The Signpost
Single-page Edition
WP:POST/1
21 January 2015

From the editor
Introducing your new editors-in-chief
Anniversary
A decade of the Signpost
Interview
WWII veteran honors shipmates through Wikipedia editing
News and notes
Annual report released; Wikimania; steward elections
Op-ed
Let's make WikiProjects better
In the media
Johann Hari; bandishes and delicate flowers
Featured content
Yachts, marmots, boat races, and a rocket engineer who attempted to birth a goddess
Arbitration report
As one door closes, a (Gamer)Gate opens
 

2015-01-21

Introducing your new editors-in-chief

Dear readers,

About a month ago, I declared my intention to step down as editor-in-chief of the Signpost upon finding two successors. After combing through several applications, I am delighted to say that this search is at an end: Gamaliel and Go Phightins! will be stepping into my role, while Pine will continue as the publication and newsroom manager. All three are experienced Wikipedians with significant prior or current involvement with the Signpost. I will continue to serve as the newspaper's editor emeritus, where I am looking forward to stepping back while assisting the new editors in any way I can. Details on these positions will come in this column next week.

Please join me in welcoming Gamaliel and Go Phightins, and we would appreciate if you would bear with us as we work through this transition period.

Looking back at my time as the editor of the Signpost, we attempted to continue expanding the newspaper's scope to include both the English Wikipedia and Wikimedia movement. While our coverage has been patchy at times, especially with regards to breaks between arb report writers and technological initiatives, I believe that we accomplished our goals. As this week's ten-year Signpost anniversary article shows, many of the Signpost's biggest stories came in the last few years. For "News and notes" and general Wikimedia news—the sections I put much of my personal effort into—these ranged all over the world, from Wikivoyage to Gibraltar to the Russian Wikipedia and the National Archives and Records Administration.

Still, the stories that will stick with me are the memorials, particularly the life and death of Ihor Kostenko, a Ukrainian Wikipedian. While I never personally met Ihor, writing about his death made me feel like we had lost a kindred spirit. A fan of sports, geography, history, and warships, Ihor and I shared many interests; we were even near each other's ages. What more could he have done with a lengthier life?

We will unfortunately never have the answer to that question, but we do know what he did with his life, and it will live on through every person that encounters the work he did online. The legacy we make today will be left for the world of tomorrow. Will we leave a fractured, contentious, and cantankerous community beset by an unwillingness to adapt to a new generation? Or will we leave them with something worthy of the fifth-highest ranking on the Internet?

Here's to the coming years.

The ed17, outgoing Signpost editor-in-chief

Reader comments

2015-01-21

A decade of the Signpost

Thanks to Michael Snow, Ral315, The ed17, and Adam Cuerden for their assistance in assembling this feature.

2005

John Seigenthaler

The Wikipedia Signpost was founded by Michael Snow, beginning with the publication of the January 10, 2005 issue. That issue contained ten articles, all written by Snow, beginning with his introduction "From the editor". It also contained the first Arbitration Report ("The Report On Lengthy Litigation", or TROLL), which would become a long-time staple of the Signpost. Snow headed up the Signpost until August, when Ral315 took over.

News reports in the Signpost discussed the growing pains of the early years of Wikipedia. In February, the main page was locked down after major vandalism and a power outage caused Wikipedia to crash for a day. In March, Wikipedia reached a half-million articles. While Wikipedia was the subject of hoaxes and misinformation, it was able to deftly respond to breaking news such as its article on the July London bombings.

One of Wikipedia's biggest challenges came with Wikipedia's first major public scandal, the Seigenthaler biography incident. The Signpost reported on the initial controversy and the identification of the hoaxer.

2006

Jordanhill railway station

In 2006, Wikipedia hit one million articles with its article Jordanhill railway station.

The Signpost conducted an interview with Jimmy Wales in February. In December, it featured the first installment of a comic strip called WikiWorld, created by cartoonist Greg Williams. WikiWorld, which ran intermittently until 2008, remains one of the most fondly remembered Signpost features.

In January, the Signpost reported that editors uncovered multiple instances of plagiarism of Wikipedia by a professional reporter. It covered the ongoing discussion of Wikimedia Foundation office actions and an incident where a veteran administrator was briefly stripped of administrative powers for undoing an office action. It discussed early efforts to address Wikipedia's gender gap, an issue that is still ongoing. It also reported on an editor for hire who was permanently blocked, an editor who remains a perennial Wikipedia critic.

2007

The Signpost conducted another interview with Wales in September and an interview with incoming Wikimedia Foundation director Sue Gardner in December.

The Signpost covered several significant news stories in 2007. It reported on WikiScanner, a tool which matched edits made by anonymous IP editors to a number of organizations, resulting in revelations which proved embarrassing to numerous companies and media and political organizations. Embarrassing for Wikipedia was the Essjay controversy, where a well-regarded Wikipedia editor and Wikia employee was revealed to have lied about his academic credentials and background. And revelations that the article of a nutrition author was edited by his own public relations agent led to one of the most amusing headlines in Signpost history, "Nutritional beef cooks PR editor".

2008

One of the historical images of Muhammad which raised objections in 2008

Early in 2008, the Signpost reported on a controversy which erupted over a number of historical images depicting Muhammad. Visual depictions of Muhammad are offensive to many Muslims. The presence of the images on Wikipedia prompted a 100,000 signature petition demanding their removal, but Wikipedia editors ultimately decided to retain the images. Later in the year, the Signpost reported on another image controversy after an image of the cover of the Scorpions' album Virgin Killer prompted media complaints and even a brief blacklisting of Wikipedia by the Internet Watch Foundation.

In a year of sensitive and controversial news stories, perhaps the most difficult was the Signpost's two-part series on the relationship between Jimmy Wales and Canadian commentator Rachel Marsden. Their brief relationship was the subject of salacious stories in the news media, but unlike most news outlets the Signpost treated the matter seriously instead of as gossip. It reported on the relationship and the fallout from the scandal, investigating allegations of impropriety and exploring how the matter affected the encyclopedia.

2009

Church of Scientology building in Los Angeles

Ragesoss took the reins of the Signpost in February.

The Signpost covered a number of issues that year, including a series of stories about the community's adoption of the Creative Commons license for encyclopedia content. The conclusion of the Scientology Arbitration case made headlines when the Committee banned IP addresses belonging to the Church of Scientology. The National Portrait Gallery threatened a lawsuit over images used on Wikimedia projects they claimed were under copyright in the UK, but were clearly in the public domain in the US and elsewhere. A fabricated quote attributed to the late composer Maurice Jarre by a Wikipedia editor and a performance art project on the encyclopedia and related legal matters were also reported on by the Signpost.

2010

Larry Sanger

HaeB took over the Signpost in June. In August, the Wikipedia Signpost officially shortened its name to the Signpost to reflect its coverage of Wikimedia projects beyond the English Wikipedia.

The Signpost published a series of stories on Wikipedia's new user interface and reported on the encyclopedia's 3,000th Featured Article. It reported on serious allegations by Larry Sanger to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the Wikimedia Foundation was "knowingly distributing child pornography" by hosting some unspecified images on Wikimedia Commons. Sanger co-founded Wikipedia but has become a frequent critic of the project. The FBI was also in the news in 2010 in relation to Wikipedia when it demanded the removal of FBI seal from the encyclopedia, prompting a cutting public response from Wikimedia Foundation counsel Mike Godwin.

2011

In January, Wikipedia celebrated its tenth anniversary and the Signpost covered the commemorations both on and off the project. Later that month, the Signpost reported on a front page New York Times story about Wikipedia's gender gap and the ensuing discussion on Wikipedia. Later that year, the Signpost reported on the shutdown protest of the Italian Wikipedia in response to controversial legislation before the Italian Parliament and the creation of the Wikipedia Zero initiative. Also in the news were Wikipedia controversies involving reporter Johann Hari and former politician Sarah Palin.

2012

A bubble map of the global distribution of English Wikipedia edits on 10 May 2011

The ed17 became editor-in-chief of the Signpost in May.

The Signpost reported on the blackout of Wikipedia in January due to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act. Several other controversial issues arose that year. A scandal involving conflict of interest editing prompted the resignation of the chair of Wikimedia UK. The Signpost chronicled the difficulties surrounding the foundation of a new Wikimedia project called WikiVoyage. The Signpost's regular "WikiProject Report" published an in-depth investigation called "Where in the world is Wikipedia?" examining how editors successfully and not so successfully collaborate together on WikiProjects in different parts of the world.

2013

Aaron Swartz

The Signpost began the year with an interview with Sue Gardner and a report on the untimely death of activist and Wikipedia editor Aaron Swartz. It continued its reporting on the foundation of WikiVoyage, following that up with a controversial report about some aspects of that project. The Signpost also investigated the Funds Dissemination Committee and published a series of reports on a scandal involving widespread paid advocacy editing by Wiki-PR, a now-former public relations company, and the resulting fallout. One of the most popular features in the Signpost that year was a special report called "Examining the popularity of Wikipedia articles: catalysts, trends, and applications".

2014

One of the most popular Signpost stories of 2014 was its June report on the US National Archives and Records Administration's inclusion of Wikipedia in its Open Government Plan, which encompasses efforts such as uploading over 100,000 images to Wikimedia Commons. A related report demonstrated how its initiatives made it easier for institutions like NARA to upload their holdings to Commons. Also in June, the Signpost interviewed incoming Wikimedia Foundation director Lila Tretikov.

The Signpost reported on a quickly withdrawn $10 million lawsuit against four Wikipedia editors and how a series of Twitter bots revealed widespread government editing of Wikipedia around the world. The Signpost also noted the unfortunate deaths of Wikipedians Adrianne Wadewitz and Ihor Kostenko.

Behind the scenes, in late May, the Signpost gained a bit more exposure when its featured content section became part of Portal:Featured content.

2015

Go Phightins! and Gamaliel will take over leadership of the Signpost towards the end of January.

Where will the Signpost go in 2015? Much of that depends on you. We'd like to expand our coverage in many ways, reviving "News and Notes" as a regular section and doing more to check in with other projects and initiatives on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. For us to be able to do that, we need you. Offer your ideas on our Suggestions page or visit our Newsroom to see where you can help.

Reader comments

2015-01-21

WWII veteran honors shipmates through Wikipedia editing

Mahan in June 1944, shortly after a refit in California.

Over seventy years ago, the US destroyer Mahan was patrolling off Ponson Island in the Philippines when eleven Japanese kamikaze aircraft appeared over the horizon and attacked. The bombers in the group bored in with bombs armed. US Army fighter aircraft shot down three and damaged two; Mahan's gunners took out another four.

Training crewmen aboard the Mahan-class destroyer Shaw to use an unshielded 5"/38 caliber gun.

George Pendergast, who edits Wikipedia with the username Pendright, was eighteen years old when he joined Mahan's crew in April 1944. About half of the ship's crew at that time was made up of green, untested teenagers. Pendergast served aboard the ship as a fireman, second class, a low-end position that "required little brainpower but much speed and dexterity." He would function as one of a three-part crew: one each for oil, air, and water. These individuals had to work very closely together when hunting a submarine, a process that required the destroyer to run quickly at varying speeds. "Through a system of communication, the bridge would send down an order for 'full steam ahead': that meant the fireman had to bat open twelve burners, feeding oil into the firebox, as quickly as possible; the man on the air had to feed the air simultaneously for proper combustion; and the water checker had to feed more water into the boiler, or it might go dry and blow. Now, five minutes later, the next order might be 'stop', which meant all twelve burners had to be batted closed, the air guy had to cut the air, and the water checker had to cut the water, so it would not overflow and kill the fire." The steam produced through this process would be fed to the engine room, which controlled the propellers that actually moved the ship.

Pendergast's position kept him in the often unbearable heat of the fireroom, blind to the world outside. In non-battle situations, this was not a problem. Pendergast would stand watches of four hours on and eight or twelve off. If he was off watch between 8am and 4pm, however, he would have to report to the fireroom regardless. "You might chip paint, do some painting, clean burners and floor plates, or do other menial tasks," he said. "The Navy made sure you kept busy—no days off!" Still, when the sailors were off duty, there was little more to do besides sleep, eat, read, and write home. Many men took to gambling their salaries, a problem so pervasive that the navy limited salary dispersal while underway to just five dollars every two weeks—the sailors were paid in cash, a practice unknown to many people today.

If the ship was in battle, the stress level changed. Being below Mahan's deck, Pendergast had little clue as to what was going on outside. They were forced to use the tempo and weight of the ship's armament to compensate. "The guns told you what was happening," he told me. "If you heard the five-inch guns booming away, the enemy was still at a distance. When the 40-mm anti-aircraft guns started blasting away, they were getting closer. When you'd hear the 20-mm guns, you knew it was time to worry."

Wartime US film depicting kamikaze strikes and the explosions they caused.

On 7 December 1944, those 20-mm guns were used extensively. Mahan was not a large ship, displacing only 1500 to 1800 long tons. Furthermore, it was primarily intended for surface and anti-submarine warfare, and as such was not heavily armed with anti-aircraft weapons—by 1944, wartime refits brought the major weaponry to four 5-inch, two twin 40-mm, and four to six 20-mm guns. Exactly three years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the battle that brought the US into the Second World War, Mahan faced down the eleven Japanese aircraft off Ponson Island. Despite its crew's best efforts, the ship was hit by three Japanese kamikaze aircraft. The kinetic impact of these strikes was augmented by the fuel they were carrying. One struck the superstructure, where the bridge—staffed by the captain and crewmen at the helm—was located.

After receiving the order to abandon ship, Pendergast and his crewmates climbed up to emerge into a world that had changed greatly since they last saw it:

The difference in scale between a battleship (top) and Mahan (third from top) is clearly visible.

Pendergast went on to serve in the much quieter Caribbean and European theaters aboard Cone from 18 August 1945 until 21 March 1946. He later got a degree and became a government accountant and auditor.

In his mid-eighties, Pendergast got involved with Wikipedia after a local military museum asked him to write about women in the military. Accordingly, his first edits on the site were to Cadet Nurse Corps in October 2011. He was motivated by the idea of contributing to something with a lasting sense of value and by bringing his shipmates' war history up to the "level they rightfully earned." In the years since, he's written featured articles on Mahan and the Mahan-class destroyer, which examines the entire eighteen-strong class of warships that Mahan led. The latter was featured on Wikipedia's main page on 16 January and was visited approximately 48,000 times in a four-day period. He has had a very positive experience on the site, and plans to keep contributing for as long as he is able to.

I asked Pendergast whether the current generation of US history enthusiasts—people who have had little direct experience with conscription, let alone war—is missing crucial life experiences that derogatorily affect their views and writing. He does not think so. "There have been many successful coaches in sports—yet some of them never played the game or ever played it very well. Historians are another example."

For older individuals who want to contribute, Pendergast advises that they should make use of Wikipedia's mentoring processes, such as the Teahouse, the adopt-a-user program, or the upcoming co-op, and choose a subject that they are both passionate about and knowledgeable in. He also noted that studying articles near their preferred topic would help them learn the intricacies of wiki markup, and that they should join Wikipedia groups and activities when offered. Finally and most importantly, "be bold, but don't bite off more than [you can] chew."

Near the end of our correspondence, I backtracked to ask Pendergast about his most vivid memory from that day.

Mahan's sister ship, Shaw, in 1942.


Reader comments

2015-01-21

Annual report released; Wikimania; steward elections

Esino Lario, the newly announced site for Wikimania 2016
  • Annual report released: On January 21, the Wikimedia Foundation released its annual report for 2014. It is the seventh annual report released by the Foundation. A Foundation blog post describes the creation of the report.
  • Wikimania 2016: On January 20, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that the site for the 2016 Wikimania conference will be Esino Lario, a small comune in Lombardy, Italy. Six bids were submitted last year and of those, Atlantic City, Chennai, Dar es Salaam, and St. Louis were disqualified by the jury, leaving only Manila to compete with Esino Lario. Posters on the Wikimedia-l mailing list largely praised the decision, but one expressed surprise that the population of the Italian village (772) was smaller than the expected number of conference attendees.
  • Wikimania 2015: Presentation submissions and scholarship applications are being accepted for this year's Wikimania, which will be held in Mexico City from July 15 to 19 at the Biblioteca Vasconcelos.
  • Steward elections: This year's elections for the position of steward will be held from February 8 to 28. Candidates can stand for the election until January 28, and as of press time eight candidates are in the running. There are currently 34 stewards.

    Reader comments

2015-01-21

Let's make WikiProjects better

WikiProject X's logo

I have edited Wikipedia off and on for the past ten years. For as long as I have been a Wikipedia editor, there have been WikiProjects: sub-groups of the larger Wikipedia community dedicated to a particular subject matter or a certain task. WikiProjects are all over the map: some of them are dedicated to highly specific subjects; others are dedicated to high-level concepts like "biographies." Some WikiProjects have a very specific focus on encyclopedic content; others, like the Department of Fun, provide support in more indirect ways. There is a WikiProject for pretty much everyone, and if there isn't one for you, you can easily start one. In fact, they are so easy to start that we currently have over 2,000 WikiProjects.

Unfortunately, a proliferation of WikiProjects does not mean a proliferation of activity. Many WikiProjects that get started end up becoming inactive. What's happening? Several factors are at play. WikiProjects require significant effort to maintain, so they decline after their maintainers move on to do other things. Some arguments have been made that WikiProjects become less relevant as some subject areas get more complete coverage on Wikipedia. Others have tied the decline of WikiProjects to an overall decline of participation on Wikipedia.

Whatever the cause, WikiProjects are failing to live up to their potential. The English-language Wikipedia is huge. As with any large community, it can be hard for any one person to feel like he or she belongs. By grouping people together by their interests, WikiProjects have the potential to make Wikipedians feel like they are a part of a close-knit community. They can help Wikipedians of all levels of experience navigate our policies and procedures, ensuring that they are confident in their editing and that there is less cleanup work for the administrators. They have the potential to provide the social support that encourages newcomers to stick around and build our encyclopedia.

The potential WikiProjects have encouraged me to start WikiProject X, a new project funded by a Wikimedia Foundation Individual Engagement Grant that focuses on figuring out what makes some WikiProjects work and not others. Our research will focus on current WikiProjects and the subject areas they cover, determining where WikiProjects provide adequate support to the editing community and where they do not. I plan on interviewing many Wikipedians, including people who don't normally get involved on WikiProjects. I want to know what resources you need to support your editing.

Isarra, a Wikipedian and experienced MediaWiki designer, will lead our design effort. We will be drawing from our research data and other sources of inspiration, including the Teahouse and other existing WikiProjects. We should begin to think beyond static pages and lists. WikiProjects should make you feel engaged. They should put relevant information front and center, and always feel up to date. They should be easy to maintain, and no one should have to re-invent the wheel. They should be a safe space for users. They should make editing Wikipedia an easier and more satisfying experience for everyone.

This benefits more than just online users. I run many in-person editing events with my local Wikimedia chapter, usually organized around a specific theme. The experience of having a knowledgeable Wikipedia editor walk you through the ropes is difficult to replicate online. At the same time, there is only so much you can accomplish at a single event. I would like to be able to refer the people we train at our events to a WikiProject, where they can pick up where they left off. This would help bridge the gap between offline and online, where offline event organizers work with online participants from around the world, complementing each other's efforts. Very few WikiProjects are currently equipped to pull this off, but with the right tools, more should be able to do this.

We want to hear your perspective on this endeavor. We are collecting stories at Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Stories and are recruiting people and WikiProjects for pilot testing at Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Pilots. You are also encouraged to sign up for our newsletter if you are interested in learning more.

James Hare is the current president of Wikimedia DC. He has edited Wikipedia since 2004.
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.

Reader comments

2015-01-21

Johann Hari; bandishes and delicate flowers

Johann Hari offers apologies for malicious Wikipedia editing

Johann Hari

The radio show Little Atoms, broadcast weekly on London's Resonance FM, featured a lengthy conversation with journalist and author Johann Hari on its January 20 episode about his new book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. In 2011, it was revealed that Hari had engaged in a spree of pseudonymous edits maligning other British journalists, accusing them of being anti-Semitic, homophobic, alcoholic, and supporters of Sarah Palin (see previous Signpost coverage). This, coupled with revelations of plagiarism, prompted Hari to return his prestigious Orwell Prize and leave The Independent. Before the book discussion, Hari and host Neil Denny briefly discussed the issue. Hari said


Denny asked if he would offer an apology specifically to two of his targets, Nick Cohen and Francis Wheen. Hari, who has previously published a public apology, and privately contacted some of his specific targets, asked Denny to deliver private letters of apology to the two men.

In brief

Neela Bhagwat

2015-01-21

Yachts, marmots, boat races, and a rocket engineer who attempted to birth a goddess

This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 4 January 2015 through 11 January 2015. Anything in quotation marks is taken from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.

Nine featured articles were promoted this week.

The Woman Trapped in a Sex Toy was the cover story in the April–May 1939 issue of Marvel Science Stories. Apparently.
Jack Parsons, who might fit the mad scientist archetype. He died in a laboratory explosion at the age of 37 (and probably read the above magazine).
I'm a marmot!
The Boat Race 2003
  • June 1941 uprising in eastern Herzegovina (nominated by Peacemaker67) The June 1941 uprising was the uprising by Serbs "against the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH)". The NDH was a puppet state formed after the defeat and occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy). The state was controlled by the Ustaša–Croatian Revolutionary Movement, known as the Ustaše, a Fascist and ultra-conservative terrorist organisation, who intended to create an ethnically pure Croatia by killing, expelling, or converting to Roman Catholicism those Serbs living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The majority of the population of eastern Herzegovina were Serbs; from the first week of June 1941 the Ustaše carried out attacks, shootings of hostages, and massacres in the region. Isolated incidents of resistance against the Ustaše and the NDH gendarmerie escalated into full-scale rebellion on 23 June, after news of the German invasion of the Soviet Union reached the region. The revolt was finally suppressed by the intervention of Italian troops, followed by mopping-up operations by the Croatian Home Guard. Peacemaker67's written a damn good article – near impossible to condense it into a paragraph without losing a lot.
  • The Boat Race 2003 (nominated by The Rambling Man) Every year, Cambridge and Oxford Universities' rowing crews race on the Championship Course against each other. The 2003 event was numbered as the 149th Boat Race of the Boat Races, an annual rowing race between the University of Oxford, or the "Dark Blues", and the University of Cambridge, or the "Light Blues". First held in 1829, the side-by-side rowing event is held on the River Thames between Putney and Mortlake. This 186-year-old rivalry is followed throughout the United Kingdom and broadcast worldwide. On Wikipedia, The Rambling Man is trying very hard to have a featured article on every single one of these annual sporting events, and that is awesome. To quote his description of this race from the featured article candidate page: Hot on the heels of "a man jumping in front of two boats" and "cleavers not spoons", I humbly submit to you this meagre offering. It seemed unlikely that anything would match the excitement of the 2002 race but this race took the proverbial biscuit. Dramaz beforehand with broken oars and wrists, and the closest finish in the long history of the event. The winning margin is estimated to have been approximately five hundredths of a second over the course of an 18-minute race. That's close.
  • Marvel Science Stories (nominated by Mike Christie) Marvel Science Stories was a US pulp magazine which published a total of fifteen issues in two separate runs, both edited by Robert O. Erisman. The publisher for the first run was Postal Publications, and the second run was published by Western Publishing; both companies were owned by Abraham and Martin Goodman. It appeared in August 1938, and carried stories with more sexual content than was usual for the genre.
  • Olympic marmot (nominated by innotata) The Olympic marmot is a marmot that lives on Mount Olympus. In ancient Greek mythology, it is the Olympic marmot that serves the Greek gods their afternoon tea and the gods use them as cushions during the winter season... Well, okay, it's not. It occurs only in the U.S. state of Washington, on the middle elevations of the Olympic Peninsula. This is not a joke anymore, it is true, it was declared the official endemic mammal of Washington. The closest related species are the hoary marmot and the Vancouver Island marmot. It has a brown coat and long, bushy tail, and it is a vegetarian with a diet of dry grasses, which it also uses as bedding in burrows. The Olympic marmot lives in colonies, which are found in various mountain locations. These vary in size, from a single family to multiple families with up to 40 marmots. Olympic marmots are very sociable animals who often engage in play fighting and they communicate with whistles. During hibernation, beginning in September, they are in a deep sleep and they emerge again in May.
  • Battle of Schliengen (nominated by Auntieruth) At the Battle of Schliengen (24 October 1796), both the French Army of the Rhine and Moselle under the command of Jean-Victor Moreau and the Austrian army under the command of Archduke Charles of Austria claimed victories. During the French Revolutionary Wars, Schliengen was a strategically important location for the armies of both Republican France and Habsburg Austria. Control of the area gave either combatant access to southwestern German states and important Rhine river crossings. On 20 October Moreau retreated from Freiburg im Breisgau and established his army of 32,000 along a ridge of hills. His retreat was closely followed by Charles' combined force of 24,000 soldiers. Moreau halted at Schliengen, and arranged his forces along a high ridge. Charles, appreciating that Moreau was in a strong defensive position, attacked the French flanks, rather than the centre. After a day of battle Moreau, realising that Charles' forcing of his flanks from their positions made his centre vulnerable, decided that retreat was the best option. Moreau reached the French border by 3 November. He had offered an armistice to Charles, but this was refused by the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, who was Charles' brother. Charles' forces were then ordered to lay siege to the fortifications at Kehl and Hüningen, which kept them occupied for the winter.
  • Jack Parsons (rocket engineer) (nominated by JJARichardson and Midnightblueowl) John Whiteside Parsons (1914–1952) (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons (no, seriously), and better known as Jack Parsons), was an American rocket and chemical engineer, propulsion researcher, inventor, businessman, writer, and Thelemite occultist. Parsons' "distinctive technical innovations" in rocketry, and advocacy for space exploration and human spaceflight, make him regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the U.S. space program. Parsons was associated with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and was one of the principal founders of both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Aerojet Engineering Corporation. He invented the first castable, composite solid rocket propellant, and pioneered the advancement of both liquid and solid-fuel rockets. Born in Los Angeles, California, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family in Pasadena. Inspired by science fiction literature, he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began amateur rocket experiments with his best friend Ed Forman. He was forced to drop out of Pasadena Junior College and Stanford University due to financial difficulties during the Great Depression, but in 1934 together with Forman and Frank Malina formed the Caltech-affiliated GALCIT Rocket Research Group, supported by Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory chairman Theodore von Kármán. In 1939 they gained funding from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to work on Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) for the U.S. military. In 1942 they founded Aerojet to develop and sell their JATO technology; the Group became JPL in 1943. Parsons was also a devotee to Thelema, Aleister Crowley's new religious movement, and in 1942 he succeeded Wilfred Talbot Smith as high priest of the Agape Lodge, the church of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) in California. Parsons fell out of favor with Crowley, however, when he endeavoured to immaculately conceive a vessel of the goddess Babalon in Enochian sex magic rituals with his future wife Marjorie Cameron, alongside future Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. Parsons continued the operation alone in order to conjure the Antichrist into the physical plane. (Seriously, we're not making this up). Parsons was banned from rocketry by the U.S. government, apparently not for his efforts to bring forth the Apocalypse, but for his Marxism/libertarianism and alleged spying for the Israelis. He was killed in an explosion which was, according to your point of view, an evil conspiracy planned by dark forces or caused by him storing a large amount of dangerous chemicals in his house. Scientists, keep in mind: don't mess with the Antichrist, it doesn't pay off... well, other than in minor things, maybe, like a Moon crater being named after you.
  • William F. Raynolds (nominated by MONGO) William F. Raynolds (1820–1894) was a civil engineer and graduate of the United States Military Academy who served in both the Mexican–American War and was a brevetted brigadier general for meritorious service in the American Civil War. In 1848 during the American occupation of Mexico, he led the first successful mountaineering expedition to the summit of Pico de Orizaba, which, at (18,620 feet (5,680 m)), is the tallest mountain in Mexico and third tallest in North America, and inadvertently set an American alpine record that was not surpassed for 50 years. The Mexicans refused to believe that the Raynolds expedition had reached the top, until a French team climbed up in 1851 and discovered the "Stars and Stripes" flying there, with "1848" carved into the flagstaff. Afterwards he returned to his pre-war task of mapping the US-Canada border. In 1859, he was in charge of the Raynolds Expedition, the first U.S. government sponsored expedition to the region that later became Yellowstone National Park. Heavy snowpack from the previous winter forced the expedition south of Yellowstone and they became the first government sponsored party to enter Jackson Hole and survey the Teton Range. Reynolds designed and surpervised numerous lighthouse projects and several of those lighthouses are still in use and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He saw plenty of service during the American Civil War, which included "chasing Stonewall Jackson up the Shenandoah Valley" and being in charge of the fortifications of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Raynolds retired after 40 years of military service in 1884. While he climbed the tallest mountains in Mexico, built lighthouses, and made maps of the US-Canada border, it was MONGO that got his article to featured status. Wikipedia not good enough for you, Raynolds?
  • Good Girl Gone Bad (nominated by Tomíca) Good Girl Gone Bad is the third studio album by Barbadian recording artist Rihanna. It was released on 31 May 2007, by Def Jam Recordings and SRP Records. Rihanna worked with various producers on the album, including Christopher "Tricky" Stewart, Terius "Dream" Nash, Neo da Matrix, Timbaland, Carl Sturken, Evan Rogers and StarGate. Inspired by Brandy Norwood's fourth studio album Afrodisiac (2004), Good Girl Gone Bad is a dance-pop, pop and R&B album with 1980s music influences. Described as a turning point in Rihanna's career, it represents a departure from the Caribbean sound of her previous releases, Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl like Me (2006). Apart from the sound, she also endorsed a new image for the release, going from an innocent girl to an edgier and more sexual look. Critics gave generally positive reviews of the album, praising its composition and Rihanna's new musical direction.
  • [[[Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22|Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (nominated by Gerda Arendt) Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe (Jesus gathered the twelve to Himself), BWV 22, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, written for the last Sunday before Lent. He composed it as an audition piece for the position of director of church music in Leipzig, and first performed it in a church service there at St. Thomas on 7 February 1723. The work begins with a scene from the Gospels in which Jesus predicts his suffering in Jerusalem, but substitutes a contemporary Christian for the disciples, who, while not understanding Jesus' words, decides to follow him anyway. The work, structured in five movements, shows that Bach had mastered the composition of a dramatic scene, an expressive aria with obbligato oboe, a recitative with strings, an exuberant dance, and a chorale in the style of Johann Kuhnau, his predecessor in Leipzig. Elements such as a "frame of biblical text and chorale around the operatic forms of aria and recitative" became standards for Bach's Leipzig cantatas and even his Passions.

One featured list was promoted this week.

Kenwalch's Castle, an Iron Age hillfort and one of the Scheduled Monuments in South Somerset. Hillforts and other earthwork defences can be a bit hard to follow from close up on the ground. As I learned last year, taking my mother to one when she visits and wants to see a castle is a bad idea.
Sailing yacht Zapata II. We are all invited to a glorious free tour on the yacht! Envy the climate!
Elliðaey is one of the small islands in Breiðafjörður
The United States Capitol is a building, designed by William Thornton and built in the neoclassical style completed in the year 1800
The Playstation 4

Ten featured pictures were promoted this week.

"His Majesty the KING-EMPEROR has been graciously pleased to approve of the grant of the Victoria Cross to the undermentioned soldier of the Indian Army for conspicuous bravery whilst serving with the Indian Army Corps, British Expeditionary Force."



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2015-01-21

As one door closes, a (Gamer)Gate opens

In the wake of the annual elections, 2015's arbitration committee consists of:

  1. AGK (talk · contribs)
  2. Courcelles (talk · contribs)
  3. DeltaQuad (talk · contribs)
  4. DGG (talk · contribs)
  5. Dougweller (talk · contribs)
  6. Euryalus (talk · contribs)
  7. GorillaWarfare (talk · contribs)
  8. Guerillero (talk · contribs)
  9. LFaraone (talk · contribs)
  10. NativeForeigner (talk · contribs)
  11. Roger Davies (talk · contribs)
  12. Salvio giuliano (talk · contribs)
  13. Seraphimblade (talk · contribs)
  14. Thryduulf (talk · contribs)
  15. Yunshui (talk · contribs)

Additionally, outgoing arbitrators Beeblebrox, David Fuchs, Newyorkbrad, and Timotheus Canens remain on the committee until the conclusion of the GamerGate case, which was opened during their terms. As has become customary over the years, the new committee has had plenty of work to do in its first few weeks, including several motions and clarification requests as well as three cases.

Open cases

There are no pending case requests at the time of writing. Three cases remain open and one was closed by motion.

GamerGate (week 8)

What started as an Internet row has developed into an extremely vitriolic dispute between a large number of Wikipedians and ultimately into one of the largest arbitration cases of recent times. Given the involvement of several prominent editors with lengthy track records (including involvement in multiple previous arbitration cases) and the sheer number of parties (27), the case is likely to be an important landmark with an impact reaching significantly beyond the GamerGate controversy article and its various daughter articles.

After repeated delays, the arbitrators' proposed decision was made public on 19 January (two days ahead of the revised target date), and the talk page was significantly re-structured to allow individual editors to make statements but to prevent threaded discussion. Among the proposed remedies, sitebans are proposed for five editors (two parties are currently indefinitely blocked), while other proposed remedies range from reminders and admonishments to topic bans, the breadth of which has been the subject of much discussion between arbitrators.

Wifione (week 3)

A much narrower case than GamerGate, but one which may also have important ramifications. The case concerns allegations that administrator Wifione (talk · contribs) has engaged in undisclosed paid advocacy to advance a public relations and reputation management campaign on Wikipedia, and that he has possibly abused his access or status as an administrator, particularly with regard to articles about and editors acting on behalf of competitors.

The evidence phase closed on 16 January and the case has now entered the workshop phase, which is open until 23 January. The target date for the proposed decision is 30 January.

Whereas in previous eras arbitration cases mainly revolved around geo-political conflicts such as Israel-Palestine, Eastern Europe, and the "Troubles", the hot topics of the current era appear to revolve around gender and sexuality, and this case is no exception. With ArbCom previously having adjudicated on disputes concerning abortion, the gender gap, sexology, and the Manning naming dispute, and the GamerGate case wrapping up, we now have a case about articles relating to the intersection of Christianity and sexuality (though the case scope was widened upon acceptance from Catholicism and homosexuality).

Although nothing on the scale of GamerGate, this is a relatively large case, with 13 named parties. The case is currently in the evidence phase, which remains open until 2 February, while the current target date for the proposed decision is 16 February. At the time of writing, only one editor has thus far presented evidence.

The Acupuncture case was accepted and closed by motion on 12 January. The motion authorises standard discretionary sanctions for the topic area of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in addition to the existing discretionary sanctions on pseudoscience and fringe science authorised in the 2006 Pseudoscience case.

  • The Fæ case was amended to allow Fæ to operate legitimate bots as necessary, subject to approval by the Bot Approvals Group .
  • A clarification request regarding the definition of "outside eyes" as pertains to the Landmark Worldwide case is currently open.
  • A clarification request regarding the scope of a topic ban imposed in the infoboxes case is currently open.
  • A motion to create a central log for all discretionary sanctions was passed on 20 January; all discretionary sanctions are now logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions/Log rather than on individual case pages. Additionally, each year's log will be blanked after five years.
  • Voting is underway on motions to rename two historic cases with active discretionary sanctions provisions.

Other business

  • Sphilbrick (talk · contribs) has been promoted from a trainee to a substantive arbitration clerk.
  • The clerks team is seeking new volunteers to assist in its work; interested editors are asked to email the clerks' mailing list (clerks-l@lists.wikimedia.org).

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