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The philosophy journal Episteme has published a new issue that focuses on Wikipedia from the perspective of social epistemology. It contains four articles that examine various aspects of Wikipedia as a source of knowledge, including one by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger.
The issue is introduced by University of Arizona philosopher Don Fallis, who recently authored an article in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, " Toward an Epistemology of Wikipedia", arguing that on the whole Wikipedia has good "epistemic consequences" and that its virtues outweigh its flaws. In his introduction on " The Epistemology of Mass Collaboration", Fallis presents some of the epistemological issues raised by Wikipedia's success—chief among them "whether large collaborative projects, such as Wikipedia, can be reliable sources of information."
The first article, University of Memphis philosopher Deborah Perron Tollefsen's " Wikipedia and the Epistemology of Testimony", explores the concept of group testimony as a possible basis for understanding Wikipedia's authority. It builds on her earlier work, in which she argues that group testimony is fundamentally different from the testimony of an individual, since the testimony of the group itself may be different from the testimony of the individuals who make it up.
Tollefsen's conclusion is that some Wikipedia articles might be considered a form of group testimony, particularly when they are "mature" and represent the consensus of many editors and reflect the norms of the community, but others are better thought of as the individual testimony of their main author or authors. She goes on to characterize Wikipedia as "an immature epistemic agent", the claims of which—like a child's testimony—ought to be scrutinized carefully, rather than given the benefit of the doubt like the testimony of an adult. However, she finds that the traditional methods of scrutinizing face-to-face testimony do not translate well to Wikipedia and other virtual testimony. Instead, she argues, "receiving testimony from a source such [as] Wikipedia involves trusting not the man, but the system." According to another view of testimony, it is not the testifier's reliability but the testimony itself that should be scrutinized, by comparing it to other sources and to the "vast backdrop of beliefs the hearer has acquired" beforehand. This view of the epistemology of testimony is easy to extend to Wikipedia, Tollefsen argues.
The second Wikipedia-focused article is " The Epistemic Cultures of Science and Wikipedia: A Comparison", by State University of New York at Oswego philosopher K. Brad Wray. In it, Wray considers Wikipedia as a community focused on inquiry and knowledge production, analogous to the scientific community. However, he draws sharp contrasts between the norms of science and motivations of scientists, on the one hand, and the norms of Wikipedia and motivations of its editors on the other. Although both science and Wikipedia are collaborative knowledge projects, they have very different "epistemic cultures".
Wray posits that one possible justification for trusting Wikipedia is an " invisible hand" argument: although no identifiable individual or group of individuals ensures the quality of information on Wikipedia, "the knowledge-market will take care of itself, and poor articles reporting false claims will be rooted out." According to Wray, while science does have a viable invisible hand, in the form of a reputation system that relies on peer-review, Wikipedians "lack the sorts of incentives that keep science in good working order", and face few or no consequences for mistakes.
Wray also explores what he calls the Wikipedia's "puckish culture", prone to gossip and practical jokes. He recounts the Seigenthaler incident, and contrasts it to the sober culture of science. In science, he says, "the closest incident to such a joke is the Sokal affair"; however, the Sokal affair should not be considered a joke, but rather a demonstration of "the editors’ appalling ignorance of science". This regrettable aspect of Wikipedia's culture, he suggests, might be absent if—as in science—"one had to wait months before one’s contribution is posted". Finally, against the argument of Deborah Perron Tollefsen's article, Wray argues that even when considered as a form of testimony, Wikipedia is a flawed source of knowledge, precisely because of the failings in its "epistemic culture".
Despite his negative assessment, Wray does find one ray of hope: "What Wikipedia can do for us is to draw greater attention to epistemology and its relevance to our place in the social world. Though we live in a time in human history when knowledge may be easier to obtain than ever before, we are in desperate need of means to sort and evaluate what passes for knowledge."
“ | Over the long term, the quality of a given Wikipedia article will do a random walk around the highest level of quality permitted by the most persistent and aggressive people who follow an article. | ” |
— Lawrence M. Sanger |
A third article about Wikipedia comes from philosopher Lawrence M. Sanger—i.e., Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, who is also the founder and editor-in-chief of wiki encyclopedia Citizendium. In " The Fate of Expertise after Wikipedia", Sanger explores the paradoxes and shortcomings of Wikipedia's relationship with experts and expertise, and suggests that Citizendium, a project that explicitly grants authority to expert contributors, is a better alternative.
Sanger describes Wikipedia's success as an egalitarian and open knowledge project, and then poses the question of how to reconcile the project's successes—both real and potential—with its lack of "any special role for experts or any expert approval process". One implication from such success might be that special roles for experts are not necessary in the rest of society either. However, Sanger shows this to be self-contradictory, in part because evaluating the success of Wikipedia requires expertise to compare it against, and in part because of Wikipedia's indirect reliance on expertise.
Sanger goes on to explore the actual roles of expert editors on Wikipedia, and whether Wikipedia itself could become an authoritative source without granting a special role for experts. He asserts that "Wikipedia is nothing like the egalitarian utopia its most radical defenders might have us believe", and that in practice experts are often given deference. This, according to Sanger, is the key to what success Wikipedia has had in creating authoritative articles on some topics. However, problems arise when such deference breaks down, as is likely to occur for non-technical topics. As an a priori hypothesis, Sanger suggests that "Over the long term, the quality of a given Wikipedia article will do a random walk around the highest level of quality permitted by the most persistent and aggressive people who follow an article." He argues that Citizendium's model, in which subject-matter experts are given final authority over content in their areas of expertise, can surmount such problems caused by persistent and aggressive non-experts.
Sanger's article has attracted some press attention and blog discussion, especially for his idea about the limits of quality on Wikipedia. It was discussed on Slashdot, although Sanger suggested on the Citizendium Blog that many commentators did not " RTFA". Sanger's contribution was also discussed by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The final Wikipedia-focused article is " On Trusting Wikipedia", by State University of New York at Albany philosopher P. D. Magnus. Given the wide variability in article quality on Wikipedia, Magnus sets out to identify strategies for assessing reliability and to examine how well those strategies apply to Wikipedia.
Magnus describes five common strategies for assessing the reliability of other online knowledge sources, all of which fail to some extent when applied to Wikipedia.
Magnus concludes that "teaching people to engage Wikipedia responsibly will require getting them to cultivate a healthy scepticism, to think of it differently than they think of traditional sources, and to learn to look beyond the current articles".
Reader comments
Increasing participation in Wikipedia's various reviewing processes, such as peer reviews, Good article nominations, and Articles for deletion, has always been a concern for the Wikipedia community. This is especially true when it comes to processes such as Proposed deletions, where low-traffic articles can be deleted simply because no one is aware that they have been proposed. Valuable time is spent monitoring process pages, when it could instead be spent on improving and reviewing articles. This situation inspired three editors, Headbomb, B. Wolterding, and Legoktm, to develop a tool designed to increase awareness of what is going on in the various reviewing processes of Wikipedia: Article Alerts.
Article Alerts is a fully automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles tagged by their banner enter a workflow such as Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, and Peer review ( full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report is given at the end of this article (from WikiProject Physics).
The alert system was originally suggested in mid-July 2008 [1] and ArticleAlertbot was subsequently coded by B. Wolterding. [2] Since the bot runs on the tool server, and that B. Wolterding did not wish to disclose personal information required to operate a bot on the tool server, [3] Legoktm volunteered himself to be the bot operator. [4] The bot has been fully-operational since late-October 2008. [5] At the time of writing, about 65 WikiProjects and Taskforces, out of more than a thousand, [note 1] were subscribed to Article Alerts ( list of current subscribers), generating very positive feedback. [6] [7] Although the original idea was to help WikiProjects keep track of their articles in the wikijungle, [1] it will be interesting to see if this tool increases the participation in the various reviewing processes. [note 2]
It is the hope of the maintainers of Article Alerts that all active WikiProjects be subscribed to Article Alerts by the end of 2009. [note 3] Those interested in setting up Article Alerts for their WikiProject or Taskforce can visit Wikipedia:Article alerts#Subscribing for instructions.
Articles for deletion
Proposed deletions
Redirects for discussion
Files for discussion
Featured article candidates
Good article nominees
Featured article reviews
Requests for comments
Peer reviews
Requested moves
Articles to be merged
Articles to be split
Articles for creation
Wikimania 2009, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open space discussions, and artistic works related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from August 26–28 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For more information, see the official Call for Participation.
Earlier this month, the Wikimedia Foundation launched usability.wikimedia.org, a wiki for testing extensions and configurations to improve the usability and user interface of Wikipedia and other projects, as part of the Wikipedia Usability Initiative funded by a recent grant (see earlier coverage).
Wikinews is in the midst of its first Picture of the Year contest (not to be confused with the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition that is also ongoing). The second (and likely final) round of voting is underway until February 28, with 11 possible candidates for Wikinews Picture of the Year 2008. Any Wikimedian from any project (including Wikipedia) with over 50 edits may vote.
In an article published on guardian.co.uk, actor and comedian David Mitchell praised Wikipedia as being "brilliant." Mitchell defended Wikipedia against criticisms of inaccuracy, writing "readers should always question the veracity of what they read and the motives of whoever wrote it, and in the internet age more than ever.... And if Wikipedia, while being very informative in most cases, teaches a few lessons about questioning sources, then that's all to the good." Mitchell also criticized the UK Conservative Party for manipulating the Titian entry (see related story).
ZDNet UK conducted an interview with IWF chief Peter Robbins in response to the Virgin Killer incident. Robbins discussed the purpose of the foundation, the technology issues related to the incident, and what he believed to be an "unfair level of criticism." Robbins concluded the interview with "We learnt lessons from this."
According to The Patent Librarian's Notebook, a blog by librarian Michael White, citations to Wikipedia have been on the rise in U.S. patents. Wikipedia citations by patent examiners were banned in 2006, but references to Wikipedia by both applicants and examiners have nevertheless been on the rise. 477 patents issued in 2008 mentioned Wikipedia, compared to 297 in 2007 and 108 in 2006.
As of the moment of writing, there are 97 Featured sounds (FS) on Wikipedia. And yet, less than a year ago, in the 26 May 2008 issue of the Signpost, we wrote:
“ | Despite this wealth of opportunity, only 25 sound files have ever been nominated, leading to just 15 featured sounds, one of which has been demoted. | ” |
A revolution happened to Featured sounds in July 2008, as several dedicated Wikipedians, including Durova, Gonzo fan2007, Mitchazenia, Ragesoss, Centy and Shoemaker's Holiday descended on Featured sounds, with the intent of making it into a viable process.
The effort proved successful: in August, September, and October, more sounds of featured quality were created, found, or otherwise discovered in a single month than had been promoted in the entire 17-month history prior to July. As well, innovations were created: in July, a three-part recording of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata became the first set of featured sounds to be promoted. Several additional sets have been promoted since, including sonatas, symphonies, and an entire ballet.
The process slowed temporarily in the last two months of 2008, but 2009 marked a relaunch, and 15 files—a number this time "merely" equal to all the featured sounds promoted in the first 16 months of the project's history—were found to meet the criteria and were promoted.
However, Featured sounds has not yet fully created the community of reviewers and content creators, restorers, and seekers necessary for it to move on to the next level. While much healthier than it was a year ago, low numbers of reviewers can cause undue delays; little content creation is, as yet, occurring (though numerous historic files have been found and restored), and the same names come up as nominators over and over. While this is normal for the early stages of a featured content process, sounds are one of the things Wikipedia can do—and do well—which traditional encyclopedias cannot, and which other web encyclopedias have, as yet, neglected. Sounds are thus one of the true opportunities of Wikipedia, and if we can do them well, we will lead the way for other encyclopedias.
You can help!
In an effort to move away from science, sports, and the Simpsons, and to improve the WikiProject Report's coverage of religion-based projects, this week's Report is on WikiProject Islam. Here to tell us more about this project is Itaqallah.
The following is a brief overview of new discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia. For older, yet possibly active, discussions please see last week's edition.
We have a codified system of formal guidelines and a clear authoritarian heirachy, [ sic] as well as formal dispute resolution processes. We even have bureaucrats!
- Restore WP:Build the web as a historical page
- Place a prominent message on that page directing people to the current guideline on that subject, which is this page [MOSLINK]
- Rename this page [MOSLINK to] Wikipedia:Linking
Currently, all desysoppings are carried out by members of the Steward user group. Questions have been raised whether or not "outsourcing" all of our desysoppings to Meta, rather than keeping them in en.wikipedia, is such a good idea.
- Every three months, the WikiProjects should be invited to submit proposals for articles to be featured on the Main Page.
- The proposals should be made publicly, and at least one month before any of the proposed articles actually appears. To give an example, proposals for articles to appear on the Main Page between 1 July and 30 September should be made by 23:59 UTC 31 May at the latest.
- An article which has already appeared on the Main Page may not be proposed. However, WikiProjects may keep the same Proposed Article through several quarters, if they so wish and if it has not yet appeared on the Main Page.
- WikiProjects are invited to bear in mind the existing featured article criteria when proposing articles. However, the overriding criterion in their choice should be that the article represents the best work in their field.
- The proposals should be made on a dedicated page, for example Wikipedia:Proposed featured articles/2009, 3rd quarter. WikiProjects could include a brief gloss with the article name, to indicate (for example) that a given article is particularly appropriate for a given day.
- The system should aim to have 150–200 Proposed Articles per quarter, from fields which reflect the general distribution of articles on English Wikipedia. In the case of the smaller WikiProjects, who may not have an article they feel is good enough to represent their subject area on the Main Page, they are still invited to have a "Best Article" system with which they can advertise the article(s) which they think are their best, and so not leave any decision or improvement until the last minute.
- Editors who feel that an article is "not good enough" to appear on the Main Page are strongly invited to improve it, while respecting the work and opinions of other editors.
- The article which appears on the Main Page on any given day will be chosen by WP:TFA, as occurs at present.
While articles should not endorse any perspective, fringe or orthodox, the perspective of a consensus of experts will be presented most prominently.
Two editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: S@bre ( nom) and Amalthea ( nom).
Six bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: Addbot ( task request), LivingBot ( task request), Addbot ( task request), Thehelpfulbot ( task request), Thehelpfulbot ( task request) and anybot ( task request).
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status this week: Ealdred (archbishop) ( nom), These Are the Voyages... ( nom), Nico Ditch ( nom), William McGregor ( nom), John Whittle ( nom), Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 ( nom), Murray Maxwell ( nom), Henry Cornelius Burnett ( nom), Peter Jones (missionary) ( nom), 2008 ACC Championship Game ( nom), SS Kroonland ( nom), Ozzie Smith ( nom), USS Connecticut (BB-18) ( nom), Star Wars: Rogue Squadron ( nom), Radcliffe, Greater Manchester ( nom), 2008 Humanitarian Bowl ( nom) and Dreadnought ( nom).
Fourteen lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of awards and nominations received by Amy Winehouse ( nom), List of FIFA World Cup finals ( nom), Hughes Medal ( nom), List of Baltimore Orioles Opening Day starting pitchers ( nom), Scheduled Monuments in Greater Manchester ( nom), List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Kriegsmarine ( nom), Timeline of the 1972 Atlantic hurricane season ( nom), List of Memphis Grizzlies head coaches ( nom), List of number-one singles from the 2000s (UK) ( nom), BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award ( nom), List of Philadelphia Phillies Opening Day starting pitchers ( nom), Spike Lee filmography ( nom), List of valkyrie names in Norse mythology ( nom) and Triple Gold Club ( nom).
Four topics were promoted to featured status this week: Halo media ( nom), Yamato class battleships ( nom), Nine Inch Nails ( nom) and Iowa class battleships ( nom).
One portal was promoted to featured status this week: Portal:Islam ( nom).
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: Order of the Thistle, Third Battle of Kharkov, Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None, University of California, Riverside, USS Connecticut and Plutonium.
Three articles were delisted this week: Automatic number plate recognition ( nom), Zambezi ( nom) and Nellie Kim ( nom).
One list was delisted this week: Golden Globe Award for Best Director ( nom).
No topics were delisted this week.
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Harriet Tubman, Vaccine controversy, Reduviidae, The Taming of the Shrew, Ramallah woman, Discovery of the Land.
Three media files were featured this week:
| Faust - "O merveille! ... A moi les plaisirs" | ( nom) |
| First Inaugural address of Ronald Reagan | ( nom) |
| Otello - Sì, pel ciel marmoreo giuro! | ( nom) |
No featured pictures were demoted this week.
Twenty pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that some changes described here have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.43.0-wmf.5 (58d6360), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.
This past week, the developers rolled out an update of MediaWiki to r47457. A number of new features and bug fixes are now live. [1]
The results of the Checkuser and Oversight elections were announced.
The Arbitration Committee opened one case and closed none, leaving six open.
Single-Page View Archives |
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| ||
Volume 5, Issue 8 | 23 February 2009 | About the Signpost |
| ||
( ← Prev) | 2009 archives | ( Next →) |
|
| |
Home | Archives | Newsroom | Tip Line | Shortcut : WP:POST/A |
|
The philosophy journal Episteme has published a new issue that focuses on Wikipedia from the perspective of social epistemology. It contains four articles that examine various aspects of Wikipedia as a source of knowledge, including one by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger.
The issue is introduced by University of Arizona philosopher Don Fallis, who recently authored an article in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, " Toward an Epistemology of Wikipedia", arguing that on the whole Wikipedia has good "epistemic consequences" and that its virtues outweigh its flaws. In his introduction on " The Epistemology of Mass Collaboration", Fallis presents some of the epistemological issues raised by Wikipedia's success—chief among them "whether large collaborative projects, such as Wikipedia, can be reliable sources of information."
The first article, University of Memphis philosopher Deborah Perron Tollefsen's " Wikipedia and the Epistemology of Testimony", explores the concept of group testimony as a possible basis for understanding Wikipedia's authority. It builds on her earlier work, in which she argues that group testimony is fundamentally different from the testimony of an individual, since the testimony of the group itself may be different from the testimony of the individuals who make it up.
Tollefsen's conclusion is that some Wikipedia articles might be considered a form of group testimony, particularly when they are "mature" and represent the consensus of many editors and reflect the norms of the community, but others are better thought of as the individual testimony of their main author or authors. She goes on to characterize Wikipedia as "an immature epistemic agent", the claims of which—like a child's testimony—ought to be scrutinized carefully, rather than given the benefit of the doubt like the testimony of an adult. However, she finds that the traditional methods of scrutinizing face-to-face testimony do not translate well to Wikipedia and other virtual testimony. Instead, she argues, "receiving testimony from a source such [as] Wikipedia involves trusting not the man, but the system." According to another view of testimony, it is not the testifier's reliability but the testimony itself that should be scrutinized, by comparing it to other sources and to the "vast backdrop of beliefs the hearer has acquired" beforehand. This view of the epistemology of testimony is easy to extend to Wikipedia, Tollefsen argues.
The second Wikipedia-focused article is " The Epistemic Cultures of Science and Wikipedia: A Comparison", by State University of New York at Oswego philosopher K. Brad Wray. In it, Wray considers Wikipedia as a community focused on inquiry and knowledge production, analogous to the scientific community. However, he draws sharp contrasts between the norms of science and motivations of scientists, on the one hand, and the norms of Wikipedia and motivations of its editors on the other. Although both science and Wikipedia are collaborative knowledge projects, they have very different "epistemic cultures".
Wray posits that one possible justification for trusting Wikipedia is an " invisible hand" argument: although no identifiable individual or group of individuals ensures the quality of information on Wikipedia, "the knowledge-market will take care of itself, and poor articles reporting false claims will be rooted out." According to Wray, while science does have a viable invisible hand, in the form of a reputation system that relies on peer-review, Wikipedians "lack the sorts of incentives that keep science in good working order", and face few or no consequences for mistakes.
Wray also explores what he calls the Wikipedia's "puckish culture", prone to gossip and practical jokes. He recounts the Seigenthaler incident, and contrasts it to the sober culture of science. In science, he says, "the closest incident to such a joke is the Sokal affair"; however, the Sokal affair should not be considered a joke, but rather a demonstration of "the editors’ appalling ignorance of science". This regrettable aspect of Wikipedia's culture, he suggests, might be absent if—as in science—"one had to wait months before one’s contribution is posted". Finally, against the argument of Deborah Perron Tollefsen's article, Wray argues that even when considered as a form of testimony, Wikipedia is a flawed source of knowledge, precisely because of the failings in its "epistemic culture".
Despite his negative assessment, Wray does find one ray of hope: "What Wikipedia can do for us is to draw greater attention to epistemology and its relevance to our place in the social world. Though we live in a time in human history when knowledge may be easier to obtain than ever before, we are in desperate need of means to sort and evaluate what passes for knowledge."
“ | Over the long term, the quality of a given Wikipedia article will do a random walk around the highest level of quality permitted by the most persistent and aggressive people who follow an article. | ” |
— Lawrence M. Sanger |
A third article about Wikipedia comes from philosopher Lawrence M. Sanger—i.e., Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, who is also the founder and editor-in-chief of wiki encyclopedia Citizendium. In " The Fate of Expertise after Wikipedia", Sanger explores the paradoxes and shortcomings of Wikipedia's relationship with experts and expertise, and suggests that Citizendium, a project that explicitly grants authority to expert contributors, is a better alternative.
Sanger describes Wikipedia's success as an egalitarian and open knowledge project, and then poses the question of how to reconcile the project's successes—both real and potential—with its lack of "any special role for experts or any expert approval process". One implication from such success might be that special roles for experts are not necessary in the rest of society either. However, Sanger shows this to be self-contradictory, in part because evaluating the success of Wikipedia requires expertise to compare it against, and in part because of Wikipedia's indirect reliance on expertise.
Sanger goes on to explore the actual roles of expert editors on Wikipedia, and whether Wikipedia itself could become an authoritative source without granting a special role for experts. He asserts that "Wikipedia is nothing like the egalitarian utopia its most radical defenders might have us believe", and that in practice experts are often given deference. This, according to Sanger, is the key to what success Wikipedia has had in creating authoritative articles on some topics. However, problems arise when such deference breaks down, as is likely to occur for non-technical topics. As an a priori hypothesis, Sanger suggests that "Over the long term, the quality of a given Wikipedia article will do a random walk around the highest level of quality permitted by the most persistent and aggressive people who follow an article." He argues that Citizendium's model, in which subject-matter experts are given final authority over content in their areas of expertise, can surmount such problems caused by persistent and aggressive non-experts.
Sanger's article has attracted some press attention and blog discussion, especially for his idea about the limits of quality on Wikipedia. It was discussed on Slashdot, although Sanger suggested on the Citizendium Blog that many commentators did not " RTFA". Sanger's contribution was also discussed by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The final Wikipedia-focused article is " On Trusting Wikipedia", by State University of New York at Albany philosopher P. D. Magnus. Given the wide variability in article quality on Wikipedia, Magnus sets out to identify strategies for assessing reliability and to examine how well those strategies apply to Wikipedia.
Magnus describes five common strategies for assessing the reliability of other online knowledge sources, all of which fail to some extent when applied to Wikipedia.
Magnus concludes that "teaching people to engage Wikipedia responsibly will require getting them to cultivate a healthy scepticism, to think of it differently than they think of traditional sources, and to learn to look beyond the current articles".
Reader comments
Increasing participation in Wikipedia's various reviewing processes, such as peer reviews, Good article nominations, and Articles for deletion, has always been a concern for the Wikipedia community. This is especially true when it comes to processes such as Proposed deletions, where low-traffic articles can be deleted simply because no one is aware that they have been proposed. Valuable time is spent monitoring process pages, when it could instead be spent on improving and reviewing articles. This situation inspired three editors, Headbomb, B. Wolterding, and Legoktm, to develop a tool designed to increase awareness of what is going on in the various reviewing processes of Wikipedia: Article Alerts.
Article Alerts is a fully automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles tagged by their banner enter a workflow such as Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, and Peer review ( full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report is given at the end of this article (from WikiProject Physics).
The alert system was originally suggested in mid-July 2008 [1] and ArticleAlertbot was subsequently coded by B. Wolterding. [2] Since the bot runs on the tool server, and that B. Wolterding did not wish to disclose personal information required to operate a bot on the tool server, [3] Legoktm volunteered himself to be the bot operator. [4] The bot has been fully-operational since late-October 2008. [5] At the time of writing, about 65 WikiProjects and Taskforces, out of more than a thousand, [note 1] were subscribed to Article Alerts ( list of current subscribers), generating very positive feedback. [6] [7] Although the original idea was to help WikiProjects keep track of their articles in the wikijungle, [1] it will be interesting to see if this tool increases the participation in the various reviewing processes. [note 2]
It is the hope of the maintainers of Article Alerts that all active WikiProjects be subscribed to Article Alerts by the end of 2009. [note 3] Those interested in setting up Article Alerts for their WikiProject or Taskforce can visit Wikipedia:Article alerts#Subscribing for instructions.
Articles for deletion
Proposed deletions
Redirects for discussion
Files for discussion
Featured article candidates
Good article nominees
Featured article reviews
Requests for comments
Peer reviews
Requested moves
Articles to be merged
Articles to be split
Articles for creation
Wikimania 2009, this year's global event devoted to Wikimedia projects around the globe, is accepting submissions for presentations, workshops, panels, posters, open space discussions, and artistic works related to the Wikimedia projects or free content topics in general. The conference will be held from August 26–28 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. For more information, see the official Call for Participation.
Earlier this month, the Wikimedia Foundation launched usability.wikimedia.org, a wiki for testing extensions and configurations to improve the usability and user interface of Wikipedia and other projects, as part of the Wikipedia Usability Initiative funded by a recent grant (see earlier coverage).
Wikinews is in the midst of its first Picture of the Year contest (not to be confused with the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year competition that is also ongoing). The second (and likely final) round of voting is underway until February 28, with 11 possible candidates for Wikinews Picture of the Year 2008. Any Wikimedian from any project (including Wikipedia) with over 50 edits may vote.
In an article published on guardian.co.uk, actor and comedian David Mitchell praised Wikipedia as being "brilliant." Mitchell defended Wikipedia against criticisms of inaccuracy, writing "readers should always question the veracity of what they read and the motives of whoever wrote it, and in the internet age more than ever.... And if Wikipedia, while being very informative in most cases, teaches a few lessons about questioning sources, then that's all to the good." Mitchell also criticized the UK Conservative Party for manipulating the Titian entry (see related story).
ZDNet UK conducted an interview with IWF chief Peter Robbins in response to the Virgin Killer incident. Robbins discussed the purpose of the foundation, the technology issues related to the incident, and what he believed to be an "unfair level of criticism." Robbins concluded the interview with "We learnt lessons from this."
According to The Patent Librarian's Notebook, a blog by librarian Michael White, citations to Wikipedia have been on the rise in U.S. patents. Wikipedia citations by patent examiners were banned in 2006, but references to Wikipedia by both applicants and examiners have nevertheless been on the rise. 477 patents issued in 2008 mentioned Wikipedia, compared to 297 in 2007 and 108 in 2006.
As of the moment of writing, there are 97 Featured sounds (FS) on Wikipedia. And yet, less than a year ago, in the 26 May 2008 issue of the Signpost, we wrote:
“ | Despite this wealth of opportunity, only 25 sound files have ever been nominated, leading to just 15 featured sounds, one of which has been demoted. | ” |
A revolution happened to Featured sounds in July 2008, as several dedicated Wikipedians, including Durova, Gonzo fan2007, Mitchazenia, Ragesoss, Centy and Shoemaker's Holiday descended on Featured sounds, with the intent of making it into a viable process.
The effort proved successful: in August, September, and October, more sounds of featured quality were created, found, or otherwise discovered in a single month than had been promoted in the entire 17-month history prior to July. As well, innovations were created: in July, a three-part recording of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata became the first set of featured sounds to be promoted. Several additional sets have been promoted since, including sonatas, symphonies, and an entire ballet.
The process slowed temporarily in the last two months of 2008, but 2009 marked a relaunch, and 15 files—a number this time "merely" equal to all the featured sounds promoted in the first 16 months of the project's history—were found to meet the criteria and were promoted.
However, Featured sounds has not yet fully created the community of reviewers and content creators, restorers, and seekers necessary for it to move on to the next level. While much healthier than it was a year ago, low numbers of reviewers can cause undue delays; little content creation is, as yet, occurring (though numerous historic files have been found and restored), and the same names come up as nominators over and over. While this is normal for the early stages of a featured content process, sounds are one of the things Wikipedia can do—and do well—which traditional encyclopedias cannot, and which other web encyclopedias have, as yet, neglected. Sounds are thus one of the true opportunities of Wikipedia, and if we can do them well, we will lead the way for other encyclopedias.
You can help!
In an effort to move away from science, sports, and the Simpsons, and to improve the WikiProject Report's coverage of religion-based projects, this week's Report is on WikiProject Islam. Here to tell us more about this project is Itaqallah.
The following is a brief overview of new discussions taking place on the English Wikipedia. For older, yet possibly active, discussions please see last week's edition.
We have a codified system of formal guidelines and a clear authoritarian heirachy, [ sic] as well as formal dispute resolution processes. We even have bureaucrats!
- Restore WP:Build the web as a historical page
- Place a prominent message on that page directing people to the current guideline on that subject, which is this page [MOSLINK]
- Rename this page [MOSLINK to] Wikipedia:Linking
Currently, all desysoppings are carried out by members of the Steward user group. Questions have been raised whether or not "outsourcing" all of our desysoppings to Meta, rather than keeping them in en.wikipedia, is such a good idea.
- Every three months, the WikiProjects should be invited to submit proposals for articles to be featured on the Main Page.
- The proposals should be made publicly, and at least one month before any of the proposed articles actually appears. To give an example, proposals for articles to appear on the Main Page between 1 July and 30 September should be made by 23:59 UTC 31 May at the latest.
- An article which has already appeared on the Main Page may not be proposed. However, WikiProjects may keep the same Proposed Article through several quarters, if they so wish and if it has not yet appeared on the Main Page.
- WikiProjects are invited to bear in mind the existing featured article criteria when proposing articles. However, the overriding criterion in their choice should be that the article represents the best work in their field.
- The proposals should be made on a dedicated page, for example Wikipedia:Proposed featured articles/2009, 3rd quarter. WikiProjects could include a brief gloss with the article name, to indicate (for example) that a given article is particularly appropriate for a given day.
- The system should aim to have 150–200 Proposed Articles per quarter, from fields which reflect the general distribution of articles on English Wikipedia. In the case of the smaller WikiProjects, who may not have an article they feel is good enough to represent their subject area on the Main Page, they are still invited to have a "Best Article" system with which they can advertise the article(s) which they think are their best, and so not leave any decision or improvement until the last minute.
- Editors who feel that an article is "not good enough" to appear on the Main Page are strongly invited to improve it, while respecting the work and opinions of other editors.
- The article which appears on the Main Page on any given day will be chosen by WP:TFA, as occurs at present.
While articles should not endorse any perspective, fringe or orthodox, the perspective of a consensus of experts will be presented most prominently.
Two editors were granted admin status via the Requests for Adminship process this week: S@bre ( nom) and Amalthea ( nom).
Six bots or bot tasks were approved to begin operating this week: Addbot ( task request), LivingBot ( task request), Addbot ( task request), Thehelpfulbot ( task request), Thehelpfulbot ( task request) and anybot ( task request).
Seventeen articles were promoted to featured status this week: Ealdred (archbishop) ( nom), These Are the Voyages... ( nom), Nico Ditch ( nom), William McGregor ( nom), John Whittle ( nom), Plunketts Creek Bridge No. 3 ( nom), Murray Maxwell ( nom), Henry Cornelius Burnett ( nom), Peter Jones (missionary) ( nom), 2008 ACC Championship Game ( nom), SS Kroonland ( nom), Ozzie Smith ( nom), USS Connecticut (BB-18) ( nom), Star Wars: Rogue Squadron ( nom), Radcliffe, Greater Manchester ( nom), 2008 Humanitarian Bowl ( nom) and Dreadnought ( nom).
Fourteen lists were promoted to featured status this week: List of awards and nominations received by Amy Winehouse ( nom), List of FIFA World Cup finals ( nom), Hughes Medal ( nom), List of Baltimore Orioles Opening Day starting pitchers ( nom), Scheduled Monuments in Greater Manchester ( nom), List of Knight's Cross recipients of the Kriegsmarine ( nom), Timeline of the 1972 Atlantic hurricane season ( nom), List of Memphis Grizzlies head coaches ( nom), List of number-one singles from the 2000s (UK) ( nom), BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award ( nom), List of Philadelphia Phillies Opening Day starting pitchers ( nom), Spike Lee filmography ( nom), List of valkyrie names in Norse mythology ( nom) and Triple Gold Club ( nom).
Four topics were promoted to featured status this week: Halo media ( nom), Yamato class battleships ( nom), Nine Inch Nails ( nom) and Iowa class battleships ( nom).
One portal was promoted to featured status this week: Portal:Islam ( nom).
The following featured articles were displayed on the Main Page this week as Today's featured article: Order of the Thistle, Third Battle of Kharkov, Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None, University of California, Riverside, USS Connecticut and Plutonium.
Three articles were delisted this week: Automatic number plate recognition ( nom), Zambezi ( nom) and Nellie Kim ( nom).
One list was delisted this week: Golden Globe Award for Best Director ( nom).
No topics were delisted this week.
The following featured pictures were displayed on the Main Page this week as picture of the day: Harriet Tubman, Vaccine controversy, Reduviidae, The Taming of the Shrew, Ramallah woman, Discovery of the Land.
Three media files were featured this week:
| Faust - "O merveille! ... A moi les plaisirs" | ( nom) |
| First Inaugural address of Ronald Reagan | ( nom) |
| Otello - Sì, pel ciel marmoreo giuro! | ( nom) |
No featured pictures were demoted this week.
Twenty pictures were promoted to featured status this week and are shown below.
This is a summary of recent technology and site configuration changes that affect the English Wikipedia. Note that some changes described here have not yet gone live as of press time; the English Wikipedia is currently running version 1.43.0-wmf.5 (58d6360), and changes to the software with a version number higher than that will not yet be active. Configuration changes and changes to interface messages, however, become active immediately.
This past week, the developers rolled out an update of MediaWiki to r47457. A number of new features and bug fixes are now live. [1]
The results of the Checkuser and Oversight elections were announced.
The Arbitration Committee opened one case and closed none, leaving six open.