The two-month trial of pending changes is now over. (See also earlier Signpost coverage: "Pending changes" trial to start on June 14, Pending changes goes live) Pending changes makes use of the FlaggedRevs extension to add a new kind of protection to articles, allowing them to be edited as usual but displaying to readers only the most recent version edited or confirmed by a trusted user. Flagged revisions was praised by some users as a way to guard against vandalism on high-profile articles, and criticized by others as a contradiction of Wikipedia's "open editing" model.
A straw poll is ongoing to decide whether the feature should be disabled, retained in its current form (in which 1409 pages have received protection), gradually added to a limit of 10k articles in the mainspace, or expanded to include all Biographies of living people (BLP) articles, an area notorious for the impact vandalism has beyond Wikipedia. As of 15:56 (UTC), 24 August 2010, there are 197 votes to keep and 111 votes to close, approximately a 65/35 ratio. Because the three support groups have been put under one section, consensus is not entirely clear; Sceptre has suggested that the poll be restarted, and that a preferential voting system be used instead. In addition, Us441 has suggested at the village pump that all Featured articles be placed on Pending changes.
A detailed preliminary analysis of the trial's impact can be found here. One of the stated goals of Pending changes is to open up semi-protected pages to editing by anons, but data indicates 84% of the articles under pending changes received an average of less than one anon edit daily. On the other hand, the most heavily edited pages under Pending changes have had over 50% of their anon edits reverted; the highest article by revert rate, Alvin Greene, stands at 88%. In addition a working summary of the pros and cons of the system can be found on the closure page.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative has announced the names of the universities participating in its pilot program to bring Wikipedia editing into public policy classes. The initiative is a project aiming to include Wikipedia editing in the college classroom environment (see earlier Signpost article: Introducing the Public Policy Initiative). Five US universities are included in the trial:
As part of the program, Campus Ambassadors have been selected to facilitate the courses (see earlier Signpost coverage). The initiative is still recruiting more Online Ambassadors, which are being coordinated by Sage Ross.
In related news, students at the University of Michigan have formed the first Wikipedia student club in the US (as mentioned in last week's Signpost). Started by Cheryl Moy, a chemistry major, the club has already reached 25 members, according to a post on the Foundation's blog. Although it is the first Wikipedia club in the US, it is not the first Wikipedia club ever created; a McGill University club was formed last year in Canada, and students at James Madison University in Virginia are in the process of forming their own group as well. Several free culture groups already exist in various universities.
The German Wikipedia recently discussed ideas for using the "social payment" system Flattr to enable readers to donate to Wikipedia authors, or to Wikimedia.
Flattr is a start-up co-founded earlier this year by Peter Sunde (known for his involvement with filesharing site The Pirate Bay). Web surfers can open an account and load it with a fixed monthly amount, which is distributed at the end of each month among those of the participating sites where the surfer has chosen to reward pages by clicking on the embedded Flattr buttons. So far, it is most widespread in Germany, where it is used by many high-profile blogs and on the web sites of two daily newspapers – one of them, die tageszeitung, earned €1420 via Flattr in July. Since this month, Flattr is also being used by Wikileaks. Similar micro-donation systems include Kachingle.
In April, a simple MediaWiki extension was written that allows the embedding of Flattr buttons on sites running MediaWiki. It does not appear to be in use on any Wikimedia Foundation wiki. However, instead of the one-click donation via the embedded button, it is also possible to donate on a corresponding page on the Flattr site, which can be linked using a normal weblink.
On Wikimedia Commons, such Flattr links have already appeared on image description pages, inviting a donation to the photographer of the image. Two of them were added in June [1] [2] by AlexanderKlink (after he had asked on the Village pump whether the community would find this acceptable and had received no objections). He told The Signpost that the more popular of the two photos had received 9 Flattr clicks in June, corresponding to €2 in earnings, and 3 clicks in July resulting in €0.50. However, he noted that a large proportion of the clicks appeared to have come from the Flattr site itself (which displays a list of flattr-able web pages), rather than from the Flattr link on Commons.
On August 1, Mathias Schindler (a project manager at Wikimedia Deutschland) published some " unsorted observations" (in German) on his private blog, musing the idea of having a Flattr button in every Wikipedia article. He listed several issues that would arise, among them:
A straw poll started on the German Wikipedia on August 16 to evaluate support for two proposals, both of which tried to avoid the "collaboration" issue:
After one week, a large majority has voted against both proposals.
In 2008 and 2009, the German Wikipedia saw prolonged debates about the possible use of a different system for a financial remuneration of authors. In 2007, the German collecting society VG Wort had set up a system called "METIS" to pay royalties to authors of web pages. The money – an estimated €15 million in 2008 – comes from fees imposed on the sale of CD and DVD burners in Germany. The rationale for including web pages is that, according to consumer surveys, around half of the copyrighted texts that are copied using these devices have been downloaded from the Internet. To be eligible, the web page has to be registered with METIS and usually needs to carry a web bug from their server (the payments are based on page impressions). METIS had indicated that the system might include the German Wikipedia, too; its free license notwithstanding (apparently it is assumed that enough copies would not satisfy the terms of the GFDL/CC-BY-SA 3.0. The latter's "legal code" contains clauses about "non-waivable" and "waivable" compulsory license schemes). The German Wikimedia chapter was in contact with METIS, but stated that some legal issues required evaluation and a commmunity decision would be needed after that. Several German Wikipedians advocated using METIS, but others objected, often on the grounds that a fair distribution between authors and non-authors – such as those doing administrative work or software development – would be difficult.
The Guardian reports that two Israeli groups, the Yesha Council of the settlers movement and another right-wing group, Israel Sheli ("My Israel"), have set up courses in "Zionist editing" for Wikipedia. It quoted one of the participants:
“ | We learned what not to do: don't jump into deep waters immediately, don't be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned. | ” |
According to Israel National News, the goal of the course is to educate and enable an army of editors on Wikipedia and to provide them with professional skills at writing and editing in a manner which defends and promotes Israel's image. Ma'an News Agency reports that the 'Best Zionist Editor' would be awarded with a free hot-air balloon ride. According to AhlulBayt, the Iranian news agency, "Around 50 right-wingers, including media professionals who live in Israeli settlements, are participating in the course, which aims to teach not only how to manipulate the open structure and style of wikipedia to push their far-right political agenda, but also how to do so undetected, in order to get into the administration of the site."
Haaretz reports that the first workshop (held on August 17 in Jerusalem) had around 50 participants, "nearly all of them religious and many from settlements". The newspaper remarked that "For years now, Wikipedia has been a fierce battleground between the Israeli right and left". The scope of the workshop, according to the organizers, included both the Hebrew and the English Wikipedia. On the Foundation-l mailing list, Asaf Bartov from Wikimedia Israel said that "some Hebrew Wikipedians have ... approached that group in order to explain the principles of Wikipedia to them ... as usual, the WP community is vigilant, and has means to counter such initiatives. We hope to win at least a few motivated editors, despite the unpleasant political overtones."
In 2008, the Wikipedia-related activities of the US-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) had attracted attention (see Signpost' coverage: Pro-Israeli group's lobbying gets press, arbitration case).
According to a report by Toronto Sun, an anonymous user has traced an edit to Wikipedia's article about Rob Ford, a Toronto mayoral candidate, to Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. The report states that this unnamed user "was reading through some of the Wikipedia entries on the candidates" when he noticed that a link to a satire site was listed as “Rob Ford’s Personal Blog”. The user then removed it on August 4, but it was reinstated on the following day before it was removed again. The initial "edit in question" was made on July 16. Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd has denied the allegation and has stated they are "trying to track [the edit] down", but this "might be impossible" since the IP is shared by its other publications, including the Sing Tao and Metro newspapers.
During the recent debates about
network neutrality, which were triggered earlier this month by an agreement reached between
Google and
Verizon, several commenters used Wikipedia as an example of a site that would be or could have been affected by a non-neutral Internet. A
Discover
blog post introduced the topic of the controversy as follows: "An open internet means all bits are treated the same: internet service providers process every internet content provider’s information at the same speed–YouTube or Hulu, Wikipedia or Britannica". In a
comment for The New York Times' "Room for Debate",
Tim Wu named Wikipedia as an example of "many of the best Internet sites [that] are non-commercial or don't really make commercial sense [and] will get slower and harder to use, while commercial sites like starbucks.com or walmart.com will load faster". His concern over Wikipedia's future was also
highlighted on the blog of
Reason, where it was noted that Wu "originally coined the term Net neutrality". However, Reason did not "see much evidence that Wikipedia or other non-commercial sites would become harder to use".
Gigi Sohn from
Public Knowledge
indicated that net neutrality might have been a necessary condition for Wikipedia's success in the past: "the public wants the
FCC to be able to protect an open Internet that will ensure that the next Google, the next Facebook, the next Twitter and the next Wikipedia can succeed."
Reader comments
This week, we took a look at WikiProject Cryptozoology, a project that specializes in improving articles about mysterious or legendary creatures whose existence is often regarded as highly unlikely. Cryptids covered by WikiProject Cryptozoology range from the well-known Bigfoot and Yeti to the more obscure Kongamato of Africa and Yowie of Australia. The project was started as WikiProject Cryptids in June 2006 and has grown to include 555 articles, including a featured article about the believed-to-be-extinct Thylacine. The project struggled through a period of semi-activity before being revitalized earlier this year.
We interviewed Simon Burchell, Kendroche (Where is WikiResearch?), AstroHurricane001 (AH1), and Gniniv. Both Simon Burchell and Gniniv joined the project in its bleakest hours and sought to jump start the project. To Simon Burchell, the project "was obviously very neglected, and the Black dog (ghost) article in particular was largely unreferenced." Kendroche joined the project because of "an interest in cryptids from a young age." Likewise, AstroHurricane001 came to the project out of an interest in strange creatures, stating "I had recently read about cryptids prior to joining the project, and decided I wanted to contribute to the project's scope and coverage of cryptozoological creatures, whether they actually exist or not."
What is your favorite legendary creature? What kind of cryptids do you tend to focus on the most?
What are some of the difficulties associated with reviving a project like WikiProject Cryptozoology?
What articles are you currently trying to promote to FA or GA status?
Since your project focuses on mysterious or rarely spotted creatures, is it difficult to find reliable sources for articles? Does the project have to deal with a lot of fringe theories?
How can a new member help today?
Anything else you'd like to add?
Next week, the WikiProject Report is headed off to college. Until then, stay up all night studying in the
archive.
Reader comments
The Signpost congratulates four editors on their promotion to adminship.
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status:
Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Iridescent to select his best of the week (and of course to dutifully disregard his own nomination). "I chose Silky Sifaka. To me, Wikipedia's great strength is its ability to treat relatively obscure topics with the same thoroughness it gives to the major topics. Readers can find equally good articles on major subjects elsewhere; but there's probably no other free resource which covers this particular species so thoroughly. With its combination of well-written prose neither over-technical nor dumbed-down, thoughtfully chosen images, and informative sound and video clips, this article is Wikipedia at its best." (sound-bite at the top)
Nine lists were promoted:
Choice of the week. We asked FL nominator and reviewer Chrishomingtang, who specializes in basketball-related topics, for his choice: "I picked List of Watford F.C. seasons as my favorite. The lead flows well and clearly explains the team's history. The table looks great and every abbreviation is explained in the key section. The entire list is well-referenced and well-illustrated by relevant images."
Choice of the week. We asked Makeemlighter, a regular reviewer and closer at featured pictures candidates, to choose his favorite among the past week's promotions: "With several outstanding images this week, it was a difficult choice. I kept coming back to the Freiburg panorama, so I'll make it my pick. This panorama is very sharp and well-stitched. As an American living in a suburban neighborhood, it's fascinating to see such a detailed image of this German city. I really get a great sense of what it must be like to live in Freiburg. It's particularly interesting to see the modern layout of a city that's been around since the 12th century. Be sure to check it out using the 360° viewer. " (below)
The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving two open.
This case resulted from the merging of several Arbitration requests on the same topic matter into a single case, and the failure of a related request for comment to make headway. Special rules of conduct were put in place when this arbitration commenced. Since the workshop phase was closed on July 19 (five weeks ago), arbitrators have not formally set any specific target date to post a proposed decision. However, requests for updates from arbitrators have received several responses (see previous Signpost coverage from August 16 and August 9). The case has been technically open: although the evidence and workshop pages have remained closed, no proposals were posted on the proposed decision page and participants were prevented from further discussing their case on the case pages. Up until last week, participants were discussing the case on the proposed decision talk page, but an arbitrator stated that further discussion should not take place on this page until a proposed decision was posted. Instead, general discussion was directed to a general discussion page that was specially created for this case.
Recently, a proposed decision drafted by Newyorkbrad, Risker, and Rlevse was posted for this case. This sparked a significant quantity of unstructured discussion - as of the date of this report, while appreciation or praise was incorporated in a few responses ( [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]), a large number of concerns were expressed about the proposed decision by many different users, including participants and non-participants (examples: [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]).
This case concerns accusations of incivility, disruptive editing, and tag-teaming to control the content on articles related to race and intelligence. Following a number of delays (see Signpost coverage from June 28, July 5, July 12), the case moved to the proposed decision phase. The decision that was proposed by the drafting arbitrator of the case, Coren, sparked several concerns among participants and non-participants ( example). Since then, 9 out of 10 active arbitrators opposed the remedies that Coren proposed and drafted – these included a reminder to all editors about sources, a source probation which required all sources used in race and intelligence articles to be independent, secondary, and reliable sources, and a topic restriction requiring all named parties to make no more than half of their total number of edits to the race and intelligence topic.
Several proposals by other arbitrators are being voted on; a number of these proposals, most of which were drafted by Roger Davies, relate to individual editor conduct and individual editor topic bans, and these have been supported by at least 8 out of 10 arbitrators. A standard discretionary sanctions scheme and a remedy concerning evidence sub-pages have each also received a similar level of support from the Committee. A motion to close has received some support from arbitrators.
As reported in
last week's Signpost, the Community has until 23:59 on 25 August 2010 (UTC) to comment on, or make further comments on candidates being actively considered for appointment to CheckUser and Oversight positions. Time is running out as the commenting period is soon going to close. The Committee made a second
call for the Community to submit their comments during this commenting period.
Reader comments
Head developer Tim Starling has proposed an upgrade of the way the MediaWiki software (and hence Wikimedia sites) encrypts ("hashes") passwords ( wikitech-l mailing list). He outlined concerns that if someone could acquire an encrypted password from the database, they could decrypt it and log in as that user within 20 minutes, with no special hardware. Highlighting this issue, he requested that any new system be:
“ |
|
” |
Tim Starling suggested that the "Whirlpool" hash be incorporated as a way of achieving this. The result was a general consensus that the proposed scheme was better than the current process, with a wide-ranging discussion of what might be even better. User:Simetrical played down the threat, arguing that "Hackers go after money, and there's no money in hacking Wikipedia. We have nothing secret or valuable that's not already readily available".
Concerning client-side improvements in password security, a JavaScript-based password complexity checker has recently been written ( rev:70520), prompted by the remarks of a security researcher quoted in the Technology Report earlier this month ( Study of web passwords includes Wikipedia).
See also earlier Signpost coverage about password security on Wikipedia: Four administrator accounts desysopped after hijacking, vandalism, Administrator status restored to five accounts after emergency desysopping (about a 2007 incident which led to some changes in MediaWiki and the start of the page Wikipedia:Security), Blank passwords eliminated for security reasons (2006), Password security upgraded after Slashdot furor (2005, about an incident after which salted passwords were introduced).
We begin a series of articles about this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with student Brian Wolff ( User:Bawolff), who describes his project to improve MediaWiki's image metadata support:
“ | ![]() Currently MediaWiki does extract some image metadata, specifically exif data in jpeg files, and as of a couple days ago, tiff files ( example). However it misses some exif data, most noticeably, embedded GPS data ( example, with embedded GPS data that has had to be manually extracted). Part of my project is to fix up MediaWiki's current exif support so that it extracts GPS data and other properties currently missed. With that said, exif is only one on the many types of metadata. The two other (main) types I added support for are IPTC (IIM) and XMP data. IPTC data is often found in more professional archive type settings. For example, many of the images on commons from the German federal archive have IPTC metadata and no exif metadata. XMP metadata is a relatively new metadata standard that is slowly gaining ground. It has the ability to store metadata properties in multiple languages, which I feel aligns very well with the multilingual goals of Wikimedia. XMP data can also be easily embedded into formats such as PNG and GIF images, in addition to JPEG images. The code I've been working on also allows extracting file format specific metadata. This includes JPEG, GIF, and PNG file comments, as well as PNG textual data chunks (for those familiar with the internals of PNG, the tEXt, zTXt and iTXt chunks). For example, File:Pentdod gruen neu anim.gif has hidden inside it a comment of "Created with The GIMP by Alfons Kolling (Lokilech)" which my project allows us to extract and show to the user. Another example of why this is important is that whenever you download a thumbnail from Wikipedia (or other Wikimedia site), MediaWiki adds a file comment with the URL for the image page. It is kind of ironic we can't show the metadata that we ourselves embed in thumbnails. |
” |
Once finished and rounded off, the new code could easily be merged into the MediaWiki base, improving functionality for all new MediaWiki installations and upgrades, including Wikimedia sites. Metadata can also help volunteers to spot low-level image copyright infringement.
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
<CategoryTree>
extension, which had previously been disabled on WMF wikis over performance concerns (bug #
23682).
The two-month trial of pending changes is now over. (See also earlier Signpost coverage: "Pending changes" trial to start on June 14, Pending changes goes live) Pending changes makes use of the FlaggedRevs extension to add a new kind of protection to articles, allowing them to be edited as usual but displaying to readers only the most recent version edited or confirmed by a trusted user. Flagged revisions was praised by some users as a way to guard against vandalism on high-profile articles, and criticized by others as a contradiction of Wikipedia's "open editing" model.
A straw poll is ongoing to decide whether the feature should be disabled, retained in its current form (in which 1409 pages have received protection), gradually added to a limit of 10k articles in the mainspace, or expanded to include all Biographies of living people (BLP) articles, an area notorious for the impact vandalism has beyond Wikipedia. As of 15:56 (UTC), 24 August 2010, there are 197 votes to keep and 111 votes to close, approximately a 65/35 ratio. Because the three support groups have been put under one section, consensus is not entirely clear; Sceptre has suggested that the poll be restarted, and that a preferential voting system be used instead. In addition, Us441 has suggested at the village pump that all Featured articles be placed on Pending changes.
A detailed preliminary analysis of the trial's impact can be found here. One of the stated goals of Pending changes is to open up semi-protected pages to editing by anons, but data indicates 84% of the articles under pending changes received an average of less than one anon edit daily. On the other hand, the most heavily edited pages under Pending changes have had over 50% of their anon edits reverted; the highest article by revert rate, Alvin Greene, stands at 88%. In addition a working summary of the pros and cons of the system can be found on the closure page.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative has announced the names of the universities participating in its pilot program to bring Wikipedia editing into public policy classes. The initiative is a project aiming to include Wikipedia editing in the college classroom environment (see earlier Signpost article: Introducing the Public Policy Initiative). Five US universities are included in the trial:
As part of the program, Campus Ambassadors have been selected to facilitate the courses (see earlier Signpost coverage). The initiative is still recruiting more Online Ambassadors, which are being coordinated by Sage Ross.
In related news, students at the University of Michigan have formed the first Wikipedia student club in the US (as mentioned in last week's Signpost). Started by Cheryl Moy, a chemistry major, the club has already reached 25 members, according to a post on the Foundation's blog. Although it is the first Wikipedia club in the US, it is not the first Wikipedia club ever created; a McGill University club was formed last year in Canada, and students at James Madison University in Virginia are in the process of forming their own group as well. Several free culture groups already exist in various universities.
The German Wikipedia recently discussed ideas for using the "social payment" system Flattr to enable readers to donate to Wikipedia authors, or to Wikimedia.
Flattr is a start-up co-founded earlier this year by Peter Sunde (known for his involvement with filesharing site The Pirate Bay). Web surfers can open an account and load it with a fixed monthly amount, which is distributed at the end of each month among those of the participating sites where the surfer has chosen to reward pages by clicking on the embedded Flattr buttons. So far, it is most widespread in Germany, where it is used by many high-profile blogs and on the web sites of two daily newspapers – one of them, die tageszeitung, earned €1420 via Flattr in July. Since this month, Flattr is also being used by Wikileaks. Similar micro-donation systems include Kachingle.
In April, a simple MediaWiki extension was written that allows the embedding of Flattr buttons on sites running MediaWiki. It does not appear to be in use on any Wikimedia Foundation wiki. However, instead of the one-click donation via the embedded button, it is also possible to donate on a corresponding page on the Flattr site, which can be linked using a normal weblink.
On Wikimedia Commons, such Flattr links have already appeared on image description pages, inviting a donation to the photographer of the image. Two of them were added in June [1] [2] by AlexanderKlink (after he had asked on the Village pump whether the community would find this acceptable and had received no objections). He told The Signpost that the more popular of the two photos had received 9 Flattr clicks in June, corresponding to €2 in earnings, and 3 clicks in July resulting in €0.50. However, he noted that a large proportion of the clicks appeared to have come from the Flattr site itself (which displays a list of flattr-able web pages), rather than from the Flattr link on Commons.
On August 1, Mathias Schindler (a project manager at Wikimedia Deutschland) published some " unsorted observations" (in German) on his private blog, musing the idea of having a Flattr button in every Wikipedia article. He listed several issues that would arise, among them:
A straw poll started on the German Wikipedia on August 16 to evaluate support for two proposals, both of which tried to avoid the "collaboration" issue:
After one week, a large majority has voted against both proposals.
In 2008 and 2009, the German Wikipedia saw prolonged debates about the possible use of a different system for a financial remuneration of authors. In 2007, the German collecting society VG Wort had set up a system called "METIS" to pay royalties to authors of web pages. The money – an estimated €15 million in 2008 – comes from fees imposed on the sale of CD and DVD burners in Germany. The rationale for including web pages is that, according to consumer surveys, around half of the copyrighted texts that are copied using these devices have been downloaded from the Internet. To be eligible, the web page has to be registered with METIS and usually needs to carry a web bug from their server (the payments are based on page impressions). METIS had indicated that the system might include the German Wikipedia, too; its free license notwithstanding (apparently it is assumed that enough copies would not satisfy the terms of the GFDL/CC-BY-SA 3.0. The latter's "legal code" contains clauses about "non-waivable" and "waivable" compulsory license schemes). The German Wikimedia chapter was in contact with METIS, but stated that some legal issues required evaluation and a commmunity decision would be needed after that. Several German Wikipedians advocated using METIS, but others objected, often on the grounds that a fair distribution between authors and non-authors – such as those doing administrative work or software development – would be difficult.
The Guardian reports that two Israeli groups, the Yesha Council of the settlers movement and another right-wing group, Israel Sheli ("My Israel"), have set up courses in "Zionist editing" for Wikipedia. It quoted one of the participants:
“ | We learned what not to do: don't jump into deep waters immediately, don't be argumentative, realise that there is a semi-democratic community out there, realise how not to get yourself banned. | ” |
According to Israel National News, the goal of the course is to educate and enable an army of editors on Wikipedia and to provide them with professional skills at writing and editing in a manner which defends and promotes Israel's image. Ma'an News Agency reports that the 'Best Zionist Editor' would be awarded with a free hot-air balloon ride. According to AhlulBayt, the Iranian news agency, "Around 50 right-wingers, including media professionals who live in Israeli settlements, are participating in the course, which aims to teach not only how to manipulate the open structure and style of wikipedia to push their far-right political agenda, but also how to do so undetected, in order to get into the administration of the site."
Haaretz reports that the first workshop (held on August 17 in Jerusalem) had around 50 participants, "nearly all of them religious and many from settlements". The newspaper remarked that "For years now, Wikipedia has been a fierce battleground between the Israeli right and left". The scope of the workshop, according to the organizers, included both the Hebrew and the English Wikipedia. On the Foundation-l mailing list, Asaf Bartov from Wikimedia Israel said that "some Hebrew Wikipedians have ... approached that group in order to explain the principles of Wikipedia to them ... as usual, the WP community is vigilant, and has means to counter such initiatives. We hope to win at least a few motivated editors, despite the unpleasant political overtones."
In 2008, the Wikipedia-related activities of the US-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) had attracted attention (see Signpost' coverage: Pro-Israeli group's lobbying gets press, arbitration case).
According to a report by Toronto Sun, an anonymous user has traced an edit to Wikipedia's article about Rob Ford, a Toronto mayoral candidate, to Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. The report states that this unnamed user "was reading through some of the Wikipedia entries on the candidates" when he noticed that a link to a satire site was listed as “Rob Ford’s Personal Blog”. The user then removed it on August 4, but it was reinstated on the following day before it was removed again. The initial "edit in question" was made on July 16. Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd has denied the allegation and has stated they are "trying to track [the edit] down", but this "might be impossible" since the IP is shared by its other publications, including the Sing Tao and Metro newspapers.
During the recent debates about
network neutrality, which were triggered earlier this month by an agreement reached between
Google and
Verizon, several commenters used Wikipedia as an example of a site that would be or could have been affected by a non-neutral Internet. A
Discover
blog post introduced the topic of the controversy as follows: "An open internet means all bits are treated the same: internet service providers process every internet content provider’s information at the same speed–YouTube or Hulu, Wikipedia or Britannica". In a
comment for The New York Times' "Room for Debate",
Tim Wu named Wikipedia as an example of "many of the best Internet sites [that] are non-commercial or don't really make commercial sense [and] will get slower and harder to use, while commercial sites like starbucks.com or walmart.com will load faster". His concern over Wikipedia's future was also
highlighted on the blog of
Reason, where it was noted that Wu "originally coined the term Net neutrality". However, Reason did not "see much evidence that Wikipedia or other non-commercial sites would become harder to use".
Gigi Sohn from
Public Knowledge
indicated that net neutrality might have been a necessary condition for Wikipedia's success in the past: "the public wants the
FCC to be able to protect an open Internet that will ensure that the next Google, the next Facebook, the next Twitter and the next Wikipedia can succeed."
Reader comments
This week, we took a look at WikiProject Cryptozoology, a project that specializes in improving articles about mysterious or legendary creatures whose existence is often regarded as highly unlikely. Cryptids covered by WikiProject Cryptozoology range from the well-known Bigfoot and Yeti to the more obscure Kongamato of Africa and Yowie of Australia. The project was started as WikiProject Cryptids in June 2006 and has grown to include 555 articles, including a featured article about the believed-to-be-extinct Thylacine. The project struggled through a period of semi-activity before being revitalized earlier this year.
We interviewed Simon Burchell, Kendroche (Where is WikiResearch?), AstroHurricane001 (AH1), and Gniniv. Both Simon Burchell and Gniniv joined the project in its bleakest hours and sought to jump start the project. To Simon Burchell, the project "was obviously very neglected, and the Black dog (ghost) article in particular was largely unreferenced." Kendroche joined the project because of "an interest in cryptids from a young age." Likewise, AstroHurricane001 came to the project out of an interest in strange creatures, stating "I had recently read about cryptids prior to joining the project, and decided I wanted to contribute to the project's scope and coverage of cryptozoological creatures, whether they actually exist or not."
What is your favorite legendary creature? What kind of cryptids do you tend to focus on the most?
What are some of the difficulties associated with reviving a project like WikiProject Cryptozoology?
What articles are you currently trying to promote to FA or GA status?
Since your project focuses on mysterious or rarely spotted creatures, is it difficult to find reliable sources for articles? Does the project have to deal with a lot of fringe theories?
How can a new member help today?
Anything else you'd like to add?
Next week, the WikiProject Report is headed off to college. Until then, stay up all night studying in the
archive.
Reader comments
The Signpost congratulates four editors on their promotion to adminship.
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status:
Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Iridescent to select his best of the week (and of course to dutifully disregard his own nomination). "I chose Silky Sifaka. To me, Wikipedia's great strength is its ability to treat relatively obscure topics with the same thoroughness it gives to the major topics. Readers can find equally good articles on major subjects elsewhere; but there's probably no other free resource which covers this particular species so thoroughly. With its combination of well-written prose neither over-technical nor dumbed-down, thoughtfully chosen images, and informative sound and video clips, this article is Wikipedia at its best." (sound-bite at the top)
Nine lists were promoted:
Choice of the week. We asked FL nominator and reviewer Chrishomingtang, who specializes in basketball-related topics, for his choice: "I picked List of Watford F.C. seasons as my favorite. The lead flows well and clearly explains the team's history. The table looks great and every abbreviation is explained in the key section. The entire list is well-referenced and well-illustrated by relevant images."
Choice of the week. We asked Makeemlighter, a regular reviewer and closer at featured pictures candidates, to choose his favorite among the past week's promotions: "With several outstanding images this week, it was a difficult choice. I kept coming back to the Freiburg panorama, so I'll make it my pick. This panorama is very sharp and well-stitched. As an American living in a suburban neighborhood, it's fascinating to see such a detailed image of this German city. I really get a great sense of what it must be like to live in Freiburg. It's particularly interesting to see the modern layout of a city that's been around since the 12th century. Be sure to check it out using the 360° viewer. " (below)
The Arbitration Committee opened no cases this week, leaving two open.
This case resulted from the merging of several Arbitration requests on the same topic matter into a single case, and the failure of a related request for comment to make headway. Special rules of conduct were put in place when this arbitration commenced. Since the workshop phase was closed on July 19 (five weeks ago), arbitrators have not formally set any specific target date to post a proposed decision. However, requests for updates from arbitrators have received several responses (see previous Signpost coverage from August 16 and August 9). The case has been technically open: although the evidence and workshop pages have remained closed, no proposals were posted on the proposed decision page and participants were prevented from further discussing their case on the case pages. Up until last week, participants were discussing the case on the proposed decision talk page, but an arbitrator stated that further discussion should not take place on this page until a proposed decision was posted. Instead, general discussion was directed to a general discussion page that was specially created for this case.
Recently, a proposed decision drafted by Newyorkbrad, Risker, and Rlevse was posted for this case. This sparked a significant quantity of unstructured discussion - as of the date of this report, while appreciation or praise was incorporated in a few responses ( [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]), a large number of concerns were expressed about the proposed decision by many different users, including participants and non-participants (examples: [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26]).
This case concerns accusations of incivility, disruptive editing, and tag-teaming to control the content on articles related to race and intelligence. Following a number of delays (see Signpost coverage from June 28, July 5, July 12), the case moved to the proposed decision phase. The decision that was proposed by the drafting arbitrator of the case, Coren, sparked several concerns among participants and non-participants ( example). Since then, 9 out of 10 active arbitrators opposed the remedies that Coren proposed and drafted – these included a reminder to all editors about sources, a source probation which required all sources used in race and intelligence articles to be independent, secondary, and reliable sources, and a topic restriction requiring all named parties to make no more than half of their total number of edits to the race and intelligence topic.
Several proposals by other arbitrators are being voted on; a number of these proposals, most of which were drafted by Roger Davies, relate to individual editor conduct and individual editor topic bans, and these have been supported by at least 8 out of 10 arbitrators. A standard discretionary sanctions scheme and a remedy concerning evidence sub-pages have each also received a similar level of support from the Committee. A motion to close has received some support from arbitrators.
As reported in
last week's Signpost, the Community has until 23:59 on 25 August 2010 (UTC) to comment on, or make further comments on candidates being actively considered for appointment to CheckUser and Oversight positions. Time is running out as the commenting period is soon going to close. The Committee made a second
call for the Community to submit their comments during this commenting period.
Reader comments
Head developer Tim Starling has proposed an upgrade of the way the MediaWiki software (and hence Wikimedia sites) encrypts ("hashes") passwords ( wikitech-l mailing list). He outlined concerns that if someone could acquire an encrypted password from the database, they could decrypt it and log in as that user within 20 minutes, with no special hardware. Highlighting this issue, he requested that any new system be:
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Tim Starling suggested that the "Whirlpool" hash be incorporated as a way of achieving this. The result was a general consensus that the proposed scheme was better than the current process, with a wide-ranging discussion of what might be even better. User:Simetrical played down the threat, arguing that "Hackers go after money, and there's no money in hacking Wikipedia. We have nothing secret or valuable that's not already readily available".
Concerning client-side improvements in password security, a JavaScript-based password complexity checker has recently been written ( rev:70520), prompted by the remarks of a security researcher quoted in the Technology Report earlier this month ( Study of web passwords includes Wikipedia).
See also earlier Signpost coverage about password security on Wikipedia: Four administrator accounts desysopped after hijacking, vandalism, Administrator status restored to five accounts after emergency desysopping (about a 2007 incident which led to some changes in MediaWiki and the start of the page Wikipedia:Security), Blank passwords eliminated for security reasons (2006), Password security upgraded after Slashdot furor (2005, about an incident after which salted passwords were introduced).
We begin a series of articles about this year's Google Summer of Code (GSoC) with student Brian Wolff ( User:Bawolff), who describes his project to improve MediaWiki's image metadata support:
“ | ![]() Currently MediaWiki does extract some image metadata, specifically exif data in jpeg files, and as of a couple days ago, tiff files ( example). However it misses some exif data, most noticeably, embedded GPS data ( example, with embedded GPS data that has had to be manually extracted). Part of my project is to fix up MediaWiki's current exif support so that it extracts GPS data and other properties currently missed. With that said, exif is only one on the many types of metadata. The two other (main) types I added support for are IPTC (IIM) and XMP data. IPTC data is often found in more professional archive type settings. For example, many of the images on commons from the German federal archive have IPTC metadata and no exif metadata. XMP metadata is a relatively new metadata standard that is slowly gaining ground. It has the ability to store metadata properties in multiple languages, which I feel aligns very well with the multilingual goals of Wikimedia. XMP data can also be easily embedded into formats such as PNG and GIF images, in addition to JPEG images. The code I've been working on also allows extracting file format specific metadata. This includes JPEG, GIF, and PNG file comments, as well as PNG textual data chunks (for those familiar with the internals of PNG, the tEXt, zTXt and iTXt chunks). For example, File:Pentdod gruen neu anim.gif has hidden inside it a comment of "Created with The GIMP by Alfons Kolling (Lokilech)" which my project allows us to extract and show to the user. Another example of why this is important is that whenever you download a thumbnail from Wikipedia (or other Wikimedia site), MediaWiki adds a file comment with the URL for the image page. It is kind of ironic we can't show the metadata that we ourselves embed in thumbnails. |
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Once finished and rounded off, the new code could easily be merged into the MediaWiki base, improving functionality for all new MediaWiki installations and upgrades, including Wikimedia sites. Metadata can also help volunteers to spot low-level image copyright infringement.
Not all fixes may have gone live to WMF sites at the time of writing; some may not be scheduled to go live for many weeks.
<CategoryTree>
extension, which had previously been disabled on WMF wikis over performance concerns (bug #
23682).