Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/From the editors
No accounting for the wisdom of crowds
Summary: A news-heavy week offers some insight, perhaps, into humanity's priorities: Barack Obama's contemplating entering the Syrian Civil War and the anniversary of the March on Washington share space with Miley Cyrus's public pushing of her posterior and Robin Thicke's apparent extramarital groping, with the highest interest directed towards the offending bottom.
For a list of the top 25 articles of the week, plus exclusions, see: WP:TOP25
For the week of August 25–31, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the 5,000 most trafficked pages* were:
Rank Article Class Views Image Notes 1 Twerking 
1,264,178 Apparently, girls waggling their bottoms onstage now has a word. Or at least one fit for the Oxford Dictionary Online. And a Wikipedia article. You'd think we'd have had one a while ago, given what a common phenomenon it is, but I suppose words are as they are needed, and boy, Miley, did you make this one needed. 2 Robin Thicke 
855,701 
The last time the Blue-eyed soul singer and son of Alan Thicke was on this list, it was because he'd just released his latest album; now he's back, with triple the views, both for his role in Miley's routine, and for his hand straying too far over the anatomy of a pretty clubgoer. 3 Miley Cyrus 
826,479 
The former teenybopper graduated into adulthood in the manner customary to her profession: doing something in public to offend. The heightened publicity has secured her career for the immediate future at least. 4 Facebook
563,381 
A perennially popular article 5 Breaking Bad
561,320 
The final season of this acclaimed chemistry teacher-turned-Scarface TV series began on August 11. 6 Syria
560,861 
The next potential Middle Eastern country in which the USA might embroil itself has, unsurprisingly, become a topic of interest this week. 7 Białowieża Forest
390,642 
This ancient forest of centuries-old oaks and European bison between Poland and Belarus stimulated a Reddit discussion on August 28. 8 Deaths in 2013 List 372,873 
The list of deaths in the current year is always quite a popular article. 9 I Have a Dream
372,170 
The 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's rhetorical masterpiece at the March on Washington on August 28 stimulated much public discussion about its legacy and effects. 10 Martin Luther King, Jr. 
354,119 Of course, the anniversary also drew attention to the man himself.
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Manning "put back in the closet"; State involvement in the Azerbaijani Wikipedia
Reactions to Chelsea Manning's Wikipedia bio being renamed, again
After media praise for Wikipedia's decision to move the Bradley Manning article to Chelsea Manning (see last week's Signpost), the reversion of that page move on August 31, after a discussion in which several hundred Wikipedians participated, has so far triggered less favourable feedback, as well as a blog post from Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner expressing her disappointment with the decision.
The Daily Dot reported on the decision to move Chelsea Manning back to Bradley Manning on the same day, asking: "Can a website vote on a person's gender transition?" The article stated, "On Wikipedia, Chelsea has been sentenced to remain Bradley", and went on to quote Jimmy Wales, who responded to complaints from Josh Gorand on his user page by saying:
| “ | I'd like to suggest that rhetoric that using the name 'Bradley' rather than 'Chelsea' is a 'form of violence' against that person is completely false, and it not something that is even remotely 'generally considered' to be violence. | ” |
The Daily Dot article was picked up by Slate in France on September 2. Slate expressed the opinion that Wikipedia had "put its foot in it".
On 4 September, the New Statesman weighed in with a piece titled "Chelsea Manning gets put back in the closet by Wikipedia", attributing the decision to a lack of diversity among Wikipedia editors:
| “ | The admins are keen to stress that the reversion is not, technically, moving the page back to "Bradley Manning" so much as it is undoing the move from "Bradley Manning". The difference is ostensibly that the former would require consensus that Bradley Manning is a better title than Chelsea Manning, while the latter merely requires a lack of consensus that Chelsea Manning is a better title than Bradley Manning. In addition, the article itself still refers to Manning as "Chelsea" and uses the female pronoun.
That distinction hasn't gone down particularly well in the wider world, where [the] fact that a group of people held a vote on whether or not to call a trans woman by her preferred name, and then lost that vote, is seen as yet more evidence of a painful lack of diversity of experience amongst active Wikipedia editors. |
” |
The New Statesman went on to quote excerpts from a blog post Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Sue Gardner had published earlier that day, in which she argued:
| “ | Here's what's normal: When Pluto was declared to not be a planet, Wikipedia deferred to the experts, and reflected what they said in the article.
Here's what's not normal: When Dominique Strauss Kahn was accused of having raped a hotel cleaner, and when Todd Akin made pseudo-scientific claims about rape and pregnancy, many Wikipedians' discussions were (I thought) remarkably ill-informed. Some editors seemed to believe that false accusations of rape were common. Some didn't seem to realize that rape is seriously underreported. They didn't recognize that there's a body of knowledge on rape that's well-sourced and reliable. It took me a while to connect this to systemic bias—to realize that rather than Wikipedians being unusually lacking in knowledge about what rape is and how it works, I might better understand it as me being more-knowledgeable-than-the-average-Wikipedian on the topic. Because I'm a woman, and also a journalist, I've followed rape issues pretty closely in the media, I've talked about it a fair bit with my female friends, and I've read a couple of dozen books and studies on it and related topics. It took me a while to realize that that level of interest, and therefore expertise, is unusual on Wikipedia, presumably at least partly because our editor community skews so heavily male. The same is true for transgender issues. A number of editors have made truly ignorant comments over the past week or so, comparing Chelsea Manning to someone who woke up one morning believing herself to be a dog, a cat, a Vulcan, Jesus Christ, a golden retriever, a genius, a black person, a Martian, a dolphin, Minnie Mouse, a broomstick or a banana. In saying those things, they revealed themselves to be people who've never thought seriously about trans issues—who have never read a single first-person account of growing up transgendered, or a scholarly study or medical text, or maybe even the Wikipedia article itself. That in itself is perfectly okay: different things are interesting to different people, and I for one know nothing about trigonometry or antisemitism in the 19th century or how a planet is determined to actually be a planet. But I don't deny that there is stuff on those topics worth knowing, nor do I mock the knowledge of others, nor accuse them of bias and POV-pushing. |
” |
Gardner and the New Statesman both noted that an arbitration request had been filed. Gardner commented on her blog,
| “ | My hope is that ArbCom will clarify Wikipedia policy, and affirm that we have a responsibility to respect the basic human dignity of article subjects, to not mock or disparage them, and to attempt to avoid doing them harm. That we must not participate in or prolong their victimization.
I also hope ArbCom will weigh in on how Wikipedia handles trans issues in general. I'd be particularly interested in an examination of the role that subject-matter expertise is playing in our current discussions, and an exploration of how editors might choose to conduct themselves in disputes in which they have little expertise, and in which systemic bias risks skewing outcomes. In the Manning situation, for a variety of reasons that almost certainly include systemic bias, discussion didn't achieve a result consistent with our desire to protect the dignity of an article subject. |
” |
It remains to be seen whether Gardner's hope that ArbCom "clarify policy" is at odds with ArbCom's constitutional role, as defined in Arbitration Policy:
| “ | The arbitration process is not a vehicle for creating new policy by fiat. The Committee's decisions may interpret existing policy and guidelines, recognise and call attention to standards of user conduct, or create procedures through which policy and guidelines may be enforced. The Committee does not rule on content, but may propose means by which community resolution of a content dispute can be facilitated. | ” |
The New Statesman meanwhile noted that any ArbCom decision would take at least a month. "But it's the best chance yet for Wikipedia's editing community to take some time for the introspection it apparently needs."
Gardner clarified in her blog post that she had written the post in her capacity as a volunteer editor. She added, "everything I say here, I say with lots of respect for the Wikipedia community. This is a rare misstep: an unusual and unfortunate blind spot." HASTAC also had an analysis of the naming dispute, by Wikipedians Adrianne Wadewitz and Phoebe Ayers.
Azerbaijan government's involvement in its language's Wikipedia expansion
The Azerbaijani news portal abc.az reported on September 6 that the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information is creating a "social movement for expansion of the information about the country in online encyclopedia Wikipedia". The Ministry said it was collaborating with the Azerbaijan Association of Young Translators (AGTA) to create a wiki movement in the country. The website of VikiHərəkat, the Azerbaijani wiki movement, is here. Jimmy Wales said on his talk page, "I know nothing about it." According to Human Rights Watch, Azerbaijan has a deteriorating human rights record. Under the heading "Azerbaijan: Crackdown on Civil Society", Human Rights Watch summarises the most recent developments in the country as follows:
| “ | The Azerbaijani government engaged in a deliberate, abusive strategy to limit dissent. The strategy is designed to curtail opposition political activity, limit public criticism of the government, and exercise greater control over nongovernmental organizations. The clampdown on freedom of expression, assembly, and association have accelerated in the months preceding the presidential elections, scheduled for October 9, 2013. | ” |
This makes Azerbaijan, after Kazakhstan (see earlier Signpost report), the second state with a dismal record on human rights and free speech to take an active interest in the expansion of the local language version of Wikipedia.
According to The Guardian, the Azeri government is employing a number of PR agencies in Europe, including Freud Communications, Consultum Communications and Ketchum.
In brief
- The Wikipediafication of fine art: Glendon Mellow's blog on the Scientific American website had some nice things to say about Wikipedia on August 29, speaking of "the wonder that Wikipedia and its contributors and donors gives us: a richness of topic and visual cues to lead us down a myriad of paths instead of one-note shocker headline images."
- Hive mind: On August 30, Science News featured a belated report on a study of cooperative behavior in Wikipedia published by Simon DeDeo in December 2012.
- Interest in Syria: A report published in Der Spiegel on August 31 noted increased page views for Syrian topics in the German Wikipedia, triggered by Syria's ongoing troubles.
- WikiTube: On September 1, ghacks.net covered WikiTube, a Chrome extension that adds videos to the top of Wikipedia articles.
- Portrait of a Philadelphia Wikipedian: The philly.com website had a portrait of David Thomsen (Dthomsen8), one of the top 200 Wikipedians by edit count, on September 2. The story was picked up by the Philadelphia Business Journal, and Thomsen had a further mention in Swarthmore College's Daily Gazette, which featured a profile of Google employee and Wikipedian Will Hopkins on September 4.
- Storming Wikipedia: bust.com and The Daily Dot joined the chorus of publications reporting on FemTechNet's initiative to counter gender bias in Wikipedia (see last week's Signpost).
- Wikipedia lies: Musician Example and comedian Chris Ramsey discussed Twitter and Wikipedia on the website of the Daily Express on September 3. Comparing notes about inaccuracies in their respective Wikipedia entries, Ramsey said, "There's something on Wikipedia that says I have this thing called the Geordie flick. And it says that I won a competition for the best haircut in Newcastle, but it's utter b*****t." The unsourced addition (removed after the article appeared) was made in December 2012.
Making Wikipedia more accessible
Compared with many websites, Wikipedia generally works very well with screen readers. It was the third-most popular site in a 2008–09 survey involving over 1,100 screen reader users. It has a consistent "look and feel", and guidelines encouraging the judicious use of headings and links make it more accessible. However, there are a few important things that editors can do to make Wikipedia articles easier to read for users of screen readers:
- Avoid separating list items by blank lines, especially in bulleted lists, as it makes lists harder to read with screen readers. For example, this list of tips to make articles accessible contains three items, and would be read by a screen reader like this: "list of 3 items, <text of the list> ... list end". If there were a blank line between each list item (i.e. if I had pressed the enter key twice between each point), it would be read out like this: "list of 1 items, <text>, list end; list of 1 items ..." and so on.
- Keep everything in its expected location in terms of wiki markup (the text in the edit window). Most modern screen readers will read text in Wikipedia in the order it's presented in the wiki markup rather than its physical position on the screen; therefore a screen reader user's experience is disrupted if items are not in their usual place. For example, if a template that changes the position of the table of contents like {{TOC right}} is placed above the lead section of an article (in terms of the wiki markup), a screen reader user who is used to going straight from the table of contents to the first heading with a single keystroke will miss the text of the lead section.
- Use alt text to complement image captions. Alt text, which is produced using the "alt=" parameter in the image markup, is read out by screen readers but is not usually visible to sighted users. It is especially handy for images that contain useful features that are readily apparent to those who can see the image (e.g. a cartoon caption, a sign, a graph with an easily identifiable pattern). There is no need to note these features in the image caption because most people will be able to see the image, but screen reader users should also have access to them where possible.
For more information on accessibility in Wikipedia, both for screen reader users and people with other usability issues, see the accessibility guideline. Signpost readers may also be interested in WikiProject Accessibility, which always welcomes new members. Questions or concerns about accessibility may be raised at the project's talk page.
VisualEditor enhancements
- Copy-paste improvements continue: The VisualEditor team continued to make improvements to the tool's copy-paste functions, aiming to support copying of any richly-formatted text into VisualEditor, with appropriate markup being applied automatically. The team hopes to eventually allow direct copying from Wikipedia pages not currently open for editing.
- Rapid typing bug fixed: A bug where very quick typing or input editor use could cause VisualEditor's text to become corrupted has been fixed.
Wikidata news
- How do we measure the quality of Wikidata?: A blog post by Denny Vrandečić asks this question and proposes several possible metrics.
- Using Wikidata to support Wiktionary: An analysis of how Wikidata might support the Wiktionary model has been presented. Since a dictionary is essentially a structured set of data about words, Wikidata could be an excellent fit; however, significant effort is still required to define a specific data structure to be used.
- URL datatype: Wikidata defines numerous data types for the various kinds of data entered into it. For example, the page on Brassica oleracea includes categories of information such as "genus", which is of the type "item", meaning that the genus also has a Wikidata page; and "image", which is of the type "Commons data file", meaning that it links to a file on Wikimedia Commons. A new "url" data type is currently being tested; once complete, it will allow Wikidata to provide ready-made links to external reference materials.
- VIAF: Gerard Meijssen has written a series of posts on VIAF, an inter-library system for matching different methods of organising library records on individual people, and how Wikidata uses it for information. Topics covered by the series include a general overview of VIAF and how the system deals with deletions from the database.
In brief
- Wikipedia Signpost Android application: Yuvipanda has created an Android application to notify users of Signpost updates and allow reading of Signpost articles from mobile phones. The application is available through Google Play.
- Wiki Loves Monuments Android app fixed: Yuvipanda has fixed the Wiki Loves Monuments mobile application for Android.
- New HTML tag support: The <wbr> tag, which inserts an optional mid-word linebreak, is now supported.
- Random page tool for categories: The new Special:RandomInCategory tool allows users to visit a random page in a category. The tool currently includes subcategories—but not their contents—as "pages in a category".
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/Essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/Opinion
Privacy policy debate gears up
On September 3, the Wikimedia Foundation launched the second stage of the process to improve the privacy policy implemented on most Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia, by publishing a policy draft.
The first round of deliberations started in mid-June with an open call for input, but was overshadowed by the PRISM debate. The overall aim is to replace the current, aging policy developed in 2008 by WMF's then-General Counsel Mike Godwin with one that accounts for changes in the legal and technological environment since then.
The second consultation broadly resembles the Terms of Use update in 2011–12, where more than 120 issues were examined over the course of several months. The legal department only released an English-language draft, while the new privacy policy draft was released in other languages as well: Arabic, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish.
An early controversy was sparked by the attempt—novel in Wikimedia contexts—to use illustrations and jokes as part of the draft in an effort to expand the audience able and willing to read through the legal documents. Geoff Brigham, the foundation's current General Counsel, said in the related Meta debate that early A/B tests displaying the department's mascot, Rory, on banners calling for input indicate a higher click-through rate than for the conventional Foundation logo—including a 9:1 increase on Japanese Wikimedia sites.
The privacy policy draft is the most important part of a series of ongoing and upcoming legal documents to be scrutinized by the community. Alongside the main draft, the WMF has published a proposal for the access to non-public information policy, governing rights and duties of CheckUsers, support team members, and others in handling a wide range of issues. Future plans include data retention guidelines; a spelling out of the Foundation's data collection and retention practices under the new privacy policy; and a transparency report disclosing, among other things, how often the Foundation is approached by third parties to hand over user information, the sources of these demands, and how often the foundation complies.
In brief
- Article creation bot finishes first run: The Swedish Wikipedia's article-creating program, Lsjbot, has finished creating articles on the world's known animals and insects, and is nearly finished with the approximately 50,000 lakes in Sweden (see previous Signpost coverage). The bot's efforts have pushed the Swedes into fourth place when the various Wikipedias are compared by their total number of articles. The bot's operator is now planning to create articles on a large number of plants before adding the accumulated information to Wikidata. In unrelated but similar news, the Polish Wikipedia will soon pass one million total articles.
- WP:WMF: A new English Wikipedia page, Wikipedia:Wikimedia Foundation, has been launched with the aim of educating the English-language community about the Foundation and increasing the potential avenues of communication between the two.
- Good Article main page RFC closes: As the Signpost goes to press, a request for comment on whether to include recently-promoted good articles in the "Did you know?" section on the main page has closed, with broad consensus to include them. The change is expected to take place in two weeks.
- Wikipedia Weekly: A new edition of the Wikipedia Weekly podcast has been published.
- Israeli image donation: The National Library of Israel has donated one hundred images related to Operation Horev, a military attack carried out during the country's 1948 war.
- Wikimedian-in-Residence needed: In a partnership with Wikimedia UK, the York Museums Trust is looking for a Wikimedian-in-Residence who can "help improve online access to our extensive collections and disseminate information about our collections, buildings and gardens to the widest possible audience." In particular, the museum appears to want to focus on its Tempest Anderson collection, who according to his Wikipedia stub was a British surgeon who traveled around the world to investigate the aftermaths of a pair of volcano explosions on different Caribbean islands. The position will run for six months and requires a commitment of two days per week.
- Foundation positions: The Wikimedia Foundation is currently looking for software engineers for languages, fundraising, multimedia, and editor-engagement (either in San Francisco or remote worldwide), plus a handful of other development/ops/fundraising posts and a legal intern for next spring, a possible opportunity for a young Wikipedian looking for practical experience.
- Open Knowledge Foundation and GLAMs: The Open Knowledge Foundation is seeking an OpenGLAM Community Manager. GLAMs, a frequently used term on Wikipedia, refer to galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. This position would be a part-time (20 hours per week) paid position that would help the organization "build our growing network of cultural heritage professionals, researchers and hackers working to open up data and content" from GLAMs around the world and place it on the Internet, where a significantly greater amount of people can view, learn, and benefit from it.
- Help the Signpost: As a general reminder, the Signpost greatly welcomes tips for news, whether they are from outside press sources, within the Wikimedia movement, or tangentially related, on our public suggestions page or privately through emailing the editor-in-chief. While not all suggestions will make it into each week's edition, we do our best to include all that we possibly can.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/Serendipity Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/Op-ed Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/In focus
Manning naming dispute case opens; Tea Party case closes; Infoboxes nears completion
The dispute over the title for the Manning article escalated quickly to arbitration levels, as the Bradley/Chelsea Manning naming dispute case was accepted for arbitration. The Tea Party movement case has closed, with topic bans and interaction bans passed for several users. The Infoboxes case nears completion, as the committee continues to fine-tune topic ban proposals.
Open cases
The Manning naming dispute case, brought by TParis has been accepted for arbitration. The case involves the move of the Bradley Manning article to Chelsea Manning, after Manning’s attorney announced Manning’s wish to be known as Chelsea. The case is to focus on conduct and WP:BLP issues. The evidence phase closes 19 September 2013, the workshop phase closes 26 September 2013, and a proposed decision is scheduled to be posted 3 October 2013.
The Infoboxes case nears completion as several findings of fact and topic ban proposals have garnered enough votes for passage, and discussion continues on a final topic ban proposal.
Closed cases
Findings of fact related to conduct were passed for Goethean, North8000, Malke 2010, Arthur Rubin, Phoenix and Winslow, Xenophrenic, Collect, Ubikwit, and Snowded, and associated topic bans were passed for Goethean, North8000, Malke 2010, Arthur Rubin, Phoenix and Winslow, Xenophrenic, Collect, and Ubikwit, as well as interaction bans between Xenophrenic/Collect and Snowded/Phoenix and Winslow. Community sanctions on the case were lifted, and superseded by discretionary sanctions.
Other requests and committee action
- Amendment request: Scientology: An request made by The Devil's Advocate requests the lifting of a restriction imposed after the mention of an editor's previous username, an adjustment to the log of warnings about discretionary sanctions stating that the claims of misconduct underlying the warnings were invalid, and restoration of an oversighted edit to avoid the appearance of misconduct implied by a suppressed edit.
- Amendment request: Locke Cole arbitration case: A request was made by Locke Cole for the lifting of a 7-year-old interaction ban.
- Clarification request: Pseudoscience#Principles: A request was made by IRWolfie- for clarification of the {{ArbComPseudoscience}} template.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-09-04/Humour