For more background, see "European copyright law moves forward" from the October 1, 2018 Signpost

Subsequent to the adoption of the final version of EU Copyright Directive / Article 13, a Village pump proposal appeared for a Wikipedia banner campaign in protest. The discussion continues on whether this constitutes advocacy in "Wikipedia's voice". WMF News (formerly "blog") also posted a piece on this, "Problems remain with the EU's copyright reform". B

Dear colleagues of wikimedia-l,

I learned today of the 2018 passing of User:Corinne. I feel that Corinne's substantial contributions to Wikimedia merit forwarding the news of her passing to this email list. Corinne had a Master's degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. User:Miniapolis wrote, "Corinne was a fellow coordinator of the Guild of Copy Editors, and we had come to know each other off-wiki as well. Corinne's specialty was request articles, and her copyediting skill (second to none) was a factor in many Good and Featured Articles." Corinne made over 25,000 contributions to English Wikipedia.

Contributors have written memorials on her talk page. She was posthumously added to the Guild of Copy Editors Hall of Fame.

May she rest in peace.

• Wikimania scholarships: Scholarships for Wikimania 2019 are available. Deadline to apply is March 15, 2019, 23:59 UTC.
• Elections for WMF board: Community affiliate selected WMF Board seats are up for election. See details at this month's In focus report.
• Partial blocks: Partial blocks are under development as a software feature by WMF. They could be used to enforce topic bans on English Wikipedia. They were announced as functional as of February 13 and could be applied pending policy decisions on logging, notices and a few other issues.
• New administrators: The Signpost welcomes the English Wikipedia's newest administrator, Evad37 also a frequent contributor to The Signpost. Seven administrators were desysopped due to inactivity in February.

The Wikimedia Affiliates Election Committee invites readers of The Signpost, their colleagues, the broader Wikimedia community, and humanity at large to participate in the 2019 Affiliate Selected Board Seats Election. The stakes are 2 of 10 seats on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Persons in these positions will approve or reject each US$100,000,000+ planned annual budget of the Wikimedia Foundation and oversee the activities of Wikimedia Foundation director and CEO, Katherine Maher.

As with all things wiki, everyone is invited to participate in any aspect of the election. In this particular election, the appointment of these seats is at the recommendation of affiliates based on the established consensus that the best way to advance the Wikimedia mission is with the direction of representatives from Wikimedia community organizations. Consequently, this election proceeds at the behest of Wikimedia affiliates, who choose to use this general community outreach process as their candidate selection method. Nominations open soon. Develop the schedule of the election in anticipation of having all outcomes reported far enough in advance for the newly appointed trustees to convene with the board on 14 August 2019 at the Wikimania 2019 conference in Sweden. The expectation is that the ideal candidates shall advocate for the growth and success of Wikimedia affiliates to the benefit of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia Movement.

The Wikimedia Movement is unique for its reliance on community participation even at the level of governance of the Wikimedia Foundation as steward of the Wikimedia projects and administrative support of the Wikimedia Movement. All trustees have an equal term and stand for regular reelection. For beginners to understand the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, think "1, 2, 3, 4" to remember the allocation of seats on the Board of Trustees. There is 1 Founder's seat for Jimbo Wales whom the board itself has the option to confirm each term. There are 2 seats for Wikimedia movement affiliates which are the subject of this Affiliate-selected Board seats election. 3 seats are for election for Community Seats of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, which is the general election by persons who have a Wikimedia account and actively use it. Famously, that is the most important election on the Internet. The remaining 4 seats are at the appointment of the Wikimedia Foundation Board Governance Committee and typically go to professionals who provide necessary expertise to achieve the goals of the board and time.

Anyone may read about historical elections in the Wikimedia archives. Anyone can draft commentary, policy, outreach materials, or any other election materials in the meta:Meta-Wiki space to encourage global participation in the elections and Wikimedia community governance.

Please note that only Wikimedia affiliate organizations can vote. Each organization gets one vote. This means that there will be about 140 possible votes in this election, as the Affiliations Committee recognizes that many Wikimedia community organizations. Of these, there about about 40 Wikimedia chapters which represent geographic regions. All chapters have had the opportunity to vote in multiple previous elections. There are about 100 Wikimedia user groups, each of which has passed a less strict level of organization than the chapters and which represent either a geographic or thematic group of Wikimedia editors. All user groups are having their first opportunity to vote in this election. User group voting is a recent development coming from a December 2018 by-laws proposal from the board of trustees and its 19 February 2019 adoption by the board.

The election will use single transferable vote so that organizations can rank their preferred candidates. To stand for nomination, a candidate must have the recommendation of a current Wikimedia affiliate organization.

Wikimedia organizations govern this election! Anyone seeking changes to the nature of the election should publish their ideas and assist the Wikimedia affiliate organizations of their choice in establishing consensus for change. Many details about this election are undefined. Any individual may make election proposals. The consensus of organizations and discussion on the talk page will confirm election procedure. The Affiliate-selected Board seats election FAQ answers some questions, but it also requires an update for 2019.

Participate in the election with the activities that will promote the democratic process, a positive experience for all involved, and productive outcomes for all. Here are the most common ways to participate based on trends from previous elections:

Probable candidates are experienced Wikimedia contributors who have a history of Wikimedia community organization in the Wikimedia affiliate organization system. Possible candidates are non-fictional and have a pulse, although this is wiki and consensus could change even that. This election is serious and Wikipedia is your favorite media channel for sharing general reference and educational content. Please respect the integrity of the election, and at the same time, participate in the election in the spirit of wiki. A modest organizer of any small Wikimedia community can seek a nomination and change the direction of the election discussion, perhaps by making election promises which other candidates will mirror. WP:Be bold both in encouraging your wiki colleagues to stand for election and in accepting nominations yourself if you think you can fill an essential need in the Wikimedia Movement at the level of administrative governance. Past trustees in this role have been talented and many of them modest.

The Wikimedia community is vast and the majority of stakeholders in this election underappreciate the opportunity that this election process offers. Anyone can start a conversation on wiki, and anyone can write and direct messaging and invitations to participate to individual organizations which might vote. Localization of discussion about the election is important for diversity and inclusion in the voting process. Global participation makes for a robust election. Anyone who identifies challenges and shortcomings should publish what they see for the betterment of this and all subsequent elections.

For this election it is especially helpful for anyone who can teach Wikimedia community governance and election participation to contact Wikimedia user groups who might have membership which is unaware of this election!

Wiki is in the Wikimedia platforms and it is also in the conversations you have offline with Wikimedia editors and non-editing users. If you can present the fact or details of the election to any community of Wikimedia users then consider documenting and reporting your outreach. Wikimedia projects have 500 million / 50 crore users every month, and over the past 20 years probably have distributed content to 2 billion people or 25% of humanity. If you are reading this article then probably there is no one in your social circle who is outside the Wikimedia knowledge sphere. Tell them about the election over tea and coffee! Invite everyone to register a wiki account and do wiki participation!

Draft policy, scrutinize the voting system, research and report on the candidates, and seek to root out any secret society or hidden cabal that might be puppeteering the election committee. Please only engage in conspiracy theories which avoid WP:Original research and cite WP:Reliable sources. If you are aware of anyone who develops wiki election madness then either direct them to publish their criticisms into the Wikimedia permanent and public record or refer them to the relevant Wikipedia:Dispute resolution process as needed.

Please direct questions about the election to the Wikimedia discussion forum of your choice or as a last resort to the talk page for the election itself or international organization catch-all, the Wikimedia-l email list. On behalf of the Wikimedia Affiliates Election Committee, which incidentally does not exist and which you can join and establish, Blue Rasberry .

An ongoing discussion is happening right now at Wikipedia:Talk pages consultation 2019 at the Wikimedia Foundation's request to consider how discussion pages (including talk pages as well as pages like WP:ANI, WP:AFD, and WP:VPR) can be improved. Discussion pages have been a major focus of the WMF for some time. Previously, the Foundation has invested significant resources into tools to make these pages more accessible (especially for new users).

LiquidThreads (see this example page from a non-WMF wiki), Wikimedia's first attempt, was introduced in 2006. A 2011 RfC resulted in a consensus to not enable it anywhere on English Wikipedia. Development of a similar system, best known on this site as "Flow" and renamed to "Structured Discussions" in 2017 (example Flow page), began in 2012. Flow was activated on some talk pages as a test, but was never deployed on the English Wikipedia on a larger scale. In 2016, Flow was officially uninstalled from the English Wikipedia; at the time of its uninstallation, it was only deployed on two pages, WT:WikiProject Hampshire and Wikipedia talk:Flow/Developer test page. Flow has also been removed from Meta and Commons. Development of Flow ended in 2015 (see previous Signpost coverage, "Flow placed on ice").

The common (no pun intended) thread among both of these was that they were removed from the site after they were met with strong opposition from English Wikipedia editors, with several editors citing lack of consultation with the community by the WMF as a reason for these projects' failure. As the WMF returns to the issue of talk pages, it now seeks to avoid its past mistakes and start this consultation so that the result of their work is amenable to a larger number of communities. In particular, English Wikipedia's opinions are likely to be considered especially carefully, as it is the largest Wikimedia site.

So, what is the WMF looking to get out of this? It is best put on the main page for the consultation:

P

As some readers might recall, last April an RfC was held about ending the system of portals. The namespace survived, and since then the Portals WikiProject has been hard at work, creating over 4000 new portals. This streak may be ending soon, however: there is a discussion of pausing the creation of portals using semi-automated tools, which is how many of the portals were created. See the full discussion here. D

• Wikipedia doesn't currently have a single place to discuss topics currently in the news, so one user proposed the creation of a Current Events Noticeboard to assist in the maintenance of Wikipedia articles about topics currently in the news. If created, it would function similarly to the biographies of living persons noticeboard. At time of publication, the discussion is currently active.
• The Steward elections have just closed as of publication time.

• The admin activity RfC ended with a "no consensus" result on all proposals that were closed at press time.
• The Reference Desk RfC was closed with no consensus to indefinitely semi-protect and with a consensus against shutting the reference desks down.

In the rain, in the streets, you're amazed by all the things that you see. And then you pick up the phone to look for what shows up in whatever you're binge-watching, as noticed by this week with a lot of entries regarding Netflix content, with real events regarding murder (#1) and fraud (#2, #4), and fictional events regarding sex, obsession and even more murder, along with a prestige movie that scored high in the Academy Award nominations. The Oscars somehow only brought in the subject of a nominated short, not counting Freddie Mercury (#8), whose biopic somehow is up for Best Picture. Sports are also very present, with three tennis players, three entries in anticipation for the Super Bowl (#5, #9), a disappeared footballer (#6) and another who changed clubs. Otherwise, two politics entries (#3), holidays on both the US (#10) and India, a hit movie (#7), a band on TV, and of course, the recently deceased.

So, why don't you hang up, won't you back up, pack up and head for higher ground. For the week of January 20 to 26, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Nearly half the entries from last report return here. This includes the serial killer who again tops the list, this time joining the select few who had 5 million weekly views (that's the power of a Netflix show!), and somehow isn't even the only murderer on the report, as another who was the subject of a TV episode enters at #24. Other returns are the subjects of Fyre (#3, #6), Bohemian Rhapsody (#5), The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (#7), Get Me Roger Stone and Super Bowl LIII, box office hit Glass, a Senator running for President (#4) – not the only one with White House plans here, mind you – and that never-leaving death list (#9), along with someone who might soon enter it, the victim of a plane accident. Adequate to the bleak #1, there are some somber subjects, such as hate crimes (#8), racist incidents, a movie about assassins, and a recent death. But on happier notes, there's wrestling (#2), tennis (#10), TV musicals, Bollywood, Hollywood, video games and a Google Doodle.

For the week of January 27 to February 2, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

American football's popularity leads to another Super Bowl week report where the big game dominates, with 12 entries. And yet like last year #1 is unrelated: while rapper 21 Savage is from the same Atlanta where the NFL final happened, he instead topped the report because ICE arrested him for possible deportation. Other than plenty of entries returning from our last list, there's a young politician on the spotlight, two Google Doodles, and two actor deaths.

For the week of February 3 to 9, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

This was not the most fun report of all time to compile for me on a personal note, given how heavily laden it is with topics that I am not remotely intrigued by – specifically, its focus on the superficial and cynical "love" propagated by the purveyors of gift cards and boxed chocolates, and its fascination with the Grammys, which I feel is the least interesting of the EGOT quartet. I am reluctant to say that music is dead, but a quick glance at the most popular artists with the regal readers of Wikipedia does little to dispel this sentiment. Nonetheless, courtesy of Google and Gunnm, there are some welcome distractions. All I can really say, truthfully, is that this is Report. Don't catch your attention slippin' now.

Thus, for the week of February 10 to 16, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

It's a bit of a slow week, to the point the last entries couldn't even break 400,000 views. And the subjects that got the most views are the usual offenders: the recently deceased, the latest Hollywood and Bollywood hits, the latest things people are binging on Netflix, wrestling events, politics, Google, Reddit... plus, expectations for the Academy Awards that will dominate next week's Report, some people getting arrested, and a terrorist attack.

For the week of February 17 to 23, 2019, the 10 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

• These lists exclude the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

A series of incidents in mid-February resulted in some Toolforge and Cloud VPS services being unavailable. Toolforge and Cloud VPS (formerly known as Tool Labs and Wikimedia Labs) allow Wikimedia community developers to host bots such as Cydebot, semi-automated editing tools such as Huggle, and webservices such as InternetArchiveBot's management interface.

On February 13 and 14 February, the PAWS service was offline due to database connection issues. Several tables crashed – most were able to be repaired, but two were unrecoverable.

The Cloud VPS infrastructure also experienced a "mysterious hardware failure" involving three separate solid-state drives. Turning them off and on again initially appeared to resolve the issue, but that was short-lived. During this time https://tools.wmflabs.org/ was down, responding with a 500 Internal Server Error. There was also some data corruption caused by the disk failure.

The hardware problems were fixed by 16 February, with the service described as "mostly stable right now"; however the database connection issues remained, with dependent tools and services still affected. The Cloud Services team estimated that at least ten days would be required for a full recovery.

On 18 February, the tools database service was switched to a new server, resolving the connection issue.

E

This month Wikipedia gained three new interface administrators: Evad37, Galobtter and Enterprisey. I'm excited to see what our new IAdmins do; they all seem eager to work with gadgets. Speaking of gadgets...

As mentioned last month, Enterprisey recently proposed that their "Script Installer" tool become a gadget. On the other hand, Galobtter has already begun making their short description helper into a gadget; it is current available for installation in your preferences under "Editing". Looking ahead, Evad37 says that they plan to suggest that their XfD closer and Rater tool become gadgets.

Additionally, this month saw the proposal of two other gadgets. Cyberpower678 has brought up adding a "Read Now" feature for book references; a working demo is available. FR30799386 has also proposed making their mobileUndo script into a gadget.

A grant request has also been made for funding to expand the ProveIt gadget. Planned improvements include compatibility with both the visual editor and the new wikitext editor.

D

This month, MusikAnimal filed a BRFA for MusikBot II, an Admin bot that would automatically configure protection for certain templates and modules. So far, MusikBot has successfully finished its trial, protecting 47 different templates and modules.

• DannyS712 bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3)
• MusikBot II (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3)
• GreenC bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 10)
• Fz29bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)
• Dreamy Jazz Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2)
• PkbwcgsBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 18)
• OutreachDashboardBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)
• Dreamy Jazz Bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 3)

• PkbwcgsBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)
  • Tasks 5, 23 – In trial
  • Task 7 – open
  • Tasks 12, 17 – Trial complete
• DannyS712 bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights)
  • Task 2 – Open
  • Task 4 – Trial complete
• WikiCleanerBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 2) – Open
• JJMC89 bot III (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) – Open
• Xinbenlv bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) – Open
• Ahechtbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 5) – In trial
• LkolblyBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) – In trial
• HostBot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 9) – In trial
• Muhbot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) – Trial complete
• GreenC bot (BRFA · contribs · actions log · block log · flag log · user rights) (Task: 7) – Trial complete

Latest tech news from the Wikimedia technical community: 2019 #6, #7, #8, & #9. Please tell other users about these changes. Not all changes will affect you. Translations are available on Meta.

• You can use the ambox CSS class to show page issues to mobile readers. When you use ambox there are classes you can use.
• When you thank someone on the mobile web you will now have two seconds to cancel the thank. This is in case you clicked on the thank button by accident. [1]
• There is a proposal to add a red link to mobile search results if there is no page with that name. This is how it works on desktop. You can leave feedback. [2]
• There is a new version of the iOS Wikipedia app. It has for example syntax highlighting and new toolbars to make it easier to write wikitext. It also has night mode, a find-on-page function and other things. You can give feedback and suggestions. [3]
• The Wikipedia app for Android will invite users to add Wikidata descriptions to Wikidata objects that have Wikipedia articles but no Wikidata descriptions. It will only invite users who have added a number of Wikidata descriptions in the app without being reverted. This is to avoid spam and bad edits. You can read more and leave feedback.

• It was easy to untick a box by accident in Special:Preferences. This will now be fixed. [4]
• When you look at your watchlist or the recent changes page you can use the new filters for edit review. There you can choose tags to filter different edits. Empty tags will no longer be shown. [5]

• You can join the technical advice meeting on IRC. During the meeting, volunteer developers can ask for advice. The meeting takes place every Wednesday from 4:00–5:00 p.m. UTC. See how to join here.

There is always discussion about how to improve Wikipedia, but I think the saga of what happened to these users who attempted it is important to reflect on. What went wrong all those years ago? The following Signpost article, by Flcelloguy, originally appeared in the 19 September 2005 edition as "Esperanza group".

After tensions grew high last month, a new group was formed within Wikipedia to promote Wiki-Love and community relations. Esperanza, coming from the Spanish word for hope, is "dedicated to strengthening Wikipedia's sense of community". The group was founded by JCarriker, who saw a need for such an organization. "Esperanza is unique... [It] should complement existing insitutions by providing services that they do not. Esperanza will be like Wikipedia's soul... seeking to comfort and maintain its various parts (users)," he said in a statement on the Esperanza page.

The idea immediately proved popular, with several users now including links to the organization in their user signatures. Over 48 Wikipedians have signed up, with positive input. "This is a entirely great idea," Bratsche commented. Echoing those lines, Tim Rhymeless said, "I'd be happy to see Wikipedia, as a community, grow and strengthen [because of Esperanza]."

However, there were also signs of disapproval. Gadfium stated, "I think this is a bad idea. Wikipedia does not need a cabal." In addition, several users were unhappy with the proposed governing organization. The current structure consists of a drafting committee, comprised of JCarriker and Redwolf24, and a provisional government of 15 members, which was filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Thus, many users were displeased with the current bureaucracy-like power structure. As a response, a message was posted on the Esperanza page, stating that "One of the most brought up reasons for not joining Esperanza is that there's too much bureaucracy. Please note that most of the government things are for fun – it's not really a true authority."

There were many ideas for Esperanza, and all of them are undergoing discussion. One proposal was for a Wikipedian of the Week; however, despite strong support at first, there seemed to be recent opposition to the idea, mainly because it could turn into a "popularity contest" and that it would suggest a cabal. Another proposal was giving birthday greetings out; this also drew some opposition. In addition, an "article lottery", where one nominated article would be randomly picked to be worked on, was proposed. There were many other ideas on the discussion page, but none of them have been implemented yet.

The group has since been made less bureaucratic, leaving only an admin general and a four member committee acting as a high court. The parliamentary tasks will be taken care of by the group as a whole. The group currently has about 52 members.