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Volume 4, Issue 45 | 24 November 2008 | About the Signpost |
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( ← Prev) | 2008 archives | ( Next →) |
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From the editor —
From the editor: 200th issue
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Home | Archives | Newsroom | Tip Line | Shortcut : WP:POST/A |
|
This issue marks the 200th issue of the Wikipedia Signpost. To mark this milestone, I compiled a list of all users who have ever written an article, or made an edit to an article. In all, over these 200 issues, we've published 1,731 stories, written by 181 different users. 35 users have written at least 5 articles.
1,264 users, including bots and sockpuppet accounts, have made at least one edit to a Signpost article. Some of these edits contributed significant new information to an article; others fixed spelling or grammatical errors, while many merely reverted vandalism. I bring this stat up specifically because I want to again point out that anyone can edit the Signpost; it seems to me that many users are not aware of this. We encourage most major edits to be made before publication, so that the article doesn't change significantly after publication; however, corrections are always accepted.
You can find the full list of contributors below—I encourage you to check if you're on it yet. The list may not be fully comprehensive, so if you find an inaccuracy, please let me know, and I'll look into the matter.
Thanks for reading the Signpost.
— Ral315
Candidates in the December 2008 Arbitration Committee elections were interviewed this week for an election guide, in preparation for the start of the elections on Monday. The elections will run for two weeks, ending on Sunday, 14 December. It is anticipated that Jimbo Wales will make his selections soon afterward, and the newly elected Arbitrators will take their positions on 1 January, 2009.
The election guide is intended to be a brief overview of each candidate's beliefs and experiences. More detailed information about each candidate may be gleaned from their user pages, as well as their responses to questions from other users. Not all candidates have yet replied to our questions; their replies will be added as they are received.
Due to size, the guide has been split up alphabetically, though a page transcluding all sections is available below:
Of the five arbitrators whose terms expire this year, two,
Charles Matthews and
Jdforrester, will stand for re-election. These five seats, along with the seats of
UninvitedCompany, who resigned in September, and
Jpgordon, who will resign on January 1, will be up for election, resulting a total of seven seats to be filled in the election. Five of the seats will be three-year terms in Tranche Beta, while the other two will be one-year terms in Tranche Gamma, and will be up for reelection in December 2009.
The Wikimedia Foundation's 2008 fundraiser continued this week, raising over $266,000 in its third week and bringing total fundraiser contributions to $1,148,200 over the first three weeks. Including major gifts, the Foundation had raised over $3.05 million so far this fiscal year (since July 1).
The shutdown of http://wikipedia.de (see archived story) continues to receive extensive press coverage, Google News has indexed what it believes to be 211 articles on the subject. http://wikipedia.de which redirects to http://de.wikipedia.org was shutdown briefly last week after a complaint by Lutz Heilmann to Landgericht Lübeck, a German intermediate court about inaccuracies in his biography. However after much negative press which corresponded to a spike in donations to Wikimedia Deutschland Heilmann had the court rescind their injunction as long as his bio was corrected.
An interesting facet of this incident was reported by Christian Stöcker, in his article "Wikipedia Shutdown Backfires" published November 17, in Der Spiegel, Thorsten Feldmann lawyer for Wikimedia Deutschland said he was disappointed in Heilmann's withdrawal. "We would have preferred to have the temporary injunction removed on the grounds that it was baseless", it quotes him as saying, because they are now afraid that Politicians or Celebrities will now try and get similar injunctions placed on the site merely for PR purposes.
As is usual the accuracy of Wikipedia was a hot topic for discussion in the media.
Brendan Carroll, sophomore at Princeton University and columnist for The Daily Princetonian, writes that "The time has come: Wikipedia should be a valid citation for academic papers" in his article published November 21st titled "Give Wikipedia the green light". He acknowledges the problems of vandalism and what he describes as "notoriously amateurish content", providing an anecdote about loading the article on Barack Obama and finding "BARACK OBAMA WON!!!!!!!" repeated endlessly on the page. Despite this, he writes that there is a "robust defense" and that "professionals casually correct amateurish mistakes [with speed]". He says what really makes Wikipedia a reliable source though is its citations policy and that "The "citation needed" feature is Wikipedia's saving grace", that being a reference to template:fact. It is apparent that Carroll, the author, is not well versed with Wikipedia, though he does say that "I've made corrections to Wikipedia myself" but he does not participate as an active member of the community. He also claims that "Wikipedia has fewer mistakes per article than the Encyclopædia Britannica", which is likely a misinterpretation of the 2005 Nature study that found Wikipedia was only slightly less accurate than Encyclopædia Britannica.
Also, Ben Wojdyla of Jalopnik rather humorously writes about some vandalism to the article Michelin, which he describes as a "masterpiece of imagination" in his article "Adventures In Wikipedia Fiction: The Origins Of The Michelin Man" published on November 20th. Despite this, he is of the opinion that overall Wikipedia is "fairly reliable" due to its "vigorous peer review on even the most minute detail and completely humorless administrators."
Rafe Needleman from CNet is wondering "What is the significance of Sun Microsystems' announcement Wednesday that Wikimedia is buying truckloads of Sun servers?" in his article "Wikipedia gears up for flood of video and photo files" published on November 19. He reports that the Wikimedia Foundation is intending to greatly improve image and video hosting services which may include online photo editing similar to the standard Wiki text editing. With this new capacity the upload cap is expected to be lifted to 100 MB for large files according to Raju Shanbhag of TMCnet in his article "Wikimedia Selects Sun Microsystems for Open Source Web Infrastructure".
The specifications of the deal are available from the Sun Microsystems press release "Wikimedia Selects Sun Microsystems to Enhance Multimedia Experience for Expanding User-Base Worldwide and Accommodate Explosive Growth of Rich Content".
Featured articles (FA) show off Wikipedia's best work on the main page and serve as a model for all of Wikipedia's articles. Only one in every 1,130 Wikipedia articles has attained Featured article status; only 10 editors accounted for a fifth of all FAs promoted in the first eight months of 2008. SandyGeorgia, delegate to Featured article director Raul654 at Featured article candidates (FAC), and Jbmurray interviewed four FA writers for The Signpost. These four editors—the primary contributors to a combined 100 Featured articles—discussed their experiences with the Featured article process:
Two editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Efe ( nom) and Mizu onna sango15 ( nom).
Four bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: Yobot ( task request), DirlBot ( task request), Legobot ( task request) and OKBot ( task request).
Nine articles were promoted to featured status this week: Tropical Storm Gabrielle (2007) ( nom), SS Mauna Loa ( nom), 1956 FA Cup Final ( nom), Romeo and Juliet ( nom), Faith Leech ( nom), Battle of Khafji ( nom), Sandra Morgan ( nom), SS Ohioan (1914) ( nom) and Ico ( nom).
Seventeen lists were promoted to featured status this week: Annie Award for Best Animated Home Entertainment Production ( nom), The O.C. (season 4) ( nom), List of Milwaukee Brewers managers ( nom), List of Irish ODI cricketers ( nom), List of number-one Billboard Top Latin Albums of 2005 ( nom), List of The Bellflower Bunnies episodes ( nom), List of goaltenders who have scored a goal in a National Hockey League game ( nom), List of songs in Guitar Hero World Tour ( nom), Extreme points of Sweden ( nom), List of Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes ( nom), Diamond Rio discography ( nom), List of One Piece video games ( nom), List of Milwaukee Bucks head coaches ( nom), List of men's major championships winning golfers ( nom), List of premiers of the Northwest Territories ( nom), List of Kansas City Royals Opening Day starting pitchers ( nom) and List of Denver Broncos head coaches ( nom).
Three topics were promoted to featured status this week: Classes of supernovae ( nom), 1994 Pacific hurricane season ( nom) and National Basketball Association awards ( nom).
No portals were promoted to featured status this week.
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: Congregation Beth Elohim, Greater Crested Tern, Rokeby Venus, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Problem of Apollonius, Doctor Who missing episodes and Yttrium.
Four articles have been delisted this week: Michel Foucault ( nom), Russian–Circassian War ( nom), Mercantilism ( nom) and Vowel ( nom).
No lists were delisted this week.
No topics were delisted this week.
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Euhadra_peliomphala, Paradise fish, U.S. National Parks poster, Lunar rover, Liquid metal fast breeder reactor, Albert Memorial and St. Joseph's Oratory.
No sounds were featured this week.
Two featured pictures were demoted this week: Aust blue dragonfly02 and Corn cobs.
Ten pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.
The Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week, leaving three open.
![]() |
---|
| ||
Volume 4, Issue 45 | 24 November 2008 | About the Signpost |
| ||
( ← Prev) | 2008 archives | ( Next →) |
|
From the editor —
From the editor: 200th issue
|
| |
Home | Archives | Newsroom | Tip Line | Shortcut : WP:POST/A |
|
This issue marks the 200th issue of the Wikipedia Signpost. To mark this milestone, I compiled a list of all users who have ever written an article, or made an edit to an article. In all, over these 200 issues, we've published 1,731 stories, written by 181 different users. 35 users have written at least 5 articles.
1,264 users, including bots and sockpuppet accounts, have made at least one edit to a Signpost article. Some of these edits contributed significant new information to an article; others fixed spelling or grammatical errors, while many merely reverted vandalism. I bring this stat up specifically because I want to again point out that anyone can edit the Signpost; it seems to me that many users are not aware of this. We encourage most major edits to be made before publication, so that the article doesn't change significantly after publication; however, corrections are always accepted.
You can find the full list of contributors below—I encourage you to check if you're on it yet. The list may not be fully comprehensive, so if you find an inaccuracy, please let me know, and I'll look into the matter.
Thanks for reading the Signpost.
— Ral315
Candidates in the December 2008 Arbitration Committee elections were interviewed this week for an election guide, in preparation for the start of the elections on Monday. The elections will run for two weeks, ending on Sunday, 14 December. It is anticipated that Jimbo Wales will make his selections soon afterward, and the newly elected Arbitrators will take their positions on 1 January, 2009.
The election guide is intended to be a brief overview of each candidate's beliefs and experiences. More detailed information about each candidate may be gleaned from their user pages, as well as their responses to questions from other users. Not all candidates have yet replied to our questions; their replies will be added as they are received.
Due to size, the guide has been split up alphabetically, though a page transcluding all sections is available below:
Of the five arbitrators whose terms expire this year, two,
Charles Matthews and
Jdforrester, will stand for re-election. These five seats, along with the seats of
UninvitedCompany, who resigned in September, and
Jpgordon, who will resign on January 1, will be up for election, resulting a total of seven seats to be filled in the election. Five of the seats will be three-year terms in Tranche Beta, while the other two will be one-year terms in Tranche Gamma, and will be up for reelection in December 2009.
The Wikimedia Foundation's 2008 fundraiser continued this week, raising over $266,000 in its third week and bringing total fundraiser contributions to $1,148,200 over the first three weeks. Including major gifts, the Foundation had raised over $3.05 million so far this fiscal year (since July 1).
The shutdown of http://wikipedia.de (see archived story) continues to receive extensive press coverage, Google News has indexed what it believes to be 211 articles on the subject. http://wikipedia.de which redirects to http://de.wikipedia.org was shutdown briefly last week after a complaint by Lutz Heilmann to Landgericht Lübeck, a German intermediate court about inaccuracies in his biography. However after much negative press which corresponded to a spike in donations to Wikimedia Deutschland Heilmann had the court rescind their injunction as long as his bio was corrected.
An interesting facet of this incident was reported by Christian Stöcker, in his article "Wikipedia Shutdown Backfires" published November 17, in Der Spiegel, Thorsten Feldmann lawyer for Wikimedia Deutschland said he was disappointed in Heilmann's withdrawal. "We would have preferred to have the temporary injunction removed on the grounds that it was baseless", it quotes him as saying, because they are now afraid that Politicians or Celebrities will now try and get similar injunctions placed on the site merely for PR purposes.
As is usual the accuracy of Wikipedia was a hot topic for discussion in the media.
Brendan Carroll, sophomore at Princeton University and columnist for The Daily Princetonian, writes that "The time has come: Wikipedia should be a valid citation for academic papers" in his article published November 21st titled "Give Wikipedia the green light". He acknowledges the problems of vandalism and what he describes as "notoriously amateurish content", providing an anecdote about loading the article on Barack Obama and finding "BARACK OBAMA WON!!!!!!!" repeated endlessly on the page. Despite this, he writes that there is a "robust defense" and that "professionals casually correct amateurish mistakes [with speed]". He says what really makes Wikipedia a reliable source though is its citations policy and that "The "citation needed" feature is Wikipedia's saving grace", that being a reference to template:fact. It is apparent that Carroll, the author, is not well versed with Wikipedia, though he does say that "I've made corrections to Wikipedia myself" but he does not participate as an active member of the community. He also claims that "Wikipedia has fewer mistakes per article than the Encyclopædia Britannica", which is likely a misinterpretation of the 2005 Nature study that found Wikipedia was only slightly less accurate than Encyclopædia Britannica.
Also, Ben Wojdyla of Jalopnik rather humorously writes about some vandalism to the article Michelin, which he describes as a "masterpiece of imagination" in his article "Adventures In Wikipedia Fiction: The Origins Of The Michelin Man" published on November 20th. Despite this, he is of the opinion that overall Wikipedia is "fairly reliable" due to its "vigorous peer review on even the most minute detail and completely humorless administrators."
Rafe Needleman from CNet is wondering "What is the significance of Sun Microsystems' announcement Wednesday that Wikimedia is buying truckloads of Sun servers?" in his article "Wikipedia gears up for flood of video and photo files" published on November 19. He reports that the Wikimedia Foundation is intending to greatly improve image and video hosting services which may include online photo editing similar to the standard Wiki text editing. With this new capacity the upload cap is expected to be lifted to 100 MB for large files according to Raju Shanbhag of TMCnet in his article "Wikimedia Selects Sun Microsystems for Open Source Web Infrastructure".
The specifications of the deal are available from the Sun Microsystems press release "Wikimedia Selects Sun Microsystems to Enhance Multimedia Experience for Expanding User-Base Worldwide and Accommodate Explosive Growth of Rich Content".
Featured articles (FA) show off Wikipedia's best work on the main page and serve as a model for all of Wikipedia's articles. Only one in every 1,130 Wikipedia articles has attained Featured article status; only 10 editors accounted for a fifth of all FAs promoted in the first eight months of 2008. SandyGeorgia, delegate to Featured article director Raul654 at Featured article candidates (FAC), and Jbmurray interviewed four FA writers for The Signpost. These four editors—the primary contributors to a combined 100 Featured articles—discussed their experiences with the Featured article process:
Two editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: Efe ( nom) and Mizu onna sango15 ( nom).
Four bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: Yobot ( task request), DirlBot ( task request), Legobot ( task request) and OKBot ( task request).
Nine articles were promoted to featured status this week: Tropical Storm Gabrielle (2007) ( nom), SS Mauna Loa ( nom), 1956 FA Cup Final ( nom), Romeo and Juliet ( nom), Faith Leech ( nom), Battle of Khafji ( nom), Sandra Morgan ( nom), SS Ohioan (1914) ( nom) and Ico ( nom).
Seventeen lists were promoted to featured status this week: Annie Award for Best Animated Home Entertainment Production ( nom), The O.C. (season 4) ( nom), List of Milwaukee Brewers managers ( nom), List of Irish ODI cricketers ( nom), List of number-one Billboard Top Latin Albums of 2005 ( nom), List of The Bellflower Bunnies episodes ( nom), List of goaltenders who have scored a goal in a National Hockey League game ( nom), List of songs in Guitar Hero World Tour ( nom), Extreme points of Sweden ( nom), List of Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes ( nom), Diamond Rio discography ( nom), List of One Piece video games ( nom), List of Milwaukee Bucks head coaches ( nom), List of men's major championships winning golfers ( nom), List of premiers of the Northwest Territories ( nom), List of Kansas City Royals Opening Day starting pitchers ( nom) and List of Denver Broncos head coaches ( nom).
Three topics were promoted to featured status this week: Classes of supernovae ( nom), 1994 Pacific hurricane season ( nom) and National Basketball Association awards ( nom).
No portals were promoted to featured status this week.
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: Congregation Beth Elohim, Greater Crested Tern, Rokeby Venus, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Problem of Apollonius, Doctor Who missing episodes and Yttrium.
Four articles have been delisted this week: Michel Foucault ( nom), Russian–Circassian War ( nom), Mercantilism ( nom) and Vowel ( nom).
No lists were delisted this week.
No topics were delisted this week.
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Euhadra_peliomphala, Paradise fish, U.S. National Parks poster, Lunar rover, Liquid metal fast breeder reactor, Albert Memorial and St. Joseph's Oratory.
No sounds were featured this week.
Two featured pictures were demoted this week: Aust blue dragonfly02 and Corn cobs.
Ten pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.
The Arbitration Committee neither opened nor closed any cases this week, leaving three open.