to see better quality coverage of landmark cases related to freedom of speech, for example: U.S. Supreme Court cases including New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974), and Hustler Magazine v. Falwell (1988), are all ripe for quality improvement drives.

Int21h: Non-American (e.g. freedom of speech by country) and sub-national articles. Also, freedom of speech is a legal and governmental issue: legal systems ("Law of..."), including the basic structure and practical functioning of judicial systems ("Courts of..."), which is itself a governmental issue ("Government of..." or "Governance of..."), are a fundamental aspect in its understanding. To understand freedom of speech in the United States you must understand the law of the United States and the judiciary of the United States, and to understand these you must understand the law of California and the judiciary of California etc.; to understand freedom of speech in Germany you must understand the law of Germany and the judiciary of Germany, and to understand these you must understand the law of Bavaria and the judiciary of Bavaria etc.

Do you encounter any difficulties finding reliable sources for articles about freedom of speech? Are there any useful repositories of information about freedom of speech that can be used for sourcing Wikipedia articles?

Crisco 1492: A lot of the press sources, especially from areas with particularly authoritarian governments, are far from neutral. As such, finding information on an arrested individual's position or their worldview must come from pro-Human Rights NGOs... which also clearly have their own POV. It is a balancing act, and it can be quite difficult.

Khazar2: What Crisco said!

Cirt: Some of the books mentioned above are good quality sources of information on the history of freedom of speech, specifically including: Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, Cyber Rights, Free Speech, "The People's Darling Privilege", Beyond the First Amendment, and Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties. A useful untapped repository of information would be the historical cases documented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Citizen Media Law Project.

Int21h: Civil society organisations are the #1 resource for these issues, and many of their publications can be found online. News media/press organisations are good for current issues but provide transient, incomplete and shallow coverage and are sparse with sources. Books and law reviews/journals are good, but access is problem, even with Google Books. The US is very aware of both freedom of speech and the practical state of the law, and has strong and diverse civil society organisations. (The ACLU is single-handedly responsible for a large majority of major American freedom of speech common law.) The EU has a growing awareness and a burgeoning civil society, although I know of no equivalent to the ACLU. The rest of the world is a giant black hole IMO (is there a nationally-based civil society category?), of which we would know nothing about if it weren't for US and EU civil societies, although I am sure much of it is because of language barriers. A strong civil society is required because although there may be various organisations, they can be very POV so you need a bunch discussing the same issue from different perspectives.

John Carter: There could be a bit better coverage of the topic in reliable sources. In general, reference books, like encyclopedias and some others, generally offer a fairly good source for overall coverage of the topic, ensuring all the major topics get some attention and the like. Unfortunately, although I have seen a few reference books devoted to the First Amendment of the US Constitution, I haven't seen any which specifically deal with the subject of freedom of speech in the broader world. That can make developing content related to non-US freedom of speech a bit more difficult. And, yes, there are some countries, like some Asian countries, where freedom of speech may be perhaps more of a political buzz-word than a true reality.

I noticed that one of your open tasks is to expand articles in the freedom of speech category. How high of an importance is that to you, and how does the categorization aid in building these articles?

Cirt: Categorization is a great aid to help identify and build these articles. Good sources for improvement projects include Category:Stub-Class Freedom of speech articles and Category:Start-Class Freedom of speech articles. Lquilter (talk · contribs) has been a great help in categorizing pages and articles related to freedom of speech.

What are the project's most urgent needs? How can a new contributor help today?

Crisco 1492: I think new contributors have a plethora of choices available. There are numerous cases of people being imprisoned for expressing unpopular views, many of which don't have an article, and there are also dozens of high priority topics related to freedom of speech which are not as developed as they should be. There's been work on that second area; Khazar2 and Midnightblueowl recently did fantastic work on Nelson Mandela, for instance, but new collaborators are always welcome.

Cirt: New contributors can start participating and help the project in several ways: (1) List yourself as a participant in the WikiProject, by adding your username here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Freedom_of_speech#Participants. (2) Add userbox {{User Freedom of speech}} to your userpage, which lists you as a member of the WikiProject. (3) Tag relevant talk pages of articles and other relevant pages using {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}}. (4) Join in discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Freedom of speech. (5) Notify others you think might be interested in Freedom of speech to join the WikiProject.

Int21h: Make a horrible 2 sentence article on a local institution or name-able mechanism, person or incident (or preferably a good article!) that somehow regulates, "chills" or punishes access to or production of any sort of information, whether or not it is academically researched or a locally recognized problem, or just different from our oppressed Western bourgeois morality. Add the {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}} template to its talk page. It will possibly get deleted by the WikiNazis before anyone can do something with it, but at least we get a heads-up it is important to someone, and a possibly important lead on the practical functioning of that place's legal system.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Cirt: Come join WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech and join in the efforts to improve articles related to freedom of speech! It's fun and educational at the same time! :)

Int21h: I thank buffbills7701 for bringing this to my personal attention, as I had forgotten to add the WikiProject Talk to my watchlist. I would also like to thank Cirt for taking the initiative to separate human rights and civil rights from freedom of speech (which is often ignored, minimized, and perverted under the guise of human rights) and give it a WikiProject of its own and bringing it to my personal attention.

Finally, I have a few words to stamp into your mind. They are, don't forget to check out the archives!

Reader comments

2013-08-07

The great Colorado River and the mysterious case of the grand duchess

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Pine and Hahc21

.

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from July 28, 2013 through August 3, 2013.

Featured articles

14 featured articles were promoted this week.

• Hurricane Elena (nom) by Juliancolton, who says that Hurricane Elena was a perfect storm of sorts: nearly every aspect of its life was an anomaly, from its inexplicable strengthening over Cuba to its multiple unpredicted shifts in direction that created the largest game of cat-and-mouse in US history, and the largest peacetime evacuation.
• Djaoeh Dimata (nom) by Crisco 1492. This 1948 film, from what is now Indonesia, was written and directed by Andjar Asmara for the South Pacific Film Corporation (SPFC). It follows a woman who goes to Jakarta to find work after her husband is blinded in an accident.
• Thaddeus Stevens (nom) by Wehwalt. A member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and ardent opponent of slavery, Stevens fought for rights for the African-American after the American Civil War.
• Terry-Thomas (nom) by SchroCat with Cassianto, cad, bounder, rotter, and one of the most colourful, popular and best-known comedians of post-war Britain. His broad and rich career on stage, television and radio exported a portrayal of the silly-ass Englishman.
• Boletus badius (nom) by Casliber and Sasata. It is an edible, pored mushroom found in Europe and North America.
• Charles-Valentin Alkan (nom) by Smerus. He was a French composer and pianist, at the height of whose fame in the 1830s and 1840s was, alongside his friends and colleagues Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt, among the leading virtuoso pianists in Paris.
• Social history of viruses (nom) by GrahamColm, who says that viruses have had a significant impact on human history—mainly as a cause of diseases and because of the important role they have played in ecology and evolution. A conscious effort was directed to making the content accessible to the lay reader.
• Koala (nom) by LittleJerry and Sasata. The koala is one of the most iconic animals of Australia.
• God of War II (nom) by JDC808, a video game loosely based on Greek mythology and set in Ancient Greece, with vengeance as its central motif.
• Garden Warbler (nom) by Jimfbleak, a common and widespread small bird that breeds in most of Europe and in western Asia.
• Vernon Sturdee (nom) by Hawkeye7. Not the British admiral, Hawkeye7 says, but the Australian general. This article continues the series on Command in the South West Pacific.
• William Hely (nom) by Ian Rose. Hely was a an Australian air vice marshall who first made a name for himself locating lost travellers in the Australian desert.

Featured lists

10 featured lists were promoted this week.

• List of works by Chairil Anwar (nom) by Crisco 1492. Indonesian author Chairil Anwar (1922–1949) wrote 75 poems, 7 pieces of prose, and 3 poetry collections during his career. Several of his works have been pieced together in several collections, including English translations if his works by Burton Raffel.
• 72nd Academy Awards (nom) by Birdienest81. The 72nd Academy Awards were held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in March 26, 2000, honouring the best films of 1999. American Beauty received the Best Picture award, as well as four others. The Matrix followed in second place with four awards, including Best Visual Effects.
• David Niven on screen, stage, radio, record and in print (nom) by SchroCat. Niven (1910–1983) was a British actor who appeared in several genres of light entertainment, including film, radio and theatre. His career spanned from 1932 until his death in 1983. He also published four books.
• List of sunken battlecruisers (nom) by Sturmvogel 66. Several battlecruisers, a type of capital ship built within the twentieth century, were sunk mostly during World War I. Approximately ten ships were lost during the war, and several more followed during World War II.
• List of Square Enix mobile games (nom) by PresN. Japanese video game company Square Enix has released many games for mobile platforms such as iOS, Android and non-smartphone devices. Dragon Quest Monsters i is the first mobile game developed by Square Enix.
• List of Major League Baseball pitchers who have struck out four batters in one inning (nom) by Bloom6132. In some circumstances in baseball, a batter who has struck out can reach first base safely. The strikeout is recorded but the out is not registered. The first pitcher to strike out four batters in one inning was Ed Crane of the New York Giants, who struck out the batters in consecutive order in an 1888 game versus the team then called the Chicago White Stockings and later renamed the Chicago Cubs.
• Carry On series on screen and stage (nom) by Cassianto with SchroCat. Carry On was a long-running British sequence of comedy films composed of thirty-one feature-length films, three christmas specials, one television series and three West End and provincial stage plays.
• Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (nom) by Caringtype1 with SoapFan12. The Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series was first awarded in 1974. It honours actresses for outstanding performances in a leading role within the daytime drama industry.
• Nerina Pallot discography (nom) by Underneath-it-All. English pop rock singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot has released four studio albums and five extended plays since signing a record deal with Polydor Records in 2000. She has also released fourteen singles as well as eleven music videos.
• Mayor of Pichilemu (nom) by Lester Foster. Pichilemu, a commune in Chile, is governed by a Major, a position held by an elected politician who is the head of the executive branch of government of the region, also presiding over the local city council. Since 1891, forty politicians have held the position.

Featured pictures

8 featured pictures were promoted this week.

• Ben-Hur (play) (nom) created by Strobridge & Co. Lith., restored by Adam Cuerden and nominated by Adam Cuerden. The play Ben Hur by William W. Young dramatized the 1880 novel by Lew Wallace. An 1899 production of the play included live horses and real chariots.
• Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (nom) by Bain News Service, found at the George Grantham Bain Collection in the United States Library of Congress, restored by Crisco 1492 and nominated by Crisco 1492. Anastasia Nikolaevna (1901–1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia. She died along with her immediate family in an extrajudicial killing. Persistent rumors that she had escaped have now been disproved through the use of forensic and DNA evidence.
• Bird's Eye View of Detroit (nom) created by Calvert Lithographing Co. (Detroit, Michigan), restored by Adam Cuerden and nominated by Adam Cuerden. This lithograph shows the central portion of Detroit, Michigan, United States, in 1889. Detroit was prosperous in the 19th and early to middle 20th centuries but has now fallen on hard times. On July 18, 2013 the city filed for bankruptcy.
• Blue-winged Pitta (nom) created by JJ Harrison and nominated by JJ Harrison. The Blue-winged Pitta (Pitta moluccensis) is a passerine bird that is natively found in lowland forests of Australia and Southeast Asia. Adults are 180–205 millimeters (7.1–8.1 inches) in length.
• Oriental Pratincole (nom) created by JJ Harrison and nominated by JJ Harrison. The Oriental Pratincole (Glareola maldivarum) is also known as the Grasshopper-Bird or Swallow-Plover. It is a wader bird found in south and east Asia.
• A group of monks at Preah Pithu T (nom) created by JJ Harrison and nominated by JJ Harrison. Preah Pithu is a group of five temples at Angkor, Cambodia. Four of the temples are Hindu and the fifth is Buddhist. Temple "T" has a 45 by 40 meter enclosure made of sandstone. This photo shows young Buddhist monks in saffron robes at Temple T.
• Fatinitza (nom) created by Henry Atwell Thomas, restoration by Adam Cuerden and nominated by Adam Cuerden. Fatinitza was a three act operetta by Franz von Suppé. It premiered in 1876 in Vienna to great popular success.
• Orchis mascula (nom) created by Tuxyso and nominated by Tomer T. Orchis mascula is popularly known as the early purple orchid. Stems grow to 50–60 centimeters (20–24 inches) with an inflorescence of 7.5–12.5 centimeters (3–5 in). The species is found in parts of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Reader comments

2013-08-07

Civility policy, geographic names, CheckUser and Oversighter candidates, and more

Contribute  —  

Share this

•  E-mail
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  LinkedIn
•  Reddit
•  Digg

By Pine

This is mostly a list of Non-article page requests for comment believed to be active on 7 August 2013 linked from subpages of Wikipedia:RfC, recent watchlist notices and SiteNotices. The latter two are in bold. Items that are new to this report are in italics even if they are not new discussions. If an item can be listed under more than one category it is usually listed once only in this report. Clarifications and corrections are appreciated; please leave them in this article's comment box at the bottom of the page.

Style and naming

• Commas in geographic names
• Manual of Style/Biographies: "Should templates in Category:Royal and noble family templates use the article titles or the honorifics?"
• University of Dar es Salaam's acronym, and "format" data in the citation template

Policies and guidelines

• Clarifying the scope of the No legal threats policy
• Two proposed expansions of the Civility policy
• VisualEditor default state
• Include links to audio files of national anthems in country infoboxes?
• Article titles; expert and layperson terms
• Closing discussions; what does "consensus of the community" mean?
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (U.S. state and territory highways); common names, highway titles, and article titles
• Discussion at article talk for "Luigi di Bella": "Is the policy "for persons which are not authors, musicians, & artists, only notable works that are heavily referenced by peers should be listed" a requirement?"
• Should thinkprogress.org be accepted as a reliable WP:NEWSBLOG?
• Partially disambiguated page names
• Protection policy and persistent sockpuppets
• New users and Articles for creation
• Indic naming conventions

WikiProjects and collaborations

• Proposed deletion of The Wikipedia Adventure
• Should newly promoted GAs be allowed to be DYKs?
• WikiProject Eurovision; Eurovision Song Contest
• Mark the Article Incubator as historical or inactive?

Technical issues and templates

• Proposed reduction of wikilinks in some WikiProject Psychology templates
• VisualEditor issues RFC

Proposals

• All proposal RfCs are listed in other sections of this report

English Wikipedia notable requests for permissions

(This section will include active RfAs, RfBs, CU/OS appointment requests, and Arbcom elections)

• Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Buster7
• Request for community comment on CheckUser and Oversighter candidates
  • CheckUser candidates
    • Ks0stm (applying for both roles)
    • LFaraone (applying for both roles)
    • Materialscientist
    • NativeForeigner
    • Reaper Eternal
    • Rschen7754
  • Oversighter candidates
    • DoRD
    • Elockid
    • GorillaWarfare
    • Guerillero
    • Julia W
    • Ks0stm (applying for both roles)
    • LFaraone (applying for both roles)

Meta

• Wikivoyage logo voting round 1
• Start WeRelate as a new Wikimedia project?
• Start WikiNames as a new Wikimedia project?
• Adopt Wikidentify as a new Wikimedia project?
• Trademark practices
• Scope of the Ombudsman Commission

Upcoming online meetings

• "Discuss multimedia workflows, product goals and first new features. See Multimedia project hub.", 22 August 19:00 UTC
• Wikidata update and Q&A, 26 August 16:00 UTC

Wikimedia blog posts

• Wikimedia engineering July 2013 report
• Wikimedia Research Newsletter, July 2013
• Join the Language Engineering team at Wikimania in Hong Kong next week!
• Individual Engagement Grant learnings and a call for new proposals
• The future of HTTPS on Wikimedia projects
• A series of parallel WWI edit-a-thons in seven countries
• Translate the user interface of Wikipedia’s new VisualEditor
• Cooper UX bootcamp to focus on Wikipedia mobile editing
• The journey of a 1000-yen note: a Wikimania story
• Listen to Wikipedia

Reader comments

If articles have been updated, you may need to refresh the single-page edition.

The Signpost needs your help putting together the next issue.

Home

About

Archives

Newsroom

Subscribe

Suggestions