Wikipedia's birthday brings tributes, app, award; Castro death rumors

Wikipedia turned 14 on January 15. A few media outlets took note of the anniversary. Time recalled "What Wikipedia’s First Users Got Wrong", reminding readers that in the early years of Wikipedia, some people had trouble grasping the concept of Wikipedia. Some complained that anyone being able to edit the articles was a "major security flaw", while others thought Jimmy Wales wrote all the articles. The Huffington Post offered "13 Super-Specific Tactics To Get The Most Out Of Wikipedia", such as edit histories, the random button, and The Wikipedia Adventure. Bustle presented "The 27 Weirdest Wikipedia Pages, Because Sometimes, You Just Need To See a List of Every Fictional Duck", and who can argue with that? The Houston Press gave us a list of five songs honoring Wikipedia, but one of them is by Limp Bizkit, so we'd like to give that one back.

Tech media took note of the release the same day of a new Android mobile app. A version for iOS will follow. A Wikimedia Foundation blog post called it "A more immersive mobile experience". VentureBeat noted that "the focus of the refresh is firmly on imagery", with the lead photo dominating the app's presentation of the article and the app allowing the user to easily enlarge photos and swipe through a slideshow of all the article's images. They wrote that these features gave the app "a little more visual zing". TechCrunch reported that "the search experience now features a more defined, higher-contrast search bar alongside a list of recently searched topics" and noted the "Read More" feature which offers three related pages at the end of each article.

Also the same day, the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation announced it was awarding the prestigious 2015 Erasmus Prize to Wikipedia. In a press release, they said it chose the Wikipedia community for the award because "it has promoted the dissemination of knowledge through a comprehensive and universally accessible encyclopaedia." The Wikimedia Foundation responded to the news in a press release and a blog post. English language media has not taken notice of the award as of press time, but Jimmy Wales was personally on hand in the Netherlands for the announcement and appeared on the Dutch television show RTL Late Night on RTL 4, along with Wikipedia editors Spinster and Effeietsanders. See the full story of the award in our "News and notes" section this week.

Fusion reported (January 9) on the wild spread of rumors on January 8 and 9 about the alleged death of 88-year-old longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, who has not been seen in public since January 2014. The rumors spread on social media, especially Twitter, though some media outlets, like Diario Las Américas and De Telegraaf were reporting on the rumors and claimed that the Cuban government would be holding a press conference about the matter. This was a claim that left many journalists who hadn't heard about a press conference scratching their heads. The Associated Press noted (January 10) that one publication, Corriere della Sera, even reported the rumor as fact before quickly removing the story from their website.

The Cuban government officially denied the rumors and the existence of a press conference to Agence France-Presse. Univision anchor Jorge Ramos warned on Twitter about the prevalence of false rumors regarding Castro's death, especially in the community of Cuban-American exiles in south Florida. "Careful. Remember that here in Miami, almost like a ritual, Fidel Castro is killed several times every year." Many news outlets are speculating the source of the rumor was the January 4 death of Fidel Castro Odinga, son of former Prime Minister of Kenya Raila Odinga.

On Wikipedia, three different editors edited Fidel Castro's article to report the death as factual. One of them cited the De Telegraaf article and even submitted Castro's death as a potential story for the In the news section of the front page of the encyclopedia. Aside from Fusion, these edits attracted little attention in the English language press, but numerous Spanish language media outlets reported on Wikipedia's role, including stories in BBC Mundo, Perú.21, El Heraldo, and Página Siete.

• Academia: The Daily Northwestern opines (January 15) that "Academia should find a place for Wikipedia".
• Football fans: Soccer Gods lists the "Seven things we learned from Wikipedia about the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations" (January 15). The 2015 Africa Cup of Nations will be held in Equatorial Guinea from January 17 to February 8.
• Pakistan editing: The Express Tribune reports (January 14) that Wikimedia Pakistan is working with the National Assembly of Pakistan to obtain biographical information about each Assembly member, including dates of birth, educational background, and photographs, to create and improve encyclopedia articles for all 340 members.
• Checking in with Whitehall's Resident Wikipedian: BBC News reports (January 14) on the anonymous UK civil servant (or servants) who has been diligently editing Wikipedia articles on Scottish football from work.
• Unusual aggregations: The Huffington Post offers "The 49 Most Entertaining Wikipedia Entries Ever Created" (January 14), most or all of which were taken from Wikipedia:Unusual articles.
• Armenian editing: PanARMENIAN.Net reports (January 13) on Wikimedia Armenia's Wiki Winter Camp for youth aged 14 to 20 in Aghveran from January 7 to 11. The Camp's work boosted the Armenian Wikipedia from 42 to 41 on the ranking of Wikipedias by number of articles. Four such Camps are planned for 2015.
• Tackling the gender gap: The blog of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology offers advice and encouragement (January 13) for women wishing to edit Wikipedia to address the gender gap.
• Canadian Resident Wikipedian: All Points West talks with (January 12) the new Honorary Resident Wikipedian at the University of Victoria, Christian Vandendorpe [fr], professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa and author of the book From Papyrus to Hypertext: Toward the Universal Digital Library (2009).
• Corrupting Wikipedia: In a discussion (January 12) of "pernicious corruption" in the US government in the Washington Post, Professor Janine R. Wedel writes of public relations firms: "One firm employs 'all sorts of dark arts' (their words) on the Internet: editing Wikipedia entries deemed damaging; setting up third-party blogs that also appear independent; and gaming search results to ensure that positive content outweighs negative content. Such efforts sway public perception and mold policy yet are virtually invisible even to a trained observer."
• Golden jokes: While presenting the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay at the 72nd Golden Globe Awards on January 11, Kristen Wiig noted that according to Wikipedia "you cannot make a movie without a screenplay."
• Time for questions: Jimmy Wales appeared on the January 8 episode of Question Time on BBC One.
• Crazy Popes: Adweek interviewed (January 6) Archer creator Adam Reed, who said he relies on Wikipedia for each episode. "I would be lost without it. I will go look for like, I don't know, like what type of pistol would this guy be carrying, and then an hour later I'm like, 'Man, this Pope Pius IV was crazy!' And then the afternoon is gone."

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2015-01-14

Erasmus Prize recognizes the global Wikipedia community

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By The ed17

On the fourteenth anniversary of the founding of the English Wikipedia, the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation has announced that its prestigious annual Erasmus Prize will be awarded to the worldwide community that has built Wikipedia.

Desiderius Erasmus was a Dutch Catholic theologian who lived during the Reformation. While critical of the Catholic Church, he did not join the nascent Lutheran movement, instead committing himself to reforming it from within. He is remembered today as a preeminent humanist and scholar, author of many works including The Praise of Folly.

According to the foundation:

“

Wikipedia receives the prize because it has promoted the dissemination of knowledge through a comprehensive and universally accessible encyclopaedia. To achieve that, the initiators of Wikipedia have designed a new and effective democratic platform. The prize specifically recognises Wikipedia as a community — a shared project that involves tens of thousands of volunteers around the world who help shape this initiative. ... By distributing knowledge to places where it was previously unavailable, Wikipedia also plays an important role in countries where neutrality and open information are not taken for granted. With its worldwide reach and social impact, Wikipedia does justice to the idea of a single yet diverse world. It is a digital reference work available in various languages, undergoing permanent development. Through its open character, Wikipedia highlights how sources of knowledge are not neutral and must always be weighed. With its critical attention to text, sources and the expansion of knowledge, Wikipedia reflects the ideas of Erasmus, the world citizen after whom the prize is named.

”

Lila Tretikov, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), stated that "I am proud that Wikipedia is being recognized for the incredible collective impact it has had to date. As we look to the future of free knowledge, we will continue to be guided by the principles the Erasmus Prize today honors." An official ceremony will occur in autumn 2015.

Of note is the seeming purposeful singling out of the Wikipedia, rather than Wikimedia, community. This distinction appears to have been noted by the WMF, which presciently attempted to expand the scope of the award in the opening lines of its press release. The organization called attention to this being a first time a "collaborative community" has won the award—the qualifier needed to distinguish it from the 1958 prize, which was given to the Austrian people for having "become the shining example of a positive mentality, of courage, energy and confidence in the future of Europe, by the way in which as a minorité créatrice it opened paths for the free nations of Europe to follow."

The €150,000 in prize funds for the 2015 award will be given to the Wikimedia Foundation, which has already declared that it will be given back to the community in the form of individual grants or similar support. Given the short amount of time between the announcement and our date of publication, the WMF was unable to provide further specificity at this time.

Further coverage is available in this week's "In the media" section. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-01-14/Serendipity

2015-01-14

Articles for creation needs you

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By Chris Troutman

Chris Troutman is one of the many volunteers fielding questions at the WikiProject Articles for Creation help desk. He also thanks Hasteur, Kvng, and Nonsenseferret for their input on this op-ed.

Ever since the Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident in 2005 triggered the restriction against un-registered editors creating new pages, WikiProject Articles for Creation (AfC) has stood in the breach. The WikiProject's purpose is to review draft submissions from IPs (and frequently new registered editors) to sort the wheat from the chaff. The policy change at this time nine years ago shifted the burden to AfC from the New Page Patrol, whom Jimbo at the time called "very brave people (which they are) standing in front of a firehose of nonsense (which it can be)".^[1] AfC has necessitated the work of hundreds of editors reviewing drafts, automating the review process, and fielding new editor questions about drafts at the AfC help desk. The work of AfC upholds Wikipedia's claim that "anyone can edit."

AfC submissions Random submission

2+ months

1,869 pending submissions Purge to update v t e

AfC is very much an incubator. Whereas policies about verifiability, notability, and copyright lead to article deletion in the article namespace, within the draft namespace deletion procedures aren't typically used because the slack helps new editors learn rather than penalize their ignorance. Reviewers typically provide comment when they decline a submission, letting the author know if they need to improve their use of in-line citations, tone down promotional language, or tighten the copy to what the sources actually support. Each declination of a submitted draft has a reason explicitly attached to help new editors learn what Wikipedia expects. Most drafts require a few if not several attempts before acceptance.

Wikipedia garners wide interest from a variety of would-be editors. The in-flow of drafts has continually been more than the members of AfC can keep up with. The pool of pending submissions has had over nine hundred potential articles for at least the past year. Recently the backlog has toggled in and out of "out of order" status, which indicates more than three thousand waiting submissions. The reasons for the growing number of drafts remain unclear. Efforts like the article wizard to make draft submission easier seem to have succeeded in their goal, increasing the number of submissions beyond the limit of reviewers to manage. The size of the pool of submissions correlates to a delay in response to each draft. Eager would-be editors waiting for their first draft to be accepted may lose interest as the wait passes from days, to weeks, to more than a month or longer. Those who thought their Wikipedia careers would start with a draft article may quit Wikipedia before they receive outreach. As a result, AfC's most pressing need is for reviewers. For editors with even a little editing experience (500 un-deleted mainspace edits and registration more than 90 days ago) you can add yourself to the participants' list and start reviewing drafts.

Click this button
to review
an AfC submission

Typically, WikiProjects hold backlog drives to reduce the burden of overdue tasks. I and others have opposed starting another drive, as the last two drives (in March and again in June) were marred by the results of gamification. AfC seeks to be fair with each and every review and simply pressing "accept" or "decline" isn't sufficient. My primary reason for opposing a backlog drive despite how badly such a drive is needed is that unlike some WikiProjects, AfC is rudderless and adrift without a coordinator. My exemplar for WikiProjects is WikiProject Military History and they hold regular elections for a group of coordinators, who then take responsibility for the functioning of the WikiProject. I know other WikiProjects do this as well and I think an elected coordinator or group of coordinators could lead AfC out of its current state.

Of course, every draft submitted to AfC comes from an editor with a purpose in mind. Some editors with open conflicts of interest bring drafts to AfC to ensure neutrality in their submissions. Some number of college students submit the sandbox entries they wrote for class to AfC by clicking the button on {{User sandbox}}. Wikipedia's ubiquity and #7 Alexa rank represent a public relations goldmine and everyone from up-and-coming academics to business start-ups are writing ad copy for deployment on our wiki.

Floating in this sea of drafts alongside the detritus about garage bands and the latest candidate to stand for election are some well-written articles. These articles could help improve our encyclopedia and members of each WikiProject should be interested in fishing out these draft articles. Technical subjects like classical nucleation theory (a recently accepted draft) would benefit by the review of a specialist. Joe Reviewer at AfC won't necessarily have the same appreciation for a given draft that you might, so your participation is not only wanted, but also vital.

The views expressed in these op-eds are those of the authors only; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section. Editors wishing to submit their own op-ed should email the Signpost's editor.

1. ^ Jimmy Wales (December 5, 2005). "[WikiEN-l] Experiment on new pages". lists.wikimedia.org. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)

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