On Friday, June 4 Wikimedia UK and the British Museum will have a special backstage tour for Wikipedians, to mark the beginning of the Wikipedian-in-Residence collaboration with the museum (see archived story).
According to Matthew Cock, Head of Web at the museum,
In the morning we have arranged a number of behind-the-scenes and gallery tours for Wikipedians. Then, after lunch together in the staff canteen, we will get together in the Clore Education Centre to talk about collaboration, have a question and answer sessions, hear pitches for adding notable objects and developing featured articles, and hopefully also forming some relationships for future working...
The schedule lists several not-normally seen departments that participants will be able to visit, guided by the curators themselves:
Those interested can sign up and get more information at the webpage for the tour.
During the British Museum's Wikipedian-in-residence project, the first of its kind, Liam Wyatt will work during the month of June at the museum to improve collaboration between the Museum and the Wikimedia communities with public-facing, in-house and Wikimedia content creation projects.
On 6 May, Argentine Deputy Gerónimo Vargas Aignasse presented a law project to increase sanctions against those who commit plagiarism. But in the project proposal, to define plagiarism, he copied 331 words from the Spanish Wikipedia article on the topic ( es:plagio), without any kind of attribution. The copy-pasted text even includes square brackets from the (only partially removed) footnotes in the Wikipedia article.
It wasn't the first time that Aignasse copied text from Wikipedia into law proposals. In a proposal to prohibit barra bravas from travelling to South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, he copied 314 words from the corresponding article.
A week later the Deputy admitted in an interview with Clarín that he copied the text from Wikipedia, and that he had done it before. Nevertheless, he argued that he had no obligation to cite the source, which could be considered ironic given the fact that the Deputy's law proposal seeks, precisely, to punish those who don't cite sources.
The incident was reported in English by Techdirt.
Most of the WikiProjects previously featured by the WikiProject Report have focused on improving articles in the main space. This week, we took a look at WikiProject Essays, which instead focuses on user written essays located in the "Wikipedia" namespace. The project started in March 2008 under the name WikiProject Essay Categorization and/or Classification and was recently revived with the new name taking effect in April 2010. We interviewed Noraft and SilkTork.
What motivated you to revive WikiProject Essays?
What are your short-term and long-term goals for the project?
The project only includes essays in the Wikipedia: namespace. Why are essays in the User: namespace excluded? Are there any plans to include user essays in the future?
Contrary to many other projects on Wikipedia, your project does not assign quality ratings. However, the project does designate an importance rating based on the essay's "impact on Wikipedia." Why does the project avoid quality ratings and how does the project determine an essay's impact?
Essays on Wikipedia range from serious policy discussions and how-to manuals to a variety of humorous mock-articles and self-deprecating quips. How does the project sort these various types of essays and how does an article's seriousness affect the essay's impact?
What are WikiProject Essay's most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?
Share with us some of your favorite essays and/or essays you think are so important that every editor should read them.
Next week's Report will be heavenly. Until then, search for salvation in
the archive.
Reader comments
No editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week.
Nine articles were promoted to featured status this week: Japanese battleship Tosa ( nom), Oryzomys ( nom), Brian Eaton ( nom), Paramount Television Network ( nom), Nature fakers controversy ( nom), Iravan ( nom), Great Auk ( nom), Ernest Hemingway ( nom) and July 2009 Ürümqi riots ( nom).
Seven lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of storms in the 2006 Pacific hurricane season ( nom), Moons of Saturn ( nom), List of Texas Tech Red Raiders head men's basketball coaches ( nom), List of battleships of Germany ( nom), List of counties in Utah ( nom), List of freshwater islands in Scotland ( nom) and List of Florida Panthers players ( nom).
No topics were promoted to featured status this week.
No portals were promoted to featured status this week.
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page as Today's featured article this week: Glacier National Park, Manitoba, The Historian, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Quiriguá, Ratanakiri and Marwari horse.
Three articles were delisted this week: Harry S. Truman ( nom), 2007 UEFA Champions League Final ( nom) and Real Love (John Lennon song) ( nom).
No lists were delisted this week.
No topics were delisted this week.
No portals were delisted this week.
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page as picture of the day this week: Turbot fish; Jerusalem in the early 20th century; BMW Welt; Ed Walsh; town of Ortahisar in Cappadocia; Anemone hupehensis var. japonica and Illustration of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
No featured sounds were promoted this week.
One featured picture was demoted this week: Evolution of the Confederate States of America ( nom).
Ten pictures were promoted to featured status this week.
The Arbitration Committee closed one case and opened none, leaving two cases open.
On Friday, June 4 Wikimedia UK and the British Museum will have a special backstage tour for Wikipedians, to mark the beginning of the Wikipedian-in-Residence collaboration with the museum (see archived story).
According to Matthew Cock, Head of Web at the museum,
In the morning we have arranged a number of behind-the-scenes and gallery tours for Wikipedians. Then, after lunch together in the staff canteen, we will get together in the Clore Education Centre to talk about collaboration, have a question and answer sessions, hear pitches for adding notable objects and developing featured articles, and hopefully also forming some relationships for future working...
The schedule lists several not-normally seen departments that participants will be able to visit, guided by the curators themselves:
Those interested can sign up and get more information at the webpage for the tour.
During the British Museum's Wikipedian-in-residence project, the first of its kind, Liam Wyatt will work during the month of June at the museum to improve collaboration between the Museum and the Wikimedia communities with public-facing, in-house and Wikimedia content creation projects.
On 6 May, Argentine Deputy Gerónimo Vargas Aignasse presented a law project to increase sanctions against those who commit plagiarism. But in the project proposal, to define plagiarism, he copied 331 words from the Spanish Wikipedia article on the topic ( es:plagio), without any kind of attribution. The copy-pasted text even includes square brackets from the (only partially removed) footnotes in the Wikipedia article.
It wasn't the first time that Aignasse copied text from Wikipedia into law proposals. In a proposal to prohibit barra bravas from travelling to South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, he copied 314 words from the corresponding article.
A week later the Deputy admitted in an interview with Clarín that he copied the text from Wikipedia, and that he had done it before. Nevertheless, he argued that he had no obligation to cite the source, which could be considered ironic given the fact that the Deputy's law proposal seeks, precisely, to punish those who don't cite sources.
The incident was reported in English by Techdirt.
Most of the WikiProjects previously featured by the WikiProject Report have focused on improving articles in the main space. This week, we took a look at WikiProject Essays, which instead focuses on user written essays located in the "Wikipedia" namespace. The project started in March 2008 under the name WikiProject Essay Categorization and/or Classification and was recently revived with the new name taking effect in April 2010. We interviewed Noraft and SilkTork.
What motivated you to revive WikiProject Essays?
What are your short-term and long-term goals for the project?
The project only includes essays in the Wikipedia: namespace. Why are essays in the User: namespace excluded? Are there any plans to include user essays in the future?
Contrary to many other projects on Wikipedia, your project does not assign quality ratings. However, the project does designate an importance rating based on the essay's "impact on Wikipedia." Why does the project avoid quality ratings and how does the project determine an essay's impact?
Essays on Wikipedia range from serious policy discussions and how-to manuals to a variety of humorous mock-articles and self-deprecating quips. How does the project sort these various types of essays and how does an article's seriousness affect the essay's impact?
What are WikiProject Essay's most pressing needs? How can a new contributor help today?
Share with us some of your favorite essays and/or essays you think are so important that every editor should read them.
Next week's Report will be heavenly. Until then, search for salvation in
the archive.
Reader comments
No editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week.
Nine articles were promoted to featured status this week: Japanese battleship Tosa ( nom), Oryzomys ( nom), Brian Eaton ( nom), Paramount Television Network ( nom), Nature fakers controversy ( nom), Iravan ( nom), Great Auk ( nom), Ernest Hemingway ( nom) and July 2009 Ürümqi riots ( nom).
Seven lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of storms in the 2006 Pacific hurricane season ( nom), Moons of Saturn ( nom), List of Texas Tech Red Raiders head men's basketball coaches ( nom), List of battleships of Germany ( nom), List of counties in Utah ( nom), List of freshwater islands in Scotland ( nom) and List of Florida Panthers players ( nom).
No topics were promoted to featured status this week.
No portals were promoted to featured status this week.
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page as Today's featured article this week: Glacier National Park, Manitoba, The Historian, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Quiriguá, Ratanakiri and Marwari horse.
Three articles were delisted this week: Harry S. Truman ( nom), 2007 UEFA Champions League Final ( nom) and Real Love (John Lennon song) ( nom).
No lists were delisted this week.
No topics were delisted this week.
No portals were delisted this week.
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page as picture of the day this week: Turbot fish; Jerusalem in the early 20th century; BMW Welt; Ed Walsh; town of Ortahisar in Cappadocia; Anemone hupehensis var. japonica and Illustration of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
No featured sounds were promoted this week.
One featured picture was demoted this week: Evolution of the Confederate States of America ( nom).
Ten pictures were promoted to featured status this week.
The Arbitration Committee closed one case and opened none, leaving two cases open.