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Outgoing Wikimedia Blog manager Fabrice Florin this week published a meta-post to the Wikimedia Blog highlighting its recent progress and future trajectory. As he explains, the Wikimedia Blog is a half-and-half mixture of communiqués from the Wikimedia Foundation (or its affiliates) and from the community, one which aims to "inform people about Wikipedia ... connect our communities around a shared narrative, and amplify their voices ... [and] convert casual visitors into supporters". The occasion of Fabrice's departure (and the tidbits he has shared with the community about the health of the blog) seems like a good time to discuss the various communications channels available to community members.
The first avenue of communication in the Wikimedian community is one that I expect most of our readers are rather too much familiar with at this point: talkpages. They have been around from the very beginning, but having never really substantially improved in almost a decade and a half they are today often regarded as something of a technical black sheep. There's already been one failed initiative to replace them, LiquidThreads, and another effort, Flow, has now been underway for some time, with a small number of pages currently serving as testbeds on the English Wikipedia and elsewhere. Communication using talk-pages is conceptually easy, if often messy in execution. Yet few talkpages are widely watched, and therefore, read, and so despite efforts like feedback request service there remain only a couple of on-wiki discussion points with an audience wide enough to get a point across: the village pumps come to mind, as does Jimmy Wales' talk page.
The greatest advantage of the talk pages is the fact that, being the basic venue for inter-user communication, they are accessible to all Wikipedians. The greatest disadvantage is one of presentation: lengthy posts are quickly snowballed by other lengthy posts in response, some of which are insightful, many of which are not. The lack of a visual distinction between the original author of the post and replies thereof, the blowback of the community's antiquated discussion model, causes talk page discussions to quickly degenerate into unreadability. The first and last few replies in a comment chain are far and away the most important ones, no matter the weight of their actual content, for little reason more than that they are what is most immediately read.
The first channel of expression available to Wikimedians in the community outside the talkpages on Wikipedia itself were the mailing lists. The tone of the early mailing lists closely matched that of the early movement: several of the first wiki project's paper trails end with Brion Vibber having created them for no apparently stronger reason than "someone on the mailing list asked for one" and Jimbo Wales freely intermingled with community volunteers and bestowed on several editors mock holidays as an award for the work they'd done (the most recent Brion Vibber Day passed just this June 1—the Signposttook note). A good example of the tone of this halcyon era is a personal favorite post, "I am Danny", dealing with early "office" actions.
Today the Wikipedia mailing lists are a miasma of overlapping board and sub-boards and sub-sub-boards: over 370 of them. Not all of the lists are active or even open, but most are or pretend to be one or both, and mailing list contributors seeking to find which one will best suit the needs of their particular communiqué are left to their own devices. Outside private mailings for boards (the English Arbitration Committee, for instance, maintains its own mailing list—which, yes, the Signpost has scooped—important discussions generally take place in one of a few high-volume places: the busiest and by far most-subscribed of them is the flagship Wikimedia-l. The trouble is that the mailing lists don't have much appeal to anyone aside from hardcore Wikipedians: subscribing to lists not meant explicitly for announcements only is like attaching a fire hose directly into your inbox, and the "digest" feature meant to make reading the lists easier is in variable states of repair. Nor is there any easy way, currently, to reply to an email in a mailing list to which one is not already subscribed. Nor are the lists intended for long-form content (though linking to a piece hosted elsewhere is an easy way to drive discussion).
Another medium with very similar strengths and weaknesses is the community IRC channels. They're like mailing lists, except more temporal: conversations are had and then forgotten, as many channels are not logged and most logs are never read. IRC provides a quick way of accessing one particular group of Wikipedians in particular—technicians—who, in fact, seemingly always been present on IRC, are far and away the most easily reachable of all the Foundation staff.
In the heyday of the blogosphere, many longer and more thoughtful ideas found expression on private users' blogs. The Foundation launched an RSS accumulator for such blogs in 2007, and called it Planet Wikimedia, which is now in its second iteration. Some blogs even run onwiki—the Bradblog comes to mind. For the most part, however, these posts do have difficulty finding a wider readership, since personal blogs are both relatively rare and somewhat detached from the movement; the impactful ones get re-posted to other channels or garner impact by appearing somewhere they can’t be ignored—like, for instance,
Andrew Lih's recent op-ed in The New York Times. Essays were originally meant to try and bring some of this traffic back on-wiki. A few have garnered an impact, but most have remained thoroughly unread.
When Wikipedians from Commons, GLAM, and elsewhere came together to raise community awareness about an impending vote on anti-freedom of panorama laws in Europe, they chose to publish their appeal in the Signpost. The bill just was just defeated this week—an outcome you can read about in our report.
True neutral, lawful good, chaotic evil
The Signpost is where most community essays ought to try to garner publication. The Signpost, which you're reading now, is a community-oriented and -run periodical that has been published on a regular weekly basis since its foundation in 2005. As one of the three bullet points in our recently formulated statement of purpose explains, the Signpost actively solicits articles, op-eds, and special reports from the community (subject the approval of the editors-in-chief), and can immediately provide an audience to all of those essays that would otherwise continue to collect dust in the Wikipedia-space. We field a wide variety of such reports: outreach pieces by Foundation teams and directed at the community, research reports on article traffic, community announcements, and long-form organizational strategy analysis have all recently been aired here. The pages of the Signpost are easily the most widely read and distributed of the medias available to Wikimedians, and we accept and encourage a wide variety of material. It’s usually a better way to be heard than publishing something in your personal blog, but an important point must be made that the Signpost publishes pieces, not ramblings—it's a form of communication which requires a large investment of time on the part of the writer.
Another publication that accepts pieces of a similar caliber is the Foundation's Wikimedia Blog, which has experienced rapid growth in past year or so. The Blog's name was recently updated from the "Wikimedia Foundation Blog" to just the "Wikimedia Blog", and after renovations last year now solicits community posts from all parties. Nonetheless, the results of surveys both by the Blog and by the Signpost indicate the Blog's lower-than-expected penetration of the community—in terms of readership in the movement, the Signpost has the Blog beat by miles. There's a limited population of people interested enough in the day-to-day activities of the community to subscribe to a news source about the same, and the Signpost, being far-older and independently community-organized, has far more heritage to draw from.
Then there's the critical but mostly unacknowledged problem that the Wikimedia Blog is essentially a corporate blog. This fact blesses it with a small secondary audience of news hawks (and journalists) interested in current events divorced from the movement itself, but also curses it with the weight of carrying those same burdensome press releases and official reports "from the teams". They're not page-turners, frankly. Corporate blogs are first and foremost engineered for minimum controversy, in that corporate communications way; they usually lack critical analysis, often lack context, and will never publish truly critical material. While it's true that the Blog is now accepting community input, this must still satisfy the Foundation’s requirements for healthy communications, raising what appears to have become a fear of negativity: for all of its presumed openness, an essay like our recent one titled "What made Wikipedia lose its reputation?" could not possibly ever appear on the WM Blog of today.
Then there's the troubling strain of self-promotion in the blog's content: for Wikimedia teams and community organizations increasingly under pressure to deliver results, to publish a post to the WM Blog is to be able to say that you’ve "made it". So though as an overall platform the Blog has quite some merit, as a writer trying to get a message across you must be aware of how closely you must hew to the movement banner; and you need to be aware that the Blog is a general-interest publication written for an explicitly external audience assumed to have little knowledge of the particularities of contributing. Because the Signpost voluntarily republishes posts we like as a part of our own "Blog" section, if you feel that your piece is sufficiently topical and has the requisite feel-good texture to it, there's no reason not to submit it to the WM Blog and take advantage of their far greater (paid) editorial resources. But it doesn't accept critical commentary or dissent, which remains within the Signpost's scope.
There's one last channel of communication for criticisms too bellicose for publication in the Signpost: Wikipediocracy. It's a cesspool of bile, full of bitter trolls and their coat-tail riders; yet many serious Wikimedians seem to read it regardless—members of groups including community administrators, arbitrators, Foundation community teamsters, and even Signpost editorial board members. The problem is that as Wikipedia editors we're all implicitly supporters, and so Wikipediocracy's indulgences—its rants, triviality, and personal nastiness—are reluctantly tolerated for the sake of gleaning a sense of the magnitude of the issues facing the projects. It’s well-acknowledged that sometimes Wikipediocracy has a point; and as the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. In terms of material accepted, Wikipediocracy is a Chaotic Evil to the WM Blog's Lawful Good: as long as your post is sufficiently negative, it will be accepted. Better and less speculative writings ought be tried in the Signpost first, though, since it, being a publisher with some repute in the community, would not make your writing immediately suspicious by its choice of venue.
Resident Mario is a Wikipedia editor and news hound who serves as associate editor at the Signpost.
The views expressed in this op-ed are those of the author alone; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments. Editors wishing to submit their own op-ed should use our opinion desk.
Executive director Lila Tretikov this week posted an email to the wikimedia-l mailing list announcing the final publication of the Wikimedia Foundation's 2015 annual plan. It contained a succinct summary of her organizational thinking at the moment, and so is worthy of being replicated below:
All,
I want to provide an update on the Annual Plan. I am happy to let you know
that the Board of Trustees has approved the proposed 2015-16 Wikimedia
Foundation annual plan. Thank you for your patience as we have worked to
incorporate your feedback and review with the Board.
The approved plan includes $68.2 million in revenue, with $65 million of
spending and $3.2 million for the reserve. In addition, we will raise $5
million for our endowment, which will help secure long-term support for our
mission. In total, this accounts for a 17% growth in total budget. The plan
also includes a stretch goal of exceeding the fundraising target by 20% to
contribute additional funds to the reserve. The approved and updated plan
is now available here
<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2015-2016_Annual_Plan>.
In our last Metrics Meeting, I presented an emerging strategy for the
Wikimedia Foundation that focused on building a strong core in the
near-term, allowing for innovation in the long-term toward our mission of
ubiquitous shared knowledge. Strengthening our core has been our focus over
this past year. We published the Call to Action
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications/State_of_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#2015_Call_to_Action>,
which refocused us on community and technology, introducing new thinking
and skills to the WMF, and improved products for the world.
We have made significant changes this past year that are showing early
results. But this is just a start. The world is changing rapidly in areas
like mobile, user behavior, media formats, and access to knowledge. In
order to make free knowledge available for generations to come, we need to
continually improve our work and challenge our thinking. The Annual Plan
for this year is focused on building our capabilities as a springboard for
future innovation.
In this year's plan, budget adjustments are designed to fill in the gaps in
current user needs, in particular in the areas of community (including
affiliates and partners), technology, and communication. The plan builds on
the foundational work from this past year, when we set up team structures
and introduced new focus to align our organization with communities and
demands for knowledge. For the first time, this year's plan also introduces
a Quarterly Metrics Scorecard to track our progress on delivering on our
commitments. We will use both top-level and departmental metrics to measure
our progress and report back.
I also want to acknowledge some of the issues with this year's Annual Plan
process. We shared the first draft with you late, giving you limited time
to provide feedback. We introduced a new, lighter weight format in the
first iteration that left some of you with questions about proposed
changes. This final, approved version has been updated to clarify our
rationale, incorporate the feedback we did receive, link our plans to
success metrics, and orient the next year within a broader strategy. As
always, we continue to iterate toward a better process. Going forward we
plan to have an extended window for your review and comments so we can
refine our plan with your valuable feedback in mind.
Thank you. I look forward to working together as we continue to strengthen
our core capabilities to support our mission and prepare for our emerging
strategy.
Wikisource needs your input: In a blog post this week, the members of the Wikisource Community User Group are asking for input on a survey they are now distributing, from which they hope to glean insights into the future of the project.
Discussion of interest: A discussion occurred on the Wikimedia-l mailing list this week when a user pointed out confusion as to the presence of the Waray-Waray and Cebuano Wikipedias in the top ten Wikipedias by article count. Naturally, the Signpost has ample to say about it: see previous coverage here, here, and here. You can help make Signpost stories more obvious and accessible by contributing to our tagging initiative.
Image manipulation in photo-competitions?: A blog post this week titled "A manipulated picture, a manipulated competition?", points to a discussion on the talk page of the German Wikipedia's Kurier about possible photo-manipulation in one of the ranking (fifth place) images from last year's Wiki Loves Earth competition.
Wiki Edu outreach pilot concludes The Wiki Education Foundation this week published the outcomes report for their outreach pilot, an experiment in collaboration with students and Wikipedia outside the classroom. Attendees to sessions hosted by the organization ranged from 13 to 2 people, with the conclusion, perhaps expected, that "The greatest challenge in targeting extracurricular editing was the absence of external incentives ... with a grade, field trip, or staff visit, students contribute to Wikipedia. Without those incentives, they contribute significantly less, or not at all." As this approach is not reasonably scalable, the pilot has now concluded.
Mayor of Esino Lario warns Wikimania 2016 "at risk of disappearing"
Image from the Wikimania 2016 bid for Esino Lario
A week before the start of the 2015 Wikimania conference in Mexico City comes troubling news about next year's conference. Esino Lario, a small village of only 750 people in northern Italy, was selected earlier this year as the site of the 2016 Wikimania conference, to the surprise of many (see previous Signpostcoverage). To host the event, the town needed hundreds of thousands of Euros from the Wikimedia Foundation and the Fondazione Cariplo, significant improvements to infrastructure, including buildings and internet connectivity, and the labor of a raft of volunteers. Despite this, the mayor of the town, Pietro Pensa, warns The Local Italy that the event is "at risk of disappearing".
At issue is a new group of migrants the town has been ordered to absorb. The European Union is currently struggling with a huge influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East—a 149% increase in numbers from last year. Many are fleeing armed conflicts in Syria and the Libyan crisis. Due to its ample coastline and location in the Mediterranean, Italy is one of the European countries most affected by being the destination of numerous maritime asylum seekers. The largest influx of people seeking asylum in Italy come from Eritrea then Somalia, Nigeria and Syria.
The new group of refugees located in Esino Lario numbers 60, adding to the population of 41 refugees already living there. Their numbers are small, but altogether would become more than ten percent of the town's population. Pensa worries that the volunteers needed for Wikimedia will instead be diverted to assist the new arrivals. He said, "They are not so independent and need a lot of help. Each migrant will have a volunteer with them for two or three hours a day." Pensa also complained that a nearby town, Lecco, with a population 100 times as large, has absorbed no migrants.
Whether this is a legitimate concern that threatens Wikimania or merely a way to complain about an unfavorable decision remains to be seen. However, Pensa promised the town will still try to make Wikimania a success. "We'll do everything we can to host the convention. We want to show everybody how great Esino is by hosting the best and craziest Wikimania convention possible." (June 8)
"Wikipedia's greatest mystery" is anything but
This bird was photographed on March 27. Coincidence?
Vocativreports on what it calls "Wikipedia's greatest mystery", namely why the article March 27 lists more births and deaths than any of the other articles on other dates on the calendar. Vocativ consulted "12 scholars" who mostly dismissed the matter, though one noted "the gaps between maximum and next maximum in both your series [of dates for births and deaths] suggest that this coincidence does have some deeper, though mysterious explanation." The explanation is not mysterious, nor is it a "loophole", as Vocativ describes it. Lists of births and deaths in these articles are not assembled from data taken from Wikipedia or Wikidata, they are created manually by editors, and thus any data taken from these articles will be skewed by the biases and interests (or disinterests) of those editors. The data spike for March 27 can be attributed to the edits of a single editor, 86.5.161.217. Wikimedia Foundation data analyst Erik Zachte explained to Vocativ that "Maybe that person was born on March 27, and took pleasure in finding many famous people with some link to that date." A similar spike for March 4 can be attributed to Acumen76, who for the last several years seems to have mostly edited only that article, and mostly only during the month of March. (June 7)
In brief
Hacking Team can't hack Wikipedia: WikiLeaks published a searchable collection of emails from the Hacking Team that were revealed in a June 5 data breach. The Hacking Team is an Italian IT company which has been criticized for selling surveillance capabilities and technology to oppressive governments. In one email, CEO David Vincenzetti asked "Can we change this abominable Hacking Team description at WikipediA? [sic]" An employee replied "This is not easy as you might think, but there may be a way. The problem is that WP distrusts companies in general and has a policy against taking changes from them. Still there are errors of fact in the HT article, so we'll see what we can do." There do not appear to be any significant changes to the article as a result of this exchange. (June 9)
The red link blues: In an interview with the Brandon Sun regarding his upcoming debut EP, teenage Canadian singer Francesco Yates was asked about the fact that he has no Wikipedia article yet. Yates replied "When the time is right, the Wikipedia will come. I will summon the Wikipeople." So watch for that red link to turn blue soon. (July 8)
The red ink blues: Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sangerannounced that Infobitt has "run out of money" and no longer will pay staff, but he writes that "I’ll still be contributing, and I hope you will too." Infobitt is a crowdsourced news website he founded last year that promised to be a "Wikipedia for news" (see previous Signpostcoverage). (July 8)
Is there life before Wikipedia?: In The New Yorker, Elias Muhanna, professor of comparative literature at Brown University, writes about his experience teaching a class called "Before Wikipedia", about the history of encyclopedic writing. (July 7)
Addressing gender issues in Residence: WBOY-TVreports that beginning in September there will be a new Wikipedian in Residence at West Virginia University who will "research and create new posts about some of the state’s most successful and influential women". While the Wikipedian in Residence program has been around since 2010, this will be the first WIR position created to specifically address gender issues. (July 6)
Danny who?: Search Engine Roundtablecomplains about the deletion discussion regarding the article for Danny Sullivan. The discussion was closed and the article kept following publication. SER writes that Sullivan "basically invented the industry" of search engine optimization, though as of this writing Sullivan's article does not appear to make this claim for his notability clearly. (July 6)
Is this the Tragedy of Macbeth?: The letter columns of the Marianas Variety feature an argument between two correspondents about allegations of plagiarizing Wikipedia, specifically the article on Shakespeare's Macbeth. (July 6)
Calling Bangalore: The Times of Indiareports on the lack of editors on the Kannada Wikipedia. Kannada has about 38 million native speakers but only eight editors are actively contributing to the Kannada-language encyclopedia. (July 5)
Vandals: In the wake of the Nehru vandalism (see last week's ITM), The Times of India takes a look at Wikipedia's susceptibility to vandalism and manipulation. (July 4)
Note
Next week's Signpost will feature a Special Report on the European Union freedom of panorama issue.
Do you want to contribute to "In the media" by writing a story or even just an "in brief" item? Edit next week's edition in the Newsroom or contact the editor.
It's July 4 weekend and on this list that means only one thing: Wimbledon. Sure, the American Independence Day gets noticed too, but it can't hold a candle to that staggeringly British sporting event. This week, however, Wimbledon had to share the glory with two other major sporting events: the Copa America and the FIFA Women's World Cup, both of which reached their finals.
For the full top-25 list, see WP:TOP25. See this section for an explanation of any exclusions. For a list of the most edited articles of the week, see here.
As prepared by Serendipodous, for the week of June 28 to July 4, 2015, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:
This film marks the fourth attempt in 12 years to restart the dormant Terminator franchise without the aid of its creator, James Cameron. To date, if Metacritic and IMDb are anything to go by, the only remotely successful of these resuscitations was the hugely underrated TV series, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. One wonders if audiences are wishing they'd made that a hit when they had the chance, because the numbers for this film's opening weekend are bad. Really bad. As in, "made as much in its first five days as Terminator Salvation made in its first weekend" bad. And Salvation, mind you, was the black sheep of the series until now. All this is rather perplexing, since the two things that usually drive movies up this list are box office and controversy, and so far the only controversy over this film is from the few scattered critics who don't consider it utterly terrible. Perhaps it was the presence of Emilia Clarke (currently the secondGame of Thrones star to take on the role of Sarah Connor). Or perhaps, if this aging Terminator fan could be wistful for a moment, the critics are wrong when they say the Millennial generation has no love for this franchise. Perhaps they rushed to their tablets incensed at the terrible reviews; determined to learn who and what was responsible for vandalising the legacy of this landmark work of science fiction. Or perhaps it means nothing at all. Who am I to guess?
The American celebration of its Declaration of Independence from Britain on July 4, 1776 (although technically American independence was declared on July 2, by which time the American Revolutionary War had already been going for more than a year, and not actually attained until February 3, 1783) is arguably the biggest summer festival in the English-speaking world, with the possible exception of Christmas in Australia. Numbers are up 50 percent on last year, but still not near 2013. Perhaps a slight surge of patriotism ahead of next year's election?
It took the horrific act of the Charleston church shooting on June 17 to refocus the attention of South Carolina politicians and public at large to the fact that South Carolina was still flying the battle flag of the Confederate States of America at their state capitol. This flag causes a lot of controversy in the United States, though its general modern use as a symbol of racist oppression of blacks is undeniable. Will the flag of ISIS/ISIL be similarly used in the Middle East one hundred years hence? In any event, on June 22, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and other politicians called for the flag to be taken down, so it appears that the flag will be officially lowered soon.
In this era of dueling gargantuas, when Hollywood risks $200 million budgets on a whim and triple-digit opening weekends are a seasonal event, the financial achievements of the first Jurassic Park can seem somewhat pallid. And yet, it was for a time the most successful film ever made, and more importantly, formed the prototype for the modern blockbuster; massive, frontloaded opening weekend, brushfire earnings, and supercharged ancillaries. And now, after Furious 7 and Avengers: Age of Ultron made substantial dents in the US GDP, Jurassic World has arrived to show that its aging franchise is perfectly capable of holding its own in today's hostile environment. Its $208 million opening weekend was the biggest of all time, though at just $1 million above the previous record set by Marvel's The Avengers back in 2012, it wasn't exactly a killing blow. Still, it managed to claim the highest second weekend gross of all time as well, showing that it may well be on the way to repeating the performance of its ancestor. Today, the Jurassic franchise is just one monster among many, but it has shown that it still has the right to reign.
The Australian model and actress has been in the media thanks to her role in the new series of Orange is the New Black and her public challenging of traditional gender roles. She came out as a lesbian at the age of 12 and identifies as genderfluid. Her androgynous appearance has led many straight women to declare an attraction to her, which has angered some gay activists, who argue that homosexuality is not a choice.
The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550,000, apparently heedless of who actually died.
The final of this increasingly popular competition was held this week, and saw the United States clinch its third title (something their male equivalent has never managed even once) in a stomping 5-2 victory over holders Japan. Meanwhile, the English side clinched third place by beating arch-rivals Germany, something the home crowd may consider better than actually winning.
It's a rare athlete, let alone tennis player, who enters this list on a loss, but the British no 1's grueling 3-set defeat to Serena Williams may well have been a career-defining moment. She held firm against the world no. 1, pushing her against the wall, until finally caving in a 7-5 slugfest.
Breathtaking view of the French Haute-Pyrénées: "Cirque de Gavarnie"
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 21 to 27 June 2015.
Featured articles
The 1834 destruction of both Houses of Parliament Mutiny on the HMS Bounty led by Acting Lieutenant Fletcher ChristianBodley wrote several books about his travels. He was considered among the most distinguished British writers on the Sahara
2012 Budweiser Shootout(nominated by Z105space) The 2012 Budweiser Shootout was an 82-lap stock-car race, held at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida. The Shootout is an annual race, created by a Busch Beer brand manager in 1979 and called the "Busch Clash". Its name was changed to "Bud Shootout" and then "Budweiser Shootout" to promote a beer called "Budweiser". The race was won by Kyle Busch, whose elder brother Kurt was the defending champion. Kyle won by 0.013 of a second, the closest margin in the history of the race.
Burning of Parliament(nominated by SchroCat) The original Houses of Parliament were situated in a medieval warren of a building, originally a royal palace for English kings. The chamber for the House of Lords was heated by hot air and gases from two coal-fired furnaces; these were connected to two copper-lined flues running under the floor. The annual cleaning of clinker from these flues was carried out by small boys, who cut footholds in the copper exposing the wood underneath. On a day in October 1834, when the boys hadn't been up for nearly a year and the flues were full of clinker, the Clerk of Works was instructed to dispose of two cart-loads of wooden tally sticks. These were fed into the furnaces starting at 6 in the morning; by 4 pm when the last sticks had been put in and the stokers had retired to the pub the Lords' Chamber was full of smoke. At 6 it flashed over into a fireball and then the Houses burnt down, the fire being viewed with equanimity by an unusually well-behaved crowd.
Denbies(nominated by Sagaciousphil and Eric Corbett) Denbies is named after John Denby, a sixteenth-century farmer whose land formed the nucleus of the estate. It was sold to Jonathan Tyers, the owner of Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, in 1734. He established a "Valley of the Shadow of Death" in eight acres of the grounds, with macabre sculptures, paintings and a clock that chimed every minute, which reminded the auditor that time was fleeting. Bong. After Tyer's death the grounds were cleared of momento mori and extensively remodelled. In 1850 the estate was purchased by the wealthy builder Thomas Cubitt. He built a large mansion, with nearly one hundred rooms, and had the access roads improved and parts of the estate planted with trees. Denbies passed to his son, with a further 2,000 acres added to the land. Cubitt's grandson inherited the estate in 1917, but the estate became financially unsustainable, and was gradually sold off. Cubitt's mansion was cleared and demolished in the 1950s. Further tranches of the estate were acquired by the government in lieu of taxes, and were passed on to the National Trust. The final privately-owned remnant of the estate was purchased by a water treatment company in the 1980s, and a vineyard was established on a south-facing slope.
Elliott Fitch Shepard(nominated by ɱ) If you want a good start in life, make sure your father is president of a company that prints bank notes. That's what Elliott Fitch Shepard did, and that's why he was able, at the age of 29, to raise and equip two regiments for the Union army. Described as "rigid and moralizing", he practiced as a lawyer while acquiring banks and newspapers on the side. Shepard was deeply religious- he instructed his editors to head their editorials with Bible quotations, and he purchased a stagecoach company so he could stop its operations on Sundays. He was also a stern opponent of antisemitism, supporting efforts to publicize the persecution of Russian Jews and speaking at Jewish meetings.
Mutiny on the Bounty(nominated by Brianboulton and Cliftonian) The "Mutiny on the Bounty", details how, upon the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty, members of the crew seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh and set him and 18 others adrift in Bounty 's open launch. This is one of the most well known historic naval events from the early days of the royal British Navy and well worth reading, again as this promotion to Featured Article status provides you with the invitation (make your history teacher proud too).......
Operation Goodwood (naval)(nominated by Nick-D) Operation Goodwood was a series of attacks by British carrier-borne aircraft on the German battleship Tirpitz during August 1944. The raids failed to cause any significant damage, only two bombs hitting the ship. Goodwood was a failure for the Fleet Air Arm as the aircraft used (principally Barracudas) could not carry bombs large enough. On 15 September a raid by Avro Lancasters flying from land bases in Russia caused heavy damage to Tirpitz, and the ship was finally capsized in November using massive Tallboy bombs.
P. G. Wodehouse(nominated by SchroCat and Tim riley) “Jeeves” I said “that Peregrine Grenville Wodehouse chappy has had one of those blighted Featured Articles written about him.” “Indeed, sir” he said “I do hear that that is quite the thing nowadays among the younger generation.” “But I say, Jeeves, chap’s been dead for forty years. And he was pally with Lord Hawthorn or Haw Belisha or whatever that bally Nazi Irishman was called.” "I do believe, sir, that you are referring to Lord Haw Haw. A most terribly dull person if you don’t mind me saying, sir. I am given to understand that Sir Pelham hardly knew the chap.” “That’s totally beside the point, Jeeves!” I expostulated angrily “He damn well made me out to be some kind of confounded fool. And now I’ve got this shrew cat and some dashed editor called lower-case riley- all totally pseudonom-whatsit of course- making him out to be some kind of major literary figure. Writer. Novelist. Whatever. Get me that Mr W. chappy on the blower, Jeeves, I am going to give him a piece of my mind. And it will not be pretty, I tell you. No, no, no, Jeeves. When a man’s reputation is at stake a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” “Very good sir, I shall endeavour to raise Mr W. on the telephone.” Ring, ring. "Mr W.'s residence. Eric the butler speaking. How may I help you?"
Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball(nominated by Iridescent) William Etty was an English artist of the early 19th century. He moved from his birthplace of York to London with the intention of becoming a history painter. Etty's skill in painting flesh was acclaimed by the critics; this led him to specialise in nudes, the first painter in Britain to do so. The nakedness was acceptable as it was set in a mythological or historical narrative, but campaigning by journalists against Etty's nudes caused him to consciously introduce moral lessons into his art. Further criticism came his way when he began to be commissioned to paint portraits- it was feared Etty was abandoning the high ground of history painting for the lucrative pastures of portrait painting. Portraits were guaranteed income, history paintings not so much, so we doubt if Etty took much persuading to paint the Williams-Wynn sisters getting ready for a fancy-dress ball.
R. V. C. Bodley(nominated by Freikorp) How long would it take you to tell someone that they're a moron and a traitor, and should go and live with the Arabs? Lawrence of Arabia took 200 seconds to tell R. V. C. Bodley that, and it changed Bodley's life. He moved to the Sahara, where he spent seven years living with a Bedouin tribe. Bodley had joined the British army in 1911; he served in India where he wrote and staged plays in his off-duty hours. He spent four years on the Western Front, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel in command of a battalion. It was outside the Paris Peace Conference that Bodley met Lawrence, having been previously introduced to him by Gertrude Bell. Following his desert sojourn Bodley wrote a book about his experiences, and a couple of novels. Moving east he worked as a foreign correspondent for a couple of newspapers, reporting on Japanese activities in the South Pacific, before moving in 1935 to the USA to work as a screenwriter. He was hired by Chaplin to adapt a novel called Regency by D. L. Murray; the adaptation was abandoned after Bodley had completed the script. He rejoined the army on the outbreak of war; too old to be a footsoldier, he worked for the Ministry of Information in Paris. Bodley remained in Paris after the Germans arrived, until the Gestapo took an interest in him. He escaped over the Pyrenees, and returned to the US. He was married and divorced three times. Bodley died in 1970.
Scientific Detective Monthly(nominated by Mike Christie)Scientific Detective Monthly was a magazine of the pulp variety, published from January 1930 in fifteen issues by Hugo Gernsback. Various writers contributed detective stories in which "science" played a role, either in facilitating or solving a crime. Gernsback had the idea that the word "Scientific" put off readers; the title was changed to Amazing Detective Tales with the June 1930 issue. Only a few of the tales had science fiction elements. A criminal uses a matter duplicator to produce perfect counterfeits, a murder victim is hidden in the fourth dimension, a worldwide secret organisation uses powerful electronic devices to create an online encyclo… hang on, something wrong here. Gernsback wasn't really interested in the fiction part of the science- he was more of a gadget and practical science man, and the magazine contained fillers and questionnaires on real-life scientific advances mentioned in the articles. Eventually Gernsback sold the title to another publisher, who turned it into a straightforward detective magazine- it folded after five issues.
The Playboy(nominated by Curly Turkey)The Playboy by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, serialized in 1990 in Brown's comic book Yummy Fur and collected in different revised book editions in 1992 and 2013. The teenage protagonist is urged by a small winged companion to purchase copies of Playboy magazine. He studies the Playmates obsessively, and becomes trapped in a cycle of masturbation and guilt. Like much of his other work, The Playboy is autobiographical, attempting to show Brown's confusion and anxiety over his sexual urges, and the way in which his obsessiveness distorts his relationships with women. It, and the sequel I Never Liked You, are regarded as among the best of graphic novels.
Waddesdon Bequest(nominated by Johnbod) The Waddesdon Bequest is a collection of nearly 300 objects assembled by Baron Anselm von Rothschild and his son, Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, and intended as a decorative feature of the New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. They were bequeathed by Ferdinand to the British Museum in 1898. Most of the objects are heavily decorated pieces from late Renaissance Europe in gold and silver, collected at a time when such objects were sold for little more than their scrap value. The Holy Thorn Reliquary, commissioned in the 1390s by the Duc de Berry, is regarded as the most important object in the collection, being a supreme example of the work of Parisian goldsmiths. A foot high and weighing over 3 pounds, it has 28 small figures surrounding a scene of the Last Judgement and the resurrection of the dead. It was made to house a single thorn from a crown of thorns purchased in Constantinople in 1239. Before it was purchased by the Rothschilds, it was in the ownership of the Habsburg emperors. An art dealer to whom it had been sent for restoration had a number of copies made, of which one was sent back to the emperor. The provenance of the original was unknown to the Rothschilds, and it was regarded as a later Spanish confection; it wasn't until 1959 that a close comparison of the Vienna copy and the smoking-room original established beyond doubt the origin of the piece.
Mac DeMarco discography(nominated by Littlecarmen)The Canadian singer-songwriter has released three studio albums, two live albums, three compilation albums, four extended plays (EPs), three singles, and twelve music videos. Check it out!
Featured pictures
Fremantle Prison inmates in 1971Giuseppe Verdi, Giovanna d'Arco, Vocal Score - Wonderful Restoration by Adam Curden
Alessandro Martinelli(created by Matteo Brama; nominated by Chris Woodrich) Alessandro Martinelli is a Swiss soccer player who plays for the Italian soccer club Modena, and also the Swiss national soccer team. In this photo he is going to kick the soccer ball towards the goal of the Ternana team. Definitely Matteo Brama has captured the moment here, and Alessandro really looks like he is concentrating on kicking at the goal.
Modular origami(created by Jacek Halicki; nominated by Chris Woodrich) Modular origami is a paperfolding technique which uses two or more sheets of paper to create a larger complex structure than would be possible using single-piece origami techniques. It is safe to say that Jacek Halicki has done that here. From the history of this file, he seems to have spent most of 2014 doing it. This file was a finalist in the 2014 Picture of the Year contest and is a featured picture on Wikimedia Commons. The photo has been used in thirteen global project pages and is right at home here in the Featured Photo section.
Flyght in Egypt(created by y Gentile da Fabriano; nominated by PetarM) Shot with the Olympus PEN E-PL5 Micro Four Thirds camera, photographer Petar Milosevic has captured a wonderful image of the Gentile da Fabriano's Flyght in Egypt, on display in Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
Cirque de Gavarnie(created by Benh; nominated by Pine) Located within the commune of Gavarnie, the department of Hautes-Pyrénées, and the Pyrenees National Park, France, the Cirque de Gavarnie is an amphitheatre-like valley head, formed at the head of the valley glacier by erosion. Looks like a great place for a concert.
Fremantle Prison(created by Iwelam; nominated by Gnangarra) This photo of the Fremantle Prison, also known as Fremantle Gaol or Fremantle Jail, was taken in 1971. Fremantle was built as a prison for convicts, by convicts, in 1851 and 1859. Punishments varied, with good old flogging and the traditional favorite time in irons being some of the more popular methods used over the years, it does not look like a fun place to spend your time, in or out of "irons". It was closed in 1991.
Giovanna d'Arco(created by Luigi Barinetti; restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) This graphic, originally scanned from the title page of a 1846 volume at the Harvard Library, is from the publication of the score of Giovanna d'Arco ("Joan of Arc"), an operatic dramma lirico by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera with a prologue and three acts. The original Giovanna was Erminia Frezzolini. Hats off to Adam Cuerden for his efforts creating this fine restoration. Viva Verdi!
Les Troyens set:Les Troyens, Part I: La Prise de Troie and Part II: Les Troyens á Carthage(created by Antoine Barbizet; restored and nominated by Adam Cuerden) A wonderfully restored set of three posters from Les Troyens ("The Trojans") the French, five act, grand opera by Hector Berlioz with the libretto also written by Berlioz from Virgil's epic poem the Aeneid. Les Troyens is said to be Berlioz's most ambitious work, the summation of his entire artistic career, but he did not live to see it performed in its entirety. This set of wonderfully restored posters was retouched with great care and attention to detail.
Jaffa Clock Tower(created and nominated by Godot13) Wonderful photo shot on the Leaf Aptus-II 12 camera of the Jaffa Clock Tower, constructed between 1900 and 1903 during the Ottoman period at the northern entrance of Jaffa, the ancient city that is now a part of the greater Tel Aviv. It was built to commemorate the silver jubilee of the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Hamid II the 34th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.
Italian scudo(created by the Papal mint; nominated by Godot13) Short and Sweet: Pietro Vito Ottoboni was Pope Alexander VIII for only about 15 months before his death, but he still managed to have this coin minted in his honor in 1689. This photo is an example of a very rare coin in high condition. Pope Alexander VIII was featured on the front of the valuable gold piece and the Saints Peter and Paul on the reverse. Engraved by Antonio Travani, a goldsmith and medalist in Rome, today the coin is worth a pretty penny, to say the least...
King's College London Chapel:Interior of the chapel and chapel and organ(created and nominated by Diliff) There is no question that David Iliff is a exceptional photographer, as he demonstrates here once again with this fine set of high quality and high resolution shots of this remarkable facility. It was designed by Sir Robert Smirke and completed in 1831 as part of the College building (later known as the King's building).
Comb(created and nominated by Chris Woodrich) The classic use of plastic: a comb. Chris took this shot with the Canon EOS 60D @F9 & a exposure time of 1/5 sec (0.2) with a EF100mm f/2.8L Macro lens. Combs are among the oldest tools, having been discovered in settlements dating back to 5,000 years ago in Persia. Combs have be made out of a number of materials, most commonly plastic, but also metal, cotton material, or wood.
Natalya Naryshkina(created by unknown author; nominated by Chris Woodrich) Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina was the "Tsarina" or female autocratic ruler of Russia in 1671–1676. She experienced a more Western-influenced upbringing than most Russian women of the time. Widowed in 1676; a son from the Tsar's previous marriage ascended the throne, with Natalya ending up living in poverty, and receiving financial support from others.
Excuse me mister, can you spare an 1689-I Quadrupla Scudo d'Oro?
The Classic Plastic Comb approved for prison issue
The following content has been republished as-is from the Tech News weekly report.
Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available.
Recent changes
On the mobile site, you now see more information when you search for a page. It now shows the description from Wikidata. [1]
Problems
The code of long pages is not colored any more. You may see this problem on the pages of long gadgets. [2]
Changes this week
The new version of MediaWiki will be on test wikis and MediaWiki.org from July 7. It will be on non-Wikipedia wikis from July 8. It will be on all Wikipedias from July 9 (calendar).
The "Page information" tool shows how many users watch the page. You can now see how many are active. [3][4]
You can now translate articles into English with the new translation tool. [5]
Meetings
You can join the next meeting with the Editing team. During the meeting, you can tell developers which bugs are the most important. The meeting will be on July 7 at 19:00 (UTC). See how to join.
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