The New York Times says this is "Wikipedia's Moment of Truth" and asks: Can the online encyclopedia help teach A.I. chatbots to get their facts right – without destroying itself in the process? Starting with the 2021 essay, Death of Wikipedia by Barkeep49, the Times examines how Wikipedia and artificial intelligence will interact. Barkeep considers death-by-AI to be the most likely cause of Wikipedia's demise, followed by a fragmentation of the internet, and forks caused by WMF shenanigans. All these scenarios might seem wildly optimistic, but Barkeep does outline the strengths of Wikipedia: only a better encyclopedia will be able to replace us. But reaching that milestone will be very difficult for a new 'pedia, with a likely lack of agreement among Wiki editors on which 'pedia to move to, and the lack of the WMF's stash of cash. He elaborates why our encyclopedia won't likely succumb to any of these threats anytime soon. But he did admit that "AI's day of writing a high quality encyclopedia is coming sooner rather than later." He told the Times reporter that "It wouldn’t surprise me if things are fine for the next three years, and then, all of a sudden, in year 4 or 5, things drop off a cliff."

Academic researcher Nicholas Vincent worries, according to the Times that AI will cannibalize Wikipedia, mostly spouting information taken from the 'pedia. A chatbot need not be better than Wikipedia, but simply faster, or somewhat more up-to-date. Once a chatbot's Wiki-based output becomes more popular than the 'pedia itself, the quality of the 'pedia might fall, leaving the chatbot to cannibalize itself. This has lead one group of Wikipedians on a conference call to agree that "we want a world in which knowledge is created by humans".

The article continues at length and in depth. Other topics include the Wikimedia Foundations's recently announced Wikipedia plug-in for ChatGPT (see our previous coverage) and a reflection on Joseph Reagle's 2020 essay "The many (reported) deaths of Wikipedia". There's even a few paragraphs on the final death spiral. In sum, the Times article is encyclopedic: something that this author doubts a large language model could replicate. –S

Three news outlets covered a tempest in a teapot that resulted after Durham, North Carolina's City Attorney Kimberly Rehberg sent a request to the Wikimedia Foundation to identify editors who have been editing articles on Durham city politics (see our related coverage in this issue's News and notes column). Mayor Elaine O'Neal and City Council members DeDreana Freeman and Monique Holsey-Hyman also requested that some material in "their articles" be removed. O'Neal will not be seeking re-election this year, while Freeman will be running for mayor, and Holsey-Hyman who was appointed in 2022 is seeking election to the council.

Holsey-Hyman has been accused of attempting to solicit a bribe to vote for a rezoning proposal. There's no news on whether an investigation by the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is going anywhere. She was also accused of improperly using city employees for her election campaign. Freeman reportedly engaged in an aggressive shouting match with a political opponent. These facts seem to have been properly reported and documented in Wikipedia's articles about the two politicians.

Some people may be surprised when they see a Wikipedia article about themselves. The Signpost recommends that if you don't consider yourself notable or you have a strong desire for privacy that you identify yourself and request that the article be deleted, either on the article talk page or at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. If you believe the article is inaccurate, rather than just unpleasant, you should also post on these pages. However, please do not attempt to doxx our editors, edit the article yourself or through paid editors, or make even vague legal threats. Everybody will be much happier if you follow these recommendations. –S

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), aka Michaelvlawler, was doxxed by the Daily Beast as none other than himself, after making 26 edits to the Mike Lawler article. It wasn't really a case of jumping to a conclusion − since User:Michaelvlawler had been warned about his apparent conflict of interest, ignored the warning and kept on editing about himself, and was ultimately blocked. His only other edit had been to include Mike Lawler as a well-known alumni at Manhattan College. He'd also added his middle name, Vincent, to his own article. Only after the Daily Beast article appeared did he contest the block, saying that he had been blocked because he did not confirm that he was the subject of the article, and that he would promise not to edit that article again. A kind-hearted admin — our own Tamzin — undid the block after the proper documentation was received at WP:VRT, but did emphasize the promise not to edit the Wikipedia article and recommended that he review WP:Conflict of interest. While we are not complaining about the forgiving spirit demonstrated here, we note that there are sometimes downsides to forgiveness. Lawler then disputed the Daily Beast article, extracting a correction saying that he was not banned by Wikipedia for editing the Wikipedia article about himself, but rather that he had been banned for not confirming that he was the subject of the article. Lawler is not a lawyer, but an accountant. Nevertheless, we are sure he would have made a very good Wikilawyer had he not already given himself away.

The Signpost strongly recommends, again, that politicians never edit articles about themselves, whether they do it personally or through staffers or other paid editors. Too many reporters now know the trick of checking a politician's articles for biased or conflict-of-interest edits. Those politicians who do such editing are almost certain to get into a spot of bother. We also recommend that publications not doxx these editors. Simply note the edits that seem most promotional, any whitewashing and warnings to the editor on the article or user talk pages. The Signpost will then be able to mention the problem in this column – provided we have the space. We have lots of space. –S

UnHerd criticizes Wikipedia for a communications project intended to update a number of articles related to climate change, run as part of the UN's Sustainable Development Goal 13; they call it "just the latest front in the UN’s ongoing online climate change narrative control war" and draw parallels to similar projects undertaken during the time of COVID-19.

The communications project in question is –

formally entitled "Phase 2 Communicating current SDG 13 knowledge through Wikipedia – a collaboration between Wikipedia editors and content experts at SEI, IPCC, UNFCCC and other organisations" and runs from mid 2022 to mid 2024.

The project selects relevant Wikipedia articles dealing with climate change topics that have significant daily pageviews and at the same time require updating and improvement in content and quality. The project team scores the quality of these Wikipedia articles at the start and at the end of the project using ten quality parameters. We also interact with published experts who advise us on necessary content edits. The core project team is made up of academics who have scientific and climate change expertise and also know how to edit Wikipedia.

On much the same topic, though from a different perspective, CNN reports that the United Arab Emirates, the country hosting this year's COP28 climate conference, has –

embarked on a major PR campaign to boost its green credentials ahead of the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai later this year, prompting heavy criticism from climate groups and some politicians.

At the same time, researchers are raising red flags over allegations of more covert influence campaigns, as members of the COP28 team were found by the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian to have been editing Wikipedia pages about the conference’s chief, and an army of fake social media accounts has appeared, promoting the country’s climate record.

The COP28 president's "greenwashing" of Wikipedia had previously been reported by the Centre for Climate Reporting in late May of this year. – S, AK, J

For further coverage see this issue's Disinformation report.

• Mazal tov to Wikipedia: The Jerusalem Post celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Hebrew Wikipedia by reporting from a meeting of 150 editors. They note that Wikipedia is increasing its support for a program for students writing in Arabic by 50%. The world is rapidly changing, and the editors of the Hebrew Wikipedia are changing with it. The role of artificial intelligence is one challenge being addressed, but the editors seem to agree that they will continue focusing on the quality of articles over mere quantity.
• Barbenheimer brouhaha: Kotaku believes that the Wikipedia article on Barbenheimer was contentious. If you agree, perhaps you should relax, sit down, and open a brew. Ha ha!
• Edit-a-thon of the month: The Santa Fe New Mexican covers an edit-a-thon at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum located (where else?) in Santa Fe, New Mexico and featuring well-known resident Georgia O'Keeffe. Given the intense focus of the meet-up and the length of the article, it appears to have been a very successful edit-a-thon.
• Swiss Wikipedia articles rescued for future generations: Swissinfo reports that the "Swiss National Library is building a digital collection of Wikipedia articles related to Switzerland. The articles are to be permanently archived for future generations and made freely available online." According to a press release by the Swiss Wikimedia chapter, Wikimedia CH, the collection contains articles from the Wikipedia editions in German, French, Italian, and Romansh (the four national languages of Switzerland), selected using the PetScan tool. Wikimedia CH notes that "Just because Wikipedia is online does not mean that this online encyclopedia is secured for all eternity. This can only be guaranteed by a memory institution with a corresponding mandate." Work on the project began in 2020, and culminated in the collection's launch in June 2023. Future generations will be able to find it at https://www.e-helvetica.nb.admin.ch/search?q=f%5Behs_collection%5D%5B0%5D=wikipedia .
• Is Wikipedia replacing Google?: Washington Post journalist Taylor Lorenz (known for her coverage of internet culture) reports that "Google search is being replaced by TikTok, Wikipedia and Reddit". The article offers ample anecdotes and expert quotes about the shortcomings of Google Search in general. The Signpost can indeed confirm that they changed it and now it sucks. However, its claim that "Wikipedia, whose homepage defaults to a search bar, is also an increasingly popular search tool" rests on only two pieces of evidence: first, a journalist from The Verge wrote last year that he personally prefers Wikipedia's mobile app over Google (see our coverage at the time), and second, Wikipedian Annie Rauwerda (of Depths of Wikipedia fame) told the reporter that "Wikipedia is constantly updated, there’s standards for the sources, so it’s very rare that you find low quality SEO farm websites cited." While both observations may be correct, the WaPo might have wanted to also consult the Wikimedia Foundation's traffic statistics and analyses. Oh well.
• WMF grant recipient seeks to preserve knowledge of Jewish languages: The Forward takes a look at the Jewish Language Project, a Wikimedia Foundation grant recipient seeking to preserve critically endangered Jewish languages and dialects through the creation of videos of their native speakers, as well as accompanying translations and transcriptions. The project is affiliated with Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion.

The city attorney of Durham, North Carolina, attempted to coax the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) to reveal the identities of three editors and to prohibit the placement of certain verifiable and truthful content on Wikipedia pages of city officials, Indy Week and The News and Observer report.

A letter, dated June 29, outlined three complaints about content on Wikipedia. Two of the complaints pertained to coverage of a council member's alleged attempted extortion of a developer, while the third related to an image depicting the signature of the mayor of Durham. The letter requested that the Wikimedia foundation remove the image and bar users from uploading it on Wikimedia projects, and requested the names and identities of the various editors who added the text and/or image content to Wikipedia.

Recent months have been a tumultuous time for Durham's seven-member city council. In March, Elaine M. O'Neal, the mayor of Durham, publicly read an allegation that a Durham city council member (subsequently identified as Monique Holsey-Hyman) had extorted a developer for campaign contributions. The aftermath of the meeting was testy, with the public able to hear shouting between officials, despite them being out of public view. An eyewitness interviewed by Indy Week alleged that Durham council member DeDreana Freeman had attempted to strike Durham Mayor-pro tempore and council member Mark-Anthony Middleton during the shouting session, but instead struck O'Neal once and punched the head of fellow Durham council member Leonardo Williams twice before Williams subdued her. In the aftermath of these incidents, O'Neal announced that she would not seek re-election as Mayor, and a state investigation was opened into the extortion allegation (Holsey-Hyman denies the alleged extortion attempt and a separate allegation that she ordered city employees to perform campaign work on her behalf).

For making edits to the Wikipedia entries about certain figures implicated in this scandal, the letter requested the identities of Mako001 and Willthacheerleader18. The entries contained unflattering information about the public officials at the time of the letter's sending, but the entries were well-sourced; Indy Week reports that the entries' descriptions of the scandal were written "without any apparent factual error and with links to news articles as references".

Several figures have publicly expressed concerns about the sending of the letter. Barry Saunders, a member of the editorial board of The News and Observer, wrote that, "[u]nless the Wikipedia posts were egregiously wrong—and there's no evidence that they were—the three Durham officials should have taken a page, when it came to criticism, from the title of the 1970s hit by the band Bachman-Turner Overdrive: let it ride .... Few voters, though, will forgive attempts to silence critics".

Duke University law professor Stuart Benjamin was taken aback by the letter. He told The News and Observer, "I understand why public officials do not want unflattering information published about them, but it is deeply troubling that any public official tried to unmask someone who posted this accurate information."

David Larson, opinion editor of The Carolina Journal, concurred. "[T]his attempt to intimidate anonymous people online for daring to discuss real but unflattering details of your political service is the stuff of dysfunctional regimes", he wrote.

The WMF, for its part, told Indy Week that it is "strongly committed to protecting the privacy of editors and users on Wikimedia projects".

The letter, signed by city attorney Kimberly Rehberg, also states that she had removed the image of the signature from the Wikipedia article about Elaine M. O'Neal on June 28. This checks out; that article was edited on that day by a user named Kimlynn69, and Kimlynn69 wrote a message to Johnson524 that identified herself as "Kimberly M. Rehberg" and as the city attorney of Durham. As it had for the editors who touched content relating to the scandal of the March 23 meeting, the letter had also requested Johnson524's name and identity as well.

In response to Rehberg's message, Johnson524 explained that he had obtained the signature from Durham Performing Arts Center playbills. Indy Week reports that, following Johnson's reply to the message, Rehberg said in an email "there is little legal basis to demand that Wiki reveal the identity of the User or prohibit the upload of a photo of the signature to the Mayor's Wiki page".

The mayor, per an email obtained by Indy Week, was unsatisfied with Rehberg's reply. O'Neal told Rehberg that her request to send the letter to the WMF "still stands"; Rehberg said in an email sent later that day that the letter had been sent. Despite this, the letter may have never actually arrived at its intended destination. The WMF told Indy Week that they had not received the letter and that the letter that had been made public contained an incorrect postal address for the WMF's headquarters. Rehberg, meanwhile, told Indy Week that the letter had only been sent by physical mail.

The Signpost reached out to Johnson524 following the publication of Rehberg's letter. "I was so happy to see an outpouring of support from the Wikipedia community from editors who have been around longer than I have," he wrote: "I have always valued that Wikimedia has also never succumbed to external powers—and has continued to fight for a world of free information: whether that be not to take down/severely censor their project in Russia, to campaign for those jailed editors in Saudi Arabia, or even just go against unjust decisions by local governments here in the U.S."

He remained, however, displeased with the mayor's handling of the situation. "I would have even put it past the mayor Elaine O'Neal if she went back on her statement after I explained how I got the signature publicly, but since she doubled down on her attempt to try to 'unmask' me and two other editors after without really any prior contact, I am glad she will not be running for mayor again, because I don't think how this situation was handled was right at all", he wrote. – R

(For further coverage of this story see this issue's In the media.)

Vladimir Medeyko (User:Drbug), the former head of Wikimedia Russia and founder of the Russian government-approved Ruwiki fork, has been "banned indefinitely by the Wikimedia Foundation from editing all Wikimedia sites". Medeyko had previously been blocked indefinitely on the Russian Wikipedia, following a discussion at the Russian Wikipedia's Administrators' Noticeboard, as well as on Commons, where the reason given was –

Long-term abuse: creating a Wikipedia fork which includes stolen content from Commons as well

See also previous Signpost coverage here and here. – AK

Wikimedia Europe has published its European Policy Monitoring Report for July 2023. Among other current legal developments, it highlights that –

France is working on a tech bill to regulate the entire online environment [...,] the projet de loi visant à sécuriser et réguler l'espace numérique (SREN). There are several problematic articles and aspects in the proposal that would change how content moderation on [Wikimedia] projects works. Such examples are provisions aiming to keep links to 'banned' media off websites (think Russia Today) or an obligation to not allow banned users from re-registering (which would require some sort of background check on all new registrations).

The report also calls attention to "Italy['s] Crusade Against the Public Domain", referring the country's efforts "to restrict and get paid for re-use of public domain material" such as Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. – H

The Wikimedia Foundation has launched an instance on the federated social network Mastodon, at https://wikimedia.social/ (for technical reasons, it was not possible to use a wikimedia.org domain). According to a July 17 announcement on Wikimedia-l,

At the moment, sign-up is open for Wikimedia Foundation staff as we examine moderation and other areas. Product and technology staff will use it primarily for developer engagement. The goal is to create a space for people to connect and talk tech.

At the time of writing (July 30), the server lists 72 active users, although its directory of recently active local users shows only five who have posted. The Foundation's own @wikimediafoundation account leads, with 14 posts, and has already gained over 5,000 followers – undoubtedly helped by a Hacker News post that made it (close) to the top of that site's front page.

The announcement comes amid continuing concerns about Twitter (where the corresponding @wikimedia account remains active, although viewing a list of its recent tweets currently requires registration, due to recent changes by X née Twitter). In late 2022, suggestions that the Foundation should mirror the official Wikipedia Twitter account (run by its Communications department) on Mastodon had fallen flat. This later motivated the creation of a community-run Wikipedia account on the Wikis World Mastodon server in April 2023 (see our coverage: "Wikipedia gains an official presence on Mastodon ... without the Wikimedia Foundation's involvement" and "Who speaks for Wikipedia? Mastodon accreditation reverted"). At the time of writing, it continues to be active, with 16K followers and a verified checkmark, while requests by WMF staff "to change the name of the account [from @wikipedia] to 'Wikipedia movement', 'Wikipedia volunteers', 'Wikipedia worldwide', or something similar" remain unheeded. – H

• New administrator?: Pppery has opened a request for adminship, which remains open as of press time.
• Annual reports:
  • Wikimedia Chile (financial statements)
  • Kashmiri Wikimedians User Group
  • North Carolina Wikipedians
  • WikiClassics User Group
• Global bans: 86sedan ([1]), Drbug (see report above).
• Articles for Improvement: This week's Article for Improvement (beginning 31 July) is Man. It will be followed the week after by Goalkeeper. Please be bold in helping improve these articles!
• Flickr Foundation seeks input for improving the Flickr2Commons tool: "Flickypedia" is a recently announced "project by the Flickr Foundation in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation to extend and endorse the Flickr2Commons software tool. Flickypedia will streamline the transmission of Flickr images into the Wikimedia Commons." The project just launched a survey to solicit user input on the design of the tool.