The Admin Ship comes back to port – where the voyage starts

Is the Admin Ship actually sinking? No, but listing heavily. This last leg of our current cruise on the Admin Ship brings us to a round up of what seasickness or other ills deter candidates of the right calibre from coming forward – back to where it all begins: RfA. We list some of the comments we fished out of the dirty water on the way as well as some of the answers and advice from the admins we interviewed. However, if you are an aspiring admin, don't let it discourage you; and if you are a voter at RfA, the admins' and other users' comments reveal much about the situation and perhaps you may like to read Advice for RfA voters. With comments such as "My default attitude is that an admin is dishonest and/or corrupt. An individual admin has to prove themselves to be otherwise. So maybe their reputation is so slimy that it's hard to recruit any more" Carrite's opinion may be accurate based on his own experience but may not be shared by the majority of the community.

Commenting on the reforms he made in December 2015, Biblioworm says "I especially supported the idea of separate clerks, but every comprehensive clerking proposal has been rejected. I remember someone, maybe Montanabw, suggesting restrictions on the length of vote rationales. I didn't comment, but I, as well as Kudpung, thought it was a good idea. Perhaps someone could take that up."

No BIG deal?

A big deal?

Back in July 2012, exactly six years ago, Andrew Lih—a 2003 admin ( Fuzheado) and author of The Wikipedia Revolution—told a reporter in The Atlantic: "The vetting process is akin to putting someone through the Supreme Court," he said, "it's pretty much a hazing ritual at this point." Lih became an admin in October 2003 and was formerly an associate professor of journalism at American University in Washington, D.C.

Voting

Suggestions are frequently made to limit voting to users who at least have a minimum knowledge of what adminship is all about.

Her edit summary reads: "yeah, but there are people who can always find a reason to oppose. Why have we not taken steps to remove them?"

Where it stalls, however, is the paradox that because no official entry point exists for admin candidates, one can hardly impose regulations on those who vote. It's a Catch-22 question. The English Wikipedia is the only major language project not to operate such restrictions.

Advice for candidates

Beeblebrox, who succeeded at his second attempt, gives this advice: "If you believe you have the experience and have demonstrated the demeanor expected of an admin, go ahead and run. The worst that can happen is that you won't get it. It's not the end of the world."

This writer who has now been researching RfA for many years advises prospective candidates to read WP:RFAADVICE page – "properly, and don't waste our time. Unless you want something to brag about in the schoolyard, adminship is absolutely no big deal. Someone has to do the dirty work, so if you think being an admin is a cool job, think again. If you joined Wikipedia with the intention of becoming an admin on the world's #4 web site, you joined for the wrong reasons; go away."

Lourdes who declined the bit immediately following her second but nevertheless very successful landslide RfA (207/3/1), says: "My advice would be, don't go for it. Going for an RfA is not at all worth the time of a good productive editor, given the stress before and during the RfA and the investment of personal time further on; and later even the possibility of public denoument of admin actions. RfAs and adminship are not for those who can't take mass criticism on a public platform, and that includes the majority of editors here. While I sincerely extend all my support to RfA candidates, I would reiterate that it's not worth it."

Admins were asked to comment on their experience at RfA

"Very stressed. Very negative. I don't recommend it. That was in 2012, which was a different era than now. Don't seek RFA unless you can handle a lot of abuse. We are just glorified teacher's assistants with mops, and no teacher, so don't seek it unless your goal is to fix things and help people. It can be rewarding, but it is also a huge pain sometimes. There is no glory in the job, so make sure your reasons for wanting it are worth it. If in doubt, don't", says Dennis Brown whose very successful RfA (134/31/2) was something to write home about in the days when 100+ support votes were still rare.

On another successful bid at 121/3/2 in days of yore, Worm That Turned said: "It was stressful, despite having a very positive RfA. But it was also years ago, and things are different now – quite possibly worse."

"It went much better than I expected. I did a thorough preparation with the nominators and knew that if there was one thing that could cause RfA to fail it would be civility. However, in the event it only generated a handful of opposes," says Ritchie333 with a very healthy 138/3/3 in pre-reform days.

Again quoting Beeblebrox, who tells us that during his RfAs he was not relaxed. "...I was distressed to see one or two opposes that got basic facts wrong."

Cullen328 who currently holds the record for the most successful RfA ever (post reform), found the process somewhat stressful, but "...the result was gratifying. Once the trend was well-established, I was relaxed and a bit amazed. Very amazed and humbled in the end."

This writer describes his supports and opposes going up and down until the last two days. "I was on tenterhooks the whole time. I had been investigating the RfA system because I wanted to know how a couple of admins who harassed me ever got their bits (they've long gone). With that and other work I was doing I was urged to run for office. Due to lies and blatant PA (even from since desysoped admins), it was one of the worst ever examples of a 'horrible and broken process'. Although I finally passed with flying colours [100+ in 2011], it was not a pleasant experience so I've been involved in RfA reform ever since. I'm getting on for 70 and it was the most humiliating experience in my life."

Jim Heaphy has been a Wikipedia editor since 2009 and is a regular Teahouse host. His focus is on content where he creates an eclectic mix of articles. The views expressed in this article are his alone and do not reflect any official opinions of this publication.

Wikipedia referees wag a finger at Professional Wrestling editors

Joining such hot button topics as the Syrian Civil War, ISIS and cryptocurrencies, professional wrestling is the latest topic area to come under community-authorized general sanctions. This decision was a result of a sometimes heated discussion at the Administrators' Noticeboard that concluded on June 22, 2018. Why did the community feel the need to impose these sanctions?

Inexperienced but passionate editors working in the professional wrestling area led to excessive edit warring and heated disputes. The nature of professional wrestling itself, which occupies a grey zone between truly competitive sports and scripted fictional entertainment such as film and television dramas, was an even deeper cause. The term sports entertainment is sometimes used. Complicating the issues even further, although the matches are scripted and predetermined, professional wrestling has historically presented itself as reality. Called kayfabe within professional wrestling, the social convention is that scripted matches performed by stylized characters are presented as if it is all genuine. This practice leads those who dislike it to conclude that pro wrestling is based on lies. In this strange cultural phenomenon that goes back to its origins in carnivals and sideshows many decades ago, all participants in professional wrestling were expected to insist that the matches, championship titles, the grudges, the feuds, the gimmicks and the over-the-top characters were all 100% genuine. The dominance of kayfabe has eroded a bit in the Internet era, but the attitude is still very much alive. Unsurprisingly but unfortunately, the kayfabe attitude influences Wikipedia's coverage of pro wrestling.

I first saw professional wrestling around 1960. These locally produced wrestling matches were shown on black-and-white TV with much lower production values than today, but they presented the matches as absolutely genuine. I remember sitting in front of the TV with several other neighborhood children, and I was laughing and calling the whole thing a fake. The other kids were indignant with me and insisted that these were real athletic competitions fought by truly brave and strong warriors. That was my introduction to kayfabe although I had never heard that term at that time. It seems that I was a skeptic from a very young age.

Sport or entertainment?

Reminiscing, I recalled a massive hulk of a gravelly voiced wrestler known as Dick the Bruiser who was a dominant figure in the Midwest at that time. Sure enough, there is a Wikipedia biography of this fellow, and I was surprised to learn that he had played professional football for the Green Bay Packers in the early 1950s, when the Packers were a mediocre team. The rough voice was due to a larynx injury he suffered with the Packers. He had appeared in every regular season game for his four-year NFL career before becoming a professional wrestler. It seems that wrestling was a more lucrative career than football in those years, and quite a few NFL football players later became wrestlers. I expanded the biography, adding some facts about his education and football career, which I had learned about. I also discovered that he was involved in a wrestling riot at the old Madison Square Garden in 1957. Two police officers were injured, two fans were arrested and Dick the Bruiser, whose real name was William Fritz Afflis, was banned for life by the New York State Athletic Commission. Since that brawl was reported by the New York Times, of course I added it to the article. It seems that kayfabe was forgotten that night, at least by the enraged fans who threw hundreds of chairs.

For some reason, working to improve the biography of a single wrestler who died nearly 27 years ago gave me a bit more sympathy for the productive editors who work in this strange topic area, even if I disagree with some of their opinions about what is encyclopedic and what isn't. It must be something about my personality. I try to assume good faith and that serves me well.

Wikipedia norms

I cannot agree with treating professional wrestling as a real competitive sport and presenting its scripted story lines as if they were real events. Some wrestling editors like to point out that our plot summaries of fictional movies, for example, describe the plots as if those events actually happened. That ignores the fact that this content is presented in a section called "Plot summary" and that the motion picture industry does not present its fictional films as true. The professional wrestling industry continues to present its scripted matches as if they are real competitions, and that influences young fans. While care must be taken to ensure that our professional wrestling articles reflect Wikipedia's norms, and not kayfabe norms, I do agree that professional wrestling is highly notable and that this encyclopedia ought to give it comprehensive coverage. I have a growing respect for the editors who are trying sincerely to improve those articles.

WikiProject Professional wrestling is very active, and I recommend that any editor with any interest in the topic area should read its talk page and make constructive comments there. Simply reading a couple of lengthy threads there helps any editor to better understand the passions and enthusiasm that motivate many pro wrestling editors.

A current debate

Since July 10, an ongoing, in-depth discussion at the Village Pump asks: "Should the 'In wrestling' section be removed from professional wrestling articles?" In effect, this proposal gives productive wrestling editors a consensus to systematically clean up poorly referenced trivia from these articles. Reading that debate reveals how many wrestling editors are devoted to maintaining poorly referenced fan site content. It seems that Wikipedia is now, in effect, the fan site for professional wrestling. That makes me uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, many of these accounts commenting at the Village pump are newly created and show little if any understanding of our policies and guidelines.

Cleaning up over 10,000 pro wrestling articles is a necessary challenge but I am optimistic it will happen because I have learned that there are quite a few solid pro wrestling editors who are trying to do the right thing.

Wikimania 2018

This year's annual conference was held this week in Cape Town, South Africa. It came and went and, as always for the attendees, it wasn't long enough. Claimed by the organisers to have been a success, The Signpost hopes to make a report on the event in next month's issue.

Still something wrong with The Signpost's own advertising?

Is one The Signpost not enough? A relatively new user asks at Wikipedia's Teahouse this week how they can start their own Wikipedia newspaper. It not only begs the question 'Are we doing enough to get The Signpost noticed?' but also raises the issue of why, after all these years, Wikipedia still does not have a 'Thank you for registering' page which not only offers some new basic information, but also places a short automated message on the user's talk page with some brief tips and where to get help.

New Page Review

Once down to around 350, the number of articles in the New Pages Feed (NPP) rises sharply again following the recent backlog elimination drive. A discussion is taking place at NPR Coordinators on whether an election should be held to install official process coordinators. Following the February 2017 election, the successful candidates did not take up their posts. For anyone who might not be aware, NPR is a major core function and Wikipedia's only firewall against unwanted new articles—the project needs many more skilled and truly active reviewers.

Brief notes

• New user-groups: The Affiliations Committee has announced the approval of new Wikimedia movement affiliates: the User Group Uganda and the Slovakia User Group are recognised for a one-year renewable period.
• New administrators: The Signpost welcomes one new administrator to our English encyclopedia this month. Sro23, whose RfA voting closed with 277/4/0, is a Sockpuppets Investigations clerk and has been editing Wikipedia since May 2015.
• Returned admin tools: After having voluntarily relinquished their admin rights in January, a request for the return of the tools by Ymblanter was granted following a very lengthy discussion on the Bureaucrats' Noticeboard involving many comments from the community.
• New newsletter: The Timeless skin ( reviewed in a previous issue of The Signpost) has a new newsletter. You can read and subscribe to it here.
• Spell check: Wikipedia:Typo Team/moss has collected statistics on misspellings, a list of articles containing a word not found in the dictionary, and instructions for volunteers to fix them.

Wikipedia blackout

Reported in greater depth in this issue at the Discussion report, the Spanish, Italian, Latvian, Estonian, Polish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Hungarian, and Slovenian Wikipedias blacked out, incurring extensive media coverage throughout Europe:

• "Italy Wikipedia shuts down in protest at EU copyright law". BBC News. 3 July 2018. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
• Polish Press Agency and Reuters (4 July 2018). "Polish Wikipedia shuts down in protest at EU copyright law". Archived from the original on 29 July 2018 – via Poland in English ( Telewizja Polska). {{ cite news}}: |author= has generic name ( help)
• Farrell, James (4 July 2018). "Italian, Spanish and Polish Wikipedia pages shut down ahead of controversial copyright law". Blog. Silicon Angle. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
• Lomas, Natasha (4 July 2018). "Wikipedia goes dark in Spanish, Italian ahead of key EU vote on copyright". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
• Tannam, Ellen (4 July 2018). "Spanish and Italian Wikipedia go dark to protest EU copyright law proposals". Silicon Republic. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
• Schumacher, Elizabeth (3 July 2018). "Italian Wikipedia shuts down in protest of proposed EU copyright law". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.
• Orlowski, Andrew (3 July 2018). "Call your MEP! Wikipedia blacks out for European YouTube vote". The Register. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018.

Business Insider also showed a Twitter exchange between Jimmy Wales and European Commission over the blackout.

UK venture capitalists are not notable

Writing on 13 July for the Technology Intelligence section in leading UK newspaper The Telegraph, James Cook reports on anonymous users suggesting Wikipedia is biased against British entrepreneurs while allowing articles about US financiers. Listing deleted articles Angel CoFund, Eden Ventures, Episode 1 Ventures, Hoxton Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners, Notion Capital, Passion Capital, Rob Kniaz, Saul Klein, and Scottish Equity Partners, he claims that deletions of 19 articles are an orchestrated effort of three Wikipedia users who support each other's AfD nominations. In the Articles for Deletion discussion about the Tom Blomfield biography, the page was procedurally kept following a 'no consensus' closure.

In a brief interview with The Signpost, one of the deletion nominators, HighKing, had this to say about the accusations:

—K

In brief

Other contributors: Bri

• Frequent flyer: WMF Executive Director Katherine Maher engaged in business travel 200 days last year (The Wall Street Journal & National Geographic, June 21). (Editor's note: Take out the weekends, holidays, and vacation, and that's practically every working day.)
• Paid editing: It's frowned upon, but that doesn't stop the WMF from now paying for an advertorial in the Daily Maverick.
• Digital literacy project: A Washington State University professor is leading a "Thousand Page Project" to create articles on 1,000 local newspapers. ( Poynter Institute, Chronicle of Higher Education)
• Wikimedians decolonise the Internet: How Dumisani Ndubane of South Africa helps "decolonise the Internet" by contributing to Wikimedia – he wrote large parts of Wikiversity's electrical engineering content. ( The Media Online)
• Road trips and augmented reality: The Road Trip app (a Chrome browser plugin) will read Wikipedia content aloud based on your current location. ( The Verge) An augmented reality smartphone app displays Wikipedia articles for any topics the app user is nearby. ( ShortList)
• Improving knowledge about violence and abuse: University of Pennsylvania's Ortner Center on Violence & Abuse in Relationships conducted a project to improve the public's knowledge about violence and abuse by improving Wikipedia pages on the topic. ( Penn Today)
• Weak passwords still OK: Digital Journal reports " Amazon and Wikipedia still giving poor password advice". Fixing this has been proposed at least since 2011.
• Academic writes 270 Wikipedia pages in a year to get female scientists noticed: A WikiProject Women in Red contributor, Jess Wade ( Jesswade88), is profiled by The Guardian and El Pais.
• The Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia group, coordinated through a private Facebook group called The Secret Cabal, was covered by Wired magazine: "The 'Guerrilla' Wikipedia editors who combat conspiracy theories".
• Why pay for information – according to those selling it: EdSurge published an interview of Karthik Krishnan, the CEO of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., in which he compared his encyclopedia to Wikipedia and "spoke about convenience over quality, the problems with crowdsourcing and why we should once again consider paying for information".

EU copyright banner deployed on English Wikipedia at Jimbo's recommendation; other European Wikipedias blacked out

A proposed copyright law in the European Union would have required websites to pay other websites when they included snippets from those other websites. Lawmakers attempted to create an exception for sites like Wikipedia, with language mentioning "nonprofit" sites such as "online encyclopedias". However, this exception would not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia content is licensed for all use, not just nonprofit.

Wikimedia's legal department, as well as Jimbo Wales, frequently voiced their concerns and encouraged action. After previous discussions failed to reach a consensus on a site-wide banner to display to EU readers, a post by Jimbo on the Village Pump led to a few neutrally-worded proposals. This led to a banner being approved (see image). Other Wikipedias went even further, with the Spanish and Italian Wikipedias both blacking out the entire site (similar to the English Wikipedia's SOPA blackout). In the following hours, the Latvian, Estonian, Polish, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Hungarian, and Slovenian Wikipedias blacked out as well. On July 5, the European Parliament voted not to fast-track the bill; further debate and amendment will occur in September.

JavaScript/CSS editing permission created

Following the discussion at Meta, on 27 August admins will lose their rights to edit sitewide and other users' JavaScript and CSS pages. How these users will be appointed is left to each individual wiki. Knowing the English Wikipedia, this would result in the creation of yet another horrible and broken process called RfIA (quick, get that shortcut reserved!). The right will be granted by bureaucrats and stewards.

The proposal for 'TechAdmin', the criteria for access, and how the the new user right will be accorded are being discussed at Interface administrators.

The concern brought up by the proposers is the ability of rouge... I mean rogue admins to deploy malicious code to millions of readers. Additionally, most admins don't edit these pages, making this an unnecessarily dangerous right in the eyes of the proposers. At the same time, this does bring back memories of when admins stepped up to implement consensus on the Visual Editor Default State RfC after the WMF's refusal to do so, and one wonders what would happen with that were this group implemented.

Should protection be unbundled?

To help experienced editors better deal with vandalism, a new user right was proposed at the Village Pump to allow editors frequently involved in vandal-fighting to protect pages for a few months. Consensus seemed strongly against this proposal until NeilN made a more restricted proposal limiting the length of protection to 3 hours and only allowing it to be applied to biographies of living people. While the final result was a "no consensus" close, the possibility of further discussion on NeilN's proposal and others was left open.

In brief

Other contributors: Bri

• Someone suggested that a bot deliver discretionary sanction notices. How do discretionary sanctions work? I have no idea. But that doesn't mean I won't link to it here.
• About the same time last month that we reported on the Arbitration Committee in the media, the article on Ira Brad Matetsky (AKA Newyorkbrad) was facing a deletion debate. The debate was closed "no consensus" shortly before we went to press but after the publication deadline. – B
• A new Women in Red user group (an upgrade from the WikiProject on the English Wikipedia) has been proposed on Meta. The greatest discussion is in a thread titled "Statement on global visibility of women and non-binary genders". – B
• The " Making widely-used icons consistent and modern" discussion mentioned in the last issue closed as "no consensus".

Featured articles

11 featured articles were promoted.

• Claude Debussy ( nominated by Dmass, Smerus, and Tim riley) was a French composer. He was seen, during his lifetime and afterwards, as the first Impressionist composer, and he ranks among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Peter Drummond (RAF officer) ( nominated by Ian Rose) was an Australian-born senior commander in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He rose from private in World War I to three-star air marshal in World War II. During World War I, he became a fighter ace and received the Military Cross and other awards.
• Bougainville counterattack ( nominated by Nick-D and AustralianRupert) was the last big Japanese offensive in the Solomon Islands Campaign of World War II. Launched against the Allied base on Bougainville Island, it was intended to destroy the Allied beachhead; it was repulsed by United States Army forces and other well-prepared Allied defenders, who greatly outnumbered the Japanese force.
• Yeomanry Cavalry ( nominated by Factotem) was the mounted component of the British Volunteer Corps, a military auxiliary established in the late 18th century amid fears of invasion and insurrection during the French Revolutionary Wars as a rural, county-based force recruited mainly from landholders and tenant farmers. With the establishment of civilian police forces it became less important in Britain but became the separate Imperial Yeomanry after Second Boer War, then the mounted component of the Territorial Force in the World Wars. It remains represented in the 21st century as squadrons of the British Army Reserve.
• Taapaca ( nominated by Jo-Jo Eumerus) is a Holocene volcanic complex in northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. The latest eruption is dated to 320 BCE.
• Second Australian Imperial Force in the United Kingdom ( nominated by Nick-D) was a volunteer force of the Australian Army assigned to the UK in World War II. They provided liaison, engineer and forestry services; managed repatriation; and contributed most members of the Australian contingent to the June 1946 victory parade in London.
• St Donat's Castle ( nominated by KJP1) is a medieval castle on cliffs overlooking the Bristol Channel west of Cardiff. Among the oldest continuously inhabited castles in Wales, it is a Grade I listed building.
• North Cascades National Park ( nominated by MONGO) is a 500,000-acre (200,000 ha) national park bisected by a river with hydroelectric dams supplying Seattle, and "The Most Beautiful Mountain Highway in the State of Washington". The park has 312 glaciers, the most expansive glacial system in the contiguous United States; vast forests with the highest degree of flora biodiversity of any US national park; and once was home to grizzly bears whose reintroduction has been planned.
• SMS Hessen ( nominated by Parsecboy) is a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Braunschweig class that saw active service during World War I and survived until the end of World War II when she was taken by the Soviet Navy for use as a target ship.
• Helicopter 66 ( nominated by Chetsford) was a Navy helicopter used for the water recovery of astronauts during five separate missions of the United States' Apollo program between 1968 and 1970. It had popular songs about it recorded in Belgian and German, a die-cast model made, and replicas are on display at four museums in California, Florida and Oregon.
• 2nd Red Banner Army ( nominated by Kges1901) was a Red Army formation on the Far Eastern Front of World War II, participating in the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. It captured 17,061 Japanese military personnel around Sunwu.

Featured lists

18 featured lists were promoted.

• 89th Academy Awards ( nominated by Nauriya)
• List of accolades received by Madras ( nominated by Ssven2)
• List of awards and nominations received by Matthew McConaughey ( nominated by Jiten D)
• List of The Simpsons guest stars (seasons 1-20) ( nominated by Gran2)
• List of Hot Country Songs number ones of 2009 ( nominated by ChrisTheDude)
• List of Hot Country Songs number ones of 2010 ( nominated by ChrisTheDude)
• List of international goals scored by Robin van Persie ( nominated by The Rambling Man and TheSoccerBoy)
• Best Female Athlete with a Disability ESPY Award ( nominated by MWright96)
• Best Male Action Sports Athlete ESPY Award ( nominated by MWright96)
• List of games by Firaxis Games ( nominated by PresN)
• List of Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Kent ( nominated by Dudley Miles)
• List of cities in Alaska ( nominated by Mattximus)
• Municipalities of Colima ( nominated by Mattximus)
• Bibliography of works on Madonna ( nominated by IndianBio)
• List of titular churches ( nominated by Ravenpuff)
• List of Chancellors of Germany ( nominated by BegbertBiggs)
• List of Governors of Illinois ( nominated by Golbez)
• List of Presidents of the Bharatiya Janata Party ( nominated by Yashthepunisher)

Featured topics

One featured topic was promoted.

• 2006 Pacific hurricane season ( nominated by Hurricanehink)

Good articles

Apart from these featured contents, the following good articles were promoted in July.

Active cases

See our May and June arbitration reports for background. The case is in its final phase now at Proposed decision. As of publication deadline (31 July), the following proposed remedies are on the table:

1. Topics related to the German participation in the Second World War, broadly interpreted, are placed under discretionary sanctions. 10–0 opposed (cannot pass).
2. For engaging in harassment of other users, LargelyRecyclable is indefinitely banned from the English Wikipedia under any account. 11–0 in favor (passed).
3. Cinderella157 is admonished for personal attacks against K.e.coffman and casting aspersions on their editing and character. 6–1 opposed, 1 abstained.
4. K.e.coffman is reminded that the use of biased and questionable sources are not prohibited by policy, especially when the content is verifiable, non-controversial and has been included by editorial consensus. They are encouraged to continue to identify unreliable sourcing and bring them to wider community attention. 11–0 opposed (cannot pass).
5. Auntieruth55 is reminded that project coordinators have no special roles in a content dispute, and that featured articles are not immune to sourcing problems. 4–3 opposed, 1 abstained. Dissenting, DGG: "I think the extent of attempted authority does justify a reminder."
6. All editors are reminded that consensus building is key to the purpose of Wikipedia. The most reliable sources should be used instead of questionable sourcing whenever possible when dealing with sensitive topics. Longterm disagreement over local consensus in a topic area should be resolved through soliciting comments from the wider community, instead of being re-litigated persistently at the local level. 10–0 in favor (passed).

Projection/takeaway (op-ed): There will be no new discretionary sanctions, LargelyRecyclable will be banned, K.e.coffman will face no tangible sanctions, and the status quo will stand with respect to community participation in contentious discussions. – B

BLP issues on British politics articles

Workshop closed after three comments on July 9. Arbitrators began filling out Proposed decision on July 18–19. A key finding is that the committee's jurisdiction only covers on-wiki editing, but "[t]he Committee may take notice of conduct outside its jurisdiction when making decisions about conduct on the English Wikipedia if such outside conduct impacts or has the potential to impact adversely upon the English Wikipedia or its editors" (emphasis added). Newyorkbrad stated that "we can tell [an] editor that they must stop engaging in seriously problematic conduct on another site (for example, conduct verging on threats or revealing editors' private information) if they wish to continue participating here."

An interesting finding of the committee was that "Philip Cross was the subject of an intense campaign of harassment and intimidation both on-wiki and off-wiki during this case, including the creation of attack pages, efforts to obtain and reveal his personal details, and unsupported speculation that he is a state agent". Thus far, The Signpost has refrained from publishing this speculation.

Consensus seems to have emerged that Philip Cross has exhibited a conflict of interest, but has also been the target of harassment. He may continue editing under his topic ban. KalHolmann will be indefinitely restricted from linking to or speculating about the off-wiki behavior or identity of other editors. The new discretionary sanctions on British politics that we discussed in the last issue do not have the committee's backing.

A reminder to the community about the provisions of Wikipedia's policy against outing was backed unanimously with this understated comment by Newyorkbrad: "there are inherent tensions between our policies allowing anonymous editing but discouraging conflicts of interest." – B

Return of access levels

In other words, getting one's mop back. On 20 July 2018, following an intense discussion at the Bureaucrats Noticeboard concerning a request by Ymblanter for reinstatment of his administrator status, the Arbitration Committee ruled squarely that a decision to either resysop or require a new RfA falls within the domain of Bureaucrat discretion. The concerns were centred around whether or not Ymblanter had voluntarily resigned his adminship ' under a cloud' in order to escape possible sanctions. Among the arbitrator comments were: "The determination of 'controversial circumstances' is based on the discretion of the bureaucrats. In the the relatively infrequent situation where an administrator did not relinquish their privileges in a completely uncontroversial manner, a bureaucrat discussion should take place to allow consensus among the bureaucrats to emerge, which is what happened with the Ymblanter case" by Alex Shih, and, invoking earlier precedents: "Based on these decisions (which are consistent with the current policy), ArbCom only has a potential role in this area if an administrator has resigned (1) while a case to which he or she is a party had already been accepted and was being considered, or (2) while a request for arbitration was pending. Ordinarily, an admin who resigns under either of these circumstances would need a new RfA to regain adminship" by Newyorkbrad.

The moral of the story (op-ed) is that before handing in their tools for whatever reason, admins should be aware of anything in their history that may prevent what they might have thought would be a straightforward request for their return. – K

Fifty (two) years of hurt, never stopped me dreaming (June 24 to 30)

Soccer! "'Football', said the rest of the fucking world." Bilbo Baggins is my spirit animal. Once again, the report is dominated by football, as the World Cup continues to infect Wikipedians worldwide like a chaotically cascading contagion. World Cup fever is tangible, especially across the pond. Apparently, it's coming home. They're even dropping 'arry and losing intentionally to dodge Brazil, the madlads. Shia LaBeouf seems to be excelling at this game of 4-D chess he's playing. With a "handy" run to the semi-finals, hopefully he can put it away this time.

Anyway, other stuff has the audacity to occur during the World Cup, including death, Google Doodles, retirement, and other intrigues, diversifying the report to a certain extent. However, it is dwarfed by the swarms of interest provoked by World Cup fever. A great manager once said that football is much more important than life or death. This iteration of the report lays credence to that claim. I hope you enjoy it.

Without further ado, for the week of June 24 to 30, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

And Moscow football makes me sing and shout (July 1 to 7)

As expected, the FIFA World Cup is still dominating. And given recent developments in the Russian fields, you might notice my attempts at venting off tournament frustrations (my Welsh and Irish Report colleagues have already done it, so why not me?). The only entries not related to football are superheroes out of Hollywood (both live-action from Marvel and animated from Cartoon Network), action star biopics out of Bollywood, basketball stars gone Hollywood, holidays out of the U.S., historical figures out of Google Doodles, and those out of the 2018 deaths category.

For the week of July 1 to 8, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

We Are the Champions, My Friend (July 8 to 14)

One last FIFA World Cup-heavy list, even if the final happening on a Sunday ensures next week will still feature some more of the tournament. Along with a blockbuster transaction that happened after a superstar was out of the Russian fields, football is even present in an incident where a Thai team was stranded in a flooded cave. Otherwise, we have tennis in Wimbledon, American politics, celebrities and blockbusters, Indian movies and Netflix shows, and that death list that just won't go.

For the week of July 8 to 15, 2018, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia as determined from the WP:5000 report were:

Rolled out

• Global preferences were rolled out on 10 July as announced at the Village Pump.
• TemplateStyles enabled as previously covered in our May issue.

• 
  Canada Day, eh?
• 
  Food festival cook-off on Peru's Fiestas Patrias
• 
  Fourth of July: boisterous, noisy, and centered on a Chinese invention
• 
  Independence Day in Vanuatu
• 
  Venezuelan cavalry at Independence Day parade in New York

July seems to be a traditional month for nations obtaining their independence, breaking away, or merging. And let's not forget France whose national holiday is always on July 14. It might not be directly related to independence from colonialism, but rather the unity of the French people. It's is one of the biggest worldwide celebrated national annual events. Plus the very next day they had another huge party in the streets across the mainland and all their many overseas territories: winning the FIFA World Cup – for the second time.

No less than 22 countries celebrate independence day in July:

• Algeria from France
• Bahamas from the UK
• Belgium from the Netherlands
• Burundi from Belgium
• Canada from the UK
• Cape Verde from Portugal
• Comoros from France
• Kiribati from the UK
• Liberia from the American Colonization Society
• Malawi from the UK
• Maldives from the UK
• Mauritania from France
• Peru from Spain
• Rwanda from Belgium
• São Tomé and Príncipe from Portugal
• Solomon Islands from the UK
• Somalia from Italy & the UK
• South Sudan from Sudan
• Vanuatu from France and the UK
• Venezuela from Spain
• Oh, yes, one more – the United States from the Kingdom of Great Britain

The Signpost joins them in celebrating.

Napoleon led an army across the Mediterranean in an effort to conquer Ottoman Egypt; while he was there, the invasion force travelled with a scientific contingent and uncovered many artifacts from Egypt's ancient past, like the Rosetta Stone. After publications by the British describing these discoveries (following Napoleon's defeat), Western European interest in ancient Egypt skyrocketed. I talked with pseudonymous volunteer Wikipedia editors Iry-Hor and Mr Rnddude, who focus on ancient Egypt.

• What fascinates you both about ancient history, and specifically the Egyptians?

Iry-Hor: Ancient history, from the Neolithic revolution until the end of the Bronze age ( c. 1100 BC) is the central yet short period over which we grew out of more than 200,000 years of relatively slow-paced prehistory and into a bewildering race to technological advancement and total planetary dominance. This makes me very curious as to what exactly happened then. I always find it thrilling to read ancient sources relating long past events which would have vanished were it not for a few surviving texts. Now the Egyptians are, with the Sumerians, the oldest civilisation there is, with hieroglyphic writing appearing roughly simultaneously with cuneiform (the skeptics can see Abydos tomb U-j). At the same time, the Egyptians advanced the organisation and concept of state much further and much more rapidly than the Sumerians. Fascinating stuff.

Mr Rnddude: History has always been interesting to me. I've always wondered about things like: "what were the Greeks up to?", "How did the Romans rise and fall?", etc. In the case of the Egyptians, I find the pyramids to be the most interesting, followed by their complex and extensive mythology, and then the hieroglyphic writing form. I get to cover all three topics while writing about the pyramids. That's really about it.

• Do you have any academic training in ancient history?

Iry-Hor: Not in ancient history, no; unfortunately I was pushed to study maths and physics when I was a student as I was doing pretty well on these subjects and did not have enough self-confidence at the time to say I wanted to do something else. I have tried to make up for this regret by learning Middle Egyptian hieroglyphics, some Akkadian, and the general chronology of the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods but this is all self-taught. 1 hour per day did the trick back when I had lots of free time.

Mr Rnddude: No, nothing formal. I chose ancient history as an elective for my senior years in high school, alongside biology, chemistry and physics. History is just a subject that interests me. I went on to study aviation, for a pilot, at University. History is unrelated to my career choice, unless I become an aviation historian at some point.

• What are your favorite articles you have written and why?

Iry-Hor: This is hard to tell, reason tells me to like Nyuserre Ini for the amount of research I have invested in it, but I have a soft spot for the Featured Article on Sheshi, a relatively obscure pharaoh of the Second Intermediate Period. Sheshi was a lot of fun to research as he is one of the few very well-attested pharaohs regarding whom you can find Egyptologists disagreeing with one another on every single aspect of his life, time, and reign. Sheshi was today's Featured Article on the 1st of March. (Editor's note: Today's featured articles appear on Wikipedia's main page, and usually receive tens of thousands of views in those 24 hours.)

Mr Rnddude: Battle of Antioch (218), as the first article and A-class I ever worked on; followed by Caracalla, one of two Roman emperor Good Articles I've written; and Pyramid of Neferirkare, the first pyramid I've worked on and my first Featured Article.

• What challenges have you faced in writing these Featured and Good articles?

Iry-Hor: Writing a Featured Article is a lot of work and the main challenge for me is to find the time needed to do enough research to be satisfied that the article covers everything there is to be known. Beyond this, I can see from my earlier Wikipedia work that it takes time and efforts for a Wikipedian to learn to write good or Featured Articles. It seems to be a kind of maturation process that's needed to grow from a young editor and into a Featured Article author. I read the article "Wikipedians are born, not made", and while I adhere to the analysis presented by the authors (even my first days of activity fit with their predictions!), I would add that the birth is only the beginning and experienced Wikipedians are made through continuing efforts.

Mr Rnddude: The challenges were different for each article. For the Battle of Antioch, the main challenge was getting to grips with reliable sourcing. I predominantly used the ancient texts of Cassius Dio and Herodian of Antioch backed with secondary sources. This was before I had ever heard of any Wikipedia policy and I'd really just picked some random article to work on. I got it through GA easily enough, but failed the first military history (MILHIST) WikiProject A-class review, primarily because of the abundance of primary sources in the article. One particular section was overflowing with primary sourcing and had to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's policy on original research. I managed to get it accepted at A-class in my second attempt. (Editor's note: A-class is another marker of high quality on the English Wikipedia, albeit not widely used.) I'm not, however, satisfied that the article meets FA standards.

Finally there is my first Featured Article: Pyramid of Neferirkare. In terms of challenges, I had most barriers removed through the help of Iry-Hor. When I needed a source, Iry-Hor provided it to me. When I nominated the article for GA, Iry-Hor took on the review and helped me suss out the finer details to move the article a few steps ahead. The article was ready for an FA review when I submitted it. I've had lots of helpful comments and no major issues. I should credit Tony1 for writing a brilliant guide for writing Featured Article worthy prose which certainly helped me improve my writing, and I should mention Ceoil's assistance in tightening the prose.

• How does Wikipedia's coverage of ancient history compare to other sources on the internet?

Iry-Hor: There is no question that Wikipedia is far beyond other web sources, with the exception of certain specialised encyclopedias, such as the Oxford Encylopedia of Ancient Egypt (which isn't supposed to be available on the web by the way...). And even there, I can say that Good and Featured articles are always more detailed, broader and richer than the corresponding entries on the specialised encyclopedias. Unfortunately, Wikipedia is still very much patchy, with few such high-quality articles and many important topics are far from good enough to win the comparison. Take for example the article on the Old Kingdom of Egypt. I am convinced that we will ultimately get there, however, as every article is only one Wikipedian away from reaching featured quality.

Mr Rnddude: Wikipedia is all over the shop with regard to the quality of its articles. In my experience, ancient history articles that haven't had a guiding hand tend to fall into one of two groups: (1) Stub or short articles in need of great expansion. This issue is prevalent among more obscure topics and persons; or (2) Generally comprehensive and detailed, but disjointed and poorly sourced articles. Every article I've worked on falls into one of those two categories. It's difficult to compare it to other online sources because the answer is quite varied. In comparison to other free sources, usually better. In comparison to paid or subscription sources, often more detailed but less accurate.

• Why do you think so many people remain fascinated by the ancient Egyptians even today?

Iry-Hor: I must say this remains mysterious to me: while I can understand that people are drawn to the Great Pyramid of Giza, Ramses II, or Akhenaten, I do not quite understand why Djedkare Isesi or Unas receive between 60 and 120 readers a day on average. These numbers might seem tiny to people working on popular topics, but they still represent thousands of views every year for pharaohs that are far from well-known! Even the most obscure pharaohs (try Nuya, Wazad, or Wepwawetemsaf) get at least 5–6 views a day. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that no more than 1 view a week corresponds to someone hitting the random article button, so that leaves you wondering why someone would want to read about Nuya? Anyway, I am just glad I could contribute on these articles!

Mr Rnddude: In one word: pyramids. Pyramids are the quintessential icon of the ancient Egyptian world. If you know even one thing about the Egyptians, it's going to be the great superstructures that stand as the last surviving ancient wonder of the world. It helps that their purpose and construction remains shrouded in mystery.

• What articles are coming up next for you both?

Iry-Hor: Userkaf and Sahure both need to reach FA to complete the 5th Dynasty, and after that the article on the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt itself would have to be written. This will be a monumental task, as we will try to cover everything from the administration, religion art and architecture of the period. I hope that Mr Rnddude will provide his expertise on pyramid construction techniques and mortuary temple architectures for this article. Once this is done, an all-Featured topic with 10 articles (more if some pyramids reach FA) will be completed and the 5th Dynasty spell will finally be broken. I might then finish the article on the Gebel el-Arak Knife, or see if Pepi I and Sobekhotep IV need help.

Mr Rnddude: I'm taking a short break from the Fifth Dynasty right now. There are nine pyramid articles for the period that I'm aiming to bring to Featured Article status. I have brought one pyramid to FA, one pyramid to Good Article status, one was brought to GA by Iry-Hor, and the rest are in various stages of development from stub to generally comprehensive. I've been doing some work on the Twelfth Dynasty's Senusret II and his pyramid. Whether or not I'll pursue GA for those two articles is to be determined. I just chose them for a change of pace.

• Where are you from, and what do you do for a living?

Iry-Hor: I shall only say that I hold a 1851 Research Fellowship and work on algebraic combinatorics and quantum mechanics. Publish or perish makes work very stressful for young researchers like me and so editing Ancient Egyptian articles is a welcomed break from the pressure. As a consequence, I have vowed never to edit Wikipedia on any other topic—a vow I broke only 5 times, always for minor edits.

Mr Rnddude: I'll keep my real name to myself. I currently live in South-East Queensland, Australia. I'm not a fully qualified pilot yet, but I'm working towards that goal. I am employed currently, working on construction sites. A dull job, and not one I intend to stay in for much longer.

• Did I miss anything?

Iry-Hor: I just wanted to add that Wikipedia is now a well-known resource among academics, with a pretty good reputation and the lofty purpose of collecting all human knowledge and making it freely available painfully contrasts with some scientific publishers. This is often more than enough to persuade established researchers to send you a copy of an article you can't access or some help of some sort if you ask them.

"Evaluating the Impact of the Wikipedia Teahouse on Newcomer Retention" ^[4]

Aaron Halfaker is a WMF employee and edits Wikipedia as EpochFail. Jonathan Morgan is a WMF employee and, while editing as Jtmorgan, is a Teahouse Host.

From the abstract: "[F]ew interventions employed to increase newcomer retention over the long term by improving aspects of the onboarding experience have demonstrated success. This study presents an evaluation of the impact of one such intervention, the Wikipedia Teahouse, on new editor survival. In a controlled experiment, we find that new editors invited to the Teahouse are retained at a higher rate than editors who do not receive an invite. The effect is observed for both low- and high-activity newcomers, and for both short- and long-term survival."

Can there ever be a solution to the dwindling number of new and active users? In their paper, Halfaker and Morgan explain that "[s]o far, neither purely social or purely technical efforts have been shown to be effective at providing effective socialization at a scale that leads to a substantial increase in the number of new editors who go on to become Wikipedians." They examine the Teahouse which they describe as "one of the most potentially impactful retention mechanisms that has been attempted". Their research demonstrates that "new editors who are invited to the Teahouse are significantly more likely to continue contributing after three weeks, two months, and six months than a similar cohort who were not invited."

Comparing it with the Wikipedia Adventure new editor training system developed in 2013, which—although often used—did not show any long-term impact, the Teahouse (created in 2012) "combined social and technical components to provide comprehensive socialization on a large scale, and was designed to promote long-term retention." Their study evaluates "the effect of invitation to the Teahouse, rather than participation in the Teahouse." Both the 24-hour and 5-edit threshold before issuing a Teahouse invitation, while avoiding vandalism-only accounts, may result in "many good-faith newcomers being denied the opportunity for positive socialization", they say.

" ORES", they explain, "provides powerful predictive models that can accurately discriminate between damaging and a non-damaging edits, and between malicious edits and edits that were made in good faith, even if they introduce errors or fail to comply with policies." The authors consider that "most new editors" receive "overwhelmingly negative and alienating experience [...] when they first join Wikipedia," but they do not appear to draw on any data for this assumption.

Briefly

Research presentations at Wikimania 2018

Summarized by Morten Warncke-Wang and Tilman Bayer

One of the presentations at the recent Wikimania 2018 conference was on the "State of Wikimedia Research 2017–2018". An almost yearly occurrence since 2009, this presentation gives a quick look into the overarching themes in research published about Wikimedia projects over the previous year. This year's presentation ( slides) is now available on YouTube, and covers five main themes: images & media, talk pages, multilingual comparisons, non-participation (who is not contributing?), and Wikipedia as a source of data. The first of these highlights the "Tower_of_Babel.jpg" paper also covered above.

A keynote titled " Creating Knowledge Equity and Spatial Justice on Wikipedia" ( summary, slides) by Martin Dittus, a data scientist at the Oxford Internet Institute, featured various results about the geographical distribution of geotagged Wikipedia articles and IP edits, partly from earlier research by Dittus' colleague Mark Graham and others ( cf. earlier coverage). Other presentations included:

• " The State of Research in Knowledge Gaps" ( video), showcasing various research results and technology projects by the Wikimedia Foundation's research team and its academic collaborators;
• " Research on gender gap in Wikipedia: What do we know so far?" ( video, slides); and
• A lightning talk ( video, slides, poster) about the " Wikipedia Cultural Diversity Observatory" (WCDO) project, which likewise uses geolocation coordinates to associate articles with cultural contexts, but also draws on other data such as article categories and Wikidata properties to overcome some of the shortcomings of the geotagging data.

Other recent publications

Other recent publications that could not be covered in time for this issue include the items listed below. Contributions are always welcome for reviewing or summarizing newly published research.

Compiled by Kudpung and Tilman Bayer

Vandalism

"Vandalism on Collaborative Web Communities: An Exploration of Editorial Behaviour in Wikipedia" ^[5]

The study found that "most vandalisms [on Wikipedia] were reverted within five minutes" on average and that "the majority of the articles targeted [with vandalism] are related to Politics (29.4%), followed by Culture (26.4%), Music (23.5%), Animals (11.7%) and History (8.8%)."

Simple English

"Evaluating lexical coverage in the Simple English Wikipedia articles: a corpus-driven study" ^[6]

From the paper: "[Simple English Wikipedia] articles require surprisingly large vocabularies to comprehend, comparable to that required to read standard Wikipedia articles."

"Open algorithmic systems: lessons on opening the black box from Wikipedia"

From the abstract: ^[7] "This paper reports from a multi-year ethnographic study of automated software agents in Wikipedia, where bots play key roles in moderation and gatekeeping. Automated software agents are playing increasingly important roles in how networked publics are governed and gatekept, with internet researchers increasingly focusing on the politics of algorithms. [...] In most platforms, algorithmic systems are developed in-house, where there are few measures for public accountability or auditing, much less the ability for publics to shape the design or operation of such systems. However, Wikipedia's model presents a compelling alternative, where members of the editing community heavily participate in the design and development of such algorithmic systems."

"High-quality standards in information presentation are not globally shared" across Wikipedia languages

"Cultural diversity of quality of information on Wikipedias" ^[8]

From the abstract: "This article explores the relationship between linguistic culture and the preferred standards of presenting information based on article representation in major Wikipedias. Using primary research analysis of the number of images, references, internal links, external links, words, and characters, as well as their proportions in Good and Featured articles on the eight largest Wikipedias, we discover a high diversity of approaches and format preferences, correlating with culture. We demonstrate that high-quality standards in information presentation are not globally shared and that in many aspects, the language culture's influence determines what is perceived to be proper, desirable, and exemplary for encyclopedic entries."

Revert behavior differs between "political" and "unpolitical" articles

"Case study in political user behavior on Wikipedia" ^[9]

From the paper:

How German Wikipedians coin words that describe unwanted editing behaviors as diseases

"Combinatorics of the suffix -itis on talk pages of Wikipedia: A word formation pattern for the discursive regulation in the collaborative knowledge production" (in German) ^[10]

From the English abstract: "The study reveals that -itis is a highly productive suffix in meta(-linguistic) discourses of the online-encyclopaedia: Wikipedia authors using word formation products with the suffix -itis (e.g. Newstickeritis or WhatsAppitis) try to standardise the collaborative knowledge production with the help of these linguistic innovations. The corpus analysis delivers evidence for the fact that certain linguistic innovations and special types of word formation characterise the community of Wikipedia authors and their discourse traditions."

"Linking ImageNet WordNet Synsets with Wikidata"

From the abstract: ^[11] "The linkage of ImageNet WordNet synsets to Wikidata items will leverage deep learning algorithm with access to a rich multilingual knowledge graph. [...] I show an example on how the linkage can be used in a deep learning setting with real-time image classification and labeling in a non-English language and discuss what opportunities lies ahead."

"Capturing the influence of geopolitical ties from Wikipedia with reduced Google matrix"

From the abstract: ^[12] "[We] show that meaningful results on the influence of country ties can be extracted from the hyperlinked structure of Wikipedia. We leverage a novel stochastic matrix representation of Markov chains of complex directed networks called the reduced Google matrix theory. [...] We apply this analysis to two chosen sets of countries (i.e. the set of 27 European Union countries and a set of 40 top worldwide countries). We [...] can exhibit easily very meaningful information on geopolitics from five different Wikipedia editions (English, Arabic, Russian, French and German)." (See also earlier by some of the same authors: "Multi-cultural Wikipedia mining of geopolitics interactions leveraging reduced Google matrix analysis".)

AI assessment of article quality using deep learning

"A Hybrid Model for Quality Assessment of Wikipedia Articles" ^[13]

From the abstract: "We explore the task [of document quality assessment] in the context of a Wikipedia article assessment task, and propose a hybrid approach combining deep learning with features proposed in the literature. Our method achieves 6.5% higher accuracy than the state of the art in predicting the quality classes of English Wikipedia articles over a novel dataset of around 60k Wikipedia articles." (See also earlier coverage in August 2017 of related research by a different team: "Improved article quality predictions with deep learning".)

"Social capital" of editors has a "significant impact" on article quality

"Using big data and network analysis to understand Wikipedia article quality" ^[14]

From the abstract: "The research reported in this paper focuses on the question of why Wikipedia articles are different in quality. [...] We focus on three major types of social capital with respect to teams of contributors working on Wikipedia articles: internal bonding, external bridging and functional diversity. Through a social network analysis of these articles based on a dataset extracted from its edit history, our research finds that all three types of social capital have a significant impact on their quality. In addition, we found that internal bonding interacts positively with external bridging resulting in a multiplier effect on article quality."

Written in 2012 by Drmies, this essay is as apt today as it was then. (image added by The Signpost)

Wikipedia does not need you

This page in a nutshell: Get over it.

You need the wiki—that's a fact. It's statistically proven and phenomenologically indisputable: you need the wiki. ^{citation needed} After all, you're here. Equally true, and much more insidious to the idea that we are all unique individuals and that we matter, is that the wiki does not need you—especially if you're a diva. It likes you, it appreciates your presence and your contributions, it wants you to get an account, to patrol Recent Changes (well... it doesn't mind it), to start verifying unreferenced BLPs, to make copyedits by hand or by bot—but the wiki does not need you. It wants you to trim External links sections, to change {{ Reflist}} into <references /> and back again, to trim trivia sections and tag them, to add WikiProject templates to talk pages—but the wiki does not need you. The wiki appreciates your incessant jokes at WP:ANI, your useful advice at Wikipedia:Reference desk, your cheerful jabs at Jimbo Wales—but the wiki does not need you.

Should it happen that a cabal of admins, operating on the talk page of an article or the lion's den of AN/I, manages to block you on an invented charge, the world will continue to turn. The grass will grow, the birds will lay eggs, the number of Pokémon-related articles will still double every 1.7 weeks, and articles on weathermen will be brought to AfD. Sure, it won't be done as smoothly and as elegantly as when you did it, but it will be done. The wiki will continue to turn. Sad, but true.

So if things are too stressful— take a break. Or leave. The latter would be especially sad, but Wikipedia will still be here tomorrow. It's bigger than me, bigger than you, possibly bigger than Jimbo. So if you start to think you're untouchable because you're indispensable to the project, just remember: you're not. However, there's a good chance that a deep breath and a cup of tea will resolve the problem that has you stressed, and then you and the Wiki can spend more quality time together.

• WP:You are not irreplaceable
• WP:Don't be high-maintenance
• WP:You don't own Wikipedia
• WP:Do not expect reward
• WP:Zeroth law of Wikipedia